Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 There is a need for an alternative army to NATO, says Putin Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday it made sense for a powerful economic bloc like the European Union to want to defend itself militarily. The comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump fired off a tweet as he arrived in Paris on Friday in which he described a call by French President Emmanuel Macron for a European army as very insulting. Europe is a powerful economic entity, a powerful economic union and it is quite natural that it wants to be independent, self-sufficient and sovereign in matters of defense and security, Putin told RT television. "EUROPE NEEDS TO PROTECT AGAINST U.S." Trump had taken a dim view of comments Macron made in a Europe 1 radio interview this week in which he appeared to cast the United States as a threat. Discussing the growing danger from cyber-hacking, outside meddling in electoral processes and the U.S. decision to withdraw from a missile treaty, Macron said Europe needed to protect against China, Russia and even the United States. Later in the same interview, he spoke of the need for a European army, saying: Faced by Russia, which is on our borders and which has shown that it can be threatening... We need to have a Europe that can better defend itself by itself, without depending solely on the United States. Trump says adios to birthright citizenship By Michael R Shannon Ending birthright citizenship, better known as dropping the anchor baby, is the most significant illegal immigration reform the President Trump has announced. With a single executive order, he unplugs a beacon that attracts scammers from the world over. He also attacks a visible manifestation of the Foreigners First mindset that has infected the State Department, and the rest of the federal bureaucracy, since the 60s. For those late to the discussion, birthright citizenship is the GPS theory of national allegiance. If your pregnant wife was sitting in the stands at Lambeau Field and she got so excited she gave birth, the resulting baby would not be entitled to season tickets for the rest of his life. But if your wife, Consuela, was an illegal alien in a sanctuary city, who gave birth in a sanctuary maternity ward, your new child would be a Yankee Doodle Dandy. An instant US citizen with all the welfare rights that come with the birth certificate. Trump will end that. As is customary in these situations the left and its propaganda arm the Opposition Media instantly sprang to the defense of this devaluing of US citizenship. Even worse, the OpMedia had no trouble recruiting reflexive antiTrumpers like Paul Ryan (RINO). Ryan evidently liberated by his banishment to private life, stabbed Trump in the back using his favorite tactic of preemptive surrender. He claims anchor babies aweigh will require an amendment to the Constitution. The lefts defense of birthright citizenship relies much on sentiment and sad stories and is light on facts. The talking points read like Shotgun Joe Biden wrote the memo. Here are the main defenses of this nonsensical geography theory of national obligation: The plain language of the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship has been a part of the US since the beginning. The Supreme Court has ruled illegals are entitled to birthright citizenship. Throwing anchor babies overboard required amending the Constitution. Each point is factually incorrect. Here is the plain language of the 14th Amendment: All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. The key phrase is subject to the jurisdiction thereof. The author of the citizenship amendment, Sen. Jacob Howard, who ought to know what he meant, explained, This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States, but will include every other class of person. This was tested in the case of Elk v. Wilkins where an Indian sued, contending he had birthright citizenship. Elk lost. The court ruled, No one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent. It took passage of a law in 1924 to grant birthright citizenship to American Indians. The Supreme Court has never addressed the question of birthright citizenship for illegals. The case defenders cite, Wong Kim Ark, concerned two Chinese diplomats who were in the country legally and had a child. In their wisdom, the judges used subjectship under English common law, which the Founders had specifically rejected in the Declaration of Independence, to arrive at a decision that would be overturned today. The case said nothing about aliens in the country illegally. Mark Levin said, Not until the 1960s [was] the Constitution interpreted to convey birthright citizenship on the children of illegal aliens. And not due to any congressional statute or court ruling, but decisions by various departments and agencies of the federal bureaucracy. The federal bureaucracy is controlled by Trump, intermittently at least, so he can tell the executive branch to close the border maternity ward. An amendment isnt necessary. Trump should make the order retroactive to the first day of the administration. Certainly, the left will file a lawsuit and fall into a trap of their own making. This is the defining case that can overturn Wong and restore the original intent to the 14th Amendment and not the Hallmark Card legal philosophy that the government has followed for over 50 years. Thats a victory that will last long after the Trump administration. Finally, Paul Ryans backstabbing response when asked about Trumps most important policy reinforces my advice to conservatives. Go on strike when you vote in congressional races. Conservatives should vote for every Republican candidate except Representatives. On that line write On Strike. Without the conservative base, always taken for granted, Republicans cant win. In 2020, after the country club conservatives who survive have learned their lesson, resume voting as normal. Conservatives will never see change in Congress until they change whos in Congress. Going on strike is the place to start. Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at mandate.mmpr (at) gmail.com. He is also the author of Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!). Home Blue dogging or progressive affluenza? By Daniel M. Ryan Leaving aside the latest burst of notoriety from Broward County, the midterm elections of 2018 were good for the Dems but not all that good. One reason why the Dems got a small but solid majority in the House was the spate of retirements from incumbent Republicans. No less than twenty-one retired? without seeking or getting appointed to another office. Contrast that to the Democrats eight. The end result was a Republican House caucus, albeit a minority, thats closer to President Trump. The Dems were hoping for a reverse 2010 or reverse 2014. They didnt even get a reverse 94. The Pubbies won 230 seats that year, gaining a solid majority in the House. They also got a tied Senate from the general election and two more from the specials to give them 52-48. As it now stands, the Republicans are guaranteed 51 Senators and will get at least 53. Instead of 52-48, the Democrats will be fortunate to get 47-53. Even with their shortfall, President Trump has shown that hes willing to co-operate. He congratulated Nancy Pelosi last Wednesday and publicly supported her for Speaker. Some commenters said he was trolling, but its likely that hes keeping his options open. If Rep. Pelosi is elected Speaker and the Dems fall behind her, President Trump will be open to deals in the areas that got ideological conservatives falsely branding him a crypto-Democrat in 15. According to Pelosi, President Trump called her and said he wanted to make deals on infrastructure and lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Theres no reason to doubt her word here. President Trump has long promised to tackle both; he hasnt because hes been stymied by Paul Ryan Republicans. True, the Wall will be postponed until President Trump gets a majority of Republicans in the House who square off with him instead of an ideology or rich donors. The investigation of Deep-State shenanigans will grind to a halt. This is part of political life. One useful if humbling lesson from competitive politics is that victories are fickle. Getting arrogant is tempting the Fates who are always ready to dole out a harsh lesson to folks who get full of themselves. In a recent Take That!, Kurt Schlichter treats the Dems good fortune as a needed wake-up call for conservative activists. Conservatives have a good track record in this area. As Twitter wags noted, Republicans came nowhere close to the proggie meltdowns after the 16 elections. A Republican riot? is an empty public square. It might turn out, in hindsight, that Trumps congratulations and offer to deal becomes a troll. If so, its because of the fractiousness of the Dems. Some of them, including the rising tide of leftists, vowed to not vote for Rep. Pelosi. These vows may prove to be as flimsy as the stereotypical political promise. But they do indicate a cohort of emotional Dems eager to push policies that have no chance of succeeding. The Democrat leadership might cynically go along with it. Remember all those bills to repeal Obamacare when President Obama was still in the White House? Abolishing ICE, open-borders measures, amnesty, government housing, [Medicaid] For All?, etc., will serve the Dems in a similar way. Theyll go nowhere, and Dems will support them while knowing full well that theyll go nowhere while using them for brags to the Democrat base. The progs might swallow this gesture-theatre or see through it and get restive. President Trump is a master troller, but his reach-out will only turn into trolling if the Dems prove to be obstreperous. More than a few pundits have predicted that the Democrats will fritter away their majority through obstructive measures like using the reformulated House Intelligence committee to harass the Trump Administration and to push for a go-nowhere bill of impeachment. Even though the Emoluments Clause is more in desuetude than Canadas Royal Prerogative of Disallowance - the latter was used to disallow one federal law and quite a few provincial laws; the Emoluments Clause has never been used the incoming House Oversight and Government Reform Committees chair does plan to use it to beleaguer President Trump. It'll be the Logan Act all over again. They doing so will further evince a pattern of them using the Constitution like a talented but shifty tax lawyer respecting? the tax laws. As explained earlier, the Dems might gum things up as a cynical attempt to drum up the base while accomplishing little. Unless theyre willing to cut deals with President Trump, who will be open to certain deals, they wont succeed in turning any item on their wish list into legislation. The upcoming Congress might well be sound and fury signifying gridlock, whose only clear lane will be more confirmations of originalist judges by the Senate. The red-meat kabuki theatre is one motivation for obstructing. Another is progs psychological propensity to become overbearing, hog the microphone, then cry victim when their overbearingness causes the predictable blowback. Yet another motivation has to do with the inroads made by the Dems into the suburbs. Prog-inclined suburbanites do have a soft spot for symbolic gestures. They dont turn down a Republican-passed tax cut, but they do have a values-voter side. Orange Man Bad? is the most obvious emanation. The Whole Foods Rebellion ?Suburbs? were hot-taken to mean white women,? who as a group were scolded by the usual haranguers to be insufficiently co-operative. The ones that voted Republican, a less numerous cohort than the ones who voted for Romney in 12 and George W. Bush in 04, were treated to the mixture of condescension and contempt that the Trumper working class knows all too well. Women who were swayed by the appalling treatment of Brett Kavanaugh, including but not confined to women with husbands and sons, found out that sassy? is a euphemism for hectoring. This time, feminists were the ones to trundle out the real interests? trope. Yet, the Dems made real inroads into the suburbs. Grasping that a more accurate paraphrase of suburban? is affluent,? Michael Barone dubbed 18 the Whole Foods wave?: This was a Whole Foods wave, with about two-thirds (by my count) of Democratic gains coming in upscale and suburban districts dominated by high-income college graduates. Upscale suburbs in the Northeast, on the West Coast and in many Midwestern metro areas started trending Democratic in the 1990s. In 2016 and again this year, similar parts of metro areas in the South -- Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Dallas and even Oklahoma City -- started doing so. This wave says that the suburbs are slowly changing into the locales of gated-community multiculturalists. As we well know, the gated-community multiculturalists support positions that they routinely exempt themselves from. Theyre all for vibrant diversity until vibrancy come to their own schools, at which point NIMBY kicks in. They say they support high taxes while moving, if only legally, to red-type states with easier tax regimes. They support increases in the minimum wage while relying on illegal-immigrant labour. They yell for more gun control after a school, club or bar gets shot up by a crazed killer, but turn an oblivious eye to the illegal-gun culture in the rougher parts of the inner city. They sanctimoniously support minorities, yet those folks are the gentrifiers. Their double standards cohere with a pattern of supporting moral-preening policies while expecting Normals to bear the brunt. This can be explained cynically, as per above. But it does gibe with a propensity for supporting policies out of emotion. To a surprising degree, the purportedly smart and rational gaters are motivated by sentiment shrouded by rationalizing. Theyre also surprisingly credulous, as we see when a new hate-crime hoax comes down the pipe. Dovetailing with this credulity is a propensity for flip-flop thinking: lurching to one extreme or another. No wonder nuance? has become a buzzword. To a large degree, these are highly-paid specialists who are not all that ept when they wander out of their specialties. Think of the fellow who cant tell the difference between an AK-15? and a handgun lecturing you about guns. Hes a lot like the fellow who stares helplessly at his Lexus (or gets abrasive) when its battery dies. Part of this ineptness is the downside of hyper-specialization, which causes mental as well as physiological atrophy. But another part is vanity and arrogance crowding out humility and considerateness. Look at how gunsplaining? has become the squawk of the Dunning-Kruger grabber bird. This plus moralizing is what theyre like when their ability to rationalize cant cover up their blind spots of ignorance. Based upon current trends, they will show a penchant for laws infringing both the Second and First Amendments. Unlike those previous examples, they tend be not hypocritical in this area. As evinced by the grabber bird, gun grabbers have little to no interest in guns. They really think that gun confiscation means no skin off their noses. Similarly, hate speech? in the sense that they mean which include disseminating unsettling facts is a right they only exercise on Trump supporters. None of them, except for the ones that are unusually oblivious, support restrictions on hate speech? that protect Heartland Normals or pious Christians. The restrictions on speech they do support wont restrict their own speech, absent unintended-consequence blowback. This lack of hypocrisy means they wont be tripped up as easily. Hence, gun grabbing and censorship will wax. Thankfully, theyll be stalled. The Republican Senate and an awakened Mitch McConnell have appointed judges who believe that the Second and First Amendments mean what they say. This will prove to be a great help as a backstop, though they do nothing with regard to deplatforming and corporate censorship. The foregoing presents a grim picture, but its not that bad. If the Dems yield to the temptation to push moral-preening policies and orange-man-bad obstructionism, centrist folks will see them frittering away their majority on grounds that will increasingly appear self-indulgent. Trump never does better when he has a group of fools as his foil. On the other hand, there is a chance that blue-dog heads will prevail and the electorate will see a new side of President Trump. Blue-dog brags about real legislation will make the House hustings tougher in 20, but the upside is blue dogs keeping a lid on the lefties and virtue signallers. Either way, the Republicans will be more in line with Trump and Trump will find an advantage. If theyre kept in check, even the gated-community virtue signallers will eventually stop lecturing us to be reflective and do a little reflecting of their own. Progressive affluenza might end up yielding to blue-dog common sense. Daniel M. Ryan, as Nxtblg, is spinning his wheels at Steemit. Home Bye bye babies By Sarah Shin My grandmother tells me stories about a war-torn Korea all the time. She tells me about her familys flight from the North to the South and the tragedy of losing siblings along the way. She tells me about what it felt like to sleep in church attics in South Korea. She tells me about the wretched poverty in South Korea after the war and her decision to immigrate to North America to pursue a better life. That image of a devastated country stands in direct contrast to the South Korea of today: a booming economy and the worlds fastest internet connection even in the rural farmland regions of the country. South Korea made one of historys most successful economic comebacks after the Korean War, and yet 65 years later, there soon may not be many people around in the country to appreciate it. After all, South Koreans are kind of going extinctor if not extinct, then theyre perhaps becoming endangered. All right, before you jump out of your socks in surpriseand maybe a little bit of skepticismlets cement that claim with some statistics. According to The Economist, in 2017, South Korea had a fertility rate of 1.05 children per woman, specifically with Seoul (the capital of the country) having an even lower fertility rate at 0.84. To put this in perspective, for a country to have a sustainable population, the fertility rate should be around 2. Not only is South Korea nowhere near that number with the lowest fertility rate in the world, but its also still shrinking, with fertility rates projected to drop even more to 0.96 in 2019, according to a study done by the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. South Korea's diminishing resource? What exactly does this entail? First of all, dozens of schools are closing due to lack of children, with 3,600 schools having been shut down since 1982. Not only does this illustrate the sheer lack of kids in the country, it also suggests that teachers are in danger of losing their jobs, simply because they do not have enough pupils. Another potential consequence is the loss of soldiers in the South Korean army. As the policy stands now, because of the constant threat of North Korea, if a man is a South Korean citizen and is between the ages of 18 and 35, hes required to enlist in the army for two years. The fact that the population is aging means that the army may face a shortage of soldiers due to the fact that the younger population pool is becoming smaller and smaller as the years pass. Finally, theres economic growth. The threat to economic growth is a very real one, as a smaller population will be unable to fully pay and support important governmental programs, such as healthcare. On top of that, an elderly population will also be unable to work as successfully or productively as a younger population in general, inhibiting the economy with a shrinking labor market. All in all, the negative effects of such a low birth rate are vast, hurting both society and the economy. The solution to this issue seems simple: women should just have more babies. Why is it so hard for them to just have more children? To fully understand this dilemma, you really need to go into Korean culture. Korean culture has historically always embraced a patriarchal societyone that revolves around the success and leadership of men. Today, modern South Korea has women who are both very well-educated, yet according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), South Korea has one of the largest gender wage gaps in the world, with women earning 63% of what men earn. This work culture encourages the mindset that if a woman has a child, shes more liable to be laid off or lose a promotion or have her wages cut even more. All in all, this situation breeds this sense of fear into the situation for a woman with family, making it so that, more often than not, a woman will leave the workforce altogether if she wants to have children. Korean culture is also one that shames motherhood outside of marriage, so single, unmarried mothers are looked down upon, creating this culture grounded in shame instead of being uplifting. On top of that, although a law is in place that requires companies to offer up to one year of paid parent leave, according to a survey done by MIT, only about 48% of the companies investigated complied with this law, illustrating how difficult it can be to have a family and work at the same time. Phew, so if youve followed through this deluge of information with me, we finally come to the real question: How can South Korea effectively encourage a higher fertility rate? This question is tough to deal with because not only does it require encouragement from the government, it also requires a change in culture by creating an environment that helps to nurture and care for mothers in and out of the workplace. One step that government could take towards this goal is first of all to fight for the equality of women in the workplace by closing the wage gap. This may mean implementing an affirmative action program to open up opportunities for women in the workplace or to actually pass a law that requires companies to distribute equal pay to both men and women. Another recommendation is to enforce the law that already exists about providing a parent leave in order to ensure that parents are receiving support perhaps by requiring companies to pay a fine if they dont comply. Finally, there should be a support system in place for single mothers (and also single fathers) to encourage a positive mindset towards parenthood in general, whether it be to open daycares within the workplace or even breastfeeding rooms (which they have in the United States). This is such an incredibly complex issue since its ingrained in South Korean culture, but if the country truly wants to increase the fertility rate, those changes need to be made to avoid economic decline. Sarah Shin is a high school student studying AP Macroeconomics. 2018 Sarah Shin Home Thirty years since the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement By Mark Wegierski It had appeared, in the Fall of 1987, that Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative federal government was headed for one of the worst defeats in Canadian political history. In many of the 1986 and 1987 polls, the federal P.C. party stood at about a quarter of committed popular support, behind both the Liberals and the New Democratic Party (NDP), Canada's social democrats. Indeed, the NDP had temporarily surged into first place. Despite the early hopes placed on him, and his overwhelming majority (won in 1984), Brian Mulroney was being buffeted about almost continuously by major and minor crises and scandals, and, it could be argued, had failed to develop any coherent or consistent public policy. It appeared that virtually every region, province, or interest group in Canada had in some way been alienated from, or offended by, Mulroney. Sometimes, it seemed that his only true supporters were his business pals, for whose benefit he appeared to make most of his personal exertions. The Mulroney government seemed, in many important areas, incapable of formulating and implementing serious policy decisions, and winning popular support for them. Indeed, it looked like, in almost every area, Mulroney had no real policy or objectives, apart from maintaining, or strengthening, the status-quo of the previous federal Liberal governments. However, he did appear to have a real interest in Free Trade. Throughout most of Canadian history, the Tories had opposed free trade with the United States, while the Liberals had championed it. In the 1980s, however, the roles were reversed. Indeed, John Turner, the Liberal contender in 1988 -- who expressed considerable patriotic sentiments, and was often perceived as a right-wing Liberal could be seen as, comparatively-speaking, more traditionalist-conservative than Mulroney. The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, ironically, gave Mulroney the one, perfect issue, on which to wage the election of 1988. A simple issue, appealing to a combination of people's fear and greed, it became the centre-piece of his efforts. Mulroney was able to win a strong majority in the federal election of November 21, 1988, but it could be argued that the true time of reckoning came in 1993, when the federal P.C. party was reduced to a total of two seats. Presumably, Mulroney did not try for a third term because he sensed that a humiliating defeat was in the offing for the P.C. party. Kim Campbell proved a lackluster Prime Minister. Canada was also in a period of economic recession. The P.C. coalition fell apart between the pincers of the Reform Party from the West, and the Bloc Quebecois from Quebec. Ontario voted massively for the Liberal Party in 1993. In 1987, Mulroney had reached the Meech Lake Accord, a deal with the provinces, which was going to finally break Canada's constitutional stalemate. Quebec had never agreed to accede to the Constitution Act, 1982, which Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau had in the opinion of many Quebecois arbitrarily imposed on Canada and Quebec. The most salient aspect of the Constitution Act, 1982, was the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which Quebec objected to, because it believed it undermined the provinces collective rights, which had been deployed in previous decades to uphold Quebec as a French-speaking and culturally distinctive province. The central statement of the Meech Lake Accord was the recognition of Quebec as "a distinct society". In return, Quebec would accede to the Constitution Act, 1982. The debate over the Meech Lake Accord would drag on until 1990, when the opposition of two smaller English-Canadian provinces, and what was perceived as a groundswell of popular resistance to it in most of English-speaking Canada, would be enough to sink the deal. The Meech Lake Accord was opposed both from the right (Preston Manning), and from the left (Pierre Elliott Trudeau). The failure of the Meech Lake Accord would lead to another attempt to break through the impasse, the Charlottetown Agreements of 1992. However, when put to a general, countrywide referendum in late 1992, the Charlottetown Agreements failed. Near the end of his second term, Mulroney had brought in the Goods & Services Tax (GST), the Canadian equivalent of the VAT (value-added tax). Set at 7%, it was applied to virtually all economic transactions in Canadian society. The Liberal contender in the 1993 election, Jean Chretien, explicitly promised to abolish the GST. However, he never did so, and the revenue from the GST was doubtless a major element in the federal Liberals ability to have huge government spending but also to eventually balance the federal budget. The Canadian media never held Chretien accountable for breaking such a truly major promise to the Canadian electorate. When the Liberal M.P. John Nunziata voted against the Liberal budget on account of that broken promise, he was summarily expelled from the Liberal Party. Forced into a difficult run as an independent candidate, he was nevertheless re-elected in his riding in the 1997 federal election. During his Prime Ministership, Mulroney was plagued by a terrible combination: he was attacked by the media as both sleazy and hard right while actually he himself was mostly viscerally a small-l liberal, and for example raised immigration to the unprecedented level of about a quarter-million persons a year where it has basically remained ever since. His strong leadership was mainly used to suppress any small-c conservatism in the federal P.C. party. So, it could be argued that Mulroney's main putatively right-wing historical accomplishment, would be the Free Trade deal. Indeed, in September 2000, Mulroney said he saw it as his greatest achievement, and urged the abolition of border posts along the Canada-U.S. border. Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher. Home George Parkin Grant in Canadian context By Mark Wegierski This year is the centenary of George Grants birth, and thirty years since his passing. George Parkin Grant (1918-1988), is Canadas leading traditionalist philosopher. The main expression of George Grants thought occurs in his four major books: Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (1965), Technology and Empire: Perspectives on North America (1969), English-Speaking Justice (1974/1985), and Technology and Justice (1986). Philosophy in the Mass Age (1959), and Time as History (1969), are his two major earlier works. Grant is a complex philosophical critic of technology and America. Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (1965), was one of Grants more popular and generally accessible books. That work has remained almost continuously in print in Canada. Lament for a Nation mourns what George Grant sees as the end of real Canadian independence in the 1960s. As George Grant tells the story, Canadian Tory Prime Minister John Diefenbaker had refused to accept U.S. nuclear weapons on Canadian soil with the result that all the instrumentalities of the North American managerial capitalist classes were turned against him, in the crucial 1963 Canadian federal election. Diefenbakers lost campaign is characterized in the book as the last strangled cry of his pre-modern Loyalist ancestors. (The Tories were already officially called the Progressive Conservative party, having added the adjective in 1942.) The Liberal Lester B. Pearson won the election. Grant is highly prescient in mourning the passing of a more traditional Canada, although his focus is not exclusively on the impending destruction of what would later come to be called social conservatism. Rather, he is more concerned with the dangers of corporate liberalism, and corporate technocracy, which he sees as emanating from America to undermine a more traditional Canada. Grants outlook lies somewhere between that of a traditionalist conservative, and of a social conservative of the Left. There are a number of illustrious figures who embrace the latter outlook, notably John Ruskin, William Morris, Jack London, George Orwell, Christopher Lasch, and, in Canada, the noted constitutional scholar and union adviser Eugene Forsey. The work seems to express a deep pessimism, and certainly does not offer any pat answers in regard to what is to be done to redeem Canada. Certain sectors of the Canadian Left, including George Grants close friend, Gad Horowitz, were greatly impressed with the book, and understood it as a clarion call for the creation of infrastructures of a more compassionate society in Canada their idea of fighting for Canadian nationalism. Gad Horowitz had also, in the 1960s, severely criticized the onset of multiculturalism policies in Canada, arguing that they would undermine the sense of nationhood that he saw as a prerequisite for the flowering of real social democracy in Canada. George Grant, who was sometimes called a Red Tory, clearly gave that term one of its most positive and philosophical interpretations. Unfortunately, others, notably shallow Progressive Conservative party operatives, used the term as an excuse for opportunistic policies. They became socialists without embracing true community, and liberals without embracing genuine individualism and freedom of speech. Grant was prescient in pointing to the centrality of the 1963 federal election, for subsequent developments in Canada although, as has been noted above, he did not focus exclusively on social conservatism. It can be seen that, before the 1960s, all the major parties had partaken of a traditionalist-centrist consensus, i.e., they were all socially conservative to some extent, while differing in regard to economics. The adoption of the new flag (the Maple Leaf Pennant, also sometimes dubbed the Pearson Pennant) in 1965 pointed to the fact that massive social and cultural change was in the offing. It is a longstanding idea in the study of politics that a change of a countrys flag is a marker of regime change. With the arrival of Trudeaumania in 1968, the country was thrust into ever more massive social and cultural change, which continued unabated for the sixteen years that Liberal Pierre Elliott Trudeau held the Prime Ministership. Trudeaus further success in the elections of 1972, 1974, and 1980, can largely be attributed to the fact that Quebec voters delivered virtually every seat in Quebec to the Liberal Party. Also, importantly, the Liberal minority government of 1972 was supported by the left-wing New Democratic Party. Guaranteed roughly a quarter of the seats in the federal Parliament, Trudeau needed then to pick up only a majority of seats in Ontario, to win an over-all majority. Trudeau had indeed realized that a majority in the federal Parliament could probably be cobbled together from only Ontario and Quebec. He treated most of Western Canada with contempt. The only discontinuity in Trudeaus tenure was when Joe Clarks P.C.s unexpectedly won a minority government in the 1979 federal election. However, the P.C.s quickly lost the so-called non-confidence vote in the federal Parliament, meaning that another election had to be called. The Liberals once again won a majority in the federal Parliament, in 1980. Joe Clarks government had lasted only nine months. A society that in 1965, was often seen as very socially conservative, was transmogrified into one of the most progressive societies on the planet, by 1984 especially with the introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms into the Canadian constitutional structure in 1982. The Charter essentially enshrined virtually the entire Trudeau agenda, as the highest law of the land. The Charter was quickly backed up by an increasingly activist Canadian Supreme Court, where one would have been hard-pressed to find even one designated conservative. In 1983, a fascinating leadership contest in the P.C. party set the ineffectual Joe Clark aside, and selected Brian Mulroney as leader. At this time, Mulroney allowed the aura of a right-winger to settle over him, as he perceived it would be to his advantage in the upcoming election. Trudeau finally retired, and John Turner was chosen leader of the Liberal Party, immediately becoming Prime Minister for a few months before the election. John Turner had been one of the many somewhat more right-leaning Liberals that Trudeau had increasingly shunted aside from major roles in the party. Indeed, it is sometimes argued that Trudeau had hijacked a far more centrist Liberal Party, and turned it into a personal instrument for revolutionary change. Brian Mulroney, with his huge P.C. majorities of 1984 and 1988, actually mostly continued in the footsteps of Trudeau. The 1988 federal election was fought and won on the issue of Free Trade with the U.S. Traditionally, the Tories had opposed Free Trade with the U.S., whereas the Liberals had promoted it. In 1988, the roles were reversed. The Liberal leader John Turner, who was patriotically arguing against the Free Trade Agreement, could be seen in many ways as more conservative than Mulroney. Western Canadian and small-c conservative alienation from Mulroney led to the founding of the Reform Party of Canada in 1987. (The term small-c conservative in Canada refers to so-called ideological conservatives as opposed to the big-C Conservative Party, whose commitment to conservative principles has frequently been lackadaisical or non-existent.) The Reform Partys main founder and leader was Preston Manning, the son of a long-time Alberta Premier, who had represented a smaller, centre-right, protest party (Social Credit). The Reform Party was initially a Western Canadian regional party, but, by 1991, had become a Canada-wide party. In the 1993 federal election, the Reform Party won 52 seats, while the Bloc Quebecois, which had arisen after the failure to ratify the Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Agreements (two constitutional attempts to conciliate Quebec) won 54, thus becoming the Official Opposition. Since 1982, the province of Quebec had refused to accede to the Charter, because it claimed that it undermined the collective rights of the Quebecois. In 1993, the Liberals under Jean Chretien won a majority, while the P.C.s were reduced to two seats. Having won a majority in the provincial parliament of Quebec in 1994, the Parti Quebecois launched a referendum to separate from Canada in 1995, which came very close to success. This was already a second attempt to secede. In 1980, the Parti Quebecois had undertaken a referendum, although the question was ambiguously phrased as sovereignty-association, and was defeated by a ratio of about 60-40. Because of the vote-splitting between Reform and the P.C.s as well as the continual climate of derision against the Reform Party in the Canadian main stream media the Liberals were able to easily win parliamentary majorities in the federal elections of 1997 and 2000. In 1997, the Reform Party won 60 seats (all of them from Western Canada) and became the Official Opposition. The 2000 campaign was waged by the Liberals against the Canadian Alliance, which had been an attempt to broaden the Reform Party. The Canadian Alliances hopes were sunk when its leader, Stockwell Day, became widely characterized as a fundamentalist Christian extremist. Preston Manning had run against Stockwell Day in 2000 for the leadership of the CA, but had lost, when Stockwell Day had massively organized social conservatives on his behalf. Although the CA had improved its seat total slightly (to 66) (and remained the Official Opposition) there occurred in 2001 a revolt in caucus against Days leadership, which at one time attracted thirteen CA M.P.s. As a result, Day was forced into a leadership contest, which he lost to Stephen Harper. Harper had been elected as Reform M.P. in 1993, but chose not to run in 1997, instead becoming for several years, the head of the National Citizens Coalition (NCC), one of the most prominent of Canadas few right-wing lobby organizations. Finally, in December 2003, there occurred a merger between the CA and the federal P.C.s who renamed themselves as the Conservative Party of Canada significantly without the progressive adjective. Stephen Harper became the leader of the new Conservative Party in 2004. In 2004, the Liberals won only a minority government under their new leader, Paul Martin, Jr. In 2006, the Conservatives were able to win a minority government. Through deft maneuvering and centrist policies, Harper kept the minority government in power continuously, with the other three parties (the Liberals, the left-wing New Democratic Party, and the separatist Bloc Quebecois) never combining their majority of Parliamentary seats, to vote it down. In 2008, Harper called an election himself, and the Conservatives won a strengthened minority in the federal Parliament. Finally, in 2011, the government was voted down in Parliament, thus necessitating the calling of an election. But Stephen Harpers Conservatives were then able to win a majority in the federal Parliament. This was supposed to be the culmination of more than twenty years of small-c conservative efforts. However, the years of the Conservative majority government (2011-2015) proved rather disappointing to small-c conservatives. This indeed suggests that since the late 1960s, a new, Trudeau consensus or left-liberal consensus has enveloped Canada which it is very difficult to counteract. Some critics have used the term Trudeaupia as shorthand for the various structures that Trudeau created. So, it could be argued that the patterns of current-day Canadian society, politics, and culture, have indeed been set down five or so decades ago. And now, Pierre Elliott Trudeaus son, Justin, has come roaring back to power, with the Liberals winning a strong majority in the October 2015 federal election. The youthful Justin projects a rock-star ambience which it is very difficult to challenge in the kind of society Canada has become. The seeming futility of various small-c conservative efforts since the 1960s, seems to point to the prescience of Grants thesis that any more substantive and traditional Canadian nationalism, had been defeated and beaten down, already in 1963. Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher. Home Money = Happiness By Nathanael Costa It is an age-old saying that money cannot buy happiness, but why do people say this? If no one believed that money could buy happiness, then this saying would be useless. Unfortunately, everyone believes this, at least to some extent. It can be seen when a little child gets a new toy. They love whatever toy they receive and play with it constantlyuntil they brake it the next day or simply got bored of it. Philosophically, this ultimately comes down to ingratitude, but can we see the effects of this belief in economics? Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in Economics, sought to answer this question in his article Money Can't Buy Happiness. Er, Can It?. He begins the article with an example of how he and his wife gave into the pressures of modern life and purchased a cell phone (give them a breakthis was 1999). Obviously, this was a big purchase, but they had several questions that they wanted answered about using the device. Unfortunately, there were so many other people who had similar questions that Customer Service was too busy to help them. It turns out this is a broader problem. Most Americans who are prosperous complain about their wealth and the problems it brings. Krugman gives the examples of people struggling with traffic, housing prices, and bad service. This is what we could call a first-world problem, and it is one indication that money cannot purchase any lasting happiness. In response to a question about how much money would satisfy him, John D. Rockefeller famously responded, just a little bit more. But is there an economic reason that so many Americans are both wealthy and unsatisfied? Krugman points out that (at the time of his writing) the economy had been expanding for eight years. He points out that consumers tend to spend less when the economy is doing well so they can save for a rainy day. However, between 1998 and 1999, the economy expanded by 4% while consumer spending increased by 5.5%. Much of this is due to something Krugman refers to called luxury fever. Consumers try to spend as much as people who have a higher income to feel like they are wealthier. This is really where we can draw inferences about human behavior humans more often compare themselves to each other, rather than to an absolute standard. This caused people in 1999 to spend more than was wise, even though many people were also worried that the economic boom wouldnt last. The last point Krugman makes is perhaps the most interesting. While he agrees that money cannot buy happiness, he points out that there are economic benefits for producers when consumers compare themselves unfavorably with others. This makes logical sense in an attempt to appear as wealthy as others, consumers give producers more business. Of course, up to a certain point, this is beneficial to the whole economy. Krugman does not argue that people shouldnt be wise with their money (he did receive a Nobel prize after all). Rather, this comes back to the economic principle that people act selfishly, which can benefit the economy as a whole. Thus, the saying that money cannot buy happiness holds true. As Krugman points out, consumers are rarely fully satisfied with the products they purchase and tend to compare themselves with others. The effect is that consumers are willing to spend more than they should to feel better about themselves. For the individual consumers, this is not economically wise. For the economy as a whole, increased spending is beneficial for producers. Krugman, then, correctly identifies the economic implications of consumers ingratitude. Nathanael Costa is currently studying AP Macroeconomics in high school. 2018 Nathanael Costa Home Social Security: Is it working? By Susan Ubogu What is Social Security? It is a federal insurance scheme that is aimed at providing benefits for pensioners senior citizens and for those who are unemployed or disabled. For this piece, I am going to focus on the fact that Social Security is meant to provide aid to the elderly, people who can't work for an income. A pay-as-you-go pension plan is a "retirement scheme where the . . . beneficiaries decide how much they want to contribute either by having the specified amount regularly deducted from their paycheck or by contributing the desired amount in a lump sum." (Investopedia) Many people are advocating for a change in the current setup. The current Social Security system is a pay-as-you-go pension scheme, and I believe this format is able to extract more benefits than the self-funding retirement system would. A self-funding retirement system would require everyone to finds ways to save for their retirement. We should not fall under the assumption that people who benefit from Social Security are completely funded. The Social Security Administration, SSA, estimates that for the average wage earner, benefits received from Social Security will replace only "40 percent of their pre-retirement income [,]" (SSA) the remainder must be self-funded. I believe that there are clear faults with both the pay-as-you-go system (PAYG) and the self-funded retirement scheme. The biggest problem of the PAYG system is sustainability. The world's elderly population is starting to climb because of increasing life expectancies and falling fertility rates. This is causing the quantity demanded, pensioners who need their retirement to be funded, to rise, while the quantity supplied, the taxes gained from the able-bodied workforce, is falling. When Franklin D. Roosevelt started the program the ratio of workers paying into the system to retirees receiving benefits was 41-1, now, the ratio is 3-1. This is causing an increase in equilibrium price meaning that an able-bodied individual must now pay more taxes to keep the Social Security afloat. (Figure 1) Figure 1: Supply and Demand Graph of the Pay-As-You-Go System Despite its obvious shortcomings, I believe that the PAYG system is much more egalitarian than the self-funded system. With the self-funded system, you are expecting people to devote a marginal percent of their weekly, or monthly, salary to fund their retirement. This method puts people already living at, or under, the poverty line at a distinct disadvantage. The World Bank puts the poverty line at $1.90, to put that in perspective a loaf of white bread in Target is $1.29. To tell these people to put 10% 15% of that into retirement is illogical. If America chooses to adopt a self-funded retirement program its telling 53 million people to go and fend for themselves. I believe that America should stick with the pay-as-you-go welfare system, but they should take notes from other countries to enhance its viability. Another major problem with America's current retirement program is wealthy retirees being able to receive benefits from the Social Security. Iceland solves this problem by having each applicant reviewed, so if you make too much money you are not eligible to receive benefits, they also require employers to contribute to providing pensions. Alongside government pensions, occupational pensions are mandated, a minimum of 12% of earnings per year is contributed to the pensions with 4% coming from the firm and 8% from the individual. In Canada, your benefits are based on your pre-retirement earnings. I think Social Security would be more operable if, rather than moving to a "self-funded retirement system" America altered its current "pay-as-you-go welfare system" to include some of the above-stated ideas because a system in which everyone was required to fund their retirement wouldn't be serviceable to many people. Susan Ubogu is a high school student studying AP Macroeconomics and this is her first contribution to Enter Stage Right. 2018 Susan Ubogu. Home Wrongly convicted former Rep. Steve Stockman sentenced to 10 years in prison By Rachel Alexander Democrats are gloating over the sentencing of former Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) recently. He was ordered to serve 10 years in prison for the vague charges of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Whenever prosecutors want to get someone who hasnt actually committed a crime, they use those vague but scary sounding charges. He was also ordered to pay $1,014,718.51 in restitution, to be divided between him and two other co-defendants. What did Stockman actually do to warrant this? He facilitated four donations from two donors totaling $915,000 to two nonprofits he was associated with. One of the nonprofits spent some of the money on a campaign mailer showing the differences between Stockman and the senator he was running against. It is a (c)4 and its purpose was to educate voters. The mailer did not endorse Stockman or tell people how to vote, so it did not run afoul of campaign laws. The donors were fine with how their money was used, which was mostly for youth education. But prosecutors said it constituted fraud. They said Stockman stole charitable contributions and used them for personal expenses. The truth is, he never benefited personally but took some pay before he ran for office. He was a fundraiser for the nonprofits before he was in office. The nonprofit merely chose to spend some of the money later on a campaign mailer. Stockmans charitable efforts were ignored. He was recognized for hiring the handicapped including the deaf, blind and mentally handicapped. Gallaudet University, the first school of higher education for the deaf, gave him an award for his efforts. Stockman was charged with money laundering and wire fraud in part because Wells Fargo opened a new savings account for him. But this was a well-known scandal that was the fault of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo opened up millions of fraudulent savings and checking accounts on behalf of Wells Fargo clients without their permission. They ended up paying a fine of $185 million. The case against Stockman was so weak it took prosecutors four grand juries to finally get an indictment. It took four years to investigate what should have been a six month investigation. It cost $15-20 million to go on a fishing expedition, which included intimidating witnesses. Benjamin Wetmore, a key witness for the prosecution and an attorney for one of the nonprofits, says Stockman is completely innocent. He described what happened, If you can get away with the lie to exert maximum political and personal damage on someone, it doesnt matter if a correction gets printed later, or if an appeal succeeds; all that the masses remember is the original hit. Prosecutors piled up so many vague and confusing charges that Stockman could have ended up the rest of his life in prison. Even 10 years was unfair. A 2016 study revealed that between 1986 and 2014, the average sentence for a defendant who received a prison sentence for federal public corruption was just 13 months. This is a tremendous disparity. It sounds more like a sentence someone would get for wrongful death. Stockman has been in prison since April. Stockman believes he was targeted because of his conservative activism. He was known for boldly opposing President Obama. He was a Congressional whistleblower on Obama administration corruption, with such actions as calling for the House Select Committee to investigate the government's handling of the Benghazi embassy tragedy of lost American lives, exposing President Obamas payment to the Haqqani terrorist network in exchange for the release of Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, and revealing Secretary of State Hillary Clintons violation of the Iran sanctions to allow the sale to Iran of specialized steel used in nuclear weaponry. The DOJ is full of deep state operatives. They have continued conducting political witch hunts against vocal conservatives under the Trump administration. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions did nothing to stop it. The deep state went after Stockman hard because he was a threat. They wanted to silence him and make an example out of him, so others would be hesitant to follow in his footsteps. Sadly, most of the conservative media hasnt reported on this corruption. They are running articles that rubber stamp the press releases from the DOJ. The press release announcing the sentencing is filled with errors and lies. For example, it says that "Stockman failed to pay taxes on any of the $1,250,571.65 in fraudulently acquired donations." Well, only a slim portion of those donations made their way into Stockman's personal accounts what he was paid before he ever took office. And taxes were paid on that income. U.S. Judge Lee H. Rosenthal appeared to be biased against Stockman throughout the trial. She fell asleep several times and reportedly is friends with Stockmans opponent. Wetmore observed, At one point, during an argument I was presenting to her in court, she was making obvious non-verbal cues such as rolling her eyes and laughing at my argument quietly, just feet away from me. After she announced the sentence, she sarcastically said, Thats a long time, but Mr. Stockman, I think you earned it. Stockman intends to appeal. Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative. She has been published in the American Spectator, Townhall.com, Fox News, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, The Americano, ParcBench, and other publications. Home Suffrage to suffering: Women empowered Democrats in midterms By Selwyn Duke Well, ladies, you did it again. No, not all of you. But heres the reality: If only men had voted this election, the GOP would have held the House and picked up some seats. The Senates Republican majority would be even greater (than plus six or eight) and the Trump train would be full-steam ahead. But women breaking for Democrats by roughly 20 points made this impossible and Mad Max (Waters) a committee chairman. Egads! Here are the stats: Women constituted 52 percent of the electorate and went for Democrats 59-40. Men went for Republicans 51-49. Oh, dont get me wrong, this wasnt the guys finest hour, either; when almost half my fellow men are voting for the party of irrationality, well, were perhaps seeing the consequences of the recent decades 30-percent drop in testosterone levels. Yet this merely reflects a simple truth. Regarding voting, men really stink. Women stink worse. For the unacquainted, know that the electoral sex gap (called the gender gap by those misusing the quoted term) manifests itself every election. Men went for Trump in 2016 by 12 points; women for Hillary Clinton by 12; Men chose Mitt Romney by eight in 2012; women, Obama by a dozen. Even in the 2010 wave midterm election that vaulted the GOP to legislative power, women supported Democrats 49-48. As commentator Ann Coulter put it in 2003, It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950 except Goldwater in '64 the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted. (Video below of Coulter discussing the matter; relevant portion begins at 2:32.) Another woman thus opining is journalist Megan Fox. Appalled by the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation circus, she wrote Oct. 6, Never have I felt more ashamed of my sex than in the last two weeks watching hysterical harridans trashing tradition, decorum, and common decency. The performance of these screeching gorgons, as she put it, during this uproarious time has called into serious question their fitness to even participate in any serious matter of state. For the first time in my life, I felt I needed to go back and see what the arguments against letting women have the vote were. I had a sneaking suspicion I might find some sage warnings of what we are witnessing today. Fox then presented the following very interesting passage from British politician Viscount Helmsley, articulated during a 1912 parliamentary debate: The way in which certain types of women, easily recognised, have acted in the last year or two, especially in the last few weeks, lends a great deal of colour to the argument that the mental equilibrium of the female sex is not as stable as the mental equilibrium of the male sex....It seems to me that this House should remember that if the vote is given to women those who will take the greatest part in politics will not be the quiet, retiring, constitutional women but those very militant women who have brought so much disgrace and discredit upon their sex. It would introduce a disastrous element into our public lifeit is little short of nauseating and disgusting to the whole sex Note that this aligns with a principle I promulgated many years ago. Its a sort of a catch-22 called Dukes First Rule of Women in Politics: You cant find good traditional women in office because good traditional women wont be in office. Theyre at home taking care of children. This is so universally true that if there is an exception, shes the one proving the rule. So why are women empowering leftists? As many have pointed out, including a female writer whose name escapes me, Women are natural-born socialists. This is necessary within the family unit, which reflects very much a socialist model. The children are provided for even if they create little or no wealth, as its From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs. The governed, the children again, also have no power; they dont get to vote. They in addition require, especially when young, a nanny state to micromanage their lives to dress them properly; ensure they brush their teeth, exercise manners, eat healthful food, etc. Being detail oriented, most women tend to this beautifully. Is it coincidence that nanny state is a feminine characterization? This mentality is disastrous when applied to the wider society, however. What mature citizen wants to be treated as a child by an actual nanny state? Yet its no surprise that those whose DNA prescribes a (required in the home) nanny-state mentality would empower statists. An aspect of this is that, as I explained in 2011, women are The Security Sex. In brief, women are more risk-averse and crave security, for themselves and their children, which is why theyre generally attracted to strong, competent, successful men. Yet insofar as they dont find this in a man, they look to the state in a vain attempt to achieve this security. This is the main reason why married women vote more conservatively than single women; its also one reason why leftists attack marriage. Principle vs. Preference John Stuart Mill once wrote, I can hardly imagine any laws so bad, to which I would not rather be subject than to the caprice of a man. A successful civilization is one of laws, not men; it elevates principle above preference, adhering to principles such as due process, innocent until proven guilty, constitutional adherence, etc., even when doing so sometimes displeases the mob (e.g., the Kavanaugh hearings). Thus is it instructive to note that, roughly speaking, men are creatures of principle, women of preference. Years ago a female writer (whose name also escapes me) discussed the different ways boys and girls settle problems. She wrote that boys are natural-born deal makers; theyll try to ensure fairness for everyone and then shake hands, saying Deal? Deal. In contrast, girls will try to ensure an outcome everyone feels good about. Witnessed here, even from young ages, is that boys instinctively reference principles, the objective; fairness is a principle. The girls, of course, are referencing feelings, the subjective. Now, being emotion-oriented is invaluable when interpreting the needs of infants, who cant communicate them verbally. Yet the two methods are not qualitatively equivalent within a given context. Emotion is mercurial. Insofar as it influences governance, its inconstancy does violence to the constancy the rule of law requires. Passion governs, and she never governs wisely, as Ben Franklin warned. Interestingly, it appears easy finding support for ending womens suffrage even among women as the below video evidences. Of course, not understanding the term, the interviewees above associated suffrage with suffering. While a comical mistake, some may ask in light of recent events: Is the association really all wrong? Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com. Home National Tourism Development Authority sets out plans to overcome challenges that lie ahead Creating a series of long-term tourism development plans for specific geographical locations, developing new festivals to lengthen the tourism season, and promoting careers in the tourism sector these were just some of the key initiatives outlined by Failte Irelands CEO Paul Kelly today, as he sets out plans for 2019. As the tourism agency looks to next year, Failte Irelands plans focus on sustaining the success of 2018 in the face of challenges on the horizon for the sector. At a major industry event in Croke Park today, a number of significant opportunities for the tourism sector will be identified to over 300 key industry members, including increased air access from regions such as the US, Canada and Europe; growth in the Northern European tourist market; as well as increased state investment in industry and tourist attraction development, and sales and marketing. Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross T.D., joined Failte Ireland to launch the plans this morning. Welcoming the plans, Minister Ross said: Im delighted to launch Failte Irelands plans for 2019 today they are robust and forward-thinking, not only setting out initiatives to tackle challenges such as the uncertainty caused by Brexit, but also ensuring that we are on the front-foot in leveraging every opportunity that comes our way. In addition, the significant additional funding for tourism secured in Budget 2019 will play a key role in plans for the tourism sector next year, allowing Failte Ireland to continue to develop Irelands tourism offering and support the industry to both improve the visitor experience and diversify into new markets." Minister of State for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Brendan Griffin T.D. said: 2018 has been a great year for tourism. Failte Irelands focus on regionality and seasonality has made major strides with some welcome new initiatives such as Irelands Hidden Heartlands, a new regional experience brand for the Midlands, and new festivals such as May the Fourth Be With You in Kerry. On top of the wide range of supports and investment in the industry, the stellar growth weve seen in recent years is also testament to the hard work of a very robust industry. The plans launched today give us an opportunity to build on the success of recent years in a way which will ensure that tourism remains a vital indigenous economic sector in Ireland. As well as the potential impact Brexit could have on the influx of visitors from Great Britain and Northern Ireland, cost pressure for tourism businesses; the softening of Irelands reputation as a value for money destination; and a shortage in labour supply were outlined by Mr. Kelly as some of the imminent barriers to the tourism sectors continued growth. Speaking about the plans, Paul Kelly, CEO of Failte Ireland, said: 2018 has been an exceptional year for tourism. Our latest estimates now show that we will have welcomed over 9.6m overseas tourists and 9.8m domestic trips this year, generating 7.8bn in revenue. There is now an impressive 260,000 people estimated to be employed in the sector, an increase of 20,000 since 2017. The tourism industry is vitally important for Ireland, particularly when you consider that this growth in revenue and jobs is generated in many parts of the country where many other major industries do not exist. Therefore, we cannot become complacent. There are many challenges ahead. The return to the 13.5% VAT rate will be a significant commercial challenge for tourism businesses, and the resulting upward price pressure could damage our international competitiveness. Similarly, Brexit and the potential wide-ranging implications it may bring pose a major challenge for 2019. However, despite these challenges, there is still lots of cause for optimism in the sector; continued long term global growth in tourism; new market opportunities; our industrys excellent international reputation; new accommodation capacity and tourism attractions coming on stream; increased government investment in the sector and, critically, further improvements to direct air access forecast for next year. Mr. Kelly set out some of the key initiatives planned for 2019, which will leverage these growth opportunities and help the industry to overcome the challenges that lie ahead, including: Visitor Experience Development Plans in the regions Working with local stakeholders, tourism businesses and communities, shared long-term tourism plans will be developed to drive visitor numbers to lesser known areas and attractions such as the Inishowen Penisula on the Wild Atlantic Way or attractions that bring to life specific themes, such as the Castles & Conquests theme in Irelands Ancient East. These plans aim to increase dwell time and revenue, while complementing the environment or culture of the region. New festivals and events to drive growth in the off peak season With festivals motivating over 200,000 overseas visitors to come to Ireland, and contributing 108m to the economy, a series of new festivals will be developed to drive growth in the off-peak seasons, including a major new Halloween festival to take place in Irelands Ancient East. A new Month of Food programme will also be developed, which will offer immersive food tourism experiences, showcasing the quality of Irish produce and driving increased visitor numbers and revenue, particularly in the off season. Tourism Careers A New Hospitality and Tourism Careers Oversight Group will be established to address labour supply and skills developments issues which are currently affecting growth for tourism businesses. Chaired by Failte Ireland, members will include industry representative bodies, education providers and state agencies. The group will design and implement a tourism career promotion campaign. Increased marketing and sales New investment by Failte Ireland in domestic and Northern Ireland marketing and business tourism overseas. Mr. Kelly continued: Our aim is to deliver another record year in 2019 and we forecast that growth of as much as 5% could be achieved. For tourism to continue to grow, it will need to be planned in a sustainable way for visitors, industry, communities and the environment. Our plans for the year ahead focus on how we can both meet the challenges and leverage the opportunities facing the industry to keep the current growth momentum going, by spreading visitors across the country, and growing business in the off-season months, to make sure Ireland remains a high quality destination, which provides good value for our visitors. Updates and upcoming plans on our regional experience brands can be found here: Irelands Ancient East - View HERE Irelands Hidden Heartlands - View HERE Dublin - View HERE See link to the VIDEO Jump to top Dmitrij Harder (Image courtesy of Twitter @dmitrijharder)The Pennsylvania-based consultant who bribed an officer at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for loan approvals lost his appeal against a 60-month prison sentence for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Dmitrij Harder, 46, a Russian-born German national living in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, argued to the Third Circuit that bribes to secure financing for two Russian energy projects provided economic benefits that should have been considered a mitigating factor during his sentencing. In 2008 and 2009, Harder paid $3.5 million in bribes to Andrej Ryjenko, a London-based senior banker at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). In exchange, Ryjenko pushed loan approvals for Russian energy projects promoted by Harders clients. Harder pleaded guilty in 2016 to two counts of violating the FCPA. He forfeited $1.9 million as part of his plea deal. In 2017, a UK court sentenced Ryjenko, 45, a dual UK and Russian citizen, to six years in prison. Harder argued on appeal that his bribery was highly beneficial because the pipeline projects created 6,500 jobs and boosted the entire economy of the (eastern Siberia) region. That economic benefit should have been considered during his sentencing, Harder said. Judge Eugene Siler, writing last week for a panel of the Third Circuit, said the trial judge, Paul Diamond, had considered Harders economic benefit argument and correctly rejected it. According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Harder is an inmate at the low-security federal correctional institution at Allenwood, Pennsylvania. His release date is August 26, 2020. ____ Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. Our pick of the news from Fethiye and around Turkey over the last week. News Saturday saw the 80th anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Republic of Turkey. At 9.05am, Turkey came to a halt for a two minutes silence as a mark of respect for its greatest leader. Dunya'da baska hicbir lider yoktur ki hayati 1 dakikaligina durdursun!#10Kasm Posted by Takunya on Friday, November 9, 2018 Source: makale.obliyo.info/Takunya 11-year-old rescued from fire in Tuzla An 11-year-old boy was rescued from a fire in a building in Tuzla on Tuesday. Can Tuncer was affected by smoke when fire broke out in the attic of the four-storey building and had to be rescued by firefighters. Tuncer was taken to hospital where his condition was reported to be good. An investigation has been launched into the cause of the fire. Source: SonDakika Turkey raises registration price for cellphones purchased abroad The Turkish government has raised the registration price for foreign cellphones from TL 170 ($30) to TL 500 ($90), according to a presidential decree published in the Official Gazette on Friday. The government requires cellphones brought into the country by tourists and expats to be registered with the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) within 120 days after entering the country. The registration process, which can also be done online, requires proof of entry to the country, which is usually an entry stamp on passports, along with the TL 500 registration fee. The system allows to register phones without paying first, but those who fail to make their payments in time will have their registration suspended while being charged 50 percent more than the usual fee. The BTK only allows one cellphone to be registered per passport every two years. Cellphones which are not registered within the 120-day time period wont be able to connect to Turkish GSM networks and visitors wont be able to use roaming services. Source: Daily Sabah More than 3 million Turkish drivers fined in drive for safer traffic More than 3 million Turkish drivers were given traffic tickets at checkpoints for failing to follow the rules in the first 10 months of 2018, according a statement issued by the Interior Ministry on Saturday. Control points and checkpoints have been increased to reduce accidents and traffic-related injuries and deaths as part of the goals set by the 100-day action plan of the presidency, the statement said. As a result of traffic controls, 3,307,698 fines have been issued so far this year, an increase of 18 percent compared to the same period last year. The number of drivers whose licenses were taken away due to exceeding the penalty points limit, refusing alcohol and drug checks or driving under their influence reached 138,976, an increase of 33 percent. 21,000 fines, an increase of 186 percent, were issued to passengers failing to observe the rules, especially those who failed to put on seatbelts in the front seats. The number of tickets issued to license plates by police officers and electronic monitoring systems also increased by 43 percent and reached 8,338,527. Some 4,000 pedestrians received fines for violating traffic lights and other rules. The number of vehicles barred from traffic stood at 849,266. In addition to police and gendarmerie, municipal traffic police officers and honorary traffic inspectors also issued 230,201 and 182,042 tickets, respectively. The number of deaths in traffic accidents decreased by 2 percent. Source: Daily Sabah Brown bears caught on camera in Kars If youre not convinced there are bears in Turkey, have a look at this video clip. These hungry bears were captured on camera in the city center of Kars in northeastern Turkey on Friday. The two brown bears had come into the town to forage for food. Kars'ta ac kalan bozaylar sokaklarda yiyecek arad Ac kalan aylar sehir merkezine indi. Kars'ta iki boz aynn yiyecek arayslar kameralara yansd.https://www.trthaber.com/haber/turkiye/karsta-ac-kalan-bozayilar-sokaklarda-yiyecek-aradi-393226.html Posted by TRT Haber on Friday, November 9, 2018 Source: TRT Haber Armistice day 100 years since the guns fell silent Yesterday marked 100 years since the Armistice was signed in November 1918, bringing an end to the First World War. Services took place across Britain and the world to commemorate these killed in the First World War and other conflicts. In Hisaronu, local residents gathered in front of the statue of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to play the last post, read the simple exhortation and take part in a two-minute silence to remember those who gave their lives. Sport Thank you to Brian Lloyd for the sport updates. Fethiyespor Fethiyespor lost their away match against Kirklarelispor yesterday. The final score was 2-1. Fethiyespor remain at 16th position on the league table. The next league matches are: Sunday 18th November at home against Bugsas Spor A. S. Kick off is 13.30. Sunday 25th November away against Etimesgut Belediyespor. Kick off is at 13.30. For more information about Fethiyespor please visit Fethiyespor Yabancilar on Facebook. Lokman Hekim Fethiye Belediyespor Basketbol # TB2L 1st Circuit Match Schedule Lokman Hekim Fethiye Belediyespor won their home match against Beylikduzu on Saturday. The final score was 77-73. For more information about Lokman Hekim Fethiye Belediyespor please visit them on Facebook. Turkish Lira (TL) exchange rates The British Pound bought 7.08 TL by the close of business on Friday. The week before it was selling for 7.04 TL. The US Dollar bought 5.46 TL by the close of business on Friday. The week before it was selling for 5.43 TL. The Euro bought 6.19 TL by the close of business on Friday. The week before it was selling for 6.18 TL. ISource: FxexchangeRate.com Weather Forecast Heres your weather forecast for the week ahead. The Nile River Acquisition Company (NRAC) to which Bank of Uganda (BoU) sold assets and liabilities of International Credit Bank (ICB) Limited, Greenland Bank and the Co-operative Bank at 93 per cent discount, paid Shs25, 000 as tax in Diamond Trust Bank on November, 2018, Eagle Online can say, though it was hard to establish what kind of tax it paid. According to the Diamond Trust Bank e-payment receipt, the money was deposited in cash by a one P Niwamanya. The banks stamp includes words, Frontline Agent cash received. Currently, NRAC, is said to be registered in Mauritius, a tax haven, is non-existent in Uganda, even though records show the company was incorporated in that country on September 26, 2007 as a global business, the same year BoU officials sold the assets of the three banks. Stories Continues after ad According to the Auditor Generals special audit report of BoU on defunct banks, the total loan portfolio of the three banks sold to NRAC stood at Shs135 billion, comprising secured loans of Shs34.5 billion which had valid, legal or equitable mortgage on the real property. In the case of ICB, Greenland Bank and Cooperative Bank the total loan portfolio sold of Shs135 billion included Secured loans of Shs34.5 billion which had valid, legal or equitable mortgage on the real property and were supported with legal documentation but were sold to Nile River Acquisition Company at a 93%o discount, reads in part. The Auditor General, John Muwanga, in a report he handed to parliament has questions this transaction and wondered why loans which were supported with legal documentation were sold to NRAC at 93 per cent discount. Bank of Uganda is being investigated by parliament for the sale of seven commercial banks since 1993. The inquiry follows a report by the auditor general pointing out several irregularities in many of these transactions. During their first appearance before parliaments committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase), Bank of Uganda officials led by the governor Emmanuel Mutebile were sent back for failing to provide required documents, including disclosure of particulars of the directors of Nile River Acquisition Company. The Registrar General of the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) in a letter to a one Tom Mugisha on November 8, 2018 confirmed that Nile River Acquision Company doesnt not exist in the agencys database. A search conducted on records revealed that the Nile River Acquisition is not reflected in our database. We therefore request for any documentation in your possession pertaining to the said name that can aid a further search, said URSBs Maureen Nabachwa on behalf the Registrar, Mr. Bemanya Twebaze. Sources at Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) say the agency also doesnt possess tax records of NRAC. The unclear status of NRCA in Uganda raises questions as whether BoU carried due on the mysterious company that earned billions of shillings in profit as the central bank did away with Credit Bank (ICB) Ltd, Greenland Bank and the Co-operative Bank. BoU officials are expected to give more details of how they came into contact with the company as Cosase interfaces with them the coming week. Price Edge Solutions AB, a Swedish SaaS price management company, is to acquire Rightprice.ai, a Stockholm, Sweden-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. The acquisition will enable Price Edge Solutions to boost its AI and machine learning capabilities and provide e-commerce companies with insights and structures to make smart price decisions. Led by Micael Ehn, CEO & Founder, Rightprice.ai uses proprietary machine learning algorithms that learn from visitor behavior data, product data, and online sales data. By analyzing and understanding the purchase behavior around each product in combination with competitors pricing, the AI can predict the optimal price. Data is collected via a script that is quickly embedded in the webshop code. Established in 2014 and led by Rickard Glamsjo, CEO, PriceEdge provides an AI driven price management platform that enables E-commerce companies to react dynamically to changing market conditions, sales, online customer behavior, seasonality, weather, and constantly allows for visibility into each products price elasticity. FinSMEs 12/11/2018 This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going. . , 30 . 4:1 14- , -. , 3:0 , ... Dublin, Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Gas Turbine Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Capacity (=200 MW, >200 MW), By Technology (Open Cycle, Combined Cycle), By Application (Power Generation, Industrial, Aviation), And Segment Forecasts, 2018 - 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global gas turbine market size is projected to reach USD 30.08 billion by 2025, witnessing a CAGR of 4.8% during the forecast period. The market is expected to be driven by increasing pressure from international agencies to reduce carbon footprint, along with low shale gas prices. Incentives provided by regional governments to gas-based power generation companies to combat increasing carbon footprints are likely to drive market growth. Gas turbines witnessed a distinctive increase in 2015, hinting a change in policies by power generators to capitalize on low gas prices. Some of the largest gas turbine shipments are estimated to be heading toward Latin America, U.S., and Europe. However, Asia Pacific will likely exhibit the fastest growth rate in the foreseeable future. Post 2016, steam turbine orders are picking up as well, mimicking the trend in gas turbines, owing to rising CHP installations across the globe. Combined cycle power generation is the most efficient form of technology to generate electricity. This technology segment also accounts for the largest share in the gas turbine market. Gas power production in Asia Pacific is still at a nascent stage, but with aggressive development programs undertaken by the regional governments to improve gas infrastructure, the region is slated to witness rapid growth. India is also increasing its focus on the use of cleaner resources. In January 2017, Siemens and Marubeni announced plans to build a 1,200 MW combined cycle power plant in Thailand. In 2015, the company sold approximately 18 models of SGT-800 industrial gas turbines to Thailand. Six of these turbines had a capacity of 53 MW each, while the capacity of the remaining twelve units was 50.5 MW each. The units were intended to be installed in nine combined cycle cogeneration power plants with a total installed electrical capacity of 1100 MW. Further key findings from the report suggest: The global capacity addition for gas turbines in 2016 was estimated to be 62.87 GW and is expected to reach 91.81 GW by the end of the forecast period There is rising investment in Latin America for CHP-based power generation where gas turbine orders account for the majority share in comparison to steam turbine orders China's market size for gas turbine orders was estimated to be 8.07 GW in 2016. This regional market is likely to expand at a CAGR of 5.2% Asia Pacific excluding China will likely witness stunted growth owing to established infrastructure of thermal-based power generation and Japan's economic slowdown Europe will witness an increase in gas turbines as majority of the thermal-based power generations are likely to shut down by the end of the forecast period Siemens is currently the leader in the gas turbine market. This market operates on aggressive mergers and acquisitions The service-oriented market for gas turbines is also an excellent contributor to overall revenue Topics Covered Chapter 1. Methodology and Scope 1.1. Research Methodology 1.2. Research Scope & Assumptions 1.3. List of Data Sources Chapter 2. Executive Summary 2.1. Market Snapshot Chapter 3. Gas Turbine Market Variables, Trends & Scope 3.1. Market segmentation 3.2. Market size and growth prospects, 2014 - 2025 3.3. Value chain analysis 3.4. Demand & Supply Landscape 3.5. Industry Cost Structure 3.6. Total Cost of Ownership 3.7. Market dynamics 3.7.1. Market driver analysis 3.7.2. Market restraint analysis 3.8. Industry analysis - Porter's 3.9. PESTEL analysis, 2015 Chapter 4. Gas Turbine Market: Capacity Estimates & Trend Analysis 4.1. Global gas turbine market share by capacity, 2015 & 2025 4.2. =200 MW 4.3. >200 MW Chapter 5. Gas Turbine Market: Technology Estimates & Trend Analysis 5.1. Global gas turbine market share by technology, 2015 & 2025 5.2. Open Cycle 5.3. Combined Cycle Chapter 6. Gas Turbine Market: Application Estimates & Trend Analysis 6.1. Global gas turbine market share by application, 2015 & 2025 6.2. Power Generation 6.3. Industrial 6.4. Aviation Chapter 7. Gas Turbine Market: Regional Estimates & Trend Analysis 7.1. Global gas turbine market share by region, 2015 & 2025 7.2. North America 7.3. Europe 7.4. Asia Pacific 7.5. Middle East & Africa 7.6. Central & South America Chapter 8. Competitive Landscape 8.1. Vendor landscape 8.2. Company Market Share 8.3. Strategy framework Chapter 9. Companies Profiled 9.1. General Electric Company 9.1.1. Company Overview 9.1.2. Financial Performance 9.1.3. Product Benchmarking 9.1.4. Strategic Initiatives 9.2. Siemens AG 9.3. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Ltd. 9.4. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. 9.5. Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited 9.6. Ansaldo Energia S.P.A. 9.7. Solar Turbines Incorporated 9.8. Opra Turbines B.V. 9.9. Man Diesel & Turbo SE 9.10. Dresser-Rand For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/slm477/the_global_gas?w=12 Tryg will deliver innovative insurance solutions to Danske Bank customers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the future. As part of Trygs 2020 strategy about strengthen the companys distribution, Tryg enters a new Nordic partnership with Danske Bank. This partnership will cover all the countries and markets in which Tryg operates both within private and commercial in Denmark, Norway and private in Sweden. During Spring 2019, Danske Bank customers will be offered competitive insurance offering with unique benefits. In addition, Danish customers will be eligible for the annual member bonus from TryghedsGruppen, which for the last three years, has averaged 8% of the customers premiums paid to Tryg. - We are excited about the cooperation with Danske Bank and we welcome Danske Bank customers into the Tryg family. We are looking forward to offer the banks customers the most innovative insurance solutions in the market, which make it easier to be Tryg, says Johan Kirstein Brammer, CCO in Tryg. With approximately 3 million customers, strong local routes and headquarter in Denmark, Danske Bank is one the largest banks in the Nordics. - Danske Bank is one of the front runners in the financial industry when it comes to develop new innovative and digital solutions to its customers. MobilePay is a very good example. It is a very good match to Trygs work and ambitions about being the most innovative insurance company in the Nordic. This will also provide unique and digital development opportunities within insurance, from which both Tryg and Danske Bank customers will benefit from, says Johan Kirstein Brammer. Attachment Dear Stakeholders, We are pleased to share with you Endeavour's first sustainability report which has been independently assured and follows the requirements of the Global Reporting Initiative Standards, available by clicking here. While this is our first report, sustainability itself is nothing new to us. It is something we work towards every single day. As our business has evolved and we have reshaped our portfolio, we have also strengthened the sustainability corporate function as we recognise that all of us - from the leadership down - must take responsibility for what happens in our name. As our business has grown, so has our impact in the countries where we operate. We are now among the largest mining companies in Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso, and we recognise the increased responsibility this brings. We understand that building and maintaining trust in our operations is fundamental to achieving a sustainable business. Every day, we make decisions that have direct impacts on our environment and our stakeholders, including our employees, the members of the communities where we operate, and our host governments. These decisions must never be driven by financial considerations alone. As such, this report codifies for the first time how we measure the impact we have on the world around us, and the programs we have in place to mitigate any adverse effects that may arise as a result of our activities. We have based our sustainability approach on four main pillars: Health and Safety: ensuring the safety of our employees is our number one priority, as no tasks are so important that they cannot be performed safely. Employees: developing our people and culture is a competitive strength which is critical to our current and future success. Community: maintaining positive interaction with all local communities and all stakeholders, including governments, is based on mutual respect and the creation of lasting partnerships and prosperity. Environment: managing our responsibilities in all operations to ensure the environment is protected today and preserved for future generations. Beyond traditional initiatives, we aim to go further to leave a sustainable economic footprint around our mines. To this end, we will soon be launching an economic development fund that seeks to work with local communities and governments to identify sectors and businesses in need of investment, and to provide them with funding to help them thrive. It is initiatives such as these that will allow us to become a partner of choice for our neighbouring communities and governments. We wish you a pleasant read and we look forward to detailing our progress in our next report. Sincere regards, The Endeavour Team Governments around the nation are working to design the best vaccine policies that keep both their employees and their residents safe. Although the latest data shows a variety of polarizing perspectives, there are clear emerging best practices that leading governments are following to put trust first: creating policies that are flexible and provide a range of options, and being in tune with the needs and sentiments of their employees so that they are able to be dynamic and accommodate the rapidly changing situation. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender state employees across Kansas will again have protections from on-the-job discrimination once Democrat Laura Kelly becomes governor.Kelly on Thursday reaffirmed plans to reinstate an executive order providing a protection from discrimination that former Gov. Sam Brownback rescinded in 2015.The order, first put in place by Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius in 2007, prohibited harassment, firing or discrimination against state workers based on sexual orientation or gender identity."I am planning to actually have an executive order drafted before I take office" to take action as soon as possible, Kelly said.Kelly, who defeated Republican Kris Kobach on Tuesday, made the remarks in a wide-ranging news conference at the Kansas Capitol that touched on LGBT rights, foster care and her approach to filling the new administration.Brownback removed the protections the same year the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. At the time, Brownback said the order had created "a new protected class" through executive action and that any change should be made by the Legislature.According to the Human Rights Campaign, 21 states and the District of Columbia prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Another six states prohibit discrimination against only public employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity; five states also prohibit discrimination against public employees based only on sexual orientation.Kansas sits in the middle of a string of Midwest states stretching North Dakota to Texas that have no anti-discrimination prohibitions."We're quite pleased she's keeping her campaign promise and we're not surprised," said Tom Witt, director of Equality Kansas.Kelly's comments come after the election of the first two openly LGBT members of the Kansas House. Democrats Brandon Woodard and Susan Ruiz both won suburban Kansas City-area seats Tuesday.At the national level, Kansas City-area voters elected Sharice Davids to Congress. Davids will be the state's first openly LGBT member of Congress, and the first Native American woman to serve in Congress, along with New Mexico's Deb Haaland.Kelly also said that if it is possible, she will direct the state to require adoption agencies with state contracts to not discriminate against LGBT couples and individuals.Earlier this year, the Legislature approved a bill that ensures ensures faith-based adoption agencies can turn away gay and lesbian couples based on religious beliefs. The bill says the Kansas Department for Children and Families cannot block any foster or adoption agency from participating in its programs solely because it refuses to adopt or place children with LGBT individuals.The legislation was supported by the Family Policy Alliance of Kansas, and the group after Tuesday's election called Kelly "an enemy of life, family and religious freedom.""During her campaign she pledged to rollback protections for the unborn and faith-based adoption and foster care ministries, which would be consistent with her long record of opposing the values most Kansans hold dear," Eric Teetsel, the group's president, said.Kelly also said Thursday that she supports medical marijuana and believes Kansas is ready for it. Her comments came after Missouri approved medical marijuana earlier this week.A Fort Hays State University poll this fall of Kansans found 52 percent of respondents support legalizing recreational marijuana for those 21 and older. Thirty-nine percent expressed opposition. The poll did not ask about medical marijuana.Kelly will become governor on Jan. 14. In the run up to her inauguration, she will need to name cabinet secretaries and other administration officials.Kelly promised a bipartisan and diverse cabinet. Asked what qualities she'll be looking for in appointments, Kelly replied, "people who know what they're doing" and highly-skilled individuals.Kelly, who is currently a Topeka state senator, also said Thursday she plans to live in Cedar Crest, the governor's traditional residence near the city. Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams was being pushed Saturday to concede in the race for Georgia's governor, a day after her Republican counterpart Brian Kemp started his transition into the new role.It's been four days since voters cast their ballots in the race but despite Kemp claiming victory, no one has called the race for either candidate. Kemp is currently ahead by about 60,000 votes and says it is mathematically impossible for Abrams to win.Abrams, on the other hand, claims thousands of provisional ballots remain and could put her in recount territory.On Saturday, Kemp's campaign accused Abrams of ignoring the will of the people and "making up numbers" to keep the race alive. Kemp, who headed the state's election office, contends at most 17,495 provisional and military ballots remain, which would leave Kemp the clear winner. Florida counties began the laborious and time-sensitive recount of votes cast last week to resolve the state's three close statewide races.Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner was aware of recount problems in Broward County Sunday, but said through a spokeswoman that they were resolved.On Saturday, the razor-thin margins in the races of U.S. Senate, agriculture commissioner and the governor's race prompted Detzner to order mandatory machine recounts in all three statewide races after all counties submitted their unofficial results by noon.The state's 67 elections departments have just five days to recount more than 8.2 million combined ballots cast over an entire month leading up to Tuesday's midterms.Broward County was supposed to start its recount at 7 a.m. Sunday, cranking out recounts in 24-hour shifts from its Lauderhill facility. But glitches with the machines delayed the start by four hours.The county also has to recount four local elections, will run more than 700,000 ballots through its machines.To make the Thursday deadline, the county has to count about 6,874 ballots an hour, so that delay puts Broward about 25,000 ballots behind that pace.Gov. Rick Scott's attorney, Tim Cerio, said he didn't know what caused Broward County's delay Sunday morning, but that two more machines were being sent to the office from Orlando.In Miami-Dade, the state's most populated county, the recount began early Saturday evening, as workers began to load paper ballots into scanning machines for a tabulation that will likely take days.Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, home to Tampa and St. Petersburg, began their recounts at 9 a.m. Sunday.Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer said Sunday that he had no doubt his office would meet Thursday's deadline for completing the machine recount of more than 520,000 ballots. Nor did he see the likelihood that the results would shift much.In Palm Beach County, the election supervisor said Saturday that the Thursday deadline would be "impossible" to meet.Supervisor Susan Bucher started the recount process at 5 p.m. Saturday, the Palm Beach Post reported, but said that even bringing in extra county workers couldn't solve the problem."I will tell you that the secretary and the legislature and the governor have been extremely aware that with the election equipment we have, the potential of conducting all of these is impossible," Bucher told the Post. "We have asked the secretary if there was any consideration to extend the deadline and he said 'no.' "The deadlines for submitting the results of the recount are laid out in Florida law, which does not give the secretary of state the authority to grant extensions. Florida law states that if a county does not submit its results by the deadline, the results on file at that time take their place.The results from machine recounts across the state must be finished by 3 p.m. Thursday for the revised totals to be counted as official. On Friday, overseas and military ballots, which traditionally trend Republican, will be counted.If the threshold after this second round drops below 0.25 percent, the state can order a manual recount for federal and state races. A manual recount means the canvassing boards count each overvote and undervote by hand. An overvote means the voter made more choices than allowed on their ballot. An undervote means the voter made no choice or fewer than the number of allowable choices on the ballot. In recent years, Carmelita Hillsman spent more than three hours a day getting to and from her government job in downtown Nashville.Not anymore.Now, she starts working each day for the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities at 6:30 a.m. from her home office, using a state-purchased computer. She doesnt even have an office in the departments headquarters.This is more flexible, she says. I avoid traffic. I spend more time with my family, and I absolutely get more work done because there is less distraction.Among Tennessee state workers, Hillsmans not that special. In her department alone, 72 percent of employees telework most of the time.Theyre all participating in the states ambitious initiative, called Alternative Workplace Solutions (AWS), to transform its workplace. It goes far beyond traditional approaches to telecommuting, in which employees occasionally work from home but still spend most of the time in a central location.In exchange for giving up their desk or office, participating employees can work remotely (either at home or in the field) full- or part-time. When they do come into the office, they can select from a variety of seating options -- standing desks, lounge areas, conference rooms. They have lockers for personal possessions. The best schedule for each person is evaluated individually. Some employees come into the central office twice a week. Hillsman generally comes once a month, or more, if there are meetings she needs to be in.The concept of individual offices, cubicles and desks, arranged with family photos and bobbleheads, is becoming a thing of the past.Since mid-2016, when the program launched, 16 departments have given employees the option, with 6,000 of them taking it. About 27,000 of the Tennessee executive branchs 38,000 employees could eventually be eligible, according to Evan Smith, a senior management consultant who runs the AWS program.The idea came about when Reen Baskin, then the deputy commissioner of the Department of General Services, was asked to reduce the states office space. She soon realized that consolidating it had numerous other advantages.In the first two years of implementation, AWS has racked up an impressive record of benefits. According to internal Tennessee surveys, 60 percent of managers say employees have improved productivity and 80 percent of employees say they have a better work-life balance. Participating agencies have recorded a 37 percent reduction in sick leave use, and the state estimates that the average employee is saving $1,800 a year on gas. By the end of this fiscal year, Tennessee says it will have likely cut its real-estate rental costs by $6.5 million. Next year, it plans to sell one of its downtown Nashville office buildings, which is no longer needed. That could give the state an extra $40 to $60 million.The results have other states, including North Carolina and Utah, intrigued, according to Smith.While the program is wildly popular, setting it up hasnt been easy.Early on, the resisters were at the managerial level, says Trish Holliday, the states chief learning officer. Managers didnt know how to get the work done if they didnt have everybody there.To solve that problem, an intensive training process now precedes implementation of AWS in each department. Employees and managers learn the importance of clear expectations and of focusing on results. Constant communication and team-building exercises get a lot of emphasis.David Purkey, commissioner of the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, was a skeptic at first. I was of the opinion that everyone needed an office or a cubicle to have their stuff and be accountable to their colleagues, their supervisors and the public, he says. He also worried about how having so many employees working remotely would affect his management style, which involved walking around the office, talking with people in hallways and visiting employee offices.But once the program started, he realized the work wasnt suffering and that employees were happy and more likely to stay on the job.We want to retain our people," he says. "That changed my mind.Other managers who have been through the transition say that constant communication and state support were critical to their success.You need to have the state committed to this, says Greg Gonzales, commissioner of financial institutions, one of the first departments to participate. If you dont move state government as a whole substantially toward the AWS objective, then it would be difficult for individual departments to do this on their own.The legislature has provided $18.5 million for the rollout of AWS. With the help of that funding, the state has been dramatically remodelling offices and upgrading their IT infrastructure. Departments have also accelerated efforts to digitize paper files and are focused on improving communications technology so that team members can easily stay in touch with each other and share information online safely and seamlessly. Description GIS 12 November 2018: The National Campaign on Electrical Safety at Home, aimed at sensitising residential customers about the importance of electrical safety and educating them about the steps that can be taken to prevent electrical hazards leading to fires, injuries, and even fatalities at home, was launched on 10 November 2018 by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy and Public Utilities, Mr Ivan Collendavelloo, at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute auditorium, Moka. In his address, the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that all electrical systems have the potential of causing serious burns and even fatality. The voltage of the available electrical current in a household has enough power to cause burns, which is why it is essential to be aware and take necessary precautions to ensure complete electrical safety, especially if one has children at home, he highlighted. Speaking about energy efficiency, Mr Collendavelloo underlined that several measures have been taken to decrease reliance on petrol adding that Mauritius aims to produce about 35% of its electricity needs from renewable sources, supported by several projects that include wind energy plants and photovoltaic farms and Waste-to-Energy projects that are already in operation. He recalled that Government is sparing no efforts to combat climate change while highlighting that Mauritius is one of the founding members of the International Solar Alliance whose primary objective is to work for efficient exploitation of solar energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and to use solar energy to bring electricity to remote regions. The Deputy Prime Minister also lauded the Home Solar Project which he said is a significant one since it aims at helping low-income communities to be energy sufficient, save energy costs and protect the environment. The project, to be implemented by the Central Electricity Board (CEB) and CEB (Green Energy) Co. Ltd, consists of installing solar photovoltaic systems on rooftops of 10 000 households in Social Category tariff 110A as part of the Governments efforts to alleviate poverty whilst contributing to the national target of achieving 35% of renewable electricity in the energy mix by 2025. He expressed satisfaction that people from the lower rungs of society will for the first time be able to consume electricity that they will produce themselves through solar panels. Award of prizes of the National Energy Saving Campaign 2017 The launching of the National Awareness Campaign 2018 on Electrical Safety at Home also coincided with the award of prizes to 200 winners of the Lucky Draw of the National Energy Saving Campaign 2017. The winners will get a 50% reduction on their electricity bills for the next six months, starting as from 12 November 2018. As part of its Demand Side Management initiatives, the Central Electricity Board in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy and Public Utilities had launched in 2017 a National Energy Saving campaign targeting residential customers. It was an opportunity for the residential customers to contribute in the mitigation of greenhouse gases emissions through a reduction in their energy consumption and subsequently saving money on their electricity bill. An Energy Saving Guidebook was distributed to residential customers as well as to students of both the primary and secondary schools. This guidebook provides useful and simple tips that can be easily adopted by the residential customers to perform their daily activities more efficiently. In a view to motivating residential customers to read the guidebook, they were requested to fill in a questionnaire so as to participate in a Lucky Draw and stand a chance to win an interesting prize. Description GIS 12 November 2018: A signing ceremony for the declaration of intent with regards to maritime defence between the Government of France and Government of Mauritius was held on Friday 09 November 2018 at the Treasury Building, Port Louis. The signatories were the French Ambassador to Mauritius, Mr Emmanuel Cohet, and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence and Rodrigues, Mr Medha Gunputh. The objective of the declaration is to strengthen the bilateral defence relationship at the operational level by further developing the bilateral exchange between the respective forces, including technical and operational instructions issued by the Armed Forces of the Southern Zone of the Indian Ocean (AFSZIO) It also aims to provide continuous support to Mauritian officers as regards training in French schools and through the network of the National Regionally Based Vocational Schools. The declaration will further strengthen existing cooperation in the naval sector through the conduct of mutual training as well as technical dock and sea training between the French Navy and the Mauritian National Coast Guard (NCG). It will also take on board support training of crew members and officers of the NCG through the naval school of TICA. The agreement will furthermore look into the possibility of conducting a wide bilateral exercise in Mauritius during the second semester of 2019 and implementing a joint armed force of Franco-Mauritians in addition to the Mauritian participation in the major annual exercise of the AFSZIO for the benefit of the countries of the Indian Ocean Commission. The Franco-Mauritian defence relationship In the face of multiple threats, the southwest of the Indian Ocean is facing new security challenges and hence, national strategies for defence must be adjusted, and cooperation between States strengthened, particularly in the maritime field. The Franco-Mauritian relationship, which is mostly based on the actions of the AFSZIO, aims to increase the Mauritian capacities in identified areas such as the fight against drug trafficking and terrorism. The bilateral cooperation is also based on the numerous exchanges between the French units ( 2nd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment, buildings of the French Navy, aircrafts of the Air force) and Mauritian departments such as the Special Mobile Force, NCG, Helicopter Police Squadron and through instructions in different specific fields such as explosive ordinance proposal, the visit of ships at sea, and operational techniques. Mauritian forces also participate in the yearly exercise organised by the AFSZIO for the benefit of all the countries of the Indian Ocean Commission, of which the last edition, Papangue 2018 took place last April. Description 12 November 2018: A new wholesale market will soon be constructed at Wooton so that planters can sell their products directly to customers at a more competitive price. The Minister of Agro-Industry and Food Security, Mr Mahen Seeruttun, made this statement on 08 November 2018 during a site visit at Creve Coeur where he met garlic and ginger planters to take stock of their situation after the harvest. The Minister was accompanied by officers of the Food and Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (FAREI). Minister Seeruttun recalled that at present some 1 600 tons of garlic are imported annually from China. On that score, he underlined the need to increase the production of local garlic, which currently stands at about 100 tons per year, to 300 tons within two years. Mauritius, he stated, on the other hand, is almost self-sufficient in fresh ginger while imports mainly concern the dried condiment in the form of paste. The transformation of ginger to achieve added value is a niche that can be exploited by local producers, he added. He highlighted that, in a bid to encourage the garlic production, his Ministry has agreed to subsidise the price of seeds, following a request from some 100 planters. Mr Seeruttun further underscored that FAREI offers training sessions to planters who want to add value to their products in order to be more competitive on the market. With regards the lack of manpower, the Minister explained that planters can benefit from schemes to acquire small equipment to facilitate their work or resort to foreign labour. Refresh Your Values in Cyber-Space Pledge Personal Online Integrity Seek Trusted Accountability Apply Helpful Technology Balance Online and Offline Life Practice Humble Authenticity Become a Cyber-Ambassador for Good "It happens every day. Debra, a junior at a prestigious Ivy League university, needs better grades. She downloads and submits someone elses research.Frank, a respected business man, plugs a pen drive into his work laptop. Within seconds hes viewing inappropriate material and downloading copyrighted movies.April and Sara, two twelve-year-old girls from Kansas are pretending to be twenty-something valley girls. They think they are chatting with the interesting nineteen-year-old hunk from Oregon in the picture. In reality, their online friend is a forty-three-year-old man who lives nearby.Abigail, a lonely mom, desperately misses her traveling husband. After stumbling across an old boyfriend online, her catching-up has become frequent flirting.What do all these people have in common? Each started in one part of cyberspace and ended up in another. Their online activities began with good intentions, but somehow things went astray. All of them underestimate their predicament. One by one, each will face serious consequences.Scenes like these are repeated millions of times each day around the world. How did they get to that point? What are the long-term impacts?Are you next?The above quote is taken from the opening chapter of my first book: published by Bravos Press (Baker Publishing House) in November 2008. This blog takes a look back over the past decade-plus, including more recent online developments regarding trust, integrity and personal online life.Back in 2004-2005, while running Michigan governments enterprise cybersecurity program as the first CISO in the state, I started to see unnerving trends in cyberspace that went well beyond stopping identity theft, data breaches or other cybercrimes that were the main focus of my day job. Indeed, these headline problems were actually masking other complicated online challenges affecting each of us daily at home and work.Before most cyberpros were talking about online reputations or brand damage, before insider security threats were a big deal to many enterprises, before Microsoft or Amazon or Facebook or other social media sites honed detailed profiles to target each of us with ads or influence our Internet actions, I became concerned about how our online experiences were no accident. Tempting the click began in the 1990s for advertisers, but something more was happening.I coined a new term, integrity theft (that never took off), which I defined as tempting people to do wrong or go places online that violated their core values and beliefs.What is 'integrity theft?'Everyone is aware of the dangers associated with identity theft. Integrity theft is similar. But rather than your money or personal information being at risk from unseen hackers, it is your reputation, your career, or your important relationships that are threatened by online temptations and virtual actions. As we surf the Internet, we are offered intriguing images, videos, and other content that vie for our thoughts, dreams, time and money. We are enticed to act against our professed values and beliefs. While identity theft and integrity theft are both tragic, it is easier to repair your credit history than your reputation.After the book was released, I was asked related questions about ethics online for well-meaning Web users in this online interview about the problems I was seeing. I expressed my views that the Internet provides an unlimited number of new possibilities in both positive and negative directions at the same time. People rename unethical behaviors in cyberspace. Plagiarism becomes copying text. Stealing becomes downloading files. Lying becomes protecting yourself. As these terms are inappropriately merged together, the lines between right and wrong become harder to recognize.Even as global cybercrime, hacking and the impact of data breaches has grown dramatically, the challenges faced by families have also grown regarding integrity theft. The Internet was (and still is) an accelerator for good and evil. The book covered a variety of topics including filters, online deception, cheating on the Web, how identity theft and integrity theft are partners in crime and how cyberethics impacts your business and career. After presenting core problems, the seven habits of online integrity are offered along with a potential new future.Virtual Integrity is now out of print, but used copies can still be purchased online.No doubt, some of my predictions were off - especially in the last two chapters. I underestimated the direction and power that companies Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and others would go regarding control of marketing and advertising. As brokers of online information, these Internet giants have tremendous power, and I believed that users would gain more privacy and ability to not be monitored. I also overestimated an individuals personal ability to truly surf your values and control what content is delivered.Here was a Baker Publishing Group book promo from 2008:This overall integrity theme has been highlighted by many others, like Amy Anderson in this Forbes blog on the importance of integrity in 2012:As trust has deteriorated online, the problems I identified in the book have become even worse. Many friends and colleagues who initially thought the ideas in Virtual Integrity went too far regarding online integrity norms and description of other cyber problems, now think I didnt go far enough.Later, I wrote a series of seven blogs formagazine on why security pros fail in 2010, and several of those items include cyberethics. One of those pieces asked the personal question: Are you an insider threat? Heres an excerpt:Oftentimes, security pros quietly think they are above Internet laws, company rules and regulations. As the cyber police, bending (or breaking) a policy may seem acceptable, as long as no one catches you in the process. Sometimes, it may even seem to be required like the state police needing to speed to catch a car going 100 miles per hour. The trouble is that actions have consequences. This is a slippery slope. Or, more bluntly, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Many experts point to the need for better and more thorough training (which I support), but Darth Vader was well trained. (If youre not familiar with themovies or books, the talented, good Anakin Skywalker becomes the most evil and dangerous adversary of all Darth Vader.)The reality is that the smarter you are, the more you advance as a cyber security expert, the farther you go as a hacker, the greater your temptation will be. As you learn what the enemy does and how they do what they do (in order to stop them), the new ways to avoid detection, the secrets of the trade and the best ways to build and get around defenses, you will face a series of crossroads. Your ethics, values and beliefs will inevitably be tested. Headline stories like Edward Snowdens story and the hacking by foreign governments in elections has reduced online trust even further.Weve seen more cheating and widespread academic dishonesty on university campuses , and we still have split between consumers and industry on ethical use of data to target people subconsciously . Quote: Asked how ethical it is to use peoples identity, behavior or emotional data to target them subconsciously with ads, content and media, only 23% of advertisers and agency executives said it was somewhat or completely unethical vs. 57% of consumers, according to the results of two different surveys conducted recently on behalf of.In just this past week, I saw this blog from Brian Krebs about Bug Bounty Hunter Ran ISP Doxing Service: A Connecticut man whos earned bug bounty rewards and public recognition from top telecom companies for finding and reporting security holes in their Web sites secretly operated a service that leveraged these same flaws to sell their customers personal data, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Which brings us to solutions moving forward. What can be done in 2019 and beyond? (No, another book is not planned at least not yet.)First, I still believe that the goals outlined in Virtual Integrity remain the same. Practicing the seven habits of online integrity remain essential even more so in 2018 than in 2008 when the book was published. You can read the details behind each habit in the book.Those seven habits of online integrity are:Second, before you click, research where you are going online, what apps you are using, and what privacy and other settings are most appropriate especially for social media websites. As you traverse the Internet, know who you trust (and cant trust), where your data is online and think in advance about what you are willing to share online before situations arise. Visit the online websites and portals that allow you to surf your values and interact in ethical ways.Third, if you are doing well in these online areas, help others. There are so many people who are struggling in cyberspace right now. The last habit articulated of being a cyberambassador for good is an evolving challenge for all of us in different situations as we head into the 2020s.Many parents have given up trying to help their tween or teenage children navigate this Internet journey (now mostly "surfing" with smartphones) with integrity, which is a scary proposition. Nevertheless, I am convinced that if you do not fight for what you believe in and strive to surf your values in cyberspace, you have already lost the battle. Rather than making a difference for good, you will become an online victim of integrity theft.As I look back at the past 10 years online, there are too many online security and safety trends to mention quickly. Online and offline life continue to merge together as never before. Hopefully, my weekly blogs and annual round-ups of top cybertrends and stories can help in that regard.But as we head deeper into a world of autonomous vehicles, robots, drones, the internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence, cyberethics will continue to matter much more than most people think. Integrity must undergird the millions of good things we can do in cyberspace, and without trust our online services and relationships and interactions will eventually fail.Take some time to think more about your online integrity. How do your values match up with your actions in cyberspace at home and work? Are you surfing your values? How about helping others? No one is perfect, and we have all made mistakes. Nevertheless, tomorrow is a new day.Despite our problems, strengthening the seven habits of online integrity will apply your positive offline character traits to online life. (TNS) A problem is brewing in Sharon Citys Municipal Building that police Capt. Travis Martwinski called catastrophic, and if it happens, he told council at Wednesdays work session, we will all lose our jobs.The police servers are ready to crash, Martwinski said. Weve known for months ... well lose thousands of police reports, all the work on murder trials we need for court. If we lose this ... it would be catastrophic.Martwinski told surprised council members that he was angry that they would be discussing a remodeling of the citys website for $10,000 when the citys information technologist told them that a complete crash of the server could come any day.I know he said $30,000 would be for the top-of-the-line server, Martwinski said, qualifying his remarks by saying that he is not a computer specialist. Its crashing daily. Its just a matter of time.City Manager Bob Fiscus said that the police server is not their only problem.We have had technology problems in the building, Fiscus said. The early intervention grant hasnt come forward.The Early Intervention Program through the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development provides matching grant funds to help municipalities experiencing fiscal difficulties to develop comprehensive multi-year financial plans and establish short- and long-term financial objectives.Fiscus said the city has been waiting on the funds, which seem to be about 80 percent guaranteed, according to city finance Director Jason Tomko.Im not sure exactly how much this could cost, Tomko said. Anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000.But he told council that $20,000 is earmarked for a police server in the 2019 proposed budget under capital improvements.The city would have to match the EIP funds with 50 percent of its own funds.The data needs to be backed up, Martwinski said. About a year ago ... it crashed and we lost 5,000 files and they had to be manually re-entered.Police Chief Ed Stabile said the crash happened in mid-2016, during the previous chiefs tenure.If this crashes tomorrow, its catastrophic and were all getting fired, Martwinski said.A stunned Councilwoman Courtney Saylor said this is a big problem.I did not know anything about this. Thank you for letting us know, she told Martwinski. This is much more important than updating the website.I would rather wait as long as we need to on the website so we can get this taken care of, council President Frank Connelly said.Stabile explained that his predecessor, Gerry Smith, also doubled as the citys information technology specialist for free.By way of questioning, council found out that no one who works for the city knows the passwords for the entire citys system or how, if even, the police server is backed up. Fiscus said the city servers are backed up remotely.We need a professional person in here, Connelly said. We need to find a short-term solution.The police officers explained that a person who worked with Smith previously is still helping out with the computer problems free of charge. He also works at Sharon High School in their technology department.This isnt a simple solution, Stabile said. We need a professional IT person. (TNS) A $120 million engineering and science building was dedicated this week at Texas State University , ushering in what school officials say will be an expansion of research, innovation and teaching. Bruce and Gloria Ingram Hall , named for longtime benefactors of the university who contributed a portion of the cost, is the largest and most ambitious building project in Texas State history, officials said. The five-floor, 166,851-square-foot building occupies a full block at the intersection of North Comanche and West Woods streets on the San Marcos campus.Among its features is a "maker space" with 3-D printers, laser cutters, engravers, metal and plastic mills, welding gear, woodworking equipment and more. Passers-by will be able to observe some of the activity through broad windows. A collaborative learning center offers free walk-in tutoring in basic and advanced biochemistry, biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, engineering technology, math and physics. There are group and solo study areas as well as computer labs.Ingram Hall is the new home for the College of Science and Engineering's electrical engineering, industrial engineering and manufacturing engineering programs, and it also provides new space for biology, computer science, math and physics programs. Its opening frees up space in the Roy F. Mitte Building to be renovated for a civil engineering program, pending approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accrediting agency. The university plans to add a mechanical engineering program in the future."It is a welcoming space that supports learning and collaboration for both students and faculty," Christine Hailey, dean of science and engineering, said of Ingram Hall. "The new facilities and equipment greatly enhance our ability to offer innovative programs in teaching and research."Classrooms in the building, which was dedicated Thursday, have been in use since August, but full occupancy won't happen until spring.Bruce and Gloria Ingram donated $5 million toward construction, plus a gift of concrete worth $2 million from their company, Ingram Readymix Inc. Their $5 million donation leveraged a matching gift of $5 million from the state as part of the Texas Research Incentive Program. The Ingrams' donations to Texas State over the years, coupled with state matching funds, total more than $21 million, university spokesman Jayme Blaschke said.Bonds approved by the Legislature and bonds from the Texas State University System also underwrote Ingram Hall. (TNS) - The voracious Camp Fire that ran rampant through Butte Countys hilly towns last week has officially stamped itself as the most merciless in state history, and left forensics experts with a grisly chore in the weeks ahead finding and identifying those who perished.Officials reported Sunday night that the death toll has reached 29, making it the deadliest California fire in 85 years. The Camp Fire has also destroyed 6,700 buildings, making it the most destructive blaze in state history measured by loss of structures. Most of the damage and death occurred in the town of Paradise, just east of Chico, which was almost entirely consumed by flames on Thursday.The death toll, which increased by six on Sunday, equals the death toll from the 1933 Griffith Fire in Los Angeles as the worst mass-casualty wildland fire ever in the state. The Oakland hills Tunnel Fire in 1991 caused 25 deaths.The fire slowed some on Sunday, but officials said the risk of flaring remains high and winds are once again a threat overnight.As 4,000-plus firefighters dug battle lines in the hills, hoping to quell the fires advance amid windy conditions, ten mass casualty search teams from around the state stepped up the grisly task of sifting through razed homes and peering into charred vehicles looking for victims remains.All weekend, officials said they expected more bad news on the body count. We are bracing for more fatalities, Office of Emergency Services official Mark Pazin warned.What fires are burning now and where are they?As of Sunday evening, 228 residents of the hills remain unaccounted for days after the fire first rained embers down on the towns of Paradise, Magalia and Concow, igniting home after home, forcing frantic evacuations on narrow mountain roads. The Butte County Sheriffs Department has received more than 500 calls about missing persons, said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.A number of those unaccounted for may be in shelters, Honea said.Honea said search crews are concentrating first in areas that had extensive damage or where authorities have received reports of missing people. The search is complicated by debris, including rows of burned vehicles, left abandoned on roads.He said in some areas the fire burned so hot that there may be no human remains left, or just pieces of bone. No victim identifications had been formally released as of Sunday evening. Investigators were bringing in DNA testing equipment to help with the task.Some areas were still burning and unsafe for rescuers to enter Sunday, Honea said. His goal, he said, is to get answers as soon as possible to people who are missing loved ones.This is my community, he said.Tens of thousands remained evacuated Sunday night, including residents of Paradise, population 27,000, who jammed centers in Chico, Oroville and other areas, or stayed with relatives in the area.Evacuees told tales of receiving warnings via text alerts and rushing to their cars only to find themselves immediately in stalled traffic as thousands tried to escape town on its two main roads. Officials turned both Skyway and Clark Road into one-way routes into the valley, but cars nonetheless backed up for miles.Smoke-filled skies made it appear as though it were midnight. At times, escaping drivers ran a gauntlet of burning trees on both sides of the road.It was terrifying, Paradise resident Kelly Angel said. There were flames behind us. People were abandoning their cars and running. People were driving erratically because of the flames right behind us.She said it took her six hours to reach Skyway from her house, a drive that normally takes no more than eight minutes.I thought I was going to die, Angel said. I was on the phone with my dad and crying, telling him my car was going to burn up. It was terrifying.At Adventist Health Feather River Hospital, workers hurriedly shuttled patients into private vehicles to escape the oncoming flames. At one point, when it appeared the hospital might be consumed, doctors and nurses pushed hospital equipment out to an already scorched helicopter pad as a temporary triage center. The fire surrounded the area, but did not burn the main hospital.Paradise Mayor Jody Jones said the fire first ignited houses dotted throughout the town when it was still two miles away, throwing embers far ahead of its advance.City officials had an evacuation plan and even had practiced it once during a morning commute, but the plan was based on evacuating residents in sequence, one section of town at a time, Jones said. With the fire hitting all parts of town, the entire community was forced to evacuate at once, and the the roads were overwhelmed, she said.For the latest updates on Northern California's wildfires, sign up for breaking news alerts here. To support coverage of breaking news and more, click here for a digital-only subscription.The good news Sunday was that the fire had slowed its furious pace overnight, amid some gusting winds.Containment increased from 25 percent overnight. The cities of Oroville and Chico were on alert over the weekend as the fire briefly made a run toward them, but both had escaped damage as of Sunday night.The National Weather Service maintained a red flag or fire-spread warning Sunday night through early Monday morning, due to expected wind gusts up to 40 miles per hour. The growth is dry because the area has not had rain for 210 days, the agency said. Winds, though, are expected to die down Monday about 7 a.m.The winds will give (firefighters) a break, but no rain in sight, at least until Thanksgiving, meteorologist Johnnie Powell said.Fire officials said the primary goal continues to be cutting fire lines around the 111,000-acre blaze.On Sunday, Gov. Jerry Brown requested a presidential major disaster declaration to bolster the ongoing emergency response and help residents recover from the fires in Los Angeles and Ventura as well as Butte counties.At a press conference on Sunday evening, Brown linked the states deadly fire season to global warming, telling reporters that governments should be prepared to spend tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars in the next decade to reduce the risk of more tragedies.We have a real challenge here threatening our whole way of life, he said.It will be things like this and worse, he said. Thats why its so important to help communities and do prevention and adaptions where we can, he added.President Donald Trump stirred controversy earlier in the weekend by tweeting that California officials are to blame for poor forest management. He threatened no more federal payments if the state doesnt get its house in order.That led to a retort from the California governor: Managing all the forests everywhere we can does not stop climate change, and those who deny that definitely are contributing to the tragedies that we are witnessing and will continue to witness. The chickens are coming home to roost.The number of missing continued to be fluid and confused throughout the weekend. Officials, who received hundreds of calls, said many people reported missing have been located by deputies at shelters and evacuation centers.The missing people were on evacuees minds Sunday morning at the Oroville Nazarene Church, an evacuation center in Oroville.We lost a few people up there, said Desmond David, leaning against his Jeep Cherokee. We dont know who yet.The church parking lot was scattered with tents, mobile homes and men and women sitting by their vehicles beside their dogs. Many of the evacuees were wrapped in blankets and coats in the chilly breeze.David said he lost his home in a wildfire in 2008 and had been living ever since at a property in Concow. He suspects its gone since he could hear his vehicles exploding as he was racing around Thursday morning, frantically helping neighbors gather their belongings.Im trying to remember, and Im trying to forget, he said, recounting the possessions like his chainsaws and a his 83 Firebird that the flames consumed. But I get that life goes on.At least I got them, he said referring to his dogs, Summer and Shugo.Ian Moore, 28, of Chico, was at the intersection of Table Mountain Road and Highway 70 Sunday morning, waiting to get permission to drive a horse trailer into the disaster area with a large group of other trucks and trailers. They were all heading up to the Paradise area to rescue what animals they could find.He spent the day Saturday helping rescue 10 horses, two of which were burned.They were standing on coals, he said through the dust mask covering his mouth in the smoky air.Asked why hes sacrificing his weekend, Moore said: The best thing about America is empowering citizens to do what we can to help.Among the victims of the fire are nearly 100 emergency responders and others in law enforcement. Seventeen of Paradises police officers lost their homes, Jones said. Her own home burned to the ground.Every member of the town council lost their home, said Jones, a retired Caltrans executive who has lived in Paradise for 14 years. If you think about it too much, it can overwhelm you.She estimated that 90 percent of the towns houses are gone, and that about half of downtown has been destroyed. Still standing are Town Hall, the high school, the hospital, two of the three fire stations and two of the three grocery stores.She said that she and everyone she has talked to plans to rebuild, despite the ongoing threat of fires.It doesnt matter where you live, she said. You can be in harms way anywhere. I never want to live my life in fear.Town officials will work this week from temporary offices in Chico, Paradise town manager Lauren Gill said.As soon as we can get back in, the town will start assisting residents who wish to rebuild their homes, as well as helping businesses recover losses and possibly reopen, Gill said.Were really looking at a chance to rebuild our community even better and stronger and safer, and I think we have a lot of hopeful and strong and brave people in the community who are up to the task, she said.Michael Zuccolillo, a town councilman, would not let the fire ruin a town tradition Sunday.Paradise has been celebrating Veterans Day with the Paradise Parade of Flags since 1999. Typically about 1,100 flags line the Skyway. But the flags were destroyed when the Elks Lodge burned down.Zuccolillo went on social media asking for help to celebrate the holiday and about 30 flags were donated. He and others put the flags up Sunday morning along Skyway.I decided as a sign of unity and hope that wed still do the parade of flags, he said. Its a sign of showing some normalcy in a sea of chaos. And just to show the hope that we are going to rebuild.So far, an estimated 33 firefighters have lost their homes to the fire and that number is expected to grow, officials said. And an estimated 30 Butte Sheriffs Department employees lost homes as well.Tim Aboudara Jr., state service director for the International Association of Fire Fighters, said losing a home is devastating for everyone but it poses additional challenges for firefighters who find themselves in an unfamiliar role of needing help.Like so many people in these communities the loss is devastating to our members, said Aboudara, who is a Santa Rosa firefighter. And its particularly insulting because they have spent so much time fighting fire and protecting homes and to be out on the line and doing their job and not know the status of their family and the status of their home is very difficult. But they never back down.A steady stream of distraught pet owners looking for dogs and cats left behind Thursday in the frantic evacuation stopped at the VCA Valley Oak Veterinary Center in Chico on Sunday, leafing through a binder filled with pictures of the animals brought in for care.Animal control workers dropped off burned dogs and cats throughout the afternoon. Some pet seekers left with tears in their eyes, their search fruitless. Daren Helms held out hope. A cat that looked just like his a white 6-year-old snowshoe short-hair named Ignatius had been picked up by a firefighter and brought to the clinic, Helms said.The cat wasnt at the clinic Sunday evening but workers said Ignatius may have been transferred to an evacuated pet center at the Chico Airport, where less seriously injured animals were being treated. Helms and his family were heading that way Sunday hoping for a bright spot in whats been a dark three days since their home burned.I would trade my house for that cat. I really would. The house can be replaced, Helms said. He sleeps on my chest every night. ... I miss that.Sacramento Bee reporters Adam Ashton, Claire Morgan and Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks contributed to this report.2018 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.)Visit The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.) at www.sacbee.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. (TNS) State lawmakers want to expand broadband access throughout Georgia, particularly in rural areas.But to deploy that technology, utility companies often have to use space in public rights of way, which could be owned by a municipality or the state. A state Senate committee, which met in Gainesville Friday, is looking at ways to expand those utilities while working with utility companies, as well as local and state governments.State Sen. Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, said the state needs a more consistent system to address how utility companies use rights of way.We have 159 counties and 600 cities, and everybodys doing something different. First we need to address the immediate concerns, then address the long-term concerns with a standardized system that benefits municipalities, the counties, the vendors, and most importantly benefits the citizen, Miller said in an interview.Not having broadband access in an area can deter businesses from moving there and can make it more difficult for existing businesses to operate, Miller said.The committees third meeting was Friday, and the group, which has state senators, communications industry professionals and local government officials, will report its findings on or before Dec. 1.Utility companies including AT&T, Charter Communications and North Georgia Network were represented at Fridays meeting. Representatives said they sometimes hit obstacles when working with municipalities to install utilities in the rights of way.The committee came up with a few recommendations that they will discuss further before sending them to the state legislature.One recommendation was statewide legislation to streamline the process and make it more consistent between municipalities.Utility companies should also be encouraged to work together to co-locate their utilities, with power companies allowing small cell technology to be attached to their poles if feasible, the committee decided Friday.The message needs to be sent to everyone that we intend to embrace this technology in the right of way, and we expect all these partners to work together, state Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, said.The committee also said that the Georgia Department of Transportation should review its right-of-way fee schedule and structure.When I look at the DOT and the fees that they charge, they date back to 1985. In an urban area, youre going straight down a highway right of way. Theres a fee of $5,000 per mile. If youre going down a rural roadway. its $1,000 a mile, said state Sen. Frank Ginn, R-Danielsville, who is chairing the committee.Another recommendation, suggested by AT&T, asks the General Assembly to set a fee of no more than $100 per linear mile per year to use the right of way. Under current state law, companies that only provide broadband services or telephone companies without local telephone revenue for example, if no one in the area has a landline are subjected to GDOT, rather than local, fees. Past problems State funding (TNS) With any digital technology, there is a need to upgrade over time.The emergency communication equipment utilized by county 911 centers is no different.Also like other technology, the 911 centers' equipment isn't entirely immune to problems: Power outages, connectivity issues and damaged equipment can all interfere with callers' ability to reach the right people in an emergency."Every system is a little bit different," said Kevin Revere, Oneida County director of Emergency Services. And, "none of this is inexpensive."Beginning in January, Revere said, Oneida County will begin work on a backup 911 system in which phone lines will be fed to a temporary facility seated in the Oneida County Office building."In case of emergency outages, we have a plan," Revere said. "We'll be able to walk in (to the temporary center) and immediately answer emergency calls."The cost of this is blended in with other communication equipment upgrades, but is estimated to run around $500,000, Revere said.Madison County also recently announced a number of grants secured for emergency communications improvements.Among them was a $93,750 grant from the Department of Homeland Security's Statewide Homeland Security Program for funding for communication equipment, cybersecurity firewall and Emergency Operations Center capabilities.Also, a $782,596 grant from the state Department of Homeland Security for a Land Mobile Radio system and creation of the back-up 911 location at the New York State Police Troop D Headquarters is planned, according to information from Madison County Public Information Officer Samantha Field.On Nov. 1, Montgomery County experienced a problem with its 911 system that prevented AT&T wireless customers from calling 911 from their mobile devices."We are working with AT&T to get this problem resolved as quickly as possible," read a news release that day.AT&T customers were directed to call the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office's main number or drive to their nearest fire department if they needed emergency assistance.The Sheriff's Office did not immediately return calls this week seeking additional information about the resolution of that problem.In Oneida County, Revere remember a similar problems with an unusual twist.In August, mice chewed through phone lines, causing Verizon customers not to be able to contact the local 911. At that time, the 10-digit phone numbers for local police departments that were forwarded to the 911 center were not working.Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol, however, noted that local outages don't happen often, and there are plans in place in the event of a problem.Comment from AT&T and Verizon were not available in time for this report.In mid-October, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced $45 million in state grant funding spread across the state for emergency communications, helping municipalities expand their emergency response capabilities to enhance public safety operations."Emergency communications are vital to ensuring the safety and well-being of New Yorkers," Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a news release. "In addition to state grants provided for county dispatch operations, this funding will further improve emergency response by enhancing communication networks in counties across the state. We're making sure that municipalities have the technology they need to improve emergency systems and operate efficiently." (TNS) An Amazon Echo speaker with the Alexa voice assistant may be a key witness in a brutal 2017 double murder in New Hampshire.A judge has ruled that investigators can examine recordings made by the speaker in connection with the stabbing deaths of Christine Sullivan and Jenna Pellegrini at a Farmington home. Timothy Verrill is accused of first-degree murder, and faces trial after pleading not guilty.Prosecutors believe there are recordings relating to Sullivan's murder and removal of her body that could be found on the server maintained by Amazon."As part of the normal functioning of an Echo electronic device activated either intentionally or accidentally by 'wake up words,' audio recordings are made of the moment when the device is activated," Senior Assistant Attorney General Geoffrey Ward wrote in October, according to the Union Leader newspaper.A judge sided with prosecutors on Friday."The court directs Amazon.com to produce forthwith to the court any recordings made by an Echo smart speaker with Alexa voice command capability, FCC ID number ZWJ-0823, from the period of January 27, 2017 to January 29, 2017, as well as any information identifying cellular devices that were paired to that smart speaker during that time period," Strafford County Superior Court Presiding Justice Steven Houran said.Amazon dropped its objection to a search warrant last year after a suspect, who owned the speaker, agreed to release the information.The 48-year-old Sullivan and the 32-year-old Pellegrini were found dead in the backyard of the home. Pellegrini was stabbed 43 times and Sullivan was stabbed eight times and her skull was fractured, according to WMUR.Sullivan lived in the house with boyfriend Dean Smoronk. General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam and President Nguyen Phu Trong joins a great national solidarity festival in Dur Kmal commune, Krong Ana district of Dak Lak (Photo: VNA) Dur Kmal, which was a revolutionary base in the resistance war against the US, is home to nearly 7,500 people from seven ethnic groups, 50 percent of whom are minorities. In 2000, the commune received the title of Hero of the Peoples Armed Forces. So far, the majority of local residents have accessed to sanitary toilets, clean water and power services. The ratio of poverty in the locality has been reduced to 11.1 percent. At the festival, which marked the 88th founding anniversary of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, the leader expressed his delight as the local community has promoted the heroic tradition, continuing to implement the Partys policies and directions with great outcomes, especially in socio-economic development, culture, education and new-style rural building, thus improving locals living conditions. He lauded the solidarity and mutual support of the local community in escaping poverty and improving infrastructure system as well as locals incomes. The leader declared that the Party and State always give optimal conditions for localities to develop through providing resources, experiences and supporting them in personnel training and science-technology application. Highlighting the significance of fostering the national great solidarity bloc, the leader expressed his belief that with strong unity, Dur Kmal will reap more successes in all fields. On the occasion, Party General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong presented gifts to outstanding households who have showed goof performance in the movement of solidarity in building new-style rural areas and civilized urban areas. The Vietnam Fatherland Fronts Central Committee also offered presents to policy beneficiaries in the commune. Earlier, on November 10th, the Party and State leader worked with the provincial Party Committee on the mid-term results in implementing the provincial Party Organisation Congresss resolution for the 2015-2020 tenure. So far, Dak Lak has shown strong performance in economic development with growth of 7.8 percent per year. The provinces agro-forestry-fisheries sector recorded the highest growth in the region, at 6.2 percent. Meanwhile, 40 out of 152 communes and one out of 15 districts have finished the new-style rural building programme. As many as 99.1 percent of children under five years old have accessed pre-school education, while 98.9 percent of communal healthcare facilities have met national standards. Underlining the strategic position of Dak Lak in the Central Highlands region, the leader hoped that the Party Organisation, administration and people in the province will continue fostering their solidarity to complete all 19 targets set in the resolution. He reminded the locality to strengthen friendship and cooperation with Mondulkiri province of Cambodia, while giving proper solutions to unplanned migration, focusing on forest protection and promoting its advantage and strength in forestry. The leader asked Dak Lak to prepare personnel plans as the 2015-2020 tenure is nearly over. The province should enhance collaboration with regional localities and ministries in economic development, while paying more attention to Party building and anti-corruption, making the province a development centre of the Central Highlands region, he stressed. Also on November 11th, Politburo member and Standing member of the Party Central Committees Secretariat Tran Quoc Vuong attended a national great solidarity festival in Dong En residential area of Kim Binh commune, Chiem Hoa district of northern Tuyen Quang province. A similar festival took place in Kinh Cau hamlet, Kim Hoa commune, Cau Ngan district of Mekong Delta Tra Vinh province with the participation of Politburo member and Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh city Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan. Politburo member and Deputy Minister of National Defence Gen. Ngo Xuan Lich joined in the festival in village 6, Chinh Ly commune, Ly Nhan district of northern Ha Nam province the same day. Earlier on November 10th, Standing Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly Tong Thi Phong joined locals in Ba Vi commune, Ba Vi district of Hanoi in their unity festival./. Chase Carey insists that plans for a grand prix in Miami have not been scrapped. In late September, the Miami city commission voted to indefinitely defer the plans. Instead, F1 owner Liberty Media has announced a new grand prix in Vietnam for 2020. That is despite Bernie Ecclestone telling Germany's RTL that, prior to him being ousted as F1 chief executive, he chose against the Vietnam plans. "I did not want to have a grand prix in an area where we already have very good promoters," Ecclestone said. Carey says he has not given up on Miami. "The plan is to have a second race in the US," he is quoted by Speed Week. "But we are not just dealing with Miami, even if we are convinced that it would be a great project. "The negotiations are going on. When it comes to street circuits there are many interests that need to come together and it takes time. "But the (Miami) fan festival helped. Everyone thought the event was great. It was a positive step towards the race," Carey added. At the same time, some more traditional races on the calendar - including Silverstone, Monza and Hockenheim - remain in doubt for the future. "We want to keep the races with a long history," F1 commercial boss Sean Bratches is quoted by RTL. "They are important for the sport and for the fans. "But in terms of race locations, nothing in this sport is unchanging. We are a business after all." However, to get the preferred Miami project off the ground, Carey admitted that the way the promoter pays the annual fee could be tweaked. "We will not turn the model upside down," he vowed. "But if the return justifies the risk, let's look at it." (GMM) Max Verstappen has found support from within his team for his behaviour after the Brazilian grand prix. The Dutchman was sentenced to two days of FIA community service after physically shoving Esteban Ocon in the post-race driver weighing area. The pair clashed while Verstappen was leading the race and Force India's Ocon was unlapping himself. "It's outrageous that an inferior driver with a Mercedes contract knocks the race leader off the track and receives only a ten second penalty," said Red Bull official Dr Helmut Marko. "The desperate Mercedes driver who has been promised a seat for 2020 cost us a win," he charged. "Do I personally want to talk to him? I do not talk to idiots. I just say that Ocon was lucky that Jos (Verstappen) was not there too," he is quoted by the Austrian broadcaster ORF. Marko says Frenchman Ocon is clearly campaigning hard for a 2020 Mercedes cockpit, but has "been an idiot since Formula 3". Force India boss Otmar Szafnauer defended Ocon, saying Verstappen should have been more circumspect. "Why is Hamilton a five-time champion? Because he is not only fast, but smart," he said. Hamilton himself called it a "racing incident" but said it is natural that "go-getter guy" Verstappen's aggressive on-track style will "bite you every now and then". As for Marko's accusations that the Ocon incident is related to his whereabouts for 2020, Toto Wolff said he will "not go down to Helmut's level". Szafnauer called it a "conspiracy theory". Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, however, thinks Ocon was lucky to escape without a black eye. "I think Max was very restrained," he is quoted by Brazil's Globo. "It cost him a victory. "This goes back to their karting days, but to be very honest with you, without justifying violence of course, Esteban was lucky to escape with a shove." (GMM) The CDC isnt advising against eating turkey. Photo: Davies and Starr/Getty Images Just in time for Thanksgiving, the Centers for Disease Control and public health officials have linked a multistate outbreak of salmonella to raw turkey products. The outbreak was first reported in July. Since then, 164 people in 35 states have reported being infected by the drug-resistant strain. More than a third of those infections have happened in California, where 63 people have been hospitalized. A single death has been reported in California. While officials have pinned the outbreak on turkey, they have not yet identified a supplier as a source of the salmonella. The strain is present in both live turkeys and raw turkey products, which could mean that its widespread in the industry. The Department of Agricultures Food Safety and Inspection Service is monitoring the outbreak, and the CDC has reached out to industry representatives. However, the CDC has not advised against eating turkey or selling raw turkey. Only that the meat be handled carefully and cooked thoroughly. News US, Australia, UK sign key deal in nuclear sub alliance It is the first agreement on the technology to be publicly signed since the three countries announced in September the formation of a defence alliance, AUKUS, to confront strategic tensions in the Pacific where China-US rivalry is growing. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc presents the first-class Labor Order to VietinBank at the ceremony marking its 30th founding anniversary (Photo: VNA) At a ceremony held in Hanoi on November 11th to celebrate VietinBanks 30 years of construction and development, PM Phuc also suggested the bank invest more in research and development (R&D) and human resources, and enhance the quality and diversify financial-banking services to meet customers demand. The government leader praised VietinBanks achievements over the past three decades and recommended it continue making efforts for self-improvement. He took this occasion to urge the entire banking sector to ensure its lending capacity for important fields of the national economy like agriculture, high-tech industry, export, and supporting industry, while backing the development of startups and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Le Minh Hung said the most important goal set for VietinBank towards 2020 is to become the biggest and most effective bank in Vietnam and is able to compete with major banks in the region. Le Duc Tho, Chairman of VietinBanks Board of Directors, said the bank will continue its restructuring process to diversify its business operations, promote its core values as well as boost quality, competitiveness, and IT application. On the occasion, PM Phuc presented to the bank the government's first-class Labour Order and emulation flag. Founded as a small state-run organisation in 1988, VietinBank has grown strongly and now is operating seven subsidiaries, 155 branches, and nearly 1,000 transaction offices nationwide. It has established two branches in Germany, one fully-funded bank in Laos and one representative office in Myanmar. From VND718 billion (USD30.78 million) in its early days, the banks total assets increased by 1,500 times to hit VND1.1 quadrillion (USD47.16 billion) in 2017. The same year, its outstanding loans reached VND840 trillion (USD36 billion), about 1,400 times higher than that recorded in its establishment period. Its annual pre-tax profits, meanwhile, grew 22 percent on average. During the past three decades, the bank contributed nearly VND37 trillion (USD1.59 billion) to the State budget and more than VND7 trillion (USD301 million) to charity and social welfare activities./. Too Few Doctors and Nurses for Veterans in Some Areas by Tim Henderson, Pew Foundation Stateline, November 7, 2018 As the nation prepares to honor its veterans Nov. 12, many veterans in rural areas and some cities still face long wait times for health care because there arent enough doctors, nurses and support staff to provide it. Almost 40,000 of the 335,000 positions in the Veterans Health Administration are vacant, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, which oversees the VHA. The VHA serves about 9 million veterans. The VHAs turnover rate is less than half the rate for the health care industry overall. However, a Stateline analysis of recently released federal figures shows the VHA has a severe vacancy problem in high-cost urban areas such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and in largely rural states, such as Montana and Colorado. Montana and Colorado have the highest state job vacancy rates at more than 20 percent, followed by Utah, Oklahoma and Maryland. At the other end, vacancies in Connecticut, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico and Rhode Island are less than 8 percent. There are nearly 40,000 job vacancies, mostly medical and dental workers, at Veterans Health Administration health centers around the country. As a percentage of filled jobs, the vacancy rates range from more than 20 percent in Montana and Colorado to 2 percent in Hawaii. In some ways, the challenges facing the VHA are the same ones facing the health care workforce as a whole, especially in rural areas like Montana, said Kristin Mattocks, a Montana native and associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who has studied VHA efforts to improve care for veterans. Nationally, job openings in the health care sector have nearly tripled to 1.1 million since 2010, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Most of the communities with shortages of health care workers are in rural areas, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. There are also shortages in Honolulu, Hawaii, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. As more doctors and other providers in the VHA and elsewhere have been retiring, theres more pressure on the remaining doctors to absorb more patients and speed up appointments. Now the pressure is put on physicians, which is probably driving some folks away, Mattocks said. The vacancy rates, detailed in a new report required by legislation Congress approved this year, can cause long wait times for appointments, create waitlists for artificial limbs and lead to unsanitary conditions. Most of the nearly 40,000 vacancies are for medical and dental staff such as doctors and nurses. Those professionals are hard to find and keep because VHAs hiring process is time-consuming and the pay is lower than in the private sector. And because there isnt sufficient support staff, many VHA doctors say they are frustrated by having to do more paperwork and even clean offices, federal audits have shown. In Colorado last year, the Denver Post found that the VHA postponed surgeries because it didnt have enough anesthesiologists. Understaffing led to dirty storage rooms and canceled surgeries for anesthetized patients at the VHAs flagship hospital in Washington, D.C. And veterans in Connecticut had a hard time getting appointments for counseling because four key jobs were vacant earlier this year. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, in a September hearing called the vacancy figures really staggering. Blumenthal added that leaders of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter had complained that care was held up at a Norwich, Connecticut, clinic because the local office lacked a director, a case manager, an outreach coordinator and a counselor. At the same hearing, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie also expressed alarm about the number of vacancies. And he said hiring for mental health centers such as the one in Connecticut is a priority. On its face it is staggering, Wilkie said. If we tried to fill all 40,000 wed never get where we need. We have to concentrate on, I think, four areas: primary care, internists, mental health workers and womens health. He added that this years Mission Act legislation, which President Donald Trump signed in June, will give him more power to raise pay and forgive student loans to attract more medical professionals. The agency has stepped up hiring in the past two years, Wilkie said, in response to a 2016 Government Accountability Office report that found that VHA lost an increasing number of employees each year between 2011 and 2015. In the five clinical occupations with the worst shortages, including physicians, registered nurses and psychologists, VHAs employee losses grew from about 5,900 in 2011 to about 7,700 in 2015. Voluntary resignations and retirements were the primary drivers. VHA remains fully engaged in a fiercely competitive clinical recruitment market, the agency said in a statement about the vacancy data. The VA did not respond to requests from Stateline for further comment. Staffing vacancies have contributed to recent scandals involving long wait times for care some veterans died while waiting for appointments and the falsifying of wait-time data to deflect scrutiny. Hiring woes continued into 2017, a GAO report said, in part because a federal hiring freeze ordered by Trump limited the agencys ability to hire doctors. Doctors were exempt from the freeze, but there werent enough personnel workers to recruit and hire them, the report concluded, and some were not well-trained to do the job. The shortage of trained recruiters undermines the VHAs effectiveness, the report stated, and impedes its ability to improve delivery of health care access to veterans. A 2016 report from the congressionally appointed Commission on Care found that VHA doctors and nurses were cleaning offices and doing paperwork because of inadequate numbers of support staff. The commission also detailed a scandal over employees falsifying wait times for service, and some deaths of veterans on waitlists. An understaffed Phoenix administration system struggled to meet a target of 14-day maximum wait times for appointments. The report pointed to staffing shortages and vacancies at every level. It also said VHA salaries arent competitive, and that the agency continues to use a talent management approach from the last century. Other reports have described the effects of those shortcomings. In Washington, D.C., the VA inspector general found conditions so chaotic that sometimes doctors had to borrow equipment from other hospitals during treatment, and surgery was postponed because equipment was discovered missing or broken after the patient was anesthetized. Employees told inspectors the problems were caused by a support staff shortage. U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, this fall called VHA staffing shortages the most critical issue facing the agency, saying the high rate of vacancies in Montana and elsewhere is hurting care for veterans. I continue to hear from veterans across Montana and elsewhere that vacancies and constant turnover in VA facilities impacts how quickly they can get appointments and prevents them from building quality doctor-patient relationships, Tester, who is running for re-election, wrote in a September letter to Wilkie. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington state, told Wilkie at the hearing that the fast-growing Seattle area has been particularly hard hit by service shortages. A clinic on the Kitsap Peninsula, west of Seattle, took years to approve and build and will likely be at capacity when it opens next year, Murray said. Nearly a quarter of the staff positions were vacant at VHA facilities in Washington, D.C., and Augusta, Georgia, as of July. But U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, the Georgia Republican who sponsored the Mission Act, said this fall that things seem to be improving. Ive gotten letters from my district, unsolicited, veterans who used to write me about how we werent worth anything because we couldnt get anything done, [now] thanking me for the efficient way the operation works now, Isakson said at the September hearing. Wilkie, who was confirmed this year, called the job vacancy data an important step in transparency but stressed that some vacancies are normal and that some represent new positions created to anticipate future growth. Also, Wilkie said, time to complete a specialist referral has fallen from 19 days in 2014 to about one day this year. The agency publishes current wait times for appointments, and some facilities with high vacancy-rates have long waits for appointments: The Augusta, Georgia, veterans hospital had a 34-day wait for primary care. Chillicothe, Ohios hospital, with one of the countrys lowest vacancy rates, had only a six-day wait. But average wait times are high even in some hospitals with low vacancies the Honolulu hospital has only about a 2 percent vacancy rate, the lowest in the country, but its average wait time 39 days is one of the highest. Thats still a considerable improvement from 2014 when it was the nations worst at 130 days, a statistic that prompted Hawaii lawmakers to call for a shakeup. An inspector general report in 2016 said the Honolulu facility hired more doctors and extended clinic hours to get most new appointments scheduled within 30 days. ---30--- Honolulu VA has the jobs filled--but its still not getting the job done: Honolulu VA Medical Center Among Worst 30% -- again (Reuters) Private equity firm Veritas Capital and hedge fund Elliott Management have agreed to acquire U.S. healthcare software maker Athenahealth Inc (ATHN.O) for $5.5 billion in cash, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday. To read this article: We arent talking about a small issue, because it has endangered civil aviation safety, he underscored during his weekly interview with YLE Radio Suomi on Sunday. Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre) has called attention to the importance of preparing for hybrid influencing in the aftermath of suspected interference with global positioning system (GPS) signals in Finnish Lapland. YLE on Friday reported that Air Navigation Services Finland (ANS Finland), the state-owned company responsible for managing the use of Finnish airspace, issued a so-called notice to airmen (NOTAM) due to widespread disturbances in GPS signals in Finnish Lapland. The warning was issued on Tuesday and lifted late on Wednesday. The disturbances have been linked to Trident Juncture, a military exercise organised in Norway by Nato. Norwegian authorities have indicated that similar disturbances in the country's airspace have likely been caused by Russia. Sipila on Sunday stated that it is indeed possible that the interference was carried out by Russia. He also reminded, however, that the investigation into the widespread disturbances has yet been completed. Lets just say that technology-wise its relatively easy to disturb a radio signal transmitted across an open space. Its possible that Russia was the cause of the disturbance; its known to have such capabilities, he said. The message to everyone involved in the military exercise is surely that [the country] has such capabilities. Sipila also revealed that similar interference has been detected in conjunction with a couple of earlier military exercises but assured that all stakeholders practise both how to conduct and respond to such interference. Jukka Tarkka, an independent political columnist, similarly reminded that the organisers of military exercises in all likelihood are prepared for GPS interference. If it hadnt been taken into account in planning the exercise, the party responsible for the interference did Nato a service. The defender must be able to take action also when faced with something unexpected. Its very likely that they had also prepared for interference. The only thing thats odd is if its effects werent communicated to civil aviation in advance, he wrote in his blog. Aleksi Teivainen HT Source: Uusi Suomi What is wrong with this government? Li Andersson, the chairperson of the Left Alliance, asked on Twitter. The Finnish government has found itself at the centre of a social media storm for proposing that the assembly act be amended to oblige the organiser of a public meeting to notify the police of the meeting at least three days, rather than six hours, prior to the meeting. It has unveiled one proposal after another to limit the basic freedoms of citizens without any real analyses of their consequences for civil rights and privacy protection. This is not the way to go. Andersson argued that obliging the organiser of a public meeting to notify the police of the meeting is excessive in, for example, circumstances where citizens want to express their views on a topical question. Antti Hakkanen (NCP), the Minister of Justice, responded to the controversy by reminding that the amendment seeks to ensure the authorities are able to secure the right of everyone to protest without the threat of disturbance or violence. The organisers of public meetings are currently required to notify the police of the meeting no later than six hours before the beginning of the meeting. The government highlights in its proposal that the nature of protests has changed in recent years, particularly following the proliferation of social media. Social media makes it possible to organise rather large public meetings, including demonstrations, on a relatively short notice. Counter-demonstrations can similarly be organised rapidly. Demonstrations typically provoke counter-demonstrations, and major differences of opinion can lead and have led to clashes between the groups, the proposal reads. It also reminds that the authorities and organisers of public meetings need sufficient time to discuss re-locating or re-scheduling a meeting if several meetings are to occur simultaneously at a particular location. Outdoor meetings in public spaces may also necessitate special traffic arrangements or other police measures. The short notification period has also created work management challenges for the police, as it has to be able to allocate a sufficient number of officers to secure a meeting, the proposal reads. The legislative proposal has been submitted to experts and other stakeholders for comments. 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe A signing ceremony of relationship between Cao Bang and Guangxi provinces residential areas. (Photo: baophapluat.vn) Under the program, diverse activities will be held, including talks; cultural exchange among border guard forces, local authorities and border people; joint border patrol; and the inauguration of the center on friendship exchange and trade and tourism promotion in Cao Bang province. An anniversary marking the 5 years of friendly relationship between Vietnamese and Chinese localities; joint practice on calamity and epidemic rescue in border areas; and a meeting to review 5 years of the program, will also be held. The northern province of Cao Bang has a border line of over 333 kilometres, with 634 marks, 3 main pairs of gates, 3 secondary pairs of gates, and one entrance bordering the Zhuang Autonomous Region. Over the past years, the provincial border guard has actively helped local authorities link residential areas along the border line, thus contributing to reinforcing the friendly relationship among border people, and firmly protecting national sovereignty and security. The establishment of relationships among residential areas aims to realize the Party and State policies on peoples diplomacy, while the signing of friendship documents shows the strong consensus among leaders of Cao Bang and Guangxi provinces, confirming peoples great role in protecting national sovereignty and security, and building a peaceful, friendly and cooperative border line for joint development./. Aerial photo taken on Nov. 9, 2018 shows the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Fan Jun) by Xinhua writers Liu Jie, Liu Xinyong and Zheng Xin SHANGHAI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The first China International Import Expo (CIIE) concluded on Saturday with sizable deals signed, signaling China's historic transition from an export powerhouse to an import nation. Deals for intended purchase of goods and services within a year totaled 57.83 billion U.S. dollars, Sun Chenghai, deputy director of the CIIE Bureau, told a news conference after the expo wrapped up. Deals for high-end intelligent equipment reached over 16.46 billion dollars, followed by 12.68 billion dollars of food and agricultural products, 11.99 billion dollars of automobiles, 5.76 billion dollars of medical equipment and health care products, 4.33 billion dollars of consumer electronics and appliances, and 3.37 billion dollars of apparel, accessories and consumer goods, Sun said, adding that the value of deals for services hit 3.24 billion dollars. The CIIE is a high-level expo that generates extensive significance at home and abroad and produces fruitful outcomes, Sun told reporters. FREE TRADE BUILDS SHARED FUTURE Like it or not, nobody can deny that we are living in a globalized world. At the CIIE, there was something for everyone -- sipping French wine, wearing Finnish jewelry, dressing up in U.S. smart sportswear, riding in Japanese new energy cars. Refusing globalization is like refusing the law of gravity. When the free trade system is under attack, protectionism is on the rise, and the seeds of economic instability and uncertainty are being planted. The CIIE musters support for free trade and injects certainty into the world economy. This type of event could facilitate the mission of building a community of a shared future for humanity, in which common development of all nations could be realized. Every country makes money, the wealth gap is bridged and all nations prosper. At the opening ceremony of the expo, Chinese President Xi Jinping underscored the role of economic globalization, saying that it is an irreversible historical trend and provides strong momentum for world economic development. The import expo has served as a platform to inspire cooperation in international free trade in unprecedented depth and width. It is not China's solo show, but rather a chorus involving countries from around the world. The first CIIE is a new propellant driving China's import agenda. In the next 15 years, China expects to import 30 trillion U.S. dollars worth of goods and 10 trillion U.S. dollars worth of services. Last year, China's total imports rose 15.9 percent to hit 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars. SWEET TASTE OF FREE TRADE "This Taurus machine has already been sold, but we still have many more..." reads a note on the 200-tonne milling machine from Waldrich Coburg, the largest product on display that has won extensive media coverage ever since the shipping from Germany to China began. media attention has paid off: The milling machine received an order from a Chinese private company at about 2.8 million euros (3.2 million U.S. dollars). "At the expo, we have a lot of delegations and interested visitors, and we are confident that we are going to sell more machines," said Sven Grosch, in charge of public relations at Waldrich Coburg's holding company -- Jingcheng Holding Europe GmbH. The sweet taste of free trade is shared across the expo's venue in the shape of a four-leaf clover. As of Friday, German manufacturer ZEISS signed contracts with a combined worth of more than 400 million yuan (57.7 million dollars), far exceeding the company's expectations. The U.S. firm Intuitive Surgical sold more than 40 of its da Vinci robotic-assisted surgical systems to Chinese buyers. Besides bringing companies from all over the world together with their potential buyers, the expo is also gathering worldwide consensus on supporting free trade and globalization. "China has made its stance against trade protectionism, with recent opening-up measures in the automobile industry," Zhang Kelin, deputy head of the China Machinery Industry Federation, said at a forum on the sidelines of the expo. Wider opening-up not only makes domestic manufacturers more competitive in the global arena and more dedicated to innovation, but also gives global brands more investment opportunities and a wider market, contributing to the inclusive growth of the global economy, Zhang said. The import fair, which will be held on an annual basis in the years to come, will serve as evidence of China's support for globalization and willingness to share growth opportunities with the world. SHARED PROSPERITY The CIIE has been the meeting point of over 170 countries, regions and international organizations, which include more than 30 of the world's least developed countries such as Afghanistan, Cambodia and Malawi. Two booths were provided gratis to each of the least developed countries to encourage broader participation. "This expo is a very great opportunity for Malawi to find an entrance into the Chinese market," said Clement Kumbemba, CEO of the Malawi Investment and Trade Center. Traveling in a delegation of 18 people, Kumbemba said they had much confidence in China's "enormous consumption" and "spending power." He regarded the import expo as "a quicker way to improve their people's livelihood." "When their products find themselves in the export market, more people in Malawi will have money in their pockets," Charles Onunaiju, director of Center for China Studies in Abuja, said, adding that the expo had been a demonstration of China's faith in free trade and globalization and that trade can genuinely offer a way out for the African continent and many other developing countries. "For Africa, there is no better opportunity to readdress the so-called imbalance in global trade. China is not just offering investment, infrastructure and financial support. It is now offering a market. The most important element in any meaningful development is the market," he said. China's imports from Africa hit 75.3 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 32.8 percent. The trade surplus went down 45.2 percent year-on-year to around 19.5 billion dollars, according to data from China's General Administration of Customs. (Xinhua reporters Zhou Rui and Chen Aiping contributed to the story.) (Video reporters: Jia Yuankun, Pan Xu, Li Haiwei, Shi Yiling, You Zhixin, Sun Qing, Chen Jie, Wu Xia; Video editors: Geng Linlin, Zhao Yuchao) 8 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. The event, which was co-organised by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and Barcelona Port Authority, aimed to offer an opportunity for the two sides enterprises to meet and seek business cooperation. At the conference, VCCIs Vice Chairman, Hoang Quang Phong, stated that Vietnam is pleased to welcome businesses from Barcelona to explore the Vietnamese market. Through the event, the two countries businesses sought cooperation opportunities, particularly in the fields of new and renewable energy, supporting industries and tourism, he added. President of the Barcelona Port Authority, Merce Conesa, stated that the port wished to cooperate with Vietnamese firms, particularly in logistics, for their development. Barcelona port is an advanced port with many maritime routes linked to Vietnam. The volume of goods between the two sides has increased at a rapid rate. Over recent years, Vietnam has been one of the main trading partners of Spain in ASEAN, with two-way trade reaching over US$3 billion in 2017. The two countries set a target of raising the trade turnover to US$5 in 2020. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. High School students in Pittsfield thanked each veteran in the audience during ceremonies at the World War I memorial. Pittsfield, North Adams Observe Veterans Days Robert Rhodes was the keynote speaker in Pittsfield. More photos are available here. PITTSFIELD, Mass. A parade marched down North Street Sunday afternoon as the city gathered to honor veterans of all wars. The annual Veterans Day parade and ceremony stepped off at 1 p.m. and concluded at the Veterans War Memorial on South Street. There the Berkshire Veterans Coalition was joined by city officials, residents, and veterans to recognize the day. Robert Rhodes served as the keynote speaker, reflecting on exaction who is a veteran. "He or she is someone who will do the duty that many will try their utmost to avoid. He or she will do the work of more than one man or woman. He or she will go places many have never heard of in defense of our cherished nation. He or she will willingly put themselves in harm's way if necessary. They will never quit or surrender unless something against impossible odds," Rhodes said. Rhodes was drafted to serve in the Army during Vietnam and served three tours there, and two more tours in Australian. He is well traveled and returning home he got involved in a number of veterans organizations. Rhodes said less than 1 percent of the population is currently serving or is a veteran. But yet, veterans are able to defend the country all over the globe. But yet, Rhodes said current soldiers returning are coming home with high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder. "The pressures, responsibilities, and expectations placed on our present-day personnel are gargantuan and beyond the imagination," Rhodes said. He said the enemies now have found ways to exploit an American soldier's emotional thinking. He said, for example, pets could be boobies trapped and a soldier will instinctively pick up the animal. So, Rhodes said, the military has worked had to train soldier not act so emotionally. "The military has not come up with a successful way to program a soldier's emotions back into him or her upon arrival home because it suits no military purpose," Rhodes said. Mayor Linda Tyer said it is the job of local officials to make sure those returning from war have everything they need. "Our job as leaders is to support our veterans when they return home. After they served our country on battlefields, on sea, and in the air, all over this globe, our job when they return is to make sure that they have health care, that they have housing, that they have access to education and opportunities for employment. As we thank and honor them today, there is work to do when we return to everyday life," Tyer said. Sunday was also the centennial of the armistice for World War 1. Tyer read a special proclamation to honor the anniversary and later bells were tolled to recognize it. The ceremony was the first for new Veterans Service Officer John Herrera. Herrera didn't give a speech. Instead, he called all of the veterans up to the front and then asked for the high school students to shake their hands, which they did. Herrera said it is important for the high school students, who may be the future veterans, to be able to meet World War 2 and Korean War veterans while they still can. The ceremony also recognized Arnold Perras as the veteran of the year. Perras was humbled by the award saying there are a lot of other people worthy of such an honor. But, it was still a meaningful award for Perras, especially given the timing. "This award for 2018 will always have a special meaning in my life. First, it is my 50th and my daughter's 25th wedding anniversary, which we recently celebrated together, being the 100th anniversary of the World War 1 armistice, and for the Red Sox winning the World Series," Perras said. The coalition also honored Parks and Open Spaces Manager Jim McGrath for his effort to preserve and maintain monuments in city parks, such as the one on South Street. Former Veterans Service Officer James Clark was also honored for his time in the position. North Adams Observes Veterans Day Superintendent of Schools Barbara Malkas and Vincienza Alicandri, this year's recipient of the Superintendent's Award. Alicandri with friends and family. PreviousNext Drury High Senior Presented With Superintendent's Award Alicandri with Mayor Thomas Bernard, left, Drury Principal Timothy Callahan and her family. NORTH ADAMS, Mass. Superintendent of Schools Barbara Malkas remembers the first time she met senior Vincienza Alicandri. It was a barbecue at Hancock Shaker Village and they chanced to sit down next to each other. "I then got schooled on exactly what needed to happen to promote our district and to promote Drury High School," she said. "By the end of our dinner, we had decided that Vincienza would be working on an internship of helping us to develop materials that we will be able to use in our future for recruitment purposes." Alicandri's motivation, eagerness to accept challenges and high academic standards were recognized on Wednesday when she was presented with the Certificate of Academic Excellence. She and her family attended the presentation. The award is made through the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents to the student who has the highest academic ranks and who has distinguished his or her self in the pursuit of academic excellence. Malkas says this annual School Committee meeting is the best one of the year because she gets to present the certificate and acknowledge the achievements of the district's best student. Alicandri, the daughter of Linh Brown, has taken eight Advanced Placement courses in addition to her internship with the community outreach coordinator. She also is editor of the yearbook, a student ambassador and a founding member of the after-school homework help club. Outside of school, Alicandri is also a mentor with 4-H, a volunteer with the Berkshire Food Project, an ambassador for the Berkshire Mountains Faerie Festival and has been selected to participate in the 1Berkshire Leadership program. Malkas said the Drury senior takes advantage of every opportunity that comes her way and goes far and above what is expected. She recently was selected for the Chang Chavkin Scholarship, which offers up to $15,000 a year toward a four-year college. She is considering either Barnard or Williams College and wants to major in psychology. "This is a young lady who I can only say I look forward to seeing where you go," Malkas said. "So please, whatever you're doing make sure you stay in touch with the superintendent's office." In other business, Malkas also reported on the completion of hte district's self assessment for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. "Our staff worked tirelessly in preparation for the review," she told the committee. "They appreciated we were very honest in the self-assessment. [The DESE representative] would be very curious to watch North Adams Public Schools over the next few years because he felt we were entering into an opportunity for growth." The self-assessment critically examined governance and leadership; district improvement plans and evaluations; curriculum and instruction; data assessment and implementation; student support; human resources and professional development; and financial and asset management. Each indicator was scored as "very well, well, somewhat well and not well at all" with examples of how the school district is addressing each. The evaluation team rated the district as well or somewhat well in categories and offered paths to overcome some of the challenges it sees. "On reflection of the standards and indicators and through discussion of ratings, the district could best be described as initiating and implementing many of effective practices identified," the assessment reads, pointing for example to hires in support services and curriculum development over the past few years. "The work is ongoing and we are only beginning to gain momentum toward achieving our goals." The school district has also been addressing its high-needs population by developing programs addressing learning and behavioral needs and implementing nutrition and food-scarcity programs like Breakfast in the Classroom, supper programs and free lunch. It's also pursuing more outside revenue through grant opportunities and using data to more closely inform student learning needs. The superintendent credited the work of the leadership team on the self-assessment. "It was because of the efforts of the people behind me we were able to get this done," she said, referring to the school principals and administrators seated along the wall. She anticipated the first draft would come back from DESE for review in four or five months. That could only be corrected for factual information before the report could be uploaded. Mayor Thomas Bernard, chairman of the School Committee, also thanked Central Office and leadership for getting all the documentation ready. "The benefit does not come from the report although that helps, but from the self-reflection," he said. "We know there's going to be findings because we identified ourselves where we need to improve." The committee also accepted a donation of $413 from St. John's Episcopal Church of Williamstown to Brayton School. In a communique to the committee, Principal Carolyn Wallace wrote that the parish has in the past donated backpacks and supplies for pupils, which has been appreciated. This particular amount will go toward items and supplies the children might need, such as clothes or toiletries. Quint Simon, head of Public Policy in Southeast Asia of Amazon Web Services (AWS), last week flew to Vietnam from the US to discuss the potential for Vietnam to develop its own digital economy in the context of Industry 4.0. At a workshop themed Unlocking the full potential of Vietnams digital economy in Hanoi, she surprised hundreds of participants by citing an AWS study which stated that Vietnam is one of the countries in the world that has the highest rise in expenditure for cloud computing, at 64% per year. AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies and governments. I believe that Vietnam will soon become a nation with a digital economy. Cloud computing is a favourite in Vietnam where many enterprises are using cloud for their performance, Simon said, explaining that using cloud means firms can completely protect their information without being stolen. For example, Amanotes, a fast-growing app publisher, currently has hundreds of millions of users. It is typical of Vietnamese firms with cloud computing, she continued. In another case, Masan is also using cloud to manage its stores in Vietnam. It has been a big trend that many Vietnamese agencies and enterprises are seeking our support in cloud applications. Jake Jennings, executive director of International and Regulatory Affairs of AT&T, an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in the US Texas, also said that he saw Vietnams great potential in developing a digital economy, because the countrys bright landscape for IT and cloud computing, as well as wide smartphone coverage. This will help Vietnam create many new jobs in the near future, Jennings said. Since 2007, AT&T has been boosting its presence in Vietnam. Currently it is co-operating with many firms in the country, including VNPT and Viettel. It is now exploring opportunities to expand its partner networks in the country. Harnessing disruption for further development According to Vietnams Ministry of Information and Communications, as of late June 2018, Vietnam had about 136 million mobile phone subscribers. Some 54.2% of the countrys population are using internet. Still, in terms of digital adoption, Vietnam currently shows both strengths and shortcomings. The World Banks Development Report 2016 on Digital Dividends ranks Vietnams Digital Adoption Index at 0.46 on a 1-point scale. While higher than the average of global lower middle-income countries, it is lower than the regional average. Internet penetration is 54%, and 40% of Vietnams population are social media users. These numbers are impressive, according to the World Bank in Vietnam. Ousmane Dione, World Bank country director for Vietnam, said that in order to forge ahead, or even leapfrog regional peers, Vietnam must upgrade the way its government functions. Three types of government relationships are critical: government-to-government, government-to-business, and government-to-citizens. Technologies can help in many ways if we can embrace them strategically to reverse potential disruptions to these relationships. Dione expressed his belief that a three-factor formula, or a tripod, is necessary for Industry 4.0 to really help Vietnam achieve its development aspirations: technologies, institutions, and people. Investing in research and development will be critical for Vietnam to join the frontiers of Industry 4.0. Made in Vietnam should be replaced with Researched and developed in Vietnam, Dione stressed. According to the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (Eurocham), Vietnam is catching the eyes of the world, with a strong inflow of foreign direct investment. Many foreign investors wish to invest in digital solutions in the country, which is now beginning to develop smart cities amid an expansion of urbanisation. Currently Vietnam, which is among the top 20 countries in the world having the most stable political climate, is ranked one of the top 10 nations in the world using Facebook the most. In the near future, Vietnam will deploy its 5G internet service and digitise many sectors in the economy. ICT and digital technology have been helping Vietnam develop strongly, said Eurochams co-chair Denis Brunetti, who is also president and head of Vietnam and Myanmar at Ericsson. For Vietnam, we estimate that 5G addressable revenues for operators can increase by up to US$1.1 billion by the year 2026, depending on where they are in the value chain. Its no surprise that 18% of this opportunity is coming from manufacturing, he said. According to Vietnams Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vietnam is striving for sustainable growth on the basis of improving the quality of growth and taking advantage of the opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to increase its labour productivity and competitiveness and move up the ladder in the global value chain. Vietnam is working to be one of the worlds top 10 biggest software and digital content outsourcing service nations, with about one million employees in the IT field by 2020, said Deputy Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son. As the result of a partnership with Big Y, a family-owned food retail company with stores across Western Massachusetts, schools in Berkshire County received 1,000 new books for school and classroom libraries. Biz Briefs: Big Y Helps Fund Books for North Adams, Pittsfield Elementary Schools Book donations As the result of a partnership with Big Y, a family-owned food retail company with stores across Western Massachusetts, schools in Berkshire County received 1,000 new books for school and classroom libraries. The six elementary schools benefiting from this generous donation included Silvio O. Conte Community School, Morningside Community School and Crosby Elementary in Pittsfield and Brayton Elementary, Greylock Elementary and Colegrove Park Elementary in North Adams. "Like schools in the Greater Springfield area, Berkshire County faces challenges increasing reading proficiency at the elementary level. That is why it has long been a goal of ours to expand our programming to towns like Pittsfield and North Adams," said Laurie Flynn, president & CEO of Link to Libraries. "Link to Libraries is incredibly fortunate to have a partner like Big Y that recognizes the life-changing impact books can have on the lives of underserved children. We are grateful for this generous donation. We hope that other local businesses and volunteer readers will consider joining our effort to get books into the hands of children who need them in Berkshire County." Principal Carolyn Wallace from Brayton Elementary School in North Adams said Big Y and Link to Libraries are "important community partners" for the school. "Students get excited about all of the new books in our library, but the personal connections that happen when Big Y employees visit our classrooms as readers, and the books they give to the students to take home for their home libraries, are priceless. Their message to our students is clear, reading matters," she said. Link to Libraries relies on three signature programs to inspire young readers, increase children's access to books and enhance the language and literacy skills of children of all cultural backgrounds. Link to Libraries is actively seeking out sponsors and volunteers in Berkshire County to participate in each of these efforts. First, the Business Book Link Program pairs a local business with a school in need, providing 400 new books to their library each year. As a part of this three-year partnership, employees are also offered the opportunity to participate as classroom readers once a month over the course of the school year. Second, the Read Aloud Program connects volunteer readers with third- and fourth-grade classrooms. Readers are given a set of books from which to read, as well as new books for students to keep at the end of each monthly visit. And third, through the Reading Any Place Program, Link to Libraries collaborates with local agencies, schools and other nonprofits to provide new books to homeless children from birth through grade seven. For information on how to join the Link to Libraries team, contact Laurie Flynn by email or by phone at 413-654-7241. McDonald's grant Managers of the Bennington McDonalds Store 22198 joined with leaders of the Learning Tree Child Care Center, part of Southwestern Vermont Health Care in Bennington, in recognition of the center having received a $4,423 grant for new classroom furniture from the Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Capital Region. Beneficiaries of RMHC grants are local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that have demonstrated an ability to respond to the needs of children and their families in a definitive, hands-on manner, yielding measurable results. The center applied through contacts at the local McDonald's restaurant. New classroom furniture that was acquired through the grant includes a puppet theater and gated play areas. Winter Farmers Markets Berkshire Grown's Winter Farmers Market in Great Barrington features the freshest locally grown and produced foods and gifts, including fruits, vegetables, cheeses, meats, breads, preserved foods, plus grilled sausages, egg sandwiches, and lamb kebabs. These events take place on the 3rd Saturday of the month, November through April: Nov. 17, Dec. 15, Jan. 19, Feb. 16, March 16, and April 20. All winter long shoppers can find their favorite farmers, food producers and craft vendors at the Monument Valley Regional Middle School from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. In Williamstown, Berkshire Grown's Holiday Farmers Market will be housed in two different locations. On Sunday, Nov. 18, the market will fill the gym at the Williamstown Elementary School, 115 Church St.; on Dec. 16, the market will move to the big red barn at Sweetwood of Williamstown, 1611 Cold Spring Road. While the location is different from past years, shoppers will still be able to find their favorite farmers and vendors on each of the Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The winter markets will feature fun activities for kids, food for lunch, and live music. Admission is free and SNAP/EBT is accepted at all markets. Thanks to our supporters at the Berkshire Food Co-op and Mountain One, SNAP dollars will doubled at all of the Berkshire Grown November and December Holiday Farmers Markets. 'Museum Store Sunday' The Clark Art Institute announces its participation in Museum Store Sunday, an international shopping and cultural campaign created by the Museum Store Association, on Sunday, Nov. 25 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. In keeping with this year's theme, "25 on the 25th," visitors receive 25 percent off all purchases made in the Clark's museum store, including jewelry, home decor, gifts, and fine art books. Woman of Achievement Dinner Northern Berkshire BPW will host a Woman of Achievement dinner honoring Collen Janz for her work in local museums and civic organizations, on Wednesday, Nov. 28, at the Williams Inn. Proceeds from the event will help fund NBBPW's Margaret E. Lanoue Scholarship. The cost of the meal will be $30 per person. Meal choices are roasted strip loin of beef with merlot demi-glace or crab meat stuffed sole with red pepper coulis. To make a reservation, contact Pauline Davis at 413-663-7844 by Nov. 21. Networking begins at 5:30 p.m. and is followed by dinner and the program. SVMC cardiology certification Southwestern Vermont Medical Center Cardiology has again achieved the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission's accreditation for adult transthoracic and adult stress echocardiography. SVMC, which includes SVMC Cardiology, is one of only five facilities in the state that is accredited in adult stress echocardiography. Accreditation by the IAC means that SVMC Cardiology has undergone a thorough review of its operational and technical processes by a panel of experts. The accreditation is granted only to those facilities that are found to be providing quality patient care in compliance with national standards through a comprehensive application process, which includes a detailed case study review. Physicians and technologists in both SVMC Cardiology and the hospital's echocardiography department submitted their work for evaluation. The process includes meeting quarterly requirements and reapplying every three years. The service was first accredited in 2014. This most recent accreditation will last through 2022. In addition to being accredited, each of the doctors who read echocardiograms at SVMC are board- certified by the National Board of Echocardiography. Nonprofit board workshop The Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires presents a workshop on board financial management tools led by John Gillespie, a nonprofit and social enterprise practice leader at Charles River CFO. The workshop will be held at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge on Nov. 28 from 9 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. to provide nonprofit leaders and board members with tools and analytic techniques to enhance their knowledge of financial management for nonprofit businesses. The workshop is appropriate for board chairs, treasurers, executive directors, board bembers, COOs and CFOs. Topics include understanding financial statements, cash flow management, strategic budgeting, program profitability analysis and operating reserves. The cost is $35 for NPC members and $45 for non-members; register online. Charles River CFO delivers and manages interim CFO and outsourced accounting services for client engagements in the nonprofit and social enterprise sectors. Gillespie has been featured in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, NonProfit Times, and The Wall Street Journal among others. IDF Soldier Critically Hurt When Missile Strikes Bus The Fellowship | November 12, 2018 IDF Soldier Critically Hurt When Missile Strikes Bus Multiple Israelis have been injured from the barrage of terrorist rockets fired from Gaza today more than 100 projectiles in all so far. But The Times of Israels Judah Ari Gross tells us about one who is in critical condition a young IDF soldier who was standing next to a bus struck by an anti-tank missile: The barrage began after an anti-tank missile was fired from the Gaza Strip at a bus that was parked at the Black Arrow memorial site in the Shaar Hanegev region of southern Israel, a few hundred meters from the Gaza border. The bus caught fire after the projectile hit it. One soldier, 19, who was standing nearby was critically injured. The driver of the bus, 25, was also taken to the hospital after he suffered a panic attack, medics said. The 19-year-old Israeli was taken to Beershebas Soroka Medical Center in unstable condition, with injuries throughout his body, medics said Please pray for Gods hand of healing over this young man, as well as His hand of protection over all of Israel. Learn how The Fellowship helps secure Israel and her people year-round. Brennan and Clapper Should Not Escape Prosecution Recently declassified documents show that the former CIA director and former director of national intelligence approved illegal spying on Congress and then classified their crime. They need to face punishment, writes John Kiriakou. By John Kiriakou November 12, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the longtime chairman of the Judiciary Committee, made a dramatic announcement Nov. 1 that should lead to jail time for both former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. As reported, but widely overlooked amid the media focus on the midterm elections, Brennan ordered CIA hackers to intercept the emails of all potential or possible intelligence community whistleblowers who may have been trying to contact the congressional oversight committees, specifically to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Hacking the Senates computer system constitutes illegal use of a government computer, illegal espionage and wire fraud. Brennan and Clapper, in 2014, ostensibly notified congressional overseers about this, but in a way that either tied senators hands or kept them in the dark. They classified the notifications. As a result, Grassley knew of the hacking but couldnt say anything while senators on neither the Intelligence or Judiciary Committees didnt know. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Its a felony to classify a crime. Its also a felony to classify something solely for the purpose of preventing embarrassment to the CIA. For all of thisfor the hacking in the first place, and then the classification of that criminal deedboth men belong in prison. This kind of over-classification is illegal, but few Americans know that because this law is not enforced. The Justice Department has never brought over-classification charges against a U.S. spying authority. But this would be a good place to start. Brennan has flouted U.S. national security laws with impunity for years. It was Brennan who, as CIA director, ordered CIA computer hackers to break into the computer system of the Senate Intelligence Committee while its investigators were preparing a declassified version of the Senate Torture Report Executive Summary. It was also Brennan who maintained President Obamas kill list of people designated for assassination, including American citizens, without the benefit of due process. Clapper infamously denied to Senator Ron Wyden in an open hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee that NSA was spying on American citizens. When he was finally challenged on his lie, he said that saying no was the least dishonest response he could think of. There is a strong public interest in [the] content [of the two notifications], Grassley said, adding their content should be released in their entirety. What sources or methods would be jeopardized by the declassification of these notifications? After four-and-a-half years of bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Brennan and Clapper, we finally have the answer: None. Grassley began trying to get these two notifications declassified four years ago. The Iowa senator said that during the last two years of the Obama administration the Intelligence Community Inspector Generala monitoring entity established in 2010repeatedly ignored his requests to release the information. This time, after the exit of the Obama people, the request was approved. There is hyper-partisan sensitivity around Brennan, who has publicly denounced Trump and is widely understood to be a leading source in the spy community pressing the idea that the Trump colluded with the Russians interference in 2016 the elections. Partisan passions, however, should have no place in all this. What should matter is the law and the efforts by these two men to place themselves above it. The CIA is required by law to inform congressional oversight committees whenever one of its officers, agents, or administrators breaks the law, when an operation requires congressional approval because it is a covert action program, or whenever something happens at the CIA thats potentially controversial and the agency wants to save itself the embarrassment of explaining itself to Congress later. I could see no reason to withhold declassification of these documents. Grassley said. They contained no information that could be construed as [betraying] sources and methods. Brennan was the leading force behind the prosecutions of eight national security whistleblowers during the Obama administration, almost three times the number of whistleblowers charged under the Espionage Act by all previous presidents combined. Indeed, I was one of the Obama Eight. I was charged with five felonies, including three counts of espionage, after I blew the whistle on the CIAs torture program. Of course, I hadnt committed espionage and those charges were eventually dropped, but not until I had agreed to take a plea to a lesser charge. I served 23 months in a federal prison. Brennan and Clapper think the law doesnt apply to them. But it does. Without the rule of law, we have chaos. The law has to apply equally to all Americans. Brennan and Clapper need to learn that lesson the hard way. They broke the law. They ought to be prosecuted for it. John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Acta law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administrations torture program. This article was originally published by "- Consortium News " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Eric Margolis November 12, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - We are now before the 100th anniversary of World War I, the war that was supposed to end all wars. While honoring the 16 million who died in this conflict, we should also condemn the memory of the politicians, officials and incompetent generals who created this horrendous blood bath. Ive walked most of the Western Front of the Great War, visited its battlefields and haunted forts, and seen the seas of crosses marking its innumerable cemeteries. As a former soldier and war correspondent, Ive always considered WWI as he stupidest, most tragic and catastrophic of all modern wars. The continuation of this conflict, World War II, killed more people and brought more destruction on civilians in firebombed cities but, at least for me, World War I holds a special horror and poignancy. This war was not only an endless nightmare for the soldiers in their pestilential trenches, it also violently ended the previous 100 years of glorious European civilization, one of mankinds most noble achievements. Ive explored the killing fields of Verdun many times and feel a visceral connection to this ghastly place where up to 1,000,000 soldiers died. I have even spent the night there, listening to the sirens that wailed without relent, and watching searchlights that pierced the night, looking for the ghosts of the French and German soldiers who died here. Verduns soil was so poisoned by explosives and lethal gas that to this day it produces only withered, stunted scrub and sick trees. Beneath the surface lie the shattered remains of men and a deadly harvest of unexploded shells that still kill scores of intruders each year. The spooky Ossuaire Chapel contains the bone fragments of 130,000 men, blown to bits by the millions of high explosive shells that deluged Verdun. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The town of the same name is utterly bleak, melancholy and cursed. Young French and German officers are brought here to see firsthand the horrors of war and the crime of stupid generalship. Amid all the usual patriotic cant from politicians, imperialists and churchmen about the glories of this slaughter, remember that World War I was a contrived conflict that was totally avoidable. Contrary to the war propaganda that still clouds and corrupts our historical view, World War I was not started by Imperial Germany. Professor Christopher Clark in his brilliant book, `The Sleepwalkers shows how officials and politicians in Britain and France conspired to transform Serbias murder of Austro-Hungarys Crown Prince into a continent-wide conflict. France burned for revenge for its defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Britain feared German commercial and naval competition. At the time, the British Empire controlled one quarter of the worlds surface. Italy longed to conquer Austria-Hungarys South Tyrol. Turkey feared Russias desire for the Straits. Austria-Hungary feared Russian expansion. Prof Clark clearly shows how the French and British maneuvered poorly-led Germany into the war. The Germans were petrified of being crushed between two hostile powers, France and Russia. The longer the Germans waited, the more the military odds turned against them. Tragically, Germany was then Europes leader in social justice. Britain kept stirring the pot, determined to defeat commercial and colonial rival, Germany. The rush to war became a gigantic clockwork that no one could stop. All sides believed a war would be short and decisive. Crowds of fools chanted On to Berlin or On to Paris. Few at the time understood the impending horrors of modern war or the geopolitical demons one would release. The 1904 Russo-Japanese War offered a sharp foretaste of the 1914 conflict, but Europes grandees paid scant attention. Even fewer grasped how the collapse of the antiquated Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires would send Europe and the Mideast into dangerous turmoil that persists to our day. Or how a little-known revolutionary named Lenin would shatter Imperial Russia and turn it into the worlds most murderous state. This demented war in Europe tuned into an even greater historic tragedy in 1917 when US President Woodrow Wilson, driven by a lust for power and prestige, entered the totally stalemated war on the Western Front. One million US troops and starvation caused by a crushing British naval blockade turned the tide of battle and led to Germanys surrender. Vengeful France and Britain imposed intolerable punishment on Germany, forcing it to accept full guilt for the war, an untruth that persists to this day. The result was Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists. If an honorable peace had been concluded in 1917, neither Hitler nor Stalin might have seized power and millions of lives would have been saved. This is the true tragedy of the Great War. Let us recall the words of the wise Benjamin Franklin: `No good war, no bad peace. Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times, Nation Pakistan, Hurriyet, Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia and other news sites in Asia. www.ericmargolis.com Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2018 Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy He was addressing the UN General Assemblys open debate on maintaining international peace and security, promoting multilateralism and the UNs role on November 9. He said in the context when international peace and security are facing more complicated traditional and non-traditional challenges, the international community need to maintain and raise the efficiency of multilateralism as history proved that unilateral and bilateral measures could not address global issues. Quy emphasised that all member countries, especially ones playing an important role, need to continue renewing strong commitments and taking real actions to ensure the international system is based on rule in which all issues are addressed on the basis of fairness and equality. Multilateral institutions, first of all the UN, need to continue with reform to improve their efficiency and transparency and really attach to people, he said. The Ambassador asserted Vietnams support for the UN Secretary-Generals reform efforts and stressed the importance of outlining an appropriate action plan for the UN reform. As a proactive, active and responsible member of the international community, Vietnam will continue working for a world of peace, prosperity, fairness and sustainable development, Quy said. In his opening remarks, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said multilateralism has brought for immense achievements, such as the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change, and peace-keeping activities. As the world is coping with unprecedented challenges stemming from the rise in new conflict multiply, extremism, force population movement, climate change advances, and deepened inequality, the UN official called for maintaining multilateralism and collective problem-solving actions, strengthening commitments to retaining the rule-based world; and using more effectively intermediate reconciliation mechanisms to address conflicts. November 12, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - World leaders gathered in Paris on Sunday under the Arc de Triomphe to mark the centennial anniversary ending World War I. In an absurd way, the Napoleon-era arc was a fitting venue because the ceremony and the rhetoric from President Emmanuel Macron was a triumph of lies and platitudes. Among the estimated 70 international leaders were US President Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, each sitting on either side of Macron and his wife. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also given pride of place beside the French president. Macrons address to the dignitaries was supposed to be a call for international multilateralism. He urged a brotherhood for the cause of world peace. He also made a pointed rebuke of nationalism as posing a danger to peace a remark which seemed aimed at Donald Trump who recently boasted of his politics with that very word. But, ironically, everything about the ceremony and Macrons speech resonated with jingoistic French nationalism, not his avowed multinationalism. As the politicians sat under the Arc de Triomphe, Macron walked around its circular esplanade in a salute to assembled French military forces bearing assault rifles and bayonets. The French anthem The Marseillaise was played twice, once by an army brass band, the second time sung by an army choir. There was also a military plane flyover displaying the blue, red and white tricolor of the French national flag. In his speech, Macron talked about soldiers coming from all over the world to die for France during the 1914-18 Great War. He even said at one point that the war was fought for the vision of France and its universal values. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter This was fluent drivel, French-style. No wonder Russias Putin momentarily gave a look of boredom as Macron waxed lyrical. The speechifying and commemoration was completely detached from current realities of conflict and international tensions. Among the brotherhood whom Macron was appealing to were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose military forces continue to bomb and slaughter Palestinian civilians in illegally occupied territory. Also present was Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko whose armed militias continue to terrorize the people of eastern Ukraine with the blatant objective of instigating a war between the US-led NATO alliance and Russia. Listening to Macron one would think that World War I erupted mysteriously from no specific cause and that an estimated 10 million soldiers were all killed in heroic battles for noble principles. There was, of course, no mention by Macron of imperialist warmongering and the barbaric sacrifice of humans as slaves in the service of national capitalist power interests. Grotesquely, as the world leaders donned solemn faces and mouthed pious platitudes for peace, the whole occasion was a triumph in burying reality and the ongoing causes of wars, as well as whitewashing the very culprits responsible for wars. Among the war criminals wearing a mournful black suit was former French President Nicolas Sarkozy who launched the NATO blitzkrieg on Libya in 2011. While the empty, self-indulgent rhetoric was ringing out, one couldnt help but recall some of the most glaring contemporary contradictions that were blocked out with awesome Orwellian efficiency. Just this week, reports emerged of the horrific civilian death toll from the American air force bombing the Syrian city of Raqqa. The city was razed to the ground by US air strikes last year supposedly to defeat the ISIS terror group. Some 8,000 bodies of civilians, mainly women and children, have now been recovered by Syrian government forces. And thats only from clearing away a tiny area of rubble for the whole city. What the Americans did in Raqqa was a monumental war crime, all the more criminal because US forces, along with their NATO partners Britain and France, are illegally present in and assaulting sovereign Syrian territory. As Macron was telling world leaders about the vision of France, hundreds were being killed in Yemen in a battle to strangle the entire population by taking the port city of Hodeida. The genocidal war on that country which is putting up to 16 million people at risk from starvation has been fully backed by France, the US and Britain, from their supply of warplanes and bombs to the Saudi and Emirati aggressive forces. We could mention other specific conflicts where the culprits are clearly identified. For example, the multi-million-dollar support from Washington for the Azov Battalion and other Neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine, which openly emulate the genocidal conduct of Hitlers Third Reich to exterminate ethnic Russians. We could mention how US-led NATO forces continue to expand towards Russian territory with outrageous provocation. The mounting earlier this month of the biggest-ever NATO war drills since the Cold War in the Arctic region adjacent to Russias northern border was a brazen threat of rehearsing invasion. The announced tearing up of yet another nuclear arms control treaty unilaterally by Washington is a reckless undermining of global security. Washington threatens China with naval forces marauding near Beijings maritime territory in the South China Sea. Washington blockades Iran with illegal economic warfare and openly agitates for regime change. Washington declares Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba a troika of tyranny and reserves the right to threaten each of these countries with military invasion at any time. Meanwhile, this weekend, Russia hosted peace talks in Moscow between the warring parties of Afghanistan. It was seen as a major breakthrough in trying to bring peace to the Central Asia country which has been wracked by 17 years of violence since US forces began their ongoing military occupation allegedly to defeat terrorism. Elsewhere, Russia has engaged with Turkey, Germany and France to convene a summit for peaceful reconstruction of Syria. The latest summit held in Ankara at the end of last month follows several other such meetings in Astana and Sochi, largely at the behest of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, to find a political settlement to the nearly eight-year war in Syria a war that was fomented covertly by Washington and its allies for regime change. Frances Macron talks about multilateralism for world peace, yet the two countries which have arguably supported and implemented multilateralism in practice are Russia and China in their calls and policies for global partnership and economic development. And yet it is Russia and China that are being harassed with American and European sanctions, and US military provocations. The unilateral, lawless imperialism that engendered World War I and 20 years later World War II is still alive and dangerously vigorous. We only have to look around the present world to realize that. But when the culprits indulge in a triumph of bullshit then we also know that the world is once again in very grave danger. Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Masters graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. This article was originally published by " Strategic Culture Foundation " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Finian Cunningham November 12, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Europe has certainly adopted more fortress-like controls against would-be refugees. A concomitant rise in anti-immigrant political parties has in turn fueled popular resentment towards EU institutions. War and Poverty at the Heart of European & US Migration Turmoil But the debate requires much more than moral appeals. A recent study entitled Building Walls puts the growth of EU internal and external border barriers into stark perspective. In the 1990s, there were two border walls. Now the number has grown to a total of 17, with most of the structures built over the past three years. Ten countries out of 28 EU member states have built physical barriers to control migrants entering from outside the bloc. They include Austria, Spain, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia and Latvia. The authors of the above report call the structures edifices of fear and make the startling comparison to the Berlin Wall that separated East and West Germany until its dismantlement in 1989. EU states have built border barriers equivalent to the length of six Berlin Walls. The report also reproaches the proliferation of mental walls across EU member states with the rise of what it calls far-right and racist political parties. There are now, it is claimed, 10 EU states in which xenophobic parties have significant government or parliamentary representation. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter However, the problem with a report like this is that it provides no practical solutions to the immense political and social challenges stemming from phenomenal migration. The United Nations high commissioner for refugees estimates that a record number of 68.5 million people worldwide are forcibly on the move from their origins, many of them trying to reach Europe. We can perhaps agree that in recent years that the EU has faced an unprecedented influx of asylum seekers and would-be refugees. That, in turn, has engendered political and social tensions, as well as anti-immigrant parties and anti-EU popular sentiments. The authors of Building Walls, however, largely base their appeal on moral arguments in favor of accepting migrants in the context of human rights. They call on EU governments to reject racist discourse of the extreme right and to reverse the policies that lead us to walling ourselves in and defending a fortress in which the privileged and secure live. That recommendation reveals an abject naivety. Millions of EU citizens would not consider themselves privileged and secure, as the authors claim. In the 58-page report, there is this tiny mention of the real issues at stake. Civil society and political parties should rigorously study the structural causes of 68.5 million people having to flee their homes by force, in order to implement prevention policies based on global economic justice and to prevent war and armed conflict. Indeed, structural causes need scrutinizing. These issues should be comprehensively explored if a proper understanding and solution to the problem are to be achieved. Such an approach would also go some way to addressing the concomitant issue of anti-immigrant politics and resentment towards the EU status quo. Here is where disclosure by the Building Walls study is pertinent. The publisher, the Transnational Institute, based in Amsterdam, is funded in part by liberal financier George Soros. The billionaire has declared himself an advocate for open borders and promoting the rights of refugees. Some critics see Soros agenda as something more sinister than mere philanthropy. He is accused of trying to undermine national sovereign controls over migration. In Hungary, from where Soros migrated years ago to the US, the government of Viktor Orban has even gone as far as banning organizations funded by the billionaire. READ MORE: Soros-funded uni campus for US programs forced out of Hungary, opening in Vienna It seems significant that the Building Walls report deals with the whole matter of refugees and migration from the premise of acceptance. It avoids tackling the phenomenon with an analysis of structural causes, even though the authors briefly mention the key issues of poverty and war. The expansion of walls across the EU and the increase in refugees are correlated with the spate of illegal wars the United States and its NATO allies have fomented in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia over the past three decades. The wars are the cause, the refugees are the effect. The main migration routes to Europe via the Mediterranean and Balkans follow the pattern of wars that the US and its NATO allies have waged, overtly and covertly, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, among other countries. The opening of these routes then draws in migrants from many other countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Indisputably, the US and EU are both complicit in perpetrating criminal wars which have unleashed the unprecedented numbers of migrants seeking refuge in Europe. Added to that are international neoliberal economic policies pushed by Washington and the EU, which have impoverished African nations, leading to environmental crises and communities being displaced. The same structural causes apply to the migrant caravan heading towards the US from Central America. For decades, Washington has ransacked its backyard with counterinsurgency warfare and sponsoring repressive regimes, which have in turn led to the spawning of criminal gangs and mass poverty. Any wonder then that droves of desperate people decide to flee to somewhere they perceive as relatively safe. The other side of the coin is poverty and bankrupt economics in the EU, as well as the US. For decades, governments have been crushing their own people with brutal austerity and grinding poverty. The gulf between a tiny wealthy elite and the mass of impoverished society has exploded. The hardship and misery under Western corporate capitalism has understandably engendered huge insecurity and anxiety within populations. Such sentiments feed into reactionary politics and are susceptible to perceiving foreigners as threats. Having said that, it should be recognized that resident communities in Europe or the US have a valid grievance about abrupt cultural changes. It seems inappropriate to dismiss objections as merely racist or xenophobic. Why should settled populations have to deal with a sudden influx of foreigners? Making moral appeals for tolerance towards refugees is futile. It does not address the structural cause of problems, or practical solutions. We need to engage the issue of refugees and migration directly with policies based on structural analysis. European governments along with Washington have to be held accountable for the criminal wars they have inflicted. That at least means paying financial reparations for the reconstruction of nations blown apart by militarism. Stop the wars, pay for damages and reconstruction, and the refugee problem is largely curbed. On economics, the real problem is the bankrupt capitalist system. It impoverishes billions of people, both within so-called developed countries and elsewhere, leading to mass migration and deep rancor in destination countries. If European countries or the US were run on a more democratic, productive and socially beneficial economic system, instead of neoliberal austerity exploiting inequality, then much of the public resentment and fear of foreigners would not be such a concern. And anti-immigrant political parties would have much less of a constituency. Thus, stop economically crushing people with bankrupt economics, and many of the social and political problems of xenophobia and populist revolt would diminish. Imperialist wars and destructive capitalism are the root problems. Wed better deal with them. Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Masters graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. This article was originally published by " RT " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Alastair Crooke November 12, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Nahum Barnea, a leading Israeli commentator, writing in Yedioth Ahronoth in May (in Hebrew), set out, unambiguously, the deal behind Trumps Middle East policy: In the wake of the US exit from JCPOA [which occurred on 8 May], Trump, Barnea wrote, will threaten a rain of fire and fury onto Tehran whilst Putin is expected to restrain Iran from attacking Israel using Syrian territory, thus leaving Netanyahu free to set new rules of the game by which the Israel may attack and destroy Iranian forces anywhere in Syria (and not just in the border area, as earlier agreed) when it wishes, without fear of retaliation. This represented one level to the Netanyahu strategy: Iranian restraint, plus Russian acquiescence to coordinated Israeli air operations over Syria. There is only one thing that isnt clear [concerning this deal], a senior Israeli Defence official closest to Netanyahu, told Ben Caspit, that is, who works for whom? Does Netanyahu work for Trump, or is President Trump at the service of Netanyahu From the outside it looks like the two men are perfectly in sync. From the inside, this seems even more so: This kind of cooperation sometimes makes it seem as if they are actually just one single, large office. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter There has been, from the outset, a second level, too: This entire inverted pyramid of Middle East engineering had, as its single point of departure, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). It was Jared Kushner, the Washington Post reports, who championed Mohammed as a reformer poised to usher the ultraconservative, oil-rich monarchy into modernity. Kushner privately argued for months, last year, that Mohammed would be key to crafting a Middle East peace plan, and that with the princes blessing, much of the Arab world would follow. It was Kushner, the Post continued, who pushed his father-in-law to make his first foreign trip as president to Riyadh, against objections from then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and warnings from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Well, now MbS has, in one form or another, been implicated in the Khashoggi murder. Bruce Riedel of Brookings, a longtime Saudi observer and former senior CIA & US defence official, notes, for the first time in 50 years, the kingdom has become a force for instability (rather than stability in the region), and suggests that there is an element of buyers remorse now evident in parts of Washington. The seamless office process to which the Israeli official referred with Caspit, is known as stovepiping, which is when a foreign states policy advocacy and intelligence are passed straight to a Presidents ear omitting official Washington from the loop; by-passing any US oversight; and removing the opportunity for officials to advise on its content. Well, this has now resulted in the Khashoggi strategic blunder. And this, of course, comes in the wake of earlier strategic mistakes: the Yemen war, the siege of Qatar, the Hariri abduction, the Ritz-Carlton princely shakedowns. To remedy this lacuna, an uncle (Prince Ahmad bin Abdel Aziz) has been dispatched from exile in the West to Riyadh (with security guarantees from the US and UK intelligences services) to bring order into these unruly affairs, and to institute some checks and balances into the MbS coterie of advisers, so as to prevent further impetuous mistakes. It seems too, that the US Congress wants the Yemen war, which Prince Ahmad consistently has opposed (as he opposed MbS elevation as Crown Prince), stopped.(General Mattis has called for a ceasefire within 30 days.) It is a step toward repairing the Kingdoms image. MbS remains for now as Crown Prince. President Sisi and Prime Minister Netanyahu both have expressed their support for MbS and as U.S. officials contemplate a more robust response [to the Khashoggi killing], Kushner has emphasized the importance of the U.S.-Saudi alliance in the region, the Washington Post reports. MbS Uncle (who as a son of King Abdel Aziz, under the traditional succession system, would be himself in line for the throne), no doubt hopes to try to undo some of the damage done to the standing of the al-Saud family, and to that of the Kingdom. Will he succeed? Will MbS accede now to Ahmad unscrambling the very centralisation of power that made MbS so many enemies, in the first place, to achieve it? Has the al-Saud family the will, or are they too disconcerted by events? And might President Erdogan throw more wrenches into this delicate process by further leaking evidence Turkey has, if Washington does not attend sufficiently to his demands. Erdogan seems ready to pitch for the return of Ottoman leadership for the Sunni world, and likely still holds some high-value cards up his sleeve (such as intercepts of phone calls between the murder cell and Riyadh). These cards though are devaluing as the news cycle shifts to the US mid-terms. Time will tell, but it is this nexus of uncertain dynamics to which Bruce Reidel refers, when he talks of instability in Saudi Arabia. The question posed here, though, is how might these events affect Netanyahus and MbS war on Iran? May 2018 now seems a distant era. Trump is still the same Trump, but Putin is not the same Putin. The Russian Defence Establishment has weighed in with their President to express their displeasure at Israeli air strikes on Syria purportedly targeting Iranian forces in Syria. The Russian Defence Ministry too, has enveloped Syria in a belt of missiles and electronic disabling systems across the Syrian airspace. Politically, the situation has changed too: Germany and France have joined the Astana Process for Syria. Europe wants Syrian refugees to return home, and that translates into Europe demanding stability in Syria. Some Gulf States too, have tentatively begun normalising with the Syrian state. The Americans are still in Syria; but a newly invigorated Erdogan (after the release of the US pastor, and with all the Khashoggi cards, produced by Turkish intelligence, in his pocket), intends to crush the Kurdish project in north and eastern Syria, espoused by Israel and the US. MbS, who was funding this project, on behalf of US and Israel, will cease his involvement (as a part of the demands made by Erdogan over the Khashoggi murder). Washington too wants the Yemen war, which was intended to serve as Irans quagmire, to end forthwith. And Washington wants the attrition of Qatar to stop, too. These represent major unravelings of the Netanyahu project for the Middle East, but most significant are two further setbacks: namely, the loss of Netanyahus and MbS stovepipe to Trump, via Jared Kushner, by-passing all Americas own system of checks and balances. The Kushner stovepipe neither forewarned Washington of coming mistakes, nor was Kushner able to prevent them. Both Congress and the Intelligences Services of the US and UK are already elbowing into these affairs. They are not MbS fans. It is no secret that Prince Mohamed bin Naif was their man (he is still under palace arrest). Trump will still hope to continue his Iran project and his Deal of the Century between Israel and the Palestinians (led nominally by Saudi Arabia herding together the Sunni world, behind it). Trump does not seek war with Iran, but rather is convinced of a popular uprising in Iran that will topple the state. And the second setback is that Prince Ahmads clear objective must be other than this instability in, or conflict with, Iran. His is to restore the familys standing, and to recoup something of its leadership credentials in the Sunni world, which has been shredded by the war in Yemen and is now under direct neo-Ottoman challenge from Turkey. The al-Saud family, one may surmise, will have no appetite to replace one disastrous and costly war (Yemen), with another an even greater conflict, with its large and powerful neighbor, Iran. It makes no sense now. Perhaps this is why we see signs of Israel rushing to hurry Arab state normalisation even absent any amelioration for the Palestinians. Nehum Barnea presciently noted in his May article in Yediot Ahoronot: Trump could have declared a US withdrawal [from the JCPOA], and made do with that. But under the influence of Netanyahu and of his new team, he chose to go one step further. The economic sanctions on Iran will be much tighter, beyond what they were, before the nuclear agreement was signed. Hit them in their pockets, Netanyahu advised Trump: if you hit them in their pockets, they will choke; and when they choke, they will throw out the ayatollahs. This was another bit of stovepiped advice passed directly to the US President. His officials might have warned him that it was fantasy. There is no example of sanctions alone having toppled a state; and whilst the US can use its claim of judicial hegemony as an enforcement mechanism, the US has effectively isolated itself in sanctioning Iran: Europe wants no further insecurity. It wants no more refugees heading to Europe. Was it Trumps tough stance that brought Jong Un to the table? Or, perhaps contrarily, might Jong Un have seen a meeting with Trump simply as the price that he had to pay in order to advance Korean re-unification? Was Trump warned that Iran would suffer economic pain, but that it would nonetheless persevere, in spite of sanctions? No well, thats the problem inherent in listening principally to stovepipes. Alastair Crooke, Former British diplomat, founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum. http://www.conflictsforum.org Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Israel kills 7 Palestinian resistnce fighters, including senior member, in Israeli airstrikes In Pictures: Destruction in Khan Younis after Israeli attack Israeli targeted killings in Gaza and beyond: A timeline : The latest Israeli killing fits a pattern of targeted assassinations of Hamas commanders and affiliates. Israeli attack kill three Palestinians as Gaza tensions rise: Along with the air raids, Israeli artillery units also shelled positions across the enclave. Palestinian mortar hits Israeli bus, one Israeli critically injured Dozens of occupation force soldiers said to have exited bus moments before it was hit by missile Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy AMY GOODMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL: [translated] The First World War shows how isolationism leads to many destructions. And if isolationism wasnt the right solution more than a hundred years ago, how could it simply be the right choice today, in an interconnected world that has five times more people, as today? Shaping an interconnected world, this was the model of our German G20 presidency last year for this very reason. I wanted to ask you about both French President Macrons comments, clearly alluding to President Trump calling himself a nationalist, and saying nationalism is the opposite of the patriotism, Macron said. In another apparent rebuke to Trumps policies, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of the dangers of isolationism. AMY GOODMAN: Adam Hochschild, your response? ADAM HOCHSCHILD: Well, you know, I liked President Macrons remarks about the difference between patriotism and nationalism. I think its an important distinction. You know, the nationalist always thinks, My country first! My country above all! Patriotism, by his definition, I think, means something subtle and more than indifferent. It actually reminded me of something which a hundred years ago someone quite different said about patriotism. Im thinking about Emma Goldman, the great anarchist leader, who was one of many Americans who resisted the war and was punished for it. Goldman was sentenced to two years in prison for organizing against the draft. And at her trial, she was accused by the prosecution of being unpatriotic. And she replied this way. Ill just read you what she wrote. Gentlemen of the jury, she askedand, of course, in those days, juries were all gentlemen, no ladiesmay there not be different kinds of patriotism as there are different kinds of liberty. And her patriotism, she explained, was like thatand these are her wordsof the man who loves a woman with open eyes. He is enchanted by her beauty, yet he sees her faults. I think thats a pretty good definition of patriotism, where you can love your country, but you are not blind to its faults. And when you see your country doing something that you think is wrong, such as joining a war that it has no business being in, you have every right to speak out. So, my main feeling about this hundredth anniversary of this terrible war is that we should be honoring people like Emma Goldman, like Eugene Debs, like social worker Jane Addamsjust to speak about Americanswho saw the war as madness when it was going on, did everything they could to bring it to a stop. You know, they were patriots also. AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Jane Addams, Eugene Debs and others, the heart of your book To End All Wars. ADAM HOCHSCHILD: Right. Well, one of the thingsyou know, when we look back at the First World War, I think at this point most of us would agree that if there was any one single event in the 20th century that we could reach back and magically undo, wouldnt it be the war of 1914 to 1918? Not only did it produce a colossal death toll, but it left behind a legacy of bitterness and resentment in Germany that Hitler was able to manipulate so cleverly to gain power and start an even more destructive war and the Holocaust, as well. I think its impossible to imagine the Second World War happening without the first. Well, at the time it was happening, 1914 to 1918, there were, in all of the warring countries, extraordinary people who saw what was happening as madness and who often refused to fight, if they were young men eligible for the military, or who supported those who refused to fight. Emma Goldman, as I mentioned, was sent to jail for organizing against the draft and speaking out very strongly against the war. Eugene Debs, the great labor leader, spoke out against the war after the United States entered it, and for that he was sentenced to prison. And he was still in prison in November of 1920, when he received nearly a million votes for president on the Socialist Party ticket, being able to campaign only from his prison cell. Jane Addams, the pioneer social worker, also was a strong opponent of the war. And she took part in a remarkable conference of women from warring countries on both sides, and from neutral nations, who met in The Hague in neutral Holland in 1915 to try to talk about ways of making peace. And the photographs from that conference are one of the few places, if not the only place, where during those four-and-a-half years you can see people from both sides embracing each other, talking together, trying to figure out how to stop this horrible conflict. There were brave war resisters in every other country. In France, for example, someone I hope they have been honoring this past week, although I havent seen anything about it, is the great French Socialist leader Jean Jaures, who in 1914 spoke out very strongly against this war he saw looming, saw it coming. A week before it started, he rushed to Brussels for an emergency conference of the leaders of Europes left-wing parties. Before an enormous crowd and applause there, he put his arm around the leader of the German Social Democrats and said, you know, Our people will never make war on each other. Because of that, three days later, after he had gone back to France, he was assassinated. Three days after that, the war began. His assassin, incidentally, was found innocent at his trial because the crime was judged to be, quote, a crime of passiona legal gimmick that usually lets men get away with murdering women, but in this case it was put to a different use. There were more than 6,000 people in England, young men in England who were eligible for the draft, who refused it and who were sent to prison because of that. There were war resisters in Germany, like Rosa Luxemburg, the great democratically minded socialist, sent to prison for her opposition to the war. More such people in Russia. So, from all of these countries, I think these are the people, as well as the veterans, who should be honored at this point. November 12, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - The BRICS are not what they intended to be, never really were. Today its clear that fascist-turned Brazil is out so we are at RICS. There is not much to argue about. The worlds fifth largest economy, Brazil, has failed and betrayed the concept of the BRICS and the world at large. Whether you consider South Africa as a valid member of the BRICS is also questionable. Much of SAs social injustice has actually become worse since the end of apartheid. Ending apartheid was a mere political and legal exercise. Distribution of power and money in SA have not really changed. To the contrary, it worsened. 80% of all land is still in the hands of white farmers. This is what President Cyril Ramaphosa wants to change drastically, by confiscating white farmers land without compensation and re-distribute it to black farmers, who have no formation of how to run these farms. This is not only utterly unjust and will create internal conflicts, the last thing SA needs, but it is also very inefficient, as farming and agricultural production will decline most likely drastically and SA, a potential exporter of farm and agricultural goods, will become a net importer, a serious hit on South Africans economy. The principle of redistributing land to the black African society is a solid one. But not by force and not by confiscation without compensation, nor without an elaborate training program for African farmers to lead to a peaceful transfer all of which does takes time and cannot happen over-night. There are too many example of hush-hush land reforms that failed miserably and actually plunged entire societies into poverty and famine. Land reforms YES, but planned and well organized and strategized. Land reforms are long-term propositions. To be successful, they dont happen over night. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter On a recent trip to SA, I spoke to several black people, including especially women from townships; i.e., SOWETO, who said they were better off under apartheid. It is not a scientific statistic, but the fact that some black people dare say that the system that atrociously discriminated, exploited and raped them, was better than todays non-apartheid system, is significant. It is a sad testimony to a generation of SAs democracy. So, now we could say, the BRICS are down to RIC Russia, India and China. Does India deserve to belong to a club that has as a goal equality and solidarity? The caste system, about which very little is written, is a horrible, horrible mechanism of discrimination. And there are no efforts under way to abolish it. To the contrary. The Indian elite likes it it provides cheap labor. Its actually legalized slavehood, totally submissive to the upper class, the higher castes. Its cultural, they say. Is such injustice excusable under principles of tradition? Hardly. Especially as this cultural tradition serves only a small upper class, is devoid of any compassion and has absolutely no ambition to transform itself to an equal and level playing field. That alone is unworthy of the BRICS principles. The other point, which I believe is important in considering Indias BRICS viability, is the fact that PM Narendra Modi is like a straw in the wind, constantly wavering between pleasing the US and leaning toward the east, Russia and China. This is certainly not an indication of stability for a country to become a member in good standing and solidarity with a group of eastern countries, that intend to follow some rather noble human and social justice standards, like Russia and China. But thats precisely what happened. India has weaseled her way into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). However, on 6 September 2018, The US and India signed a breakthrough security agreement, as reported by the Financial Times. According to the FT, this new compact was cementing relations between the pair [US and India] and unlocking sales of high-tech American weaponry worth billions of dollars to the worlds top arms importer (meaning India [not considering Saudi Arabia]). Washington sees India as the linchpin of its new Indo-Pacific strategy to counter the rise of China, but has spent months pushing for closer co-operation. It wants Delhi to participate in more joint military exercises, boost its role in regional maritime security and increase arms purchases. We fully support Indias rise, said Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, during a visit to New Delhi. The FT continues, later on Thursday the two countries signed Comcasa, a security agreement tailored to India that Jim Mattis, US Defense Secretary, said meant the pair could now share sensitive technology. All of this does not bode well for the BRICS, nor for the SCO, of which India has recently become a member. The BRICS also have a so-called development bank, the New Development Bank (NDB) which so far has been and remains largely non-functional, mostly because of internal conflicts. Then, there is the Crime of the Century committed by Indian PM Norendra Modi, who on 8 November 2016 decided to follow USAIDs advice and demonetize Indias mostly rural society a society of almost sixty percent without access to banks, thereby committing Financial Genocide, in the name of Washington. Modi brutally declared all 500 (US$ 7) and 1,000 rupee-notes about 85% of all money in circulation invalid, unless exchanged or deposited in a bank or post office account until 31 December 2016. After this date, all unexchanged old money is invalid. More than 98% of all monetary transactions in India take place in cash. Thousands of Indians, mostly in rural areas, died of famine or suicide. Nobody knows the exact figures. Many rural Indians could not bear the moral burden of being unable to sustain their families, not having access to a bank and to exchange their old money for new money. This is a US-driven effort towards global demonetization. India with 1.3 billion people is a test case for poor countries, while demonetization, or rather digitization of money in rich western countries is already moving ahead in giant steps; i.e., in Scandinavian countries and Switzerland. Modi clearly betrayed his people, following orders of the US, transmitted through the infamous USAID. Under close scrutiny, the BRICS dont stand the test they subscribed to in their first summit in 2009, in Yekaterinburg, Russia on June 16, 2009, and under which they were legalized and officiated in December 2010, when South Africa joined the club of four, to make it the BRICS. At this point we are down to Russia and China R and C are left as viable partners of the BRICS. They are also the founders of the SCO. Washington was once again successful in dividing according to the historic, age-old axiom, divide and conquer. The concept of the BRICS was a real threat to the western Anglo-Saxon led world order. No more. If anything, the concept and structure of the BRICS has to be rethought, re-invented and re-drafted. Will it happen? How much longer and how many more times the BRICS can meet in lush summits and publicly declare their solid alliance as a new horizon against western world hegemony, when in reality, they are utterly divided and full of internal ideological strife adhering to none of the noble goals of solidarity they once committed to? Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! - Essays from the Resistance. Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Richard Silverstein November 12, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Today, IDF commandos invaded Gaza in a night-time raid and murdered seven Hamas operatives, including the commander responsible for the tunnel defense system maintained by the Islamist rulers of the enclave. According to various media sources, the raid was exposed and Palestinian militants fought back fiercely. In order to free the IDF forces, the Israelis had to lay down a massive drone and air attack which permitted them to withdraw back to Israel. The Israeli military censor has prohibited domestic media naming the Israeli commando who was killed. But an Israeli source has informed me he is Lt. Col. Mahmoud Kheireddine In response, Hamas has launched missiles into southern Israel and driven hundreds of thousands into air raid shelters. Once again, just as both sides thought they might be close to a ceasefire and/or a prisoner exchange, Israel rescued defeat from the jaws and victory and almost guaranteed a new escalation, if not war, against Gaza. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter A former IDF general has suggested that the raid was an assassination attempt, but an attempt to capture the Hamas commander: Maj. Gen. (res.) Tal Russo, a former commander of the IDF Southern Command, indicated that the operation was likely an intelligence-gathering mission gone wrong, rather than an assassination. Activities that most civilians arent aware of happen all the time, every night and in every region. This action an operation that was apparently exposed wasnt an assassination attempt. We have other ways of assassinating people and we know how to do it much more elegantly, Russo told Channel 10 news. The retired general, who until recently was responsible for the IDFs missions abroad, also told Army Radio that Baraka was likely killed in a rescue effort to extract the special forces soldiers. I have never heard of the IDF entering Gaza to kidnap a Hamas commander. There have, on the other hand, been scores if not hundreds of assassinations by Israeli forces of such military figures. So I would guess that Russo is trying to divert Palestinian anger by suggesting that Israel hadnt intended to murder the Hamas military leader. The other possibility is that in the current negotiations over a prisoner exchange, the Israelis may have sought to improve their bargaining position by capturing a leading commander and use him as a bargaining chip to get favorable terms for a deal. The utter hypocrisy of the Israeli approach may be seen in Bibi Netanyahus permission granted just yesterday for Qatar to deliver $15-million to Gaza in order pay employees who havent received paychecks in months. The Gulf state also bought millions in Israeli fuel and arranged for delivery to the Gaza power plant so that electricity and water supply could increase from four hours a day to twelve. In the midst of this momentary lull, Netanyahu even announced that he was opposed to unnecessary wars. Meaning, he saw no reason to engage in an attack on Gaza. Either he was deliberately seeking to lull the Palestinians into letting down their guard; or he didnt know what his own military-intelligence apparatus had planned. Its also possible that he was briefed on the raid and approved it believing it had a higher degree of success than it did. Though its hard to read too much into this: the raid took place when Netanyahu was visiting Paris for the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI. At the ceremonies, Netanyahu surely hoped to meet with various leaders like Putin and Trump (among others) who could advance Israeli interests. In the midst of this international diplomacy, Netanyahu discovers that all hell has broken loose at home and hes forced to return home to face the prospect of a renewed war in Gaza. In Netanyahus absence, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman was essentially running the show. He wouldve given the order to execute the failed raid. The defense minister has made no bones about his opposition to the softening of the Israeli siege of Gaza. He has advocated for a far more hawkish line and seemingly been squelched by Netanyahu. Did Lieberman wait until Netanyahu left town to embarrass him with this severe military escalation? Add to this that numerous Israeli political and media sources have predicted that the prime minister will call for new elections in the coming weeks. The political winds are propitious; there is no organized opposition; though Israelis are increasingly tired of Netanyahu, there is no uprising in his own ranks to threaten him. All this bodes well for new elections. Netanyahu seemed to think he was sitting so pretty that he didnt need another military adventure like Operation Protective Edge to seal his electoral success. But now all bets are off. Either Netanyahu wanted this excuse to go to war; or he didnt expect the raid or its failure, but could exploit it to commence hostilities. In 2014, 95% of Israelis supported the war. If there is a new set of hostilities, Netanyahu undoubtedly believes he can ride them to an even greater majority. Finally, this abortive raid proves once again that Israels word is worth nothing when it comes to agreements, whether they be peace treaties or ceasefires. It adheres to no principles except naked self-interest defined in the crudest of terms. If it has the opportunity to murder a leading military commander it will do so regardless of the resulting consequences; regardless of efforts being pursued by allies like Egypt to advance an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire. Egypt had succeeded in persuading Hamas to tone down the Great March of Return weekly protests at the fence. Last Friday saw the lowest level of violence in many weeks. Israel and Egypt announced that they would reopen some border crossings and permit increased flow of goods into the starved enclave. The Qatari donation offered slightly improved quality of life for residents whove endured years of privation. Qatar and Israel announced a preliminary plan for a sea route between Cyprus and Gaza to enable increased trade with Europe. Now all of that is wiped out in an instant. The question is did Israel do this deliberately, intending to destroy the peaceful hiatus; or did it miscalculate based on erroneous judgement by its intelligence and military leadership? This article was originally published by " Tikun Olam " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By MEMO November 12, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Prominent Jewish intellectual Noam Chomsky has raised concerns over what he believes is the rise of Judeo-Nazi tendencies in Israel. Speaking to i24NEWS last week, the renowned political dissident, linguist and scholar repeated warnings given by Yeshayahu Leibowitz, an Israeli public intellectual, biochemist and polymath, concerning the dehumanising effect of Israels brutal occupation of Palestine on the victims and the oppressors. Chomsky commented on remarks by Leibowitz who was nominated for the Israel Prize saying that Leibowitz warned that if the occupation continues, Israeli Jews are going to turn into what he called, Judeo-Nazis. Chomsky recognised the description was a strong term and that most people wouldnt be able to get away with describing Israel in this manner but explained that Leibowitzs status meant that he was able to speak about Israel without incurring fury. Leibowitz who passed away in 1994 in Jerusalem, cautioned that the state of Israel and Zionism had become more sacred than Jewish humanist values and controversially went on to describe Israeli conduct in occupied Palestinian territories as Judeo-Nazi in nature. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Outraged by Israels killing of 60 villagers of Qibya in 1953, most of whom were women and children by the notorious Israeli commando Unit 101, known for its brutality and retribution campaigns, Leibowitz has been quoted as saying: We have to ask ourselves where this youth of ours emerged from; young people who had no mental inhibitions about committing this atrocity? What inner motivation for such acts could have been at work here? This youth is not a mob but the product of Zionist, humanist social education. Echoing Leibowitz, Echoing Leibowitz, Chomsky said: If you have your jackboot on somebodys neck, you have to find a way to justify it. Repeating Leibowitzs warning he added that blaming the victim was a direct reflection of the continued occupation, the humiliation of people, the degradation, and the terrorist attacks by the Israeli government. The former MIT linguist said that being critical of the occupation in Israel today means being labelled a traitor, a phenomenon which has caused the left to virtually disappear from the political spectrum. He pointed to opposition to the situation in the Gaza Strip, which he likened to a concentration camp, as an example of the delegitimisation of the left. Take Gaza. If you are going to place two million people in a concentration camp, which is in effect what it is, and put them under a vicious siege, you have to ask yourself; am I justified in doing this? People who try to oppose it are traitors, Arab lovers and so on. You have seen this phenomenon in European history, I dont have to give you examples, Chomsky said. Speaking about a common myth in Israeli society that a military presence in the West Bank is necessary for security reasons, Chomsky dismissed that idea saying that the opposite is true; that a military occupation of the West Bank only endangers Israels security. Ask any Israeli strategic analysts. They all understand that occupation of the West Bank is a threat to Israeli security. Chomsky went on to present a number of incidents where Arab leaders have offered Israel peace in return for withdrawal from the West Bank, all rejected by Israel. Israel, he told, i24NEWS is deliberately choosing expansion over security. This article was originally published by " MEMO " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Chris Hedges November 13, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Julian Assanges sanctuary in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London has been transformed into a little shop of horrors. He has been largely cut off from communicating with the outside world for the last seven months. His Ecuadorian citizenship, granted to him as an asylum seeker, is in the process of being revoked. His health is failing. He is being denied medical care. His efforts for legal redress have been crippled by the gag rules, including Ecuadorian orders that he cannot make public his conditions inside the embassy in fighting revocation of his Ecuadorian citizenship. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to intercede on behalf of Assange, an Australian citizen, even though the new government in Ecuador, led by Lenin Morenowho calls Assange an inherited problem and an impediment to better relations with Washingtonis making the WikiLeaks founders life in the embassy unbearable. Almost daily, the embassy is imposing harsher conditions for Assange, including making him pay his medical bills, imposing arcane rules about how he must care for his cat and demanding that he perform a variety of demeaning housekeeping chores. The Ecuadorians, reluctant to expel Assange after granting him political asylum and granting him citizenship, intend to make his existence so unpleasant he will agree to leave the embassy to be arrested by the British and extradited to the United States. The former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, whose government granted the publisher political asylum, describes Assanges current living conditions as torture. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter His mother, Christine Assange, said in a recent video appeal, Despite Julian being a multi-award-winning journalist, much loved and respected for courageously exposing serious, high-level crimes and corruption in the public interest, he is right now alone, sick, in painsilenced in solitary confinement, cut off from all contact and being tortured in the heart of London. The modern-day cage of political prisoners is no longer the Tower of London. Its the Ecuadorian Embassy. Here are the facts, she went on. Julian has been detained nearly eight years without charge. Thats right. Without charge. For the past six years, the U.K. government has refused his request for access to basic health needs, fresh air, exercise, sunshine for vitamin D and access to proper dental and medical care. As a result, his health has seriously deteriorated. His examining doctors warned his detention conditions are life-threatening. A slow and cruel assassination is taking place before our very eyes in the embassy in London. In 2016, after an in-depth investigation, the United Nations ruled that Julians legal and human rights have been violated on multiple occasions, she said. Hed been illegally detained since 2010. And they ordered his immediate release, safe passage and compensation. The U.K. government refused to abide by the U.N.s decision. The U.S. government has made Julians arrest a priority. They want to get around a U.S. journalists protection under the First Amendment by charging him with espionage. They will stop at nothing to do it. As a result of the U.S. bearing down on Ecuador, his asylum is now under immediate threat, she said. The U.S. pressure on Ecuadors new president resulted in Julian being placed in a strict and severe solitary confinement for the last seven months, deprived of any contact with his family and friends. Only his lawyers could see him. Two weeks ago, things became substantially worse. The former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, who rightfully gave Julian political asylum from U.S. threats against his life and liberty, publicly warned when U.S. Vice President Mike Pence recently visited Ecuador a deal was done to hand Julian over to the U.S. He stated that because of the political costs of expelling Julian from their embassy was too high, the plan was to break him down mentally. A new, impossible, inhumane protocol was implemented at the embassy to torture him to such a point that he would break and be forced to leave. Assange was once feted and courted by some of the largest media organizations in the world, including The New York Times and The Guardian, for the information he possessed. But once his trove of material documenting U.S. war crimes, much of it provided by Chelsea Manning, was published by these media outlets he was pushed aside and demonized. A leaked Pentagon document prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch dated March 8, 2008, exposed a black propaganda campaign to discredit WikiLeaks and Assange. The document said the smear campaign should seek to destroy the feeling of trust that is WikiLeaks center of gravity and blacken Assanges reputation. It largely has worked. Assange is especially vilified for publishing 70,000 hacked emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and senior Democratic officials. The Democrats and former FBI Director James Comey say the emails were copied from the accounts of John Podesta, Democratic candidate Hillary Clintons campaign chairman, by Russian government hackers. Comey has said the messages were probably delivered to WikiLeaks by an intermediary. Assange has said the emails were not provided by state actors. The Democratic Partyseeking to blame its election defeat on Russian interference rather than the grotesque income inequality, the betrayal of the working class, the loss of civil liberties, the deindustrialization and the corporate coup detat that the party helped orchestrateattacks Assange as a traitor, although he is not a U.S. citizen. Nor is he a spy. He is not bound by any law I am aware of to keep U.S. government secrets. He has not committed a crime. Now, stories in newspapers that once published material from WikiLeaks focus on his allegedly slovenly behaviornot evident during my visits with himand how he is, in the words of The Guardian, an unwelcome guest in the embassy. The vital issue of the rights of a publisher and a free press is ignored in favor of snarky character assassination. Assange was granted asylum in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to answer questions about sexual offense charges that were eventually dropped. Assange feared that once he was in Swedish custody he would be extradited to the United States. The British government has said that, although he is no longer wanted for questioning in Sweden, Assange will be arrested and jailed for breaching his bail conditions if he leaves the embassy. WikiLeaks and Assange have done more to expose the dark machinations and crimes of the American Empire than any other news organization. Assange, in addition to exposing atrocities and crimes committed by the United States military in our endless wars and revealing the inner workings of the Clinton campaign, made public the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency, their surveillance programs and their interference in foreign elections, including in the French elections. He disclosed the conspiracy against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by Labour members of Parliament. And WikiLeaks worked swiftly to save Edward Snowden, who exposed the wholesale surveillance of the American public by the government, from extradition to the United States by helping him flee from Hong Kong to Moscow. The Snowden leaks also revealed, ominously, that Assange was on a U.S. manhunt target list. What is happening to Assange should terrify the press. And yet his plight is met with indifference and sneering contempt. Once he is pushed out of the embassy, he will be put on trial in the United States for what he published. This will set a new and dangerous legal precedent that the Trump administration and future administrations will employ against other publishers, including those who are part of the mob trying to lynch Assange. The silence about the treatment of Assange is not only a betrayal of him but a betrayal of the freedom of the press itself. We will pay dearly for this complicity. Even if the Russians provided the Podesta emails to Assange, he should have published them. I would have. They exposed practices of the Clinton political machine that she and the Democratic leadership sought to hide. In the two decades I worked overseas as a foreign correspondent I was routinely leaked stolen documents by organizations and governments. My only concern was whether the documents were forged or genuine. If they were genuine, I published them. Those who leaked material to me included the rebels of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN); the Salvadoran army, which once gave me blood-smeared FMLN documents found after an ambush; the Sandinista government of Nicaragua; the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Central Intelligence Agency; the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebel group; the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); the French intelligence service, Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure, or DGSE; and the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosovic, who was later tried as a war criminal. We learned from the emails published by WikiLeaks that the Clinton Foundation received millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two of the major funders of Islamic State. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton paid her donors back by approving $80 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, enabling the kingdom to carry out a devastating war in Yemen that has triggered a humanitarian crisis, including widespread food shortages and a cholera epidemic, and left close to 60,000 dead. We learned Clinton was paid $675,000 for speaking at Goldman Sachs, a sum so massive it can only be described as a bribe. We learned Clinton told the financial elites in her lucrative talks that she wanted open trade and open borders and believed Wall Street executives were best-positioned to manage the economy, a statement that directly contradicted her campaign promises. We learned the Clinton campaign worked to influence the Republican primaries to ensure that Donald Trump was the Republican nominee. We learned Clinton obtained advance information on primary-debate questions. We learned, because 1,700 of the 33,000 emails came from Hillary Clinton, she was the primary architect of the war in Libya. We learned she believed that the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate. The war she sought has left Libya in chaos, seen the rise to power of radical jihadists in what is now a failed state, triggered a massive exodus of migrants to Europe, seen Libyan weapon stockpiles seized by rogue militias and Islamic radicals throughout the region, and resulted in 40,000 dead. Should this information have remained hidden from the American public? You can argue yes, but you cant then call yourself a journalist. They are setting my son up to give them an excuse to hand him over to the U.S., where he would face a show trial, Christine Assange warned. Over the past eight years, he has had no proper legal process. It has been unfair at every single turn with much perversion of justice. There is no reason to consider that this would change in the future. The U.S. WikiLeaks grand jury, producing the extradition warrant, was held in secret by four prosecutors but no defense and no judge. The U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty allows for the U.K. to extradite Julian to the U.S. without a proper basic case. Once in the U.S., the National Defense Authorization Act allows for indefinite detention without trial. Julian could very well be held in Guantanamo Bay and tortured, sentenced to 45 years in a maximum-security prison, or face the death penalty. My son is in critical danger because of a brutal, political persecution by the bullies in power whose crimes and corruption he had courageously exposed when he was editor in chief of WikiLeaks. Assange is on his own. Each day is more difficult for him. This is by design. It is up to us to protest. We are his last hope, and the last hope, I fear, for a free press. We need to make our protest against this brutality deafening, his mother said. I call on all you journalists to stand up now because hes your colleague and you are next. I call on all you politicians who say you entered politics to serve the people to stand up now. I call on all you activists who support human rights, refugees, the environment, and are against war, to stand up now because WikiLeaks has served the causes that you spoke for and Julian is now suffering for it alongside of you. I call on all citizens who value freedom, democracy and a fair legal process to put aside your political differences and unite, stand up now. Most of us dont have the courage of our whistleblowers or journalists like Julian Assange who publish them, so that we may be informed and warned about the abuses of power. Chris Hedges, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. https://www.truthdig.com/author/chris_hedges/ 45-year-old suspected vandal, Oladipupo Musa, was found dead inside an NNPC petroleum motor spirit, PMS, pipeline at Ghana Axis, Ogijo, Ogun State on Sunday, 11th November, 2018. NSCDC P.R.O, Dyke Ogbonnaya made an official report to the NNPC about the incident and the activities of hardcore vandals in the state. He added that the anti-vandal team on a regular routine patrol, recovered an empty 30 litre keg and a funnel from the deceased vandal. he added that the commands anti-vandal team has pledged to work harder to combat vandalism. In his words: A lone deceased vandal, by name Musa Oladipupo, 45, was found in the middle of petroleum motor spirit (PMS) deep down in the pipeline. The Anti-vandal team on a regular routine patrol recovered an empty 30 litre keg and a funnel from the deceased vandal. The State Commandant, Everistus Obiyo, earlier last week, read riot act on vandalism, warned that youths should desist from all acts capable of putting their lives in danger. President Muhammadu Buhari is currently in Paris for the Paris Peace Forum on 10th Nov, delivered an Address on Illicit Financial Flows & Corruption: The Challenge of Global Governance. The presidents speech was at the Opening Ceremony of the event, which has 70 world leaders and governments in attendance, was held at the Grande Halle de la Villette. However, former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode has faulted Buharis speech at the forum. In his address, the president was quoted to have said: Our experience in Nigeria is that financial crimes, such as corruption and fraudulent activities, generate enormous unlawful profits which often prove so lucrative that the threat of a jail term is not sufficient to deter perpetrators. According to the PDP cheiftain, it was wrong for Buhari to go abroad, in the presence of many world leaders, tag his people as thieves and all sorts of demeaning names. In his words: What type of leader goes to a foreign country,describes his own people as rogues and consistently says this sort of thing about them? Buhari suffers from low self-esteem: he has a big chip on his shoulder.The only time he feels complete is when he runs down the Nigerian people. I have never heard of a Nigerian leader that is as self-deprecating and unpatriotic as he is.None of our past leaders has ever denigrated or insulted the Nigerian people the way he keeps doing. God will judge him for demeaning us before the world and calling us what we are not. Right on the first day he arrived in Hanoi, the Cuba News Agency (ACN) and major news outlets such as Granma, Juventud Rebelde, Cubadebate and Prensa Latina ran articles highlighting the Cuban leaders activities and meetings. Website Cubadebate cited his posts on his Twitter account as saying that he appreciated his meetings with Vietnams high-ranking leaders and affirmed both sides commitments to raise the level of economic relations to the level of political ties. Much to learn from our Vietnamese brothers, winners of wars, embargos and consequences of underdevelopment, with exemplary work, creativity and discipline, Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote on Twitter. Vietnam is the fifth leg of the Cuba leaders tour to European and Asian nations. Earlier, he stopped over in France and paid official visits to Russia, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) and China. Laos will be the last leg of this tour. 2019 ACPN presidential candidate, Oby Ezekwesili, says she is involved in politics to rescue Nigeria from its current situation. Ezekwesili stated this on while on Channels Televisions Sunday politics. In her words: I am in politics not because I need the title, Im in politics not because I need to answer madam president. Im in politics because there is an urgent need to rescue our nation She also added that Nigerians are tired of the politics of zoning with respect to the occupant of the office of the President. Ezekwesili stated that many Nigerians have distanced themselves from the country as a result of how those in power have chosen to govern the nation. I am interested in tackling poverty. I want to govern in a way that we can tackle poverty from more than 80 million Nigerians. I am tired of the failure of Nigeria. If were going to get a different Nigeria, we need to think of economic reconstructing from an economic prism. The politicians dont think of the economy when they talk about restructuring. The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress(APC), Adams Oshiomhole has said no one can intimidate him. The former Edo state, who was detained and interrogated by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS), recently over allegations of collecting bribes form party member during primary elections, made it clear, he isnt a pushover. Oshiomhole, who is at war with some governors of his party for not choosing their candidates, hailed himself as being a fighter of the oppressed. He said he fought the fiercest juntas in our history without running to exile. In his words: Ive never gone to President Buhari to ask him to help me fight any Governor, I go there to brief him on party affairs. Ive fought the military in uniform with guns in their hands, right inside their barracks, I have fought the fiercest juntas in our history without running to exile, so who are those privileged opportunistic civilians who can intimidate me? My name is Adams Oshiomhole, I did not make that name from being a Governor or Chairman, go and do your research. I made that name fighting for the oppressed Nigerians, it is a name that connotes perseverance and ruggedness. Speaking on the situation in Zamfara, wherein the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) stated that APC wouldnt be presenting any candidate for any position in the 2019 election in the state, Oshiomhole said, that would soon be taken care of. The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Atiku Abubakar made headlines, after he reported that he was searched at the Airport in Abuja, at his arrival. Many PDP chieftains like former Governor of Ekiti state, Ayo Fayose, Senator Ben Bruce, former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode and so on, condemned the search, describing it as harassment on their presidential candidate. Well, reacting to Atikus search, the Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika , the search was normal, and blowing it out of proportion was a way for then opposition party to grab the headlines. In a statement on the matter on Sunday, the Aviation Minister had this to say: For the records, all incoming passengers on international flights go through customs, Immigration, health and security screening. Where the aircraft is using the private, charter wing, as the PDP Candidate did, such arrivals are met by a team of the Immigration, customs and other security agencies. They go to the arriving aircraft as a team. The airport authorities confirm that this is a routine process, applying to all international arrivals, including the minister unless the passenger is the President of Nigeria. The President, the Vice President and passengers aboard planes on the Presidential air fleet use the Presidential wing of the airport. It is also important to state that even in the Presidential Wing of the airport the President of Nigeria uses, there is the presence of Immigration and other security officials who must stamp his or her passport on arrival. By standard procedure, all aircraft on international arrivals must first of all park at the international wing of the aircraft. They can move to the domestic terminal only upon the completion of the arrival processes. While it is true that the Task Force on Currency at the airport did the routine action of checking the former Vice Presidents travel bag, he was accorded full respect as a senior citizen. These checks are mandatory, conventional, internationally applied and routine. No one is excused from them under our laws. These checks are carried out on all international arrivals and President Buhari does not get involved in them. Law-abiding citizens are encouraged to respect the laws of the country and our VIPs should not seek to be treated over and above the citizens they wish to serve, Mr Sirika said. The aviation minister also suggested that Mr Abubakars claims had been hatched from Dubai to deface the Buhari administration as intolerant of opposition ahead of a competitive general election. Nigerians need to know that one of the resolutions of the Atiku team at their recently-concluded, opulently-held Dubai retreat was to embark on scaremongering, Brazil thumbs down displeasure After more than 15 years of a judicial wrangling, the majority of individual cases are still waiting for a definitive decision. The taxpayer (Imcopa Importacao, Exportacao e Industria Oleos) intended to obtain a decision ensuring the exclusion of ICMS from the calculation base of PIS/COFINS (taxes on the revenue obtained from the sale of goods), which was assured by the Federal Supreme Court for understanding that the tax contained in the price of the goods (ICMS) could not be considered the taxpayers revenue, since it already had a proper destination: the Treasury itself. In spite of acknowledging the taxpayers intention, the Treasury has been seeking to limit the effectiveness of this decision to a future and uncertain moment. This appeal is still pending judgment, and there are also appeals pending in individual cases. The expectation is that this last appeal presented in the leading case will be unsuccessul, at least, not in the extension craved by tax authorities. So much so that the local courts have already been applying the Federal Supreme Courts favourable interpretation to individual lawsuits, which have remained suspended for years waiting for a definition in the leading case. What was seen in the last year in these individual cases was a number of appeals, with the clear purpose of postponing or avoiding the final and unappealable decision of the individual lawsuits. This is an essential step toward enabling the release of judicial deposits carried out during the course of the lawsuits and the recovery of the amounts collected in the past. The judiciary, in turn, has been firm in rejecting tax authorities delaying appeals, which ended up allowing the individual cases to start becoming final and unappealable. To mitigate the impact of the loss, however, tax authorities have been trying to raise subsidiary theses that would reduce the amount of the credits in favour of the taxpayers. In our view, these theses do not subsist an accurate legal analysis and the judiciary is therefore likely to reject them. As if the subsidiary theses were not enough, the Federal Government, concerned with the imminent drop of collections by force of the compensations that should start to take place soon, issued Law No. 13.670/2018 bringing among others two relevant restrictions to compensation on tax matters. The first is a veto to compensation of the monthly estimates of tax incurring on profit (ensuring the Treasury a minimum monthly collection). The second is a veto to compensation (by means of imposing stricter sanctions) in the event of a creditor having its liquidity under inspection proceedings. To clarify the impact of this change, it is necessary to mention the complexity of the old procedure. After the favourable March 2017 decision became final and unappealable, the taxpayer would take to the Treasurys attention information proving the definiteness of the judicial decision and, with that, the taxpayer would obtain preliminary authorisation to start the compensation. This would take up to five years to be analysed by the tax authorities, which could either accept it or not (whether by adopting an erroneous procedure or even by insufficiency of credit), an event which would give rise to a new administrative and/or legal discussion to validate the adopted procedure (compensation). In cases that involve such a large amount, it is expected that it will not be possible to compensate taxpayers in a single installment normally there are months and various federal taxes settled with the use of the credit originated in a single lawsuit. Therefore, with the legislative change, if just after the first compensation the inspection for ascertaining the taxpayers liquidity is installed, the compensation of all the other installments shall be suspended until the ascertaining of said liquidity is concluded which could take years, especially if the tax authorities take this opportunity to raise subsidiary theses regarding the composition of the assigned credit. So, in spite of the countless years in which this theme was discussed and the final favourable decision in the leading case given by the Federal Supreme Court, it shall be no surprise if we face a new judicial discussion in the next few years to give effectiveness to the decision that acknowledges the taxpayers right. We believe that this new obstacle imposed by the federal government will delay taxpayers being able to exercise their rights, but we envision solid arguments in their favour that can enable the delivery of decisions that remove said obstacles and ensure even if by means of injunctions the effectiveness of the final and unappealable court decisions. This article was prepared by Gabriela Lemos (gabriela.lemos@mattosfilho.com.br) of Mattos Filho. The material on this site is for financial institutions, professional investors and their professional advisers. It is for information only. Please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy before using the site. All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws. 2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQ. Share this article For the past two years, C.Y. Stephens Auditorium in Ames has been showcasing local singing and songwriting talent in conjunction wit Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Opinion Policies Editorials are longer opinion pieces that are written by a group of community members recruited across campus who address relevant issues on a local, national and international level. Editorials are research-based. The purpose of the Editorial Board is to promote discussion concerning relevant issues in the community while advising on possible solutions. Topics are chosen via relevancy and interests of the members, which are then discussed by the Editorial Board in order to reach a general consensus concerning the topic or issue. 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These contain similar research-based content and need to be at least 400 words in length. The following requirements should be met: first and last name, email and relation or position to Iowa State. Emails must be tied to the submitted guest column or it will not be accepted or published. Pseudonyms are prohibited and the writer will be banned from submissions. Read our full Opinion Policies here. Updated on 10/7/2020 Samsung will be launching its first foldable smartphone alongside the Galaxy S10 in March after initially unveiling the latter in February. The company will also launch a 5G variant of its next flagship device. The report says that Samsung will be first unveiling the Galaxy S10 in February at Mobile World Congress 2019 before releasing it to the public in March. Samsung followed the same timeline with its flagship Galaxy S lineup every year so this move wont be surprising. Samsung has already demoed its first foldable smartphone to the public at its developer conference earlier this month. The device features a 4.6-inch primary display that can be unfolded to have a 7.4-inch display. However, the device was heavily masked and Samsung did not really provide any details about the device or its availability. Unlike the Galaxy S10, this foldable smartphone will not support 5G networks. Samsung has not hinted at the price of its foldable smartphone but analysts expect it to carry a price tag of nearly $1,800. This will greatly limit the reach of the product but given that the foldable smartphone is still considered a prototype by Samsung in many ways, this move will make sense. The Galaxy S10 is expected to come in three different variants, with the base variant featuring a single camera setup and a flat screen. The other models are expected to sport a 6.3-inch screen, with Samsung focusing on reducing the bezels or giving it the boot altogether. For this, Samsung is considering removing the iris scanner from the device as well. The Galaxy S10 is not expected to adopt a notch display design similar to the iPhone X and iPhone X especially after Samsung ridiculed it in its marketing campaigns last year. The Galaxy S10 will also feature an in-display capacitive fingerprint sensor. It will sport a 7nm chipset from Qualcomm in the US, with European and Asian variants making use of Samsungs own 7nm Exynos chip. [Via Yonhap We are sad to report that Camille Grammer has confirmed that her $3.2 million Malbu mansion has fallen to the California wildfires. Posting a photo of the 6,000 square-foot property to Instagram on Sunday, November 11, thestar wrote, Sadly my house couldnt be saved. The courageous firefighters were able to save my cars and personal items recovered from my home.She continued, I thanked the fire captain and his team of firemen for all of their hard work. He took the time to explain what happened and Im grateful for all of their hard work trying to save my home. Sad we lost our home but grateful that my family is safe. Luckily we quickly evacuated our house yesterday after a patrol car drove up the street announcing mandatory evacuations. Im grateful for my lovely neighbors and friends who kept me informed and for their help this evening. Thank you all for caring.Camilles costars offered up their support with comments on the post. Kyle Richards and Dorit Kemsley posted sad face emojis, and Erika Jayne wrote, So sorry Camille, according toGrammer purchased the house following her 2011 divorce from ex-husband Kelsey Grammer, with whom she shares children Jude, 17, and Mason, 14. The news comes after Camille Grammer married David C. Meyer last month in Hawaii, in which most of her RHOBH co-stars attended the nuptials.Photo Credit: Bravo At the meeting in Hanoi, the dignitaries thanked the Party and State for their support to religious followers. They said the sixth meeting of the 14th NA recorded many positive changes, with CPVCC General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong elected as the countrys President. The dignitaries also noted that since the Law on Belief and Religion took effect, the law has met demand for belief and religion practices in the nation in the new era. They also pledged to continue disseminating the law to followers, encouraging them to implement the laws provisions and understand guidelines and policies of the Party and State. For her part, Mai, who is also Secretary of the CPVCC, said Vietnam has so far recognised and granted certificates to 42 organisations of 15 religions, with about 25.3 million followers or 27 percent of the countrys population. There are about 60,800 religious dignitaries and 27,920 worshipping establishments nationwide. She spoke highly of role of religious dignitaries who are 14th NA deputies in making decisions on the countrys important issues and religious affairs, as well as in persuading followers to support the Partys policies and the States laws. She took the occasion to ask the guests to continue contributing their opinions on issues related to religious affairs in particular and the countrys socio-economic development in general. The official affirmed that the dignitaries are models for followers and expressed her belief that they will closely work with the Commission on Mass Mobilisation and relevant agencies to ensure the freedom of belief and religion of all people and fulfil their assigned tasks while contributing to the activities of the legislative body. UPDATE: are currently filming their ninth season. It's been reported that the ladies headed to France over the weekend. Dorit Kemsley, Erika Girardi, Kyle Richards, Lisa Rinna and Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave were spotted at LAX.The ladies took to social media to share photos of them vacationing in France.Camille Grammer and Denise Richards did not attend the trip due to the California wildfires. As for Lisa Vanderpump, it's been reported that she did not attend the trip as she refuses to film with her RHOBH co-stars. No word if they will join the ladies later on.Many fans of the Bravo hit reality series shared photos of the ladies being spotted filming on social media. Check it out below!Are you guys ready for RHOBH Season 9? Sound off in the comments below!Photo Credit: Bravo 92 chambers of commerce in and around Dallas/Fort Worth are banding together for the first time in a massive coalition not to fight government strangulation from the left but to challenge anti-business impulses that increasingly issue from the far right. From attempts to legislate who goes into what bathroom to strident anti-immigration efforts, the worry is rising in Texas boardrooms that those who hold power have lost sight of what is good for Texas' economy. It isnt just about social issues, either. There are worries that state lawmakers are hampering infrastructure development and choking off governments traditional power to enable the construction of roads, power lines and water projects. There is worry, too, that the costs of public schools are being shoved onto residents and business owners in the form of ever-rising property taxes at the same time state government is trying to cap how much revenue local governments can raise. Meanwhile, state government has a nasty habit of heaping unfunded mandates on local governments only to be invisible when the bill comes due. We share many of the concerns expressed by DFW-area chambers and support their effort to come together to represent traditional business interests in Austin. Nine primary chambers in the area all active in state government are leading the effort under the North Texas Commission. The nine include the Dallas Regional Chamber, the Fort Worth Chamber, the North Dallas Chamber and the chambers of Arlington, Frisco, Irving, McKinney, Plano and Richardson. As they continue to organize, we can expect to see them become more vocal during legislative sessions and more influential during primary as well as general elections down the road. These chambers include serious business people with serious conservative bona fides. Dale Petroskey president and chief executive of the Dallas Regional Chamber served in the Reagan administration to name just one. Their concerns about the states direction are concerns that fellow conservatives should hear and consider as we approach the 86th Legislature. To many business leaders, the last legislative session was among the most anti-business in memory, said Chris Wallace, president and chief executive of the North Texas Commission. The bad publicity that issued from Lt. Gov. Dan Patricks attempt to force transgender people into the bathroom of their birth gender was enough to cause CEOs around Texas to push back against an unnecessary and mean-spirited piece of legislation. Immigration is another area where business leaders know that smart, fair policy that keeps workers in this country is good for the Texas economy, a strong tide that has lifted many people into wealth. Business leaders are paying closer attention now to the rise of deep-pocketed but often misguided ideologues who have funded far-right political groups like Empower Texans that have outsized influence on the Texas Republican Party. Primary season has become a sad and unserious demonstration of who can get farther to the right of the other guy on the culture wars that tear at the countrys fabric. Too many of these fights have seen good and experienced legislators washed out of government in favor of dubiously qualified but predictably loud replacements who do little to keep Texas the envy of the nation. Local chambers know what has made Texas successful because many of their members have been at the root of that success. It was once hard to imagine such groups gathering together to oppose so many efforts of a GOP legislature in Texas. But such are the times, and the times are telling. PM Phuc lauded the ambassadors contributions to enhancing the two countries relations, with a number of high-level visits organised and bilateral trade surpassing US$4 billion. He said that they should be able to double bilateral trade as the potential for two-way cooperation remains huge. He suggested intensifying visits between the two countries businesses to help expand collaboration opportunities. Informing the diplomat of the Vietnamese National Assemblys adoption of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) on the afternoon of November 12, PM Phuc stressed that this will be a good chance for Vietnam and Brazil to boost trade and investment ties. The Government leader also asked both sides to coordinate in organising activities to mark the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations in 2019. The outgoing ambassador affirmed that Vietnam has always and will continue to be an important partner of Brazil. He said he believes that the bilateral relations will grow further in the coming time. He pointed to cooperation potential in aviation as Brazil intends to export aircraft to Vietnam. He also expressed his hope that Vietnam will sign a free trade agreement with the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), and that Brazil will be able to sign a similar agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Daniel Joseph, elected President at the podium addressing some of the newly elected board members at the first Kelowna meeting of the People's Party of Canada. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Former Quebec premier Jean Charest and his wife Michele Dionne offer their condolences to Chantal Renaud, wife of former Quebec premier Bernard Landry who died last week, during a public viewing in Montreal on Monday, November 12, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson This is the third time that Vietnam has participated in the annual competition for high school students and the first time that Vietnam has secured a gold medal at the Olympiad. Tran Xuan Tung, a 12th grader, bagged the gold medal and Ho Phi Dung, an 11th grader, won the silver medal while the bronze medals went to Le Tran Dao and Nguyen To Vinh Huy. All the team members are from the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School for the Gifted. With this achievement, the Vietnamese team ranked 10th among 38 countries participating in the competition. The 12th IOAA 2018 attracted the participation of 46 teams from 38 countries worldwide. Following the competition, the Vietnamese team was received by Vietnamese Ambassador to China Dang Minh Khoi on the afternoon of November 11. The diplomat congratulated the Vietnamese team and spoke highly of their achievement, adding that the outstanding results will contribute to promoting the students fondness of learning and the development of national education. Addressing the event, deputy chief of the CPV Central Committees Office Hoang Cong Hoan said that the inauguration of the school is evidence of the traditional friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two Parties, State and people of Vietnam and Laos. The schools modern equipment is expected to enhance the teaching and studying quality of 900 teachers and students. Empowered by General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong, Hoan officially handed over the school to the Lao side. He also conveyed the Vietnamese leaders wish that the school will reap more achievements in education and training. Meanwhile, Deputy Governor of Bolikhamsay Bounmabu Chaleun expressed deep gratitude to General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong, affirming that the gift shows Vietnamese and Lao leaders great attention to Laos human resource training, while reflecting special ties between the two Parties and States. Construction of the school started in December 2017 with a total cost of VND30 billion (US$1.28 million). Covering 2,126 square metres, the school has one four-storey building with eight classrooms, two experiment rooms, one hall, eight rooms for management board and teachers. The Premier Village Danang Resort was honored with the Luxury Family Beach Resort, while the Mercure Danang French Village Bana Hills was awarded with the Luxury Romantic Hotel. CEO of Sun Group, Dang Minh Truong, said this success would be the driving force for his group to continue to offer Vietnam and the world luxurious and impressive products with perfect services matching international standards. Mercure Danang French Village Bana Hills Michael Hunter Smith, marketing director of the World Luxury Hotel Awards, congratulated Vietnam on the two very important awards saying that global travellers would consider Vietnam a luxury destination. Established in 2006, the World Luxury Hotel Awards is the pinnacle of achievement in the luxury hotel industry offering international recognition as voted by guests, travellers and industry players alike. Over 300,000 international travellers vote each year, during a four-week period, to select the winners. (A trailer for "Madam B," or "Mrs. B., A North Korean woman." From Zurich Film Festival's YouTube account) By Jung Da-min The poster of "Madam B," or "Mrs. B. A North Korean Woman," which will be released on Nov. 15 at local theaters. Courtesy of CINESOPA "Madam B" or "Mrs. B: a North Korean Woman" is a real-life documentary, on which director Jero Yun's first commercial film "Beautiful Days" is based. The latter was the opening film of the 23rd Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), receiving attention for actress Lee Na-young's comeback to the screen after six years. Madam B, a North Korean woman, was engaged in the illegal business of handing over North Korean women to bars and other nightspots for commissions. She also sold drugs smuggled from North Korea, a crime that later caught up with her, blocking her effort to gain citizenship in South Korea. Kim Che0l-ho, new CEO of National Theater of Korea, speaks during a press conference in central Seoul on Nov. 8. / Courtesy of NTOK By Kwon Mee-yoo After Kim Cheol-ho took the helm at the National Theater of Korea (NTOK) in September following a year-long leadership void, he unveiled his plans as CEO to act as a hub of cultural exchanges between North and South Korea. As the nation's flagship theater's 70th anniversary in 2020 is approaching, Kim said at a press conference last week that he hopes to invite a North Korean art troupe for the anniversary festival, which coincides with the reopening of the theater's main Haeoreum Theater. Kim, 65, is an old hand in traditional Korean music. Prior to the NTOK leadership post, he served as director-general of the National Gugak Center and director of the Seoul Metropolitan Traditional Music Orchestra. He previously was involved in musical exchanges between the two Koreas, taking part in a North-South joint concert on composer Yun I-sang at Mount Geumgang and visited Pyongyang University of Music and Dance in 2006 while leading the National Gugak Center. North Korea's Samjiyon Orchestra performed at the NTOK when the troupe visited Seoul in February to support the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games. "A variety of artistic and cultural exchanges have been held between the two Koreas and the NTOK is preparing for state-level exchanges," Kim said. "We are responsible for preserving and developing traditional Korean art, so NTOK could serve as a foundation for cultural exchanges with the North." After taking office, Kim launched a taskforce to prepare for the 70th anniversary of the theater, including a festival, special performances and academic events. "The NTOK opened in 1950, right before the Korean War, and has led the development of Korean art and culture since then. Especially, the NTOK played an important role in bringing traditional art to contemporary audiences. I will help the theater to continue fulfilling its role properly," Kim said. "Our main theater is currently under renovation and the new facilities will get abreast of world-class theaters." Kim said he knew the theater had no leaders for a considerable period, but the staffers have been managing the theater in a stable way and continuing existing projects such as the annual repertory season program. "I am grateful for those who ran the theater despite the leadership void. However, there are projects that could be pushed by its CEO and now I am here to take on those issues," he said. "I will name artistic directors of the theater's affiliate art troupes as soon as possible. I understand there is much concern over fairness of the hiring process, so I will pick the right professionals through a reasonable process." Kim said the NTOK's role has been changing over the decades. "When the NTOK opened in the 1950s, the theater focused on preserving and handing down of traditions. Recently, its focus has shifted to modernization of traditional art in an era of globalization," he said. "The NTOK is a national organization and there is a role for a public institution such as supporting non-commercial projects. We will try to balance the spirit of the times with experimental performances." Kim also said the theater will provide a better environment for foreigners to keep up with the rapidly changing culture. "We will do our best to help international visitors enjoy NTOK performances with subtitles and commentary services," Kim said. Kim's term ends September 2021. People walk past the Wall Street sign near the New York Stock Exchange. Korean banks in the U.S. have been shutting down their intermediary wire transfer services on tougher anti-money laundering rules. Yonhap US sanctions, anti-money laundering keep lenders at bay By Park Hyong-ki Some Korean banks in New York have shut down their intermediary wire transfer operations as the United States has enforced stronger preventive measures and rules on money laundering and shadow banking, industry sources say. Besides offering regular loan and deposit services, they had operated as intermediary banks, enabling funds from remitters to be transferred and "relayed" through the banks to third-party banks in the U.S. and other countries. However, banks such as Shinhan Bank, Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) and NongHyup Bank in New York have stopped the service as the U.S. increased its crackdown on terrorism financing. Given that the risks of providing intermediary transfers outweighed the costs to maintain and abide by tighter regulations, also known as "Know Your Customer" (KYC) rules, industry sources say the banks were left with no choice but to shut the service down. Under the KYC rules, financial institutions operating in the U.S. must know the identities of their customers before and while providing them with banking services. Shinhan Bank said it stopped offering intermediary wire transfers there in 2017. "The bank in New York discontinued the service as a means to manage risks related to increased anti-money laundering measures," a Shinhan Bank spokesperson said. It added its intermediary wire transfer service had not been a part of its core business operations in New York. IBK did so in 2015, but continues to provide loan services and direct wire transfers, its spokesman said. However, NongHyup said it is in a different situation as it was slapped with a fine of $110 million by the New York Department of Financial Services in 2017. The reason behind it was NongHyup failed to comply with the state financial authority's orders that the bank adopt a system in line with its stronger anti-money laundering regulations. To this end, a spokesman for NongHyup Bank in Seoul said its New York branch faces a slowdown in its operations. "The New York branch is not actively expanding its services such as loans, and has halted the intermediary transfer service," he said. NongHyup added that Chief Executive Lee Dae-hoon had left for New York Monday afternoon to check on its branch's internal system. The lender declined to reveal details of his schedule there. IBK Chief Executive Kim Do-jin is currently planning to visit New York in December as a follow-up to New York's regular bank audits in August, not to address any compliance issues. Woori Bank, meanwhile, said its business in New York is "operating as usual," continuing its intermediary wire transfer, loan and deposit services given it has received the second-highest grade by the U.S. financial authority. The highest grade is generally given to U.S. banks, according to Woori Bank. The U.S. has been introducing and implementing stronger measures on money laundering since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Since President Donald Trump took office and started targeting Iran and North Korea, industry sources say the rules have become tougher and stricter. The U.S. has restored economic sanctions against Iran following its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord. It has also said it will maintain the highest level U.N. sanctions against North Korea, even though the two sides are continuing their negotiations over the North's denuclearization. Improved relations between the two Koreas, with South Korea calling for the lifting of sanctions on the North, has allegedly kept local banks active here and abroad under U.S. watch. It has been reported that the Department of the Treasury has directly warned the banks here not to violate U.N. sanctions. "The U.S. is keeping an eye on foreign banks amid the sanctions," an industry source said. New economic team urged to change strategies on income inequality By Park Hyong-ki Finance Minister nominee Hong Nam-ki President Moon Jae-in has called on his advisers and ministers to address problems in the economy through a set of combined social and macroeconomic policies. New policy chief Kim Soo-hyun told the press on Nov. 11 about the President's orders, while reassuring that Finance Minister nominee Hong Nam-ki will be in charge of directing the future course of the government's economic policies. He added his job will be drawing a "bigger picture" for the economy by taking into account the social, environmental and educational issues, and provide full support to Hong, saying, "The second economic team has one leader, not two." This is in stark contrast to its previous team, which had "two" leaders Kim Dong-yeon and Jang Ha-sung, who often showed discontent toward each other's policies for the economy. President Moon Jae-in's new policy chief Kim Soo-hyun By Lee Kyung-min A coalition of union workers at credit card companies vowed to continue their all-out protest against the government's plan to lower transaction fees up to 1 trillion won ($875 million). They claimed blindly pushing the repeatedly failed measure only escalates the conflict between the parties involved. Three groups comprised of workers in the financial services sector and the nation's eight credit card issuers said the fact that no tangible improvement has been observed thus far, proves the government's "incompetence." "The government has lowered the transaction fee nine times over the past few years, a result of administrative railroading that only exacerbated the controversy," the group said in front of headquarters of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on Yeouido, Oct. 12. They submitted a letter of protest to the DPK Chairman Lee Hae-chan shortly after the protest. The added nothing has changed for the struggling small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which they pinpointed as the core reason why the government should revisit the plan as soon as possible. "The government's repeated policy implementation over the course of nine fee cuts only shows how wrong and flawed the approach has been," they added. A fee cut without serious consideration to the size of each business, they added, will only benefit a limited number of large conglomerate-affiliated franchises. "Workers at the card firms are in constant fear of sudden layoffs, and the government's inept policy that fails to address the issue in an equitable manner only adds to our frustration," they said. The growing sense of anxiety came after Hyundai Card accepted resignation letters from a handful of senior executives Nov. 8. While the card firm said the "voluntary" submission of the letters was irrelevant to the looming fee cuts, it was largely considered the beginning of massive layoffs stemming from deteriorating bottom lines among the once lucrative firms. Meanwhile, a similar collective action is expected from a collation of about 20 SMEs today. The group, seeking to abolish what they call a payment system "at the height of unfairness," will hold a street rally in Gwanghwamun, Seoul. Over 100 vehicles will be mobilized with banners of messages demanding the prompt reduction of interchange fees. "The card firms' strategic move claiming their business will somehow go bankrupt is simply a far-fetched scenario and they know it," the group said. "Their operating profit far surpasses 2 trillion won a year even after lavish promotional activities. The card firms are deflecting responsibility, thereby leaving us, the underdogs, to continue to suffer." Financial Services Commission (FSC) Chairman Choi Jong-ku said in October that efforts are underway to revise the current method to charge the fee, adding a more proper way of fee-setting measures will be unveiled in November. President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev By Farrukh Juraev Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Taking into account the importance and urgency of the development of Central Asia as a coherent whole region, the from the first days of the presidency focused his attention on the implementation of proactive regional policies, the creation of a favorable political atmosphere in Central Asia, the building of constructive and mutually beneficial relations with the countries of the region in all directions, including transport the main priority of Uzbekistan's foreign policy. In our country special attention is paid to the further development of transport infrastructure and the increase in the volume of transit cargo transportation. Currently, our Government is implementing the Program for development and modernization of engineering communications and road infrastructure for 2015-2019, which provides for the elaboration of a single complex development strategy for the national transport industry, which meets high international standards, and ensures its broad integration into international transport communications, taking into account the long-term needs of domestic manufacturers in promoting their products to the regional and world markets. It should be taken into account that today in the country all the necessary conditions have been created for the further development of the transport and transit potential. The country is making efforts to increase the capacity of the transport system, remove existing barriers to unimpeded transit through the territory of Uzbekistan, which plays great importance for the development of international transport corridors in Central Asia. In order to implement key issues of regional development, in November 2017 Samarkand hosted the international conference, "Central Asia: One past and common future, cooperation for sustainable development and mutual prosperity." Addressing the conference, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev spoke about the latest trends in the development of regional cooperation in all relevant areas and initiated a number of proposals on Central Asia. One of the key initiatives of the Head of Uzbekistan the adoption of the U.N. resolution on Central Asia has triggered international support for its implementation and in June this year the U.N. General Assembly adopted the resolution on "Strengthening regional and international cooperation for ensuring peace, stability and sustainable development in the Central Asian region." The resolution envisages the development of sustainable, best-value infrastructure supporting transport and transit corridors and the strengthening of links between all modes of transport, including by opening new roads and railways, as well as flight routes, as well as the implementation of transport and transit agreements encompassing Central Asia. These are the shortest routes in the region, which connect the major international markets. The transport and transit potential of the region is determined by its geostrategic position in the center of the "Great Silk Road," historically serving as a bridge between East and West, North and South. According to some reports, the length of the railway communication system of Central Asian countries extends more than 22,000 km. Kazakhstan has the largest and most exploited railway, which accounts for 66 percent of the total length of the region's railways and accounts for 84 percent of all freight transport. About 18 percent of regional railways pass through Uzbekistan, accounting for about 11 percent of all traffic. Turkmenistan has about 12 percent of regional railways and 4 percent of all traffic. Recently, under the conditions of a confident and friendly atmosphere in Central Asia, it is becoming possible to take practical measures to implement real transport projects. The activity of the International Intermodal Logistics Center "Navoi" is intensively developing, which connects Uzbekistan with major logistics centers of foreign countries, in particular, Frankfurt, Milan, Brussels, Vienna, Zaragoza, Oslo, Basel, Dubai, Delhi, Tehran, Shanghai. Angren-Pap railway line Turkish sources have said previously that authorities have an audio recording purportedly documenting the murder. "We gave the tapes. We gave them to Saudi Arabia, to the United States, Germans, French and British, all of them. They have listened to all the conversations in them. They know," Erdogan said. Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist critical of the Saudi government and its de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, disappeared at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Saudi officials said initially that Khashoggi had left the consulate, later saying he died in an unplanned "rogue operation". The kingdom's public prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, has since said he was killed in a premeditated attack. Speaking ahead of his departure for France to attend commemorations to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, Erdogan called on Saudi Arabia to identify the killer from among a 15-man team that arrived in Turkey some days before Khashoggi's killing. "There's no need to distort this issue, they know for certain that the killer, or the killers, is among these 15 people. Saudi Arabia's government can disclose this by making these 15 people talk," Erdogan said. Erdogan also accused Mojeb -- who visited Istanbul to discuss the investigation with his Turkish counterpart and make inspections in the Istanbul consulate-- of refusing to cooperate, in turn delaying the inquiry. Following a meeting on November 10 in Paris, US President Donald Trump and French leader Emmanuel Macron agreed that the Saudi authorities needed to shed full light on Khashoggi's murder, a French presidency source said. They also agreed that the matter should not be allowed to cause further destabilisation in the Middle East and that it could create an opportunity to find a political resolution to the war in Yemen, according to the official. Amir Salyamov Institute for strategic and regional studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan At the initiative of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev approved the "Action Strategy for five priority areas of the Republic of Uzbekistan 2017 2021" which provides inter alia for development and liberalization of the economy aimed at further strengthening of macroeconomic stability, maintaining high economic growth rates and increasing competitive advantage of the country. Today the world is on the threshold of development of economy of new technological generation digital economy. In the modern world, in the age of globalization and information technology relevance of digitalization of socio-economic relations. According to the experts, 22 percent of global GDP created by the digital economy. About 27 percent of companies around the world use artificial intelligence in their activities. According to the data, by 2020 the world market of technologies for digital production will be more than 700 billion, and by 2025 will expand by $3 trillion due to new products and services. Under these conditions, traditional trade and economic processes are smoothly moving to online platforms. According to the calculations of economists, the volume of sales on online trading platforms in 2017 reached more than $22 trillion, and by 2020 it is expected to grow to $27 trillion. For instance, there are more than 800 thousand online stores in Europe. Only Germany has more than 175 thousand of the mend according to this indicator, Germany is the leader among other European countries. In the U.S. "Amazon" company occupies 37 percent of the American market of electronic commerce and according to the forecasts, within three years this figure will rise to 50 percent. From this point, it's necessary to note that the Republic of Korea is one of the most developed countries in the world for innovative development and digitalization of society and the state: By some estimates: the share of the ICT sector in the Republic of Korea's GDP is about 10 percent; the number of online trading transactions shows a rapid growth an average of 22 percent over the past 15 years; in the ranking of countries on innovation, the Republic of Korea occupies the 1st place for several years; in the index of e-government development occupies the third place, while ranking first in the participation index; in 2017, took 7th place in the pace of development of digitalization, including 2nd in the Asia-Pacific region; increased emphasis is placed on the development of cryptocurrency; These tendencies are being developed in Uzbekistan. In particular, 5 important documents were adopted only in the last 9 months of 2018 year: "On measures to further improve the sphere of information technologies and communications" (February, 2018), "On Measures for Development of the Digital Economy in the Republic of Uzbekistan" (July, 2018), "On measures to organize the activity of crypto-exchanges in the Republic of Uzbekistan" (September, 2018), "On formation of Fund for Support of Digital Economy Development "Digital Trust" (September, 2018). At the same time, the Main Department for the Development of the Digital Economy was created in The Ministry for Development of Information Technologies and Communications. These documents laid the legal foundation for the implementation and development of the digital economy, crypto-assets, smart contracts and blockchain. In order to develop the cryptosystem in Uzbekistan, a license to operate crypto-exchanges is issued exclusively to foreign legal entities through the opening of subsidiaries or other enterprises in the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan. From Jan. 1, 2021, it is planned to introduce blockchain technologies in the activities of state bodies, including the implementation of public procurement, provision of public services and verification of personal information, maintenance of state registers and classifiers. Also work is underway to launch digital banks in Uzbekistan, which will provide banking services remotely without cash services. Special attention is paid to the development of e-government. Almost all government agencies provide e-services, such as the Single Portal for Interactive Public Services (my.gov.uz) provides more than 300 electronic services, including the portal which gives an opportunity to send an appeal to law enforcement agencies and open a business in 30 minutes, while tax reporting and customs clearance are 100% transferred to electronic form. The virtual reception of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, launched in September 2016, is part of the E-government system. Virtual reception of the President, as of September 2018, examined more than 2 million applications; Measures are being implemented to create the first "smart city" in Uzbekistan. Thanks to cooperation and effective coordination with experts from the Republic of Korea, in 2025 the first "smart city" will be Nurafshon city; Along with this, in September, the decree Of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan on "The Strategy for Innovative Development of the Country for 2019-2021." was adopted. The main goal of the Strategy is development of human capital as the main factor determining the level of the country's competitiveness in the world arena and its innovative progress. The document notes that one of the main goals is the entry of Uzbekistan by 2030 into the 50 leading countries of the world according to the Global Innovation Index rating. Among the main objectives of the strategy is Uzbekistan's joining the 50 leading countries by 2030 according to the rating of the Global innovation index. In the prism of innovative development and digitalization of the economy, it should be emphasized that the quality of education and research are drivers of digitalization of the state economy. The country'seducation system should not lag behind the requirements imposed on it by the realities of the digital economy. In this regard, since 2017, "Mirzo Ulugbek Innovation Center" the Innovation center to support the development and implementation of information technologies has been operating in Tashkent. Today, more than 200 enterprises are residents of the center. In this regard, cooperation between Uzbekistan and the Republic of Korea acquires a special character, taking into account the existing effective experience of cooperation between the two countries. In particular, INHA University in Tashkent, as well as the Uzbek-Korean faculty in the areas of "Convergence of ICT" and "E-business" in Tashkent professional College of information technology are a vivid example of educational cooperation between Uzbekistan and the Republic of Korea in the field of ICT. Cooperation in the field of ICT and digital economy is actively developing between our countries. One of the latest measures was an agreement to create a National e-Commerce platform in Uzbekistan based on Republic of Korea's experience, which is necessary for the introduction of advanced forms of interaction in foreign trade, facilitation of procedures related to foreign trade operations and export promotion. In general, nowadays digitalization processes are one of the main drivers of the development of life's key spheres. In this context, Republic of Korea's experience on digitalization, which over the past few years shows a positive trend that directly affects the economic growth of the country, is relevant for Uzbekistan. This is due to the fact that the modern economic policy of Uzbekistan considers innovative economy and creative ideas as one of the most important engines of economic growth. An officer at Suseo Police Station in southern Seoul shows items confiscated as evidence in an exam leak case at Sookmyung Girls' High School, Monday. The police concluded a teacher there leaked questions on five occasions to his twin daughters attending the same school who memorized the answers before the exams. /Korea Times photo by Bae Woo-han By Jung Hae-myoung Police concluded Monday that a teacher at Sookmyung Girls' High School leaked exam questions multiple times to his twin daughters who attended the same school. Wrapping up the two-month investigation and disclosing confiscated material as evidence, Suseo Police Station referred the case to the prosecution, recommending it indict all three. The police said the father copied midterm and final exam papers from June 2017 to July this year, meaning the cheating took place consistently since the first semester's final exams in the twins' freshman year. The twins' notes and flashcards with the answers to the finals in all subjects for this year's first semester, as well as a list of answers scribbled on a copy of actual exam papers were shown as evidence. For physics, the twins only wrote the answer to a question without writing out how they solved it. One of the twins also had answers to an English exam on her mobile phone. She claimed she wrote them after the test to check on them after the test, but the digital forensics team found they were entered before the exam. The police discovered that the father went to the school on nights that the midterm and final exam papers for this year's first semester were stored in an office, but did not leave any official record of going in to work. The father, who has persistently denied the charges, was detained Nov. 6. The twins avoided this because they are minors, but police asked prosecutors to indict them. They also told regional education authorities to give clearer guidelines to schools about security for the exam compilation procedure from deciding on questions, printing and storage of test papers, and grading system. Suspicions of the leak emerged after the twin sisters received top grades on their school's final exam in July. Contrary to the sudden improvement, the twins' scores in a mock exam for the College Scholastic Ability Test were low during the same period, according to a report disclosed by Rep. Kim Hae-young of the Democratic Party of Korea. The twins applied to leave the school Nov. 1, in an apparent move to avoid disciplinary measures, but the school did not allow this as the investigation was ongoing. The school board is expected to dismiss their father soon. Parents of Sookmyung students are calling for their expulsion and the nullifying their grades rather than letting them leave voluntarily. Flower bouquets, tangerines, coffee and other small gifts are left outside the Gukil Gosiwon (a low-cost single-room accommodation) in Jongno, Seoul, Monday, for the seven tenants who died in a fire there Friday. / Korea Times photo by Lee Suh-yoon By Lee Suh-yoon Flowers and snacks were piled up outside the charred three-story Gukil Gosiwon building, Monday, in a silent memorial to seven tenants who died in a fire there. The fire at the gosiwon (a low-cost single-room type of accommodation) in central Seoul once again reminded people of the unsafe living conditions facing most of its destitute residents. Fire hazards are common in these makeshift housing facilities. Inside, tiny rooms line both sides of a narrow dim corridor. Kitchens and bathrooms are shared facilities and each room is only three to four square-meters in area, barely enough space for a person to stretch their legs. Many do not even have windows. Gukil Gosiwon, like many others, had only one main exit and no sprinkler system. "People should not have to live in such cages," Yun Sung-no, a member of the Korea Union of Tenants, told The Korea Times outside the building, Monday. Yun said one of the survivors of the fire moved to another gosiwon right in front of his former one. "Can you imagine how traumatic that is?" he asked as he pointed to the third floor of another commercial building directly facing the soot-covered windows of Gukil Gosiwon. There are around 5,800 gosiwon in Seoul. The name comes from the Korean word gosi, a state examination to become a public servant a secure and coveted job in Korea as these medium-term housing facilities first appeared to host budget-tight students who want to live near their preparation academies. The victims on Friday, however, were not young exam-takers but day laborers in their 50s to 70s, one of the most destitute demographics in the slowing Korean economy. Restaurants line the first floor of the Gukil Gosiwon. The fire is suspected to have started on the third floor. / Korea Times photo by Lee Suh-yoon By Kim Hyun-bin The competition in the country's airline industry is expected to become fiercer as several more budget carriers are applying for business licenses, joining the already saturated market. Korea has two full service carriers, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines, as well as six low-cost carriers (LCC) Jeju Air, Jin Air, Air Busan, T'way Air, Eastar Jet and Air Seoul which account for over 55 percent of the market share, according to recent government data. However, four additional budget airlines Fly Gangwon, Air Premia, Aero K and Air Philip have submitted applications last week to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to obtain licenses for international operation. Guardian Airlines, which aims to launch a cargo airline, is expected to submit its application within this week. The license submission comes as the government announced late last month that it aims to finish new LCC license reviews by the first quarter of next year. Industry experts believe at least two of the four applicants could gain approval. Fly Gangwon, formerly Fly Yangyang, is based in the Gangwon provincial city; Aero K, in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province; Air Premia, in Incheon; and Air Philip, in Muan, South Jeolla Province. In April and December of 2016, the government rejected Fly Gangwon's application, and since then the airline has been working to increase capital and improve their business plan to become the country's seventh LCC. The ministry also rejected Aero-K's application in June last year, saying their routes would overlap too much with those of other carriers. The airline has since revised its operation plan. Air Premia has recruited aviation experts including Kim Jong-chul, former chief executive of Korea's top budget carrier, Jeju Air. The airline hopes to implement a new service model called a hybrid service carrier (HSC), which it says is between a full service carrier and a low cost carrier, offering mid- to long-distance routes with cheaper prices than full service carriers. Air Philip is the only airline out of the four that actually operates three domestic routes, and now aims to obtain license to fly to international cities. The ministry has sent the airlines' operation plans to the Korea Transport Institute for project feasibility evaluation. "We will issue a license after we review the evaluation results and thoroughly look into the companies' ability to run a business," a transport ministry official said. The ministry will operate a taskforce and rate each airline in several aspects including safety, possible new routes, airport capacity and consumer benefits. The new bids, however, are not welcomed by the currently operating airlines, which worry about even greater competition in the already crammed market. "It will affect our profitability, and consequently lead to reduction of the budget for personnel and education for our employees, which can create safety issues. The country is already suffering from a shortage of pilots, which will make matters even worse," an employee of a budget airline said, asking not to be named. "All the routes to nearby countries are saturated by the already existing airlines. Instead of the government just issuing licenses and making us compete, it should create additional slots to fly in. Some of the existing LCCs are already struggling," another LCC employee said on condition of anonymity. By Kim Yoo-chul President Moon Jae-in will seek wider support for inter-Korean agreements to defuse tension and promote peace at upcoming ASEAN and APEC meetings, Cheong Wa Dae said Monday. In a press release, the presidential office said Moon will visit Singapore for four days from Nov. 13 to participate in summits with ASEAN as well as ASEAN+3, which includes South Korea, China and Japan. President Moon will then fly to Papua New Guinea to take part in the APEC forum for two days. It's still unknown whether the President will directly pitch his "sanctions-easing" message during his planned summits with Asian leaders after a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korea's Kim Yong-chol was delayed. Washington said the U.S. remains focused on fulfilling the commitments agreed to by President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Singapore summit in June. Cheong Wa Dae said Moon will hold a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison during the ASEAN and APEC sessions. The presidential office said talks are underway for Moon's in-person meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the sessions. A face-to-face meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has been confirmed. "At meetings with Pence and Xi, President Moon plans to share the latest updates and progress on North Korea's denuclearization-related issues and ask them to help South Korea's efforts aimed at keeping the momentum of denuclearization talks alive without a further impasse," Cheong Wa Dae said. President Moon has played something of a surrogate role for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on the international diplomatic stage, but Moon's "sanctions-easing" message toward North Korea after the North has taken measures like dismantling its nuclear test site apparently fell flat during the President's recent visit to European capitals. Cheong Wa Dae said President Moon intends to suggest strengthening strategic talks on all levels with ASEAN members, as South Korea is moving ahead with its "New Economic Roadmap on the Korean Peninsula" as part of its New Southern Policy. "The roadmap will include detailed plans on how to boost trade volume between South Korea and ASEAN members," Cheong Wa Dae said. Under the New Southern Policy, South Korea is expanding economic cooperation with ASEAN members on multiple fronts. An Airbus A330 multi-role tanker transport (MRTT) arrives at an airbase in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, Monday. This is the Air Force's first in-flight refueling aircraft. / Yonhap By Lee Min-hyung The Air Force took delivery of an Airbus A330 multi-role tanker transport (MRTT) in-flight refueling aircraft, Monday, in a move to increase the tactical flight time for its fighter jets. The A330 MRTT, which can carry up to 111 tons of fuel, is a military version of the civilian A330 airplane. The Air Force plans to conduct a month-long inspection of its first in-flight refueling aircraft at its base in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, after which the plane will go into service if its performance is accepted. It plans to introduce three more MRTTs by the end of next year, seeking to fully use the aircraft in its multi-purpose role, such as by transporting troops and cargo. The Air Force has a budget of 1.5 trillion won ($1.32 billion) for the four aircraft. The MRTT will be mainly used to refuel the Air Force's F-15K and KF-16 fighters, and the 40 F-35A stealth fighters that are set to be delivered to Korea by the end of 2021. For example, the F-15K fighter jet can stay in the air for 90 minutes through aerial refueling. As of now, the aircraft can only carry out 30-minute missions without aerial refueling. "The introduction of the A330 MRTT allows the Air Force to conduct aerial missions in a much more efficient way," a military official said. "The primary role of the MRTT is to enhance the nation's defense readiness in the air and give fighter jets more loiter time when performing missions," he added "On top of that, the MRTT is a versatile aircraft. The Air Force plans to use them when carrying out relief and disaster rescue activities." The Air Force said it has yet to draw up a specific plan over how to use them during its annual exercises. The military official said the Air Force has finished pre-training pilots for the MRTT, but still requires more time to complete management procedures for the planes, crew and engineers. The MRTT is 59 meters in length with a wingspan of 50 meters. Its introduction comes at a time when relations between Seoul and Pyongyang are improving. When it was first decided to introduce the aircraft in 2015, Pyongyang criticized the move, calling the decision a "war crime." By Lee Min-hyung North Korea has stepped up criticism of South Korea and the United States for their resumption of joint marine exercises, calling the move a provocative act against the ongoing peace momentum on the Korean Peninsula. The verbal denunciation came a week after the allies resumed the Korea Marine Exercise Program (KMEP) for two weeks in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province. Seoul and Washington suspended a series of joint military drills this year in consideration of the reconciliatory relations between the two Koreas, but the allies decided to resume the drill to enhance defense readiness here. "Seoul and Washington should stop such a provocative act and remain consistent in the ongoing tension-easing on the peninsula by stopping any military exercises," Rodong Sinmun, the North's official mouthpiece, said Monday. The regime went on to denounce the South and the U.S. for resuming the drill, which Pyongyang said was a move against the recent inter-Korean military agreement. "The drill is a breach of the inter-Korean military agreement under which both sides agreed to remove any threats for possible war and ease tension across the peninsula," said the newspaper. The agreement was signed in September during the third summit this year between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Under the agreement, both sides agreed to take steps to disarm inter-Korean border areas and continue easing tension on the peninsula. Maeari, a propaganda outlet, also criticized Seoul and Washington for the decision to resume the drill. "Whether a drill is small or large, any kind of military exercises are unforgivable," it said. "South Korea should continue fulfilling the joint military agreement with North Korea." Despite the verbal denunciation, the South's Ministry of National Defense said Monday it did not have any plans to stop the annual drill. "The KMEP has been conducted annually, so we are going to continue to carry out the drill this year," ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo said in a media briefing. The KMEP had been suspended since this May when Seoul and Washington made the decision in consideration of the North's rare gesture for peace and its pledge for denuclearization. But both sides decided to resume the drill to maintain defense readiness here. By Park Ji-won The National Assembly is drawing up a draft plan to renovate its main building for the first time since it was built in 1975. According to Assembly officials Monday, Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang and Assembly Secretary General Yoo Ihn-tae are having a discussion with architects to come up with a renovation plan for the main building. "Moon is being briefed by experts and thinking of forming a basic plan for the building's renovation. Assembly Speaker Moon and Secretary General Yoo will form a taskforce," said Lee Kye-sung, spokesman of the National Assembly speaker. The details of the plan have not been finalized over when and how the building will be transformed. The Assembly wanted to build a memorial hall at the site to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the establishment of South Korea's provisional government. However, the secretary general reportedly postponed the plan in favor of an overhaul of the entire complex rather than transforming one building. Last week, five experts including architect Kim Won came to the Assembly and conducted research to set a plan for the renovation of the building. Kim is one of the key figures who made a district plan for Yeouido, where the Assembly is located, in the 1960s. The Assembly added another building for lawmakers in 2012 and plans to build a press center by December 2019. The main Assembly building, which is used for Assembly meetings and press conferences, was built in 1975 on former President Park Chung-hee's orders. By Kim Yoo-chul The two Koreas met Monday to discuss ways to modernize cross-border roads along the eastern coast, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry. The ministry said a second meeting of joint field research groups between the two Koreas was held at the inter-Korean liaison office in the North's border city of Gaeseong. Five South Korean representatives led by an assistant minister of land, infrastructure and transport Paek Seung-geun were at the meeting, while the North sent eight representatives. The meeting started at around 10 a.m., according to the unification ministry. By Joseph S. Nye, Jr. CAMBRIDGE On a visit to Beijing in October, I was often asked whether U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's recent harsh criticism of China marked the declaration of a new cold war. I replied that the United States and China have entered a new phase in their relationship, but that the cold war metaphor is misleading. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union targeted tens of thousands of nuclear weapons at each other and had virtually no trade or cultural ties. By contrast, China has a more limited nuclear force, annual Sino-American trade totals a half-trillion dollars, and more than 350,000 Chinese students and three million tourists are in the U.S. each year. A better description of today's bilateral relationship is "cooperative rivalry." Since the end of World War II, U.S.-China relations have gone through three phases that lasted roughly two decades each. Hostility marked the 20 years after the Korean War, followed by limited cooperation against the Soviet Union during the phase that followed President Richard Nixon's famous 1972 visit. The Cold War's end ushered in a third phase of economic engagement, with the U.S. helping China's global economic integration, including its entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Yet in the first post-Cold War decade, President Bill Clinton's administration hedged its bets by simultaneously strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance and improving relations with India. Now, since 2017, the U.S. National Security Strategy focuses on great power rivalry, with China and Russia designated as America's main adversaries. While many Chinese analysts blame this fourth phase on U.S. President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping is also to blame. By rejecting Deng Xiaoping's prudent policy of maintaining a low international profile; by ending presidential term limits; and by proclaiming his nationalistic "China Dream," Xi might as well have been wearing a red hat reading, "Make China Great Again." The conventional wisdom on China within the U.S. had already begun to sour before the 2016 presidential election. Trump's rhetoric and tariffs were merely gasoline poured on a smoldering fire. The liberal international order helped China sustain rapid economic growth and reduce poverty dramatically. But China also tilted the trade field to its advantage by subsidizing state-owned enterprises, engaging in commercial espionage, and requiring foreign firms to transfer their intellectual property to domestic "partners." While most economists argue that Trump is mistaken to focus on the bilateral trade deficit, many support his complaints about China's efforts to challenge America's technological advantage. Moreover, China's growing military strength adds a security dimension to the bilateral relationship. While this fourth phase of the relationship is not a cold war, owing to the high degree of interdependence, it is much more than a typical trade dispute like, say, America's recent clash with Canada over access to that country's dairy market. Some analysts believe this fourth phase marks the beginning of a conflict in which an established hegemon goes to war with a rising challenger. In his explanation of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides famously argued that it was caused by Sparta's fear of a rising Athens. These analysts believe that China's rise will create a similar fear in the U.S., and use the analogy of World War I, when a rising Germany set hegemonic Britain on edge. The causes of World War I, however, were far more complex, and included growing Russian power, which created fear in Germany; rising nationalism in the Balkans and other countries; and the risks deliberately taken by the Habsburg Empire to stave off its decline. Even more important, Germany had already surpassed Britain in industrial production by 1900, while China's GDP (measured in dollars) currently is only three-fifths the size of the U.S. economy. The U.S. has more time and assets to manage the rise of Chinese power than Britain had with Germany. China is constrained by a natural balance of power in Asia in which Japan (the world's third-largest economy) and India (about to surpass China in population) have no desire to be dominated by it. Succumbing to the fear that Thucydides described would be an unnecessary self-fulfilling prophecy for the U.S. Fortunately, polls show that the American public has not yet succumbed to a hysterical portrayal of China as an enemy as strong as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. Neither China nor the U.S. poses an existential threat to the other the way that Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union did. China is not about to invade the U.S., and it is unable to expel America from the Western Pacific, where most countries welcome its presence. Japan, a major part of the so-called first island chain, pays nearly three-quarters of the host nation costs to keep 50,000 U.S. troops based there. My recent visit to Tokyo confirmed for me that the alliance with the U.S. is strong. If the Trump administration maintains it, the prospects are slight that China can drive the U.S. from the Western Pacific, much less dominate the world. The U.S. holds better strategic cards and need not succumb to Thucydidean fear. There is another dimension, however, that makes this fourth phase a "cooperative rivalry" rather than a Cold War. China and the U.S. face transnational challenges that are impossible to resolve without the other. Climate change and rising sea levels obey the laws of physics, not politics. As borders become more porous to everything from illicit drugs to infectious diseases to terrorism, the largest economies will have to cooperate to cope with these threats. Some aspects of the relationship will involve a positive-sum game. U.S. national security will require power with China, not just over China. The key question is whether the U.S. is capable of thinking in terms of a "cooperative rivalry." Can we walk and chew gum at the same time? In an age of populist nationalism, it is much easier for politicians to create fear about a new cold war. Joseph S. Nye is a professor at Harvard and author of "Is the American Century Over?" Copyright belongs to Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org). Combat ships of the Russian Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force participated in the drills, including the Northern Fleet's Severomorsk anti-submarine ship and the Japanese destroyer Ikazuchi, according to Northern Fleet's spokesman Vadim Serga. "Such interaction between Northern Fleet's sailors and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is taking place for the first time in the history of the Russian Navy," Serga was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency. The naval drills were aimed at increasing cooperation between the Russian and Japanese warships in the fight against piracy and terrorism, Sputnik news agency cited Serga as saying. During the exercises, the crews of the ships will exchange information, detect suspicious vessels, train sorties of shipborne helicopters, conduct simulated attacks and carry out excursions, according to Serga. By Andrew Hammond Seventy heads of state and government, including Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, commemorated in Paris Sunday's centenary of the end of World War I. The landmark event, hosted at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier underneath the Arc de Triomphe, has prompted much reflection on the state of international relations today given the parallels with the early 20th century. All last week, President Emmanuel Macron visited French battlefields, saluting the millions of dead of the 1914-18 war. He warned that the world may be sleepwalking toward another deadly conflict due to the return of nationalism and the weakening of the rules-based international order that was upheld for seven decades by the United States. This international order, he asserts, is being eroded by trade protectionism, a decline in democracy, great power rivalry, and a drift toward authoritarian populist rule. What Macron's comments underline is that, just as 100 years ago, the global order is under stress and this is being driven, in part, by a significant movement in global power taking place. Today, power is shifting most rapidly to key developing countries in Asia, with China a primary beneficiary so far. This contrasts with the early 20th century when Germany and the United States were among the key "rising nations." Much like a century ago, geopolitical tensions are mounting as "revisionist nations" challenge key elements of the international order. This is partly driven by rising economic powers resurrecting nationalism and claims for resources. This underlines that it is perhaps Asia where the most tension and insecurity lies in terms of potential for a great power war. Despite Chinese President Xi Jinping's wise goal to seek "a new type of great power relationship" with the United States, learning the lessons of previous eras, his nation's remarkable rise is nonetheless unsettling the region, and indeed much of the world beyond. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe drew parallels in 2014 between the geopolitical landscape in Asia today and Europe on the eve of war in 1914. Yet, while the risk of a major war in Asia, or elsewhere, cannot be dismissed, there are some key differences today with the world of 100 years ago. These differences, in the absence of catastrophic miscalculation, make a major power war unlikely for the foreseeable future. This is not least because memories of the First and indeed Second World Wars, linger powerfully even today. With justification, World War I was described as the "greatest seminal catastrophe" of the 20th century by U.S. diplomat George Kennan, who would later become the architect for the U.S. Cold War "containment strategy." Aside from the many millions who died from 1914 to 1918, the war set in motion several developments which blighted the world for decades to come. These include the emergence of communism in Russia and as numerous historians assert the rise of Nazi Germany, sowing the seeds of World War II. Another major difference between now and 100 years ago is the presence of nuclear weapons which, as during the Cold War, generally serve as a brake on major power conflict. It is noteworthy here that key emerging powers, including China and India, as well as established powers, such as the United States, France and the United Kingdom, all possess nuclear arsenals. A further fundamental change is that, unlike 1914, there is now a dense web of postwar international institutions, especially the United Nations, which continue to have significant resilience and legitimacy decades after their creation. While these bodies are imperfect, and in need of reform, the fact remains that they have generally enabled international security, especially with five of the key powers all on the U.N. Security Council. And this is one key reason why, at Sunday's memorial ceremony in Paris, Macron opened a three-day Paris Peace Forum intended to produce practical initiatives to shore up multilateral governance inaugurated with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. In addition, the relative balance between the two leading powers today is different today from a century ago. That is, the gap between the United States and China is greater today than that between the United Kingdom and Germany in the early 20th century. Indeed, perhaps the biggest consequence of World War I was the dawn of the "American century" in which the United States emerged as the world's most powerful nation. To be sure, the country has undergone relative decline, and China is now the largest economy in the world based on purchasing power parity data. However, the United States remains significantly ahead of China on most measures of national strength, including military might, and is likely to enjoy an overall advantage for years. Indeed, unlike the United Kingdom in the 20th century, there are indications that U.S. power will remain resilient potentially for decades to come, buoyed by factors such as the country's "energy revolution" which has potentially far-reaching geopolitical consequences. Taken overall, the prospect of a major power war for the foreseeable future is therefore not as high as a century ago. The relative global balance of power is different today, partly because of the resilience of U.S. power. Moreover, nuclear weapons and the international institutions that generally act as a restraining force against major conflict did not exist 100 years ago. Andrew Hammond ( andrewkorea@outlook.com ) is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics. By Joe Nocera Practically from the moment Donald Trump began running for president, David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post has been digging into his business practices. Fahrenthold was the first to disclose improprieties at the Trump Foundation. He's documented spending by Saudi interests in Trump's various hotel properties. He's covered the ups and downs of Trump's businesses since he became president. In 2017, his Trump coverage won him a Pulitzer Prize. More important, when Democrats start investigating Trump after they take control of the House in January, Fahrenthold's stories will serve as the foundation for at least some of those inquiries. Over the last year or so, another journalist has homed in on the business practices of one of the Trump administration's highest-profile cabinet members: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Ross is involved in many of the issues closest to the president's heart: the North American Free Trade Agreement, trade negotiations with China, tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, and so on. Yet to judge by the work of Dan Alexander of Forbes, Ross may also be Trump's most corrupt cabinet member, which is saying something in a cabinet that includes Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and once included Scott Pruitt, who Trump finally got rid of this summer as the head of Environmental Protection Agency. In a different administration, Alexander's exposes of Ross would dominate the front page, but they've gotten buried in the blizzard of news generated by the president. Yet just as Fahrenthold's work will likely spark Trump-related investigations, so will Alexander's stories trigger investigations into Ross. Or at least they should. Although Alexander is only 28, Forbes has given him the perfect training for looking into Ross. A few years after joining the magazine, he was assigned to the team researching the net worth of the world's billionaires. At the time, Ross was a fixture on the Forbes 400 list, which ranks the U.S.'s 400 wealthiest people. Last year, his net worth was said by the magazine to be $2.9 billion, a figure Forbes arrived at with Ross's input. When Trump nominated Ross to be commerce secretary, he was required to publicly disclose his finances. That's when Alexander realized there were huge discrepancies between the information listed in his financial disclosures and the Ross-aided calculations the magazine used to grant him billionaire status. Indeed, the disclosures suggested that he was worth no more than $700 million. When Alexander called Ross to ask about the difference and to break the news that he was going to be dropped from the Forbes 400 the commerce secretary explained that between the election and his nomination, he had transferred assets worth $2 billion into family trusts, which he was not required to disclose. Unwilling to take Ross at his word, Alexander began digging around. Almost exactly a year ago November 7, 2017 he published his first big Ross story, which concluded that the missing $2 billion had never existed. "It seems clear that Ross lied to us," Alexander wrote, "the latest in an apparent sequence of fibs, exaggerations, omissions, fabrications and whoppers that have been going on with Forbes since 2004" (when Ross first appeared on the 400 list). He also discovered that Ross had failed to disclose 19 lawsuits on a Senate questionnaire he filled out as part of the nominating process. There's no law against lying to Forbes magazine, of course; I would bet the rent that he's not the only one who has exaggerated his net worth to get on the 400 list. But having discovered Ross's penchant for lying, Alexander kept digging. His next big story, which landed early this summer, detailed holdings Ross or his family had continued to own even after he was confirmed as commerce secretary and even though they constituted major conflicts of interest. Navigator Holdings was a shipping company "connected to cronies of Vladimir Putin." His family held a stake in the Bank of Cyprus, which was also connected to Putin allies. He had a stake along with the Chinese government in a company called Diamond S Shipping. The previous fall, Alexander reported, Ross's Wall Street firm had taken "a 30 percent interest alongside a state-owned company named Shanghai Shenda and got roughly $300 million in cash. That same month Chinese officials hosted trade talks with none other than Wilbur Ross." And one more fact, the most jaw-dropping of all. After learning that the New York Times was about to publish an investigation into his relationship with Navigator Holdings, Ross shorted the company's stock. In other words, the commerce secretary was trading on the not-yet-public news that he was about to be exposed! In a follow-up story, Alexander reported that several senators were calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Ross for insider trading. In July, Alexander got ahold of Ross's calendar, and wrote a story nicely summed up by its headline: "Wilbur Ross' Calendar Reveals Dozens of Meetings With Companies Tied To His Personal Fortune." In March 2017, for instance, Ross met with Dennis Muilenburg, the chief executive of the Boeing Corp., "a company in which Ross' wife held nearly $3 million worth of stock." The next month, he was visited by Minister Ali Shareef Al Emadi of the Qatar Investment Authority, "a sovereign wealth fund that pumped money into one of Ross' private equity vehicles." He had at least three meetings with Bill Ford, the executive chairman of Ford Motor Co., for which a key supplier was partly owned by Ross. Only when Alexander's story was about to be published did Ross finally announce that he was selling off all of his equity holdings holdings that in many cases he had failed to disclose as required by law. (Inadvertently, he claims.) "I thought that story would be the one to lead to an investigation," Alexander says. But it didn't. In a story in early August, Alexander actually labeled the commerce secretary a "grifter." But he sure did back it up: In speaking with 21 people who know Ross, Forbes uncovered a pattern: Many of those who worked directly with him claim that Ross wrongly siphoned or outright stole a few million here and a few million there, huge amounts for most but not necessarily for the commerce secretary ... But all told, these allegations which sparked lawsuits, reimbursements and an SEC fine come to more than $120 million. If even half of the accusations are legitimate, the current United States secretary of commerce could rank among the biggest grifters in American history. Alexander has continued to focus his journalism on Ross, writing most recently about yet another meeting in which he had an obvious conflict of interest. This meeting involving a railcar manufacturer called Greenbrier Companies in which Ross held a stake and which he apparently lied about when questioned about its purpose. For its part, the Commerce Department no longer appears willing to respond to Alexander's queries. "We will no longer dignify Forbes' recycled innuendo with a response," a spokesperson said. I realize that once they take control of the House of Representatives, the Democrats will have to pick their spots. If every committee starts investigating every plausible example of Trump administration wrongdoing, they'll wind up looking like the Republicans when they were in the midst of their Benghazi obsession. But even though he isn't involved in the core Trump issues, like whether Russia aided the campaign, Ross has proved to be very much like the president in his seeming lack of an ethical compass. His conflicts, his lies, his indifference to propriety, and his seeming willingness to take advantage of his office to make money they all add to a government official who practically demands to be investigated by Congress. Democrats: Read Dan Alexander's stories. And then do the right thing. Joe Nocera is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He has written business columns for Esquire, GQ and the New York Times, and is the former editorial director of Fortune. He is co-author of "Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA." His commentary was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Case of twins shatters trust in school records A shocking case of exam cheating by a father and his twin daughters has reignited controversy over the fairness of college admissions based on school records. Students and their parents are becoming more furious than ever over the case following a police announcement of the outcome of their two-month investigation Monday. Police referred the case to the prosecution, recommending indictments against the three suspects. They confirmed the allegations that the teacher at Sookmyung Girls' High School in southern Seoul stole exam papers for his two second-year daughters who attend the same school, and helped them get high scores that placed them among the top ranks. The case surfaced in August when students and parents raised a question about the twins' sudden jump in ranking from 59th and 121st, respectively, to fifth and then to first during a one-year period. If the result of the police investigation is true, the father went too far in his love for his daughters. According to the police, the teacher, an academic affairs director who was detained Nov. 6, illegally accessed midterm and final exam papers and the correct answers on five occasions between June 2017 and July 2018. He is suspected of providing the papers and answers to his daughters. The prosecution should review the case and corroborate evidence to indict them on charges of obstructing school business by engaging in cheating. It is inevitable for the father to face stern punishment because he allegedly violated the law, as well as professional ethics as a teacher. His daughters may also face criminal charges given the serious nature of their cheating, even though they are minors. The cheating certainly reflects our society's obsession with college education which most students and parents believe can bring a good job and a bright future for the younger generation. Yet it is needless to say students should play fair to get admitted to universities. In this regard, schools and education authorities should establish not only a fair competition system, but also a watertight supervisory system to detect and crack down on any types of exam cheating. The current system has not worked as seen in the twins' case. The father's school should have taken precautionary measures not least because he was working at the same school his daughters attended. According to the Ministry of Education, 1,005 teachers work at the same schools their children attend as of August. The ministry needs to revise the law to prevent students from attending their parents' schools. In addition, the government must work together with schools to better manage exam-taking and school record keeping. The authorities also should speed up reform of the college entrance exam in order to reduce admissions based on school records whose fairness has been hurt by repeated cases of cheating on exams. Thus, it is necessary to expand admissions based on the state-run College Scholastic Ability Test. Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) Chairman Park Yong-maan, third from left, speaks during a meeting with Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Sung Yun-mo, second from left, at the KCCI headquarters in Seoul, Monday. In response to growing calls for large-scale deregulation on corporate activities, Sung pledged to do his utmost to support businesses to create jobs and make investment. / Courtesy of KCCI Models promote lobsters imported from the U.S. at a Lotte Mart outlet in Seoul Station, Monday. The discount chain will sell lobsters over 450 grams at 14,800 won each and those over 700 grams at 19,800 won each. / Yonhap Jamie Olsen, senior director at saleforce.org, speaks on how the world's top customer relationship system provider provides an example of collaboration with communities, during a recent interview at its headquarters in San Francisco with The Korea Times. Korea Times photo by Oh Young-jin Salesforce is the world's leading customer relationship management system provider in San Francisco, founded by Marc Benioff, a former Oracle executive in 1999. It is composed of salesforce.com and salseforce.org. The first, a very successful commercial entity, proves Benioff's business acumen, but the latter shows his extraordinary large heart for giving with its own self-sustainable model. The Korea Times visited its headquarters and spoke with Jamie Olsen, senior director of employee engagement, at saleforce.org. ED. By Oh Young-jin Question: What is salesforce.org's primary mission? Answer: We have always provided products to nonprofit and education areas since the beginning. The core belief is that nonprofits should take advantage of world-class technologies just like any for-profit companies should to help them advance their missions rather than worrying about system and technology to track things and administer their program. At the core, every nonprofit organization can receive 10 free licenses from salesforce.org. and from the 11th on, it is offered with stiff discounts. They get this as long as they are nonprofit, remain nonprofit or registered charities in their countries of origin; and get the support that comes along with that like any other customer would. We customize the products by working hand in hand with them to understand their needs. Q: What is Salesforce's business model? A: Originally when we started the foundation, we had 1-1-1 model _ giving 1 percent of time, products and financial resources back to the community. Since then we have developed into a social enterprise. So we were founded with equity from the company, but eventually that equity ran out. We sought a unique opportunity to develop a unique model so revenue does come in from big organizations whose needs far exceed those 10 free licenses, such as the Red Cross and "Teach for America." The revenue we get from them is fed into grants and investments we give back to the community. Every employee has a $5,000 matching grant every year. In total, that allows us to give $230 million in investment back to the community over our almost 20 years in existence. Q: How does Philanthropy Cloud work into your bottom line? A:Philanthropy hit the ground in June and is very much a new product. It is a unique cloud that is focused on putting technology in the hands of a for-profit company. It is something SK Group may use to drive engagement with its employees. It also has benefits for nonprofits as it allows for very innovative tools to promote causes and initiatives that employees are passionate about within their companies so nonprofits can gain a lot of visibility. Philanthropy is not something nonprofits use, while our two other products are for nonprofit and education purposes. Lyft, a rideshare company in the United States, has chosen Philanthropy Cloud for more than 3,000 Lyft employees, enabling them to raise funds, organize volunteer activities, and engage in advocacy opportunities. Q: How does salesforce.org make ends meet? A: We make sure our lights are on and our employees are compensated. It may sound like a cliche, but it is about supporting our community. We are very fortunate to be tied with this incredibly successful for-profit company, salesforce.com. People working in salesforce.org and salesforce.com are passionate in feeling about it. That brings them to work every day and that makes us want to do what we are doing to sell more products so we can give more back to the community. Q: Do you have tools to measure your achievements? A: It is a challenging area. We have an internal tool to manage all our programs. Everyone volunteers so it gives us a bottom line number, which is a key statistic we use heavily. We also have an impact measurement team and logic model to tie it all back to our investment so we can actually track concrete community benefits that have been created by the work we have been able to do. Salesforce's logo is shown at the entrance of its headquarters tower in San Francisco. Samsung BioLogics office in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon / Yonhap By Nam Hyun-woo Shares of Samsung BioLogics plunged Monday as investors dumped their stocks in fear of an upcoming financial authority's ruling on the biopharmaceutical firm's alleged accounting fraud. According to Korea Exchange (KRX), Samsung BioLogics closed at 285,500 won, down 22.42 percent from last Friday. During the session, the stock dived on massive offloading from institution and foreign investors and fell further in the afternoon, once dropping to 281,000 won. Its market cap also fell to 18.89 trillion won. The company was No. 4 cap in the market just last month, but is now No. 14. The downward spiral came after the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) on Sunday announced that it will make a ruling on the BioLogics allegation Wednesday, which could suspend the company's stocks from trading and put it under review for delisting if the firm is found to have "cooked the books." The SFC has been looking into allegations that the company's sudden profit in 2015 after years of losses was because of fraudulent accounting. The firm reported a net profit of 1.9 trillion won ($1.7 billion) that year after changing the method used to calculate the value of its core affiliate Samsung Bioepis. In June, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSC), the country's financial watchdog, said BioLogics' practice was "intentional." But the SFC ordered the FSC to redo the audit and the watchdog submitted the result to the SFC last month. Analysts said the odds are stacking against Samsung BioLogics, as documents showing the firm's intention in the allegation emerge. Rep. Park Yong-jin of the Democratic Party of Korea earlier this month revealed documents which he claimed were exchanged between BioLogics and Samsung's now-defunct Future Strategy Office, which was the de-facto control tower of Samsung Group. In the documents, BioLogics expected capital erosion by the end of 2015 and suggested three options, including changing the method of Bioepis valuation. If the SFC finds that BioLogics' move was intentional accounting fraud, the stock will be suspended from trading and become a subject of delisting review. Consequences will deal a heavy blow to not only the biopharmaceutical firm but also to the entire KOSPI market. Analysts, however, said it will be hard for KRX to delist BioLogics, given its market cap. "Depending on the decision, uncertainty may be cleared or expanded," a Seoul-based analyst said asking not to be named. "It seems that odds are against the company, but it seems unlikely to face a delisting." The domestic bourse has experienced accounting fraud by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME). The shipbuilder was suspended from trading from July 2016 to October last year as it was under an SFC investigation over its 5 trillion won accounting fraud, but avoided delisting. Fly Geyser Not Quite of this World They look as if they were taken on another planet, or at least on the set of a new and very expensive science fiction movie. Yet these pi... On goods, virtually all of intra-ASEAN tariffs (98.6 percent) have been eliminated this year while ASEAN intensifies efforts to advance its trade facilitation work, Lim Jock Hoi said in a written interview with Xinhua ahead of the 33rd summit of ASEAN and related meetings, to be held on November 11-15 in Singapore. "Since January 1, 2018, the ASEAN Single Window (ASW) has been in live operation in five ASEAN member states, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Preferential tariff duty can now be granted through the exchange of electronic data (e-ATIGA Form D) and received electronically through the ASW gateway. Efforts to expand the coverage of the ASW to include all ASEAN member states and to add other documents are underway," said Lim. The ASEAN-wide Self-Certification Scheme will soon be in operation following the signing of the first protocol to amend the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) in August 2018, said Lim, adding the scheme will facilitate the utilization of the ATIGA by allowing exporters to issue declarations of origin, thereby decreasing transaction time and costs. On services, Lim said, the protocol to implement the 10th and final package of commitments was signed in August. To support mobility, schedules of commitments under the ASEAN Agreement on Movement of Natural Persons are being reviewed, while the implementation of various mutual recognition agreements for professional services as well as the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework is underway, the secretary-general said. "Significant progress has been made on initiatives related to electronic commerce and the digital economy. The ASEAN Agreement on Electronic Commerce was already endorsed and is expected to be signed by the ASEAN economic ministers (AEM) at the November summit. The ASEAN Digital Integration Framework has also been adopted by the AEM for endorsement by the AEC (ASEAN Economic Community) Council in November." Furthermore, the ASEAN Secretariat has undertaken an assessment of ASEAN readiness for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) which highlights the value of leveraging regional platforms to build collective readiness for Industry 4.0 and the need for closer cross-pillar coordination due to the expansive implications of the 4IR, Lim said. To facilitate good regulations and regulatory practices, the AEM had adopted the ASEAN Good Regulatory Practice (GRP) Core Principles, he said. Moving forward, Lim said, the key priorities are to fully implement the AEC Blueprint 2025, deepen market integration, strengthen cross-pillar and cross-sectoral collaboration, and address new emerging issues requiring the region's attention such as 4IR, he added. ASEAN was established in August 1967 by the five founding member states, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The group later expanded to include Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The ASEAN Declaration states that the aims and purposes of the association are to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region, to promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries in the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charters. Freely accessible local news is vital. Please power our reporters and help keep us independent with a donation today. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe For voters in Anaheim, this election wasn't just about Orange County's tight, closely watched Congressional races. It was also about Disney, the city's largest employer. Voters may have picked a Disney-friendly mayor and two Disney-backed city council members. But they also passed Measure L, an initiative designed to raise pay for workers in and around Disneyland. John Lewis, an Orange County political consultant who has worked with outgoing mayor and Disney critic Tom Tait, said the results are "a bit of a mixed message." The No on Measure L campaign conceded on Monday. "This is a tragic outcome for Anaheim," said Anaheim Chamber of Commerce president Todd Ament in a written statement. "We will do our best to ease the economic brunt that will now be imposed on our city by this special interest agenda and continue to fight for more sensible economic development policies," he said. Measure L sets a $15 per hour minimum wage starting next year, rising to $18 by 2022, for certain employers in Anaheim. However, there's disagreement about whether Disneyland workers will see raises from its passage. That's because Measure L only applies to employers receiving tax rebates from the city -- and it's not clear that Disneyland does. Disney canceled two tax deals with Anaheim in the run-up to the election. The city attorney has said the measure does apply to four luxury hotel projects in Anaheim, but not to Disney. The initiative's backers argue Disney is covered, because of other arrangements with the city. The union behind Measure L has said the issue will likely end up in court. Unite Here Local 11 co-president Ada Briceno said, "The minute we see that those workers are not compensated fairly, we're ready to go with plaintiffs and we're ready to go with attorneys," she said. The outcomes of other races in Anaheim were more favorable to Disney. Harry Sidhu, a former councilman, is on his way to becoming the city's next mayor. Two Disney-funded candidates for city council are also winning by wide margins. Jordan Brandman is beating incumbent James Vanderbilt, one of the council's Disney critics, by close to 10 percentage points. And Disney-backed candidate Trevor O'Neil is ahead by about 11 points in his race. Councilman Jose Moreno fended off a Disney-backed challenger in his race. There are still ballots left to be counted. But if these results hold, politicians seen as Disney-friendly will outnumber those questioning the company's dealings with the city by five to two. Disney gave more than $1.2 million to a PAC supporting a slate of candidates. John Lewis, the political consultant, said that money translated into a flood of mailers that confused voters about where various candidates stood on Disney. "I just think that Measure L was an easier concept for voters to get their arms around," Lewis said. "It was pretty straightforward." USC associate professor of public policy Michael Thom noted voters also passed two initiatives, Measures J and K, approving subsidies for luxury hotel projects near Disneyland. "If Anaheim voters don't like their city's corporate entanglements, they forgot to convey that message," Thom said. Hey, thanks. You read the entire story. And we love you for that. Here at LAist, our goal is to cover the stories that matter to you, not advertisers. We don't have paywalls, but we do have payments (aka bills). So if you love independent, local journalism, join us. Let's make the world a better place, together. Donate now. Freely accessible local news is vital. Please power our reporters and help keep us independent with a donation today. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe Editor's note: Ventura County fire officials were initially referring to the Peak Fire as the Rocky Fire, but have since issued a correction. This story is no longer being updated. Go here for the latest on the fires burning in Southern California. The wildfires sweeping across Southern California have destroyed hundreds of homes, killed at least two people and injured several more, and ravaged beloved landmarks and park space. On Monday night, fire officials said the Woolsey Fire had scorched more than 80 percent of the total National Park lands in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. President Donald Trump meanwhile said he had approved an expedited request for a Major Disaster Declaration, which would open up federal funds to assist fire-ravaged California. "Wanted to respond quickly in order to alleviate some of the incredible suffering going on," Trump said via Twitter. "I am with you all the way. God Bless all of the victims and families affected." Crews already stretched thin by the Woolsey and Hill fires in Ventura and Los Angeles counties also had to contend with two new brush fires that broke out earlier Monday. See below for details on each. Peak Fire | Lynn Fire | Woolsey Fire | Hill Fire | Resources PEAK FIRE The Peak Fire burned in the Santa Susana Pass -- to the edge of the 118 Freeway in the area of Rocky Peak between Simi Valley and the San Fernando Valley. The fire burned about 186 acres, moving fast in the hills south of the freeway, but crews managed to stop forward progress shortly before 1 p.m. By 4:30 p.m., the entire fire had been contained, Cal Fire reported. The L.A. County Sheriff's Department said evacuation orders for residents in the Box Canyon and Lake Manor areas were lifted as of about 6:15 p.m. All lanes of the 118 Freeway have been reopened following a full closure earlier in the day, according to the California Highway Patrol. 6:25pm Closure Update: *Eastbound SR-118, all lanes are now open. *NB & SB off ramps on US-101 from Valley Circle to Liberty Cyn Rd *PCH Sunset to Wood Rd (north of Las Posas) *SR-27 Mulholland to PCH *SR-23 PCH to Potrero #WoolseyFire #PeakFire Caltrans District 7 (@CaltransDist7) November 13, 2018 Metrolink also temporarily shut down service between Simi Valley and Chatsworth, but that service has been restored. Breaking: The Rocky Fire, a new blaze burning near the 118 Freeway in the Simi Valley area, is forcing people to turn their cars around and drive the wrong way on the freeway. https://t.co/95Rk8SDGTP pic.twitter.com/sKihj5GtLD NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) November 12, 2018 FULL COVERAGE LYNN FIRE The Lynn Fire broke out Monday morning near residential neighborhoods in Thousand Oaks and moved toward Hillcrest and Ventu Park Road, according to the Ventura County Fire Department. Structures were threatened but firefighters were making "good progress" and had support from water-dropping helicopters. About 11:45 a.m., fire officials said nearby homes were no longer threatened and the fire was holding at 5 acres (downgraded from an initial report of 15 acres). Shortly after 1 p.m., sheriff's officials said the fire was contained. #Lynnfire: Holding at less than 5 acres. Initial threat to homes is gone due to firefighters on the ground and aircraft dropping water and the pink gel. @VCFD pic.twitter.com/U3H2jqCjIu VCFD PIO (@VCFD_PIO) November 12, 2018 WOOLSEY FIRE Meanwhile, thousands of firefighters continue to battle the Woolsey Fire, which grew slightly during the day Monday. The fire has burned 93,662 acres and is now 30 percent contained, according to an evening update from Cal Fire. Fire officials now estimate that at least 435 structures have been destroyed by the blaze, which started Thursday afternoon in the hills south of Simi Valley. However, that total will likely change. Officials have completed only about 15 percent of the overall damage assement, so far confirming 82 structures were destroyed and 21 damaged. Fire officials are out doing damage assessments in the #WoolseyFire burn area. Dangers in evacuated areas include downed power lines, buckled roads and embers that could reignite. Please stay away until you are told that its safe to return. pic.twitter.com/ynoU5Ju5Ic Los Angeles County (@CountyofLA) November 12, 2018 IT IS NOT SAFE, we understand everyone wants to return home. #LASD is working with @LACoFDPIO @CountyofLA Public Works & Public Health to evaluate the damaged areas of #WoolseyFire as soon as it is safe we will let everyone know. @LHSLASD Deputy RM pic.twitter.com/L5Mr8okG6c LA County Sheriffs (@LASDHQ) November 12, 2018 Thousand Oaks resident Marc Montemorra was the only one on his street that had his house burn down. He lives alone, so his sister flew in from Virginia to help him sort through the pile of charred wood. There wasn't much left. His green pickup truck sat melted in the driveway. His Steinway piano, photos of him and his late father were all gone. "And of course I've been joking, 'Well, I wanted to redecorate, anyway,'" Montemorra said. "I could choose to cry, or I could choose to laugh, and I choose to laugh." Montemorra did tear up, though, when he thought about the families around him who were spared. He said firefighters let his house burn in order to protect others on the street. "I guess if that has to be, I'm glad it was just me and not a whole family," he said. Thousand Oaks resident Marc Montemorra was the only one on his street that had his house burn down. (Photo by Emily Dugdale/LAist) Southern California Edison took steps earlier in the day to shut down power to portions of Moorpark Country Club Estates and Moorpark north of Broadway as a public safety precaution, according to Ventura County sheriff's officials. Fire officials said the weather, steep terrain and limited access will continue to challenge crews through the night. Santa Ana winds could gust up to 30 mph. Still, Cal Fire officials are currently projecting full containment on Thursday. Evacuation orders in some communities in both Los Angeles and Ventura counties have been lifted, but many are still in effect. Residents of Agoura Hills and Westlake Village were allowed back in beginning Sunday night, and all evacuees within the West Hills area in Los Angeles city limits were being allowed back as of Monday night, according to L.A. fire officials. Evacuation orders remained in effect for the entire cities of Malibu, Calabasas and Hidden Hills. The most recent full list from Cal Fire can be found here. Authorities will hold an information session for evacuees at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Barnum Hall at Santa Monica High School, according to a bulletin posted to the city of Malibu's website. This photo shows the remains of a beachside luxury home along the Pacific Coast Highway community of Point Dume in Malibu on Nov. 11, 2018, as the battle to control the Woolsey Fire continues. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images) At a Sunday community meeting, several people criticized Pepperdine's decision to have their students shelter in place and noted a lack of firefighters in Malibu. In an interview on KPCC, L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl responded that Pepperdine was following procedure outlined in a previous agreement. She said authorities wanted to avoid having thousands of people leave campus at the same time, when the campus was already hardened to fires. "There were also a lot of firefighters in Malibu. Just because you don't see one on your block, doesn't mean they weren't there," Kuehl said. Pepperdine University reported that 19 students were still on campus and have access to food and health services. All classes were canceled through Tuesday, after which they would be held remotely through the Thanksgiving holiday. Students were expected to receive more detailed information about their classes by 5 p.m. Tuesday. Moorpark College also said its campus would be closed Tuesday because of the ongoing fires. Cal State Channel Islands had reopened its campus. The National Weather Service extended its Red Flag warning through 5 p.m. Wednesday for Ventura County, the mountains of L.A. County and the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys. The warning for the L.A. coast from Malibu to the Hollywood Hills remains in effect until 5 p.m. Tuesday. That means the critical fire weather isn't letting up. Strong Santa Ana winds with gusts up to 60 mph Tuesday and 40 mph Wednesday, along with humidity as low as 5 percent, will continue to pose challenges for firefighters. Here is the latest high resolution HRRR Smoke model. Much of the smoke will continue to push into the coastal waters due to the continued Santa Ana Winds today. #WoolseyFire #cawx #LAweather pic.twitter.com/RVaSmwe3tj NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) November 12, 2018 The fire is also suspected of killing two civilians and injuring at least one more. Two people were found dead Friday afternoon in the 3300 block of Mullholland Highway, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Detectives were continuing to investigate their deaths, but believe the driver may have become disoriented while escaping the area, said sheriff's Comm. Scott Gage. The victims' names have yet to be released. Malibu Councilman Jefferson "Zuma Jay" Wagner was hospitalized after losing his home in the fire, according to fellow council member Skylar Peak. Wagner remains in intensive care at Santa Monica Hospital. The area is also home to numerous mountain lions, bobcats and other wildlife, and many people have inquired about the animals' health and safety. Eight of the 13 mountain lions collared and tracked by biologists appear to be alive and moving, according to the National Park Service, which said via Facebook that it had confirmed GPS and movement data. The GPS collars of the other five mountain lions, including the iconic Griffith Park cougar P-22, have not yet trasmitted any data. But the Park Service said that is not unusual. The four bobcats being tracked by biologists may not have fared as well. The entire home ranges of all four appear to have been burned in the fires, though it is possible they themselves survived, according to the Park Service. To find out the status and locations of the remaining animals, researchers will need to go into the field to with a telemetry device, but they cannot do so until authorities have deemed the area safe. WOOLSEY FIRE BY THE NUMBERS 93,662 acres Containment at 30% 2 deaths reported 3 firefighters injured At least 435 structures destroyed 57,000 structures threatened More than 3,000 firefighting personnel on scene The Woolsey Fire burn zone as of 7 a.m. Nov. 12, 2018. (Via KPCC Fire Tracker) Local firefighters have received some much-needed help from several out-of-state agencies, including fire crews from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah and New Mexico. On Sunday, California Governor Jerry Brown requested President Donald Trump issue a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration as five wildfires burn statewide, including the devastating Camp Fire. At least 29 people have died in that blaze and more than 200 are still missing. "We have the best firefighters and first responders in the country working in some of the most difficult conditions imaginable," Brown said in a press release. "We're putting everything we've got into the fight against these fires and this request ensures communities on the front lines get additional federal aid." The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Southern California Edison voluntarily reported an equipment outage at its Chatsworth substation near where the fire began. The outage came just two minutes before the Woolsey Fire was first reported, but Edison stressed that there has so far been no indication from public officials that utility equipment could have been responsible for sparking the fire. SoCal Edison reported the outage to the California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday and said it will cooperate with investigators. HILL FIRE The Hill Fire burn zone as of 8:30 a.m. Nov. 12, 2018. Firefighters continue to make good progress on the Hill Fire, which was holding at 4,531 acres and is now 85 percent contained, according to the latest update. Two structures have been destroyed and no deaths or injuries have been reported. Only a few dozen firefighters remain on the fire line. Many evacuations have been lifted in the area of the Hill Fire, and people were returning home. For the latest on repopulation and continuing mandatory evacuations, see Ventura County's emergency information page. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND RESOURCES For the latest information straight from local emergency officials, including evacuation orders, road closures, evacuation centers and animal shelters, check the following sites and social media accounts: This is a developing story. Check back for updates. Melissa Leu, Brian Frank, Ryan Fonseca, Mike Roe, Sharon McNary, Megan Garvey, Kristen Muller and Priska Neely contributed to this story. UPDATES: 8:02 p.m.: Adds repopulation of West Hills area in L.A. 7:55 p.m.: Updates figures on damaged and destroyed structures and adds information about amount of land burned in Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. 6:55 p.m.: Adds 30% containment figure and new acreage on Woolsey Fire. 6:30 p.m.: Adds Hill Fire at 85% containment and evacuations lifted for Peak Fire. 6:07 p.m.: Adds President Trump's approval of Major Disaster Declaration. 5:56 p.m.: Adds details about Marc Montemorra, a Thousand Oaks resident who lost his home. Also indicates reopening of all lanes on the 118 Freeway. 5:15 p.m.: Adds an interview with L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. 4:38 p.m.: Adds new numbers on Peak Fire acreage and containment. 4:18 p.m.: Adds details about info session for evacuees of Woolsey Fire. 3:52 p.m.: Adds details about mountain lions and bobcats impacted by the fires. 2:47 p.m.: Adds details about Moorpark College campus closure. 2:10 p.m.: Adds information about freeway lanes reopening and Metrolink service being restored. 1:43 p.m.: Adds details on Pepperdine University students and Red Flag warning. 1:29 p.m.: Adds reports that Lynn Fire is contained. 1:15 p.m.: Details on SoCal Edison public safety power shutdown in Moorpark and progress on damage assessments. 12:59 p.m.: Closure lifted at Box Canyon and Santa Susana Pass roads. 12:49 p.m.: Forward progress of Peak Fire stopped, westbound 118 Freeway lanes open. 12:20 p.m.: This article was updated with information on road closures due to the Peak Fire. 11:45 a.m.: This article was updated with information on the Lynn Fire. 11:34 a.m.: This article was updated with information on mandatory evacuations due to the Peak Fire. 11:28 a.m.: This article was updated with information on freeway and Metrolink closures. 11 a.m.: This article was updated with information on the Lynn and Peak fires. 10:43 a.m.: This article was updated with information on two new fires burning in the region. 9:20 a.m.: This article was updated with the latest information from Cal Fire and response from Gov. Jerry Brown. This article was originally published at 8 a.m. Monday Hey, thanks. You read the entire story. And we love you for that. Here at LAist, our goal is to cover the stories that matter to you, not advertisers. We don't have paywalls, but we do have payments (aka bills). So if you love independent, local journalism, join us. Let's make the world a better place, together. Donate now. "We need to look at how best multilateralism can be advanced and strengthened rather than at theories that suggest a doomsday scenario or the dawn of an era of post-multilateralism", said Ambassador A.L.A. Azeez, Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to UNO in Geneva. He made these remarks following his election by acclamation as the Chairperson of the 10th Session of the UNCTAD Trade and Development Commission today. Addressing the opening session, he stated UNCTAD is an innovative platform where both theories and practices are analysed and pathways and options identified, to help guide nations in their search for solutions to trade and development constraints and challenges. The newly elected Chairperson of the UNCTAD Trade and Development Commission stressed that Member States needed to look ahead and bring out aspects of Stratergies, during the week-long deliberations in the Commission, that could help countries achieve progress in SDGs, with a particular emphasis on making trade and development a critical enabler of the realization of the aspirations of people everywhere, for peace and prosperity. In a message sent to the Commission, the Director-General of UNCTAD, Mr. Mukhisa Kituyi, stated that in this uncertain times we cannot afford to let worries over international trade put the 2030 Agenda at risk. He assured that UNCTAD would continue to do all it could to help countries put trade to work for their development, even as global prospects appear uncertain. The representatives of the Group of 77, the African Union and the Group of Caribbean and Latin American States made statements expressing the perspectives of the respective Groups. The week-long meeting of Member States and other stakeholders of UNCTAD Trade and Development Commission provides an opportunity to discuss key trade and development issues related to building more resilient, sustainable and inclusive development. The Commission considers a broad range of reports from expert Groups including on Competition Law and Policy, Consumer Protection Law and Policy, Commodities and Development; Trade, Services and Development; Enhancing the Enabling Economic Environment at All Levels in Support of Inclusive and Sustainable Development, and the Promotion of Economic Integration and Cooperation. It also reviews progress made in promoting and strengthening the synergies between the three pillars of the work of UNCTAD, research & analysis, consensus building and technical cooperation, in the areas covered by this Commission. The current state of trade, multilateral cooperation and sustainable development is also under review. Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka Geneva 12 November 2018 Stocks of Californias two largest utility owners, PG&E Corp. and Edison International, plummeted again Monday as investors feared that the deadly wildfires raging in the state could leave the utilities with massive liabilities. It was the stocks worst drubbing since the California power crisis more than 15 years ago. The shares plunged in the first minutes of trading with PG&E dropping 37% and then being briefly halted before they later pared their losses. PG&E, the parent of Pacific Gas & Electric, tumbled 17.4% on the day to $32.98 a share. Edison International, which owns Southern California Edison, dropped 12.2% to $53.56 a share. Advertisement PG&E shares have dropped one-third in the two trading sessions since the Camp fire in Butte County broke out last week, wiping out more than $7 billion of PG&Es total market value. Edison International shares have dropped 24% in the last two sessions as the Hill and Woolsey fires spread in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. They were the two utilities worst declines since power shortages triggered rolling blackouts across California in 2000-01, a crisis that led the Pacific Gas & Electric unit to file for bankruptcy protection in 2001. Although the causes of the fires have yet to be determined, investors are worried that the utilities could face liabilities associated with the blazes. Investigators are looking at electrical equipment as one of several possible causes of the Camp fire, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco. A PG&E transmission line in the area went offline 15 minutes before the fire was first reported, and the company reported finding a damaged transmission tower near where investigators said the fire began. The Camp fires death toll climbed to 29 on Sunday, with the whereabouts of 228 people still unknown, authorities said. Camp fires death toll mounts in Paradise as the search for victims continues Southern California Edison, meanwhile, said a power outage occurred near the suspected starting point of the Woolsey fire and that a sensor detected a disturbance in its equipment two minutes before the blaze was reported. Two people have died in that fire. Number of structures destroyed in Woolsey fire doubles; new fire closes 118 Freeway Together, the wildfires have destroyed more than 6,700 structures and could cost the state, insurers and homeowners at least $19 billion in damages, according to an estimate by Enki Research. Were not going to speculate or comment on what factors may or may not be impacting the market, said Paul Doherty, spokesman for San Francisco-based PG&E. Right now, our entire company is focused on supporting first responders and assisting our customers and communities impacted by the Camp fire. Edison did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Southern California Edison said last month that its electrical equipment likely sparked at least one starting point in the massive Thomas fire that ravaged Ventura and Santa Barbara counties late last year. That fire also killed two people. Susquehanna Financial Group estimates that PG&E could face as much as $5 billion in liabilities from the Camp fire. That would come on top of deadly fires in California last year that could cost the utility as much as $17.3 billion, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimate. Further clouding the issue of whether, or how much, the utilities might be liable for damages is a new state law that takes effect in January. Among Senate Bill 901s requirements is that state regulators determine whether a utility acted responsibly before the outbreak of any fire linked to the companys equipment or operations. If they find that the utility did act responsibly, it could bear less liability creating a chance for the utility to pay only a portion of the damages that the current rules might otherwise require. But lawmakers, who haggled over the fine points of SB 901 for most of the summer, left what now appears to be a gaping hole in the new wildfire plans. The law gives PG&E, in particular, a mechanism to borrow money for costs related to the 2017 fires and for minimizing the financial impacts for incidents beginning in 2019. But it leaves the existing system in place for any fires that break out this year. As a result, the long-standing rules of inverse condemnation where a utility can be forced to pay millions of dollars without a strict finding of bad behavior remain in place. That bodes poorly for PG&E, according to Moodys Investors Service. The credit-rating firm noted Monday that the legislation does not address recovery for any potential liabilities related to wildfires that occur in 2018. As a result, the magnitude of the [Camp] fires destruction leads us to believe the potential liabilities could be material for PG&E, Moodys said. Peltz is a Los Angeles Times staff writer. Ryan writes for Bloomberg. Times staff writer John Myers in Sacramento also contributed to this report. UPDATES: 1:50 p.m.: This article was updated with closing stock prices, details about a new state law covering utilities exposure to fire damages and a related report from Moodys. 11:15 a.m.: This article was updated throughout with Los Angeles Times staff reporting. This article was originally published at 9:15 a.m. Rep. Maxine Waters plans to zero in on two big banks Wells Fargo & Co. and Deutsche Bank when she becomes head of the powerful House Financial Services Committee. The Los Angeles congresswoman, now the committees top Democrat, is widely expected to gain the gavel after her party won control of the House in last weeks elections. While Waters has outlined a wide-ranging agenda, she said her focus on bank oversight will target two large institutions she has been tangling with for a while including one, Deutsche Bank, that spills into her bitter feud with President Trump. With Trump in the White House, I know that our fight for Americas consumers and investors will continue to be challenging. But I am more than up to that fight, Waters wrote in a letter last week to her Democratic colleagues on the committee that was obtained by The Times. Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank, the large German financial institution that has had a long relationship with Trump, were the only two banks specifically mentioned in the eight-page letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg. Advertisement Waters told The Times that looking into the continued problems at Wells Fargo would be a priority, declaring that something is terribly wrong at the San Francisco bank. Were not just focusing our attention on Wells Fargo because were focusing our attention on big banks, she said. Were focusing our attention on Wells Fargo because Wells Fargo has emerged with the kind of problems that lead everyone to wonder what is going on over there. Waters said she anticipated meeting with the banks chief executive, Timothy Sloan, to discuss the banks various controversies. After that, hearings are possible, she said. Waters had pushed Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), the outgoing House Financial Services Committee chairman, to hold a hearing on Wells Fargos unauthorized account scandal in September 2016 after the bank agreed to pay $185 million to settle investigations into the matter by Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Wells Fargos sales practices were first reported by the Los Angeles Times in 2013. At the hearing, Waters told then-Chief Executive John Stumpf that she believed the bank was too big to manage and called for it to be broken up. Additional controversies have hit Wells Fargo since then, including consumer abuses involving its mortgage and auto-loan businesses that drew a record $1-billion fine from federal regulators in April. Earlier in the year, the Federal Reserve had ordered the bank to stop growing until it could prove to regulators that it has systems in place to prevent consumer abuses. Last year, Waters introduced legislation that would allow regulators to break up big banks that repeatedly harm consumers. In her Friday letter to committee Democrats, she cited Wells Fargo as an example of the recidivist financial institutions that would be punished under the bill. Wells Fargo said Monday that it remains committed to working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including Congresswoman Waters. Our priority is to continue sharing the progress that we have made to transform our company, make things right with customers, and give back to our communities, said spokeswoman Jennifer Dunn. Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with brokerage and investment bank Cowen & Co., said he expected Waters to hold hearings with top Wells Fargo executives, brightening the spotlight on its troubles. This will be a continued distraction for the bank and may make it difficult for regulators to roll back restrictions on the banks, including the Federal Reserves cap on the banks asset size, he wrote in a research note Monday. Waters has been one of Trumps fiercest critics, refusing to attend his inauguration and publicly calling for his impeachment. He has responded by frequently deriding her on Twitter and at rallies as crazy and low IQ. Waters has said her agenda cannot be totally focused on the president or anybody. And in her letter to colleagues, Waters outlined a host of priorities, including protecting consumers from abusive financial practices, expanding affordable housing opportunities, combating homelessness and strengthening the housing finance system. But Waters also told her colleagues she planned to look into Trumps finances. I am committed to strong oversight and following the Trump money trail, starting with Deutsche Bank, she wrote. Waters has tried for months to get Hensarling to subpoena documents from Deutsche Bank about Russian money laundering and the finances of Trump and his family. Deutsche Bank was one of the few banks that lent money to Trump after bankruptcies by some of his companies. In 2017, the bank paid about $630 million in fines to U.S. and British regulators for failing to prevent trades that allowed the transfer of about $10 billion out of Russia in violation of anti-money laundering laws. Waters told her colleagues she wanted to see any suspicious activity reports the bank filed with the Treasury Departments Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. In the Times interview, she said she would continue to press Deutsche Bank and the Treasury Department for the confidential records. Asked if she was prepared to issue subpoenas, Waters said, I think its premature to talk about what we anticipate doing. Deutsche Bank said it would cooperate. Deutsche Bank takes its legal obligations seriously and remains committed to cooperating with authorized investigations, said spokesman Troy D. Gravitt. Our recent record of cooperating with such investigations has been widely recognized by regulators. We intend to keep working in this spirit if we get an authorized request for information. jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com Twitter: @JimPuzzanghera Volvo Cars is shredding production plans drawn up for much of its lineup in an effort to dodge tariffs the U.S. and China have slapped on auto imports. Only a few months after opening its first U.S. plant, the Swedish brand has canceled plans to export the S60 sedans built there to China. Volvo also will stop U.S. imports of XC60 sport utility vehicles from China and dramatically reduce shipments of S90 sedans built there. The carmaker, which is owned by Chinas Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., is ensnared in the tit-for-tat trade war between the worlds two biggest auto-buying countries, both of which have ratcheted up car tariffs. The dispute has dragged on profits of peers including BMW, which said this week that higher duties were partially to blame for its underwhelming earnings. Volvo will pivot from plans to export roughly half of the S60s built at its factory near Charleston, S.C., to focus mostly on supplying the American market next year, said Anders Gustafsson, the president of the carmakers U.S. unit. Volvo still intends to export the S60 to Europe from Charleston and will continue to import the XC60 SUV from Europe to the U.S. Advertisement Well go at this change not with a smile, but we know what we need to do, Gustafsson said in a speech to the Automotive Press Assn. in Detroit on Thursday. We have a global manufacturing structure that helps us maneuver in these tough waters. President Trump imposed tariffs of 27.5% on Chinese auto imports in July. Chinas Xi Jinping returned fire by lifting levies on American autos to 40%. Volvo hasnt passed along the cost of the tariffs to customers of the XC60s it imports from China and that is taking a big toll on the carmakers profits, Gustafsson said. We are absorbing the tariffs, and that really is what you saw in our financial results, he said in an interview before the speech. But we can, under no circumstances, absorb tariffs in the long run. Its huge. Among the Volvo vehicles that could get caught up in the trade war is the automakers top-selling XC90 SUV, which Gustafsson called a profit machine. Starting in 2022, the company will produce the model in Charleston and export it to Europe and possibly China, potentially at a loss, he said. Its a painful series of adjustments for the carmaker, which just opened the new $1.1-billion plant about 40 miles northwest of Charleston in June. At the time, Volvo said it anticipated employing 3,900 people within five years, once it adds XC90 production. Tearing up production plans to avoid tariffs has consumed the attention of Volvo management, Gustafsson said. This is not easy, its a big, big, big thing, he said in the interview. Its extremely painful. I dont want to sit here and smile and say everything is great. Absolutely not. But thats life. The people have spoken read the events ubiquitous decor in white capital letters nearly two stories high. This definitive slogan was tied to the Peoples Choice Awards, a Sunday night shindig that, after airing on CBS for 44 years, made its debut this year on E!, the network that famously turned the long walk into an awards show into a show in itself. This is the first air-conditioned carpet I think Ive ever been on, Jimmy Fallon told reporters just before the show began at Santa Monicas Barker Hangar. Im not melting like I usually am! The rebooted ceremony distinguished itself from the usual awards show by including honors specifically highlighting online content. Advertisement I wouldnt say its about time, but more it was only a matter of time, said Jackie Aina, who was nominated for the newly added beauty influencer category. Ria Ciuffo of the nominated pop podcast Chicks in the Office added, Its crazy weve spent our time interviewing the people who are here tonight, and now were their fellow nominees. But the winners of these groups werent announced during the two-hour live telecast. Instead, the cameras zoomed in on A-listers such as Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Johnny Galecki, Sarah Silverman and the stars of a slew of shows in the NBCUniversal family of channels (which includes E!). Many of the evenings speeches paid tribute to the important issues of the particularly strenuous week. Multiple winners, including The Spy Who Dumped Me actress Mila Kunis and Avengers: Infinity War star Danai Gurira, called for donations to the Los Angeles Fire Department as it works to contain the wildfires blazing throughout California. To the first responders, your courage, your bravery, what you do to serve those out there who need you is beyond words, said Gurira while accepting the award for Movie of the Year alongside Scarlett Johansson and Pom Klementieff. Thank you for what you do. When Chrissy Teigen presented the women of Keeping Up With the Kardashians with the Reality Show award, Kim Kardashian West alongside Khloe Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and Kris Jenner mentioned the fires as well as the Thousand Oaks tragedy earlier this week. Our hearts are broken from the horrific shootings and those who have lost their lives and homes, as well as the hundreds of thousands of us that have been evacuated from the devastating fires that are currently burning, she said. Our country is stronger when we come together, and we cannot face devastation alone. We must continue to reach out to each other in trying times. Melissa McCarthy used her Peoples Choice Icon acceptance speech to reiterate the importance of voting, especially in light of the recent midterm elections (and their uncalled results). Im thankful to you because you actually engaged and you cared about things and you put the time and the effort to make your voice heard, said the actress. Were never gonna agree on everything but tonight, your collective voice matters. And with a nod to Veterans Day, Avengers: Infinity War actress Johansson dedicated her win for Female Movie Star to the armed forces who put their lives on the line every day so we dont have to. Blake Shelton, accepting the award for top country artist, wore a Veterans Day pin in tribute to his father. See the red-carpet arrivals at the Peoples Choice Awards: 1 / 26 Black Panther and The Walking Dead actress Danai Gurira (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 2 / 26 A Wynonna Earp group shot includes actress Katherine Barrell, left, producer Emily Andras, actor Tim Rozon and actress Melanie Scrofano, all attending the Peoples Choice Awards 2018 at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 3 / 26 The Real co-host Jeannie Mai (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 4 / 26 Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments actress Alisha Wainwright (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 5 / 26 Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments actor Matthew Daddario (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 6 / 26 Rel and Uncle Drew actor Lil Rel Howery (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 7 / 26 Actresses Bailey McKnight and Brooklyn McKnight (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 8 / 26 The Bold and the Beautiful and Big Brother actress Jessica Graf (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 9 / 26 Crusoe the Celebrity Dachshund (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 10 / 26 BlacKkKlansman and The Black List actor Ryan Eggold (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 11 / 26 Wrestlers Brie Bella, left, and Nikki Bella (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 12 / 26 Riverdale actress Camila Mendes (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 13 / 26 Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments actor Isaiah Mustafa (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 14 / 26 Actress Manu Gavassi (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 15 / 26 Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor Terry Crews and Rebecca King-Crews (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 16 / 26 Jenni JWoww Farley (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 17 / 26 Avengers: Infinity War and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" actress Pom Klementieff (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 18 / 26 Courtney Act (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 19 / 26 Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments and Crazy Rich Asians actor Harry Shum Jr. (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 20 / 26 Giuliana Rancic (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 21 / 26 This Is Us actress Susan Kelechi Watson (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 22 / 26 Extra host Renee Bargh (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 23 / 26 Actress Aisha Jade (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 24 / 26 Actress Nadia Fairfax (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 25 / 26 Lufy (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) 26 / 26 Actress Alejandra Azcarate (Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images) Though the night was sprinkled with moments of levity such as when Fashion Icon Award recipient Victoria Beckham quoted Spice Girls lyrics onstage, or when performer and double winner Nicki Minaj humorously dedicated an award to Kim Kardashians ass in that dress the most joyful section of the show came from Bryan Stevenson. After a performance and introduction by John Legend, Stevenson, the renowned activist and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, delivered a four-minute speech discussing the problems of Americas justice system. To end hate, some of us are going to have to stand up when people say sit down, some of us are going to have to speak when they tell us to be quiet, he said. To end the hate, we have to embrace hope because hopelessness is the enemy of justice. , Stevenson continued. We got to be hopeful and do uncomfortable things. Weve got to do some difficult things. If we do them together, we can create a new America. Theres something better waiting for us. Though celebrities comments at televised award shows can often feel like lip service, his speech or rather sermon felt like the most authentic address of the evening, eliciting a genuine standing ovation. Thanks to Stevenson, the shows slogan was true: The people had indeed spoken. ashley.lee@latimes.com Twitter: @cashleelee Camp fire death toll rises to 86 after burn victim dies in hospital By Alene Tchekmedyian Californias deadliest blaze on record has claimed 86 lives. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) The death toll from the devastating Camp fire in Butte County, Calif., rose to 86 after an 80-year-old man died of his burn injuries, authorities said Tuesday. Larry Smith of Paradise was burned Nov. 8 while attempting to put out flames that engulfed his car, the Butte County Sheriffs Office said. He was flown to the UC Davis Firefighters Burn Institute Regional Burn Center, where he died Nov. 25. Authorities also released the name of one other person who died in the blaze: Shirlee Teays, 90, of Paradise. Of the 86 people killed, 52 have been identified. Three people are still missing. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Three more Camp fire victims identified A recovery team searches for human remains after the Camp fire. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) The Butte County Sheriffs Office on Monday released the names of three more victims who died in the Camp fire. Authorities identified the following people and have notified their families: Rafaela Andrade, 84, of Paradise Don Shores, 70, of Magalia Jean Forsman, 83, of Magalia Of the 85 people killed in Californias deadliest blaze on record, 50 have been identified. Three people remain missing. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Woolsey fire victims identified as mother and son Firefighter Adan Rodriguez douses hot spots on Mulholland Drive last month. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles County coroners officials Monday identified a mother and son who died trying to escape flames in the destructive Woolsey fire. Shoushan Baklayan, 82, and her son Anthony Noubar Baklayan, 57, died in a car Nov. 9 in the 33100 block of Mulholland Highway in Malibu, coroners officials said. Authorities said that the younger Baklayan died of effects of thermal injuries; investigators have not determined a cause of death for his mother. The two were among three people who died in the blaze. The third victim has not been identified. The family released a statement through their spokesman, Brian Glicklich, in which they asked for privacy as they continue to grieve. The blaze, which erupted Nov. 8, ripped through nearly 97,000 acres in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, destroying 1,500 structures. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Authorities identify the remains of 3 more killed in Camp fire By B.J. Terhune Firefighters move heavy debris while searching for human remains at a destroyed residence 19 days after the Camp fire in Paradise, Calif. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) The Butte County Sheriffs Office has released the names of three more people who died in the Camp fire. Sheriffs officials said Wednesday that the remains of the following people had been identified and their relatives had been notified: Sally Gamboa, 69, Paradise Joy Porter, 72, Paradise Dennis Clark, 49, Paradise Californias worst wildfire killed 85 people when it tore through Butte County on Nov. 8. Officials say 10 residents are still missing. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Authorities identify remains of 10 more people who died in Camp fire By B.J. Terhune Weeks after the Camp fire destroyed more than 18,000 structures in Californias Butte County, volunteers from search-and-rescue teams nationwide continue to look for human remains in the rubble. The names of 10 more victims of the Camp fire were released Monday by the Butte County Sheriffs Office, which has notified the next of kin. Helen Pace, 84, Paradise Gary Hunter, 67, Magalia Beverly Powers, 64, Paradise Sheila Santos, 64, Paradise Andrew Downer, 54, Paradise Lou Herrera, 86, Paradise TK Huff, 71, Concow Gordon Dise, 66, Chico James Garner, 63, Magalia Robert Duvall, 76, Paradise Californias worst wildfire has killed 85 people, and 11 residents in the Northern California counties where the blaze tore through in early November are still missing. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Camp fire death toll is revised to 85 Homes leveled by the Camp fire in Paradise, Calif. (Noah Berger / Associated Press) Authorities in Butte County revised the Camp fire death toll to 85 after investigators determined that, in three cases, human remains collected in multiple bags belonged to a single individual. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said investigators had identified 43 victims. For weeks, hundreds of searchers scoured 18,000 structures destroyed by the blaze looking for human remains, going over some areas more than once. Honea advised residents who head back to their neighborhoods in coming days to call the sheriffs office if they find bones or bone fragments. Investigators have accounted for all but 11 people reported missing in the wildfire. Crews have been working to clear tree hazards on public roads, but urged residents to be cautious because they have not assessed private properties. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Strangers from Paradise support one another in hotel lobby far from home By Angel Jennings Over the last few weeks, some Paradise evacuees have made a Best Western hotel home. They didnt know each other before the fire, though they lived in the same small town for years and frequented the same haunts. They have formed a little community at the Corning hotel around the waffle maker during breakfast, passing one another in the elevator and lounging in the lobby, Around the table, they trade stories of dodging embers and feelings of guilt. Together, they try to make sense of the tragedy that unites them. They are among thousands of Paradise residents who fled their homes the day the fire started and have not been allowed to return since. There is growing frustration at the pace of getting people back to see what is left of their properties as well as longer-term shelter plans for those who lost their homes. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rain brings new dangers in Northern California areas burned in recent fires By Hannah Fry As a series of rainstorms begins to move across the state, officials in areas recently scarred by wildfires are on high alert for potential mudslides and flash flooding. The National Weather Service issued a warning of possible flash flooding in three counties in Northern California in advance of a storm expected to arrive late Wednesday. Forecasters predict the second in a series of three storm systems this week could drop more than an inch of rain on the Camp fire burn area in Butte County; the Carr, Delta and Hirz fires burn areas in Shasta County; and the Mendocino Complex fire scar in Lake County. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Costs from Paradise fire will likely be in the billions, Zinke says U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke returned to Paradise, Calif., on Monday, saying the cost of Californias worst fires would probably be in the billions and that care would have to be taken in rebuilding the city. When we rebuild, having a frank discussion whether its appropriate to rebuild every place is an important part of the equation, he told the Associated Press in an interview. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Some victims of Paradise fire may never be found, officials say By Rong-Gong Lin II Authorities are coming to terms with the possibility that the search for victims of the Camp fire might never be complete and that some human remains wont ever be recovered. Is it possible that there could be a circumstance where someone was completely consumed by fire and therefore we wouldnt have something that we could collect? I would say it is within the realm of possibility, unfortunately, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said Monday. Theres nothing easy about this. This is just an unprecedented situation, he added. Read the latest here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print New storms bring fresh anxiety in Paradise By Hannah Fry The first of three storm systems expected in wildfire-ravaged Butte County, Calif., dropped a smattering of rain Tuesday. Forecasters predicted about an inch of precipitation, saying the relatively weak system would sputter out by early Wednesday. But a stronger storm will roll in late Wednesday, bringing with it the potential for debris flows and up to 3 inches of rain through Thursday night. The Butte County Emergency Operations Center has prepared for the rain by clearing drainage culverts of debris, said Matt Gates, public information officer for the Paradise Police Department. The California Conservation Corps also has been working on erosion-control measures for mountain slopes filled with fire-damaged pine and chaparral. Ash doesnt absorb water, which complicates things, Gates said. A third storm could bring 2 to 4 inches of rain to the charred region from Friday through Sunday. Its the intensity that can cause debris flows, said Eric Kurth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. If the rain comes over time, theres some opportunity for it to absorb or gradually run off. When we have rapid runoff, thats when it can bring down entire hillsides. The soil in recently burned areas cannot absorb significant amounts of rainwater, so excessive precipitation can lead to fast-moving flows containing mud, debris and even trees and boulders. The devastation can be deadly and often comes without warning. The rain is also expected to complicate the already challenging search for human remains among the rubble of the Camp fire. Typically, crews scoop fire debris into a screen and sift it, looking for bone or bone fragments, but the ash and rain have mixed to form a clay-like substance, making the task nearly impossible. Officials have had to bring in water and gently wash away the clay to expose potential human remains in the charred mess. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Mountain lion P-74 believed killed in Woolsey fire By Associated Press National Park Service officials say P-74, a young male mountain lion who lives in the area burned by the Woolsey fire, probably died. (National Park Service) Officials say a mountain lion tracked by researchers probably died in a wildfire that tore through Southern California communities and wilderness areas. The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area tweeted Monday that theres been no signal from the GPS collar on the young mountain lion dubbed P-74 since Nov. 9. Thats the day the Woolsey fire swept into the central part of the Santa Monica Mountains northwest of Los Angeles. P-74 was a male born last year. Several other mountain lions and bobcats monitored by scientists in the area have been located. The huge fire charred a swath of national park land thats home to the big cats and popular among hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders. The blaze burned 1,600 structures in and around Malibu and left three people dead. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print 88 dead and 203 still missing in Paradise fire zone By Rong-Gong Lin II The death toll from Californias worst fire jumped to 88 on Monday with 203 people still missing, officials said. Searchers have spent the last two weeks combing through the remains of Paradise, where much of the city was burned in the Camp fire. Officials said Monday that they had covered a good portion of the city. Its been a grim task, with most of the remains being found as just bones or bone fragments. The fire, which burned more than 14,000 homes in the Paradise region, was fully contained Sunday morning. A new rainstorm will move into the area in the coming days, and officials are worried that could make search efforts more difficult. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Officials believe mountain lion P-74 died in the Woolsey fire By Associated Press Lion P-74. (Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area) Officials say a mountain lion tracked by researchers probably died in a wildfire that tore through Southern California communities and wilderness areas. The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area tweeted Monday that theres been no signal from the GPS collar on the young mountain lion dubbed P-74 since Nov. 9. Thats the day the Woolsey fire swept into the central part of the Santa Monica Mountains northwest of Los Angeles. P-74 was a male born last year. Several other mountain lions and bobcats monitored by scientists in the area have been located. The huge fire charred a swath of national park land thats home to the big cats and popular among hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders. The blaze burned 1,600 structures in and around Malibu and left three people dead. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print 296 still missing in Paradise fire zone; 85 dead As of Sunday night, the number of people missing stands at 296 in Californias worst wildfire on record. The Butte County Sheriffs Department said the death toll was at 85. Searchers spent the day looking for remains in the Paradise area, where 14,000 homes were lost in the Camp fire. The number of missing has been going down as officials connect with people whose names are on the list. As of last week, it topped 1,000. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Searching for anything that looks human: Grim work in Paradise continues By Cindy Chang At the Ridgewood mobile home park for senior citizens in Paradise on Sunday, more than 100 search and rescue workers in white jumpsuits and gas masks combed through the rubble with shovels and rakes. The surrounding pine trees were singed, ringing a neighborhood where every home had been reduced to charred, twisted wreckage. Last week, searchers found the remains of two people there, said Sgt. Dave Thompson of the Sonoma County Sheriffs Office. On Sunday, the grim, painstaking task yielded some bones, including those of two small dogs. But none were human. The searchers, many of whom are volunteers, also found a safe full of coins as they combed through Ridgewood and Ponderosa Mobile Estates next door. Were going trailer by trailer, piece by piece, turning it over for anything that looks human, said Thompson, who led an operation that drew searchers from counties such as Marin, Contra Costa, Shasta and Kern, as well as the National Guard and California Conservation Corps. Facebook photos before the fire of the Ridgewood community at Pentz and Wagstaff roads, where residents were 55 years and older, showed tidy mobile homes with well-kept gardens. The fire came over the ridge very fast, and senior citizens with limited mobility could have had trouble fleeing, Thompson said. As teams wrapped up their work, Thompson dispatched them to other neighborhoods to continue searching for people who lost their lives in the fire. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Disaster assistance operations are extended in Malibu and Agoura Hills Operations at disaster assistance centers in Malibu and Agoura Hills have been extended to keep helping residents affected by the Woolsey fire. The centers, located at the former Malibu Courthouse and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation in Agoura Hills, are scheduled to be open through Dec. 8. Hours of operation are between 1 to 8 p.m. from Monday to Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday. At the centers, residents affected by the fire can get help filing insurance claims and applying for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They can also receive advice on how to clean up, repair and rebuild their properties. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Woolsey fire destroyed 1,643 structures in destructive siege of Ventura County and Malibu Destruction from Woolsey fire. (Los Angeles Times) The Woolsey fire destroyed 1,643 structures as it swept through Oak Park and Ventura County and into Malibu, according to a final report released Sunday. That makes it one of the most destructive fires in Southern California history, though it pales in comparison to the 14,000 homes lost in the Camp fire in Butte County. Hundreds of evacuees from the Malibu, Agoura Hills and Thousand Oaks areas spent the holiday weekend returning to their burned-out neighborhoods to survey their damaged or destroyed homes and to begin rebuilding their lives. Some were still debating whether to stay or leave. The Woolsey fire scorched more than 96,000 acres and left three people dead before it was fully contained on Thanksgiving Day, fire officials said. Pono Barnes, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department, said firefighters are working on encouraging residents to prepare for winter rainstorms that could move over the burn area. The whole landscape in the area has changed, Barnes said. The vegetation that was there to hold the ground together was burned off. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rain is helping firefighters battling Northern California fire, but a new storm could bring dangers By Ruben Vives Crews work in the wreckage of a structure destroyed in the Camp fire. (Associated Press) Light rains in the area have assisted firefighters in achieving 100% containment of Northern Californias devastating Camp fire, but most evacuations and road closures remain in effect. More than 1,000 firefighters remain on site, assisting with search and recovery efforts. Full containment came as a big relief for fire officials, who noted that the rain sped up the process. Full containment was originally projected for Nov. 30. We didnt get mudslides, so that was good, said Brigitte Foster, fire prevention officer for the Lassen National Forest and spokeswoman for fire officials regarding the Camp fire. We got enough to hamper down on the fire. The rains also gave officials the ability to reduce the number of fire personnel on duty and allow some to go home for the holiday weekend. We still have plenty of resources out there to work from the containment line and make sure there are no smoldering spots along the edge, Foster said. We still have search and rescue teams working in the area. And in preparation for residents being allowed to return to burn areas and assess property damage, crews were helping clear roadways and remove hazardous materials such as trees that could fall down. Its unknown when evacuees will be able to return. There are concerns about another storm approaching burn areas this week. Rain is expected to move into the Camp fire burn areas beginning Tuesday and continue through the end of the week, according to the National Weather Service. Up to 3 inches could fall in some lower elevations, forecasters said. On Wednesday, the same system is expected to deliver a half-inch to 2 inches in burn areas in Southern California. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Woman returns to see ruins of Malibu drug treatment center: This place saved my life By Emily Alpert Reyes Along Trancas Canyon Road on Saturday, a woman snapped photos of the blackened wreckage of what was once an alcohol and drug treatment center. A wedge of scorched wall stood at a tilt, like a listing ship, peering over the Pacific below. Someone had taped business cards to a wall bordering the site, advertising a restoration business, but it was hard to imagine what could be restored. The woman, who declined to give her name, said she had been sober nearly seven months. This place saved my life, she said. She stayed in Newbury Park after she was evacuated, and it was the first time she had gotten a moment to see what had become of Creative Care Inc. There were people she had gotten to know there who are now living out of state and wanted photos. Its sad, she said. But its just material. I have sobriety. I have life, she said. And theyll rebuild. Read more here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print 50,000 displaced by Northern California fire. Where will they go? By Anna M. Phillips Across Butte County a primarily agricultural area known for its walnut, almond and rice farms towns are struggling to absorb the roughly 50,000 people displaced by the Camp fire. Through no fault of their own, the evacuees arrival has worsened the states housing crisis and raised the possibility that they could be evicted from the region again, not by fire but by a scarcity of suitable dwellings. Hotels and motels from Sacramento to Redding are full. The vacancy rate in the rental market, which hovered around 3% before the fire, has fallen to near zero. Unable to find single-family homes in the area, evacuees have resorted to renting individual bedrooms, buying recreational vehicles and purchasing travel trailers. Others are simply leaving California for other Western states with a lower cost of living. Read more here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Northern California fire now 100% contained; 85 dead, 249 still missing Destruction from the Camp fire. (Los Angeles Times) The worst fire in California history reached full containment Sunday morning, a milestone for a catastrophic inferno that killed at least 85 people with nearly 250 people still missing weeks later. The Camp fire is now 100% contained, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Sunday, after burning nearly 14,000 homes and consuming 153,000 acres in and around Paradise in Butte County. Much of Paradise was lost in the fire, and search and rescue crews will continue looking through the ruins for more victims. At one point, there were more than 1,300 people listed as missing from the fire. But that number has been dropping in recent days. Over the weekend, it declined from more than 400 to 249 as officials were able to confirm more people on the list were actually alive. Several days of rain last week helped firefighters get a handle on the fire. Authorities expect the removal of ash and other toxic debris from the fire will be the largest such effort ever undertaken by state officials. The amount of debris is expected to dwarf the cleanup effort undertaken from last years Northern California fires. That effort led to more than 2 million tons of toxic debris removed from 6,000 properties in seven California counties: Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Mendocino, Butte, Yuba and Nevada, said Eric Lamoureux of the Governors Office of Emergency Services. County, state and federal governments jump start the process of removal of toxic ash and other debris, and can do so at no cost to the owner, Lamoureux said. Typically, about 80% of owners give the government permission to conduct the cleanup operations, with the rest opting to do it themselves. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Schools devastated by California fire struggle to get back to the business of educating students By Rong-Gong Lin II As this region still reels from the worst fire in California history, educators are faced with the challenging task of reopening schools even as the firefighters continue their work and searchers scour the area for more victims. They are working to identify replacement classroom space for schools that were burned to ashes during the fire. Paradise Unified School District was hardest hit, with multiple school buildings lost to the fires. Charter schools in the area also suffered. Read more here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Paradise fire search efforts pick up as firefighters increase containment The worst fire in California remained 95% contained Saturday morning. Rains helped put out the flames but also made it harder for firefighters to access some areas. The fireline that remains uncontained is located in steep and rugged terrain where it is unsafe for firefighters to access due to the heavy rains, CalFire said in a statement. With the rain passing, officials hope to intensify search and rescue efforts, with more than 400 still reported missing. The fire burned 153,336 acres and nearly 14,000 homes, with 84 dead. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Some Malibu residents still under evacuation order By Sarah Parvini In Malibu, some residents who evacuated from the Woolsey fire were still waiting to return home as officials worked to restore utilities and road access. That fire, which charred 96,949 acres and destroyed 1,643 structures, is 100% contained. Three people were killed. There is still a lot of work to be done, said Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman Pono Barnes. Strike teams are in the area helping residents repopulate. Firefighters biggest job Friday was working with Southern California Edison and Southern California Gas Co., Barnes said. There was quite a bit of infrastructure damaged during the burn, he said. Edison is working to replace downed power lines and burned-out power poles. As many as 2,000 power poles have been replaced, he said. That is why we still have some evacuations in place, Barnes added. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print A wheelchair and gurney sit in rain amid devastation of Paradise medical complex By Gina Ferazzi The grim search for victims continued in Paradise on Saturday amid the rain. Times photographer Gina Ferazzi was struck by the image of an abandoned wheelchair and gurney in front of the destroyed Cypress Meadows post-acute medical facility. The rain is making the devastation in Paradise even more eerie and sad, she wrote. The rain is making the devastation in Paradise even more eerie and sad as abandoned wheelchairs and gurney still remain in front of the destroyed Cypress Meadows facility while search teams sift through ashes looking for human remains #CampFire pic.twitter.com/AyeD9io9FU Gina Ferazzi (@GinaFerazzi) November 24, 2018 Firefighters hand out #Thanksgiving dinners to victims of #CampFireParadise at Chico St @WCKitchen while Saphira Swisher, 6, prays before turkey dinner w/her family at a church shelter pic.twitter.com/o9Drj3dDeX Gina Ferazzi (@GinaFerazzi) November 22, 2018 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Wildfire much worse because of climate change, new report finds By Tony Barboza Camp fires devastation. (Los Angeles Times) A new federal report found that climate change is taking an increasing toll on communities across the United States. It projects widespread and growing devastation as increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, worsening wildfires, more intense storms and other cascading effects harm our ecosystems, infrastructure and society. Among the findings: The area burned across the western U.S. from 1984 to 2015 was twice what it would have been if climate change had not occurred, according to analyses cited in the report. Earths climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities, the report says. But the severity of future impacts will depend largely on actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the changes that will occur. The report comes as California faces a series of devastating wildfires that have claimed scores of lives and burned thousands of homes. Read more on the report here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Hes giving $1 million to help the high school students of fire-ravaged Paradise By Morgan Cook With many of their homes damaged or destroyed in the states most devastating wildfire on record, the students of Paradise High School face an uncertain future. On Tuesday, a man they have never met from a city more than 500 miles away will give them a gift he hopes will provide at least a small measure of security, support and comfort in a dark hour. Rancho Santa Fe businessman Bob Wilson plans to personally deliver a $1,000 check to each of the schools 980 students and 105 employees in Chico at a venue that has yet to be determined. Thats a total of $1 million for the wildfire victims to use as they see fit, no strings attached. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Camp fire now 95% contained, with help from rain Firefighters battling Californias deadliest fire on record continued to make progress Friday, with containment growing to 95% and the number of homes burned at nearly 14,000. The Camp fire has scorched more than 153,000 acres and killed at least 84 people in Butte County, according to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officials. But hundreds of residents are still missing, and thousands more have been displaced by the massive blaze. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Another Camp fire death recorded as rain lessens fire danger Rain falls Thursday on the site of a home destroyed by the Camp fire. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) Another day of searching, another grim finding. The death toll from the Camp fire rose by one Thursday to 84, on a day when rain seemed to halt further growth of the states deadliest blaze. By Thursday evening, the Jarbo Gap, where the fire probably started, had received just over an inch of rain in the preceding 24 hours, according to the National Weather Service. Rain totals varied across the region. The forecast calls for more. In the nearby town of Paradise, which was nearly obliterated by the fire, the forecast for Thursday night was more showers, heavy at times, with winds of 18 to 24 mph and gusts as high as 37 mph. Such winds would have fueled the fire just days ago, but instead they are harbingers of precipitation that is expected to drop three-quarters of an inch to 1 inch of rainfall Thursday night. Another 1 to 2 inches could fall Friday. The wet weather has helped bring containment of the fire to an estimated 95% as of Thursday evening. But it also brought damp, chilly discomfort to evacuees living in tents thousands of residents have been displaced and new worries about potentially deadly mudslides in burned areas. A flash-flood watch and wind advisory will remain in effect until 4 p.m. Friday. The rain also complicates the search for human remains, which could be washed away. Hundreds of people are still unaccounted for. Crews also are involved in another grim tally, figuring out exactly which homes and business burned. Officials have released a preliminary interactive map that shows the damage, house by house. Camp fire evacuees now have rain to contend with as they occupy tents in a Walmart parking lot in Chico, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Malibu schools to reopen by early December; other schools aiming for Monday Air scrubbers at work in a Las Virgenes district school library. (Las Virgenes Unified School District) Schools in Malibu survived the Woolsey fire almost intact but they got very dirty, and cleanup efforts will keep campuses closed even as residents are allowed to return to their properties. The fire killed three people, burned 97,000 acres and destroyed 1,500 structures. Malibus four schools have been closed since Nov. 9, when they were included in the mandatory evacuation zones. The tentative date to reopen Webster Elementary is Nov. 28. Point Dume Marine Science School is scheduled to reopen Dec. 3. Juan Cabrillo Elementary School should be ready between Dec. 3 and Dec. 5, pending results of air testing inside and outside for traces of lead, asbestos and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Malibu High will be back in business between Dec. 4 and Dec. 10 The district had planned a swifter reopening but slowed down out of an abundance of caution, spokeswoman Gail Pinsker said. We are hearing from parents that they want thorough cleaning and testing, which we plan, but the cleaning and testing and waiting for results take a day to more than a week, she said. Three other districts in the region also had closed campuses. Schools in Conejo Valley Unified, Oak Park Unified and Las Virgenes Unified are aiming to reopen Monday. Residents who had to evacuate included Las Virgenes Supt. Daniel Stepenosky, who estimated that about 90 families with district students lost their homes, as did two staff members. In a video update on social media, he said that everyone is eager for schools to reopen: Everyone wants to get back to a state of normalcy, to be honest with you. To that end, a crew of 200 has been working for several days, and the district had brought in 300 air scrubbers and 300 hydroxyl deodorizers. Playgrounds that are not ready by Monday will be cordoned off. Stepenosky said that a full-court press will continue because the schools are really boring when theyre empty. A worker scrubs down surfaces at a Las Virgenes district campus. (Las Virgenes Unified School District ) Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement We can make ugly pretty again: The fighting spirit of Paradise residents By Laura Newberry Camp fire victims have a Thanksgiving dinner in Chico, Calif. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) Anna Longacre booked her flight home months ago. Back then, the 26-year-old Army sergeant imagined the comforts that awaited her Thanksgiving week, the things that never change no matter how far away from Paradise, Calif., the military takes her. The old cast-iron stove that warmed the entire house during winter. The small stone-fruit orchard that ran along the side and back. Her dads breakfast hash browns. Annas family had lived on their 3-acre lot in the Sierra Nevada foothills for 20 years. She moved away at 18 and has been stationed in Afghanistan, South Korea and Kansas. But her heart stayed in Paradise. Instead of being home Thanksgiving morning, she found herself in a cavernous auditorium at Cal State Chico, where turkey and fixings had been prepared for evacuees of Californias deadliest and most destructive wildfire. She dragged her dad, Bruce, with her. She wanted to get him out of her grandmas house in Chico, where theyd been staying with her mom and dogs. And she had heard celebrity chefs Guy Fieri and Jose Andres were making the food. It couldnt hurt to try and have a little fun, she thought, despite everything. The father and daughter were greeted by volunteers in plush turkey hats and handed sanitary wipes at the door. Read more here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Stories of thanks and gratitude amid the devastation in Paradise By Laura Newberry A young Camp fire evacuee waits in line to receive a free Thanksgiving meal Thursday in Chico, Calif. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) As of Thanksgiving Day, the devastation logged by the Camp fire in Northern California was nearly 14,000 homes, more than 150,000 acres and at least 83 lives. Some of the thousands displaced by the fire, mostly from the town of Paradise, said they nonetheless counted themselves among the lucky and found things to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. Times reporters on the ground in Butte County asked people about the meaning of this holiday. Here are their stories. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Authorities warn of fraudulent GoFundMe websites, other scams related to Paradise fire By Rong-Gong Lin II Butte County Dist. Atty. Mike Ramsey warned that scam artists are targeting Paradise fire victims seeking to rent housing. We have seen people who have no right to a particular apartment that go and rent out that apartment and take peoples money. Be very careful. Red flag: If its too good to be true, it is, Ramsey said. Another scam already happening are fraudulent GoFundMe websites seeking contributions for fire victims, he said. We encourage folks to go to the Butte County website to take a look at areas where you can legitimately and safely give your charitable dollars to, he said. He also urged residents to beware of scammers seeking to collect personal information under the guise of pretending to be insurance agents or a sheriffs deputy seeking to cross names off the list of the missing. It will be obvious that these are scammers, he said. Be very, very careful of giving any sort of personal information that will be financially disastrous to you, he said. There have been 11 cases of looting, he said, with suspects mostly interested in vehicles, such as motor homes, left behind by fire victims that fled. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rapid DNA analysis is being used to identify dozens of California fire victims By Rong-Gong Lin II Rapid DNA analysis is being used to identify dozens of California fire victims burned beyond recognition. Of 83 victims, sheriffs officials have made tentative identifications on 58 of them, but they await DNA confirmation. Were working diligently to identify those individuals so that we can contact their next of kin and notify them, said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. It used to be that DNA analysis could take months before answers would firm up, but now DNA analysis can be done within a matter of hours, Jim Davis of Ande, a Massachusetts-based company that specializes in rapid DNA analysis, said at a press conference in Chico on Wednesday. Davis said his company has been asked by the sheriff to use its rapid DNA analysis method to help identify victims in a mass casualty incident the first time his company has been asked to do so for this purpose. Davis said hes working with the coroners office in Sacramento County to collect tissue samples from the autopsies of the deceased; 80% of the time, those samples are usable for DNA analysis. Butte County sheriff and California Department of Justice officials are coordinating the collection of DNA samples from living relatives. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print She lost her home and dogs in the Paradise fire. This Thanksgiving is difficult, but shes grateful to be alive By Laura Newberry Tamra Grays Facebook friends have started posting photos of their newly decorated Christmas trees. When she stumbles upon this display of normalcy, she can barely hold it together. Its hard to think about the holidays right now, she said as she sat at a table in the Chico Mall food court, where she and her husband were discussing their options with a home insurance company representative. I dont have a home to put a tree in right now. Gray and her husband, Scott, lived in their Paradise home on Oak Way for 20 years. What she will miss the most are the pine trees in her backyard and the cool shade they provided, a simple pleasure she could count on even when the mercury hit 100. At 10 a.m. on the day of the fire, Grays 19-year-old son, Dylan, came running down the street. He had gotten stuck in gridlock traffic on Wagstaff Road, and seeing the plumes of black smoke ahead of him, he ditched his car in the closest parking lot and darted home, the only one hes ever known. Theres a fire, we gotta get out, he shouted. They had not received an evacuation alert. Gray did not think the house would burn. They lived a block from a fire station. Before leaving, she touched a redwood keepsake box that contained her childrens first teeth. If I take this to a shelter, it could get stolen, she thought. She left it. The family also left three dogs behind, taking several others with them in separate cars. Grays thinking was this: if there was looting, the big dogs would protect the home. Gray found the animals remains when she returned to Paradise last week. She is consumed by guilt. Gray and her family -- four adults and two kids -- are staying in an RV as they search for a rental. Her 29-year-old daughter, Shannon, also lost her home in Magalia. I feel lost. I just feel so homesick and I cant seem to get past that yet, Gray said, tearing up. Its hard for me to think about where I want to be in the future. Just as she was being asked what she was grateful for on the eve of Thanksgiving, Grays teenage daughter, Victoria, bounded up to her in the food court with several shopping bags in her hand. I got you shoes, Victoria said, pulling out a pair of gray Champion slip-ons. They were on sale. Gray tugged off one of the brown Ugg boots she got at a shelter. She tried on a sneaker. Im grateful that my family made it out alive, Gray said, returning to the question. Its easy to answer that when its staring me right in the face. Its when Im alone that I go into a dark place. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement You could feel the heat from the flames: Paradise survivor describes horror, survival They called it their little green house in the forest. A two-bedroom mobile home with a birdbath out front on Skyway road where deer and bobcats roamed. It is likely gone, they think, because they have seen a map of the burn area a cloud of red over where they lived for four years. Steve Weathington, 67, and his girlfriend, Irene Schwab, 65, now lay their heads on green cots in an exhibit hall at the Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds. Their possessions are few, but they made it out with their two trucks, two dogs and two cats. A fortune, they know, compared with what others escaped with. The morning the fire broke out, the couple had sat down to waffles and eggs when they noticed the sky was a smoky orange. Schwab went outside to settle a patio umbrella that was thrashing in the wind. A manager of their mobile home park had begun driving around, honking. Grabbing clothes, toiletries, medicine and the animals, Weathington hopped into his truck. Schwab followed behind in hers. It was burning on both sides of the road, Schwab recalled. You could feel the heat from the flames. It took them more than three hours to get to Chico, usually a 25-minute drive. They are grateful to be alive, to have had insurance on their home, to be capable and willing to start somewhere new. They may stay and find a place in Yuba City, a community theyve grown to appreciate. When they venture out of the shelter, an act of kindness is usually bestowed upon them. Waitresses have bought them dinner, a barber refused money for a haircut. They have picked out clothes for free and marveled over the donations that file in daily. We get a little teary-eyed because its really emotional, said Weathington, a retired commercial painter and U.S. Marines veteran, his eyes growing red. Still, the timing of everything is hard to take. The couple used to host Thanksgiving dinner for family with a spread of traditional fare, including pumpkin cheesecake and homemade biscuits. The holiday rings a bit hollow now, eliciting memories of what they once had. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Number of homes lost in Paradise fire approaches 14,000 as containment increases Firefighters continued to make progress with Californias deadliest fire, with containment rising to 90% but with number of homes burned now at nearly 14,000. At least 83 people were killed when the fire swept into Paradise two weeks ago, and hundreds are still missing, Rain helped firefighters, but the weather has made the search for victims more difficult. Precipitation has minimized fire activity and all fire lines continue to hold. Firefighters and resources continue to be deployed throughout the fire area to patrol and remove hazards, Cal Fire said Thursday morning. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Camp fire death toll increases to 83, while 563 still missing By Rong-Gong Lin II The remains of two more people were recovered in the Camp fire burn zone Wednesday, raising the death toll in the blaze to 83. One person was found in a structure in Paradise, while the other was located in a structure in Magalia, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told reporters at a news conference. Were working diligently to identify those individuals so we can contact their next of kin and notify them, Honea said, adding that investigators have tentatively identified 58 of the dead. Authorities have identified six more people who died in the blaze. They are: Teresa Ammans, 82, of Paradise Richard Brown, 74, of Concow Marie Wehe, 78, of Concow Kimber Wehr, 53, of Paradise Joseph Rabetoy, 39, of Paradise Joan Tracy, 80, of Paradise About 830 searchers will work on Thanksgiving to look for victims of the blaze, though the search could be suspended if rain triggers mudflows in the area. The number of people unaccounted for dropped to 563. A total of 2,052 people have been crossed off the missing-persons list. Thats a dynamic list, Honea said. You may see it go up or down depending on the information we receive during the course of the day. The blaze has scorched more than 153,000 acres and destroyed more than 18,000 structures, including 13,500 single-family homes. It was 85% contained. The heavy rain has minimized fire activity. That fire activity is almost nothing,said Josh Bischof of the California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection. Forecasters expect six inches of rain to fall across the burn area through Friday. Butte County Dist. Atty. Michael Ramsey said his office has put together a team to deal with price gouging. People are not allowed to jack up prices more than 10% of what they were before the fires, he said, adding that people can call (866) 323-6283 to report price gouging. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rain pours down on tent city of Paradise evacuees, causing new problems (Ruben Vives / Los Angeles Times) Rain began to pound on the tent city of Paradise evacuees Wednesday afternoon in Chico, causing more problems for people who have already been through so much. Two women walked around holding a blanket, offering it to anyone who needed it. Standing alone, wearing a red hooded rain poncho, John Owens shivered. I dont know how much longer people can hang on like this, he said. Owens lost his home and car in the fire. He said he was clinging on to what he had left: his wife, his dog and a part-time manufacturing job. I told my boss I cant hang here for too long, he said. If its going to be like this, I wont last long. Ill have to quit my job and go to the shelter. Owens said he said he hasnt left because transportation to his job is best from where he is now. He said he has to commute between Chico and Yuba City. This stinks, he said. Despite the cold, wet weather that is coming down on him and others, Owens said hes grateful to be alive. You only got a short period of time on this place, he said, referring to Earth. You gotta have a good time. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement California fires: Volunteers out in force to make a horrible Thanksgiving a little better In Chico, where thousands of evacuees have gathered, its going to be a Thanksgiving like no other. Some people who had been living in tents at a Walmart parking lot began to move on, some going to shelters. Volunteers have also been out in force to help. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Chico has been prepping a Thanksgiving meal that will feed about 2,000 people. The event is in conjunction with other groups who are putting together meals and it includes Cal State Chico and World Central Chicken. The meal will consist of turkey, pork, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy. The meals will be served in waves starting at 11 a.m., then at 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Leslie Jessee, 33, tore sheets of foil and laid them in a stack as she prepped the turkey. She said she hopes the Thanksgiving meal will bring some sense of peace for the people affected by the fire. Nearby, Ken Grossman, the owner of the beer company, worked on making the gravy. On Thanksgiving I always make the turkey, the gravy and mashed potatoes for a big family, he said. This time, its a bigger family. Grossman said about 40 of his employees lost homes to the Camp fire. He also has friends who have lost so much. Hopefully family and friends will enjoy the meal, he said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California fires: Were just trying to get back to normal, whatever normal really is By Rong-Gong Lin II With the public still prohibited from entering the worst-hit areas of Paradise and Magalia, the towns were silent, save for the hum of generators. The gas station was shuttered. Ponderosa Elementary School abandoned. The blackened husks of cars were still visible across the town. At the site of a gym on Pentz Road, all that remained were the contorted remains of elliptical machines atop a pile of ash. Crews worked on repairing utility lines, forcing motorists to just one side of many roads, and continued the process of looking for any signs of human remains, despite the rain. Theyre looking for basically bone fragments. And theyre just systematically going from burned house to burned house, looking to see if theres anything, said Capt. Matt Bergstrand of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection station in Magalia. A day earlier, a hearse was spotted in Paradise, accompanied by the California Highway Patrol. At the fire station in Magalia, things are still pretty devastating, Bergstrand said. Were just trying to get back to normal, whatever normal really is. I dont know what normal is really going to entail. A pretty big chunk of our area has been consumed. #paradise on Thanksgiving Eve. Quiet and wet. The acrid odor of smoke is throat scratching, lingering in the air. Crews are repairing utility lines, still searching for victims. pic.twitter.com/MeAqIYq3Yr Ron Lin (@ronlin) November 21, 2018 #paradise on Thanksgiving Eve. Quiet and wet. The acrid odor of smoke is throat scratching, lingering in the air. Crews are repairing utility lines, still searching for victims. pic.twitter.com/MeAqIYq3Yr Ron Lin (@ronlin) November 21, 2018 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Stanley the giraffe is safe after the Woolsey fire, but Jillian Michaels isnt satisfied By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde Nicole Padilla, 17, of Diamond Bar feeds Stanley the giraffe at the L.A. County Fair. ( (Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Times)) The saga of Stanley the giraffe continues as yet another celebrity has made the animals welfare her mission despite his keepers assurances. Fitness celebrity Jillian Michaels is demanding that Malibu Wine Safaris move Stanley to a better home. In a letter to founder Dakota Semler, Michaels said that despite the Woolsey fires passing, the giraffe remains in danger as long as it is in on their property. Celebrities and tourists have visited Saddlerock Ranchs safari attraction for years to drink wine and snap selfies with the lone giraffe. But after the Woolsey fire, they used their clout to draw attention to the animals safety as the Woolsey fire roared toward the property. They and hundreds of nearby residents, strangers and animal lovers believed Stanley had been abandoned when Malibu Wine Safaris staff evacuated. A photo of the exotic animal on an open field with flames in the distance circulated on social media. Despite multiple statements made by the company, some people remained dubious. Due to the short notice given to area residents, the animals were not evacuated; instead, they were placed in an open dirt field that did not have much fuel to burn. Stanley is doing fine, said Bob Dunn after the fire passed through. Dunn, a close family friend who has helped care for the giraffe since its birth, said Stanley was completely safe. Hes healthy. Although many have moved on, Michaels isnt satisfied. Like millions of others, I saw and cannot shake off the picture of Stanley that showed flames approaching behind him, and I urge you not to keep him in the same path of danger, Michaels wrote. But fire or no fire, he needs to be moved to a place where he can thrive and hes not just waiting for the monotony of his life to be broken when someone offers him a treat. Michaels is backed by the animal rights group PETA, which has been working to identify alternate homes for the animals, should the Semlers comply with Michaels request. Giraffes special needs simply cannot be met at a roadside zoo like this, Michaels said in the letter, and if he hasnt already, he will soon begin to exhibit neurotic behavior resulting from captivity-related stress, frustration, and privation. Rebecca Smudzinski, a wildlife specialist with PETA, said young male giraffes like Stanley often travel in bachelor herds and roam large savannas. One in captivity is likely to display signs of stress, such as repetitive licking and pacing. The Woolsey fire exposed Stanleys sad, lonely life in that barren enclosure, she said. Hes got nowhere to go and nothing to do, and so he just waits for people to feed him. Organizations housing exotic animals are required to have a permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which follows minimal standards set by the Animal Welfare Act. The permit includes an annual inspection visit to ensure the animal is taken care of properly. But that isnt enough, Smudzinski maintained. PETA wants the animal to be moved somewhere accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries or the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which both require disaster plans to be reviewed and practiced regularly, she said. Michaels referenced Safari West in a Twitter post as an example of an organization that successfully saved exotic animals. Nancy Lang, co-owner of Safari West, said the organization was accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The staff there meet annually with law enforcement, the Humane Society and others to discuss disaster plans and practice regular drills, and partner with organizations that offer their facilities in case of emergencies. When the Tubbs fire approached their property in 2017, they had little time to react, making an evacuation impossible. Lang said whether Malibu Wine Safaris did the right thing is impossible to say without knowing their circumstance. Some of Safari Wests animals were also placed in an open field with little fuel to burn. Its unclear what disaster plan Malibu Wine Safaris had in place, but its staff only had a couple of hours to act. Malibu Wine Safaris did not respond to multiple requests for comment. .@MalibuSafaris It's 100% possible to care for exotic animals in emergency situations. Read the attached @WhitneyCummings is spot on! And if you can't prepare properly for situations like this you have NO business keeping these types of animals. https://t.co/fB00qrtNzm Jillian Michaels (@JillianMichaels) November 15, 2018 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Homes burned in the Camp fire could contain dangerous materials including radiation and residents should stay away, health officials say An aerial view shows destruction from the Camp fire. Homes not reduced to rubble could have high levels of carcinogens, officials warn. (Los Angeles Times) Butte County health officials are urging residents not to try to move back into homes damaged by the Camp fire in Paradise. Some residents have been allowed back into Paradise to survey their homes and collect any valuables still left. There is evidence from recent fires in California that homes and property destroyed by fire contain high and concerning levels of heavy metals, lead, mercury, dioxin, arsenic, and other carcinogens. Some property may have the presence of radioactive materials, the county said in a statement. Exposure to hazardous substances may lead to acute and chronic health effects, and may cause long-term public health and environmental impacts. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Assessing the risk of mudslides in Malibu after California fires By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde If the expected rainfall on the eve of Thanksgiving day is intense enough, areas where the Woolsey fire burned would be more susceptible to mud flows than areas affected by the Camp fire, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. USGS researchers created a map that shows the probability that different fire-affected areas will experience mud flows if theres a storm that produces 24 millimeters of rain per hour, or a quarter of an inch in 15 minutes. We have historical information about where debris flows occurred, how big they were and the rainfall associated with triggering those events, said Dennis Staley, a research geologist with the USGS. The model also considers slope steepness, topography and fire severity. The dark red portions of the map indicate between an 80 and 100% chance of debris flows if rain reaches the assigned threshold for the map. Most areas affected by the Camp fire are colored yellow, indicating a 20% chance or less of debris flow. The Woolsey fire area on the other hand is mostly colored orange and red. The reason for the higher probability, Staley said, is that areas affected by the Woolsey fire are steeper than where the Camp fire burned. However, weather experts say rainfall in Southern California likely wont be intense enough for dangerous mud flows. Rich Thomas, with the National Weather Service, said there will only be about quarter to three quarters of an inch of rainfall total. Theres only a 10 to 20% chance the rain will become heavy enough to create mudflows, he said. There could be some minor debris flows, but nothing significant, he said. Rocks over the roadway, stuff like that. Still, Thompson said people should be prepared and pay attention to local authorities for evacuation orders. To the west, the area affected by the Mendocino Complex fire appears to be at higher risk, Staley said. In August, the Mendocino Complex fire consumed more than 450,000 acres, becoming the largest wildfire in state history. The areas steep terrain made it a challenge to firefighters and also increases the likelihood of mud flows. Heavy rain is expected this Thanksgiving holiday and debris flows will be a particular threat in the areas affected by the Camp, Carr, Delta, Hirz and Mendocino Complex fires, the NWS said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print After fires, risk of Malibu mudslides will be high through the winter By Tony Barboza (Los Angeles Times) The first rain to fall over the burn-scarred areas of the Woolsey fire is expected to start Wednesday night. Forecasters are predicting it will be a weak storm, not intense enough to trigger significant flows of mud and debris although it could cause some minor rockslides and mudslides. But experts say stronger storms in the coming months have the potential to send life-threatening mudflows plowing through neighborhoods. That threat has authorities urging residents living on or below hillsides, in canyons and along stream channels to take steps to prepare their homes, keep an eye on the weather, quickly heed warnings and evacuation orders, and be ready to leave well before the rain arrives. If you can see burned hillsides from your house, you are threatened by debris flow, said National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Boldt, who works with emergency planners and other local officials to coordinate warnings. You dont want to be there when the rain starts. Theres just not enough time to wait and see what happens. Read more here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Dramatic NASA images show destruction of California fires from space Burn zone for the Woolsey fire (NASA) Burn zone for the Camp fire (NASA) Satellite image of the Camp fire (NASA) NASA has released dramatic satellite images of the destructive wildfires in California. The data show the progression of the fires and how they burned homes, as well as satellite images of what they look like from space. See more here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print How fires can lead to deadly mudslides Mudslides after fires (Los Angeles Times) Rain is forecast this week in the burn zones of Paradise in Northern California and the Malibu/Ventura County area in Southern California. This has prompted concern about mudflows. Soil in a burned area can be repellent to water, creating a flood-like flow on the ground that picks up rock and debris. In an area that has not burned, soil can become saturated. Pressure builds up underground, and soil starts moving and begins picking up mud and debris as it starts flowing downhill. Heres how hillsides that have been burned by wildfire become prone to flash floods and dangerous mudslides during heavy rains. How mudflows occur. (Los Angeles Times) Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Remains found above Malibu are not those of a Woolsey fire victim, but from earlier death, officials say By Jeanette Marantos A broken skull and a few other bone fragments found in the scorched hills of Latigo Canyon on Saturday came from a human who died well before the Woolsey fire, Los Angeles County sheriffs investigators said Wednesday. A landowner spotted what appeared to be human bones Thursday as he was checking fire damage to his property off Latigo Canyon Road, about a mile north of Ocean View Road, near mile marker 6.92, Sgt. Marcelo Quintero said. The property didnt notify authorities about the bones until Saturday. Quintero said the skull was likely hidden by heavy brush in the area before the Woolsey fire, which scorched much of the land and several structures in the canyon above Malibu. Investigators believe the wildfire may have dislodged the remains from where they were stuck higher up the hilly terrain, and sent them tumbling down into the pathway where they were found, on property owned by the Ava and Cole Weintraub Family Park conservancy group. The skull was broken into pieces but we were able to piece it somewhat together, Quintero said. The anthropologists at the coroners office believe it definitely predated the fire. Coroners investigators believe the remains could been there between six months and 50 years, he said. They have some fire damage, he said, but no bite marks. We only have parts of a skull, parts of a jaw and possibly some cervical vertebra pieces, Quintero said. The Los Angeles County coroners Special Operations Response Team, or SORT, combed the area, hoping to find more remains. They did find additional bones, Quintero said, but they turned out to belong to animals. Were going to do our best to try to identify whoever this person was, he said. But its going to be a long shot, at best. Anyone with information should contact the sheriffs Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500. Those wishing to remain anonymous should call Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Woolsey fire expected to be fully contained today Firefighter battling Woolsey fire last week. (Los Angeles Times) Firefighters are hoping to have full containment of the Woolsey fire sometime today. The fire, which killed three people, destroyed more than 1,600 structures and burned over 96,000 acres from Oak Park to Malibu, was 98% contained as of Tuesday night. People continued to return to their homes, but officials warned of possible rain in the burn areas later this week. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Storms could wash away remains of Camp fire victims, officials fear A pair of incoming storms are threatening to hamper recovery efforts in Paradise, Calif. In a worst-case scenario, the downpour could flood the ruins and wash away human remains, leaving authorities unable to find and identify every victim of Californias deadliest wildfire on record. Authorities fear bones could sink underwater, making them harder to spot and drowning any scent that cadaver dogs rely on to find them. Meteorologists say the Camp fire burn scar which is larger than the city of San Jose could see up to 6 inches of rain through Saturday, with the heaviest downpour expected overnight Thursday. The forecast has triggered a flash flood watch for possible rock slides and debris flows. Light showers were falling Wednesday morning with heavier rain expected later in the day. That rain is going to get in that ash, its going to turn into it a paste-like substance, said Monterey County sheriffs Cmdr. Joe Moses, who is helping in the recovery effort. Its going to stick to everything and slow things down. Read more here. First light showers hit Norcal this morning. Heavier precipitation is expected later this morning and afternoon. #cawx pic.twitter.com/UALB0iYUeX NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) November 21, 2018 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Paradise narrowed its main road by two lanes despite warnings of gridlock during a major wildfire By Paige St. John Paradise narrowed its main road through town as well as two other streets in recent years, hoping to slow traffic and improve pedestrian safety. The changes came despite warnings that a major fire would cause crippling gridlock during evacuations, a scenario that became grim reality when Californias worst wildfire swept into Paradise this month. Read the full story here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Paradise narrowed its main road by two lanes despite warnings of gridlock during a major wildfire By Joseph Serna After a fast-moving fire swept into town a decade ago, burning more than 200 homes and trapping thousands of fleeing residents on gridlocked mountain roads, a grand jury called on officials to improve evacuation routes. But six years later, the city decided to narrow a portion of the main road through town from four lanes to two as part of an effort in the downtown area aimed at boosting commerce as well as traffic and pedestrian safety. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Number of people missing in Camp fire jumps to 870 The number of people unaccounted for in the destructive Camp fire rose to 870 on Tuesday after investigators were able to work through a backlog of voicemails, authorities said. The surge comes as the death toll increased to 81, with two bodies recovered inside structures in the Butte County town of Paradise. Of the 81, authorities said they had tentatively identified 56 people. By Tuesday evening, investigators had also been able to locate nearly 200 people reported missing, raising the number of people checked off the missing-persons list to 1,864. The blaze has chewed through more than 152,000 acres and destroyed more than 12,600 homes. It was 75% contained. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Death toll from Camp fire rises to 81 as searchers continue their grim work A search-and-rescue team scans an area where there might be human remains. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) The death toll from Californias worst fire rose to 81 on Tuesday as the search continued for the missing. The fire has burned more than 12,000 structures, destroying most of the town of Paradise and other nearby communities. As of Monday night, there were nearly 700 people still missing. Rain is expected to hit the area tonight, complicating the search efforts. Joe Moses, a commander with the Monterey County Sheriffs Office who is assisting with search-and-rescue operations, said the rain is a concern for him and recovery crews. That rain is going to get in that ash [and] its going to turn it into a paste-like substance, Moses said. Its going to stick to everything and slow things down. In a worst-case scenario, if torrential downpours were to hit Paradise, the foundations could flood and wash human remains away, increasing the possibility that workers may be unable to locate and identify victims. This concern appears to be greatest in rural areas such as Concow. Authorities fear that bones may also lie underwater, making it harder for workers to spot them, and that the rain may wash away the scents that cadaver dogs seek out to find human remains. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California fires: Anxiety and nightmares grip evacuees in Paradise fire zone Deborah Laughlin hasnt heard from her son in nearly two weeks. (Ruben Vives/Los Angeles Times) Inside the cafeteria of Bidwell Junior High School, 63-year-old Deborah Laughlin sipped on coffee and scooped up some apple pie. A lot was on her mind. Laughlin said she lost her home in Paradise. She had been living at Evergreen Mobile Home Park. Since the evacuations, she has been at the middle school, where the Red Cross operates a shelter. She said she registered with FEMA and hopes shell be able to get housing. I dont know what Im going to do, she said. I told the manager of the Red Cross: When you leave, Im going with you. Perhaps her greatest worry is her son, Shawn Evans, 40, whom she last heard from while he was evacuating from Magalia. She said he was driving on Imperial Way with his wife, who is eight months pregnant. I know where my husband is but I dont know here my son is, she said with teary eyes. Please dont tell me he died. Please. She said she is clinging to hope that her son is OK and that theyll be reunited soon. She said shes afraid about the storm that is approaching the region. Shes afraid because she knows theres still people who are missing, people who may have died in the fire. Im scared, she said. Im scared theyll be washed away and peoples remains will never be found. Sitting across was Anthony Salzarulo, 60, who had fought to save his home and five others in Concow. He said the fire was worse than any other blaze that had hit the region. Salzarulo lost his home to a fire 10 years ago. Sipping water, he said his home suffered some damage in the Camp fire, mostly to his solar panels and generator. He lost a bus and a car. When he was leaving the area, he saw animals that had died in the fire. A bobcat that had suffered burns walked near him. Hes had nightmares since. He heard about the storm approaching. He worries a mudslide may take out his home, and its made him anxious. He wants to go home. I hope I have a home after this storm because it sounds like its a pretty bad one, he said. He said the storm had added to his nightmares. I was dreaming that there was a tornado and all these things were sticking to me, he said. They were human bones. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement California fires: Heavy rains could wash away human remains in Paradise, searchers fear Devastation from the Camp fire. (Los Angeles Times) Four members of the Oakland Fire Departments Urban Search and Rescue Task Force removed a charred mattress spring and began combing through a mixture of ash, dirt, shredded wood and pieces of roofing tiles. Using their gloves to move around the blackened dirt, they looked for human remains. This is hard, one of the recovery workers said. But were trying. Let everyone know were trying. By Wednesday afternoon, the recovery work will get harder. Forecasters said thats when the rain will most likely start to come down over the Camp fire. Joe Moses, a commander with the Monterey County Sheriffs Office who is assisting with search-and-rescue operations, said the rain is a concern for him and recovery crews. That rain is going to get in that ash [and] its going to turn it into a paste-like substance, Moses said. Its going to stick to everything and slow things down. In a worst-case scenario, if torrential downpours were to hit Paradise, a town devastated by the fire, the foundations could flood and wash human remains away, increasing the possibility that workers may be unable to locate and identify victims of the fire. This concern appears to be more evident in rural areas such as Concow. Authorities fear bones could also lie underwater, making it harder to spot them and whatever scent cadaver dogs rely on to spot human remains could be drown out. But Moses doesnt believe the rain wont be too bad and they plan to see their mission through. The fire destroyed much of Paradise, burning more than 10,000 homes. Nearly 80 are confirmed dead, but nearly 700 remain missing in the worst fire in California history. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Woolsey fire victims file lawsuit against Southern California Edison By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde Only the top few feet of a utility pole survived the Woolsey fire as it roared over Kanan Road in Malibu. ( (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)) Victims of the Woolsey fire have filed a lawsuit against Southern California Edison alleging the utility was negligent in failing to shut off power before the wildfire started, attorneys announced Tuesday. The lawsuit, filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of 17 plaintiffs, alleges the company ignored warnings of extreme fire weather and only shut power off once the fire started. That delay contributed to the Woolsey fires destruction, plaintiffs say. The fire, which is currently 96% contained, killed three people and destroyed 1,500 structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Attorneys are seeking compensation for plaintiffs damaged property, lost wages and attorney fees. The lawsuit claims that once the electricity was shut off on Nov. 12 four days after the fire started residents and firefighters lost water pressure, hampering efforts to battle the flames. That in turn heightened the safety risk for firefighters and homeowners who sheltered in place. R. Rex Parris, one of the attorneys on the case, references the utilitys preliminary report filed Nov. 12 with the California Public Utility Commission stating an electric substation experienced a disturbance two minutes before the fire, which started in the same area. The report is preliminary, said Edison spokesman Steve Conroy when the report was made public. We have no other information other than a line went out of service and we dont know why. In the report, the utility said a circuit in its Chatsworth substation near where the Woolsey fire started relayed two minutes before the fire broke out. This means an outage remains until it is safe to manually reenergize the circuit, Conroy said. This is not a Public Safety Power Shutoff; it is simply a safety feature to help mitigate wildfire risk. The lawsuit also blames Edison for potential damage to the environmental and public health caused by the burning of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory nuclear cleanup area, though some experts have said there was no damage. The state Department of Toxic Substances Control, which oversees the long-delayed cleanup of the former rocket engine testing and nuclear research facility, said fire officials believed the blaze did not present any risks other than those normally present in a wildfire situation. Edison said in an emailed statement that it cannot comment on lawsuits related to the Woolsey fire at this time and that it may take some time before an investigation into what caused the fire is completed. SCEs focus at this time is service restoration to customers still impacted in the Malibu area, and providing additional assistance to customers through the L.A. County local assistance centers, an Edison spokesman said. The utility said its offering support for customers looking to turn service on and off, waiving charges associated with extended bill payments and charges associated with relocating and starting new service. Parris said utility companies know of the dangers of high power lines running through fire zones, but that they do little to implement safeguards to prevent potential tragedies. When you have rules that are this important and you know people are violating them its inevitable that these catastrophic events happen, Parris said of Edison and other utility companies. Their view of safety is public relations. Victims of the Camp fire filed a lawsuit against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. also on Friday, alleging that utility is responsible for the fire that killed at least 79 people. ------ 2:05 p.m.: This article was updated with statements from R. Rex Parris. This article was originally published at 11:05 a.m. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Here are the latest evacuations, road and school closures, animal shelters and victim services Mandatory evacuations Malibu, from the Ventura County line east to Anacapa View Drive. Monte Nido West of Malibu Canyon Road. Liberty Canyon West to Decker Canyon and south to PCH For all evacuation areas click here. Road closures Highway 101 offramps from Valley Circle Blvd to Liberty Canyon Road Highway 1 southbound (Pacific Coast Highway) closed at Las Posas Road Bell Canyon Road at Valley Circle Boulevard Borchard at Los Vientos Drive Lynn Road at Reino Road Potrero Road between Rancho Dos Vientos and South Lewis Road Kanan Road between Westlake Boulevard and Lindero Canyon Road Falling Star Avenue at Kanan Road Potrero Road at Wendy Drive State Route 118 eastbound between Topanga Canyon and Yosemite Avenue Mureau Road, Calabasas Boundary to 101 Freeway Cornell Road, Mulholland Hwy to Kanan Road Encinal Canyon Road, Malibu Boundary to Mulholland Hwy Click here to see a full list of closures. Evacuation centers (Los Angeles Times) Camarillo Community Center 1605 E. Burnley Street, Camarillo (accepting small animals) Borchard Community Center 190 Reino Road, Newbury Park (accepting small animals) Goebel Senior Adult Center (obscured on map) 1385 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks (at capacity) Thousand Oaks Teen Center 1375 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks Thousand Oaks Community Center 2525 North Moorpark Road, Thousand Oaks (closed) Rancho Santa Susana Recreation Center 5005 Unit C Los Angeles Ave., Simi Valley (no animals accepted) Taft Charter High School 5461 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills Pierce College 7100 El Rancho Drive, Woodland Hills (Entrance off Desoto Avenue); Los Angeles County Animal Services (accepting large animals) Canoga Park High School 6850 Topanga Canyon Blvd, Canoga Park Palisades Charter High School (not displayed on map) 15777 Bowdoin St, Pacific Palisades School closures Cal State Channel Islands Cal Lutheran University (except for emergency personnel) Moorpark Community College Pepperdine University (Malibu and Calabasas campuses) For Ventura County school closures, please check the Ventura County Office of Education website https://www.vcoe.org/ Animal shelters Ventura County Fair Grounds 10 W. Harbor Blvd., Ventura, (at capacity); Ventura County Animal Services (805) 388-4258 Ventura County Animal Shelter 600 Aviation Drive, Camarillo (accepting small animals) Simi Valley Animal Shelter 670 W Los Angeles Ave., Simi Valley, (805) 388-4341 (accepting small animals) Pierce College 7100 El Rancho Drive, Woodland Hills (entrance off Desoto Avenue) (at capacity); Los Angeles County Animal Services Hansen Dam Equestrian Center 11127 Orcas Ave., Lake View Terrace (at capacity); Los Angeles County Animal Services Earl Warren Show Grounds (not on map) 3400 Calle Real, Santa Barbara (Check-in at Gate C off of Calle Real) (accepting large animals) Shelter Hope 193 N Moorpark Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 (lodging for evacuees and volunteers available) If you need large animal assistance, please call (805) 388-4258 N95 Particulate filter mask availability (Los Angeles Times) Goebel Senior Adult Center (obscured on map) 1385 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks Thousand Oaks Teen Center 1375 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks Rancho Santa Susana Recreation Center 5005 Unit C Los Angeles Ave., Simi Valley Borchard Community Center 190 N Reino Road, Newbury Park Camarillo Community Center 1605 E Burnley St., Camarillo North Oxnard Public Health 2240 E. Gonzales Road, Oxnard South Oxnard Public health 2500 S. C Street, Oxnard Channel Islands harbor master 3900 Pelican Way, Oxnard Las Posas Family Medical Group 3801 Las Posas, Suite 214, Camarillo Sierra Vista Family Medical Clinic 2700 E Los Angeles Ave., Simi Valley Moorpark Family Medical Clinic 612 Spring Road, Building A, Moorpark Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Some Camp fire evacuations are lifted as firefighters continue working to contain the blaze By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde The valley behind it blanketed in a thick layer of smoke, a train sits stopped near Butte Valley along Highway 70. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Officials lifted evacuation orders for several communities near Lake Oroville on Tuesday. The news comes as firefighters make progress in the battling the Camp fire, which as of Tuesday morning was 70% contained. The fire has consumed more than 151,000 acres and killed at least 79 people, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Officials announced that residents of all Berry Creek zones can return home, except the areas northbound Encina Grande Road at Choc Taw Ridge Road, northbound French Creek Road at Stephens Ridge Road and northbound Highway 162 at Four Mile Ridge Road. Communities in the Cherokee Zone B zone can also return to the area, with the exception of areas northbound Red Tape Road at Condor Road, Rocky Top Road at Cherokee Road, Vinton Gulch at Cherokee Road, Crystal Pines Road at Cherokee Road and Highway 70 East of the West branch bridge. All residents of the Messilla Valley Zone B can return home. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement As California fire slowly is contained, air quality begins to improve in the north By Times Staff Latest smoke model indicates continued gradual improvement in air quality through Tuesday evening. Much better air quality is then expected by Wednesday when gusty winds and rain from a Pacific weather system clean the air. #CAwx #campfiresmoke pic.twitter.com/Vxd3cwZUQM NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) November 20, 2018 The rain forecast for Northern California is expected to improve air quality in the region, which has experienced unhealthful air due to the Camp fire. Air quality improved somewhat Tuesday, but the smoke was supposed to dissipate more on Wednesday. The Camp fire burn zone could see up to 6 inches of rain through Saturday, which isnt unusual for that region, said Johnnie Powell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. In April, fire-ravaged Paradise, Calif., saw nearly 6 inches of rain in one day in what was its last significant storm. Strong inversions will allow wildfire smoke to continue to impact interior Norcal today although air quality is slowly getting better most areas. Rainfall spreading over Norcal on Wednesday should clear the air considerably. #cawx pic.twitter.com/LKa2b1d7uy NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) November 20, 2018 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print In Paradise, the grim search for bodies after California fire: Were finding remains in various states The search-and-rescue team took a break as it waited for an excavator to moved debris from a pair of charcoal gray vehicles sitting next to a burned home in Butte Creek Canyon in Chico. Nearby, a line of fire trucks and sheriffs vehicles drove past the group, their occupants waving. The sun was starting to dip. Monday was coming to an end. Since the Camp fire broke out on Nov. 8, authorities have been combing through crumbled homes and melted metal in an effort to locate and identify human remains. The fire has killed at least 79 people, and about 700 others are unaccounted for, a significant drop from a few days ago when the list was more than 26 pages and had more than 1,200 names, but still a daunting number. Now two storms are moving toward Northern California and are expected bring up to six inches of rain through Saturday, possibly hindering search operations. The pros and cons are that the weather will be in our favor to contain the fire, said Cal Fire spokesman Manuel Garcia. But the cons are that there will possibly be loose terrain, fallen trees, mudslides and downstream flows. The National Weather Service said the first of the storms will move into the region on Wednesday. The second storm will bring the heaviest rain on Thursday night through Friday morning. Forecasters said the soil in the burn area cannot absorb rainwater, which could lead to fast-moving flows of mud, debris and even trees and boulders up to several feet deep that can be deadly. Blocked roads caused by the storms as well as rivers of ash and debris could hinder search crews from conducting a massive search operation in a burn zone that is bigger in area than the city of San Jose. Tom Madigan of the Alameda County Sheriffs Department said that in some cases remains were so badly burned that they could not be recognized or just a few bones could be located. Were finding remains in various states, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said. I suspect there are some that will have been completely consumed. There is certainly the unfortunate possibility that even after weve searched an area, once people get back in there, its possible that human remains could be found. I know thats a very difficult thing to think about, but thats the difficult situation we find ourselves in today. Recovery workers in white jumpsuits and boots, firefighters, coroner employees and police chaplains from across the state have been working around the clock searching neighborhoods destroyed by the fire, but as the storms approach, the possibility of perhaps not finding everyone is starting to set in. A neighborhood reduced to ashes in Paradise. (Los Angeles Times) Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Firefighters boost containment of deadly Camp fire to 70% as residents prepare for rain By Hannah Fry Ryan Spainhower hugs his wife after he recovers a coin that they made during their honeymoon from the debris of his home. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) The deadly Camp fire grew slightly overnight to 151,373 acres as firefighters continued their efforts to get the blaze under control. The fire, which has claimed at least 79 lives and destroyed more than 17,000 homes and commercial structures, is 70% contained, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Tuesday. At the same time firefighters work to control the blaze, residents in the burn area now face the potential for mudslides as a series of storms begin to make their way into the region. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch through Friday morning where the fire raged through Butte County. While the rainfall will help with the firefight, neighborhoods that were destroyed, and those downstream of them, could see mudslides and debris flows, authorities said. The burn zone could see up to 6 inches of rain through Saturday, which isnt unusual for that region, said Johnnie Powell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. In April, Paradise saw nearly 6 inches of rain in one day in what was its last significant storm. Best-case scenario, itll rain on it and nothing will move. Worst-case scenario, the mud will start moving, Powell said. We just have to wait and see what happens. All we know for sure is, its going to rain really hard. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California fire burned more than 10,000 homes, but trees remained standing. Why? By Joseph Serna One of the many striking, horrifying in images from Paradise is that trees still stand next to homes incinerated by fire. Here is why. Fires that spread from house to house generate a force of their own. Embers, broadcast by the wind, find dry leaves, igniting one structure then another, and the cycle is perpetuated block after block. Break that cycle and the fire quits, and destruction can be minimized. Paradise never had that chance. Defensible space and hardened structures could not have kept the firestorm, carried on gusts clocking in the low 50s and feeding on the homes and low-lying vegetation, from reducing the town to ash. Most telling were the trees. Most of the pines that sheltered this community still had their canopies intact. The needles, yellowed from the intense heat, were not burned evidence that the winds that morning had pushed the fire along so fast it never had a chance to rise into the trees. But as a surface fire, it lit up the homes that lay in its path. Read more here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement California fires interrupt TV production By David Ng Netflixs teen drama series 13 Reasons Why was in the midst of shooting its third season in Vallejo when the massive Camp fire and other blazes broke out in Northern California. The sets, which include a sound stage on Mare Island, werent touched by the conflagrations, but the pervasive smoke that has shrouded much of the Bay Area has forced the show to temporarily halt shooting. The Paramount-produced series is one of a number of TV and commercial shoots that have experienced disruptions because of the fires that have devastated California in recent weeks. Some prime shooting locations including Paramount Ranch, which serves as a set for HBOs Westworld, and the Peter Strauss Ranch in Agoura Hills have experienced extensive damage, rendering them inaccessible to crews. Large swaths of Malibu that are popular filming sites are also closed to production. Read more here. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California fires: New disaster danger in Paradise is mud and ash flows The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch through Friday morning where the Camp fire raged through Butte County, Calif. While the rainfall will help with the firefight the blaze is 70% contained and has burned 151,272 acres neighborhoods that were destroyed, and those downstream of them, could see mudslides and debris flows. The Camp fire burn zone could see up to 6 inches of rain through Saturday, which isnt unusual for that region, said Johnnie Powell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. In April, Paradise saw nearly 6 inches of rain in one day in what was its last significant storm. Best-case scenario, itll rain on it and nothing will move. Worst-case scenario, the mud will start moving, Powell said. We just have to wait and see what happens. All we know for sure is, its going to rain really hard. The soil in recently burned areas cannot absorb rainwater. Enough rain can lead to fast-moving flows of mud, debris and even trees and boulders that can be deadly for those in their path. The devastation often comes without warning. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Video shows pilots in dramatic Woolsey fire rescue of three people and two dogs The two pilots were dropping water on a flank of the destructive Woolsey fire the day after it broke out when they got a request to rescue people stuck nearby on Castro Peak in the hills above Malibu. Their fuel supply was dwindling and thick smoke filled the air around them. Eventually they found a flat spot to ground the helicopter, and one of the pilots hopped out. Moments later, he emerged with three people and two dogs. The dramatic mountain rescue, involving Los Angeles Fire Department pilots David Nordquist and Joel Smith, was captured in an 11-minute video the agency released Monday. Once the people and pets were in the plane, the pilots took off. Ah, that was close, one says after taking off Yeah, it was, the other replied. Thats enough excitement for me today. The other laughed. You and me both, brother. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California fires: Paradise anxiously awaits rain and the dangers it might bring Calvin Daley, 66, sat listening to jazz on his battery-powered radio on the front porch of his two-story home in the charred hills of Chico. Tiny birds hopped from the burned branches of a pine tree to a bird feeder. Nearby, Pacific Gas and Electric crews repaired voltage lines, and other workers used an excavator to move aside hunks of melted metal that once were cars. Daley didnt evacuate. Instead, he hooked up three hoses, stationed them around his home and began dousing everything. Some people who stayed to fight for their homes died. He had at least three hours to work before the fire arrived with fury. He had no goggles, no mask, just jeans, a T-shirt and hoses. Sometimes, the water evaporated before hitting its target. His next-door neighbors home went up: My heart sank; I couldnt go over there and save it. Flames also claimed his wifes ski boat and his 1987 Dodge Ram. Also incinerated was the nearby Honey Run covered bridge. By 10:30 p.m. the fire had moved on. Exhausted, Daley woke himself every hour or so to check on hotspots. It was eerily quiet for three days, then the birds returned. Next door, the neighbors cats had survived. He began feeding them. As heavy rain approaches, hes worried contaminants will run into his well. He also worries for people who have lost homes, for people living in tents. He wishes it were summer. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Legally blind and under evacuation: The unknown is the worst part At the Butte County Fairgrounds in Gridley, the five Thompsons live at the end of a row of green cots. Hot meals are served, snacks and water are readily available, as are toiletries and American Red Cross volunteers. Were having to turn stuff away, said M BEIJING, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's upcoming visit to Singapore will reaffirm China's unswerving determination to further open up and pursue win-win cooperation with its neighbors, experts have said. It is the first visit by a Chinese premier to the city state in 11 years, during which Li will also attend the 21st China-ASEAN (10+1) leaders' meeting, the 21st ASEAN-China, Japan and South Korea (10+3) leaders' meeting, and the 13th East Asia Summit. The Nov. 12-16 trip is widely considered a key part of China's manifold diplomacy to defend multilateralism and free trade. It works in tandem with the just-concluded China International Import Expo, as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping's scheduled attendance at the upcoming APEC meeting in Papua New Guinea and G20 summit in Argentina. PROMOTE REGIONAL COOPERATION Experts said a major goal of Li's trip is to seek r win-win cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries on bilateral and regional affairs. Li's trip comes at a time when the countries are faced with protectionist headwind, and it bears special significance in forging regional consensus, said Xu Liping, a senior research fellow with the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "We'll see if China and ASEAN would reach new agreements or take new measures to deepen cooperation," Xu added. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said earlier this year that he was looking forward to the adoption of the ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership Vision 2030 at the upcoming ASEAN-China summit, a key document to chart the course for the future cooperation between China and the 10-nation bloc. Li proposed the blueprint at the China-ASEAN leaders' meeting in Manila last year. China has always viewed ASEAN as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy, Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said, adding that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is intended to be ly aligned with ASEAN development plans with mutually beneficial results. The improvements in China's relations with Japan and with South Korea this year bring more opportunities for their cooperation while adding new impetus to the leaders' meeting between ASEAN and the three countries, Chen said. Regarding the East Asia summit, Chen said China hopes all sides will strengthen strategic communication, boost pragmatic cooperation, deepen mutual understanding and reach consensus. R TIES WITH SINGAPORE Li is the first Chinese premier to visit Singapore in 11 years. His visit is expected to further cement bilateral ties. With frequent high-level exchanges and fruitful cooperation results, China-Singapore ties maintain positive momentum at present, Chen said. Singapore contributed invaluable experience and investment to China over the 40 years of China's reform and opening-up, with China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park in eastern China to pioneer the industrial development while serving as a flagship project of their cooperation. For years, China has been Singapore's largest trading partner and top export market. Li and the Singaporean leadership are expected to speed up bilateral cooperation on the Belt and Road, innovation and multilateral trade, Chen said. "We are hopeful that new measures to promote trade and economic cooperation will be revealed during Li's visit," said Koh Chin Yee, dean of Nanyang International Business College. Among a myriad of joint ventures, Koh is most keen to know about the progress on the three iconic projects -- the futuristic urban development projects of the China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City and Tianjin Eco-City as well as a rail-sea transit route to boost logistics between the two countries and beyond. Singapore, which is ASEAN's rotating chair this year, has contributed much over years to China's relations with ASEAN and the BRI cooperation in Southeast Asia. Chen Gang, assistant director of East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, expects Li's visit to be a success in terms of both bilateral and regional cooperation. "Premier Li's visit will not only bring the already sound bilateral ties to a higher level, but also promote China's cooperation with ASEAN and other Asian countries," he said. For more than a century, UC Berkeleys elite law school has been closely tied to the name of the building that houses it, Boalt Hall. Law school alumni have affectionately referred to themselves as Boalties. The Boalt name has been attached to more than 120 organizations, public forums and positions related to the law school including its alumni and student groups, endowed chairs, school directory and Facebook page. Over time, in the California legal community, many people simply came to call the law school Boalt Hall. But the revelation that John Henry Boalt, a 19th-century San Francisco attorney, was virulently anti-Chinese has rocked the school and plunged it into the national debate over what to do when honored historical figures turn out to have unsavory pasts. The Berkeley controversy comes as other schools, such as Stanford, the University of San Francisco and Cal State Long Beach, are reexamining Californias past and changing building names or dropping mascots associated with those who kept slaves or mistreated Native Americans and Asian Americans. Boalt, the public now knows, was instrumental in pushing the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 the nations first immigration ban on a specific group of people. In one influential treatise, he wrote that the Chinese were unassimilable liars, murderers and misogynists who provoked unconquerable repulsion. Public sentiment against Chinese immigrants had grown in the 19th century as more than 300,000 came to California as laborers. Advertisement A few scholars were aware of Boalts racism, but it became widely known only last year when Charles Reichmann, a Berkeley law lecturer, published an op-ed and law review article. This month, law school Dean Erwin Chemerinsky plans to announce whether he will move to strip the Boalt name from the schools main classroom building and elsewhere. The dean also must decide what to do about two endowed chairs established by Elizabeth Josselyn Boalt, who specified the professorships carry the family name. She also donated $100,000 in memory of her husband in 1906 to help build Boalt Hall. Chemerinskys decision will follow months of deliberation by a review committee, with the help of a town hall meeting and a survey sent to all alumni, students, staff and faculty. All told, the law school has received more than 2,500 comments divided between Boalt loyalists and critics. In the survey, nearly half wanted to strike the Boalt name, while a third favored keeping it. Brad Barber, a 1971 law school graduate, said he proudly calls himself a Boaltie and would lose part of his identity if Berkeley erased the name. He said the university owes it to Boalts wife to honor her gift and he sees problems in holding historical figures to todays standards especially when they are not alive to defend themselves. Although he condemns Boalts bigotry, he said, We begin to tie ourselves in knots if we look for virtue in contemporary terms of everyone who went before us. Jeffrey Lin, a current law student of Chinese and Korean descent, said keeping the Boalt name is unthinkable for him and many other Asian Americans who make up about one-fifth of students in Berkeleys juris doctor degree program. The overwhelming sense is that we dont feel comfortable in a place where the name Boalt is used, Lin said, because he was a person who stood for racist and xenophobic ideals and who vehemently didnt want Chinese here. Chemerinsky said the intensity of feelings on both sides has moved him deeply as he searches for a Solomon-like solution. It cant be that we never change a name and it cant be that we would change any name for anybody whos done something that in hindsight we regard as undesirable, he said. The question is, what does use of the Boalt name convey? Ive changed my mind in many directions over the course of the last 15 months. Similar issues are haunting the University of Californias first law school, Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. The college founder, Serranus Clinton Hastings, served as the first chief justice of Californias Supreme Court and donated $100,000 to establish the law school. But Hastings promoted and financed expeditions to hunt American Indians for profit and sport. That little-known history was widely circulated last year after an op-ed piece by John Briscoe, a San Francisco attorney who teaches law at Berkeley and Hastings. Now the college has commissioned a scholar to investigate Hastings treatment of Californias Indians and formed a review committee to decide how to move forward. The two law schools face issues more complex than dropping a mascot, which Cal State Long Beach recently did with Prospector Pete after protests that Gold Rush settlers promoted the mass killing of Native Americans. Proposals to drop names specified as terms of philanthropy must be approved by the state attorney general, said Charles Cannon, Berkeley law schools senior assistant dean. Berkeley could change the name of Boalt Hall without such approval because the original building funded by the gift no longer houses the law school, the review committee concluded. UC regents in 1950 chose to transfer the name to a wing in the new quarters. Ultimately, the committee recommended dropping the Boalt name from the building and phasing out most of its other uses though it made no recommendation about the thornier question of the endowed professorships. If Chemerinsky agrees, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ and the regents would need to approve his decision. The UC Berkeley law school features a photo of the original Boalt Hall, circa 1911. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) A key consideration in thinking about Boalt, Cannon said, was judging whether his civic contributions outweighed his racist campaign. The Ohio native ran a mining business, studied law and briefly served as a judge in Nevada before he became a successful attorney in San Francisco. But he left no distinguished legal legacy and had no strong connection to Berkeley, according to Cannon and Reichmann, who wrote the op-ed about Boalt. The committee concluded that his principal legacy was the bigotry promoted by his 1877 treatise, The Chinese Question, which was cited in both the state Legislature and the U.S. Senate in arguments to ban Chinese immigration. That record, Chemerinsky said, distinguishes Boalt from other historical figures with mixed legacies. Thomas Jefferson kept slaves but helped found the nation. Former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren supported the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans but he later expanded civil rights and wrote the landmark Supreme Court decision striking down state-sanctioned segregation of public schools. A portrait of Warren hangs in the law school, which he attended, as did former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and former California Gov. Pete Wilson. I dont want to excuse what he did it was wrong but if you put it in the context of all of what he did, I think this law school should still be honoring him, Chemerinsky said of Warren. A potential compromise for the law school would be to rename everything for Elizabeth Josselyn Boalt. William Benemann, the law schools archivist emeritus, said he favors that solution because she donated generously and became the schools beloved matriarch. There also is no evidence she shared her husbands anti-Chinese beliefs. Whatever is decided, Berkeley plans to retain possibly with an exhibit or plaque a public record of Boalts actions so they are not erased from history. An account of his views already appears on the law school website. Reichmann, who kicked off the furor about Boalt last year, wants the name dropped. He said he could not keep quiet once he stumbled upon the racist writings while researching Asian American history and racially restrictive real-estate covenants. He found it difficult to walk into a building bearing Boalts name and then into his classroom, full of Chinese Americans. I really couldnt bear it, he said. I had to say something. teresa.watanabe@latimes.com Twitter: @TeresaWatanabe As Sunday came in Thousand Oaks, people turned to all the things that brought them comfort. Following a week of double tragedies a bar shooting that killed 12 and a fire that displaced thousands many flocked to church and family. At Ascension Lutheran, the pews were packed with parishioners during the morning service. Pastor Tim Delkeskamp spoke about the grief and suffering thats rocked the community. Children were called to the altar and asked: Have any of you been scared in the last few days? Have any of you felt confused? Advertisement The kids and many adults said yes. Most were still trying to make sense of so much loss in such little time. Just days ago, Thousand Oaks felt a long way from harm, tucked away among knolls and mountains. Now, nearly everyone knew someone who was killed at the bar, burned out by the fire or displaced by evacuations. This is when we dont let fear have its way. Instead we love, Delkeskamp told his church after sharing that his niece was also on the dance floor the night of the shooting. Two miles south at Borderline Bar and Grill, yellow tape blocked anyone from entering the neighborhood bar that Ian David Long, a troubled 28-year-old ex-Marine, turned into a crime scene. Dozens of shooting survivors gathered beneath a giant oak tree. They wore shirts paying tribute to Thousands Oaks and their favorite bar. They held hands and prayed, forming a circle led by a local pastor. This morning this is our church, said Pastor Jim Crew of Atmosphere Church, who attended the memorial. I want you to give someone next to you a hug. It doesnt matter if you dont know them. Mourners had turned one corner of the plaza into a colorful memorial. White wooden crosses formed a line honoring every victim. Among them: a sheriffs sergeant, a Marine, a coffee shop owner and several college students and bar employees. Each station was covered with flowers, candles and love notes: To Sgt. Ron Helus: Thank you for being a hero. You will never be forgotten. To Kristina Morisette: I will miss you forever my beautiful girl. To Jake Dunham: Have a few brews up there for us! Across the city, people spent the weekend trying to help. Some hung giant American flags from the back of their trucks. Some held fundraisers and donated water bottles and coffee to evacuees and shooting survivors. Others wore shirts that said: Care. Serve. Love. A group of survivors from last years mass shooting at the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest music festival drove in with a trunk full of teddy bears. Were here to simply give hugs and show some love, said Terry Davis of Las Vegas. Longtime friends Julie Feinstein and Kim Kennison, both 54, comforted each other by meeting for coffee. Both knew of families who had lost children in the shooting. Kennison was also housing friends who had been evacuated due to the Woolsey fire. And Feinstein, who lives in Newbury Park, was prepared to evacuate her home at any moment. Feinstein said she felt so overwhelmed when the shooting happened. Then, within hours, like so many of her neighbors, she had to put her feelings aside and pack all her belongings. Im still trying to understand whats happened, she said. I just feel this sadness and devastation for people around us. esmeralda.bermudez@latimes.com Twitter: @LATbermudez In 2003, Kenyan immigrant Sylvester Owino was convicted of second-degree robbery in San Diego. He finished a more than two-year prison sentence and was transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Center as Immigration and Customs Enforcement began removal proceedings against him. Owino applied for asylum but almost 10 years went by before he was released from immigration detention in 2015. The long years in detention for Owino might seem the simple byproduct of his criminal record were it not for cases like those of two Rwandan men being held 2,500 miles away in Virginia. Advertisement The men have been at the Farmville Detention Center since February 2007 longer than any other immigrants in the U.S. But no crimes blot their history in the U.S. Kenyan asylum seeker Sylvester Owino spent nearly a decade in detention before he was granted bond in 2015. (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times) Two dozen other detainees in California alone have spent more than three years in ICE custody, according to data obtained through a public records request by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University and released last month. Most of them, like Owino, have already served time for criminal convictions. The longest detained immigrant in the state is a Mexican man whose most serious criminal conviction is drug possession. The man has been at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, Calif., since December 2012. According to TRAC data, ICE classified the conviction as a Level 3, which is the agencys lowest seriousness level and includes misdemeanor offenses and other minor violations of the law. An ICE spokeswoman said she could not provide other specifics about any case without a date of birth or alien number, which is used to track detainees. The TRAC report provides a snapshot of ICE detainees around the country through June. It also shows that, when it comes to how long an immigrant can spend in detention, it doesnt always make a difference whether the person has a criminal history. (Swetha Kannan / Los Angeles Times) Nationally and in California, the majority of the more than 44,000 detained immigrants have no criminal convictions, according to TRAC data. Among those with criminal histories, the most common convictions include illegal entry, DUI and assault. Its not about whats best for families, or even whats best for this country, said Christina Fialho, co-executive director of Freedom for Immigrants, which advocates for ending immigrant detention. Thats indicative of the system as a whole; there really isnt a pattern to any aspect of immigration detention. ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley said no category of immigrants is exempt from enforcement. She said ICE also analyzed its detainee population in June and found that 54% of detainees had a criminal conviction or pending charges, and that 70% were subject to mandatory detention. These figures reflect appropriate allocation of limited resources, she said. People who are subject to mandatory detention are not entitled to a bond hearing and must stay in detention while they are in removal proceedings. Haley said federal law mandates the detention of people who arrive at ports of entry, are subject to expedited removal and are convicted of certain crimes. Immigrant rights groups say ICE has the discretion to release anyone. The majority of detainees had been in ICE custody only for a few months when the numbers were released to TRAC. But the varying detention cases illustrate the complicated nature of immigration law a patchwork of legislation put together over the years and modified by administrations, policymakers and case law, said Judge Ashley Tabaddor, who leads the National Assn. of Immigration Judges. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, also has a lot of leeway and discretion, particularly at the outset, in terms of determining someones detention status, she said. Private companies run most of the nations detention facilities. It costs the federal government $134 a day on average to maintain one adult detention bed, according to ICEs fiscal year 2018 budget. The National Immigration Forum calculates a higher cost of $208 a day. Each family residential center bed, which keeps mothers or fathers with their children, costs about $319 a day, according to the ICE budget. People from Mexico and India make up about half of the nearly 5,800 detainees in California, with smaller numbers coming from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the data show. The vast majority of detainees from India have no criminal convictions and only one Indian person out of more than 1,100 detained in California is labeled an asylum seeker. But The Times reported recently that a growing number of California detainees are Indians crossing through Mexico to seek asylum. Similarly, just 48 people detained in California were labeled as legal residents. Fialho, of Freedom for Immigrants, said those numbers seem too low. David Bier, an immigration policy analyst at the Libertarian Cato Institute, said ICE should focus on detaining people who are likely to pose a risk to U.S. citizens, taking into account the social cost of different crimes, the likelihood that a person could reoffend and flight risk compared to the cost of detaining them. All of those resources that are going into detaining those people who havent committed any kind of serious offense are resources that are going away from tracking down people who are a threat, he said. In September, news outlets reported that then-Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions planned to review a court case that, if overruled, would cause most asylum seekers to remain in detention indefinitely while their claims are processed. Currently, asylum seekers who enter the U.S. illegally are allowed a bond hearing before an immigration judge. This year, the Supreme Court determined in Jennings v. Rodriguez that immigrants are not entitled to periodic bond hearings and sent the case back to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for further litigation. At issue in another case the high court heard last month, Nielsen v. Preap, is whether immigrants convicted of certain crimes should be exempt from mandatory detention after they are released from custody if ICE doesnt detain them immediately. Fialho said half of the more than 7,000 people her organization worked with the first three months of this year had spent two to four years in detention. She said the Trump administrations hard-line stance on immigration enforcement means ICE agents no longer have incentive to use their discretion to release people from detention. Many people remain in detention because they cant afford to pay a bond, Fialho said. Judges have the discretion to set the amount at minimum $1,500, though the median amount nationwide is $7,500, according to another TRAC report. Others remain in detention because they arent eligible for release. Immigrants who are ordered deported have the right to appeal. For people who are subject to mandatory detention, that can mean years of waiting from inside a facility. Sylvester Owino with his wife Velia Maria Villanueva, second from left, their 3-month-old daughter Akeyo Itzel Owino and his stepdaughter Miraya Gisel Mandujano in their San Diego home. (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times) Thats exactly what happened to Owino, who fled Kenya in 1998, arriving in the U.S. on a student visa after he said hed been jailed, beaten and threatened by the government. It took two rounds of appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals and then the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals before he was granted bond, with the help of Fialhos organization, in 2015. He spent nine years in immigration detention. His asylum petition remains ongoing. Part of what kept Owino in detention for so long was something that binds many immigrants whether they were arrested for a crime: determination not to be deported. Owino said there were days he considered accepting deportation, as others had, just to get out. Owinos next court date is in January. Meanwhile, hes glad to be with his wife and 3-month-old daughter on his time off from running a Kenyan food truck in San Diego. He said its difficult to fight a deportation case from detention. He didnt have a lawyer half the time because, unlike in criminal proceedings, immigrants are not entitled to court-appointed attorneys. But he considers himself an example of what could happen if more detained immigrants were granted bond. We can leave our mistakes behind and push forward, he said. Nobody should be detained that long. andrea.castillo@latimes.com | Twitter: @andreamcastillo A new fire broke out Sunday night in the hills above Cal State San Bernardino, spreading rapidly as erratic Santa Ana winds whipped through the area, officials said. The wind-driven blaze was reported about 8 p.m. above the 5500 block of University Parkway and quickly grew from 3 to 30 acres, according to the San Bernardino County Fire Department. Fire crews were putting engines in place to protect buildings. But by about 9:40 p.m., officials said, crews had stopped the blaze from growing and mitigated the threat to structures. The blaze erupted as thousands of firefighters across the state are battling three large wildfires that have ravaged nearly 200,000 acres and claimed the lives of 31 people. Advertisement #UniversityFire(Update): IC advises 30 acres with rapid rate of spread. Fire advancing under erratic #SantaAnaWinds. Moving engines into place for structure protection. SB County Fire (@SBCOUNTYFIRE) November 12, 2018 The deadly Woolsey fire straddling Ventura and Los Angeles counties has charred 85,550 acres and killed two people. By Sunday night, it was 15% contained. In Northern California, the death toll from the Camp fire in Butte County has risen to 29, with six new bodies recovered Sunday, officials said. alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com Twitter: @AleneTchek UPDATES: 10:05 p.m.: This article was updated to reflect that progress of the fire was stopped. This article was originally published at 9:15 p.m. Two people were shot and killed early Monday morning during what police believe might have been a botched robbery inside a Koreatown marijuana dispensary, authorities said. Officers responded to reports of a shooting in the 400 block of Western Avenue in Koreatown around 4:20 a.m. Monday, according to a statement issued by the Los Angeles Police Department. There, they found a locked and sealed marijuana dispensary, according to the statement. A female employee told police she and several customers were inside the dispensary when they heard gunshots in the waiting room. They fled through the back of the building, and when officers gained entry they found two people who were pronounced dead at the scene. Josh Rubenstein, the LAPDs chief spokesman, said investigators were working under the assumption that one of the two dead individuals was taking part in a robbery attempt when the shooting took place. Police did not immediately disclose the identities of the victims, and an email to the coroners office seeking comment was not returned Monday. Advertisement The dispensary where the shooting took place was unlicensed, said Rubenstein, who declined to name the business. Rubenstein did not say if the dispensary had an armed guard. james.queally@latimes.com Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California. UPDATES: 4:25 p.m.: This story was updated with additional information from the LAPD. This story was first published at 11:10 a.m. Santa Ana winds of more than 40 mph whipped across inland San Diego County on Sunday, elevating the risk of wildfires in a region thats steadily slipping into drought. A red-flag fire weather warning is in effect for the coastal regions of the county, and a high wind warning is in effect for the valleys, foothills and mountains. The warnings arent scheduled to expire until Tuesday night. The National Weather Service issued the warnings because of the dangerous mix of Santa Ana winds, warm temperatures and extremely low relative humidity. Advertisement By 1 p.m. Sunday, the humidity had fallen to 14% at San Diego International Airport. It was 6% in Alpine and Ramona and 5% in Fallbrook. Forecasters say the winds has gusted to 45 mph at Volcan Mountain, 40 mph at Campo, 36 mph at Mount Laguna and 36 mph at Boulevard, in far eastern San Diego County. gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com The death toll from the Camp fire in Paradise jumped to 42 on Monday, making it the deadliest fire in California history, as President Trump approved a major disaster declaration for the state. Officials said they recovered the remains of 13 additional victims Monday as teams continued to search the burned-out remains of thousands of lost homes. Ten of those remains were located in Paradise; three were found in the Concow area. Three of the victims were identified Monday as Ernest Foss, 65, of Paradise; Jesus Fernandez, 48, of Concow; and Carl Wiley, 77, of Magalia. Trumps move came just two days after he criticized California, erroneously claiming that poor forest management caused the fires of the last week and threatening to cut off funding. His comments were met with widespread outrage from both California officials and many firefighters. Advertisement But on Monday, Trump struck a more conciliatory note. I just approved an expedited request for a Major Disaster Declaration for the State of California, he wrote on Twitter. Wanted to respond quickly in order to alleviate some of the incredible suffering going on. I am with you all the way. God Bless all of the victims and families affected. (Los Angeles Times Graphics) Gov. Jerry Brown sought the declaration Sunday, as fires raged both in Butte County and in Southern California. The Woolsey fire, which broke out Thursday in Ventura County and spread to Malibu, has obliterated roughly 435 homes and businesses. However, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officials said about 15% of the burn area has been surveyed for damage, so the number of structures damaged in the inferno probably will increase. About 57,000 structures are still threatened, and the blaze has already killed at least two people, authorities said. A couple whose charred bodies were found in a vehicle in Malibu on Friday probably died trying to escape the flames, Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department Sgt. Guillermo Morales said. Investigators are still trying to identify the cars driver and passenger, both of whom were burned beyond recognition, Morales said. Investigators dont think the two lived at a home on Mulholland Highway. The homes residents have been accounted for, Morales said. This driveway looks like a small road. Its not like a normal driveway, and the whole landscape around there is burned to a crisp. We think they were probably overcome by the flames, Morales said. On Monday, the remnants of two cars were visible about a third of a mile up a long, curving driveway, beyond an electronic gate at 33133 Mulholland Highway that had been left open. Scattered across the pavement were a few fragments: screws, broken glass, pools of melted metal. A softened windshield was draped over the cliffside. A lull in winds over the weekend allowed firefighters to make some headway with the blaze, boosting containment to 20%, Cal Fire Division Chief Chris Anthony said. However, Santa Ana winds that arrived Monday morning and are expected to gain strength through Tuesday could cause the fire to spread erratically. By Monday night, the blaze was 30% contained. Northeast winds are expected to blow 20 to 30 mph, with gusts up to 55 mph in Los Angeles, according to the National Weather Service. A red-flag warning signifying a potent mix of heat, dry air and winds that could explode a small fire into a deadly conflagration has been issued for the region. Anthony said the main push for firefighters through the day will be preventing burning embers from jumping outside the containment lines, and keeping the Woolsey fire from spreading to Topanga Canyon. We didnt see any spread of fire outside the containment lines on Sunday, but as weve clearly seen over the last couple of days, it only takes one ember and one new spark to see rapid rates of fire spread, he said. As fire officials saw on Friday, windy conditions can be perilous for communities in the path of a wildfire. Strong winds accelerated the Woolsey fires growth as it burned into Malibu, forcing residents to flee quickly as flames engulfed homes, leaving behind only wreckage and a few charred memories. Nearby, the long, twisting roadways of the city felt like a moonscape. The streets through the Santa Monica Mountains, damaged in places, were framed by scorched speed limit signs and drooping power lines. The fire had burned unevenly, leaving some swaths of land barren and gray. In other areas, unscathed trees and vineyards swam into view in vivid color. Solar panels glinted from scorched hillsides. The silence was punctuated by the beep-beep-beep of utility trucks, the whir of helicopters dropping water and the roar of the wind blowing ash and dust across the hills. The shoulder of Mulholland Highway was filled with trash, burnt palm fronds and the remnants of peoples homes: a New Yorker subscription card, a page from a 1977 yearbook, a half-burned ticket for going 101 mph in a 60-mph zone. Along a path of wood chips that crumbled when touched, a white yurt stood intact and pristine, surveying a valley of scorched earth and twisted trees. Stone letters on a ridge nearby spelled out: LOVE. Investigators are still trying to determine what sparked the Woolsey fire. Southern California Edison told state regulators last week that there was an outage tied to its Chatsworth substation two minutes before the fire was reported near Simi Valley, but authorities have not connected the incident to the blaze. Full coverage of the California wildfires At this point we have no indication from fire agency personnel that Southern California Edison utility facilities may have been involved in the start of the fire, Edison wrote in an incident report to the California Public Utilities Commission. Edison wrote that a circuit relayed at the facility at 2:22 p.m. Thursday. Sally Jeung, a spokeswoman for Edison, told KQED-TV that when a circuit relays, [it] senses a disturbance on the circuit and switches the circuit off. Its not clear what triggered the circuits sensor. Edison said that at the request of firefighters, it could turn off power Monday in certain areas affected by the fire, but that such steps so far had not been needed. However, the blaze has damaged Edison infrastructure and equipment, leaving more than 9,000 customers without power, according to the utility. Officials urge residents who are sheltering in place to evacuate and those who already have left their homes to stay away. Maybe 10 or 20 years ago, you stayed in your homes when there was a fire, and you were able to protect them, Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen said Sunday. Things are not the way they were 10 years ago. Malibu, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Monte Nido, Gated Oaks, Topanga, Bell Canyon and portions of Westlake Village and West Hills remain under evacuation orders. In Butte County, a red-flag warning that has been in effect for days was set to expire Monday morning, but as commanders warned crews during their morning briefing at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico, that doesnt mean the fight against the Camp fire is anywhere near won. The fire had scorched 117,000 acres by Monday night and was 30% contained. Most of that spread was on the blazes northeastern flank toward Sterling City and deeper into the Sierra Nevada and to the southeast, where it jumped the Feather River, officials said. The fire is expected to transition from being wind-driven to topography- and fuel-driven, making it more predictable, but still potentially explosive as it approaches overgrown, tinder-dry landscape. Fire officials said Californians should prepare for an increasingly long and potentially deadly fire season. Low precipitation, high temperatures and dry brush have combined to create treacherous fire conditions in the state. You have fuels that are dry, no precipitation and low humidity, Anthony said. Those are the perfect ingredients for explosive, dynamic fire growth. Our fire problem is only getting worse. Its getting worse in ways that I dont think people could predict. Times staff writers Alene Tchekmedyian, Alejandra Reyes-Velarde and Sonali Kohli contributed to this report. hannah.fry@latimes.com | Twitter: @Hannahnfry joseph.serna@latimes.com | Twitter: @JosephSerna UPDATES: 10:55 p.m.: This article was updated with the identification of three victims and additional fire figures. 6:35 p.m.: This article was updated with new fatality figures. 2:30 p.m.: This article was updated with information about deaths in Malibu. 12:40 p.m.: This article was updated with additional information about Malibu and the Peak fire. 11:10 a.m.: This article was updated with new figures for structures destroyed and acreage burnt and a freeway closure because of fire. 10:20 a.m.: This article was updated with information from Southern California Edison. This article was originally published at 9:40 a.m. Los Angeles County fire engineer Scott Pishe stood guard outside several multimillion-dollar homes Sunday as air tankers and helicopters bombarded the fire-ravaged slopes of the nearby Malibu Canyon with fire retardant and water. Earlier in the day, flames threatened to make a run into a chute by the canyon, but the aggressive air attack kept the fire there at bay. If it had gotten into that chute, we wouldve been in trouble, Pishe said from the southeastern flank of the blaze, which had claimed two lives and forced 250,000 people to flee their homes from Malibu to Thousand Oaks. All of that is because of the birds. The aircraft assault has been nonstop. While flames crept perilously close to homes Sunday, a squadron of 22 helicopters took advantage of a lull in winds to mount a vigorous aerial attack on the deadly Woolsey fire, saving homes and keeping flare-ups near Bell Canyon and Pacific Coast Highway within the fires 85,550-acre footprint. By Sunday night, containment jumped to 15%. Advertisement Today was a better day, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby told reporters late Sunday afternoon. To date, as I stand here at this moment, its encouraging that none of the flare-ups exceeded the containment lines. This morning we were truly concerned about that. Despite Sundays gains, officials still fear that rogue embers could fly across containment lines. Officials warned that winds were expected to pick up over the next several days forecasters predict gusts of 40 mph or stronger and urged residents who were sheltering in place to evacuate as the fire could spread rapidly and erratically. Maybe 10 or 20 years ago you stayed in your homes when there was a fire, and you were able to protect them, Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen said. Things are not the way they were 10 years ago. The fire has destroyed at least 177 buildings, and about 57,000 structures are still threatened. But footage from television helicopters seemed to show much more widespread property damage, and Osby acknowledged the number of structures lost will increase once damage-assessment teams can better survey the area. Sources: National Weather Service, Cal Fire, Nextzen, OpenStreetMap (Los Angeles Times) Wildfires across California have scorched nearly 200,000 acres and killed at least 31 people in total in recent days, according to fire officials. The Camp fire in Butte County has left at least 29 people dead and all but destroyed the city of Paradise. With destructive fires burning in both the northern and southern parts of the state, Gov. Jerry Brown requested a presidential disaster declaration early Sunday. Crews have been pulled into the fire fight from several states, including Washington, Montana, Idaho and Utah. This is not the new normal; this is the new abnormal, Brown said Sunday. And this new abnormal will continue certainly in the next 10 to 15 to 20 years. Unfortunately, the best science is telling us that dryness, warmth, drought, all those things, theyre going to intensify. We have a real challenge here threatening our whole way of life, so weve got to pull together. Gov. Jerry Brown requested a presidential disaster declaration on Nov. 11. In Southern California, not everyone heeded orders to flee. On Dapplegray Road in Bell Canyon, Greg and Alma Cwik instead used any tools they could find to fight flames on their own. When power was knocked out, they managed with LED lights. They used hoses and sprinklers, and when the water was shut off, they filled buckets with pool water to douse the flames. Firefighters were here, but they were very few, Alma Cwik, 63, said. They were here, but when the fire went to Malibu and Hidden Hills, they went there. At one point Friday, she said, the canyon beneath their deck caught fire. She and her husband began fighting the flames in one photo she took of herself, she is holding a hose while a fire burns along the hill. They were very short-handed Friday, she said. Seeing neighbors houses going up is crazy, Greg Cwik said from his living room. You couldnt even see the sun, it was like night almost. Late Sunday, about 300 people who fled their homes packed an auditorium at Taft High School in Woodland Hills, where they gave a prolonged standing ovation for the firefighters and police officers battling to save their homes. But the weariness was obvious. After several days, almost everyone was tired of staying in hotels, bunking in tight quarters with relatives or simply sleeping in their cars wherever they could find a safe place to park. A groan went up about 40 minutes into the meeting when fire officials announced there was now a mandatory evacuation for the entire city of Calabasas. Frankie Palmer of Malibu had to flee her Point Dume home with her family and their two dogs, but her house is safe and shes been able to stay, relatively comfortably, with nearby family. Were so fortunate that were safe and we dont have to worry about hotel bills, Palmer said. I know not everyone has been so lucky. Bell Canyon resident Steve Kent found out his home was burning Friday afternoon in real-time. This is not good, a neighbor texted him. The fire department is gone, and the smoke coming out of the chimney is darker and thicker. Soon after, his phone buzzed again. Your house is on fire, the neighbor said, attaching a photo of flames bursting through the roof. The emotions we go through are horrendous, Kent, 64, said Sunday. From I dont have any socks; I dont have any shirts, to, We dont have all of the pictures and videos and all those things that cant be replaced. And so its overwhelming. He and his wife put everything they were able to grab before they left, such as their passports and birth certificates, into two suitcases. But neither of them were full. Were just trying to figure out putting our lives together, he said. Ive never not had anything. sarah.parvini@latimes.com benjamin.oreskes@latimes.com james.queally@latimes.com alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com jack.dolan@latimes.com When the Camp fire swept into this community Thursday, Shane Bender watched as the air filled with acrid smoke and glowing embers rained down on the rooftops of nearby houses. Within minutes, dozens of men, women and children some of them screaming and crying were streaming down a two-lane street toward the safety of a hardware store parking lot. Bender, a retired firefighter, helped guide them out, assuring them there was safety beyond the smoke. Three days later, hes still trying to find out what happened to some of his neighbors. Hes not sure how many are among the more than 200 missing in a fire that has already killed 29 people. Advertisement Bender stood outside his single-story, wood-sided home in Paradise on Sunday. Splotches of charred pine needles covered his yard like leopard spots, but his property was otherwise unscathed. His was one of the few miracles in a blaze that authorities say has claimed 6,435 homes and 260 commercial structures the biggest property loss in any fire in recent California history. Two young deer stand in the rubble of a home in Paradise, Calif. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Full coverage of California wildfires Im having a hard time grasping what happened here, said Bender, 31. I moved a year ago. I was just getting to know my neighbors. All good people. Bender said deputies had made visits to the residences of several neighbors listed as missing. They park, check the address and then start walking slowly, eyeballing the broken glass and Sheetrock for telltale signs, he said. The Camp fire is destined to be Californias worst wildfire, in part because so many residents had so little time to escape. The search for victims has been hampered by the fire, which is still burning in the area. Through much of the weekend, the ground remained too hot for cadaver dogs to tread. Camp fires death toll mounts in Paradise as the search for victims continues Markham Odell, 61, recalled the sky turned black as thick smoke blocked the early-morning sun that grim Thursday morning. Out of nowhere, a dead bird fell, hitting him on the shoulder. Ive never panicked at any time in my life, Odell said. But I felt it start to come. One of the last things Odell grabbed was a copy of his home insurance policy. Jane Palmer, 77, said she received four automated calls the night before the fire from Pacific Gas & Electric, telling her the utility was about to cut off her power, which it did about 9:30 p.m. She said she realized Paradise was on fire and her mobile home park was threatened when she saw the smoke and flames. As Palmer drove out, she encountered a neighbor, Patsy Jacobs, 62, trying to walk out, and she picked her up. Because Palmer cannot see well, Jacobs helped navigate her rescuer through the thick smoke. What pisses me off is I dont think they told everybody soon enough, said Kim Benn, 49, a neighbor who realized she needed to flee the fire when another resident pounded on her door. A helicopter picks up water from the Feather River to do airdrops while ground crews try to keep the Camp fire from spreading. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Times staff writer Paige St. John contributed to this report. The death toll from the Camp fire raging in Butte County rose to 29 on Sunday as authorities continued their search for victims amid the ruins of the Sierra foothills town of Paradise. Five additional victims were found in their homes, said Butte County Sheriff-Coroner Kory Honea. Another was found in a vehicle. The number could continue to grow. On Sunday, authorities said, there were 228 people whose whereabouts were unknown. The search has been hampered by the active fire still burning in the area. Through much of the weekend, the ground remained too hot for cadaver dogs to tread. Advertisement Authorities have struggled to keep up with the sheer number of calls about missing people, Honea said Sunday. The Sheriffs Department has fielded some 500 calls and found more than 100 people, many of whom were in shelters but had not yet been in touch with loved ones, he said. Over the coming days, he said, deputies will be working to sort through the confusion. What I will say is we are very early in our efforts, Honea said. There is still a great deal of work to do. An eerie aftermath settles over areas scorched by the Camp fire in Butte County. The missing include at least three neighbors of Shane Bender, who stood Sunday outside his single-story, wood-sided home in Paradise. Splotches of charred pine needles covered his yard like leopard spots, but his property was otherwise unscathed. His was one of the few holdouts from a blaze that authorities say has claimed 6,435 homes and 260 commercial structures the biggest property loss in any fire in recent California history. Im having a hard time grasping what happened here, said Bender, 31. I moved a year ago. I was just getting to know my neighbors. All good people. Bender said deputies had made visits to the residences of several neighbors listed as missing. They park, check the address and then start walking slowly, eyeballing the broken glass and Sheetrock for telltale signs, he said. As the fire bore down Thursday, Bender, a wildlands firefighter with the local Feather River Hotshots crew, shepherded terrified neighbors to safety as the air filled with acrid smoke and glowing embers rained down on their rooftops. Within minutes, dozens of men, women and children some of them screaming and crying were streaming down a two-lane street toward the safety of a hardware store parking lot that he assured them was there beyond the smoke. Sources: Cal Fire, Nextzen, OSM (Los Angeles Times) By Sunday evening, the Camp fire named because it began near Camp Creek Road in Butte County had charred 111,000 acres and was 25% contained, fire authorities said. Alex Hoon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said at an evening news conference that the powerful winds that have plagued the fire fight are expected to die down after Monday. A red flag warning for wind gusts up to 40 mph was set to remain in effect until 7 a.m. Monday, he said. Jonathan Pangburn, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said it had been 210 days since the area had received at least a half-inch of rain and that there was critically dry fuel available for burning. The wind conditions coupled with that fuel means they are primed and ready for spot fires to catch, he said. On Sunday, what was left of Paradise was all but deserted. Surreal new post-fire routines replaced the rhythms of life. Fire engines rumbled along narrow mountain lanes en route to smoldering hotspots. Utility crews used mobile cherry pickers to cut down sagging power lines. Authorities walked carefully amid the husks of burned homes as they searched for remains. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined. On Friday, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. notified state regulators that a high-voltage power line near where the fire began had malfunctioned shortly before the first flames were first reported. Unsure where to run, a deer stands in the rubble of a home in Paradise. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Scott Branch, who works for PG&E, spent Sunday beginning the long and arduous task of cutting down and removing hundreds of miles of power cables, which drooped from poles that were either aflame or leaning perilously. About 1 p.m., his work on a severely damaged stretch of Edgewood Lane was interrupted by the emergency rescue of 14 horses from a nearby ranch. Crystal Comers mother owned the horses, and she refused to leave until the four remaining horses on the property were moved to safety. The saddest thing about this is that one of the four horses is an older mare and can hardly walk, said Comer, 38, adding that law enforcement officers helped her access the ranch. That mare may have to be put down. Kit Bailey, assistant chief at the governors Office of Emergency Services, summarized growing concerns about Paradises ability to rebound. In a city of 27,000 retirees and working-class folks that lost 90 to 95% of its structures, there is no housing to support a population to support its own economy, he said. There are also questions about how many residents were insured and at what level in a high fire hazard area, he said. There will be a lot of people walking away, he said. Ive talked to a lot of them. The situation may differ from the post-fire recovery in the Santa Rosa area a year ago, where prices for burned lots and available rentals quickly skyrocketed. That was due to demand and the regions comparatively affluent population. Despite the massive destruction, Paradise Police Department Sgt. John Alvies held out hope. Were resilient people, and I have faith that Paradise will come back it damn well better. Sahagun reported from Paradise, Serna from Chico and Branson-Potts from Los Angeles. louis.sahagun@latimes.com | Twitter: @LouisSahagun joseph.serna@latimes.com | Twitter: @JosephSerna hailey.branson@latimes.com | Twitter: @haileybranson Aerial photo taken on Nov. 9, 2018 shows the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Fan Jun) SHANGHAI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The first China International Import Expo (CIIE) concluded on Saturday with sizable deals signed, signaling China's historic transition from an export powerhouse to an import nation. Deals for intended purchase of goods and services within a year totaled 57.83 billion U.S. dollars, Sun Chenghai, deputy director of the CIIE Bureau, told a news conference after the expo wrapped up. Deals for high-end intelligent equipment reached over 16.46 billion dollars, followed by 12.68 billion dollars of food and agricultural products, 11.99 billion dollars of automobiles, 5.76 billion dollars of medical equipment and health care products, 4.33 billion dollars of consumer electronics and appliances, and 3.37 billion dollars of apparel, accessories and consumer goods, Sun said, adding that the value of deals for services hit 3.24 billion dollars. The CIIE is a high-level expo that generates extensive significance at home and abroad and produces fruitful outcomes, Sun told reporters. FREE TRADE BUILDS SHARED FUTURE Like it or not, nobody can deny that we are living in a globalized world. At the CIIE, there was something for everyone -- sipping French wine, wearing Finnish jewelry, dressing up in U.S. smart sportswear, riding in Japanese new energy cars. Refusing globalization is like refusing the law of gravity. When the free trade system is under attack, protectionism is on the rise, and the seeds of economic instability and uncertainty are being planted. The CIIE musters support for free trade and injects certainty into the world economy. This type of event could facilitate the mission of building a community of a shared future for humanity, in which common development of all nations could be realized. Every country makes money, the wealth gap is bridged and all nations prosper. At the opening ceremony of the expo, Chinese President Xi Jinping underscored the role of economic globalization, saying that it is an irreversible historical trend and provides strong momentum for world economic development. The import expo has served as a platform to inspire cooperation in international free trade in unprecedented depth and width. It is not China's solo show, but rather a chorus involving countries from around the world. The first CIIE is a new propellant driving China's import agenda. In the next 15 years, China expects to import 30 trillion U.S. dollars worth of goods and 10 trillion U.S. dollars worth of services. Last year, China's total imports rose 15.9 percent to hit 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars. SWEET TASTE OF FREE TRADE "This Taurus machine has already been sold, but we still have many more..." reads a note on the 200-tonne milling machine from Waldrich Coburg, the largest product on display that has won extensive media coverage ever since the shipping from Germany to China began. media attention has paid off: The milling machine received an order from a Chinese private company at about 2.8 million euros (3.2 million U.S. dollars). "At the expo, we have a lot of delegations and interested visitors, and we are confident that we are going to sell more machines," said Sven Grosch, in charge of public relations at Waldrich Coburg's holding company -- Jingcheng Holding Europe GmbH. The sweet taste of free trade is shared across the expo's venue in the shape of a four-leaf clover. As of Friday, German manufacturer ZEISS signed contracts with a combined worth of more than 400 million yuan (57.7 million dollars), far exceeding the company's expectations. The U.S. firm Intuitive Surgical sold more than 40 of its da Vinci robotic-assisted surgical systems to Chinese buyers. Besides bringing companies from all over the world together with their potential buyers, the expo is also gathering worldwide consensus on supporting free trade and globalization. "China has made its stance against trade protectionism, with recent opening-up measures in the automobile industry," Zhang Kelin, deputy head of the China Machinery Industry Federation, said at a forum on the sidelines of the expo. Wider opening-up not only makes domestic manufacturers more competitive in the global arena and more dedicated to innovation, but also gives global brands more investment opportunities and a wider market, contributing to the inclusive growth of the global economy, Zhang said. The import fair, which will be held on an annual basis in the years to come, will serve as evidence of China's support for globalization and willingness to share growth opportunities with the world. SHARED PROSPERITY The CIIE has been the meeting point of over 170 countries, regions and international organizations, which include more than 30 of the world's least developed countries such as Afghanistan, Cambodia and Malawi. Two booths were provided gratis to each of the least developed countries to encourage broader participation. "This expo is a very great opportunity for Malawi to find an entrance into the Chinese market," said Clement Kumbemba, CEO of the Malawi Investment and Trade Center. Traveling in a delegation of 18 people, Kumbemba said they had much confidence in China's "enormous consumption" and "spending power." He regarded the import expo as "a quicker way to improve their people's livelihood." "When their products find themselves in the export market, more people in Malawi will have money in their pockets," Charles Onunaiju, director of Center for China Studies in Abuja, said, adding that the expo had been a demonstration of China's faith in free trade and globalization and that trade can genuinely offer a way out for the African continent and many other developing countries. "For Africa, there is no better opportunity to readdress the so-called imbalance in global trade. China is not just offering investment, infrastructure and financial support. It is now offering a market. The most important element in any meaningful development is the market," he said. China's imports from Africa hit 75.3 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 32.8 percent. The trade surplus went down 45.2 percent year-on-year to around 19.5 billion dollars, according to data from China's General Administration of Customs. Floridas recount in three statewide races is already conjuring up images of the 2000 presidential election with legal skirmishes, chanting protesters and a possible ballot design issue that could potentially cost a candidate thousands of votes. Floridas counties will conduct machine recounts in the races for U.S. Senate, governor and agriculture commissioner. Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties started the recount Saturday evening, and Broward started early Sunday, though immediately there were problems with one of the tabulation machines. Heres what you need to know. Advertisement Where do the candidates stand heading into the recount? The first unofficial election results have been submitted to the state by Floridas 67 counties. These results do not include all ballots from overseas military personnel. The deadline for those ballots to be received is Friday. -- In the race for U.S. Senate, Republican Gov. Rick Scott holds a 12,562-vote lead over incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. Scott received 50.07% of the vote compared with Nelsons 49.92%, a difference of just 0.15 percentage point. -- In the race for governor, Republican nominee Ron DeSantis has a 33,684-vote advantage over Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum. DeSantis received 49.59% of the vote compared with Gillums 49.18%, a difference of 0.41 percentage point. Gillum withdrew his concession Saturday and called for all votes to be counted. -- In the race for agriculture commissioner, Democratic nominee Nikki Fried has a 5,326-vote lead over Republican Matt Caldwell. Fried received 50.03% of the vote compared with Caldwells 49.97%, a difference of 0.06 percentage point. About 8.2 million total votes were cast in the election. How likely is it that a recount will change the results? With the margins in the Senate and governors race, it is not likely Nelson or Gillum will move into the lead, said Edward B. Foley, director of the election law program at Ohio State Universitys Moritz College of Law. An analysis of recounts from 2000-15 by the nonprofit group FairVote found that the average margin swing was only 282 votes, representing a mere 0.02 percentage point in those elections. The leader in Minnesotas 2008 Senate contest changed after a recount, but former U.S. Sen. Al Franken overcame only a 215-vote margin to win. Floridas infamous 2000 recount ended with George W. Bush holding only a 537-vote advantage over Al Gore. The only way you could even think about overcoming a 10,000-vote gap is if there was a systemic error in the process, said Foley, an expert on recounts. One place Nelson could find votes is in Broward County. About 25,000 people voted in the governors race but not in the Senate race. Its a discrepancy not found to that magnitude elsewhere in the state. Nelsons lead recount lawyer Marc Elias said he thinks a calibration problem with the machines might be to blame. Another theory is that poor ballot design caused people in a particular congressional district not to vote in the race. The Senate contest was tucked into the bottom left corner below a column of instructions, and its possible voters just overlooked it. If thats the case, Nelson wont have a legal path to recoup votes that were never cast, said Richard Hasen, an expert on election law at UC Irvine. During the Florida 2000 election, Florida voters in Palm Beach County tried to argue that the confusing ballot design the butterfly ballot led them to vote for the wrong candidate for president, he said. The Florida Supreme Court denied a remedy in that case. Elias has repeatedly dismissed the notion that poor ballot design would result in that many missed votes, but Whitney Quesenbery, an expert on ballot design with the Center for Civic Design, said she thinks it is entirely plausible. Democrats are also arguing that valid mail-in ballots were thrown out because election workers didnt think the signatures matched, and they say mail-in ballots in possession of the Postal Service on election day should be counted. State law requires domestic mail-in ballots received by election supervisors by 7 p.m. on election day to be counted. Protesters gather outside the Broward County Supervisor of Elections offices on Sunday. (Joe Skipper / Getty Images) What is the process? Florida requires machine recounts to be conducted in races that finish with less than a half-percentage point margin. Counties will have until 3 p.m. Thursday to conduct those recounts. Overseas ballots will continue to arrive through Friday. About 40,000 ballots were sent overseas, and about half have been returned and accepted, according to Daniel Smith, a political scientist with the University of Florida. Generally, machine recounts give slightly different results but do not drastically affect margins. If the candidates are within a quarter percentage point after the machine recount, a hand recount likely will be conducted. Election workers will scrutinize under-vote and over-vote ballots. Those are ballots where it appears that the voter did not vote in a race or voted multiple times in the same race. Hand recounts give more discretion to election workers who must determine voter intent. A caveat on hand recounts is the number of over-votes and under-votes must be great enough to affect the outcome of the race for a hand recount to be triggered. The deadline to complete a hand recount would be noon Nov. 18. The state Elections Canvassing Commission meets Nov. 20 to certify the results. That commission consists of Scott and two of his Cabinet members. The League of Women Voters of Florida has called on Scott a candidate for Senate to recuse himself from the process. What about all these claims of fraud and Democrats trying to steal the election? Both Scott and President Trump have suggested fraud could be happening in South Floridas Democratic strongholds of Broward and Palm Beach counties. But officials in Scotts own state government have not provided any evidence to support those claims. The Florida Department of State stationed two observers in Broward County, and they have not detected any criminal activity, said Sarah Revell, an agency spokeswoman. A spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said state police have not received any reports of fraud or a written request from the governor to investigate. Is there enough time to do the recounts? With three statewide races requiring a recount, itll be extremely challenging for election officials to meet the deadlines, Foley said. Susan Bucher, supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County, voiced concern Friday night that she wouldnt be able to meet the state deadline, saying the law did not anticipate having to recount three statewide races. Legal skirmishes could ensue over whether the deadline should be extended. State law stipulates that if a county cannot meet the recount deadline the initial results on file will be used. Swisher writes for the Sun-Sentinel. Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Tokyo on Monday to discuss North Korea and other issues with Japanese officials before heading to two regional summits. Pence is expected to also discuss Chinas growing regional influence and bilateral trade with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe when they meet Tuesday, officials said. During a stopover in Alaska, Pence told reporters that he planned to talk about our important alliance, our economic relationship, current negotiations for a free-trade agreement, of course, and well be focusing on our ongoing commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, Japans NHK public television reported. Pence said in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post that the U.S. will soon begin negotiations for a historic trade agreement with Japan. Advertisement The two countries agreed in September to start negotiations on a bilateral trade agreement. Talks are expected to begin early next year. The Trump administration has reached a trade pact with South Korea and another with Mexico and Canada. Pence said in the article that the new trade deals will put American jobs and American workers first. Pence also stressed American commitment to the security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region to keep it free and open. He said the U.S. will continue to put diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea, and urged all Indo-Pacific nations to keep the pressure campaign and sanctions in place until the complete denuclearization of North Korea is achieved. Pence is to leave Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore and an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea on behalf of President Trump. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters Monday that Pences visit ahead of the regional meetings is a perfect chance to reaffirm cooperation between Japan and the United States regarding our policies on North Korea and various other issues of mutual interest. He said Pence and Abe will discuss ways to expand trade and investment between the two sides. Japan has faced demands that it reduce its trade surplus with the U.S. and is also concerned about the impact of Trumps trade war with China. Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Monday, Nov. 12, and heres whats happening across California: TOP STORIES Todays newsletter comes to you from Malibu, where Ben was surveying the damage of the Woolsey fire: Im going to tell yall a little secret. In my nearly two years of living in Los Angeles, I had never been to Point Dume. Getting there was a pain, and finally when you did, you had to wait in line to park and then had a limited opportunity at a scenic overlook in a region full of them. Advertisement So as I drove through the fire-ravaged neighborhoods surrounding the iconic rock that marks the end of the Santa Monica Bay, I decided I had to stop. That urge prevailed throughout my time driving in Malibu a place so defined by wealth and exclusivity. (In the midst of so much destruction, how often do you see a view like this?) Atop the rock, I was not alone. Malibu native Robert Spangle sat there with a cup of coffee, a small table and a pair of binoculars. He waved me over, told me to sit down and offered me a snack. Normally one looks out to sea when at the point. Not this time. We scanned the horizon looking for plumes of smoke and watched as tankers dropped flame retardant, while talking about what the last couple of days had been like. By Sunday, hed been on watch for much of the last two days, tracking the fire. During the day, he looked for plumes of smoke; at night he monitored the glowing flames. He then regularly radioed friends about the rough movements of the fires. Those friends then went to the scene trying to help out. After chatting, it was time for both of us to go. I had to file this newsletter, and Spangle had to go meet up with his friends. They needed to strategize about how they were going to keep their hometown safe from more fires. Read the story of this 29-year-old Marine-turned-photographer: Los Angeles Times Get the Essential California newsletter An owl on Zuma Beach on Friday. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) MORE ABOUT THE FIRES Devastating: The death toll from the Camp fire raging in Butte County rose to 29 on Sunday as authorities continued their search for victims amid the ruins of the Sierra foothills town of Paradise. Los Angeles Times The big picture: These devastating fires should not be a surprise to California, which has struggled to deal with the risk and the hard choices required to better protect the public. Los Angeles Times Worrisome: A forecast that includes several days of gusting Santa Ana winds has fire officials worried about the possible spread of the Woolsey fire straddling Ventura and Los Angeles counties. Los Angeles Times Plus: This is not the new normal, this is the new abnormal. And this new abnormal will continue certainly in the next 10 to 15 to 20 years, Gov. Jerry Brown said. Los Angeles Times The scene: A surreal weekend on Pacific Coast Highway as sunny Malibu becomes something much different. Los Angeles Times History lesson: Paradise was always at great risk of a disastrous fire. This time, its luck ran out. Sacramento Bee Close to home: As a kid, he watched the fires rage in the distance, always wondering whether this would be the one to destroy everything. An editor recounts a lifetime in the Butte County fire zone. Chico Enterprise-Record Plus: The grim search for elderly victims in Paradise. San Francisco Chronicle So tragic: The horror worsened by the hour, and the missing became ghosts over a time that has lost everything. Los Angeles Times Those tweets: Trump erroneously blamed the fires on bad forest management, and firefighters are angry. Los Angeles Times Just like us: Martin Sheen is fine, sleeping in his car at Zuma Beach. The Hollywood Reporter On the street: The house was a smoldering ruin, utterly wasted. But near the door was an intact box, a delivery from the home-goods company West Elm. The New Yorker Steve Lopez says: Calamity after calamity, California keeps marching forward. Los Angeles Times Smart story: Forced out by deadly California fires, then trapped in traffic. New York Times POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT Wowzer: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has lost the congressional seat he held for 30 years in one of the most conservative stretches of Orange County, a stunning defeat for the GOP as other Republicans early leads receded in the latest ballot counts, putting the party in fear of losing all six tightly contested House races in California. Los Angeles Times Plus: Another vulnerable Republican goes underwater. Los Angeles Times The team comes together: Californians made their choice Tuesday and elected Gavin Newsom their next governor. Now, Newsom faces some crucial choices of his own: Who will serve in his administration. Los Angeles Times THOUSAND OAKS MASS SHOOTING First on the scene: Officers first on the scene of an active shooter situation are now trained to rush in and confront the assailant, a tactic that is likely to save civilian lives but puts police at a deadly disadvantage. The story of the Ventura County lawman who lost his life in the Borderline bar massacre. Los Angeles Times Plus: A hero of the mass shooting who survivors said helped save lives. Ventura County-Star Perspective: Las Vegas, Thousand Oaks and a crisis that no one seems able to solve. The New Yorker CALIFORNIA CULTURE New man around town: Klaus Biesenbach has taken over as director at Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in a period of great turmoil for the museum. His goal is to develop a vision for the museum and then align the board and the staff and all the other constituencies behind that. Los Angeles Times Nice! A legendary surfers guide to the California coast. San Francisco Chronicle $$$: Which TV stars make the most money? Variety South of the border: How Mexico is reshaping its approach to Central American migrants. San Diego Union-Tribune CALIFORNIA ALMANAC Los Angeles area: Sunny, 75, Monday. Partly cloudy, 74, Tuesday. San Diego: Sunny, 76, Monday. Partly cloudy, 74, Tuesday. San Francisco area: Sunny, 69, Monday. Partly cloudy, 66, Tuesday. San Jose: Sunny, 73, Monday. Partly cloudy, 70, Tuesday. Sacramento: Sunny, 69, Monday. Partly cloudy, 67, Tuesday. More weather is here. AND FINALLY This weeks birthdays for those who made a mark in California: Retired Sen. Barbara Boxer (Nov. 11, 1940), L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson Jr. (Nov. 11, 1951), TV host Jimmy Kimmel (Nov. 13, 1967) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (Nov. 16, 1980). If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.) Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad. No matter how often a womans constitutional right to an abortion is upheld by federal courts, theres a state legislature somewhere trying to make it impossible for her to have one. The assaults on abortion rights have come in waves, as state legislatures dominated by anti-abortion lawmakers simultaneously pursue the same new legal gambits until blocked by a federal judge, at which point they change tactics and try again. Most recently, abortion opponents have shifted from seeking restrictions ostensibly designed to protect the health of a pregnant woman such as requiring abortion clinics to be outfitted like outpatient surgery centers, or requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital to ones that focus on the fetus. For example, Texas and a number of other states slapped tough new restrictions on the dilation and evacuation procedure, or D&E, the safest and most common second-trimester abortion, calling it a dismemberment abortion and describing the procedure in ghoulish detail. Opponents of the Texas law sued, and U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel rightly saw through the theatrics of the law and permanently enjoined it. Yeakel held that the measure put an undue burden on a woman exercising her right to an abortion in the second trimester. The state of Texas has appealed that decision; the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals judges who recently heard the case should also see it for what it is and uphold Yeakels ruling. The Texas state Legislature has been relentless in its efforts to stop women from exercising their legal right to an abortion. Advertisement According to Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, the law is a response to the brutality of the D&E procedure. Yet theres no legitimate medical evidence that anything brutal is going on here. All mainstream medical experts have concluded that the fetus at that stage does not have the neurological capability to feel pain. (Even the law doesnt argue that it does.) The real intention of this law is to shock the public with its description of how the remains of an aborted fetus are removed from a womans body, and thus weaken support for abortion rights. Granted, the law part of a package of unnecessary restrictions on abortion enacted in 2017 does allows doctors to perform a D&E if they first stop the fetal heart by injecting the fetus with a lethal drug in utero or cutting the umbilical cord. But thats not as simple as it may sound, and it needlessly imperils the mother. The doctor could inject digoxin or potassium chloride through a womans abdomen into the fetus. But the injections can be technically difficult, painful, risky and, in the case of digoxin, must be administered a day before the abortion meaning an extra trip to the doctor. Potassium chloride is also dangerous to a woman if it is inadvertently injected into her circulatory system. And umbilical cord transection, which involves passing instruments through the cervix to cut the slender cord, risks causing blood loss and infection in the woman, as well as injury to her uterus. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion These procedures would require abortion providers to undergo so much additional training that some have said they would simply stop performing second-trimester abortions altogether. Yeakel found these added steps to be the very definition of substantial obstacles to a womans right to an abortion. The judge also noted that a previous U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a federal ban on the so-called partial-birth abortion specifically pointed to the D&E procedure as an acceptable alternative. Texas is one of nine states with nearly identical prohibitions on D&Es. In the seven states where the laws have been challenged in court, all have been blocked, either permanently or until the case is tried. In Alabama, the state government appealed its permanent injunction and lost in the appellate court. The state is expected to ask the Supreme Court to take up the issue. The Texas state Legislature has been relentless in its efforts to stop women from exercising their legal right to an abortion. When the Supreme Court tossed out the states onerous requirements for abortion clinics and providers in 2016, the statehouse just kept churning out other restrictions, both absurd (such as the requirement that fetal remains be buried or cremated, which has also been struck down) and serious. The 5th Circuit should see a restriction on this common and safe second-trimester procedure as onerous and unlawful, and uphold the injunction. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook Our polarized era tests the resolve of those, like me, who lead a university. We urge our students to engage in reasoned debate, but the rancor of the times may turn dialogue on contested topics into a minefield. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been among the most volatile issues at UCLA, but that volatility cannot prevent us from addressing it. This weekend, Students for Justice in Palestine, one of 1,200 UCLA student organizations, plans to host a national conference on our campus. Some students, community members and even the Los Angeles City Council, concerned by anti-Semitic statements made by some SJP members around the country, have demanded that UCLA cancel the event. In the weeks since the mass shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, those calls to cancel only increased. The conference, however, will go on, and it is important to explain why. On both routine academic matters and controversial issues, the overwhelming majority of university leaders and that includes me strive to preserve the rights of all sides to speak and be heard. At the same time, we recognize the often existential impact of emotionally charged debates about issues like the Mideast conflict, immigration, affirmative action and abortion. Preserving the right to speak about such issues does not validate the content of that speech. All too often affording a group their constitutional rights is falsely perceived as an institutional endorsement of their message. It remains an awkward reality that our constitutional system, and democracys commitment to open debate, demand that Americans allow speech we may oppose. Advertisement In this case, I have fundamental disagreements with SJP, which has called for boycott against and divestment in Israel, actions that stigmatize that nation and label it a pariah state. The attempt to ostracize Israeli thinkers, and to declare off-limits even discussion with Israeli academics runs contrary to the values of inclusion, debate and discussion that are crucial to any university. Those values underpin the University of Californias Principles Against Intolerance, adopted in 2016. Even though our nations laws protect speech tainted by bias, stereotypes, prejudice and intolerance, the principles stress the need for mutual respect during debate in order to advance UCs mission. The principles also warn about the dangers of anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism, in which criticism of Israel morphs into hostility against Jewish people. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion When SJP announced its intention to hold its national conference at UCLA, the university recognized its legal right to do so. Much of what will be said at that conference may be deeply objectionable even personally hurtful to those who believe that a complex conflict is being reduced to a one-sided caricature, or see a double standard that demonizes the worlds only Jewish state while other countries receive less condemnation for dreadful behavior. Indeed, there is fear among some that the conference will be infused with anti-Semitic rhetoric. There is no easy way to resolve that discomfort. It remains an awkward reality that our constitutional system, and democracys commitment to open debate, demand that Americans allow speech we may oppose and even defend the rights of those who might not defend ours. That proud, yet difficult, tradition goes back to John Adams serving as lawyer for the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre. It also extends to our colleges and universities today. I am disturbed by the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the United States and the world. I believe every American must condemn the religious bigotry and racial animus that too often infects our politics. Ultimately, we must combat speech that is distasteful with more and better speech. If universities can find ways to rise above the current rancor and if our students in particular can model our values, then that may well provide the very best hope for our future. Gene D. Block is the chancellor of UCLA. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook Matthew Whitaker, the new acting attorney general, is President Trumps Harriet Miers. Remember her? Miers was White House counsel under President George W. Bush. When Bush nominated her to replace Sandra Day OConnor on the Supreme Court in 2006, he immediately faced a storm of criticism from prominent legal conservatives deriding her intellectual mediocrity and lack of experience. Some of this criticism was elitist and mean-spirited, but its essential truth was undeniable. The parallels to Trump and Whitaker are strong, and the outcome should be the same. Trump should withdraw his interim appointment of Whitaker, just as Bush was compelled to withdraw his nomination of Miers. Legal conservatives should make him do it. Much of the commentary about Whitakers appointment has focused on Trumps apparent interest in curtailing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and Whitakers public expressions of support for that goal. Others have questioned the constitutionality of appointing Whitaker, who has been serving as Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions chief of staff, without a Senate confirmation hearing. These are grave concerns, but they are not the only ones that Whitakers new role raises. Advertisement Whitaker is manifestly unqualified for reasons that even conservatives in fact, especially conservatives should recognize. The position of acting attorney general carries enormous responsibility. Yet Whitaker is manifestly unqualified for reasons that even conservatives in fact, especially conservatives should recognize. They are the same reasons that prominent conservatives offered for opposing Miers. Like Miers, Whitaker seems to have been chosen almost entirely based on his personal rapport with the president. Miers famously described Bush as the best governor ever and the most brilliant man she had ever met. Prior to her service as White House counsel, she had been Bushs personal lawyer, and no one other than Bush ever seems to have considered her as potential Supreme Court material. Roughly the same goes for Whitaker, who first won Trumps favor with strongly partisan television appearances on CNN. Contrary to Trumps claim that he barely knows Whitaker, the two men have met at the White House over a dozen times. According to media reports, they have an easy chemistry. Vox has reported that Whitaker secretly advised Trump about how to pressure the Justice Department into investigating the presidents political enemies. Like Miers, Whitaker lacks the high-level legal and political experience that have historically been prerequisites for the job he is being asked to perform. Before serving as White House counsel, Miers was the president of the State Bar of Texas and head of a midsize law firm. Whitaker is a former federal prosecutor; he worked for Sessions for just over a year. These are respectable, even impressive, credentials. Both Miers and Whitaker are said by colleagues to be decent, upstanding people and competent lawyers. Neither of them, however, could claim to be among the top 100 most qualified persons for the jobs they were tapped to perform. Finally, like Miers, Whitaker has demonstrated a conspicuously weak command of the constitutional issues that will be central in his new job. This is the most important point by far, and it alone should be decisive. When Miers made the rounds as a Supreme Court nominee, then-Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told her, You flunked. One leading conservative commentator summed it up this way: Miers was ill-prepared and uninformed on the law. When an interviewer asked Whitaker about the worst Supreme Court decisions in U.S. history, he first named Marbury vs. Madison, the canonical source of the courts power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional. This is a decision that conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh recently lauded as one of the four greatest moments in American constitutional history. Whitakers answer got worse from there. After Marbury, he next pointed to New Deal cases that were expansive of the federal government. Those would be bad. Then all the way up to the Affordable Care Act and the individual mandate. Whitakers disapproval of Marbury and the Supreme Courts decisions upholding the New Deal place him well outside the mainstream of American constitutional thought. These positions are also contradictory. On the one hand, he criticizes Marbury for making the Supreme Court the final arbiter of constitutional issues. On the other, he criticizes modern decisions for not exercising this supposedly dangerous power more aggressively. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion This is like saying that the two best Supreme Court cases are Brown vs. Board of Education, which struck down school segregation, and Plessy vs. Ferguson, which infamously upheld whites-only railroad cars. It simply makes no sense, except as an impromptu riff from a man who has never thought about these questions seriously. Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer pilloried Miers nomination as a joke. The issue, he wrote at the time, is not the venue of Mierss constitutional scholarship, experience and engagement. The issue is their nonexistence. Other leading conservatives, especially those associated with the Federalist Society, were similarly caustic in 2006. They demanded a nominee with sterling credentials akin to those of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who had been confirmed the year before. More recently, legal conservatives have justifiably prided themselves on the unimpeachable resumes of nominees such as Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch. An attorney general is not a Supreme Court justice. But Americans are entitled to expect the president to fill such jobs with people of high stature, chosen for their outstanding professional qualifications and experience rather than personal loyalty. Legal conservatives and the rest of us should demand no less, especially in these turbulent times. Andrew Coan is a professor of law at the University of Arizona and author of the forthcoming book Prosecuting the President: How Special Prosecutors Hold Presidents Accountable and Protect the Rule of Law. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook As election days frenzy finally faded, California officials estimated close to 4.5 million ballots that were uncounted. Every day since, theyve been working to whittle that number down. And there looks to be a trend developing in races for Congress and the Legislature: Democrats are surging. Republican representation in both Washington and Sacramento could fall to historic lows by the time its all over. ROHRABACHER LOSES, OTHERS IN JEOPARDY Few Republicans in Californias congressional delegation have the visibility for all sorts of reasons that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher enjoys. But after 15 terms representing some of Orange Countys most reliable GOP communities, hell soon be out of a job. Advertisement Harley Rouda, a Democratic newcomer, was declared the winner in the 48th Congressional District on Saturday ahead by about 8,500 votes as the weekend ended. Others could fall, too. Keep in mind that Republicans represent 14 of the states 53 congressional districts and Roudas win means that three seats have now flipped to the Democratic column. But its possible well end up adding the 10th Congressional District to that tally, where Democrat Josh Harder now leads Turlock Rep. Jeff Denham by more than 3,300 votes. Two other GOP incumbents Hanford Rep. David Valadao and Irvine Rep. Mimi Walters saw their leads hold, but noticeably shrink, during weekend vote counting. So did Young Kim, the Republican hoping to hold on to the partys longtime control over the 49th Congressional District in her race against Democrat Gil Cisneros. MEANWHILE, IN THE LEGISLATURE Democrats have long dominated the state Senate and Assembly. Under current tallies, theyre poised to have some of the largest majorities in modern history. In the Assembly, 58 of the chambers 80 seats have Democrats who have either won or are leading. Republicans look to have safely won 20 seats and are holding on to slim leads in two others; if those flip, a 60-seat supermajority would be waiting in the wings. Those are tough odds for the new GOP leader in the Assembly chosen by her colleagues last week, Assemblywoman Marie Waldron (R-Escondido). In the state Senate, Democrats may have won two spots previously held by Republicans which would give the party control over 28 of 40 seats. (If statewide vote numbers hold, Sen. Ricardo Lara would become state insurance commissioner and vacate his Los Angeles County seat.) Well keep a close eye on all of these numbers on our Essential Politics news feed. AND DONT EXPECT MANY RECOUNTS A number of states have election laws that trigger a recount of votes in close races hence the high drama now brewing in Florida with a second look at the tally in races for governor and U.S. Senate. But California has no similar rule. As I noted in my Sunday politics column, a recount here is entirely optional and can even be used to examine ballots only in the places where the losing candidate thinks he or she may most likely to pick up additional votes. Sign up for the Essential Politics newsletter TRUMP: PUT OFF IN PARIS? President Trump has arrived back in Washington after a weekend of bad optics when it came to remembering the 100th anniversary of World War I. Noah Bierman writes that it culminated on Sunday with French President Emmanuel Macron rebuking Trumps embrace of nationalism. Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism, Macron said as Trump sat nearby, unsmiling. And this was after Macrons recent comments that the European Union needs a real army, a frosty beginning to a key meeting between the two men this weekend. AND THAT TWEET ABOUT CALIFORNIAS DEADLY FIRES The president also found time while in Paris to offer thoughts about the series of horrific wildfires that have now killed more than two dozen people in Butte County, north of Sacramento, and from Thousand Oaks to Malibu. Trump said the fires were the result of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments! he tweeted. And yet, the federal government not the state controls most forest lands. Others, including a number of celebrities, noted it was hardly a sympathetic tone while American citizens were fleeing their homes and losing loved ones. Perhaps he heard the message: a few hours later, Trump tweeted that our hearts are with those involved. NATIONAL LIGHTNING ROUND -- Congressional Democrats warned on Sunday that Trumps newly appointed acting Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitaker will face legal consequences if he attempts to curtail special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs wide-ranging Russia investigation. -- In Mississippi, a state with a history of racially motivated lynchings of black people, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith praised a man by saying: If he invited me to a public hanging, Id be in the front row. -- With the main migrant caravan now apparently headed for Tijuana to claim asylum in the U.S., federal authorities warned last week that nothing short of law and order will be tolerated. -- Floridas recount in three statewide races is already conjuring up images of the 2000 presidential election with legal skirmishes, chanting protesters and a possible ballot design issue. TODAYS ESSENTIALS -- Alarmed by the troubled history of a gunman who killed 12 people in Thousand Oaks last week, Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) said he will reintroduce a bill that would make it easier to confiscate firearms from people deemed a public danger. -- Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra will appeal a judges ruling that Huntington Beach can exempt itself from complying with Californias sanctuary state immigration law. -- Becerra on Thursday hailed a federal courts decision to block the ending of a program that provides temporary protection to immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children. -- Californias not goofy, its really big. Thats why counting the vote takes so long. LOGISTICS Essential Politics is published Monday and Friday. You can keep up with breaking news on our politics page throughout the day. And are you following us on Twitter at @latimespolitics? Miss Fridays newsletter? Here you go. Please send thoughts, concerns and news tips to politics@latimes.com. Did someone forward you this? Sign up here to get Essential Politics in your inbox. Here is a new rags-to-riches American Dream story thats a little different: A Greek family is forced to share its modest home with enemy Nazi soldiers for three years during World War II. After peace returns, the familys teenage son bolts to America by himself. He works as a farmhand does any kind of job he can find and eventually becomes a very rich land developer. Advertisement His daughter grows up to be Californias first elected female lieutenant governor. I learned from my father that being involved in the democratic system was an incredible privilege, says Lt. Gov.-elect Eleni Kounalakis. People in Greece couldnt be involved in their own government if they were just villagers. Kounalakis, 52, won her first race for elective office last week, beating state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Azusa) by a comfortable margin. Entering the weekend, she was leading by roughly 12 percentage points. Kounalakis dad, Angelo Tsakopoulos, was 5 when enemy paratroopers stormed the small mountain village where his family lived in 1941. Six Nazi soldiers took over the familys second floor. The parents and six kids were restricted to three downstairs rooms. We slept on the floor, Tsakopoulos says. Germans occupied the region to beat back Greek guerrilla resistance. Tsakopoulos father was a resister. Most of all the village males were, he says. There was a lot of fear. He remembers that a German patrol once went into a tiny village nearby to quash resistance activity. A villager shot one of the Germans, Tsakopoulos says. The Germans captured 18 males and hung them. They were going to do the same in our village, but a local doctor who had studied in Germany talked them out of it. When the occupation started, there was a sunset-to-sunrise curfew. Anyone out at night would be shot on sight, he says. Later, people were restricted to only two hours outside noon to 2 p.m. More from George Skelton Finally, the Allies invaded Italy and France in 1944 and the Germans retreated. Tsakopoulos was 8. Those were happy days, he says. That kind of traumatic childhood is almost unfathomable to a U.S.-born kid. How did it affect him? Eventually you become philosophical, he says. You read history. Understand life and war, the importance of mortality. The misery we cause each other. It wasnt just that war. Afterwards, we had a civil war as bloody as the second world war. War is horrible. He heard people talking about America. Relatives wrote letters about how America was paradise the place where there was no hunger. At 14, Tsakopoulos talked his parents into allowing him to leave by himself. He had an uncle in Lodi, near Sacramento. He traveled on a steamship and arrived in New York Harbor in 1951 on his 15th birthday, sailing past the Statue of Liberty. Coverage of California politics Everyone went outside and people were crying louder and louder and I said: Why in the world are they crying? Were here, Tsakopoulos says. I didnt understand the story about the gift from the French. We could see the city and skyscrapers and all that. It was very, very exciting. It was beautiful. In Lodi, he lived in a detached garage on a farm. He sold melons on the street. They called him the melon boy, Kounalakis says. He attended Sacramento State College, as it then was called, working as a waiter. He used to cater at the governors mansion when [Gov.] Pat Brown was there, Kounalakis says. One night Jerry [Brown] was home, upstairs studying for the bar exam. Tsakopoulos became a real estate agent, then a land developer and eventually fabulously wealthy. He has donated generously tens of millions of dollars to Democratic candidates, including his daughter. Of course I wanted to help my kid. Why give to politicians? Greek culture is to get involved in your community, he says. But for Tsakopoulos and his daughter, the culture has extended far beyond the local community to White House candidates, including Bill and Hillary Clinton. The familys money and Kounalakis grunt work for Clinton campaigns landed her a U.S. ambassadorship to Hungary when Hillary Clinton became secretary of State. Father and daughter poured nearly $13 million into her lieutenant governors race. But she resents anyone saying daddys money bought her the office. Kounalakis says she had a hard-working, smart campaign. She met with voters in all 58 California counties. Near the end, 350 volunteers texted more than 1 million women, pointing out that she was endorsed by former President Obama and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). Shell have little power as lieutenant governor. But shell sit on the UC Board of Regents, the Cal State board of trustees and the State Lands Commission, which regulates coastal waters. In her texts and TV ads, she promised never to vote for a tuition hike, to protect the environment and strive for a better working economy. Shes a former president of her fathers development company. She has paid political dues as a staffer for the state Democratic Party, working on three presidential campaigns and serving as delegate to five national conventions. You cant be much more of a party activist than I am. Kounalakis has the feistiness and energy to carve out a meaningful role as lieutenant governor, if anyone can. Its in her genes. I wonder how many other potential achievers of the American Dream are now being blocked from entering the country. george.skelton@latimes.com Follow @LATimesSkelton on Twitter Davios Northern Italian Steakhouse, an East Coast concept, recently opened in Irvine, marking an expansion from the East Coast and Southeast into the bustling California market. The 10,000-square-foot restaurant at 18420 Von Karman Ave. is tucked between the Irvine Towers high-rises near John Wayne Airport. The site was previously Prego Ristorante. Davios is classically classy: white tablecloths, well-dressed staff. A 30-seat bar is in one corner, as is patio seating. The brand as we know it today started in 1985 in Bostons Back Bay. Owner Steve DiFillippo, a Boston University graduate who grew up cooking with his Portuguese mother and learned business acumen from his Italian father, bought the restaurant that year when he was 24. It achieved success, and now he and his wife own the nine other Davios locations, from Boston and Philadelphia to New York and Atlanta. Davios Northern Italian Steakhouse opened its first West Coast location in Irvine recently, down the road from John Wayne airport. (Photo by Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer) In an interview, the fast-talking DiFillippo noted how Northern Italian fare differs from the Americanized and Southern Italian food with which many are familiar. For one, its a heavier cuisine, with more truffles and cream. It relies on more sauces too. On the Davios menu which serves brunch, lunch and dinner expect handmade pastas, local seafood and appetizers like American Kobe beef meatballs, tuna tartare and the signature spring rolls with fillings like steak and cheese or buffalo chicken. (The spring rolls are popular to the degree that they can be found in grocery stores nationwide.) Also notable on this menu, as the restaurants name suggests, is the steak. The Davios group buys from Brandt Beef in Brawley, located in Californias Imperial Valley. From there, it goes to an aging facility in Boston. For the Irvine restaurant, the steak is then sent back to California a practice that makes it become, in effect, a 6,000-mile beef. The 18 oz Ribeye at Davios Northern Italian Steakhouse comes from Brandt Beef in Brawley, located in Californias Imperial Valley. (Photo by Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer) During a recent visit, I tried the 18-ounce prime aged ribeye. Davios reputation doesnt disappoint: expertly prepared, wonderfully aged, every bite going down easy. I also tried the hand-rolled gnocchi and scallops both excellent, though hard to compare with an expert steak with a 6,000-mile journey behind it. Davios takes particular pride in its hospitality. DiFillippos book is titled Its All About the Guest: Exceeding Expectations in Business and in Life, the Davios Way. The company has perfected a customer tracking system. Guests love to be recognized, DiFillippo says, about what they like to drink, eat, what they like, servers they like. They might like their steak medium, but they really want it medium well ... it happens a lot. The restaurant gathers as much data as it can, storing it in a database shared by all Davios locations. Name recognition, DiFillippo says. It all goes back to Cheers. Even though hes been at the restaurant game for more than 30 years, DiFillippo says, I feel like Im just getting started, I really do. For more information, visit davios.com. Bradley Zint is a contributor to Times Community News. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has lost the congressional seat he has held for 30 years. The Costa Mesa Republicans defeat in the 48th Congressional District to Democrat Harley Rouda, a real estate entrepreneur from Laguna Beach, was projected Saturday night by the Associated Press. Rouda, 56, a former Republican, had already declared victory Saturday morning, saying he was deeply humbled and honored to have the opportunity to serve. The 48th District includes Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. Dale Neugebauer, a spokesman for Rohrabacher, 71, noted there were more ballots to be tallied and said the campaign would not have an official statement until the count was complete. More than 360 Orange County employees have been working 12 hours a day six days a week to process uncounted ballots since Tuesdays election. Roudas edge over Rohrabacher had been expanding since Election Day, and Saturdays tally gave him a lead of more than 8,500 votes. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher addresses supporters on Election Night in Costa Mesa. The 15-term Republican was defeated by Democrat Harley Rouda. (Damian Dovarganes / AP) Roudas win in a district where Republicans have a 10-point voter registration advantage came after two decades of erosion in the Republican base and at a time when Rohrabachers ties to Russians have become more controversial. The Russian thing was ridiculous, said Tony Quinn, a demographer and California campaign analyst. That didnt help him. Neither, apparently, did his support for President Trump. During the campaign, Rohrabacher, a speechwriter for former President Reagan, doubled down on his advocacy for Trump and his hard-line immigration policies neither of which are popular in the 48th District suburbs. And his vocal support for Russian President Vladimir Putin became a heavy liability after Russias alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. Rohrabacher hadnt had a serious challenge for his seat until this year. Few members of Congress have been as enigmatic as the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing Orange County surfer who has crusaded with equal passion for the Kremlin and federal marijuana legalization and once took up arms with the mujahedin in Afghanistan. He has been an avuncular presence in his district, going to Eagle Scout badge-pinning ceremonies, speaking at junior high schools and opening yacht club sailing seasons in Newport Harbor. However, the district became much more of an anti-Trump suburb and he no longer connected to the people there, Quinn said. He had an opponent who was a former Republican businessman, not some wild-eyed lefty. And for at least two years, people were willing to try something new. Meanwhile, in the states 74th Assembly District race, Cottie Petrie-Norris, another Laguna Beach Democrat, extended her lead Saturday over incumbent Matthew Harper (R-Huntington Beach) to 1,817 votes. On Friday evening, figures from the Orange County registrar of voters office had shown Petrie-Norris leading by 1,642 votes. Harper had led slightly earlier in the week. The 74th District includes Costa Mesa, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach and part of Huntington Beach. In the tight race for the District 3 seat on the Newport Beach City Council, challenger Tim Stoaks continued to hold a 330-vote lead over incumbent Marshall Duffy Duffield. The next vote-count updates are scheduled for 5 p.m. Monday. They are posted at ocvote.com. Yang Jiechi (4th R), a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, presides over the second China-U.S. Diplomatic and Security Dialogue in Washington D.C., the United States, on Nov. 9, 2018. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Senior Chinese and U.S. officials on Friday said the two countries have vast room for cooperation and they should work jointly to enhance cooperation on trade, military, law enforcement, and counter-terrorism, among others. Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and also director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, co-chaired the second China-U.S. Diplomatic and Security Dialogue with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister Wei Fenghe also participated in the dialogue. The two sides held in-depth discussion about the preparations for the scheduled meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump during the G20 summit in Argentina, and had a thorough exchange on major international and regional issues of common concern. The dialogue was candid, constructive and produced great results. For his part, Yang said that Xi and Trump agreed during their telephone conversation on Nov. 1 to work for new progress based on healthy and stable development of relations, and to meet with each other during the upcoming G20 summit. The two sides spoke highly of the strategic leading role of the two presidents' diplomacy in the bilateral relations, noting that under the current circumstances, their meeting carries great importance to the stability of bilateral ties. The two sides agreed to strengthen communication, keep coordination and conduct elaborate preparations to ensure that the important meeting will yield positive results. In their talks, the Chinese and U.S. officials exchanged their views thoroughly on their own strategic intentions. The Chinese side said that China will adhere to the socialist path with Chinese characteristics, stick to reform and opening-up and peaceful development, and work with other nations around the world to build a community with a shared future for mankind. What China has done is to seek better life for its people, rather than challenge or replace any nations, the Chinese officials said. China has, as always, been a builder of world peace, a contributor to the global development, and a guardian of the international order, they said. They noted that China firmly sticks to defense-oriented national strategy, and its effort to develop its military in a moderate manner aims to safeguard its national security, not to engage in an arms race with anyone. China respects the U.S. sovereignty, security and development interest, and the United States should give China reciprocal treatment, they said. China has committed to working together with the United States for the goals of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, so as to make positive contributions to the peace, stability and prosperity of the Asia Pacific region and the world at large, the Chinese officials said. For its part, the U.S. side said that it welcomes China's economic development and success, and it has no intention to contain China. The U.S. side hopes to develop a constructive and fruitful bilateral relationship based on respect and reciprocity. The two sides agreed that maintaining the stable development of bilateral ties accords with the fundamental interests of the two peoples as well as those of the international society. They also agreed to follow the direction and principles set by the two top leaders, manage and control differences on the basis of mutual respect, expand cooperation based on mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, so as to push forward the China-U.S. relationship featuring coordination and cooperation. MILITARY Chinese Defense Minister Wei said that China has developed the military-to-military relationship with the United States with the utmost sincerity. The Chinese military will firmly defend China's sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests, he said. Wei expressed the hope that the two sides will respect each other's core interests and major concerns, enhance communication and strengthen mutual trust, so as to make the military-to-military ties a stabilizing factor for the overall bilateral ties. During the dialogue, the two sides agreed to maintain military communications at various levels, and strengthen mechanism dialogue, in a bid to deepen communication and de-escalate risks. The two sides will keep up communication to develop a Crisis Deconfliction and Communication Framework, and be committed to implementing the existing Confidence Building Measures. SOVEREIGNTY-RELATED ISSUES The Chinese officials highlighted the fact that the Taiwan issue concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and is the most important and sensitive issue between China and the United States. Taiwan separatists and their actions are the biggest threat to the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, the Chinese officials said. China resolutely opposes the separatists and their actions in Taiwan, and will defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, they said. Noting that the one-China principle is the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, Yang and Wei said that China hopes that the U.S. side will honor its commitment to the principle and abide by the three China-U.S. joint communiques, and handle the Taiwan-related issues in a cautious and proper manner. In this regard, the two senior U.S. officials said that the U.S. government will honor its commitment to the one-China policy, and abide by the three joint communiques. On the South China Sea issue, China has underlined its indisputable sovereignty over Nansha Islands and its adjacent waters. While defending its sovereignty and maritime interests and rights, China has been committed to the peaceful settlement of disputes with other claimants through dialogue and consultation, so as to ensure peace and stability in the South China Sea, the senior Chinese officials said. It is China's legitimate and lawful rights under international law to build civil and necessary defense facilities on its own soil, and such constructions have nothing to do with the so-called militarization, Yang and Wei noted. They urged the U.S. side to recognize these facts and stop its actions that would undermine China's sovereignty and security interests, and play a constructive role in safeguarding the peace and stability in the South China Sea, and reduce security risks. Regarding China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Chinese officials said during the dialogue that what happens inside Xinjiang is China's domestic affairs, and foreign nations have no rights to meddle. China attaches great importance to the socio-economic development in Xinjiang, and has taken a host of measures to advance stability, prosperity, unity and people's wellbeing there, while cracking down on separatist, violent and terrorist activities in a lawful way to safeguard its national security and protect civilians' lives and property, Yang and Wei said. These measures have achieved remarkable results, as the general social order in Xinjiang has remained stable, with robust economic growth and harmonious coexistence of various ethnic groups, they added. China expects the U.S. side to respect these facts, view relevant issues in an objective manner and stop meddling in China's domestic affairs, the officials noted. TRADE On trade, the senior Chinese and U.S. officials said that the two sides should earnestly implement the consensus reached between the two heads of state during their recent phone talks, support the two countries' economic teams to communicate and consult on issues of mutual concern, so as to reach an agreement that is acceptable for both sides. Both sides said that there is vast room for them to cooperate, and they should promote their communication and collaboration in such areas as economy and trade, military, law enforcement, anti-terrorism, drug control, and people-to-people exchanges, in a bid to bring more practical benefits to the two peoples. KOREAN PENINSULA ISSUE On the Korean Peninsula issue, China reaffirmed its commitment to the denuclearization and peace and stability on the peninsula and adhered to its stance that a solution should be found via dialogue and consultation. While supporting the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to engage in direct talks, China hopes that the two sides will step toward each other, accommodate each other's reasonable concerns, accumulate mutual trust, so as to facilitate the complete denuclearization and the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at the same time. The U.S. side expressed appreciation for China's important and constructive role on the issue. Both sides believed that the consensus reached between top U.S. and DPRK leaders in their Singapore meeting in June should be implemented in a proactive manner. As such, the United States and the DPRK should keep and substantive contact, and relative UN resolutions should be implemented continuously, said the U.S. and Chinese officials. China and the United States agreed to maintain their communication and consultation concerning the Korean Peninsula issue. The two sides also compared notes on international and regional issues such as those concerning Afghanistan and the Middle East. They agreed to enhance communication and cooperation and play their positive roles in the proper settlement of these issues. The two countries had their first Diplomatic and Security Dialogue in June 2017. Community members and city leaders honored veterans for their service Sunday at Pier Plaza in Huntington Beach. The Veterans Day ceremony included a three-volley rifle salute by the American Legion Post 133 honor guard and a keynote address from Army Sgt. Taylor Scholtes. Music was provided by the Huntington Beach High School band. Priscella.Vega@latimes.com Twitter: @vegapriscella You know how cockroaches are notoriously hard to kill? Thats the way it is with the myths surrounding vaccinations. Three years after California lawmakers passed Senate Bill 277, which requires every child enrolled in public school to be fully immunized against 10 diseases unless a doctor provides a medical reason for an exemption, the situation has improved. By eliminating the so-called personal belief exemption that had previously allowed parents to send their unvaccinated kids to public school for virtually any reason, the immunization rate of kindergartners went from a dangerous 90.4% in the 2014-15 school year to 95.1% in 2017-18. This means that the overall rate in California has now reached the level at which a population achieves herd immunity that protects against outbreaks of disease. In other words, a lot of cockroaches have met their demise. With apologies to the cockroaches they are, after all, just doing their thing, trying to survive that is good news. But the positive movement is shaded by the darker reality that in some communities, and in small pockets within those communities, immunization rates remain stubbornly, frustratingly below levels considered safe. Its particularly telling that the California Department of Public Health reported that the overall immunization rate of the last school year, though still high, was actually 0.4% lower than in the 2016-17 school year. Whats more, the share of permanent medical exemptions rose from 0.5% to 0.7% from one school year to the last, and from 0.2% before SB 277. The proportion lacking immunizations for other reasons rose from 0.5% to 1.1%, with 0.8% reported as enrolled in independent study programs, the agency reported. The rate of those overdue for required immunizations also rose last year, from 1.0% to 1.2%. Those are a lot of numbers to throw out, so the picture can be confusing, and the changes can appear tiny. But the upshot of all of this data is that people are still squeezing through the loopholes in the law. And while that is often justified some children cannot be vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons sometimes its not, and therein lies the problem. In large measure, health officials believe, the loss of the personal belief exemption is being offset by an increase in medical exemptions, some of which are obtained under dubious circumstances. According to a study conducted by University of Pennsylvania researchers in cooperation with California health officials, and published last month in the journal Pediatrics, bogus medical exemptions are on the rise. The researchers found that some medical exemptions were given for reasons that are considered invalid, or they were signed by medical practitioners not authorized to provide exemptions. In one particularly egregious case, a doctor charged patients to watch a video in exchange for signing exemptions. Some doctors were identified who actually advertised their willingness to sign off on exemptions for a fee. The study found other problems, including the fact that schools, not health officials, are responsible for deciding whether to accept medical exemptions; and attempts to track exemptions have been met with open hostility, legal challenges, and even death threats. Many health care officials are calling for a crackdown on providers known to flaunt the limits and true intent of medical exemptions. That could certainly help, but it wont be enough. Keep in mind that the data cited above is for public school students. Many kids attend private schools, or are homeschooled, and they are not covered under SB 277. Its likely that vaccination requirements are among the reasons some parents opt to keep their children out of public schools. I believe that the only way to kill this cockroach for good is through strong, continued doses of education. Parents suspicions about the safety of vaccinations have been fed by conspiracy theorists and medical crackpots whose harmful ideas, widely disseminated on the Internet, have been thoroughly debunked in every reputable corner of the medical establishment. Yet the rumors and myths persist, so we must continue to fight back with rationale, fact-based information campaigns and personal outreach to those who remain skeptical. We must remind the doubters that vaccinations are one of the greatest public health achievements in modern history, right up there with antibiotics, seat belts and clean drinking water. They help prevent terrible diseases that once claimed thousands of lives every year, and they continue to protect those who are sick and unable to be vaccinated. The 2014-15 measles outbreak traced to Disneyland that infected at least 147 people should have been enough to convince those still in denial about how easily diseases once thought conquered can resurface when vaccination rates fall. It was that outbreak that prompted state legislators to pass SB 277. Even with that law now established, we see how fragile remains the effort to keep herd immunity intact. A raging measles outbreak in Europe this year has generated little attention here, even as health officials warn that something similar could easily occur in the United States if immunization levels drop. Thats why we must continue to battle against the misinformation that plays on parents fears. Its a tough bug to beat, but lets hope we can do so before we experience a large-scale resurgence of deadly diseases. Patrice Apodaca is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach. Don Galleher, longtime member of the Glendale Noon Rotary Club, was honored by club members last Thursday. The festivities were a big surprise to him. His wife, Mary, was sworn to secrecy. The Embassy Suites in Glendale was the scene of the fun and, more seriously, the honoring of war veterans. Galleher served in World War II. He has also served Glendale for 53 years in many volunteer positions. Most notably, as leader of a youth group at the Glendale First United Methodist Church. Glendale City Councilwoman Paula Devine presented Galleher with the Mayors Commendation for service to the community in front of some 50 members and their guests. At the event, Sevada Hemelians, Rotary president, introduced another vet, Albert Lynn Lone Wolf Boles. An Apache Indian in biker garb, Boles still carries shrapnel embedded in the back of his head from serving in the special forces during the last days of the Vietnam War. Albert Lynn Lone Wolf Boles smartly salutes the flag as he leads Glendale Noon Rotary members in the Pledge of Allegiance. (Ruth Sowby Rands / Glendale News-Press) Boles led Rotarians and guests in the Pledge of Allegiance. Later, he spoke of his healing through his motorcycle club mission and Wellness Works, a Glendale nonprofit that provides advocacy for veterans and their families. Camille Levee, director of Wellness Works, described the challenges veterans face when they return from their deployments. The organization utilizes professionally licensed therapists and educators to help heal mind and body. But this was Gallehers day. Speaker after speaker described his influence on their lives. Elizabeth Manasserian, former club president, spoke movingly of his encouragement. You can do it he often told her. Rotarian Rick Phelan called Galleher the oldest youth leader in captivity. Glendale residents on hand for the tributes included Makiko Nakasone, past president of the club, Irene Bourdon, president of Adventist Health Foundation, and retired surgeon Dr. Sam Carvajal, who had been with Adventist Health Glendale for 42 years. The program ended with a standing ovation as a tribute to Galleher and his parting words, Every one of you have meant so much in my life. Ive grown because of you. The guys in Boy Scout Troop 391 sure know how to put on a fundraiser with a little parental help on the side. Sixty pounds of spaghetti was slurped up in a mere 90 minutes. The dinner was held at the La Crescenta Stake Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Nov. 2. Tessa Kjelstrom, 4, chows down on spaghetti without the sauce at the Boy Scout Troop 391 Fundraiser in La Crescenta. (Ruth Sowby Rands / Glendale News-Press) Members of the Verdugo Hills congregation sponsoring Troop 391 pulled out all the stops for a sweet deal. Cookies, cake and candy went for a $1 each at the accompanying bake sale. Silent and live auctions of the confections helped guests part with their money even faster. Two homemade, braided loaves of bread went for $30 and $31, respectively. Parent volunteers Wendy Hart and Michelle Barty were organizers extraordinaire. They supervised dinner, dessert, auctions, Scout skits and a Nerf gun shooting gallery. Jaleen Lunt and Adam Becker also helped with the event. Church missionaries, elders Kyle White and Thomas Toller, were early arrivals. They made a nice dent in the spaghetti, salad, buns and desserts. Scout Travis Emmerson welcomed guests, as did other troop members. It was a family affair as Travis was joined by parents, Gordon and Chuy Emmerson, and grandmother Laura Emmerson, all from La Crescenta. More La Crescenta residents included Hayward and Natalie Kjelstrom and their children including Tessa, 4, champion spaghetti eater. Family dinners of $40 and individual dinners of $15 added to the evenings coffers. Event proceeds will allow members of Troop 391 to go to camp. Ruth Sowby Rands may be reached at ruthasowby@gmail.com. From his new view on the bench, Kings goalie coach Bill Ranford cringed internally. Early in the second period Saturday, Nate Thompson got pushed into teammate Jack Campbell and pinned the goalies legs underneath him. Ranford thought Campbell was done for the night. I was surprised that he finished the game, Ranford said. When I saw his leg got caught under him, and any time you see it kind of snap out, you know its usually not good. The image of Campbell grimacing skyward should be the Kings new logo. Their cursed net claimed another goalie Monday with the announcement that Campbell will need surgery for torn knee cartilage. It is the second such injury in two weeks for a Kings goalie after Jonathan Quicks surgery Oct.30. Advertisement Campbell is expected to be out four to six weeks. Quick is on track in his recovery, general manager Rob Blake said in an email. That recovery is believed to be about a month from his surgery, and Ranford said they would soon decide whether Quick can start skating this week. Goalies become available on the waiver wire but the Kings, tight against the salary cap, will stick with Peter Budaj and rookie Cal Petersen. Theres no external options right now, Ranford said. Peter won [27] games two years ago and thats the guy we need him to be, and Cals a young up-and-comer. We just need them to be good. We dont need them to be great. We just need them to be good. Thats what Jack was giving us, and thats what we need from them. Coach Willie Desjardins will choose between the 36-year-old Budaj, a veteran of 365 games, and Petersen, 24, who has yet to make his NHL debut. The Kings play their first back-to-back games this week and would play about 10 games before Quicks projected return. Well, I think well see both guys as we go forward, Desjardins said. Peters been around and hes battled hard with us, so hes certainly going to get a chance. Cal coming in, I think it helps for him to get a chance for us to see the game a little bit, get comfortable. Both guys will see some time. Theyve both waited for it, and its their chance, and its a good chance for them. Budajs last NHL start was in December, for the Tampa Bay Lightning. He was injured most of last season and the idea was to get back in an NHL net on his merit. Its not the situation I want to get in, obviously, Budaj said. Its a disappointing thing for our team to lose Quickie and then Soupy [Campbell]. Weve just got to roll with the punches. Nobody said the road is going to be easy. Injuries unfortunately happen. Petersen has worked for this moment, however unfortunate. His NHL debut will arrive five years after he was drafted by the Buffalo Sabres. One of the first things Petersen did was call his parents in Waterloo, Iowa. I was definitely smiling to get the opportunity, despite the circumstances, Petersen said. Its a proud moment for me and a proud moment for them, too, because they put a lot of effort [in] for me to have this opportunity. To be able to show it to them, its really special for me. Petersen and Budajs numbers with the Ontario Reign are reflective of a team that had given up the third-most goals in the AHL through Sunday. But those who work closely with Petersen say his mindset is his biggest strength. If you really watch his games, its been tough for our goalies on our team, said Dusty Imoo, a goalie development coach for the Kings. Were going through some things. Its been a good thing for him, strength-wise, mentally, because you can get really down when youre not putting up the numbers and not winning. I think hes totally ready for this opportunity. Im not going to say hes ready to be an NHL starter yet, but Im not worried about him at all coming into this scenario. It cant get much more extreme. The Reign started Charles Williams on Sunday, and they are soon expected to call up the equivalent of an organizations No. 6 goalie. Three games into his interim coaching stint, Desjardins already has his hands full trying to conjure a semblance of offense. He has said that they would likely have to sacrifice some defense to induce scoring. But Desjardins corrected that Monday with the latest injuries affecting the most important position on the ice. We might have to go back a little bit and be a little bit more defensive right now, Desjardins said. This teams always been successful because of how they defended. We might have to work on defending a little bit more. Well put some pieces in place, but we have to defend well. UP NEXT VS. TORONTO When: Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. On the air: TV: FS West; Radio: iHeartRadio (LA Kings Audio Network). Update: Torontos Morgan Rielly leads NHL defensemen with seven goals and has 21 points in 17 games. The Maple Leafs are 3-3 since Auston Matthews suffered a shoulder injury. The Kings reassigned Matt Luff. curtis.zupke@latimes.com Twitter: @curtiszupke As a flight attendant for an airline operating from the U.S., Ive been summoned by passengers who felt intimidated or abused by other passengers. Thankfully, the airline that employs me has a zero tolerance policy for verbal abuse. When words get ugly and they have, many times we notify the captain. We tell him or her that someone is causing a disturbance and creating an unsafe environment in the cabin. Help is summoned, first the gate agent, then the police, to deal with the passenger on the spot if were still on the ground. On a recent Ryanair flight that was to depart from Barcelona, Spain, to Londons Stansted airport, that apparently didnt happen. Heres what did: Advertisement On Oct. 19, as the plane sat at the gate, a balding white man let loose a racist rant directed at 77-year-old Delsie Gayle, a Jamaican-born Briton who is black. The man became incensed, news reports said, because Gayle did not move fast enough from her aisle seat to allow him to reach his window seat. In a video that captured this and has since gone viral, he called her an ugly black . Gayles adult daughter, who was seated a couple of rows away, rushed to her mothers defense, explaining that her mother was elderly and suffered from arthritis. I dont care whether shes disabled or not, the man replied, modifying the word disabled with the f-word. If I tell her to get out, she gets out. As the elderly Gayle protested, the man shouted, Dont speak to me in a foreign language you stupid ugly cow. Aside from Gayles daughter, one passenger appeared to intervene. A man sitting a row behind implored the bigot to stop screaming. Theres no need for that, the intervening man said, thrusting one hand forward in protest. Just stop. During the rant, a male flight attendant appeared in the frame. His voice cannot be heard, but what is known is that he did not relocate the man to a seat far away from the woman he abused. Instead, the flight attendant asked the arthritic septuagenarian whether she would like to move to another seat. According to the Ryanairs website, the carrier is Europes No. 1 airline. The Dublin-based carrier boasts rock-bottom airfares and no-frills service to more than 215 destinations in 37 countries. But the service on that Barcelona-London flight proved woefully inadequate, even by no-frills standards. The plane took off. The plane landed in London. There, the hateful man disembarked and went on his hateful way. As millions of people viewed the video on social media and news websites, Ryanair faced a firestorm of criticism, not only because the airline allowed a shrieking xenophobe to remain on one of its flights, but also because it did not immediately make an official apology to Gayle. The airline issued a statement on its Twitter feed: We are aware of this video and have reported this matter to Essex police. Through a spokesperson, British Prime Minister Theresa May commented on the airlines inaction: When people are traveling and going about their public life no one should be subjected to intimidation or any form of abuse. But Gayle was. On my airline, if the aircraft is still at the gate and the captain has been informed of an incident, he or she will tell the gate agent that a passenger has been deemed unfit to fly and needs to be escorted from the aircraft. If that passenger refuses to leave, police are summoned to escort the passenger from the plane. If the passenger fails to comply, officers will physically remove the person. If the flight is in midair, the captain faces a more difficult decision: divert the flight to the nearest airport or continue to the scheduled destination. Heres what Ryanairs website says under Article 11 of Conduct Aboard Aircraft: If, in our reasonable opinion, you behave in a manner which we reasonably believe may cause or does cause discomfort, inconvenience, damage or injury to other passengers or the crew, we may take such measures as we deem reasonably necessary to prevent continuation of such conduct, including restraint. You may be disembarked and refused onward carriage. What he said did cause discomfort, at the very least, but it also caused injury. A few days after the incident, Gayle appeared on a British news program. I dont know when Im going to get over it, she said, her voice cracking. Because every time I think about it I cry. The man has since apologized and said he lost his temper a bit. Im not a racist person by any means, he said in an interview on Good Morning Britain, although the detestable words he hurled on the airplane seem to suggest otherwise. The cabin crews job is, in the end, all about safety, but Gayle wasnt protected. Banning that man for life from the airline may be the only way she or any other passenger can be assured safe passage. It seems little to ask that the airline stand up for the majority of its passengers, decent people who should never be subjected to a firestorm of hate. travel@latimes.com @latimestravel The killers found Hugo Albeiro George Perez sitting and chatting at a fruit juice stand. It was May 2, and he had been protesting against construction of a massive hydroelectric project in northern Colombia. George, 48, was fatally shot in the back, according to his widow, Carmen. His nephew, Dilmar Zapata, was also killed. Hugo talked a lot to the news media and became a target, Carmen George said in an interview in Medellin, about 100 miles south of where the killing happened, in the hilly river town of Puerto Valdivia. The deaths of George and Zapata reflect a dismal trend. In the past two years ever since the 2016 peace deal that ended Colombias civil war killings of social leaders and civic activists have risen sharply across the country. In response, the government says it will unveil a plan next week to better protect them. Advertisement Tragic news of the assassination of Hugo Albeiro George Perez, member of Movimento Rios Vivos in Colombia, and a leaders in the fight against Hidroituango mega-dam on the Cauca River. https://t.co/7OsUaB7H7o Kate Horner (@kateahorner) May 3, 2018 So far this year, at least 110 activists have been killed, according to the United Nations human rights office in Colombia, putting 2018 on track to surpass 2017, when 121 such people were killed. That was more than double the toll of the year before. Those killed include environmentalists, labor and political organizers, land rights activists and rural community figures opposed to the farming of coca crops. More such leaders are killed here than in any other Latin American country, said Adam Isacson, a senior researcher at WOLA, a Washington-based policy think tank specializing in the Americas. The people planning and carrying out these killings seem to have no fear that the police or military will stop them, or that the justice system will ever punish them, Isacson said, adding that the vast majority of masterminds remain unidentified and unprosecuted. The purpose is to intimidate us, and to some extent its working. Isabel Zuleta, co-founder of Rios Vivos With 1,200 members, Rios Vivos is just one civil society group targeted by the shadowy assassins. Community action councils in small villages that lobby for restitution of land abandoned by peasants during the civil conflict have been among the most common targets. The community action council in Miramontes village in northern Colombia has lost four members in unsolved killings so far this year. The purpose is to intimidate us, and to some extent its working, said Isabel Zuleta, a former sociology professor at the University of Antioquia who co-founded Rios Vivos, or Living Rivers, the organization that Hugo George was working for. She has been protected by armed guards since a failed kidnap attempt in 2016. Many have left our movement out of fear, she said. But it hasnt stopped us because the ones who have stayed are the strongest. Political analysts have struggled to explain the connection between the increase in homicides and the peace deal that ended the civil war between the government and FARC rebels. Peter Cousins, an academic who studies Colombian political violence at the University of York in Britain, theorizes that the peace deal emboldened victims of the half-century-long civil conflict to be more vocal in seeking restitution for lost land and other assets, as promised by terms of the peace deal. That has made them more visible and therefore vulnerable to death squads hired by people who have profited from the war who are afraid of losing what they have gained, such as land, Cousins said. The new government protection plan is expected to be unveiled as early as Monday. Details are being closely guarded by the Interior Ministry, which will administer the program in cooperation with law enforcement and social agencies. But Francisco Barbosa, a human rights advisor to President Ivan Duque, said in an interview in Bogota on Tuesday that the new plan will focus mainly on delivering greater protection and a governmental presence in 50 to 60 townships where increased cultivation of coca leaf, the raw material of cocaine, has attracted drug trafficking mafias and new waves of violence. Illicit cultivation of coca is generating a considerable increase in criminal organizations who are killing our leaders. It is a terrible situation for Colombia, Barbosa said, adding that rural leaders who try to stop the recruitment of local youths by the mafias become prime targets. When social leaders say they are not in agreement, they are eliminated, Barbosa said. Zuleta of Rios Vivos, who has been told some of the new plans details, said she is concerned that it will focus too much on drug trafficking because coca is the theme that gets talked about on an international level. She said she worries that it will shift the focus away from groups like hers, and make it easier for the government to deny our problems exist. Based in Medellin, Rios Vivos was formed a decade ago to oppose the construction of Colombias largest hydroelectric project, which involves the damming of the Cauca River. Now nearing completion, the project has displaced hundreds of poor farming and fishing families. Four Rios Vivos leaders have been slain by unknown assailants since 2013, including George and Zapata. George was protesting the projects inundation of 70,000 acres, including his cattle ranch. The $5-billion Hidroituango dam project has proceeded despite warnings by Zuleta and other leaders that seismic activity in the mountains surrounding the Cauca River valley made it too risky. In May, a landslide and subsequent blockages of underground tunnels nearly caused the 730-foot high dam to collapse. Some 10,000 downstream residents were evacuated. Although the hydroelectric project will soon become a reality despite Rios Vivos protests, the group will continue to protest for restitution of land and livelihoods lost, Zuleta said. Carmen George said she is more determined than ever to continue to demand compensation. We wont let them scare us away. If God permits, we will continue. We are running a lot of risks, but we will continue, she said. Kraul is a special correspondent. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday became the first Western leader to acknowledge his country had heard recordings of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share, Trudeau said from Paris, where he was attending the Peace Forum following the World War I armistice centenary. His comments come just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had given recordings to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them. The Canadian leader is the first since that announcement to officially confirm that his countrys intelligence agencies had listened to the audio. He said those agencies had been working very closely with Turkish intelligence on Khashoggis killing. Advertisement The shared audio is the latest measure by Turkey to maintain international pressure on Saudi Arabia in its aim to stop a cover-up of the Oct. 2 killing. Trudeau said that he himself had not heard the audio, and he wouldnt give any details on the contents of the tapes. Trudeau also said he thanked Erdogan in person for his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation when the two leaders met in Paris this weekend. Yasin Aktay, an advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaks during a Nov. 11 event in Istanbul organized to mark the 40th day of the death of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. (Neyran Elden / Associated Press) In an unrelated diplomatic spat, Canada in August criticized the arrests of Saudi womens rights activists. In response, Saudi Arabia ordered the Canadian ambassador to leave the kingdom, froze all new business between the two countries and said it would not renew government scholarships for thousands of Saudi students in Canada. Regarding Erdogans claim to have shared the Khashoggi killing audio, Frances account somewhat differed from Canadas. When questioned on France 2 television Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Turkey has not to my knowledge given the French government any such recordings, and suggested that the Turks were playing games. If the Turkish president has information to give to us, he must give it to us, Le Drian said. That means he has a political game in this situation, Le Drian added, referring to Erdogan. CIA chief Gina Haspel, who visited Turkey last month for information on the investigation, is reported to have heard the recordings, the existence of which was leaked to the media but never openly confirmed until Saturday. Also Monday, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt was in Saudi Arabia, where he met King Salman and was expected to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Hunt the first British minister to visit Saudi Arabia since Khashoggi was killed said he would press the kingdom to fully cooperate with a Turkish investigation into the writers killing. The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago. It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear, Hunt said in a statement ahead of landing in Riyadh. A statement by the state-run Saudi News Agency did not make any references to Khashoggi, saying only that King Salman and Hunt discussed bilateral relations and the latest developments in the region. On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with the Saudi crown prince on the telephone and emphasized that the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable, and that Saudi Arabia must do the same. The crown prince is widely suspected of at least having knowledge of the killing, which involved some members of his security entourage. Khashoggi was a Washington Post columnist and a critic of the crown prince. He was living in self-imposed exile in the U.S. before his death. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia has changed its narrative about Khashoggis killing, first saying that he walked out of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, the day he disappeared, then eventually acknowledging Khashoggi died inside the consulate. Saudi Arabia has also recently acknowledged Turkish evidence that showed the slaying was premeditated. Turkey says a 15-member Saudi assassination squad strangled and dismembered Khashoggi at the consulate. Media reports have suggested that his body could have been chemically dissolved, as it has not yet been found. Saudi officials characterize the killing as a rogue operation carried out by Saudi agents who exceeded their authority. Amnesty International said Monday that it had withdrawn its highest human rights honor from Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader of Myanmar, citing her defense of the militarys deadly crackdown against Rohingya Muslims and growing restrictions on free speech. The human rights advocacy group, which presented Suu Kyi with its Ambassador of Conscience award in 2009 to mark her long struggle against Myanmars military dictatorship, told Suu Kyi it was deeply alarmed and disappointed by your clear and consistent betrayal of the very values you promoted for decades. Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage and the undying defense of human rights, the organizations secretary general, Kumi Naidoo, wrote in a sharply worded letter. Amnesty International cannot justify your continued status as a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience award and so with great sadness we are hereby withdrawing it from you. Advertisement The letter was dated Saturday and addressed to Suu Kyis office in the Myanmar capital of Naypyidaw; it was not clear if she had received it. Suu Kyi was in Singapore attending a Southeast Asia regional summit and did not immediately comment on the issue. Suu Kyi, who leads a civilian government that shares power with Myanmars army, has tarnished her image as a global democracy icon by defending the militarys attacks against the Rohingya, which have sent 700,000 people fleeing into neighboring Bangladesh over the past 15 months. United Nations investigators have described the military campaign as ethnic cleansing and human rights groups have documented widespread atrocities including executions of children, mass rapes, arson and looting. Suu Kyi has also shown apparent indifference to the imprisonment of two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were arrested while reporting on an army massacre in a Rohingya village and convicted of violating a colonial-era secrecy law. They were sentenced to seven years in prison and have appealed the verdict. At a forum in Vietnam in September, Suu Kyi said the journalists have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgment was wrong, if they consider it wrong. At the same event, Suu Kyi declined once again to criticize the militarys actions against the Rohingya, saying the situation could have been handled better but that the army had acted for the sake of long-term stability and security. Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar in 20o17 arrive at the Naf river in Whaikyang at the Bangladesh border. (FRED DUFOUR / AFP/Getty Images) The former democracy icon still holds her Nobel Peace Prize which the Norwegian Nobel Institute has said it wont revoke but she has been stripped of many other honors. The Scottish capital of Edinburgh and several other cities in the United Kingdom and Ireland have voted to rescind her freedom of the city awards. She lost her honorary Canadian citizenship and her honorary presidency of the London School of Economics student union. Amnesty International was one of Suu Kyis earliest and staunchest defenders during the 15 years she spent under house arrest, declaring her a prisoner of conscience in 1989. Other winners of the Ambassador of Conscience award include Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandela. But Suu Kyi has not been fazed by the torrent of criticism now directed at her, including from her fellow Nobel laureates. Her government and the military are pressing ahead with a plan to begin repatriating Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh, despite warnings from human rights groups and Rohingya leaders that conditions are not safe for them to return in large part because the army accused of slaughtering them would be responsible for their security. The official Global New Light of Myanmar ran a four-page spread Monday emphasizing the governments readiness to repatriate the first group of about 2,000 refugees starting this week. The U.N. refugee agency said the Rohingya should be allowed to visit their lands in western Myanmars Rakhine state so they can decide on their own whether they want to return. In a statement, the agency said it does not believe current conditions in Rakhine state are conducive to the voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return of refugees from Bangladesh. shashank.bengali@latimes.com Shashank Bengali is Southeast Asia correspondent for The Times. Follow him on Twitter at @SBengali Deals for intended one-year purchases of goods and services worth a total of 57.83 billion U.S. dollars were reached at the first China International Import Expo (CIIE), which concluded Saturday in Shanghai, official data showed. A total of 172 countries, regions and international organizations, and more than 3,600 enterprises participated in the six-day event, which attracted more than 400,000 domestic and overseas purchasers, Sun Chenghai, deputy director of the CIIE Bureau, told a news conference. Deals for high-end intelligent equipment reached over 16.46 billion dollars, followed by 12.68 billion dollars of food and agricultural products, 11.99 billion dollars of automobiles, 5.76 billion dollars of medical equipment and health care products, 4.33 billion dollars of consumer electronics and appliances, and 3.37 billion dollars of apparel, accessories and consumer goods, Sun said, adding that the value of deals for services hit 3.24 billion dollars. Intended purchases with the Belt and Road partner countries reached 4.72 billion dollars, Sun said. Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2018 > Lights of Moscow / After Indira Gandhi From N.C.s Writings November 7 this year marked the 101st anniversary of the October Revolution. To commemorate that occasion we are reproducing the following piece written by N.C. in Mainstream fiftyfive years ago on November 9, 1963 recalling his visit to Moscow in the winter of 1956 (to witness the celebrations in the Red Square on the thirtyninth anniversary of the October Revolution on November 7, 1956). Lights of Moscow As the IIyushin-14 touched down on the hard crust of the Siberian snow, the pretty Chinese comrade next to me said: It seems we have reached Omsk. But dont be upset by the bitter cold of the Russian blizzard. The Soviet people are as warm in their heart as the tea served out of their samovar. She spoke fluent English, a medico, graduating from Peking, taking specialised training in Surgery in Moscow. That was way back in the winter of 1956. The end of October. I was flying from Peking to Moscow after attending the Eighth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the only Party Congress that the Chinese leaders had called in their 14 years of power equalling Stalins record in his last phase. Throughout my four-week tour in China that October, every factory I visited, every technical or academic institution I was taken to, brought home to me the overwhelming impact of Soviet aid, almost boundless in generosity. And what seems today to be more significant was the esteem with which the Chinese personnel those days used to spontaneously acknowledge with gratitude all that the first Socialist State had given them and taught them too. Not all the current angry campaign of the Chinese leaders can wipe off this truth, however unpalatable it might be for them in their present mood of anti-Soviet frenzy. The long, weary hours of the flight across the dreary expanse of white Siberian winterthe TU-104 jet service was then the exception rather than the rulemade me ponder over the greatness of the November Revolution. The impression of the Bolshevik Revolution one normally would get from the history books was that of intense dramatic excitement confined mainly to big cities, more particularly Petrograd (now Leningrad) and Moscow. But here, even in the cold of Siberia, one could get a glimpse of its greatness. The land, where the Czars used to banish revolutionaries at one time, could now launch on a new career of civilisation thanks to the pioneering labour of the Soviet man and the tender care of Soviet science. By 1956, the exiles from Stalins labour camps had started coming back and the staggering revelations of the horrors perpetrated in the name of socialismboldly made by Khrushchev a few months earlier at the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Partyhad led them to an almost nationwide Never-again! pledge. The strength of socialism was writ large, for the retrospection had come not out of defeat or a change of regime, but by its leadership on their own. In the friendly warmth of an Aeroflot flight I checked up on my fellow passengers, their occupational whos-who: leaving aside the foreignersmostly from fraternal socialist countries, including two German scientists returning from North Vietnamthe Soviet passengers consisted of seven working in factories, one of whom belonged to the senior staff at the giant plant at Magnitogorsk; four were science students returning from Irkutsk; two elderly women and an old man were on light work in collective farms. No Wall Street VIP nor the Maharajah on flying carpet, these are but men and women who toil with their own hands, and the brain workers who stand by them. In Moscows leading hotels I noticed the same feature: the best suites were not occupied by those with the fattest bank balance but men and women honoured for their outstanding achievements in labour or intellect or those who had given their lives in the cause of Communism. And in the foyer of the massive Hotel Moscow, one could see hundreds of ordinary peoplemen and women from common walks of life. How incongruous would this look in the West End or World of Astoria! The man of labour is enthroned in Moscow, as the defiant challenge to the worlds Rich. And as I looked out of my hotel window and saw the Red star glowing over the Kremlin, I felt at once the power and the glory of the Common Man outstripping those of the parasite Rich. This simple truth, this majesty of the November Revolution came to me in all its grandeur as we stood at the Red Square waiting in the morning snow for the great march-past of November 7. The smart turnout of the Red Army men brought back memories that inspired the pages of history, of the defeat of the Western Powers intervention against the newly-born workers state, right upto the days when Hitlers hordes were pushed back to Berlin and beyond. And as the contingents from different walks of Soviet life proudly marched past the great Lenins Mausoleum, it was an unforgettable sight. As we stood shivering in the biting cold despite all the warm clothes we had put on, I could not help remembering that those who had stormed the Winter Palace did so in this very November winter of Russia. The bitter cold could not deter them even if it had destroyed Napoleons formidable army. The scenes of joy, of tumultuous laughter and dancing that overflowed the streets of Moscow that evening past midnight were not just the outpourings of a national festival; they were the grand celebration of a great achievement of mankind, the breaking of the chains of capitalist slavery. How little the Chinese leaders have understood the spirit of the November Revolution that they could prattle about the danger of the return of capitalism, little realising how strong are the foundations of that great revolution that ushered in a new era in human history. Moscow in the winter of 1956 was emerging into the maturity of revolution. Everywhere I went I could hear exciting discussions about the implications of the Twentieth Soviet Communist Party Congress. The fresh air of freedom that blew into the musty atmosphere of Stalins Russia brought in a new life, as it were. The past was being examined boldly and gropings for the future could be discerned. It was as if the child born in 1917 had grown up into his majestic staturestrong enough to proclaim his own mistakes and ready to learn from them. In the midst of it all the Hungarian upheaval touched off new tensions, new questioningswould the revulsion at the past mistakes lead to a rebound which might take a socialist country back into the arms of capitalism? Was the Soviet action justified? Why could not Hungary sustain the brunt of self-criticism without upsetting the social order, as did Poland? All these questions could be heard, not only in the small circle of outsiders, but among the Soviet newsmen themselves. One could taste the ferment, for it was in the very air of Moscow. And rightly so; did not Lenin permit, if not encourage, the most uninhibited criticismthe finest of political iconoclasmeven in those early days of the Revolution? When the workers of Paris formed their Commune more than 90 years ago, Karl Marx hailed the event as the storming of heavens. Today the revolutionary legatees of the Paris Communethe sons and daughters of the November Revolutionhave been literally storming the heavens. The people that could send a Valentina Tereshkova to the kingdom of the stars are the heirs of those who had hoisted the Red Flag on the Czars Palace. And not without reason. For the triumph of the Soviet Union today is not just an accidentit has blossomed out of the very system of socialism, where man has ceased to exploit man. The plane took off about mid-night, I bade good-bye to Moscowthis city of Revolutionfrom my plane window. In the darkness of night with its myriads of lights, Moscow looked like a piece of glittering jewel, a shining necklace of diamonds. I was reminded of what John Reed had reported in his memorable Ten Days That Shook the World: a cart-driver, watching the city lights as he drew nearer, cried: All this is mine! Those glittering lights of Moscow, I felt, were indeed the precious diamonds for evey worker that strives to break the chains of wage-slavery, and for every decent man and woman in this wide world who recognises the majesty of labour. The lights of Moscow shall never, never fail. (Mainstream, November 9, 1963) When I look for the grandest day of my life, rummaging in all Ive gone through and seen. I name without doubt or internal strife October 25, 1917. Vladimir Mayakovsky (from the poem Vladimir llyich Lenin) [November 7 was October 25 as per the old Russian calender.] Indira Gandhis 34th death anniversary fell on October 31 this year. On this occasion we are reproducing the following Editors Notebook that N.C. wrote after her death. After Indira Gandhi Twenty years after her great fathers passing away, Indira Gandhi fell, he frail body riddled with the assasins bullets, in the winter morning of October 31, 1984. She died as she livedtaking danger as her constant companion. And she left behind a nation not only benumbed with searing sorrow but engulfed in insensate fratricidal violence, threatening the very unity of the country to defend which she faced martyrdom. This is not the moment to undertake an objective appraisal of Indira Gandhis contri-bution towards building modern India or her role in world affairs. Future historians will undertake this task, a difficult task because hers was a career which until her last breath knew no respite, a career crowded with events of unmitigated severity as well as unalloyed glory. Few were her moments of repose, for she more than anybody else went among the largest segment of Indias seven hundred millions covering the length and breadth of this far-flung country. It was an endless odyssey no other leader of her times has undertaken. At home, many significant steps were taken during her fifteen years of Prime Ministership which strengthened the economy of the country and yet its base could not be reinforced because of the balance of social forces, their level of consciousness and organisational consolidation did not permit any fundamental transformation. On the political plane, the Westminster type of parliamentary democracy has been maintained though it has to a large measure been corroded by graft and corruption while the system of election has fostered caste and communal loyalties. Abroad, Indira Gandhis tenure as Indias unchallenged leader saw the extension and enrichment of the policy of non-alignment in a manner that it could throw in its lot with the forces of peace and progress against the forces of reaction. Adherence to the principle of democratic solidarity brought fresh laurels when Bangladesh was born out of Pakistani brutality. At the same time, the country found it difficult to muster the strength necessary to sustain a determined and dynamic foreign policy because of the internal socio-economic weaknesses. The shortcomings of the politico-economic order that was set up on the morrow of independence under the balance of forces prevailing at the time, began to surface conspicuously during Indira Gandhis regime. This was particularly evident from the fact that significant reforms did not produce the desired changes. Land reforms did not bring land to the tiller. Restrictions placed on monopolies could not weaken the monopoly houses. Planning did not reduce economic disparities; rather they grew despite the plans. Bonded labour persists despite its official abolition. Expansion of education has intensified its lopsidedness while prevalence of illiteracy has weaknened the cultural base of our democracy. As democracy has spread to diverse regions, parochialism has increased, bringing severe strain on the structure of national integration. Instead of trying to tackle this on the axiomatic principle of unity-in-diversity, it has been allowed to degenerate into a false confrontation between the Centre and the States. Taking a broader, historical view one cannot help noting that Indira Gandhis tenure as the Prime Minister marked the end of the generation that had witnessed the culmination of the freedom struggle in the triumphant unfurling of the Tricolour on the Red Fort, and the coming-of-age of the generation born after independence. The so-called generation gap touching off social tensions was in reality the manifestation of an unfinished revolution. The entire national leadership, covering all parties, tried to live on the laurels of the freedom struggle: they did notor perhaps could notwork out an authentic programme of nation-building, a programme which could rouse the millions and mobilise them with the same intensity which Gandhi and Nehru could fifty years ago. Instead they could only produce schemes and plans which are impressive as the drawing-board blueprints or seminar papers but are ineffective in galvanising the masses. That is why election-time slogans mostly sound empty and fail to set the masses in motion in the direction of socio-economic transformation. In the absence of such a national matrix for the building of independent India, disequili-brium leading to tensions surfaced in both politics and economy of the country. The turbulence that marked the greater part of the Indira Phase has had its roots in this disequili-brium. Whenever there was the slightest signs of groping towards social transformation, she could muster unprecedented mass support as could be seen in the wake of the new economic programme beginning with bank nationalisation and culminating in the call for Garibi Hatao. But with no political (as distinct from adminis-trative) infrastructure to implement or enforce it, the programme at its very incipient phase was lost; later the Twenty-Point Programme, both in its original and revised versions, was but its pale imitation, incapable of bestirring the masses in the way the earlier call for Garibi Hatao could rouse mass expectations: at the end populism became the subject of ridicule or trenchant criticism. Most of the intractable problems that beset Indira Gandhi with particular sharpness during her second tenure of power, that is, since 1980, can be traced back to their origins in the early years of independence. Whether it is Assam or the North-East, the minorities sense of insecurity, or the vexed Centre-State controversy, or the entire Punjab problemall these had surfaced on the very morrow of independence. Those who deify today the founding fathers of the Constitution need to be reminded that it was the unresolved items that had come up in the Cosntituent Assembly which later on assumed the magnitude of crisis points particularly under Indira Gandhi. This is not to say that the founding fathers of the Constitution should be held responsible for these crisis issues. What needs to be debunked is the thoughtless Opposition charge, long bandied about, that Indira Gandhi must be branded as the arch culprit for having deliberately left all the problems unsettled to exploit them to her own advantage. Nobody will deny that there had been a certain amount of drift and sometimes miscalculation in dealing with these issues under Indira Gandhi. What was, however, a mistake was that these for long were sought to be tackled as if they were ordinary problems of a conventional nature demanding conventional responses. In reality, all these were issues germane to the basic weaknesses of our democratic set-upweaknesses which should have been overcome a long time ago, long before Indira came to power, and that too, should have been attempted by means of wide national consensus. These are problems which can hardly be solved through the majority vote of the ruling party alone; they have had to have the sanction of most, if not all, political parties. Otherwise they face the danger of being treated as partisan issues, as they finally did. Not that bold initiatives were totally missing. It is necessary to remind ourselves the irony of the fact that Indira Gandhi of all our Prime Ministers was the one who had acceded to the demand for a Punjabi-speaking State, while nothing had been done by the Janata Government to even examine the Akali demands though it had an Akali as a Cabinet Minister. After Indira Gandhi, her mantle has fallen on the shoulders of her son, Rajiv Gandhi. The party in command of two-thirds majority in Parliament has made him the Prime Minister, though a section of the Opposition did not fail to make a demonstration of their miserable incapacity to rise above pettifogging absurdities by questioning the propriety of his appointment. The challenge that he faces today are many and varied, and his capacity and competence to deal with them will undoubtedly be watched with close scrutiny by friends and adversaries alike. Like his gransfather, Rajiv Gandhi has assumed power in the midst of turbulence, though in character and intensity, it is different from the one which engulfed the country thirtyseven years ago. The promptitude with which he has taken steps to put down all violence in the Capitalwherein the ranks of the mischief-mongers could be identified some of the star performers in the mafia of the Sanjay days, whom Rajiv had rejectedhas brought out the initiative which promises to earn him the confidence of the nation. What has happened is no ordinary outburst of anger tinged with sorrow. The faceless elements, domestic and foreign, who engineered the killing of Indira Gandhi, have as their objective the unleashing of destabilisation on a large scale. More than many others in the country who should have known better, Indira Gandhi herself knewand did not hesitate to confide to othersthat she was the prime target of powerful forces interested in weakening the position of India in the world of today through disturbances within the country itself. US Secretary of State George Schultzs assurance about the Administrations concern for Indias unity is indeed touching though unfortunately it has hardly been reassuring in view of the rather long record of its agencies having had a hand at destabilisation of regimes which did not fall in line with it. Needless to add, the new Prime Minister can hardly depend on such assurances from abroad: he has to take stepsas he has begun to taketo deal with a firm hand the forces that are out to disrupt the nations unity, calculatedly or unwittingly. At 40, Rajiv Gandhi has become the youngest Prime Minister of this country. His mothers style of functioning made her entire establish-ment, both government and party, into a one-pillar structure. Apart from the superhuman stamina that she had to summon up to manage things as she did, there is little doubt that this encouraged an unwholesome tendency of dependency on the part of her colleagues and acted as a disincentive to initiative on their part. Placed as he is today having yet to earn his spurs as the chief executive of the nation and having colleagues most of whom are senior in age though not all in wisdom or competence, Rajiv Gandhi cannot possibly afford to function as the apex of a pyramid. To carry his colleagues along with him and to make the system run as effectively as possible, he will have to foster collective functioning without in any way permitting his initiative to be stifled. This way alone can emerge a viable framework of governance as also open up the potentialities for his leadership of it. The Congress, though a ruling party, has a history in which it was for long regarded as the common national front, while since independence, it has continued as a loosely held organisaton, largely for the purpose of holding periodic elections. Factions bristle within its ranksperhaps they consti-tuted the major threat to the stability of the Indira Raj at the State levelalthough at the moment, they are to a large measure subdued at the loss of their chief campaigner for the coming General Election. But this is only temporary. For Rajiv Gandhi to iron out the factions would be a major task. With the disappearance of the banyan tree protection that Indira Gandhi provided them all, it is possible that the urge for survival might help Rajiv to reduce, if not eliminate, group politics. Side by side there appears to be an urge, at the moment incipient, among a good number of old Congressmen who had strayed into different Opposition formations, to return to the fold having seen through the bankruptcy of leaders like Charan Singh and Chandra Shekhar. The trend was perceptible in the last days of Indira Gandhi and is likely to grow in the coming months. It will be important for Rajiv Gandhi to consolidate into one organisation all those belonging to what may be termed as the Congress culture. In the last four years, there grew up around Rajiv Gandhi a band of young Congressmenregarded as a management elitewho have their strong points as having drive and self-confidence; at the same time they have yet to imbibe the ethos of the Congress as it has grown over the years. It will be for Rajiv Gandhi himself to harness them and harmonise diverse interests and outlooks into a one homogenous whole. This way will he be able to rebuild the Congress in the conditions of today and this way too holds the promise of his establishing its effective leadership. Beyond the confines of his party, Rajiv Gandhi will have to evolve through persuasion and pain-staking endeavour the code of national consensus which alone will enable him to deal with the intractable problems that stare him at the face today. This way too perhaps the fragile structure of Indian democracy can still be saved. (Editors Notebook, Mainstream, November 3-10, 1984) Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2018 > Has the End of the Indian Democratic-Secular Polity Begun? by Shamsul Islam India, sadly, is witnessing the Hindutva juggernaut running amok crushing whatever was democratic, liberal and egalitarian in the Indian polity. The RSS, as the charioteer, is not ashamed of this vicious campaign; instead, it is taking credit for it. It was not long back that it used to claim apolitical status. Even when its cadres like Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani became rulers of India it would assure the nation that the RSS was a socio-cultural organisation and had nothing to do with politics. Organiser, the mouthpiece of the RSS, in its editorial of February 6, 2000 went on to declare that the RSS is not a political party. It does not take part in elections nor are its office-bearers supposed to become office-bearers of any political party. The RSS has no election symbol nor its leadership or members have ever endeavoured to seek political office. It is a social-cultural organisation trying to inspire all national activity. In fact, this was the pledge the RSS made to the first Home Minister of India, Sardar Patel, as a condition for withdrawal of the ban on it for playing a role in the assassination of the Father of the Nation, M.K. Gandhi. But since Modi became in March 2014 the PM of India, who describes himself as a Hindu nationalist, the situation has deteriorated from bad to worse. Now the RSS sets the agenda and executes Hindutva politics which keeps democratic-secular India on the ventilator. Even the ventilators, which include independent judiciary, neutral bureaucracy, Parliament and the office of the President of the Republic, have faltered in fulfilling their task of safeguarding our polity. The President and PM neither talk to the media nor explain about the burning issues faced by the nation. However, the RSS boss, Mohan Bhagwat, as the ideologue of the ruling Hindutva group, makes statements about the direction of the government. He has become the de-facto ruler of India. He is allowed to hold conclaves, as the only speaker, outlining the Hindu nationalist polarising agenda, at institu-tions like the Vigyan Bhawan which were meant to deliberate on strengthening our democratic polity. The latest pravachan or sermon was delivered at the RSS headquarters on the eve of Vijaydashami, also the foundation day of the RSS in 1925. Abandoning any facade of respecting the Indian constitutional polity and its processes, he demanded that an ordinance should be brought in by the government for building the temple at Ayodhya at the place of the Babri mosque demolished on December 6, 1992. It looked as if his chelas or cadres of the RSS governing India had solved all critical problems like violence against Dalits, hunger, poverty, unemployment, violence against women, absence of health and educational facilities and only issues like the Ram temple were to be solved! According to the RSS, this mosque was built after demolishing a temple at the birthplace of Ram at Ayodhya in 1528-29 by a military commander of Babar (1483-1530). It is to be noted that this mosque was razed to the ground by Hindutva goons despite the RSS leaders undertaking to the then Parliament, the Supreme Court and the PM (Narasimha Rao) that the mosque would not be touched. According to Bhagwat, The construction of the temple is necessary from the self-esteem point of view; it will also pave the way for an atmosphere of goodwill and oneness in the country. Interestingly, the issue of destruction of the Ram temple was never raised before 1881. The RSS raised the issue of the Ram temple only after 1949 and never during the British rule since its birth in 1925. Moreover, Tulsidas (15321623 during the time of Akbar), who penned the Ramcharitmanas, the epic which popularised the story of Ram as the God in northern India, nowhere in his work in Avadhi language mentioned about this destruction. Bhagwats call for a law for the temple is open denigration of the Supreme Court of India which is presently hearing the mosque-temple dispute. How the RSS and its current boss, Bhagwat, are out to undo the constitutional proprieties will be clear from their brazen opposition to the Supreme Court judgment on allowing women of all ages to visit the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. Interestingly, the judgment was delivered by a the Chief Justice of India who enjoyed respect in the Hindutva circles. His argument was that We [he meant Supreme Court] should have built consensus. The devotees should have been consulted...the premise of the tradition that has been accepted by society and continuously followed for years together was not taken into consideration. The version of heads of religious denominations and faith of crores of devotees was not taken into account. Interestingly, the RSS always want strict execution of the judiciarys judgment whenever practices of the minority communities, specially Muslims and Christians, are judicially outlawed. Moreover, by the logic of Bhagwat, the tradition that has been accepted by society and continuously followed for years together should not be violated. Then Sati, widow-remarriage, Untouchability, child marriages and slavery would never have been banned in history. This showed what the RSS is. Unfortunately, the RSS opposition to the entry of women in the Sabarimala temple has not been verbal only. The RSS, BJP and its open and hidden organisations have been involved in organising aggressive protests against the Supreme Court judgment. These organisations have declared the CPM-led Kerala Government as anti-Hindu and are working overtime to turn Kerala into another Ayodhya. BJP President Amit Shah, a perennial source of spitting communal venom, criticised the verdict as impracticable. Thus he indirectly declared that Hindus would not accept the Sabarimala verdict of the Supreme Court and turned this into a Communists versus Hindus issue. According to NDTV, BJP President Amit Shahs speech in Kerala using, typical of his style, the language of a school bully, should be seen as a direct assault on the Supreme Court of India. This call completely disregarded the fact that the Kerala Government was simply trying to implement a judgment of the highest court of India which was delivered by a Bench which was headed by a known Hindu Chief Justice, Dipak Mishra. The Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, has rightly commented: It is obvious that both the BJP and RSS want political capital out of it, and are instigating the devotees. Their only intention is to polarise the society for a few votes...These forces have a long history of adopting such diabolical political games. Their only intention is to polarise society on communal lines. For this, they have gone to the extent of indulging in violence and creating strife. Even the abode of Ayyappa was used as a camp for anti-social elements and criminals. We have maintained restraint, considering the sanctity of the place. Let me make it very clear that the Government of Kerala will not tolerate any such acts henceforth. We will ensure that the Supreme Court verdict is implemented in letter and spirit. This exposure comes from a CM who has not wilted under the mass frenzy of the Hindutva organisations and vowed to implement the judgment of the highest court of justice of India. The RSS, which is talking of the sensibilities and beliefs of Keralas Hindu devotees of Sabarimala, has been genetically a believer in gender discrimination. It does not allow women in the RSS. It has a separate womens wing which is known as Mahila Sevika Samiti (society of women servants) whereas the male RSS body is known as swayamsevak or volunteer force. Women RSS cadres remain identified as servants, not volunteers. So far as the RSS love for Keralite Hindus is concerned, we must compare it with the wretched ideas of the second boss of the RSS, M.S. Golwalkar, who also remains the most prominent RSS ideologue till date. Golwalkar was invited to address the students of the School of Social Science of Gujarat University on December 17, 1960. In this address, while underlying his firm belief in the Race Theory, he touched upon the issue of cross-breeding of human beings in the Indian society in history. He said: In an effort to better the human species through cross-breeding the Namboodiri Brahmans of the North were settled in Kerala and a rule was laid down that the eldest son of a Namboodiri family could marry only the daughter of Vaishya, Kashtriya or Shudra communities of Kerala. Another still more courageous rule was that the first off-spring of a married woman of any class must be fathered by a Namboodiri Brahman and then she could beget children by her husband. Today this experiment will be called adultery but it was not so, as it was limited to the first child. [M. S. Golwalkar cited in Organiser, January 2, 1961, p. 5] The above statement of Golwalkar is highly worrying in many respects. Firstly, it proves that Golwalkar believed that India had a superior Race or breed and also an inferior Race which needed to be improved through cross-breeding. Secondly, a more worrying aspect was his belief that the Brahmans of the North (India), and specially Namboodiri Brahmans, belonged to a superior Race. Due to this quality, Namboodiri Brahmanas were sent from the North India to Kerala to improve the breed of inferior Hindus there. Interestingly, this was being argued by a person who claimed to uphold the unity of Hindus the world over. Thirdly, Golwalkar, as a male chauvinist, believed that only a Namboodiri Brahman male belonging to a superior Race from the North could improve the inferior human Race from the South. For him, the wombs of Keralas Hindu women enjoyed no sanctity and were simply objects of improving the breed through intercourse with Namboodiri Brahmans who in no way were related to them. Nobody on this earth can beat the RSS in hypocrisy and double-talk. What unshackled Hindutva zealots are doing in the largest State of the Indian Union would suffice to know what is happening to the minorities in UP led by a Hindutva zealot who hates secularism and democracy. The State is witnessing the highest number of incidence of violence against Christians ever in history. According to a press report from ground zero, Uttar Pradesh, the most populous State in north India, considered to be the most populous country subdivision in the world and led by a sitting high priest of Gorakhpur temple, the Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, is witnessing the highest number of violence against Christians. Whats noteworthy is, it is happening in a district headquarters located to the northwest of the district of Varanasi, which is a parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi...In September [2018] alone, UP has witnessed 25 incidents, out of which 20 were in Jaunpur. Overall, since January 2018, the State has witnessed 59 out of 190 incidents of violence against Christians in India...In these 190 incidents of violence against Christians in 2018 from January to September, 135 women and 115 children were either physically injured or mentally disturbed. Sadly, Nobel Peace Prize winner and child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi was the chief guest at the event. He took along his wife there and told the RSS gathering that the future belonged to the RSS. It is like Malala Yousafzai, who was co-recipient of the Nobel Prize with Satyarthi, going as chief guest to the foundation day programme of Lashkar-e-Taiba led by Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan. Some analysts thought that Satyarthi went to the RSS programme as the RSS/BJP government has files on him. This may not be the only reason. He has been a member of the sleeping cell of the RSS and when Hindutva politics is losing support, all such characters are being asked to come into the open and help the organisation. Earlier Pranab Mukherjee was asked to come to the RSS graduation ceremony (June 7, 2018) for the same reason. Shamsul Islam, a well-known theatre personality, is a former Associate Professor (now retired), Department of Political Science, Satyawati College, University of Delhi. For some of the authors writings in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu and Gujarati see the following link: http/du-in.academia.edu/Shamsullslam Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2018 > Privatisation and Higher Education in India by Anupama Souri Das Introduction The commoditisation of higher education has gained acceptance in recent years. Profit, which was supposed to be illegal in education, has now legally entered into higher education. There has been a paradigm shift in the Twelfth Five Year Plan of higher education for For-Profit Institutions. The Twelfth Five Year Plan has favoured an approach that will endorse private capital in higher education with an eye on profit generation.1 Subramanian notes how today an array of individuals and societies such as corporate companies, religious organisations, hoteliers, realtors, and liquor barons offer private higher education in the country.2 Higher education in India is highly unequal in terms of access, equality, and quality. Though equality, quality, and quantity are inter-related, none-theless these are treated by some as if they compete with each other. J.P. Naik has compared this to an equilateral triangle that regrettably continues to elude the Indian education system. Emphasis is laid on quantity, quality or equity, but not all three of them simultaneously. The system thus ends up in a scalene that is a triangle of three unequal sides. An ideal system of education would bring all the three com-ponents together to build a truly democratic education system.3 This article is thus an attempt to understand the various implications of privatisation of higher education in a highly unequal caste-ridden society like India. The structure of the article is as follows. The first section attempts to understand the emerging characteristics of higher education in India with respect to privatisation. The second section talks about aspects of homogeneity of markets in higher education. The third section discusses the Pubic-Private Partnership (PPP) model in higher education. The fourth section attempts to understand the trends and functioning of neo-philanthropy and higher education. The fifth section discusses the relationship between privatisation and uneven development of higher education. The sixth section concludes by pointing to the inherent power inequalities of markets and the dilemma of social justice for subaltern classes in this market-driven higher education world. (a) Emerging Characteristics of Higher Education in India According to J.B.G. Tilak, higher education in India is characterised by two main factors. One, the development of highly stratified and differentiated system of higher education. Second, the dominance of private higher education, resulting even in the displacement of the public sector that has given rise to a post-welfare state, which may also qualify as a weak state. A weak state is thus a state that shrugs off the responsibilities of welfarism. This differen-tiated or stratified system of higher education has created a small number of elite institutions and a large number of mass institutions. The elite institutions are mainly high-quality public institutes. The government spending is much less on mass institutions and it is largely left to the private sector. The government largely spends on a few high-quality elite institutions based on the underlying assumption that a few high-quality graduates are adequate for rapid economic growth. J.B.G. Tilak states how heavy reliance on the private sector is a poor strategy, reflecting that the state is weak in controlling the market forces and is reluctant to prioritise public higher education. The mushrooming private sector has allowed the government to shift its costs to families through fees and loans. This shift signifies a big ideological shift. Tilak describes it as state opportunism, which may have an ideological element, but demonstrates itself to be the pragmatic path of raising funds from non-governmental resources.4 In India, the so-called meritorious students endowed with cultural capital are admitted to subsidised public institutions of learning, which are relatively of higher quality, while the rest join in low-quality mass institutions that charge huge fees.This is particularly true in technical and professional colleges. The private institutions rely fully on fees, also known as self-financing, where expenditure per student is low, though income per student through fees is quite high. Unfortunately, the development of differentiated or stratified higher education system is not challenged at a significant level in a democratic country like India. Instead, the government is encouraging and partly supporting through affirmative action policies of entry of the market in higher education. Some policies of affirmative action, recently adopted in India, such as fee reimbursement in the form of vouchers, are evidently pro-private in nature. This is related to the principle of quasi-market strategy in which a market-like situation is inserted in education to ensure consumer sovereignty by giving more discriminatory powers to students. In this, market-like elements such as competitions, user charges, and freedom to choose are applied and at the same time education continues to be subsidised.5 The user pay principle is used to put pressure on the institutions and universities to design courses and programmes according to students demands as funding is encouraged to follow the students rather than being directly given to the institutes. Similar attempts of quasi-market strategy have been adopted at the school level in the form of school vouchers. It is based on the principle Fund Students, Not Schools. The proponents of this model of funding argue that public money should follow the students, not the schools, through school vouchers. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman argued: that free-market competition would improve school quality because students and their money would follow the good schools and abandon the bad ones. According to him, it would enable diversifi-cation of students in schools, as poor parents also would be able to send their children to the same schools as the rich. Through Right to Education (RTE), the government has mandated 25 per cent of seats in private schools to be reserved for students from the economically weaker sections of society. This is to make sure that the children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds may also get access to private schools that otherwise may not be possible. This 25 per cent quota is the demonstration based on the assumption that the quality of education in private schools is much better than the government-run schools. If the education in government schools were on par with the private schools, then this section of the Act would not have been necessary.6 Such policies, however, allow the government to continue to remain complacent towards improving the quality of public school education. In the neo-liberal regime, the idea of choice is related to the consumer demand, which should not be confused with the social need, as rightly articulated by Mark Osslen.7 Freedom to choose depends mainly on command over resources and market capacities. In this context, a student with adequate resources will gain access to any institution of her or his choice while the deserving students from the subaltern classes may not get access due to lack of resources. Mark Olssen et al. rightly state that in the guise of consumer sovereignty, markets protect privilege; they deny all students equal access to education; they deny all students exposure to alternative perspectives; they limit the communitys progress as a democratic country, and they undermine the basis of its integration, socially and politically.8 The dominance of the freedom to choose the product over the freedom to choose the provider partly explains the mushrooming of private institutions offering market-oriented professional courses. If education ceases to be supported by the government, then education no longer can serve the largest interests of people. Avijit Pathak states how marketisation could blight the quest for fundamental knowledge as market-oriented courses assume prominence at the expense of the fundamental knowledge like physics, history, and sociology. It can lead to a kind of market-driven hierarchy of knowledge as courses and disciplines which do not sell in the market are seen as irrelevant by students, who, like good investors, are looking for the highest return to their financial investment (fees).9 (b) Homogeneity of Disciplines/Curriculum Earlier, in the sphere of teaching, learning used to be across the spectrum of disciplines. There was never a perfect symmetry or homogeneity. The interests of students decided the choices of courses. Now students and parents, however, show strong favouritism for profit-oriented homogenous curriculum, which will make their children employable. Today, market shapes the popularity and availability of courses to the students. Likewise, the market drives the research agenda of the universities as resources for research in life sciences, medicine, engineering or economics are abundant while resources for research in philosophy, linguistics, history, and literature are scarce. Deepak Nayyar aptly puts it as: There is a premium on applied research and discount on theoretical research.10 The conflicting interest of state and market in higher education is essential to understand the functioning of a university. The motive of the former is to serve society while the objective of the latter is to serve the private interests of students/consumers/clients. The markets area of interests is to teach short-term marketable courses. Its norms of management have limited adherence to academic norms and have high management control. The market is driven by profit, not service. The main concern of the market is skill development. The markets area of interest is specific and not generic. Private universities introduce new vocational and specialised courses for which there are demands in the market because these courses enable them to draw lucrative fees from students. Private institutes fail to acknowledge that profit motive cannot produce results of high quality. Education is a state function in almost all the countries of the world. This rule is not just confined to basic education but is seen even in higher education including higher technical and professional education which is heavily subsidised by the state not only in economies where development policies are inclined explicitly to welfare and equality but also in developed market economies.11 (c) Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Model in Higher Education in India The business tycoons, Mukesh Ambani and Kumarmangalam Birla, submitted their reco-mmendations in a Report on Policy Framework for Reforms in Education, which later came to be known as the Ambani-Birla Report. The report was widely discussed and reviewed because of its strong preference for the user-pay principle in higher education and setting up private universities in the country. (GoI, 2000) The origin of the Narayan Murthy Commission (NMC) Report is the outcome of the Consolidated Working Group Report of the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) for the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. The Working Group proposed an expenditure of Rs 4,13,367.65 crores to implement the various higher education initiatives proposed in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. (GoI, 2011)12 Based on this, Narayan Murthy (GoI, 2012) stated in the forward of his report that (a) the government cannot meet such large higher education demand with the limited public resources, and (b) the government must find innovative and newer avenues for funding, promoting research, and upgrading quality.13 The NMC Report stated that many of the problems confronted by the Indian higher education system arise from its inability to attend to the key issues like faculty shortage, poor infrastructure, unaccredited institutions, employability, quantity mismatch, funding gaps and others. The NMC Report recommended several key elements such as the establishment of a world-class university to fund resources for relevant sectors like urban development, science, technology, innovation and the creation of a Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) as a nodal agency for facilitating collaboration between industry and higher education. An important recommendation in this direction is the proposal for in-company upskilling of employees and collaborative sandwich degree programmes. Another significant recommen-dation in this direction is the promotion of entrepreneurship outlook in students and staff at the university level with the industrys support. Besides this, the CIHE is supposed to develop sector-specific strategies for meaningful corporate sector participation in the higher education sector. Skill-development would be given special attention at the post-graduate and doctoral levels through high-level apprentice-ships and applied research of advanced techno-logies. The other objective is to build 20 new national knowledge clusters through the public-private partnership (PPP) model in selected cities and educational hubs for each of these clusters. The Central and State governments along with contributions from the corporate sector would finance the individual clusters/education hubs. For this purpose, the committee recommended the State governments to allot land free of charge for 999 years for setting up new institutions. The question, however, is: how would such policies be able to meet the wider social concern alongwith the objectives of the NMC recommendation? Such questions are relevant precisely because the commercial model nurtured by the private sector through self-financing insti-tutions in higher education in the past has proven beyond doubt that for the majority of private institutions, profit-making is always more important than social justice. For instance, Saumen Chattopadhyay points out how the distributions of private institutions in India are mainly concentrated in urban areas and access for the poor is yet a concern. A majority of private institutions view and function according to the logic of education as an industry and are structured mainly to make profits.14 The states failure to regulate the growth of private higher education, commerciali-sation, and the failing standards are detrimental to the functioning of democratic higher education. It is argued how a well-organised state is crucial even in developed market economies and its need is even higher in developing countries like India where the markets are imperfect.15 Contemporary critics of neo-liberal develop-ment, such as Prabhat Patnaik, argue that the proponents of the bourgeois state advocate means-based approach of development over rights-based approach of development. The means-based approach of development is the characteristic of the bourgeois state. Rights are guarantors of welfare gains; hence, every winning of rights likewise reinforces them. If rights are constrained or dependent on the capacity of the capitalist order in a bourgeois state then how can they be called rights? When the state breaks the promise of its fundamental duties to provide a bundle of rights on the ground that it cannot financially afford them, then in that case it becomes apparent that these cannot be deemed or reckoned as rights.16 (d) The New Trends of Neo-philanthropy The new trends of philanthropic consultants and volunteerism practices fit into the capitalist system. New ways of organising the gifting of time and money are growing at an extraordinary rate. These legitimise the capitalist system by providing the human face of the market.17 It is argued by some that the authoritarian government often masks itself to appear as the democratic rule. The elite classes and their representativescomprising business tycoons, foreign capital, rich landowners and a section of rich peasantscontrol the bureau-cratic machines. The conventional leaders have perfected the art of concealing the outward appearance as real.18 Philanthropic involvement appears as voicing the aspiration to cut the state involvement from welfare: this makes the state to not provide certain basic fundamental rights to its citizens and explain that there is no need for it to do so as private agents will take care of it. According to Villadsen, in this neo-philan-thropic era, philanthropy has become a welfare part of market activities, thus making the withdrawal of the state legitimate. In order to sustain the culture of philanthropy, it has become imperative that the world does not become equal. In other words, the super-rich need to stay super-rich in order for their charitable enterprises to function.19 For instance, Geneva, which has become a centre of global Philanthropic Advisors, tells the rich where their gifts will be best utilised. The philan-thropic advisors portray the act of giving through philanthropy as an aspiration that can be achieved with their help. This is the commodification of doing good. The more they can convince people to donate their money in favour of the perceived social good, the more money these advisors and consultants would make. The city of Geneva in Switzerland illustrates the extent to which the process of philanthropic giving is implanted in the capitalist structure. The Geneva Global Report, 2012 states how the rhetoric of business and capitalism is applied in philanthropy such as the market ideas of efficiency and performance. It revolutionises the whole act of giving. A few scholars feel that the philanthropic commitment of the public institutions has steadily been declining since the middle of the century. This is because the contemporary potential philanthropy donors lack the required philanthropy, which was exercised by earlier philanthropists.20 The corporate sectors partici-pation in higher education is needed; however, it is uncertain how this can be achieved given the fact that only a handful of private corporates in India have any history of genuine philanthropy in higher education. (e) Privatisation and an Uneven Development of Higher Education The political regime of a country determines the kind of disciplines/subjects which would be preferred more than the others. Many of the powerful, rich and allegedly undemocratic countries have great achievements in exact sciences. For instance, countries like China and Russia have achieved much in electronics, physics, medicine, transportation, and other applied sciences, but these countries have failed to make a mark in subjects like sociology, history, political science, social justice and other subjects in humanities. Many countries are happy without these disciplines and some societies are more content without them and do not bother about their absence. The social science disciplines can flourish only in a democratic society. Societies that focus on citizenship can engage in disciplines such as sociology, political science, history, social justice and other branches of humanities. This is because democracies alone can fortify the foundational principles of social sciences.21 It was noted earlier in the Ambani-Birla and NMC report how there was a greater emphasis on technology-orientated coursesdisciplines that build human capital. Private institutions undermine social science disciplines that speak about social justice and human rights. The economics of education, a newly-founded discourse, view education as a vehicle for human capital developmenta solution both to economic growth and economic mobility of individuals and families. An increasing dominance of the narrow neo-liberal view of education has destabilised the liberal view of education where education is obtained not only to material progress but also to the higher level of civilisation ethos, enlightenment, and democratic citizenship.22 The deeper social goals of education, recognised as democracy of education, has largely been undermined in the current market-driven higher education system. Democracy of education allows public campuses to become a place of dissent, protests, and security for the aspirations of the marginalised sections, advocacy for social justice and equality principles. Technological education has privileged the demands of the market and industry over the needs of democracy to create an egalitarian society. Mona Mehta and Sharan Raghubir rightly explained how an engineer is trained to make and innovate for a demanding economy without understanding the social processes that create certain demands in the first place and to know whether manufactured goods are distributed fairly in an unequal society like India. The technological institutes must respond to the dominant discourse on develop-ment and articulate paradigmatic ideas of what development ought to be for Indias democratic mission. Those coming out of these institutes need to become thoughtful leaders on the question of Indias development rather than passive suppliers of technology.23 In this contemporary era of neo-liberal capitalism, higher education has become more of an investment good than a social good. The basic principle in which the market for higher education is supposed to differ from the market of a commodity is that education is not for doing business. The providers of higher education or universities need to function as not-for-profit organisations. Therefore, it becomes imperative to know what inspires educational providers or institutions to achieve this objective. The application of market principles in higher education questions the basic objectives of education. Is it functioning on behalf of the market or for society? It is argued that market is synonymous with commodification and the more we treat education as any other consumption good like any marketable product, the more we deprive it of its vital role in building a democratic, humane and inclusive society.24 The high demand of IT-related courses such as electronics, engineering, computer science, management courses and a steep decline in the demands of liberal arts, humanities, social sciences, natural and physical sciences have forced several universities to shut some of these departments and courses. Private universities mainly prefer and offer management and IT-related courses. This has resulted in the uneven development of higher education. (f) Market and Inherent Inequality Markets are inherently unequal. Though markets claim that as institutional arrange-ments they are neutral and provide equal opportunity to all in the normative sense, however, in practice, these accentuate deep inequalities as not all the students are equally positioned in terms of command over resources. In other words, not all the students have similar market capacities25 to participate in the market as rightly articulated by David Hogan. Market capacities include informational resources, various elements of social and cultural capitals in terms of education and networks and other such factors. Those who are left out of the market become the victims. This is a far more serious problem in the education sector, as today education has become more of an investment good than a consumption good. The denial of quality school education incapaci-tates individuals from the subaltern castes to social mobility. David Hogan states how education markets: are not just mechanisms that record and aggregates ontologically prior preferences. Rather, markets are structures of power organised around a system of social relations that structure social actions in determinate ways in which the possession of certain attributes or market capacities advantages some individuals and groups relative to others.26 The market, as generally understood, is an institutional management that facilitates the transaction between two kinds of economic agents with conflicting objectivesthe consumers, and the producers. Access to higher education may suffer as privatisation raises the cost of education, and merit is bypassed as a new class of consumer-students emerges with money power that can now choose their product even across providers. The self-financing courses have the virtual freedom to determine the fee structure. The private sector periodically revises the fee structure and loads it with hidden and unjustified demands. The prevalence of capitation fees has a detrimental effect on access despite the policy of the reservation system. It is, therefore, undesirable for the private sector to have autonomy over the fee structure in higher education in the larger interests of society. Moreover, freedom with respect to prices would mean acceptance of making higher education a profit-making institution. This notion goes against the objective function of education, which is to build an inclusive and democratic society. Increasing the capitation fees with the justification of easy availability of loans does not alleviate the problem, as there are many shortcomings of even interest-free education loans for a country like India.27 The private institutions argument against affirmation policies on the ground of efficiency is also questionable. Poor student outcomes and low value added by the private institutions go against the efficiency argument often made by the private sector. The high growth of the private sector in higher education has serious implications on the social justice and equality principles of society. Private institutions use the democratic language which is high on rhetoric to articulate false logic in their arguments. It substitutes the merit-based non-discriminatory admissions for equality-based reservation. The non-discrimi-nation argument made by the private sector is in line with the merit-based argument. The rhetoric behind this argument is that it believes in equal opportunity to all irrespective of class, caste, and gender; nevertheless, in reality, the private sector implicitly gives privileged treatment to the one who has the ability to pay.28 Deepak Nayyar describes how globalisation has influenced the functioning of higher education. Domestic as well as international trade has become acceptable phenomena, along with the emergence of commercially motivated new forms of internationalisation. These trends are noticeable in many developed countries and even in a few developing countries. For instance, as a service, higher education was tradable only in one category where the consumer of a service moved to the status of a producer. Today, however, the cross-border transaction in higher education has entered into each of the following three categories: a) those in which the producer moves to the consumer, as universities, have established campuses in different parts of the world, b) those in which either the producer or the consumer moves to the other, as university-run short-duration courses or summer schools either on their own campuses at home or in leased facilities abroad in the home countries of the students, and c) those in which neither the producer nor consumer moves to the other, as distance education, satellite, open courseware or massive open online courses (MOOCs) do not require physical proximity between the teacher and the students. This opportunity and access nevertheless come at a cost, which may not be affordable to the disadvantaged social groups of a developing country like India.29 The neo-liberal theorists disregard the inherent power inequalities in society. The subaltern classes get lost in this new regime of market-driven inequalities. The question thus remains: what do disadvantaged social groups do in this market-driven fast-changing scenario? We see that market and globalisation offer a blend of opportunities and threats for higher education. How can we capture the opportunities and avoid threats set free by the markets? This is the challenge one needs to deal with. One thing is certain: that we cannot rely on markets to shape and govern our education and research agenda in higher education. Endnotes 1. Bhushan. Sudhanshu (2013): Higher Education in 12th Plan: Paradigm Shift in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 48, Issue No. 4, January 26, pp. 17-19. 2. Eldho Matthews et al. (2013): Engaging the Corporate Sector in Economic and Political Weekly, July 20, Vol. XLVIII, No. 29, p. 41. 3. Naik, J. P. (1975): Equality, Quality and Quantity: The Elusive Triangle in Indian Education (New Delhi: Allied) 4. Tilak, Jandhyala J.B.: (2013a): Higher Education in BRIC Member Countries in Economic Political Weekly, Vol XLVIII, No. 14, pp. 41-47. 5. Teixeira, Pedro, Ben Jongbloed, David Dill and Alberto Amaral (2004): Market in Higher Education: Rhetoric or Reality? pp. 3-4. 6. Hussain, Sadaf, Yadav and Vijayalaxmi (2016): How the Voucher System Can Improve the Nations Quality of Education Daily News and Analysis, May 25. http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-how-the-voucher-system-can-improve-the-nation-s-quality-of-education-2216116 7. Olssen, Mark (1996): In Defense of of the Welfare State and Publicly Provided Education: A New Zealand Perspective, Journal of Education Policy 11 (3), p. 197. 8. Ibid., p. 208. 9. Pathak, Avijit (2009): Recalling the forgotten: Education and Moral Quest, (Delhi: Aakar Books), pp. 155-56. 10. Nayyar, Deepak (2013): Globalisation: What does it mean for Higher Education Concern in Higher education in India: In search of Equality, Quality and Quantity, (ed.) J.B.G. Tilak (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan Private Limited), p. 465. 11. Tilak, Jandhyala. J.B.: (2013b): Higher Education in India: Hanging between State and Market in Higher Education in India: In search of Equality, Quality and Quantity, (ed.) J.B.G. Tilak (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan Private Limited), pp. 391-405. 12. GoI (2011): Consolidated Working Group Report of the Department of Higher Education for the Twelfth-Five Year Plan on Higher Education, Technical Education and Private Sector Participation including PPP in Higher Education (New Delhi: Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India). 13. GoI (2012): Commission on Corporate Sector Participation in Higher Education: Report of N R Narayana Murthy Committee (New Delhi: Planning Commission, Government of India). 14. Mishra, Alya (2011): India: Regulation Lags Private Sector Growth, University World News, Issue No. 197, viewed on June 11, 2017. 15. Tilak, Jandhyala J. B: (2013a): op. cit. 16. Patnaik, Prabhat (2010): A Left Approach to Development, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 45, Issue No. 30, July 24. 17. Sen. Jhanhvi (2015): Commodification of Giving Back in a Neo-liberal World in Economic Political Weekly, Vol. 50, Issue No. 42, October 17, p. 23. 18. Bernard D Mello (2013): The Near and the Far: Why is Indian Political Democracy is Rotten?, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLVIII, No. 22, June 1, p. 36. 19. Beckett, A. (2010): Inside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Guardian, July 10 as cited in McGoey (2012:191). 20. Kapur, Devesh and Pratap Bhanu Mehta (2004): Indian Higher Education Reform: From Half-Baked Socialism to Half-Baked Capitalism, CID Working Paper No. 108, September, Centre for International Development, Harvard University, p. 44. 21. Gupta. Dipankar (2016): Social Science and Democracy in Economic and Political Weekly, January 3, Vol. LI, No. 4, p. 31. 22. Maharatna Arup (2014): Invasion of Educational Universe by Neo-liberal Economic Thinking in Economic and Political Weekly, September 13, Vol XLIX, No. 39, pp. 61-69. 23. Mehta. Mona. G, Sharan Rughubir (2016): IITs and the Project of Indian Democracy in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 51, Issue No. 11, March 12, pp. 12-14. 24. Chattopadhyay, Saumen: (2013): The Markets in Higher Education: Concern for Equity and Quality in Higher education in India: In search of Equality, Quality and Quantity, (ed.) J.B.G. Tilak (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan Private Limited), p. 33. 25. Hogan, David (1999): The Social Economy of Parent Choice and the Contract State in The New Contractualism, (eds.) Glyn Davis, Barbara Sullivan and Anna Yeatman (South Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia) 26. Ibid., p. 330. 27. Chattopadhyay, Saumen: (2013): op.cit., pp. 434-444. 28. Nayak, Dhanwanti (2014): Understanding the Logic of Neo-Liberalism in Education in Economic and Political Weekly, March 29, Vol. XLIX, No. 13, pp. 10-12. 29. Nayyar, Deepak (2013): op. cit., pp. 461-471. The author is doing research at the Centre for Educational Studies, Indian Institute of Education, Pune. China's first self-designed deep-sea exploration vessel returned to port on Sunday after completing a deep-sea geological examination in the Pacific. The Ocean No. 6 returned to port in south China's Guangdong Province after spending 138 days conducting deep-sea surveys over about 30,000 km, according to Yang Shengxiong, chief engineer with Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey. The Ocean No. 6 returns to a port in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, November 11, 2018. [Photo: Chinanews.com] The surveys were conducted in areas with cobalt-bearing crusts in West Pacific. It found out about the conditions of the crusts in more than 30 areas, Yang said. "Samples of the crusts more than 30-cm thick were fetched for the first time," Yang said. The vessel also realized scale collection of cobalt-bearing crusts, while obtaining samples of microplastics along the sea routes in West Pacific. It also analyzed the amount, types and composition of microplastics in the sea, which laid a foundation for the international treatment of plastic waste in the sea. It is the eighth deep-sea expedition of the vessel, which has conducted multiple tasks in the South China Sea, the Pacific and the waters around the Antarctic since 2009. Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2018 > #Metoo Urban Naxal A convention was held in Bangalore on September 5, 2018 as a tribute to Gauri Lankesh who, as per the ongoing investigation, was targeted and shot dead by members of the Right-wing Sanathan Sanstha on that evening a year ago. Girish Karnad, one of the principal initiators of the gathering of about a thousand persons, invited me as one of the five persons who had filed a petition in the Supreme Court, protesting the arbitrary arrests of Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves. Our petition asked for a Special Investigation Team to be set up to investigate the case since the circumstances strongly indicated that highly regarded lawyers, journalists and activists were being targeted for their work, which often involved challenging the state and large corporations. The news of the arrests of the five had not only travelled fast, but had already mobilised protests, meetings, identification with those arrested by a viral twitter trend #Metoo Urban Naxal. At the gathering Girish carried a placard, #MeToo Urban Naxal, hung around his neck. Many others did the same. The mood in the gathering was not only to mourn the loss of a champion for justice and human rights, Gauri, but to mobilise opinion in response to the arrests of the five as Urban Naxals. There was sincere and deep interest and appreciation for the petition, that some of us had filed on behalf of these victims. I cannot but recall how at one time Chhattis-garh, now torn apart with militia, land-owning thugs, industries, who want access to the minerals in the forests, a militant State,had become a model for peaceful negotiations between the tribes that owned the resources and the industries that wanted to exploit them,as well as for affirming the citizenhood of the local people. Chhattisgarh was also famous for developing a model trade union. This was due to the extraordinary work of a young man called Shankar Guha Niyogi. He was perhaps the most effective and popular leader of the States Adivasi people. As a young man he went to Bhilai and found gross exploitation of the Adivasi people by the industries that were coming up there. He soon became involved in the struggles of steel workers. He then began travelling to nearby villages in Chhattisgarh (then a part of Madhya Pradesh). His slogan was Sangharsh aur Nirmaan. Niyogi had conceptualised and built a unique model of trade unionism, of combining class struggle with welfarism. In 1977, he founded the Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh (CMSS) celebrated all over India for its innovative and peaceful ways. Niyogi wanted the union to be integrated in the life of the worker, not be restricted to factories. Later, a political arm of the CMSS was floated called the Chhatisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM), which even contested elections. Niyogi held that a trade unions activity should not be confined to eight hours work-time issues; it has to deal with twenty-four hour issues. With this idea, the new union launched many new experiments in Dalli-Rajhara, where the issue of semi mechanisation was taken up for the first time. Mohalla Committees were set up in order to improve the housing conditions of the workers. In the schools run by the municipality there was no provision for education of the children of contract labourers. Six primary schools were set up for these children under the leadership of the union, and an adult education programme for illiterate workers was undertaken. The pressure of the movement for education compelled the manage-ment to set up a number of primary, secondary and higher secondary schools. He also set up the Shaheed hospital, which provides low-cost and good-quality medical care to workers even today. I had the good fortune of meeting Shankar in 1971 and being accepted as a friend. He was greatly admired by others in the voluntary agency fraternity, so would visit the Gandhi Peace Foundation, GPF. Our office was across the street. If I remember correctly, Susheela Nayar, the then President of the All India Prohibition Council, had invited him to become a member of their Executive Council, as despite the many challenges with his overall programmes, he had introduced prohibition in the villages under the union. I was overwhelmed by Shankars modesty, his sincerity of purpose and his warmth, and openness to ideas and knowledge. We discussed the importance of labour unions, the courage of women and the struggles he was having in enabling the people in Chhattisgarh to lead a better life. Better wages and more organisation. The CMSS, its style of working, its achievements attracted admiration and publicity across the country. It epitomised non-violent solutions to conflict of interest. It taught what role trade unions could play. Shankar was a role model. His prominence invited the wrath of the owners, employers and other unions, shuffling for power and a mass base. He was ultimately murdered in his sleep in 1981, at the age of 48 years.. But his work, the hospital and schools and the ethic he built did not die. He attracted those who had some idealism, some interest in bringing justice to bear on the exploited, such as Sudha Bharadwajone of the recently arrested Urban Naxals. She joined theCMM despite pressures from her mother and others to pursue her academic career. Niyogis non-confrontational, and social service-minded approach to building labour unions attracted her. She continues to work there. It seems bizarre, if not outrageous, that a worker in the CMM should be accused of being a terrorist, which is how I guess the state interprets the Urban Naxals. All these decades and the story has not changedexploitation of natural resources by the corporates, and the use of the Army, the police to overwhelm, kill or silence the real owners of those resources continues. Discontent and anger have deepened and the resistance movements are divided and adopting the tools of the enemy, armed warfare. Persons who are trying to use the pen and the rights framework for healing the oppression are jailed as terroristswith a new name Urban Naxal. In my view the term, Urban Naxal, is silly, ludicroustaking away the seriousness of the struggles of the Adivasi people for their rights, and threatening those who are trying to enable peaceful resolution of these conflicts, through the rights framework, that is, law, as well as literature and public debate. The arrests have not just criminalised these five people but is attempting to criminalise the kind of work they are doing. This is bound to have a chilling effect on anybody who is engaging in perfectly legitimate lawyering, activism, writing etc.and the dying out of social work/human rights activists will be an unconscionable loss for the country. So, when Girish used the tag #Metoo Urban Naxal, and we all joined him, it was to say, that we are not letting the term stigmatise those who stand for the rights of the oppressed, oppressed by the state. By supporting them on a nationwide scale, through our various citizens groups we will hold back this terrorising of voice and action, in support of justiceor in resistance to state terrorism. These arrests are a signal for that kind of policy and approachwe will oppose this trend en masse. All of us will claim to be Urban Naxals. The author, a noted development economist, is a former Member of the South Commission. Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2018 > Remembering Our Nation-building and its Legacy by Arup Kumar Sen A scholar of nationalism, Gabriella Elgenius, reminded us that national symbols, of various kinds, are essential as expressions of nationhood and as such are able to ignite passions and conflicts of a larger, as well as a lesser, kind. The recent construction of the gigantic 182 metre-high Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Statue of Unity at Kevadiya in the Narmada district of Gujarat, built at a cost of Rs 2989 crores, has ignited passions and conflicts of various kinds. The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in justifying the decision of the government to construct such a giant statue, said (October 31, 2018): It was due to Sardar Patels round-the-clock effort that the map of India is what it is today...This years Sardar Jayanti is special,with the Statue of Unity inaugurated today on the banks of the Narmada. Dharti Putra (Son of the Soil) Sardar Patel will stand tall in the skies, to guide us and inspire us. Days before the formal inauguration of the Statue of Unity, voices of dissent were recorded by the local inhabitants of the construction site. Reportedly, the headmen of 22 villages situated near the Sardar Sarovar Dam wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, saying that villagers would not welcome him at the inauguration of the Statue of Unity. The local tribal leaders also announced a boycott of the programme citing destruction of natural resources. The letter signed by the sarpanches of 22 villages stated: These forests, rivers, waterfalls, land and agriculture supported us for generations. We survived on them. But everything is being destroyed now and celebrations are also planned. Dont you think its akin to celebrating someones death? We feel so. While celebrating the contributions of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to our nation-building, we often forget his anti-RSS position. Let us recollect what he said in his address delivered in Madras in 1949: ...We in the government have been dealing with the RSS movement. They want that Hindu Rajya or Hindu culture should be imposed by force. No Government can tolerate this. There are almost as many Muslims in this country as in the part that has been partitioned away. We are not going to drive them away... [The address of Sardar Patel has been reproduced from S. Irfan Habib (ed.), Indian Nationalism: The Essential Writings, Aleph, New Delhi, 2017, pp. 169-71] The irony of history is that on the day the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Statue of Unity was inaugurated by the Prime Minister, the Delhi High Court delivered a verdict that testifies that something is wrong with the long legacy of our nation-building exercise. Thirtyone years after the Hashimpura massacre near Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, the Delhi High Court...reversed a trial court acquittal order and sentenced to life imprisonment 16 personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), who have since retired, for their role in the killing of 38 Muslims. The Division Bench of Justices S. Muralidhar and Vinod Goel characterised the actions of the PAC personnel on May 22, 1987 as brutal and bone-chilling. (See The Indian Express, November 1, 2018) The judgment recorded that a disturbing aspect of the present case is the targeted killings of persons belonging to one minority community. While celebrating our nation-building and its legacy, we should not forget the dark side of the moon. Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2018 > Narmada Appeals to You, Sardar! This letter was written and published on October 30, 2018. Respected Sardar Patelji, Namaskar! Whereever you may be, as our leader of the Freedom Movement, your soul, I know, rests here on the motherland whose beloved son you have always been. Your act of freeing India from the shackles of the royal states and estates and of freeing the farmers from the oppressive tax laws of the British regime is unprecedented even to this day. As the first Home Minister of the first government of Independent India, your firm, non-communal and social approach to the unparalleled violence and the relief work thereafter, was appreciated by none else than Mahatmaji as unique, despite the controversy created by some. You stood tall in the historic freedom struggle of India as the Sardar. But you know, while throwing your legacy by the wayside, a 182 metre-high statue of yours is being unveiled in a few days to be the tallest in the world! Can you imagine who has built your new Avatar? Many Chinese and some local Adivasi and national labourers have worked overnight on the Sadhu Bet, a hillock with the Adivasi deity of their faith. You would surely ask: on whose land would this statue stand? Whose plan was this? This land, river, forest that your Avatar is going to stand on, belong to the Adivasis. The very same people your government and the leaders, Mahatma Gandhi to Pandit Nehru, recognised as villagers with rights, as republics and offered security through Panchsheel. The forefathers of the Indian Constitution, with Babasaheb at the helm, also granted them the right to peace and good government, through the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and later the PESA Act towards self-reliance. You would surely watch from the highland the scene down into the River Narmada and its banks to the basin wide and far. Your vision will find their huts and hamlets in the hills and hillocks, one of which was Varata Bawa Tekri under your feet. Do remember the days when you carried out the operation to integrate the princely states with delicacy and democracy, to make most of them sacrifice voluntarily for unity. By the way, your Avatar is also claimed to be for the same goal, Unity...yet with the insanity of impinging upon not just their land but also their rights. Would you ever think of using force against these simple and least monetised, self-reliant people, as had to be done against the princely state of Junagadh then? Sardar, these Adivasis also belong to the farming community you recognised as the contributors who feed and need to lead. Today, if only you knew the reasons behind their laying down life and cuddling death, you would have taken to the same task and struggle, combing villages and fields as in August 1942. But the most shocking for you, who acquired royal properties, dealt with transfers, created privy purses, would be to know the ways and means of transferring today the life-supporting resources of the very brethren you fought for, receiving acclaim for the social movement you built. Non-cooperation was the non-violent tool you exercised, under the guidance of Bapu then. The same tool is now a weapon in the hands of the Indian rulers, practising neo-colonial ideals. They do not bring in the horses or the Sepoys or take over properties of the rich and the mighty. They take over the very life-lineland, water, river, forest and fishof the weak and the marginalised. Could you ever dream of the Indian Statethe ICS cadres whom you treated as the Patron Saint of the public, and the Cabinet members, whom you warned against partiality and corruptibility and leaving the path of rectitude in your speech on April 21, 1947assuming itself to be powerful enough to not only tax farmers but also exploit them through low prices for the produce and extract GST from small traders and evict the market infrastructure of the poor, the hawkers, in the name of huge, gigantic infrastructure? Is your legacy at stake, Sardar? How could they tolerate suicides by lakhs of farmers? Do please have a look on your left and you will find the six-lane highway running up to 120 kms in length parallel to the Narmada. Lakhs of trees, more than 100 years old, within the last one year had to make way for this highway. The people of Rajpipla, once a princely state that is recorded in history for having defeated Aurangzebs forces, are compelled to be mute spectators, having no channel to vent their Man ki Baat. You, Sardar, once the chairman of the committees responsible for the minorities, tribals, excluded areas and fundamental rights must also know that when your Avatar will be well lit and decorated, the tribal communities, being repressed and oppressed, are to be thrown into darkness. Their lands, in six villages not even legally acquired, following the British law of 1894, but simply taken over, paying a paltry sum of Rs 80/- to Rs 200/ - per acre in 1961, are now being diverted for luxurious hotels named after Shreshtha Bharat or Swaminarayan Complex and even a museum with their own remnants. You, who were successful in recovering the farmlands for the farmers refusing to pay the oppressive tax, would come down to support these tribals who are not granted anything as per the new law of 2013, nor are gifted with alternative land but are being made to accept a Rs 7 lakh package which they too are non-cooperating with. You were at the forefront of such a struggle and having threatened to leave the Congress, had made your party accept the path of non-violent yet militant battle that led you into jail in 1940 and a solid mass protest in 1942, with the shutdown of even the civil services! With your ability to organise the countrymen as also to face the onslaught of the imperialist forces, you could certainly challenge the present powers, the creators of your Avtar, vouching for unity, but practising the divide and rule tactics and promoting or allowing brutality, while denying diversity of creed, culture and religion. If only you take a step forward and downward into the valley of Narmada, you would surely be overwhelmed with the simplicity of these nature-based, generations-old communities, of Adivasis, farmers and fishworkers. Many of them had already lost their lands as it was acquired by the state for the Dam, again in your name, Sardar Sarovar, without paying them compensation worth a rupee. They too walked in your steps, faced attacks, and were sent to jails. (Jail? You had called it a place for peace, in 1943, remember?) The government in 2013 issued orders and made promises to give land for land. But ultimately they are being cheated and evicted out of their balance land for tourism! Do please have an eye on these fast-track operations around, as only you can stop them from further damage...only you can! Sardar, the scale and impact of forcible encroachment upon the lives of the communities in this most ancient Narmada civilisation and valley, can be seen by someone of your stature and perspective. No one can hold your hand today, but you could and would drag the sena/army of bureaucrats out of their villages with your iron hand if only you witnessed their might against the toilers rights. Will you, our beloved leader, engage the powers that be in a thorough review and reflection? Gone are the days when you yourself and Gandhiji had such a discourse on the floor of the jail and evolved a vision of swaraj and self-reliance, of agriculture and village republics. Gone are the days when you valued production by masses to ensure equity in both the economy and social life. I feel ashamed to tell you that there was no need to bring in 1500 Chinese workers here while excluding local Adivasis from Gujarat, your own State, many of whom are compelled to migrate and harvest sugarcane, working day and night. I feel shaken to share with you what is being planned and publicised in your name... Shopping malls, five- or seven-star hotels, luxurious guest houses, helipads, Statewise bhavans on the river bank with all its paraphernaliathe shops, markets, massive food plaza, food courts, walkways, travelators and what not. All this when not less than 35,000 families, affected by the Dam in your name since years, are still awaiting full, fair and just rehabilitation. They never marketised Narmada, nor its water. They are damned by the Dam but are most awed and anguished to see their sacrifice being taken as a capital for the Tourism Industry and, as everyone knows, political tourism too. They are sad that the farmers of Gujarat, the progeny of your movements, are left high and dry... while the corporates reap huge benefits. Your contribution to the farmers and vision of India are enshrined with that of Mahatmaji and Nehru in all our memories. You accepted Panditji, and vowed for unity within the Congress. The common citizens of this country have no place in this gigantic play today, Sardar. All lights will be on you, the Avatar, Sardar, while throwing everything that you practised and preached intentionally to the dark recesses of history books, and the future of the Adivasis and this country is being sealed with the new paradigm. Your generation was aware of two vicescorruption and communalism. The spirit behind your sermons, given then, is needed today. Your No to communalism was reflected in your appeal to the religious leaders during communal violence following the partition that was inevitable. Your speeches across India and a letter to Guruji Golwalkar against the Hindu fundamentalist vision of the RSS asking them to change and get integrated, are to be read and imbibed by every citizen of the country today. Those who are hiding behind your new Avatar, and marketing you, have never engaged themselves to understand your thoughts and your action to overcome violence, to move from monarchies to democracy, from monopoly and hegemony to equity and fraternity. They do not visit the families of those lynched by mobs. They do not respect the resolutions of the Adivasis. They do not value agriculture or the agriculturists. But they are staking a claim to your name, Sardar. They hail the tallness of your Avatar while they are consumed in their own pettiness. Adivasis know all this. Evicted since 1961, the Adivasis cant take it anymore. No Jaykaras! No celebrations from them. They mourn, they protest, they condemn and challenge as they know their mother river, not just gods and goddesses but culture and nature, and their very life is threatened again and again. Their forefathers too had fought the British, and with their perseverance had held on to the land then. They are in a new freedom struggle, asserting self-determination. They are not a part of this game in your name, worth Rs 3500 crores with about Rs 200 crores illegally collected from public enterprises as CSR, as per a CAG report. What is CSR? That will be for another letter on another day, Sardar... Your Avatar shall stand tall, Sardar. In the midst of the river, on the Varata Bawa Tekri. We watch with hope that your Avatar shall watch over and stop all that is unjust, against unity, equity and sustainability. We seek the blessings and support of your iron hand for today and for ever. We look forward to having you there when the Adivasis raise their voice, amidst festive tourists who will gather on the 31st and every day, with or without your legacy, but all vows for a new touristocracy. We know you alone will listen to the Adivasis, their cry to halt, inspiring them to fight for their rights and the Mother Rivers too! Narmada appeals to you, Sardar! With respectful tribute, Medha Patkar Medha Patkar is a renowned crusader against large dams that cause massive displacement of people. She can be contacted at e-mail: medha.narmada[at]gmail.com Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2018 > BJPs Bypoll Reverses, Ram Temple Issue EDITORIAL The results of the by-elections in Karnataka have definitely given a boost to the JDS-Congress ruling alliance in the State while the Opposition BJP has been routed. The JDS-Congress alliance has won four seats while the BJP could notch up a relatively narrow victory in one. On the political plane this is the most striking news of the day whose importance can barely be minimised. It would be premature to conclude that these results would set the stage for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in the sense that the parliamentary elections would witness a repeat of the outcome of these polls. However, there is no difference among analysts that the BJP at the State level has failed to cash in on the divergences in the ruling alliance. The outcome shows that despite hiccups the alliance is working well and has quite a popular support behind it. It also shows that in the coming days the idea of the Opposition parties mahagathbandhan against the BJP led by the Modi-Shah duo would play a noteworthy role in influencing the 2019 polls. At the same time todays poll outcome is a reflection of the popular disenchantment with the BJPs governance at the Centre as the ruling party in New Delhi has failed to implement the tall promises it had made since 2014 when it assumed power on the crest of such promises which have yet to be translated into reality. If this is any indication of things to come, it would indeed be difficult for the BJP to repeat its 2014 performance in 2019. That is not good news for the Right-wing government headed by the saffron organisation. Meanwhile at Ayodhya the BJP is on the horns of a dilemma. Some days ago it appeared that it would harp only on the Ram temple construction issue to win the polls keeping the development plank based on the sabka saath sabka vikas slogan on the backburner. Yet UP CM Yogi Adityanaths speech at Ayodhya on the occasion of chhoti diwali today is a manifestation of the fact that for the present at least it is doing just the opposite: returning to the development paradigm keeping the majoritarian consolidation for the Ram temple construction on the sidelines. Whether this is in deference to the Apex Court of the land which is already seized of the Ram temple issue only time will tell. But the change in its tactics is unmistakable and this has caused disappointment in some sections of the BJP. The change of the Faizabad districts name to Ayodhya, decision to set up a medical college there in the name of King Dasarath, construction of an airport at Ayodhya in the name of Lord Ram are all fine but these cannot placate the Hindutvavadis conducting the Ram temple movement. Yet these do not mean that the Ram temple issue has been abandoned. It will certainly be taken up at an opportune moment. The situation is thus quite fluid. But one should be vigilant about the future. For the intention of the BJP leaders, from the PM downwards, to exploit majori-tarian proclivities is a fact of life that cannot be ignored. November 6 S.C. New Delhi : The Supreme Court Monday declined early hearing of petitions in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case. A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said it had already listed the appeals before the appropriate bench in January. "We have already passed the order. The appeals are coming up in January. Permission declined," the bench said while rejecting the request of early hearing of lawyer Barun Kumar Sinha, appearing for the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha. The top court had earlier fixed the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case for the first week of January before an "appropriate bench", which will decide the schedule of hearing. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and senior advocate CS Vaidyanathan, appearing for the UP government and deity Ramlala respectively, had sought early listing of the appeals in the case after referring to their long pendency. Earlier, a three-judge bench, by a 2:1 majority, refused to refer to a five-judge constitution bench the issue of reconsideration of the observations in its 1994 judgement of the Allahabad High Court that a mosque was not integral to Islam. The matter had arisen during the hearing of the Ayodhya land dispute. Teachers and PRC volunteers organize extracurricular activities for the students to supplement the lessons theyve learned inside the classroom. Philippine Red Cross community-centered approach includes training the trainers sessions for community leaders and members According to the World Health Organization, 25 million Filipinos are at risk of intestinal worm infections or soil-transmitted helminthiases, while 12 million are at risk of acquiring schistosomiasis.These tropical diseases have been found to impact children as young as one year old and as old as 14-15 years, putting their entire basic education in jeopardy. A study published in the journalrecommended that treatment for intestinal worm infections include not only administering macro or micronutrient supplements, but also providing health education, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) education and facilities. One of the lesser-known factors impacting malnutrition is access to safe drinking water, well-maintained WASH facilities, and WASH education, said Nestle Philippines senior vice president for marketing, communication, and innovation Paolo Mercado. Nestle Philippines United for Healthier Kids campaign has linked up with the Philippine Red Cross to help drive volunteers for the latters WASH programs.Safe drinking water and sanitation are fundamental for a childs health and well-being. In countries with high child mortality rates, diarrhea accounts for more deaths in children under the age of five than any other cause, said Philippine Red Cross health services officer-in-charge Mark Abrigo. Philippine Red Cross Childrens Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (CHAST) program aims to introduce WASH programs in non-emergency situations at public schools. Teachers and Philippine Red Cross representatives conduct interactive sessions within school hours to discuss hygiene and sanitation with schoolchildren, incorporating these lessons with other subjects such as Values Education, Science, and even Homeroom. Ensuring that both hygiene promotion and accessible WASH facilities are in place greatly affect how children would practice and perform consistently in school, noted Philippine Red Cross WASH office manager Brian Enriquez. Enriquez continued, Having accessible and functional WASH facilities would contribute to increased interest in attending classes. For instance, in the absence of proper facilities in schools, there are instances students would go home in the middle of the school day in order to use their toilets at home.Outside of class hours, the program also encourages peer-to-peer sessions, where games and arts and crafts activities are organized to reinforce the lessons taught in the classroom. The Philippine Red Cross also constructs water and sanitation facilities in schools that are both gender-appropriate and accessible for persons with disability. Volunteers under the CHAST program, meanwhile, distribute hygiene kits to students, which consist of a toothpaste and toothbrush, hand soap, towel, nail clipper, comb, and cotton buds. After rolling out the CHAST program and building WASH facilities in areas such as La Union, Ifugao, and Pangasinan, Philippine Red Cross saw an increase in children washing their hands at critical times, more frequent maintenance in restrooms and school surroundings, and proper disposal and segregation of garbage. One school in La Union, Sucoc Elementary School, invested in a deep well to provide water for students all year round. The availability of clean water encouraged the students to practice hand washing and other hygiene promotion activities more regularly. Another school, Asipulo Central School, installed four indoor restrooms with hand washing counters, which has led to students developing healthier habits. To sustain and expand its CHAST program, the Philippine Red Cross needs regular volunteers to teach lessons, help build WASH facilities, and teach WASH lessons to teachers and community leaders. They also need donations for hygiene kits, WASH facilities, and training programs. Interested parties can donate P120 for one hygiene kit for a student, P1,000 for supplies for CHAST school-based activities, P3,000 for sanitation kits for five toilet units, P65,000 for a four-faucet hand washing facility, P235,000 for a two-seater toilet with hand washing facility, and P100,00 for a rainwater harvester. Philippine Red Cross can also train 20 school representatives on CHAST for P50,000 and conduct a train the trainers session consisting of 25 participants for P350,000. Port MoresbyPapua New Guinea has deployed a multinational force of warships, fighter jets and elite counter-terrorism troops to protect world leaders attending a major summit in its crime-plagued capital this week. About 4,000 military personnel, around half of them foreign, will work with hundreds of police to patrol Port Moresby for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum from Saturday, which will attract representatives from 21 nations. Attendees are set to include Chinas President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US Vice President Mike Pence, who is not even expected to sleep in the city, but stay overnight in Australia. Up to 15,000 delegates are expected at the summit. Due to a shortage of hotel accommodation, many of them will bunk down on three cruise liners docked at the port, presenting additional security complications. Although the threat posed by terrorism in PNG is considered minimal, the Melanesian countrys reputation for lawlessness and violent crime precedes it. About half the capitals 300,000 people live in squatter settlements, and it was ranked fourth-last in this years Economist Intelligence Unit list of the worlds most liveable cities. Feared street gangs known as raskols have made car jackings common and the country has among the highest rates of rape and domestic violence in the world. To ensure delegates are safe, the government has enlisted military help from Australia, the United States and New Zealand. Canberra is bankrolling much of the security operation. It has sent a 1,500-strong Australian Defense Force (ADF) contingent, along with RAAF F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters, surveillance aircraft and a helicopter carrier moored in Port Moresby harbor. Vessels from Australia, New Zealand and the US will guard the capitals shores, and all three countries have provided special forces. Working alongside them in an operation that has taken more than a year to plan will be about 2,000 Papua New Guinea troops. A headline in the Post-Courier newspaper last week proclaimed an APEC Invasion, although Joint Security Task Force (JSTF) chief Commissioner Gari Baki told Port Moresby residents the foreign troops were nothing to worry about. I would like to reassure the community that they should not be alarmed, he said, noting the international force was here at our request. The government has passed laws allowing international security personnel to use lethal force if necessary to deal with an imminent threat during the summit.Former PNG defense force chief Jerry Singirok has raised concerns the move impinges on the countrys sovereignty. But Canberra-based military think tank the Australia Defense Association said if developing nations such as Papua New Guinea did not accommodate foreign security contributions, they would never be able to host major events like the APEC summit. That wouldnt be good from a strategic level or a political level, executive director Neil James said. The huge numbers of police and military in Port Moresby for the summit meant crime is not going to be a problem, he added. The government views the summit as a rare opportunity to showcase Papua New Guinea to the world and attract investment to the poorest of APECs 21 member nations. Its a major undertaking, but its very important when it comes to promoting the country economy-wise, said Justin Tkatchenko, the minister responsible for planning the summit. Weve never had leaders like this... ever come to this area... The whole world will be watching. More than a third of Papua New Guineas 8.5-million population lives below the poverty line, while tribal and political violence is a recurring problem, particularly in the Highlands region. Port Moresby itself has been given a facelift for the summit, with major infrastructure projectsmany funded by China. Outside the capital, economic growth driven by the development of resources has stalled, leaving the vast majority of the population with poor basic services such as health and education. Many have questioned why vast sums are being spent on APEC-including 40 Maserati cars worth more than $150,000 eachwhen provincial hospitals are struggling with chronic shortages of medical supplies. But Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister Charles Abel said making a positive impression at APEC, which collectively accounts for 60 percent of global GDP, could make a difference. We need investment, we need partnerships, we need capital to develop our country, he said. So APEC is going to present a wonderful marketing opportunity for Papua New Guinea because theres so many opportunities with the wealth that we have and the beautiful people that we have and the wonderful culture that we have. A As Europe commemorates the centenary of the end of the First World War, now is the right time for Britain to put the record straight on Chinese laborers' contribution and thank them, said a lead campaigner. Steve Lau, chair of the Ensuring We Remember campaign for a permanent memorial in Britain to the Chinese Labor Corps, said in a written interview that the purpose of the memorial is to give the Chinese laborers the same dignity as everyone else. An estimated 100,000 Chinese volunteers were recruited for the British Chinese Labor Corps and transported to the western front to assist the Allies. Some 40,000 others were estimated to have served with the French forces. World leaders gathered on Sunday morning at the Arch of Triumph in Paris to mark the Armistice Day. Despite suffering heavy casualties - estimates are in tens of thousands - from the war as well as harsh conditions, the contribution of the Chinese laborers, who were referred to as "coolies" (laborers), or "chinks" at the time, has routinely been overlooked or relegated to a footnote in history. "I feel that Britain made a promise "Never to Forget" and each year on November 11," said Lau, "It's time to make good on that promise for the Chinese - I do not believe the Chinese should be treated any better than any other group, but equally, they should not be treated any worse. Unfortunately, they have been treated worse for a very long time." There's a lot of room for increased research into Chinese laborers, he said. In one episode, there were some 3,000 stranded Chinese sailors who arrived in the UK on British ships that were then requisitioned by the military, and could find no ship to work on, Lau said. These men worked in munitions factories, build many of the new aerodromes and famously there is a flood defence wall build at Orford Ness known even today as the Chinese wall. There is no published research on these men either, according to Lau. "It is also good to remind the British people that China was a friend and ally in both World Wars, and that China remains a friend of the UK," Lau said. "The so-called China threat is a myth created by people who do not understand China or deliberately want to paint a bad picture of China's rise. The story can show the other side of the argument, not of a China threat, but of the China friend," Lau said. A memorial in honor of the Chinese laborers slated to be erected in Britain is currently under construction in China, Lau added. One Direction More Likely for Bitcoin Price The recent period of sideways trading may make traders impatient or even discouraged altogether. At any rate, those who crave more action in Bitcoin could be driven out of the market. But this is no time to bet on Bitcoin staying docile. If the recent months havent exactly been rosy for Bitcoin traders, there are avenues which might offer more optimistic news. Unlikely avenues, perhaps. A report by Morgan Stanley suggests that Bitcoin might have become an asset class for institutional investors. In an article on CoinDesk, we read: Institutional investors are increasingly getting involved in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies while the number of retail investors in the space is staying stagnant according to a new report by Morgan Stanley. In an update to "Bitcoin Decrypted: A Brief Teach-In and Implications," the global banking giant's research division delved into the last six months of bitcoin and highlighted certain trends it noticed. The report is dated October 31.Perhaps most notably, the report emphasized its writers' view of the market's "rapidly morphing thesis," which began by defining bitcoin as "digital cash" and noting that investors had full confidence in it, to a solution for issues in the financial system, to a new payment system to ultimately a new institutional investment class.Various issues and discoveries around the bitcoin ecosystem have caused the thesis to evolve, including the permanent ledger recording all transactions, a number of hacks, hard forks, new technologies which are cheaper than bitcoin, market volatility and other concerns, the report explains. As such, the market's current thesis appears to be that bitcoin is a "new institutional investment class," and has been for almost a year, the authors wrote. The amount of crypto assets under management has been increasing since January 2016, with $7.11 billion currently being stored by hedge funds, venture capital firms and private equity firms. This is quite interesting as it shows that the demand for Bitcoin might be changing from one driven by individual speculation to one where institutional investors are gaining exposure to Bitcoin just as they do to other assets. It would seem to us that this is not exhausted. It might be the case that a lot more capital could enter the Bitcoin market in the years to come. One hurdle is the process of acquiring Bitcoin. Theres no easy vehicle to do that and institutional investors have to use tailor-made solutions with other financial institutions to enter the market. But this is not that different to what we had in gold and silver before the ETF era. And just as the launch of the GLD ETF gave access to the market to a broader spectrum of investors, any Bitcoin ETF or other Bitcoin-based vehicles might channel the institutional demand into the Bitcoin market. 78.6% Fibonacci Retracement in Play On BitStamp, we saw a move up but todays action is quite different in that Bitcoin has gone down more visibly. Recall our previous comments: () The main thing, apart from the price move, that suggests a bullish outcome is the move above the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level based on the July rally. However, this move has not been confirmed just yet. This means that any bullish indications here are not yet present. If we take a look at the volume, the move up hasnt been confirmed by it either. This suggests that the appreciation were seeing now might not be anything more than just a counter-trend correction. Even if the 78.6% level is broken to the upside, this doesnt have to have immediately strong bullish implications as the 61.8% level would be the point where Bitcoin could be stopped either way. The move above the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement is now confirmed, but this only has mildly bullish indications at this time. Actually, Bitcoin has been on the move down to this level. How the currency acts at this retracement is potentially more important. If we do see a breakdown back below this level, this could be the bearish trigger weve been waiting for. At the same time, a move up is not immediately strongly bullish as the 61.8% retracement is a level which could stop a potential move higher. Tenuous Position On the long-term Bitfinex chart, the price action is pretty much the same as we wrote in our last alert. A quick reminder: The recent appreciation is still part of the dance around the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level based on the move from around $3,000 to $20,000 the all-time high. The 78.6% level is turning out to be the level to which Bitcoin is glued. This has been the case, with exceptions, since August. Particularly, since September we have seen limited volatility, with one exception. What this might mean is that trading in the proximity of the 78.6% retracement has now become the default mode. Any significant move away from this level might break this regime. Consequently, any visible move away from this level could herald the beginning of a new powerful action in the currency. With Bitcoin in a long-term downtrend and below the 78.6% retracement in a confirmed breakdown, the situation remain bearish. No real change here. The recent action still fits in quite well with the scenario in which Bitcoin stays glued to the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement until it doesnt. Any stronger move away from this level might provide a trigger for the next move. In the current environment, it seems that this trigger might be to the downside. Summing up, when Bitcoin deviates from the current sideways course, a more sizable decline might transpire. If you have enjoyed the above analysis and would like to receive free follow-ups, we encourage you to sign up for our daily newsletter its free and if you dont like it, you can unsubscribe with just 2 clicks. If you sign up today, youll also get 7 days of free access to our premium daily Gold & Silver Trading Alerts. Sign up now. Regards, Mike McAra Bitcoin Trading Strategist Bitcoin Trading Alerts at SunshineProfits.com Disclaimer All essays, research and information found above represent analyses and opinions of Mike McAra and Sunshine Profits' associates only. As such, it may prove wrong and be a subject to change without notice. Opinions and analyses were based on data available to authors of respective essays at the time of writing. Although the information provided above is based on careful research and sources that are believed to be accurate, Mike McAra and his associates do not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the data or information reported. The opinions published above are neither an offer nor a recommendation to purchase or sell any securities. Mr. McAra is not a Registered Securities Advisor. By reading Mike McAras reports you fully agree that he will not be held responsible or liable for any decisions you make regarding any information provided in these reports. Investing, trading and speculation in any financial markets may involve high risk of loss. Mike McAra, Sunshine Profits' employees and affiliates as well as members of their families may have a short or long position in any securities, including those mentioned in any of the reports or essays, and may make additional purchases and/or sales of those securities without notice. Mike McAra Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. What Is the Difference Between Democrats and Republicans? In Minnesota, democrat Keith Ellison had domestic assault charges lodged against him. His accuser filed a police report and exhibited bruising around her face. The accusers own adult son verified the assault. The voters of Minnesota elected Mr. Ellison as their attorney general. In New Yorks District 14, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the unopposed House of Representative seat after republicans withdrew support of their candidate, Anthony Pappas. Why? Mr. Pappas was accused of domestic violence. Apparently believe the women only applies to democratic women with an ax to grind against republicans. So, logically, accusations lodged by women are fungible and dependent on political affiliation? Now we know the difference. It has to do with morals. To democrats, we are not all equal, apparently. Equality depends upon whether or not there is a D attached to our political affiliation. Democrats are mad as in insane. The US education system has been terminally infected and infested by democratic liberals. If you love your children, do not surrender their minds to these serpents. I have read that several university indoctrination centers (Ohio University for one) are broadening the racial divide on campus. Several institutions have already enacted separate orientation and graduation events for black students. Some have even dedicated certain days that only black students are allowed on campus. My own alma mater has proposed such an idea. Im sure that coming soon to a campus nearby there will be cafeterias labeled White Only and water fountains labeled Colored Only. The KKK must be so proud that their ideas are alive and well on school campuses and in liberal democratic hearts. Government forced segregation is returning! Soneone quick, raise the Confederate Battle Flag in the center of campus! Odd, isnt it that these are the same insane indoctrinators that are busy telling boys and girls that they are the same. Some are now suggesting that boys and girls should be allowed to use the same restrooms and showers. So, they want their subjects to believe their is no difference between sexes but there is a big difference between races? Who knew? Democrats are segregationists. Dr. David Jeremiah is the senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego, California. I would encourage everyone to listen to him speak. We wont hold his residency in a state of lunacy against him. He recently wrote: One way Satan strikes us is by creating rage and bitterness in our hearts. Everyone has moments of anger, but when that anger settles into hatred, resentment, and a grudge-like spirit, were in danger of giving place to the devil. As anyone observed from the Judge Kavanaugh SCOTUS hearings, any people, any group that bears false witness against another person is committing a heinous act. This comes from demonic service. So, we can conclude that democrats are mad. They are an army of brainwashed, ignorant, uneducated, servants. They are demonic. They are just dumb. I think of it this way. Congresswoman Maxine Waters has led a chorus of other democrats to instigate violence and harassment against all who disagree with their marxist, satanic ideologies. We have all seen Maxines brown shirt army known as antifa in action. Thus the acronym for democrats - M.A.D.D - Maxines Army of Demonic Dumbasses. Barry M. Ferguson, RFC President, BMF Investments, Inc. Primary Tel: 704.563.2960 Other Tel: 866.264.4980 Industry: Investment Advisory barry@bmfinvest.com www.bmfinvest.com www.bmfinvest.blogspot.com Barry M. Ferguson, RFC is President and founder of BMF Investments, Inc. - a fee-based Investment Advisor in Charlotte, NC. He manages several different portfolios that are designed to be market driven and actively managed. Barry shares his unique perspective through his irreverent and very popular newsletter, Barrys Bulls, authored the book, Navigating the Mind Fields of Investing Money, lectures on investing, and contributes investment articles to various professional publications. He is a member of the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants, the International Speakers Network, and was presented with the prestigious Cato Award for Distinguished Journalism in the Field of Financial Services in 2009. 2018 Copyright BMF Investments, Inc. - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The views discussed in this article are solely the opinion of the writer and have been presented for educational purposes. They are not meant to serve as individual investment advice and should not be taken as such. This is not a solicitation to buy or sell anything. Readers should consult their registered financial representative to determine the suitability of any investment strategies undertaken or implemented. BMF Investments, Inc. assumes no liability nor credit for any actions taken based on this article. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. When Venezuelan oppositionist and newspaper editor Teodoro Petkoff died on October 31, at the age of 86, the worlds capitalist media and reactionary intellectuals on the continent piled in to sing his praises. However, to workers in Venezuela above a certain age, he is remembered as Teochoro (Teothief), the man who as Minister in the Caldera government in the 1990s carried out a brutal program of privatisations and above all stole the workers social benefits. The best president Venezuela never had said the Financial Times. His struggle for freedom of expression and defense of human rights will never be forgotten, cried Luis Almagro, general secretary of the OAS, conveniently glossing over the fact that Petkoff cheered on the undemocratic coup against president Chavez in April 2002 from the frontpage of his newspaper TalCual (Chau Hugo was the headline). The same disregard for the facts was shown by Dorothy Kronick, who in the New York Times described the deceased as a restless defender of democratic values. A giant of Venezuela's politics gloated the Associated Press piece on his death. From the point of view of the ruling class and its defenders, in Venezuela and in Washington, Petkoff was too good to be true. He was not only a fierce opponent of president Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution, but he was also a former Communist and guerrilla fighter. By pointing at him, the imperialists could say: see, even leftists oppose the authoritarian Chavez, even those who in their youth fought against the system, finally saw sense and accommodated to it. An apostate is a thousand times better from the point of view of propaganda than someone who has always been on the side of law and order. Teodoro Petkoff was born in El Batey, south of the Maracaibo Lake, in 1932 to Jewish migrants, his father from Bulgaria, his mother from Poland. He joined the Communist Party (PCV) in 1949, still a teenager, and soon joined the movement against the Perez Jimenez regime. In 1950 the party was outlawed and Petkoff was arrested on three occasions for his student activism. He studied Economy at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas where he became a president of the students centre. From Communist guerrilla... In 1961, under the influence of the victory of the Cuban revolution, the 3rd Congress of the Venezuelan Communist Party decided to take the road of guerrilla struggle, founding the National Liberation Armed Forces (FALN). This was the only communist party in Latin America where the debate between the Cubans and the Russians, firmly wedded to peaceful coexistence, was won by the former. At that time Petkoff was elected to the partys Central Committee. The guerrilla activities of the party served as an excuse for the Romulo Betancourt government to increase repression against both the PCV and the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), close down their offices and newspapers and arrest their members of parliament (amongst them Petkoff himself). In 1962, Petkoff, joined the FALN Jose Leonardo Chirinos Front under the command of Douglas Bravo, together with his brother Luben, and fought in the mountains of Falcon and Yaracuy. As part of the FALN guerrillas he was arrested three times. First in 1963, when he vomited blood he had swallowed to feign illness, was transferred to a Military Hospital and managed climb down from the seventh floor. In 1964 he became a member of the partys Political Bureau. After his second arrest in June 1964, he managed to escape the Cuartel San Carlos, in Caracas, in 1967, together with fellow guerrillas and PCV Politbureau members Pompeyo Marquez and Carlo Betancourt, through a tunnel Communists on the outside had built. By 1967, the PCV decided to abandon armed struggle, a decision which led to a the expulsion of Douglas Bravo who founded the Party of the Venezuelan Revolution. Petkoff supported the expulsion of his former comrade in arms Bravo. In 1969 the PCV signed a pacification deal with the newly elected government of Romulo Betancourt, who had defeated Leoni. As a result of the deal, Petkoff was released from jail. In 1969, Petkoff wrote a book called Czechoslovakia, socialism as a problem which was fiercely critical of the Soviet invasion of the country in 1968. Petkoff broke with Stalinism and particularly the two stage strategy, but initially remained a committed socialist. He didnt only criticise Stalinism in relation to Czechoslovakia but then went on to launch an attack on the idea of the existence of a progressive bourgeoisie in Venezuela. In his book Socialism for Venezuela published in 1970, he criticised the Stalinist two-stage theory which had been at the core of the PCVs policies since its founding. The text is worth quoting at length: One of the sacred myths of Stalinism was the existence of a national bourgeoisie that could be counted on to support the national liberation struggle. This schema presumed that a section of the national bourgeoisie had developed with so little connection with imperialism that, under the colossal pressure of competition from imported goods and faced with the combined power of the imperialist economies and the local big bourgeoisie, it possessed an anti-imperialist capacity that meant it could collaborate in a meaningful way in a grand, multi-class front for national liberation.To this end, the party programmes made important concessions, including the fundamental one of limiting the objectives of the revolutionary transformation of the country to a bourgeois-democratic phase, offering the perspective of the expansion of national capitalisms once imperialist domination was broken and the internal market enlarged by agrarian reform. Of course each Communist Party proclaimed the hegemony of the proletariat but, in practice, tail-ended the national bourgeoisie. Lowering the revolutionary content of their programmes and undertaking activities that included strike breaking and denouncing political opponents to the secret police meant losing the support of sectors of the working class, the peasants and the poor. The examples of the bourgeois democratic revolutions in Mexico nearly two hundred years ago, and in Bolivia and Cuba after World War II had should have demonstrated in practice the inability of the national bourgeoisie to lead the democratic revolution. But there are none so blind as those that wont see. Petkoff concluded; Up to now operation national bourgeoisie has not enabled us to win either this bourgeoisie .... or the working class. ... What does this conception of national unity, of which the leadership of our party was the most outspoken champion ... have to do with Marxism? ... it is nothing but a new formulation of the policy of class collaboration. (Quoted in Lowy, M., Marxism in Latin America from 1909 to the Present). This was a damning condemnation of the whole strategy of the Venezuelan Communist Party and that of the whole of Stalins Communist International and was echoing Trotskys own criticisms four decades earlier. This led to an intervention by the Soviet Union which saw Petkoff as a serious threat. He was denounced in a lengthy Pravda article signed by Comrade A. Mosinev accusing Petkoff of being an anti-Leninist, of having a special hatred of the Soviet Union, being a renegade and anti-socialist. The article was meant to stiffen the resolve of party leader Jesus Faria who was vacillating on the question of taking disciplinary measures against Petkoff. Petkoffs positions won widespread support in the party and a majority amongst the youth, some of whom had been in Czechoslovakia at the time of the Soviet intervention and were able to refute the official line from the point of view of eyewitnesses. In the run up to the partys Fourth Congress, Petkoff together with the centrists, led by Pompeyo Marquez, won half of the delegates. That led to the delay of the congress and the intervention of the Politbureau (dominated by the hard-line Stalinists) in the party organisations in Caracas and Miranda. The debate led to the convening of two separate congresses in January 1971, one of which was the official PCV congress, the other the founding of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). The official IV Congress of the party ratified the expulsion of 22 Politbureau members, amongst them Teodoro Petkoff and Pompey Marquez. Right from the beginning of the MAS, Petkoff made concessions to the formed PCV centrists around Marquez (who was elected general secretary of the new party). The program of the MAS was basically that of Marquez with minor changes. Typically, Petkoff had a cavalier attitude towards ideas, being ready to abandon them in favour of unity with others. Soon the party, following the evolution of many critics of Stalinism internationally, moved towards social-democracy and acceptance of the capitalist system. In quick succession they formally renounced Leninism, then orthodox Marxism and finally Marxism altogether (in 1974), to then request affiliation to the Second International (1980). to capitalist minister... In the 1993 election, the MAS decided to support Rafael Caldera, instead of backing left-winger Andres Velasquez, from La Causa R (The Radical Cause). La Causa R had been founded by former Communist guerrilla Alfredo Maneiro, who had been expelled from the PCV together with Petkoff but had not stayed in the MAS, and his party managed to build a powerful class-struggle trade union movement in Guayana, gaining the leadership of the SUTISS union at the huge steel works SIDOR. By the time of the 1993 election LCR had moderated its political positions, but nevertheless was the best positioned left candidature. The MAS and a whole host of small left parties, including the PCV, decided to support Caldera, thus depriving La Causa R of any chance of winning. The coalition of these small groups of contradictory ideologies, became known as el chiripero (after the Venezuelan name for small cockroaches). The 10% of the votes which the Petkoff led MAS contributed to the Caldera list would have been enough to make Velasquez the winner of that election. As a reward for his support, Caldera appointed Petkoff as one of his ministers in 1996. Pompeyo Marquez also got a ministerial position. The appointment came at a time when the Caldera government (which had come to power promising to reverse the neoliberal policies of Carlos Andres Perez) was besieged by economic crisis and needed a sharp turn to the right in its economic policies. Petkoff was the ideal candidate to carry out that program, covering the sale of the country to private and multinational interests with the mantle of having been a left-wing guerrilla. The MAS participation in the Caldera government was very controversial within the party, but Petkoff managed to hold the line. He became the most pragmatic of planning ministers in the 1990s, deftly negotiating a structural adjustment programme with the IMF, says the Financial Times obituary. What they mean by pragmatic is pro-capitalist. Petkoff was responsible for a package of privatisations of state owned companies (including SIDOR, later renationalised by Chavez), cuts in social spending, increase in taxes, making it easier for bosses to sack workers, etc. Rafael Caldera and Teodoro Petkoff One of the most controversial measures adopted by Petkoff was the change in the way workers social security contributions and benefits were calculated. The change was applied retroactively, thus stealing benefits workers had already acquired. The moved caused uproar in the trade union and workers movement and that is when Petkoff earned the nickname of Teochoro. Finally, in 1998, the MAS decided to support the presidential candidature of Hugo Chavez and Petkoff abandoned the party he had founded amidst booing of the congress delegates. After the victory of Chavez and the beginning of the Bolivarian revolution, Petkoff founded a newspaper, TalCual (As it is), dedicated to the hysterical denunciation of the revolution from a rabid anti-Communist point of view and specialising in scandalous campaigns. He was churning fake news against Chavez and his movement before the expression become common currency. Many of the panegyrics in the capitalist media talk about his failed presidential bid of 2006. This is how the Financial Times describes it: Petkoff launched a third bid for the presidency in 2006 but by then Chavez was unstoppable, riding an oil boom and bending state institutions to his will. After losing again, he withdrew from politics. The impression that is given is that he stood up against Chavez and was defeated. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was never a candidate. At that time, the reactionary opposition realised that they never stood a chance of defeating president Chavez unless they managed to agree on a single candidate. There were at least nine potential contenders for that position. Julio Borges, from Primero Justicia proposed that there should be primary elections amongst the opposition supporters to decide who was going to be the candidate. Petkoff rejected the idea. The Venezuelan reactionary opposition was, and still is, a thieves kitchen, full of mistrust, backstabbing and a dirty fight for positions and power. They didnt trust each other enough as they all had a long history of manipulating internal elections. Finally, days before the deadline, and with the opposition without an agreed candidate, Petkoff, who was third amongst the opposition candidates according to opinion polls, decided to withdraw his bid. Julio Borges did the same, with hours to go to the deadline, and finally the opposition decided to back Manuel Rosales, who was thrashed by Chavez in the election. Chavez received 63% against Rosales 37%. Petkoff was part of Rosales campaign committee, in a campaign in which the opposition candidate excelled in gaffes. The restless defender of democratic values Petkoff had no qualms about being part of this motley crew of reactionary oligarchs and power hungry politicians, all of whom had played a role in the short lived April 2002 coup against Chavez. He was one of them. So, the whole story the capitalist media has built about his third failed presidential bid amounts to the fact that he did not want to submit himself to a democratic primary process and then seeing he was not even the best positioned candidate of the reactionary opposition he declined to stand. A brave gesture! and tabloid newspaper editor As an editor of TalCual he became known for his scandalous attention grabbing front pages. This fiercely independent newspaper went out of its way to twist the truth, manipulating images in order to attack president Chavez. Lets have a look at a few examples. There is this one from 2007 when he compared Hugo Chavez to Hitler: On the same theme, there is this one from 2010, with the headline Towards a dictatorship and a cartoon depicting the democratically elected president Chavez making a fascist salute There is this one from 2013 when it was the turn for democratically elected president Maduro to be compared to Hitler TalCual did not limit itself to provocative and offensive front pages; it also resorted to straight lies and manipulation of images. In 2013 it published a picture of a rat eating a piece of cheese behind the counter at a PDVAL shop, with the headline what a rat!. The small detail was that the picture had in fact been taken at a supermarket in Paraguay a year earlier. It was not just a case of using the wrong picture, as the logo in the supermarket workers overall had been changed from the original to that of the Venezuelan state-owned supermarket chain PDVAL. TalCual article & Original from Paraguayan paper In 2003 Petkoffs TalCual published a front page picture showing Hugo Chavez holding a 9mm handgun at a public rally with a headline saying "At gunpoint". The small problem was that what Chavez was really holding at that public rally was... a rose, and the picture was in fact a photo-montage. Original undoctered image of Chavez holding a rose This is what the New York Times describes as constructive criticism! The one thing which Petkoff hated the most about Chavez was the way he had declared himself a socialist, unleashing a wide-ranging debate about the ideas of socialism and what they meant. For this reason he wrote another scathing editorial with the headline Socialist Lunacy attacking Chavezs association with Alan Woods. Far from being a model of journalistic integrity, Petkoff, as editor of TalCual was a case study in tabloid journalism. He did not let the facts get in the way of a good story. Despite this, it is false to say that the government shut down his newspaper, as many of the obituaries state. TalCual continues to be published, though only in its digital edition for lack of paper. While he was a Communist fighter in his youth, Petkoff went back to the bourgeois life and business of his family. Politically he made his peace with the system and became its staunch and useful defender in government and in opposition. This is the reason why the capitalist media sings a chorus of praises now that he has died. The Venezuelan workers will always remember him as Teochoro the man who stole their social benefits. Now that the dust has settled from the Nov. 6 election, state lawmakers are about to set the table for the 2019 Legislature. A top priority on that menu needs to be an expansion of publicly funded preschool. The lasting benefits of preschool education have been well-documented. Kids who attend a preschool as 4-year-olds are far more likely to succeed in elementary and high school and go on to productive careers. It has been demonstrated that these students are less likely to run afoul of the law or become dependent on welfare programs. https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/opinions/editorials/legislature-must-expand-publicly-funded-preschool/article_aa7d8050-b115-510c-a8bd-3a9608183204.html The mission of Ucross Foundation is to foster the creative spirit of deeply committed artists and groups by providing uninterrupted time, studio space, living accommodations, and the experience of the majestic High Plains while serving as a good steward of its historic 20,000-acre ranch. Ucross Foundation was established by Raymond Plank in 1981 and is a 501(c)3 public non-profit organization. For more than thirty years, Ucross has been giving space and time to artists who come from many disciplines. They are writers, composers, visual and performing artists. Our participants come from all over the world. In our complex of private studios and shared residences, visiting artists build a small, intense community hard at work in the midst of 20,000 acres of Wyoming ranchland. http://www.ucrossfoundation.org/ San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer proposed a set of reforms to the citys parking requirements Friday, allowing the construction of housing projects without parking spaces as long as theyre within a half-mile of a planned or currently-existing transit stop. "We know that more and more people are choosing to live without a car and are demanding quality housing near transit. This plan gives builders the freedom to be smart and creative with their projects, while contributing to our housing supply and our climate action goals by getting more cars off the road." Mayor proposes allowing some housing projects with no parking spaces Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, as the world's longest cross-sea bridge, is expected to have 5G service in the future, according to Fang Zheng, vice general manager of the WLAN office of ZTE Corp., the bridge's network operator. The 55-km Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge that opened last month connects the mainland province of Guangdong with the country's two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao. "The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge now has good coverage of 4G service," said Fang. "Experts and workers have overcome the difficulties of a complex construction environment and the lack of an optical fiber to provide tailored 4G solutions for the bridge and prepare for the future upgrading of 5G service." Experts and workers extended the coverage area of the optical fiber to 20 kilometers, double the conventional maximum onshore coverage of 10 kilometers, to ensure the full coverage of network signal along the bridge, according to the constructors. "The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge can be seen as a unique application of wireless technology, highlighting the high-quality products and advanced technology provided by China's communication sector," said Fang. The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is now ready for the access of Internet of Things, a major business to be achieved by 5G technology. From the very beginning, the technological base needed for 5G has been considered in terms of network architecture, room for 5G station and the installment of fiber, according to Fang. GUANGZHOU, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Air Force on Sunday announced a roadmap for building a stronger modern air force in three steps. The building of a stronger modern air force is in line with the overall goal of building national defense and the armed forces, Lieutenant General Xu Anxiang, deputy commander of Chinese Air Force, said at a press conference on celebrating the 69th anniversary of the establishment of Chinese Air Force held in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province. According to Xu, the first step is to, by 2020, build a strategic force that integrates aviation and space power, and strike and defense capabilities, in which the fourth generation of equipment serves as backbone and the third generation of equipment as mainstay. The systematic combat capabilities will be enhanced. The second step requires the air force to improve strategic capabilities and modernize its theory, organizational structure, service personnel, and weaponry. The building of a modern and strategic air force will be basically completed by 2035, Xu said. The third step will see the air force fully transformed into a world-class force by mid-21st century, according to Xu. We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. Visitors wow at a flying car produced by AeroMobil from Slovakia at the exhibition area of automobiles during the CIIE. Photo by Weng Qiyu from Peoples Daily Online At the first China International Import Expo (CIIE), a manager of a Chinese restaurant, visiting a number of exhibition areas with a thick pile of documents in hand, said he was about to sign orders of more than $100 million. The exhibitor of popular South Korean food left a note on its booth saying My products are very popular today and I hope visitors will continue to support me tomorrow. These moments at the CIIE are truly impressive. The busy expo reflects Chinas deepening opening-up and the potential for cooperation among various parties. The magnetic effect generated at the CIIE indicates that opening up conforms to the irreversible trend of history, and moves with the time. It needs about 20 countries in the world to assemble a vehicle, and it calls for collaboration of over 1,500 major companies and 15,000 small-sized and medium-sized enterprises to produce a passenger aircraft. No country is willing to be left behind in economic globalization and no enterprise will reject a developing opportunity. For foreign enterprises, participating in the CIIE is not a makeshift, but a natural move to explore the Chinese market and seek development opportunities. For China, the initiative to expand imports is not a choice of expediency, but a future-oriented step taken to embrace the world and promote common development. Chinas annual import value rose a yearly average of 18.1 percent from 18.7 billion yuan ($ 2.7 billion) in 1978 to 12.5 trillion yuan in 2017 during the 40 years of reform and opening up. Opening up has become a distinct identification of modern China. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China has expanded construction of pilot free trade zones (FTZs), trimmed the negative list for foreign investment access, and continuously enlarged import volume. Just like Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed, China has grown by embracing the world, and the world has also benefited from Chinas opening-up. The CIIE, the first import-themed national expo has demonstrated Chinas consistent stance on opening up, and injected positive power into global win-win cooperation, against the backdrop of soaring protectionism and unilateralism. The United Nations International Trade Center (ITC) Director Arancha Gonzalez expressed that the CIIE would pragmatically promote international trade and multilateral cooperation, and the ITC supported the event. The last day of the CIIE marks Chinas Double 11 shopping spree. An Australian expert disclosed that during the last Double 11 shopping festival, the combined transaction volume on Chinese e-commerce Alibabas online marketplace Tmall and Taobao surpassed the years total economic output of Tasmania, Australia. The online shopping festival of Chinese consumers is expanding its influence to the globe. Similarly, the annual CIIE will follow suit and also be extended from a 6-day exhibition to a regular yearly platform. By further elevating the level of opening up and deepening cooperation, we can build a bridge to the future and make a better world. Bulgaria joins EU states opposed to UN migration pact Bulgaria joins EU states opposed to UN migration pact Bulgaria on Monday joined the growing ranks of European Union nations opposed to a UN pact that aims to regulate the treatment of migrants worldwide. The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was approved in July by all 193 member nations except the US, which backed out last year. It followed the biggest influx of migrants into Europe since World War Two. The governments of Hungary and Austria have since said they will not sign the final document at a ceremony in Morocco in December over concerns that it will blur the line between legal and illegal migration. Poland, the Czech Republic and now Bulgaria have signaled they may follow suit, Reuters reports. The position of the Bulgarian government will be not to join the United Nations global pact on migration, the deputy leader of the main ruling center-right GERB party, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, said after a meeting of coalition chiefs.Source : RT - Daily news Finlands malfunctioning GPS signal was caused by Russia, and not the 50,000 troops, 10,000 combat vehicles and 250 aircraft taking part in massive Scandinavian NATO drills at least thats what the PM thinks probably happened. Aside from the public pooing, prolific beer-guzzling and frigate-sinking naval mishaps, NATOs Trident Juncture drills the largest in decades also suffered from spotty GPS signals. Regrettably, only one of these hiccups could remotely be attributed to Russian deviancy. Read more Right on cue, Finnish Prime Minster Juha Sipila has stated that it is possible that Russia was the disrupting party (referring to the GPS problems, not the pooping near Norwegian kindergartens). We will investigate, and then we will respond, he added. This is not a joke, it threatened the air security of ordinary people. Too impatient to wait for an actual investigation, the Finnish PM went on to speculate that Russia jammed up Finlands GPS in order to demonstrate the capabilities for such actions. Case closed? Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Sipilas accusations groundless, adding that Russia is regularly accused of all mortal sins. We have no knowledge of Russia possibly having any role in GPS malfunction. You should ask experts or the Defense Ministry. But there is an obvious trend to blame Russia for all mortal sins and then some. As a rule, these accusations are baseless, Peskov said. READ MORE: NATOs secret weapon? Chiseled Norwegian man-bun hunk promotes massive war games (PHOTOS) Norway warned of possible GPS problems for pilots in its own airspace at the end of October when the NATO exercise kicked off. But Norwegian officials have apparently remained more tight-lipped about why such a warning was issued. Like this story? Share it with a friend! Following US warnings dissuading port operators from allowing Iranian tankers to dock, Irans top brass pushed back by reiterating that its navy is ready to protect ships against any threats. Irans military is prepared today as in the past to protect against any threats, and to ensure the safe passage of Iranian oil tankers, Rear-Admiral Mahmoud Mousavi, a deputy commander of the regular armed forces, said on Monday, Iranian news agency ISNA reports. He stressed that any hindrances to Irans right to use international waterways would be clearly unacceptable. The comments come a week after the United States unilaterally re-imposed sanctions on Tehrans oil, shipping and banking industries. Although its unclear whether other nations will abide by Washingtons diktats, US officials have hinted that Iranian ships will no longer be welcome in international waters. From the Suez Canal to the Strait of Malacca and all choke-points in between, Iranian tankers are a floating liability, Brian Hook, US special representative for Iran and senior policy adviser to the secretary of state, said on Wednesday. Self-insured Iranian tankers are a risk to the ports that permit them to dock [and] the canals that allow them to transit. Hook went on to warn that nations that ignore the US-imposed restrictions on Irans commercial fleet could face sanctions of their own. Tehran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz and halt Persian Gulf oil exports if its own oil exports are blocked. In recent months, Irans Revolutionary Guard has held naval exercises in the Persian Gulf designed to increase preparedness for confronting possible threats. National Security Advisor John Bolton said in August that shutting down the Strait of Hormuz would be a serious mistake, suggesting that Tehran was merely bluffing. On November 5, the US put back in force all sanctions previously lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, which Washington unilaterally withdrew from in May. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the sanctions will remain until Tehran complies with a list of 12 demands. The ultimatum calls on Tehran to halt all nuclear and ballistic missile development, as well as ending the countrys alleged support for terrorism. Washington also says that Iran must completely withdraw from Syria before sanctions can be lifted. Like this story? Share it with a friend! The list of the countries currently taking active steps towards eliminating their economic reliance on the US dollar is growing. Russia has joined a league of nations is making a lot of headway with the task, the WSJ reports. The share of foreign currency in corporate and personal deposits in Russia has declined to 26 percent in September from a 2016 peak of 37 percent, the newspaper reports, citing data from the Central Bank of Russia. Meanwhile, the share of dollar-priced export revenues reportedly dropped to 68 percent in the second quarter of the current year from more than 80 percent five years ago. Read more Rapidly growing trade turnover with Russias partners in Asia, particularly China, is seen as one of the success criteria of the work on de-dollarizing the economy. The share of Russia-China trade priced in national currencies has quadrupled in four years to some 19 percent of the entire turnover, and is set to grow further, Moscow-based economist at ING Bank Dmitry Dolgin told the media. The broad plan to eliminate Russias dependence on the greenback, which was pushed by the countrys President Vladimir Putin, came amid the constantly growing burden of sanctions that have been introduced since 2014 over a number of issues. The next round of US anti-Russian penalties may reportedly hit the countrys financial system. Russia is hardly the only country trying to fight against the predominance of US currency across the global financial system. The European Union has recently announced plans to create a special purpose vehicle to keep on trading with Iran, as these transactions had become a target for US unilateral sanctions. The partners are reportedly working on using the euro in mutual trade and other business activities. Earlier this year, China launched a long-anticipated crude oil futures contract that is priced in yuan and convertible into gold. The contract has gained widespread popularity among oil traders. Last month, Venezuela announced plans to abandon the US dollar and start making all future transactions on the countrys exchange market in euro. The step is set to solve the problem of US sanctions that are cutting the Latin American country from dollar transactions. Its not clear how much of this [de-dollarization] trend is poker games, but the unpredictability of current US foreign policy means that more countries need to question things that have never been questioned before, said Thomas Flury, head of foreign-exchange strategies at UBS Global Wealth Management, as quoted by the media. For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section An Austrian officer, who is accused of having spied for Russia for two decades, has been exposed by the British, who wanted to drive a wedge between Vienna and Moscow, an Austrian newspaper claims. The espionage scandal in Austria erupted last Friday when the prosecution of a retired colonel for alleged espionage for Moscow was made public by the national media and later confirmed by the government. The reports said a former intelligence service tipped off the Austrians that they had a mole in their military ranks. While initially the foreign nation was believed to be Germany, there are now claims that the tip-off came from Britain and that London had ulterior political motives in providing it. Read more According to Kleine Zeitung, Austrias biggest regional newspaper, the British were unhappy that Austria failed to toe the line and join the expulsion of Russian diplomats, which London initiated after accusing Russia of a poison attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal. This is why they exposed the Russian agent in Austria to their Austrian counterparts, the newspaper said citing an anonymous source. Skripal is a former Russian intelligence agent, who spied for the British before being busted. He was tried and sentenced to a prison term, but was released early for a spy swap with the US. The British government alleges that Moscow ordered a hit on the man to send an example to would-be traitors, which Russia categorically denies. The scandal further soured the already strained relations between Moscow and London. Austria, on the contrary, prides itself as a more or less neutral party that can serve as a bridge between Russia and other Western nations in times of crisis. Proponents of isolating Russia from world affairs criticize Viennas stance, saying actions like the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the August wedding of Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl were undermining their efforts. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Love Your Park Day touches down on Summit Meadow By By: Dr. Francis R. Souder, 85, formerly of Telford, died Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007 in the skilled nursing unit of Peter Becker Community, Franconia Township. He and his wife Marion R. (Parker) Souder celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary in July. Born in Souderton, he was a son of the late Elvin B. and Mary (Rittenhouse) Souder. A 1938 graduate of Souderton High School, he received his undergraduate degree in 1941 from the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa. Dr. Souder went on to receive his medical degree from Hahnemann Medical College in 1944 and completed his internship at Hahnemann Hospital from Oct. 1944 July, 1945. He served with the U.S. Navy Medical Corps for 30 months in San Diego and Long Beach, Calif. during WW II and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant prior to his discharge. He entered his second tour of duty during the Korean War where he served in Panama City, Fla. as the medical officer for the Panama City Naval Air Station and the Tyndal Air Force Base. Dr. Souder owned and operated his family practice on Main Street in Telford from 1947-1989. He served on the staff of Grand View Hospital, and as its president, and taught at the Grand View Hospital Nursing School. He was a member of the Pa. Medical Society, the Bucks County Medical Society, Diplomat American Academy of Family Practices, and served on the board of trustees at Grand View Hospital, Sellersville. He was a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Telford, where he sang in the church choir. He was also a member of the MacCalla Lodge #596 in Souderton, the Raja Shrine, and Lehigh Consistory. In addition to his widow, he is survived by a son, Dr. Ronald L. Souder, and his wife Susan L. of Green Lane; a daughter, Susan J. Souder, and her husband Stephan Russo of New York, N.Y.; five grandchildren: Jennifer A. Souder of Philadelphia; Emily E. Souder of Philadelphia; Kathryn A. Souder of Washington, D.C.; Noah Russo of New York, N.Y., and Rebekah Russo of New York, N.Y., and two brothers: Attorney Elvin B. Souder of Souderton and Dr. Lawrence Souder of Souderton. Memorial services will be held on Saturday, Nov. 10 at 12 p.m. in Trinity United Church of Christ, 101 S. Main St., Telford, with calling hours following the service. Interment will be private in Trinity UCC Cemetery Telford. Memorial contributions may be made to Grand View Hospital, 700 Lawn Ave., Sellersville, Pa. 18960. Arrangements are by Sadler-Suess Funeral Home, Telford. Visitors hail roast sausages at the exhibition booth of the German company Tonnies Group. Photo by Weng Qiyu from Peoples Daily Online At the ongoing China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, both exhibitors and buyers have achieved fruitful results. Bruno Gnidehoue, general manager of Label Benin Production & Distribution, told Peoples Daily that his company has reached to 15 Chinese potential buyers and signed 8 letters of intent in just 3 days after the expo opened. Gnidehoue was very satisfied with his trip to Shanghai, saying that he would definitely attend the next CIIE and bring other enterprises, so as to introduce more quality products to China from Benin. We receive more than a dozen of Chinese guests every day at the CIIE and they have showed great interest in Uruguayan beef products, said He Huan, a sales representative of a ranch in Uruguay. The Chinese buyers are very professional. They inquired about the meat from foreleg and hindquarter, as well as the quality assurance after long transportation, He added. He told Peoples Daily that with improving living standards, Chinese people now prefer high-quality products. We export half of our ranchs beef to China, but I think the market potential is larger, and the CIIE has established an effective platform of international trade for us, He said. In the exhibition area of trade in services, the TUV Rheinland Group from Germany received a delegation from ZNB Quality of Scientific Research Academy in southern Chinas Hainan province. Hainan free trade zone, vigorously developing new energy vehicles (NEVs), is planning to build a fast charging station every 25 kilometers in the future. The delegation came to discuss about technological standard setting issues on NEV as well as the test and installation of charging stations The discussion lasted more than two hours, and there are still more issues to be discussed, said Xia Bo, Vice President of Commercial and Industrial Products Services at TUV Rheinland Greater China. Chinese enterprises have gradually entered a new phase of standard setting from merely producing. As a third-party supplier of quality check and standard setting, we are willing to offer more support to Chinese enterprises, Xia noted. Zhao Xiangyu, who runs a foreign trade company in Xian, western Chinas Shaanxi province, signed a deal with Japanese cosmetic brand Hanajirushi after a short negotiation with the brands sales director Xu Chao. Zhao told Peoples Daily that the cleansing liquid, facial masks, as well as facial foams of the brand were all top-selling products, so his company was planning to make a purchase. The foreign trade company of Zhao, who is in his early thirties, has hit a sales volume of over 50 million yuan in just 3 years since establishment. In the past, we had to resort to the agents to purchase overseas products, and the information asymmetry always led to high cost and low efficiency, he noted, adding that now he grasps the first-hand information by directly contacting with the exporters. Zhao introduced that the cosmetics he purchased this time will be shipped by sea to the Tianjin Port without customs clearance after being produced in Japan, and then be transported to the bonded area of Xian by China-Europe freight train. He said he was planning to finally export the cosmetics to Europe through the Belt and Road Initiative. Hu Haijing, general manager of SUMEC International Technology Corporation under China National Machinery Industry Corporation, told Peoples Daily that he has established relationships with many quality trade service providers. I came to know a Japanese shipping company that can offer competitive prices in the routes to Europe and America, and we may have cooperation in the future, he said. The SUMEC International Technology Corporation made fruitful achievements at the CIIE. It reached a 757-million-dollar contract with Japanese TMT Machinery, INC. to introduce a chemical fiber production line to Jiangsu Hengli Chemical Fiber Co., LTD., and signed a 400-million-euro deal with German equipment and technology company EBAWE to purchase a precast concrete production line. We will take in more quality resources to innovate our supply chain in the future, and I believe our path will only get wider and wider, Husaid. Pennsylvania Horticulture Societys Harvest program ends season with almost 19,000 pounds of produce donated and $30K raised to fight food insecurity Welcome to Morningstar.co.uk! You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details. At the CIIE Consumer Electronics & Appliances exhibition area, a staff of an American company introduces smart cooking utensils and related products that can meet diverse user demands. (Photo by Ma Sichao from Peoples Daily) Both exhibitors and buyers have obtained the sense of gain at the ongoing first China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai. The exhibition booth of SKK, a cooking utensils producer from Germany, was flooded with visitors. The company signed contracts worth $97.3 million with nine new partners on Nov. 7 alone, according to Zhao Tianping, SKKs agent in the Greater China. Cargill, a US provider of food, agriculture and industrial products, started preparation for the CIIE as early as one year ago, and has held an activity when the event began its 100-day countdown. Cargill signed cooperative agreements of $2.4 billion with a number of Chinese companies on Nov. 5, the first day of the CIIE. These contracts covered a wide range of areas including beef, cereals, food ingredients, cotton and iron ores. China will continue to broaden market access, said President Xi Jinping when addressing the opening ceremony of the CIIE. In the coming 15 years, Chinas import of goods and services are expected to exceed $30 trillion and $10 trillion respectively, Xi announced. On the afternoon of Nov. 7, a large number of journalists crowded a company booth and turned their cameras towards a 10-karat emerald. Zambia is the worlds second largest producer of high quality emeralds which are highly transparent and green, said Winnie Natala Chibesakunda, Zambian Ambassador to China, promoting the countrys specialty. After visiting some Zambian booths at the expo, Ambassador Chibesakunda was told by Zambian entrepreneurs that they had received many orders, and would share the joy with their peers when coming back to Zambia. Without the market, it will be hard to advance the industrialization in Africa, and China provides a broad market and many development opportunities for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Zambia, said the Ambassador. She believed that more Zambian SMEs would participate in the import expo next year, and also suggested that the Zambian government build a national exhibition pavilion at the 2019 CIIE so as to make the Zambian enterprises and products more visible. Ethiopian merchant Dejen Meskel said he has established relationships with not only Chinese businessmen, but also those from other countries. Purchasers from Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico all showed great interest in his agricultural products and he would surely come to the import expo the next year, he told Peoples Daily. It is proved that the CIIE has promoted global trade liberalization and facilitation, helping us save time and costs, and more importantly, gain more benefits, said Meskel. The outcome of the CIIE was beyond expectation, many participants to the event told Peoples Daily. Meskel, who often travels to agricultural products trade fairs around the world, said that the business opportunities created by the CIIE were unprecedented. He noted that he would do a research on Chinese purchasers demand, believing the performance of his company will embrace a steady growth. After coming to China, Meskel learnt that Chinas openness is wider than what he had heard before. A higher level of opening up proposed by President Xi will provide more opportunities for other countries, said Meskel, adding that Ethiopian enterprises will definitely ride on the train of Chinas development. 89th Annual Waffle Shop.Enjoy homemade waffles, sausages, soups and sandwiches and it also has a craft bazaar, bake sale, Elsies Attic rummage sale, and a raffle. This is at Christ Episcopal Church, 11am to 2pm, Tuesday through Friday. The Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission is holding a Public Participation Meeting to review the Proposed Program of Projects being considered for Federal Transit Administration funding through the Enhanced Mobility for Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities Program (Section 5310). The meeting is at Goodwill Easter Seals Eichelberger Conference Center, on Wednesday and you may attend anytime between 4 to 6pm. If you or someone you know is experiencing memory loss or behavioral changes, its time to learn the facts. Join a presentation by Dr. Doug Pugar, D.O. and Rebecca Hall, MSW, LSW at the Franciscan Center on Wednesday, 6pm. Maz Jobrani is an Iranian-American comedian and actor. He is a founding member of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour and has had three Showtime comedy specials: Brown and Friendly, I Come in Peace, and most recently, Im Not a Terrorist, But Ive Played One on TV, based on his best-selling book of the same name. He is a regular panelist on NPRs Wait WaitDont Tell Me and has given two TED Talks. He is at UD on Wednesday, 7pm, at the Kennedy Union Ballroom. s an Iranian-American comedian and actor. He is a founding member of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour and has had three Showtime comedy specials: Brown and Friendly, I Come in Peace, and most recently, Im Not a Terrorist, But Ive Played One on TV, based on his best-selling book of the same name. He is a regular panelist on NPRs Wait WaitDont Tell Me and has given two TED Talks. He is at UD on Wednesday, 7pm, at the Kennedy Union Ballroom. The Annual Holiday Gift Gallery has a casual Thursday evening preview party. Stop by The Contemporary Dayton for a peek at the Holiday Gift Gallery featuring fine art and fine craft by 50+ local artists. The Holiday Gift Gallery runs from November 16 to December 22. The Thursday reception is free and open to the public; 6 to 8pm. A Little Piece of Heaven Have you ever lost anything that meant a great deal to you? Something that, if you could ever find it again, would make a huge difference in your life? If you have, A Little Piece of Heaven is the shop for you. An unlikely relationship is forged in the quirky tourist shop. This play is at The First Lutheran Church on Thursday through Sunday. The annual Thanksgiving Night Marketlets you stock up for gatherings of family and friends and provides spices or spreads for parties and getting started on some early gift shopping. This is your perfect chance to find one-of-a-kind handmade goods from right here in Dayton! There will be local craft beer and cocktails its the best holiday shopping youll experience this season! Yellow Cab at 700 E 4th Street Dayton, Friday, 5-10pm. lets you stock up for gatherings of family and friends and provides spices or spreads for parties and getting started on some early gift shopping. This is your perfect chance to find one-of-a-kind handmade goods from right here in Dayton! There will be local craft beer and cocktails its the best holiday shopping youll experience this season! Yellow Cab at 700 E 4th Street Dayton, Friday, 5-10pm. The beloved TV classic RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEERsoars off the screen and onto the stage Friday and Saturday at The Schuster. soars off the screen and onto the stage Friday and Saturday at The Schuster. 2018 Dayton Super Science Festival.The Boonshoft Museum invites families to explore hands-on STEM activities, interact with partners and Museum professionals, and more at a FREE day of science and fun. Located throughout the Museum, Saturday, 10am to 4pm. The Boonshoft Museum invites families to explore hands-on STEM activities, interact with partners and Museum professionals, and more at a FREE day of science and fun. Located throughout the Museum, Saturday, 10am to 4pm. Growing A Soul. Most of us think there are only two possible answers to the question: Do you have a soul? Either we have a soul, which will live beyond death, or there is no such thing as a soul, and when we die nothing of us remains. But what if neither of those answers is correct? What if, instead, we are not born with a soul, but we have the possibility of growing one? The Author Talk is at Most of us think there are only two possible answers to the question: Do you have a soul? Either we have a soul, which will live beyond death, or there is no such thing as a soul, and when we die nothing of us remains. But what if neither of those answers is correct? What if, instead, we are not born with a soul, but we have the possibility of growing one? The Author Talk is at Epic Book Shop, 229 Xenia Ave, Yellow Springs, Saturday, at 6:30 pm. I started my underground restaurant almost ten years ago. I couldnt afford to set up a restaurant of my own (average cost to set up a restaurant in London is around a million quid), so I decided to use my own home. Ruminating on the idea since visiting Cuba in 2000, things really took off when I started my food blog in 2008. Suddenly I had a way to disseminate and publicise my own events. Social media was a game changer. The Guardian turned up to cover the first night which was intimidating; I was still feeling my way around the whole project. Restriction inspires innovation: I pre-sold tickets after no shows; I saw that large shared tables with family-style plates worked best, giving people a chance to socialise with strangers; I got creative with themed dinners, people would even dress up. As well as my personal blog msmarmitelover.com, I started a communal site, Find a Supper Club, to inspire others. I always had it in mind to start a movement, an eating revolution, where home cooks could earn money and gain confidence, retired chefs could flex their cooking muscles without relapsing into the grind of 16 hour days and, most importantly, enable women, still so absent in professional kitchens, to have a part-time restaurant in keeping with their family commitments. A decade later, you can find supper clubs all over the world. I have spent the last few weeks in India where, via the website Authenticook.com, I visited the home restaurant of Jyoti Vora in Bombay. Arriving by tuktuk, from the outside, the building looked scruffy and unprepossessing. I knocked nervously on the front door on the first floor, and the door opened wide to reveal a white tiled luxurious flat. Jyotis son and daughter in law welcomed me in with a bowl of marigolds and candles, daubing my forehead with orange powder and placing a fragrant jasmine flower bracelet on my arm. Jyotis family originally came from the Gujarat region, but moved to Bombay so her food was Gujurati. (Locals dont call it Mumbai). Grandma was there too, sitting smiling on the ornate blue velvet sofa. I was handed a pink drink, flavoured with rose and fresh coconut, and, snacking on the freshest peanuts boiled in tamarind and salt, in their shells, I was shown around the flat. In one of the bedrooms there was a large swing hanging from the ceiling, held by large metal chains with tiny brass elephants. They explained It is popular in Gujarat to have an indoor swing. On the wall, there was also an elaborate shrine to Shiva. Two tiny figurines were dressed up in mini gold saris. We change their clothes everyday, give flowers, offer prashad (a kind of holy Rice Krispies), and light candles. Jyoti took me into the kitchen where she and her servant (everyone has servants in India) taught me how to cook a Gujarati feast. As we cooked we chatted. Every region has its own type of cuisine. Gujurati food is considered very sweet by Indians. We like to combine flavours in the same dish: salt with sweet, tangy with bitter. After a couple of hours of cooking, the whole family sat down. The meal was presented on a silver platter with small silver bowls, Thali style. The wet curries were ladled into the bowls and the drier curries were spooned onto the tray. We started with two kinds of roti bread, rice comes at the end of the meal. There are a selection of 10 different pickles and chutneys, each home made. Typical Gujurati dishes include patra, made with colocassia leaves, stacked and folded, spread with chickpea batter, steamed then fried. I had two types of dal, one very simple and the other for special occasions, a kind of royal dal including pistachios, cashews, raisins with chapati dumplings. I had a steamed rice cake, similar to idli, called Khichyu. The colours, flavours and textures were exquisitely unique and very different to eating in an Indian restaurant. I was taught how to eat Indian style, using the tips of my fingers and the thumb to push the rice into my mouth. I lacked elegance and grandma laughed toothily at my efforts, telling me to stick to a spoon. Ultimately this is the point of supper clubs, the movement I founded: not only do you get to eat delicious family style food that isnt served in restaurants, but I discovered more about Indian life in that one afternoon than in a whole month travelling around India. Gujarati Royal Dal for Sunday lunch Serves 6 For the dal 150g toor dal, rinsed 3 or 4 times 750ml water 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 1/2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder 1/2 tsp green chilli /ginger Paste Juice of 1 lime 3 tbsp jaggery 1tbsp sea salt Handful cashew nuts, chopped Handful raisins For tempering 2tbsp ghee 1tsp black mustard seeds1tsp cumin seeds1/2tsp asafoetida 3 cloves2 cinnamon sticks Handful fresh curry leaves Fresh coriander to garnish 1 chapati, cut into diamond shapes In a large saucepan, combine the water and dal and boil until tender. Remove from heat and beat it until smooth. Add turmeric, chilli, green chilli/ ginger paste, lime juice, jaggery, salt and boil for 5 to 10 minutes. If its too thick, add water. In a frying pan, fry the cashew nuts until golden, set aside, repeat with the raisins. Add to the beaten dal. For the tempering: heat up the ghee then add black mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafoetida, then cloves and cinnamon. Add curry leaves in the end for just a few seconds and then pour the tempering over the dal. Add the chapati, one by one. When they float, the dal is done. Serve hot, garnished with fresh coriander leaves. My next supper club is a Roman themed Saturnalia, 15th December.Click to Book Michigan Technological Universitys Medical Laboratory Science program has received first-time accreditation from the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences. It took four years and stacks of documentation, but Michigan Tech's Medical Laboratory Science program has earned first-time accreditation by the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS). By qualifying as an accredited program, the Medical Laboratory Science program is earning the type of recognition it deserves, said Provost Jackie Huntoon. For many years, the faculty, staff and students who have participated in this program have maintained high standards, and I am happy to see them recognized for their achievements. Chandrashekhar Joshi, chair of Michigan Techs Department of Biological Scienceswhich houses the Medical Laboratory Science (MLS) programsaid the effort was enormous. We are extremely excited to see all this hard work, under the leadership of program director Karyn Fay, come to fruition. The Need is a Crisis The need for medical laboratory scientists is enormous, particularly in rural areas. Fay called the situation a crisis. If we cant graduate qualified people, hospitals are going to start hiring less-qualified people, she warned. Michigan Tech has taught medical laboratory science since 1941, originally as medical technology. It has evolved over the years to medical lab science, which is the major diagnostic arm of medicine. The question about accreditation arose when more and more hospitalswhere MLS students must do a six to nine month practicum after they earn their Bachelor of Science in Medical Laboratory Sciencestopped supporting and started closing their accredited education programs. There are now only three hospitals in Michigan accredited to offer the MLS practicum, required before graduates can take national boards and get certified, Fay explained. So Michigan Tech, with the full support of the president, provost and dean of the College of Sciences and Arts, took on the monumental task of getting accredited itself by NAACLS. Accreditation is Hard to Get NAACLS accreditation is not easily achieved. NAACLS is the premier international agency for accreditation and approval of educational programs in the clinical laboratory sciences and related health professions. One of the goals of accreditation and approval is the protection of students, in addition to the assurance of program quality. NAACLS is committed to the principles of honesty in reporting, professional integrity and ethical conduct among officials of its programs, staff and volunteers. Michigan Techs work involved a preliminary study of the MLS program, a self-study, a site visit from NAACLS, and correction of any deficiencies before the NAACLS executive board met in September and accredited Michigan Techs program. The wonderful thing was, there werent any deficiencies to correct, which is virtually unheard of for a first-time program accreditation, Fay said. The five-year accreditationthe longest initial accreditation offered by NAACLSenables the University to affiliate with hospitals throughout the Upper Peninsula, elsewhere in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and across the country. Already, Michigan Tech has affiliated with 11 new hospitals where MLS graduates can do their practicum. This allows us to grow our program, Fay said. Techs MLS program now has about 80 students who are spending three or four years in classes and labs on campus plus completing a practicum. Every MLS Graduate Gets a Job There is such a demand for medical laboratory scientists that every graduate of the Michigan Tech program gets three or four job offers, often before they have even graduated, said Fay. They usually earn a starting salary of around $50,000, and wages are going up as the need for qualified lab scientists increases. There is such a shortage of workers that hospitals are eager to affiliate with us, Fay said. Michigan Techs MLS program is already expanding. The program has hired Kelsey Johnson as MLS practicum coordinator, and Johnson was recognized this year by the American Society of Clinical Pathology with its Young Ambassador Award for her recruitment efforts and outreach to high school students. Fay won the Michigan Tech Distinguished Teaching Award in 2016, and the third member of the MLS program faculty, Brigitte Morin, received the Universitys Distinguished Teaching Award this year. We are lucky to have such amazing medical laboratory scientists and teachers running this program, Joshi said. Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, the University offers more than 125 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure. Bill Gates said he was glad to be part of the China International Import Expo during a recent exclusive interview with Peoples Daily. Gates praised Chinas new achievements on poverty reduction and innovation when addressing the first Hongqiao International Economic and Trade Forum, which was held on the sidelines of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai on Nov 5, the opening day of CIIE. He also hailed Chinese President Xi Jinpings remarks in the latters speech at the opening ceremony of the CIIE that China will open still wider. I am a big believer in the win-win nature of free trade, Gates told Peoples Daily, adding that all the leaders at the CIIE were very strong on this point. He took breakthroughs in medicine as an example, saying that the US wants Chinese breakthroughs and China wants US breakthroughs. He believes that there is much to do to avoid zero-sum mentality. New Era, Shared Future is the theme of the CIIE. Gates holds that Shared Future means China connecting to the entire world, and to help the countries that are further behind China is an important part of that. With the FOCAC and the Belt and Road Initiative, China is doing even more to share the lessons that it has learned, including the very ambitious goal of getting rid of extreme poverty completely by 2020, Gates noted. He remarked that the Shared Future is very much an intersection with the basic priority of the Gates Foundation, expressing his hope to establish partnerships with China on aid projects. On poverty reduction, disease control, and agricultural technologies, the Gates Foundation, together with its Chinese partners, have actively started exploration and research, as well as expanded third-party cooperation in Africa, so as to make contribution to Africas sustainable development and the joint construction of the Belt and Road. During the interview, Gates introduced his cooperation on the reinvented toilet. He said that China has achieved huge progress in health improvement for its hundreds of millions of people over the last few decades, and the recent toilet revolution campaign also reflected the countrys resolution to improve toilet sanitation and safety. Our goal is to eventually have the price be so low that even in an African city, that fairly poor people can afford to have this breakthrough toilet in their home, Gates said. During his trip to China, Gates attended the opening ceremony of the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute (GHDDI). He noted he is optimistic about Chinas capability of research and innovation, saying China is investing in the basic research budget and its growing very quickly. Weve had collaborations with groups like CNBG (China National Biotec Group) that has made special vaccines here with literally hundreds of millions of units of those vaccines going out to poor countries. As weve done particular projects, we are building on the success of those. We are actually doing more now, Gates told Peoples Daily. Innovation is an important factor to achieve the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals, and China has become a key part in advancing global progress and innovation, he said. 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of Chinas reform and opening up. In this regard, Gates noted that what China has done was just incredible. The 70% poverty reduction in the world came because these 40 years, those policies have utterly changed the income level and what you expect in terms of health and infrastructure, Gates told Peoples Daily. According to Gates, when he first came to China 25 years ago, it was hard for him to see that China would not only get rid of poverty, but also in so many issues move to the forefront, with great scientists and world-leading companies. The Informal Senior Officials Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is about to kick off in Papua New Guinea. Gates told Peoples Daily that each party wanted to have more infrastructure so that trade can work easily. He believes that it requires a lot of communication to make sure that cooperation projects are mutually beneficial. China is actively engaged in global forums such as the APEC and played an important role, Gates added. By PTI KOLKATA: Coal sector trade unions opposing the dilution of the government stake in Coal India has urged the employees against participating in the ongoing five per cent offer for sale (OFS) meant for employees. The OFS of five per cent or 99,00,196 shares to employees at Rs 254.22 after discount opened Monday and will remain open till November 15."We maintain our stand of opposing the dilution of stake by Coal India. We urge the employees not to subscribe to the shares," Citu backed union All India Coal Workers Federation general secretary B B Ramadandan told PTI. Ramadandan said all trade unions are likely to meet end of the month for their next course of action. The government had recently sold 3.19 per cent stake in Coal India. In the IPO of 2010, CIL had received lacklustre response from its employees. By Reuters BENGALURU: Debt-laden Indian carrier Jet Airways Ltd will cut flights on less profitable routes and add capacity to more lucrative markets, as part of its effort to lower costs and boost revenues as it struggles to stay aloft. Jet, India's biggest full-service carrier posted its third straight quarterly loss on Monday, hurt by higher fuel expenses and a weaker rupee. "The airline has embarked on a comprehensive review ... The measures will include rationalisation of operations on select, uneconomic routes," Jet said in a statement, adding that it will redeploy planes to more productive domestic and international sectors. The review is expected to help deliver a more efficient and economically viable network, with a focus on profitability rather than market share, Jet, which is part-owned by Etihad Airways, said. "With our clearly defined focus on profitability, we are in the midst of turning the ship around," Jet's Chief Executive Officer, Vinay Dube, said in the statement. A combination of rising oil prices, high fuel taxes, a weak rupee, low fares and intense competition have slashed profits in the world's fastest-growing aviation market, which is clocking 20 per cent annual passenger growth. Competitor IndiGo, owned by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, last month pushed back plans to take ownership of some Airbus A320neo planes to preserve cash after the company posted its first quarterly loss since 2015. Jet posted a loss of 12.97 billion rupees ($178 million) for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with a 496.3 million rupee profit a year earlier. Fuel costs rose 58.6 per cent to 24.2 billion rupees and the airline recorded a foreign exchange loss of 4.17 billion rupees, up from 730 million rupees a year ago. Revenue from operations climbed 9.5 per cent. Jet had a negative net worth as on Sept. 30, with current liabilities exceeding current assets, the airline said. The company said it is on track to meet its target of more than 20 billion rupees of cost cuts over two years, having already made savings of 5 billion rupees in the first half of the current fiscal year. During the quarter it expanded a codeshare agreement with Delta Airlines, Etihad Airways, Korean Air, Malaysian Airlines and Bangkok Airways to boost revenues. It said it continued to talk to financial stakeholders regarding its funding requirements and was working on selling assets and raising capital. Earlier this month, a media report said Tata Group was in talks to buy a majority stake in the airline and its frequent flyer programme, JetPrivilege. Jet said the report was speculative. "We are confident that we will overcome our current challenges, honour our commitments to our stakeholders, and deliver a more strategic, efficient and financially viable airline," Jet's Dube said. A visitor admires a silicone 3D printer on display at CIIE Thursday. Photo: Yang Hui/GT The first-ever China International Import Expo (CIIE) is a platform to showcase hi-tech products and services from around the world, with many foreign enterprises bringing their most cutting-edge wares to Shanghai. A silicone 3D printer nearly one meter tall on display at the expo's high-end intelligent equipment exhibition area attracted lots of attention on Wednesday. Moving its metal arm, the printer slowly spat out threads too thin to be clearly seen with the naked eye. The printer was showcased by German chemical maker Wacker Chemie. "It has the world's first drop-on-demand DOD silicone 3D printing technology, which was just invented in 2016," Florian Liesener, a material engineer with Wacker Chemie, told the Global Times on Wednesday. "With this technology, we can print real silicone elastomers that can be made into sophisticated parts with complex geometries," Liesener introduced. For instance, medical staffers and students can do surgery exercises on simulation human organs made from silicone. Supporting free trade This is the first time that Wacker Chemie displayed its silicon 3D printer outside of Germany. The company is not selling the printer, but rather provides silicone printing services for global clients. The company also brings some of its newly invented materials to the expo, including ultrathin precision silicone films that can be used to make intelligent wearable equipment and to produce energy from wave power plants. "We're very proud to be here in the first year of CIIE," said president of Wacker Greater China Paul Lindblad on Wednesday. "We are pleased to introduce our innovative products to Chinese companies, and looking forward to seeing them make good things with these new materials." Lindblad added that Wacker Chemie is participating in the expo to show its support for free trade. "CIIE demonstrates China's firm support to trade liberalization and economic globalization," he told the Global Times. "We appreciate China's determination to open its market more." MC Vaijayanthi By Express News Service MUMBAI: The debate on what should be the amount of reserves the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should hold has now moved to fixing the capital framework. But, the real issue is in fact a question on the net worth (accumulated profit) of RBI, said a former Finance Ministry official. He said there is a history to RBI augmenting its reserves. Seven years ago, the RBI Board decided that it needed to create reserves keeping in mind that RBI should have AAA rating, so that if it wanted to borrow, it can borrow quickly. That time, the countrys rating was BBB-, just investment grade, he said. RBI transferred more funds out of its annual profits to reserves until Raghuram Rajans tenure, when the existing reserves were considered adequate and the entire profits were transferred to the government. This has been reversed in the last two years, with reserves addition to contingency fund reducing the transfer to government kitty. The need for RBI to keep its ratings high could be understood from the history of the countrys ratings, and how elusive ratings upgrades have been Standard & Poors retained the countrys ratings at BBB-, even as Moodys upgraded India by a notch from the lowest investment grade of Baa3 to Baa2 in 2017, first ratings upgrade for the country in 14 years. I dont think it is in anybodys wisdom that keeping the global economic scenario, anybody would like to reduce the size of the reserves. If at all in the wisdom of the Board it decided it has to be reduced, then if there is surplus money to be declared, that certainly can go to the government as dividend, said the former official. The law does not allow distribution of past reserves and it requires an amendment to the RBI Act, Y H Malegam, chartered accountant and an ex-RBI Board member told CNBC TV18. Experts agree that there is no one fixed formula for the size of reserves that the Central bank needs to maintain or the percentage of reserves addition. Over the last two decades, several committees had been set up and parameters set. One committee suggested 12 per cent of contingency reserves, another 18 per cent and the last one headed by Malegam said it needs to be enhanced without giving a specific percentage. If there is a need to revisit the formula, there has to be a cohesive reason for it, say experts. I feel the RBI will also agree to this. However, there should be discussion on the elements and principles of the proposed formula. Once it is framed, the RBI will abide by it, R Gandhi, former RBI deputy governor told PTI. But now the government is talking sense. Earlier, they were talking about reserves. Now, they are talking about norms to be reviewed. That is perfectly fine, the official quoted earlier said. Not everyone is in agreement with that. Former finance minister P Chidambaram on Sunday tweeted: NDA government has competed 4 years and 6 months of its term. It has effectively 4 months left. What is the tearing hurry to fix the capital framework of RBI? By Reuters GENEVA: India has paid out far more in cotton subsidies than the World Trade Organization allows, with payments "vastly in excess" of what it had officially declared, the United States said in a filing to the trade watchdog on Monday. The US assessment of India's market price support (MPS) for cotton said New Delhi was allowed to pay out up to 10 per cent of the value of production, but the actual figure had ranged from 53 per cent to 81 per cent since 2010. "It appears that India provides MPS for cotton vastly in excess of what it has reported to the WTO," the US filing said. Indian Commerce Ministry officials declined to make an immediate comment on the US document, but India has previously dismissed US allegations that it pays higher subsidies than permitted. Along with more than 45 countries, India has demanded that MPS should be calculated by using the recent reference period instead of 1986/88 prices, which was built into the equation at the creation of the WTO, said a government official, who declined to be named. While Indias calculations are based on dollar terms, the US calculations are based on local currency, said the official, who has direct knowledge of the trade negotiations. The US filing is the latest in a series of analyses of publicly available data that Washington has submitted to the WTO, each one setting out apparent breaches of WTO rules that are hiding in plain sight. Previous submissions have targeted China and Vietnam as well as India. "The United States is providing this information to other (WTO) Members in the interest of promoting transparency surrounding India's MPS policies," the filing said. "This document is for the purpose of discussion by World Trade Organization Members." India has been the second-largest cotton producer since 2006, behind China, and the second-largest exporter since 2007, the document said. The US filing said that for the 2015/16 marketing year, India had notified market price support of USD 18 million, which was about 1.2 billion rupees, but the United States estimated that the correct figure was 504 billion rupees. In 2016/17, India had not notified any MPS, but the United States calculated the correct level at around 557 billion rupees. "The United States looks forward to future discussion of the significance of Indias MPS for cotton for both Indias market and for world markets both with India and with other Members," it said. By Express News Service BENGALURU: The roles of Mahatma Gandhi and former Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were discussed by a panel of two scholars, at an event organised by the Consulate General of Israel to South India here on Sunday. The panelists one from India and the other one from Israel spoke about the lives and deaths of the two leaders, the similarities they shared and their memories of the day when they were both assassinated. The event was held to commemorate the two leaders. The panelists were Prof Vijay Padaki, a founding faculty at the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) and a visiting professor at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and Prof Gadi Ariav, associate professor, Management of Technology and Information systems, Tel Aviv University, Israel. Prof Padaki said Gandhi was a complex person who himself struggled with many issues in his life. When seen from a management point of view, you see a very different Gandhi. Even his ideas on non-violence were complex, he said. The deaths of both Gandhi and Rabin were assassinations that shocked the respective countries. Recalling the assassination of Rabin, Prof Ariav said it was a devastating, unbelievable event in Israel. Prof Padaki said assassinations had been fairly common throughout history, and they all arose because people could not deal with their differences. The basic psychology is the same when entire communities are eliminated when they stand in someones way, he said. Prof Ariav pointed out that one difference between Gandhi and Rabin was the fact that the topic of Rabins stature was still a hotly-debated one in Israel, unlike Gandhis unquestionable stature as the nations Mahatma. Maybe 23 years, the time since Rabins death, is not a long enough time for a resolution, he added. K Shiva Shanker By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Eight months after the officials of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare met those at the State Health Department to discuss the establishment of a National Centre for Disease Control in Telangana, the project has finally picked up momentum when the two-acre plot for the institute was zeroed on. To be located at the State Health Transport Organisation in SR Nagar, the NCDC will fulfil the states requirements of infrastructure to combat rare infections and disease outbreaks like Nipah virus etc. Earlier, when such diseases were detected, samples would be sent to National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune or NCDC in New Delhi for confirmation of the disease. Transported through the roadways or airways, this process would take at least one to two days, a crucial time which could be utilised in controlling the spread of infection. Senior regional director of Health and Family Welfares regional office, Dr Anuradha Medoju will head the committee tasked to identify the land for NCDC in Hyderabad. An inspection report will be prepared of the site which will be sent to the State Health department and a MoU will also be signed before establishing the institute. Apart from monitoring disease outbreaks across the country, NCDC also recommends measures to control the outbreak of communicable diseases, stores and supplies vaccines and also conducts research. Officials from the State Health department said that for any infection or disease, early detection is key for treatment of patients, and controlling the infections. Serology tests can be conducted to know the virus which is causing new infections. The Centre would be constructed with `180 crore in a span of at least four years, Dr Anuradha said. NCDC will create jobs The construction of National Centre for Disease Control in Hyderabad is expected to create jobs at all levels starting from vacancies for specialists to class IV jobs By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Unable to bear alleged harassment by her husband and in-laws, a 27-year-old housewife committed suicide at Chandanagar. Y Swetha, a mother of a 20-month-old infant, hanged herself at her residence on Saturday night, said police. According to police, Swetha, a graduate hailing from Andhra Pradesh, was married to Ashwin, who is working as an Assistant Manager at IDBI Bank, Kondapur branch. The couple along with their child Akshay, were residing with Ashwins parents at Nallagandla. For the past few months, Ashwin had been harassing Swetha over petty issues and both his parents are supporting him. She informed her parents about the harassment and things were normal for sometime. However, Ashwin got addicted to alcohol off late and he started harassing her physically and mentally. Unable to bear the harassment, Swetha hanged herself in her room while her husband and in-laws were present in the house. Based on a complaint from Swethas mother, a case of abetment to suicide is registered against Ashwin and his parents. The body was handed over to her family after autopsy, said police. By Express News Service KOCHI: Nearly 10,000 online taxis plying in Kochi will remain off the road on Monday as part of the token strike called by the Samyuktha Samara Samithi, a collective of nine trade unions. The token strike is called by the samithi demanding government intervention to sort out the issues faced by online taxi drivers, including a hike in wages. According to Samara Samithi convener Jackson Varghese, the online taxi drivers, through an RTI, has collected information on the possibilities of government intervention to sort out the issues faced by them. We came to know that government of each state is responsible for the issues related to road transport in their areas. Hope the state government will intervene in our issues. Otherwise, we will think of launching strong protest measures including indefinite strike, said Jackson. He said the government intervention is needed in the issues related to low wages. At present, nearly 25 per cent of the cash collected is being paid as commission to the service providers. Moreover, they are also suspending or cancelling the service agreement with the taxi drivers without any prior notice. This will result in the driver losing the contract all of a sudden, even if he is on a trip. These issues need to be addressed at the earliest, he said. Savari cabs Meanwhile, the taxi drivers of Ernakulam has joined hands to launch Savari cabs, which will begin services on November 14. The services will be typical call taxi services, where the customers can dial up the number and book the cab. The minimum fare will be `150 and `12 will be charged per additional kilometre. The Savari cabs will charge the government-approved rates and are mooted as a way for livelihood to drivers who are finding it difficult to survive after the popularity that the online taxi services gained. Meanwhile, the token strike on Monday by Uber and Ola drivers will affect the commuters, especially those working at Infopark and another group will be those who are travelling to the airport. Reason for strike The token strike is called by the samithi demanding government intervention to sort out the issues faced by online taxi drivers, including a hike in wages At present, nearly 25 per cent of the cash collected is being paid as commission to the service providers By PTI BILASPUR: Hitting out at Rahul and Sonia Gandhi for questioning him on demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday said he did not need a "certificate of honesty" from the "mother-son duo" who are out on bail. In a no-holds-barred attack on the Congress, its president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia, Modi also said the party's "politics begins and ends with one family". Addressing a poll rally in Bilaspur ahead of the second and final phase polling in Chattisgarh on November 20, the prime minister made a strong pitch for development, saying its pace under the Congress' watch was "far slow" than that during the BJP's rule. Singling out the Gandhis for "seeking account of demonetisation", Modi asked "whether the mother-son duo who are out on bail for financial irregularities would give him certificate of honesty". "They want an account of demonetisation. It was due to the demonetisation that fake companies were identified. And because of that you had to seek bail. Why do you forget that it was due to the note ban that you had to seek bail," he said without naming the Gandhis. Modi announced the ban on high-value currency notes on November 8, 2016. Modi's remarks were an apparent reference to the bail granted by a Delhi court to Rahul and Sonia in December 2015 in connection with alleged financial irregularities in the National Herald case. Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad disapproved of Modi's bail remarks, saying the prime minister should not lower the dignity of his office. Attacking the Congress on the issue of corruption, Modi also referred to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's remark in 1985 that only 15 paise of every rupee meant for the welfare of the downtrodden reached them. Which "hand" (election symbol of the Congress) had siphoned off the remaining 85 paise, Modi asked. Alluding to Rajiv Gandhi's remark, Modi said demonetisation "brought back the 85 paise which were disappearing" due to corruption. Congress never got a leadership which worked with a resolution of "living or dying for the welfare of the nation", he said. Chhattisgarh may have taken 50 years to attain the present level of development had it still been ruled by the Rahul Gandhi-led party, he said. "And there is a reason for it. Their politics begins and ends with one family, while our politics begins from the huts of the poor," he told the gathering. Modi said people ask him from where was he getting the money for developmental works. "It (money) is very much available," he added. "The money is yours. Earlier it was hidden under someone's bed, in cupboards. It all came out after demonetisation was announced," he said. Without naming the Congress, Modi said its leaders were "disconnected" from the aspirations of people. "Hence, they (Congress leaders) would give slogans, but they did not have policies and intentions to realise. Neither did the Congress get a leadership which worked with the resolution of living or dying for welfare of the nation," he said. He also targeted the Congress president, saying when Congress released its 36-point manifesto for Chhattisgarh polls, 'Naamdaar' (Rahul Gandhi) was referred to as 'Sir' 150 times which shows he is more important for them (Congress) than Chhattisgarh. The BJP is for development and it was due to this commitment that the opposition is unable to understand how to compete with ruling party in elections, Modi said. By PTI BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath Monday said the BJP was "distorting" his party manifesto's reference to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to divert public attention. His statement comes a day after BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra, party vice president Prabhat Jha and MP unit chief Rakesh Singh lashed out at the Congress for being "opposed to Lord Ram and the RSS". "The BJP is intentionally fanning the RSS issue to divert people's attention from the public welfare issues mentioned in our 'Vachan Patra' (document of pledges). In our manifesto, we have not mentioned that the RSS would be banned, nor do we have any such intention," Nath told reporters here. He asserted that neither the party nor he himself have said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will be banned. The Congress manifesto, released on Saturday, under a head titled 'administration reforms' reads, "The holding of RSS shakhas in government premises would be banned and the order regarding relaxation given to public servants to attend them will be revoked". The Congress government had banned RSS activities in government premises in Madhya Pradesh in 1981. The ban was revived in 2000 by then chief minister Digvijaya Singh under the Civil Services Conduct Rule, senior journalist Rakesh Dixit said. Thereafter, he said, the ban continued under BJP chief ministers Uma Bharti and Babulal Gaur, before incumbent Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan lifted the ban in September 2006, describing the RSS as a "socio-cultural organisation and not a political outfit". "BJP is trying to put words in our mouth. The RSS is free to hold its shakhas (classes) except in government premises. People will decide whether the RSS is a cultural or political organisation. We do not want to get into it," Nath clarified. The Congress leader said the BJP was intentionally trying to create confusion so that the "people-friendly" points in the (Congress) agenda go ignored. "The public is intelligent, it won't be carried away with such tactics," he remarked. The Chhindwara MP said the Congress had incorporated the point (RSS issue) in their manifesto after getting suggestions that the RSS shakhas being held in tribal hostels and other government schools were hindering studies. On the issue of the Ram temple, he said the BJP raises it when polls draw close. "Where was the BJP since last four and a half years? When elections are round the corner and six months are left for it, the BJP is remembering Ram Temple," he said, adding the saffron party was running a smear campaign claiming that the Congress was against the (building of) Ram temple. "This (RSS mention) is not an issue. I know (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and (BJP president) Amit Shah very well. They turn a non-issue into an issue," Congress spokesperson Shakti Singh Gohilhe told reporters here. On Sunday, in a hurriedly convened press conference, Patra had claimed that the Congress believed in "mandir nahin banane denge, shakha nahin lagne denge (won't allow the temple, won't allow shakhas)". "These are the very people who had earlier said that Lord Ram did not exist, that he was a mythical character. That is why they were opposed to the construction of the Ram temple," he had said. Hitting out at former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh, Patra had said, "Digvijaya Singh has also said that the RSS should be banned". Likewise, BJP vice president Prabhat Jha had Sunday told reporters in Mandsaur that former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi had banned the RSS, but their moves had boomeranged. BJP state unit chief Rakesh Singh too had lashed out at the Congress and dared it to "impose a ban on the RSS if it has the strength". The 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly will go to polls on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Accusing the Congress of religious partisanship, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi pointed out contradictions between the way Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad were remembered by Congress on their recent birth anniversaries. Speaking at a public meeting in Chandrayangutta constituency, he said, It is a custom to remember our late leaders in Parliament. Only two people from Congress had shown up on Indias first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azads remembrance. However, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patels commemoration was attended by Congress entire team. Owaisi also slammed the national party for criticising AIMIM and questioning their strategy behind contesting elections outside the State. In meeting at Hafeez Baba Nagar, Owaisi also criticised BJPs manifesto that promises 1 lakh cows every year to people of Telangana if they come to power. I called up a cattle herder and got to know that a cow eats 16 kg of fodder every day. So, it would translate into 16 lakh kg fodder for the one lakh cows. Is the BJP also going to provide fodder? he taunted. AIMIM chief also slammed Uttar Pradesh chief ministers recent name-changing drive saying Yogi Adityanaths problem was with time. They dont want people to remember that there was a time when Muslims ruled the country. They want to destroy that. However, their aim is to spread the message that you (Muslims) are not equals and only tenants in our country, Owaisi added. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Its akin to the cutting off the Chinese melon. But, the grand allies of the Grand Alliance are still unsure as to what will be their spheres of influence. Even as candidates of other parties are preparing for the nomination, notification for which will be issued on Monday, Congress leaders are running to the camps of their allies, TJS and CPI, to placate them. Still, no progress seems to have been made with regards to the number of seats and allocation of constituencies for these two allies. As a result, the announcement of candidates, that was supposed to have happened on November 8, seems to have been delayed again. On Sunday, State Congress chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy held a meeting with TJS chief Kodandaram. AICC secretary Saleem Ahmed and TTDP chief L Ramana also participated in the meeting. Though no agreement on seat sharing seems to have materialised, Uttam Kumar did announce that a statutory committee would be formed, with Kodandaram as its convenor, to fulfil the aspirations of Telangana movement and people. Uttam assured that the alliance was intact despite differences. Congress activists from Khanapur Assembly constituency inject saline drips outside Gandhi Bhavan, on third day of protests against allocation of MLA seat to Ramesh Rathod on Sunday | Sathya Keerthi, Miffed over Malkajgiri seat being allotted to TJS, Congress workers stage a protest at Gandhi Bhavan on Sunday | S Senbagapandiyan Professor Kodandaram will be the convenor of Peoples Aspirations Committee. We will announce which party will contest from where well before the filing of nominations begins, assured Uttam while interacting with the media after the meeting. He also tried to placate those upset over not having gotten a ticket. ALSO READ: Congress cadre lock selves up in party office in Warangal Though it appeared that TRS would easily win in the beginning, the formation of Grand Alliance has instilled a fear of defeat in the pink party, claimed TTDP chief L Ramana. Differences are common when alliances are formed. All that will be sorted out and the Grand Alliance will come to power, he said. According to the insiders, Congress has agreed to give 8 seats to TJS. However, disagreement persists over the selection of constituencies. While both parties have agreed that TJS candidates would fight from Malkajgiri, Siddipet, Dubbaka, Medak and Wardhannapet constituencies on the behalf of Grand Alliance, there is a lack of consensus on other constituencies like Miryalguda, Jangaon, Warangal East, Ramagundem, Chandrayangutta, Secunderabad and Mahabubnagar. Though the stalemate is likely to delay the announcement of Congress candidates, the party might ask the leaders to go ahead with the nomination process and issue B-Forms once the pact is sealed. AICC leader Rajeev Shukla claimed that even the delay in announcement of contestants is part of a strategy. CPI gives ultimatum Though a team of Congress leaders led by AICC secretary Shreenivasan Krishnan and TPCC treasurer Gudur Narayan Reddy held discussions with CPI on seat sharing, no progress was made. A miffed CPI warned that its leaders would start filing nominations if the grand old party fails to make a decision by Monday evening. Congress has stuck to its earlier stance of allotting Wyra, Husnabad and Bellampalli. But we are asking for five seats including Kothagudem and Munugode. They have not assured us anything. Tomorrow we will speak to Uttam and decide. If Congress does not agree to five seats by Monday evening, we will start filing nominations, said CPI state secretary Chada Venkat Reddy. Meanwhile, popular student leader and CPI member Kanhaiya Kumar said that people are looking towards alternative politics all over India and Grand Alliance in Telangana is one such attempt. He was in Hyderabad to participate in Abul Kalam Azad birth anniversary celebrations. Vanama raises the BC card As CPI has been bargaining hard for Kothagudem seat, Congress aspirant from the constituency, senior leader Vanama Venkateswara Rao stepped pressure on Congress leadership for the seat. He said that as he is one among the few BC leaders in Congress, he should not be denied ticket by allotting the seat to CPI. Vanama said that though he had worked for the party for decades he was neglected in the past and once again party should not deny ticket like BC leader like him. Uttam promises a sub-plan for Minorities TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy announced that Congress government will introduce Minorities Sub Plan. Speaking at Abul Kalam Azads birth anniversary celebrations in Hyderabad Uttam lambasted TRS chief KCR for neglecting and fooling Minorities. While it was with 4 per cent reservation provided by Congress that Minorities students studied engineering, medicine courses, KCR fooled them with 12 per cent reservations promise in the state. TRS, AIMIM and BJP are all friends and colluded with each other. Only Congress government will work for the betterment of Minorities, said Uttam. Visitors taste featured beer of the Czech Republic at its booth in the Country Pavilion. (Peoples Daily/Chen Bin) As an important part of the first China International Import Expo (CIIE), the Country Pavilion for Trade & Investment is designed for countries to showcase their achievements in economic and trade, as well as their featured and competitive products. The Russian pavilion was packed with people. There was Russian dance that won warm applause from the crowd, as well as investment promotion activities of local governments getting a lot of inquiries from intentional buyers. Russias participation in the expo is highlighted by the enthusiasm of local governments. The country sent delegates from 40 federal subjects for the event, which accounted for nearly half of all federal subjects of Russia. Russian local governments have been signing agreements and contracts with Chinese enterprises one after another, said Azad Kareevdirector of the public relations department of Russian Convention Bureau. Such strong willingness of firms from the two countries for investment has not only proven that local cooperation between China and Russia has great potential for further development, but also demonstrates that Russia attaches greater importance to the bilateral ties and hopes to seek common development with China, expressed the director. There are around 100 Russian companies attending the event, with booths covering an area of 2,000 square meters, according to Anna Belyaeva, executive vice president for international business development of Russian Export Center Group. Russian enterprises have seen great business opportunities from the expo, which is why they participated in the event enthusiastically, noted Belyaeva. She said that they have established a representative office in Shanghai, hoping to help more Russian companies enter the Chinese market and bring better products to Chinese consumers. Kornel Heckenast, sales manager of R-Bag Hungary, expressed that they have a lot to bring to China. Bilateral economic and trade ties between China and Hungary are getting closer day by day, said Heckenast, adding that they have already carried out cooperation with Air China and witnessed steady growth in Hungarys exports to China as well as the soaring of imports from China. Heckenast believes that with the deepening of cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, there will be closer cooperation between R-Bag and China. Heckenast visited business booths of many countries at the expo, including the Czech Republic, Poland, and the Slovak Republic. Visitors take pictures in the Egypt pavilion at the first CIIE. (Peoples Daily/Weng Qiyu) He noted that Central European countries dont have a great market size, but the potential of Chinese market is infinite, adding that in cooperation with China, Central European countries shouldnt compete with each other, but collaborate with and complement each other. With the glistening statue of Tutankhamun, awe-inspiring seats of Pharaoh ancient Egypt, beautiful lamps with delicate carvings, and fine accessories made of alabaster, the Egypt pavilion enjoys popularity at the first CIIE. Ive always wanted to travel to Egypt to experience the ancient civilization by the Nile. I never thought that I could have a glimpse of it at the CIIE, a deputy from the trade delegation of north Chinas Hebei province said at the expo. Egypt is among Chinese peoples favorite travel destinations. However, there arent many Egyptian products in Chinese market, said an Egyptian named Vigie Dina after her negotiation with Chinese customers. Dina has received about a dozen batches of businessmen the whole day. Though her voice was a little hoarse, she was very excited about the event. She told Peoples Daily that by taking part in this expo, they want to introduce more Egyptian products to Chinese market through cooperation on tourism and culture. As the investment advisor of the Suez Canal Economic Zone, Dina said her team came to the first CIIE to know more about the Chinese market and find out what kinds of Egyptian products suit Chinese consumers. They also want to draw Chinese firms to invest in the Suez Canal Economic Zone. China is a great partner for Egypt regarding exporting goods and attracting investments, said Dina By PTI MUMBAI: Arjun Kapoor completed the shooting of "India's Most Wanted" on Monday. The 33-year-old actor, who is collaborating with Raj Kumar Gupta on the project, will be seen playing the role of an intelligence officer for the first time on celluloid. Arjun plays the role of 'Prabhat' who is trying to hunt down a terrorist. The story has been described to be unconventional and a real-life one. Kapoor announced the news on Twitter. "Some journeys are special because of the team and the effort that the people put in to fulfil a vision as my 12th film #indiasmostwanted wraps today all I can say is @rajkumar_rkg sir. "It's been an honour and privilege to work with you and your team to tell a story that needed to be told and to play one of the many unsung heroes we have in our country," the actor wrote. Some journeys are special because of the team & the effort that the people put in to fulfill a vision... as my 12th film #indiasmostwanted wraps today all I can say is @rajkumar_rkg sir its been an honour & privilege to work with you and your team... pic.twitter.com/m2sqPDVuuo Arjun Kapoor (@arjunk26) November 12, 2018 to tell a story that needed to be told & to play one of the many unsung heroes we have in our country. Also, a big non corporate hug to @foxstarhindi & their entire team for bringing ur vision to the forefront without any compromise. I will see u guys in theatres on 24th May 2019 Arjun Kapoor (@arjunk26) November 12, 2018 A film reportedly does not have a female lead, and in order to make the script as real as possible, director Raj Kumar took 3 years to complete it. Gupta is co-producing the film with Fox Star Studios. The film is slated for release on May 24, 2019. By PTI MUMBAI: As the trailer of the film releases, Producer Ronnie Screwvala and director Abhishek Kapoor on Monday said their upcoming film "Kedarnath" has nothing offensive, days after a BJP leader demanded a ban on the movie. Ajendra Ajay, who is part of Dehradun's BJP media relations team, wrote to Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chairman Prasoon Joshi that despite being set against the backdrop of one of the worst human tragedies, the film makes fun of Hindu sentiments. READ | 'Kedarnath' movie promotes 'love jihad', ban it or face protest, say priests, BJP When asked about the controversy, Ronnie told reporters, "First, I want to clarify, till date no one has approached us. Second, our onus is to get the film censored. Censor board is the single and sole body that represents this (films). "Third, we are all very creative people, we are all Indian's first and I don't think there's anything (offensive) in the movie," he said. The producer was speaking at the trailer launch of the film. Accusing the film of promoting love jihad, the BJP leader had objected to the love story of a Muslim porter and a Hindu pilgrim in the movie. Ronnie said one should watch the film before forming an opinion. "Like most of the movies which get into controversies, the controversy starts before they see the movie. Sixty seconds of watching something and someone forms an opinion. Our job is to go the censor. Let someone comment after they've seen the movie, we will be happy to talk," he added. Abhishek, who has previously directed "Kai Po Che" and "Fitoor", said the film talks about faith and love. Responding to Love Jihad accusations, @RonnieScrewvala says,"Firstly, no one has approached us. It's weird when people watch 60 seconds of something and form an opinion like that. I am sure once the film releases, it will be clear to the audience." #Kedarnath #KedarnathTrailer pic.twitter.com/fvfhDb4Id3 CinemaExpress (@XpressCinema) November 12, 2018 "People watch teasers and form an opinion. Let the film open up a bit, let them watch the film. Once they see it they'll realise there's nothing in it which is offensive. The film has lots of love and faith. I don't think people will be disappointed," he said. Ajay had urged the CBFC chairman to impose a ban on the movie produced by Ronnie and Pragya Kapoor. The film is set against the backdrop of a catastrophic deluge that hit the Himalayan shrine in 2013. "Kedarnath" features Sushant Singh Rajput and marks the debut of Sara Ali Khan. It is scheduled to be released on December 7. A Sharadhaa By Express News Service Who has not heard of the legend of Punyakoti, the tale about the honest cow and the hungry tiger? Now, reimagining the moral story on a big canvas is actor-director Rakshit Shetty. This will be his second directorial venture after Ulidavaru Kandante, for which he is writing the story himself. Apparently, the concept got him so excited that it became his WhatsApp DP and it made way for the announcement of Punyakoti by his friends during Deepavali. City Express caught up with this multifaceted actor over a telephonic conversation about his next favourite project when he said that a one-line story is ready and he has started writing the dialogues. The whole script is in my mind, and it is just a matter of putting it on paper, he says. Rakshit told us how he arrived at the idea of retelling the legandary tale of Punyakoti in as many languages as possible. Always thought something like GoT should happen in Kannada There are 20-30 concepts in Rakshits mind, which he wants to convert into a film and whats keeping him excited is the Punyakoti script. Currently I am shooting for Avane Srimannarayana, and each frame makes me think I wanted to do something bigger than my previous project. And a subject like Punyakoti was the best option for me. And the thought of it excited me in many ways. Especially when you watch a series like Game of Thrones, I have always thought that something like this should happen in Kannada as well, he says. A LEGENDARY TALE RETOLD Punyakoti is a story that has become a legend among all of us, Rakshit says. Specially, every Kannadiga has at least turned 8 to 9 pages reading this tale in their school days. In fact, it was one song we were happy to learn and would wait, when our teachers would come and ask us to recite it. The whole class singing that in the form of a song and in one tune is soothing to your ears. Its more or less like an anthem in schools even today. I consider Punyakotis tale a legend, which I plan to retell, he says. GIVING HUMAN FACE TO PUNYAKOTI Personally for Rakshit, it is about the childhood memories which he wants to put on canvas. That childhood feeling that I had towards this song Punyakoti if I listen to the music of this legendary tale in a different form with complete orchestra, making it a cinema, the whole thing excites me a lot, he says. Rakshit adds Punyakoti is a very simple story about a cow and tiger and he plans to add a lot of elements to it. Giving a human form to the Punyakoti story, it has to be creatively satisfying and at the same time, commercially viable. And when a human comes into the picture, there can be many facets to the story, he says. MY STORY OF PUNYAKOTI WILL GO BACK TO ANCIENT TIME The actor-director always desired to tell a story in a big form. Giving a human face to Punyakoti, how do I relate to the cow and tiger? Thats where I can keep building this story. My idea is to bring it out in a larger picture, says Rakshit, who wants to base the story in ancient times, but not specific with the time. It can be before Ramayana and Mahabharata. Creatively, I have a lot of freedom. It also gives me an opportunity to create the palace, the costumes, the way they talk and more, he says. HUGE FAN OF MYTHOLOGY Rakshit, who is writing about Punyakoti, says that he is a huge fan of mythology. I have not missed any of Rajkumars films and movies related to mythology. The whole idea of taking the audience to another world which none of us have seen, is fun. We have done that quite a bit in Avane Srimnanayarana, the film I am currently shooting - it can be related to the present. Punyakoti will be a complete fantasy world. It will be our imagination, he says. ITS A GLOBAL FILM, BUT NOT THINKING OF BUDGET RIGHT NOW Rakshit, who is in the scripting stage, is not thinking about the films budget. From my end, it is going to be an epic. Either way, I am not thinking of doing it on a small budget. This is a story, you can do on a budget of Rs 15 crore, Rs 30 crore, Rs 100 crore or even Rs 200 crore. Sometimes even if the story doesnt require that budget, the canvas requires it. The same story can be told in different ways. While writing, I want to completely build my imagination and I dont want to write keeping the budget in mind. Thinking of a budget while in the writing stage kills the imagination, says Rakshit Although he wants Punyakoti to be recognised as a Kannada film, given a budget, Rakshit wants it in two languages and dub it in other languages. If the film is good, there is a possibility of taking the film across the globe, says the actor-director, who is yet to decide whether it will be done under Paramvah Studios. My investors have stakes in the company and I want to know if they are interested in investing in this film. Having said that, I will give first preference to Paramvah. I also have my friends, who want to invest in it. We have a plan, and it is just a matter of putting it in place. Once the script is ready, I will work out on strategy and the budget required, he says. RAKSHIT CITES KGF AS A GOOD EXAMPLE Rakshit, the actor, writer of Avane Srimnanayarana (ASN) to take in five languages. He cites the example of KGF, and how it is a good development for Kannada industry. The trailer of KGF is making a big buzz all over the country, which is a good strategy. The film has set a very good platform and they are doing an amazing job. This is the right time to tap and extend our Kannada market. It is just that we have to be confident while making the film in such a big canvas that people from other languages watch it, says Rakshit, who has completed 80 per cent of the shoot for ASN. I just have two pending schedules. We thought when the script has the potential, why not take this to as many people as possible? We are working on strategies of releasing it in other languages too, he says. By Online Desk Eighteen out of 90 constituencies in Chhattisgarh which went to polls on Monday under phase one of the Assembly elections, recorded a turnout of 70 per cent voters till 4.30 pm, the Election Commission said. Although the Maoist-infested parts of the state witnessed a peaceful election, five Naxals were killed and five jawans sustained injuries in a gun battle that took place in Bijapur at around 12.30pm. An improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated in Dantewada district by Naxals during the wee hours of the day and another explosive was recovered in the Sukma district. READ| 100-year-old woman casts vote in Dornapal district Voting at highly sensitive seats( Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur, Konta, Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal and Kondagaon), which began at 7 am, ended at 3pm and polling continued in Khairagarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Bastar, Jagdalpur and Chitrakot, till 5 pm. The remaining 72 seats of Chhattisgarh assembly will go to vote on November 20 as part of a multi-phased voting across five states that also include neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram. READ| EVM snag in dozen polling booths, voting interrupted While the state has traditionally seen a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress, a third force has emerged this time in the form of an alliance between former Congress CM Ajit Jogi's own party Janata Congress Chhattisgarh and Dalit leader Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) filed its preliminary inquiry report on CBI director Alok Kumar Verma in the Supreme Court at the last minute on Monday. Verma, who faces allegations of corruption, has been divested of his duties and sent on leave. The delay in filing the report prompted the judges to defer the case to Friday. The court had earlier given the CVC two weeks to submit the report, which ended on Sunday. When it was filed only during Mondays hearing, in three volumes in a sealed cover, the bench, led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, told the government it was late. ALSO READ: CBI infighting: Court denies bail to alleged middleman in bribery case against Rakesh Asthana The judges added that they kept the courts registry open on Sunday and had the registrar waiting for the report till 11.30 am. If submitted on time, the judges would have had the time to go through the enquiry report, but the delay forced them to adjourn the case. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, however, said there was a delay of just an hour in filing the report. Acting CBI director M Nageswara Rao also filed in a sealed cover the decisions taken by him from October 23 to 26. A court took both reports on record and fixed the matter for further hearing on November 16. Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for the NGO Common Cause, hit out at the CVC, saying they opened their offices at 2 am on October 23 to pass orders against the CBI director, but could not file their report on time in court. He claimed before the bench that despite the apex court order, the acting CBI director was continuing to take important decisions. By Express News Service BHOPAL: At a time when the Congress has failed to cement pre-poll alliances in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, former Union minister P Chidambaram batted for mini-Gathbandhans in 29 states to pave the passage for victory in the 2019 general elections. Ive always believed that after the 1977 general elections, Indias Lok Sabha election is barely 29 mini-elections. Its the 29 mini-elections in states, which become the Lok Sabha polls finally, Chidambaram, who heads the Manifesto Committee of the Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, said. ALSO READ | 2019 Lok Sabha election: State-wise alliances to benefit Congress, says P Chidambaram But the situation in every state is different, he said. Our approach is that well form state-wise coalitions. There will be a coalition in Tamil Nadu, there is already a coalition in Telangana and in Maharashtra. We hope to form coalition in each state and if the Gathbandhan wins in each state that will be the victory of the Mahagathbandhan in 2019. The Mahagathbandhan is actually Gathbandhans in 29 states and were confident that we can form coalitions in many states, he added. In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress has failed to strike alliance with any other major opposition party, including the BSP, the SP or the Gondwana Gantantra Party. Of the total 230 seats, the Congress is contesting 229 seats, leaving one seat Jatara for Sharad Yadav-led Loktantrik Janta Dal. In adjoining Chhattisgarh, the Congress is contesting alone against the ruling BJP and the Third Front comprising BSP-Ajit Jogis Janta Congress Chhattisgarh-left parties. The Congress is also yet to take a final call on coalition with regional players in Rajasthan where it stands a fair chance to win the election. On the Congress stand on the Ram temple, the former home minister said, The Congress is not a hurdle to the Ram temple construction, the issue is a legal issue which is pending before the Supreme Court. By Express News Service BENGALURU: As news of Union minister Ananth Kumar's demise broke, cabinet colleagues partymen and leaders cutting across party lines offered their condolences on Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi who took to Twitter to express his condolences, to visit Bengaluru on Tuesday to take part in the final rites of his cabinet colleague. Ananth Kumar, aged 59, passed away at around 2 AM on Monday due to complications following cancer and infections, said an official statement from his office. The Union Minister's mortal remains will be kept at his residence till Tuesday morning at 7 am. After that, it will be in the state BJP office from 7-9 am. From BJP office, the remains will be kept in National College grounds in Basavangudi for public viewing till 1 pm. "I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti," Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted. The news of Anath Kumar's demise set a gloom of pall in the NDA cabinet with many of his colleagues expressing great sorrow. "Shocked, its unbelievable, My friend, Brother Ananthkumar is no more," DV Sadananda Gowda, Union Minister, tweeted. He has replaced his Twitter profile photo with a black background to express sorrow. "Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss.(SIC)," Defense minister Nirmala Seetharaman tweeted on Monday morning. BJP National President Amit Shah called Ananth Kumar a remarkable administrator in his condolence message. "I am grief-stricken to learn about the untimely demise of our senior leader and union minister Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He served the nation and organisation with unparalleled zeal and dedication. Ananth ji worked tirelessly to strengthen the BJP in the state of Karnataka," he tweeted. "Central Minister, Bengaluru South MP, Senior leader of BJP, one of the architects of Karnataka BJPs growth Sri HN ANANTH KUMAR passed away a few hours back after illness for a few months ... Wish his departed soul an eternal peace .... Om Shanti," tweeted BL Santhosh, RSS Ideologue and Joint organising secretary of the BJP. Leaders cutting across party lines expressed sorrow over the passing away of the Union chemical and fertilisers minister. "Im sorry to hear about the passing of Union Minister, Shri Ananth Kumar ji, in Bengaluru, earlier this morning. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace. Om Shanti," tweeted AICC President Rahul Gandhi. Chief Minister of Karnataka HD Kumaraswamy said he had lost a great friend in Ananth Kumar's death. "Our families had a friendship beyond politics. He always valued and had given priority to friendship," an official statement from HD Kumaraswamy's office said. Former Chief Minister of Karnataka Siddaramaiah too expressed his condolences. "Shocked by the news of Ananth Kumar's demise. A crucial link between Karnataka and Delhi has fallen apart. He had the age and opportunity to grow further in politics. I partake in his family's sorrow," he said. Former Prime Minister HD Devegowda who is on a foreign tour issued a statement of condolence. "Ananth Kumar became an MP for the first time when I was made Prime Minister. Since that day he has been working for the welfare of society. We have lost a gentleman," he said. Family, friends and colleagues alike started pouring into Ananth Kumar's residence in Basavangudi of Bengaluru to pay their last respects to his mortal remains. The 59-year-old is survived by his wife and social worker Tejasvini and two children. By PTI PATNA: Four minor girls used their 'dupattas' as a rope to climb down the second-floor balcony of a government-funded shelter home in Patna and escaped early Sunday, police said. Of the four girls, who escaped from Asha Kiran Home For Girls in Patliputra colony, three are of 16 years of age and the fourth was 12 years old, SHO Tarkeshwar Nath Tiwary said. The girls were brought to the shelter home last month. Tiwary said the reason for their escape would be investigated. He said the security guard of the home was inside the building when the girls escaped. An FIR was filed by the shelter home's authorities and police were investigating the matter. In April, reports of over 30 girls and women being allegedly raped at a state-funded shelter home in Muzaffarpur had come to light, sending shockwaves across the country. Reports of girls escaping from shelter homes, however, continued. While a woman fled from a shelter home in Patna on September 24, two minor girls escaped from another government-funded short-stay home in Khagaria district on October 29. The woman who fled from the Patna shelter home was later found. By PTI NEW DELHI: India and Morocco Monday signed an agreement to help each other in criminal matters and provide legal assistance wherever required, the Home Ministry said. The agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters was signed by Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on behalf of India and Mohamed Aujjar, the minister of justice on behalf of Kingdom of Morocco, here. The pact will strengthen bilateral cooperation with Morocco and enhance effectiveness and provide a broad legal framework for prevention, investigation and prosecution of crimes, as well as in tracing, restraint and confiscation of funds meant to finance terrorist acts, a home ministry statement said. Both the ministers reiterated their resolve to jointly counter the threats posed by organised crime and terrorism, it said. The China International Import Expo (CIIE), acting as a channel connecting both supply and requisitioning parties, is creating new business opportunities for the world. Over 3,600 exhibitors and more than 400,000 buyers from home and abroad have been attracted to the first CIIE, in the hope of expanding their markets and searching for favored products. The CIIE is significant as it builds a large platform for global companies to know more about each other, said Zhang Dongwei, Senior Vice President of Pactera Technology International, a global IT services provider. By enhancing cooperation and promoting trade liberalization and facilitation, the CIIE was bringing quality products to Chinese market from overseas, he added. During the import expo, online shopping burst with great power. Alibabas CEO Daniel Zhang has announced a large import plan on November 6, pledging to import $200 billion worth of goods over the next five years. The Expo was a huge treasure for all brands and enterprises, said Zhang, adding that Alibaba would take the opportunity to help more global commodities reach Chinese consumers and support foreign enterprises in finding their way of digital development in the Chinese market. Besides, the CIIE also provides a platform of cooperation and exchanges on technological innovation for both domestic and foreign enterprises. China General Technology Group (Genertec) signed to cooperate on a batch of projects over the CIIE as a practical action to implement Chinas policy of expanding imports as well as a demonstration of the companys cooperation achievements over the years, said Wang Xusheng, deputy general manager of Genertec. Wang added that Genertec would set up an international innovation and service center for smart devices and carry out wide technological exchanges and cooperation with other companies. A large number of small and medium enterprises have become the most active participators in technological innovation and cooperation. I have noticed that many industry leaders have brought their most advanced equipment and technologies to China during the CIIE, which fully indicated their confidence and eagerness in Chinese market, said Li Yan, deputy general manager at Shaanxi Fast Auto Drive Co., Ltd, adding that equipment procurement and technological exchanges would bring more opportunities for companies to enhance their own strength. Different countries and regions have different competitive resources and industries, and the CIIE serves as a platform for open cooperation among international and domestic enterprises. Whirlpool expected to introduce more differentiated products to China and diversify product lines so as to cater to Chinas upgrading consumption structure and stimulate market demand, Swain Shan, general manager of Laundry &Cooling in Whirlpool Corporation China, told Peoples Daily. Xian Aiju Grain and Oil Industrial Group, signing contract with companies from Kazakhstan, is planning to buy 100,000 tons of wheat and 100,000 tons of oilseeds. Kazakhstan had the ideal oil, air and water resources to produce high-quality crops, introduced Jia Heyi, president of Aiju. As the number of high-end and mid-end consumers was growing in China, quality agricultural products were more and more welcome by Chinese importers and the sales revenue would even double given the quality, price and market factors of these products, Jia noted, adding that the company, through contract farming, also helped local farmers to select proper crops and find proper market. IANS By JAMMU: An Indian Army soldier was killed and another injured on Monday on the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan, forcing strong Indian retaliation. Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Devender Anand said that on Monday around 5.15 p.m. Pakistan Army resorted to ceasefire violation in Krishna Ghati Sector (Mendhar) on the LoC, resulting in a soldier getting martyred and another critically injured. "In the incident, Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM was critically injured and succumbed to gunshot injuries. Havildar Mari Muthu D also sustained gunshot wounds and was critically injured in the firing," said the spokesman. "Immediate resuscitation and medical aid was provided to the injured soldier and he has been evacuated to Military Hospital, Poonch. Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM, 34, belonged to Kerala and is survived by his wife, Anna Dayana Joseph, the spokesman said. "Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM was a brave and sincere soldier. The nation will always remain indebted to him for his supreme sacrifice and devotion to duty," he said. "Indian Army has retaliated strongly and effectively on Pakistan Army posts. The martyrdom of the Indian Army soldier will not go in vain," he said. By PTI AGARTALA: Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has justified the reason behind dropping May Day from the list of holidays in the state and said the decision was taken because government employees didn't need one on International Labour Rights Day. Deb said that May Day is meant for workers and labourers and none else. READ | Tripura drops May Day from list of state holidays; Opposition vexed He claimed his government has done justice by granting holiday on May Day only for workers in industrial sector. Why do government employees need holiday on May Day ? ... I have noticed that it is a holiday on that day in very few states. "What are the provisions for a holiday? They (previous Left govt) used to grant holiday to the entire state on this day here," Deb told a conference of the Tripura Gazetted Officers Sangh here on Sunday. The Tripura government in a notification on November 3 had said that government employees would be allowed to avail any four holidays chosen by them out of a list of restricted holidays during 2019. The list of restricted holidays had 12 festivals or occasions in it. These are New Years Day, Pous Parban - a Bengali harvest festival, Basanti Puja, Mahavir Jayanti, May Day, Ratha Yatra, Jhulanjatra Samapan, Biswakarma Puja, Akheri-Chahar-Sumba, Bhratridwitiya, Guru Nanak birthday and the World Disabled Day. There is holiday on May Day in the industrial sector. That holiday is still valid. But are you workers and labourers in the secretariat? the CM asked. You (gazetted officers) are not labourers. No. Am I labourer? No. I am Chief Minister. So what for do you need holiday (on May Day)? What will you mourn for (Kya matam manayenge aap)? he asked. The state government took the right decision by dropping May Day from the list of the holidays, he said adding holiday was granted to labourers on that day but not for government employees. By Express News Service KALABURAGI: Special and newly developed medicine to cure lung cancer failed to save the life of Union Minister Ananth Kumar who died in the wee hours of Monday, said Union Minister for Statistics & Programme implementation DV Sadanand Gowda here on Monday. Sadanand Gowda who was here to attend the 4th-day programme of Golden Jubilee celebrations of Sharanabasaveshwara Residential School, said in an exclusive interview with TNIE that a new treatment which was discovered this year was also tried on the ailing minister but did not succeed in saving him. BJP president Amit Shah paying floral tribute to Union minister Ananth Kumar who passed away at hospital in Bengaluru, at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi. (Photo| Shekhar Yadav/EPS) Gowda said that Ananth Kumar neglected his health and worked for BJP. His role during no-confidence motion against the Modi government is unforgettable. ALSO READ: Karnataka declares three-day mourning as mark of respect to late Ananth Kumar The previous session went off peacefully without any hurdles from the opposition from opposition parties because of his shrewdness of mind. At that time he neglected to take care of his health. People gathered at Union Minister Ananth Kumar's house in Bengaluru. (Photo| Nagaraj Gadekal/EPS) "Initially he was given treatment for pneumonia. The existence of cancer was detected when it was in third stage, Anantkumar was suffering from multi-organ failure," Gowda said. ALSO READ: Ananth Kumar, a staunch RSS man, known for political adroitness "I met him in the hospital 10 days back but he was not in a condition to speak but he recognized me, I lost a good friend of mine and it is a great loss to the Party," Sadanand Gowda said. By Online Desk The Supreme Court, on Monday, slammed Bihar police for its failure to arrest former state minister Manju Verma, in a case related to the recovery of ammunition from her home during a CBI raid in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home case. "Fantastic! cabinet minister (Manju Verma) on the run, fantastic. How could it happen that the cabinet minister is absconding and nobody knows where she is. You realise the seriousness of the issue that cabinet minister is not traceable. Its too much, Justice Madan B Lokur said. Verma, who is facing detention under Arms Act, moved to Begusarai court last Tuesday while pleading with it not to declare her an "absconder'. Verma had to resign as the social welfare minister from the Nitish Kumar Cabinet in August after reports suggested "close links" between her husband Chandrashekhar Verma and prime accused Brajesh Thakur in the Muzaffarpur shelter home scandal. She was subsequently booked in an Arms Act case, which was lodged after recovery of a huge cache of ammunition from her residence in Begusarai during a raid by the CBI sleuths. ALSO READ: Muzaffarpur shelter homes case: SC asks why Bihar ex-minister Manju Verma has not been arrested Verma's counsel Satya Narayan Mahto moved the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Prabhat Trivedi soon after the police approached it to declare the former minister a "proclaimed offender" for evading the arrest. A court declaring an accused a proclaimed offender entitles the police to paste a legal notice on the walls of the residence of accused, asking him or her to surrender before the court within a stipulated period, failing which the property of the accused is liable to be confiscated and auctioned. The former minister's counsel submitted to the magisterial court that his client was not evading arrest but only following the due process of law to get a relief against arrest. Mahto argued that the former minister was not an absconder but had approached the Supreme Court to seek bail in the case after the Patna High Court had turned down her anticipatory bail plea on October 9. Over 30 girls and women were allegedly raped and sexually abused at the shelter home in Muzaffarpur and it had come to light that Chandrashekhar Verma had spoken to Thakur several times between January and June. An FIR was lodged on May 31 against 11 people, including Brajesh Thakur, who was running the shelter home. The probe into the case was later handed over to the CBI by the Bihar government. An FIR was lodged against Manju Verma under Arms Act in August at Cheria Bariarpur police station of Begusarai district after the seizure of about 50 live cartridges from her residence. On October 25, the apex court had asked the Bihar government and the CBI to explain why there was a delay in tracing whereabouts of Chandrashekhar Verma, who is wanted for alleged illegal possession of ammunition in large quantity. Verma surrendered before the Begusarai court on October 29. (With Inputs from ANI and PTI) By ANI NEW DELHI: Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar, who has been summoned by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing police firing on protesters in Punjab in the wake of the Bargari sacrilege case, clarified that he had "never ever met" Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, contrary to media reports stating otherwise. In a statement put out on Twitter, Akshay refuted "rumours and false statements" about his involvement with Ram Rahim Singh following reports that he was playing the role of a mediator between the Badals and Gurmeet Ram Rahim. "I have never ever met Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in my life, anywhere. I learnt from social media at some point that Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh resided for a while at some place in my locality Juhu in Mumbai but we never ever crossed each other's paths," the statement read. Akshay continued: "Over the years, I have dedicatedly made films promoting the Punjabi culture and the rich history and tradition of Sikhism through films like 'Singh is Kinng' and 'Kesari' (based on the Battle of Saragarhi). I'm proud of being a Punjabi and have the highest regard for the Sikh faith." "I shall never do anything that would even remotely hurt the sentiments of my Punjabi brothers and sisters, for whom I have utmost respect and love," added Akshay. The statement comes a day after Akshay, along with former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal, were asked to be present before the SIT at the Circuit House in Amritsar later in the month for the investigation related to the Bargari sacrilege. The five-member SIT was set up by the incumbent Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh in September this year, soon after issuance of the notification to withdraw investigation of sacrilege incidents of Sri Guru Granth Sahib from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)/ By PTI NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Monday dismissed the pleas filed by some Manipur Police personnel seeking recusal of judges of the bench hearing the case of alleged fake encounters in Manipur in which CBI's Special Investigation Team (SIT) is conducting a probe. The applications claimed that on July 30, the court had allegedly termed the accused, charge sheeted by the SIT in some of the encounter cases, as "murderers". A bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit said that arguments raised before it that the Indian Army, paramilitary forces and Manipur Police have been "demoralised" by the oral observations made by the top court on July 30 was a "rather over-broad submission". "In any event, in our opinion, it should be clear to everyone that officers and personnel of the Indian Army, paramilitary forces and the state police are made of much sterner stuff than is sought to be projected and they can hardly be demoralised by observations said to have been made by anybody," the bench said in its 20-page order. "It is unfortunate that a bogey of demoralization of the Indian Army, paramilitary forces and the State Police is being raised. We are unable to comprehend the reason for this," the bench said, adding that this submission was made for some "unfathomable reason". It said the Indian Army, paramilitary forces and Manipur Police were disciplined forces strong enough to take "everything in their stride". "To contend that some observations said to have been made by this court have demoralized the Indian Army, the paramilitary forces and the Manipur Police is suggestive of a weakness in them. Be that as it may, this is really stretching the argument to the vanishing point," the bench said. It said there was no reason for the petitioners to have any doubt that the SIT or the judiciary would be influenced by the observations said to have been made by the top court. It made it "absolutely clear" that the observations made on July 30 by the court were not intended to and should not in any manner be construed as compromising the independence, integrity and fairness of the SIT and the concerned judges. "Institutional integrity of the CBI and the judiciary is positively required to be maintained," the bench said, adding that so far no allegation of unfairness was made against the functioning of the SIT. It said that apprehension of petitioners that "justice will not be done to them is misplaced if not unfounded". The bench noted that case related to the alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur pertained to the allegations of serious violations of human rights of persons "described as insurgents". "There is no allegation of any nature with respect to the impartiality and integrity of the SIT. Indeed, the Attorney General made it clear that no one was disputing the capability, expertise and fairness of the CBI and the investigations carried out by the SIT," it said. The apex court said that law of the land was clear that no one could interfere in the investigations being carried out by the investigating officer or an investigating team. "The purpose of a continuing mandamus (a judicial order issued as a command to subordinate court or authority for performing a statutory duty) is only to ensure that there is no interference during the course of investigations from anybody, whether due to political pressure or executive pressure or any other pressure (including, as it seems, 'judicial pressure') that could compromise the investigations," it said. The court also said that a probe would be meaningful and fair only when the investigating officer or the investigating team was given a free hand. It said that once the judicial process has begun with the filing of final report or a charge sheet in a case, the concerned court was in complete charge and full control of the proceedings and no one could interfere in it. "We are fortunate to have an independent judiciary and as far as the EEVFAM (extra-judicial execution victim families association) case is concerned, there has been no allegation of any kind that any trial judge dealing with the case has shown a lack of independence," it said. "The applicants/petitioners are indirectly, perhaps unwittingly, questioning the fairness and independence of the judiciary," the bench said. It also noted that, "We have been given to understand that these petitions have the support of a few hundred officers from the Indian Army, the paramilitary forces and Manipur Police". The Centre had on September 28 supported the plea by the Manipur policemen and questioned the apex court for its reported remark, saying it has "completely shaken" the morale of the armed forces and security men operating in insurgency-hit areas. The court, which is hearing a PIL seeking a probe into as many as 1,528 cases of alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur, had on July 14 last year constituted the SIT and ordered lodging of FIRs and probe into them. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is all set to hear on Monday the case pertaining to CBI director Alok Kumar Verma, who was sent on leave by the Centre following a pending inquiry against him. A two-judge bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul will hear the version of the Central Vigilance Commission, which was directed to complete its inquiry within two weeks against Verma. During the past week, Verma appeared before a CVC three-member panel and presented the facts to all the allegations levelled against him by his deputy and Special CBI Director Rakesh Asthana. Verma is understood to have denied all allegations against him. ALSO READ: Alok Verma meets CVC, denies corruption charges Last month, the top court had appointed former SC judge A K Patnaik to supervise the ongoing CVC inquiry against Verma. It had barred IPS officer M Nageswara Rao, who was given interim charge of the CBI, from taking any major decision. The apex court will also peruse the decisions taken by Rao from October 23, including transfer of investigations and change of investigating officers, and may pass some appropriate orders. The SC is also seized of the PIL filed by NGO Common Cause, which sought a probe by a special investigation team against CBI officers including Asthana. It had issued notices to the Centre, the CBI, the CVC, Asthana, Verma and Rao, asking them to respond by November 12. Appearing for Verma, senior advocate Fali S Nariman cited the 1997 Vineet Narain judgement and said the CBI director was appointed for a two-year tenure with the approval of a selection panel comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition and the Chief Justice of India. Asthana has also submitted a separate petition and sought removal of Verma from the post of CBI Director. The petition hasnt come up for hearing, so far, in the apex court. By Express News Service BENGALURU: Union minister and senior BJP leader HN Ananth Kumar passed away in the wee hours of Monday. Condolences poured in for the senior minister in the Narendra Modi government from cabinet colleagues and political opponents alike. Kumar had been battling lung cancer for months and passed away in the ICU of a hospital in Bengaluru. "I am sorry to inform the sad news, that our beloved Honble Minister Shri Ananthkumar passed away today morning 2 am in Bengaluru from complications following cancer and infections. He had been in ICU and on ventilator for last few days," said an official statement from his office on Monday morning. Kumar who was receiving treatment in London for weeks returned to Bengaluru on October 20. The minister was admitted later to Sri Shankara Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in Basavanagudi. "Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work," Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Monday morning. Modi said that the MP, who has represented Bengaluru South constituency multiple times, was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP. "He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents," he added. Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 Cabinet colleagues DV Sadananda Gowda and Nirmala Sitharaman too took to Twitter to express their condolences to the departed soul. The union minister's mortal remains will be placed at National college grounds in Basavangudi for public viewing from 9 AM onwards. Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss. Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) November 12, 2018 Kumar holds charge of two key ministries - serving as Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers since May 2014 and as Minister of Parliamentary Affairs since July 2016 in the Narendra Modi government. Born on 22 July 1959 in Bengaluru, Kumar did his graduation in faculty of Arts (B.A) from K S Arts College, Hubli affiliated to the Karnataka University and later, completed his bachelors in law (L.L.B) from J.S.S. Law College affiliated to the Karnataka University. Ananth Kumar served in various positions of ABVP like the State Secretary and later National Secretary in 1985 before joining the Bharatiya Janatha Party in 1987. In 1995 he was appointed as the National Secretary and was elected to Lok Sabha for the first time in 1996 from Bangalore South constituency. He was a member of various committees coming under ministry of railways and industry. In 1998 he was inducted into the Union Cabinet headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the Minister for Civil Aviation. AnanthKumar is married to Tejaswini and they have two daughters. (with inputs from ANI) Minhaz Merchant By Devout Hindus offer morning and evening prayers in the ancient temple town of Ayodhya at the birth place of Lord Ram. The pujas proceed peacefully, oblivious to the political storm brewing. The Sangh parivar was blindsided by the Supreme Courts decision to postpone the Ayodhya title suit to January 2019 after a cursory four-minute hearing by CJI Ranjan Gogois Bench on October 29. The CJIs predecessor, Dipak Misra, had ordered day-to-day hearings in the title suit. Clearly the mood in the Supreme Court has changed with a change in guard. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, has meanwhile been vocal about making the delay in the long-pending Ayodhya case an electoral issue. BJP ministers though have been careful not to be seen undermining the Supreme Court. But it is clear where their sympathies lie. As the momentum to build a Ram temple gathers force among Sangh parivar followers, the BJP will play good cop to the parivars bad cop, urging restraint till the Supreme Court hears the matter in January 2019. CJI Gogoi has made it clear that the Ayodhya title suit is not a priority for him. The apex court will decide in January 2019 which Bench will hear the case and when. The urgency shown by former CJI Misra has evaporated. First up will be adjudication of the Allahabad High Courts split 2-1 verdict in 2010 of the title suit dividing the disputed 2.77 acre site in Ayodhya between three claimants (the Sunni Wakf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and the parties representing the deity Ram Lalla). Even if the Allahabad HC verdict is upheld, the next stepbuilding a Ram mandir at the sitecould take years to be settled. For the BJP, the issue is therefore purely electoral. For the Congress, the priority is to sit on the Ayodhya fence without falling off. Congress president Rahul Gandhis recently acquired soft Hindutva mien is designed to inveigle moderate Hindu votes which fled to the BJP in 2014 after the Congress coined the term saffron terror. The lesson of 2014 has been learnt by the Congress. The questions therefore are: How electorally evocative is the Ram Mandir today? Dont development and jobs matter more to millennials? An estimated 100 million first-time voters who were between the age of 13 and 17 in 2014 will be eligible to vote in 2019. Do they really care about the Ram Mandir? India remains a deeply religious country. The Sabarimala temple issue has clearly demonstrated the feelings faith and tradition can evoke. For the Congress, the Ram Mandir poses a particularly awkward problem. Party members have invoked the Congress Brahmin DNA. Party president Rahul Gandhi recently declared that he had a better understanding of Hinduism than the BJP. He has tactically distanced himself from the Kerala Congress position on the Sabarimala temple controversy. While acknowledging that his partys unit has a different view on Sabarimala, Rahul said he supports the entry of women of all ages into Sabarimala. For the BJP though there is no pretence. Party president Amit Shah has backed the Sabarimala traditionalists even though that conflicts with the Supreme Courts order. Sceptics now ask: If the BJP can back faith over law in Sabarimala, what prevents it from doing the same in Ayodhya despite its pledge to abide by the Supreme Courts verdict? The delay by the apex court to hear the Ayodhya title suit before it can take up arguments on building a Ram temple at the disputed site gives the BJP the pretext to again place religion above legal due process. Both the BJP and the Congress have crafted specific strategies to deal with the issue. The Congress believes the Ram Mandir no longer significantly influences elections. The BJP believes the opposite. To cover every eventuality, however, the Congress battery of lawyers spent the first half of 2018 trying to ensure that former CJI Misra delays the Ayodhya verdict. Using the January 2018 press conference by four members of the Collegium to make vague complaints of bench fixing (later dropped), Congress lawyers managed to put CJI Misra on the back foot. They followed it up with a contentious narrative on Judge B H Loyas death and launched impeachment proceedings against Misra which were pre-ordained to fail but achieved the purpose of rattling the CJI. Misra, burdened with key cases (Aadhaar, Section 377 and others), was gradually pushed into a corner though he did, in his last few days as CJI, order day-to-day hearings on the Ayodhya title suit. His successor CJI Gogoi, one of the four Collegium justices who took part in the press conference, within weeks of taking office, put off the hearings to January 2019. The BJPs strategy will now be to officially await the Supreme Courts verdict on the title suit followed by hearings on building the Ram Mandir. It will, however, turn a blind eye to RSS affiliates like the VHP raising the temperature over Ayodhya. To return to the original question: Does the Ram Mandir issue evoke strong passions anymore? In a tight election it very well might, especially in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP is likely to face the fight of its life against the combined forces of the SP and BSP. The BJP also knows that the hard right fringe of the party will punish it with NOTA if it doesnt take the Ram Mandir issue forward. An ordinance is ruled out, though introducing a bill in the Winter Session of Parliament could be a tactical move to force the Congress to take a position. The sight of saffron-clad ramsevaks marching towards an ancient temple town may not be the image of modern India PM Narendra Modi wants to project. But as the Sabarimala issue has demonstrated, in India faith supersedes reason. Minhaz Merchant The author is an editor and publisher Tweets @MinhazMerchant By Express News Service BENGALURU: After a damp squib of a Tipu Jayanti celebrations on Saturday, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who introduced the event in 2015, took to Twitter on Sunday to express his views in what looked like a taunt to all those who skipped the official event, including Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. Compromises are sometimes necessary for the public good. I may have done this too. But I can never compromise the fundamental values of secularism. Power may come and go. I dont care, Siddaramaiah tweeted. The thinly veiled comment has raised eyebrows as the Congress and JD(S) run a coalition government in the state. Kumaraswamy, while in opposition, did not back the celebrations initiated by Siddaramaiah when he was the CM. But as Congress is an ally now, Kumaraswamy could not very well oppose it, say observers. But he stayed away citing health reasons. Siddaramaiah was subjected to further embarrassment after not just Kumaraswamy but also Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara giving the event a miss. Parameshwaras office said he returned from abroad only on Saturday evening, thus missing the official event in the morning. Acknowledging that leaders including Kumaraswamy missing the celebrations may have prompted Siddaramaiah to take potshots, a Congress leader called the JD(S) opportunistic. The JD(S) is aware that continuation of the coalition government is imperative to the Congress and is misusing it. The timing of the celebration was changed and invitees were not informed till late on Friday night. It was all deliberate, the leader said. Siddaramaiah introduced Tipu Jayanti and he was naturally disappointed that leaders skipped the event. It was his governments decision and his party is still in coalition with the JD(S). What happened on Saturday makes way for people to raise questions about secular interests of the coalition government, said an aide of Siddaramaiah. The aide observed that the celebrations that took place in Cauvery, Siddaramaiahs official residence, were far more vibrant than the states official celebrations. Certainly, Saturdays event had a big impact on him (Siddaramaiah). When he was Chief Minister, it was a grand affair and this time it was deliberately neglected, observed another senior Congress legislator. While the BJP alleged that Kumaraswamy stayed away from Tipu Jayanti celebrations out of the fear of losing his chair, many from the Congress were disappointed that even Parameshwara gave the event a miss, albeit due to his tight schedule. It is now clear that #TippuJayanti was celebrated to satisfy the inflated ego of Neo Islamist @siddaramaiah who started this practice in 2015 as part of Appeasement Politics. Neither the person who wants to be born as a Muslim in his next birth nor his son attended the event (SIC), tweeted C T Ravi of the BJP. The Chinese economy is not a pond, but an ocean. Chinese President Xis metaphor in his speech delivered at the opening ceremony of the first China International Import Expo (CIIE) revealed the vastness of Chinas economy and inspired the audiences. The dazzling commodities at exhibition booths, the crowds in exhibition halls, as well as the deals signed at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), were all proofs to the global confidence in Chinese economy and market. The Chinese market is not just about speed and size, said Lothar Herrmann, CEO of Siemens Greater China. China is enhancing investment in innovation, and building an eco-system that links government, enterprises and universities, Herrmann noted, adding that the emerging startup companies are also a highlight of China. Now, through more interaction and cooperation with China, we are jointly developing future-oriented products, systems and solutions that will not only be brought to China, but also the global market, Herrmann told Peoples Daily, adding that vast opportunities exist in this process. President Xi said in his speech that Only with bold innovation and reform can we break the bottlenecks in global growth. At the CIIE, innovation can be seen everywhere, showcasing the new momentum of Chinas economic development to global enterprises. I am amazed at the high technologies exhibited by global enterprises at the hall, and it sends a signal that China is yearning for innovation, said Eric Rondolat, CEO of Signify, the world leader in connected LED products, systems, and services, adding that innovation would bring a larger market. He told Peoples Daily that the number of Signifys employees in China outruns those in other countries, so they consider Signify a Chinese company and will actively integrate into the development of China. Innovation also created huge business opportunities for Chinese private enterprises. Lu Genxin, CEO of Shanghai-based tech firm Aceistar said that the most advanced artificial intelligence technologies were a major attraction for the company, and peoples demand for a better life meant both business opportunities and motivation for innovation. The CIIE is a strong signal to the global market that China will open wider and safeguard free trade. It will surely create more opportunities for enterprises, said Angela Zhao, co-president Real Estate of GLP China. Through continuous opening up, China not only developed itself, but also benefited the world, said Li Meng, chairman of Noble Enterprise S.L.U., a wine enterprise from Spain. The steady economic growth, the openness and the ever-growing demand for consumption of China have allowed more development space for Spanish wine industry, and we are very confident about our market and import expansion in China, he added. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said at the CIIE that the opening of trade and investment has long been expected, and the world needs such open economy, adding that China has sent a strong message to the world. International trade is an important tool for each country to develop economy, and the CIIE came at the right time, said Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak. The CIIE will enhance peoples confidence in free trade, especially when the global free trade system is threatened and impacted, Jatusripitak noted, adding that it will also boost the balance of trade between China and other countries, promote common progress and win-win cooperation among countries, and bring common interests for each party. By Express News Service KOCHI: The state government on Monday informed the Kerala High Court that it was bound to protect the fundamental right of women devotees aged between 10 to 50 years to offer prayers at Sabarimala Temple. The state also made it clear that the government never interfered with respect to religious and rituals of the temple and has no intention to interfere. "With respect to the entry of women, since the Supreme Court had already declared the law, the state has nothing more to add," the state submitted. The state government filed the affidavit in response to the petitions seeking a directive to TDB not to implement any of the oral or written directives state government with regard to religious matters, entry of pilgrims and other related matters in the Sabarimala. The state submitted that a large number of pilgrims from all religion, caste and creed will visit Sabarimala during Mandala-Makaravilakku season and monthly poojas. The security of the pilgrims is the concern of the government and it was being scrupulously undertaken by the police department. According to the government, it was providing all necessary infrastructure facilities spending huge amounts to ensure the security of the pilgrims. Crores of rupees spent from state fund every year for the security equipment to keep vigil over the entire extent from Vadasserikara to Sannidhanam, Erumeli, Vandiperiyar throughout the roads and conventional hill tracks. The state is deploying a large number of police persons at Sabarimala and the control of holy 18 steps is by the devoted police personnel. Every year, crores of rupees are sanctioned to Devaswom board for under taking project works at Sabarimala. So, the government has got a definite interest in the matter of safety and security of the temple and the pilgrims. It was also the duty of the government to see that the amounts sanctioned and paid are properly used by the devaswom board and other agencies. The government informed that some political parties with their own agenda started a protest against the verdict of the Supreme Court and it was illegal. The state made it clear that the Chief Minister had not issued any direction to the temple authorities and the CM had only directed the police to take care of security. No genuine devotee will be prevented from trucking Sabarimala, but anyone with the intention of creating any obstruction will be taken care of by the police. By Express News Service NABARANGPUR: In a tragic accident, three persons were killed and 18 others including women and children injured after a school bus turned over on Jharigaon-Chandahandi Ghat road about 12 km from Jharigam on Sunday. According to sources, the bus carrying around 30 people including devotees of Sri Aurobindo and Sri Maa, teachers and and students was on its way to Chandahandi town, bordering Kalahandi district. They were going to attend a function. The mishap took place when the driver lost control over the bus on the ghat road and the vehicle turned turtle at around 11 am, the sources said. Three passengers died on the spot.The deceased have been identified as Lalit Mohan Patnaik, a retired teacher of Nabarangpur and Niranjan Nayak and Reena Nayak, both teachers of Sri Aurobindo Integral Education Centre, Umerkote. On being informed, fire service personnel and police rushed to the spot and with the help of local people retrieved the bodies and rescued the injured persons who were admitted to Community Health Centre at Jharigam. Eighteen persons, who were seriously injured, were referred to District Headquarters Hospital. Three of them, whose condition was said to be critical with head injuries, were sent to Saheed Laxam Nayak Medical College and Hospital at Koraput. By Online Desk CHENNAI: Actor Rajinikanth, who is on the cusp of entering Tamil Nadu politics, on Monday said if opposition parties feel the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is dangerous, then it must be so. This response by the actor has taken everyone by surprise as Rajini is considered close to the Hindutva-leaning BJP government and had earlier declared that his political philosophy will be spiritual politics. To a reporter who asked Rajini outside Chennai airport if BJP is so bad a party that all Opposition parties are coming together against them --- "Is the BJP that dangerous?", Rajinikanth reportedly smiled and replied, "If they (opposition parties) are saying so then they must be true", in reference to the grand anti-BJP alliance that is being formed. Throwing another volley, he also told reporters that demonetisation implementation was wrong. Two years after the demonetisation move by the Modi government, Rajinikanth who had welcomed the move initially now seems to think otherwise. Rajini said, The implementation went wrong, it (demonetisation) should have been carried out after a detailed research." Minutes after the policy was announced on November 8, 2016, Rajinikanth had tweeted, Hats off @narendramodi ji . New india is born #JaiHind. The actor was also asked about the Centres denial to process the letter sent by the Tamil Nadu government to the President seeking premature release of convicts in former prime minister Rajiv Gandhis assassination case. He asked, "Which seven convicts. I am hearing about it only now." Rajinikanth also said that strict laws should be enforced against sexual harassers of girls, in reaction to the death of an Adivasi girl who was raped in Dharmapuri. The 16-year-old tribal girl succumbed to her injuries after she was allegedly sexually assaulted by two teenagers who belong to her own village. On October 22, a 13-year old Dalit girl Rajalakshmi was beheaded by a 25-year-old man near Salem, which led to public outrage and an outcry, demanding tough action. TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu recently visited DMK president M K Stalin here as part of his efforts to bring together various parties for the 2019 Lok Sabha election to dislodge the BJP government at the Centre. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has also been batting for opposition unity against the BJP and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is a vocal critic of the saffron party led government at the Centre. (With inputs by agencies) By PTI WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump discussed a host of issues -- including Syria, trade, the situation in Saudi Arabia, sanctions, Afghanistan, China and North Korea -- during his meetings with the world leaders in France, the White House said. Around 70 world leaders, including US President Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, gathered in Paris on Sunday to mark the centenary of the 1918 Armistice in the French capital. Trump returned to Washington late Sunday night. "Today (Sunday) at lunch, the President sat with (French) President (Emanuel) Macron, (German) Chancellor (Angela) Merkel, and (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin, and many other world leaders," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. "The leaders discussed a variety of issues, including the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty), Syria, trade, the situation in Saudi Arabia, sanctions, Afghanistan, China, and North Korea. They had very good and productive discussions during the two-hour lunch," she said. Sanders also defended Trump's decision to cancel his scheduled visit to a US cemetery in France due to rain. Trump was heavily criticised for cancelling a trip to Belleau Wood battlefield in northern France on Saturday due to rain, with some critics accusing him of disrespecting America's war dead. "Because of near-zero visibility, Marine One was unable to fly, as had been planned," Sanders said. "A car ride of two-and-a-half hours, each way, would have required closures to substantial portions of the Paris roadways for the President's motorcade, on short notice. President Trump did not want to cause that kind of unexpected disruption to the city and its people," she explained. Sanders further said Trump was "honoured" to be able to attend a similar event on Sunday at the Suresnes American Cemetery and was "deeply moved by the sacrifices of so many for the cause of freedom". By PTI WASHINGTON: Seeking a voluntary, safe and dignified return of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar, the US asserted that Dhaka must ensure that the returnees have the freedom of movement and "not be confined to camps." Dhaka and Naypyidaw have agreed last month to begin by mid-November the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled to Bangladesh to escape a Myanmar army crackdown. Under the agreement, Myanmar will take back 2,000 Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh in the first batch, which will be followed by a second batch. "We have engaged both governments at the highest levels to express our serious concerns about premature returns, and to emphasize that, consistent with international practice, returns be informed, voluntary, safe, and dignified. Further, returnees to Burma must have freedom of movement and not be confined to camps, the US State Department said in a statement on Sunday. However, the State Department also said it agrees with the assessment of the UN high commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that conditions in Myanmar are not yet conducive for returns of the Rohingyas. "This is because full access to Burma is needed to understand the conditions in areas of return and to allow refugees and internally displaced persons to make an informed choice about returning to Burma," it said. Over 720,000 of Myanmar's stateless Rohingya fled in August last year, taking shelter in crowded camps in Bangladesh and bringing with them harrowing tales of rape, murder and arson in the brutal military crackdown. Urging Myanmar to play a constructive role in resolving the Rohingya issue, the US said the country should address the root causes of the crisis in the Rakhine state and provide access to a transparent and efficient citizenship verification process, freedom of movement and access to livelihoods to the minority Muslims. By PTI KARACHI: Twelve Indian fishermen have been arrested by Pakistani authorities for allegedly straying into the country's territorial waters off the coast of Sindh province, a security official said Monday. They were arrested over the weekend by personnel of the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) during an operation. A security official told PTI that two boats of the fishermen were also confiscated. "The fishermen were handed over to the Docks Police Station in Karachi to register a case against them for illegal entering into Pakistan," the official said. A case has been registered against them at the Dock Police Station in Karachi. Pakistan and India regularly arrest each other's fishermen who inadvertently enter into their waters due to the absence of any proper technology to confirm the coastline border between Pakistan and India near Sir Creek in the Arabian Sea. They languish in jails until they are set free on certain occasions. Last month, the PMSA arrested 16 Indian fishermen and seized their three boats. By PTI SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address some 30,000 people at the world's largest gathering of financial technology companies in Singapore this week and launch a banking solution for two billion people without bank accounts worldwide. Prime Minister Modi will be in Singapore from November 14 to 15 to attend a series of summits, including the East Asian summit and ASEAN meetings. He is scheduled to speak at the Fintech Festival which has the largest gathering of global Fintech companies and delegates ranging from the industry leaders to smaller start-ups. He will address 30,000 people at the festival, the biggest event of its kind in the world, the organisers said. India with 400 exhibitors is the largest contingent at the event. Modi will launch APIX, a banking technology designed to reach two billion people worldwide who are still without bank accounts. Designed by software experts based in Hyderabad, Colombo and London, APIX is a sophisticated technology by Boston-headquartered Virtusa, especially for smaller banks, Tier 3 and 4, to reach out to people in the remote regions. The Prime Minister will be launching the technology at the invitation of Monetary Authority of Singapore, the International Finance Corp of the World Bank and the ASEAN Banking Association, said Nikhil Menon, Virtusa's senior vice president and Asia regional head. APIX will support banks to reach out to those without bank accounts in 23 countries including the 10 ASEAN members as well as major markets such as India, and small nations including Fiji, said Menon. Supporting Modi's presence at the festival is India Pavilion of 18 companies. Eight of these companies are from Mumbai. The Pavilion is organised by the state-owned Maharashtra Information Technology Corp Ltd (MahaIT). Mumbai Fintechs at the festival are seeking opportunities in the global markets, said MahaIT Fintech Officer Suniti Nanda. "Mumbai, as a financial hub, is also a gateway for international fintech companies to enter the Indian market," Nanda said, adding that the festival gives opportunities both to understand global market requirements and present the potential of large-scale Indian consumers. Malaysian fintechs have expressed interest in joining Indian fintechs to venture into India, according to Tushar Shankar, co-founder of Mumbai-based PhiCommerce which is presenting PayPhi, a three-year-old cashless system of making payments. PayPhi is a socio-economic platform enabling the simple villager to metro dwellers to make payments, he said. The Malaysians want to tap the online buying power for Indian consumers, he said. "We are also participating in the festival to get a deeper understanding of the global market," said Shankar. He also highlighted that India has been drawing global fintechs' interest as it has emerged as one of the largest system-based payment markets. By PTI FUKUOKA: Japan's first driverless bullet train maglev, which is capable of clocking a speed of 500 km/hr while running 10 cm above the ground, was developed keeping in mind the country's domestic requirements and not in competition with China, its developer has said. Touted as the future of public transport across the globe, maglev will be unveiled in Japan by 2027. The technology of using powerful magnets to push the train cars above a concrete pathway, rather than on wheels on tracks, the maglev -- short for "magnetic-levitation" -- is being seen as Japan's efforts to beat China's fastest train at 430 km per hour. "The train Chuo Shinkansen will connect three of the largest Japanese cities, covering a distance of 286 km between Tokyo and Nagoya in 40 minutes from its present 86 minutes in its first phase," Takatoshi Shishido, Deputy Manager, International Department, Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central), which has developed the maglev, told PTI. "Plans are afoot to extend the line further to cover Kyoto and Osaka by 2045. Once completed, a journey between the three cities will be 67 minutes as compared to the present 1.42 hours. The train will be Japan's first driverless Shinkansen," Shishido said. The trains with aluminium alloy bodies will run 40 metres underground and have the capacity to accelerate from zero to 160 km/hr in 30 seconds and to its maximum speed of 500 km/hr in around three minutes, he said. Refusing to acknowledge that it was the Chinese domination in the field that has spurred Japan to take on the ambitious project, Shishido said that the company started researching the technology around 50 years ago. "The Chinese maglev which runs in Shanghai is not the same technology. In fact, we have a much powerful magnet. Also, their technology is German, while ours is domestic. It is not about competing with them, it's about strides in technology which Japan can provide to the entire world," he said. "You have to understand that the present line between Tokyo and Osaka is the busiest route and the oldest in the country. It is oversaturated. The maglev will help ease the pressure. So, it was created due to our domestic demand, we are not in any competition with China," said Shishido. India, with its close relationship with Japan, is particularly keen to check out the technology. The country is excited about the possibilities of using it as a medium of mass transit. Developed at a cost of 5.5 trillion Yen (USD 48.24 billion or Rs 3.5 trillion), JR Central is keen to take the technology overseas to recover some of the costs. In fact, it has been pitching the maglev train to the US through its partners for the past seven years. "We are studying to export the maglev system in the northeast corridor of the US -- Washington-New York-Boston area. The cost of this system is higher compared to the existing high-speed railway system so our export possibilities are limited," said Shishido. The train, however, other than its speed is also being pitched as the safest shinkansen with powerful magnets keeping the train on the centre of its concrete pathway even during earthquakes. For passengers, though, it is the experience that sets the maglev apart. Those that have ridden on a short 49 km stretch currently opened for 'fun rides' by the company have given glowing reviews. "It was like travelling while sitting in my living room," said a passenger in her testimonial on the company website, while another, travelling with her two toddlers said: "It was so comfortable that my children slept through the journey". By AFP KABUL: Six people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Kabul Monday, close to where scores of Afghans had been protesting against Taliban attacks on the minority Hazara ethnic group. The attack is the latest in a wave of violence across war-torn Afghanistan as the Taliban intensify pressure on beleaguered government security forces, which are suffering record-high casualties. Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said 20 were wounded in the blast, which struck in front of a high school in the downtown area of the Afghan capital. Initial reports indicated most of the victims were members of the security forces, but Danish said civilians, including several women, had borne the brunt of the carnage. A photo shared on WhatsApp showed several bodies lying on the ground. "The suicide attacker on foot wanted to target protesters, but he was stopped at a security checkpoint some 200 metres (660 feet) from the site," interior ministry deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said. A police officer at the scene said he saw 10 to 15 casualties on the ground, as well as body parts. The centre of Kabul was blanketed with heavier-than-usual security for the protest, which began on Sunday night and continued into Monday. "It was a huge blast near Istiqlal high school, very close to where the demonstrators were gathering," witness Qais Nawabi told AFP. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Demonstrators, including university students, had taken to the streets to demand the deployment of military reinforcements to two Hazara-dominated districts in the southeastern province of Ghazni which have been attacked by the Taliban. In other violence, a Taliban attack on Khak Safid district in the western province of Farah overnight killed up to 40 local police and civilians, provincial council member Dadullah Qaneh told AFP. "They set the houses of local police members on fire, killed women and children and local police," Qaneh said. Provincial police spokesman Mohibullah Mohib confirmed the attack but had no information on the number of casualties. The Kabul explosion came as Afghan security forces step up ground and air offensives in Jaghori and Malistan districts, where Hazara pro-government fighters and Afghan troops are battling the militants. Fighting in the area has been ongoing since Wednesday, fanning fears that the violence could be rooted in ethnic or sectarian differences. Most Hazaras belong to the Shiite branch of Islam. The Taliban, which is Sunni and largely ethnic Pashtuns, have been accused of committing human rights violations against the group during their oppressive 1996-2001 rule. "We have no news from our people living there," Asif Ashna, one of the protesters, said in a Facebook live broadcast. "If the government's duty is to protect the lives of the people then why have they not taken any measures in the past week?" Protester Ishaq Anis told AFP that security forces should be permanently based in Jaghori and Malistan to prevent "further attacks against Hazara people". Hazaras have long criticised the government for failing to protect them from attacks by the Taliban and the Islamic State group, some even suggesting the blundering was deliberate. The escalation in violence comes as US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad returned to the region as part of efforts to convince the Taliban to end the 17-year war. Khalilzad met with President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday. The former US ambassador to Kabul will also visit Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, where the Taliban has a political office. A Taliban delegation met with Khalilzad in Doha in October to discuss ending the Afghan conflict. By PTI ISTANBUL: Turkey on Monday slammed as "unacceptable" comments by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian accusing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of playing a "political game" over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey had shared recordings linked to the Saudi journalist's murder last month with Riyadh, as well as the United States, France, Britain and other allies, without giving details of the tapes' specific content. In an interview with France 2 on Monday, Le Drian said he "for the moment was not aware" of any information transmitted by Ankara. Asked if the Turkish president was lying, he said: "It means that he has a political game to play in these circumstances." His comments provoked fury in Ankara. "We find it unacceptable that he accused President Erdogan of 'playing political games'," communications director at the Turkish presidency Fahrettin Altun told AFP. "Let us not forget that this case would have been already covered up had it not been for Turkey's determined efforts." Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor and critic of the Saudi government, was last seen entering the consulate on October 2 to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage to a Turkish woman. After repeated denials, Saudi Arabia finally admitted the 59-year-old had been murdered at the mission in a "rogue" operation. "Le Drian's most recent comments on Turkey's handling of Jamal Khashoggi's murder does not reflect the facts," said Altun. He said Ankara shared evidence linked to the murder with officials from a large number of countries and that France was "no exception". "I confirm that evidence pertaining to the Khashoggi murder has also been shared with the relevant agencies of the French government," he said. A representative of French intelligence listened to the audio recording and detailed information including a transcript on October 24, he added. "If there is miscommunication between the French government's various agencies, it is up to the French authorities -- not Turkey -- to take care of that problem." Its the fifth year for China to hold the World Internet Conference (WIC). Mutual trust and collective governance have always been a focus of the event, which is a clear manifestation of Chinas wisdom on global Internet development and governance. The Internet is developing at a tremendous pace. At the WIC in 2014, the application of the 4G network was still a major topic, while today in Wuzhen, where the conference is held, 5G cars can be seen everywhere. Besides, other latest technologies such as receptionist-free smart hotels, and intelligent elderly care and healthcare services, are also available for experience at this years event. At the age of Internet, the world is always accelerating its pace of development. In addition to the speed of network, the spread of information, technological upgrading, as well as the occurrence and development of an event, are also accelerating. A computer virus could instantly hack computers across the world and virtual currencies could impact real economic operation. In the digital world, mankind is in a cyberspace community of shared destiny, where they share the waxes and wanes. For China, the development of the Internet is a process that always challenges peoples imagination. A few years ago, people thought digital economy was only about e-commerce, and social media-based business. But now the Internet Plus has turned into infrastructure, based on which the internet technologies are collaborating with various industries. China has the largest number of Internet users in the world. The total volume of its e-commerce ranks the first in the world, so does its value of online payment. In 2017, Chinas digital economy hit 27.2 trillion yuan. As a result, China should be an important force in the global Internet governance, to make Internet, the common land for human beings, more beautiful, cleaner and safer. The first China International Import Expo (CIIE) is being held in Shanghai, a place not far from Wuzhen, bringing future life experiences. Internet is the base for online food sale, autopilot vehicles, delicate robot arms, as well as smart refrigerators and washing machines, while at present, a number of outstanding Internet entrepreneurs have been attracted to Wuzhen, envisioning the application of virtual reality in social media, and planning to replace facial recognition with voiceprint identification. Such a beautiful future is worth expectation, and two questions come along it: how can we better the digital world and how will the human beings embrace the future? Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed that it is a general trend and common aspiration of the people to promote the reform of the global cyberspace governance system. Countries in the world share the same aspiration for the development of digital economy, the same interests to cope with cyberspace security challenges and the same needs to strengthen cyberspace governance, despite their different national conditions, phases of Internet development and challenges from reality. To make digital economy genuinely benefit the mankind, mutual trust and collective governance are a fundamental principle. Only by mutual trust can consensus be reached in the virtual cyberspace and then become positive power for a better life. Only by collective governance can a more principled and rule-based Internet be made, a clearer and brighter cyberspace be created and a more powerful development of digital economy be achieved. Currently, the world is faced with mounting protectionism and unilateralism, and the Internet is also in a complicated situation where suspicion and confrontation sometimes occur. Under such circumstance, we must work together to build a platform through mutual trust and improve the rules through collective governance. Only through mutual respect and mutual trust, as well as strengthening dialogue and cooperation can we establish a peaceful, open and cooperative cyberspace, and build a multilateral, democratic and transparent global cyberspace governance system. By PTI ISLAMABAD: Assets worth USD 5.3 billion have been taken out of Pakistan through illegal means, the government said on Monday. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability, Shahzad Akbar, disclosed the figures at a press briefing here. "We have so far identified more than 5,000 fake accounts which were used for money laundering," he said detailing the progress made by Assets Recovery Unit. The Unit was set up by Prime Minister Imran Khan to bring illegal money stashed abroad. "We have found that assets worth USD 5.3 billion were accumulated abroad through alleged money laundering which is equal to Rs 700 billion," he said. He said the focus was on 10 countries including the UK and the UAE. "In Dubai alone, the land authority claims that Pakistanis are the third largest owners of property," Akbar said. He also said that this amount was only tip of the iceberg and more would be unearthed in the ongoing investigations. Special Assistant to Prime Minister on media Iftikhar Durrani said Pakistanis made overseas properties worth USD 15 billion in the last 10 years. I once saw king penguins up close near the South Pole and this past summer I witnessed several grizzly bears in Alaska. Traveling to the worlds most enigmatic regions is the most unforgettable memory in my life. After ticking Belgium, Japan and other 20 nations and regions off his travel bucket list, 55-year-old Chinese traveler Luo Yongzhong told Peoples Daily overseas social media that he has continued his wanderlust to the two polar ends: the Arctic and Antarctica. Although the Polar Regions can be the bitterly cold and windy, there is something majestic unlike any other tourism attractions on Earth. The stunning wilderness of enormous glaciers together with the adventurous kayak on the icebergs fascinate worldwide visitors just like Luo. Its what keeps them enduring over 30 hours of grueling flights to the two poles. Unsurprisingly, the threat of melting glaciers has installed a sense of urgency about ice melt and global warming, which has also turned polar travel into a kind of last-chance tourism experience. Since trips to the Polar Regions were approved for general travel, a large amount of tourists have flocked to the worlds most remote and exotic regions for unique vacation getaways. In the tourist season of 2017-18 alone, a total of 51,707 travelers flew to Antarctica, an increase of 17% compared to the previous season, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operations (IAATO), an international organization who monitor and regulate the travel activities in Antarctica jointly joined by over 100 Antarctica-bound outfitters. China has overtaken Australia to become the second biggest source of tourists to Antarctica after the US. From 2017 to 2018, Antarctica was visited by 8,219 Chinese travelers, which amounts to 14% of the global tourists to Antarctica, while US nationals accounted for 33% of the total number, said Wang Zipan, a researcher at Chinas Ministry of Natural Resources. Pan Min, deputy director of the Center for Polar and Oceanic Studies at Tongji University, also pointed out that tourism in Alaska boomed in 2014, attracting more than 2 million travelers annually with 9 million holidaymakers to the Arctic on the whole. Pan made the comments at the conference Polar Conservation, China Action in Beijing on Oct. 20, which was sponsored by WildBound, a Chinese civilian-based environmental education organization. The upward trend in the visitor numbers recorded since the 2011-2012 period has continued till today, according to IAATO. With the increasing amount of footprints in these pristine environments, however, there have been rising concerns about whether such travel is more harmful than beneficial, with some even arguing that the Polar Regions should be banned or restricted. Along with the stringent safeguards already in place, By implementing responsible polar travel, tourism to the two polar ends could be also fine-tuned with an environmental protection strategy, said Chen Jiliang, the coordinator of Greenovation Hub, a Beijing-based organization that focuses on global environmental protection. Liu Fubin, a former member of the Chinese expedition team to the two poles, echoed the need for responsible polar tourism. I ask everyone who has ever been to the polar areas to join me, to become an environmental ambassador to save the world we love and respect the planet as well. At the Antarctic Treaty conference in Beijing last May, close to a dozen leading polar travel agencies vowed to launch an initiative of responsible Chinese polar tourism. Tourists and tour groups should be required to minimize their impact in polar regions at the same time, responsible visitor management and respect for native residents is what China will bring to the table in its nationwide policy on the polar regions, according to Chen. The publication of the Chinas Arctic Policy and the nations first white paper on Chinas activities in the Antarctic have marked Chinas frontline initiative in the polar regions, moves to enshrine Chinas determination in bolstering its responsible presence in protecting both poles. In its Arctic policy, China dubs itself as a near-Arctic State, stating that China is an important stakeholder in Arctic affairs. To protect the Arctic, China will actively respond to climate change in the Arctic, protect its unique natural environment and ecological system, promote its own climatic, environmental and ecological resilience, and respect its diverse social culture and the historical traditions of the indigenous peoples, Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in January. In the first white paper on Chinas initiative on Antarctica by State Oceanic Administration released last May, it is depicted that China visions for Antarctica as pursuing an approach of peaceful use of Antarctica, safeguarding the stability of the Antarctic Treaty System, elevating Antarctic infrastructure and support capabilities, enhancing scientific investigation and research capability, while calling for strengthened Antarctic environmental protection and coordinating global governance of the continent, the Global Times reported. "China is willing to join hands with the rest of the international community to facilitate the establishment of a more equitable and rational international Antarctic order, and forging the Antarctic community of human destiny," the white paper said. Champaign, IL (61820) Today Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 37F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight A clear sky. Low 22F. Winds light and variable. SINGAPORE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called on China and Singapore to jointly uphold openness and deepen innovative cooperation ahead of his official visit to the city state starting Monday. "I am full of expectations for my first visit to this country as Chinese Premier," Li said in a signed article published in The Straits Times on Monday. This is the first visit by a Chinese premier to Singapore in 11 years. It comes three years after Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to the country in 2015. The two countries established an all-round cooperative partnership progressing with the times. In the article, titled "Creating a better tomorrow with openness, cooperation and innovation," Li said that he hopes to "work with Singaporean colleagues to take our cooperation in all areas to a new level" during his visit. "We hope China and Singapore will see each other's development as an opportunity, as we believe that win-win cooperation will bring about development for China, Singapore and all other countries, making the world a better place," he said. Noting that openness is a decisive factor in the development of China and Singapore, Li said: "Openness must be upheld as it is not just a means to an end, but a tenet in its own right, which will be more firmly embraced through tests and trials." Highlighting the challenges of rising protectionism and unilateralism, the premier called upon the two countries to jointly send a positive message of upholding the WTO-centered multilateral trading system and advancing trade and investment liberalization and facilitation. "Together, we should work for an open world economy by advocating, practicing and upholding openness," he added. China's ever-widening opening-up process has been accompanied by a constant upgrading of China-Singapore practical cooperation, which has benefited both countries, he said. Learning from Singapore's success has been part of China's reform and opening up, while Singapore has also benefited from its in-depth involvement in this process, the premier said. China has been Singapore's biggest trading partner for a fifth consecutive year, and Singapore is China's largest source of foreign direct investment growth, second largest investment destination and an important offshore renminbi center, Li said. China welcomes Singapore's efforts to "seize opportunities created by China's new round of opening up, working with us in elevating bilateral cooperation," said the Chinese premier. Urging the two sides to seek greater synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative and Singapore's development strategies, Li said: "we will work to build the three cooperation platforms on connectivity, financial support and third-party cooperation, speed up higher-quality development of the Suzhou Industrial Park, Tianjin Eco-City and Chongqing Demonstration Initiative for Strategic Connectivity, and continue to advance the building of the New Land-Sea Corridor." During the visit, China and Singapore are expected to sign a protocol on upgrading the two countries' free trade agreement that will give a strong boost to trade facilitation, according to the Chinese premier. "China welcomes more investment by Singaporean businesses in China to achieve greater common development," he said. Li also said the two countries should "step on the accelerator" in their innovative cooperation. During his visit, the two sides will upgrade the Guangzhou Knowledge City to a national-level project and expand cooperation in technological innovation, high-end manufacturing and intellectual property rights protection, he added. In the article, the premier also touched upon ties between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). During his stay in Singapore, Li will also attend the 21st China-ASEAN (10+1) leaders' meeting, the 21st ASEAN-China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (10+3) leaders' meeting and the 13th East Asia Summit. With 2018 being the China-ASEAN Year of Innovation, China will take an active part in the development of the ASEAN Smart Cities Network in support of Singapore's initiative, Li said. China will work with all relevant parties to expedite the negotiations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and contribute to the success of the summits on East Asian cooperation, Li said. The premier also expressed China's willingness to work with ASEAN countries to speed up consultations on the Code of Conduct text and jointly uphold peace and stability in the South China Sea. "China and ASEAN should work together to forge a closer community with a shared future and promote peace and prosperity in East Asia," he said. "Looking ahead, China will work with Singapore to uphold openness and inclusiveness, advance cooperation for mutual benefit, and create an even brighter future for China-Singapore relations and China-ASEAN cooperation," Li said. Mrs Lam (centre) leads a delegation during a visit to the Palace Museum. Chief Executive Carrie Lam speaks at a seminar on the 40th anniversary of the participation of Hong Kong and Macau in the countrys reform and opening up. Chief Executive Carrie Lam today led a delegation in Beijing to attend a seminar on the 40th anniversary of the participation of Hong Kong and Macau in the country's reform and opening up. The seminar was co-organised by the National Development & Reform Commission and the Hong Kong & Macao Affairs Office of the State Council. It reviewed the history of Hong Kong and Macau's participation in the reform and opening up of the country, and looked ahead to the key development aspects of the country's further reform and opening up. It also reviewed the role of the two cities in the countrys overall development. Mrs Lam, while addressing the seminar, said Hong Kong has leveraged its strengths to meet the countrys needs during its reform and opening up. At the beginning of the opening up, Hong Kong helped the country with capital, talent, management expertise and international marketing network, she said. Later, Hong Kong served as a platform to provide services for Mainland enterprises to go global. The city has also become an international centre of finance, trade, maritime and professional services, the Chief Executive added. After attending a lunch hosted by the National Development & Reform Commission, the delegation toured the Palace Museum. Delegation members were pleased to know the museums precious collection of watches will be the theme of a large-scale exhibition to be staged by the Palace Museum in Hong Kong this year. The delegation will continue their Beijing visit tomorrow. President Xi Jinping (centre) meets the Chief Executives of Hong Kong and Macau, Carrie Lam (second left) and Fernando Chui (left), with Vice-Premier Han Zheng (second right) and Director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee Ding Xuexiang (right) in attendance. President Xi Jinping and Vice-Premier Han Zheng met Chief Executive Carrie Lam in Beijing today. Mrs Lam led a Hong Kong delegation to the capital to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up of the country. During the meeting, President Xi delivered an important address to attendees at the Great Hall of the People. He reaffirmed Hong Kong and Macaus contributions to the countrys development and expressed hope the two places will seize opportunities arising from the countrys new initiatives. Mrs Lam also gave a speech, saying as the doors of the country's reform and opening up will continue to open, Hong Kong's role as a gateway and hub connecting to the world will become even more prominent. She said Hong Kong should proactively participate in the country's overall development and seek opportunities for advancement through the Belt & Road Initiative and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Edward Yau will attend the 30th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Ministerial Meeting in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea on November 15. The meeting will comprise two plenary sessions themed on "Improving Connectivity, Deepening Regional Economic Integration" and "Promoting Sustainable & Inclusive Growth Through Structural Reform". Mr Yau will attend both plenary sessions to exchange views with ministers of the other 20 member economies on the state of the regional and global economies. He will also meet other trade ministers to discuss bilateral trade and economic relations. Mr Yau will return to Hong Kong on November 17. During his absence, Under Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Bernard Chan will be Acting Secretary. Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi will head to Italy on Monday attend a summit on the Libyan crisis in Palermo. In official statements to the press, El-Sisis spokesman Bassam Rady said El-Sisi will head to Palermo for a two-day visit, after an invitation by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. The invitation comes a few days after both El-Sisi and Conte spoke on the phone, during which El-Sisi stressed Egypts position that the unity of Libyan territory should be preserved, support for its national institutions, respect for the will of the people, which will contribute to the return of stability and security in the Middle East. The Palermo conference will bring together key political Libyan factions and international partners in the latest bid by the international community to solve the continuing Libyan crisis and proceed with a plan to hold planned elections in the country. Search Keywords: Short link: ONE of Chinas top billionaires, Mr Li Jinyuan, has committed to invest in Zimbabwe after he held talks with President Emmerson Mnangagwa last week. Mr Li, who is chairman and chief executive of Tiens Group, has a net worth of over US$5 billion, according to Forbes Magazine. He is also a renowned philanthropist. His company Tiens has established a firm footprint through direct selling of healthcare products and providing employment to thousands of people. Speaking to journalists after a closed door meeting with President Mnangagwa, Mr Li gave the thumbs up to the Zimbabwe is open for business mantra. I talked to the President and he explained to me various issues about how he is reforming the country especially after the recent elections. He informed me that the message from his Government is that Zimbabwe is open for business. I told him that I fully support this agenda and, given the good relations between Zimbabwe and China, I am willing to do what I can, he said. Mr Li said his company was interested in investing in several sectors in Zimbabwe, as part of the Tiens Groups expansion strategy into Africa. This time around, our companys executives have decided to come to South Africa and Zimbabwe because these are important countries to our companies. In Africa we have a presence in 46 countries and this time our plan is to implement the Tiens new business strategy. This business strategy is our third entrepreneurial venture and it is called One Body Multiple Wings. Through this strategy we are opening companies around the globe and the multiple wings involve different sectors of businesses which are going to be linked together, said Mr Li. The Chinese billionaire said he was willing to invest more in the pharmaceutical sector after President Mnangagwa informed him of the challenges being faced in supply of drugs. We also spoke about the pharmaceutical sector and the President said there is great need for pharmaceutical products in the country. I told him that Tiens is already well established in Zimbabwe and we are now prepared to invest more. My investment will be determined by the needs required. After assessing the needs, I will be able to determine how much I can invest, he said. Mr Li said possible sectors for investment include e-commerce, financial marketing, engineering and real estate. In line with his acclaimed philanthropy, Mr Li said he had decided to partner First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa to support her charity programmes. He also donated US$5 000 in cash to the Zimbabwe Parents of Handicapped Children Association in Hatfield as part of his give a hand of friendship and love initiative. Mrs Miriam Kangai, the patron of the Tiens Group in Zimbabwe, said the country would derive huge benefits from increased investments by the company. The company is contributing a lot to the good health and well-being of the people through its healthcare products. Increased investment by the company will lead to the creation of more jobs given that there are already thousands of people who are working under the company, she said. The Tiens Group was established 24 years ago and runs businesses in 190 countries. Nearly 40 million families work directly with Tiens as clients or consumers of its products and services. Herald TWO police officers and four accomplices have been arrested for allegedly stealing nearly four tonnes of Presidential Inputs Scheme fertiliser meant to assist poor villagers in Binga district. A Detective Constable Manyumbudzo and Det Cst Sasanhira and other suspects were arrested at around 11PM last Wednesday at Kariyangwe turn-off along the Cross Dete- Binga Road. The incident comes barely a week after five people were arrested in the same district with about 15 tonnes of Presidential Inputs Scheme fertiliser. Matabeleland North police spokesperson Chief Inspector Siphiwe Makonese referred questions to the National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi. Asst Comm Nyathis phone went unanswered. A source said at around 5PM on Wednesday, the two officers hired a Mercedes Iveco truck with registration number AOR 4089 and they fuelled it at Binga Centre. The truck was being driven by Wellington Tsvakwi of Chitungwiza who was in the company of his mechanic, Charles Makuwa of Glen Norah suburb in Harare. They picked up Kingford Mudimba and Noah Munkuli at Siachilaba Business Centre and proceeded to Tinde where they collected 75x50kgs fertiliser that was on the road side. At around 8PM, police received a tip-off and the source revealed that the team was going to smuggle the fertiliser into Zambia. The source said the truck was going to use Kariangwe-Muchesu Road enroute to Sebungwe Mouth which is along Lake Kariba at Simatelele in Binga which proceeds to the border with Zambia, said the source. Reacting to the information, a police team was mobilised and they laid an ambush at Kariangwe turn-off leading to the arrest of the suspects. The suspects are in custody and will appear in court soon. Chronicle 5 Dead After SUV Plows Into Christmas Parade UPDATED advertisement Vaccine Lab Worker Cleaning Freezer Makes Disturbing Find in case you missed it advertisement Ghostbusters Appears to Find an Audience box office Iva Kroeger Conned Her Way Through Life longform Miami Landmark to Reopen After Inspection updated 'Something Just Happened' Was Final Text. Then She Fell in case you missed it Austrians Circulate Ahead of Lockdown photos advertisement A TV Station Ran His Photo, With 'Devastating' Effects in case you missed it advertisement Cool Archaeological Site Found Due to Retreating Glacier in case you missed it advertisement Mass Marches Decry Violence Against Women photos Dad's Bear Hug May Have Saved Daughter in Plane Crash in case you missed it advertisement advertisement Small Space Traveler May Be a First in case you missed it (Newser) Michael Rogers, a hero? It's hard for him to believe. But many Australians are celebrating the man who helped police fight a knife-wielding terrorist in Melbourne, Australia's News Network reports. In fact, a crowdfunding campaign has raised nearly $110,000 as of this writing for the so-called "Trolleyman." On Friday, Rogers grabbed a shopping cart (or "trolley" in British English) when terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was facing cops on a busy commercial street. Ali had just fatally stabbed two people and wounded two others. "I threw the trolley straight at him, and I got him," says Rogers. "I didnt quite get him down, though. I'm no hero." Yet after falling, Rogers chased Ali across the street and pushed the cart at him again. Police eventually shot and killed the attacker. (See a video here, but be warned it's violent.) story continues below Now the media is lionizing Rogers and strangers are approaching him for selfies, the Age reports. But Rogers still seems himself, talking about his early years with a drug-addicted mom and his history of drug use and jail time. Raised partly by his grandma, the "dearest lady," he often disappointed her and was behind bars for aggravated burglary when she died in 2013. "She would have been exceptionally proud" of his actions, he says. "God bless her, she lived to 92." So how will he spend his newfound riches? Rogers, who has public housing but chooses to live on the streets, says he has no idea. "I'm 46, mate. I've got to get my act together." But he admits Friday was special: "I just wanted to help and do something right for the first time in me life." (In California, a sergeant at a mass shooting "died a hero.") (Newser) Two years ago a man died trying to take on "the new Everest." Now, the New York Times reports that two more men are attempting the feat, and they're racing to not only conquer a frozen continent, but also each other. Both 33-year-old Colin O'Brady and 49-year-old Louis Rudd are vying, separately, to become the first person to make a solo, 921-mile trek across Antarctica without support, pitting a British "old-school adventurer" and military man (Rudd) against "a seasoned adventure athlete and budding social media star" (O'Brady). After grueling training regimens, they set off on Nov. 3 from the Ronne Ice Shelf, and both hope to make it to the finish line (the Ross Ice Shelf) in about two months' time, through some of the most extreme conditions and while dragging sleds that initially weighed 375 pounds each. They can't accept "so much as a cup of tea" from anyone along the way. story continues below In 2016, Rudd's friend, Henry Worsley, attempted the feat before turning back, then tragically died of organ failure after being airlifted out. English explorer Ben Saunders made the attempt last year, but he ended his quest at Mile 805. Rudd announced his plans in April, while O'Brady sprung his own surprise on the world in October, so when the men first met up in Punta Arenas, Chile, "there was a lot of tension and distrust." But they ended up bonding as they both discovered in the other a similar drive to pull off the unprecedented feat. When they embarked, they hugged before departing, with Rudd noting: "Good luck. I think we're both going to make it." More on their journey in the ice-covered no man's land in the Times and National Geographic, which notes that some contend this feat has already been accomplished. (Read more about Worsley's ill-fated journey.) (Newser) With an unprecedented double recount underway in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott is fighting to get state police involved. The Republican governorwho is clinging to a slim lead in his Senate race with Democratic rival Bill Nelsonfiled lawsuits Sunday calling for elections officials in Palm Beach and Broward counties to turn ballots, voting machines, and vote-counting machines over to law enforcement at times when votes aren't being counted, reports Reuters. Scott has claimed that "unethical liberals" in the two heavily Democratic counties are trying to steal the election, in which he currently has a lead of just 12,562 votes over Nelson, the Miami Herald reports. story continues below One of Scott's lawsuits warned that Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes could "destroy evidence of any errors, accidents, or unlawful conduct" if she had "unsupervised, unaccountable, and unfettered access to the ballot boxes." Florida Democrats reacted angrily, calling the move to involve police an "abuse of power," the Herald reports. State police and election officials say they have found no evidence of fraud, though protesters, some of them holding pro-Trump signs or chanting "Lock her up," still gathered outside Snipes' office on Sunday, the AP reports. A recount is also happening in the governor's race. (Palm Beach County officials say it will be "impossible" to meet the Thursday recount deadline.) (Newser) Stung by criticism for not attending an event honoring US military dead, the White House says President Trump didn't want to disrupt Paris roadways for a last-minute motorcade to a cemetery in northern France. Trump had been scheduled to lay a wreath and observe a moment of silence Saturday at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, located adjacent to Belleau Wood, about 60 miles northeast of Paris. The White House cited weather conditions that grounded the president's helicopter for the cancellation. In the wake of criticism that Trump didn't travel by car to the event, press secretary Sarah Sanders issued a statement Sunday that noted the weather and "near-zero visibility" as well as concerns that a motorcade on short notice would have required closing substantial portions of area roadways. story continues below "President Trump did not want to cause that kind of unexpected disruption to the city and its people," Sanders said. She also said the trip to Aisne-Marne was 2.5 hours each way by car. Instead, Trump spent much of Saturday at the US ambassador's residence. Trump was in Paris for events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Attending the cemetery event in Trump's place were the White House chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joe Dunford; and several members of the White House staff, the AP reports. The Battle of Belleau Wood was a critical conflict in the war and a pivotal encounter in Marine Corps history. (A topless protester rushed Trump's motorcade on Sunday.) (Newser) A longtime adviser to Hillary Clinton has made a prediction in the Wall Street Journal that will be very good news to some Democratic voters and very bad news to others: Hillary Clinton is running again. So writes Mark Penn, a pollster and adviser to the Clintons from 1995 to 2008, in an op-ed co-authored with Andrew Stein, president of the New York City Council. Their premise is that Clinton will return to the Hillary Clinton of old, "the universal-health-care-promoting progressive firebrand of 1994." Think of it as "Hillary Clinton 4.0." In earlier iterations, version 2.0 lost to Barack Obama as a centrist and version 3.0 lost to Donald Trump after blowing it with white, middle-class voters. The new version of Clinton, however, has learned from all these mistakes. story continues below "Clinton has a 75% approval rating among Democrats, an unfinished mission to be the first female president, and a personal grievance against Mr. Trump, whose supporters pilloried her with chants of 'Lock her up!,'" the authors write. "This must be avenged." She's also had two years to assess her defeat to Trump and what she did wrong. What about the new generation of Democrats? They proved they're not ready for prime time with the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Meanwhile, Mike Bloomberg will support her rather than run against her, they write, and Joe Biden wouldn't stand a chance. Clinton might not announce early, perhaps not until after Iowa, "but rest assured that, one way or another, Hillary 4.0 is on the way." Click to read the full op-ed. (Read more Hillary Clinton stories.) (Newser) A young woman in El Salvador was sexually abused by her stepfather since the age of 12, impregnated by him at age 18, and now has a 2-year-old daughter by him. But adding to the horror of her experience, Imelda Cortez, now 20, is the one facing up to 20 years in prison after being accused of attempted murder due to her country's strict abortion laws, even though she says she didn't try to have an abortion, the Guardian and Reuters report. Cortez has been in custody since April of last year after she'd been rushed to the ER bleeding profusely and in pain; a doctor at the hospital suspected she'd tried to induce an abortion, which is banned in all circumstances in El Salvador. It turns out Cortez, who said she didn't even know she was pregnant, had given birth to a baby girl, who was found safe and healthy by cops. story continues below The Guardian notes Cortez's case underscores the plight that young, poor women in El Salvador face, with an abortion law that doesn't allow for one even in cases of rape, when the mother's life is in danger, or when the fetus isn't viable. Some women have been convicted even when they've had a miscarriage or stillbirth. "By shackling these women to hospital beds and sending them to prison, it sends a strong message: If you're poor, it's not safe to seek health care," a human rights lawyer says. As for Cortez, she's "despondent," her lawyer tells Reuters: "Her case could go either way. But if the judge is objective and looks at the evidence, Imelda should be set free." Her criminal trial starts Monday. The Guardian says her stepfather hasn't yet been charged, but her lawyer tells Reuters he's now in jail for raping a minor. (This rape victim got 30 years in prison.) (Newser) A British man is dead after authorities say he sustained a bite from a rabid cat while traveling abroad. Per the BBC, the unnamed victim became infected with rabies in Morocco and died after returning home to Britain. The Telegraph reports the transmission occurred several weeks ago and that the victim didn't receive the lifesaving rabies vaccine in time. The man's name was not released, but it was reported that he sought medical care in both Morocco and in Britain. story continues below Per the UK government, Morocco is among those countries worldwide where there is an elevated risk of coming into contact with the virus, which is among the deadliest known to man and virtually always fatal without treatment. While the virus is not found in animals in the UK, five other Britons have become infected with rabies while abroad since 2000. (In the US, however, rabies can be found in wild animals. Just last week, a Utah man became the first in his state to die from the disease since 1944.) The fourteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP14) will start on Tuesday in Sharm El-Sheikh with the participation of 196 countries, under the auspices of Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. The event will begin with an African Biodiversity Summit under the heading Land and ecosystem degradation and restoration: Priorities for increased resilience in Africa. The summit will discuss strategic policies and directives on the priorities of biological diversity in Africa and future eco-work programmes. A number of initiatives will be announced at the conference, including declaring Sharm El Sheikh a green city, to set an example of sustainability in cities. The conference will aim to foster partnerships with the private sector, the civil community and centres of scientific research, to link them to the biodiversity agreement. The UN will call on decision makers from more than 190 countries to step up efforts to halt the biodiversity loss and protect the ecosystems that support food and water security and health for billions of people. The conference includes the meetings of the governing bodies of the Convention on Biological Diversity and its protocols, as well a number of parallel fora and summit meetings. It comprises the fourteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the ninth meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety, and the third meeting of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing, as well as the high-level segment of these meetings. In addition, on the margins of the conference, pledges and commitments in support of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 will be made by governments, business, NGOs and intergovernmental organisations, cities and subnational authorities, indigenous peoples and local communities, youth and civil society. The convention will run until November 29. Search Keywords: Short link: (Newser) The New York Times calls Dr. Kurt Salzinger's death "a tragic end to the everyday jostle of straphangers," which the New York Post paints as "a daily underground hazard." His stepdaughter calls it "a complete disregard for the elderly," per the Times. Salzinger died on Oct. 27, after he was shoved to a subway platform in New York City's Penn Station by a fellow commuter rushing to catch a train to Brooklyn. When that man stuck his arm out as he sped by, he knocked over both Salzinger, 89, and his 85-year-old wife, Dr. Deanna Chitayat, and Chitayat describes seeing her husband lying there, "like a dead man, not moving," per the Post. Salzinger, a psychology scholar who'd fled from the Nazis in the late '30s, had hit his head during the fall, and he suffered bleeding on the brain. He then came down with pneumonia and died on Thursday, almost two weeks after that push. story continues below Chitayat is sure the impatient commuter knew what he'd done, even if it was accidental. "He stopped and looked at Kurt and saw him [lying] there and then jumped into the car," she tells the Post of their ill-fated shopping trip, which was meant to include a stop at Macy's in Herald Square. "I don't think he meant to kill him, but he killed him." The Times details the "inveterate punster's" amazing backstory, which included a 2.5-year escape with his family from Austria in 1938 through a Jewish underground network, which culminated in a railroad ride to Japan, a boat trip to Seattle, and a cross-country journey to New York City, where the Salzingers settled down. "He survived the Nazis, but he didn't survive going to Macy's," a neighbor tells the Post. There's reportedly no video of the incident, which the NYPD is investigating. (A heated argument on a NYC subway platform ended in one woman's death.) (Newser) A day after the midterms, President Trump warned that he would assume a "warlike posture" if Democrats used their new control of the House to aggressively investigate him. A slew of new stories suggests that Trump will have to assume that posture quickly. One of the phrases in circulation Monday is "subpoena cannon"as in, that's what House lawmakers are preparing to unleash against the president, one Democratic source tells Axios. Details and developments: 85 and counting: So what might Democrats investigate? Pretty much everything, from Trump's taxes, to his family's business dealings, to Russian ties, to hush-money payments, etc. Axios has compiled a list of no fewer than 85 possible oversight targets. So what might Democrats investigate? Pretty much everything, from Trump's taxes, to his family's business dealings, to Russian ties, to hush-money payments, etc. Axios has compiled a list of no fewer than 85 possible oversight targets. And this: Rep. Adam Schiff, incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Democrats might look into whether Trump used instruments of state power to punish CNN and the Washington Post, according to a report in the Post. The allegation on CNN is that Trump sought to stop AT&T from buying parent company Time Warner; on the Post, it's that Trump has been pushing for the postal service to increase shipping rates on Amazon, whose owner, Jeff Bezos, also owns the newspaper. story continues below Hush money: An aide on the House Oversight Committee tells the Wall Street Journal that Democrats have begun investigating payments during the 2016 campaign to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, and have already requested records from the Trump Organization. This follows a Journal report that Trump was directly involved in arranging the payments to quell stories about alleged affairs, raising the question of whether he violated campaign finance laws. An aide on the House Oversight Committee tells the Wall Street Journal that Democrats have begun investigating payments during the 2016 campaign to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, and have already requested records from the Trump Organization. This follows a Journal report that Trump was directly involved in arranging the payments to quell stories about alleged affairs, raising the question of whether he violated campaign finance laws. The i word: The coverage differs on whether Democrats are serious about pursuing impeachment. The Post says House leaders are "rebuffing calls from some liberals" to do so. But Axios reports that top Democrats "now tell us they plan to almost immediately begin exploring possible grounds for impeachment." The coming Robert Mueller report would be key. The coverage differs on whether Democrats are serious about pursuing impeachment. The Post says House leaders are "rebuffing calls from some liberals" to do so. But Axios reports that top Democrats "now tell us they plan to almost immediately begin exploring possible grounds for impeachment." The coming Robert Mueller report would be key. Related quote: Rep. Jerry Nadler, expected to chair the House Judiciary panel next year, said on CNN Sunday that if Trump did indeed violate campaign rules on the hush-money payments, "that might very well be an impeachable offense." Nadler also said he might subpoena acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to testify about his "expressed hostility" to the Mueller investigation. Rep. Jerry Nadler, expected to chair the House Judiciary panel next year, said on CNN Sunday that if Trump did indeed violate campaign rules on the hush-money payments, "that might very well be an impeachable offense." Nadler also said he might subpoena acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to testify about his "expressed hostility" to the Mueller investigation. Trump's response: "The prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems is causing the Stock Market big headaches!" Trump tweeted Monday morning. The Dow was down more than 400 points at noon, per MarketWatch, which cites economic, not political, factors. "The prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems is causing the Stock Market big headaches!" Trump tweeted Monday morning. The Dow was down more than 400 points at noon, per MarketWatch, which cites economic, not political, factors. Losing strategy? An analysis at Vox wonders if Democrats would be playing right into Trump's hands by focusing on investigationsTrump loves to fightrather than policy, where the president is seen as weaker. (Trump is calling for an end to the recounts in Florida .) (Newser) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday became the first Western leader to acknowledge his country had heard recordings of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. "Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share," Trudeau said from Paris, where he was attending the Peace Forum following the WWI Armistice centenary, per the AP. His comments come just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he'd given recordings "to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them." The Canadian leader is the first since that announcement to officially confirm that his country's intelligence had listened to the audio. He said Canada's intelligence agencies had been working "very closely" with Turkish intelligence on Khashoggi's killing. story continues below The shared audio is the latest measure by Turkey to maintain international pressure on Saudi Arabia in its aim to stop a cover-up of the Oct. 2 killing. Trudeau said that he himself hadn't heard the audio, and he wouldn't give any details on the contents of the tapes. Trudeau also said he thanked Erdogan in person for "his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation" when the two leaders met in Paris this weekend. France's account somewhat differed from Canada's: When questioned on France 2 TV Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Turkey has "not to my knowledge" given the French government any such recordings and suggested the Turks were playing games. CIA Director Gina Haspel, who visited Turkey last month for info on the probe, is said to have heard the tapes, the existence of which was leaked but never openly confirmed till Saturday. (Read more Jamal Khashoggi stories.) (Newser) President Trump on Monday stepped up his criticism of the Florida recount now underway in two big national races: In fact, he called for the recount to be scrapped. In a morning tweet, Trump said that Republicans Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott should be declared the winners of the gubernatorial and Senate races, respectively, because they had been leading on election night. "The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged," wrote Trump. "An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!" story continues below As NBC News notes, Trump did not offer evidence for his allegations of fraud. He, Scott, and other Republicans have accused Democrats of trying to "steal" the elections, and Scott is seeking to have ballots and voting machines impounded in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Both races were within half a percentage point, the margin that triggers a machine recount in the state. Hand recounts would follow if the machine recounts yield results within a quarter percentage point, per the Washington Post. (Palm Beach election officials don't think they can finish the recount by the deadline of Thursday.) (Newser) The photo has triggered an uproar, and the hashtag that reportedly accompanied it hasn't helped. A photo (see it here) taken in the spring was recently posted online, and it seems to show roughly 50 male members of Wisconsin's Baraboo High School Class of 2019 posing on the steps of the Sauk County Courthouse as many appear to make the Nazi salute. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports other students are believed to be displaying a white power salute, and #BarabooProud reportedly appeared with the photo. Journalist Jules Suzdaltsev retweeted the photo late Sunday, and it has since garnered enough attention that school administration and law enforcement have weighed in. Baraboo School District Administrator Lori Mueller tweeted that "the photo of students posted to #BarabooProud is not reflective of the educational values and beliefs" of the district. story continues below "The District will pursue any and all available and appropriate actions, including legal, to address," she continued. The Baraboo Police Department weighed in with this: "The Baraboo Police Department is aware of a controversial photo of a group of high school students that has been posted to social media. Officers are assisting the Baraboo School District with their investigation into this matter." The Journal Sentinel reports the Auschwitz Museum weighed in, with a tweet beginning, "It is so hard to find words..." The Baraboo News Republic reports the school was last embroiled in controversy in 2012, when students drove around displaying Confederate flags in what they said was a tribute to a dead friend. (Read another outrageous story involving high schoolers.) The recent NTP (National Toxicology Program) study confirmed rats exposed to microwave RFR (radiofrequency radiation) emitted by 2G and 3G broadband not 4G, the current top banana generation microwave broadband used, soon to be replaced by 5G, were at increased risk for contracting cancer.NTP conducted toxicology studies in rats and mice to help clarify potential health hazards, including cancer risk, from exposure to RFR like that used in 2G and 3G cell phones.So what did the $25-$30 million, ten year study confirm?The NTP studies found that high exposure to RFR used by cell phones was associated with:Clear evidence of tumors in the hearts of male rats. The tumors were malignant schwannomas.Some evidence of tumors in the brains of male rats. The tumors were malignant gliomas.Some evidence of tumors in the adrenal glands of male rats. The tumors were benign, malignant, or complex combined pheochromocytoma.However, the unscientific Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement the rat findings did not apply to humans regarding the use of cell phones! Actually, heres what the crazy-daisy, consensus-thinking scientists at FDA said,We agree that these findings should not be applied to human cell phone usage.despite the fact Hsd:Sprague Dawley SD rats were used because of their distinct biological similarity to humans.Whats happened to science, especially as practiced at the CDC and the FDA? Can someone explain that? Are the probable answers corporate vested interests overtaking federal agencies? Aka Corporatocracy (a society or system that is governed or controlled by corporations [Online Dictionary]).According to Electromagnetic Radiation Safety [Joel M. Moskowitz, Ph.D., Director, Center for Family and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley]We are guinea pigs in a massive technological experiment that threatens our health. Our government needs to determine what constitutes a safe level of long-term exposure to wireless radiation and strengthen the FCCs radio frequency exposure guidelines. In the meantime, the government should impose a moratorium on technologies that increase our exposure to wireless radiation, especially new forms of wireless radiation like 5G cellphone radiation.One of the problems FDA and other consensus scientists found with the NTP study results is the rats received entire or whole body radiation at higher exposure doses.HOLD THE PHONEcell phone that is!Actually, the NTP rat study may be more accurate than anyone would venture to guess. Why? Because humans are exposed to entire, whole body RFR cell phone radiation from the ubiquitous use by just about every human on the face of the earth.Those broadband microwave RFRs are penetrating humans from carrying live or active cell phones on their persons, plus exposing people next to and around them to radiation by having open lines to connect to cell towers 24/7/365, in some cases!Why dispute that?No one really knows if humans currently exposed to 4G, and possibly 5G, RFRs are receiving incrementally more radiation levels than the Sprague-Dawley rats ever did from being exposed to higher doses of antiquated 2G and 3G.2G has been superseded by newer technologies such as 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G, and 4G; however, 2G networks are still used in most parts of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G[3G] It is the upgrade for 2G and 2.5G GPRS networks, for faster internet speed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G2G and 3G networks are shutting down globally?! https://1ot.mobi/blog/2g-and-3g-networks-are-shutting-down-globallyHeres the full list carriers, that have publicly announced that they will cut their 2G (or 3G) network support (as of 23.03.2018):United States:AT&T 2G shutdown date: 01.01.2017Verizon 2G CDMA 1X shutdown date: 31.12.2019,T-Mobile 2G shutdown date: 31.12.2020Source: https://1ot.mobi/blog/2g-and-3g-networks-are-shutting-down-globallySource: NTP Cell Phone Radiation Fact Sheet (November, 2018)At https://www.saferemr.com/2018/11/NTP-final-reports31.htmlHowever, Americans for Responsible Technology apparently sent out the information below, which may be interpreted as a spoof meme however engendering more veracity implied for rats rather than humans.Nothing like humor to drive home sensibilities!Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.Catherines latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Dont Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.https://www.activistpost.com/2018/11/money-well-spent-to-find-rats-should-not-use-cell-phones.html Authorities have issued a safety alert to the public after fatalities were reported in rain-related electrical accidents. The Ministry of Interior confirmed the death of a 68-year-old Bahraini woman who died from electrocution while using a washing machine. The ministry added that the authorities rushed to the scene and that necessary procedure was followed. Bahraini woman, 68, died in Saar while using the washing machine, relevant procedures are being taken, the ministry stated. Another woman was electrocuted in a building in Janusan area, according to sources. The ministry has urged the public to take safety precautions in the face of heightened risks. People have been advised to avoid standing near lampposts, electricity sources and exposed wires. All are urged to exercise caution. If floodwaters enter homes, keep your necessary items on the first floor and disconnect the electricity. Avoid touching or moving falling objects or electricity wires. Dont touch electrical appliances unless you are sure they are dry. The ministry also urged people to make use of the emergency line 999 in case of any serious situations. If there is any short-circuit, disconnect the power supply before alerting the Civil Defence Department, the statement issued by the ministry said. The ministry also urged motorists to exercise caution. Drive slowly, keep the safety distance between vehicles, use a safety belt and keep children in back seats. Drivers should avoid using roads filled with rainwater including Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman highway towards Manama near Jidhafs and Kuwait road near Umm Al Hassan until the water is drained, the statement continued. Egypts interior ministry said on Monday it foiled an attack on a security checkpoint in North Sinais El-Arish, state-run MENA news agency reported. The polices central security forces thwarted the attempted suicide bombing at a checkpoint on the ring road in El-Arish. Egypt has been battling Islamist terrorists in North Sinai for several years. Terrorist attacks have mostly targeted security forces, particularly at military and police checkpoints. Egypt launched Operation Sinai 2018 in February to target "terrorist and criminal elements and organisations" in northern and central Sinai, as well as parts of the Nile Delta and the Western Desert, the army said at the start of the operation. More than 450 terrorists have been killed since the launch of the operation, Egyptian Armed Forces spokesman said in statements in October. Search Keywords: Short link: The 10th session of the Joint Committee for Cooperation between the Kingdom and Egypt was held yesterday, under the chairmanship of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, Sameh Shoukry. The Minister of Foreign Affairs affirmed in his speech that the relations between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the brotherly Arab Republic of Egypt will continue to serve as a model for relations and cooperation between the two countries, pointing out that these relations are based on solid foundations and constant progress and prosperity in various fields. He also affirmed that these strong relations are reflected in the ongoing meetings between His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi. The Egyptian Presidents most recent visit to the Kingdom of Bahrain was last August, in which the outcomes of their negotiations resulted in further expanding bilateral relations. The Minister of Foreign Affairs expressed his deep appreciation to the Arab Republic of Egypt for its ongoing efforts and its pivotal role in resolving Arab issues and serving their interests, as well as the development of Arab collective action, noting in particular its steadfast brotherly stances supporting the security, stability and prosperity of the Kingdom of Bahrain and its efforts to combat violence, extremism and terrorism. The Minister of Foreign Affairs also reiterated the Kingdom of Bahrains firm stance in solidarity with the Arab Republic of Egypt in combatting terrorism and extremism, drying up its sources of funding and seeking to establish security and peace in the region as well as in facing various threats and risks. Labour and Social Development Minister Jameel Humaidan yesterday received Special Presidential Envoy of the Philippines Republic to the Gulf Cooperation Countries, Dr. Amable Aguiluz. They discussed the bilateral cooperation in the field of labour and human resources development as well as the successful experiences of both countries regarding citizens employment and social protection schemes. The minister stressed the importance of cooperation especially in the field of labour and the exchange of technical expertise as well as areas of human resources development. The minister also praised the role of the Philippines community in Bahrain and its contribution to the Kingdoms progress. Dr. Aguiluz praised the fruitful cooperation ties between his country and Bahrain in various fields thanks to the keenness to develop these ties on the part of the two governments. HM the Kings Personal Representative and Chairman of the Supreme Organising Committee of the Bahrain International Airshow (BIAS 2018), HH Shaikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa, has extended thanks and appreciation to all parties that are exerting tremendous efforts ahead of the official opening of BIAS 2108, due to be held under the patronage of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, on November 14-16, at the Al Sakhir Air Base. HH Shaikh Abdulla stressed that BIAS will continue its success and attract more effective participants and new companies from brotherly and friendly countries. The continuous success of the event, thanks to HM the Kings unlimited support and sound directives and forward-looking strategic vision, has contributed to strengthening Bahrains status as a host of airshows in the region, he said. While chairing, at the Al Sakhir Air Base yesterday, the meeting of the Supreme Organising Committee of the fifth edition of BIAS, HH Shaikh Abdulla stressed that the efforts of those in charge of BIAS, particularly the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications, have contributed to the kingdoms success in gaining international fame and trust of world aviation companies. HH Shaikh Abdulla extended sincere thanks and appreciation to His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa for the efforts of the government to ensure the success of BIAS 2018. Jewellery Arabia 2018, the Middle Easts premier jewellery and watch exhibition, is returning to the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre from 20 24 November 2018. Now in its 27th year, this prestigious annual event takes place under the patronage of His Royal Highness the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa. Jewellery, watches, gems and luxury accessories worth an estimated value of US$ 1 billion will go on sale to members of the public and trade. Open free of charge, show organisers UBM AEM anticipate over 50,000 visitors will descend on the 21,000 square metre treasure trove over the course of 5 days. Visitors will be welcomed by over 550 local, regional and international exhibitors who will launch new product lines, display their latest collections and introduce limited edition pieces exclusively at Jewellery Arabia 2018. Jewellery Arabia 2018 is a vibrant platform for jewellers to showcase their latest products in the dynamic Middle East market. This well-established exhibition offers consumers and trade visitors alike a once a year opportunity to browse the largest selection of jewellery and watches in the Middle East, stay abreast of trends, discover new designers and source one-off pieces in a unique atmosphere, said Fawzi Al Shehabi, UBM AEM Director of Sales and Marketing. Joining international brands and national groups are a host of designers, retailers and manufacturers from 30 countries worldwide. Visitors can also enjoy freeto-attend daily jewellery education seminars led by the worlds foremost authority on gemology, the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). Bahrain is expected to sign major trade deals with China during a nine-day visit to the country organised by the Economic Development Board. The tour, which begins this week and aims at strengthening economic and trade ties, will have Shenzhen as its first stop. In addition to attending the Bahrain-Shenzhen Economic Forum and the China HighTech Fair, the most prominent high-end technology event in China and Huawei R&D Center, the delegation is also expected to sign landmark agreements and sign a number of MOUs with its Chinese counterparts. Led by Shaikh Hisham bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa, Governor of Capital Governorate, the Bahraini delegation is comprised of Khalid Al Rumaihi, Chief Executive of EDB, Dr Anwar Alabdulla, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Bahrain to China, Sameer Abdulla Nass, Chairman of BCCI, and representatives from the private and public sectors. These visits highlight our mutual desire to expand cooperation at all levels, from financial services to ICT, tourism, manufacturing, transportation and logistics services, Shaikh Hisham bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa, Capital Governor commented. Foreign investments in Bahrain have increased from $142 million in 2015 to $810 million in the first three quarters of 2018. Bahrain has already attracted some big Chinese names to invest in the country, including the ICT giant company Huawei and China International Marine Containers Company (CIMC). The total goods traded between Bahrain and China excluding oil increased from $872 million in 2009 to over $1.7 billion in 2017. Commenting on the visit, Khalid Al Rumaihi, Chief Executive of the Bahrain EDB said: We are particularly excited to be taking part in the China High Tech Fair for the third year and showcase areas in which Chinese businesses, particularly in the ICT sector, can tap into Bahrain and the wider region. Over the length of this official visit, the delegation will meet with Chinese government officials, with Chen Rugui, Mayor of the Shenzhen, with the Governor of Zhejiang and Hebei Provinces, and with several Chinese business leaders. This is the fifth consecutive year that a Bahrain delegation has visited China. Bahrains SME Development board in cooperation with Tamkeen yesterday launched Export Bahrain aimed at strengthening the private sectors role, promote exports and increase the competitive power of local small and medium enterprises. The launch was held in conjunction with the final stage of preparation for the Made in Bahrain trademark, which has been approved by MOICT and will soon be used by local businesses to promote Bahraini-made products. Export Bahrain, according to Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism and Chairman of the SME Development Board Zayed R. Alzayani, is aimed at increasing exports contribution to GDP from 30 per cent to 40pc, increase the share of exports from 8pc to 20pc and increase the number of Bahrainis working in SMEs from 36,000 to 43,000. Export Bahrain will launch programmes to increase export opportunities by establishing a business directory and increase national companies export capacities. Khalid Al Rumaihi, Chief Executive of the Economic Development Board (EDB), said: Export Bahrain will play a major role in increasing domestic exports, an objective that we aim to achieve in the Kingdom. The Chief Executive of Tamkeen, Dr Ibrahim Mohammed Janahi, said that Export Bahrain aims to support local companies that wish to expand into international markets. A Giza criminal court sentenced on Monday former Menoufiya governor Hisham Abdel-Basset to 10 years in prison over accepting a bribe of over EGP 27 million. The court also fined the former governor EGP 15 million. Two other defendants were acquitted in the same case. Abdel-Basset and the two others were arrested in January after investigations conducted by the Administrative Control Authority (ACA) revealed their involvement in bribery. The ACA is responsible for enforcing laws and regulations within state bodies, including identifying possible cases of corruption and referring them to the prosecution. Since 2016, the ACA has referred several state officials to the prosecution on bribery charges, with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressing the importance of fighting corruption in the country through the states administrative authority. 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Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Lagos and Jimi Agbaje, his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, met at the weekend. The duo met when they both attended a wedding event in the state. The two top contenders for the gubernatorial election in 2019 were guests of the popular Shodipo and Dosekun families in Lagos. As they exchanged pleasantries, Sanwo-Olus running mate, Obafemi Hamzat, joined. The scene caught the attention of many in attendance who stared in admiration and also took pictures. Campaigns will kick off on Sunday November 18 as earlier announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Meanwhile, Sanwo-Olu has assured of his commitment to use technology to solve social and governance problems if elected. Speaking at the Digital Lagos event, he said his government will work in partnership with the technology sector to solve social issues such as creation of employment opportunity, mentoring, entrepreneurship, education, health, transportation and to also improve the revenue profile. Im aware that technology is the oil of today. Some ten years ago, the richest companies in the world were oil and energy giants, but the tide has changed. What we have today are technology companies dominating the global economic space. With technology, transparency and accountability in government become easier and possible. Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, has stated that prudent management of resources by the Buhari administration has helped it achieve... Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, has stated that prudent management of resources by the Buhari administration has helped it achieve far more in terms of infrastructure and development than previous administrations. Prof. Osinbajo stated this at a public lecture organized by the Council of Chief of Imams, Ikeja Division in Lagos on Saturday. The Vice President also stated the determination of the administration in its fight against corruption, noting that it was a major challenge which had slowed the countrys development in the past. He added that the Buhari administration has spent over N2.7 trillion on capital expenditure in the last three years, pointing out that it is the highest amount ever spent on capital project in the history of Nigeria. The Vice President listed some of the infrastructure projects to include, among others, the Lagos-Kano Standard Gauge Railway, the Lagos-Ibadan Dual Carriageway and the Second Niger Bridge. According to Prof. Osinbajo, the Buhari administration has been able to achieve this through prudent management of resources, despite earning 60% revenue less than the previous administration when the price of crude oil was high. Despite earning 60% less revenue, we are spending more on infrastructure in this government, from roads, rails to power, he said. The Vice President also said that components of the administrations Social Investment Programme have impacted the lives of millions of Nigerians. He adds, If the N60 billion that was part of the sum looted from the nations treasury in the past, was given out to these traders, 6m petty traders would have been beneficiaries. Prof. Osinbajo said at the inception of the administration, over 23 states in Nigeria owed salaries of between three to 12 months, which necessitated the Federal Government giving the states bailout funds to pay their workers. He said the Buhari administration was also confronted with the drop in Nigerias crude oil production of 2.2 million bpd, coming down to around 1 million bpd as a result of the restiveness in the Niger Delta Region. Speaking further, the Vice President stated that the struggle in Nigeria is that between good and evil, and not between religions. The Buhari Support Organisation (BSO) South East Zone at the weekend launched the Zikist-Buharist-Movement (ZBM). They say this is i... The Buhari Support Organisation (BSO) South East Zone at the weekend launched the Zikist-Buharist-Movement (ZBM). They say this is in a bid to guarantee victory for the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 election. The movement was launched at the South East Zonal Summit of BSO, held in Enugu on Saturday to mobilise APC members and non partisan Ndigbo at home and Diaspora to vote for Buhari. This move, BSO posited, would reinforce their bid for Nigeria president of Igbo extradition when it gets to the turn of Ndigbo in 2023. The group explained that as a Pragmatist, the late Owelle of Onitsha, Nnamdi Azikiwe would readily have chosen President Muhammadu Buhari of APC who has uncommon cult followership in the northern belt, ahead of his Fulani kinsman, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). BSO noted that whereas the Atiku restructuring mantra sounds appetizing, restructuring cannot be done by Fiat-Executive Order, but by the cumbersome amendment process of the rigid 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In a communique released after the summit, signed by Stanley Ohajuruka, South-East Coordinator and Godwin Onwusi, Acting Secretary, the ZBM, the BSO proclaimed is a non-partisan movement launched to go beyond the party lines in mobilising and scaling up votes for Buhari. According to the communique, BSO South East in order to actualise this noble objective adopted pragmatism as the key strategy, in the sense that the 2023 President turn of Ndigbo Project is a non-partisan bid. The communique read in part: Our study shows that the total membership of all the political parties APC, PDP, APGA, UPP et al is less than 30% of that of the electorate. And that the turnout of registered voters in the previous elections has been very poor, which makes it imperative that we have to mobilize in order to achieve 2023 President Turn Ndigbo. In this connection, we today launch the Zikist-Buharist-Movement (ZBM), a non-partisan movement aimed at mobilising Ndigbo both at home and abroad. The ZBM in the best tradition of the great Zik, Owelle, Rt. Hon. Dr Nnamdi Benjamin Azikiwe want to reopen the ancient North-East political alliance, which without the exclusion of any geopolitical zone earned Ndigbo indelible laurels in the 1st and 2nd Republics. BSO South East proclamation that 2023 is our turn to produce Nigeria president of Igbo extraction is based on equity, natural justice and good conscience. For it is our considered view that the rotation of president convention from Southern Belt to Northern Belt introduced by patriots in 1999, 4th Republic, when Nigeria returned to civil rule, is for equity, natural justice, and harmony of our dear country. It is based on equity, natural justice and good conscience that we remind ourselves that since 1999, the South East geopolitical zone is the only geopolitical zone in the Southern Belt which has not presided over Nigeria. And it is on record that despite the truism that His Excellencies Dr Alex Ekwueme of blessed memory and Dr Ogbonnia Onu were shoved aside in Jos and Kaduna presidential primaries respectively. Ndigbo albeit voted overwhelmingly for the winner, ex-president, Dr Olusegun Obasanjo of the South West, who served for eight years, it stated. BSO recalled that in 2010 and 2015, Ndigbo repeated the same voting pattern by voting overwhelmingly for ex-president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan. The group made it clear that Ndigbo supported their two Southern brothers, even when South West in 1999 refused to vote for Obasanjo, meaning that Ndigbo had paid our dues. The communique stated further: BSO South East in deep reflection asked ourselves, what option in a scenario where two Fulani Muslim brothers Buhari and Atiku are front liners in the 2019 Presidential Election, who could the great Zik choose if he were alive? In answering this germane question, we said two major critical issues will readily come to Ziks mind one whom between the two of them has the support of the North, two what is their programmes? As a Pragmatist the great Zik would readily choose President Muhammadu Buhari who has uncommon cult followership in the northern belt. This choice is based on the pragmatism that for us to achieve the Igbo presidency, we need Buharis supporters not only in the north but nationwide. On the second issue, the great Zik would be attracted by His Excellency Atiku Abubakars promise to restructure the country in six months in office; but as a pragmatist he will reason that it cannot be achieved by Fiat-Executive-Order. Whereas the Atiku restructuring mantra is appetizing, the truism is that it cannot be done by Fiat-Executive Order, but by the amendment of the rigid 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. All that glitters is not gold, the sage says, it stated. BSO South East stated that APC and by extension President Buhari was not against restructuring, otherwise they could not have set up the Malam El-Rufia Committee on Restructuring and its report receiving attention. On the issue of four years, Buharis remaining 4 years after 2019 is cast on constitutional stone, while Atikus is at best pledge. In sum, we call Ndigbo both at home and abroad, to join the ZBM to actualise this noble objective, BSO stated. Harping on why Ndigbo must support the APC presidential candidate earlier at the summit, Osita Okechukwu, the Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), said Buhari has completed the foundation of the 2nd Bridge. Okechukwu explained that Buhari started the important project from the scratch and was the first person that took a bag of cement, the gravel and stones to start the 2ndBridge about last year. The VON DG added that Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola assured him that work would start on Enugu-Onitsha and Enugu-Port Harcourt expressways as soon the rains stop. The Nigeria Diaspora Network is currently calling for signatures for a petition asking the US to grant Atiku Abubakar, presidential can... The Nigeria Diaspora Network is currently calling for signatures for a petition asking the US to grant Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), entrance to the country so he can face the law. The Nigeria Diaspora Network is currently calling for signatures for a petition asking the US to grant Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), entrance to the country so he can face the law. Abubakar, who was indicted in a report for money laundering, had said he was yet to visit US because he was denied visa. Ahead of the 2019 elections, however, Gbenga Daniel, director-general of Atikus campaign, said the presidential candidate has been invited for his US visa. In a petition, addressed to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the department of justice (DoJ) and the US senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, the diaspora network wants the US to grant him visa, so the FBI can put him on their watchlist for possible arrest and prosecution. Currently, Mr Abubakar, who has also been named in a number of high-profile corruption scandals at home in Nigeria, is running for the Presidency of the Nigeria. It is disheartening that at a time Nigeria is elevating the fight against corruption, and seeking the support and assistance of foreign countries like the United States to tackle corruption and repatriate looted funds, Mr Abubakar is aspiring to the highest office in the land, the petition read. Since shortly after that investigation was published, Mr Abubakar has not visited the United States. We believe that this is because the United States government has refused to grant him a visa on account of his role in the corruption scandals highlighted in the Senate Report. In 2015 he put up his Washington, DC mansion for sale. We are now aware that he is working hard to lobby the United States Government to reverse its decision regarding his eligibility for a visa. His goal is to make a statement by paying a visit to the United States and then using that to advance the narrative that the corruption allegations are unfounded and baseless. We are also now aware that he has hired one of the most important lobbying firms in the United States, Ballard Partners, to ensure that he is granted a visa to the United States and is able to visit before the Nigerian presidential elections in February 2019. Festus Keyamo, the spokesman of the Muhammdu Buhari Campaign Organisation, says HSBC was in Nigeria to take funds out for money launde... Festus Keyamo, the spokesman of the Muhammdu Buhari Campaign Organisation, says HSBC was in Nigeria to take funds out for money launderers. Speaking with Osasu Igbinedion on The Osasu Show, Keyamo said the exit of the global bank, which has a presence in 80 countries, does not erode investors confidence in Nigeria. Last week, we reported the exit of the bank from Nigeria, alongside UBS, a Swiss private bank. Reacting to the exit of the bank, Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said its always a sad day to see such banks exit the country. Always a sad day for our country when such entities pack up. FDI is a key component to economic growth, Atiku had said. My administration will attract more FDI by making the CBN stronger and independent, banish multiple exchange rates and promote market-led economy. Reacting to the exit of the bank, Keyamo said: HSBC does not give loans to anybody, do they? To reflate the economy, to get the economy going. It is not a loan giving bank. It is not a bank that supports small businesses, it is not a bank that even comes here to support big businesses. They are just here to take money out for people. Big boys, the money launderers. They help them to take money out. That is why you can see that in the UK, HSBC has gone through a lot of money laundering problems, theyve been fined. In the US, HSBC has gone through a lot of money laundering problems, theyve been fined. And it is there. Like I normally say and people will laugh at me when I say, just Google it, Google it. When you want to make politics out of it, you now say it erodes. It doesnt erode anything. It doesnt support small businesses in the first place. The senior advocate of Nigeria said President Muhammadu Buhari is principally for the poor and the very vulnerable. The concentration of the Buharis administration is not for the big boys, I am sorry. This a government for the poor and very vulnerable. Anything that protects them, that is what is their concern, he added. Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi arrived in Italy on Monday to attend a summit on the Libyan crisis in Palermo. In a brief statement to the press, El-Sisis spokesman Bassam Rady said El-Sisi arrived at Palermo Airport. The Egyptian President is in Italy for a two-day visit, after an invitation by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. The invitation comes a few days after both El-Sisi and Conte spoke on the phone, during which El-Sisi stressed Egypts position that the unity of Libyan territory should be preserved, support for its national institutions, respect for the will of the people, which will contribute to the return of stability and security in the Middle East. The Palermo conference will bring together key political Libyan factions and international partners in the latest bid by the international community to solve the continuing Libyan crisis and proceed with a plan to hold planned elections in the country. Libyas prime minister, who is based in the west, arrived for the conference, veteran Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar, the most powerful figure in eastern Libya is also attending the conference, according to Reuters. Search Keywords: Short link: Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Monday failed to answer a question on corru... Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Monday failed to answer a question on corruption allegations against Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano state. In different videos widely circulated online, Ganduje was allegedly captured collecting kickbacks from contractors. At a press briefing in Abuja on Monday, Magu refused to respond to a question on the video. A journalist had asked the anti-graft czar to speak on the issue but he responded, Next question please. have accused anti-corruption agencies of refusing to act on the videos because Ganduje is a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Critics of the current administrationhave accused anti-corruption agencies of refusing to act on the videos because Ganduje is a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The governor has distanced himself from the video, accusing Jafar Jafar, publisher of Daily Nigerian, the online publication which leaked the video, of blackmail. At the press conference, Magu reeled out the successes of the commission since he was appointed in 2015. He also said the agency is seeking to extradite Diezani Alison-Madueke, former minister of petroleum resources, because the UK authorities failed to take legal action against her. It has taken so long and it is very unreasonable that she is not being tried there, he said. So, we are tired of waiting and that was why I said if you cannot prosecute her, bring her and we will prosecute her. There is no prosecution going on in the UK. The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has said his recent meeting with the Department ... The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has said his recent meeting with the Department of State Services, DSS, was a mere routine conversation that held in the interest of national security. He made this claim on Sunday while appearing on Channels TVs political programme, Sunday Politics, anchored by Seun Okinbaloye. Several media outlets had reported that the APC national chairman was grilled by the DSS over alleged bribe-taking and gross misconduct during the ruling partys recent primaries. Dismissing the reports as false, Oshiomhole said: I met with the DSS on Sunday at about 3pm and I drove there on my own. I have been having meeting with the DG of SSS, both the current one and the previous one. It is not unusual that they want to find out what is going on. We share with them what we know and, sometimes, they share with us what they hear. I believe it is in the interest of the national security. We (have) met a couple of times to discuss issues that have to do with the country and our party. On his reported coercion by the DSS for him to resign as the APC national chairman, Oshiomhole said: I wasnt hired by the DSS and I cannot be requested by the DSS to resign or to retain the job. APC is a structured. We have organs. I know the processes and procedures. I believe the DSS also understand their own role in the system. It is not up to them to the demand the resignation of a party chairman. But, I believe it is their right to have a conversation with anybody who in their opinion can assist them in discharging their mandate of ensuring that Nigeria is safe and secure, particularly as we move towards 2019. On his meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari after his reported grilling by the DSS, he said: The President is the President of Nigeria. He is elected on the platform of our party of which I am privileged currently to be the chairman. I visit the Villa two or three times a week. I have the duty to brief Mr. President on what we are doing in the party. We also have the privilege of learning from the President what the govt is doing as it relates to what the party expects of the government elected on our platform. The camp of the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has said that the meeting recently held in Dubai by the Peoples Democratic Par... The camp of the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has said that the meeting recently held in Dubai by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was targetted at the reputation of the Vice President. Osinbajos camp claimed that the PDP and Atiku were targeting the Vice President by spreading negative and false news ahead of next years Presidential elections. A top Presidency source revealed that the plan in Dubai, United Arab Emirates was designed to ensure that the VPs populist imagery is damaged in the media by making all attempts to discredit him. The source said, The diabolical plan by PDP is already in place. We can see it in motion that is how this party operates. In the last two weeks, they have concentrated their effort on the VP in a bid to assail his credibility. For example, the recent but misrepresented House of Representatives report which was read on the floor of the House was written in Dubai and overseen by the Speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara. It is also part of the Dubai resolution to try and weaken the drive of the VP regarding the Buhari Social Investment Programme. This explains the coordinated attacks on the TraderMoni scheme, as the party and their cronies have started bashing it as an advanced voter buying agenda. The source added that the fear expressed at the Dubai meeting was that if the scheme was not diminished, its acceptance with the people will become an herculean task for the PDP and its Presidential candidate to overcome. The source added, They want to impoverish the people forever, but this government has changed that, Nigerians are wiser now and are aware that the corrupt government of the PDP is always designed to help only a few at the top. The source explained further that the PDP has identified VP Osinbajo as the success poster boy of the APC and see him as one who must be tainted. We must put him on the back foot. It is important to destroy his character ahead of the elections because of the favourable perception that many Nigerians have of him, his capacity and the programs and to reduce the South West support for him as a part of this administration. The sources continued that the meeting noted that the VPs Christian character must be impugned and maligned seriously. Speaking further, Akinloye outlined some of the strategies of the PDP which was received from a leader in the opposition party. At the Dubai meeting, the PDP agreed to do a vigorous opposition research to discredit him (Osinbajo), his family, his faith and programs. They also agreed to commission moles and other agents to dig up dirt on subject. The Yobe State Commissioner of Police, Sunmonu Abdulmaliki, has disclosed that security reports have indicated that the leadership of th... The Yobe State Commissioner of Police, Sunmonu Abdulmaliki, has disclosed that security reports have indicated that the leadership of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) is planning to relocate the Shiite national headquarters to Potiskum town. The commissioner made this disclosure in an interview with Dailypost in Damaturu on Monday, where he stated that intelligence gathered showed an influx of Shia members into the densely populated town. They are not banned in Yobe state, so we are monitoring their activities and proactively stem what could be a crisis despite the recent clash between members of the sect and operatives of the Joint Task Force (JTF), he revealed. He said it has been observed that the group residing in the state are not Shiites per se but they could be called El-Zakzaky group. I must tell you that there is hardly any time they are caught they dont find drugs with them and arms. I dont think Islam allows that, he noted. Abdulmaliki stated that the police command in conjunction with other security agencies, especially the State Security Service (SSS), the Military, Civil Defence Corps among others, was able to checkmate the Shiites effectively in Potiskum. My appeal to the Shiite members is to be law abiding, we are for everybody as long as you are law abiding. We monitor them through intelligence we get their dossier and then checkmate them before anything happens, he assured. Abdulmaliki also stressed that the police have a legal and constitutional way of dealing with whoever is performing anything illegally, saying that the command will not hesitate to do exactly as the law stated without falling foul of the laws of the land and trampling on anybodys right. We are in the era of community policing and that we will apply that to the latest, he stated. Recall that on 21st September, 2018, one person was killed with three others injured following a clash between members of the Shiite group and JTF operatives during the Ashura procession in Potiskum town. Uche Nwosu, the Chief of Staff to the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, has said those accusing his principal and members of his fa... Uche Nwosu, the Chief of Staff to the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, has said those accusing his principal and members of his family of plotting to continue their control of the state beyond 2019 were not being objective in their position. He said this on Sunday when he featured on Channels TVs political programme, Sunday Politics, in Abuja. Nwosu, who is Okorochas son-in-law, said besides his own governorship aspiration and the governors quest for a senatorial seat in next years general election, no other member of the Okorocha dynasty was running for political office. He argued that his relationship with the Governor did not rule him out of aspiring for any political office in the land. Nwosu pointed out that the Governor showed a culture of not interfering in his work when he served in the government as commissioner for lands and chief of staff. He said: The issue of Rochas Okorocha trying to control Imo state with his family does not arise. People should get down to Imo state. People should leave sentiments alone My name is Ugwumba Uche Nwosu. I am from Nkwerre local government. Rochas is from Ideato local government. By virtue of Gods grace, I was able to get married to the governors daughter. Does that stop me as a man from running for governor of Imo state? I was commissioner of lands and now chief of staff. Did Rochas Okorocha stop me from doing my work? The urban renewal you see in Imo state today is out of my initiative. The Resident Electoral Commissioner in Niger, Prof. Sam Egwu, said on Monday that the commission was committed to conducting free, fai... The Resident Electoral Commissioner in Niger, Prof. Sam Egwu, said on Monday that the commission was committed to conducting free, fair and credible elections in 2019. Egwu gave the assurance at a two-day workshop in Minna on the implementation of election monitoring and support, an integrated monitoring and tracking tool for all electoral activities leading to the general elections. He said that the commission would provide a level playing field for all political parties for the conduct of transparent elections. The commission will carefully monitor the conduct of personnel to ensure that they adhere strictly to the electoral guidelines. We have done it before, we will do it again through proper monitoring of our personnel before, during and after the implementation of all electoral processes. I urge all the electoral officers to shun all acts capable of tempering with the already built-up image and reputation of the commission. INEC is ready to collaborate with stakeholders to ensure smooth implementation of all the electoral processes, he said. The commissioner appealed to politicians, especially those seeking elective positions to always preach the principles of political tolerance and understanding. He said that the tasks ahead was for politicians to embark on aggressive sensitisation of their followers not to see elections as a `do-or-die affair. When that is done, it will end political violence and thuggery and give us a peaceful atmosphere for the smooth implementation of all electoral processes, he said. The Special Presidential Investigation Panel For Recovery of Public Property has provided reasons it arrested the governorship candidate... The Special Presidential Investigation Panel For Recovery of Public Property has provided reasons it arrested the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Hope Uzodinma, on Sunday. Okoi Obono-Obla, Chairman of the panel, said the lawmaker, who represents Imo West at the National Assembly, was arrested at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport. He disclosed that the panel was investigating the lawmaker over his companys failure to execute contract of $12 million for the dredging of Calabar channel awarded by Nigerian Port Authority, NPA. This evening, at about 8.20pm, operatives of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel For Recovery of Public Property at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport arrested the APC governorship candidate in Imo State, Hope Uzodinma. He was disembarking from an Air Peace P47324 flight from Lagos. The Libyan crisis seems to be adamant not to calm down at all, for whenever indicators go in the direction of a solution a profound problem, some willfully throw it in new paths and mazes that exacerbate the difficulty of solving it. Some think that they are capable of settling the crisis while they are the main reason in complicating it. They insist upon imposing their visions which lead to the continuation of the crisis for a long time or until the time comes when they manage to arrange the situation in a way that suits their interests. Ghassan Salame, UN Envoy to Libya, made a briefing before the Security Council last Thursday. The focus was obviously on the humanitarian dimension after it has been a fad in the UN discourse because it caters to the citizens, politicians and media personnels sentiments and it might make them forget concerns and accumulated problems. Salame tackled the situation of the militias and the decline of their role through asserting that there is a considerable degree of calmness in Tripoli after guns fell silent. However, he didnt deny that their mission has ended and didnt view them as pure evil. He opened the door for using armed battalions leaders and elements for the aim of imposing law and order in the future. Political Consensus Salame agrees with Fayez Al-Sarraj, Chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya and prime minister of the Government of National Accord (GNA) of Libya, in this point. The points of agreement are increasing between the two figures, as if there is an agreement that stipulates the integration of their visions and not to give the priority to the unification of the army institution, which Salame considers as not too urgent issue. The UN envoy hinted at this issue fleetingly saying On the medium range, we have to contribute to unify the army and restructure it to be a professional national army. This means that the militias will still have an influential role. The talk about deterring them following the threat to imposing sanctions in his previous briefing carries many doubts. For it is possible that they may expand once again and being clad in a different garb. This explains one of the secrets behind their withdrawal lately from a number of governmental institutions in Tripoli and the Mitiga International Airport. Salame knows that unifying the military institution wont in be the advantage of Al-Sarraj, who reneged when the discussions of its unification in Cairo were about to reach a key accord, of which the final agreement was about to be signed last month. He made the interlocutors enter into a debate concerning the missions of the supreme commander of the Libyan Army against that of the army chief. He felt that the developments on the Libyan scene are providing him with political power and the importance of his moral existence at decisive moments. The mission of the unification stumbled but it isnt over, for it is difficult to reach a full established degree of calmness and stability in Libya without this step. This step is gradually ignored and the focus is on the file of stripping the legislative power from the Libyan House of Representative and raising doubts regarding its accounts. This is accomplished via pushing for convening of the Libyan National Gathering early next year to be followed by holding elections in the spring of the same year. Concentrating on convening the gathering aims at diverting the attention away from current constituents and restructuring the Presidential Council in a way that would be advantageous to Al-Sarraj being in the forefront. At the same time, those who called for the gathering dont heed to warnings of 134 members out of the 180 members-Libyan House of Representative of the dangers of Al-Sarraj and his political steps. The operation of marketing of Al-Sarraj and being adopted by the UN envoy leads to creating the impression that he is the savior and simultaneously neglecting conceptions that consider him one of the reasons behind the current crisis complication. Thus, due attention wasnt paid towards the unification of the military institution and the role of the head of the Libyan National Army, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who began to invest his several cards in counter efforts in different areas. Curbing Salames moves Haftar went to Moscow recently to assert that he has a lot of power tools both internally and externally, to send a signal that may deter Al-Sarrajs allies, to curb Salames moves and to issue a warning of further Russian engagement in the crisis. This warning will cast a shadow on the Palermo conference to be held on 12th and 13th of this month which Italy and its supporters understand it well. Steps undertaken by the main players in the crisis from Salame, Al-Sarraj, Haftar and that of Aguila Saleh, the House of Representatives Chairman and Khaled Al-Mishri, President of the High Council of State (HCS) are going in the opposite direction of what's desired by the Palermo Conference. Therefore, the atmosphere that Rome has sought to create isnt favourable for coming out with better results than that of the Paris Conferences meagre results last May. If the UN envoy is keen to reach the election stage next spring, he has to have a comprehensive vision for solution. For holding the elections isnt an objective in itself and it may contribute to worsening problems on the ground. The inclusive gathering, in the way that Salame presented it amid disparate interactions, wont be able to pave the way for conducting fair elections and consequently not ensuring the implementation of their results. Most of the movements undertaken by the UN envoy and Al-Sarraj are advantageous to the Islamist current and its backers (specifically Qatar and Turkey); reducing the role of the regulatory bodies and the military institution; insisting on holding the elections amid unfavourable atmosphere in order to facilitate its paths; and attempting to reproduce previous conditions in order to provide a good opportunity for the presence of the Islamists and their armed battalions. These attempts converge with that of several Western countries, which deem it necessary to accommodate the Islamist current in Libya. It is an issue that hinders reaching a real settlement for the crisis because the backers magnify the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and their companions and look forward to give them more missions that go beyond their proportional representation in the Libyan society. According to some estimates, they dont exceed 15%. However, they represent a branch of external powers that refuse to forsake them for they are still a profitable and a willing tool to be politically employed. Hence, Qatar didnt cease its missions in backing this current in Libya and it doubled its activity in this concern lately while focusing on civil society elements and pumping funds generously in different areas because these elements constitute the strike force in the national gathering which will decide many political approaches in the next period. This is what Salame is trying to promote on a wide scale in order to attract international support and reduce the role of traditional powers that have decisive standpoints towards many issues. The process of energising the Islamist current in Libya was evident through the generous hospitality Al-Sarraj welcomed Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar in Tripoli last Monday where they discussed cooperation in defence and military fields going beyond the political perspectives. What confirms the several goals involving the visit is that Akar was accompanied with the Turkish Chief of General StaffGeneral Yasar Guler, Serdar Cam chief of the Turkish cooperation and coordination agency, Emrullah Isler the Turkish presidents special representative to Libya and Yasin Aktay the AKP presidents advisor along with a number of Turkish Defence and Foreign ministries officials. Al-Sarraj moves a lot in order to remain in control of a regular armed force that equates the capabilities of the Libyan Army under the command of Haftar in the eastern part of the country. The former relies on winning over a military wing in the western part in order to lay hindrances before whoever thinks of storming Libya from any force similar to or surpasses the operation performed by the Infantry 7th Brigade in last 26th August. Consolidating relations with Turkey currently cant be without military and ideological signs which remind one of the nature of the role that Ankara plays in Libya. Al-Sarraj governments media bureau said in a statement that he discussed with the Turkish delegation military cooperation between the two countries especially cooperation in building defence and security capabilities through training courses and activating signed agreements in this concern and the process of unifying the Libyan military institution. Some observers see that Al-Sarraj wants to reduce the hold of the Egyptian role in the crisis and has threatened to withdraw the file of unifying the military institution from Cairo and handing it to another country. In his view, it seems that Turkey is much in favour due to mutual developing relations and through this he will be able to gain the number of battalions within the regular military force he wishes it to be under his control. Here, it is suffice to say that Haithem Al-Tajouri, Commander of Tripolis Revolutionaries, is playing a major role in the security arrangements in the streets of the capital. He has dispatched recently elements from his battalion (which is known to be offering its services) to receive advanced training in Turkey. Thus, this confirms that the Muslim Brotherhoods operations room which manages the Libyan crisis from Istanbul will increase its activities in the coming period. Search Keywords: Short link: French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Monday said that France was not in possession of recordings related to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as far as he was aware, contradicting remarks by Turkeys president. Khashoggi was killed in Saudi Arabias Istanbul consulate last month in a hit which President Tayyip Erdogan says was ordered at the highest levels of the Saudi government. Erdogan on Saturday said that France, Germany and Britain had been handed the tapes, but in an interview on France 2, Le Drian said this was not the case, as far as he knew. Asked if that meant Erdogan was lying, Le Drian said: it means that he has a political game to play in these circumstances. U.S. President Donald Trump and Erdogan have discussed how to respond to the killing last month of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a White House official said on Sunday. *This story was edited by Ahram Online. Search Keywords: Short link: Turkey on Monday lashed out at "unacceptable" comments by the French foreign minister who accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of playing a "political game" over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey had shared recordings linked to the Saudi journalist's murder last month with Riyadh, as well as the United States, France, Britain and other allies, without giving details of the tapes' specific content. In an interview with France 2 television on Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he "for the moment was not aware" of any information transmitted by Ankara. Asked if the Turkish president was lying, he said: "It means that he has a political game to play in these circumstances." His comments provoked fury in Ankara. "We find it unacceptable that he accused President Erdogan of 'playing political games'," the communications director at the Turkish presidency, Fahrettin Altun, told AFP in a written statement. "Let us not forget that this case would have been already covered up had it not been for Turkey's determined efforts." Khashoggi was killed in Saudi Arabias Istanbul consulate last month in a hit which President Tayyip Erdogan says was ordered at the highest levels of the Saudi government. Altun said Le Drian's comments about the investigation "do not reflect the facts". He said Ankara had shared evidence linked to the murder with officials from a large number of countries and that France was "no exception". "I confirm that evidence pertaining to the Khashoggi murder has also been shared with the relevant agencies of the French government," he said. A representative of French intelligence listened to the audio recording and examined detailed information including a transcript on October 24, he added. "If there is miscommunication between the French government's various agencies, it is up to the French authorities -- not Turkey -- to take care of that problem," Altun said. Canada 'fully briefed' Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that his government had been "fully briefed" on recordings provided by Ankara. "Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share," Trudeau said at a press conference in Paris, where he was attending a peace forum hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. Trudeau said he had brief exchanges with Erdogan over the weekend in Paris where world leaders attended commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. "I thanked him for his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation." Asked if he had heard the recording himself, he said: "I have not." German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said Turkish and German secret services had an "exchange" on the Khashoggi file, but declined to elaborate. "I can tell you that there was an exchange between secret services on this point," he told a press briefing. Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt was due to visit Saudi Arabia on Monday for a meeting with King Salman and the crown prince over the murder. "It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear," Hunt said. He encouraged Saudi authorities to "co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death." * This story was edited by Ahram Online. Search Keywords: Short link: Related Deadly clash erupts during Israel operation in Gaza Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip killed three Palestinians on Monday after a barrage of rocket fire towards its territory from the enclave, as renewed violence threatened to derail efforts to restore calm. Israel's occupation army said it had so far struck more than 20 militant sites in response to some 80 launches from the Hamas-run territory, reportedly rockets and mortars. Missile defences had intercepted a number of the rockets, the army said. The army said an Israeli bus was hit by fire from the Gaza Strip. Medics reported one person severely wounded. Medics also said six people from the southern Israeli city of Sderot were lightly wounded. Israeli police said a rocket hit a house in Netivot, another southern Israeli town. Gaza's health ministry said three Palestinians were killed in the Israeli strikes. Militant group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said two were its members. Hamas meanwhile claimed responsibility for the rocket fire on behalf of all Palestinian militant groups in Gaza, saying it was in revenge for a deadly Israeli military operation late Sunday. On Sunday, a clash erupted during an Israeli special forces operation in the Gaza Strip that killed seven Palestinian militants, including a local commander for Hamas's armed wing, and an Israeli army officer. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a trip to Paris and rushed home as tensions rose, and on Monday convened a meeting of security chiefs. 'Exchange of fire' Israel had stressed its covert operation on Sunday was an intelligence-gathering mission and "not an assassination or abduction", but Hamas strongly denounced it and vowed revenge. Israel signalled that Sunday's mission did not go as planned and resulted in the clash, which Palestinian officials said included Israeli air strikes. In the immediate aftermath of the clash, Israel said it identified 17 launches -- likely rockets or mortars -- toward its territory from Gaza, with three intercepted by missile defences. No injuries were reported. Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said the Israeli special forces team had infiltrated near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip in a civilian car. Al-Qassam agents stopped it and wanted to search it, realised it was an Israeli operation and confronted them, it said in a statement. An exchange of fire followed in which local Al-Qassam commander Nour Baraka was killed along with another militant, it said. The car then attempted to flee and Israeli aircraft provided covering fire. An Israeli helicopter landed near the fence and took away the special forces troops, according to Al-Qassam. Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus declined to comment on the Al-Qassam account "because of the sensitive nature of the operation". Israel provided few details on Sunday's operation, saying it was carried out by special forces and resulted in an "exchange of fire". A funeral was held for the seven Palestinian militants on Monday attended by thousands, including masked Al-Qassam members carrying rifles, some firing into the air. Truce bid The clashes came after months of deadly unrest along the Gaza-Israel border had appeared to be calming. Recent weeks have seen Israel allow Qatar to provide the Gaza Strip with millions of dollars in aid for salaries as well as fuel to help ease an electricity crisis. Before the flare-up, Netanyahu had defended his decision to allow Qatar to transfer the cash to Gaza despite criticism from within his own government over the move, saying he wanted to avoid a war if it was not necessary. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu's education minister and right-wing rival, compared the cash flow to "protection money" paid to criminals. Israel launched three wars on Gaza since 2008, and recent months of unrest have raised fears of a fourth. Deadly clashes have accompanied major protests along the Gaza-Israel border that began on March 30. At least 227 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, the majority shot during protests and clashes, since the demonstrations began, while others died in tank fire or air strikes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in that time. Egyptian and UN officials have been mediating between Israel and Hamas in an effort to reach a long-term truce deal. *This story is edited by Ahram Online Search Keywords: Short link: 12/11/2018 - Global cooperation to fight tax evasion and avoidance has grown rapidly over the past few years. Tax Transparency and Exchange of Information between tax authorities about financial assets and activities of their taxpayers abroad has proved to be a valuable tool in this fight. New efforts to ensure a worldwide level playing field and global implementation of transparency standards will top the agenda during the 11th meeting of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, in Punta del Este, Uruguay on 20-22 November 2018. The Global Forum is the worlds largest network for international cooperation in the field of taxation and financial information exchange, bringing together 154 countries and jurisdictions plus the European Union. The Forums 11th meeting will bring together more than 200 delegates from nearly 100 jurisdictions and international organizations for discussions on the next steps to accelerate international cooperation against tax evasion with a focus on the implementation of the Standard on Automatic Exchange of Information. Global Forum members will discuss key developments in the areas of automatic exchange of information as well as exchange of information on request. They will also discuss future work plans to strengthen their cooperation and how to maximise the benefits of improved tax transparency as the Forum approaches its 10th anniversary. The Global Forum plenary meeting will be preceded by a Ministerial Roundtable for Ministers of Finance from Latin American countries on Leveraging International Tax Cooperation for Public Good on 19 November 2018. Journalists are invited to participate in the following events: Opening and Welcome Address When: Tuesday, 20 November 2018 from 09:30 to 09:45 am (local time). Who: H.E. Mr.Danilo Astori, Minister of Economy and Finance of Uruguay and Ms. Maria-Jose Garde, Chair of the Global Forum. Where: Enjoy Punta del Este Resort & Casino Hotel, Rambla C. Williman Parada 4 Playa Mansa, 20100 Punta del Este, Uruguay. Global Forum Closing Press Conference When: Thursday, 22 November 2018 from 13:30 to 14:00 pm (local time). Who: H.E. Mr. Pablo Ferreri, Vice Minister of Economy and Finance in Uruguay, Maria-Jose Garde, Chair of the Global Forum and Monica Bhatia, Head of the Global Forum Secretariat. Where: Enjoy Punta del Este Resort & Casino Hotel, Rambla C. Williman Parada 4 Playa Mansa, 20100 Punta del Este, Uruguay. For further information, contact OECD Media Officer Lawrence Speer in the OECD Media Office (+33 1 4524 9700) or Jeremy Maddison Working with over 100 countries, the OECD is a global policy forum that promotes policies to improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. Related Documents The rulers of Libya's rival east and west were expected to meet for the first time in more than five months on Monday at a summit in Italy, a week after the United Nations abandoned plans to hold an election next month. An Italian diplomatic source said Khalifa Haftar, the strongman who rules most of eastern Libya, was on his way to attend the summit. Haftar had kept the hosts guessing until the final hours whether he would attend. Libya's prime minister, who is based in the west and has limited authority, had already arrived earlier on Monday. Italy hopes the conference in the Sicilian city of Palermo will resurrect UN efforts to stage elections in Libya, after the United Nations announced last week that it could not hold a planned election on Dec. 10 because of violence. The summit will assemble Libya's main rivals for the first time since a similar event in Paris in May, where they had agreed to the plan to hold the December election. Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj's western-based government is internationally recognised but has struggled to assert its authority in a country still mostly controlled by armed groups, eight years after NATO-backed rebels toppled long-serving dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi. A rival government is based in the east, where most towns and cities are under the control of Haftar. Apart from Haftar, the heads of the two parliaments based in the east and west, Aguila Saleh and Khalid al-Mishri, were also attending, officials said. Italy, the former colonial power, has vast oil and gas interests in Libya and has been trying to shut down people-smuggling from the Libyan coast. It has been eager to host a high-profile event, competing with France which staged the May conference. Apart from Western, UN and Russian officials, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was also attending. UN Libya envoy Ghassan Salame told Reuters he hoped another attempt to hold an election will take place by June but Libyans should first hold a national conference in early 2019 to decide on the poll's format. "We want to ask at the national conference what type of election do you want: parliamentary or presidential, and what kind of law," Salame said. The envoy said the national conference should "preferably" take place on Libyan soil. Surveys had shown that 80 percent of Libyans want elections to end the stalemate between Libya's rival administrations. He hoped the Palermo conference would put pressure on the internationally recognised parliament, the House of Representatives (HOR), which has failed to pass an election law. "The HOR has been sterile, has produced no law ... I think we need wider representation of the Libyans," he said. France has been courting Haftar, who is supported by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which see his forces as a bulwark against Islamists. Italy is the main backer of Serraj and his weak Government of National Accord (GNA), and has worked with local groups in Libya to stop Europe-bound migrants from embarking by boat. Search Keywords: Short link: 12/11/2018 - External finance to poor countries is declining, despite a promise by the international community three years ago to increase development finance flows, in particular through private investment, according to a new OECD report. The Global Outlook on Financing for Sustainable Development 2019 shows there was a 12% drop in external finance to developing countries from 2013 to 2016, a decline that casts serious doubt on the worlds ability to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Of the external financing data that is available beyond 2016, foreign direct investment to developing countries fell by 30% over 2016-17 and project finance was down 30% in the first quarter of 2018, the report shows. Official Development Assistance (ODA) from advanced economies is steady but below target, while other flows such as remittances and philanthropy are increasing but comparatively small. < Download the data > The decline comes as the need for financing for sustainable development is growing due to population growth, conflict and environmental degradation. The international community pledged at a 2015 United Nations conference in Addis Ababa to ramp up development finance, using private investment as a lever. Donor countries have not followed through on their 2015 promise to expand development finance flows, said OECD Development Co-operation Director Jorge Moreira da Silva, launching the report at the Paris Peace Forum. Development finance is not a cost it is an investment that will help us achieve peace and prosperity on a global level, as defined by the Global Goals. The report calls for more efforts to mobilise domestic resources, which are at least as important for sustainable development as external flows. For example, tax revenues are by far the biggest financial resource for poor countries. Yet tax revenues in low-income and least-developed countries average just 14% of GDP, less than half the OECD country level of 34% and below the 15% that is the recommended minimum for effective state functioning. As another example, the transaction cost of migrants sending money home to relatives in developing countries can be as high as 14-20%. The report says that reducing transfer costs by just 1% would increase the value of total remittances (USD 466 billion in 2017) by USD 30 billion equivalent to nearly a quarter of total ODA flows. The report calls for an overhaul of the development finance system to improve transparency, set clear international standards and empower recipient countries to make optimal choices. It also calls for more to be done to measure the impact, rather than just the volume, of development finance, and for a more strategic interplay of suppliers, intermediaries and beneficiaries to ensure the maximum impact of each dollar spent. On domestic resources, the international community should support trade and private sector development, identify and remove barriers to investment, build tax revenue capacities and help developing countries to prevent tax avoidance and evasion. Read the report For further information please contact Catherine Bremer in the OECD Media Office (+33 1 45 24 97 00). Working with over 100 countries, the OECD is a global policy forum that promotes policies to improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. A small team searching for victims of one of California's deadliest fires happen upon a man lying face down between two ash-covered pickup trucks. His body and clothes seem intact, aside from hideous burns around his calves. "You never get used to it. You have to face reality," says one of a trio of sheriff deputies searching for the dead in the wreckage around the town of Paradise. "Everybody has its own way to cope with it," he mused. "Mine? Better leave that unanswered." The "Camp Fire" in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains north of the state capital Sacramento has claimed 29 lives, razed 6,400 buildings and effectively wiped Paradise off the map. For the past days, this team -- one deputy from Butte County and two from neighboring Yuba County -- has scoured the town and the many nearby communities nestled in this hilly area searching for human remains. On Sunday the team drove several miles up a steep rocky road keeping an eye out for possible victims. They refused to give their names and had little to say as they focused on their macabre task. - Many people missing - Scores of people have gone missing since the wildfire broke out on Thursday and swept through the area. Some survivors may be huddled in a hotel or at a shelter, unable to communicate with loved ones because the fire has destroyed area cell phone towers. Others -- like the man face down on the hills overlooking Lake Concow -- were caught by the fast-moving flames as they tried to escape the inferno. Was he overcome by smoke? Did he live at the nearby farm, of which nothing survived except for scorched marijuana plants inside the charred shell of a greenhouse? "Far too early to tell" said one of the Yuba County deputies. - Abandoned vehicles - The deputies took pictures, noted GPS coordinates, and picked up documents inside the cars in hopes of eventually making an identification. They lifted the corpse, placed it in a body bag, and loaded it into a hearse that had followed them from Paradise. Without wasting time they resumed their search for fire victims. Dozens of cars and trucks, some seemingly intact, litter the sides of roads in the area. The deputies check each one for victims. Inside the shell of one torched vehicle that had slammed into a tree they find a ball of burnt flesh the size of a small child. A deputy carefully removes it and places the remains on a white tarp for careful examination. "No skull. It's an animal!" he cries out after several minutes. The deputy wipes his hands and a brief smile crosses his face. "We're moving on," he says. The team continues on the meandering road and eventually reach an abandoned farm, where ducks, geese and goats roam freely. The unexpected encounter with farm animals breaks the tension -- but as they drive off, with just one more hour of sunlight available, the hearse blows a tire. "We're done," one of the deputies says. "We'll get back to it tomorrow." Search Keywords: Short link: Nicholas Davis, the World Economic Forums head of society and innovation, spoke at an WEF meeting in Dubai about a report he had co-authored on shaping the future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He said that Egypt has a large number of technology users and pioneers in this field, but that the most important thing is the ability to retain these young people and benefit from them, instead of leaving them to emigrate, and to do so through a clear vision for the recruitment of young people. "There is a gap between developed and developing countries in planning for the future and anticipating technological developments," he commented, on the sidelines of the gathering of the Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils. He said that legislation is one of the most important challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and preparations must be made to avoid a delay in the issuance of laws, as happened in the past. Davis said that the Arab countries should accelerate the transition from being consumers of technology to being producers, adding that the path to this must be through education and scientific research. He highlighted a global initiative supported by the World Economic Forum to create an open platform for the African continent to achieve sustainable development. Egypt's exports to Nile basin countries reached EGP 19.9 billion in 2017, compared to EGP 11.6 billion in 2016, with an increase of 72.1 percent, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAMPAS) said on Monday. The Nile basin states group Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Eritrea. In its annual bulletin titled "Trade exchange between Egypt and the Nile basin countries in 2017", CAPMAS added that Egypt's imports from those countries hit EGP 6.8 billion in 2017 against EGP 3.9 billion in 2016, up 43.5 percent. The agency added that Sudan topped the list of African countries receiving Egypt's exports, with a total value of EGP 8.1 billion in 2017 versus EGP 6 billion in 2016, registering a 35.9 percent increase. Sudan imported from Egypt plastics, iron and sugar. Kenya came in the second place with imports worth EGP 5.3 billion in 2017, compared to EGP 2.8 billion in 2016, with an increase of 88.4 percent. Egypt's exports to Nairobi included sugar, soap, shampoos and artificial waxes. With regard to Egypt's imports from those countries, Kenya topped the list with a total value of EGP 4.7 billion in 2017, against EGP 3 billion in 2016, recording an increase of 57.2 percent. Cairo's imports from Kenya included coffee, tea and spices. Sudan ranked second in the list of Egypt's imports, with a total value of EGP 1.9 billion in 2017 versus EGP 700 million in 2016, with an increase of 158.0 percent. Egypt's imports from Sudan involved livestock, cotton, seeds, olives, medicinal plants and fodder. Search Keywords: Short link: OPEC and allied oil-producing countries will likely need to cut crude supplies, perhaps by as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day, to rebalance the market after US sanctions on Iran failed to cut Tehran's output, Saudi Arabia's energy minister said Monday. The comments from the minister, Khalid al-Falih, show the balancing act the US allies face in dealing with President Donald Trump's actions related to the oil industry. Trump in recent weeks demanded the oil cartel increase production to drive down US gasoline prices. ``Hopefully, Saudi Arabia and OPEC will not be cutting oil production. Oil prices should be much lower based on supply!'' he tweeted Monday. The US has meanwhile allowed some of its allies _ Greece, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey _ as well as rival China to continue to purchase Iranian oil despite re-imposed sanctions, as long as they work to reduce their imports to zero. Al-Falih, who on Sunday said the kingdom would cut production by over 500,000 barrels per day in December, said Monday that Saudi Arabia had been giving customers "100 percent of what they asked for.'' That appeared to be a veiled reference to Trump. Before the United States re-imposed sanctions on Iran, ``fear and anxiety gripped the market,'' al-Falih said at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference. Now ``we're seeing the pendulum swing violently to the other side,'' he added. The energy minister of the United Arab Emirates, Suhail al-Mazrouei, currently the president of OPEC, said "changes'' likely would be necessary as the oil cartel meets in December in Vienna. However, he added: "We need not to overreact when these things happen.'' Al-Falih said OPEC officials have seen analysis papers suggesting a production cut of upward of 1 million barrels of crude a day may be necessary to rebalance the market. However, he stressed that more study needed to be done. "There are a lot of assumptions in their projections that may change,'' al-Falih said. "We don't want to throttle the global economy.'' A gallon of regular gasoline in the US on average now sells for $2.69, down from $2.90 a month ago, according to AAA. Those lower prices likely quieted Trump, but production cuts could again boost prices at the pump. Neither al-Falih nor al-Mazrouei directly criticized Trump, but Mohammed Hamad al-Rumhy, Oman's oil and gas minister, blamed the US president for some of the volatility striking the oil market. Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, maintains close diplomatic ties to Iran and often serves as an interlocutor between Western powers and Tehran. "Supply and demand is perhaps the easy part because you can measure it,'' al-Rumhy said. It's ``extremely difficult to quantify what is happening in (the) White House _ almost impossible.'' Iran, which has tense relations with Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, did not have a high-level official at the summit. Crude oil dropped to a low of $30 a barrel in January 2016. That forced OPEC to partner with non-OPEC countries, including Russia, to cut production to help prices rebound. Benchmark Brent crude, which had been trading above $80 a barrel recently, now hovers just over $70 after the US sanction waivers on Iran. Meanwhile, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the head of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., said the UAE planned to increase oil production to 4 million barrels a day by 2020 and 5 million barrels a day by 2030. The UAE now produces some 3 million barrels of oil a day. Al-Jaber also said the UAE would begin fracking _ injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals _ to gain access to otherwise unreachable natural gas reserves. "Make no mistake: Hydrocarbons will continue to play an absolutely essential part of a diversified energy mix,'' al-Jaber said. But the highs and lows of the market need to end for both oil consumers and producers to profit, said al-Rumhy, the Omani official. "If it was my heart beat going that way, I think I would be in the hospital right now,'' he said. Search Keywords: Short link: The Cinematheque Francaise is holding an extensive programme of screenings and an exhibition paying homage to the Egyptian filmmaker's legacy The Cinematheque Francaise in Paris is celebrating ten years since the death of Egyptian director Youssef Chahine with a programme of screenings and lectures starting this week. The programme will run between 14 November and 28 July 2019, with a special press preview on 12 November featuring some of the stars of Chahine's films including Yousra, Nabila Ebeid, Lebleba, Mahmoud Hemeida, Yosra El-Lozy and Ahmed Yehia. The opening will screen one of Chahine's best-known films, Bab El-Hadid (Cairo Station). During November, 17 of Chahine's films will be screened, and there will be an exhibition of archives and some of his writings and musical instruments, which will be in place for six months. Much of the exhibition is from the collection of the Cinematheque Francaise, with many items donated by Chahine himself, and later on, by his family. The exhibition is described as "a walk in the heart of the worlds of Chahine, evoking his inspirations, his passions, his crushes, his rants, the journey of a master of staging, and a man in love." One of the curators of the exhibition is Tunisian researcher Amal Guermazi, who is currently writing her PhD dissertation on Chahine's music. On 21 November she will hold a lecture on the filmmakers musicals. "Thanks to his well-kept archive, it is possible to trace a singular creative process (writing and preparation, filming and post-production) and to reveal the filmmaker's underlying convictions," the event description reads. Guermazi will also play some key pieces of Chahine's work on the violin. For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture Search Keywords: Short link: We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Klingele Group Acquires Full Ownership of Corrugated Packaging Company Ondunova in Spain Ondunova Group (Grupondunova) is a leading producer of corrugated packaging in the Catalonia region of Spain. The company has facilities in Santa Margarida i Els Monjos, Torrelavit and Les Preses. Nov. 12, 2018 - The Klingele Group on Nov. 8 announced that it has acquired all of the shares of the Goma family in the Spanish Ondunova Group, a manufacturer of corrugated packaging in the Catalonia region in northeastern Spain. Klingele explained that it has been a part of the Ondunova since the early 1970s, and now has assumed full ownership. After decades of constructive collaboration with the Goma family, we will now continue with the successful growth of the Ondunova Group solely under the Klingele flag, said Dr. Jan Klingele, Managing Partner of the Klingele Group. Especially in the economically strong region of Catalonia, we see excellent opportunities for the future. The Ondunova Group was founded in 1957 and has a corrugated cardboard plant in Santa Margarida i els Monjos in the Barcelona region (Catalonia province). With approximately 100 employees in Ondunova and 20 in Wondu, the company produces packaging and displays made of corrugated cardboard. According to Klingele, in 2016, Ondunova established its own business unit for digital printing of small volume series. Since then, Ondunova has been selling individually designed packaging solutions in high-quality printing under the WONDU brand. The flexibility of the printing and the digital cutting technology enables the design of corrugated board products for seasonal campaigns even in small quantities. Klingele Group is an international supplier of paper, corrugated cardboard packaging solutions and adhesives. The family-owned company was founded in 1920 and has headquarters in Remshalden near Stuttgart, Germany. The company, including its affiliated partners, holds a presence for customers in Europe, Africa and Central America in its paper and packaging business divisions with 2 paper mills, 12 corrugated cardboard plants and 8 processing plants. To learn more, please visit: www.klingele.com . SOURCE: Klingele Group K-pop giants BTS are being criticized for "mocking the past" by a Jewish human rights group, after images of the K-pop band wearing allegedly Nazi-related apparel surfaced. Last month, a photo began circulating of BTS-member Jimin wearing a T-shirt depicting mushroom clouds that allude to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, featuring the Korean liberation slogan: "Patriotism Our History Liberate Korea." Some are calling the T-shirt offensive, arguing that it glorifies American use of the atomic bomb against Japan, while others are defending Jimin, claiming that the shirt simply celebrates Korean liberation from Japan's violent colonial rule, which ended with Imperial Japan's defeat World War II. Recently, the image resulted in the band's appearance on TV Asahi, a Japanese television station, being cancelled. "After we talked to the band's agency about the member's intention in wearing the T-shirt, we have regrettably decided to call off their performance at this time," read a statement by TV Asahi. The New York Times reports that the Korean designer behind the T-shirt has apologized, "saying he did not intend for the design to be construed as anti-Japanese." BTS apologized to fans for the cancellation, but did not address the T-shirt. Following the controversy over the TV cancellation, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jewish advocacy non-profit, published a statement claiming that the garment was "just the latest incident of this band mocking the past." "It goes without saying that this group, which was invited to speak at the UN, owes the people of Japan and the victims of the Nazism an apology" wrote Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action at the Center. Cooper also referenced two 2015 photoshoots, one for South Korean magazine CeCi in which a member of the band posed wearing hats that appear to be emblazoned with an insignia resembling the death head logo of the Nazi SS, and another in which the band posed in front of the Memorial To The Murdered Jews Of Europe in Berlin. Some Twitter users claim the magazine doctored the images, although this hasn't been confirmed as of press time. The rabbi also pointed to BTS concert footage which shows the band waving flags he claimed were a reference to the Nazi swastika. Fans have contested this interpretation, arguing the symbols on the flags represent the Korean education system, which the song BTS performed was intended to critique. Cooper expressed fear that the group, which has a massive global following, might be imbuing Nazi symbols with cultural capital. "It is clear that those designing and promoting this group's career are too comfortable with denigrating the memory of the past. The result is that on young generations in Korea and around the world are more likely to identify bigotry and intolerance as being 'cool' and help erase the lessons of history." BTS recently charted their second #1 album on the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart, and in May, became the first K-pop band to hit #1 on the Billboard Artists 100 Chart. Lee Taek-gwang, a professor at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, explained to The Guardian that the incidents reflect a tension between the Korean nationalism which emerges from "the collective memory of Japan's colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910-45," and artists like BTS' increasingly global profiles. "BTS insist they are a global brand, but their identity is rooted in Korean nationalism, as it is with many young South Koreans,' said Lee. "This isn't just the case of a young band doing something stupid... Young Koreans come across as liberal and cosmopolitan, but beneath the surface there are more reactionary factors at work." Helmut Lang, iconoclastic American brand, has announced yet another revival from its much-beloved '90s archives. The Jeans collection, which ranged in deconstructed styles from bondage to high-wasted bootcut in its heyday, gets a refresh, both online, and in an accompanying editorial shot by Ed Templeton. Templeton photographed the new collection on young skateboarders in Huntington Beach. The editorial will be physically available as a limited-edition zine at Helmut Lang stores, and as part of an exclusive giveaway on social media. It features lovingly rendered shots of models running wild through the surf, sand, and streets of the California beach town, juxtaposed with vintage school photos, convenience store receipts, and handwritten diary entries and notebook scribbles. The imagery evokes a wasted-youth nostalgia that perfectly complements the new collection. Helmut Lang teased the men's and women's Jeans relaunch with its recent "Under Construction" capsule, but now we have a full product range heavily featuring classic shades of indigo, black, and red and new silhouettes, with cuts flattering the masc and femme, according to the website. The collection was made in Italy, and consists of premium denim meant to last, and raw Japanese selvaged denim. There are also jersey pieces that fit right into the new looks, with a design created by artist Brian Roettinger. The shirts and hoodies are printed with the words, "L'Apocalypse Joyeuse," a 1986 exhibition at Paris' contemporary art museum Centre Pompidou, where Helmut Lang launched its very first runway show. The Camp, Woolsey, and Hill fires have devastated California, burning through more than 200,000 acres and counting. In the town of Paradise, which was annihilated by the Camp Fire, at least 30 people are known to have died. Across the state, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes. Even in a state known for its wildfires, this is an unusual crisis. And one that, thanks to climate change, we can probably expect to occur more often in future. Here are some easy ways you can help victims, firefighters, and animals affected by the California fires as well as a few measures you can take to prevent this happening again. Help Firefighters As this Facebook post from the Los Angeles Fire Department indicates, fire fighters definitely don't need donations of material goods right now especially not food and water. Kind-spirited physical gifts actually just waste valuable time and resources, as fire departments are forced to find ways to store overwhelming amounts of perishable items. Instead, consider donating money directly to the LA Fire Department, the Widows, Orphans & Disabled Firemen's Fund, the Fire Family Foundation, or organizations like Direct Relief. Lobby Your Congressperson President Trump has declared on Twitter that "there is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor." This is inaccurate. It is a fact that climate change is making forest fires increasingly destructive and deadly: Los Angeles Fire Chief Daryl Osby and California Governor Jerry Brown have both stressed as much. So what can you do? It wouldn't hurt to contact a member of Congress. The Citizens Climate Lobby provides a useful tool for finding out the contact details of your Senator and House Representative. Make Plans For Your Own Community Would you be prepared if wildfires were threatening your area? When it comes to major disasters like these recent fires, 70 percent of victims are rescued by neighbors rather than professional responders. So it is worth coming up with a plan. For LA locals, this five-step action kit is available.The California state fire marshal website also has many resources, including a list of communities most at risk of fire disasters. Saturday morning at 10:30 AM U.K. time, the Spice Girls sold out tickets for their upcoming tour so fast that they had to add five more tour dates! Ticketmaster confirmed with Metro that the 2019 comeback tour gave them their "busiest sale ever," breaking records for Ticketmaster UK. "There were millions of people on our site searching for tickets, with a queue at one point of well over 700,000," said Ticketmaster managing director Andrew Parsons. It seems like not even the Spice Girls could have predicted this turnout. Sporty Spice Melanie C tweeted on Saturday, "I just wanted to say I'm completely overwhelmed with the response to our tour. Wow!" She continued, "I did not expect that. It's going to be AMAZING!!" I know youve been bombarded with promo stuff lately but I just wanted to say Im completely overwhelmed with the response to our tour. Wow! I did not expect that. Its going to be AMAZING!! Thank you so much! #SpiceUpYourLife Melanie C (@MelanieCmusic) November 10, 2018 The Spice Girls will kick off their tour in Britain on May 29, 2018 at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, and will end at the Wembley Stadium in London on June 15. The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has signed an agreement with the China National Complete Engineering Corporation (CCEC) to support the cocoa industry through the Comprehensive Cocoa Sector Development Programme. Under the agreement, which was signed at the stand of COCOBOD at the China International Import Exposition in Shanghai, CCEC will provide US$1.5 billion to support the Board to pursue a number of projects to increase cocoa production and processing. The agreement was signed by Emmanuel Opoku, Deputy Chief Executive in-charge of Operations on behalf of the COCOBOD while the Managing Director of CCEC, Yang Jing, signed on behalf of her outfit. The funds are to be used for the provision of solar powered pumps to draw water from underground wells, canals to drawn from rivers and streams to irrigate cocoa farms, warehousing facilities for the storage of cocoa beans, production of high yielding seedlings, as well as the construction of roads to open up cocoa growing areas. Explaining the rationale behind the agreement, Noah Kwasi Amenya, Senior Public Affairs Manager of the COCOBOD, said the effort was aimed at penetrating the Chinese market with processed cocoa powder and chocolate. He said for the past 15 years, COCOBOD has been exporting 3,000 tonnes of cocoa beans to China through Genertic, a Chinese company that receives cocoa beans as part of the payment for the Chinese loan used in constructing the Bui Power Project. Mr Amenyah said China presents a big market because of the dominant youth and middle income population who have predisposition for products such as chocolate. He said that the Chinese have a culture of consuming natural products, particularly those which taste bitter and thats why Ghanas cocoa powder and black chocolate have the advantage. Additionally, he said the health properties of cocoa make it competitively favourate since the Chinese are obsessed about healthy food. He said as a testimony of the potential of chocolate in the Chinese market, most of the visitors to the COCOBOD stand at the exhibition centre preferred chocolate, particularly the black chocolate and cocoa powder. David Yang, Managing Director of Genertic in Ghana, said the company was instrumental in securing a Chinese government loan for the establishment of a 40,000-tonne annual cocoa processing factory under construction at Sefwi Wiawso in the Western Region. He said China was determined to support the government policy of processing at least 50 percent of cocoa beans to be exported to China as part of efforts to deepen trade relations between the two countries in a mutually beneficial manner. Mr. Wang commended COCOBOD for the level of cooperation with Genertic. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Sunday joined Ex-Servicemen and other Security Agencies to observe a two-minute silence in honour of Ghanaian soldiers who lost their lives in the First World War. At the 73rd Remembrance Day Service at the Christiansborg War Cemetery at Osu, Accra, the President, in a solemn mood, remembered the war dead, and the selfless sacrifice they made to Ghana and the world in World Wars I and II, and those who have died in combat since then in the quest for world peace. The Remembrance Day, otherwise known as 'Poppy Day' is observed in Commonwealth of Nations member states since the end of the First World War to remember the members of their Armed Forces who died in their line of duty. The Armistice, which ended World War 1, became effective at 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. After World War II, the Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day to remember those who died in both world wars and instituted as a National Day of Remembrance. The solemn occasion attracted people from the various sections of society including; members of the Diplomatic Corps, traditional rulers, the Ministers for Defence and the Interior, as well as the top brass of the military and other security services, many of whom had poppies pinned on their lapels. At 10:56 hours, there was the Call to Remembrance and the Sounding of the Knell. And at exactly 1100 hours, the siren was sounded, followed by the reading of the Binyon Verses, the sounding of the last post, a two-minute silence and the reveille. President Akufo-Addo laid a wreath on behalf of the Government and People of Ghana. British High Commissioner, Mr Ian Walker, laid a wreath for the Commonwealth and Allied Countries, while the Ivorian envoy to Ghana, Ambassador Bernard Kotoan laid one for the Diplomatic Community. Lieutenant General Obed Boamah Akwa, the Chief of Defence Staff laid a wreath on behalf of the Ghana Armed Forces and other Security Agencies, Maj. Gen. C B Yaache Rtd, Chairman of the Veterans Administration of Ghana laid the wreath on behalf of the veterans of Ghana. Nii Okwei Kinka Dowuona VI, the Paramount Chief of Osu and President of the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs, laid the sixth wreath on behalf of all traditional rulers in Ghana. President Akufo Addo and other invited dignitaries later signed a remembrance book at the memorial Ark of the War Cemetery. The Day is a noble gesture of acknowledging and recognising the servicemen who sacrificed their lives for today's peace. The Day underscores the need not only to stop wars, but also to pursue the idea of peace at all cost and at all times as the only condition for the survival of the human race. The Christianborg War Cemetery contains the remains of 419 second World War casualties, including 357 West Africans, 50 British, 8 Canadians, 2 Italians, 1 Australian and 1 Polish. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A Ghanaian citizen by name Mensah Thompson has petitioned President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to remove Chief Justice, Ms Sophia Akuffo from office on grounds of "stated incompetence." According to Mr Mensah Thomposon, the Chief Justice Ms Sophia Akuffo breached the law when she empanelled judges to sit on the Woyome case whilst the African Court for Human and Peoples Rights had ruled otherwise. He said the Chief Justice's insistence that the African Court's ruling cannot prevent the Supreme Court of Ghana from exercising its constitutional mandate was a clear "demonstration of incompetence." Mr Thompson is also demanding the removal of the Attorney General, Ms Gloria Akuffo, and one of her two deputies, Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame from office on the same grounds. Article 146 (6) of the 1992 Constitution states that if the president is petitioned for the removal of the Chief Justice, he shall in consultation with the Council of State appoint a committee consisting of two justices of the Supreme Court. The committee appointed under clause (6) of this article shall inquire into the petition and recommend to the President whether the Chief Justice ought to be removed from office. Mr Mensah Thompson in his petition stated that, the conduct of the sitting Chief Justiceclearly shows her incompetence in managing the highest office of the judiciary which has a constitutional mandate to be fair, just and equitable in the application of the laws of Ghana. Explaining, Mr Thompson said the African Court for Human and Peoples Rights (AfCHPR) last year issued a provisional measure to have all proceedings halted on the Woyome V Republic of Ghana case. Mr. President, last year when the interim measure was issued on the state, there were several pronouncements by the deputy Attorney General Godfred Dame indicating that Ghana was not bound by the measure, he stated in his petition to President Akufo-Addo. It was a bit worrying to see the deputy attorney general espouse a position that was clearly in contravention with Article 40 under which the treaty derives its powers locally. More worrying was the Supreme Court also came out with a position that it does not share its powers with any other body. Mr Mensah Thompson who is also the Executive Director of the Alliance For Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) stressed he finds it a duty to defend the provisions of the constitution. He said he had initially written to the Chief Justice over the issue, even reminding her of her role while Vice President and later President of AfCHPR. Source: Graphic.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Residents of Madina-Adenta on Monday, 12th November, 2018, embarked on a peaceful demonstration to put pressure on government to complete footbridges in their municipality. The demonstration comes on the back of rising pedestrian deaths on the Highway sparking chaos and roadblocks by the residents. Reports indicate that over hundred residents have been killed on the Madina-Adenta road due to the lack of footbridges. On the 8th of November 2018, a first year female student of the West Africa Senior High School (WASS) was killed by a speeding vehicle in an attempt to cross the road on the Madina-Adentan Highway. This was the straw that broke the camel's back as angry residents blocked the roads in protest of government's unresponsiveness to their cries. A coalition called 'fixourfootbridgesnow' to drum home their demands, thus planned to embark on what they called a peaceful walk from Adenta Barrier to Madina. However, the police stopped them from moving to the Madina-Adenta township; demanding that they end the protest at the Ritz Junction. Meanwhile, the coalition has planned to embark on another demonstration in ten days time if government fails to respond to their request. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Owing to the loss of $3.5 million revenue to the state, three freight forwarding companies have been banned from transacting business on the Ghana Customs Management System (GCMS). Some Customs officers have also been interdicted by the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA). The three companies are Hendrick Shipping Company Ltd, Springfield Shipping Company Ltd and Christeri Shipping Company Ltd. They were said to have been caught in acts of diversion of re-exportation of goods at the Akanu Border Post. The companies diverted goods supposed to be re-exported through Akanu to Togo and back to Ghana in collusion with some GRA officers which led the state to lose revenue of $3, 551,559.68. GRA, in a statement, which was copied to DAILY GUIDE, called on the public not to transact business with the companies. According to the GRA, the case has been handed over to the Economic and Organised Crime Unit (EOCO) for further investigation. In addition, the GRA said it would retrieve the money from the importers. Also, Customs officers who allegedly conspired with the companies to defraud the state have also been interdicted pending further investigation and sanctions. The GRA officers who colluded with the companies have been interdicted pending further investigations. The GRA wishes to assure the public that the necessary disciplinary measure would be taken against the officers upon completion of the investigations, the statement said. Prior to that, the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority revoked the operating licences of 20 freight forwarders for falsifying documents. They also said to have under-declared the values presented to customs for duty and tax purposes. Out of 20 freight forwarders sanctioned, 13 are said to have diverted transit goods, while seven are being punished for falsifying documents from India. According to a public notice issued by the GRA, efforts are underway to retrieve all the revenue. Recently, six freight forwarder companies lost their licences after they allegedly engaged in some malpractices that cost the state about $384,754.83 in revenue in August this year. The affected companies- Nasowah Enterprise, Abacus Digital Media Limited, Wayglow Enterprise, Fantega Company Limited, Too Smatt Enterprise and Dovis Clearing House Limited-would be served with notification to that effect today. The falsified values were presented to Customs for duty and tax purposes. Companies involved in the illegal acts were Tobinco, Wimped Co. Limited, Open Heaven Manufacturing & Co. Ltd and Royal Gold. Some individual importers, including Kwame Okyere, Faustina Osei Opoku and Justina Kuma, also benefitted from the deal. Goods cleared in the dubious transaction include sardines, pharmaceuticals, safety matches and sillon manganese. The alleged malpractices were detected through data sourced from the Indian Customs Electronic Commerce/Electronic Data interchange (EC/EDI) Gateway (ICEGATE) platform. The ICEGATE platform provides the opportunity for Customs Division of GRA to share information with its India counterpart on electronic filing of the bill of entry (import goods declaration), shipping bills (export goods declaration) and related messages. Source: Daily Guide Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Kleptomania cases rising, the Willingway Foundation has said. Cases of Kleptomania also known as compulsive stealing is reportedly increasing in Ghana. Many with this mental disorder are believed to have been wrongfully jailed due to ignorance on the part of the Police and Judges. Kleptomania, or compulsive stealing, is a a mental disorder which forces persons to steal everything they see especially less valuable items. Persons suffering from Kleptomania are unable to resist the urge to steal. In most cases of kleptomania, the person steals items that they dont really need and are often of little to no value to them therefore end up discarding or selling it at very low prices. In Ghana, there have been many cases where suspects have been jailed for stealing plantain, Ghc50 worth of mobile phone, and other less valued items. The convicts after serving their jail terms mostly return to commit same offence. Also, many persons suspected to be suffering from Kleptomania but unknown to the public are often reported in the media beaten for stealing items including ladies panties on dryer, fish, mobile phone credits and other valueless items. According to the Founder of Willingway Foundation, a Ghana-based non-profit organisation founded in 2011 as a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts and the mentally sick, Madam Lydia Abena Manu, cases of Kleptomania was rising but bemoaned that the Ghana Health Service, the Police, Courts and Ghanaians have not asserted their minds on this mental disorder hence treating such victims as criminals instead of as mentally ill patients. She said sadly many people suffering from compulsive stealing have been lynched, beaten to pulp or jailed. She appealed to government to prioritize mental health because it has security implications for the state. If you arrest a thief, dont beat him, dont lynch him because most of them have mental problems instead report to the Police. I will appeal to government to support organizations in the mental health sector to intensify public education, and rehabilitation of patient because mental health has serious security implications on the country, she said. Source: Today Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video President Buhari on Sunday in Paris, France, called for stringent actions against perpetrators of illicit financial flows, including crackdown on safe heavens, warning that continuous impunity will encourage more pilfering of countries resources to the detriment of poor and vulnerable populace. Speaking at the first edition of the Paris Peace Forum held on the sidelines of the Centenary of Armistice Day, President Buhari said Nigeria has strengthened its laws and institutions to fight corruption, fast-track recovery of stolen assets and punish offenders, urging more commitment from governments and international institutions. The President delivered his statement on Illicit Financial Flows (Iffs) and Corruption: The Challenge of Global Governance during the event, attended by about 70 world leaders and governments. We must crack down on safe havens for corrupt assets. I also advocate sanctions by professional bodies against transactional middlemen (lawyers, bankers, brokers, public officials, etc.) who facilitate Illicit Financial Flows. I would like to reiterate that the Government of Nigeria remains open and is ever willing to continue to identify and share experiences and strategies to give life to the ideas that will lead to winning the fight against corruption, the President said. He noted that illicit financial flows pose a risk to the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as many countries grapple with the challenge of gathering resources to improve their Human Development Index, while a few privileged individuals continue to explore the weaknesses in financial systems. Our experience in Nigeria is that financial crimes, such as corruption and fraudulent activities, generate enormous unlawful profits which often prove so lucrative that the threat of a jail term is not sufficient to deter perpetrators. A more powerful deterrent is to ensure that profits and assets generated from illicit financial flows and corruption are recovered and returned to countries of origin. This is not to under-estimate the value of strong institutions. It only indicates that asset recovery represents significant deterrence compared to the traditional focus on obtaining conviction by the law enforcement agencies of the countries of origin, President Buhari said. The President urged world leaders and global institutions to remain resolute on the Global Declaration Against Corruption made in London in 2016, which encapsulates the collective commitment to the principles of Open Government Partnership, especially the National Action Plans to actualize beneficial ownership transparency and enhance the capacity of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs). He said the Independent Reporting Mechanisms and support for the activities of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes should be reinforced. As we take stock of the strengths and weaknesses of domestic, regional and international mechanisms against Illicit Financial Flows, I seize this opportunity to recall the Global Declaration Against Corruption made in London in 2016 and our commitment thereto, he added. President Buhari said tremendous progress had been achieved through the enactment of global instruments, noting that some fundamental technical issues remain unresolved. These revolve around the formulation of policy and regulatory frameworks that cut across different jurisdictions. We must not lose sight of the role played by secret companies, banks and law firms, all too often based in developed economies and their related offshore centres. Recent studies reveal that flaws in the global financial system enable corrupt individuals to hide details of their financial dealings under the noses of governments and law enforcement agencies. This underscores the need to urgently address the issue of Mutual Legal Assistance, as well as continental legal frameworks, in the context of safe havens for illicit transfers, he said. He disclosed that the Whistle-Blowing policy had facilitated recovery of billions of naira from corrupt persons, which had been redirected to the development of critical infrastructure and programmes that will benefit all Nigerians and realisation of the SDGs. At the continental level, the President said the African Union had bestowed on him the honour to champion the fight against corruption, which would be focused on strengthening international cooperation on asset tracing, recovery and repatriation, and enhancing cooperation between the African Union and the United Nations anti-corruption monitoring mechanisms. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Former President John Dramani Mahama will today begin his tour of the Ashanti Region ahead of the National Democratic Congress presidential primary next month. Mr Mahama will tour some parts of the Region until Thursday, when he breaks to allow delegates travel to Accra for the national delegates congress. He is expected to continue his campaign in the Ashanti Region after the congress, a statement issued by his campaign team over the weekend said. The former president is seeking to lead the NDC for the third time into an election. Though his maiden leadership in 2012 was successful, his second in 2016 led to an excruciating defeat to long-time opponent Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). So far, Mr Mahama has taken his campaign tour to six regions viz Central, Upper West, Upper East, Northern, Brong Ahafo and Greater Accra regions. The former president has been calling for unity in the NDC, Spokesperson of the John Mahama 2020 James Agyenim Boateng said in the statement, promising to strengthen the structures of the party as well as modernize its programmes and activities to address the needs of its members. Reducing the high cost of living in the country as well as working hard to provide jobs for Ghanaians has also been major taking points for Mr Mahama during his meetings with delegates. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Impeccable sources close to the Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, have hinted The Herald that, he might soon bow out of the place for lack of resources in his fight against corruption. This revelation, follows his latest statement in which he stated that his office finds itself in an almost hopeless situation a year after it was established by President Akufo-Addo, in a sensational manner. Mr Amidu, since his appointment has made the necessary noises to get the attention of President Akufo-Addo, for the tools to be provided him, but these have not yielded the result, and insiders say last weeks statement, might just be the last one from him, as he could shock the nation with a resignation. Last week Thursday, Mr Amidu, wrote that the office of the Special Prosecutor, one year after its establishment, has only a small three bed room house as an Office, and this is woefully inadequate for the job it has been tasked to do. In an article, Mr Amidu, christened the citizen vigilante writes that the Whitakers scenario which I have just read reinforces my own conviction that the effective way to stifle the fight against corruption is to apply Whitakers scenario. It also reminds me of the almost utter hopelessness in which the newly established Office of the Special Prosecutor finds itself almost one year after the President caused its establishment as his flagship and vision to fight corruption in Ghana with an overwhelming national consensus and support. One year down the line it has only a small three bed room house as an Office woefully inadequate for lack of shear physical space to accommodate any reasonable number of employees, lack of subsidiary legislation, and consequently also financially crippled without any ability to acquire the requisite expensive operational anti-corruption and other equipment for the Office let alone to function efficiently. Creating unilateral unrealistic and crippling budget ceilings for such a deprived agency has same effect as the Whitaker scenario. By analogical reasoning the Whitaker scenario reported by the Associated Press resembles the situation of the Office of the Special Prosecutor since its establishment in spite of the Presidents sincere commitment to his vision. Below is the full article By Martin Amidu; THE WHITAKER SCENARIO STIFLING INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATIVE AGENCIES OF FUNDS The former United States Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, on 7th November 2018 announced his resignation as US Attorney General and made it clear it was at the request of the President at your request. The Chief of Staff of the Justice Department, Matthew Whitaker, whom Jeff Session appointed in September 2017, was appointed the Acting Attorney General to the displeasure of the opposition Democrats because of the likely effect of the new acting appointment on Robert Muellers investigations into the allegation of Russian meddling into the 2016 US elections. The opposition Democrats fear that the new Acting Attorney General will assume full oversight over Muellers investigations and is demanding that like Jeff Sessions, he recuses himself from those investigations because of his previous comments on the probe. Acting Attorney General Whitakers comments were made before he joined the Justice Department. Whitakers comments before Sessions appointed him to the Justice Department has just opened my eyes to how an independent investigation and prosecutorial agency such as Ghanas Office of the Special Prosecutor can be disabled from effectively and efficiently performing its mandate without direct interference with its so called independence and impartiality. The Associated Press of 8th November 2018 has an article captioned: With new Justice Official, fate of Russia probe in question. That caption has no relevance to how to disable an independent investigation institution from performing its duties but what is attributed to the new Justice Official, Whitaker, has. The Associated Press article says: Whitaker, a former U.S .attorney from Iowa who twice run unsuccessfully for statewide office.,once opined about a scenario in which Trump could fire Sessions and then appoint an acting attorney general who could stifle the funding of Muellers probe. In that scenario, Muellers budget could be reduced so low that his investigation grinds to a halt. Whitaker said during an interview in CNN in July 2017 before he joined the Justice Department. Whitakers scenario which I have just read reinforces my own conviction that the effective way to stifle the fight against corruption is to apply Whitakers scenario. It also reminds me of the almost utter hopelessness in which the newly established Office of the Special Prosecutor finds itself almost one year after the President caused its establishment as his flagship and vision to fight corruption in Ghana with an overwhelming national consensus and support. One year down the line it has only a small three bed room house as an Office woefully inadequate for lack of shear physical space to accommodate any reasonable number of employees, lack of subsidiary legislation, and consequently also financially crippled without any ability to acquire the requisite expensive operational anti-corruption and other equipment for the Office letalone to function efficiently. Creating unilateral unrealistic and crippling budget ceilings for such a deprived agency has same effect as the Whitaker scenario. By analogical reasoning the Whitaker scenario reported by the Associated Press resembles the situation of the Office of the Special Prosecutor since its establishment in spite of the Presidents sincere commitment to his vision. The Whitaker scenario appears to be taking shape in November 2018 in the United States of America. Here in Ghana I see the absolute need for all citizens, particularly the electorate who brought the President personally to power to support him to ensure that his promised vision of fighting corruption materializes during his first term in Office. The 1992 Constitution supports the Presidents vision and every patriotic citizen is mandated by the Constitution to support him. I know for a fact that our President means business but there is a missing link provided by the Whitaker scenario to which civil society should wake up now or forever stop blaming the President. We are going into his third year in Office and we must all be stakeholders in the fight against corruption. This is not politics. This is a fundamental patriotic obligation enjoined by the 1992 Constitution for its defence and to save our dear country of a malignant canker of corruption that has ravaged it since independence. Join the citizen patriotic fight against corruption in Ghana now! Prevent corruption now! Act now! Save Ghana now! By: Martin A. B. K. Amidu North Legon, Accra Source: The Herald Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Popular Ghanaian-British actor, Peter Mensah, widely known as Oenomaus for his role in the wildly popular Starz series Spartacus, was spotted in Ghana over the weekend. According to sources, the 59-year-old Ghanaian-British actor was in Ghana to attend the funeral of his late father, Mr Peter Osei Mensah, who died at the blessed age of 89 within the early days of November 2017. Peter Mensah has starred in numerous wildly popular productions such as Spartacus, 300, Tears of the Sun and many others. Below are some of the pictures taken during his time in Ghana. Source: ghanacelebrities.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video On Sunday, members of the BC Legion Branch #40 marched with the Penticton Panther Royal Canadian Air Cadets in the Remembrance Day parade. Sunday marked the 100 year anniversary of the First World War Armistice. An explosion caused by Israeli airstrikes on Al-Rahma building in Gaza City, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Palestinian militants on Monday fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, and the Israeli military responded by dispatching fighter jets to strike throughout the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Former Vice President Joe Biden (left) and National Constitution Center Committee Chairman Doug DeVos (right) present former President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush with the 2018 Liberty Medal during ceremonies at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Sunday. Read more Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, were honored Sunday at the National Constitution Center with the $100,000 Liberty Medal, even as Veterans Day emotions ran hot and noisy over U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. About 30 protesters veterans and others disrupted the 90-minute ceremony with whistles and sirens that could be heard over speeches by former Vice President Joe Biden and other dignitaries inside a heated tent filled with 1,000 people at Fifth and Arch Streets. Protesters chanted, "No awards for endless wars," blaming Bush for the long military engagements after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. One woman was escorted from the ceremony by U.S. National Park rangers for interrupting a speaker. Without acknowledging the racket, Bush said in his acceptance speech that he has spoken with many veterans over the years and "most of them would say that they were proud to serve and they would do it again." He called veterans "tremendous national assets." Bush holds annual mountain biking rides on his Crawford, Texas, ranch with wounded vets. The center said it was awarding the medal to Bush who was president between 2001 and 2009 and his wife for their Texas charitable mission helping wounded post-Sept. 11 veterans get back on their feet through healing and career training. The Bushes said they would donate the $100,000 to further the work of the George W. Bush Institute and its Military Service Initiative. Wisecracking, Bush said that in addition to the Liberty Medal itself, he was "proud to follow in my dad's footsteps once again." His father, former President George H.W. Bush, received the medal along with former President Bill Clinton in 2006. Bush paid tribute to former Sen. John McCain, a fellow Republican who died in August, saying that "this is a man who had been to the darkest of places as a prisoner of war." Laura Bush said in her acceptance speech that more attention had to be paid to the wounded-veteran caregivers, including wives. She said there were more than four million veterans of the post-Sept. 11 era. Biden, a Democrat who served under former President Barack Obama, presented the medal to Bush. They often disagreed while Bush was in the White House and Biden was a prominent senator. But "I always respected the president," Biden added. Biden noted that 6,842 Americans had been killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and 52,732 wounded, many with post-traumatic stress disorder. Matt Howard, 35, of the group About Face: Veterans Against the War, said the protesters made the noise to disrupt what they perceive as Bush's attempt to rehabilitate his reputation and to bring attention to the long wars on terrorism. Celeste Zappala of Mount Airy stood outside the tent holding a photo of her son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, 30, who she said died in Baghdad in April 2004 while searching for weapons of mass destruction. "I am here because I find it abominable that Bush is getting the Liberty Medal," Zappala said. "And he has never apologized for starting the war in Iraq based on lies." Other Liberty Medal winners over the last decade include former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, movie director Steven Spielberg, boxer Muhammad Ali, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and girls' rights activist Malala Yousafzai. Financial sponsors of the event include real estate investor Ira Lubert, the law firm Stradley Ronon, LLP, and the Citizens Bank Charitable Foundation. BALI, Indonesia Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort has been named Best Luxury Hotel and Conference Centre in Uganda at the 2018 World Luxury Hotel Awards. The awards ceremony took place at weekend at Ayana Resort and Spa, Bali in Indonesia. Tanique Echardt, Executive Manager of the awards, commended the facility for the milestone and said the accolade serves as recognition of sustained commitment to excellence in hoteliering and outstanding achievement in the international luxury hospitality industry. Early this year, the hotel was also awarded a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence 2018. Owned by property mogul Sudhir Ruparelia, Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort is one of the leading hotels in Uganda offering accommodation, restaurants and state of art conference rooms ideal for seminars, parties and concerts. About World Luxury Hotel Awards Established in 2006, World Luxury Hotel Awards is the pinnacle of achievement in the luxury hotel industry offering international recognition as voted by guests, travellers and industry players alike. Over 300,000 international travellers vote each year, during a four-week period to select the winners. Luxury hotels have the opportunity to participate in the World Luxury Hotel Awards by entering hotel categories that showcase their unique selling points and destinations. Related BUSHENYI The Mufti of Uganda, Sheikh Shaban Ramadhan Mubajje, has lashed at government for undermining efforts to hold a national dialogue, saying there are many issues affecting Ugandans which need to be discussed by all stakeholders. Sheikh Mubajje, who is the chairperson Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, an apex religious body that is part of the moderators of the dialogue, said whereas the government thinks there is no political crisis in the country that warrants dialogue with opposition players, there are many challenges such as higher taxes and several other controversial government policies. We are trying to say that as Ugandans, let us mediate because there are so many issues affecting Ugandans but people in government say they have structures, that they have laws, including representation. But we are also saying that there are issues that you need to open up so that every Ugandan says what is affecting him, he said on Saturday at the burial of Sheikh Abdunoor Kaduyu in Kitwe, Kyeizooba Sub-county, Bushenyi District. The National Dialogue process was planned to kick off on November 21. But Deputy Attorney General Mwesigwa Rukutana is quoted by independent daily, Saturday Monitor, as saying that there there is no crisis that warrants urgent national dialogue and that there is an elected government that was confirmed by the Supreme Court which is implementing its manifesto. But Sheikh Mubajje said this government position is wrong. As the inter-religious council, we believe in dialogue; we talk. We have differences in religion but we have things that unite us if we do not dialogue and create that relationship. The Bishop talked of love; in Islam we want love, in the inter-religious council, we want love and even in our government, we want love. That is why we are saying we want the national dialogue process, he said. Sheikh Mubajje said the dialogue will allow Ugandans to express their displeasure with government on the issues that have not been properly handled so as to get the way forward. People grew a lot of maize but all of a sudden the prices went down, people are not happy. They never benefited from maize. Who will face that challenge as hunger strikes hard on Ugandans? Government will get money from its coffers to buy food for its people. Mr Mubajje said He added that there are people who were evicted from their land. Like in Bunyoro where there is oil, people are paid Shs1m for an acre of land and they evict you but what is under the ground is Oil so for us we believe in dialogue we want to mediate we want love and we want all of us to remain united. The National Dialogue is being spearheaded by the Inter Religious Council of Uganda and the Elders Forum. President Museveni is expected to launch the dialogue on November 21. Related As they worked this week to save lives, firefighters and police officers in the Northern California town of Paradise worried whether their own homes would survive the fire. For many, the unfortunate answer is no. The massive wind-whipped fire that roared through mountain towns and hamlets on Thursday appears to have spared little, including homes owned by Cal Fire crews, Paradise police officers, and Butte County sheriff's deputies, reports the Sacramento Bee. Paradise Mayor Jody Jones confirmed on Sunday that 17 Paradise police officers lost their homes in the Thursday inferno. Butte Sheriff Kory Honea estimated about 30 members of his department have lost their homes, too. Chico officials say eight of their police department employees also lost their homes. "Everybody has a story to tell," he said. Butte College Police Chief Casey Carlson worked for 48 hours straight at the emergency command post, figuringcorrectly, as it turned outthat his home of 10 years was gone too. Three members of his staff lost their homes as well. Sheriff Honea did not lose his home, he said. But the fire caused him some moments of personal worry. His daughter, Kassidy Honea, is a rookie Paradise police officer. She and he were directing evacuee traffic in Paradise Thursday when he got an emergency call and had to leave. He hugged his daughter and said, "Kiddo, I love you," before heading off. A Baltimore County police officer working as a school resource officer at Eastern Technical High School in Essex, MD, fatally shot himself Monday, according to Baltimore County Police. The department identified the officer as J. Comegna, a 21-year veteran, who was taken to MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, said Officer Jennifer Peach, a police department spokeswoman. Police said the incident occurred at noon, and students and staff were sheltered in place. Students were later dismissed at the normal dismissal time at 2:20 p.m. No students or other staff were injured, reports the Baltimore Sun. PUNE, India, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ReportsnReports adds Global Artificial Tears Market 2018 by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2025 Provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. Global Artificial Tears Industry Report 2018 statistical surveying furnishes industry outline and examination with 2025 Artificial Tears market size, share and additionally organization profile, item picture and determination with limit creation, value, cost, generation esteem and more for real makers. Finish give an account of Artificial Tears industry spread crosswise over 99 pages, giving examination of 14 noteworthy organizations upheld with 187 tables and figures. Ask Discount @ https://www.reportsnreports.com/contacts/discount.aspx?name=1344541 This is an expert and top to bottom examination on the present condition of the Artificial Tears industry. 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Contact: Hrishikesh Patwardhan Tower B5, office 101, Magarpatta SEZ, Hadapsar, Pune-411013, India +1-888-391-5441 [email protected] Connect With Us on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReportsnReports/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reportsnreports Twitter: https://twitter.com/marketsreports G+ / Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/111656568937629536321/posts RSS/Feeds: http://www.reportsnreports.com/feed/l-latestreports.xml SOURCE ReportsnReports MUMBAI, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Consolidated revenue for the quarter up by 20.6% to INR 2,799.04 Million and EBITDA up 63.9% at INR 313.28 Million Datamatics Global Services Ltd. (DGSL), a global IT & BPM company, today announced the financial results for the second quarter and six months ended on September 30, 2018. Consolidated Financial Highlights - Q2 FY2019 Revenue at INR 2,799.04 million; up 20.6% y-o-y, up 7.3% q-o-q EBITDA at INR 313.28 million; up 63.9% y-o-y, down by 1.19% q-o-q PBT at INR 326.4 million, up 27% y-o-y, up 19.5% q-o-q PAT at INR 235.76 million; up 8.7% y-o-y, up 9.1% q-o-q Consolidated Financial Highlights - H1 FY2019 Revenue at INR 5,407.07 million; up 22.7% y-o-y EBITDA at INR 630.24 million; up 65.1% y-o-y PBT at INR 599.6 million, up 31.4% PAT at INR 451.82 million; up 19.6% y-o-y Commenting on the Q2 financial performance, Rahul Kanodia, Vice Chairman and CEO, Datamatics, said, "Datamatics witnessed steady growth during the quarter with consistent increase in revenue and profit. Our EBITDA for this quarter has grown by 64% y-o-y due to healthy business growth, acquisitions and forex gains." Operational highlights H1 FY2019 During Q2 FY2019, USA contributed significantly to the revenue at 60% whereas contributions from Europe , India and Rest of World stood at 21%, 15% and 4% respectively contributed significantly to the revenue at 60% whereas contributions from , and Rest of World stood at 21%, 15% and 4% respectively In terms of sectorial contribution to the revenue, BFSI, Publishing and Manufacturing were the top three sectors contributing 28%, 27% and 9% respectively Top 5 clients contributed 25%; top 10 clients contributed 37%, whereas contribution from top 20 clients to the revenue for the quarter stood at 51% Business Updates Datamatics added 50 new customers in Q2 FY2019 Datamatics continued to actively pursue the partnership and re-seller program and has signed up 4 new partners for TruBot and TruBI products during the quarter, adding to total partner strength of 15 During the quarter, Datamatics was named in the Aspirant category in Everest Group's PEAK Matrix Assessment 2018 for Finance and Accounting (F&A) service providers based on DAS (Digital Augmentation Suite) solutions. DAS comprises of multiple digital technologies including service providers' capability to deliver an Interactive Layer like mobile apps, chatbots & self-service portals; Insights Layer (descriptive, predictive & prescriptive analytics) and Automation Layer (RPA, OCR). Datamatics was named in the Gartner Report on "Competitive Landscape: Consulting and System Integration Service Providers for Robotic Process Automation." The report names market players who are the leading RPA C&SI service providers. Datamatics is named as one of the Leading IT Service Providers Offering RPA C&SI Services. Datamatics was honoured with Future Tech Leader Award at CIO100 Award 2018 by IDG. Arun Rajkumar , Associate VP - Engineering Solutions, Datamatics Digital was honoured as the Future Tech Leader for displaying exemplary vision in identifying and deploying relevant future technology skills and creating an environment to make the organization future-proof. , Associate VP - Engineering Solutions, Datamatics Digital was honoured as the Future Tech Leader for displaying exemplary vision in identifying and deploying relevant future technology skills and creating an environment to make the organization future-proof. During the quarter, the company hosted Datamatics Headway BFSI summit 2018 on 'Embracing Digital Transformation & Digital Culture' in Mumbai . The summit showcased ideas and experiences, exploring challenges, opportunities and best practices around Digital Transformation in the BFSI sector It was attended by close to 100 senior professionals from leading banks, NBFCs and insurance companies. About Datamatics Global Services Limited Datamatics (BSE: 532528) (NSE: DATAMATICS) provides Intelligent Solutions for data driven businesses to increase productivity and enhance customer experience. The company's portfolio of service offerings spans across Information Technology Services, Business Process Management, Engineering Services and Big Data & Analytics all powered by Artificial Intelligence. It has established products in Robotics Process Automation, Advanced Analytics, Business Intelligence and Automated Fare Collection. Datamatics services over 450 customers globally across Banking & Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare, Manufacturing, International Organizations and Media & Publishing. Headquartered in Mumbai, the Company has presence across 6 countries with major delivery centers in the USA, India and Philippines with an employee base of 10,000. To know more about Datamatics, visit https://www.datamatics.com/ Safe Harbour Some of the statements in this update that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include our financial and growth projections as well as statements concerning our plans, strategies, intentions and beliefs concerning our business and the markets in which we operate. These statements are based on information currently available to us, and we assume no obligation to update these statements as circumstances change. There are risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. These risks include, but are not limited to, the level of market demand for our services, the highly-competitive market for the types of services that we offer, market conditions that could cause our customers to reduce their spending for our services, our ability to create, acquire and build new businesses and to grow our existing businesses, our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel, currency fluctuations and market conditions in India and elsewhere around the world, and other risks not specifically mentioned herein but those that are common to industry. For media queries, please contact: Sudeshna Mukherjee Marketing & Corporate Communications [email protected] +91-7738574137 Mehul Mehta President - Dickenson World - Financial PR [email protected] +91-9820280325 SOURCE Datamatics Global Services Ltd. CHENNAI, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Saksoft Limited (BSE: 590051) (NSE: SAKSOFT), reported its Q2 and half year results (ended on September 30, 2018) at its Board Meeting held on November 12, 2018. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/699009/Saksoft_Logo.jpg ) Commenting on the results, Chairman & Managing Director, Aditya Krishna, said, "I am pleased to note we have recorded a strong growth this quarter. This is a result of persistent effort of the team and the focus of the company on the Digital offerings with Agile Teams. The share of revenues from our Top customers continue to increase being a testimony of our commitment, delivery and expertise." Review of financial performance Consolidated Quarter Review (Q2 2018-19 vs. Q1 2018-19) Operating revenue increased by 8% to Rs 89.15 Cr in Q2 2018-19 against Rs 82.54 Crore in the previous quarter Cr in Q2 2018-19 against in the previous quarter 20.45% increase in operating EBITDA to Rs 13.90 Crore in Q2 2018-19 against Rs 11.54 Crore in the previous quarter in Q2 2018-19 against in the previous quarter PBT increased to Rs 14 Crore in Q2 2018-19 against Rs 10.69 Crore in the previous quarter, up by 30.96% in Q2 2018-19 against in the previous quarter, up by 30.96% PAT stood at Rs 9.32 Crore in Q2 2018-19 against Rs 6.96 Crore in the previous quarter, an increase of 33.90% Consolidated Quarter Yearly Review (Q2 2018-19 vs Q2 2017-18) Operating revenue increased by 32.11% to Rs 89.15 Cr in Q2 2018-19 against Rs 67.48 Crore in the corresponding quarter previous year Cr in Q2 2018-19 against in the corresponding quarter previous year 53.59% increase in operating EBITDA to Rs 13.90 Crore in Q2 2018-19 against Rs 9.05 Crore in the corresponding quarter previous year in Q2 2018-19 against in the corresponding quarter previous year PBT increased to Rs 14 Crore in Q2 2018-19 against Rs 7.77 Crore in the corresponding quarter previous year, up by 80.18% in Q2 2018-19 against in the corresponding quarter previous year, up by 80.18% PAT stood at Rs 9.32 Crore in Q2 2018-19 against Rs 4.69 Crore in the corresponding quarter previous year, an increase of 98.72% Consolidated Half Year Review (H1 2018-19 vs H1 2017-18) Operating revenue increased by 29.30% to Rs 171.70 Cr in H1 2018-19 against Rs 132.79 Crore in the corresponding period previous year Cr in H1 2018-19 against in the corresponding period previous year 50.44% increase in operating EBITDA to Rs 25.44 Crore in H1 2018-19 against Rs 16.91 Crore in the corresponding period previous year in H1 2018-19 against in the corresponding period previous year PBT increased to Rs 24.69 Crore in H1 2018-19 against Rs 14.60 Crore in the corresponding period previous year, up by 69.10% in H1 2018-19 against in the corresponding period previous year, up by 69.10% PAT stood at Rs 16.29 Crore in H1 2018-19 against Rs 8.44 Crore in the corresponding period previous year, an increase of 93% FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS INR Crores Q2 FY18-19 Q1 FY18-19 Q2 FY17-18 H1-FY18-19 H1-FY17-18 Revenue 89.15 82.54 67.48 171.70 132.79 Operating EBITDA 13.90 11.54 9.05 25.44 16.91 Operating EBITDA % 15.59% 13.98% 13.41% 14.81% 12.73% PAT 9.32 6.96 4.69 16.29 8.44 PAT % 10.45% 8.43% 6.95% 9.48% 6.35% OPERATING METRICS Particulars H1 18-19 FY 17-18 1. REVENUE METRICS- % A. Revenue by Geo Americas 58% 58% Europe 29% 32% Asia/ Asia Pacific & Others 13% 9% B. Revenue Mix Onsite 51% 53% Offshore 49% 47% 2. CUSTOMER METRICS A. Client Metrics- No of clients/customers per Million Dollar ** >1 MN 5 5 >0.5Mn to 1Mn 8 7 B. Client's Contribution to Revenue Top 5 44% 42% Top 10 51% 49% Top 20 58% 57% 3. HEADCOUNT METRICS A. Headcount & Utilisation Total Employee Count 1067 1025 Technical 941 897 Support 126 128 B. Utilisation-IT Services Excluding trainees 84% 85% ** The numbers are based on the annualised figures About Saksoft Limited: Saksoft Limited is a leading player in providing digital transformation solutions to help businesses stay relevant in a highly connected, rapidly evolving world. Saksoft is a niche technology specialist that provides a comprehensive suite of business transformation, information management, application development and testing services. In short, Saksoft helps their clients level the playing field by helping them transform their business spaces. Saksoft is headquartered in Chennai (India), and has 12 offices across the USA, Europe and Asia employing over 1000+ people. For more information, please visit www.saksoft.com Media Contact: Karthik Subramanian [email protected] +91-9840905522 Marketing Head Saksoft Limited SOURCE Saksoft Limited SAN DIEGO, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Can be used to boost mobile ecosystem security around the globe Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM), today announced it has shared its Device Identification, Registration, and Blocking System (DIRBS) platform as freely downloadable open-source software. Qualcomm Technologies' DIRBS server-based software platform can be used to help identify counterfeit, illegal, and stolen mobile devices in a country. The DIRBS software platform will help regulatory agencies classify devices and generate IMEI-based lists for notification, amnesty, and blocking purposes. DIRBS has been successfully deployed in Pakistan, and deployments are anticipated in several other markets in the coming months. "Counterfeit devices are a significant problem worldwide and result in an estimated 45.3 billion EUR in lost sales to genuine manufacturers each year, according to a recent European Union Intellectual Property Office Study issued in February of 2017," said Mohammad Raheel Kamal, Senior Director, IPR Enforcement, Qualcomm Incorporated. "Sharing the DIRBS solution as freely downloadable open-source software will allow the mobile industry to rapidly implement this powerful technology to help address counterfeiting and related issues around the globe." "Qualcomm is committed to enriching the mobile ecosystem, including assisting regulatory agencies in addressing their needs for security with respect to cellular-enabled devices," said John Han, SVP, Qualcomm Incorporated and GM, Qualcomm Technology Licensing. "We are excited to share the DIRBS software platform to help enable regulatory agencies to further fight the proliferation of counterfeit, illegal and stolen devices." The DIRBS server-based software platform will be hosted on the open-source software website Github, and may be freely downloaded and used by any interested parties. More information can be found here: http://www.qualcomm.com/company/ecosystem/counterfeit-stolen-devices. About Qualcomm Qualcomm invents breakthrough technologies that transform how the world connects, computes and communicates. When we connected the phone to the Internet, the mobile revolution was born. Today, our inventions are the foundation for life-changing products, experiences, and industries. As we lead the world to 5G, we envision this next big change in cellular technology spurring a new era of intelligent, connected devices and enabling new opportunities in connected cars, remote delivery of health care services, and the IoT - including smart cities, smart homes, and wearables. Qualcomm Incorporated includes our licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, all of our engineering, research and development functions, and all of our products and services businesses, including, the QCT semiconductor business. For more information, visit Qualcomm's website, OnQ blog, Twitter and Facebook pages. Qualcomm Contacts: Pete Lancia, Corporate Communications +1-858-845-5959 corpcomm@qualcomm.com John Sinnott, Investor Relations +1-858-658-4813 ir@qualcomm.com SOURCE Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. Market Leader reports that the global market of rude oil has been seen a prolonged downtrend after a pretty strong rally seen over a couple of months in a row. Not so long ago, a barrel of Brent oil used to cost 86 dollars. At this point, it costs just 70 dollars. Still, the Russian authorities don't seem to be concerned about this price drop at all. Experts say the see no reason to worry about the situation. According to CEO of Lukoil Vaghit Alekperov, today's oil prices represent a kind of the so-called golden medium. In other words, 70 dollars per barrel is the very price that is acceptable for both oil importers and exporters. When asked about their plans to shrink their oil production to stimulate another price rally in the market of crude oil, the Russian oilers assume there is no reason to do this. Moreover, some of them are going to increase their production amid decreasing oil prices. This standpoint seems to be shared by the Russian government. Even tough the Russian budget is heavily dependent on the export of crude oil, they somehow don't want higher oil prices. According to Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev, much higher oil prices would do the Russian economy more harm than good. The thing is, the Russian budget for 2018 was created with the average annual oil price of $63/b in mind, which is why even $70/b is a good price for Russian. For those of you who don't know, Russia is one of the biggest oil producers and exporters together with the USA and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have been producing 11,5 million barrels a day over the recent months while the USA and Russia have been taking turns by producing 11,4-11,8 million barrels a day over the same period. On November 12, Brent oil is trading slightly over 71 dollars per barrel. WTI oil is trading around 61 dollars per barrel. If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here NEWSALERT-AP-CAPITALS AP Assembly passes bill to repeal Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of all Regions Act, relating to the three capitals plan for the state.AP Assembly passes bill to repeal Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of all Regions Act, relating to the three capitals plan for the state. Russian lawmakers propose spice advertisement ban RIA Novosti 11:45 12/11/2018 MOSCOW, November 12 (RAPSI) A group of Russian MPs on Monday introduced a bill prohibiting advertisement and propagation of information on techniques and methods of producing new psychoactive substances known as spices in mass media and on the Internet, according to the State Duma database. Moreover, the bill bans distribution of information concerning the drugs sales location and drug-containing cropping areas, an explanatory note to the document reads. Amendments are proposed to the laws On Mass Media and On Advertisement. In 2017, over 20,500 decisions were made on blocking of websites disseminating banned information about drugs upon requests by Russian communications agency Roskomnadzor, about 2 tons of various drugs were withdrawn from illegal commerce, and nearly 660 online drug stores were shut down, the draft law sponsors said citing the Interior Ministry. There is as yet no clarity on how the process of consulting with the RBI Governor, initiated under Section 7 of the RBI Act, would unfold in the coming days. The government is keen that its suggestions made in the public interest should be heeded by the central bank, says A K Bhattacharya. The forthcoming meeting of the central board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), scheduled for November 19, is likely to be no less stormy than the one that was held in Mumbai on October 23, which was soon followed by a series of developments that brought to the fore differences between the central bank and the Union finance ministry. Government nominees on the board of the RBI will be making a presentation on why the central bank should consider accepting all the suggestions made by the finance ministry in its communication to RBI Governor Urjit Patel on October 10. That communication had used the provisions of consultation with the RBI Governor under Section 7 of the RBI Act. These suggestions include doing away with the requirement on exposure limit of 20 per cent of the foreign portfolio investments in corporate bond portfolios of a single corporate group, removing the requirements of mandatory hedging for infrastructure loans of less than 10 years maturity, setting up a special refinance window for non-banking finance companies, housing finance companies and mutual funds, creating a facility for banks to raise $30 billion, and a review of the economic capital framework for bringing it in line with the requirements of the RBI Act. Sources aware of these developments told Business Standard that the RBI Governors reply received earlier showed that the central bank did not see eye to eye on most of these proposals. Hence, one of the finance ministry nominees on the board of the RBI would make a detailed presentation on November 19 to impress upon the Governor, his team, and the entire board the need to consider the governments suggestions favourably. Another issue likely to come up at the forthcoming board meeting is RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharyas hard-hitting speech on October 26, where he warned that there would be adverse consequences when governments did not honour the independence of the central bank. Questions over the propriety and correctness of such a speech would be raised by government nominees on the board. The RBI board meeting on October 23 had seen a presentation from the financial services departments secretary, who is also on the board, on why the RBI Governor should consider accepting about half a dozen other suggestions made to him in another communication and using consultation provisions under Section 7 of the RBI Act. That meeting was one of the longest in recent times and ended inconclusively. The suggestions made in that communication, sent also during the first half of October, pertained to the application of Basel III norms to banks that are not internationally active, building up a capital conservation buffer during periods of stress, the need for keeping the RBI capital adequacy norms at 1 per cent higher than Basel III norms, the efficacy of the framework for prompt corrective action for banks in restoring banks to health, the need for high-risk weights for credit to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and enhancement of opportunities for rectification and restructuring of MSMEs loan accounts. Within three days of the RBI board meeting, Acharya delivered the A D Shroff Memorial lecture, underlining the need for preserving the central banks independence. Even as there was speculation that the tension might escalate, the finance ministry on October 31 put out a statement that was aimed at bringing down the temperature. The statement reiterated that the government considered the autonomy for the central bank within the framework of the RBI Act an essential and accepted governance requirement. More importantly, it said that the government has nurtured and respected this basic principle. It is still not clear if the temperature has actually come down. On November 2, the Economic Affairs Secretary, Subhash Chandra Garg, made a statement on social media, raising questions over Acharyas warning of the markets punishing governments that dont honour the central banks independence. Gargs tweet said: Rupee trading at less than 73 to a dollar, Brent crude below $73 a barrel, markets up by over 4% during the week and bond yields below 7.8 per cent. Wrath of the markets? By the same evening, the RBI had put up on its website a speech delivered by its Deputy Governor, N S Vishwanathan, a few days ago on October 29. Vishwanathan questioned the need for treating a defaulter differently just because it may have faced some special external circumstances. Observers noted that Vishwanathans speech was put up on the RBI website only on November 2, and not on October 29 when the speech was delivered. Acharyas speech was delivered on October 26 and put up on its website on the same day. There is as yet no clarity on how the process of consulting with the RBI Governor, initiated under Section 7 of the RBI Act, would unfold in the coming days. The government is keen that its suggestions made in the public interest should be heeded by the central bank. Whether that is ensured by issuing a directive or convincing the RBI will be known in the next few weeks. Under Section 7 of the RBI Act, the Union government may, after consultation with the RBI Governor, give such directions to the central bank as may be necessary in the public interest. Section 7 also provides that subject to any such directions, the general superintendence and direction of the affairs and business of the Bank can be entrusted to a central board of directors which may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank. Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters That includes the building of an anti-submarine warfare Corvette and an aircraft carrier for the navy. Cochin Shipyard, largest ship building and repairing facility in the country, expects to put through around Rs 15,000 crore worth of orders in the next five years. That includes the building of an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) Corvette and an aircraft carrier for the navy. Expansion plans, including a drydock within the shipyard and facilities in Mumbai, Kolkata and Port Blair, for a total of Rs 2,500 crore would be readied during this period, said Madhu S Nair, chairman. "Unlike in other industries, we will not see this signed, documented and sealed at each point of time but the visibility in front of us is around Rs 15,000 crore. "For the aircraft carrier, we have some post-delivery commitments. All these contracts have to be executed in at least four to five years, he said. The company is in advanced stages of finalising a contract to build the ASW corvette, as the projects lowest bidder. The project is to produce eight such vessels for a total value of Rs 5,400 crore. The contract is expected to be signed before the end of next month. The aircraft carrier project is expected to see the third phase of building activities to commence by December or the early part of 2019. The price has a fixed and a cost-plus part to the contract, seamless across the three phases. The phase-III fixed price and cost-plus part is remaining. Delivery of the vessel is scheduled for February 2021 and the company is close to attaining that target, said Nair. The signed and remaining works in the order book is around Rs 18 billion including a Rs 513 crore out of the total value of Rs 2,848 crore of the aircraft carrier project. The expansion projects are on track, including nearly Rs 1,800 crore for a new drydock, targeted to complete in June 2021. We started initial ground preparation work in May, awarding the contract to Larson & Toubro. "The ground-breaking ceremony took place this October. The project is expected to be completed in three years, said the chairman. An international ship repair facility is also being built (in Kochi), with an investment of Rs 970 crore, the target being next November. It is also developing a small ship building facility in Kolkata, under a joint venture named Hooghly Cochin Shipyard Ltd, with investment of Rs 160 crore. This is to make inland vessels. Construction is expected to start by the end of December and operations to commence by 2020. It is also planning to commence operations in a ship repair facility it took over from Mumbai Port Trust, by the coming January, the investment being Rs 80 crore to Rs 100 crore. Also a ship repair facility in Kolkata (Rs 15-18 crore) and at Port Blair. This would be funded by the government. The company earlier signed an agreement with Russias United Shipbuilding Corporation, to work together for designing, development and construction of vessels for inland and coastal shipping. Photograph: PTI Photo Modi will have limited choice other than stressing upon a request for more time to decide on tariff rates, especially with elections in 2019. Subhayan Chakraborty reports. Photograph: Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi may have a tough task on his hand when he reaches Singapore to meet leaders from nations negotiating the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership pact. The PM is likely to ask for more time to conclude the talks. Beginning November 14, Modi will be on a two-day visit to Singapore for the 13th East Asia Summit, where he is set to hold separate talks with leaders from across Asia-Pacific. His visit will coincide with the annual summit of the 10-member Association of the Southeast Asian Nations bloc, also taking place in Singapore from November 11 to 15. There, Modi will have to allay the fears of India's ASEAN allies, who have repeatedly targeted New Delhi for delaying a consensus on the RCEP. The ambitious pact is proposed between 10 ASEAN economies and six others -- New Zealand, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea -- with which the grouping currently has free trade agreements. So far, 24 rounds of talks have concluded, apart from six minister-level meets. India has crucial differences on tariff reduction, market access and services trade norms, such as those on the free movement of trained professionals with other nations. As a result, Modi will have limited choice other than stressing upon India's latest position - that of a request for more time to decide on tariff rates, especially with elections in 2019, a senior trade negotiator said. However, Modi is expected to commit to the RCEP despite the current deadlock, the negotiator added. Due to the strain in talks, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu will be in Singapore to hold last minute talks with his RCEP counterparts on November 12-13. At the last trade ministers' meet, a joint proposal had been adopted to decide on the broad contours of the mega-regional deal by end of 2018. "This 'package of year-end deliverables' has been pushed by the ASEAN bloc with support from China, which is increasingly wary of the trade potential with the US under the volatile Trump regime. But it mentions only four major chapters of the goods trade, with the vast majority still seeing no progress. It was also silent on greater market access for the services trade -- an area of prime interest to India," said a senior trade expert present during the meet. The upcoming talks may suffer the same fate as the last -- when discussions had broken down with India being attacked for delaying a consensus on the RCEP, he added. The proposed pact is to have 21 chapters across goods, services and investment. The short-term goal is to have five or six more chapters completed before the year end. The last of these, held in Auckland last month, saw developed economies oppose India's plans of dealing with China separately. New Delhi had offered to reduce tariffs for Beijing over a 20-year period while suggesting shorter wait periods for other economies such as Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. "The largest component of our trade deficit stems from that with China at more than $63 billion; so we obviously need more time to adjust to lower import duties in a post-RCEP world," said a senior commerce department official. On tariffs, India has also resisted calls by most nations arguing that New Delhi should slash existing tariffs on up to 90 per cent of all goods, as well as demands by richer nations to open up the Indian market to specific products such as dairy and engineering goods. Earlier this year, the future of the mega trade bloc -- under planning since 2012 -- had become uncertain as several ministries were opposed to the talks. With industry bodies and ministries openly questioning the rationale behind India entering the RCEP pact, the PMO had itself assessed the pact and its fallout despite Modi promising to seal the deal by 2017. Before committing your precious money in PE funds, investors need to get very choosy, advises Ramesh Bukka, co-founder and director, Entrust Family Office Investment Advisors. Many high net worth individuals (HNIs) looking to diversify their portfolios beyond the listed space consider foraying into private equity. Many get lured by the promise of extemely high returns. However, only sophisticated investors, who understand the risks well, should venture into this space. Besides a minimum investment size of Rs 10 million and above, investing in private equity also requires the patience to stay put for a tenure of 10 years, or sometimes even more. Experience suggests that returns, adjusted for risk, often turn out to be lower than in the listed space. Past performance is uninspiring Private equity investing in India has had a chequered performance history over the past 15 to 20 years. In the years leading up to the market meltdown in 2008, it was highly sought after by institutional as well as high net worth investors as the economic growth rate in India was strong. The greed for higher returns coupled with strong push from the distribution community ensured that large pools of capital were raised. The euphoric times did not last long. Investments made up to 2008 were at peak valuations and took considerable years to break even. Most PE funds ended up having marginal stakes in investee companies with inadequate investment rights. They, therefore, had limited influence with promoters on key decisions. Most PE funds were raised by first-time managers who did not have enough private equity experience. Saddled with excess capital, they did not focus adequately on entry valuations and risk assessment. As a result, investors' returns on most of the funds raised about 10 years ago have been dismal and in low single digits, well below equivalent benchmarks in the listed space. Most of the capital has also not been returned yet, thereby increasing opportunity costs for investors. Barring a few exceptions, most PE funds have not made money for their investors. Part of the blame also lies with the investors as they did not do adequate diligence on the fund or the manager before committing their capital for 10 years or more. Most existing PE funds are now struggling with exits as liquidity is not easy. The average holding period for most funds is four-five years. It is a common feature to see funds writing to investors seeking extension of the original mandate. With performance being below the hurdle rate, there is no incentive for investors to carry on, and most funds are now struggling to hold on to their investors. Will 2008 be repeated? As in 2008, there has been a proliferation of PE funds that have raised money over the past two years, riding on strong sentiment in the equity markets. Investors have poured billions of rupees, lured by the prospects of high returns, and to diversify their portfolios. While the landscape has improved, most funds are yet to complete one fund cycle of raising and returning all the capital. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to assess performance as there is not much to evaluate. The situation is similar to 2008, when valuations in the public and private markets were rich, thereby increasing the entry valuation risk. When you look at the promised returns of some of the funds, they target a gross internal rate of return (IRR) of 20 to 25 per cent as anything lower is not in line with investors' expectations. While certain individual investments may yield very high returns, consistent delivery across the portfolio at current market valuations is akin to asking for the moon. The mistakes of 2008 could be repeated. High fees will lower investors' returns While management fees and operating expenses are easy to understand, PE funds levy carry (performance fee) above a certain threshold (hurdle) with provisions of 'with catch up' (profit share on the entire return) and 'without catch up' (profit share on return above the threshold). For most investors the dice is loaded against them as fees end up taking more than 25 to 30 per cent of invested capital during the life of the fund, irrespective of performance. Distributors of these products end up getting 5 to 8 per cent upfront. As the money is locked in for many years, the incentive to sell (or mis-sell) is large. This is a classic case of 'heads they win, tails you lose'. Complicated terminology, phantom valuations PE funds are ideally meant for sophisticated investors. Investing in these funds is not easy since investors have to contend with several terms like PPM (private placement memorandum), MoIC (multiple of invested capital), TVPI (total value to paid in multiple), tracking multiple, mark ups, mark downs, provisioned investments, waterfalls and clawbacks. PE funds are mandated to value their investee companies on a yearly basis through an external valuation agency. Since the investee companies straddle many diverse sectors and industries, valuation is a tricky exercise and is prone to ambiguity. Since the valuers are appointed by the funds themselves, there always exists an element of conflict. Unlike the listed space, most of the reporting of performance (or shall we say the lack of it) is done in not-easy-to-understand terminology like MoIC, instead of simple measures like XIRR. Some underperforming PE funds seem to have found innovative methods of giving fund value as a multiple of the amount invested in the investee companies and not including the fees charged. How convenient! Ultimately, valuation is discovered only when the investment gets listed or is sold. Final returns can be computed only when the fund is fully liquidated and paid out, which is usually after more than 10 years. Until then, returns are phantom like, notional and therefore not relevant. Expensive products PE funds are expensive products as usually a fourth of the committed capital goes into fees. If one were to include profit sharing and taxes, net returns are substantially lower than gross returns. Most investors who have invested in the last peak have ended up with poor returns and any investments committed now will probably see an exit in the next peak. If you look at recent history, peak to peak returns are poor. Unlike the current period, best returns are made when there is lack of investor interest. Before committing your precious money in PE funds, investors need to get very choosy and ask themselves: Are they worth the risk? Do they fit my overall portfolio? Am I ready for a long gestation period? Investors need to look, pause, take a closer look before they take the leap. Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com Five of the 10 best-paid independent directors belonged to the Tata group, followed by four from Reliance Industries and one from Wipro. Shally Seth Mohile and Dev Chatterjee report. Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com Independent directors of the Tata group companies earned the most in the financial year 2017-2018, shows the data drawn from India's top 30 companies that constitute the BSE Sensex. Five of the 10 best-paid independent directors belonged to the Tata group, followed by four from Reliance Industries and one from Wipro. Of the top five, four were on the board of Tata Consultancy Services. Former HSBC Asia-Pacific CEO Aman Mehta, an independent director on the TCS board, is the highest paid. Mehta's remuneration, including commission and sitting fees, was Rs 30.5 million in 2017-2018. Former Deutsche Telekom chairman Ron Sommer, the second best-paid independent director, who took home a package of Rs 21.4 million, is also on the TCS board. IMAGE: Aman Mehta, an independent director on the TCS board. Photograph: Kind courtesy Tata Consultancy Services O P Bhatt, who is on the boards of TCS and Tata Steel, saw a sharp jump in his remuneration in FY18. While Tata Steel, where he is an independent director earning over Rs 10 million, rewarded him with a 39 per cent hike, TCS gave him an 18 per cent raise. Following Cyrus Mistry's removal as chairman of Tata Sons in October 2016 and his subsequent ouster as chairman of Tata Steel, Bhatt had served as an interim chairman. TAFE group Chairman Mallika Srinivasan is the second Tata Steel independent director in the list. Photograph: Vivek Prakash/Reuters Amit Tandon, founder and managing director of Institutional Investor Advisory Services , pointed out that given the structure of the Tata companies, the role and responsibilities of their independent directors were far greater than most other groups. "For them (the Tata group firms), which are not typically promoter-driven, independent directors are the eyes and ears of the company. The directors need to be rewarded for their contributions," said Tandon. Among other things, the remuneration was also governed by the size, scale and operations of the company, Tandon added. If it's a global company such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro, which have operations in the US and Europe, where independent directors command a higher fee for a board position, for the sake of fairness, the company has to fix the remuneration of directors of Indian nationality on a par with the director of foreign origin. For example, William Arthur Owens, an independent direct at Wipro, who was formerly Nortel CEO, is the third best paid. Wipro has two other independent directors with compensation of over Rs 10 million. Bharti Airtel, too, pays Rs 14.8 million to Ben Verwaayen, former Alcatel-Lucent CEO. Reliance Industries has eight independent directors, including Y P Trivedi, R A Mashelkar and Adil Zainulbhai, in the Rs 10 million club. In the 30 Sensex companies, 23 independent directors earned more than Rs 10 million in 2017-2018. Reliance Industries has eight independent directors in this group, followed by TCS with five. Ascertaining the remuneration of independent directors is a very sensitive subject, said Arun Kumar Rath, who heads the Centre for Corporate Governance at the International Management Institute, Delhi. "It's like walking a double-edged sword -- if you pay too much, you get criticised for appeasing the director, and if you pay too less, you don't get people of good calibre," he said. Companies also have to be very careful, making sure that the director doesn't have any material interest in the operation of the firm, which leads to a conflict of interest situation, he added. Roles and responsibilities of independent directors have come under the spotlight after the boardroom battles in the Tata group, Infosys and the recent crisis at Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services. The ministry of corporate affairs is planning to put in place a stricter disclosure framework for independent directors as part of continuing efforts to bolster corporate governance standards. NRI demand would help offset the liquidity problem, which is presently affecting realty sales. The sharp fall in the rupees value against the US dollar since the beginning of this year has generated interest among non-resident Indians (NRIs) to buy property in the country. Sector experts say the total value of investment by NRIs in the first eight months of this financial year has already exceeded the total for 2017-18. These investments in Indian real estate have touched more than $10 billion (Rs 73,000 crore) so far in this fiscal year (FY19), up from $8.9 billion invested in FY18. "Depreciation in the rupee and low property prices have led to this, said Surendra Hiranandani, chairman of the House of Hiranandani realty major. He feels investments by NRIs could reach 15 per cent of the total inventory by the end of 2018-19, from the eight to 10 per cent seen in previous years. The rupee is now at 72.5 to a dollar, from 63 in January. This apart, clarity in regulations after implementation of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act and a stable pricing environment in the segment have attracted NRIs. A survey by realty consultants ANAROCK shows 78 per cent of NRI respondents indicated they prefer owning a property in this country, over other asset classes like stocks, fixed deposits or mutual funds. Experts also point to the uncertainty in visa and residency rules under the Trump administration as another reason for higher interest among NRIs living in the US for buying property back home. Due to the uncertainty of residency regulations in the US, many NRIs have had to scrap their long-term plans (there). "This is acting as an additional incentive for them to buy property in India, said Anuj Puri, chairman at ANAROCK. On the demand side, realtors say the housing segment is seeing more demand from NRIs than office space. The bigger ticket size in commercial real estate is making it difficult for many non-residents to invest in the latter. This trend had already been reflected in some realtor sales numbers. For instance, Bengaluru-headquartered Century Real Estate, which predominantly works in the housing space, saw 15-20 per cent of its inventory sold to non-residents since January. Until last year, NRIs were mostly interested in investing in Delhi and the National Capital Region. Pune and Bengaluru have (since) emerged as preferred destinations for investment, said Ravindra Pai, managing director at Century. Experts say the NRI demand would help offset the liquidity problem, which is presently affecting realty sales. Photograph: Reuters 'What the Hinduisation of Muslim names by the BJP suggests is that the party's anti-Muslim outlook matches the virulence of almost any other far right outfit such as the Ku Klux Klan,' argues Amulya Ganguli. Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad once admitted that Muslims did not vote for the BJP. He was not disclosing a closely guarded State secret for it has been known from the days of the Jan Sangh that the Hindu nationalist party was not a favourite of the Muslims because of its anti-minority and ultra-nationalist worldview. However, the Jan Sangh, which changed into the BJP in 1980, had stoically borne this rejection as long as it was unable to do anything about it. The Muslims were of little consequence to the party before the Ramjanambhoomi movement of the 1990s because the party was too insignificant politically -- it won 2 Lok Sabha seats in 1984 -- to assert itself. Strangely, however, the BJP's attitude didn't change even when the Ramjanambhoomi movement breathed life into the party, leading to a steady increase in its number of seats from 86 in 1989 to 120 in 1991, to 161 in 1996 and to 182 in both 1998 and 1999. In this period, the party became so confident about its growing influence that, as before, it continued to be unconcerned about the Muslim vote. With its Lok Sabha tally now at 273 (having dropped from 282 in 2014 because of a number of by-election defeats), the BJP can continue to afford to be indifferent about Muslim support. Over the last few months, two factors seem to be influencing its attitude towards the Muslims. One is that the BJP probably senses that 2019 will not be a rerun of 2014 when it swept into power with considerable elan. So, it is in a hurry to accomplish what it intended to do over a longer period of time. Hence, the building of statues -- of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and of Lord Ram and the laying at least of the foundation stone of the Ram temple in Ayodhya -- before leaving the corridors of power. The other factor determining its attitude is to show Muslims their place before bowing out of office. The renaming of Mughal Sarai as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar, Allahabad as Prayagraj and Faizabad as Ayodhya, which is expected to be followed by the giving of Hindu names to Ahmedabad, Muzaffarnagar etc can be construed as an act of revenge by a party which has long been shunned by the Muslims. Since the BJP was unable to win back their political support despite the promise that vikas will be for everyone -- remember sabka saath, sabka vikas? -- it apparently decided to hit back by obliterating as much of the vestiges as it can (in the limited time at its disposal) of the presence of Muslims as an influential community in the country. The party's latest acts recall the bulldozing during the Gujarat riots of 2002 of the tomb of Vali Gujarati in Ahmedabad. Up until now, the BJP has been engaged primarily in rewriting history by incorporating its own version such as that India is the homeland of Aryans or that Rana Pratap defeated Akbar in the Battle of Haldighati in 1576 or that the RSS participated in the Independence movement. But the concerted move to give Hindu names to virtually all the cities and towns which have been known for centuries by their Muslim names is a crass new phenomenon. The BJP presumably believes that if a 'secular' government tries to restore the earlier names, the party will raise its familiar battle cry of Muslim appeasement. In any event, what the Hinduisation of Muslim names by the BJP suggests is that the party's anti-Muslim outlook matches the virulence of almost any other far right outfit such as the Ku Klux Klan. Amulya Ganguli is a writer on current affairs. IMAGE: Union minister Upendra Kushwaha meets former JD-U leader Sharad Yadav. Photograph: @UpendraRLSP/Twitter Rashtriya Lok Samta Party president and Bharatiya Janata Party ally Upendra Kushwaha met opposition leader Sharad Yadav Monday, fuelling speculation that he may switch camps over his differences with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the proposed seat-sharing arrangement among the saffron party's Bihar allies for the Lok Sabha polls. Kushwaha, also a Union minister, met Yadav at the latter's residence and both the leaders were believed to discussed the current political situation, especially in Bihar, RLSP sources said. In a tweet, Kushwaha described the meeting as a courtesy call. He has often asserted that he would work to get Narendra Modi elected as prime minister for another term but his unease with Kumar and meetings with opposition leaders, including Rashtriya Janata Dal's Tejashwi Yadav, have sparked speculation about his future course. Yadav had snapped ties with Kumar after the Janata Dal-United chief joined hands with the BJP last year, and he was working to rally the opposition against the saffron party. Kushwaha has expressed reservations to the BJP president Amit Shah's proposal that both his party and Ram Vilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party contest fewer number of seats in 2019 than they did in 2014 so that Kumar's JD-U could be allotted as many seats as the saffron party fights. The RLSP, which had fought three seats in 2014 and won all, is unlikely to be spared more than two seats. An old rival of Kumar, Kushwaha had also attacked the chief minister for allegedly insulting him and had targeted him again on Sunday over reports that two MLAs of his party may join the JD-U. He had said he would apprise Shah of the "humiliation" he had suffered at the hands of Kumar and also request him to clear the confusion over seat-sharing among the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance constituents in the state at the earliest. He also made a jibe at Kumar, saying the JD-U president had an expertise in breaking parties but he would continue with his fight. 'Raman Singh will certainly be defeated by the alliance we have created,' Ajit Jogi, Chhattisgarh's first chief minister and one of Indian politics's great survivors, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih. "Every election is the first election. This election will also be well contested," says Ajit Jogi, Chhattisgarh's first chief minister, over the phone from Raipur on Sunday, after returning from the Sunday church service. On Diwali, Jogi, who has overcome tremendous physical odds since he lost both his legs in a car crash during the 2004 Lok Sabha campaign, had visited a temple and a mosque in Raipur. As Chhattisgarh goes to the polls, his new party, the Chhattisgarh Janata Congress, is fighting its first election, emerging as a third force in a state that has traditionally seen a straight Bharatiya Janata Party-Congress contest. Jogi -- a former bureaucrat turned Congress politician, who left the Congress to form the Chhattisgarh Janata Congress last year -- is one of Indian politics's great suvivors and has repeatedly beaten the odds to remain politically relevant. According to three-time BJP Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh, Jogi's alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India could impact 30 of Chhattisgarh's 90 assembly seats. If the alliance wins 5 to 8 seats, Jogi is expected to play a crucial role in the post-poll arithmetic. But he feels his alliance will win a majority on its own to form a government. "I will be the king, not the kingmaker," asserts Jogi launching a blistering attack on the Raman Singh government. "People are totally fed up of the Raman Singh government," he says. "There is corruption, unemployment and they have not fulfilled the promises of the last elections." "Raman Singh will be defeated. He will certainly be defeated by the alliance we have created," says Jogi who struck a deal with BSP leader Mayawati right under the Congress's nose, a political coup for him. "The Congress had been talking to her. She thought she could transfer her votes to Congress, but wasn't sure if the Congress votes would come to her. In my case," he explains, "I can transfer my votes to her and vice versa." "Mayawatiji has been chief minister of India's largest state, has the support of Dalits and would be the right choice as leader of a non-Congress, non-BJP alliance," he says indicating what could lie ahead in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. His daughter-in-law Richa Jogi will contest the election on a BSP ticket. Jogi himself is contesting from Marwahi. After a long association with the Congress that started with Rajiv Gandhi, Jogi's wife Dr Renu Jogi, a Congress MLA, had remained with the Congress till last week. She left the party when the Congress denied a ticket to recontest her Kota seat. Dr Jogi is now a candidate from her husband's party from the same seat. "I am very happy she is contesting from my party," says Ajit Jogi. Jogi had said he would not personally attack the Gandhi family during his campaign and said his relations with the Gandhis continue to remain good. Asked if Rahul Gandhi was responsible for his ouster from the Congress, he says, "Not at all." "I wanted to form a regional party because national parties have not been able to deliver in the state. They have to take permission from Delhi for everything." Education Under Attack 2018 - Yemen Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Yemen, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be942f926.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Air strikes and bombings affected as many as 1,500 schools and 100 universities in Yemen. Individually targeted attacks by non-state armed groups killed or injured almost 100 university students and personnel. Armed forces and non-state armed groups used dozens of schools and universities for military purposes, particularly in the contested city of Taizz, and there was at least one case in which two children were recruited at a school. Context Fighting in Yemen began in 2011, as protest movements called attention to the need for stronger human rights protections in the country and made other demands inspired by the Arab Spring movement across the Middle East and North Africa region.[2524] Following months of protests against his rule, President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to step down under the terms of a deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council.[2525] He stepped down in 2012, but the transitional process was aborted when fighting broke out in 2014. In September 2014, the Zaidi Shiite Houthi armed group (also known as Ansar Allah), who were allied with Saleh, took over the capital, Sana'a, and much of the country's north.[2526] This violence escalated in March 2015 after a Saudi-led coalition, at the request of the internationally recognized government of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, launched a military operation against the Houthis and the Saleh loyalists who were allied with them.[2527] Violent extremist groups like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the local 'IS' affiliate also carried out numerous attacks against Houthi forces and the Hadi government in various cities.[2528] In late 2017 the Houthis killed their former ally, ex-president Saleh, after he and his forces withdrew from their nearly three-year alliance.[2529] The conflict continued between the coalition, Yemeni government, and the Houthis. The violence gravely affected Yemen's children. Between March 2015 and September 2017, at least 5,006 children were reported to have been killed or injured, and more than 400,000 school-age children were among the millions displaced.[2530] According to OCHA, as of December 2017, 1.[9] million out of 7.[5] million school-age children in Yemen were out of school.[2531] By August 2017, the largest number of schools that were inoperable due to destruction, damage, or use by IDPs or armed forces was concentrated in Taizz (325), Aden (260), Saada (239), and Amanat al-Asimah (227) governorates.[2532] The 2013-2017 reporting period saw a marked increase in attacks on education compared to the period covered in Education under Attack 2014, particularly in the form of attacks on schools, which was largely due to Saudiled coalition air strikes. Yemen endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration in October 2017. Attacks on schools Reports of attacks on schools began to rise dramatically in 2015, seemingly as a consequence of air strikes on areas controlled by Houthi-Saleh forces. Prior to 2015, attacks on schools usually took the form of mortars fired and explosives placed by unknown attackers and non-state armed groups. By December 2017, OCHA reported that air strikes and shelling had fully destroyed 256 schools and that another 1,413 schools were partially damaged.[2533] The UN was able to verify 144 attacks on schools during the same period.[2534] According to the Education Cluster, the damage was most significant in the Houthi-controlled areas of Saada governorate.[2535] UN and government reports stated that dozens of schools were damaged or destroyed in 2013. The UN documented but was unable to verify a total of 35 attacks on schools or education personnel, including mortar attacks and timed explosives.[2536] Attacks on schools in 2013 included the following: The US Department of State reported that on May 25, 2013, in al-Jawf governorate, an unidentified bomber drove a car full of explosives into a school during Friday prayers, killing at least 12 people. The number of students and teachers harmed was not reported. [2537] Unknown assailants targeted a girls' school in Saada city on December 31, 2013, detonating a device outside the school buildings. It was not clear whether the school was targeted because it was a girls' school or for other reasons.[2538] Reported rates of attacks on schools remained similar throughout 2014. That year the UN verified 35 attacks on schools by various parties to the conflict. Among these, fighting between Houthi-Saleh forces, the Yemeni Air Force, and pro-government tribal militias destroyed 10 schools in Amanah al-Asimah governorate. Many of the schools attacked that year closed as a result.[2539] Reports of attacks on schools increased in 2015, corresponding with the start of Saudi-led air strikes and intensifying conflict. The UN verified 92 attacks on schools in 2015, including 62 in Taizz, 20 in Saada, 19 in Lahj, 14 in Amanat al-Asimah, and 10 in Aden.[2540] Of the 42 attacks on schools described in the UN Secretary-General's "Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict," 57 percent were attributed to the Saudi-led coalition, 16 percent to Houthi-Saleh forces, and 21 percent to unknown perpetrators. The most heavily affected governorates were Saada (10 attacks), Taizz (10), and Amanat al-Asimah (12).[2541] Using information shared by the Education Cluster and the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, GCPEA found that there were at least 200 attacks on schools in 2015.[2542] According to Human Rights Watch researchers, indiscriminate Saudi-led air strikes in 2015 and 2016 caused 90 percent of the damage to or destruction of schools in Sana'a, the capital.[2543] Examples of reported incidents included the following: The UN verified that air strikes between March and May 2015 damaged at least 38 schools. [2544] Human Rights Watch reported that one air strike on al-Rasheedi School in Ibb on April 7, 2015, killed two children and wounded two others. [2545] This incident was not included in the UN-verified list. Local media reported that on November 14, 2015, unidentified attackers threw explosive devices at the Martyr Zubairi School in Hudaydah city, al-Hudaydah governorate. It is unknown if there were casualties from the blast.[2546] Reported attacks on schools were slightly fewer in 2016 than in 2015. The UN verified one-third of the attacks, as it had the previous year, including 33 incidents affecting 30 schools in 2016. Air strikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition damaged the majority (28) of these schools, while the Houthis were reportedly responsible for four and the Yemeni Armed Forces for one.[2547] According to information shared by local sources and media reports, there were at least 70 reported but unverified attacks on schools that year.[2548] One school in Taizz was repeatedly bombed on approximately a dozen different days between January and December 2016.[2549] Although data on casualties resulting from attacks on schools were scarce, at least several attacks were deadly. For example: Mortars fired by suspected Houthi-Saleh forces struck a school in Taizz governorate on June 8, 2016, according to media sources. Five people were killed in the attack, but it was not clear whether they were students or education personnel. [2550] On August 13, 2016, according to information verified by the UN, at least 7 children were killed and approximately 21 injured in a Saudi-led coalition air strike on a school in Haydan, Saada governorate, where Houthi-Saleh forces were active.[2551] The UN verified at least nine attacks on schools in 2017.[2552] According to information from Human Rights Watch and media reports, both the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi-Saleh forces were responsible for attacks throughout the year. For example: On January 10, 2017, an air strike on an informal gas station near al-Faleh School killed two students and a school administrator and wounded three other children. The attack also damaged the school's windows, electrical wires, and speakers. [2553] According to the Independent, an opposition news agency reported that a second school was struck by a Saudi-led coalition air strike outside Sana'a on January 22, 2017. [2554] A local activist told Human Rights Watch that there was one attack near a school on May 21, 2017, when Houthi-Saleh forces were shelling the area. [2555] According to information shared by an international humanitarian organization, armed men attacked schools in eight instances in October 2017, in an attempt to force their education personnel to engage in a strike demanding higher teacher salaries. [2556] An international humanitarian organization also reported to GCPEA that around November 2017, principals and several district heads of education reported increased threats against schools on social media. For example, several schools had received WhatsApp messages threating that they would be bombed if girls continued to attend school.[2557] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel From 2013 to 2017, attacks on students, teachers, and other education personnel in Yemen included killings, torture, assaults, illegal detention, and threats of violence in forms similar to those highlighted in the 2014 issue of Education under Attack. The total number approximately 100 students and education personnel harmed by targeted attacks were also consistent with the levels reported in Education under Attack 2014. Gunfire and other types of violent attacks killed and injured students and teachers in sporadically reported incidents in 2013. For example: According to the UN, on February 23, 2013, Houthi-Saleh fighters allegedly entered Al-Emam Al-Hady School in Saada governorate and demanded to use the school to temporarily detain a prisoner. When school administrators refused to allow the prisoner to enter, the group opened fire, injuring one teacher. [2558] Media sources reported that on April 4, 2013, armed assailants beat the principal of Al-Fatah School in Al-Hashwah district with the butts of their rifles. Local sources claimed that Houthi forces were responsible for the attack, which was carried out in retaliation for the principal prohibiting students from chanting a Houthist slogan.[2559] Sporadic reports of targeted killings and abductions continued into 2014. For example: According to media reports, on February 23, 2014, armed assailants allegedly from Ansar al-Sharia, a subgroup of al Qaeda, opened fire on a group of Houthi-affiliated teachers in Al Bayda governorate, killing two. The teachers did not appear to be at school when the attack occurred. [2560] The same media source reported that Houthi forces abducted two teachers on July 13, 2014, in Saada city, and unknown assailants exploded a device under a school vehicle in Amran, just north of Sana'a, killing six people and wounding four others on September 11, 2014. [2561] It was unclear how many of those killed or injured in the second attack were students or education personnel. The UN verified that on December 16, 2014, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb near a primary school bus close to a Houthi checkpoint in Radaa city, Al Bayda governorate, killing at least 9 children and injuring 24.[2562] Reported violence individually targeting students and education personnel escalated in 2015, harming close to 50 individuals in documented attacks. For example: Media sources reported that on April 9, 2015, suspected assailants affiliated with Houthi forces entered a religious school in Yarim, Ibb governorate, and abducted the director and 15 students. Their whereabouts were still unknown as of May 2017. [2563] The Human Rights Council, UNICEF, and Save the Children each reported that on August 18, 2015, unidentified jets struck a teachers' office in Amran in an air strike, killing 13 Ministry of Education personnel and four of the teachers' children. Twenty people were killed and seventeen injured, including five children. [2564] According to Education International, the teachers had gathered after school to prepare exams for thousands of children who had missed the end of the school year, due to continued fighting. [2565] The Education Cluster provided information that on November 4, 2015, a stray bullet injured a primary school girl in her shoulder while she played during recess at Dar Sa'ad School in Aden.[2566] According to the Taizz-based Research and Education Resources Information Centre, there were 16 incidents of children killed on their way to or from school in 2016.[2567] Students and teachers also were reported abducted in at least two incidents: According to media sources, fourteen civilians, including five teachers and two students, were allegedly abducted by suspected Houthis on April 27, 2016, in al-Taizziyah district, Taizz governorate. The outcome of the kidnapping was unknown at the time of writing. [2568] On September 20, 2016, armed assailants thought to be Houthi-Saleh fighters entered the classroom of an English-language school in Sana'a and kidnapped an American teacher. The outcome of the kidnapping was unknown at the time of writing.[2569] In 2017 there were three reported attacks on students or education personnel: On January 5, 2017, the Gulf News wrote that a shell fired by Houthi forces killed one primary school student and injured another as they were walking home from school. [2570] This incident was not documented or verified by the UN. An international humanitarian organization reported that on September 13, 2017, an army commander attacked an education office in Al-Dali governorate after threatening the director of education. [2571] The international humanitarian organization also reported that armed men forced the Tawahi district education office in Aden to close for reasons related to salary demands.[2572] Military use of schools and universities Armed forces and various non-state armed groups used dozens of schools as detention centers and barracks, resulting in damage and destruction. According to UN reports, military use of schools was documented more often in 2014 than in previous years. It is unclear whether this trend was related to actual changes in military use or to changing access to information. Several different groups reportedly used schools in 2013. For example: The US Department of State, citing international NGOs, reported that Houthi groups used an unreported number of schools as detention centers in 2013. [2573] The UN documented but did not verify the use of a school in Amran as barracks for Yemeni armed forces from January 19 to March 1, 2013. The same report stated that militias associated with the Al-Osimat and Qaflat Uthar tribes used and destroyed four schools in Amran in 2013. 2574 The UN also reported but did not verify that Houthi forces and the Salafists used four schools as barracks and firing positions during clashes, leading to the schools' subsequent closure in October 2013.[2575] The report did not indicate which Salafist groups used the schools. The UN verified that armed forces and groups used 92 schools during 2014. Houthi fighters were responsible for the majority of this use.[2576] The US Department of State reported that in May, June, and July 2014, Houthi forces seized several schools in Amran, using them as barracks and detention centers.[2577] The group vacated 25 schools by the year's end in response to government and UN interventions.[2578] Non-state armed groups also allegedly used universities during 2014. For example: Scholars at Risk reported that on September 20, 2014, Houthi fighters took control of Sana'a's Al-Imam University, seizing it from government security forces who had closed and occupied the university since earlier in the week. [2579] One month later, on October 29, 2014, Houthis occupied Dhamar University campus, also in Sana'a. Also according to Scholars at Risk, the Houthis claimed that their intention was to stop corruption at the university.[2580] The UN verified 84 cases of military use of educational facilities in 2015.[2581] Of the 51 cases reported in the UN Secretary-General's annual report, 44 cases took place in Taizz city, where Houthi-Saleh forces were responsible for the greatest number of cases of military use (20). Popular committees such as tribal groups, some of which supported the Yemeni army while others supported the Houthi forces, were responsible for eight cases, and unknown armed groups were responsible for 16 cases. Houthi-Saleh forces also used schools in the cities of Aden, Dali, and Lahj.[2582] For example, according to Human Rights Watch, Houthis were using a girls' secondary school in Sana'a as a food distribution center at the beginning of the year. The school had been damaged in air strikes, which local residents believed had targeted the school because of the Houthi presence.[2583] Armed groups also occupied at least two universities in 2015, according to information reported to OHCHR but not verified: On May 6, 2015, a Houthi-affiliated sniper used the roof of the Education College building in Al-Humaira village, Al-Dhali, as a firing position. [2584] On September 2, 2015, Houthi-affiliated fighters and forces loyal to the former president of Yemen took up fighting positions on the campus of Taizz University, according to the same source.[2585] There were significantly fewer reports of military use in 2016, when the UN verified that 12 schools were occupied by armed forces and armed groups. Houthis-Saleh forces reportedly were responsible for six cases of occupation, the Popular Resistance was responsible for four cases, and the Yemeni Armed Forces and Ansar al-Sharia were each responsible for one.[2586] According to a report by Al Jazeera, military use appeared particularly prominent in Taizz city, where the Houthi-affiliated Popular Resistance armed group was allegedly using approximately 30 schools as of November 2016.[2587] Human Rights Watch reported that the al-Noor Center for the Care and Rehabilitation of the Blind, a boarding school for blind students in Sana'a and Yemen's only educational center for students with visual impairments, was damaged because of military use. On January 5, 2016, a bomb dropped by the Saudi-led coalition reportedly hit the school compound. At the time of the strike, Houthi-Saleh forces were based near the school, housed fighters in the school, and had established an office in its kindergarten. Two school staff members, an 18-year-old student, and a local resident were wounded. Although the bomb did not detonate, its impact broke windows and blew out doors in the school.[2588] In February 2017, Save the Children reported that 24 schools were being used for military purposes. The vast majority of these schools (21) were located in Taizz governorate. Save the Children did not report who was responsible for using the schools.[2589] In December 2017, OCHA reported that 23 out of the 24 schools were still occupied by armed groups.[2590] As of September 2017, the UN had verified one case of school occupation so far that year.[2591] An international humanitarian organization reported that an armed gang was using part of a secondary school yard in Tawahi district, Aden, in June 2017, and that the army was using Omar bin Abdul Aziz School in Karesh, Lahj, in August 2017.[2592] Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school Child recruitment was reported between 2013 and 2017, as it was between 2009 and mid-2013, especially by the Houthi forces. Most available information did not indicate the extent to which such recruitment took place in schools, making it difficult to compare reporting periods.[2593] However, at least one case of child recruitment at school was documented in Sana'a. In January 2017, Amnesty International documented eyewitness reports that two boys had been recruited by a Houthi member at a Quranic school. They were later returned to their families.[2594] This incident was not documented or verified by the UN. Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school At least two incidents of sexual violence reportedly affected female students between 2013 and 2017: One unverified media report alleged that Houthi fighters threatened to strip a female university student naked in December 2014 if she did not comply with their orders to wear a cloak that fully covered her body. [2595] A women's journalist group alleged that Houthi gunmen were responsible for sexual assaulting students and teachers at a girls' school in Sana'a on April 17, 2017, after the students and teachers refused to chant the group's slogan.[2596] Attacks on higher education Throughout the reporting period there were over 100 reported attacks on institutions, scholars, and students of higher education in Yemen, based on information compiled by GCPEA. These attacks included explosives and air strikes, as well as violent repression of protests.[2597] Reports of attacks on university infrastructure were significantly more common during the 2013-2017 reporting period than in 2009-2013, while reports of targeted attacks on personnel and students remained constant between the two periods. In 2013 there were two media reports of attacks on higher education personnel, according to media sources: On May 24, 2013, unidentified gunmen reportedly opened fire on the car of the vice president of Hajjah University in Abs district, Hajjah governorate. It is unknown whether he was injured in the attack. [2598] On June 11, 2013, suspected al Qaeda members allegedly kidnapped a Dutch couple who worked at the Lebanese International University in Sana'a. The group let the couple go for unknown reasons six months later, on December 11, 2013.[2599] There were at least four reported attacks on higher education institutions in 2014 and at least six reported attacks on university students and personnel, affecting at least more than 40 individuals.[2600] For example, according to news sources, on September 20, 2014, unidentified perpetrators detonated a device near Iman University in Sana'a city, Amanat al-Asimah governorate, killing at least three people.[2601] Among the reported attacks on university students and personnel in 2014 were several cases of hostage-taking and abductions of university students and personnel, according to media reports. For example: On October 1, 2014, unidentified assailants reportedly stormed a university dormitory in Sana'a city and held an unreported number of students hostage for 10 days. Students attributed the attack to Houthi forces. [2602] On June 10, 2014 al Qaeda members allegedly abducted three al-Bayda University professors in Dhamar governorate and took them to Qayfah district. The group released two of the professors on July 31. The fate of the other was unknown. [2603] On December 20, 2014, suspected Houthi fighters allegedly kidnapped 30 students from Al-Qalam University in Ibb city, releasing them two days later.[2604] As with other forms of attacks on education, reported attacks on higher education intensified in 2015, coinciding with the onset of Saudi-led coalition air strikes. There were more than 100 attacks on higher education that year, including at least 87 air strikes affecting university buildings, according to information compiled from Watchlist and the Education Cluster. University buildings, infrastructure, students, and personnel were targeted in 2015, and they also suffered collateral damage.[2605] Reports of attacks on university facilities included the following: Media sources recorded that on October 26, 2015, armed 'IS' members distributed leaflets at the University of Aden, demanding gender segregation, a ban on music, and collective prayer sessions. [2606] On December 29, 2015, suspected Ayman Askar loyalists attacked the University of Aden because the university was coeducational. The assailants dragged students out of the buildings and detained two students for filming the incident.[2607] Media sources also reported several killings and kidnappings of professors and academics throughout 2015. For example: On January 18, 2015, assailants, reported to be Houthi fighters, attacked and killed a university professor in Al-Dali City. [2608] The same source reported the abduction of five students from Dhamar University, Dhamar governorate, by unidentified assailants in August 2015. [2609] Also in August 2015, al Qaeda detained university students in al-Mukalla city, Hadramawt governorate, because their university was coeducational, but released them several hours later.[2610] Both government security forces and non-state armed groups targeted university students during protests in 2015. For example: Human Rights Watch reported that on January 25, 2015, at least 15 members of the police and Special Security Forces stormed Sana'a University and shot in the direction of 15 to 20 students who were petitioning to have an exam postponed because of increasing conflict in Sana'a city. The next day, Houthi supporters blocked the gates to Sana'a University, preventing students from going to class. [2611] Scholars at Risk alleged that Houthi fighters repeatedly attacked protesters in and around the University of Sana'a in late January 2015.[2612] In one instance the group detained around 12 students, protesters, and activists, in addition to two reporters.[2613] The number of documented attacks targeting higher education appeared to decline in 2016 and 2017. GCPEA found reports of 11 incidents during the two years, which included air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition on seven universities, colleges, and vocational schools in Sana'a, Saada, Hudaydeh, and Amran.[2614] In addition, non-state armed groups were reportedly responsible for two attacks on university students and personnel in 2016 and 2017: In November 2016, Houthis attacked peaceful protesters at Sana'a University, where academics were protesting a three-month delay of salary payments. [2615] In 2017, according to Reuters, a gunman shot Amgad Abdulrahman, a law student, in an Internet cafe in Aden city on June 26, 2017. Abdulrahman was a member of a secular student and intellectual cultural club that had come under pressure from members of extremist groups. Reuters reported that his involvement in these clubs was the suspected reason for his killing, and that Abdulrahman had moderated a debate on women's conditions in Aden a few weeks before being killed.[2616] 2524 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2012, Yemen chapter. 2525 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2013 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2013), Yemen chapter. 2526 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015-Events of 2014 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2015), Yemen chapter. Charles Schmitz, "The rise of Yemen's Houthi rebels," BBC News, February 28, 2015. This profile uses "Houthi-Saleh forces" for attacks that occurred between May 2015, when Saleh announced the alliance with the Houthis, until the splintering of the alliance in late 2017. Prior to May 2015, the Houthi-Saleh forces are called "Houthi forces." 2527 Dan Roberts and Kareem Shaheen, "Saudi Arabia launches Yemen air strikes as alliance builds against Houthi rebels," Guardian, March 26, 2015. 2528 AP, "More than 50 die in clashes in Yemen's besieged Taiz," Al Arabiya English, March 12, 2016. Mohammed Ali Kalfood, "In Yemen, Saudi-Led Intervention Gives Rise to New Armed Religious Faction," Intercept, April 26, 2016. 2529 Patrick Wintour, "Yemen Houthi rebels kill former president Ali Abdullah Saleh," Guardian, December 4, 2017. 2530 Information provided by a UN respondent, September 17, 2017. UNICEF, Children on the Brink: The Impact of Violence and Conflict on Yemen and Its Children (Sana'a: UNICEF, March 29, 2016), p 3. OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview: Yemen (Sana'a: OCHA, November 2016), p. 30. 2531 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2018: Yemen (Sana'a: OCHA, December 2017), p. 47. 2532 OCHA, Yemen Governorate Dashboard (Sana'a: OCHA, August 2017), pp. 1, 18, 21, 23. 2533 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2018: Yemen, p. 47. 2534 Information provided by a UN respondent, September 17, 2017. 2535 Yemen Education Cluster, Yemen Education Status, Presented to the Education Cluster Forum (Sana'a: Yemen Education Cluster, April 2017), p. 3. 2536 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 158. 2537 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2013: Yemen," p. 3. 2538 "Yemen: Roundup of Security Incidents 1 January 2014," OSC Summary, December 31, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201312310017. 2539 UN General Assembly and UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926*-S/2015/409*, para. 212. 2540 Information provided by a UN respondent, September 17, 2017. 2541 UN General Assembly and UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836-S/2016/360, para. 171. 2542 Information shared by the Education Cluster via email, February 6, 2017. Information shared by Watchlist, April 24, 2017. 2543 Information shared by Human Rights Watch, May 30, 2016. 2544 Information shared by a UN respondent, September 17, 2017. 2545 Belkis Wille, "Kids Are Paying the Price for Yemen's War," Human Rights Watch news release, June 11, 2015. 2546 "Terrorist attacks target several areas in Hodeidah," Saba News, November 14, 2015. 2547 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 194. 2548 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2549 Information provided by Watchlist, April 24, 2017. 2550 "Yemen: Political Roundup 2000 GMT 11 June 2016," Summary, June 10, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201606080023. 2551 Information provided by a UN respondent, September 17, 2017. "Yemen: 'Ten Children Killed' in Attack on School," Al Jazeera, August 14, 2016. Shuaib Almosawa and Rod Nordland, "Saudi Coalition Airstrikes in Yemen Kill at Least 19, Mostly Children," New York Times, August 13, 2016. 2552 Information provided by a UN respondent, September 17, 2017. 2553 "Yemen: Saudi-Led Coalition Airstrike Near School," Human Rights Watch news release, February 16, 2017. 2554 Bethan McKernan, "Saudi-led coalition air strikes 'hit Yemen school,'" Independent, January 22, 2017. 2555 "Yemen: Artillery Attacks Kill Civilians in Taizz," Human Rights Watch news release, August 9, 2017. 2556 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email, December 10, 2017. 2557 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email, December 10, 2017. 2558 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in Yemen," S/2013/383, June 28, 2013, para. 51. 2559 "Selection List: Yemeni Press 5 Apr 13," Yemen OSC Summary, April 4, 2013," as cited in START, GTD, 201304040003. 2560 "Yemeni teachers are gunned down in al-Baydha," Yemen Post, February 24, 2014." as cited in START, GTD, 201402230023. 2561 "Yemen: Roundup of Security Incidents 14 July 2014," OSC Summary, July 13, 2014," as START, GTD 201407130042. "13 Houthi Killed in Three Bombings in Northern Yemen," Latin American Herald Tribune, September 12, 2014. "Security source: 7 civilians killed, 12 injured in Amran explosions," Yemen News Agency, September 12, 2014. "Explosions rock Yemen Amran governorate killing seven," Yemen Post, September 11, 2014. 2562 Information provided by a UN respondent, September 17, 2017. Ahmed Al-Haj, AP, "2 bombers kill 26 including 16 students in Yemen," San Diego Union-Tribune, December 16, 2014. AFP, "Yemen car bomb attack kills 25, including 15 children," Ma'an News Agency, December 16, 2014. Kareem Fahim, "Car Bombs in Yemen Kill Dozens, Including Schoolchildren," New York Times, December 16, 2014. 2563 "Yemen's Houthis abduct 16 from religious school," Middle East Eye, April 9, 2015. 2564 Information provided by a UN respondent, September 17, 2017. "Statement by Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director, on Attack on Teachers' Office in Yemen," UNICEF, August 19, 2015. Save the Children, Nowhere Safe for Yemen's Children: The Deadly Impact of Explosive Weapons in Yemen (London: Save the Children, December 1, 2015), p. 7. UN General Assembly, "Situation of Human Rights in Yemen: Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights," A/HRC/33/38*, August 4, 2016, p. 26. 2565 "Yemen: Teachers and Children Killed in Attack," Education International, August 21, 2015. 2566 Information shared by the Education Cluster on January 5, 2017. 2567 "Salary crisis puts 13,000 schools in Yemen at risk of closure," Middle East Monitor, August 24, 2017. 2568 "Yemen: Security Roundup 2000 GMT 27 April 2016," Summary, April 27, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201604270003. Yemen: Security Roundup 2000 GMT 28 April 2016," Summary, April 28, 2016. 2569 "Gunmen abduct American teacher in Yemen: colleagues," Reuters, September 21, 2016. "Gunmen Detain Popular American English Teacher in Yemen," VoA, September 20, 2016. 2570 "20 people killed in two days of fighting in Yemen's Taiz," Gulf News, January 6, 2017. 2571 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email, December 10, 2017. 2572 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email, December 10, 2017. 2573 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2013: Yemen," p. 15. 2574 UN General Assembly and UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878-S/2014/339, para. 159. 2575 UN General Assembly and UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878-S/2014/339, para. 159. 2576 UN General Assembly and UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926*-S/2015/409*, para. 214. 2577 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Yemen," p. 16. 2578 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926*S/2015/409*, para. 214. 2579 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Sana'a University/Al-Iman University, September 20, 2014. 2580 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Dhamar University, October 29, 2014. 2581 Information provided by a UN respondent, September 17, 2017. 2582 UN General Assembly and UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836-S/2016/360, para. 172. 2583 Wille, "Kids Are Paying the Price." 2584 UN General Assembly, "Situation of Human Rights in Yemen: Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights," A/HRC/30/31, September 7, 2015, para. 38. 2585 UN General Assembly, "Situation of Human Rights in Yemen," A/HRC/33/38*, p. 29. 2586 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, paras. 196. 2587 Nasser Al-Sakkaf, "Yemen's children struggle to study amid war," Al Jazeera, November 13, 2016. 2588 "Yemen: Houthis Endangered School for Blind," Human Rights Watch news release, January 13, 2016. 2589 Save the Children, Yemen's Forgotten Children, p. 4. 2590 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2018: Yemen, p. 47. 2591 Information provided by a UN respondent, September 17, 2017. 2592 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email, December 10, 2017. 2593 Information provided by Human Rights Watch, May 30, 2016. 2594 "Yemen: Huthi forces recruiting child soldiers for front-line combat," Amnesty International, February 28, 2017. 2595 "The story of Heba Althabahni a student in Sana'a University and the Hoothi threats to her", Arabic Page, December 5, 2014. 2596 "Houthi militia storms female school in Sana'a and assaults students and teachers physically and indecently," Women Journalists Without Chains, April 17, 2017. 2597 For example, see Sultan Barakat and Sansom Milton, "Houses of Wisdom Matter: The Responsibility to Protect and Rebuild Higher Education in the Arab World," Brookings Doha Center, July 2015, p. 3. Scholars at Risk, Free to Think 2015, p. 30. 2598 "Yemen: Roundup of Security Incidents 25 May 13," OSC Summary, May 24, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201305240036. 2599 AFP, "Dutch Couple 'Disappears' in Yemen, Said Kidnapped," Yahoo News, June 15, 2013. Shaher Abdulhak Saleh, "Yemen journalist syndicate condemns the kidnapping of foreign journalists," Yemen Post, July 2, 2013. "Dutch couple held hostage released in Yemen," Al Jazeera, December 10, 2013. 2600 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2601 "Yemeni president calls for ceasefire with rebels," Deutsche Welle, September 20, 2014. 2602 "Yemen: Open Source Security Highlights 12 October 2014," OSC Summary, October 11, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201410010106. 2603 "Top News: July Marks One Of The Deadliest Months In Iraq," Atlantic Council, August 1, 2014. "Yemen: Roundup of Security Incidents 18 June 2014," OSC Summary, June 17, 2014;" "Mediation presidential succeed in the release of two academics from the hands of "Ansar al-Sharia" and retain the third," Al Masdar Online, July 31, 2014," as cited in STARTGTD 201406100025. 2604 "Yemen: Open Source Security Highlights 22 December 2014," OSC Summary, December 21, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201412220086. 2605 "Suicide bomber attacks Yemeni university," Anadolu Agency, November 10, 2015. "Suicide bomber blows himself up in Ibb," Yemen News Agency, November 10, 2015. Saeed Al-Batati, "Fighting continues in Taiz despite Yemen ceasefire: Sources," Middle East Eye, December 15, 2015. "Recording dozens of violations of the truce by militia coup in the Yemeni province of Taiz," Saudi Press Agency, December 15, 2015. 2606 AFP, "Jihadists demand segregation at Yemen university," Qatar Peninsula, October 26, 2015. "Gunmen demand gender segregation at Yemen university," New Arab, October 26, 2015. 2607 "Gunmen shut university faculties for mixing of sexes," University World News, January 9, 2016. AFP, "Aden army commander survives Yemen bombing," Gulf Times, December 31, 2015. AFP, "Gunmen shut Yemen faculties for mixing of sexes," Lebanon Daily Star, December 29, 2015. 2608 "Top Ansarullah official gunned down in western Yemen," Iranian Diplomacy, January 18, 2015. "Academic shot dead in southern Yemen," World Bulletin, January 18, 2015. "Yemen: Open Source Security Highlights 19 January 2015," OSC Summary, January 18, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201501180019. 2609 "Yemen: Security Roundup 2000 GMT 8 Aug 2015," OSC Summary, August 8, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201508080071. 2610 "Gulf of Aden Security Review-December 7, 2015," Critical Threats, December 7, 2015. 2611 "Yemen: Security Forces, Militia Abuse Protesters," Human Rights Watch news release, February 22, 2015. 2612 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Sana'a University, January 30, 2015. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Sana'a University, January 26, 2015. 2613 "Yemen's Houthi rebels storm Sana'a University," Al Arabiya, January 26, 2015. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Sana'a University, January 26, 2015. 2614 Information provided by the Education Cluster, February 6, 2017. Information provided by Watchlist, April 24, 2017. 2615 "Houthis attack Sana'a University protesters," Al Arabiya, November 13, 2016. 2616 Aziz El Yaakoubi, "Secular Yemenis live in fear after student is killed in Aden," Reuters, June 26, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Venezuela Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Venezuela, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be942fca.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Attacks on education in Venezuela took the form of violent repression of university student protests, as government forces accompanied by armed civilian groups used teargas, rubber bullets, and live bullets against demonstrators. Security forces also reportedly arrested and detained hundreds of students and higher education personnel. Context Venezuela's political and social context was increasingly unstable after the death of President Hugo Chavez in March 2013 and the ascent of Vice President Nicolas Maduro to the presidential office. Chavez had made efforts to accumulate power in the executive branch and used it to repress dissent. During Maduro's rule, reforms to consolidate the concentration of power in the executive branch were progressively implemented, until the government-controlled Supreme Court stripped the legislature of its authority and formed a Constituent Assembly that took over the opposition-led parliament's functions in August 2017.[2477] Widespread anti-government protests, triggered by food shortages, restrictions on democracy, and insecurity, peaked from February to July 2014 and again from April to August 2017. Security forces violently quelled protests, often accompanied by armed civilian groups known as colectivos, which also used excessive force against unarmed protesters, including university students and other civilians.[2478] The UN Committee against Torture found that 3,306 protesters, including 400 adolescents, were detained between February and June 2014. The committee expressed concern over reports that detained protesters were tortured, and that the perpetrators went unpunished.[2479] OHCHR found similarly that more than 5,000 people were detained between April 1 and July 31, 2017, during which time violence progressively escalated and security forces moved from using teargas to guns against protesters, according to medical personnel.[2480] Security forces were also reported to be responsible for the arbitrary detention of students, and in some cases, of presenting them before military courts even though they were civilians.[2481] Once in detention, men and women protesters, as well as their relatives, were threatened with rape and other sexual and physical violence.[2482] The worsening humanitarian situation caused the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to other Latin American countries and the United States.[2483] The Associated Press reported that children lost an average of 40 percent of their class time during 2016.[2484] In 2017, loss of teaching personnel due to the economic and humanitarian crisis was reported in 90 percent of the nation's schools, and Miranda state reported 20 percent absenteeism at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year.[2485] In November 2015, there was a proposal that teachers and other education personnel form "combatant corps" to provide "assistance" to security forces during emergencies, including armed conflict.[2486] Reports indicated that the government used higher education as a political instrument by applying political pressure at universities and by vote-mongering on campuses in October 2015. For example, the director of the National Experimental Polytechnic University told professors that each of them was in charge of guaranteeing 10 votes for the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela) and ensuring that five students also guaranteed 10 votes, thereby making each professor responsible for 60 votes.[2487] Venezuela did not meet the criteria for inclusion in Education under Attack 2014, so no comparison with the previous reporting period can be made. Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school or university Police forces were reportedly responsible for perpetrating sexual violence on at least one female student detained on a university campus. On July 2, 2017, Human Rights Watch reported that Venezuelan police detained students at the Universidad Pedagogica Experimental Libertador in Aragua state. The students' lawyer told Human Rights Watch that a police agent touched the female student's breasts, put her head close to his genitals, and told her, "This is what you like."2488 Attacks on higher education According to UN, NGO, and media reports, state security forces used widespread violence against university students who were protesting against the government. This violence occurred from February to July 2014 and from April to August 2017.[2489] It included physical attacks using teargas, rubber and live bullets, and other means, as well as arbitrary detention and imprisonment. 2490 State security forces, sometimes supported by colectivos, used teargas, rubber bullets, live ammunition, and explosive devices to crack down on student anti-government protests in 2014. In addition, hundreds of students were detained in connection with student and civilian anti-government protests, and as many as 331 students were reportedly abused while in police custody in February 2014 alone, according to Scholars at Risk.[2491] One year later, in 2015, Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz admitted that 27 people, including two students, were still in detention, according to Human Rights Watch.[2492] Violent attacks on university campuses or at student protests in 2014 included the following incidents, in which at least 38 students were injured and one killed: Security forces accompanied by colectivos used rubber bullets and teargas against students demonstrating at the Lisandro Alvarado Centro Occidental University in Barquisimeto, Lara state, on March 11, 2014, according to testimony collected by Human Rights Watch. [2493] Human Rights Watch also documented an attack by a colectivo member on March 19, 2014, when approximately 150 students were holding a student meeting in the lobby of the School of Architecture of the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. The students saw that eight men were replacing a nonpartisan banner they had hung from the building with a pro-government sign. As students started leaving the lobby, a man with a firearm entered, identified himself as part of a colectivo, and threw two teargas canisters into the remaining group of 50 students. More intruders arrived and beat the students with their fists, tubes, and sticks, as well as kicking them and forcing several of them to undress. At least 30 students were injured in the attack. [2494] Scholars at Risk and international media reported that on April 3, 2014, during a protest at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, state security forces used grenades and teargas to prevent students from leaving the campus to march through the city. Vigilantes also entered the campus and attacked students with metal pipes and other makeshift weapons, leaving at least three students severely injured. [2495] According to Scholars at Risk, on May 29, 2014, a student was shot and killed when police allegedly used live ammunition in a crackdown on a student protest near the campus of Rafael Belloso Chacin University in Maracaibo city, Zulia state. [2496] The campus of Fermin Toro University in Barquismeto, Lara state, experienced a series of three attacks in May and June 2014, according to Scholars at Risk. Pro-government assailants launched an arson attack on university buildings in mid-May. One month later, on June 10, 2014, security footage reportedly showed the same attackers launching teargas cans onto the campus, which caused respiratory problems for several students. [2497] Two days later unidentified assailants threw teargas canisters onto the campus, injuring 14 people. [2498] Scholars at Risk reported that on June 4, 2014, police tried to stop students outside the Metropolitan University in Caracas from protesting the use of police force and detention of fellow students. Students threw stones and firecrackers at the police, who reportedly responded with teargas and rubber bullets, injuring five students.[2499] GCPEA collected information on five incidents of security forces and colectivos using disproportionate violence against student protesters in 2015, a decrease from the previous year. In these five examples, at least 37 students were injured in attacks that used buckshot, teargas, and other means: According to Scholars at Risk, on January 15, 2015, security forces accompanied by colectivos raided the campus of Los Andes University, Tachira, firing steel shells, buckshot, teargas, pepper spray, and marbles at students. Twenty-two students were reportedly injured in the incident. [2500] Scholars at Risk and media sources reported that on February 25, 2015, students gathered on the Merida campus of Los Andes University to protest the death of a 14-year-old boy killed a day before in a confrontation between police and protesters in San Cristobal. Security forces reportedly fired buckshot into the crowd of students, injuring five. [2501] On October 25, 2015, education personnel and students from the Central University in Caracas attempted to march to protest unfair wages and demand quality education. Scholars at Risk and local media reported that the police prevented the march from proceeding by firing teargas into the crowd and pushing and kicking participants. [2502] According to local media and Scholars at Risk, on November 2, 2015, students from various universities gathered outside the vice president's office in Caracas to protest delays in the start of the semester, as classes were supposed to begin 63 days earlier but were postponed due to strikes over higher education budget cuts. The protest was dispersed by the police, who allegedly beat and injured 10 students. [2503] Scholars at Risk reported that two days later, as a group of university officials and students convened at the Central University in Caracas, unidentified hooded assailants used trash to barricade the doors of the building, preventing approximately 60 people from leaving. The assailants also vandalized university buildings.[2504] According to Scholars at Risk and the US Department of State, 2016 saw continued violence in four incidents involving looting and robbing of the Institute of Tropical Medicine at the Central University in Caracas, and three attacks on university student protesters by national security forces using teargas, buckshot, and other means, as in previous years. GCPEA also gathered information relating to at least one incident in which a professor was detained and threatened by police and armed assailants. For example: There were four attacks on the Institute of Tropical Medicine at the Central University in Caracas during 2016. On February 29 and March 1, unidentified assailants raided the laboratories, stealing a total of 25 computers in addition to microwaves, printers, and other equipment. The intruders also destroyed microscopes and a camera. University personnel alleged that colectivos were responsible for the robberies. [2505] On July 4, 2016, unidentified individuals reportedly entered the institute and stole computers, equipment, drinking water, clothes, and approximately 20 years of research and patient data. One week later, on July 11, unknown assailants reportedly entered the university again and stole medical supplies and equipment. [2506] On March 31, 2016, police officers temporarily detained Professor Benjamin Scharifker, rector of the Metropolitan University in Caracas, while he was out jogging in the morning. Professor Scharifker was taken to his home in a police car and questioned about his identity and profession, while unknown armed individuals reportedly stood watch. The police then left his home. [2507] On May 18, 2016, students and education personnel of Los Andes University, Merida campus, reportedly gathered to protest working conditions and demand higher wages. Police tried to break up the protest using teargas, buckshot, and stones. Meanwhile, unidentified armed civilians on motorbikes allegedly broke into the university's Faculty of Medicine, where they shot and injured several students, set fire to two vehicles, looted offices, and stole computers. The police did nothing to stop this raid. [2508] On October 24, 2016, four days after the Venezuelan government suspended a recall referendum against President Maduro, students from the Central University in Caracas and other universities nationwide marched to protest the government's actions. The march reportedly left the Central University campus and was met by police who used teargas, pepper spray, and buckshot to force the students to disperse. At least 27 students were allegedly injured. [2509] On November 3, 2016, a Los Andes University student was detained in connection with the burning of a police vehicle during a demonstration. The student was reportedly arriving on campus for another protest when unidentified individuals forced him into an unmarked van and drove away. A fellow student who was also detained reported that, while detained, the assailants covered his face, threatened him with a gun, and interrogated him, before releasing him in the outskirts of Caracas 10 hours later.[2510] Government repression of dissent, including student protests worsened in 2017, peaking between April and July. Crackdowns, often violent, affected more students and personnel than in any previous year, and Human Rights Watch documented a pattern of abuse.[2511] An OHCHR report on the generalized violence in Venezuela between April 1 and July 31, 2017, found that the attorney general's office registered 124 deaths in connection with protests during that period. The majority of the 124 victims were students or people who had recently finished their education.[2512] The document also stated that medical personnel reported treating more injuries from teargas used by security forces against protesters at the beginning of this period, and more gunshot wounds inflicted by security forces in June and July.[2513] GCPEA collected information on at least 22 attacks in 2017. Over 200 people were reportedly injured or detained in this violence, although it was not clear that all of them were students. In one case, a student was killed.[2514] These attacks were reported by Scholars at Risk, Human Rights Watch, OHCHR, the media, and other sources, and included the following: On February 14, 2017, security forces opened fire and launched teargas into a group of student protesters at Los Andes University in Tachira. In addition, unidentified individuals threw explosive devices onto the campus and burned down a gate. Parts of the campus were damaged in the incident and 40 students were injured. [2515] On March 22, 2017, security forces and colectivos used teargas, bottles, and stones to disperse a Caracas march by the National Inter-Federal Command of the University Sector, a union of education professionals that was protesting the governments' failure to include them in education policy discussions. At least 16 participants were reportedly injured in the incident. [2516] According to OHCHR, security forces shot teargas onto the campuses of the Metropolitan University of Caracas and the Catholic University of Tachira between April 1 and July 31, 2017, for unspecified reasons. [2517] Police used teargas and shotgun pellets in response to a student anti-government protest at the Experimental University in Tachira on April 5, 2017. Twenty-one students were injured. [2518] A similar incident occurred one day later on the campus of the University of Carabobo in Valencia, where 27 students were reportedly injured. [2519] On May 4, 2017, a gunman entered a student assembly at the Territorial Polytechnic University in El Tigre and fired several shots into the group of students, reportedly killing one, leaving one in critical condition, and injuring two others. [2520] On May 24, 2017, security forces arrested and detained 18 students from Oriente University in Ciudad Bolivar. The students were protesting the armed forces' infringement on the university's autonomy. The eight female protesters were released on the same day they were detained, and the 10 male protesters were held for an unknown period of time. [2521] According to Human Rights Watch, on June 22, 2017, security forces and colectivos entered the Sucre campus of Oriente University. The colectivos destroyed several classrooms before detaining seven students and handing them over to security forces, who charged them with the intention to commit a crime and released them on the condition that they not participate in further protests. [2522] On the morning of July 2, 2017, security forces entered the Libertador Experimental Pedagogical University in Ciudad Bolivar, according to information obtained by Human Rights Watch. The national forces beat multiple students and university security personnel and detained at least 27 students, who were sent to military court. The court held the students there until 7 AM on July 4 for an all-night hearing, during which they were charged with instigating rebellion. The 22 male detainees were reportedly sent to prison and the 5 women were put under house arrest. News sources reported that family members were unable to visit the detainees.[2523] 2477 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015, Venezuela chapter. "Joint statement: Venezuela's Crisis Should be a Human Rights Council Priority," Human Rights Watch and other NGOs, September 8, 2017. "Final Curtain for Venezuela's Democracy as Parliament is Dissolved," ICG, August 22, 2017. 2478 Human Rights Watch, Punished for Protesting. Amnesty International, Annual Report 2015/16: Venezuela, pp. 395-397. Human Rights Watch, Crackdown on Dissent: Brutality, Torture, and Political Persecution in Venezuela (New York: Human Rights Watch, November 2017). 2479 UN Committee against Torture, "Concluding observations on the combined third and fourth periodic reports of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela," CAT/C/VEN/CO/3-4, December 12, 2014, paras. 8, 9, 10. 2480 OHCHR, "Human rights violations and abuses in the context of protests in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela from 1 April to 31 July 2017," August 2017, pp. ii, 8-9. 2481 Runrunes, "Detainees submitted to military justice for looting and protests in Carabobo" ("Someten a justicia militar a detenidos por saqueos y protestas en Carabobo"), May 5, 2017. 2482 OHCHR, "Human rights violations and abuses," p. 19. 2483 "Venezuelan Immigration to Ecuador," post to Venezuela Crisis, Human Rights Watch blog feed Human Rights Watch blog feed, January 11, 2018. 2484 Hannah Dreier, "No food, no teachers, violence in failing Venezuela schools," AP, June 17, 2016. 2485 "More empty desks in Venezuelan classrooms amid economic crisis," Agencia EFE, September 29, 2017. 2486 Maria Emilia Jorge M., "Reports that the Ministry of Education proposed the formation of militias in schools" ("Denuncian que el Ministerio de Educacion propuso formar milicias en escuelas"), El Nacional, November 22, 2015. 2487 "Director of a Venezuelan university obliges people to gather votes for Chavism"("El rector de una universidad venezolana obliga a juntar votos para el chavismo"), Infobae, October 28, 2015. Yaileth Arguelles, "Unefa professors are forced to get votes for Chavism"("Exigen a profesores de Unefa conseguirvotos para chavismo"), LaVerdad.com, October 26, 2015. 2488 Human Rights Watch, Crackdown on Dissent, p. 71. 2489 Human Rights Watch, Punished for Protesting. Human Rights Watch, Crackdown on Dissent. 2490 Scholars at Risk, Free to Think 2017, pp. 26-27. 2491 Scholars at Risk, Free to Think 2015, p. 22. 2492 "Venezuela: New Military Authority to Curb Protests," Human Rights Watch news release, February 12, 2015. 2493 Human Rights Watch, Punished for Protesting, p. 13. 2494 Human Rights Watch, Punished for Protesting, pp. 89-90. 2495 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Universidad Central de Venezuela, April 3, 2014. AP, "Correction: Venezuela-Unrest story," Yahoo News, April 4, 2014. 2496 Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitor, University Rafael Belloso Chacin, May 29, 2014. 2497 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, University Fermin Toro/Barquisimeto, June 10, 2014. 2498 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, University Fermin Toro/Barquisimeto, June 12, 2014. 2499 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Metropolitan University/Santa Maria University, June 4, 2014. 2500 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Los Andes/Tachira, January 15, 2015. 2501 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Los Andes, February 25, 2015. "Five injuries reported in student protests in Merida"("Reportan cinco heridos en protestas estudiantiles en Merida"), El Universal, February 25, 2015. 2502 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Universidad Central de Venezuela, October 20, 2015. "March 'for the university dignity' in UCV was repressed by the PNB"("Caminata 'por la dignidad universitaria' en la UCV fue reprimida por la PNB"), Confirmado, October 20, 2015. 2503 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Universidad Central de Venezuela, November 2, 2015. "University Student Protest outside the Vice President's Office Repressed" ("Reprimen protesta de estudiantes universitarios frente a la Vicepresidencia"), La Patilla, November 2, 2015. "Protest by students demanding the beginning of classes is repressed" ("Reprimen protesta de estudiantes que exigen inicio de clases"), Analitica.com, November 2, 2015. 2504 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Universidad Central de Venezuela, November 5, 2015. 2505 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Universidad Central de Venezuela, February 29, 2016. 2506 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Universidad Central de Venezuela, February 29, 2016. 2507 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Universidad Metropolitana, March 31, 2016. 2508 US State Department et al., "Human Rights Report 2016-Venezuela," p. 21. Scholars at Risk Academic, Freedom Monitor, Universidad de los Andes, May 18, 2016. 2509 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Central University of Venezuela, October 24, 2016. 2510 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Los Andes November 3, 2016. 2511 Human Rights Watch, Crackdown on Dissent, pp. 1-4. 2512 OHCHR, "Human rights violations and abuses," p. 10. 2513 OHCHR, "Human rights violations and abuses," pp. 8-9. 2514 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2515 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Los Andes, February 14, 2017. 2516 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Various Institutions, March 22, 2017. 2517 OHCHR, "Human rights violations and abuses," p. 9. 2518 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Tachira Experimental University, April 5, 2017. 2519 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Carabobo, April 6, 2017. 2520 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Territorial Polytechnic University Jose Antonio Anzoategui, May 4, 2017. "Socialist Venezuelan Student Leader Killed After Backing Maduro," Telesur TV, May 6, 2017. 2521 "Repression in Ciudad Bolivar violated the autonomy of the Dean of UDO"("Represion en Ciudad Bolivar violo autonomia del decanato de la UDO"), El Correo del Orinoco, May 24, 2017. 2522 "Jailing University Students," post to Venezuela Crisis, Human Rights Watch blog feed, July 24, 2017. 2523 "Jailing University Students," post to Venezuela Crisis, Human Rights Watch blog feed Human Rights Watch blog feed. Education Under Attack 2018 - Turkey Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Turkey, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be942fea.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. According to Turkey's Ministry of National Education, approximately 100 schools were partially or fully damaged in the southeastern part of the country and some teachers were reportedly abducted. More than 300 higher education personnel were detained, and several dozen protesting students and educators were arrested or injured. Several schools in the southeast of the country were reportedly used for weapons storage. Context Violence intensified in the southeast of Turkey after peace negotiations between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which sought greater autonomy in Turkey, broke down in 2015.[2344] The Turkish government also detained or arrested journalists and academics for alleged affiliations to the PKK and other terrorist organizations.[2345] Most of those arrested were accused of being supporters of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose movement was termed a terrorist organization referred to as the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization, or FETO.[2346] The government and the courts accused Gulen and his followers of being responsible for an attempted coup on July 15, 2016.[2347] Media and NGO reports indicated that around 5,300 academics were suspended, another 2,300 were fired, and 15 private universities affiliated with the Gulen movement were closed as of September 2016. Many academics reportedly fled from Turkey due to a lack of employment or the perceived risks in staying.[2348] Among the academics affected were hundreds dismissed by universities after they signed a January 2016 declaration condemning the government's security operations in cities of the southeast.[2349] At the trials of those detained, which began in December 2017, more than 100 were charged with spreading terrorist propaganda.[2350] OHCHR found that more than 40,000 education personnel from the Ministry of National Education, most of them teachers, were dismissed or suspended, including 9,000 teachers working in Kurdish-speaking parts of the southeast, who were reportedly suspended due to their suspected ties to the PKK. 2351 The majority of the latter were later reinstated in their jobs.[2352] Attacks on education were more common and were increasingly reported throughout the current reporting period than in the period covered by Education under Attack 2014. Attacks on schools According to Turkey's minister of education, the PKK bombed or set fire to more than 100 schools.[2353] These numbers indicated an uptick in reported attacks on schools over the period covered in Education under Attack 2014. GCPEA identified between 5 and 15 reports of attacks on schools annually from 2014 through 2016, and one in 2017. Media sources reported at least 10 attacks on schools in 2014, including a series of coordinated arson attacks reportedly perpetrated by the PKK on primary and secondary schools in September. During these attacks, assailants reportedly threw incendiary devices into seven schools in Cizre district, Srnak province, and three schools in Yuksekova district, Hakkari province, on September 16 and 17, 2014. These attacks damaged school infrastructure but did not cause any injuries.[2354] There were at least 13 attacks on schools in 2015, as documented in media reports collated by GCPEA.[2355] For example: On September 26, 2015, assailants believed to be members of the PKK fired rockets and firearms at a gendarmerie station in Guce district, Giresun province. They reportedly struck a nearby school in the attack, killing four civilians. [2356] Media sources reported that on September 30, 2015, the PKK damaged the windows and gates of seven primary and middle schools in the Bulank district, Mus province. The damage was reported to be retaliation for the educational institutions' refusal to comply with the PKK's demand that schools refrain from opening at the beginning of the academic year. There were no reported casualties in these incidents. [2357] An IED reportedly exploded outside a school in Silvan district, Diyarbakr province, on October 8, 2015, killing one child and injuring three.[2358] GCPEA identified 12 attacks on schools in 2016, including incidents in which the PKK planted bombs in schoolyards and set schools on fire, as well as one rocket launched from Syria that struck a school in Turkey. These included: The PKK reportedly set fire to eight schools and a dormitory in Idil district, Srnak province, on January 14, 2016. [2359] On January 18, 2016, a rocket from an unknown source in Syria struck a school in Turkey's southern Kilis province, killing a female janitor and injuring a female student. [2360] Also on January 18, 2016, five children were reportedly wounded in a bomb attack that took place near an elementary school in Diyarbakr province, as they were playing in the schoolyard. [2361] On January 19, 2016, the PKK reportedly launched Molotov cocktails at two secondary schools in Van province. [2362] On June 19, 2016, the PKK reportedly detonated an IED at a nursery school in Van province, destroying most of it.[2363] At least one school was reported to be targeted in 2017. On October 3, 2017, Turkish security forces defused an IED at Sair Cahin Stk Taranc Elementary School in Yenisehir district, Diyarbakr province. Anadolu Agency attributed the attack to the PKK.[2364] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Beginning in 2015, police detained, arrested, or harmed more than 50 secondary school students and teachers in the context of protests at schools, including against the government's education policies, such as those on compulsory religion classes and the transformation of some secondary schools into religious vocational imam hatip schools.[2365] Both secondary students and university students participated in protests, but reports on the events did not always distinguish between the two groups, making it difficult to determine how many affected students were at the secondary or the university level. In multiple cases, teachers were arrested for alleged affiliation with the PKK, FETO, or groups designated as terrorist organizations by the Turkish government.[2366] There also were reports that a subgroup of the PKK was responsible for kidnapping almost two dozen teachers in 2015 and for killing one.[2367] The arrest of students and teachers was reported more commonly than in the period covered in Education under Attack 2014. Reports of abductions occurred at rates similar to those documented in Education under Attack 2014. Attacks on students and educators were sporadic in 2015, and included the following: In February 2015, police allegedly fired water cannons to disperse teachers, students, parents, and others who were demonstrating against government education policies. [2368] The Public Affairs Section of the US Consulate in Adana, Turkey, reported that a subgroup of the PKK abducted 23 teachers on October 7, 2015. These abductions occurred during attacks on four schools in the Silopi district, Srnak province. The teachers were released after several hours.[2369] During the last two years of the reporting period there were numerous reports of teachers arrested, and often dismissed from their jobs, for reasons related to their activism and alleged links with the FETO.[2370] For example: Human Rights Watch received reports that a 40-year-old male school teacher was detained by police in August 2016 and held in prison for at least a year, where he was reportedly threatened and beaten. [2371] According to the US State Department, on September 23, 2016, police broke up a teacher protest and detained 17 suspended teachers who were demonstrating in front of the Ministry of National Education provincial office in Diyarbakr city. The teachers had been protesting the mass suspension and dismissal of teachers after the coup attempt. [2372] A Turkish teacher and a Turkish academic were reportedly renditioned from Malaysia to Turkey in 2017, and upon their arrival in Turkey they were detained on charges of being FETO members, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. [2373] Human Rights Watch reported that, in April 2017, unidentified perpetrators likely to have been state agents abducted a former teacher who had been dismissed from his job under an emergency decree in Ankara, forcing him into a van. As of May 17, 2017, he was in detention pending trial on charges of being a member of FETO. [2374] On May 22, 2017, Semih Ozakca, a primary school teacher, and Nuriye Gulmen, a professor of literature, were arrested for their alleged membership in a terrorist group. [2375] Ozakca had joined Gulmen in a long-term hunger strike and sit-in in central Ankara, protesting their dismissal from their jobs. Their trial began in September 2017. [2376] Ozakca was released in October, and Gulmen was released in December. They ended their hunger strike in January 2018, but had not been reinstated to their jobs. [2377] The PKK confirmed media reports that in June 2017 it had abducted and killed a 23-year-old teacher, Necmettin Ylmaz, in Zaxge village, Tunceli province.[2378] The full circumstances of his death remained unexplained. Military use of schools There was some evidence of the Turkish army's presence inside schools in 2015 and 2016, as the government conducted security operations in the southeast of the country. These reports were new, as GCPEA did not identify any military use of educational institutions in Education under Attack 2014. According to reports received by OHCHR, the government deployed heavy armored vehicles in and around schools, such as Suleyman Nazif School in Diyarbakr province, between July 2015 and December 2016.[2379] Al Jazeera reported that a school used by Turkish security forces in Cizre town, Srnak province, was destroyed in March 2016.[2380] Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school There were anecdotal reports that the PKK was responsible for recruiting children during the current reporting period. GCPEA did not find reports of child recruitment from schools or along school routes during the previous reporting period, from 2009 through mid-2013. In May 2015, the human rights group Mazlum Der reported cases of recruitment of children from southeastern Turkey into the PKK.[2381] According to the Turkish Ministry of Interior, the PKK reportedly recruited a 15-year-old girl while she was on her way to school in Van. The girl said that when she saw a PKK member creating propaganda for the organization, he threatened to harm her family unless she joined the group. She joined the PKK that evening.[2382] Attacks on higher education Student and academic protests were common throughout the reporting period, and rights groups and media sources reported that police used excessive force to disperse demonstrations against national higher education policies and minority student rights. 'IS' was responsible for a particularly deadly attack on higher education that occurred in 2015. Largely because of the arrests that occurred in 2016 and 2017, incidents related to higher education occurred with significantly higher frequency than was reported in Education under Attack 2014. Between 2013 and 2015, there were reports that police sporadically used force against university student protesters and injured them. Reported incidents included the following: Scholars at Risk reported that on three occasions October 18, 21, and 26, 2013 riot police used teargas, stun grenades, and water cannons to disperse student protests at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, injuring several students. [2383] Scholars at Risk reported a series of incidents affecting minority university students that began on January 16, 2014, when an ultra-nationalist group physically assaulted a group of seven mainly leftist and Kurdish students on the Marmara University campus in Goztepe, Istanbul. Following the attack, students held a peaceful protest demanding stronger security on campus. According to Scholars at Risk, police fired water cannons, teargas, and plastic bullets at the protesters. [2384] According to Scholars at Risk, a lecturer at Gazi University and the general secretary of the Association of Academic Staff (TUMOD) was arrested for insulting President Erdogan during a TUMOD-organized panel discussion on May 23, 2015, in Izmir. He was sentenced on February 3, 2017, to serve nearly one year in prison.[2385] The deadliest attack against university students occurred on July 20, 2015, when a suspected 'IS' suicide bomber killed at least 30 people, according to Human Rights Watch and media sources. The attack occurred while student activists were gathered in Suruc city to make a press statement about a development assistance project.[2386] Arrests of academics became more common in 2016. In January, more than 1,100 scholars signed an Academics for Peace petition denouncing military operations in the southeast of Turkey.[2387] Several academic signatories reported receiving threats via social media, telephone, or at their universities, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.[2388] Scholars at Risk and media sources stated that dozens of other academics who signed the petition were arrested, charged with terrorism-related crimes, and required to resign from their positions. Government security forces also raided their homes.[2389] In mid-2016, the Turkish government began detaining and arresting academics, many of whom were accused of having connections to the Gulen movement.[2390] As of December 2016, the government had arrested 37,000 individuals, including soldiers, police officers, judges, prosecutors, academics, teachers, and other civil servants, for their suspected ties.[2391] Many of the government's actions did not constitute attacks on higher education as defined by GCPEA, but they did create an environment of fear. Scholars at Risk reported that throughout the rest of the year the government detained, arrested, dismissed, or banned from travel hundreds of higher education personnel.[2392] For instance, on July 19, 2016, government officials reportedly demanded the resignation of 1,577 deans from all universities in Turkey. Additionally, 19,828 academics were dismissed, suspended from their teaching positions, or forced into unemployment because their universities closed in the wake of the coup attempt, according to media reports.[2393] Actions that met GCPEA's definition of attacks on higher education were in the form of arrests and detentions. For example: On September 2, 2016, security forces arrested 15 academics and university personnel from Mustafa Kemal University on suspicion of connections to terrorist organizations, such as FETO, according to University World News. [2394] Scholars at Risk reported that, in late December 2016, 17 higher education personnel from Gediz University and Usak University were arrested and detained alleged involvement in the coup attempt. At least one professor's notes and scholarly writing were used as evidence against her.[2395] Arrests and detention of academics became even more common in 2017, according to information collected by GCPEA. In September 2017, University World News reported that Scholars at Risk had documented 49 incidents of detention, arrest, warrants issued, or wrongful prosecution of scholars, university personnel, or students. These incidents reportedly affected 1,308 people.[2396] Most were arrested in connection with on-campus activism or for alleged connections to terrorist groups or the Gulen movement during 2017. Incidents documented by Scholars at Risk or media sources included the following: According to Scholars at Risk, on January 4, 2017, private security forces beat seven students from Dokuz Eylul University after they publicly read a statement in response to the New Year's Eve attack on an Istanbul nightclub, for which 'IS' claimed responsibility. Afterward, police reportedly arrested and detained the seven students for one day. [2397] On March 30, 2017, police detained 37 students from Istanbul University who had participated in a peaceful demonstration commemorating the 45th anniversary of the 1972 Kzldere Massacre, according to Scholars at Risk. They had gathered to remember the student leaders who were killed by the military on that day in 1972. The memorialized students were killed after they had taken foreigners hostage in an alleged attempt to pressure the government to halt the executions of some imprisoned student leaders. [2398] On May 1, 2017, the government reportedly detained and raided the homes and offices of 16 academic personnel from Dicle University, Diyarbakr, all of whom had signed the 2016 Academics for Peace petition. [2399] In July 2017, the government reportedly detained 20 academic and administrative personnel from Selcuk University and Necmettin Erbakan University, as well as 42 personnel from Bogazici University and Istanbul Medeniyet University, for their alleged affiliation with the Gulen movement. [2400] Similar arrests took place throughout the year. On November 17, 2017, Turkish authorities issued warrants for the detention of 42 current and former academics and administrative personnel of Marmara University because of alleged connections to the Gulen movement. Twenty-two of them were detained that day. [2401] On November 27, 2017, Turkish police briefly detained Fikret Baskaya, a professor of economic development and international relations and raided his home because of allegations that he provided support to the PKK. Scholars at Risk reported that, according to Baskaya's lawyer, the reason for Baskaya's arrest was an article he wrote in November 2016 entitled, "The Real Terror Is State Terrorism." Baskaya had previously written several controversial books on socialism, politics, and corruption in Turkey.[2402] Hurriyet Daily News reported that one attack by the PKK affected higher education in 2017. On January 16, 2017, the PKK reportedly targeted an armored police vehicle in Sur district, Diyarbakr province, which was near an excavation site on the Dicle University campus. The explosion killed four police officers and injured two more, but it was not reported to have harmed any students or education personnel.[2403] 2344 "'Alarming' reports of major violations in south-east Turkey-UN rights chief," UN News Centre, May 10, 2016. ICG, The Human Cost of the PKK Conflict in Turkey: The Case of Sur (Diyarbakr/Istanbul/Brussels: ICG, March 17, 2016), Crisis Group Europe Briefing No. 80, March 17, 2016. 2345 See, for example, "Turkey: Academics on Trial for Signing Petition," Human Rights Watch news release, December 5, 2017. Human Rights Watch, In Custody: Police Torture and Abductions in Turkey (New York: Human Rights Watch, October 2017). 2346 O'Malley, "Higher education." 2347 Amana Fontanella-Khan, "Fethullah Gulen: Turkey coup may have been 'staged' by Erdogan regime," Guardian, July 16, 2016. Robert Siegel, "Cleric Accused Of Plotting Turkish Coup Attempt: 'I Have Stood Against All Coups,'" WBUR, July 11, 2017. 2348 OHCHR, "Report on the human rights situation in South-East Turkey: July 2015 to December 2016," February 2017, para. 66. Jack Grove, Scholars at Risk Network, Free to Think 2016: Report of the Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitoring Project (New York: Scholars at Risk Network, 2016), p. 11. 2349 "Turkey: Academics on Trial for Signing Petition." 2350 Human Rights Watch, "Turkey: Academics on Trial for Signing Petition," Human Rights Watch news release, December 5, 2017. 2351 OHCHR, "Report: July 2015 to December 2016," para. 75. 2352 AFP, "Turkey reinstates over 6,000 teachers suspended after coup," Yahoo News, November 25, 2016. "Over 3,500 teachers suspended in FETO probe reinstated: education ministry," Daily Sabah, December 2, 2016. 2353 "More than 100 schools damaged by PKK, education minister says," Daily Sabah, June 27, 2016. 2354 "Turkish paper says Kurdish rebels raid, damage schools," BBC Monitoring Europe Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, September 25, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201409170094. "PKK supporters set 7 schools ablaze in retaliation in Turkey," Xinhua, September 17, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201409170109. "Masked group sets schools alight to protest closed Kurdish education school," Hurriyet Daily News, September 17, 2014. 2355 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2356 "Major killed in PKK attack laid to rest in Ankara," Hurriyet Daily News, September 28, 2015. "PKK terrorist attack injures 4 civilians in Turkey's northeastern Giresun province," Daily Sabah, September 27, 2015. 2357 "PKK terrorists attack schools over boycott in Turkey's eastern Mus province," Daily Sabah, October 1, 2015. "Schools attacked over boycott says Turkish governor," Andalou Agency, October 1, 2015. 2358 "Turkey: Bomb blast outside school kills child, injures three more," International Business Times India, October 8, 2015. "Bomb Kills 1 Child, Wounds 3 in Southeastern Turkey," Latin American Herald Tribune, October 8, 2015. 2359 "More than 100 schools." 2360 "Turkish military responds after rocket kills woman in city bordering Syria," Hurriyet Daily News, January 18, 2016. Tulay Karadeniz, "One killed as rocket hits Turkish school near Syrian border," Reuters, January 18, 2016. "Rocket 'fired from Syria' killed school worker in Turkey," ITV News, January 18, 2016. "Rockets strike Turkish school near Syria border," Al Jazeera, January 18, 2016. 2361 "Report: 4 injured in blast at Turkish school near Syria," Business Insider, January 18, 2016. Associated Press, "Explosion at Turkish school injures 5 students," CTV News, January 22, 2016. 2362 "More than 100 schools." 2363 Cemal Asan and Mesut Varol, "PKK terrorist attack damages nursery in eastern Turkey," Anadolu Agency, June 20, 2016. 2364 "Security forces disarm explosives left by PKK in school yard," Hurriyet Daily News, October 3, 2017. 2365 "Dozens detained around Turkey in school boycott," Hurriyet Daily News, February 13, 2015, as cited in Xanthe Ackerman and Ekin Calisir, "Erdogan's Assault on Education," Foreign Affairs, December 23, 2015. 2366 Human Rights Watch, In Custody. 2367 "State PAS: Southeast Turkey Press Summary 8 October 2015," Adana US Consulate Public Affairs Section, October 8, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201510070063. 2368 "Dozens detained around Turkey in school boycott." 2369 "State PAS: Southeast Turkey Press Summary 8 October 2015," Adana US Consulate Public Affairs Section, October 8, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201510070063. 2370 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references." 2371 Human Rights Watch, In Custody, p. 21. 2372 United Kingdom: Home Office, "Country Policy and Information Note-Turkey: Human rights defenders," June 2017, p. 20. 2373 "Malaysia: Extradition puts three Turkish men at risk of torture," Amnesty International news release, May 12, 2017. "Malaysia: Longtime Turkish Residents Detained," Human Rights Watch news release, May 5, 2017. "U.N. expresses grave concern over Myanmar, Thai deportation of Turkish national," Reuters, May 27, 2017. 2374 "Turkey: Investigate Ankara Abductions, Disappearances," Human Rights Watch news release, August 3, 2017. 2375 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Selcuk University, May 22, 2017. Brendan O'Malley, "Professor, teacher arrested on day 75 of hunger strike," University World News, May 26, 2017. Kareem Shaheen, "Two Turkish teachers on 75-day hunger strike detained by police," Guardian, May 22, 2017. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017, Turkey chapter. 2376 "Trial of two Turkish teachers on hunger strike starts amid protests and tear gas," Deutsche Welle, September 14, 2017. 2377 "Turkish educators Nuriye Gulmen and Semih Ozakca end hunger strikes after 324 days," Hurriyet Daily News, January 26, 2018. 2378 "Teacher kidnapped by PKK in eastern Turkey found dead," Anadolu Agency, July 15, 2017. "PKK terrorists kidnap, murder young teacher in eastern Turkey," Daily Sabah, June 21, 2017. 2379 OHCHR, "Report: July 2015 to December 2016," para. 19. 2380 "Cizre in ruins as Turkey lifts curfew on Kurdish towns," Al Jazeera, March 13, 2016. 2381 Mazlum Der Diyarbakr branch, "The PKK must send back child recruits" ("PKK cocuk katlmclar geri gondermeli"), May 9, 2015. 2382 Republic of Turkey Ministry of Interior (Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Icisleri Bakanlg), Exploitation of Children and Women by PKK/KCK Terorist Organization (PKK/KCK Teror Orgutunun Cocuklar ve Kadnlar Istismar) (Ankara: Republic of Turkey Ministry of Interior, 2017), p. 47. 2383 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Middle East Technical University Odtu, October 26, 2013. "Turkey police fire tear gas at student demo," Yahoo News, October 20, 2013. 2384 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Marmara University, January 16, 2014. 2385 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Gazi University, February 3, 2017. 2386 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, Turkey chapter. Reuters, "Students killed in suspected Islamic State attack in Turkey," Irish Times, July 21, 2015. "Turkey: teacher union condemns the latest suicide bomb against education workers," Education International, July 21, 2015. 2387 Elizabeth Redden, "Turkish Academe Under Attack," Inside Higher Ed, February 12, 2016. Raziye Akkoc, "Where did it all go wrong for Turkey?" Telegraph, March 17, 2016. Matthew Weaver, "Turkey rounds up academics who signed petition denouncing attacks on Kurds," Guardian, January 16, 2016. 2388 "Detention of Academics in Turkey Intensifies Crackdown on Freedom of Expression," Amnesty International news release, January 15, 2016. "Turkey: Academics Jailed." 2389 For example, see Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Various Institutions, January 11, 2016. "Global higher ed networks stand with scholars in Turkey," Scholars at Risk, January 21, 2016. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Abant Izzet Baysal University, January 15, 2016. 2390 Scholars at Risk Network, Free to Think 2017, p. 12. 2391 Human Rights Watch, Silencing Turkey's Media: The Government's Deepening Assault on Critical Journalism (New York: Human Rights Watch, December 15, 2016), p. 14. 2392 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Turkish Higher Education institutions, July 20, 2016. 2393 "BBC: Some 20,000 academics purged since July 15 coup attempt," Turkish Minute, November 27, 2016. "Turkey's education board demands 1,577 university deans resign," Reuters, July 19, 2016. 2394 O'Malley, "Higher education." 2395 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Gediz University, December 20, 2016. "Professor Istar Gozaydin's 100th day of incarceration displays deteriorating conditions for freedom of speech in Turkey," Scholars at Risk, March 28, 2017. David Matthews, "Jailed Turkish academic Istar Gozaydn released," Times Higher Education, April 7, 2017. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Fak University, December 22, 2016. 2396 O'Malley, "Higher education." 2397 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Dokuz Eylul University, January 4, 2017. 2398 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Istanbul University, March 30, 2017 2399 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Dicle University, May 1, 2017, 2400 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Necmettin Erbakan University, July 6, 2017. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Bogazici University/Istanbul Medeniyet University, July 10, 2017. 2401 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Marmara University, November 17, 2017. 2402 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Ozgur University, November 27, 2017. 2403 "Four police officers killed in PKK bomb attack in Turkey's Diyarbakr," Hurriyet Daily News, January 16, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - The Philippines Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - The Philippines, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be942ffa.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. More than 1,000 students and educators in the southern Philippines, particularly those working in indigenous community schools, reportedly experienced threats, harassment, and intimidation. There were also reports that government forces and paramilitary groups used more than 30 schools as bases and camps, and that non-state armed groups recruited children from schools. In approximately one dozen cases, universities were reportedly bombed and university personnel killed, often for unknown reasons. Context After several decades of violence, the Philippines continued to be affected by two increasingly fragmented conflicts: a Moro insurgency focused in the southern Philippines, primarily in the Mindanao region, and a communist insurgency that particularly affected indigenous Lumad communities. The Moro insurgency involved the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and several non-state armed groups: the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the 'IS'-affiliated Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).[1710] Despite a peace agreement signed in 2012 by the government and the MILF, the conflict continued throughout the reporting period, with increasing involvement from groups claiming affiliation with 'IS.'1711 In addition, the communist New People's Army (NPA) fought the AFP and paramilitary groups, such as the Alamara and the Magahat-Bahani, which allegedly had ties to the Philippine military. This conflict displaced thousands from Lumad communities, whom the government accused of supporting communist groups.[1712] In early 2017, the NPA announced the end to a ceasefire with the government, citing the expansion of a state military presence in villages across the country, and the Philippine government later put peace talks on hold.[1713] A new president, Rodrigo Duterte, took office in June 2016 pledging a hard line against criminals and the drug trade. Human rights groups subsequently reported a rise in the excessive use of force by government security forces.[1714] In 2016, CEDAW expressed concern about increased gender-based violence in conflict-affected areas by members of the AFP and others. This included both killings and sexual abuse.[1715] The Moro and communist insurgencies created significant impediments to education. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced in areas affected by separatist violence, and clashes between armed groups led to the suspension of classes for thousands of students.[1716] In Lumad communities, government forces closed schools, which they accused of being run by the NPA, and harassed and intimidated teachers and students.[1717] In the 20132017 reporting period, GCPEA found an increase in all forms of attacks on education reported in the Philippines over the 2009-2013 timeframe covered in Education under Attack 2014. Attacks on schools The reported level of attacks on schools was higher from 2013 to 2017 than in the period covered in Education under Attack 2014. This violence took the form of explosives planted at schools, arson, gun and grenade attacks, and bomb threats. During 2013 and 2016, schools were targeted for their use as polling stations. The UN noted with concern the high number of attacks on indigenous schools throughout the reporting period and observed that these attacks intensified after 2015. The UN verified 24 attacks on schools between December 1, 2012, and December 31, 2016.[1718] In 2017 alone, more than a dozen schools were reportedly damaged in the southern Philippines during fighting between the AFP and two IS-affiliated groups in Marawi city. 1719 In 2013, the Children's Rehabilitation Center (CRC), a nonprofit NGO in the Philippines, reported 23 attacks on schools, while GCPEA found seven attacks reported by the UN and media sources.[1720] Some incidents found by GCPEA may have been the same as those documented by the CRC. These attacks occurred in the southern region of the country, particularly in the provinces of North Cotabato, Zamboanga del Norte, and Maguindanao. For example: BIFF fighters allegedly opened fire on a public school in North Cotabato province on April 5, 2013, according to media reports. The group stated that the attack was a response to the arrest and killing of one of its members. [1721] Media sources also reported that on May 17, 2013, an IED planted by unknown assailants at the Salung National High School in Zamboanga del Norte province damaged a classroom. [1722] Three attacks verified by the UN occurred in September 2013. They involved schools being burned and being destroyed by crossfire between the MNLF and the AFP in Zamboanga city. [1723] An arson attack destroyed a daycare facility in Montawal town, Maguindanao province, in November 2013. Local media reported that the followers of a defeated candidate for chairman of the barangay (village) set the fire and that authorities attributed the attack to the MILF.[1724] In addition to the seven incidents described above, GCPEA identified eight media reports of attacks targeting schools because of their use as voting stations: Three attacks by unknown assailants reportedly targeted schools being used as polling stations for national government mid-term elections on May 13, 2013. Two involved grenades thrown at schools. In the third, unidentified perpetrators opened fire on a school, killing an election poll security guard. [1725] Five further incidents, which involved arson, explosive devices, and gunfire, targeted schools serving as polling centers for barangay official elections in October. For example, in two separate incidents on October 26, 2013, in Digos city, Davao del Sur province, unidentified assailants on motorcycles threw Molotov cocktails at schools. Both of the schools were reportedly damaged in the ensuing fires.[1726] The CRC documented 64 attacks on schools in 2014.[1727] The UN verified five incidents of fighting between the armed forces and the BIFF and between the Philippines national police and the NPA that damaged schools over the course of the year.[1728] GCPEA found five reports of specific attacks that year reported by media and NGO sources, all occurring in the south of the country.[1729] It is unclear whether there was overlap among these different incident counts. Examples included: On March 18, 2014, a school run by the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao was hit by gunfire during a rehearsal for the upcoming graduation ceremony, according to the Save Our Schools Network. [1730] SOS recorded three attacks in October 2014 in Surigao del Sur province, including an arson attack on a school in Kabulohan barangay on October 27, 2014, allegedly by the AFP.[1731] SOS reported 84 attacks on 57 schools between January 2014 and September 2015. The group alleged that paramilitary and military forces were responsible for most of these incidents, which displaced more than 3,000 Lumad children.[1732] The UN verified 12 attacks during 2015. The military and paramilitary groups were responsible for 10 attacks (the Magahat 5, the Alamara 2, and the AFP 3), while the NPA and the BIFF were responsible for the other two.[1733] Media and NGO reports documented seven attacks on schools in 2015.[1734] It is possible that there was some overlap of incidents across the SOS, UN, and media totals, and it should be noted that SOS likely used a different definition of attacks on schools than the UN, and thus included more incidents of threats and harassment. Attacks on schools in 2015 included the following: Media sources reported two arson attacks on schools in 2015. The first took place in May in Parang town, Maguindanao province. [1735] The second took place in November in Sibagat municipality, Agusan del Sur province, and in Parang town, Maguindanao province. [1736] According to SOS, government forces fired indiscriminately at a Salungpungan Ta' Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Center (STTICLC) on July 26, 2015, and at Tibucag Elementary School on July 26 and August 3, 2015, both in Talaingod, Davao del Norte province. [1737] Government soldiers reportedly destroyed school property and forced the closure of a Lumad school on October 23, 2015, also according to SOS. 1738 In 2016 there were again reports of attacks on schools that were used as polling stations. Media reports collated by GCPEA indicated that 15 schools were attacked because of their use as polling stations between April 27 and May 11, 2016. Methods of attack included explosives, firearms, and arson.[1739] The UN verified ten attacks affecting twelve schools in 2016, of which two were attributed to the armed forces, one to the Bangsamoro Freedom Fighters, and seven were unknown.[1740] Attacks on schools in 2016 included the following: On April 27, 2016, grenades and antitank rockets were reportedly fired into six school buildings that were to be used as polling stations, according to news sources. No one was reported injured, and no group claimed responsibility for the attacks. [1741] On May 9, 2016, unidentified attackers set fire to polling centers at Dilausan Primary School in Tamparan town and Ragayan Elementary School in Poona Bayabao town, both in Lanao del Sur province. There were no injuries in the attacks. [1742] On May 11, 2016, unidentified attackers threw a grenade at a primary school in Mohammad Ajul in Basilan province, where votes were being counted. No one was reported injured in the attack.[1743] Media reports indicated that schools in Marawi city were highly affected by armed conflict in 2017, after two groups affiliated with 'IS' the Maute group and ASG attempted to take control of the city and the AFP responded. Between May 23, 2017, and August 8, 2017, fighting between anti-government groups and government forces damaged at least 14 schools, according to the Philippines Department of Education.[1744] The UN was able to verify six of the cases as of September 2017.[1745] The Philippine government and armed forces singled out indigenous community schools. In July 2017, President Duterte issued a public statement in which he threatened to bomb indigenous Lumad schools in Mindanao for allegedly teaching communism and encouraging rebellion. In the statement, the president also ended peace negotiations with the NPA. President Duterte later said that he was not encouraging harm to Lumad children, only to the school buildings.[1746] According to SOS, the AFP, the Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU), an auxiliary force, and paramilitary forces were also responsible for physical damage to several indigenous schools that year. For example: SOS alleged that members of the 84th Infantry Battalion of the AFP and suspected paramilitary groups damaged one Lumad school each in Compostela Valley province between December 8, 2016, and January 3, 2017. [1747] Also according to SOS, a member of the CAFGU fired his gun three times at an STTICLC building in Talaingod, Davao Del Norte province, on June 20, 2017.[1748] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Teachers and other education personnel experienced a high number of individually targeted attacks related to education, including threats, kidnappings, and killings. These threats closed some schools and particularly affected Lumad communities. As with attacks on schools, reports of individually targeted attacks on students and educators appeared to increase from the period reported in Education under Attack 2014, when approximately 20 attacks of this type were found. Individually targeted attacks on students and educators also appeared to increase over the course of the current reporting period. The UN verified 41 cases of teachers being threatened with violence and 12 school personnel being killed, injured, or abducted between December 1, 2012, and December 31, 2016.[1749] SOS, which had a broader definition of at- tacks on students and educators, including threats, harassment, and intimidation, documented 71 incidents of attacks directly targeting learners and educators that affected 859 students and 142 education personnel. Most of these attacks were in the form of threats, harassment, and intimidation.[1750] At least 13 cases of harassment, attempted and actual killing, and abduction targeted 18 students and 57 teachers and other education personnel in 2013, according to media and NGO reports compiled by GCPEA.[1751] Unidentified gunmen were responsible for the majority of these incidents. For example: On January 22, 2013, gunmen shot and kidnapped the principal of a madrassa, who was also a Muslim scholar, in Labuan, Zamboanga city, Zamboanga del Sur. He remained missing as of the end of August 2013. Human rights groups suspected that state security forces were responsible for the abduction. [1752] At least two killings occurred before the May 13 elections in Maguindanao, resulting in the deaths of a head teacher in Sultan Mastura town and the district education supervisor of General S. K. Pendatun town. [1753] Later in the year, unidentified gunmen ambushed, shot, and killed a school district deputy education supervisor in Talayan municipality on June 17, 2013. [1754] In Basilan, on August 26, 2013, unidentified gunmen shot at three teachers who were on their way home from school in Lamitan city. The attack killed two of the teachers and injured the third.[1755] Information from NGO and media sources indicated that there were at least 15 incidents of attacks affecting approximately 14 students and 22 educators in 2014.[1756] This included actual and attempted killings and abductions, along with threats, harassment, and intimidation. Unidentified gunmen were responsible for most of the killings and abductions, while government forces or paramilitary groups were allegedly responsible for the threats, harassment, and intimidation. For example: On August 31, 2014, unidentified attackers shot and killed a district education supervisor and her husband while they were riding on their motorbike in Pikit town, North Cotabato province. [1757] According to local media sources, unknown gunmen were responsible for the attempted abduction of four teachers in Tagbak village, Sulu province, on March 10, 2014. [1758] The ASG was suspected of being responsible for the abduction of two married school administrators in Zamboanga del Sur province on January 27, 2018, and the group claimed responsibility for the abduction of a school principal in Libug village, Basilan province on March 31, 2014. All of those abducted were later released. [1759] SOS documented threats, harassment, and intimidation of students and teachers at indigenous community schools on March 19 and April 3 in Talaingod, Davao del Norte; on August 4 in Davao city; on October 16 in Tagum city, Davao del Norte; and on October 20, 2014, in Compostela, Compostela Valley province. Government forces were allegedly responsible for these violations, sometimes in coordination with paramilitary group members.[1760] In 2015, sporadic killings and abductions of educators continued, and threats against educators appeared to escalate. The UN verified the killing of one school director, the maiming of one teacher, and threats against 40 teachers in 2015.[1761] According to SOS, paramilitary groups harassed groups of students and teachers in Lumad areas in Mindanao with increasing frequency.[1762] Media sources and SOS reported at least 31 incidents of intimidation, harassment, and threat directed at 289 students and 104 education personnel in 2015.[1763] The extent to which SOS reports overlapped with the UN-verified incidents was unclear. The targeted killings and abductions, and the incidents of threats, harassment, or intimidation, included the following: Human Rights Watch reported that on January 5, 2015, soldiers and members of the Alamara paramilitary group stopped a teacher in Talaingod on his way to school and told him they would kill him and "chop him up" if he continued on to school. [1764] A student at a Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation (MISFI) Academy in Kapalong town, Davao del Norte province, reported to Human Rights Watch that soldiers and the Alamara harassed her and her classmates, accusing them of working with the NPA. She noted one incident in February 2015 when the Alamara fired guns in the air as she passed them. [1765] The UN reported that the Alamara group also threatened four teachers on their way to school in Davao del Norte province in February 2015. In March 2015, the group again threatened the teachers, this time in coordination with the AFP, and interrogated them about their alleged links to the NPA. [1766] In early March 2015, suspected ASG members kidnapped two teachers from Moalboal village in Zamboanga Sibugay province, holding one hostage until May 14, 2015, and the other until July 12, 2015, according to local media. [1767] A widely reported targeted assassination, which was documented by human rights groups and the UN, occurred on September 1, 2015, when the Magahat paramilitary group allegedly tortured and killed educator Emerito "Tatay Emok" Samarca, the executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agriculture and Development and a convener of the SOS Network in Surigao del Sur province. [1768] According to media reports, the Magahat stated that they killed Samarca because they did not approve of his ideology in educating students. [1769] The violent attack caused several thousand community members to flee to an evacuation camp in Tandag city. [1770] Some teachers reportedly experienced repeated harassment. For example, members of the Alamara allegedly threatened, harassed, and intimidated two STTICLC teachers on November 23, 2015. One of the two teachers was reportedly harassed a second time on December 19, 2015, along with a third teacher.[1771] Similar trends continued in 2016, with sporadic cases of killing and abduction. Teachers and students from indigenous communities in the Mindanao area also reportedly faced a high level of harassment and intimidation from the military and paramilitary groups. SOS and media sources documented 31 incidents of threats, harassment, and intimidation affecting 243 students and 36 teachers in 2016.[1772] Unknown assailants were responsible for most cases of killing and abduction, and government and paramilitary forces were allegedly responsible for most cases of threats and harassment. Individually targeted attacks in 2016 included the following: Media sources documented an incident in which unidentified assailants opened fire on a daycare teacher at his home in Palma Gil, Davao del Norte province, on January 26, 2016. The teacher was unharmed in the attack. Sources attributed the incident to the NPA. [1773] According to SOS, a high school student at a MISFI Academy was harassed on February 14, 2016, and again on June 15, 2016, allegedly by members of the AFP's 68th battalion. [1774] According to media sources, on June 30, 2016, attackers suspected to be ASG members abducted a child in front of a school in Patikul district, Sulu province. The outcome of the kidnapping was unknown. [1775] Local civil society groups reported that, in October and November 2016, government officials harassed students and teachers at the Lumad School Diya Menuwa, run by the Center for Lumad Advocacy and Services in Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat province, and distributed flyers that threatened to arrest educators.[1776] These patterns of violence and harassment continued in 2017. From January through July 2017, SOS and media sources documented 22 cases of threats and harassment affecting 37 educators and 304 students in indigenous communities.[1777] There also was one instance of a teacher abduction, allegedly by members of the ASG. For example: A member of the Alamara paramilitary group harassed and intimidated three MISFI teachers in Davao city, Davao del Norte, during the first week of January 2017, according to SOS. [1778] SOS reported that the Bagani paramilitary group threatened, harassed, and intimidated 168 students and 9 teachers and education personnel at the Father Fausto Tentorio Memorial School in Magpet, North Cotabato province, on February 18, 2017. [1779] A female indigenous school teacher was threatened and harassed on eight occasions in Talaingod, Davao del Norte province, between August 17, 2015, and March 3, 2017. Her family was also harassed on April 22, 2016, according to SOS. According to the NGO, those responsible were unidentified but were suspected to be members of the state intelligence services. [1780] Local media reported an incident on March 11, 2017, in which gunmen suspected to be part of ASG abducted a public school teacher in Patikul town, Sulu, while he was on his way home. [1781] Media sources reported that an STTICLC teacher was shot three times, but not killed, in Talaingod, Davao del Norte, on June 20, 2017. The CAFGU was allegedly responsible for the attack. The teacher had reportedly been threatened previously by the CAFGU and was said to have sought but not received support from the Department of Education.[1782] Military use of schools Dozens of schools reportedly continued to be used for military purposes between 2013 and 2017, as they were in the period covered in Education under Attack 2014. In the majority of cases, government armed forces allegedly used schools as bases or interrogation centers, or for lodging. Paramilitary groups were sometimes reported to use schools jointly with the AFP. In a few cases, non-state armed groups also reportedly used schools as fighting positions. The UN reported that 31 schools were used for military purposes, the majority by Philippine security forces, between December 1, 2012, and December 31, 2016.[1783] Similar information provided to SOS indicated that schools were used for military purposes in 37 cases between 2013 and 2017.[1784] It is not clear how many of these cases overlapped with those verified by the UN. SOS alleged that members of the armed forces and armed groups threatened, harassed, and intimidated the teachers and students at the schools they were occupying, affecting a reported total of approximately 3,194 students and 103 teachers.[1785] Military use of schools appeared to become more common over the course of the reporting period. In 2013 there were at least two cases of schools used by the AFP and one case of schools use by the BIFF: In July 2013, the UN verified an incident in which three boys from Maguindanao province were detained, interrogated, and abused by members of the AFP in a school. The army accused the boys, who were ages 16 and 17, of being members of the BIFF. [1786] In another case, international media reported that the AFP used a school as a base during a battle with armed separatist groups that took place in September 2013 in Zamboanga province. It was unclear how long the school served as an army base. [1787] The BIFF also used a school in North Cotabato province as a defensive position on September 23, 2013. According to local media and information verified by the UN, during their occupation the BIFF held approximately adults and children hostage and abducted nine teachers who tried to vacate the school.[1788] There were again reports that AFP, along with paramilitary groups, used schools in 2014. Information from SOS indicated that there were 10 cases of military use between January and December 2014.[1789] The UN verified the use of six schools, which may have overlapped with those reported by SOS. 1790 Of the UN-verified cases, the AFP was responsible for five incidents that occurred during operations against the BIFF, and the BIFF was responsible for one incident. 1791 For example: On January 2, 2014, the BIFF used a school during fighting with the Philippine army and set fire to the school as members retreated, according to the UN. [1792] SOS reported that an STTICLC elementary school-kindergarten was used by 37 members of the 25th Infantry Battalion of the AFP in Magayan, Compostela Valley province, from October 3, 2013, through January 24, 2014. The military personnel based there allegedly threatened, harassed, and intimidated 130 students at the school. [1793] According to SOS, the 60th Infantry Division of the AFP used a school and the teachers' staff house in Sitio Km. 30 in Tailaingod, Davao del Norte province, as barracks from March 26 to March 30, 2014. In another incident reported by SOS, the army used the Salugpungan community school in Sitio Nasilaban in Tailaingod, Davao del Norte province, from April 1 to April 12, 2014. [1794] SOS also reported that in October 2014, the 68th Infantry Division of the army and the Alamara paramilitary group slept in a school in Sitio Laslasakan in Palma Gil village, Davao del Norte province. The group also looted the building and tampered with the teachers' materials.[1795] The UN verified 10 cases of military use of schools in 2015. The AFP was responsible for more than half. In six cases they used the schools alone, and in three cases they used them jointly with paramilitary groups. The UN verified one case of a school used by the BIFF.[1796] SOS reported 11 incidents of military use of schools by the AFP and paramilitary groups that same year.[1797] The SOS-reported cases may have overlapped with those verified by the UN. The incidents reported included the following: According to SOS, more than 100 members of the Alamara, CAFGU, and 60th Infantry Battalion of the AFP used a MISFI Academy in Kapalong, Davao del Norte, as a base from February 6 to February 12, 2016, reportedly harassing and intimidating 144 students and 4 teachers. [1798] Human Rights Watch reported that the AFP and paramilitaries used schools in 2015, such as a Salugpungan school in Talaingod. Soldiers slept in the classrooms and teachers' quarters and harassed students, asking them about the NPA. [1799] The 67th Infantry Battalion of the AFP reportedly camped in Paglusnagan Primary School and the Yapasay Elementary School Annex, both in Cateel municipality, Davao Oriental province, from May to September 2015, which affected 23 students and 2 teachers, according to SOS.[1800] Military use of schools decreased slightly in 2016, to eight cases verified by the UN. Of these, six were attributed to national security forces and two to the Maute group. Four of these schools were attacked while they were occupied.[1801] Local and international media and civil society groups reported 14 cases of school occupation in 2016.[1802] At least four cases involved encampment by AFP soldiers, according to SOS.[1803] Some cases of military use reported by the media and NGOs may have overlapped with those verified by the UN. Examples included the following: The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that on June 1, 2016, evacuees from Barangay Palma Gil in Talaingod, Davao del Norte province, returned home but were unable to return to class because soldiers were still using the school. [1804] SOS reported that the 46th Infantry Battalion used a school in Compostela, Compostela Valley, on June 23, 2014, allegedly threatening and harassing a 12-year-old female student while encamped there. [1805] According to SOS, on November 10, 2016, eight soldiers used the grounds of a Salugpongan community school in Compostela Valley. The soldiers allegedly told the teachers they would remain in the school until the new year in order to observe the community. [1806] Members of an 'IS'-affiliated group allegedly used a high school in Butig municipality, Lanao del Sur province, in late November 2016, according to media reports, which stated that the school was used during a battle with Philippine troops. [1807] On December 13, 2016, the Northern Dispatch Weekly wrote that the 50th Infantry Battalion of the AFP was staying in Western Uma Elementary School in Kalinga province in the northern part of the country.[1808] GCPEA compiled information on 11 cases of military use of schools and universities during 2017 from SOS reports and media sources.[1809] As during the previous years, the majority of these cases took place in indigenous communities in the southern Philippines, with responsibility most commonly attributed to the AFP and paramilitary groups. For example: SOS documented seven cases in Talaingod, Davao del Norte province, between February and June 2017. [1810] Local media reported in January 2017 that authorities discovered two bombs in a house on Mindanao State University grounds in Marawi city, Lanao del Sur province. Security forces believed that the house was being used by the Maute group. [1811] On June 21, 2017, armed fighters alleged to be affiliated with the BIFF attacked Pigcawayan town in North Cotabato province, seizing the Malagakit Elementary School and holding several students hostage for approximately 12 hours. None of the students was reported harmed in the incident.[1812] Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school UN and media sources indicated that armed groups may have used educational institutions to indoctrinate and recruit children during the reporting period.[1813] In September 2017, Reuters reported that foreign fighters, including some affiliated with 'IS', were allegedly recruiting students from schools, madrassas, and daycare centers.[1814] The UN verified two such cases of child recruitment: The ASG recruited a 14-year-old boy from a school in 2013. No additional details about this incident were reported. [1815] The ASG also recruited three boys ages 14 and 15 from the same school in 2014, and threatened the school director after he encouraged his students not to join the group. The locations of these incidents were not reported.[1816] Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school There was one documented attack on education in the form of sexual violence during the reporting period. Local media reported that on June 20, 2016, gunmen suspected to be ASG members abducted a female teacher at Kanlagay Elementary School in Kalingalan Caluang, Sulu province, later forcing her to marry one of her abductors.[1817] Attacks on higher education Research for the current reporting period identified sporadic attacks on higher education. In 2013 and 2014, these attacks were slightly more common than was documented for the years covered in Education under Attack 2014, with between seven and ten incidents per year. Rates of reported attacks on higher education appeared to drop in 2015 and later years to two or three per year. These incidents included bombs and bomb threats directed at universities, arson attacks on university campuses, and abductions and targeted killings of university personnel. As with other violations against education in the Philippines, the majority of the attacks occurred in Mindanao. However, several occurred in other areas, including Metro Manila, and Sorsogon and Pampanga provinces. In 2013, media sources documented seven attacks on higher education, including three on universities and four on personnel associated with higher education.[1818] This represented a significant increase from the previous year, when only one attack was reported. For example: An education staff member in Western Mindanao State University's Islamic Studies department in Sulu province was reportedly abducted by unidentified assailants on June 22, 2013, and held until July 31, 2013. Although no group claimed responsibility for the attack, media sources suspected that the ASG was responsible. [1819] Mortar shells reportedly struck the gymnasium of Zamboanga University on September 23, 2013, damaging the building but not harming anyone. Media sources suspected that non-state armed actors fired the rounds.[1820] During 2014, media sources reported ten attacks on higher education, including six attacks on institutions and four on personnel.[1821] These attacks were similar to those that occurred during the previous year. For example: On February 26, 2014, unknown actors allegedly set fire to the University of Southern Mindanao administration building in Kabacan town, North Cotabato province, burning parts of it down. A grenade had exploded on the campus previously. The reasons for the attacks were unknown. [1822] On August 20, 2014, an explosive device detonated inside the car of a Mindanao State University professor in Cotabato city, Maguindanao province. The professor was unharmed. Although no group took credit for the blast, media sources suspected that the ASG was involved. [1823] Local media reported that Rendell Ryan Edpan Cagula, a student activist at the University of the Philippines-Mindanao, was found shot dead on November 4, 2014. The AFP allegedly mistook him for a member of the NPA.[1824] In 2015, GCPEA identified two reports of attacks on higher education, down from ten the previous year. Media sources documented one explosion affecting an institution of higher education in the north, and one attack on higher education personnel in the south, possibly indicating a decrease in violence affecting higher education in the region: On February 24, 2017, there was an explosion in the parking lot of the AMA Computer Learning Center campus in Angeles city, Pampanga province. [1825] On November 21, 2015, unidentified gunmen shot and injured a college official in North Cotabato province.[1826] In 2016 the level of attacks on higher education stayed constant, as bomb threats targeted three universities, including one actual explosion, according to local media sources: On March 28, 2016, students and personnel at the Ateneo de Manila University in Metro Manila were evacuated due to a bomb threat. [1827] On September 6, 2016, the University of Southeastern Philippines campuses in Obrero in Metro Manila and Mintal in Davao city, Davao del Sur province, both received bomb threats. The next day, September 7, St. John Paul II College was also threatened. [1828] Media sources reported that on April 4, 2016, an explosive device detonated at Cotabato City State Polytechnic College in Maguindanao, injuring three students. It was not clear who was responsible for the attack.[1829] There were at least two reported attacks that affected higher education in 2017, including one on education personnel in the north and one in which a college's infrastructure was caught in the crossfire of fighting in the south: On January 7, 2017, unknown assailants on a motorcycle allegedly shot and killed an instructor from the University of Northern Philippines in Vigan city while he was driving his motorcycle along the national highway of San Ramon village. [1830] On May 23, 2017, Dansalan College was reportedly set on fire during government clashes with the Maute group as they fought over Marawi city, Lanao del Sur province.[1831] 1710 Jared Ferrie, "A peace deal hangs in the balance in the Philippines: How failure could boost Islamist extremism," IRIN News, April 28, 2016. Asia Foundation, The Contested Corners of Asia: Subnational Conflict and International Development Assistance, The Case of Mindanao, Philippines, Executive Summary (San Francisco: Asia Foundation, 2013). UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836-S/2016/360, paras. 202203, 208. "Philippines-Mindanao conflict BRI," Thomas Reuters Foundation, June 3, 2014. 1711 Asia Foundation, The Contested Corners of Asia. 1712 Jared Ferrie, "Caught in the crossfire in the Philippines: Indigenous communities in Mindanao have nowhere to turn," IRIN News, April 28, 2016. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/294, para. 8. "Philippines: Paramilitaries Attack Tribal Villages, Schools," Human Rights Watch, September 23, 2016. 1713 Felipe Villamor, "Communist Rebels in Philippines Say They'll End Cease-Fire," New York Times, February 1, 2017. "Philippines freezes peace talks with communist rebels," Al Jazeera, July 2017. 1714 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017, Philippines chapter. Amnesty International, Annual Report Philippines 2016/2017 (London: Amnesty International, 2017). 1715 CEDAW, "Concluding observations on the combined seventh and eighth periodic reports of the Philippines*," CEDAW/C/PHL/CO/7-8, July 25, 2016, para. 25(e). 1716 OCHA, "Humanitarian Bulletin: Philippines-Issue 10," November 2017. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878-S/2014/339, para. 196. Protection Cluster-Philippines, "Protracted Displacement," n.d. 1717 "Philippines: Paramilitaries Attack." 1718 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/294, para. 42. 1719 "Humanitarian Situation Report: Philippines," UNICEF, August 23, 2017, p. 2. "Marawi: Fighters killed by military as siege continues," Al Jazeera, August 10, 2017. 1720 Save Our Schools Network, "AFP-DepED tandem violates Lumad children's right to education," July 6, 2015. A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1721 John Unson, "Kato men owns up to attack near Cotabato school," Philippine Star, April 6, 2013. 1722 "Bomb explodes inside campus in Salug town," Philippine Star, May 17, 2013. "Explosion rocks Salug, Zamboanga del Norte," Balita, May 17, 2013. 1723 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 196. 1724 Edwin Fernandez, "Defeated candidate burns down daycare center in Maguindanao," Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 5, 2013. "School in Maguindanao torched by losing bet's supporters," Philippine Star, November 5, 2013. 1725 Edwin O. Fernandez, "Grenade lobbed at North Cotabato school; no one hurt," Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 13, 2013. Ferdinandh B. Cabrera, "IED explodes in Kabacan, 2 others defused in Shariff Aguak," Minda News, May 13, 2013. Karen Boncocan, "4 injured in grenade blast at Marawi polling center," Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 13, 2013. Philippines News Agency, "(Update) 4 wounded in Marawi grenade blast," Balita.org, May 13, 2013. "PRO8 to honor election heroes," Samar News, May 16, 2013. 1726 Philippines News Agency, "Probe on in fiscal's residence grenade explosion, bombings, strafing of village hall in Davao del Sur," Philippines Today, October 28, 2013. Carina L. Cayon, "DavSur implements curfew after bomb explosions in 2 polling centers," Business Week Mindanao, October 28, 2013. John Unson, "Gunmen torch school building in Maguindanao," Philippine Star, October 28, 2013. "Explosion, shooting mar Zambo Sur polls," Sun Star Davao, October 31, 2013. Roel Pareno, "Bomb found near polling center in Isabela City," Philippine Star, October 28, 2013. Leizel Lacastesantos, "Barangay candidate killed in Basilan," ABS-CBN News, October 28, 2013. 1727 Save our Schools Network, "AFP-DepED tandem." 1728 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General", A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 250. 1729 Save Our Schools Network, "Position Paper on DEPED Memorandum 221, Series of 2013," September 12, 2016. Jeannette I. Andrade, "IPs lament Luistro inaction on military men in school," Inquirer, December 5, 2014. "Rebels strafe feeding program in Northern Samar; no one hurt," Philippines News Agency, August 24, 2014;""Philippines: Highlights of Terrorist, Counterterrorist Activities 12-25 August 2014," OSC Summary," August 12, 2014, as cited in START, GTD 201408220024. "BIFF: We don't attack civilians," Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 22, 2014. Xinhua News Agency, "One person killed, 17 others wounded in S. Philippine bomb blast," Global Times China, November 17, 2014. John Unson, "Cotabato blast leaves 1 dead, 15 hurt," Philippine Star, November 17, 2014. "Deadly bomb in Philippines blamed on MILF splinter group," Al Jazeera America, November 16, 2014. "Bomb found in Lamitan school," Minda News, November 17, 2014. 1730 "Attacks on Mindanao Lumad schools and communities intensify as Aquino's military goes berserk for Oplan Bayanihan," RMP-NMR, September 24, 2015. 1731 Save Our Schools Network, "Position Paper on DEPED Memorandum 221, Series of 2013," September 12, 2016. Andrade, "IPs lament." 1732 Save Our Schools Network, "STATEMENT: Attacks on Mindanao. Lumad schools and communities intensify as Aquino's military goes berserk for Oplan Bayanihan," September 4, 2015. 1733 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 207 1734 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1735 John Unson, "No clues yet on Parang school building fire," NDBCNews, May 26, 2015. 1736 "Army denies part in school attack," Manila Times, November 13, 2015. Edith Regalado, "Lumad school teachers' cottage torched," Philippine Star, November 13, 2015. 1737 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1738 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1739 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1740 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 227. 1741 John Unson, "6 Maguindanao schools bombed," Philippine Star, April 29, 2016. "Blasts rock 6 schools in southern PH's Maguindanao province," Manila Times, April 28, 2016. "6 Maguindanao poll precincts bombed," Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 28, 2016. 1742 Roel Pareno, "6 dead in poll violence in Central, Western Mindanao," Philippine Star, May 9, 2016. Froilan Gallardo, "4 killed in poll violence in Lanao Sur; 2 schools burned," Minda News, May 10, 2016. 1743 "Asia: US Army ASD Philippine Terrorist Media Weekly Wrap-up 8-14 May 2016," Summary, May 18, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201605110028. 1744 "Humanitarian Situation Report: Philippines," p. 2. "Marawi: Fighters killed by military as siege continues," Al Jazeera, August 10, 2017. 1745 Information provided by a UN respondent, September 18, 2017. 1746 Carlos H. Conde, "Philippine President's Appalling Threat to Bomb Tribal Schools," Human Rights Watch dispatch, July 25, 2017. Dharel Placido and Paolo C. Rizal, "Duterte threatens to bomb Lumad schools," ABS-CBN News, July 24, 2017. Jhoanna Ballaran, "Duterte clarifies he will destroy Lumad schools, not children," Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 27, 2017. 1747 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1748 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. Paolo C. Rizal, "Militia involved in Lumad school attack now in Army's custody," Davao Today, June 21, 2017. 1749 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/294, para. 42. 1750 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1751 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1752 Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines, "Philippines stuck in an Orwellian 1984," August 30, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 176. 1753 Rosalinda L. Orosa, "Special body sought to probe attacks vs Maguindanao teachers," Philippine Star, June 25, 2013. Rosalinda L. Orosa, "Teacher shot dead in Maguindanao," Philippine Star, May 8, 2013. Philippines News Agency, "Maguindanao head teacher shot dead while preparing for Monday's polls," Highbeam Business, May 8, 2013. 1754 Edwin O. Fernandez, "Rash of deadly attacks on ARMM educators since May prompts tight security measures," Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 23, 2013. "Special body sought to probe attacks vs Maguindanao teachers," Philippine Star, June 25, 2013. 1755 Julie S. Alipala, "2 teachers killed in Basilan ambush," Inquirer, August 27, 2013. "DepEd official, wife ambushed," Tempo, August 28, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201308260013. 1756 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingedu- cation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1757 Edwin Fernandez, "Education exec, husband slain," Inquirer, September 2, 2014. Edwin Fernandez, "School supervisor, husband shot dead in North Cotabato," Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 1, 2014. John Unson, "Couple slain in ambush," Philippine Star, September 1, 2014. 1758 "Driver loses life after thwarting abduction of public school teachers in Sulu," GMA News Online, March 10, 2014. 1759 "Rebels free Mindanao school official," Oman Tribune, August 24, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201401270062. "Kidnappers free Zamboanga del Sur school official after 7 months-report," GMA News Online, August 23, 2014. Sun Star Network, "Gunmen free school official in Zambo," wn.com, August 22, 2014. "Sulu teacher abducted, released a day after," Minda News, March 7, 2014. "Driver loses life after thwarting abduction of public school teachers in Sulu," GMA News Online, March 10, 2014. "Philippines: Basilan school principal released 3 days after abduction," GMA News Online, April 4, 2014. Roel Pareno, "Abus demand P3-M ransom for Basilan school principal," Philippine Star, April 2, 2014. "Sayyafs seize school principal in Basilan province," Mindanao Examiner, March 31, 2014. 1760 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1761 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/294, para. 43. 1762 Save Our Schools Network, "STATEMENT: Attacks on Mindanao." 1763 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1764 "Philippines: Paramilitaries Attack." 1765 "Philippines: Paramilitaries Attack." 1766 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/294, para. 45. 1767 Roel Pareno, "Abus free teacher," Philippine Star, July 12, 2015. Philippines News Agency, "Public school teacher released by ASG bandits in Jolo," NDBCNews, July 12, 2015. Hader Glang, "Philippines: Abu Sayyaf frees kidnapped teacher," Andalou Agency, July 12, 2015. 1768 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 207. "Philippines: Paramilitaries Attack." Karlos Manlupig, "Militia in Lumad killings a 'monster created by military,'" Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 6, 2015. "Lumad school director, 2 others killed in Lianga, Surigao Sur," Minda News, September 1, 2015. Save Our Schools Network, "STATEMENT: Attacks on Mindanao." 1769 Manlupig, "Militia in Lumad."Lumad school director." 1770 Save Our Schools Network, "STATEMENT: Attacks on Mindanao."Philippines: Paramilitaries Attack." Manlupig, "Militia in Lumad."Lumad school director." 1771 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1772 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1773 Jaime Laude, "Lumad teacher survives another slay attempt by NPA," Philippine Star, January 30, 2016. 1774 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1775 Nonoy E. Lacson, "Suspected ASG bandits kidnap boy in Sulu," Manila Bulletin, July 1, 2016. 1776 "IP School in Sultan Kudarat red-tagged, teachers threatened with arrest," Karapatan, November 21, 2016. Save Our Schools Network, "SOS Network to Briones: Immediately take action over attacks on Lumad schools in Sultan Kudarat!" November 22, 2016. 1777 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1778 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1779 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1780 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1781 Roel Pareno, "Sayyaf kidnaps public school teacher in Sulu," Philippine Star, March 11, 2017. 1782 Zea Io Ming C. Capistrano, "Threats against Lumad schools prod students, teachers to hold classes in Davao's highway," Davao Today, July 4, 2017. Cristina Rey, "Increased Militarization under Martial Law Threatens Lumad Teachers in the Philippines," Intercontinental Cry, July 15, 2017. 1783 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/294, para. 48. 1784 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1785 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. 1786 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 194. 1787 Bullit Marquez, "Filipino rebels attack second Southern town," AP, 11 September 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 177. 1788 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 197. Cris Larano and Josephine Cuneta, "Rebels Release Hostages in Southern Philippines," Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2013. Denis Arcon and Jaime Sinapit, "BIFF still has 9 teachers as 'human shields': 6 dead in Cotabato clashes," InterAskyon, September 23, 2013. John Unson, "BIFF bandits retreat, free Midsayap hostages," Philippine Star, September 25, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 177. 1789 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network via email, August 1, 2017. Save Our Schools Network, "Position Paper on DEPED Memorandum 221, Series of 2013," September 12, 2016. 1790 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 250. 1791 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 250. 1792 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 250. 1793 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network, August 1, 2017. 1794 Save Our Schools Network, "Position Paper on DEPED." 1795 Save our Schools Network, "Save our Schools: End human rights abuses against Manobo communities!," October 21, 2014. 1796 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 207 1797 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network, August 1, 2017. 1798 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network, August 1, 2017. 1799 "Philippines: Paramilitaries Attack." 1800 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network, August 1, 2017. 1801 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 227. 1802 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1803 Save Our Schools, Summary Report on the Save Our Schools Campaign in Mindanao: 20152017 (Manila: Save Our Schools, 2017), report shared via email, p. 5. 1804 Germelina Lacorte, "School a distant dream for 'Lumad,'" Inquirer, June 19, 2016. 1805 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network, August 1, 2017. 1806 "Youth to AFP: Stop militarization of communities, junk Oplan Bayanihan," College Editors Guild of the Philippines, November 15, 2016. 1807 Christopher Woody, "A weekend siege in the southern Philippines reportedly leaves 11 ISIS sympathizers dead," Business Insider, November 27, 2016. "Philippine troops assault militants blamed for deadly bomb," Indian Express, November 27, 2016. 1808 Alma B. Sinumlag, "50th IBPA camps in Kalinga schools, disrespects peace talks," Northern Dispatch Weekly, December 13, 2016. 1809 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1810 Information provided by the Save Our Schools Network, August 1, 2017. 1811 "2 bombs found in Mindanao State University," ABSCBN News, January 31, 2017. 1812 Carlos H. Conde, "Rebel Attack on Philippine School Endangers Students," Human Rights Watch dispatch, June 22, 2017. Felipe Villamor, "Militants' Siege of Philippine Elementary School Ends After 12 Hours," New York Times, June 21, 2017. "Islamist militants storm school in the Philippines, take students hostage," Sydney Morning Herald, June 21, 2017. Manolo Serapio, Jr. and Karen Lema, "Philippines says Islamist militants free hostages after day-long drama," Reuters, June 21, 2017. 1813 Child Protection Working Group and Gender-based Violence Working Group-Philippines, "Child Protection Rapid Assessment Report: Marawi Displacement"(Mindanao: CPWG and GBVWG, October 2017), p. 28. Martin Petty, "Islamists lure youngsters in the Philippines with payments, promise of paradise," Reuters, September 20, 2017. 1814 Petty, "Islamists lure." 1815 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/294, para. 28. 1816 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/294, para. 28. 1817 "Abducted teacher forced to marry her abductor rescued by military in Sulu," Philippines Now, July 11, 2016. 1818 "Two hurt in UP Diliman explosion," ABS-CBN News, January 28, 2013. Jamie Marie Elona, "2 injured in UP-Diliman blast," Philippines Daily Inquirer, January 28, 2013. John Unson, "Bomb explodes in University of the Southern Mindanao campus," Philippine Star, July 29, 2013. Edwin Fernandez, "Blast rocks North Cotabato state university; no one hurt," Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 29, 2013. "Blast rocks state university in North Cotabato," Philippines News Agency, July 29, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201307280012. Roel Pareno, "MNLF 'spotter' killed, another captured in Zambo," Philippine Star, September 23, 2013. Philippines News Agency, "Cops on alert after bomb found inside North Cotabato college," Retired Analyst (blog), October 14, 2013. "Special body sought to probe attacks vs Maguindanao teachers," Philippine Star, June 25, 2013. "Rebels on retaliatory attacks vs government troopers," Philippines News Agency, July 8, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201307070004. "Report: Student shot, wounded during fun run in Sorsogon," GMA News Online, July 7, 2013. Philippines Daily Tribune, "NPA rebels attack fun run in Sorsogon; 1 hurt," wn.com, July 7, 2013. Julie S. Alipala, "Police probe attack on another school execin Zamboanga City," Inquirer, December 7, 2013. "Kidnapped Zambo university staff freed in Sulu," CBN News, July 31, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 177. 1819 "Kidnapped Zambo university staff." Julie S. Alipala, "Kidnap victim released in Sulu," Inquirer, July 31, 2017. 1820 Pareno, "MNLF 'spotter' killed." 1821 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1822 John Unson, "Fire hits USM building," Philippine Star, February 26, 2014. Edwin Fernandez, "Fire damages Mindanao university's agri research center," Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 26, 2014. 1823 "Soldier, 4 others wounded in Cotabato City blast," ABS-CBN News, August 20, 2014. 1824 Carolyn O. Arguillas, "UP Mindanao student leader killed in Army-NPA encounter," Minda News, November 10, 2014. 1825 Ric Sapnu, "Four persons hurt due to improvised bomb explosion in Pampanga," Philippine Star, February 26, 2015. 1826 "Unidentified militants wound a college official in the Philippines' North Cotabato," Jane's Terrorism Watch Report, November 25, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201511210058. 1827 Raul Dancel, "Thousands evacuated from top Philippines university Ateneo over bomb threat," Straits Times, March 28, 2016. "Ateneo Katipunan campus declared safe after bomb threat," CNN Philippines, March 28, 2016. 1828 Zea Io Ming C. Capistrano, "5th school in Davao receives bomb threat," Davao Today, September 7, 2016. 1829 John Unson, "3 hurt in Cotabato college blast," Philippine Star, April 5, 2016. "Improvised bomb packed with nails explodes in state college," ABS-CBN News, April 5, 2016. "Philippines: Highlights of Terrorist, Counterterrorist Activities 24 March-06 April 2016," Summary, March 24, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201604040007. 1830 Leoncio Balbin, "University teacher killed in Ilocos Sur," Inquirer, January 7, 2017. 1831 Greanne Trisha Mendoza, "Marawi City jail, Dansalan College on fire," ABS-CBN News, May 23, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Thailand Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Thailand, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be94300c.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Dozens of explosive devices targeted government security forces who had been tasked with protecting teachers and schools, putting educators and students at risk and, in some cases, killing or injuring them. Dozens of schools in Thailand were deliberately damaged or destroyed, or unintentionally caught in crossfire. University students and academics were arrested and detained in the context of expanded restrictions on freedom of expression and political opposition. Context From early 2004 through the current reporting period, separatists launched an armed insurgency to seek autonomy for Songkhla, Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat provinces.[2278] In February 2013, negotiations facilitated by the Malaysian government began between the Thai government and representatives of Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu Patani (BRN) (Patani-Malay National Revolutionary Front), the principal non-state armed group in the country, and other separatist groups in the loose network of Majlis Syura Patani (Mara Patani). At the time of writing, these talks were ongoing but unfruitful.[2279] After staging a coup that overthrew the elected Thai government on May 22, 2014, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) junta intensified its counterinsurgency measures in the deep south, which created a major obstacle for efforts to seek a political solution to the conflict.[2280] Government security sweeps pushed back the separatists, but they were able to maintain a presence in hundreds of ethnic Malay Muslim villages.[2281] In addition to intensifying operations in the deep south, the junta imposed restrictions on freedom of expression across the country, enforcing a ban on public discussions about decentralization and self-governance.[2282] In June 2017, the UN expressed concern about the number of prosecutions under the lese-majeste laws, which outlawed insulting the monarchy but did not define what constituted such an insult.[2283] The insurgency in the deep south and nationwide restrictions on freedom of expression negatively affected education. In the deep south, Malay Muslim insurgents directly targeted government-funded education, as they viewed government teachers as representatives of the Thai government and government schools as vehicles for assimilating the Malay Muslim community.[2284] Conversely, security forces raided madrassas while searching for insurgents, and insurgents targeted madrassas and Islamic teachers who cooperated with the Thai government.[2285] In 2017, CEDAW noted that the ongoing conflict impeded the rights of ethnic Malay Muslim women in the deep south, including their right to education, and that there were gender bias and stereotypes in the curriculum.[2286] Meanwhile, nationwide enforcement of the lese-majeste laws primarily affected higher education by limiting student protests and activism.[2287] The different types of attacks on education demonstrated diverse trends during the 2013-2017 reporting period. Reports of attacks on higher education increased, reports of attacks on primary and secondary schools began to decrease after 2015, and attacks on primary and secondary school students and teachers fluctuated throughout the reporting period. Attacks on schools Non-state armed groups and unidentified perpetrators were suspected of having bombed or set on fire dozens of schools, along with other government offices and state-related bodies, all of which were perceived by some ethnic Malay Muslims as instruments of Thai domination and assimilation policies.[2288] Many of these attacks targeted government security forces who were protecting schools or teachers, but the violence damaged schools and harmed students and teachers in the process. These attacks on schools continued to be reported throughout 2014 at rates similar to those recorded in the 2009-2013 reporting period, with a decrease in reported attacks starting in 2015. GCPEA collected information on eight attacks on schools in 2013, a level similar to reports found for the previous year.[2289] The UN reported that, in 2013, armed groups used IEDs to attack state armed forces who were stationed to protect schools in several cases, thereby putting school children and teachers at risk.[2290] More than half of the reported incidents identified by GCPEA directly targeted security forces. Media and UN sources reported six incidents that harmed security forces or volunteers as they were protecting schools. There were also at least two reported incidents of arson that affected schools. For example: Unknown perpetrators carried out an attack on an army ranger who was protecting a school in Cho Ai Rong district on January 30, 2013, in Narathiwat province. The attack injured the ranger. [2291] Local media also reported two arson attacks on schools in February 2013, both carried out by unidentified assailants. One occurred in Narathiwat province on February 13, 2013, and a second took place in Pattani province on February 23, 2013. [2292] On July 31, 2013, an armed separatist group detonated an IED at a school in Yala province, injuring a security volunteer. [2293] A bomb planted behind the guard booth at a school in Yala province killed two soldiers and injured a 12-year-old school boy on September 10, 2013. Government authorities believed that a BRN splinter group was responsible for the attack.[2294] Attacks affecting schools appeared to accelerate in 2014, with at least 14 attacks reported. In several cases, the attacks targeted security forces providing protection for schools, students, and teachers on or near school grounds.[2295] For example: Media sources recorded one IED attack in Narathiwat province on March 10, 2014, when unidentified assailants threw a grenade at a school. [2296] Two arson attacks occurred in Narathiwat province on May 11, 2014, when unknown perpetrators reportedly set fire to two schools in one night. Local sources attributed the attacks to armed separatists. [2297] The UN reported that, in October 2014, nighttime arson attacks targeted eight schools in Pattani and Narathiwat provinces. According to the UN, these attacks may have been retaliation by an armed group for attacks by the Thai army. While no group claimed responsibility for the attacks, the UN stated that some reports indicated that the incidents constituted retaliation by a BRN-led armed group for attacks by government security forces. 2298 Media sources reported six arson attacks in Pattani province on October 12, 2014. [2299] It was not clear how much overlap there was between the two lists of attacks. Local media also reported that an armed separatist group detonated an IED near an Islamic school in Pattani province on December 5, 2014, possibly targeting a group of soldiers nearby, which damaged the school.[2300] Reports of attacks on schools appeared to decrease in 2015, with only two incidents documented that year, both perpetrated by unidentified assailants: On September 11, 2015, a bomb planted by unknown assailants exploded at the entrance of a community school in Pattani province, according to the UN. The attack injured five students between the ages of 3 and 15. [2301] Local media reported that two months later, on November 19, 2015, unidentified assailants opened fire on a school in Yala province, injuring the security guard.[2302] In 2016, reports of attacks on schools again occurred sporadically. Unknown attackers and alleged non-state armed groups were responsible for the attacks, with five such incidents found by GCPEA: On February 12, 2016, unidentified assailants set fire to Ban Khai School in Pulo Puyo, Nong Chik district, Pattani province, causing no casualties, according to local media. [2303] In an attack on August 6, 2016, an IED planted by unknown perpetrators exploded at Bannangsetar Intharachat School in Bannang Sata district, Yala province. There were no injuries in the blast, and it was not clear if the school was damaged, according to local media. [2304] Local media also reported that on August 7, 2016, an IED exploded at the entrance to a school, targeting a convoy carrying referendum ballots in Pattani province. A school official, who sources reported was serving as director of the local voting station, was killed in the blast. [2305] The UN, Human Rights Watch, Save the Children, and other sources reported that on September 6, 2016, alleged members of a non-state armed group detonated a bomb in front of a school in Tak Bai district, Narathiwat province, as parents were dropping their children off in the morning. A father and his daughter were killed in the blast and at least 10 people were injured, including teachers. [2306] On August 2, 2016, an explosive device planted near Solihiyah School in Khok Pho district, Pattani province, detonated, slightly wounding two security volunteers. The school was closed for the day as a result.[2307] At the time of writing, GCPEA had not identified any attacks on schools in 2017. Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Most of the attacks that affected teachers targeted government security forces responsible for forming teacher-protection units that escorted teachers to school, putting the teachers at risk and in some cases resulting in their deaths. Notably, however, casualties among civilian government employees such as civil servants and teachers outnumbered casualties among government security forces.[2308] Reports of attacks on teachers and other education personnel remained at the same level in 2013 as in previous years, then peaked in both 2014 and 2016, with apparent lulls in 2015 and 2017. Reported incidents affecting students remained at levels similar to the 2009-2013 reporting period, between one and three per year, through 2015, with no reports of attacks on students identified in 2016 and one in 2017. Attacks on teachers and education personnel were more frequent than those on students, and the UN reported that, according to the Ministry of Education, at least seven teachers and three education-related personnel were killed in 2013.[2309] Media soures reported that at least 12 attacks affecting teachers and education personnel involved assailants targeting government security forces who were escorting teachers to school as part of a broad teacher-protection program.[2310] In nine additional incidents recorded by media sources throughout the year five in Pattani province, two in Narathiwat, one in Yala province, and one in an unknown location unidentified assailants opened fire on teachers or education personnel.[2311] It was unclear whether government security forces were escorting these teachers at the time the attacks occurred, nor was it clear how many of these 21 media-reported attacks overlapped with the 10 incidents documented by the UN. In contrast to reported attacks on teachers, GCPEA identified only one attack on students. Attacks on students and teachers in 2013 included the following: Two unidentified motorcyclists opened fire on a bus that was transporting seven kindergarten students to school in Rueso district, Narathiwat province, on January 23, 2013, according to local media. None of the passengers was injured in the attack. [2312] The UN and local media found that on January 23, 2013, four unidentified gunmen entered a school cafeteria in Narathiwat province and shot a teacher in front of dozens of children, including his 7-year-old daughter. [2313] Most of these attacks occurred in Pattani and Narathiwat provinces. News sources reported that on June 20, 2013, a roadside IED detonated as a teacher security patrol was passing by, injuring five soldiers. No teachers were reported injured. [2314] On August 21, 2013, gunmen shot and killed a teacher from the Islam Community Foundation School in Moo 5, Pattani province. Authorities reportedly attributed the attack to separatists. [2315] On December 12, 2013, a bomb placed in front of a school targeted a military convoy providing protection for teachers, reportedly injuring two workers and six members of the government security forces. Local news media attributed this attack to a separatist group.[2316] Attacks on personnel appeared to be more frequent in 2014, mainly due to an increase in attacks on teacher-protection units, while reports of attacks on students remained consistent at one per year. In more than 30 incidents reported by local media, explosives and gunfire targeted teacher-protection units as they accompanied teachers to school.[2317] For example, local media reported that on August 28, 2014, a gas cylinder bomb was used to attack a motorcycle convoy of teachers and their soldier escorts in Pattani province. The explosion on the side of the road reportedly killed one female teacher and injured another.[2318] In addition to being affected by incidents directed at their protection units, teachers were also directly targeted and received threats, and students were attacked. For example: Human Rights Watch reported that on January 14, 2014, unknown assailants shot a teacher in Yala province while he rode home from his school on a motorcycle. [2319] The UN and international media reported that on March 14, 2014, assailants shot dead a female teacher riding a motorcycle to school, then poured gasoline on her body and set it on fire. A pamphlet with the words, "This attack is in revenge for the killing of innocent people," was found near her body. [2320] Less than one week later, unidentified perpetrators reportedly shot and killed a teacher in Narathiwat province, according to Human Rights Watch. [2321] The UN reported that banners threatening teachers were hung in parts of Yala province in November. [2322] Local media sources recorded two incidents, one each on November 12 and 15, 2014, when unknown gunmen opened fire on two teachers, one in Yala province and one in Pattani province. [2323] News sources also reported an incident on November 27, 2014, in which assailants opened fire on high school students in Tanyong Talo area, Pattani province, killing one and injuring another.[2324] Reports of attacks on teachers decreased in frequency in 2015, while attacks on students remained at a level similar to previous years. According to the UN, the Ministry of Education reported that two teachers and one student were killed in attacks, and one teacher and two students were injured.[2325] Meanwhile, local media documented five explosions targeting teacher-protection units, three in Pattani province and two in Narathiwat province.[2326] Gun attacks on teachers reported by local news sources in 2015 included the following: On May 9, 2015, unknown assailants shot and killed two teachers in the street in Narathiwat province. [2327] On May 26, 2015, assailants started shooting at a car carrying a teacher and a community leader in Pattani province, killing them both. [2328] On July 13, 2015, a physical education teacher was shot and killed by unknown perpetrators in Pattani province.[2329] Reported attacks targeting teacher-protection units increased again in 2016, when local media sources documented 22 such incidents: 12 in Narathiwat province, 8 in Pattani province, and 2 in Yala province. Of these attacks, 19 involved IEDs planted by the side of the road or elsewhere near the patrols, and three used gunfire to target teachers and their protection units.[2330] The teachers were largely uninjured in these attacks. In addition, local and international media reported that on October 28, 2016, two unidentified assailants on motorbikes shot and killed a teacher in Pattani province as she parked her car outside the school where she worked.[2331] GCPEA did not identify reports of attacks on students in 2016. GCPEA identified one recorded incident of an attack on students in 2017. Reuters reported that on March 2, 2017, assailants opened fire on a village deputy leader's car as he was transporting several children to a village school in Rue Soh district, Narathiwat province. An 8-year-old boy was killed instantly and two other children were wounded.[2332] There were no reported attacks targeting teachers. It was not clear whether this reduction was related to a change in the security environment or to a lack of information at the time of writing. Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school Information on child recruitment from schools in Thailand was sparse, but anecdotal information indicated that it did occur. Three former child recruits reported to Child Soldiers International in 2014 that armed groups had used private Islamic schools to indoctrinate and recruit them and other students.[2333] Attacks on higher education During the reporting period, government security forces reportedly arrested university students and professors for their perceived opposition to the government. Many of these arrests took place under the lese-majeste laws, which criminalized insulting the monarchy and were more actively and more broadly enforced after the May 2014 coup.[2334] Reports of this form of attack were more frequent than in Education under Attack 2014. The separatist conflict in the deep south affected higher education sporadically during the reporting period. There were reports of isolated incidents of IED explosions and gunfire affecting universities, students, and education personnel in the southern provinces. Media sources and NGOs documented two incidents of government forces arresting higher education students and personnel on political grounds in 2014: Scholars at Risk reported an incident on September 18, 2014, in which government forces interrupted a forum on democracy at Thammasat University in Bangkok, titled "The Fall of Dictatorships." They detained a group of four academics and three students, who were held at a local police station for a few hours and questioned before being released. [2335] Scholars at Risk also reported that on October 27, 2014, a student and a professor at Thammasat University in Bangkok were charged and jailed for insulting the monarchy when they staged a play called "The Wolf Bride," which parodied the Thai political conflict of 2013.[2336] There was one incident in Thailand's deep south in 2014, in which suspected separatists shot and killed a university student. Local media reported that on November 2, 2014, unidentified assailants shot and killed a university student in Muang district, Narathiwat province. Local sources alleged that the perpetrators were members of an armed separatist group.[2337] In 2015, the government's crackdown on perceived student opposition continued with the reported arrest of at least 14 students in a single incident, representing a slight increase in the number of people affected during 2014. Scholars at Risk and Human Rights Watch found that on June 26, 2015, state police arrested 14 students from the New Democracy Movement for sedition and violating the junta government's ban on public assembly. The students had led a nonviolent protest against the government the day before at Thammasat University in Bangkok. They were detained until July 8, 2015. The charges against them remained pending for an unknown period of time.[2338] NGO reports indicated that student activists continued to be affected by restrictions on freedom of expression in 2016. GCPEA collected information on two incidents in which students were detained, arrested, or beaten: Human Rights Watch reported that on January 20, 2016, government security forces abducted a well-known student activist as he walked with friends outside Thammasat University's Rangsit campus. The abductors grabbed him and pushed him into a truck with no license plates. Soldiers then handed him over to the police in the early morning of the next day. He later reported that he had been blindfolded, beaten, interrogated about his political affiliations, and accused of violating the ban on public assembly and political activity. [2339] According Scholars at Risk, on June 24, 2016, police arrested a group of student activists who were returning to the campus of Phranakhon Rajbhat University in Bangkok after marching to Bangkok's Laksi Monument, where they had distributed copies of Kao Kham, the New Democracy Movement's newspaper. Police officers had asked the students to stop distributing the newspapers but the students refused. They were then arrested under a law banning political gatherings of five or more people. The students were released later in the day and were not formally charged with anything.[2340] Rights groups reported two incidents in which academics were detained or arrested in 2017: On August 14, 2017, five academics were required to report to the police after they participated in the 13th International Conference at Chiang Mai University between July 15 and 18. At the conference, a group of Thai and foreign academics issued a statement that called on the government to restore freedom of expression in Thailand. Four of the academics were photographed holding a sign stating, "AN ACADEMIC FORUM IS NOT A MILITARY BARRACK." The four academics and the conference organizer were accused of violating NCPO Order No. 3/2558, which banned political gatherings of five or more people. They faced up to six months in prison and up to a $300 fine if convicted. [2341] Thai authorities charged Sulak Sivaraksa, a Thai academic and activist on October 9, 2017, with lese majeste after he made comments questioning a historical narrative about the 16th century royal elephant battle during an academic conference at Thammasat University. Sivaraksa.[2342] The prosecutor later dropped the charges on January 17, 2018.[2343] 2278 Zachary Abuza, "Religion in the southern Thailand conflict," post to The Interpreter (blog), October 10, 2014. 2279 Patpicha Tanakasempipat and Panarat Thepgumpanat, "Southern Thailand attacks reflect tension over peace talks, conflict monitor says," Reuters, April 19, 2017. Don Pathan, "Thailand eyes next move in Southern peace talks," Asian Review, August 17, 2017. 2280 ICG, Southern Thailand: Dialogue in Doubt (Brussels: ICG, July 8, 2015), p. i. 2281 "Thailand: Insurgents Target Civilians in South," Human Rights Watch news release, August 25, 2016. 2282 Amy Sawitta Lefevre, "Freedom of speech reaches 'new low' in junta-ruled Thailand," Reuters, December 16, 2015. 2283 "Press briefing note on Thailand," OHCHR, June 13, 2017. "Lese-majeste explained: How Thailand forbids insult of its royalty," BBC, October 6, 2017. Jonathan Head, "Thailand lese-majeste: UN urges amendment to law," BBC, June 19, 2017. 2284 ICG, Recruiting Militants in Southern Thailand (Brussels: ICG, June 22, 2009), p. 2. 2285 "In southern Thailand, schools function amid threats of violence," Agencia-EFE, May 20, 2017. 2286 CEDAW, "Concluding observations on the combined sixth and seventh periodic reports of Thailand*," CEDAW/C/THA/CO/6-7, July 21, 2017, paras. 22, 34. 2287 Kathryn Hanson, "Academic Freedom and Military Rule in Thailand," Inside Higher Education, January 8, 2017. 2288 ICG, Recruiting Militants, p. 2. 2289 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-reference. For 2012 numbers, see GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 196. 2290 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 203. 2291 Asian News International, "1 killed 3 injured in bomb explosions in restive S. Thailand," Yahoo News, January 30, 2013. 2292 "School burnt near attacked base," Bangkok Post, February 13, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201302130002. "South rebels launch wave of reprisals," Bangkok Post, February 25, 2013. 2293 "Five injured in four attacks in Yala," Bangkok Post, July 31, 2013. 2294 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 203. "BRN rebels blamed for Yala school bomb," Bangkok Post, September 10, 2013. "Two soldiers killed, schoolboy injured in Yala blast," Nation Thailand Portal, September 11, 2013. 2295 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2296 "Grenade thrown at Narathiwat school," Bangkok Post, March 11, 2014. "Selection List: Thai Press From Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat Provinces 17-23 March 2014," OSC Summary, March 17, 2014," as cited in STARTGTD 201403100023. 2297 "Insurgents launch multiple attacks in Thai south, one dead," Reuters UK, May 12, 2014;" "Thailand: One killed in explosions in Narathiwat, Yala," Thai News Service, May 13, 2014;" "Selection List: Thai Press From Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat Provinces 12-18 May 2014," OSC Summary, May 12, 2014" as cited in START, GTD 201405110022. 2298 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 259. 2299 Ludovica Iaccino, "Thailand: Separatists Torch Six Schools in One Night," International Business Times, October 13, 2014. 2300 "Man gunned down, school bombed in South violence," Bangkok Post, December 6, 2014. 2301 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 214. Pares Lohasan, "Suspected school bomber nabbed," Nation Thailand Portal, September 13, 2015. 2302 "Thailand: 7 hurt in Narathiwat, Yala attacks," Bangkok Post Online, November 19, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201511190004. 2303 Don Pathan, "Bombs, bullets fly as 'peace' message fails to reach South," Nation Thailand Portal, February 18, 2016. Abdulloh Benjakat Wassana Nanuam, "Soldier slain, 3 hurt in attacks," Bangkok Post, February 13, 2016. 2304 "Violence continues in Deep South as referendum date is near," Thai Public Broadcasting Service, August 6, 2016. 2305 "Thailand: One killed and two cops injured when militants attacked a ballot carrying truck," Thai Public Broadcasting Service, August 7, 2016. Supatcha Rattana, "Teacher killed in bomb attack on ballot box convoy," Nation Thailand Portal, August 8, 2016. 2306 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 233. "Thailand: Separatists Bomb School in South," Human Rights Watch news release, September 7, 2016. "Save the Children condemns attack outside a school in Thailand's south, says children and schools must be 'off limits' to armed groups," Save the Children, September 6, 2016. "Statement attributable to Mr. Thomas Davin, UNICEF Representative for Thailand, on violence in Narathiwat Province," UNICEF news release, September 6, 2016. "Thailand: Bombing outside School Leaves Two Dead," Education International, September 15, 2016. 2307 "Four border police and cyclist hurt by blasts in Songkhla," Nation, August 3, 2016. "Three bomb blasts in southern Thailand injures eight," Malay Mail Online, August 2, 2016. 2308 Thomas Parks, Nat Colleta, and Ben Oppenheim, The Contested Corners of Asia: Subnational Conflict and International Development Assistance: The Case of Southern Thailand (San Francisco: Asia Foundation, October 7, 2013), p. 14. 2309 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 203. 2310 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2311 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2312 "Thai teacher shot, killed," UPI, January 23, 2013. Greta McClain, "Islamist insurgents kill teacher, attack truck carrying students," Digital Journal, January 23, 2013. 2313 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 203. "Thai teacher shot, killed." Greta McClain, "Islamist insurgents." Waedao Harai, "Teacher tending kids shot dead," Bangkok Post, January 24, 2013. 2314 "Insurgent suspect killed in shoot-out," Nation (Thailand), June 21, 2013. "5 soldiers wounded in Pattani ambush," Bangkok Post, June 20, 2013. 2315 Xinhua, "Religious teacher shot dead in restive S. Thailand," Global Times, August 21, 2013. 2316 "Thailand: Pattani bomb injures eight people," Bangkok Post Online, December 12, 2013. "Thailand: Govt extends emergency decree in southern border region; eight wounded in Pattani bombing," Chiang Mai Mail, December 12, 2013. 2317 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2318 "Insurgents Kill Muslim Teacher in Thailand," Daily Sabah, August 28, 2014. "Female Teacher Killed in Thai Muslim South," Anadolu, August 28, 2014. "Supitcha Rattana, "Pattani teacher killed by gas-cylinder bomb," Nation Thailand Portal, August 29, 2014. 2319 "Thailand: Separatists Targeting Teachers in South," Human Rights Watch news release, March 30, 2014. 2320 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 258. "Teacher Killed and Set on Fire in Thailand," Al Jazeera, March 14, 2014. 2321 "Thailand: Separatists." 2322 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 259. 2323 "Muslim cleric shot dead in Yala," Nation Thailand Portal, November 14, 2014. "Mum and daughter among the dead in day of violence," Bangkok Post, November 16, 2014. "179th Teacher Murdered In Restive South," Khaosod Online, November 17, 2014. 2324 "One Pattani villager shot dead, one wounded in shooting attack by assailants on motorcycle," MCOT, November 29, 2014;""Selection List: Thai Press From Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat Provinces 1-7 December 2014," OSC Summary, December 1, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201411270035. 2325 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 214. 2326 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2327 "Brothers shot dead while riding bikes in far South," Nation Thailand Portal, May 11, 2015. 2328 "Thailand: Teacher killing spooks South," Bangkok Post, May 29, 2015. 2329 "Teacher shot dead in Pattani two years after brother killed," Nation Thailand Portal, July 14, 2015. 2330 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2331 AP, "Teacher killed in Thailand's insurgency-plagued deep south," Seattle Times, October 28, 2016. 2332 "Shooting in Thailand's south kills four despite safety zone deal-police," Reuters, March 2, 2017. 2333 Child Soldiers International and Cross Cultural Foundation, Southern Thailand: Ongoing recruitment and use of children by armed groups (London: Child Soldiers International, September 2014), p. 9. Lindsay Murdoch, "The war in southern Thailand is long-running and threatens to spread," Sydney Morning Herald, June 6, 2015. 2334 "Lese-majeste explained." 2335 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Thammasat University, September 18, 2014. 2336 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Thammasat University, October 27, 2014. 2337 Santhiti Koejitmet and Narong Nu, "Student 'shot by those who killed her dad,'" Nation Thailand Portal, November 6, 2014. "Two slain, 3 wounded in Narathiwat," Bangkok Post, November 3, 2014. 2338 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Thammasat University/ University of Khon Kaen, June 26, 2015. "Thailand: Junta Arrests 14 Student Activists," Human Rights Watch news release, June 27, 2015. 2339 "Thailand: Investigate Army Abduction of Student Activist," Human Rights Watch news release, January 22, 2016. 2340 Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitor, Kasetart University/Ramkhamhaeng University, June 24, 2016. 2341 Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitor, Chiang Mai University, August 14, 2017. 2342 "Thailand: Absurd lese-majeste charges against 85-year-old scholar for comments on 16th Century battle," Amnesty International, December 7, 2017. 2343 "Prosecutors drop lese-majeste charges against Sulak," Bangkok Post, January 17, 2018. Education Under Attack 2018 - Syria Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Syria, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be94301c.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Schools and universities were attacked by multiple parties to the conflict in Syria. Several hundred educational institutions were damaged or destroyed during air strikes that killed more than 1,000 students and education personnel. The use of schools by state and non-state armed groups as detention centers, military bases, and sniper posts also impeded education. In areas controlled by armed groups, boys faced the threat of being recruited at or along the route to or from school, and some armed groups altered the curriculum to fit their ideology. Context Armed hostilities broke out in Syria between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those who opposed his rule, following the government's repressive response to anti-government protests in the southern city of Dara'a in early 2011. After government security forces arrested and tortured thousands of people, including children, protests rapidly expanded to other parts of the country.[2118] By 2017, the internal crisis had evolved into multisided hostilities involving the Syrian military and intelligence branches; allied domestic and foreign militias and states, including Russia and Iran; a range of moderate and extremist armed opposition groups, some of which were supported by foreign powers, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the United States;2119 allied opposition forces, including Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, and Christian units (collectively known as the Syrian Democratic Forces); and an international coalition of states fighting 'IS'.[2120] The conflict had also become marked by aerial operations by Syrian government forces, Russian forces supporting the Syrian government, members of the international counter-'IS' coalition, Turkey, and Israel.[2121] The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reported that as of March 2017, the six-year anniversary of the Syrian crisis, 207,000 civilians had been killed, including 24,000 children and 23,000 women. According to the rights group, more than 90 percent of them had allegedly been killed by government military action.[2122] According to UNHCR, by November 2017, more than 5.[3] million people were registered as refugees in countries neighboring Syria, approximately 48 percent of them under the age of 18.[2123] Inside Syria, 6.[5] million people were displaced as of November 2017, including 2.[8] million children.[2124] There also were 4.[5] million people living in besieged and hard-to-reach areas of Syria.[2125] The armed hostilities largely destroyed Syria's previously strong education system.[2126] In February 2015, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic reported that more than three million children had stopped attending school on a regular basis.[2127] The Assistance Coordination Unit (ACU), a Syrian relief organization, found in November 2016 that 1,378 out of 3,373 public schools surveyed were not functioning. The majority of these schools were located in 'IS'-controlled Raqqa district (40 percent), where the extremist group had closed many educational institutions, and in Kurdish areas (31 percent), where some Arab parents reportedly had stopped sending their children to school after the schools had begun teaching in the Kurdish language.[2128] The UN noted that 'IS' shut schools to alter the curriculum and indoctrinate children. For example, in late 2014 'IS' closed all schools in Aleppo, Deir al-Zour, and Raqqa, pending implementation of a "modified" curriculum.[2129] Early marriage further limited female access to education. Some families forced their daughters to marry with the intention of "protecting" them, or to reduce the family's financial burden.[2130] The UN reported that women and girls in 'IS'-controlled areas were forcibly married to fighters, and 'IS' trafficked Yezidi women and girls they had abducted in Iraq as sex slaves into Syria.[2131] The multi-sided, shifting, and complex nature of the conflict in Syria made it difficult to verify with certainty when damage to schools and universities from ordnances was the result of targeted attacks, rather than incidental damage resulting from the conduct of hostilities. Nevertheless, all forms of reported attacks on education were significantly more widespread during the current reporting period than in the period covered by Education under Attack 2014, which likely coincided with the escalation of the armed hostilities in 2014. Attacks on schools Attacks on schools, whether targeted or incidental, in Syria were frequent. The UN and human rights monitoring groups documented attacks on schools by Syrian government forces, pro-government militias, armed opposition groups, and violent extremist groups.[2132] The international coalition against 'IS' and Russia began carrying out aerial bombardments in September 2014 and September 2015, respectively.[2133] These assaults were particularly destructive of civilian life and infrastructure, including damage or destruction of schools. Reports of attacks on schools did not often state whether there were military targets nearby. Save the Children reported that between 2011 and 2015 more than half of all attacks on schools worldwide occurred in Syria.[2134] A World Bank report published in July 2017 found that 53 percent of education facilities were partially damaged and 10 percent were wholly destroyed.[2135] The education facilities most commonly damaged or destroyed were vocational institutes, secondary schools, and education offices. The highest num- ber of education facilities affected was in Aleppo, where 73 percent had suffered some damage.[2136] Throughout the country, the many individual attacks on schools had dozens of victims.[2137] Syrian government forces, pro-government militias, armed opposition groups, and violent extremist groups attacked dozens of schools during 2013, in both indiscriminate and targeted attacks.[2138] For example: The UN stated that there were reports that mortar rounds launched by armed opposition groups hit schools in the al-Dweila, Bab Sharqi, and al-Qassa areas of Damascus on November 3 and November 11, 2013, killing children and school personnel and causing the government to suspend classes in those areas for three days. [2139] Human Rights Watch reported that armed opposition groups were responsible for at least four attacks in Homs (March 19, May 27 or 28, July 8, and October 17), six in Jaramana, Rif Dimashq governorate (October 22, October 31, and four other unspecified days), one in Eastern Ghouta (November 4), and one in Damascus (November 11) during 2013.[2140] According to information collected by Human Rights Watch, the six attacks in Jaramana killed and injured dozens, and the attack in Homs on March 19 killed four boys between the ages of 10 and 16 and severely injured a fifth boy.[2141] Multiple attacks that affected schools in 2013 used weapons that caused significant damage and bodily harm. The deadliest attacks included the following: On February 21, 2013, the Telegraph reported that a car bomb exploded near Ibn Al-Atheer School in Damascus, which was close to the Russian embassy, while students were leaving school, killing 50 people, including children. [2142] On August 21, 2013, government rockets struck a school in Eastern Ghouta. According to Human Rights Watch, the effects were consistent with a chemical attack, and only the government not armed opposition groups was known to possess the type of weaponry used in the attack. [2143] The UN later confirmed the use of chemical weapons in the attack. [2144] Just a few days later, on August 26, 2013, international media reported that victims had burns and were covered in a "napalm-like" coating after an aerial bomb struck a schoolyard in opposition-held Aleppo. Human Rights Watch reported that the attack killed 37 people, most of them students, and injured 44 civilians. [2145] On September 29, 2013, a government air strike on a school in Raqqa killed 15 civilians, including 14 students and a school janitor. [2146] Human Rights Watch reported that the attack used a fuel-air bomb, a weapon designed to cause extensive harm. [2147] According to media reports, in December 2013 a suicide bomber exploded a device near a primary school in the government-held town of Umm al-'Amed, Homs governorate, killing at least twelve people, including at least six students. [2148] The Syrian Human Rights Committee (SHRC) reported that an air strike on a school in Mare', Aleppo, injured at least 40 students on December 22, 2013.[2149] In 2014, the UN verified 60 attacks on educational facilities by government forces and armed groups and noted that the Ministry of Education had reported 889 schools partially or fully damaged by year's end.[2150] Information GCPEA compiled from media and NGO sources indicated that there were at least 86 attacks on schools.[2151] Media sources reported that, according to UNICEF, attacks on schools killed at least 160 children and wounded 343 across Syria in 2014.[2152] Of the attacks it verified in 2014, the UN reported that government forces perpetrated 39, 'IS' perpetrated 9, the Free Syrian Army perpetrated 1, and unidentified fighters perpetrated 11.[2153] Air strikes and mortar rounds appeared to be used in the majority of attacks in 2014, according to information compiled by GCPEA, but vehicle and suicide attacks also directly targeted schools in government-held areas of Homs in 2014. Reported attacks included the following: According to SHRC, a barrel bomb dropped near Tar'aan school in al-Mizerib, Dara'a, injured approximately 40 students on February 9, 2014. [2154] Human Rights Watch reported that on April 29, 2014, two mortar shells hit the Badr el-Din Hussaini educational complex in government-held Damascus. The attack killed 17 children and at least 2 parents, and injured approximately 50 people. According to Human Rights Watch, the mortar rounds came from the direction of Yarmouk camp, an opposition-held area. [2155] Media sources reported that government aircraft bombarded Ein Jalout Primary School on April 30, 2014, as members of the school community were preparing for the opening of an art exhibit. The attack reportedly killed at least 20 people, including between 17 and 33 students and 2 teachers, and wounded many more, including the school's principal. [2156] The UN verified that the attack occurred and stated that it killed 33 children and injured 40. [2157] On June 19, 2014, a vehicle exploded near Maysaloun School in Homs, according to the UN. [2158] In Homs, a suicide attacker carried out a double bombing at al-Makhzomi elementary school on October 1, 2014. [2159] The attack killed more than 50 people, including at least 29 children, according to reports received by the UN. [2160] In Homs, another vehicle-borne IED detonated near several schools on October 29, 2014. [2161] The UN also reported that on November 13, 2014, the government dropped barrel bombs on Tal Laylan Primary School in al-Hasakah, killing more than 7 children and injuring 13 more.[2162] During 2015, the UN again verified 60 attacks on education facilities, as well as 9 attacks on education personnel. GCPEA compiled verified and unverified reports from both media and NGO sources of at least 168 attacks on schools, reportedly harming more than 300 students and education personnel.[2163] The 69 attacks verified by the UN killed or injured a total of 174 children. They were attributed to government forces and pro-government groups (48); 'IS' (11); other armed groups (10); and unknown parties (1).[2164] Attacks on schools in 2015 were similar to those that occurred during the previous year, including mortar rounds and air strikes. According to information from the monitoring group Airwars, of 19 air strikes documented, the international coalition against 'IS' was likely responsible for 1 and the Syrian-Russian joint air campaign was likely responsible for 18.[2165] Approximately 30 percent of the attacks identified by GCPEA occurred in Idlib governorate, but Aleppo and Rif Dimashq governorates were also heavily affected. Based on the data collected by GCPEA, the attacks that caused the most harm included the following: Two missiles struck a primary school in Northern Syria during the exam period in March 2015. One missile fell outside the gate of the school, while the other struck the teachers' room. Five children and three teachers were killed, and fifty children and six teachers were injured, according to a Save the Children report. [2166] Media reports indicated that just a few days later, on May 3, 2015, a government barrel bomb hit the Center for Children's Training and Rehabilitation in the Seif al-Dawla neighborhood of Aleppo and killed at least seven people, including four children and a school teacher. [2167] The attack prompted school closures and the cancellation of exams by local opposition authorities in order to protect teachers and students. [2168] Mortar shells killed one female teacher and injured twenty students when they hit the al-Thaqafi Primary School in Damascus' al-Maleki neighborhood on May 19, 2015, according to reports shared with the UN. [2169] The UN also received information that, in early December, 3 students and 4 education personnel were killed and 17 students injured when air strikes hit the Sabie al-Jamia Primary School in Deir al-Zour. [2170] On December 22, 2015, 'IS' fired mortars, striking a school in the Hrabish area of Deir al-Zour city, according to information received by the UN. The attack reportedly killed nine students and injured twenty others.[2171] In some instances in 2015, aerial bombardments affected multiple schools in nearby locations on the same or consecutive days. For example: Between May 31 and June 7, 2015, eight Syrian government air strikes struck in Idlib city and the surrounding countryside, according to SHRC. [2172] In the strike on May 31, a barrel bomb damaged a school in Kafr Aweed village. The attack took place in the evening during summer vacation, so no one was harmed. [2173] SHRC reported that on November 24, 2015, there were air strikes on three schools in Deir al-Asafir town, in the outskirts of Damascus: a primary school, a secondary school for girls, and a mixed-gender high school. SHRC attributed the strikes to Syrian government forces. [2174] The Independent International Commission of Inquiry and the UN found that on December 13, 2015, air strikes hit up to four schools in Douma. One girls' school in Douma was hit twice in succession, with the second attack occurring while students and teachers were evacuating and those wounded in the first strike were being treated. The Commission of Inquiry reported that the school director and 15 students were among those killed at the girls' school.[2175] The UN verified 76 attacks on schools in Syria in 2016, which caused 255 child casualties. Government and progovernment forces were reportedly responsible for the majority of these attacks, particularly through air strikes. 'IS,' People's Protection Units, and unidentified armed groups were all responsible for some attacks on schools as well.[2176] Information GCPEA compiled from media and NGO sources indicated that there were at least 205 attacks on schools, but this information was not verified. As previously, more than half of these attacks occurred in Aleppo and Idlib governorates.[2177] This increased number of attacks on schools at least partially reflected the increased international involvement in the conflict in 2016. Notably, Russia had deployed military forces on September 30, 2015, further complicating the political landscape by lending its air power to the Syrian government.[2178] Periods of intense fighting, often in urban settings, also badly affected schools, with both pro- and anti-government forces responsible. According to the information compiled by GCPEA, air strikes at or near schools comprised a significant majority of the reported attacks on schools in 2016. Indeed, there were several periods of intense aerial bombardment during 2016 that reportedly damaged dozens of schools and harmed many students and education personnel. For example: Between July 31 and August 15, 2016, UNICEF and OCHA each reported that the fighting damaged 12 schools in Aleppo and Idlib governorates. [2179] Save the Children reported on August 11, 2016, that six schools run by their local NGO partners in Aleppo were affected by numerous air strikes during a one-week period in August. The bombings damaged four school buildings and killed children and education personnel in three of the incidents in different parts of Aleppo that were unidentified in the report. [2180] According to OCHA, by September 2016, 7 out of the 15 schools in Ariha town, Idlib governorate, had been destroyed during the previous year.[2181] Data collected by GCPEA also indicated that there were almost daily air strikes from late October through December 2016, and that shelling affected more than 60 schools.[2182] Many of these air strikes were deadly. For example: On October 26, 2016, Syrian-Russian coalition military planes reportedly struck the Kamal Qal'aji school complex in Hass village, Idlib governorate, between seven and nine times. The complex included a kindergarten, an elementary school, two middle schools, and a secondary school, according to information collected by Human Rights Watch. [2183] According to information verified by the UN, the attack killed twenty children and three female teachers. Five female teachers and many other children were also injured. [2184] The following day, on October 27, 2016, shelling by armed opposition groups reportedly struck the National School, a private school in a government-controlled area of western Aleppo, killing between 3 and 6 school children, and injuring between 14 and 23 others. [2185] On November 6, 2016, an air strike hit the Rawdat Ajyal al-Mustaqbal Nursery School in Harasta, Rif Dimashq. [2186] According to information verified by the UN, the strike killed eight children and injured twenty more. [2187] According to information collected by Syria Direct, there were four other aerial attacks on schools on November 20, 2016, alone, again in Hass, Idlib, and the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus.[2188] Several media sources reported, for example, that anti-government groups struck a school in western governmentheld Aleppo, killing eight children.[2189] Information GCPEA compiled from media and NGO sources showed that attacks on schools continued to be an almost daily occurrence in 2017, with at least 150 incidents that year.[2190] Raqqa governorate, where the Syrian Democratic Forces and Free Syrian Army militias, backed by the US, sought to retake Raqqa from 'IS,' was most affected by these attacks.[2191] However, Idlib and Aleppo governorates continued to be heavily affected as well. As in 2016, the majority of these attacks were believed to be air strikes, although there were also some ground-based strikes. For example: On March 9, 2017, an air strike reportedly hit the Abu Bakr Seddeeq School in Darat Izza, Aleppo governorate, killing seven children and injuring ten others on the school playground, according to credible information received by the UN. [2192] SNHR suspected that Russian warplanes were responsible for the attack. [2193] On March 20, an air strike by international coalition forces almost completely destroyed the three-story Badia Boarding School in Mansoura, Raqqa, killing at least 40 displaced civilians who were sheltering there, including 16 children and probably more, according to research by Human Rights Watch. Local residents reported that 'IS' maintained a presence at the school but also said that the school hosted a large number of displaced civilians. [2194] On May 18, 2017, a ground-based strike hit a school in Dara'a city, Dara'a governorate, according to information received by the UN. The strike allegedly killed seven children, including four girls, and injured twenty-five other civilians, including five children. [2195] On June 14, 2017, an air strike hit the courtyard of Martyr Kiwan Middle School in the opposition-controlled town of Tafas, Dara'a governorate, killing eight people, including a child, Human Rights Watch reported. Most of the casualties were members of a family who were taking shelter at the school after they had been displaced from another town. Artillery attacks near the school roughly an hour earlier killed two other civilians, including one child, and injured five. [2196] The UN received information that a vehicle-borne explosive device killed three male teachers and four boys on July 4, 2017, when it exploded next to a secondary school in Quneitra, Idlib governorate. [2197] According to Human Rights Watch, at least six Syrian children died on October 31, 2017, when shells fired by government forces landed at the gate of their school in Jisreen town in Eastern Ghouta, Damascus. [2198] NGOs reported that the shelling also damaged the school building and furniture. [2199] Half an hour later, two mortar rounds fell just outside another school in Mesraba, Eastern Ghouta, killing two children, according to Human Rights Watch. [2200] SNHR alleged that barrel bombs dropped by Syrian regime helicopters struck a school complex near Babolin village, Idlib governorate, on December 28, 2017. The complex included a high school and a secondary school, and the bombs partially destroyed the school buildings and damaged furniture.[2201] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Attacks on students, teachers, and other education personnel reflected levels similar to those reported in Education under Attack 2014. The majority of individuals who were killed or injured in reported attacks on education between 2013 and 2017 were harmed in attacks on schools, like those described above. These attacks affected hundreds of students and teachers. However, students and educators were also killed on their way to or from school, as well as in other forms of attack that targeted them more directly. According to Save the Children, one in five teachers had been displaced or killed by 2015.[2202] UNICEF reported that more than 52,000 teachers and 523 school counselors, nearly a quarter of Syria's teaching personnel, had left their posts by 2015, due to the conflict. Some fled and became refugees in other countries.[2203] GCPEA identified anecdotal cases of students and educators who were individually targeted. Attacks on education personnel appeared to become more common toward the end of the reporting period, in 2016. In 2013 and 2014, shelling killed or injured students in at least four reported incidents. The later three incidents were all reported by SHRC: Human Rights Watch reported that on May 19, 2013, a 6th-grade student died after shelling by armed opposition groups hit him while he was going home from school in Homs. [2204] On April 10, 2014, shelling killed four children as they were leaving school in al-Rastan town, Homs. [2205] On September 24, 2014, barrel bombs injured several children, again in al-Rastan, Homs as the children were leaving school. [2206] On December 22, 2014, a rocket struck a school bus carrying students from Hafsa Primary School in Saraqib, Idlib. The attack killed four children and injured nine other people.[2207] Teachers and education personnel also were killed, arrested, detained, or abducted in at least five incidents in 2013 and 2014. For example: Lebanon's Daily Star reported that in June 2013, a missile hit a government helicopter carrying seven Ministry of Education employees who were transporting exam papers to secondary school students in northern Aleppo. All seven employees and the plane's crew died. The Syrian government accused opposition groups of targeting the plane. [2208] Between January 1, 2013, and March 31, 2014, the UN reported three cases of teachers being arrested and detained. The report attributed responsibility for two of these cases to the government and for one to 'IS'. [2209] The UN also noted that it had received reports that on October 5, 2014, 'IS' detained a married couple for allegedly teaching mixed-gender classes.[2210] During 2014 and 2015, exam periods exposed students to particular risks, as thousands of students from besieged areas had to make dangerous journeys across checkpoints to take exams in government schools to ensure that their scores would be recognized by the Syrian government, according to UNICEF and Save the Children.[2211] UNICEF verified that more than 150 of the 400 children killed in 2015 were at school or on their way to or from school when the deadly incident occurred.[2212] Attacks included the following: Local sources reported to Human Rights Watch, the UN, and the media that on May 29, 2014, 'IS' abducted 153 Kurdish students who were returning from their end-of-year exams in Aleppo. [2213] The group separated male from female students and kidnapped only the boys. [2214] Four boys escaped after a few days, slipping out a door while their classmates distracted their captors. [2215] 'IS' released many of the remaining boys over the course of the next five months. [2216] According to Human Rights Watch interviews with some of the released children, 'IS' beat the boys and forced them to attend religious lessons and watch videos of 'IS' beheadings and attacks. [2217] In December 2015, according to Save the Children, students were stopped at checkpoints while on their way to take exams at government schools in some besieged areas of Damascus. Individuals interviewed by Save the Children reported that the people manning the checkpoints confiscated students' food and medicine. Save the Children did not report why the children were stopped or who controlled the checkpoints.[2218] Reported attacks on educators appeared to escalate in 2016, when the UN verified 11 incidents of attacks on education personnel, which harmed 28 educators. The UN noted that these numbers represented a 40 percent increase over 2015.[2219] Government forces and other groups continued to intimidate and abduct students and teachers at school and at home in 2016. OCHA reported allegations in January 2016 that 1,500 school students and 400 university students were unable to take their exams or look for jobs because of a siege by opposition groups in the villages of al-Fu'ah and Kafriya in Idlib governorate.[2220] Other incidents included the following: The UN received reports that a Kurdish school teacher was abducted from his home in Qamishli city, al-Hasakah governorate, which is on the border with Turkey, on January 9, 2016, and taken to an unknown location. The Kurdish National Council accused the Democratic Union Party/People's Protection Unit (YPG) of kidnapping him. [2221] UNICEF noted in February 2016 that girls attending the UNICEF-supported 1070 School in western Aleppo had reported that a sniper repeatedly threatened them by aiming his gun in their direction. [2222] OHCHR received reports that a 15-year-old schoolboy died in detention on May 7, 2016, after approximately two years in prison. He had been arrested for unclear or unknown reasons at a government checkpoint in Deir al-Zour city while on his way to take his exams.[2223] At the time of writing there were no reports of targeted attacks on students or education personnel in 2017. Military use of schools and universities In Education under Attack 2014, Syria had the highest rate of reported military use of education facilities of any profiled country. As of the beginning of 2013, as many as 1,000 schools were reported to have been used as barracks, firing positions, or detention and torture centers by different parties to the conflict.[2224] It was not clear when this use occurred. Reports of military use of schools and universities did not reach these levels between 2013 and 2017, but military use did occur consistently throughout the reporting period. According to Human Rights Watch, armed opposition groups continued to use schools as barracks, detention centers, military bases, and sniper posts in 2013 and 2014.[2225] Between January 1, 2013, and March 31, 2014, the UN documented 16 instances of schools being used as military bases, barracks, or weapons depositories by government forces (4), by the Free Syrian Army (7), by Jabhat al-Nusra (2), and by the YPG (3).[2226] The UN verified fewer cases of military use of schools in 2014, including nine by 'IS' and other non-state armed groups.[2227] SHRC recorded 37 schools used as military bases across Syria in 2014. This included 27 cases of use by government forces, 8 by 'IS,' and 2 by armed opposition groups, some of which apparently led to attacks on schools.[2228] For example, SHRC reported that on September 8, 2014, Syrian government forces shelled an agricultural high school that 'IS' was using as a military base in Hjen town, Deir al-Zour. The attack seriously damaged the school.[2229] Information GCPEA collated from UN, NGO, and media sources indicated that, in addition to being used as bases, schools were also reportedly used as prisons in 2014. Examples included the following: An August 2014 report by the UN noted that OHCHR had received reports of prisoners being transferred out of a prison in Al-Andalus School in the Old City of Homs. [2230] Two UN reports documented additional information indicating that prisoners were transferred to Al-Wahda School in Aleppo in May and July 2014.[2231] Military use of schools continued in 2015, with at least nine cases reported, at least eight of which were verified by the UN.[2232] These included the following: The UN verified that government forces were using eight schools in Idlib for military purposes in March 2015. Reportedly, armed opposition groups subsequently attacked four of the schools using unreported means. [2233] According to information verified by UNICEF, government troops used six schools for military purposes in the Ariha subdistrict of Idlib governorate in April 2015. It was not clear whether any or all of these cases overlapped with those documented the previous month. [2234] Education Cluster partners reported that on June 25, 2015, 'IS' used a school in Kobane, Aleppo governorate, as a firing location for attacking civilians.[2235] The UN reported approximately the same number of cases of military use in 2016 as it had verified the previous year: nine instances of military use, including five by the Free Syrian Army, three by 'IS,' and one by government forces. The UN noted that opposing forces reportedly subsequently attacked two of the schools, a trend that was reported by other agencies as well.[2236] For example: According to the UN, in June 2016, 'IS' allegedly used two schools in Raqqa city for military purposes, evicting IDPs who had been living there. [2237] According to information that Airwars assessed as "fair," 'IS' used two schools in or near Manbij, Aleppo governorate, in June and July 2016. Reported coalition air strikes hit the first, an agricultural secondary school that 'IS' was reportedly using as a detention center, on June 13, 2016, and the second, a primary school that 'IS' was reportedly occupying for unknown purposes, on July 28, 2016. [2238] In late September 2016, the UN reported that 'IS' had forcibly taken over UNRWA's Al Jarmaq School in the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus. The group was reportedly using the school to deliver educational services. [2239] Information provided to OHCHR by the Syrian government indicated that Muhaddathah School in the Sukkari area of Aleppo had been used for military purposes. Fourteen bodies found in the school on December 23, 2016, were members of the Syrian armed forces and six were members of government-allied forces.[2240] Al Ameen for Humanitarian support, a Syrian nonprofit, reported in October 2017 that 'IS' had used 54 schools in Deir al-Zour governorate as headquarters for the General Islamic Services Authority and the Islamic police.[2241] It was not clear when this use occurred. GCPEA separately identified reports that at least three schools and one university were used for military purposes during 2017, including the following: OCHA reported allegations that snipers took up positions on the roof of the education faculty of al-Furat University in Deir al-Zour governorate during fighting between 'IS' and the government in the beginning of January 2017. Their presence exposed students to shelling and gunfire as they took their exams. [2242] Airwars reported that on April 18, 2017, Mohammed Al-Faris School in al-Tabaqa, Raqqa governorate, was targeted by warplanes. The basement of the school was reportedly being used to hold prisoners. [2243] The UN also received reports that 'IS' fighters used Aqarib Primary School northeast of Salamiyah city, Hama governorate, on May 18, 2017, during a battle with government forces. [2244] According to the UN, 'IS' was reported to have used a school in Albu Kamal city, Deir al-Zour governorate. The school was subsequently targeted by rockets on June 15, 2017.[2245] Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school From 2013 to 2017 there was little documentation of how many children had been recruited from schools specifically to fight for government, pro-government, or anti-government forces in Syria. Nevertheless, some anecdotal information indicated that schools might have been used for recruitment purposes, unlike the period covered by Education under Attack 2014, during which no cases were reported. For example: On June 8, 2016, government security forces and pro-government armed groups arrested 150 students who were taking exams at Thib Antar School in the Jurah neighborhood of Deir al-Zour, according to reports received by the UN. The UN noted that it was believed the students had been detained in order to recruit them into armed groups. [2246] Also in 2016, the ACU found that there were twice as many girl students as boy students enrolled in school. Key informants interviewed by the ACU in Raqqa reported that parents were keeping their boys home from school for fear they would be recruited and that children did often disappear, presumably taken to provide services to fighters.[2247] There was also some indication that education-related activities played a role in child recruitment. Based on interviews conducted with children formerly associated with armed forces or armed groups, Human Rights Watch reported that armed opposition groups encouraged boys as young as 15 years old to fight, and that groups including Jabhat al-Nusra and 'IS' at times recruiting them by offering free lectures and schooling.[2248] Attacks on higher education While the majority of reported attacks on educational institutions affected primary or secondary schools, attacks by 'IS' and unidentified parties also affected higher education institutions, as mortars, rockets, IEDs, and air strikes struck university buildings. There were also reports that different parties sporadically targeted higher education students and personnel. The number of such attacks was similar to that reported during the 2009-2013 period covered in Education under Attack 2014. Media reports indicated that multiple explosions hit two of the country's most prestigious universities in 2013: Two explosions at Aleppo University killed at least 80 people and wounded 150 on the first day of midterm examinations in January 2013. [2249] Many students and university personnel were believed to be among those killed. [2250] The government and opposition groups blamed one another for the attack. [2251] Two months later, in March 2013, a mortar fired by armed opposition groups hit a cafe on the Damascus University campus, killing at least 10 students and wounding approximately 29.[2252] In 2014, mortars and rockets reportedly hit at least three university and college campuses multiple times. For example: The UN received information that on March 24, 2014, a mortar shell damaged the faculty of mechanical engineering in Ladhiqiyah. [2253] The UN also noted reports that two days later, on March 26, 2014, there was an explosion at Damascus University's Faculty of Medicine in Damascus. [2254] A suicide bomber detonated explosives at the same college on November 2, 2014, killing two students and injuring five, according to information provided to the UN by the Syrian government. [2255] On May 3, 2014, three mortars shells reportedly landed on the Faculty of Economy and Trading at the University of Aleppo, killing 12 students and injuring 16, according to reports received by the UN.[2256] Also in 2014, Syrian government forces killed at least one professor and 'IS' prevented female university students from studying. For example: According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, government security forces tortured and killed a professor at al-Furat University in Deir al-Zour in 2014 for his alleged involvement in Jabhat al-Nusra. [2257] The US Department of State cited reports that armed groups such as 'IS' prevented female students in Raqqa from traveling to complete their university exams, also during 2014.[2258] Rockets and mortars struck universities at least six times in 2015. For example: On June 4, 2015, rockets hit Baath University in Homs, according to reports received by the UN. [2259] Based on interviews, the Commission of Inquiry documented the killing of one student on November 10, 2015, when rockets fired by unidentified fighters struck Tishreen University in government-controlled Latakia city. [2260] According to SHRC, a missile that landed on Damascus University's School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering on September 2, 2015, reportedly killed 1 student and injured 15 others. [2261] On November 19, 2015, media sources reported that the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering building at Damascus University was hit by mortar rounds, killing at least two students and injuring three. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. [2262] According to reports received by the UN, on December 2, 2015, mortar rounds impacted the al-Sham Higher Institute in Damascus' Rukn al-Deen neighborhood, injuring 14 students and others. [2263] Also on December 2, 2015, a mortar shell struck the Civil Engineering College, injuring two students and a professor.[2264] In 2016 there were at least 11 incidents in which air strikes, rockets, or mortar rounds hit university buildings, campuses, or buses, according to information compiled by GCPEA.[2265] All attacks were reported to have taken place during the second half of the year. For example: Based on information shared with Human Rights Watch, during an incendiary bomb attack on August 7, 2016, Syrian or Russian forces hit near the Faculty of Humanities of the university in al-Dabbit, Idlib. [2266] On August 10, 2016, projectiles launched by an unidentified armed group hit a bus of students on their way to Aleppo University, killing 13 of the 24 passengers and wounding 35 others, including civilians on the street, according to reports provided to the Commission of Inquiry. [2267] Sources in Aleppo reported to OCHA that a rocket launched by armed opposition groups hit the University of Aleppo in al-Furqan neighborhood on October 4, 2016, killing at least two students and several other people. [2268] OCHA noted that, according to media sources, mortars struck an agricultural and medical institute in the same neighborhood, also on October 4, 2016, wounding a teacher and three students. [2269] Unidentified armed groups hit Aleppo University a second time on November 2, 2016, killing at least two female students at its Faculty of Humanities, according to reports provided to the Commission of Inquiry. [2270] OCHA reported a fourth alleged attack on Aleppo University on November 9, 2016, when shelling killed six people and injured twenty. It was not clear how many of them were students, faculty, or other personnel.[2271] GCPEA identified reports that air strikes or ground strikes struck university campuses six times from January 1 through November 30, 2017: The UN received reports that a veterinary school in Idlib city, Idlib governorate, was struck during air strikes on January 30, 2017. [2272] According to SNHR, a missile damaged an industrial school near Kafr Nabl city, Idlib governorate, on March 22, 2017, damaging it and making it unusable. SNHR believed that Russian planes were responsible for the strike. [2273] The UN identified reports that air strikes on the Faculty of Education at Idlib University injured a female student on March 25, 2017. [2274] SNHR suspected that Russian planes were responsible for the strike. [2275] OCHA reported that the faculty of science and an industrial school in Raqqa city, Raqqa governorate, were both severely damaged during air strikes on May 29, 2017. [2276] According to SNHR, shells partially damaged Aleppo University's Faculty of Law building, located in the al-Jame'a neighborhood, on August 16, 2017.[2277] 2118 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2012 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2012), Syria chapter. 2119 "Who backs whom in the Syrian conflict," Guardian, December 2, 2015. 2120 "Syria: The story of the conflict," BBC News, March 11, 2016. Nick Thompson, "Syria's war: Everything you need to know about how we got here," CNN, February 25, 2016. 2121 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 177. 2122 Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), The 6th Anniversary of the Breakout of the Popular Uprising towards Freedom, and the Killing of the First Civilians (UK: SNHR, March 18, 2017). 2123 UNHCR, "Syria Regional Refugee Response: Inter-agency Information Sharing Portal," November 16, 2017. 2124 "Syria: Creating a safe space for internally displaced families," OCHA, November 13, 2017. 2125 UNHCR, "Syria emergency," November 2017. 2126 Save the Children, Futures under Threat: The Impact of the Education Crisis on Syria's Children (London: Save the Children, 2014), pp. 3, 7, 8. HRC, "Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic," A/HRC/31/68, February 11, 2016, para. 69. OCHA, Assessment of the Needs and Humanitarian Situation within Syria Thematic Situation Analysis Report (Damascus: OCHA, June 2015), p. 38. 2127 HRC, "Report on the Syrian Arab Republic," A/HRC/31/68, para. 69. 2128 ACU, Schools in Syria: Thematic Report, Issue 3 (Gazientep: ACU, May 2017), pp. 10, 38, 49. Al Ameen, Ar-Raqqa in Numbers (Gazientep: Al Ameen, October 2017), p. 15. 2129 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 202. Al Ameen, Ar-Raqqa, pp. 13-14. 2130 Save the Children, Futures under Threat, p. 4. "Child Marriage and the Syrian Conflict," Girls Not Brides, June 20, 2017. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/249, para. 70. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/361, para. 70. 2131 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary General," S/2015/203, para. 61. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/361, para. 69. 2132 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 157. "Russia/Syria: Satellite, Video Imagery Confirm School Attack," Human Rights Watch news release, November 16, 2016. The monitoring group Airwars has documented airstrikes on civilian targets, including educational institutions, by Coalition and Russian forces: "Civilian and 'Friendly Fire' Casualties," Airwars, https://airwars.org/civiliancasualty-claims/. 2133 Craig Whitlock, "U.S. begins airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria," Washington Post, September 23, 2014. Andrew Roth, Brian Murphy, and Missy Ryan, "Russia begins airstrikes in Syria; U.S. warns of new concerns in conflict," Washington Post, September 30, 2015. 2134 Mike Kiernan, "More than Half of All School Attacks Have Been in Syria, New Data Shows," Save the Children, September 16, 2015. 2135 World Bank Group, The Toll of War: The Economic and Social Consequences of Conflict in Syria (Washington, DC: World Bank, July 2017), p. v. 2136 World Bank Group, The Toll of War, pp. 44-45 2137 For example, US State Department et al., "Syria 2013 Human Rights Report," 2014, p. 1. US State Department et al., "Syria 2014 Human Rights Report," 2015, pp. 2, 51. US State Department et al., "Syria 2015 Human Rights Report," 2016, pp. 1, 46. Richard Spencer and Magdy Samaan, "Syria: Bomb kills 50 as children leave school in Damascus," Telegraph, February 21, 2013. Patrick J. McDonnell, "Children among dozens dead in blasts outside two Syrian schools," Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2014. "Save the Children Condemns Fatal School Bombing in Northern Syria," Save the Children, December 11, 2015. 2138 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2139 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic," S/2014/31, January 27, 2014, para. 45. 2140 Human Rights Watch, "He Didn't Have to Die": Indiscriminate Attacks by Opposition Groups in Syria (New York: Human Rights Watch, March 22, 2015), pp. 28, 29, 31, 64-67. 2141 Human Rights Watch, "He Didn't Have to Die," pp. 28, 31, 64. 2142 Spencer and Samaan, "Syria: Bomb kills 50." 2143 Human Rights Watch, Attacks on Ghouta: Analysis of Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria (New York: Human Rights Watch, September 10, 2013), pp. 7-12. 2144 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republicon the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Ghouta area of Damascus on 21 August 2013," A/67/997-S/2013/553, September 16, 2013, para. 27. 2145 Human Rights Watch, Time to Act against Incendiary Weapons: Memorandum to Delegates at the Fifth Review Conference of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (New York: Human Rights Watch, December 12, 2016), p. 11. Ian Pannell, "Syria: Agony of victims of 'napalm-like' school bombing," BBC News, September 30, 2013. 2146 "Syria: Fuel-Air Bombs Strike School," Human Rights Watch news release, October 1, 2013. Syrian Network for Human Rights, "Shelling universities and schools: Shelling the educational building of commercial high school in Raqqa Governorate-Date of Incident: 29/9/2013."At least 16 dead as Syrian school hit in air strike: activists," Reuters, September 29, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 5. "Students reported killed in Syria air attack," Al Jazeera, September 29, 2013. 2147 "Syria: Fuel-Air Bombs." Syrian Network for Human Rights, "Shelling universities." "At least 16 dead," p. 5. "Students reported killed." 2148 "Syrian air force attacks Aleppo neighborhood with barrel bombs," Al Jazeera America, December 22, 2013. Xinhua, "2nd LD: Death toll of school blast in Syria's Homs rises to 20," China Daily, December 23, 2013. "Car bomb explosion at Syrian school kills eight," UPI, December 22, 2013. "Syria airstrikes kill dozens in Aleppo in eighth day of bombardment," Deutsche Welle, December 22, 2013. 2149 SHRC, The 12th annual report on human rights in Syria: January 2013-December 2013 (London: Syrian Human Rights Committee, January 2014), p. 10. 2150 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 202.. 2151 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2152 Reuters, "ISIS Closes Schools in Syria, Leaving 670,000 Children Without Education: UN," Huffington Post, January 6, 2015. Education Cluster, Schools under Attack in Syria, p. 2. 2153 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 202. 2154 SHRC, The 13th annual report on human rights in Syria: January 2014-December 2014 (London: Syrian Human Rights Committee, January 2014), p. 93. 2155 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015, Syria chapter. 2156 Anne Barnard and Hwaida Saad, "Children's Art at Syria School, and Then a Bomb," New York Times, April 30, 2014. Holly Yan and Saad Abedine, "25 children killed in elementary school bombing, Syrian activists say," CNN, April 30, 2014. 2157 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 200. 2158 Report of the UN Secretary-General on the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 2139, S/2014/525, July 23, 2014, p. 11. 2159 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/756, para. 9. Human Rights Watch, "He Didn't Have to Die," p. 2. "Syria: International shock at death of 30 children in school bomb attack," Education International, March 10, 2014. 2160 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/756, para. 9. 2161 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014) and 2165 (2014)," S/2014/840, November 21, 2014, para. 10. 2162 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/840, para. 6. 2163 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2164 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 157. 2165 "Reported civilian and 'friendly fire' deaths from Coalition airstrikes 2015," Airwars. "Reported civilian deaths from Russian airstrikes in Syria, October 2015," Airwars. "Reported civilian deaths from Russian airstrikes in Syria, November 2015," Airwars. "Reported civilian deaths from Russian airstrikes in Syria, December 2015," Airwars. 2166 Save the Children, Education Under Attack in Syria (London: Save the Children, September, 2015), p. 2. 2167 Joseph Adams, "The Ruin of Syria's Schools: Mapping Damaged and Destroyed Schools in Syria," Syria Direct, May 28, 2015. Tamer Osman, "Aleppo Teacher Describes Destruction of School and 'Education System,'" Syria Deeply, May 14, 2015. Kareem Shaheen, "Syrian children killed in government barrel-bomb attack, say rights groups," Guardian, May 3, 2015. 2168 Shaheen, "Syrian children killed." 2169 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014) and 2191 (2014)," S/2015/468, para. 8. AP, "Shell kills teacher, wounds 23 students in Damascus school," News 24, May 20, 2015. "Teacher killed, 23 students wounded in mortar attack in Damascus-state media," Reuters, May 20, 2015. "Update2-A teacher killed, 23 students injured in terrorist rocket attack in Damascus," Al-Masdar News, May 20, 2015. "Mortar shell smashes into Syrian school, one dead, 23 injured," Indian Express, May 20, 2015. 2170 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary General on the Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014) and 2258 (2015)," S/2016/60, January 21, 2016, para. 20. 2171 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary General," S/2016/60, para. 14. "Islamic State shelling of Syrian school area kills nine," Reuters, December 22, 2015. "War on Terror Updates: British troops in Helmand as Taliban advance; Isis shelling kills 9 schoolgirls in Syria," International Business Times India, December 22, 2015. 2172 SHRC, The 14th annual report on human rights in Syria: January 2015-December 2015 (London: Syrian Human Rights Committee, 2016), p. 115-116. 2173 SHRC, The 14th annual report on human rights in Syria, p. 115. Education Cluster, Schools under Attack in Syria, p. 5. 2174 SHRC, The 14th annual report on human rights in Syria, pp. 119. 2175 HRC, "Report on the Syrian Arab Republic*," A/HRC/31/68, para. 70. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/60, para. 20. "Syria aerial bombing raid kills at least 28 people, including school children and principal," ABC, December 14, 2015. 2176 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 180. 2177 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2178 Bill Chappell, "Russia Begins Airstrikes In Syria After Assad's Request," NPR, September 30, 2015. 2179 Basma Ourfali and Yasmine Saker, "Education under fire: Schools in Aleppo damaged in renewed fighting," UNICEF newsline, August 22, 2016. "Syria Crisis Bi-Weekly Situation Report No. 11," OCHA, August 19, 2016, p. 3. 2180 "Children on front line of conflict as multiple schools in North-West Syria bombed," Save the Children, August 11, 2016. 2181 "Syria Crisis Bi-Weekly Situation Report No. 12," OCHA, September 2, 2016, p. 5. 2182 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2183 "Syria/Russia: School Attack a Possible War Crime: 39th Reported Attack on Schools in Syria This Year," Human Rights Watch news release, November 6, 2016. Merrit Kennedy, "Dozens Dead in What UNICEF Calls One of the Worst School Bombings in Syria's War," NPR, October 27, 2016. Josie Ensor, "Assad air strike on village school kills 14 children," Independent, October 27, 2016. "Syria/Russia: School Attack." 2184 UN Secretary General, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014) and 2258 (2015)," S/2016/962, November 15, 2016, para. 16. 2185 UN Secretary General, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions," S/2016/962, p. 7. "Syria Crisis Bi-Weekly Situation Report No. 16," OCHA, October 31, 2015, p. 1. "Attacks on schools aim to 'destroy Syria's identity,'" Al Jazeera, December 4, 2016. 2186 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014) and 2258 (2015)," S/2016/1057, December 14, 2016, para. 16. SHRC, The 15th annual report on human rights in Syria: January 2016-December 2016 (London: Syrian Human Rights Committee, 2016), p. 93. Syria Institute and PAX, Siege Watch: Fifth Quarterly Report on Besieged Areas in Syria November 2016-January 2017 (Washington, DC: Syria Institute and Pax, January 2017), p. 22. 2187 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions," S/2016/1057, para. 16. 2188 Alaa Nassar et al., "Four schools damaged across Syria as 1,500 students affected," Syria Direct, November 21, 2016. 2189 "Syria war: Aleppo self-rule plan rejected by government," BBC News, November 20, 2016. Allen Cone, "Eight children killed in rocket launch at school in Aleppo," UPI, November 21, 2016. Nassar et al., "Four schools damaged." 2190 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2191 On the battle to re-take Raqqa, see Jamie Dettmer, "Battle to Retake Raqqa a Desperate House-to-House Fight," VoA, July 10, 2017. 2192 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014), 2258 (2015) and 2332 (2016)," S/2017/339, April 19, 2017, para. 26. 2193 "Suspected Russian forces shelled a school in Darat Ezza city in Aleppo governorate on March 9," SNHR, March 10, 2017. 2194 Human Rights Watch, All Feasible Precautions? Civilian Casualties in Anti-ISIS Coalition Airstrikes in Syria (New York: Human Rights Watch, September 24, 2017), pp. 19-28. 2195 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014), 2258 (2015) and 2332 (2016)," S/2017/541, June 23, 2017, p. 15. 2196 "Syria: Airstrike on School Kills Civilians," Human Rights Watch news release, July 12, 2017. UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014), 2258 (2015) and 2332 (2016)," S/2017/623, July 21, 2017, para. 16. 2197 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014), 2258 (2015) and 2332 (2016): Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/733, August 24, 2017, p. 17. 2198 "Syria: Children Under Attack in Damascus Enclave," Human Rights Watch news release, January 11, 2018. 2199 "'At least five' Syrian children killed as school is bombed in besieged town," Theirworld, October 31, 2017. "Syrian regime forces shelled Mohammad Naser Ash'oush Primary School in Jisreen town in Damascus suburbs governorate on October 31," SNHR, October 31, 2017. 2200 "Syria: Children Under Attack." 2201 "Syrian regime forces shelled a school complex in Babolin village in Idlib governorate on December 28," SNHR, December 28, 2017. 2202 Save the Children, Childhood under Siege: Living and Dying in Besieged Areas of Syria (London: Save the Children, March 2016), p. 23. 2203 UNICEF, Education under Fire: How the Conflict in the Middle East is Depriving Children of their Schooling (Amman: UNICEF, September 2015), p. 8. World Bank, Syria: Reconstruction for Peace (Washington, DC: World Bank, April 2016), p. 24. 2204 Human Rights Watch, "He Didn't Have to Die," p. 66. 2205 SHRC, The 13th annual report on human rights in Syria, pp. 94-95. 2206 SHRC, The 13th annual report on human rights in Syria, pp. 98. 2207 SHRC, The 13th annual report on human rights in Syria, p. 102. 2208 "Helicopter shot down, state says more than seven dead," Lebanon Daily Star, July 1, 2013. 2209 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolution 2139 (2014)," S/2014/365, May 22, 2014, p. 12. 2210 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), and 2191 (2014)," S/2015/862, November 11, 2015, para. 22. 2211 Shushan Mebrahtu, "Syrian children's courage for education offers hope amid grim realities," UNICEF newsline, July 25, 2016. Save the Children, Childhood under Siege, p. 23. 2212 UNICEF, No Place for Children: The Impact of Five Years of War on Syria's Children and Their Childhoods, March 14, 2016, p. 6. Citing the Syrian Ministry of Education, the UN reported that 571 students and 419 teachers were killed in 2015. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836-S/2016/360, para. 157. 2213 "Syria: ISIS Holds 130." UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014) and 2165 (2014)," S/2014/756*, October 23, 2014, para. 24. Abdelaziz, "Syrian radicals 'brainwash.'" CNN, June 26, 2014. James Harkin, "Up to 186 Kurdish students kidnapped by Isis in northern Syria," Guardian, June 26, 2014. 2214 "Syria: ISIS Holds 130." Abdelaziz, "Syrian radicals 'brainwash.'" 2215 "Syria: ISIS Holds 130." Abdelaziz, "Syrian radicals 'brainwash.'" Harkin, "Up to 186." 2216 "Syria: ISIS Tortured Kobani Child Hostages," Human Rights Watch new release, November 4, 2014. "Syria: ISIS Holds 130." Reuters, "Islamic State frees 70 Kurdish schoolchildren kidnapped in Syria," South China Morning Post, September 30, 2014. 2217 "Syria: ISIS Tortured Kobani." 2218 Save the Children, Childhood under Siege, p. 23. 2219 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 180. 2220 "Flash Update-Foah and Kafraya," OCHA, January 31, 2016, p. 2. 2221 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014) and 2258 (2015): Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/156, February 18, 2016, para. 22. 2222 Ourfali and Saker, "Education under fire." 2223 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2224 UN Security Council, "Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General," A/66/782-S/2012/261, April 26, 2012, para 125. UN Security Council, "Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General," A/67/845-S/2013/245, May 15, 2013, para 158. Human Rights Watch, Safe No More: Students and Schools under Attack in Syria (New York: Human Rights Watch, June 6, 2013), pp. 25-26. SNHR, "A Report on the Destruction of Schools and Its Consequences," as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, pp. 190, 193. 2225 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2014, Syria chapter. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015, Syria chapter. 2226 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/365, p. 12. 2227 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 202. 2228 SHRC, The 13th annual report on human rights in Syria, p. 91. 2229 SHRC, The 13th annual report on human rights in Syria, p. 97. 2230 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014) and 2165 (2014)," S/2014/611, August 21, 2013, para. 19. 2231 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions," S/2014/611, para. 18. UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014) and 2165 (2014)," S/2014/427, June 20, 2013, para. 12. 2232 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 160. 2233 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 160. 2234 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/468, para. 18. 2235 Education Cluster, Schools under Attack in Syria, p. 5. 2236 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 182. 2237 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2238 "Reported civilian and 'friendly fire' deaths from Coalition airstrikes April-June 2016" Airwars. "Reported civilian and 'friendly fire' deaths from Coalition airstrikes July-September 2016," Airwars. 2239 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014) and 2258 (2015)," S/2016/873, October 18, 2016, para. 9. 2240 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014), 2258 (2015) and 2332 (2016)," S/2017/144, February 16, 2017, para. 18. 2241 Al Ameen for Humanitarian Support, Deir Al-Zour: The Forgotten City, p. 12. 2242 "Syrian Arab Republic: Deir-ez-Zor Flash Update No. 2," OCHA, January 28, 2017, p. 2. 2243 "Reported civilian and 'friendly fire' deaths from Coalition airstrikes April 2017," Airwars. 2244 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions," S/2017/541, para. 19. 2245 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions," S/2017/733, paras. 22. 2246 UN Secretary-General, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions," S/2016/631, para. 22. 2247 ACU, Schools in Syria: Thematic Report, Issue 3 (Gazientep: ACU, May 2017), p. 35. 2248 Human Rights Watch, "Maybe We Live and Maybe We Die": Recruitment and Use of Children by Armed Groups in Syria (New York: Human Rights Watch, June 22, 2014), pp. 1, 2, 25. See also, Lizzie Dearden, "Isis training children of foreign fighters to become 'next generation' of terrorists," Independent, July 29, 2016. 2249 "Syria crisis: Dozens killed by Aleppo university blasts," BBC News, January 15, 2013. Mariam Karouny, "Explosions kill 83 at Syrian university as exams begin," Reuters, January 15, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 194. "International Higher Education Protection Organizations Condemn Attack on Syrian University," Institute of International Education, January 17, 2013. Hwaida Saad and Rick Gladstone, "Dozens Killed as Explosions Hit Syrian University," New York Times, January 15, 2013. "Syria: Education in Crisis during a Time of Conflict," Academic Exchange, February 4, 2016. 2250 "International Higher Education Protection." 2251 Anne Barnard, "Syria's War Invades a Campus That Acted as a Sanctuary," New York Times, March 28, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 194. 2252 Barnard, "Syria's War Invades," p. 194. "Syria: Education in Crisis." 2253 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolution 2139 (2014)," S/2014/295, April 23, 2014, p. 13. 2254 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolution," S/2014/295, p. 13. 2255 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/840, para. 10. 2256 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/365, para. 10, p. 12. 2257 "Syria: Education in Crisis." 2258 US State Department et al., "Syria 2015," p. 47. 2259 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), and 2191 (2014)," S/2015/561*, July 23, 2015, para. 10. 2260 HRC, "Report on the Syrian Arab Republic*," A/HRC/31/68, para. 71. 2261 SHRC, The 14th annual report on human rights in Syria, p. 118. 2262 "Renewed mortar shelling kills 2 students in Damascus," Xinhua News Agency, November 19, 2015. 2263 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/60, para. 7. 2264 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/60, para. 7. 2265 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2266 "Syria/Russia: Incendiary Weapons Burn in Aleppo, Idlib," Human Rights Watch news release, August 16, 2016. 2267 HRC, "Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic*," A/HRC/34/64, February 2, 2017, para. 71. 2268 "East Aleppo Crisis: Situation Report No. 4," OCHA, October 9, 2016, p. 1. See also, Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Aleppo, October 4, 2016. 2269 "East Aleppo Report No. 4," p. 1. 2270 HRC, "Report of the Independent International Commission*," A/HRC/34/64, para. 74. 2271 "Syria Crisis: Bi-Weekly Situation Report No. 17," OCHA, November 14, 2016, p. 1. 2272 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions," S/2017/144, p. 9. 2273 "Suspected Russian forces shelled school in Kafr Nobbol city in Idlib governorate on March 22," SNHR, March 22, 2017. 2274 UN Security Council, "Implementation of Security Council resolutions," S/2017/339, p. 21. 2275 "Suspected Russian forces shelled faculty of education building in Idlib city on March 25," SNHR, March 25, 2017. 2276 "Syria Crisis: Ar-Raqqa Situation Report No. 7," OCHA, June 3, 2017, p. 2. 2277 "Armed opposition factions shelled the Faculty of Law in Aleppo University in Aleppo city on August 16," SNHR, August 16, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Sudan Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Sudan, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be9430213.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Bombing, shelling, arson, and looting damaged and destroyed hundreds of schools and killed and injured students and school personnel in Darfur and in Southern Kordofan, Abyei, and Blue Nile. School and university students, as well as school teachers, were also reportedly targeted for their perceived opposition, and were attacked with live and rubber bullets, teargas, batons, and other means. Context Conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan began in 2003 and continued through the period covered by this report. In 2014, violence and battles between government and rebel forces, in addition to intertribal conflict, reached a level of intensity that had not been seen since 2004, displacing nearly half a million people in Darfur in that year alone.[2028] Attacks by government forces in Jebel Marra, the rebel stronghold in Central Darfur, intensified in the first half of 2016, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis. The Sudanese government also blocked access to Jebel Marra by the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).[2029] Government security forces and their supporters in Darfur included the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, and the police, as well as armed community groups. Anti-government non-state armed groups in Darfur included the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army, both of which claimed to be fighting against social injustice.[2030] The government declared a unilateral ceasefire in Darfur in June 2016, but skirmishes continued.[2031] In June 2017, the UN Security Council approved the reduction of UNAMID's peacekeeping forces by approximately one-third, despite ongoing violence in the region.[2032] In addition to the conflict in Darfur, after the 2011 secession of South Sudan, territorial conflicts broke out in Southern Kordofan, Abyei, and Blue Nile states, all of which bordered the new nation to the south. In 2011, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N), an armed opposition group, began fighting government forces in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile.[2033] Infighting continued from 2012 through 2014, and in 2015, the SPLM-N launched increasingly powerful attacks in these two states, including shelling.[2034] In December 2016, the parties to the conflict declared a ceasefire.[2035] Aerial bombardment reportedly decreased in Darfur and in Southern Kordofan, Blue Bile, and Abyei states in the first half of 2017, possibly as a result of the ceasefires which were widely seen to be linked to a decision by the United States to lift economic sanctions on Sudan.[2036] Sudan's conflicts severely impacted children's access to education in all affected areas. Indiscriminate bombing by the government and opposition groups killed and maimed children, and damaged and destroyed schools.[2037] In Darfur, OCHA reported that 680,000 children were out of school in 2013 alone. In addition, enrollment rates were lower than 75 percent in Blue Nile, Southern Kordofan, and Abyei states.[2038] In 2014 the Minister of Education reported to local media that conflict-related insecurity led many students and teachers to leave school.[2039] From 2013 to 2016, the number of attacks on education remained comparable to levels reported in Education under Attack 2014, and they continued to take similar forms. Reports of all types of attacks began to decrease in 2017, possibly due in part to the ceasefires declared in Sudan's conflict zones. Information on attacks on education came from UN, NGO, and media sources. Restricted access to conflict-affected regions of Sudan made it challenging to verify data. Sudan endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration in October 2015. Attacks on schools Aerial bombings by government forces damaged and destroyed dozens of schools during the reporting period. The Darfur region and Southern Kordofan state were most heavily affected by these attacks. Attacks in Darfur were reported at similar rates to those found in Education under Attack 2014, and those in Southern Kordofan were reported at rates similar to the years 2011 and 2012. GCPEA found no reports of attacks on schools in 2017, possibly due in part to the government's 2016 ceasefire in Darfur and the ceasefire between the government and the SPLM-N, which was active in Southern Kordofan, Abyei, and Blue Nile states. In 2013 the UN reported three government air strikes on schools, which took place in Dursa village, Central Darfur state; Um Dadeti town, South Darfur state; and Tabit village, North Darfur state. Each air strike damaged schools and injured a combined total of six school children. The UN also reported that unknown armed attackers looted schools in Labado, East Darfur in April 2013.[2040] Meanwhile, during the first half of 2013, reports collated from UN, NGO, and media sources in Southern Kordofan state indicated that government forces damaged three schools and an SPLM-N mortar damaged one: The UN reported that an SPLM-N mortar shell hit the yard of El Manar Primary School for Boys in Kadugli, injuring a 10-year-old boy. [2041] An NGO report stated that in February and March 2013, government aircraft bombarded villages in Delami and Al Buram counties, Southern Kordofan state, damaging several buildings, including two schools. [2042] On May 16, 2013, four SAF bombs hit the Father Cliff Primary School for Orphans while the students were eating lunch, according to Nuba Reports. A 9-year-old boy was reportedly injured in the attack, when shrapnel struck his leg.[2043] Similar attacks continued to affect education in 2014. The UN documented 10 cases of schools being damaged or destroyed in Darfur.[2044] Among these, the UN reported that two schools were looted and burned following fighting between government security forces and the Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minawi (SLA-MM) in Umgonia village, South Darfur state, in February 2014.[2045] Also in 2014, government bombs reportedly damaged or destroyed schools in Southern Kordofan state. Human Rights Watch reported that government armed forces bombed five school areas at least three times between 2014 and 2015.[2046] Nuba Reports separately reported three attacks on schools: A school in Kauda in the Nuba Mountains was hit by rockets dropped by SAF jets on January 1, 2014. [2047] Nuba Reports documented an attack in which the SAF reportedly dropped bombs on the Tabanya Primary School. [2048] On December 20, 2014, bombs reportedly hit a school in Katcha during fighting between the SAF and SPLM-N.2049 Attacks on schools continued in 2015, with the UN reporting 13 incidents throughout the year in Darfur.[2050] For example, the UN documented the looting of six schools by government security officers in villages around eastern Jebel Marra in January 2015, and the destruction of one school in East Dafur state during fighting between the Rizeigat and Habania tribes on an unknown date.[2051] Schools in Southern Kordofan state were also reportedly damaged by aerial bombing and looting in 2015. For example: Amnesty International confirmed the indiscriminate aerial bombing of four schools in Southern Kordofan state in 2015, resulting in deaths, injuries, extensive property damage, and displacement. [2052] On March 28, 2015, a school was burned down and looted during clashes between the SPLM-N and government security forces in Habila, Southern Kordofan state, according to the UN.[2053] The UN documented 20 attacks on schools in Darfur in 2016, an increase from the 13 incidents reported by the UN in 2015.[2054] It was unclear when in 2016 the attacks occurred and whether they took place after the government's ceasefire in June. Also in 2016, the UN received but could not verify reports of attacks on three schools in Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Abyei states.[2055] Media sources reported separately on three attacks on schools in the Nuba Mountains, Southern Kordofan state: Several media sources reported that on May 25, 2016, government forces dropped two parachute bombs into the compound of St. Vincent Primary School in the Nuba Mountains, damaging its classrooms and library and wounding a Kenyan teacher. [2056] Radio Dabanga reported that, in April 2016, a government plane bombed a school in Dalami, Southern Kordofan state, destroying classrooms, killing the headmaster, and injuring two boy students who were 8 and 11 years old. The article stated that this was the fifth school in the area to be damaged by aerial bombardment in March and April. [2057] According to Nuba Reports, another school was destroyed in the Nuba Mountains on May 28, 2016, during fighting between the SAF and SPLM-N.[2058] At the time of writing, GCPEA had not identified reports of attacks on schools in 2017. Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Throughout the reporting period, students, teachers, and other education personnel were caught in the crossfire during fighting, as they had been during the 2009-2013 period covered in Education under Attack 2014. As also reported in Education under Attack 2014, the government used force in responding to student protests and perceived political opposition, mostly in the Darfur region. Sporadic incidents were reported in the Darfur region, and in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile. Students and teachers in Darfur were harmed in attacks on education in 2013 and 2014. During that period, Radio Dabanga reported in September 2014 that basic school teachers in North Darfur were protesting the killing of seven colleagues in the past year. They accused a pro-government milita group of being responsible for the latest attack.[2059] In addition, government security forces reportedly fired live ammunition at groups of students during two incidents in the Darfur region in 2013, and unidentified attackers targeted students in at least one incident in 2014. Examples of attacks included: Local media reported that on July 7, 2013, a soldier fired live bullets at students who became impatient over delays and perceived corruption while waiting to obtain a seal required for university applications in Nyala, South Darfur. One student was killed and four were wounded. [2060] According to Sudanese news sources, on September 29, 2013, police shot teargas and live ammunition at secondary students protesting the increased cost of national exams in North Darfur, killing at least one student and injuring at least ten. [2061] Media sources found that on July 16, 2014, a teacher in Darfur was abducted, with Radio Dabanga attributing the event to pro-government militia members. The outcome of the abduction was unknown. [2062] Radio Dabanga reported that a secondary school teacher was beheaded in September 2014, attributing responsibility to pro-government militia members. [2063] According to the Sudan Tribune, government security forces arrested nine teachers in Darfur in September 2014 for participating in a strike to protest unpaid salaries. [2064] Radio Dabanga reported that on an unknown day during the week of November 23-30, 2014, men in military uniforms abducted a female secondary school student on her way home from school in North Darfur. It was not clear why she was kidnapped or where she was taken.[2065] Violence affected teachers in West Kordofan beginning in 2015, which coincided with the SPLM-N's broader operations in the area and the government's increased response. For example, the UN reported an unspecified incident in April 2015 in which the SPLM-N killed an unknown number of education personnel in West Kordofan state.[2066] Also in 2015, the Asylum Research Consultancy (ARC) reported that government security forces used teargas and live ammunition to disperse primary school students protesting for unknown reasons in Blue Nile state in October 2015.[2067] Incidents impacting teachers and students occurred in both the Darfur region and Southern Kordofan state in 2016, with just one reported incident in each area: In the first quarter of 2016, the ARC reported that one student was killed during clashes between the SPLMN and government forces in a village in Southern Kordofan state during primary school exams. [2068] The Sudan Tribune reported that on September 15, 2016, unidentified gunmen shot and killed three students and injured two others in Kass, South Darfur. Local leaders alleged that non-state armed groups operating in the area were responsible for the attack.[2069] Violence in Darfur continued to affect students occasionally in 2017, with at least two incidents that year, according to media sources: Chadian forces reportedly kidnapped a student from a Quran school in Sirba locality, West Darfur, on October 29, 2017, taking him in the direction of the Chadian border. A witness told the media that the motivation for the attack was unclear. [2070] On November 10, 2017, unidentified gunmen stormed a teacher dormitory at a school in Muglad town, Central Darfur, killing two teachers. The motive for the attack was unknown.[2071] Military use of schools Government security forces and non-state armed groups used schools as barracks or bases of operation in both Darfur and Southern Kordofan during the reporting period, with at least eight such cases between 2013 and 2017. GCPEA found more reports on this activity from 2013 to 2017 than from 2009 to 2013, when the UN reported the use of three schools in Southern Kordofan state and none in Darfur. This difference could be due to stronger monitoring and reporting in the more recent period. The UN reported the military use of five schools in Darfur between 2013 and 2016.[2072] This may have included the following four incidents reported separately by the UN: The UN received credible information regarding military use of one school in South Darfur in 2014. 2073 The UN reported the use of three schools in Darfur by national security forces in 2016. [2074] The UN also reported military use of schools by government forces in Southern Kordofan: A UN report documented the use of two schools as military camps in September of 2014: the Gadid Basic School in Abu Jibeha locality, and the Suq al-Jabal Basic School in Abbasiyya locality. [2075] The UN documented the use of a school in Kadugli, Southern Kordofan state, by the National Intelligence Security Service in March 2016.[2076] The school was reportedly closed for vacation at the time, and it was quickly vacated because of advocacy by the UN and Ministry of Education.[2077] Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school or university According to information received by the UN, children in Darfur were raped in various settings, including en route to and from school.[2078] The UN also reported that government and affiliated forces allegedly perpetrated individual and mass rapes against women and girls in Darfur.[2079] At least two cases of sexual violence, or threats of sexual violence, by government forces against students were reported, including the following: On October 5 and 6, 2014, government security forces violently and forcibly evicted approximately 70 female Darfuri students from the Zahra dormitory complex at the University of Khartoum, beating numerous students and arresting 18 who refused to leave. The students told Human Rights Watch that they were hit and interrogated at the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) offices before being taken to Omdurman prison for women. [2080] The US Department of State received reports that the government security forces accused the students of supporting rebel groups in Darfur and subjected them to sexual and other physical violence. [2081] Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reported that government security forces raped one student during this incident. [2082] Both the Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO), a UK-based NGO, and Radio Dabanga reported that in March 2015, ten girls and seven boys were attacked as they walked along a road to take their final exams in Central Darfur. Between two and five girls were raped and eight girls abducted. SUDO attributed the attack to the Rapid Support Forces, while Radio Dabanga attributed it to government troops.[2083] Attacks on higher education Violence occurred at university protests, with government security forces allegedly using excessive force against protesters.[2084] Protests were sometimes peaceful, but at other times student protesters reportedly wielded weapons, including metal bars, stones, and chains.[2085] According to Human Rights Watch, police reportedly stood in front of dormitories and harassed female students as they entered and exited.[2086] Amnesty International also highlighted a government crackdown on university students who spoke out against the humanitarian situation in Darfur, which was usually carried out by the NISS and with students affiliated with the ruling National Congress Party.[2087] Other violence in the context of higher education included outbreaks of fighting between supporters of different political parties on campuses, and attacks with unknown motivations. There were at least 30 reported attacks on higher education during the reporting period. These reports peaked in 2015, when several hundred were reportedly arrested and approximately one dozen killed.[2088] Overall, however, the level of violence was lower than in the 2009-2013 reporting period, when hundreds of students were injured and more than a thousand arrested across the country. Various sources documented the following six incidents affecting university students in 2013, the majority perpetrated by security forces and related to government suppression of protests about the situation in Darfur. More than 100 students were reportedly arrested in these attacks and at least 15 were injured: Human Rights Watch and other sources reported that in May 2013, nine students sustained injuries at El Fasher University in North Darfur. Students were attending a meeting when 70 student members of a progovernment armed group entered the campus. Clashes broke out and militia members fired into the air, wounding one student. As students attempted to flee, police and NISS members at the campus gate fired into the crowd, wounding eight more. [2089] Human Rights Watch found that on June 16, 2013, intelligence officers arrested five Darfuri student activists in three separate locations in Khartoum and Omdurman. The students were held in detention for at least one month. 2090 Also on June 16, 2013, a violent outbreak allegedly occurred at Omdurman's Ahlia University between student supporters of the ruling National Congress Party and student members of the United Popular Front, a group linked to the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army faction. [2091] Local media reported that in September 2013, 22 Darfuri students were arrested and several were injured during a sit-in at the University of Peace in West Kordofan. This was part of ongoing nationwide protests against a university policy requiring Darfuri students to pay tuition, despite a political agreement that Darfuri students were exempt from such payments. Police used live ammunition, batons, air rifles, and teargas against the student protesters. [2092] Scholars at Risk reported that on October 29, 2013, government security forces raided a meeting held at the Ahfad University in Khartoum to establish a unified position against the government crackdown on protests related to the situation in Darfur. Nine professors were arrested and detained until the next day.[2093] The government was responsible for further violence against university student protesters, particularly students from Darfur or those protesting the violence in Darfur throughout 2014. As in 2013, more than 100 students were arrested by security forces and at least a dozen were injured. In addition, at least one student was reportedly killed by government forces in 2014. These violent attacks included the following: Scholars at Risk and Amnesty International reported that on March 11, 2014, government security forces reportedly fired live ammunition and teargas at students engaged in a demonstration at the University of Khartoum, killing one student and injuring seven. They also arrested more than 100 student protesters. The students were protesting the escalating violence in Darfur. [2094] Radio Dabanga reported that government security forces also reacted violently at a memorial service held for the dead student a few days later. [2095] Scholars at Risk reported two additional incidents in 2014 in which multiple university students were wounded when government security forces dispersed student protests. [2096] Scholars at Risk also reported that on May 21, 2014, university lecturer and activist Sidig Noreen Ali Abdalla had been detained incommunicado and without charges at El Obeid prison for more than four months. [2097] He was thought to have been detained due to his advocacy around the situation in Darfur. [2098] A university student activist told Amnesty International that NISS officers arrested him five times, once each in 2003, 2007, 2008, and in March and September 2014. In the last incident, the NISS severely beat him and kept him in solitary confinement for 10 days. The NISS also forced him to provide a blood sample, and he suspected that NISS agents purposefully infected him with Hepatitis B while he was detained, as a doctor found that he was newly infected with the virus a week after he was released. After his release, NISS agents continued to monitor his movements and sent him threatening messages, so he fled to Egypt in February 2015.[2099] In 2015, Amnesty International reported that government security forces arbitrarily arrested and detained 200 students from Darfur and killed at least 13 at universities across the country that year.[2100] The US Department of State also reported detentions and the possible torture of Darfuri students by government forces in September 2015.[2101] Attacks on higher education included the following: Scholars at Risk and other international sources reported that on April 14, 2015, riot police used teargas to disperse student protesters at El Fasher University who were calling for a boycott of the general elections for president and national assembly. At least 18 students were detained and charged with criminal offenses. Many of them reportedly appeared in court in the following days with blood on their clothes and other signs that they had been beaten. [2102] Amnesty International stated that in October 2015, the Holy Quran University imposed retroactive tuition fees on Darfuri students. In response, approximately 500 Darfuri students organized a public seminar on campus on October 13, 2015, which was attacked by 70 to 100 ruling party-affiliated students, police, and NISS agents wielding explosive devices and iron bars. The attack injured six students.[2103] On October 25, 2015, Darfuri students at the Holy Quran University reportedly organized another protest, but government security forces and ruling party-affiliated students attacked them again, injuring 15 students, according to Amnesty International. The next day police arrested twelve students, releasing three the same day and detaining the other nine until an unknown day in November 2015.[2104] In 2016, rights groups, the UN, and other sources documented continued violence by government forces against university students across the country, including the use of teargas, rubber bullets, batons, and live ammunition to break up protests.[2105] Much of this violence occurred in April 2016.[2106] Two students were killed and dozens arrested, which was a frequency similar to that in 2013 and 2014. For example: Amnesty International reported that in January 2016, government security forces and students affiliated with the ruling party attacked a peaceful assembly of Darfuri students at the University of El Geneina. They beat multiple students with metal bars and other instruments, killing one. Government security forces also arrested 27 students from the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups. [2107] According to the UN, on March 24, 2016, a female university student was assaulted by NISS officers while she was on her way to the University of El Geneina in West Darfur. [2108] Al Jazeera reported that in April 2016, government security forces opened fire on around 200 students protesting the sale of a University of Khartoum building for use as a tourist attraction, killing one student. [2109] According to Scholars at Risk and media sources, on April 19, 2016, NISS personnel attacked students participating in elections at the University of Kordofan, killing one student and injuring 27 more. [2110] The UN reported that on April 26, 2016, seven students from Nyala University, South Darfur state, were arrested for demonstrating against increased public transport fees. They were reportedly beaten while in detention for an unknown period of time. [2111] Media sources indicated that pro-government armed groups shot and killed one student and wounded three at Omdurman Ahlia University in Omdurman, Khartoum state on April 27, 2016. [2112] Scholars at Risk reported that on May 5, 2016, NISS officers raided a meeting at the University of Khartoum where students were discussing how to appeal the university's decision to dismiss them for their involvement in student-led demonstrations. The officers beat and detained nine students.[2113] The number of reported attacks on higher education decreased in 2017. Examples included the following: On May 9, 2017, armed police entered the dormitories of Bakht El Rida University in White Nile state and ordered all students to leave, after a student group held a protest over the possibly fraudulent process surrounding the election of a student union committee. Three students were allegedly shot in the incident, and 19 were arrested and detained for an unknown period of time. [2114] On May 15, 2017, the Darfur Student Association at El Zaeem El Azhari University in Khartoum North met to discuss the right to a free education. NISS agents stormed the campus and arrested 15 Darfuri students, including two females, and injured two others. It was not clear how long the arrested students were kept in detention. [2115] Amnesty International reported that NISS agents arrested Naser Aldeen Mukhtar Mohamed, the former chairperson of the Darfur Students' Association at the Holy Quran University, at the campus gates on August 22, 2017.[2116] He was released without charge on January 28, 2018.[2117] 2028 "Sudan: Conflict Profile," Peace Insight, n.d. 2029 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017, Sudan chapter. 2030 "Sudan: Conflict Profile." Human Rights Watch, "Men With No Mercy": Rapid Support Forces Attacks against Civilians in Darfur, Sudan (New York: Human Rights Watch, September 2015), p. 4. 2031 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 155. 2032 Somini Sengupta, "U.N. to Reduce Peacekeepers in Darfur Region of Sudan," New York Times, June 29, 2017. "UN: Drastic Cuts to Darfur Mission Misguided," Human Rights Watch news release, June 14, 2017. 2033 "Sudan: Conflict Profile." 2034 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in the Sudan," S/2017/191, March 6, 2017, paras. 11-13. 2035 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, paras. 12-13. 2036 "Human Rights Benchmarks for Sudan," Human Rights Watch news release, May 3, 2017. Human Rights Watch, Letter regarding the human rights situation in Sudan during the 36th session of the UN Human Rights Council (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2017). 2037 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2014, Sudan chapter. 2038 OCHA, Sudan Common Humanitarian Fund: CHF Annual Report 2013, June 10, 2014. 2039 "East Darfur students, teachers affected by insecurity," Radio Dabanga, November 6, 2014. 2040 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 141. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, para. 43. 2041 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 135. 2042 Sudan Consortium, The impact of aerial bombing attacks on civilians in Southern Kordofan, Republic of Sudan: A Briefing to the Summit of the African Union (Kampala, Uganda: May 2014), p. 7-8. 2043 "Student injured in Kauda primary school bombing," Nuba Reports, May 16, 2013. 2044 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary General," S/2017/191, para. 43. Information provided by a UN respondent, June 13, 2017. 2045 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, para. 43. 2046 "Sudan: Bombing Campaign's Heavy Toll on Children," Human Rights Watch news release, May 6, 2015. 2047 "Rocket attack strikes school in Kauda," Nuba Reports, January 24, 2014. 2048 "Bombing kills nine on first day of negotiations," Nuba Reports, February 13, 2014. 2049 "Weeks of bombardment shows no signs of stopping as forces clash near Kadugli," Nuba Reports, January 10, 2015. 2050 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, para. 43. 2051 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, para. 43. 2052 Amnesty International, Don't We Matter? Four Years of Unrelenting Attacks against Civilians of Sudan's South Kordofan State, (London: Amnesty International, August 18, 2015), p. 25. 2053 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, para. 40. 2054 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, para. 43. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 159. 2055 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, paras. 40. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 165. 2056 "School Kids in Sudan Narrowly Escape Bombing of Catholic School," Huffington Post, May 28, 2016. "Condemnation as Sudan bombs South Kordofan civilians," Radio Dabanga, May 29, 2016. "Primary school bombed in latest string of civilian attacks," Nuba Reports, May 27, 2016. 2057 "Teacher killed in air raids on South Kordofan schools," Radio Dabanga, April 29, 2016. 2058 "SAF launches limited attack on rebels from Al Azrak," Nuba Reports, May 30, 2016. 2059 "Basic school teachers join strike in Kutum, North Darfur," Radio Dabanga, September 4, 2014. 2060 "Darfuri student killed, four wounded in shooting at Nyala National Service centre," Radio Dabanga, July 7, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 190. 2061 "Three secondary school students killed, 25 injured in North Darfur," Radio Dabanga, September 29, 2013. "One Student Killed, 10 Injured By Police in Malha," Sudan Radio, September 30, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 190. 2062 "Militia members abduct 'mainly displaced' in Darfur," Radio Dabanga, July 18, 2014. 2063 "Basic school teachers." "Darfur lawyers condemn Violence against activists in Kutum," Radio Dabanga, September 7, 2014. 2064 "Sudan security arrests nine teachers in North Darfur state," Sudan Tribune, September 10, 2014. 2065 "Student abducted, women molested in Kutum, North Darfur," Radio Dabanga, December 1, 2014. 2066 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, para. 40. 2067 "SUDO UK, Human Rights Abuses in Sudan over the Mont of October 2015, 1 November 2015, Blue Nile Asylum," as cited in Asylum Research Consultancy (ARC), South Kordofan and Blue Nile Country Report, June 1, 2016, p. 126. 2068 "SUDO(UK), Human rights abuses in Sudan over the month of March 2016, 26 April 2016, South Kordofan," as cited in ARC, South Kordofan, p. 58. 2069 "Three students killed, two injured by militias in South Darfur," Sudan Tribune, September 17, 2016. 2070 "Sudan: West Darfur Koran Student Abducted by Chad Soldiers," Radio Dabanga, October 31, 2017. 2071 "Gunmen kill two teachers in West Kordofan," Radio Dabanga, November 10, 2017.. 2072 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, para. 45. 2073 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 184. 2074 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 159. 2075 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, para. 42. 2076 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 165. 2077 Information shared by a UN respondent via email, January 16, 2018. 2078 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/191, para. 36. 2079 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/203, para. 53. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/249, para. 64. 2080 "Sudan: Police Beat, Arrest Female Students," Human Rights Watch news release, October 15, 2014. 2081 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Sudan," p. 5. 2082 Human Rights Watch, Good Girls Don't Protest, p. 25. Amnesty International, "Uninvestigated, Unpunished": Human Rights Violations Against Darfuri Students in Sudan (London: Amnesty International, 2017), p. 33. 2083 "Several attacks on Civilian by RSF." "Two raped, eight missing," p. 210. 2084 For example, see Human Rights Watch, We Stood, They Opened Fire: Killings and Arrests by Sudan's Security Forces During the September Protests (New York: Human Rights Watch, April 2014), p. 9. Human Rights Watch, Good Girls Don't Protest, pp. 11-13, 28-30. 2085 For example, see Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Khartoum, May 4, 2014. 2086 Human Rights Watch, Good Girls Don't Protest, p. 28. 2087 Amnesty International, Darfuri Students Arrested, Detained, and Tortured for Speaking Out (London: Amnesty International, 2017). 2088 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2089 "Sudanese police, security forces and student militia group fire live ammunition at Darfur Students; nine students sustain gun-shot wounds," African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies, May 22, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 190. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2014, Sudan chapter. 2090 "Sudan: Wave of Arrests after Rebel Offensive," Human Rights Watch news release, July 10, 2013. 2091 "Sudan: Wave of Arrests." 2092 "30 Darfuri Students Banned from Babanusa University," Radio Tamazuj, October 1, 2013; "Darfuri students injured, 20 arrested in Babanusa, Sudan," Radio Dabanga, September 20, 2013; "22nd Darfuri student arrested in Babanusa, West Kordofan," Radio Dabanga, September 22, 2013," as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 190. 2093 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Ahfad University, October 29, 2013. 2094 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Khartoum, March 11, 2014. "Sudan: Student Shot Dead and More than 100 Arrested at Khartoum Protest," Amnesty International news release, March 11, 2014. Amnesty International, "Uninvestigated, Unpunished," p. 38. US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Sudan," p. 2. 2095 "Police violently breaks up student demonstration in Sudan's capital," Radio Dabanga, March 14, 2014. 2096 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Nyala University, April 4, 2014. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Khartoum, May 4, 2014. 2097 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, West Kordofan University, May 21, 2014. 2098 "Sudan: End Arbitrary Detention of Activists," Human Rights Watch news release, June 25, 2014. 2099 Amnesty International, "Uninvestigated, Unpunished," p. 34. 2100 Amnesty International, "Uninvestigated, Unpunished," p. 5. US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2015: Sudan," p. 13. 2101 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2015: Sudan," p. 18. 2102 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Al-Fasher University, April 14, 2015. US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2015: Sudan," p. 46. 2103 Amnesty International, "Uninvestigated, Unpunished," p. 20-21. 2104 Amnesty International, "Uninvestigated, Unpunished," p. 21-22. 2105 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 2106 "Sudan: Students, Activists at Risk of Torture," Human Rights Watch news release, May 25, 2016. 2107 Amnesty International, Darfuri Students Arrested. Amnesty International, "Uninvestigated, Unpunished," pp. 28, 37. 2108 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur," S/2016/587, July 1, 2016, para. 53. 2109 "Students protest at Sudan's oldest university," Al Jazeera, April 15, 2016. Khaled Abdelaziz, "Hundreds protest in Sudan capital after student shot dead," Reuters, April 27, 2016. 2110 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Khartoum, April 19, 2016. "Sudan: Government must investigate." "'Killing a student is killing a nation': Sudanese universities revolt," Open Democracy, April 22, 2016. "Students rally against killings in Sudan's universities," Radio Dabanga, April 29, 2016. Karen MacGregor, "Another 'Opposition' Student Killed as Protests Spread," University World News, April 30, 2016. "Sudan Student Killing Sparks Wave of Protests," Guardian, April 22, 2016. 2111 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/587, para. 53. 2112 Karen MacGregor, "Another 'Opposition' Student."Sudan Student Killing Sparks Wave of Protests," Guardian, April 22, 2016. 2113 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Khartoum, May 5, 2016. 2114 "Excessive use of force directed at students by Sudanese forces in White Nile and Khartoum Bahri," African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies, May 19, 2017. 2115 "Excessive use of force." 2116 "Sudan: Detained student activist risks ill-treatment: Naser Aldeen Mukhtar Mohamed," Amnesty International news release, September 5, 2017. "Sudan: Further information: Sudanese student held in solitary confinement: Naser Aldeen Mukhtar Mohamed," Amnesty International news release, November 22, 2017. 2117 "Sudan: Further Information: Student held in solitary confinement released: Naser Aldeen Mukhtar Mohamed," Amnesty International campaign, February 5, 2018. Education Under Attack 2018 - South Sudan Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - South Sudan, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be9430313.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Attacks on education occurred in South Sudan throughout the reporting period, damaging schools and killing and injuring students and teachers. More than 150 schools were used for military purposes and hundreds of children were abducted from their classrooms. Conflict-related violence destroyed at least 800 schools. Context Following a protracted civil war, South Sudan declared independence from Sudan in July 2011.[1935] At the end of 2013, a new civil war erupted in South Sudan over a power struggle between President Salva Kiir, a member of the majority Dinka ethnic group, and his former vice president, Riek Machar, a member of the Nuer ethnic group, who was dismissed by Kiir.[1936] Warring parties included the national armed forces, known as the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA); the Sudan People's Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO), which fought against the SPLA; Sudanese rebels who fought at various times alongside the SPLA; and various opposition groups that formed since the war started.[1937] A peace agreement, signed in August 2015, did not prevent renewed conflict, and a follow-up ceasefire in December 2017 did not stop fighting or abuses.[1938] Violence intensified during the second half of 2016, with the UN warning that the conflict risked becoming a genocide.[1939] In its first three years, the armed conflict was most intensely concentrated in the northeastern states of Upper Nile, Jonglei, and Unity three of the ten states that form the Greater Upper Nile region.[1940] However, in late 2015 the violence spread to the Greater Equatoria region in the south of the country and to Bahr el Ghazal region, in the west.[1941] At the time of writing, tens of thousands of people were killed in the fighting and millions fled their homes between the beginning of the conflict in late 2013 and May 2016.[1942] The violence had a particularly damaging impact on children. UNICEF reported that 2.[4] million South Sudanese children had been forced to flee their homes as of December 2017.[1943] Over 2,300 children had been killed or maimed, and approximately 19,000 had been recruited into armed groups.[1944] Sexual and gender-based violence also occurred, and government forces and militias used rape as a weapon of war and ethnic cleansing, primarily against women and girls.[1945] Between December 2013 and October 2017, UNICEF reported that more than 1,200 children experienced sexual violence. Ninety-nine percent of those affected were girls.[1946] In December 2017, UNICEF reported that around 2 million children in South Sudan were out of school, representing 72 percent of the country's school-age population.[1947] This was the largest percentage of any nation's children out of school at the time.[1948] Schools across the country were frequently closed due to fighting and the threat of violence, and hundreds of schools and other civilian assets were looted and destroyed.[1949] Between the beginning of the conflict in December 2013 and October 2017, 293 incidents of attacks on schools or protected persons or of military use of schools were reported to the South Sudan CTFMR. These incidents cumulatively affected more than 90,000 children.[1950] Plan International reported that parents kept their girls home from school to do housework, with conflict and famine adding fuel to their decisions.[1951] GCPEA found instances of rape occurring in the educational context, as described in the section on sexual violence below. South Sudan endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration in June 2015. Attacks on schools According to UNICEF, between the beginning of the conflict in late 2013 and January 2016, violence destroyed more than 800 schools.[1952] In 2017, the Education Cluster reported that 31 percent of all schools in South Sudan had suffered some form of attack by armed forces or non-state armed groups between December 2013 and the end of 2016, including military use and threats targeting students and teachers. The Greater Upper Nile region, where 63 percent of schools experienced attacks during that period, was most heavily affected.[1953] These reported numbers represented a dramatic increase over the 100 attacks on schools found during the 20092013 reporting period. This increase could be due to more systematic data collection after 2013, the intensification of the conflict in late 2013, or some combination of the two. Despite the large cumulative number of attacks on schools, annual reports remained anecdotal for much of the reporting period. In 2013, there were reports that at least six schools were looted or destroyed. In some cases, classes were suspended as a result. The six cases were: Witnesses reported to Human Rights Watch that soldiers and unknown assailants looted three schools in Pibor town between April and May 2013, destroying books and cupboards and stealing tables and chairs. [1954] UNICEF reported that land mines found behind Darussalam school in Maban refugee camp in Upper Nile state forced the suspension of alternative learning activities in its Child Friendly Spaces program in March 2013. [1955] According to Human Rights Watch, soldiers destroyed a school near Labrab village in April 2013. [1956] Human Rights Watch also reported that, during the capture of Boma town by the SSDM in May 2013, unknown assailants looted and destroyed a school and part of a teacher-training center, both supported by a local NGO.[1957] In 2014, during the first full year of the conflict, the UN reported but was unable to verify seven attacks on schools.[1958] Amnesty International reported that witnesses described an incident in March 2014 in which the White Army, a Nuer non-state armed group, looted school materials during an attack in Duk county. 1959 In 2015, attacks on education appeared to particularly affect Unity state because of fighting between the SPLA and allied forces and the SPLA-IO in April and May. A UN report documented nine attacks on schools, including looting, in May 2015 in Unity state alone.[1960] According to Human Rights Watch, two containers of school textbooks were opened, and their contents ruined during the fighting in Unity state.[1961] There were also sporadic reports of attacks on schools elsewhere in South Sudan. For example: Local media reported that on April 8, 2015, warplanes coming from the direction of Sudan dropped bombs in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, some of which landed on one school. [1962] The Education Cluster documented the looting and damage of at least two primary schools in two areas of Western Equatoria state, causing them to be abandoned in May 2015. [1963] OHCHR reported that witnesses in Mondikolo village described the looting of a primary school in September 2015 by unidentified assailants and said the same school was vandalized the following November. [1964] According to local media, the SPLA looted a school in Juba in June 2015.[1965] Reports of attacks on schools became more common in 2016 as the conflict intensified. The South Sudan Education Cluster found that 72 schools had been damaged or burned by parties to the conflict, although it was not clear whether all of these attacks happened in 2016. Of those 72 schools, 30 were in Jonglei state, 17 were in Unity state, 15 were in Upper Nile state, 7 were in Central Equatoria state, 1 was in North Bahr el Ghazal state, 1 was in Lakes state, and 1 was in Warrap state.[1966] Attacks reported by the Education Cluster and other sources included the following: The Education Cluster found that a primary school in Rubkona county, Unity state, was damaged by bullets on January 6, 2016. [1967] The UN reported the destruction of three schools on February 18, 2016, when armed fighters, allegedly wearing the uniforms of the SPLA, attacked Shilluk and Nuer IDPs in the Greater Upper Nile region. [1968] The Education Cluster found that a primary school in Pajok, Eastern Equatoria, was looted by armed actors on April 7, 2016. [1969] Human Rights Watch reported that in the days after an attack in Kansuk, Central Equatoria, on June 15, 2016, government forces looted the boarding house of Kabi Senior Secondary School, stealing mattresses, books, and other items. [1970] According to information collected by the Education Cluster, as well as Radio Tamazuj, a school in Juba was looted on July 15, 2016. SPLA soldiers later prevented the school from being repaired, for unknown reasons. [1971] Government bombs struck another school in Yei River state on December 6, 2016, according to Radio Tamazuj.[1972] Attacks on schools continued in 2017, as the UN recorded 23 incidents of attacks on and military use of schools between March 2 and June 1 alone. Most of these were in Eastern Equatoria.[1973] Attacks on schools across the country, reported by the Education Cluster, included the following: On March 1, 2017, fighting at night destroyed a school in Mayendit county, Unity state. [1974] Nine schools in Pajok, Eastern Equatoria state, were looted on April 4, 2017. [1975] A school in Tonga, Upper Nile state, was looted on April 15, 2017. 1976 Two schools in Pajok, Eastern Equatoria state, were looted on April 16 and April 17, respectively.[1977] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Attacks directly targeted students and teachers in isolated instances between 2013 and 2017, although they were reported more frequently in 2016, after the conflict spread to the south of the country. These attacks occurred more commonly than was reported in Education under Attack 2014, when fewer than 10 students and teachers were reported to have been targeted over the course of the reporting period. The Education Cluster reported in early 2017 that there had been 35 attacks and threats targeting students, teachers, and other education personnel in the Greater Equatoria (15), Greater Upper Nile (13), and Greater Bahr el Ghazal (7) regions since the beginning of the conflict.[1978] There were few reports of individual attacks on students and educators between 2013 and 2015. However, one reported attack occurred on June 8, 2015, when witnesses reported to the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) that ethnic Dinka pastoralists, including students armed with guns and machetes, killed classmates, the headmaster of a local school, and other civilians in the town of Maridi, in Maridi state.[1979] In 2016, the Education Cluster reported 30 attacks on students, teachers, and education personnel: thirteen in Central Equatoria state, six in Warrap state, four in Unity state, three in Eastern Equatoria state, one in Upper Nile state, one in Lakes state, one in Jonglei state, and one in an unknown location.[1980] It was not clear whether all of these attacks occurred in 2016. The UN, the Education Cluster, and media sources reported the following attacks on students and educators: On March 15, 2016, gunmen kidnapped five high school students, according to a media report. Two of the students remained missing at the end of April, more than one month later. [1981] An unidentified person or persons killed a teacher at a primary school in Eastern Equatoria state on August 15, 2016. [1982] On an unknown date shortly before November 17, 2016, SPLA soldiers killed the head teacher of Nyei Primary School in Yei River state. There were other attacks targeting civilians. [1983] In a large abduction of students in 2016, assailants attacked two schools in Amadi, Western Equatoria state, and kidnapped 30 students, according to news sources. The attacks were attributed to the SPLA. [1984] The UN reported that witnesses had stated that the head teacher of a primary school in Siliri village, Yei River state, was killed by government forces as he walked home on November 9, 2016. [1985] In late November, media sources reported that government security forces arrested more than 30 teachers from Bor town, Jonglei state, who were striking to protest the lack of salary payments and job promotions. [1986] Media reports also indicated that five schools in Amadi state had reportedly closed as of November 2016, due to attacks on students and teachers.[1987] Information on attacks on students and school personnel was more sparsely reported in 2017. The Education Cluster reported three attacks on teachers between April and May 2017, all in Unity state: In the first incident, a community teacher in Rubkona county was shot and killed in his house. The assailants were unidentified. 1988 In the other two incidents, armed actors recruited five teachers in Guit county and detained them for an unknown period of time.[1989] Military use of schools and universities Armed forces and non-state armed groups occupied more than 100 schools and universities during the reporting period, forcing closures and creating extended gaps in schooling for thousands of children. The number of schools being used for military purposes fluctuated from 2013 to 2017, as security forces and non-state armed groups moved in and out of different schools. However, OCHA reported that, between December 2013 and the end of November 2015, armed forces and non-state armed groups occupied a total of 113 schools for varying periods of time.[1990] An Education Cluster survey conducted at the end of 2016 found that 161 schools had been used for military purposes during an unspecified time period, including 92 schools in Greater Upper Nile region, 46 schools in Greater Equatoria region, and 23 schools in Greater Bahr el Ghazal region.[1991] Military use of education facilities was reported more frequently at the beginning of 2013, even before the outbreak of conflict in South Sudan, than during the period from 2009 to 2012. The UN documented the use of 26 schools by government security forces and non-state armed groups during 2013, resulting in the loss of access to schooling for approximately 13,000 children. The groups responsible included the SPLA (19 schools), South Sudan national police services (6 schools), and non-state armed groups (1 school).[1992] During the first quarter of the year alone, the Education Cluster reported that 21 schools were used for military purposes in Jonglei, Western Bahr el Ghazal, and Lakes states, with the SPLA occupying the vast majority.[1993] The US State Department noted that UNMISS had found SPLA forces occupying a university and a primary school in Unity state in 2013 and multiple schools in Western Bahr el Ghazal state in July of that year.[1994] Military use of schools and universities was recorded at higher rates in 2014. The UN reported 60 incidents of military use of schools by numerous armed actors throughout the year.[1995] The US Department of State reported that in May of that year the SPLA occupied a growing number of schools.[1996] As of December 2014, the UN found that various armed actors continued to use 33 schools, which affected access to schooling for approximately 11,000 children.[1997] For example: UNMISS observed the occupation of at least one university and one primary school in Unity state during December 2014, according to the US Department of State. [1998] According to Human Rights Watch, SPLA soldiers continued living in two primary schools in Pibor town, Jonglei state, even after the May 2014 peace agreement to end the conflict. Their presence prevented children from studying at the schools. The soldiers later vacated the schools but retained barracks adjacent to them, frequently walking through school property and sleeping in classrooms when it rained. Students from the schools reported that they were fearful of the soldiers, who were regularly inebriated.[1999] Schools continued to be used for military purposes in 2015. The Education Cluster collected information on approximately 24 cases of military use of schools that year. Of these, 15 were in Unity state (at least five by the SPLA), four were in Warrap state (at least three by the SPLA), three were in Central Equatoria (at least two by the SPLA), one was in Eastern Equatoria, and one was in Western Equatoria.[2000] UNMISS reported that 29 schools were being used by armed forces and non-state armed groups as of early December 2015.[2001] At the same time, advocacy resulted in some schools being vacated. The UN reported that 36 schools being used for military purposes were vacated in 2015, mainly due to UN advocacy and agreements with the SPLA.[2002] It was not clear whether the schools the UN reported as vacated overlapped with any of those identified by Human Rights Watch, UNMISS, or the Education Cluster as being used by armed forces and non-state armed groups. Reported military use of schools showed a slight uptick in 2016 as the conflict intensified. The Education Cluster collected information on approximately 50 schools by armed actors across the country that year.[2003] At the end of the year, the UN verified military use of 55 schools across the country.[2004] This total included 21 new cases of military use of schools, of which 10 were attributed to the SPLA and 7 to the SPLA-IO.[2005] There may have been overlap between the Education Cluster and UN totals. The individual incidents of military use that were reported by a variety of sources included the following: Human Rights Watch reported that in the city of Yambio, Western Equatoria state, the SPLA temporarily occupied at least four schools during the first four months of the year, displacing students. [2006] SPLA forces occupied Pajok Primary School in Pajok Payam, Eastern Equatoria state, as of September 2016, according to the UN. [2007] In November 2016, the Education Cluster collected verified information indicating that armed actors used a primary school in Yambio, Western Equatoria state. [2008] At least one case of military use during 2016 also targeted students. Human Rights Watch indicated that SPLA-IO fighters held more than 300 students hostage at their school in Yei River state from late September until at least the end of November.[2009] Military use of schools was also documented at varying levels in 2017. Between March 2 and June 1, 2017, the UN continued to verify reports of ongoing military use of 55 schools across the country.[2010] However, these numbers appeared to have dropped by the end of the year. The UN reported that, between September 2 and November 14, 2017, 16 schools remained occupied by armed forces or armed groups.[2011] It was not clear exactly how many previously occupied schools were vacated or how many schools were newly occupied at the end of the year, but the Education Cluster found seven new incidents of military use of schools between March 2 and June 1, 2017. Of these, two were in Jonglei state (one by the SPLA, the other seemingly by multiple parties at various times), two were in Unity state (both by the SPLA), and three in Greater Equatoria (all by the SPLA).[2012] Reports in 2017 indicated that this use negatively impacted the learning environment. For example: Of the 12 looted schools that the Education Cluster found in Pajok and Tonga, Upper Nile state, in April 2017 (mentioned in the section on attacks on schools), eight were being used for military purposes. [2013] In April 2017, media sources described an internal UN report indicating that UN officials had visited a school in Jonglei state that was being used by a local militia. Children were still attending classes at the school in classrooms where rifles and grenade launchers were propped against the walls.[2014] Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school Several hundred children were reportedly recruited from schools in South Sudan during the reporting period. The Education Cluster found at least six cases of child recruitment that occurred in schools between December 2013 and the end of 2016, including five cases in Greater Upper Nile and one in Greater Equatoria.[2015] Child recruitment was not reported at schools during the period covered in Education under Attack 2014. Incidents of child recruitment reported to have occurred at schools included the following: According to NGO and UN sources, in December 2013, just three days after the war broke out in Juba, nonstate armed groups began forcibly recruiting students from schools in the Unity state towns of Bentiu and Rubkona. [2016] In Rubkona, the SPLA-IO forcibly recruited 413 school children from their schools. The children were later used in combat in Bentiu during April and May 2014. [2017] In May 2014, the BBC reported that non-state armed groups recruited more than 100 students from a primary school in Bentiu town, Unity state. [2018] UNMISS found that the following year, on February 16, 2015, members of a Shilluk militia commanded by General Olony reportedly forcibly recruited at least 36 students from secondary school classrooms in the village of Wau Shilluk, Upper Nile state. Most of the students were under the age of 18. The militia released the children following an intervention by child protection actors. [2019] The Education Cluster collected information in November 2016 indicating that an unknown group recruited children from a school in Juba. This occurred at an unknown time after the beginning of the conflict in December 2013.[2020] Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school or university Sexual violence by parties to the conflict affected education in anecdotal incidents reported between 2013 and 2017. Sexual violence affecting education was not reported between 2009 and mid-2013. Incidents of sexual violence may have occurred in the education context during that time but would not have been carried out by parties to the conflict, which started in December 2013. There were at least four incidents of sexual violence in the education context during the 2013-2017 reporting period: The UN reported that in May 2014, approximately 30 SPLA soldiers captured three women scavenging for food and cooking supplies in abandoned homes and gang raped them in a primary school. [2021] The US Department of State found that on October 29, 2014, the SPLA-IO abducted and raped women in Bentiu, including from Lich University. [2022] It was unclear whether the women abducted from the university were professors or students. In September 2015, the UN Secretary-General reported that SPLA soldiers raped several girls who were going home from school in Central Equatoria state. [2023] Witnesses reported to Human Rights Watch that on an unspecified date between June 2016 and May 2017, three suspected members of a non-state armed group raped three school girls on their way home from boarding school in Kajo Keji county, Central Equatoria state.[2024] Attacks on higher education Attacks on higher education included sporadic instances of assault, abductions, arrests, and threats targeting students and professors. Three attacks were reported between 2013 and 2017, as compared to one from 2009 to 2013. There was one reported attack on higher education in 2013. After 2013, no further incidents of attacks on higher education were reported until the end of 2015, which included the following: On February 1, 2013, two Nuer students at the University of Juba disappeared in a suspected kidnapping by unknown assailants, according to the US State Department. [2025] On December 7, 2015, the National Security Service arrested a professor while he was driving home from Juba University. It was not clear why he was arrested; however, he remained in detention as of the end of March 2016. [2026] On December 28, 2015, five armed men attacked and threatened nuns who worked at the college at the Solidarity Teacher Training College in Yambio, Western Equatoria state. The men, who attempted to rob the women, were believed to belong to the SPLA-IO.[2027] 1935 "South Sudan country profile," BBC, June 8, 2017. 1936 "South Sudan: What is the fighting about?" BBC, May 10, 2014. 1937 "White Army on the frontline of South Sudan's war," video report, Al Jazeera, July 10, 2015. "South Sudan: War Crimes by Both Sides," Human Rights Watch news release, February 26, 2014. "South Sudan: What is the fighting about?" BBC, May 10, 2014. 1938 "South Sudan: Ceasefire violations, hostile propaganda undercut regional peace push, Security Council told," UN News, January 24, 2018. 1939 "US, UN Warn of Intensified Violence in South Sudan," VoA, November 30, 2016. "South Sudan country profile." UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/414, para. 10. 1940 CFR, "Global Conflict Tracker-Civil War in South Sudan," May 18, 2016. 1941 Human Rights Watch, Soldiers Assume We Are Rebels (New York: Human Rights Watch, August 2017), p. 1. "Humanitarian Bulletin-South Sudan, Issue 16," OCHA, October 27, 2017. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on South Sudan (covering the period from 2 June to 1 September 2017), S/2017/784, September 15, 2017, paras. 17-24. 1942 Fleur Launspach, "UN: Tens of thousands killed in South Sudan war," Al Jazeera, March 3, 2016. Oxfam International, "Famine in South Sudan," May 4, 2017. OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2016: South Sudan, November 2015, pp. 1-2. 1943 "Childhood under Attack: The staggering impact of South Sudan's crisis on children," UNICEF briefing note, December 2017, p. 2. 1944 "Childhood under Attack," p. 2. 1945 See, for example, Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, South Sudan chapter. Jonathan Rozen, "UN Outraged by Looting of Humanitarian Supplies in South Sudan," Inter Press Service, February 5, 2014. Faith Karimi and Tara Kangarlou, "U.N.: South Sudan rebels separate residents by ethnicity, kill hundreds," CNN, April 23, 2014. Isma'il Kushkush, "Attackers Said to Single Out South Sudanese by Background," New York Times, April 21, 2014. Lauren Wolfe, "Rape is being used for ethnic cleansing in South Sudan. But it's not the first place, or the last," Women Under Siege, December 19, 2016. 1946 "Childhood under Attack," p. 5. 1947 "Childhood under Attack," p. 8. 1948 "Six years after independence: South Sudan's children wait for peace and prosperity," UNICEF press release, July 8, 2017. 1949 South Sudan Protection Cluster, Protection Trends in South Sudan No. 6: July-September 2015 (Juba: South Sudan Protection Cluster, November 2015). "Five schools closed over insecurity in Amadi State: official," Radio Tamazuj, November 24, 2016. 1950 UNICEF, "South Sudan: The impact of the crisis on children-Briefing Note," December 2017, p. 5. 1951 "South Sudan Crisis Forces Girls out of School," Plan International news release, April 25, 2017. 1952 "South Sudan, 12 January 2016: Highest proportion of out-of-school children." 1953 South Sudan Education Cluster, "Attacks against Schools: South Sudan," Infographic, February 2017. 1954 Human Rights Watch, "They Are Killing Us": Abuses Against Civilians in South Sudan's Pibor County (New York: Human Rights Watch, September 2013), p. 34. 1955 UNICEF, Cluster Report # 4-March 2013, April 25, 2013, p. 12, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 184. 1956 Human Rights Watch, "They Are Killing Us," p. 34. 1957 Human Rights Watch, "They Are Killing Us," p. 35. 1958 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 165. 1959 Amnesty International, Nowhere Safe: Civilians under attack in South Sudan (London: Amnesty International, 2014), p. 31. 1960 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on South Sudan (covering the period from 14 April to 19 August 2015)," S/2015/655, August 21, 2015, para. 50. 1961 Human Rights Watch, "They Burned It All": Destruction of Villages, Killings, and Sexual Violence in Unity State, South Sudan (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2015), p. 32. 1962 "Air attack in N Bahr al Ghazal," Radio Tamazuj, April 9, 2015. 1963 South Sudan Education Cluster, "National Education Cluster-Meeting Minutes," March 15, 2016, p. 2. 1964 HRC, "Assessment mission," A/HRC/31/CRP.6, para. 301. 1965 "SPLA soldiers block renovation of looted school," Radio Tamazuj, August 23, 2016. 1966 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017. 1967 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017. 1968 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on South Sudan (covering the period from 3 February to 31 March 2016)," S/2016/341, April 13, 2016, para. 16. 1969 Information from the South Sudan, June 7, 2017. 1970 Human Rights Watch, Soldiers Assume, p. 37. 1971 "SPLA soldiers block." Information from the South Sudan, June 7, 2017. 1972 "SPLA offensive in Yei drives civilians out of homes," Radio Tamazuj, December 6, 2016. 1973 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on South Sudan (covering the period from 2 March to 1 June 2017)," S/2017/505, June 15, 2017, para. 41. 1974 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017. 1975 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017. 1976 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017. 1977 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017. 1978 South Sudan Education Cluster, "Attacks against Schools: Greater Equatoria," Infographic, February 2017. South Sudan Education Cluster, "Attacks against Schools: Greater Upper Nile," Infographic, February 2017. South Sudan Education Cluster, "Attacks against Schools: Greater Bahr el Ghazal," Infographic, February 2017. 1979 HRC, "Assessment mission," A/HRC/31/CRP.6, para. 312. 1980 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, shared on June 19, 2017. 1981 Jok Mayom, "For children of war-torn South Sudan, education is a rarity," USAToday, April 27, 2016. 1982 "Teacher murdered and dumped in E. Equatoria state forest," Sudan Tribune, August 19, 2016. 1983 "Yei River local official resigns in protest of new murders, abuses by SPLA troops," Radio Tamazuj, November 17, 2016. 1984 "At least 30 children abducted by rebels in South Sudan-report," News 24, October 28, 2016. "South Sudan: 30 school children kidnapped, Machar denies involvement," Agencia Angola Press, October 28, 2016. 1985 UNMISS, Human Rights Violations and Abuses in Yei July 2016-January 2017 (Juba: UNMISS, May 2017), para. 34. 1986 "Students boycott exams to protest arrested teachers in Bor town," Radio Tamazuj, December 13, 2016. "30 teachers arrested in Jonglei state over strike," Sudan Tribune, December 1, 2016. 1987 "Five schools closed over insecurity in Amadi State: official," Radio Tamazuj, November 24, 2016. 1988 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, shared on June 20, 2017. 1989 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017, June 20, 2017. 1990 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs, p. 5. 1991 South Sudan Education Cluster, "Attacks against Schools: Greater Upper Nile." South Sudan Education Cluster, "Attacks against Schools: Greater Equatoria." South Sudan Education Cluster, "Attacks against Schools: Greater Bahr el Ghazal." 1992 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 127. 1993 South Sudan Education Cluster, Meeting Minutes of National Education Cluster Coordination, May 30, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 184. 1994 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: South Sudan," p. 22. 1995 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 165. Child Rights International Network, Armed Conflict: Highlight on South Sudan, November 2015. 1996 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: South Sudan," p. 22. 1997 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 165. 1998 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: South Sudan," p. 22. 1999 Human Rights Watch, "We Can Die Too," p. 55. 2000 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017, June 7, 2017. 2001 Human Rights Watch, "We Can Die Too," p. 3. UNMISS, The State of Human Rights in the Protracted Mission in South Sudan (Juba: UNMISS, December 4, 2015), para. 64. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836-S/2016/360, p. 127. 2002 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 127. 2003 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017. 2004 South Sudan Protection Cluster, Protection Trends in South Sudan: October-December 2016 (Juba: South Sudan Protection Cluster, February 2017), p. 12. 2005 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/414, para. 14. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 150. 2006 "South Sudan: Army Abuses Spread West-Hybrid Court, Arms Embargo Needed," Human Rights Watch news release, March 6, 2016. 2007 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on South Sudan," S/2016/950, para. 38. 2008 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017. 2009 "South Sudan: New Abuse." 2010 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on South Sudan," S/2017/505, para. 41. 2011 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on South Sudan (covering the period from 2 September to 14 November 2017)," S/2017/1011, December 1, 2017, para. 47. 2012 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017. 2013 Information from the South Sudan Education Cluster Attacks on Schools database, June 7, 2017. 2014 "South Sudan's Civil War Creates a New Lost Generation," US News and World Report, April 1, 2017. 2015 South Sudan Education Cluster, "Attacks against schools: Greater Equatoria." South Sudan Education Cluster, "Attacks against schools: Greater Upper Nile." 2016 Human Rights Watch, "We Can Die Too," p. 40. HRC, "Assessment mission," A/HRC/31/CRP.6, para. 169. 2017 HRC, "Assessment mission," A/HRC/31/CRP.6, para. 169. 2018 Burridge, "Child soldiers still." 2019 UNMISS, The State of Human Rights, para. 66. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836-S/2016/360, para. 126. 2020 Information from the South Sudan, June 7, 2017. 2021 UN Human Rights Council, "Report for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in South Sudan", A/HRC/27/74, September 19, 2014, para. 37. 2022 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: South Sudan," p. 19. 2023 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/361, para. 59. Information from the South Sudan, June 7, 2017. 2024 Human Rights Watch, Soldiers Assume, p. 27. 2025 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: South Sudan," p. 19. 2026 "South Sudan: University Professor Arbitrarily Detained: Prof. Leonzio Angole Onek," Amnesty International news release, March 29, 2016. "Juba University dean detained by National Security," Radio Tamazuj, December 12, 2015. 2027 "South Sudan bishop condemns attack on nuns," Catholic Herald, January 6, 2016. Education Under Attack 2018 - Somalia Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Somalia, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be9430413.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Combined, actions by non-state armed groups and local clan conflicts led to more than 600 attacks on education, mostly in central and southern Somalia. This included attacks on schools, targeted killings, abductions, and abuse of students and educators, and military use of schools. At least 15 incidents affected higher education, mostly targeted killings of students and professors, and bombing of universities. Context By 2017, civil conflict had wracked Somalia for more than two decades. In 2012, Somali government troops, an allied non-state armed group, Ethiopian forces, and African Union forces regained control over parts of the country, including the capital city of Mogadishu, having taken it back from the Islamic Courts Union, a coalition of Sharia courts that assumed authority in 2006.[1832] However, Somalia faced continued insecurity and conflict between government forces and an al Qaeda-affiliated extremist group, the Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahedeen, known as al-Shabaab, which splintered off from the former Shariah coalition. Al-Shabaab aimed to build an Islamic state by using violence against the Somali government, its institutions, and other groups of people perceived to be affiliated with the government, including schools, foreigners, members of the Somali diaspora, and Western countries and organizations.[1833] In 2017, a newly elected government intensified military operations against al-Shabaab.[1834] Insecurity due to armed conflict negatively affected education across the country. Somalia's enrollment rates were some of the lowest in the world and were even lower in the most insecure areas. Across southern and central Somalia, only an estimated 30 percent of school-aged children had access to learning opportunities, and this number was only 17 percent in the areas most affected by conflict, including IDP settlements and rural areas.[1835] Moreover, armed conflict, along with drought and famine, continued to displace families across Somalia. According to OCHA, 1,029,000 people were displaced as of October 2017.[1836] Boys and girls were reportedly subject to different risks. The education of boys was reportedly prioritized over that of girls, which created significant gender disparities in education.[1837] As of September 2016, only 43 percent of Somali children enrolled in school were girls, due to factors including early marriage, a limited number of female teachers (only 12 percent at the primary level), and a lack of separate toilet facilities for girls in the schools.[1838] Most girls reportedly left school before grade five.[1839] Boys were more at risk of forced recruitment.[1840] During the first half of 2016, armed forces and groups reportedly forcefully recruited 962 boys and 410 girls.[1841] The majority of attacks on education occurred in central and southern Somalia, but sporadic incidents were also reported in Puntland and Somaliland. A rapid assessment conducted in 2016 by the Somalia Education Cluster and funded by UNICEF in central and southern Somalia found that there were 682 attacks and threats against education. Many of the threats related to the presence of al-Shabaab, as well as to clan and community conflicts.[1842] The same assessment noted that that Quranic school students, personnel, and institutions were most frequently attacked (369 incidents), followed by primary schools (169 incidents). The study noted that Quranic institutions may have been attacked most frequently because of their greater numbers.[1843] According to the study, 30 percent of attacks against education occurred in South West state, 27 percent in Hirshabelle state, 26 percent in Jubaland state, and 17 percent in Galmudug state.[1844] It should be noted that these numbers may include some incidents that were not attacks on education as defined by GCPEA, such as community grievances with school management, since the data were not disaggregated. Somalia endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration in November 2015. Attacks on schools Between 2013 and 2017, al-Shabaab, the Somali National Armed Forces (SNAF), and other armed groups attacked more than 100 schools. While the SNAF was responsible for the majority of attacks on schools during 2013, al- Shabaab was responsible for most attacks in subsequent years. A UN report that began prior to the current reporting period verified 195 attacks on schools between 2012 and mid-2016. Of these, al-Shabaab was responsible for more than half (112) and the SNAF was responsible for approximately 30 percent (60). Unknown armed elements, the African Union Mission in Somalia, Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jama'a (ASWJ), Galmudug Interim Administration forces, and the Kenyan Defense Forces were also responsible for a smaller number of attacks on schools.[1845] Rates of documented attacks on schools declined during the 2009-2013 reporting period for Education under Attack 2014 and through 2014, before rising again during 2015 and 2016.[1846] The UN verified 54 attacks on schools in Somalia in 2013.[1847] According to the UN, the SNAF was responsible for the majority of attacks on both schools and hospitals that year.[1848] It was not clear where the majority of these attacks took place, but media sources reported two examples of attacks on schools, both in central and southern Somalia: In January 2013, AMISOM troops were reported to have mistakenly fired on a religious school in a village near Mogadishu, killing five children and two adults. [1849] Local media reported that in March 2013, two children died and three more were injured when a student accidentally triggered an IED that had been planted at a Quranic school in the Galgadud region, Galmudug state.[1850] The UN verified 17 attacks on schools in 2014. In contrast to the previous year, al-Shabaab was responsible for the majority of these incidents (eight), the Somali National Army and allied non-state armed groups perpetrated six, and unidentified assailants were responsible for three.[1851] Attacks on schools included collateral damage caused by shelling, as well as intentional damage caused by vandalism. Again, the reports did not make clear where most of the attacks occurred, but there were sporadic reports of attacks on schools in central and southern Somalia. For example: Media sources reported that on May 1, 2014, shells fired by unknown assailants into Mogadishu city hit a Quranic school, as well as civilian homes. At least two people were killed and twelve wounded, although it was not clear whether any of them were teachers or students at the school. [1852] AMISOM forces destroyed a madrassa in Ceel Garas town, Galmudug state, on October 2, 2014, while targeting al-Shabaab, according to information verified by the UN. [1853] AMISOM and the UN reported that al-Shabaab was responsible for vandalizing and raiding schools in at least two cases: on March 24, 2014, in Hudur town, Western Bakool region, and on October 27, 2014, in Aadan Yabaal district, Middle Shabelle region, Hirshabelle state.[1854] In 2015, the UN documented at least 24 attacks on schools. Al-Shabaab was responsible for 15 of these attacks, the SNAF and allies were responsible for four, clan armed groups and unidentified non-state armed groups were each responsible for two, and unidentified air forces were responsible for one.[1855] Individual attacks continued to be concentrated in central and southern Somalia. For example: At the beginning of 2015, unidentified armed men allegedly threw grenades into one primary and one secondary school in Galkayo, Mudug region, Galmudug state, killing at least four teachers and injuring dozens, according to a media report. [1856] The UN Secretary-General reported that Kenyan forces hit a Quranic school during air strikes against Jungal village in Baardheere district, Gedo region, Jubaland state, on July 21, 2015. The attack killed six boys and injured twelve others.[1857] During the first half of 2016, the UN signaled a dramatic increase over the previous year in the number of reported attacks on schools (33).[1858] The UN verified 46 attacks on schools in over the full course of the year. As in previous years, al-Shabaab was the primary actor responsible for these attacks (31), followed by the Somalia National Army (9), ASWJ (2), clan militias (2), and AMISOM (1).[1859] The Somalia Education Cluster's rapid assessment conducted in 2016 found that most attacks and threats against primary schools in central and southern Somalia occurred in Jubaland state (eight), with incidents also documented in Hirshabelle state (five) and South West state (one). Non-state actors were responsible for most of these attacks.[1860] There also were four attacks on schools in South West state (two Quranic, one secondary, and one technical).[1861] Media sources and the Somalia Education Cluster also described several attacks in these areas, and in Banadir region where Mogadishu is located, which is also in central and southern Somalia. It was not clear whether there was any overlap between the incidents included in the rapid assessment and those described by other sources. Reports of incidents included the following: The UN reported that al-Shabaab mortar shells destroyed a madrassa in Caga Dhiig village, Banadir state, on February 25, 2016, killing three boys and injuring two other boys and a girl. [1862] Media sources recorded an incident on July 21, 2016, claiming that unidentified assailants set fire to multiple schools near Cadale, Middle Shabelle region, Hirshabelle state. [1863] According to media sources, on August 28, 2016, a vehicle filled with explosives was reportedly discovered in front of Zaawo Taako Primary School in the Xamar Weyne neighborhood of Mogadishu. Security forces defused the explosives. [1864] According to the Somalia Education Cluster, at least four schools were damaged in Gaalkayo town, Mudug region, Galmudug state, at the end of 2016 during a period of intensified violence between non-state armed groups.[1865] An unknown number of educational institutions were damaged or destroyed by security forces or armed groups in 2017. These included: On April 18, 2017, unidentified opposition forces fired mortar shells that landed on a primary school in Mogadishu, Banadir region. Reports indicated that between one and four students were killed, and that seven or eight other civilians were injured. [1866] According to a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council in support of the Housing, Land, and Property Sub Cluster and the Protection Cluster in Somalia, in December 2017, 25 learning facilities, 10 mainstream school, and 15 Quranic learning centers were demolished in the context of mass evictions in Mogadishu. In some cases, armed individuals wearing Somali security agency uniforms were responsible for the demolitions.[1867] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Members of non-state armed groups and unknown assailants threatened, kidnapped, detained, and killed teachers, and shot, abducted, and abused students in more than 100 cases during the 2013-2017 reporting period. Security forces were responsible for a smaller number of violations. The majority of such cases occurred in the southern and central states of Somalia, but sporadic cases were also reported in Puntland. The reporting period did not include any incidents on the large scale of those documented in Education under Attack 2014, such as one in October 2011 at the Ministry of Education that killed more than 100 people, many of them students and their parents.[1868] In 2013, AMISOM's daily media monitoring report identified several cases of al-Shabaab abducting more than 100 Quranic school teachers in central and southern Somalia, in most cases for refusing to comply with the group's demands:1869 At the beginning of January 2013, the group reportedly abducted more than 100 Quranic teachers in Eldheer town, Galgadud region, Galmudug state, for rejecting their demand to recruit fighters. It was not clear whether al-Shabaab demanded that the recruitment occur at schools. [1870] In February 2013, al-Shabaab reportedly detained Quranic teachers from Halgan town, Hiran region, Hirshabelle state, after they refused to participate in a seminar the group had ordered them to attend.[1871] The group also kidnapped another Quranic teacher on January 17, 2013, in Lower Juba region.[1872] In 2014, media reports, including those collated by AMISOM, indicated that unknown attackers and non-state armed groups shot and killed, detained and abducted approximately 10 teachers and students. The majority of these attacks occurred in southern and central Somalia, but one teacher was also attacked in Puntland state.[1873] Reported incidents included the following: Unidentified assailants allegedly shot and killed two students in Kismayo, Lower Juba region, Jubaland state, on April 14, 2014. [1874] On October 26, 2014, assailants shot and killed two teachers in Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack. [1875] Two female teachers who worked in a kindergarten were shot and killed on their way to work on November 2, 2014, in Dharkenley district, Mogadishu, also by unknown attackers. [1876] Al-Shabaab beheaded a Quranic teacher in Qardho, Bari region, Puntland state, on December 12, 2014, leaving his body near his hometown. [1877] The UN documented an incident in which al-Shabaab detained two teachers for refusing to instruct their students to participate in religious classes. The date of the incident was unspecified.[1878] In 2015, media sources documented sporadic reports of attacks targeting education personnel. Unknown attackers, members of al-Shabaab, state police, and international forces were all implicated in the attacks, most of which occurred in southern and central Somalia. One attack also took place in Puntland.[1879] For example: On January 2, 2015, a bomb reportedly targeted a bus in Mudug region, Galmudug state, killing a security guard and wounding 10 other people, including at least 6 Kenyan teachers. [1880] On April 14, 2015, members of al-Shabaab allegedly detonated two bombs outside the Somali Ministry of Education, and gunmen then stormed the building. [1881] At least 12 people reportedly were killed, including 7 attackers, and at least 15 people were injured as a result of the attack. It was not clear how many of those killed were education personnel. [1882] On July 12, 2015, Kenyan air strikes allegedly killed five children while they were on their way to study at a religious school. [1883] On October 14, 2015, police entered a school in Bossaso Port, Puntland, to arrest the headmaster and an unknown number of students. When students protested, the police allegedly fired live bullets. [1884] In December 2015, two gunmen went to the house of the headmaster of Al Cayn Primary School, where they shot and killed him. The reasons for the shooting were unclear, but he reportedly had argued with local authorities over school management and had received threats from a non-state armed group warning him to stop working, which he did not.[1885] According to the Education Cluster's rapid assessment in 2016, in central and southern Somalia, there were 14 attacks on education personnel, including twelve threats and two unspecified attacks, as well as 12 attacks targeting school children, including seven threats, two abductions, and three cases of unspecified abuse targeting school children in central and southern Somalia. The majority of these cases took place in Jubaland and South West states.[1886] In addition to these violations, there were media reports of one attack on teachers that occurred in Mogadishu. On March 30, 2016, at least two foreign teachers at a Somali primary school, their driver, a translator, and a security guard were reportedly killed in a drive-by shooting of their school bus by unknown gunmen in Mogadishu. Five students were injured in the attack.[1887] In 2017, al-Shabaab posted an online video in which the group's spokesperson threatened to harm teachers and parents who continued to send their children to Western-style schools.[1888] There also were also two attacks, including one targeting a Ministry of Education official and including one attack affecting school children. On April 10, 2017, a Ministry of Education officer reportedly died after a bomb planted in his car exploded in Hamarweyne district, Mogadishu. [1889] On October 14, 2017 a large truck bomb detonated in Mogadishu, killing more than 300 people and injured hundreds, according to the Guardian.1890 Among those killed were 15 primary school children who were on a school bus at the time of the blast.[1891] Military use of schools and universities The Somalia Education Cluster reported in 2016 that it was working with the SNAF to address military occupation of schools.[1892] Although the Education Cluster noted that military use of schools was not a significant problem, the SNAF, al-Shabaab, and AMISOM were all reported to have used schools and universities for military purposes during the reporting period. Rates of military use were approximately the same as those reported in 2011 and 2012 by Education under Attack 2014, with between two and five institutions used each year. Somali government forces and African Union troops were reported as having used two universities as military bases throughout the reporting period. For example: Media sources reported that Somali government forces and AMISOM established a military base at Kismayo University in September 2012. Several attacks reportedly targeted the university during the military troops' presence there, including the following: On May 2, 2013, a woman carrying explosives attempted to attack the university, but she was arrested before succeeding. [1893] On May 9, 2013, unknown attackers hit the university with artillery fire. At least three people were killed. [1894] On August 22, 2015, assailants believed to be part of al-Shabaab exploded a vehicle at the military base on the campus of Kismayo University. The explosion killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 20. [1895] In February 2016, unknown perpetrators launched mortar shells that hit the university. [1896] AMISOM forces used the Somali National University as a base throughout the reporting period, officially handing it back to the government in July 2017, after 10 years.[1897] al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for detonating two grenades near the university campus on August 4, 2013, while the African Union forces were still occupying it.[1898] There were also sporadic cases of schools used for military purposes throughout the reporting period. No instances were documented in 2013, but there were at least four verified and one unverified cases of schools used for military purposes in 2014, three by the SNAF, one by al-Shabaab, and one by AMISOM troops (unverified).[1899] At least three schools were reportedly used in 2015.[1900] Cases reported by the UN or media sources included the following: State security forces reportedly used a secondary school to interrogate more than 45 people who were arrested in Afgoye district, Lower Shabelle region, South West state, in September 2014. [1901] The army used one school in the Lower Shabelle region, South West state, during 2015. The army vacated the school in response to UN advocacy. [1902] UN personnel verified that Somali forces also used two schools in in Diinsoor town, Bay region, South West state, in November 2015. The army was still using one of the schools at the end of 2016.[1903] In 2016, the SNAF and AMISOM reportedly continued to use schools. This occurred most prominently in South West state but was also reported to occur in other areas in central and southern Somalia. Somalia's 2012-2016 Education Sector Analysis reported that a rapid baseline survey conducted in 2016 found that the military was occupying seven primary schools and one secondary school, including three primary schools and one secondary school in South West state, two primary schools in Jubaland state, one primary school in Hirshabelle state, and one primary school in Galmudug state.[1904] Other sources also reported military use of schools that year, but it was not clear whether these reports overlapped with those documented in the Education Sector Analysis. For example: After al-Shabaab attacked their base, AMISOM forces reportedly occupied a secondary school in Gedo region, Jubaland state, for six days in January 2016. [1905] In May 2016, a media report collected by AMISOM indicated that the Somali Ministry of Defense had ordered the SNAF to vacate one school in Afgoye district, Lower Shabelle region, South West state, after the troops had occupied the school for four years.[1906] It was not clear whether this was the same school where the army interrogated people in September 2014. At the time of writing, the only information available on military use of schools and universities was the handing over of Somali National University from AMISOM to the Somali government.[1907] Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school Throughout the 2013-2017 reporting period, AMISOM, the UN, and other observers repeatedly reported that al-Shabaab recruited children from schools and madrassas, although the exact number of children recruited continued to be difficult to determine, as was the case from 2009 to 2013. There were reports that al-Shabaab used education as a tool for recruitment, establishing schools and madrassas to recruit child fighters. Al-Shabaab allegedly gave lectures and distributed booklets supporting its ideology, and the group forced children to attend madrassas they operated in order to train them as soldiers. It was also noted that the group detained and abducted teachers, elders, and imams who did not comply with turning children over to the group. In 2017, al-Shabaab reportedly introduced a new primary and secondary school curriculum, which excluded such elements as English-language education and replaced it with Arabic, and was seeking to institute the new curriculum widely, according to a media source. 1908 Education was also reportedly promised in return for participation in fighting. A March 2016 report by AMISOM stated that al-Shabaab members frequently recruited or forcibly abducted children as young as 10 years old from madrassas, promising them a better education and access to a more prosperous life in return for their participation in fighting. The report noted that the group used some children as suicide bombers.[1909] While Education under Attack 2014 indicated that girls were recruited as soldiers' wives between 2009 and 2012, there were no such cases documented during the period covered in the current report. Incidents in which children were abducted and forcibly recruited included the following: The UN documented al-Shabaab's recruitment of six boys, some as young as twelve years old, from a Quranic school in the city of Baidoa, Bay region, South West state, on January 24, 2013. [1910] The same report documented the recruitment of 34 boys during four of the attacks on schools that al-Shabaab and other groups carried out in 2013. [1911] A media report alleged that al-Shabaab abducted hundreds of children in El Bur town, Galgadud region, Galmudug state, in June 2013, including from Quranic schools. [1912] It was not clear how many of these children were boys or girls. On February 16, 2014, al-Shabaab recruited four boys from a school in Waajid district, Bakool region, after threatening to kill the teachers if they did not join the group. [1913] The UN documented the abduction of approximately 150 children from madrassas in the Bay region, South West state, by al-Shabaab for recruitment purposes in December 2015. Of the twenty-six of cases that were verified, all were boys. [1914] On April 19, 2016, al-Shabaab reportedly abducted at least 10 students from their school in Harardheere district, Mudug region, Galmudug state, according to a media report. [1915] Human Rights Watch documented an intensified child recruitment campaign by al-Shabaab beginning in mid-2017. For example, the group forcibly abducted at least 50 boys and girls from two schools in Burhakaba, Bay region, in September 2017. Witnesses who spoke to Human Rights Watch reported that the children were taken to Bulo Fulay, a village with several religious schools and a training facility. Al-Shabaab fighters reportedly returned to another school in Burhakaba two weeks later, where they threatened and beat a teacher and demanded that more children be handed over. Human Rights Watch pointed out interviewees' concerns and al-Shabaab's history with child combatants, but noted that there was no clear evidence that the children were abducted for fighting purposes.[1916] Children who were recruited by armed groups sometimes were later arrested or fled. For example: During a battle in Puntland in April 2016, Somali security officials reported that they arrested around 100 boys as young as 14 years old, dozens of whom al-Shabaab had abducted from their schools. [1917] Of those children, 28 were sentenced in military court to between 10 and 20 years in prison; 26 were being held in prison at the beginning of 2017, after having been to a rehabilitation center in Mogadishu; and 9 were initially sentenced to death before having their sentences commuted to 20 years. [1918] In August 2017, Voice of America reported that children fleeing areas of central Somalia controlled by al-Shabaab were escaping recruitment. According to the district commissioner of Adale town, Middle Shabelle region, al-Shabaab had been abducting children from local schools to reinforce their numbers.[1919] Attacks on higher education Higher education institutions and personnel continued to be targeted sporadically in the current reporting period, as was reported in Education under Attack 2014. GCPEA found media reports of 16 incidents that affected approximately 32 people. These attacks were concentrated in Mogadishu, with 12 taking place in the capital city. There were also reports of attacks against higher education in other areas of southern and central Somalia, including Galmudug state and South West state, as well as one incident in Somaliland. The attacks that occurred in the south and center of the country included gunmen attacking university personnel and explosions on university campuses, while the attack in Somaliland occurred in the context of a student protest. There were three reported attacks on higher education in 2013, according to local media sources: On August 17, 2013, unknown attackers reportedly kidnapped five students who were on their way to study at Mogadishu University. [1920] On November 7, 2013, two unidentified assailants shot and killed Mahmud Kolow, a university professor in the Lower Shebelle region, South West state. [1921] On December 6, 2013, a female lecturer from Uganda who was working at the University of Somalia was reportedly shot and killed by unknown perpetrators on her way home from the campus in Mogadishu.[1922] Higher education personnel and infrastructure were reportedly targeted in six cases throughout 2014, according to media sources. These included five by unidentified attackers and one by Somali police: On January 11, 2014, gunmen shot and killed a female university employee in Mogadishu. [1923] On April 14, 2014, Somali police arrested dozens of students who were peacefully protesting against a tuition fee increase at Hargeisa University, Somaliland. Police also fired live bullets into the air to disperse the crowd, injuring one student. [1924] A blast struck the campus of the National University of Somalia in Mogadishu on April 21, 2014, leading three students to jump from the walls and injure themselves. [1925] In May 2014, unknown gunmen shot and killed a Kenyan teacher working at a college in Galkayo town, Mudug region, Galmudug state. [1926] Also in May, a university lecturer working at Horseed International University, Mogadishu, was targeted by a bomb planted in his car. The attack injured one university student. [1927] On December 10, 2014, assailants opened fire on the vehicle of the acting chancellor of Mogadishu's Somali Institute of Management and Administration Development (SIMAD), who was killed in the attack.[1928] In 2015 there were at least four reported attacks targeting higher education, including a deadly attack on the Ministry of Higher Education, according to media sources. For example: On January 7, 2015, a car bomb exploded in Mogadishu, critically injuring a lecturer at SIMAD. The assailants were not identified. [1929] On April 14, 2015, al-Shabaab targeted Somalia's Ministry of Higher Education, blasting the entrance and then storming the building. They killed at least 15 and wounded at least 20, including civilians and the attackers. [1930] Three months later, on August 11, 2015, an explosive device planted by al-Shabaab at the gate to Samad University in Mogadishu injured two people. [1931] On August 12, 2015, leaflets bearing al-Shabaab's logo were reportedly distributed in Mogadishu, warning residents to stay away from Samad University, located in the city.[1932] In 2016 at least two incidents of attacks on higher education were reported by media sources: Professor Abdiweli Badi Mohamed was injured by an explosive device attached to his vehicle in Mogadishu. Sources interviewed by the media believed that al-Shabaab was responsible, but it was not clear why the attack was carried out. [1933] Samad University in Mogadishu was reportedly affected by violence for a second time on November 29, 2016, this time by Somali forces. AMISOM's Daily Monitoring Report indicated that security forces had entered the university during evening classes, fired bullets into the air, and confiscated several students' cell phones.[1934] At the time of writing, there had been no reported attacks on higher education in 2017. 1832 "Somalia country profile," BBC News, February 10, 2017. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2013 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2013), Somalia chapter. 1833 "Somalia country profile." A. Abukar, "Somalia: A Brief Country Report," European Parliamentarians with Africa, 2015, p. 30. 1834 "Somalia leader declares country a 'war zone,'" Al Jazeera, April 6, 2017. 1835 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2017: Somalia, October 2016, pp. 8, 14. UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Educational Characteristics of the Somali People (Nairobi: UNFPA, 2016), p. viii. Federal Government of Somalia, Ministry of Education, Culture, and Higher Education with the support of UNICEF and the Global Partnership for Education, Education Sector Analysis (Mogadishu: Federal Government of Somalia, 2017), unpublished document shared via email in September 2017, p. xi. 1836 OCHA, "Somalia: Humanitarian Dashboard," October 2017. 1837 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2017: Somalia, p. 14. 1838 Federal Government of Somalia, Ministry of Education, Culture, and Higher Education, Education Sector Analysis, p. 110. 1839 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2017: Somalia, p. 14. 1840 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2017: Somalia, p. 7. 1841 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2017: Somalia, p. 21. 1842 Federal Government of Somalia, Education Sector Analysis, pp. 38-46. 1843 Federal Government of Somalia, Education Sector Analysis, p. 41. 1844 Federal Government of Somalia, Education Sector Analysis, pp. 38-46. 1845 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in Somalia," S/2016/1098, December 22, 2016, para. 50. 1846 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/1098, para. 50. 1847 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 120. 1848 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 120. 1849 "5 Children Killed as African Union Peacekeepers Mistakenly Open Fire on a School," RT News, January 17, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 181. 1850 "Somalia: Bomb Explosion Kills Two Children in Central Somalia," RBC Radio, March 24, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 181. 1851 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 151. 1852 "Highlights: Somalia Daily Media Highlights 05 May 2014," OSC Summary, May 2, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201405010057. 1853 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/1098, para. 55. 1854 "Al-Shabaab vandalize Hudur town before fleeing AMISOM onslaught," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, March 24, 2014. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/1098, para. 52. 1855 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 117. 1856 Shabelle News, "Puntland forces step up security operation in Galkayo," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, January 5, 2015. 1857 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/1098, para. 56. 1858 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/1098, para. 50. 1859 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 139. 1860 Federal Government of Somalia, Education Sector Analysis, p. 39. 1861 Federal Government of Somalia, Education Sector Analysis, pp. 39-46. 1862 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/1098, para. 51. 1863 "Al-Shabab said set blaze to residential homes in Somali localities," Alldhacdo, July 21, 2016;""Highlights: Somalia Daily Media Highlights 22-24 July 2016," Summary, July 25, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201607210025. 1864 "Security forces seize bomb-laden car in Mogadishu," Goobjoob News, August 29, 2016. "Africa Command OSINT Daily 29 August 2016," Summary, August 30, 2016. "Highlights: Somalia Daily Media Highlights 26-28 August 2016," Summary, August 29, 2016, as cited in START, GTD 201608290012, 2017. 1865 Somalia Education Cluster, "Keeping children safe: Gaalkayo #2," December 14, 2016. 1866 Shabelle News, "Mortar Attack Kills At Least 5, Injures 7 In Mogadishu," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, April 18, 2017. Information shared by Human Rights Watch via email, November 21, 2017. 1867 Norwegian Refugee Council, Back to Square One (Mogadishu, Somalia, December 12, 2017), pp. 7-8. 1868 GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 179. 1869 Radio Bar-kulan, "100 clerics arrested in El-dheer," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, January 4, 2013. Dhacdo Online, "Somali militants detain 12 Koranic teachers in central town," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, February 25, 2013. Abdi Said, "Somalia: Somalis Condemn Al-Shabaab's Arrest of Qur'an Teachers," AllAfrica, March 11, 2013. 1870 Radio Bar-kulan, "100 clerics." 1871 Dhacdo Online, "Somali militants." Said, "Somalia: Somalis Condemn." 1872 Radio Bar-kulan, "Al Shabaab kidnap Quranic teacher in Lower Juba," AMISOM Dialy Monitoring Report, January 18, 2013. 1873 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1874 Walta Info, "Gunmen kill students in Kismayo town," Africa News Hub, April 15, 2014. 1875 "SOCAFRICA: Al-Shabaab (AS) Incident Tracker: 30 October 05 November 2014," SOCAFRICA, October 30, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201410260007. 1876 Fuad Ahmed and Shukri Mohamed, "Somalia: Mogadishu Residents Lament Kindergarten Teachers' Murde," AllAfrica, November 10, 2014. 1877 Omar Nor, "Al-Shabaab blamed for five beheadings," CNN, December 15, 2014. 1878 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 151. 1879 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1880 Omar Nor, "4 soldiers, 6 militants die in Al-Shabaab attack, Somali police official says," CNN, January 4, 2015 "One killed, 14 injured in Somalia roadside blast," APA, January 3, 2015. Times Live South Africa, "At least two killed in as many Somalia bomb blasts," Africa News Hub, January 2, 2015. 1881 "Al Shabaab Militants Kill 10 in an Attack on Somali Education Ministry," Guardian, April 14, 2015. "Seventeen dead in al-Shabab attack on Somalia ministries," BBC News, April 14, 2015. 1882 Mohammed Ibrahim, "Shabab Carry Out Deadly Attack on Ministry Building in Somalia," New York Times, April 14, 2015, as cited in Mailman School of Public Health, Monitoring and Reporting to Enhance the Protection of Education in Situations of Insecurity and Conflict (New York: Mailman School, September 28, 2015), p. 25. Omar Nor and Jason Hanna, "12 Killed in Al-Shabaab Attack on Somali Education Ministry," CNN, April 14, 2015. 1883 Brianna Lee, "Airstrikes Kill 10 Somalis, Including Children: Reports," International Business Times, July 12, 2015. 1884 Garowe Online, "Violence At School Draws Ire In Puntland," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, October 15, 2015. 1885 GCPEA email correspondence with Somalia Education Cluster, July 29, 2016. 1886 Federal Government of Somalia, Ministry of Education, Culture, and Higher Education, Education Sector Analysis, p. 41. 1887 "Thousands bid farewell to Turkish teacher killed in Somalia," Turkish Minute, April 2, 2016. "2 Turkish teachers killed in Somali school bus attack," Hizmet Movement News Portal, March 30, 3016. 1888 Mohamed Olad Hassan, "Al-Shabab Warns Against Western Education," VoA, April 20, 2017. 1889 Shabelle News, "Car Bomb Kills Government Worker In Mogadishu," AMISOM Daily Media Monitoring, April 10, 2017. 1890 Jason Burke, "Mogadishu truck bomb: 500 casualties in Somalia's worst terrorist attack," Guardian, October 16, 2017. 1891 "Schoolchildren among the dead in Somalia blast," News24, October 16, 2017. 1892 Somalia Education Cluster, Annual Report 2016 (Nairobi, Kenya: Somalia Education Cluster, January 2017), p. 4. 1893 "Counterterrorism Digest: 2-3 May 2013," BBC Monitoring, May 3, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201305030021. 1894 "Somalia: Fierce Fighting in Kismayu," Dilla Press, May 10, 2013. 1895 A. Abdirahman, "Suicide Bomber Kills 12 in Somalia Military Camp," Horseed Media, August 22, 2015. "Two Car Bombs Kill 18 in Somalia," VoA, August 22, 2015. "Car bomb 'kills many' at Somali military training base," Reuters, August 22, 2015. "Car bombings in two Somali cities kill 21," Al Jazeera, August 22, 2015. 1896 "Somalia: Mortar Shells Hit Kismayo University," Garowe Online, February 6, 2016. 1897 Bede Sheppard, "African Union Troops Vacate Base in Somali University," Human Rights Watch dispatch, July 12, 2017. "After Burundian troops Occupied for 10 Years, AMISOM hands over a Somali National University to the Federal Government of Somalia," Horn Observer, July 11, 2017. "Somalia: AMISOM vacates large military base in Mogadishu," Garowe Online, July 11, 2017. 1898 Abdulkadir Khalif, "At least 15 hurt in late night Mogadishu blasts," Africa Review, August 5, 2013. "Somalia's Al-Shabab details overnight attacks in Mogadishu, Baydhabo, Janale," BBC Monitoring Africa-Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, August 6, 2013;" "Dozen explosions reported in Somalia's capital," BBC Monitoring Africa-Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, August 6, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201308040028. 1899 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 151. 1900 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 117. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/1098, para. 53. 1901 "Government forces arrests over 45 people in Afgoye," Goobjoog News, September 22, 2014. 1902 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 117. 1903 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/1098, para. 53. 1904 Federal Government of Somalia, Ministry of Education, Culture, and Higher Education, Education Sector Analysis, pp. 38-40. 1905 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/1098, para. 55. 1906 "Afgooye Children Get Their School Back As Army Leaves," Mogadishu Center for Research and Studies, May 28, 2016, 1907 AMISON, "AMISOM hands over a rebuilt Somali National University to the Federal Government of Somalia," AMISOM press release, July 11, 2017. 1908 "Somalia: Al-Shabaab Introduces New School Curriculum," All Africa, April 2, 2017. 1909 "Al-Shabaab Using Child Soldiers in Desperate Mission to Control Somalia," AMISOM, March 29, 2016. Calvin Onsarigo and Charles Mghenyi, "Somalia: Al-Shabaab Still a Major Security Threat to Kenya-Returnees," Star, November 18, 2015. 1910 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 116. 1911 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 120. 1912 Dahir Jibril, "Al-Shabaab Abducting Children From Central Somalia," AllAfrica, June 25, 2013. 1913 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/1098, para. 19. 1914 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 113. 1915 Radio Kulmiye, "Al-Shabaab Abduct School Children From Harardheere District," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, April 20, 2016. 1916 "Somalia: Al-Shabab Demanding Children," Human Rights Watch news release, January 14, 2018. 1917 Robyn Kriel and Briana Dugan, "Al-Shabaab child soldiers captured in Somalia firefight," CNN, April 1, 2016. 1918 Information provided by Human Rights Watch, January 27, 2017. 1919 Mohamed Olad Hassan, "Somali Children Flee Al-Shabab Recruitment," VoA, August 7, 2017. 1920 "Somalia: Al-Shabaab Militants Kidnap 5 on Mogadishu-Baydhabo Road," Hiiraan Online, August 17, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201308170037. 1921 "Gunmen shoot dead university lecturer in southern Somali town," BBC Monitoring Africa-Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, November 7, 2013;""SOCAFRICA: Al-Shabaab Incident Tracker, 7-13 Nov 2013," SOCAFRICA, November 7, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201311070013. 1922 "Somalia: Gunmen Kill Ugandan Lecturer in Mogadishu," AllAfrica.com, December 6, 2013. "A Ugandan female lecturer shot dead in Mogadishu," Keydmedia, December 6, 2013. 1923 "Somalia: Two Civilians Gunned Down in Mogadishu," AllAfrica.com, January 13, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201401120038. 1924 Somali Current, "Police in Somaliland Arrest Dozens of University Students," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, April 14, 2014. 1925 @ModigashuNews, "3 students injured after jumping from walls at their University of #Somalia's National when blast hit near their campus yesterday #Somalia," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, April 22, 2015. 1926 A. Abdirahman, "Kenyan Teacher Killed in North Central Somalia," Horseed Media, May 8, 2014. AFP, "Kenyan teacher killed in Somalia: police," Daily Nation, May 8, 2014. VOASomali Service, "Armed men kill Kenyan teacher in Galkayo," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, May 8, 2014. 1927 Shafi'i Mohyaddin, "Professor targeted in University car bomb; one student Injured," Hiiraan Online, May 1, 2014. 1928 "Somalia: University Lecturer Wounded in Mogadishu bomb blast," Garowe Online, January 7, 2015. "Highlights: Somalia Daily Media Highlights 11 December 14," OSC Summary, December 10, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201412100055. 1929 "Explosion in Mogadishu targets University lecturer," Goobjoog News, January 7, 2015. "Somalia: University lecturer." 1930 AFP, "At Least 15 Killed as Somali Shebab Attack Education Ministry in Mogadishu," NDTV, April 14, 2015. Gianluca Mezzofiore, "Mogadishu under attack: 10 Killed as Al-Shabaab militants storm Somalia's Higher Education Ministry," International Business Times. "Seventeen killed in attack on Somalia education ministry," Irish Times, April 14, 2015. 1931 "Two injured in blast outside Somali university," Dhacdo.com, August 12, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201508110064. "Al-Shabab threatens attack on Somali university," Dhacdo.com, August 12, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201508110064. 1932 Wacaal Media, "Anxiety Grips SIMAD University As Al-Shabaab Circulates Leaflets Warning People To Stay Away From The Institution," AMISOM Daily Monitoring Report, August 13, 2015. 1933 "Somalia: Official Blames Al-Shabaab Militants for Attack on Mogadishu College Professor," Dhacdo.com, October 5, 2016;""Highlights: Somalia Daily Media Highlights 6 October 2016," Summary, October 7, 2016;""Highlights: Somalia Daily Media Highlights 4 October 2016," Summary, October 5, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201610040020. 1934 Jowhar.com, "Security Forces Storm Mogadishu's Simad University," AMISON Daily Monitoring Report, November 29, 2016. Education Under Attack 2018 - Pakistan Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Pakistan, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be9430513.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Unknown attackers and non-state armed groups used explosives, gunfire, and other tactics to damage and destroy hundreds of schools and universities in Pakistan. They also killed, injured, threatened, and abducted close to 100 students and educators, with approximately one-quarter of documented cases of all forms of attack affecting the education of females. Context Pakistan confronted a variety of security challenges during the 2013-2017 reporting period. The Tehreeki-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other non-state armed groups carried out violent attacks against government officials and civilians.[1606] Responding to the Taliban presence, the United States conducted preemptive attacks and drone strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and elsewhere. The Pakistani military also conducted military operations against the TTP.[1607] The TTP meanwhile carried out violent attacks in Punjab province, which was home to two other non-state armed groups, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.[1608] Sindh province saw escalating violence throughout the reporting period, particularly in Karachi city, stoked by a mix of ethnic, sectarian, political, and criminal tensions, as well as alleged human rights abuses by the paramilitary Rangers, who were increasingly deployed to maintain order.[1609] The TTP also established a foothold in Karachi city. Meanwhile, Balochistan province was the site of several distinct conflicts, including a nationalist and separatist movement led by the Baloch Liberation Army and the Baloch Liberation United Front, which targeted ethnic Pun- jabis and other minority groups; a sectarian conflict led by Sunni groups, who attacked Shia communities, especially the Hazara; and violent extremist attacks on individuals and institutions that behaved in a way the extremists viewed as contrary to Islam.[1610] Education was a casualty of each of these conflicts throughout Pakistan. Notably, in both Khyber Paktunkhwa province, where the TTP controlled Swat Valley, and in FATA, non-state actors targeted the state, women's rights, and girls' education, often violently.[1611] Voice of America reported in September 2017 that more than 1,100 girls' schools had been destroyed in FATA over the previous decade, according to government estimates.[1612] Furthermore, child marriage and pregnancy, prioritization of boys' education, a deficit of qualified female teachers, and having to travel long distances to school affected girls' access to education, according to the CEDAW committee.[1613] In general, reports of attacks on education declined from the period covered by Education under Attack 2014, when Pakistan was one of the most heavily affected countries. Attacks on education also declined in Pakistan over the course of the current reporting period. Attacks on schools Between 2013 and 2017, armed non-state groups and unknown parties reportedly attacked hundreds of schools in Pakistan, typically using explosive devices. According to data from UN, NGO, and media sources compiled by GCPEA, approximately one-third of these attacks were reported to have affected girls' schools.[1614] It should be noted, however, that not all reports indicated whether the institutions attacked were boys' or girls' schools. In many cases, these attacks damaged or destroyed infrastructure and killed several hundred students and teachers. Human Rights Watch reported that, according to the Pakistan Minister for States and Frontier Regions, 360 schools were destroyed in North Waziristan Agency, Khyber Agency, and South Waziristan as of 2015. However, it was not clear how much of this damage was due to attacks that had occurred in the previous two years, rather than in earlier years.[1615] According to the UN and the Education Cluster, the annual rate of attacks on schools was lower during the 2013-2017 reporting period than in the period documented in Education under Attack 2014. In 2013, media, NGO, and UN sources combined reported more than 100 attacks on schools, including bombings, grenade attacks, and shootings.[1616] According to information reported to the UN, the TTP and allied groups carried out at least 78 targeted attacks on schools, teachers, and school children, including 26 attacks that targeted female educational institutions.[1617] GCPEA's information indicated that approximately half of the attacks on schools in 2013 occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Attacks on schools also occurred with regularity in FATA, Balochistan, and Karachi city. Examples of attacks on schools in 2013 included the following: According to Human Rights Watch, there were at least nine attacks on schools in the District West area of Karachi between March and August 2013. In most of these cases, unidentified gunmen fired on the schools. [1618] According to media reports, at least six attacks on schools occurred between May 2, 2013, and May 11, 2013, in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces and were carried out in connection with the schools' use as polling centers. [1619] In November 2013, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a US drone hit a religious school in Hangu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing three teachers and five students.[1620] Just under one-third of the attacks on schools in 2013 were reported to target girls' schools or those serving boys and girls together, according to data collected by GCPEA. For example: On March 30, 2013, gunmen entered the Nation Secondary School in Ittehad Town, Karachi, hurling grenades and firing on students and teachers. One girl student and the school principal were killed, six other girl students and two visitors were injured. One of the injured visitors was also an educator, the principal of a nearby school who was visiting when the attack occurred. Information collected by Human Rights Watch indicated that the attackers may have been targeting female students. [1621] In one of the deadlier attacks on schools in 2013, local Taliban allegedly carried out an explosive attack outside a government girls' primary school in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on September 5, 2013. The attack injured 13 female students under the age of 10.[1622] Violence targeting schools appeared to decline slightly in 2014, according to information GCPEA collected from UN and media reports.[1623] According to the UN, at least 40 secular schools were attacked during 2014 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, FATA, and Balochistan province.[1624] Again, unknown attackers were responsible for the majority of violations, but in some cases the attackers were known to include non-state armed groups such as the Taliban and other violent extremist groups, which targeted secular and English-language schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces and FATA. More than a third of attacks on schools were reported to affect girls' education during 2014, according to information collected by GCPEA. The proportion of girls' institutions attacked may have varied across the country. For example, the HRCP reported that more than half of the schools destroyed in 2014 by the Taliban in Swat Valley, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, were girls' institutions.[1625] Attacks on schools in 2014 included the following: Media sources reported that on September 1, 2014, members of a group called Al-Jihad carried out an arson attack at Gorbam Private School in Kech district of Balochistan province because of its curriculum. Their statement claiming responsibility for the attack explained that the school had been targeted for providing Western education. [1626] Al-Jihad reportedly set another private school on fire in Turbat district of Balochistan on September 3, 2014, destroying 150 textbooks and leaving behind pamphlets warning the school not to teach Western education in English, according to Human Rights Watch and several media sources. [1627] The HRCP reported that unidentified assailants killed a school teacher and two children in a grenade attack at Askari Public School in Peshawar in October 2014. The incident followed the school's receipt of letters that threatened attacks if students wore Western attire rather than the traditional shalwar kameez. [1628] One of the most globally publicized attacks on educational institutions occurred on December 16, 2014. That day TTP gunmen stormed the Army Public School in Peshawar, firing on pupils and education personnel and setting off hand grenades and other explosive devices. At least 141 people were reportedly killed, including at least 132 children, as well as several teachers and other education personnel. At least another 133 were reportedly injured, the vast majority of them children.[1629] The TTP claimed that the attack was an act of revenge for the Pakistani military's ongoing offensive in North Waziristan.[1630] As a result of the attack, the government closed all educational institutions across Pakistan for three to four weeks, according to the UN.[1631] The UN recorded a 65 percent decline in attacks between 2014 and 2015, reporting 14 attacks on educational institutions in 2015, including eight in FATA, four in Sindh, and two in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.[1632] Information compiled from media sources indicated that there were 33 attacks on schools reported in 2015, of which 12, or just over a third, targeted girls' education.[1633] The extent of overlap between the UN and the media information was not clear. In addition to physical attacks on schools, several schools in Punjab and Balochistan provinces received threats demanding that they stop teaching Western education, or that girls stop attending school or wear headscarves, according to Human Rights Watch and media reports.[1634] For example, in August 2015, an official from the Panjgur district education department in Balochistan province told Human Rights Watch that a group called Tanzeemul Islam al Furqan had sent threats demanding that more than 25 English and coeducational schools close.[1635] The reported rate of attacks on schools in Pakistan continued to decline into 2016. According to both the UN and Pakistan's Education Cluster, there were six attacks on educational institutions that year.[1636] This included at least two in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the rest in FATA.[1637] GCPEA identified 22 incidents in media and NGO reports, including six targeting girls' schools. These attacks were distributed across the country, with eight reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, five in FATA, four in Sindh, three in Punjab, and one each in Balochistan and Azad Kashmir territory.[1638] It was not clear how many of these attacks were the same as those documented by the Education Cluster. Examples of attacks on schools in 2016 included the following: According to media sources, 10 students were injured in a stampede that occurred when gunmen fired on a government girls' secondary school in Tandlianwala, Punjab province, on January 23, 2016. [1639] The UN, Human Rights Watch, and media sources reported that on February 19, 2016, the Taliban detonated bombs and exploded the girls' wing of a newly built government school in Peshawar. When claiming responsibility for the attack, the Taliban stated that they had targeted the school because it was a government facility and would be part of a series of attacks on such institutions. [1640] In another case, reported by Dawn newspaper on September 6, 2016, a secondary school student was injured in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when he tried to stop an attacker with a rifle from climbing the school's boundary wall. [1641] Multiple media sources reported that one girl died, and three others injured, when a bomb exploded while they were playing outside their school in North Waziristan on December 13, 2016.[1642] At least eight attacks on schools were reported in 2017, according to information compiled from media sources. Half of these attacks reportedly targeted girls' education.[1643] For example: On January 10, 2017, two female students were reportedly injured when unknown attackers threw fireworks into the Hashmat Memorial Private School in Gujranwala, Punjab. [1644] On March 10, 2017, unidentified individuals vandalized the Oxford Public School, located in Ghizer Valley, Gilgit Baltistan. They left behind a note warning that the school would be bombed if the female teachers did not cover themselves. [1645] Dawn newspaper also reported an incident in Balochistan province on March 23, 2017, when a government girls' school located in Qila Abdulla was damaged in an IED attack. [1646] On May 8, 2017, a bomb reportedly exploded outside a girls' school in an area near Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, damaging the school gate and some of the school walls. A second bomb was defused nearby.[1647] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel In addition to the attacks on schools that killed many learners and educators, students, teachers, and education personnel were also killed in violence that targeted them individually. According to media, NGO, and international agency sources, there were more than 65 attacks against approximately 98 students, teachers, and other education personnel between 2013 and 2017. These numbers represented a decrease from the period reported in Education under Attack 2014. Unknown attackers were responsible for the majority of these incidents, which included targeted killings and abductions. Female students and teachers were targeted in a minority of cases. Data GCPEA collected from media sources and NGO reports indicated that there were at least 20 cases of attacks on teachers and students, affecting approximately 28 individuals, during 2013.[1648] These included kidnappings and targeted killings. Students also faced threats to their safety during 2013. For example: On March 26, 2013, unidentified armed assailants reportedly executed a female teacher in front of her 13-year-old son in a drive-by shooting while she was on her way to the school where she taught in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. [1649] On April 15, 2013, a Taliban faction threatened to harm students if they violated a ban on children attending five schools in North Waziristan. [1650] Unknown assailants reportedly kidnapped three school teachers who taught at the Government Workers' Welfare School in Khuzdar town, Balochistan, on February 5, 2013. [1651] On May 14, 2013, unknown attackers killed Abdul Waheed, who ran the Naunehal Public School in Orangi Town, Karachi, possibly because he refused to pay extortion money. The school shut down, and after it reopened in August 2013, other unknown attackers targeted it with a grenade.[1652] The number of incidents targeting students, teachers, and other education personnel was similar in 2014, with media sources reporting approximately 23 incidents across Khyber Pakhtukwa, FATA, Balochistan, and Sindh.[1653] However, many of these incidents harmed about twice as many individuals. For example: On February 10, 2014, unidentified motorcyclists reportedly shot dead three school teachers in Hangu district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, when they were on their way home from school. [1654] On May 21, 2014, gunmen from the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) opened fire on the home of Abdul Hameed, a teacher in Turbat district, Balochistan province, killing him and five of his family members. The BLF stated that they believed Hameed was an agent of the government, according to media sources. [1655] In Karachi, unknown attackers reportedly opened fire and killed Malik Ishaq, a secondary school principal in Baldia Town, Karachi city, on August 4, 2014. [1656] The UN received reports that on November 21, 2014, 11 teachers and local volunteers were abducted from a private school in Khyber Agency.[1657] Attacks on teachers and education personnel appeared to decline in 2015. Human Rights Watch and media sources documented a total of eight incidents that harmed seven people.[1658] Examples included the following: Media reports indicated that on January 14, 2015, unknown gunmen opened fire on and killed a teacher in Kech district, Balochistan. [1659] On March 4, 2015, a teacher was shot and killed by unidentified perpetrators in Punjab, also according to media sources. [1660] According to testimony collected by Human Rights Watch, a government school teacher was killed on May 8, 2015, by unknown militants in Charbagh Bazaar, Swat. The individual interviewed noted that the Pakistani Taliban considered all teachers to be heretics.[1661] There were reports of at least 12 targeted attacks on education personnel in 2016, which harmed approximately 18 students and education personnel.[1662] The majority of attacks were actual and attempted killings and abductions, but students and teachers were also threatened. News reports included the following: Three teachers were injured when unknown gunmen opened fire on them in Prang, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on January 1, 2016. [1663] On August 18, 2016, unidentified assailants shot and killed the watchman of a school as he slept at the school in Punjab province. [1664] Another security guard was injured on November 1, 2016, when four unknown armed gunmen entered his school, also in Punjab province, and opened fire. [1665] In September 2017, teachers at two government primary schools in Rawalpindi, Punjab province received threats warning that students would be abducted. The threats caused a number of students to leave the schools.[1666] GCPEA identified four incidents of armed actors targeting students and education personnel during 2017. Seven students and education personnel were harmed in these attacks.[1667] The media also reported two cases in which protesting teachers were violently dispersed or arrested, which included the following: Local media reported the abduction of FATA Education Deputy Director Mohib Rehman Dawar and his son on February 11, 2017. [1668] Local media also indicated that unknown attackers kidnapped three government school teachers in Awaran district, Balochistan, as the teachers returned from a training session for national census workers. [1669] It is possible that they were abducted because of their affiliation with the census rather than their positions as school teachers. On May 24, 2017, two Chinese language teachers were kidnapped by armed men disguised as policemen in Quetta, Balochistan. [1670] 'IS' claimed responsibility for the attack and killed the teachers two weeks later. [1671] On November 21, 2017, police used batons to disperse teachers protesting in Gothki district, Sindh province, because they had not received their salaries. [1672] Police used water cannons to disperse teachers demonstrating for permanent positions in Karachi city, Sindh province, on December 25, 2017. More than two dozen teachers were arrested and held for several days.[1673] Military use of schools and universities Information about military use of schools and universities was scarce during the current reporting period, as it was during the 2009-2013 period. However, Kamran Michael, Pakistan's minister for human rights, noted in his response to the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights on June 15, 2017, that the Pakistani army used schools as barracks. The minister stated that the army only used schools during summer or winter holidays, or at other times when the schools were closed, and then only for a few days at a time.[1674] Reports from the UN and Human Rights Watch indicated that both armed groups and Pakistani security forces used educational institutions as bases of operation, disrupting access to education.[1675] Human Rights Watch wrote that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elementary and Secondary Education Department's Independent Monitoring Unit reported the partial occupation of 222 schools and full occupation of 63 schools by either displaced families or Pakistani security forces in December 2014. The source did not distinguish between the two uses, and it was not clear how many of these schools were functioning as bases for security operations.[1676] Human Rights Watch also reported the following: A member of a teachers' association reported that Pakistani security forces were launching operations against the Taliban from approximately 20 schools in Swat in 2016. [1677] The same source reported that both the military and the paramilitary Frontier Corps were partially occupying five schools, including the Government High School Sherpalam, Government Middle School Marghazar, Government Primary School Bar Sher Palam No. 1, and Government Primary School Kandaw Kass. [1678] The Swat education department reported that the army was fully occupying at least two schools in September 2016: the Government Primary School Achar No. 2 for boys, which they had been using since May 2014, and the Government Primary School Ozbaka for boys.[1679] Human Rights Watch also documented reports that the Pakistani army and paramilitary Rangers used university and college dormitories. For example: According to a teacher interviewed by Human Rights Watch, as of 2016 the army had been using an undergraduate college for women in Khwazakhela, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as offices for senior military officials for seven years, since 2009. Although another space was given to the college to continue classes, many women dropped out. [1680] In 2016 the Rangers were reported to be using at least three higher education facilities in Sindh province. These included the Mitha Ram Hostel, a dormitory for students of the DJ Science College, which the Rangers had been using since 1992 and had converted into a small jail in 2015; the Jinnah Courts, a residential dormitory that the Rangers had used as their headquarters since 1999; and a hostel at the Government College of Technology.[1681] Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school There was little information on child recruitment from schools during the reporting period. According to the UN, there were allegations in 2014, 2015, and 2016 that the TTP used religious schools in Pakistan to recruit and train children.[1682] However, there were no specific details on this activity. Attacks on higher education Unknown attackers and armed non-state groups reportedly killed, injured, and abducted university scholars and education personnel between 2013 and 2017 at rates similar to those documented in Education under Attack 2014. GCPEA documented approximately 37 attacks on higher education using media, NGO, and UN sources. Two of these attacks affected females' education. Most attacks on higher education took place in Balochistan and Sindh provinces. According to information compiled by GCPEA, at least 12 attacks on higher education occurred during 2013, harming 38 university students and education personnel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Balochistan, and Punjab provinces.[1683] For example: On February 1, 2013, an explosive planted at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Peshawar by unknown attackers injured two people and damaged the building, according to media sources. [1684] News reports indicated that unknown attackers shot and killed professor Syed Sibte Jafar Zaidi on March 18, 2013. The attack occurred outside the Government Degree Science College in Karachi, Sindh, and observers believed that Zaidi was killed for his scholarship on "sectarian harmony."1685 The deadliest attack of the year on higher education occurred on June 15, 2013, when members of Lashkare-Jhangvi placed a bomb on a bus carrying university students, which exploded on the campus of Sardar Bahaddur Khan Women's University in Quetta, Balochistan, killing 25 people and wounding at least another 19. Several girls suffered severe burn injuries when the bus caught fire after the blast. Ninety minutes later, two suicide attackers and gunmen of unknown affiliation attacked the Bolan Medical Clinic, where those injured during the first attack were receiving treatment, killing 11 more people and wounding 17. [1686] The HRCP viewed the attack as a warning to women seeking higher education, as the university was the sole all-women university in Balochistan. [1687] On July 11, 2013, one college professor was killed and another wounded in Balochistan province. The professor who was killed was known for promoting girls' education, according to a news report. [1688] According to a media report, unknown assailants reportedly kidnapped four employees of the Institute of Business Administration Community College in Shikarpur city, Sindh province, on December 21, 2013, releasing them a few days later.[1689] In 2014 there were at least 16 attacks on universities and higher education students and personnel, which harmed 21 people, as reported by media sources. These attacks in 2014, which were similar to those that occurred the previous year, included 12 attacks on higher education personnel and 4 on higher education infrastructure.[1690] For example: On February 8, 2014, an explosive set by unknown attackers detonated at the Technical Training Center in Sohbatpur town, Balochistan province. [1691] On February 17, 2014, unknown attackers killed Dr. Javed Iqbal Qazi, dean of the pathology department of Karachi Medical and Dental College, in an attack that also wounded his driver. [1692] On March 10, 2014, unknown attackers killed student organization leader Raja Qadoos in Rawalpindi city, Punjab province. [1693] Another explosive device was found on the roof of a bus at Shah Abdul Latif University in Khairpur city, Sindh province, on March 25, 2014. It was safely defused. [1694] A grenade exploded on May 12, 2014, near the Gomal Medical College in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing a security guard. [1695] On September 18, 2014, unidentified attackers killed Dr. Muhammad Shakil Auj, a liberal religious scholar and dean of Islamic Studies at Karachi University, who had received death threats for months. The threats had come from rival religious scholars charging blasphemy.[1696] Attacks against higher education appeared to decline in 2015, with media sources reporting six incidents, of which three targeted students or education personnel and three targeted institutions.[1697] For example: On February 5, unidentified perpetrators detonated an explosive device outside the Institute of Computer and Management Sciences College in Peshawar city, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. There were no casualties in the blast, but university infrastructure was damaged. [1698] Unknown assailants shot and killed a student organization activist, Sajjad Hussain of the People's Students Federation, on March 9, 2015, in Karachi city, Sindh province. [1699] In April 2015, four gunmen shot and killed Dr. Waheedur Rehman, a former student of Dr. Muhammad Shakeel Auj, who was killed the previous year. Dr. Rehman was also working as a professor at Karachi University.[1700] In 2016, media reports again indicated that there were at least five attacks on higher education, including the following:1701 On January 20, 2016, armed assailants associated with the Pakistani Taliban attacked Bacha Khan University, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, shooting and killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens more. [1702] Following this attack, the national government issued a "red alert" to education institutions nationwide, causing them to close for a week, or more in some cases. [1703] Counterterrorism drills and other security exercises were also practiced in schools and universities across the country in the wake of the attack. [1704] Later in the year, in June 2016, unknown assailants fatally shot Amanullah Khan Achakzai, principal of University Law College Quetta, while he was en route to work.[1705] Media sources reported four targeted attacks on higher education personnel or facilities during 2017: On March 15, 2017, local media reported that the Balochistan secretary of higher education was abducted on his way to work. The outcome of the abduction was unclear. [1706] On April 7, 2017, Ashfaq Ahmed, a retired professor from Lahore University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, was killed in Lahore by unknown attackers. Police believed that the attack was related to Ahmed's Ahmadi faith. [1707] Local media reported that police defused five bombs planted by unidentified attackers outside of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology in Jamshoro, Sindh province, on November 8, 2017. [1708] The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack on the Agricultural Training Institute on December 1, 2017, which killed at least 9 people and injured 37, the majority of them students, according to international media.[1709] 1606 "Pakistan: Conflict Profile," Peace Insight, March 2014. CFR, "InfoGuide: The Taliban," 2015. Carin Zissis and Jayshree Bajoria, "Pakistan's Tribal Areas," CFR Backgrounder, October 26, 2007. 1607 "Pakistan: Conflict Profile." CFR, "InfoGuide." Zissis and Bajoria, "Pakistan's Tribal Groups." CFR, "Islamist Militancy in Pakistan," updated March 1, 2018. Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares": Attacks on Students, Teachers, and Schools in Pakistan (New York: Human Rights Watch, March 2017), p. 12. 1608 International Crisis Group, Pakistan's Jihadist Heartland: Southern Punjab, Report N.279 (Brussels: International Crisis Group, May 30, 2016). 1609 International Crisis Group, Pakistan: Stoking the Fire in Karachi, Report N.[284] (Brussels: International Crisis Group, February 15, 2017). Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 14. 1610 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," pp. 15-16. 1611 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 12. 1612 Noor Zahid and Muhammad Ishtiaq, "Tribesmen Return to Destroyed Schools in Pakistan's Tribal Region," VoA, September 3, 2017. 1613 CEDAW, "Concluding observations," CEDAW/C/PAK/CO/4, para. 27. 1614 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1615 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 20. 1616 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1617 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 190. 1618 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 34. 1619 AFP, "Two polling stations blown up in Balochistan," Dawn, May 2, 2013. "Two polling stations blown up," Dawn (Pakistan), May 3, 2017. "Attacks continue as polling day nears," Pakistan Today, May 3, 2013. "Miscreants blow polling station in Kohlu," News Tribe, May 7, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201305070030. Syed Ali Shah, "Polling stations attacked in Balochistan; National Party chief attacked," Dawn (Pakistan), May 6, 2013. "Polling stations targeted in Balochistan blasts; NP chief attacked," Baluchistan News Network, May 6, 2013. "Balochistan: Polling station attacked in Nushki," Geo.tv, May 8, 2013. "VIDEO: Many injured in bombing at Pakistan polling station," BBC News, May 11, 2013. Ali Hazrat Bacha, "One killed, 21 injured in Peshawar blasts," Dawn (Pakistan), May 12, 2013. "Blasts in Karachi, Peshawar kill 11," Dunya News, May 11, 2013. "Pakistan: IED defused in Bannu," Right Vision News, May 13, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201305110024. "Terror bid foiled, 15 kg explosives defused," Frontier Post, May 12, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201305110024. 1620 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Annual Report 2013: Education (Lahore: HRCP, March 2014), p. 232. 1621 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 36. 1622 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 190. 1623 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1624 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 242. 1625 HRCP, Annual Report 2014 (Lahore: HRCP, March 2015), p. 279. 1626 "School set on fire in Kech district," Dawn, September 3, 2014. Shezad Baloch, "Education emergency: In a first, private school comes under attack in Turbat," Express Tribune, September 3, 2014. 1627 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 29. Shezad Baloch, "Education emergency: In a first, private school comes under attack in Turbat," Express Tribune, September 3, 2014. HRCP, State of Human Rights in 2014, p. 277. 1628 HRCP, State of Human Rights in 2014, p. 277. 1629 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 240. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/453, para. 20. CEDAW, "Concluding observations," CEDAW/C/PAK/CO/4/Add.1, para. 59. CRC, "Concluding observations," CRC/C/PAK/CO/5, para 22. HRCP, Annual Report 2014, pp. 271, 277. Amnesty International, Annual Report 2015/2016, p. 281. Amnesty International, Annual Report 2014/2015, pp. 281, 282. Human Rights Watch, World Report: 2016-Events of 2015 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2016), p. 438. US State Department et al., Pakistan 2014 Human Rights Report, p. 22. 1630 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 240. HRCP, Annual Report 2014, p. 277. 1631 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 242. 1632 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 199. 1633 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1634 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 45, 46. "Threatening letter found outside Lahore School," News International, January 15, 2015. 1635 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 45. 1636 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 220. 1637 Information provided by the Pakistan Education Cluster via email, June 21, 2017. 1638 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1639 "10 injured in stampede causes by aerial firing Tandlianwala School," Daily Times, January 22, 2016. 1640 "New government school blown up in Pakistan's restive northwest," Reuters, February 20, 2016. "Girls' wing of new government school blown up in South Waziristan," Dawn, February 20, 2016. "New girls' primary school in Pakistan blown up by Taliban," A World at School, February 23, 2016. Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 28. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 220. 1641 "Student foils terror bid in Lakki Marwat," Dawn, September 6, 2016. 1642 "Bomb kills girl outside school in N Waziristan," Pakistan Observer, December 13, 2016. "Militant violence: Schoolgirl killed in N Waziristan IED blast," Express Tribune, December 14, 2016. "School bomb kills nine-year-old in NWA," Daily Mail News, December 13, 2016. 1643 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1644 "Two students injured from firework bomb in Gujranwala school," Dunya News, January 10, 2017. 1645 "Group calling itself 'Afghan Mujahideen' threatens to bomb G-B school," Express Tribune, March 11, 2017. 1646 "Girls school damaged in bomb attack," Dawn, March 24, 2017. 1647 AFP, "Bomb attack targets girls' school in NW Pakistan," Daily Sabah, May 8, 2017. 1648 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1649 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 190. HRCP, Annual Report 2013, p. 232. 1650 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 190. 1651 Press Trust of India, "Unidentified gunmen kidnap 3 schoolteachers in Balochistan," Business Standard, February 6, 2013. 1652 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 44. 1653 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1654 "Social worker shot dead in Parachinar," Dawn (Pakistan), February 8, 2014. Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," pp. 41-42. "Three teachers shot dead in Hangu," Dawn, February 11, 2014. 1655 AFP, "Gunmen kill schoolteacher, family members in Pakistan," Gulf News Pakistan, May 21, 2014. "Govt teacher, five family members shot dead in Balochistan," Samaa, May 21, 2014. "Gunmen kill schoolteacher, family members," Gulf Today, May 22, 2014. 1656 "Targeted: School principal shot dead in his office in Saeedabad," Tribune, August 5, 2014. Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 44. 1657 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 191. 1658 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1659 "Highlights: Pakistan Balochistan Press 15 January 2015," OSC Summary, January 15, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201501140002. 1660 "School teacher shot dead," Daily Pak Banker, March 5, 2015, as cited in START, GTD 201503040036. 1661 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 43. 1662 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1663 Tahir Ali, "An uphill battle," Friday Times, March 25, 2016. "Three schoolteachers injured in attack," News International, January 2, 2016. 1664 "School guard shot dead," News, HRCP news archive, August 18, 2016. 1665 "Security guard injured by firing," Express Tribune, November 1, 2016. 1666 Mohammad Asghar, "Following threats, over 15 students leave targeted schools," Dawn, September 7, 2016. 1667 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1668 "Deputy director education FATA abducted," Express Tribune, February 11, 2017. "FATA Education deputy director abducted," Pakistan Today, February 11, 2017. 1669 "Three schoolteachers 'abducted' in Balochistan," Daily Times, March 15, 2017. Syed Ali Shah, "Balochistan higher education secretary abducted from Quetta," Dawn, March 15, 2017. 1670 Zafar Baloch, "Two Chinese nationals abducted from Quetta," Express Tribune, May 24, 2017. 1671 Ayaz Gul, "IS Says It Killed 2 Captive Chinese Nationals in Pakistan," VoA, June 8, 2017. 1672 "Police baton-charge on teachers protesting for salaries in Karachi," Dunya News, November 23, 2017. "Education under Attack Monthly News Brief," Insight Insecurity, November 2017, p. 2. 1673 "Teachers arrested during protest demanding permanent positions released," GeoTV News, December 26, 2017. 1674 Kamran Michael, answer given to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, June 15, 2017. 1675 Human Rights Watch, Dreams Turned into Nightmares, pp. 50-58. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878-S/2014/339, para. 190. 1676 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 20. 1677 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 49. 1678 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 49. 1679 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 49. 1680 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," p. 50. 1681 Human Rights Watch, "Dreams Turned into Nightmares," pp. 54, 55. 1682 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, paras. 22, 197. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/336, para. 21. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the SecretaryGeneral," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 218. 1683 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1684 "Instilling terror: Yet another explosion in UoP," Express Tribune, January 3, 2013. Fazalullah Mohmand, "Another explosion in Peshawar varsity," EduVision, January 3, 2013. "Bomb jolts Peshawar University," Pakistan Today, January 3, 2013. 1685 "Sindh lecturers boycott academic activities to protest professor's killing," Dawn (Pakistan), March 19, 2013. "Abbasi Shaheed doctor gunned down by unidentified men," Express Tribune, March 19, 2013. "Professor Sibte Jafar killed in Karachi, Pakistan," World Federation, March 27, 2013. 1686 HRCP, Balochistan-Giving the people a chance: Report of an HRCP fact-finding mission (Lahore: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, June 22-25, 2013), pp. 8, 10, 28, 33-34. AFP, "Double attack in Quetta kills 25: officials," Nation, June 15, 2013. Shahzeb Jilani, "Pakistan's Quetta city reels from attack on women," BBC News, June 21, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 174. HRCP, Annual Report 2013, p. 173, 232. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878-S/2014/339, para. 191. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Sardar Bahadur Khan Women's University, June 15, 2013. 1687 HRCP, Annual Report 2013, p. 173. 1688 "Pakistani Gunmen Kill Professor Who Promoted Education For Girls," Radio Free Europe, July 12, 2013. Syed Ali Shah, "Professor shot in Khuzdar; bullet-riddled bodies found in Dera Bugti," Dawn, July 11, 2013. Bari Baloch, "College professor shot dead in Khuzdar," Nation, July 12, 2013. "College professor killed in target killing," Pakistan News Index, July 11, 2013. 1689 "Still missing: Police fail to make any headway in kidnappings of four IBA employees," Express Tribune, December 25, 2013. "Home at last: Jacobabad IBA staffers released by kidnappers," Express Tribune, December 26, 2013. 1690 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1691 "Highlights: Pakistan Balochistan Press 9 February 2014," OSC Summary, February 9, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201402080012. 1692 "Karachi: Professor killed in North Nazimabad car firing," Samaa TV, February 17, 2014. "KMDC teacher shot dead," Dawn (Pakistan), February 18, 2014. 1693 "Three shot dead in Rawalpindi," Nation (AsiaNet), March 11, 2014. 1694 "Bomb found on rooftop of university bus defused," News International, March 26, 2014. 1695 "One killed in Dera Ismail Khan blast," Geo.tv, May 12, 2014. "Man killed in D.I. Khan grenade attack," Samaa TV, May 12, 2014. Sumaira Alwani, "One man dies in a grenade attack in DI Khan," AAJ News, May 12, 2014. 1696 "Liberal professor of Islam shot dead in Pakistan," Guardian, September 18, 2014. Imtiaz Ali, "KU dean Shakeel Auj shot dead," Dawn, September 19, 2014. AFP, "Police interrogate colleagues over liberal professor's murder," Qatar Tribune, September 20, 2014. "Liberal Islamic professor gunned down in Karachi," Bangladesh Daily Star, September 19, 2014. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Karachi, September 18, 2014. 1697 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1698 "Bomb explodes at Pakistan college," BBC News, February 5, 2015. "Gate of Peshawar school blown up," Nation, February 6, 2015. 1699 "Four terrorists killed in Karachi encounter," News International, March 10, 2015. "PSF worker killed in sectarian attack," Dawn, March 10, 2015. 1700 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Karachi, September 18, 2014. "Six including professor killed in metropolis," Pakistan Today, April 30, 2015. "Karachi Univ Prof shot dead," Kashmir Observer, April 29, 2015. Imtiaz Ali and Mohammad Raza, "KU professor shot dead in Karachi," Dawn, April 29, 2015. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Karachi, April 29, 2015. 1701 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website at: http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1702 Jibran Ahmad and Mehreen Zahra-Malik, "Militants storm Pakistan University, kill at least 20," Reuters, January 20, 2016. "UN Secretary-General statement on the Bacha Khan University attack," UN press release, January 21, 2016. Sophia Saifi, Ben Brumfield, and Euan McKirdy, "At least 22 killed in attack on Bacha Khan University in Pakistan," CNN, January 21, 2016. Declan Walsh, Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, and Ismail Khan, "Taliban Attack at Bacha Khan University in Pakistan Renews Fears," New York Times, January 20, 2016. 1703 Kunwar Khuldune Shahid, "Pakistan's Schools at War," Diplomat, February 18, 2016. Imtiaz Ahmad, "Hundreds of schools closed in Pakistani Punjab over security concerns," Hindustan Times, February 1, 2016. 1704 "Counter-terrorism drills conducted in schools across Peshawar," Dawn, January 29, 2016. 1705 Barakwal Miakhel, "Academic Killed In Southwestern Pakistan," Gandhara, June 8, 2016. Syed Ali Shah, "College principal shot dead in Quetta," Dawn, June 8, 2016. 1706 Syed Ali Shah, "Balochistan higher education secretary abducted from Quetta," Dawn, March 15, 2017. 1707 Ameen Amjad Khan, "Attacks on universities, scholars, students unabated" University World News, April 15, 2017. 1708 "Five bombs planted near MUET entrance defused," Dawn, November 9, 2017. "Education under Attack Monthly News Brief," Insight Insecurity, November 2017, p. 3. 1709 "Gunmen attack Peshawar Agricultural Training Institute," Al Jazeera, December 1, 2017. AP, "Gunmen Attack Agriculture Institute in Pakistan, Killing 12," New York Times, December 1, 2017. Jibran Ahmad, "Nine killed as burqa-clad Taliban attack Pakistani college," Reuters, December 1, 2017. Ayaz Gul, "Militant Attack on Pakistan University Kills 9," VoA, December 1, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Myanmar Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Myanmar, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be9430713.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. More than a dozen schools in Myanmar were damaged, and classes were disrupted by arson attacks, aerial bombings, and shelling. Communal, religious, and ethnic conflicts killed dozens of students and teachers. In Rakhine state, military-led operations in Rohingya communities burned hundreds of villages to the ground and killed an unknown number of students and teachers. Context Ethnic armed groups continued their decades-long insurgency, particularly in different parts of northern Myanmar. The Myanmar military (the Tatmadaw Kyi or Tatmadaw) targeted ethnic minorities such as the Ta'ang, Kachin, and Shan, who they believed to have ties to armed opposition groups seeking to gain increased autonomy and independence for their communities.[1431] In addition, communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims erupted in central and western Myanmar beginning in 2012, killing and injuring hundreds.[1432] Internal displacement and insecurity caused by the ongoing violence disrupted education for thousands of children, For example, authorities closed approximately 30 schools during fighting between the government and Karen armed groups in southeastern Mon state in September 2014.[1433] In a 2016 analysis of nationwide data, the Asian Development Bank and UN agencies found that security concerns combined with the long distances required to travel to school may have discouraged all children, especially girls above the age of puberty, from attending school.[1434] In 2016 and 2017, during two military-led operations in Rohingya Muslim minority communities in northern Rakhine state, at least 400 schools in Rakhine state were closed due to fighting.[1435] These operations intensified after August 25, 2017 when a nascent militant group reportedly carried out attacks against approximately 30 security forces outposts.[1436] These operations displaced hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed an unknown number of schools in hundreds of devastated villages, and killed untold numbers of students and teachers.[1437] A series of surveys conducted by Medecins Sans Frontieres in November 2017 with Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh estimated that the violence had killed 8,170 people, including 1,247 children under the age of five.[1438] According to the Human Rights Watch, the campaign had partially or fully destroyed 354 villages by December 2017.[1439] The UN High Commissioner for Refugees stated in February 2018 that more than 688,000 Rohingya people had fled to refugee camps in Bangladesh in the previous months.[1440] According to government sources, 27,000 members of Rakhine minority groups were displaced after August 25, 2017, but by November of that year more than 24,000 had returned home.[1441] According to OHCHR, the military-led operation in Rakhine state at the end of 2016 included actions that very likely amounted to crimes against humanity.[1442] In March 2017, the UN mandated a fact-finding mission to investigate human rights violations perpetrated by the Myanmar security forces, in particular those in Rakhine state, including arbitrary detention, torture and inhumane treatment, extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killing, rape, and other sexual violence, and the destruction of property.[1443] However, the Myanmar government stated in June 2017 that it would not issue visas to the UN investigators, a situation that continued at the time of writing.[1444] The number of attacks on schools and universities fluctuated throughout the reporting period, in conjunction with the intensifications of military activity and new laws that caused protests that were sometimes repressed with violence at Myanmar's universities. Reports of military use of schools appeared to remain steady until late 2016, and there was limited data on the extent of military use during military operations in Rakhine state. Attacks on schools Mortar fire, shelling, arson, and gunfire by various sides of multiple conflicts were reported to have damaged or destroyed schools in multiple states, particularly in the context of the government's military-led operations in Rakhine state. Throughout the reporting period there was only limited information available on exactly how widespread attacks on schools were. However, anecdotal reports indicated that fighting regularly impacted schools. After a brief peak in 2013, when Buddhist nationalist armed groups increased attacks in Muslim communities, attacks on schools remained at levels similar to those reported in Education under Attack 2014, which lasted through 2015.[1445] Attacks increased again in 2016 and 2017 in the context of military-led operations in Rakhine state. Further attacks may be reported for 2017 when more detailed information becomes available. Communal and religious tensions intensified into conflict in 2012, and media outlets reported a rise in targeted attacks by Buddhist nationalists in 2013. There were anecdotal reports of Buddhist nationalist violence targeting schools in two different areas of Myanmar: Media sources reported that on February 17, 2013, approximately 300 Buddhists attacked an Islamic religious school in Thaketa township in the central city of Rangoon (Yangon). [1446] According to media sources, in March, more than 200 Buddhist community members set fire to an Islamic school in Meiktila in the Mandalay region of central Myanmar, allegedly while government security forces watched. The mob, armed with machetes and pipes, killed 32 students and four teachers, clubbing some to death and burning others alive. The media reported that seven people were later imprisoned in connection with the attacks.[1447] UN sources reported that fighting between the government security forces and ethnic armed opposition groups in Kachin state also damaged schools during 2013. According to the UN, fighting between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the military during October and November 2013 damaged an unknown number of schools in northern Kachin state.[1448] For example, the UN reported that, in November 2013, the national army surrounded a boys' boarding school in Mansi Township in Kachin state, forcing 300 students to flee the school. Their stated reason for doing so was to minimize civilian casualties during the fighting by ensuring that students were not present and therefore could not be caught in the crossfire.[1449] It was unclear what happened to those who fled or whether the school was damaged. In Shan state, unidentified attackers damaged two schools in 2013, according to NGO and media sources: According to a local human rights NGO, mortar shells damaged a school in Tangyan, Shan state, in April 2013. [1450] In northern Shan state there was one attack on a school in 2013. In Lashio, unknown attackers burned down an Islamic school in late May 2013.[1451] In 2014, reports of attacks on schools became more sporadic. Fighting between the national army and ethnic armed opposition groups damaged at least two schools in Shan state, according to a local human rights organization. For example: Shelling damaged a government school in the northern village of Wan Na Hee, Shan state in March 2014. [1452] A high school in Mong Nawng town, Shan state was damaged during a three-day military campaign by the national army during November 2014.[1453] Reports of attacks on schools increased slightly in 2015, to approximately seven, according to information collected from rights groups and media sources. Fighting between the national army and the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) damaged or closed schools in five villages during communal violence in the Kawkareik township, southeastern Karen state, in July 2015.[1454] There were also media reports of damage to two schools caught in the crossfire of fighting in 2015. For example, police and the national army destroyed at least one school in Karen state, on the border with Thailand, in June 2015.[1455] There was one report of an attack on a school in Kachin state in 2015. In June of that year, media and NGO reports stated that a military mortar shell landed 200 meters from the dormitory and headmaster's house at the Alen Bum Internally Displaced Persons Boarding School in Laiza.[1456] Attacks against schools appeared to intensify in 2016, with the most significant violence moving to Rakhine state. The UN found that government security forces burned schools and madrassas in Rakhine as part of its military-led operations in the area beginning in October 2016. The extent of this damage was not clear.[1457] The UN also received reports of six attacks on schools in 2016, two of which were verified. It was not clear where in the country these attacks occurred.[1458] GCPEA also collected information on two cases of unidentified attackers and collateral damage from fighting that affected access to education in 2016. It was not clear whether these cases overlapped with those reported by the UN. For example: According to media sources, on June 23, 2016, unidentified assailants attacked a village in Bago division, causing damage to a local school. [1459] Local media reported that, in August 2016, stray shells from a battle between the national army and the KIA landed in the compound of Namya Basic Education Middle School in Hpakant, Kachin state. The extent of the damage to the school caused by the explosion was unclear, but at least one student and one teacher were injured.[1460] Damage to schools continued in 2017, according to information collected from news reports. Although there was limited information available on the number of schools affected in Rakhine state, GCPEA was able to identify anecdotal reports of such attacks, including the following: In September 2017, at least one school was destroyed in an arson attack, reportedly by non-Rohingya villagers or security forces, according to international media. [1461] News sources reported that on September 22, 2017, a school in Mee Chaung, a village in Rakhine that had remained mostly peaceful during the violence against the Rohingya in other parts of that state, was reportedly damaged and possibly destroyed by a bomb blast carried out by unknown perpetrators.[1462] In other states, media sources reported sporadic cases of schools caught in the crossfire between government forces and non-state armed groups in 2017. For example: On January 11, 2017, fighting between the Ta'ang National Liberation Army and government security forces caused schools and other civilian infrastructure to be closed in Namhsan, Shan state. Unknown perpetrators caused unspecified damage to one local high school. [1463] On March 11, 2017, shelling damaged Hongyan School in Kokang region, Shan state. No students were injured in the blast, as it occurred on a weekend. However, a volunteer teacher who was in residence at the time was killed. [1464] In August 2017, teachers and students were injured during fighting near Nam Ya Middle School in Moe Nyin District, Kachin state, which also disrupted school services.[1465] Military use of schools Local NGOs, the UN, and media sources reported intermittent incidents of the national army and armed groups using schools as training facilities and for protection during fighting, among other purposes. Military use of schools was documented at rates similar to those reported in Education under Attack 2014 for most of the 20132017 period, but it was more commonly reported during the second half. The UN reported two cases of military use of schools in 2013, one by government forces and the other by a nonstate armed group: According to the UN, the national army used a vacated boys' school in Bhamo, Kachin state, during a school vacation in 2013. The UN reported that a KIA-affiliated militia used a boys' dormitory at a boarding school as a training facility in Kachin state, also during the school vacation. Responding to UN pressure, the KIA instructed the militia to leave the premises.[1466] It was unknown whether students were present in either school at the time. These incidents continued into 2014, with one incident attributed to government forces and one to a non-state armed group: According to a local NGO report, in September 2014 the DKBA used a middle school for cover during conflict with the national army. The DKBA allegedly fired on the military from the school. [1467] A local NGO reported that, between June and July 2014, the national army set up a base in a village school in Kehsi Township, northern Shan state, and prevented students from attending school.[1468] Military use was reported more commonly in 2015 and 2016. The UN verified six cases of military use of schools by the national army throughout 2015 and documented two cases in 2016, including one in Rakhine state and one in Kachin state.[1469] In addition, a report by OHCHR indicated that government security forces commonly used schools and mosques as outposts or temporary detention centers in the context of the government crackdown in Rakhine state in the last three months of 2016. For example: On an unknown date between October 9 and December 31, 2016, government security forces rounded up 12 elderly people in Rakhine state and beat them, before taking them to a school, where they were confined and beaten repeatedly for an unknown period of time. [1470] OHCHR also reported that, during the same period, women from the region had been detained in schools, where they were raped and otherwise abused.[1471] As of December 2017, there was only one documented case of military use for the year, which occurred in the context of the government's military-led operations in Rakhine state. According to Amnesty International, military forces slept in one school in August 2017 as they moved through villages.[1472] The full scope of the use of schools by the military was unknown at the time of writing. Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school or university There were at least two reported cases in which sexual violence affected education between 2013 and 2017, one in the context of communal conflict in Kachin state, and one in the context of violence in Rakhine state. This type of violence was not documented in Education under Attack 2014. For example: Human Rights Watch reported that, in January 2015, soldiers stationed near a school physically assaulted, raped, and killed two female school teachers in their dormitory in Kuang Kha in Shan state. [1473] According to Human Rights Watch, the military denied all involvement and threatened to take legal action against anyone alleging their involvement. [1474] OHCHR reported that, in the last three months of 2016, women in Rakhine state were detained, raped, and otherwise abused by armed groups in schools.[1475] In one such case, a Rohingya woman in a Bangladesh refugee camp reported to Human Rights Watch that before she left her village of Kyein Chaung, in Maungdaw township, a soldier dragged her to a school toilet and raped her there.[1476] Attacks on higher education There were more reports of attacks on higher education during the 2013-2017 reporting period than in the previous period, possibly due to tensions related to the new National Education Law passed in 2014. The law restricted university student unions and teachers' unions and prohibited minority ethnic language education at universities. Its passage sparked a widespread outcry and protests calling for increased academic freedom, which were met with violence by police and other government security forces.[1477] The majority of the attacks on higher education for which reports were collected by GCPEA occurred in the following year, 2015. No attacks on higher education were documented until 2015. Rights groups including Human Rights Watch, Scholars at Risk, and Amnesty International reported that, beginning in March of that year, police responded to student protests over the new National Education Law with excessive use of force and violence, harassment, and detention of some of the students involved. For example: In Letpadan, Pegu region, central Myanmar, at least 80 students and their supporters, mostly monks, were reportedly arrested following clashes with police in March. The students were protesting the new education law. [1478] Local and international media reported that police beat protesters and the medical responders who were called to assist them. [1479] Amnesty International stated that in the following month the police harassed and threatened student leaders and their supporters for their suspected involvement in the protest. [1480] According to Reuters, the government released at least 14 of the arrested students two days after the protest. As of March 2016, the government reportedly had plans to release the other students, but whether or not this had happened by September 2017 was unclear. [1481] Two leaders of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, who had been in hiding since the March protests, were detained from late October through early November 2015, according to Scholars at Risk.[1482] 2016 saw the release of many arrested students and no reported attacks. Amnesty International and international media reported that, beginning in April 2016, the government released 69 students from prison following prom- ises of reform from State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, although three of those released continued to face charges.[1483] There was one reported attack on higher education in 2017. Local media reported that on May 8, four student union members were arrested for their participation in a protest against a set of laws that banned mobile phones and required strict timetables on university campuses. The students also were calling on the government to respect students' rights and democracy in general. They were sentenced to four months in jail.[1484] 1431 Hanna Hindstrom, "Burma's Transition to Civilian Rule Hasn't Stopped the Abuses of Its Ethnic Wars," Time, April 1, 2016. 1432 "Why is there communal violence in Myanmar?" BBC News, July 3, 2014. 1433 Roseanne Gerin, "Five Karen Rebels Killed in Fighting with Myanmar Troops," Radio Free Asia, September 30, 2014. 1434 Asian Development Bank(ADB), UNDP, UNFPA, and UN Women, Gender Equality and Women's Rights in Myanmar: A Situation Analysis (Mandaluyong City: ADB and UN, 2016), p. 102. 1435 "Myanmar: Children affected by Rakhine conflict miss a year of school," OCHA, June 13, 2013. "UN Security Council calls on Myanmar to end excessive military force in Rakhine state," UN News Service news release, November 6, 2017. "Few schools reopened in Maungtaw District," Global New Light of Myanmar, October 25, 2016. "Weekend Attack on Myanmar Border Guards, Response Leave More Than 20 Dead," Radio Free Asia. Xinhua, "418 schools closed in Myanmar northern state as terrorist attacks continue," Xinhuanet, September 4, 2017. "Rohingya crisis: Over 400 schools closed in Myanmar's Rakhine, seven Hindus killed in attacks," First Post, September 4, 2017. 1436 "Myanmar: What sparked latest violence in Rakhine?" BBC, September 19, 2017. 1437 OHCHR, Report of OHCHR mission to Bangladesh: Interviews with Rohingyas fleeing from Myanmar since 9 October 2016 (Geneva: OHCHR, February 3, 2017), pp. 7, 34-35. 1438 "Myanmar/Bangladesh: Rohingya crisis-a summary of findings from six pooled surveys," Medecins Sans Frontieres, December 9, 2017. 1439 "Burma: 40 Rohingya Villages Burned Since October," Human Rights Watch news release, December 17, 2017. 1440 Filippo Grandi, "Briefing on Myanmar at the United Nations Security Council," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, February 13, 2018. 1441 OCHA, "Myanmar: Displacement." 1442 OHCHR, Report of OHCHR mission to Bangladesh, p. 42. "UN to probe alleged crimes against Rohingya in Myanmar," Al Jazeera, March 24, 2017. 1443 OHCHR, Report of OHCHR mission to Bangladesh, p. 42. "UN to probe alleged crimes against Rohingya in Myanmar," Al Jazeera, March 24, 2017. Nick Cumming-Bruce, "U.N. Rights Council to Investigate Reports of Atrocities in Myanmar," New York Times, March 24, 2017. 1444 "Myanmar refuses visas to UN team investigating abuse of Rohingya Muslims," Guardian, June 30, 2017. "If Myanmar really wants to be considered a democracy, it needs to let in the U.N. fact-finding mission," Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2017. "Q&A: United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar," Human Rights Watch News release, August 2, 2017. "U.N. starting to gather testimony on Myanmar violations: investigator," Reuters, September 19, 2017. "Myanmar, Bangladesh sign Rohingya return deal," Al Jazeera, November 23, 2017. Shayna Bauchner, "Burma Bars UN Rights Expert," Human Rights Watch dispatch, December 21, 2017. 1445 Thomas Fuller, "Myanmar Struggles to Put Down Buddhist Attack on Muslims," New York Times, May 29, 2013. 1446 Andrew R. C. Marshall, "Special Report: Myanmar Gives Official Blessing to Anti-Muslim Monks," Reuters, June 27, 2013. "Religious Attack in Rangoon Wreaks Havocon Local Community," DVB, February 21, 2013. "Buddhist Extremist Mob Attacks an Islamic Religious School in Yangon, Myanmar," Myanmar Muslim Media, February 17, 2013. "Muslim Quarter Attacked in Rangoon," Radio Free Asia, February 21, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 164. 1447 Todd Pitman, "Massacre of Muslims in Myanmar Ignored," Huffington Post, July 6, 2013. "Myanmar Jails Buddhists in Islamic School Massacre," AP, July 11, 2013. "Burma Jails 25 Buddhists for Mob Killings of 36 in Meikhtila," Guardian, July 11, 2013. "Buddhists Get Prison Terms in Myanmar," New York Times, July 11, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 164. 1448 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 111. 1449 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 111. 1450 "News Update, April 22, 2013," Shan Human Rights Foundation, February 5, 2015. 1451 Thomas Fuller, "Myanmar Struggles to Put Down Buddhist Attack on Muslims," New York Times, May 29, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 164. 1452 "News Update, March 17, 2014," Shan Human Rights Foundation, February 6, 2015. 1453 "Burma Army shelling and aerial bombing of 6,000 civilians in Mong Nawng town are war crimes," Shan Human Rights Foundation, November 20, 2015. 1454 "Fighting between Tatmadaw and soldiers along the Asian Highway displaces villagers in Dooplaya District, July 2015," Karen Human Rights Group news bulletin, KHRG #15-15-NB1, September 3, 2015. 1455 "Forced Relocation and Destruction of Villagers' Shelters by Burma/Myanmar Government Officials and Police in Hpa-an Township, Thaton District, June 2015," Karen Human Rights Group news bulletin, KHRG #15-14-NB1, August 26, 2015. 1456 "Mortar Shelling by the Myanmar Army that Exploded Very Close to Alen Bum IDPs Boarding School, Laiza, Kachin State," Burma Partnership, June 26, 2015. 1457 OHCHR, Report of OHCHR mission to Bangladesh, p. 31. 1458 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, p. 128. 1459 AFP, "Buddhist mob torches Myanmar mosque amidst rising religious tensions," Nation Pakistan, July 3, 2016. "ASIA/MYANMAR-NGOs to the government: 'Protecting religious minorities from attacks by Buddhist nationalists,'" Agenzia Fides, July 6, 2016. 1460 Nang Mya Nadi, "Schoolteacher wounded by artillery as clashes continue near Hpakant," Reliefweb, August 16, 2016. Andy Brown, "Broken sanctuary: attacks on schools are assaults of children's rights," post to UNICEF Myanmar (blog), January 26, 2017. 1461 "New Fires in an Empty Rohingya Village Raise Questions About Myanmar's Official Response," Time, September 7, 2017. "New fires in empty Rohingya village challenge Myanmar claims," Chicago Tribune, September 8, 2017. 1462 "Bomb blast damages Islamic school in Buthidaung," Frontier Myanmar, September 22, 2017. 1463 "TNLA Attacks Burma Army Bases in Namhsan," Irawaddy, January 11, 2017. Brown, "Broken sanctuary." 1464 Shan Jie, "Chinese teacher killed in Myanmar," Mizzima, March 14, 2017. "Chinese teacher killed in Myanmar conflict after shelling hits school," South China Morning Post, March 13, 2017. 1465 Brown, "Broken sanctuary." 1466 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926 S/2015/409, para. 142. 1467 Roseanne Gerin, "Five Karen Rebels Killed in Fighting with Myanmar Troops," Radio Free Asia, September 30, 2014. 1468 "News Update, July 04 2014," Shan Human Rights Foundation, February 7, 2015. 1469 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 105. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 128 1470 OHCHR, Report of OHCHR mission to Bangladesh, pp. 26, 29. 1471 OHCHR Report of OHCHR mission to Bangladesh, pp. 21-22. 1472 Amnesty International, My world is finished: Rohingya targeted in crimes against humanity in Myanmar (London: Amnesty International, October 18, 2017). 1473 Mathieson, "Dispatches: Impunity."US calls for probe." US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Burma," p. 2. 1474 Mathieson, "Dispatches: Impunity." 1475 OHCHR, Report of OHCHR mission to Bangladesh, pp. 21-22. 1476 Human Rights Watch, "All of My Body Was Pain": Sexual Violence against Rohingya Women and Girls in Burma (New York: Human Rights Watch, November 2017), p. 16. 1477 Si Thu Lwin and Mg Zwa, "Student unions vow to continue protests against education law," Myanmar Times, October 20, 2014. 1478 Amnesty International, Annual Report-Myanmar 2015/2016 (New York: Amnesty International, 2016). Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Various Institutions, March 6, 2015. "Myanmar police crackdown on student protesters," Al Jazeera, March 10, 2015. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015, Burma chapter. US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Burma," p. 7. 1479 "Scenes of Indiscriminate Violence in Letpadan as Police Attack Ambulance Workers, Students, Reporter," Irrawaddy, March 10, 2015. "Myanmar riot police beat student protesters with batons," BBC, March 10, 2015. 1480 "Myanmar: End Clampdown on Student Protesters and Supporters," Amnesty International news release, ASA 16/1511/2015, April 23, 2015, p. 1. 1481 "Myanmar frees some student protesters arrested in violent crackdown," Reuters, March 12, 2015. 1482 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Various Institutions, November 3, 2015. Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Various Institutions, October 29, 2015. 1483 "Burmese court frees jailed student activists," France 24, April 8, 2016. "Myanmar: New Suu Kyi government releases 69 prisoners," Al Jazeera, April 8, 2016. "Myanmar: Student leader finally free!" Amnesty International news release, April 11, 2016. 1484 Zarni Mann, "Student Protesters Jailed in Mandalay," Irawaddy, May 9, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Mali Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Mali, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be9430813.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Hundreds of schools in the central and northern parts of Mali were closed, many because school personnel had fled out of fear because of attacks. Other schools were directly attacked or collaterally damaged during fighting between armed groups. Armed groups including those linked to extremist groups national forces, and peacekeeping forces reportedly used schools for military purposes, and non-state armed groups indoctrinated and recruited children at schools. Context Mali's most recent armed conflict began in early 2012, when Tuareg separatists from the Mouvement National de Liberation de l'Azawad (MNLA) and extremist groups occupied Mali's northern regions.[1378] Later in the year, a military junta ousted the democratically elected president, accusing him of not doing enough to quell the armed rebellion, leading to lawlessness and insecurity throughout much of the country.[1379] A French-led military intervention in early 2013 largely cleared the non-state armed groups, many of which were allied with al Qaeda, that had gained control over the northern regions of Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal in 2012.[1380] However, the MNLA continued to control much of the Kidal region.[1381] In addition, the presence of armed groups affiliated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), such as Ansar Dine, continued and, beginning in 2015, spread into the Mopti and Segou regions of central Mali.[1382] Despite a peace agreement signed in June 2015 that was designed to reestablish state control over the north, general lawlessness and attacks by state-affiliated and non-state armed groups undermined stability and the restoration of state authority in the north. After 2015 violence spread into the central regions, where security has worsened, including the assassination of officials, intercommunal conflicts, and attacks against the security forces.[1383] In total, 657 schools were closed as of December 31, 2017, which represented 14 percent of all schools in Mali.[1384] According to OCHA, central Mali was particularly affected. In December 2017, 277 schools were closed in the Mopti region.[1385] Threats against teachers and students and a lack of security were reported to be two of the primary reasons for school closures. According to UNICEF, around the end of 2015 nearly 600 teachers had fled the conflict areas or stopped working because of general insecurity.[1386] OCHA reported in December 2017 that 2,700 teachers were not in their posts because of a lack of security and threats from extremist groups who opposed education.[1387] A Sahel-focused news site reported in June 2017 that insecurity had closed many schools for three or four years.[1388] According to CEDAW, the conflict disproportionately harmed girls' access to education and helped worsen the overall situation of women and girls.[1389] UN agencies reported that, during the conflict in the north, armed groups perpetrated gender-based violence ranging from enforced dress codes to rape, and the perceived threat of this violence led some parents to keep their daughters home from school.[1390] Attacks on education were most common in Mali in 2012, before the start of the current reporting period, and in early 2013. They intensified again beginning in 2015, with increased insecurity in the central regions. Mali endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration in February 2018. Attacks on schools Schools in northern and central Mali suffered damage from looting and fighting throughout the current reporting period. During their occupation of the north, armed groups damaged and destroyed more than 100 schools, according to reports by UN agencies, NGOs, and the media. The conflict caused school closures in Gao, Kidal, and Timbuktu regions, according to the US State Department.[1391] Additionally, fighting during the 2013 French-led intervention in Mali caused collateral damage to several schools. Armed groups continued to attack schools throughout the reporting period, although documented rates of attack were generally lower than in Education under Attack 2014. The Education Cluster reported in March 2013 that armed forces and armed groups had occupied, looted, or destroyed 130 schools since the conflict began in 2012, and that many schools in the north had closed as a result of the fighting and the flight of school personnel due to insecurity.[1392] During the second half of 2013, explosives, including those left in schools, injured at least 77 children in the towns of Tessalit, Kidal, Timbuktu, and Gao, according to UNICEF.[1393] Explosives also caused collateral damage to schools in 2013. For example, according to information collected by the UN independent expert on human rights in Mali, on December 14, 2013, an unknown perpetrator used a vehicle loaded with explosives to launch an attack on a UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) vehicle parked in front of a bank in Kidal. The bank and a school across from it sustained heavy damage.[1394] Insecurity in the north continued to damage schools sporadically in 2014, even after the security situation improved. The UN verified one attack on a school in Gao region in 2014.[1395] However, the violence appeared to be most acute in Kidal region, where Tuareg groups continued to occupy Kidal town. After a brief outbreak of violence in Kidal, seven schools closed, preventing 772 children from completing the 2013-2014 academic year.[1396] Examples of attacks on schools in Kidal region included the following: According to local media, on April 7, 2014, unidentified assailants fired rockets at a school in Kidal town, Kidal region. [1397] UNICEF reported that on June 30, 2014, unknown assailants used a car bomb to target the same bank in Kidal that was attacked in December 2013 and once again damaged the school next to it. The explosion seriously damaged the school fence, but no students or teachers were killed or injured.[1398] During the second half of the reporting period, violence affecting education spread to central Mali, causing several hundred schools to close in the north and center of the country.[1399] In 2015 and 2016, reported attacks included the following: The UN verified four attacks on schools and protected persons in 2015, including two by non-state armed groups. [1400] The UN verified six attacks or threats against schools and protected persons in Menaka, Mopti, and Timbuktu in the center and north of the country in 2016.[1401] In 2017, attacks against schools appeared to intensify. The UN verified 41 attacks against schools and protected personnel in Gao, Mopti, Timbuktu, and Kidal regions, but did not share disaggregated information. According to the UN, the alleged perpetrators of these attacks were armed men identified as members of extremist groups.[1402] Examples of attacks on schools identified by GCPEA included two in Ndodjiga commune, Mopti region: A Sahel-focused news site alleged that on May 24, 2017, in Sah village, Ndodjiga commune, young armed men attacked two schools with heavy fire and ransacked them. [1403] Around the same time, local officials alleged that armed extremists who opposed Western schools attacked, burned, and sacked a French-language school in an unspecified location. The identities of the perpetrators were unverified.[1404] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Armed groups occasionally targeted school directors, teachers, and students. These types of attacks were not documented in Education under Attack 2014. According to the UN, attacks and threats against students, parents, and education personnel were common in 2016, especially in the Mopti region, although precise statistics were unspecified.[1405] Among the anecdotal examples that GCPEA was able to identify were two attacks on teachers: At an unspecified time in 2015, le Front de liberation du Macina, an affiliate of Ansar Dine, demanded that the village leader in Dogo village, Mopti region, close secular schools. When the village leader sought authorities' support, the group killed him. The group then threatened teachers in six local communes, which led to the closure of 93 schools. [1406] On July 11, 2016, armed actors who were reportedly opposed to Western education and the government of Mali killed a school director.[1407] Military use of schools Military use of schools continued throughout the reporting period. From 2014 to 2015, the UN reported the military use of schools by the MNLA, l'Haut Conseil pour l'unite de l'Azawad (HCUA), le Mouvement arabe de l'Azawad (MAA), la Coalition du people de l'Azawad, le Mouvement pour l'unicite et le jihad en Afrique de l'Ouest, Ansar Dine, and MINUSMA peacekeepers.[1408] Armed parties reportedly continued to occupy schools even after signing the 2015 peace agreement.[1409] According to an international agency working in Mali, the presence of armed actors near schools was common but poorly documented.[1410] During 2013, there were anecdotal reports that armed forces, non-state armed groups, and peacekeepers occupied schools, sometimes resulting in attacks on educational institutions. For example: During the first half of 2013, according to various sources, several schools that were allegedly being used by armed groups were damaged by French aerial bombardments, one in Bourem, one in Douentza, one in Timbuktu, and at least one other in Diabaly. [1411] According to the UN, most schools were vacated after the French-led military intervention, but as of November 2013, 30 members of the MNLA had established a military post inside the Lycee Attaher Af Ily high school in Kidal and were using two buildings and the hangar of the school. [1412] According to the UN, MINUSMA occupied a vocational training center from 2013 until December 2014.[1413] The UN verified 20 instances of military use of schools in 2014, mainly attributed to the MNLA, HCUA, MAA, and la Coalition du People de l'Azawad. Nearly 60 percent of the schools used were in Gao region; the others were in Kidal, Timbuktu, and Mopti regions.[1414] Also according to the UN, MINUSMA peacekeepers used three schools during 2014: in Gao city. Ansongo Cercle, a subdivision of Gao region, and Tabankort, Kidal region.[1415] Between 15 and 16 schools were reportedly used for military purposes in 2015, with responsibility attributed to the non-state armed groups, the national army, and MINUSMA. For example: According to the Education Cluster, armed actors, including the Malian army and MINUSMA, occupied at least 16 school buildings in 2015. [1416] The UN also verified that armed groups used nine schools between March 27 and June 11, 2015, and it noted that it had received unverified reports of military use in six other schools. [1417] In December 2015, the UN noted that armed groups that had signed the peace agreement were occupying seven schools in Gao, Kidal, and Timbuktu regions.[1418] Armed groups used at least 14 schools in Gao, Kidal, and Timbuktu regions in 2016, according to the UN. The UN noted that the Coordination des mouvements de l'Azawad (CMA) and CMA/Haut Conseil pour l'unite de l'Azawad vacated two of these schools that year.[1419] According to the UN, seven schools in these regions were occupied by armed groups that were signatories to the June 2015 peace agreement.[1420] The UN documented the use of 12 schools by armed groups as of December 31, 2017. These included four schools used by the CMA and two by Platform, a pro-government militia. Schools occupied by armed groups were located in Gao, Timbuktu, and Kidal regions.[1421] At least one school formerly used by Mali's armed forces was vacated in 2017. Information from the Education Cluster indicated that, in January 2017, the military was occupying one functional school in Menaka, Gao region, at night when school was not in session.[1422] The UN verified that the military vacated this school in early 2017.[1423] Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school As recorded in Education under Attack 2014, the UN verified that armed groups used an unspecified number of schools as locations in which to indoctrinate and train children in 2012 and 2013.[1424] According to the UN, armed groups continued to recruit school children frequently in Islamic schools in 2013. Families requested that their children be recruited so they would receive a religious education and be protected from other armed groups.[1425] From January 2012 to December 2013, witnesses told the UN about instances in which parents in Gao city were paid to send their children to religious schools, where they received weapons training and extremist instruction.[1426] By the end of 2013, following the French-led intervention which drove the armed groups out of most major towns and cities in the north, the UN reported that it was believed that most children had decided to return to their families.[1427] Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school At least one case of sexual violence was perpetrated by armed parties in the education context. In 2013, a female teacher in northern Mali told UNESCO that her 16-year-old female student was gang-raped by three members of an extremist group on her way to school on an unspecified date.[1428] Although sexual violence was not documented in Mali in Education under Attack 2014 and only one report was found during the 2013-2017 period, it may have been underreported in both periods, given the context in which armed groups engaged in sexual and gender-based violence in the north, according to Human Rights Watch and the UN.[1429] Attacks on higher education At least one attack on higher education occurred in Mali during the 2013-2017 reporting period, whereas no such attacks were reported from 2009 through the first half of 2013. Scholars at Risk and the US Department of State reported that police forces used teargas against a peaceful student sit-in at the University of Bamako on July 9, 2013. According to these reports, the police and effects of the teargas forced students away from the campus. Police also reportedly beat several students. Scholars at Risk documented injuries to at least 37 students. The protest took place against the backdrop of a teachers' union announcement to go on an indefinite strike after university officials failed to honor an agreement to raise salaries. The strike led to the suspension of classes, and the students began their protest to prompt negotiations between university authorities and the teachers' union.[1430] 1378 "Explainer: Tuareg-led rebellion in north Mali," Al Jazeera, April 3, 2012. 1379 "Mali: resignation of 'ATT,' overthrown president" ("Mali: demission de 'ATT', president renverse"), Le Monde: Afrique, April 8, 2012. 1380 Scott Baldauf, "Mali coup leaders pledge to hand over power as Tuareg rebels take Timbuktu," Christian Science Monitor, April 2, 2012. "French troops in Mali take Kidal, last Islamist holdout," BBC News, January 31, 2013. 1381 Chris Simpson, "Mali's Kidal still waits for resolution," IRIN, February 17, 2014. 1382 Matthieu Jublin, "Violence on the Rise In Mali as New Armed Group Emerges in the Central Region," Vice News, April 16, 2015. Information provided by Human Rights Watch researcher on January 27, 2017. 1383 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 100. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Mali," S/2016/819, September 29, 2016, paras. 27, 36. 1384 Information shared by a UN respondent, February 22, 2018. 1385 OCHA, "Mali Humanitarian Brief," December 2017, p. 2. 1386 "Help 'can't come soon enough' for thousands of children out of school in northern Mali UNICEF," UNICEF news release, December 18, 2015. Information provided by Human Rights Watch researcher on January 27, 2017. 1387 Information provided by an international humanitarian organization, November 2017. OCHA, "Mali Humanitarian Brief," p. 2. 1388 "In the center of Mali, the extremists proclaim school 'haram'"haram," Sahelien, June 7, 2017. 1389 CEDAW, "Concluding observations, Mali*," CEDAW/C/MLI/CO/6-7, paras. 7, 29. 1390 "Impact of the crisis on the women of Mali," MINUSMA. CEDAW, "Concluding observations, Mali*," CEDAW/C/MLI/CO/6-7, para. 23. "'I rescued the textbooks.'" 1391 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2015: Mali," pp. 22-23. 1392 Global Education Cluster, "Mali 2013: Education Cluster Bulletin-March 2013," as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 158. 1393 HRC, "Report of the independent expert on the situation of human rights in Mali, Suliman Baldo," A/HRC/25/72, January 10, 2014, para. 70. 1394 HRC, "Report in Mali, Suliman Baldo," para. 20. 1395 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 128. 1396 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Mali," p. 23. 1397 AFP, "Militants launch failed rocket attack in northern Mali," Africatime, April 7, 2014. 1398 Cindy Cao, "The School of Mohamed Reborn from Its Ashes"("L'ecole de Mohamed renait de ses cendres"), UNICEF Mali news release. Information provided by Mali Education Cluster on January 6, 2017. 1399 Amnesty International, "Mali: Insecurity keeps more than 150,000 children out of school," September 21, 2017. UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 116. 1400 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, April 20, 2016, para. 97. 1401 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 116. 1402 Information shared by a UN respondent, February 22, 2018. 1403 "In the center of Mali." 1404 Information shared by a UN respondent via email on September 19, 2017. 1405 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 116. 1406 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 97. On affiliation in Ansar Dine, see "The Front de liberation du Macina threatens France and its allies in a video" ("Le Front de liberation du Macina menace la France et ses allies dans une video"), RFI Afrique, May 19, 2016. 1407 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 116. 1408 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 104. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/267, paras. 68. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926-S/2015/409, para. 128. 1409 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/819, para. 48. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017, Mali chapter. Amnesty International, Mali 2016/2017 (London: Amnesty International, 2017). 1410 Information provided by an international humanitarian organization via email, November 2017. 1411 Information provided by Human Rights Watch on November 18, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 158. 1412 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/267, para. 68. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878-S/2014/339, para. 104. 1413 UN Security Council, "Report of the independent expert on the situation of human rights in Mali," A/HRC/28/83, January 9, 2015, para. 104. 1414 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 128. 1415 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 128. 1416 Education Cluster, "Rapport sur l'apercu des besoins humanitaires," June 2015, as cited in USAID, Education Emergency Support Activity (EESA): Rapid Education Risk Assessment (RERA) for the regions of Segou, Mopti, Tombouctou, Gao, and Kidal, December 2016, p. 13. 1417 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Mali," S/2015/426*, June 11, 2015, para. 33. 1418 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/1030, para. 38. 1419 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 117. 1420 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/819, para. 48. 1421 Information provided by a UN respondent, February 22, 2018. 1422 Information provided by Mali Education Cluster on January 6, 2017. 1423 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 117. 1424 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/267, para. 41. 1425 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Mali," S/2013/582, October 1, 2013, para. 45. 1426 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/267, para. 46. 1427 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2014/267, para. 41. 1428 "'I rescued the textbooks.'" 1429 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017, Mali chapter. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/249, para. 47. 1430 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Bamako Faculty of Medicine, July 9, 2013. US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2013: Mali," p. 13. Education Under Attack 2018 - Libya Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Libya, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be9430913.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Aerial bombings, car bombs, grenades, and other explosives damaged and destroyed hundreds of schools and universities in Libya. Armed groups used kidnapping to generate income, their victims including teachers, professors, and students at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. Context The General National Congress (GNC), established with a temporary mandate in August 2012 after the ouster of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, refused to step down when the mandate expired in February 2014. After a conflict erupted in eastern Libya in 2014, two rival governments emerged, one in Tripoli and one in the eastern cities of al-Bayda and Tobruk. Thus, by 2017 three different governments competed for legitimacy and control. The UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) headed by the Presidential Council, created after the signing of the UN-brokered Libyan Political Agreement in 2015, and the Government of National Salvation (GNS), which drew authority from the GNC, were both based in Tripoli until clashes resulted in the GNS being exiled to operate mostly out of Turkey. The other rival interim government operated from Tobruk and al-Bayda, supported by the Libyan National Army (LNA) under the command of Khalifa Hiftar. The House of Representatives, Libya's Tobruk-based parliament, also supported the LNA and the interim government.[1304] Forces aligned with the different governments and armed militias fought for control over various parts of the country.[1305] Between 2015 and 2017, the UN spearheaded multiple attempts to reach a political agreement between the major factions to end hostilities, including most recently an attempt by France's President Emmanuel Macron to get Hiftar and GNA Prime Minster Serraj to agree to a deal that would end the hostilities on July 25, 2017.[1306] However, the situation in Libya remained volatile at the time of writing.[1307] 'IS' gained a foothold in Sirte in 2014, but its remnants retreated to areas south of Sirte after a joint Libyan militia alliance, backed by US air strikes, retook the city in February 2017.[1308] Before January 2017, when 'IS' lost control over territory it had held in the eastern cities of Derna and Benghazi and Sirte, the group instituted gender-segregated classes in some areas, closed educational facilities that they alleged contradicted Islam, enforced dress codes, and restricted the movement of women and girls.[1309] The conflict displaced hundreds of thousands of people, as the parties to the conflict indiscriminately shelled civilian areas and destroyed civilian property. According to the Ministry of Education in Tripoli and Benghazi, 558 schools had been affected by the crisis as of November 2016, impeding education for 279,000 students.[1310] Access to education was severely interrupted in 2014 and 2015, and the 2016-2017 school year started one month late, due to teachers protesting their low salaries.[1311] Abduction of civilians was a prominent feature of the conflicts in Libya, which reportedly negatively affected school attendance.[1312] Collection and verification of data on education was a significant problem in Libya throughout the reporting period, due to the rival governments, including rival education ministries, and insecurity.[1313] These challenges resulted in very limited documentation of attacks on education. The following profile therefore has significant information gaps, which made it difficult to compare trends either between the current reporting period and that covered in Education under Attack 2014, or over the course of the 2013-2017 reporting period. Attacks on schools Targeted and indiscriminate attacks reportedly damaged and destroyed several hundred schools across Libya during the current reporting period. According to OHCHR, conflict-related violence damaged more than 40 percent of Libya's schools between 2011 and 2015.[1314] Reported rates of attacks on schools were lower during the current reporting period than in the previous one. Nearly 2,000 schools were reported destroyed or damaged between 2011 and mid-2013, while the Ministries of Education in Tripoli and Benghazi reported in November 2016 that 30 schools were destroyed and 477 damaged.[1315] It was not clear when these schools were attacked. In 2013, the US Department of State reported that many schools across Libya remained abandoned, due to a lack of materials, damage to buildings, or security concerns.[1316] There also were anecdotal reports of individual attacks on schools.[1317] These included the following: The UN reported two attacks on schools in 2013, both involving the detonation of explosives inside schools in Benghazi by unknown perpetrators. [1318] Local media reported that on May 10, 2013, a bomb exploded in front of a police station in Benghazi, shattering the windows of the school opposite. There were no injuries in the blast. [1319] Later that year, media sources reported an attack on a girls' school in Derna, eastern Libya, where unidentified assailants detonated an explosive device on November 22, 2013.[1320] The UN documented the closure of many schools across the country in 2014, particularly in eastern Libya, because of insecurity.[1321] There were sporadic examples of unidentified attackers perpetrating several targeted attacks, including the following: The BBC reported that on February 5, 2014, unknown perpetrators threw a grenade over a wall into the playground of a private school in Benghazi, injuring 12 children. [1322] According to news reports, on April 7, 2014, an explosive device hidden in a bag detonated near a girls' school in Benghazi. [1323] In a similar attack on May 31, 2014, a car bomb exploded near a school in Benghazi, also according to media sources. [1324] News reports noted that on October 26, 2014, a rocket struck a school in Benghazi.[1325] Information from the UN and Save the Children indicated that Benghazi was significantly affected by attacks on schools in 2015. According to the UN, 40 schools in Benghazi were damaged or destroyed, including by indiscriminate shelling, along with an unknown number of other schools across the country.[1326] Save the Children reported in June 2015 that 75 percent of school-age children in Benghazi had no access to education, and that 440 schools there could not operate because they were damaged or destroyed by shelling.[1327] Human Rights Watch reported one air strike that destroyed a school in Ganfouda, a district of Benghazi, at the beginning of 2015. Classes were moved to a nearby mosque, until it too was destroyed.[1328] Media reports also documented occasional attacks on schools inside and outside of Benghazi in 2015. These included the following: On January 28, 2015, unknown perpetrators allegedly threw a grenade, which did not explode, at a school in Tripoli. [1329] On August 5, 2015, an 'IS' member detonated a suicide bomb next to a school in Derna's Bab Tobruq area, killing himself but not harming others. [1330] An explosive planted at a school detonated in Baninah in Benghazi on September 9, 2015, reportedly killing four children and injuring two more.[1331] It was not clear whether this incident was included in the total reported by the UN. In 2016, UNICEF reported that 64 schools in the cities of Sirte, Bani Walid, and Tarhuna were partially damaged or transformed into IDP shelters, according to education authorities. This represented 17 percent of all schools in the three cities.[1332] There were also media reports of at least three incidents affecting schools in 2016, which included the following: On January 7, 2016, an explosion at a school in Derna city, Derna district, damaged the school. [1333] The Barqa Province of 'IS' claimed responsibility for firing rockets at al-Nahda School in Derna city on January 23, 2016. [1334] On November 21, 2016, a car bomb exploded outside a hospital in Benghazi, reportedly harming children who were leaving a nearby primary school. The number of casualties and injuries reported varied. According to some reports, three children were killed. Others reported that eight children were injured, along with 22 other civilians.[1335] In 2017, local media sources reported one attack on a school. On July 10, 2017, a suicide bomb exploded at the Sulaimani Martyrs elementary and middle school in the al-Sabri area of Bengazi. Security forces had pursued the attacker, who was killed, from another area.[1336] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel There were sporadic cases of students and educators being individually targeted for attacks throughout the reporting period. These types of incidents, which included shootings, harassment, and abduction, were not reported in Education under Attack 2014. Kidnapping increasingly affected the landscape in Libya during the second half of the reporting period, when armed groups engaged in kidnapping for the purpose of extortion.[1337] These abductions harmed civilians, including students and educators, and parents' fears that their children could be abducted reportedly led them to keep them home from school. For example, OHCHR reported that parents in areas of Derna and Benghazi then controlled by the later dissolved Ansar al-Sharia militant groups stated in 2015 that they were afraid of sending their daughters to school because of the chance they would be abducted. OHCHR received reports that girls had been attacked and harassed on their way to school in Tripoli but did not indicate the frequency or precise nature of those threats.[1338] Attacks that individually targeted students and educators included the following: On February 20, 2014, gunmen allegedly shot and killed the caretaker of a school in Derna that was to be used as a polling station during the election of a panel to draft a new constitution, according to news sources. [1339] OHCHR found that, in April 2014, gunmen in a car shot and killed a school headmaster while he was driving in central Benghazi. The headmaster was a well-known advocate for the non-politicization of education and for the need to keep schools operating under all circumstances. [1340] International news media reported that on May 19, 2014, the armed group Jaish al-Islam abducted and held hostage the principal of an international school in Benghazi, releasing him almost five months later. [1341] On December 3, 2015, armed men reportedly kidnapped a girl and her two brothers while they were on their way to school with their mother, according to a media report. The article attributed the attack to an armed militia. [1342] OHCHR reported that at the end of 2015 an 11-year-old boy was abducted while on his way to school. His kidnappers demanded a ransom, and the boy was found dead on February 24, 2016, after 68 days, bearing marks of torture. [1343] Armed men reportedly kidnapped another boy from a bus in front of his school in Zliten, Murqub district, at the end of January 2017, according to a media sources. [1344] It was not clear why the boy was kidnapped. Gunmen allegedly opened fire on Othman Abdeljalil, the education minister of the Libyan GNA, on July 3, 2017. The minister, who was monitoring final exams being given in Sabha city, was unharmed in the attack. [1345] The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) reported that a 7-year-old boy was killed and an 11-year-old girl injured on November 10, 2017, when they were caught in crossfire as they were leaving school in Salmani, Benghazi.[1346] Military use of schools and universities Government armed forces and non-state armed groups reportedly used schools and at least one university as bases; as centers for detention, interrogation, and torture; and for other purposes between 2014 and 2016. However, there was limited information on the extent of these practices, and it was not clear whether military use occurred more or less frequently than during the 2009-2013 reporting period, during which GCPEA found more than 200 cases of military use. Sporadic cases of military use of educational institutions were documented throughout the reporting period, including the following: OHCHR reported that the 21st Unit of the Army Special Forces (al-Sae'qa) of the LNA detained a man at an unknown location in October 2014 for suspicion of being part of Ansar al-Sharia. They took him to a school and tortured him for a day. The man told OHCHR that he was beaten and tortured for nine hours at the school. [1347] In another incident reported by OHCHR, also during October 2014, four men surrendered themselves to Operation Dignity forces, a coalition of armed groups that mounted an offensive against the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council and 'IS' in a military operation known as Operation Dignity. Two of the men were temporarily detained at a school that was being used as a military base. [1348] OHCHR reported that the Army Special Forces (al-Sai'qa) used Hassan Ben Haitham School in Benghazi as a detention and torture center at least once between 2013 and 2015 for an unknown period of time. [1349] Separate UN documents showed that armed groups were using schools to launch attacks in the Warshafana area and the Nafusa Mountains between March 2014 and January 2015. [1350] In 2015, the UN documented one case of military use of a school as a detention facility by the Derna Mujahideen Shura Council, an armed group controlling Derna. [1351] The report did not specify the time or duration of this use. During February 2015, international media reported that members of 'IS' took over Sirte University, leading the university to suspend classes and postpone exams. [1352] Human Rights Watch documented information showing that 'IS' restrictions on education had also contributed to the suspension of classes at the university. These restrictions included segregating the 16,000 students by gender, as well as closing the law, language, literature, and art faculties, all of which the group claimed contradicted Islamic teachings. [1353] Another media report indicated that the group used a female dormitory at Sabha University to store artillery and mortars. [1354] OHCHR reported that it was investigating an unidentified armed group's use of a primary school in Benghazi as a base and detention facility. Satellite imagery from August 2015 showed several cargo vehicles of the type used for military purposes on the school grounds. [1355] A local news source reported that on June 7, 2016, a large bomb exploded at the entrance to the Al Nahda School in the Bab Tobruq area of Derna, which had been taken over for use as a military base by the Derna Mujahideen Shura Council. The explosion did not result in any casualties. [1356] On September 8, 2016, local media reported that, according to a military source in Sirte, 'IS' forces had transferred prisoners from a social security building to the 17 February High School for Engineering Science in the Aljezza Albahria area of Giza. [1357] On July 9, 2017, Libyan armed forces found 10 unidentified decomposed bodies in the National School in the Sabri area of Benghazi and 15 unidentified bodies in the Fatima al-Zahra engineering science school for girls, after having retaken the area from armed groups that reportedly used the schools to bury opposing fighters.[1358] A local news source later reported that the Libyan Red Crescent was able to take DNA samples from seven of the bodies taken from the National School. With the cooperation of local municipal authorities and the prosecutor's office, they were able to bury the bodies on August 22, 2017.[1359] Attacks on higher education Abductions, explosions, and indiscriminate air strikes reportedly affected higher education. Such cases were documented more commonly in the current reporting period than in Education under Attack 2014, but limitations on information gathering inhibited the identification of patterns. Many attacks on higher education involved the targeting of individual academics, possibly representing a general crackdown on opposition and freedom of expression. However, university facilities also were damaged in conflict-related violence. Media sources reported one attack on higher education in 2013. Khalaf Hassan Al-Sa'idi, an Iraqi professor working at the University of Derna Higher Institute of Work Studies, was abducted on November 23, 2013. The professor was later killed on an unknown date.[1360] There were at least six attacks on higher education in 2014, according to OCHA and media reports. These included one air strike that hit a university and five individually targeted attacks on university students and personnel: OCHA reported that in June 2014, a Libyan warplane targeted a base belonging to an unidentified extremist militia group in Benghazi but instead fired three rockets that hit the engineering faculty of a university, causing significant damage. [1361] On March 18, 2014, unidentified gunmen shot Christian Iraqi Professor Adison Karkha on his way to work at the University of Sirte, according to Scholars at Risk and international media. [1362] On April 27, 2014, unidentified assailants attempted to kidnap a university student in Benghazi city, according to media sources. [1363] According to media reports, an explosive device was detonated in an auditorium at Omar Mukhtar University in Derna on May 8, 2014. It was not clear who was responsible for the attack. There were no casualties in the blast. [1364] Media sources also reported two attacks on University of Tripoli professors in November 2014.[1365] In the first, attackers who were suspected to be members of the Libya Dawn militia stormed the house of Professor Fadil Ahmed Azzabi, injuring him, reportedly for refusing to condemn Operation Dignity on television.[1366] In the second, another group of unidentified attackers abducted the dean of the economics department at Tripoli University, whose whereabouts remained unknown as of May 2017.[1367] According to media sources, there were at least five attacks on higher education in 2015, including the following: On January 4, 2015, unknown assailants reportedly abducted an Iraqi professor and his three sons in Sirte. There was no report of them being released. [1368] On March 29, 2015, an unknown group allegedly detonated an explosive device near the Higher Careers Institute in Derna, injuring two education personnel and one student. [1369] On April 16, 2015, government security forces reportedly discovered and safely defused an explosive device that unidentified attackers had planted at the gate of the High Institute of Economic Science in Sirte. [1370] On July 29, 2015, media sources reported that the Tripoli Province of 'IS' abducted four Indian nationals working for Sirte University at a checkpoint in Sirte. Two of the hostages were released two days later, while the other two were held until September 2016. [1371] Unidentified assailants reportedly opened fire on Salem Rahil, a local imam and a staff member of the Islamic Studies Department at the University of Benghazi, as he was leaving his home in his car on November 2, 2015. He was not injured.[1372] Media sources documented two reported attacks on universities in 2016: On January 9, 2016, a vehicle filled with explosives was reportedly discovered outside Al-Marqab University in Al-Khums, Murqub district. The explosives were defused. It was not clear who was responsible for the foiled attack. [1373] The Barqa Province of 'IS' claimed responsibility for firing rockets at the Medical Technical School in Derna city, Derna district, on January 23, 2016. The group fired rockets at another school that day.[1374] In 2017, there were at least three reported attacks on higher education: Amnesty International reported that Dr. Salem Mohamed Beitelmal, engineering professor at the Department of Maritime Engineering at the University of Tripoli, was abducted by local militias on the outskirts of Tripoli on April 20, 2017. He was released on June 6, 2017. [1375] On December 10, 2017, a student at the Faculty of Petroleum Engineering at al-Zawiya University in Zawiya city was injured when he was shot in the leg while on the university campus. UNSMIL reported that the alleged perpetrator was a relative of the commander of an armed group based in al-Zawiya. [1376] Four armed men wearing military uniforms raided al-Arab Medical University in Benghazi on December 23, 2017 and fired shots into the air.[1377] 1304 "A Quick Guide to Libya's Main Players," European Council on Foreign Relations. 1305 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017, Libya chapter. 1306 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Support Mission in Libya," S/2016/452, May 16, 2016, para. 13. "Libyan Factions Agree to Cease-fire Deal," VoA, July 25, 2017. 1307 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/726, para. 2. 1308 Aiden Lewis, "Islamic State shifts to Libya's desert valleys after Sirte defeat," Reuters, February 10, 2017. 1309 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017, Libya chapter. "We Feel We Are Cursed": Life under ISIS in Sirte (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2016), May 18, 2016, p. 34. 1310 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview: Libya 2017 (Tripoli, Libya: OCHA, November 2016), p. 21. 1311 OHCHR, Investigation on Libya, A/HRC/31/CRP.3, para. 281. Mustafa Fetouri, "In Libya, the education system suffers more than most," National, November 15, 2016. Mustafa Fetouri, "Public schools are latest victim of Libyan infighting," Al-Monitor, October 17, 2016. 1312 Amnesty International, Vanished off the Face of the Earth: Abducted Civilians in Libya (London: Amnesty International, August 2015). OHCHR, Investigation on Libya, A/HRC/31/CRP.3, para. 282. 1313 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/726, para. 2. UNICEF, Libya Quarterly, p. 1. 1314 OHCHR, Investigation on Libya, A/HRC/31/CRP.3, para. 201. 1315 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2017: Libya, p. 21. 1316 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Libya," p. 30. 1317 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 1318 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 94. 1319 "Bomb blasts rock Libyan city of Benghazi," Al Jazeera, May 11, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 157. 1320 "Derna protest at presence of militias follows Shura Council member's murder," Libya Herald, November 23, 2013;""SOCAFRICA: Libya Incident Tracker, 20-25 Nov 2013," SOCAFRICA, November 20, 2013," as cited in START, GTD, 201311220007. 1321 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 120. OHCHR, Investigation on Libya, A/HRC/31/CRP.3, para. 281. 1322 "Libyan blast injures 12 children at Benghazi school," BBC News, February 5, 2014. "Six children injured in an explosion in a school in Libya", Akhbar Alaalam, February 5th, 2016. 1323 "State PAO: Tripoli Media Summary 9 April 2014," US Embassy Public Affairs Office, April 9, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201404080036. "SOCAFRICA: Libya Incident Tracker, 06-12 Apr 2014," SOCAFRICA, April 6, 2014," as cited in START, GTD, 201404080036. 1324 "SOCAFRICA: Libya Incident Tracker, 25-31 May 2014," SOCAFRICA, May 25, 2014," as cited in START, GTD, 201405310001. 1325 "SOCAFRICA: Libya Incident Tracker, 18-24 October 2014," SOCAFRICA, October 18, 2014;" "SOCAFRICA: Libya Incident Tracker, 25-31 October 2014," SOCAFRICA, October 25, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201410260014. 1326 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 89. OHCHR, Investigation on Libya, A/HRC/31/CRP.3, para. 281. 1327 Save the Children, Egypt-Libya-Tunisia Assessment Report, June 18, 2015, pp. 35-37. 1328 "Libya: Civilians Under Siege in Benghazi," Human Rights Watch news release, November 2, 2016. 1329 "Libya: Grenade Thrown at School in Tripoli Fails To Explode; No Casualties Reported," Libya Herald, January 28, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201501280012. 1330 "Tunisian terrorism blows himself up after being surrounded in Derna", Libya Channel, August 5, 2015. 1331 "4 Children killed, 2 wounded after mine explosion in Libyan school," Alianza News, September 10, 2015. "Libya security digest Arab Media September 11, 2015," Libya Digest, September 11, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201509090022. 1332 UNICEF, Libya: Humanitarian Situation Report, July 2016, p. 2. 1333 "Explosion of an IED in Alnahdah school in Darnah", Bwabat Al-Wasat, January 7th, 2016. 1334 "Libya Daily Digest January 25, 2016," Libya Digest, January 25, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201601210009. "SOCAFRICA: Native Prospector North Africa VEOTracker, 21-27 January 2016," SOCAFRICA, January 21, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201601210009. "Terrorism: Transcript of ISIL's Al-Bayan Radio Broadcast for 25 January," Twitter, January 25, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201601210009. 1335 "Blast in Libya's Benghazi kills three children-hospital official," Reuters, November 21, 2016. "Benghazi children blown apart by car bomb near school," Libya Herald, November 21, 2016. 1336 "Attacker blows himself up, injuring three security guards", Alwasat, July 10, 2017. 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"Two Telugu rescued from ISIS captors after one year," Siasat Daily, September 15, 2016. "Libya: Indian university teachers 'kidnapped,'" BBC News, July 31, 2015. "Family of professor abducted by ISIS in Libya relieved on news of his release," Indian Express, September 15, 2016. 1372 "Libya security digest Arab Media November 4, 2015," Libya Digest, November 4, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201511020049. 1373 "Libyan Security Forces Defuse Booby-Trapped Vehicle at Khums University," Al-Wasat Online, January 9, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201601090033. 1374 "SOCAFRICA: Native Prospector North Africa VEOTracker, 21-27 January 2016," SOCAFRICA, January 21, 2016;"Terrorism: Transcript of ISIL's Al-Bayan Radio Broadcast for 25 January," Twitter, January 25, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201601230003, 1375 "Urgent Action Victory! Professor released after 47 days of abduction," Amnesty International news release, July 27, 2017. 1376 UNSMIL, "Human Rights Report on Civilian Casualties-December 2017," January 1, 2018. 1377 UNSMIL, "Human Rights Report-December 2017." Education Under Attack 2018 - India Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - India, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be9430e4.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Explosives, arson, and use by the military damaged or destroyed more than 100 schools in India. The highest rates of attacks occurred in 2013 during elections in the country's northeast, and in 2016 in connection with violent protests in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, where approximately 500 secondary school and university students were reportedly injured. Context Ongoing political and separatist conflicts triggered unrest in several regions of the country, each resulting in attacks on education.[888] In 2014, CEDAW noted its concern for the level of violence affecting women in the conflict-affected areas of the country, including rape and other forms of sexual assault.[889] Separatist movements and communal conflicts reportedly contributed to violence in the country's northeast.[890] Abuses affecting education were concentrated in Assam, Manipur, and Meghalaya states. Also in the east of the country but farther south, Naxalite or communist groups continued to fight the government, affecting education.[891] Conflict in Jammu and Kashmir state in northern India, which began when the Indian sub-continent was partitioned into India and Pakistan in 1947, continued throughout the reporting period. Tensions heightened after a Hizb-ul-Mujahedeen leader and two other militants were killed during a clash with government forces in July 2016. Conflict closed the state's schools for eight months that school year.[892] Violence flared again in Jammu and Kashmir in April and May 2017, with student demonstrations against Indian police closing schools and universities in the state.[893] In the higher education sector, rising tensions between student political groups led to increased violence directed at academics and students, including those associated with minority groups and those viewed as political opponents.[894] The frequency of attacks on schools remained similar to the 2009 to 2013 reporting period covered by Education under Attack 2014, as did attacks on students, teachers, and other education personnel. The attacks also occurred in the same regions. Reported instances of military use of schools appeared to decline, while attacks at the higher education level appeared to occur slightly more frequently. Attacks on schools Attacks on schools occurred across all conflict-affected regions of India during the current reporting period, but the majority took place between 2013 and 2015 in the northeastern and eastern states. According to media reports compiled by GCPEA, approximately 100 attacks on schools took place, a rate similar to that documented in Education under Attack 2014. In July 2014, the CRC expressed concern over continued attacks on schools by nonstate armed groups.[895] In 2016, the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir also saw a marked increase of attacks on schools linked to violent protests. The majority of attacks on schools occurred at night and did not cause casualties. In 2013 there were media reports of at least 26 attacks on school infrastructure in India, taking a range of forms from explosives to arson. The majority of these attacks (21) occurred in India's northeastern states of Manipur and Assam, including 11 attacks during elections. There were also five attacks on schools in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh, according to the media sources. Maoist groups claimed responsibility for or were suspected of being behind the attacks in Bihar and Jharkhand. The perpetrators of the attacks in Odisha and Uttar Pradesh were unidentified.[896] Examples of reported attacks on schools in 2013 included the following: Between January 25 and 27, 2013, three explosive devices targeted Raja Dumbra Singh High School and Khonghampat High School, both in Manipur state, and Jaleshwar High School in Assam state. The Coordination Committee, an umbrella organization comprised of several non-state groups fighting against the state, claimed responsibility for the first attack, while officials suspected that the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) was responsible for the second attack. No group claimed responsibility for the third attack. All three explosions were thought to have been intended to disrupt Republic Day celebrations. [897] The next month, on February 10, 2013, at least 11 schools were partially or fully burned down in Assam state, due to polling violence, according to media reports. [898] On June 15, 2013, suspected Naxalites blew up a middle school in Bhulsumia village in Jamui district, Bihar state. [899] An explosive device went off at Ayatpur High School in Ayatpur city, Odisha state, on July 1, 2013, reportedly injuring at least 19 students. [900] Authorities disabled another explosive device at the government middle school for boys in Katlang village, also in Odisha state, on September 11, 2013. [901] On December 3, 2013, the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-M) claimed responsibility for blowing up a school that was under construction in Kurumgarh village, Jharkhand state, reportedly to prevent police from using the building. They left behind a note that stated, "Destroy police camp."902 In Uttar Pradesh, unidentified assailants threw an explosive device at an educational institution serving a minority group on December 5, 2013.[903] Attacks on schools appeared to decline across conflict-affected areas in India in 2014, with the media reporting at least three incidents, including the following: The United Revolutionary Front reportedly claimed one school bombing that occurred in the insurgency-affected area of Manipur state in northeast India, when an explosive device detonated at a primary school located near the home of the Minister of Health and Family Welfare on April 12, 2014. [904] Maoist groups blew up two schools in Jharkhand state: one in Bokaro district on April 17, 2014, and one in Latehar district on August 16, 2014. The latter school had reportedly been demolished previously and then reconstructed before being blown up a second time.[905] At least 12 attacks on schools took place during 2015, according to media reports. Four incidents occurred in connection with the insurgency in India's northeast (three in Manipur and one in Meghalaya states), four schools in the Maoist-affected areas of Bihar and Jharkhand states experienced explosive attacks, and four incidents affected schools in West Bengal state.[906] For example: MM Higher Secondary School in Imphal city, the capital of Manipur state, was reportedly targeted twice, once on March 8, 2015, when a grenade exploded outside the school, and once on June 26, 2015, when a bomb was safely defused. [907] On March 9, 2015, six gunmen suspected to be part of the Garo National Army opened fire on a school in Rabhagre village in West Garo Hills district, Meghalaya. [908] An attack at God Church School in Dum Dum Cantonment of Calcutta, West Bengal, injured one student on June 15, 2015. [909] On August 15, 2015, two explosives thrown at a school in Nawada town in Bihar state reportedly injured two female students. [910] In Jharkhand state, the CPI-M left a pamphlet at a school in Serendag village, Latehar district, after detonating explosives there on November 10, 2015. The pamphlet warned against allowing security forces to use school facilities and demanded that security forces vacate any schools in the district that they were currently using.[911] The rate of attacks on schools in India rose sharply in 2016. GCPEA identified media reports of 58 attacks on schools that year. The majority of these incidents took place in Jammu and Kashmir state, but schools were also attacked in at least 9 other Indian states.[912] In Jammu and Kashmir state, unidentified assailants burned scores of schools. These attacks occurred against a backdrop of violent protests. According to Human Rights Watch, at least 32 schools were set on fire between August and the end of the year.[913] In response, the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir directed government officials to take the necessary measures to protect them.[914] Schools across the state were closed from July 2016, to March 2017.[915] Examples of attacks on schools elsewhere in the country included the following: On March 29, 2016, a bomb exploded at Kaliahudi Primary School in Dhurudiamba, Keonjhar district, in Odisha state, injuring one child. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack. [916] On May 4, 2016, several explosive devices were found at Shankarpur Primary School in Ramnagar, West Bengal state, which was being used as a polling station. The devices were defused, and no group claimed responsibility for planting them. [917] Two more explosive devices were reportedly discovered and defused near a school in Bijapur district, Chhattisgarh state, on May 9, 2016. It was suspected that the attackers were Maoists targeting government soldiers, but it was not clear whether the soldiers were based in or near the school. [918] A gun battle between the Indian army and other armed groups reportedly destroyed the Education Development Institute in Pampore, Jammu and Kashmir, on October 13, 2016. [919] On August 15, 2016, an improvised explosive device reportedly exploded near Indira Gandhi School in Tinsukia district, Assam state.[920] The United Liberation Front of Assam claimed responsibility for the attack.[921] Attacks on schools appeared to slow in 2017, but at least two schools in Jammu and Kashmir state were targeted, and several other attacks by unknown assailants occurred in other areas of the country. For example: On January 28, 2017, Times Now reported that unidentified assailants set a school in Kupwara district, Jammu and Kashmir state, on fire, destroying two buildings. [922] According to local media, on March 10, 2017, an unidentified individual threw a bomb into the Sardar Patel Inter College in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh state, injuring two female students. [923] First Post reported that a government school was set on fire in Budgam district, Jammu and Kashmir state, on April 7, 2017. The school was to be used as a polling station. [924] In Jharkhand state, suspected Maoists attacked one school in Khunti district on the night of April 28, 2017, partially destroying it, according to the Indian Express. [925] On April 29, 2017, according to the Hindustan Times, a bomb exploded at a government-run middle school in Patna City, Bihar state, injuring seven students.[926] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel According to media reports compiled by GCPEA, there were more than 30 cases of abductions, explosive attacks, targeted killings, and violent repression of student protests between 2013 and 2017, which harmed approximately 150 students and education personnel.[927] Most individual attacks occurred in connection with the insurgency in the northeast and the Maoist conflict in the east. However, the majority of individuals harmed were injured during student protests in Jammu and Kashmir in April and May 2017. Although the protest-related violence meant that more students and educators were reportedly harmed by attacks on education between 2013 and 2017, the documented rates of abduction and targeted killings were slightly lower than those reported in Education under Attack 2014. Four incidents affected students, teachers, and education personnel during 2013, according to media reports. These included two cases of abduction in Assam state, an attack on a teacher's residence in Manipur state, and an attack on a school leader in Uttar Pradesh state: In Assam state, unknown assailants reportedly kidnapped the headmaster of Nambor Middle English School in Golaghat district on March 13, 2013. [928] Later in the year, on December 4, 2013, two armed men attempted to hijack a school van in Sivsagar district of Assam state. When the bus driver fought back, they kidnapped one girl out of the 11 children aboard, reportedly taking her in the direction of Nagaland state. [929] In Manipur state, unidentified attackers threw a grenade at the home of a government school teacher in Imphal East district on September 3, 2013. The explosive failed to detonate. [930] Further south, in Uttar Pradesh state, armed men broke into a school run by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Heera Singh in late December. They burned the school guard to death and kidnapped Singh's daughter.[931] There were slightly more attacks on teachers and other education personnel reported during 2014, with media sources documenting nine incidents. Five of these attacks took place in the northeastern states of Manipur and Meghalaya, and four took place in Odisha and Chhattisgarh states, affected by conflict with Naxalite groups. A series of abductions and killings also appeared to target teachers in Meghalaya state during the second half of 2014.[932] Examples included the following: A school supervisor and a librarian were reportedly abducted in Odisha state on January 24, 2014. The police rescued both on January 30, 2014. [933] Another teacher, Moirangthem Jayenta, was attacked in an incident claimed by a splinter faction of the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) (military council) in the northeastern state of Manipur on June 4, 2014. The attackers threw a grenade into the teacher's home. The explosive failed to detonate. [934] On June 30, 2014, assailants suspected to be members of the A'chik Songna An'pachakgipa Kotok (ASAK), a Meghalaya-based armed group, abducted a teacher at the Dalu Higher Secondary School. Police rescued the teacher the following day. [935] Gunmen abducted another teacher from West Garo Hills district on July 26, 2014, after firing on the teacher and a police officer. The kidnappers released the teacher the next day.[936] During 2015, media reports indicated that students, teachers, and other school employees continued to be targeted at similar rates as the previous year, primarily through abduction, in India's northeastern states of Assam and Meghalaya. That year saw at least eight attacks on education personnel, according to media reports, including the following:937 In Assam state, unidentified assailants abducted two teachers: Iqbal Rafique, a teacher at the Tura Christian Girls' School on February 1, 2015, and Basu Upadhyai, a school employee, on March 12, 2015. [938] A third teacher, Prabin Patgiri, was reported injured in Assam state on May 3, 2015, when gunmen opened fire on him. [939] In Meghalaya state, the ASAK claimed responsibility for abducting a retired teacher, Gaganendra Sanyal, on May 9, 2015, and holding him hostage until May 23. [940] Unknown assailants abducted three other teachers in Meghalaya state, including two on June 12, 2015, and a third on September 15. [941] In Bihar state, two suspected Maoist assailants abducted Kamlesh Kumar, a student at the Simultala Residential School, releasing him, with injuries, after four hours. The attackers reportedly demanded that the school be closed.[942] News sources reported that education personnel in Meghalaya and Jammu and Kashmir states experienced beatings, threats, and abductions in at least nine incidents in 2016.[943] These included the following: Sengsram Marak, a teacher, was reportedly abducted in Dobakdrop village, Meghalaya state, on February 9, 2016. He was rescued one day later, on February 10. It was not clear who was responsible for the abduction. [944] During the first week of August, unidentified attackers beat Abdul Rashid, the principal of a higher secondary school in Jammu and Kashmir state, critically injuring him. [945] On August 16, 2016, Madison Ch Marak, a teacher in Jinamgre, was reportedly attacked and killed. The Garo National Liberation Army claimed credit for the attack, stating that Marak had been working with government authorities. [946] Also during the first week of August, a petrol bomb was thrown at the home of Naeem Akthar, the Minister of Education for Jammu and Kashmir state. [947] The minister was again threatened on September 27, 2016, when the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba warned him not to re-open educational institutions in the Kashmir Valley. [948] Sudhir Kumar, a teacher, was wounded when police allegedly used violence during a teacher protest in Punjab state on December 11, 2016. The teachers were demonstrating for more regularized jobs and permanent recruitment.[949] On December 8, 2017, unidentified perpetrators killed a pregnant female teacher in Bihar state for unknown reasons, according to a local media source.[950] However, the majority of attacks on students and education personnel that occurred in 2017 took place in the context of student protests in Jammu and Kashmir state, according to in- formation collected by GCPEA. More than 100 secondary school students were reportedly injured in clashes with the police in April and May 2017, as described in more detail in the higher education section below.[951] On May 27, 2017, Sameer Ahmad, a 19-year-old class 12 student, was critically injured by a bullet that hit him in the head when police entered the Government Higher Secondary School in Mattan, Anantnag district, and fired bullets into the air.[952] Military use of schools Several human rights bodies, along with the US Department of State, expressed concern over the continued military use of educational institutions and the presence of security forces near schools during the 2013-2017 reporting period, although rates of military use appeared to be lower than in the 2009-2013 period covered in Education under Attack 2014.[953] The majority of military use occurred in regions of India affected by conflict with Naxalite groups, including Jharkhand, Bihar, and West Bengal states. However, military use of schools was also reported in Jammu and Kashmir state. In several cases, schools that were in use or had recently been used by armed forces were attacked with explosives.[954] In 2014, CEDAW pointed to reports that military use also contributed to higher dropout rates among girl students.[955] Media sources reported that at least one case of military use occurred during 2013. A group of paramilitary soldiers was allegedly inside a school attended by the children of police officers in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, when armed men attacked them on March 13, 2013. No children or teachers were inside the school at the time of the attack.[956] In 2014, media sources indicated that Indian police used at least four schools in Jharkhand and Bihar states, which provoked attacks by confirmed or suspected Maoist groups around the time of Lok Sabha, or parliamentary, elections: On March 21, 2014, the CPI-M claimed responsibility for blowing up the Giridih School in Naukania district of Jharkhand state, which was being used by the Central Reserve Police Force. The group left pamphlets urging people to boycott the elections. [957] On April 10, 20, and 28, 2014, suspected Maoists reportedly detonated explosive devices in three schools in the Lakhisarai and Jamui districts of Bihar state. Indian police had been based in the first two schools to guard polling during the Lok Sabha elections, and in the third school to carry out military operations.[958] In 2015, at least one school was blown up while being used as a police camp in West Bengal state, according to a media report. On January 10, 2015, unidentified attackers threw explosive devices into a school in Palsa village, injuring one police officer.[959] Several media outlets published reports of military use of schools in Jammu and Kashmir state during protests that occurred in response to the killing of the Hizb-ul-Mujahedin leader on July 8, 2016. In September, Quartz India reported use of schools by at least 20 paramilitary groups in the state, including Sri Pratap Higher Secondary School.[960] NDTV reported in October that security forces were occupying dozens of schools, and the Kashmir Monitor stated around the same time that the Indian police were using seven schools in Srinagar.[961] In 2017, several schools in Imphal West district of Manipur state were re-opened after having been closed since December 2016. The Manipur Commission for Protection of Child Rights found that security forces used at least two schools Lilasing Khongnangkhong High School and N Tomchou Singh Higher Secondary School during that time and asked the troops to leave the schools.[962] Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school or university Between 2013 and 2017, at least two reported cases of sexual violence was committed against female students. A Christian media source reported that on July 14, 2013, in the state of Jharkhand, masked men abducted four girls from their Christian school's dormitory and raped them before releasing them.[963] The motive for the attack was unclear. In addition, Amnesty International reported that police allegedly assaulted female university stu- dents who were protesting a lack of investigation into the suicide of Dalit PhD Student Rohith Vemula, as described in more detail in the section on attacks on higher education.[964] Attacks on higher education Attacks on higher education from 2013 to 2017 included explosives targeting university campuses and personnel, as well as abductions of professors. Beginning in 2016, attacks on higher education were increasingly common, as communal tensions fueled by different political parties appeared to contribute to several incidents of violent attacks, protests, or repression that took place during university lectures or elsewhere on campus. Violence also escalated in Jammu and Kashmir state. More than 100 students and 100 education personnel were harmed, the majority during protests in Jasmmu and Kashmir state in April 2017. Attacks on higher education appeared to occur with slightly greater frequency than during the 2009-2013 period covered in Education under Attack 2014. There were at least two attacks on higher education in 2013, according to media reports: On July 16, 2013, unidentified attackers set off an explosive device at the home of the director of the Regional Institute of Medical Science and Hospital in the Imphal West district of Manipur state. [965] On December 6, 2016, a bomb exploded at Annie Besant Intercollege in Uttar Pradesh state, injuring a 5-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl.[966] According to media sources, at least four attacks targeted higher education in 2014, three in the northeastern states of Manipur and Assam, and one in the Maoist-affected state of Jharkhand: On April 7, 2014, unidentified assailants threw a hand grenade at the home of the director of the National Institute of Technology in Bishnupur district, Manipur state. [967] A second attack in Manipur state targeted Manipur University. On July 12, 2014, an explosive device detonated near the university, wounding seven people. [968] On July 29, 2014, a college principal was abducted, reportedly by the Rabha National Security Force, an armed group affiliated with the Rabha tribal community. He was freed in a police force operation two days later. [969] In Jharkhand state, gunmen abducted the chairman of Nilai Institute of Technology on August 4, 2014.[970] During 2015, there were media reports of at least five attacks on universities and academics in the northeastern states of Manipur and Nagaland. One additional attack, in Karnataka state, appeared to be linked to religious intolerance. For example: One bomb exploded near Manipur University on April 22, 2015, injuring at least three people, including university lecturers. [971] A second explosive device was found and defused in Imphal district on May 21, 2015, at the National Institute of Technology. [972] On August 7, 2015, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang claimed responsibility for an assault on the principal of the Kheloshe Polytechnic Atoizu, an engineering school. The group attacked and extorted the principal. [973] On August 15, 2015, unidentified attackers shot and killed Madivalappa Kalburgi, a literary scholar at Kannada University. The professor had been critical of particular religious groups and had publicly criticized "idol worship" and superstition.[974] Media reports indicated that attacks on higher education became slightly more common in 2016 than in 2015. Incidents included at least four explosive attacks at universities, and the arrest or attack of professors or students in at least nine incidents for reasons related to their academic work or their alleged use of antinationalist rhetoric.[975] For example: On January 27, 2016, news sources reported that police detained approximately 100 students from universities across Delhi who were marching in protest after Rohith Vemula, 26-year-old Dalit doctoral student at the University of Hyderabad, committed suicide. The ABVP had accused Vemula of violence against other students in 2016. [976] On March 22, 2016, police allegedly used force on University of Hyderabad students and faculty who were protesting the lack of investigation into Vemula's death. Amnesty International reported that the police assaulted the protesting students, including by using sexual violence against female students. [977] Media sources reported that Professor Vivek Kumar from Jawaharlal Nehru University was attacked during clashes that broke out between Akhil Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP party, and Ambedkar Vichar Manch, a Dalit network, at a symposium on Indian society that the professor held on February 21, 2016. [978] According to the Scholars at Risk Network, Kanhaiya Kumar, head of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student union, was arrested on February 12, 2016, in New Delhi for allegedly using anti-Indian slogans during protests, after the university had withdrawn permission for a student event marking the government execution of a Kashmiri activist in 2013. [979] Two other students, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, were later arrested and charged with sedition on February 23, 2016, for the same reason as Kumar. [980] Kumar and Khalid were released on bail in March 2016. The two remained under threat, however, and on April 17, police found a note elaborating a plan to kill them. The note and a gun were found in a bag on a bus that was headed to the JNU campus. [981] A group of approximately 100 people reportedly affiliated with right-wing groups later assaulted Kumar during a rally organized by two left-wing student organizations in August 2017. [982] In Mysore, a University of Mysore communications and journalism professor was arrested on June 16, 2016, after giving a speech on campus that allegedly insulted the Hindu community, according to Scholars at Risk. [983] According to local media, a bomb exploded at the gate of Manipur University on August 10, 2016. This was the third such incident within three years at the same university. [984] On November 3, 2016, unknown attackers threw a petrol bomb at Sri Pratap College in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir state, according to news reports.[985] During 2017, there were 10 incidents of violence and arrests affecting higher education that related to Hindu nationalism or occurred in connection with student protests of university or state policies.[986] In general, these incidents caused more harm than those in previous years, and were largely related to student protests in Jammu and Kashmir state. Incidents related to Hindu nationalism or to protests over policy included the following: The Hinduistan Times reported that police arrested several students demonstrating on the first anniversary of Rohith Vemula's death on January 17, 2017, along with Vemula's mother, Radhika Vemula. [987] On February 21, 2017, the Hindu nationalist student organization Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) (All India Student Council), affiliated with the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtirya Sevak Sangh, protested a talk given at Ramjas College in Delhi by Umar Khalid, who had been arrested the year before, and Shehla Rashid, another student who had been arrested at JNU in 2016. The protest turned violent, with ABVP students reportedly breaking the windows of the conference room where the event was to be held and throwing rocks at other students. The college cancelled the talk, and a march protesting the cancellation led to violent clashes between student groups. Police allegedly used excessive force in responding to the violence, injuring at least 20 students. [988] Scholars at Risk reported that on April 11, 2017, 52 students from Panjab University were arrested and charged with sedition after a clash with police officers that occurred while they were protesting an increase in tuition fees. Police allegedly used water cannons, teargas, and batons to prevent the students from reaching the vice chancellor's office. Students reportedly responded by throwing stones. The clashes injured students, journalists, and police officers. [989] Eight Lucknow University students were reportedly arrested on June 7, 2017, after they participated in a peaceful demonstration against the allocation of university funds. After students surrounded the motorcade of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a state official who was visiting the university, police allegedly responded with force. The charges against the students included unlawful assembly, rioting, assault or criminal force against a public servant, and criminal intimidation. They were denied bail on June 10 and kept in judicial custody until June 24. [990] A female student, B. Valarmathi, was also reportedly arrested at Periyar University in Salem, Tamil Nadu state, on July 12, 2017, after she distributed pamphlets encouraging student opposition to government energy projects. Valarmathi was detained for six days before being charged with instigating others to disturb the public order, according to Scholars at Risk. [991] On September 23, 2017, police allegedly wounded several students, mostly female, at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) as they tried to enter the residence of the university's vice chancellor during a protest of the alleged sexual harassment of one of their classmates. According to the students, police used lathis (a kind of marital arts stick) against the protesters, pulled their hair, and dragged them away.[992] Varanasi police reportedly charged some 1,200 BHU students, mostly female, with arson and other crimes.[993] The vice chancellor was accused of mishandling the event and placed on indefinite leave, the head of campus security resigned, seven women were appointed as security guards, and the National Commission for Women initiated an investigation.[994] Tensions in Jammu and Kashmir state also affected higher education during 2017, with clashes occurring between both university and secondary school students and police, as mentioned above. University World News reported that some sources estimated that a total of 500 students were injured.[995] Many schools and colleges were reportedly closed for up to one month.[996] Incidents included the following: Violence began in mid-April, after two Indian security force vehicles entered the campus of Pulwama Government Degree College. Students threw rocks, and security forces responded with pellets and teargas, reportedly wounding at least 54 students. [997] Two days later, violence spread to Baramulla and Sopore towns in north Jammu and Kashmir state, Anantnag and Tral in south Jammu and Kashmir, and Srinagar in central Jammu and Kashmir, with at least 70 more secondary school and university students injured on April 17, 2017. [998] Local media reported that government forces responded to student protestors at the SP Higher Secondary School in Srinagar with teargas and water cannons in an effort to prevent them from marching in the streets. At least two students sustained brain injuries. [999] Colleges across the region were closed for five days, but when they re-opened on April 24, 2017, students marched in protest once more, clashing with police who again used water cannons, teargas, and pellets. At least 14 college and secondary school students in Pulwama and Shopian were injured. [1000] Protests continued through May 18, 2017, when pellets and teargas shells were fired at protesters during clashes between students from the Government Degree College in Kulgam district and police, reportedly injuring 14 people, mostly students. The students were protesting the detention of their colleagues.[1001] 888 Amnesty International, Annual Report India 2015/2016 (London: Amnesty International, 2016). 889 CEDAW, "Concluding observations on India*," CEDAW/C/IND/CO/4-5, para. 12. 890 Sanjoy Hazarika, "Complexity and conflict in Assam's 'Bodoland'," Al Jazeera, May 10, 2014. Nehginpao Kipgen, "Intricacies of Kuki and Naga Ethnocentrism in Manipur," World Post, March 30, 2013. 891 Kamal Kumar, "Analysis: India's Maoist challenge," Al Jazeera, August 24, 2013. 892 "A brief history of the Kashmir conflict," Telegraph, September 24, 2001. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017: India. Mir Ehsan, "Kashmir schools reopening: Govt, Separatists should never use education to fulfil their agendas," Indian Express, March 2, 2017. 893 Tommy Wilkes and Fayaz Bukhari, "Kashmir Unrest Enters 'Dangerous New Phase' as Protests Threaten India's Grip," Time, May 10, 2017. 894 See, for example, Neeta Lal, "Student Activism Rears Its Head in India," Diplomat, March 7, 2017. Amy Kazmin, "Tensions flare in India over student leader's arrest," Financial Times, February 18, 2016. Saikat Majumdar and Prakash Shah, "The battle for the Indian mind," Times Higher Education, May 5, 2016. 895 CRC, "Concluding observations on the combined third and fourth periodic reports of India," CRC/C/IND/CO/3-4, July 7, 2015, para. 73. CRC, "Concluding observations on the report submitted by India under article 8, paragraph 1, of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict," CRC/C/OPAC/IND/CO/1, July 7, 2014, para. 28. 896 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 897 "Blasts rock Imphal on R-Day eve," Telegraph, January 25, 2013. "Triple blasts rock Imphal on R-Day eve," Times of India, January 26, 2013. "Assam: Serial IED blasts rock Goalpara, Dhubri," Daily Bhaskar, January 27, 2013. "8 IED blasts rock Assam's Goalpara, Dhubri districts on Republic Day, no casualty," India Today, January 27, 2013. "Serial blasts rock lower Assam," Meghalaya Times, January 26, 2013. "After serial blasts on Republic Day, IED recovered," Times of India, January 28, 2013. "IED exploded at 3rd IRD gate," Imphal Free Press (India), January 27, 2013. 898 "Poll protests rock Rabha Hasong areas," Assam Tribune, February 11, 2013. Hemanta Kumar Nath, "Militants Set Ablaze Five Schools in Goalpara," NewsBlaze, February 12, 2013. 899 "Naxals grow bolder, blow up school in Bihar," Rediff News, June 15, 2013. Indo-Asian News Service, "Maoists blow up school in Bihar," First Post, June 15, 2013. 900 Press Trust of India, "19 students injured as bomb explodes in classroom," Economic Times, July 1, 2013. "Bomb slips off boy's bag in classroom, blast injures 24 students," India Today, July 2, 2013. 901 Muhammad Ayub, "Prompt response: Bomb targeting school defused," Express Tribune, September 11, 2013. 902 K. A. Guptal, "Maoists blow up two buildings of school under construction," Times of India, December 5, 2013. "Maoists blow up school," Telegraph India, December 5, 2013. 903 "Crude Bomb Explosion Creates Panic in City," Hindustan Times, December 6, 2013. 904 Iboyaima Laithangbam, "Blast near Manipur Minister's house," Hindu, April 14, 2014. "India: Militant Group Claims Responsibility for Bomb Blast Near Minister's House in Manipur," Sangai Express Online, April 14, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201404120035. 905 "Maoists blast railway track, school in Jharkhand," Business Standard, April 17, 2014. IndoAsian News Service, "Four troopers injured in Jharkhand Maoist attack," Business Standard, April 17, 2014. "Maoists demolish school building in red corridor of Jharkhand," Times of India, August 16, 2014. 906 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 907 "IED found planted," Sangai Express, June 27, 2015. "IED explodes inside Governor Road building," Kangla Online, June 26, 2015. 908 "Garo rebels kill 4 cops in Meghalaya," Times of India, March 11, 2015;""Militants exchange fire with police," Assam Tribune, March 9, 2015," as cited in START, GTD, 201503090026. 909 Mugdha Variyar, "Kolkata: Blast in School at Dum Dum Cantonment; 'Ball-like Object' Exploded," International Business Times, June 20, 2015. 910 S. B. Sinhal, "Two Nawada schoolgirls hurt in blast on I-Day," Times of India, August 16, 2015. 911 "VIDEO: Maoists blow up school building in Latehar," Asia News International, October 12, 2015. "Maoists blow up Jharkhand school building," Times of India, October 11, 2015. "Maoists blow up school," Telegraph India, October 11, 2015. 912 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 913 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017, India chapter. 914 Fayaz Wani, "After burning of 27 schools, J-K High Court asks government to ensure safety of schools in valley," New Indian Express, October 31, 2016. 915 Ehsan, "Kashmir schools reopening." 916 "Minor injured in crude bomb explosion in Odisha," Odisha Sun Times, March 29, 2016. 917 Saugar Sengupta, "2 bags full of bombs found in Ramnagar," Pioneer (India), May 5, 2016. 918 "District Reserve Guard Jawan killed in IED blast," Times of India, May 10, 2016. 919 M. Saleem Pandit, "Terror groups destroy Kashmir schools in Taliban-type offensive," Times of India, October 27, 2016. Ashraf Wani, "Pampore attack: As EDI building goes up in flames, so does the future of youths," India Today, October 13, 2016. Mir Ehsan, "Pampore complex encounter: Institute under attack is Valley success story," Indian Express, October 18, 2016. 920 "Serial explosions rock Assam, no casualty," Indian Express, August 15, 2016. 921 Avik Chakraborty, "School students held for blasts," Telegraph, August 17, 2016. "Independence Day blasts: Two teenagers picked up for planting bombs," Indian Express, August 17, 2016. 922 "School Burnt Down in Kupwara By Unidentified Miscreants," Times Now, January 28, 2017. 923 "Bomb explodes in Kanpur school, two minor girls hurt," New Indian Express, March 10, 2017. 924 Press Trust of India, "Violence in Valley ahead of Srinagar by poll: Miscreants attack polling staff, stations in Kashmir," First Post, April 8, 2017. 925 "Jharkhand: 'Maoists' try to blow up school building," Indian Express, April 30, 2017. 926 Avinash Kumar, "Seven kids hurt in crude bomb blast at Urdu school in Patna," Hindustan Times, April 29, 2017. 927 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 928 "Golaghat teacher abducted," Times of India, March 15, 2013. 929 "Gunmen hijack school van with student in Assam," Times of India, December 5, 2013. "Two gunmen kidnap schoolgirl in Assam," Times of India, December 5, 2013. Sushanta Talukdar, "Abducted girl offered herself as hostage to save schoolmates," Hindu, December 6, 2013. 930 "Bomb explodes Khudengthabi," Sangai Express, September 5, 2013. 931 Press Trust of India, "Mathura: BJP leader's minor daughter abducted, watchman burnt to death," NDTV, December 29, 2013. "UP: BJP Leader's Child Abducted, Watchman Burnt to Death," Outlook India, December 28, 2013. "BJP leader's minor daughter abducted, watchman burnt to death," Deccan Herald, December 28, 2013. 932 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 933 Satyanarayan Pattnaik, "Two Koraput school staffers kidnapped," Times of India, January 26, 2014. "Abducted K'put school employees rescued; 4 held," Daily Pioneer, February 1, 2014. Satyanarayan Pattnaik, "Two abducted in K'put: Cops rule out Maoist hand," Daily Pioneer, January 26, 2014. 934 "Unidentified Gunmen attacks social activist in Manipur," South Asian Terrorism Portal, June 7, 2014," as cited in START, GTD, 201406040048. Sangai Express, "Miscreants explode grenade," E Pao, June 4, 2014. 935 Press Trust of India, "Teacher, businessman abducted in Meghalaya," Business Standard, June 30, 2014. "Two persons abducted in separate incidents in Meghalaya," South Asian Terrorism Portal, July 1, 2014. Biplab Kr Dey, "Abducted teacher rescued in Garo Hills," Assam Tribune, July 2, 2014. 936 "Abducted teacher released," Telegraph India, July 28, 2014. Saidul Khan, "Bid to end border turbulence," Telegraph India, July 27, 2014. Press Trust of India, "Constable seriously injured, friend abducted," Business Standard, July 26, 2014. 937 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 938 "Abducted teacher gives moral lessons to kidnappers," Shillong Times, February 9, 2015;"Saidul Khan, "Tura schoolteacher abducted in Assam," Telegraph India, February 2, 2015;""NLFT and Bru militants abduct two BRTF workers in Mizoram," South Asian Terrorism Portal, February 3, 2015," as cited in START, GTD, 201502010128. "Grenade attack in Meghalaya," South Asian Terrorism Portal, March 14, 2015," as cited in START, GTD, 201503120040. 939 "Unidentified gunmen shot dead civilian in Jammu and Kashmir," South Asian Terrorism Portal, May 5, 2015," as cited in START, GTD, 201505030065. "Teacher shot at," Telegraph India, May 4, 2015. 940 "Kidnapped teacher released after two weeks," Assam Tribune, May 24, 2015. Saidul Khan, "Released," Telegraph India, May 23, 2015. "Sanyal kidnappers nabbed in Assam," Meghalaya Times, May 27, 2015. 941 "Eight civilians abducted in Meghalaya in two separate incidents," South Asian Terrorism Portal, June 15, 2015," as cited in START, GTD, 201506120079. "Five civilians abducted in separate incidents in Meghalaya," South Asian Terrorism Portal, September 17, 2015," as cited in START, GTD, 201509160094. 942 Press Trust of India, "Naxals kidnap school boy from hostel, release him later," Rediff News, July 9, 2015. Amarnath Tewary, "Maoists abduct student, ask school to close down," Hindu, July 10, 2015. 943 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 944 Press Trust of India, "Kidnapped school teacher rescued," Free Press Journal, February 10, 2016. 945 Pandit, "Terror groups destroy." 946 "Imambargah trustee shot dead, son critically injured in suspected sectarian attack in Karachi," South Asian Terrorism Portal, October 8, 2016;""Three BSF personnel injured in militant attack in Jammu and Kashmir," South Asian Terrorism Portal, August 20, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201608160037. 947 Mir Ehsan, "Petrol bombs hurled at J&K Education Minister Naem Akthar's house," Indian Express, August 3, 2016. 948 Pandit, "Terror groups destroy." 949 Express News Service, "Bathinda: EGS teachers protest, cops resort to 'mild' lathi-charge," Indian Express, December 11, 2016. 950 "Woman teacher shot dead in Bihar," United News of India, December 8, 2017. 951 "Kashmir students, India police clash in Srinagar," Al Jazeera, April 24, 2017. "Kashmir unrest: Protesting students clash with police," Al Jazeera, April 17, 2017. Ipsita Chakravarty and Rayan Naqash, "Why Kashmir's students are facing off against the security forces," Sabrang India, April 20, 2017. 952 "Excessive force against students in Kashmir school," Amnesty International, June 8, 2017. 953 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015, India chapter. Amnesty International, Annual Report 2015: India. CRC, "Concluding observations," CRC/C/IND/CO/3-4, para. 73. CRC, "Concluding observations," CRC/C/OPAC/IND/CO/1, para. 28. US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: India," June 25, 2015, p. 19. US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2015: India," p. 18. 954 For example, see "Giridih school blown up," Telegraph, March 22, 2014. Pravin Kumar Mishra, "Maoists blow up school buildings in Jharkhand," Hindustan Times, March 22, 2014. IANS, "Maoists Blow Up School in Bihar," The Hindu, April 22, 2014. Sayantanee Choudhury, "Reds planted 36 bombs in school building," Times of India, April 12, 2014. "Bombs at Parui school," Telegraph India, January 11, 2015. 955 CEDAW, "Concluding observations on the combined fourth and fifth periodic reports of India*," para. 26. 956 "Kashmir militants in deadly attack on Indian security forces," Guardian, March 13, 2013. 957 "Giridih school blown up," Telegraph, March 22, 2014. Pravin Kumar Mishra, "Maoists blow up school buildings in Jharkhand," Hindustan Times, March 22, 2014. 958 IANS, "Maoists Blow Up School in Bihar," New Indian Express, April 21, 2014. Sayantanee Choudhury, "Reds planted 36 bombs in school building," Times of India, April 12, 2014. "Rebels strike in Bihar, two CRPF men killed," Hindustan Times, April 11, 2014. "Three cylinder bombs defused after school blast in Bihar," Oneindia, April 11, 2014. "Maoists blow up school building in Bihar," Business Standard, April 28, 2014. Kashi Prasad, "Maoists damage school building in Jamui," Times of India, April 22, 2014. "Maoists Blow Up School Building in Bihar," Hindustan Times, April 21, 2014. 959 "Bombs at Parui school," Telegraph India, January 11, 2015. 960 Moazum Bhat, "Kashmir's schools are being mysteriously burnt down and nobody seems to care about the students," Quartz India, November 15, 2016. 961 All India and Veer Arjun Singh, "3 Schools Set On Fire In Last 24 Hours In Jammu and Kashmir," NDTV, October 30, 2016. Nisar Dharma, "Govt adamant on exams; 4 schools burnt in last 4 days," Kashmir Monitor, October 25, 2016. 962 "Security personnel vacate educational institutes after intervention by Commission," webindia123, February 14, 2017. 963 "India: Four girls abducted from a Christian school and gang raped," Vatican Insider, July 20, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 142. 964 Amnesty International, "Hyderabad: Students And Faculty Arrested For Peaceful Protests Must Be Released," Amnesty International news update, March 25, 2016. 965 Iboyaima Laithangbam, "Bomb blast at Imphal RIMS director's house," Hindu, July 16, 2013. "Explosion In Medical Institute Complex," Shillong Times, July 18, 2013. Press Trust of India, "Explosion in medical institute complex, no casualty," Economic Times, July 17, 2013. 966 "Blast on College Campus Leaves 2 Children Injured," Hindustan Times, December 6, 2013. 967 "Hand grenade attacks in Manipur," South Asian Terrorism Portal, April 8, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201404060060. "Bomb blast at NIT director's house," Kangla Online, April 6, 2014. "Insurgents target NIT Director's residence in Manipur," Business Standard, April 12, 2014. 968 AP, "Crude bomb blast wounds 6 in India; 4 men abducted," National (UAE), July 12, 2014. Press Trust of India, "Militants trigger bomb blast in Manipur, 7 injured," Indian Express, July 12, 2014. "Blast Near Manipur University in Imphal, Six Injured," NDTV, July 12, 2014. 969 Press Trust of India, "Abducted college principal rescued," Business Standard, July 31, 2014. 970 "5 days on, abducted chairman untraceable," Times of India, August 9, 2014. 971 "Blast rocks MU gate, 3 hurt," Sangai Express, April 23, 2015. "Five civilians injured as powerful IED explodes near MU gate," Kangla Online, April 22, 2015. 972 "Grenade at NIT gate," Sangai Express, May 21, 2015. 973 "Polytechnic Principal of Nagaland assaulted by suspected rebel cadres," United News of India, August 11, 2015. 974 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Kannada University, August 30, 2015. Charles Huckabee, "Indian Scholar Who Criticized Idolatry Is Killed by Gunmen in His Home," Chronicle of Higher Education, August 30, 2015. Vicky Nanjappa, "Professor MM Kalburgi shot dead in Dharwad, Karnataka," Oneindia, August 30, 2015. 975 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 976 All India/Press Trust of India, "Rohith Vemula Suicide: Protests In Delhi, 100 Students Detained," NDTV, January 27, 2016. Amnesty International, "Hyderabad: Students And Faculty Arrested For Peaceful Protests Must Be Released," Amnesty International news update, March 25, 2016. 977 Amnesty International, "Hyderabad: Students And Faculty Arrested For Peaceful Protests Must Be Released," Amnesty International news update, March 25, 2016. 978 "JNU professor attacked by protesters from BJP youth wing in Gwalior," Scroll.in, February 21, 2016. 979 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, February 12, 2016. 980 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, February 23, 2016. 981 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, April 17, 2016. 982 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Unaffiliated, August 9, 2017. 983 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Mysore, June 16, 2016. 984 "Manipur: Bomb blast at the entrance of Manipur University in Imphal," India.com, August 10, 2016. 985 Shuja-ul-Haq, "After 30 schools, oldest Valley college becomes arson target in Srinagar," India Today, November 4, 2016. M. Saleem Pandit, "Arsonists again at work in J&K, partially damage school, college," Times of India, November 4, 2016. "Day 118: SP College attacked with petrol bomb, another school set on fire in Naidkhai; shutdown continues in Valley," J and KHeadlines, November 3, 2016. 986 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 987 "Rohith Vemula's mother, students arrested as protest rocks Hyderabad varsity," Hindustan Times, January 17, 2017. 988 "Ramjas College protests: Three policemen suspended, Delhi Police ask people to submit evidence," Scroll.in, February 23, 2017. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Ramjas College University, February 21, 2017. Showkat Shafi, "Nationalist group ABVP accused of Delhi campus violence," Al Jazeera, February 27, 2017. 989 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Panjab University, April 11, 2017. 990 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Lucknow University, June 7, 2017. "Urgent Action: University Students Arrested After Protest," Amnesty International, June 16, 2017. 991 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Periyar University, July 12, 2017. 992 "BHU Molestation: Police Allegedly Thrash Female Students Demanding A Safe Campus, Protest Spreads To Delhi," Huffington Post, September 24, 2017. Sudhir Kumar and Binayak Dasgupta, "BHU tense, breaks early for Dussehra after police crackdown on students," Hindustan Times, September 24, 2017. Rachael Pells, "Indian students charged as antiharassment protest turns violent," Times Higher Education, October 4, 2017. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Banaras Hindu University, September 23, 2017, September 11, 2017. 993 Pavitra Crossette, "1,200 women students charged over harassment protest," University World News, September 30, 2017. 994 Michael Safi, "India's female students say 'to hell with it, we won't stand for molesting and Eve-teasing,'" Guardian, October 7, 2017. "Female security guards take charge at Banaras Hindu University," Hindustan Times, October 4, 2017. Sudhir Kumar, "Women's commission begins probe into BHU violence, molestation," Hindustan Times, October 5, 2017. 995 Haroon Mirani, "Student vs army clashes paralyse Kashmir campuses," University World News, June 2, 2017. 996 Mirani, "Student vs army clashes." 997 "Kashmir: Teen shot dead; 54 students wounded in clashes," Al Jazeera, April 16, 2017. Haroon Mirani, "Student vs army clashes paralyse Kashmir campuses," University World News, June 2, 2017. 998 Chakravarty and Naqash, "Why Kashmir's students are facing off." 999 Chakravarty and Naqash, "Why Kashmir's students are facing off." 1000 Ubeer Naqushbandi, "Protests continue in Kashmir, 14 students, 2 policemen injured," Indian Express, April 27, 2017. 1001 Ashiq Hussain, "Kashmir: 18 injured in grenade attack, student agitation as violence rages on," Hindustan Times, May 18, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Egypt Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Egypt, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be94310a.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. University student protests turned violent, with Egyptian security forces killing and injuring dozens of students and arresting more than 1,000. Additionally, unknown individuals and armed groups, including some affiliated with 'IS', increasingly attacked civilians and civilian institutions, including students, educators, and education buildings, in the country's north. Context Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammad Morsi was ousted from Egypt's presidency in July 2013, and General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, former head of the Egyptian armed forces, became president.[761] Egyptian security forces responded to the protests that followed, allegedly using violent means such as arbitrary arrests, disappearances, and torture of detainees and killing at least 1,150 demonstrators against Morsi's ouster in July and August 2013.[762] According to Amnesty International, sexual harassment, primarily of girls and women, was a common characteristic of these protests, and mob sexual assaults became common in demonstrations near Tahrir Square in Cairo after November 2012.[763] Pressure continued to mount from 2013 to 2014, before subsiding slightly in 2015. Under El-Sisi, the Egyptian government focused on restablishing political stability and maintaining security, sometimes using repressive measures.[764] Egyptian security forces sought to limit the activity of 'IS,' which established a stronger presence in the Sinai and targeted Egyptian security and government officials.[765] The reporting period saw some increase in interreligious and sectarian tensions in Egypt, including anti-Christian violence.[766] These trends impacted education during the reporting period. From 2013 through 2017 there were sporadic cases of sectarian fighters and other unknown individuals targeting schools, universities, students, and teachers with explosives and gunfire. Police and government security forces reportedly used violent means to respond to protests on campuses, and university students and faculty came under scrutiny for the content of their academic work. Related to this violence were allegations that Egyptian security forces sexually abused male and female students who were detained or arrested on campus.[767] GCPEA identified more systematic patterns of violence against education in the current reporting period than the occasional incidents reported in Education under Attack 2014, particularly in higher education. These patterns were largely related to violence that occurred in response to student protests. Attacks on schools Media sources indicated that explosives, gunfire, and clashes between protesters and Egyptian security forces damaged close to 20 schools in sporadic incidents throughout the current reporting period. These findings represented an increase in comparison to Education under Attack 2014, which found only a few attacks on schools in 2013. These reports were largely unverified. In 2013, arson in the context of protests damaged or destroyed at least five schools, all located in Cairo: According to media sources, al-Howeiyaty Secondary School for Girls and the Lycee al-Horreya were set on fire during fighting between demonstrators and security forces in central Cairo in 2013. Al-Howeiyaty school burned to the ground. [768] On August 14, 2013, following a deadly raid by Egyptian security forces on two camps of protesters in Cairo, violence surged throughout the country, including against Christian targets, according to Human Rights Watch.[769] The Coptic boys' school complex and Saint Joseph's girls' school in Minya City were set on fire amidst this violence. The same day, a mob looted and set fire to a Franciscan girls' school in Bani Suef.[770] Violence affecting schools shifted to the Northern Sinai in 2014, as media reports indicated that unidentified attackers deployed explosives at at least four schools in northern Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula. For example: A vehicle loaded with explosives was reportedly discovered and the devices deactivated near the Ibrahimiya private school in Kafr al-Sheikh city, located north of Cairo, on January 2, 2014. [771] Seif News reported that on April 15, 2014, unidentified individuals threw a flash grenade into a Mansheyat al-Salam girls' secondary school in Dakahlia governorate, injuring 25 people. [772] On December 7, 2014, a bomb planted by an unknown assailant reportedly exploded at Salman al-Farsi Elementary School in al-Salam, Cairo, resulting in minor property damage, according to Akhbar Al-Alam. [773] A similar event was reported on December 10, 2014, but it did not cause any damage. According to media sources, security forces found and defused an explosive device planted near a school in Al-Arish town in North Sinai governorate.[774] Also in Egypt's north, Human Rights Watch reported that, between July 2013 and August 2015, Egyptian military forces demolished six schools during an operation to clear land for a buffer zone along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip. These actions reportedly left some children without access to education in the town of Rafah on the Sinai Peninsula.[775] Reports of explosive attacks on schools increased in 2015. Media sources reported at least seven cases in which unidentified perpetrators targeted schools, most taking place north of Cairo and in the Sinai Peninsula. These reports coincided with an escalation of violence carried out by non-state armed groups, including 'IS', and Egypt's counterterrorism response.[776] For example: On January 19, 2015, a projectile reportedly struck a high school in Sheikh Zuweid city, North Sinai governorate. No casualties were reported. [777] On February 8, 2015, unknown attackers allegedly planted explosive devices at three schools in the Qantara Gharb area in Ismailia governorate. All three explosives were discovered and defused before going off. [778] A similar incident was reported one month later when, on March 9, 2015, an explosive device was found and safely defused at a school in Alexandria city. [779] Also on March 9, 2015, unidentified individuals reportedly detonated a bomb and opened fire on a Coptic Catholic school in the Kafr al-Dawar town of the Beheira governorate. The incident injured two police guards. [780] Two weeks later, on March 23, 2015, a rocket reportedly exploded near a school outside al-Muqataah village in the North Sinai. [781] On March 25, 2015, media sources reported that another explosive detonated in the hands of a 10-year-old girl who was playing outside an elementary school in Faiyum city, southwest of Cairo. The girl later died. [782] On April 4, 2015, two bombs reportedly exploded outside Ahmed Oraby School in Imbabah neighborhood, Giza city.[783] Rates of reported attacks on schools slowed again in 2016 and 2017, with sporadic cases occurring in the North Sinai governorate. The media reported at least three attacks on schools during the two years, including the following: On October 30, 2016, Masr al-Arabiya reported that a suicide bomber exploded a car at al-Yaser School in al-Arish, Northern Sinai governorate. The attack significantly damaged the school building and property. [784] Nine days later, on November 9, 2016, security forces reportedly defused an explosive device planted by unknown attackers near Abu-Bakr al-Siddiq Preparatory School, also in al-Arish. [785] On February 3, 2017, fighters reported by local media to be associated with an 'IS' affiliate remotely detonated explosives planted at a state-run school in Rafah in the northern Sinai. The school had previously been caught in artillery fire between security forces and 'IS'. No students were attending school at the time. The media stated that the attack had been conducted to prevent Egyptian security forces from using the roof of the school to monitor the armed group.[786] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel As during the 2009-2013 period documented in Education under Attack 2014, arrests and targeted killings sporadically affected primary and secondary school students and teachers between 2013 and 2017. In 2013, local media reported the arrests of one teacher and seven high school students: In May, Egyptian officials arrested a Christian school teacher after her students accused her of expressing disdain for Islam. She was ordered to pay more than 25 years of her salary as punishment. [787] In September 2013, seven high school students were arrested during a student-led protest in Faiyum.[788] Between 2014 and 2017, local media reported at least three targeted attacks on teachers carried out by fighters suspected of being affiliated with 'IS', along with one allegedly carried out by Egyptian security forces: On January 13, 2015, assailants suspected to be with 'IS' in the Sinai Province reportedly shot and killed a female teacher in Sheikh Zuweid town. [789] Two years later, on January 17, 2017, anonymous gunmen on a motorbike opened fire on a teacher in the center of al-Arish city, killing him. [790] On February 16, 2017, Coptic Christian teacher Gamal Tawfiq died in a similar incident in the same city. He was shot by two men on a motorbike as he walked to al-Samran School. According to media sources, security officials suspected that 'IS' in the Sinai Province was responsible for the killing. [791] In the one case implicating Egyptian security forces, Amnesty International alleged that teacher Mohamed Abdelsatar was disappeared on April 9, 2017, and later extrajudicially executed. Abdelsatar was reportedly taken from Abdel Samie Saloma School, the Al-Azhar University affiliate where he worked, by plainclothes officers on the morning of April 9. Egyptian police denied the claim, stating that Abdelsatar had belonged to an armed group and was killed in an exchange of fire with police.[792] In addition to these individual attacks, a local media source reported that Sinai Province fighters repeatedly stopped school buses taking teachers from al-Arish to Rafah in March 2017. They threatened to kill or mutilate with acid women teachers who were not accompanied by male relatives and did not abide by "dress codes."793 Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school or university At least two cases of sexual violence against students were reported between 2013 and 2017, one affecting a female student and one affecting a male student. Both cases occurred in the context of protests in Cairo in 2013 and 2014, during which rights groups documented patterns of sexual harassment and abuse:794 Amnesty International reported testimony from a female Al-Azhar University student, who accused Egyptian Central Security Forces of detaining her on campus on December 30, 2013. The security forces allegedly dragged her across the pavement, beat her with batons, and kicked her, before taking her into a police van and threatening to rape her. She told Amnesty International that the police officers continued to beat her with batons after she was transferred to the police station. [795] According to the Guardian, plainclothes police officers arrested a 19-year-old male student leader on March 24, 2014, after a student protest. The student alleged that the police officers beat him, gave him electric shocks on his genitals, armpits, fingers, and stomach, and sexually assaulted him.[796] Attacks on higher education Attacks on education occurred more frequently in Egypt's higher education sector than at the primary or secondary levels, with dozens of students, professors, and university personnel killed or injured and more than 1,000 detained or arrested.[797] The most frequent forms of attack included the arrest of Egyptian and foreign national university students and academics in relation to anti-government protests that took place on campus. This violence peaked in 2013 and 2014. In addition, unidentified attackers and non-state armed groups used explosives to target university campuses. Both forms of attack were similar to those reported in Education under Attack 2014, but they were documented more frequently over the 2013-2017 period. In 2013, there were several cases of Egyptian security forces arresting students and professors or injuring or killing students while responding to student protests on campus.[798] One incident occurred during the first half of 2013, but the majority took place during the second half of the year, after General El-Sisi became president. Media sources reported that Egyptian security personnel used force to break up protests and arrested students at Cairo University, Zagazig University in Sharqia governorate, and Al-Azhar University in al-Arish city, Northern Sinai governorate. Examples included the following: According to the Scholars at Risk Network, on April 16, 2013, Suez Canal University professor Dr. Mona Price began receiving death threats after delivering a lecture in which she referred to a poster hung on campus by Salafist students as an example of sectarianism. The university responded to these attacks by informally suspending Dr. Price without pay, after first advising her to stay at home because they could not guarantee her safety. She was also subject to a disciplinary investigation. [799] Scholars at Risk also reported that five days later, on November 21, 2013, Egyptian police shot sixth-year medical student Abdel Ghany Hamouda in the head as they broke up a protest at Al-Azhar University. Protesters were demonstrating against the military coup and the new government's crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood supporters. [800] On November 28, 2013, police reportedly used live bullets and teargas to disperse a protest on the Cairo University campus, shooting and killing a 19-year-old engineering student named Mohamed Reda, according to Scholars at Risk. Protesters were objecting to the 11-year prison sentences imposed on 14 adult female students, and the unspecified juvenile detention time given to 7 minor female students for their involvement in pro-Morsi protests. Egypt's Ministry of Interior denied using lethal force. [801] Egyptian police allegedly used teargas and live ammunition to disperse crowds of protesting students at Al-Azhar University on December 28, 2013, during clashes between student supporters of former president Morsi and other students. One student was killed in the incident, another was left in critical condition, and three others were less seriously injured. Two university buildings were reportedly damaged.[802] According to media sources, there were also two explosive attacks by unknown perpetrators in 2013, both of which affected Al-Azhar University in Cairo: On December 26, 2013, a bomb reportedly exploded on a bus in the road near student dormitories, injuring four to five people on the bus. It did not appear that students were among those injured. 803 A second explosive device was discovered and defused outside the Al-Azhar University faculty of medicine on December 29, 2013.[804] Similar patterns of violence occurring during student protests continued in 2014, with allegations that security forces responded to both peaceful and violent student protests with disproportionate force.[805] SAIH and AFTE reported that, between September 2013 and July 2014, Egyptian security forces killed 18 university students and detained close to 1,000.[806] Violence reportedly affected Cairo University, Ain Shams University, Al-Azhar University, and Alexandria University. After only a handful of incidents in early 2014, violence surged after the summer break. For example: On January 23, 2014, Egyptian security forces used teargas and live ammunition against protesting Alexandria University students who were throwing stones at them. One student was shot and killed, several others were injured. [807] On May 20, 2014, pro-Muslim Brotherhood students protesting at Cairo University to gain the release of several of their colleagues threw lit firecrackers at security officers. The officers responded by firing live bullets, killing an engineering student and injuring at least one other. [808] Amnesty International reported that from October 11 to October 17, 2014, at least 200 students had been arrested and 90 injured during protests, according to information from the Marsad Tolab Horreya (Student Freedom Observatory). [809] By the end of the year, 15 Zagazig University students and 8 Al-Azhar University students were facing prosecution in military court for their participation in on-campus protests. [810] Scholars at Risk also reported that several students from Al-Azhar University and Zagazig University were arrested during protests in December 2014. Five of the students from Al-Azhar were accused of setting fire to a university office.[811] In addition to the protest-related violence, explosives, often set by unidentified attackers, targeted Egyptian universities in at least six cases reported by local media sources in 2014.[812] In some cases, the bombs appeared to target security personnel located just outside the universities. Examples included: A group calling itself the Soldiers of Egypt reportedly claimed responsibility for three bombs that affected Cairo University on April 2, 2014. The bombs may have been directed at police stationed just outside the university. The first two devices exploded near the faculty of engineering, and the third explosion occurred near the main university gate approximately two hours later. A fourth bomb was found in a car parked near the university but was safely defused. The explosions killed a senior police official and wounded between five and nine other individuals. The Soldiers of Egypt stated that the attack was retribution for the Egyptian government's detention of girls and women. [813] Six days later, on April 8, 2014, Egyptian security forces reportedly found 12 explosive devices planted by unknown individuals at Ain Shams University in Cairo. The devices were safely defused. [814] On May 19, 2014, a bomb planted by unknown attackers reportedly detonated at Ain Shams University during a protest, wounding at least one person. [815] On October 22, 2014, media sources reported that nine people, including five police officers, were wounded when a bomb exploded outside the gates of Cairo University.[816] The rate of reported violence affecting higher education appeared to decline after the start of the 2014-2015 school year. SAIH and AFTE reported that, between September 2014 and July 2015, Egyptian security forces killed 3 students and arrested 162 during protests, a marked reduction from the previous year.[817] In addition, there were at least four reported explosive attacks affecting universities. The majority of these explosions affected Zagazig University, whose president was also reportedly attacked by unidentified individuals: According to international and local news sources, on March 28, 2015, a bomb exploded near a subway entrance next to the Cairo University campus, injuring eight people, including police officers stationed at the university entrance. The Soldiers of Egypt claimed responsibility. [818] On May 1, 2015, a bomb reportedly detonated at the Zagazig University stadium, damaging the building. [819] A media source reported that another bomb detonated at the Zagazig University pharmacy faculty building approximately six months later, on October 10, 2015. A second explosive went off in front of the University's College of Engineering that same day. No one was killed or injured in either blast, and no group claimed responsibility for either incident. [820] On December 17, 2015, three unidentified attackers reportedly injured the Zagazig University president as he was leaving his home.[821] Protest-related violence continued to slow during the 2015-2016 school year. SAIH and AFTE documented 21 arrests of university students.[822] There were also two attacks on doctoral candidates at the beginning of 2016, both of which appeared to be connected to their scholarly research: On January 25, 2016, Giulio Regeni, an Italian doctoral student, disappeared. He was later found dead. Regeni had been researching an emerging street vendors' union. Investigative media sources suspected that Egyptian authorities were responsible for Regeni's death because of the government's concern that the street vendors were becoming increasingly difficult to control as a group. [823] In February 2016, Medhat Maher, another doctoral candidate at Cairo University, was arrested and accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood. Maher had reportedly been researching Islamic movements and owned books related to the topic. The evidence against him included books related to his research.[824] By 2017 there were no more reports of protest-related violence affecting university students or personnel. However, there were reports of at least one explosive attack targeting a university and one case of university students being detained and deported: Daily News Egypt reported that on February 4, 2017, unknown attackers suspected to be members of the Sinai Province blew up an institute affiliated with Al-Azhar University. [825] According to Human Rights Watch and media reports, beginning on July 2, 2017, Egyptian police began targeting shops, restaurants, and student dormitories where university students from the Chinese Uighur ethnic group were known to congregate and detaining them. Chinese authorities sought the return of Uighur students studying abroad throughout 2017, according to Human Rights Watch.[826] 761 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2014 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2014), Egypt chapter. 762 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017, Egypt chapter. Amnesty International, Annual Report Egypt 2016/2017 (New York: Amnesty International, 2017), pp. 146-149. "Egypt: Raba'a Killings Likely Crimes against Humanity," Human Rights Watch news release, August 12, 2014. 763 Amnesty International, "Circles of hell": Domestic, Public and State Violence Against Women in Egypt (London: Amnesty International, 2015), pp. 39-41. 764 "Egypt: Untamed Repression," Human Rights Watch news release, January 18, 2018. 765 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, Egypt chapter. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2018, Egypt chapter. Amnesty International, Annual Report Egypt 2016/2017. 766 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2018, Egypt chapter. Amnesty International, Annual Report Egypt 2016/2017. 767 For example, see Amnesty International, "Circles of hell," p. 56. Patrick Kingsley, "Egyptian police 'using rape as a weapon' against dissident groups," Guardian, April 12, 2014. 768 "In pictures: Fire destroys historic downtown school," Egypt Independent, January 27, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 136. 769 Human Rights Watch, All According to Plan: The Rab'a Massacre and Mass Killings of Protesters in Egypt (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2014), pp. 104-107. 770 Human Rights Watch, "Egypt: Mass Attacks on Churches," August 22, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 136. 771 Al-Masry Al-Youm, "Bomb defused near a school in Kafr Al-Sheikh," Egypt Independent, January 3, 2014. 772 "Egypt: injury of 25 as a result of a sound bomb in Aldakalia school", Seif News, April 15, 2014. 773 "Explosion of a bomb in the school of Salman Al-Farsi in the city of Al-Salam", Akhbar Al-Alam, December 7, 2014. 774 "Bomb Defused Near Arish School Complex-Security Sources," AllAfrica.com, December 10, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201412100061. 775 Human Rights Watch, "Look for Another Homeland": Forced Evictions in Egypt's Rafah (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2015), pp. 10, 13. 776 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, Egypt chapter. 777 "Hosted Product: Sinai Weekly Summary 15-28 January 2015," Israeli Government, January 30, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201501190114. 778 "2 injured in bomb explosions," Daily Star Egypt, February 8, 2015," as cited START, GTD 201502080078. 779 "Bomb Reportedly Detected at School in Egypt's Alexandria," Al-Yawm al-Sabi Online, March 9, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201503090066. 780 David D. Kirkpatrick, "Militants Kill Three Police Officers in Egypt as Violent Attacks Spread," New York Times, March 9, 2015. 781 "Hosted Product: Sinai Bi-Weekly Summary 12-30 March 2015," Israeli Government, April 2, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201503230082. 782 "Egypt blast kills 10-year-old girl near school: police," Daily Star Lebanon, March 25, 2015. Aswat Masriya, "Security official: Pupil killed in blast outside Fayoum school," Egypt Independent, March 25, 2015. "School Girl Killed in Bomb Explosion While Playing Outside Her Elementary School in Egypt," Egyptian Streets, March 25, 2015. 783 "Two bombs explode near Cairo police station, no casualties: state media," Reuters, April 4, 2015. 784 "In pictures: the explosion of a car in front of Alyaseer school in Alarish", Masr Al Arabiya, October 30, 2016. 785 "Roundup on Security Situation in Sinai 7-8 November 2016," Summary, November 7, 2016," as cited in START, GTD 201611080010. 786 Taha Sakr, "State-owned school bombed in Rafah," Daily News Egypt, February 4, 2017. "Militants blow up school in Egypt's N. Sinai Peninsula," Anadolu News Agency, February 3, 2017. 787 "Egypte: condamnee a payer 20 ans de salaire pour 'mepris de l'islam,'" Radio France Internationale, June 12, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 136. 788 "Students detained during school and university protests in Egypt," Egypt Independent, September 24, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 136. 789 "Unidentified assailants shoot teacher in North Sinai," Aswat Masriya, January 13, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201501130052. 790 Taha Sakr, "Anonymous militants assassinate school teacher in Al-Arish," Daily News Egypt, January 21, 2017. "Militants gun down teacher in Egypt's North Sinai," Ahram Online, January 20, 2017. 791 AP and Reuters, "Militants kill Christian in Sinai, second in a week," Arab News, February 18, 2017. 792 "Schoolteacher among latest victims of Egypt's chilling wave of extrajudicial executions," Amnesty International news release, August 8, 2017. 793 "No safe routes to schools: Sinai teachers intercepted by Islamic State loyalists," Mada Masr, March 5, 2017. 794 Amnesty International, "Circles of hell," pp. 39-41. 795 Amnesty International, "Circles of hell," p. 56. 796 Kingsley, "Egyptian police." 797 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 798 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 799 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Suez Canal University, April 16, 2013. 800 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Al-Azhar University, November 23, 2013. 801 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Cairo University, November 28, 2013. 802 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Al-Azhar University, December 28, 2013. 803 Amro Hassan, "Cairo bomb blast hits bus near university," Los Angeles Times, December 26, 2013. 804 "Bomb defused outside Azhar faculty in Egypt's Damietta," World Bulletin, December 29, 2013. 805 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 806 SAIH and AFTE, Besieged Universities: A Report on the Rights and Freedoms of Students in Egyptian Universities from the Academic Years 2013-2014 to 2015-2016 (Oslo, Norway: SAIH and AFTE, March 2017), pp. 24-26. 807 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Alexandria University, January 23, 2014. 808 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Cairo University, May 20, 2014. "Egypt: Student Killed At Cairo University Clashes," All Africa, May 20, 2014. Kenneth Changpertitum, "Engineering student killed by birdshot: Forensics Authority," Daily News Egypt, May 21, 2014. 809 "Egypt: Security forces." 810 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Al-Azhar University/Zagazig University, December 29, 2014. 811 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Al-Azhar University/Zagazig University, December 29, 2014. 812 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 813 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Cairo University, April 2, 2014. Ian Lee, Saad Abedine, and Marie-Louise Gumuchian, "Egypt: Blasts at Cairo University kill officer, wound 5," CNN, April 2, 2014. "Egypt police general killed in Cairo bomb blasts: Egyptian police brigadier-general killed as three bombs explode outside Cairo campus," Telegraph, April 2, 2014. Stephen Kalin, "Bombs kill two at Cairo University," Reuters, April 2, 2014. 814 "Ministry of Interior: 12 handmade bombs found on Ain Shams University's campus," Ahram Online, April 8, 2014. 815 "Student injured in Egypt university bomb blast," World Bulletin, May 19, 2014. "Bomb at Ain Shams University in Cairo," Albawaba, May 19, 2014. 816 Jack Moore, "Egypt: Explosion Outside Cairo University Wounds 10 People," International Business Times, October 22, 2014. 817 SAIH and AFTE, Besieged Universities, pp. 24-26. 818 AP, "Bomb explodes in front of Egypt's largest and most prominent university, injuring 8 people," Fox News, March 28, 2015. Mahmoud Mostafa, "Ajnad Misr claim responsibility for Cairo University metro bombing: The group claim deaths among security officers," Daily News Egypt, March 29, 2015. 819 "Bomb Attacks Hit Sharqia Early Friday, Leave No Casualties," Cairo Post, May 1, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201505010080. 820 Waleed Samir, "Police conscript injured in 6th of October City bombing," Daily News Egypt, October 10, 2015. 821 "Acting head of Zagazig University wounded in attack in Egypt's Sharqiya,'' Ahram Online, December 17, 2015. 822 SAIH and AFTE, Besieged Universities, pp. 24-25. 823 Alexander Stille, "Who murdered Giulio Regeni?" Guardian, October 4, 2016. "Italian researcher's death in Egypt spurs calls for inquiry," Education International, February 15, 2016. Ahmed Aboulenein, "Egyptian state TV airs video of murdered Italian student Regeni," Reuters, January 23, 2017. 824 "Academic researcher arrested in Egypt," World Bulletin, February 29, 2016. 825 Taha Sakr, "Educational institute affiliated to Al-Azhar attacked in Al-Arish," Daily News Egypt, February 6, 2017. 826 "Egypt: Don't Deport Uyghurs to China," Human Rights Watch statement, July 7, 2017. "Egypt arrests Chinese Muslim students amid police sweep," Al Jazeera, July 7, 2017. Lisa Barrington, "Egypt detains Chinese Uighur students, who fear return to China: rights group," Reuters, July 7, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Democratic Republic of the Congo Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Democratic Republic of the Congo, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be94311a.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Hundreds of schools were looted, damaged, and destroyed or used for military purposes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Armed parties also reportedly threatened, abducted, injured, and killed students and education personnel. Both boys and girls were recruited from schools or along school routes, and reports indicated that girls were taken specifically for sexual purposes. Context Already ongoing for more than two decades, conflict continued in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.[678] A new conflict began in the Greater Kasai region in April 2016, when tensions between the government and traditional chiefs led to the emergence of the Kamuina Nsapu militia.[679] This violence surged in 2017, with conflict also escalating in North and South Kivu and Tanganyika provinces.[680] The armed parties included the Forces Armees de la Republique Democratique du Congo (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) (FARDC) and more than 120 non-state armed groups.[681] Most armed groups were small. One of the largest remaining groups was the Forces democratiques de liberation du Rwanda (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) (FDLR), which was estimated to have between 500 and 1,000 fighters in 2017.[682] The UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), which began its peacekeeping mission in 1999, also continued to operate in the country.[683] As of August 2017, 3.8 million people were internally displaced throughout DRC.[684] State and non-state parties reportedly raped, sexually enslaved, and forcibly impregnated women and girls because of their ethnicity.[685] Non-state armed groups perpetrated the majority of reported sexual violence, although MONUSCO and foreign forces were also accused of sexual exploitation from 2015 through 2017.[686] Conflict impeded access to education across DRC, and an estimated 2.[9] million children were in urgent need of education at the end of 2016.[687] In the Tanganyika region, a resurgence of intercommunal tensions and military operations resulted in the destruction of more than 300 schools as of July 2017.[688] Also as of July 2017, UNICEF reported that damage to schools had forced 150,000 children out of school in the Kasai region.[689] The Education Cluster also reported that military use of educational institutions and other factors, including teachers forcibly recruited by militia, disrupted schooling, impeded girls' access to education and led to early marriages and pregnancies.[690] According to a 2017 report by Child Soldiers International, child recruitment and a lack of access to education were mutually reinforcing. Forced conscription limited girls' access to education, while the inability to afford education led some girls to join armed groups instead.[691] Information collected by GCPEA indicated that girls who were abducted or recruited and raped, sometimes for months, often dropped out of school afterward.[692] Reports of attacks on education, except child recruitment, were higher during the 2013-2017 reporting period than in the 2009-2013 period. This was possibly due to the resurgence of conflict in North and South Kivu and Tanganyika and the emergence of conflict in the Greater Kasai region, as well as strengthened monitoring and reporting of attacks on education. Attacks on education appeared to decline from 2013 to 2015, before rising significantly in 2016 and 2017.[693] DRC endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration in July 2016. Attacks on schools Non-state armed groups reportedly shelled, burned, and looted hundreds of schools during the reporting period, many in the Kasai and Kasai-Central provinces, and in the Tanganyika region. Reports indicated that 2017 saw the highest number of attacks on schools of the reporting period. Attacks on schools occurred at similar rates in 2013, 2014, and 2015, with dozens of attacks each year, but 2016 saw a sharp spike. There were at least 639 verified and unverified attacks on schools reported in the Greater Kasai region in 2016 and 2017.[694] Of these, the UN verified 51 in 2016 and 396 in 2017.[695] Non-state armed groups perpetrated most of the attacks on schools, and they used different methods, depending on their location. While perpetrators in the east used heavy weapons such as mines and rockets, perpetrators in the Greater Kasai region mainly used light weapons.[696] During 2013, various non-state armed actors in the east, including the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), Alliance des patriotes pour un Congo libre et souverain (People's Alliance for a Free and Sovereign Congo) (APCLS), Force de resistance patriotique d'Ituri (Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri) (FRPI), March 23 Movement (M23), and Nduma Defence of Congo (NDC), reportedly looted, shelled, and burned schools. The UN verified 95 attacks on schools, including the looting of 21 by the ADF in Beni, North Kivu, and the looting and damage of 10 by the FRPI in Irumu, Ituri.[697] Examples included the following: A report published by Save the Children included an incident on February 27, 2013, in which bombs hit a school during clashes between the FARDC and the APCLS because the IDPs inside the building were mistaken for enemy soldiers. Twelve people were killed and four students were injured. It was unclear if the school was hit, but it was reportedly later looted. [698] According to information gathered and verified by the UN, M23 shelled a school in Goma during an attack in August 2013. [699] Human Rights Watch reported that, in August 2013, NDC fighters raided a school in Pinga, destroying equipment and an office. Reports indicated that they also forced people to flee, although it was not clear if these people were school children or teachers.[700] Attacks on schools in the east appeared to decline from 2014 to 2015. Reported totals of attacks on schools included the following: In 2014, according to UN-verified information, the FARDC, ADF, FDLR, the Union des Patriotes Congolais pour la Paix (Union of Congolese Patriots), Raia Mutomboki, and other armed groups attacked 22 schools, including 10 that were looted after being used for military purposes. [701] The UN also verified 22 attacks on schools in the east during 2015. This included 10 schools destroyed by the Twa self-defense group during clashes with members of the Luba ethnic group in Tanganyika. The Nyatura, an umbrella term for Congolese Hutu armed groups, destroyed four schools, and other armed groups destroyed eight. The locations of these attacks were not indicated.[702] Attacks on schools rose again in 2016, when the UN verified 51 incidents targeting primary and secondary educational institutions. Identified perpetrators included Twa militia (13), ADF (8), Mai-Mai Simba (4), Mai-Mai Raia Mutomboki (4), and the FRPI (3).[703] Conflict broke out in the Greater Kasai region in August 2016, and violence surged in the Tanganyika region in September of that year. Violence also continued in the Kivus. For example, local civil society and UN agencies reported that on October 15, 2016, two teachers and two students were killed by a rocket strike that hit a school in Beni, North Kivu, during fighting between the FARDC and Corps du Christ, an armed religious sect.[704] Different agencies reported the following totals of attacks on schools across the different DRC regions in 2016: According to information provided by an international humanitarian organization, approximately 87 schools were attacked, set on fire, or looted in Kasai-Central by either the FARDC or militias between August and December 2016. [705] According to Amnesty International, civil society organizations and local leaders reported that more than 150 schools were destroyed by fires during clashes between the Batwa and Luba communities in the Tanganyika region. [706] In North Kivu, one international humanitarian agency found that, of 30 schools included in an intervention, nonstate armed groups attacked approximately 10 of them more than four times between 2015 and 2017. Another 10 were attacked at least three times.[707] Attacks on schools continued to escalate in 2017, both in eastern DRC and the Greater Kasai region. Non-state armed groups were responsible for most of these attacks.[708] An international humanitarian organization reported that there were nearly 100 attacks on schools in the east as of October 2017. This included one school in North Kivu, 68 schools in South Kivu, and 29 schools in Tanganyika.[709] In the Kasai region, 396 attacks on schools were verified in 2017.[710] Examples of attacks in both the east and the Kasai region included the following: According to Reuters, during heavy fighting between the military and militia members on June 22, 2017, a mortar attack on a school injured at least three students who were sitting for their exams in Beni, North Kivu. [711] In October 2017, the UN verified that a FARDC rocket hit a school in Butembo, North Kivu, killing two girls and two teachers and injuring four children.[712] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel The FARDC and various non-state armed groups reportedly beat, abducted, and killed several dozen students and teachers during the period from 2013 to 2017. For example, an international humanitarian agency found that 4 percent of students and 8 percent of teachers who were beneficiaries of a program implemented in Masisi territory, North Kivu, were attacked between 2015 and 2017.[713] Teachers and students were also killed in crossfire. The number of students and educators harmed was higher than the number reported in Education under Attack 2014, which reported only two incidents of attacks on students or education personnel. Most of these attacks occurred at the end of the reporting period. Indeed, only one case of an attack on a teacher was reported during the first three years. On October 26, 2013, a Hutu primary school director was killed near the village of Kavere during attacks by Raia Mutomboki in three villages in Masisi territory, North Kivu.[714] Beginning in 2016, attacks on students, teachers, and other education personnel were reported in both eastern DRC and the Greater Kasai region, including the following: Between August 2016 and May 2017, five education inspectors were killed in Kasai-Central. [715] As of June 8, 2017, an unknown number of teachers were attacked while transporting test sheets for students. [716] Militia members slapped a school inspector who was on his way to deliver school exams on or before May 2, 2017, reportedly in response to the fact that he was providing education in the areas under their control. [717] Men armed with machetes reportedly stopped a team from delivering exams to the village of Tshisuku and used their weapons to strike the head of the team on or before May 2, 2017. [718] Suspected militiamen temporarily abducted a team of education personnel that was traveling to Luiza on or before April 30, 2017. The team paid the militiamen to release them. [719] According to the UN and the Education Cluster, the Kamuina Nsapu militia attacked a truck delivering exam materials in Kazumba territory, Kasai-Central province, on April 30, 2017. The assailants killed three school inspectors, two of whom were women.[720] Military use of schools Government soldiers and armed groups reportedly used schools for military positions and lodging, and looted them for resources such as firewood. The length of military occupation documented by Human Rights Watch ranged from days to months.[721] Military use was also reported at schools in the Greater Kasai region toward the end of the reporting period. Reports of military use were more common than in the period covered in Education under Attack 2014, but it was not clear whether this finding was due to an actual rise in instances of military use or to better monitoring and reporting. The UN verified 25 incidents of military use of schools in 2013, including 13 cases by the FARDC.[722] A variety of parties other parties, including M23, FDLR, Nyatura groups, and Raia Mutomboki, were also responsible, according to Human Rights Watch.[723] Military use included the occupation of schools as strategic points and training grounds for varying lengths of time. For example: Human Rights Watch documented the occupation of a primary school in Kashenda village by government armed forces for 10 months starting in November 2012, although soldiers said they were positioned there to "secure the school."724 In March 2013, Nyatura combatants spent two nights in one school and looted it before leaving, according to Human Rights Watch. [725] In June 2013, the M23 used both a primary school and a former kindergarten in Chengerero, North Kivu, to train combatants, according to Human Rights Watch. [726] Human Rights Watch reported that, between November 2012 and at least July 2013, the FARDC used school grounds at the Institut Bweremana in Minova, conducting military parades and training exercises.[727] Military use was less commonly reported in 2014, with the UN verifying about half as many cases (12) as it had previous year. The UN also reported that in Shabunda territory, South Kivu, the FARDC and Raia Mutomboki used four and six schools respectively, which were later destroyed, looted, or had their materials burned during fighting in April 2014.[728] Military use continued in 2015, but successful advocacy led to armed groups vacating some schools. The UN verified information indicating that armed groups used 10 schools in 2015.[729] The FARDC reportedly used another 20 schools but vacated 13 following UN advocacy. 730 Military use continued to be reported in eastern DRC throughout 2016. The UN verified the military use of 19 schools, more than half of which were occupied by the FARDC.[731] In a study conducted in 2016 by an international humanitarian agency, the presence of an armed group at a school was the most common abuse: 29 percent of the 30 schools surveyed reported that armed actors entered classrooms during school hours.[732] An international humanitarian agency reported several examples of military use, including the following: Throughout the year, government security forces and armed groups reportedly occupied and partially damaged schools in North Kivu. These incidents occurred in at least four villages in Masisi territory, three villages in Nyiragongo territory, and two other villages. [733] In August 2016, the Mai Nyatura reportedly occupied Kishisha Primary School in Rutshuru territory. [734] An armed group attempted to occupy Mwandja Primary School in October 2016. The exact location of the school was unreported.[735] In 2016 and 2017, there were also reports that military use was occurring in the Greater Kasai region: According to the UN, the FARDC used four schools in the Kasai provinces at some point between September 2016 and June 2017, but left the schools following advocacy by the UN. [736] As of May 11, 2017, the Education Cluster reported that the military had occupied three to eight schools in Kananga, Kasai-Central province, for an unknown duration since the start of the conflict in the Greater Kasai region in August 2016.[737] Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school Anecdotal reports indicated that non-state armed groups in the eastern part of the country targeted students for recruitment. They reportedly abducted students at school or along school routes, including for sexual purposes, as described in the following section. GCPEA found a similar number of reports of child recruitment from schools or along school routes in the 2013-2017 and 2009-2013 periods. Some parents reportedly stopped sending their children to school for fear that armed groups would recruit them, according to the US State Department.[738] Incidents of child recruitment included the following: According to MONUSCO, between January 2012 and August 2013, Nyatura groups recruited 185 boys and 5 girls, 34 of whom were under 15 years of age. A Nyatura recruiter told MONUSCO that they were commanded to recruit "older boys" from schools. It was not clear what "older" meant. [739] On September 27, 2013, according to Human Rights Watch, NDC fighters abducted approximately 20 students from a primary school in Butemure, Walikale territory, North Kivu. They beat those trying to flee with sticks and bayonets, seriously injuring six students. [740] MONUSCO reported that the FDLR was responsible for the abduction of five children while on their way to school between January 1, 2012, and August 31, 2013. [741] Human Rights Watch reported a pattern of recruitment in February 2013, during which the FDLR recruited teachers and students from schools in Mpati territory. [742] On an unknown day in July 2013, the FDLR kidnapped 10 boys and three girls from the Bumbasha Institute, a secondary school in Rutshuru. All abducted children were reportedly forced to join the FDLR as combatants or forced laborers. [743] According to an international humanitarian organization, in 2014 and 2015, 51 school children were recruited from 12 schools the organization supported in unidentified provinces throughout the country. Thirteen of these children were later returned.[744] Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school Sexual violence by armed parties affected girls and women in DRC, including at school. An international humanitarian organization found that several out of 30 schools surveyed reported that students were subjected to sexual violence, including abduction and forced marriage, by armed actors along school routes.[745] GCPEA identified more incidents of sexual violence in the context of education in 2013-2017 than in 2009-2013. It was unclear whether this increase was due to stronger monitoring and reporting or to an intensification of conflict. Both military personnel and members of non-state armed groups reportedly targeted girls at schools for rape, forcing them to leave their classrooms or abducting them on the route to or from school. For example: Human Rights Watch reported in 2015 that M23 forced male students to bring female classmates to them. [746] Human Rights Watch reported that, on an unspecified date before June 2013, government soldiers caught a 16-year-old girl student and her female classmate while they were fleeing, but still on school grounds, and raped both girls. [747] In July 2013, a female teacher in Rutshuru territory told Human Rights Watch that M23 fighters came to her school three to four times per month and took girls away to rape them. [748] The Education Cluster reported on July 31, 2017, that Twa militia men reportedly abducted and raped three girls from a primary school in the Kabalo area. [749] The Education Cluster reported that on an unspecified date before July 31, 2017, Bantu militiamen abducted and raped eight girls from a primary school on the Nyunzu-Manono axis over the course of three months. [750] According to the Education Cluster, on an unspecified date before July 31, 2017, in the process of robbing a primary school in Manono town, an unidentified militia abducted and raped six school girls for over two months.[751] Attacks on higher education Police and other government security forces reportedly killed and injured nearly 100 student protesters from 2013-2017. Protest-related violence, which was the only reported type of attack on higher education students and institutions, took place primarily in Kinshasa. There were more attacks on higher education in the current reporting period than in the 2009-2013 period, when only two such incidents were reported. However, the increase may have been due to improved monitoring and reporting of attacks on higher education.[752] GCPEA identified reports of six incidents in which police used excessive violence against student protestors, which included the following: According to University World News, witnesses reported that in February 2013, after student protests at the Institut Superieur de Developpement Rural in Lubao turned violent and students threw stones, police opened fired on the crowd, killing two students and injuring seven others. [753] Reuters reported that in January 2015, during several days of demonstrations near the University of Kinshasa, police fired shots into the air amid thousands of students protesting President Kabila. [754] In the midst of these protests, on January 21, 2015, police also shot teargas into students' dormitory rooms at the University of Kinshasa, according to Human Rights Watch. [755] According FIDH, the violence killed at least 42 people. The authorities, on the other hand, claimed the death toll was five. [756] Human Rights Watch reported that at least 6 of those killed were students. [757] In November 2016, regional news sources stated that approximately 20 students at the Higher Institute of Applied Technology in Kinshasa were injured during protests against higher university fees. The same sources reported that the police shot students and fired teargas into classrooms during the protests. The police denied using lethal weapons. [758] According to Human Rights Watch, military intelligence officers arrested Ben Tshimanga, a student at Kinshasa's Institut Superieur des Techniques Medicales, on July 20, 2017, likely for his affiliation with an opposition political party. Students protested his arrest that evening, but they were reportedly dispersed by government security forces, who shot live bullets into the air. [759] The next day, July 21, 2017, an even larger group of students demonstrated outside the university's administrative building. Some of these students turned violent, throwing rocks and burning nearby vehicles. Human Rights Watch indicated that the police responded with teargas and live bullets, which hit several students. The same source reported that police beat and arrested many more students.[760] 678 "Crisis in North Kivu," IRIN, July 10, 2012. Human Rights Watch, "DRCongo: Chronology," August 21, 2009. 679 International Crisis Group, Kamuina Nsapu Insurgency Adds to Dangers in DRCongo (New York: International Crisis Group, 2017). 680 OCHA, "Democratic Republic of the Congo-Overview," November 2017, p. 1. 681 "DR Congo: New 'Kivu Security Tracker' Maps Eastern Violence," Human Rights Watch news release, December 7, 2017. 682 For further information on many of the armed parties in DRC, please see "The Eastern Congo," Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), October 2016. Elsa Buchanan, "Battle for control of the DRC: Who are the Raia Mutomboki?" International Business Times, October 29, 2015. Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," pp. 10-12. "Armed groups in eastern DRC," IRIN, October 31, 2013. 683 "About," MONUSCO, https://monusco.unmissions.org/en/about. 684 "DR Congo tops list of most newly displaced people in first half year," Norwegian Refugee Council news release, August 16, 2017. 685 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/203, para. 24 686 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 57. UN, Update on Allegations of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and Special Political Missions, May 17, 2016, p. 1. "DR Congo: UN peacekeepers face fresh sexual abuse claims," BBC News, April 28, 2017. 687 OCHA, 2017 Humanitarian Needs Overview Democratic Republic of Congo (2017 Besoins Apercu des Humanitaires Republique Democratique du Congo) (Kinshasa, DRC: 2016), p. 3. 688 Information shared by the Education Cluster via email on July 31, 2017. 689 "150,000 children," UNICEF. 690 Information shared by the Education Cluster via email on July 31, 2017. Information shared by a UN respondentvia email, September 2017. 691 Child Soldiers International, What the Girls Say (London: Child Soldiers International, 2017), pp. 17-19. 692 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email on July 31, 2017. 693 Information shared by the Education Cluster via email on August 2, 2017. 694 "150,000 children," UNICEF. Information shared by a UN respondent on September 18, 2017. 695 Information shared by a UN respondent on February 2, 2018. 696 Information shared by a UN respondent on September 18, 2017. 697 United Nations General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878-S/2014/339, para. 65. 698 Save the Children, Attacks on Education: The impact of conflict and grave violations on children's futures (London: Save the Children, 2013), p. 13. 699 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," S/2014/453, June 30, 2014, para. 48. 700 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," p. 25. 701 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General: Children and armed conflict," A/69/926-S/2015/409, para. 63. 702 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 49. 703 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 67. 704 "UNESCO and UNICEF honor the memory of teachers and students killed in North Kivu (DRC)" ("L'UNESCO et l'UNICEF saluent la memoire des enseignants et eleves tues au Nord Kivu [RDC]"), UNESCO press release, October 24, 2016. "DRC: tensions in Butembo"("RDC: tensions a Butembo"), RFI Afrique, October 16, 2016. 705 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email on November 16, 2017. 706 Amnesty International, World Report 2016/2017, Congo chapter. 707 Information shared by an international humanitarian agency, November 2017. 708 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email, December 14, 2017. 709 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email, December 14, 2017. 710 Information shared by a UN respondent, February 9, 2018. 711 "Heavy fighting in northeastern Congo, several wounded-residents," Reuters, June 22, 2017. 712 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 67. 713 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email, November 2017. 714 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," p. 23. 715 Information shared by the Global Education Cluster via email on August 2, 2017. 716 Information shared by the Global Education Cluster via email on August 2, 2017. 717 Information shared by the Global Education Cluster via email on August 2, 2017. 718 Information shared by the Global Education Cluster via email on August 2, 2017. 719 Information shared by the Global Education Cluster via email on August 2, 2017. 720 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/565, para. 16. Information shared by the Education Cluster via email on August 2, 2017. 721 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," p. 30. 722 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 65. 723 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," p. 27. 724 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," pp. 30-31. 725 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," p. 29. 726 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," p. 31. 727 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," p. 31. 728 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 63. 729 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 50. 730 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 50. 731 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 68. 732 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email, November 2017. 733 Information provided an international humanitarian organization on January 27, 2017. 734 Information provided by an international humanitarian organization on January 27, 2017. 735 Information provided by an international humanitarian organization on January 27, 2017. 736 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/565, para. 48. 737 Information shared by the Global Education Cluster via email on August 2, 2017. 738 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2015: Democratic Republic of the Congo," p. 29. 739 MONUSCO, "Child Recruitment by Armed Groups in DRC From January 2012 to August 2013," October 2013, p. 9, as cited in Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," pp. 21-22. 740 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," p. 17. 741 MONUSCO, "Child Recruitment by Armed Groups in DRC from January 2012 to August 2013," October 2013, p. 12. 742 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," p. 21. 743 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," p. 21. 744 Information provided by an international humanitarian organization on January 27, 2017 and in November 2017. 745 Information shared by an international humanitarian organization via email in November 2017. 746 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield." pp. 23. 747 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield," pp. 23. 748 Human Rights Watch, "Our School Became the Battlefield." p. 22. 749 Information shared by the Education Cluster via email on July 31, 2017. 750 Information shared by the Education Cluster via email on July 31, 2017. 751 Information shared by the Education Cluster via email on July 31, 2017. 752 Information shared a UN respondentvia email, September 18, 2017. 753 "Clashes between students and police hit province," University World News, March 16, 2013. 754 Aaron Ross, "Protests, calls for respect of constitution in Congo election row," Reuters, January 20, 2015. 755 "DR Congo: Deadly Crackdown on Protests," Human Rights Watch news release, January 24, 2015. 756 "DRC protesters killed in police crackdown," Al Jazeera, January 21, 2015. 757 "DR Congo: Deadly Crackdown on Protests." 758 "20 Congolese students injured in clashes with Kinshasa police during protest," Africanews, November 9, 2016. "5 DRC students shot in clashes with police," News24, November 10, 2016. 759 Ida Sawyer, "Crackdown on Students, Opposition as Government Blames Them for Kinshasa Attacks," Human Rights Watch Live Updates, August 2, 2017. 760 Ida Sawyer, "Crackdown on Students, Opposition as Government Blames Them for Kinshasa Attacks," Human Rights Watch Live Updates, August 2, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Central African Republic Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Central African Republic, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be94313a.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Attacks and military use affected hundreds of schools and tens of thousands of children in the Central African Republic. Teachers and students also faced the threat of physical harm from the crossfire of battles, and dozens were reportedly killed, assaulted, and abducted. Context Conflict in CAR began in late 2012, with the emergence of the Seleka, a largely Muslim coalition of former rebels that launched an assault to overthrow the government. Beginning in 2013, there were intercommunal clashes between the Seleka and anti-balaka militia, the other main combat group in the country.[512] In 2015 the Seleka fractured into multiple groups that continued to participate in hostilities (sometimes called "ex-Seleka).[513] Smaller armed groups were also active in CAR throughout the reporting period.[514] Eruptions of unrest continued, despite international peacekeeping efforts by the African Union, UN, EU, and France, and the peaceful election of a new government in March 2016.[515] As of November 2016, 2.[3] million people in CAR needed humanitarian aid and 380,000 were internally displaced.[516] By November 2017, an additional 200,000 people needed humanitarian aid and more than 600,000 were internally displaced.[517] Furthermore, the conflict placed women and girls at a high risk of rape by government security forces, non-state armed groups, UN peacekeepers, and foreign troops.[518] Parties to the conflict sometimes used sexual violence to humiliate and punish opponents.[519] By December 2017, the government and all 14 armed groups had signed a peace agreement, but clashes continued in the east.[520] The fighting between the Seleka and anti-balaka also escalated in the northwest in 2017.[521] OCHA and UNICEF reported that the violence kept children from going to school.[522] According to the Ministry of Education, the destruction and military use of schools were major challenges to education.[523] Media reports noted that, although most schools opened in the fall of 2016, more than 400 remained closed, leaving 10,000 children without access to an education.[524] CEDAW expressed concern in 2014 that the lack of security prevented female students in particular from returning to school.[525] The escalation of conflict in CAR in 2013 likely contributed to the uptick in attacks on education described in this report, relative to the numbers reported in Education under Attack 2014. CAR endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration in June 2015. Attacks on schools There were reports of more than 100 incidents of non-state armed groups and unidentified assailants targeting schools in the current reporting period, an increase in the rate of reported attacks on schools from the 20092013 period covered by Education under Attack 2014. Schools were continually attacked throughout the current reporting period. A series of Education Cluster assessments found that 17.[5] percent of purposefully sampled schools were attacked as of August 2013, 33 percent as of February 2014, and 38 percent as of April 2015, yet it was not clear that the rate of attacks on schools accelerated during this period.[526] The increased percentages of school attacks may instead have been cumulative. Attacks on schools included threats against educational personnel and military occupation of schools, and the Education Cluster noted that threats and military use often occurred in conjunction with attacks on schools.[527] The UN verified 36 attacks on schools during 2013, including looting, ransacking, and arson, which led to the closure of many schools.[528] In one of these cases, the Seleka burned down a school in Nana-Grebizi prefecture after school personnel refused to give their archives to the group.[529] The CAR Education Cluster assessment conducted in August 2013 found that 108 out of 176 assessed schools were looted, including by breaking windows and doors and stealing desks, blackboards, school cabinets, textbooks, official school documents, canteen equipment, and food.[530] Bullets or shells hit 16 of the assessed schools, and Seleka soldiers set three of the 176 assessed schools on fire.[531] During the second half of 2013, the Education Cluster also reported eight schools damaged by gunfire or explosives and three cases of arson.[532] As in 2013, looting continued to be the most common form of attack on schools in 2014. A second survey conducted by the Education Cluster in February 2014 found that 111 out of 384 randomly sampled schools had experienced an attack, 70 percent by looting.[533] These attacks also included military occupation. It was not clear whether any of these schools overlapped with those sampled by the Education Cluster during the previous year. Bangui, Ouham, and Ouaka were the hardest hit regions.[534] An Education Cluster database included 50 incidents of attacks on schools that occurred in 2014, with 30 cases of looting, 13 cases of schools hit by bullets or set on fire, and 7 cases in which the two forms of attack occurred in the same incident.[535] The rate of attacks on schools may have declined in 2015, despite the Education Cluster's finding that the cumulative number of schools attacked was higher in 2015 than in previous years.[536] The UN verified 19 attacks on schools in 2015, about half as many as in 2013.[537] Information from a random survey of 335 schools conducted by the Education Cluster in April 2015 found that some forms of attack were more common in some prefectures than in others. For example, schools were most commonly burned in Ouham and Ouham-Pende prefectures, looted in Ombella-Mpoko prefecture, and damaged by gunfire in Bangui.[538] The perpetrators were often unknown. Overall, however, looting continued to be a significant problem. An Education Cluster database included 43 cases of looting or vandalism, 22 instances in which schools were hit by bullets or set on fire, and 18 others in which the two types of attacks occurred.[539] Furthermore, almost every school with a food program visited by Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict between April and May 2015 had food supplies stolen, which led to decreased school attendance. Although Watchlist noted that armed groups specifically targeted school food programs, it was unclear who stole the food supplies.[540] A local NGO described one case of looting. On October 1, 2015, unknown vandals broke the gates and stole material from Mixed Schools 1 and 2 in Bozoum, Ouham-Pende prefecture. According to a local NGO, this was the third recorded act of vandalism in three months at the school, and the lack of material prevented parents from registering their children for the new school year.[541] Attacks on schools were reported far less frequently in 2016 and 2017, although it was not clear whether this indicated a decline in the number of incidents or was due to the availability of information. From June 2015 through March 2016, the Human Rights Division of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic found that armed groups perpetrated at least 23 attacks on schools.[542] MINUSCA also found 15 incidents of attacks on schools between April 2016 and March 2017.[543] The UN verified eight attacks on schools and education personnel in 2016, although it was not clear how many of these attacks fell into each category.[544] Anecdotal examples of attacks on schools in 2016 and 2017 included the following: Human Rights Watch and UNICEF reported that, in October 2016, armed men attacked a secondary school in Kaga-Bandoro during a teacher training course, killing three teachers in training, the director of the Regional Pedagogical Centre, and the vice president of the Association of Parents. According to Human Rights Watch, the Seleka was responsible. [545] According to reports to the Education Cluster, another theft occurred at night around November 2016, when the Seleka stole school kits from the Base Intersos School in Kaga-Bandoro town. [546] Fighting between the Popular Front for the Renaissance in the Central African Republic (FPRC) and the Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC) (l'Union pour la paix en Centrafrique) between December 2016 and at least April 2017 in Mourouba, Ouaka prefecture, damaged at least one school. Residents who spoke with Human Rights Watch researchers stated that the UPC gained control of the town in December, when they ransacked the town school and burned school documents. Residents fled the area. When they returned, the school was reportedly occupied by MINUSCA.[547] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Seleka and anti-balaka fighters, as well as unidentified assailants, reportedly threatened, assaulted, and killed dozens of students and teachers in both targeted attacks and from crossfire between opposing groups, including MINUSCA forces. Watchlist reported that armed groups intimidated teachers and students who were suspected of having links to opposing armed groups.[548] Anecdotal examples in 2013 and 2014 indicated that armed groups and unidentified perpetrators attacked education actors in Bangui, Nana-Grebizi, Ombella-M'Poko, and Ouham prefectures. For example: According to OHCHR, on April 25, 2013, Seleka fighters killed a teacher. [549] OHCHR reported that Seleka fighters tortured and killed a school guard in Yindjiama on January 5, 2014. The Seleka had attacked the school where the guard worked earlier. [550] According to the Education Cluster, students and education personnel were intimidated on several occasions in the same area of Bangui in September 2014. Anti-balaka fighters reportedly intimidated school personnel using grenades and assault rifles in the presence of school children and intimidated the school director at school and at home. All were public school students and personnel, but it was not clear whether all were associated with the same school. [551] The Education Cluster reported that, on October 1, 2014, anti-balaka members beat the director of the Gbawele School for authorizing the opening of the school. [552] The Education Cluster also documented that, on October 24, 2014, the deputy mayor of Bambari threatened personnel from the local school with grenades and arson, alleging that his children did not receive school supplies distributed by members of French military's Operation Sangaris.[553] NGO reports indicated that attacks on students and educators continued with some regularity during 2015, with dozens of school children and teachers threatened, injured, or killed by both non-state armed groups and international forces. An Education Cluster assessment published in April 2015 found that education personnel in nearly one-third of the attacked schools (approximately 40 schools) reported having been assaulted or threatened as part of the attack on their school.[554] An Education Cluster database included 10 instances of students and teachers being threatened or attacked by armed groups.[555] Examples of attacks on students and educators included the following: Watchlist reported that, in February 2015, armed groups killed three secondary students between the ages of 16 and 20 who were on their way home from school. The location and exact date of this incident were not specified. [556] The Education Cluster reported that around March 20, 2015, in Bossangoa, Ouham prefecture, passing Seleka fighters threatened a school director, set the school on fire, and burned everything, including all school documents. [557] On June 3, 2015, in the Boy Rabe neighborhood of Bangui, during a MINUSCA operation to recover a stolen vehicle near a high school, anti-balaka fighters reportedly used students as human shields and fired shots at the MINUSCA peacekeepers. According to RFI Afrique, students were shot or injured while trying to flee. MINUSCA documented that at least 80 students were taken to medical facilities for treatment.[558] While the situation in CAR appeared to improve in 2016, occasional attacks continued, often in the context of military use of schools, as described in the relevant section below. Anecdotal information indicated that there were at least sporadic attacks on teachers. For example: Human Rights Watch learned of an incident in July 2016, in Sekia-Dalliet, Lobaye prefecture, in which an anti-balaka fighter hit a teacher with a knife after the teacher tried to stop him from burning a school desk. [559] According to the UN, the FPRC/Central African Patriotic Movement coalition invaded a school and killed three teachers in Kaga-Bandoro in October 2016. 560 The UN also reported that, in October 2016, former Seleka members stabbed a teacher in Bamou.[561] GCPEA did not identify reports of any instances of attack on students or education personnel in 2017. Military use of schools and universities Reports indicated that foreign peacekeeping forces and non-state armed groups occupied dozens of schools annually in CAR, often staying for several years, which forced out students and teachers. According to Human Rights Watch, the armed groups occupying schools destroyed desks and books.[562] The current reporting period saw a rise in reports of military use of schools and universities over the 2009-2013 reporting period, likely due to the escalation of armed conflict since 2013. The UN received reports of 36 cases of military use of schools between December 2012 and December 2015, all by Seleka factions.[563] The Education Cluster reported 11 incidents of military use by the AU's mission known as MISCA (Mission Internationale de Soutien a la Centrafrique sous Conduite Africaine), MINUSCA, and French Operation Sangaris forces, which occurred between the start of the crisis in late 2012 and January 2015. The occupations ranged from weeks to months.[564] In 2013, the Education Cluster reported that armed forces and armed groups used 22 schools for between a few hours and several years. Four of these schools were also attacked and five were looted.[565] GCPEA found incidents of military use in Bangui, Bamingui-Bangoran, Haute-Kotto, Kemo, Nana-Grebizi, Ouham, Ombella-M'Poko, and Sangha-Mbaere prefectures. Examples of military use included the following: The UN collected information that, between December 2012 and January 2013, as the Seleka took control of major cities and advanced toward Bangui, it regularly occupied schools, including the primary school in Kaga-Bandoro and an unknown number of primary schools in Sibut. [566] According to Human Rights Watch, none of the three schools in Mbres, Nana-Grebizi prefecture, operated from 2013 to at least January 2017, even though the MPC and FPRC vacated at least two of them, because the armed groups remained near the grounds. [567] Human Rights Watch reported that Seleka fighters occupied the primary school in Mbali, Ouham prefecture, from August 2013 to July 2016. During that period, teachers asked the group to leave, and the fighters responded angrily by burning all the desks and books, which resulted in a lack of educational materials as of January 2017.[568] The Education Cluster recorded 46 cases of schools used by armed forces and armed groups in 2014. Of these, 15 schools were hit by bullets or set on fire and 20 were looted.[569] According to the UN, MISCA and Operation Sangaris forces used five schools temporarily in 2014.[570] GCPEA found incidents of military use in 11 of CAR's 14 prefectures: Bangui, Haut-Mbomou, Kemo, Mambere-Kadei, Mbomou, Nana-Grebizi, Nana-Mambere, Ombella M'Poko, Ouaka, Ouham, and Ouham-Pende. There was also one case of military use of a university. Examples of reported military use by non-state armed groups included the following: Starting in March 2014, the Seleka reportedly occupied a department in the University of Bangui for six months. According to Watchlist, the group then settled near the campus after government efforts forced them to leave. This forced the university administration to declare the department unsafe and relocate education personnel and students to an alternate campus. [571] A substitute teacher told Watchlist that, in May 2014, the Seleka established a base near a private school in an unknown location, where they used one of the classrooms, stored materials in the school building, and washed vehicles on school grounds. [572] Anti-balaka fighters reportedly occupied a primary school in Sekia-Dalliet from late 2014 through October 2016. Human Rights Watch learned that the fighters apparently destroyed chairs and at least 75 desks and damaged the building. [573] Human Rights Watch reported that the UPC intermittently used a primary school in Ngadja, Ouaka prefecture, including as a detention center, between October 2014 and January 2017. The UPC occupied this school more frequently after 2015. [574] The UN documented the use of a primary school in Boto, Nana-Grebizi prefecture, by FPRC elements as a base from which to launch attacks against the anti-balaka in December 2014 and January 2015.[575] Military use of schools appeared to become less common in 2015. The UN verified the military use of 16 schools and the Education Cluster documented the military use of 25 schools that year.[576] Seleka factions were responsible for 14 of the 16 cases verified by the UN.[577] Of the cases documented by the Education Cluster, nine occupied schools appeared to experience attacks from gunfire or fighting within the building, students and teachers were threatened in four schools, and eleven schools were looted.[578] Examples included the following: Seleka occupied a preschool from 2015 to at least January 2017, according to the Education Cluster. [579] The UN and the Education Cluster documented the occupation on January 20, 2015, of three primary schools in Bangui by anti-balaka groups that used them as bases. Violence prevented both teachers and students from returning to all three of these schools.[580] Although educational institutions continued to be used for military purposes, advocacy contributed to some groups vacating some schools in 2016.[581] The Education Cluster reported the occupation of 16 schools throughout the country, mostly by Seleka groups.[582] The UN verified 22 cases of military use and noted that, following condemnation by the UN, the MPC and the Front democratique du peuple centrafricain (Democratic Front of the Central African People) (FDPC) vacated six schools. The UPC and FRPC vacated three schools but later reoccupied them. MINUSCA troops occupied two schools in late 2016 and early 2017 but vacated them under orders once MINUSCA learned of the situation.[583] Furthermore, the UN verified the occupation of 10 schools from September 2016 to February 2017 in conjunction with increased fighting in the Bambari area and the towns of Kaga-Bandoro and Bria.[584] Other examples of military use in 2016 included the following: According to Human Rights Watch, the FDPC occupied a school in Zoukombo, Nana-Mambere prefecture, from May 20, 2016, until October 2016, when it vacated the premises. The group justified the occupation by claiming that they were waiting to participate in DDR programs. [585] According to the Education Cluster, Seleka occupied the school in Kouki, Ouham prefecture, from at least November 2016 until at least March 2017, and established a base near sub-prefectural schools A and B in Bantangafo commune, Bantangafo sub-prefecture, Ouham prefecture. [586] They also reportedly established a base near Saragba school in the same town. [587] According to Human Rights Watch, on December 12, 2016, UPC fighters took control of Bakala, Ouaka prefecture, and used a classroom of the Ecole Sous-Prefectorale to hold a small group of men captive. The next day the fighters gathered the townspeople for a meeting at the school and seized at least 24 men and a boy, killing most of them on the school grounds.[588] Military use of schools remained an ongoing problem in 2017, although advocacy continued to contribute to the vacating of some school buildings. MINUSCA reported that armed groups were occupying 11 schools as of March 31, 2017.[589] The UN also reported that four schools were occupied and looted between February 2017 and June 2017.[590] Anecdotal information indicated that a range of actors used schools that year: Human Rights Watch reported that that MINUSCA peacekeepers occupied a school in Mourouba, Ouaka prefecture, on January 22, 2017, despite a MINUSCA directive not to use schools. As occurred in 2016, the MINUSCA troops vacated the premises after Human Rights Watch informed MINUSCA authorities. [591] On February 21, 2017, UPC fighters reportedly occupied a school in Liwa, near Bambari. According to Education Cluster documentation, the UPC vacated the school in mid-March 2017 after an intervention by MINUSCA.[592] Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school or university Anecdotal information indicated that some armed groups raped and threatened to rape girls at, or en route to or from, school. For example, Human Rights Watch reported in October 2017 that Seleka and anti-balaka fighters committed sexual violence against women and girls who were conducting their daily tasks, such as going to market, farming, or going to school or work.[593] Specific reports of this type of attack were infrequent, as they were during the previous reporting period. This may be due to underreporting, as human rights organizations and news sources documented widespread sexual violence by various parties to the conflict.[594] The Education Cluster documented three instances of sexual violence between December 2012 and August 2014: On unspecified dates between December 2012 and August 2013, unknown perpetrators reportedly threatened female students with sexual violence in Kemo prefecture. [595] Also on unspecified dates between December 2012 and August 2013, unknown perpetrators allegedly raped girls in schools in Haute-Kotto prefecture. [596] In June 2014, anti-balaka militants in Kaga-Bandoro, Nana-Grebizi prefecture, reportedly lynched and raped the wife of a school director, whose husband was threatened by Seleka.[597] Attacks on higher education There was one reported attack on higher education during the reporting period, which occurred in 2016. No attacks on higher education were documented during the previous reporting period of 2009 to 2013. On March 14, 2016, the Human Rights Division of MINUSCA spoke with a male student who said he was shot by members of the armed forces during a student demonstration at the University of Bangui.[598] 512 International Security Sector Advisory Team, Report of the Joint Security Sector Reform Assessment Mission to the Central African Republic, May 18-26, 2014, pp. 4, 8. 513 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, CAR chapter. US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2016: Central African Republic," p. 1. 514 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017, CAR chapter. 515 AU Peace and Security Council, "Communique," PSC/PR/COMM.2(CCCLXXXV), July 19, 2013, para. 6. Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, Vulnerable Students, Unsafe Schools: Attacks and Military Use of Schools in the Central African Republic (New York: Watchlist, September 2015), p. 17. Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban, "US warns citizens to leave violence prone Central African Republic," Africanews, October 21, 2016. 516 "The Central African Republic: Hope reborn"("La Republique Centrafricaine: L'espoir renait"), Resau des Journalistes pour les Droits de l'Homme news release, November 16, 2016. 517 OCHA, "Humanitarian Bulletin: Central African Republic" ("Bulletin humanitaire: Republique centrafricaine"), November 2017, p. 1. 518 For a description of rapes by UN peacekeepers, French troops, and other European troops, see Catherine Wambua-Soi, "UN: Dealing with rape in Central African Republic," Al Jazeera, July 11, 2016. For a description of rapes by Ugandan soldiers, see "Central African Republic: Ugandan Troops Harm Women, Girls," Human Rights Watch news release, May 15, 2017. For a description of rapes by UN peacekeepers, see "Central African Republic: Rape by Peacekeepers," Human Rights Watch news release, February 4, 2016. For a description of rapes of boys by French soldiers, see Liesl Gerntholtz, "Dispatches: Abuse of Children Latest Horrors from Central African Republic," Human Rights Watch, May 11, 2015. 519 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/249, para. 20. 520 "Central African Republic spiralling into new crisis," Norwegian Refugee Council news release, July 17, 2017. "Central African Republic: Civilians Targeted in War," Human Rights Watch news release, July 5, 2017. Information shared by a UN respondent, February 17, 2018. 521 "CAR Situation," UNHCR, July 31, 2017. OCHA, "CAR: Incessant violence reaches same alarming levels as in 2014," July 13, 2017. 522 OCHA, "Central African Republic: Region: East-Weekly Situation Report No. 14 (09 April 2017)" ("Republique Centrafricaine: Region: Est Rapport hebdo de la situation no 14 [09 avril 2017]"), April 9, 2017, p. 5. "Children increasingly targeted for murder, rape in Central African Republic-UNICEF," UN News Service, July 18, 2017. 523 OCHA, "Humanitarian Response Plan, 2017-2019"("Plan de Reponse Humanitaire, 20172019"), November 2016, p. 8, as cited in Human Rights Watch, No Class, p. 13. 524 "Central African Republic: more than 10,000 children deprived of school" ("Republique centrafricaine: plus de 10 000 enfants prives d'ecole"), Africa News, October 1, 2016. 525 CEDAW, "Concluding observations on the combined initial and second to fifth periodic reports of the Central African Republic*," CEDAW/C/CAF/CO/1-5, July 24, 2014, para. 35. 526 CAR Education Cluster, Education Cluster Assessment on the State of Education in Central African Republic, April 2015, pp. 25. 527 CAR Education Cluster, Education Cluster Assessment, pp. 25. 528 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 42. 529 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 42. 530 CAR Education Cluster, A step back: The impact of the recent crisis on education in Central African Republic, September 2013, pp. 19-20. 531 CAR Education Cluster, A step back, pp. 22-23. 532 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 533 CAR Education Cluster, A leap into the unknown: state of education in CAR, distance assessment (Un saut dans l'inconnu: etat de l'education en RCA, Evaluation a distance), February 2014, p. 19-22. 534 CAR Education Cluster, A leap into the unknown, p. 20. 535 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 536 CAR Education Cluster, Education Cluster Assessment, pp. 25. 537 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836-S/2016/360, para. 38. 538 CAR Education Cluster, Education Cluster Assessment, p. 25. 539 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 540 Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, Vulnerable Students, pp. 23. 541 Alban Junior Namkomona, "New case of vandalism recorded at Bozoum mixed school 1" ("Nouveau cas de vandalisme enregistre a l'ecole mixte 1 de Bozoum"), RJHD Centrafrique news release, October 6, 2015. 542 MINUSCA, "Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) from 1 June 2015 to 31 March 2016," December 14, 2016, para. 44. 543 MINUSCA, "Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Central African Republic, From 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017," December 2017, para. 71. 544 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 41. 545 "UNICEF condemns attacks on teachers in Kaga-Bandoro, Central African Republic," UNICEF press centre, October 13, 2016. "Central African Republic: Deadly Raid on Displaced People," Human Rights Watch news release, November 1, 2016. 546 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, March 30, 2017. 547 Human Rights Watch, No Class, p. 20. 548 Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, Vulnerable Students, p. 24. 549 OHCHR, "Report of the Mapping Project documenting serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Central African Republic between January 2003 and December 2015," May 2017, p. 139. 550 OHCHR, "Report of the Mapping Project," p. 204. 551 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 552 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 553 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 554 CAR Education Cluster, Education Cluster Assessment, p. 25. 555 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 556 Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, Vulnerable Students, p. 26. 557 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 558 "CAR: dozens of students wounded in exchanges of fire in Bangui" ("RCA: des dizaines d'eleves blesses dans des echanges de tirs a Bangui"), RFI Afrique, June 5, 2015. "MINUSCA Firmly Condemns Attack on Blue Helmets in Bangui"("La MINUSCA Condamne Fermement l'Attaque Contre les Casques Bleus a Bangui"), MINUSCA press release, June 5, 2015, as cited in Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, Vulnerable Students, pp. 24-25. UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in the Central African Republic," S/2015/576, July 29, 2015, para. 42. 559 Human Rights Watch, No Class, pp. 16-17. 560 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 41. MINUSCA, "Report on the Human Rights, 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017," para. 71. 561 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 41. 562 Human Rights Watch, No Class, pp. 28-29. 563 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in the Central African Republic," S/2016/133, February 12, 2016, para. 34. 564 Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, Vulnerable Students, p. 29. 565 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 566 UN General Assembly, "Situation of human rights in the Central African Republic: Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights*," A/HRC/24/59, September 12, 2013, paras. 45-46. OHCHR, "Report of the Mapping Project," p. 114. 567 Human Rights Watch, No Class, pp. 25-26, 30. 568 Human Rights Watch, No Class, pp. 28-29. 569 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 570 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/133, para. 54. 571 Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, Vulnerable Students, p. 29. 572 Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, Vulnerable Students, p. 29. 573 Human Rights Watch, No Class, p. 28. 574 Human Rights Watch, No Class, p. 17. 575 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/133, para. 35. 576 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 38. Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 577 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 38. 578 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 579 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, March 30, 2017. 580 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2016/133, para. 35. Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 581 As an example of advocacy, see "MINUSCA demands the departure of armed groups from all occupied schools" ("La MINUSCA exige le depart des groupes armes de toutes les ecoles occupees"), MINUSCA press release, September 27, 2016. 582 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, March 30, 2017. 583 UN Secretary-General, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361-S/2017/821, para. 42. 584 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the Central African Republic," S/2017/94, February 1, 2017, para. 34. 585 Human Rights Watch, No Class, pp. 19-20. 586 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, March 30, 2017. 587 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, March 30, 2017. 588 Human Rights Watch, No Class, p. 20. 589 MINUSCA, "Report on the Human Rights, 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017," para. 71. 590 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on the Central African Republic," S/2017/473*, June 2, 2017, para. 34. 591 Human Rights Watch, No Class, pp. 20-22. 592 Human Rights Watch, No Class, p. 14. Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, March 30, 2017. 593 Human Rights Watch, "They Said We Are Their Slaves": Sexual Violence by Armed Groups in the Central African Republic (New York: Human Rights Watch, October 2017), p. 12. 594 For a description of rapes by UN peacekeepers, French troops, and other European troops, see Wambua-Soi, "UN: Dealing with rape." For a description of rapes by Ugandan soldiers, see "Ugandan Troops Harm Women." For a description of rapes by UN peacekeepers, see "Rape by Peacekeepers." For a description of rapes of boys by French soldiers, see Gerntholtz, "Dispatches." 595 CAR Education Cluster, A step back, p. 25. 596 CAR Education Cluster, A step back, p. 25. 597 Information shared by the CAR Education Cluster via email, July 29, 2016. 598 MINUSCA, "Report on the Human Rights Situation, 1 June 2015-31 March 2016," para. 48. 599 Maria Derks-Normandin, Building Peace in the Midst of Conflict: Improving Security and Finding Durable Solutions to Displacement in Colombia, Brookings Institution, 2014, pp. 2-6. Education Under Attack 2018 - Cameroon Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Cameroon, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be94314a.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Violence perpetrated by the Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram spilled over into the Far North region of Cameroon, resulting in several attacks on schools, students, and teachers, as well as military use of schools. Hundreds of schools closed due to a lack of security. During protests in Cameroon's Anglophone regions, government security forces reportedly detained or injured several teachers and students. Context Two factors caused the violence that affected education in Cameroon. First, the armed group Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad, commonly known as Boko Haram, whose moniker translates to "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language, accelerated attacks in the country in 2014. The group, which was founded in neighboring northeastern Nigeria, established a presence in Cameroon's Far North region in 2009.[460] Between March 2014 and March 2016, Boko Haram carried out more than 400 attacks on civilian infrastructure in the Far North region of Cameroon, including 50 suicide bombings by both adults and children.[461] Notably, Boko Haram suicide bombers in Cameroon were girls who had been recruited and forced to carry out the attacks.[462] The group also raided villages where it engaged in child recruitment, abductions, beheadings, arson attacks, and raids that affected people and property, including students, teachers, and schools.[463] The violence exacerbated ethnic tensions in the Far North, where the Kanuri ethnic group was stigmatized and associated with Boko Haram, even though no linkages between them were found.[464] The fear and insecurity caused by Boko Haram's activity in the region forced more than 240,000 people from their homes between 2014 and 2017.[465] The second cause of the violence that affected education in Cameroon stemmed from internal tensions between Cameroon's French-speaking majority and its English-speaking minority. In October 2016, lawyers from the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions went on strike in response to the perceived marginalization of the Anglophone minority, including the lack of English-language legal resources.[466] Journalists, students, teachers, and others in the Anglophone areas expanded the scope of the protests to include the imposition of French-language education. National security forces responded violently, killing at least four people during a crackdown in December 2016.[467] This violence led to more than a year of general strikes and school closures by Anglophone school authorities, as well as boycotts of schools still operating in other regions.[468] The violence escalated on October 1, 2017 a date usually marked by celebration of the reunification of Cameroon. Instead of celebrating, tens of thousands of people protested government repression in the Anglophone region, and secessionist groups declared the symbolic independence of "Ambazonia." Security forces responded with excessive force, including live ammunition and teargas. This resulted in at least 40 deaths and more than 100 injured protesters, and more than 500 protesters were detained.[469] Cameroon did not meet the criteria necessary for inclusion in Education under Attack 2014. Therefore, no comparisons with the previous reporting period can be made. During the current reporting period, attacks on education became more frequent after Boko Haram expanded its operations in the Far North in 2014. Attacks in the Anglophone areas of the country started after anti-government protests there began in October 2016, increasing in frequency through the end of 2017. Attacks on schools Arson attacks, bombings, and raids reportedly damaged schools, especially after Boko Haram increased its activity in the Far North region in 2014. The US Department of State reported that the group had damaged or destroyed hundreds of classrooms in 2016.[470] In addition, there were several dozen arson attacks on schools in Anglophone areas in 2017, after the outbreak of protest-related violence. According to UNICEF, 120 schools in the Far North were forced to close as a result of attacks on infrastructure and personnel throughout the 2014-2015 academic year.[471] By December 2014, 69 schools remained affected by closure, damage, or intermittent operations, according to IRIN.[472] UNICEF stated that 33,163 children were out of school or had to seek education outside their own communities as a result of school closures between 2014 and 2015.[473] In this context, attacks on schools included the following: Amnesty International attributed an arson attack to Boko Haram, which reportedly burned down a primary school in Greya, Far North region, on August 18, 2014. [474] According to witness testimony reported to Amnesty International, Boko Haram destroyed a school in Amchide, Far North region, on October 15, 2014. [475] Boko Haram set fire to a school in Tourou, Far North region on an unknown day in 2014, killing or wounding several children and causing the school to close for approximately two years, according to international media.[476] Attacks on schools by Boko Haram continued into 2016 and may have accelerated. The US Department of State reported that the group damaged and destroyed hundreds of classrooms and that the government shut down hundreds of schools due to security concerns in the Far North region.[477] Other agencies and media sources also reported attacks on schools, including the following: The UN reported that members of Boko Haram detonated explosive devices at Bodo primary school on January 25, 2016. Ten children were killed and 20 others were injured in this attack and a simultaneous explosion in a market. [478] On January 28, 2016, two suicide bombers entered a school in Kerawa village in the Far North region and detonated their devices, killing four people. According to media reports, the school was hosting Nigerian refugees at the time of the incident. [479] Media sources indicated that on February 19, 2016, two suicide bombers detonated their devices near a school in Tokombre town, Far North region. The sources attributed the attack to Boko Haram.[480] In September 2017, the government delegate in charge of elementary education in the Far North region reported to Voice of America that dozens of schools in the area remained closed due to a lack of security. 481 Media sources reported that Boko Haram was responsible for two attacks on schools in 2017: Boko Haram detonated suicide bombs behind a high school full of students on April 3, 2017, in Mora, Far North region, according to international media. There were no reported casualties in the blast. [482] Boko Haram set fire to a school in Vouzi town, Far North province, on November 13, 2017.[483] In addition, 2017 saw arson and IED attacks on schools linked to the protests and boycotts spreading through the Anglophone areas in reaction to the government's perceived discrimination against the English-speaking population. The International Crisis Group (ICG) reported in December 2017 that armed "self-defense" groups had begun carrying out arson attacks on schools, as well as shops and markets.[484] Amnesty International reported that at least 30 schools in the region were severely damaged through arson between January and September 2017.[485] These attacks reportedly contributed to school closures. For example, schools in Buea, the capital of the Anglophone southwest, remained closed at the beginning of the September 2017 academic year, after having been shuttered the entire previous year due to protest-related violence and boycotts.[486] Attacks on schools in the Anglophone region, some of which were likely included in the totals above, include the following: An arson attack targeted the Baptist Comprehensive High School in Bamenda, the capital of the Anglophone northwest, on August 13, 2017. Following the attack, parents reported to Voice of America that educating their children was no longer safe. [487] According to news sources, after security forces shot and killed a 17-year-old boy in Kifem, northwest Cameroon, in early September 2017, protesters burned a school and government building. [488] The BBC reported that an IED was found outside a secondary school in Bamenda on October 20, 2017, and was safely detonated by security forces. [489] According to news sources, unknown perpetrators burned down four schools in Jakiri in the northwest. These included Jakiri Bilingual High School in Jakiri town, which armed men set on fire after threatening two guards at the school on November 4, 2017.[490] These attacks occurred amid calls for the schools to remain closed until the situation in the Anglophone region was resolved.[491] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Teachers reportedly fled their communities to escape raids and targeted attacks by Boko Haram, and students were killed in at least one attack by the same group between 2013 and 2017.[492] Child Soldiers International reported that national security forces detained children, especially those studying in Quranic schools, supposedly to prevent them from becoming involved in or being recruited by Boko Haram, despite a lack of evidence suggesting that they were at increased risk of recruitment.[493] In addition, government forces repressed protests against the imposition of French-language classes and curriculum in Anglophone areas from October 2016 onward. This included violence against student and teacher protesters.[494] GCPEA collected information on one or two attacks on students and personnel per year, beginning when the confrontation between Boko Haram and government forces intensified in 2014 and continuing when protests broke out in the Anglophone region in 2016. In 2014, there were at least two incidents of national security forces detaining students for supposed involvement with Boko Haram: According to Amnesty International and international media, three students were arrested for sharing via text message a joke about how Boko Haram would not recruit students with low exam results. The security forces reportedly transferred the students to prison on January 14, 2015, and held them in ankle chains for four months. They were charged under the Cameroonian Penal Code and Cameroonian Military Code on March 3, 2015, and found guilty of "non-denunciation of terrorism related information" on November 2, 2016. They were sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the same sources. [495] Amnesty International reported that security forces raided Quranic schools in Guirvidig, Far North region, and arrested 84 children on December 20, 2014. The government claimed that the schools were being used as Boko Haram training camps and reportedly held the children for more than six months without allowing them access to their families. The children were released in June 2015.[496] Attacks by Boko Haram affected students in at least one case in 2015. According to a Christian news source and local media, nine students were burned to death in an attack on the village of Kamouna, Far North region, by 80 members of Boko Haram on July 19, 2015.[497] Teachers reportedly fled or decided that the schools were too dangerous for them to work in as the violence progressed. According to Voice of America, the Cameroonian government stated that at least 500 teachers in the Far North did not report for duty at the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year.[498] Meanwhile, in the Anglophone southwest and northwest, negotiations between the government and the teachers' union progressed in 2017. 499 Nevertheless, there were two attacks on students or teachers: Unidentified assailants reportedly attacked one student in Limbe in the southwest in January 2017, allegedly because he was French speaking and did not want to participate in the boycott of French-language education in English schools. [500] An IED exploded on the grounds of a teachers' training school in Limbe, southwest region, on September 22, 2017. The school's security guard was injured in the blast, according to news sources.[501] Military use of schools Armed groups reportedly used more than a dozen schools in the Far North region as bases and torture centers from the beginning of the increased violence between Boko Haram and government forces in 2014, continuing through the end of the reporting period in 2017. UNICEF stated that eight percent of 110 schools surveyed during a needs assessment in the Far North in 2015 reported being occupied by armed groups since the onset of the confrontation between national security forces and Boko Haram in 2014.[502] The UN also reported in May 2017 that national armed forces used 15 schools in the Far North for an unknown period of time. In April 2017, seven of these schools had been vacated and the other eight were still in use. The occupation of the schools denied approximately 8,000 children access to education.[503] For example, according to information provided to Amnesty International, which included a video that Amnesty authenticated, Public School Number 2 in Fotokol, Far North region, was used by Cameroonian national forces from May 2014 until at least June 2017. The information indicated that the school was used as a site to detain and torture suspected members of Boko Haram between May 2014 and October 2016. The school reopened in November 2016, but information obtained by Amnesty International showed that national security forces still used the school in June 2017 and that soldiers shared the space with school children. Local sources informed Amnesty International that nine detainees were still held at the school as of June 1, 2017.[504] Police officers also were present around schools in the Anglophone region in September 2017, although it was unclear whether the officers were stationed on the school grounds. African News reported that, when some schools in the Anglophone regions opened at the beginning of the 2017-2018 academic year in September 2017, there was a heavy police presence around the schools, supposedly to prevent protests from interrupting classes.[505] It was unclear whether the police were on school grounds. Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school or university In Cameroon, the ICG found that Boko Haram recruited young men with promises of money and marriage, and that abducted girls became the wives of Boko Haram fighters, similar to the group's practices in Nigeria.[506] GCPEA did not find reports of sexual violence by Boko Haram in the context of education, but this could be the result of underreporting of such violations. There was at least one report of sexual violence in the context of the protests in Anglophone areas. Local media indicated that security forces raped and detained students at the University of Buea and the University of Bamenda in conjunction with their supposed involvement with the protests in December 2016, as discussed below.[507] Attacks on higher education Attacks on higher education occurred in the context of the anti-government protests in Anglophone regions that started in October 2016. Government efforts to repress this opposition resulted in at least three reported incidents of violence committed against university students in late 2016, and one arrest of a university professor in early 2017. These incidents included the following: Scholars at Risk and international media indicated in late November 2016 that state security forces reportedly attacked students participating in a peaceful protest at the University of Buea in Southwest region. An unknown number of students were detained. [508] Local media reported that students at the University of Buea and the University of Bamenda were raped, tortured, and pulled from their dormitories before being arraigned in court for supposedly protesting on an unspecified date in December 2016. [509] On January 17, 2017, security forces arrested Dr. Fontem A. Neba, a professor at the University of Buea, in connection with a strike that began the day before. Dr. Neba was placed in a detention cell and was reportedly subject to inhumane treatment while in detention, which lasted until at least February 2017. [510] In the early morning of October 1, 2017, government security forces raided the hostels at the University of Bamenda in Northwest region, reportedly harming students, lecturers, and their families, according to University World News.511 GCPEA did not find reports of Boko Haram attacks on universities and their students and personnel in the Far North during the reporting period. 460 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/304, paras. 9-10. 461 Child Soldiers International, Submission to the 75th pre-session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child CAMEROON (London: Child Soldiers International, August 2016). International Crisis Group, "Cameroon: Confronting Boko Haram" (Brussels: International Crisis Group, November 2016), p. i. 462 International Crisis Group, "Cameroon," p. 11, 13. 463 US State Department et al., Cameroon 2016 Human Rights Report, 2017, p. 1. 464 International Crisis Group, "Cameroon," p. ii, 3-5. 465 Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2017/18: The State of the World's Human Rights-Cameroon (London: Amnesty International, February 2018). 466 Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2016/17: Cameroon, p. 107. 467 Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2016/17: Cameroon, p. 107. "Cameroon urged to investigate deaths amid anglophone protests," Guardian, December 13, 2016. 468 International Crisis Group, "Cameroon's Anglophone Crisis at the Crossroads"(Brussels: International Crisis Group, August 2017), p. 20. Moki Edwin Kindzeka, "English-speaking Students Do Not Return to School in Cameroon," Voice of America, September 4, 2017. 469 International Crisis Group, Cameroon: A Worsening Anglophone Crisis Calls for Strong Measures (Brussels: International Crisis Group, October 2017), pp. 1-5. "Death toll rises in Anglophone regions after severe repression," International Federation for Human Rights news release, October 8, 2017. "Cameroon: Inmates 'packed like sardines' in overcrowded prisons following deadly Anglophone protests," Amnesty International news release, October 13, 2017. 470 US State Department et al., Cameroon 2016, p. 31. 471 UNICEF, The Impact of Boko Haram and Armed Conflict on Schooling in Cameroon's Far North, February 2015, p. 3. 472 "Boko Haram hits north Cameroon schools," IRIN News, December 1, 2014. 473 UNICEF, The Impact of Boko Haram, p. 3. 474 Amnesty International, Human Rights Under Fire: Attacks and Violations in Cameroon's Struggle with Boko Haram (London: Amnesty International, 2015), p. 68. 475 Amnesty International, Human Rights Under Fire, p. 27. 476 Moki Edwin Kindzeka,"Tens of Thousands of Cameroon Students Without Teachers," Voice of America, October 5, 2016. 477 US State Department et al., Cameroon 2016, p. 31. 478 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/304, para. 50. 479 "Suicide bombers kill four in north Cameroon school," Reuters, January 28, 2016. 480 Moki Edwin Kindzeka, AP, "4 suicide bombers target market, school in Cameroon, kill 22," Seattle Times, February 19, 2016. Neha Singh, "20 killed in Cameroon market suicide attack," International Business Times India, February 19, 2016. 481 Moki Edwin Kindzeka "Low Turnout as Cameroon Reopens 40 Schools in Far North," Voice of America, September 7, 2017. 482 "Cameroon: Two female Boko Haram bombers killed in suicide blast in the Far North region," Cameroon-Concord, April 4, 2017. 483 "Education under Attack Monthly News Brief," Insight Insecurity, November 2017, p. 2. 484 "Cameroon's Anglophone Crisis: Dialogue Remains the Only Viable Solution," International Crisis Group statement, December 21, 2017. 485 Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2017/18, Cameroon. 486 "Boycott leads to heavy security in schools in Cameroon's anglophone region," Africa News, September 5, 2017. 487 Kindzeka, "Cameroon School." 488 "Violent Unrest in Northwest Cameroon as Strike Tensions Simmer," VoA News, September 5, 2017. 489 "Cameroon senior school targeted by blast," BBC News, October 20, 2017. 490 Peter Kum and Felix Nkambeh Tih, "1 gendarme killed, school burned in northwest Cameroon," Andolu Agency, November 7, 2017. 491 Peter Kum and Felix Nkambeh Tih, "1 gendarme killed." "1 policeman killed." 492 Ngala Killian Chimtom,"Boko Haram Insurgents Threaten Cameroon's Educational Goals," Inter Press Service, January 14, 2015. 493 Child Soldiers International, Submission to the 75th, p. 2. 494 Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2016/17: Cameroon, p. 107. 495 "Cameroon: Thousands worldwide demand release of students jailed for sharing Boko Haram joke," Amnesty International news release, May 23, 2017. Tunde Fatunde, "Calls for release of students jailed over Boko Haram joke," University World News, May 26, 2017. 496 "Cameroon: Hundreds slaughtered by Boko Haram and abused by security forces," Amnesty International, September 16, 2015. "Cameroon: End six-month illegal detention of 84 children held following Quranic school raid," Amnesty International, June 19, 2015. Amnesty International, Human Rights Under Fire, p. 38. 497 "Cameroon: Nine students burned to death in suspected Boko Haram attack," Christian Today, July 21, 2015. "9 pupils burnt to death in Boko Haram attack," Pulse.ng, July 20, 2017. 498 "Tens of Thousands." 499 "Cameroun-Crise anglophone/Limbe: Un eleve brutalise par la population pour avoir voulu se rendre a l'ecole," Cameroon-Info.Net, January 16, 2017. 500 "Cameroun-Crise anglophone." 501 "Homemade bombs rock Anglophone Cameroon," APA News, September 22, 2017. 502 UNICEF, The Impact of Boko Haram, p. 3. 503 Information shared by a UN respondent via email, May 2017. 504 Amnesty International, Cameroon's Secret Torture Chambers: Human Rights Violations and War Crimes in the Fight against Boko Haram (London: Amnesty International, 2017), p. 46. 505 "Boycott leads." 506 International Crisis Group, "Cameroon," p. 14. 507 "Cameroon-Killings, Rape and Torture Scare students from Campuses," allAfrica, December 30, 2016. 508 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Buea, November 28, 2016. "Students in Cameroon beaten and intimidated for protesting," France 24, December 1, 2016. 509 "Cameroon-Killings." 510 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, University of Buea, January 17, 2017. "Fears for jailed activists as Cameroon cracks down on anglophone minority," Guardian, February 2, 2017. 511 Tunde Fatunde, "President cracks down on, shuts Anglophone universities," University World News, October 10, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Burundi Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Burundi, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be94315a.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Government security forces in Burundi reportedly arrested more than 70 primary and secondary students and used more than a dozen primary and secondary schools in the capital as bases. Grenade attacks by unknown assailants impacted several schools. Context Burundi faced an escalating political crisis starting in April 2015, when President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third term in office, despite the two-term limit on the presidency.[426] Government intelligence services, police, Imbonerakure (the youth militia of the ruling party) and the military repressed protests and cracked down on the opposition, particularly activists and journalists.[427] The UN and human rights groups documented patterns of torture, ill treatment, and sexual violence, including the rape and forced impregnation of government opponents, which often appeared to target Tutsi women or women associated with the opposition, at the hands of the police, military, and Imbonerakure.[428] During just the first few months of the crisis, thousands fled their homes to neighboring countries.[429] As of February 2017, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that nearly 150,000 were internally displaced, and as of March 2017, UNHCR reported that more than 400,000 Burundians were refugees, over half of whom fled to Tanzania.[430] After April 2015, NGO and UN sources reported that the crisis, economic hardship, and food insecurity contributed to rising school dropout rates and increased insecurity inside and near schools.[431] According to a report by the Forum pour le Renforcement de la Societe Civile (Forum for the Strengthening of Civil Society), dropout rates in Bujumbura rose more acutely among boys than girls. Education officials contended that the political crisis had led to "criminal repression" of boys.[432] Armed actors affiliated with the government were responsible for the majority of attacks on education in Burundi. These attacks typically affected student protesters, whose activities ranged from doodling on pictures of the president in textbooks to holding demonstrations. Burundi did not meet the threshold for inclusion in the 2014 edition of Education under Attack, so GCPEA was unable to make comparisons with the previous reporting period. Attacks on schools GCPEA found information indicating that there were sporadic grenade attacks that affected schools in 2015 and 2016. The UN and other sources noted a pattern of grenade blasts affecting schools between April and November 2015, although these reports did not indicate the frequency of these incidents. Incidents identified by GCPEA included the following: The UN reported that on June 16, 2015, a grenade allegedly hit a school in Bujumbura, wounding a 15-year-old boy. [433] A police officer attributed the attack to demonstrators opposed to the president's bid for a third term. [434] On June 29, 2015, a grenade attack hit a school in Bururi province. Elections were scheduled in the province for later that day. According to the UN, the attack prompted children to flee the school, but no one was injured. Upon the children's return, they reportedly found the military in their school. It was not clear whether the military was using the school or responding to the grenade attack. [435] On April 27, 2016, a local radio station alleged that a grenade exploded in a schoolyard in Gihanga, Bubanza province, killing one student. The perpetrator and motivation of the attack were unclear. [436] According to another local radio station, on June 14, 2016, a grenade exploded next to a primary school in Ngozi province, killing two people and injuring five more. Two of those injured were school children. The grenade exploded in an army corporal's pocket, and it was not clear whether the attack was intentional.[437] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel The US Department of State indicated that the government detained, arrested, and imprisoned at least 70 students and teachers during the reporting period.[438] The majority of these individuals were students who were arrested in 2016 for doodling on pictures of the president in textbooks. However, there were also occasional reports in 2015 of armed groups targeting students and teachers inside schools, and of violence affecting students along school routes. Intimidation and insecurity characterized attacks on students and educators in 2015. In the lead-up to the presidential election, from April to July 21, 2015, dozens of individuals reported that the Imbonerakure entered schools and houses to threaten individuals who did not support President Nkurunziza, according to the Federation International des ligues des droits de l'Homme (International Federation for Human Rights) (FIDH).[439] Education International reported that the government had continued to harass teachers since the outbreak of unrest in April 2015, and that as of October 2015, 253 teachers had fled the capital in search of safer locations.[440] Reports also indicated that violent outbreaks during protests affected students and teachers on their way to and from school. For example, according to Info Afrique, in May 2015 students' access to testing centers was constrained by clashes between police and protesters.[441] Attacks on individuals took a different form in 2016, and students bore the brunt of government repression. According to the US Department of State, more than 70 students were arrested in 2016 for protesting President Nkurunziza by doodling on his image in textbooks while in class.[442] At least 38 students were arrested in Cankuzo, Muramvya, and Rumonge provinces in June alone.[443] The US State Department reported that, from May to July 2016, 440 students were suspended and 73 were detained for defacing pictures of the president in school textbooks.[444] These arrests included the following incidents: According to FIDH and Al Jazeera, on June 3, 2016, the police arrested five girls and six boys in Muramvya, charging them with "contempt of the Head of State."445 Reporting on the same incident, Human Rights Watch documented eight arrests. [446] NGOs and news sources reported that, later that same day, June 3, 2016, police used live bullets to disperse students who were peacefully protesting the arrest of those 11 students. Two students were injured. The police released 6 of the 11 arrested students on June 7, 2016, and later released 3 more. Two students, Alexis Mugerowimana and Perfect Iradukunda, remained in police detention, and as of October 2017 there was no information on their release. [447] FIDH reported that the police arrested 11 students in Bweru Commune, Cankuzo province, on June 17, 2016, also for doodling on pictures of the president. A week later police arrested 16 secondary students from the Lycee Communal, Rumonge province, for allegedly committing the same offense. All students were eventually released during the following weeks.[448] On May 12, 2016, the police arrested a history teacher for unclear reasons after allegedly beating him in front of his secondary students in the Lycee Communal Mugamba in Bururi province. More than 1,400 students protested his arrest by refusing to return to class, according to a local news source.[449] Military use of schools UN and NGO reports indicated that government security forces used at least 16 schools in Bujumbura during the reporting period. The majority of these cases were reported during 2016. Reports of school occupation by police or military included the following: In December 2015, government security forces allegedly used one school as a police post in Bujumbura's Musaga neighborhood, according to Amnesty International. [450] In March 2016, FIDH reported the use of four schools in Bujumbura. Police allegedly used the Municipal Lycee in the Musaga neighborhood and the Municipal Lycee in Cibitoke neighborhood, while the military allegedly used the basic school of the Ngagara 3 neighborhood and the primary school of the Ngagara 5 neighborhood. [451] In May 2016, the UN independent investigation of Burundi documented police use of 16 schools in Bujumbura. The investigation reported that the police had occupied 10 of these schools for an extended period of unspecified length.[452] It is possible that some of these 16 schools overlapped with the four schools that FIDH documented as being used by the police or military in March 2016. Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school or university Based on available information, GCPEA identified one case of sexual violence against a male student en route to school. The UN independent investigation reported that, in May 2015, students active in the Imbonerakure abducted a male classmate and took him to a house, where he was handcuffed and raped by three men because he had refused to join the Imbonerakure.[453] Such cases of sexual violence may have been underreported, given allegations that government security forces systematically used sexual violence to persecute perceived opponents, particularly women and girls. 454 Attacks on higher education The crisis had a general effect on higher education, with some universities, particularly in the capital, closed for varying periods of time.[455] For example, the Burundi branch of the Akilah Institute for Women closed in April 2015, due to increasing violence and insecurity for students en route to the campus.[456] Attacks directly targeting higher education were more sporadic, according to information collected by GCPEA. Arrests and the threat of violence affected university students in at least two incidents that occurred after the start of the crisis: The New York Times reported that, in late April 2016, students fled the University of Burundi in Bujumbura after the government closed it down. [457] More than 500 of these students set up a protest camp next to the US embassy, seeking its protection. The students remained there for several weeks. Police broke up their camp on June 22, 2016, after which some students crawled under the gate or threw themselves over the walls of the embassy. The students stayed in the parking lot of the embassy for the rest of the day, expressing fear for their lives if they left. [458] Radio France Internationale Afrique reported that two students of the University of Burundi were arrested on April 1, 2017, while demonstrating against a government decree that would transform their tuition grants into loans.[459] 426 "Burundi delays elections amid Pierre Nkurunziza third-term bid," BBC News, June 4, 2015. "Burundi: Attacks by Ruling Party Youth League Members," Human Rights Watch news release, January 19, 2017. 427 "Burundi: Attacks by Ruling Party." "Burundi: UN human rights experts urge strong action in light of 'widespread' violations," UN News Centre, September 20, 2016. 428 "Burundi: UN human rights." "Burundi: Attacks by Ruling Party." UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/249, paras. 86-87. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Repression and genocidal dynamics in Burundi (Paris: FIDH, 2016), pp. 88-92. 429 "Thousands of Children Fleeing Burundi Conflict Alone," Save the Children, June 8, 2015. Azad Essa, "The refugee children of the Burundi crisis," Al Jazeera, July 7, 2015. 430 UNICEF, "Burundi Humanitarian Situation Report," March 31, 2017, pp. 1-2. "Burundi Situation," UNHCR Operational Portal: Refugee Situations, December 27, 2017. 431 Forum pour le renforcement de la societe civile (FORSC), Impact of the political and economic crisis on education in Burundi (Bujumbura: FORSC, 2017), p. 6. UNICEF, "Burundi Humanitarian Situation," p. 2. 432 FORSC, Impact, p. 7. 433 "Statement attributable to UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern & Southern Africa, Leila Gharagozloo-Pakkala, on school attack in Burundi," UNICEF press centre, June 19, 2015. 434 "UNICEF: Attack on Bujumbura School a Senseless Tragedy," VoA News, June 21, 2015. 435 "Children bearing brunt." 436 "Bubanza, student killed by a grenade in school compound"("Bubanza, un ecolier tue par une grenade dans les enceintes de l'ecole"), Radio Isanganiro, April 28, 2016. 437 "Ngozi: Two dead and five wounded in a grenade explosion" ("Ngozi: Deux morts et cinq blesses dans une explosion de grenade"), Iwacu Burundi, June 14, 2016. 438 US State Department et al., "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices-2016: Burundi," 2017, p. 8. 439 FIDH, Repression, p. 144. 440 "Burundi: teachers' perilous working conditions to be addressed," Education International, October 28, 2015. 441 Leonidas Nzigamasabo, "Clashes and scenes of torture in Burundi"("Affrontements et scenes de torture au Burundi"), Info Afrique, May 8, 2015. 442 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2016: Burundi," p. 8. 443 Carina Tertsakian, "Dispatches: Students Jailed for Doodling in Burundi," Human Rights Watch, June 20, 2016. 444 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2016: Burundi," p. 8. 445 FIDH, Repression, pp. 129-130. Tertsakian, "Dispatches."Teens Arrested for Defacing Burundi President Photo," Al Jazeera, June 4, 2016. "Burundi police shoot at students protesting against colleagues' arrest," Reuters, June 3, 2016. 446 Tertsakian, "Dispatches: Students Jailed." 447 FIDH, Repression, pp. 129-130. Tertsakian, "Dispatches."Teens Arrested." "Burundi police shoot." 448 FIDH, Repression, p. 130. 449 Diane Uwimana, "When arrests cause trauma " ("Quand les arrestations provoquent des traumatismes "), Iwacu, May 25, 2016. 450 Amnesty International, "My Children Are Scared": Burundi's Deepening Human Rights Crisis (London: Amnesty International, 2015), p. 5. 451 FIDH, Repression, p. 82. 452 UN General Assembly and HRC, "Report of the United Nations Independent Investigation on Burundi," A/HRC/33/37, para. 87. 453 UN General Assembly and HRC, "Report on Burundi," para. 61. 454 "Burundi: UN human rights." "Burundi: Attacks." UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2017/249, paras. 86-87. FIDH, Repression, pp. 88-92. 455 Munyaradzi Makoni, "Universities close, students suffer in poll protests," University World News, May 8, 2015. 456 Karen Sherman, "The Impact of Conflict on Women's Access to Education: Spotlight on Burundi," Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, May 12, 2015. "Akilah Institute Burundi closed, a few students on Kigali Campus," Akeza.net, December 16, 2015. "Temporary Closure of Burundi Campus," Akilah Institute, May 6, 2015. 457 Marc Santora, "Grenades, Fear and Uncertainty Become Routine as an Election Nears in Burundi," New York Times, June 26, 2015. 458 Santora, "Grenades, Fear." "Burundi: Students Camp in Front of US Embassy"("Burundi: des etudiants campent devant l'ambassade americaine"), rtbf.be, April 30, 2015. 459 "Protests against the removal of scholarships in Burundi: 2 students arrested" ("Protestations contre la suppression des bourses au Burundi: 2 etudiants arretes"), RFI Afrique, April 1, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Bangladesh Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Bangladesh, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be9431634.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Explosive devices were used to target schools in Bangladesh during the elections in January 2014, when many educational institutions were used as polling stations. Attacks on higher education, often involving improvised explosive devices detonated by unknown assailants, occurred on dozens of university campuses and were the most frequent type of attack on education. Context Bangladesh has a history of political violence, mainly involving two political parties. The ruling Awami League (AL) was the predominant political presence from the country's independence through the reporting period. The AL won the national elections in 2014 amid violent protests in which hundreds were killed and injured. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) boycotted the elections. Both political parties had an active student wing (Bangladesh Chhatra League for the AL and Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal for the BNP). 373 In their reporting, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International highlighted the Bangladeshi authorities' crackdown on the opposition, including the illegal detention and possible killing of activists and bloggers, and the failure to provide protection for activists who received threats and in some cases had to leave the country for their safety.[374] Some analysts noted that the AL afforded impunity to government security forces.[375] Meanwhile the BNP and its allied Jamaat-e-Islami organization worked to disrupt state operations, elections, and other political activity, especially around the January 2014 elections.[376] Numerous violent extremist groups were also active.[377] Political and extremist violence affected education in Bangladesh, resulting in attacks on schools, universities, teachers, and students, especially during the 2014 elections, when schools were frequently used as polling centers. While reports of attacks at the primary and secondary school level peaked in 2014, reports of attacks on higher education peaked in 2015. In addition, although there was gender parity in education, sexual harassment and other factors like child marriage, pregnancy, and poverty continued to affect girls' enrollment in secondary school.[378] Bangladesh did not meet the criteria for inclusion in the 2014 issue of Education under Attack, so no comparisons or identification of trends was possible. Attacks on schools IEDs were the most commonly used method of attacking schools during the reporting period. Dozens were attacked, particularly during the January 2014 elections, when many schools were used as polling stations. Reports gathered by GCPEA indicated that election-related violence damaged dozens or possibly hundreds of educational institutions throughout the country. Attacks occurred sporadically for the remainder of the reporting period, the majority of them carried out by unknown assailants. In 2013, GCPEA collected reports of two IED attacks by unidentified perpetrators: Local media reported that on April 15, 2013, unknown perpetrators torched a madrassa in Laxmipur, Chittagong area, causing damage to two rooms. [379] According to media sources, on October 7, 2013, a device planted by an unknown assailant exploded near a madrassa in the Lalkhan Bazaar area of Chittagong, killing three people. It is unclear whether the school was the intended target of the attack.[380] Media sources compiled by GCPEA suggested that, in 2014, assailants bombed or set fire to at least 46 schools being used as polling centers for the general elections that took place on January 5. No injuries were reported for most of these attacks.[381] Local media sources reported 15 such attacks on January 3, 30 on January 4, and 2 on January 5, 2014.[382] The Guardian reported that at least 60 schools planned to be used as polling stations were set on fire between January 2 and January 4; it was unclear how many of these incidents were the same as those in the local media reports that GCPEA collected.[383] According to Human Rights Watch, government officials claimed that a total of 553 educational institutions throughout the country were damaged by election-related violence in January 2014.[384] Examples of these attacks included the following: Media sources reported that on January 3, 2014, unidentified assailants threw petrol bombs at a polling center at the Gazaria Ideal Kindergarten in Feni, Chittagong. [385] In an incident documented by Human Rights Watch, between 100 and 150 BNP-Jamaat supporters attacked Molani Cheprikura Government Primary School on January 4, 2014, the night before it was to be used as a polling station. They killed the "assistant presiding officer" and injured three others.[386] Sporadic attacks on schools were documented beginning in January 2015. News sources recorded 12 attacks or threats of attacks in 2015, all of which involved explosive devices detonated in or near schools.[387] The motivation for these attacks was unclear. Ten incidents occurred in Dhaka city and two happened elsewhere. For example: On January 12, 2015, unidentified assailants attacked two schools in Dhaka city: Suritola school in the Suritola neighborhood and Viqarunnia Noon school in the Azimpur area. [388] On March 1, 2015, police reportedly found approximately 10 explosive devices at Monipur High School and College and Mirpur Bangla High School and College in the Mirpur area of Dhaka city. [389] On March 8, 2015, government security forces safely removed four explosive devices planted by unknown perpetrators at a kindergarten in Gaibandha, near Rangpur city in northern Bangladesh. [390] Unidentified perpetrators detonated multiple devices on March 11, 2015, at a school in the Azimpur area of Dhaka city, wounding two police officers. [391] On December 26, 2015, two IEDs exploded outside the Charnoabad Government Primary School in Bhola district, Barisal province, as a mayoral candidate's procession passed by the school.[392] Attacks on schools appeared to decrease in 2016, with only sporadic cases reported. According to local media, there were two attacks on schools that year, both carried out by unspecified assailants: In the first, on March 31, 2016, unidentified perpetrators threw IEDs at a school that was being used as a polling station in Jessore district in southwestern Bangladesh, killing one person. [393] On May 5, 2016, unknown assailants set fire to Boikanthapur Baldia Primary School in Thakurgaon district, Rangpur province, causing no casualties.[394] GCPEA did not identify any reports of attacks on schools in 2017. Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel While attacks targeting students and educators took place, they were infrequent, occurring at a rate of one or two attacks per year throughout the 2013-2017 period. Approximately half of the attacks were carried out by unidentified perpetrators, while two appeared to be politically motivated and one appeared to be related to religious and ethnic violence. Additionally, the CRC reported that harassment and violence on the way to and from school contributed to dropout rates during the reporting period;395 the US State Department found that these violations disproportionately affected girls and prevented them from attending school.[396] It was not clear who was responsible for this harassment or what their motivations were. During 2013, unknown perpetrators used explosives against students and teachers in two incidents, and Human Rights Watch documented several cases in which police used force against student activists or those accused of being affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami's student wing.[397] For example: Media sources reported an incident on June 1, 2013, in which unidentified assailants threw an explosive device at a teacher and an army corporal as they walked home together from prayers in Khulna. The intended target of the attack was unclear, but both individuals were injured in the blast. [398] In September 2013, police allegedly entered a private student dorm, according to Human Rights Watch. They questioned the one student there about activists affiliated with Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, accusing them of living in the dorm. When the student said that he had no information, they searched his room, confiscating his books and papers, and then shot the student in his right leg. The student was taken to a government hospital and then transferred to a jail after 10 days. He was jailed for eight months, while the condition of his leg worsened. This was one of several cases in which police allegedly shot student activists in leg during 2013. [399] A witness reported to Human Rights Watch that, in December 2013, someone on a rickshaw threw a bag in front of her son as he was walking home from school in Dhaka. The bag exploded and severely injured him.[400] Violence against students continued in 2015, with two reported incidents targeting secondary school students. Both attacks were likely politically motivated, as they were carried out by identified opposition and government supporters: Media sources documented an incident on January 22, 2015, in which suspected opposition supporters threw an explosive device at a secondary school truck that was being escorted by police vehicles in Srimangal city, Sylhet province. The blast injured one of the truck personnel. [401] The US Department of State reported that on an unspecified day in August 2015 in Chandpur district, government supporters attacked secondary school students who were protesting the assault of their teacher by government security forces, resulting in the hospitalization of at least 20 students.[402] No attacks on students or education personnel were identified in 2016 or 2017. Attacks on higher education Attacks on higher education targeted both individuals and institutions throughout the reporting period. IED attacks on university infrastructure were particularly common, with more than 45 occurring during the reporting period. These incidents most frequently affected Dhaka University, which suffered 27 IED attacks in 2015 alone. Attacks on university infrastructure peaked in 2015 with 33 incidents, and were at their lowest rates in 2014, 2016, and 2017, with only one or two incidents in each of those years. GCPEA collected data on 10 incidents in which university personnel and students were the victims of homicide and the targets of other physical violence and threats, mostly by unidentified assailants and for unknown reasons. Attacks on students and personnel were most common in 2014 and 2015, with three attacks each year, and least common in 2013, when just one such incident occurred. Anti-government protesters, including the BNP and unknown perpetrators, used explosive devices to target universities in at least 10 attacks throughout 2013, according to local media reports. For example: Seven incidents involving the detonation of IEDs occurred on the Dhaka University campus between January 5 and January 6, 2013. [403] Unknown perpetrators detonated at least 9 IEDs around Dhaka University throughout the morning of January 28, 2013. [404] On January 29, 2013, assailants on motorcycles, reportedly affiliated with the BNP, set off explosive devices at various points around the Dhaka University campus. [405] Less than one month later, on February 25, 2013, unknown perpetrators detonated an explosive device at the Women's College in Brahmanbaria district, Chittagong province.[406] One attack on university students was also reported in 2013. On July 7, 2013, unidentified attackers beat two student activists while they were driving a motorbike on the campus of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Kumargaon city, Sylhet province.[407] Media sources and Scholars at Risk together reported at least five IED attacks on universities, infrastructure, and personnel by unidentified assailants in 2014, a decrease from the 11 attacks reported in 2013: The first attack was outside the main gates of Rajshahi University, Rajshahi district, on January 23, 2014, where assailants detonated explosive devices. [408] Attackers threw bricks and IEDs at a teachers' bus on its way to Chittagong University, Chittagong district, on September 13, 2014, injuring 10 teachers. [409] On September 27, 2014, unidentified aggressors threw two IEDs at the car of the director of a medical university in Dhaka. He was not injured, but his car was damaged in the attack. [410] Two violent extremist groups, Ansar al-Islam Bangladesh-2 and al Qaeda, both claimed responsibility for the killing of a professor of sociology at Rajshahi University, who was hacked to death by assailants wielding blunt objects while walking home from the campus on November 15, 2014. [411] Violence returned to Dhaka University on December 28, 2014, according to media sources, when unknown assailants threw Molotov cocktails at three different buildings across campus, injuring three civilians.[412] During 2015, unknown perpetrators continued to bomb higher education institutions and violent extremists threatened university teachers. At the beginning of the year, bombings continued to impact Dhaka University at significantly increased rates from January to March, during which time local media reported at least 27 incidents of IEDs exploding on campus, some involving multiple detonations at once.[413] For example, on January 13, 2015, six devices placed by unknown perpetrators exploded at various points around the Dhaka University campus.[414] According to news sources, IEDs were used in at least six other anonymous attacks on universities throughout the year, including three IED attacks at Rajshahi University, one each on February 11, October 29, and December 5, 2015.[415] Violence that targeted university professors and students in 2015 continued to include homicide, but also reportedly involved death threats sent to dozens of professors throughout the year: Media reports indicated that dozens of teachers at Rajshahi University received death threats in 2015 and 2016. [416] Such messages were also reportedly sent to at least one professor at Dhaka University, who received an anonymous threat by text message on November 10, according to Scholars at Risk. [417] According to Human Rights Watch, a 22-year-old university student was reportedly found dead after being arrested by the police. The government claimed that the student was killed in the crossfire between government security forces and Jamaat-e-Islami, which the student supported.[418] In 2016, attacks against higher education were reported less frequently, but there were at least five cases in which university personnel and infrastructure were targeted: Local media recorded an incident on February 18, 2016, in which unknown assailants threw an IED at a university bus in Chittagong city. There were no casualties in the attack. [419] Scholars at Risk and local media reported that, on April 23, 2016, two assailants on a motorbike drove up to an English professor who worked at Rajshahi University and hacked him to death while he was on his way to the university. 'IS' claimed responsibility for this incident. [420] Media sources reported that on June 15, 2016, three armed men arrived at the Madaripur home of a Hindu lecturer and attacked him with a machete when he opened the front door. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but authorities considered it to be part of a recent spate of similar attacks against ethnic minorities by violent extremist groups. [421] According to local news sources, on October 28, 2016, members of Islami Chhatra Shibir, part of Jamaate-Islami, detonated IEDs at Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur. [422] On November 27, 2016, local media reported that students and teachers at the Phulbaria Degree College in Mymensingh city were protesting to demand the nationalization of the institution when police tried to disperse them using batons and possibly guns. The police killed two people in the ensuing clash, including one college teacher, and injured at least 20 more.[423] GCPEA identified one report of an attack on higher education in 2017. On November 7, Mubashar Hasan, an assistant professor of political science at North South University in Dhaka, reportedly disappeared shortly after leaving campus. The professor was known for his research on violent extremism in Bangladesh. His disappearance took place in a context in which a growing number of public figures had gone missing. The professor had previously reported that unidentified men had come looking for him at his home.[424] Hasan was released in late December, but the perpetrators and the reason for the abduction remained unknown.[425] 373 US State Department et al., "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices-2014: Bangladesh," pp. 6-9. Amnesty International, Annual Report 2015/2016: Bangladesh. Human Rights Watch, Crossfire: Opposition Violence and Government Abuses in the 2014 Pre- and Post-Election Period in Bangladesh (New York: Human Rights Watch, April 2014), p. 10. 374 Amnesty International, Caught between fear and repression: Attacks on freedom of expression in Bangladesh (London: Amnesty International, 2017), pp. 7-9. Human Rights Watch, We Don't Have Him: Secret Detentions and Forced Disappearances in Bangladesh (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2017). 375 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Bangladesh," pp. 6-9. Amnesty International, Annual Report 2015/2016: Bangladesh. International Crisis Group, Political Conflict, Extremism and Criminal Justice in Bangladesh (Brussels: International Crisis Group, April 11, 2016), pp. i-ii. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015, Bangladesh chapter. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, Bangladesh chapter. Human Rights Watch, Democracy in the Crossfire, p. 10. 376 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Bangladesh," pp. 19-20. International Crisis Group, Political Conflict, pp. i-ii. Amnesty International, Annual Report 2015/2016: Bangladesh. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015, Bangladesh chapter. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, Bangladesh chapter. Human Rights Watch, Democracy in the Crossfire, p. 10. 377 International Crisis Group, Political Conflict, pp. i-ii. International Crisis Group, Mapping Bangladesh's Political Crisis (Brussels: International Crisis Group, February 9, 2015), p. i. 378 CEDAW, "Concluding observations on the eighth periodic report of Bangladesh," CEDAW/C/BGD/CO/8, November 18, 2016, para. 28(a). 379 United News Bangladesh, "Madrasah torched in Laxmipur," News From Bangladesh, April 15, 2013. "Madrassah torched in Lakshmipur," New Age Bangladesh, April 15, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201304150076, 2016. 380 "Bomb goes off at Ctg Jamaat activist's house," Bangladesh Daily Star, October 24, 2013. 381 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 382 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 383 Jason Burke, "Bangladesh elections." 384 Human Rights Watch, Democracy in the Crossfire, p. 19. 385 "5 polling centres torched in Feni," Daily Star, January 3, 2014. 386 Human Rights Watch, Democracy in the Crossfire, p. 18. 387 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 388 "Violent blockade claims life of another innocent," Dhaka Tribune, January 12, 2015. 389 "Academic life in jeopardy," New Age Bangladesh, March 4, 2015. 390 "Hartal makes little impact on city life," Bangladesh Daily Star, March 10, 2015. 391 "Hartal on with stray incidents," Bangladesh Daily Star, March 12, 2015. "Flash processions, blasts mark blockade," New Age Bangladesh, March 12, 2015. 392 "2 crude bombs blasted near AL mayoral candidate's rally in Bhola," Bangladesh Daily Sun, December 27, 2015. 393 "Minor among seven killed in violence," Dhaka Tribune, March 31, 2016. 394 "School room torched," Bangladesh Daily Star, May 6, 2016. 395 CRC, "Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of Bangladesh," CRC/C/BGD/CO/5, October 30, 2015, para. 66. 396 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2013: Bangladesh," p. 26. US State Department et al., "Country Reportson Human Rights Practices-2014: Bangladesh," p. 26. 397 Human Rights Watch, "No Right to Live": "Kneecapping" and Maiming of Detainees by Bangladesh Security Forces (New York: Human Rights Watch, September 2016), 398 "Army man, teacher hurt in bomb attack," New Age Bangladesh, June 2, 2013, as cited in STARTGTD 201306010023. 399 Human Rights Watch, "No Right to Live", p. 23-24. 400 Human Rights Watch, Democracy in the Crossfire, p. 16. 401 "Yet another bloody day sees 2 killed," Bangladesh Daily Star, January 24, 2015. 402 US State Department et al., "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices-2015: Bangladesh," p. 3. 403 "5 bombs explode in DU campus," Greenwatch Dhaka, January 5, 2013. AP, "Dhaka: 7 Vehicles Torched Before BNP's Nationwide Strike Against Fuel Price Hike," Daily Star Online, January 6, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201301050030, START, GTD 201301050031, START, GTD 201301050032. "Bombs explode in DU campus," Bdnews24.com, January 6, 2013;""More cocktails recovered at DU," Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, January 7, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201301060010, STARTGTD 201301060011, STARTGTD 201301060012. "Hartal in progress amid stray violence disrupting normal life," Daily Frontier, January 6, 2013. 404 "11 Cocktails Blasted around Dhaka Varsity [sic]," New Nation, January 29, 2013. 405 United News Bangladesh, "Serial blasts rock DU campus," Daily Frontier, January 29, 2013. "Serial blasts create panicin city," Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, January 29, 2013. 406 "Blasts at 'Ganajagaran Mancha'," New Nation (Bangladesh), February 26, 2013;""20 crude bombs exploded in Brahmanbaria," United News of Bangladesh, February 25, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201302250028. "Cocktails blasted in B'baria," Bangladesh Daily Star, February 26, 2013. 407 United News Bangladesh, "2 BCL activists injured by miscreants at SUST," Green Watch, July 8, 2013. 408 "4 injured in crude bomb blast at RU," Dhaka Tribune, January 23, 2014. "Cop among 6 injured in RU bomb blast," Financial Express Bangladesh, January 23, 2014. "Four injured in RU bomb blast," New Age Bangladesh, January 23, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201401230012. 409 "Bomb attack on CU teachers' buses," Dhaka Tribune, September 13, 2014. IANS, "14 Bangladesh varsity faculty members hurt in bomb attack," Zee News, September 10, 2014. 410 "Bombs hurled at Prison head office, BSMMU boss," Bangladesh Daily Star, September 29, 2014. 411 "Arrests follow Bangladesh professor murder," Al Jazeera, November 16, 2014. Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Rajshahi University, November 15, 2014. "Shafiul murder: Militants claim responsibility on Facebook," Dhaka Tribune, November 16, 2014. Thomas Joscelyn, "Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent leader says attacks on 'blasphemers' ordered by Zawahiri," Long War Journal, May 3, 2015. 412 "Bangladesh: Passengers Burnt as Vehicles Set on Fire Prior to BNP-led Alliance's Nationwide Strike," Daily Star Online, December 29, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201412280070, START, GTD 201412280071. 413 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 414 "Arson, vandalism mark 8th day of blockade," Financial Express Bangladesh, January 14, 2015. 415 "Day 4 of hartal passes with minor incidents," Dhaka Tribune, February 11, 2015. "Hand grenade found at RU," Bangladesh Daily Star, November 4, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201510290100. "Firing, blasts at RU hall," Bangladesh Daily Star, December 5, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201512050025. 416 "No visible action yet over death threat to 70 RU teachers," The Independent, October 22, 2016. "RU law teacher gets death threat," Dhaka Tribune, February 1, 2016. 417 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Dhaka University, November 10, 2015. 418 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, Bangladesh chapter. 419 "Crude bomb attack on picnic-bus in Ctg," Dhaka Tribune, February 18, 2016. 420 Julfikar Ali Manikand Ellen Barry, "Bangladesh Police Suspect Islamist Militants in Professor's Killing," New York Times, April 23, 2016. "Islamic State claims it killed Bangladeshi academic," Guardian, April 23, 2016. Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, Rajshahi University. Ruma Paul, "Bangladesh professor hacked to death by Islamist militants," Reuters, April 23, 2016. 421 "Bangladesh killings: Hindu teacher attacked at home," BBC News, June 15, 2016. AFP, "Hindu lecturer wounded in latest Bangladesh attack," Public Radio International, June 15, 2016. 422 Liakat Ali Badal, "Begum Rokeya University: Campus tense over Shibir's bombing, poster," Dhaka Tribune, October 29, 2016. 423 Ashraf Uddin Sijel, "College teacher among 2 killed in Mymensingh police action," Dhaka Tribune, November 27, 2016. "College teacher Among 2 killed in fight with cops in M'singh," NTV Bangladesh, November 27, 2016. 424 Scholars at Risk, Academic Freedom Monitor, North South University, November 7, 2017. 425 Faisal Mahmud, "Bangladesh disappearances 'a matter of grave concern,'" Al Jazeera, December 25, 2017. Education Under Attack 2018 - Afghanistan Publisher Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack Publication Date 11 May 2018 Cite as Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Education Under Attack 2018 - Afghanistan, 11 May 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be94317a.html [accessed 22 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Although reports of physical attacks on educational institutions, students, and educators in Afghanistan appeared to slow, the number of reported threats targeting education, particularly girls' education, rose dramatically. Additionally, state military forces and non-state armed groups used schools and universities as barracks, as sites to recruit and train children, and for other military purposes. Context After 13 years of engagement in Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), led by NATO, began to withdraw most troops from the country in 2014. The following years saw an upsurge in violence across the country, with the UN calling nearly half of Afghanistan's provinces areas of high or extreme risk.[229] The Taliban and other non-state armed groups, including 'IS,' expanded their geographical presence and carried out numerous attacks on the civilian population, particularly in provincial areas and in and around the capital city, Kabul.[230] Key parties to the conflict included the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), pro-government militias, the Taliban, other non-state armed groups, including 'IS', and NATO forces.[231] Contested elections in 2014 led to further political tensions that contributed to instability throughout the reporting period.[232] In 2017, NATO said it would increase its "training mission" in Afghanistan by 3,000 troops.[233] The escalating conflict resulted in sustained high levels of displacement, with at least 360,000 people displaced in 2017.[234] The UN Secretary-General noted in September 2017 that civilians continued be the people most affected by the ongoing conflict.[235] The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan verified more than 40,000 civilian casualties between the beginning of 2013 and the third quarter of 2017.[236] Conflict also challenged the advances made in educational enrollments since 2001, with increasing reports of chronic teacher shortages and "ghost" schools.[237] According to Afghanistan's Ministry of Education, an estimated 3.5 million children were out of school in 2016, 75 percent of them girls.[238] Direct targeting of the education of girls and women by non-state armed groups, particularly the Taliban and 'IS', contributed to educational and gender inequalities, including high rates of gender-based violence, women's and girls' restricted ability to work and study outside the home, and limited access to justice.[239] According to a survey conducted by REACH in 2017, security concerns and violence were the most commonly cited obstacles to girls' education.[240] Data collected by GCPEA indicated that a growing proportion of attacks in Afghanistan over the course of the reporting period targeted girls' schools, as well as female students and educators. There were reports that armed groups, including 'IS' and the Taliban, forced schools to close.[241] At the same time, provincial education authorities in provinces including Herat and Nangarhar reportedly expressed satisfaction with cooperation received from the Taliban in overseeing and supporting schools.[242] From 2013 to 2017, reports of incidents that negatively affected education increased, although they did not reach the level reported in Education under Attack 2014. In December 2017, OCHA reported that more than 1,000 schools had been destroyed, damaged, or occupied in incidents related to conflict and insecurity over an unspecified period of time.[243] Afghanistan was among the first group of 37 countries that endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration on May 29, 2015. Attacks on schools GCPEA documented approximately 180 attacks on schools across Afghanistan between 2013 and 2017. The rate of attacks on schools peaked in 2014 around the time of the presidential election, but in general fewer attacks were documented than during the 2009 to 2013 period tracked in Education under Attack 2014. It was not clear whether this trend was due to fewer monitoring resources or to insecurity, both of which made it more difficult to track and investigate incidents, or to a real decline in physical attacks on schools. There was some evidence that community-based schools those in local communities supported by either the government or an NGO were less susceptible to attacks. One study found that the Taliban widely accepted community-based education and argued that this explained the lower number of attacks on community-based classes.[244] Direct attacks on schools included arson, suicide bombings, and use of other explosives.[245] Armed opposition groups were often suspected to be behind these attacks, even if they did not claim responsibility. Schools were also caught in fighting between militia forces that competed to gain control of them as a source of funds.[246] Most commonly, schools were damaged in explosions occurring nearby, or struck by rockets aimed at other targets. Of the reported attacks compiled by GCPEA, just over one-quarter that occurred between 2013 and 2017 targeted girls' schools and female education. The UN reported that at least 73 attacks on schools occurred in Afghanistan in 2013, including suicide bombings and explosive devices planted on school grounds by armed opposition groups, along with one drone strike. These attacks resulted in the death of at least 11 children and injury to 46 others.[247] Data collected by GCPEA showed that girls' schools comprised approximately one-quarter of those targeted in 2013. Examples of attacks on both boys' and girls' schools included the following: International media and UNAMA reported that, on June 3, 2013, a motorcyclist with no clear affiliation detonated a bomb outside a boys' high school in Chamkani district, Paktya province. The explosion, which targeted a passing ISAF convoy, killed 10 students and injured 15 other people, including school children. [248] Media sources reported that unidentified assailants set a girls' school on fire in Kunduz city, Kunduz province, on July 19, 2013, damaging the building. [249] Media sources also recorded a rocket attack that hit a girls' school in Asmar district, Kunar province, on November 25, 2013, injuring four teachers. Authorities claimed that the Taliban was responsible. [250] The UN found that, on November 27, 2013, a drone struck Shahid Ghulam Sakhi High School in Logar province, killing one 10-year-old boy.[251] Attacks on schools peaked during 2014 and were largely related to the presidential election, when non-state armed groups targeted schools used as polling stations. The UN verified 163 attacks against schools and education personnel.[252] The HRC found similarly that, of 155 incidents of attacks on schools and on students and education personnel, and of military occupation, 79 directly targeted schools used as polling centers.[253] Indeed, on June 14 alone, the second day of run-off elections, UNICEF documented 22 attacks on schools, most of them in the central, eastern, and northeastern regions of the country.[254] Apart from election-related violence, patterns of attacks in 2014 were similar to those of the previous year, including both targeted and indiscriminate incidents. The Taliban and other armed opposition groups were responsible for the majority of the attacks (94 out of 163 documented by the UN).[255] Of the 163 incidents reported by the UN, 28 involved IEDs being placed on school premises.[256] At least one suicide attack targeted a school in 2014. Data collected by GCPEA indicated again that one-quarter of the attacks on education in 2014 affected girls' schools. These incidents included the following: International news sources reported that, on December 11, 2014, a suicide bomber detonated his device inside the auditorium of a French-run high school in Kabul that was full of people. At least 7 were killed and 15 injured, according to Al Jazeera. [257] According to media sources, unidentified assailants burned down one girls' school in Farah province on November 19, 2014, another in Jawzjan province on November 29, 2014, and a third in Herat province on December 10, 2014.[258] During the attack in Jawzjan province, the assailants beat and injured a school guard. According to sources cited by the media, the aim of the attack was to disrupt exams.[259] The number of UN-reported attacks on schools dropped slightly in 2015, with 132 verified attacks on schools and education personnel. As in previous years, the UN reported that the Taliban was responsible for the majority (82) of these incidents. Afghan government forces and affiliated groups were responsible for 23 cases, and 'IS' was responsible for at least 13 attacks, a higher number than what was reported in previous years.[260] Citing the UN, Human Rights Watch reported a spike in attacks on schools between April and June 2015, which it attributed mainly to Taliban activity in Kunduz, Ghor, and Nuristan provinces. However, the organization noted that threats by pro-government groups also resulted in school closures.[261] Forms of attack in 2015 remained similar to those seen in previous years, including indirect attacks involving gunfire or rockets, and direct attacks employing IEDs and arson. Examples of attacks on schools included the following: UNAMA found that, in August 2015, 'IS'-affiliated fighters forced 25 schools in Deh Bala district, Nangarhar province, to close, which affected 14,102 students. As of December 31st of that year, 10 of the institutions remained closed, leaving 7,087 children still out of school. [262] Local media reported that, on May 31, 2015, a rocket struck a school in Logar province, resulting in the death of a teacher and two students. [263] According to a joint UNICEF and UNAMA report, on January 29, 2015, an anti-government group detonated an IED in a girls' high school in Nangarhar province, destroying three classrooms. The group also left a written warning calling girls' schools "brothels" and warning the community to stop educating females. The note referenced an attack on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, and stated that a failure to cease girls' education would result in a similar attack.[264] Rates of reported attacks on schools declined further in 2016, with 77 incidents affecting schools and personnel verified by the UN, compared to 132 in 2015. The Taliban was responsible for 51 incidents, the majority of verified attacks. A further seven were attributed to 'IS', twelve to undetermined armed groups, four to Afghan national forces, and one incident was jointly attributed to the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Taliban.[265] UNAMA reported a total of 94 conflict-related incidents affecting education, including 17 cases in which IEDs, looting, and other forms of intentional damage affected educational facilities.[266] Girls' schools appeared to be targeted in a slightly higher proportion of incidents in 2016 than in 2015, with 23 incidents directly targeting girls' education, according to the UN.[267] Additionally, UNAMA reported 16 incidents of intimidation and threats directed at girls' schools.[268] Reported incidents included the following: UNAMA and media reports both indicated that, on January 10, 2016, anti-government groups fired rockets in Bak district, Khost province. The rockets landed at a primary school where children were playing, killing at least three students and injuring several other children. [269] UNAMA reported that a 9-year-old was killed in the attack, while the Ministry of Education released a statement saying that at least two female students died. [270] Human Rights Watch reported that fighting in April between the Taliban and government forces in Baghlan province caught one school in the crossfire, destroying all five tents that comprised the school. [271] On May 18, 2016, suspected anti-government groups carried out three similar attacks in the Dara-e-Pech area of Kunar province, according to media reports that GCPEA was able to verify. The assailants set fire to two boys' schools and one girls' school and assaulted and temporarily abducted the guard at each school. [272] On October 28, 2016, armed men broke into a girls' school in Jawzjan province. They set fire to the school and beat the security guards. According to local sources, the incident appeared to be connected to a local commander who was opposed to girls' education.[273] In 2017, the UN verified 31 attacks on education facilities.[274] Likewise, attacks on schools were reported less frequently. GCPEA identified 39 incidents, according to the media and local sources. It was not clear whether these lists overlapped or drew on the same definitions of attacks on schools. Approximately one-quarter of the incidents identified by GCPEA affected girls' education.[275] UNAMA documented 51 attacks on educational facilities and education-related personnel during the first three-quarters of 2017 but did not disaggregate how many of these incidents affected schools.[276] According to the UN-verified information, the Taliban was responsible for the majority of education-related attacks, followed by 'IS' and undetermined armed groups.[277] For example: On February 25, 2017, two students were killed when a mortar struck a classroom at Shaheed Mawlawi Habib Rahman High School, a government school in Laghman province. At least five other students suffered injuries in the attack. Afghan security forces may have fired the mortar and missed their target, but this information was unconfirmed in media reports. [278] According to UNAMA and OHCHR, the Taliban fired mortar rounds that landed close to a high school in Kunduz city on May 25, 2017. The group was reportedly targeting international forces located near the school. One 9-year-old male student was killed in the attack. [279] Voice of America reported that 'IS' members destroyed a high school for girls in Darzab district, Jawzjan province, in late June 2017. The acting governor of the province told the reporters that the group had burned and looted other schools in the area. 'IS' had reportedly warned the schools to teach a curriculum the group considered acceptable. [280] In an attack reported by the media, which GCPEA was able to confirm with local sources, a school was destroyed during a US air strike on Kunduz province on July 15, 2017.[281] Attacks on school students, teachers, and other education personnel Abductions, targeted killings, and intimidation were the most common forms of direct attacks on students, teachers, and other education personnel between 2013 and 2017, as they were between 2009 and 2012. The Taliban and, increasingly, 'IS' were responsible for the majority of attacks on students, teachers, and other education personnel.[282] Male and female students faced threats for distinct reasons, males because of their political affiliations and females because of their status as learners. Overall, the annual number of attacks on students and education personnel appeared to rise over the course of the reporting period. However, according to the data compiled by GCPEA, cases of abduction and intimidation drove these increases, while killings of education personnel declined between 2013 and 2017 from the number killed between 2009 and 2013.[283] According to UNAMA and UNICEF, threats and intimidation targeting education-related personnel rose 376 percent between 2013 and 2015.[284] Female students and teachers were the targets of approximately one-quarter of all attacks on students and education personnel, according to the information GCPEA collected. Intimidation and threats forced the closure of some girls' schools, sometimes affecting tens of thousands of students.[285] In addition, media sources reported approximately 20 cases in which hundreds of school children became ill in alleged poisonings by unidentified attackers. The vast majority of these cases took place at girls' schools. World Health Organization and other investigators reported to international media that the illness was most likely linked to fear and stress and that it was unlikely poison had been used, but the incidents illustrated the climate of fear surrounding education, particularly for girls.[286] During 2013, UNAMA and UNICEF reported that 46 teachers were killed or injured and 12 were abducted.[287] The number of teachers killed or abducted that was verified for the UN's annual report on children and armed conflict was much lower (13 cases).[288] Ministry of Education numbers, reported in a media source, were considerably higher, citing approximately 100 education personnel killed between January 1 and August 10 of 2013.[289] Attacks recorded in 2013 included the following: Media sources reported an incident on March 27, 2013, in which unknown assailants shot and killed three teachers who were on their way to school in Balkh province. [290] UNAMA reported that on May 31 the Taliban abducted and killed a 7th-grade student in Khost province, reportedly for writing anti-Taliban poetry. [291] According to the UN, in May 2013 the Taliban issued a letter in Nangarhar province warning that students, teachers, and other personnel associated with girls' schools would face attacks, including with acid, if they continued to attend school.[292] According to UNAMA and UNICEF, the number of incidents of threats and intimidation against education personnel increased to 26 in 2014.[293] In contrast, the agencies reported that killings and injuries of teachers and other education personnel declined slightly, to 37.[294] Additionally, 14 teachers were reported abducted in 2014, as compared to 12 in 2013.[295] Examples of attacks included the following: The US Department of State reported that in May 2014 the head of the security detail for the minister of education was kidnapped and killed. [296] The UN reported that in August 2014 the Taliban abducted a teacher from his school in Zabul province, later killing him, because he had ignored warnings to stop teaching. [297] According to media sources, unknown assailants shot and killed a teacher in Logar province on December 13 and one in Uruzgan province on December 24.[298] UNICEF and UNAMA reported 26 teachers and other education personnel killed and injured in 2015, fewer than documented during the previous year. In addition, of the 75 incidents directly affecting education personnel through abduction or homicide, anti-government groups such as the Taliban were responsible for 74 attacks, and one was attributed to pro-government forces.[299] For example: UNAMA reported that, on April 14, 2015, members of a pro-government group shot and killed a teacher in front of his students at a school in Kunduz province for allegedly not following the group commander's instructions. [300] The UN documented an incident on April 30, 2015, in which two teachers were kidnapped from a boys' school in Kunar province and killed soon after.[301] Reported abductions and cases involving threats and intimidation against students and education personnel rose dramatically in 2015. There were 49 cases of kidnapping and 74 of threats reported.[302] UNAMA's annual report on the protection of civilians cited a similar number of cases of intimidation (68).[303] 'IS' activity in the eastern region, particularly in Nangarhar, contributed to a significant proportion of this increase. Sixteen incidents occurred in the east, including twelve in Nangarhar, up from four cases reported in that province in both 2013 and 2014. Eight of the twelve incidents in Nangarhar were attributed to an 'IS' affiliate.[304] Furthermore, 9 out of 14 cases of intimidation reported by UNAMA and UNICEF led to the partial or full closure of 213 schools, primarily in Nangarhar and Herat provinces, areas with high levels of Taliban and 'IS' activity. These threats severely affected girls' education. Ninety-four of these schools had served both genders but were then closed to girls while remaining open for boys. The two agencies reported five other instances in which girls' education was banned or restricted by anti-government actors.[305] Throughout 2016, threats and intimidation, including attacks affecting girls and women, continued to be the most common forms of attack directed at students, teachers, and other education personnel, although the total number of incidents appeared to decline from the number in 2015. UNAMA reported 44 cases of threats and intimidation directed at education personnel and facilities in 2016.[306] Several of these cases were directed at girls' education or at the content of education. For example: On January 7, 2016, approximately 15 armed, masked, and unidentified men entered Khoja Dokoh Female High School in Jawzjan province with guns and issued a warning that the girls should wear burqas. The school director made the requirement a school policy following the threat. [307] UNAMA also reported that, on September 4, anti-government groups ordered girls' high schools in three districts of Laghman province to close and asked that community leaders bar girls from attending higher levels of education. [308] UNAMA reported two cases in which anti-government groups made threats aimed at having subjects such as science removed from the curriculum, to be replaced with Islamic studies.[309] Targeted killings and abductions also continued to affect students and education personnel in 2016. UNAMA reported 13 attempted or actual targeted killings of education personnel, which killed 11 and injured 10, and 12 incidents of abduction, which targeted 55 students and education personnel.[310] GCPEA collected information on the following incidents, for example: UNAMA reported that on April 11, 2016, an IED struck a shuttle bus carrying Ministry of Education officials in Kabul province, killing the driver and his assistant. Five ministry employees were injured in the attack. [311] Nine days later, a stray bullet struck a school headmaster while he was teaching, killing him in front of the class. [312] UNAMA also reported that, on September 7, 2016, an anti-government group singled out 13 students on a public bus they had stopped in Farah province. They held the students for three days, releasing them following negotiations with community leaders. [313] The UN reported that in September 2016 Afghan forces took seven boys from a school, reportedly with the goal of pressuring the Taliban to release a soldier; it was unclear how the boys' abduction would create such pressure.[314] The UN verified 16 attacks on education personnel and 22 threats of attack against education personnel and facilities in 2017.[315] The latter category was not disaggregated. Separately, GCPEA identified reports of 32 incidents of targeted assassinations, abductions, or threats of students and education personnel in 2017, collected from UN, media, and local sources, close to half of which affected girls' education.[316] For example: Media sources reported that, on January 15, 2017, assailants stating allegiance to 'IS' abducted twelve teachers and two administrative personnel from a government-run madrassa, or religious school, in Nangarhar province. Almost two months later, on March 4, all 14 individuals were freed unharmed. [317] The UN reported that threats by anti-government groups closed six girls' schools in Farah district, Farah province, between February 10 and February 20, 2017. According to the UN report, only 10 percent of students returned to the schools when they reopened on February 20. [318] In September 2017, 'IS' sent hundreds of families in Darzab district, Jawzjan province, letters urging them not to send their children to school, according to Gandhara, a local media agency. [319] Pajhwok Afghan News Agency reported that an IED targeted and killed the deputy of the Parwan province education department on November 14, 2017. The explosion also injured the head of the Parwan education department. The two were traveling home at the time of the attack.[320] Military use of schools Armed forces and non-state armed groups continued to use schools; the number of cases reported in 2013 and 2014 was similar to the number in 2012. Documented instances of military use of schools rose in 2015. Government forces and pro-government groups used the majority of these schools, but non-state armed groups occupied educational institutions as well.[321] According to UNAMA and UNICEF, 10 schools were used for military purposes in 2013 and 12 in 2014.[322] For example: The UN reported that the ANFS took over three schools in Badakhshan province in October 2013 and continued to use them into 2014. [323] In June 2014, the ANA took over a girls' school in Kunduz province for more than three weeks, also according to the UN. [324] Advocacy from the country taskforce on monitoring and reporting (CTFMR) succeeded in getting one school vacated in June 2014. [325] Media sources reported an incident on September 16, 2013, in which gunmen, whom the local authorities said were Taliban, used a school to shield themselves while they attacked a nearby Afghan border police checkpoint in Nangarhar province.[326] In 2015, the UN verified 51 cases of military use of schools. Armed opposition groups used 26 schools, the ANA used 9, Afghan National Police used 7, pro-government groups used 6, and international military forces used 3.[327] According to a separate report by UNAMA and UNICEF, pro-government groups used 15 schools in Kunduz province alone for military purposes during 2015.[328] UNAMA and UNICEF also reported that international forces used schools in 2015. Examples included the following: According to UNAMA and UNICEF, Afghan local police used a school in Baghlan province as a base from April 28 to September 16, 2015. The police broke down chairs and desks to be burned as firewood. Approximately 700 students and 20 teachers were prevented from entering the school during that time. [329] According to the same sources, US Special Forces took over a school in Uruzgan. They left the school when the local community asked them to go, but by May 2015, the school was largely destroyed due to fighting that occurred while the Special Forces were present.[330] According to the UN, there were 42 verified cases of military use of schools in 2016.[331] These included 34 by government forces, 7 by armed groups, and 1 by a pro-government armed group.[332] Among the documented cases were the following: The Guardian reported that two schools in Helmand province were used as Afghan military bases in 2016. Soldiers built a watchtower on the roof of one and frequently walked around the schoolyards while heavily armed. A teacher at one school reported that gunfire sent students running for cover on multiple occasions. [333] The Institute for War and Peace Reporting noted in December 2016 that the ANA had been using a girls' school in Pasaband district, Ghor province, and that the Taliban had been using a school in Charsada district, also in Ghor province, for two years. [334] Human Rights Watch reported on 12 schools in Baghlan province that were or had been used by either Afghan forces or anti-government groups. Multiple schools were used several times by each of these groups and had sustained damage in armed combat.[335] For example, Khial Jan Shahid Primary School, which opened in 2014 after being constructed with funding from the Swedish government and UNICEF, was occupied by the Taliban for approximately five months from late 2015 into early 2016, and again in April 2016. After the Taliban left, government forces occupied the school. The school was largely destroyed in fighting between the two groups.[336] In 2017, the UN verified 14 incidents in which schools were used for military purposes.[337] Separately, OCHA reported in December 2017 that 41 schools were being used for military purposes.[338] It was not clear how many of these cases overlapped with those reported by the UN during the previous year. Reported cases of schools used for military purposes included the following: Afghan soldiers were reportedly stationed at a high school and a middle school in central Baghlan province as of January 2017. Both schools had been closed for several months at that time. [339] The Afghanistan Protection Cluster reported that two schools, Peerakhil and Kamboare, both in Kogyani district, Nangarhar province, were being used by non-state armed groups in November 2017.[340] Child recruitment at, or en route to or from, school There was limited and anecdotal information available on child recruitment that occurred at schools during the reporting period. In 2016, Human Rights Watch reported that the Taliban was increasingly using madrassas in northeastern Afghanistan to train boys between ages 13 and 17 for action in their military operations.[341] According to Human Rights Watch, many of the children recruited from madrassas were deployed in combat.[342] Other reports stated similarly that the group recruited boys from madrassas where poor parents sent their children for free education and lodging despite, or because they were unaware of, the possible risk of recruitment.[343] Sexual violence by armed parties at, or en route to or from, school Two cases of sexual violence affecting male students were reported, both documented by UNAMA. UNAMA reported that sexual abuse of boys by Afghan police was allegedly common, but that cases of such violence were difficult to verify. It was also not clear how often these practices occurred in relation to education.[344] Reported cases included the following: On February 2, 2013, Afghan police forces arrested three male students from a religious school in Kandahar. One of the boys, who was 16 years old, reported that all three were tortured, raped, and beaten. [345] On October 17, 2016, the Afghan National Army Special Forces forcibly stripped and photographed a 16-year-old boy at his school in front of teachers and other students. When the students and teachers protested, they opened fire inside the school, injuring a second student. They also beat another student until he was unconscious. Five ANA members were arrested for the incident. Three soldiers were released and two were convicted in Special Corps Court: one for unlawful use of force and another for the beating. No one was charged with sexual abuse or exploitation.[346] Attacks on higher education Attacks targeting institutions of higher education or their personnel were reported with increasing intensity throughout most of the reporting period, beginning with two incidents reported in 2013 and rising to ten in 2016, before falling to six in 2017. These mostly took the form of explosives or gunfire on university campuses. However, targeted killings and abductions of university personnel also occurred. Both types of attacks occurred during each year of the reporting period. Attacks on higher education included at least two reported incidents in 2013, both carried out by unidentified assailants. One targeted a university, and the other was directed at personnel: A motorcycle laden with bombs exploded in the courtyard of Jalalabad University's education faculty building in Nangarhar province on February 2, 2013. The explosion injured at least seven students, according to media sources. [347] The head of Mawlana Jalaludin Muhammad Balkhi Institute of Higher Education, located in Balkh province, was reportedly abducted and killed in mid-April 2013, according to media sources. The reasons for the abduction were unclear.[348] In 2014, the number of reported attacks on higher education rose, as did the number of people affected. There were at least seven reported incidents affecting approximately forty students and education personnel, according to data collected by GCPEA.[349] Thirty-eight of the forty people were affected in the two incidents described below: On June 10, 2014, gunmen stopped a bus carrying approximately 35 university professors and students from Kandahar University to Kabul. They forced the passengers at gunpoint to disembark and board other vehicles, and then used the vehicles to take the victims to an unknown location. [350] The Taliban admitted responsibility for the abduction and released the professors and students two weeks later. [351] An IED exploded near a university in Kabul on November 10, 2014, wounding three individuals.[352] It was not clear if the three people who were injured were professors or students at the university. Reported attacks on higher education again rose slightly in 2015. At least nine attacks occurred, including explosions that targeted universities and abductions of students and personnel.[353] Abductions were reported much more frequently than in previous years, when reported incidents affecting education personnel more often took the form of gun attacks and other physical violence. The incidents reported in 2015 included the following: On January 28, 2015, attackers attempted to kidnap 15 university students on a highway in Faryab province. Security forces intervened, and the attack was unsuccessful. Media sources alleged that the Taliban was responsible for the attack, but no group claimed responsibility. [354] According to media sources, explosions occurred at Kandahar University on March 31, injuring one person; [355] at Kabul University on May 16, injuring two lecturers; [356] at the Teacher Training Center in Kandahar city on May 26, killing at least one person and wounding two others; [357] and at Kabul Education University on November 24, killing three civilians. [358] The perpetrators of these incidents were unknown. The principal of a technical and vocational institute in Wardak province was abducted by unidentified assailants on May 20, 2015. His fate remains unknown, according to media sources.[359] Ten attacks on higher education were reported in 2016, including several high-profile attacks.[360] These attacks were of a wider variety than in previous years, including explosions, kidnappings, a beheading, and more complex methods that involved organized armed raids. For example: Six people were injured in an explosion that occurred at a teacher training center in Maqmud Raqi district of Kapisa province on May 25, 2016, according to media sources. [361] The perpetrators were unknown. International media reported that, on August 7, 2016, two foreign professors an American and an Australian who taught in the English language center were kidnapped while on a road close to their university. [362] The Taliban was still holding the professors hostage at the time of writing. [363] On August 22, 2016, a university student was reportedly abducted from a vehicle and beheaded by suspected anti-government groups. The student was found with explosives planted in his body. According to a media report, the provincial governor's spokesperson suggested that the attack was aimed at discouraging higher education. [364] A complex attack involving suicide bombers and gunmen took place at the American University of Afghanistan on August 24, 2016, when armed assailants stormed the campus, trapping students in classrooms for almost 10 hours. Local and international media reported that seven students, one lecturer, and two campus guards were killed in the attack. No group claimed responsibility.[365] There were at least six reported attacks on higher education in 2017, including one targeted killing of a scholar.[366] For example: According to Pajhwok Afghan News, on May 12, 2017, Saifur Rahman Stanikzai, the deputy head of Islamic science at the Afghanistan Academy of Academic Sciences, who was also completing his doctorate at Nangarhar University, was shot and killed on his way from home to a mosque. [367] On October 17, 2017, an explosion shattered the windows of a building at Paktia University, slightly injuring a student, according to the Guardian. The blast had targeted a military training center located just over one mile away. [368] Local media sources reported that members of the Taliban kidnapped a lecturer and a student at an agricultural institute in Nangarhar province on December 27, 2017, and executed them both two days later. [369] International media sources reported that, on December 28, 2017, 'IS' attacked a Shia cultural center where dozens of students were attending an event.[370] According to the Los Angeles Times, the 'IS' news agency, Amaq, stated that the center was targeted because "it sends students to Iran to learn from the ayatollahs."[371] More than 40 people were killed and 80 injured in the attack. It was not clear how many of those harmed were students.[372] 229 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, Afghanistan chapter. UNOCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2018: Afghanistan (OCHA: Afghanistan, December 2017), p. 5. 230 Sune Engel Rasmussen, "Isis in Afghanistan: 'Their peak is over, but they are not finished'," Guardian, November 18, 2016. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2017), Afghanistan chapter. UNAMA, Quarterly report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict: 1 January to 30 September 2017, October 12, 2017, p. 2. 231 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, Afghanistan chapter. Amnesty International, Annual Report 2015/2016: Afghanistan. 232 International Crisis Group, Afghanistan: The Future of the National Unity Government (Brussels: International Crisis Group, April 10, 2017), Report 285/Asia. Sayed Salahuddin and Pamela Constable, "Rupture between Afghan president, regional leader could shake fragile government," Washington Post, December 18, 2017. 233 Robin Emmott, "NATO to send more troops to Afghanistan after U.S. shift," Reuters, November 7, 2017. 234 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2018: Afghanistan, p. 5. 235 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security," A/72/392-S/2017/783, September 15, 2017, para. 38. 236 UNAMA, Quarterly report: 1 January to 30 September 2017, p. 1. It should be noted that UNAMA figures may under-represent the actual number of civilian casualties, due to strict verification methodology and limited ability to verify figures in hard to reach areas. 237 Christine Roehrs and Qayoom Surous, "Too Few, Badly Paid And Unmotivated: The teacher crisis and the quality of education in Afghanistan," Afghanistan Analysts Network, August 22, 2015. Ali Yawar Adili, "A Success Story Marred by Ghost Numbers: Afghanistan's inconsistent education statistics," Afghan Analysts Network, March 13, 2017. 238 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2018: Afghanistan, p. 20. 239 "UN Women Afghanistan," UN Women, http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/countries/afghanistan. 240 REACH, REACH EiE Findings: Afghanistan (PowerPoint slides), August 2017, shared via email on September 18, 2017, slide 23. 241 Human Rights Watch, "I Won't Be a Doctor, and One Day You'll Be Sick": Girls Access to Education in Afghanistan (New York: Human Rights Watch, October 2017). Rehmatullah Afghan and Abubakar Siddique, "Insurgents Force School Closures In Afghan Leader's Village," Gandhara, May 24, 2017. "No school open in Taliban-held Baghran district," Pajhwok Afghan News, September 6, 2017. 242 Ghafoor Saboory "Over 200 Herat Schools Controlled By Taliban," Tolo News, November 28, 2017. Bilal Sapi, "Taliban helps education in Nangarhar", Nunn Asia, November 9, 2014. 243 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2018: Afghanistan, p. 20. 244 Barnett Rubin and Clancy Rudeforth, Enhancing Access to Education: Challenges and Opportunities in Afghanistan (New York: New York University Center on International Cooperation, May 2016), pp. 7, 12. 245 US State Department et al., "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2013: Afghanistan," 2014, p. 43. US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Afghanistan," p. 20. US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2015: Afghanistan," p. 47. 246 Obaid Ali, "Pupils as Pawns: Plundered education in Ghor," Afghan Analysts Network, August 27, 2013. 247 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 27. 248 UNAMA, Afghanistan Mid-year Report 2013: Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, July 2013, p. 17. 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"Programme summary of Afghan Bost Radio 1600 gmt 20 Jul 13," BBC Monitoring South Asia-Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, July 22, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201307200034. 250 "Separate incidents inflict casualties on civilians, police in Afghan east," BBC Monitoring South Asia-Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, November 25, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201311250045. 251 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 25. 252 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Children and armed conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/69/926-S/2015/409, June 5, 2015, para. 33. 253 HRC, "Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan and on the achievements of technical assistance in the field of human rights in 2014," A/HRC/28/48, para. 22. 254 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk: Key Trends and Incidents Affecting Children's Access to Healthcare and Education in Afghanistan, April 2016, p. 18. 255 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 33. 256 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/69/926S/2015/409, para. 33. 257 "Suicide bomber attacks high school in Afghanistan," Al Jazeera America, December 11, 2014. "Kabul suicide bomber attacks French school during show," BBC News, December 11, 2014. 258 "90 pc of Bala Balok schools 'dysfunctional'," Pajhwok Afghan News English, November 27, 2014. "Gunmen torch girls' school in Farah," Pajhwok Afghan News English, November 20, 2014. "Afghanistan: Militants Burn High School in Jowzjan Province," Pajhwok Afghan News, December 20, 2014," as cited in START, GTD 201411290047. "OSCMedia Highlights on Afghanistan 12 December 2014," OSC Summary, December 12, 2014" as cited in START, GTD 201412100013. 259 "Afghanistan: Militants Burn High School." 260 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 26. 261 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2016, Afghanistan chapter. 262 UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2015: Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, February 2016, p. 19. 263 Reuters, "Rocket hits school in eastern Afghanistan, killing three," Express Tribune, May 31, 2015. 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"Armed men burn down girls' school in north Afghanistan," Pakistan Today, October 29, 2016. 274 Information shared by a UN respondent, February 15, 2018 275 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 276 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "The situation in Afghanistan," A/72/392S/2017/783, para. 28. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security: Report of the SecretaryGeneral," A/72/651-S/2017/1056, December 15, 2017, para. 32. 277 Information shared by a UN respondent, February 15, 2018 278 Norwegian Refugee Council, "Military fire against school in Eastern Afghanistan: 'Education is increasingly becoming a casualty of the conflict'," Reliefweb, February 27, 2017. AP, "Afghan official: ISIS militants kill 11 in mosque ambush," Fox News, February 26, 2017. 279 UNAMA and UNOHCHR, Afghanistan Midyear Report 2017: Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul: UNAMA and UNOHCR, July 2017), p. 41. 280 Noor Zahid and Mohammad Habibzada, "IS Destroys Schools, Bars Female Students in Restive Afghan District," Voice of America, July 3, 2017. 281 IANS, "School destroyed in airstrike in Afghanistan," India.com, July 15, 2017. 282 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836S/2016/360, para. 28. 283 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 10. 284 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 6. 285 UN Security Council, "Conclusions on children and armed conflict in Afghanistan," S/AC.51/2016/1, May 11, 2016, para. 4. UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 8. 286 Matthieu Aikins, "The 'Poisoned' Girls of Afghanistan," New York Times, April 25, 2013. 287 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 10. 288 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/68/878S/2014/339, para. 27. 289 Ghanizada, "100 teachers and education officials killed in Afghanistan: MOE," Khaama Press, August 10, 2013, as cited in GCPEA, Education under Attack 2014, p. 118. 290 "Three schoolteachers gunned down in Balkh," AIP, March 28, 2013; "Three teachers killed in Balkh," Wakht News Agency, March 30, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201303270030. 291 UNAMA, Afghanistan Mid-year Report 2013, p. 21. 292 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in Afghanistan," S/2015/336, May 15, 2015, para. 46. 293 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 8. 294 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 10. 295 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 10. 296 US State Department et al., "Country Reports 2014: Afghanistan," p. 47. 297 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/336, para. 45. 298 Xinhua, "Afghan Taliban steps up attacks as foreign troops' withdrawal looms," Tasnim News Agency, December 8, 2014. 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"Masked gunmen kill two schoolteachers in Afghan east," BBC Monitoring South AsiaPolitical Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, April 30, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201504300015. 302 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, pp. 8, 10. 303 UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2015, p. 19. 304 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 9. 305 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 8. 306 UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2016, p. 22. 307 UNAMA, Afghanistan Midyear Report 2016, p. 22. 308 UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2016, p. 22. 309 UNAMA, Afghanistan Midyear Report 2016, p. 22. 310 UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2016, p. 23. 311 UNAMA, Afghanistan Midyear Report 2016, p. 51. 312 UNAMA, Afghanistan Midyear Report 2016, p. 42. 313 UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2016, p. 66. 314 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 31. 315 Information shared by a UN respondent, February 15, 2018 316 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 317 "Teachers kidnapped by suspected Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan," Reuters, January 16, 2017. Noor Zahid, "IS Goes on Attack Spree After Afghan Forces Clear One District," VoA News, January 15, 2017. 318 UN General Assembly, "Report of the Special Representative," A/72/276, para. 12. UNAMA and OHCHR, Afghanistan Midyear Report 2017, p. 13. 319 "IS Threatens Teachers And Students In Restive Afghan District," Gandhara, September 5, 2017. 320 Ahmad Fareed Tanha, "Parwan blast kills, injures senior education officials," Pajhwok Afghan News, November 15, 2017. 321 UNAMA, Afghanistan Midyear Report 2016, p. 22 322 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 19. 323 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/336, para. 48. 324 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/336, para. 48. 325 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/336, para. 48. 326 "Report says Afghan Taleban attack border police from school building in east," AIP, September 16, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201309160027. 327 UN Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," S/2015/336, para. 48. 328 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 19. 329 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 19. 330 UNAMA, Education and Healthcare at Risk, p. 16. 331 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 30. 332 UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/72/361S/2017/821, para. 30. UNAMA, Afghanistan Protection of Civilians: Annual Report 2016, p. 23. 333 Sune Engel Rasmussen, "Afghan army moves into Helmand schools rebuilt with UKaid," Guardian, April 16, 2016. 334 Hassan Hakimi, "Afghanistan: Ghor's Education System Near Collapse," Institute for War and Peace Reporting, December 5, 2016. 335 Human Rights Watch, "Education on the Front Lines," pp. 1-2. 336 Human Rights Watch, "Education on the Front Lines," p. 31. 337 Information shared by a UN respondent, February 15, 2018 338 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2018: Afghanistan, p. 13. 339 Noor Zahid, "Afghan Schools Used as Military Bases By Government, Taliban," VoA, January 26, 2017. 340 Afghanistan Protection Cluster, "November 2017-Eastern Region Update," December 2017, p. 1 341 "Afghanistan: Taliban Child Soldier Recruitment Surges," Human Rights Watch news release, February 17, 2016. 342 "Afghanistan: Taliban Child Soldier." 343 Dawood Azami, "How the Taliban groom child suicide bombers," BBC News, December 15, 2014. UN General Assembly and Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General," A/70/836-S/2016/360, para. 22. 344 UNAMA and OHCHR, Afghanistan Annual Report 2016, pp. 21-22. 345 UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2013, February 2014, p. 61. 346 UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2016, pp. 21-22. 347 "8 injured as blast hits university in E. Afghanistan," Times of Central Asia, December 3, 2013. "Blast near Afghan security facility kills 4 police officers, wounds 19," UPI, December 2, 2013. 348 "University rector found dead after being kidnapped in Afghan north," AIP, April 15, 2013. "Program Summary: Sharana Pashtun Ghag 1500 GMT 15 Apr 2013," Pashtun Ghag, April 15, 2013," as cited in START, GTD 201304130015. 349 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 350 "Afghan university professors kidnapped in Ghazni," Pakistan News Service, June 11, 2014. "Taliban kidnap 35 students, professors in Afghanistan," World Bulletin, June 11, 2014. Ameen Amjad Khan, "35 Kandahar professors kidnapped by Taliban group," University World News, June 19, 2014. 351 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, Kandahar State University, June 10, 2014. Ghanizada, "Taliban releases 33 Kandahar university teachers and students," Khaama Press, June 23, 2014. 352 "Taliban bombs kill at least 10 police in Afghanistan," Reuters, November 10, 2014. "3 Civilians Wounded in Kabul Blast," Pajhwok Afghan News, November 10, 2014. "Deadly explosions hit three Afghan cities," Al Jazeera Online, November 10, 2014. 353 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 354 "Bid to kidnap 15 university students foiled," Frontier Post, January 29, 2015. "Global Afghanistan: Security Forces Rescue 15 Kidnapped Students in Faryab," Pajhwok Afghan News, January 28, 2015. "OSCMedia Highlights on Afghanistan 29 January 2015," OSC Summary, January 29, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201501280025, 2016. 355 "Blast in Afghanistan's Kandahar University wounds one," Xinhua, March 31, 2015. 356 Mirwais Adeel, "Explosion in Kabul University compound, 2 lecturers injured," Khaama Press, May 16, 2015. "Two Lecturers Injured in Kabul Explosion," Tolo News, May 17, 2015. 357 Agence France Presse (AFP), "Multiple Taliban raids kill 26 Afghan police or troops," Express Tribune, May 26, 2015. "Taliban massive offensive on Afghan southern Kandahar city over with leaving 5 dead," Xinhua News, May 26, 2015. 358 "6 killed in Afghan capital blasts," Xinhua News, November 24, 2015. IANS, "Afghan Capital Blasts Kills Six," Business Standard, November 24, 2015. 359 "Afghanistan: Gunmen Kidnap Principal in Wardak," Pajhwok Afghan News, May 22, 2015. "Programme summary of Afghan Bost Radio news in Pashto 1630 gmt 22 May 15," BBC Monitoring South Asia-Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, May 25, 2015," as cited in START, GTD 201505200062. 360 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 361 Bakhtar Safi, "Blast hits Kapisa teacher training centre, 6 injured," Pajhwok Afghan News, May 25, 2016. 362 Elizabeth Redden, "After the Abductions in Afghanistan," Inside Higher Ed, August 15, 2016. "Australian and American kidnapped at gunpoint in Afghanistan," Telegraph, August 8, 2016. 363 Sayed Salahuddin and Pamela Constable, "Taliban says captive American professor's health is failing, fate up to the U.S.," Washington Post, October 30, 2017. 364 "Taliban behead boy in Faryab," Afghanistan Times, August 24, 2016. "Taliban behead university student, used his corpse as BBIED in Faryab," Khaama Press, August 24, 2016. 365 Scholars at Risk Network, Academic Freedom Monitor, American University of Afghanistan, August 24, 2016. Ahmad Shuja, "Attack in Afghanistan Shutters its School for the Blind," Human Rights Watch news release, September 1, 2016. Ben Farmer, "Attack on Kabul's American University ends as attackers killed, leaving 12 people dead," Telegraph, August 25. 2016. Sune Engel Rasmussen, "American University attack: at least 12 dead and 44 injured in Afghanistan," Guardian, August 24, 2016. 366 A full list of references can be found on GCPEA's website, http://www.protectingeducation.org/education-under-attack-2018-references. 367 "Senior academic shot dead by motorcyclists in Kabul," Pajhwok Afghan News, May 12, 2017. 368 "Wave of Taliban suicide attacks on Afghan forces kills at least 74," Guardian, October 17, 2017. 369 Yousaf Zarifi, "Bodies of teacher, student found in Nangarhar," Pajhwok Afghan News, December 31, 2017. "Taliban execute abducted lecturer and student in Nangarhar," Khaama Press, December 31, 2017. 370 Emma Graham-Harrison and Haroon Janjua, "Scores killed in Isis bombing of Kabul news agency and Shia centre," Guardian, December 28, 2017. Sultan Faizy and Shashank Bengali, "At least 41 killed in bombing of Shiite Muslim cultural center in Kabul, officials," Los Angeles Times, December 28, 2017. 371 Sultan Faizy and Shashank Bengali, "At least 41 killed in bombing of Shiite Muslim cultural center in Kabul, officials," Los Angeles Times, December 28, 2017. 372 Emma Graham-Harrison and Haroon Janjua, "Scores killed in Isis bombing of Kabul news agency and Shia centre," Guardian, December 28, 2017. Oil prices rose on Monday amid news that Saudi Arabia would reduce crude sales in December to shore up sagging prices. Media reports suggest that other major producers are also considering reductions heading into 2019. Global benchmark Brent crude was up 1.28 percent at $71.08 per barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 0.66 percent at $60.59 per barrel. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and Opec's de facto leader, plans to trim oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in December but there is no consensus yet among oil producers about cutting production, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih told reporters at the meeting in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. The cut represents a reduction in global oil supply of about 0.5 percent. With U.S. sanctions failing to shut down Iranian oil exports, traders are worried about abundant global supplies. OPEC and its allies will meet in Vienna on Dec. 6-7 to decide on output policy for 2019. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Market Analysis Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp. (SFTBF.PK) said Monday it has received approval from the Tokyo Stock Exchange for listing of common stock of its Japanese mobile telecoms unit, SoftBank Corp. SoftBank plans to sell shares worth 2.4 trillion yen, or $21 billion, in its domestic mobile telecom unit. This would make it the world's biggest initial public offering or IPO after Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group's (BABA) $25 billion IPO in 2014. According to Dealogic, Japan's largest IPO to date is that of NTT Mobile Communications Network, which raised 2.12 trillion yen in 1998. SoftBank Group expanded in Japan with telecommunications as its main . However, under Chief Executive Masayoshi Son, it is now more of a technology investment company following the acquisition of U.S. mobile carrier Sprint Corp. (S) in 2013 and UK-based chip designer ARM Holdings plc (ARM.L, ARMH) in 2016, in addition to creating the $93 billion Vision Fund. The company has also invested in ride-hailing company Uber Technologies and Alibaba. SoftBank is selling 1.60 billion shares of SoftBank Corp. at a price of 1,500 yen each to raise 2.4 trillion yen. This will result in a market value for the mobile unit of 7.2 trillion yen, or $63 billion. In the event of strong investor demand, SoftBank will have the option to sell an additional 160.37 million shares of common stock, worth 240.6 billion yen. That would put the size of the IPO at more than $23 billion. SoftBank said its price of 1,500 yen per share is tentative and a final decision will be taken on December 10. SoftBank will retain a 66.5 percent stake in the newly listed unit. SoftBank Corp. is expected to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on December 19, 2018. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Army attacks Saudi-led coalitions mercenaries in Bayda [12/November/2018] BAYDA, Nov. 12 (Saba) The army launched on Monday an attacks on sites of Saudi-backed militants in Yemens Bayda, a military official told Saba. Dozens of the militants were killed and others injured during the attack which targeted their sites in Al Ajradi front, the official said. AA Saba Army attacks Saudi-led mercenaries' sites in Dhalea [12/November/2018] DHALEA, Nov. 12 (Saba) The army launched on Monday an attack on sites of Saudi-backed mercenaries in Dhalea province, a military official told Yemen Press Agency. Dozens on the mercenaries were killed and injured during the attack which targeted their sites in Naqil al-Khashabah district, the official added. AA Saba GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) Palestinian militants bombarded Israel with dozens of rockets and mortar shells Monday while Israeli warplanes struck targets throughout the Gaza Strip in what appeared to be the most intense exchange of fire since the 2014 war. Palestinian officials said at least three people, including two militants, were killed by Israeli fire and nine were wounded. In Israel, the national rescue service said at least seven people were wounded, including a 19-year-old soldier who was in critical condition. The fighting, triggered by a botched undercover Israeli military raid in Gaza, cast doubt over recent understandings brokered by Egypt and U.N. officials to reduce tensions. Just a day earlier, Israel's prime minister had said he was doing everything possible to avoid another war. The undercover troops, apparently on a reconnaissance mission, were discovered several kilometers (miles) inside Gaza on Sunday, setting off a battle that left seven militants, including a Hamas commander, and an Israeli military officer dead. Around sundown on Monday, militants launched some 100 rockets in less than an hour, the most intense barrage since the 50-day war four years ago. The outgoing rockets, which continued into the evening, lit up the skies of Gaza and set off air raid sirens throughout southern Israel. The military said warplanes, helicopters and tanks had struck over 30 militant targets, including military compounds, observation posts and weapons facilities. It also said it targeted a squad that was launching rockets. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said the army had sent additional infantry troops, rocket defense systems and intelligence units to the Gaza frontier. "We continue to strike and retaliate against the military targets belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, and as for our intentions we will enhance these efforts as needed," he told reporters. Gaza's ruling Hamas militant group and the smaller Islamic Jihad said the rocket fire was revenge for Sunday night's Israeli incursion. Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shehab said the groups wanted "the occupation and its supporters know that the lives of our sons come with a price." In all, some 200 rockets were fired into Israel by mid-evening, the army said. The Israeli military said it intercepted 60 rockets, and most of the others fell in open spaces. But rockets landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, setting off a large fire near a shopping center. Another rocket landed near a factory, and several homes were hit in southern towns. The military said a bus traveling near the border was struck by an anti-tank missile, critically wounding a 19-year-old soldier. The strike set the bus on fire, sending a large plume of black smoke over the area. Conricus said others were injured in the attack, but he gave no further details. Six other people were lightly wounded by shrapnel in various attacks, medical officials said. Michael Oren, an Israeli Cabinet minister, said Israel "will do whatever it takes" to defend itself. "We expect the world to stand with us," he said. The EU's ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, called for a halt in "indiscriminate" rocket fire toward civilians. "Everyone must step back from the brink," he said. Earlier Monday, thousands of Palestinian mourners buried the seven militants killed in Sunday's incursion. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh led a funeral as masked gunmen in uniforms carried coffins and mourners chanted "revenge." Hamas set up checkpoints across Gaza in a show of force. It also restricted movement through crossings with Israel, preventing foreign journalists, local businessmen and some aid workers from leaving the territory. Hamas also canceled a weekly beach protest in northwestern Gaza along the border with Israel. The organizers cited "the ongoing security situation." Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. In the most recent war, over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them civilians, and tens of thousands were left homeless. Seventy-three people were killed on the Israeli side. Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas takeover. The continued fighting, along with the blockade, have devastated Gaza's economy. Unemployment is over 50 percent, the territory suffers from chronic power outages and most residents are unable to travel abroad. For over seven months, Hamas has been leading protests along the Israeli border aimed in large part at breaking the blockade. More than 170 Palestinians, most unarmed, have been killed by Israeli fire during the protests. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltration attempts. In recent weeks, Egyptian and U.N. mediators had appeared to make progress in brokering informal understandings aimed at quieting the situation. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver $15 million to Gaza to allow cash-strapped Hamas to pay the salaries of thousands of government workers. At the same time, Hamas has lowered the intensity of the border protests in recent weeks. The mediators hope to end the protests in exchange for an easing of the Israeli blockade. Those efforts were thrown into question by Monday's fighting. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a visit to Paris because of the flare-up and returned to Israel on Monday for consultations with top security officials. The Hamas military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam, said that in Sunday's incursion, Israeli undercover forces drove about 3 kilometers (2 miles) into southeastern Gaza and shot and killed Nour el-Deen Baraka, a mid-level commander in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Qassam members discovered the car and chased it, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed several people, the group said. The military provided few details about Sunday's raid. The Israeli military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, said a "special force" carried out "a very meaningful operation to Israel's security," without elaborating. Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the operation was "not intended to kill or abduct terrorists but to strengthen Israeli security." He said the force faced a "very complex battle" and was able to "ex-filtrate in its entirety." In a tweet after his arrival back home, Netanyahu praised the slain officer, whose identity was kept confidential for security reasons, and said "our forces acted courageously." The officer's funeral was held Monday. On Sunday, Netanyahu defended his decision to allow through the Qatari cash to Gaza as a way to avert an "unnecessary war," maintain quiet for residents of southern Israel and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the impoverished Gaza Strip. The San Diego division of the California Court of Appeal has ruled that the California Supreme Courts stringent three-part test companies must satisfy to classify a worker as an independent contractor, rather than an employee, applies only to worker claims based on wage orders issued by the Industrial Welfare Commission and not claims based on other employment laws. The state high courts ABC test was announced in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court in April. Under Dynamex, a worker is considered an independent contractor only if the hiring entity can show: (A) it doesnt exercise the kind of control over the worker the hiring entity exercises over its employees; and (B) the workers tasks are not integral to the hiring entitys business; and (C) the worker is engaged in an independent occupation or business and takes common steps to establish and promote an independent business. If any part of this test is not met, the worker is considered an employee, entitled to meal and rest breaks and other rights under the applicable wage order. In the new case, Border Transportation Group, which owned two-thirds of the operating taxicab permits in Calexico, argued that Jesus Garcia, a taxi driver who leased a permit from, and provided services only for, BTG was nonetheless an independent contractor. Among other things, Garcia operated his own vehicle and BTG placed no restrictions on Garcia offering his services as an entrepreneur to others. Advertisement The trial court, ruling before Dynamex was decided, summarily dismissed all eight of Garcias claims, finding BTG satisfied the multi-factor test for independent contractor widely used by California courts until Dynamex. That multi-factor test comes from S.G. Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations, a 1989 California Supreme Court ruling. Borello involved the asserted right of cucumber pickers to workers compensation benefits, which are provided only to employees. A judge applying the Borello test evaluates the overall circumstances of the workers relationship to the hiring entity. The most important factor is the degree to which the hiring entity has the right to control the manner and means through which the worker accomplishes his tasks. The court of appeal partially reversed, applying Part C of the Dynamex test to reach what it called the obvious result that BTG had not shown Garcia was engaged in an independent business. The court returned Garcias case to the trial court for Garcia to show BTG failed to pay him the minimum wage, failed to provide breaks, and violated other wage order-based rights. It was not enough under Part C of the Dynamex test that BTG did not bar Garcia from engaging in an independent business. Instead, wrote the court of appeal quoting from Dynamex, the inquiry is whether Garcia fits the common conception of an independent contractor an individual who independently has made the decision to go into business for himself or herself and establishes and promotes the independent business by such things as incorporating, getting a business license, and advertising. The court of appeal also found, however, that the trial court had properly applied the more flexible Borello test to Garcias claims not based on the wage order, such as his claim for wrongful termination, and upheld summary dismissal of those claims. The court of appeal concluded that Borello continues to apply to claims based on workers compensation, whistleblowing, expense reimbursement, and other employment statutes whose purposes are different from those of the wage orders which regulate very basic working conditions, warranting the broadest definition of employment to protect the widest class of workers. Still, employers who fail to meet all three parts of the ABC independent contractor test face substantial financial liability from employee claims based on the wage orders, such as liability for unpaid overtime and missed breaks, plus potentially substantial attorneys fees the worker incurs in bringing those claims. That the more flexible Borello test focused on the companys control over the worker applies to claims beyond the wage orders provides little incentive for an employer not to meet the more stringent Dynamex test. Dan Eaton is a partner with the San Diego law firm of Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek where his practice focuses on defending and advising employers. He also is an instructor at the San Diego State University Fowler College of Business where he teaches classes in business ethics and employment law. He may be reached at eaton@scmv.com. His Twitter handle is @DanEatonlaw. More than a month after walking off their jobs, striking workers at the Westin San Diego Gaslamp hotel voted Sunday to ratify a new contract. The vote by the downtown hotels housekeepers, banquet captains, servers and other employees represented by Unite Here Local 30 brings to an end a 35-day strike that union members authorized in hopes of securing improved pay and benefits. Unite Here said the vote was 100 percent in favor of ratifying the new contract. In all, there are 162 workers at the Westin hotel who are Unite Here members. The San Diego strike was part of a nationwide job action involving 7,700 workers at hotels managed or owned by Marriott International across eight cities. In recent days, Unite Here reached agreement with hotels in Detroit, Oakland and San Jose, but some 7,000 workers still remain on strike in San Francisco, Boston, Maui and Oahu. Advertisement Union leaders on Sunday declined to disclose terms of the new contract, opting to keep them under wraps until all remaining strikes have ended. We are excited to have reached an agreement for a strong contract that will change the lives of these brave and determined hotel workers, and were grateful for the overwhelming solidarity from our brothers and sisters in labor, the community, and all of the local, regional,and state elected officials that constantly stood by us, said Brigette Browning, president of Unite Here Local 30. We are encouraged and hopeful that similar progress can be achieved in Boston, Hawaii, and San Francisco so that soon one job will be enough to live on, with dignity, at every Marriott in all cities. Rachel Gumpert, national press secretary for Unite Here, has said that the terms negotiated by the local unions represent historic progress in the areas of working conditions, wages and benefits and job security. Upon learning that the contract had been ratified, a spokesperson with Marriott International said, We look forward to welcoming our associates back at work. In San Diego, issues raised by the union included better pay and health benefits, increasing automation that could potentially jeopardize jobs, and so-called green initiatives that let guests opt out of having their rooms cleaned. In some cases, workers complain that such initiatives lead to hours being cut, and once guests do check out of those rooms, the union argues that there can be considerably more work involved to clean them. Workers at the Horton Plaza hotel had been without a contract since April of last year. The walkout by the Westin Gaslamp workers marks the first hotel strike in San Diego County since 2000, when workers at the Hotel del Coronado walked off the job for one day, according to Unite Here. Business lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-2251 Twitter: @loriweisberg A much-anticipated and long-delayed plan to restore the Buena Vista Lagoon could be approved next week by the San Diego Association of Governments. Surrounded by cattails and reeds, the shallow, 220-acre freshwater lagoon at the border of Oceanside and Carlsbad is slowly filling with sediment and weeds. Without intervention, it soon could become a muddy meadow. For decades, plans to dredge or clear out the basin, as San Diego Countys other lagoons occasionally are cleared, have been stymied by endless debates over property rights, habitat preservation and whether to keep the unique status of Southern Californias only freshwater lagoon. But now, perhaps, an end is in sight. Advertisement On Friday, the SANDAG board of directors will be asked to approve a final environmental impact report that recommends the weir, a low dam a few feet above sea level, be removed to open the lagoon to the ocean. The inlet would be widened and the channel deepened to allow the tides to flow in and out. It is one of four alternatives studied at length for the restoration. First scheduled for the boards meeting in January, the issue has been postponed multiple times because of numerous additional comments submitted by interested parties. SANDAG has said that every comment and suggestion will receive a thorough response. Theres also a chance the boards decision could be delayed again. The Carlsbad City Council will discuss Tuesday whether to support a request by lagoon area homeowners for the SANDAG board to continue the matter for an additional six months. A year ago, Carlsbad approved a letter of support for the saltwater restoration. It was the only city to take a stand on the issue. The environmental impact report, based on extensive studies, community meetings and years of work, concludes that removing the weir is the best way to improve the lagoon and the environment around it. Property owners who control the weir and the outer portion of the lagoon disagree. They want the weir to stay, keeping the lagoon full of fresh water, only cleaned of the accumulation of reeds and sediment. We are fighting an uphill battle, said Paul Alanis, who owns a beachfront home in Oceansides gated St. Malo community. Theres a great momentum for saltwater, he said, but he and his neighbors are pushing back, hoping to at least achieve a compromise. Some of the property owners and homeowners associations around the lagoon have formed the nonprofit Save the Fresh Water Buena Vista Lagoon Association and hired an attorney to fight the saltwater restoration. Saint Malo Homeowners John Taglia, right, Paul Alanis, left, and Stephanie Fox, center, oppose a plan to convert the freshwater Buena Vista Lagoon to saltwater (Union-Tribune photo by John Gibbins) One of their biggest concerns is that the saltwater restoration was chosen primarily to get the maximum mitigation credits that government agencies would allow for the project. Projects like the lagoon restoration are used to mitigate, or compensate for, the taking of property that could be home to native species, such as least terns and gnatcachers, for construction projects such as widening the freeway or the railroad. Restoring the lagoon to a more natural state by eliminating the weir is worth much more in mitigation credits than the other alternatives that were studied. That makes the project more likely to get state and federal funding, which some opponents said indicates a bias toward the saltwater alternative. Opponents of the the saltwater alternative are mostly homeowners near or overlooking the lagoon. They say it would make the lagoon less ecologically diverse and that the open inlet would obstruct the beach. They worry that their wide, open-water views would be gone, that the mud flats exposed by low tides would be smelly and ugly, and that their property values would drop. Environmentalists dont see it that way. They point out that other restoration projects have increased diversity, enhanced views and boosted property values. Californias coastal wetlands have been disappearing for decades, paved over for homes and shopping malls, and many people want to preserve whats left. The saltwater restoration is supported by most of the state and federal agencies involved, and by nonprofits such as the Buena Vista Audubon Society, which has a nature center and trails in Oceanside along Coast Highway at the edge of the lagoon. Out of all the options, (saltwater) has the greatest number of benefits for the greatest numbers of species, humans and otherwise, said Brian Petersen, a Carlsbad resident and member of the Audubon Societys board of directors. Its the most sustainable in the long term, Petersen said. Freshwater just kicks the can down the road. Its going to keep filling up with sediment. Brian Petersen, board member for the Buena Vista Audubon Society, on a dock at the lagoon Wednesday. (Union-Tribune photo by John Gibbins) Freshwater or saltwater, the lagoon needs periodic excavation. The lagoon is fed by the Buena Vista Creek and other small tributaries that trickle with irrigation runoff for most of the year, then flood with water carrying sand and debris during occasional winter storms. Coast Highway, a railroad bridge and Interstate 5 all cross the lagoon, where they restrict the flow of water and help trap the sediment. The eastern end of the lagoon was last dredged in 1982 after a series of strong winter storms greatly increased the sediments. Four small islands were created for nesting wildlife, and the lagoon was stocked with more than 5,000 channel catfish. Other fish noted at the time were bass, perch and carp. Even before the weir, the lagoon was often filled with fresh or brackish water. Ocean currents and tides build a sand berm on the beach that stops water from flowing in or out of the lagoon for much of the year. That process has continued for eons, probably as long as the lagoon has existed. Now when the water in the lagoon gets high enough to threaten nearby structures or stagnant enough to kill fish and create odors, the city will bulldoze an opening in the berm. Also, any big winter rain will send enough water into the lagoon to push open the berm naturally. The lagoon has been filled with freshwater year round since private property owners installed pipes at the outlet in the 1940s to keep a constant water level. The present weir, a low concrete dam, was built in the 1970s to keep the minimum depth a few feet above sea level. Whether that weir should remain is the biggest issue of the proposed restoration. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, then called the Department of Fish and Game, began a restoration plan about 2001, but gave up 10 years later after it was unable to settle on a solution. SANDAG became the lead agency in 2012. Once reason SANDAG got involved is that mitigation money could be available for the restoration because of multi-year projects already underway to widen Interstate 5 and double-track the coastal railroad. Money from those transportation projects, together known as the North Coast Corridor Program, is paying for a similar restoration underway at the San Elijo Lagoon on the border of Solana Beach and Encinitas. The San Elijo construction, expected to cost more than $100 million, began late last year after 20 years of studies and preparation. The four alternatives studied for the Buena Vista Lagoon are: 1) remove the weir and create an open channel that would allow tidal flushing; 2: leave the weir where it is and clean out the weeds, rushes and sediment, 3) create a hybrid lagoon moving the weir to a spot at the Interstate 5 bridge, which would allow saltwater west of the bridge and freshwater to the east, and 4) do nothing, which would allow the lagoon to continue to fill with sediment and weeds. Complicating the selection process is the continued private ownership of the weir and the outer portion of the lagoon west of the railroad tracks. The 50-foot-wide weir is on the dividing line between Oceanside and Carlsbad. The half of the weir in Oceanside is on property owned by the four St. Malo homeowners nearest the weir. The half in Carlsbad is owned by the homeowners association of the condominium complex just south of the weir. And the entire outer portion of the lagoon west of the railroad tracks is owned by the St. Malo Association, which is a corporation and not a homeowners association, that controls the beach community. Most of the lagoon east of the railroad tracks is owned by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Historically, the lagoon was never deep or wide. Before the weir was built, during dry years the water often shrank to a narrow, meandering channel that flowed from beneath the railroad trestle to the beach. Nancy Keith Tenaglia was a child when her parents bought about 26 acres, including the western portion of the lagoon, in the 1920s to create the St. Malo Beach resort. They built the first house there in 1928 and, though residents of Pasadena, they spent their summers at the beach in Oceanside. Tenaglia recalled details from the early 1930s in a 20-page history posted on the Buena Vista Lagoon Foundations website. She died in Pasadena in 2009. When winter was wet and the rainfall was heavy, the lagoon filled quickly but was held back from the ocean by the natural sand barrier built up by the waves, Tenaglia wrote. Ocean water rarely ever entered the lagoon except for during storms when they top the sand barrier, according to Tenaglias account. The waves always quickly rebuild the sand barrier, and eventually the rains would fill the lagoon again. My father knew the success of his beach resort depended on a stable water level, wrote Tenaglia, so he looked for a way to do that. After trying several methods that failed, he eventually installed a series of pipes in the sand that were used to control the water level until the weir was built. No restoration can return the lagoon to the way it was a century ago. Development has changed the Southern California landscape forever. Instead, scientists say, the best they can do is to repair some of the damage done and create a more natural habitat that supports a wide and healthy number of native species. Friday, the SANDAG board will consider a way to do that at the Buena Vista Lagoon with the projects final environmental impact report. Approval of the EIR would clear the way for the numerous government agencies involved, primarily SANDAG, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to begin applying for permits and looking for money to finance construction, which is expected to cost about $65 million. philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @phildiehl A daylong conversation about how and what we eat will bring together local leaders in the fields of food and agriculture on Wednesday at the inaugural Food Tank San Diego Summit. In recent years, discussions in the food community made up of ranchers, farmers, researchers, fishermen, chefs, policymakers, academics and others have centered around issues as much as menus, with the phrases sustainable seafood, responsible farming and food insecurity making their way into the common vernacular. The non-profit Food Tank will hold panel discussions, one-on-one chats and farmer spotlights under the theme of Growing the Food Movement. The sold-out summit, which will be held at the Illumina Theater in La Jolla, will be widely available via livestreaming for free at foodtank.com and facebook.com/TheFoodTank. It runs from 9 a.m.-5 p.m., with a break for lunch between 12:50-1:50 p.m. The panel topics are: Accounting for the True Cost of Food; Meeting Consumer Demand for Sustainable Food; How Science, Agriculture and Technology Connect; and Farming for a Better Food System. A discussion on Creating Better Storytelling Around Food and Agriculture will include several San Diego food writers, including this reporter. Advertisement Danielle Nierenberg, president and founder of Food Tank, said the summit can help dispel some myths. I think the event is significant because there are critics in the media and in government who say that there is not a food movement in this country. That people who care about where their food comes from and who grows it, harvests it, processes it, and cooks it are elitist foodies, Nierenberg said in an email. But thats not true and thats why we wanted to convene an event that brings together different stakeholders in the food system there is food a movement in San Diego, in California, in the U.S., and across the world that calls for creating a food system that brings everyone to the table. She said a key goal of the summits daylong dialogue is about taking the success and lessons learned to the rest of the country and to the global food movement. The Food Tank livestreams are watched all over the world and viewers can ask questions via the stream and on social media. Nierenberg said more than 96,000 people viewed last months summit in New York. The San Diego Food Tank Summit is being presented in partnership with the locally based Berry Good Foundation and in collaboration with UC San Diego. michele.parente@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @sdeditgirl The burning question in the romantic musical She Loves Me isnt whether unknowing lonely hearts club correspondents Georg Nowack and Amalia Balash will get together. Its what misunderstandings and harmless complications will ensue before they do. Thats the charm of this underappreciated show written by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (with a book by Joe Masteroff). Bock and Harnick are better known for composing Fiddler on the Roof, which opened on Broadway in 1964, a year after She Loves Me debuted. She Loves Me is no Fiddler on the Roof, but as a Scripps Ranch Theatre production directed by Ted Leib demonstrates, its festive fun ideal for the arrival of the holidays. If the premise of She Loves Me strikes a familiar chord, it should. The root of the story is a 1937 play by Hungarian Miklos Laszlo. It inspired the 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner, with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan as the initially dueling co-workers who dont realize that each is the others romantic correspondent. Nearly a decade afterward came In the Good Old Summertime, with Judy Garland and Van Johnson. She Loves Me, which returned the story to the stage but as a musical, followed in 1963. (Thirty-five years later, the film Youve Got Mail starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan found the correspondents communicating via this relatively new medium called the internet.) Advertisement The enduring connection between these various incarnations and the palpable appeal of She Loves Me is the would-be lovers all-too-human insecurities. By whatever names, they hunger for true love even as they fear they wont measure up. She Loves Me is not blessed with a signature song. Neither is the setting, a perfume shop in Budapest in the mid-30s, particularly compelling. Its snappy characters and unflagging spirit of fun carry the day. SRTs ambitious staging a cast of 14, multiple set changes, two musical accompanists is the companys most wholly satisfying since its excellent Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike two years ago. Taylor Magee, possessing a sparkling soprano, delights as Amalia and gets laughs too in her Act 2 Vanilla Ice Cream number. Luke Monday is likable and natural as Georg, at home with both song and antics. The ensemble-driven She Loves Me guarantees everyone, right down to the delivery boy (Josh Bradford), a tune of his or her own. Basking in the opportunity are supporting players Tara Sampson, Danny Campbell, Joseph Grienenberger and Tanner Vidos. Theres also a cleverly choreographed (by Marc Caro-Willcox) cafe scene (A Romantic Atmosphere) in which Georg finds out that Amalia is his Dear Friend correspondent. She, of course, wont learn the truth until the inevitable happy ending. Considering the tight confines of the Lenbough Legler Theatre stage, a She Loves You this seamless is no small achievement for the SRT cast, crew and musicians. Sure, this is a love story thats been told multiple times before, but the payoff of two lonely people finding each other never gets old. She Loves Me When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Through Dec. 16. Where: Lenbough Legler Theatre on Alliant University campus, 9783 Avenue of Nations, Scripps Ranch Tickets: $15-$37 Phone: (858) 578-7728 Online: scrippsranchtheatre.org A fresh wave of fighting erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, leaving at least six militants dead just as Israel and Hamas had appeared to be making progress toward ratcheting down months of border violence. Although it was unclear what set off the burst of violence, Hamas said a security incident had left a number of dead and wounded, while the Israeli military said an exchange of fire took place during operational activity in Gaza. The Palestinian Health Ministry said six militants were killed and six others wounded, as air raid sirens warning of incoming rockets sounded in southern Israel, near Gaza. Sundays development shattered what appeared to be a turning point after months of bloodshed along the Israel-Gaza border, with weekly Hamas-led protests drawing thousands to the perimeter fence with Israel. Over 160 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the border protests in which Palestinians throw rocks, burning tires and grenades toward Israeli troops. In response to the violence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was cutting short his trip to Paris, where world leaders had gathered to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Advertisement Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver $15 million in aid to Gazas cash-strapped Hamas rulers. Hamas responded by lowering the intensity of Fridays border protest. Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu defended his decision to allow the transfer of the Qatari money, rejecting criticism that the move had strengthened the Islamic militant group. Netanyahu told reporters that it was the right step at the moment and that he was committed to restoring quiet along the Israel-Gaza frontier and preventing a humanitarian crisis in the coastal Palestinian territory. Every action, without exception, has a price, he said. If you cant handle the price you cannot lead. And I can handle the price. Israeli critics, including members of Netanyahus hard-line coalition, accused him of capitulating to violence and of granting relief to the embattled Hamas group. The internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007, angrily accused the U.S. and Israel of being involved in a conspiracy to permanently sever Gaza from the West Bank. He promised to take unspecified measures against his Hamas rivals in the coming days. Hamas leaders in Gaza have described the arrival of the $15 million, delivered last week in three suitcases by a Qatari diplomat, as their first major gain after more than seven months of weekly protests along the perimeter fence. Hamas has been leading the protests since March 30 in a bid to ease a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade that was imposed in 2007 in order to weaken the militant group. The blockade has led to over 50% unemployment and chronic power outages, and prevents most Gazans from being able to leave the tiny territory. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltrations, but its army has come under international criticism because of the large number of unarmed protesters who have been shot. With Hamas threatening to intensify the protests and international officials warning of a looming humanitarian crisis, Netanyahu on Thursday allowed the cash into Gaza. It is the first installment of $90 million that Qatar has pledged to cover the salaries of thousands of unpaid Hamas employees for six months. Israeli opposition figures lambasted Netanyahu for appearing to cave in to violence. Army Radio played decade-old sound clips of Netanyahu, from when he was the opposition leader, threatening tough action against Hamas and criticizing his predecessor for being too soft. Even his erstwhile allies attacked him for indirectly doing business with a militant group that has fought three wars against Israel and is sworn to Israels destruction. Everyone knows where that money is going to go ultimately, said Netanyahus agriculture minister, Uri Ariel. But in comments to reporters before traveling to Paris, Netanyahu said it was a question of alternatives. He said the step was coordinated with security officials to restore quiet for Israeli citizens living near the Gaza border and to avert a humanitarian crisis. Later, at a news conference in Paris, when asked about his longer-term vision for Gaza, Netanyahu said there could be no political resolution as long as Hamas is in power. You cant have a political resolution with those who are committed to your dissolution, to your destruction. Thats absurd, he said. The alternative is to do the minimal things necessary to maintain our security and to prevent the collapse of the humanitarian situation, he added. The payment is part of what is expected to be a set of informal understandings between Israel and Hamas reached through Egyptian and U.N. mediation. Hamas is demanding an expansion of the permissible fishing zone off the Israeli-controlled Gaza coast, uninterrupted flow of fuel to mitigate chronic power shortages and the lifting of Israeli restrictions on exports and imports. In return, Israel wants quiet and an end to the border protests. For the second week in a row, the Palestinians kept Fridays protests carefully restrained, burning fewer tires and refraining from breaching the fence. In the West Bank, Abbas angrily accused Israel and the U.S. of ganging up behind his back to entrench Hamas control over Gaza. He also accused Hamas of undermining his goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state that includes all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Abbas fears that the U.S. is preparing to float a peace plan, called the deal of the century by President Trump, which would leave Hamas in control of Gaza and give him only limited autonomy in pieces of the West Bank. We are going to take tough measures [against Hamas] in the coming days, Abbas said. There is an American conspiracy, which is the deal of the century, and there is an Israeli conspiracy to implement the deal of the century, he said. To my dismay, there is another conspiracy from Hamas to foil the independent state. Abbas, speaking at a ceremony marking the 14th anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, did not elaborate on what steps he might take against Hamas. Abbas has repeatedly limited financial aid to Gaza in order to pressure Hamas into returning control to him. UPDATES: 3:41 p.m.: This article was updated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing he was returning early from Paris because of the violence at home. This article was originally published at 2:40 p.m. More than 100 people gathered at Miramar National Cemetery on Sunday to honor the service of the nations veterans and mark the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. Veterans Day was known as Armistice Day in the U.S. until the 1950s and is still called that in Europe. The featured speaker was Robert L. Cardenas, a retired Air Force brigadier general who flew bombers in World War II. The 98-year-old began his remarks by thanking those in attendance. I have been to several veterans day (events) and have heard dozens of speeches, he said. I think today, I want to thank you. I want to thank the people of the United States for taking care of us veterans. Advertisement Cardenas, who was born in Mexico in 1920, moved to San Diego when he was 5 years old. He recounted some of his experiences in World War II as a B-24 pilot in the Army Air Corps, including the time in 1944 when he was shot down over enemy territory. He barely escaped to neutral Switzerland and was held captive until a member of the French resistance smuggled him into France. Cathy Fiorelli, the president and CEO of the Miramar National Cemetery Support Foundation, talked about the first world war during her remarks, noting that two veterans Chief Petty Officers Clyde Flynn and Gasper Gaspellich were interred at Miramar. Some 37 million people military and civilian were casualties of the fighting and devastation of The Great War, Fiorelli said. In April 1917, 4.4 million Americans were mobilized to serve in World War I. Of those, 116,000 were killed, and 204,000 were wounded. Today we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Dennis Schoville, an Army veteran who flew helicopters during Vietnam, serves at the chairman of the cemeterys support foundation. He told those attending the event that veterans are treated differently today than when he came home from Vietnam, a trend he noticed that began with the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. From the standpoint of the veteran community, theres a tremendous sense of personal sacrifice and suffering that the public at times pays a little bit of attention to, although, thankfully on Veterans Day, we do see people reaching out and recognizing and thanking veterans for their sacrifice, he said. For Schoville, Nov. 11 has another significance. Thats the date in 1969 that he was shot down and wounded in Vietnam. He was medically retired shortly thereafter. This is my second run, he said. Its all gravy. Dana Henning brought her two children and one of their friends to the ceremony because she said it was important they learn about veterans and honor her father. This year, she and the kids -- Trevor Lemke, 13, Elie Lemke, 10, and Cassie Callen, 10 -- baked and decorated cookies in red, white and blue icing and sprinkles, which they handed out to people attending the ceremony. It was a long night of baking, Henning said. I baked them and they decorated them. She said she thought it was important for children to appreciate the sacrifices people in the military make. The only military background they have is my dad, Henning said. I try to make them understand I want them to understand what military service really is, and so I make them come and do stuff like this. I just really want them to learn and appreciate, (to) get out of their comfort zone a little bit and do things for their community. They stood at the back throughout the speeches. Trevor said it helped him appreciate veterans, but he was not comfortable in the cemetery. I like it, I just think its a little depressing and sad, Trevor said. Theres so many people here thats deceased in the line of service. Barbara Apodaca sat with her 3-year-old grandson Abraham Intharath. Apodaca said her brother, a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam, was buried at Miramar. We brought him (Abraham) as a baby, she said. I want him to realize what his uncle did. Apodaca, who is originally from New Mexico, said she had a lot of family members who had fought for the United States. Her grandfather fought in World War I, and her father fought in World War II. I think more people should be part of this, she said. I dont know if people realize what they (veterans) do what theyve done for us. I wish this event would be bigger. Fiorelli closed the ceremony by asking those in attendance to take a few minutes to reflect upon the graves and monuments at the cemetery. Let us honor our veterans, our active duty service members and their families by spending a few minutes in contemplation of the sacrifices they have made, and are still making, on behalf of all of us, she said. Contact Andrew Dyer via email or Twitter. November 12, 1952 The San Diego Union The San Diego Union-Tribune will mark its 150th anniversary in 2018 by presenting a significant front page from the archives each day throughout the year. Wednesday, November 12, 1952 In 1952, the U.S. exploded the first hydrogen bomb at an atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The test took place on Nov. 1, but was not immediately made public. Eyewitness accounts of the blast started arriving in San Diego a week before the Atomic Energy Commission's official announcement. The H-bomb thermonuclear weapon was roughly 1000 times larger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Here are the first few paragraphs of the story: LETTERS TELL OF HELL BLAST Atomic Energy Commission Silent On Rumors of H-Bomb Explosion How wind from the recent hell-bomb blast in the Pacific rushed past observers 30 miles away was described yesterday in a letter from a San Diego sailor to his father. In Washington, meantime, Atomic Energy Commission officials persisted in tight-lipped silence about the Nov. 1 test on an atoll in the Marshall Islands. The local sailor, who admitted that he was an uncomfortable and frightened witness, wrote his father, an aircraft worker, that we were the closest human life when the bomb was exploded at 7:15 a.m. Although the military had permitted delivery of the letter, the father asked that neither he nor his son be identified. We will have absolutely no comment until the current series of atomic tests is concluded, an A.E.C. spokesman told reporters in the capital. Then we will make an announcement. Previously, A.E.C. officials had indicated that, for security reasons, it might be years before any announcement was made in connection with hydrogen bomb experiments. Meanwhile, scientists in Washington dismissed any idea that an H-bomb explosion might have caused the 13-foot tidal was that struck on the Island of Oahu , Hawaii, Nov.4, and also threw huge waves against the Aleutians and Midway Island. Scientists said any man-made detonation would be puny compared to the gigantic forces unleashed by naturesuch as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and other phenomenathat might set tidal waves in motion. Eye-witness accounts of a purported hydrogen bomb explosion have been published during the last few days in Los Angeles, Lima, O., Michigan City, Ind., and Salt Lake City. Most of the published descriptions, set forth in letters written by U.S. sailors to friends in this countryagreed that H-hour for the explosion was 7:15 a.m., Central Pacific Time, and the blast took place on the mid-Pacific Island of Eniwetok. That is the scene of the current hush-hush atomic tests. View anniversary front pages online at sandiegouniontribune.com/150-years. For more from the Union-Tribune digital archives, go to newslibrary.com/sites/sdub. Searching is free, with registration. A fee is required to view full stories. The burnt husk of a park service vehicle slumped at the entrance of Malibu Creek State Park, its glass windshield melted into a Dali-esque blob. The steep craggy mountains and gorges below ordinarily attract groups of tourists, hikers and campers to the area, but on Saturday the ground here was still smoldering, charred into a black crumble. For the record: A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled Joe Edmiston, the executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Wildfires decimated the historic park tucked inside the Santa Monica Mountains a day earlier taking with it markers of its proud past as a backdrop for television shows and movies such as Planet of the Apes. Flames consumed the set of the long-running TV series MASH. The same went for the Reagan Ranch, named after the former president and actor who used to own one of three parcels that comprise the 44-year-old parks footprint along with Bob Hope and 20th Century Fox. Advertisement I was just showing a group of visitors from Russia Tarzans rock pool, said Tim Johnston, 83, a retired Los Angeles firefighter and park docent who was astonished by the damage he saw Saturday. People dont realize theyve been watching movies all their lives that took place here. Their moms been watching all her life. Even their grandma has been watching all her life. All across the Santa Monica Mountains, the devastating Woolsey fire exacted both a psychic and physical toll on local history and connections to an unlikely stretch of wilderness that through dogged conservation persists despite the surrounding urban sprawl. The Santa Monica Mountains, which stretch from Hollywood Hills to Point Mugu in Ventura County, have long offered Southern Californians a respite from the city below with the ranges array of hiking trails, waterfalls and rock pools. And its sprawling ranch land has given Hollywood real-world ties to the frontier life it exhaustively depicted on screen. Its little wonder that properties with links to show business were among the worst hit by a wind-swept fire that has scorched 83,000 acres of mostly natural land as of late Sunday and was only 10% contained. The sets at Malibu Creek State Park werent the only ones to be leveled. The nearby Paramount Ranch and its scenic Western Town, most recently used for HBOs hit series Westworld, were also ruined in the blaze. The site was a regular destination for day trippers who used the convincing background for family photos. About two miles west saw the destruction of the Peter Strauss Ranch, named after an Emmy Award-winning actor. The ranch featured a swimming pool and amphitheater and was the site of art exhibits and performances by country stars Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. All that remained of the ranch house was a few stone walls and a chimney. When Mother Nature wants to win, she always wins, said California State Parks Supt. Tyson Butzke, whos ordinarily based in the Channel Coast District in Ventura County but came down to assist during the Woolsey fire. Los Angeles Countys proximity to nature means its always beholden to inherent risks such as fire. That danger is heightened each year as more homes encroach onto natural land. So much of the Santa Monica Mountains modern story has centered on its tension between nature and development. Los Angeles is the only metropolis in the world split by a mountain range, and an untamed one at that in many parts. Mumbai, India, and L.A. are the only two cities that count big cats among their residents. This is some of the most coveted real estate in the world, said Matt Jaffe, author of The Santa Monica Mountains: Range on the Edge. The fact that theres a huge amount of acreage set aside in an environment this expensive is a remarkable success story. Jaffe and his wife had to evacuate their Calabasas home because of the Woolsey fire but were heartened to learn one of their favorite nearby walking destinations, the King Gillette Ranch, was undamaged. The couple regularly hit nearby hiking trails on a whim, even just for an hour of exercise. One of the special things about living where we live is we have access to the mountains in a spontaneous way, Jaffe said. Its not the typical L.A. experience where you have to leave at a certain time to beat the traffic. That means a lot to us. To a whole community of people the mountains are central to who they feel they are as people and their connection to nature. Public access to the mountain range has been hard fought. It was propelled with the establishment of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy in 1980 by the state. Funded with bond measures and led by an ambitious executive director, Joe Edmiston, the agency has preserved tens of thousands of acres of land along the range. The powerful group has also advocated against too much residential development. Last year, Edmiston called for the limiting of recovery funds for rebuilding homes in fire-prone areas. (Anyone who thinks its easy to build a new house in the mountains should consider the plight of U2 guitarist David Evans, a.k.a. the Edge, who has been trying since 2005 to erect his dream home on a barren vista called Seawater Mesa.) Many of the residents in the mountains also own horses and other animals. For feed theyve come to rely on the West Valley Horse Center in Agoura Hills, which had been run for decades by sometime Hollywood stunt rider Buck Wicall, who died in June at 83. The store is now operated by Wicalls daughter, Adrienne Manhan, and her husband, David Manhan. They still dont own a computer. All records are kept with ink and paper. Wall space is covered in framed photos of Wicalls friends: Ronald Reagan, Gene Autry and Clayton Moore, who played the Lone Ranger. When we evacuated the other night, we all did it together, said Adrienne Manhan, 60. Theres a small-town feeling to this place. David Manhan, who is also a movie set designer, says the allure of the Santa Monica Mountains is unmistakable. Its the mountains, its the oak trees, its nature, the 59-year-old native of the area said. You drive through the canyons, you see the rock formations, you hit [Pacific Coast Highway] and see the ocean. Its like no other place. david.pierson@latimes.com Twitter: @dhpierson Two major fires are raging in California, forcing evacuations and leaving a destructive path. The Woolsey fire has ravaged parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, including Malibu, Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks. Three deaths have been reported, and scores of residents have been evacuated. The Camp fire in Northern Californias Butte County has left 79 people dead and destroyed more than 15,800 structures. Its the states deadliest and most destructive fire. Here are the latest maps and key statistics on acreage, containment and damage. For live coverage from reporters on the ground, visit our liveblog. Advertisement WOOLSEY FIRE Los Angeles and Ventura counties Size: 96,949 acres Containment: 98% Damage: Three people have died, and an estimated 1,500 structures have been destroyed. Most areas have been repopulated. See the latest orders at CalFire.ca.gov. Information current as of 9 p.m. Tuesday. It will take 10 to 20 years before Santa Monica Mountains look like they did before Woolsey fire (Los Angeles Times Graphics) CAMP FIRE Butte County Size: 152,250 acres Containment: 75% Evacuations: Paradise, Magalia, Concow, Butte Creek Canyon and Butte Valley. See the latest evacuation orders at CalFire.ca.gov. Damage: At least 81 people have died and 870 remain missing. At least 17,148 structures have been destroyed; an additional 5,100 are threatened. Information current as of 9 p.m. Tuesday. 1 / 37 Silence hangs over Paradise,Calif., after the explosive Camp fire burned through Butte County and claimed 23 lives. Residents have not been allowed back. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 37 President Donald Trump meets California Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom at Beale Air Force Base on Saturday. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) 3 / 37 US President Donald Trump views damage from wildfires with Paradise Mayor Jody Jones in Paradise, Calif. (SAUL LOEB / AFP/Getty Images) 4 / 37 President Donald Trump walks with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., left and FEMA Administrator Brock Long, right, as he visits a neighborhood impacted by the wildfires in Paradise, Calif. (Evan Vucci / AP) 5 / 37 President Donald Trump tours the Woolsey Fire ravaged neighborhood on Dume Drive in Malibu on Saturday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles TImes) 6 / 37 President Donald Trump, second from left, tours the Woolsey Fire ravaged neighborhood on Dume Drive in Malibu. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles TImes) 7 / 37 From left, Johnny Hardin, 15, Madeline Hardin, 13, Donita Hardin and Erik Hardin, 15 months old, get ready to sleep in their car after getting displaced by the Camp fire, at the Walmart parking lot in Chico, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 37 Alexandria Wilson, 21, kisses her dog Harley, after they both escaped the Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 37 Search and rescue teams inspect the grounds of a house burned by the Camp Fire along Boquest Boulevard in Oroville, Calif. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 37 Volunteers hand out supplies to fire evacuees near a Walmart in Chico, Calif. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 37 People go through donated clothes at a Walmart in Chico, Calif. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 37 A sign warns looters at the site of burned-down properties in Paradise, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 37 A search and rescue team combs through the debris for possible human remains Friday at Paradise Gardens, in Paradise, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 37 Alexandria Wilson, 21, consoles her boyfriend, Jacob Golden, 25, as they recount their harrowing escape from the Camp Fire at a relatives house in Applegate, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 37 A vanished neighborhood in Paradise. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 37 A forensic team investigates the site of a Paradise home where remains were found. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 37 Michael John Ramirez hugs his wife, Charlie Ramirez, after they found her keepsake bracelet while sifting through the remains of their home in Paradise. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 37 Religious figurines sit atop a burned vehicle in Paradise. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 37 Authorities recover the remains of a fire victim from an overturned car alongside Pearson Road in Paradise. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 37 David Neeley hugs his ex-wife, Jeanne Neely, and their daughter, Faith Neeley, 10, in a parking lot in Oroville, where they are staying amid the Camp fire. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 37 Megan Butler, 26, and her daughter Aurora, 2, are homeless after their house burned down in Concow in the Camp fire. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 37 Yolo County Animal Services Officer Stephanie Amato holds a chicken she helped rescue in Paradise. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 37 Smoke fills the sky as the Camp fire continues to burn along the North Fork of the Feather River. It has already burned more than 200,000 square miles. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 37 A sign in Paradise offers a warning for would-be looters. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 37 A man rests at a shelter at the Church of the Nazarene in Oroville, Calif. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 37 Outside of Pulga, Calif., on the North Fork of the Feather River, the Camp fire continues to burn. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 37 Outside of Pulga, Calif., on the North Fork of the Feather River, where the Camp fire may have started, helicopters do airdrops while ground crews try to keep the fire from spreading. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 37 Firefighter Brian Carter of Weed, Calif., keeps an eye on the flames along the North Fork of the Feather River. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 37 Many people dont want to stay in shelters because they cant take their dogs inside. This dog waits for his human companion in a parking lot in Oroville. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 37 Residents of Paradise, Calif., try to get through a roadblock to check on their home but are turned away. People havent been allowed to return to the town. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 37 The Camp fire burns along a ridgetop near Big Bend, Calif., on Saturday. (Noah Berger / AP) 32 / 37 Yuba County sheriffs officials carry a body away from a burned residence in Paradise. (Josh Edelson / AFP/Getty Images) 33 / 37 A crew from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection walks through the rubble of a home while putting out hot spots in Paradise, Calif. (Mason Trinca / For The Times) 34 / 37 Flames and embers, pushed by strong dry winds, set the town of Paradise, Calif., ablaze. Thousands of buildings were destroyed. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 37 Brad Weldon, 63, waits for help along Skyway in Paradise, Calif. Weldon was among the residents who stayed and battled the wildfire. (Mason Trinca / For The Times) 36 / 37 Fire crews put out hot spots in Paradise, Calif. (Mason Trinca / For The Times) 37 / 37 Firefighters walk through the rubble of a home in Paradise, Calif. (Mason Trinca / For The Times) What started as a tiny brush fire became the states deadliest wildfire. Heres how The San Diego federal court, operating short-handed while its caseload has skyrocketed under the Trump administrations zero-tolerance immigration policy, is finally getting some relief. The Southern District of California has two new magistrate judges, both from the defense bar: longtime private practitioner Michael Berg and veteran public defender Linda Lopez. Lopez was sworn in late last month, and Berg on Monday. But the relief is only partial, with many more judicial vacancies left unfilled and a caseload that doesnt not appear to be letting up anytime soon. Advertisement Newly-appointed Magistrate Judge Michael Berg speaks to reporters outside the San Diego federal courthouse in this 2010 file photo. (John Gibbins/U-T) The court has been under immense pressure to handle the ballooning number of cases since Jeff Sessions the U.S. attorney general who was just forced out by President Donald Trump enacted a policy in May to criminally prosecute every adult who enters the country illegally. Overall felony filings are also up, judges say. In fiscal 2018, which ended Sept. 30, the U.S. Attorneys Office filed nearly 10,300 cases, compared to about 4,900 cases the previous year, according to data released by the office. The leap is mainly due to zero tolerance misdemeanor cases. This tremendous caseload is putting a serious strain on our district, San Diegos Chief U.S. District Judge Barry T. Moskowitz told the federal bar during the State of the District luncheon last month. The increased caseload came at a time when the district was already short on judges. This year, Magistrate Judge Andrew Schopler deployed as an Army reservist to Afghanistan, Magistrate Judge David Bartick died of brain cancer, and two magistrates retired Judge Peter Lewis in the Imperial Valley and Judge Jan Adler in San Diego. Magistrate judges are appointed by district judges and serve eight-year terms, while district judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate for life terms. Rather than retire outright, district judges at some point often go on senior status, taking a reduced caseload. Two district judges have announced plans to transition to senior status the Hon. Michael Anello and Moskowitz making for a total of five district judge vacancies. Ive spoken to the White House about this emergency and was given assurances they are working to fill these vacancies, Moskowitz said. Still, even if all five are quickly filled, Moskowitz said there are only chambers and courtrooms for three of them. Plans for construction are in the works, but that wouldnt be completed until 2020 at the earliest, he said. To help cope with the zero tolerance policy, the court created a controversial fast-track process for misdemeanor illegal entry cases, overseen by rotating magistrate judges. Some days, the illegal entry court, often referred to as Streamline, would stretch late into the evening. Retired judges have been called back to service to help with the busy calendar. We have found ourselves in the situation where we are low on judges but yet handling a dramatically increased caseload, and that has created problems, Magistrate Judge Barbara Major said in her comments at the State of the District luncheon. The focus on criminal matters has bled into civil cases, creating delays, she said. Weve had to continue a number of settlement conferences, and had to switch hearings that normally would be in person to be telephonic, Major told the room of lawyers, apologetically. A reprieve is in sight, with both Berg and Lopez the two newest magistrates now taking cases, and Schopler set to return early next year. Berg, who began practicing in 1982, graduated from the University of San Diego School of Law. He is a well-known presence in the criminal defense community and not shy about offering a quote or two for a news story when asked. He has defended 41 homicides and other serious crimes, as well as the first death penalty case ever filed in San Diego federal court. Hes kind of the dean of the criminal defense bar, said fellow defense attorney Jeremy Warren. Hes extremely well regarded by all sides of the aisle. Berg was friends with Bartick, who also hailed from the defense bar before he became a judge. Im sure Bartick is up there somewhere with a big smile knowing the seats been taken by Berg, Warren said. Berg also serves as vice chair on the board of directors for the Rancho Coastal Humane Society. Lopez, who joined the California bar in 2010, graduated from the University of Miami School of Law and started her law career in Florida in 1999. She has worked at Federal Defenders of San Diego for 11 years and is an active presence behind the scenes in the legal community, including serving as a lawyer representative to the federal court, educating students about the legal system and serving as vice president of fundraising for the Federal Bar Associations San Diego chapter. She will remain on the bar associations board of directors as a liaison to the bench. Shes very passionate about the judicial system and passionate about representing the indigent, said Carolina Bravo-Karimi, president of the Federal Bar Associations local chapter. She said Lopez has a roll-up-her-sleeves, can-do attitude and an infectious energy. Shes going to energize the bench, Bravo-Karimi said. A new magistrate for the El Centro federal courthouse has also been sworn in. The Hon. Ruth Montenegro previously served as an Imperial County Superior Court judge. Correction An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the length of U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda Lopezs legal career. She has been practicing since 1999. kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @kristinadavis A statewide measure to repeal a gas-tax increase failed but it won the support of a majority of San Diego County voters. More than 52 percent of county voters, some 369,500 people, voted in favor of Proposition 6, which sought to overturn Senate Bill 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act. Statewide, the measure won 43 percent of the vote, well short of the majority needed to pass. Prop. 6, spearheaded by talk show host Carl DeMaio, a former San Diego councilman, would have also required a two-thirds vote of the people to increase state fuel taxes going forward. Advertisement Click through the map below to see how your neighborhood voted. Use the search button to find your precinct by address. If the map is not displaying properly, disable ad blockers or click here Gov. Jerry Brown, who leaves office in January, was against the repeal and warned it would halt urgent repairs to the states crumbling roads and bridges. Data show some 706,400 people voted on Prop. 6 in San Diego County, with an average of 350 ballots filed in each precinct. Among precincts with more than 100 votes, the initiative was most popular in rural areas such as Lakeview, Pine Valley, Ramona and unincorporated areas of the county. It was least popular in more Democratic, urban neighborhoods in San Diego, including North Park, South Park, Hillcrest and Golden Hill. Contact Lauryn Schroeder via Twitter or Email. Gov. Rick Scott on Monday dropped his motion to impound voting machines in Broward County, after a judge said he could find no evidence for the improper activities that would justify such a step. As legal and political skirmishes continued over Floridas unresolved elections for governor and senator, county elections chiefs tried to implement recounts and a national spotlight continued to shine on Broward Countys embattled elections office. Although the statewide deadline is 3 p.m. Thursday, Broward is still sorting the first page from ballots and has not started recounting them. In Palm Beach County, which started recounting votes Saturday afternoon, the elections chief continued to warn its possible shell miss the recount deadline. Miami-Dade County also started recounting over the weekend, and elections officials said about half the ballots were counted by Monday. Some counties, including Orange, didnt start until Monday. Advertisement Three of the states biggest races governor, U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner are close enough to require a recount. All three races are on the first page of the ballots. The governor had accused unethical liberals of trying to steal the Senate seat he claimed to have won in last Tuesdays election. 1 / 90 Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes arrives Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. Broward County reported thier recount results with 52 minutes to spare Sunday. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 2 / 90 Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes listens to reports Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. Broward County reported thier recount results with 52 minutes to spare Sunday. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 3 / 90 Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes listens to questions from the media, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. Broward County reported thier recount results with 52 minutes to spare Sunday. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 4 / 90 Judge Betsy Benson is hugged by Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill after Broward County reported thier recount results with 52 minutes to spare Sunday. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 5 / 90 Joseph DAlessandro fo the Broward Supervisor of Elections delivers final results to the canvassing board, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. Broward County reported thier recount results with 52 minutes to spare Sunday. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 6 / 90 Judges Betsy Benson, left, and Deborah Carpenter Toye, of the canvassing board, react to an 11th hour paperwork delay, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. Broward County reported thier recount results with 52 minutes to spare Sunday. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 7 / 90 Broward Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda C. Snipes waves goodbye to the media, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. Broward County reported thier recount results with 52 minutes to spare Sunday. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 8 / 90 Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes tries to explain to the canvassing board the discrepancy in vote counts during the hand count at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018 Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 9 / 90 Canvassing Board member, Judge Betsy Benson has a look of exasperation on her face during the hand counting at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 10 / 90 Volunteers look over ballots during the hand count at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 11 / 90 Volunteers look over ballots during the hand count at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 12 / 90 Members of the Canvassing Board, Judge Betsy Benson, left, and Judge Deborah Carpenter-Toye look over a ballot during hand counting at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 13 / 90 Volunteers look over ballots during the hand count at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 14 / 90 Florida State republican committeeman Richard DeNapoli stretches while looking over ballots during the hand count at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 15 / 90 A volunteer calls for an official while looking over ballots during the hand count at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 16 / 90 Volunteers look over ballots during the hand count at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 17 / 90 Volunteers look over ballots during the hand count at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 18 / 90 Volunteers look over ballots during the hand count at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 19 / 90 Officials and volunteers watch the proceedings before hand counting begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018 Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 20 / 90 Broward County Deputy Attorney Rene Harrod gives instructions before hand counting begins for the at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018 Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 21 / 90 Officials and volunteers enter the room before hand counting begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018 Mike Stocker, South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel) 22 / 90 Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes holds the first ballots to be hand counted in the senate race as counting begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 23 / 90 Hand counting in the Senate race begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 24 / 90 Members of the Canvassing Board, Judge Betsy Benson, left, and Judge Deborah Carpenter-Toye discuss a ballot during hand counting in the senate race at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 25 / 90 Hand counting in the Senate race begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 26 / 90 Ballot boxes are unloaded as vote counting begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 27 / 90 Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes walks the aisles as hand counting begins in the senate race at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 28 / 90 Hand counting in the Senate race begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 29 / 90 Broward County Deputy Attorney Rene Harrod gives instructions before hand counting begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 30 / 90 Hand counting in the Senate race begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 31 / 90 Hand counting in the Senate race begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 32 / 90 Assistant County Attorney Scott Andron walks the aisles before vote counting begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 33 / 90 Ballot boxes are unloaded as vote counting begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 34 / 90 Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes walks the aisles as hand counting begins in the senate race at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 35 / 90 Hand counting in the Senate race begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 36 / 90 Hand counting in the Senate race begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 37 / 90 Members of the Canvassing Board discuss a ballot during hand counting in the senate race at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 38 / 90 An election worker reads instructions before vote counting begins at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 39 / 90 Election workers scan some of the last 300 ballots, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 40 / 90 Election workers scan some of the last 300 ballots, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 41 / 90 Judge Deborah Carpenter Toye, of the canavassing board, explains a duplicate ballot Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 42 / 90 Judge Deborah Carpenter Toye, of the canavassing board, examines a duplicate ballot Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 43 / 90 Members of the canavassing board examine a duplicate ballots Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 44 / 90 Orlando Garcia, left, and Judge Deborah Carpenter Toye, of the canavassing board, examine a duplicate ballot Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 45 / 90 Broward County Mayor Beam Furr watches the work of the canvassing board, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 46 / 90 Judge Deborah Carpenter Toye, of the canavassing board, left, shows a ballot with voter intent, question to political party representatives Joseph Goldstein, left, and Barbara Stern, right, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 47 / 90 SEIU Florida President Monica Russo speaks during a Win Justice Coalition news conference at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 48 / 90 Lauderhill police keep an eye as Republican protesters shout down speakers from the Win Justice Coalition during a news conference at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 49 / 90 A Republican protester hods a sign during a news conference by the Win Justice Coalition at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 50 / 90 Katherine Grasshopper of the Win Justice Coaltion is shouted down by Republican protesters during a news conference, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 51 / 90 A worker at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office moves ballots Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 52 / 90 Joseph DAllesandro of the Broward Supervisor of Elections office records the seals on a box Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 53 / 90 Judge Betsy Benson of the canvassing board waits to go into session, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 54 / 90 Joseph DAllesandro of the Broward Supervisor of Elections office ,left, confers with Betsy Benson of the canvassing board, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 55 / 90 Joseph DAllesandro of the Broward Supervisor of Elections office ,left, confers with Betsy Benson of the canvassing board, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 56 / 90 Election workers sort and load ballots into a scanner, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 57 / 90 Election workers load ballots into a scanners, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 58 / 90 An Election worker loads ballots into a scanner, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 59 / 90 An Election worker loads ballots into a scanner, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 60 / 90 Observers from both political parties watch the recount, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 61 / 90 An Election worker cleans a scanner, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 62 / 90 An Election worker loads ballots into a scanner, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 63 / 90 Boxes of ballots cast on election day are seen Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 64 / 90 Election workers move ballots from election day for sorting, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 65 / 90 Election workers load ballots into scanners Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 66 / 90 Proeters gather Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 67 / 90 A protester takes a selfie Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 68 / 90 Sorted ballots are seen Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 69 / 90 Observers and media watch Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 70 / 90 A protester holds a sign as U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.)speaks Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 71 / 90 A protester holds a sign as U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.)speaks Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 72 / 90 U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.)speaks Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 73 / 90 Broward Supervisor of Elections Bremda Snips listens Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 74 / 90 An election worker calibrates a new vote counting machine, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 75 / 90 Election workers move sorted ballots Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 76 / 90 A Broward Sheriffs Deputy watches as election workers move sorted ballots Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount continued Monday in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 77 / 90 A lauderhill police officer stands in the area beteween protesters and the entrance, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 78 / 90 Protesters are seen Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 79 / 90 A protester yells Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 80 / 90 Broward Supervisor of Elections Joe DAlesandro, right, shows voting materials to campaign representatives, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 81 / 90 Election workers sort ballots, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount begin Sunday morning in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 82 / 90 Election workers place ballots into electronic counting machines, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount begin Sunday morning in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 83 / 90 Media crowd into the observation area, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 84 / 90 Protesters call for the resignation of Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill where the Florida recount began. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 85 / 90 Protesters call for the resignation of Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill where the Florida recount began. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 86 / 90 Protesters call for the resignation of Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill where the Florida recount began. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 87 / 90 Election workers place ballots into electronic counting machines, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount begin Sunday morning in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 88 / 90 Election workers place ballots into electronic counting machines, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount begin Sunday morning in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 89 / 90 Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, left, and judge Betsy Benson of the election canvassing board, listen to arguments, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) 90 / 90 Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, left, and judge Betsy Benson of the election canvassing board, listen to arguments, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. The Florida recount began Sunday morning. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel) But in court Monday in Fort Lauderdale, Broward Circuit Judge Jack Tuter urged Scotts lawyers to tone down rhetoric that is undermining public confidence in the election and the vote counting process. If someone in this county has evidence of voter fraud, they should report it to their local law enforcement officer, he said. We need to be careful what we say. Words mean things. Attorneys for the governor, the Democratic Party, Sen. Bill Nelsons campaign and the supervisor of elections negotiated a temporary resolution to their dispute over the security and handling of ballots in Broward, a Democrat-rich area where Nelson and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum hope to find some of the votes to overcome the leads of their Republican opponents. Under the agreement, Scotts motion was denied but can be raised again at a later time. In addition, the judge entered an order recognizing the supervisors current security plan but adding three deputies who do are not part of Broward elections chief Brenda Snipes original security plan. One deputy will monitor the on-site cameras, another will monitor the storage of the USB drives with the election results, and a third will supervise. Andrew Meyers, that attorney representing county administration, said the county commission is likely to approve funding for the assignments. U.S. Representative Ted Deutch addresses reporters Monday, Nov. 12, 2018 outside the Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta/Sun Sentinel) Appearances matter when it comes to assuring the public that the recount is being conducted properly, Tuter said. I dont think I have any evidence to enter a mandatory injunction, Tuter said. The supervisors office already contracts with the sheriffs office to have multiple deputies on site, but attorneys for the Scott campaign were concerned that they are somehow under Snipes direction. Attorneys disputed that characterization, and the Sheriffs Office denied it explicitly in an e-mail Monday, but the assignment of additional deputies appeared to relieve the concerns of Scotts lawyers in court. In Broward County, elections staff need to sort through more than 3.5 million pages of ballots before they can start the actual recount a task estimated to take up to 35 hours, said Joseph DAlessandro, director of election planning and development. Broward started on Sunday, but both Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties started the process Thursday, allowing those counties more time to get the job done, according to WLRN-FM. Despite the amount of work involved, Snipes said she was confident the recount would get done by Thursday. We will meet the deadline, she said Monday. In Palm Beach County, Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said Monday that it would almost impossible for her county to meet the Thursday deadline because of outdated laws and outdated equipment certified by the state. Marc Elias, a lawyer for the Nelson campaign, said it shouldnt be surprising that larger counties would have trouble making the deadlines, since theyre counting so many more votes. He said the deadlines should be extended for any counties that cant make them, to ensure a complete count. They ought to take the time they need, he said. If any county misses the recount deadline, the unofficial results sent to the state on Saturday will stand likely prompting more lawsuits. The ballots are supposed to be run through scanning machines in Floridas 67 counties. Any ballot that cannot be read for any of the recounted races will be put aside. If a races statewide margin falls below 0.25 percentage points after the machine count, the state will order a manual recount in each county. At that point, only the rejected ballots for that race will be examined by counting teams to determine if the voters intentions were obvious. For example, some voters circle the candidates name instead of filling in the ballot properly and some cross out their vote and then mark another candidate. If either side objects to a counting teams decision or the team cant make one, the ballot will be forwarded to the countys Canvassing Board, with the three members voting on the final decision. Nelson called Monday for Scott to recuse himself from any involvement in the recount, saying Scott was using his power as governor to try to undermine the voting process. Hes thrown around words like voter fraud without any proof, Nelson said. Hes stood on the steps of the governors mansion and tried to use the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the Broward elections chief. The reason hes doing these things is obvious, Nelson said. Hes worried when all the votes are counted, hell lose the election. On Monday, Nelsons re-election campaign sued Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, claiming that the state is disenfranchising voters by not accepting mail-in ballots received after Election Day. About 8.2 million total votes were cast in the statewide election. Information from Sun Sentinel staff writer Susannah Bryan and the Associated Press was used in this report. Californias recent spate of devastating conflagrations have little, if anything, to do with overgrown forests and everything to do with climate change, drought and harsh weather conditions, according to forestry experts. That was largely lost in the political jabs this weekend after President Trump attacked California, tweeting: There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018 Democrats and firefighting officials quickly went on the offensive, blasting Trumps comments as insensitive amid the devastation. They also pointed out that much of the wooded area in California is controlled by the federal government under the U.S Forest Service. Advertisement Dear @realDonaldTrump: What is wrong with you? Disaster victims deserve help & sympathy. Oh, and guess who owns much of the forest land in CA? Your federal agencies. CA only owns 2%. Guess who cut funding to forest management in the budget? YOU DID.#SaturdayMorning Thoughts https://t.co/Es9oAOhQQc Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 10, 2018 However, largely missing from the debate was the fact that the most destructive fires in the state did not start in densely wooded areas. Much like San Diegos Cedar Fire from 2003 or the Tubbs Fire that leveled a subdivision of Santa Rosa last winter, the recent Woolsey Fire that burned from Malibu to Thousand Oaks happened in largely chaparral-covered landscape. Such fires result from bone-dry conditions and high winds, said Helge Eng, deputy director of resource management Cal Fire. Were still recovering from a five-year drought, and with not a lot of precipitation this year, so with high winds, you get these catastrophic fires, he said. Similarly the Camp Fire which became the most destructive fire in the states history after obliterating the Northern California town of Paradise spread after winds up to 65 miles an hour howled through canyons east of the town. The blaze did start in the foothills of Sierra Nevada mountains, but not in an overly dense patch of woods. On the contrary, the fire spread through an area that had been recently logged. It then burned through grassland and sparse woodland oak habitat. Contrary to Trumps claims that increased logging would somehow stop the fires, the Camp Fire rapidly spread through the 2008 Butte fire area before it burned down most of the town of Paradise, and the Butte fire area was heavily post-fire logged nearly a decade ago, said Chad Hanson, a research ecologist with the Earth Island Institutes John Muir Project. California is facing two different threats from wildfire that are easy to confuse. Lower-elevation urban areas face the threat of fast-moving weather-driven fires that can burn through grasslands and chaparral. Conditions are ripe for disaster when rains fail to materialize late in the year and Santa Ana winds kick up. In Southern California, our chaparral system is worse now because weve had a lot of drought, said Eric Just, unit forester with Cal Fire San Diego. Were at the end of a long dry summer with off-shore winds that blow for extended periods of time. Its not like the sun goes down and the winds stop. On the other hand, officials have repeatedly referred to forests in the Sierra Nevada, which have been ravaged by drought and beetle infestations, as tinderboxes ready to explode. The threat to property and life has only increased in recent decades as people have more rapidly moved into such backcountry areas. Gov. Jerry Brown has called for increased logging and prescribed burns on state and private lands to prune back overstocked forests, which have seen more than 100 million trees die in recent years. Scientists have disagreed on whether and to what degree such efforts can limit fire, especially during long periods of drought. Much of the debate hinges on what types of vegetation are targeted, from fire-resistant old-growth trees to more flammable smaller vegetation under the forest canopy. Twitter: @jemersmith Phone: (619) 293-2234 Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com San Diego County is offering up to $500 and other incentives to landlords who rent to veterans and other people experiencing homelessness. The new incentive program, offered through the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agencys Housing and Community Development Services, provides leasing bonuses of up to $500, damage reimbursements up to $5,000 and assistance with security and utility deposits. With rents high and the vacancy rate at a low 3 percent in the county, homeless people and veterans often have a hard time finding landlords willing to take them in, even if they have vouchers to help pay their rent. Some landlords have concerns about the person being able to pay the rent and the security deposit, and about damage to their property once the tenant leaves, Housing and Community Development Services landlord liaison Rorick Luepton said in a news release from the county. Advertisement I let them know that theyre stable tenants and that they dont have to worry about getting their rent, he said. I reassure them that if their property is damaged, it will be restored. Most veterans who have a Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing voucher from the countys Housing Authority are ready to move in, but still are looking for an apartment, according to the release. In all, more than 100 homes are needed for veterans and other homeless people in the county. The city of San Diego found homes for just over 1,000 veterans in a similar incentive program called Housing Our Heroes in 2016. That program, which since has been expanded to serve all homeless people, offered landlords $500 for their first homeless tenant, $250 for each additional one and assistance with security and utility deposits. Escondido-based Interfaith Community Services also housed 1,000 homeless people last year with a campaign that included incentives to some landlords. Landlords interested in participating in the countys program should call 2-1-1 San Diego or visit the 2-1-1 website. Homeless Playlist On Now San Diego hepatitis outbreak continues to grow: 481 cases On Now Homeless entrenched in booming tent city along Santa Ana River On Now San Diego mayor agreed to homeless hub, then delayed, advocates say On Now Homeless outreach in San Diego On Now Video: Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #8 On Now In poverty himself, 'Water Man Dave,' is the fearless saint of San Diego's homeless 5:41 On Now Video: Homeless living in cars find safe havens 2:21 On Now Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #7 On Now Pitching a tent plan for San Diego's homeless On Now Homeless efforts get $80M boost for various services gary.warth@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @GaryWarthUT 760-529-4939 Rowing clubs on Mission Bay are scheduled to get a 25-year lease extension from San Diego on Tuesday in exchange for increased rent and $850,000 in upgrades and maintenance projects during the term of the lease. Located on the west side of Mission Bay on El Carmel Point, a 17,000-square-foot facility built by the clubs in 1989 includes six boat house bays, a clubhouse, outside storage facilities, a concrete launch apron and a landscaped parking area. The facility is home to rowing teams from the University of San Diego and the University of California San Diego. There are also 360 local residents who pay membership fees, and the site hosts rowing activities for high school students and young children. It is operated by the San Diego Rowing Club and the Intercollegiate Rowing Consortium. Their lease expired in 2013 and they have occupied the site on a month-to-month basis since then. Advertisement Dan ONeill, president of the rowing club, said use of public property by the clubs is justified partly because they have outreach programs. We have a very active process for bringing in new rowers from the general public and teaching them how to row, ONeill told the City Councils Smart Growth and Land Use Committee last month. Wed like everyone to enjoy the sport of rowing, the health benefits and the camaraderie it provides. Monthly memberships cost $75, and the clubs also conduct some introductory classes for free, ONeill said. The lease extension, which the City Council is scheduled to approve on Tuesday, will increase the annual rent the clubs pay the city from about $25,000 to about $33,000. The rent includes 10 percent of proceeds from private events held at the facility, such as weddings and corporate retreats. The lease terms are based on city policies for nonprofits on Mission Bay. The site includes 1 acre of land and a quarter acre of water. Councilman Scott Sherman said he initially had concerns that the lease terms were too generous, but changed his mind after gathering more information. The more I looked into it, I think this is a pretty good deal and a pretty good use of the land, Sherman told his committee colleagues last month. The proposed lease extension was unanimously approved by the committee. Final approval is necessary at Tuesdays. council meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. at City Hall, 202 C St. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick A collision involving two vehicles on state Route 67 north of Lakeside Monday has left the intersection temporary blocked to traffic Monday morning, the California Highway Patrol said. Witnesses told the CHP that two cars were involved in a T-bone collision at the intersection of SR-67 and Scripps Poway Parkway around 10:10 a.m. and one of the vehicles overturned, said CHP Officer Tommy Doerr. By 11:15 a.m., tow trucks had been summoned to remove the two damaged vehicles from the southbound lanes of SR-67, he said. Doerr said he didnt know if anyone was taken to the hospital. Advertisement Twitter: @karenkucher (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com A man in his 50s was stabbed in the stomach during a fight in downtown San Diego on Sunday afternoon, police said. The altercation erupted near Eighth Avenue and C Street about 2:15 p.m. The assailant stabbed the victim twice. The injuries were not considered life-threatening, police said. Its unclear what led to the attack, but officers are investigating whether the incident stemmed from an earlier altercation between the two men in the El Cajon area. Advertisement A good description of the suspect was not immediately available. Twitter: @LAWinkley (619) 293-1546 lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com A house in Ramona burned to the ground Monday afternoon and flames ignited some nearby vegetation, but firefighters were able to keep it from spreading, a fire official said. The blaze was reported at 1:10 p.m. at a house on Salida del Sol near Puesta del Sol in the Ramona area, said Cal Fire spokesman Jon Heggie. Officials dubbed it the Salida fire. Crews aggressively tackled the flames with air and ground resources. By 2 p.m., firefighters had a good handle on the fire, he said, although, the house appears to be a complete loss. Advertisement The cause was under investigation, Heggie said. By about 3 p.m., Cal Fire San Diego tweeted that it had the fire knocked down, and had been able to keep it from spreading into surrounding vegetation. #SalidaFire [Update] Resources have knock down of the structure fire with no extension into the vegetation. Commitment time of resources will be several hours for mop. CAL FIRE/SAN DIEGO COUNTY FIRE (@CALFIRESANDIEGO) November 12, 2018 The blaze happened as firefighters are on heightened alert. San Diego County is under a red flag fire weather warning because of gusty winds and dry conditions. Twitter: @karenkucher (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com UPDATES: 3:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. 2:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. This article was originally published at 1:45 p.m. Border Patrol agents stopped a car in Otay Mesa and arrested five people, including a man who claimed to be a national guardsman from California, for alleged human smuggling, a Customs and Border Protection officer said Sunday. Border Patrol agents stopped a car near the intersection of Alta Road and Otay Mesa Boulevard around 3:45 p.m.Saturday, according to Customs and Border Protection Officer Ralph Desio. The area is about a mile north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Agents interviewed the five people inside the car, all men, and determined two were U.S. citizens and the other three were undocumented Mexican nationals, Desio said. The driver of the car claimed to be a California National Guardsman in the process of separating from the service, according to Desio. Advertisement California National Guard spokesman Lt. Col Jonathan Shirmo, however, told City News Service that the man who was arrested was not a national guardsman, and was believed to be a U.S. Army reservist. The Army could not be immediately reached for comment. The five were all arrested, and the two citizens could face charges of human smuggling, Desio said. The three undocumented people were being held as witnesses in the case and will later face deportation proceedings, according to Desio. Twitter: @karenkucher (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com A pedestrian was struck and killed by a van early Monday when he was attempting to cross a San Ysidro street, police said. The collision happened shortly before 1:10 a.m. on East San Ysidro Boulevard near Louisiana Avenue, San Diego police Officer John Buttle said. The unidentified man, believed to be in his 40s, stepped off the east curb of East San Ysidro Boulevard and was struck by a 64-year-old man driving a 1999 Chevrolet Astro van in the northbound lanes, Buttle said. The victim died before he could be taken to a hospital. Advertisement The driver remained at the scene and cooperated with officers, Buttle said. Alcohol or drugs were not believed to be factors in the collision. Twitter: @karenkucher (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com An early morning fire gutted much of a Spring Valley home Monday, authorities said. The fire in the single-family home was reported about 6:15 a.m. on Bancroft Drive north of Valencia Street. Firefighters pulled up to find heavy fire in the home, with flames coming out of the front windows, San Miguel Fire and Rescue Capt. Richard Durrell told OnScene TV. The fire apparently started in the living room area, gutting that and the kitchen and also running down the hallway, Durrell said. Advertisement He said crews were able to save a front portion of the home, including some family valuables that were kept there. Everyone was able to get out of the house and no one was injured. Durrell said the Red Cross had been called to help the family with temporary lodging. The cause of the fire was undetermined. teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com (760) 529-4945 Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT Richard Doc Morris, a San Diego State University professor who so loved physics that hed sometimes keep talking long after his classes ended, died on Oct. 19th in La Mesa of complications from influenza, the campus said. He was 89. Morris taught at SDSU for roughly 60 years, from the start of the space race in the late 1950s until last year, when physicists discovered a void inside the Great Pyramidin Egypt. Campus officials noted that Morris taught at SDSU for almost half the schools 121-year existence. He volunteered his services in recent years, while serving as an emeritus professor. He was so demanding as a teacher that youd think that students would dislike him, said Gordon Shackelford, an emeritus lecturer in physics at SDSU. But they didnt; they loved him. Advertisement By the time you completed his course, physics really came together in your mind. Shackelford spoke from experience. He took Morris famous advanced physical measurements class in the late 1960s. Many of Morris classes were supposed to last for about 2.5 hours. At times, theyd run twice as long as he continued to explore the most mind bending and mind numbing neighborhoods in physics. The final exams he used to give to graduate students in electromagnetic theory were known to be exhausting. Morris was aware of the strain; hed have his wife, Barbara, deliver cookies to students during the test. He taught thousands over students during his nearly 60-year career, including Ellen Ochoa, who would later become an astronaut and fly on the space shuttle four times. Ochoa also became administrator of NASA. Morris taught us how to document our work important in the scientific method so that others could duplicate it (and) how to analyze the data we collected and how to account for errors inherent in the process of measurement, Ochoa told SDSU in a statement. He was clearly dedicated to his craft and students. Morris was a native Californian. He was born on Nov. 22, 1928 in Oakland, and went on to earn an undergraduate degree and a doctorate at UC Berkeley. For a while, Morris worked at the Radiation Laboratory, a facility now known as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He began his post-college teaching career at Sacramento State College in 1956. The following year, he moved south, to what was then known as San Diego State College (now SDSU). SDSU is now a major research university an area of academics that was of limited interest to Morris. He focused on teaching. Late in life, he told an SDSU writer, Im convinced now that the best thing you can do for a student is give them a really hard course. I like students, and I like to see their devotion and their refusal to give up even if things dont work. The university said that Morris is survived by his wife, Barbara, a son, William, his wife, Lisa Heizer; a daughter, Katherine Vockrodt, and her husband, John; and two granddaughters. Regional officials are pursuing an aggressive expansion of electric car charging stations as sales of zero-emission vehicles have dramatically increased this year throughout San Diego County. San Diegans purchased more electric vehicles than hybrids for the first time ever this spring, with sales continuing to climb through the fall, according to data from the New Car Dealers Association San Diego County. Between July and September, 5.3 percent of registered new cars were electric vehicles, while 4.7 percent represented hybrids. Plug-in hybrids that have both a gas tank and a rechargeable battery accounted for 2.9 percent of registrations. Whats happening in San Diego is happening statewide and perhaps nationwide, but San Diego has been out ahead of the rest of the state, said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at UC Berkeley. Any cities that are serious about meeting climate goals will be focusing on electric vehicles, like purchasing electric fleets. Advertisement San Diegans are expected to own 90,000 plug-in vehicles by 2020, up from about 19,000 today, according to the transportation and planning agency San Diego Association of Governments. The agency said the region will need to quickly expand the number of workplace and publicly available charging stations to keep pace with growing demand. More chargers is the message, said Keith Greer, principal regional planner with SANDAG. Thats the fundamental issue holding us back. We need more chargers as the electric-vehicle market increases. Currently the region has about 1,300 electric charging ports, not including those installed at peoples homes. Officials say they are now aiming to increase that number to between 7,000 and 11,000 by 2025. Affluent coastal regions with the highest density of chargers have seen the fastest rates of adoption, such as in Del Mar and Solana Beach, according to data from the San Diego-based Center for Sustainable Energy. San Diego Gas & Electric has plans to aggressively build charging stations and expects to have about 3,000 at businesses and other locations in its service territory, which includes southern Orange County, by the middle of next year. The utility said about 10 percent will be located in underserved neighborhoods. Most recently, the utility has proposed spending nearly $19 million on about 340 stations at schools, beaches and parks. Such costs are largely recouped through rate increases. These efforts are all part of Gov. Jerry Browns overarching goal of reaching 250,000 charging stations in California by 2025, and 5 million zero-emission vehicles by 2030. Nearly half of the electric vehicles sold in the United States are in California, with about 475,000 registered in the state as of October. That number is expected to hit 1.5 million by 2025. Theres always going to be hiccups, but for the 5 million by 2030 were definitely on pace, Tyson Eckerle, deputy director of zero emission vehicle infrastructure at the Governors Office of Business and Economic Development. This is evidenced by sales of the (Tesla) Model 3, and especially as more and more models come out. In San Diego much of the recent growth in electric vehicle adoption was driven by Tesla, with the companys sales skyrocketing in San Diego from about 1,400 cars in 2017 to 3,682 this year through September. SANDAG is now designing a regional incentive program to help local governments get more charging stations built around job centers and other public locations. The agency has dedicated $1 million a year starting in 2020 as part of that effort, with the hope that local agencies will also pitch in resources. The agency is currently evaluating programs from around the country, including rebates, competitive grants, tax credits and low-interest loans. For example, Marin County has a program that doles out $3,000 per charger to private companies on a first-come, first-served basis. To help elected officials and planners focus resources, the agency is rolling out an interactive map in early 2019 to identify areas with high demand for charging stations. At the same time, the agency is trying to kickstart a conversation about what additional programs and planning policies local government should embrace to expedite the transition to cleaner cars. So far, increases in electric vehicle adoption throughout San Diego County have largely been driven by state-level actions, such as the Clean Vehicle Rebate Program. This summer, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a whopping $776 million for electric vehicle programs, including $137 million for SDG&E. The gains have been welcome news for local cities, all of which have adopted, or are in the process of drafting, climate action plans aimed at reining in greenhouse gases. However, elected officials will likely now have to take action for the region to meet its collective goals to boost the use of plug-in vehicles. SANDAG and advocates for electric vehicles have also called on cities to boost the number of charging stations located in apartments and condominiums. It should be mandated in all new construction, said Jim Madaffer, who sits on the California Transportation Commission and runs a San Diego-based government relations consulting firm, Madaffer Enterprises.. If we truly want to honor climate action plans and reduce greenhouse gases, we need to make it as easy as possible for people to move to a zero-emission fleet. California building standards require that new development of buildings with 17 units or more have the electrical capability to install charging stations on at least 3 percent of their parking spaces. The state is now poised to expand the mandate to all multifamily housing projects by 2020 and increase the parking space requirement to 10 percent. Twitter: @jemersmith Phone: (619) 293-2234 Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com Congressional Democrats warned President Trumps newly appointed acting attorney general Sunday that he will face legal consequences if he attempts to curtail special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs wide-ranging Russia investigation. Matthew Whitaker, hastily installed when the President Trump ousted Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions last week, has given no sign of bowing to demands that he recuse himself from overseeing the probe despite what Democrats say is clear bias. Whitaker had repeatedly disparaged the Mueller investigation on TV and in print before Sessions named him his chief of staff last year. In one commentary, Whitaker suggested the probe could be strangled by curtailing funding for it a power he now has. Senate and House Democratic leaders sent a letter Sunday to the Justice Departments ethics office, asking it to review Whitakers past statements and issue a formal recommendation on whether he should recuse himself. Advertisement Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who is expected to lead the House Intelligence Committee in January, said if Whitaker did not step aside from supervising the investigation, lawmakers would scrutinize his role and hold him accountable. We are going to find out whether he made commitments to the president about the probe, whether he is serving as a back channel to the president or his lawyers about the probe, whether hes doing anything to interfere with the probe, Schiff said on NBCs Meet the Press. Whitaker, he said, needs to understand that he will be called to answer. Similar warnings came from Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the expected head of the House Judiciary Committee. He said Whitaker would be our very first witness in January, summoned if necessary by subpoena. The questions we will ask him will be about his expressed hostility to the investigation, Nadler said on CNNs State of the Union. How he can possibly supervise it when hes expressed, when hes come out and said, that the investigation is invalid? Nadler described Whitaker, an apparent Trump loyalist, as a complete political lackey. Sessions incurred Trumps lasting enmity when he backed away, almost at the start of his tenure as attorney general, from supervising the Mueller probe. Sessions had played a senior role in the Trump campaign and initially misled fellow lawmakers about his dealings with Kremlin emissaries. Democrats said Sunday they are considering what action to take if the White House resists congressional scrutiny not only of Whitaker, but on whether Trumps business dealings violate laws that bar federal officeholders from accepting gifts, payments or things of value from a foreign state or its representatives. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), in line to lead the House Oversight Committee, said on ABCs This Week that hes not going to be handing out subpoenas like somebodys handing out candy on Halloween. I would ask that the president not try to stand in our way of doing our job as members of the Congress, he added. Cummings, Nadler and Schiff all signed the letter to the Justice Departments ethics office, along with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York. So did the top Democrats on the Senates Judiciary and Intelligence committees, Dianne Feinstein of California and Mark R. Warner of Virginia. There are serious ethical considerations that require Mr. Whitakers immediate recusal from any involvement with the Special Counsel investigation of the Russian governments efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, the Democratic lawmakers wrote. Trump surrogates argued that Whitakers past criticism has no bearing on his current responsibilities. We are so far past the period where those comments were made by Matt Whitaker as a private citizen, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News Sunday. Conway also played down Trumps contradictory comments about whether he knew Whitaker before appointing him. After previously hailing him as a great guy, Trump said Friday that he didnt know Whitaker before naming him the nations top lawman. The president does know Matt Whitaker, Conway said. Its not like hes putting a friend in there that hes known his entire life, she added. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) dismissed Democratic concerns that Whitaker would try to undermine or quash the Mueller investigation. Im confident that Mr. Mueller will be allowed to do his job without interference, Graham said on CBS Face the Nation. You dont recuse somebody because they have opinions different than the people theyre overseeing. laura.king@latimes.com @laurakingLAT President incapable of consoling nation Re Blazes devastate communities (Nov. 11): Fires ripping across California. People running for their lives. Homes burnt to the ground. Death. Peoples lives shattered. What does our president decide to do during this time of crisis? Console and help us? No, he chose instead to berate Californias handling of forest management and threaten to not provide federal assistance until the issue is remedied. Nearly 60 percent of California forests are under federal management, and it was the federal government that chose to divert resources away from forest management. Later, he tweeted out that his heart was with the firefighters and people. Sunday morning he tweeted that with proper forest management we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart! Does he expect us to believe that his heart is with the people? This president is incapable of consoling the American people during times of crisis when they need it the most. Advertisement Leslie Packard Leucadia I would like to ask the Union-Tribune to do an in-depth story on Californias forest management program. I was furious with Donald Trumps tweet regarding our mismanagement and that the destructive fires are our own fault. I, and hopefully many others) want to know the nonpartisan truth, the facts. Thank you. Patti Hartman Rancho Bernardo Related: Californias recent blazes arent the result of overgrown forests, as Trump suggests Our country would be better served if the military personnel currently assigned to assist border protection were transferred to assist fighting the California wild fires. Peter Stovin University City Re Death toll climbs to 31 in wildfires (Nov. 12): President Trump blames California for the wildfires when its really mostly his fault and responsibility most of the time since nearly 60 percent of our forests are owned by the federal government that is suppose to be under his control and that of private logging companies. Also, people who move into forests are tempting mother nature, who always ends up eventually winning. When a fire happens nearby its not worth waiting until the last second to leave. My thoughts and prayers to the victims, firefighters and all those trying to help them. Mark Lehman Oceanside No compassion, no empathy, no shame, no regard for those who have lost loved ones and who have lost everything. These are our fellow Americans who need our help. A president who has no interest in anything but his own misguided principles, morals, and self interests. He speaks of his concern for the safety of our citizens, yet makes statements that are to the contrary. What if this was your loved one lost? What if this was your home lost? Would you turn to him in your hour of need? This is our President? The man who is supposed to unite us? The man who is supposed to rally the country and come to the rescue when tragedy such as these wildfires and natural disasters occur. This is his response? America, wake up this man is unqualified for office of the president of The United States. Ray Flores Valley Center The incompetent fake news president is an embarrassment to our country. There was not one word of empathy expressed for the victims of Californias fires! Instead, the word arsonist decided to continue repeating his ludicrous, one-dimensional reason to blame our state for the fires while torching the victims and those who bravely put their lives on the line to protect our communities. To re-victimize those who have lost loved ones, their homes, their places of worship, learning or livelihoods is symptomatic of a small, spiteful individual. It is a slap in the face to all of us to have such a fool representing our country! Kathy Cappos Hardy Chula Vista Letters and commentary policy The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below. Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook. Spiced Perfection had run 12 times in her career heading into the $100,000 Betty Grable Stakes on Sunday at Del Mar. In all dozen starts, which produced four wins, Joe Talamo was the 3-year-olds rider. Thats seemingly a pretty strong connection with the horse trained by Brian Koriner. The dilemma Talamo had for the Grable is that hed also ridden Phil DAmatos S Y Sky in her five career starts, notching three victories, and they got second in a stakes effort at Santa Anita in mid-October. Talamo chose to ride S Y Sky. Advertisement They took off like it was nothing, Koriner said of Talamo, though he was feeling more vindicated than disappointed after Spiced Perfection ($10.60) and jockey Flavien Prat found a slight gap to burst through in the stretch and seize the Grable, while S Y Sky placed third. The fifth win by Spiced Perfection, who is owned by Dare to Dream Stable, was the 11th time in her 13 starts that shed finished in the money. Shes a tough filly. She just gives it her all every time, Koriner said. Flavien ran her great. She responded great for him. There was plenty to celebrate for Koriner, who scored three wins on the afternoon to give him the most victories for any trainer in the meets first three days. Koriner had two entries in the race after the feature, and long shot Gypsy Blu ($63.60), with Aaron Gryder aboard, prevailed over 5 furlongs on turf. Koriner also captured the sixth, at 5 furlongs on dirt, with Fast Cotton ($4.20) and Tiago Periera. Spiced Perfection likes the Del Mar track. Four of her victories are here, the last coming in an overnight claiming race in August. She ran for only the second time on turf in her last time out, placing third in the Unzip Me Stakes at Santa Anita. Horse leaps fence There was a frightening incident for both jockey and horse in the fourth race. Wild Verse, a 3-year-old gelding trained by Peter Miller, stumbled at the start of the 6-furlong dirt race. He took several strides, and with jockey Heriberto Figueroa askew in the saddle, then bolted straight to his left. The horse jumped over the track railing, Figueroa fell off, and Wild Verse ran near some parked cars before he disappeared from view of the grandstand into the stable area on the southeast end of the track. Figueroa was able to walk under his own power to the nearby ambulance. After being examined by doctors, Figueroa was cleared to ride the rest of his mounts for the day. Wild Verse, who was not seriously injured in the incident, was making his fifth start, having won his previous race last month at Santa Anita. Notable A single ticket, purchased at Del Mar on Sunday for $1,152, earned the Pick Six jackpot worth $138,889. Mexican jockey Geovanni Franco is off to a good start in the meet. Through the first three days, hes ridden five winners in his first 15 mounts. That victory total is two better than Prat, who rode two winners on Sunday. Franco, who won on Sunday aboard Redesign ($10.60) in the fourth race, had only five mounts, with no wins, in the 2017 fall meet at Del Mar. He tied for sixth in the summer standings this year with 17 victories and is a coming off a 13-win effort in the Santa Anita autumn meet. Del Mar summer jockey title winner Drayden Van Dyke got his second victory of the meet on Sunday aboard Souter ($7.20) in the seventh race. Among trainers, the wins have been spread out. Behind Koriners three, Miller, Jerry Hollendorfer, Richard Baltas and Keith Desormeaux have two victories apiece. Between the fifth and sixth races, the late Padres general manager Kevin Towers was honored in the winners circle. On hand were his wife, Kelley Towers, and several Padres executives. The Daily Racing Form reported that Michael Muzio, a former trainer, jockey agent and racing official, died on Sunday at his home in Melbourne Beach, Fla., after a short battle with cancer. He was 64. Sports Videos tod.leonard@sduniontribune.com; Twitter: @sdutleonard The dry Santa Ana winds took an unusual path through San Diego County on Monday, causing the offshore flow to roar down the western slopes of the regions mountains with unusual force and speed, elevating the wildfire danger in a region where the soil is parched. Winds gust as high as 85 mph were recorded at Sill Hill, southwest of Julian, posing a threat to power lines. SDG&E shut off electricity to some communities due to concern that the winds would spark wildfires. The phenomenon was part of larger meteorological conditions that led the National Weather Service to extend the red flag fire weather warning along the coast until 5 p.m. on Wednesday. A high wind warning will be in effect across inland valleys, foothills and mountains until the same hour. Forecasters said that wind-sheltered areas of San Diego County will become very cold on Monday night, with temperatures dropping into the 40s in many areas. Advertisement Southern California has been experiencing strong and gusty Santa Ana winds that have generated deadly and destructive wildfires in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. San Diego County has so far avoided such chaos, largely because its mountains are aligned in a roughly north-south direction. The Santa Anas usually arrive from the north or northeast, so the winds flow almost parallel to mountain ridges, taking away some of their punch. But late Sunday and early Monday, the winds arrived from the east and struck San Diegos mountains at a perpendicular angle, causing the winds to shoot up into the air, then to plunge downward,into the western foothills. The winds also accelerated as they dropped, making them even more dangerous. Since midnight, the winds have gusted to 85 mph at Sill Hill, 77 mph at Ramona, 68 mph at Crestwood, 67 mph in Santa Ysabel, 63 mph at Boulder Creek, and 62 mph in Alpine. The weather service also record gusts of 52 mph in Campo, 51 mph in Descanso, 49 mph in Pine Hills, 46 mph on Palomar Mountain, 46 mph at Lake Moreno, and 42 mph in Julian. The SDG&E communities affected by the planned outage include parts of: Live Oak Springs, Boulevard, Jacumba, Japatul Valley, Buckman Springs, Morena Village, Dulzura, Potrero, Campo, Jamul, Lyons Valley, Barrett Lake, Alpine, Dehesa, Rancho Palo Verde, Viejas,, Boulder Creek, Lake Wohlford, Bear Valley, Skyline Ranch, Rincon, La Jolla Indian Reservation, Hellhole Canyon, Harrison Park, In the Pines, Morettis, Julian, Santa Ysabel, Wynola, Pine Hill SDGE outage map. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. By Diao Haiyang WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 (ChinaMil) -- The visiting Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe met with Flying Tigers' veterans and their relatives in Washington on Saturday. Wei said that Chinese people will never forget their old comrades-in-arms and old friends, and the China-US friendship will stand the test of time and distance. The US participants in the meeting included veteran pilot Jay Vineyard of the "Hump Route", Neil Calloway, granddaughter of Claire Lee Chennault, commander of the Flying Tigers, Richard Cole, son of Durit Raider Pilot Richard Cole, and Larry Kelly, member of the Durit Bombers Association. During the meeting, Wei spoke highly of the great sacrifices made by the veterans of the Flying Tigers squadron for the cause of safeguarding world peace, safeguarding their country and relatives. The Chinese people will never forget their old comrades-in-arms and old friends, will never forget those friends who have helped China, will never forget the heroes who have sacrificed for the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and will never forget old comrades-in-arms who fought against fascist alongside China. The friendship between the two nations will always stand the test of time and distance, said Wei. Wei said that the Chinese people and the American people love and cherish peace. It is because they went through the war together and shared the sufferings caused by war. In retrospect, both China and the US played a key role in the world anti-fascist war and made tremendous contributions. Wei said that China and the US shoulder important responsibilities in maintaining world peace and have broad prospects for cooperation. China is willing to work with the US side to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation and let the people of both countries lead a peaceful and happy life, said Wei. Wei also welcomed the Flying Tigers' veterans and their relatives to visit China and return to the place where they used to fight. Wei said to the Flying Tigers' veterans: Please accept my highest respect as a soldier. Tomorrow (November 11) is the Veterans Day in the United States,and I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere wishes to you. Vineyard, 95, recalled his flying experience of the "Hump Route". He said that during the World War II, he and his comrades overcame various extreme hazardous weather conditions and wounded its way into the high Himalayas to Yunnan, Sichuan and other places to transport supplies. Many of his comrades died in the mission and remained in China forever. He said that he feels proud of himself and his comrades, and takes pride in that the US and China fought shoulder to shoulder in the war. He hoped the two countries can maintain their friendship and continue to deepen cooperation. Vineyard said that it will be a great comfort to their families if China can find the remains of their comrades-in-arms. Wei said that China will do its utmost to find the remains of the missing US military pilots. The "Hump Route" was launched to transport military supplies to China by Allies' pilots in World War II and was seen as Chinas Aerial Lifeline. The Hump operation lasted the longest air transport route, under the worst flying condition in the history of world war air transport. 563 American aircraft crashed or disappeared and over 1,500 lives of Chinese and American crew members were lost during the mission. China and the US have maintained good cooperation on the search for the remains of Americans missing from the war since the 1970s. Calloway told reporters on the same day that she was grateful to the Chinese people for always remembering the Flying Tigers because of its historical significance. Calloway said that she felt very positive about the future of bilateral relations and the relations between the two armed forces after listening to the introduction of the second China-US Diplomatic and Security Dialogue and the meeting between Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe and the US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. She believed that the US and China should continuously strengthen exchanges, deepen friendship, and promote the continuous development of this important bilateral relationship. Pilots line up to board their planes before the flight performance. With the closing of the Airshow on Nov. 11, the August 1st Aerobatic Team of the PLA Air Force has successfully completed six flight performances. Photo by Wang Weidong. By Peng Kuang and Li Jianwen ZHUHAI, Nov. 12 (ChinaMil) -- The 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition closed in Zhuhai, south Chinas Guangdong Province, on Sunday afternoon. This year's AirShow comprehensively demonstrated Chinas breakthrough achievements in the fields of aerospace and defense-related science and technology over the 40 years since the reform and opening-up. The six-day exhibition has attracted more than 770 exhibitors from 43 countries and regions, with a 10 percent year-on-year growth. Up to 200 military, political and trade delegations from more than 50 countries visited the Airshow. Whats more, the air exhibition has attracted about 150,000 professional visitors and 300,000 amateur visitors, receiving an order of 239 aircraft of all kinds at the fair. The scale of the exhibition has reached a new high, improving not only in quantity but also quality. More than 30 representative equipment, selected by the PLA Air Force, were displayed at the show, which systematically demonstrated the new achievements of the Chinese Air Force. China unveiled the J-20 stealth fighter jet, as well as J-10B fighter jet, JH-7 fighter bomber, Y-20 military transport aircraft, the KJ-500 early warning aircraft and GJ-2 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at the Airshow. With the rapid development of Chinas aerospace industry and the continuous enhancement of Chinas national defense, a large number of new technologies and achievements in the fields of aviation, aerospace and national defense were also on display. With leading enterprises of civil aviation system and aviation industry providing more new products and relevant enterprises from Chinas shipping system bringing maritime defense exhibits to the exhibition, the structure of this years Airshow for the first time achieved full coverage of land, sea, air, space and electronic system. The 13th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition will be held in Zhuhai from Nov. 10 to 15 in 2020, according to the Organizing Committee of Airshow China. Cave paintings in Lubang Jeriji Saleh, a limestone cave in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, have been dated to at least 40,000 years ago. Figurative cave paintings from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi date to at least 35,000 years ago and hand-stencil art from the same region has a minimum date of 40,000 years ago. Griffith Universitys Dr. Maxime Aubert and co-authors found that similar rock art was created during essentially the same time period on the adjacent island of Borneo. Uranium-series analysis of calcium carbonate deposits that overlie a large reddish-orange figurative painting of an animal at Lubang Jeriji Saleh yielded a minimum date of 40,000 years ago, which is currently the oldest date for figurative artwork from anywhere in the world. The oldest cave art image we dated is a large painting of an unidentified animal, probably a Bornean banteng, a species of wild cattle still found in the jungles of Borneo this has a minimum age of around 40,000 years and is now the earliest known figurative artwork, Dr. Aubert said. The Kalimantan stencil art was shown to be similar in age, suggesting that a Paleolithic rock art tradition first appeared on Borneo between about 52,000 and 40,000 years ago. It then spread from Borneo into Sulawesi and other new worlds beyond Eurasia, perhaps arriving with the first people to colonize Australia. The analysis also indicated that a major change occurred within this culture around 20,000 years ago, giving rise to a new rock art style (including rare portrayals of humans) at a time when the global ice age climate was at its most extreme. Who the ice age artists of Borneo were and what happened to them is a mystery, said co-author Dr. Pindi Setiawan, an archaeologist at Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia. The new findings illustrate that the story of how cave art emerged is complex, added co-author Dr. Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a rock art expert at Indonesias National Research Centre for Archaeology. Europe has long been seen as the center for cave art development. But although Borneo is the Earths third largest island, throughout most of the Ice Age it actually formed the easternmost tip of the vast continental region of Eurasia. It now seems that two early cave art provinces arose at a similar time in remote corners of Paleolithic Eurasia: one in Europe, and one in Indonesia at the opposite end of this ice age world, said co-author Dr. Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at Griffith University. The research is published in the journal Nature. _____ M. Aubert et al. Palaeolithic cave art in Borneo. Nature, published online November 7, 2018; doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0679-9 From March of this year, 90 percent of cup noodles, 65 percent of soda and 22 percent of snacks sold on the market will be banned from stalls and cafeterias at elementary, middle and high schools nationwide. The Korea Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it will this month announce an enforcement decree of a special law on safe eating habits for children. Snack items to vanish from school cafeterias will include those packing 250 kcal or more per serving, and those high in saturated fat (4 g or higher/serving) and carbohydrates (17 g or higher/serving) and low in protein (2 g or less/serving). As for meal alternatives, items packing 500 kcal or more, over 4 g of saturated fat and 1,000 mg of sodium per serving will be banned. Through the changes, the KFDA hopes to quell the rising number of obese children, which nearly doubled since 1997, resulting from bad and unbalanced eating habits. According to a recent survey, 8.3 and 9.5 percent of boys and girls aged between five and nine, and 17.9 and 11.4 percent of boys and girls aged 10 to 14 were obese. Wildfires raged at both ends of California on Sunday, with the deadly infernos barely contained and strong winds and dry conditions in the forecast. The death toll stood at 23 and was likely to increase as rescue workers reached vast regions left in charred ruins. Thousands of people have evacuated with what little of their life's possession they could escape with. Authorities say one of the California wildfires is about 20 percent contained and the other only five percent. The Woolsey Fire and the Hill Fire in southern California, and the Camp Fire, in the northern part of the state, erupted Thursday fueled by drought conditions and wind. Officials said the Camp Fire has become the most destructive wildfire in state history, and the third deadliest. Previously, the Tubbs Fire, which burned nearly 16,000 hectares in Lake, Napa, and Sonoma counties in 2017, had been considered the most destructive wildfire in state history. The Tubbs Fire killed 22 people and destroyed more than 5,500 structures. The Butte County Sheriff's office said the Camp Fire victims were mostly found dead inside or near their cars. The sudden evacuation led to highway gridlock, forcing some to flee on foot. Officials said the fire has destroyed 6,453 homes and another 260 commercial structures and has grown to 404 square km. The blaze nearly quadrupled Thursday into Friday. Officials say the blaze is only five percent contained. Dozens of people are reported missing. Evacuations were ordered for the east side of the neighboring town of Chico, a city of about 93,000 people, as flames from the blaze were being driven by 56 kph winds. The Woolsey Fire is threatening about 75,000 homes in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles. Two arrests were made for looting in Ventura County. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Chief John Benedict said Saturday, "There is zero tolerance for any looting." Ventura county is also the location of a mass shooting this week that killed 12 people. The mayor of the city of Thousand Oaks, where the mass shooting took place, says three-quarters of his city is under fire evacuation orders. Gen. Robert Abrams, the new commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, paid a visit to the Joint Security Area in the border truce village of Panmunjom on Saturday, his first since he took over the post on Nov. 8. Abrams toured the area and was briefed on progress in the implementation of the latest inter-Korean military agreement. The South Korea-U.S. alliance "remains ironclad and will continue to play an important role in preventing armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula and promote peace and stability in the region for many decades to come," the UN Command quoted him as saying. He added his visit showed U.S. support for the continued implementation of the inter-Korean military agreements. Abrams flew by helicopter to the Camp Bonifas helipad just 2.4 km south of the military demarcation line, which lies within a new no-fly zone set up under the agreement in September, but there was no response from North Korea. It is the first time that Papua New Guinea has hosted the Summit on behalf of the 21 countries that make up the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Our support during APEC is much more than a one-off event and highlights the depth of our connections with the people of Papua New Guinea, said Carnival Australia chairman Ann Sherry, a Summit delegate. Three ships berthed in Port Moresby Basing the three ships in Port Moresby is a natural extension of the relationship established through the contribution of cruise tourism, Sherry said. Our ships were already top of mind in PNG in planning for APEC and represented a practical solution to the challenge of providing accommodation for thousands of visiting delegates and international media. Ships from six Carnival Australia brands P&O Cruises Australia, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Cunard, P&O Cruises World Cruising and Seabourn call at PNG destinations. Kierstin Lachtman is currently Manager, Maritime Policy for Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) in Washington DC, where she developed maritime policy in concert with shipowner members, determining and co-ordinating shipping industry positions on safety, environmental, operational, and regulatory issues and advocating members positions at regulatory and industry fora, including IMO. Lachtman will operate from the Liberia Shipowners Council offices in Dulles, Virginia. The Liberian Shipowners Council (LSC) is the voice of Liberian-flag shipowners. LSC is an international maritime trade association incorporated in 1974 as a non-profit corporation. It is the national association of shipowners who register their vessels under the Liberian-flag. Kierstin is a highly motivated and accomplished maritime professional with a well-deserved reputation for informed advocacy on behalf of shipowners. We look forward to working with her to expand and strengthen LSC, said Adamantios M Lemos, Chairman of the LSC Board. On behalf of the Liberian Shipowners Council, I would like to express our profound gratitude to Joe for his outstanding leadership and dedication over the past 17 years. He will be greatly missed, but we are confident that our rigorous search process has provided us with an exceptional successor, commented Lemos. Kongsberg said that Leclanches batteries would be an integral part of their hybrid power propulsion solutions and that through the partnership the Swiss company would deliver marine battery systems for nine vessels totalling 45MWh batteries. The batteries are for two projects the Yara Birkeland, the worlds first electric, autonomous feeder vessel, and hybrid propulsion systems for Grimaldis Green 5th Generation ro-ro vessels. Kongsberg seals hybrid power deals for 9 China-built Grimaldi ro-ros The systems will be built at Leclanches facility in Switzerland with the cells manufactured at its Willstatt facility in Germany. Read more: Frode Kaland, evp supply chain for Kongsberg Maritime said: Leclanches ability to cover the complete value chain from design and production of lithium cells in Europe, to full battery systems certified for marine applications together with our proprietary hybrid power technology positions us together as a single, unified supplier of electrification solutions that will deliver lower operational expenditure and enable environmental sustainability for all vessel types. For Leclanche it sees opportunities in the maritime power sector. We are seeing a paradigm shift in the maritime industry towards electric power and partnerships with world class industry leaders such as Kongsberg further demonstrate that Leclanches opportunity is now, said Anil Srivastava, ceo of Leclanche. This was the biggest rate of increase for the third quarter since the government started tallying statistics in 2010. Over the same period, 110,000 workers were laid off by big businesses, up 14 percent. That means the government has handed out W5.5 trillion in unemployment support in the first 10 months of this year, already surpassing last year's total of W5.02 trillion (US$1=W1,130). According to the Korea Employment Information Service, a total of 497,314 workers were laid off by small and mid-sized companies and applied for unemployment support in the third quarter of this year, up a whopping 37,710 compared to the same period of 2017. Small and mid-sized companies are laying off workers ahead of another 10.9-percent hike in the minimum wage in January to stay afloat. The layoffs are likely to increase as Korea enters a full-fledged recession. According to Statistics Korea on Sunday, the average factory operation rate in manufacturing in the first nine months of this year stood at just 72.8 percent, the lowest since the height of the Asian financial crisis in 1998, when the rate fell to 66.8 percent. Global credit-rating firm Moody's last week forecast Korea's economy will grow just 2.5 percent this year, compared to the government's estimate of 2.9 percent, and 2.3 percent in 2019. Jung Myung-ho of the Gyeonggi Textile Industries Association said, "The automotive and shipbuilding industries are already in a slump, and rising labor costs are prompting all manufacturing companies to lay off workers." The situation is no different at big businesses and financial institutions. LG Display launched its first voluntary retirement program, and 1,500 workers applied. Daewoo Engineering and Construction conducted voluntary layoffs in July and September of this year, while Mirae Asset Life Insurance received applications from 118 workers for voluntary retirement. KB Insurance recently asked its labor union to consider a voluntary retirement program. Workers who keep their jobs are under increasing stress. One automotive parts maker in North Jeolla Province recently laid off 70 workers, leaving only a bare-bones staff. The head of the company said, "Due to the staff cuts, one worker is now handling the duties of two or three." One 48-year-old owner of a handbag manufacturer in Seoul said, "Workers in major conglomerates may be able to enjoy their evenings after working no more than 52 hours a week, but people in small and mid-sized companies can't even take their holidays. If one worker takes a day off, others have to make up for the gap and work night shifts." A study by the Korea Federation of SMEs shows that 82.9 percent of small and mid-sized businesses have no plans to hire workers in the second half. Lee Jae-won at the federation said, "We will see a growing number of small and mid-sized companies scrap plans to hire new workers next year and lay off staff, and young workers and women will suffer the brunt." Press Release November 12, 2018 4Ps beneficiary who topped board exam testament to success of program - De Lima Senator Leila M. de Lima has commended the 2018 Naval Architect and Marine Engineer board exam topnotcher who supported himself to college with the assistance of the government's Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps). De Lima, who chairs the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development, said Joseph Vincent Satura's story is a testimony to the success of the 4Ps, which is aimed at improving the plight of the poor. "4Ps is not perfect (no government program is), and through the years, it has earned criticisms, but at present, it is one of a very few ingenious public sector programs that make concrete and lasting interventions in the lives of those in need. Buhay na patotoo si Joseph at marami pang kabataan at pamilyang Pilipino," she said in her recent Dispatch from Crame No. 418. Satura, a 4Ps beneficiary from Cebu City who graduated cum laude, topped the 2018 licensure exam for Naval Architect and Marine Engineer with the rating of 92.20 percent. De Lima noted while Satura is a scholar of Tsuneishi Foundation (Cebu), he also recognizes that part of his success came from 4Ps and how his mother's monthly allowance from the program helped him survive college. The Senator from Bicol said she hopes that Satura's story would encourage the government to support 4Ps and help make it as one of its regular poverty reduction programs for qualified poor families. "Sa kabila ng tagumpay ni Joseph, batid nating marami pang pwedeng gawin ang ating pamahalaan para sa marami pang katulad nya at ng kanyang pamilya. Panahon nang seryosohin at pakatutukan ang 4Ps at iba pang kapaki-pakinabang na programa para sa mahihirap," she said. "Bilang mambabatas at pinuno ng Komite ng Katarungang Panlipunan ng Senado, nananawagan po akong magtulungan tayo - nasa pampubliko o pribadong sektor man - na gawing pangmatagalan at mas malawig ang mga programang katulad ng 4Ps na nagbibigay ng pag-asa at aktwal na tulong sa mga dukhang pamilya upang makaahon sa kahirapan," she added. Last September, De Lima filed Senate Bill (SB) No. 2016 to ensure that the continuation of the conditional cash transfer assistance for the qualified beneficiaries will not be dependent on future administrations. Under SB No. 2016, the 4Ps shall be one of the regular poverty reduction programs of the government which provides conditional cash transfer to beneficiaries for a maximum period of seven years, to improve the health, nutrition and education aspect of their lives. It also proposes to expand the health and nutrition expenses of the qualified beneficiaries from P600 to 750 every month to compensate the rising prices of rice and other basic health and nutrition needs of the poor. De Lima's proposed measure also provides loan assistance for livelihood opportunities or employment facilitation to beneficiaries who successfully completed the required skills training programs under the Department of Social Welfare and Development's Sustainable Livelihood Program. The Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Pamilyang Pantawid has submitted more than 500,000 signatures to the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development endorsing De Lima's SB No. 2016 for its immediate passage into law. Press Release November 12, 2018 De Lima presses Senate probe into PNP's sex-for-freedom scheme Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has sought for a Senate investigation into the sex-for-freedom (or palit-puri) scheme within the Philippine National Police (PNP) following reported cases of sexual violence by the cops against relatives of detainees in exchange for suspect's freedom. De Lima filed Senate Resolution (SR) No. 930 urging the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality to investigate the alleged sexual advances perpetrated by law enforces against women and children relatives of detainees. In filing the measure, she cited the recent incident of rape involving a teenager who was taken advantage of by a police officer who promised for the freedom of her parents who were detained on drug charges. "The alarming reports of women and children having suffered in the hands of state actors must be resolved speedily, for demanding sexual favors in exchange for one's freedom is a gross manifestation of abuse of power that must not be tolerated by the government," she said. Police Officer 1 Eduardo Valencia of the Manila Police District Station 4 Drug Enforcement Unit was arrested for allegedly raping a 15-year-old girl whose parents were apprehended in a drug sting in Sampaloc, Manila last Oct. 25. Valencia reportedly offered to give the victim a ride home after she was cleared for questioning but they ended up driving to a hotel in Sta. Mesa, Manila where the alleged rape occurred on the morning of the following day. While National Capital Region Police Office Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar confirmed that medical tests showed lacerations in the victim's private parts, Valencia denied the allegations after his arrest at his home last Oct. 27. According to the Center for Women's Resources (CWR), 56 policemen have been involved in 33 state-perpetrated cases of violence against women since Mr. Duterte assumed office. About 12 of these cases of violence against women are drug-related where the victims were either drug suspects, relatives of drug suspects or were assaulted during drug-related operations. De Lima, a staunch defender of women's rights and gender equality, underscored the need for increased attention from the government about the police involvement in abuses against women, such as rape. "In a seeming culture of impunity that breeds and emboldens criminals and misfits, the authorities must remain vigilant in safeguarding the vulnerable, particularly the women and children, from those who trample upon their rights," she said. The Senator from Bicol also expressed hopes that the Senate can help push legislative measures that ensure full protection, including legal remedies, for affected women and children who were victims of violence and abuses. In 2016, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacific has documented cases of abuses against women by the police, including the one who was married to a man arrested on trumped-up drug charges in Manila. The said woman reportedly ended up as the policemen's sex slave for three days because they could not come up with the money for his freedom. Aware of the worsening abuses against women and children under the Duterte administration, De Lima has authored and co-authored several bills and resolutions advocating women's rights. Among these measures include Senate Bill No. 1438 which seeks to provide protection of women in state custody and Senate Resolution No. 670 calling for a Senate inquiry into the implementation of the Gender and Development plans and programs under the present administration. Press Release November 12, 2018 Gatchalian: PALECO takeover needed to solve Palawan power supply woes Senator Win Gatchalian on Monday backed the plan of the government to take over the beleaguered Palawan Electric Cooperative (PALECO) to solve the province's worsening power supply problem. Gatchalian made the call after President Rodrigo Duterte recently gave PALECO a stern warning that the national government would be compelled to take over the power distributor's facilities should frequent blackouts in Palawan persist until the end of the year. The senator lamented that exasperated Palawenos have long complained about the lengthy rotational brownouts they have experienced in their province, and PALECO's seemingly chronic inefficiency in coming up with solutions to the problem. As chair of the Senate Energy Committee, Gatchalian facilitated a dialogue and held a committee hearing with stakeholders of the PALECO power situation more than a year ago to determine the cause of the long brownouts in the province. The senator said he has been urging the National Electrification Administration (NEA) to take over PALECO since his committee conducted a formal dialogue in August 2017 with representatives from the Department of Energy, the Energy Regulatory Commission, NEA, the National Power Corporation, PALECO, Delta P, DMCI Power, and affected local government units on the frequent lengthy power interruptions in Puerto Princesa City and the province of Palawan. "Matagal na natin naririnig ang mga reklamo ng ating mga kababayan sa Palawan tungkol sa mga mahahabang brownout na nararanasan nila mula nung ako'y pumasok sa Senado. Bilang chairman ng Senate Committee on Energy, palagi nating pinupukpok ang PALECO na solusyunan na itong problema, pero puro pangako na lang ang naririnig natin sa kanila," Gatchalian said. PALECO, which has the second largest franchise area in the country, provides power to 18 municipalities and Puerto Princesa City, serving a total of 135,284 consumers as of April 2018. Citing data from NEA, Gatchalian pointed out that each PALECO consumer experienced an average of 126 power interruptions in 2017, which he said was beyond the NEA standard of 25 interruptions per consumer per year. This resulted in an average of 16 hours of power interruption every month or a total of 187 hours in 2017, according to Gatchalian. Based on the NEA standard, the acceptable frequency of power interruption is 45 hours per consumer per year. Gatchalian noted that in July 2017 alone, power consumers had to endure 31 hours of blackouts due to unreliable power providers which had failed to fulfill their obligations. During the formal dialogue conducted by the energy committee last year, the senator found that the frequent brownouts in Puerto Princesa City were caused by the inability of power plant operator DMCI Power to provide 25 megawatts (MW) of guaranteed dependable capacity (GDC) under its 2012 Power Supply Agreement with PALECO. At that point, PALECO had already slapped DMCI with a total penalty of ?9,949,767.61 from July 2012 to December 2016 due to power generation issues. For these reasons, Gatchalian has recommended the takeover of PALECO's operations by the national government to ensure a steady power supply in the province. However, instead of expropriating the cooperative and turning over its franchise to more capable entities, the senator wants NEA to take control of PALECO's daily operations. "It is the responsibility of NEA to ensure that all covered areas of electric cooperatives get reliable power. In this case, PALECO's customers are experiencing serious problems with power outages. NEA needs to step in now. Let's not prolong this problem further," he said. Gatchalian also reiterated his call for PALECO to rescind its Power Supply Agreement with DMCI Power due to the repeated failure of the latter to deliver the required power capacity for the province. He also called for the cancellation of the private power generator's application for the construction of a new coal plant in the province. "Underperforming generation companies have essentially robbed the province of Palawan of its fair share of our country's energy supply. PALECO should no longer do business with them," he added. Press Release November 12, 2018 HONTIVEROS SEEKS INQUIRY ON MISS EARTH SEXUAL HARASSMENT INCIDENT Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros on Monday decried the incidents of sexual harassment that victimized three Miss Earth candidates. Hontiveros filed Senate Resolution No. 932 calling for an inquiry into the incidents. The opposition senator added that acts of sexual harassment and violence should be given 'zero tolerance.' "Sexual harassment has no place anywhere, especially in a pageant that claims to uphold the value and power of women. At a time when women and girls are battered by rape jokes, sexual violence, and sex for freedom cases, it is imperative that sexual harassment of any kind, shape or form be brought out into the open,"Hontiveros said. Three Miss Earth 2018 candidates, Miss Earth-Canada Jaimie Yvonne Vandenberg, Miss Earth-England, Abbey-Anne Gyles-Brown, and Miss Earth-Guam, Emma Mae Sheedy came forward to reveal their experiences of sexual harassment involving one of the pageant's sponsors, a certain Amado Cruz. Vandenberg, who eventually withdrew from the competition, said that Cruz got her mobile number without her consent, and kept calling her to ask for her hotel and room number. "He showed up to almost all of my events telling me he could take care of my needs and asked for sexual favors in exchange to get me further in the pageant. I was disgusted," Vandenberg wrote on her Instagram page. "Responsibility for this incident falls squarely on the shoulders of both the harasser and the organizers of the event. I am surprised that despite reports of sexual harassment, the sponsor was still allowed to see the candidates in succeeding events. This shows disregard for their welfare and a flippant attitude towards the handling of this case. This cannot be allowed to pass un-addressed. This inquiry seeks to shed light on the true events of the case, and to aid in the future protection of women from sexual harassment. No woman should ever be a victim, whatever country they come from," Hontiveros said. Senator Hontiveros is the chairperson of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality. Press Release November 12, 2018 SWEDISH LABOR DELEGATES MEET HONTIVEROS, DISCUSS DEMOCRACY, HEALTH AND WOMEN RIGHTS A labor delegation from Sweden visited the Senate of the Philippines on Monday and met Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros where they discussed women, human rights and democracy issues. The delegation is led by the Olof Palme International Center (OPIC), the umbrella organization of the broad Swedish labor movement that works for democracy, human rights and peace. "I am delighted to welcome the Swedish labor delegates into our country. I am happy to discuss with them our important work here in the Senate, particularly our efforts to advance health and women's rights, and in defending human rights and democracy. I hope this exchange will promote greater solidarity and understanding between our countries," Hontiveros said. Hontiveros, Chair of the Senate Committee on Women, presented some of the legislative achievements posted by the Senate on health and women rights. She highlighted the passage of the Expanded Maternity Leave Law, the Strengthened Anti-Hospital Deposit Law, the Safe Streets and Public Spaces Act, the Children in Situation of Armed Conflict Law and the First 1000 days or the Kalusugan at Nutrisyon ng Mag-Nanay, as some examples. Inspired by Sweden "I take pride in the fact that a revolutionary provision in our Expanded Maternity Leave Law, which allows working mothers to transfer some of their leave credits to their husbands and partners was inspired by Sweden's "father qouta" which reserves a part of maternity leave periods for fathers," Hontiveros said. Hontiveros, who is sponsor of the law, explained that the measure's "daddy quota" provision allows the allocation of 7 maternity leave days to fathers, thereby increasing the paternity leave days of working men to 14 days from the current 7 days. Hontiveros nominated to the Silver Rose Awards Meanwhile, the OPIC has nominated Hontiveros for the prestigious Silver Rose Awards next year for her remarkable work on social justice. The Silver Rose Awards is a prestigious European award-giving body in the European parliament that celebrates civil society organisations and individuals whose extraordinary struggles contribute greatly to social justice and solidarity throughout the world. It is organized by SOLIDAR, a European netowork of civil society groups working for social justice. Former winners of the SOLIDAR Silver Rose Awards include; Juan Somavia (2005), the former General Director of the International Labor Organization, the Sudan Organisation Against Torture (2006), Aminatou Haidar(2007), Western Sahara human rights defender, Plataforma de Mujeres Aristas contra la Violencia de Genero (2007), Spanish group of musicians, the Columbian Trade Union Federations (2010), Gunter Wallraff (2015), German author and undercover journalist, and many more. "I am humbled by this nomination. I strongly believe that democracy is a universal value. Our continuing journey toward a more participatory and pluralist society is the best guarantee that we can create a nation that will truly protect and realize all our human rights and aspirations," Hontiveros said. Press Release November 12, 2018 Senate okays bill seeking to establish cancer control program in PH The Senate has approved today on third and final reading a bill seeking to institutionalize a national integrated cancer control program in the country. Senate Bill No. 1850, sponsored by Senator Joseph Victor "JV" Ejercito, was approved with 18 affirmative votes, zero negative vote and no abstention. Ejercito, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Demography, said the bill sought to address various gaps in cancer care and integrate policies and programs for its prevention, detection, correct diagnosis, treatment and palliative care, pain management and survivorship or end of life. "Through the National Integrated Cancer Control Act, we can give cancer patients a choice, we can give them hope - hope that they will have an equitable and affordable cancer treatment and care especially for the underprivileged and marginalized Filipinos," Ejercito said. According to Ejercito, cancer is the third leading cause of adult death in the Philippines and fourth in child morbidity. The Department of Health (DOH) estimated up to eight deaths per day for childhood cancer and up to 11 new cases and seven deaths every hour for adult cancer. This computes to a figure of approximately 110,000 new cancer cases and over 66,000 cancer deaths each year. A recent study conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) showed that mortality ratio among the poor was quite high. The study attributed the high number of deaths among patients with cancer to weak health systems, limited access to quality cancer care and partly to the late diagnosis of common cancers. "Undoubtedly, cancer has become a global health threat and incidence rates are rising. The study estimates that in 2012 more than 6.7 million people developed the disease and that this will rise by almost 60 percent translating to over 10.8 million people who will be diagnosed with cancer in the next 14 years," Ejercito said. Senator Sonny Angara, co-sponsor of the bill, said a study conducted by the George Institute for Global Health found out that of the 908 Filipino cancer patients who participated in the study, majority experienced economic hardships. "Cancer pushes Filipino families deeper into poverty. The associated costs of screening and treatment are catastrophic. The economic burden imposed is overwhelming," Angara said in his sponsorship speech. "This bill will establish a National Integrated Cancer Control Council whose sole focus is to implement programs that will not only provide comprehensive, accessible and affordable cancer treatments for all cancer patients, but will also work on minimizing the incidence of preventable cancer cases," he added. Under the bill, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) shall expand the benefit packages to include screening, detection, diagnosis, treatment assistance, supportive care, survivorship follow-up care and rehabilitation, and end of-life-care, for all types and stages of cancer in both adults and children. Angara said PhilHealth has currently packages providing for leukemia, breast and prostate cancer treatments but these are limited and reportedly only covers about 11 percent of total health expenditures. Once the bill is passed into law, all Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) would be required to cover genetic counseling and testing, cancer screening, diagnostic and palliative care. Cancer-related absences from work of member employees as well as voluntary members shall be covered and compensated by the sickness benefits of the Social Security System (SSS) and the disability benefits of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). The bill would mandate the DOH, in collaboration with other concerned agencies, to encourage the underprivileged and marginalized people living with cancer to undergo the necessary treatment and care. The bill shall also mandate the establishment of the Philippine Cancer Center, under the control and supervision of the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH), for the treatment and accommodation of cancer patients. The center shall also initiate research, in collaboration with other universities, hospital and institutions, for cancer prevention and cure. Likewise, regional cancer centers shall be established nationwide for the treatment and care of cancer patients. The center shall also undertake and support the training of physicians, nurses, medical technicians, pharmacists, health officers and social workers on good practice models for the delivery of responsive, multidisciplinary, integrated cancer services. The bill also calls for the establishment of the Cancer Assistance Fund to support the cancer medicine and treatment assistance program. The fund shall ensure a steady supply of cancer drugs and cancer control related vaccines to patients. "We need to fight cancer as a nation: We must integrate cancer consciousness into our schools' curriculum in a more systematic and enduring way. We must increase public funding for robust prevention of cancer, better screening and make cancer treatment and care affordable for all," Senator Joel Villanueva, also a co-sponsor of the bill, said. Aside from Ejercito, Angara and Villanueva, authors of the bill include Senate President Vicente Sotto III, Senate Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto, Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon and Senators Maria Lourdes Nancy Binay, Leila De Lima, Loren Legarda, Antonio "Sonny" Trillanes IV, Grace Poe, Cynthia Villar, Paolo Benigno "Bam" Aquino IV, Sherwin Gatchalian, Richard Gordon, Gregorio Honasan II, Risa Hontiveros, Panfilo Lacson, Emmanuel "Manny" Pacquiao, Francis Pangilinan and Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III. Dame Silvia Cartwright has been appointed to lead the public inquiry into the Earthquake Commission. EQC Minister Megan Woods says the former Governor-General and High Court Judge has enormous mana and experience with public enquiries, having led the famous Cartwright Inquiry into Auckland National Womens Hospital in the 1980s and served on the Cambodian War Crimes Tribunal. To have someone of her standing, skills and experience agree to lead this very important public inquiry is really exceptional. The EQC inquiry will be the first of its kind under the Public Inquiries Act 2013. It will have all the powers of a royal commission, will be independent of the government and will report directly to the Governor-General. The Insurance Council of New Zealand has welcomed todays announcement and says its pleased other models, such as the one deployed after the Kaikoura earthquake in November 2016, will be considered. The aim of the inquiry is to learn from the experience of the Canterbury earthquakes and ensure that the Earthquake Commission is fit for purpose in future events, Woods said. The insurance system as a whole, including EQCs role in that system, needs to be ready to deliver services to those affected by the next big event whenever or wherever that happens, she said. Woods has also released the inquirys terms of reference. It will not consider past insurance settlements or current claims and nor will it comment on previous decisions by the courts on insurance-related matters. The focus of the inquiry is on the handling of insurance claims by EQC and, as appropriate, other insurers following the Canterbury events, she said. Insurance claimants have other avenues to pursue their individual cases including the recently announced one-stop-shop, the Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service. It is important to this government that the people of Canterbury, who have been through so much with EQC, get the chance to have their say and that the whole country can learn from the experiences of the Canterbury earthquakes, the minister said. The insurance council says that in Canterbury, customers had to first lodge a claim with EQC and then EQC would need to seek validation that the claimant was insured by contacting their insurer. If the claimants insurance was validated, EQC would then scope and assess the claim before passing the claim on to the claimant's own insurer if the damage to their property proved to be more than the $100,000 EQC cap. But after the Kaikoura quake, EQC and insurers signed a memorandum of understanding appointing insurers as agents of the EQC. The Kaikoura model has been incredibly effective, insurance council chief executive Tim Grafton said. In two years, 99.8 percent of all domestic claims and 99.2 percent of total claims have been resolved. Insurers manage and settle more than 1.2 million claims a year with staff working around the clock processing claims. Using these resources makes more sense than staffing EQC to be ready for a disaster when its unclear when those resources may be called upon, said Grafton. The inquiry is expected to provide an interim report by the end of June 2019. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 22nd November 2021 Morning Report Z Energy Limited (NZX: ZEL) welcomes final investment decision on ITS The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Transition of Marsden Point site to a fuel import terminal Kiwi Property Group Limited (NZX: KPG) reports 164% profit growth, delivers on strategy Meridian Energy Limited (NZX: MEL) agrees terms for the sale of Australian business 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings Outgoing Vector chairman Michael Stiassny has delivered a no-holds-barred speech at his last AGM with the electricity lines company, including accusing Vectors majority shareholder of a personal vendetta against him and anyone associated with him. In the closing minutes of the meeting, in front of a packed house at Aucklands Eden Park, Stiassny laid into the Commerce Commission, electricity regulators, Vectors 75.1 percent owner Entrust, self-interested fellow directors and, more surprisingly, start-up Rocket Lab. Stiassny, the controversial former insolvency expert who joined the Vector board in 2002 and has come in for his fair share of criticism in the last few months, announced in May he wouldnt be standing again, having been effectively ousted by Entrust. Two other directors, Sibylle Krieger and David Bartholomew, announced last Friday they were also not seeking re-election for the same reason - Entrust antipathy. This, combined with the resignation of a fourth director last week, after he failed to win a seat on the Entrust board, leaves Vector potentially four directors short. Stiassny said he was deeply saddened by the resignations of Krieger and Bartholomew, both of whom only joined the board this year. They were recruited after an exhaustive process. They have significant experience and international knowledge. Their short tenure has nothing to do with them, but everything to do with a personal vendetta to do with me and anyone to do with me. This is a significant loss and not in Vectors best interest. Stiassny, who is also chair of Tower and public sector transport funder the New Zealand Transport Agency, and a director of several other companies, also attacked some of his fellow directors on the Vector board, accusing them of putting their own interests before those of the company. Most of the directors, Stiassny included, have been on the Vector board for more than a decade. Alison Paterson, a good contender to replace Stiassny as chair, joined in 2007. Pitching for re-election, Paterson told the AGM she had also wanted to resign because of her length of tenure, but had been persuaded to stay after so many other people were ousted. Meanwhile, Stiassnys criticisms werent limited to his colleagues. He had strong words about the Commerce Commission and the legislative framework that Vector operates under, calling it out of date and not fit for purpose Earlier this year the Commerce Commission, which regulates Vector, zapped the lines company with as-yet-undisclosed penalties for taking too long to fix power outages in 2015 and 2016. It also indicated it could well do the same for 2017 and 2018. Stiassny argued outage times have been affected by worsening storms, increasing traffic problems in Auckland, and a focus on staff health and safety. This latter meant Vector didnt send people to work on lines if there was any possibility they were live, a policy which could delay starting work on fixing problems. But instead of being applauded for its approach with its workers, it was being penalised, Stiassny said. Vector has led health and safety initiatives, yet the Commerce Commission holds us to account for taking longer to fix the lines. Its sad because we are doing the right thing for our people. There was no protest at the annual general meeting about Vectors investment in the Israeli company which developed the software behind Israel's Iron Dome anti-rocket defence system, despite a rival group that mounted a failed takeover bid for the Entrust board at last month's community trust election seeking to make the investment a public issue. In May last year Vector spent around US$10 million on a minority stake in mPrest, which is working on intelligent grid technology. However, the Green Party and others have accused Vector of investing in mPrest alongside an Israeli weapons manufacturer. Instead, Stiassny went on the offensive at the AGM, favourably comparing Vector and its investments to start-up darling Rocket Lab, which has connections with Lockheed Martin, which proudly makes a wide variety of highly effective and reliable weapons systems. Under no circumstances while Ive been at Vector would we tolerate [investing in a company which makes bombs], Stiassny said. MPrest makes defence systems, which dont kill anyone. Whereas Rocket Lab, which everyone loves, is owned by Lockheed, which make weapons which do kill people. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 22nd November 2021 Morning Report Z Energy Limited (NZX: ZEL) welcomes final investment decision on ITS The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Transition of Marsden Point site to a fuel import terminal Kiwi Property Group Limited (NZX: KPG) reports 164% profit growth, delivers on strategy Meridian Energy Limited (NZX: MEL) agrees terms for the sale of Australian business 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings CBL Insurance, a subsidiary of CBL Corp, has been placed in liquidation by the Auckland High Court, against the recommendation of the voluntary administrators. "The administrators had been working to secure a restructuring proposal that could be implemented through a voluntary administration of CBLI, to avoid it being placed into liquidation," Brendon Gibson and Neale Jackson of KordaMentha said in a statement. "In our view, a restructuring proposal implemented through a voluntary administration offered the potential to deliver a better outcome for CBLIs creditors and creditors of the wider CBL Group companies. Ultimately, however, two of CBLIs major creditors did not support voluntary administration, which is their right," Jackson said. Auckland-based CBL appointed KordaMentha as voluntary administrators in March after the Reserve Bank sought an interim liquidation of its New Zealand supervised arm and the Central Bank of Ireland made a similar move against the insurer's European division. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand said it welcomed news that CBLI had been placed into liquidation without the need for a contested hearing. "Opposition from CBL Insurance's directors and from the shareholder caused significant delay to the full liquidation hearing. Once major creditors of CBL Insurance failed to come forward with support for an alternative restructuring proposal, then the liquidation outcome became inevitable. We are pleased a contested trial was unnecessary," said deputy governor and head of financial stability, Geoff Bascand, in a statement. According to the RBNZ, the High Court appointed Kare Johnstone and Andrew Grenfell, partners of McGrathNicol, as liquidators of CBLI. In a media statement, CBL directors Peter Harris and Alistair Hutchinson said they decided to withdraw their opposition to the liquidation when two major creditors agreed to support it. The directors made significant efforts to guarantee a "fully solvent outcome from CBLI and full payment to its New Zealand creditors and policyholders," they said. Those efforts, however, were "scuttled" by the Reserve Bank, which they said was focused on liquidation. Watershed meetings to determine the fate of the rest of the group are scheduled to be held no later than Dec 18. The Reserve Bank has commissioned an independent review of the CBLI case to identify lessons for itself and the insurance regulatory regime. The review is being conducted by John Trowbridge and Mary Scholtens QC and will cover the period from CBLI's licensing in 2013 through to the interim liquidation. Key findings from the independent review will be made public next year. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. 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Related News: Now is the time to reassess your investments Now is the time to reassess your investments Fonterra looking to lift China's importance in new strategy A2, Synlait shares climb as takeover bid revives optimism about Chinese appetite for milk Service sector activity eases in August but still expanding Lumpy imports drive bigger July trade deficit than expected Nimbys, carparks and the status quo under threat as govt tells big cities: grow up and out Dairy manufacturers got better prices in June quarter Orr defends RBNZ rate cut, says monetary policy looks ahead, not behind RBNZ's Orr says investors need to put their money to work Infratil has raised its full-year profit forecast for a second time in six weeks on the back of strong performances expected from its power, airports and data centre interests. The company, which today reported a 19 percent increase in first-half underlying operating earnings, said its March-year earnings are expected to increase to between $560 million and $620 million. That is up from the $540 million to $580 million of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and changes in financial instruments that the firm forecast in late September and the $525.8 million of ebitdaf it reported for the March 2018 year. Infratil said the revised forecast reflects the current earnings trajectory and some changes within the portfolio. It incorporates the earnings guidance of Trustpower, Tilt Renewables and Wellington International Airport. It also assumes 30 percent earnings growth at Canberra Data Centres and a year-to-date valuation uplift of $18.2 million. The Wellington-based investor benefited from good first-half performances from some of its newer assets, while it looks to exit some older, or non-performing investments, including Perth Energy, NZ Bus and student accommodation in Canberra. The company today reported ebitdaf of $338.8 million for the six months through September, $54.5 million more than a year earlier. The strongest improvement was from the Longroad Energy solar and wind developer in the US. Infratils shares in that business contributed $51 million in the period, from almost $6 million of cost a year earlier, mostly from the sale of the developers 250 MW Phoebe solar project in Texas. Perth Energy returned to profit with a $25.2 million contribution, while earnings were also higher for Tilt, Wellington Airport, and Canberra Data Centres. Trustpowers $129.7 million contribution was ahead of expectations but down from abnormally high earnings the year before. Earnings from NZ Bus were almost $5 million lower, reflecting one-off restructuring and re-contracting costs, Infratil said. It expects to complete a strategic review of the business during the 2019 financial year. Infratil said performance improvements at NZ Bus and Perth Energy are providing "confidence" about the potential outcomes of the strategic reviews of those businesses. Weaker earnings from the Retire Australia business reflected reduced sales compared with a year earlier and the softer Australian real estate market. Infratil invested just under $302 million in the period, about $188 million of which went into the groups energy businesses, $58 million into transport and $21 million into Canberra Data Centres. It is forecasting capex and investment of $560 million to $600 million for the full-year, up from almost $326 million last year. The forecast includes $95 million of spending for the Tilt takeover but no equity contribution for that firms A$560 million Dundonnell wind project. Infratil company today reported a $106.1 million net profit for the half-year, up from $97.7 million a year earlier. After adjusting for one-off gains, restructuring costs and businesses that have been sold, underlying earnings rose to $110.5 million from $79.5 million. Excluding minority interests, the net surplus for the parent company rose to $58.5 million from $39.7 million. Infratil will pay an interim dividend of 6.25 cents a share, up from 6 cents a year ago. The dividend, which comes with 1.5 cents of imputation credits, will be paid on Dec. 14. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. 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Related News: 22nd November 2021 Morning Report Z Energy Limited (NZX: ZEL) welcomes final investment decision on ITS The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Transition of Marsden Point site to a fuel import terminal Kiwi Property Group Limited (NZX: KPG) reports 164% profit growth, delivers on strategy Meridian Energy Limited (NZX: MEL) agrees terms for the sale of Australian business 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings North Korean slave laborers are paid only US$27 a month on average working 12 to 16 hours a day in Polish shipyards, according to a Dutch academic. Most of their nominal wages go straight into the coffers of the North Korean regime. Prof. Remco Breuker of Leiden University in the Netherlands told Voice of America on Saturday, "After the obligatory expenses, they would be left with about 27 dollars a month. That's what they would be able to send home." A former North Korean worker at a shipyard in Poland is suing a Dutch shipbuilder over the slave-like conditions under a Dutch law that makes profiting from exploitation a crime even if the alleged offender is not the victim's direct employer, which has turned the spotlight on the abuses. The North Korean regime typically takes 70 to 90 percent of the wages of laborers it sends overseas to earn hard currency. "North Korea can give something to Poland that it desperately needs, which is welders. The best Polish welders are no longer to be found in Poland because they left Poland for better paying jobs in Norway or the U.K.," Remco said. He said the North Korean workers also undergo daily self-criticism and peer-criticism sessions. "You have to do it all the time. It's like the North Korean system exported to Poland," although Poland is in the EU. Infrastructure for a major suburban development on Auckland's Hibiscus Coast will be the first to gain funding from a special purpose vehicle using long-term debt raised by the government's Crown Infrastructure Partners and designed to lower the up-front cost of new housing for home buyers. Some $48.9 million of the $91 million of roading and wastewater infrastructure for Fulton Hogan's Milldale subdivision at Wainui, between Orewa and Silverdale, will be funded with long-term debt raised by CIP from the Accident Compensation Corp. CIP began life as Crown Fibre Holdings, responsible for administering the previous government's ultra-fast broadband roll-out. Its skills have been retained to assist with the current administration's desire to accelerate other types of infrastructure using novel funding structures that can be held off-balance sheet by both the Crown and local governments. Auckland Council is contributing $33.5 million to the SPV being formed for the project, while central government is contributing $4 million. Fulton Hogan is providing the remaining $4.6 million. "The SPV funding will be repaid over time partly by Fulton Hogan and partly by section owners as an 'infrastructure payment' collected council rates," Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford said in a statement. "This new model of infrastructure financing means that long-term debt can be raised through the SPV to enable the building of large-scale infrastructure, which is needed to step up the rate of houses being built and to assist councils that are nearing their debt limits." One of the impediments to building affordable housing has been the tendency for developers to charge home buyers up-front for the cost of roading, wastewater and other infrastructure for new subdivisions, adding to the pressures that have seen a bias in recent years towards only building new homes for wealthy buyers. The Milldale development project will enable construction of some 4,000 dwellings and the infrastructure will be capable of supporting another 5,000 in surrounding areas. Pattrick Smellie is a Fulton Hogan shareholder. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. 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Related News: 22nd November 2021 Morning Report Z Energy Limited (NZX: ZEL) welcomes final investment decision on ITS The New Zealand Refining Company Limited (NZX: NZR) Transition of Marsden Point site to a fuel import terminal Kiwi Property Group Limited (NZX: KPG) reports 164% profit growth, delivers on strategy Meridian Energy Limited (NZX: MEL) agrees terms for the sale of Australian business 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings Ho, ho, ho ... Santa shrugs off trade row From:ChinaDaily | 2018-11-12 09:08 Exports of Yiwu's Christmas items to the US, other markets will surge despite price rise The last week of this year will be business as usual for Santa Claus, thanks to Zhejiang province's Yiwu, the global capital of Christmas decoration goods, industry insiders said. Santa's trademark "Ho, ho, ho" won't be muted by the raging global trade tariff tensions and the consequent rise in the prices of festive paraphernalia like bells, bubble hats, the white-edged red coats, plastic trees, LED lights, dolls, shiny colorful lightweight balls and trinkets, all of which constitute a multibillion-dollar market. Traders said they expect Christmas-related collective sales of nearly 300 Yiwu merchants to rise 25 percent year-on-year to nearly $5 billion this year. Months before Christmas, the landmark Yiwu International Trade City, the chock-a-block sales and dispatch center for the festival goods, began throbbing with hectic activity. That's because for Yiwu's merchants and factory owners, the Christmas season starts in May, when customers' purchase orders start trickling in. Factories run at full steam to meet the tasks of manufacturing and shipping their products across the world. Zhang Dan of Kunyuan Christmas Craftwork Co said the firm's shipments doubled this year on the back of robust demand from Latin America, Europe and Africa. Her story makes fascinating reading, a tribute to the amazing entrepreneurial spirit that Yiwu fosters. Her parents first came to Yiwu from Chengdu in Sichuan province more than 15 years ago. Zhang herself graduated from Sichuan Normal University four years ago and joined the family business in Christmas goods. She has been focusing on exploring new markets through cross-border e-shopping platforms such as Amazon. In addition, given the rising popularity of Christmastime home decorations among Chinese people, the firm caters to the domestic market through local trading platforms. Kunyuan runs a manufacturing unit in Dongyang near Yiwu. It has inked supply deals with dozens of overseas clients. The firm's cloth-based craftwork is something of a fad among Amazon users. For Zhang, the key to robust sales lies in continuous communication with overseas clients and strong innovative design capabilities. "We have engaged special designers in working out the latest trendy Christmas-related craftwork. For example, I research overseas destinations and get products designed in a way that is compatible with the local culture. Sometimes, our clients will also offer inspirational ideas on product designs," she said. Zhang is one of the 470,000 market dealers in Yiwu. Dubbed the world's small commodities capital, Yiwu is best known for its Christmas-related merchandise. That accounts for over 90 percent of the domestic output in the category, and 60 to 70 percent of the world's total, according to the Yiwu Christmas Products Industry Association. Rural tourism helps Bijie bloom From:ChinaDaily | 2018-11-12 07:13 City famed for its sea of azaleas fosters industry to lift incomes Named for its sea of azalea flowers, the Baili Azalea Administrative Zone, comprising 68 villages across some 700 square kilometers of hilly land in Bijie, Guizhou province, is an experimental zone in a core poverty alleviation area. The zone has struck a balance between ecological preservation and economic growth by boosting sightseeing and cultural experience tourism. Rural tourism has created 46,000 jobs for residents, most of whom would otherwise work far from home as migrant laborers, according to the local government. Last year, tourists from home and abroad made 798,000 visits to the zone which has 16 characteristic villages, more than 20 scenic spots, 391 restaurants and homestays and 6,700 beds for travelers-generating revenue of 585 million yuan ($84.3 million) and helping increase average household income by 10,600 yuan a year. The zone's administrative committee is working with travel companies and farming cooperatives to manage tourism resources. The committee focuses on improving infrastructure facilities and public services, while the companies and cooperatives run and promote scenic spots. All stakeholders have attached great importance to raising environmental awareness and encouraging residents to protect the local ecology. Companies and cooperatives evaluate and rate the zone's restaurants and homestays in terms of their facilities, management and services, pushing businesses to rectify any problems. Farmers have also planted about 3,000 hectares of flowers, fruits, mushrooms, herbs and other plants that are more profitable than corn, which locals have grown for generations, and have created packages for tourists to experience the planting and harvest seasons firsthand. The city government has resettled poor residents from remote, high-altitude areas to the foot of the mountains, where transportation is more convenient. "The living environment is much better. I didn't expect that my family could move into a new three-story house, equipped with running water and electricity, without paying a thing," said Zhao Anyou, one of 116 people relocated from Yuanyan village to government-subsidized homes in the town of Pudi. Engine technology puts China in global top flight From:ChinaDaily | 2018-11-12 06:53 Development of thrust vector control provides improved combat capability. Zhao Lei reports. China has mastered a field of cutting-edge aviation technology that is currently dominated by the United States and Russia, which is expected to give the nation's fighter jets better combat capability. The technology, known as thrust vector control, involves a movable thrust nozzle that enables a fixed-wing plane to change the direction of its engine exhaust. This allows the pilot to raise the aircraft's nose cone vertically while maintaining forward momentum so the plane effectively "sits" on its own tail in an aerodynamic stall caused by low speed and a high angle of attack. The use of such technology extensively boosts the maneuverability of a fighter jet, providing advantages in aerial combat, especially during close-range dogfights. The idea of thrust vectoring is not new to the global aviation industry, as it has been used for nearly 100 years; first as a control mechanism for airships, and later applied to the design of fixed-wing combat planes on a small, experimental scale in 1960s. Call for open markets as world leaders gather in Singapore Singapore, Nov 12 (AFP) Nov 12, 2018 Singapore's prime minister made an impassioned plea Monday for open markets and warned "political pressures" were driving countries apart, in a swipe at rising protectionism at the start of a gathering of world leaders. Dignitaries including Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and US Vice President Mike Pence are attending this week's summit in the city-state against the backdrop of a months-long trade dispute between Beijing and Washington. Some of the leaders are expected to announce major progress on a massive China-backed trade deal that excludes the US, in a rebuke to President Donald Trump's increasingly unilateralist approach to international commerce. Trump is skipping the annual summit -- which was regularly attended by his predecessor Barack Obama -- in a sign of how far he has withdrawn from attempts to shape the global rules of trade and raising new questions about Washington's commitment to Asia. Addressing a business forum ahead of this week's main meetings, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for Southeast Asian companies to invest more in each others' markets and be more open to foreign competition. "The more integrated and open our markets are, and the more conducive our rules and business environments to foreign investment, the larger the pie will grow, and the more we will all benefit," he said. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) "has great potential, but fully realising it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures". - Economic standoff - The US-China trade dispute has seen Trump slap higher tariffs on roughly half of Chinese imports, and Beijing retaliate with its own levies. The standoff is having an impact far beyond the world's top two economies, and leaders at the four days of meetings will be keen to voice their grievances to Pence, who is participating in Trump's place, and China's Li. Some export-reliant Asian economies have already seen manufacturing activity weaken, while Singapore's prime minister warned earlier this year that a trade war would have a "big, negative impact" on the financial hub, which relies heavily on international commerce. While Trump has railed at trade deals and pushed his isolationist "America First" agenda, Beijing has increasingly talked up the benefits of open markets. In an editorial in Singapore's pro-government Straits Times newspaper Monday, China's Li said the world was facing "challenges of rising protectionism and unilateralism". "We should work for an open world economy by advocating, practising and upholding openness," he wrote. Many of those attending the Singapore summit are expected to send a message in support of free trade by announcing major progress on a China-backed deal, the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). With Trump having pulled the US out of rival pact the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the RCEP is now the world's biggest trade deal, covering half the world's population. The pact -- which is less ambitious than the TPP in areas such as employment and environmental protection -- groups the 10 ASEAN members plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The TPP, which was championed by Obama as the economic plank of his "pivot to Asia", has been kept alive without the US and will go into force this year. Page Content To the people of Sint Maarten, to our residents and to our guests, once again we have gathered here to celebrate Sint Maarten Day to mark the peaceful coexistence of two nations divided by an imaginary line. Before I address the theme of Unity and Friendship, I must take this opportunity to express my gratitude and optimism on the current trajectory of cooperation of our local Governments. Since taking office, I can say with confidence that our cooperation is real and tangible. Together with Prefet Sylvie Feucher, and President Daniel Gibbs the resolution of any issue or concern is just a phone call away. This approach of an open communication between both sides has yielded positive results throughout my 11 months in office. We have active collaboration on matters such as firefighting where resources and manpower are shared on both sides. Cooperation in the area of Disaster Management has been enhanced to the extent that it now forms integral part of all preparation and response efforts of both Governments. Our Meteorological Services are also finding ways to complement each others efforts with an ongoing project to operate a joint weather radar that will be mutually beneficial to both sides. Through the European Development Fund, additional joint projects have been identified and details are being worked out that will eventually lead to positive outcomes such as the cleanup of the Simpson bay lagoon, the drainage solution for Dutch and French Quarter area. There is also cooperation on the promotion, marketing and product development of our tourism industry ensuring that both economies bounce back after the passing of Hurricane Irma. Annually, high-level Quadripartite meetings (QMeeting) are held between government officials from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of France, Government of Sint Maarten and the Collectivite of Saint Martin. Some of the objectives covered during these meetings are to identify and discuss cross border issues and come up with mutually agreed solutions and to familiarize parties with the relevant focal points and actors responsible for cooperation. When I think of Unity and Friendship, I think of the people of this wonderful and unique island. Government may discuss and present ideas of unity and friendship but it is the people who speak truth to these ideas. Families friends civil servants and guests included make this unity and friendship work. The freedom to drive from side to side allows each of us the opportunity to enjoy the natural beauty and culture of the island. Therefore, our differences are far less than the things we share in common. Our commonalities begin with the shared bloodlines that not only flow through our veins but also across borders and strengthen the bonds of our shared culture and heritage. So on this Sint Maarten Day we must re-commit to ensure that the unity, friendship and family we hold so dearly is preserved in honor of our ancestors for an additional 370 years to come. As we partake in the activities and festive atmosphere on this Sint Maarten Day, an integral part of the day is the celebration of the Sint Maarten flag. Today is the day when all our patriots display their red, white and blue proudly. The Sint Maarten flag is one of our national symbols that brings us together as a country as we continue on our journey too recovery. On this Sint Maarten Day, let us hold our flag high and take pride in our country as we celebrate our Sweet Sint Maarten Land. To the people - Happy Sint Maarten Day The 3 am alarm is cruel for a morning person like me. I hit the snooze button and thought about the challenges ahead. I was about to climb 1,000 meters up to Thorong Pass (5,416 meters in elevation), then descend 1,600 meters to Muktinath. The pass would have to be crossed quickly to avoid winds. And, of course, it would all be done at an extremely high altitude. The Annapurna Circuit I was walking the Annapurna circuit, one of Nepals most famous treks that stretches for 300km around the Annapurna mountains in the Himalayas. The trek begins at Besi Sahar and climbs up to 5,416 m and ends at Muktinath. Along the way, it passes through dozens of lowland and high mountain villages and some of the most spectacular natural scenery in the world. Takes you back in time Embarking on this journey is sure to take you back in time. You will get away from all distractions of modern society. There are instances to prove that the lifestyle of the people of the mountain villages are similar to what it was a centuries ago.Gone are the sounds of cars, motorcycles, or machines of any sort. Replacing them are the sounds of rivers and waterfalls, of men porting goods or playing cards. One will notice that most things around the area are made by hand. Until recently, everything had to be carried on the backs of porters or mules. Luxury items such as sweets and beer are available but at double the cost. The road On the first part of the trail you walk on jeep tracksit is no fun. But once you get far from the road, it does feel good. Sturdy suspension bridges that provide scenic vistas span many of the big rivers. In some areas, the trail has been dynamited out of mountain faces, providing dramatic, thousand-meter drops to the valley floor below. The view The view does get amazing as you get higher up. The Himalayas are, quite simply, splendid. Every day as you go higher, the view changes and that makes this trek interesting. One day youre walking around green hills with Mt Manaslu behind you and you see icy rivers on the valley floors. The next day you see jagged cliffs towering in the background against a backdrop of crystalline skies. An embarrassing abundance of waterfalls cut deep trenches into the rock face. People The trail takes you through numerous villages that offer glimpses into traditional Nepali village life. The religion of the majority is Hinduism in the lowlands, and it slowly changes to Buddhism as you go higher up. The lifestyle of the people reflects Tibetan influences. As you climb higher into the mountains, Hindu icons give way to Buddhist prayer wheels and monasteries. Most people we encountered were genuinely pleased to see us and greeted us. But there were a few who were not as pleased, and didnt like domestic tourists. Porters on the trail, who were carrying loads between 15-25 kgs on their backs never complain. With a smile on their face, they carry on. Glimpses of smiling kids who ask for chocolates is a common sight as is getting passed by 60-year-old grandmothers. Tea Houses Most of the villages we passed through had lodges geared toward trekkers. The lodges are simple wooden huts with thin mattresses, clean sheets, and decent duvets. The rooms cost around 200 for domestic tourists and 500 for foreigners. Dal Bhat power 24 hour The range of food on the trail was surprising. From Nepali specials to the continentals, you get it all. But the only meal we had on the trip was dal-bhat for lunch and dinner and buckwheat chapatti for breakfast. Even though it did get a bit monotonous, but trying a lasagne at 4000m prepared by people whove never tried them wasnt something I was willing to do. Regardless of food quality, I managed to eat at least three times a day. I had no idea that I could eat as much. The best thing about this trail is yak cheese, which tastes like a fine parmesan and enhances every meal imaginable. Seabuckthorn juice, made from a local berry that tastes like apricots, was another stellar treat. Reaching Higher Ground The scenery changes for the better as we climbed higher up. The wind helped us see crystal clear blue skies and snow-capped mountains. Up above the tree line, the scenery transformed into a barren, Tibet-like landscape of brown hills, landslides, and jagged peaks. The air got considerably thinner above 3,000m mark, which made steep climbs and rigorous efforts more difficult. But, although thin, the air felt so pure and fresh. Freezing Cold The temperature during the night changes dramatically. The only way one can escape it is by layering up. The rooms have no heating which means a down sleeping bag and a down jacket is a must. The wind gets frosty above 3,500m which makes walking around quite tough. Still water freezes at night which makes going to the toilet quite weird. On the bright side, a week of freezing nights provides a great incentive to get over the pass and down to lower elevations as quickly as possible. Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) While heading to Yak Kharkha from Manang my friend had signs of AMS. Dizziness, lightheadedness and nausea made him take his meds. It was quite shocking because we felt we had acclimatized quite well. We also heard about a porter dying in Tilicho Lake. The incident was an eye-opener. The porter had crossed Thorong La 12 times; he was a certified, professional guide. That is why it is better to be safe and carry medicines or better take three days before going to higher altitudes because AMS can strike anyone, regardless of age, experience, or health. Thorong La The first hour hurt the most. The climb from Thorong Phedi to high camp is impossibly steep, utterly unforgiving and doing that at 4 am wasnt great. Fighting for breath in the thin air, Id pause every few meters, gaze up the unending mountainside, and indulge in a moment of self-pity. Then Id stare back at the ground and put one foot in front of the other. I felt my strength and optimism rising after an hour of climbing. I no longer had to stop as often; I was even able to make some breathy chatter with the people we passed. Past the 5,000-meter elevation mark, the air became impossibly thin and dry. I had to pause every few meters to regulate my breathing. Just as I was growing paranoid about my health, I glanced up and noticed some colours peeking out over the top of the cliff prayer flags marking the pass. My shallow breathing and worrisome heartbeat fell away as I scrambled up to Thorong La. Success Thorong Pass is marked by a large stone pile spotted with prayer flags. Commanding mountain views greet visitors from every side. Magnificently, the surrounding mountains appeared to be at eye level or lower. I felt I was on top of the world. Downhills Killing the Knees At first, the decent from Thorong La was thrilling. The relief we all felt to have made it over the pass was obvious. I could feel the air growing tangibly thicker with each leap and bound down the mountain. And the prospect of a cold glass of beer at Muknithath was motivational. The pure hell of descents came into sharp focus after an hour when the cartilage in my knees felt like it was crumbling. The 1,600m descent took its toll. Toward the end, I hobbled down the trail like an old man who just had knee surgery using my walking stick as a cane. The Other Side Most tourists whove done the Thorong Pass often trek towards Pokhara but as we were short on time we decided to take a jeep. The road up to Jomsom was quite nice but it started to get a bit crazy and after a 10-hour journey, we reached Pokhara. Into the wild After spending most of my time in Kathmandu, the Annapurna trek was refreshing. I was away from pollution and the hectic city life. What I felt was this trek have everything: culture, natural beauty, welcoming people, physical challenge, and value for money. The Annapurna circuit which is my first real trek was the most fun Ive had even though it was physically straining and is probably the highest point of my life. *Cover Image: Gangapurna Lake and Manang seen from a hill opposite Manang. Page Content On Wednesday morning November 7th, Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin took time out of her busy schedule to attend a reading session with the Group 8 students at the Sister Borgia Elementary School in Philipsburg. The reading session began with Prime Minister Romeo Marlin requesting a student to select a story from the book entitled Castles of Sand. Within that book, the student selected the story The Wonderful Underwater Machine by Josephine Edgar. If you saw Jason Jr. swimming at the bottom of the ocean, you might think you were looking at a big, blue, bug with two bright eyes. But JJ is not a bug, and its bright eyes are really two bright lights! JJ is a small machine only twenty-eight inches long but it is capable of swimming deep in the ocean, said Prime Minister Romeo-Marlin as she read to the attentive students. Further, along in the story it becomes clear that JJ is an underwater submersible designed to look at rocks and mountains in the deepest parts of the ocean. Scientists also use the machine to study fish and other sea creatures at depths where humans cannot venture. Upon completion of the story the Group 8 students were allowed to ask the Prime Minister any questions they had on their mind. How do you become a Prime Minister? Are you the youngest Prime Minister? Prime Minister Romeo Marlin answered the many questions posed and encouraged the young students to persevere in their studies. Stick with it and dont give up said Prime Minister Leona Romeo Marlin. 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Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fded91fb8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdf1f5638)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fded91fb8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdf1f5638)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdede31b8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdf1f5638)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdf1f5638)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fde8c0360)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdf3b52a0)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdf3b52a0)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 Gulariya, November 12 An 11-year-old girl in Badhaiyatal-8 of Bardiya district in western Nepal has been reportedly raped by two Indian nationals. Local police say they have arrested both of the suspects within one hour after the crime. Their identity has not been revealed. They are 16 and 17 years old, and both have confessed to the crime, SP Mohan Prasad Mainali informs, We have launched the process to take legal action against them. Mainali says the victim was grazing her cattle in a nearby area when the incident occurred. Meanwhile, the victim underwent a health checkup and she is not at risk, according to police. Finnish PM: Jammed GPS signals may be work of Russia Helsinki, Nov 12 (AFP) Nov 12, 2018 Russia denied Monday being behind the recent disruption to GPS signals across Lapland which put civil aviation at risk, after Finland's prime minister said the interference was "almost certainly deliberate". Finnish prime minister Juha Sipila told state broadcaster YLE on Sunday that "civil air safety has been endangered" by the GPS interference. The authorities were still investigating who was responsible, he said. "Disrupting radio signals in open space is technically relatively easy and yes, it is possible that Russia is involved in the disruption in this case," he added. "We know that Russia has such capability," Sipila said. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov denied the allegation on Monday. "We know nothing of any Russian involvement with the disruption of the GPS system, you will have to ask the experts at the Ministry of Defence," Peskov said. "But you know there is a tendency nowadays to accuse Russia of all sins, mortal or otherwise. As a rule, these accusations are baseless," he added. Interference in satellite signals across the Arctic regions of Norway and Finland was first noticed during NATO's two-week Trident Juncture military exercises. The alliance's largest such exercise since the end of the Cold War, it ran in and around Norway from October 25 to November 7. The satellite disruption led to Finnish and Norwegian civil airspace operators issuing official warnings to pilots that navigation signals in northeast Lapland were unstable. A pilot with the regional Norwegian airline Wideroe reported a loss of GPS signals during a flight near Kirkenes, close to Norway's border with Russia, at the start of November. "There are no security risks, we have good routines, and this is not the first time we have experienced loss of signals," a Wideroe spokeswoman told the Barents Observer website. In September 2017, Norwegian authorities reported jammed GPS signals affecting civil flights in the north of the country during Russia's large Zapad military exercise. Finnish parliamentarians lined up on Friday to call for a robust response to the signal jamming, with defence committee chair Ilkka Kanerva telling YLE that the effect on civil aviation could have been "catastrophic". During the Trident Juncture military exercises, Russia made clear its displeasure at what it saw as an anti-Russian show of force on its doorstep, warning that Nato's gesture would not go unanswered. Russia subsequently announced plans to test missiles in the same area during the Nato manoeuvres. Finland is not a member of the Nato military alliance but took part in the Norway exercises under the status of 'enhanced opportunities partner'. The issue of whether or not to join Nato is highly divisive in Finland, which shares a 1,300 kilometre land border with Russia, although both Finland and neighbouring Sweden have tightened their cooperation with the alliance in recent years. Nigeria appoints new commander against Boko Haram Abuja, Nov 12 (AFP) Nov 12, 2018 The Nigerian Army has appointed a new commander to lead the fight against Boko Haram jihadists in the country's restive northeast, where attacks on military targets have spiked in recent months. Major General Benson Akinroluyo has replaced Major General Abba Dikko as head of Operation Lafiya Dole, according to an army statement released at the weekend. Akinroluyo becomes the fifth commander in two years to head the fight against the Islamist insurgents, who have staged a series of attacks on military bases, killing dozens. Dikko was only appointed in July. Since then there have been at least nine attacks on military bases, most of them in the northern part of Borno state near the shores of Lake Chad. Most have been blamed on or claimed by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), an IS-backed faction of Boko Haram whose recent activities have prompted speculation the group has been taken over by hardliners. The conflict has claimed more than 27,000 lives since 2009 and nearly two million people still cannot return to their homes in the Lake Chad region. Despite government insistence that Boko Haram is near defeat, northeastern Nigeria is still hit by regular attacks. On Saturday, hundreds of people were forced to flee their homes when Boko Haram raided Jimmi, a village near the key city of Maiduguri, torching homes and carting away livestock. French, German defence ministers in Mali talks Bamako, Nov 12 (AFP) Nov 12, 2018 French Defence Minister Florence Parly and German counterpart Ursula von der Leyen met in Bamako on Monday to discuss Mali's troubled peace accord and a planned five-nation anti-terror force for the Sahel. Von der Leyen, speaking after meeting Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, called for efforts to shore up a 2015 peace accord in Mali's violence-hit north. "Cooperation among the various groups who have signed up to this peace deal is needed in order to have progress," she said. Germany is a member of a large UN peacekeeping contingent in the struggling Sahel country, buffetted by a jihadist revolt and ethnic violence. Mali's problems began with a Tuareg separatist uprising in the north in 2012 that was then exploited by jihadists to launch an insurgency. The extremists were largely driven out in a French-led military operation launched in January 2013. Despite a 2015 peace agreement among various parties and the government, large stretches of the north remain out of the control. Jihadist violence has spread to Mali's centre and south, often inflaming communal conflicts, and spilt into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. Von der Leyen arrived in Bamako on Sunday for ceremonies to mark the handover to Germany of an EU military training programme in Mali. Her visit coincided with that of Parly and the two met on Monday. France has a 4,500-member military mission in the Sahel and is backing a scheme by five nations, called the G5 Sahel, to create a joint force to roll back terrorism and lawlessness. Conceived in 2015, the force, bringing together Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, is grappling with funding problems, inadequate equipment and training. It has carried out only six operations, with three more in the works. "The international community is closely following the resumption of operations by the joint force. So everything must be done so that the operations can swiftly start again," Parly told journalists. The two ministers were to meet later Monday with the G5 Sahel's Mauritanian general, Hanena Ould Sidi. He replaced a Malian, Didier Dacko, after the force's headquarters were targeted in a suicide attack in June. Last week, Parly said that less than a quarter of the roughly 400 million euros ($455 million) pledged to the G5 Sahel by international donors had been forthcoming. All major Nepali and English broadsheet dailies published from Kathmandu Valley on Monday have published reports about the government decision to nominate three ambassadors with the topmost priority. The launch of an indefinite sit-in by parents of Nirmala Pant in Kanchanpur district in farwestern Nepal and the increasing conflict between the centre and provincial governments over an executive order on the formation of provincial police body have also been highlighted. Meanwhile, the ongoing talks among three parties of Panchayat-era royalists have failed to produce any concrete outcome immediately and the newspapers have published reports about the obstructions with priority. Few other political, sociocultural and economic issues have been featured on the front pages of major Kathmandu broadsheets today. Important Nepals sending envoy to India after months While the government nominated ambassadors for its missions in India, Malaysia and UAE, most of the newspapers have highlighted the nomination of constitutional expert Nilamber Acharya for the New Delhi mission. The Nepali Embassy in the Indian capital was vacant for over one year after then envoy Deep Kumar Upadhyay to contest parliamentary elections from the Nepali Congress. Meanwhile, the Cabinet did not officially make public any decision of the meeting held yesterday, Kantipur reports in a snippet. RPP unification process halted Naya Patrika, Rajdhani and Gorkhapatra report that the parties led by Kamal Thapa, Pashupati Shamsher Rana and Prakash Chandra Lohani have failed to finalise the unity deal they were discussing. Naya Patrika says the bones of intention are the unified partys election symbol and its view over monarchy. It explains that Thapa wanted monarchy to be the partys political agenda, which Lohani and Rana denied. Provinces to jointly fight against the centre over police law Seven provincial governments across the country are preparing to jointly launch an initiative against a recent executive order issued by the federal government over the formation of provincial police body, arguing it is too little, too late, and has no significance, according to a story in The Kathmandu Post. Meanwhile, the provincial leaders have also questioned the constitutionality of the order, reports The Himalayan Times. Ignored Fuel stations found cheating customers Naya Patrika and Karobar report that some fuel stations of the country were found cheating their customers with a computer programme that shows inaccurate amount of fuel on the display. Government monitors sealed six fuel stations of the country recently whereas they have suspected that around 15 per cent of the petrol pumps in the country are involved in the black marketing. PM to directly oversee big infrastructure projects The government is introducing a new law on the execution of national pride infrastructure projects, according to which the Prime Ministers Office will directly oversee the projects if they require an investment more than Rs 25 billion, according to Karobar. The Finance Minister has sent the draft of the bill of the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers for its comments, the report informs. Did NAC really buy wide body aircraft? One day after Minister Rabindra Adhikari denied his role in irregularities in the purchase of two wide body aircraft for the Nepal Airline Corporation, Annapurna Post reports in its lead story that the aircraft were not purchased, but borrowed on lease. Quoting a press release from the manufacturer, Airbus, the report says Nepals national flag carrier received the aircraft as it was leased from Portuguese lessor Hi Fly. Hi Fly also confirmed the lease, according to the report. Country faces tetanus vaccine shortage A three column story in Republica reports that tetanus vaccines are in short supply across the country for past six months, affecting people needing it. Quoting officials of the Department of Drug Administration and some pharmacies, the report informs that only 10 per cent of the total demand for the vaccines has been fulfilled at present. Interesting Children to be made responsible for care of ageing parents A new law is being formulated making children obliged to take care of their ageing parents, Annapurna Post reports in its anchor story. If Parliament passes the Senior Citizen Bill as it is in the draft version, the children have to give at least 10 per cent of their income to their parents, the report informs. Ethiopian carrier interested to establish partnership with NAC The Kathmandu Post reports in its lead story for the day that Africas largest airline Ethiopian Airlines has forwarded a partnership proposal to Nepals national flag carrier, Nepal Airlines Corporation. Ethiopian Ambassador to Nepal Asfaw Dingamo held a meeting with Civil Aviation Minister Rabindra Adhikari last week and floated the proposal for a strategic alliance, according to the report. Israel air strikes hit Gaza after rocket fire, three killed Gaza City, Palestinian Territories, Nov 12 (AFP) Nov 12, 2018 Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip killed three Palestinians on Monday after a barrage of rocket fire towards its territory from the enclave, as renewed violence threatened to derail efforts to restore calm. Israel's military said it had so far struck more than 20 militant sites in response to some 80 launches from the Hamas-run territory, reportedly rockets and mortars. Missile defences had intercepted a number of the rockets, the military said. The army said an Israeli bus was hit by fire from the Gaza Strip. Medics reported one person severely wounded. Medics also said six people from the southern Israeli city of Sderot were lightly wounded. Israeli police said a rocket hit a house in Netivot, another southern Israeli town. Gaza's health ministry said three Palestinians were killed in the Israeli strikes. Militant group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said two were its members. Hamas meanwhile claimed responsibility for the rocket fire on behalf of all Palestinian militant groups in Gaza, saying it was in revenge for a deadly Israeli military operation late Sunday. On Sunday, a clash erupted during an Israeli special forces operation in the Gaza Strip that killed seven Palestinian militants, including a local commander for Hamas's armed wing, and an Israeli army officer. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a trip to Paris and rushed home as tensions rose, and on Monday convened a meeting of security chiefs. - 'Exchange of fire' - Israel had stressed its covert operation on Sunday was an intelligence-gathering mission and "not an assassination or abduction", but Hamas strongly denounced it and vowed revenge. Israel signalled that Sunday's mission did not go as planned and resulted in the clash, which Palestinian officials said included Israeli air strikes. In the immediate aftermath of the clash, Israel said it identified 17 launches -- likely rockets or mortars -- toward its territory from Gaza, with three intercepted by missile defences. No injuries were reported. Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said the Israeli special forces team had infiltrated near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip in a civilian car. Al-Qassam agents stopped it and wanted to search it, realised it was an Israeli operation and confronted them, it said in a statement. An exchange of fire followed in which local Al-Qassam commander Nour Baraka was killed along with another militant, it said. The car then attempted to flee and Israeli aircraft provided covering fire. An Israeli helicopter landed near the fence and took away the special forces troops, according to Al-Qassam. Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus declined to comment on the Al-Qassam account "because of the sensitive nature of the operation". Israel provided few details on Sunday's operation, saying it was carried out by special forces and resulted in an "exchange of fire". A funeral was held for the seven Palestinian militants on Monday attended by thousands, including masked Al-Qassam members carrying rifles, some firing into the air. On the Israeli side of the border, residents said they had stayed close to shelters throughout the night. "I was sitting in my living room and around 10 pm or 11 pm, I suddenly heard the sound of helicopter gunships firing," said Gadi Yarkoni, head of a regional council in the area and a resident of Nirim Kibbutz. "It was right above the village I'm living in. It was very unpleasant." - Truce bid - The clashes came after months of deadly unrest along the Gaza-Israel border had appeared to be calming. Recent weeks have seen Israel allow Qatar to provide the Gaza Strip with millions of dollars in aid for salaries as well as fuel to help ease an electricity crisis. Before the flare-up, Netanyahu had defended his decision to allow Qatar to transfer the cash to Gaza despite criticism from within his own government over the move, saying he wanted to avoid a war if it was not necessary. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu's education minister and right-wing rival, compared the cash flow to "protection money" paid to criminals. Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008, and recent months have raised fears of a fourth. Deadly clashes have accompanied major protests along the Gaza-Israel border that began on March 30. At least 230 Palestinians have since been killed by Israeli fire, the majority shot during protests and clashes, while others died in tank fire or air strikes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in that time. Egyptian and UN officials have been mediating between Israel and Hamas in an effort to reach a long-term truce deal. North Korea hiding missile bases, US researchers say Washington, Nov 12 (AFP) Nov 12, 2018 North Korea is operating at least 13 undeclared bases to hide mobile, nuclear-capable missiles, a new study released Monday has found, raising fresh doubts over US President Donald Trump's signature foreign policy initiative. Trump has hailed his June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as having opened the way to denuclearization of the divided peninsula, defusing tensions that less than a year ago brought the two countries to the brink of conflict. Since the summit in Singapore, North Korea has forgone nuclear and missile tests, dismantled a missile test site and promised to also break up the country's main nuclear complex. But researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said they have located 13 missile operating bases that have not been declared by the government, and that there may be as many as 20. "It's not like these bases have been frozen," Victor Cha, who leads CSIS's North Korea program, told The New York Times, which first reported on the study. "Work is continuing. What everybody is worried about is that Trump is going to accept a bad deal -- they give us a single test site and dismantle a few other things, and in return they get a peace agreement." Cha had been in line for appointment as US ambassador to South Korea, but was dropped because of disagreement with the Trump administration's approach. While US sanctions on North Korea remain in place, enforcement by traditional trading partners China and Russia has relaxed since the summit, US officials have acknowledged. The bases, which are scattered across the country, are located in underground facilities tunneled in narrow mountain valleys, according to the researchers. They are designed to enable mobile missile launchers to quickly exit the underground facilities and move to previously prepared launch sites. "Any missile at these bases can take a nuclear warhead," the report's co-author, Joseph Bermudez, an authority on North Korea, told the Times. The bases are arranged in three belts across North Korea, according to the report, with those for strategic missiles deep inside the country. Medium-range missiles capable of striking Japan and all of South Korea reportedly are deployed in an operational belt 55 to 100 miles (90 to 150 kilometers) north of the demilitarized zone. Bases for shorter range missiles fit into a tactical belt 30 to 55 miles from the DMZ. The researchers relied on satellite imagery, defector interviews and interviews with intelligence and government officials for their findings. - Sakkanmol - The report included a detailed profile of one such tactical missile operating base, illustrated with commercial satellite imagery, just 84 miles northwest of Seoul. The imagery shows barely visible entrances to seven underground facilities at the Sakkanmol missile base -- each protected from artillery fire and air strikes by 60-foot-high (18-meter) berms made from rock and dirt excavated from the site. The size of the entrances, as well as the volume of soil removed, indicates the base could house a brigade-size missile unit with up to 18 mobile launchers, the report said. Concealed under two earth-covered shelters near one of the entrances is a drive-through facility where missile launchers are armed, fueled and maintained. Barracks, administration facilities, support buildings and greenhouses for food are visible further down the valley. The entrances to the underground facilities "are frequently hidden from sight in satellite imagery during spring and summer, just visible during fall and visible in winter after a snowfall," the report said. The Times said the Pentagon had planned to begin deploying a new generation of small, inexpensive satellites to track North Korea's mobile missiles, but the program has been held up by bureaucratic and budget disputes. - Stalled negotiations - Trump has said he hopes to meet again soon with Kim, but there are signs of growing friction in the negotiations with North Korean officials, which appear to have stalled. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been scheduled to meet Kim's right-hand man, Kim Yong Chol, in New York last week to discuss denuclearization efforts and prepare for a possible second summit, according to the State Department. But on Thursday, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said North Korea postponed the meeting "because they weren't ready." The United States, meanwhile, has delayed approval of several requests for exemptions to UN sanctions to deliver tractors, spare parts and other humanitarian relief supplies to North Korea, according to documents seen by AFP. French, German defence ministers in Mali amid concern over G5 Sahel force Bamako, Nov 12 (AFP) Nov 12, 2018 The French and German defence ministers met in Bamako on Monday to discuss Mali's troubled peace accord, as the head of a beleaguered five-nation anti-terror force for the Sahel raised concerns over a lack of equipment. Germany's Ursula von der Leyen, speaking after meeting Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, called for "cooperation" to shore up a 2015 peace accord in Mali's violence-hit north, large swathes of which remain out of the control of Malian, French and UN forces, which are frequent targets of attacks. France has a 4,500-member military mission in the Sahel and is backing a scheme by five nations, called the G5 Sahel, to create a joint force to roll back terrorism and lawlessness. Conceived in 2015, the force, bringing together Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, is grappling with funding problems, inadequate equipment and training. It has carried out only six operations, with three more in the works. "Everything must be done so that the operations can swiftly start again," French defence minister Florence Parly told journalists. The two ministers met the G5 Sahel's Mauritanian general, Hanena Ould Sidi, who replaced a Malian, Didier Dacko, after the force's headquarters were targeted in a suicide attack in June. "We have no headquarters and the equipment is slow in coming," he said, adding that the force needed armoured vehicles and anti-explosive devices. "We are waiting for the Malian authorities to offer us a place. When we have no office to work in, to think, we cannot move forward," he said. The five Sahel states are struggling against a jihadist revolt that began with a Tuareg separatist uprising in northern Mali in 2012. The extremists were largely driven out in a French-led military operation launched in January 2013. Jihadist violence has spread to Mali's centre and south, often inflaming communal conflicts, and spilt into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. Last week, Parly said that less than a quarter of the roughly 400 million euros ($455 million) pledged to the G5 Sahel by international donors had been forthcoming. Germany is a member of a large UN peacekeeping contingent in the struggling Sahel country. Von der Leyen arrived in Bamako on Sunday for ceremonies to mark the handover to Germany of an EU military training programme in Mali. Optimization Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should? Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools. Algiers, November 11, 2018 (SPS) - A total of 7000 books were handed over on Saturday, in Algiers, by Algerian Minister of Culture Azzedine Mihoubi to the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). The handing over of these books, published in 2016 and 2017, is part of the cooperation in the field of culture between the two countries culture ministries, an action coinciding with the wrap up of the 23rd International Book Fair of Algiers (SILA 2018). Between poetry and prose, these books are the fruit of Sahrawi writers, like Glory of people by Houcine Ibrahim, Wedding in a prison by Khadidja Hamdi and the handbook Cultural guide of Sahrawi teacher by Ghali Ahmed Laabid. Speaking about these books, the minister described this initiative as a token of friendship between the two countries, and a first step towards the publication of a series of writings dealing with the literature of Western Sahara and its writers, witnesses of struggle led by these people. For his part, Sahrawi ambassador to Algeria Abdelkader Taleb praised this friendly gesture, pointing out that this contribution will further enrich the Sahrawi library and will allow making the struggle of the Sahrawi people known to others. 23rd SILA wrapped up Saturday after more than ten days of cultural activities. (SPS) 062/SPS/APS Kavre, November 12 Minister for Communications and Information Technology Gokul Prasad Banskota has expressed sadness over the ongoing trend of forced religious conversion in the country. Nepal has a diversity of religion and culture and the political aim is to provide justice, equality, create harmony and safeguard lives of the people and all animals, he said while speaking at the Religion Awakening Festival organised here on Monday by Shree Krishna Pranami Sewa Samiti. He also pointed out that safeguarding the planet and peoples lives were main challenges of the day. Life cycle of living animals is dependent on the planet. So it is the responsibility of all to safeguard the planet and the people, he said. Minister Banskota also urged all to take part in this initiative. RSS Kampala (Uganda) November 12, 2018 (SPS) - A delegation led by the Minister Delegate in Charge of African Affairs, Hamdi Alkhalil Mayara, was received at the Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Ugandan Minister of State for International Relations Henry Oryem Okello, who stressed the strength of his country's relations with Sahrawi Republic and its support for the Sahrawi people's just struggle. The Sahrawi minister conveyed salutation of the President of the Republic, Secretary General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, and expressed his satisfaction with the level of relations and cooperation between the two countries. For his part, the Ugandan minister welcomed the visit of the Saharawi delegation and conveyed the greetings of President Museveni to his Saharawi counterpart and through him to the people and the government of the Sahrawi Republic. He also reiterated the continuation of his country's support for the completion of the decolonization of Western Sahara and the development of bilateral relations and coordination of their positions within the African Union. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA The company, which hosted Staffordshires Poppy Appeal launch at JCB World Headquarters, Rocester, donated a unique poppy-liveried mini excavator which was then auctioned to kickstart the Centenary appeal. The winning 25,500 bid was made by JCB customer Arnold Plant Hire Limited. In addition, JCB commissioned Stoke-on-Trent ceramics company Valentine Clays to craft 255 bone china poppies one for each soldier in Uttoxeter, and the surrounding villages who lost their life in The Great War. The limited edition poppies sold out within days and raised a further 6,375 for the Royal British Legions appeal which provides lifelong support for the Armed Forces community - serving men and women, veterans, and their families. JCB Director George Bamford, son of JCB Chairman Lord Bamford, presented the 31,875 total to Royal British Legion Assistant Director Community Fundraising and Mass Events Simon OLeary and also handed over the keys for the unique mini-excavator to Arnold Plant Hire Managing Director Philip Oldham. He said: The British Legions theme for the Centenary is Thank You and there is no better way of saying our own thank you than helping to raise funds for such a worthwhile cause. Arnold Plant Hire has given very generously and we are sure the unique poppy liveried 16C-1 mini-excavator will be a stunning addition to their JCB fleet. Home Just In PM picks Rajan Bhattarai for foreign affairs advisor Kathmandu, November 12 Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has appointed Rajan Bhattarai as his foreign affairs advisor. Bhattarai was a member of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the 2015 constitution. He had contested the 2017 parliamentary elections for a House of Representatives seat representing Kathmandu-4, but was defeated by Gagan Thapa of Nepali Congress. He was also a member of the Eminent Persons Group on Nepal-India Relations. The Nepal Communist Party leader had also worked as a foreign affairs advisor to then prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal. A Cabinet meeting held on Sunday evening made the decision, according to sources close to the Prime Minister. Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money. Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists. Home Just In Ward chair takes over as Kathmandu mayor, deputy embark on trip together Kathmandu, November 12 Kathmandu Metropolitan Citys Mayor Bidya Sundar Shakya and his deputy Hari Prabha Khatri on Monday left for China to attend a conference. As the elected leadership of the capital city was out of the country, chairperson of Ward 1, Bharat Lal Shrestha, has been given the responsibility of mayor. The municipal government says Shrestha was picked for the role as he was the most aged ward chair in the city. Shakya and Khadgi will attend the China International Friendship Cities Conference in Huan of China from Wednesday to Friday. Leaders of the cities which have established sisterhood with Chinese cities will attend the event centred on the theme of sharing development opportunities and dipping win-win cooperation. Kathmandu had received the invitation from Lhasa of Tibet. Lhasas local government has nominated Kathmandu for Outstanding Foreign Friendship City of Tibet Autonomous Region Award. The mayor and the deputy will return home on Saturday. #Korea-Costa Rica relations Costa Rican President Alvarado given honorary Seoul citizenship President Carlos Alvarado of Costa Rica was given honorary Seoul citizenship Monday as South Korea and the Central American country seek to broaden bilateral ties. Alvarado was... #LPGA Ko Jin-young overcomes injury, personal ordeal in outstanding 2021 LPGA season With a brilliant performance at the final tournament of the 2021 LPGA season that helped her bag the top individual honor, South Korean star Ko Jin-young showed once again who's bo... Multifaceted works of father of Sri Lankas post-graduate medicinal studies K.N. Seneviratne View(s): View(s): To begin at the very beginning, Don Robert Seneviratne, qualified as a doctor in the Ceylon Medical College in 1887, married Laura Gunawardene and raised three children Irangani, Keerthi Nissanka and Nihal. Irangani married Engineer Athukorala, nurtured children, including a first class engineer who specialised in Artificial Intelligence. Keerthi Nissanka blossomed into the most distinguished physiologist Sri Lanka has produced up to date. Nihal graduated in law and functioned for many years as the illustrious Clerk of the House of Representatives (i.e. the parliament). In an era when even brothers and sisters are prone to compete fiercely, Irangani, Keerthi Nissanka and Nihal were model siblings. Through the munificence of the family, especially amiable Nihal Seneviratne, the Physiological Society has been able to celebrate and rejoice in the memory of Keerthi Nissanka Seneviratne for 31 unbroken years. Life and Work There is indeed much to celebrate in the life and work of the splendored personality and the multifaceted work of Prof. K N Seneviratne doctor, physiologist, scientist, educationist and administrator. I had the privilege of being his colleague in the Colombo Medical Faculty for nearly two decades. Despite my cantankerous and argumentative nature, there was never so much as an angry word between us. Time has confirmed the validity of instant judgement of him soon after I heard the news of his death: He was the sweetest man I have ever known. He was my best friend. As a medical doctor who specialised in physiological research, perhaps his major contribution was to the understanding of diabetic neuropathy, that is to say the adverse effect of diabetes on the nerves. On this subject he published many papers in the prestigious Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. His work suggested a simple test for detecting the effect of diabetes on the nerves before the typical symptoms such as numbness and a feeling of being pricked with needles appear. Medical educationist and administrator Prof. Seneviratne may be justly called the father of postgraduate medical education in our country. In 1974, he was handpicked by the authorities to create and direct our Post-Graduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM). This laid the foundation for systematic recognised postgraduate medical education in the country. He had to wage a minor war almost singlehandedly to change the entrenched attitude of our doctors from worship of foreign medical qualifications. Thanks to his prescience, we now have a post-graduate institute of medicine of international standard. He was truly the seminal founder of our prestigious PGIM. By virtue of the experience he acquired in setting up the PGIM, Prof. Seneviratne was chosen as the regional advisor to the WHO in the South East Asian region. He joined the WHO in 1981 and was soon promoted to the position of Senior Public Health Advisor in Health Manpower Development, a task he carried out with great enthusiasm. In fact, his untimely much lamented death came when he was engaged in this work in Bali Indonesia. Death His end came in the form of a massive heart attack caused by clotting of blood in one of the major arteries supplying the heart. It killed this large hearted, sharp brained, giant of a man and jewel of a human being instantly. Such an exit was something he yearned for and somehow achieved. As it has turned out, the Physiological society of Sri Lanka has invited Yoshihiro Ishikawa, Professor and chair of Cardiovascular Research Institute, Yokohama city University School of Medicine, Japan to deliver the K.N. Seneviratne oration this year. He will speak on Development and failure of human artery. This topic is singularly appropriate considering that it was failure of one kind or another in his coronary arteries that killed Prof. K.N. Seneviratne. He had serious coronary artery disease. He knew better than most people (He obtained distinctions in Physiology and Medicine) about ischaemic heart disease. He knew that among the many risk factors for coronary artery disease, smoking was a major one, but he could not or somehow did not give up smoking. He used to say whatever will be, will be. When the end came he was listening to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. As his heartbroken Scottish wife, Alison Alexander lamented in a letter to me: listening to Bach was a lovely way to go but such a shock to those who were left behind. The orator, Prof. Ishikawa is a world authority on arterial disease and it will be worth listening to his oration which will be delivered at the Faculty of Medicine Colombo on November 16 at 6 pm. All are welcome. - Prof. Carlo Fonseka Obliteration of the Rajapaksa decade is ominous By Gamini Weerakoon View(s): View(s): The often cited quote of a former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: Lies, damn lies and statistics kept coming to our minds during the past two weeks when truth became a casualty in this pious isle, where a great many take vows to abide by the Fourth Precept of the Panchaseela morning and night. Weve got more than 113 was the claim of the new political combine of the president of the country, Pohottuwa and Yasapalanaya dropouts while irate UNPers claimed more than 120 or more (with support of allied parties). These statistics simply did not tally with the 225-member parliament. It reminded us also of a saying of the journalist of yore Mark Twain: Statistics are pliable. This great mathematical and constitutional law conundrum could have been resolved simply by summoning parliament and taking a vote but that has yet to happen. The country is agog with those, ranging from three wheel drivers to university dons, splitting legal hairs and juggling with arithmetical calculations for a parliamentary majority. Some of those keeping aloof of this crisis ask: Is there no morality in this whole business? A curt reply we heard was: Morality is best left to morons. That takes us to an issue greater than that: Which political party will come on top? Has Sri Lankan society lost its basic moral values such as respect for the truth, abhorring bribes in the form of political office and filthy lucre? Even political babes know very well that this delay in summoning parliament to take a vote is to give time and space for the wheels of the process of bribery in the form of office and cash to turn. It is not only pathetic but also alarming that voters have come to accept, as a fact of Sri Lankan life, that the Big Brothers in politics are corrupt. The greater their power, the greater is the extent of corruption. We may get hot under the collar and hitch up our sarongs when the sovereignty of the people their right to choose their representative is interfered with such as by foreign powers as alleged last week, but we do not give a damn when a representative elected by the people at great risk and with much sacrifice joins hands with his political opponent for political office, betraying his mandate, for political office, for bribes or even to save his skin. When that happens democracy is devastated and a sovereign nation becomes a pariah in the eyes of the world. Maithripala Sirisena did just that. Almost three years ago as Secretary of the SLFP he dined on hoppers and lunumiris with his party boss and went away without giving his Big Boss Mahinda Rajapaksa any clue that he would become the Common Candidate to oppose him at the presidential election. Even though his political propriety is much in question, it could be said that he was entitled to act according to his political conscience. He collected 6.2 million votes and was elected the president of Sri Lanka against his opponent Mahinda Rajapaksa. Family bandyism, nepotism, corruption and abuse of presidential power were among the many accusations he hurled at Rajapaksa promising to right the wrongs and do justice to the people. He had feared for his life and said if he had he lost the election, he would have been six feet underground. But on October 26, he sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, whom he had acknowledged as the person without whose support he would not have been elected the president. He replaced Wickremesinghe with his alleged grave digger! This is a unique instance not only of a breakdown of democratic principles of a 70-year-old democracy but also a betrayal of the adherents of the three main world religions committed to such values. Do these adherents throw their principles out of the window when it comes to deeply polarised politics? What will happen if bribery and corruption change the usual way of counting in arithmetic, say from 2+2= 4 into 2+2 = a much greater number? This time it will not be Sirisena sitting with a Big Wolf to eat hoppers but a lamb sitting for dinner with a Big Wolf who may prefer lamb to hoppers. Sirisena may have his own reasons to forget the past and make up with Rajapaksa. But by attempting to bring him back to power and developing amnesia about Rajapaksas past, he is obliterating a decade of crimes of the Rajapaksa regime erasing history. Charges about white vans, abductions, disappearances and killing of journalists, shady armament deals and many other accusations were made, most of which are now before courts, awaiting trial or in the process of being tried. What will happen to all these cases if the Sirisena move works out? George Orwells classic Nineteen Eighty-Four has a significant warning about controlling or erasing the past: who controls the past, controls the future: Who controls the present controls the past. Sirisena is unlikely to be at the controls for long and some Big Brother may take over. Sirisena by trying to erase the sordid past is attempting to legitimise the present and make a Big Brother control the future. Remembering Rex de silva View(s): Three years have passed by since the death of Rex de Silva, a doyen of journalism and an editor who led by example. Starting his career in the early 1960s at the Weekend the Sunday tabloid of the now defunct Independent Newspapers Limited Rex worked with commitment to turn it into the most popular Sunday weekly English newspaper in Sri Lanka. Rex later became the editor of the Weekend and in 1977 he was also appointed as the editor of the Sun, the daily newspaper of the group. As the editor-in-chief of both papers, Rex often worked in office for more than ten hours a day, while often the sub editors would wake him at 2 am to seek guidance on developing stories. In 1990, Rex went to Brunei where he was the editor-in-chief of the Borneo Bulletin. After his retirement, he went to the United States to live with his family and even though in his seventies, Rex got involved in a mission of giving comfort and strength to the elderly through music. He returned to Sri Lanka in 2015 for a holiday but died on November 16 in a Colombo hospital. Police have arrested a 72-year-old man for stabbing his son during an argument because living with him was "unbearable". The son, 46, was admitted to hospital with two stab wounds to his stomach. The older man, whose face was bruised, claimed that his son is a drug addict, had punched him when he came home and that he had reacted violently because he couldn't stand the situation any more. He said his son was frequently aggressive, and made life unbearable for him and his wife, who has mental problems. Family members, friends and residents joined the mayors of Axarquia villages on Tuesday for the funeral of Salvador Fernandez Marin, the mayor of El Borge, who was found dead on Monday afternoon. The mayor's body was found hanging from a tree on at his family's estate, after he failed to attend a council meeting which was due to take place at that time at the town hall. An autopsy concluded that there were no signs of a struggle. It is believed that the mayor committed suicide by hanging himself. Fernandez, who had been mayor of El Borge since 2011, would have celebrated his 48th birthday on Wednesday. He leaves a wife and son. The Spanish Socialist party suspended all the events scheduled for Tuesday in the province and two days of mourning were declared for Wednesday and Thursday in El Borge. Flags have been flying at half mast in the village since news of his death broke. Posting on Twitter, president of the Junta de Andalucia, Susana Diaz, said: "I am thinking of his family, of his neighbors in El Borge and I can't imagine how they must be feeling." The international community came together in the English Cemetery in Malaga on Sunday morning for Remembrance Day, commemorating 100 years since the end of World War I. Consular representatives from Canada, the UK, France, the USA and Germany at the English cemetery. / SUR After a service at St George's, poppy wreaths were laid on the Commonwealth War graves. Among those laying wreaths were the Consular representatives of Canada, the UK, France, the USA and Germany. The event was organised by the Royal Air Forces Association Costa del Sol, whose representatives also laid wreaths, along with the Royal British Legion and the English Cemetery Foundation among others. Full theatre Meanwhile the Salon Varietes theatre in Fuengirola was packed for the Remembrance Sunday ceremony organised by the Mijas Costa branch of the Royal British Legion. Two flag bearers headed the opening parade, followed by members of the RBL and the 1st Fuengirola Scout group. The president of the RBL Spain South district, Neil Toplis, led the ceremony, which included the playing of The Last Post and a two-minute silence. Representatives of the Royal British Legion in the Salon Varietes theatre in Fuengirola. / R. H. Wreaths were laid at the foot of the stage by Mijas Costa RBL chairman, Ruth Mokler, and representatives of the Scouts. During his address, Toplis spoke of the significance of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance. There are no survivors left of the First World War, he said, so keeping the memory of the fallen alive is "down to us". Fuengirola branch reopens The president also stressed that his aim was to make sure the Royal British Legion expands in southern Spain. The Fuengirola branch, he explained, will reopen on 30 November at 8pm in Churchill's Bar, Los Boliches. Meetings will be held in the evenings to attract people whose commitments prevent them from attending the morning meetings of the other branches on the Costa del Sol. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12, 2018 08:27 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877ba64e6 4 Editorial sexual-abuse-on-campus,sexual-abuse,kita-AGNI,university,gender-based-violence,Sexual-assault,rape-survivor,Gadjah-Mada-University Free Victims of sexual abuse on university campuses have begun to speak up in the past few years, showing that schools are not always a safe space for students, especially women. Sadly, the victims courage has been met with blame and scrutiny by school and state authorities. An investigative report released early this month by the student press of Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Balairung Press, is the latest case in point. It detailed the experience of UGM student Agni, a pseudonym, who claimed she had been sexually assaulted by a fellow UGM student during a community service program (KKN) in Maluku in June 2017. Instead of investigating the matter, her KKN teachers gave her a low grade (C) for embarrassing UGM in the eyes of Maluku people with her report. A campus official reportedly told her to repent for her mistakes. Another said she should have not spent the night at the alleged perpetrators lodgings. Two years earlier, several students at UGMs School of Social and Political Sciences (Fisipol) had come forward to report sexual harassment by a lecturer. Reports began pouring in after he no longer headed the schools international relations department. In 2016, one of the victims, Maria (also a pseudonym) told The Jakarta Post that she had thought long and hard before reporting the incident. She, too, was blamed for what had happened to her, though not by school officials. The school did, however, allow the lecturer to continue working at UGM and he continues to be seen around campus. Not even a school as prestigious as the University of Indonesia (UI) has been able to escape sexual abuse allegations raised by students. In one particular case that marred its School of Law, the accused lecturer was fired, but other lecturers who had sided with the victims told the Post that their battle for justice had been a difficult one. Many believe that the recent reports of sexual abuse on university campuses are only the tip of the iceberg. According to an online survey conducted in 2016 by Lentera Sintas Indonesia, Magdalene.co and Change.org, which involved 25,213 respondents, 93 percent of sexual assault cases were never reported. Many victims who spoke up, like Maria, believe that doing so is crucial to prevent a repeat of the crime. Therefore, encouraging more to step forward would help universities create a safe space for their students. So far, however, the response from school officials and even government authorities has not been encouraging. Regarding Agnis case, UGM rector Panut Mulyono said both the victim and alleged perpetrator needed to be educated, insinuating that the victim was also in the wrong. Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Mohamad Nasir said the case was closed and should not have been made public, implying that it was wrong for the alleged victim to speak up about her ordeal. Brave survivors of sexual assault are a bright light in the dark. They need support from the public as one dismissive comment can dim the light. If university authorities cannot encourage them to speak up, then safe campuses will remain a fantasy. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12, 2018 09:39 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bb1e86 1 Books Hamid-Basyaib,Book,children-books,Literature Free Hamid Basyaib, the incumbent chief commissioner of state-owned publisher Balai Pustaka and former journalist, is known as a writer and editor of books on politics and religion. However, as a surprise present for his daughters 10th birthday, Hamid veered away from subjects familiar to him by releasing an epistolary for children entitled Love Letters from a Father 24 Cerita untuk Alma Sophia (24 Stories for Alma Sophia). Alma Sophia is the name of Hamids daughter. The 128-page, full-colored book comprises different short stories. Some of them are based on existing tales, including Chinese short animation A Joy Story: Joy and Heron and Hans Christian Andersens The Emperors New Clothes. Hamid has also written stories with values that are simple and relevant to modern-day parents and children. In Mira dan Jeni Main Tebak-tebakan (Mira and Jeni Play Riddle), for example, Hamid encourages readers to understand problems in life before coming up with solutions. Meanwhile, Menghormati Pembantu Rumah Tangga (Respecting Domestic Helpers) reminds readers to always appreciate their housemaids. Published by WahyuMedia, Love Letters from a Father portrays Hamids interactions with Alma, whom he describes as critical and curious. Aside from the moral values it presents, it uses terms that are relatable to children while staying grounded in logic. Read also: Six children's books every parent should own This book is very personal and emotional to me, said Hamid during the book's launch on Oct. 20 in Jakarta. The idea came a year ago during Almas ninth birthday." Hamid admitted that the writing process was challenging. He explained that, while he knew adults could understand the books that he wrote for them, for children it was a different story. I had to ask myself whether children could understand this or not, but it doesnt mean I underestimated them, Hamid said, adding that he chose letters as his writing format to build an intimate connection with his daughter. Children like to talk about big things, like environmental crises for instance, as long as the adults narrate it well. They dont like to read something that is too easy or difficult. Hamid plans to write more childrens books and has four non-fiction childrens books in the works. People said Alma was very lucky to have me as a father, but I told them, Im luckier to have a daughter like her, Hamid said. The book is available for purchase at Gramedia stores for Rp 69,000 (US$4.61). (kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Theresia Sufa (The Jakarta Post) Bogor, West Java Mon, November 12, 2018 08:36 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877ba721f 1 Environment medicinal-plants,medicine,medicinal-herbs,plant,forest,health,disease Free Medicinal herbs are non-timber forest products, which are still underdeveloped. Agus Justianto, the head of the Environment and Forestry Ministrys research, development and innovation department, stated this during the International Conference on Forest Products 2018 at Botani Square, Bogor, West Java, on Nov. 2. Over 50 researchers from Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia attended the event. Agus said non-timber forest products needed to be utilized as timber production was declining. Timber from production forests is limited, while it is illegal to take timber from natural forests. Medicinal herb researchers from the ministry said they have conducted research on a number of medicinal herbs with a focus on phytochemistry, toxicity and activity. Read also: Health benefits of Indonesia's herbs and spices Vatica perakensis, whose bark has been traditionally used as antidiabetic herbal medicine in North Sumatra, is one example. Researcher Gunawan Pasaribu said he planned to propose the plant for clinical trials, as well as aiming for a standardized herbal medicine. Other potential herbs include dragons blood (a red substance or resin from Daemonorops draco that is used as a drying astringent), and bidara laut (Strychnos lucida) that is known for its antimalarial properties. Cats whiskers (Orthosiphon aristatus) is used to increase urine output and for flushing the bladder. (JP/Theresia Sufa) A number of medicinal herbs are already being widely used by the public because they are easy to grow, such as cats whiskers (Orthosiphon aristatus) or binahong (Anredera cordifolia). The latter is commonly used in Java to treat diabetes and to prevent strokes. (iru/wng) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Sebastian Partogi (The Jakarta Post) Ubud Mon, November 12, 2018 09:13 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bb18bb 4 Books #books,Book,writer,ubud-readers-writers-festival,Fatima-Bhutto Free Afghan-born Fatima Bhutto knows what she is talking about when she writes about the horrors of political violence in a sociopolitically divided world in her latest novel, The Runaways (2018, Penguin). Born in 1982 to Pakistans famous Bhutto political dynasty, she has lost four family members to political violence. Her grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed in 1979, her uncle Shahnawaz Bhutto was murdered in 1985, her beloved father Mir Murtaza Bhutto was assassinated in 1996 and finally her aunt Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007. She was also her aunts fiercest critic, blaming Benazirs ambition as the primary cause of her father Murtazas assassination. She became a journalist and writer instead of pursuing a career in politics. She studied at Columbia University in the United States and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. She reflected on the multiple tragedies that had befallen her family in her 2011 memoir Songs of Blood and Sword. Read also: 'To Obama': Opening a backdoor into the presidency Haunted by the violence she had witnessed and by writing such memoirs, writers sort of cut their wounds wide open, exposing them to air in order to allow themselves to heal. Distressed by the global violence and turmoil that continue to happen all around her, she continues the healing process by writing and talking about her latest novel, which asks the big question of what it means to truly belong in a world where we are constantly pressurized to fit in and not given permission to become who we truly are. Her publishers website describes the novel in an all-caps one-liner as an explosive new novel that asks difficult questions about modern Muslim identity in a world on fire. To be asked questions such as What are you? and Who are you? can be very disconcerting for us, Bhutto told an audience during the recent 2018 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali. The novels story revolves around three characters from three very different backgrounds. First, we will meet Anita Rose, who lives in Karachis biggest slum and has her life transformed after meeting a man who owns a big library, teaching her how to escape through literacy. On the other side of Karachi lives Monty, a rich and privileged child who is sheltered from the outside worlds harsh realities, thus always afraid of the world around him. Until one day, he meets a rebellious girl who shows him a grim picture of the world they both live in. Then there is Sunny, whose father left India and went to England to give his son the opportunities he never had. Yet Sunny never feels like he belongs there. Only when his charismatic cousin returns to his life, he begins to explore that life holds more possibilities than he ever imagines. Their lives intersect with sociopolitical turbulence that will require them to make choices that lead to dire consequences. The book also incorporates the contemporary topic of how extremists use social media accounts such as YouTube to propagate their ideology. I started writing this novel, when the Islamic State [IS] came to the scene, terrorizing the world in a spectacular and terrifying way. IS has increased the production values of their propaganda videos significantly. Now they have music, subtitles and are visually great, making them look like The Bourne Identity trailer, she said, referring to a 2002 Hollywood production. Horrified by the IS violent and grotesque manner of executing its victims, Bhutto said she embarked on a journey to discover answers to her curiosity on how people could resort to such violent extremism. In her journey, she began to grasp the class, ethnic and religious fragmentation occurring in the world right now, particularly with the immigration crisis in Europe. She distilled some of the results of her learning process in her latest novel. So far, peoples reception of the novel has been very good. The characters experiences are also understood by people outside Pakistan, so its not an issue reserved to Pakistan only. People who have migrated to other countries also say they enjoy reading it, she said. In India and Pakistan, turbulence only turns women into stronger individuals, mold them into fearless people who keep fighting to just keep going with their lives. She continued that being a constant wanderer she had spent her childhood dividing time among Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria she enjoyed writing in airports while waiting for her flights. Despite the crowded atmosphere of airports, she said she enjoyed the fact that everybody was too busy with their own business to care about hers; this gave her a sense of privacy and focus. Having written another novel called The Shadow of the Crescent Moon in 2014, a number of poetry anthologies as well as columns for The Daily Beast, New Statesman and other publications, she said she would never finish her job as a writer. I always learn so many new things when I am working. I feel that writers are lucky, you know, because we are always challenged. Everything I thought was true for one moment could turn out not to be true later; I find the learning process to be a very stimulating experience, she said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12, 2018 17:33 1105 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bccba3 1 Entertainment Finding-Nemo,Netflix,Fathers-Day,Cargo,The-Game-Plan,Like-Father,Hotel-Transylvania-2 Free As Indonesia celebrates Fathers Day on Nov. 12, here are five recommended movies to watch on Netflix: 1. Like Father A Netflix Original, Like Father is a melodrama starring Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer. The movie tells the story of Rachel (Bell), a workaholic who is left alone at the altar on her wedding day. Heartbroken, Rachel goes on a cruise to the Caribbean, only to get stuck on the ship with her long-lost father, Harry (Kelsey Grammer). Harrys efforts to cheer up his daughter and fix their relationship is portrayed beautifully. Although classified as a comedy, Like Father will touch anyone who yearns for a warm father-and-child relationship. 2. Hotel Transylvania 2 Hotel Transylvania 2 tells the story of the Dracula family (Adam Sandler) after Mavis (Selena Gomez) is married to Jonathan (Andy Samberg) and later has a baby named Dennis. Dracula's obsession to extend his vampire heritage through Dennis endangers the life of his grandson and threatens his relationship with his daughter. This film teaches that there are times when a father has hopes for his children, but in the end he only wants his child to be happy and will accept them as they are. Read also: Chris Cornells daughter posts tribute duet for Fathers Day 3. Cargo A father who has been infected by a zombie bite, Andy (Martin Freeman), is stranded along with his baby daughter in the middle of a zombie attack in a rural area of Australia. Tension builds when Andy must find protection for his daughter from himself. Cargo is perfect for thriller fans, depicting the touching struggle of a father who is tireless and desperate to ensure the safety of his child. 4. Finding Nemo Finding Nemo tells of a cowardly clown fish named Marlin (Albert Brooks) who is overprotective of his child, Nemo (Alexander Gould). When Nemo disappears, Marlin must swim across the vast ocean and face the dangerous deep sea to save his only son. The father-and-son relationship in Finding Nemo is not short of loving moments and the takeaway message is that a father will try his best to provide the best protection for his child. 5. The Game Plan The Game Plan tells the ins and outs of Joe Kingman (Dwayne Johnson), a football quarterback who is enjoying the peak of his career. His life is changed forever when one day a 7-year-old girl comes to his house and claims to be his biological daughter. Dwayne Johnson's role as a father provides an interesting comedic touch. (iru/wng) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Richard Horstman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12, 2018 15:26 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bc6924 3 Art & Culture auction,Gede-Mahendra-Yasa,Painter,Indonesian-artists,Christies-HongKong-autumn-auctions,Christies,Hong-Kong Free Balinese contemporary artist Gede Mahendra Yasa has forged important inroads in Balinese and Indonesian painting with his landmark Miniature Series of narrative paintings he began in 2012. On Language,2018, his most recent offering from the series, will go under the hammer at the Christies Hong Kong Asian Contemporary Art Autumn Day Sale on Nov. 25. For connoisseurs of Indonesian contemporary art, this presents a rare opportunity to collect a painting from his award-winning series. On Language explores the chronicle of linguistic evolution within the framework of the traditional Balinese Batuan miniature narrative painting style in which numerous small stories harmoniously merge within the one greater composition. The painting is inspired by the artists interest in humanitys ability to communicate and emphasizes the important role language has taken in both art and in the historical context of the world throughout time. I love linguistics, Mahendra Yasa stated. In On Language, I want to analyze language, especially in art history. 'On Language' (2018) by Gede Mahendra Yasa (Courtesy Christies Hong Kong/File) A depiction of the Tower of Babel, well known for its myth elaborating upon the origins of languages, at the top of the canvas anchors the composition in which he then uses diverse iconic references, including popular culture and social symbols relating to linguistic development, expanding down and across the work. On Language, lot #150 of the Christies Asian Contemporary Art Day Sale is a large 190cm by 250cm oil on linen painting with an estimated value of between HKD 380,000 and 550,000, or US$49,000 and $70,000. The markets response to the recent auction of Mahendra Yasas works in the Asia reveals strong demand from collectors of Indonesian contemporary art who appreciate the unique value of his paintings which have sold for well above their estimated prices. In May 2016 at Christies Hong Kong Asian Contemporary Art Day Sale, "After Paradise Lost #1"(2014 - 2016) acrylic on canvas 250cm x 190cm was sold for HKD 1,240,000 ($158,000). Its estimated price was between HKD 350,000 - 500,000 ($44,500 - $63,500). During Christies Hong Kong Asian Contemporary Art Day Sale in November 2017, "Origen's Gambit (2016-2017) 250cm x 190cm acrylic on canvas realized HKD 1,750,000 ($220,000), up from the estimated price of HKD 380,000 - 550,000 ($48,000 - $70,000). Read also: Christie's Hong Kong to auction rare 1871 Raden Saleh painting After Paradise Lost #1was short-listed for the Asia-Pacific Breweries Signature Art Prize 2018, along with works by 14 other artists from a total of 113, and originating from 40 different countries. The colorful and complex painting of everyday life intertwined with history merges traditional, with modern and contemporary painting techniques to depict an imaginative universe complete with tales from Balinese, Indonesian and global art history. While After Paradise Lost #1, the only painting work within the 15 finalists, did not win the Grand Prize, or the Jurors Choice Awards, it won the Peoples Choice Award, announced at the National Museum of Singapore on June 29 for receiving the most votes by members of the public while the 15 finalists works were on exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore. After Paradise Lost #1 is part of a series that Mahendra Yasa started in 2012 in which he appropriates the most critically acclaimed genre of Balinese traditional painting the Batuan style to speak critically about the position of Balinese art in Indonesian art history, said Indonesian curator, and nominator of the painting, Agung Hujatnikajennong. "The mix of elements commonly represented in the Batuan style, as well those in tourist postcards and materials, also refers to how Bali, an island of paradise, is a site for the convergence of different influences and cultures, both local and global, due to tourism. I believed that the Balinese traditional styles had become stuck so I challenged myself to contemporize Balinese painting through the Batuan genre, Mahendra said. I then realized that the series could be used for telling stories about art history [Balinese, Indonesian and global art history]. My inspirations came from the American painter Mark Tansey, and also the comic genres, such as Marvel and DC Comics, and how they make alternative universes. I wanted to mimic their method to create my own universe an art history universe. 'On Language' (2018) by Gede Mahendra Yasa (Courtesy Christies Hong Kong/File) Mahendra has carved a unique path within the development of Balinese contemporary art. As an atheist and outsider, he has always maintained a critical approach to both his culture and "narratives" in the Balinese art world. He has dared to scrutinize Balinese art like no other artist, being driven to question these popular narratives, along with the status quo. Born in 1967 in Singaraja, North Bali, representing a new generation of the Balinese avant-garde, Mahendra was inspired by the artistic freedoms available after the fall of president Soeharto and the new order regime in 1998. A self-taught artist, between 1998 and 2002 he studied at the Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) Denpasar. He is compelled to continuously investigate and then seek out new frontiers in Balinese painting, in a career long pursuit into its thematic and aesthetic distinctions. As an art provocateur it has been essential for Mahendra to pose important questions in order to move forward, as well as to inspire others to look more critically at Balinese art. In his monumental 2014 solo exhibition, Post Bali,Mahendra Yasa defined himself as one of the few, truly important Balinese contemporary artists, while confirming his position within Indonesian art history. Post Bali combined an array of Western and Balinese painting styles through which he revealed his investigation of Bali, utilizing various appropriations in his works that have been internationally recognized as modern or contemporary art masterpieces. He has been instrumental in the formation of the influential Bali art collectives Klinik Seni Taxsu 2001-2006, the Neo Pitamaha 2011 on going, and NU-abstract 2017 on going. Mahendra stands apart from other Indonesian contemporary artists because of his distinct methodology in delving into local issues from a western conceptual art perspective. Bidding in the auction is available over the phone and through an online real time portal via the Christies website. (kes) ______________________ Auction : Place: Grand Hall, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, No. 1 Expo Drive, Wanchai, Hong Kong Date: Nov. 25, 10 a.m. (Lots 101 - 267) Viewing: Place: Grand Hall, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, No. 1 Expo Drive, Wanchai, Hong Kong Date: Nov 23, 10:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.; Nov 24, 10:30 a.m. - 7 p.m. Website: www.christies.com Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. The 2018 Indonesia Menari (Indonesia Dances) was held on Sunday, bringing 4,200 people from different communities, dance clubs and schools dancing together. This year, the annual event took place in in four locations, namely Grand Indonesia shopping mall in Central Jakarta; The Park Mall Solo in Surakarta, Central Java; 23 Paskal Shopping Center in Bandung, West Java; and the newly-opened Taman Indonesia Kaya in Semarang, Central Java. When the clock struck 1 p.m., participants danced to a compilation of four traditional tracks, comprising soleramfrom Riau, ampar ampar pisangfrom South Kalimantan, cublak cublak suweng from Central Java and yamko rambe yamko from Papua, arranged by musician Pongky Prasetyo. In regard to the dance, the moves were choreographed by dance teacher/choreographer Ufa Sofura. Ufa, who also took part in the event at Grand Indonesia, said in a statement that she combined the traditional and modern moves for this years choreography. Prior to the event, a tutorial video was uploaded onto YouTube, allowing participants to learn about it online. Read also: Over 3,000 people dance at Indonesia Menari 2017 Eno Rahayu, 17, was among participants of 2018 Indonesia Menari. Having traveled from from Ciledug, Tangerang, Banten, to Grand Indonesia, Eno told The Jakarta Post that it was not her first time participating in the event. Eno said regarding the choreography, the dance moves were easier compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, Dhiyaa Fathya Aisyah Rahmah, 15, also shared that it only took her around two weeks to learn the choreography as the video explained the moves in details. First held in 2012, Indonesia Menari was initiated by Galeri Indonesia Kaya from the Bakti Budaya Djarum Foundation. In addition to bringing people, dance and traditional music together, the event also offers prizes that can be used by participants to fund their dance groups. (wng) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Mon, November 12, 2018 19:01 1105 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bce274 2 Health Parkinsons,health,#health,senior Free New preliminary research presented at the Society for Neuroscience 2018 conference this week has shown that singing could improve motor skills as well as the mood of patients with Parkinsons disease. Carried out by researchers at Iowa State University, the new pilot study looked at 17 Parkinsons disease patients attending a therapeutic singing group. The researchers measured the participants heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol levels before and after a one-hour singing session, and asked participants to report on any feelings of sadness, anxiety, happiness and anger. The results showed that the participants experienced improvements in mood and motor symptoms after singing, as well as reduced physiological indicators of stress. Although the improvements did not reach statistical significance, and there were no significant differences in feelings of happiness or anger after class, the participants did feel less anxious and sad. The researchers also added that the improvements seen were similar to benefits of taking medication. We see the improvement every week when they leave singing group. Its almost like they have a little pep in their step. We know theyre feeling better and their mood is elevated, said researcher Elizabeth Stegemoller, who runs the singing group and who presented the findings at the Society for Neuroscience 2018 conference. Some of the symptoms that are improving, such as finger tapping and the gait, dont always readily respond to medication, but with singing theyre improving, she added. Read also: Japan team transplants stem cells into brain to treat Parkinson's The researchers did caution that the findings are preliminary data, with the study being one of the first to look at how singing affects heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol in people with Parkinsons disease; however, they added that singing as a form of therapy has the potential to be an accessible and affordable treatment option to improve symptoms and quality of life for people with Parkinsons disease. The findings also build upon the teams previous research that singing can help improve respiratory control and the muscles used for swallowing in people with Parkinsons disease, although they are still unsure what might be causing the behavioral changes found in the new study. Part of the reason cortisol is going down could be because the singing participants feel positive and less stress in the act of singing with others in the group, said co-author Elizabeth Shirtcliff. Stegemoller also explains some of the benefits found in previous research in a video recorded in 2017, in which she leads a singing group for people with Parkinsons disease. The video below can be found online on YouTube: Previous research has also found that various forms of artistic therapy can benefit different health conditions, with creative pursuits such as drawing, coloring, and clay modeling found to reduce stress, and a 2015 study suggesting that music therapy as part of palliative care can increase relaxation and reduce fatigue. Just last month, a group of Canadian doctors announced they would start prescribing free art gallery visits as part of a new pilot program to assess the benefit on health and well-being. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12, 2018 16:17 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bc8ce4 1 City hindu,cremation,facility,jakarta,anies-baswedan Free Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has promised to ensure the provision of facilities for all religions in the city, saying adherents of any religion should feel at home in the capital. Anies made the statement during a visit to a Balinese culture festival held at the Candra Prabha Hindu temple in West Jakarta. Everyone should see Jakarta as their home. This is a place where all people can observe their religion, Anies said on Sunday, as quoted by tempo.co. He went on to say that the city was in the process of building a crematorium for Hindu residents. [The construction] will finish soon. [...] I forgot the total size, he said, without revealing the location of the facility. (vla) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Singapore Mon, November 12, 2018 15:01 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bc46cb 1 Business ASEAN,e-commerce,agreement,Singapore Free ASEAN member countries agreed on Monday to a cooperation framework to support the development of the digital economy through e-commerce schemes. The agreement on e-commerce was signed by ASEAN trade ministers, including Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita. The signing took place amid the 33rd ASEAN Summit and other related summits that will take place in Singapore until Thursday. Singaporean Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing said in his remarks that it was the regions first agreement to facilitate cross-border e-commerce transactions, which were expected to encourage ASEAN countries to promote paperless transactions. This agreement will help bolster trust and confidence among ASEAN consumers in e-commerce. We will enable ASEAN businesses to grow domestically, regionally and globally, he said, adding that discussions on the agreement had begun in June last year. The agreement was signed after nine rounds of negotiations involving representatives of 10 ASEAN member countries. The agreement was formulated with three objectives -- to facilitate cross-border e-commerce transactions, to create an environment of trust and confidence in the use of e-commerce and to deepen cooperation among ASEAN member states to further develop and intensify the use of e-commerce to drive regional economic growth. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12, 2018 09:08 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bb0300 4 National hoax,police,fake-news,National-Police,social-media,freedom-of-expression Free Internet users should think twice before sharing anything on social media, with the National Police now intensifying their crackdown on online hoaxes by prosecuting not only the masterminds of the misinformation but also those who might have shared it with no malicious intent. In one of the biggest crackdowns on fake news, the National Polices criminal investigation division (Bareskrim) has charged 16 individuals with spreading fake news about a wave of child kidnapping across the country and false information regarding Lion Air flight JT610, which crashed into the Java Sea last month. One of the individuals, identified only as AN, 30, allegedly posted a video on her Facebook account that was not related to the crash. Her motive, according to a document released by the National Police, was to convey her condolences about the missing crew and passengers. [I offer] my condolences about the downed Lion Air flight JT610 from Jakarta to Pangkalpinang. I hope all the victims are found soon. Amen, she wrote in the videos caption as quoted in the document. AN is not alone. Others have also been accused of spreading hoaxes despite their claims that they had no intention of causing the public to worry. AZ, 21, who has been charged with spreading a fake kidnapping video, claimed she had spread the video because of her empathy as a mother, and because she was worried about the news circulating on social media. National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Setyo Wasisto said the investigation into the suspects was based on reports from citizens as well as findings from the polices cyber team. The suspects allegedly obtain the information from someone else, then edit it so that it incites fear among citizens. The fake kidnapping news, for example, could raise concerns among mothers, Setyo told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. The police charged all the suspects under Article 14 Paragraph 2 of Law No. 1/1946 on the Criminal Code, which carries a maximum sentence of three years behind bars. In October, the police named nine people suspects for allegedly spreading misinformation about huge earthquakes in West Nusa Tenggara and Jakarta only days after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake jolted Palu and Donggala in Central Sulawesi. The polices move has sparked concern among civil liberty activists, who believe the move was excessive. The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) called on the police to be more prudent in prosecuting people suspected of spreading fake news, saying that they must ensure the suspects intended to provoke or cause a disturbance when they spread misinformation. The 1946 Criminal Code Law also stipulates a high measure of chaos. Commotion among netizens isnt enough to trigger the chaos article of the law and use it as a basis for suspect naming, ICJR executive director Anggara said. ICT watch researcher Sherly Haristya echoed Anggaras statement, saying it might not be appropriate to name someone a suspect if they did not have any malicious intent when distributing the news. We should be more careful not to generalize the definition of fake news in order not to violate freedom of expression, especially for people who are still learning to be more literate in using [social] media, Sherly said. Setyo dismissed concerns surrounding the prosecution. We conducted a thorough investigation and found them to have played a role in spreading fake news. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12 2018 The family of slain Papuan independence activist Theys Hiyo Eluay say they have forgiven those involved in his murder and have asked that the case not be used as political fodder. The family made the statement during a Peaceful Indonesia Declaration event they held in Sentani, Papua, on Saturday, marking the 17th anniversary of Theys death. We forgive and pardon all the parties or individuals who were involved directly or indirectly in the death of our late father Ondofolo Theys Hiyo Eluay, the statement said. We request that the kidnapping and murder of our father is no longer called a human rights violation and is not used by any party as political fodder. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12, 2018 17:12 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bcbd1c 4 Business Garuda-Indonesia,Jakarta-London-route,reopening Free Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia president director I Gusti Ngurah Askhara said on Monday that the airline would reopen its Jakarta-London route after reviewing its costs. He said the Jakarta-London route would involve a transit in Singapore, starting on Nov. 15. We will revive the route after seeing that the market is growing. But we [need to] review its costs, said Askhara in Denpasar as reported by Antara news agency on the sidelines of an event. The review includes replacing the Boeing 777 with Airbus 330-300 planes used on the route, he said, adding that it would make the route more efficient because of a higher seat occupancy rate. On Oct. 30, Garuda Indonesia stopped its Jakarta-London route because of a low seat occupancy rate, said Askharas predecessor Pahala Mansury. Askhara said the seat occupancy rate on the halted route was 60 to 70 percent, but he saw that recently a growing number of tourists were traveling from the United Kingdom to Indonesia. Therefore, he added, the airline was considering to shift the route to a Denpasar-London route. Statistics Indonesias (BPS) Bali branch recorded that the UK was the fourth biggest contributor to tourist arrivals to Bali after China, Australia and India. BPS data shows 210,262 British tourists visited Bali from January to September, 9.3 percent higher than the figure in the corresponding period in 2017. British tourists made up 4.5 percent of the 4.64 million tourist visits to the island during that period. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Denpasar Mon, November 12, 2018 20:28 1105 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bd14c9 2 National #Bali,#drugs,Australia,drugs,smuggling,freed Free The only female member of the "Bali Nine" heroin-trafficking gang will be freed from an Indonesian prison next week, a corrections official said Monday, after serving 13 years in a case that caused a diplomatic furore. Australian Renae Lawrence, 41, was arrested in 2005 after she was caught with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin strapped to her body as she tried to fly out of the international airport on the holiday island of Bali. Lawrence was sentenced to life imprisonment, but her sentence was later reduced to 20 years and then further reduced due to good behaviour. "She will be released on November 21," Made Suwendra, head of the Bangli prison on Bali where Lawrence is incarcerated, told AFP. "(Lawrence) is a nice person. Accommodating, easy to work with and be friends with. There have been no problems since she's been here." It is likely that Lawrence will be deported shortly after her prison release. She will be the only member of the Bali Nine to win their freedom so far. Gang ringleaders Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were executed by firing squad in 2015, sparking a diplomatic row between Australia and Indonesia, which has some of the world's strictest drug laws including the death penalty. In June, another Bali Nine member Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died in prison from stomach cancer, while the remaining five are currently serving life sentences. Some critics have lashed out at the Australian police for tipping off their Indonesian counterparts about the gang and putting its members at risk of execution in Indonesia. High-profile cases like that of Australian Schapelle Corby, who spent more than nine years behind bars for smuggling marijuana into Bali, have stoked concern that Indonesia is becoming a destination for trafficked drugs. Corby was deported in 2017 after several years of parole. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12, 2018 08:13 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877ba6144 2 Business BKPM,investment,China,US Free Indonesias Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) has sent representatives to Guangzhou in China and New York in the United States to lure Chinese and American investors to put their money into Indonesia. The representatives last week spoke to Chinese investors during a seminar hosted by the United Overseas Bank (UOB) during a business forum hosted by the Indonesian consulate. BKPM regional investment promotion director Nurul Ichwan said the Guangzhou seminar, which welcomed over 120 investors, was an opportunity to sell certain key economic sectors such as tourism, manufacturing, industry and the digital economy. Nurul also used the opportunity to outline Indonesias current business climate and explain the nitty-gritty of doing business in the country. The government is committed to simplifying and speeding up business processes to increase foreign investment, Nurul said as reported by kompas.com. UOB chief economist Suan Teck Kin said that Chinese investments in Southeast Asian countries were increasing thanks to the countrys Belt Road Initiative. Meanwhile, the New York forum pitched, among others, the tourism, manufacturing, infrastructure and creative economy sectors to over 200 American investors. (brf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12 2018 Three people were killed and 20 others injured when a train passed through a crowd of residents celebrating National Heroes Day in Surabaya, East Java, on Friday night. The crowd had gathered on a railway bridge on Jl. Pahlawan at 8 p.m. to watch a theater performance titled Surabaya Membara (Surabaya Burning) near the Heroes Monument. According to kompas.com, the scheduled train was passing over the bridge and sounded its horn, having slowed down to 15 kilometers per hour from 30 kmh, after the train driver saw a group of people standing on the tracks. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Tokyo, Japan Mon, November 12, 2018 20:08 1105 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bd1170 2 World #SouthKorea,#Slavery,South-Korea,Women,demand,Japan,company,seizure Free Supporters of four South Koreans who served as wartime forced labourers for a Japanese firm visited its Tokyo headquarters Monday to demand court-ordered compensation. South Korea's highest court ruled last month that Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal pay the men 100 million won ($88,000) each for being forced to work at its steel mills between 1941 and 1943. Only one of the victims is still alive. Lawyers for the men -- accompanied by supporters -- went to the company's Tokyo headquarters to demand the money, but its representatives refused to meet them. Kim Se Un, one of the lawyers, said they will now "start procedures to seize" the assets of the firm's South Korean affiliates, local media reported. The court ruling has triggered a new row between Japan and South Korea -- two US allies faced with an increasingly assertive neighbour in China and the long-running threat of nuclear-armed Pyongyang. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has severely criticised the ruling, saying it was "impossible" under international law and that the issue had been "completely and finally settled" by a 1965 treaty that restored diplomatic relations between the two countries. On Monday, cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga urged Seoul to take steps to calm the situation. "We are asking the South Korean government to take appropriate measures including redressing the current situation that violates the international law due to the ruling by the Supreme Court," Suga said. "We are in close contact with Japanese firms that are subjects of similar lawsuits." Around 780,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced labour by Japan during its 35-year occupation of the peninsula, according to South Korean figures -- a figure that does not include the thousands of women forced to work in wartime brothels. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Sue-Lin Wong (Reuters) SHENZHEN, China Mon, November 12, 2018 14:23 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bc335b 2 World #China,#humanrights,China,labor,activist,missing,raids Free At least 12 Chinese labour activists have gone missing in recent days, in what sources close to them believe was a coordinated effort by authorities to silence the vocal group, most of them university students or recent graduates. Authorities took away at least nine activists in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen late on Friday, and three more activists were taken away on Sunday in the city of Wuhan, the sources said. The Ministry of Public Security, which oversees police forces across the country, did not respond to a faxed request for comment. The detentions appear to be the latest action by the authorities against a small but growing movement driven by students and graduates of some top universities who have said they are motivated by the principles of Marxism. The ruling Communist Party, which espouses Marxism as one of its leading ideologies, opposes any form of activism or organisation that has the potential to slip beyond its control. At least five graduates of Peking University, one of the country's top universities, were among those picked up on Friday, student activists said. Last month, Cornell University in the United States ceased cooperation in two exchange programmes with Renmin University, another prominent institution in Beijing, after students there were punished for supporting labour rights. The young activists attracted attention from authorities in August when about 50 students from across China converged in the south to support factory workers at Jasic International, a welding machinery firm, seeking to form a union. Later that month, police in riot gear stormed an apartment in the city of Huizhou where the students were staying, detaining some of them. "I think the authorities have decided now is the right time to settle the score," one student activist at a university in Beijing said. "The authorities want to shut down the Jasic Workers Support Group in one fell swoop. Why else would they suddenly conduct raids of such a large scale and arrest so many people at once?" the student added, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'THAT'S HIM!' On Friday, unidentified men grabbed Zhang Shengye, a recent Peking University graduate, on the university's campus at around 10:30 p.m. and bundled him into a car, according to a witness and screenshots of posts, apparently written by students, on the university's internal messaging board. The posts were later deleted. A video circulated on social media by a Peking University student who said he was at the scene and who described what happened to Zhang. "I heard one of them yell 'that's him, shove him into the car', and then I saw three to five people grab a student and bundle him into a car," the student says in the video. He said he and other students who were nearby were pushed to the ground and prevented from leaving until they deleted any photos or videos of the scene. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the video, which showed no pictures of Zhang's suspected detention. A Peking University spokesman confirmed that someone had been detained but said the incident did not involve teachers or students. "Public security organs in accordance with law seized non-campus affiliated persons suspected of committing a crime," the spokesman said. Zhang had been in southern China in August to protest against the treatment of the Jasic factory workers and had been involved in a wide range of social issues on campus. "We aren't solely focused on one particular issue. We're interested in improving society in all kinds of ways, whether it is improving the lives of factory workers, fighting for gender equality or advocating for environmental sustainability," Zhang told Reuters on Aug. 23 in a crowded apartment in a village that primarily houses migrant workers in Huizhou. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Paris, France Mon, November 12, 2018 09:09 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bb0e24 2 World #France,#DonaldTrump,topless,protester,arrest,Donald-Trump Free French police on Sunday arrested three topless rights protesters who approached the motorcade of US President Donald Trump on the Champs-Elysees in Paris heading to a ceremony marking 100 years since the end of World War I. One of the protesters, who had slogans including "fake peacemakers" and "hypocrisy parade" written on their chests, got within metres of the rear of the motorcade after jumping over a barricade. She was grabbed by a police officer, while a second woman could be seen being hauled away by security services on the edge of the famous thoroughfare. A third woman, who was positioned a little higher up the avenue, also managed to breach the security cordon and run towards Trump's convoy with her arms raised. She too was quickly overpowered by the police and all three were arrested. The incident happened despite tight security, with some 10,000 security force members deployed around a city which has been hit by a series of jihadist attacks since 2015. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said Trump's security had "in no way been threatened". Inna Shevchenko, one of the leaders of radical feminist group Femen, confirmed the group was behind the protest. "FEMEN activists 'welcomed' the cortege of @realDonaldTrump twice on his way to Arc de Triumph," she tweeted. AFP photographer Ludovic Marin said one of the women had tried to sneak into the event before it started by posing as a photographer. She was wearing a press badge in the name of a female photographer who was absent from the event, and was carrying a camera. The woman was spotted during an ID check and removed by police officers, but photographers later recognised her as one of the three women arrested. Femen, contacted by AFP after the protest, said it had no link with the woman despite Shevchenko saying the group was behind the protest. Constance Lefevre, an activist who was among the crowd but did not participate in the demonstration, told AFP that Femen was protesting the presence in Paris of leaders "who are responsible for most of the world's conflicts". She cited Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan, among others. Trump's motorcade briefly paused due to the breach of security before continuing to the Arc de Triomphe where around 70 world leaders had gathered to mark the centenary of the Armistice. Three Femen protesters had already demonstrated at the Arc De Triomphe on Saturday morning to denounce the presence of "war criminals" among the guests at the ceremony. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, November 13, 2018 08:06 1105 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bce9d1 1 National LGBT,andalasuniversity Free The student body of Andalas University in Padang, West Sumatra, has released the results of a survey about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, claiming that so-called LGBT behavior is caused by "keeping the wrong company" and that it is "contagious" and could lead to the spread of HIV/AIDS. The survey, conducted from Feb. 28 to Mar. 13, asked respondents various questions about LGBT behavior, with the results posted on the student body's website last week. The student body did not immediately respond to The Jakarta Post's queries about sample size and the methodology of the survey. When contacted, Andalas University dean Tafdil Husni and vice dean Hermansah both said they were unaware of the survey. Around 38.7 percent of respondents said that LGBT behavior was caused by "keeping the wrong company", while 30.2 percent said it was the result of a "lack of religious knowledge". An overwhelming 81.8 percent believed that LGBT behavior was contagious and 93.7 percent said that it could be cured. The survey concluded, among other things, that LGBT behavior in Andalas University could be eradicated by instituting anti-LGBT regulations. University of Indonesia communications lecturer and research methods expert Eriyanto said that the survey could be categorized as a "pseudo poll" that "looks as if it is scientific but is actually not". "The survey uses leading questions, which results in answers that reflect the questions," he told the Post on Monday. "The poll makers also clearly have a frame that is reflected in the questions and respondents are herded to agree with what the researcher wants." He added that the poll's conclusions did not follow from its results. "For example, one of the conclusions is that 'LGBT behavior is contagious and can spread HIV/AIDS,'" he said. "It should be made clear that this is only the opinion or perception of the respondents, because 'LGBT behavior is contagious' and 'respondents believe that LGBT behavior is contagious' are two very different things." University of Indonesia sexuality and gender expert Irwan Hidayana said that the results of the survey reflected misconceptions that the public had about the LGBT community. "Research, both in Indonesia and overseas, shows that sexual orientation, whether homosexuality, bisexuality, or heterosexuality, is affected by several factors including biological, psychological and social influences. So you cannot conclude that there is a single cause'," he said. He added that while homosexuality had previously been categorized as a mental disorder, more recent research had resulted in its removal from the World Health Organization's (WHO) and the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) lists of mental disorders. West Sumatra is considered one of the most religiously conservative provinces in Indonesia and Andalas University has a history of anti-LGBT policies. Last year, the state university required prospective students who had passed its admission test to fill out and sign a form declaring that they were not openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. While the requirement was eventually removed from the university's website, the university has since held at least one "character development" talk about the "dangers" of homosexuality in February 2018. (swd) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Tokyo Mon, November 12, 2018 13:49 1106 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bc1777 2 World US,America,jet,plane-crash,Okinawa,Japan,Navy Free A US navy fighter jet crashed into the sea off Japan's southern island of Okinawa on Monday and its two crew members were rescued alive, Japan's defense ministry said. The fighter jet crashed some 250 kilometers (156 miles) east-southeast of Okinawa's capital city Naha at around 11:45 am (0245 GMT), said Osamu Kosakai, spokesman for the ministry's Okinawa defense bureau. Its two crew members ejected and were rescued by a US military helicopter, he told AFP, adding the accident was "not life-threatening". The fighter jet crashed "due to engine trouble," he said. Japan's coastguard "dispatched an aircraft to the waters to see if there is any debris or floating oil", a coastguard spokesman told AFP. Okinawa accounts for less than one percent of Japan's total land area, but hosts more than half of the approximately 47,000 American military personnel stationed in Japan. For decades, Okinawa residents have asked for some of the bases to be moved, with resentment growing after a string of accidents and crimes committed by US military personnel and base workers. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, November 12, 2018 18:31 1105 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877bcda68 1 News Air-France,KLM-Royal-Dutch-Airlines,travel,country-managers Free Franco-Dutch airline Air France-KLM has appointed Wouter Gregorowitsch as country manager for Indonesia. According to a press statement, Gregorowitsch will be based in Jakarta to oversee the airlines commercial sales throughout Indonesia. He will be responsible for strengthening Air France-KLM's market position and cooperation with partners, especially those from the SkyTeam alliance, including Garuda Indonesia. His predecessor, Wouter Alders, has moved to the position of commercial director for Spain and Portugal. Read also: KLM to relocate to Terminal 3 on May 15 Gregorowitsch said hes looking forward to working with his team and meeting partners and customers in Indonesia. I am enjoying learning about this amazing country and have the ambition to learn the language, he said. KLM offers daily direct flights for Jakarta Amsterdam and Denpasar Amsterdam routes with a stop in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, respectively. The flights are operated by Boeing B777-300ER aircraft with 34 seats in Business Class and 374 seats in Economy Class. (iru/wng) In a historic result, 19 black female county judges have been elected in the US state of Texas. The group applied together on a Democratic ticket and all of them won, despite being the largest number of black women ever seen on any ballot in Harris County. The result in the US midterm elections is a remarkable success for the Democratic party, in the state where Democrat Beto ORourke narrowly lost out to Republican Ted Cruz in the senatorial race. YE MA'AM!! Congratulations to the #Houston19! And just knowwhen you go to court, someone soundin' like yo mama is gonna read good before laying down judgement! ALL the things I love about this!! pic.twitter.com/PG83cyeBCD Teresa Dowell-Vest, M.F.A. (@dowellvest) November 7, 2018 The new county judges victory comes off the back of a hugely successful social media campaign in which they were dubbed the Houston 19, along with the slogan Black Girl Magic. the Gavel Gap Their victory is underlined by statistics reported byand collected by the American Constitution Society, which show only 12% of Texas state court judges are non-white women, despite that demographic making up 28% of the overall population. Meanwhile, 52% of the states judges are white males despite them forming 21% of the population. The 19 elected will now have judicial and administrative duties such as presiding over minor criminal and civil cases. I have dealt with a lot of judges in the last 30 years. Many of them were great judges, very experienced. But few were women and even fewer were African American, one of the group, Lori Chamber Gray, told Fox 26. I do a lot of criminal defence work, a lot of my clients are either African American or Hispanic We bring an understanding of a person who may come from that similar background. Many took to social media to celebrate the Houston 19s victory, reusing their eponymous hashtag. Nineteen black female judges! They ALL won their elections!! REAL GOALS!! #Houston19 Dream the Impossible Dream .and it will come TRUE ! Kamahl AM (@OfficialKamahl) November 9, 2018 The 19 newly-elected judges are Sandra Peake, Judge Ramona Franklin, Judge Maria Jackson, Germaine Tanner, Angela Graves-Harrington, Cassandra Holleman, Tonya Jones, Dedra Davis, LaShawn Williams, Latosha Lewis Payne, Linda Dunson, Toria Finch, Erica Hughes, Lucia Bates, Ronnisha Bowman, Michelle Moore, Sharon Burney, Shannon Baldwin, and Lori Chambers Gray. Wyandotte ?At about 9 a.m. Nov. 2 a Wyandotte officer met with a resident of the 1000 block of 11th Street to take an attempted fraud complaint. The victim said unknown persons tried to extort money from him via his computer. He received a text message on Oct. 31 informing him that his account has been hacked, and his browsing history and account information was frozen. The person claimed the victim was looking at adult websites and threatened to send this information to all his contacts and family via email if he did not send $927 via bitcoin to an unknown account. After payment, he was told his account information would be opened back up. The victim did not send the money. He called Wyandotte Cable, his Internet provider, and informed tech support about the effort to extort money from him. The officer told the victim this is scam and advised him to monitor all of his account and online information. ?A resident of the 2200 block of Eighth Street reported a handgun was stolen out of his vehicle. The theft was reported Nov. 2. The man said he carries a gun because he works in Detroit, but since his employer does not allow him to carry it inside the building, he forgot it in his vehicle. He was uncertain whether or not the vehicle was locked. Police did not observe any signs of forced entry. The resident was given a complaint number and instructed to lock his vehicle and to no leave guns inside his car. ?On the morning of Nov. 3 a resident of the 1700 block of 14th Street reported that a thief broke into her Chevrolet Malibu. The car had a shattered front passenger window and a piece of concrete was on the floor board. The back passenger door was open. The resident had not touched the vehicle until officers arrived. She told police she thought the car alarm would have gone off if a door was open, but she said it didnt. The alarm did go off when an officer opened a door to take photographs. Reported stolen was a black bag that contained clothes, makeup and shoes. Her proof of insurance also was missing. ?A 2017 Tracer Air fully enclosed travel trailer, valued at approximately $25,000, was reported stolen at 2:45 a.m. Nov. 4 in the 1400 block of 23rd Street. Police arrived to find the victims, a man and woman, standing outside on the sidewalk yelling to officer that their trailer was gone. The man said his brother had parked the trailer in the street on Antoine, just east of 23rd Street, at around noon on Nov. 3. The victims left their house around 10 p.m. and when they returned about four hours later, it was missing. Left behind were wheel chocks, a broken lock and a block of wood. Officers checked the immediate area for security cameras, but none were located. ?A company-owned laptop computer was stolen from inside an unlocked company vehicle parked in the 100 block of St. Johns. The incident was reported at 7:20 a.m. Nov. 6. ?Police took a larceny from vehicle complaint at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 6 in the 200 block of Biddle Avenue. The victim parked the vehicle in the driveway at approximately 10:30 p.m. Nov. 5. At about 8 a.m. the next day, she observed the drivers-side door was ajar, with papers from her purses scattered throughout the vehicle. The stolen items included a black Louis Vuitton bag with matching wallet, as well as a gray/white tote with brown strap, also a Louis Vuitton brand. The purse contained her passport, license and American Express credit card. The victim said she has security cameras at the location and would have access to the footage later in the week. She said she left the vehicle unlocked and that she was not going to file an insurance claim. The missing items are valued at approximately $6,800. President George Manneh Weah For a while now, CDCians, and perhaps few Liberians, have been struggling with how to handle legal implications of making appointments to Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) of Government whose leadership is subject to tenures, many of which has exceeded the lifespan of the president that appointed them. The same argument is made of civil servants, who many CDCians believe should now be replaced with members of their party, now that they have won the elections with a national alacrity. The issue reached a milestone when the President sought to make an appointment that was challenged in the Supreme Court by a tenure appointee. As the public awaited the adjudicatory process of The Court, there again came a political dynamic to seek remedy from the legislature, as if to suggest that the Executive had run out of legal options to justify replacing tenure appointees. Also, bewildered by the despondent squabble of a young CDCian to whom I once gave a lift, I thought to grant him the courtesy of sharing my thought, vis-a-vis making appointments to tenure positions, as well as the good intention of restructuring the Civil Service Agency of Liberia that now appears to have gone out of bounds. Nothing Is Wrong Until It is Wrong It is firstly fair to state that continuity, as this is the intent of proponents for Tenure positions, is helpful to our democratic transition, which is why competitive recruiting/vetting must govern the process. Under public policies of Liberia, the employment process is required to be governed by standards, not by Luck or Connection, so that the best mind is recruited to avoid disruptions in the wake of a political transition. To ensure inclusiveness in Liberia, owing to the advent of the civil war, the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) sought to make specific reference to making appointments based on recruiting the best minds and based on geographic lines. Within the framework of using geographic representation as a benchmark, the CPA reasoned that doing so would address the tribal divide that had contributed to the civil war that killed more than 200,000 people. To further strengthen the objectives of the CPA, the government of Liberia, under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, introduced a law governing all vetting processes by way of establishing the Public Procurement Concession Commission Act, popularly known as the PPCC law. Under the PPCC law, nobody is to be appointed to a position that is required to be vetted or recruited, without going through a competitive process. To the extent that it is established that government/public agencies had massively deviated from established laws during these appointments, then it would appear to be unfounded for government to seek for the dismissal of qualified Liberians who so desire to serve their country. To the contrary, the employment of many civil servants was improper! It is wrong to the extent that some of the advertisement had age requirement. Outrageously, it has been rumored that more than half of civil servants are residents of Monrovia, borne in Montserrado and Margibi and went to high school in these counties. If this rumor is correct, might this be a reason for restructuring so that the populace of the civil servants represent the intent of the CPA and the PPCC laws, both of which were in force when these recruiting were done? To satisfy the competitions test, would it make sense to determine whether most of the Civil Servants were recruited from one tribe, few high schools out of the many schools in the country? Can government commission an investigation to empirically establish that graduates of a particular university dominate the civil servant population? Tenure Positions: Objectively, political positions/assignments are intended to enable the President to achieve policy objectives for which he/she is elected. This is why many think, whether it makes sense for a tenure position to exceed the lifespan of the President making the appointment. Constitutionally, it is stated, as well as, in our organic laws, that the President has the sole right to make appointments to a political position. A policy that, therefore, seeks to undermine this constitutional prerogative of the President is unfounded and must not be allowed to gain precedence. If the purpose for tenure position is to ensure stability, doesnt it make sense that the process is limited to the lifespan of the appointing President? Again, the law and legislative intent establishing and restructuring public offices to which tenure positions are appointed is obvious-that a vetting process be initiated to ensure that the best Liberian is appointed. Unfortunately, and like in the case of many civil servants, this was not done. Was this legislative intent realized? Was there a fair vetting/recruiting process? Were the compensations commensurate and equitable? Did these appointees, given their level of education, experience and overall competence in the position obligated to know or should have known that appointment to these positions requires a competitive process? I am inclined to believe that a presidential appointee, under some reasonable standards, should know if they are participating in an arranged process that may be less than objective. To the extent that the process may have deviated from the laws and norms of Liberia, so much so that, the tenure extends beyond the tenure of the President that appointed them, it makes sense for restructuring. Two Wrongs Dont Make Right The bible says vengeance is mine, although it is obvious that ratification does not equate to vengeance. For the government to not appear vindictive, wouldnt it be prudent for it to seek the path of reviewing the recruiting file and continue to make its case at both the Court and the Legislature? After it is established, through a review of recruiting and appointment files that there were deviations and that folks were not vetted according to both standards and Liberian Laws in force at the time of these appointments/recruitment, government may argue to The Supreme Court that it intends to correct the system by making changes to ensure inclusiveness and objectively give a plan as to how it intends to ratify the system. Under this scenario, the government will have no obligation to make a settlement, given that these employees participated in a process that was fraudulent, and that they knew, or should have known that the process from which they were benefiting was fraudulent. This argument could help the government win in the court and then win at the Legislature, a win-win. As I hope that I have contributed to the debate, may I also take this as a tribute to tenure positions, while at the same time, hoping that the civil service would be reviewed with the goal of building a socially inclusive society? To conclude, let me remind readers that all of this squabble has historical underlying-tenures of the President and Legislature are excessively long and contradict the intent of the revolution and that of the 1985 voters that approved constitution through a national referendum. My assertion was outlined in an article titled, Constitutional Talks and the Unfinished Agenda, A challenge to President Sirleaf. In that commentary, I sought to remind my readers that Experiences under President Doe, along with other governments before that, compelled Liberian leaders to work with President Doe in setting a new agenda for the governance of the country. Concomitant to that desire, a constitution was drafted reviewed nationwide by visitations and on radio and television. That draft constitution, realizing that all of the political problems endured by the country had emanated from the President, the limited Presidential term of office to Four years, Representative to Four years and Senator to Eight years (eyebrows were raised about the eight years for senators). That hope of having a timely transition was lost when an Advisory Body extended presidential, as well as legislative tenures to what we now have: six years for a president, six years for a representative and nine years for a senator. That Next President that Liberians had hoped for in 1985 to make the necessary political reforms, and therefore decided to approve the constitution in 1985, came 21 years later in 2006, with the election of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Do we still have time, we do! President George Manneh Weah The recent pronouncement of free public college and university education in Liberia by president George Weah must be applauded by all Liberians and well-wishers of our beloved country. Yet, we at The Perspective cautiously hail the president's pronouncement in principle because it rekindles our longstanding hope for some measures to revitalize our battered education system.Indeed, our colleges and universities are plagued by multiple problems, including the blatant lack of basic academic infrastructure, academic resources and trained teachers among many other requisites for successful learning. Decades before the senseless civil war, we were steadily making progress in education. In fact, it is the 14-year long war that actually thwarted the progress we were making--leaving our institutions of learning in total ruins. And the 12-year postwar administration of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf did not help matters. The Sirleaf cabal of thieves wantonly looted millions of donor money, grossly neglecting the education of our children--the postwar generation. Little wonder, some international educators and researchers have been saying we parents are better educated than our children.We must therefore to take concrete steps toward rejuvenating our learning institutions. We appreciate a leader who has the will-power and determination to reverse the trend.However, it would be very remiss of us not to ask some questions regarding the motive of the Weah administration and the feasibility of this initiative. Is the president's pronouncement an attempt to placate our disenchanted university students who have been protesting against the recurrence of official corruption amidst the deplorable state of the nation? Is there an allocation for free university education in the 2018/2019 national budget? In other words, how will the government fund free university education if there is no allocation in the budget that has been billed as a pro-poor budget?The President stated that the free college education took immediate effect, but why was it not put in the national budget (2018/2019)? What happens to the social benefits offered by companies operating in the country--of which some of our college and university students are beneficiaries? Will the tuitions be given back to the students or returned to the companies? What happens to our deplorable elementary, junior and high school education? Does the government have adequate educational infrastructure that can absorb the resultant student population? These are just a few of the questions that come to mind, considering the timing of the president's pronouncement.There are several companies operating in Liberia that are to provide scholarships for Liberia students as part of their respective social benefits packages. Golden Veroleum, for example, provides scholarships for all Liberian students majoring in agriculture. SIFCA operating Cavalla Rubber Corporation and Maryland Oil Palm Plantations gives $60,0000 to Tubman University for scholarships for students and $40,000 to the Methodist Agriculture College in Sinoe County for student scholarships. We are told that on some occasions Tubman University used the $60,000 to pay some of the money the university owes ECOBANK.We notwithstanding sense a great sigh of relief from the burden of paying for college and university education in Liberia. With this sigh of relief, we are reminded of the "Free Education in Nigeria" track by the legendary Prince Nico Mbarga whose lyrics ran in the 1970s: "The Nigerian government has made it possible for Nigerian children to be educated free". We do not know if the Nigerian version of free education included elementary, junior high, secondary and tertiary education. That was many, many years ago. Southern Pines, NC (28387) Today Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers in the afternoon. High 56F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch.. Tonight Clear to partly cloudy. Widespread frost likely. Low 28F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Montreal, CA (H4T1V6) Today Rain and snow this morning becoming partly cloudy this afternoon. Morning high of 7C with temps falling to near 35. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Low -5C. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. You cannot print contents of this website. Sign in Welcome, Login to your account. Forget password? Remember me Sign in Recover your password. A password will be e-mailed to you. MBABANE Solanis Shisanyama is not prepared to let the Hot spot of the Year title go! South African actress, television host and artist Khanyi Mbau is slated to be the host for the anticipated All White Affair party at Solanis Shisanyama at Msunduza in Mbabane. Mbau is known for her enthusiasm, resilient spirit and multi-talent, and her energy will be oozing on December 22 at the popular venue. The headlining act on the night will be Botswana born iconic DJ Fresh, who last performed in the country three years ago. Also, another performer of note on the night will be South Africas DJ Sumbody. Creme Other creme de la creme performances of the night will be from Eswatinis renowned DJs including Zulu D, Supa CDQ, Yugo, Smish, NYD, Tonic Deep, KB Da DJ, Wicked, Matamza, MBO, Crooks and others. The Solanis team confirmed Mbau and the others presence, stating that they were happy to have them in the country this festive season. We are excited to have them, they said. MBABANE Come what may, we are ready for pay cuts. Some of the newly-appointed Cabinet ministers are ready and willing to take a salary reduction from what the previous ministers were paid. The members of the Executive who were reached for comment said to them, being in office was not for financial gain but was for public service. The pay cut that they were interviewed on is based on the recommendations of Finance Circular No.2 of 2013 which states that the remuneration of politicians should be based on the economic status of the country. The country is said to be in the worst financial crisis compared to that of 2011. Given that, the remuneration of politicians and other stakeholders has in several social gatherings come to the fore, including at the Peoples Parliament (Sibaya). Also, in April 2018, His Majesty King Mswati III appointed the Phil Mnisi-led Royal Commission to review salaries for politicians. Mnisi, who is also Eswatini Sugar Association Chief Executive Officer, with his commissioners, have to consider the recommendations made in Finance Circular No.2 of 2013. An excerpt of the Circular reads: The basic salary of the prime minister will be benchmarked against similar sized (by GDP) Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries every two years; and discounted for economic conditions and the affordability of the government. Eswatini is considered as one of the countries with the highest wage bills in Sub-Saharan Africa. The wage bill stands at about E850 million per annum. When considering the assertion in the standard benefits and allowances for parliamentarians, where Finance Circular No. 2 of 2013 states that the basic salary of the prime minister would be benchmarked against similar sized (by GDP) SADC countries every two years; then the 10th Parliament was excessively paid. The remuneration of the 10th Parliament was higher than some of the SADC leading politicians as ministers earned more than the premier of Lesotho. Economists suggested that politicians should take a pay cut of up to 20 per cent. Circular Using Finance Circular No.2 of 2013 as the basis for the remuneration of the politicians, who include Members of Parliament (MPs), presiding officers and ministers, among others, they earn E7 493 724.70 per month. In five years, they would have earned E449 623 482. However, with the 20 per cent salary cuts that have been suggested by economists, it translates to them taking home E359 698 785.60 in five years. In the five years, government would have saved E89 924 696.40. This is only remunerations for the PM, the deputy prime minister and the 18 Cabinet ministers. Some of the incoming ministers stated that despite the completion of the salary review process by the Royal Commission, they were ready to take cuts from what the previous Cabinet was remunerated. Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg said: The fact that I have taken a pay cut (whether the circular suggests salaries should go up or down with 20 per cent) should be a reflection of my willingness to do what it takes to get our country out of the financial challenges that we face. He said it was an honour and privilege for him to serve the country, regardless of the salary level. The minister of Finance further noted that the Royal Commission was still busy with their recommendations. Rijkenberg said he could only be definite of what the pay structures would be once the results of the commission were gazetted. He said regarding the fiscal challenges that the country was facing, Cabinet would be working on a clear way forward, taking into consideration the submissions at Sibaya. He said these submissions would be presented to His Majesty King Mswati III and then the nation in due course. reduction Also, Senator Themba Masuku, the DPM, reiterated Rijkenbergs remarks and said: The money is not an issue with me but what is essential is public service. I once took a pay reduction of about E130 000 when I left the United Nations to come back into the political arena of the country. Masuku further said pay cuts were not an issue with him as he also took a 35 per cent pay reduction when he became a minister in the mid 80s. He emphasised that serving the country was essential more than any financial gain that people may think of when joining politics. Another Cabinet member anticipating a pay cut was Minister of Health, Lizzie Nkosi. The businesswoman said; pay cuts are imminent as they have come up in different forums several times. Nkosi said she was ready to take it. We have to open up to it, she said. She noted that it was premature to come up with a figure that could be deducted from her pay as the report by the Royal Commission was still being prepared. Nkosi was supported by Minister of Labour and Social Security Makhosi Vilakati. He said: I would not mind a pay cut as I was appointed to work; so, whatever comes is a bonus. Minister of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs Harries Bulunga said he would take a pay cut as well. This is a stance he had taken when the same question was posed to him while he was MP-elect. MBABANE Death has claimed yet another life of a young and energetic man. A youthful health activist was yesterday found unconscious in his bathroom at Mobeni Flats, Matsapha. The name of the popular activist is known, but will not be revealed at the moment as his family could not be reached for comment at the time of compiling this report. According to sources, the activist went to take a bath in the morning although it could not be established as to where he was going to. The sources said he was with his sister in the flat in Matsapha, where-upon she noted that her brother spent quite some time in the bathroom. They said it was then that she called neighbours to help her open the bathroom door to find out what had happened to her brother. Suspicions were that his sister might have tried to call out to the activist, but he did not respond, which was why she then sought the assistance of neighbours. Sources said after they managed to gain entry into the bathroom, his lifeless body was found lying on the floor. Police were then called to the scene. A family member was called for comment on the matter, but she had not heard the news. She asked to verify the reports before she could comment. When later called, her mobile phone rang unanswered and was later switched off. Deputy Police Information and Communications Officer Inspector Nosipho Mnguni confirmed the incident. Mnguni said they found that the deceased had not drowned but had seemingly collapsed. She was not sure whether the door to the bathroom was locked or not when his sister went to seek assistance from neighbours. The activists demise left a number of his friends in shock, as they posted their grief on his Facebook page. They commented on a status he posted two days before he died. Post The post, which was an extract of lines from a hymn, made some of his friends believe that God might have been speaking to the deceased about what was to befall him. The post was about having eternal peace, tears being wiped off and pain being no more. Others could not come to terms with news of his demise, as they only exclaimed and made no elaborate comments. Ngatsi botihlabelela wena bhuti. RIP, one of his friends wrote. Reports are to the effect that on Saturday, the activist attended a walk organised by a certain private company, where there was the promotion of health issues. He was known for being active in matters relating to health issues as he passionately addressed them in public gatherings and private company meetings. He was also a gender based violence activist. His death happened in a similar way as that of the late Swazi Observer Editor, Thulani Thwala, who was also found to have collapsed and died in the bathroom of a popular establishment. The similarity about the two was that they were both passionate about their work. MAGWANYANE Why would someone kill an elderly couple and then set their bodies alight? This is the question police investigators are trying to find an answer to following the discovery of two burnt bodies of an elderly couple. The bodies of Roy Mngomezulu (81) and his wife, Alice Mngomezulu (79), were discovered burnt inside a rondavel at their residence at Magwanyane area, near Big Bend on Saturday morning. The rondavel was also gutted by flames, and the general assumption is that the bodies were dragged from somewhere else into the rondavel, which was then set alight. The elderly couple is said to have been asleep inside a house next to the rondavel, and preliminary evidence suggests that they were killed before their bodies were placed inside the rondavel and then set alight, said sources close to police investigators. Blood A matchstick was found at the scene and there were also blood stains at the entrance to the main house. Also, there were footprints from the main house to the rondavel, added the source. It is still to be confirmed how the elderly couple was killed, but speculations are to the effect that they may have been hacked prior to their bodies being burnt. Deputy Police Information and Communications Officer Inspector Nosipho Mnguni said Big Bend police were investigating a case of arson and possible murder. Nobody has been arrested yet, she stated briefly, while also confirming that police investigators were suspecting foul play. Meanwhile, family members revealed that the elderly couple had been staying alone for decades and made a living through farming. They did not have children and the incident occurred while they were alone, said Tholakele Gina, a niece to the deceased elderly man. She added that the family was devastated by the brutal killing of the elderly couple. Frank S. Martin, located in the far back on the left side of the table, facing the camera, sent this postcard to his parents in 1918 from Germany during World War I. Martin was a mechanic with K company, 56th Pioneer Infantry. By Trend During a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ashgabat, President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov discussed the prospects for creating the Afghanistan-Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey (Lapis Lazuli) international transit transport corridor, Turkmen Dovlet Habarlary reported. Among the priority areas of cooperation were the trade and economic sphere, energy, transport and communications sector. The interlocutors expressed confidence that the long-standing interstate partnership will continue to develop dynamically. The first meeting of experts on the implementation of the "Agreement on Transit and Transport Cooperation" (Lapis Lazuli Route Agreement) took place in Ashgabat in April. The experts from Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia and Turkey, the participating countries that signed this agreement took part in the event during the 7th Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA VII) on November 15, 2017. In Ashgabat, the sides reviewed the issues of tariff optimization, customs issues, tax laws of the participating countries. According to the "Lapis Lazuli" project, the railway lines and highways will connect the city of Torghundi in the Afghan province of Herat with Ashgabat, then with the Caspian port of Turkmenbashi. The corridor will stretch to Baku, then through Tbilisi to Ankara with branches in Poti and Batumi, then from Ankara to Istanbul. The project budget, which aims to facilitate transit logistics and simplify customs procedures, is estimated at $2 billion. The project is designed to increase the economic integration of the region and the volume of trade. Careem, one of the leading technology organisations in the Middle East, today (November 12) signed up as the ride partner for the winter edition of Gulf Property Show, a boutique showcase for real estate sector in the Northern Gulf, taking place at The Avenues - Bahrain. To be held from November 21 to 24, Gulf Property Show at The Avenues - Bahrain complements its flagship event that takes place annually every April, said the organisers Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions (HCE). Under this partnership deal, Gulf Property Show visitors will enjoy discounted rides to and from the event, it stated. Ahmed Suleiman, the exhibitions director, said: "We are pleased to announce Careem as our Ride Partner for the Gulf Property Show. This partnership provides visitors with an additional transportation option to enjoy Gulf Property Show, a boutique real estate festival in Bahrains leading leisure complex." Khaled Nuseibeh, the general manager of Careem GCC, said: "We are proud to partner with Bahrains leading event for real estate and property developers, Gulf Property Show. Careem customers are our main priority and simplifying their lives through transportation solutions that fits their needs is surely our goal." "In case you are an existing Careem customer, you can enjoy a 20 per cent discount on a total of six rides using the code: GPSHOW and if you are a new Careem customer you can avail 50 per cent on your first two rides using the code: GPSNEW," he noted. Visitors can also view the details of their booking, contact their Careem captain, schedule future bookings or cancel at their convenience, said Nuseibeh. "We are always looking for innovative ways to serve our customers and be their most reliable, affordable and convenient transportation partner," he added. The Gulf Property Show carries the strategic sponsorship of El Mercado Village and the strategic organisational support of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority of Bahrain (Rera), Survey and Land Regulatory Bureau (SLRB) and the Urban Planning and Development Authority of Bahrain. HCE have partnered with Colours Events & Exhibitions for the operational organisation of the Avenues Bahrain event and have added Careem as the Ride Partners to facilitate easy access to the event for visitors.-TradeArabia News Service Illicit trade of cigarettes in the GCC has tripled in the first half of 2018 rising to 5.3 per cent of total sales compared to last year, equivalent to approximately $210 million in lost taxes, a report said. Philip Morris International (PMI), a leading international tobacco company, has collaborated with Oxford Economics to monitor and analyse total consumption, domestic sales, and lost tax revenues due to illicit trade in the GCC region. According to study, in 2017 over 695 million cigarettes (about 1.6 per cent of total sales consumed) were illegally sold in the region. Tamer Shabana, director of Illicit Trade Prevention at Philip Morris Management Services (Middle East), commented: The largest increase in illicit trade of cigarettes has been in Saudi Arabia, where 6.6 per cent of all cigarettes consumed are illicit. But the report shows that every government in the region has been impacted to some degree by significant net revenue losses due to illegal sales of cigarettes. Total consumption of cigarettes in Saudi Arabia fell from 34 billion in 2015 to 27.5 billion in 2017, signifying a general decline in smoking prevalence. Nevertheless, illicit cigarettes consumption rose from 484 million cigarettes in 2016 to 571 million in 2017, the highest ratio (6.6 per cent) anywhere in the region. This is likely to rise even higher by the end of the year based on the 2018 Q2 empty packet survey analysed by Oxford Economics. The report also points out that Illicit consumption in the region consists entirely of non-domestic illicit cigarettes (i.e., imports). Illicit trade in cigarettes is a complex issue that requires unified efforts among governments, law enforcement and the private sector to effectively tackle the challenges, Shabana added. For example, joint efforts between GCC law enforcement agencies concerning fighting illicit trade should be enhanced. Harmonized tax structures across the GCC markets will also reduce cross boarder smuggling, and applying a specific tax structure, meaning a fixed monetary value applied to the same number of cigarettes sticks, has been proven in many countries to address both the revenue and health objectives of governments. Finally, continuous cooperation between the public and private sectors in order to effectively fight illicit trade. According to the Oxford economics report the GCC countries that have applied excise taxes were affected more by illicit trade penetration while Kuwait, for example, which has not yet applied excise tax, was the least affected during the period under review with less than 1 per cent of all sales. PMI has taken an active stance in combating illicit trade in cigarettes in the region. The company will be participating in the Middle East Anti Illicit Trade exhibition in Abu Dhabi in November, one of the most prominent events focusing on preventing illicit trade in the GCC. TradeArabia News Service Mena Aerospace will be participating in the Bahrain International Airshow 2018 (BIAS 2018) at Sakhir Airbase from November 1417 at the exhibition stand E06 and Chalet A36, hosting a range of international visitors at the Middle Easts fastest growing airshow. Strategic partners InterTec and IJM will be well-represented, with top executives from each company in attendance. A new partnership with Austrian-based communications and information solutions provider Frequentis will be highlighted; with demonstration units featured for Frequentis Defences iSecCOM IP-based secure communications system, as well as for Frequentis Comsofts RAPS-3 surveillance data support, test and evaluation system. ISecCOM consists of a binaural headset and human-machine interface (HMI) with a proven track record of interoperability between diverse communication components, guaranteed long-term support, unparalleled data security meeting top global standards, and straightforward scalability. It offers operational advantages when it comes to availability and flexibility, supporting air traffic management (ATM) with remote tower capabilities. RAPS-3 is a powerful and versatile toolset for the real-time testing, analysis, validation and generation of surveillance data. It is a Eurocontrol qualified reference product for the Asterix standard, utilised by militaries. Supported by an experienced support team with a wide service portfolio, it is available on various portable platforms. Dr Mohammed Juman, managing director and founder of Mena Aerospace, commented: This collaboration complements Mena Aerospaces track record and ongoing strategy of partnering with leading global entities to ensure the provision of comprehensive aviation and aerospace services, in Bahrain and the wider region. We are proud to be supporting efforts to market and secure contracts in relation to the potential procurement of this world-class technology by the Bahrain Defence Market. Hank Rubenstrunk, managing director of Frequentis Middle East, said: We are pleased to be working with Mena Aerospace on the marketing of iSecCOM within Bahrain. We have been providing mission-critical solutions across the globe for the civil and military market for seven decades, and are confident that the presentation of iSecCOM within Bahrain will enhance operations within this market-space. InterTec, based in the UK, will be represented at BIAS 2018 by managing director Fred Gorrie. In 2016, it formed a strategic alliance with Mena Aerospaces technical arm, Mena Technics, to provide aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) management services in the region. For the first time, the Missouri International Trade & Investment Office from the State of Missouri will be attending the BIAS as a part of the USA Pavilion and is set to meet with Mena Aerospace executive management and partner companies. The delegation also provides the opportunity to facilitate introductions to other key suppliers unable to travel to Bahrain. Missouri has a long legacy of aerospace/defence with anchor Boeing military, to hundreds of Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers. Mena Aerospace will reveal new partnerships and sign new deals during BIAS 2018. - TradeArabia News Service U.S. Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar gives her victory speech at the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL) election night party in St. Paul, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018. Photo courtesy:Scott Takushi/Pioneer Press) Last Tuesday in the U.S. state of Minnesota, thousands of miles away from Kenya, a former refugee made history. Ilhan Omar, a Somali-American who once called the East African country home, was elected to the United States Congress. Omar, 36, fled Somalias conflict when she was just a child of eight years. She spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before she was resettled to the U.S. where years later, she would make history. As she gave a rousing victory speech following her historic win, she listed the many firsts behind her name. I stand here before you tonightas the first refugee ever elected to Congress. I stand here before you tonightas the first refugee ever elected to Congress, she said amid applause. Omar has also made history by becoming the first Somali-American, first hijab-wearing Muslim woman and the first woman of colour to represent Minnesota in Congress. Ambassador Mohamed Abdi Affey, the UN Refugee Agencys Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa reflected on Omars win, terming it a global victory for refugees. This victory gives hope to refugees around the world, he said. It shows that its possible to achieve such great success, given the opportunity. The Horn of Africa is home to over 1.5 million refugees, majority of whom are from Somalia. The Special Envoy believes that Omars story is one that resonates with refugees, especially those living in this region, and is a symbol of enduring hope for them. Ilhan Omar addresses supporters in Minneapolis, Minnesota after becoming one of the first Muslim women elected to the US Congress. Photo courtesy: AFP This victory gives hope to refugees around the world. Ilhans case is a true example of how refugees can contribute to their country of return, he said, adding that Somalia has a great future because Somalis in the diaspora and in the Horn of Africa hope to return to Somalia one day to rebuild it. They hope to return to a country that they're proud of and having acquired the necessary skills and knowledge, move the country forward. Ambassador Affey, who is a strong proponent for the inclusion of refugees in the societies they live in, saw Omars victory as an example of how inclusion can be beneficial to host countries. He expressed his gratitude to the host governments for their generosity, kind attention and hospitality towards refugees, adding that the best way to treat refugees is to include them in national plans. Congratulations @IlhanMN. Your election as member of the USA congress is an inspiration to the millions of #refugees on the globe and the power Of keeping hope alive. @Refugees is proud of this win. pic.twitter.com/KUVCj3sJPF Mohamed Affey (@AMB_Affey) November 7, 2018 Refugees need to feel like part and parcel of the communities that have hosted them over a long period of time, he added. The Special Envoy explained that when refugees get a quality education and find opportunities for work, they are able to grow and can contribute to their country of origin more effectively when they finally return. ...when we invest in refugees, we invest in the future of our own countries. He also saw an opportunity for countries to invest in refugees, noting that refugees can contribute to their economic development. This victory confirms how useful refugees are in whichever community they join, he added. It shows that when we invest in refugees, we invest in the future of our own countries. Kerala PWD Minister's wife resigns over nepotism allegations Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 11 (UNI) Jubilee Navaprabha, wife of Kerala PWD Minister G Sudhakaran, whose appointment was termed illegal by some people, resigned from Kerala University on Sunday. "Though my appointment was done in a proper manner, a section of people in the University deliberately created a controversy against me, targeting the PWD Minister," Ms Navaprabha told newspersons here. She was appointed as the Director of private self-financing colleges affiliated to Kerala University on a one-year contract, with a monthly remuneration of Rs 35,000. Philippines logs 984 new Covid-19 cases, 218 more deaths 22 Nov 2021 | 3:46 PM Manila, Nov 22 (UNI/Xinhua) The Philippines' Department of Health (DOH) reported 984 new Covid-19 infections on Monday, bringing the number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 2,826,853. see more.. Putin, Abbas to discuss Middle East situation during meeting in Sochi: Kremlin 22 Nov 2021 | 3:16 PM Moscow, Nov 22 (UNI/Sputnik) Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, will discuss the situation in the Middle East during their bilateral meeting in Sochi on Tuesday, the Kremlin said on Monday. see more.. Russia's Yekaterinburg to host Pakistani-Russian inter-govt commission this week: Source 22 Nov 2021 | 3:16 PM Moscow, Nov 22 (UNI/Sputnik) Russia-Pakistani Inter-Governmental Commission will take place in the Capital of Ural District, Yekaterinburg, from November 24 to 26, diplomatic source said on Monday. see more.. WHO regional director for Europe arrives at Belarusian-Polish border 22 Nov 2021 | 3:16 PM Bruzgi Checkpoint, Nov 22 (UNI/Sputnik) Hans Kluge, the regional director for Europe at the World Health Organization, has arrived at the migrant camp near the Bruzgi checkpoint at the Belarusian-Polish border, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Monday. see more.. New Delhi/Raipur, Nov 10 (UNI) Charging Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh of being involved in corruption, Congress president Rahul Gandhi alleged that no action had been taken by the state government on the chit fund scam and the PDS scam. Addressing a public rally at Kanker , Rahul said no action was taken in the chit fund scam because of the direct involvement of the CM. Modi ji says he's fighting against corruption. But when he comes to Chhattisgarh he doesn't tell you the Chief Minister is corrupt. Your Rs 5000 Cr disappeared in chit-fund scam, 310 FIRs were registered but no action was taken because the CM was involved, Rahul said. Attacking the State government on the PDS scam, he said, Rs 36,000 Cr of the people of Chhattisgarh was looted. Diary mili, diary mein likha tha 'CM Madam ko paisa diya. Dr Sahab ko paisa diya.'(A diary was found in which it was written that CM madam was given the money and Dr Sahab was given the money). I ask Raman Singh ji who is this CM Madam and Dr Sahab whose names were found in the diary in connection with the scam. Rahul also asked the Chief Minister why no action has been taken against his son, whose name appeared in Panama papers. The Chief Minister should explain why no action has been taken against his son, whose name appeared in Panama papers? In Pakistan the PM is jailed because his name appeared in Panama papers,Rahul said. Charging the CM of stealing from the people and helping 15-20 of rich industrialist friends, he said, Chhattisgarh is a prosperous state, but the BJP govt steals from the people and helps 15-20 of rich industrialist friends. Attacking the chief Minister of failing to fulfil the promises made to farmers, he said,chief minister Raman Singh had promised MSP of Rs 2100 for paddy, but today, farmers get only Rs 1500. Congress government will provide MSP of Rs 2500 for paddy. We will also give bonus to farmers that BJP promised and failed to fulfill. He also assured people that the Congress, when it comes to power, will enforce Tribal Rights Act, PESA Act and Land Acquisition Act that protects farmers' and Aadivasis' land. UNI AR ADG 1454 UNSC condemns Somalia terrorist attack in which dozens were killed,injured United Nations, Nov 12 (UNI) The members of the United Nations Security Council has condemned 'in the strongest possible terms' Fridays car bomb attack in Somalia, in which dozens of innocent women, children and men were killed or injured, and reiterated that any acts of terrorism are 'criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed'. The attack took place in the capital, Mogadishu, near the Sahafi Hotel on Friday afternoon, where three explosions were followed by gunfire, all believed to be orchestrated by the jihadist group, Al-Shabab. So far, authorities have reported that at least 20 people have been killed, and 17 wounded, United Nations news reported. In its years-long fight against the UN and internationally-backed Somali Government, the group has been targeting places where officials and security forces are likely to frequent, such as the Sahafi Hotel. (Nov. 12, 2018) -- Commencement is the icing on top of the collegiate journey for students at UTSA. Before crossing the stage to receive their diploma at the Alamodome, many UTSA students celebrate academic milestones through various colleges and organizations which helped them to chart their path to success. Below is a sampling of a few of the graduation ceremonies that make UTSA so unique. Distinguished Scholars Stole Ceremony Thursday, Nov. 15, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Welcome Center (BRG 0.316), Main Campus The UTSA Office of Undergraduate Admissions and Scholarships Office celebrates graduates who have successfully completed the Distinguished Scholars program. Each student receives a special stole to proudly wear at Commencement. Ujima Saturday, Dec. 1, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Student Union Denman Ballroom (2.01.28), Main Campus Ujima is the third of seven principles of Kwanzaa and stands for collective work and responsibility, and to build and maintain a community together. This ceremony celebrates the accomplishments of UTSAs African, African-American and black students. Lavender Graduation Thursday, Dec. 6, 7 p.m., Raising Cane's, 17518 La Cantera Pkwy, San Antonio This graduation ceremony recognizes and honors all UTSA students who fall under the LGBTQ umbrella for their hard work and academic accomplishments. >> Learn about the various academic regalia and other information about UTSA Commencement. UTSA Ring Ceremony Monday, Dec. 10, 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., H-E-B Student Union Ballrooms (HSU 1.104/1.106), Main Campus One of UTSAs most memorable traditions when hundreds of Roadrunners will receive their class rings. Before the rings arrive at UTSA, however, they make a special stop to spend a night in Texas most iconic landmark, the Alamo. Teacher Induction Ceremony Thursday, Dec. 13, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., H-E-B Student Union Ballrooms (HSU 1.104/1.106), Main Campus Clinical teachers (formerly student teachers) are inducted into the profession of teaching and receive a special certificate for the completion of their clinical teaching. The College of Education and Human Development Dean, Associate Deans and Director of Clinical Teaching provide a few words to the students, and the graduate watch a video that showcases their journey at UTSA. College of Sciences Ph.D. Graduate Reception Thursday, Dec. 13, 2p.m., Biosciences Building (BSB 3.03.02), Main Campus This ceremony recognizes College of Sciences Ph.D. students who are graduating this semester. They also receive a gift from the college. Fall 2018 Order of the Engineer Friday, Dec. 14, 1 p.m., Biotechnology, Sciences and Engineering Building Atrium Graduating seniors take an oath then receive an Order of the Engineer ring from another Order of the Engineer alumni. They also sign the guest book and receive a certificate. Honors College Stole and Laurel Ceremony Friday, Dec. 14, 4 p.m., H-E-B Student Union Ballrooms (HSU 1.104/1.106), Main Campus The Honors College Stole and Laurel Ceremony celebrates Honors College graduates with the awarding of an Honors Stole, individual announcement of future plans, thesis and major advisor, as they walk across the stage. UW Professors Latest Book Named Finalist for Southern Book Prize UW Professor Alyson Hagys latest novel, Scribe, was recently named a finalist for the Southern Book Prize. (Graywolf Press) University of Wyoming Professor Alyson Hagys latest novel, Scribe, was recently selected as a finalist for the Southern Book Prize. For a book to be eligible for the award, it must be set in the South, or the author must be Southern or both. All nominations must come via Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance booksellers. From Nov. 10-Feb. 1, booksellers and readers vote on finalists in the categories of fiction, nonfiction and childrens literature. Winners will be announced Feb. 14. Set after a civil war and deadly fevers decimate the country, Scribe tells the story of a nameless main character, a scribe, who lives alone in her familys Appalachian farmhouse. She becomes known for her letter-writing skills, which she exchanges for scarce resources. She lets a migrant group known as the Uninvited set up temporary camps on her land and maintains an uneasy peace with her neighbors. When a mysterious man asks her to write a letter for him, an unknowable -- yet devastating -- series of events is set in motion. Published by Graywolf Press and released in October, Scribe is Hagys eighth work of fiction. The novel is the American Booksellers Associations Indie Next List No. 1 pick for November. Additionally, the UW Honors College added Scribe to the reading list of students in Freshman Honors Colloquium. The book has received positive reviews from a variety of publications and authors. An original addition to the post-apocalyptic genre, Scribe reaffirms the power of the pen and the surviving quality of the human spirit, according to a review by The Arkansas International. More than a novel, Scribe is a myth, a haunting legend that comes to us from the edge of history -- from a past we wish to forget or a future we hope to avoid. Alyson Hagys book defies the hush of a dying world with every breathtaking sentence, says Hernan Diaz, author of In the Distance. Hagy is on a book tour this fall, which kicked off in Laramie and has included stops in Washington, D.C., New York and Minnesota. She will stop in Casper Saturday, Dec. 1, at 11 a.m. at Wind City Books, located at 152 S. Center St. Hagy grew up on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She received her bachelors degree from Williams College and earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Michigan. She joined UW in 1996. A professor in UWs Creative Writing Program, she has won numerous awards for her writing and teaching. Her honors include a Pushcart Prize, a Nelson Algren Award, a High Plains Book Award and a Devils Kitchen Award in Prose. She also won a John P. Ellbogen Meritorious Classroom Teaching Award for excellence in classroom teaching at UW. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close High-Level Political Meetings in London The Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and the Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia left for London tomorrow to continue with work, related to the United Kingdom and Gibraltars departure from the European Union. They will be accompanied by the Attorney General Michael Llamas and the Financial Secretary Albert Mena. The visit will include a series of high-level political meetings with UK Ministers and officials from different departments of Government. This will include meetings with the Minister for Europe Sir Alan Duncan MP, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union Robin Walker MP and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury John Glen MP. There is also a meeting with Mims Davies MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The Gibraltar delegation is expected to return on Thursday. In the absence of the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister, the Minister for Education and the Environment Dr John Cortes will act as Chief Minister. Book Launched about Gibraltars Role During WW1 The Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia has launched the book Putting Cargoes Through: The US Navy at Gibraltar During the First World War 1917-1919. The press launch took place at the John Mackintosh Hall in the presence of Professor John B Hattendorf, who is Professor Emeritus of Maritime History at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The original work was written by the commander of US Naval Forces stationed at Gibraltar at that time, Vice Admiral Albert P Niblack. That typescript was discovered by Professor Hattendorf who edited it and added an introduction. Dr Garcia said that the timing of the launch could not have been more relevant. It was happening in Gibraltar, the subject matter of the book, in an exhibition room dedicated to the role that Gibraltar played during the First World War. It also came two days before Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday, in a year which marks the centenary of the end of World War One. He said that he was delighted to welcome the Professor to Gibraltar and to launch the book, following their first meeting at a session of the Gibraltar-American Council in New York two years ago. Professor Hattendorf will be discussing the book during the Literary Festival on Thursday. As part of the Governments programme of events, there was a projection of a poppy symbol on the Moorish Castle to honour those who died during World War One and in other conflicts. There was also a projection of the figure of a Tommy soldier onto the north face of the Rock itself on Sunday, Armistice Day. This is the symbol of the charity There but not there. Sunday saw the traditional ceremonies of remembrance. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, wreaths were laid at the lobby of the Gibraltar Parliament to mark the signing of the Armistice that ended World War One in 1918, 100 years ago. The Remembrance Sunday ceremony took place an hour later, at noon, at the British War Memorial in Line Wall Road. This was followed by a laying of wreaths at the United States War Memorial. This War Memorial was erected in 1932 as a symbol of gratitude to the people of Gibraltar from the Government of the United States of America precisely to mark the important role that the Rock played in support of US Naval forces during that conflict. Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 12, 2018 | 05:07 AM | MCCRACKEN COUNTY A vehicle chase Sunday night in McCracken County left a man facing numerous charges.According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Department, at approximately 9:30 pm, deputies were advised of a dump truck driving recklessly coming into McCracken County from Ballard County. Deputies located the truck at a gas station on Alben Barkley Drive.Contact was made with the driver and he was identified as 42-year-old Richard Hack, of Herndon, KY. While deputies were speaking with Hack, they were approached by another citizen who was needing assistance with directions. As deputies attempted to also assist this citizen, Hack pulled away in the truck and began fleeing from deputies.Hack fled from deputies until his truck became stuck in a yard on Colonial Drive. Unable to drive further, Hack fled on foot, but was quickly captured.It was discovered Hack had an active warrant for his arrest out of Illinois. He was arrested and lodged in the McCracken County Regional Jail.Hack was charged with fleeing or evading police, disregarding a stop sign, disregarding a traffic light, criminal mischief, resisting arrest, assault 3rd degree (police officer), license to be in possession, and an Illinois warrant for probation violation. Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 07, 2018 | PADUCAH By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 07, 2018 | 10:30 PM | PADUCAH The Paducah Parks & Recreation Department invites the public to attend the Veterans Day parade and other ceremonies on Monday. The dedication ceremony for the Global War on Terror Memorial on the Clark Street side of Dolly McNutt Plaza will start the day's events at 9:45 a.m. The memorial was unveiled to the public earlier this year on Memorial Day. The opening ceremony for the parade will begin at 10:15 a.m. at the Korean War Monument located on the 6th Street side of the plaza with a welcome by Paducah Mayor Brandi Harless and the invocation by Rev. Charles Uhlik. Paducah Ambassador and Vietnam veteran Robert Worden will serve as master of ceremonies. Students who are winners of the Veterans Day essay contest organized by the Daughters of the American Revolution will be recognized at the opening ceremony. The Concord Elementary School Singsations will sing the National Anthem and a medley of patriotic music. The opening ceremony also includes the recognition of two distinguished veterans who will serve as the parades grand marshals, and the presentation of this year's Patriot Award. The Patriot Award honors a non-veteran who dedicates his or her time to serving veterans and veteran causes in this community. The annual parade will begin at 11 a.m. at 6th and Washington Streets. It will travel along Washington Street until it turns right on 7th Street. It will then turn right on Broadway and head toward the riverfront. At 2nd Street, it will turn left and disband in the parking lot adjacent to the Farmers' Market. The WKCTC Television Production Department will record the opening ceremonies and parade, set it to music, and televise it at a later time on Government 11 and Paducah-2 for Comcast subscribers. Following the parade, the annual Veterans Day Grill-out will be held at noon at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1191 at 1727 Washington Street. Veterans and the general public are welcome to attend. Calvert City Jingle All the Way 5k and Fun Run set for December 4 By MSU Public Relations Nov. 11, 2018 | 08:06 PM | MURRAY The Murray State University Police Department and Center for Adult and Regional Education were named first in the nation for campus safety initiatives with both University units receiving the 2018 Department of the Year award from Safe Campus. Safe Campus recognizes outstanding achievement by administrative departments. Both the Police Department and the Center for Adult and Regional Education were nominated based on their efforts and improvements in campus safety. All 4,706 U.S. accredited higher-education institutions across the U.S. were eligible for consideration. Both Murray State units will be recognized in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the National Campus Safety Summit in February. "This recognition is particularly meaningful in that it recognizes our continued commitment towards campus safety, as well as the collaboration between two departments, for the betterment of Murray State University," said Murray State Interim President Bob Jackson. A collaboration in 2017 between the Murray State Police Department and the Center for Adult and Regional Education led to the development of a centralized communications calendar and updated procedural plan specific to external groups who visit campus for various programs and camps. The collaboration also included senior leadership within the University as well as the establishment of a committee in which multiple campus units were represented to assess and implement these changes. The Murray State Police Department is staffed 24/7 to protect and serve the University and includes 16 sworn officers and 24 support staff. All officers are certified through the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training with officers spending six months in the Kentucky Law Enforcement Basic Training Academy in Richmond, Kentucky, before receiving their certifications. The department is accredited through the Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police and has been accredited since 2007. The department provides a variety of important services to assist the campus community. These include the Racer Alert emergency communications system and the promotion and use of the LiveSafe app in addition to providing resources for faculty, staff and students particularly for incoming students through the Great Beginnings new student orientation programs. The University's Center for Adult and Regional Education serves the unique needs of adult and non-traditional learners through program offerings and services available on the Murray State campus and regional campus sites in Paducah, Madisonville, Hopkinsville, Henderson and Fort Campbell. The center also coordinates many of Murray State's summer youth programs, contracted camps and other events that welcome thousands of visitors to campus each year. "We welcome many youth and other guests throughout the year, and we were happy to work collaboratively to put these new policies in place to make Murray State University a safer place for all," said Dan Lavit, Executive Director, Center for Adult and Regional Education. "As higher education faces increasing budgetary challenges, innovative ideas and partnerships among departments will be the way that top-tier universities set themselves apart," said Murray State Chief of Police Jamie Herring. "That collaborative spirit certainly exists here at Murray State." Advertisement By Tim Brockwell Nov. 12, 2018 | WICKLIFFE By Tim Brockwell Nov. 12, 2018 | 10:35 AM | WICKLIFFE Employees at Wickliffe's only grocery store are preparing to close up shop after 25 years in business. Town and Country Grocery, located at 716 Phillips Drive, will close its doors for good on Saturday, Nov. 17. Supervisor Doyle Holifield said he helped open the store 25 years ago. He said he and the store's other employees, who are all part owners, will be sorry to see it close after all these years. "We're very sad that we leave. I was personally involved in getting this grocery store here 25 years ago." Holifield said. Holifield said it was a lack of sales that forced the company to make the decision to close the store. He added the store is offering a 20 percent discount on all items until it closes. Town and Country Grocery operates 37 stores in four states, and opened its first location 45 years ago. "We have a grocery store 16 miles away in Charleston," Holifield said. "It would be great if they shopped with us there." Can the centre hold, or will South Africa get its own Bolsonaro? Present indications are that South African voters are not gearing up to do a Brazil in the face of a mounting economic crisis and high levels of corruption. Polls indicate that they are unlikely to totally abandon the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed the country since the end of apartheid in 1994, for existing political alternatives. The reasons are familiar. Although the ANC has lost prestige, ground and voter loyalty, many South Africans continue to cleave to their memories of its past virtues and hope for it to return to better ways. Furthermore, President Cyril Ramaphosa will make copious and not unconvincing promises of tackling corruption. Meanwhile, although almost a decade of misrule by former President Jacob Zuma should have rebounded to the major advantage of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the leading opposition party has failed to convince. And, the long running fight with it mayor for Cape Town Patricia De Lille has made it look divided, poorly-led and tainted by racism. Its unlikely to go much forward, even if it is unlikely that it will actually go backwards. So, that effectively leaves the radical but smaller Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). But, the red berets continue to look more like a party of protest than a party seriously preparing to govern. And, while its leader Julius Malemas populist charisma may appeal to a minority, especially the black youth, he continues to frighten the many. End of term report: continues to improve but should be doing better. Ramaphosas daunting task It wasnt so long ago that predictions were being made that the 2019 election will result in the formation of a coalition. That continues to be a possibility, although the ANCs experience at running an electoral campaign will more probably edge it above 50%. But if that is so, it only delays dealing with its problems, and South Africans are left to speculate about future possibilities. One option is that, following an election victory, Ramaphosa will dispense with the Zuma hacks who continue to populate his cabinet and appoint an honest and capable team to lead the country, tackle corruption and put the economy back on track. Its a scenario which the overwhelming mass of the population will support, and if he were to meet anything resembling a success, the ANC will reap the benefit. However, the obstacles in the way of this path are formidable. Ramaphosa is already battling concerted fight-back by the Zuma crowd, and this is only the beginning. The looters, from the heights of the parastatals Eskom, the power utility, and Transnet, the transport utility, to the depths of the most miserable municipality in the country, will fight as hard and as dirty as they can to hang on to newly acquired wealth. And, there are enough crooked lawyers around to help them do it (all in the name of Black Economic Empowerment course). In any case, increasingly the ANC has come to function as an extended patronage, jobs and cash machine. Hopefully, Ramaphosa and his team will prove capable of cleansing the upper reaches of the state. But, carrying the fight downwards, into the provinces and local government, will simultaneously mean reforming the ANC. That may well prove beyond the bounds of practical politics, especially given that Ramaphosa himself will need to maintain his support base for an attempt at a second term as president. A more likely second option, therefore, is that even if Ramaphosa does a reasonably decent job, the economy will at best enjoy only slow rates of growth and improvement. Overall, it will do little more than limp along if not actually decline. Even with the best will and efforts in the world, turning the economy around so that it makes a serious dent in inequality, unemployment and poverty is going to prove a massive job. And its probably beyond a political party which, for all the appalling legacy of apartheid, itself bears heavy responsibility for the mess the country is in. Future prospects So, in coming years, the probability is high that South Africa will experience even higher levels of popular protest and class tensions than is happening at the moment. How politicians respond to these, and how they are handled, matters hugely. On the one hand, they will offer opportunities for genuine renewal, for doing things in a more progressive and democratic way. On the other, they will offer opportunities for cynical exploitation of popular frustrations by tellers of untruths and sellers of snake-oil, wrapped up in radical language, probably with some charismatic prophet at their head. Whether latter-type calls come from within or from outside the ANC South Africans will have to see. But they will probably be made by appealing to the dispossessed, impoverished masses in rhetoric which obscures the greedy interests of a frustrated, kleptocratic, Zuma-style bourgeoisie. It is then that South Africans will have to face down the risk of a local Jair Bolsonaro. Brazils new president is threatening a lurch to political authoritarianism of the most brutal kind. This after a campaign in which he rode to power on an extreme right programme in which he questioned the most basic of democratic values. Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. China News on Women Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home page Campaign urging people to speak up to protect children from criminal exploitation launches in Wrexham This article is old - Published: Monday, Nov 12th, 2018 A new campaign has been launched in Wrexham to highlight the rise of criminal gangs extending the reach of their activities in north Wales by exploiting vulnerable children and young people. The charity Crimestoppers and the North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones came together this afternoon to launch the campaign at the Kaleidoscope Project in Wrexham. The regional campaign coincides with the start of National Safeguarding Week (12-16 November), with this years theme focusing on exploitation. Criminal gangs from major cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London have extended their activities to the cities, towns and resorts of North Wales; this is known as County Lines. Young people are being coerced, groomed and threatened with violence to take part in illegal activity across north Wales. Many of them feel they have no choice and struggle to find a way to escape from the hurt and harm they endure on a daily basis. The campaign seeks to raise awareness of the issue, support young people through a range of partners in the community and encourage the public to speak up if they have any suspicions or information about County Lines. Whilst the charity Crimestoppers will handle information given to them 100% anonymously, there will also be activity by police across the region to disrupt and arrest those who are involved. North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones said: I am pleased to support this important new campaign to highlight the menace of the criminal gangs seeking to exploit children in their despicable activities as they seek new territories for their drug dealing networks. They exploit children and young people by coercing them into running Class A drugs, cash or weapons, not just here in north Wales but across the UK. Getting to grips with this growing menace is one of my top priorities. Gary Murray, North West Regional Manager for the charity Crimestoppers, said: The exploitation of children and young people by these gangs is truly worrying. The victims are often too young and too troubled to be able to realise what is happening to them. Crimestoppers believes everyone has the right to feel safe from crime and we need your help to protect children and young people from exploitation. We wont ask your name. Wont judge. Just listen to what you know. When you hang up the phone or click `send, youre done. In over 30 years, our charity has always kept its promise that everyone who contacts us stays 100% anonymous. Always. Martin Blakebrough, CEO Kaleidoscope, Drug Addiction Treatment Centre, added: County Lines threatens the wellbeing of our children, we have a duty to do all we can to protect them. We also need to be aware that the drugs they are forced to deal cause great harm to vulnerable adults and the communities they live in. If you have any information about those exploiting children and young people, Crimestoppers charity is here to help. Call our UK Contact Centre anonymously on 0800 555 111 or use our non-traceable online form at www.crimestoppers-uk.org. Drone delivery for Shoebox appeal launch can you make up a Christmas shoebox? This article is old - Published: Monday, Nov 12th, 2018 The launch of the sixth annual Shoebox Appeal in Wrexham for local charity Teams4U started in style at the Llay Warehouse when a drone flew a shoebox full of gifts over the heads of assembled guests. Speaking at the event, charity founder Dave Cooke said : It was a novel way to launch the event but the reality is we have to use more traditional methods to get shoeboxes to the kids in need each Christmas time which means we are totally reliant on volunteers and the goodwill of local people and for that we are incredibly grateful. This year will prove just as challenging logistically but with the help and support of Wrexham residents and those further afield we will make it happen and deliver gifts to those that would not ordinarily get one and that makes my Christmas. Teams4U have launched their sixth annual Shoebox Appeal in Wrexham with an event, officiated by the Mayor and Mayoress of Wrexham, in their unit in Llay Industrial Estate. For Teams4U Christmas is an all year round project preparing for thousands of Shoebox gifts heading to children and families in Eastern Europe. Just six years ago, the charity sent slightly over 4,000 Christmas gifts to deprived children in Romania whilst last year 5 articulated lorries delivered 38,000 Shoeboxes across orphanages, homes and schools in Belarus, Bosnia, Romania and Ukraine. The charity has grown to have a national presence with volunteers running Shoebox centres from Cumbria to Cornwall and they have big hopes to send over 50,000 Christmas Shoeboxes to children overseas this year. The charity says these gifts are often the only gift the receiving child will get at Christmas perhaps even at all in their childhood and are eagerly anticipated by the children. Teams 4Us Overseas Project Coordinator Ziz York commented: Were so grateful that the Mayor of Wrexham, Cllr Andy Williams could join us to mark our launch for another year and we thank him and the Mayoress, Bev for the interest that theyve always taken in what we do. Thanks to everyone who came tonight and celebrated the official opening of our new charity headquarters and the launch of our #ShoeboxAppeal in #Wrexham. pic.twitter.com/EH7DBQl75q Teams4u (@Teams4u) November 8, 2018 Having the Mayor thank our volunteers was really important for us. Having been out to Romania and seen for myself just how little these families have and the joy a shoebox brings to a child that otherwise wouldnt get a gift it makes me so proud of how supportive our community are. We really wouldnt achieve any of this without our volunteers and those whom donate the boxes. Thank you. The charity need your help Can you make up a Christmas shoebox? So what goes in a Christmas Shoebox? The boxes for boys and girls often include toys, stationery, sweets and a winter hat/gloves whilst the charity also receives boxes for the home suggesting useful household items such as candles, soap, clothes pegs and cooking utensils. The charity will be receiving boxes locally in the following drop-off points until Friday 30th November and if anyone is struggling to locate an empty shoebox, most of the drop-off points also provide spare shoeboxes. A list of ideas on what goes can go in the shoeboxes can be found on the charitys website: http://www.teams4u.com and videos of shoeboxes being made such as the one below can be found on the charitys Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Teams4Utube Drop-off points: Wrexham warehouse, Unit 8 Llay Ind. Est. LL12 0TU, open 9.30am-4pm Mon-Fri Manna Bookshop, Charles Street, Wrexham, LL13 8BT open 9.30am-5pm Mon-Sat The Atrium, Croesnewydd Hall, Wrexham, LL13 7YP, open 8.30am-3.30pm. The following addresses will provide spare shoeboxes and are drop-offs in the evenings: 25 Chester Road, LL11 2SF and Cair Paravel, Rhosrobin Road, LL11 4PG. Wrexham firm Cimteq wired for success with Foresight investment This article is old - Published: Monday, Nov 12th, 2018 Wrexham based firm Cimteq has received a 2.5m investment from the Foresight Group, a North West based private equity investment manager, to support future growth. This is the thirteenth investment by the 58 million Foresight Regional Investment Fund that is focused on North Wales and the North West of England. Since December 2015 the Fund, backed by local institutional investors including the Clwyd Pension Fund, has supported the creation of 260 new jobs across the investment area. Cimteq marks the Funds first investment into the North Wales SME community, supporting growth in the region. Located on the Wilkinson Business Park on Wrexham Industrial Estate, Cimteq specialises in the development, supply and support of modular software solutions for the wire and cable manufacturing industry. The Company currently offers two main software products to wire and cable manufacturers; CableBuilder, a software solution aiding the design of cables, and CableMES, a full manufacturing execution system. CableBuilder is a market-leading, modular system allowing clients cost-effectively to quote, design and produce cables of all types, whilst CableMES is a recently released software product utilising the latest industrial Internet of Things technology to optimise large-scale cable manufacturing operations. Cimteq was founded in 1998 and is managed by Ali and Amanda Shehab, who both have extensive prior experience within the wire and cable industry having worked at BICC Cables, at that time one of the worlds largest cable makers. With a global client base, Cimteq is recognised as an expert and market leader in its field. The Company currently employs 22 people. Ali and Amanda will continue to lead Cimteq, with help from additional senior resources including a highly experienced incoming non-executive Chairman, Bryan Taylor. Since his time as MD at Fujitsu Computers, Bryan has been Chairman of many software businesses including Dem Solutions, Navitas and Creditcall. Commenting on the transaction, Colin Everett, Chief Executive of Flintshire County Council, who administer the Clwyd Pension Fund, said: Through our commitment to Foresights Fund, Flintshire County Council is happy to be supporting the growth of local SMEs in North Wales and beyond. The Fund has already demonstrated its ability to drive significant job creation and we look forward to seeing Cimteq and other investments continue to grow and leverage Foresights expertise and network. Terry Evans, Lead Member for the Economy, Wrexham County Borough Council added: This investment in a Wrexham based company is welcomed. Matthew Pomroy, Investment Manager, Foresight said: With Foresights support and the unique market leading software offering, coupled with the teams exceptional expertise in the sector, we believe there is significant opportunity to grow Cimteq rapidly over the next three to five years. We are hugely excited to be able to support Cimteq in its next phase of growth. Ali Shehab, CEO, Cimteq added: We are delighted to be working alongside Foresight to further strengthen our position in the market. Foresights experience in supporting businesses and developing SMEs will be invaluable to the future growth of the business. BCMS Lead Advisor who advised Cimteqs Ali and Amanda Shehab, Mac Edwards, commented: We are delighted to have helped Ali and Amanda achieve their goal and help secure a bright future for Cimteq. This was a complex transaction, but our experience in selling industrial software businesses coupled with our previous transactions with the Foresight team helped maintain momentum. We wish both parties every success with this next chapter. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - It's been over a week since two people were killed and five others were hurt after a shooting at a Tallahassee yoga studio. On Sunday night, the City of Tallahassee organized a candlelight vigil at Cascades Park to promote hope, healing and harmony. Nine days ago, Maura Binkley and Dr. Nancy Van Vessem were killed during a shooting at Tallahassee Hot Yoga. Since that shooting, the community has hosted several vigils prior to Sunday's vigil at Cascades Park. Hundreds of people showed up to the Cascades vigil that included prayers and music. Mayor Pro Tem, Curtis Richardson said Sunday night was the first step in healing. "Give all of us an opportunity to find solace in turning to our neighbors and letting them know how much we care about them and what this means to this community and how we will now go forward in light of this tragedy that has happened here," said Richardson. Tonight's vigil was hosted by several groups including the City of Tallahassee, Namaste Yoga and United Way of the Big Bend. CLAYTON COUNTY, GA (WSB/CNN) - Investigators in Georgia are trying to find out why a Clayton County man killed and dismembered his neighbor. Police said surveillance video led them to the suspect and the gruesome evidence of the crime against 76-year-old Robert Page. "He's irreplaceable," said Bobby Austin of his grandfather. Page is remembered by family members as a man with a warm smile and a big heart. His murder is hard to understand for many. To go in such a tragic way is just hitting us really really hard, Austin said. Police said the accused murderer didn't even know Page and is not only uncooperative, but he has been combative with officers. "There are additional charges from incidents here at the police department, said Maj. Craig Hammer of the Clayton County Police Department. Page's wife first reported him missing Thursday. She told police he didn't answer her calls so she came to their home to find their front door wide open. "More than likely since the door was left wide open, there was some kind of confrontation, Hammer said. Police found Christian Martinez in the house next door, hiding under a couch with Pages cellphone. Then, they found pages remains. "Part of his body was located in a cooler, and other parts of his body were located under two tarps in the backyard, Hammer said. Martinez was renting a room, and police say he moved to Morrow, GA, from Mexico three months ago. Authorities are working with federal investigators to determine whether he came to the U.S. legally. Police added an obstruction charge against him for his alleged behavior at the police department. For Pages family, their many questions about a motive remain unanswered. Martinez faces a charge of malice murder. He is being held in the Clayton County Jail without bond. Copyright 2018 WSB via CNN. All rights reserved. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-11 22:34:11|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close TOKYO, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Experts in Japan acclaimed the achievements of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) and expressed hopes that the expo would further boost economic cooperation between China and Japan and bring benefits to both countries as well as the world. The first CIIE concluded on Saturday in Shanghai with sizable deals reached. "This year marks the 100th anniversary of Panasonic's founding as well as the 40th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Panasonic felt honored to participate in the first CIIE," Zhang Ting, a spokeswoman of Panasonic's Chinese branch, told Xinhua. During the expo, Panasonic exhibited its products and technology with the theme of "A Better Life, A Better World." "The expo provided a platform for us to communicate with our cooperative partners ... We showcased not only our products and technology, but also our commitment to make more contributions to the Chinese society and conducting win-win cooperation with more Chinese companies," Zhang said. "China has the largest population in the world and is also the world's second largest economy and second largest importer. While China expands its opening-up, Panasonic will continue to integrate itself into the development of China and make unremitting efforts toward its goal of 'A Better Life, A Better World'," she said. A total of some 450 Japanese companies took part in the expo. "China's promotion of free trade is good news for Japanese companies suffering from the shrinking domestic market due to the declining birth rate and aging population," said Goro Takahashi, professor at Aichi University. Takahashi said Japanese companies are hoping to boost cooperation with China particularly in areas such as advanced medical equipment, hydrogen cars, organic foods and low-cost logistics technology, company consultation. His view was shared by Juro Nakagawa, professor at Nagoya City University. "Japan is experienced in addressing the problems and needs created by population aging, and Japan's experiences could provide inspiration and reference for China," he said. He added that the two countries could boost trade and cooperation in the areas of health care and medical equipment as well as in food and some other areas, which would benefit both sides. Experts here also agreed that China's commitment to further opening-up, as shown by the CIIE, would have a major positive impact on the world economy. "At a time when trade protectionism is prevalent and economic globalization suffers frustration, China's further opening-up of its market will boost the world's confidence in free trade and provide the world with an opportunity to share the fruits of China's development," said Jin Jianmin, a senior fellow at Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo. "The expo has also provided a platform for global companies and industries to communicate with each other and discuss win-win cooperation," he said. "China is a major trader in the world. China increasing its imports would benefit not only Japan, but also other Asian countries as well as the world," said Nakagawa. "In particular, that policy will stimulate the investment and trade of the countries along the Belt and Road," said Takahashi. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 22:44:43|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (R) meets with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 12, 2018. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Senior Chinese officials met with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas over bilateral relations in Beijing on Monday. When meeting with Maas, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said that since China and Germany launched an all-dimensional strategic partnership in 2014, the two countries have seen frequent high-level exchanges, and significantly enhanced political mutual trust. Liu, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, hoped the two sides could seize the opportunity to continuously expand win-win cooperation in various areas, improve international economic governance, and enhance the wellbeing of the two peoples and people of the world. Maas said the German side attaches great importance to developing ties with China, appreciates China's policy of further opening up, and stands ready to deepen bilateral practical cooperation and jointly safeguard the global multilateral system. Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, also met with Maas on Monday. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 22:46:06|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close VILNIUS, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The campaign for presidential election in Lithuania officially started on Monday with seven candidates already lining up to take a seat from incumbent President Dalia Grybauskaite. With six months left to the election, the campaign of the presidential election has begun as the country's Central Electoral Commission (VRK) starts the official procedures. "We have started to register the members of political campaign, certain funding restrictions are also introduced, such as funding the campaign only from special election account, and so on," Laura Matjosaityte, head of VRK, told local business news website vz.lt. The final list of the potential candidates will be clear on February 21 next year when the registration of the members of political campaign is completed, though seven potential candidates have already expressed their willingness to run for the president's seat. Among those who officially declared their intentions to become the candidates are Gitanas Nauseda, former chief economist at the country's second largest bank SEB, philosopher Arvydas Juozaitis, members of the country's parliament Naglis Puteikis and Ausra Maldeikiene, members of the European Parliament from Lithuania Valentinas Mazuronis and Petras Austrevicius. Austrevicius is backed by the country's Liberal movement. The former Finance Minister of Lithuania Ingrida Simonyte is backed by the largest parliamentary opposition party, the center right Homeland Union- Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TSLKD), following her win at the party's primaries. Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union, the country's ruling political party, haven't decided yet on their candidate. Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis hasn't yet announced whether he would run for president. According to the most recent polls by Spinter tyrimai(Spinter Surveys), Nauseda is leading the rankings of potential candidates with support of around 25 percent of those surveyed, followed by Skvernelis and Simonyte supported by around 10 percent each. The president election of Lithuania will be held on May 12, 2019 with the second round to be held on May 26 if necessary. Lithuania's incumbent president Grybauskaite is to complete her second term in the office and will not run for president. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 22:54:13|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with a delegation from Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 12, 2018. The delegation is here to celebrate the 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up. (Xinhua/Sheng Jiapeng) BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping on Monday voiced the hope that Hong Kong and Macao will further develop themselves by embracing the nation's cause of reform and opening-up. Compatriots in Hong Kong and Macao are expected to continue participating in the country's reform and opening-up with sincere patriotism and pioneering spirit, attain the greater development of the two special administrative regions (SARs) by promoting the development of the country, and jointly work for the national rejuvenation, Xi said when meeting with a delegation from the two SARs. Hong Kong and Macao still hold unique positions, have unique strength and will play an irreplaceable role in reform and opening-up in the new era, he stressed. The delegation is visiting Beijing to celebrate the 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up. Vice Premier Han Zheng also attended the meeting. At the meeting, members of the delegation, including Carrie Lam, chief executive of the Hong Kong SAR, and Chui Sai On, chief executive of the Macao SAR, expressed a high degree of recognition of the country's cause of reform and opening-up and the "one country, two systems" principle. They also offered proposals on how to advance the cause and implement the principle. Fully recognizing the contributions made by Hong Kong and Macao compatriots and extending sincere gratitude to them, Xi said the reform and opening-up over the past four decades was a cause that Hong Kong, Macao and the mainland complemented one another on and prospered together with, while the two regions integrated their own development into the overall development of the country. "We should fully understand the roles that Hong Kong and Macao will play in the country's reform and opening-up in the new era, and support them in seizing opportunities and riding the momentum to foster new advantages, play new roles, achieve new development and make new contributions," he said. Xi said he hopes Hong Kong and Macao can contribute to the country's comprehensive opening-up in a more proactive manner, take the lead in attracting capital, technology and talents, and take part in national high-quality economic development and the new round of high-level opening-up. Xi said that Hong Kong and Macao should integrate themselves more proactively into the country's overall development while honing their abilities to foster new momentum for economic growth. Xi said that Hong Kong and Macao should participate in national governance more proactively, stressing that compatriots in Hong Kong and Macao should improve their systems and mechanisms for enforcing China's Constitution and the basic laws of the two SARs in line with the "one country, two systems" principle. Xi called on the two SARs, by taking advantage of their extensive connections with the outside world, to proactively push for more international people-to-people exchange, spread fine traditional Chinese culture and tell China's stories as well as stories related to the successful implementation of the "one country, two systems" principle. He noted that efforts should be made to create more opportunities for young people in Hong Kong and Macao and help them overcome difficulties in their studies, employment and starting up of businesses. While stressing that Hong Kong and Macao will have bright prospects, Xi expressed his hope that compatriots in the two SARs can work together with the mainland to open up new prospects in the "one country, two systems" cause, create a better life for themselves and strive to realize the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. At the beginning of the meeting, Xi shook hands with members of the delegation and had a group photo with them. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 23:12:32|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JINAN, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Yan Fang is busy wrapping up a seal engraved with the name "Matthew," headed to the buyer from the other side of the Pacific Ocean after China's Singles' Day. She works in a seal workshop in the city of Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius in east China's Shandong province. "This is one of the 6,000 packages that are to be delivered on a normal day," said Yan. Yan and her colleagues are busy packing up more than 100,000 packages for this year's Singles' Day (China's online shopping spree which falls on Nov. 11 each year). "We received about 30,000 orders for this year's Singles' Day, three times that of last year," said Zhang Kai, 31, manager of the seal workshop Kongfu Yinge (Kong Family Mansion Seal Workshop) Co., Ltd. "Online promotions help the business grow faster, but I'd rather stay true to my aspiration of sharing and protecting seal culture than seek economic benefits," he said. In Zhang's workshop, seals engraved with English names such as Matthew are not as rare as they were ten years ago. For thousands of years, seals have been used as a symbol of imperial power and certifying one's good faith. Over the ages, seal cutting has evolved into a unique form of Chinese art, closely related to Chinese calligraphy. The logo of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games was a manifestation of seal culture. In Zhang's seal workshop, after designing a font and tracing a mirror image of the script, Kong Lingjia, a 34-year-old master seal engraver, carefully cuts the inscription on a small pebble. "The process of seal engraving is a unique and miraculous way to express one's sentiment for traditional culture," said Kong. Zhang's workshop, situated close to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Cemetery of Confucius, now has over 700 staffs. However, about ten years ago, most of them ran private stores engraving and selling seals on streets around the heritage site. Zhang's father, a local renowned seal engraver, was one of them. Zhang said those seal stores used to viciously compete with each other, which was bad for the traditional seal culture. To better protect seal culture and share it with more people, Zhang opened an online store in 2007 and helped his father build a seal workshop, welcoming local seal engravers to join them. In recent years, his store has become one of the largest online seal stores with an average yearly income of about 20 million yuan (2.89 million U.S. dollars). Zhang is not alone. His community, Linqian Community, was recently listed as a "Taobao Village" by Alibaba and the Bureau of Commerce of the Qufu city government to honor its contribution to the local cultural and economic development and the online retail website. Most of the stores in Linqian Community sell cultural and creative products such as Hanfu (the traditional, historical dress of the Han people, the largest ethnic group in China), carved wood sculptures, and Chinese paintings and calligraphy. Due to its proximity to the Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion, Linqian has always been abundant in cultural resources. These online stores help the community share the seal culture with people from home and abroad, according to Kong Xianglong, party chief of the community committee. Linqian Community is the first "Taobao Village" in county-level Qufu city. With more and more Confucius themed creative products sold worldwide from his birthplace, it is considered as a new way to communicate with the world. Unlike people from his father's generation, Zhang not only focuses on the carving techniques but also the designing of the seal and the development and acceptability of the ancient seal culture in modern society. These days, Zhang usually works until early in the morning to analyze the data collected during the daytime to optimize the next day's management and selling strategy. "Online shopping and big data enable us to understand customers' preferences so we can provide customized products." Zhang presented a seal painted with a Beijing Opera figure and a Monkey-King-shaped seal and said they are newly designed decorations based on the analysis of the recent market demand. According to the Bureau of Commerce of the Qufu city government, there are over 500 Taobao online stores in the community, and the total transaction amount from 2017 stood at 150 million yuan. The raw materials of the workshop come from all over the world including Russia, India, and Afghanistan. These little pebbles are processed into creative stamps and then sold across the world along with traditional Chinese culture, according to Zhang Kai. "Seals have been playing an active role in personal cultivation and global cultural exchange," Kong Lingjia said, adding that a careful engraving work can add a touch of civilization to a piece of naturally beautiful stone thus bestowing it with high artistic quality. "I want to share my affection for traditional seal culture to the world through the Internet," Zhang said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 23:16:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close SARAJEVO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Members of Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH) police arrested on Monday five persons on charges of power abuse and bribery taking in the city of Bihac, located some 310 kilometers northwest of the capital Sarajevo. The first person arrested in police action was a former mayor of the city of Bihac, Emdzad Galijasevic. His lawyer, Ilijas Midzic, confirmed his arrest to local media on Monday morning. All persons were arrested for allegedly committing a criminal offense related to the construction of the Komrad Public Utility Company building in Bihac. "The persons are deprived of liberty because of the existence of grounds for suspicion that they committed a criminal offense of abuse of office power and the receipt of gifts and other forms of benefits," spokesperson of Federal Police Administration (FUP) Snezana Galic confirmed to local media. Galijasevic is also suspected for committing criminal acts of bribery and prevention of evidence. Namely, he was arrested while taking 10,000 KM (5,760 U.S. dollars) bribe which was paid by marked banknotes by a businessman who cooperated with BiH Prosecutors Office. At the time when the envelope with the banknotes was opened, members of Federal Police Administration entered the building and arrested Galijasevic. FUP searched the premises of the Bihac City Administration and Komrad on the order of BiH's Prosecutor's Office. Criminal Investigation is underway. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 23:23:14|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close OSLO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- About 10,000 Norwegian farmers will get a supplement of 310 million kroner (36.9 million U.S. dollars) for this year's summer drought and its consequences, newspaper Aftenposten reported Monday. While more than 286 million kroner will be given to livestock farming, a small part, 24.5 million kroner, will go to vegetable farming, the report said. The payments will go to farmers from ten Norwegian counties, according to the Norwegian Agriculture Agency. The payments are part of the agreement that was entered into during the additional negotiations for the agricultural settlement as a result of the extremely dry summer and come in addition to the crop damage compensation that farmers could apply for by the end of October. The drought in the summer has caused both crop failure and lack of feed. (1 U.S. dollar = 8.40 Norwegian kroner) Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 23:50:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close MAPUTO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Mozambican government Monday launched the national electrification strategy program aimed at ensuring all households in the country have access to energy by 2030. The program was launched in partnership with European Union countries, which promised financial support estimated at 80 million Euros, funding to be coordinated by the World Bank. Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said lack of energy results in the absence of social stability, low level of industrial productivity and has a negative impact on health and education. "The program launched today is based on the need to accelerate the continuity and tangibility of energy sector objectives, considering that 72 percent of the Mozambican population still does not have access to electricity," said the president. At present less than 30 percent of the population in Mozambique have access to the national electricity grid, due to limited resources such as transmission and distribution networks and unfavorable market conditions. According to Nyusi, the program will spread social justice and inclusion of people in areas with potential for economic activities to generate income. The cooperation partners, present in the event, considered the program as a pillar for poverty reduction and the process requires multiple forms of electrification. "Electricity makes communities safer and makes small businesses thrive, with the right environment for investment, growth is easily stimulated," said World Bank representative in Mozambique Mark Lundell. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 23:49:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Hospitals in Germany provide patients with medical services of "insufficient quality" in some areas, according to a first-ever official assessment of its kind in the country, which was published on Monday. In an analysis of 1,085 individual clinics, serious shortcomings were identified at 73 German hospitals in three assessed medical fields of obstetrics, breast cancer operations and gynaecology. The clinics in question were indicated as having provided services with "insufficient quality" in a verdict reached following close scrutiny of 2.5 million datasets by the Berlin-based Institute for Quality Assurance and Transparency in Health Care (IQTIG). The IQTIG was first created by the previous "grand coalition" of the German Social Democrats (SPD), Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and Christian Social Union (CSU) in 2014 with the passing of a new "law to further develop the financial structure and quality of statutory health insurance" in Germany. The legislation in question was aimed at making hospital planning and financing more dependent on empirical evidence of the quality of care they provide to patients. The IQTIG is tasked with conducting a regular statistical assessment of medical care providers in this context and entering into a "structured dialogue" with hospitals where needed to provide clinics with a rating of their performance. It is mostly at the discretion of state-level governments in Germany how to proceed if a clinic within their regional jurisdiction receives the worst-possible "insufficient quality" mark. Legislators can shut down units which repeatedly showcase serious shortcomings or inject more funding in a bid to alleviate the situation. The final quarter of 2021 is on its way and theres so much positivity about the rapid growth of the... Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 23:50:49|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close MOSCOW, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad could visit Moscow in early December to discuss bringing a durable peace to Afghanistan, a Russian government official said Monday. Khalilzad is currently traveling to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar with an interagency delegation. During the tour on Nov. 8-20, he is to meet with Afghan government officials and other interested parties "to advance the goal of an intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations that include the Taliban and lead to a sustainable peace," according to a U.S. State Department statement. Special Representative of the Russian President for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said Khalilzad suggested the beginning of December for the Moscow trip. On Friday, the second meeting of the Moscow format of consultations on Afghanistan was held in the Russian capital with the participation of deputy foreign ministers, special representatives and observers from Russia, Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Iran, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the United States. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani sent a delegation to the meeting and the Political Office of the Taliban in the Qatari capital Doha also participated. "It's a fact that representatives of the opposing sides were in the same room and were ready to talk to each other, which is the first step towards full-length talks in Afghanistan," Kabulov said. The Taliban agreed to talk with the Afghan government only after reaching an agreement with the United States on a schedule for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan, Kabulov said. They also demanded the release of all political prisoners and the abolition of anti-Taliban sanctions imposed against them in 1997 "as a preliminary measure of confidence," he said. The Taliban expressed their readiness to take part in the next meeting of the Moscow format of consultations, Kabulov said, without specifying when such a meeting may take place. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 00:09:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- A senior pilot of India's flagship carrier Air India was grounded on Sunday after he failed the mandatory alcohol tests just before he was scheduled to fly, local media reported. Identified as Captain Arvind Kathpalia, the pilot has even flown Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past, added the media reports. He was scheduled to take off the Delhi-London flight AI-111 on Sunday afternoon. He, however, failed the mandatory breathalyzer test, and was found to have an unacceptably high blood alcohol count shortly before he was scheduled to fly. He will now face a probe by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). According to media reports, a few minutes after the breathalyzer tests were completed it came to light that the pilot had high counts of alcohol in his blood and was not fit to fly. He was grounded and an alternate pilot was arranged in his place, due to which the flight got delayed by around an hour. As per the strict DGCA directives, Captain Kathpalia now faces a three-year ban from operating commercial jetliners in accordance. Aircraft rules prohibit crew members from having any alcoholic drink 12 hours prior to the commencement of a flight, and mandate them to undergo alcohol tests before and after each trip. This is the second instance when Captain Kathpalia failed a breathalyzer test. In January 2017, he was grounded for three months after tests revealed alcohol in his blood. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 00:29:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close by Keren Setton JERUSALEM, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- As the fifth World Internet Conference was concluded on Friday in Wuzhen, eastern China's Zhejiang Province, China's role in pushing forward the development of cyber industry and view of how cyberspace is supposed to be managed have been highlighted. The Chinese government called for speeding up the development of the digital economy and promoting the global Internet governance system to advance in a just and more reasonable way. For many, not only in China, this is a goal. As the Internet has seeped into people's daily lives, the importance to govern the often borderless and sometimes lawless space is critical. "Today, in cyberspace, on a global scale, we lack more concrete rules of engagement, as well as cooperation between nations, on how cyberspace should be governed and administrated," said Yoni Heilbronn, chief marketing officer of Argus, an Israeli cybersecurity firm. Heilbronn believed a more collective Internet and its regulation are needed. "International cooperation in fighting cybercrimes ... is crucial, because without international collaboration, we will be weaker," Heilbronn said. "Global collaboration is key to improving cybersecurity." China has made huge advances in recent years in Internet technology and industry, and China is taking a "leading role" in developing the sector, said Heilbronn. When the first annual event in Wuzhen was held in 2014, China was still establishing its position as an Internet powerhouse. But now, there is no doubt that the country is a key player in the area, Heilbronn added. It's really "quite incredible" to witness the pace of the development, said Yuval Tal, founder and president of Payoneer, an Israeli financial services company specializing in online and cross-border payments. Tal said that changes have been witnessed in how China handles payments with Wechat Pay and Alipay reaching the masses so quickly, while much of the world is still so dependent on cash and checks. The Chinese government has made broad promises to let global companies tap into the Chinese market and "share the benefits of globalization," said Tal. "I believe we are seeing signs of genuine goodwill and this will positively ensure we overcome mistrust of the past and build a better shared future." "China brings more points of view and diversity that are need in the modern world of the Internet," Heilbronn told Xinhua. The birth of the Internet also saw the birth of unwanted side effects that need to be addressed on a global level. "There is something so thorough about the Chinese approach," said Yuval. "Solid infrastructure, market education and dedication are major reasons why the Chinese Internet industry is succeeding." China will have a more significant role in promoting cybersecurity and safeguarding global society online, said Heilbronn. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 02:19:53|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel walk to the ceremony to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I in Paris, France, Nov. 11, 2018. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong) PARIS, Nov.11 (Xinhua) -- With world leaders gathered, church bells rang and Bach's Sarabande played, French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday held a solemn ceremony to mark the centenary of the Armistice of the First World War. Around 11 a.m. local time (1000 GMT), Macron and delegates from around 70 countries walked side by side towards the Arc de Triomphe to pay tribute to around 10 million soldiers killed during the 1914-1918 war. In a wintry and rainy day, 40-year-old Macron inspected troops. In his following speech, the president reminded the gathering that "during these four years, Europe had come close to committing suicide. 10 million dead, 6 million injured," ringing an alarm bell for the rising nationalism, which, according to him, would put on edge fragile world peace. 100 years on, the French president warned "the old demons are rising again. New ideologies manipulate religions, history threatens to resume its tragic course. "Let us build our hopes rather than playing our fears against each other," he said. "The lesson we draw of the great war cannot be rancor and resentment against other nations. And it cannot be allowing the past to be forgotten. The great war is a foundation that obliges us to think forward to the future and think of our essential values," he noted. At Sunday's commemoration, young students, born decades after the World Word II, read out in English, Chinese and French etc. testimonies written by French, German, British and American soldiers when the guns fell silent on Nov. 11, 1918. Culminating a week of World War I memorials, Macron also lighted a flame and laid a wreath to honor an unknown soldier who was killed in the war and whose remains are buried with others under the arch. After the ceremony, Macron hosted a lunch for the heads of state and government joining the ceremony. They then headed to the first Paris Peace Forum, without such leaders as U.S. President Donald Trump who attended the American commemoration ceremony at Suresnes Cemetery. In his opening remarks, Macron said whether the image of the commemoration is a symbol of durable peace between nations, or a picture of a last moment of unity before the world goes down in new disorder, "it depends only on us." He said that world's stability is threatened by nationalism, racism, antisemitism and extremism. It's also challenged by economic, environmental and migrant-related factors, he said. Following Macron's speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made references to serious conflicts worldwide, saying if "we believe that we have to draw conclusions from and learn from history, that makes us speechless." "We must not accept armed conflicts, wherever they are in the world, no matter how far away, no population, no nation, not a single person must be written off by us, " she said. Meanwhile, Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, told the forum that many elements today appear to resemble the beginning of the 20th century and the 1930s, warning against "a polarization of political life and of society itself." Guterres championed the cause of United Nations in his speech, saying today it is home to the center that harmonizes efforts towards peace and sustainable development. The forum is organized around five themes: peace and security, environment, development, inclusive economy and new technologies and will last three days. Starting from July 28, 1914, and ended on Nov. 11, 1918, the First World War is one of the bloodiest wars in history. Involving five European empires and dozens of world powers, it ended up with a Europe left in ruins and almost a generation of youth depleted. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 03:40:03|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Polish President Andrzej Duda lays a wreath on Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, Poland on Nov. 11, 2018. Poland marked a century of independence on Sunday, with major celebrations held in the country's capital of Warsaw. (Xinhua/Maciej Gillert) WARSAW, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Poland marked a century of independence on Sunday, with major celebrations held in the country's capital of Warsaw. Among the attendees were Polish President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and European Council President Donald Tusk, who is former Polish prime minister. "It is a great joy that 100 years ago there were such people, such soldiers and such leaders ... who could be united in order to regain Poland, despite differences of opinion," said Duda during a speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Pilsudskiego Square in Warsaw. "A free, independent and sovereign Poland was the single idea uniting them," he added. In an address to Poles, Morawiecki said that Polish people should unite and making Poland to become stronger, richer and happier. "Today, we can organize our home in a more efficient and just way, and that is also why we have this holiday, to confirm our own capabilities, to open up to coming years, to look to the future ... because our holiday is a great commitment to the heroes from 100 years ago," Morawiecki added. The major celebrations were followed by large-scale marches through the city of Warsaw. Polish Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski claimed that about 200,000 people took part in the march. Poland celebrates the national day on Nov. 11 to commemorate the anniversary of the restoration of Poland's sovereignty in 1918, after 123 years of partition. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 04:20:11|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close French President Emmanuel Macron addresses the Paris Peace Forum in Paris, France, on Nov. 11, 2018. The Paris Peace Forum kicked off on Sunday with speeches from French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called for sustained efforts towards peace on the occasion marking the centenary of the Armistice of the First World War. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen) PARIS, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday called on world leaders, gathering in Paris to join a global tribute to soldiers killed during World War I, to promote multilateral policy and to avoid the errors that led to the outbreak of the grinding conflict in 1914-1918. Hosting the inaugural Paris Peace Forum, Macron said: "Our predecessors have tried to build a lasting peace. It's smashed by the unilateralism of some, economic crises and nationalism." "The world we live in is threatened by crises that destabilize our societies: ... migrants' challenge, cyber crime and others. And we are undermined by the resurgence of sad passions, the passions of racism, anti-Semitism," he told the gathering. Therefore, he invited his counterparts "to promote concrete actions, so that this work of peace advances a little more each year". As part of World War I memorials, Macron, leaders from Germany, Israel, Canada and alongside Arab and African allies walked side by side earlier on Sunday, under wintry sky, towards the Arc de Triomphe to pay tribute to the 10-million soldiers killed during the 1914-18 war and mark the Armistice. "This celebration of the armistice will leave in history the image of numerous heads of state gathered together at the Arc de Triomphe in peace!" French President said. One hundred years after World War I, the two-day Paris Peace Forum brought together 70 heads of state and government, civil society and regional and international organizations to promote multilateralism and collective action to preserve calm over the globe. With notable exception, U.S. President Donald Trump didn't attend the forum. But, he vowed to preserve peace during a visit to an American cemetery in Suresnes on the western outskirts of the French capital. "One hundred years ago, the World War One, a brutal war ended, the armistice is, for the United States, anchored in our history ...It is our duty to preserve peace for which our fighters had fought," he said. Opening the first edition of "Forum for Peace", German Chancellor Angela Merkel said "most of the challenges today cannot be solved by one nation alone, but together. That's why we need a common approach." "One hundred years later, we look back on this war, it makes us aware of the devastating consequences that the lack of communications and unwillingness to compromise in politics and diplomacy can have," she Added. "The peace we have today, which sometimes seems too obvious, is far from being so and we must fight for it," she stressed. Echoing comments of Europe's main two leaders, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the audience that "multilateralism is no longer just a hope, it is more than ever a necessity". "Unless we have a multilateral system, the risk will be that we go back to relations based on strength only, and a spiral of budding conflict," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 04:40:15|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close MOSCOW, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Russia is reacting calmly to the recent large-scale military drills conducted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and wishes to continue dialogue on this matter, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday. "To be fair, we are trying not to conduct any large-scale exercises close to the borders of NATO member states...But in general, we are reacting to this calmly," Putin said in an interview with Russia Today TV channel, according to a Kremlin transcript. The NATO held the "Trident Juncture 2018" drills in Norway and its surrounding seas from Oct.25 to Nov.7, the largest since the end of the Cold War. The drills involved around 50,000 troops from the 29 NATO members and its partners Sweden and Finland, as well as about 250 aircraft, 65 vessels and up to 10,000 vehicles. "I hope that dialogue, which is always in demand, will also have a positive impact on this situation," Putin said. The president also said he supports the idea of establishing an all-European military force alternative to the North Atlantic Alliance. "It is rather natural for Europe to want to be independent, self-sufficient, sovereign in terms of its defense and security. I think that this process is, in general, positive, from the standpoint of strengthening the multipolarity of the world," he said. Putin is currently paying a visit to France and attending commemorative events marking the centenary of Armistice Day, during which he will possibly have an unofficial meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 05:20:24|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Sunday before his China tour that it is of strategic significance to maintaining strong and resilient dialogues with China. Leading a business delegation, Maas left Berlin for Beijing on his first official visit to China from Monday to Tuesday after he assumed office as foreign minister this March. The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced last Thursday that Maas' visit came after the invitation of Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The two foreign ministers will hold the fourth round of China-Germany Strategic Dialogue on Diplomatic and Security Affairs. "China is more than just our most important trading partner in Asia," said Maas, according to a statement of the German Foreign Ministry. "One thing is clear: there is no way to solve many global problems without China. Therefore, it is of strategic importance for us to have strong and resilient channels of dialogue with Beijing," Maas added. The German top diplomat noted that this is especially true with regard to the issues including Germany's role as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2019-2020, the strengthening of humanitarian aid, as well as the problems of climate change. "It is therefore good that we can continue the strategic dialogue between China and Germany in the two coming days," added Maas, who noted that the two sides will also exchange views on issues with different views. "But a strong, historically grown relationship -- such as that between Germany and China -- can endure this," said Maas. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 05:25:24|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Leader of Germany's Christian Social Union (CSU) Horst Seehofer, who is also German Interior Minister, is to give up party leadership, news agency DPA reported on Sunday. The formal declaration will be made during the coming week and a new chairman will be elected in a special party meeting in 2019. The decision was made by Seehofer after a severe state election setback less than a month ago when CSU lost its absolute majority in Germany's southern state of Bavaria. Seehofer is constantly under pressure since party members were unsatisfied by the result and on Sunday evening he said he would clear way for a successor, DPA report said, citing a source close to him. Local media speculated that by far the most promising candidate for CSU's top job CSU would be Bavarian Minister President Markus Soder. CSU is the Bavarian sister party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party (CDU), and is a member of the governing coalition government together with CDU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The CDU and SPD had also encountered a major failure two weeks ago in the state election in the western state of Hesse, stylizing a nationwide dissatisfaction with the governing coalition. All three parties are undergoing a shake-up in their personnel. CDU leader Merkel already declared her retreat as chairwoman after a party congress in December and the SPD head Andrea Nahles is facing close scrutiny. Some analysts said such shuffle could send shock waves to the already shaky German government. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 06:00:30|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NEW YORK, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of people marched in the annual traditional Veterans Day Parade on Sunday in New York City to honor those who served the country and mark the centenary of the end of World War I (WWI). Reportedly the largest Veterans Day event in the country, Sunday's parade featured marchers from more than 300 units of the U.S. Armed Forces and veterans of different eras wearing colorful military uniforms. They were joined by civic and youth groups, marching through Manhattan's Fifth Avenue in high spirits and amid cheerful band music. The grand marshal of the parade was retired U.S. Army Captain Florent Groberg, who was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2015 by then U.S. President Barack Obama for his service in Afghanistan. "Today it's about each other. It's about the character of this nation. It's about saying 'Thank You' ," said Groberg. The Veterans Day is a U.S. public holiday that falls each year on Nov. 11, the day when the First World War came to an end in 1918. In other countries the day was also commemorated as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, to keep memories alive about the devastating four-year war in Europe that killed an estimated 9 million soldiers and 7 million civilians. The United States joined the war on April 6, 1917 as a member of the Allied Powers with over 4 million troops, more than 116,000 of whom didn't make their way home. U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday joined dozens of other world leaders in Paris, France for a series of commemorative activities marking the 100th anniversary of WWI's end. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 06:35:34|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close JERUSALEM, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday cut short his visit to Paris after Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed at least six people which raised tensions in the region. Netanyahu's office said that the prime minister is heading back to Jerusalem "in the wake of the security situation in southern Israel." According to Hamas military wing, a special Israeli unit in a civilian car had crossed 3 km into Gaza, and was exposed by Hamas militants. The group issued a statement saying that during fire exchanges, Israeli aircraft were called to help the unit to withdraw back to Israeli territory. At least six Palestinians were killed in the strikes, including a commander in Hamas' military wing, Nur Barakeh, according to Palestinian reports. Shortly after the attacks, sirens were sounded in southern Israel. "Two launches were identified from the Gaza Strip towards Israel," a military spokesperson said in a statement. "The Iron Dome aerial defense system intercepted the launches." An Israeli military spokeswoman said much of the details of the incident were classified. However, the military issued a statement confirming "an exchange of fire" during an "IDF (Israel Defense Forces) operational activity in the Gaza Strip." The army's Home Front Command instructed residents in communities near the Gaza Strip to stay indoors and schools were canceled for Monday, Israeli authorities said. Earlier on Sunday, Netanyahu warned that if calm along the border is not kept, "we will act with maximum power." The violence came as Egypt and the United Nations were attempting to broker a long-term cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian group that runs Gaza. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 06:50:37|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close Palestinians inspect the remains of a destroyed building by Israeli airstrike, in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Nov. 12, 2018. At least six Islamic Hamas militants were killed on Sunday night in Israeli airstrikes on southeastern Gaza Strip, east of the city of Khan Younis, medical sources said. (Xinhua/Khaled Omar) GAZA, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least six Islamic Hamas militants were killed on Sunday night in Israeli airstrikes on southeastern Gaza Strip, east of the city of Khan Younis, medical sources said. Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the health ministry in Gaza told reporters that seven other Palestinians were injured in the intensive Israeli airstrikes. In response, Gaza militant groups fired barrages of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel, according to Israeli media and local Gaza media reports. Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas military wing, said in a press statement that "a special force that belongs to the Zionist enemy, driving a civilian car, infiltrated 3 km into the area of eastern Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip." "This special force killed the militant leader Nur Barakeh," said the statement. "After the special force was detected, our troops chased the force and dealt with it." The group said the war planes then intervened and began to strike on the area to cover the withdrawal of the special force from the place. Nur Barakeh, 37 years old, is the commander of Hamas military wing al-Qassam Brigades in the eastern area of Khan Younis. Israel accused him of being responsible for digging tunnels, firing rockets into Israel, shooting at Israeli soldiers by snipers and carrying out attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers. It is the first military escalation between Hamas and the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip since an Egyptian-brokered understanding for calm in the Gaza Strip was reached between the two sides last month. Eyad al-Bozzom, spokesman of the interior ministry in Gaza, confirmed that a security event happened east of the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis. He added that several Palestinian members of the armed resistance were killed and wounded and the police declared a status of alert to follow up the incident. Security sources and eyewitnesses said they heard the sound of an exchange of fire on the outskirts of the eastern part of the town, close to the border with Israel. The eyewitnesses said that Israeli fighter jets hovered over the area and various sounds of bombs and explosions were heard. Al-Bozzom declined to give more details on what happened in the area. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 07:05:39|Editor: ZD Video Player Close LISBON, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Portuguese Air Force said on Sunday that its two F-16 fighters played a "fundamental" role for the successful emergency landing of an Air Astana aircraft at Beja Air Base near Lisbon. "They certainly played a fundamental role, central to this whole outcome," said pilot-aviator colonel Fernando Costa, the commander of Air Base in Beja. The commander told a press conference at the air base that the F-16 fighters played a key role because they escorted the plane and gave "all indications" that allowed the aircraft to arrive at the base, adding that without them it would even be unable to approach the base and land in the best conditions. He said that the F-16 fighters also played some psychological role in radio contact with the commander of the aircraft in the sense of calming them" and so that the landing could "reach a good port," he said. The aircraft, built by Embraer, belongs to Air Astana of Kazakhstan and had suffered a navigation and flight control failure when it took off from Alverca and was bound for Minsk, the capital of Belarus earlier in the day. Two of the crew members out of six on board the aircraft with on passengers suffered light injuries in the accident and have been discharged from a local hospital. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 07:46:33|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close People participate in a rally to protest against the Moroccan government's decision of maintaining summer time all around the year, in Rabat, Morocco, on Nov. 11, 2018. The Moroccan government said on Oct. 26 that the country would maintain summer time to avoid repeated changes during the year. (Xinhua/Aissa) Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 09:20:52|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SYDNEY, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Over 75,000 U.S. dollars has been raised for a homeless hero who used a shopping trolley to intervene in Friday's Bourke Street knife attack which left one person dead in Melbourne. Michael Rogers, now known as "Trolleyman," was shown in footage driving the improvised weapon towards an assailant as he fought with police during a rampage in Melbourne's busy city center. It later came to light that Rogers is homeless, prompting an online campaign to raise reward money which has since more than doubled it's goal of 32,000 U.S. dollars. The fundraiser was organized by Donna Zen from the Melbourne Homeless Collective who said on the fundraiser page that Rogers can do whatever he feels best with any funds he receives. "He risked his own life that day for nothing in return and you can't put a price on that," Zen said. Rogers, who has a history of drug abuse and has previously spent time in jail, said he was "no hero," and described the decision to intervene as spur of the moment. "I've seen the trolley to the side, so I've picked it up and I've ran and threw the trolley straight at him," Rogers told local media. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said that while he understands the motivation to help out, the public are reminded to stand back if police are present at a situation and allow them to do their job. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 10:02:31|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close People visit the Rabbit, Cavy and Poultry Show at the 2018 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, Canada, Nov. 11, 2018. The one-day annual event brought hundreds of different selections of breeds of rabbits, cavies, pigeons and poultry to Toronto on Sunday. (Xinhua/Zou Zheng) Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 10:06:02|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SYDNEY, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A 50-year-old woman has been charged over a major strawberry needle contamination case in Australia's Queensland state and faces up to 10 years in jail, according to police. The suspect was arrested late Sunday, two months after a discovery of strawberry punnets pierced with needles sparked a major public safety warning and national multi-agency investigation, Queensland police said in a statement. "This is a major and unprecedented police investigation with a lot of complexities involved," said Detective Superintendent Jon Wacker. "The Queensland Police Service has allocated a significant amount of resources to ensure those responsible are brought to justice." The suspect, due in court on Monday, faces seven counts of contamination of goods under the criminal code, which carries a three-year maximum penalty, police said. A "circumstance of aggravation" will also be alleged, elevating the maximum sentence to 10 years' imprisonment, they added. The woman worked as a farm supervisor in the strawberry industry, which saw the contamination spread from Queensland to across the country, the ABC news channel reported. There were more than 180 reports of sewing needles in the strawberries in total, with at least 15 found to be hoaxes, Wacker was quoted as saying. Nearly 70 strawberry brands were affected by the scare, resulting in supermarkets taking the fruit off shelves and tons of it dumped at the peak of the growing season. Authorities also offered rewards for information on those responsible and rolled out tougher regulations to crack down on such incidents. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 10:51:10|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close by Xinhua writers Zhao Qing, Gao Jie SINGAPORE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The 33rd summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), being held here on Nov. 11-15, is expected to charter a new course for further regional integration and ASEAN's cooperation mechanisms with external partners. Under the theme of "Resilient and Innovative" set by this year's rotating chair Singapore, the summit will focus on strengthening unity in various areas in the face of growing uncertainties in the global strategic landscape, as well as leveraging on innovation and technology to improve the lives of the people. INTEGRATION, COMMUNITY BUILDING CORE ISSUE The summit will review progress made in integration and community building efforts including some of the major initiatives such as the "ASEAN Community Vision 2025" and other important regional initiatives such as the "Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025," and the "Initiative for ASEAN Integration." The ASEAN leaders will also endorse cross-pillar programs such as the "ASEAN Communication Master Plan 2018-2025," Secretary-General of ASEAN Lim Jock Hoi told Xinhua in a recent written interview. Since early this year ASEAN has intensified efforts to advance its trade facilitation and virtually all of intra-ASEAN tariffs have been eliminated by now. ASEAN is also finalizing an "ASEAN Trade in Services Agreement." Significant progress has also been made on initiatives related to e-commerce and the digital economy. The ASEAN Secretariat has undertaken an assessment of ASEAN readiness for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Moving forward, key priority is to fully implement the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint by 2025, deepen market integration, strengthen cross-pillar and cross-sectoral collaboration, and address new emerging issues requiring the region's attention such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. On the political and security fronts, the summit will touch upon cooperation in countering terrorism, preventing violent extremism and transboundary cyber threats, and enhancing maritime cooperation in the region. Issues in the socio-cultural field as well as in enhancing ASEAN connectivity will also be discussed. ASEAN'S EXTERNAL RELATIONS The 21st ASEAN Plus Three (APT) summit, East Asia Summit, as well ASEAN Plus One summits, to be held during the 33rd ASEAN summit, are important parts of ASEAN's external relations mechanisms. ASEAN emphasizes the important role of the APT cooperation framework in promoting peace, security, stability and prosperity in East Asia and is ready to further strengthen the East Asia Summit (EAS) as a leaders-led forum for dialogue and cooperation on broad strategic, political and economic issues of common concern. The 10 ASEAN countries are deeply concerned over the rising tide of protectionism and anti-globalisation sentiments and are expected to reiterate their continued support for the multilateral trading system and reaffirm their commitment to uphold the open regionalism principle while maintaining ASEAN centrality. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership negotiations have been intensified at all levels and ASEAN Secretary-General Lim said he was optimistic that negotiations will achieve substantial conclusion by the end of this year. ASEAN was established in August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The group was later expanded to include Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. CHINA-ASEAN STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AT NEW STARTING POINT China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership, launched in 2003, marks its 15th anniversary this year. It is among the most dynamic and substantive dialogue partnership for ASEAN. China has remained ASEAN's largest trading partner since 2009. China is also ASEAN's third-largest source of foreign direct investment. The ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement has been upgraded and work is underway for its implementation to bring further benefits to ASEAN and Chinese businesses. The two sides have properly managed sensitive issues and disputes through dialogue and negotiations, especially on the issue of the South China Sea. In August this year, a single draft negotiating text of the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea was reached, another significant progress on the negotiations of COC. China and ASEAN have also made great strides in socio-cultural cooperation. As both sides are committed to driving forward this dynamic partnership, the "ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership Vision 2030" statement is expected to be adopted at the 21st ASEAN-China summit to lay a solid foundation for the strategic partnership to advance further in the coming decade. "The Vision reaffirms the commitment of both sides and chart the direction to advance the ASEAN-China partnership to reach new heights in the coming decade as both sides seek to further explore potential for cooperation," Lim said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 10:51:10|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close MEXICO CITY, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- A senior official from a leading farm state in Mexico said Sunday that the country should work to boost its agrifood exports to Asia. Currently Mexico's agrifood exports to Asia account for just 5 percent of the total, said Hector Padilla, secretary of rural development for western Jalisco state, citing a recent report by the Chamber of Deputies' Study Center for Sustainable Rural Development and Food Sovereignty. Asian agricultural goods account for just 3 percent of Mexico's total food imports, leading to a surplus of 707 million U.S. dollars, said Padilla, also former president of the Mexican Association of Secretaries of Agricultural Development. In recent months, there has been an uptick in sales abroad, mainly to Japan and South Korea, as well as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, said Padilla. Mexico buys cinnamon and pepper from Asia, while exporting mostly pork, avocados and beer, which represent 52 percent of sales to the region. Jalisco supplies some 17 percent of the country's agrifood exports. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 11:21:15|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Leaders from the Asia-Pacific economies are gathering in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week on Nov. 12-18. This is the first time Papua New Guinea holds the event. The week-long get-together is held under the theme of "Harnessing Inclusive Opportunities, Embracing the Digital Future" with three policy priorities -- improving digital connectivity, deepening regional economic integration; promoting inclusive and sustainable growth; strengthening inclusive economic growth through structural reform. APEC is a regional economic forum established in 1989 to leverage the growing interdependence of the Asia-Pacific. APEC's 21 members aim to create greater prosperity for the people of the region by promoting balanced, inclusive, sustainable, innovative and secure growth and by accelerating regional economic integration. With a combined population of 3 billion, the 21 APEC economies account for 60 percent of the world's total gross domestic product (GDP) and nearly half of world trade. APEC is working on areas such as trade and investment liberalization, business facilitation, human security, and economic and technical cooperation, aiming to achieve sustainable growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. The notion of establishing a forum for promoting sustainable economic growth and regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific was first raised by former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1989 in response to the growing interdependence of the region and the advent of regional trade blocs in other parts of the world. The first APEC Ministerial Meeting was held later that year in Canberra, Australia, which marked the official establishment of the mechanism. In November 1991, the third Ministerial Meeting was held in the South Korean capital of Seoul with the approval of the Seoul APEC Declaration, which finalized APEC's objectives of developing and strengthening the open multilateral trading system, and reducing barriers to trade in goods, services and investment. In 1994, at the Economic Leaders' Meeting in Bogor, Indonesia, the APEC Economic Leaders' Declaration of Common Resolve was adopted. The declaration pledged APEC's intent to achieve free and open trade and investment by 2010 for industrialized economies, and 2020 for developing economies. APEC's institutional framework includes the Economic Leaders' Meeting, the Ministerial Meeting, the Senior Officials' Meeting, committees and working groups. The APEC Secretariat, based in Singapore, was established in 1993 to provide support and services for the forum's activities at various levels. APEC currently has 21 members, namely Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, China's Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam. It has three observers -- the ASEAN Secretariat, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, and the Pacific Islands Forum. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 11:36:17|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Ji Bingxuan (2nd R, front), vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, attends the opening ceremony of the Paris Peace Forum on behalf of the Chinese side in Paris, France, Nov. 11, 2018. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen) PARIS, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- A senior Chinese legislator attended the Paris Peace Forum and other related activities on Sunday. At the invitation of the French side, Ji Bingxuan, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, attended the opening ceremony of the Paris Peace Forum on behalf of the Chinese side. Ji presented a recently-published book of Chinese President Xi Jinping's discourses on "promoting the building of a community with a shared future for humanity" to the Peace Library set up by the forum. Ji said that President Xi's proposition on building a community of a shared future for humanity has profound connotations, and the proposition has contributed the "Chinese wisdom" and "Chinese solutions" to promoting world peace and development as well as the reform of the global governance system, and has been widely recognized by the international community. When visiting an exhibition dedicated to the Belt and Road Initiative at the Paris Peace Forum, Ji said that the Belt and Road are channels for trade and bridges for civilization, and have opened up a new chapter for mutual learning and jointly building a community of a shared future for humanity. The Chinese side welcomes France's participation in the Belt and Road construction and is willing to work together with France to advance bilateral cooperation constantly. On Sunday, Ji also attended the French government-organized commemoration ceremony for the 100th anniversary of the Armistice of the First World War. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 11:46:20|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close Photo taken on Nov. 12, 2018 shows oarsmen rowing the world's longest dragon boat on the Mekong river in Prey Veng province, Cambodia. Cambodia's 87.3-meter-long wooden boat was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's longest dragon boat on Monday, breaking the previous record held by China. (Xinhua/Sovannara) PREY VENG, Cambodia, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's 87.3-meter-long wooden boat was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's longest dragon boat on Monday, breaking the previous record held by China. The 87.3-meter-long and 1.94-meter-wide boat was taken more than six months to be built by the Union of Youth Federation of Cambodia (UYFC) in Prey Veng province and it cost about 60,000 U.S. dollars by Prey Veng Provincial Administration. The boat can accommodate 179 oarsmen. Guinness World Records adjudicator Pravin Patel verified the record onsite and presented UYFC's president Hun Many with an official certificate. "With a total of 87.3 meters long, Union of Youth Federation of Cambodia, Prey Veng and Prey Veng Provincial Administration, you are the new Guinness World Record holder for the longest dragon boat," Pravin Patel announced to thousands of people at an event held on the Mekong River in Prey Veng province. He said that China set the world record for the longest dragon boat which was measured 77.8 meters long on May 28, 2016. UYFC's vice president Sar Sokha said the boat will be exhibited at the Water Festival in Phnom Penh next week before being returned to be kept at Prey Veng Provincial Hall. "The purpose of making the longest dragon boat in the world is to remember the long history of the production and use of dragon boats by the Khmer people in old times, especially to remember the Khmer kings in old generations, who had used dragon boats as transport means to defend the territory," Sokha said. "It is also to promote the spirit of national affection and solidarity among the youths in conserving the legacies left by our ancestors," he added. To date, Cambodia has four records in the Guinness book. The three others include the world's longest hand-woven scarf, measuring 1,149.8-meter-long and 88-centimeter-wide, the world's largest Madison dance, involving 2,015 participants, and the world's largest traditional sticky rice cake, weighed 4.04 tons. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 13:14:51|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The first phase of voting was underway in India's central state of Chhattisgarh on Monday. The second phase of polling will take place on Nov. 20. Two-phased polling was decided to make elaborate security arrangements in Chhattisgarh, keeping in mind the presence of armed rebels Naxals who might want to disrupt the polling process. Chhattisgarh is one of the five Indian states that go to polls this winter. The other four states are - Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana. While Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram will go to polls on Nov. 28, the states of Rajasthan and Telangana will witness polling on Dec. 7. Election results of all five states will be announced on Dec. 11. People were seen standing in queues in all the 18 assembly constituencies of the state where voting is being held. As these constituencies are affected by Naxal armed rebels, security measures have been in place to prevent any untoward happening, said local media reports. Around 100,000 security personnel have been deployed to ensure peaceful polling, reported the India Today. Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed to the people of Chhattisgarh to vote. "Today is the first phase of polling in Chhattisgarh. My appeal to all the voters is to participate in this festival of democracy and vote in large numbers," he tweeted. According to media reports, due to the Naxal threat, polling in 10 constituencies - Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur and Konta, will take place between 7:00 and 15:00 local time, while others eight constituencies will witness voting till 17:00. As a security measure, drones have been deployed in sensitive areas to track the movements of Naxal rebels as they might target polling personnel on way to the booths. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 13:25:13|Editor: mmm Video Player Close Photo taken with cellphone shows firefighters working at the site of an warehouse explosion, which took place at about 10 a.m., at Huifeng Carbon Plant in Kongcun Township of Pingyin County, east China's Shandong Province, Nov. 12, 2018. Six people were killed and five others were injured Monday as an explosion ripped through the factory warehouse. An investigation into the cause of the accident is under way. (Xinhua) JINAN, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Six people were killed and five others were injured Monday as an explosion ripped through a factory warehouse in east China's Shandong Province, local authorities said. The explosion took place at about 10 a.m. at Huifeng Carbon Plant in Kongcun Township of Pingyin County, the county government said. An investigation into the cause of the accident is under way. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 13:27:38|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The air pollution level in India's capital city New Delhi Monday continued to be in the very poor category, officials said. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the overall air quality index (AQI) remained in very poor category at 381. "The AQI in Delhi at 9:00 a.m. (local time) today was recorded at 381," data released by CPCB said. "The air quality is severe and prominent pollutants are PM 2.5 and PM 10." Health officials said very poor air quality would causes respiratory illness on prolonged exposure. On Sunday the air quality remained in the severe category at 405. The air quality plunged into "severe-plus emergency" category last Thursday, night after Hindu festival of Diwali. A thick blanket of smoke engulfed the city and outskirts Thursday morning and people complained of difficulty in breathing and itching in the eyes. The air quality worsened because of the rampant bursting of toxic fireworks despite Supreme Court ban. To contain the pollution levels, authorities have banned entry of trucks in the city and already ordered a halt on all construction activities involving excavation with its limits. Meanwhile, the government official in neighbouring Haryana state Sunday said it was unfair to blame its farmers for Delhi's poor air quality. "Last year, farm waste was burnt on just 2 percent of the total sown area of paddy, and the figure further fell to 1 percent this year. However, it is being projected as if our farmers are burning farm waste in each and every field," an official release quoted Haryana Chief Secretary D S Dhesi as saying at an event in Hisar. Air pollution continues to worsen in New Delhi especially during winter months. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 13:32:42|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close HANOI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam exported over 1.2 million tons of rubber worth nearly 1.7 billion U.S. dollars between January and October, up 13.4 percent in volume but down 7.6 percent year-on-year in value. China remained Vietnam's biggest rubber export market in the 10-month period, followed by India and Malaysia, according to the Vietnam Rubber Association on Monday. Meanwhile, Vietnam imported 501,000 tons of rubber worth 917 million U.S. dollars, up 12 percent and 2 percent, respectively. Vietnam sold overseas nearly 1.4 million tons of rubber valued at roughly 2.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, seeing respective year-on-year rises of 11.4 percent and 36 percent. | 2018-11-12 13:41:37|Editor: mym Video Player Close NATO naval and marine staff members gather for a group photo on the USS Mount Whitney of the US Navy during the NATO-led military exercise Trident Juncture on November 2, 2018 at the Norwegian sea outside Trondheim, Norway. (AFP PHOTO) MOSCOW, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Russia is reacting calmly to the recent large-scale military drills conducted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and wishes to continue dialogue on this matter, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday. "To be fair, we are trying not to conduct any large-scale exercises close to the borders of NATO member states...But in general, we are reacting to this calmly," Putin said in an interview with Russia Today TV channel, according to a Kremlin transcript. The NATO held the "Trident Juncture 2018" drills in Norway and its surrounding seas from Oct.25 to Nov.7, the largest since the end of the Cold War. The drills involved around 50,000 troops from the 29 NATO members and its partners Sweden and Finland, as well as about 250 aircraft, 65 vessels and up to 10,000 vehicles. "I hope that dialogue, which is always in demand, will also have a positive impact on this situation," Putin said. The president also said he supports the idea of establishing an all-European military force alternative to the North Atlantic Alliance. "It is rather natural for Europe to want to be independent, self-sufficient, sovereign in terms of its defense and security. I think that this process is, in general, positive, from the standpoint of strengthening the multipolarity of the world," he said. Putin is currently paying a visit to France and attending commemorative events marking the centenary of Armistice Day, during which he will possibly have an unofficial meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. | 2018-11-12 13:36:41|Editor: mym Video Player Close Medics work at the scene of a bomb blast in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia, Nov. 9, 2018. (Xinhua/Faisal Isse) UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Security Council on Saturday condemned the terrorist attacks in Mogadishu, which killed 50 people one day ago. Friday's triple bomb blasts rocked the Somali capital. The first explosion hit a hotel, followed by two more nearby. The al-Shabaab militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack. In a press statement, the members of the Security Council expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims, as well as to the people and government of Somalia. They underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice and urged all states to cooperate actively with the government of Somalia and all other relevant authorities in this regard. Earlier Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the attacks. He reiterated the support and solidarity of the United Nations with the people and government of Somalia in this endeavor. | 2018-11-12 13:41:37|Editor: mym Video Player Close Belgium Queen Mathilde (L) and King Philippe during a ceremony commemorating the centenary of the WWI Armistice of 11 November 1918, at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Congres Column, in Brussels, Belgium, Nov. 11, 2018. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan) BRUSSELS, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, Belgian King Philippe delivered a speech Sunday morning at the Congress column in Brussels, calling on young people to become "heroes" and build a peaceful world. The military ceremony, which is held every year at the Congress Column in Brussels, started with King Philippe leading a one minute's silence to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Later, he delivered a heartfelt speech calling on the youth in Belgium and around the world to become true heroes. "I would like to say to the young people here, the day will come when we will no longer enjoy the heartening presence of the veterans who defended our territory. I am committed to keeping alive, with you, the memory of those who sacrificed themselves for us and the values for which they fought", said the Belgian sovereign. "This Congress column, erected in honor of our first parliament and our first sovereign, is guarded by the unknown soldier. It embodies a message from the past, but it also points the way to our future", he added in a speech to Presidents of the House and Senate, Siegfried Bracke and Christine Defraigne, representatives of the government and the corporate bodies. Since the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Belgium has organized a series of commemorative events every year on the 11th of November. In recent years, Belgium has also began commemorating the contribution of Chinese workers during the First World War. On Nov. 9 of this year, an exhibition of photographs took place in Bruges in memory of the "Chinese Labor Corps" active throughout the First World War. A day later, the Chinese Embassy in Belgium organized a ceremony in Poperinge, West Flanders, to commemorate the "Chinese Labor Corps" who made an extraordinary and lasting contribution to peace and reconstruction in Europe during and after the First World War. Belgium King Philippe arrives at a ceremony commemorating the centenary of the WWI Armistice of 11 November 1918, at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Congres Column, in Brussels, Belgium, Nov. 11, 2018. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan) The First World War broke out in 1914 and ended in 1918. Belgium, having been invaded by German forces in 1914, was one of the main and most bloody battlefields of the First World War. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 13:45:14|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SEOUL, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's army on Monday started demolishing guard posts inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has left the Korean Peninsula divided since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with armistice, on a trial basis. It was part of efforts to implement the Sept. 19 military agreement with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which was signed by defense chiefs of the two Koreas during the Pyongyang summit in September between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un. South Korea and the DPRK on Sunday completed the withdrawal of firearms, equipment and soldiers from 11 guard posts each along the inter-Korean border on a trial basis, according to Seoul's defense ministry. Among the total, the two sides agreed to reserve one guard post, respectively. South Korea's military planned to destroy the 10 guard posts by mobilizing excavators, rather than using explosives, to preserve the environment inside the DMZ and secure safety of the soldiers. The demolition works planned to be completed by the end of this month. After the completion, the two Koreas will go through a verification process in December, according to the Seoul ministry. South Korea and the DPRK have agreed to eliminate all guard posts inside the DMZ after the pilot demolition works. Inside the DMZ, South Korea and the DPRK reportedly have about 60 and 160 guard posts each. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 13:55:50|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close KUALA LUMPUR, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad arrived in Singapore on Monday for an official visit and to lead the country's delegation to the regional summits. "The visit will provide the opportunity for both sides to exchange views on an array of bilateral, regional and international issues of concern; and explore prospects for further strengthening cooperation for mutual interest," Malaysia's foreign ministry said in a statement. The prime minister will also lead the Malaysian delegation to attend the 33rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, as well as the related summits like the East Asia Summit that involves ASEAN's dialogue partners. "The theme of the Singapore's Chairmanship is 'Resilient and Innovative ASEAN'. It encapsulates the vision for ASEAN to be united amidst growing uncertainties in the global strategic landscape," said Malaysia's foreign ministry. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 14:26:10|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close COLOMBO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena late on Sunday said his sudden decision to dissolve Parliament and call for a snap Parliamentary election was to avoid violence from erupting on the streets of the country and on the floor of the House, when Parliament would have convened on Nov. 14. In a special address to the nation, President Sirisena said the best solution, according to him, was to not allow the 225 parliamentarians to fight each other and allow that to escalate into street fights in every part of the country and instead allow the citizens to elect their new government through a vote. The president further called on all political parties and state institutions to welcome his decision to call for a snap parliamentary election in January and to ensure that elections be conducted peacefully without any acts of violence and in a free and fair manner. President Sirisena, last Friday, signed a special gazette notification dissolving parliament and declaring Jan. 5, 2019 as the date for a snap parliamentary election. Sirisena's sudden move to dissolve parliament came one and a half years ahead of the scheduled Parliamentary polls. The island nation has been in a severe political turmoil, when on Oct. 26, the president surprisingly sacked his Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointed former President Mahinda Rajapakse to the post. Wickremesinghe and his party legislators have called the sacking illegal and called for parliament to convene immediately to prove Wickremesinghe's majority. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 14:37:11|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close Representatives attend the signing ceremony of ASEAN's agreement on e-commerce, in Singapore, on Nov. 12, 2018. Trade ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states signed an agreement on e-commerce on Monday, encouraging paperless trading between businesses and governments of the bloc to generate rapid and efficient transactions. (Xinhua/Then Chih Wey) SINGAPORE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Trade ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states signed an agreement on e-commerce on Monday, encouraging paperless trading between businesses and governments of the bloc to generate rapid and efficient transactions. The ASEAN Agreement on E-Commerce, the bloc's first deal to facilitate cross-border e-commerce transactions, was hammered out after nine rounds of negotiations among the 10 member states and was signed during the 33rd ASEAN Summit and related meetings. It aims at facilitating cross-border e-commerce transactions, creating an environment of trust and confidence in the use of e-commerce and deepening cooperation to drive regional economic growth. Singaporean Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing said at the signing ceremony that ASEAN is the world's fastest growing market, with 330 million internet users. By 2025, ASEAN's internet economy is set to quadruple to 200 billion U.S. dollars from 50 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, with e-commerce expected to grow to 88 billion U.S. dollars. The agreement is testament to ASEAN's commitment to creating a conducive environment for the growth of e-commerce through advancing trade rules in e-commerce and building up greater digital connectivity within the region, the minister said. With the agreement, businesses can access and move data across borders more easily, subject to appropriate security safeguards, the minister said. "This agreement will help bolster the trust and confidence of ASEAN consumers in e-commerce and drive adaption. In doing so, we will enable ASEAN businesses to grow domestically, regionally and globally," he added. ASEAN was established in August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The group later expanded to include Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 14:39:50|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close MUMBAI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- International payment platforms such as Visa, Mastercard and American Express may also be subjected to pay around 15-percent tax on their income in India as they set up servers locally to comply with a central bank directive on data storage. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had ordered payments companies to locally store data on all transactions taking place within India from Oct. 15, according to a report from the Economic Times on Monday. "Visa, Mastercard and American Express are currently out of the tax net in India, as they do not have a "permanent establishment" in the country - they operate here through offices in jurisdictions such as Singapore and store data on servers located in countries like the United States and Ireland. Permanent establishment, or place of business, is a concept in taxation that determines where an organisation is required to pay tax," the newspaper reported. Tax suggestion over the RBI instructions might be a prelude to a greater stress that numerous different organizations, such as Google and Apple may also be confronted. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 14:51:26|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SUVA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Fiji and the United States signed here on Monday an agreement to strengthen their cooperation to combat the illicit transnational maritime activities. According to a Fijian government statement, the shiprider agreement was inked by Fijian Minister for Defence and National Security Ratu Inoke Kubuabola and U.S. embassy's Charge d' Affairs Michael Goldman. Kubuabola said that the support by the U.S. government will significantly assist the Fiji Navy to enhance its capabilities in guarding the island nation's borders from illicit maritime threats and transnational activities. "It will greatly assist our navy officials and border control to monitor the yachts and vessels entering our seas and combat the transnational crimes and trafficking along with the unreported and unregulated fishing," the minister said. According to a press release from the U.S. embassay in Fiji, Goldman said that the shiprider agreement is designed to protect the Fiji's sovereignty and promote its ability to police its own waters. "It provides the ability to identity and possibly interdict the ships that maybe involved in illicit activities and illegal fishing, narcotics and smuggling, "he said. The agreement allows Fijian law enforcement officers to embark on U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy vessels to observe, protect, board, and search vessels suspected of violating laws or regulations within their exclusive economic zones or on the high seas, the U.S. embassy said. As a nation with more than 300 islands, Fiji has an exclusive economic zone of around 1.3 million square km. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 15:01:06|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SEOUL, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- South Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United Nations (UN) Command on Monday held follow-up talks to disarm the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the inter-Korean border, Seoul's defense ministry said. The trilateral talks began at 10 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) at the Freedom House, a South Korean building in the border village of Panmunjom. As the disarmament of the JSA inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas was completed in late October, the three parties would discuss ways to adjust surveillance equipment and share information. On Oct. 25, South Korea and the DPRK completed the pullout of firearms, ammunition and guard posts from the JSA, and for the next two days, the two Koreas and the UN Command conducted a joint verification for it. The JSA disarmament was agreed upon in the Sept. 19 military agreement, which was signed by defense chiefs of the two Koreas during the Pyongyang summit in September between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un. For the sentry duty, 35 unarmed soldiers would be stationed each by South Korea and the DPRK in the JSA. After all the procedures are completed, tourists would be allowed to visit the JSA from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 15:01:06|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close Afghan security force members stand near the site of a rally in Afghan capital Kabul on Nov. 12, 2018. Hundreds of protestors staged a peaceful rally in Kabul and gathered in front of Presidential Palace on Monday calling upon the president to take immediate action against attacking militants in Jaghori and Malestan districts of the eastern Ghazni province. (Xinhua/Rahmat Alizadah) KABUL, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of protestors staged a peaceful rally in Kabul and gathered in front of Presidential Palace on Monday calling upon the president to take immediate action against attacking militants in Jaghori and Malestan districts of the eastern Ghazni province. Taliban militants in a surprise move stormed security checkpoints in the peaceful Jaghori district on Wednesday and since then fighting has been continuing in Jaghori and the neighboring Malestan districts which have claimed dozens of lives besides rendering scores of people homeless. To push for fulfiling their demands, the protestors gathered in front of Presidential Palace Monday morning and is expected to issue a resolution on how to deal with the situation and their next step if the government fails to meet the demand. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 15:36:56|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- At least seven militants killed and eight others injured as fighting aircrafts targeted Taliban hideout in Dasht-e-Archi district of Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province on Monday, a local official Nasrudin Nazari said. Acting upon intelligence report, the fighting air crafts stormed a Taliban center in Qarluq area of Dasht-e-Archi district early Monday morning killing seven insurgents on the spot and wounding eight others, according to the official. No civilian was hurt in the sorties, the official added. Taliban militants have yet commented. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 16:02:43|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close TOKYO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. fighter jet crashed off Japan's southern prefecture of Okinawa, the Japan Coast Guard and Defense Ministry said Monday. According to the officials, the FA-18 aircraft crashed in waters around 290 km from Okinawa, owing to mechanical issues. The two pilots safety ejected, officials said, and were rescued by a U.S. military helicopter. The jet belongs to the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and the accident occurred while the jet was carrying out routine operations in the Philippine Sea, the U.S. 7th Fleet said. It added that the two crew members were in good condition. The fleet said that the USS Ronald Reagan has continued with its normal operations. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 16:13:12|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close SINGAPORE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived here Monday to start his first official visit to Singapore, where he is expected to build momentum for free trade and regional cooperation. During the visit, Li is also going to attend the 21st China-ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) (10+1) leaders' meeting, the 21st ASEAN-China, Japan and Republic of Korea (10+3) leaders' meeting and the 13th East Asia Summit. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 16:48:04|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close SINGAPORE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived here Monday to start his first official visit to Singapore, where he is expected to build momentum for free trade and regional cooperation. During the visit, Li is also going to attend the 21st China-ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) (10+1) leaders' meeting, the 21st ASEAN-China, Japan and Republic of Korea (10+3) leaders' meeting and the 13th East Asia Summit. This is the first official visit by a Chinese premier to Singapore in 11 years. Singapore holds the rotating ASEAN chairmanship this year. Li's visit is widely considered a key part of China's manifold diplomacy to defend multilateralism and free trade. It works in tandem with the recent China International Import Expo and Chinese President Xi Jinping's scheduled attendance of the upcoming APEC meeting in Papua New Guinea and G20 summit in Argentina. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of strategic partnership between China and ASEAN as well as the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up, to which Singapore contributed invaluable experience and investment. In Singapore, Premier Li is expected to hold talks with President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 16:51:54|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ISTANBUL, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Ten illegal migrants were reportedly missing on Monday after the boat carrying them capsized off Turkey's Aegean coast, the Turkish coast guard said. Two illegal migrants swam to the shore of Dikili district in Izmir province early in the morning, and reported that their boat had sank with 10 people missing, the coast guard said in a statement posted on its website. The Turkish force has sent three boats and a helicopter for a rescue operation, said the statement. The Aegean Sea was a favorite route for migrants fleeing into Europe via Turkey. A deal signed between Turkey and the European Union in March 2016 has helped reduce the flow of illegal migration. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 16:53:07|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Camp Fire, the massive raging wildfire in Northern California, has killed at least 29 people, making it the deadliest wildfire in the history of the western U.S. state of California. Wildfires are uncontrolled fires that spread quicky over woodland or brush. They are usually caused by human activities or lightning. In recent years, wildfires have become more devastating as a result of climate change. The following is a list of major wildfires in the United States in recent years. -- Thomas Fire The Thomas Fire is the largest wildfire on record in the history of the state of California. It broke out in Ventura County on Dec. 4 in 2017 and scorched 273,400 acres (1,106.4 square km) within 18 days, surpassing the 2003 Cedar fire in San Diego County, which burned 273,246 acres (1,105.8 square km). It destroyed a total of 1,063 structures and damaged 280 others. The fire claimed the life of a firefighter and a civilian who died in a vehicle accident while trying to evacuate. -- October 2017 Northern California wildfires The devastating wildfires that broke out on Oct. 8 and swept Northern California, killing 44 people and destroying at least 8,900 structures, including homes and business facilities. The wildfires burned over 245,000 acres (991.480 square km) of land and forced about 100,000 people to evacuate. Among the victims, the youngest was 14 years old and the eldest 100 years old. The losses from the wildfires were rough estimated at 1 billion U.S. dollars. -- Carlton Complex Fire The Carlton Complex Fire was a massive wildfire in north central part of the state of Washington which burned 256,108 acres (1,036.4 square km). It started on July 14, 2014 as four separate lightning-caused fires which merged into one single fire in four days. The complex destroyed 353 homes. The economic loss was estimated at 98 million dollars. It remains the largest single wildfire in Washington state history. -- Yarnell Hill Fire The Yarnell Hill Fire in the state of Arizona killed 19 firefighters in 2013. It was the biggest ever firefighter tragedy in the state as the wildfire in the Yarnell Hill ripped through half of the town, damaging about 500 homes. -- Long Straw Fire The Long Straw Fire was started by a lightning strike on July 8, 2012 that burned 557,648 acres (2,257 square km) in southeastern Oregon in the west part of the country. It was Oregon's largest wildfire since 1865. -- Bastrop County Complex Fire The Bastrop County Complex Fire was the most destructive wildfire in the history of the state of Texas. Three separated fires started on Sept. 4, 2011 and then merged into one large blaze. Two people were killed by the fire which destroyed 1,673 homes and cost an estimated 325 million dollars in insured property damage. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 17:22:45|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NAY PYI TAW, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi left Nay Pyi Taw Monday to pay a visit to Singapore and attend the 33rd summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and related meetings, said the Foreign Ministry. Her visit was at the invitation of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Suu Kyi paid a working visit to the Southeast Asian nation in August. Singapore is Myanmar's second largest investor with 19.644 billion U.S. dollars in 287 projects as of August 2018 since late 1988, accounting for 25.42 percent of the total foreign investment in the country. A total of over 200 Singaporean firms have been permitted to operate in Myanmar, according to the Myanmar Investment Commission. Trade between Myanmar and Singapore reached 3.8 billion U.S. dollars in the fiscal year 2017-18 which ended in March, up 833 million dollars or 28 percent from 2.967 billion dollars in 2016-17, according to statistics of the Commerce Ministry. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 17:43:10|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- India's Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a cyclone alert for southern states of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and adjoining Andhra Pradesh coasts, officials said Monday. According to officials, a deep depression in the Bay of Bengal has intensified into a cyclonic storm and is likely to cross the north Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coast between Cuddalore and Sriharikota on Thursday. "Cyclonic storm Gaja now lies at about 820 km east-northeast of Nagapattinam. It is expected to cross between Chennai and Nagapattinam during forenoon on Thursday," the IMD Chennai told media. The IMD has already issued warnings about heavy rainfall and squally winds at most places over north coastal Tamil Nadu and adjoining coastal Andhra Pradesh. The IMD said sea condition would remain rough to very rough over north Andaman sea and cautioned fishermen not to venture into Andaman Sea and adjacent west central Bay of Bengal. "Sea will be very rough, fishermen are advised not to venture in the sea until Thursday," the officials said. According to the IMD statement issued on Sunday, the storm was very likely to move west-northwestwards during the next 36 hours and then west-southwestwards towards north Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coasts during the subsequent 48 hours. The officials said gale wind speed reaching up to 110 kmph over west central and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal is likely to cross north Tamil Nadu coast between Nagapattinam and Chennai on Thursday. Soure: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 17:53:14|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close JERUSALEM, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Israel's military increased its forces along the Gaza border on Monday morning, a day after an Israeli officer and seven Gaza militants were killed in a clash in Gaza. "The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) has reinforced its troops in the Southern Command and is prepared to operate forcefully if necessary," a military spokesperson warned in a statement. The recent escalation started on Sunday night, when an Israeli force was caught on a special mission inside the Gaza Strip, according to Hamas, a Palestinian group that runs Gaza. Hamas' military wing opened fire, killing an Israeli officer. The move prompted Israeli aircraft to fly to the area to back up the force on the ground. In the massive airstrikes that ensued, seven Palestinians were killed, Hamas and Gaza health officials said. Israel's military provided few details on the incident, saying only that "during an IDF's Special Forces operational activity in the Gaza Strip, an exchange of fire evolved." The statement said that during the activity, an officer, identified only by his rank and first name initial, Lieutenant Colonel M., was killed. Another officer was moderately injured. Israel's Chief of the General Staff Gadi Eisenkot said in a statement that an "IDF Special Force operated tonight in a very meaningful operation to Israel's security." According to Eisenkot, the force and Air Force troops "fought a brave battle calmly and heroically. I salute our troops. The IDF owes Lt. Col. M. more than we can say. I embrace his family and wish the injured officer a quick recovery." In an apparent retaliation, Gaza militants fired rockets towards southern Israel. By early morning hours, 17 launches were identified, a military spokesperson said, adding that the Iron Dome aerial defense system intercepted three launches. The other rockets fell in open fields, causing no injuries. Tensions in the region were still high on Monday morning, with schools canceled for students in southern Israel for security reasons. The railway line between the southern cities of Ashkelon and Sderot was closed, "in accordance with the situation assessment," the army said, calling on the residents of the south "to follow the safety instructions provided." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short his trip to Paris and returned overnight, according to a statement from his office. At a news conference in Paris on Sunday, Netanyahu defended his decision to move toward an unofficial cease-fire with Hamas. He also warned that if calm along the border will not be kept, "we will act with maximum power." The sudden burst of violence potentially shattered hopes for a long-term agreement between Israel and Hamas. Egyptian and the United Nations officials have been working to broker a deal that will restore calm in exchange for easing the crippling blockade, which Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 17:55:47|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SINGAPORE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Monday urged members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to "work resolutely" toward the goal of economic integration in a world "where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures." The prime minister made the call in his speech at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit, held here during the 33rd ASEAN summit and related meetings. "ASEAN has great potential, but fully realising it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures," Lee said. ASEAN member states have grown and prospered because their governments have pursued economic cooperation, he said, adding the ASEAN Economic Community has become the sixth largest economy in the world, and is projected to become the fourth largest by 2030. Last year, ASEAN attracted almost 140 billion U.S. dollars of foreign direct investments, he said. Technological change is also creating new business opportunities, and the ASEAN digital economy is projected to grow to 200 billion U.S. dollars by 2025, the prime minister noted. "We took progressive steps towards deeper economic integration and openness, believing this was the best way forward. The results are visible today, and yet there is so much more that ASEAN can do," he said. The prime minister meanwhile urged businesses to also do their part. "Our companies hope to invest more in each other's countries, and do business across all ASEAN markets. The more integrated and open our markets are, the more conducive our rules and business environments to foreign investment, the larger the pie will grow, and the more we will all benefit," he said. Lee noted that the ASEAN Economic Community 2025 Blueprint will help guide ASEAN to deepen economic integration, open up new growth frontiers and create fresh business opportunities, calling on respective ASEAN member governments and business leaders to pursue this vision to ensure that ASEAN continues to be a dynamic region of growth. Heads of state and government of ASEAN member states and dialogue partners are gathering here on Nov. 11-15 for the 33rd ASEAN summit and related meetings to discuss security, cooperation and regional integration. On Monday afternoon, ASEAN trade ministers signed an agreement on e-commerce, encouraging paperless trading between businesses and governments of the bloc to generate rapid and efficient transactions. ASEAN was established in August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The group later expanded to include Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 18:30:01|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close People carry the body of Noor Baraka, a senior commander of Hamas, during his funeral in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Nov. 12, 2018. According to Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian group that controls Gaza, an Israeli force entered the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday night in a civilian vehicle and shot dead Noor Baraka. (Xinhua/Khaled Omar) JERUSALEM, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli officer was killed in a clash in the Gaza Strip on Sunday night, Israel's military said in a statement on Monday. The statement provides little detail on the clash, only saying that "during an IDF's (Israel Defense Forces') Special Forces operational activity in the Gaza Strip, an exchange of fire evolved." During the activity, an officer, identified only by his rank and first name initial, Lieutenant Colonel M., was killed. An additional officer was moderately injured, the statement said. According to Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian group that controls Gaza, an Israeli force entered the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday night in a civilian vehicle and shot dead Noor Baraka, a 37-year-old senior commander of the militant group. Militants opened fire at the car, which prompted massive Israeli airstrikes to help the force withdraw back into Israeli territory. At least seven Palestinians were killed in the fire exchange, said Palestinian health officials and Hamas. The Israeli army said that in an apparent retaliation, Gaza militants fired rockets towards southern Israel. By early morning hours, 17 launches were identified and three of them were intercepted by the Iron Dome aerial defense system. The other rockets fell in open fields, causing no injuries. Tensions in the region were still high on Monday morning, with schools canceled. The railway line between the southern cities of Ashkelon and Sderot was closed "in accordance with the situation assessment," the Israeli army said, calling on the residents of the south "to follow the safety instructions provided." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short his trip to Paris and returned overnight, according to a statement from his office. Netanyahu was in Paris to commemorate the end of World War I in ceremonies attended by dozens of world leaders. At a news conference in Paris on Sunday, he defended his decision to move toward an unofficial ceasefire with Hamas. He also warned that if calm along the border will not be kept, "we will act with maximum power." The sudden burst of violence potentially shattered hopes for a long-term agreement between Israel and Hamas. Egyptian and the United Nations officials have been working to broker a deal that will restore calm in exchange for easing the crippling blockade Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 18:32:15|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- China's mobile phone shipments grew 0.9 percent year on year to 38.53 million units in October, ending a four-month decline streak, according to a report released Monday. Total shipments during the January-October period reached 343 million units, down 15.3 percent from the same period last year, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) said in its report. Shipment of 4G phones hit 36.42 million, up by 1.6 percent year on year, accounting for 94.5 percent of the total shipments in October, according to CAICT, a research institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Chinese phones accounted for 84.4 percent of the total shipments last month with a 1.9-percent increase year on year to some 32.5 million units. Meanwhile, the number of new models launched in October decreased 25 percent year on year, according to the report. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 18:46:37|Editor: mmm Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- A delegation of four Qigong masters from China is visiting the San Francisco Bay Area to train Qigong practitioners at a series of events. The workshop, titled "Chinese Health Qigong: Ancient health enhancing exercises for modern fitness," is organized by Shaolin Temple USA and the Chinese Health Qigong Association (CHQA). During the four-day program from Thursday to Sunday, the delegation, composed of experts from the CHQA and some Chinese universities, demonstrated health Qigong and gave lectures on methods of traditional Chinese health preservation to local audiences. "The health Qigong is a new and essential form selected from many different versions of traditional Qigong to meet the requirement of modern practitioners," said Gao Lanjie, vice secretary-general of the CHQA. By aligning physical movement, breath and mind adjustments, health Qigong aims at improving the functions of the body, Gao added. "Most of our students in this workshop are adults. They are mostly engineers from Silicon Valley high-tech companies," said Heng Yuan, a senior instructor at the Fremont school of Shaolin Temple USA. "They keep practicing Qigong because they feel the benefit of it," he said. "If you can keep practicing for a month, you'll be able to feel the difference." Health Qigong has been actively promoted to other countries in the last 10 years. About 2.5 million people are exercising health Qigong in more than 50 countries and regions, according to Gao. She said health Qigong is increasingly being recognized by the overseas authorities. In the United States, roughly 50,000 people are practicing it. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 18:44:10|Editor: mmm Video Player Close KAMPALA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Tourism officials in Uganda on Monday said they have stepped up efforts to attract more Chinese tourists to the east African country. Daudi Migereko, chairperson Uganda Tourism Board, a government agency charged with the promotion of tourism, told Xinhua by telephone on Monday that the government is in the process of hiring an international public relations firm to market Uganda in China. Migereko said they had chosen to put in more effort in marketing in China because it is one of the major sources of tourists in the world. "The Chinese tour in big numbers and spend more time whenever they visit compared to tourists from other countries. The more time they spend, the more money our country will earn from them," Migereko said. He also said Uganda's choice to focus on China was informed by the growing economy of the Asian country as well as its special interest in Africa. "The Chinese have toured all the other continents in the world and now they have special interest in Africa. They come as tourists but also as investors. So we need to up our game and ensure that we market Uganda as special country within Africa where they can come and enjoy their holidays," Migereko noted. The public relations firm is expected to liaise with tour operators in China, airlines and other companies to promote Uganda's tourism potential. Migereko said already Uganda's embassy in China and its consulate in Guangzhou are doing some work to market the country. There are no readily available figures to show the number of Chinese tourists who visit Uganda. Uganda also uses public relations firms to market the country in Europe and the United States. The country earns about 1.5 billion U.S. dollars annually from tourism and expects the figure to double by 2020. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 19:08:53|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrives in Singapore, Nov. 12, 2018. Li arrived here Monday to start his first official visit to Singapore. During the visit, Li is also going to attend the 21st China-ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) (10+1) leaders' meeting, the 21st ASEAN-China, Japan and South Korea (10+3) leaders' meeting and the 13th East Asia Summit. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) SINGAPORE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived here Monday to start his first official visit to Singapore, where he is expected to build momentum for free trade and regional cooperation. During the visit, Li is also going to attend the 21st China-ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) (10+1) leaders' meeting, the 21st ASEAN-China, Japan and South Korea (10+3) leaders' meeting and the 13th East Asia Summit. Li will also meet with ASEAN leaders on the progress of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a trade deal that, once agreed upon, could cover half the world's population. Amid rising protectionism and unilateralism, China will actively work with all relevant sides to promote China-ASEAN strategic partnership and the integration of East Asia, and to jointly deliver positive messages of focusing on cooperation, East Asia, development, multilateralism and free trade, Li said in a written statement upon arrival. This is the first official visit by a Chinese premier to Singapore in 11 years. Singapore, a friendly close neighbor and important partnership of China, holds the rotating ASEAN chairmanship this year. Li said, during his visit, he wishes to draw from past experience, deepen cooperation and look for new development opportunities, bringing the all-round cooperative partnership progressing with the times between China and Singapore to an even higher level. Li's visit is widely considered a key part among China's manifold diplomacy to defend multilateralism and free trade that works in tandem with the recent China International Import Expo and Chinese President Xi Jinping's scheduled attendance of the upcoming APEC meeting in Papua New Guinea and G20 summit in Argentina. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of strategic partnership between China and ASEAN. It also coincides with the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up, to which Singapore has contributed invaluable experience and investment. With frequent high-level exchanges and fruitful cooperation results, China-Singapore ties have maintained a positive momentum at present, China's Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said ahead of the trip. Li and the Singaporean leaders are expected to speed up the two countries' cooperation on the Belt and Road, innovation and multilateral trade, Chen said. In Singapore, Premier Li is expected to hold talks with Singaporean President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. He will also hold discussions with people from Singaporean business circles and other industries and pay a visit to a tech company. At the summit, China will announce cooperation programs on such fields as energy, natural resources and geoscience for the purpose of promoting regional peace, development and prosperity, according to Chen. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 19:02:30|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close by Evan Dugan VANCOUVER, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Bill Newton, a Canadian medical veteran, grasped a wreath and waited for his turn to place the token of respect at the foot of Vancouver's downtown war memorial here on Sunday. He wanted to pay his respects to all of those in the Canadian forces who have fought or served in armed conflicts around the world over the past century or more. Newtown served in the medical corps, providing first for the Canadian forces on the battlefields in the last century. "If we didn't go out and fight these wars where they started, they would eventually come here ...," he told Xinhua, shortly after placing his wreath. Thousands of people attended the memorial. They wore bright red poppies on their lapels and viewed the ceremonies and march of Canadian servicemen from in and around Victory Square Park. Newton said he was glad to see so many people continue to honor the Canadian forces who served in the past and are serving now. "I'm very grateful for the people of Vancouver, I tell you," he said. "There are a number of times over there during the war I wondered what the hell am I doing here? Is this worth it? Does anybody know what we're doing? But here when I see this, the gratitude that people show. It makes it worthwhile," he said. This year's Remembrance Day memorial is especially notable. It marks the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended the First World War. In all, 630,000 Canadians fought in that war. More than 66,000 of them were killed and another 180,000 were wounded in the war that raged from 1914 to 1918. Remembrance Day ceremonies have been held here at Vancouver's downtown cenotaph for 94 years in a row. The event included a prayer of remembrance, and the recital of the famous war poem "In Flanders Fields" written by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. Flanders is the name of a First World War battlefield. Later Sunday, another Remembrance Day ceremony was held in Vancouver's Chinatown at the Chinese war memorial, which was attended by Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, Canadian Justice Minister and Chinese Consul General in Vancouver Tong Xiaoling. Until after the Second World War, Chinese-Canadians faced discrimination in Canada and were not afforded the same rights as others. But hundreds of Chinese-Canadians decided to fight for Canada in conflicts around the world anyway. The sacrifices of those volunteers eventually helped Chinese-Canadians win the right to vote and to be officially treated as equals. "Historically, the Chinese were registered aliens until 1947 when the new citizenship bill came into being and we became officially equals and citizens of Canada," said Maj. Alfred Woo, the organizer of the Chinatown Remembrance Day ceremony and a veteran himself. "That's why it's so important to commemorate the struggles and sacrifices ...," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 19:06:26|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close KABUL, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Nearly a dozen people were confirmed killed or injured in a blast that hit downtown Kabul on Monday, spokesman for the Afghan Public Health Ministry Wahid Majroh said. So far, three bodies and eight injured people had been taken to hospital, Majroh added. However,eyewitnesses believed that the number could be higher than reported. Police have yet to make comment on the explosion. The blast, obviously a suicide attack according to Majroh, took place in an area close to the foreign ministry, the presidential palace, a shopping mall and a hotel frequented by foreigners and government officials. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 18:49:04|Editor: mmm Video Player Close Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan (R) meets with the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) L. Rafael Reif in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 12, 2018. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan Monday met with the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) L. Rafael Reif. With intertwined interests, mutually-beneficial cooperation between China and the U.S. impacts global prosperity and stability, Wang said. Stressing the importance of trust, Wang called on the two countries to deepen mutual understanding with each other's history, culture and current development. "Scientific discovery and technological progress never end. We should make a constant effort to explore our knowledge of nature and society in a deeper and wider way," Wang said. Saying China's reform and opening-up has facilitated its scientific and educational exchanges with the United States, Wang voiced his hope that MIT will continue to help promote bilateral collaboration in science, technology, education and humanities for healthy, stable China-U.S. ties. For Reif's part, he said MIT cherishes its cooperative relations with China and is ready to further deepen exchanges with China to play an active role in advancing bilateral relations and friendship between the two peoples. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 19:41:24|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close DHAKA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Shelves and cases in the money museum in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, are filled to the brim with coins and currencies from the barter era to modern times, with the displays attracting many visitors. Visitors are curious about the fascinating stories behind the evolution of money, which basically started with the invention of the first metal coins by the Chinese, who also first introduced paper currency in the 9th century. Amid people's growing interest and curiosity about historical and contemporary money, the central bank of Bangladesh established a money museum, the first of its kind in the country. The museum has become a center of attraction drawing many visitors, especially students. Apart from Bangladesh money, the museum also showcases coins and currencies of many countries of the world, including some from ancient and modern China. For college student Ishrat Jahan and her classmates, this museum is an opportunity to see and learn about the currencies of different countries and their unique histories. Along with her two other friends, she recently visited the museum in particular to see the commemorative notes of taka (Bangladesh currency). Jahan said they were also keenly interested to see currencies of ancient Bengal and other countries. The museum's guide Olivia said students basically want to know about the history of local and foreign currencies. Rajendra Lal Talukder, office-in-charge at the museum, said the museum is aimed at introducing people, especially the younger generations, with the history and culture of the coins and currency throughout the ages. He said there are coins from almost all the countries in the world. "When we talk about money, China comes first because they invented the first metal coins and introduced paper currency in the 9th century," said Talukder, also a deputy general manager at the Bangladesh Bank. "Chinese coins and currencies reflect the country's rich culture and customs," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 20:01:49|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close AMMAN, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Jordanian government said Monday the number of people killed by the severe floods that hit Jordan over the weekend rose to 13 after finding another body of a five-year-old girl. Jordanian Civil Defence Department said the body was found 20 km away from an area in Madaba that was hit by heavy floods on Friday. More than 500 civil defence and security personnel took part in the search for the girl. Severe floods on Friday hit Maan governorate, Wadi Mousa area, Petra, Madaba and other areas in Jordan following heavy rainfall across the kingdom. Thousands of people were rescued from various areas, including hundreds of tourists in the city of Petra, one of the most famous tourist attractions in the Middle East. Authorities announced the state of emergency to deal with the weather-related developments. This week, heavy rainfall is expected in several parts in Jordan. Some meteorologists warned that Jordan is expected to witness more floods during the upcoming season as a result of climate change. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 20:04:22|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close KAMPALA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- At least nine students have been confirmed dead in a fire that broke out at a high school in central Uganda on Sunday night, a police spokesperson said Monday. Emilian Kayima told Xinhua over telephone that the fire broke out at St. Bernard's Secondary School, Mannya in the district of Rakai. He said nine students died in the inferno, and more details about the incident would be released later. School fires are common in Ugandan schools although most of them are not fatal. The last fatal school fire happened in 2008, killing 19 pupils at Budo Junior School in Wakiso District in the Central Region. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 20:21:31|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Twelve Indian fishermen were arrested and two of their fishing boats seized by Pakistani authorities near International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL), local media reports said Monday. The fishermen were arrested for allegedly straying into Pakistan's territorial waters off the Gujarat coast. Local media reports in Pakistan said the arrests were made by Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) personnel during an operation. "Two fishing boats, each carrying six fishermen, were seized by the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency near the IMBL two days ago. We received a confirmation on Saturday," a local news agency quoted National Fishworkers' Forum president Manish Lodhari as having said. Fishermen of two countries are often jailed for accidentally crossing into each other's territory. The fishermen from two countries traverse poorly defined boundary in the international waters as most fishing boats lack technologies to locate exact positions. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 20:24:34|Editor: mmm Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese entrepreneurs are growing from passive learners into leaders in innovation, a leading venture investor has said. Kai-Fu Lee, chairman and chief executive officer of Sinovation Ventures, a leading venture capital in China, told Xinhua in a recent interview that in general Chinese entrepreneurs have experienced three phrases in innovation. In the first phrase, Chinese entrepreneurs mainly followed the footsteps of other tech or market leaders, said Lee, who used to work for top tech companies including Apple, Microsoft and Google. "This is a good way of learning as long as it risks no disputes on intellectual property rights," said Lee, who founded Sinovation Ventures in 2009 to invest mainly in Chinese start-ups. The second phrase is a mini-innovation process, in which products and services were made possible through absorbing the best of different great ideas before they evolved and got improved to become more mature commodities or services, Lee said. In the third stage, Chinese entrepreneurs began to take the lead globally in innovation in certain areas, such as shared-bikes, mobile payment and short video application, he noted. Lee said that when he shared innovation stories with some people in Silicon Valley, they would simply shrug them off, arguing that similar stories have existed in the United States, although they might be not as good as their Chinese peers. In general, Chinese start-ups are more willing to learn from their U.S. counterparts, said the veteran investor. "Chinese start-ups had two teachers as they were learning what happened in both China and the U.S., while most Americans just turned inward and stuck to the U.S. alone, thus having only one teacher," said Lee. The competition of Internet businesses has entered the second half, in which the paces of disruptive innovations have slowed down and a new trend of online-offline integration is becoming even more popular. Since the founding of Sinovation Ventures, Lee has invested in more than 300 start-ups, and observed the differences between Chinese and U.S. venture capitals. While there is no stark difference in the amount of investment funds, the way they operate varies. The American venture capitals, he said, are better at spotting top technologies and helping start-ups make profits, a strategy that he called "a combination of PhD and MBA." The Chinese venture capitals tend to be more pragmatic, taking different strategies based on the different potential of the start-ups, varying from helping them grow into unicorns or offering to buy them out, Lee added. Lee said that there is still much room for China to improve in terms of creativity and innovation, a lack of which hampers the birth of great companies powerful enough to change the world. Therefore, he said, China needs to further reform its innovation system, especially by solving the problems in the education system. "Chinese universities focus more on the number of academic papers than cooperation with industries. But if China wants to emerge as a technology powerhouse in the world, it needs to tackle that challenge," said Lee. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 20:36:20|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Liu Qibao, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, presides over a ceremony held to commemorate the 152nd anniversary of the birth of Sun Yat-sen, a great national hero and patriot, and pioneer of China's democratic revolution, at Zhongshan Park in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 12, 2018. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A ceremony was held in Beijing Monday to commemorate the 152nd anniversary of the birth Sun Yat-sen, a great national hero and patriot, and pioneer of China's democratic revolution. The event was held by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body, at the downtown Zhongshan Park, which is named after Sun. Born in 1866 in south China's Guangdong Province, Sun was the founder of the Kuomintang Party and is a revered revolutionary leader who played a pivotal role in overthrowing imperial rule in China. Officials from the CPPCC National Committee, the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang Central Committee, the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and the Beijing municipal government laid flowers at Sun's statue. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 20:46:24|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Some 10,000 servings of imported Argentine veal were sold in just one minute during the first hour of the Singles' Day, a festival-like day that boasts a gala of electronic purchases in China, according to Suning.com, a pioneering Chinese online shopping platform for fresh food. Thanks to the boom in Argentine meat consumption in China, many large- and medium-sized companies found an opportunity to expand their business. So did Compania Central Pampeana (CCP), a Chinese-Argentine project that was born in 2014 and specializes in the meat market. "The proposal came from China," said Juan Budano Roig, one of the founders of CCP. "A Chinese businessman contacted us and we made an agreement with shareholders from both countries. The Chinese sharing is led by Kingwarm, a meat distributor that mostly works in Shanghai and Tianjin," Budano Roig told Xinhua through e-mail. In 2017, CCP exported about 11,000 tonnes of frozen boneless Argentine beef to China, three times its export volume in 2016. "We want to increase our exports to China for next year by about 30 percent in comparison to the current year," added Budano Roig, who thanks to this project has already come to China almost 15 times and visited important cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Ernesto Taboada, executive director of the Argentine-Chinese Chamber of Production, Industry and Commerce, said that one of the reasons why Argentine meat is so well-known is because "Argentina has no pollution. We have clear skies every day and animals live in open fields." Taboada said that "as cows walk, that makes their muscles firm and the meat doesn't have lots of fat. Animals are basically fed with grass and no balanced feed," a characteristic that most Chinese consumers recognize. Talking about the cultivation and export process, Taboada said that cows are inseminated by bulls of medium and high quality, and once a calf is born and reaches 180 kg, it is sold to the "greenhouses", which have fields with pastures suitable for fattening cattle. "Once there, the calves remain until reaching 300 or 400 kilos," Taboada said. Then, the "greenhouses" take these animals to auction fairs where refrigerated warehouses will buy them and export the meat and by-products to the whole world. On Nov. 6-10, some Latin American countries fixed their eyes on Shanghai where the first China International Import Expo 2018 (CIIE) was being held, which brought together representatives of more than 130 countries and regions for commercial exchanges. "We all feel very enthusiastic about this event...," Taboada said, adding that nowadays the Chinese economy is going through a "moment of great opening" to the entire world. At present, meat exports to China mean an income of about 465 million U.S. dollars for Argentina. This amount could rise to 1 billion if the job is well done in the future, according to Diego Ramiro Guelar, Argentina's ambassador to China. Facing "countless opportunities" for the agro-export complex, "small and medium-sized Argentine companies need to dare to export for taking full advantage of the opportunity offered by the Chinese market," said Budano Roig. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 20:45:22|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close LONDON, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- It's a good time to be a job seeker in the United Kingdom. Nearly half of employers in the United Kingdom raised their starting salaries to tackle challenges in recruiting new workers, according a Labour Market Outlook: Autumn 2018 released Monday by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, or CIPD. Based on a survey of 1,002 employers in the UK, the outlook showed 48 percent of organizations increased their starting wages to become more competitive in the job market. About 44 percent said it would be more hard to fill vacancies and 34 percent felt pressure in retaining staff over the past 12 months. Considering the uncertainty of Brexit, about 48 percent expressed insecurity over their EU workforce. Meanwhile, 90 percent of employers said the present migration policies would not, or only to some extent, meet their demands for low or medium-skilled employees. "The survey data point to continued recruitment and retention pressures, which will boost the earnings growth for some workers," said Gerwyn Davies, senior labour market adviser from CIPD. He added that it was good news for job seekers, while the surging labour shortages would result in higher workloads for some workers. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 20:56:33|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BANGKOK, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Red onion and garlic allegedly smuggled across Mekong River from Laos were seized at a Thai border market on Monday, police said. A haul of 1.7 tons of red onion and 1.4 tons of garlic were seized from a couple of pickup trucks at the border market in That Phanom district of Nakhon Phanom province, about 737 km northeast of Bangkok, said police superintendent Pol. Col. Chularit Chulaka. The red onion and garlic, worth about 100,000 baht (about 3,000 U.S. dollars), had been smuggled by boat on the international river from the Lao side of the border and unloaded onto the pickup trucks on the Thai side, Pol. Col. Chularit said. The two truck drivers, both local Thai villagers, were arrested on charges of smuggling the Lao farm goods. The red onion and garlic smuggled from Laos would have been currently sold in Thai markets for a range of 45 baht (about 1.36 U.S. dollars) to 55 baht (about 1.66 U.S. dollars) per kg in Thai markets, compared to only 15 baht (about 0.45 U.S. dollar) to 20 baht (about 0.60 U.S. dollar) per kg in Lao markets. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 21:21:07|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close KABUL, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A deadly suicide attack rocked downtown Kabul on Monday afternoon shortly after hundreds of people staged a peaceful demonstration in front of the presidential palace calling for better security measures earlier in the day. In the demonstration on Monday morning, the protestors urged the government to ensure security and protect the lives of citizens in the insurgency-plagued Afghanistan. Shortly after the government promised to hit back at militants and improve security, a suicide bomber blew himself up in Malik Asghar square, an area close to the presidential palace, the foreign ministry, two shopping malls, a school and a hotel frequented by foreigners and ranking government officials. The bloody attack, according to Kabul police spokesman Basir Majahid, claimed six lives and injured 15 others, mostly civilians. Although no group has claimed responsibility for the blast, locals and the officials do not rule out the involvement of "enemies of peace in Afghanistan," a reference to the anti-government armed opposition groups including the Taliban outfit. Meanwhile, Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, in a statement released here by his office, termed the attack as a coward terrorist one and condemned it in its strongest term. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 21:45:21|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close LONDON, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson Monday called on Prime Minister Theresa May's senior ministers to stage a mutiny and reject her proposals for Britain's departure from the European Union (EU). Writing in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Johnson claimed May's Brexit plan will effectively mean Britain remains as "captives" of the EU. He said her plan would result in Britain's trade policy being run by Brussels at least until 2022, warning it could be long beyond that date. His attack comes just days after his younger brother Jo Johnson quit as a government minister in protest against May's handling of the Brexit process. Recent media reports in London have speculated that more of May's ministers are contemplating resigning. The next few weeks are critical in the Brexit process if a future relationship deal is to be signed off before Britain leaves the bloc next March. The Telegraph said May's ministers have been called to a cabinet meeting scheduled on Tuesday at 10 Downing Street, but a final decision on her Brexit plans is now likely to be delayed while negotiations with Brussels continue. It leaves May struggling to secure a November summit with European leaders to sign off the Brexit plans, increasing the risk that Britain will leave without a deal, the Telegraph commented. Eurosceptic Boris Johnson wrote in his latest article: "I really can't believe it, but this government seems to be on the verge of total surrender." Johnson added: "We have agreed to become the punk of Brussels, signing up not just to their existing rulebook but to huge chunks of future regulation -- even though we will have no say in drafting that legislation. We have agreed against all promises that the European Court of Justice will have a say in the enforcement of that regulation in the UK." Johnson said: "The government has deliberately and flagrantly failed to prepare the UK to walk away from the talks, the better to be able to bludgeon MPs into voting for surrender." Rival London newspaper, the Guardian, reported Monday that May's Brexit plan is under siege from across her Conservative party as she attempts to overcome the final sticking points with Brussels in time to push it through a critical meeting of her cabinet ministers. "As time runs out, leading Brexiters have told the prime minister they remain deeply opposed to her version of an exit mechanism that would prevent the UK unilaterally quitting a temporary customs arrangement if Brexit talks collapse," the newspaper added. The Guardian added that May is also facing a growing rebellion from the remaining wing of her party with rumors that four more pro-Europe ministers are on the brink of resigning from her government. Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis resigned in July within days of a meeting of the Cabinet at May's country retreat, Chequers, when the prime minister's preferred Brexit deal was agreed upon. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 21:57:07|Editor: mmm Video Player Close JUBA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- China's successful poverty alleviation model credited for uplifting tens of millions from poverty has inspired South Sudanese journalists who hope their government replicates positive lessons from Beijing. Richard Jale, 26, news editor of the local Juba Monitor newspaper, was among a group of four news editors who have just returned to Juba after attending a forum for media columnists and commentators from Africa in China. The editors and columnists learned various poverty alleviation models and how media helps shape public policy on poverty. Jale said that on visiting the mountainous Guizhou Province, located in the southwestern part of China, they came face-to-face with reality on how China has managed to uplift thousands from poverty with the help of positive media rallying communities around public policy. He told Xinhua that the media in South Sudan needs to work with government to help on poverty alleviation by positively communicating government initiatives and policies to the people. According to him, the journalists were taken to a place demonstrating poverty alleviation achievements in Guizhou. The local officials told them the place used to be very poor but the government had come in to support them. Now a majority of the local population have improved household incomes and some families even own cars, Jale told Xinhua in Juba, adding that this has also prevented locals from migrating to other cities in search for jobs. Looking back on his visit to the province, he added that the policy of pairing model which involves rich companies helping poor communities and rich cities helping poor villages by the Chinese government, has worked amazingly to get people out of poverty, which can be used to great effect in South Sudan. China's development has been achieved due to popular public support toward government policy, Jale said, adding that the South Sudan authorities badly need to turn around the situation as the country hopes to recover from the effects of the over four years of conflict since 2013. "The attitude of our people is very different from that of the Chinese and yet we are endowed with resources like vast land for agriculture, but access to land remains a big problem, holding back our agricultural potential," he disclosed. He added that the complex land ownership system in South Sudan exacerbates poverty as many poor people can not gain access. Guizhou is one of the poorest provinces in China but it is rich in natural, cultural and environmental resources and is one of the most diverse provinces. Jale said that one of the most significant lessons South Sudan can take from China is providing subsidized education from nursery to vocational level for the underprivileged population because this will help create employment for the majority of youth. "I think we need a lot of technical education, because it's the gateway on reducing poverty in our communities. We don't have many skilled people," he said. He also said that South Sudan needs to strengthen the rule of law like China to curb the endemic corruption. The three-week trip to China that Jale took includes more than 30 media practitioners from African countries. "The Chinese government is improving lives through policies like building decent housing for the poor, distribution of cows to households and also they have made vocational training for free targeting mostly children from poor families," another journalist Riak Maker, 32, editor-in-chief of the Independent Newspaper, said. Maker said that South Sudan can adopt some policies which are implemented in China but should first improve the security situation in the country. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 21:58:45|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close TEHRAN, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Iran's armed forces would protect the country's oil tankers against possible U.S. threats in international waters, a deputy commander of Iran's Navy said Monday. "Iran's armed forces are prepared to protect our fleet of oil tankers against any threats in the marine waterways ... as they have in the past 40 years," Mahmoud Mousavi was quoted as saying by Press TV. His remarks came days after Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, threatened to punish countries and port operators which provide access to international waterways and port facilities for Iranian ships. "From the Suez Canal to the Strait of Malacca and all choke-points in between, Iranian tankers are a floating liability," Hook said. "Self-insured Iranian tankers are a risk to the ports that permit them to dock (and) the canals that allow them to transit," he added. On Nov. 5, Washington reinstated all its sanctions against Iran that had been removed under the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, targeting many of the country's critical sectors such as energy, shipping and finance. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 22:04:42|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NAIROBI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Kenya has set a target of earning some 10 billion Kenyan Shillings (about 100 million U.S. dollars) in 2018 from tax recovery, officials said on Monday. Edward Karanja, senior assistant commissioner of Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), told journalists in Nairobi that last year about 50 million dollars were recovered after over 200 people involved in various tax evasion schemes were prosecuted. "We have enhanced prosecution led investigations with a view to secure custodial sentences and recover taxes amounting to 100 million dollars in 2018," Karanja said. Karanja said that most of the funds will be recovered from individuals who falsify records using fake invoice, omit income on tax returns or have under-declared their income in order to lower their tax obligation. The KRA official said that the government is now prioritizing tax recovery for criminals convicted of tax evasion. Terra Saidimu, chief manager and risk management expert of intelligence and strategic operations at KRA said the government will adopt a multi-agency approach to fight tax and other financial crimes. He observed that the KRA has a fully fledged intelligence and strategic operations department charged with collection of financial intelligence to ensure that it can track all purchases made with proceeds of financial crime. Saidimu said that Kenya has signed mutual legal assistance and information exchange programs with a number of countries to assist in the tracking of assets acquired from financial and tax crimes. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 22:07:05|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close TOKYO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Lawyers and supporters of four South Korean plaintiffs, who were awarded damages by the country's top court for forced wartime labor, were refused a meeting at a Japanese steelmaker in Tokyo on Monday The lawyers were intending to hold a meeting at Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. and hand over a document demanding compensation for the forced labor of the plaintiffs during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. The move came following the top court in South Korea in a final ruling on Oct. 30 ordering the Japanese steelmaker to pay a total of 400 million won (350,000 U.S. dollars) to the four victims of forced labor during Japan's colonial rule. At the reception to the steelmaker, however, the lawyers' passage was blocked by a security guard who read out a message which stated that Nippon Steel believes the ruling by the top court in South Korea "goes against" the position of the Japanese government. The statement also said that the Japanese side believes the matter was previously settled under a bilateral accord between both countries inked in 1965. "We are disappointed that the company made the security guard, who was not even an employee, read out the statement and turned us away at the door," Im Jae Song, one of the lawyers, was quoted as saying. "Three of the four plaintiffs have already died. We will continue to call on the company to comply with the ruling as a company in a country ruled by law," Im added. The secretary general of a Japanese group, Naoyoshi Yamamoto, who is supporting the forced laborers in the lawsuit and was present with the South Korean lawyers on Monday, said that the lives of the plaintiffs had been destroyed by the forced labor and as such the Japanese company should admit the fact and apologize. "The plaintiffs' lives were destroyed by the forced labor. I want the company to face the fact and offer an apology," Yamamoto said. After Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. refused to hold a meeting with the lawyers, Kim Se Un, another of the lawyers, told reporters that proceeding will begin to seize the assets of the Japanese company's affiliates in South Korea as means to secure the compensation. After making another request for a meeting with Nippon Steel, the lawyers departed from the building and did not submit the document demanding compensation. The Japanese government, for its part, has told Nippon Steel not to comply with the South Korean top court's ruling. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, Japan's top government spokesperson, told a press briefing on the matter Monday that he had no comment to make on the visit to Nippon Steel by the lawyers. He did say, however, that the Japanese government is insisting that the South Korean government take "appropriate measures immediately to correct a situation that amounts to a violation of international law created through the court ruling." Nippon Steel itself has not yet made it public what it intends to do regrading the case. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 22:10:58|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close RIYADH, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia plans to rehabilitate or renovate 130 historical mosques in different parts of the kingdom, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported Monday. The first phase of the program will cover 30 mosques in 10 regions at a cost of more than 13.3 million U.S. dollars, SPA said. As part of a directive by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the program aims to preserve the urban cultural heritage and depth of the cultural and social history of Saudi Arabia. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 22:13:56|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close TOKYO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. fighter jet crashed off Japan's southern prefecture of Okinawa, the defense ministry here said Monday, marking the second crash in less than a month involving aircraft belonging to the USS Ronald Reagan carrier. According to officials, the F/A-18 aircraft crashed into the Pacific Ocean in waters southwest of Kita Daitojima Island around 290 km from Okinawa owing to mechanical issues. The two pilots safely ejected, officials said, and were rescued by a U.S. military helicopter. The jet belongs to the USS Ronald Reagan nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the accident occurred while the jet was carrying out routine operations, the U.S. 7th Fleet said. The crash occurred at around 11:45 a.m. local time and the two crew members who ejected to safety were rescued about 30 minutes later, the defense ministry said. "The crew was immediately and safely recovered by USS Ronald Reagan search and rescue aircraft and brought back to the ship for evaluation by medical personnel. Both aviators are in good condition," the U.S. 7th Fleet said in a statement. The fleet said that the USS Ronald Reagan has continued with its normal operations and the crash is under investigation. The crash of the F/A-18 aircraft, a multirole combat jet, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft and known colloquially as the "Hornet," comes on the heels of a U.S. Navy MH-60 Seahawk helicopter crashing on the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan on Oct. 19 during routine operations. The crashes occurring within a month of each other and related to the same aircraft carrier, has sparked a great deal of concern from the Japanese government, who said it will strongly request information about the accident amid safety concerns and local citizens' fears. "Accidents involving the U.S. military cause immense worry to people in the area and should not occur," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference. "We will strongly request that the United States provide us with information and ensure absolute safety management," Japan's top government spokesman added. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 22:22:22|Editor: mmm Video Player Close PORT MORESBY, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A series of cultural exchange activities were held here on Monday between China and Papua New Guinea (PNG) ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Meeting. Glamorous PNG, a documentary produced by China Central Television (CCTV), held a premiere ceremony. The documentary shows the natural scenery, history and culture, as well as modern life in PNG. Also at the ceremony, a 30-minute news program, Today, co-produced by CCTV+ Video News Agency and other overseas media organizations, made debut. It will be broadcast in PNG and local media will join in production of the program. PNG is a candid friend and an important partner for China among the Pacific island countries, as well as a key member to jointly build the Belt and Road Initiative, said Guo Weimin, deputy director of the State Council Information Office of China. The documentary and the news program can display friendship between China and PNG through telling stories between the two countries, which is quite important to boost mutual understanding, he said. Jerry Agus, chief executive officer of Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotion Authority, said PNG is now trying its best to make use of every opportunity to promote itself to the Chinese tourists, including a recent policy to allow group tourists from China to enjoy visas on arrival. He said that APEC meeting is a life-time opportunity for PNG to market and promote itself, not only as a country, but more importantly as a tourist destination, so that people can know where PNG is. More than ten mainstream media from the two countries sent representatives to attend the China-Papua New Guinea Media Dialogue. Participants exchanged views on how to boost cooperation in fields like news reporting and personnel exchanges. A photo exhibition was launched on Monday afternoon at the University of PNG, displaying 100 pictures on the two countries landscapes, cultures and society. Other cultural exchange activities include a donation ceremony to a local primary school, as well as a forum for people from China and PNG to share their experiences in building mutual friendship and trust. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 22:29:02|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ANKARA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish air force "neutralized" 38 Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq during the last three days, the military said Monday. The 38 PKK militants were "neutralized" by airstrikes carried out in Gara, Zap, Hakurk and Avasin-Basyan regions of northern Iraq, the National Defense Military said in a Twitter post. The air operation also destroyed weapon emplacements, shelters and ammunition depots belonging to the militia, it added. The Turkish authorities often use the word "neutralize" to imply that the militants in question surrendered, were killed or were captured. The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has been striving for the establishment of an independent Kurdish state by armed rebellion since the 1970s. Since the beginning of the year, Turkey has intensified its airstrikes and land operations to fight PKK militants in northern Syria and Iraq. In this file photo taken on Feb. 21, 2016, Iranian employees stand next to a cargo ship while unloading shipping containers at Shahid Rajaee port, some 20 km west of Gulf port city of Bandar Abbas. (AFP file photo) TEHRAN, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Iran's armed forces would protect the country's oil tankers against possible U.S. threats in international waters, a deputy commander of Iran's Navy said Monday. "Iran's armed forces are prepared to protect our fleet of oil tankers against any threats in the marine waterways ... as they have in the past 40 years," Mahmoud Mousavi was quoted as saying by Press TV. His remarks came days after Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, threatened to punish countries and port operators which provide access to international waterways and port facilities for Iranian ships. "From the Suez Canal to the Strait of Malacca and all choke-points in between, Iranian tankers are a floating liability," Hook said. "Self-insured Iranian tankers are a risk to the ports that permit them to dock (and) the canals that allow them to transit," he added. On Nov. 5, Washington reinstated all its sanctions against Iran that had been removed under the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, targeting many of the country's critical sectors such as energy, shipping and finance. File Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 16, 2018. (Xinhua/REUTERS) WASHINGTON, Nov.11 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. State Department said on Sunday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had a phone conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Khashoggi's death. Pompeo emphasized that the United States would hold all of those involved in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi accountable and that Saudi Arabia must do the same, according to a statement issued by the State Department. The statement also said that Pompeo reiterated during the phone talks U.S. calls for a cessation of hostilities in Yemen and for all parties to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict under the UN Special Envoy. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis announced last Friday that Washington would support the Saudi decision to use the Saudi-led coalition's own capabilities to conduct inflight refueling missions in Yemen, indicating that the U.S. side would stop refueling the coalition aircraft. Khashoggi, journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, was killed after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 2. After releasing the results of the initial investigations, the Saudi authorities announced that 18 people were arrested over alleged connections to his killing. On Oct. 23, President Donald Trump denounced the Saudi handling of the death of Khashoggi, calling it the "worst cover-up ever" and "a total fiasco." Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-12 22:33:45|Editor: mmm Video Player Close DALLAS, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- China expanded its share on a global list of the world's fastest supercomputers, according to a biannual ranking of the Top500 published Monday. The number of supercomputers installed in China increased from 206 in June to 227 now, accounting for 45.4 percent of the total, according to the ranking. The number of supercomputers that call the United States home, by contrast, continued to decline, reaching an all-time low. John Dongarra, professor of Innovative Computing Lab with the University of Tennessee, told Xinhua that China is making large changes with 227 systems compared with 109 in the United States. However, systems in the United States are, on average, more powerful, resulting in an aggregate system performance of 38 percent, compared to 31 percent for China. The Top 10 supercomputers saw five U.S.-built systems with the first two captured by "Summit" and "Sierra," which had similar architectures with IBM cores and NVIDIA GPUs. China's Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer is ranked third with its performance of 93.0 petaflops. Tianhe-2A (Milky Way-2A), deployed at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou, is now in the number four position, according to the ranking. Germany had a new Top 10 entry with SuperMUC-NG, ranking number eight. It was built by Chinese tech company Lenovo, the top supercomputer manufacturer in the ranking, producing 140 of the total. The most energy-efficient system on the Green500, a list released along with the Top500 to evaluate a system's energy efficiency, is once again claimed by the Shoubu system B at RIKEN scientific research institute in Japan. The Top500 list is considered one of the most authoritative rankings of the world's supercomputers. It is compiled on the basis of machine performance on the Linpack benchmark by experts from the United States and Germany. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 00:01:29|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close JAKARTA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A World Bank (WB) economist said on Monday that efforts to further boost middle class society was a key factor for Indonesia to expand potentialities in attaining further growth. "Boosting up middle class society would maximize national potentialities, propelling Indonesia's status to become a high-income country," WB Senior Economist Vivi Alatas said in Indonesia Economic Outlook 2019 held in state University of Indonesia (UI) here. She pointed out that middle class society holds 47 percent of the nation's total households consumption, apart from consumptions made by upper class society. As middle class society also invested their revenues in education sector, Vivi said credible expansion of the group may eventually affect in generations afterwards. She added that middle class society in Indonesia were apparently job opening agents as many of them, approximately 42 percent, employing other people. Attaching great importance on government role in developing middle class society, Vivi said that providing inclusive opportunities, social safety net and improving the nation's economic mobility were ways to facilitate development of middle class society. Efforts to overcome education gap and scrapping malnutrition issue among infants were also essential to support middle class society in the country, she added. Indonesia National Development Planning (Bappenas) office initially estimated that middle class people in Indonesia would expand to 200 million from an estimated 360 million population by 2045 on the back of improving income among countries, including in Indonesia, in the future. Currently, middle class group in Indonesia was approximately 40 million from 260 million population. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 01:34:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (2nd L) and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (2nd R) witness the signing of cooperation documents on upgrading the two countries' free trade agreement, connectivity, finance, science and technology, environment, culture and customs after their talks in Singapore, Nov. 12, 2018. (Xinhua/Shen Hong) SINGAPORE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- China and Singapore on Monday signed a cooperation document on upgrading the two countries' free trade agreement (FTA) as the two sides had finalized the negotiations. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong witnessed the signing of the document after holding talks. Li arrived here earlier Monday to start his first official visit to Singapore, where he is expected to build momentum for free trade and regional cooperation. When meeting with Lee, the Chinese premier expressed the hope that the two sides seize the opportunity of the finalization of the FTA upgrading negotiations and lift two-way trade and investment to a higher level. Upgrading the FTA will bring about real benefits to people and companies of the two countries and send to their business circles a strong signal of further expanding trade and investment, Lee said. On the occasion of signing the FTA upgrading document, the two sides also signed cooperation documents on connectivity, finance, science and technology, environment, culture and customs. During the visit, Li is also going to attend the 21st China-ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) (10+1) leaders' meeting, the 21st ASEAN-China, Japan and South Korea (10+3) leaders' meeting and the 13th East Asia Summit. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 01:48:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close KUWAIT CITY, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait is ready to develope digital economy as a foundation of global economy, Kuwaiti Minister of Commerce and Industry Khaled Al-Roudhan said Monday. Al-Roudhan made the remarks on the sidelines of the inauguration of a local business forum. Digital economy has become one of the most important and mostly used applications nowadays to the extent that it has turned into a basic foundation of the global economy, the minister said. This virtual emerging market is predicted to grow significantly in Kuwait in the future, he noted. Al-Roudhan revealed that special laws would be enacted to help develop pioneering businesses and support startups by the youth. With a record number of successful technology startups, Kuwait encourages digital economy in all sectors, with incentives such as issuing electronic licenses, the Kuwaiti minister concluded. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 01:47:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Monday officially announced the government's decision to buy all cashew nuts at 3,300 Tanzanian shillings (about 1.44 U.S. dollars) a kilogram, after private buyers were reluctant to buy the crop. "It's true the price of cashews has dropped in India and Vietnam, but our bodies, such as the commodity exchange and Tanzania Trade Development Authority, have not bothered to help farmers," he said. Magufuli announced the decision after he had sworn in ministers and deputy ministers he appointed last week in a mini-cabinet reshuffle, the Directorate of Presidential Communication said a statement. Last week, Magufuli sacked Minister of Industries, Trade and Investment Charles Mwijage and Minister of Agriculture Charles Tizeba. He directed the Tanzania Agriculture Development Bank to immediately release money for buying the nuts; he also ordered the Tanzania People's Defense Forces to get prepared for ferrying bought cashew nuts from farmers. On Friday last week, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa issued a four-day ultimatum to 35 private firms that have registered to buy cashew nuts to state in writing by Monday the amount of cashew nuts that they intended to buy this season. "Failure to do so in four days beginning today (Friday) until Monday at 4 p.m. the government will revoke permits to buy cashew nuts that were given to the 35 firms," Majaliwa told a news conference in the capital Dodoma. The statement from the presidency said the army lorries will be deployed in cashew nuts growing regions of Lindi, Mtwara, Ruvuma, Coast and Tanga. "I am appealing to cashew nuts farmers to be patient. The government will buy their cashew nuts and seek a reliable market," the president said. Majaliwa said the current cashew nuts buying season witnessed low prices of the crop during a handful of auctions held in cashew nuts growing regions of Coast, Tanga, Mtwara, Lindi and Ruvuma, forcing President Magufuli to convene a meeting last week with buyers of the crop, in which it was agreed that a kilogram of cashew nuts should be sold at 3,000 Tanzanian shillings onward. "It was an open discussion during the meeting and the buyers agreed to buy a kilogram of cashew nuts at 3,000 shillings onward, but after the meeting the buying of cashew nuts in auctions continued to be at snail's pace," Majaliwa said. The prime minister said during the previous season, 300,000 tonnes of cashew nuts were harvested and that 200,000 tonnes of the crop are expected to be harvested during the current season. Last week, Majaliwa told parliament that the government was seeking markets for cashew nuts abroad. "The government is holding talks with various countries that can offer handsome prices for our cashew nuts," Majaliwa told the house in Dodoma. The new buying season started early this month but no trading took place due to a boycott, leading to fears that the disruption would affect the country's foreign exchange earnings. International prices for cashew nuts have dropped by nearly half since March 2017. Farmers in Cote d'Ivoire, the world's top cashew nuts producer with an output of 770,000 tonnes expected this year, were reported last month to have been struggling to sell their yields, with an estimated 150,000 tonnes lying around in warehouses. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 01:43:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) holds talks with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Singapore, Nov. 12, 2018. (Xinhua/Shen Hong) SINGAPORE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- China and Singapore have lifted the Guangzhou Knowledge City, an exemplary program in bilateral cooperation, to a national-level project, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said here Monday. In talks with his Singaporean counterpart, Lee Hsien Loong, Li said the two sides should seize the opportunity to actively expand cooperation in smart-city building, promote the upgrading of city management and artificial intelligence development, and mull new local-level collaboration. Lee said the Singaporean side is glad to see the upgrade of the project, and ready to step up smart-city cooperation with China. The Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, positioned as a model and catalyst of the economic upgrading and environmental enhancement of south China's Guangdong Province, is a major joint project intended to set the trend for sustainable and knowledge-based cities. Intergovernmental cooperation projects between China and Singapore, such as the Suzhou Industrial Park and the Tianjin Eco-City, have yielded fruitful results. The upgrade of the Guangzhou Knowledge City project is expected to inject fresh momentum into bilateral practical cooperation. During the first official visit to Singapore by a Chinese premier in 11 years, Li will also attend the 21st leaders' meeting between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the 21st ASEAN-China, Japan and South Korea leaders' meeting, respectively known as 10+1 and 10+3, as well as the 13th East Asia Summit. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 01:53:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LONDON, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- British Home Secretary Sajid Javid on Monday said that the number of police officers on the London streets was a key part of efforts to tackle violent crime. The British capital is being haunted by rising knife crimes, which left five people killed during the first week of this month. Javid admitted that "a fresh look" at police resources nationwide is needed, saying that officer numbers is "an important part of the solution" of reducing crime figures." British police funding has fallen by 19 percent in real terms since 2010, while officer numbers have decreased by more than 20,000 over the same period. Javid told Good Morning Britain: "Police numbers have to be an important part of the solution. Let's not pretend that it's not. There has been a big increase in police funding in the last three years." "There was a big increase last year. That said, I'm the first to admit, we need to take a fresh look at that and make sure that police - not just in London, but across the country -- have the resources that they need," he said. There were five people stabbed to death in London in separate killings in the week from Oct. 31. In London alone there have been 119 violent deaths in 2018, including two cases that are being treated as self-defense. Around a third involved victims aged 16 to 24 while 20 were teenagers. Amid the violence, police chiefs have proposed an expansion of officers' stop-and-search powers. The number of homicides in the capital is nearing that which was recorded for the whole of last year. In 2017, there were 118 violent deaths in the capital, excluding the victims of the terror attacks at Westminster Bridge, London Bridge and Finsbury Park. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 01:56:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NICOSIA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The estranged communities of Greek and Turkish Cypriots opened two more crossing points on Monday to facilitate contacts between them, 44 years after Turkish troops forcibly divided the eastern Mediterranean island and its population. One of the check points was established a short distance for the occupied ghost city of Famagusta in the east and the other in a mountain area about 50 kilometers to the west of the capital Nicosia. There were no ceremonies when the two crossing points started operation exactly at noon, after discussions which lasted over three years, but people from the two sides who walked over the dividing line hugged and kissed each other. There were long queues from both sides at the crossing point at Deryneia, a stone's throw from Famagusta, the city which remains fenced off. Most Greek and Turkish Cypriot political parties hailed the inauguration of the checkpoints as another step towards the re-unification of Cyprus, but some extreme nationalist small groups from both sides voiced their opposition for the same reason: they wanted people to be kept apart. The United Nations in Cyprus welcomed the opening of the crossing points as a means of facilitating contacts and building confidence between the two communities. "Today it is a good day for Cyprus...These crossing points will play an important role in helping increase people to people contacts, contributing to build much needed trust and confidence between the communities on the island," said Elizabeth Spehar, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Cyprus and head of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP). UNFICYP's spokesman also said that the United Nations stands ready to support both sides for further confidence building measures that will help build trust between the communities. People from both communities have been demanding for many years the opening of at least two more crossings that will make life easier for thousands who are forced to make long detours to travel from their places. Turkey sent troops in Cyprus in 1974, in reaction to a coup organized by the military rulers of Greece, forcibly ousting some 170,000 Greek Cypriots from their homes in the northern part of the island. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 02:02:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close CAIRO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian security forces killed on Monday a suicide bomber who attempted to blow himself up at a security checkpoint in North Sinai Province northeast of the capital Cairo, official MENA news agency reported. "The suicide bomber tried to blow himself up as he approached a security checkpoint south of Arish City of North Sinai, but the security forces opened fire and killed him," MENA quoted unnamed security sources as saying. The forces found an explosive belt in the dead man's possession, the report said. Egypt has been suffering terrorist activities that killed hundreds of policemen, soldiers and civilians following the popular-backed military ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in early July 2013. Most of the terror attacks in Egypt were claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the Islamic State regional terrorist group. The Egyptian security forces killed hundreds of terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's anti-terror war declared by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the army chief then, following Morsi's ouster. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 02:07:52|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close A group of martial arts students perform during "The Legend of Shaolin 2018" show in Houston, Texas, the United States, on Nov. 11, 2018. Hundreds of Chinese and American audience marveled at the performance of Chinese Shaolin Kung Fu on Sunday in Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States. (Xinhua/Yi-Chin Lee) HOUSTON, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of Chinese and American audience marveled at the performance of Chinese Shaolin Kung Fu Sunday in Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States. Named "The legend of Shaolin 2018," the show was the recital of the Shi Xing Hao Shaolin Kung Fu Academy in Houston. Students of the academy, young and old, performed all kinds of martial arts, receiving cheers and acclamation from the audience. The academy started as a small class of only 10 students in 1998. In the past 20 years, it has trained thousands of Kung Fu lovers, and many of them gain national and international medals. A disciple from Shaolin Temple in China, the principal of the academy, Shi Xing Hao, told Xinhua that during the past 20 years, more and more Americans have showed great passion for Chinese Kung Fu. "Kung Fu is a namecard of Chinese people, representing positive energy," he said. Billy Nisbett, who has been with the academy for eight years, said Kung Fu has brought huge changes to his life, both physically and spiritually. He said Kung Fu has opened a door for him about China. "I'm learning Chinese now and I stayed in China for about two months. I definitely know more about China than before," Nisbett, now a PHD student in physics, told Xinhua. Established in 1998, Shi Xing Hao Shaolin Kung Fu Academy is an institution dedicated to spreading the traditional Chinese culture and the exchange of heritage between the East and the West. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 02:17:30|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LONDON, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May is currently under attack simultaneously on at least five domestic fronts as her Brexit proposals reach a critical point, a leading academic said Monday. In an interview with Xinhua, Anthony Glees, Director of the Center for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham (BUCSIS), said May was under attack from her own Cabinet, her own hard Brexit MPs, her own soft Brexit/no Brexit MPs, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the main opposition Labour Party. "Whatever one thinks about May, she is clearly as tough as old boots and as hard as nails. You have to take your hat off to her," said Glees. British media, Glees said, are saying the next few days will be "make or break", adding: "Mrs May has been kicking the can down the road for so long, I would not be surprised if she did not carry on doing so for as long as she is able, such as another month. Then it really will be crunch time." May is scheduled to chair a meeting of her cabinet at 10 Downing Street on Tuesday, though it is not clear whether she will ask her ministers to back her latest Brexit proposals. Glees said his guess at the moment is that the British Parliament will not support May's deal and will ask for an extension of the Article 50 process to begin a lengthy re-negotiation to produce a further plan. That would then go back to the people. "If this doesn't happen, I think there will be either a general election before Christmas or some kind of re-alignment supported by civil servants and our armed forces to push a re-think on government," he said. "Not a putsch (military takeover or coup), but enough people in suits and uniforms to say 'we have to blow the whistle on this chaos'. I don't think people will agree to a return to austerity," he added. The academic said people are already experiencing huge increases in the cost of food; quantities are less for the same price -- even toilet paper rolls have fewer sheets than they used to have. "The air of crisis is palpable when families or friends get together. No one is buying cars; no one is buying houses," he said. He said Brexit is already weakening Britain, adding: "whatever happens, we will remain weakened. Investment in the UK has already slumped by half in the past year; numerous firms and businesses are relocating into the other 27 member states of the EU. We will take years to recover from the damage that has already been done." Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 02:21:51|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) Commission on Monday urged its member countries to strengthen recent gains towards the bloc's financial autonomy. The appeal was made by AU Commission Deputy Chairperson, Kwesi Quartey, who called the adoption of AU's 2019 budget "a watershed moment for Africa," as African leaders are set to gather at the headquarters of the AU in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa on Saturday. As 45 African leaders are expected to attend the 11th AU extraordinary summit of heads of state from Nov. 17 to 18, the institutional reform of the AU and its financial autonomy is expected to be a major agenda of discussion. Amid a call to its member states to increase their financial contribution, the pan African bloc also stressed its commitment to reducing its financial expenditures so as to minimize its dependency on partner funds. During the 31st Ordinary Session of the AU Summit that was held in Nouakchott, Mauritania in July this year, the AU approved a budget of 681.5 million U.S. dollars for the financial year 2019. The approved budget, which covers three major components of the AU that are operational, program and peace support operations, has registered a record 12 percent decrease as compared with that of the previous year. According to Quartey, the decrease in AU's annual budget is also reflected by the share of AU member states' financial contribution to the AU's budget, which has substantially increased compared with the partner funding in previous years. The 2019 budget, excluding the peace support operations, indicated the contribution from member states to reach 66 percent while 34 percent is expected to be secured from the development partners. Quartey, in a statement issued ahead of the leaders' summit, also stressed that the registered increase of member states contribution is a result of the financing of the Union decision that was made by African leaders to support AU's ambition towards its autonomy. "Through this mechanism, we can see that the continent is gradually realizing its vision of reliable, predictable and sustainable funding of its agenda," Quartey said. The 2019 budget also demonstrates an enhanced process of domestic resources mobilization as the AU embarked on what it labeled as "stringent measures to ensure the prudent use of resources to meet the development needs of our Continent." Approving 681.5 million dollars for next year, the AU also revealed allocation of 161.4 million dollars to finance its operational budget, 252.8 million dollars to go to the program budget while 273.3 million dollars will finance Peace Support operations across the continent. The AU also revealed on Monday that the 2019 budget "is different as the Union adopted new ways of programme planning and budget process, to ensure greater accountability in line with the implementation of the decision of Financing on the Union." At the 27th AU Summit that was held in Rwanda in 2016, a financing proposal was adopted to direct all AU member states to implement a 0.2-percent levy on eligible imports from a non-AU member country. The initiative mainly aspires to create an equitable and predictable source of financing for AU and to reduce dependency on partner funds. The financing proposal mainly envisaged to cover 100 percent of the Union's operational budget, 75 percent of its program budget and 25 percent of AU's peace fund. Countries such as Kenya, Rwanda, Chad, Ethiopia, Republic of the Congo and Ghana were last year praised for being at the forefront in implementing the 0.2-percent levy on imports of eligible goods to the continent. The contribution from AU member countries has also increased this year, according to the AU. "There is commendable progress in the collection of the 0.2 percent levy by member states," Quartey said on Monday, adding that "We have 24 States that are at various stages of domesticating the Kigali Decision on Financing the Union and of these, 14 are actually collecting the levy." According to the deputy chairperson, 11 of AU member countries have already paid their 2018 assessed contributions to the AU, either partially or in full, through the new financing arrangement. "Looking at the progressive developments in Africa's self-financing agenda, I believe this is a watershed moment for Africa," Quartey said. The AU also revealed plans to strengthen the sanctions regime for non-payment of contributions to ensure its member states payments are made on time. Under the current sanctions regime, member states' non-payment is classified to be in default only if they are in arrears for two full years, eventually leading to a trend where about 33 percent of the assessed contributions from member countries regularly held in arrears. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 02:53:33|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close BERLIN, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The number of electric engineers being trained in Germany is still not sufficient to satisfy market demand, according to a study conducted by the association of electrical engineering and information technology (VDE) on Monday. The study shows that "demographic change and digital transformation" are increasing the shortage of electrical engineers to an "unprecedented level". Over the next ten years, around 100,000 additional electrical engineers will be required in Germany. "We will have to make an effort to increase the number of electrical engineers through migration," said president of VDE Gunther Kegel on Monday. According to the study, in order to support the engineering sector, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly looking for engineers from outside Germany. In addition, employees who have reached pension age should be able to continue to work, Kegel added. "We also have to get some people motivated to work a little longer." At just below 2.2 percent, the unemployment rate of full time employees in engineering is well below the national average of 3.4 percent in Germany. According to VDE, a reason why a large number of engineering students quit their studies is that the German educational system does not prepare them sufficiently for university. "The basic education in mathematics is too bad. One has to catch up too much at university," Kegel said. To improve the current situation, VDE recommends starting a "far-reaching and effective digital brain gain education offensive" that seeks to improve the teaching of natural science subjects, above all mathematics, "across the board". Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 02:52:59|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NAIROBI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The ability of African countries to sustain inclusive growth, stability and cohesion hinges on robust investments in maternal health, medical experts said at a forum here on Monday. Kenya hosted the Medical Women's International Association regional conference that was attended by political leaders, clinicians and grassroots advocates to discuss innovative ways to advance maternal health in Africa. Joyce Banda, former president of Malawi, said at the forum that political goodwill is critical in tackling poverty, outdated customs and illiteracy that have fueled maternal deaths in Africa. Recognizing the interconnectedness of gender equality, peace and security, education, health and strong leadership, it is imperative that governments give priority to a holistic approach in unleashing women's and girls'health and well-being from womb to tomb, said Banda. The Nairobi forum whose theme was accelerating women's health agenda in line with UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union (AU) agenda 2063 sought to galvanize the voices of African female clinicians, political leaders and scholars to ensure maternal health is at the heart of the continent's transformation agenda. Banda noted that African women were grappling with a myriad health challenges that required bold policy and financing interventions to solve. "African women struggle to live a dignified lifestyle due to constraints in accessing quality health care services. Investments in maternal health will be a critical enabler in realization of sustainable development," said Banda. She noted that achieving gender parity in school enrollment, access to contraceptives, gainful employment and investments in safe deliveries is key to boost the maternal and children's health agenda in Africa. Christina Sadia, chairperson of Kenya medical women association, said that African countries should embark on paradigm shift to ensure that maternal health is at the heart of socio-economic transformation agenda. "More than ever before, our governments and other stakeholders need to show robust commitment in support of women's health," Sadia said, adding that improved health outcomes on the female gender has a positive impact on a country's economy and social fabric. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 03:14:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIRUT, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Lebanese parliament passed Monday a law aimed at creating a national commission to investigate the fate of the disappeared during the 1975-1990 civil war, the National News Agency reported. Families of the Lebanese who disappeared in the 15-year civil war previously held several sit-ins calling upon the authorities to establish a national commission to find these missing people. An estimated 17,000 Lebanese people, including civilians and soldiers, went missing during the civil war. Lebanese President Michel Aoun suggested in April that a national database be established to include all missing persons and their information to raise public awareness. Also in April, a campaign, titled "the list of disappeared in all of Lebanon," was announced to push for a law demanding the establishment of an independent national body to reveal the fate of the missing in the civil war. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 03:18:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LISBON, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese Police of Public Securtiy (PSP) detained three men suspected of belonging to a group that was involved in the theft of car wheels in the Lisbon metropolitan area, police said on Monday. Commander of the Division of Criminal Investigation of PSP Lisbon Resende da Silva said that the men, aged between 21 and 27 years, were intercepted last Tuesday in Lisbon, after having stolen the wheels of two vehicles in Almada. The police officer said that these men are suspected of belonging to a group that had spent several months stealing tires and wheels in Lisbon and in the peripheral areas. "They had some practice already, and in 10 or 15 minutes they were able to remove all the wheels to a car and leave it sitting on blocks, in some situations causing damage to these vehicles," he said. The officer said that in addition to the arrest of these three suspects, the authorities carried out investigations in warehouses, workshops, garages and car stands in the north and south of the Tagus river and managed to seize and recover 52 wheels, belonging to vehicles of various models, mostly Mercedes, BMW and Renault. The authorities estimated that the total amount of these thefts and damages caused amounts to 120,000 euros. The three suspects were sent to court and have already been indicted for 14 crimes. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 03:19:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia's Attorney General Berhanu Tsegaye said on Monday that 27 senior military figures had been detained over the weekend over allegations of mass corruption. In a press conference given in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Tsegaye said the corrupt activities, which had a span of six years from 2011 to 2017, involved purchases without tender bids of goods worth 2 billion U.S. dollars including a plane, ships and cranes. Tsegaye said the military-linked conglomerate Metal and Engineering Corporation (MeTEC), which is building several mega infrastructure projects, is suspected of being responsible for the vast majority of corrupt practices. "MeTEC officials and civilians close to them were involved in the illicit purchases of a plane, ships, cranes and other equipment and pocketed a portion of the purchased money," said Tsegaye. The attorney general also said 36 other suspects, mostly intelligence officers, had been arrested over alleged human right abuses including torture, murder, rapes and enforced disappearances. Tsegaye said many of the human rights abuses were committed in seven secret prisons located inside Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. "Some of the suspects have already been presented before court for preliminary criminal hearings, while we are currently searching for other fugitive suspects," said Tsegaye. He said some of the fugitive suspects are believed to be hiding inside the country, while others are suspected to have escaped to foreign countries. Tsegaye didn't disclose the identity of the detained suspects. He also declined to disclose how many suspects are believed to be on the run. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 03:22:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close GABORONE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- UNDP has organized a 5-day disaster risk reduction workshop, which opened on Monday in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. The workshop themed 'Building Disaster Resilience to Natural Hazards in Botswana'. Speaking at the 5-day workshop, Jacinta Barrins, UN Botswana Resident Coordinator, said there is evidence that disasters are increasing in Botswana and in the whole world at large. "Botswana, like the rest of the world, is prone to disasters, particularly floods and droughts." Barrins said. She said the effects impacted on people, communities and entire nations and it is becoming clearer that climate change is real, which is a wake up call that Botswana too needs to develop measures to counter its devastating effects. Concurring on the need for countries to take into account the economic aspect of disasters, she noted that huge costs often come with addressing the effects of disasters. However, Barrins urged countries not to lose sight of the fact that disasters are more than economic in nature as they are more about livelihoods and the general disruption to people's lives. Meanwhile, Machana Shamukuni, Botswana Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, said it remains critical for Batswana not to lose their lives and livelihoods to disasters that could be mitigated. Shamukuni said there is therefore need for re-examination of the effectiveness of the disaster risk reduction strategies that Botswana has adopted. The assistant minister said disasters have a significant negative impact on the lives and livelihoods of nations, adding that their nature, spread and cost, call for the commitment and participation of all stakeholders including governments, UN, private sector, NGOs, community-based organizations and local communities. Afghan girl students attend a class at a local school in Herat province, western Afghanistan, Nov. 5, 2018. (Xinhua/Elaha Sahel) MOSCOW, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad could visit Moscow in early December to discuss bringing a durable peace to Afghanistan, a Russian government official said Monday. Khalilzad is currently traveling to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar with an interagency delegation. During the tour on Nov. 8-20, he is to meet with Afghan government officials and other interested parties "to advance the goal of an intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations that include the Taliban and lead to a sustainable peace," according to a U.S. State Department statement. Special Representative of the Russian President for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said Khalilzad suggested the beginning of December for the Moscow trip. On Friday, the second meeting of the Moscow format of consultations on Afghanistan was held in the Russian capital with the participation of deputy foreign ministers, special representatives and observers from Russia, Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Iran, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the United States. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani sent a delegation to the meeting and the Political Office of the Taliban in the Qatari capital Doha also participated. "It's a fact that representatives of the opposing sides were in the same room and were ready to talk to each other, which is the first step towards full-length talks in Afghanistan," Kabulov said. The Taliban agreed to talk with the Afghan government only after reaching an agreement with the United States on a schedule for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan, Kabulov said. They also demanded the release of all political prisoners and the abolition of anti-Taliban sanctions imposed against them in 1997 "as a preliminary measure of confidence," he said. The Taliban expressed their readiness to take part in the next meeting of the Moscow format of consultations, Kabulov said, without specifying when such a meeting may take place. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 03:48:24|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close Israeli security forces and firefighters gather near a bus set ablaze after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave, at the Israel-Gaza border near the kibbutz of Kfar Aza, on November 12, 2018. (Xinhua/Yehuda Peretz-JINI) GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli army launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Monday evening, killing at least three and injuring dozens others, in response to the massive rocket attacks from the coastal enclave. Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the health ministry in Gaza, told reporters that the three killed Palestinians were identified as 27-year-old Mohamed al-Tatari, 22-year-old Mohamed Oudeh and 23-year-old Hammad al-Nahal. Eyewitnesses said a house was targeted by Israeli war jets in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. A short statement by the joint operation room of militant groups, including Hamas, confirmed the attacks. "The Palestinian armed resistance on Monday evening fired scores of rockets from the Gaza Strip on the settlements of the enemy," the statement said. It also vowed to "increase... intensive strikes" on Israel if it "keeps up its aggression." Meanwhile, Israeli authorities said at least 100 rockets, mortars and anti-tank missiles were launched toward southern Israel in about one hour in the evening, injuring 12 people. The David Magen Adom emergency service said a 19-year-old young man was "in a serious condition with multi-system injuries." At least 11 more people were wounded by broken glasses or other materials as they ran for shelter during the bombing, the emergency service added. In a special statement, the Israeli army instructed residents near Gaza as well as in cities as far as Beersheba and Ashdod, some 40 km south of Tel Aviv, to stay indoors or in protected areas. Tensions in the region were still high on Monday morning, with schools cancelled for students in southern Israel for security concerns. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short his trip to Paris and returned overnight, according to a statement from his office. At a news conference in Paris on Sunday, Netanyahu defended his decision to move toward an unofficial cease-fire with Hamas. He also warned that if calm along the border will not be kept, Israel "will act with maximum power." The sudden burst of violence potentially shattered hopes for a long-term agreement between Israel and Hamas, as Egyptian and the UN officials have been working to broker a cease-fire deal in exchange for Israeli easing its 12-year crippling blockade on Gaza. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 03:49:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close MOSCOW, Nov 12 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed Monday into law a bill allowing members of the Russian parliament to renounce voluntarily a bonus paid on top of an official pension. The document, published on the official database of legal information, states that the members of the State Duma lower parliament house and the Federation Council upper parliament house may turn down the bonus from Jan. 1, 2019. Members of the two houses are entitled to social benefits equal to those of a government minister, deputy speakers to those of a deputy prime minister and speakers to those of a prime minister. The monthly supplement to the pension of members of parliament (MP) equals 55 percent of the official old-age pension if they serve five to 10 years at the parliament and 75 percent if they serve more than 10 years. The bill was passed by the Duma on Oct. 25 and by the Federation Council on Nov. 7. RBC newspaper polled the 74 deputies who may be eligible for a bonus pension from next year after the bill was passed by the Duma. According to the poll, only six of them said that they were ready to turn down the bonus, 34 declined to comment, 15 said they will not turn down the bonus, 10 had not yet decided, five said they would keep working and four said they were receiving their pensions from other sources. Average Russian pension is currently equal to 13,348 rubles (about 197 U.S. dollars) per month, according to Rosstat official statistics service. An employee walks past a gas installation during a training exercise for handling emergencies at a gas-pumping station in the town of Boyarka in Ukraine's Kiev region on April 22, 2015. (Xinhua/AFP) KIEV, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine is willing to deepen energy cooperation with the United States, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said here on Monday, according to the government press service. "We see a wide range of opportunities for cooperation, including gas extraction ... cooperation in nuclear energy and other areas," Groysman said during his meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry. For his part, Perry voiced U.S. readiness to discuss cooperation in gas production, saying that Ukrainian subsoil assets and American technology can make a "serious economic breakthrough" for both countries. Perry also noted the progress Ukraine has made recently in reforming its energy sector. "Initiatives of your government regarding the liberalization of the gas market and improvement of licensing procedures for extraction send an important message to the U.S. government and investors that Ukraine is serious about reforms," Perry said. Perry arrived in Ukraine on Saturday to discuss topics including energy security and coal exports with local authorities. In the first eight months of 2018, bilateral trade between Ukraine and the United States increased 16 percent year-on-year to 2.6 billion U.S. dollars. The International Monetary Fund in May urged Ukraine to implement key reforms to ensure sustainable economic growth, including revamping the financial sector, overhauling the management of public finances and tax administration, as well pensions and energy sector reforms. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 05:37:52|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) holds talks with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Singapore, Nov. 12, 2018. (Xinhua/Shen Hong) SINGAPORE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- China and Singapore agreed on Monday to upgrade their free trade agreement (FTA) and make more joint efforts to facilitate connectivity. The consensus, along with agreements on boosting bilateral cooperation in innovation and other areas, was reached in talks here between visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Noting that China and Singapore have completed their FTA upgrading negotiations, Li said he hopes the two sides will seize the opportunity to lift two-way trade and investment to higher levels. The upgrade of the FTA will bring real benefits to the people and companies of the two countries and send a strong signal of further expanding trade and investment, Lee said. The two sides also pledged to advance the building of the New Land-Sea Corridor, which consists of a number of cargo routes by land and sea connecting central and southwest China to Southeast Asia, so as to further improve connectivity between the two countries and beyond. With the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the new logistics corridor, China and Singapore should build on the momentum and further boost two-way connectivity, Li said. The Singaporean leader said his country will join hands with China to build the new corridor so as to facilitate transport and trade between the two sides. Experts say the corridor will help China to further open up to the world while opening a shortcut for Southeast Asian countries to enter the Chinese market. Another substantial outcome of the visit, according to Li, is that China and Singapore have lifted the Guangzhou Knowledge City, an exemplary program in bilateral cooperation, to a national-level project. In their talks, Li said the two sides should actively expand cooperation in smart-city building, promote the upgrading of city management and artificial intelligence development, and mull new local-level collaboration. Lee said the Singaporean side is glad to see the upgrade of the project, and ready to step up smart-city cooperation with China. Intergovernmental cooperation projects between China and Singapore, such as the Suzhou Industrial Park and the Tianjin Eco-City, have yielded fruitful results. The upgrade of the Guangzhou Knowledge City project is expected to inject fresh momentum into bilateral practical cooperation. Also in their meeting, Li noted that as China's friendly neighbor and important partner, Singapore has been deeply involved in China's reform and opening-up. The two sides, he added, have consolidated political mutual trust, achieved fruitful results in practical cooperation, and become important trade and investment partners. Li recalled that China and Singapore established an all-round cooperative partnership progressing with the times when Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to the Southeast Asian country in 2015. "China is willing to strengthen communication and coordination with the Singaporean side, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and continuously bring bilateral ties to higher levels," Li said. After their talks, the two leaders witnessed the signing of a series of cooperation documents on FTA upgrading, connectivity, finance, science and technology, environment, culture and customs. During the first official visit to Singapore by a Chinese premier in 11 years, Li will also attend the 21st leaders' meeting between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the 21st ASEAN-China, Japan and South Korea leaders' meeting, respectively known as 10+1 and 10+3, as well as the 13th East Asia Summit. A picture taken on November 12, 2018, shows smoke rising above the building housing the Hamas-run television station Al-Aqsa TV in the Gaza Strip during an Israeli air strike. (AFP photo) GAZA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Israeli war jets struck with eight missiles on Monday night the building of Al-Aqsa Television, a satellite channel that belongs to Hamas movement and airs from Gaza, the local radio station of Hamas said. Eyewitnesses, who live in northwestern part of Gaza City, said they heard eight huge successive explosions after Israeli war jets fired three missiles at the building of Hamas-run television channel. The Israeli airstrike on the channel is part of the intensive airstrikes on Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups in the Gaza Strip in response to earlier firing of barrages of makeshift rockets from the enclave into Israel. Israeli war jets also targeted three houses in the Gaza Strip after asking local residents to evacuate, according to security sources, adding that no injuries were reported in the airstrikes on the TV channels and on the houses. Earlier Monday evening, three Palestinians were killed and nine injured in the Israeli airstrikes on military facilities all over the Gaza Strip in response to firing rockets from the enclave into southern Israel, according to medical sources. Israel army spokesman said in a statement that more than 70 airstrikes were carried out on Monday evening and night on targets that belong to Hamas and Islamic Jihad all over the Gaza Strip. The statement of the Israeli army and the Israeli television "Reshet Kan" also said that more than 200 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel. At least 13 Israelis were injured with one in critical condition. A joint statement of several Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas armed wing, claimed responsibility for firing the rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel. They warned Israel in a joint statement that they will expand the range of rockets fired into Israel in case Israel intensifies its airstrikes on the enclave. Tension between Israel and Hamas-led militant groups grew after seven Hamas militants were killed on Sunday night when a special Israeli army force entered into eastern Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip and killed seven militants. The U.S. flag flutters on a military vehicle in Manbij countryside, Syria, on May 12, 2018. (Reuters file photo) DAMASCUS, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a visiting Iranian official agreed on Monday that the United States is placing snags in the political process in Syria, state news agency SANA reported. The remarks were made during Assad's meeting with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister's Special Assistant for Political Affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari in the capital Damascus. They reportedly discussed anti-terror efforts and progress on the political track, mainly the formation of the constitutional committee which will be tasked with studying the Syrian constitution. Ansari also met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem over the formation of the committee as well as the mechanism of its function. The formation of the constitutional committee has become a problematic issue in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said he hopes the committee will start functioning by the end of 2018. The constitutional committee is expected to include 150 members, equally divided into three groups, one chosen by the government, the second by the opposition and the third by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura. In recent remarks, de Mistura said the objection remains, mainly from the government, over the third list that the UN is tasked with to include civil society representatives, religious and tribal leaders, experts and women in the committee. The formation of the constitutional committee was agreed upon during inter-Syrian talks in Russia's Sochi in January, which was brokered by Russia, Iran, and Turkey. In his recent remarks, Putin said that it's time to "agree on the third part with the participation of public organizations and representatives of various public bodies." The work was not easy as each side would be striving to "fill this part with those people they trust," the Russian president noted. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 05:50:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close YAOUNDE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The military tribunal in Douala, Cameroon's commercial capital on Monday dropped charges against TV host Mimi Mefo, who heads the English-service of private channel Equinoxe TV. "The military state prosecutor has discontinued proceedings on the recommendation of the President of the Republic," lead counsel, barrister Richard Tamfu told reporters in Douala. Mefo appeared before the tribunal to answer charges relating to the dissemination of "fake news" that is "highly detrimental" to the morale of the troops clashing with armed separatists in troubled Anglophone regions of the country, according to the minister of communication, Issa Tchiroma. The journalist was remanded in custody on Wednesday but was released Saturday afternoon "upon the instruction of the Head of State" according to army spokesman, Col. Didier Badjeck. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 05:48:52|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close AMMAN, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Jordan said on Monday the escalation in Gaza Strip was serious and called for immediate action to halt the "Israeli aggression." Jordan's Minister of State for Media Affairs Jumana Ghunaimat condemned the "Israeli aggression" on Gaza Strip that resulted in the killing of many Gazans, according to a report by the state-owned Petra news agency. The minister underlined the need to address the situation in Gaza in line with a comprehensive political solution that ensures the return of the Palestinians and the Israelis to the table of negotiations to resolve the conflict on the basis of the two-state solution. Such a solution, she said, is the only way to Middle East peace and stability. The Jordanian official said the escalation will only increase tension and violence. She underlined the need for stopping the aggression, exercising self-restraint and taking practical measures to end the humanitarian suffering in Gaza. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 06:03:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAMASCUS, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- As many as 60 civilians were killed or wounded as a result of renewed U.S.-led airstrikes on areas in eastern Syria Monday, state news agency SANA reported on Monday evening. The airstrikes heavily targeted the village of Shafeh in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour province in eastern Syria, said SANA, adding that the warplanes targeted residential neighborhoods in the village. The attack on Monday comes a day after two children and two women were killed by a similar attack on the village of Hajin in eastern Deir al-Zour, according to the report. The repetitive attacks have caused the displacement of hundreds of civilians in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour, said SANA. Over the weekend, a total of 41 people were killed by U.S.-led airstrikes, which are targeting the last Islamic State (IS)-held area on the eastern bank of Euphrates River. The United States has been backing the SDF to defeat the IS on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River near the Iraqi border. Airstrikes on this area have recently been renewed as the Kurdish-led groups were planning a second wave of attacks on the IS after a failed attempt on Sept. 10. The Syrian Foreign Ministry renewed in a statement Saturday calls on the UN to form "an independent international mechanism" to investigate the "crimes of the Washington coalition" and punish the perpetrators. The Syrian government has long questioned the intention of the U.S.-led operations in this oil-rich area. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 06:02:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close YAOUNDE, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) began distributing food to internally displaced persons (IDPs) of restive Anglophone regions of Cameroon on Monday. Food distributions began for IDPs living in the Littoral and West regions that share border with the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest, WFP officials said. According to an assessment made by the United Nations team, there are about seventy to eighty thousand internally displaced people in the West and Littoral regions. Fifty thousand IDPs will receive about 1,900 metric tons of food aid during this first phase of the distribution, WFP officials said. "We will make an assessment after the first phase and decide on how to proceed," said Abdoulaye Balde, WFP country representative for Cameroon. Balde said a secured path needs to be created in the conflict zones before they begin distributing food to the population in distress. According to the United Nations, more than 200,000 people have been displaced internally in the west African country by the war that has been going on for over a year now. Government forces have been clashing with armed separatist groups who have declared the "independence" of the two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 06:00:19|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- An official with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has commended the Chinese government's win-win partnership approach with IGAD member countries. Mahboub Maalim, executive secretary of IGAD, made the remarks during his meeting on Sunday with China's Ambassador to Djibouti, Zhuo Ruisheng, the East African bloc said in a statement on Monday. "The Executive Secretary acknowledged China's growing partnership with IGAD Member States entrusted in win-win and strong bilateral relations," the statement read. During the meeting at the Chinese Embassy to Djibouti, Maalim availed himself for a working visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China "for the purpose of bringing IGAD's agenda to the attention of the highest diplomatic level," it was indicated. As part of the meeting between the IGAD's executive secretary and Chinese ambassador, the Chinese government, through the Chinese Embassy to Djibouti, delivered a grant financial support of 100,000 U.S. dollars to the regional organization. Zhuo, who vowed to exert his utmost efforts in sustaining the positive ties between the Chinese government and IGAD as well as its member countries, lauded IGAD under the leadership of Maalim "for the tremendous amount of work towards peace and development in the region," the statement quoted Zhuo as saying. Zhuo assured Maalim of China's support in this endeavor of IGAD. China has already established strong working ties with IGAD and its member countries, which include Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda. In August this year, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs dubbed the Ethiopia-China ties as "a role model for the successful South-South cooperation platform." "The comprehensive partnership among Ethiopia and China, which represents sustainable and predictable relations on various corporation areas, effectively showcases the successful South-South partnership modality," the ministry said in a seasonal publication. According to the ministry, the two countries have realized one of the growing and successful relations in infrastructure development, trade and investment as well as development financing. More than 400 Chinese investment projects worth over 4 billion dollars are presently active in the East African country, creating more than 100,000 jobs for Ethiopians, according to the ministry. The ministry added that Chinese investments in Ethiopia are largely engaged in the Ethiopian government's key priority sectors, mainly manufacturing and infrastructure. It also indicated that out of the more than 400 Chinese investments in the East African country, some 105 are joint ventures between Ethiopian and Chinese investors, indicating the positive relations between business communities of the two countries. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 05:58:29|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close by Alessandra Cardone PALERMO, Italy, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A two-day Conference for Libya kicked off in Italy's southern city of Palermo late Monday, drawing key Libyan and international actors in an effort to support a fresh United Nations' stabilization plan. Participants included Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, Head of the High Council of State Khalid al-Mishri, President of the House of Representatives (HoR) Ageela Saleh, and UN Envoy for Libya Ghassan Salame. Some 38 delegations -- comprising heads of state and government and foreign ministers from 30 countries -- were taking part in the summit, a representative for the Italian government said just ahead of the first arrivals on Monday evening. They would include representatives from France, Russia, China, United States, Germany, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates among others, as well as from the European Union (EU), the Arab League, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. SUPPORTING NEW UN PLAN "This conference has been organized as a contribution to the stabilization process within the framework of the United Nations," Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in a short declaration ahead of the opening ceremony. Conte referred to the new plan unveiled by Salame few days ago, which called for a general vote to be held in Libya in spring 2019. Elections would be preceded by a national conference in the first weeks of next year, in order for all Libyans parties to express "their vision for the transition" that was to be implemented through polls. In an interview with La Stampa daily earlier in the day, Conte also stressed the plan of the UN envoy was "in line with the goals of the Italian initiative." Nonetheless, the conference would also provide Italy with a chance to take again a lead in the international efforts to support Libya's reconciliation, after Libyan factions did not fulfil the commitments made in a meeting organized by France in Paris in May. At that previous attempt in favour of reconciliation, Libyan parties had pledged to hold elections by Dec. 10. In Europe, Italy and France were the two countries most interested in playing a role in the peace process in Libya, each of them with a different -- and sometime colliding -- agenda. Nevertheless, they added to other regional and global actors interested in stabilizing the oil-rich northern African country. UNCERTAINTY AROUND SOME KEY ACTORS Yet, the conference opened amid mixed expectations about its possible concrete outcome. The uncertainty about the presence here of general Khalifa Haftar -- the military commander of Libya's eastern-based army -- lasted all throughout Monday. By evening only, unofficial sources here told reporters that Gen. Haftar was "on a flight towards Palermo, to take part in the summit." Analysts warned the clear reluctance of one of Libya's major actors to attend the conference could prove a major weakness of the initiative. The involvement of all parties was seen as most necessary, given Libya's current level of fragmentation. However, some experts also warned the presence or absence of general Haftar -- or any other Libyan actor alone, was not to be overestimated. "The role of Haftar role is very important, but I would like to note that he does not represent the whole Libya, which also has a government recognized by the UN," Andrea Margelletti, president of Rome-based Center for International Studies (CeSI), told Xinhua. The senior analyst specified the high number of Libyan and international representatives attending the meeting in Palermo was already an "extraordinary" signal. "My strong hope is that the conference would provide a demonstration of common support for a united Libya, and possibly a joint declaration in favor of the UN new plan," he said. A FOCUS ON OIL RESOURCES, SECURITY The conference may offer the right space for UN envoy Salame to unveil further details of his plan, and also for focusing talks on two issues crucial to the peace process: security and economic reforms. "Palermo is a relevant occasion to mobilize a unified international community, for example in supporting the training of Libyan security forces," Salame told La Repubblica newspaper ahead of the opening ceremony. "In the medium-term, Libya will need to unify and rebuild a professional national army. Plus, Palermo may give the opportunity to discuss the crucial issue of the redistribution of the Libyan wealth," he added. Over seven years after former ruler Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011, Libya remains politically split despite a UN-sponsored peace agreement in 2015. Meanwhile, the country has also divided along tribal lines, while turning into a key hub for the trafficking of hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum-seekers bound for Europe. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 05:56:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close CAIRO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian court sentenced on Monday a former governor to 10 years in prison after his conviction of bribery and corruption related to large amounts of public funds. Hesham Abdel-Baset, former governor of Minufiya province north of the capital Cairo, was arrested in mid-January, along with two businessmen, and was accused of receiving a bribe of about 27.5 million Egyptian pounds (about 1.5 million U.S. dollars) for assigning four state projects to businessmen at highly exaggerated costs. Giza Criminal Court also ordered the 47-year-old ex-official on Monday to pay a fine of 15 million pounds (over 800,000 dollars) that will be seized from his properties. The two other defendants, the briber and the middleman, have been pardoned after their detailed confessions. Egypt has been launching a massive anti-corruption campaign over the past few years that led to the arrest and imprisonment of several officials and senior employees and the retrieval of large amounts of public funds. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 06:10:28|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BAGHDAD, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Gunmen broke into the house of a government-backed paramilitary leader in a village in Iraqi Anbar province and shot dead nine people, a local official said on Monday. The attack took place at night when unidentified gunmen shot dead the leader of the Sunni paramilitary group and eight people who were at his home in the village of al-Dhabttiyah near the town of Garma, some 40 km west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Ahmed al-Dulaimi, mayor of Garma, told Xinhua. Iraqi security forces rushed to the scene and launched a search campaign in the area looking for the attacker who fled the house after the attack, Dulaimi said. Dulaimi believes the attack was conducted by the remnants of the Islamic State (IS) militants in the province. The security situation in Iraq has been dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017. However, small groups and individuals of extremist militants melted or regrouped in urban or fled to desert and rugged areas. They are carrying out attacks against the security forces and civilians despite operations to hunt them down. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 06:09:53|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close KIEV, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, will strive to be named the European Capital of Culture, the press service of Kiev city state administration said in a statement on Monday. According to the statement, the Capital of Culture crown is an opportunity for Kiev to strengthen a positive image, attract more tourists and develop cultural and creative industries. "The status of the European cultural capital would have a positive effect not only on the cultural life of the city, but also on its economic development," said Vyacheslav Nepop, the deputy head of Kiev city state administration. The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union for a period of one year during which it is given a chance to showcase its cultural life and cultural development. The Capital of Culture crown, introduced in 1985, has been awarded to more than 50 cities so far. The Ukrainian capital last year welcomed 1.6 million foreign tourists compared with 1.28 million in 2016. The number of international visitor arrivals to Kiev is expected to top 2 million this year. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 06:08:35|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close RIGA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Negotiations on Latvia's next five-party government coalition have been going better than expected, prime minister-designate Janis Bordans of the New Conservative Party told reporters on Monday following a meeting with potential coalition partners. During the meeting at the cabinet of ministers' house in Riga, the five political parties managed to reach an agreement on the priorities of Latvia's would-be government. They included the rule of law, abolition of the current green energy subsidization system, reducing social inequality, education reforms and health reforms, demographic issues, municipal reform, as well as financial stability and security. Latvian public television reported that talks were already under way on the distribution of ministerial portfolios in the Bordans-led government. According to this report, Bordans' New Conservative Party would claim the office of prime minister, as well as the portfolios of finance, interior, as well as education and science minister. The KPV LV party might receive the portfolios of agriculture, economics and transport ministers. The liberal alliance For Development/For has been offered the portfolios of environmental protection and regional development, health and welfare ministers. The center-right New Unity party would get the portfolios of justice and foreign ministers. That would leave the right-wing National Alliance in control of the ministries of culture and defense. After four weeks of not very successful talks on Latvia's next government, which followed Oct. 6 parliamentary elections, President Raimonds Vejonis on Nov. 7 tasked Bordans with forming a coalition government by Nov. 21. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 06:51:31|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LISBON, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Portuguese government expressed on Monday its concern over growing insecurity of its citizens in Mozambique after the abduction and murder of businessman Jose Paulo Antunes Caetano. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the ministry's Director General of Foreign Policy Pedro da Costa Pereira told Mozambican Ambassador to Portugal Joaquim Bule that the perception has unfortunately been reinforced by several episodes marked by the disappearance or death of Portuguese citizens in the African country. Portugal attached priority to the security conditions in which the large Portuguese community in Mozambique lives. The community has contributed significantly to the economic and social development of Mozambique, the statement said. In order to ensure the security of the Portuguese in Mozambique, the Portuguese government expressed its commitment to explore with the Mozambican authorities the potential of the existing set of bilateral instruments and the possibility of creating new mechanisms to allow an adequate exchange of information between the two countries, it said. The abducted Portuguese businessman was found dead on Sunday near Maputo, capital of Mozambique, after the required ransom was paid shortly after his abduction on Friday. Another entrepreneur Americo Sebastiao was abducted and remains missing since July 29, 2016, in Nhamapadza, Maringue district, central Mozambique. Portugal has repeatedly offered judicial cooperation with Mozambique to try to locate the missing businessman but the Mozambican authorities have refused, Portugal's Lusa News Agency reported. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 07:22:12|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Photo taken on Nov. 11, 2018 shows the external wall of Aijing Zhuang residential complex in Yangwei Village of Yongtai County, southeast China's Fujian Province. The project, with a total of 361 rooms covering the area of over 5,200 square meters, was built during the reign of Emperor Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty. It has safeguarded the authentic character of the vernacular housing, defensive structures and waterways that are emblematic of this site, providing a model for other historic villages across China. The conservation of Aijing Zhuang residential complex demonstrates a sensitive approach to sustaining a rural settlement as a living place in harmony with its natural setting. Aijing Zhuang in November this year received the Award of Merit in the 2018 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation. (Xinhua/Zhang Guojun) Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 07:22:13|Editor: ZD Video Player Close CHICAGO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Chicago, the first big city in the United States to impose a tax on e-cigarettes, announced on Monday to take eight online retailers to court for illegally selling e-cigarettes to underage residents. E-cigarettes are devices that heat a liquid into an aerosol the user inhales. The liquid usually has nicotine and flavoring in it, and other additives. "Following the playbook used by Big Tobacco (companies), the manufacturers and sellers of e-cigarettes ... are attempting to lure youth into a harmful addiction with unfair marketing clearly aimed at young people," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told a press conference. The eight accused companies, mostly based in Florida and California, sold e-cigarette products directly to Chicago residents under the age of 21 in the past month via the internet, during a joint sting operation conducted by Chicago consumer protection and law enforcement agencies. Chicago public health official Julie Morita said the city will fight back and continue to focus on reducing youth access and exposure to tobacco products. The Office of the Surgeon General (OSG), a federal public health agency, released a report in 2016 on e-cigarette use among youth and young adults in the United States. The OSG report found that more high school students use e-cigarettes than regular cigarettes. The use of e-cigarettes is higher among high school students than adults. "No matter how it's delivered, nicotine is addictive and harmful for youth and young adults," OSG points out on its website. Brain development begins during the growth of the fetus in the womb and continues through childhood and to about age 25. Experts believe that nicotine exposure during adolescence and young adulthood can cause addiction and harm the developing brain. E-cigarette users risk exposing their respiratory systems to other potentially harmful chemicals in e-cigarettes, according to OSG. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 07:18:41|Editor: ZD Video Player Close LISBON, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Portuguese government expresses on Monday its solidarity with the government and people of the United States, who are currently confronting the deadliest fires in California. In a statement, the Portuguese government said it deeply regretted the loss of lives as well as the destruction of the homes of thousands of people and reiterated its willingness to cooperate with U.S. in the field of fire prevention and control. The Portuguese government and people conveyed their most heartfelt and fraternal condolences to the families of the victims and to the government and people of the United States, it added. The death toll from the massive wildfire in northern California rose to 29 on Monday after local officials confirmed that six more bodies have been recovered from the fire-devastated area on Sunday. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-13 07:25:21|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. northwest state of Alaska has sent half a dozen fire personnel to California to aid in its fight against raging wildfires that have killed at least 29 people, the KTUU TV outlet said Monday. The fire personnel were dispatched to California over the weekend upon a California request on Friday, KTUU quoted Tim Mowry, an information officer for the Alaska Division of Forestry, as saying. "The first people left Saturday to fill various roles (in) management positions," Mowry said. California had initially reached out for help from nearby regions, but the deteriorating wildfires in the state forced it to search for fire reinforcement in more distant states including Alaska, according to the report of KTUU licensed to Anchorage, Alaska. Californian authorities said the massive wildfires in its northern part had pushed the death toll to a record 29 after six more bodies were recovered from the fire-raged area on Sunday. The casualties have already matched the Griffith Park Fire in October 1933, which is the Golden State's deadliest fire so far, said the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Northern California fires have scorched over 111,000 acres (about 449 square km) and destroyed 6,713 structures, including 6,453 homes and 260 business buildings. Timea Szabo and Gergely Karacsony were both re-elected unchallenged for another 18 months as the liberal opposition Parbeszed partys co-leaders at a party meeting on Sunday. At a news conference, Karacsony said Parbeszed will campaign together with the Socialist Party in next years European Parliament elections. In the meantime, Parbeszed will seek out other partners for a wide-ranging European alliance. He said that whereas several opposition parties were preparing their own separate lists for the EP election, many civil society organisations and social movements shared Parbeszeds precepts. So it wants the broadest possible social support for their EP list with the Socialists, he added. Szabo said Parbeszeds alliance with other opposition forces would only endure if Karacsony was re-elected as the mayor of the Budapest district of Zuglo in next years local elections, with the support of their allies at local, regional and national level. Szabo said Parbeszeds key policy is to introduce a basic universal income. Also, the party wants to work to scrap the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant and solve housing problems, she said. Further, health care and education will be priority areas, she added. In response to a question, Karacsony said he continued to back a primary for selecting the oppositions candidate for Budapest mayor and hopefully related agreements would be ready by the end of the year. Any attempt to split the opposition forces in the capital would be irresponsible and lead to the re-election of Fideszs Istvan Tarlos, he added. With a primary, votes will converge on the best candidate as part of a democratic process, he said. I find this principle more important than any personal ambitions, he added. The opposition Socialist and Parbeszed parties will set up a joint list for next Mays European parliamentary elections, the leader of the Socialist Party said over the weekend. The majority of Hungarians want Hungary to remain a member of the European Union, Bertalan Toth told a press conference on the sidelines of the partys assembly meeting. Toth said the two parties would fight to limit the influence of political forces working to disintegrate the EU on the blocs decisions. MTI Photo: Monus Marton The air quality in the cities of Budapest, Kecskemet and Nyiregyhaza has deteriorated to unhealthy levels, a post on the chief medical officers Facebook page said on Saturday. In 15 other cities and towns, concentrations of particles in the air exceed what is considered to be a safe level, the statement said. Those alerts have been issued in Debrecen, Dunaujvaros, Eger, Hernadszurdok, Miskolc, Pecs, Putnok, Sajoszentpeter, Szeged, Szolnok, Szombathely, Tokol, Vac, Varpalota and Veszprem. It added that in certain places the concentration of nitrogen dioxide in the air also exceeds what is considered to be a safe level. The National Public Health Centre has asked residents of the cities in question to use public transport instead of their cars. It recommends that the most vulnerable groups should avoid outdoor physical activity and spend less time outdoors overall. Coun Perez reiterates warning to barangay leaders involved in drugs 07 Aug 2017 Hits:37 Comments(0) Liga ng mga Barangay President, Councilor Jerry Perez yesterday reiterated his warning to all barangay officials from using or selling drugs. Perez said he is closely monitoring the activities of all the barangay officials and vowed sanctions against erring leaders. Aqui gane na mio barangay ya quita ya iyo na puesto cunel dos barangay leaders quien mas temprano ya sale positivo na... Stiri pe aceeasi tema - President Klaus Iohannis met in Glasgow on Tuesday with US President Special Representative for Climate John Karry on the sidelines of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26), with the talks also focusing on the inclusion of small modular reactors in the national system of energy - LIVE VIDEO: Presedintele Klaus Iohannis, declaratii pe tema restrictiilor Klaus Iohannis. Foto: Presidency.ro. UPDATE: Klaus Iohannis: De luni, masca devine obligatorie peste tot. Klaus Iohannis: Incepand de luni, elevii vor intra in vacanta pentru - The turnover of market services rendered mainly to enterprises in Romania over January - August 2021 was 17.3 percent up in unadjusted terms compared to the same period of 2020, as a result of growth in computing and IT services (+24.5 pct), the production of cinema, video and television programs; - Romania's trade balance deficit (FOB / CIF) amounted to 14.602 billion euros in the first eight months of the year, up 3.087 billion euros from the same period last year, show the data of the National Institute of Statistics (INS), published on Monday. According to official statistics, between - On Monday, President Klaus Iohannis signed decrees opening Romania's consulates general in Rome and Paris, according to the Presidential Administration. He also signed a decree opening Romania's consulate in Melbourne, Australia, Agerpres.ro informs. - President Klaus Iohannis will receive, on Saturday, in Germany, the International Charlemagne Prize of the City of Aachen - for European unification. According to a release of the Presidential Administration, the board of directors of the Charlemagne Prize decided to confer to President Klaus - Consilierul prezidential Diana Paun a apreciat marti ca medicii care nu vor sa se vaccineze si ii indeamna si pe altii sa nu o faca nu au ce cauta in aceasta meserie", potrivit Agerpres. Precizarile au fost facute in contextul in care ministrul interimar al Sanatatii, Cseke Attila, a declarat marti - In the 27 member states of the European Union, 1.3 million people worked in sports last year, representing 0.7% of total employment, the lowest percentage of employees in this sector being in Romania, show the data published on Monday by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat). Among member Stiri pe aceeasi tema - Liberals announce that the National Political Bureau, which had a statutory meeting on Monday evening, decided by an absolute majority of votes to start negotiations with PSD (Social Democratic Party) to coagulate a majority that "ensures Romania the stability it needs to overcome the political and - Romania supports the Republic of Moldova on the "irreversible" path to getting a place among the members of the European Union, said the chairman of the European Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, Stefan Musoiu, who is paying a working visit to Chisinau. "The visit is an opportunity to - Romania's trade balance deficit (FOB / CIF) amounted to 14.602 billion euros in the first eight months of the year, up 3.087 billion euros from the same period last year, show the data of the National Institute of Statistics (INS), published on Monday. According to official statistics, between - Campioana la Cluj in luna august in turneul Winner Open sportiva de 34 de ani a scos la lumina episoade care i-au marcat exisenta. Intitulata Intre faima si onoare se asterne intunericul, cartea a fost lansata oficial si in Romania si a impresionat-o pe Lorena Popa, o fana fidela a sportivei cu origini - Oana Radu este una dintre cele mai indragite artiste din Romania, care a ajuns la inima multor oameni datorita talentului sau, dar si a carismei sale greu de inlocuit. De curand, vedeta a fost surprinsa in cabinetul medicului estetician si a facut un anunt pe care multi admiratori l-au asteptat. Oana - Persons aged 65 and over represented 19.3% of the country's resident population, on January 1, 2021, respectively 3,707,080 citizens out of a total of 19,186,201, the country's resident population, according to a press release of the National Institute of Statistics (INS) published on the occasion - In the 27 member states of the European Union, 1.3 million people worked in sports last year, representing 0.7% of total employment, the lowest percentage of employees in this sector being in Romania, show the data published on Monday by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat). Among member - President Klaus Iohannis said on Monday that as Romania comes to face civilian emergencies, firefighters' missions will become increasingly difficult and stressed the importance of fostering a culture of prevention among the population. A ceremony was organized at the Cotroceni Presidential Patronatele medicilor de familie cer decontarea serviciilor de testare rapida anti-Covid In prezent, pacientii se pot testa la cabinetele medicilor de familie contra cost, iar daca autoritatile vor da curs solicitarii, acest serviciu ar urma sa fie gratuit pentru pacienti. Federatia Nationala a Patronatelor [citeste mai departe] Flags are seen flying at half-mast behind a statue for the late Sen. John McCain at Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Thursday, Aug. 30, 2018. HEATHER KHALIFA / Staff Photographer Read more Want to invest in veterans, but need ideas? We asked around Philadelphia's veterans' groups to find out how. There are upward of 200,000 veterans in Philadelphia and surrounding counties, according to Hugo Lentze, founder of the Delaware Valley Veterans Consortium. He started the loose coalition that aims to be a meeting place for Greater Philly's veterans' groups to exchange ideas and event information. To learn more, visit the website for the Delaware Valley Veterans Consortium (https://dvvc.weebly.com). The outfit meets quarterly to help counties and regional veterans' advocates work together and effect policy change. "My vision, my goal is Philadelphia becomes the destination for military families, because of the benefits of living here as a veteran," Lentze said. That's not even his day job. Lentze works full-time at the Travis Manion Foundation, which was founded by Manion's parents and sister Ryan Manion in Doylestown. Marine First Lt. Travis Manion was killed by a sniper in Iraq in April 2007. The foundation trains veterans to speak to high school students about why character matters. The foundation (www.travismanion.org) has worked with more than 250,000 kids. Widows, families of fallen veterans, and even those once engaged to them also come together to participate in foundation service projects and to heal. "This is going to be our best year," said Lentze, chief strategic partnerships officer at Travis Manion Foundation. "We're in nine cities and up to 50 employees. Now we're digging into where we are." Hire Veterans as Employees Kevin O'Brien founded Veteran Recruiting as a virtual job fair for veterans, their spouses, and families. Veteran Recruiting, based in Doylestown, is the leader in virtual career fairs for the military community. More than 212,000 veterans have been hired since 2011 through the organization. For more information, visit the website: www.veteranrecruiting.com. Contact O'Brien at kobrien@veteranrecruiting.com or 215-525-5776. Philly-based JDog Junk Removal & Hauling just opened its 200th franchise. "They're hiring veterans and giving them a chance to own a business," said Ralph Galati, board member of the JDog Foundation. "If you want to get involved with veterans, go local," he recommends. "Then you see where your money is helping in the community." Elissa Bloom, executive director of the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator, on Monday will honor women vets at the Loew's Hotel for the second annual Women's Entrepreneurship Day. She'll be honoring four women vets who are also business owners: Kym Ramsey, founder, The Willow School; Rhonda Smith, founder, The Skirted Soldier; Carol Eggert, senior vice president for military and veteran affairs, Comcast NBCUniversal; and Erica Webster, founder, Dub Fitness. Women entrepreneurs who work in technology, business, the nonprofit sector, and education will meet at this full-day conference. For more information, and to register, check out the website: www.wedphiladelphia.wordpress.com. Trade with a veteran next time you buy and sell securities. Cauldon Quinn, a service-disabled veteran, last year opened Bancroft Capital, a certified veteran-owned small business operating an institutional broker-dealer and investment adviser. Based in Fort Washington, Bancroft Capital will donate all of its net profits on Veterans Day to the Travis Manion Foundation. "Bancroft is committed to the restoration of veterans and disabled veterans to their rightful place of leadership within society, community, and foremost, to their individual family," said Quinn. The sixth annual Veteran Shark Tank takes place Monday, Dec. 3, at the Union League of Philadelphia, 140 S. Broad St. To register or support the event, visit the website: http://veteransharktank.com. Veteran entrepreneurs pitch business ideas at Veteran Shark Tank, which was created by Greater Philadelphia Veterans Network as a way to help veterans who are starting their own businesses, and is similar to the popular television show Shark Tank. Winners take home a cash prize of $25,000. Remembrances Pennsylvanians searching for their military decorations may search here. Treasury's Bureau of Unclaimed Property can also be reached toll-free at 1-800-222-2046 and via email at tupmail@patreasury.gov, to help conduct a thorough search for unclaimed property. Finally, Terry Williamson is looking for donations for the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial, located at Spruce Street and Columbus Boulevard (www.pvvm.org). The memorial board has raised $126,000, half of its goal. The monument is scheduled for completion next year. For more information, contact Terry Williamson, president of the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund at 610-637-0980. Virtually every small business could benefit from a web site. A package store, for example, could give background and recipes with this bottle of Crios Rose of Malbec. Read more You would think that in 2018 it would be common that every business big and small would at least have a website that provides basic information for prospective and current customers. Unfortunately, that's not the case and it's hurting those that don't. According to a recent study from SurveyMonkey, 31 percent of millennials don't trust companies without a website and 24 percent of non-millennials feel the same way. And yet, according to another study by the same company a year ago, nearly half (45 percent) of small businesses still don't have a website at all. What gives? Most of us automatically go online to find out information, directions, menus, background, and news about the companies, stores, and restaurants we plan to patronize. I may not agree on all the things that some millennials find important (Paid time off to raise a puppy?), but I do think that lacking a website would raise my concerns about the legitimacy and even the long-term prospects of a company. Some small business owners that I meet say that it's not necessary for them to have a website. But that's just not true. For example, let's say you're an independent liquor dealer in New Jersey. Your business comes from street traffic and you may even advertise. That's good enough, right? Not really. Even liquor stores can offer deals online assuming the products are legal to ship. Coupons for in-store purchases can be proffered. More information about the products their history, ingredients, health data can be available. A smart liquor store owner might even want to regularly blog on her site about fun cocktails, cool recipes, and great meals that can be prepared to entice us to buy different products that she sells. More importantly, by generating views the site will also create more leads and a better search position for when prospective customers are looking for their nearest liquor store on Google or Google Maps, as so many of us do from our smartphones. It's a revenue generator. More importantly, it's a low-cost revenue generator. That's because you don't have to hire a web designer to do this. Sure, web designers can be important if you're setting up a complex site with e-commerce capabilities and integration to other systems. In those cases, searching for help on UpWork, Guru, or even Craigslist will likely uncover someone with the skills you need to help you create something unique. However, in the case of a liquor store or most small companies, a number of do-it-yourself services have popped up that make all this very easy. These services Squarespace, GoDaddy, Wix, Weebly, Shopify, and many others offer hundreds of professional-looking templates tailored to your industry, in-house experts to answer the most trivial questions, and easy customization tools that even an internet luddite can use to create specific content and branding. "We've helped millions of customers avoid costly custom websites by enabling them to build their brands themselves, and given members of today's independent workforce the tools their businesses need to stand out from the crowd," Kinjil Mathur, chief marketing officer of Squarespace, told me. "Today, it's more important than ever for entrepreneurs to have a website not only to increase sales and expand their customer base, but also to lend immediate credibility to their business." Squarespace costs $18 a month, not including a three percent fee on transactions. Shopify, which does both internal and ecommerce sales, runs from $29 to $79 a month. A consultant would be anywhere from $50 to $200 per hour. These same services also provide help with optimizing your site for search, creating email campaigns, connecting to advertising services, and making sure a website works well on any mobile device. Even if you don't have the time to do it on your own, rest assured you can hire a part-time marketing major from a local college (or pretty much anyone under age 30) to do this for you at a reasonable hourly rate. Just make sure you build in extra time for that person to regularly maintain the site with new information and updates. Here are three common mistakes that many owners make: Over-develop and spend too much time (money) designing their sites when in most cases the templates from these services are perfectly fine and can be customized. Ignore search engine optimization. Just because you've built it doesn't mean they will come. Significant money may need to be invested in online marketing, social media and search engine optimization. Not maintaining their site. My best clients put someone in charge of the site who is consistently re-shaping and updating content, inventory and other data so that the site is dynamic and evolving with the times. If you're a small business in 2018 regardless of the type you need a website just as much as you need a phone number and sign over your door. No one says you have to be Amazon.com. But today's consumers expect this stuff and if you're not delivering it, you're harming your company's future. Alexander Hamilton's fifth great grandson, Doug Hamilton, net to a bust of his namesake at the Museum of the American Revolution, Monday November 12, 2018. Read more Doug Hamilton, a great-great-great-great-great grandson of Alexander Hamilton, is in town this week to present four family heirlooms he's lending to the Museum of the American Revolution. The items a badge, ring, handkerchief, and christening dress will become part of the "Hamilton Was Here" exhibit, on view through March 17. The badge showed Alexander Hamilton's membership in the Society of the Cincinnati, an elite group of former members of the Continental Army. Today, the society's descendants continue the club. It is the most valuable of the four objects. The gold ring belonged to Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton. She wore it around her neck in the five decades after her husband died in his duel with Aaron Burr. In traditional mourning style, the ring contains strands of Hamilton's hair. Both the ring and the badge will be on public display starting Tuesday. The textiles are Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton's hanky and a dress she sewed. They're undergoing conservation and will go on display early next year. Doug Hamilton is the great-great-great-great grandson of John Church Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton's fourth son. Doug is a lifelong Ohio resident and grandparent of six. Last year, he retired after 41 years in technology sales at IBM. He said he's been interested in his ancestry since childhood. But when Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton took off, the seventh-generation scion felt his founding grandfather finally started getting the respect he deserved. He talked by phone last week with the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. Youre related to Alexander Hamilton because youre his It's five greats, then grandson. In genealogy terms, that's seven generations. Sometimes I just shorten it to, I'm just a really great grandson. How did you learn about your famous relative? My Grandmother Hamilton had to babysit me when I was 8 years old. She got me a coloring book with a picture of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton on the same page. She said I was related to one, and that the birthday of the other [Washington] was the same as mine. Thats what started it? I knew about Hamilton and a little about his history. In 2004, I took part in the reenactment of the duel at Weehawken [New Jersey] against a distant Burr descendant. Three thousand people or so showed up 10 times more than they expected. That's when I got my first interview with the Wall Street Journal. I was a little embarrassed from the interview, because I didn't know the answers to all their questions. Since then, I've armed myself with about 200 books on Hamilton. I've read three of them. Still, I've studied pretty hard, being retired only about a year. But a significant portion of that year was studying, drilling down on it. Have you taken a DNA test? In 2004, Ron Chernow, who wrote the book [Alexander Hamilton] that Lin-Manuel Miranda used for the play, asked me to take a DNA test because I was the first Hamilton descendant bearing his surname. I have the DNA, and we can go far enough back that we're 99% certain that I'm a Hamilton. I get more questions about my DNA than anything else. How have you shared your legacy with your family? I have two children, appropriately named Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton. I have six grandchildren, and the eldest is Alexander Grant Hamilton. He was born on Jan. 11, 2005 250 years after the birthday of Alexander Hamilton. Howd you manage that? If you know some of the history of Hamilton, you know there's history of uncertainty about his birth year. He always claimed 1757, and the Hamilton family sticks with the 1757. But the discovery of his mother's probate document in the 1930s put Hamilton's birth year at 1755. My family deviates from the 1757 only when we tell the story of my grandson. About two months before he was to be born, I asked his mother, 'What are you going to name your son?' She said, 'Grant Alexander.' I kid around. I said, 'If the baby is born Jan. 11, 2005, you're going to have to name him Alexander Grant Hamilton instead of Grant Alexander.' What I didn't know was the baby was to be delivered by scheduled C-section. [My daughter-in-law] told the doctor, 'My father-in-law wants the baby born on Jan. 11.' The doctor said, 'What's so special about that date?' She said, 'He will be the ninth great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton.' The doctor turns out to be a huge Alexander Hamilton fan. He said, 'I don't have the operating room on that day, but I'll get it.' Do you see yourself in Alexander Hamilton? Hamilton was very candid. He sent out some pamphlets on John Adams that were too candid. I see that in myself. I'm pretty candid. I don't have the red hair. I'm six foot tall. He was only 5 foot 7. He was 150 pounds. I'm more than that. I don't share his intellectual capacity, his genius. I was never in the military, and he was a really military guy. Everything he did was, from his perspective, a battle, a war. Hamilton and his son Philip both died being shot in duels. Did that make his ancestors gun-averse? Hamilton had been involved in 11 duels, but the duel with Burr is the only one they advertise. Most duels never, ever came to people holding pistols in their hands Still, it was a foolish way to settle an argument. It was just idiotic. But the more important thing was they were defending their honor. The Hamiltons were a military people. Hamilton was a military guy. His sons were, for the most part, military people. Some served in the war of 1812. There were generals in the family. Some family members served in World War I. One descendant won the Congressional Medal of Honor for service in World War II. Another died while serving in Afghanistan. What do you consider Hamiltons greatest contribution? That he was able to recover our credit was probably the most important thing that he did. His time as a treasury secretary was probably his great contribution. He wrote some of Washington's most important letters. He had this sense of duty. He sacrificed his personal gain for his service to the country. I admire him for that significantly. He was dedicated to making this country as strong as it could be. People now will say we live in a Hamiltonian America. They ask: Where's Hamilton's monument? Go look at New York City: That's his monument. But Hamilton wasnt always so popular. When I was growing up, my father would say being a descendant of Hamilton and 10 cents will get you a cup of coffee. And Lin-Manuel Miranda came along and Hamilton's popularity has never been higher. I give credit to the musical. Although a lot of us have been trying to promote Hamilton and his ideas, it wasn't until the musical came around that things changed. First and foremost, the musical saved Hamilton on the $10. The original intent was to put a woman on the bill. The second thing is, in the Society of the Cincinnati, we're all kind of elderly white men. Now, I go to libraries and schools, and kids of all different kinds of backgrounds want to sing me the songs from Hamilton. This has been awesome for us Hamiltonians. We had been struggling to figure out how to get our message out to a more diverse group of people. Right now, I'm a lot more popular in the Society of the Cincinnati because of what the musical is doing. Hamilton Was Here, through March 17, Museum of the American Revolution, 101 S. Third Street, 215-253-6731, amrevmuseum.org. Sylvester Stallone stars as Rocky Balboa and Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed and in CREED II, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures film Credit: Read more The cast and crew of Creed II may have wrapped filming in Philadelphia area earlier this year, but they aren't done with the City of Brotherly Love just yet. Several members of the cast and crew appeared at an early screening of Creed II at the United Artists Riverview Plaza 17 on Saturday. Visitors included director Steven Caple Jr., as well as stars Michael B. Jordan, Dolph Lundgren, Tessa Thompson, and Florian "Big Nasty" Munteanu, according to social media posts from audience members. Organizers of the screening could not immediately be reached for comment. Scheduled for release on Wednesday, Nov. 21, Creed II stars Jordan as Adonis Creed, son of Apollo Creed, who Russian villain Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) killed in a fight in Rocky IV. In the second installment, Creed faces off against Drago's son (Munteanu) Viktor. Sylvester Stallone, who was not present at Saturday's screening, reprises his role as Rocky Balboa, while Thompson also returns as Bianca Porter, Creed's girlfriend. The film serves as the eighth installment of the Rocky franchise, as well as a followup to 2015's Creed. Filming began in Philadelphia back in March, and wrapped in the area in June. In addition to his Philadelphia appearance, Jordan this week was named GQ's "Leader of the Year" as part of its 2018 "Men of the Year" issue. "I remember when it used to be like, 'He's the next Will Smith,'" Jordan told GQ. "Now, I'm the example of the next they're looking for the next me." The legendary Marvel Comics figure Stan Lee, 95, who co-created beloved characters like Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Black Panther, died Monday in Los Angeles. Mr. Lee died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after being rushed there from his Hollywood Hills home. The cause of death has not been released, though the writer, editor, and publisher had recently battled pneumonia and suffered from vision problems. As the top writer at Marvel and later as its publisher, Mr. Lee was widely considered the architect of the contemporary comic book. He revived the industry in the 1960s by offering the costumes and action craved by younger readers while insisting on sophisticated plots, college-level dialogue, satire, science fiction, even philosophy. Mr. Lee first joined the comic company as an assistant in 1939, when it was still known as Timely Publications. In 1941, when Mr. Lee was just 19, he took over as editor-in-chief. In 1961, Mr. Lee and friend Jack Kirby, a fellow comic book industry legend, rebranded Timely as Marvel Comics, and launched the Fantastic Four, the first group of many famous characters the duo would invent. During his 1960s heyday, Mr. Lee would go on to develop not only Spider-Man but the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, and many other characters. "It was like there was something in the air. I couldn't do anything wrong," he told the Associated Press in 2006. Mr. Lee scripted most of Marvel's superhero comics during the '60s, including the Avengers and the X-Men, two of the most enduring. In 1972, he became Marvel's publisher and editorial director; four years later, 72 million copies of the Amazing Spider-Man were sold. "He's become our Mickey Mouse," he once said of the web-crawling crusader. The first big-budget movie based on Mr. Lee's characters, X-Men, was a smash in 2000, earning more than $130 million at North American theaters. Spider-Man did even better, taking in more than $400 million in 2002. (Mr. Lee later sued Marvel for $10 million, saying the company cheated him out of millions in profits from movies based on his characters, including Spider-Man.) A Marvel movie empire would emerge after that, one of the most lucrative franchises in cinema history, with the recent Avengers: Infinity War grossing more than $2 billion worldwide. In 10 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe films have netted over $17.6 billion in worldwide grosses. Mr. Lee became the public face of Marvel Comics and frequently made small appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe projects. Most recently, he briefly appeared in Venom, in which he is credited as the "dapper dog walker." Despite Marvel movies' recent success, Mr. Lee was not always so gung-ho about the art form. Back in 1983, Mr. Lee said making movies was a little more time-consuming than making comics and a lot more expensive. "What's frustrating about films is that they take forever to get off the ground," he said. "Developing them, selling them, casting them, getting a story that everybody likes. I can understand why with a comic magazine with a new title, you're investing a few thousand dollars. With any sort of motion picture today, you're investing an average between $5 million and $10 million or more. So, obviously, it's not something that you rush into." Stanley Martin Lieber was born on Dec. 28, 1922, in New York City. He grew up a fan of the Hardy Boys adventure books and Errol Flynn movies, and got the job at Timely Comics after graduating from high school. His early work largely reflected popular movies westerns, crime dramas, romance, whatever was the rage. He worked for about 50 cents per page. After a stint in the Army during World War II, writing for training films, he was back at Marvel to begin a long and admittedly boring run of assembly-line comic book production. Comics in the 1950s were the subject of Senate hearings pushed by the Comics Code Authority, which frowned on gore and characters who questioned authority. Major comic book companies adopted the code as a form of self-regulation to avoid sanctions. Mr. Lee said he was also working for a publisher who considered comics as fare only for children. "One day I said, 'This is insane,'" Mr. Lee told the Guardian in 1979. "I'm just doing the same type of stories as everybody else. I wasn't taking pride in my work, and I wanted to quit. But my wife said, 'Look, why don't you do the kind of comics you want for a change?'" The result was the first issue of the Fantastic Four in 1960, with the characters, plot and text from Mr. Lee and the illustrations by Kirby. The characters were normal people changed into reluctant superheroes through no fault of their own. The Amazing Spider-Man followed in 1962 and before long, Marvel was an industry behemoth. As sales of comics declined, Marvel was forced into bankruptcy proceedings that meant it had to void a lifetime contract prohibiting Mr. Lee from working for anyone else. In 2000, Mr. Lee agreed to write stories for DC Comics, reinventing Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and other signature characters for Marvel's one-time rival. He worked into his 90s on numerous projects, including comics, films and DVDs. Mr. Lee's wife and partner in nearly everything, Joan, died on July 6, 2017, leaving a void that made her husband, by then in mental and physical decline, vulnerable to hangers-on. Lawsuits, court fights, and an elder abuse investigation all emerged in the battle over who spoke for Mr. Lee. He is survived by his daughter, Joan Celia, known as "J.C.," and a brother who also works for Marvel. "We try our best to have fun with what we do," Mr. Lee said in 1986. "If we don't entertain you it's meaningless." This article contains information from the Associated Press. Medical professionals in Philadelphia and across the country are angry at the NRA for telling doctors to "stay in their lane." Read more The NRA has drawn the anger of physicians in Philadelphia and across the country after the group mocked doctors for outlining ways to curb injuries and deaths caused by guns. "Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane," the NRA wrote on Twitter last week, promoting a nearly 900-word unsigned opinion piece on the organization's Institute for Legislative Action website that complained that "some doctors' collective hobby is opining on firearms policy." The NRA's hostility toward doctors is a response to a new position paper from the American College of Physicians, which was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine and offers nine strategies aimed at reducing the number of people killed in firearms-related incidents. Chief among the ACP's suggestions is to address firearm safety as a public health issue, which is opposed by the NRA and most Republicans in office. In 1996, Congress passed an amendment backed by the NRA that banned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using federal funds to "advocate or promote gun control." Congress also cut the CDC's budget by the same amount it had been spending on gun violence research. >> READ MORE: I'm an ER doc in Philly. I'm haunted by the patients I've lost to gun violence. | Perspective >> READ MORE: CHOP docs: Fund gun violence research so we can honestly say 'we did everything we could' | Opinion Many local doctors, angered by the NRA's open hostility and the timing of the tweet (posted just hours before 12 people were killed in a shooting at a bar in California), took to social media using the #ThisIsMyLane and #ThisIsOurLane hashtags to respond to the organization's criticism. Stephanie Boone, a trauma surgeon based in Newark, N.J., shared a photo of a bloody operating room floor along with the caption, "She didn't make it." "My lane is a pregnant woman shot in a moment of rage by her partner," Boone wrote in an earlier tweet directed at the NRA. "She survived because the baby stopped the bullet. Have you ever had to deliver a shattered baby?" Boone also shared a photo of the blue chair she said she sits in when she informs parents their children have died. Anna Weiss, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, wrote, "I've lost track of how many young people I've seen die from their gunshot wounds how many mothers I've seen wailing over their bodies. This is my lane." Marleny Franco, an attending physician who also works in CHOP's department of emergency medicine, called on the NRA to "stop disrespecting the folks that clean up your mess." David Sullivan, a Philadelphia paramedic, shared a photo of a stretcher covered in blood and added, "they didn't survive." "When you 'upset' the @NRA, you can be sure whatever you are doing is right," wrote Hannah Bergbower, a registered nurse and instructor at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. "Lobbying for guns, behind bullet proof windows, they cannot understand the feeling of a hand over a bullet hole, in a humans chest." The NRA's tweet drew condemnation from physicians and nurses from across the country. Dave Morris, a trauma surgeon in Utah, shared a photo of his blood-covered scrubs. "Can't post a patient photo, so this is a selfie," Morris wrote. >> READ MORE: An E.R. doctor's call to action: Treat gun violence as an epidemic we can conquer When Jeremy Epstein rented a Nissan Altima from Hertz in Albuquerque, N.M., recently, he couldn't believe the car rental fees. They made the extras the rest of the travel industry charges look like the work of amateurs. They do. But not for much longer. Epstein's base rate for a weekly rental came to $280. But then the rental company added daily and weekly surcharges, including "government supplements" of $25, a "concession fee recovery" of $34, a $3 "vehicle license fee," a $1 "energy surcharge," an $11 "facility charge," a $10 motor vehicle lease tax, and a $45 state sales tax. Epstein, a research scientist from Fairfax, Va., was on the hook for $411. "Imagine going to the grocery store and getting a receipt when you check out," he says. "In addition to the cost of the food, there's a fee for delivering your food to the store, the space for the cash register, and a fraction of the bill for keeping the refrigerators cold. This is what rental car companies are doing." There's good news for travelers like Epstein. The industry is gradually changing. Hertz disclosed the fees at the time it quoted his initial price (although he didn't see it because someone else made the reservation for him). Regulators require only that rental companies show the full cost before buyers complete the reservation. As a service to customers, car rental companies break down the fees before the final purchase screen. "This also helps provide transparency to our customers," says Hertz spokeswoman Lauren Luster. Car rental companies are moving from a business model that too often relied on deception to one of full transparency. The progress is slow, but it's measurable. It could soon put car rental businesses in the position of setting an example for the rest of the travel industry. The extra costs you see on your bill fall into two general categories: taxes, which are imposed by the city, county, or state; and fees added by the car rental company. Both are a predictable source of customer outrage. The fees make little sense to drivers; the taxes often seem arbitrary. More than 40 states levied a charge on short-term rental cars, according to a 2015 survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Among states that tax car rentals, the rates were as much as Maryland's 11.5 percent. But not all the fees are outside a rental company's control. Julie Codrington, a computer technician from Gibraltar, Mich., contacted me recently after being broadsided by fees for "counter processing recovery," "shuttle recovery," and "facility recovery" on her bill. "I rented a car for $200 online," she says. "After all the additional fees and charges, I ended up paying $421." Those are junk fees the kind that industry experts agree should be folded into the price of your rental. Car rental companies and online agencies that broker rentals have taken important steps toward fixing that issue. When I recently checked on a sample rental rate, Enterprise quoted an all-inclusive price upfront. Hertz offered two rates a low base rate above a total rate that included taxes and required fees. Avis quoted a low base rate and revealed the total cost three screens into the reservation. Online travel agencies' disclosures also varied. Expedia quoted a low base rate in bold and posted the total cost below it in regular type. Priceline quoted a low per-day base rate but waited until the second screen to reveal the full cost, which included taxes and fees. When selling through online agencies, for example, car rental companies can't mislead customers because the sites compare rates on a matrix. "You can't fool the matrix," says Chris Brown, executive editor of Auto Rental News, a trade publication. In other words, companies have to play by the online agency's rules, which force them to be upfront about total cost. Shop around carefully before you book a car. Check the car rental site and an online travel agency. Call the company to find out whether there is a better rate. You can't negotiate taxes and junk fees off your bill, but you can ensure that the price you're quoted is the price you pay. Christopher Elliott is a consumer advocate, journalist, and co-founder of the advocacy group Travelers United. Contact him at Elliott.org. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, prepares to lead the USCCB's annual fall meeting Monday in Baltimore. Read more BALTIMORE The first gathering of the nation's Catholic bishops since this summer's wave of anger and recrimination at the hierarchy's handling of clergy sex abuse opened Monday with a stunning announcement: The prelates would not take a promised vote on a series of new accountability measures and it was the Vatican that ordered them to hold off. Explaining its contents to a clearly surprised body of bishops, DiNardo said Pope Francis hoped to address the issue of bishop accountability more globally at a February summit in Rome. "I remain hopeful that this additional consultation will ultimately improve our response to the crisis we face," said DiNardo, who leads the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese. He added later: "We remain committed to this specific program of greater episcopal accountability." Still, the news seemingly pulled the rug out from what had been slated as a reckoning for America's prelates after what some called their "summer of shame." >>> READ MORE: Failure at the top: America's Catholic bishops failed to police themselves The announcement was followed by a speech from the Vatican's top U.S. diplomat, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, that appeared to highlight the distance between the Roman hierarchy's plans and the proposals up for debate in the United States, including calls for more involvement by the laity in policing problem prelates. "There may be a temptation on the part of some to relinquish responsibility for reform to others, as if we were no longer capable of reforming or trusting ourselves," Pierre said, while defending what U.S. bishops have done to reduce clergy sex abuse. "Surely, collaboration with the laity is essential. However, the responsibility as bishops of this Catholic Church is ours." Before Monday's announcement, the bishops' meeting appeared as if it could be as defining a moment for the U.S. church as their landmark 2002 conference in Dallas, where they adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward dealing with abusive priests. The toppling this summer of top members of the hierarchy including Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington and his successor, Donald Wuerl, the onetime leader of Pittsburgh's diocese over sex abuse-related claims, as well as the damning Pennsylvania grand jury report in August, have fomented demands among Catholic faithful for greater accountability from church leaders. Meanwhile, prosecutors in more than a half-dozen states have opened investigations that threaten to tie up dioceses in legal wrangling for years. The bishops had promised to debate specific proposals this week, including the adoption of a new code of conduct for bishop behavior and a lay commission to investigate prelates who have been accused of sexual misconduct or who mishandled such claims against clerics under them. "Certainly, this morning's announcement has thrown many of us completely sideways, because it was completely unexpected," said Bishop Christopher Coyne of Burlington, Vt. "But this does not mean we suspend our agenda completely, it just means that we may not come to a point of action." But the abrupt about-face left some outside observers skeptical of Rome's wider commitment to change. "The Vatican just made a big mistake. The optics are terrible," tweeted John Gehring, program director at Faith in Public Life, a Washington-based clergy network. "It sends a message, intended or not, that Rome doesn't recognize the urgency of the moment." Terry McKiernan, founder of the watchdog website BishopAccountability.org, described it as another example of Francis and the Vatican being "tone deaf and clueless" about how the wider world perceives their actions. "The American bishops are not known for being very perceptive about this whole thing and even they understand the situation is dire," he said. "I think part of what's going on here is that the Vatican was very uneasy that a bishops' conference was taking on the issue of bishop accountability, which the Vatican feels is its purview." Sensing the lack of patience from Catholics in the pews, some bishops argued it was not enough to leave their conference this week simply with promises for continued discussion. "We need to tell our people where we stand," said Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, as he pushed for at least a nonbinding vote to show full support for the reforms on the table. "We as a conference need to take up this issue without delay." DiNardo insisted his own commitment had not wavered and likened the delay to a "bump in the road." Asked later whether the Vatican's request to hold off signaled some concern over the proposals the U.S. bishops had put forth, DiNardo said Francis had been "very positive" about them during two meetings with a top U.S. delegation to Rome this fall. He said he did not know whether the order to set aside a vote came directly from the pontiff. A Vatican spokesman did not return requests for comment. "There may be within the Holy See itself, perhaps, some tension," DiNardo said. "Who knows? I know where we are and where we intend to go." Francis' recent record on the sex-abuse crisis has left some Catholics questioning his commitment. He earned plaudits early in his papacy by pledging to create a first-of-its-kind Vatican tribunal to adjudicate bishop sex-abuse issues, only to abandon the plan within a year amid strong resistance from his hierarchy. And when the pope accepted the resignation of Wuerl last month over allegations that the cardinal helped cover up abuse decades earlier as Pittsburgh's bishop, Francis praised Wuerl's "nobility" for agreeing to resign a move that left victims with little comfort. Later Monday, during a session devoted to prayer and reflection, the bishops heard from two clergy sex-abuse victims who said the time for ambiguity was over. "What would Jesus' response have been in the same situation?" asked Luis A. Torres Jr. "Would he have called his lawyers and denounced the victims? Or would he have turned over the tables in a fit of rage and declared that this was intolerable in his father's house?" He added: "Your action is needed right now. Not in three months. Not in six months. Yesterday." Meanwhile, another, less-hopeful group of victims gathered outside in protest including Patty Fortney Julius, one of five sisters whose abuse by a priest in Harrisburg decades ago was highlighted in the grand jury report this summer. Holding a sign with photos of her siblings at the ages they were victimized, she chalked Monday's postponement up to yet another in a string of delays she has come to expect from the church. "It's always something," she said. "They're never going to do the right thing." Stephen Szutenbach, shown here in his home in Orlando, Florida, says he was abused by a top administrator, while a seminarian in Denver. Read more DENVER Stephen Szutenbach had never kissed anyone when, he says, a priest he had befriended in the late 1990s started making sexual advances. Szutenbach was 18, a devout Catholic teenager interested in the seminary; the Rev. Kent Drotar was a 39-year-old ranking administrator at St. John Vianney Seminary. "I was so sheltered and I was very uncomfortable because he's in charge," Szutenbach said. "He's the person who could say, 'I don't think he's fit to be in the seminary.' " But the young man did get into the seminary. And in the ensuing four years, he experienced repeated unwanted sexual contact with Drotar, he said. In 2007, Szutenbach reported the allegations to one of his former seminary teachers. The Denver Diocese, led by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput before he came to Philadelphia, sent Drotar to counseling and then reassigned him to another parish. The priest was later removed permanently from ministry after Szutenbach said he warned Chaput he would take his claims to the media. Szutenbach didn't disclose his story at the time but reached out to the Inquirer and Daily News this year after a wave of high-profile reports of sexual misconduct in Catholic seminaries or against young priests in training. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington resigned in July after allegations that he abused minors and seminarians as the church leader in Newark and Metuchen, N.J. Four dioceses Philadelphia, Boston, Newark, and Lincoln, Neb. are investigating claims about misconduct in their seminaries. The issue is likely to emerge when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meets in Baltimore this week, amid new questions over their handling of sex-abuse claims. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, conference president, has proposed establishing an independent hotline for reporting abuse by bishops against minors as well as "vulnerable adults," a group that includes church clergy, staff, and seminarians. "From a legal standpoint, people often think a 19-year-old should be able to say no and walk away. It's not that easy," said Kathleen McChesney, former executive director of the bishops' Office of Child Protection. "Because of the power differential between clerics and seminarians, these people, in essence, should be treated as vulnerable adults." Church officials in Philadelphia and Boston launched their seminary investigations this year after former seminarian John Monaco alleged harassment and sexual advances by classmates at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood and at St. John's Seminary in Brighton, Mass. "The fact is, every single priest who committed abuse throughout history had to go through seminary," Monaco said in an interview. "So the question is how are seminaries either hiding this stuff or how are they preparing men for priesthood?" He was grooming me The spotlight on seminary misconduct stirred Szutenbach to break his silence. After the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy sex abuse, he read Denver's vicar general publicly claim that the archdiocese had no incidents of abuse against a minor since 2002. "And I'm like OK, OK. He said juvenile, but it's mincing words," Szutenbach recalled. "And it's another slap in the face, like my story didn't count." He was a high school junior in 1998 when he met Drotar, a charismatic cleric who had served in the Air Force before becoming a priest. Szutenbach's parents were also Air Force veterans; the family bonded with the priest, inviting him to family dinners and events. By Szutenbach's senior year, he said, Drotar began attending the teen's swim meets and accompanied him on Catholic youth retreats in the Rockies, an account confirmed by Dick Swain, the retreat leader.At that time, Drotar was vocations director for the Denver Archdiocese, responsible for public outreach and recruiting prospective seminarians. "Back then I didn't think anything of it," Szutenbach said. "Now I see that he was grooming me." Szutenbach was 18 when he took a summer job in 2000 doing yardwork at the seminary. Often, he'd lunch with Drotar. During a fishing trip that summer, Szutenbach said, he woke up to the priest in his bed, fondling him. He told Drotar he was uncomfortable with that. The priest offered to hear his confession in the motel room that morning. "I remember the drive back: I felt so bad," Szutenbach said. "I felt gross. I felt guilty." But he wasn't about to abandon his vocation. Raised in a staunchly Catholic family, Szutenbach grew up reciting the rosary in the car. He saw the priesthood as a way to help people through faith. On some level, he said, he knew he was gay and knew that wasn't accepted in the church. But he saw the seminary as a safe place. "No one's going to ask you why you're not dating a woman if you're in the priesthood," Szutenbach said. In his four years of study first at the Immaculate Heart of Mary seminary in Minnesota and then in Denver he hid his relationship with Drotar, who by 2003 had been promoted to vice rector, the seminary's second-highest administrator. Drotar's bedroom was just a few doors down from Szutenbach's. "He would ask me to come to his apartment after evening prayer," and then climb into his bed beside him and grope him, Szutenbach said. "I was scared to [tell anyone] because it's my word against his." Drotar declined to comment for this article. The Denver Archdiocese confirmed they received Szutenbach's accusations. They acknowledged that Drotar had engaged in "inappropriate physical conduct with an adult seminarian" but said the allegations were "not criminal in nature." Szutenbach said that he grew tired of hiding his homosexuality and that the abuse by Drotar weakened his already wavering interest in the priesthood. So in 2004, he dropped out of the seminary. In a letter that June, Drotar apologized to Szutenbach for the discord between them after the seminarian said he was withdrawing. "Thank you, too, for putting up with me and my weaknesses and struggles as I try to love you as a father, brother and friend," the vice rector wrote. "I have been far from perfect in it." Eager to get away, Szutenbach moved to Florida and enrolled in architecture school. For three years, he kept silent. In 2007, while home for Christmas, Szutenbach visited his former Latin teacher, Marica Frank, and their talk turned to current seminarians. Frank mentioned one might not be ordained because the panel, which included Drotar, thought the young man "presented as too flamboyant." Szutenbach got visibly upset, then blurted out: "That's really ironic given that Father Kent touched me sexually." Frank was shocked. "Stephen, you were abused," she told him. Frank and another faculty member, therapist Jeanie Engelbert, reported the information to the head of the seminary, who talked to Szutenbach. "We all thought it would be taken care of," Frank told the Inquirer and Daily News in an interview. "We thought [Drotar] would be removed." In a statement last week, the archdiocese said that Chaput followed diocesan policy when he removed Drotar after the accusations and then returned him to ministry after consulting with a psychiatrist and the diocesan panel that examined misconduct claims. Szutenbach, Engelbert, and Frank said they were unaware that Drotar's conduct was ever scrutinized by the board; no one asked them to testify or submit statements. Engelbert had worked at the seminary since 2001 as director of pastoral formation, helping to place seminarians in the community. Outraged to learn Drotar was returning to public ministry, she wrote to Chaput with her concerns, including that the priest had been reassigned to a parish with a school. "Given the grave nature of Fr. Drotar's offense, and his apparent lack of understanding of the seriousness of it, I believe it is unwise to place him back into a situation where he will exercise authority over others," she wrote. Chaput then summoned her to his office, she said. "I remember he had the letter in his hand and he looked at me and he said, 'What do you want me to do with this?' " Engelbert said. "And I said, 'The right thing.' " Weeks later, Chaput let her know he had consulted with the psychiatrist who determined that Drotar was suitable for parish ministry. The decision would stand, he said. The next day, Engelbert said, she was informed she would not be hired back for the upcoming school year. She saw it as retaliation. "I pushed back, I spoke out," Engelbert said. " And so they just probably wanted to get rid of any potential problems." Mark Haas, spokesperson for the Denver Archdiocese, said he would not comment on specific personnel matters but said: "Neither the archdiocese nor the seminary has terminated any employee, or caused any adverse employment consequences for any employee, who has raised an issue of sexual misconduct." Five months after Englebert's inquiry, Szutenbach learned that Drotar had been returned to public ministry. He sought a meeting with Chaput. The archbishop agreed to meet at a coffee shop. "I told him I was going to go to the press," Szutenbach said. "I remember him being very, very demure. I think he would have done anything I'd asked for." (Chaput declined last week to discuss the Drotar case or Englebert's claims. Through a spokesperson, he referred all questions to the Denver Archdiocese.) Szutenbach said the archbishop arranged to have him testify before Denver's conduct review team. He did so that November and was told a few weeks later that the board recommended Drotar's permanent removal from ministry. The process is complicated and can take years; only the Vatican can laicize a priest. Still, Szutenbach assumed Drotar had been defrocked, never again able to call himself a priest. A fresh dose of scandal When the clergy sex-abuse scandal flared anew this summer, this time over seminarians, Szutenbach went online and searched Drotar's name. Drotar is no longer in public ministry, but Szutenbach found several postings where the now-57-year-old refers to himself as "Father" or "Reverend." He asked the Denver Archdiocese and was told, in emails he shared with the Inquirer and Daily News, that officials there never followed through on their pledge to end Drotar's ties to the church. "They were going to laicize him and they told me they had tried. Which they didn't, apparently so I'm still being lied to," Szutenbach said. The headlines this summer including revelations that West Virginia Bishop Michael J. Bransfield, a Philadelphia native, has been accused of sexually harassing younger priests have convinced Szutenbach that his experience wasn't unique. He hopes the bishops who meet this week take his and similar stories to heart. Szutenbach said he goes to counseling and still has the occasional nightmare where he's back in the seminary and there's a knock on his door at night. "The thing is, you're in this situation where you have these young folks who have worshiped the priesthood and bishops for their whole lives," he said. "It's a place that's ripe for abuse, and to not acknowledge what happened for what it was, as with McCarrick or Drotar, it's kind of an abdication of the ickiness and awfulness of abuse. It's still abuse." His homosexuality and contact with Drotar have largely estranged him from his parents, he said. Now 37, Szutenbach lives in Orlando with his husband and designs hospitals for a living. He doesn't attend Mass, he said, but on occasion steps inside churches as a photographer, still marveling at the intricate facades and stained glass. "The abuse didn't destroy my faith," Szutenbach said. "The way they treated me when I told them what happened, the way they responded, destroyed my faith." Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified Jeanie Engelbert's certification. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist. These days, diversity and inclusion are all the rage. Just ask any executive director, CEO, or head of HR. But the question that's less popular is: What are you willing to lose to get there? Both staffers and funders abandoned Alison Gerig, the former executive director of what used to be the Women's Therapy Center, when she wanted to offer services to trans people as part of the center's mission. But she knew it was necessary to turn her "white feminist" nonprofit into an inclusive one. "There's going to be loss," Gerig said. "There's going to be pain." This acknowledgment that the work of inclusion is messy, difficult, and constantly evolving is one reason the Leeway Foundation, which supports women and trans artists focused on social change, just released a guide for arts, culture, and philanthropic organizations that want to develop a supportive environment for trans and gender-nonconforming individuals. Produced by former Leeway scholar-in-residence V Varun Chaudhry, the guide aims to be a jumping-off point, a way to lead the self-reflection necessary for this kind of structural change by asking questions like: How does our mission statement approach questions of power? Why is inclusion important to our organization? For instance, when some organizations say they want to be inclusive, they often "don't know what that looks like," said Celena Morrison, the director of programs at William Way LGBT Community Center. At a launch event Thursday, Morrison and other trans advocates said they were glad to see a resource that went beyond pronouns and bathrooms, and urged the audience not to think of inclusion as a one-and-done kind of deal. "We're certainly not positing ourselves as the experts," said Leeway's executive director, Denise Brown. "This is an ongoing process." It also comes at a time where there's an urgency and a hunger to figure out how to become more trans inclusive. Brown says Leeway has put together materials many times over the years in response to arts and culture organizations seeking help navigating trans inclusion. "We are in a moment where people want to be in the room for these conversations," Chaudhry said. Gerig, whose former organization changed its name to the Therapy Center of Philadelphia, said it was important to put structures in place around inclusivity in order to avoid making decisions on a case-by-case basis. Heath Fogg Davis, a political science professor who runs Temple University's gender, sexuality, and women's studies program, added that having structures in place makes it easier for those who are transitioning at work, so they aren't forced to educate others or to ask for special allowances. "Nobody has all the right answers," said Davis, who wrote a guide called "Building Gender-Inclusive Organizations." (And you shouldn't expect trans folks to, either. "As a trans-identified woman, people expected me to know everything," Morrison said.) When Davis was transitioning 10 years ago, his mentor at work helped prepare him for his coworkers' reaction: They were going to want to know how this would change how they should interact with him, but they'd be afraid to ask. It's important, Davis said, to apologize when you mess up. If you use the wrong pronouns for someone, you should acknowledge the mistake instead of just moving on and pretending it didn't happen, even if it's uncomfortable. Morrison acknowledged that it can be hard for people to keep up with all the changes in the trans and gender-nonconforming community. Davis encouraged using those changes as a way to start a conversation. "Language is in flux," he said. "Embrace it." He suggested having discussions like: "We used to say transsexual, but we don't anymore. Why is that the case?" A farmer's market and cooking demonstration at Devereaux United Methodist Church on Allegheny Avenue and 25th Street. Read more The number of people living in hunger in Philadelphia has increased by 22 percent at the same time that hunger has diminished throughout America. That finding, from a report being released Monday by Hunger Free America, a New York-based nonprofit, is the latest example of how Philadelphia diverges from the national mainstream on issues of poverty. Based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the report found that in the 2015-17 time period, 302,685 Philadelphia residents, or 18.3 percent of the population, lived in households that the federal government designates as food insecure. That's a measure of hunger meaning that people didn't have enough food in the course of a year to lead a healthy lifestyle. In the 2012-14 period, there were 248,046 Philadelphians living in hunger, or 16.7 percent. Nationwide, food insecurity numbers were moving in the opposite direction: They dropped from 15.7 percent between 2012 and 2014, to 11.1 percent in the 2015-17 period, according to the report. "While Philadelphia originally led the nation in freedom a city with so many residents unable to afford a full supply of food isn't truly free," said Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, in a statement included in the report. The hunger numbers reflect an overarching level of hardship in Philadelphia that is out of step with national trends. For example, while census figures show that the U.S. poverty rate dropped from 12.7 percent to 12.3 percent from 2016 to 2017, the poverty rate in Philadelphia remained static at 25.7 percent during both years. Philadelphia has the highest poverty rate of the nation's 10 most populous cities. Philadelphia saw a drop in its median income: from $41,449 in 2016 to $39,759 in 2017. For the nation overall, the median income rose during that same period, from $57,617 to $59,039, federal figures show. It is "the bare issue" of Philadelphia's high rate of poverty that accounts for its higher rates of hunger, Berg said in an interview. Berg added that to end hunger, food-insecure families in Philadelphia would need an additional $158 million per year. Because President Trump is looking to cut funding to food stamps, it's inconceivable that the federal government will be augmenting budgets to feed people in hunger any time soon, Berg added. And, he said, no local charity could ever supply such a massive annual outlay year after year. "The focus, then, should be on creating jobs, raising wages, and ensuring an adequate safety net," Berg said. Glenn Bergman, executive director of Philabundance, the region's largest anti-hunger agency, said Hunger Free America's new numbers are "devastating." But, he added, they're not surprising. He said the city needs not just more food, but a coordinated effort to raise people out of misery, offering "better-paying jobs, access to health care, financial assistance, education, and other social services that help alleviate the root causes of hunger." Kathy Fisher, policy director of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger, also said it wasn't shocking that food insecurity has gone up, "given that housing prices have skyrocketed, and that people at the bottom aren't earning any more money. "Overall, we haven't moved the needle on poverty." At Devereux United Methodist Church in North Philadelphia, where Thelma Kennerly runs a feeding program, the Hunger Free America report simply reflects what she sees every day. "On Labor Day, I served 25 people, but yesterday, I saw 56," she said. "A lot of places that feed people in North Philadelphia are seeing an increase in need." Kennerly is unsure why she's seeing more hungry people at her door. "I don't question," she said. "I just feed them." Philadelphia Media Network is one of 21 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city's push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org. Seven months after her controversial hiring, Mazzoni Center CEO Lydia Gonzalez Sciarrino a straight woman leading the LGBT health-care provider will be stepping down. "Mazzoni Center's board hired Sciarrino because of her proven track record of excellence in leading a health-services agency," the organization said in a statement. "Sciarrino's tenure has demonstrated, both to the board and to Sciarrino herself, that no single person can lead Mazzoni Center in the way our staff and communities need at this time." The news was first reported by the Philadelphia Gay News and Philadelphia Magazine. Mazzoni chief operating officer Ron Powers, a 20-year veteran of the organization, also is resigning, the Gay News reported. The paper said three staffers would lead the center after Sciarrino leaves next month. In March, some in the queer community, including the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative activist group, called for Sciarrino's firing, while Mazzoni defended her hire. "Why is a straight Latinx woman running an LGBTQ-specific health center in Philadelphia, Pa.? She's from Florida. Why?" asked Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, cofounder of the collective and a former HIV prevention counselor at the center, in a Facebook video last spring. At the time, the center's board of directors responded: "We are disappointed members of the community our community chose to judge Lydia without first meeting her, based on their perceptions of her race, gender identity, and orientation, and not her qualifications." >> Read more: Lydia Gonzalez Sciarrino's appointment as the first non-LGBTQ leader of Mazzoni sparked outrage in March. Eight weeks into the job, she made a public appeal to the community. The organization has faced a slew of controversies over the last 18 months. As the Inquirer and Daily News reported in September: "The same problems keep surfacing: employees of color feeling mistreated by upper management, a disconnect between the CEO and staff, sexual-misconduct accusations against high-ranking officials." Sciarrino replaced interim CEO Stephen Glassman, who was accused of sexual harassment and fought staffers' attempts to unionize, as well as former CEO Nurit Shein, who was said to have created hostile environment for people of color and ignored sexual misconduct allegations against a former medical director. In August, a few months into Sciarrino's tenure, dozens of staffers walked out to protest the firing of the organization's director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Police seeking the publics help in finding the drivers of vehicles in three separate hit-and-run deaths in the city over the weekend. Read more Philadelphia police are seeking the public's help in finding the drivers involved in three hit-and-run deaths over the weekend. The first occurred about 8:25 p.m. Friday, when Brian Jones, 50, was struck while crossing Torresdale Avenue in Holmesburg by a gray Toyota Camry. The car had been heading east on Cottman Avenue, then turned left and into the victim, police said. About 15 seconds later, Jones was hit again by a dark Mitsubishi Galant that made a turn from the westbound lanes of Cottman. Jones, of the 1200 block of Allegheny Avenue, was pronounced dead at the scene. Both drivers, a female in the Camry and a male in the Galant, left the scene, police said. In the second case, officers responding to a call on the 3500 block of North Randolph Street in North Philadelphia about 12:10 a.m. Sunday were met by a witness who found a 50-year-old man unresponsive in the roadway, police said. The victim, whose name has not been released, was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:20 a.m. The Medical Examiner's Office determined his injuries were consistent with having been struck by a vehicle. Police have no description of the vehicle. The victim was identified by his family as Andrew Bagwell. "He is a grandfather, father, son, uncle, and brother," said his niece, Keisha Tramel. "He was loved by many and I want the person who hit him and left him for dead to be brought to justice. He did not deserve this" Less than an hour later, a 17-year-old boy was hit by a car on the 7600 block of Roosevelt Boulevard in Rhawnhurst, police said. The vehicle, described as a 2007 or 2008 Chevrolet Impala or Malibu, was driven away south on the Boulevard. The victim. identified Monday as John Gbaa of the 7800 block of Algon Avenue, was taken to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:40 a.m. Police found the car's driver-side door mirror at the scene and said the vehicle would have damage to the driver's-side headlight. Witnesses or anyone with information about the crashes can call the Accident Investigation Division at 215-685-3180 or call 911. The Pennsylvania state Capitol, pictured above. The steps are covered with an art installation by Michelle Angela Ortiz showing images of young mothers who were held in a facility in Pennsylvania that is one of three family detention centers in the United States that holds children and parents who are seeking asylum or entered the country illegally. (AP Photo/Marc Levy) Read more HARRISBURG When it comes to choosing new leaders in Pennsylvania's legislature, the more things change, apparently, the more they stay the same. Lawmakers will return to the Capitol this week to vote for leaders who control everything from which bills are brought to a floor vote to how many staffers rank-and-file members are assigned. While discussions remain fluid, few expect a seismic shake-up in either House or Senate leadership ranks this despite last week's midterm election, which shifted the makeup of both chambers. Democrats are getting a crop of younger and more progressive members many of them women elected largely by voters from Philadelphia and its surrounding counties or Pittsburgh. And though Republicans will still hold majorities in both chambers, they suffered some crushing losses Tuesday, leaving them with a more conservative membership. Chris Borick, a professor and political scientist at Muhlenberg College, said upheavals are rare. They often come after major election losses, which did not happen this year, or when a leader leaves the chamber. If you challenge a sitting leader, "you do so at your own peril," Borick said. Though leadership teams usually consist of seven or eight members, the people at the top exert the most influence. They get paid more. They control budgets. They negotiate on legislation and can block someone's bill or smooth its way to passage. They control committee assignments and can often direct the flow of campaign money. In the 203-member House, all eyes are going to be on the Democratic caucus, even though it will still be outnumbered by Republicans, 110-93, according to projections. In all, Democrats picked up 11 seats in the chamber, all of them from Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Montgomery, and Delaware Counties. They also gained nine women, the majority from the southeast, who are expected to be a louder voice this time around during leadership elections. Minority Leader Frank Dermody of Allegheny County is poised to reclaim the top job, despite fielding criticism late last year for overseeing a secret, nearly quarter-million-dollar sexual-harassment settlement involving State Rep. Thomas Caltagirone (D., Berks), who was easily reelected. The decision, which Dermody at the time said he was prohibited from discussing because of a nondisclosure clause, was openly castigated by some members of the caucus. But come Tuesday, when the caucus will meet for leadership elections, Dermody is expected to be unopposed, according to multiple sources who are familiar with the caucus' workings. As of late last week, there seemed to be a contest brewing for the position of whip. The latter is arguably one of the more powerful leadership jobs. It involves persuading members to vote for legislation deemed crucial to the party's platform, and can be a stepping-stone to snagging the top leader position. The whip job is up for grabs, as the current one, Rep. Mike Hanna (D., Clinton), is retiring. Among the new contenders: Reps. Leanne Krueger-Braneky of Delaware County, Ed Neilson of Philadelphia, and Mike Carroll of Luzerne County. Krueger-Braneky was endorsed by the House's Southeast delegation, which despite its large representation in the Capitol, has had very little political muscle in Harrisburg in recent years. The power instead has been concentrated in large part in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh. It is widely expected that Krueger-Braneky, a leader for policy changes in the wake of the #metoo movement, will mount a rigorous battle to break into leadership. In an interview Friday, Krueger-Braneky said she is no stranger to tough fights. "I'm going to run for this just as hard as I have for every other election," she said. There is far less drama expected on the House Republican side, even though the party saw its ranks drop from 121 to a projected 110 members. House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) is expected to once again be chosen for the chamber's top spot. His caucus, too, has been roiled by #metoo allegations. Two women, including a sitting lawmaker, accused State Rep. Nick Miccarelli (R. Delaware) of sexual or physical abuse. House Republican leaders called on Miccarelli to resign, but some felt they should have gone further. Miccarelli did not run for reelection. Just below the speaker in ranking, the majority leader position vacated by State Rep. Dave Reed (R., Indiana), who chose not to run for reelection is likely to be snagged by Rep. Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster). Cutler currently serves as the caucus' whip, a position that requires him to round up GOP support for critical legislation. In the 50-member Senate, where Republicans are projected to have a 29-21 edge, little change is expected in either party, even though Republicans lost five critical seats. Four belonged to moderate GOP members from the Philadelphia area, and the fifth was an Allegheny County seat that became a closely watched battleground in this election. The election for a sixth seat now held by Sen. Tommy Tomlinson (R., Bucks) remained too close to call. The losses came weeks after Senate Republicans and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) in particular fielded one political dart after another for blocking a vote on a controversial measure to help victims of clergy sexual abuse sue their attackers. That prompted Democrats to run television ads against moderate GOP senators some of whom ended up losing. Republicans have downplayed the impact of the issue, instead pointing to anti-Trump fervor in the southeast as the culprit. But the losses stung: The GOP lost almost 15 percent of its Senate seats Tuesday. Still, Scarnati and Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman (R., Centre) are expected to retain their positions when leadership elections are held Wednesday. On the Democratic side, House Minority Leader Jay Costa (D., Allegheny) is expected to easily hold on to that position. His caucus, too, came under scrutiny after one member, Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery), was accused of unwanted touching and making inappropriate comments and jokes. As calls mounted for Leach, who did not face reelection this year, to resign, leaders in the caucus remained largely quiet. Devon Whitley, 30, of Phoenixville, is a single mother who wanted a child to balance the hardships of a life in poverty. Read more The blue "It's a boy!" balloons were starting to pucker and wilt in Devon Whitley's Phoenixville apartment. But their message is moot now that little Noah is 7 weeks old, his healthy wails announcing his presence to Chester County. Unmarried, Whitley just turned 30 and lives about $2,000 below the federal poverty line of $16,460 for a family of two on food stamps, as well as on disability payments for severe Crohn's disease. Taken from her parents at age 6, she grew up in foster care and poverty, absorbing beatings and sexual assault while developing an overwhelming pessimism that her future could be only pinched and dismal. But lately, Whitley began to believe that a "beautiful baby" would confer joy even after her boyfriend shape-shifted into a ghost. So when she got pregnant, there was no abortion, no talk of adoption. She said, "I thought a baby could make my life better." Whitley is part of a growing trend among unwed, low-income white women, whose birthrate has been growing faster than that of any other racial group, according to data experts and sociologists. "In the minds of the public, the single mother is always considered to be a minority," said St. Joseph's University sociologist Maria Kefalas, who coauthored a book about unwed mothers in Philadelphia and Camden with Kathryn Edin, a Princeton University sociologist. "But the fastest shift in this demographic is whites, driving the trend." Class, not race The rate of unmarried white females having babies nearly tripled between 1980 and 2016, rising from 10 percent to almost 30 percent, according to Child Trends, a nonprofit research organization. That figure, which measures births to females ages 15 to 44, is about twice as high as the 15 percent of births to unmarried white females in 1990. While the white rate is accelerating, overall numbers for nonmarital births among minorities are higher. For example, 70 percent of births in the African American community are to unmarried mothers, a rate that hasn't changed since the early 1990s. Among Latinas, it's 53 percent. It's important to remember, Kefalas said, that nonmarital births are a function of class, not race. Because many U.S. minorities live in poverty, you'll see higher percentages of single parents among them. In Philadelphia, poverty among minority groups stalled or decreased between 2016 and 2017, but poverty among whites shot up from around 15 percent to more than 19 percent, according to U.S. Census figures released in September. Throughout America, white workers have suffered stagnation or declines in wages and status over the last 30 years, thanks to downsizing, outsourcing, and automation that have led to the loss of well-paying, blue-collar jobs. The humming economy is not delivering for many working-class people, experts say. "It's becoming harder for whites to make it," said sociologist Karen Benjamin Guzzo of Bowling Green State University in Ohio. "What's happening to them is what happened to disadvantaged minorities decades ago." As a result, white working-class and rural voters without college degrees are more pessimistic about their future than any other group, CNN reported in a 2016 survey. "Less educated white Americans have a loss of hope, and you're seeing them fall downward, with more opioid use," said historian Stephanie Coontz of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. "It's a demoralization that makes people unable to sustain relationships, making marriage not a good bet." Longing for children As with low-income minority women, many disadvantaged white women believe they're better off having babies and cohabiting with men, or simply living on their own, than marrying men who are suffering economically, experts say. Misunderstood as reckless people who use babies to leverage welfare cash, many single mothers actually are making rational decisions, based on meager circumstances and limited choices, experts say. "There's an economic basis for marriage, and if both spouses can't earn livings, it takes away the underpinning for marriage," said Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, a Washington nonprofit that focuses on poverty. "But it doesn't take away the longing for children. So, children will be born in the absence of marriage. "To us it's clear, then, that poverty causes unwed motherhood." A piece of the dream Throughout America, the average age of unmarried moms is 21, statistics show. Teen pregnancies everywhere are down dramatically, dropping in Philadelphia alone from 2,525 to just 126 between 2005 and 2017, census figures show. Credit high school sex education and the Affordable Care Act for supplying more contraceptives, Guzzo said. For non-college-educated, low-income women in their 20s and 30s, however, the daily chaos of unreliable work hours and negligible pay undermines hope and any sense of control, said sociologist Joan Maya Mazelis of Rutgers University-Camden. There's no payoff for life planning, for being careful. By having a baby, low-income women of all races wrest something wonderful from a mean existence. They can't have the whole American dream, but they can grab a piece. "These women have few opportunities to craft an identity," Edin of Princeton said. "Child-rearing becomes the only game in town." That's how it was for Erica Valez, 23, a Latina single mother of a 5-year-old girl in West Philadelphia. She was born into "survival-mode" poverty, as she puts it, living homeless with two parents in prison. A baby seemed like an antidote to a toxic life. Paradoxically, a child can bring stability. "Women say, 'The baby stopped me from drinking, gave me purpose,' " Edin said. A baby outshines any career plans, said Loretta Stephens, 56, an African American woman living in North Philadelphia. A former medical secretary now living on disability, Stephens had three out-of-wedlock daughters. "I didn't feel lost when I turned down a secretary job for the FBI when I first got pregnant," Stephens said. "One door closes, another opens." Welfare cheats? For years, critics have condemned single mothers as welfare cheats, producing babies to chisel dollars from the government. "But it's suburban myth," said Susan Post, executive director of Esperanza Health Center in North Philadelphia. A Pennsylvania woman living alone can get $205 a month for cash welfare, but she'd have to be in deep poverty. Only one in 10 low-income people qualifies for welfare. If that woman has a child, the monthly stipend would rise to just $316. And there are work requirements and time limits. Because single mothers with children are 14 percent more likely to be in poverty than other families, critics say, the women would be better off marrying. But, writes University of California sociologist David Brady, reducing single motherhood would not substantially reduce poverty, since just 8.8 percent of people lived in single-mother households in 2013. Besides, poverty's largest cause is inequality, not single moms, writes economist Elise Gould with the Economic Policy Institute. Inequality driven by stagnating wages is four times more influential over growing poverty than single motherhood, Gould writes. Revering marriage Middle- and upper-class women are indoctrinated into believing that having a baby before marriage derails college and career, said Rebecca Maynard, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania. That's why higher-income women use contraception more consistently, she said. "The rate of sexual activity is the same" among all people, regardless of race or class, Maynard added. "It's not like suburban kids are goody-two-shoes." If educated young women become pregnant, "they'll terminate a first pregnancy, unlike poor women," Kefalas said. This doesn't mean low-income women don't get abortions, she added: "They will later in life with a third or fourth pregnancy, when they don't want more kids." What's difficult to see, Kefalas and others said, is that low-income women are not anti-marriage. "In fact, they revere it," she said. A disadvantaged woman is twice as likely as an educated woman to say it's "very important" for a man to provide a good income to qualify as marriageable, according to the historian Coontz. Life skills Out in Kennett Square, suburban life seems prosperous. At YoungMoms on East State Street, however, things are more nuanced. The agency teaches life and parenting skills to teen mothers. Most of the young women that YoungMoms helps are low-income Latinas. Executive director Linda Mercner said that she's found that poverty, divorce, jailed family members, and abuse, neglect, or domestic violence are all predictive of a young woman becoming pregnant. YoungMoms stresses education and future planning. Bridget Kirkner, 27, was one of the agency's few white teenage mothers. A miscalculation with birth control got Kirkner pregnant at 17, after her father had kicked her out of the house in the midst of family troubles. The product of a middle-class home, Kirkner had been an excellent student on her way to a major university. Pregnancy altered her trajectory, but, she said, YoungMoms helped her finish high school and attend West Chester University. "I was terrified," Kirkner said. "But I had my daughter, and now I realize I'm better off for it." She graduated and today she's a registered nurse, married to a man she met after her daughter was born. Kirkner said she saw how different her middle-class perch was than that of her cousins, some of whom are lower-income Latinas. For them, "having a family is the only dream, the one goal," said Kirkner, who serves on the board of YoungMoms now. "They're not necessarily planned kids, but they want families. "I wanted a future." Philadelphia Media Network is one of 21 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the citys push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org. On Nov. 7, the day after the midterm election, President Donald Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign. Throughout his turbulent 16 months in the Justice Department, cartoonists captured every pivotal moment. >> Read more: Jeff Sessions deserved better | Christine Flowers Sessions and the Senate The decision to nominate Jeff Sessions was not a popular one. During a debate on the Senate floor about the nomination, Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma.) read a letter from Coretta Scott King, the wife of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, that accused Sessions of intimidating elderly black voters from voting. Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), tried to stop Warren from reading the letter invoking Senate rules. McConnell said that Warren was asked to stop but "nevertheless, she persisted." The line became a rallying cry for democrats and liberal women. On the other side of the political aisle, the effort to block Sessions confirmation was viewed as a witch hunt. Sessions was confirmed but his relationship with Congress was not over. In June 2017, Sessions came back to Capitol Hill to testify in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee to address whether he'd lied when he said in his confirmation hearing that he had no contact with the Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign. A photo shows that he did meet with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at a Washington hotel. Sessions claimed that he does not recall the interaction but some cartoonists used the debate as inspiration. Trumps and Sessions rocky relationship In February of 2016, Sessions was the first sitting senator to endorse Trump. As he became more involved in the Trump campaign, the pair seemed to be well-matched. But the love affair did not last long. Because of Sessions' involvement in the campaign, less than two months after his confirmation, Trump's new Attorney General recused himself from any involvement in the investigation of Russian interference in the election handing it over to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who later appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel. Trump frequently commented that he "[has] no Attorney General" and that if he knew that Sessions would recuse himself, he would have picked someone else. The break-up The relationship came to an end when Trump asked Sessions to submit his resignation last week. Even though Sessions technically resigned and wasn't fired, many cartoonists viewed the breakup as one sided. Promoting the Jeff Sessions agenda Despite the almost constant hammering from his boss, Sessions was laser focused on promoting his anti-immigrant and war on drugs agenda. As Attorney General, he cracked down on states that legalized marijuana, led the child separation policy at the Southern border, refused to review the conduct of police departments, and attempted to curtail voting rights. Sessions often cited the bible and his religion as what guides his policy decisions. Critics often cited the impact of Sessions policies on people of color and some believe that that impact motivated his decision making. The future of Muellers investigation Now that Jeff Sessions is gone, the new acting AG, Matthew Whitaker, takes over the oversight of the Mueller investigation. Will it survive? America's young voters were the unsung heroes of last Tuesday's midterm elections. In New York, 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made history by becoming the youngest woman elected to Congress. Across the country, the 18- to 29-year-old demographic, often maligned for Election Day absences, showed up to the polls in droves. Preliminary analysis shows a nearly 200 percent surge in young voter turnout from just four years ago. Some have dubbed that surge the Youth Wave. The core of this wave, which those of us in higher education find exciting, are college students who found their voices in this election. They are learning the values of civic engagement and the importance of exercising the right to vote. They are learning how to be lifelong contributors to our democracy, and they look to their faculty and administrators for nonpartisan leadership. Civic engagement and a deep understanding of democracy and its challenges are truly cemented during the college years. We must not fail them. The voting numbers are important, not just because our students took an active role in helping to shape their future, but because they foreshadow a trend. Research has shown that, for young people, voting is habit-forming. Those who cast a ballot in this election are significantly more likely to vote in future elections. Institutions of higher education must foster that interest, not let it wane. The midterm election is over but the youth wave has just begun, and college and universities must play an important role beyond the classroom. Take inspiration from Haverford College, where students, who make up the majority of the precinct, previously had to travel a mile and a half to reach their polling place. Persistence on the part of the college and nearby residents, and critical reporting by the Inquirer, helped sway the Delaware County Board of Elections to move the polls to a location on campus that welcomed voters with a pleasant experience, including ample signage and parking. I also take inspiration from faculty and administrators at Dickinson College, where I am president. Dozens of faculty members and staff served as "celebrity drivers," shuttling students to a nearby polling place. And, in the months leading up to Election Day, a newly formed "Dickinson Votes" committee spent countless hours organizing voter registration drives, holding bipartisan public forums to discuss candidates and the issues, and training poll greeters. On Election Day, I accompanied students to the polls and watched their happiness as they emerged from the polling place. I was reminded of an election in Nigeria that I monitored a couple of years ago as president of the American University of Nigeria. There, I saw students stand for hours in the blazing sun, proud of their own civic engagement. I saw a similar pride in our students, but one exited dejected. Her name had not appeared on the list of registered voters, and she was turned away. With her college president by her side, she reentered the polling place and asked for a provisional ballot, which had not been offered. That student then voted. At a time when higher education is often criticized and its relevance debated, I'm proud of the role we're playing in educating students, removing barriers to voting and encouraging them to know their voting rights. My own experience in Nigeria taught me how precious democracy is. I'm optimistic thinking of the work ahead as we look to 2020 and beyond. We can't just ride this youth wave. We must sustain it. We must help the youth wave surge. Margee M. Ensign is president of Dickinson College. Pat worked for more than three decades as a nurse and educator. First as a school nurse, and then in a state hospital, she took care of the developmentally disabled and provided comfort and support for their families. She worked hard, eventually getting her doctoral degree, and came back to teach to a new generation of caregivers at a state university. Now retired, she spends the monthly pension income she earned on her home, her health care, and gifts for her grandchildren, of course. I could tell you a lot about Pat, because she's my mom. And she's just one of the 724,000 Pennsylvanians that rely on one of our two public pension systems in the Commonwealth, PSERS and SERS. Keeping the promises we've made to those Pennsylvanians isn't negotiable. The only question is how to do it. Recently, it was revealed that over the last 10 years, Wall Street money managers pocketed around $3.8 billion more from our pension funds than was previously disclosed to the public. In the aftermath of those reports, some have oddly claimed that the $3.8 billion isn't really a fee, or a cost, or really anything to be concerned about at all. Nothing to see here, folks, so please be on your way. Much of the $3.8 billion comes from something called "carried interest," which is a fancy way of saying it's money taken out of the profits from an investment. For that reason, many of those same people claim this $3.8 billion is actually something we're privileged to pay, because it means we made money. The point they miss is simple: That money didn't go to the Pennsylvanians who worked all their lives to serve others, who now rely on these pensions to live in dignity in their retirement. That $3.8 billion went into the pockets of Wall Street money managers instead. And there's another point they miss. Where I grew up, the town Pat still lives in, finance jargon like "carried interest" doesn't fool anyone. If someone keeps some of your profits, it's a fee whether they call it that or not. If a mutual fund company told my mom they would manage her money "for free" as long as they could keep some of her dividends she'd hang up the phone. To be sure, we will always have to pay something to invest our public money. But Pennsylvanians deserve to know where every single dollar of their money goes and to pay as little to Wall Street as possible for the best results. Those two positions have been painted as something radical. They shouldn't be. Pennsylvanians need negotiators on their behalf who are brutally tough. While we will have to pay something, $4 billion in fees is not a good deal if we could have paid $2 billion for the same results. The Wall Street money managers who pitch their services to us are not our friends, and they don't have any legal obligation to work in the best interests of Pennsylvanians. While we may decide to do business with the manager, when it comes to investment fees, every last dollar that goes to them is one that doesn't go to Pennsylvanians who need the system to be there when they retire. The Pennsylvania nurses who cared for those who suffer worked harder than a Wall Street money manager. So have the state troopers who kept us safe, and the teachers who taught us to read. They deserve full transparency on where every dollar in our pension systems go. And they deserve every dollar we can keep in Pennsylvanians' hands. Paying fees to Wall Street isn't a privilege. It's an unfortunate necessity. And it's time to reduce it as much as possible. Joe Torsella is treasurer of Pennsylvania. @JoeTorsella Last week, the frenzy over Amazon's HQ2 search was reignited by reports that the company had decided to split its headquarters to cover two locations: Crystal City, Va., and Long Island City, N.Y. Amazon has not confirmed this plan, so it's too early to start full-on growling over its passing over Philadelphia as a site. But there was plenty of growling nationally at Amazon's apparent bait and switch forcing major cities and regions to jump through complicated hoops and offer the sweetest deals possible to lure the company. The company is now privy to detailed data on cities, and it knows what cities, such as Philadelphia, will do to get jobs to come there. One of the problems, of course, is that virtually no one else knows, least of all taxpayers. The City of Philadelphia is not alone in keeping its Amazon proposal close to its chest, claiming it would lose competitive advantage not just with Amazon but other companies who might want similar deals. (Philadelphia Media Network, owner of the Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com, have joined other news organization in the state in a formal effort to have full details of the proposals from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh made public.) The secrecy of such proposed deals is not a problem related to Amazon alone. Cities like ours routinely offer deals and enticements to lure businesses to bring jobs and other development. And on the face of it, those incentives make sense. But these deals are rarely made public, nor do they always come with strings attached, such as a guaranteed number of jobs. And there is rarely a detailed accounting of whether taxpayer investments were worth it. It could get worse. A new federal Opportunity Zone program, introduced as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, is designed to target neighborhoods in decline, but structured in such a way that investors who are seeking tax advantages can move into a designated zone and develop with very few, if any, strings attached or requirements. There are no reporting requirements, and no promises to create benefits, such as jobs or affordable housing. That means that the program could actually be detrimental to neighborhoods in the city by fast-tracking gentrification, for example. The state's own Keystone Opportunity Zones program gives tax breaks to businesses going into specific areas. The state Department of Community and Economic Development runs the KOZ program and makes rosy claims of its success, but there is little in the way of details, such as whether jobs created are permanent, or how much each costs. Too often, governments get dazzled by the prospect of creating jobs and load up the Christmas tree with giveaways, without proper controls. In the case of Amazon, the benefits of many new jobs could easily be outweighed by the stresses that the company might place on the city, such as rising housing prices or jobs not going to those who need them most. While Philadelphia waits for official confirmation that Amazon is going elsewhere, we might practice breathing a sigh of relief, and start exploring other ways of creating permanent, well-paying jobs for those who need them most. Aizawl: The Mizoram government has proposed the names of three IAS officers, as desired by the Election Commission (EC), for the post of a new chief electoral officer (CEO) in the state, an official said on Sunday. The poll panel had asked the state government to suggest the names after it decided to replace CEO S B Shashank, who had courted controversy in the poll-bound state. The names suggested by the government were -- Lalhmingthanga, H Lalengmawia and K Lalthawmmawia -- the official said on the condition of anonymity. He also said Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain, who led the second EC team to Mizoram Friday, had told officials that it would take two-three days to select and appoint a new CEO. Jain had also assured the NGO Coordination Committee leaders -- who were spearheading the movement against Shashank -- that the CEO would be replaced and the Bru voters housed in Tripura relief camps would exercise their franchise from Mizoram, which were the primary demands of the organisation. The EC had initiated the process of finding an alternative to the Mizoram CEO Saturday. An EC spokesperson had said in New Delhi that the poll panel had "only decided to call for a panel of names for the post of the state CEO from the chief secretary of Mizoram". Shashank had reportedly sought deployment of additional Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) in the north-eastern state and complained to the EC that the state's former principal secretary, Lalnunmawia Chuaungo, was interfering in the poll process. Chuaungo, a native of Mizoram and a Gujarat-cadre IAS officer, was relieved of his duties earlier this month. Thousands of people took to the streets and picketed in front of Shashank's office for two days since Tuesday. The protesters, under the aegis of the NGO Coordination Committee, had also set an ultimatum for Shashank to leave urgently, prompting the EC to send the first team to the state on Tuesday. Shashank left Mizoram on Wednesday after being summoned by the chief election commissioner in Delhi, which resulted in the withdrawal of the agitation. Aizawl: The National People's Party (NPP) will contest eight seats in the Mizoram elections on November 28, party national secretary Lalrina said on Thursday. The NPP was launched in Mizoram by its president and Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma on September 29. Lalrina said that the NPP candidates would be filing their nominations either on Thursday or Friday, which is the last date of filing nominations. "Former parliamentary secretary Hmingdailova Khiangte, who recently resigned from the state legislature after being denied ticket by the ruling Congress, would be NPP's candidate for Tuirial seat in Kolasib district, located on the border with Assam," Lalrina said. NPP state unit convener Lianzuala will contest from the Dampa constituency, while a retired Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer, B Suanzalang, will try his electoral luck from Champhai North seat. Former president of the erstwhile underground Hmar People's Convention (HPC), Hmingchungnunga, would be the NPP's nominee in the Serlui seat, while Kapliana Pachuau, a journalist and a fresher, would contest from the prestigious Serchhip seat against giants like chief minister Lal Thanhawla and Zoram People's Movement (ZPM) chief ministerial nominee Lalduhoma. First timers -- John Lalremruata, Lalhuliana and D D Chakma -- will contest from Kolasib, Thorang and Tuichawng seats, respectively. In Meghalaya, the NPP is the major partner of the ruling MDA alliance, while in Nagaland and Manipur it is also part of the ruling alliance. It is part of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre and a constituent of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA). HYDERABAD: The Congress party has released its first list of candidates for 65 constituent seats for the upcoming Telangana assembly elections. The state will go to polls on December 7 while the counting will be held on December 11. Constituency Selected Candidates Sirpur Dr. Palvai Harish Babu Chennur (SC) Dr. Venkatesh Netha Borlakunta Mancherial Kokkirala Premsagar Rao Asifabad (ST) Athram Sakku Adilabad Smt. Sujatha Gandrath Nirmal Alleti Maheshwar Reddy Mudhole Rama Rao Patel Pawar Armur Akula Lalitha Bodhan P Sudharshan Reddy Jukkal (SC) Soudagar Gangaram Banswada Kasula Balaraju Kamareddy Shabbir Ali Jagtial Jeevan Reddy Ramagundam M.S Raj Thakur Manthani Sridhar Babu Duddila Peddapalle C.Vijay Ramana Rao Karimnagar Ponnam Prabhakar Choppadandi (SC) Dr. Medipally Satyam Vernulawada Aadi Srinivas Manakondur (SC) Arepally Mohan Andore (SC) Damodar Rajanarsimha Narsapur V Sunitha Laxma Reddy Zahirabad (SC) Dr. J Geetha Reddy Sangareddy Jaya Prakash Reddy (Jagga Reddy) Gajwel Vanteru Pratap Reddy Quthbullapur Kuna Srisailam Goud Maheshwaram P. Sabita India Reddy Chevella (SC) K.S. Ratnarn Pargi T. Ram Mohan Reddy Vicaradab (SC) Gaddam Prasad Kumar Tandur Panjugula Pilot Rohith Reddy Musheerabad M Anil Kumar Yadav Nampalii Mohd. Feroz Khan Charminar Moharnmerl Ghouse Chandrayangutta Esa Binobaid Misri Secundarabad Cantt (SC) Sarve Sathya Narayana Kodangal A Revanth Reddy Jadcherta Dr. MaIlu Ravi Wanaparthy Dr. G. Chinna Reddy Gadwal D K Aruna Alampur (SC) SA Sarnpath Kumar Nagarkurnool Nagam Janardhan Reddy Achampet (SC) Dr. Ch Vamsi Krishna Katwakurthy Dr. Vamshichand Reddy Naganuna Sagar K. Jana Reddy Huzurnagar N. Uttam Kumar Reddy Kodak N. Padrnavab Reddy Suryapet R. Damodar Reddy Nalgonda Kornatireddy Venkat Reddy Munugode K. Rajgopal Reddy Bhongir Kumbharn and Kumar Reddy NakrekaI (SC) Chirumarti Lingaiah Alair B. Bhikshmaiah Goud Ghanpur (Station) (SC) Singapur Indira Palakurthi Janga Raghav Reddy Dornakal (ST) Dr. Jatoth Rarnachandru Nati Mahabubabad (ST) Porika Balaram Naik Narsarnpet Donti Madhava Reddy Parkal Konda Surekha The Congress finalised the names of the candidates after Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy and state party leaders held talks with the party leadership in Delhi on Monday. The process of filing nominations began Monday with the Election Commission issuing notification for the polls The last date for submitting nominations is November 19. Congress has teamed up with TDP, CPI and Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) to form a "grand alliance". Congress had earlier announced its decision to leave 14 seats to TDP, eight to TJS and three to the CPI. However, the CPI has been pushing for at least five seats, though it said it would remain in the alliance. NEW DELHI: Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Monday ruled out direct talks between the Centre and terrorists and urged the Kashmiri separatists to hold parleys with the interlocutor appointed by the central government. The Army Chief said that the Centre has appointed an interlocutor, who is talking to all parties concerned. While maintaining that the Centre's interlocuto0r is open to holding talks with anyone who wants to speak to him, nothing can be done if the Kashmiri separatists don't come to the negotiation table. ''Interlocutor is talking to people. He is open to anybody who wants to speak to him. We're doing indirect talks, if they (separatists) dont want to talk, what can we do?'' Gen Rawat said. ''The head of the state isn't going to talk to the terrorists; its not going to happen,''Army Chief Bipin Rawat added. Interlocutor is talking to people; he is open to anybody who wants to speak to him. We're doing indirect talks, if they (separatists) dont want to talk, what can we do? The head of the state isn't going to talk to the terrorists; its not going to happen: Army Chief Bipin Rawat pic.twitter.com/vkNizitsxT ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Asking youth to shun the path of mindless violence, Army Chief said, ''It is not worth joining militancy because you will not live long. We are giving you an opportunity to surrender and give up guns. If people do not behave and continue violence, the only element left is to neutralise them.'' Shifting his focus to Punjab, Gen Rawat said that the Union government is taking full action against external forces trying to revive insurgency in Punjab. ''Punjab CM is concerned and taking direct action so the violence doesnt spread again. Outsiders will attempt but the people of Punjab will not let them do it,'' Gen Bipin Rawat said. Union govt is taking full action against external forces trying to revive insurgency in Punjab. CM is concerned and taking direct action so the violence doesnt spread again. Outsiders will attempt but the people of Punjab will not let them do it: Army Chief Bipin Rawat pic.twitter.com/qtFVzXx7oO ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Gen Rawat had earlier warned that attempts are being made through "external linkages" to "revive insurgency" in Punjab and if early action is not taken, it will be too late. He said this while addressing a gathering of senior Army officers, defence experts and former senior officials of government and police at a seminar here on 'Changing Contours of Internal Security in India: Trends and Responses'. Rawat also said that attempts were being made again through "external linkages" and "external abetment" to revive insurgency in Assam. "Punjab has been peaceful but because of these external linkages, attempts again are being made to revive insurgency in the state," he said, adding, "we have to be very careful." "Let us not think that Punjab (situation) is over. We cannot close our eyes to what is happening in Punjab. And, if we do not take early action now, it will be too late," he said. Punjab saw one of the worst phases of insurgencies in the 1980s during the pro-Khalistan movement which was eventually quelled by the government. New Delhi: The BJP on Monday said it will run a countrywide campaign to implement the National Register of Citizens if the party is voted back to power in 2019, adding the party will identify and send back the infiltrators. The Bharatiya Janata Party said it should have a "long and uninterrupted rule" from panchayat to Parliament, like the Congress had for over 30-35 years, to realise its goal of making India great and a world leader. "After the BJP came to power in 2014, we have boosted the national security. We also implemented the NRC in Assam and identified 40 lakh infiltrators," BJP President Amit Shah told the booth-level workers of 230 assembly constituencies of Madhya Pradesh through video conferencing. He said the Assam government identified 40 lakh people in the state who were unable to prove their citizenship. However, corrections are going on. Attacking Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Shah said: "The Congress opposed the NRC. They made it a human rights issue. The Congress and Rahul Gandhi should clear their stand over the NRC and tell the nation whether the infiltrators should be sent back to their countries or not." Shah said the people have faith in the Modi government and they would be voting for him in 2019. "And once voted back to power, we shall run a countrywide campaign to send back the infiltrators," he said, adding the party was not bothered about vote-bank politics as national security was a prime concern for it. The BJP chief accused the Congress president of sympathising with urban Maoists and said, "BJP governments have taken strong steps against the Maoists. When Maharashtra government arrested a few urban Maoists, the Congress president and their leaders took their side and opposed the step." "The Congress and its leaders have soft corner for the urban Maoists. The Congress should clear its stand on Maoists and urban Maoists," he said. He also attacked the Congress for describing Maoists as revolutionaries and said that the party and the government believe in revolution when "we provide medicines to poor, when we provide electricity, when we provide good education system for children." He urged the party workers to visit all homes and explain the party`s ideology over the NRC and Maoists as well as government intention towards them. Shah also praised Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for brining the state out of the "sick" state category and said: "The state has done a lot of growth in last 15 years in all sectors." The BJP leader asked the party workers to not take the 2018 Assembly election in the state as any normal election. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has warned that the sea will remain very rough as cyclonic storm Gaja is expected to cross between Chennai and Nagapattinam on November 15, Thursday. Speaking to mediapersons, IMD Chennai director said that fishermen had been advised not to venture in the sea till November 15. Cyclonic storm 'Gaja' now lies at about 820 km east northeast of Nagapattinam. It is expected to cross between Chennai and Nagapattinam during forenoon on November 15, he said. Sea will be very rough, fishermen are advised not to venture in the sea till November 15, the IMD Chennai director further said. The IMD had on Sunday warned that cyclonic storm Gaja might intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm. An alert had been issued for Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and south Andhra Pradesh coasts. In a press statement, the IMD had warned that the storm is very likely to move west-northwestwards during the next 36 hours and then west-southwestwards towards north Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coasts during the subsequent 48 hours. The depression over the southeast Bay of Bengal intensified into a deep depression on Saturday evening over southeast and adjoining central Bay of Bengal. Moving further west-northwestwards, it intensified into a cyclonic storm Gaja over east central and adjoining west central and southeast Bay of Bengal in the early morning of Sunday. The government on Monday submitted an affidavit in connection with the Rafale fighter jets deal in the Supreme Court. According to news agency ANI, the government said in the affidavit that due process was followed in the procurement of 36 Rafale aircraft from France. Procurement process as laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure, 2013 was followed in procurement of 36 Rafale aircraft, said the government in its affidavit. The government has also said that it had no role in choosing the offset partners, pointing that as per norms, a foreign company is entitled to choose the offset partners as per its requirement. According to the affidavit, the Cabinet Committee on Security gave its approval on August 24, 2016, following which the deal between India and France was finalised on September 23, 2016. The move by the government was compelled as the Supreme Court, in October, directed the Centre to submit price and other details pertaining to the deal in a sealed envelope. Clarifying that it doesn't want technical details pertaining to the Rafale deal, the Supreme Court asked the Centre to share information which can be brought in the public domain with the petitioners. Details considered "strategic and confidential" can be held back, added the top court. A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices UU Lalit and KM Joseph, was listening to two PILs filed lawyers Manohar Lal Sharma and Vineet Dhanda on India's deal with France to buy the fighter jets. The bench said that details, including the steps in the decision-making process for the procurement of jets, which could "legitimately" be brought into public domain, be made available to the parties who have filed petitions before it in the matter. If pricing is something exclusive and you are not sharing it with us, please file an affidavit and say so, the top court bench had said. At this stage, we would not like to record any finding or views with regard to the contents of the said report. Rather, we are of the opinion that such of the core information conveyed to the court in the aforesaid confidential report which can legitimately be brought into the public domain be made available to the counsels for the petitioners in all the cases, as well as, the petitioners-in-person, the bench had further said. India signed an agreement with France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of the upgrading process of the Indian Air Force equipment. The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. The Congress party has maintained that the Rafale deal was a scam, with party president Rahul Gandhi alleging direct involvement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the deal. (With PTI Inputs) NEW DELHI: Fringe group Hindu Sena has written a letter to Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal urging him to rename the train "Tipu Express" in the memory of Union Minister Ananth Kumar who died on Monday. "Today Hindu Sena has written a letter to Sh. @PiyushGoyal ji requesting him to rename Train "Tipu Express" to "Ananth Express"," Hindu Sena's chief Vishnu Gupta tweeted. He also posted the letter that Hindu Sena has sent to the Minister which states: "On behalf of nationalist citizens of our country, Hindu Sena is requesting you to rename Tipu Express in the name of Sh. Ananth Kumar who unfortunately died today. Sh. Ananth Kumar was true son of Karnataka and he was born in Bengaluru, so renaming Tipu Express in his name would be a great tribute for him." The group asserted that while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is protesting against Karnataka government's decision to organise Tipu Jayanti, the Railways-led by the Centre is allowing a train named after Tipu Sultan to ply. "It came into my notice that an Indian Railway Train No. 12613 Named Tipu Express plying from Mysore Junction to KSR Bengaluru Junction everyday. I got completely shocked, on one hand the BJP is protesting the move of Karnataka Government organising Tipu Jayanti and on the other hand, BJP ruled central government under the Indian Railway has allowed a Train to named after Tipu Sultan. Nationalist Citizens of Bharat is not going to tolerate such a hypocrisy," Sena said. "I do not need to remind you who Tipu Sultan was, and how he had killed thousands of Hindus and raped hindu women," the outfit said in its letter. The BJP has been protesting against the Karnataka government's decision to celebrate the 269th birth anniversary (Jayanti) of erstwhile Mysore (Mysuru) ruler Tipu Sultan. About 70 BJP men, including its Virajpet legislator KG Bopaiah, were detained by the police at Somwarpet in Kodagu district for protesting against the event. The celebrations were held across the state on Sunday as CM HD Kumaraswamy and Deputy CM G Parameshwara remained conspicuously absent at the main event. "Kumaraswamy is unable to attend the function, as he is taking rest on doctor`s advice," said a statement from the Chief Minister`s office, explaining his absence and denying that he kept away from the event due to the fear of losing power, as he is against such blind beliefs. Parameshwara also could not be present at the main function as he was out of the country. "Parameshwara could not be present at the function as he flew to Singapore to visit our ailing party leader Chennigappa, who is undergoing treatment in a private hospital there," state Water Resources Minister and Congress leader DK Shivakumar told reporters after inaugurating the Jayanti. While Congress ministers participated in the event JDS ministers kept away from the day-long state-sponsored celebrations. Eldest son of Sultan Hyder Ali, Tipu (1750-1799) is hailed as the "Tiger of Mysore" for fighting the British East India Company`s advances and protecting his kingdom. Tipu was killed in a battle with the British army in 1799 while defending his fort at Srirangapatna near Mysuru. NEW DELHI: Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia for questioning the note ban in 2016, the Congress chief took to Twitter to launch fresh salvo. The PMs latest Demonetisation barf is, Shell Firms. Ironically, the only Shell firms identified after the great Demonetisation tragedy are: JAY SHAHS, Temple Enterprises PIYUSH GOYALs Flashnet ANIL AMBANIS, Reliance Airports It takes a thief to know a thief, tweeted the Gandhi scion. The PMs latest Demonetisation barf is, Shell Firms. Ironically, the only Shell firms identified after the great Demonetisation tragedy are: JAY SHAHS, Temple Enterprises PIYUSH GOYALs Flashnet ANIL AMBANIS, Reliance Airports It takes a thief to know a thief. https://t.co/SdRdZhwx6i Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) November 12, 2018 In a no-holds-barred attack on the Congress, PM Modi on Tuesday said the party's "politics begins and ends with one family" while addressing a poll rally in Bilaspur ahead of the second and final phase polling in Chattisgarh on November 20. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday said he did not need a "certificate of honesty" from the "mother-son duo" who are out on bail, in an apparent reference to the bail granted by a Delhi court to Rahul and Sonia in December 2015 in connection with alleged financial irregularities in the National Herald case. The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear the petitions filed by Rahul, Sonia and veteran Congress leader Oscar Fernandes challenging the Delhi High Court order refusing to give them relief in a case of re-opening of their tax assessments for 2011-12. With agency inputs All does not seem well within the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar. In the latest display of rift within the ruling alliance, Union minister and Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) supremo Upendra Kushwaha has accused Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal United (JDU) chief Nitish Kumar of making attempts to poach MLAs. Levelling allegations of destroying the RLSP, Kushwaha said, Nitish Kumar ji has been trying to poach MLAs. He has come down to destroying Upendra Kushwaha and his party, but he cannot cause any damage to me. He is a part of the NDA and so are we, he should not do such things. The RLSP chief made the remark after a meeting with Loktantrik Janata Dal and former NDA convenor Sharad Yadav in the national capital on Monday. Taking to microblogging site Twitter, Kushwaha described the meeting as a "courtesy call". RLSP sources told news agency PTI that the two leaders discussed the current political situation in Bihar. This comes just days after reports suggested that Kushwaha as well as Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan, another ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have not agreed with the seat sharing deal between the two major NDA constituents the BJP and the JDU. According to a report in news agency PTI, Kushwaha and Paswan have demanded that they should be given as many seats as they fought on during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which adds up to 10. Notably, the BJP and the JDU have declared that they would contest on 16 seats each in Bihar during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which leaves a total of eight seats to be distributed among other NDA constituents. Speculations had also been rife over Kushwaha inclining towards the Mahagathbandhan, comprising the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress, among other smaller parties. The speculations had been triggered following a meeting between Kushwaha and leader of opposition in Bihar Assembly, Tejashwi Yadav, who has been at the helm of RJD affairs since party supremo Lalu Prasad Yadavs conviction in fodder scam cases. Suggesting that political discussions took place during the meeting, former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi had told mediapersons that meetings are always positive. Kushwaha had, however, told news agency ANI that the meeting with the Yadav scion was a "coincidence". The RLSP chief had also said that nothing was final within the NDA over seat sharing for 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Nothing is final on seat sharing. Amit Shah ji also said that we will finalise it in a few days. Meeting with Tejashwi Yadav was just a coincidence, Kushwaha had said. The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up Bihar Police for its failure to arrest former Bihar social welfare minister Manju Verma over recovery of ammunitions from her home during raids by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The top court also summoned the Director General of Bihar Police to appear before it on November 27 if the police failed to arrest the former minister by then. Justice Madan B Lokur expressed anger over the failure of the police, saying, Fantastic! cabinet minister (Manju Verma) on the run, fantastic. How could it happen that cabinet minister is absconding and nobody knows where she is? You realise the seriousness of the issue that cabinet minister is not traceable. Its too much. The apex court said that it was shocked that a former cabinet minister could not be traced by the police for over a month. We are quite shocked that former cabinet minister cannot be traced by the police for over a month. We would like the police to tell us that how such an important person is not traceable. Director General of Police to appear before us, said the court. An FIR was registered against Manju Verma and her husband Chandrasekhar Verma in August after the CBI recovered arms and ammunition from her residence during raids in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual assault case. The central agency had conducted raids at 12 locations, including her residences, on August 17 and had seized at least 50 cartridges. Manju Verma had resigned as the social welfare minister due to alleged connection of her husband with the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual assaut case. Her husband was accused of making frequent visits to the shelter home in Muzaffarpur. The alleged sex scandal in Muzaffarpur surfaced in a social audit conducted by Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences. More than 40 girls had been lodged at the shelter home and medical reports suggest that over half of them may have had sexual intercourse at some point of time. (With agency inputs) New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Tuesday the petitions filed by Congress President Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi challenging the Delhi High Court order refusing to give them relief in a case of re-opening of their tax assessments for 2011-12. A bench of Justices A K Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer is slated to hear the appeals filed by Rahul, Sonia and veteran Congress leader Oscar Fernandes, who have challenged the September 10 verdict of the high court. Income Tax department has already filed a caveat in the apex court that it should be heard in case any appeal is filed against the high court order. A caveat is a legal procedure by which an application is filed by any party to the litigation to pre-empt an ex-parte order. On September 10, Gandhis had failed to get any relief from the High Court which dismissed their challenge on reopening of their tax assessments for 2011-12. Denial of any relief by the high court had paved the way for the Income Tax Department to scrutinise Congress leaders records for the assessment year 2011-12. "...The assessees' rights to urge them are reserved in the income tax proceedings," the high court had said, while "dismissing" the three separate petitions filed by Gandhis and Fernandes, which were decided through a common order. The income tax probe against the Congress leaders has arisen from the investigation into the private criminal complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy before a trial court in connection with the National Herald case, in which the trio are out on bail. Sonia and Rahul were granted bail in the case by the trial court on December 19, 2015. A tax evasion petition (TEP) was also addressed to the finance minister by Swamy. In the complaint before the trial court, Sonia, Rahul and others have been accused of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying just Rs 50 lakh, through which Young Indian (YI), the not-for-profit organisation, had obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that the Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) owed to the Congress party. It was alleged that YI, which was incorporated in November 2010 with a capital of Rs 50 lakh, had acquired almost all shareholdings of the AJL, which was running the National Herald newspaper. In this process, YI had also acquired AJL's debt of Rs 90 crore. The tax department had said the shares Rahul has in YI would lead him to have an income of Rs 154 crore and not about Rs 68 lakh, as was assessed earlier. It has already issued a demand notice for Rs 249.15 crore to YI for the assessment year 2011-12. The department's move followed its probe on a complaint alleging that the Gandhis had misappropriated AJL's assets while transferring their shares to the newly formed YI. The high court had noted in its order that the premise of the reassessment notices was that the non-disclosure of the taxing event-- allotment of shares of YI-- deprived the assessing officer of the opportunity to look into the records. It had said that in Rahul's case, the non-disclosure of share acquisition constituted tangible material justifying reassessment. In case of Sonia and Oscar, the bench said returns filed by them were processed under Section 143(1) of the Income Tax Act, which pertains to 'Notice or intimation', and are not treated as "assessments". Union minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ananth Kumar breathed his last on Monday after battling cancer. The BJP leader from Bengaluru had undergone treatment abroad before being admitted to a private hospital in Bengaluru. As reports of his demise came in on Monday morning, politicians from across party lines expressed their condolences and grief. President Ram Nath Kovind to Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to microblogging site Twitter to express their shock and grief over the senior leaders demise. Anath Kumar's last rites will be held on Tuesday. Heres a look at some of the tribute paid to the Union minister: Sad to hear of the passing of Union minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H.N. Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates #PresidentKovind President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) November 12, 2018 Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 Im sorry to hear about the passing of Union Minister, Shri Ananth Kumar ji, in Bengaluru, earlier this morning. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace. Om Shanti. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) November 12, 2018 Saddened to hear of Sh. Ananth Kumar jis sudden passing. A 6-time MP from Bengaluru, he was a great public servant. He will always be remembered his efforts to build political consensus across the aisle both inside & outside Parliament. My deepest condolences for his family. Jyotiraditya Scindia (@JM_Scindia) November 12, 2018 Very sad to hear about the sad demise of Sh Anant Kumar ji. My heartfelt condolences to the Family. May his Soul rest in peace. Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) November 12, 2018 Condolences to family of #BJP Minister Sh Ananth Kumar who passed away today, may his soul rest in peace Jaiveer Shergill (@JaiveerShergill) November 12, 2018 Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss. Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) November 12, 2018 It is hard to imagine that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more. He was a very friendly, lively and hard working politician who worked assiduously for his Parliamentary constituency & development of Karnataka. In his demise, the BJP has lost a Jewel of the South. May his soul RIP! GVL Narasimha Rao (@GVLNRAO) November 12, 2018 The BJP leader had not been well for sometime and was on ventillator for the past few days. He represented Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency for six terms. Ananth Kumar was serving as the Union minister for Chemical and Fertilizers and also as the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs. He had undergone treatment abroad as well, but returned to Bengaluru in October, following which he was admitted to a private hospital. A lawyer by qualification, Kumar was born on July 22, 1959 in Bengaluru. He pursued his graduation in Arts from KS Arts College in Hubli and later went on to complete LLB from JSS Law College. He is survived by wife Tejaswini and two daughters, Aishwarya and Vijeta. New Delhi: Markets regulator Sebi is likely to come out with stricter rules for liquid mutual funds following the liquidity squeeze triggered by the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) default, senior officials said Monday. Among the measures, the regulator is considering a short lock-in period for investments in liquid funds and allowing segregation of papers in default and illiquid ones from the ones that are liquid. This would create two funds -- one with bad papers and another holding good papers, they added. Besides, Sebi is looking to make it mandatory for liquid funds to mark to market the value of all bonds that have maturity of 30 days or more. At present, fund houses need to consider the mark-to-market value of securities with a maturity of 60 days or more. These steps are expected to be discussed at the Sebi-appointed mutual fund (MF) advisory committee meeting on Monday. After that, the regulator may come out with a consultation paper before putting in place final regulations, the officials said. "The short lock-in period for investments in liquid funds may impact institutional investors," Quantum Mutual Fund Managing Director and CEO Jimmy Patel said adding that liquid funds are very sought after by institutional investors as there are no restrictions on entry or exit. Besides, institutional investors prefer to park their money in such funds due to higher liquidity of the schemes, he added. "A large part of audience for liquid funds is institutional investors like corporates, banks, etc. So, a change in the lock-in period impacts such institutional investors the most. At the same time, the retail investors could stand to gain as a result of more stable NAVs (net asset value)," said Aditya Bajaj, head --savings and investments -- at BankBazaar.Com. "Large, unpredictable inflows and outflows from institutional investors impact liquid fund NAVs in a big way. If this can be arrested in some way, it could help stabilise the NAVs somewhat," he added. According to Bajaj, the move to introduce a lock-in period for liquid MFs is probably proposed to somewhat de-risk the industry from sudden knee-jerk reactions taken by investors in times of stress events. However, if done in isolation, it may not yield the expected results. There are other categories of funds like floater funds, which also need to be kept in mind while framing the rules for liquid fund lock-in as institutional investors may seek other avenues for investing if their primary requirement of daily liquidity is not met through mutual fund liquid funds, he added. The mutual fund industry, which has 42 strong members, manages assets to the tune of over Rs 22 lakh crore. Of this, liquid funds have an AUM (asset under management) of Rs 4.5 lakh crore. IL&FS and its subsidiaries have defaulted on several debt repayments recently due to liquidity crisis. The company as of March 2018 owed over Rs 91,000 crore to banks and other creditors. On October 1, the government superseded the board of IL&FS and appointed a new board, with banker Uday Kotak as its executive chairman. Seoul: Samsung Electronics Co plans to launch its first foldable smartphone in March, along with a fifth-generation (5G) network-powered Galaxy S10, industry sources said on Monday. According to the sources, the South Korean tech giant plans to unveil the flagship Galaxy S10 smartphone in February, followed by the presumed foldable Galaxy F and another edition of the Galaxy S10 that runs on the 5G network in March, Yonhap news agency reported. The outlook came after Samsung Electronics President Koh Dong-jin, who heads the mobile business, said last week that the company will release a foldable smartphone within the first half of 2019. Koh said the shipment volume of the foldable smartphone will be at least 1 million. Industry watchers said Samsung is expected to showcase the upcoming foldable smartphone in the Mobile World Congress in February, ahead of the official launch in the following month. The much-awaited foldable smartphone, however, is not expected to support the 5G network. While the price of the foldable smartphone has not been decided, industry watchers said it may cost around 2 million won ($1,770). The steep price is expected to limit sales. Samsung said the upcoming foldable smartphone will fold inward and will sport a 7.4-inch screen when unfolded and have a 4.6-inch display like a regular smartphone when folded. NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea by several Manipur Police personnel seeking recusal of judges of a bench hearing extra-judicial killings in the northeastern state. A bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice UU Lalit dismissed the plea holding that it was without any basis. Reiterating its earlier directions, Justice Lokur ordered that the investigating authorities should go ahead without being influenced by any of the observation made by the court by its July 20 order. Earlier, Attorney General KK Venugopal, on behalf of the Centre, supported the petitioners saying the armed forces face difficult situations in areas like Manipur and have to adopt various methods to deal with the situation at hand. Venugopal had said the reported remarks of the bench that the security personnel were "murderers" had "completely shaken" the morale of the police and armed forces. Besides the personnel of Manipur Police, the court has also been moved by over 300 serving Army officers and personnel against the dilution of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that gives immunity to the military from prosecution for actions in disturbed areas where it is in force. The court has been hearing the main case which was a PIL seeking a probe into as many as 1,528 cases of extra-judicial killings in Manipur. On July 14, 2017, the apex court set up a Special Investigation Team comprising CBI officers and ordered registration of FIRs and investigation into the alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur. The court had ordered the registration of FIRs in 81 cases, including 32 probed by a Commission of Inquiry, 32 investigated by judicial authorities, 11 in which compensation was awarded and six probed by a Commission headed by former Supreme Court judge Santosh Hegde. New Delhi: The gorgeous 'Ram-Leela' couple Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh's wedding preparations have begun in full swing. The beautiful Italian villa is being all decked-up raising the curiosity and excitement levels of their fans as inside pictures have flooded the social media. The couple made their relationship official by announcing the wedding dates. Come November 14-15 and you will see the internet break a thousand times with their amazing wedding clicks. Now, soon after their wedding in Italy which is going to be a close-knit family affair, the couple will host two reception parties reportedly. According to DNA, one reception will be held in Mumbai and another one in Bangalore respectively. Quoting a source, the report states, The wedding will take place in the presence of their immediate family members and closest friends. However, the reception in Mumbai will see the whos who of B-Town in attendance. It will be nothing short of a display of power that these two yield. Deepika is the numero uno actress in Bollywood, while Ranveer is a superstar with an equally large fan following. Their Mumbai reception is going to take place on November 28, 2018, at The Grand Hyatt. A few days back, pre-wedding festivities kicked-off in both the households with an auspicious Nandi Puja at Padukone's house in Bangalore and a Haldi ceremony at Ranveer's residence. Expect to see a gazillion of stars walk on the red carpet and bless the couple! Kolkata: Actor and director Nandita Das on Sunday said that the beauty about art is that pain gives rise to something stronger and deeper. Das, whose 2018 film 'Manto' on famous Urdu author Saadat Hasan Manto would be screened at the 24th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), said the writer had produced his best stories in his worst times. "It is true artistes, writers, filmmakers flourish most when they go through really bad times," the actor said. At the same time, she came up with the reference of Ritwik Ghatak and Satyajit Ray as a counter-point and exceptions to her initial argument. "I don't know if there is a direct connection. Because great filmmakers such as Ritwik Ghatak and Satyajit Ray, processed life differently and reacted to life differently. "However, the beauty about art remains that pain gives rise to something stronger, something deeper," she observed while delivering the Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture at the 24th KIFF. Speaking on the present situation in the world, Das said, "In a way for me, doing Manto was a great pain. As the world today is so full of strife, which is constantly dividing us and telling us how we are different." Stating that sectarian violence was causing fissures in humanity, she said, "We are divided in the name of religion, caste, gender and colour of skin." Tracing the life of Manto, who died in 1955 in Lahore at the age of 43, Das said, "Manto had spoken the inconvenient truth and faced hardships in his life. It happens to many of us till this date, when people get imprisoned and I am trolled." She said to do a film on 'Manto' was not just to introduce viewers to the man he was. "It is rather to support the Mantos that exist today. The film will make us uncomfortable collectively as a society," she said. Saying that the concern, struggle and dilemma of Manto resonated deeply in her own dilemma, struggle and concerns, Das said, "Both my directorial films - Firaaq and Manto - were borne out of compulsions to tell these stories of struggle." Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays the character of writer Saadat Hasan Manto in the film. Describing Manto as "one of the pioneers of progressive writing," Das described him as a "deeply sensitive and secular human." Manto was "very free spirited", she said. The "only time he did not write (was) during partition. Some of his famous partition violence stories were written later, Das said during her lecture. New Delhi: In a move that could benefit lakhs of employees in the formal job sector, government may accept proposal to reduce the tenure of services to claim Gratuity by the end of this year. The proposal to make amendments to the Payment of Gratuity Act of 1972 seeks to lower the five-year service period for Gratuity eligibility to three years. As per Zee Media sources, the Labour ministry has sought comments and views from the industry on the impact of reduction in Gratuity tenure. Sources said that after holding consultations with industry and experts, a proposal regarding this will be placed before the central board of trustees. Sources also said that workers hired under fixed-term contracts will also be entitled to Gratuity. Till now, contractual employee was not entitled to any Gratuity. However, sources said that Gratuity component for these workers will be proportional to the number of years they have served The Payment of Gratuity Act 1972 was enacted to provide for gratuity payment to employees engaged in factories, mines, oilfields, plantations, ports, railway companies, shops or other establishments. It is applicable to employees who have completed at least five years of continuous service in an establishment that has ten or more persons. Sources have said that although labour ministry may agree with the industry demand on lowering the gratuity tenure to three years, labour unions have been demanding a further decrease in the tenure. The Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 says that Gratuity shall be payable to an employee on the termination of his employment after he has rendered continuous service for not less than five years under: (a) on his superannuation, or (b) on his retirement or resignation, or (c) on his death or disablement due to accident or disease: Currently establishment employing ten or more persons fall under the Gratuity Act. It may be recalled that the government had in March decided to double the limit of tax-free gratuity to Rs 20 lakh in private sector. The notification follows changes in the Payment of Gratuity Act which had empowered the government to fix the ceiling of the retirement benefit through an executive order. After implementation of the 7th Central Pay Commission, the ceiling of tax-free gratuity amount for the central government employees was increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. The unions have been demanding for inclusion of the change in the Payment of Gratuity Act. New Delhi: Twitteratis have been asking for an edit button for the longest time. But that may still be some time away as the company does not want to "rush it" and will take a considered view of a use case for allowing individuals to make changes to their tweets. "We have been considering edit for quite some time but we have to do the right way. We can't just rush it out. We have to make sure that we are actually solving the predominant reason why people would do it first and foremost and not making something that is distracting or takes anything away from the public record...," Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said. Speaking at a townhall at IIT-Delhi, the top executive said many users have been asking for the edit button because they want to correct mistakes like spelling errors or adding the wrong URL. "...That's a lot more achievable than allowing people to edit any tweet all the way back in time...Ultimately, we need to make sure that we are solving a real problem and solving a use case that people seeing as a friction in the service and making that easy for people," Dorsey said. On his maiden visit to India, Dorsey met Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama and Congress President Rahul Gandhi. Addressing the students at an hour-long townhall, the Twitter co-founder answered a multitude of questions ranging from topics like best and worst decisions, changes needed in education system and impact of social media on youth globally. In response to a question, Dorsey said the followers count no longer matters and users should rather focus on having meaningful conversations. Having founded Twitter with Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in 2006, Dorsey said the follower count was designed to encourage engagement on the platform. "...We made it (follower number) bold and the font size a little bigger than everything else on the page and we didn't think much and we moved on to the next thing to create. "What that has done is we put all the emphasis, not intending to, on that number of how many people follow me. So, if that number is big and bold, what do people want to do with it? They want to make it go up," he said. He further said: "It may have been right way back then 12 years ago but I don't think it's right today...I think a more interesting number is how many conversations do you contribute to in your network, how many healthy conversations do you have". Talking about bad decisions made, Dorsey spoke of how he -- in the early years of the company -- was afraid of letting some "amazing" engineers as he feared that doing so would bring down the platform even though these staff had negative attitude. He reminisced that six months later, when some of these people were let go, the site indeed went down but also some other team members stepped up as leaders in the situation. Advising would-be entrepreneurs, Dorsey said it is important that these businesses and algorithms based on new technologies like artificial intelligence are built with a "sense of ethical and moral responsibility" as this will affect lives of people. New Delhi: Telecom regulator Trai on Monday issued a long-awaited consultation paper to debate whether Over-The-Top (OTT) services, including Whatsapp and Skype, should be brought under the regulatory regime. The discussion paper titled 'Regulatory Framework for Over The Top Communications Services' is aimed at analysing and discussing "changes that may be required in the current regulatory framework to govern these entities; and the manner in which such changes should be effected", a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) statement said. OTT services refer to applications and services that are accessible over the Internet and ride on an operator's network. Skype, Viber, WhatsApp and Hike are some examples of popular and widely-used OTT services. Trai has asserted that the scope of its current consultation would be regulatory issues and economic concerns pertaining to those OTT services that are "same or similar" to the services provided by telecom service providers (TSPs). The regulator has sought the industry's views on which OTT services should be regarded as the same or similar to those offered by telecom operators, and if "substitutability" should be the main criteria for comparison of regulatory or licensing rules applicable to TSPs and OTT service providers. It has also asked whether "regulatory or licensing imbalance" is impacting telecom network investments especially required for capacity expansions and technology upgradations, and how OTT service providers can participate in infusing investment in the telecom networks. "Would inter-operability among OTT services and also inter-operability of their services with TSPs services promote competition and benefit the users," the Trai consultation paper said, asking stakeholders to state measures that can be taken to promote competition. Trai has also asked if there are issues surrounding lawful interception of OTT communication that need to be resolved in the interest of national security and whether responsibilities of OTT service providers and TSPs should be distinct. TRAI has asked if there is an issue of "non-level playing field" between OTT providers and TSPs giving same or similar services and sought suggestions on whether regulatory or licensing norms should be imposed on OTT service providers to fix such regulatory imbalance. Telecom companies in India have long been demanding that OTT players be brought in the ambit of the regulatory framework, as they offer similar services without attached licencing obligations, conditions and levies (such as licence fee). In addition, telecom operators also have to abide by stringent service quality benchmarks and invest in networks and infrastructure. However, OTTs argue that a regulatory regime for them would stifle innovation. "The objective of this consultation paper is to analyse and discuss the implications of the growth of OTTs; the relationship between OTT players and TSPs; the similarity, if any, between services provided by the TSPs and OTT players...," TRAI said. When contacted, industry body COAI said that it is in the process of examining the consultation paper. Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) Director General Rajan Mathews told PTI that the association will come out with its detailed response in a few days after the members discuss the nuances of the OTT consultation paper. Asked if Trai's latest move has come as a relief to the COAI which has been flagging the absence of level playing field between OTTs and TSPs, Mathews said the consultation paper is useful and hoped that it would lead to "equitable solution" in terms of "same service same rules" as is being demanded by telecom players. Trai has asked the industry to give its views on various issues raised in the consultation paper by December 10, 2018, and counter comments by December 24, 2018. LUCKNOW: Days after renaming the Faizabad district as Ayodhya, the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh is reportedly considering a proposal to ban the sale of liquor and meat in the entire district. The demand to ban the sale of liquor and meat in the district has been made by local seers. Speaking to reporters on the issue, UP government spokesperson Srikant Sharma had said on Sunday said that the state government was very much aware of the demands made by the seers in Ayodhya. The government will ban the sale of liquor and meat within the legal framework,'' Sharma said. Acharya Satyendra Das was also quoted as saying by ANI that Ayodhya is a sacred place and meat and liquor was never sold in the city, adding that the proposed ban will lead to a healthier lifestyle. "Ayodhya has been a sacred place for centuries, meat and liquor were never sold here. Now that Faizabad has been renamed as Ayodhya, the ban should be applicable to the whole district. The ban will end the impurity and pollution and evoke a feeling of purity. This ban will help people to be healthier," Das said. The demand has drawn support from other seers as well, one of whom, namely Dharmdas Pakshkar of Sri Hanuman Gadi Temple, has called for a ban on the sale of meat across the nation. Meanwhile, Mohammed Iqbal Ansari, a key petitioner in the Babri Masjid case, said that the final decision will be taken by the state government itself. However, the proposal to ban meat and alcohol in the entire Ayodhya district has received a mix response from the public as it feels the ban will directly impact owners of meat and liquor shops. Mohammed Shahzad, who owns a meat shop, called the demand "wrong and unjustified." "This is my only source of income and if there is a ban on the sale of meat and eggs, how will we earn anything? We have families to provide for. It was fine until the rule was limited only till Ayodhya, now just because they have changed the name, doesn't mean it shall be applicable in the whole district. There are around 200-250 meat shops here, if put a ban on the sale, they should provide us with a job," he explained. While Shahzad was against the ban, there are few shopkeepers who supported the ban. Sushil Jaiswal, a liquor shop owner, said that he supports the ban as what is right shall be done. Speaking about the losses that would be incurred, Jaiswal said, "People will find something else to earn money." Faizabad district was renamed Ayodhya on November 6 by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at the Deepotsav event. The decision to rechristen Faizabad district as Ayodhya has not gone down well with many of its residents, who believe it is an "unnecessary step" taken for "political" reasons and will eventually "erase the identity" of the historical town. Another section, however, welcomed the Uttar Pradesh government's move, saying it endorses the legacy of ancient Ayodhya and will enhance its "glory". NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate several development projects in his Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi on Monday. PM Modi took to Twitter on Sunday to inform that he will launch several development projects that will have a 'transformative' impact on the holy city and the state of Uttar Pradesh. "I look forward to being in Kashi to inaugurate development projects that will have a transformative impact on the city and the rest of Uttar Pradesh, especially Poorvanchal," PM Modi said in a series of tweets. Prime Minister @narendramodi to Inaugurate the Ring Road and Babatpur Airport Road in Varanasi on 12th of November, 2018 PM will also Dedicate to the Nation the Inland Waterways Terminal on River Ganga in Varanasi. https://t.co/2BDqhr94kS pic.twitter.com/k97rDiWu1H PIB India (@PIB_India) November 6, 2018 PM Modi will inaugurate a multi-modal terminal on River Ganga, two national highway projects along with some sewerage projects, news agency ANI reported. One of the projects I will be inaugurating in Kashi tomorrow is the Varanasi Ring Road Phase 1, which will be a source of great convenience and relief for the people of Kashi. It will reduce travel time and fuel usage. And yes, going to Sarnath also gets a lot easier now! pic.twitter.com/YjOFSjcBlo Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 11, 2018 The two roads have a combined length of 34 km and have been laid at a cost of Rs 1,571.95 crore. He will also lay the foundation stone for a project under 'Namami Gange Programme'. Making Kashi cleaner and healthier through sewerage projects which will have a long-term impact on the city and surrounding areas. The inauguration of 140 MLD Dinapur STP will add great strength towards the efforts of cleaning the Ganga. pic.twitter.com/Ne7bOmX3BU Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 11, 2018 The 16.55-km Varanasi Ring Road Phase-I has been completed at a cost of Rs 759.36 crore, while the four-laning and construction of 17.25-km-long Babatpur-Varanasi Road on NH-56 has cost Rs 812.59 crore, read a statement from the PM's office. The Babatpur Airport Highway will link Varanasi to the airport and go on to link Jaunpur, Sultanpur and Lucknow. With the flyover at Harhua and a road over bridge (ROB) at Tarna, the new road plan will reduce travel time from Varanasi to the airport, providing relief to the locals and tourists coming here, the statement said. With the inauguration of the Babatpur Airport highway, coming to Varanasi just got easier. Have a look at the photos of this state-of-the-art project. Travelling to and from Jaunpur, Sultanpur and Lucknow also gets easier with this project. A win-win for the people of Kashi. pic.twitter.com/9tmY4oSNe0 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 11, 2018 The Ring Road, with two ROBs and a flyover, is expected to reduce traffic, fuel usage and pollution on NH 56 (Lucknow-Varanasi), NH 233 (Azamgarh-Varanasi), NH 29 (Gorakhpur-Varanasi) and Ayodhya-Varanasi highway, the statement said. Further, the ring road is expected to provide smooth road access to Sarnath, a renowned Buddhist pilgrimage site. On the day, at a separate event, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the first multi-modal waterways terminal on the Ganga river as part of the Centre's Jal Marg Vikas Project which aims to develop the stretch of the river between Varanasi and Haldia for navigation of large vessels weighing up to 1,500 to 2,000 tonnes, an official statement said. The objective of the project is to promote inland waterways as a cheap and environment-friendly means of transportation, especially for cargo movement. The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) is the project implementing agency. National Waterway-1 (Haldia-Varanasi stretch) is being developed with technical assistance and investment support from the World Bank. The total estimated cost of the project is Rs 5,369.18 crore, which will be shared between the Government of India and the World Bank on a 50:50 ratio. The project entails construction of three multi-modal terminals (Varanasi, Sahibganj and Haldia), two inter-modal terminals, five roll-on-roll-off (Ro-Ro) terminal pairs, new navigation lock at Farakka, assured depth dredging, integrated vessel repair and maintenance facility, differential global positioning system (DGPS), river information system (RIS), river training and conservancy works. Operation, management and further development of the terminal is proposed to be entrusted to an operator on public-private partnership model and selection of the operator through an international competitive bidding is at an advanced stage and is expected to be completed by December, an official statement said. The multi-modal terminal project and proposed freight village in Varanasi are expected to generate 500 direct employment and more than 2,000 indirect employment opportunities. Later in the day, the PM will receive India's first container vessel that sailed from Kolkata on inland waterways on October 30, carrying cargo belonging to PEPSICO (India). PM Modi will be accompanied by UP Governor Ram Naik, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Shipping, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Nitin Gadkari and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at the function. (With Agency Inputs) Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government is mulling declaring certain parts of Ayodhya and Mathura as pilgrim centres in order to enforce the proposed ban on the sale of meat and liquor. The 14 Kosi Parikrama Marg in Ayodhya and Lord Krishna's birthplace in Mathura are likely to be declared as pilgrim centres, suggests news agency PTI. A day before Diwali 2018, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath announced that Faizabad district will henceforth be known as Ayodhya. On Monday, reports claimed that the state is now considering a proposal to ban the sale of liquor and meat in the entire district, a demand made by local seers. "Honouring their demands, the state government is working to declare the area around 14 Kosi Parikrama Marg in Ayodhya and the birthplace of Lord Krishna in Mathura as pilgrim centres. Once this happens, a ban on the sale and consumption of non-vegetarian food and liquor will automatically come into effect," UP minister Shrikant Sharma told PTI. He added that the ban of sale on liquor and meat will be within the legal framework. Sharma said Vrindavan, Barsana, Nandgaon, Giriraj ji and Sapt Kosi Parikrama area of Govardhan had already been declared pilgrim centres, where there is the ban on sale and consumption of non-vegetarian food and liquor. Acharya Satyendra Das was also quoted as saying by ANI that Ayodhya is a sacred place and meat and liquor was never sold in the city, adding that the proposed ban will lead to a healthier lifestyle. "Ayodhya has been a sacred place for centuries, meat and liquor were never sold here. Now that Faizabad has been renamed as Ayodhya, the ban should be applicable to the whole district. The ban will end the impurity and pollution and evoke a feeling of purity. This ban will help people to be healthier," Das said. The demand has drawn support from other seers as well, one of whom, namely Dharmdas Pakshkar of Sri Hanuman Gadi Temple, has called for a ban on the sale of meat across the nation. With agency inputs Melbourne: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday called on imams in the country to do more to counter the growing threats posed by home-grown Islamic radicals, a week after a deadly knife attack here carried out by a radicalised Somali-origin man. Hassan Khalif Shire Ali stabbed three members of the public and attacked police officers in the Bourke Street on Friday before he was shot and killed by the police. The 30-year-old, who was driving a utility vehicle, loaded with gas bottles, into the busy Bourke Street, allegedly set it alight and began stabbing members of the public. "This bloke (the attacker), radicalised here in Australia with extreme Islam, took a knife and cut down a fellow Australian in Bourke Street," Morrison was quoted as saying by the Australian Broadcasting Company. "He was a terrorist. He was a radical extremist terrorist who took a knife to another Australian because he had been radicalised in this country, he said while rejecting the claim made by the family of the attacker that he was mentally unstable. Morrison dismissed the suggestion that mental health issues negated that primary cause as a "lame excuse". "I am not going to make an excuse for that. Of course issues of mental health and all these other things are important," Morrison said. The Prime Minister added "These other issues are relevant, don't get me wrong, but he was radicalised, and that's why he took a knife to people." Morrison said the Bourke Street attack showed that Muslim community leaders needed to make sure they intervened to stop radicalisation. "What is happening in these communities is we have people coming in to them and spreading this vile evil and taking advantage of vulnerable people in their community," he said. "Now, imams and others who are the leaders in their religious communities need to be looking carefully at who is coming in to their community, who's talking to their kids, who's at the back of the mosque and walking out with some young person who seems a bit disenfranchised," he added. On the claims that his criticisms were racist, Morrison said this was the "same old, tired excuse" that was always made. "I don't believe that is where the majority of decent, hard-working, respectable Australian Muslims are at. They want their community to be safer and there are people coming in to their community and they are infecting their young people and others with hatred and false teaching, which is taking them on the wrong path,'' he said adding ''Now, that has to be called out and it has to be stopped." "This happened because of an Australian citizen who was radicalised in Australia ? he didn't bring it from somewhere else, he learnt it all here." The family of Somali-born Shire Ali, who moved to Melbourne in the 1990s, has claimed that he was delusional and not a terrorist. In a handwritten letter, the family said Shire Ali was "crying for help" because he was mentally ill. Washington: Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu lawmaker from Hawaii in the US Congress, is considering to run for American presidency in 2020, according to sources close to her. On Friday, at a Medtronic conference in Los Angeles, an eminent Indian-American Dr Sampat Shivangi introduced Gabbard, 37, and said that she could be the next president of the US in 2020. The brief statement was marked by a standing ovation, in the presence of the four-term Congresswoman from the 50th US State. Gabbard, a Democrat, who addressed the gathering, however, neither confirmed or denied that she is running for president in 2020. A decision on this could be taken before Christmas, which might not necessarily result in a formal announcement as that could be delayed till the next year, people familiar with her thinking process told PTI. However, it is said that she and her team has quietly been reaching out to prospective donors, including a large number of Indian Americans, and volunteers to build an impressive campaign for her 2020 run. Given that Gabbard is highly popular among Indian-Americans, a constituency she has nurtured from the very beginning of her political carrier, it is but natural that her team has quietly started reaching out to this community, which is considered as the richest ethnic group after the Jewish Americans. And in many critical States, Indian Americans can play an important role in her electoral chances. Gabbard is not Indian. She was born in American Samoa to a Catholic father (Hawaii State Senator Mike Gabbard) and her mother, Carol Porter Gabbard, is of Caucasian descent who professes Hinduism. Gabbard moved to Hawaii when she was two and embraced Hinduism as a teenager and is well-versed in the scriptures. If Gabbard declares her presidential bid she would be the first Hindu candidate ever from a major political party to announce to enter the race for White House. And if elected in 2020, she could be the youngest ever and first woman to be elected as the US president. A Democrat, Gabbard last week was elected for the fourth term for the US House of Representatives. Notably, Dr Shivangi is a Republican and has been the party's delegate for the past several presidential conventions. However, he had held fund raisers for Gabbard when she ran for the Congress for the first time in 2012. She was the first US lawmaker to take her oath on Bhagwat Gita. A former vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Gabbard currently serves on powerful House Armed Services Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee. She is also the Democratic Co-Chair of the Congressional India Caucus. "She has been a fresh voice in the Democratic Party, with her support for US-India relations, her opposition to the war in Iraq, her opposition to arms sales to Saudi Arabia and her more recent vigorous opposition to among the rebels in Syria," Shivangi said. The 2020 presidential primary cycle is scheduled to kick off from the Iowa Caucuses on February 3, 2020, followed by the New Hampshire Primary on February 11, Nevada caucus of February 15 and South Carolina on February 22. Team Tulsi has been reaching out to people in these four States. President Donald Trump is all set to seek his re-election in 2020, none of the Democratic candidates have announced their bid yet. The Democratic race is expected to be crowded by the summer of 2019. Among those Democrats speculated to run for the 2020 primaries include former vice president Joe Biden, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Kaine and Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris. Amid the clamor of Trump headlines and focus on higher-profile candidates, Gabbard has been quietly making the traditional moves of a presidential candidate. She recently visited Iowa, where locals urged her to run for president, according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen. She keynoted a progressive gathering in New Hampshire in September. And she's writing a book due out this spring titled, "Is Today the Day?: Not Another Political Memoir," Politico reported last month. US media reported extensively on how Donald Trump was uncharacteristically muted on his trip to Europe on the occasion of World War I remembrance. Yet, the US president blasted all reports to smithereens moments after landing back home, claiming that he had told world leaders off for 'using' his country unfairly. Trump, in a series of tweets on Monday, claimed that he had told global leaders during his visit to France that the United States cannot be taken for granted anymore. "Never easy bringing up the fact that the U.S. must be treated fairly, which it hasnt, on both Military and Trade. We pay for LARGE portions of other countries military protection," he wrote. "I told them that this situation cannot continue - It is, and always has been, ridiculously unfair to the United States. It is time that these very rich countries either pay the United States for its great military protection, or protect themselves...and Trade must be made FREE and FAIR!" Just returned from France where much was accomplished in my meetings with World Leaders. Never easy bringing up the fact that the U.S. must be treated fairly, which it hasnt, on both Military and Trade. We pay for LARGE portions of other countries military protection,........ Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018 .....hundreds of billions of dollars, for the great privilege of losing hundreds of billions of dollars with these same countries on trade. I told them that this situation cannot continue - It is, and always has been, ridiculously unfair to the United States. Massive amounts..... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018 .....of money spent on protecting other countries, and we get nothing but Trade Deficits and Losses. It is time that these very rich countries either pay the United States for its great military protection, or protect themselves...and Trade must be made FREE and FAIR! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018 Trump was in Paris along with global leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to a report in the Washington Post, Trump appeared sidelined and was mostly devoid of expressions throughout his stay in the city. This has prompted many back home to wonder if Trump's 'America First' policy has turned into an 'America Alone' reality. Watching the events from France, I cannot recall a time when America seemed so isolated. America First feels like America Alone. David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 11, 2018 The US and its traditional allies in Europe have not always been on the same page since Trump became the American President. He has termed French President Emmanuel Macron's proposal for a European Army as an insult, has previously charged Germans for being controlled by Russia and for economic and trade reasons, and has even called Canadian PM Justin Trudeau meek and weak. In his most recent overseas trip, he cancelled a visit to American World War I cemetery in France due to rains which is being seen not just as an insult to French hosts but also to American war heroes. And yet, the barrage of tweets from Trump claiming that he had been strong and firm with world leaders - reminding them of how much US has paid them for their security - is likely to be, say political analysts, more to satiate his supporters rather than define a clear foreign policy. Five years ago, Ukraine made its geopolitical choice and opted for the West, paying an exorbitant price for it - the loss of Crimea, Donbas, and political and economic upheavals Five years ago, Ukraine has made its geopolitical choice and opted for the West. The country has paid an exorbitant price for it it has lost Crimea, was forced to wage a war for Donbas, and suffered from political and economic upheavals. Many people in Ukraine expected this to be a countrys chance for reforms and the rapid European integration. Five years have passed, and Europe is not welcoming us with open arms. Partly, it is our own fault, and partly, the situation in Europe and the world should be blamed. The romance of the Ukrainian revolution is already gone, and grey routine days appear in the European Union and Ukraine Reuters First, under Moscows pressure, the European Union postponed the introduction of a free trade agreement (FTA) for Ukraine until January 1, 2016. Then it has suspended the introduction of a visa-free regime for Kyivs failure to fulfill its obligations in anti-corruption legislation. Soon, some European countries have become strident critics of the Ukrainian politics. In April 2016, the results of the Dutch referendum have suspended the ratification of the association agreement until September 1, 2017. And then a conflict between Kyiv and Warsaw concerning the historical past erupted; the head of the Polish Foreign Ministry told Ukrainians: 'You will not enter Europe with Bandera.' The 'historical clash' with the Poles has further turned into a language issue with the Hungarians, who subsequently blocked the negotiations between Kyiv and NATO twice. Now it is obvious that Ukraines European fate will be decided not only by Brussels, but also by the capitals of the European states, and their noticeable increase in Euroscepticism and populism could become a serious obstacle for Kyiv. In recent years, Europe, being under the influence of the migrants invasion and the elite crisis, has begun to lean toward the right-wing populism. With time, these trends become more intensive. In January 2018, Milos Zeman was re-elected Czech President. In May, head of the right-wing populists, Viktor Orban, took over the post of head of the Hungarian government. Eurosceptic Northern League party has won the parliamentary elections in Italy, and its leader later became deputy prime minister and minister of interior. The popularity of Euroskeptics continues to increase in Sweden and Germany. According to the results of the parliamentary elections in Sweden this year, Swedish Democrats party took the third place again, and in Germany, the success of the right-wing conservative and Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany party turned out to be unprecedented. In October, this party has repeated the success of last year, and now it has factions in all 16 Landtags (except for the Bundestag). The situation in Latvia is intriguing as well; this year, the Consensus party won the parliamentary elections, yet in 2017 maintained contractual relations with United Russia party. Such political alignment in Europe is unlikely to benefit Ukraine, whose authorities intend to amend the Constitution to make EU and NATO membership its long-term goal. So which European countries pose a threat to Ukraines European aspirations? 112.ua and the IMEE-analytics analytical group conducted a joint study of the peculiarities of the foreign policies of the European countries. Research methodology The power in Europe changes from one election to another. Therefore, threats can be real and tangible or possible, associated with the expectations of changes in power; Austria and Italy are the recent examples. Any research in this area would be subjective since it is very difficult to evaluate and express all aspects of international relations in quantitative forms. But we will try to do it. In order to determine the level of real threats, we have analyzed: - the activity of delegates of a particular country in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE); - the position of European countries concerning the idea of Ukraines membership in the EU and NATO; - the attitude of European countries to the events in Donbas and Crimea, including illegal visits by of the occupied peninsula; - attitude to the energy security issues, in particular, support of Russian gas transmission projects oriented towards Europe, bypassing Ukraines GTS; - the existence of the territorial claims against Ukraine; - the dynamics of bilateral trade and economic relations over the past three years. When assessing potential threats, we took the following points into account: - the countrys state system; - the far-right, Eurosceptics, and populists in the national parliaments, as well as the level of their integration into the government bodies; - the risks of political activity of far-right forces representatives, Eurosceptics, and populists in the European Parliament; - the states official position on imposing / lifting sanctions against Russia. Such countries as Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Serbia, Turkey, Montenegro, and Switzerland are not EU members, therefore, they cannot pose a potential threat in the EPs adoption of the key decisions on Ukraine. Why some European countries oppose Ukraines political course? In the course of the study, we considered that 32 parliaments of 43 analyzed countries have political parties whose ideology is based on Euroscepticism or right-wing populism. The number of Eurosceptics exceeds 20% in 16 parliaments. In Serbia, Italy, Iceland, and Hungary, this number is about 60%. In addition, Euroskeptics of 16 countries are represented in the European Parliament, and in 10 cases the number of European deputies from these political forces exceeds 15% of the total number of delegates of this country Austria (22%), Finland (15%), Lithuania (18%), Czech Republic (28%), Poland (33%), Bulgaria (29%), France (21%), Netherlands (23% ), the United Kingdom (33%), and Austria (22%). Sanctions against Russia were not supported by Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Vatican, Macedonia, Monaco, San Marino, Serbia, and Turkey. These countries are not subject to any obligations with the EU; moreover, they have their own relations with the Russian Federation. In recent years, ruling or opposition political forces of 18 European states have advocated for the easing or lifting of such sanctions. That is, there are such ideas; however, the supporters of the lifting of sanctions do not yet have enough strength to implement such a decision. So far, not enough If we continue the issue of European political solidarity, we should note the countries' reaction to the events surrounding the poisoning of Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK, which, according to British investigators, was initiated by Moscow. Then, 26 European countries, including Ukraine, supported Londons initiative to expel Russian diplomats. Another 19 did not take such action: namely, Austria, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Vatican, Greece, Iceland, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Malta, Monaco, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, and Switzerland. In addition, the political forces of 22 countries have publicly advocated the resumption of political or economic dialogue with Russia. Politicians, public figures, and businessmen from 23 countries have directly violated Ukrainian ban on visiting Crimea. It is important that the Italian, Czech, Hungarian and Bosnian delegations when visiting the peninsula consisted of representatives of the ruling political forces. Opposition politicians mainly came from Austria, the UK, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Serbia to the Crimea. As for Bosnia and Herzegovina, it has distinguished itself recently by its anti-Ukrainian activities, in particular, it is about the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats and its leader Milorad Dodik. By the way, a few years ago, parliaments of some Italian regions have recognized Crimea as part of Russia, and Luhansk Peoples Republic has opened its representative office in Italy. Official position of the delegates during the voting for PACE resolutions - No. 13483 - 2014 'Reconsideration on substantive grounds of the previously ratified credentials of the Russian delegation', No. 14227 - 2017 'The functioning of democratic institutions in Ukraine', No. 14463 - 2018 'Humanitarian consequences of the war in Ukraine', No. 14591 2018 'Ukrainian citizens detained as political prisoners by the Russian Federation' were also indicative. For example, representatives of 14 countries, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Moldova, Hungary, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Greece, Italy, Serbia, and Turkey, turned out to be absolutely unanimous in depriving Russia of powers in PACE. But 24 countries spoke unanimously in favor for the resolution on the functioning of democratic institutions in Ukraine (PACE strengthened its criticism of the Ukrainian authorities and demanded that Kyiv change the law on lustration, implement the Minsk agreements and not toughen the law on languages). Another element of the study was the assessment of the position of European leaders on the problematic issues of energy security in Europe, in particular, the support for Russian gas transmission projects bypassing the Ukrainian gas transport system. Thus, the implementation of Nord Stream - 2 gas pipeline project, which to increase the dependence of European countries on Russian gas and energetically isolate the region of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, is supported by 10 countries: Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Norway, Finland, and Malta. In addition, the list should include another six European countries: Bulgaria, as a country, which is out of the Nord Stream - 2 project interest, but is concerned about the implementation of joint gas energy projects with Russia; Greece; Sweden, which, despite the fact that most of its political forces oppose the construction of the Russian gas pipeline, has still granted permission to Nord Stream - 2 AG to lay a pipe over its territory; Italy, which in 2015 was against the project, but after the parliamentary elections in 2018, when the center-right coalition led by Northern League came to power, the government began to bear the Russian project; Serbia and Turkey, whose interests are not directly affected by the project, but both of these countries are interested in another project of Russian gas delivery Turkish Stream. The existence of land claims against Ukraine is a direct threat not only to its European aspirations but also to the very existence of this country in its current form. For example, Austria and Turkey have only some historical prerequisites for making such claims, but they do not take active steps in this direction. Polish and Romanian state authorities, political and public figures make frequent statements, which directly or indirectly indicate the country's true intentions towards Ukraine. That is, Warsaw and Bucharest operate primarily using the so-called 'soft power.' Hungary is taking specific actions that could lead to incitement of ethnic hatred in Ukraines Zakarpattia. This is confirmed by Budapests recent activity, providing Hungarian citizenship to Ukrainians (remember the topical passport scandal in Berehove). In fact, the Romanian influence on Ukraine could be even more serious than the Hungarian one, especially if it comes out from Washingtons control. Hungarian territorial claims are focused mainly on certain areas of Zakarpattia region, while Ukraines Chernivtsi and Odesa regions are included in the sphere of Romanian influence. Bucharests influence on Ukraines domestic policy and on the position of the Romanian community in Ukraine is carried out not only through diplomatic channels but also through Romanian public associations. Moreover, the Romanian passport policy is more effective, taking into consideration its soft diplomacy. Thus, according to Eurostat, in 2016 Romania became the second European country by the number of issued passports to Ukrainians. Its share was 16.8%, while the share of Hungary was only 1.5%. Although Belarus is part of the Union State with Russia, however, it is not the EU and PACE member, therefore it does not pose a big threat in the external arena. In addition, Minsk often seeks to take a neutral position concerning Ukraine-Russia conflict, acting as a political and economic mediator. The dynamics of trade and economic relations between Ukraine and European countries show that in 2015 - 2018, the commodity circulation with most of the countries has increased. At the same time, Ukraines trade with Georgia, Turkey, Switzerland, and Monaco has a fluctuating character. The downward trend with Liechtenstein, France, Albania, San Marino, and Croatia is observed. * * * As you can see, Europe-2018 is different from Europe-2014. Over the recent years, events have changed the mood of the Europeans. Unionism began to give way to Euroscepticism, and more and more right-wing populists came to power in a number of countries. Thus, 74% of the European states parliaments have political forces with a negative attitude towards European integration processes. Eurosceptics take at least one-fifth of the seats in 37% of the parliaments. Sometimes, Europeans do not understand Kyiv. The outlook for the coming years is even vaguer. Ukraines economic problems are not the major reason for this; it is more about a division of Europe itself and that of Ukraine-EU-Russia relations. Definitely, Kyiv will need to jump through some hoops to become a member of the European Union. Read the original text at 112.ua. The SBU has calculated that each person should vote for 18 seconds Open source The self-proclaimed republics "Luhansk People's Republic" (LPR) and "Donetsk People's Republic" (DPR) continue to play with numbers, publishing the results of the so-called "elections" as the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported on Facebook. ""The people's pseudo-republics" continue to surprise by its math, which contradicts the common sense. According to SBU Head Vasyl Hrytsak, after the publication of the results of the fake election defined by the Kremlin curators beforehand by the SBU, the so-called election commissions continued to play with the"numbers"", the message said. According to the SBU, each person should vote for 18 seconds. "Supposedly, 1,6 million people participated in the elections with the voter turnout at the level of 80%. Generally, in DPR, according to the terrorists, 408 polling stations worked. In other words, during 12 hours of work, almost 4,000 people visited each of them. Again, here is not really difficult arithmetic, during one hour, according to the election commissions, 326 citizens of the temporarily occupied territories voted, or a person had 18 seconds to vote," the message noted. On November 9, Ukraines Security Service received reliable data about the results of the elections on the occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which militants intended to hold on November 11. According to the information, Pushylin had 65% of votes and Pasichnyk 63%. Voter turnout was to make 70%. As is known, the so-called elections took place in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Sunday, November 11. The voters elected the leaders of 'people's republics' and their representatives in the parliaments of the 'republics'. It was reported that Leonid Pasechnyk was chosen as the "head" of the self-proclaimed republic at the illegal "elections" in the separate parts of Luhansk regions (Luhansk People's Republic, LPR). Denis Pushilin was "elected" as the head of the territory of Donetsk region occupied by the pro-Russian militants (Donetsk People's Republic, DPR). Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU unanimously condemned the voting, considering it illegitimate. Russia still has not commented on the outcome of the election. Besides, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko urged Ukrainians living in the occupied Donbas not to vote at the fake elections on November 11. The EU has already condemned the "elections" in Donbas and urged Russia to influence the separatists supported by it. Related video: Open source The militants violated ceasefire four times in the combat zone in Donbas over the day. The press office of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) reported this on Facebook. The occupants opened aimed fire from grenade launchers of different systems, heavy machine guns and small arms at the positions of the Joint Forces near settlements Aidar, Vilne, Troitske and Krasnohorivka. Moreover, the enemy used 82mm mortars near Troitske and Vilne, reads the message. No casualties among the personnel of the Joint Forces were observed. As it was reported earlier, on November 11, none of the Ukrainian servicemen were injured in the combat area in eastern Ukraine. Leonid Pasechnyk was chosen as the "head" of the self-proclaimed republic at the illegal "elections" in the separate parts of Luhansk regions (Luhansk People's Republic, LPR). Denis Pushilin was "elected" as the head of the territory of Donetsk region occupied by the pro-Russian militants (Donetsk People's Republic, DPR) as TASS reported citing the so-called "Central Election Commissions" of the pseudo-republics. Following the results of the preliminary count of 100% of the ballots, Pasechnyk got 68,3% of the votes. Totally, there were four "candidates" for the post of the head of the self-proclaimed republic. Oleg Koval, the Head of the "Republican Committee of Trade Union of workers of the education and science" got 16,55% of the votes; Lyudmyla Rusnak, the leaders of "the crossover territorial department of the public movement "Luhansk economic union" got 5,9% and Natalia Sergun, the head of "Republican Trade Union of workers of the railway transport" got 7,95%. 1,3% of the ballots were recognized as invalid. In autumn 2017, Leonid Pasechnyk became the acting head of the republic after the resignation of Ihor Plotnytsky. Earlier he occupied the post of the "minister of state security of LPR". Pasechnyk is the former officer of the Security Service of Ukraine. in 2007, then President Viktor Yushchenko awarded him the medal "for military service to Ukraine". The majority of the votes, 74,12%, was gained by "Mir Luganshchine" (Peace to Luhansk region, - 112 International) movement headed by Pasechnyk at the elections to the "parliament" of the so-called "LPR". "Luhansk economic union" movement gained 25,16% of votes. 0,72% of the ballots were recognized as invalid. The self-proclaimed republic reported that the voter turnout was 77% at Luhansk elections. Talking about occupied territories of Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin became a new head of the self-proclaimed DPR following the results of the preliminary count of 100% of the ballots, with 60,85% of the votes. Open source Khramenkov A. Roman got 14,2%, Shishkina N. Elena got 9,3% and Yevstifeev N. Roman got 7,75%. Meanwhile, "Donetsk Republic" movement got 72,5% of the votes at the elections to the "council" of the pseudo-republic. The public movement "Free Donbas" got 26%. As is known, the so-called elections took place in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Sunday, November 11. The voters elected the leaders of 'people's republics' and their representatives in the parliaments of the 'republics'. During the day, the Russian mass media reported that the elections take place "calmly" and "without violations". According to the so-called "Central Election Commissions" of the militants, the voter turnout as at 18:00 made 72,5% in the LPR and 76,2% in the DPR. Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU unanimously condemned the voting, considering it illegitimate. Russia still has not commented on the outcome of the election. Besides, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko urged Ukrainians living in the occupied Donbas not to vote at the fake elections on November 11. Related video: Earlier Russia claimed at the session of the Trilateral Contact Group that it is going to recognize the results of illegal "elections" Open source Vladislav Surkov, the associate of the President of Russia has sent the congratulations on the victory at the illegal "elections" in occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk regions to Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnyk as TASS reported. According to the news agency, "Surkov expressed the confidence that the chosen leaders will do their best to increase the living standards of the people." As is known, the so-called elections took place in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Sunday, November 11. The voters elected the leaders of 'people's republics' and their representatives in the parliaments of the 'republics'. It was reported that Leonid Pasechnyk was chosen as the "head" of the self-proclaimed republic at the illegal "elections" in the separate parts of Luhansk regions (Luhansk People's Republic, LPR). Denis Pushilin was "elected" as the head of the territory of Donetsk region occupied by the pro-Russian militants (Donetsk People's Republic, DPR). Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU unanimously condemned the voting, considering it illegitimate. Russia still has not commented on the outcome of the election. Besides, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko urged Ukrainians living in the occupied Donbas not to vote at the fake elections on November 11. The EU has already condemned the "elections" in Donbas and urged Russia to influence the separatists supported by it. Related video: The Meander Company is currently winning a suspicious number of high-cost tenders for supposedly restoring the many places of cultural heritage that Russia has illegally appropriated in annexed Crimea A St. Petersburg company has won a tender for Russias so-called restoration work of the 16th century Khans Palace in Bakhchysarai, which, under other contractors has already caused irreparable damage to a site of immense importance to Crimean Tatars. The Meander Company is currently winning a suspicious number of high-cost tenders for supposedly restoring the many places of cultural heritage that Russia has illegally appropriated in annexed Crimea. Its meteoric success does not appear to be attributable to any experience in restoration and may, instead, be connected with a high-ranking real owner, with the Russian Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky, considered the most likely candidate. Yevhen Leshan, from the Centre for Journalist Investigations, has studiedRussias information about state tenders. This states that Meander has won the tender to do the design support documentation for restoration of the main building of the Khans Palace, as well, according to another contract, as restoration of the Count Corps; the Khans kitchen; the Stables corps; the library block and the Falcon Tower. The first contract is for 66.6 million roubles (almost 900 thousand euros), the second 70.4 million. This is just a small part of the staggering two billion roubles (around 26.5 million euros) that Meander has or will receive from tenders won over the last two years for work in occupied Crimea. Nor is Russia confining its attention, and its allocation of juicy tenders, to the Khans Palace in Bakhchysarai. Meander has also received a contract for work on the Vorontsov Palace in Alupta, to the tune of a further 367 million roubles, as well as numerous other historic sites. The choicest contract, however, is for the construction of a Crimean state centre for childrens theatre on the site in Simferopol, close to the Crimean Parliament, of the old Puppet Theatre which Russia pulled down after annexing Crimea. The cost of this new and very kitsch construction is for the moment 930 million roubles, of which around a third has already been paid. Meander has clearly had its own way around normal tender procedure. There was an earlier scandal in 2016 when Meander proved to have begun work on restoring and renaming the historic Ukraina Theatre in Sevastopol well over a month before it officially won the tender for just over 100 million roubles. There is nothing on the companys site to indicate that Meanders success is due to vast experience in carrying out restoration work on such places of cultural heritage. Only various types of construction work are mentioned. Nor is there anything in Russias register of legal entities to indicate that they have the appropriate licences, though the companys own website presents a scan of such a certificate, issued by the Ministry of Culture. There is also a licence to carry out work with the use of information containing state secrets, which shows that this is a company trusted by the Russian authorities. It is not only the access to state secrets that indicates such connections. Meander has, since 2013, built up a portfolio of state tenders amounting to 8.5 billion roubles, making it the leader of the St Petersburg mark in restoration work or, at least, in receipt of tenders for such work. The vast of contracts are for work on sites in some way under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture. Such a phenomenally successful company has supposedly been run by Yelena Zavadskaya since 2015, and owned by this young woman since 2017. Her allegedly top post coincides with the period in which Meander has made such stupendous gains via state tenders in occupied Crimea. Leshan writes that most Crimean and Russian media assume that the real owner is Medinsky. Meander has now, unfortunately, been let loose on Crimeas cultural and historic legacy. The manner in which it has gained so many lucrative jobs simply reeks of corruption. This, however, as Leshan points out, is what all occupying regimes do on seized territory to syphon off all that is of material and cultural value. As reported, massive damage has already been done to the Khans Palace, or HanSaray in Bakhchysarai, a site of enormous historical and cultural significance for Crimean Tatars and, in general, for Ukraine. The complex was placed on UNESCOs World Heritage Tentative List back in 2003, although the follow-up work had not been carried out at the time of Russias invasion and annexation in 2014. The devastation already caused by what Russia is calling restoration and urgent repairs is already so great that the opportunity for recognition of the Khans Palaces unique status has probably been lost. Any restoration work needed to be carried out by specialists after study of what was required, and with maximum use of the same materials and technology. Instead, the work was passed to a construction firm called Kiramet, working for the Moscow-based Atta Group Architectural and Planning Holdingas General Contractor. Neither had any experience in restoration work, and there is nothing to suggest that the mandatory expert assessment was carried out. The devastation caused was simply barbaric, and so clearly unwarranted that it seems likely that much of the original materials that were ripped off were either sold or simply appropriate for various top officials dachas, etc. Small wonder that the contractors tried very hard to keep people away from the complex. In a video posted on 11 April 2018, after several months of such work, Edem Dudakov, a former head of the Committee for Inter-ethnic Relations and Deported Peoples, showed how the original hand-made tiles, called Tatarka, were being replaced in full by factory-produced old-style Spanish titles. While individual Tatarka tiles had needed to be replaced, there was absolutely no justification for removing all of these infinitely richer and authentic tiles. Dudakov assumed that the boring, factory produced Spanish tiles had been chosen because they were easier to lay, because they did not have any specialists working with Tatarka files, and also because they were easier to loot. The original Tatarka tiles had reportedly already been sold, with this quite likely what happened to the authentic oak beams which were unnecessarily removed. Even where there was no obvious aim to plunder, the fact that the work was carried out by construction workers without any experience in restoration meant that huge damage was done. The walls became damp, and no attempt was made to protect the wall paintings which were simply disintegrating. Dudakov reported that these barbarians had decided that one calligraphic fresco on the eastern facade was of no value and had effectively destroyed it. Heavy construction equipment, such as hydraulic drills, had been used for dismantling work, with this causing vibration and the loss of part of the walls finish. Any century-old construction needs work carried out on it, but not with entire parts dismantled, nor with fine original materials being replaced by concrete or plywood-like glue composite planks put together using OSB {oriented strand board) technology. Not, that is, unless the occupiers main aim is to plunder as much as they can get, with no concern for the historic and cultural heritage they trample and destroy. Read the original text here. The case is held in the closed session so the prosecutor's office cannot briefly address the investigation Open source The Prosecutor's Office of Vienna holds the investigation against the worker of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (of the Austrian Counter-Intelligence,BVT) in the suspicion in the espionage as TASS reported citing the Viennese prosecutor's office "I can confirm that the investigation against the BVT officer due to espionage is held at Viennese prosecutor's office," the representative of the office said. According to her, the case is held in the closed session so the prosecutor's office cannot briefly address the investigation. Moreover, she did not name the countries that can be involved in the investigation in the case of the espionage of the counter-intelligence officer. In its turn, the Interior Ministry of Austria also confirmed that the investigation with the involvement of the BVT worker really takes place. "Such investigation (against counter-intelligence officer) is held," the official representative of the ministry reported as he was asked to confirm the information about the fact of the espionage. Earlier, it became known about the detention of the former colonel of the Austrian armed forces who is suspected of having worked for the Russian intelligence for 20 years. Besides, workers of the Internal Security Agency of Poland detained a Russian spy as TVP Info reported. According to the information, the name of the detained is V. Marek. It is known that he was in touch with the Russian intelligence officers under diplomatic cover in the embassy in Warsaw and provided the information about the investments. Ukrainian president said Ukraine began consultations on this issue with the permanent members of the UN Security Council in New York The issue of holding illegal elections in the occupied territory of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions is put on the agenda of the EU Council of Ministers of foreign affairs and will also be considered at a meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. This was stated by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, informs the Presidential Administration website. "We have ensured that this issue of illegal holding of so-called elections was put on the agenda of the meeting of the EU Council of Ministers on foreign affairs. At the next meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, this issue will also be on the agenda," the president said in a statement. The president also said that Ukraine had begun consultations on this issue with the permanent members of the UN Security Council in New York. "I want to emphasize that in the coming hours we are waiting for the meeting of the G7 countries, and for the reaction of our partners in the European Union, partners from the United States, Canada, and the whole world," the president said. Today, November 11, so-called voting for heads of the republics and the peoples deputies is taking place in Luhansk/Donetsk People's Republics. The Ukrainian part of the Trilateral Contact Group has stressed that all organizations related to elections" must be held responsible, and has also reminded that Russia with its actions violates the fundamental norms and principles of international law and Ukraine's legislation: "We demand the immediate holding of an extraordinary convocation of the Trilateral Contact Group and we appeal to the member countries of the Normandy format with a request to hold special consultations with a demand to the Russian Federation to abandon the destructive scenarios of destabilization of the situation in Donbas." Related: Results of elections in occupied Donbas null and void, - Ukraine's part of Trilateral Contact Group Each side dismantles ten posts for now; the long-term goal is to take down all of them Open source North and South Korea began to dismantle twenty posts located on the strengthened border between the two countries. Previously, the soldiers and military vehicles withdrew from the area, DW reported referring to Yonhap. 'The two Korean states live up to the agreement made by their warlords in late October. It stipulates that ten border posts would be demolished on each side; one post on each side will remain', the message says. According to Yonhap, DPRK holds some 160 border posts along the rest of the 250-kilometers long border; the Republic of Korea holds 60 posts. The long-term goal is to take down all of them. The sides also launched 'another round of working-level consultations Monday on disarming the truce village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the Ministry of National Defense said', the Korean news agency reported. 'The trilateral session at the Freedom House located on the southern side of Panmunjom is meant to focus on the operation of surveillance equipment at the Joint Security Area (JSA) along the inter-Korean border. The three sides have turned Panmunjom into a firearm-free zone under the comprehensive military agreement between the two Koreas signed in September during their summit talks in Pyongyang', the article says. The mentioned agreement between the military leaders of North and South Korea offers complete de-nuclearization. Kim Jong-un also agreed to shut down one of the major missile facilities in North Korea. Prosecutor General of Ukraine added that if Ukraine keeps quiet about its achievements, it will lose the information war with Russia Open source Modern Ukraine and Ukrainian Peoples Republic (UPR) have common enemies Moscow and populists. Ukraines Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko claimed this at the session of the Council of Regional Development. Spokesperson of the Lutskenko Larysa Sargan reported this, quoting him on Facebook. 2018 marks a hundred years of the Ukrainian People's Republic from the moment of its establishment, a century of victories and a century of the historical defeat of the Ukrainian nation in the struggle for their state. I wont talk much about how the UPR was founded and how it fell. I will just say one thing; according to my deep conviction, we have the same enemies: Moscow and our populists, and ultra-patriots who have thing better to do than to bring down their own government, Lutsenko claimed. He added that if Ukrainians keep quiet about their own achievements, they will finally lose the information war. All Russian and oligarchic channels are reporting 24 hours a day that Ukraine already lost everything, and it is about to be announced, as the academician said, a failed state," the Prosecutor General added. Earlier, the leader of the People's Front party Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that the main task for the Ukrainians in 2019 is to prevent the revenge of the pro-Russian forces. However, the radicalized individuals stated Russia and Sweden as countries from where they came 400 far-right activists, neo-fascists and "people who idealize Bandera" were not allowed to enter the territory of Poland on the eve of the Independence Day. According to spokesperson of minister-coordinator of the special services of Poland Stanislav Zharyn, these people were going to join the independence march in Warsaw as TVP.info reported. "The citizens of Sweden and Russia were among those not allowed to Poland", Zharyn said. Also, he added that on November 8-11, the Internal Security Agency and police committed acta against people who can become the threat to the inner security of the state and constitutional order of Poland. "Within these events, a few dozens of people were detained and their accommodations were searched," the spokesperson noted. Poland celebrated the Independence Day on November 11. This year, it marks 100 years since the recovery of the independence of the Republic. In Warsaw, the capital of Poland, the white and red march took place, during which the flag of the European Union was burned. Graduation'97 will try its luck in the best short film category; Woman At War is among the candidates for the European actress award Two Ukrainian films appeared among the candidates for European Film Awards prizes in different categories. According to the official website of the European Film Academy, these are Graduation'97 by Pavlo Ostrikov and Benedikt Erlingsson's Woman At War. Graduation'97 will try its luck in the best short film category; Woman At War is among the candidates for the European actress award. Graduation'97 tells of a lonely man, Roman, who lives a lonely life in a provincial city and works as a technician. For the first time since graduation, Liuda, his ex-classmate, comes back to town. Nobody has heard anything from her for twenty years, but Roman is set on not losing her again. In Woman At War, the main character Halla declares a one-woman-war on the local aluminum industry. She is prepared to risk everything to protect the pristine Icelandic Highlands she loves Until an orphan from Ukraine unexpectedly enters her life. The prize may go to Halldora Geirharsdottir who played the main part. The Distant Barking of Dogs by Simon Lereng Wilmont is a movie about a human life affected by Donbas conflict; it competes in the European Documentary category. The film is set in Eastern Ukraine on the frontline of the war. It follows the life of 10-year-old Ukrainian boy Oleg throughout a year, witnessing the gradual erosion of his innocence beneath the pressures of war. The 31st European Film Awards ceremony will take place in Sevilla, Spain on December 15. The Secretary of Energy added that energy resources could not be used as a tool for coercion The United States of America will help Ukraine to diversify the supply sources of nuclear fuel. Rick Perry, the U.S. Secretary of Energy claimed this. We will also help Ukraine to diversify the sources of nuclear fuel supply and provide services with spent nuclear fuel. We are ready to support the cooperation between Ukraine and Westinghouse company, which is growing all the time in the supply of fresh nuclear fuel, as well as the cooperation with Holtec, which builds Ukrainian storage for spent fuel wastes. We will be providing a technical assistance to Ukrainian developments in the safety of nuclear plants realm so that they provide a proper level of safety at nuclear stations in Ukraine, Perry claimed. Besides, the Secretary added that energy resources couldnt be used as a tool for coercion because the U.S. to support the national and energy security of Ukraine. I want to remind the countries that want to use energy for their own political objectives that America today is the first to produce both oil and gas throughout the world, we have the largest arsenal of these resources, and we will use it as a tool of liberation, rather than conquest, Perry advised. As we reported earlier, the U.S. will be supporting Ukraine in countering the construction of Nord Stream 2 and Turk Stream gas pipelines. Juha Sipila, the Finnish Prime Minister, said that Moscow was likely to blame for the disruption Trident Juncture drills in Norway Deutsche Welle Russia might have disrupted Finland's GPS signal during NATO's recent military drills, as the Prime Minister of Finland said, Deutsche Welle reports. Besides, the jamming affected air traffic in Norway. Pilots in Finland and Norway lost GPS navigation signals during recent NATO's large-scale Trident Juncture exercise near Russia's western border, the news agency says. Juha Sipila, the Finnish Prime Minister, said that Moscow was likely to blame for the disruption. "Technology-wise, it's relatively easy to disturb a radio signal, and it's possible that Russia was behind it. We will investigate, and then we will respond. This is not a joke, it threatened the air security of ordinary people," he was quoted as saying. Sipila noted that this incident would be treated as a breach of Finnish airspace. The goal of the alleged Russian interference was "to demonstrate the capabilities for such actions, the statement reads referring to the Prime Minister. Antonov An-26 transport carrier took off from the airfield on Monday; the flights will be regular from now on, the military said Dovgyntseve airfield, Dnipropetrovsk region wikimedia.org Dovgyntseve airfield in Dnipropetrovsk region is now operative again, thanks to the efforts of the specialists of Ukraines Air Forces. They restored the airfield, which was abandoned for almost twenty years. According to the Air Forces HQ, the landing strip was fixed, and now the airfield can host the aircraft. Antonov An-26 transport carrier took off from the airfield on Monday. The flights will be regular from now on, the military said. In September, the Ukrainian military successfully tested Oskol, the domestically made non-guided missiles. President Petro Poroshenko posted this on Facebook on Wednesday. During this round of field probes, Sukhoi Su-24 frontline bomber carried the ammunition and fired it. This particular modification of the ammunition lets the missiles explode in the air several meters away from the target, which releases more pieces of shrapnel on it. The missiles are supposed to effectively hit the armored vehicles and firing positions of the enemy. Previously, the ammunition was tested on Mi-8 helicopters. Open source Naftogaz-Ukraine company and Ministry of Ecology of Ukraine have signed a memorandum on the cooperation in the sphere of the reduction of methane emissions with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The document was signed on November 12 as the press service of the EBRD reported. It is reported that within the memorandum, the sides are obliged to work out the program on the reduction of the emissions, which will include the implementation of the modern methods of the measurement of the emissions, modernization of the system of the inventory of the emission and the work out of the roadmap of the investments. Besides, the EBRD has begun to consider the issue of the provision of the credit in the sum of 52 million euro to "UkrGazVydobuvannya" for the purchase of the equipment for the recovery of the warmth during the gas processing and reduction of the emissions of the carbon dioxide. "The investments will be preceded by the diagnostics of the current situation, detection of the clear procedures of the monitoring, reports and checks," Terry McCallion, the Director, Energy Efficiency and Climate Change at EBRD claimed during the signing of the memorandum. He also specified that the decision on the allocation of the credit will be made until the end of 2018. As we reported, Ukraine can lose about 5,000 hectares of land in the favor of Poland due to the erosion of the coast of Western Bug, which is being eroded without the riverbank consolidation. It is a former assistant of Mykola Palamchuk, the peoples deputy from Petro Poroshenko Bloc Court arrested suspect in Handziuk case Igor Pavlovsky, as Ukraines Security Service Head Vasyl Hrytsak said, 112 Ukraine broadcasted the event. One of the suspects in the case was detained. The court considered the preventive measure and chose to hold Mr. Pavlovsky in custody, if I am not mistaking, till December 3 this year, Hrytsak said. According to him, Pavlovsky was detained not in the capital, yet he was taken to Kyiv. SBU Head stressed that the materials of the case are not kept secret. The materials of the criminal case are not classified. The current legislation regulates the disclosure of these materials, which means, that the investigator or procedural head can provide permission for release of these materials. The case is not kept secret, dont listen to anyone, Hrytsak noted. It should be noted that on November 5, The Newsroom telegram channel published material Black fog of Kateryna Handziuk, according to which, Igor Pavlovsky might have passed the money to the suspect in an assassination attempt on Handziuk, Sergiy Torbin. The publication became resonating, and on the next day, the peoples deputy from Petro Poroshenko Bloc, First Deputy Head of Verkhovna Rada committee on legislative support for law enforcement activities Mykola Palamchuk announced the resignation of his assistant Igor Pavlovsky. The peoples deputy noted that this way, he gave the assistant an opportunity to prove his position to the investigation. November 4, it became known that Kateryna Handziuk, Adviser of Kherson's Mayor, died aged 34. She was doused with sulphuric acid in July this year. According to preliminary information, the death was caused by thrombus detachment. Besides, the official reason for the death of Handziuk was specified. It is multiple organ failure and chemical burns. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko expressed his condolences in accordance with the death of the adviser. He required the law enforcement bodies to do everything possible to find the murderers and punish them. Open source The elections at the territories of the so-called "Luhansk People's Republic" (LPR) and "Donetsk People's Republic" (DPR) are illegal and illegitimate and the European Union does not recognize them. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy made such statement as EU Delegation to Ukraine reported. The EU confirms its full support of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders. "The EU considers the elections planned for 11 November 2018 in the nongovernment controlled territories of the so-called Luhansk Peoples Republic and Donetsk Peoples Republic as illegal and illegitimate and will not recognise them. The EU condemns these ''elections'', as they are in breach of international law, undermine the commitments taken under the Minsk agreements and violate Ukraine's sovereignty and law," the message said. It is noted that the Minsk Agreements provide the holding of exclusively local elections within the Ukrainian legislation and according to the standards and on the condition of the OSCE monitoring. So, the elections of November 11 are invalid. "We expect the Russian Federation to make full use of its considerable influence over the separatists it backs," the message claimed. Moreover, it is added that the EU welcomes the decision of Ukraine to extend the law on the special status of the separate parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions until the end of 2019. As is known, the so-called elections took place in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Sunday, November 11. The voters elected the leaders of 'people's republics' and their representatives in the parliaments of the 'republics'. During the day, the Russian mass media reported that the elections take place "calmly" and "without violations". According to the so-called "Central Election Commissions" of the militants, the voter turnout as at 18:00 made 72,5% in the LPR and 76,2% in the DPR. Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU unanimously condemned the voting, considering it illegitimate. Russia still has not commented on the outcome of the election. Besides, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko urged Ukrainians living in the occupied Donbas not to vote at the fake elections on November 11. Related video: The Central Election Commission categorically denies any legal force of these illegal and manipulative elections Elections on the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which took place on November 11, are illegal, as the statement of Ukraines Central Election Commission says. Central Election Commission states that the elections held on the temporary temporary occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on November 11, 2018 are illegal. As they were organized and held with violations of Ukraines Constitution and electoral legislation, against the norms and principles of the international law, the representatives of the Central Elections Commission stated. The statement says that this elections do not cause any legal result, they dont have any legal effect. Therefore, the Central Election Commission categorically denies any legal force of these illegal and manipulative elections, the message says. The Commission thinks that only the conduction of the elections with a complete compliance with the Ukrainian legislation and OSCE standards with a provision of the relevant international observance is a key to a legal result of the election process. As is known, the so-called elections took place in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Sunday, November 11. The voters elected the leaders of 'people's republics' and their representatives in the parliaments of the 'republics'. Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU unanimously condemned the voting, considering it illegitimate. Russia still has not commented on the outcome of the election. Related video: Some local residents told the OSCE SMM representatives they were concerned about withholding payments and other consequences if they wouldnt vote Open source Several people armed to the teeth stood next to 'polling stations' in occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on the day of so-called 'elections'. OSCE Special Monitoring Mission reported. The mission team recorded a slight increase in the presence of the members of armed formations in some parts of the city center in uncontrolled by the Government Donetsk on November 11. The observers saw buildings with a sign saying 'polling stations', 2-4 people in full military gear and armed with guns stood outside of the buildings. The monitors saw counters nearby, which are usually used in markets, reads the message. According to the observers, Vodafone and Fenix mobile networks were out of order for some period of time. Some local residents have been separately expressing concerns about that people felt that they have to vote, otherwise they can confront with withholding payments or the provision of health services in the areas outside the government control, reads the report of OSCE. As is known, the so-called elections took place in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Sunday, November 11. The voters elected the leaders of 'people's republics' and their representatives in the parliaments of the 'republics'. It was reported that Leonid Pasechnyk was chosen as the "head" of the self-proclaimed republic at the illegal "elections" in the separate parts of Luhansk regions (Luhansk People's Republic, LPR). Denis Pushilin was "elected" as the head of the territory of Donetsk region occupied by the pro-Russian militants (Donetsk People's Republic, DPR). Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU unanimously condemned the voting, considering it illegitimate. Russia still has not commented on the outcome of the election. Besides, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko urged Ukrainians living in the occupied Donbas not to vote at the fake elections on November 11. The EU has already condemned the "elections" in Donbas and urged Russia to influence the separatists supported by it. The so-called elections took place in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Sunday, November 11. The voters elected the leaders of 'people's republics' and their representatives in the parliaments of the 'republics' Open source OSCE Permanent Council will have a session today in Vienna under the request of Ukraines President Petro Poroshenko. The council will discuss the illegal elections on the occupied territories of Donbas, as the Head of state said at the session of the Council of regional development, broadcasted by 112 Ukraine. Under my request, today, OSCE Permanent Council is summoned in Vienna to discuss one question illegal elections and violation of Minsk Agreements by Russia, the President said. Besides, according to the President, illegal elections will be included in the agenda of the Foreign Affairs Council next meeting, and on the agenda of the Committee of Ministers Council of Europe. We demand an immediate calling of the Trilateral Contact Group, where Iryna (Gerashchenko, - ed.) brilliantly represents Ukraines positions, yet I want to note that this is a very thankless job, the President added. As is known, the so-called elections took place in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Sunday, November 11. The voters elected the leaders of 'people's republics' and their representatives in the parliaments of the 'republics'. Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU unanimously condemned the voting, considering it illegitimate. Russia still has not commented on the outcome of the election. According to Rick Perry, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Ukraine and Europe should not become the hostages of the supplies of energy resources from one source The United States Secretary of Energy Rick Perry Reuters The U.S. will be supporting Ukraine in countering the construction of Nord Stream 2 and Turk Stream gas pipelines, as the U.S. Energy Minister Rick Perry said at the meeting with Ukraines Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in the Cabinet of Ministers, broadcasted by 112 Ukraine. The U.S. clearly expresses its disagreement with the construction of Nord Stream 2 and Turk Steam gas pipelines, the reasons for what are clearly understood. The citizens of Ukraine and Europe should not become the hostages of the supplies of energy resources from one source. This message might be enhanced with the fact that we wanted to say we are ready to be Ukraine's partner. The U.S. President sends this message, Perry said. According to him, the U.S. is ready to work in partnership with Ukraine in the energy sector. We would like to provide support within the reforming of your structure, your government. For instance, we would like to support Naftogazs efforts on gas distribution and production. Besides, we would like to endorse your efforts on liberalization of the electric power market and enhance the transparency of the work in this sector. The message we have just received, your new initiatives concerning disclosure of all geodetic, geological data about future locations of energy resources extraction, and your steps towards facilitation of the licensing, and adoption of the law on production sharing, Perry stated. In his turn, Groysman expressed great interest in such cooperation. We see a wide range of opportunities in enhancing cooperation in the energy sector between the U.S. and Ukraine. Everything related to the extraction of Ukrainian gas, cooperation in the management of gas transportation system, enhancement of the cooperation in atomic energy and many other sectors, in which we have lots of opportunities to be stronger together, Groysman noted. Ukraine, Poland and Baltic states stand against the construction of Nord Stream 2. They urge the EU authorities to block the project, stating that this is a gas needle, which increases the addiction of the Europeans upon energy supplies from Russia. If new Russian export pipeline with a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters is launched, Ukraine loses $2-3 billion of income from gas transit per year through its natural gas transmission system, which makes 3% of GDP. A hybrid form of yoga that combines traditional yoga postures with modern yoga moves and a silk hammock. Pre-registration required. Please note: Aerial Yoga at the Yoga Art Space studio requires pre-registration through our website at www.YogaArtSpace.com/calendar. If no one registers for a class, the class may be cancelled between 6-12 hours prior to the class start time. Though this event is shown as a regular, weekly class each week on the Alabi calendar, there are occasionally times when the class will be cancelled in advance such as for certain holidays. All updates and cancellations are on the studio calendar at www.YogaArtSpace.com/calendar. What is Aerial yoga? Aerial Yoga is a hybrid form of yoga that combines traditional yoga postures infused with modern yoga moves and an silk fabric hammock. Do I need Previous Yoga Experience? No previous yoga experience necessary to enjoy an Aerial yoga class. In fact it can be easier than normal yoga! The silk hammock acts like a support whenever you require it, almost like having your own personal yoga teacher giving you assistance throughout the entire yoga class! Another advantage of having the support of the hammock is that 90% of students are able to complete more challenging poses, such as handstands! Can Everybody do Aerial Yoga? Yes and no. Students who have had a previous injury can find Aerial yoga much easier to participate in then normal yoga. This is due to the the weight being evenly distributed between your body, the hammock and the earth. People who suffer any of following contraindications are advised NOT to participate in an Aerial yoga class: if you have had recent surgery of any sort, if you suffer glaucoma, if you are pregnant, if you suffer a heart condition (including very high or low blow pressure), if you get vertigo, if you have had a recent stroke or a hernia, if you have osteoporosis or any bone weakness, if you have carpal tunnel syndrome, or if you have had botox in the last six hours. What Should I Wear? All jewellery items must be removed before participating, a t-shirt must be worn to cover the armpit area and leggings are advised to avoid the silk rubbing on the skin and creating irritation. Please have clean feet or, alternatively, bring a pair of socks with you. TORONTO, Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Euro Sun Mining Inc. (TSX: ESM) (Euro Sun or the Company) is pleased to announce the completion of the ratification process of its exploitation permit and mining license for the Rovina Valley Project in Romania. Euro Suns mining license was signed by the Prime Minister of Romania at the weekly meeting of the Romanian government on November 9, 2018, as press released through the Government of Romania website.1 The fully approved mining license for the Rovina Valley Project will now be published in the Official Monitor of the Romanian Government. Stan Bharti, Chairman of Euro Sun stated; The importance of this ratification cannot be overstated. Romania has now demonstrated an open and willing embrace for mining investment, one that is sure to attract significant interest not only in the Rovina Valley project but for mining investment globally in Romania. I would like to thank all the Government of Romania officials involved for approving this important milestone. G. Scott Moore, President and CEO stated; We are very pleased to see the process to ratify our mining license come to a successful conclusion. We would like to thank the National Agency for Mineral Resources for their support of this important project for Euro Sun and for Romania. As the first non-state-owned entity to have a ratified mining license, we are committed to developing the Rovina Valley Project as an example of responsible mining to the highest environmental standards, and in the process, provide meaningful economic impact to our local community partners and to the Romanian state. The Company will now undertake the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) and will also continue the Feasibility Study accelerating the Rovina Valley Project towards a construction decision. The Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) in 2010 outlined a robust project with an average annual gold production of 196,000 ounces over 19 years with the first five years of production averaging 238,000 oz annually. In addition, the PEA indicated that the Rovina Valley Project would produce 49.4 million pounds annually. Production was based on a production rate of approximately 45,000 tonnes per day. The Feasibility Study will evaluate a scalable, phased approach targeting higher grade zones of the deposit. The phases will begin with the exploitation of the Colnic deposit, with the other deposits to follow, at an initial throughput of approximately 15,000 - 25,000 tonnes per day. The Company believes this phased approach better manages upfront capital costs, better mitigates project risk and is anticipated to deliver improved economics over the 2010 PEA. The Company also announces that Guy Charette has resigned from the Companys board of directors effective immediately. Mr. Charette has been a director since 2003. The Company thanks Mr. Charette for his contributions. About Rovina Valley The Rovina Valley Project is one of the largest mineral deposits in the European Union and consists of three porphyry deposits: Colnic and Rovina, two at surface deposits and Ciresta, an underground deposit. The Rovina Valley Project hosts measured and indicated mineral resources of 7.2 million ounces of gold and 1.4 billion pounds of copper in 406 million tonnes at 0.55 gold grams per tonne and 0.16% of contained copper. Qualified Person The scientific and technical information pertaining to the metallurgical studies presented in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Randall Ruff, Vice President Exploration for Euro Sun, who is a Qualified Persons as defined by National Instrument 43-101. About Euro Sun Mining Inc. Euro Sun is a Toronto Stock Exchange listed mining company focused on the exploration and development of its 100%-owned Rovina Valley gold and copper project located in west-central Romania, which hosts the second largest gold deposit in Europe. Further information: Investor Relations at info@eurosunmining.com or +1 416.309.4299. Caution regarding forward-looking information: This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation, including statements regarding the development of the Rovina Valley Project, the ESIA and the feasibility study for the Rovina Valley Project. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including risks inherent in the mining industry and risks described in the public disclosure of the Company which is available under the profile of the Company on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at www.eurosunmining.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. The TSX does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. guest column The number of people living in extreme poverty around the world continues to decline in 25 years, extreme poverty was reduced from 36 percent to 10 percent, which translates to 1.1 billion fewer people living under $1.90 a day. But the pace of progress is slowing due to a concentration of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and conflict-affected countries. So, how effective is the global community in helping the poorest countries? And how should we step up our efforts to meet new challenges? This week in Livingstone, Zambia, representatives from countries around the world are gathering to discuss these questions, looking through the lens of the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World Bank Group that provides financing to the poorest countries. Over the next decade, the war on poverty is going to be won or lost in Africa. The IDA matters because it is the largest single source of development assistance to the world's 75 poorest countries, more than half of which are in Africa. Founded nearly 60 years ago, IDA has just reached the halfway point in its current $75 billion, three-year cycle that will see around $45 billion targeted towards Africa. Called IDA18, this is the largest and most ambitious IDA program to date, with a focus on key themes that are closely linked to overcoming poverty: jobs, economic transformation, climate change, gender, fragility and conflict. Special funding envelopes for crisis response, refugees, and private sector development are also part of the mix. The good news halfway through the cycle is that there are strong indications of early success. We have exceeded our midterm target of making $30 billion in commitments to IDA-eligible countries, and IDA has launched its first-ever bond issue, mobilizing the markets in the fight against poverty. It has raised $1.5 billion from 110 investors in 30 countries, including banks, sovereign wealth funds and insurance and pension funds. More importantly, IDA translates funding into impact. For example, in conflict-affected countries over the last four years, IDA provided essential health and nutrition services for 17 million people, immunizations for more than 87 million children, and better access to water and sanitation for 1.7 million people. The fund also helped these countries' social safety nets reach 7.8 million more beneficiaries. In Cameroon, IDA has also committed $130 million to projects helping some 350,000 refugees. There are good results already on the IDA18 themes and special funding areas. IDA has committed $185 million to 13 private sector projects, mostly in fragile states, enabling $600 million from other parts of the World Bank Group, namely the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. These investments also brought in $800 million from other financiers and helped reduce the risks to private investment. To help developing countries deliver on their commitments to the Paris Agreement on climate change, IDA helped deliver an additional 5.1 gigawatts of capacity from clean energy sources, notably hydropower, solar, and geothermal. Climate change is upon us, and together with pandemics, its effects are among the most critical threats to vulnerable people, so it's vital that IDA invests in climate adaptation and resilient infrastructure, not just climate mitigation. So as well as stepping up following storms in different parts of the world, in places like West Africa IDA is helping coastal areas manage the impact of rising seas, land subsidence and storm surges. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, IDA was the first to respond to a recent Ebola outbreak, working in partnership with the World Bank Group's Pandemic Emergency Facility. IDA18 also allocated $350 million to address the cholera outbreak in Yemen. To advance gender equality, IDA is supporting legal changes that help women access credit and jobs, gain more control over assets, and become more protected from violence. In countries like Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, and Yemen, IDA projects are helping women get career training, embrace new technologies and work with greater flexibility to balance jobs with child care and family responsibilities. The root causes of poverty, however, remain a persistent threat. Ongoing conflict, bad governance and rapid population growth all mean that IDA must become more responsive and even more effective. This week, I expect to hear calls to focus even harder on the IDA18 themes while also addressing emerging challenges such as debt sustainability, human capital and disruptive technology. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Africa International Organisations Sustainable Development By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. But with these challenges comes opportunity, and that never fails to kindle my natural spirit of optimism. Just imagine, for example, the transformative power of a universal digital ID system for Africa that would enable millions of people to access government and financial services and unleash the digital economy. IDA is making this become a reality, as well as promoting transparency through online access to information. I am confident that IDA can make a difference because it is a strong and time-tested partnership of countries seeking to change people's lives for the better. We are committed to understanding what works best to defeat poverty, and to applying that knowledge wherever it can help. Our coalition is open to new ideas and new members, because we know this is the best way to ensure everyone has a chance to reach their potential and make a contribution to society. We will succeed only by working together. Kristalina Georgieva is the Chief Executive Officer of the World Bank. Asked by Cuban journalist Yoani Sanchez during a chat they shared at the Hay Festival in Arequipa the native city of the Peruvian novelist , Vargas Llosa said his next project was born several years ago at a dinner where he felt "totally bored." "When it was finally over and people started to leave, a voice beside me said, 'Mario, I have a story for you to write.' And I thought, 'How horrible!' It's enough for someone to tell a writer 'I have a story for you' to make sure you're never ever going to write it," Vargas Llosa said. "However, he told me a story about a country that I'd only visited as a tourist, Guatemala, and little by little, as the days and weeks passed, the character in the story began to come alive," he added. time he took notes. The winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature said he began to read "a lot of things to see if the period more or less matched" the story he was being told, and at the samehe took notes. "I soon realized I had the makings of a novel," said Vargas Llosa, the last survivor of the generation of the boom in Latin American novels. This year Vargas Llosa published "La Llamada de la Tribu" (The Call of the Tribe), a book of essays that explain his transition from socialism and communism to liberalism. His last novel goes back to 2016 when he released "Cinco Esquinas" (The Neighborhood), a story set amid the corruption of Peru in the 1990s during the regime of former President Alberto Fujimori The journey was made official though a legislative resolution published Monday in El Peruano official gazette. The Peruvian leader will be outside of the country from November 15 to 16 in order to attend the abovementioned event in La Antigua, Guatemala. development , cooperation, peace, and security objectives of Peruvian State's foreign policy. Under the theme "A thriving, inclusive and sustainable Ibero-America," the summit will provide an opportunity to promote national interests lying within, cooperation, peace, and security objectives of Peruvian State's foreign policy. The gathering will address issues of particular relevance to the Inca nation, including climate change and south-south cooperation. Likewise, bilateral meetings on foreign policy matters are expected with Heads of State and Government. (END) VVS/CCR/RMB Peruvian Congress has authorized President Martin Vizcarra's official trip to Guatemala , where he will join Heads of State and Government at the 26th Ibero-American Summit.Published: 11/12/2018 Congreso de la Republica otorgo a Su Majestad el Rey de #Espana Don Felipe VI la #MedallaDeHonor, en el Grado de Gran Cruz, por su contribucion al fortalecimiento de las relaciones entre ambos paises. [Ver nota] ? https://t.co/Cd4M4RR6yB pic.twitter.com/Obp6eT78RM >> AnnArborObserver.com >> City Guide >> Transportation >> Taxis City Guide Taxis On-Demand Car Service The following companies, classified as limousine carriers, are highly rated or frequently recommended by local businesses as a comparable alternative to taxis. Limousine carriers may only take pre-arranged rides, typically at a set, predetermined price or fixed fee. Golden Limo 734-668-8282, goldenlimo.com; Michigan Green Cars 734-662-4444, migreencars.com; MODE Car 734-707-9707, mymodecar.com; Fare Ride 734-845-9222, fareride1.com; Metro Limo Rides 734-757-5930, metrolimorides.com; Premier Taxi and Limo 734-780-9122, premiertaxiandlimo.wordpress.com. All 6 companies offer ride-booking online or by phone. Uber and Lyft, which connect passengers and drivers via smartphone apps, are licensed officially by the state as transportation network companies. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, who is in Paris on a working visit, today attended the Paris Peace Forum. The Forum is being held within the framework of events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the World War I Armistice, the acting PMs Office told Armenpress. The Forum was opened by introductory remarks made by Paris Peace Forum Executive Committee Vice President Trisha Shetty and President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron, followed by speeches delivered on the part of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan addressed the Paris Peace Forum with a speech, in which he stated, in part: Distinguished Heads of State and Government, Ladies and Gentlemen, We have gathered here to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One. This is an event of exceptional significance called to pay tribute to collective memory and to articulate our common message of peace. Today, we, as the leaders of the nations, which participated in that war, should first of all speak about the lessons learnt from the tragedy of World War One. When a state wages a war or is tempted to solve problems by military means, it believes in its own strength and victory. Yet, World War One became a global tragedy for all the peoples engaged and resulted in the destruction of its mastermind states. There is a belief, that from the geopolitical and military perspective there are always winners and losers in wars. However, from the human perspective, no one ever wins. Wars bring only loss, misery and devastation. And regardless of our common efforts and appeals to learn from the previous mistakes, these lessons are easily forgotten. Even though one hundred years ago, the humanity realized the need to ban weapon of mass destruction, regrettably it has not prevented the creation of new generations of arms. It was during World War One that the Entente powers for the first time ever used the definition crimes against humanity and civilization, thus condemning the Ottoman rulers for the extermination of 1,5 million Armenians. Later, this horrendous crime was to be termed the first genocide of the 20th century. Nonetheless, only few decades later the humankind went through Holocaust, genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, genocides of the Christians and Yezidis in the Middle East, violence against the Rohingya people. As part of the lessons, learnt from the war the right of the peoples to self-determination was set out in Wilsons 14 points. Later on it was included in the UN Charter, Helsinki Final Act, and became a basis for the independence of around half of the modern states. As a result of World War One, the people of the world legally established the right to master their own destiny through the expression of free will. Here, in France I cannot but stress that just days ago, France has clearly reiterated its principled position on this issue: the people of New Caledonia were given the opportunity to conduct a referendum. Painfully, this right is being exercised selectively. This is why, the decades-long struggle of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to determine their destiny has not received its proper legal solution. In the 21th century it is absolutely unacceptable that peoples mere desire to exercise its right to self-determination may turn into an existential menace. As a result of World War One the world established the League of Nations, the prototype for the United Nations, with the ultimate goal of achieving peace. Nonetheless, the manifestations of extremism in the contemporary world are on the rise. We established those institutions first and foremost to protect human rights. Yet, today we are witnessing daily abuse of the most fundamental human right the right to life. After the end of the First World War, many believed that it would be the last ever war fought. However, the Second World War was not long in coming. The humankind entered into a new phase of war and arms race. Unfortunately, up to now we have been unable to put an end to it. Moreover, we get further involved in it every day. This is why I attach high importance to such meetings. They provide us an opportunity to reflect on our past, on our common history of the humankind. Indeed, we are unable to change that history, and we do not need to. But the history is well able to change us to make our future better. To this end, we need to learn the most important lesson of World War One. No state can build its success at the cost of others misery, no one can gain freedom at the cost of others slavery. We put an end to the First World War hundred years ago. And this is a perfect occasion to think of entering a century without wars a century of peace. I do believe, that the leaders that have gathered here, in Paris, are well able to achieve it. And this will be the best ever tribute to the innocent victims of the previous century. After the speech Nikol Pashinyan handed a symbolic publication to the Peace Library, an illustrated book by historian Hayk Demoyan entitled The Armenian Genocide: Front Page Coverage in the World Media. The topics for the Paris Peace Forum are peace and security, environmental protection, development, and inclusive economics. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Militants continue shelling the Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip with more than 17 rockets fired as of Monday morning, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). 5:15 AM RECAP: 17 rockets were launched from Gaza at Israel. The Iron Dome intercepted 3 of them, the IDF said on Twitter. Hours before the statement, the IDF said that one of its soldiers was killed during an operation in Gaza. During IDF special forces operational activity in Gaza, an exchange of fire broke out, during which an IDF officer was killed and an additional IDF officer was moderately injured, it said. As tensions rose around the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut his Paris visit short. Netanyahu was in Paris for the 100th anniversary of the World War I Armistice events. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. HHK Vice President, MP Armen Ashotyan will run for parliament in the December 9 early election by the HHK district list in the #4 electoral district. The district encompasses the Erebuni, Kentron (Downtown), Nubarashen and Nork Marash districts of Yerevan, the said on Facebook. I will simultaneously be the head of the HHK campaign HQ, he said. I am certain that my knowledge, experience, principle and determination in the composition of the HHK faction can continue serving Armenia and the people in the new parliament, he added. The Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) will run for parliament in the upcoming early election of parliament. Today the HHK elected ex-defense minister Vigen Sargsyan (HHK) to serve as First Vice President of the party. Speaking to reporters today after a HHK Council session, Sargsyan (no relation to President Serzh Sargsyan) said that he will lead the proportional list of the party for the December 9 polls. The list will be comprised of both our party friends and candidates representing other parties or independent candidates. Anyone included in the list will also be in the [district] list, Sargsyan said. Sargsyan refused to disclose other names in the list and said that it will be published November 14. He said that HHK President Serzh Sargsyan, the former President of Armenia, and ex-PM Karen Karapetyan, wont participate in the election. We are going through a very interesting process: it is a transformation of status after being [government], he told reporters, adding that the HHK, in its new status, as an opposition force, is seeking ways to use its knowledge and experience for the countrys progress. Vigen Sargsyan said that the HHK Council today discussed a very important document, which stipulates the Republican Partys approaches for all processes taking place in the country, the results of the incumbent governments activities and the problems which the party sees in terms of policy and ideological approaches. Armenias Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan resigned on October 16 to trigger the process of disbanding the parliament. Pashinyan took office after massive protests in April forced president-turned PM Serzh Sargsyan to resign. But Sargsyans Republican Party (HHK) still has most seats in the 105-seat parliament. Since taking office, Nikol Pashinyan has numerously said that the incumbent parliament doesnt represent the people and that early elections should take place as soon as possible. In accordance to the Constitution, when a Prime Minister resigns the parliament must elect a new PM within two weeks. Lawmakers deliberately failed to elect a new PM as a formality in order to pave the way for dissolution. The last round took place on November 1 and the parliament was dissolved by virtue of law. Later on the same day, President Armen Sarkissian signed an order on dissolving the parliament and calling early elections on December 9. The parliament will function until the new parliament is elected. The government is formally a caretaker government until a new government is formed after the election. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Millions of people across the world have celebrated the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One on November 11, BBC reports. Prince Charles laid a wreath on behalf of the Queen at the Cenotaph in London. Ten thousand people - including veterans and relatives of WW1 soldiers - marched past the monument. Remembrance services have been held across the country, including at Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Glasgow Cathedral and St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. The Queen was joined at the Westminster Abbey service by Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall and the dukes and duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex. In France, where many of the battles of the Western Front were fought, 70 world leaders gathered for a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. Commemoration events were also held in Australia, India and New Zealand. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. A U.S. Navy F/A-18 fighter jet has crashed into the Philippine Sea Monday but both pilots ejected and were immediately picked up by search and rescue aircraft from the USS Ronald Reagan, the 7th Fleet said in a statement. A Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5 F/A-18 experienced a mechanical issue that resulted in the crew ejecting while conducting routine operations in the Philippine Sea, Nov. 12. The crew was immediately and safely recovered by USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) search and rescue aircraft and brought back to the ship for evaluation by medical personnel. Both aviators are in good condition. Ronald Reagan has resumed normal operations. CVW 5 is embarked onboard Ronald Reagan and is currently underway in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. The crash is under investigation, the statement said. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Human Rights Defender of Armenia Arman Tatoyan participated in the conference titled Human Rights Issues in the Eurasian platform: Exchange of best practice of Ombudsmen in Moscow on November 8-9, his Office told Armenpress. The international conference has been organized by the Russian Commissioner for Human Rights and was dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 25th anniversary of the Russian Constitution. In his remarks the Armenian Ombudsman highlighted the high level of cooperation with the Russian Commissioner and the joint work with him in the protection of rights of the Armenian citizens living in Russia. The event was attended by heads of national human rights institutions of Russia, Iran, Greece, Serbia, Albania and other countries, as well as international and diplomatic structures, scientific institutions, civil society organizations. During the conference Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan presented Armenias new legislative regulations on the human rights defender and the experience of their application. The event participants attached importance to Tatoyans activity principles during the April-May events in Armenia. Next day following the conference the annual session of the Eurasian Alliance of Ombudsmen was held during which important issues relating to the future activity of the Alliance were discussed. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Caretaker Minister of Transportation, Communication and Information Technologies Hakob Arshakyan has held a meeting with Chinas Ambassador to Armenia Tian Erlong, the ministry said. During the meeting Arshakyan spoke highly about the cooperation in road construction, IT and telecommunication that has developed between the two countries. The caretaker minister addressed the construction of the North-South Road Corridors Tranche 3, which is carried out by Chinas Sinohydro Corporation. Arshakyan noted that certain problems have appeared in this portion of the road but that positive movement is observed in the recent period. Speaking about revising the timeframe of the project, Arshakyan noted that first of all it is necessary to involve new capacities, increase accountability in the work, and if after all efforts it wont be possible to maintain the deadline, then extending the deadline in a reasonable way will be discussed. The Chinese ambassador said he is always ready to assist in establishing mutual understanding in working relations. On behalf of the Chinese side, the ambassador expressed interest over being involved in the projects Tranche 4- be it construction carried out by a Chinese company or financial participation under favorable loan conditions. He said that the Chinese side is open for cooperation in any format. The sides also exchanged ideas over direct air communication. The ambassador emphasized that the possibility of establishing direct air communication can be discussed when for example the passenger flow will significantly increase. Arshakyans deputy Bagrat Badalyan presented the Armenian participations framework at the upcoming November 20 Pilot Project Expert Group meeting on Financing in Brussels. The Tranche 4 project is planned to be presented at the event. The Chinese ambassador highlighted Armenias role as a mediator country for establishing China-EEU economic ties. Ambassador Erlong noted that cooperation in the IT sector is also very promising and that great untapped opportunities exist. Arshakyan in turn suggested creating an arena where IT businessmen from Armenia and China will meet to get acquainted and establish business ties. The ambassador said that every autumn an expo is organized in Shenzhen, and that the venue might be considered as the kind of arena that the caretaker minister was talking about. Erlong attached importance to not only business ties, but also academic relations, cooperation of Armenian and Chinese scientists. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Russias Minister of Internal Affairs General Vladimir Kolokoltsev had a meeting on November 10 with Armenias Police Chief Colonel Valery Osipyan in Moscow. During the meeting, the Russian minister noted that Armenia and Russia are united by firm historic roots and many years of collegial relations, including in the law enforcement field, the press service of Armenias police HQ said. The sides agreed to further strengthen cooperation within the framework of both existing and new criminal challenged and threats. One of the productive tools of bilateral partnership is the Unified Board of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and Armenias Police. The Russian minister expressed conviction that the upcoming sitting of the board will be held at the highest level in 2019, as always. Issues concerning the intergovernmental tactical-preventive Search operation and joint work within Interpol were discussed. Kolokoltsev expressed readiness to continue the training of Armenian experts in agency educational institutions and qualification trainings. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Armenian-American entrepreneur, Reddit and Initialized Co-founder Alexis Ohanian has visited the Armenia! exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Feeling even more inspired for Monday's announcement. Brought the family to the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York for the #ARMENIA! Exhibition today and Olympia Ohanian was as curious as ever. That said, this collection was extensive and I learned a ton. Our people are tenacious, reverent, and entrepreneurial merchants of the world, Ohanian said on Facebook. Ohanian has been teasing a secret project regarding Armenia on his Facebook and Instagram for quite some time now. It's almost time, my friends Secret project unveiled tomorrow, he said on Facebook. A secret project Ive been working on is almost ready to share with you all", he said, posting the Armenian flag. Hint: It involves patience, persistence, and wisdom, he said earlier on Facebook, posting a photo of men playing chess in Armenia from his earlier visit to the country, suggesting the project will be connected with chess. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Georgian presidential candidate Salome Zurabishvili has said she and her family received death threats from supporters of the United National Movement, a party created by former President Mikheil Saakashvili. During the weekend I and my children received death threats through text messages, she told a November 12 news conference. According to her, the people behind the threats have been identified as former military. Zurabishvili called on law enforcement agencies to take actions. Results from Georgias presidential election on October 28 showed that neither of the two frontrunners was likely to win enough votes more than 50% - to secure victory and they would face a second round run-off vote. Georgias Central Election Commission said that according to results from 13 percent of the polling stations, independent candidate Salome Zurabishvili backed by the ruling Georgian Dream party, had secured 38,66 percent of the vote: approximately 615,000 people cast ballots for Zurabishvili. Grigol Vashadze, backed by the United National Movement, had won 37.7% - around 600,000 voted for him. The voter turnout was 46,74%. The second round of election will take place until December 2. The commission and courts are currently examining complaints that have taken place during the first round. This process must end by November 17, after which the central electoral commission will announce the date of the second round, central electoral commission spokesperson Anna Mikeladze said. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan convened a working consultation on November 12 around issues on the 2019 draft state budget, the Presidential Office told Armenpress. The President underlined the imperative of having a realistic budget, maintaining clear-cut social directivity and proportionality, giving appropriate instructions to the heads of concerned structures to realize the set tasks. State minister Grigory Martirosyan and other officials participated in the consultation. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS/ARTSAKHPRESS. Finance minister of the Republic of Artsakh Artur Harutyunyan announced during the working consultation convened by the President of Artsakh that the state budget revenues will exceed the expenditures for the first time in Artsakh. We have introduced the 2019 state budget draft to the President, according to which the money in terms of revenues will comprise 112 billion 300 million AMD, and that of the expenditures nearly 111 billion AMD, the minister said. He added that the budget proficit (surpass of revenues over expenditures) comprised 1.3 billion AMD which is unprecedented for the Artsakh Republic. We have an increase of expenditures mainly in capital investments nearly 1.6 billion AMD, healthcare sector about 770 million AMD and social protection field 480 million AMD. The expenditures on capital investments will be mainly directed for the economic development, as well as for the implementation of construction programs of several objects with social significance. The increase of expenditures in the healthcare sector is mainly linked with the nearly 15% increase of salaries of the medical staff, as well as with the implementation of several programs. The increase of expenditures in the social sector is conditioned with the introduction of the accumulative pension system in Artsakh from January 1, 2019, connected with the additional revenues paid by the state, the minister noted. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. President of the Crans Montana Forum Pierre-Emmanuel Quirin and Honorary Chairman and Founder of the Forum, Ambassador Jean-Paul Carteron sent a letter of gratitude to President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian for the participation in the 20th annual session of the Homeland and Global Security Forum in Geneva and expressed readiness to organize the Crans Montana main forum in Yerevan, the Armenian Presidents Office told Armenpress. Let us affirm that the Crans Montana Forum will be pleased to discover the most effective ways to strengthen our cooperation with your country. We are ready to provide the great potential of our organization and propose Armenia unique communication opportunities, including by organizing the main forum in Yerevan, the letter says. Crans Montana Forum is an influential platform promoting international cooperation. Its annual events are being attended by key figures of over 100 countries during which they discuss social, economic and security related matters. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian defense ministry doesnt have a decision on acquiring Swedish fighter jets at this moment, caretaker minister of defense Davit Tonoyan told reporters today at the ministry HQ. Lets not focus on any proposal of the Armenian defense ministry on any types of weapons. We are studying all proposals and we are making decisions in conformity with the price, quality and timeframe of supply. There is no decision on the Gripen at this moment, Tonoyan said, referring to media rumors that Armenia is considering to acquire the Swedish-made Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets. Tonoyan said another proposal exists from another partner, which is seriously being considered and soon a decision will be made about acquisitions. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The operative communication established between Armenia and Azerbaijan is functioning uninterruptedly, respective officials are appointed for that, acting defense minister of Armenia Davit Tonoyan told reporters on November 12, reports Armenpress. Respective officials both in Armenia and Azerbaijan have been appointed for that operative communication: that communication is being carried out by these officials. They receive information from the armed forces. This communication operates uninterruptedly as of now, the acting defense minister said. Tonoyan added that the Armenian side is also raising the issue of creating a similar communication between the direct commanders. We are raising the issue of establishing an operative communication between the direct commanders. This is a way of reducing the incidents. We are raising this issue among the Co-Chairs, he added. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani armed forces have not captured any territory in the Nakhijevan section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, caretaker minister of defense Davit Tonoyan told a news conference today. He said the land in question was just a neutral territory within the territory of the Nakhijevan republic. Tonoyan said the Armenian side has taken action for neutralizing the consequences of the advancement. Asked if Armenia is carrying out reinforcements of positions, Tonoyan replied yes. Yes, and not in one place. Moreover, not necessarily in Armenian territory, he said. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Female soldiers of the Armenian peacekeeping troops will be dispatched to Kosovo on a mission, caretaker minister of defense Davit Tonoyan said today at a press conference. At this phase the women peacekeepers will be [dispatched] to Kosovo, Tonoyan said. He did not disclose other details. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian defense ministry has developed a special brand called Armenian Army to manufacture uniforms for the Armenian military, caretaker defense minister Davit Tonoyan told reporters today. The armed forces of various countries have their own military brands. What I wear while visiting military positions isnt the official uniform of the armed forces. Since I am a civilian, I find that I shouldnt wear the military uniform. We have developed this brand in order to promote the [military], Tonoyan said. He said that the uniforms will be entirely made in Armenia. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, 12 NOVEMBER, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 12 November, USD exchange rate up by 0.62 drams to 488.57 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 3.35 drams to 549.84 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate down by 0.07 drams to 7.22 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 6.91 drams to 627.52 drams. The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals. Gold price down by 175.87 drams to 19028.54 drams. Silver price down by 2.07 drams to 225.25 drams. Platinum price down by 108.40 drams to 13477.37 drams. YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Humanitarian mission of Armenian Defense Ministry will be dispatched to Syria after some procedures prescribed by memorandum are fulfilled, ARMENPRESS reports acting Defense Minister of Armenia David Tonoyan told the reporters during a press conference at the ministry. At the moment some memorandum procedures over material and technical supply coming to end. It can end very quickly, maybe until the end of the year or the beginning of the next year. The group is fully ready and can be dispatched immediately after the completion of the procedure, Tonoyan said. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. A 100 million USD military credit with Russia is already signed, ARMENPRESS reports acting Defense Minister of Armenia David Tonoyan told the reporters during a press conference at the ministry. We have not completed the talks over the supplies yet. The agreement is signed. There are some details over the supplies which are under discussion right now, he said. David Tonoyan added that the Defense Ministry observes the opportunities of a new military credit. He noted that the credit is not necessarily to be taken from Russia. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh-made combat UAVs have been included in the Armed Forces of Armenia, ARMENPRESS reports acting Defense Minister of Armenia David Tonoyan told the reporters during a press conference at the ministry. Tonoyan provided no more details, but said that they are of great danger for the adversary. The acting minister also noted that there are numerous innovations by local representatives of arms industry. They are not in the stage of engineering and designing, but are already in the stage of production. I am speaking about new types of weapons equipped with new technologies, David Tonoyan said. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan PHIL FITZPATRICK Steamships Trading Company 1918-2008: A History by James Sinclair, Alan Caudell and Associates, Palm Cove Qld., 2008, 468pp. Around $300 or K450 if you can find a copy. I understand Bill Mcgrath at Pacific Bookhouse has one for sale THIS MASSIVE BOOK is not commercially available and it has taken me a while to lay my hands on a copy. It weighs 2.8 kilograms and measures 346x250x37 mm. It is a sort of personal indulgence on the part of past Steamies directors and board chairmen. Lugging it from Steamies head office on Champion Parade to the airport in my backpack worked up quite a sweat. Having read it, I would urge Steamies to consider bringing out an abridged version in a cheaper paperback. It is a book well worth reading because the history of the company runs parallel to that of Papua New Guinea. The numerous crossovers are both fascinating and enlightening. A paperback would also mitigate the aching arms that you will inevitably experience reading the present version. Jim Sinclair is no Shakespeare but he is a very deft master wordsmith. He is also meticulous with a capital M. He has been producing these sorts of commissioned volumes for some time now and they are building up to be a unique reflection on Papua New Guineas past. He is currently working on a commissioned history of Edie Creek. He told me that when he was posted to Port Moresby just before independence as a district commissioner with a vague portfolio and not a little spare time on his hands, that he noticed the Australian administration diligently junking what they thought were irrelevant records. Jim managed to insert himself between the dumpers and the dump and this material now forms an important resource for his writing. He got a scare in this years floods in Queensland but fortunately it all survived. He plans to leave it all to a selected institution when he finally runs out of steam. But back to Steamies. The company kicked off around 1918 but a serendipitous event in 1924 was the impetus for its remarkable rise. The Steamies website tells the story. The company's history began in 1919. Retired sea captain Algernon Sydney Fitch was growing apples in Tasmania for a living when he read about a barge named the Southern Cross going aground in the Bass Strait. He decided to salvage it and travelled to Melbourne to raise 5,000 Pounds sterling and find a suitable ship for the salvage operations. He discovered a 90 ton coal burner, built in 1855, called the SS Queenscliffe. A group of businessmen backed Fitch and together formed a company which they appropriately called Steamships Limited. Fitch's plan had no connection with Papua and New Guinea. But what happens next was not in the scheme of things. The Southern Cross sank beneath the waves. To make matters worse the syndicate ran out of money whilst making the veteran Queenscliffe seaworthy. Fitch proposed that he sail the ship to Port Moresby and earn some money by trading along the Papuan coast. In 1924 the Public Company was formed. Steamies had many competitors over the years, including the mighty Burns Philp, but it outlived them all and is still thriving. There are some good reasons for this, not the least being its long held policy of training and employing Papua New Guinean staff wherever possible. Coupled with this were a commitment to Papua New Guinea in general and a refreshing aversion to the profit-at-all-cost mentality. It supported many charitable and other causes in Papua New Guinea, mostly in the background and without undue fanfare. It has been a strong supporter of the Crocodile Prize since its inception. Throughout its history, Steamships scrupulously followed the letter of the law, albeit sometimes reluctantly when it perceived the law as inappropriate. In other words, while it could be a ruthless and intimidating adversary it was and still is an honest and ethical company. Its environmental credentials are a credit to it. And, no, I havent got shares. When you mention Steamies in Port Moresby, people in the know will tell you that it has been taken over by Swires, the big British trading company based in Hong Kong, and is no longer the Steamies of old. This is technically correct but, as Jim Sinclair explains, Swires has had a very long history in Papua New Guinea and beginning in 1952 has had many active partnerships with Steamies. That it now holds a majority shareholding is more luck than anything else. The diversification of Steamies from the original shipping company into a multitude of businesses and then its retreat to its current core businesses of shipping, transport, manufacturing and hotels is an intriguing and mind-boggling journey which must have come close to driving Jim Sinclair nuts when he was writing the book. Through it all, however and as Chairman Bill Rothery said in 2008, Steamies has been proudly Papuan New Guinean for 90 years. He adds, This is a testimony to the determination and strength of its owners and managers over these years and to the growth and resilience of the country and its people. Steamies founder, Captain Algernon Fitch, had an uneasy relationship with Sir Hubert Murray, the famous Papuan Lieutenant-Governor, but they eventually came round to appreciate each others point of view. Sinclair suggests that it was probably Hubert Murrays enlightened views eventually rubbing off on Captain Fitch rather than the other way around. In any event, the good captain steered Steamies out of the total devastation wreaked by World War II and set it on a healthy course of expansion. He was gone by the time of the equally devastating reign of Prime Minister Bill Skate. Skate managed to wreck the Papua New Guinean economy in a very short space of time and also came close to wrecking Steamies and many other companies like it. Despite the valiant efforts of his successor, Mekere Morauta, the Skate effects are still felt today. Unfortunately Michael Somare in his second incarnation as Prime Minister failed, or wasnt interested, in keeping up the momentum that Sir Mekere had generated. It is not until you read the history of Steamies that you realise how bad Skate was and how many of Papua New Guineas chronic problems started with him. If Somare founded Papua New Guinea, Bill Skate came close to sinking it. A lot of people worked for Steamies over the years. A lot were dedicated but unassuming. Some, like the bean counters, were downright tedious but there were also some delightful mavericks, rogues and eccentrics who gave the company an exciting flavour. Jim Sinclair had access to most of the surviving managing directors and a lot of the current and retired employees. He sprinkles their histories and views liberally throughout the text. Some of the most colourful were the sea captains that Steamies trained and employed and who lent their names to the company ships. Sinclair also consulted board minutes, including those from the very first formal meeting in 1924, which not only survived the war but two conflagrations of the company headquarters in the 1970s, annual reports, old newspapers and numerous other sources. How he is still sane is nothing short of a miracle. It is a history well worth sharing with a much wider audience. How about it Steamies? In December 2015 Johnson acquired the company in partnership with Michael Ekri in Lae the shareholding was 60% Ekri (a PNG citizen) and 40% Johnson. Following this incident, I made further inquiries into Johnson's dealings in PNG and established that his company, Karama Consultants Limited, is operating illegally for failing to obtain IPA Certification - a requirement by law where a company is majority foreign-owned or controlled. This is the same David Johnson who in October threatened entrepreneur Emmanuel Narokobi for sharing on Facebook an article about the controversial arrival in PNG of 40 Maserati luxury cars. MADANG Investigations show that Australian David (Silver Fox) Johnson, who claims to be an APEC official, may have been operating illegally in Papua New Guinea. IPA certification was not a requirement as 60% of the company was owned by a PNG citizen. However in February 2018 Mr Ekris share was transferred to a new company set up by Johnson, Karama Development Limited. Karama Consultants, through which Johnson provides consultancy services, states the company's shareholding is 60% Karama Development and 40% Johnson. But Karama Development is sole shareholder of Karama Consultants, so it essentially owns itself. Johnson has been providing services to PNG Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato, services that are now being scrutinised. By law persons who register a company must provide their current residential address. In December 2015 Johnson stated his resided Unit 2, 19 Strathaird Road, Bundall, Queensland 4217, Australia. I tracked down this address to small commercial office in the Gold Coast area. I contacted persons leasing offices next door who confirmed it is not a residential area. Was Johnson living out of a small office? In 2015 Johnson found his way to PNG, perhaps because there was very little in terms of personal wealth or employment opportunities in his own country. He took up residency in Laes Awilunga Estate at 9 Mile sometime between 2017 and 2018 and found some work with the Electoral Commissioner and now APEC. It seems that Johnson may have gone from living out of a small office on the Gold Coast to a lavish apartment in The Stanley Hotel, Port Moresby, which he now states as his current address. Another foreign national becomes rich overnight at our peoples expense. This proved a difficult task because of the inadequate records available and it was abandoned in favour of former kiaps identifying themselves. During the campaign an attempt was made to compile a list of all the Australian kiaps who had served in Papua New Guinea. After a long campaign this recognition came in the form of the Police Overseas Service Medal. Several years ago, Australian kiaps who had served in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea sought to have their service recognised in a meaningful way by the Australian government and, importantly, the Australian public. Now a group of expatriate former kiaps is seeking to find details of these men. TUMBY BAY Between 1961 and 1975, more than 450 Papua New Guinean kiaps were in government service during the significant period in PNG history leading to independence. This list was produced but required a lot more work which has been undertaken by ex-kiap Ross Wilkinson through the Ex-Kiap website. His work was greatly assisted by the contribution from a number of other former kiaps, notably District Commissioner Bill Brown. Another list of kiaps who lost their lives during the course of their service was also produced by former District Commissioner and author, Jim Sinclair. This was expanded by ex-kiap Paul Oates to include all who had lost their lives whilst in service regardless of the cause. This list is known as the Kiaps Honour Roll. Ross Wilkinson has incorporated the honour roll into a master list, otherwise known as a nominal roll, which is divided into several categories and time periods. Kiaps who served with the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) during World War II have their own list, as do kiaps who served prior to the war. These lists, although extensive, are still incomplete and further information is still coming to light. A postage stamp from the early 1970s paid tribute to Papua New Guinean kiaps - but it was never issued One of the categories incorporated into the master list is that containing the names and details of Papua New Guinean kiaps who served from 1961-75 and beyond. Information about these kiaps, of which there are believed to have been more than 450 is also difficult to find. The list represents a significant period in Papua New Guineas history and the part played in it by Papua New Guinean officers. PNG Attitude readers might be interested in the list, which can be downloaded on a PDF file here, and may be able to provide further details. Download 'Papua New Guinean Kiaps 1961-75' One aspect that has been impossible to determine is whether any Papua New Guinean kiaps lost their lives during their service. This and any other information would be useful in the ongoing quest to have the kiaps of both Australia and Papua New Guinea recognised for their work on a number of proposed memorials. If you can supply any additional information it will be gratefully received and you can email Ross Wilkinson at lpwrw@tpg.com.au. The anti-corruption effort more broadly has been undermined via reducing the funding and/or autonomy of the remaining anti-corruption actors, such as the police fraud squad and the ombudsman. Fast forward five years and the environment could not be more different. PNGs highly effective corruption investigator Taskforce Sweep no longer exists. It was abolished by the very same prime minister who set it up, Peter ONeill, after it started pursuing ONeill himself on corruption charges. CANBERRA - When Papua New Guinea put up its hand to host APEC in 2013, its economy was booming. Prospects were bright. And reform was underway, in particular to clamp down on the corruption that has been the countrys curse. Economic growth has stalled. Formal sector employment (the only sort of employment that is measured in PNG) has declined for each of the last four years. Excessive borrowing in the boom years has now come back to haunt the government following a collapse in revenue. The government has done well to avoid a debt crisis, but its economic mismanagement has intensified the downturn. PNGs biggest economic problem is its overvalued exchange rate. The value of the kina is set by the central bank, which has prevented significant depreciation for more than two years now. So far this year, the official kina/US dollar exchange rate has fallen only by 4%, a fraction of the 20% or more depreciation called for by analysts and researchers alike. The real exchange rate is still in fact at its resource-boom high, hindering the required diversification of the economy. A balance of payments crisis has been prevented by foreign currency rationing, leading to a collapse of imports, hurting economic growth. For the last three years, the difficulty of getting hold of hard currency has been rated by the private sector as their most serious problem, displacing traditional concerns about security, skill shortages and infrastructure. But what has really caught the publics attention is the return of polio, eliminated in PNG about 20 years ago. PNG is one of only five countries in the world experiencing a polio comeback. That the other members of this club are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Nigeria and Somalia all four wrought by violence shows the extent of the health crisis that PNG is facing. The most recent symptoms of this crisis include the resurgence of malaria and leprosy, and reports of worsening drug shortages. It is hardly surprising then that the hosting of APEC has become controversial in PNG, with accusations of both waste and corruption. After all, PNG is an extremely poor country. It is the second most rural in the world. Poverty is high and not falling, and child stunting rates are the fourth highest in the world (every second child under the age of five is stunted due to malnutrition). The opportunity cost of hosting APEC is high. Much of the financial cost is being covered by other countries, most notably Australia and China, but the meeting cycle is a heavy one for any country, and a significant tax on PNG policy makers, elected and official. Will APEC bring advantages to PNG? Delegates will likely leave impressed by the development in the countrys capital, Port Moresby, by the prospects of future resource projects, by the countrys vibrant culture, and by the successful execution of a year-long cycle of meetings, culminating in the leaders meeting this month. But delegates might equally leave worried by the countrys severe health, economic and political problems, and the lack of action to address them. Certainly the PNG government has passed up on the opportunity to use its hosting of APEC to push through domestic reforms. PNG is one of only four countries worldwide whose parliaments contain no women, a symptom but also a cause of extreme gender inequality. Several years ago, it started to introduce reforms to ensure female representation, but these have not actually been implemented, nor is there any commitment to implement them. Ironically for a country hosting APEC, an organisation committed to free trade, the government has tried to help manufacturers by hiking tariffs. The government could have moved to help importers and exporters alike via a large depreciation. This would have also reduced the need for foreign exchange rationing a major deterrent to foreign investment. Instead, the PNG government has resorted to foreign borrowing, a sensible response but a band-aid solution. APEC will deliver a mild economic stimulus, and is expected to be accompanied by announceables. These may come from China or resource projects. Perhaps PNG will get more aid, but any resource project agreements will be ones that were already in the pipeline. It is widely accepted (including by the government) that PNG needs to get a better deal from its resource projects. Rushing agreements so that they can be announced at APEC only weakens PNGs negotiating hand. PNG is the only APEC member country not to have hosted the annual APEC forum (Taiwan and Hong Kong are APEC members but are not regarded as countries). The argument that it makes no sense to belong but not to host is a convincing one. By the same token though, APEC is meant to be about reform and development. PNG could have used its hosting of APEC to push through important change in a range of critical policy areas. It hasnt. Whatever happens at the leaders meeting this year, in this fundamental sense APEC 2018 is a lost opportunity for its host. Stephen Howes is director of the Development Policy Centre and professor of economics in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University The average cost of unleaded petrol in Australia just recorded the largest decline in a decade last week. The falls reflect a steep drop in global crude oil prices, a modest rebound in the Australian dollar and a small decline in the average retail petrol margin. Speculation is mounting that OPEC and its allies may cut crude oil production when the cartel meets in early December. Should that eventuate, it could mean the recent decline in petrol prices may be short-lived. The cost to fill up the car in Australia just got a whole lot cheaper, at least compared to recent standards, with the average petrol price tumbling by the most in a decade last week. According to Commsec, citing data from the Australian Institute of Petroleum, the average unleaded price across the country fell 6.7 cents to 149.4 cents per litre, the largest weekly decline since late November 2008. "The metropolitan petrol price fell by 8.8 cents to 145.9 cents per litre, and the regional price fell by 2.7 cents to 156.3 cents per litre," said Ryan Felsman, Senior Economist at Comnmsec. Across the capitals, Felsman said there were substantial declines recorded last week, especially in Adelaide where the average price tumbled by 19.2 cents per litre. "Pump prices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne all plunged, he said, noting the declines outside of Adelaide ranged from 8.8 cents to 9.6 cents per lite. After rising to the highest level on record a week earlier, the average gross retail margins also declined by 3.2 cents to 16.20 cents a litre, helping to push prices lower than what would have otherwise been the case. Combined with a large decline in the prior week, Felsman said the average unleaded petrol price has now fallen 11.1 cents from the decade-high struck in late October, helped by a sharp drop in crude oil prices and a modest rebound in the Australian dollar from multi-year lows late last month. The good news is that he thinks there's likely to be substantial near-term declines ahead given movements in regional wholesale gasoline prices in Singapore. Story continues "The regional Singapore benchmark gasoline price has fallen by 21 cents a litre from recent highs and Australias wholesale petrol price has fallen by 15 cents, implying a further fall of around 5-7 cents a litre over the next fortnight, subject to the vagaries of the retail petrol price discounting cycle," he said. "The average motorist may now end up paying around $18 less to fill a 70 litre tank compared with the beginning of October." That's likely to be welcome news for many Australian households given persistent weakness in incomes growth and falling property prices in many parts of the country. Looking ahead, the longer-term outlook for prices remains uncertain with speculation already mounting that OPEC and its allies may cut crude oil production when the cartel meets in early December. Saudi Arabia, the largest crude oil exporter globally, has already flagged that it will cut production levels by 500,000 barrels per day in December, contributing to a modest bounce in crude oil futures. Should that move be followed by other cartel members it could see crude oil prices rally, a move that will be likely replicated in local petrol prices without a similar increase in the value of the Australian dollar. Actor Gerard Butler shared an image of his Malibu home on social media, which the Woolsey Fire in California has destroyed. The photo shows Butler in front of his home, which is completely burned down. He also thanked the LA Fire Department and urged people to donate to help firefighters. Three dangerous fires are burning across the state of California, destroying thousands of homes and lives. Actor Gerard Butler, one of the many celebrities who had to evacuate, shared a photo of his home, which was destroyed by the Woolsey Fire in southern California that started on Thursday. His Malibu home was destroyed. "Returned to my house in Malibu after evacuating. Heartbreaking time across California," Butler said. On Sunday, Butler shared a tweet about the devastation along with a chilling photo of what used to be his home: https://twitter.com/GerardButler/status/1061689222896136192?ref_src=twsrc^tfw He thanked the Los Angeles Fire Department and urged people to donate to support the "brave men and women" fighting the fires. Read more: At least 25 people dead, thousands of homes destroyed in 3 dangerous wildfires burning across California Butler also uploaded videos on his Instagram story that showed his former house burned down to the metal framing. "Welcome to my home in Malibu," he said, as smoke poured out of piles of rubble that used to be his home. "Wow." Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin attended a World War I commemorative event in Paris this past weekend. Putin on Sunday said France had asked that he and Trump not meet one-on-one at the event and that he had agreed to the request. But later that day he said he did end up having a brief conversation with Trump, describing the chat as a "good" one. The two leaders were scheduled to sit next to each other at a lunch, but France changed the seating plan at the last minute. The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that French President Emmanuel Macron personally asked that Trump and Putin not meet. Russian President Vladimir Putin said France specifically asked him not to hold one-on-one meetings with US President Donald Trump during World War I commemorations in Paris this past weekend - but he ended up chatting with him anyway. Putin on Sunday afternoon said he agreed to France's request so as to "not violate" France's planned events. "We will agree that we will not violate the schedule of the host party here: At their request, we will not organise any meetings here," he told the Russian state-owned RT news channel, according to the state-run Interfax news agency. Less than an hour later, however, Putin told reporters that he did end up having a brief conversation with Trump. When asked by journalists whether he had a chance to talk to Trump, Putin said "yes," Interfax and RT reported. According to RT, Putin added that the chat was "good." Where and when that talk took place is unclear. Read more: Putin saved his warmest greeting for Trump as he met world leaders in Paris, and Trump returned the love The leaders had been in Paris over the weekend to mark 100 years since the armistice that ended World War I. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian President Justin Trudeau, and the European Commission's president, Jean-Claude Juncker, also attended the commemoration. Story continues It was the first time the two leaders met since their summit in Helsinki in July, during which Trump claimed that he didn't "see any reason" why Russia would have interfered in the 2016 US elections. National security experts have said Trump behaved like a "controlled spy." According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, the request that Putin and Trump not meet one-on-one came from French President Emmanuel Macron. The French president asked that his Russian and US counterparts not hold negotiations in Paris that could "eclipse" the events and meetings that Paris had organised, Kommersant said, citing a European diplomatic source. Paris' eagerness that Trump and Putin not meet even resulted in a last-minute change in the seating plan at a lunch for the leaders at the Elysee Palace, RT reported. A preliminary seating plan of the lunch showed Trump placed next to Putin, The Guardian reported, but photos of the lunch released by the Russian presidency showed Putin seated between Juncker and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. https://twitter.com/KremlinRussia_E/status/1061615856420118528?ref_src=twsrc^tfw Trump was placed next to Macron, who sat opposite Putin - making it difficult for the US and Russian presidents to have personal asides, The Guardian reported. The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said the leaders discussed a "variety of issues," including the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty - which Trump has threatened to withdraw from - as well as North Korea and Syria. Putin said he hoped to meet Trump one-on-one on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina in late November instead, RT and Interfax reported. At least 150 people have been killed in 24 hours of clashes in the Yemeni port city of Hodeida, medics said Monday, as Britain's top diplomat visited the Gulf seeking to boost international calls for a ceasefire. Government loyalists supported by a Saudi-led coalition are fighting to oust the Iran-backed Huthi rebels from the strategic Red Sea city, whose docks are a lifeline to 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation. Asked about the possibility of a ceasefire, a coalition spokesman told reporters in Riyadh that "the operation is still ongoing", adding that it was meant to pressure the rebels to come to the negotiating table. A Hodeida resident reported an ebb in fighting around the city by Monday evening, but UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of a possible "catastrophic situation" if the port is destroyed. "The fighting must stop, a political debate must begin, and we must prepare a massive humanitarian response to avoid the worst next year," he said. A military source in the pro-government coalition said the insurgents had pushed back a large-scale assault aimed at moving towards the port, under rebel control since 2014. In a statement sent via the Telegram messaging app, the Huthis said they had "lured" loyalists up the western coastline of Hodeida, where the rebels then launched an attack on the troops. Government forces, led on the ground by Emirati-backed troops, have made their way into Hodeida after 11 days of clashes, reaching residential neighbourhoods in the east on Sunday and sparking fears of street fights that would further endanger civilians trapped in the city. Residents and government military sources have reported rebel snipers stationed on rooftops in civilian streets in eastern Hodeida, a few kilometres (miles) from the port on the western edge of the city. The fighting forced hundreds of terrified medical workers and patients to flee the al-Thawra hospital ?- Hodeida's largest public medical facility -- as a series of explosions rocked the area on Sunday, Amnesty International said. A medical worker told Amnesty that they "dodged a hail of shrapnel" as bombardment near the hospital lasted more than 30 minutes. - 'Enough is enough' - The Hodeida offensive has sparked an international outcry unprecedented in nearly four years of conflict between the Huthis and the Saudi-backed government. Britain, the United States and France have all called for an end to hostilities. All three countries are major suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a major ally of Washington, to engage in peace talks. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt met with Saudi King Salman and Prince Mohammed on Monday during a visit to the kingdom to press its rulers to support UN efforts to end the conflict. Hunt also flew to the United Arab Emirates, a key pillar of the Saudi-led coalition, to meet the crown prince of Abu Dhabi. In France, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said it was time "the international community said enough is enough. "There will be no victor in this war," Le Drian told France 2 TV. - Civilian toll - Aid groups fear for the safety of hundreds of thousands of people living in Hodeida -- and for millions of others dependent on its port for what little food and humanitarian aid trickle into impoverished, blockaded Yemen. A military official in Hodeida on Monday confirmed seven civilians had died, without giving further details. A 15-year-old boy died last week of shrapnel wounds in Hodeida, Save the Children said. Medics in hospitals across Hodeida province reported 111 rebels and 32 loyalist fighters killed overnight, according to a tally by AFP. Sources at the Al-Alfi military hospital, seized by the rebels during their 2014 takeover, said charred body parts had been delivered there overnight. Military sources confirmed that the Saudi-led alliance had targeted the rebels with multiple air strikes. The rebels have begun to evacuate their wounded to Sanaa, the capital, which the Huthis seized during a 2014 takeover that included a string of ports on Yemen's coastline. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the Yemeni government's fight against the Huthis in 2015, triggering what the UN now calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Nearly 600 people have been killed since clashes erupted in Hodeida on November 1, ending a temporary suspension in a government offensive to take the city that began in June. - Diplomatic pressure - The coalition has come under intense international pressure to end the conflict, particularly following the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an ardent critic of Prince Mohammed, in his country's consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Multiple countries, including Germany and Norway, have announced the suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi's killing. The United Nations' Yemen envoy, Martin Griffiths, is pushing for peace talks between the Huthis and the government by the end of the year. The United States, which for years provided military training and aerial refuelling for the Saudi-led coalition, on Saturday announced it would end its inflight refuelling support for the alliance. The alliance accuses Iran of smuggling arms to the Huthis through Hodeida port. Tehran denies the charges. bur-faw-ny-ac/nla Yemeni pro-government forces drive through the eastern outskirts of Hodeida as they battle to seize the key Red Sea port city from Huthi rebels on November 10, 2018 Map of Hodeida locating positions of fighting forces and major landmarks A Yemeni woman carries her child who is suffering from severe malnutrition at a hospital in northwestern Hajjah province on November 11, 2018 Displaced children from Hodeidah province wait for water supplies in a camp in the northern district of Abs in Yemen's northwestern Hajjah province on November 10, 2018 Afghan President Ashraf Ghani voiced confidence Monday on reaching a peace deal to end the Taliban insurgency -- but warned Pakistan's alleged meddling risked sparking long-term hostility. "I feel that it is now not a question of if, but when," Ghani said of a peace agreement in a wide-ranging appearance by video at Johns Hopkins University, where he was formerly a professor. "All wars have to end politically. There are very few wars, particularly the wars of the 21st century, that are going to end militarily," he said. Ghani, who is running for re-election next year, said he was offering unconditional talks and pointed to an unprecedented ceasefire with the Taliban in June as a hopeful sign. Taliban representatives recently met in Qatar with an envoy from the United States, which is eager for a way out of its longest-ever war, launched in 2001 after the September 11 attacks. "There is total agreement between the US government and Afghan government to move the peace process forward," Ghani said, while stressing that Kabul rather than Washington would lead the negotiations. "I am committed to this, to make it happen, because it is a demand of the society." - Rising 'distrust' with Pakistan - But Ghani voiced disappointment over Pakistan, which was the chief supporter of the former Taliban regime. US and Afghan officials say Pakistan still allows Taliban extremists to operate from its soil. Ghani said that last month's killing of senior Afghan general Abdul Raziq, by a shooter who Kabul says trained in Pakistan, has "brought an intense level of distrust." "We equally offer peace to Pakistan to put an end to the undeclared state of hostilities between our two countries," Ghani said. "Should peace not prevail, my other prediction, that the two societies would go to a state of mutual distrust and increasing cultural and social hostility resembling France and Germany of 1870-1914, is likely to happen," he said. He was referring to the period from a resurgent Germany's victory in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War through the outbreak of World War I, amid global commemorations Monday for the end of the "Great War." Ghani praised the approach of US President Donald Trump, who has severed military aid to Pakistan. The Afghan leader said he had not seen a "substantive and measurable change" from Pakistan under its new prime minister, Imran Khan, a cricket star who has long supported negotiations with the Taliban. Pakistan denies charges of supporting the Taliban, noting that it has suffered internally from extremist violence and provides vital logistical support to US forces in Afghanistan. - Nothing 'off the table' - Ghani said he wanted assurances in any peace deal that the Taliban, if laying down their arms, were not simply "going to be replaced by another state-sponsored group." But he said the government was open to discuss any issues with the Taliban. "The key is that there is no question that is off the table," he said. Ghani said he had studied more than 100 peace deals around the world for lessons. He said he wanted to avoid the experience of Central America, which found "peace but not security," with war giving way to rampant crime. The Afghan president pointed to the brief June ceasefire as proof of the possibilities, saying that Taliban fighters willingly halted fighting and were able to move about unmolested despite years of bad blood. "Certain societies in very difficult moments of transition need a degree of historical amnesia. Overfocus on the past could cost us the future," he said. Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani, pictured here during a visit to NATO in July 2018, says it's no longer a question of "if but when" a peace deal is reached to end the Taliban insurgency An appeals trial opens in Stockholm on Monday for a Frenchman jailed two years for rape in a scandal that led to the postponement of this year's Nobel Literature Prize. Once an influential figure in Stockholm's cultural scene, 72-year-old Jean-Claude Arnault was found guilty in October of raping a young woman in 2011 and sentenced to two years in prison. The case was one of the first big trials to come out of the #MeToo movement, and has left the venerable Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Literature Prize, in tatters. Arnault, who has been locked up since his conviction, has insisted the sex was consensual, according to his lawyer. The defence team for the appeal hearing has asked to call Arnault's wife Katarina Frostenson, a Swedish Academy member who has rarely spoken out since the scandal erupted, as a witness. The appeals trial is expected to be held behind closed doors, as was the initial case in a Stockholm district court. According to the Swedish media, nine out of 10 district court convictions are upheld on appeal. The scandal erupted in November 2017, one month after rape and sexual abuse accusations surfaced against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. At the time, Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter published the testimonies of 18 women claiming to have been raped, sexually assaulted or harassed by Arnault. The Frenchman ran the Forum club, which he founded in 1989 as a meeting place for the cultural elite and which was popular among aspiring young authors hoping to make contact with publishers and writers. The Swedish Academy, which funded his club for years, has 18 members and Arnault often referred to himself as its "19th member". He reportedly occasionally leaked the names of Nobel winners to friends. The revelations have left the prestigious body deeply divided over how to manage its ties with Arnault and his wife, with some members quitting the Academy. His accusers claim the Academy was aware of Arnault's behaviour but ensured that "a culture of silence" reigned in cultural circles. Discredited and without a quorum to make key decisions, the Academy postponed the announcement of the 2018 Nobel Literature Prize for the first time in 70 years. Several allegations against Arnault were dropped due to lack of evidence or because the statute of limitations had expired. Frenchman Jean-Claude Arnault was found guilty of raping a young woman in 2011 Bahrain's top criminal court on Monday sentenced four Shiite Muslims to death for a 2017 bombing that killed a policeman in the Sunni-ruled kingdom, a judicial official and the public prosecutor said. A statement by the prosecutor's office said the four were found guilty on charges of premeditated murder and possession of unlicensed arms "with terrorist aims" over the June 18, 2017 bombing. A police officer was killed in the blast in Diraz, a flashpoint village outside the capital Manama. A judicial source involved in the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said all four of those sentenced were Shiite Muslims. Only one of them is in custody, according to the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, which said the three others were tried in absentia. Bahrain, a tiny Gulf state located between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forces crushed protests led by majority Shiites demanding an elected prime minister. Authorities have since jailed hundreds of dissidents and stripped many of citizenship, banning all opposition groups under court orders. Diraz in particular has been rocked by protests, police raids, riots and sporadic bombings. The village is home to Bahrain's top Shiite cleric, Sheikh Isa Qassim, who was stripped of citizenship in 2016 and is under house arrest. Bahraini authorities accuse Shiite Iran of provoking unrest in the kingdom, which Tehran denies. Rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticised many of the trials as politically motivated and said they fail to meet basic standards of due process. Monday's verdict comes ahead of controversial parliamentary elections that Bahrain's King Hamad has called for November 24 in the key US ally, which is home to the US Fifth Fleet and a permanent British military base. Dissolved opposition parties, including the Shiite Al-Wefaq and secular Al-Waad, do not have the right to put forward their own candidates in the vote. Bahrain has been rocked by years of protests met with crushing force by riot police, such as here on April 5, 2016 Cypriot officials opened two new border crossings Monday for the first time in eight years, the latest push for peace by the two sides after UN-backed talks collapsed last year. Dozens of people from the island's Greek Cypriot south streamed across the eastern Dherynia border post, walking past United Nations peacekeepers into the breakaway Turkish-backed north. At the same time, the Lefka or Aplici crossing opened in the northwest of the eastern Mediterranean island. Ahead of the Dherynia crossing reopening, soldiers removed barriers wrapped in rusty barbed wire and a small group of riot police stood by. But despite arguments breaking out among onlookers in the run-up to the midday (1000 GMT) opening, the crowd passed peacefully through the border. The latest move was welcomed by Elizabeth Spehar, UN special representative and head of the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus. "Today is good day for Cyprus," she said in a statement. "These crossing points will play an important role in helping to increase people to people contacts, contributing to build much needed trust and confidence between the communities on the island." The development is also seen as a vital step to reviving peace negotiations, which collapsed in acrimony in July last year. "It's another asset to the peace talks," said Chris Charalambous, who was just 18 when war broke out in 1974. Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta then in power in Athens seeking to unite the island with Greece. For the first time since fleeing the conflict Charalambous was looking forward to seeing his house, which he said lies in a Turkish Cypriot military zone. "I'm just going to walk down and then I walk back, I don't know if I can stand spending time in the north," he told AFP. Cyprus has been divided for more than four decades and the two communities lived isolated from one another until Turkish Cypriot authorities cleared the way for the free movement of people in 2003. United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) officers patrol inside the buffer zone that slices between the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish-occupied north, in Nicosia on June 14, 2018 Map of Cyprus. Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta then in power in Athens seeking to unite the island with Greece Cypriot officials opened two new border crossings Monday for the first time in eight years, the latest push for peace by the two sides after UN-backed talks collapsed last year. Dozens of people from the island's Greek Cypriot south streamed across the eastern Dherynia border post, walking past United Nations peacekeepers into the breakaway Turkish-backed north. At the same time, the Lefka or Aplici crossing opened in the northwest of the Mediterranean island. "I am very pleased," said 65-year-old Turkish-Cypriot Hasan Uzun about the move. "I am sick, but I wanted to come here and see this beautiful day with my eyes. I am very emotional now." Ahead of the reopening of the Dherynia crossing, soldiers removed barriers wrapped in rusty barbed wire while a small group of riot police stood by. Despite arguments breaking out among onlookers in the run-up to the midday (1000 GMT) opening, the crowd passed peacefully across the border. The wreckage of a car could be seen off the main road in the UN-patrolled buffer zone, while nearby signs warned of mines beyond a barbed wire fence. "Today is good day for Cyprus," said Elizabeth Spehar, head of the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus. "These crossing points will play an important role in helping to increase people to people contacts, contributing to build much needed trust and confidence between the communities on the island." The development is also seen as a vital step to reviving peace negotiations, which collapsed in acrimony in July 2017. "It's another asset to the peace talks," said Chris Charalambous, who was just 18 when war broke out more than 44 years ago. - 'Time destroys everything' - Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta then in power in Athens seeking to unite the island with Greece. For the first time since fleeing the conflict, Charalambous was looking forward to seeing his house which now lies in a military zone beyond the border posts. "I'm just going to walk down and then I walk back, I don't know if I can stand spending time in the north," he told AFP. While houses still line the road to the north of the checkpoint where Turkish and Turkish Cypriot flags fly, trees and bushes now cling to the abandoned buildings. Goats were grazing in the former residential area, which remains fenced off behind wire and red military signs. "All these houses are destroyed... time destroys everything, 44 years is too much," said 72-year-old Iacovos Coshandis. Before the war, he used to walk to school along the road and said he still hopes to see Cyprus reunited. The island has been divided for more than four decades and the two communities lived isolated from one another until Turkish Cypriot authorities cleared the way for the free movement of people following a previous round of talks in 2003. In 1996, Dherynia was the scene of riots when two Greek Cypriots were killed by Turkish forces in one of the worst incidents on the ceasefire line. But despite being pleased that the Dherynia crossing had been opened, resident Helen said she felt anxious about going to see the conflict-hit area she once travelled through daily. "I think the political situation is the problem. The people, we are friends, because we are all Cypriots," she said, declining to give her surname. The decision to open the two border crossings came after President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci met last month in the UN-protected area in the divided capital Nicosia. Can Emre Cagin, a 21-year-old Turkish Cypriot, said he was feeling excited after waiting for years for the border crossing to open. "I think this is a really important moment for us Cypriots," he said, as he and his mother waited to have their documents checked. "I'm going to see that side for the first time, and I'm going to live that peace feeling inside me." People queue to pass through the newly-opened crossing near the eastern village of Dherynia, into the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC, after officials opened two new border crossings -- the first in eight years Map of Cyprus Cypriot officers check the papers of cyclists passing a newly-opened crossing, near the northwestern village of Lefka, into the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus after two new crossings were opened, the first in eight years Turkish Cypriot girls in traditional dresses hand out gifts to a Greek Cypriot as he drives through the newly-opened Lefka crossing, near the northwestern village of Lefka, into the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) The Sinaloa Cartel is the worlds largest drug empire, run by the man known as El Chapo. After months of persistence, the Sunday Night team have worked their way inside this dangerous group. The danger is real. Mexico is one of the worlds most deadly countries for journalists, with 64 murdered in the past ten years. Its not hard to see why reporter Steve Pennells and the crew are taken to a small hut with the latest shipment 360 kilograms of pure cocaine. Its proof that while El Chapo is in prison, hes also still in business. El Chapo has been locked up in New Yorks Manhattan Federal Prison for two years, awaiting trial for numerous drug conspiracy charges. His real name is Joaquin Guzman. His nickname, El Chapo, means Shorty hes only 57. El Chapo grew up in Sinaloa, in north-west Mexico. Here, drugs are not just a business, theyre a religion. The narcos even pray to their own saint, Malverde not quite Vatican approved. The visit has been sanctioned by Pedro El Chapos cousin. For mountain people like Pedro, El Chapo is a mythical figure, revered in dozens of folk songs. The boss might be in prison, but he still rules the place. Pedro explains just how the locals perceive of El Chapo. Hes polite and very likeable, well mannered. He generates many jobs for people because here he has business, not just drugs. He helps anyone in need, since he is the one who has the money. People here in the mountains love him. Journalist Anabel Hernandez was driven to expose El Chapos vicious rise to power through her own private tragedy the murders of a close friend and her father. My father was kidnapped and murdered in Mexico City, she tells Steve Pennells. This sense of impunity hurts you in this deep, deep way. Anabel has tracked El Chapos brutal rise from peasant farmer to narco king. When he was 16 years old, he started to grow his own little illegal [poppy and marijuana] fields with his cousins. El Chapo was just one of thousands of these kids, [and] became this big drug lord. Story continues He was in the right place at the right time, and began forging links with Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar, learning how the business worked. The raw ingredients for the Sinaloa cartels heroin are grown in Mexicos mountains. Poor farmers harvest secret crops of poppies, and milk from these will be turned into heroin which eventually make its way to Australia. Its a big business and it got this way because of a multitude of corrupt police and politicians who have allowed El Chapo to prosper for so long. The drug lord was first captured back in the early 1990s. Many of the prison staff were on his payroll, and so he eventually escaped in 2001. He managed to evade authorities for another 13 years, becoming notorious for building elaborate tunnels to ferry his drugs across the U.S. border. As a young Drug Enforcement Agent, Drew Hogan joined the hunt for El Chapo. By the time I got to him, a lot of people had given up, Hogan explains. There was more than a decade of failed attempts by both United States and Mexican governments. Chapo would be alerted an hour before, minutes before, and he would escape out the back door. Working with an elite group of Mexican marines, Hogan began to monitor El Chapos Blackberry phone connections, and he soon discovered an Australian connection. [We heard] him talking about him wanting to secure warehouses for fruit deliveries. says Hogan. We conducted a raid on his house, we find these fake bananas and cucumbers hey are using to smuggle cocaine in. Its a huge operation. Were talking about smuggling you know these tonne quantities in submarines, in large boats, in go-fast boats, aircraft, and by tractor trailer. Drew Hogan knew he had to contend with a massive network of corrupt officials who were protecting the narco boss. Payoffs were rampant to corrupt Mexican government officials, through the military, through law enforcement, Hogan explains. He really had his whole state dialled in on the payroll, and knew the movements of military [and] law enforcement as they got closer to do him. That constant stream of leaks allowed El Chapo to stay one step ahead, using safe houses with escape tunnels. But Hogan and a small group of Mexican Marines were finally able to track El Chapo to a hotel complex in the resort town of Mazatlan. El Chapo was in room 401. It was just before dawn. El Chapo was asleep in bed, his young wife and twin daughters by his side. Marines burst in and captured the worlds most dangerous man without a fight. I ran right up to him, jumped right into his face, Hogan recalls. We locked eyes, and I yelled the first thing that came to my head which was, Whats up, Chapo! El Chapo was locked up in the high security Altiplano Prison but not for long. He very quickly took the control of the jail. In his cell, El Chapo was under video surveillance yet no one acted when he disappeared in the cells shower. It took 18 minutes for anybody to raise the alarm. He had built an extraordinary tunnel that ran from beneath El Chapos cell to a house over a kilometre away. This was supposed to be Mexicos most impenetrable prison. But somehow, the drug lord escaped, becoming the only man to ever break free from Altiplano. El Chapo was on the loose again. El Chapo was soon back in his mountain stronghold. It seemed he was now starting to believe his own hype, and his ego became his undoing. He secretly met with Hollywood actor Sean Penn and Mexican soap star Kate del Castillo to discuss making a movie about his life. Mexican authorities tracked phone calls about the meeting and began closing in. On the 8th January 2016, they attacked his hideout on the north-western coast. In the early hours, Mexican marines surrounded the house in the regional town of Los Mochis. That operation was not [to] arrest El Chapo, Anabel Hernandez says. That operation was to kill him. In the gun battle that erupted, several of El Chapos men were killed, but El Chapo and a lieutenant escaped into the sewers. Emerging, the two men were stopped by a Federal Police roadblock. El Chapo tried both threatening and bribing, yet with so much attention, the police knew they had to do the right thing. They brought El Chapo to a motel on the edge of town to buy time until reinforcements arrived. In the room, he was handcuffed to the bed, where El Chapos reign finally came to an end. For some months, Chapo was again locked up in the Altiplano Prison. But now, El Chapo was a political pawn. On the 19th January 2017 the day before Donald Trumps inauguration as President the man dubbed the worlds worst gangster was deported to the U.S. for trial. Now 61 years old, El Chapo has spent two years behind bars at New Yorks Federal Prison, awaiting trial for multiple drug charges. The prosecution wants a life sentence and 14 billion dollars in drug proceeds. As part of a deal with the Mexican Government, the Americans cannot give him the death penalty better than the fate of many other drug lords back in Mexico. Yet even with El Chapo behind bars, his cartel is still flourishing. In his absence, its being run by his brother and two sons. One of them, Alfredo, openly flaunts the family wealth on Instagram, taunting the Americans who have put him on their Top Ten Most Wanted list. Yet El Chapos fortune is not in any trouble. The 360-kilogram stash of cocaine shown off to Steve Pennells and the Sunday Night team is worth a fortune in the ballpark of $108 million. They were told the drugs came from Colombia, and destined for the streets of Los Angeles. The cocaine is packed into two different cars and driven to the coast. The exchange goes down fast many millions of dollars worth of cocaine is shifted from the cars to a waiting boat. From here it goes to a larger boat two kilometres offshore, then north up the Gulf of California to San Felipe, before crossing the border by road to Los Angeles and from there to the world. Reporter: Steve Pennells Producer: Michael ODonnell Sunday Nights El Chapo story features Mexicos most famous researcher of the Narco State, Anabel Hernandez. Her book, Narcoland, is an eloquent account of how El Chapos empire fits into Mexicos political and business networks. Find more about it here. Former DEA agent Drew Hogan was a key part of the arrest of El Chapo in Mazatlan, Mexico, in 2014. He details the hunt in his book, Hunting El Chapo. You can find it online here. Singapore's prime minister made an impassioned plea Monday for open markets and warned "political pressures" were driving countries apart, in a swipe at rising protectionism at the start of a gathering of world leaders. Dignitaries including Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and US Vice President Mike Pence are attending this week's summit in the city-state against the backdrop of a months-long trade dispute between Beijing and Washington. Some of the leaders are expected to announce major progress on a massive China-backed trade deal that excludes the US, in a rebuke to President Donald Trump's increasingly unilateralist approach to international commerce. Trump is skipping the annual summit -- which was regularly attended by his predecessor Barack Obama -- in a sign of how far he has withdrawn from attempts to shape the global rules of trade and raising new questions about Washington's commitment to Asia. Addressing a business forum ahead of this week's main meetings, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for Southeast Asian companies to invest more in each others' markets and be more open to foreign competition. "The more integrated and open our markets are, and the more conducive our rules and business environments to foreign investment, the larger the pie will grow, and the more we will all benefit," he said. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) "has great potential, but fully realising it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures". - Economic standoff - The US-China trade dispute has seen Trump slap higher tariffs on roughly half of Chinese imports, and Beijing retaliate with its own levies. The standoff is having an impact far beyond the world's top two economies, and leaders at the four days of meetings will be keen to voice their grievances to Pence, who is participating in Trump's place, and China's Li. While Trump has railed at trade deals and pushed his isolationist "America First" agenda, Beijing has increasingly talked up the benefits of open markets. In an editorial in Singapore's pro-government Straits Times newspaper Monday, China's Li said the world was facing "challenges of rising protectionism and unilateralism". "We should work for an open world economy by advocating, practising and upholding openness," he wrote. This week's meetings are the biggest in a series of gatherings organised every year by ASEAN. The main summit day is on Thursday, and the meetings are being attended by 20 world leaders, including those from the Southeast Asian bloc as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Many of those attending the summit are expected to send a message in support of free trade by announcing major progress on a China-backed deal, the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). With Trump having pulled the US out of rival pact the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the RCEP is now the world's biggest trade deal, covering half the world's population. The pact -- which is less ambitious than the TPP in areas such as employment and environmental protection -- groups the 10 ASEAN members plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The TPP, which was championed by Obama as the economic plank of his "pivot to Asia", has been kept alive without the US and will go into force this year. Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has called for markets across Southeast Asia to be more open Map with economic data on the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Many of those attending the Singapore summit are expected to send a message in support of free trade by announcing major progress on a China-backed deal, the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Children in Israel's south were heading to school early Wednesday as an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire took effect, putting an end to a brief yet intense flare-up with Gaza. The truce, announced Tuesday by Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip, came after nearly two days of heavy shelling from both sides that had threatened to descend into full-blown war. Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas said they would abide by the ceasefire as long as Israel did the same. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the military did not comment, but the Home Front Command removed late Tuesday all limitations on southern residents, sending children back to school after two days in shelters. Hardline Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who said on Tuesday he did not support stopping the strikes, announced he will be making a statement on Wednesday afternoon. The latest violence, which saw seven Gazans killed in 24 hours as the Israeli aerial bombardment flattened buildings and sent fireballs and plumes of smoke into the sky, was the worst between Israel and Palestinian militants since a 2014 war. Sirens began sounding in southern Israel late Sunday, sending tens of thousands running for cover in shelters as around 460 rockets and mortar rounds were fired from Gaza, wounding 27 people, including three severely. A Palestinian labourer from the occupied West Bank was killed when a rocket hit a building in the Israeli city of Ashkelon. In a statement issued late Tuesday, Egypt called on Israel to cease its "military action" in Gaza. "Egypt's efforts have been able to achieve a ceasefire between the resistance and the Zionist enemy," the Gaza groups said. - 'Restraint must be shown' - The flare-up began on Sunday with a botched Israeli special forces operation inside the Gaza Strip that turned deadly and prompted Hamas to vow revenge. The clash that resulted from the blown covert operation killed seven Palestinian militants, including a local Hamas military commander, as well as an Israeli army officer. Palestinian militants responded with rocket and mortar fire, as well as an anti-tank missile that hit a bus Hamas says was being used by Israeli soldiers. A soldier was severely wounded in the attack. Schools were closed in Gaza and in southern Israel on Tuesday as the two sides warned each other they would respond forcefully to any further violence. Egypt has negotiated ceasefires following previous flare-ups, while UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov has also been seeking a long-term truce in recent weeks. After an Israeli security cabinet meeting that reportedly lasted some six hours on Tuesday, a statement was issued saying the ministers "instructed the (military) to continue its operations as necessary". - 'Like an earthquake' - Missile defences intercepted more than 100 rockets from Gaza and most others fell in open areas, though some hit houses and other civilian structures. "Within two seconds (after air sirens) we heard a huge boom, we saw our curtains flying in the air, windows (broken), and only after a few minutes when we went out, we realised that the missile had hit the building next to us," one man who lives near a block of flats hit by a rocket in Ashkelon said on Tuesday. Israel hit back with major air strikes, with targets including Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV station and internal security headquarters in Gaza City. The military said it struck some 160 targets in the enclave. "What happened was like an earthquake," said Abu Ayman Lemzeni, who lives near the targeted TV building. At least five of the dead in Gaza were claimed as members of various militant groups. Some 26 other people were wounded in the Palestinian territory, according to Gaza's health ministry. - Three wars - The escalation came despite Netanyahu's decision to allow Qatar to transfer millions of dollars in aid to Gaza for salaries as well as fuel to ease an electricity shortage. The agreements had led to calmer protests along the Gaza border after months of deadly unrest. Sunday's special forces operation and resulting clash upset those efforts, leading to questions over the timing of the covert Israeli move. Israel said it was an intelligence-gathering operation and that those efforts must continue to defend the country. Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008, and protests and clashes along the Gaza border since March 30 have repeatedly raised fears of a fourth. At least 234 Palestinians in Gaza have since been killed by Israeli fire, the majority during protests and clashes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed over the same period. Palestinians gather in Gaza City early on November 13, 2018, outside buildings damaged by overnight air strikes A fireball rises over the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television building in Gaza City after an Israeli air strike on November 12, 2018 as a deadly flare-up of violence threatens a new war Seven Gazans were killed in 24 hours as Israeli strikes flattened buildings and sent fireballs and plumes of smoke into the sky Missile defences intercepted more than 100 rockets from Gaza and most others fell in open areas, though some hit houses and other civilian structures The Gaza Strip An Israeli soldier was severely wounded when a Palestinian anti-tank missile fired from Gaza hit the bus he was travelling in near the border on November 12, 2018 A wounded Israeli woman is taken to hospital for treatment after a rocket fired from Gaza hit her flat in the southern town of Ashkelon on November 12, 2018 Some 78 million miles (126 million kilometers) from Earth, alone on the immense and frigid Red Planet, a robot the size of a small 4x4 wakes up just after sunrise. And just as it has every day for the past six years, it awaits its instructions. Around 9:30 Mars time, a message arrives from California, where it was sent 15 minutes earlier. "Drive forward 10 meters, turn to an azimuth of 45 degrees, now turn on your autonomous capabilities and drive." The Curiosity rover executes the commands, moving slowly to its designated position, at a maximum speed of 35 to 110 meters (yards) per hour. Its batteries and other configurations limit its daily drive span to around 100 meters. The most Curiosity has rolled on Mars in a day is 220 meters. Once it arrives, its 17 cameras take shots of its environs. Its laser zaps rocks. Other tools on board drill into a particularly interesting rock to study small samples. Around 5 pm Martian time, it will wait for one of NASA's three satellites orbiting the planet to pass overhead. Curiosity will then send several hundred megabytes of scientific data via large ground antennae to its human masters on Earth. - A miniature lab - On the ground floor of building 34 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, scientists pore over Curiosity's data every day at 1 pm, in a large windowless room full of scientific instruments and computers. The scientists are looking for any indication of life on Mars. Inside Curiosity lies a "marvel of miniaturization," says Charles Malespin, the deputy principal investigator for Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM), a chemist's lab the size of a microwave oven. "It's the most complicated instrument NASA has ever sent to another planet," said Malespin, who has devoted his professional life to the project since 2006. SAM analyzes samples of Martian soil by heating them in an oven that reaches 1,800 Fahrenheit (1,000 Celsius). The hot rocks release gas, which is separated and analyzed by instruments that offer a sample "fingerprint." At Goddard, Maeva Millan, a French postdoctoral researcher, compares this chemical fingerprint to experiments carried out on known molecules. When they look similar, she can say, "Ah, that's the right molecule." It is thanks to SAM that researchers know there are complex organic molecules on Mars. And SAM has helped scientists learn that the Martian surface -- geologically speaking -- is far younger than previously thought. "If you're going to go to Mars, you don't want to bring stuff that's already there that you can use for resources," such as water, said Malespin. "If you want to mine the soil and heat it up and release the water, you can bring a big oven with you and you have all the water you want." The same goes for various materials that could be used to make rocket fuel, allowing the Red Planet to serve as a future service station for rockets. - No joystick - On the other side of the United States, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, about two dozen men and women make up the team that drives Curiosity. "My favorite part of the day (is when) I get to sit down and start looking at the imagery from Mars and understand where the rover currently is," said Frank Hartman, who has driven both Curiosity and another, older rover, Opportunity. "And my feeling is that sometimes I'm probably the first person on Earth looking at some of these pictures." The Mars drivers' main job is to write the sequence of commands for the rover to follow the next sol, or "day" on Mars, which lasts 24 hours and nearly 40 minutes. There is no joystick, and no real-time communication with the robotic vehicle. There is a delay whenever drivers realize something has gone wrong, whether it's Opportunity getting buried by a Martian dust storm earlier this year, or one of Curiosity's wheels getting pierced by a sharp rock. Or the breakdown of Curiosity's drilling machine, which happened at the beginning of this year and took a few months to resolve. "We haven't been to any of these places before," said Hartman. "And so we always have to be aware of the fact that we know so little about what we're encountering." As years pass, these scientist-drivers become attached to their robots. When Opportunity went silent after 14 years of tooling around on Mars, Hartman and his colleagues felt a sense of grief. Opportunity "retired with honor," said Hartman. Curiosity, which landed in 2012, has so far traveled just over 12 miles (19.75 km). It must wait another year before reaching its goal, Mount Sharp. Then, a few months later, it will lose its Martian monopoly. Two rovers -- one American and one European -- are scheduled to land on the planet in 2020. A self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity rover taken on Mars on June 7, 2018 NASA scientist Charles Malespin poses next to a reproduction of the SAM instrument aboard the rover Curiosity on Mars This NASA image shows a 2-inch-deep hole the rover Curiosity drilled on the Martian surface to extract rock samples in May 2018 French post-doctorate researcher MaevaMillan at work at NASA's Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Maryland Sediment deposits of an ancient Martian lake the rover Curiosity visited in December 2013 Residents of Russian-backed areas of eastern Ukraine have voted to keep their separatist leaders, results showed Monday, cementing Moscow's hold on the disputed regions. Kiev and its Western allies denounced the elections, with Washington on Monday describing the polls as a "sham" meant to legitimise breakaway authorities. Analysts say the votes will allow Moscow to claim the region's leaders as democratically elected representatives in future talks with Kiev, although few expect Ukraine's moribund peace process to be revived any time soon. Gun-toting, camouflage-clad guards were deployed to ensure order during Sunday's vote in the Donetsk and Lugansk "People's Republics", which have been controlled by separatists since breaking away from Ukraine's pro-Western government in 2014. Authorities pulled out all the stops to encourage a high turnout, setting up food stalls near polling stations and offering lottery tickets to those who voted. Officials said more than 80 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in Donetsk, while turnout stood at 77 percent in Lugansk. Denis Pushilin, the 37-year-old acting Donetsk leader and a former negotiator with Kiev, was elected with 61 percent of the vote with almost all ballots counted, the local electoral commission said. He had been in charge of the region following the killing of the rebel Donetsk "president" in a bomb attack in August. Leonid Pasechnik, 48, the acting Lugansk leader and previously the regional head of the Ukrainian security service, took 68 percent of the vote. - 'Illegal and manipulative' - Kiev's central election commission dismissed the results as of no consequence, saying it "categorically rejects any legal significance of these illegal and manipulative elections". But the Kremlin said the regions had "nothing left but to self organise" after being "abandoned" by Ukraine. "The Minsk agreements are not being fulfilled by the Ukrainian side," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, referring to 2015 Western-backed accords aimed at bringing peace to the region. Alexei Makarkin of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies said the polls were about solidifying the authority of the regions' separatist governments. "Without these elections, they would have had less legitimacy than their predecessors," he said. Analysts said the Kremlin had greater control over Pushilin than his predecessor, and that the polls were a way to increase its influence in the regions, which represent about three percent of the Ukrainian mainland. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel branded the polls illegal after talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on the sidelines of World War I commemorations Sunday. The US State Department joined in on Monday, with spokeswoman Heather Nauert saying the votes were an attempt by Moscow to give credibility to its "proxies" in eastern Ukraine. "These entities have no place within the Minsk agreements or within Ukraine's constitutional government, and they should be dismantled along with the illegal armed formations," Nauert said in a statement. Western powers had asked Russia not to allow the polls to go ahead, arguing they would further hamper efforts to end a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people over four years. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and supported the outbreak of the insurgency in eastern Ukraine in what Kiev sees as punishment for a pivot to the West. - Peace talks in deadlock - While heavy fighting is over, the conflict regularly claims the lives of soldiers and civilians. Kiev said on Saturday that four Ukrainian soldiers had died in recent days. Peace negotiations have hit deadlock and the Minsk deal is largely dead in the water. Moscow, which denies accusations of funnelling troops and arms across the border, said the polls were necessary to fill the power vacuum after the assassination of Donetsk leader Alexander Zakharchenko. Moscow pointed the finger at Ukraine for his killing while Kiev blamed infighting among the separatists. Ukraine is set for a presidential election of its own next year, although as yet there is no clear frontrunner. "Russia will be watching the results of the 2019 elections in Ukraine. It will want the future president to start negotiations with Pushilin and Pasechnik," Makarkin said. Analysts say the votes will allow Moscow to claim the region's leaders as democratically elected representatives in future talks with Kiev, although few expect Ukraine's moribund peace process to be revived any time soon A map of eastern Ukraine locating the Russian-back insurgent regions of Lugansk and Donetsk Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko met his French and German counterparts in Paris Papua New Guinea has deployed a multi-national force of warships, fighter jets and elite counter-terrorism troops to protect world leaders attending a major summit in its crime-plagued capital this week. About 4,000 military personnel, around half of them foreign, will work with hundreds of police to patrol Port Moresby for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum from Saturday, which will attract representatives from 21 nations. Attendees are set to include China's President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US Vice President Mike Pence, who is not even expected to sleep in the city, but stay overnight in Australia. Up to 15,000 delegates are expected at the summit. Due to a shortage of hotel accommodation, many of them will bunk down on three cruise liners docked at the port, presenting additional security complications. Although the threat posed by terrorism in PNG is considered minimal, the Melanesian country's reputation for lawlessness and violent crime precedes it. About half the capital's 300,000 people live in squatter settlements, and it was ranked fourth-last in this year's Economist Intelligence Unit list of the world's most liveable cities. Feared street gangs known as "raskols" have made car jackings common and the country has among the highest rates of rape and domestic violence in the world. To ensure delegates are safe, the government has enlisted military help from Australia, the United States and New Zealand. Canberra is bankrolling much of the security operation. It has sent a 1,500-strong Australian Defence Force (ADF) contingent, along with RAAF F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters, surveillance aircraft and a helicopter carrier moored in Port Moresby harbour. Vessels from Australia, New Zealand and the US will guard the capital's shores, and all three countries have provided special forces. Working alongside them in an operation that has taken more than a year to plan will be about 2,000 Papua New Guinea troops. - 'Don't be alarmed' - A headline in the Post-Courier newspaper last week proclaimed an "APEC Invasion", although Joint Security Task Force (JSTF) chief Commissioner Gari Baki told Port Moresby residents the foreign troops were nothing to worry about. "I would like to reassure the community that they should not be alarmed," he said, noting the international force was "here at our request". The government has passed laws allowing international security personnel to use lethal force if necessary to deal with an "imminent threat" during the summit. Former PNG defence force chief Jerry Singirok has raised concerns the move impinges on the country's sovereignty. But Canberra-based military think tank the Australia Defence Association said if developing nations such as Papua New Guinea did not accommodate foreign security contributions, they would never be able to host major events like the APEC summit. "That wouldn't be good from a strategic level or a political level," executive director Neil James said. The huge numbers of police and military in Port Moresby for the summit meant crime is "not going to be a problem", he added. - Hospitals v Maseratis - The government views the summit as a rare opportunity to showcase Papua New Guinea to the world and attract investment to the poorest of APEC's 21 member nations. "It's a major undertaking, but it's very important when it comes to promoting the country economy-wise," said Justin Tkatchenko, the minister responsible for planning the summit. "We've never had leaders like this... ever come to this area... The whole world will be watching." More than a third of Papua New Guinea's 8.5-million population lives below the poverty line, while tribal and political violence is a recurring problem, particularly in the Highlands region. Port Moresby itself has been given a facelift for the summit, with major infrastructure projects -- many funded by China. Outside the capital, economic growth driven by the development of resources has stalled, leaving the vast majority of the population with poor basic services such as health and education. Many have questioned why vast sums are being spent on APEC -- including 40 Maserati cars worth more than $150,000 each -- when provincial hospitals are struggling with chronic shortages of medical supplies. But Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister Charles Abel said making a positive impression at APEC, which collectively accounts for 60 percent of global GDP, could make a difference. "We need investment, we need partnerships, we need capital to develop our country," he said. "So APEC is going to present a wonderful marketing opportunity for Papua New Guinea because there's so many opportunities with the wealth that we have and the beautiful people that we have and the wonderful culture that we have." -- Radio New Zealand contributed to this report -- Thousands of military personnel, around half of them foreign, will help secure the APEC summit in Papua New Guinea Australia is bankrolling much of the APEC security operation in PNG, and has deployed F/A-18 fighters and a helicopter carrier The PNG government says a successful APEC summit will help the impoverished nation attract much-needed investment The threat posed by terrorism is minimal in PNG, but the country has a reputation for lawlessness and violent crime A West Australian grandfather has died after contracting dengue hemorrhagic fever and malaria. Darwin Vidal, 56, died on November 3 in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, where he had been living with his wife Irma and children, according to a GoFundMe page. One of his daughters, Clarita Vidal, 25, who lives in Perth, told Yahoo7 the family are devastated by the death of a good man who always tried to make people laugh. Mr Vidal, a fly in, fly out miner, fell sick with dengue on October 31 and was hospitalised. WA grandfather Darwin Vidal, 56, died after contracting dengue haemorrhagic fever and malaria. Right: Mr Vidal pictured with wife Irma. Source: Supplied/ Clarita Vidal Dengue fever is spread by tropical mosquitos and is prominent in Indonesia. However, Mr Vidal was diagnosed with dengue haemorrhagic fever also known as severe dengue. He was being treated for just the dengue fever at a local hospital not far from his home first, Clarita said. But then he had a stroke. It was then determined the 56-year-old had also contracted malaria and he was moved to a larger hospital. Mr Vidal worked in mines and contracted dengue fever in Indonesia, while its believed he contracted malaria in Burkina Faso in West Africa while on a job. Source: Supplied/ Clarita Vidal His family believes he contracted the virus while working in Burkina Faso in West Africa in October, where it is prominent. However, its also possible he contracted severe dengue in West Africa as there was an outbreak of the virus reported in Burkina Faso in November 2017, according to the World Health Organisation. Everything was getting worse and worse, Clarita said. On Friday (November 2) he was also diagnosed with sepsis in his blood. He was trying to fight it but it was all too strong. Mr Vidal with one of his daughters. Source: Supplied/ Clarita Vidal By this stage, Mr Vidal could only communicate via blinking and had lost the ability to speak. Clarita and her sister Alex, 28, rang him that same day. We spoke to him via video chat, she said. We told him we wanted to see him. We were desperate but the doctor told us he was a 50/50 chance of survival. The WA grandfather with his daughters (L-R) Alex and Clarita, wife Irma and his other two daughters. Also pictured: his grandson being held by Clarita. Source: Supplied/ Clarita Vidal Clarita said it was her final call to her father and even though he couldnt communicate he was desperate to talk and calm us down. But the last thing I said was to be calm and it will be OK, she said. And that we love him and we are going over to see him and he calmed and rested his eyes. Story continues The two sisters rushed to Indonesia to see their father but they didnt make it in time. We were able to see his body and at least be with him, the 25-year-old said. But its all just been really tough signing death certificates and organising what to do with his body. We want to bring him back to Australia. He was a good, hardworking man who had a heart of gold and was always making jokes. He loved family barbecues and always invited people over too cook with him. Mr Vidal wasnt an Indonesian citizen and didnt have travel insurance. The family is hoping to raise enough money to transport his body back to WA, where he lived most of his life. Mr Vidal with his wife. Source: Supplied/ Clarita Vidal Clarita said her father was too carefree and warned anyone travelling overseas to get travel insurance. However, her family have made it their mission to get him home. Dad always put his family first before helping himself, she said. The headmaster of a Chinese high school has been fired after stealing electricity from the school to mine cryptocurrency. Lei Hua deployed eight ethereum mining machines in the school for about a year, racking up an electricity bill of 14,700 yuan ($2,930), according to an article published online by a state-owned radio station in Hunan, the central Chinese province where the school is located. Last month Lei was dismissed from his post after the power theft was detected, the report said. Cryptocurrency mining is the process whereby new coins are offered as a reward for building and maintaining the public ledger of every transaction that has taken place for cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin and ethereum. The headteacher moved eight mining machines into the school. Source: Hainan Transportation Channel Such activity, requiring high end computing power, is usually undertaken by specialised computing chips that consume large amounts of power. Lei started mining ethereum at his home in June 2017 after he paid about 10,000 yuan to buy his first mining machine, which consumed nearly 21 kilowatt-hour of electricity per day, according to the report. In order to save money on his power bill, Lei soon relocated the machine to his school and subsequently installed another seven mining computers in the schools computer room over the period of a year. A school employee had reported the unusually high electricity consumption to Lei, but he responded by blaming it on the overuse of air conditioners and heaters, according to the report. China has played a dominant role in cryptocurrency mining and is home to some of the worlds biggest creators of mining hardware. Source: Getty, file. In January Leis deputy headmaster also began mining ethereum using the schools power supply after buying one machine with Leis help. The report said the county governments discipline watchdog has seized the cryptocurrency earnings of both teachers, but the amount was not specified. China has played a dominant role in cryptocurrency mining and is home to some of the worlds biggest creators of mining hardware, such as Beijing-based Bitmain, which is planning an initial public offering in Hong Kong. But since the start of this year, Chinese authorities have moved to curb mining operations amid an overall crackdown on cryptocurrency trading to avoid potential financial chaos. In April police arrested six individuals in northern Tianjin for stealing electricity from the local grid to power 600 bitcoin mining machines, state news agency Xinhua reported at the time. Headmaster Leis side job may not have been that lucrative after all. Amid wider bearish sentiment in cryptocurrencies, ethereum prices have plunged over 70 per cent from their peak in February, currently trading at around US$210, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Six people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Kabul Monday, close to where scores of Afghans had been protesting against Taliban attacks on the minority Hazara ethnic group. The attack is the latest in a wave of violence across war-torn Afghanistan as the Taliban intensify pressure on beleaguered government security forces, which are suffering record high casualties. Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said 20 were wounded in the blast, which struck in front of a high school in the downtown area of the Afghan capital. Initial reports indicated most of the victims were members of the security forces, but Danish said civilians, including several women, had borne the brunt of the carnage. A photo shared on WhatsApp showed several bodies lying on the ground. "The suicide attacker on foot wanted to target protesters, but he was stopped at a security checkpoint some 200 metres (yards) from the site," interior ministry deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said. A police officer at the scene said he saw 10 to 15 casualties on the ground, as well as body parts. The centre of Kabul was blanketed with heavier-than-usual security for the protest, which began on Sunday night and continued into Monday. "It was a huge blast near Istiqlal high school, very close to where the demonstrators were gathering," witness Qais Nawabi told AFP. The Islamic State group (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack, its propaganda agency Amaq said. IS has claimed most suicide attacks in Kabul in recent months. Demonstrators, including university students, had taken to the streets to demand the deployment of military reinforcements to two Hazara-dominated districts in the southeastern province of Ghazni which have been attacked by the Taliban. In other violence, a Taliban attack on Khak Safid district in the western province of Farah overnight killed up to 40 local police and civilians, provincial council member Dadullah Qaneh told AFP. "They set the houses of local police members on fire, killed women and children and local police," Qaneh said. Provincial police spokesman Mohibullah Mohib confirmed the attack, but had no information on the number of casualties. - Ethnic violence - The Kabul explosion came as Afghan security forces step up ground and air offensives in Jaghori and Malistan districts, where Hazara pro-government fighters and Afghan troops are battling the militants. Fighting in the area has been ongoing since Wednesday, fanning fears that the violence could be rooted in ethnic or sectarian differences. Most Hazaras belong to the Shiite branch of Islam. The Taliban, which are Sunni and largely ethnic Pashtuns, have been accused of committing human rights violations against the group during their oppressive 1996-2001 rule. "We have no news from our people living there," Asif Ashna, one of the protesters, said in a Facebook live broadcast. "If the government's duty is to protect the lives of the people then why have they not taken any measures in the past week?" Protester Ishaq Anis told AFP that security forces should be permanently based in Jaghori and Malistan to prevent "further attacks against Hazara people". Hazaras have long criticised the government for failing to protect them from attacks by the Taliban and IS, some even suggesting the blundering was deliberate. The escalation in violence comes as US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad returned to the region as part of efforts to persuade the Taliban to end the 17-year war. Khalilzad met President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday. The former US ambassador to Kabul will also visit Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, where the Taliban has a political office. A Taliban delegation met with Khalilzad in Doha in October to discuss ending the Afghan conflict. The attack in Kabul is the latest across war-torn Afghanistan as the Taliban intensify pressure on beleaguered government security forces The blast happened near Istiqlal high school in Kabul The blast struck in front of a high school in the downtown area of the Afghan capital Libya's key political players meet with global leaders in Palermo on Monday in the latest bid by major powers to kickstart a long-stalled political process and trigger elections. A summit in Paris in May had seen the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and eastern Libya strongman Khalifa Haftar agree to hold national polls on December 10, but that date has fallen by the wayside. Acknowledging the chaotic political situation since dictator Moamer Kadhafi was deposed in 2011, the UN on Thursday conceded elections will not be viable before at least the spring of 2019. A question mark hangs over Haftar's crucial presence in Palermo, with Rome on Sunday denying a Haftar official's statement that Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had paid a lightning visit to his Benghazi headquarters amid reports he might not attend. A source close to the Italian government could not confirm if the two had been in telephone contact. Analysts say the Sicily summit risks being compromised not only by tensions between Libyan factions, but also the competing agendas of foreign powers. Just as in May, the key Libyan invitees are Haftar, the eastern parliament's speaker Aguila Salah, GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj and Khaled al-Mechri, speaker of a Tripoli-based upper chamber. Sarraj, in an interview with AFP, urged the international community on Thursday to find a "common vision" for the future of his chaos-hit North African nation. The GNA says it will use the Palermo talks to lobby for security reforms that unify the army, a constitutionally rooted electoral process, economic reform and an end to "parallel institutions". - 'A fundamental step' - The US, Arab countries and European nations will all send representatives to the Tuesday talks, after a dinner set for Monday. For Rome's populist government, a top priority is stemming the flow of migrants who exploit Libya's security vacuum in their quest to reach European shores, often via Italy. "The Palermo conference is a fundamental step in the goal of stabilising Libya and for the security of the entire Mediterranean", Conte said last week. UN envoy Ghassan Salame told the Security Council on Thursday that a national conference in early 2019 would be organised to provide "a platform" for Libyans to spell out their vision for the future. But diplomatic wrangling between Italy and France hangs over next week's summit. In September, Italy's defence minister and parliamentary speaker both partly blamed France for Libya's security crisis, which continues to simmer some seven years after the NATO-backed uprising toppled Kadhafi. The Italian swipes came as Tripoli was plagued by militia clashes that killed at least 117 people and wounded more than 400 between late August and late September. Rome and Paris have for months been at loggerheads over Libya's election timetable. While France repeatedly endorsed the December date, Italy opposed it. Italy has not been alone in pushing for elections to be delayed -- the December 10 date was also viewed sceptically by Washington and Moscow. One Italian diplomatic source said that no definitive poll date should be set at the summit and it is "not sure that there will be a final document" after the talks. According to diplomats and analysts, Russia, France, Egypt and the UAE support Haftar, while Turkey and Qatar have thrown their weight behind rivals to the eastern strongman, especially Islamist groups. Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (C) met his Libyan counterpart Fayez al-Sarraj in Rome in October The presence of easternLibyastrongman Khalifa Haftar at the summit is seen as crucial Libya's key political players meet with global leaders in Italy on Monday in the latest bid by major powers to kickstart a long-stalled political process and trigger elections. A summit in Paris in May had seen the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and eastern Libya strongman Khalifa Haftar agree to hold national polls on December 10, but that date has fallen by the wayside. Acknowledging the chaotic political situation since dictator Moamer Kadhafi was deposed in 2011, the United Nations on Thursday conceded elections will not be viable before at least the spring of 2019. A question mark hangs over Haftar's crucial presence at the talks in the Sicilian capital Palermo, with Rome on Sunday denying a Haftar official's statement that Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had paid a lightning visit to his Benghazi headquarters amid reports he might not attend. A source close to the Italian government could not confirm if the two had been in telephone contact. "Haftar already succeeding in making the Palermo Conference about the importance of his role in any potential agreement in Libya going forward and reinforcing his position as the key actor in the Libyan crisis," said Mohamed ElJarh, CEO of research and consulting firm Libya Outlook. Analysts say the Sicily summit risks being compromised not only by tensions between Libyan factions, but also the competing agendas of foreign powers. Just as in May, the key Libyan invitees are Haftar, the eastern parliament's speaker Aguila Salah, GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj and Khaled al-Mechri, speaker of a Tripoli-based upper chamber. In an interview with AFP, Sarraj urged the international community on Thursday to find a "common vision" for the future of the chaos-hit North African nation. The GNA says it will use the Palermo talks to lobby for security reforms that unify the army, a constitutionally rooted electoral process, economic reform and an end to "parallel institutions". - 'A fundamental step' - The US, Arab countries and European nations will all send representatives to the Tuesday talks, after a dinner set for Monday. Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is set to attend. For Rome's populist government, a top priority is stemming the flow of migrants who exploit Libya's security vacuum in their quest to reach European shores, often via Italy. "The Palermo conference is a fundamental step in the goal of stabilising Libya and for the security of the entire Mediterranean," Conte said last week. UN envoy Ghassan Salame told the Security Council on Thursday that a national conference in early 2019 would be organised to provide "a platform" for Libyans to spell out their vision for the future. But diplomatic wrangling between Italy and France hangs over this summit. In September, Italy's defence minister and parliamentary speaker both partly blamed France for Libya's security crisis, which continues to simmer some seven years after the NATO-backed uprising toppled Kadhafi. The Italian swipes came as Tripoli was plagued by militia clashes that killed at least 117 people and wounded more than 400 between late August and late September. Rome and Paris have for months been at loggerheads over Libya's election timetable. While France repeatedly endorsed the December date, Italy opposed it. Italy has not been alone in pushing for elections to be delayed -- the December 10 date was also viewed sceptically by Washington and Moscow. One Italian diplomatic source said that no definitive poll date should be set at the summit and it is "not sure that there will be a final document" after the talks. According to diplomats and analysts, Russia, France, Egypt and the UAE support Haftar, while Turkey and Qatar have thrown their weight behind rivals to the eastern strongman, especially Islamist groups. Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar's forces dominate the east of the country Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (C) met his Libyan counterpart Fayez al-Sarraj in Rome in October The presence of easternLibyastrongman Khalifa Haftar at the summit is seen as crucial A Macedonian court on Monday issued an arrest warrant for the country's former prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, after he failed to turn himself in following a corruption conviction. The warrant, announced by the interior ministry, came after a court in Skopje upheld a two-year sentence against him for abuse of power on October 5. Authorities will issue an international arrest warrant if they fail to locate Gruevski by Tuesday, an interior ministry spokesman said. "For now there is no international arrest warrant. If we can't find him in the country within the next 24 hours, we will seek him internationally," Toni Angelovsvkisaid. Gruevski, 48, was convicted in May of using a 600,000-euro ($675,000) Mercedes for personal travel even though it had been bought with state funds. Following the October appeal conviction, the court issued the warrant after a two-week deadline expired for the deputy to give himself up. Gruevski has now exhausted all avenues of appeal. The former leader of the right-wing VMRO-DPMNE dominated the political landscape of the Balkan country for nearly a decade, until 2016. He resigned after a scandal emerged over tapes that appeared to show widespread wire-tapping by his administration. He now faces a number of graft cases, with the Mercedes charge the first to go to trial. Gruevski has denounced this first conviction as politically motivated. In the spring of 2017, the party he once led was voted out of power, beaten by a coalition led by Social Democrat Zoran Zaev, who won the backing of parties representing the country's ethnic Albanian minority. While in power, Gruevski took a hardline stance in a long-running name row with Greece, which has its own province called Macedonia. But the Macedonian parliament last month voted to start the process of renaming the country North Macedonia. That brings Skopje to breaking the deadlock with neighbour Greece, which has blocked Skopje's entry into NATO and EU over the issue for nearly 30 years. Former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has denounced the conviction against him as politically motivated Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine narrowly survived a vote of no confidence Monday, seeing off a challenge she alleges was orchestrated by Chinese-backed business interests intent on undermining the Pacific nation's sovereignty. The vote to topple Heine, the first and only elected female leader of a Pacific island nation, split parliament 16-16, one short of the 17 her opponents required. In front of a packed public gallery, Heine and her allies spent 45 minutes defending the government's record, including claims from the opposition it had sullied the country's international reputation and eroded voting rights. Once the vote was confirmed, Speaker Kenneth Kedi -- who had backed the no-confidence move -- congratulated Heine and declared parliament was in recess. Heine said in the days leading up to the vote that the opposition's stated reasons for trying to unseat her were a "smokescreen" to cover their real motives. She said the no-confidence motion was actually prompted by her government's refusal to back plans for an independently administered tax haven on an atoll within the Marshalls. The proposed Rongelap Atoll Special Administrative Region (RASAR) is the brainchild of Cary Yan, a Chinese businessman and Marshall Islands citizen who launched the concept in Hong Kong earlier this year. The idea is that the territory would be self governing and completely tax free, making it an attractive option for hi-tech firms. Heine's government has rejected the proposal over concerns it could be vulnerable to money laundering and passport-for-sale scams. She suggested last week that the RASAR could be a Trojan horse for China to take over part of her country. The no-confidence vote was "an effort by certain foreign interests to take control of one of our atolls and turn it into a country within our own country," she told Radio New Zealand. Beijing has used billions of dollars in investment to court influence with tiny island nations across the Pacific Ocean, a region considered strategically important as a maritime gateway to Asia. Heine said she was determined to protect her country's sovereignty. "We have to be cautious knowing what the geo-political situation is in the Pacific region," she said. "I think it's important for the government to do its own due diligence and ensure that the sovereignty of the country is secure." Hilda Heine alleges her opponents tried to oust her from the Marshall Islands presidency because she refused to support a tax haven mooted by China-backed business interests Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday that her role as the most powerful woman in Germany should not let society off the hook for the small proportion of women in politics. Much has been achieved over past decades in the road to gender equality, Merkel said, pointing out that a woman is no longer laughed at if she wants to be a minister or a chancellor. But "a swallow does not a summer make," she said in a speech marking a century since women won the right to vote in Germany. "The fact that I exist should not be an excuse." Women make up just under 31 percent of the Bundestag or German parliament, down from over 36 percent previously. "That's the proportion of women that Sudan has in its parliament," said Merkel. "I think that the proportion of women in our parliaments is a basic issue of our democracy." Beyond politics, women are also few and far between in the highest echelons of the country's businesses. While 90 percent of the biggest listed companies in the United States have two women on their boards, in Germany only 17 percent meet this criteria. "I hope that it will become a matter of course for men and women to share work, child-raising and housework equally and that no one will be forced into a role or a specific task because of his or her gender," said Merkel. "And I hope that we won't have to wait a hundred years to achieve that." Chancellor Angela Merkel was giving a speech to mark a century since women won the right to vote in Germany The mother of a baby who died after swallowing a battery has given emotional evidence at an inquest into her daughters death. Isabella Rees was found in her cot, covered in blood, after being sent home from Melbournes Sunshine Hospital three times in 2015. The coroner is now seeing what can be done to prevent other families suffering a similar tragedy. The young girl was just 14 months old when she died after swallowing a button battery that lodged in her esophagus. Isabella Rees died aged 14 months after swallowing a button battery in 2015. Source: 7News In January 2015, her parents took her to Sunshine Hospital when she appeared to have trouble breathing. Over the next three days the baby girl vomited and had a fever. During a second hospital visit, her mother Allison found part of a water balloon in her nappy. A button battery had become lodged in Bellas esophagus. Source: File/Getty I was very concerned and focused about what she had swallowed but they told me it was passing through her and there was nothing to worry about, she revealed in court. The court heard the hospital believed there were inconsistencies in Ms Rees account something she disputes. Every time we went we were just disregarded and turned away. They never believed us, they just werent listening, she said. Bellas mother, Allison, gave evidence in court on Monday. Source: 7News On February 4, Bellas mother woke at 5am to find her little girl in her cot soaked in blood. They rushed her to hospital, but she died on the operating table. I was saying come on Bell, stay with us, come on angel, dont leave us yet, Ms Rees said. We stood with her for 10 minutes and held her hands and then they called time of death. The court heard that two months after Bellas death, Ms Rees had an anxiety attack when she saw button batteries displayed at the shops. It was what prompted her to start a campaign called Bellas Footprints which educates parents on the dangers of button batteries. The inquest will run for another four days with 16 more witnesses to be called upon. The head of Nigeria's main anti-corruption agency on Monday said he wanted former oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke to be extradited to face trial because a corruption probe against her in Britain was taking too long. Alison-Madueke, who served under president Goodluck Jonathan and was the first female head of OPEC, was arrested in London in October 2015 as part of a probe into global corruption. She has been on bail ever since, and been linked to a string of money laundering, bribery and asset recovery cases in Nigeria, Italy and the United States. The claims are that billions of dollars were siphoned from oil deals and state accounts, including to pay for properties in exclusive areas of Lagos and London. The former minister, 57, denies the charges. Nigeria's government has previously appeared happy to have Alison-Madueke potentially face trial in Britain. A judge in Lagos in November last year even accused her of seeking to "avoid justice" after her lawyers applied to have her name attached to a fraud case. Nigerian court cases frequently last years and there is criticism about corruption in the judiciary. But the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, said the British probe began even before he was appointed and she had still not been charged. "It is very unreasonable that she is not being tried there," he told a news conference in the capital, Abuja. "That's why I say, if you cannot prosecute her, bring her here. We will prosecute her... We cannot wait endlessly like this. I think three years and above is sufficient to take her to court." He added: "There's no prosecution, nobody is prosecuting her there. That's why I said let us initiate (an) extradition process." There was no immediate response from the interior ministry in London, the National Crime Agency or the British mission in Abuja. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was elected in 2015 on a promise to root out endemic corruption and end impunity in Africa's most populous nation. That included reforming the notoriously opaque Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which Alison-Madueke oversaw. But three years on, and as he seeks re-election at polls in February next year, he has yet to secure a big-name conviction, after claims he has targeted political opponents. Nigerian former oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke -- seen here at an OPEC meeting in 2014 -- is being probed in Britain for alleged corruption New York's Long Island City, where Amazon is tipped to set up a new home, is a neighborhood in flux -- a construction site of warehouses and skyscrapers where some fear the online retail giant will only make everything worse. While nothing has been announced officially, The New York Times has reported that Amazon, which is outgrowing its headquarters in Seattle, has finally found the answer to its year-long search for a second base. The plan appears to be to split the difference on the East Coast with two new sites -- one in Virginia just outside Washington and the other in Long Island City, the westernmost part of Queens just across the East River from Manhattan. For those who don't venture across the water, Long Island City is synonymous with the giant neon red "Pepsi-Cola" sign visible from Manhattan, a relic from the beverage company's factory that shut down in 1999. It's a hallmark of what Long Island City was for most of the 20th century -- an industrial zone close to the river and the rail network. But de-industrialization has forced the neighborhood to reinvent itself since the dawn of the 21st century. In the last 10 years, dozens of new towers have sprung up, injecting a new, more affluent breed of resident into the area along with companies such as Ralph Lauren and Uber, seduced by the proximity to Manhattan and New York's airports. The bank of the East River has been transformed into a landscaped park, invaded by designer strollers and joggers. "They have built, built, built," says Pascal Escriout, who owns French bistro Tournesol in Long Island City. "Amazon coming or not doesn't make a difference. If it's not them, it'll be someone else." - 'Priced out' - "The place changed so much in the last 10 years, it's just going to be some part of the neighborhood," says Mike Barratt, a store manager at Spokesman Cycles in southwest Long Island City. The exact "campus" space that Amazon could inhabit has not yet been made revealed, but there are plenty of options in a neighborhood where uber-modern skyscrapers rub shoulders with disused factory chimneys. Some compare Long Island City to Williamsburg, perhaps the most chic Brooklyn neighborhood -- and certainly the most fashionable and most striking example of gentrification over the last 20 years. There is an uneasy balance between young families who move in and buy at elevated prices -- albeit still lower than in Manhattan -- and long-term residents of the neighborhood. "A lot of people don't own but they've been living here renting for 15, 20 years, and they're getting priced out," said Barratt. "They're upset." Long Island City has turned into a commuter town, complains Escriout. "People stay home. And when they go out, they go to Manhattan." Dozens of luxury high-rise buildings, eminently suitable for senior Amazon executives, had been in the planning well before the company came on the scene, says Jonathan Miller, CEO of the real-estate firm Miller Samuel. Amazon's arrival could end up "essentially bailing out developers that went ahead despite the excess supply... most of the product that's being built is skewed to luxury rental projects," he said. - 'Congested transit' - Many also worry about the impact 25,000 new employees will have on the already crisis-ridden public transport system. "This isn't a done deal," said Jimmy Van Bramer, Long Island City's elected representative on the New York City Council. "Before anything is confirmed with Amazon, we've got to make sure that we could handle this and that sustainable infrastructure would be put in place to prevent our communities from being overwhelmed. "We cannot allow longtime residents to be driven out by rising rents and congested transit," he added. He complained about a lack of transparency, with New York's newly re-elected Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo talking about all the benefits without actually spelling out what they might be. "I will do whatever I need to do to make it a reality," Cuomo said last Monday, promising Amazon would be "a great economic boost" for the state. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who traditionally has a terse relationship with the governor, is also on board. "There will be hassles, there will be challenges, but I think we can accommodate them," he said on Wednesday. "We will have to invest in infrastructure. I think it will be worth it." A view of Long Island City in the Queens borough of New York -- it could be the new home of a satellite headquarters for Amazon A view of the waterfront of Long Island City -- which is just across the East River from Manhattan The exact "campus" space that Amazon could inhabit in Long Island City has not yet been made revealed, but there are plenty of options in a neighborhood where uber-modern skyscrapers rub shoulders with disused factory chimneys Many in Long Island City are worried about how an influx of thousands of Amazon employees could affect public transportation Former France international Franck Ribery allegedly slapped French television pundit Patrick Guillou after Bayern Munich's 3-2 defeat to Borussia Dortmund, Bild newspaper reported on Sunday. Saturday's loss at the Signal Iduna Park left the German champions struggling in fifth place in the table, seven points behind unbeaten Dortmund who sit at the top of the Bundesliga. Bild quoted witnesses saying the row took place between Ribery and Guillou, who works for the BeIN Sport channel, on Bayern's team bus following the match. The accounts say 35-year-old Ribery hit Guillou three times in the face before pushing him in his chest. The paper said Bayern's sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic confirmed the incident. "Franck Ribery informed us of an altercation with his countryman Patrick Guillou, whom he has known for many years. We have agreed to meet in person to discuss how to put this affair to bed," he said. The tabloid said Ribery, who is yet to score in 15 games this season, was angered by Guillou's negative comments during the match. Ribery's wife Wahiba had sent the winger a message on Instagram saying Guillou was "very tiring and useless". Franck Ribery allegedly slapped television pundit Patrick Guillou following Bayern Munich's 3-2 defeat to Borussia Dortmund on Saturday. A 20-year-old surfer has revealed how he fought off a shark in Western Australia and is now recovering in hospital. Noah Symmans, 20, had been surfing at Pyramids Beach, near Mandurah south of Perth, at about 8.30am on Sunday when he felt something grab his leg. He spoke of his fight with the shark, which he compared to champion surfer Mick Fannings stoush with a shark at a 2015 contest at Jeffreys Bay, South Africa. When I punched it, I kind of went into that mode, I guess. Not like he did, but with my foot. Booted it, he told the ABC from the Royal Perth Hospital where he is recovering. It kind of just released, cos I kind of felt it trying to drag me down. Honestly, it probably only had me for a couple of seconds, you know I dont know if it didnt like the taste of me or whatever. Noah Symmans fought off a shark in Western Australia. Source: Facebok/Noah Symmans Mr Symmans managed to drag himself onto a rock and quickly alerted patrol teams of his injuries. He suffered four deep puncture wounds to his foot and ankle when the sharks teeth ripped through his flippers. His injuries are not life-threatening, but it is likely he will need surgery. Its the latest shark incident in Australia, following the fatal mauling of a young Victorian doctor in Queenslands Whitsunday Islands last week. That was the third serious shark attack in Cid Harbour in two months after Tasmanian woman Justine Barwick and Melbourne girl Hannah Papps were bitten in separate attacks in September. My Symmans was bitten on the leg by a shark at Dawesville on Sunday morning. Source: 7News (left)/Google Maps (right) -With AAP A heartbroken dad has expressed the grief of losing his young daughter to cancer six years after his pregnant wife unexpectedly died, with their baby not surviving more than a few hours. Ten-year-old Lucy Moroney, who had been diagnosed with a rare and untreatable brain tumour in July last year, had been undergoing experimental treatment in Mexico to beat the cancer. Joe Moroney has expressed his mounting grief of losing his young daughter to cancer six years after his pregnant wife unexpectedly died and their baby not surviving more than a few hours. Source: Lucys Pineapple Fund / Facebook The devastating diagnosis came five years after the little girls mother Nicola, 33, suffered a fatal heart attack due to an undiagnosed heart condition. She was 24-weeks pregnant with her third daughter Ruby, who entered the world via emergency cesarean but died 14 hours later. Lucy had been showing signs of progress, but her condition took a turn for the worst and she could no longer swallow fluids and lost the ability to walk unaided. She sadly lost her fight on Friday evening. Her distraught father Joe shared the tragic news on the Facebook page he set up to raise funds for her treatment. Ten-year-old Lucy Moroney had been diagnosed with a rare and untreatable brain tumour in July last year had been undergoing experimental treatment in Mexico to beat the cancer. Source: Lucys Pineapple Fund / Facebook Lucy, when you were born almost 11 years ago Mummy and I (mainly Mummy) chose your name, knowing the meaning of it was light. Your light burnt very brightly, my darling, the father from Heswall, Merseyside in the UK, wrote on Saturday. Having witnessed Mummy and your sister Ruby take their last breaths six years ago, it was traumatic and heart-breaking once again to witness you do the same, even with nearly 16 months advanced warning. But as painful as it was to experience, I wouldnt have chosen to be anywhere else my gorgeous baby. You were a dream daughter, absolute perfection. You were as good as gold, so caring, beautiful and with the most pure heart. You must have got that from your Mummy. Lucy with her mother Nicola (left) who suffered a fatal heart attack six years ago while pregnant. Source:Lucys Pineapple Fund / Facebook The devastating loss was the third for the father who had already watched his wife die suddenly, and held his newborn as she took her last breath six years ago. Before Lucys death, Mr Moroney described Lucys condition, DIPG Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, as the worst type of tumour a child can get. Story continues Lucy Moroney had lost her ability to walk unaided but sister Amy, 8, helped kepe her smiling. Source: Lucys Pineapple Fund / Facebook It will slowly take over her brain and even though she will be completely aware and conscious, her body will be giving up, he wrote. Knowing you could lose a child in that way is the maximum pain you could ever imagine. He also described the heartache of telling his younger daughter Amy, 8, her big sister was not going to get better. Dad tells daughter her best friend wont survive cancer Tonight, I had the unenviable task of telling my 8-year-old daughter Amy, that her 10-year-old sister Lucy her best friend in the whole world wont survive her cancer, he wrote on Facebook four weeks ago. Ive already had to tell Amy in the past that her mummy had died, along with her new baby sister Ruby. She was only 23 months old back then and took the news well she innocently started to play with her toys. She clearly didnt understand the impact. But tonight, she has cried herself to sleep. Mr Moroney has since shared a message of thanks for the many kind tributes, messages and support. It means so much to know how Lucys light touched so many family, friends and strangers, he added. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will visit Saudi Arabia on Monday where he will press King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. During a trip to the region that includes a visit to the United Arab Emirates, Hunt will also seek to build support for UN efforts to end the conflict in Yemen, the Foreign Office said. His visit comes amid an international diplomatic crisis over the murder of Saudi journalist Khashoggi, a US resident, at his country's consulate in Istanbul in October. "The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago," said Hunt, who will also meet Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. "It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear. "We encourage the Saudi authorities to co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death, so that we deliver justice for his family and the watching world." Hunt's visit comes after British undersecretary for foreign affairs Simon McDonald held talks with Saudi Arabia's crown prince and foreign minister in Riyadh. During his brief visit to the Gulf, Hunt will also meet Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Yemeni Vice President Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani. Britain is seeking support among regional partners for new action at the UN Security Council for peace talks in Yemen. "The human cost of war in Yemen is incalculable: with millions displaced, famine and disease rife and years of bloodshed, the only solution is now a political decision to set aside arms and pursue peace," Hunt said. "Britain has a unique position, both as pen-holder at the UN Security Council and as a key influencer in the region, so today I am travelling to the Gulf to demand that all sides commit to this process. "We are witnessing a manmade humanitarian catastrophe on our watch: now is the window to make a difference, and to get behind both the UN peace process and current UK efforts in the Security Council." The Foreign Office also said Hunt would raise the case of Matthew Hedges, a PhD student who denies charges of spying in the UAE. Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt's visit to Saudi Arabia comes amid an international diplomatic crisis over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi Negotiating spatial relationships is one of the fundamental parts of existence. How we must move around the world has a direct influence on our thoughts, actions and reactions to the world, and our reality is largely defined by the spaces we inhabit and how we interact with them. Were probably all familiar with the concept that a persons physical environment can influence the way they feel. We might not always be aware of the extent to which architects and planners factor in human psychology during the design of their buildings and streetscapes. Although we now have a lexicon of jargon to describe how the facades and interiors of buildings affect us, the concept of building structures to influence or accentuate human behavior is about as old as building itself. The ancient Greeks were not a stranger to the impact of the built environment on the functioning of the human soul, and the ancient agora at Athens was constructed during the fifth century B.C. in accordance with this ideal. The architects and officials responsible for the development of the agora are lost to us, but we know enough about the classical love of balance and symmetry to make educated assumptions about their intent. The Hepaisteion was built on top of the western ridge of the agora, and was complemented by the Stoa of Zeus to its south. Together, these buildings established a functional balance. That balance was imposed upon the citizens of the city as they moved through space. Taken together and individually, they established an ideal space for the proper conduct of local affairs. The agora and its constituent structures were established as a well-balanced and functioning node of a network of spiritual and religious sites along the Panathenaic Way. As the Classical gave way to the Hellenistic and later Imperial Roman periods more structures were added; they cluttered the space and disrupted the lines of site and movement. Jumping ahead to 1585, Pope Sixtus V began a vast and deep-reaching reorganization of what was then a chaotic and disordered Rome. The city had been layered by successive building projects of Roman emperors, Gothic kings and early popes. Pilgrims had to travel over open ground or navigate the crowded squalor of 14th-century urban Rome to reach holy sites like Santa Maria Maggiore or St. Peters Square. Sixtus felt that it was not a fitting capital for Christendom, so he embarked upon what one might argue is the first urban renewal campaign in the western world, lasting long after his death. His plan cleared out the slums, widened and straightened the roadways, and created direct pathways connecting cultural sites and churches across the city, as most urban renewal campaigns do. He wanted to create a city to which Christians from all around the world could travel and have religious experiences. They would pass easily from one holy site to the next, all the while feeling secure enough to spend their money in the local shops and, of course, donate some to the church. In some ways, Sixtus can be considered the grandfather of historic preservation, in the way he rehabilitated and highlighted important cultural structures, including the relocation of the Egyptian obelisk to the center of St. Peters Square. Unfortunately, he also disrupted and uprooted the lives of thousands of poor urban Romans, whose story we will never know. This same effort to influence the behavior and emotions of people has played out locally, too. Our historic buildings were often designed with the understanding of human spatial thinking but without the psychological language to explain it. Nevertheless, it was totally ingrained and automatic to a talented architect and builder. After the American Revolution, Americans embraced a type of architecture that has come to be known as Greek Revival. We are lucky in rural New York, in that almost no other place in America has such a large collection of vernacular examples of this style. Do yourself a favor and take a drive down between the Finger Lakes this week, and youll find numerous examples of a type particular to central New York. Greek Revival was both new in execution but also recalled the rationality and power of the Classical world. It simultaneously projected the ideals to which early Americans aspired and at the same time instructed and reinforced our shared values. Beyond the many economic and environmental reasons to preserve historic structures, it is an ethical choice. The curation of the built environment also impacts the way we see the world and ourselves. Andrew Roblee, of Auburn, is an historic preservation planner and serves on the board of the Preservation Association of Central New York. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Students in Auburn's Herman Avenue and Owasco elementary schools were able to get COVID-19 vaccines on Tuesday as Cayuga County started the fi The communities said to be favored to become homes to a pair of big, new East Coast bases for Amazon are both riverfront stretches of major metropolitan areas with ample transportation and space for workers. Election Day has come and gone and now that campaign season is behind us, it is time to move forward and begin planning for the coming legislative year. While on the campaign trail, I emphasized my record of achievement, my strong partnerships with the people throughout the region, and my ideas for future growth. I engaged in valuable discussions with business owners, local elected officials, and individuals young and old those conversations will truly help me be a strong representative of our shared values and concerns. Too many people are leaving our state and we need to turn that trend around by creating new opportunities for growth and success while making New York more affordable. My focus will be on the concerns I hear every day - property tax relief, economic development, aid for our neediest schools, resources for our local roads and bridges, broadband access, quality healthcare, and the crushing heroin epidemic. There have been wins, but there is work ahead and I am energized and prepared to roll up my sleeves and continue working for the people of the 51st senate district. A great deal of talk has also surrounded the issue of ethics reform. High-ranking officials within the governors administration have been paraded through the criminal courts, and top ranking elected officials have been convicted in recent years of looking out for themselves instead of the people they are sworn to serve. I am committed to ensuring state government is open, transparent, and accountable. I have passed many of the current state laws regarding ethics and financial disclosure. Moving forward, additional steps are needed, including: Term limits for legislative leaders & committee chairs; Creating an independent ethics panel to replace the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE); Prohibiting conflicts of interest in state appropriations; Greater independent oversight and review of New Yorks economic development programs and discretionary spending. This year, the senate passed the New York State Procurement Integrity Act (S.3984), which would improve transparency regarding the government procurement process. Historically, the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) performed this essential oversight function, but in recent years, OSC's ability to do so has been eroded. This legislation would restore this key control. I also favor a fully searchable database that will allow the public to see exactly how economic development dollars are being used. Again, the senate has passed legislation (S.6613) to create a searchable state subsidy and economic development benefits database so the public can monitor the use of taxpayer money. The senate also approved a bill (S.5985) to bolster reporting requirements for START-UP NY by requiring the preparation of an annual report that would include, but is not limited to, the number of business applicants, number of businesses approved, benefits distributed and received, and the number of net new jobs created per business - including cumulative data that reflects the amount previously recorded and adjusted for net new jobs that have been lost. We also need an independent budget office to provide objective, non-partisan analyses of state revenues, expenditures, and management practices for any legislation with a fiscal impact. Accurate, up-to-date information is a key ingredient for prudent, timely budgetary and policy decisions. At least 23 other states including California, Texas, Florida, Connecticut and Vermont have already established non-partisan budget offices to assist their legislatures. Senate bill 2325 would accomplish this goal. I take very seriously the issue of public trust, and when it comes to the use of YOUR tax dollars, you should know how every penny is being spent. Each of these reform measures were passed by a Republican led state senate but have failed to receive the backing of the Democrat assembly and governor. Moving forward, I will continue to push for these reforms to ensure taxpayer dollars are invested in effective programs and state government is transparent and open. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 NESN analyst Jerry Remy has been battling lung cancer off-and-on since 2008. Hes had to miss games in 08, again in 2013 when his cancer returned, in 2017 (twice) and it recurred this season. But it appears that Remy has beaten the disease. Over the weekend, Remy tweeted that hes cancer free and he hopes its for good: Friday was a very good day for me. Had my first scan since going through treatments. Highly successful. Cancer free for now and hopefully forever. So pleased !!!! Jerry Remy (RemDawg) (@Jerry_Remy) November 10, 2018 Remy had to leave NESN back in August to undergo treatment. He made sporadic appearances afterwards and was last seen in public during the Red Sox World Series victory parade in Boston on Halloween. The former Red Sox and Angels second baseman has been a fixture in the NESN booth dating back to 1988 having called over 3,900 games. Hes become a popular personality throughout the New England region. His partners have included Sean McDonough, Don Orsillo and now Dave OBrien. In September, Remy said he would not retire from NESN, but acknowledged that he would have to cut back on his schedule due to his cancer. In 2017, Remy signed a multi-year contract that called for him to work 115 games per season. Its not clear if he would try to work close to that amount in 2019 or work fewer games. But that is something Remy and NESN will work out before Spring Training in February of 2019. In the meantime, the man known as Rem Dawg has reason to celebrate going into the holiday season knowing that hes officially free from cancer. [Associated Press] Frozen food distributor Central Foods has extended its free-from range with the launch of a new vegan pancake. Central Foods said the launch was in response to the increase in demand for plant-based and vegan products and the growing appetite among consumers for eating out at breakfast and brunch. Supplied frozen, once defrosted the pancakes have a shelf-life of two days. Central Foods has experienced significant increases in sales of American pancakes in recent years. We have also seen a large percentage rise in the demand for vegan and plant-based products, said Gordon Lauder, managing director at Central Foods. Now we can offer vegan American pancakes from Crepe Cuisine, which will satisfy both demands. The launch follows a plethora of vegan bakery releases this year, many of which are outlined in British Bakers round-up for World Vegan Day. In the aftermath of this week's midterm elections, in which Democrats gained 34 House seats and lost an additional three Senate seats, an odd emotional disconnect took place. Democrats, who had just won control of the House, seemed disappointed in their victory; they had expected a sweeping tsunami to carry them from Arizona across Texas and through Florida. They seemed borderline despondent that their extraordinarily dislike for President Trump hadn't translated into historic gains. Meanwhile, Republicans, who had just surrendered the speakership to Nancy Pelosi, were somewhat giddy; they immediately paid homage to President Trump for his stunning work in preventing Democrats from marking up big wins in Florida and Ohio.All of this seems somewhat misguided.The disparate reactions of the two political parties are predicated on a foundational myth about modern American politics: the myth of Barack Obama. According to the Obama Myth, once upon a time, America was divided between red and blue on the basis of right-left politics. Then, along came President Obama, who won two sweeping electoral victories, forging a coalition of intersectional identity groups in emergent demographic groups and utterly reshaping the electoral map in a permanent way.For Democrats, the Obama Myth leads them to see President Trump's 2016 as an electoral aberration - a momentary spasm of the American public, soon to be corrected. Any indicator that 2016 was more of a trend than an outlier cuts against the Obama Myth.For Republicans, the Obama Myth leads them to believe in the Trump Myth. The Trump Myth suggests that once upon a time, there was a land dominated by an intersectional coalition set to rule in perpetuity. Then along came Donald Trump, who broke apart the blue wall and set in its place a new movement, populist and deep. This myth portrays President Trump as an electoral magician, a man defying gravity and leading Republicans into uncharted new lands of victory. Its adherents become willing to attribute every victory to Trump and every loss to lack of Trump - a theory Trump actively promotes by slamming Republican politicians who fail to embrace him sufficiently.But here's the thing: The Obama Myth is a myth, and so is the Trump Myth. The reality is that the electoral aberration was not Trump but Obama. Trump isn't a magician; he's a regression to the electoral mean. Here are the percentages of the vote won by Republican presidential candidates in 2000, 2004, and 2016 in Ohio: 50.0, 50.8, 51.3. Here are those numbers for Florida: 48.9, 52.1, 48.6. For Wisconsin: 47.6, 49.3, 47.2. For Pennsylvania: 46.4, 48.5, 48.2. For Michigan: 46.1, 47.8, 47.3.Trump didn't significantly overperform in any of these states. He did what Republicans, absent Obama, did in 2004 and 2000.What, then, was 2016? 2016 was an odd combination of a regression to the Republican mean and Hillary Clinton's incredible incompetence, as well as low Democratic turnout thanks to their belief that she would surely win. That's why we shouldn't be surprised by last night's results. Republicans performed as they've always performed outside of Obama. Democrats performed as they've always performed outside Obama.So, what lesson should Republicans learn? That political gravity applies to President Trump - and that they've got to reach out to the suburban voters they lost in the midterms. What lesson should Democrats learn? The Republican Party remains competitive in swing states, and running to the hard progressive left while shouting about Trump won't cut it.Will either party learn those lessons? Probably not. So buckle up. It's going to be a wild two years. Hacking Team (previously) was an Italian company that developed cyberweapons that it sold to oppressive government around the world, to be used against their own citizens to monitor and suppress political oppositions; in 2015, a hacker calling themselves "Phineas Fisher" hacked and dumped hundreds of gigabytes' worth of internal Hacking Team data, effectively killing the company. Three years later, the Italian prosecutors who have been chasing Phineas Fisher have given up on unmasking them. On Motherboard, Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai combines the contents of sealed court documents with interview with "Fisher" to reveal the tradecraft that kept Fisher safe from legal retaliation; the stupid mistakes that left Hacking Team vulnerable; and the sleazy tactics the company's CEO used to torment his former employees in the name of tracking down Fisher. Fisher's ability to evade unmasking is largely attributable to their extreme caution and diligence: using tools like Tor to remain anonymous, and using stolen, hacked Bitcoin to buy the services and tools that Fisher used to penetrate Hacking Team's defenses. The attack was only possible because David Vincenzetti, Hacking Team's founder and CEO, refused to upgrade his VPN software, forcing the IT workers at Hacking Team to keep older, legacy services running. One of the systems administrators who might have caught Fisher during their raids on Hacking Team's data was reportedly distracted by a weeks-long World of Warcraft binge, allowing Fisher to operate with impunity. Meanwhile, the court documents reveal that Vincenzetti has pursued vendettas against former employees whom he falsely believed to be implicated in the hack, going so far as to frame them with false evidence. However, Vincenzetti was ultimately unsuccessful in his attempts to frame these workers. According to the court documents, Pelliccione not only had nothing to do with the hack, but Hacking Team actively tried to frame himand got caught. Vincenzetti told investigators that the company detected two attempts to attack Hacking Team coming from IP addresses in Malta, where Reaqta used to be based. In fact, the judge concluded, it was the other way around: someone inside Hacking Team connected to Reaqta's network the day after the attack, in a clearalbeit clumsyattempt to leave breadcrumbs pointing to Pelliccione. (The other alleged attack was months before the hack on the company, on May 13, 2015, when Hacking Team had already engaged private investigators to figure out whether Pelliccione and another former employee had stolen company secrets.) The judge found that Pelliccione and fellow former employees Guido Landi, Mustapha Maanna, Serge Woon, and Alex Velasco are innocent. But also found that Phineas Fisher's motives were "certainly political and ideological." When I asked the hacker what they thought about the ruling, they said that they always wanted to expose what they believe were the company's shady dealings. "Maybe now the prosecutors will have time to investigate the various crimes committed by Hacking Team," Phineas Fisher told me recently, referring to the sale of Hacking Team spyware in Sudan, the company questionable hacking methods, and the sale to Mexican authorities who then used it to target dissidents. "But I don't have any illusions that prosecutors will look into any of that." Hacking Team Hacker Phineas Fisher Has Gotten Away With It [Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai/Motherboard] America's commitment to market-based broadband fueled by telcom millions pumped into campaigns against public broadband provision has left rural Americans without access to the broadband they need to fully participate in twenty-first century life, with students among the hardest-hit victims of broadband deprivation. The FCC can fix this. Across the country, "whitespace" spectrum (used to buffer licensed broadcasters from overlapping signals in adjacent territories) was historically allocated for rural educational TV broadcasts. When these didn't materialize, the spectrum was reclassified for wireless internet and the FCC started parceling it off to telcos, taking it away from the schools that could use it to connect their kids to the internet. Many of these schools are on publicly operated, state-funded fiber loops, and could erect their own towers that students could use to connect to the internet over high-speed fixed wireless links, but only if the FCC gives the educational sector access to that educationally earmarked spectrum. A recent FCC proceeding was flooded both by comments from educator technologists describing the educational costs of the homework gap and promising to remediate this gap by rolling out fixed wireless; and comments from telcoms lobbyists, representing the companies that have so significantly failed rural America, promising that if they get the school spectrum allocated to them, they'll do better this time. With Trump's FCC in the hands of dingo babysitters like Ajit Pai, who want to end all public provision of network service and hand everything over to big telco, things look grim for rural American kids. In the meantime, some teachers at Panguitch High School are moving more of their classroom work online. "Given the expectations we now have for student access, it's difficult for those students who don't have good internet at home," said the school's principal, Russell Torgersen. He's seen the students sitting in the school parking lot to tap the Wi-Fi on weekends, and he's had many conversations with teachers about how to work around students' spotty home connections. For now, it's a waiting game, as the FCC plods toward a decision on the fate of the EBS spectrum. Given the uncertainty, Eyre and his allies are looking at alternative paths to spectrum licenses, such as the lengthy and complex FCC waiver process successfully used to create a rural educational broadband network in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Even if the FCC ultimately decides to give new EBS spectrum licenses to rural school districts like Garfield County, it's hard to say how much of the homework gap could then be eliminated. Current estimates of rural broadband don't take into account the boundaries of EBS whitespace, nor the fact that a home broadband connection can be inadequate for a school network's needs, according to digital-inclusion advocates such as Susan Bearden, chief innovation officer for the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), a professional association for school technology leaders. Rural Kids Face an Internet 'Homework Gap.' The FCC Could Help [Chris Berdik/Wired] About 90% of elephants living in Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park were slaughtered for their tusks by poachers during Mozambique's 15-year civil war that ended in 1992. The poachers then profited by selling the tusks to finance weapons. As a result, we're now seeing a growing population of elephants in the country born without tusks. Tuskless females, for instance, have jumped from 2%-4% of the population to around 33%. According to National Geographic: Hunting gave elephants that didn't grow tusks a biological advantage in Gorongosa. Recent figures suggest that about a third of younger femalesthe generation born after the war ended in 1992never developed tusks. Normally, tusklessness would occur only in about 2 to 4 percent of female African elephants. Decades ago, some 4,000 elephants lived in Gorongosa, says Joyce Poolean elephant behavior expert and National Geographic Explorer who studies the park's pachyderms. But those numbers dwindled to triple digits following the civil war. New, as yet unpublished, research she's compiled indicates that of the 200 known adult females, 51 percent of those that survived the waranimals 25 years or olderare tuskless. And 32 percent of the female elephants born since the war are tuskless. Sadly, this isn't the only population of elephants losing their numbers and their tusks to poachers. In South Africa, "fully 98 percent of the 174 females in Addo Elephant National Park were reportedly tuskless in the early 2000s." Used to defend themselves, as well as for digging, protecting their trunk, and helping them strip bark from trees in order to eat, tusks are enlarged incisor teeth that are essential to their daily well-being. Unfortunately, their tusks can't protect them from murdering poachers. Image by Steve Garvie from Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus maximus), CC BY-SA 2.0, Link "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." Douglas Rain, the actor who performed the voice of the computer Hal 9000 in Stanley Kubrick's film '2001: A Space Odyssey,' has died. He was 90 years old. "Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye." Douglas Rain, 13 March, 1928 11 November, 2018. #HAL9000 pic.twitter.com/p742YU7VdT Stanley Kubrick (@StanleyKubrick) November 12, 2018 A transcript of the '2001' voice recording session in the Stanley Kubrick archives at the University of the Arts, London shows that Kubrick didn't give much direction to Rain, just a few brief notes like this: "Sound a little more like it's a peculiar request." "A little more concerned." "Just try it closer and more depressed." From an archival New York Times article about the story that led to Rain being cast as the computer's voice in '2001' The "2001" historian David Larson said that "Kubrick came up with the final HAL voice very late in the process. It was determined during '2001' planning that in the future the large majority of computer command and communication inputs would be via voice, rather than via typewriter." But artificial intelligence was decades from a convincing facsimile of a human voice and who was to say how a computer should sound anyway? To play HAL, Kubrick settled on Martin Balsam, who had won the best supporting actor Oscar for "A Thousand Clowns." Perhaps there was a satisfying echo that appealed to Kubrick both were from the Bronx and sounded like it. In August 1966, Balsam told a journalist: "I'm not actually seen in the picture at any time, but I sure create a lot of excitement projecting my voice through that machine. And I'm getting an Academy Award winner price for doing it, too." Adam Balsam, the actor's son, told me that "Kubrick had him record it very realistically and humanly, complete with crying during the scene when HAL's memory is being removed." Then the director changed his mind. "We had some difficulty deciding exactly what HAL should sound like, and Marty just sounded a little bit too colloquially American," Kubrick said in the 1969 interview. Mr. Rain recalls Kubrick telling him, "I'm having trouble with what I've got in the can. Would you play the computer?" Kubrick had heard Mr. Rain's voice in the 1960 documentary "Universe," a film he watched at least 95 times, according to the actor. "I think he's perfect," Kubrick wrote to a colleague in a letter preserved in the director's archive. "The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic or actorish. Despite this, it is interesting." On Twitter, 'Baby Driver' director Edgar Wright remembered Rain as "One of the best performances in film, with just his voice." RIP Douglas Rain, the chillingly calm tones of HAL 9000 in '2001: A Space Odyssey'. One of the best performances in film, with just his voice. pic.twitter.com/79Jr8iOWK6 edgarwright (@edgarwright) November 12, 2018 My obituary of Douglas Rain, recalls how the great Canadian Shakespearean actor was picked by Stanley Kubrick to play the creepy spaceship computer HAL 9000, in the sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.https://t.co/SIhPhucvHY Tu Thanh Ha (@TuThanhHa) November 12, 2018 Today we lost Douglas Rain, a member of our founding company and a hugely esteemed presence on our stages for 32 seasons. He will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. pic.twitter.com/dxcffgGEiA Stratford Festival (@stratfest) November 12, 2018 Douglas Rain, a member of the Stratford Festival's founding company and the voice of HAL in '2001: A Space Odyssey,' has died at the age of 90. CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) November 11, 2018 A fond farewell to veteran thesp Douglas Rain, passed now at 90 and though celebrated for a lifetime of stunning stage work, best known to most of us as the chilling, dispassionate voice of 2001: A Space Odyssey's Hal 9000. pic.twitter.com/DV8p0d84MG Marshall Julius (@MarshallJulius) November 12, 2018 Stratford Festival pioneer Douglas Rain, who also voiced HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, dies at 90 https://t.co/eJS1f9hG6z via @torontostar Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) November 12, 2018 Police in Indonesian cities report that teens have been attempting to get high by boiling sanitary pads (used or new) and drinking the water. According to Adj. Sr. Comr. Suprinarto, head of the National Narcotics Agency's Central Java chapter, the chlorine in the pads is an intoxicant. Of course, ingesting chlorine is an absolutely terrible idea. "I don't know who started it all, but I knew it started around two years ago. There is no law against it so far. There is no law against these kids using a mixture of mosquito repellent and [cold syrup] to get drunk," Jimy (Ginting, an "an advocate for safe drinking," told The Jakarta Post. News / National by Staff reporter AN injiva who had just arrived from South Africa allegedly thumped his relative with a log and he died a few hours later following a row over R2 000 meant for lobola that allegedly went missing from his pockets, police confirmed yesterday.Mlindisi Sibanda (29) of Tshabanda area in Tsholotsho struck Mr Lungani Tshuma (23) several times all over his body over the missing money and he died later during the night.The incident occurred at around 3PM last Wednesday at Sibanda's homestead. Ward 19 councillor Pios Ncube said Sibanda, who is based in South Africa, had just arrived home when he committed the crime."On that day, the suspect contacted Tshuma to come to his home and assist him in painting his houses."Sibanda took out some money from his pocket and counted it in front of Tshuma. He then put it back into his work suit trouser's pocket and told Tshuma that he wanted to use it to pay lobola,'' he said.Cllr Ncube said later in the evening, Sibanda removed his trousers and placed it on top of a bed. He went to fetch some water at a nearby borehole which is about 30 metres away from the homestead leaving Tshuma behind."When he returned, he could not find the money. He asked Tshuma who claimed he had also gone out and had no idea what had happened to the cash."This angered Sibanda and he picked up a log and attacked Tshuma, hitting him all over the body and he sustained two deep cuts in the head. "The suspect was restrained by Mr Kenneth Ndlovu who rushed to the scene after hearing Tshuma's screams of help," Cllr Ncube said.Mr Ndlovu ordered Tshuma to go home but Sibanda refused to release him saying they would put up together at his homestead. On Thursday at around 7AM, Mr Ndlovu went to the suspect's house to check on Tshuma's condition. He knocked on the door and Sibanda opened it. Inside the house he found Tshuma lying lifelessly on the floor.Cllr Ncube said the suspect dashed out of the bedroom and ran to Nkunzi Business Centre where he got a phone that he used to call his uncle in Figtree."He told him what had happened and the uncle travelled to Tshabanda. He took the suspect to the police," he said.Matabeleland North police spokesperson Chief Inspector Siphiwe Makonese confirmed the incident. She said the suspect was arrested and was assisting police with investigations. "I can confirm we arrested a 29-year-old man from Tsholotsho who assaulted another man over missing money."The victim died later during the night and was discovered dead by their relative who had come to check on him after he had earlier on restrained them from fighting," said Chief Insp Makonese.The matter was reported to the police by the suspect's uncle, who also surrendered the suspect to the police. News / National by Staff reporter A high powered delegation of over 30 Chinese investors from Anhui Province is expected in the country tomorrow to explore the vast investment opportunities available in the various sectors of the economy.Although details of the delegation's itinerary could not be established by the time of going to print, The Sunday Mail Business understands that the investors are due to meet Industry and Commerce Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu tomorrow.An investment conference is also pencilled for Wednesday, where opportunities will be discussed.Contacted for comment last week, Minister Ndlovu confirmed that the businesspeople will be visiting the country."I don't have the finer details but I had gone to China. We just arrived now. A member of the Consulate, her name is Feng, was briefing me when we met in Dubai because in China I had other businesses," said Minister Ndlovu."She confirmed that they (Chinese investors) will be here and I should be meeting them on Monday, and on Wednesday, we will be having an investment conference."You may have to check with my Permanent Secretary (Dr Mavis Sibanda) for more details."However, Dr Sibanda could not be reached for comment by the time of going to print.Since the coming in of the new dispensation, there has been a flurry of investment enquiries, which peaked at US$15,8 billion in the first half of the year.The country's premier investment promotion body, Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA), indicated that it received 165 business applications between January and June this year.Work on some of the projects such as the US$4,2 billion platinum mining deal by Karo Resources have started, with yellow equipment already on site.Negotiations are underway to compensate the more than 200 families to be affected.Finance and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube recently told Parliament that the new Government is gradually restoring business confidence in the country."In the first half of 2018, the Zimbabwe Investment Authority received 165 applications worth US$15,8 billion over and above the investment enquiries with various line ministries and individual companies."Government is pursuing various investment enquiries with the objective of increasing the external investment of US$1,8 billion anticipated in 2018 to US$2 billion anticipated in 2019," said Prof Ncube.Zimbabwe is among the highest growing economies in Africa, with economic growth upgraded to 6,3 percent from the earlier projection of 4,5 percent.The agriculture, mining and construction sectors are expected to spur economic growth.The amendment of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, which now allows foreign investors to own their projects 100 percent except in the diamond and platinum sectors, has whetted the appetite of most investors.Investors can now wholly own value addition and beneficiation projects.Government is working on adjusting the diamond and platinum policies. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu The Chief superintendent for Harare Central District Albert Ncube said the army did not meet him to get orders before firing at the protestors. Ncube was giving evidence in front of the Commission of Inquiry led by South Africa's Kgalema Motlanthe."I did not have enough manpower as the majority of police officers were assisting the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. The instructions to the Police deployed was to disperse protestors, the police were not armed. The police and support unit managed to keep protestors at HICC under control, "said Chief Superintendent Ncube."I asked for assistance from the military and did not get a response but only heard gunshots. I should have met the army first and gave them directives, but this did not happen."Ncube however says the force used by the military was commensurate to the problem that was on the ground.The Commission hearings resumed in Harare on Monday with members from the army and the police being part of the witness that took the witness stand.1st witness: Simbarashe Chikandira (uncle of late Jealous Chikandira) bus driver. I was informed that my nephew was killed by soldiers. Autopsy was done but I was not given the report. I was just told by nurses he was shot in the CBD2nd Witness Police officer Julius Mashonganyika: I had an AK 47 with 30 rounds. I then saw intoxicated MDC protesters along R. Mugabe/4th street removing President Mnagagwa posters and assaulting people. They then threw stones at Zanu PF Provincial HQ. I was with 2 other constables. I fired warning shots to disperse the crowds but they regrouped.3rd Witness Police Constable Timothy Chikwena : I was on guard duty at ZANU PF provincial headquarters with witness 2 Julias Mashonganyika who fired 25 warning shots in the air to disperse protestors.4th Witness Dr Maxwell Hove Director pathology services in the Ministry of Health and Child Care: Initial examination of Sylvia Maphosa was mistaken to be from a bayonet rather than a projectile. Doctors were not part of a scheme to mislead family members on the cause of deaths as suggested.Witness 5 Dr Christopher Pasi Harare Central clinical Director: 11 patients came in with gunshot wounds including one Challenge Tauro. Another patient Enos Mutangadura came in on 2 August and alleged that he was assaulted with a riffle butt by soldiers in Glenview.Harare hospital did not provide Challenge Tauro with an ambulance when transferring him to Parirenyatwa hospital, because our ambulances are not equipped to handle critical patients.Recently a High court Judge ruled that President Emmerson Mnangagwa was not involved in the deploying of the soldiers. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Commander of the Presidential Guard, Brigadier General Anselem Sanyatwe says the MDC Alliance has a militant wing that probably consists of army deserters and they were in action during the August 1 post election violence.Anselem Sanyatwe, who is also in charge of a unit called the National Reaction Force comprising police, ZDF & CIO that was deployed on August 1 was testifying in front of the Kgalema Motlanthe led Commission of Inquiry."The behaviour of these rioters was an indication of what we have all along received that the opposition have to an extent a militant organisation. Knowing the nature of Zimbabweans there is civilian who can throw stones at a military van and to make matters worse, an armoured personnel carrier and those soldiers armed with AK assault rifles." He said."Therefore these militant groups according to the intelligence that we have, are basically members who could have deserted from the army and other institutions because they were advancing and braving even warning shots in the air shouting 'Bata musoja'. That behaviour is a characteristic of a trained member of the society and not public civilian behaviour."Earlier, Police Commissioner-General Godwin Matanga had testified that the the deployment of the Army was to make sure that demonstrators do not run over the Rainbow Towers which accommodated the Elections Command Centre, secondly the ZANU PF HQ which normally houses our ministers, the ZEC offices themselves where Justice Priscilla Chigumba was accommodated. Opinion / Columnist The ZRP Police Commissioner has told the International Inquiry into the ZNA murders of civilians that he asked the VP to deploy the Army because ZRP thought the demonstrators wanted to march to State House. This is not good enough an explanation. Chiwenga was and is merely a VP, not the President!!! The ZRP is the custodian of the Constitution and must know it by heart even when asleep!!!Below is a question that answers why Chiwenga is the one who was asked and agreed to deploy the ZNA in the streets.According to the law and regulations, if they exist, what is the protocol of deployment of the Army into the streets?Is it not the duty of the President to deploy the Army to stop disorder on the country when the police gets overwhelmed?Why did the ZRP go to Chiwenga instead of the President? Was Mnangagwa not in the country? Was Mnangagwa temporarily incapacitated with an unreported illness?Was Chiwenga and the ZRP shielding the president from blame should the exercise go horribly wrong as it did?Assuming ZRP approached Chiwenga because he was Defence Minister, does ZRP Commissioner and Defence Minister deploy ZNA on their own without consulting the president and the other VP?Was the ZNA Commander consulted? How about the ZDF commander? Who in the ZDF / ZNA was ordered by Chiwenga and ZRP Commissioner to get the Army into the streets?Did the ZRP contact the state president?At what time did the ZRP consult the Minister if Home Affairs? We dont hear anything about the Minister the ZRP Commissioner answers to? Does it mean that the then Minister was also incapacitated or is irrelevant in the eyes of the ZRP and Chiwenga?Where was the president when the Army hit the streets? At State House? In bed? Hospital? Hiding?Was the Army ordered to fire live bullets in the streets?Why did the ZDF not immediately withdraw the ZNA from the streets if it had been unconstitutionally deployed?Who was responsible of the exercise on the streets? Did the soldiers get orders from immediate leaders or from Chiwenga?At what point did President Mnangagwa know that the Army was in the streets? Was Mnangagwa indeed incapacitated to handle the unfolding crisis? Had there been an unconstitutional friendly arrangement between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga for Chiwenga to take over presidential leadership when Mnangagwa had taken medication due to being unwell and consequently Chiwenga overstepped his assumed role?How many soldiers actually killed civilians? Which ZNA battalion was deployed? Is there a specific battalion that has to deal with such issues?Who is the Commander of the battalion that was deployed? Was he really ordered by Chiwenga to deploy his charges into the streets?Who consequently pulled out the Army? Why?Above all, such constitutional orders are not given over the telephone, where is the paperwork trail to show who gave what orders and did what at what time??? Guyventures: How Mexico's Day Of The Dead Gets It Right About Death What Mexico's Day Of The Dead Can Teach Us About Coping With Death A Guyventure is a story one you can brag to your friends and family about, sure. But more importantly, it's an experience you can scribble in your bucket list and eventually stack on top of a mountain of incredible lifelong memories. Get a move on. There's a whole world to explore. Death terrifies me. Im the sort of person that if you asked me what superpower Id want, Id say immortality. So when my grandmother died, I was a wreck. She was such a huge part of raising me and she was just always supposed to be there, you know? I only managed to finally deal with the loss when I forced myself to stop thinking about her. Itd be easier that way, I thought. Mexicans have a completely different far healthier relationship with death. On Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, Mexicans remember and even party with their ancestors. Related: 24 Awesome (And Useful) Gifts For The Jetsetter In Your Life In lieu of going to a Halloween costume party dressed up like Post Malone, I flew down to Oaxaca in the southeast of Mexico for Day of the Dead. I knew very little going into it save for that people paint their faces like skeletons. I left feeling like everything I thought about death was wrong. Stephanie Foden for AskMen Let's Talk About Death Bring up the fact that we're all going to die someday at a dinner party and watch the blank stares. Forks may drop. Death is a taboo subject in cultures all over the world but in Mexico, death isnt just talked about, its a part of everyday life. As the countrys Nobel laureate poet Octavio Paz explained in his book Labyrinth of Solitude: The word death is not pronounced in New York, in Paris, in London, because it burns the lips. The Mexican, in contrast, is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it; it is one of his most favorite toys, and most steadfast love. Talking about death is healthy. It makes you happier and there's evidence to say it makes you funnier. And Mexico has been talking and laughing about death for over 3,000 years. Stephanie Foden for AskMen Stephanie Foden for AskMen Day of the Dead started with the Aztecs, Toltec and Nahua natives and was later adopted by the Spanish in the 16th Century. Fast forward a few hundred years to the 20th Century and Day of the Dead got its funny bone. La Calavera Catrina, or Dapper Skeleton" that black and white painted skull you see during Day of the Dead and on Halloween was a satire meant to make a fool out of the rich who wore fancy clothes even though "todos somos calaveras," or "we're all skeletons" underneath. Today, Day of the Dead is a four-day fiesta, or festival, from October 31 to November 2 featuring costume parties, family gatherings and feasts. The tradition takes place all over Mexico, but arguably the most vibrant celebrations is around Oaxaca City. Buffet For The Dead During Day of the Dead, Oaxacans dont just talk about death, they invite it over for brunch. In virtually every home, locals build flower-laden ofrendas, or altars, as a way to entice the dead to come visit. And what could be more enticing than a buffet? Stephanie Foden for AskMen Ofrendas include food and drinks like chocolate, candy skulls, fruit, nuts, mezcal, and mole, a traditional sauce that comes in seven unique flavors including a couple that have chocolate. Foods may vary, but one thing is always there: pan de muerto, bread of the dead, a sweet egg bread with a face baked into it that stares back. Pan de muerto is common all over Mexico, but Oaxaca is the only place where the bread has little faces, or caritas, in the shape of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, skeletons or Aztecs. Dancing With The Dead As the sun set on October 31, I watched a man light a candle at his mother's grave in Xoxocotlan, a cemetery just south of Oaxaca City. He told me he has come to visit every year on this day for the last two to three decades and plans to stay at her grave until three or four in the morning. If I dont go, I feel that shell be sad, Son, I dont see my son no, said Juventino Hernandez Esteba. Around him, the cemetery began to light up with flickering orange candles, accentuating the yellow marigolds and photographs that hung over gravestones. Stephanie Foden for AskMen Stephanie Foden for AskMen As I stood there, absorbing the breathtaking cultural tradition, I realized it'd been a very long time since I thought about my grandmother's death. When was the last time I visited her grave? When was the last time I was in a cemetery, period? Looking back on it, I think putting my grandmother out of my mind while I was grieving was fine it was my way of coping. But its time to let her back in. Its also time for me to get more comfortable with my own mortality because Im still going to die someday I might as well come to peace with that sooner than later. Although, I'm still holding out for a cure for old age (fingers-crossed). Suddenly, I started to hear something. It was a beat not something traditional something I wanted to dance to, but I remembered I was standing on hundreds of the ex-living. Around me, the cemetery had turned into a full-on party with clinking beer, mezcal and howls of laughter. The music was the slap in the face I needed: Day of the Dead isnt meant to be a somber affair. Its a fiesta after all, and its worthwhile to take death for a dance from time to time. Stephanie Foden for AskMen You Might Also Dig Several compelling arguments can be made against the establishment of Amazon's HQ 2.0 in Long Island City, but according to a report in Crain's, Governor Amazon Cuomo is not interested in them. Hell bent on bringing the Seattle-born retail giant to New York City, Cuomo is reportedly planning an end-run around the city council to rezone land for the humongous tech campus. Citing "several sources familiar with the negotiations," Crain's reports that Cuomo plans to create a General Project Plan [GPP] for a 20-acre plot around Long Island City's Anable Basin, which would allow the state to construct mixed-use buildings there without City Council's approval. The state is reportedly eyeing a site owned by plastics company Plaxall, as well as two waterfront spots previously earmarked for the LIC Innovation Center. (A spokesperson for the governor declined to comment.) For reference, GPPs have previously been used for projects including Barclays Center and Brooklyn Bridge Park. The Amazon GPP would still need to undergo environmental review, and the public would be given opportunity to comment in a forum. The GPP would still require input from community boards and the City Planning Commission, but that input would be non-binding. "I'm not just surprised, I'm angry," Jimmy Van Bramer, who represents LIC on the City Council, told Crain's. "I think it would be shocking if this was done in a way that bypassed the city land-use review process. This is the most top-down approach to a project I have seen so far, with no community involvement. This is the governor and the mayor and Jeff Bezos sitting in a room together." Amazon has not officially announced the locations of its two-part East Coast headquarters, but credible speculation suggests it's looking at LIC and Crystal City, Virginia, as frontrunners. Criticsincluding New York politicianshave questioned the implications for the area. How many billions of public dollars will New York front to attract the tech conglomerate, and what do we get for that money: More jobs, or just a bunch new workers lured in from Silicon Valley, equipped to pay rental prices far higher than the LIC norm? Will Amazon catalyze rapid gentrification of the neighborhood, driving out the existing community in LIC and surrounding pockets of Queens? What will the addition of 25,000 workers do to our hobbled subway system? As NY Senator Michael Gianaris, who represents LIC, Astoria, Sunnyside, and parts of Ridgewood, told Gothamist last week, there's too much we still don't know. "Part of the problem is how precious little information we have about what's being negotiated," Gianaris said. "People are alarmed. Long Island City is already stretched to its limits. And they're very scared about what it would mean to change the entire identity of this neighborhood by dropping this massive development right in the middle of their already gentrifying community." Cuomo, however, remains laser-focused on what he predicts will be a "great economic boost," having pledged that he will do whatever it takesincluding changing his first name to "Amazon"to bring the one-stop internet shop to New York. Granted, all these reports remain tentative and pegged to anonymous sources, but with Google sprawling out across the city, New York seems on track to achieve hulking tech campus status within the next few years. Maysaa Al-Omar swishes parsley, bulgur, olive oil and lemon juice in a big glass bowl on her kitchen table, preparing tabbouleh for her three children: Samaher, Mohammad and Walleed. "My children, my family love kabsa, which is rice with chicken, tabbouleh and hummus," she said. Al-Omar, along with her husband and children, fled Syria over three years ago. They relocated to Lebanon as refugees and landed in Corner Brook on Nov. 15, 2016. Taste of Home They left a lot of their life behind, but Al-Omar continued to cook dishes from home. "The cooking is my favourite. I don't know why, but I love to cook. I'm feeling very happy when I cook," she said. Colleen Connors/cbc Al-Omar was selling falafel and hummus at the local farmer's market but thought it was time to go bigger. She came across a takeout-style space in the lobby of an office building on Main Street and knew she'd found the right place. Jasmine Syrian Food opened Nov. 3 and was a huge success. Ran out of food "It was extremely busy. Everyone was run off their feet," said Conor Curtis, who helped the family settle in Corner Brook when they first arrived, along with a team from the town's .refugee support group. Al-Omar was so busy on opening day, she ran out of food and spent the night cooking and preparing for the next day. Colleen Connors/CBC "Everybody I've talked to have loved the food, even if they have never tried it before," Curtis said. "If they have tried it before, they are saying it's some of the best they ever had." The next day, there was a lineup of people out the front door, waiting for her to open. Making friends with shawarma For Safaa Thome, who landed in St. John's with her husband and young children in early 2016, cooking was a way to extend memories of home to new friends. Recipes stood in for words when the native Arabic speaker was first learning English. Colleen Connors/CBC Shawarma and samosas cemented those friendships, and turned neighbours into diehard fans of Thome's cooking. They eventually convinced Thome to take a gamble on her skills and open a stall at the St. John's Farmers' Market in late September. Story continues "They said, 'People will know your name!" she explained, smiling shyly. "They said it's good to start in the Farmers' Market." "After that, maybe we'll get a restaurant." Malone Mullin/CBC On a blustery Wednesday afternoon, one customer picks up her usual order, laughing that she stops by the market every week just to eat at Safaa's Kitchen. Others pass by, eyeing some of the dishes with a mix of apprehension and curiosity. "Canadians don't know it," Thome grins, pointing to her tray of grape leaves, steamed and rolled with savoury rice, lemon and meat tucked inside. One customer circles around the stall, making a beeline for the baklava, which Thome had to learn to bake from scratch. "In Syria, we just buy that. We don't make everything by hand," she said. Malone Mullin/CBC Eventually, like Al-Omar, Thome plans to give her market stall a permanent home, where she'll put her husband to work in the kitchen. He watches proudly, holding their newborn, while she serves up sauces and salads, all recipes she learned from her mother shortly after she got engaged. But for all her love of food and sharing it Thome's restaurant dream isn't the only thing on her plate. One day soon, she says, she hopes to go to medical school and become a nurse. "Everything's going up, up, up," she said. Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador Pascal Morimanno has always found it difficult to relate to Canadians who have fought in the First World War but that doesn't mean he's not going to try. The Fredericton teen is one of four students across Canada chosen to visit Belgium to participate in the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. "Being able to go there and represent Canada's youth, youth that might've served, people my age even younger it means a lot to me," said the 16-year-old. Morimanno took part in Encounters with Canada, a week-long forum designed for teens across Canada to learn about their country in Ottawa. It's where he heard about the chance to visit Belgium on Remembrance Day. He then decided to apply for the trip put on by the program. Digging up the past He created a family tree of his military family history to showcase his link to the past. He did this with the help of his father and grandfather, who is a military historian. From there, he found out he had 26 relatives that have served or are serving right now. "History is all about learning from our mistakes and making sure it doesn't happen again." -Pascal Morimanno "It goes from the First World War, through to the [Second World War] all the way to the present," he said. "I've had cousins, uncles, great grandfathers nurses, a monk that served." One relative in particular hits closer to home for the local teen. After turning 19, Morimanno's great grandfather, Owen Anthony Davey, participated in the last 100 days of the war for Britain. Afterwards, he immigrated to Canada. "I'm looking forward to going to Belgium and maybe walking where he might've walked one day," Morimanno said. The project won him the trip abroad, where he's also looking forward to learning the history of what went on in Belgium and how people were impacted afterward. "History is all about learning from our mistakes and making sure it doesn't happen again," he said. Story continues "They fought for freedom and what they believed was good." Although it was 100 years ago, Morimanno thinks about the war often and wants others to do the same more than once a year. "I don't know where the courage comes from and that's why I have so much admiration for those people," he said. "They gave up their life, their families, everything for their country." Remembering those who fought The local teen, whose favourite subject is history, feels this weekend will be an experience of a lifetime and he's looking forward to having a chance to remember those who fought in the first and second world wars in Belgium. "I'm really looking forward to being there and being able to thank all the people that have served for us." Once he returns home to Fredericton, Morimanno is also hoping to talk to people about his experiences and what Remembrance Day is all about. "I'm going to have a deeper understanding of what it really means to remember and remember the people who made the ultimate sacrifice," he said. Here are some things to know about Matthew Whitaker, the current acting attorney general. According to remarks he gave at a forum in 2014, Whitaker thinks judges should be guided by the New Testament. That same year, he was a paid advisor to World Patent Marketing, a company that was shut down by a federal judge and fined almost $26 million for allegedly running an invention-promotion scam. In 2007, as U.S. Attorney, Whitaker was accused of a politically motivatedand ultimately unsuccessfulprosecution on extortion charges of Matt McCoy, Iowas first openly gay senator. But that was then. Most importantly to our purposes now, the new AG has frequently disparaged the Mueller investigation. As The Editorial Board of The New York Times put it on Thursday: Mr. Whitakerwho has been called the eyes and ears of the White House inside the Justice Department by John Kelly, Mr. Trumps chief of staffhas expressed a Trumpian degree of hostility to the investigation he is now charged with overseeing. He has called it a witch hunt and, in its earliest months, wrote an opinion piece arguing that Mr. Mueller was coming dangerously close to crossing a red line by investigating the presidents finances. Well there are red lines, but then again there are also blue waves. Barely had we recovered from election-returns watching, when news broke that the president had pressured Jeff Sessions into resigning and appointed this guy Whitaker in his place. His meteoric ascension was met by 900 street demonstrations across the country, organized under the rubric, Nobody Is Above the LawMueller Protection Rapid Response. By Friday morning, Trump was on the White House lawn saying he didnt really know Whitaker at all. Other sources beg to differ: On Vox, Murray Waas reported, Whitakers open sympathizing with Trumps frequent complaints about the Mueller investigation resulted in an unusually close relationship between a president and a staffer of his level. The president met with Whitaker in the White House, often in the Oval Office, at least 10 times, a former senior administration official told me. Story continues Asked directly by CNNs Abby Phillip whether he believed his new appointee would rein in Mueller, the president became apoplectic. What a stupid question. What a stupid question that is, he fulminated. This was of a piece with his continual demeaning of African-American women journaliststhis week, he also called April Ryan a loser and characterized a question from Yamiche Alcindor about nationalism as racist. On election night, the president, quoting Ben Stein, tweeted about himself: Mr. Trump has magic about him. This guy has magic coming out of his ears. But the next morning, steam, not magic, was emanating from his presidential ears. At an insane press conference, he went off on CNNs Jim Acosta: Ill tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldnt be working for CNN, he sputtered when Acosta attempted to bring up immigration and the Russia probe. Later that day, Acosta arrived at the White House to find his press credentials had been yanked; that night, the administration released a video that many critics considered doctored, showing Acosta allegedly manhandling a young woman tasked with moving the microphone around to various members of the press. (To our knowledge, no one has asked this nameless intern for her account of the incident.) In other news of the week, a federal judge has blocked construction of the Keystone pipeline, a blow to the president; Trump issued a proclamation denying asylum to migrants who he says enter illegally; and The Wall Street Journal reported that he was deeply involved in hush money payments to two former paramours, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. If the prez was in a grumpy mood when he left for Paris on Friday, he was in even worse sprits yesterday, with the announcement that three races in Floridaincluding contests for the senate and for governorhad joined the Arizona senate race and the Georgia gubernatorial in too-close-to-call territory, and were now subject to a recount. In a series of missives from the City of Light he offered, Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely! He had plenty of time to tweet. On Saturday, the commander in chief did not join other world leaders at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where some 1,800 American soldiers were killed during World War I, because of what the White House called scheduling and logistical difficulties, caused by the weather. In other words, it was raining. Despite the dark skies, he did bestir himself to attend the ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the armistice today at the Arc de Triomphe. Standing with hundreds of other dignitaries, Trump heard French President Emmanuel Macron warn, through a translator, Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. By saying, Our interests first, who cares about the others, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values. I know there are old demons which are coming back to the surface. They are ready to wreak chaos and death. History sometimes threatens to take its sinister course once again. Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh. blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. . ..Abu Yehuda..11 November '18..Every time Tzipi Livni opens her mouth , the word democracy comes out. According to Livni, the government and the Knesset that were democratically elected by the people are constantly endangering it, undermining it, imperiling it, and so on.Nothing contradicts her more powerfully than the fact that her bloc is consistently defeated at the ballot box in elections that are probably the most free and fair in the world.There is, however, another word that she does not say and unfortunately, that our supposedly right-wing government doesnt utter often enough either. That word is sovereignty.Sovereignty is far more important than democracy, because if you dont control what happens in your own country, then you dont have a country, democratic or otherwise.Israel is the one country in the world whose peoples sovereignty over their own land is regularly disputed, and I am not talking only about Judea and Samaria. Indicators of disagreement with the very existence of a Jewish state include support of BDS or a right of return for Palestinian refugees, both of which are widespread throughout the world.One of the most hostile entities to Israeli sovereignty is the UN, which tries to inject itself into internal Israeli matters on a regular basis. For example, there is the Temporary International Presence in Hevron (TIPH), established after the Baruch Goldstein massacre when the Palestinian Authority requested that something be done to guarantee the safety and protection of the Palestinian civilians. Initially the mission was staffed by Norway alone, but today it includes representatives from Norway, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.The observers are supposed to be impartial and report all breaches of the agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel on Hebron, as well as on violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, but in fact are highly partisan, ignore Arab terrorism and report only Palestinian complaints against Israel. They take part in anti-Israel propaganda events, and harass Jewish residents of Hevron . Two recent high-profile incidents include an observer slapping a Jewish child, and another puncturing the tires of a vehicle belonging to a Jewish resident.There is a simple solution to the problem: the government of Israel initially agreed to their presence, and the government can revoke its agreement. The PM should announce that they have 48 hours to pack up and go. I doubt that even Tzipi Livni would claim that that would be undemocratic.Then of course there is UNTSO, the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization , which squats rent-free in the beautiful, the former palace of the British High Commissioner , located on some of the most expensive real estate in Jerusalem. UNTSO was established in May, 1948; when the British moved out, the Red Cross and then the UN moved in. Probably the idea was that the UN would govern the internationalthat it intended Jerusalem to become from that lovely spot. UNTSOs mission today is to supervise truce agreements, most of which are long since gone.Miri Regev, one of the few Israeli politicians that seems to care about our sovereignty and national honor, tried to kick them out last year , but didnt succeed. She argued that their presence in Jerusalem was unnecessary (since all they have left to supervise is the 1974 disengagement resolution with Syria) and that they were engaged in anti-Israel activities.! There are 376 UN employees there, and they should rent office space like anyone else or better yet, move to Damascus.There are countless other impingements on Israeli sovereignty, including the huge sums of money funneled to subversive NGOs from Europe; unwritten American restrictions on building in Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem; EU funded and directed illegal Arab building in Area C of the territories; and UNESCO resolutions declaring various parts of Israel including the Western Wall to be Palestinian heritage sites.But all of these things pale in comparison the biggest, most blatant, most humiliating impairment to our sovereignty of all, the continued Arab occupation of the Temple Mount.Judging by the imbalance between the rights of Muslims and Jews on the Mount, one could be excused for thinking that it was located in an Arab country, and not in the heart of Israels capital. Jews are not permitted to pray (even to move their lips silently) or to use the water faucets, while Muslim children may play ball on the grounds, and teams of Muslim provocateurs scream at Jewish worshippers. Restrictions are enforced by Israeli police officers. Just last week, Israels Supreme Court upheld the use of metal detectors on the only entrance to the Mount that Jews are permitted to use, while such detectors were removed from Muslim entrances, despite the fact that weapons that were used to murder police officers were smuggled in through those entrances.The Temple Mount, following what is called the status quo, allows the Jordanianto govern and maintain the area. But since 1967, thehasnt been static, with more and more restrictions placed on Jews. The Waqf has engaged in large construction projects while violating understandings that require archaeological supervision for such things, resulting in the destruction or loss of priceless artifacts. Many believe that there has been a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence of Jewish history at the site. Attempts by Israel to replace a dangerous bridge that leads to one of the gates to the Mount have been met by riots. The bridge has been in temporary form since 2004.What is being endangered, undermined, and imperiled is not democracy. We have plenty of democracy, sometimes so much that the government is unable to get anything accomplished such as solving the problem of illegal migrants without being stymied by stupid internal politics, as well as the guardians of democracy, the subversive European-funded NGOs and the Supreme Court. Whatat risk is our sovereignty in the territories, in Jerusalem, even in the burning lands surrounding the Gaza strip, where we seem to be unable or unwilling to protect our own population.Sovereignty is precious and delicate. It can be strengthened or eroded by precedents that we allow to be established. Because of the typical Israeli attitude that symbolic stuff doesnt matter, and the desire to avoid any form of conflict at all cost, we allow important principles to slip away, and soon symbolic stuff turns into irreversible facts on the ground.Our government could take a lesson from Donald Trump. You cant recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, he was told, there will be unrest. You cant move the embassy, they said, there will be riots. You cant cut funding to UNRWA or demand that the PA stop paying terrorists. You cant kill the Iran deal and re-impose sanctions. But he did all those things and the sky didnt fall.We can take back our sovereignty around Gaza, at the Temple Mount, and from the UN and the EU. It wont make everyone love us nothing could do that in todays world but it might get us some respect. United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. W. A. GRIFFIN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED HEALTHCARE OF GEORGIA, INC., Viking Range, LLC, United Healthcare Insurance Company, Defendants-Appellees. No. 18-10208 Decided: October 25, 2018 Before JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges. W. A. Griffin, Pro Se Cavender Crosby Kimble, Balch & Bingham, LLP, Birmingham, AL, Tashwanda Colleen Pinchback Dixon, Balch & Bingham, LLP, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellee United Healthcare of Georgia, Inc. Amanda A. Sonneborn, Julie M. Kamps, Seyfarth Shaw, LLP, Seyfarth Shaw, LLP, Chicago, IL, Alex S. Drummond, Seyfarth Shaw, LLP, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellee Viking Range, LLC Tashwanda Colleen Pinchback Dixon, Balch & Bingham, LLP, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellee Viking Range, LLC Proceeding pro se, Dr. W.A. Griffin appeals the dismissal of her complaint under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1132(a). After careful consideration, we affirm. I. Dr. Griffin, a medical provider, treated patient E.V. twice in 2012. E.V. was a participant in a group health benefit plan (the Plan) for which Viking Range, LLC, served as the plan administrator and United Healthcare Insurance Company served as the claims fiduciary. The Plan contains an anti-assignment provision: You may not assign your Benefits under the Policy to a non-Preferred provider without our consent. Doc. 9-2 at 77. Dr. Griffin was a non-Preferred provider under the terms of the Plan. Despite the anti-assignment provision, Dr. Griffin had E.V. execute a document entitled Assignment of Benefits that directed E.V.s insurance company to pay her benefits directly to Dr. Griffin. Doc. 9-3 at 2. After treating E.V., Dr. Griffin submitted claims to United Healthcare seeking payment for the services that she provided. United Healthcare paid a portion of the claims. Dr. Griffin appealed United Healthcares partial payment, and her first level appeal was denied. Dr. Griffin then submitted a second-level appeal to United Healthcare. Dr. Griffin requested that United Healthcare or Viking send her a copy of the summary plan description and also asked them whether the Plan had an anti-assignment provision. United Healthcare denied the appeal and did not respond to Dr. Griffins document requests or indicate whether the Plan had an anti-assignment provision. Several years after United Healthcare denied Dr. Griffins appeal, she obtained a second assignment from E.V. The assignment authorized Dr. Griffin to request plan documents on E.V.s behalf. It also assigned to Dr. Griffin E.Vs right to pursue claims for benefits, statutory penalties, breach of fiduciary duty, [and] any ERISA claim matter. Doc. 14 at 29. The assignment stated that it was effective retroactive to 2012 when Dr. Griffin treated E.V. After obtaining the second assignment, Dr. Griffin sued United Healthcare and Viking in state court. She brought four claims under ERISA for: (1) failure to pay plan benefits, (2) breach of fiduciary duty, (3) failure to provide plan documents, and (4) breach of co-fiduciary duties. Dr. Griffin claimed that the defendants were liable because they had underpaid the claims and also failed to provide the plan documents that Dr. Griffin requested when she submitted the second-level appeal. United Healthcare and Viking removed the action to federal court and then filed motions to dismiss. The district court granted the motions, concluding that Dr. Griffins claim for failure to pay plan benefits was barred by the Plans anti-assignment provision. The district court assumed that Dr. Griffins other claims, which related to the failure to provide plan documents, were not barred by the Plans anti-assignment clause. The court nonetheless concluded that Dr. Griffin could not sue for these claims because E.V.s original assignment did not transfer to Dr. Griffin the right to sue for these non-payment-related claims. And the court explained that the second assignment, which purported to assign E.V.s right to sue for claims related to the failure to provide plan documents, could not be applied retroactively against third parties such as United Healthcare and Viking. The district court dismissed the case. This appeal followed. II. We review de novo the district courts grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, accepting the complaints allegations as true and construing them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Chaparro v. Carnival Corp., 693 F.3d 1333, 1335 (11th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). [N]aked assertions devoid of further factual enhancement or [t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). Upon review of dismissals for failure to state a claim, [p]ro se pleadings are held to a less stringent standard than pleadings drafted by attorneys and are liberally construed. Bingham v. Thomas, 654 F.3d 1171, 1175 (11th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). III. Section 502 of ERISA provides that only plan participants and plan beneficiaries may bring a private civil action to recover benefits due under the terms of a plan, to enforce rights under a plan, or to recover penalties for a plan administrators failure to provide documents. 29 U.S.C. 1132(a)(1), (c). This provision also limits the right to sue for breach of fiduciary duty to plan participants, plan beneficiaries, plan fiduciaries, and the Secretary of Labor. Id. 1132(a)(2). Additionally, only plan participants, plan beneficiaries, and plan fiduciaries may bring a civil action to obtain equitable relief to redress a practice that violates ERISA or the terms of a plan. Id. 1132(a)(3). As we have explained, [h]ealthcare providers are generally not participants or beneficiaries under ERISA and thus lack the right to sue under ERISA. Physicians Multispecialty Grp. v. Health Care Plan of Horton Homes, Inc., 371 F.3d 1291, 1294 (11th Cir. 2004). There is, however, an exception to this general rule that healthcare providers have no right of action under 502. We have recognized that healthcare providers may acquire the right to sue by obtaining a written assignment from a beneficiary or participant of his right to payment of benefits under an ERISA-governed plan. Id.; see also Cagle v. Bruner, 112 F.3d 1510, 1515 (11th Cir. 1997) (recognizing that nothing in ERISA forbids the assignment of health care benefits provided by an ERISA plan). Although ERISA does not prohibit a plan participant or beneficiary from assigning benefits to her provider, we have held that an anti-assignment provision in a plan, which limits or prohibits a plan participant or beneficiary from assigning her right to payment of benefits, is valid and enforceable. Physicians Multispecialty Grp., 371 F.3d at 1296. Accordingly, when a plan contains an unambiguous anti-assignment provision, a healthcare provider is barred from bringing claims under 502(a) based on an assignment from a plan participant or beneficiary. Id. A. In this case, E.V.s original assignment purported to transfer to Dr. Griffin the right to payment of benefits. We have recognized that when a patient assigns to a provider the right to payment for medical benefits, she also conveys the right to file an action under 502(a) of ERISA for unpaid benefits. See Conn. State Dental Assn v. Anthem Health Plans, Inc., 591 F.3d 1337, 1352-53 (11th Cir. 2009). Thus, if enforceable, the assignment transferred to Dr. Griffin the right to bring a cause of action under ERISA for unpaid benefits. But the Plans anti-assignment provision prohibited E.V. from assigning her benefits to Dr. Griffin and therefore barred Dr. Griffins claim seeking to recover unpaid benefits under 502(a) of ERISA. Dr. Griffin argues that United Healthcare and Viking cannot rely on the anti-assignment provision because they failed to notify her of the provision after she asked whether the Plan contained such a term. Liberally construed, Dr. Griffins argument is that United Healthcare and Viking are either equitably estopped from relying on the anti-assignment provision in the Plan or have waived it. We disagree. Under ERISA, equitable estoppel applies only when the plaintiff can show that (1) the relevant provisions of the plan at issue are ambiguous, and (2) the plan provider or administrator has made representations to the plaintiff that constitute an informal interpretation of the ambiguity. Jones v. Am. Gen. Life & Accident Ins. Co., 370 F.3d 1065, 1069 (11th Cir. 2004). Because the anti-assignment provision is unambiguous, equitable estoppel cannot apply here. We have left open the question of whether waiver principles might apply under the federal common law in the ERISA context. Witt v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 772 F.3d 1269, 1279 (11th Cir. 2014). Even if we assume that waiver could apply in the ERISA context, Dr. Griffin has failed to plead sufficient facts to show that United Healthcare and Viking waived the anti-assignment provision. [W]aiver is the voluntary, intentional relinquishment of a known right. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We have explained that waiver may be express or implied, but to find implied waiver, the acts, conduct, or circumstances relied upon to show waiver must make out a clear case. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We conclude that Dr. Griffin has failed to make out a clear case that waiver applies here. Her allegation that United Healthcare and Viking failed to respond to her inquiry about the existence of an anti-assignment provision is insufficient to establish a clear case that they intentionally and voluntarily relinquished their rights under the anti-assignment provision. See id. B. Dr. Griffins other claims arise out of United Healthcares and Vikings failure to turn over plan documents, not to the payment of benefits. Like the district court, we assume that the Plans anti-assignment provision, which appears in the Plan under the heading Payment of Benefits, does not bar assignments related to these non-payment-related claims. Doc. 9-2 at 77. Even assuming the anti-assignment clause would not bar Dr. Griffin from pursuing these claims, we conclude that she has nonetheless failed to state a claim for relief. Dr. Griffins various claims allege that United Healthcare and Viking received a request for plan documents and then failed to provide the documents. The critical question here is whether Dr. Griffin has alleged that United Healthcare and Viking improperly denied a request for plan documents. The answer is no. Heres why: Dr. Griffin requested plan documents when she submitted her second level appeal. At that time, E.V. had executed the original assignment. The district court found that the original assignment transferred only E.V.s rights related to benefit payments, not to receive plan documents. Because Dr. Griffin has not challenged this conclusion on appeal, she has abandoned any argument that the original assignment gave her the right to receive plan documents or sue for failure to provide such documents. See Timson v. Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 874 (11th Cir. 2008) ([I]ssues not briefed on appeal by a pro se litigant are deemed abandoned.). Dr. Griffin argues instead that the second assignment, which was executed years after she requested the documents from United Healthcare and Viking, retroactively assigned her the right to bring these claims. The parties disagree over whether a person may retroactively assign rights against a third person. But the parties miss the forest for the trees. When Dr. Griffin requested the documents, she had no right to the documents because E.V. had not yet executed the retroactive assignment. Certainly, E.V. had a right to the plan documents at the time of Dr. Griffins request, but E.V. had not requested any documents. Even if, as Dr. Griffin asserts, the second assignment conveyed any right E.V. had to plan documents and statutory penalties, this makes no difference, because the patient had made no previous request for documents and had no right to statutory penalties. We thus conclude that there is no plausible allegation in the complaint that United Healthcare and Viking failed to provide plan documents in response to a request by a person who was entitled to them at the time of the request. The district court properly dismissed Dr. Griffins non-payment-related claims. IV. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court judgment. AFFIRMED. FOOTNOTES . At the relevant time, HADCO actually served as the plan administrator, but Viking subsequently acquired HADCO and is the named defendant in this action. We use the name Viking to refer to both Viking and HADCO. . All citations in the form Doc. # refer to district court docket entries. . Although the Plans Certificate of Coverage, which contained the anti-assignment clause, and the assignments that E.V. executed were not attached to Dr. Griffins complaint, we may consider their contents. The Certificate of Coverage was attached to United Healthcares motion to dismiss. We may consider the contents of a document attached to a motion to dismiss when the contents are (1) central to the plaintiffs claim and (2) undisputed. Day v. Taylor, 400 F.3d 1272, 1276 (11th Cir. 2005). Applying this standard, we may consider the contents of the Certificate of Coverage.Regarding the assignments, a document need not be physically attached to a pleading to be incorporated by reference into it. Id. We have explained that a document is incorporated by reference into a complaint if (1) it is central to the plaintiffs claim; (2) its contents were alleged in the complaint, and (3) no party questions those contents. Id. Because these three requirements are satisfied, we treat the complaint as incorporating E.V.s assignments by reference. PER CURIAM: Every day, whether we make money or spend money or even hold money in a bank, we will inevitably pay some form of tax. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, is attributed with saying that There are only two things certain in life: death and taxes. Whether it is about imposing tax, enforcing tax laws or raising taxes, it is a topic which can cause much frustration, argument, politics or wars, both historically and today. How should we be thinking about tax? What does the Bible say about taxation? Is taxation really theft or can some forms of taxation be okay? The Bible and taxation One of the most famous passages from the Bible which talks about taxation is Jesus interactions with the Pharisees who asked if it was lawful (under Jewish law) to pay taxes to Caesar and the Roman Empire (which occupied Jerusalem at the time). Jesus responded by asking the Pharisees to show him a Roman coin and announcing that we should render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God, the things that are Gods (Matthew chapter 22, verses 15-21). Jesus teachings summarised how Christians approach and relate with government and authorities. We are to submit to authorities because those authorities have been instituted there from God (Romans chapter 13, verses 1-7). The role of the authorities (government) is to execute Gods judgment on evil. In the Old Testament, we also see that when Israel wanted a king, God warned them that having a king would result in the king taking some workers, resources, produce and herds to serve and protect the kingdom. (1 Samuel chapter 8, verses 10-18). From a quick glimpse of these passages, we can surmise that we need to submit to authorities and pay our taxes. This is for running our society, protecting our country, enforcing laws and regulations, and executing judgment and justice where necessary. How much should our governments tax? Without taxation, our governments may not have the funds to function. However there is a very big and legitimate question of How much should we be taxed? Each country has a differing view and approach to this. On one hand, countries such as Singapore have relatively low tax rates with Income Tax capped at 22% (for every dollar you make 22 cents goes to the government) and Corporate Tax Rate at 17% (for every dollar a company is in profit, 17 cents goes to the government). This means that both citizens and companies get to keep more of their income to save, invest or spend it however they choose to. On the other hand, countries such as Sweden or Denmark have very high tax rates of up to 55% in Income Tax and 22% in Corporate Tax. A large part of the reason why the tax rates are high is because their governments provide more social security in terms of health care and unemployment benefits. Determining how and how much our governments should tax us is dependent on the size of our government and the level of expenditure. Countries and states which choose to provide a more generous and larger safety net (whether for health, social welfare or education) for its citizens will inevitably see higher taxation in order to cover those costs. Who do we rely on? There is no right answer for the question of How much should our governments tax us? In countries such as the United Arab Emirates, much of their government revenues come from oil exports, which means they do not have a necessity to increase the tax base. Smaller countries might not have as many alternate sources of revenue and will inevitably need to draw from local businesses and citizens. The problems that policy makers face on taxation is inherently an economic problem. There are simply too many things we want to try and solve through government, but only so much time, money and resources we have to deploy to resolve it. The more we try and get government to resolve issues, the greater impact that will have on our tax base. Today, for many working Australians, income we earn from almost 1-1.5 days out of each full working week goes to pay taxes. If we want to reduce our tax base, we would need to reduce the amount of government expenditure and the scope of government involvement in our lives. A government that is excessive in its taxation or spending is ultimately stealing from its constituents and wasting their money. We need to be politically active in our democratic government as it is ultimately accountable to its constituents. One part of being politically active is to help keep our government accountable for its spending and taxation so that it is not in excess in its scope, spending or taxation. As citizens, we should also make sure we are not unknowingly worshiping government and seeing it as the solution to everything. We should instead be relying on God. When we are trying to solve societal issues, the solution may not simply be to raise taxes and start a government program to correct it. Instead, it might be our responsibility individually and locally at a council level, a community level and/or a church level to step up and try and solve the issue. It might mean we should start first by turning to God in prayer, repenting and committing our worries and issues to God before we turn to the government. Brandon Tsang is a Sydney-based writer currently working in IT. He studied Marketing and Economics at UNSW and loves to spend his spare time hiking, playing volleyball or watching Netflix. Brandon Tsangs previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/brandon-tsang.html The following exchange between Trendy-Enthusiastic-Lad and Sensible-Parent-Of-Kid took place at 14:31:08 hrs last Tuesday. Any resemblance to real life is entirely intentional. TEL: Hi! Howyadoin? So you wanna buy a phone? SPOK: Yes. Cool! I mean, yes Im just looking. Checking options for my 14 year-old. Whatve you got? TEL: Well that depends. SPOK: Depends? On what? TEL: On what you want. SPOK: Well, I want something safe and secure, basic, easy to use. Long battery life. Not too expensive. Cheap call rates. Plenty of data. No complicated contract. TEL: No worries. Youd be best on a PLAN. This antiqued silver machine with relaxed platinum buttons is our most popular phone. Very hip. The call rate is cool 100 calls a month costs less than 100 texts a week and you get 20 latte credits for the JavaJumpin coffee shop. SPOK: So whats it cost? TEL: Well, it depends how much you use it. What PLAN youre on. SPOK: Cant I just buy the phone and pay as I go? TEL: Well, yeah. You could. Lots of people do. But it might be better to get this wicked blue one on a PLAN including the latest ZING and bonus features. A PLANS the way to go. SPOK: Better? ZING? Bonus features? TEL: ZING makes the calls go faster. Pay monthly and get really cheap calls to Ouagadougou on Thursdays, but pay weekly and you can phone Hollywood every day for 8 minutes and 20 seconds. For this week only you can have this indigo phone with camera hidden near the mouthpiece email a photo to your overseas dentist for a quote on your kids braces. Haha! Just joking. SPOK: (Groan) Whats a local call cost? TEL: Depends what PLAN. Local calls are free on Tuesdays and half price on Saturdays. Theres no charge if calls are made from a school bus. And if you use spellchecker for texting you get a bonus 2k gigglybits of data per month. This month theres a discount for people with green hair who wear stripey sandals. Whoa, nearly forgot! Theres this far-out micro roll-up one. Just got this one today. Compatible with ZING and SNOZZ. Call anywhere in the world on Mondays between midnight and 1.03 am. Thats with the usual backtofront payment option. Go for the 100 for 100 WHAM rate and send 725 messages per day, for free. You get a free Smartypants watch with it. Now which PLAN did you want to go for? SPOK: Hhmmm ... is there one with a free set of steak knives? TEL: Yeah, whatev. Get back to me. But remember this offer only holds till tomorrow. SPOK: Whew! Thank God for his PLAN for us. Always on offer, clear, simple, long-distance or local, no timed calls, no hidden costs, no fine print, unlimited data and absolutely FREE! Sheelagh Wegman is a freelance editor and writer. She worships at St Davids Cathedral in Hobart and lives in bushland on the foothills of kunanyi/Mt Wellington. Sheelagh Wegmans previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/sheelagh-wegman.html MONDAY, Nov. 12, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- With the rate of drug overdose deaths more than doubling since the turn of the century, the United States now leads the world in these preventable tragedies. New research from investigators at the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) indicates that drug-related death rates in the United States are now more than double what they are in many other developed nations. For the study, the researchers analyzed the World Health Organization's mortality database to determine overdose death trends from 2001 through 2015 across 13 countries. "The U.S. had the highest death rate due to drug overdoses, which accounted for 35 deaths in [every] 100,000 men and 20 deaths in [every] 100,000 women in 2015," said study author Dr. Yingxi Chen. Those figures reflect both accidental drug-related deaths and drug-related suicides among men and women aged 20 to 64, according to Chen. She is a postdoctoral fellow with the NCI's radiation epidemiology branch in the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics. The study included information from Australia, Chile, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Wales and the United States. Five of those countries saw worsening overdose death rates over the course of the study period. Chen said the second highest overdose death rate among men was seen in Estonia. By 2015, that nation was experiencing 20 deaths per 100,000 men. That was followed by Norway, at 16 deaths per 100,000 men, and England and Wales, each at 15 deaths per 100,000 men. "Overall, the absolute rates in men were generally double the rates in women," Chen said, "although we observed higher increases in rates among women than men in most countries." Among women, Norway had the second highest rate (at 8 deaths per 100,000), followed by Australia (7) and Finland (6). Chen said it's unclear why some nations are faring better than others. And some are. For example, while Norway's overdose fatality rates remain relatively high, that country saw the largest decrease in risk during the study timeframe among both men and women. Spain also saw significant declines among men during the study timeframe, while Denmark experienced the same downward trend among women. Notably, all of those countries have embraced programs designed to decrease the risk, Chen said. Those programs include the establishment of needle and syringe exchange programs; efforts to distribute the opioid overdose prevention drug naloxone (Narcan) for at-home use; the designations of drug consumption "safe" rooms; and the increased availability of heroin treatment centers. Currently, Denmark has all four programs implemented, Chen noted, while Norway and Spain have launched three of the programs. Still, Chen stressed that the study "did not evaluate whether these declines are attributed to those intervention programs, nor whether those programs would work in the U.S." The researchers reported their findings Nov. 13 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The study team noted that in 2016, nearly 64,000 American men and women died of a drug overdose. Across all 13 countries, death rates were found to be highest among men aged 35 to 49 and among women aged 50 to 64. As for the United States, both Chen and Dave Thomas, a health scientist in the division of epidemiology, services and prevention research at the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, said the problem is rooted in the exploding opioid epidemic. "This increase in drug overdoses was originally driven by the over-prescription of opioids [such as OxyContin], and by far the U.S. is the leader in opioid prescribing," Thomas said. "But more recently, heroin and synthetic opioids like fentanyl have accounted for an increasing share of the U.S. opioid overdose deaths," he added. More information There's more on America's opioid crisis at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. How is Nina dealing with Kelly being back on the street? With Kelly coming back to the street it seems like to Nina, that she is just going ... Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram Bangkok, November 12, 2018The Philippine authorities said on Friday they had grounds to indict news site Rappler, known for its critical coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte, and its founder Maria Ressa for tax evasion and failure to file tax returns, news reports said. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the threat and called on authorities to cease its campaign of legal harassment targeting Rappler. According to the reports, the Philippine Department of Justice accuses Rappler and Ressa of failure to pay taxes on bond sales in 2015, which reportedly resulted in 162.5 million pesos ($3 million) in financial gains. The governments statement on the charges did not indicate how much was allegedly owed, reports said. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra told Agence France-Presse that the tax evasion charges would be filed in court this week. Tax evasion penalties under Philippine law carry maximum 10-year prison sentences and fines. These charges show that Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes government will stop at nothing to silence Rapplers critical news reporting, said Shawn Crispin, CPJs senior Southeast Asia representative. Authorities should drop this spurious accusation and desist from harassing Maria Ressa and Rapplers brave reporters. Rappler denied the accusation, saying in a statement that the legal threat was a clear form of continuing intimidation and harassment against us, and an attempt to silence journalists. The statement said the case has no legal leg to stand on. Rappler has already faced legal threats before the tax evasion accusations. In January, the Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that the online news group violated laws barring foreign ownership and control of local media, and moved to revoke its registration. The ruling was based on accusations that Rappler received funds from the Omidyar Network, a fund created by eBay founder and entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar to promote open societies. In July, the Court of Appeals ruled that the SEC erred in its move to revoke Rapplers certificate of incorporation, which it said should only be done as a last resort for non-compliance issues. In August, Rappler filed a motion with the court to fully annul the SECs revocation order; the motion is still pending. CPJ earlier this year chronicled the Duterte governments tri-pronged approach to intimidate the press via verbal assaults, social media attacks, and threats to withdraw media groups licenses or hit their commercial interests to encourage self-censorship when reporting on sensitive issues. Ressa, a former CNN reporter, will receive the 2018 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award at CPJs International Press Freedom Awards ceremony on November 20 in New York City. After a year and a half of debate, the NYC Health Department has announced a letter grading system for food carts and food trucks, which will begin next month. It's believed that it will take two years for all carts and trucks to be brought under the system, according to the DOH announcement: This program introduces a scoring system similar to that used in restaurants. Mobile food vendors will now receive points for violations at their food safety inspections, and their total inspection score will correspond to an A, B or C grade, which will be posted on the unit. The new letter grading program will apply to all 5,500 food carts and trucks authorized to operate in New York City and is required under last years Local Law 108. In order to locate carts and trucks when they are due for inspection, the Health Department will attach a location-sharing device on every unit. These data will only be accessible to Health Department staff or agents of the Department, and they will be protected from disclosure in all instances except where ordered by a court. Food carts and trucks will also be getting new permit decals that can accommodate the letter grade. It will take two years for all carts and trucks to be graded, similar to the rollout for restaurant grading in 2010. (DOH) The Health Department also says it will delete location data from the tracking devices after 24 hours. However, the Street Vendor Project is still concerned about the tracking system: "While vendors getting letter grades is good for everyone, tracking vendors' movements with GPS devices could have severe consequences for our mostly immigrant communities." Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said, "Letter grades on food carts and trucks will help New Yorkers see how these businesses fared on their latest inspection, right when they want to place an order. Just as diners appreciate letter grading in restaurants, we expect this program to be popular among customers of food carts and trucks." "I cannot imagine someone not looking for a restaurants letter grade from our citys Health Department before deciding whether or not to patronize a restaurant," said Council Member Karen Koslowitz, the prime sponsor of the law. "The letter grade has become absolutely essential as it relates to restaurants. Yet, every day, countless numbers of people in New York purchase food from a street vendor without knowing to a general degree the carts compliance with the NYC Health Code. I believe that the customers who buy food from a street vendor deserve to have the same ability to make an informed decision as do patrons of restaurants." The Duchess of Sussex attended her first ever official Armistice Day service at the Cenotaph as she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the wife of Germany's president.In a historic act of reconciliation, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier laid a wreath during a poignant ceremony at the Cenotaph, marking the first time a German leader has ever taken part in the proceedings.The Queen, 92, had asked Prince Charles to once again take on her duties as she observed the service from a nearby balcony alongside the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Cornwall.Fulfilling those duties, the Prince of Wales laid a wreath at a memorial service for the Welsh Guards on the centenary of the Armistice.Meghan, 37, looked on solemnly from a different balcony as her husband, the Duke of Sussex, and several other senior members of the royal family laid wreathes in central London.Despite her new-found status, Meghan was positioned separately from the Queen and Kate and Camilla, both of whom are considered more senior family members.Appearing at her first Armistice service since becoming a fully-fledged royal, she instead took on an ambassadorial role, standing next to Elke Budenbender, partner of the German president.Mr Steinmeier's presence was a symbol of the friendship that exists between the two countries today, a representative of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said.Scroll down for videoThe service on Sunday was also attended by soldiers past and present.The Welsh Guards' Regimental Adjutant, Colonel Tom Bonas, said it was a 'huge privilege' to be joined by Charles 'with everything else he has got on today'.He added: 'We remain incredibly grateful to him for the time and energy that he spends with us. We are very lucky to have him as our colonel.'Families of soldiers were also invited to the service, which was held in the Guards' Chapel before the laying of the wreaths.The prince also met bereaved families of military personnel.Five life-sized bronze statues made out of captured cannons stand at the Guards' Memorial in Horse Guards Parade, each representing different regiments.Charles arrived at the memorial by car and stepped out wearing a pinstriped suit, overcoat and bowler hat.He laid the wreath at the foot of the memorial before briefly pausing and looking up at the statues while the Welsh national anthem was played by a marching band.Other senior royals including Prince William, Prince Harry and the Princess Royal also paid their respects at the Cenotaph as they laid a series of wreathes.The Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex, the Princess Royal, the Duke of Kent and Prince Michael of Kent all laid tributes to Britain's veterans.Later, the Duke of York arrived in Belfast to attend a service at St Anne's Cathedral for the centenary of Armistice Day, a around 4pm.The event is happening alongside services in Dublin, Glasgow and Cardiff for Armistice 100.Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump joined French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an Armistice Day ceremony in Paris, along with more than 60 other world leaders.The world leaders were pictured standing side by side in the rain at the Arc de Triomphe to pay tribute to those who died in the First World War, 100 years to the day since the guns fell silent.Back in London, Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also laid wreaths at the foot of the Whitehall memorial, along with Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow.The traditional two minutes' silence was held at 11am and was marked by the chiming of Big Ben - despite the ongoing renovations to the clock tower.How have you marked Armistice Day?Send your own remembrance photographs to pictures@dailymail.co.ukThe 13.7 tonne bell has been silent since August 2017 since works began, except for ringing in New Year 2018.It has been fitted with a custom-built electronic mechanism built to power the 200kg striking hammer to ensure it can still sound for important national events while the clockwork undergoes vital repairs.The end of the silence was marked by cannon fire and The Last Post sounded by the Buglers of the Royal Marines before the wreaths were laid.An hour later, war veterans, descendants and grateful members of the public marched through the streets of London as part of a 'nation's thank you' to those who fought in the Great War.More than 10,000 people from across the country joined together on the Mall and made their way around St James' Park for Remembrance Sunday.Among the oldest taking part in the march is private Donald Smith, 98, who joined current members of the Queen's Own Highlanders, and Jeff Watkins, 97, who travelled from California in the United States to participate.At the same time as the march, people were encouraged to ring bells around the world, to replicate the spontaneous outpouring of relief that took place in 1918.As news of peace spread on Armistice Day, church bells, which had fallen silent across the UK during the First World War, rang out in celebration.Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright said: 'On the centenary of the Armistice, we will come together as a nation to stand in silence and honour the fallen of all conflicts.'Over the past four years, we have told the story of the First World War and the unique generation who served so bravely and made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.'Today, we will also give thanks for all those that returned and the peace they fought so hard for.'Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said: 'To be at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday is a privilege and provides us with the opportunity for reflection along with millions of people in countries that continue to be strong allies.'The First World War touched communities across the globe and I commend all those who have helped us remember the First World War generation.'We will never forget them or the sacrifice of thousands of British and Commonwealth troops who have given their lives in other conflicts.'Among the thousands paying their respects was Lieutenant Commander Sarah Bligh of the Royal Navy.Some of Britain's biggest political figures over the past two decades were on hand to pay their respects at the Armistice this morning.Current Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn were joined by former prime ministers David Cameron, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and John Major for the poignant ceremony in central London.However Mr Corbyn's coat caused outrage on social media as the leader of the opposition was spotted wearing a grey anorak, amid a sea of smart black overcoats.The Labour leader laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in London today wearing a grey rain-jacket.Scores of stunned viewers of the live coverage said they were 'shocked' at the politician's choice of attire, with one man claiming he looked as though he was 'going fishing'.The criticism of Mr Corbyn was similar to that delivered in the Michael Foot 'donkey jacket' row in 1981.She said it was her grandmother's stories of the war that inspired her to join the forces.'The thought of it being 100 years is really poignant. I've got a photograph of my great grandfather taken 100 years ago to celebrate them all coming back from the war,' she said.'It's incredible to be here 100 years on.'The ceremony will be followed by the annual Royal British Legion's Veterans Parade.Big Ben will sound again today at 12.30pm, joining bells across the country and the rest of the world - an event to echo the celebrations of November 11, 1918 as news of the Armistice spread.In the afternoon, 10,000 members of the public - chosen by ballot - filed past the Cenotaph for 'A Nation's Thank You - The People's Procession'.Josh Marr, 18, is one of 100 National Citizen Service volunteers who marched.Poignant events have taken place across the width and breadth of the UK as Britons pay their respects to those who gave their lives during the First World War.Acts of Remembrance have taken place across Northern Ireland on the centenary of Armistice Day.Democratic Unionist leader Arlene Foster and Irish Government minister Heather Humphreys laid wreaths at the cenotaph in Enniskillen.Hundreds gathered in the narrow streets to watch a musical procession including a brass band and bagpipes before representatives of the four main churches in the town led a service.Remembrance Sunday in the Co Fermanagh town has an added poignancy after a Provisional IRA bomb devastated the event in 1987.People in Scotland have also fallen silent in an act of remembrance to mark 100 years since the end of the First World War.Thousands of people in communities the length and breadth of the country observed a two-minute silence at 11am in recognition of the centenary of the Armistice and those who have served and lost their lives in conflict.Many did so as they attended ceremonies, parades and services, others pausing for reflection in locations such as railway stations - echoing acts of remembrance taking place across the UK on this day of commemmorations globally.Following the period of quiet observation, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon laid a wreath at a ceremony at the Stone of Remembrance outside the city chambers in Edinburgh.The Irish President-elect attended the Armistice Day centenary commemorations at Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery on Sunday.Michael D Higgins, and his wife Sabina, along with government representative Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan paid tribute to the memory of the Irish men and women who died in the First World War.Over 47 countries were represented at the service, and officials laid wreaths at the Irish military plot, before The Last Post was played and the Irish flag returned to full mast.Acts of Remembrance have taken place across Northern Ireland on the centenary of Armistice Day.Democratic Unionist leader Arlene Foster and Irish Government minister Heather Humphreys laid wreaths at the cenotaph in Enniskillen.Hundreds gathered in the narrow streets to watch a musical procession including a brass band and bagpipes before representatives of the four main churches in the town led a service.Remembrance Sunday in the Co Fermanagh town has an added poignancy after a Provisional IRA bomb devastated the event in 1987.The Irish President-elect attended the Armistice Day centenary commemorations at Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery on Sunday.Michael D Higgins, and his wife Sabina, along with government representative Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan paid tribute to the memory of the Irish men and women who died in the First World War.Over 47 countries were represented at the service, and officials laid wreaths at the Irish military plot, before The Last Post was played and the Irish flag returned to full mast.War veterans, descendants and grateful members of the public have marched through the streets of London as part of a 'nation's thank you' to those who fought in the Great War.More than 10,000 people from across the country joined together on the Mall and made their way around St James' Park for Remembrance Sunday.Among the oldest taking part in the march is private Donald Smith, 98, who joined current members of the Queen's Own Highlanders, and Jeff Watkins, 97, who travelled from California in the United States to participate.At the same time as the march, people were encouraged to ring bells around the world, to replicate the spontaneous outpouring of relief that took place in 1918.As news of peace spread on Armistice Day, church bells, which had fallen silent across the UK during the First World War, rang out in celebration.How have you marked Armistice Day?Send your own remembrance photographs to pictures@dailymail.co.ukPeople in Scotland have also fallen silent in an act of remembrance to mark 100 years since the end of the First World War.Thousands of people in communities the length and breadth of the country observed a two-minute silence at 11am in recognition of the centenary of the Armistice and those who have served and lost their lives in conflict.Many did so as they attended ceremonies, parades and services, others pausing for reflection in locations such as railway stations - echoing acts of remembrance taking place across the UK on this day of commemorations globally.A former Gurkha soldier joined Armistice commemorations by planting a poppy tribute at the peak of a Himalayan mountain.Nims Purja, 35, reached the peak of Ama Dablam in the eastern region of Nepal shortly before 11am on Sunday.Mr Purja said he wanted to do something 'very special' to mark the centenary of the Armistice.'I feel very humble to be paying tribute to all those who gave their lives for our freedom today but I wanted to do something very special for this very special day marking the centenary of the end of the First World War,' he said.Mr Purja was born in the Dhaulagiri region of Nepal and joined the Brigade of Gurkhas in 2003 before joining the Royal Marines. Next year he is planning his biggest challenge yet when he tries to raise over 1 million for mindfulness charities.He is aiming to climb all 14 of the 8,000 metre-plus Himalayan peaks in a single seven month season.Following the period of quiet observation, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon laid a wreath at a ceremony at the Stone of Remembrance outside the city chambers in Edinburgh.She did so after 11 rounds were fired from Edinburgh Castle, with the guns then falling silent.Of the 700,000 Scots who joined the forces, more than 100,000 died during the First World War.Nearly every village, city and town in Scotland has some form of memorial displaying the names of their war dead.The Plymouth University student said the group are representing 'the young people of today, the young people of the future and the young people of 100 years ago'.His great grandfather fought in Ypres in France.He said: 'My dad was saying he never spoke about the war, he wouldn't want to at all because it was obviously something that really affected him.'It's something I have always found really interesting, how can something affect you so badly that you would never want to talk about it?'It's an experience that we as young people and general citizens now do not come close to feeling.'A series of events have been planned to mark the special anniversary of the end of the Great War, including a procession of 10,000 people past the Cenotaph.The day will conclude with a service of thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey.Their poppies came in all shapes and sizes, strikingly displayed on sombre dark evening wear, but the message was the same: They Shall Not Be Forgotten.When the Queen joined other Royals to pay tribute to The Fallen at last night's Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall, Her Majesty's cluster of no fewer than five poppies fastened in a brooch was certainly the biggest.One theory is that she wears one poppy for each branch of the services: Navy, Army and Air Force, plus one each to represent Civil Defence and women.Whatever the reason, Her Majesty's tribute was certainly difficult to miss.The Duchess of Cambridge, meanwhile, limited herself to three paper poppies fastened in place by her brooch, wearing her poppies on her right breast instead of the traditional left, to be close to the heart.Several members of the Royal family attended the Royal Albert Hall tonight to pay tribute to the British victims of WWI.Among them were the Queen, Prince Charles and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex were also in attendance but, for some reason, they were both seated at the back of the box, far away from the front row.Shots of the royal box showed the Queen, Prince Charles and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge sitting close together while Harry and Meghan were almost out of view in the far corner.The reason was probably because her asymmetric dress was revealingly cut on the left-hand side, with no space for a poppy.The Duchess of Sussex made do with a far more modest poppy enamel pin and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, chose a 29.99 Women of the First World War Brooch, issued by the Royal British Legion, which has proved so popular that it has sold out this year.Sophie, Countess of Wessex's brooch didn't appear to be in this year's poppy range, suggesting that she may have recycled one she had already.The male members of the Royal Family, including Princes William and Harry, contented themselves with one simple paper poppy each adorning their military medals.The annual Festival of Remembrance in London, which commemorates the war dead, included performances from Sir Tom Jones, Sir Bryn Terfel and Sheridan Smith and was presented by the BBC's Huw Edwards.The Royal Family stood as thousands of audience members attending the event held aloft photographs of family members who took part in the First World War.A national service will take place later at Westminster Abbey. Maharashtra: 1 missing after fishing boat collided with tug towing platform in Vasai by Madhuri Adnal November 12,2018 | Source: One India One person was missing on SUnday after a fishing boat carrying seven people met with an accident in the sea off Mumbai coast. The vessel Morning Star collided with an unknown vessel, presumed to be a tugboat,?15 nautical miles off Vasai coast at around 1.10 am. One person identified as Baban Pal(42) was thrown off from the boat into the sea and is missing, said deputy commandant Avinandan, CPRO,Coast Guard. Rescue operations have been launched, with the Coast Guard sending an interceptor vessel Charlie, a Chetak helicopter and an inboard patrol vessel. Kerala: Uniform fishing rules in the pipeline November 12,2018 | Source: The Times of India The newly released Kerala Marine Fishing Regulation Rules 2018 is serving as a temporary baseline document for other coastal states to amend their respective Marine Fishing Regulation Act (MFRA) and rules in the management of the fishing sector. At the South Indian fisheries ministers conference that concluded here on Sunday, officials from six states and three Union territories made the initial move to put a unified front for evolving common rules for the peninsular states in this sector, which could then be taken further to other coastal states. Kerala is the only state in the country to have amended the KMFR Act 1980 (on September 18, 2017) and one year later, formulated the rules (on September 1). At a meeting held in Delhi last month, the central government officials and coastal states expressed their appreciation and most of them are now drafting their respective Act and rules based on Keralas gazette notifications. Unanimously, they sought to pressurize the need for a separate fisheries ministry at the Centre. As of now, the fisheries sector comes under ministries of agriculture, commerce, shipping and external affairs. We have been discussing this issue and we will raise it in the Parliament also, said state fisheries minister J Mercykutty Amma. Malladi Krishna Rao, minister for fisheries, Puducherry, said since there was no dedicated ministry for fisheries, the sector was not being considered with sensitivity and proper importance. If theres an issue with farmers, the entire Central machinery steps in to help them. The fisheries sector is also of equal importance against the backdrop of growing food security issues. Fisheries ministers from Kerala, Maharashtra and Pondicherry attended the meet besides officials from all the southern states and Union territories of Lakshadweep and Andamans. They raised the issues of fishermen from other states coming and fishing in their areas. Fisheries development commissioner Paul Pandian said the Centre would consider states demand for extending the fishing areas from 12 nautical miles which is the territorial waters to 36 nautical miles as most fishing boats have high-speed engines. We are coming up with new guidelines for the National Policy for Marine Fisheries (NPMF). He said it would include an advisory of engine horsepower in accordance with the length of the fishing vessel. The conference of fisheries ministers from south Indian states has unanimously decided to implement in all the southern states the minimum legal size (MLS) recommended by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) to curb juvenile fishing, said Mercykutty Amma. Kerala has already implemented the MLS for 58 fish species to ban juvenile fishing. Now, other states have also come forward to implement the measure in their territorial waters to make the regulation more effective, she added. The meeting also urged the Union government to reduce the fuel price and to waive road tax for fuel for fishing vessels. Fisheries officials of the south Indian states arrived at a consensus for demanding the Centre to give the authority to the states to provide fishing rights beyond the territorial waters of 12 nautical miles. The conference also decided to put pressure on the Union government to increase the unit cost of deep sea fishing vessels from the existing Rs 80 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore. Goa: As Goa cracks down on fish imports to restore consumer trust after formalin scare, trade takes a hit Since October 27, Goas fish markets have worn a deserted look. Reason? The government has choked imports to restore consumer confidence, and its own credibility, in the wake of Julys formalin scare. For nearly two months during the monsoon when fishing is banned along much of Indias western coast, Goan traders source fish from the east coast states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. This year, on July 12, spot checks by Goas Food and Drug Administration detected formalin in fish samples collected from supply trucks from the southern states. Formalin is a chemical known mainly for preserving biological specimens in laboratories. But unscrupulous traders employ it as a cheap preservative for fish in place of ice or refrigerated vans. It is potentially carcinogenic for humans if consumed over a long period of time. In a series of damaging decisions that July day, a minister intervened and the impounded fish consignments were released for sale. The positive spot test for formalin conducted by the Food and Drug Administration officials was rescinded by their superiors, claiming the chemical was found to be present within permissible levels. Not surprisingly, this was seen as the government compromising public health to favour traders, resulting in near total loss of consumer confidence, which is still to recover. In September, Iva Fernandes, the official who first detected formalin in imported fish, moved the Goa Human Rights Commission, alleging that she had been victimised by her department for her work. As Goas fish-loving population kept away from fish markets in the wake of the scare, the government banned the import of fish from July 18 to August 4. Thereafter, the Food and Drug Administration began checking trucks at the border but the initiative had petered out by mid-September for want of adequate staff. The controversy raged on, though, in both mainstream and social media. The Opposition and activists also kept the issue alive by filing court cases and police complaints and, after the Goa High Courts intervention led to rapid testing kits being sold at pharmacies, embarrassed the government by conducting tests at the markets. Consumers did not fully return to the markets even after the monsoon fishing ban ended, preferring to go to the seashore or the local jetty to buy freshly netted or trawler-offloaded catch. I purchase fish only from local fisherwomen or at the jetty, said Agnelo Remedios, a chartered accountant. I do not mind stocking it in the freezer. I would rather not buy the so-called fresh fish that I am not sure about. Maulana Ibrahim, head of the Goa Wholesalers Association, said the fish business has indeed gone south. Once the trust of the Goan consumer is lost, it is difficult to rebuild it, he added. Fish sales are down by 40%-50% due to the scare. If this trend continues, he said, 5,000-10,000 people in the retail fish business could go out of work. Goa consumes 70-90 tonnes of fish daily. While traders such as Ibrahim bring in around 82 truckloads of fish a day from neighbouring states for domestic distribution, Goas exporters get another 100 truckloads or so to send abroad. Twenty years ago, Goa imported just 2-3 truckloads of fish, said Joaquim Borges, a retail trader for the past 43 years. The consumption growth has been driven by tourists; Goa receives 77.85 lakh tourists a year now, more than five times its resident population of 14.5 lakh. Crackdown is good Finding it hard to contain consumer distrust and pushed on the back foot by the opposition Congress, two key ministers in the squabbling ruling coalition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party Town Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai and Health Minister Vishwajit Rane put aside their differences in a bid to regain public trust. They met with senior officials on October 9 and laid down guidelines requiring vehicles bringing fish to be insulated and traders to register with the Food and Drug Administration. On October 27, the health department cracked down, turning back 40 trucks at the Karnataka border and 10 at the Maharashtra border for not complying with the new rules. It also deregistered at least 33 fish traders at the Margao Wholesale Market, insisting they comply with the new requirements before they are allowed to resume business. The crackdown has left wholesale markets even quieter while vendors who sell imported fish complain of heavy losses. Many of us are out of work, said Kamal Suratkar, in Margao. Fish from local trawlers is more expensive. Vendors who source locally feel differently. The crackdown is good, said Francine Estrocio, who sells freshly netted fish at the Panjim market. Who wants to eat formalin-laced fish? In protest against the crackdown, the wholesalers association held a rally of fish vendors in the capital Panjim on November 5, demanding a two-month window for registration and Food and Drug Administration labs at markets to rebuild consumer confidence. Pointing out that fish is now being brought into the state in buses, they sought action against those involved in this as well as the resignation of the health minister. The protest has sparked an ongoing war of words between the association and the health minister. On Saturday, Rane threatened to ban the import of fish for six months until independent testing facilities are set up and traders comply with the new regulations. And while Rane is talking tough with the wholesale traders, Sardesais Goa Forward Party is taking on politicians in Sindhudurg who had threatened to retaliate after trucks belonging to fish suppliers from their district were turned back at the border on October 27. They are just staging a mock drama to clear their name, said an Opposition leader who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Both ministers have faced opprobrium from the Opposition, the media and the public because they are perceived to lean towards business lobbies at the cost of endangering public health. The controversy over imported fish has played to the advantage of local purse seiners and fishing communities. Goa-based trawler operators have long accused neo-settler wholesale traders of running a cartel that uses imports from other states to drive down the prices of the local catch. They have also accused the wholesalers of restricting local fisherfolks entry into wholesale markets. Now that the formalin scare has raised the value of local catch, these fisherfolk are beginning to regain their lost importance in Goas fish trade. Kerala: Shrimp exports from Kerala may be affected by US ban threat November 12,2018 | Source: The New Indian Express The Indian shrimp is facing a ban threat in the US, as the Department of State has found that the fishing practices followed by the country do not comply with the US regulations to protect sea turtles. The ban, if imposed, may adversely affect the Rs 7,000-crore export of shrimp from Kerala. On May 1, 2017, the Department of State had certified 39 nations and one economy, and granted determinations for seven fisheries, as having adequate measures in place to protect sea turtles during the course of commercial shrimp fishing, which permits those countries to export wild-caught shrimp to the country. However, India does not feature in the list of certified countries. As India pleaded that the country is following safe fishing practices, a team of experts from the US had visited Odisha, where olive ridley sea turtles nest in large numbers. The team is expected to visit Kerala by January, 2019, said sources. The US has implemented stringent anti-dumping policy to ensure protection of endangered marine species. As per the norms, the exporter has to furnish details regarding the location from where the fish was caught and the fishing gear used. If the catch is from outside the territorial waters using illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices, the consignment will be rejected. The US law demands use of Turtle Excluder Devices (TED) in fishing gear to ensure that no turtle is harmed due to the fishing practice. There is a threat of a ban in the US on the import of wild shrimp from India. We are trying to convince them that we dont follow destructive fishing practices, said CMFRI principal scientist Sunil Mohamed. We have informed the American authorities that we follow safe fishing practices and ensure protection of marine ecosystem. Turtles are found mostly in the Bay of Bengal and there is no nesting found on the Western Coast. Besides, a majority of the shrimp exported from Kerala is from the shrimp farms. We expect they will give some relaxation, said Fisheries Deputy Director S Mahesh. All-Kerala Fishing Boat Operators Association general secretary Joseph Xavier Kalapurakal said Kerala boats have not installed TED as the population of sea turtles is low in the Arabian sea. We dont follow destructive fishing practices. Even if a turtle is found in the catch, we release it into the sea. We are confident of convincing the American authorities, he said. With the Fisheries Ministers from southern states set to meet in Kochi on Saturday, fishermen leaders have demanded the issue should be discussed. The American authorities are bringing in regulations to support their fishing sector. The India Government should take up the matter with the American authorities and find an amicable solution to the problem. If the ban is imposed it will push the fishermen to penury, said Matsya Thozhilali Aikya Vedi president Charles George. A major chunk of the export to the US constitutes farmed shrimp and we dont think the ban will have a huge impact. We export wild shrimp worth 253 million dollars to the US, said an officer. Stan Leethe face of Marvel Comics who brought comic books into the mainstream, and one of the co-creators of beloved characters including The Avengers, Spider-Man and the X-Menhas died. He was 95. "No one has had more of an impact on my career and everything we do at Marvel Studios than Stan Lee," said Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. "Stan leaves an extraordinary legacy that will outlive us all. Our thoughts are with his daughter, his family, and his millions of fans." Stanley Martin Lieber was born in Manhattan in 1922, and attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. He entered the comic books business in 1939 when he was hired as a gofer for $8 a week at Marvel predecessor Timely Comics. He first used his pen name, Stan Lee, in 1941 when he wrote a two-page story titled "The Traitor's Revenge!" that was used to fill space in Captain America No. 3. After enlisting in the Army and serving in the Signal Corps, he returned to Marvel after World War II where he served as editor for years to come. Rolling Stone notes, "Marvel was publishing 10 comics a month in 1961 - romances, Westerns, war stories, teen comedies and monster tales, almost all of them written by Lee himself. To save time, rather than writing full scripts, hed come up with quick story synopses, pass them off to the stable of artists he worked with, and then fill in dialogue and captions when the artwork came back." Between the early '60s and '70s, he helped co-create the legion of comic book superheroes who have become synonymous with Marvel, including Black Panther, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and Ant-Man. He changed the way we look at heroes, and modern comics will always bear his indelible mark. His infectious enthusiasm reminded us why we all fell in love with these stories in the first place. Excelsior, Stan. DC (@DCComics) November 12, 2018 Stan Lee created some of the most incredible and enduring characters of our time, and he chose New York City as the place to tell their stories. On behalf of his hometown, I want to express our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) November 12, 2018 Lee collaborated with many artists and writers throughout his career, including Steve Ditko, which led to some disputes about credit later on: "I don't want anyone to think I treated Kirby or Ditko unfairly," he told Playboy in April 2014. "I think we had a wonderful relationship. Their talent was incredible. But the things they wanted weren't in my power to give them." To this day, people will say that Stan diminished the contributions of Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko. Onstage, going back to nearly a decade ago, I can tell you firsthand he did nothing but praise them and the role of artists in comics. He went out of his way to triple-underline it. Moises Chiullan (@moiseschiu) November 12, 2018 In particular, Lee scripted both the first 100 issues of The Amazing Spider-Manwhich took place in Queensand the first 114 issues of Fantastic Four. Lee talked to the NY Post a few years back about his approach to characters, and what differentiated them from earlier comic figures: "I just felt it made the characters more interesting if you cared about their private life. It started with the Fantastic Four, who I gave all kinds of problems. Reed would be jealous of his wife. The Human Torch would rather drive his Chevy Corvette on a date than chase criminals. But I did it most of all with Spider-Man. Peter Parker had to worry about his aunt, who was ill. He had to worry about getting enough money to pay the rent. Girls didnt like him much." He was named Marvel's publisher in the early '70s and after moving to Hollywood, became the literal face of Marvel. He worked on bringing Marvel characters to the small screen, and eventually, the big screen. He has made a cameo in every Marvel movie to date, and reportedly filmed a bunch more cameos for future movies (including Captain Marvel and Avengers 4) before his death. One of my favorite @DrewMcWeeny pieces ever: an attempt to explain all of Stan Lee's MCU cameos as happening to the same guy: https://t.co/lpakDFiZVn Alan Sepinwall (@sepinwall) November 12, 2018 .@TheRealStanLee was a true New Yorker whose limitless imagination helped create some of the most beloved characters in popular culture and made NYC just as big of a character. Excelsior! Mr. Lee and condolences to his many fans on behalf of the New York Family. Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) November 12, 2018 In addition, Stan The Man was beloved by fans for his monthly column, "Stans Soapbox," which appeared in the backs of comics; his love for alliterations and his many catchphrases (No Prize, 'Nuff Said, Excelsior!); and his unbridled joy in championing comics and connecting with kids. He was both a larger-than-life mythical figure and your kooky, chatty uncle all rolled into one. As ScreenCrush wrote, "Lees willingness to slap his name onto almost anything may have diluted his brand, but there was something very endearing about how Lee filled his later years with enthusiasm, creativity, and boundless energy. Until very recently, his schedule was constantly full with convention appearances and, of course, his cameos in every Marvel movie based on his co-creations." Stan Lee had a habit of giving nicknames to the @Marvel staff in his "Stan's Soapbox" column. A few years ago I categorized my favorites. RIP "The Man." pic.twitter.com/cyfUeuRsJu tim leong (@timleong) November 12, 2018 I suffered a lot of abuse when I was little and felt really alone. I became a writer because the books I read and the characters inside made me feel less lonely. Stan Lee played a huge role in that, and I didnt realize how huge until just a few seconds ago. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) November 12, 2018 True story: My 10 yr old son was at the end of a Stan Lee autograph line at a con. Stan gets ready to leave & my son finds he doesn't have enough money with him. Stan Lee sees him, signs his Spider-man comic, won't take any money, talks to my kid for 20 minutes. #Excelsior #RIP Mo Ryan (@moryan) November 12, 2018 I was first interviewed for Stan Lee's obituary about 20 years ago. I was happy he defied the reaper and carried on. With Stan gone, an era really does come to an end. He was the happy huckster that comics needed. And he really did alliterate like that when you talked to him. Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) November 12, 2018 Thank u Stan Lee for everything. TRAVIS SCOTT (@trvisXX) November 12, 2018 In his last years, he was the alleged victim of elder abuse and was given a restraining order against his "caretaker." Lee is survived by his daughter, J.C, who told TMZ, "My father loved all of his fans. He was the greatest, most decent man." His wife of 69 years, Joan, died in 2017. In 2016, Stan Lee explained why he would never retire. "When you retire, you have a chance to do all the things you've always wanted to do. I've been doing all the things I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to be involved in entertaining people." pic.twitter.com/x3zGnUBy0O Hollywood Reporter (@THR) November 12, 2018 Stan Lee dispensing some romantic advice in Mallrats. (This cameos a little NSFW compared to the Marvel movies.) https://t.co/mVILnvYqAe Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) November 12, 2018 Tons of actors and creators associate with Marvel have started posting tributes to Lee today: There will never be another Stan Lee. For decades he provided both young and old with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence, inspiration, strength, friendship and joy. He exuded love and kindness and will leave an indelible mark on so, so, so many lives. Excelsior!! Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) November 12, 2018 I am not going to be able to speak about this this morning, I can see that. But under the persona, Stan Lee was a real human being. I met him three times and three times he told me something literally life-changing. I hope everyone knows, he cared about us. That was no act. GAIL SIMONE (@GailSimone) November 12, 2018 Damn... RIP Stan. Thanks for everything. pic.twitter.com/TMAaDJSOhh Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) November 12, 2018 RIP @TheRealStanLee He made everyone feel like a kid in his presence no matter what your age. pic.twitter.com/JYeWXq8iKb Jim Lee (@JimLee) November 12, 2018 Thank you Stan Lee for making people who feel different realize they are special. Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) November 12, 2018 Thank you Stan Lee. For your service in protecting our freedom and for your creativity and imagination! You were and will always be a SUPER HERO! pic.twitter.com/d1qpuImyzQ Jamie Lee Curtis (@jamieleecurtis) November 12, 2018 SEOUL, Nov. 12 (Yonhap) -- Rival parties agreed Monday to expedite the passage of a bill aimed at toughening punishment on drunk drivers during the ongoing parliamentary regular session. In October, more than 100 lawmakers co-authored a revised bill on drunk driving. It is called the Yoon Chang-ho act, after a 22-year-old soldier who died last week after being in a coma since September, when he was struck by a motorist who was driving drunk in the southern port city of Busan. The bill calls for stringent punishment of drunk drivers. In cases where driving under the influence leads to death, it calls for sentencing ranging from at least five years in prison to life imprisonment and the death penalty, while the current law subjects the offender to at least one year in prison. It also calls for stricter standards of blood alcohol level for punishment. The floor leaders of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and two opposition parties agreed to handle the bill at an early date during their regular meeting with National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang held earlier in the day. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde Dhaka and Naypyidaw have agreed last month to begin by mid-November the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims. (Representational image | AFP) Washington: Seeking a voluntary, safe and dignified return of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar, the US asserted that Dhaka must ensure that the returnees have the freedom of movement and "not be confined to camps". Dhaka and Naypyidaw have agreed last month to begin by mid-November the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled to Bangladesh to escape a Myanmar army crackdown. Under the agreement, Myanmar will take back 2,000 Rohingya Muslims from Bagladesh in the first batch, which will be followed by a second batch. "We have engaged both governments at the highest levels to express our serious concerns about premature returns, and to emphasize that, consistent with international practice, returns be informed, voluntary, safe, and dignified. Further, returnees to Burma must have freedom of movement and not be confined to camps, the US State Department said in a statement on Sunday. However, the State Department also said it agreed with the assessment of the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) that conditions in Myanmar are not yet conducive for returns of the Rohingyas. "This is because full access to Burma is needed to understand the conditions in areas of return and to allow refugees and internally displaced persons to make an informed choice about returning to Burma," it said. Over 720,000 of Myanmar's stateless Rohingya fled in August last year, taking shelter in crowded camps in Bangladesh and bringing with them harrowing tales of rape, murder and arson in the brutal military crackdown. Urging Myanmar to play a constructive role in resolving the Rohingya issue, the US said the country should address the root causes of the crisis in the Rakhine state and provide access to a transparent and efficient citizenship verification process, freedom of movement and access to livelihoods to the minority Muslims. I am a retired newspaperman. I live in Poca, WV, with my wife of 44 years, Lou Ann. I grew up in Cleveland. Three kids. Grandfather. Report all errors to DonSurber@GMail.com Labourers arrange steel structures at a construction site of an office building in Hanoi. Photo by Reuters/Kham The number of enterprises closing down in the year to date hit 67,000, double the number in the same period last year. Chu Tien Dung, chairman of the HCM City Business Association, told VnExpress that this number is unusually high but can be explained by problems that have existed for years. The governments target of having 1 million enterprises by 2020 is to blame in no small measure since it has led to policies that encourage quantity rather than quality, he said. Typically, this has seen sole traders registered as one-man limited companies and a big start-up movement in major cities such as HCM City and Hanoi. "The procedures for setting up a limited company have been greatly simplified so that anyone can become a boss. If within a few years or even months the owner finds the business line to be unsuitable or does not like the company name, it is not difficult to dissolve and establish a new business." Statistics from the Department of Business Registration show that of the enterprises closing down each month the rate of those with charter capital of below VND10 billion ($426,350) is overwhelming. The reason lies primarily in the fact that small and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs) lack resources and also have difficulty accessing credit. The liberalization of the law on investment is being used by some to profit illegally, he said. Many enterprises have announced insolvency due to heavy losses. According to the World Bank, starting up in Vietnam now involves only eight steps which can be completed in 17 days while it takes 26 days on average in East Asia and the Pacific to complete formalities and enter the market. Tran Thi Hong Minh, director of the Department of Business Registration, said: "Dissolution and bankruptcy is the natural, objective law of the economy. The market will eliminate and purge weak businesses to replace them with those of better quality. "Vietnam is considered a dynamic economy with rapidly developing science and technology and so the pressure on businesses is of an equivalent magnitude." Pham Chi Lan, former chairwoman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), said business owners had expressed concern the business climate had not improved much. Even in the case of single-door administrative procedures, where all documents are meant to be submitted and received at one office, an applicant has to go through many other doors, she said. "While we are talking about creating new tools and policies, old, defunct procedures are still not scrapped. As such, Vietnamese businesses are very worried about their future." Containers are loaded at a port in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by Reuters/Kham Vietnam became the seventh country to ratify the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Monday afternoon. With its ratification, the National Assembly (NA) has assigned the task of reviewing related bills and legal enactments to the Government, the Supreme Peoples Court, the Supreme Peoples Procuracy and other relevant bodies. Once reviewed, the government agencies shall request that competent authorities amend, supplement or enact new laws in a timely manner to ensure uniformity and adherence to the roadmap for implementing commitments contained in the CPTPP. The Prime Minister will be responsible for approving and directing the relevant central or local agencies in implementing the CPTPP pact. The CPTPP is a major trade pact between Vietnam and 10 other countries that seeks to boost trade by reducing tariffs. Speaking at a recent NA session, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said that the CPTPP "will benefit Vietnam overall." Because the trade pact will cover 13.5 percent of global GDP, Vietnams GDP will be able to grow by 1.32 percent, and its exports 4.04 percent by 2035, he added, citing a report by the Ministry of Planning and Investment. However, the Deputy PM also enumerated challenges that Vietnam would face when joining the CPTPP. Domestic products such as pork and chicken might face strong competition from imported products. Other products that can have trouble competing include paper, steel and cars, Minh said. The other six countries to ratify the pact are Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Mexico and Singapore. The four countries still to ratify it are Brunei, Chile, Malaysia and Peru. Originally a 12-member agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the pact was thrown into limbo when U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew his country from the deal in January 2017. Following the U.S. withdrawal, the remaining 11 countries renegotiated parts of the TPP, removing some of Washingtons demands. In March, they signed the revised CPTPP, also known as TPP-11. Around 26,000 Vietnamese were granted student visas to attend Japanese-language schools in Japan last year. Photo by Shuttershock/onephoto Japan has blacklisted 12 Vietnamese overseas study consulting firms for faking Japanese proficiency in students visa applications. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has ordered that from October to March next year, its embassy in Vietnam will turn down visa applications submitted by the blacklisted companies, following suspicions theyd been forging Japanese proficiency certificates for Vietnamese students for a long time, the Mainichi newspaper reported. Japanese authorities found that more than 10 percent of around 6,000 interviewed Vietnamese nationals who applied for student visas between March last year through September this year failed to meet required Japanese language proficiency levels. In 2017, around 26,000 Vietnamese citizens were granted student visas to attend Japanese-language schools, second only to Chinese students, according to the Japan Student Services Organization. In another black mark, the Vietnamese expat community has surpassed China to become the largest group of foreign criminal suspects in Japan, accounting for 30.2 percent of the total number of crimes committed by foreign nationals, according to National Police Agency data issued last year. Of these, around 40 percent of Vietnamese criminals have been staying illegally in Japan under "student visas," and the Japanese Embassy in Vietnam suspects fraud in student visa processing. When Japanese officials conducted face-to-face interviews with Vietnamese applicants, they found that at least one in 10 applicants was not able to understand Japanese well enough to apply for a student visa. The ratio has climbed over 30 percent among applicants whose visa paperwork was submitted by the 12 companies now blacklisted by the Japanese government. The Japanese Foreign Ministry has reported its findings to the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training, which had issued permits for those companies to process visa paperwork for applicants. Such companies charge more than 1 million yen ($8,787) for a visa application. Visa applicants are required to submit a certificate of eligibility for resident status issued by the Japanese Ministry of Justice. In order to obtain the certificate, applicants need to prove they have an equivalent of N5 or a higher level of competence after passing the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test. The Vietnamese expat population in Japan increased four times from 2012-2016 to reach 232,562 last year, making it the fourth biggest minority group in the Northeast Asian country. Vietnamese nationals also accounted for almost half of the foreign residents whose residency rights were revoked in Japan last year, the Japan Times said, citing a report from the Japanese Justice Ministry. Phan Van Vinh, former director of the General Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security, sits among cops at the trial on Monday. Photo by VnExpress/Bao Ha Trial began Monday in a multimillion dollar online gambling case involving two former senior policemen and 90 others. The trial opened in the Phu Tho Peoples Court in the northern province, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Hanoi. Phan Van Vinh, former director of the General Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security, and Nguyen Thanh Hoa, former director of the ministrys Departmentfor High-Tech Crime Prevention, are charged with "abuse of power or position in performance of official duties." Vinh was arrested in April and Hoa a month earlier. They could be sentenced to 5-10 years in prison. The 90 other defendants are charged with six different crimes: gambling, organizing gambling, money laundering, and trading illegal receipts. The trial, guarded by more than 500 cops on the opening day, is expected to last for 20 days. Nguyen Thanh Hoa, former director of the ministrys cyber crime division, arrives at the Phu Tho People's Court on Monday. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy Investigations found Vinh had helped Nguyen Thanh Hoa and Nguyen Van Duong, chairman of high-tech security development company CNC, to set up the gambling ring, which was worth around $420 million when it was busted. Duong had previously been working with Hoas division to provide technical support before setting up the gambling service in May 2015 with Phan Sao Nam, founder and former board chairman of major online communications firm VTC. According to investigators, the gambling ring headed by Nam and Duong on web portals Rikvip/Tip.club had established a large network of 25 "tier 1 agencies" and nearly 5,900 "tier 2 agencies" with nearly 43 million user accounts since being launched in mid-2015. The illegal ring was found to have generated a total income of over VND9.8 trillion ($426 million) and a profit of VND4.7 trillion. Out of this profit, Nam received nearly VND1.5 trillion, Duong got over VND1.6 trillion while a group of other suspects earned VND1.57 trillion. The ring was first uncovered when police were investigating a fraud case involving mobile top-up cards in May last year. The scammer in the case claimed he had redeemed all the cards for virtual currencies used in an online gambling card game. Investigating this claim, police discovered Nam and Duong's ring, which was run using two online game portals that resembled professional casinos in which players could gamble virtual money and convert their winnings to real money. Prosecutors in Phu Tho said Vinh had not only turned a blind eye to the formation of the ring, but also actively signed documents to facilitate its formation. Hoa was ordered by Vinh to sign documents allowing the ring to continue to function. Vinhs crime has had "extremely severe consequences" and "tarnished the polices reputation," and Hoa tried to hinder investigations, the indictment said. Organizing gambling or running gambling dens is punishable by up to 10 years in jail in Vietnam. Tourists are seen in front of a drug store in Japan. Photo by Shutterstock/Takamex Japanese police have detained three Vietnamese nationals for a series of cosmetics robberies from Tokyo stores. The arrests were made following a six months surveillance of the trio: two female interns and a 25-year-old male gang leader, a former student staying on in Japan as a refugee, the Yomiuri newspaper reported Monday. Their names have not been revealed. The surveillance began mid-May after Tokyo police received a complaint from a drug store owner, saying a group of foreigners had entered the store and stolen cosmetics products. They acted quickly and left in three minutes, the complainant said. Initial investigations showed the Vietnamese gang had carried out at least 10 robberies between January and July. They stayed in a rented apartment in Tokyo and robbed stores in a systematic manner, with one doing the shoplifting, one keeping a lookout and the third driving. Vietnamese expats in Japan committed more crimes than any other foreign non-permanent residents living in the country last year, according to Kyodo News. Police recorded 5,140 crimes committed by Vietnamese people in 2017, up from 3,177 the year before, accounting for 30.2 percent of the total number of crimes committed by foreign nationals. Shoplifting was the dominant crime, with 2,037 cases, while burglary jumped to 325 in 2017 from just 12 the previous year. Vietnamese have surpassed Brazilians to become the fourth biggest minority group in Japan after the number of non-permanent residents in the country grew more than six-fold between 2008 and 2017, when it reached about 260,000 last year. Community activists in Flatbush say the NYPD is failing to properly investigate a racist subway attack over the weekend, in which a woman was stabbed by a white man who allegedly shouted that she was a "black bitch." Ann Marie Washington, 57, was exiting the Q train at Church Avenue in Flatbush on Friday night when she was punched in the face and stabbed in the back by the man, according to family members and local activists. She was transported to Kings County Hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery for a collapsed lung. Washington, a home health aide and mother of two, said that she was on her way home from work when the attack took place. She said the man fled on the Q train, and described him as 5'3", in his early 30s, wearing sweatpants and a black hoodie. Police have not released security camera footage from the incident or a sketch of the alleged attacker. The NYPD described the incident as an "attempted robbery," and initially said that it was not being investigated as a hate crime. Despite the woman's injuries, and testimony from witnesses who saw the aftermath of the attack, the initial police report did not include any mention of the woman being stabbed. On Sunday, community advocates held a news conference accusing the NYPD of unequal enforcement priorities, and demanding that police release all evidence related to the incident, including surveillance footage. "This is a white man yelling misogynist, racist things while punching and stabbing someone, but police downplayed it because it was a black woman attacked by a white man," Imani Henry, the founder of Equality for Flatbush, told Gothamist. "It's only because of the community speaking out that it got bumped up to a hate crime." The NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force is reportedly looking into the incident, though a police spokesperson told Gothamist on Monday morning that they could not confirm whether this was the case. Anthony Beckford, a community advocate who's been in touch with the victim and her family, pointed to recent incidents of racism in Flatbush and across the city as evidence of the NYPD's "lackadaisical" approach to investigating incidents in which black people are targeted. "'They're emboldened and they think they can get away with it, because they have been getting away with it," he said. "You see what happened with the Proud Boys a few weeks ago, you have white women calling 911 on black kids for nothingit's escalating because of who is in office." Last week, NYPD leadership said there had been 309 hate crimes reported so far this yearup from 297 over the same period in 2017. About half of those reported incidents have been anti-Semitic in nature. Both anti-Semitic and racist hate crimes have increased since the election of Donald Trump two years ago. According to Beckford, the NYPD's enforcement of hate crimes is not equally applied among minority communities. He noted that while footage of young black kids throwing a pipe through a synagogue window was widely shared by police, the department has not yet released any information about the suspect who scrawled "kill all n-iggers" on the African Burial Ground Monument earlier this month. "I'm angry and frustrated," Beckford told Gothamist. "This women nearly lost her life, she still has bruises, still has tubes coming out of her body, and police couldn't even be bothered to show up for her." Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams will hold a press conference outside the subway station at 3 p.m. today; according to the announcement Adams will "join Washington's family, witnesses to the assault, and community members in urging the MTA to immediately release and circulate any images of the suspect, as well as for the NYPD to apprehend him and charge him with a hate crime." Ho Chi Minh City raised wages for government workers in April based on performance and more hikes are on the cards in future. Vietnams commercial hub would have to spend VND3.2 trillion ($137 million) this year on the raise, Phan Thi Thang, director of the Department of Finance, said at a meeting Friday. The hike is for those employees who have completed their tasks well enough. Their wages will rise by 0.6 times this year, 1.2 times next year and 1.8 times in 2020. The performance of each will be evaluated by themselves, their colleagues and finally their superior to see if they qualify for the raise. Salaries are calculated by multiplying a basic wage of VND1.3 million ($57) with a coefficient determined by qualification and experience. The basic rate will also be raised by 7 percent this year as part of efforts to tackle corruption. Vietnam's average income last year was $2,380. HCMC, home to 13 million people, is the biggest source of revenue for the country, with more than VND345 trillion ($15.17 billion) last year, up 13 percent from 2016, according to its finance department. Last November, Vietnamese legislators agreed to give Ho Chi Minh City more administrative autonomy so that it could continue leading the development race. This allows the city to fix salaries for industry experts and scientists, and raise salaries in the public sector as it sees fit. The decision also gives it greater powers in land management, investment and the use of its finances, which normally require approval from the government. Nguyen Thien Nhan, Secretary of the HCMC Party unit, said the city has a large population and each government worker has to serve up to 700 residents compared to the national average of 350. "Raising salary is a way to boost public workers' productivity, allowing them to serve local residents and businesses better," he told the meeting. Le Thanh Liem, Vice Chairman of the city People's Committee, said official data for 2013-17 showed that public workers in the city are 1.5 times more productive than their counterparts elsewhere and it is not fair for them to be paid the same. Death toll rose to 26 as search teams scoured for victims in the carnage of California's most destructive ever wildfire on Sunday. Hell in Paradise: fire crews in grim search for California's dead Wildfires devastate Paradise, California Firefighters took advantage of a brief calm overnight to make headway against the multiple blazes, but conditions were expected to be hellish on Sunday with winds reaching as high as 70 miles (110 kilometers) an hour. In fire zones north and south, acrid smoke blanketed the sky for miles, the sun barely visible. On the ground, cars caught in the blaze were reduced to mangled metal carcasses, while power lines were gnawed by the flames. The largest inferno, the so-called "Camp Fire" in the northern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, has destroyed 6,700 homes, business and other buildings in the town of Paradise, effectively wiping it off the map. At least 23 people have lost their lives in and around the community of 27,000, according to an official count by authorities. An AFP journalist in Magalia, a 10-mile drive north of Paradise, saw workers from a local mortuary team recover another body which was put into a blue bag and loaded onto a hearse. Only two Californian wildfires have claimed more lives, the most recent more than a quarter-century ago. At the southern end of the state, where the "Woolsey Fire" is threatening mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity redoubt of Malibu, the death toll has been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway. Los Angeles County Fire chief Daryl Osby told reporters of his gratitude to firefighters "who've done all they could do save tens of thousands of people's lives and thousands of people's homes." Sheriff department deputies in the town of Paradise, California have been recovering bodies in the smoldering rubble of homes devastated by the Camp Fire. Photo by AFP/Josh Edelson 'New normal' Rescuers spent Saturday collecting bodies around Paradise and placing them in a black hearse. Charred body parts were transported by bucket, while intact remains were carried in body bags. At the Holly Hills Mobile Estate the mobile homes had been reduced to smoldering piles of debris. Yellow police tape delineated spots that were tagged "Doe C" and "Doe D," a grim marker of the bodies that had recently been removed. Locals fled the danger, but police told AFP some farmers returned to check on their cattle. Fanned by strong winds, the "Camp Fire" has so far scorched 109,000 acres (45,000 hectares) and is 25 percent contained, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said. So far, three of the more than 4,000 firefighters deployed have been injured. They estimate they will need three weeks to fully contain the blaze. Evacuation orders have been issued to more than 250,000 people across California, with authorities urging residents not to ignore warnings to flee. "We're entering a new normal. Things are not the way they were 10 years ago," Ventura County Fire Department Chief Mark Lawrenson said. "The rate of spread is exponentially more than it used to be. Please heed evacuation warnings. Do not stay in your homes to try to defend them." Smoke from the blaze reached toward the ocean along Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu, California. Photo by AFP/Robyn Beck 'Dangerously wrong' Almost 6,000 miles away, President Donald Trump, in France for World War I commemorations, drew fierce criticism for an unsympathetic reaction to the devastation. "There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor," Trump tweeted, threatening to withdraw federal support. Brian Rice, the head of the California Professional Firefighters, slammed the tweet as "ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines." He said the president's claim that forest policies were mismanaged "is dangerously wrong." The tweet also drew political criticism. Republican Senator Cory Gardner told ABC News on Sunday: "I don't think it's appropriate to threaten funding. "That's not going to happen. Funding will be available. It always is available to our people wherever they are, whatever disaster they are facing." Malibu mansions in flames In southern California, the "Woolsey Fire" engulfed parts of Thousand Oaks, where the community is still shell-shocked after a Marine Corps veteran shot dead 12 people in a country music bar on Wednesday. It has consumed around 83,000 acres, destroyed at least 177 buildings and was ten percent contained, Cal Fire said Sunday. The blaze reached the Paramount Ranch, destroying sets used for hundreds of productions including HBO'S sci-fi western "Westworld," network officials said. Keegan Gibbs, 33, was crushed to find his childhood Malibu home had been consumed by flames. "Malibu is a really small community and gets a bad rap for being this kind of elitist, snobby place, and it's exactly the opposite," Gibbs told the Los Angeles Times. Participants ride bicycles during a gay pride parade to advocate gay rights in Hanoi on November 11, 2018. Photo by Vietnam News Agency/Thanh Dat As more than 1,000 Vietnamese joined Hanoi's Gay Pride parade Sunday to support the LGBT community, activists called on the government to make a long-tabled transgender rights law a reality. Vietnam in 2015 changed its civil code to allow transgender people who have undergone surgery to be registered and recognised by their new gender. But a long-promised trans law that would cover a wide range of issues has stalled and activists are pushing for more rights and services, including making gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy legally available to its citizens, and also allowing gender changes without surgery. The community says without such a law in place they still face discrimination and have trouble accessing banking and other public services. "There is a high demand for a change in gender recognition in Vietnam but the demand cannot be met now. We don't know how and when things will be more realistic," Vuong Kha Phong, secretary of Hanoi Pride 2018's organising committee, told AFP. "The LGBT community is waiting in limbo as they have rights in theory but the rights cannot be realized," he said. "We want to tell (the authorities) to please make or realise the laws so that we can live our lives according to our gender identity." People in the parade Sunday were all smiles as they rode colourful bicycles and waved rainbow flags, marching down Hanoi's tree-lined streets. Beaming bystanders waved at drag queens dressed in floor-length gowns, who were ferried in rickshaws with the parade. But a woman told AFP that having a body fit her identity of a man would be a "dream." "I don't have much money to go abroad (to do the surgery). I don't know how long I have to wait to realise my dream," said the woman, who identified herself as Lan. Another sticking point for participants is the lack of a law allowing for same-sex marriage. While lesbian and gay couples are no longer fined for symbolic unions, they were still unable to get a legal marriage certificate, rendering them ineligible for rights like joint property ownership or adoption opportunities. "We want to be treated equally by being allowed to get married as freely as others," said Nguyen Huong Ly, 20, who was attending the parade with her girlfriend. Hoang Giang Son, an LGBT coordinator at iSEE, Vietnam's Institute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment, said activists have seen a big shift in public awareness towards LGBT rights, but same-sex marriage is still out of reach. "I really hope same sex legalisation can happen in 2020. We will do more to help (authorities) change their minds," he told AFP. The Verkhovna Rada, under the pressure of protesting drivers of vehicles with EU registration plates cut the customs clearance fees for such cars but sharply increased fines for those who fail to legalize their vehicles in Ukraine on time. MPs also discussed tax innovations, while President Poroshenko announced that Ukraine would shortly receive the first tranche of the EU aid in the amount of EUR 500 million. Meanwhile, the start of the heating season brought the first "surprise" as coal reserves at Luhansk TPP, owned by DTEK, have exhausted. One of the most discussed topics of recent months was the legalization of cars with foreign registration plates, nicknamed "EU tags." In the past week, it would seem, the saga would end as the Rada adopted a corresponding law. However, it was not the case. On Wednesday, activists from the AutoEuroSyla organization launched a mass rally outside the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers in Kyiv, demanding that the Parliament adopt a law on the legalization of "EU tags" with their amendments taken into account. This never happened. The rejected amendments were aimed at changing the concept of the model adopted in the first reading of the law, and essentially repeated each other, Nina Yuzhanina, head of the relevant parliamentary committee, explained. The next day, the Verkhovna Rada, after long discussions, adopted two laws on the issue. The first one provides for a reduction in the cost of customs clearance of "EU tags": EUR 50 euros is the base rate for cars on gasoline with an engine volume of up to 3,000 cubic centimeters; EUR 100 for cars with engine volume starting from 3,000 ccm, EUR 75 for diesel cars (up to 3,500 ccm) and EUR 150 for diesl cars with engine volumes from 3,500 ccm. Another norm has been introduced saying that the largest age ratio of the car (the number of full years from the day of production to the day of registration of the vehicle) will be 15. That is, if the car is even older than 15 years, then the maximum factor applied will be 15. And most importantly, some privileges were granted to drivers of such cars: during the first 90 days from the moment the law enters into force, a 50% discount will be applied for customs clearance. During the first 180 days of the law, no penalties will be applied to the owners of EU tags. Meanwhile, the problem is that the allotted time for preferential customs clearance might not be enough. According to various sources, there are from 350,000 to 500,000 cars with EU plates in Ukraine, so their owners may simply not have time to go through the procedure. Although, according to Yuzhanina, it is proposed to instruct the Cabinet of Ministers to develop, within a month, a procedure for customs clearance of motor vehicles, taking into account the latest innovations. She also noted that all receipts from the customs clearance of cars in 2018-2019 would be allocated for the Pension Fund. Another law adopted by the Rada strengthens the control of movement of vehicles with foreign registration plates. Thus, a person who imported a car into Ukraine in transit mode or in temporary import mode will not be able to transfer it to the possession, use or disposal to other persons. It will also be prohibited to use such a car for business or to generate income. An automated data exchange has been introduced between the fiscal service, the border guards, and the National Police to monitor the EU tags across the country. Penalties for violations are also increasing: for exceeding the allowed period of stay from 10 to 20 days there shall be a fine of UAH 8,500, from 20 to 30 days it will be UAH 85,000, and for more than 30 days (and for the loss or disassembly of the car) it's UAH 170,000 or the confiscation of the vehicle by a court decision. Fines come into force 180 days from the day following the day the law was published. Deputies expected to that the adoption of these two bills would solve the problem but the EU-taggers were not happy with the new legislation. The leader of the activists, Oleh Yaroshevich, said that they demand from the president to veto the laws and send them back for revision. Otherwise, activists warn of all-Ukrainian protest action with the blocking of international highways. New taxes to fill the budget In addition to the car laws, the parliament considered another very important document, on filling the state budget. At the beginning of the past week, on November 5, the Cabinet of Ministers submitted to the Parliament a bill on amending the Tax Code, on which the state budget for the next year is based. This is the second tax attempt by the government. In mid-October, the deputies did not support the first version of the innovations. The reason, according to Yuzhanina, was the failure to provide a feasibility report. Meanwhile, the second version didn't have more numbers in it either. The explanatory note states that the adoption of the law will increase revenues to the consolidated budget (under the conditions of 2019) in the amount of UAH 6.3 billion, of which UAH 5.9 billion to the state budget. A total of 233 deputies supported the government's ideas in the first reading. The innovations are the following. First, from July 1, 2019, the excise tax on tobacco products will increase by 9%, and from January 1, 2019, the environmental tax rate for carbon dioxide emissions from stationary sources will increase to UAH 10 per tonne with the subsequent gradual increase. In addition, it is expected to increase the rate of rent for the use of subsoil for the extraction of oil and iron ore. The bill also introduces licensing of production, storage, wholesale and retail trade in fuel, control over the intended use of fuel for aircraft. A separate accounting of the movement of alcohol is also introduced, while a list of requirements is established for enterprises receiving alcohol at a zero excise rate. According to experts, most of all Ukrainians will be affected by value-added taxation of parcels sent to Ukraine from abroad with a total value over the equivalent of EUR 100 per one recipient from one sender. For this norm, a transitional period is proposed to be set from January 1 to June 30, 2019, during which goods will be taxed in excess of the equivalent of EUR 150. Most Ukrainians reacted to the idea negatively. They are also anxious about the fact that the limit can be reduced to EUR 22, as, for example, in Belarus, as part of the fight against smuggling and corruption. The corresponding petition appeared on the website of the president, which has already collected almost 15,000 signatures from the required 25,000. Ihor Smelyansky, Ukrposhta CEO, expressed his position: My personal position is as a citizen of Ukraine, not the head of Ukrposhtai is as following: If Ukraine doesnt overcome smuggling at EUR 150, then we shouldn't be talking about EUR 22. What happened in Belarus when they introduced '22 Euros'? Budget revenues have shrunk. One of our most profitable branches is in Lutsk. Our dear Belarusians order all their goods there and come to pick them up. We shouldn't repeat this." Experts believe though that the draft law will undergo numerous edits. Waiting for EU aid President Petro Poroshenko last week visited Finland, where the Congress of the European People's Party was held. Upon his arrival, the head of state reported some good news: in the near future, Ukraine will receive the first tranche of the EU aid in the amount of EUR 500 million as part of the billion-dollar macro-financial assistance promised earlier. With Vice-President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, we talked about the fact that in the near future, in a matter of weeks, EUR 500 million of macro-financial assistance will be allocated, said Poroshenko. By the way, Ukraine's people's deputies also contributed to the implementation of these plans. In the past week, the Verkhovna Rada ratified a corresponding agreement with the European Union. Acting Finance Minister Oksana Markarova, who attended the parliament meeting, stated that all the technical conditions had been fulfilled for receiving the first tranche. According to her, the rate will be no more than 3%, with the term of no more than 15 years. Ukraine will receive the second tranche when cooperation with the IMF is fully resumed. By the way, in the past week, the Fund's experts visited Ukraine to consult the government on the preparation of the budget for 2019. Luhansk region on verge of blackout Coal reserves have exhausted at the Luhansk thermal power station, which is part of Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK and provides electricity to the north of Luhansk region. An extraordinary event, really. After all, its halt could lead to about a million people across the region finding themselves in total darkness and without the benefits of civilization. At the same time, Akhmetovs company says it is not its fault, at the same time blaming Ukraine's Ukrzaliznytsia railway operator, which, in their opinion, should have built a separate 100 km line specifically for the transportation of coal to the Luhansk TPP. Head of the association of energy and utilities consumers, Andriy Gerus, shares another angle to the problem that has arisen. In his opinion, the problem is a result of careless moves of the DTEK management. DTEKs management style has led to this: it's about not forming coal reserves for the heating period in the summer, and keeping the minimum volumes at warehouses until the last moment, demanding an increase in tariffs or other preferences, he said. By the way, this week, the Antimonopoly Committee was to consider the results of the historic four-year investigation of DTEKs monopoly in the thermal generation market. However, the meeting was disrupted as representatives of the National energy and Utilities Regulation Commission and Ukrenergo failed to attend. Gerus practically foresaw such an outcome. He stated on Facebook that DTEK would not give up on political blackmail. DTEK exports electricity at cheaper prices than it sells to the Ukrainian energy market. DTEK does not form coal reserves at its warehouses every summer, maintains minimum coal stocks until the last moment, thus creating political pressure for a new increase in tariffs. This is exactly what is happening right now at the Kryvyi Rih TPP, where there is only enough coal left for only a few days, and at there is Luhansk TPP, where there is only enough coal left until midnight. Whether the Antimonopoly notices it, we will find out tomorrow, he wrote on Facebook on the eve of the AMCU meeting. As it turned out, no one has noticed this so far neither the AMCU, nor the NEURC, nor the prosecutor's office along with the SBU. Yaroslav Samoliuk If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Ukraine, China to start consultations on FTA Annual trade turnover between the two countries in the next five years may increase to $20 billion, according to Ukraine's ministry. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Ukraine can count on the United States, the U.S. energy secretary underlined. The United States remains in opposition to the Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream gas pipeline projects bypassing Ukraine, that's according to U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. "The president and I will shortly sign a Strategic Energy Dialogue in the next few hours to send a strong message that the Trump administration, the United States of America are going to be strong allies, strong partners with Ukraine," Rick Perry told Prime Minister Groysman during their Kyiv meeting on Monday. Read alsoEnergy Secretary Perry: U.S. ready to develop energy infrastructure in Ukraine "The message will be very clear of the United States continued opposition to Nord Stream 2, to the Turkish Stream pipeline. And the reason is clear. The citizens of Europe, the citizens of Ukraine in particular should never be held hostage by a single source of energy," Rick Perry said. He added that "the greatest way to send that message is to partner with individuals that you know you can count on. And the [U.S.] president Donald Trump] wanted me to come today and to tell you that you can count on the United States." The United States is willing to assist Ukraine as the country reforms its government and its structure, the top energy official said. U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry says Washington supports the unbundling of Naftogaz, as well as the liberalization and transparency of energy markets. "We certainly want to assist as you reform your government, your structure. For instance, the unbundling of Naftogaz, the liberalization of energy markets, transparency, predictability," he said at a Kyiv meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman Monday. "For instance, your very new announcement on geological data transparency, licensing, the production sharing agreements all of those collectively send a powerful message to the United States government, to the United States private sector partners, and your European neighbors that Ukraine is very serious about the reforms, very serious about being the energy center in the world," Perry said. Read alsoU.S. opposes Nord Stream 2, Turkish Stream - Rick Perry UNIAN memo. In early November 2016, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a decision to create a new operator of Ukraine's GTS, namely PJSC Mahistralni Gazoprovody Ukrainy (Trunk Gas Pipelines). At the same time, Naftogaz management created a new subsidiary, the Operator of the Ukrainian GTS, within the structure of Ukrtransgaz. Naftogaz believes that the establishment of a new legal entity and the involvement of a European partner in its management is necessary for European companies to be able to buy gas on the eastern border of Ukraine and transfer it to the European market, preserving transit volumes after the current contract with Gazprom expires. Supervisory Boards of the National Joint-Stock Company Naftogaz of Ukraine and new operator of Ukraine's gas transmission system (GTS), namely PJSC Mahistralni Gazoprovody Ukrainy [Trunk Gas Pipelines of Ukraine], on July 24 reached an agreement on a roadmap of cooperation towards a full and transparent unbundling of Ukraine's gas transmission function in early 2020. On November 5, the state-owned operator of Ukraine's gas transportation system, Ukrtransgaz, created its new branch, the Operator of Ukrainian Gas Storage Facilities, as part of unbundling (splitting of the company into constituent businesses). The document was signed by U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin in Kyiv on November 12. The United States and Ukraine have signed a joint statement concerning extension of the operational safety enhancements, risk reduction measures and nuclear safety regulation for civil nuclear facilities in Ukraine. Both sides are "seeking continue cooperation in order to, inter alia, enhance the safety of civil nuclear facilities in Ukraine, to develop operational safety procedures and protocols, to improve diagnostic capabilities and to improve regulatory effectiveness by developing appropriate regulatory standards, requirements and procedures," the statement posted on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said. The document was signed by U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin in Kyiv on November 12. Read alsoEnergy Secretary Perry: U.S. ready to develop energy infrastructure in Ukraine The two signatories say they recognize the Multilateral Nuclear Safety Initiative announced on May 23, 1992 and intend to build upon the framework for cooperation set forth in the Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Ukraine Regarding Humanitarian and Technical Economic Cooperation, signed at Washington on May 7, 1992. They also support "the goals and objectives of the Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Ukraine concerning Operational Safety Enhancements, Risk Reduction Measures and Nuclear Safety Regulation for Civilian Nuclear Facilities in Ukraine, signed at Kyiv on October 25, 1993, as amended and extended (the 1993 Agreement)." What is more, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reaffirmed their intention to renew the 1993 Agreement by the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Ukraine for five years, via an agreement between the two Governments by an exchange of diplomatic notes. An elderly man who fled the Nazis and became a noted psychology scholar died from injuries he sustained after being pushed by a rushing subway rider at Penn Station. His widow told the Post, "He died because of that [subway rider]. I dont think he meant to kill him, but he killed him." Kurt Salzinger and his wife, Deanna Chitayat, were headed to Macy's after getting off a 3 train on October 27th. Chitayat recalled, "A guy rushing, running to meet the train swiped Kurt, like pushed him and me... [Kurt]fell on the platform and lay there like a dead man, not moving." She added that the man only paused momentarily, "He stopped and looked at Kurt and saw him laying there and then jumped into the car," a downtown 3 train. Other people on the platform helped tend to Salzinger and Chitayat. Salzinger was hospitalized and in a coma until he died on November 8th. His obituary reads: Kurt was born in Vienna, Austria in 1929. At 11 he fled the Nazis with his family, living along the way in Latvia and Japan and eventually taking a boat to Seattle. Finally arriving in New York, Kurt attended Bronx High School of Science, NYU, and Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in Psychology under the mentorship of Dr. Joseph Zubin. As a committed behaviorist, Dr. Salzinger held positions at the NY State Psychiatric Institute, Polytechnic University, the National Science Foundation, the American Psychological Association (APA), and Hofstra University. He was President of the NY Academy of Sciences where he initiated dialog with the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He was Executive Director of Science at the APA, among other roles, as well as President of the Association of Behavior Analysis and the Eastern Psychological Association. He wrote 14 books and 200 journal articles, and his work continues to be cited widely. His colleagues remembered Salzinger as "a powerful force in the world of Behavioral Analysis" and for his kindness. The Hofstra community is saddened to learn of the passing of Professor Emeritus Kurt Salzinger, PhD, former Senior Scholar in Residence in the Department of Psychology. https://t.co/Dy00WigW3o pic.twitter.com/dpfT4aj7zQ Hofstra University (@HofstraU) November 10, 2018 According to the NY Times, "The police and Mr. Salzingers family believe his death was an accident, but they are awaiting an official determination from the medical examiner. The encounter was not captured on video, and the police have not yet located the straphanger to interview." A neighbor of Salzinger and Chitayat had asked for clues about the subway rider on West Side Rag, writing, "Kurt is a holocaust survivor, and to think that he survived Nazi-occupied Vienna but not a trip to Macys because of a detestable man with no conscience is horrific." The NYPD asks anyone with information to call the Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS. Chitayat told the Post she just wants the subway rider "to realize what he did, to remember it and to feel guilty. He destroyed a persons life to rush for a train." Statement nn the ongoing Aggression by Azerbaijan against the Republic of Armenia "We condemn any attempts at borderisation, as observed since the incursion of Azerbaijani troops into Armenian territory on 12 May" Joint statement The United States is deeply concerned about reports of intensive fighting today between Armenia and Azerbaijan.ANTONY J. BLINKEN Statement of the MFA of Armenia Google Ad Ookla has awarded Ucom with The fastest fixedline network in Armenia award UCOM keeps on supporting the 42 YEREVAN programming school Recognizing the One-Year Anniversary of the Ceasefire Declaration Between Armenia and Azerbaijan They should not be positioned near civilian communities neither in Armenia nor in Artsakh Humanitarian and human rights protection needed following the 2020 outbreak of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh Galaxy Group of Companies expands its activities in Belarus: a new TIME and Pandora store launched I think its a good moment to invest in Armenia. Head of Markets at Symbiotics Vincent Lehner Ameriabank has Raised USD 17.5M Tier 2 Capital UNIGHT TO UNITE. UCOM CELEBRATED ITS REBIRTH Ameriabank and HSBC Armenia to provide their customers access to each others ATMs without additional fees Ameriabank. 62.5% Growth in Taxes YOY Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans have provided 300 million AMD to overcome the infertility in Armenia Google Ad UCOM has officially launched the sale of IPHONE 13 Six servicemen were wounded by the attack of the Azerbaijani armed forces in Artsakh, two of them in critical condition S&P Improved the Outlook on Ameriabank to Positive Ararat Mirzoyan to visit to Minsk Foreign Minister of India visits the Memorial of Armenian Genocide 1217 new cases Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group At UCOM only: Tv sets at 10% discount + 1 month free UMIX package + 4k tv channel Ameriabanks Special Offer for New Clients of Hrazdan Branch "Fall forward": Gurgen Khachatryan, the Co-Founder of the Galaxy Group of Companies, addressed a message to young people in Armenia UCOM hosted interns of Russian CBOSS corporation for a month The 20-episode Bloody bet thriller to be broadcast on Ucom's Armenia Premium TV channel Caretaker Minister of Transportation, Communication and Information Technologies receives Chinas Ambassador to Armenia Caretaker Minister of Transportation, Communication and Information Technologies Hakob Arshakyan has held a meeting with Chinas Ambassador to Armenia Tian Erlong, the ministry said. During the meeting Arshakyan spoke highly about the cooperation in road construction, IT and telecommunication that has developed between the two countries. The caretaker minister addressed the construction of the North-South Road Corridors Tranche 3, which is carried out by Chinas Sinohydro Corporation. Arshakyan noted that certain problems have appeared in this portion of the road but that positive movement is observed in the recent period. Speaking about revising the timeframe of the project, Arshakyan noted that first of all it is necessary to involve new capacities, increase accountability in the work, and if after all efforts it wont be possible to maintain the deadline, then extending the deadline in a reasonable way will be discussed. The Chinese ambassador said he is always ready to assist in establishing mutual understanding in working relations. On behalf of the Chinese side, the ambassador expressed interest over being involved in the projects Tranche 4- be it construction carried out by a Chinese company or financial participation under favorable loan conditions. He said that the Chinese side is open for cooperation in any format. The sides also exchanged ideas over direct air communication. The ambassador emphasized that the possibility of establishing direct air communication can be discussed when for example the passenger flow will significantly increase. Arshakyans deputy Bagrat Badalyan presented the Armenian participations framework at the upcoming November 20 Pilot Project Expert Group meeting on Financing in Brussels. The Tranche 4 project is planned to be presented at the event. The Chinese ambassador highlighted Armenias role as a mediator country for establishing China-EEU economic ties. Ambassador Erlong noted that cooperation in the IT sector is also very promising and that great untapped opportunities exist. Arshakyan in turn suggested creating an arena where IT businessmen from Armenia and China will meet to get acquainted and establish business ties. The ambassador said that every autumn an expo is organized in Shenzhen, and that the venue might be considered as the kind of arena that the caretaker minister was talking about. Erlong attached importance to not only business ties, but also academic relations, cooperation of Armenian and Chinese scientists. Statement nn the ongoing Aggression by Azerbaijan against the Republic of Armenia "We condemn any attempts at borderisation, as observed since the incursion of Azerbaijani troops into Armenian territory on 12 May" Joint statement The United States is deeply concerned about reports of intensive fighting today between Armenia and Azerbaijan.ANTONY J. BLINKEN Statement of the MFA of Armenia Ookla has awarded Ucom with The fastest fixedline network in Armenia award UCOM keeps on supporting the 42 YEREVAN programming school Recognizing the One-Year Anniversary of the Ceasefire Declaration Between Armenia and Azerbaijan They should not be positioned near civilian communities neither in Armenia nor in Artsakh Humanitarian and human rights protection needed following the 2020 outbreak of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh Galaxy Group of Companies expands its activities in Belarus: a new TIME and Pandora store launched I think its a good moment to invest in Armenia. Head of Markets at Symbiotics Vincent Lehner Ameriabank has Raised USD 17.5M Tier 2 Capital UNIGHT TO UNITE. UCOM CELEBRATED ITS REBIRTH Ameriabank and HSBC Armenia to provide their customers access to each others ATMs without additional fees Ameriabank. 62.5% Growth in Taxes YOY Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans have provided 300 million AMD to overcome the infertility in Armenia Google Ad UCOM has officially launched the sale of IPHONE 13 Six servicemen were wounded by the attack of the Azerbaijani armed forces in Artsakh, two of them in critical condition S&P Improved the Outlook on Ameriabank to Positive Ararat Mirzoyan to visit to Minsk Foreign Minister of India visits the Memorial of Armenian Genocide 1217 new cases Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group At UCOM only: Tv sets at 10% discount + 1 month free UMIX package + 4k tv channel Ameriabanks Special Offer for New Clients of Hrazdan Branch "Fall forward": Gurgen Khachatryan, the Co-Founder of the Galaxy Group of Companies, addressed a message to young people in Armenia UCOM hosted interns of Russian CBOSS corporation for a month The 20-episode Bloody bet thriller to be broadcast on Ucom's Armenia Premium TV channel U.S., Ukraine have wide range of opportunities for deepening cooperation in energy sphere - PM Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has said that today there is a wide range of opportunities for deepening cooperation in the energy sphere between the United States and Ukraine. "We see a wide range of opportunities for deepening energy cooperation between the United States and Ukraine," he said at a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry in Kyiv on Monday. The Ukrainian prime minister added that this cooperation concerns the extraction of Ukrainian gas, its gas transmission system, and nuclear power. He also said that Ukraine appreciates the U.S. position in supporting Ukraine in a difficult period for the country. "Our systematic interaction with the U.S. Department of Energy has enabled us to withstand the difficult times and today to increase the capabilities of our energy system," Groysman said. The United States are committed to opposing construction of Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream gas pipelines, which would allow Russia not to use the Ukrainian gas transmission system (GTS) in delivering gas to Europe, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said at a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in Kyiv on Monday. Perry said that the reasons for this are rather clear: the citizens of Ukraine and Europe should not become hostages to the supply of energy from one source. According to him, the United States is ready to work as partners with Ukraine in the energy sector. In turn, the head of the Ukrainian government noted a great interest in this joint work, announcing a wide range of opportunities for expanding cooperation in the energy sector between Ukraine and the United States. "Everything related to the production of Ukrainian gas, cooperation in the management of the Ukrainian gas transmission system, deepening cooperation in the nuclear field and in many other areas where we have absolutely good opportunities to be stronger together," Groysman said, commenting on possible areas for partnership. U.S. hails Ukraine's efforts to develop energy sector, ready to help - Perry The United States supports Ukraine in the energy sphere and is ready to help it develop its energy sector, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said at a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in Kyiv on Monday. U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration are strong partners of Ukraine, Perry said. The U.S. is ready to provide assistance to Ukraine and support its efforts to develop gas extraction, liberalize the power market, and support the transparency of industry, he said. The Ukrainian government's recent decisions on simplifying licensing send a strong, positive message to the U.S. government, the U.S.' private sector, and European partners, Perry said. Ukraine is serious about reform and creating a strong center of energy resources, he said. Perry also said the U.S. remains committed to opposing the construction of the Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream gas pipelines. Citizens of Ukraine and Europe should not become hostages of energy supplied from one source, he said. Two Ukrainian servicemen were killed and two more wounded in a blast of an explosive device in the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) zone in Donbas on Saturday, the press center for the headquarters of the JFO said. It happened between observation points in the Svitlodarsk sector, it said. Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss an introduction of peacekeepers to the occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. "We discussed the Ukrainian proposals to introduce peacekeepers to the occupied Donbas areas and support for Ukraine's position on the part of our partners in the Normandy format," Poroshenko told reporters in Paris on Sunday. "Because it is my deep conviction that only peacekeeper can ensure the safety component of the Minsk agreements, the cessation of gunfire, and force Russia to fulfill the obligations it assumed. Because there is no point in talking to a country that does not honor even the obligations fixed on paper and signed by the president or the envoy authorized by Russia," Poroshenko said. Ukraine's partners have refused to recognize the elections held in the occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions this Sunday, he said. "A majority of our partners - the United States, Canada, members of the European Union including Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, and Romania. A tough statement from our partners from Poland, urging new sanctions - this reaction clearly shows that, on the one hand, no one will recognize these elections, which are a gross violation of the Minsk agreements. On the other hand, there is a call to bring Russia as the organizer of these elections to account," Poroshenko said. The European Union considers the "elections" held in the so-called non-government-controlled territories of "LPR" and "DPR" on November 11 as illegal and illegitimate, and doesn't recognize them, Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU said in the statement, released by the EU Delegation to Ukraine on Monday morning. "The EU condemns these ''elections'', as they are in breach of international law, undermine the commitments taken under the Minsk agreements and violate Ukraine's sovereignty and law. The Minsk agreements exclusively provide for local elections to be held within the framework of the Ukrainian legislation and under the OSCE standards and observation. These reasons render these so-called "elections" null and void," the statement reads. The European Union reiterates its full support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders and recalls that the implementation of the Minsk agreements by all sides remains key to reaching a sustainable political solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and underlines the responsibility of the Russian Federation in this regard. "We expect the Russian Federation to make full use of its considerable influence over the separatists it backs. The provisions of the Minsk agreements should be implemented fully and without further delay, starting with a comprehensive ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons, so as to create the necessary conditions for the political transition through local elections they foresee," it says. The EU supports the efforts of France and Germany in the Normandy format, as well as the Trilateral Contact Group and the OSCE for facilitating the implementation of the Minsk agreements. A draft law on amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine which will make the reform of local self-government, also known as decentralization, inevitable will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, in the near future, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said. "We'll propose as soon as possible a draft law on constitutional amendments to secure the reform of decentralization, reform of local self-government, and make it inevitable. And I, as president, will table the bill in parliament," Poroshenko said at a meeting of the Regional Development Council in Kyiv on Monday. "We have the full support of the parliament, we have the full support of the government, the prime minister, and for sure we have the firm support of the subjects of local self-government," he said. "I think that we will stipulate the deadline for these changes to come into effect in the transitional provisions - they will be pegged to the next local elections in 2020. And, for example, from January 1, 2021 they should come into force in full," he added. A court has remanded Ihor Pavlovsky, a former assistant to Member of Parliament from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction Mykola Palamarchuk, to custody. According to journalists, Pavlovsky is allegedly an intermediary between the organizer of the murder of Kherson activist and advisor to the mayor in Kherson Kateryna Handziuk. "The court arrested Pavlovsky in the Handziuk case. The SBU detained him on Saturday on the suspicion he was an accomplice," SBU Spokeswoman Olena Hitlianska told the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency. Larysa Sarhan, the spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO), said the court had remanded Pavlovsky to custody without possibility of bail. "The Handziuk case. On Saturday, Pavlovsky was detained in Kherson. Today [Monday, November 12] the court detained Pavlovsky without bail (Part 3 of Article 27; Paragraphs 4, 6, 11, 12 of Part 2 of Article 115 of Ukraine's Criminal Code). The PGO and SBU continue to investigate," Sarhan said on Twitter on Monday. Part 3 of Article 27 of Ukraine's Criminal Code refers to types of accomplices, and Part 2 of Article 151 to premeditated murder. As was earlier reported, an unidentified person poured concentrated sulfuric acid over Handziuk in the vicinity of her house in Kherson on July 31. The victim suffered severe chemical burns and had to be taken to the local hospital. Soon she was transferred to a hospital in Kyiv. Reports appeared on November 4 that Handziuk had died. Investigators changed the qualification of the attack on the victim to completed crime under Clauses 4, 6, 11 and 12 of Part 2 of Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (premeditated murder committed by a group of people, for mercenary motives, with particular cruelty, contract killing). On November 5, the media liaison office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine reported that the investigative actions in the Handziuk case and the criminal proceedings had been transferred to the SBU Security Service of Ukraine. Earlier, police detained five suspects in the attempted murder of the activist. In early November, journalists Oksana Denysova and Tetiana Nikolayenko in their Telegram-channel announced the name of a likely intermediary between the customer and the organizer of Handziuk's murder. According to the journalists, Ihor Pavlovsky, an assistant to MP Palamarchuk, who transferred money the contract hit to Serhiy Torbin, suspected of organizing the murder, is allegedly the intermediary. On November 5, Palamarchuk said that he had nothing to do with the attack on Handziuk. On November 6, Palamarchuk dismissed Pavlovsky as his assistant. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu received a warm welcome during his surprise visit to Oman in late October. What made this visit even more interesting was that the two sides did nothing to conceal the news of the visit and the top level meetings in Muscat. Netanyahu was officially invited to go to Muscat where Sultan Qaboos bin Sai'd welcomed him. During the visit, Netanyahu was accompanied by a high-ranking delegation including the Israeli intelligence chief and several other civilian and military officials. An entourage that was indicative of broad talks in Oman about a variety of issues. The top level delegation accompanying Netanyahu could have also been an indication that the topics discussed in the meetings in Oman were not limited to peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. A topic like that could have been discussed just as well with Egypt or Jordan, particularly because Oman did not have diplomatic relations with Israel before this visit. Oman was one of the countries that had protested against US President Donald Trump's decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Yet one more interesting point about this visit was that it was followed by Oman's Foreign Minister Yusef bin Alavi's statement which recognized Israel "as state in this region," and stressed that "the time has come for other countries to treat Israel like other countries." The visit and the ensuing statement can have two meanings. One, Oman is normalizing its ties with Israel without any preconditions; and two, Oman is suggesting that "other countries" should normalize their relations with Israel and "recognize" it. The question is: Which countries? Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, or another country? Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE have already made it known that they maintain relations with Israel. Kuwait is the only Persian Gulf state that has no relations whatsoever with Israel. So, Kuwait can be one of those "other countries" in the same way that Iran could have been one of them. Oman's good ties with Iran and its role in mediation between Tehran and Washington during the past four decades, particularly in the process of nuclear talks, could have been an indication that Muscat was calling on Iran to recognize Israel. Is this an unlikely suggestion? Then how likely was it for Iran to sit at the negotiating table with the "Great Satan" in 2013? It was unlikely, but it was made possible thanks to Oman's mediation. Iran and Israel have come to the verge of a military confrontation in Syria. It is now clear that Israel sends messages to Tehran via Moscow. Muscat can also be a channel for messaging between Iran and Israel. Tehran's unusually mild reaction to the improvement of ties between Israel and Oman, which was conveyed via the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman and a tweet by a low-key parliamentary official, could have been an indication that the Islamic Republic is no longer too "sensitive" to normalization of other countries' ties with Israel, a country Iran often referred to as a "cancerous tumour" in the region. This mild reaction is nothing to be compared with four decades ago, when Iran cut it ties with Cairo as soon as it recognized Israel. Iran is still officially denying the existence of Israel, but a subtle change can be seen if we consider how it reacted to Netanyahus visit to Oman. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Radio Farda. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: The proposal of the chairman of the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons of Azerbaijan on the exchange of hostages on the principle of "all for all" is a humane approach to solving the problem, the Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Member of the Azerbaijani Parliament Azay Guliyev told Trend. "As you know, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev always pays attention to the issue of the release of prisoners of war and hostages, and by taking decisive steps to resolve this painful, complicated issue, he was able to achieve the release of a number of citizens or return of their bodies. The Chairman of the State Commission Madat Guliyev also spoke in detail about this issue at the last meeting held on November 1. Madat Guliyev noted during the meeting that he was a supporter of the principle of the exchange of prisoners of war and hostages on the basis of the "all for all" principle. I believe that this is not only a good idea, but also a very humane approach to solving the problem," the Azerbaijani MP said. He said if the current leadership of Armenia shows at least a little constructiveness and is not indifferent to its citizens, then there will be no serious problems in the implementation of this proposal. "I think that it is necessary to inform all international agencies, especially the relevant OSCE institutions, of such a humane proposal of Azerbaijan so that the international community would realize who and how behaves in regard to such a humanitarian issue," Guliyev said. Guliyev added that the OSCE PA should express its position on this issue. I would like to say that our delegation constantly raises a question about prisoners of war and hostages at sessions of the OSCE PA. At the last autumn session of the OSCE PA, which took place on October 3 - 6 in Bishkek, I, together with the Chairman of the OSCE PA General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions, Margareta Kiener Nellen separately discussed the issue of Dilgam Askerov and Shahbaz Guliyev illegally taken hostage by the Armenian side, the OSCE PA vice-president noted. Guliyev expressed hope that in the near future there will be an opportunity to get acquainted with the position of the committees chairman and her further steps in regard to this issue. "I expect an answer from her as the chairman of the committee. In addition, on December 4-8, it will be possible to discuss this issue in detail at a meeting of the OSCE PA Bureau in Milan. I believe that there is enough ground to support the proposal of Azerbaijan to exchange prisoners of war and hostages on the basis of the "all for all principle. I will also, in the framework of my authorities and capabilities, make efforts to achieve such support," the Azerbaijani MP said. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Matanat Nasibova Trend: The initiative to elect a representative of Belarus as the new General Secretary of the Collective Security Treaty Organization is quite reasonable, the Russian independent expert Ilya Tropinin told Trend, commenting on the initiative put forward by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the session of the CSTO Collective Security Council in Astana. The post of General Secretary has been held by Armenia since May of last year on the principle of rotation. It was held by Yuri Khachaturov, recently withdrawn by Yerevan as a result of a scandal that flared up after his arrest in the framework of the criminal case related to the events of March 1, 2008. The expert said the Armenian government has no right to dispose of the post of the General Secretary as its property, to arrest, withdraw and appoint its representatives at its own discretion. "It is clear that it is in the interests of the Armenian side to retain the post of General Secretary in this strong organization, because otherwise it will be a severe blow to image of the current government of Armenia. I think thats why the Armenian prime minister hurried to propose a new candidate in the person of Deputy Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutyunyan. Nonetheless, Yerevan should take into account the fact that this issue is not an internal affair of Armenia and the final decision will be made by all members of the CSTO at the organizations summit in St. Petersburg," the expert said. In Astana, Kazakhstans leader Nursultan Nazarbayev made another important statement, urging the interested countries to become partners and observers in the CSTO. Tropinin said the regulatory legitimization of the status of the CSTO partner and the observer at the organization testifies to the openness of the CSTO, its readiness to develop constructive relations with other states and international organizations on a reciprocal basis. "In my opinion, this is a reasonable decision that fully complies with the charter of the organization," he said. The expert also did not rule out the fears of the Armenian side about the fact that Azerbaijan, with which all other CSTO countries actively interact, could be elected as an observer. Tropinin noted that Azerbaijan can take advantage of this opportunity if it considers it necessary to make such a decision. "In any case, it will be solely the choice of the Azerbaijani state," the expert said. The Russian leaders spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Nov. 8, the summit of the CSTO, and most likely the EurAsEC, and the informal summit of the CIS will be held in St. Petersburg on December 6. The CSTO is a military-political alliance within the CIS, established on the basis of the Collective Security Treaty, signed in May 1992. The CSTO includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Armenia. The contract is renewed every five years. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Samir Ali - Trend: Armenia has again suffered defeat in foreign policy, Azerbaijani MP Aydin Mirzazade said. Mirzazade noted that a regular summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) held Nov. 8 in Astana attracted the attention of many people. Along with a number of issues, the agenda also included election for the vacant position of the organizations secretary general, he added. The position of the CSTO secretary general was previously held by the representative of Armenia, the Azerbaijani MP said. However, because in his home country, in Armenia, the name of the previous secretary general of the CSTO was mentioned in connection with serious crimes, the organization had to release him from his post ahead of schedule, Mirzazade noted. Armenia proposed the candidacy of its representative for the remaining term, based on the principle of rotation, the MP said. However, the summit made a different decision. Despite all the efforts of Armenia, the next Armenian general couldnt become general secretary. Mirzazade added that Armenia couldnt convince five allied states with its arguments. Armenias attempt to put its national interests above international law has failed, he noted. This event showed that Armenias authority in international organizations is low, its principled position goes against common interests. The main issue, besides changing the criminal power, is also changing the political line. Armenia is refraining from this. Accordingly, the national crisis in Armenia will deepen even more. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Samir Ali - Trend: The results of the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Astana should be regarded as defeat of Armenian diplomacy, Azerbaijani MP Elman Nasirov told Trend. He said that the release of Yuri Khachaturov from the post of the CSTO secretary general dispelled Armenias intention to dominate this organization. Khachaturov held this position for only half a year, and his goal was to stay in that position for another half a year, Nasirov noted. However, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said that this position shouldnt be held by a representative of Armenia, but by a representative of Belarus. Perhaps this issue will be resolved during the organizations meeting in St. Petersburg. The summit in Astana was also remembered by the fact that despite all the efforts of the Armenian side, a document was signed as part of the CSTO that defines the legal status of an observer country and a partner, the Azerbaijani MP said. In fact, the CSTO, considering the place and importance of Azerbaijan in the region, makes changes in its charter and defines the state status of an observer at this organization. This document was prepared in the interests of Azerbaijan. This fact is clear evidence of the next defeat of Armenia. The MP also noted that in the process of settlement the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh process, Armenia, based on the capabilities and potential of the CSTO, constantly threatened Azerbaijan. However, the last summit demonstrated that Armenias hopes regarding this organization are illusory, Nasirov added. In reality, the CSTO seeks close cooperation with Azerbaijan. He noted that the results of the summit demonstrate that all the tactical moves of the new leadership of Armenia towards Azerbaijan dont bring any result. The results of the CSTO summit once again showed that Azerbaijan is treated with great respect and trust everywhere, said Nasirov. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Azad Hasanli - Trend: Suspension of activities of the Norwegian Embassy in Baku is an ordinary case and Azerbaijan doesnt feel any regret in this regard, Deputy Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Hikmet Hajiyev told Trend Nov. 12. It is not worth attaching special importance to this, said Hajiyev. Each country, when determining its foreign policy, decides on opening or closing an embassy or other diplomatic mission of a different status. The suspension of the activities of the Norwegian Embassy accredited in Baku is a personal matter of this countrys government. Hajiyev reminded that the Norwegian Embassy in Azerbaijan was established in June 1998. At that time, the main task of the embassy was to facilitate the activities of the Norwegian oil company Statoil and promote its business interests, he said. The Azerbaijani Embassy in Norway didnt open and, frankly speaking, there was no such thought, Hajiyev added. The Azerbaijani Embassy in Sweden in the status of non-resident is also accredited in Norway. He noted that embassies of 65 countries, representative offices of 20 international organizations and 12 honorary consulates were accredited with the residence in Baku. Among them, 25 embassies belong to European countries, he added. Also, there are four general consulates in Azerbaijan. The last ones to open were the embassies of Portugal, Venezuela, Peru and Costa Rica. In turn, there are 70 embassies and diplomatic offices, five representative offices at international organizations, nine general and 14 honorary consulates of Azerbaijan. Almost 30 embassies and diplomatic missions of Azerbaijan are accredited in European countries. Hajiyev also commented on the issue regarding the controversial activities of the Norwegian Embassy in Azerbaijan and the announcement of the Norwegian ambassador as persona non grata at one time. This issue is in the past, but there are facts that the ambassador and diplomats mixed diplomacy with the activities of a non-governmental organization, he said. Steinar Gil, former ambassador of Norway to Azerbaijan, who acted in contradiction to the rules of the diplomatic protocol and violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, inflicted a big blow to relations between Azerbaijan and Norway. This person, who had a status of ambassador, tried to interfere in the internal affairs of Azerbaijan. Instead of engaging in bilateral issues, he, by participating in various rallies, carried out other illegitimate activities of this kind. So, the Azerbaijani government began to discuss the issue of expelling Gil from the country, Hajiyev added. As a result, the Norwegian government recalled Gil ahead of time, he said. Against the background that public, political circles and media of Norway are particularly sensitive to attempts by exterior forces to influence and interfere in the affairs of the country, and special importance is always attached to preserving its sovereignty, would Oslo tolerate the presence of an ambassador with such behavior? Of course not. Hajiyev stressed that Azerbaijan never interferes in the internal affairs of any states and wont allow other states to interfere in its internal affairs. Azerbaijan pursues successful foreign policy and constantly develops bilateral relations with other partner countries based on the principles of mutual respect and equal rights, he said. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @AzadHasanli Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.12 Trend: Better future for Armenia is closely linked to ending the occupation of the Azerbaijani territories, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys acting spokeswoman Leyla Abdullayeva said Nov. 12. She was commenting on the speech by acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan. Hopefully acting prime minister of Armenia realizes that his statement at the Paris Peace Forum deeply contradicts the foreign policy of Armenia, which violated the fundamental principles of international law, especially the principle of non-use of force and occupied the territories of Azerbaijan and deprived hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis historically living in Nagorno-Karabakh of their fundamental right - the right to live on their homeland, she said. Does the exercise of right of self-determination mean conduct of ethnic cleansing with regard to other ethnic groups living in the same area? Does the supremacy of international law mean military occupation of territories and imposing a fait-accompli solution? The same fundamental principles that Pashinyan mentions in his statement, clearly answer the above questions, its enough simply to read the UN Charter and Helsinki Final Act, she noted. For those who do not want to read or does not want to understand what is written well quote: States will respect the equal rights of peoples and their right to self-determination, acting at all times in conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and with the relevant norms of international law, including those relating to territorial integrity of states. Addressing the international forums and speaking of peace and better future is good, but the most important thing is not stating only, but acting in accordance with what have been said, Abdullayeva noted. Better future for our region and Armenia itself closely linked with ending the occupation of the Azerbaijani territories by Armed Forces of Armenia and return of all IDPs to their homeland, she said. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov participated at the Paris Peace Forum and presented a book to the Peace Library, she said. The book entitled Karabakh realities had a following note by the minister that world should not forget that there is still injustice, when people forcefully ethnically cleansed from the places of their origin like it happens in Azerbaijan as a result of aggression of the armed forces of Armenia. There is no other choice for Armenia rather than withdraw their troops from Azerbaijan's lands, respect our boarders and restore peace and stability in the region. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 Trend: The screening of the documentary titled Godfathers in Germany: Armenian Mafia and Thieves in Law, which was supposed to go on air on November 7 telling about the existence of the Armenian Mafia in Germany and relations of the Ambassador of Armenia Ashot Smbatyan with Armenian criminal gangs in that country, was postponed by the Berlin court based on the ambassadors claim. Instead of a 30-minute documentary, a 7-minute video report was shown (https://www.mdr.de/thueringen/video-247040_zc-1201c59b_zs-4e0ede05.html). The report provided information about the activities of the Armenian mafia in Germany and its exposure by law enforcement agencies, told about the joint journalistic investigation of the MDR TV channel and Der Spiegel, and presented an interview with one of the co-authors of this investigation, MDR correspondent Axel Hemmerling. The report noted that the Armenian mafia in Germany has spread throughout the country. The Armenian criminal groups are headed by "godfathers", who, in turn, are subordinate to thieves in law. According to the data provided by Europol and Interpol, the number of Armenian thieves in law varies between 670-900, and most of them live outside of Germany. There is evidence that the Armenian mafia in Germany and Europe has ties with the Italian mafia, the report says. Also, as the report says, the German law enforcement agencies have a weak legislative base and technical capabilities for combating organized crime. The screening of the documentary film about the Armenian mafia was postponed by a court decision a few hours before the broadcast, and the Armenian ambassador demanded a refutation of the information presented in the journalistic investigation. And when MDR did not comply with the demand, the ambassador applied to a court. Due to the lack of time to consider the claim and a response on the part of MDR, the court decided to postpone the airing of the film. The documentary film will be aired after clarification of legal issues, the message says. The claims that may be an obstacle to freedom of the press in Germany are generally not supported by the court. Therefore, many believe that the lawsuit filed by the ambassador of Armenia will soon be resolved in favor of MDR, and the documentary will be aired. In addition, the fact that the Armenian ambassador resorted to legal remedies, even more attracted public attention to this issue, and all the leading media outlets of Germany follow this topic in the context of journalistic solidarity in order to ensure freedom of press. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 Trend: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva have attended the inauguration of the administrative building of E-Government Development Center under the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The president cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the administrative building. The President`s Assistant for Work with Law Enforcement Bodies and Military Issues, department head Fuad Alasgarov and chairman of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (ASAN Service) Ulvi Mehdiyev informed President Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva of the conditions created in the building. The building will feature the INNOLAND Incubation and Acceleration Center as well as the IT Training and Education Center. President Aliyev familiarized himself with the INNOLAND Incubation and Acceleration Center. INNOLAND is an incubation, acceleration and research center created to develop the private sector, promote innovation and expand the startup movement both in Azerbaijan and beyond its borders. The IT Training and Education Center is a place where young people will be taught programming, information technologies and coding skills. President Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva then viewed innovative projects there. President Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva were also informed of new development concept of e-government. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Ilhama Isabalayeva - Trend: The main motto and direction of Azerbaijan is the development of human capital and there is hope that Azerbaijan will soon achieve growth and development in human capital, Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas said at the presentation of the project "Development of Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities" on Nov. 12. Thanks to the cooperation within the project, a big number of children with disabilities will have the opportunity to receive education, Jankauskas said. He noted that everyone has the right to participate in public life on the basis of the acquired knowledge and skills, to receive an inclusive education, to be involved in training. Jankauskas stressed that each person can contribute to the creation of modern Azerbaijani society. "Our main goal is to change attitudes towards children with disabilities. This is not an easy issue. We, as the European Union, will work together in this direction," Jankauskas added. Details added (first version posted on 17:25) Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 Trend: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva have attended the inauguration of the administrative building of E-Government Development Center under the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The president cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the administrative building. The President`s Assistant for Work with Law Enforcement Bodies and Military Issues, department head Fuad Alasgarov and chairman of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (ASAN Service) Ulvi Mehdiyev informed President Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva of the conditions created in the building. The building will feature the INNOLAND Incubation and Acceleration Center as well as the IT Training and Education Center. President Aliyev familiarized himself with the INNOLAND Incubation and Acceleration Center. INNOLAND is an incubation, acceleration and research center created to develop the private sector, promote innovation and expand the startup movement both in Azerbaijan and beyond its borders. The IT Training and Education Center is a place where young people will be taught programming, information technologies and coding skills. President Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva then viewed innovative projects there. President Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva were also informed of new development concept of e-government. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 Trend: An event dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) was held in Los Angeles on November 8, 2018, Azerbaijans Consulate General in Los Angeles told Trend. Documentary film titled Life-Long Mission was screened at the event. The film features the tumultuous story of the Azerbaijani diplomatic delegation sent to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 under the leadership of Alimardan bey Topchubashov, and was made by Baku Media Center in 2016 with support from Azerbaijans Heydar Aliyev Foundation and executively produced by Arzu Aliyeva. Held by Azerbaijans Consulate General in Los Angeles at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in close cooperation with the Church, which is one of the largest and oldest churches of Los Angeles, the event was attended by elected officials, Consuls General and Honorary Consuls of various countries, faith leaders representing many different religions, journalists, representatives of art, culture, science and education and others. Opening the event, the Director of the Churchs Public Affairs Matt Ball welcomed the guests and expressed his satisfaction for hosting such an important screening. In his remarks, Consul General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles and Dean of the Los Angeles Consular Corps Nasimi Aghayev thanked the Church for hosting this momentous celebration and stressed that 100 years ago on May 28, 1918, the people of Azerbaijan established the very first Republic in Azerbaijans history - the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. He further noted that it was also the first ever secular democracy among all Muslim nations and the first majority-Muslim nation to grant women the right to vote. He stated that today under the visionary leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan has become the largest economy in the region, with one of the most competitive economies in the world, implementing energy and transportation projects of global importance. Stressing the ancient traditions of multiculturalism and interfaith understanding in Azerbaijan, Aghayev highlighted that people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds have been living together in peace, dignity and mutual respect, and have openly been practicing their religions, customs and traditions for many centuries in Azerbaijan. Speaking about the film, the Consul General highlighted that the film is a great work of art, which features the patriotism and professionalism of the first Azerbaijani diplomats who under tremendous difficulties achieved the recognition of Azerbaijan's independence by Allied Forces in 1920. Speaking afterwards, Wyoming State Senator Leland Christensen noted the strong friendship and partnership between the US and Azerbaijan, and said that Azerbaijan plays an important role in the region and beyond. Then the film Life-Long Mission was screened, marking the films US premiere. The film was received with enthusiastic and long applauses by the audience. Following the screening, well-known American pianist, University of Utah Professor Emerita, Grammy Award nominee Susan Duehlmeier beautifully performed Azerbaijani songs composed by Tofig Guliyev and Vagif Mustafazade. The guests were also treated to authentic Azerbaijani dishes. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 12 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: During a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ashgabat, President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov discussed the prospects for creating the Afghanistan-Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey (Lapis Lazuli) international transit transport corridor, Turkmen Dovlet Habarlary reported. Among the priority areas of cooperation were the trade and economic sphere, energy, transport and communications sector. The interlocutors expressed confidence that the long-standing interstate partnership will continue to develop dynamically. The first meeting of experts on the implementation of the "Agreement on Transit and Transport Cooperation" (Lapis Lazuli Route Agreement) took place in Ashgabat in April. The experts from Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia and Turkey, the participating countries that signed this agreement took part in the event during the 7th Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA VII) on November 15, 2017. In Ashgabat, the sides reviewed the issues of tariff optimization, customs issues, tax laws of the participating countries. According to the "Lapis Lazuli" project, the railway lines and highways will connect the city of Torghundi in the Afghan province of Herat with Ashgabat, then with the Caspian port of Turkmenbashi. The corridor will stretch to Baku, then through Tbilisi to Ankara with branches in Poti and Batumi, then from Ankara to Istanbul. The project budget, which aims to facilitate transit logistics and simplify customs procedures, is estimated at $2 billion. The project is designed to increase the economic integration of the region and the volume of trade. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Fikret Dolukhanov Trend: The first foreign trading platform of the Uzbek Commodity Exchange (UZEX), connected to the electronic system of exchange trading, has begun operations in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the UZEX said in a message. The platform has been opened as part of the implementation of the presidential decree of Uzbekistan and the cooperation agreement signed between UZEX and the ETS commodity exchange in Almaty. UZEXs trading platform in Almaty has been established by the Kazakh brokerage company Alta & K, which is also accredited by UZEX as the first foreign brokerage company. Alta & K, together with UZEX, is currently attracting both Kazakh and Uzbek companies to the exchange trading. At the initial stage, the trading platform will serve for the sale of Uzbek highly liquid goods, including polyethylene, polypropylene, cotton and non-ferrous metals, as well as for import of grain crops, coal and cement to Uzbekistan. The decree of the president of Uzbekistan "On measures for the further liberalization of trade and the development of competition in commodity markets" extends the customs privileges on certain types of goods (coal, cement, cement clinker, asbestos, building glass, timber and lumber) until Jan. 1, 2020. The tax on income of brokerage firms of commodity exchanges, which will be implemented since Jan. 1, 2019, has also been reduced. In January-September 2018, the trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan amounted to $2,136.4 million, of which $1,039.8 million accounted for exports from Uzbekistan, and $1,096.6 million accounted for imports from Kazakhstan. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanov Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 Trend: On November 8, the Tashkent-2025: Transformation project proposed by an initiative group of the Public Council under the city administration and supported by the administration, was presented to the Tashkent administration, Gazeta.uz reported. This is a vision of the six main areas for which the improvements will be planned. These areas include administrative reform, economic development strategy, urban planning, utilities, the social sphere, inclusive development and the environment. The project initiators see Tashkent by 2025 as a modern city, attractive for investment and tourism, preserving historical and cultural heritage, caring for citizens and the environment. A team of local and international experts will be formed to prepare the project strategy. The project will be implemented by the Center for Urbanism through sponsorship and grants from international financial institutions. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 Trend: Uzbek Deputy Presidential Adviser Elyor Ganiyev and the head of the Tashkent City Administration Jahongir Artikhojayev met with the Director General of the French Company SUEZ on the developing regions Eric Ghebali, Uzbek media reported. The French water management company proposed to create in Uzbekistan an innovative system of water supply and control, its management, and also to reduce the amount of consumed water. The Uzbek side proposed to create a joint working group and roadmap between SUEZ and other competent authorities. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: The Iran Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organization (ISIPO) and the chamber of commerce of Iranians living in China signed a cooperation agreement, Shata news agency reported. Representative of the Iran Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organization, Iranian Deputy Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Sadeq Najafi and Head of the chamber of commerce of Iranians living in China Sayyed Etisami signed this agreement. The Iran Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organization is considered to be the body responsible for assisting the development of Iran's small industry and eliminating its problems. The chamber of commerce of Iranians living in China consists of official and legitimate companies in China and has valuable expertise in technology, commerce, joint foreign investment, product procurement and production lines. According to the agreement, a joint working group should be set up to implement the provisions set out in the agreement and the working group should organize meetings and inform the sides each month about the achieved results. The two sides agreed on using the legal potential to advance joint cooperation. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.12 By Leman Zeynalova - Trend: European aerospace corporation Airbus complies with all sanctions regarding Iran, the company told Trend. At Airbus, we rigorously comply with all sanctions and export control regulations regarding Iran. We will not be able to make any further comments at this stage, said Airbus. Further, talking about its business in Kazakhstan, the company said it is well presented in this country through its three main divisions, Defence, Space, Helicopters and Commercial aviation. As a strategic partner to this country, Airbus supports initiatives of Kazakhstan when possible, said Airbus. Earlier, an Iranian deputy minister said Tehran would not terminate its contacts with global aviation giants Airbus, Boeing and ATR. We prefer to preserve our contracts with Airbus, Boeing and ATR for the time being, Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan said. He added that the government could put the deals on hold for 12 months as new circumstances may ultimately be seen in the future. Airbus SE is a European aerospace corporation, registered in the Netherlands and trading shares in France, Germany and Spain. It designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures in multiple countries both inside and outside of the European Union. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 Trend: The Head of Administration (Governor) of the Namangan region Khairullo Bozorov has met with the Vice-President of the Israeli consortium of companies VP Group Eli Benjamin, UzDaily.uz reported. During the talks, the parties discussed proposals for establishing close cooperation in the sphere of agriculture. The representatives of VP GROUP expressed a desire to establish modern greenhouses in the Namangan region, to grow, process and export fruits and vegetables based on the advanced technologies using the cluster method. "In this regard, we have planned the establishment of joint ventures, industrial zones. We have taken the first step on the way toward this goal, that is, we have established joint ventures in the Turakurgan district (Global tech) and in the Kasansay district (Super Gold Agribusiness)," the representatives of the Israeli company noted. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Rufiz Hafizoglu Trend: The first prototype of the Turkish domestic car will be ready in 2019, the Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank said, Turkish media reported Nov. 12. The minister said the production of a domestic car will be an important breakthrough in the Turkish economy. Varank also noted that currently the production of the domestic car is one of the priorities for Turkey. Earlier, the Turkish "Zorlu Holding" company, together with four other companies which are members of the consortium for development of a domestic Turkish car, presented the first prototype of the vehicle. The prototype was developed together with the "Vestel Elektronik" company and is entitled "VEO". Earlier, the Minister of Science, Industry and Technology of Turkey Faruk Ozlu said Turkey will invest $3 billion in creating a domestic car. Ozlu said work is currently underway to develop prototypes of five different models of the domestic car. The minister also noted that one of the cars will be equipped with an electric motor. On November 2, 2017, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the names of companies that will participate in the creation of the domestic car - Anadolu Grubu, BMC, Kraca Holding, Turkcell and Zorlu Holding. Erdogan stressed that the creation of a domestic car will strengthen the economy of Turkey. The president also said that Turkey will export domestic cars to neighboring countries. The cars developed in Turkey will be manufactured with different engines. The purchase of a domestic car in Turkey will be exempt from special consumer tax. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Matanat Nasibova - Trend: At the end of November, Azerbaijan will import from Russia the newest variety of potato seeds, named Udacha (Luck), which has a high yield and reproduction, Head of the State Seed Fund Emin Aliyev told Trend. He noted that Udacha proved its high performance in Azerbaijan in 2017. "The productivity of the new variety was about 40-45 tons per hectare, which is a good indicator," Aliyev said. He also noted that the volume of seed imports will amount to 400-500 tons in November. "Despite the high domestic demand for potato, as a product of strategic importance, the import into Azerbaijan is not large. This is because we expect to cover all the demand in the local market through domestic production," Aliyev said, adding that the new seed variety will be grown in the southern districts, mainly in Jalilabad and its vicinity. Emin Aliyev noted that non-certified products, which are in many ways bad in quality, often come into the local market. "Some farmers are trying to sell their products in such an undesirable way, which is extremely discouraged, since high-quality seeds are a key to a high-quality reproductive harvest. The main mission of the State Seed Fund is to provide farmers with quality seeds and we adhere to this principle," Aliyev said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.12 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Black Sea oil terminal of the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR in Georgia's Kulevi port has transshipped 24.2 million tons of crude oil and oil products from the beginning of operations on May 16, 2008 until today, SOCAR told Trend. The State Oil Company said it is expected that the volume of transshipment from the terminal will be increased by up to 500,000 tons per year starting from 2019, thats to say, the volume of transshipment may increase by 500,000 tons or less from next year. "Further expansion of the terminals capacity will depend on the volume of transported products," said SOCAR. The terminal is used for shipment of crude oil, fuel oil, diesel fuel, gas oil, methanol, aviation fuel, propylene, liquid pyrolysis resin, naphtha, isopropyl alcohol, diesel fuel with ultra-low sulfur content, industrial oil, and condensate. The terminal in the Kulevi port was put into operation in May 2008, and the transshipment of oil products was launched in June. The total capacity of the terminal is 10 million tons of liquid bulk oil cargo per year, including three million tons of oil, three million tons of diesel fuel, and four million tons of fuel oil. The total capacity of the tank farm of the terminal is 402,000 cubic meters. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Fikret Dolukhanov Trend: In the first eight months of 2018, Kazakhstan exported 152,800 tons of oil and crude oil products to Uzbekistan amounting to $77 million, the Kazakh monitoring agency Energyprom.kz said in a report. Compared to the last year, when 99,400 tons worth $40.7 million were exported, the export figures grew by 53.68 percent in volume and 89.1 percent in monetary terms. Uzbekistan, thus, became the main importer of Kazakh oil and crude oil products in the CIS with a share of 56.95 percent of the volume of supplies to the countries of the region (268,300 tons). Total exports of oil and crude oil products of Kazakhstan reached 46,400 tons (an increase of 5.6 percent year-on-year) in volume and $24.3 billion in monetary terms (45.3 percent) in the first eight months of 2018. The share of Italy, the Netherlands and France accounted for 53.9 percent of exports in volume and 54.4 percent in monetary terms. In January-September 2018, Uzbekistan imported 560,500 tons of oil and oil products. Supplies from Kazakhstan, therefore, accounted for 27.26 percent of the total imports. In the first nine months of 2018, trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan amounted to $2,136.4 million, of which $1,039.8 million accounted for exports from Uzbekistan, and $1,096.6 million accounted for imports from Kazakhstan. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanov Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.12 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: The softening of the US Administration's position on Iran sanction waivers is partly the result of the worries concerning world oil supply and demand, Francis Perrin, Senior Fellow at the OCP Policy Center (Rabat) and Senior Research Fellow at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS, Paris), told Trend. "D-Day has arrived on 5 November with the reestablishment of all US sanctions against Iran announced by President Trump last May. Between March-April 2018 and October Iranian crude oil exports fell by about 1 million barrels per day to 1.5 million b/d, which means a reduction of 40 percent. It is very likely that there will be another fall in November-December. It is a very harsh blow for Iran as oil exports represent about 70-80 percent of its export revenues," noted the expert. He believes that oil exports will not fall to zero as hoped in Washington but it will not be easy for Tehran to export more than 1 million b/d of crude in 2019. "Waivers were awarded to eight countries, five in Asia (China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) and three in Europe (Turkey, Italy and Greece). The Trump Administration wants to severely weaken Iran without creating an oil shortage and without pushing oil prices upwards, which is clearly a very difficult task," said Perrin. So far so good for the US as Iranian oil exports and production are down, world oil supply meets oil demand and oil prices are significantly lower than one month ago, noted the expert. "That being said there remains some risks for the oil market and oil prices in the coming weeks and months as we have to add to Iran the decline of Venezuela's oil production, high political and security risks in countries such as Libya and Nigeria and a growing world oil demand. The oil market is in balance today but there is no absolute guarantee that it will always be the case. The softening of the US Administration's position on waivers is partly the result of these worries concerning world oil supply and demand," he added. The US government's sanctions against Iran came into effect on Nov.5. The sanctions are designed to target Iranian oil exports and the country's financial sector. The sanctions are aimed at dissuading third countries from doing business with Iran. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.12 Trend: Gazprom and China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec) are the top spenders among global oil and gas companies, in terms of new build capital expenditure (capex) to be spent on planned and announced projects across the oil and gas value chain during 20182025, according to leading data and analytics company GlobalData. The companys report: H2 2018 Top Global Oil and Gas Companies Planned Projects and Capital Expenditure Outlook - Gazprom and Sinopec Spend High across Oil and Gas Value Chain' found that Gazprom leads with an estimated capex of US$170.2bn expected to be spent on 93 oil and gas projects globally. Sinopec and Royal Dutch Shell Plc (Shell) follow with capex of US$88.9bn (69 projects) and US$84.5bn (107 projects), respectively. In the upstream sector, Shell leads among companies with an estimated capex of US$60.6bn to be spent on 58 planned and announced production fields globally. Gazprom follows with US$43.6bn to be spent on 28 upstream projects and Exxon Mobil will be in third position with US$42.2bn to be spent on 34 projects. Soorya Tejomoortula, Oil & Gas Analyst at GlobalData, comments: Gazproms planned and announced projects portfolio is mainly focused on gas pipelines, upstream gas projects, and gas processing plants. This will help the company to ensure an uninterrupted supply of gas to Europe and foray in to new markets in Asia. GlobalData expects Gazprom to lead both pipelines and gas processing segments in the midstream sector, with new build capex of US$59.8bn and US$33.3bn, respectively by 2025. In the LNG liquefaction segment, Qatar Petroleum is expected to lead with new build capex of US$34.7bn, while China National Offshore Oil Corporation leads in regasification capex with US$3.9bn, during the outlook period. In the gas storage segment, Bendis Enerji leads with US$10.6bn and OIDB leads in liquids storage segment with capex of US$4.6bn by 2025. Saudi Arabian Oil Co is expected to lead the downstream sector, with estimated crude oil refining capex of US$45.5bn on the development of seven crude oil refineries globally by 2025. Petroleos de Venezuela SA and Sinopec follow with capex of US$35.2bn and US$27.6bn, expected to be spent on six new projects each, respectively. In the petrochemical sector, Rosneft Oil is expected to lead with estimated capex of US$19.2bn to be spent on 39 upcoming petrochemical plants, followed by Dangote Industries with estimated capex of US$13.8bn expected to be spent on 13 new projects. Saudi Aramco is third with US$13.2bn expected to be spent on 38 upcoming projects. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.12 By Leman Zeynalova - Trend: European Commissions latest decision on the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) to approve the support measures by Greek and Bulgarian governments for the project opens the way for starting the construction of IGB, said Greek Minister of Environment and Energy Giorgos Stathakis. "We welcome the decision of the European Commission. This decision opens the way for starting the IGB's construction, said Stathakis, according to the ministrys website. He noted that IGB will diversify the sources of supply and can deliver natural gas from the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). It is a strategic project that highlights Greece as an energy hub of the wider region of Southeastern Europe and a key energy gate for the Old Continent, contributing to the prospect of unifying the European energy market, added Stathakis. Earlier, the European Commission approved the support measures to be granted by Bulgaria and Greece for the construction and operation of IGB. The total investment cost for the realization of the IGB interconnector amounts to 240 million. This will be financed through: a direct equity contribution of 46 million from the joint venture shareholders; a contribution of 45 million from the European Energy Programme for Recovery (EEPR), which is centrally managed by the European Commission; a loan of 110 million granted by the European Investment Bank (EIB) to BEH (and subsequently passed-on to ICGB AD); and a direct financial contribution of 39 million from the Bulgarian State budget via the Bulgarian Operational Programme "Innovation and Competitiveness" 2014-2020 (OPIC). The Commission concluded that the Bulgarian and Greek support measures for the construction and operation of the IGB natural gas interconnector are in line with EU State aid rules and will contribute to the objectives of security of supply, diversification of energy sources and increased competition in EU energy markets. IGB is a gas pipeline, which will allow Bulgaria to receive Azerbaijani gas, in particular, the gas produced from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz 2 gas and condensate field. IGB is expected to be connected to TAP via which gas from the Shah Deniz field will be delivered to the European markets. The initial capacity of IGB will be 3 billion cubic meters of gas. --- Follow the author on Twitter:@Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 Trend: On November 8, a meeting with the EMEA Sales Vice-President at Oracle Digital company, Giovanna Sangiorgi has taken place at the Ministry for Development of Information Technologies and Communications of Uzbekistan, UzDaily.uz reported. The First Deputy Minister Olimjon Umarov has attended the meeting. The first deputy minister expressed the ministrys interest in expanding the presence of Oracle in Uzbekistan, in enhancing the company's participation in the introduction of modern information technologies in the country. To date, in accordance with the state program on the implementation of the "Electronic Government" system, the state bodies of Uzbekistan have fulfilled a number of projects on the introduction of information systems and databases. The solutions of the Oracle company were also used in developing the system and the databases. In order to expand business in Uzbekistan, the Oracle company has been proposed to consider the possibility of revising the company's licensing policy in Uzbekistan. In order to implement this idea, it was proposed to consider the possibility of appointment of the Unified Integrator "UZINFOCOM" as an authorized partner of the Oracle company, which will be the authorized partner for interaction with government bodies. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Some 349,462 tourists from Israel visited Turkey in January-September 2018, which is 17.76 percent more than in the same period of 2017, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey told Trend Nov. 12. This is while 49,814 tourists from Israel visited Turkey in September 2018, which is 3.25 percent less than in the same month of 2017. The ministry noted that the share of Israeli citizens in the total number of foreigners who visited Turkey in September 2018 accounted for 1.04 percent. For comparison, this figure was 1.18 percent in September 2017. The share of Israeli citizens in the total number of foreigners who visited Turkey during the nine months of 2018 accounted for 1.10 percent. The ministry noted that 5,425,845 tourists visited Turkey in September 2018, which is 15.64 percent more than in the same period of 2017. Some 589,754 tourists from Germany, 317,748 - from the UK, 308,066 - from Bulgaria and 195,850 tourists from Georgia visited Turkey in September 2018. During the above-mentioned period, 1,899,103 tourists, accounting for 39.62 percent of the total number of tourists, visited the Turkish province of Antalya. In September 2018, 1,235,301 tourists, accounting for 25.77 percent of the total number of tourists, visited Istanbul. As of January-September 2018, 31,815,952 tourists visited Turkey, which is 22.08 percent more than in January-September 2017. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu The Ministry of Economy of the Kyrgyz Republic is submitting for public discussion a draft government decree On the approval of the Regulation on the participants of the halal industry in the Kyrgyz Republic, kabar.kg reports. According to the Ministry, the above draft resolution was developed on the initiative of the Ministry, within the framework of the interdepartmental working group Development of halal industry in the Kyrgyz Republic. The working group included representatives of ministries and departments, as well as representatives of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims in Kyrgyzstan, the National Academy of Sciences, the Islamic University of Kyrgyzstan, and other institutions. The purpose of the draft resolution is to develop the country's economy by diversifying the economy, introducing a new direction of the economy - a halal industry. The draft regulation will establish the legal basis for the powers of the participants and the regulation of their relations in the field of halal industry. Today, the halal industry has ceased to be a purely religious issue, extending to the sphere of business and investment. According to international studies, this is not only the way of life of Muslims (the number of which is 1.7 billion worldwide, growing two times faster than the population of the world), but also a global symbol of quality assurance for non-Muslims, the statement reads. Twenty-two prisoners and two guards a 42-year-old Major Mirsaid Qodirov and a 27-year-old guard Ehson Yoqubov -- were killed when a riot broke out late on November 7 in a high-security penal colony in the northern city of Khujand, news.tj reports. Tajik authorities have been slow in revealing details about the prison riot but it now seems that dozens of people, mainly prisoners, were killed. A reliable source at the Sughd law enforcement authorities says twenty-two prisoners and two guards were killed in the Khujand prison riot. Besides, six other law enforcement officers with various wounds were hospitalized. The authorities have been largely silent about what occurred but sources close to the Sughd law enforcement authorities say several people convicted of religious extremism and terrorism organized the riot at the Khujand high-security penal colony 3/3. They were reportedly armed with cold steels and one of them managed to disarm a guard, took his assault rifle and began shooting at guards and wardens. It is not clear what sparked the riot that was suppressed by riot police sent to the prison. Recall, Amaq news agency, which is linked to the Islamic State (IS) terror group, reported on November 8 that one of IS fighters is responsible for the attack in Tajikistan that sparked a prison riot. Some media outlets have dwelled on the fact that the Khujand high-security penal colony has been used to hold people convicted on charges of belonging to radical religious organizations. Meanwhile, a serious riot took place in Khujand-based mens penal colony 3/19 on April 14, 1997. Prisoners reportedly protested living conditions and perceived injustice in the prison system. Security forces put down the protest on April 17 in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called a massacre. The Tajik government says 24 prisoners were killed and 35 were wounded, but human rights organizations have estimated as many as 150 people were killed. Uzbek Minister of Water Resources, Shavkat Hamrayev, will arrive in Tajikistan this week to participate in the ceremony of introducing the first unit of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP) into operation, a source in the Tajik government told Asia-Plus in an interview, news.tj repotrs. High-ranking officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as senior representatives of diplomatic missions and international organizations active in the country have also been invited to attend the ceremony. Local media outlets and 30 foreign media outlets are expected to cover the ceremony. The first unit of the Roghun HPP will be introduced into operation on November 16. The event will be attended by President Emomali Rahmon. According to the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources (MoEWR), at the initial stage after being introduced into operation, the capacity of the first unit will be 100 MW and it will generate up to 350 million kWh of electricity per year. The second unit of the Roghun hydropower plant is expected to be introduced into operation in April next year. The last sixth unit of the plant will be introduced into operation in 2028, when plants dam will reach the planned height. Recall, specialists from Ukraines Dnipro-SGEM and Electrotyazhmash have installed the rotor of Unit 6, the first of the six future units of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP). According to Dnipro-SGEM, the work on installing the rotor weighing 850 tons was completed on July 5. Unit 6 is reportedly expected to be introduced into operation on November 16, 2018 and Unit 5 is expected to be introduced into operation in 2019. Tajikistan stemmed the flow of the Vakhsh River for construction of the Roghun HPP in late October 2016. Explosions were used on October 29, 2016 to block the main riverbed of the Vakhsh River, marking the first substantial step toward building the dam. The work on the Vakhsh River has not affected existing hydroelectric facilities downstream. Roghun HPP is an embankment dam in the preliminary stages of construction on the Vakhsh River in southern Tajikistan. It is one of the planned hydroelectric power plants of Vakhsh Cascade. The Roghun HPP was first proposed in 1959 and a technical scheme was developed by 1965. Construction began in 1976 but the project was frozen after the collapse of the Soviet Union. An agreement on finishing the construction was signed between Tajikistan and Russia in 1994; however, as the agreement was not implemented, it was denounced by Tajikistan parliament. In October 2004, Tajikistan signed an agreement with Russia's RusAl aluminum company, according to which RusAl agreed to complete the Roghun facility and rebuild the Tursunzoda aluminum smelter. In August 2007, Tajikistan formally revoked a contract with RusAl, accusing it of failing to fulfill the contract. In April 2008, Tajikistan founded OJSC NBO Roghun with an authorized capital of 116 million somoni for completing the construction of the Roghun HPP. Current authorized capital of OJSC NBO Roghun reportedly amounts to more than 12 billion somoni. To raise funds to complete construction of the Roghun HPP the government started to sell shares in Roghun to people on January 6, 2010. Tajikistan has reportedly issued 6 billion somoni worth of Roghun shares. The sale of Roghun shares has reportedly earned the government 980 million somoni. In response to the request of the bordering countries and especially Uzbekistan, the World Bank has financed the Techno-Economic Assessment Study (TEAS) conducted by consortium of Coyne et Bellier, Electroconsult and IPA Energy + Water Economics, and Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) conducted by Poyry. The ESIA was published on June 16, 2014 and the TEAS in July 2014. Overall, the ESIA stated that Most impacts are rather small and easily mitigated, if mitigation is required at all. and that There is no impact of the category strong negative, mitigation not possible, which would have to be considered as a no-go for the project. In 2016, construction duties on Roghun were assigned to Italian company Salini Impregilo. It is estimated that the project will cost $3.9 billion to complete. The project is broken down into four components, with the most expensive one involving the building of a 335-meter-high rockfill dam the tallest in the world which will entail costs of around $1.95 billion. If built as planned, the dam will be the tallest in the world at 335 meters and have a capacity of 3600 MW. Tajik President Emomali Rahmon on January 31 received Mr. Pietro Salini, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Salini Impregilo. After a meeting with the Tajik head of state, Mr. Pietro Salini told reporters that he promised Emomali Rahmon to introduce the first unit of the Roghun HPP into operation on November 16, 2018. Recall, Tajikistan celebrates Presidents Day on November 16. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 12 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: The State Migration Service of Turkmenistan has held a meeting with a representative of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Turkmenistan, the state agency said in a statement. The parties exchanged views on the prospects of partnership in international migration. In recent years there has been an effective mechanism of cooperation between Turkmenistan and IOM aimed at protecting the rights and legitimate interests of migrants and refugees in need of assistance, the message says. The main areas of cooperation between the State Migration Service of Turkmenistan and the IOM are counteraction to various threats and challenges of our times, migration and health, the fight against human trafficking and other relevant issues of migration policy. Turkmenistan joined the International Organization for Migration as a full member in 2013. Prior to this, in June 1998, a cooperation agreement was signed between the Government of Turkmenistan and IOM. The IOM mission in Turkmenistan began its activities in 2005. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 12 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has sent a letter to Slovenian President Borut Pahor on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the Turkmen government said in a message. Berdimuhamedov noted that the Turkmen-Slovenian interstate dialogue is based on the principles of mutual respect and equality. Expressing the interest of Turkmenistan in expanding the partnership, Berdimuhamedov expressed confidence in its ongoing development in the interests of the peoples of the two countries. Trade, communication, transportation, air communication, freight traffic, agriculture and food industry are among priority spheres of Ashgabat-Ljubljana partnership. Negotiations are also underway to open direct air communication between the two countries and expand business relations. Turkmenistan is one of main players in the energy market of the Caspian region and ranks fourth in the world for its gas reserves. The country is studying opportunities to export its gas to the European market. Moreover, the Trans Caspian Gas Pipeline project through Azerbaijan to Turkey and Europe is being discussed. Turkmenistan celebrated the harvest festival, summing up the results of the agricultural year. The chief celebrations took place in Ashgabat, bringing together representatives of the best performing farms from all the regions of the country, turkmenistan.ru reports. By President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedovs decree, best farmers, machine operators, agronomists and other agrarians who achieved the highest results in work this year were awarded the medal Watana bolan soygusi ucin (For love of the Fatherland) and the title Honored Worker of Agriculture of Turkmenistan in a ceremony at Mekan (Motherland) palace in Ashgabat. The guests of the festival viewed with great interest an exhibition of achievements of the agro-industrial complex of Turkmenistan. At the exhibition, relevant departments presented the products of cotton growing and processing, melon growing, animal husbandry, food and textile industry, as well as modern agricultural machinery. The first Iranian accelerator for traditional medicine will be introduced in the 4th festival of medicinal herbs, natural products and traditional medicine, which runs from November 12 to 15 at Tehrans Imam Khomeini Mosalla, tehrantimes.com reports. A total of 110 startups will be participating in the exhibition, said Esmaeil Qaderifar, an official with the vice presidency for science and technology, during a press conference on Saturday, Mehr reported. The vice presidency plans to initiate accelerators in all fields of technology in the near future, he added. The festivals secretary Mohammad Hassan Asareh explained about different sections of the event and the participants. About 170 knowledge-based companies and 550 innovative firms will be attending the event, he explained. A total of 551 companies from the private sector are active in the field of herbal medicine, he announced. Asareh said that over five thousand products are on the show during the event. The 170 innovative plans and idea proposed by student compete during the festival, he said. The festival aims at introducing the latest scientific and industrial achievements in the technological products of medicinal plants in order to shift from an oil-based economy, and remove the barriers and challenges the development of the medicinal plant industry is facing. US President Donald Trump has elevated India and Japan to the top of his list of strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific region. At the same time, US efforts to isolate and redirect Iran away from its nuclear weapons programs resulted in another round of sanctions being implemented in early November, Asia Times reports. Iranian sanctions complicate matters for New Delhi and Tokyo in their relationship with Washington, as neither shares the intense US dislike for Tehran. Iran will continue to ship oil in lesser amounts to eight nations including India, China, Japan and Turkey after 180-day waivers were approved by the US in early November. Both Japan and India want to ensure their access to Iranian oil and LNG supplies. Japan now obtains 5 percent of its imported oil from Iran, while India is second only to China as a purchaser of Iranian oil. With Japan and India seeking to retain ties with Iran, the US faces challenges as it attempts to seal off Iran economically and politically from the rest of the world. Creating an effective alliance with its Indo-Pacific partners such as Japan and India would be much easier if their interests converged, a very rare phenomenon. A key case may be Chabahar Port on the southern coast of Iran, which India is spending up to $500 million to develop. Chabahar is the most reliable way to connect India to Afghanistan after Pakistan sealed India off from all the direct East-West overland routes years ago. India has already started to build the related railroad and highway infrastructure. And India is bearing the cost not only financially, but also in lives lost dozens of Indian workers were killed by the Taliban in the initial phases of the project. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: The European Union will continue cooperation with Iran in transportation sector, Deputy Director-General of the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE) Maja Bakran said at a seminar held in Iran's Ports and Maritime Organization, ILNA reported. Bakran said Europe has kept sea trade with Asia at various periods of the history, and that is why efforts are being made to continue this relationship between Asia and Europe. "In 2016, I traveled to Iran under the leadership of Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. During the visit, valuable agreements were reached in the transportation sector and the EU takes steps according to these agreements," she said. In terms of volume and value, 80 percent of the world's traffic is carried out by sea, and from this point of view, the EU intends to continue its relations with Iran in the sea trade, Bakran added. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has scolded his American counterpart, Mike Pompeo, for his sharp attack on a US magazine that published his threat to starve the Iranian people through sanctions, saying Pompeo must assume responsibility for what he says, Press TV reported. In a post on his official Twitter account on Monday, Zarif said Pompeo "should either own what he says, or disown what US does. Can't have it both ways." He slammed Pompeo's audacity to threaten crimes against humanity targeting ordinary Iranian people and said his American counterpart "then attacks media for reporting his own words." Zarif was responding to an earlier claim made by Pompeo on his Twitter account in which he accused "fake Newsweek" of helping spread lies. In an interview with BBC Persian, the US secretary of state said that Iranian officials must listen to Washington "if they want their people to eat." Pompeos attack on the Newsweek came after Zarif said the US secretary of state's open threat to starve the Iranian nation was "a crime against humanity" and "a desperate attempt to impose US whims on Iran." "Like his predecessors, he'll also learn thatin spite of US effortsIran will not just survive but advance w/out sacrificing its sovereignty," Zarif said in a Twitter post. The administration of US President Donald Trump announced on November 5 the re-imposition of the toughest sanctions ever against Iran's banking and energy sectors with the aim of cutting off its oil sales and crucial exports. The bans had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). A first round of American sanctions took effect in August, targeting Iran's access to the US dollar, metals trading, coal, industrial software, and auto sector. Italy will host a Libya conference that starts on Monday and aims to push forward a new U.N. plan to stabilize the troubled North African country after a initiative to hold elections next month failed, Reuters reports. Last week, U.N. Envoy Ghassan Salame officially abandoned a Western plan to hold national elections on Dec. 10 as way out of conflict that has raged in the oil producer since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Instead the United Nations, which has been trying to mediate for years, wants to hold first a national conference to reconcile a country divided between hundreds of rival armed groups, tribes, towns and regions. Western powers that helped topple Gaddafi then left Libya to its chaos, letting militias and radical Islamist groups grow. But worried about it turning into a source of instability on the shores of Europe, European powers have recently paid Libya more attention, and diplomats hope the two-day meeting in the Sicilian city of Palermo will keep up that interest. France hosted a summit in May during which the main Libyan rivals pledged to hold parliamentary and presidential elections in December. But weeks of fighting between militias in the capital Tripoli, as well as deadlock between rump parliaments in Tripoli and the east, has made that plan unrealistic. Italy hopes the conference will help keep pressure on Libyan players to overcome their divisions. The OPEC oil producer has two governments, a U.N.-backed administration in the capital and a largely powerless eastern version aligned with influential veteran commander Khalifa Haftar, whose forces control much of the east. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a visit to Paris on Sunday and was returning to Israel after violence erupted along Israels border with the Gaza Strip, a spokesman said, Reuters reports. At least six Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, medics and sources within the enclaves dominant Hamas group said, and rockets were fired at Israeli communities along the border. Israeli military have registered about 300 missile launches from Gaza Strip and managed to intercept dozens of them, Sputnik reported citing Israeli army press service. As of now, about 300 rocket launches from the Gaza Strip at Israel have been detected. Dozens of rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome air and missile defense system," the IDF said in a statement. Air-raid warning sirens continue to sound throughout the south of the country, warning residents of the continuation of Palestinian shelling, according to a report by Sputnik correspondent from Israel. In response to the Palestinian shelling, the Israeli military attacked over 70 militant targets in the Gaza Strip from the ground and the air. According to local doctors, three Gaza Strip residents died in Israeli strikes. One of the Israeli airstrikes specifically targeted the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV station. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump intend to hold a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina at the end of this month. Among the issues they hope to discuss is the US decision to quit the INF Treaty, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Monday, TASS reported. "[At the events in Paris on November 11] Putin had a quick word with Trump," Peskov said. "They agreed they had a great deal to discuss, including the INF Treaty. They decided to do this at the G20 summit in Argentina," Peskov said. Putin and Trump last Sunday attended ceremonies in Paris at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Originally the Russian and US leaders had agreed to use that opportunity for conducting separate bilateral negotiations only to postpone them at the request of the French side, because a Russian-US summit might have distracted the world publics attention from the main theme of the events. Last time Putin and Trump met in Helsinki last July. So far it was their first meeting not related with international forums. Before that Putin and Trump had met briefly on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Germany in July 2017 and the APEC summit in Vietnam in November 2017. U.S. President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Tayyip Erdogan, discussed how to respond to the killing last month of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a White House official said on Sunday, Reuters reported. The conversation took place during a dinner with heads of state and government gathered in Paris to mark the World War One Armistice centenary. Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed at the kingdoms Istanbul consulate by a team sent from Riyadh. Saudi authorities have acknowledged that the killing was premeditated, but his body has not been found. Erdogan disclosed on Saturday that audio recordings of the killing had been given to the U.S., French, German and British governments, adding that the operation had been ordered at the highest levels of the Saudi government. Trump expects to form a stronger opinion by this coming week on Khashoggis killing and Washingtons response, he said last Wednesday - adding that he was working with Congress, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to establish who bore responsibility. In a phone call with the crown prince on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo emphasized that the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable, and that Saudi Arabia must do the same, the State Department said in a statement. Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: A ship with illegal immigrants has sunk in the Aegean Sea off the coast of the western Turkish province of Izmir, the Turkish Coast Guard said in a statement. There were 12 illegal immigrants on board, two of whom were able to go ashore, the message says. "Currently, work is underway to rescue 10 illegal immigrants," the message says. On October 10, a vessel with illegal immigrants also sank off the coast of Izmir province, resulting in the death of 30 people. As previously reported, on November 5, the Turkish Coast Guard detained 223 illegal migrants in Edirne Province on the border with Greece. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury Sigal Mandelker announced that SWIFT had cut-off Iranian financial institutions targeted by the US sanctions, Sputnik reported. The Iranian central bank is among the entities that lost their connection to SWIFT. The US Treasury official stressed that Washington would be strictly enforcing its sanctions regime against Tehran and announced that there would be "a lot more from the US on Iran." Mandelker noted that Washington is not concerned by the idea of the creation of a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) in the EU to work with Iran, expressing confidence that the US and Europe could still work together. The official noted that despite the idea of an SPV, "companies already are leaving Iran." "I am not concerned by the SPV actually at all. I think the bigger news in Europe is that companies are withdrawing from Iran in droves," she said. SWIFT, a global messaging network designed for organizing financial communications between banks, earlier announced that it would sever its links to several Iranian banks and institutions for the sake of the overall stability of the network. The organization didn't say directly that it was cutting off Iranian banks subject to the new US sanctions. The announcement by the financial messaging network came on the same day as US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the imposition of sanctions against the Iranian banking, energy and shipping spheres. Several days prior to the announcement, Mnuchin warned that SWIFT is no different than any other entity and could therefore also fall under secondary sanctions if it were to continue to work with Iranian banks. The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Monday passed a Bill to repeal the controversial AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act, 2020. (Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. shouldnt receive "massive corporate welfare" to invest in New York City and should instead use its resources to help solve public problems such as aging transportation systems, two lawmakers who represent the city said. "Were tripping over ourselves to buy Amazons love when New York has a lot to offer," New York State Senator Michael Gianaris said in an interview, after releasing a joint statement with New York City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer. Both represent the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens. "We should be talking about what they can contribute to the community rather than what they can take," Gianaris said. The New York backlash underscores the complexity of Amazons presence as the e-commerce giant nears the end of its search for an additional corporate headquarters. Its credited with bringing an economic boom to Seattle that included rapidly rising property values and increased employment opportunities. Yet the company is also blamed for an affordable housing crisis and traffic problems. Amazon is in advanced discussions to split the second headquarters between Long Island City and the Washington, D.C. , suburb of Crystal City, Virginia, according to people familiar with the matter. Amazon last year announced plans to invest $5 billion and hire 50,000 people over the next 18 years, and invited North American cities to submit bids to attract the investment. Amazon in January announced 20 finalists and is scheduled to make a final decision by the end of the year. Gianaris, in the interview, said he is worried New York will give Amazon billions of dollars in tax incentives while the city is struggling to pay for better subway service and provide education and healthcare to residents. Gianaris said he has no direct knowledge of the package, which is being negotiated privately. "Offering massive corporate welfare from scarce public resources to one of the wealthiest corporations in the world at a time of great need in our state is just wrong," he and Van Bramer said in their statement. Story continues Amazon, through a spokesman, declined to comment. To contact the reporter on this story: Spencer Soper in Seattle at ssoper@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Bernard Kohn, Kevin Miller For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2018 Bloomberg L.P. Aurora Cannabis (ACB) reported better-than-expected fiscal Q1 financial results Monday morning. This earnings report is the companys first since Canada legalized the recreational use of marijuana last month. The Canadian cannabis company saw C$29.7 million in revenue for Q1, which was up 260% year over year. The commencement of adult consumer use sales in Canada has been very successful for Aurora, with strong performance across all product categories and brands. Given the strong unmet consumer demand evident across Canada, we are confident that our rapidly increasing production capacity will result in continued acceleration of revenue growth, CEO Terry Booth said in a statement on Monday. Aurora reported gross margins on cannabis of 70%, and that 12% increase year over year was primarily due to the higher average selling price of dried cannabis, according to the company. The state of weed in America The amount of cannabis produced and sold also increased significantly during the quarter. Compared to the same period in 2018, kilograms produced and sold rose 395% and 201% respectively. Booth said that Aurora will be focused on more than doubling their production within months. Based on grow rooms in production, the company currently is running at an annualized run rate of 70,000 kg. Management anticipates that around calendar year end 2018 into the beginning of calendar 2019, Aurora will have a production run rate in excess of 150,000 kg per annum based on grow rooms in production, with subsequent scale up to over 500,000 kg per annum (excluding additional capacity through the acquisition of ICC Labs). (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) Auroras report kicks off a big week for weed stock earnings. Tilray (TLRY) and Cronos Group (CRON) are set to report Tuesday, and Canopy Growth (CGC) reports Wednesday. Shares of Aurora were soaring nearly 4% in pre-market trade as of 8:21 a.m. ET on Monday. Heidi Chung is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @heidi_chung. Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and reddit. Story continues More from Heidi: CPI, retail earnings What you need to know for the week ahead Investment strategist details the thing that worries me most going into 2019 Papa Johns reports tumbling sales BHP Billiton (BHP) Clears Wreckage, Restarts Iron Ore Trains BHP Billiton (BHP) stated that it will meet contractual supply commitments to its customers despite having to forcibly derail a runaway iron ore train in Western Australia. BHP Billiton Limited BHP has cleared all wreckage caused by the deliberate derailment of the runaway iron ore train last week. The company has now resumed rail operations between its Pilbara iron ore mines and Port Hedland. On Nov 5, the companys fully laden iron ore train consisting of four locomotives and 268 wagons hurtled driverless through the Pilbara desert. The situation was a result of failed safety mechanisms as the train started to move while the driver was off it. The unmanned train continued at a speed 110km/h for around 92 km for over 50 minutes before BHP Billiton's remote operations center in Perth deliberately derailed the train around 120 km south of Port Hedland. It was a necessary step in order to avoid a catastrophe. The derailment left a wreckage of crumpled ore wagons, overturned locomotives and spilt iron ore. It also damaged around 5 km of train tracks, severing the crucial transport link between its mines and the port. Notably, the derailment is being touted as one of the biggest train crashes by scale in history of Western Australia. A probe is currently underway to determine how the train was able to travel unmanned. The impact on BHP Billitons production is still unclear. However, per reports, shipping rates have slowed but not ceased since the derailment. However, it has been feared the mining giant might have to downgrade full-year guidance following its announcement last week that its ore stockpiles at port would run out before it could restart rail movements. Nevertheless, the mining giant has insisted that it will meet all contractual commitments to customers. Over the past year, BHP Billitons shares gained 10%, against the industrys decline of 2%. BHP Billitons cash flow remains robust, driven by strong operational performance and higher prices. BHP Billiton is improving operations on the back of smarter technology adoption across the entire value chain. The company has lowered net debt considerably. Its investment plans are also on track across iron ore, copper, coal and petroleum. Recently, BHP Billiton entered an agreement to acquire 6.1% interest in SolGold, with which it will gain shares of the Cascabel copper-gold project in Ecuador. Story continues BHP Billiton currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the basic materials space are CF Industries Holdings, Inc. CF, KMG Chemicals, Inc. KMG and The Mosaic Company MOS. CF Industries has an expected long-term earnings growth rate of 6% and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). The companys shares have gained 40% in the past year. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. KMG Chemicals has an expected long-term earnings growth rate of 28.5% and a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Its shares have risen 40% in the past year. Mosaic has an expected long-term earnings growth rate of 7% and a Zacks Rank #2. The companys shares have rallied 57% over a years time. More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone! It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market. Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2020. Click here for the 6 trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report KMG Chemicals, Inc. (KMG) : Free Stock Analysis Report The Mosaic Company (MOS) : Free Stock Analysis Report CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (CF) : Free Stock Analysis Report BHP Billiton Limited (BHP) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has entered the fray in the latest election controversy to rock South Florida. Following in the footsteps of fellow Republican Gov. Rick Scott, Bondi has chastised Florida officials concerning what she refers to as "irregularities" in Broward and Palm Beach Counties during the 2018 midterm elections. On Sunday the Attorney General's Office shared letters sent by Bondi to Ken Detzner, the Secretary of State of Florida, as well as Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Rick Swearingen. In her letters, Bondi implores both men to pursue alleged misconduct surrounding voting in the two populous South Florida counties. Read Bondi's letter to Detzner: falcon-embed src="embed_1" "As part of your statutory duty as secretary of state, I know you and your staff are continuing to investigate the recent events occurring in Broward and Palm Beach Counties regarding the 2018 election," Bondi wrote to Detzner. "In doing so, when you find any indication creating a reasonable suspicion of potential criminal activity, please report it to law enforcement agencies including the Florida Department of Law Enforcement." Bondi requests that Detzner "report any reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to both the statewide prosecutor and state attorney." The attorney general reserved far harsher language for Swearingen. On Friday it was reported that the FDLE had not opened an investigation on voter fraud as Scott had not submitted a request for such an inquiry in writing and "no allegation of voter fraud in Broward has been sent to the Florida Department of State, which oversees elections" according to the Miami Herald. In her letter to Swearingen, Bondi said she was "deeply troubled" by the lack of an investigation. "As law enforcement officials, regardless of political affiliation, it is our job to investigate facts and circumstances giving rise to reasonable suspicion in order to determine whether criminal conduct has occurred," she wrote. "In the case of the 2018 election ... election officials in Broward and Palm Beach Counties have been found by courts and have admitted in their own public statements, that irregularities occurred and required procedures were violated." Story continues Read Bondi's letter to Swearingen: falcon-embed src="embed_2" "It appears your unwillingness to investigate is based on your claim that the Florida Department of State has not, as of yet, identified criminal allegations of fraud," Bondi continued. Asserting that Swearingen's "duty is not limited to investigating allegations made by the secretary of state" lists reports that supervisors of elections offices were "willfully and illegally counting ballots that were rejected by the canvassing board" as well as "supervisor of election staff and employees refusing to supply vote by mail ballots when requested" as enough grounds for an investigation to be opened. "It is troubling your agency stated that a complaint by a candidate, government official or elections officer was not put in writing and therefore the failure to reduce a request to writing is a legitimate reason for refusing to investigate," she added. "I fail to see how the Florida Department of Law Enforcement can legitimately refuse to investigate where there is reasonable suspicion that may lead to the discovery of criminal actions in the conduct of the 2018 election actions that gravely damage Floridians' confidence in our electoral process and our democracy." Requests for comment from the FDLE and and Florida Department of State were not answered by press time. The Attorney General's Office also did not respond to requests for comment. On Friday Broward Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips and Palm Beach Circuit Court Judge Krista Marx both entered favorable rulings to Scott's senate campaign in lawsuits against Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes in addition to Susan Bucher, the supervisor of elections for West Palm Beach. On Sunday the campaign filed three additional suits against the election supervisors. Related stories: Broward Judge Orders Immediate Release of Voter Records in Rick Scott-Bill Nelson Race READ: Florida Gov. Rick Scotts Lawsuits Over Election Recount in Senate Race Against Bill Nelson Big Law Mustering for Suit Over Florida Recount in Race Between Rick Scott and Bill Nelson Not Another Florida Recount! This One Should Be Smoother Nov 12 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. - Major oil producers meeting in Abu Dhabi on Sunday signaled that they were considering once again changing course and cutting production. But the group, which included the Saudi oil minister, Khalid al-Falih, and his Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, did not make any firm decisions. https://nyti.ms/2DdTIYV - Top congressional Democrats demanded on Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump's acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, recuse himself from overseeing the special counsel investigation, and vowed to use their new-found powers as the incoming House majority to block him from interfering with it. https://nyti.ms/2DdKmw6 - Top Saudi intelligence officials close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked a small group of businessmen last year about using private companies to assassinate Iranian enemies of the kingdom, according to three people familiar with the discussions. https://nyti.ms/2DfL63T (Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom) Will Product Innovations Aid Canopy Growth (CGC) in Q2? Canopy Growth (CGC) is expected to benefit from a solid top-line contribution in the Canadian medical cannabis market. Canopy Growth Corporation CGC is expected to report second-quarter fiscal 2019 results on Nov 14, before the market opens. In the last reported quarter, the companys loss per share of 31 cents was wider than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 12 cents. Lets see, how things are shaping up prior to this announcement. Factors at Play Canopy Growth once again is likely to generate a strong top-line contribution from the medical cannabis market in Canada and around the world wherein it holds a leading position. Notably, the companysSpectrum Cannabis operations are spread in 11 countries across five continents. Of late, the company made a series of strategic acquisitions in Columbia, Lesotho and Czech Republic, which in turn, should help drive its top line. Canopy Growth Corporation Price and EPS Surprise Canopy Growth Corporation Price and EPS Surprise | Canopy Growth Corporation Quote The company is currently trying to establish cannabis in the world medical market by focusing on research, product development and innovative production capabilities. We are currently looking forward to the companys progress with its major cannabinoid CBD and THC. Per the company, it is producing cannabis oil products with different ratios of THC and CBD in order to meet the customers unique medical needs. Canopy Growth is currently in the process of seeking provisional patents for several areas ranging from insomnia to fibromyalgia pain. Among its recent developments, the company in the second quarter, launched a brand for the recreational market in Canada called LBS. It boasts a globally recognized family of brands, both in-house and built through partnerships as well with icons in the cannabis space. LBS is the companys latest addition to this line-up. This brand, while positioning itself as the gold standard in the cannabis industry, should help accelerating sales in Canada. Moreover, this should get reflected in the companys second-quarter numbers. Story continues Heres What Our Quantitative Model Predicts Our proven Zacks model clearly indicates that a company with a favorable Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) has good chances of beating estimates if it also has a positive Earnings ESP . You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter . Canopy Growth has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), which increases the predictive power of ESP. However, the companys Earnings ESP of -47.80% makes surprise prediction difficult. Thus, this combination fails to forecast a positive surprise for the stock this reporting cycle. Stocks Worth a Look Following are a few stocks worth considering with the right combination of elements to beat on earnings in the upcoming quarterly results: Burlington Stores, Inc. BURL has an Earnings ESP of +2.38% and a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here . CalAmp Corp. CAMP has an Earnings ESP of +2.28% and a Zacks Rank of 3. Adobe Inc. ADBE has an Earnings ESP of +0.19% and a Zacks Rank of 2. More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone! It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market. Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2020. Click here for the 6 trades >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Adobe Systems Incorporated (ADBE) : Free Stock Analysis Report CalAmp Corp. (CAMP) : Free Stock Analysis Report Burlington Stores, Inc. (BURL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Turkey is not short of ambition when it comes to infrastructure projects. In October 2018, it opened the worlds largest airport (Istanbul Airport). 2016 saw the unveiling of the worlds widest suspension bridge which links Asia to Europe across the Bosporus Strait. Turkey also plans to build a 45km shipping canal running parallel to the Bosporus to rival the Panama and Suez Canals. According to the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Turkey ranks only behind China in its thirst for energy. Energy demand has grown 7% annually from 1990 until today. Despite an 80% increase in electricity generation in the past decade including a 90% growth in renewable capacity Turkey is still struggling to meet its electricity generation needs. Turkey is also battling to reduce its dependence on $55 billion of fossil fuel imports which account for 77.5% of its energy needs. Natural gas from Russia and coal from various foreign sources add up to 1.5 times the size of Turkeys overall current account deficit, pointing to a pressing, long-term economic vulnerability. An aerial view of Istanbuls new airport. To its credit, renewables features prominently in Turkeys road to energy independence. Earlier this year, Turkey announced a bidding process for the largest off-shore wind farm in the world. The estimated $2 billion offshore plant will have a capacity of 1,200 MW roughly twice the capacity of the record-holding London Array and will be located either in the Aegean, Marmara or Black seas. Meanwhile, Turkey plans to hold four 250 MW wind energy tenders by the end of this year for four plants with an investment volume of around $1 billion. This follows a 1,000 MW tender held last year which resulted in a world record feed-in-tariff of $3.48 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) offered by the Siemens-Turkerler-Kalyon consortium, highlighting the competitiveness of Turkeys wind energy sector. With the second biggest solar potential in Europe behind Spain, Turkey has impressive goals for PV capacity as well. The Turkish solar energy association, Gunder, predicts that PV could reach a cumulative capacity of 14GW by 2023. This seems a steep hill to climb, since Turkey is starting from an installed base of only 5GW. However, the country added 2.5GW solar capacity in 2016-2017; it held a 1GW solar auction in 2017; and it announced a 100-day energy action plan this August, which included the goal of 3GW in solar tenders worth $4.8 billion in investment. Story continues Government-sponsored projects aside, the vast majority of solar capacity has come from so-called unlicensed projects those less than 1MW which are not the result of a competitive tender process. Private players like Akfen Renewable Energies are also taking the countrys renewables destiny into their own hands. The company has secured a $363 million from the EBRD, Germanys KfW IPEX-Bank, and a series of Turkish banks to build nine new solar plants with a cumulative capacity of 85MW and four wind farms totaling 242MW. This is all part of Turkeys goal to produce 50% of its electricity from clean sources by 2023. As of August 2018, Turkey hit 31% renewable electricity production. However, this is only 3% higher than the 2013 figure, suggesting that the 50% target will take much longer to achieve. Renewables Intermittency Makes Coal A Necessity A key barrier to reaching an energy mix with 50% renewables is the cost of managing intermittency. Scientists have estimated that when intermittent sources reach 20-30% of the energy mix, balancing costs can add 30-50% to the cost of the renewable energy installations themselves[1]. Therefore, there will be a need for non-intermittent energy sources whether fossil fuel, nuclear or hydroelectric until energy storage costs decrease significantly. In Turkeys case, it has also more or less exhausted its hydroelectric generating capacities and it is not richly endowed with oil or natural gas. Turkey is planning to build three nuclear power plants, targeted to generate 15% of its electricity production, but these will not be ready until at least 2030. And so, in the short-term, it seems that Turkey has little choice but to invest heavily in its only domestic energy source coal. The Afsin-Elbistan power plant in the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaras in southern Turkey is expected to become the biggest coal-fired power plant in the world and there are 80 new coal power plants in the pipeline equivalent to the capacity of the UKs entire power sector. Only India and China, which have much larger populations, match Turkey in predicted growth of coal production. Turkey already imports nearly 40 million mt of coal annually from locations such as US, China, and Australia. Imported coal typically has 20-30% higher calorific value than Turkish varieties. Therefore, in order to make domestic coal more competitive, it is heavily subsidized. Coal projects routinely receive free state land, exemptions from corporate taxes and tariffs, 50% discount on electricity bills, and state funding for wages, insurance premiums and interest on investment loans. To add to its sustainable energy challenge, Turkeys recent economic woes may further curtail renewables development. The lira has declined steeply in 2018 and is likely to put off foreign investors who are crucial for the development of the sector. State-owned grid operator TEIAS reported just 18MW of new unlicensed PV capacity in July; by comparison, there was 1.1GW of new capacity in the first few months of the year. The government has authorized foreign-currency loans for approved unlicensed PV projects of up to 1 MW. However, if currency volatility remains that may not be enough to stave off falling foreign investment and may push the ambitious renewables goals out of reach. Turkey is emblematic of a wider conundrum faced by many emerging economies. Even when governments wish to transition towards renewables, they may still have to deploy dirty energy sources such as coal to tackle the intermittency issues. For example, Asian coal consumption grew by 3.1% a year from 2006 to 2016, accounting for almost three-quarters of the worlds demand. India, a signatory of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, consumed an extra 27 million tons of coal in 2017, an increase of 4.8%, which helped push up global coal consumption for the first time in four years. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918300230 Matthias Lomas in London co-authored this piece. Photo Credit: Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, Turkey Discover The Potential The post Turkeys Renewable Energy Ambitions Will Require A Boost From Coal appeared first on Emerging Market Views. Dozens of people have been killed in violence across Afghanistan, including in a suicide bombing in Kabul targeting a protest by members of the mainly Shiite Hazara minority, officials say. The Islamic State (IS) militant group claimed responsibility for the suicide blast on November 12 that killed at least six people and wounded 20 others in the center of the capital, where hundreds of people were protesting the governments failure to protect the Hazara community from Taliban attacks. The explosion rocked the city as fighting raged in the central province of Ghazni, where Afghan forces and pro-government militias have been battling the Taliban for the past week. Officials said on November 12 that 25 Afghan security personnel were killed in Ghazni's predominately Hazara districts of Malistan and Jaghori. The Taliban also attacked a third district, Khas Oruzgan, in neighboring Oruzgan Province two weeks ago. The Taliban offensive in the three predominately Hazara districts has left dozens of government troops, pro-government Hazara militia men, and Taliban militants dead and forced hundreds of civilians to flee their homes. In the western province of Farah, at least 37 local police were killed when Taliban fighters overran several security checkpoints, regional officials said on November 12. In a statement, the IS militant group said it targeted a gathering of Shi'ites. The extremist Sunni group considers Shi'ites as heretics and has frequently targeted them in recent years. Afghanistan's main intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said in a statement that the bomber was on foot and detonated his suicide vest before reaching the protesters. Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danesh told RFE/RL that civilians and security personnel deployed to secure the city during the protest were among the dead. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, although the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS) militant groups have been blamed for similar attacks in the past. The blast occurred near a security checkpoint near the Istiqlal high school in central Kabul, close to the area where ministry buildings and the Presidential Palace are located. The Afghan president's office said protesters ended their demonstration after President Ashraf Ghani addressed the crowd and promised to send reinforcements to the besieged districts. Hazara Demand Protection Hundreds of people had rallied for a second day in front of the Presidential Palace to protest against the government's inaction in sending reinforcements to the three districts under siege in the provinces of Ghazni and Oruzgan. The situation in the districts of Jahjori, Malistan, and Khas Oruzgan is critical, an unnamed protester told RFE/RL. These areas need urgent air support and reinforcements. We want the government and the world to know whats happening there, another protester told RFE/RL. How long can this cruelty and death go on? Officials said that the Taliban killed 15 civilians and 10 members of the special forces in Ghazni on November 11, after the government said it had sent special forces backed by air strikes to the districts under attack. There have been fears that the violence could be rooted in ethnic or sectarian differences, pitting the Hazara against the Taliban, a predominately Sunni, ethnic Pashtun group. The Taliban was accused of committing human rights violations against Hazara during their 1996-2001 rule. In the western province of Farah, at least 37 members of the Afghan security forces were killed in overnight attacks by Taliban fighters on checkpoints that triggered hours of fighting, local officials said on November 12. The spike in violence comes as visiting U.S. special envoy Zakmay Khalilzad held talks with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on November 11 in his latest round of meetings aimed at convincing the Taliban to take part in peace talks with Kabul to end the decades-long war in Afghanistan. Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Kabul, is also scheduled to visit Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, where the Taliban has a political office. A recent U.S. government watchdog report said Kabul's control of Afghanistan had slipped in recent months as local forces made little or no progress against the Taliban. The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, citing NATO's Resolute Support mission, said this summer's casualty toll for Afghan forces had been worse than ever. With reporting by AFP, Reuters, and dpa Afghan officials say 15 civilians and 10 elite force members have been killed in Ghazni Province, as a days-long battle continued November 11. Fighting in Jaghori district -- an area inhabited mainly by Shiite ethnic Hazaras -- erupted on November 7 when Taliban militants attacked the district. The central government reacted by sending special forces units to back up local militia forces. Police spokesman Ahmad Khan Sirat said six members of the security forces were also wounded on November 11. Most Hazara belong to the Shi'ite branch of Islam. The Taliban, which are Sunni and largely ethnic Pashtuns, have been accused of committing human rights violations against the group during their oppressive 1996-2001 rule. On the other side of the country, in the northern province of Baghlan, at least 14 members of the Afghan security forces and civilians were killed and eight others were injured in Taliban attacks, provincial Governor Abdulhai Nemati said. The ongoing violence comes as U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad prepared for fresh talks aimed at convincing the Taliban to take part in peace talks with Kabul to end the decades-long war in Afghanistan. Khalilzad met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on November 11. Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Kabul, also is scheduled to visit Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, where the Taliban has a political office. A Taliban delegation met with Khalilzad in Doha in October to discuss ending the Afghan conflict. That was followed by a Russia-led international gathering in Moscow on November 9 that included Taliban representatives. A recent U.S. government watchdog report said Kabul's control of Afghanistan had slipped in recent months as local forces made little or no progress against the Taliban. The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) cited NATO's Resolute Support mission as saying this summer's casualty toll for Afghan forces had been worse than ever. With reporting by AFP and Reuters The Gazette is examining the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Nathaniel Czajkowski, whose death remains unsolved, in its new weekly podcast, Colorado Cold Case. Episode three, Who was Nate Czajkowski, is available for free download, along with previous episodes, at gazette.com/coldcase. In this episode, we learn about Nate from family and close friends and search for clues about why he might have been killed in 2017. What do we know? What do we still need to find out? Follow along as we build this case. As we approach the winter months when driving is often more of a challenge, Colorado Springs drivers really need a reality check and a reminde Women turned out in force in Colorado on Election Day, casting 110,000 more ballots than men, based on unofficial results Friday. But it was primarily Democratic women who won the day: They outvoted Democratic men by 165,000 ballots and Republican women by 108,000 ballots. Eighty-seven women (including 57 Democrats) competed for congressional and statewide offices this year in Colorado. There was a woman running in six out of the seven congressional races all but the 2nd Congressional District, which elected former CU Regent and Democrat Joe Neguse. Next year, 12 of the state Senates members from all parties will be women, and depending on how unresolved races go as many as 33 of the of the 65 House members a majority could be women. On the Republican side, the news was not so good for women. But on the Democratic side, the results speak for themselves: Jena Griswold is the first Democratic woman to be elected secretary of state and the first Democrat to be elected to the office since 1959. Women next year will be in the majority in the Senate and House Democratic caucuses of the General Assembly. In the House, the 41-member Democratic caucus will have 25 women, based on unofficial vote tallies from Friday, with some votes still to be counted. Out of the 17 Senate races this year, 10 had Democratic female candidates, and they won six of the 10 seats. At the state Capitol, women were chosen for six of the nine elected leadership roles in the Democratic Senate caucus on Thursday, although the two top positions, president and majority leader, went to men. In the House, a woman KC Becker of Boulder is the speaker-designee, the third woman in a row to hold that post, following Democrats Dickey Lee Hullinghorst and Crisanta Duran. Before Hullinghorst, only one woman had held the post, Republican Lola Spradley, in the 2004-05 session. Its not exactly new for women to dominate one chamber or the other at the state Capitol. In the 2011-12 session, when Sen. Morgan Carroll was president, there were 14 women among the 21 Democrats. In the 2018 House, by the end of the session, the caucus was equally split with 18 women and 18 men. But 2019 will be a first: Women in the majority for both Democratic caucuses and at the same time for the party that controls both chambers of the General Assembly. Yet the top spot on the ballot governor still eludes women from either major party. Three women put in bids to become the states next chief executive. Two Democrats (Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne and former state Treasurer Cary Kennedy) made it onto their partys primary ballot, but lost to the eventual winner, Jared Polis. A third Republican Attorney General Cynthia Coffman fell short of making it onto the primary ballot. Different story for GOP At the state Capitol, the Republican state Senate caucus will have one woman out of 16 members, Sen. Vicki Marble of Fort Collins, in the next session. In the general election, Republicans vied for three open seats, but only one was a woman Christine Jensen in Senate District 20 and she lost. The news is better on the state House side. Out of its Republican caucus of 24, eight will be women in 2019. But thats down one from the 2018 session. In the contest for the 65 House seats, Republican women candidates competed in 21 races, Democrats in 33. And nine of those races were between women. Its not out of the norm for women to hold the top spot in the Republican caucus. Spradley did it before becoming speaker, and Rep. Amy Stephens of Monument served as majority leader as recently as 2012-13. But not for 2019. In the House Republican caucus leadership elections Thursday, state Rep. Lois Landgraf of Colorado Springs at first sought the minority leader post but pulled out at the last minute, stating she wanted to see a unified caucus, and the contest had become too much us versus them. (The caucus did elect two women Reps. Lori Saine of Firestone and Perry Buck of Greeley as caucus chair and whip, respectively.) Landgraf heads into January for her fourth and final term in the House. She said that theres no strategy by Republicans to recruit female candidates in Colorado, adding that it doesnt help that the issues most pushed in this election cycle by Republican men, such as transportation, dont resonate as much with women. Women are sitting at the kitchen table, writing out checks for health insurance premiums or wondering whether their children will succeed in school, she said, pointing to health care and education as issues that appeal more strongly to Republican women. Conservative political strategist Laura Carno said she agrees with Landgrafs assessment on issues, but argued that there is a kitchen table aspect to transportation. If theyre sitting in traffic, theyre not at home with their families, she said. What we saw on Election Day is that regardless of what the issues are at the federal level, such as record low unemployment and the economy, what women in Colorado said (in the election) is that they dont like the way the president is speaking and (that) Ill punish anyone with an R behind their name. But its also important for the Republican party to speak to women in language that is important to us, Carno added. Thats not dumbing it down; its having enough women in these communications and leadership positions so that women have an equal voice at the table, and the message that appeals to women isnt diluted, she said. Carno doesnt believe the party needs to have a mens strategy or womens strategy. We should be approaching what people are interested in and not necessarily divided by gender. The state GOP did not return a call for comment. Making a concerted effort Democrats arent shy about pursuing a womens strategy. They point to recruiting efforts and programs such as Emilys List and Emerge Colorado (which lists among its successes the election of Faith Winter of Westminster, its national training director, as state senator). Sen. Angela Williams chairs the Legislative Black Caucus, which she calls The Historic Eight because it will have that many African-American members in the 100-member General Assembly next year, the most ever. I think Colorado is a state thats always been on the forefront of any movement or issues regarding the rights and representation of women, the Denver Democrat said. Were just that kind of great progressive state. She said women working together, helping each other to learn the ins and outs of getting elected and serving, has been important. Youre seeing more people of color taking our places, just like women do, to make sure our voices are heard, Williams said. Black caucuses across the country are nothing new, but in Colorado, weve made great progress, but weve still got more to do. Sarah Chatfield is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver and took a close look at Tuesday nights election results. She cited term limits as a factor it keeps the circulation going, she said as well as the low pay for being a part-time lawmaker who often is called upon to do full-time work. That means the job lacks the prestige and money that might play a bigger role in other states, she said. Democratic women also have succeeded because of voter perceptions of female candidates, Chatfield said: Women are seen and perceived as more liberal, regardless of policy positions. Unfortunately for Republican women, she added, in the countrys polarized political environment, it can be hard for Republican women to get elected who are perceived as moderate. GOP recruitment lacking Republican women lack another tool that has made Democratic women successful in elections, Chatfield said: recruitment and a structure that supports women candidates. Chatfield said there is plenty of research that shows when women run for office, theyre just as likely as men to win, but they need to be asked and recruited, and Republican women are not necessarily being recruited at the same rate. Democrats have made a concerted effort to recruit women as candidates, she said. That includes providing special pots of funding, such as for pro-choice or progressives, as well as training and how to campaign. Republicans are behind the curve on this. Michal Rosenoer, executive director of Democratic-run Emerge Colorado, said that the organization began training Democratic women to run for office in 2013. In the 2018 elections, 12 of the programs 13 alumnae won offices. Women candidates as a group have embraced and given voice to issues that resonated: community, education, the environment, all components of the Colorado way of life, Rosenoer added. The Democratic Senate women candidates made it look easy, she said. In races that should have been won by 1 or 2 points, we won by 10 to 15 points. And it just goes to show that Coloradans are not only voting for change, but theyre also creating it with women at the lead. Joey Bunch of Colorado Politics contributed to this story. In his victory speech Tuesday night, Democratic Gov.-Elect Jared Polis stopped to thank Marlon Reis, his partner and fellow father to their two children. Heavy applause from the energized crowd gave Polis the first openly gay governor elected in the U.S. time to break away from the dais to hug Reis, Colorados first first man. In the days since, Polis election has made national headlines, and his office has been flooded with interview requests, many to discuss the landmark moment in Colorado and the nations history. For gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders across the land, his victory brings hope where once there was none. What a wonderful, wonderful result from the state that gave us Amendment 2. I can remember reading about that and saying, What is wrong with these people? said Kris McDaniel-Miccio, a lesbian and University of Denver law professor who now is on leave in her home state of New York. Only 26 years ago, Colorado was branded the Hate State after passing Amendment 2, which denied state and municipal benefits for gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Huge conferences were canceled, costing the state millions of dollars. Celebrities refused to come to Colorado, and many leaders called for boycotts. The U.S. Supreme Court deemed the amendment unconstitutional in 1996. We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everybody else, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote when he delivered the opinion of the court. This Colorado cannot do. That ruling might have shattered Colorados wave of anti-gay sentiment, said Anton Schulzki, a Palmer High School teacher and board member of Inside/Out Youth Services, the Colorado Springs nonprofit for LGBTQ youths. Now all of a sudden it becomes, OK, you cant do it. That kind of legal discrimination is, in fact, illegal, Schulzki said. And from there it does become the kind of slow turnaround. Much of that turnaround came from increased exposure across the board, McDaniel-Miccio said. People started to realize that they had gay people in their families, that their favorite person at work was a lesbian or a gay man or a transgender person, she said. Their favorite doctor, their favorite lawyer if people do have favorite lawyers their favorite baker we were everywhere, and the world didnt end. She said she never flaunted her sexual orientation but was surprised to learn that one students grandfather accepted her sexual orientation. He came to my office and said, My grandfather found out that my teacher was Italian American, and he was so proud And then when I told him you were a lesbian, he said: So whats the difference? She didnt change did she? I almost fell out of my chair. Part of Colorados progress came as a concerted effort, Schulzki said. In the early 2000s, four multimillionaires Rutt Bridges, Tim Gill, Polis and Pat Stryker shared their resources and contacts to try to spur an ideological shift. Bridges, Gill, Polis and Stryker, dubbed the Gang of Four, created what became known as the Colorado Model, which established political infrastructure to push Democrats into public offices across the state. The gang saw results. Polis was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Even Colorado Springs elected progressive politicians, such as Mary Lou Makepeace the citys first and only female mayor and City Council President Richard Skorman, who also was on the council from 1999 to 2006. President Donald Trump has further catalyzed that leftward shift, said Robert Duffy, a political science professor at Colorado State University. Educated voters, younger voters and a majority of unaffiliated voters do not embrace the culture war, anti-immigrant, climate denialism pushed by the (Republican) partys leadership, Duffy said. Colorado is not yet as blue as California, but if these trends continue, it will be. Even some organizations of faith have changed perspectives. New Life Church founder Ted Haggard, known for his anti-gay rhetoric, was ousted by his Colorado Springs church for having sex with a male prostitute. The Rev. Brady Boyd, who took over as head pastor, still defines marriage as between a man and woman. But he said spiritual leaders can work with those who have different perspectives. It doesnt mean we affirm their lifestyle, but it doesnt mean were pushing them out, Boyd said. Were not the gay-hating, gay-bashing New Life Church. Echoing McDaniel-Miccio, Boyd noted that much of the shift can be attributed to increased exposure. Friends, family members and even those among his 12,000 active congregation members have differing sexual orientations and gender identities, he said. And all are welcome. There are plenty of pastors willing to come to the table for the betterment of Colorado, he said. (Polis) wont find me difficult to work with. But that doesnt mean the clash between religious rights and gay rights is over. Jack Phillips Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood continues to roil in controversy. In 2012, he refused to make a custom wedding cake for two gay men, citing his religious beliefs. The men, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, sued, and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in Phillips favor in June. The court didnt rule on the merits of the case, McDaniel-Miccio said, but rather determined that Phillips did not receive due process. A similar case likely will go before the Supreme Court too, she said. Phillips, who could not be reached, also was sued in July 2017 after he refused to make a cake for a transgender woman, Autumn Scardina. Colorado was late to adopt same-sex marriage; Massachusetts first legalized it in 2004. McDaniel-Miccio joined a group of plaintiffs in 2014 in a lawsuit seeking to end the states same-sex marriage ban, which was lifted that October. The Supreme Court less than a year later deemed marriage a fundamental right, guaranteed to same-sex couples in the landmark decision Obergefell v. Hodges. . McDaniel-Miccio reiterated Schulzkis point, noting that Polis will act as a governor for all Coloradans. She said while shes forever loyal to New York, she wishes her home state had a Gov. Polis. Fuhgetaboutit, she said. Colorado is on the cutting edge and should be very proud of itself. Also in last weeks election, Brianna Titone, an Arvada Democrat, became the first known transgender person elected to the Colorado General Assembly. Titones Republican opponent, Vicki Pyne, conceded the race Saturday after the Colorado secretary of state posted that Titone led by 368 votes. All Coloradans arent on board with the ideological shift, however. Evangelical chaplain and former state Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt said hes pushing for redder state, though hell work with Polis when possible. Klingenschmitt once accused Polis of wanting to join ISIS in beheading Christians but later said the statement wasnt meant seriously. His organization, The Pray in Jesus Name Project, is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBT hate group. Im actually hopeful that in the future Colorado will return to our conservative roots, Klingenschmitt said. Klingenschmitt said hes concerned about three issues: whether Polis will try to force Phillips to bake cakes against his will, will work to ban conversion therapy and will allow transgender people to lie on their new birth certificates. Polis election came as a Democratic wave crested across the state, replacing Republican incumbents. Polis will have a Democratic-controlled state Senate for his first term. The election also marks the first time that Democratic women outnumber men in the state Senate. With those numbers, Schulzki said, conversion therapy likely will be banned. That programming to change sexual orientation has psychologically damaged many people, reports the Human Rights Campaign. For many, particularly children, the process leads to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness and suicide. Yet such a change could set Polis up for blowback, McDaniel-Miccio said. He could face charges that hes only doing it because hes a gay man, which is absurd. The turn toward acceptance can be slow, but as long as Coloradans continue to participate in the democratic process, theyll see change, Schulzki said. Twenty-five years ago, Jared Polis might have imagined running for governor one day. But the possibility in Colorado probably didnt exist. It was a pipe dream, he said. In 2018, its reality. conrad.swanson@gazette.com @conrad_swanson Monument Police Chief Jacob Shirk, left, and Director of Public Works Thomas Tharnish attend the Nov. 5 budget meeting at the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce. The Board of Trustees asked Shirk and Tharnish to make lists of equipment and projects theyd like included in the budget. In a previous blog I noted that in Florida when locating underground utilities in response to a notification of intention to excavate network owners are only required to paint or otherwise mark the ground. The legislation does not require a written record. In Ontario a written record is required in addition to marking the ground. At the federal level in Canada there is legislation initiated in the Senate and now before the House of Commons that offers the alternative of the exchange of only a written record of the location of utilities mapped prior to excavation - no visit to the site to mark the ground is required. This would open the door to exchanging a digital record of the location of utilities found prior to excavation which would be much more efficient because it could obviate the need to visit the site of the proposed excavation. Professional Surveyors Canada working group on underground infrastructure In its report on the state of our knowledge about the location of underground infrastructure in Canada, the Professional Surveyors Canada working group concluded that underground infrastructure in Canada is often not surveyed or mapped accurately, if at all. Currently the systems in Canada dealing with underground infrastructure are a patchwork of regulatory and voluntary regimes. They range from the City of Edmonton which maintains a database of underground infrastructure and the City of Calgary that mandates that information about underground infrastructure be shared among utilities and communications firms operating within city limits, through to one-call centres operating in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec, to other provinces and territories where there is no one-call centre leaving it up to construction contractors to identify and contact utilities and communications companies before they excavate. The Professional Surveyors Canada working group is very clear about the problems with the current regulatory regimes and business practices in Canada; creates loss of use situations to critical infrastructure such as telecommunications; creates hazards for workers; creates inefficiencies in locates for customers; reduces efficiencies and productivity of one call systems; increases cost for new development; increases cost for each new installation of underground infrastructure; greatly increases the amount of redundant locates being done; increases risk to the public; and increases risk to the environment. Example of a provincial one-call centre Ontario One Call is an example of a one-call centre currently operating in Canada. In Ontario every municipality, utility, communications company and others with underground infrastructure are required to become members of Ontario One Call which is a not-for-profit corporation. All members are required to provide Ontario One Call with information that describes where the member has underground infrastructure. This typically takes the form of maps showing service territories, and not necessarily maps showing the actual location of underground networks. Anyone planning to excavate within the province is required to contact the one-call centre which is responsible for identifying and contacting all of its members that may have infrastructure in or near the area of the planned excavation. Upon being notified of an excavation potentially affecting its infrastructure each member is required (at no cost to the excavator) to locate any infrastructure it may have that would be impacted by the planned excavation. An important effect of this legislation is that each utility and communications operators maintains a fleet of field staff with vans and locate equipment or contracts a locate service to provide the service. For a utility operating in a medium-sized city this can easily amount to something on the order of a million dollars annually. In Ontario a utility operator is required to mark on the ground the location of its underground infrastructure and provide a written document containing information describing the location of the underground infrastructure. This differs from many state one-call centres in the U.S. where a written document is not required. Senate Bill S-229 An Act respecting underground infrastructure safety At the federal level Senate Bill S-229 , which was introduced in 2015, passed third reading in the Senate in May 2017 and is awaiting consideration by the House of Commons, is ground-breaking in that it opens the door to a digital underground locating system similar to those operating in the Netherlands and Belgium. Bill S-229 aims to create a federal underground infrastructure notification system (federal one-call centre) that requires operators of underground infrastructure that is federally regulated or that is located on federal land to register their underground infrastructure with a federal one-call centre. It is similar in many respects to the legislation creating Ontario One Call, but has some important differences. All members must provide a description of the geographical location of the underground infrastructure "such as the digital geospatial data or legal description of the location." Anyone excavating on Federal land tis required o contact the one-call centre prior to beginning excavation. In response to a notification of intention to excavate operators are required to either mark the location of their infrastructure on the ground and provide accurate and clear descriptions of the location of the underground infrastructure in written form to the excavator or provide accurate and clear descriptions of the location of the underground infrastructure in written form to the excavator. The important difference between the Ontario One Call and Bill S-229 legislation is that the latter opens the door to a digital system (similar to the Dutch KLIC and Belgian KLIP ) that does not require an operator to actually visit planned excavation sites. This enables operators with accurate maps of their underground infrastructure to reduce the costs associated with locate operations. Challenges While the proposed federal legislation is a step forward, there remain two areas that it does not address. The first is that the quality of the information about the location of underground utilities maintained by many operators is low. To begin improving this information requires some mechanism for sharing of the results of on-site locates - potentially by uploading the location of underground infrastructure in digital form to a shared database. Secondly, it also requires sharing the location information about underground infrastructure exposed during excavation. To begin to address these issues the Professional Surveyors Canada report recommends requiring that all new underground infrastructure be surveyed and mapped in 3D with high precision and reliability and sharing basic information on the type, location and depth of underground infrastructure in a standardized form through a common, accessible system. Furthermore, all underground infrastructure surveyed should be in a common format that can update a master map/GIS data set. Such a master database would limit visibility of networks in such a way that sensitive information would not be accessible to competitors (especially important for communications firms) or to others for privacy or security reasons. A major challenge in the Professional Surveyors Canada proposal is finding a way of capturing information about the location of underground utilities accurately and efficiently without impacting construction budgets and schedules. Modern technology offers ways of reality capture that are accurate and efficient. Experiments have shown that modern geoprocessing in the cloud makes it possible to capture the required location information about underground utilities with mobile LiDAR, ground penetrating radar (GPR), combined mobile LiDAR and GPR, consumer digital cameras or smart phones obviating the need for professional surveyors to actually be onsite. This would reduce the impact on construction budgets and schedules. Other issues are organizational; who is responsible for hosting the database - an enhanced one-call centre, a non-profit, public-private partnership, or some other organization; how it is to be financed - by the operators or by charging excavators a fee; and data visibility and security - ensuring that visibility is rigourously controlled. Many thanks to David Gariepy for pointing me to the Professional Surveyors Canada report UNDERGROUND INFRASTRUCTURE IN CANADA Moving toward a more responsible and responsive system on underground infrastructure. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 07, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Luminex Resources Corp. (TSXV: LR) (US OTC: LUMIF) (the Company or Luminex) is pleased to announce that it has finalized the layout of an exploratory 4,500 metre diamond drilling program at its Orquideas earn-in project with First Quantum Minerals, located in the province of Zamora-Chinchipe in southeast Ecuador. The Company has applied for drilling and water permits and drilling operations should commence following approvals, currently anticipated for the first half of 2019. First Quantum Minerals and Luminex geologists compiled and analyzed data generated from over 2,500 surface geochemical samples, mapping of lithology, structure and alteration, as well as interpretation of legacy aeromagnetic data and an Induced Polarization (IP) survey over 42.6 line kilometres. This work resulted in the definition of the eight planned drill holes. The Orquideas porphyry copper project comprises a coincident copper-molybdenum geochemical anomaly extending 5.5 x 2 km trending northwest to southeast. Mineralized outcrops assaying up to 0.9% copper and 0.66% molybdenum are hosted in variably altered intrusive rocks of the Zamora Batholith, a known host of major porphyry copper/gold deposits such as Mirador, located 67 km to the northeast. This large geochemical anomaly contains four distinctive target areas, each with its own defining attributes; namely, the northern, central, south central and southern areas. The 4,500 metre drill program will test each target area, starting from the most prospective southern target and progressing northwards. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/202ca78b-d308-44ca-aee7-bfa8931f69c5 About Luminex Resources Luminex Resources Corp. is a Vancouver, Canada based precious and base metals exploration and development company focused on gold and copper projects in Ecuador. Luminexs Condor Gold-Copper project is located in Zamora-Chinchipe Province, southeast Ecuador. Luminex also holds a large and highly prospective land package in Ecuador consisting of approximately 100 thousand hectares, including the Orquideas and Pegasus projects being co-developed with First Quantum Minerals and Anglo American Plc respectively. Further details are available on the Companys website at https://luminexresources.com/ . LUMINEX RESOURCES CORP. For further information contact: Signed: Marshall Koval Scott Hicks info@luminexresources.com Marshall Koval, CEO and Director T: +1 604 646 1899 Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information Certain statements and information herein, including all statements that are not historical facts, contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements or information include but are not limited to statements or information with respect to the receipt of permit approvals for drilling operations, timing of commencement of the 4,500 metre drill program, completion of the drill program, and that the drill program will test each target area. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements or information can be identified by the use of words such as will, should or variations of those words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results will or should be taken, occur or be achieved. With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, the Company has made numerous assumptions including among other things, assumptions about general business and economic conditions, the prices of gold and copper, and anticipated costs and expenditures. The foregoing list of assumptions is not exhaustive. Although management of the Company believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements or information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement or information herein will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking statements and information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Companys actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. These factors include, but are not limited to: risks associated with the business of the Company; business and economic conditions in the mining industry generally; the supply and demand for labour and other project inputs; changes in commodity prices; changes in interest and currency exchange rates; risks relating to inaccurate geological and engineering assumptions (including with respect to the tonnage, grade and recoverability of reserves and resources); risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalation, unavailability of materials and equipment, government action or delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job action, and unanticipated events related to health, safety and environmental matters); risks relating to adverse weather conditions; political risk and social unrest; changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets; changes in laws (including regulations respecting mining concessions); and other risk factors as detailed from time to time in the Companys continuous disclosure documents filed with Canadian securities administrators. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. From 13 to 15 November 2018, the Smart City World Congress will take place in Barcelona and AITs stand will be there too Vienna (AIT). According to UN forecasts, around 70 percent of the world's population will live in cities by 2030. The challenges of sustainable energy supply, urban planning and mobility for urban regions and metropolitan areas are huge. Cities in Asia and Africa are growing particularly quickly, but Europe, too, must manage the increasing concentration of urban spaces. AIT Austrian Institute of Technology is positioning itself as a strong partner to business and the public sector in this field to develop solutions for tomorrow's smart and resilient cities. AIT will showcase its services at Smart City Expo World Congress, the world's largest and most important congress in the field. Representatives from business, public administration and research from over 120 countries will meet in Barcelona from 13 to 15 November to address major challenges for the smart, responsive, future-proof and resilient cities of the future. Innovative mobility solutions Mobility is an essential element of tomorrow's smart city. AIT has developed a broad spectrum of tools to create sustainable, affordable and efficient mobility systems for tomorrow's cities. One vital aspect here is to record, analyse and simulate human mobility behaviour. We also need to assess and evaluate the effect of planned measures on individual infrastructures or the entire transport system, explains mobility expert Volker Alberts from AITs Center for Mobility Systems. Smartphone app as future e-ticketing solution The tools and technologies developed at the Center for Mobility Systems help to answer these questions and support transport planning and policy decision-making, says Alberts. For example, the experts at AIT use smartphones to automatically record the routes people take and their means of transport. This data can then be used for quick and simple mobility surveys, automatically calculating travel times, and especially for innovative Be-In/Be-Out ticketing systems. AIT also offers tailor-made, scalable solutions for the simulation, analysis and optimization of pedestrian flows for safe infrastructures, reliable wayfinding, planning certainty and customer convenience. These include evacuation scenarios for buildings or public places, new approaches in the design of public transport vehicles and stations as well as the optimization of customer flows in shopping malls. Digital know-how for urban planning and management Modelling and simulating urban development and infrastructure are used to analyse city growth patterns to determine future infrastructure investment needs and to estimate costs. We at AIT address urban challenges by asking the right questions to understand the challenges and identify the most relevant areas. Based on this, we design an appropriate strategy and process for and together with clients and develop tailored solutions embedded in urban planning and management. The unconventional and robust solutions are finally implemented and sophisticated monitoring methods put in place to measure their success, explains urban planning expert from AITs Center for Energy, Nikolas Neubert. AIT services and methods are in demand worldwide, as illustrated by projects implemented across the globe, including China, Singapore, Ethiopia and Argentina. Rapid prototyping One such method is to use artificial intelligence for Rapid Prototyping, allowing complex development scenarios for cities or new districts to be developed, implemented and integrated into existing concepts. Nikolas Neubert: Our focus lies on exploiting the vast quantities of urban data available by integrating them into city planning and decision-making processes. This allows us to offer high-quality consulting services for the smart and resilient cities of tomorrow. Digital urban planning tools as well as establishing sustainable and liveable urban areas called Positive-Energy-Districts are key to deliver an urban contribution to the climate and energy targets. Positive-Energy-Districts have a strong focus on technological, spatial, environmental and social perspectives. In addition PEDs produce more energy than they consume. At the trade fair, the Austrian Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology together with AIT is inviting to the Workshop Towards Positive-Energy-Districts scheduled on Nov. 13, at 15:00 and hosted by the funding programme City of Tomorrow. Smart City Expo World Congress 2018 13 to 15 November 2018 Gran Via Venue, Hall 2, Stand B290 Further Information: http://www.smartcityexpo.com/ AIT Austrian Institute of Technology The AIT Austrian Institute of Technology is Austrias largest non-university research institute. With its eight Centers, AIT regards itself as a highly specialised research and development partner for industry. Its researchers focus on the key infrastructure issues of the future: Energy, Health & Bioresources, Digital Safety & Security, Vision, Automation & Control, Mobility Systems, Low-Emission Transport, Technology Experience and Innovation Systems & Policy. Throughout the whole of Austria in particular at the main locations Wien Giefinggasse, Seibersdorf, Wiener Neustadt, Ranshofen and Leoben around 1,300 employees carry out research on the development of those tools, technologies and solutions that will keep Austrias economy fit for the future in line with our motto Tomorrow Today. Contact: Florian Hainz BA Bakk Marketing & Communications Center for Mobility Systems AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH florian.hainz@ait.ac.at | www.ait.ac.at T +43 (0)50550-4518 | M +43 (0)664 88256021 Mag. Angela Balder Marketing & Communications Center for Energy AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH angela.balder@ait.ac.at | www.ait.ac.at T +43 (0)50550-6302 TORONTO, Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LSC Lithium Corporation (LSC or together with its subsidiaries, the Company) (TSXV:LSC) is pleased to announce that it has closed the previously announced joint venture (the Joint Venture) with Litica Resources, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pluspetrol (Litica Resources), a leading private oil and gas company. LSC and Litica Resources have entered into the 40/60 Joint Venture to explore and develop tenements on the Salar de Arizaro lithium project (Arizaro Project) in the Salta Province of Argentina. LSC is also pleased to announce that it has received Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) approval for the Joint Venture to commence advanced lithium exploration activities at the Arizaro Project. The Companys President and CEO, Ian Stalker, commented, We are very pleased to announce the closing of the Joint Venture with Pluspetrol. Pluspetrol has a track record of success in the oil and gas industry and one of the principle objectives of the Joint Venture is to lever the technical experience of Pluspetrol and apply it to the lithium industry to successfully advance the Arizaro Project. We are excited about Pluspetrols commitment to the lithium business and look forward to the long-term partnership as we commence work at Arizaro. LSC has received all the required permitting for the Joint Venture to begin advanced exploration at the Arizaro Project. The parties have agreed to a results driven three-phase exploration work program whereby Litica Resources, as operator, will commence with geological mapping, surface geophysical surveys, followed by sub-surface brine sampling and core drill holes to evaluate the brine chemistry and host rock parameters, with the intention of completing a maiden resource statement. The first stage of the exploration program is expected to commence imminently. Pursuant to the terms of the Joint Venture, Litica Resources will be the operator of the Arizaro Project and has committed a total of US$6,868,000 to LSC and the Joint Venture over the three-stage exploration program to maintain its 60% ownership. In connection with the closing of the Joint Venture, LSC has received an initial lump-sum payment of US$625,000 from Litica Resources. About Pluspetrol Pluspetrol is a private, independent, international company with over 40 years of experience in the exploration and production of oil and gas. Present in Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Netherlands, Peru, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela, Pluspetrol promotes energy development and fosters activities at an international level. Pluspetrol is a leader in the operation of high-pressure gas fields and the extraction of oil in mature fields with secondary and tertiary recovery. With a view to the future, the company is making significant investments in Argentina, and it is particularly well-positioned in the Neuquen Basin in Argentina, the location of the Vaca Muerta shale formation, one of the largest unconventional oil and gas reservoirs. Engagement of Marketing Consultant LSC has engaged Digital257 Technologies Inc. (Digital257) for a committed period of 12 months to provide digital media and capital markets communications services (inclusive of marketing fees and expenses) at a cost of USD$20,833 per month (with approximately half of the amount allocated to third party marketing fees and other third party expenses) which amount has been pre-paid by LSC for the committed period of the contract. Digital257 is a private firm specializing in investor relations and strategic and digital communications. Digital257s services include initiating and maintaining contact with the financial community, the Companys shareholders, investors and other stakeholders for the purpose of increasing awareness of the Company and its activities. To the knowledge of LSC, Digital257 does not have any interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company or its securities, or any right or intent to acquire such an interest. The appointment of Digital257 is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval. ABOUT LSC LITHIUM CORPORATION: LSC Lithium has amassed a large portfolio of prospective lithium rich salars and is focused on developing its material projects: Pozuelos and Pastos Grandes Project, Rio Grande Project and Salinas Grandes Project. All LSC tenements are located in the Lithium Triangle, an area at the intersection of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile where the worlds most abundant lithium brine deposits are found. LSC Lithium has a land package portfolio totaling approximately 300,000 hectares, which represents extensive lithium prospective salar holdings in Argentina. For further information please contact: LSC Lithium Corporation Ian Stalker President & Chief Executive Officer 40 University Avenue, Suite 605, Toronto ON Canada M5J 1T1 +416 306 8380 Email: info@lsclithium.com Web: lsclithium.com Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance, including statements regarding the timing for commencing exploration on the Arizaro Project, likelihood of future opportunities, timing and ability to complete a maiden resource statement on the Arizaro Project, ability to obtain any regulatory approvals, if applicable, ability and timing to complete the work-program, results and outcome of the work program on the Arizaro Project, ability of both LSC and Pluspetrol to fund the Joint Venture and ongoing relationship with Pluspetrol. The use of any of the words could, intend, expect, believe, will, projected, estimated and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on LSCs current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Whether actual results and developments will conform with LSCs expectations is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including factors underlying managements assumptions, including risks related to: title, permitting and regulatory risks; exploration and the establishment of any resources or reserves on the Arizaro Project or other LSC properties; volatility in lithium prices and the market for lithium; exchange rate fluctuations; volatility in LSC's share price; the requirement for significant additional funds for development that may not be available; changes in national and local government legislation, including permitting and licensing regimes and taxation policies and the enforcement thereof; regulatory, political or economic developments in Argentina or elsewhere; litigation; title, permit or license disputes related to interests on any of the properties in which the Company holds an interest; excessive cost escalation as well as development, permitting, infrastructure, operating or technical difficulties on any of the Company's properties; risks and hazards associated with the business of development and mining on any of the Company's properties, the ability to the Company to raise funds to carry on its operations, the ability of the Company to advance its projects, future demand of lithium as a critical commodity, and the outcome of the closing of the Transaction. Actual future results may differ materially. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and LSC is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein. For more information see the Companys filing statement on SEDAR at www.sedar.com . Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, and KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Solar Alliance Energy Inc. (Solar Alliance or the Company) (TSX-V: SOLR) is pleased to announce it has reached an agreement with NuYen Blockchain Inc. (NuYen) for the development of the Companys cryptocurrency mining facility in Murphysboro, Illinois. NuYen has proposed a joint venture with the Company pursuant to which the Company will transfer the Murphysboro Facility to NuYen in exchange for NuYen reimbursing the Company US$40,000 representing the costs incurred by the Company to date. The Company will retain a 2% net profits interest royalty in any blockchain mining operations conducted at the Murphysboro Facility payable to the Company quarterly. NuYen will upgrade the warehouse at its own cost for tenancy and undertake to contract the Company to fund the cost to construct and install a 1 MW solar project at the Murphysboro Facility at an agreed upon mark-up to cost. The Company will have the right of first offer to bid on an additional 4 MW solar expansion and battery storage when the Murphysboro Facility is expanded. The Company announced the acquisition of the 165,000 square foot warehouse facility in Murphysboro, Illinois for a nominal cost on June 13, 2018 (the Murphysboro Facility). The Murphysboro Facility has access to low cost grid supplied power that would be complemented with a behind the meter solar array. The concept was to upgrade the warehouse, build a solar array to supplement the power grid and provide a supply of low-cost power to the cryptomining tenants. On July 11, 2018 the Company announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (the MOU) with NuYen a private company focused on the mining of cryptocurrency and the development of blockchain IP whereby NuYen would have become a tenant at the Murphysboro Facility. Solar Alliance has been focused primarily on expanding our operations in the U.S. southeast, including the commencement of construction of the 2.4 MW ground mounted commercial solar project being constructed for a Fortune Global 500 company, said COO Myke Clark. This agreement allows Solar Alliance to focus on our core business of commercial and industrial solar while participating in the financial upside of cryptocurrency mining. This transaction with NuYen will allow the Company to generate a revenue stream from its 2% net profits interest royalty and a profit margin on the 1 MW solar project. We look forward to working with NuYen Blockchain on this project and believe it provides a template for the use of solar to support the energy intensive cryptocurrency mining sector, concluded Clark. Jason Bak is a director and shareholder of the Company and a director and shareholder of NuYen. Closing of this transaction is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The boards of directors of both the Company and NuYen have each determined that the proposed Transaction is in the best interest of their respective shareholders with each having taken into account advice from their financial and legal advisors, as applicable. Mr. Bak, having declared his conflict of interest, abstained from voting on this Transaction and the remaining directors unanimously approved the Transaction. Jason Bak, Chairman and CEO For more information: Solar Alliance Sales (865) 309-4674 Solar Alliance Investor Relations Jason Bak, CEO (604) 2889051 jbak@solaralliance.com About Solar Alliance Energy Inc. ( www.solaralliance.com ) Solar Alliance is an international energy solutions provider focused on residential, commercial and industrial solar installations. The Company operates in California, Tennessee, North/South Carolina and Kentucky and has an expanding pipeline of solar projects. Since it was founded in 2003, the Company has developed wind and solar projects that provide enough electricity to power 150,000 homes. Our passion is improving life through ingenuity, simplicity and freedom of choice. Solar Alliance reduces or eliminates customers' vulnerability to rising energy costs, offers an environmentally-friendly source of electricity generation, and provides affordable, turnkey clean energy solutions. Statements in this news release, other than purely historical information, including statements relating to the Company's future plans and objectives or expected results, constitute Forward-looking statements. The words would, will, expected and estimated or other similar words and phrases are intended to identify forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Companys actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different than those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include but are not limited to: uncertainties related to the ability to raise sufficient capital, changes in economic conditions or financial markets, litigation, legislative or other judicial, regulatory and political competitive developments and technological or operational difficulties. Consequently, actual results may vary materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release." English French Paris, November 12, 2018 - Sodexo (NYSE Euronext Paris FR 0000121220-OTC: SDXAY), world leader in Quality of Life services, announces the acquisition of a majority interest in Pronep, a market leader providing quality Home Care services in Brazil, significantly expanding its global footprint in the rapidly-growing Brazilian market. The transaction is expected to close at the end of November, 2018. Pronep, founded by Josier Marques Vilar, MD, is an industry pioneer with more than 30 years of experience in the Brazilian Home Care sector. With offices in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Vitoria, the company provides skilled care and monitoring and support services to over 1,000 seniors. Sodexo Homecare's expansion into the Brazilian market is focused on elevating the quality of life of one of the world's largest and most progressively aging populations. By 2050, Brazil will have the world's fourth-largest elder population, behind only China, India and the United States, and this is an opportunity to expand care to an underserved market. Sarosh Mistry, Sodexo Home Care Worldwide CEO said: "We welcome Pronep to Sodexo. There is alignment in our corporate values and commitment to the communities in which we live and serve. Sodexo Home Care has developed a strong business in the U.S., France, Ireland, and the UK, and our entry into Brazil, our first in Latin America, is a chance to build upon the success Pronep has had in redefining the way care is delivered in the rapidly growing Brazilian market. " Josier Marques Vilar, MD, Pronep founder said: "Pronep is pleased to become part of the worldwide Sodexo Home Care family. Sodexo has an unmatched reputation as a leader in helping improve quality of care in the communities they serve, which supports our mission and ambitions of expanding our senior care throughout Brazil. The opportunity is extraordinary, and I am looking forward to working together to achieve Pronep's ambitious growth plans." ### About Sodexo Founded in Marseille in 1966 by Pierre Bellon, Sodexo is the global leader in services that improve Quality of Life, an essential factor in individual and organizational performance. Operating in 72 countries, Sodexo serves 100 million consumers each day through its unique combination of On-site Services, Benefits and Rewards Ser vices and Personal and Home Services. Sodexo provides clients an integrated offering developed over more than 50 years of experience: from foodservices, reception, maintenance and cleaning, to facilities and equipment management; from services and programs fostering employees' engagement to solutions that simplify and optimize their mobility and expenses management, to in-home assistance, child care centers and concierge services. Sodexo's success and performance are founded on its independence, its sustainable business model and its ability to continuously develop and engage its 460,000 employees throughout the world. Sodexo is included in the CAC 40, FTSE 4 Good and DJSI indices. Key Figures 20.4 billion euro in consolidated revenues (as of August 31, 2018) 460,000 employees 19th largest private employer worldwide 72 countries 100 million consumers served daily 13 billion euro in market capitalization (as of November 7, 2018) About Sodexo Global Home Care Founded in 2009, Sodexo Global Home Care fulfills on Pierre Bellon's commitment to improve the quality of life of those in the communities we serve by providing quality home care that allows people the choice to recover and age in their own homes. Operating in 12 countries, Sodexo Global Home Care employs approximately 35,000 people and provides care for 32,000 clients. With the rapidly growing elder population, the preference to age in home, and the growing movement of care being delivered in the home, Sodexo Global Home Care is positioned well for future growth while elevating the quality of life of our clients. About Pronep: http://www.pronep.com.br Contacts VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aton Resources Inc. (AAN: TSX-V) (Aton or the Company") is very pleased to provide investors with an update on the Phase 1 reverse circulation percussion (RC) drilling programme at its advanced Rodruin prospect, within the Companys 100% owned Abu Marawat Concession (Abu Marawat or the Concession), located in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Highlights: Final assay results have now been received from a further 10 drill holes, ROP-008 to ROP-017; Drill hole ROP-017 was mineralised with precious and base metals from surface, returning an overall intersection of 163m @ 0.90 g/t Au from surface. ROP-017 intersected both oxidised and fresh sulphide mineralisation, with the overall intersection including intervals of 34m @ 1.39 g/t Au and 8.86% Zn in the oxide zone from surface, and 55m @ 1.23 g/t Au and 1.40% Zn in fresh rock, from 108m; from surface. ROP-017 intersected both oxidised and fresh sulphide mineralisation, with the overall intersection including intervals of in the oxide zone from surface, and in fresh rock, from 108m; All the other holes intersected mineralisation, including intercepts of 26m @ 1.82 g/t Au (hole ROP-012), 34m @ 1.28 g/t Au (hole ROP-014) and 25m @ 1.30 g/t Au (hole ROP-013) in near surface oxidised gossan; as well as deeper intersections of fresh sulphide mineralisation, including intercepts of 34m @ 0.49 g/t Au (hole ROP-012) and 21m @ 0.55 g/t Au (hole ROP-013); (hole ROP-012), (hole ROP-014) and (hole ROP-013) in near surface oxidised gossan; as well as deeper intersections of fresh sulphide mineralisation, including intercepts of (hole ROP-012) and (hole ROP-013); The new drilling results continue to indicate the development of gold-silver-zinc mineralisation at Rodruin, both at and near to surface, as well as sulphide mineralisation in the fresh rock. The identification of sulphide-hosted gold mineralisation in the drilling is considered very significant, as it confirms the potential for development of a large hypogene gold mineralisation system at Rodruin. These results continue to support our belief that Rodruin has the potential to become a significant bulk minable open pit gold mine, said Mark Campbell, President and CEO. We continue to see gold mineralisation over wide drilling intervals, which contain good grades with higher grade shoots interspersed. We are particularly encouraged by the wide zones of sulphide-hosted mineralisation we have intersected in the latest drilling, which indicate potential for the development of large bodies of primary mineralisation at depth. The first pass 4,000 metre drilling programme continues apace as we move across the South Ridge so as to get an overall perspective of what we have, and we will use this as the basis of our next drilling campaign early next year. The exploration drilling at Rodruin and the 17 exploration targets over our 738km2 concession area, coupled with the coming changes to the mineral resources legislation in Egypt, combine to make the future for Aton and our shareholders a bright one. RC drilling at Rodruin The Phase1 RC drilling programme at Rodruin is continuing, and is now expected to be completed around the beginning of December 2018. Assay results have now been received from a further 10 holes, ROP-008 to ROP-017, all completed within the western Aladdins Hill zone of the Rodruin area (see Figure 1). Full details of mineralised intervals from these holes are provided in Appendix A, and selected intersections are shown in Table 1. Initial drilling has since been testing the Central Buttress, Spiral Pit and Central Valley areas, and further assay results will be released when they become available. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/eed8fb3f-d8b7-4a7c-8e99-3cf8fb969a41 Hole ID Collar co-ordinates1 Dip Grid Azimuth EOH depth (m) Comments X Y Z ROP-008 552322 2913054 789 -60 170 150 Holes ROP-008 to ROP-010 all missed target due to large deflections in holes ROP-009 552319 2913053 789 -60 195 125 ROP-010 552320 2913056 789 -75 195 115 ROP-011 552353 2913021 787 -80 350 31 Abandoned due to old workings ROP-012 552382 2912996 783 -60 354 200 Hit sulphide mineralisation ROP-013 552383 2912996 783 -60 15 200 Hit sulphide mineralisation ROP-014 552383 2912995 783 -80 19 110 ROP-015 552355 2913020 788 -55 360 5 Abandoned due to old workings ROP-016 552429 2913076 743 -55 183 110 ROP-017 552428 2913076 743 -75 183 190 Hit sulphide mineralisation Notes: ROP-008 to ROP-011: surveyed collar co-ordinates; ROP-012 to ROP-017: estimated collar co-ordinates (GPS) All co-ordinates are UTM (WGS84) Zone 36R Table 1: Collar details of RC drill holes ROP-008 to ROP-017 Hole ID Length (m) Intersection (m) 1 Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Zn (%) Comments From To Interval ROP-009 125 40 44 4 5.70 3.9 0.52 Hole failed to intersect target ROP-011 31 16 27 11 0.88 4.9 0.20 Hole abandoned at 31m, after intersecting numerous voids and ancient workings ROP-012 200 15 41 26 1.82 14.0 1.80 15-41m: mineralisation in gossanous carbonates, with ancient workings and voids; 98-144m: mineralisation in fresh pyritic carbonate host rock and 2 98 108 10 0.43 9.4 0.02 and 2 110 144 34 0.49 18.8 0.25 ROP-013 200 14 39 25 1.30 16.0 0.81 14-39m: mineralisation in gossanous carbonates, with ancient workings and voids; 135-156m: mineralisation in fresh pyritic carbonate host rock and 87 94 7 3.00 10.0 0.66 and 2 135 156 21 0.55 8.9 0.02 ROP-014 110 17 51 34 2 1.28 8.9 0.88 Mineralisation in gossanous carbonates, with ancient workings and voids ROP-015 5 2 5 3 0.76 1.3 0.52 Hole abandoned at 5m, after intersecting workings/voids ROP-016 110 0 5 5 1.11 5.6 8.28 High grade oxide Zn and Au mineralisation intersected at surface and 10 12 2 3.51 7.3 3.55 and 38 45 7 1.37 5.1 1.08 ROP-017 190 0 163 163 2 0.90 7.4 2.54 High grade oxide Zn and Au mineralisation intersected at surface; sulphide AuZn mineralisation from c. 70m depth incl. 0 34 34 1.39 8.6 8.86 incl. 108 163 55 1.23 10.4 1.40 Notes: Intersections calculated at a nominal cutoff grade of 0.5 g/t Au As indicated, intersections calculated at a nominal cutoff grade of 0.3 g/t Au in runs of continuous mineralisation Table 2: Selected mineralised intersections from drill holes ROP-008 to ROP-017 Drill holes ROP-008 to ROP-010, were drilled on the western margins of the phyllic-hosted mineralisation at Aladdins Hill (see news release dated October 1, 2018) but these 3 holes all had very large deflections in the holes and subsequently missed their intended targets. Nonetheless hole ROP-009 intersected 4m @ 5.70 g/t Au, from 40m depth (see Table 1 and Appendix A), associated with a narrow zone of similar heavily phyllic altered rock. The excessive deflections in these holes contributed to the decision to temporarily suspend drilling at Rodruin (see news release dated October 16, 2018), but these issues have now been addressed and resolved by the drilling contractor. Drill holes ROP-011 and ROP-015 were drilled to test a zone of ancient workings hosted in gossanous carbonate rocks to the immediate north of Aladdins Hill, but both were abandoned well short of their target depths after intersecting numerous and/or large voids, presumed to be ancient workings. Both holes intersected near surface mineralisation including 11m @ 0.88 g/t Au (hole ROP-011). Drill hole ROP-012 to ROP-014 were also drilled to test near surface gossanous carbonate hosted mineralisation previously intersected in drill hole ROP-004 (38m @ 1.84 g/t Au, see new release dated October 16, 2018), and all returned significant near surface intersections confirming the results of ROP-004, including 26m @ 1.82 g/t Au and 14.0 g/t Ag (ROP-012) 25m @ 1.30 g/t Au and 16.0 g/t Ag (ROP-013) and 34m @ 1.28 g/t Au and 8.9 g/t Ag (ROP-014), as well as carrying significant Zn values. Holes ROP-012 and ROP-013 were both drilled to 200m depth, with both intersecting significant zones of Au-Ag mineralisation in white, strongly pyritic and dolomitic carbonate rocks, returning intersections including 34m @ 0.49 g/t Au and 18.8 g/t Ag (ROP-012) and 21m @ 0.55 g/t Au and 8.9 g/t Ag (ROP-013). Hole ROP-013 also intersected 7m @ 3.00 g/t Au and 10.0 g/t Ag, on a mineralised contact between carbonate and metasedimentary lithologies. Holes ROP-016 and ROP-017 were both drilled to the northeast of Aladdins Hill to test high grade Au-Zn mineralisation intersected in surface channel profile ROC-009 (65.3m @ 2.84 g/t Au and 5.26% Zn, see new release dated September 24, 2018). Both holes intersected polymetallic mineralisation from surface, associated with gossanous carbonate rocks, with significantly high zinc grades, including 34m @ 1.39 g/t Au, 8.6 g/t Ag, 0.59% Cu and 8.86% Zn (ROP-017). More significantly, hole ROP-017 was mineralised from surface to a downhole depth of 163m, in both the oxide and fresh sulphide zones, returning an overall mineralised intersection of 163m @ 0.90 g/t Au, 7.4 g/t Ag, and 2.54% Zn. This included an interval of 55m @ 1.23 g/t Au, 10.4 g/t Ag, and 1.40% Zn from 108m, predominantly in altered and silicified carbonate host rocks with significant pyrite, and Cu and Zn sulphide mineralisation. Mineralisation also occurred in altered metasediments throughout this hole. Discussion The latest drilling results continue to confirm that gold mineralisation occurs in both the oxide zone and in fresh rock over a significant area at Aladdins Hill. The results of drill holes ROP-012 to ROP-014 confirm the previous results from hole ROP-004 and surface channel sampling, and that significant zones of gold-silver-zinc mineralisation outcrop at surface in the Aladdins Hill area, associated with gossanous and weathered carbonate rocks. These latest assay results also, and very significantly, confirm that the sulphide mineralisation intersected in drill hole ROP-017 over a very significant width, is mineralised with gold and silver at potentially economic grades, as well as with zinc and copper, in fresh rock at depth. The zone of sulphide mineralisation intersected in hole ROP-017 certainly appears to represent the primary hypogene equivalent of the gossan-hosted gold mineralisation identified at surface and in the weathered zones in the Aladdins Hill area. The mineralisation at Rodruin is structurally complex, and the area has been subject to folding, faulting and thrusting, and Aton geologists are working to understand the relationships between the mineralisation identified in drilling and at surface to date. The results of the latest tranche of assay results gives the Company confidence in our belief that Rodruin potentially hosts very significant bodies of primary hypogene gold mineralisation, which are expressed at surface as zones of gossan-hosted mineralisation. Further drilling is planned to follow up on this latest batch of results. Furthermore, the identification of very high grades of oxide zinc mineralisation at surface in hole ROP-017 is of potential interest in itself. Zinc is strongly associated with the gold-silver mineralisation at Rodruin and is typically significantly elevated in almost all of the gossan-hosted mineralised intervals in the Aladdins Hill area. Further drilling has also now been completed on the Central Buttress zone, which intersected gossanous carbonates and more ancient underground mine workings in all 4 holes completed, to downhole depths of between 50-70m. Gossan-hosted mineralisation has also been intersected in holes completed beneath the Spiral Pit ancient workings, as well as in holes that have been drilled from the Central Valley, along with further large ancient underground workings which were unexpected, and that had no significant surface expression. Assays from these new holes remain pending, and will be released when they become available. These latest assay results, with the confirmation of a wide zone of sulphide-associated gold mineralisation in hole ROP-017, continue to give credence to Atons interpretation which suggests the potential development of large bodies of primary hypogene mineralisation at Rodruin, and that the gossanous mineralisation identified over a wide areal extent is the surface expression of deeper hypogene mineralisation. The current results and logging of ongoing drilling continue to give Aton strong encouragement that the Rodruin area may be host to significant bulk tonnages of gold mineralisation, with localised zones of coarse gold bearing and potentially very high grade mineralisation, such as at Aladdins Hill and the Spiral Pit. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2732e5ad-a795-4378-b2f0-424cd51e832d Rodruin The Rodruin prospect was discovered in December 2017 by Aton geologists (see news release dated December 14, 2017), and is located approximately 18km east of the Companys Hamama West mineral deposit (see Figure 2). Field mapping and sampling has indicated the presence of ancient mine workings and extensive gold mineralisation over an area of at least 700m x 400m at surface. Mineralisation is associated with a sequence of carbonate and metasedimentary slate and greywacke rock types. Abundant visible gold has been identified in hand specimens from surface outcrops, and ancient dumps and underground workings, with individual selective grab samples assaying up to 321 g/t Au. The main series of ancient underground workings in the Aladdins Hill area has been sampled to approximately 40m below ground level, indicating continuation of the surface mineralisation at depth (see news releases dated February 6, 2018, March 5, 2018 and April 16, 2018), and drilling has now confirmed the presence of high grade gold mineralisation with individual samples returning assays of up to 221 g/t Au over metre intervals (see news release dated October 1, 2018). Underground workings at the Spiral Pit have been sampled to a depth of 12-15m below ground level, returning assays of up to 35.3 g/t Au and 37.9% Zn (see news release dated August 7, 2018). Sampling and analytical procedures Drill holes were drilled at 140mm diameter, and the bulk percussion chip samples were collected directly into large plastic bags from the cyclone every metre, numbered with the hole number and hole depths by the drill crew, and laid out sequentially at the drill site. RC chips were logged onsite by a senior Aton geologist. The bulk 1m samples were weighed, and subsequently riffle split through a 3-tier splitter onsite by Aton field staff to produce an approximately 1/8 split, which was collected in cloth bags, numbered and tagged with the hole number and depth. The reject material from this initial bulk split was re-bagged, labelled and tagged, and the bulk reject samples will be stored and retained on site at Rodruin. A representative sample of each metre was washed, stored in marked plastic chip trays, each containing 20m of samples, photographed, and retained onsite as a permanent record of the drill hole. All the 1m split samples were weighed again, and the samples selected for assay were riffle split onsite, typically a further 3-4 times using a smaller lab splitter, to produce a nominal c. 250-500g sample split for dispatch to the assay laboratory. The laboratory splits were allocated new sample numbers. QAQC samples were inserted into the sample runs dispatched to the assay laboratory at a nominal rate of 1 duplicate sample for every 10 drill samples, 1 blank sample every 10 samples, and 1 standard sample of a certified reference material every 40 samples. Reject material from the 1m samples, after the laboratory split had been taken, and any unused 1m splits will be retained at the Companys Hamama facility for future reference purposes, as and when required. The selected c. 250-500g split samples were shipped to ALS Minerals at Rosia Montana, Romania for analysis. Samples were analysed for gold by fire assay with an atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) finish (analytical code Au-AA23); and silver, copper, lead and zinc with an aqua regia digest followed by an AAS finish (analytical code AA45). High grade gold samples (>10 g/t Au) were re-analysed using analytical code Au-AA25 (also fire assay with an AAS finish). High grade Ag and base metal samples (Ag >100 g/t, and Cu, Pb, and Zn >10,000ppm or >1%) were re-analysed using the ore grade technique AA46 (also an aqua regia digest followed by an AAS finish). About Aton Resources Inc. Aton Resources Inc. (AAN: TSX-V) is focused on its 100% owned Abu Marawat Concession (Abu Marawat), located in Egypts Arabian-Nubian Shield, approximately 200km north of Centamins Sukari gold mine. Aton has identified a 40km long gold mineralised trend at Abu Marawat, anchored by the Hamama deposit in the west and the Abu Marawat deposit in the east, containing numerous gold exploration targets, including three historic British mines. Aton has identified several distinct geological trends within Abu Marawat, which display potential for the development of RIRG and orogenic gold mineralisation, VMS precious and base metal mineralisation, and epithermal-IOCG precious and base metal mineralisation. Abu Marawat is over 738km2 in size and is located in an area of excellent infrastructure; a four-lane highway, a 220kV power line, and a water pipeline are in close proximity. Qualified person The technical information contained in this News Release was prepared by Javier Orduna BSc (hons), MSc, MCSM, DIC, MAIG, SEG(M), FGS, Exploration Manager of Aton Resources Inc. Mr. Orduna is a qualified person (QP) under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. For further information regarding Aton Resources Inc., please visit us at www.atonresources.com or contact: MARK CAMPBELL President and Chief Executive Officer Tel: +202-27356548 Email: mcampbell@atonresources.com Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Some of the statements contained in this release are forward-looking statements. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions; by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results in each case could differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Appendix A Hole ID Hole depth (m) Intersection (m) 1 Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Cu (%) Pb (%) Zn (%) Comments From To Interval ROP-008 150 0 1 1 1.61 1.5 0.01 0.04 0.14 Hole failed to intersect intended target (massive deflection in hole) and 41 42 1 1.30 4.3 0.04 0.00 0.03 and 3 23 24 1 0.13 3.7 0.04 0.04 1.09 and 3 65 69 4 0.04 1.5 0.01 0.01 1.68 and 3 77 79 2 0.04 1.4 0.03 0.00 3.70 ROP-009 125 40 44 4 5.70 3.9 0.02 0.01 0.52 Hole failed to intersect intended target due to massive deflection ROP-010 115 92 95 3 0.71 6.1 0.00 0.00 0.05 NSA - hole failed to intersect intended target due to massive deflection ROP-011 31 0 3 3 0.90 1.6 0.03 0.08 0.68 Hole abandoned at 31m, after intersecting numerous voids and ancient workings and 16 27 11 0.88 4.9 0.02 0.00 0.20 ROP-012 200 15 41 26 1.82 14.0 0.06 0.06 1.80 15-41m: mineralisation in gossanous carbonates, with numerous ancient workings and voids; 98-108m and 110-144m: mineralisation in fresh pyritic carbonate host rock and 58 59 1 1.32 9.5 0.03 0.01 0.66 and 76 77 1 1.25 44.6 0.57 0.01 2.01 and 2 98 108 10 0.43 9.4 0.00 0.00 0.02 and 2 110 144 34 0.49 18.8 0.01 0.02 0.25 ROP-013 200 14 39 25 1.30 16.0 0.04 0.04 0.81 14-39m: mineralisation in gossanous carbonates, with numerous ancient workings and voids; 135-156m: mineralisation in fresh pyritic carbonate host rock and 50 53 3 0.93 10.9 0.02 0.06 0.35 and 87 94 7 3.00 10.0 0.11 0.10 0.66 and 2 135 156 21 0.55 8.9 0.00 0.00 0.02 ROP-014 110 17 51 34 2 1.28 8.9 0.06 0.01 0.88 17-51m: mineralisation in gossanous carbonates, with numerous ancient workings and voids incl. 22 27 5 0.76 13.0 0.02 0.00 0.18 incl. 31 34 3 3.73 8.1 0.02 0.00 0.83 incl. 43 50 7 3.22 12.0 0.20 0.02 2.32 ROP-015 5 2 5 3 0.76 1.3 0.03 0.01 0.52 Hole abandoned at 5m, after intersecting ancient workings/void from 3.5m Hole ID Hole depth (m) Intersection (m) 1 Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Cu (%) Pb (%) Zn (%) Comments From To Interval ROP-016 110 0 5 5 1.11 5.6 0.89 0.03 8.28 0-12m: mineralisation in weathered and/or gossanous carbonates; 38-45m: mineralisation on contact between carbonates and altered metasediments/slates and 10 12 2 3.51 7.3 0.20 0.08 3.55 and 38 45 7 1.37 5.1 0.09 0.03 1.08 and 3 49 50 1 0.04 2.7 0.05 0.08 2.09 ROP-017 190 0 163 163 2 0.90 7.4 0.16 0.02 2.54 0-63m: mineralisation in weathered and/or gossanous carbonates; 79-90m: mineralisation in altered metasediments/greywackes; 108-163m: mineralisation primarily, but not exclusively, in silicified, altered and sulphidic carbonates incl. 0 34 34 1.39 8.6 0.59 0.04 8.86 incl. 0 10 10 1.16 10.7 0.76 0.05 9.69 incl. 16 42 26 1.57 8.1 0.48 0.03 8.05 incl. 58 63 5 1.01 12.7 0.09 0.17 0.71 incl. 79 90 11 0.67 4.1 0.04 0.03 0.42 incl. 108 163 55 1.23 10.4 0.07 0.01 1.40 Notes: Intersections calculated at a nominal cutoff grade of 0.5 g/t Au As indicated, indications calculated at a nominal cutoff grade of 0.3 g/t Au in runs of continuous mineralisation Zn intersections calculating at a nominal cutoff grade of 1% Zn they have perceived to be the serious threatening of the environment as Meaning Analysis: (probably they are setting up their own political party so that they could change the policies once they over throw the ruling party) Sentence Structure: (Subject) (Compound noun - Two nouns joined by the marker "and" thus making the noun plural) (Modifier modifying the compound noun) (Modifier modifying the noun "threatening of the environment") (Verb) (Object of the sentence) have perceived to be threatening of the environment as Incorrect. To be threatening of the environment Have perceived perceived as Incorrect. Perceived cause result As being Incorrect Correct usage of being - Being disrespectful is are being evacuated are perceiving threatening of the environment Incorrect. Correct. perceive as the serious threat to the environment (Compound noun) (beginning of noun modifier in a COMMA PAIR ; The modifier is giving as additional information about the compound noun) (Pronoun referring to compound noun) (Verb) (As + Noun - here the noun states a function. They perceive what? "the serious threat to the environment" ) ("Serious" modifying "threat") (additional information stating telling us what is the threat on/about) (noun modifier modifying "threat") (the noun modifier can jump over the preceding noun "environment" because "to the environment" is additional information about the previous noun "threat") (prepositional phrase modifying "policies") (end of noun modifier in a COMMA PAIR) (Verb) (Object of the sentence) The Audubon Society and other conservation groups, concerned over whatposed by the policies of the government, are preparing for a major political effort.A specific society and other conservative groups are concerned over the serious threats to the environment. These threats are because of the government policies. Due to this concern, the society and other groups are preparing a political effortThe Audubon Society and other conservation groups,concerned over what they have perceived to be the serious threatening of the environment asposed by the policies of the government,are preparingfor a major political effort.(A)the serious(1)- This makes the sentence inferior. We could simplify the sentence by stating replacing "to be" with "as". "To be" can be used in a sentence but there are very rare occasions in which the sentence quality is not inferior by this usage.(2)- Awkward and wordy structure. Why not say "threat to the environment" or "environment threat"(3)- The sentence is in the present context since it ends with a simple present tense "are preparing". Keeping this usage in mind I believe we can use present perfect tense "Have perceived" since it states that the perception existed in the past and still continues to exist.(B)as the serious threat to the environment(1)- As mentioned earlier, since the sentence is in the present context we cannot term this perception (which is the cause of the groups to carry out a political effort) as something that occurred in the past and is no longer valid. Think about it, how can thebe in the past and thein the present.(2)- The threat was because of the political party. By placing the "as" out there we are making the sentence inferior and a bit complicated since there are many usages of as.(C) perceivethe serious threat to the environment.(1) Acting as a noun - "to eldersnot acceptable"(2) Progressive tense - "the tenantsfrom the building"(D)as the seriousAs mentioned in (A)(E) perceive as the serious threat to the environment -I would like to go ahead an explain the sentence structure by placing the correct choice (E)The Audubon Society and other conservation groups, concerned over what theyposed by the policies of the government, are preparing for a major political effort.The Audubon Society and other conservation groups, concerned over whattheyperceiveasthe serious threatto the environmentposed by the policiesof the government,are preparingfor a major political effort. Key Takeaway from this question including the non-underlined part of the sentence Check option (C) meaning of the sentence (1) Read the entire sentence. Doing so helps us understand the entire meaning + verb tenses of the sentence(2) Usage of "being".(3) How noun modifiers can modify a slightly far away noun. Noun + additional information ending in a noun + noun modifier, here the modifier can modify the slightly far-away noun if the preceding noun does not make sense and no ambiguity is created(4) Importance of understanding the Re: Studio executives carefully examine how a film performs on its opening [ #permalink 1 Kudos Grand Old Partisan commemorates the Washington Naval Armament Conference. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, a former Republican presidential nominee, gavelled it to order this day of 1921. Senator William Borah (R-ID) had been its leading proponent. Their goal was to prevent a naval arms race in the wake of WWI. Delegates from nine countries gathered at DAR Constitution Hall, invited by President Warren Harding. The most important agreement reached was the Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty. Britain, the United States, France, Italy and Japan limited construction of large warships. Also, many existing battleships were to be scrapped. This treaty was ratified by the GOP-controlled Senate of the 68th Congress. Here is a Video Version of this article on YouTube: https://youtu.be/g_ojbL8WixQ Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement. Each day, his Grand Old Partisan blog celebrates more than sixteen decades of Republican heritage. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states so far. Clarence Thomas cited Back to Basics for the Republican Party in a Supreme Court decision. Buy the book at Amazon See www.youtube.com/q?v=IzxKCiXc5Qc for a brief video of a Texas Republican praising Back to Basics for the Republican Party. "This is the most amazing book about politics that I have ever read. The Overview should be required reading for anyone with even a minor interest in government. The remainder is an enthralling history lesson that I will never forget. For years, we have all been misled about the true nature of the GOP. This is the real deal! Read it and be proud!" "Michael Zak wrote the definitive history of the GOP." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is the most significant contribution to the Republican Party in the last twenty years apart from Ronald Reagan." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is more important to our party now than ever before." and "one of the best books I ever read" As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ Tamar Hostovsky Brandes (Ono Academic College Faculty of Law) has posted Israel's Nation-State Law What Now for Equality, Self-Determination, and Social Solidarity? on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The enactment of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People (the Law) on July 19th, 2018, triggered an intense public debate in Israel. Opponents of the Law refer to it as racist, shameful and disgraceful, and demanded its immediate repeal. Eight petitions against the Law have been filed, as of October 1, 2018, to the High Court of Justice. Proponents of the Law argue that it is a legitimate legal entrenchment of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination, which is, they argue, the justification for the establishment of the state of Israel. They argue that the Law does not violate the principle of equality, which in entrenched, albeit inexplicitly, in Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. They further argue that it is necessary in order to balance Supreme Courts alleged preference of universal values over national ones. The questions raised by the Law can be divided into three groups. The first group of questions regards the possible effects the Law may have on individual rights, and, in particular, on the right to equality. The second group of questions regards the implications of the Law for possible future recognition of collective rights for non-Jewish minorities, or for other forms of state recognition of minority groups. The third group of questions regard the manner in which the Law shapes the national identity of Israel, constructs the terms and content of membership in the political community in Israel, and affects social solidarity. The paper will analyse the three group of questions, examining them against the backdrop of current political discourse in Israel. The two most important issues, in this regard, are the public debate regarding the concept of a state of all its citizens, understood by many Israelis as incompatible with the definition of Israel as a Jewish state, and the ongoing political struggle between the Knesset and the Supreme Court regarding the limits of judicial review. The paper argues that the significance of the Law, and the intensity of the public debate it stirred, can only be understood within this context. The paper argues that in addition to the serious equality concerns the Law raises, the Law undermines the ability to create inclusive, all-encompassing social solidarity in Israel. While violations of equality could potentially be mitigated by a willing Supreme Court, the negative effect the Law may have on social solidarity in Israel may be difficult to alleviate. Can your smart phone determine if you're having the most serious -- and deadly -- form of heart attack? A new research study says it can -- and may be a valuable tool to save lives. Credit: Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute. Can your smart phone determine if you're having the most seriousand deadlyform of heart attack? A new research study says it canand may be a valuable tool to save lives. The international study, led by researchers from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City, found that a smartphone app to monitor heart activity and determine if someone is having an ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI), a heart attack in which the artery is completely blocked, has nearly the same accuracy as a standard 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG), which is used to diagnose heart attacks. Researchers say the findings are significant because the speed of treatment after a STEMI heart attack helps save lives. "The sooner you can get the artery open, the better the patient is going to do. We found this app may dramatically speed things up and save your life," said J. Brent Muhlestein, MD, lead investigator of the study and cardiovascular researcher at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute. In the study, 204 patients with chest pain received both a standard 12-lead ECG and an ECG through the AliveCor app, which is administered through a smartphone with a two-wire attachment. Researchers found the app with the wire set-up effective in distinguishing STEMI from not-STEMI ECGs accurately and with high sensitivity compared to a traditional 12-lead ECG. "We found the app helped us diagnose heart attacks very effectivelyand it didn't indicate the presence of a heart attack when one wasn't occurring," Dr. Muhlestein said. A STEMI is a very serious type of heart attack during which one of the heart's major arterieswhich supplies oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the heart muscleis blocked. ST-segment elevation is an abnormality that's detectable on the 12-lead ECG. Researchers presented results from the study at the American Heart Association's 2018 Scientific Session in Chicago. Researchers conducted the study, called the ST LEUIS International Multicenter Study, at five international sites that are all associated with the Duke University Cooperative Cardiovascular Society (DUCCS), with Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute serving as the coordinating institution where they collected and collated data. Other participating research centers include: Duke University, Integris Heart Hospital (Oklahoma City), Catholic University (Argentina), Mayo Clinic, Stanford University, Erlanger Institute for Clinical Research (Tennessee), University of Utah Health, AliveCor Corporation, and the Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions. The idea for this kind of ECG set-up perhaps came from the use of treadmills for personal fitness development, said Dr. Muhlestein. Many people using treadmills wear a simple device that can detect their heart rate, through a single ECG lead, more accurate than just checking the pulse. "It's a simple jump from there to putting it on a smartphone, and then recording the same ECG lead from several body positions." he said. The new Apple 4 smartwatch also comes with a single-lead ECG. A typical ECG has 12 leads, which improves the accuracy of a diagnosis because heart attacks happen in different parts of the heart, and each lead looks at a different part. With the AliveCor app, the two wire leads are moved around the body in order to record all 12 parts. The findings of the study are important for two reasons, said Dr. Muhlestein. The first is it could speed up the urgent treatment a patient needs after suffering a STEMI. American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guidelines recommend that the "door-to-balloon timeor the time from when a patient enters the hospital to when a catheter with a balloon on the tip is inserted into the patient's blocked artery, then inflated to flatten plaque against the wall of the arterybe less than 90 minutes. "If somebody gets chest pain and they haven't ever had chest pain before, they might think it's just a bug or it's gas and they won't go to the emergency room," Dr. Muhlestein said. "That's dangerous, because the faster we open the blocked artery, the better the patient's outcome will be." The app can take the electrocardiogram on the spot, send the results into the cloud where a cardiologist reviews it immediately and, if a STEMI is found, tell the person so they can be rushed to the hospital. Secondly, the price of the app with the two-wire extension is low, which could put the power of an ECG into the hands of anyone with a smartphone or smartwatch, and make ECGs accessible in places like third world countries where people have smartphones but where expensive ECG machines are hard to find, if they're available at all. Explore further Bacterial pneumonia far more dangerous to the heart than viral pneumonia, study finds China was earlier this year rocked by a scandal which saw a manufacturer of rabies vaccines fabricating records. Chinese vaccine manufacturers who falsify test results or break other rules could be fined up to $720,000 under a new law proposed after a scandal that fulled public fears over domestically made medicine. The law would regulate areas including production, distribution and use of vaccines, according to a draft posted Sunday on the website of China's market regulator. The country was earlier this year rocked by a scandal that saw a manufacturer of rabies vaccines fabricating records. While authorities say the affected vaccines did not enter the market, the case provoked outrage from consumers fed up with recurring product safety scandals, particularly in pharmaceuticals. Under the proposed law, those who flout the rules can be fined up to 5.0 million yuan ($720,000) for offences including submitting false test results, not recalling problematic batches and "other serious illegal acts". "Those who participate in illegal behaviour, shield or connive with violators, hide the facts through fabrication, or impede investigation will receive severe punishment," the draft said. This is the first time a law has explicitly targeted vaccines, which were previously covered by regulations controlling medicine. The authorities last month slapped the Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology company with a massive $1.3 billion in penalties over the rabies vaccine scandal. The firm's chairwoman and 14 other people were arrested in connection with the affair in July while more than a dozen national, provincial and local officials were sacked, including several senior officials from the drug regulatory agency. China is regularly hit by scandals involving sub-par or toxic food, drugs and other products, despite repeated promises by the government to address the problem. After the latest case came to light, the authorities announced a nationwide inspection of laboratories producing vaccines. But many Chinese parents say they no longer have confidence in the medicines administered to their children. During the height of the scandal, clinics in Hong Kong saw a run on their vaccine stocks by worried parents from the mainland. President Xi Jinping described the vaccine debacle as "vile" and "shocking" in July while Premier Li Keqiang said the latest case had crossed a "line of human ethics". In August, India ordered a recall of rabies vaccines made by Changchun Changsheng and complained that it only found out about possible problems through media reports. Explore further China fines pharma firm $1.3 billion in vaccine scandal 2018 AFP (HealthDay)The diabetes drug Farxiga might do double-duty for patients, helping to ward off another killer, heart failure, new research shows. Type 2 diabetics who took Farxiga (dapagliflozin) saw their odds of hospitalization for heart failure drop by 27 percent compared to those who took a placebo, according to a study funded by the drug's maker, Astra-Zeneca. "When it comes to helping our patients control and manage blood glucose, the 'how' appears to be as important [as] the 'how much," said study author Dr. Stephen Wiviott, a cardiovascular medicine specialist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "When choosing a therapy, trial results like these can help us make an informed decision about what treatments are not only safe and effective for lowering blood glucose but can also reduce risk of heart and kidney complications," Wiviott said in a hospital news release. The findings were published Nov. 10 in the New England Journal of Medicine, to coincide with their presentation at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Chicago. The new study included more than 17,000 type 2 diabetes patients aged 40 and older. Nearly 7,000 had heart disease and more than 10,000 had numerous risk factors for heart disease, Wiviott's group said. Patients were randomly assigned to take either a "dummy" placebo pill or 10 milligrams of Farxiga each day. Taking the drug did not reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular-related death, the research team found. However, patients who took the drug did see healthy declines in their blood sugar levels, plus an added bonus: a 27 percent decrease in their risk of hospitalization for heart failure. Their risk of kidney failure and death from kidney failure also fell, the Boston team said. Farxiga is a type of drug called a SGLT2 inhibitor. Two other recent studies of this class of drugs show that they "robustly and consistently improve heart and [kidney] outcomes in a broad population of patients with diabetes," Wiviott noted. One cardiologist who wasn't involved in the study said the findings are welcome news for people with diabetes. "Sadly, more than 70 percent of deaths in diabetic patients is from cardiovascular causes," said Dr. Cindy Grines, who heads cardiology at North Shore University Hospital, in Manhasset, N.Y. She noted that, in the past, there was concern that some diabetes medicines might harm the heart, but this new study shows that "there are now newer drugs available that have beneficial cardiovascular effects." Grines noted that fluid buildup is a hallmark of heart failure. And because Farxiga "works by increasing the excretion of glucose in urine, it is not surprising that it reduces heart failure." However, she found it surprising that the drug didn't lower rates of heart attack or stroke. The common diabetes drug metformin has been shown to lower the risk for these cardiac events, however. So, "I would chose [Farxiga] to add to metformin in patients with congestive heart failure," Grines added. According to Grines, patients with heart issues should avoid one class of diabetes drugs in particular. "Multiple studies have shown that sulfonylurea drugsglipizide, glyburide and glimepirideincreasedcardiovascular mortality, heart attack and congestive heart failure" she said, "so sulfonylureas should be avoided in all cardiac patients." Another heart specialist agreed that newer medicines such as Farxiga are improving treatment for people with type 2 diabetes. Farxiga is "a welcomed addition to our armamentarium to reduce heart failure," said Dr. Marcin Kowalski, a cardiologist at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City. "It is also uplifting that this group of medications did not increase [negative] cardiovascular outcomes." Explore further Risk of heart failure up in ALVSD patients with diabetes More information: The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more on Journal information: New England Journal of Medicine The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more on diabetes medicines Copyright 2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Nitric oxide-releasing technology could help cut down the time on hard-to-heal diabetic foot ulcers. Credit: Michigan Technological University Diabetic foot ulcers can take up to 150 days to heal. A biomedical engineering team wants to reduce it to 21 days. They're planning to drop the healing time by amplifying what the body already does naturally: build layers of new tissue pumped up by nitric oxide. In patients with diabetes, impaired nitric oxide production lessens the healing power of skin cells, and the Centers for Disease Control reports that 15 percent of Americans living with Type 2 diabetes struggle with hard-to-heal foot ulcers. However, simply pumping up nitric oxide is not necessarily better. The long-term plan of Michigan Technological University researchers is to create nitric oxide-infused bandages that adjust the chemical release depending on the cell conditions. To do that, the researchers first have to figure what's going on with nitric oxide in skin cells. Assessing nitric oxide under diabetic and normal conditions in human dermal fibroblast cells is the focus of the team's latest paper, published this week in Medical Sciences. Cell-mediated Symphony of Complexity Megan Frost is the interim chair of the Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology as well as an associate professor of biomedical engineering and an affiliated associate professor of materials science and engineering. She runs a polymeric biomaterials lab at Michigan Tech where she works on nitric oxide-releasing technology. "Nitric oxide is a powerful healing chemical, but it's not meant to be heavy-handed," Frost says. "We're looking at the profiles of healthy and diabetic cells to find a more nuanced way to recover wound function." As a wound heals, three types of skin cells step in. Macrophages are the first respondersand the most widely studied cellsthat arrive within 24 hours of damage. Next, fibroblasts arrive, which are like the body's engineers. They help lay down the extracellular matrix that makes it possible for the next cells, keratinocytes, to do the heavy-lifting and rebuilding. "Wound healing is a complex, cell-mediated symphony of events, progressing through a series of predictable and overlapping stages," Frost and her team write in their Medical Sciences paper. When any part of that orchestra is out of tune, the whole process falls flat. Fibroblasts, which are not as well studied as macrophages in the healing process, are a key instrument, and past studies have shown their delayed response in patients with diabetes may be a major factor in slow healing time. Nitric oxide is a chemical naturally produced by the body to support healing. Credit: Michigan Technological University Nitric Oxide vs. Nitrite That's where nitric oxide steps in, a kind of chemical metronome to get the process back into the right rhythm. But the body's dermal orchestra is not so simplejust as playing a metronome louder and louder isn't necessarily going to make a musician's timing improve, flooding a wound with nitric oxide isn't a cure-all. "The old approach is to add nitric oxide and sit back to see if it works," Frost says. "What we're finding is that it's not enough to apply and leave; we have to keep tabs on how much nitric oxide is actually needed." A big problem that Frost and her team address is how nitric oxide is measured in the first place. Current practice substitutes measuring nitrite for nitric oxidea misleading switch, Frost says, because nitrite is a byproduct with no time signature. While stable nitrite is easier to measure, by itself it cannot relay the real-time healing status like nitric oxide levels can. So, Frost's lab built a nitric oxide-measuring device for their study by hand. That creates a challenge since it means taking measurements is much harder, which limits the dataset size, but Frost has an agreement with Zysense LLC to streamline the building process and produce commercial nitric oxide measurement devices that would improve cell chemistry research. Next Steps Collaboration is a key part of the engineering design process. To build a nitric oxide bandage with personalized healing power, the team plans to work next with the UP Portage Health System to gather cell samples from local patients. By expanding their cell samplesand applying the tech to real-world patientsthe team will continue to broaden their database while deepening their knowledge of nitric oxide mechanisms. In a few years, they plan to have a working bandage prototype, one that leaves off the clunky nitrite proxies and nitric oxide dumps. Instead, patients dealing with diabetic foot ulcers will see a light at the end of the tunnel much sooner than half a year or morethe nitric oxide-releasing bandage could help heal one of healthcare's toughest diseases in less than a month. Explore further High oxidative stress hampers males' production of powerful blood vessel dilator More information: Investigative Study on Nitric Oxide Production in Human Dermal Fibroblast Cells under Normal and High Glucose Conditions Med. Sci. 2018, 6(4), 99; Investigative Study on Nitric Oxide Production in Human Dermal Fibroblast Cells under Normal and High Glucose Conditions2018, 6(4), 99; DOI: 10.3390/medsci6040099 (HealthDay)A simple pop-up alert on a computer screen could help save the brains and hearts of many hospital-bound people with an irregular heartbeat, a new clinical trial reveals. Rates for heart attack and stroke plunged by close to 90 percent in people helped by the new program, the study found. The computer alert warns doctors of the high stroke risk borne by individual patients who suffer from atrial fibrillation, a quivering heart rhythm that allows blood to pool and clot inside the heart. Doctors who received this alert were nearly three times as likely to prescribe blood thinners to hospitalized patients with a-fib, said Dr. Gregory Piazza, a cardiovascular specialist with Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. As a result, rates for heart attack and stroke among the a-fib patients fell by 87 percent and 88 percent, respectively, over the three-month trial, Piazza's group reported Saturday at the American Heart Association's annual meeting in Chicago. The magnitude of the reduction in risk of these life-threatening health problems surprised researchers, as it was "really beyond what we expected to see with the increase of anticoagulation," Piazza said. Blood thinners are very important to prevent stroke in a-fib patients, but prior studies say at least 30 percent have not been prescribed such a medication, researchers said in background information. For this study, Piazza and his team created a program that analyzes computer chart data of patients with atrial fibrillation to calculate what is known as a CHADS-VASC score. This commonly used diagnostic algorithm assesses risk factors for stroke in a-fib patients, said Dr. Mary Norine Walsh, medical director of the heart failure and cardiac transplantation program at the St. Vincent Heart Center in Indianapolis. The test program issues a pop-up alert to doctors indicating that their a-fib patient has a high CHADS-VASC score. It even estimates their annual risk of stroke. The pop-up then requires doctors to either prescribe a blood thinner or give a reason why such a medicine shouldn't be used. Possible reasons include "bleeding risk is too high," "patient is at high risk for falls," or "patient refuses anticoagulation." To see whether the alert would make a difference, the researchers randomly assigned 458 a-fib patients so about half would have their records reviewed by the program. About 19 percent of patients in the alert group had a prescription for blood thinners during hospitalization, at discharge and three months later, researchers found. By comparison, only 7 percent of the control group had been prescribed blood thinners. By three months after hospitalization, the alert group had a dramatic effect on patients' odds for heart attack or stroke, although that didn't translate to a lessening of the death rate, the team noted. Still, the study showed that reminder systems like this actually really work to cut the odds for cardiac events, said Walsh, who is president of the American College of Cardiology. "We as physicians can't keep everything in our brains all the time," she said. "It's clear in medicine if we have reminders, we more commonly prescribe drugs and take action." But even though doctors are moving toward the use of electronic health records, it's not clear how easily hospital data centers could incorporate such an alert into their usual systems, Walsh said. "All electronic health records could do it probably, but not all are set up to do it," Walsh said. "I can tell you, my electronic health record doesn't do this kind of thing. It's not an automatic thing that happens." Adding such an alert system might be costly for some hospitals, Piazza added. "Implementation of alert-based [computerized decision support] requires an investment in programming and medical informatics infrastructure which may not be available at some medical centers," Piazza said. Experts note that findings presented at medical meetings are typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. Explore further Stroke after heart attack: danger may persist for months More information: Gregory Piazza, M.D, cardiovascular specialist , Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston; Mary Norine Walsh, M.D., medical director, heart failure and cardiac transplantation program, St. Vincent Heart Center, Indianapolis; Nov. 10, 2018, presentation, American Heart Association annual meeting, Chicago Gregory Piazza, M.D, cardiovascular specialist , Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston; Mary Norine Walsh, M.D., medical director, heart failure and cardiac transplantation program, St. Vincent Heart Center, Indianapolis; Nov. 10, 2018, presentation, American Heart Association annual meeting, Chicago For more on atrial fibrillation, visit the American Heart Association. Copyright 2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Credit: CC0 Public Domain For the first time, transplanting gut bacteria from healthy donors was used to successfully treat patients suffering from severe colitis caused by treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). The study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, which includes two patients, suggests fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is worth investigating in clinical trials as a therapy for this common side effect of immunotherapy. The research, led by Yinghong Wang, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition and director of Medication Induced Colitis and Enteritis, was published today in Nature Medicine. "The resolution of colitis in these patients can be confirmed clinically and endoscopically after FMT treatment," said Wang. "Based on these results, this should be evaluated even as a first-line therapy for ICI-associated colitis because it's safe, quick, and the effect is durablefrom one treatment." Immune checkpoint inhibitors, which release a block on the immune system to attack cancer, have been successful in providing durable responses for patients with several cancer types. However, these treatments are often associated with significant immune-related toxicities. Colitis, inflammation of the colon, is the second most common side effect from ICIs, occurring in up to 40 percent of patients, explained Wang. When ICI-associated colitis is severe, guidelines require a patient to stop ICI treatment until the colitis is in remission. "If the patient is a good responder to immunotherapy, that means you've taken their effective treatment away," said Wang. "We have a limited amount of time to fix the problem so they can resume ICI treatment, but I feel that we've made great progress in this area." The researchers chose to investigate the potential for FMT as an alternative, compassionate-use therapy for patients suffering from refractory, or unresponsive, ICI-associated colitis. The two patients included in the study were treated at MD Anderson between June 2017 and January 2018. FMT has shown promise in treating other types of gastrointestinal diseases, such as recurrent Clostridium difficile infection and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which shares many clinical and molecular characteristics with ICI-associated colitis. These conditions typically are treated with steroids and targeted immunosuppressive agents, which result in additional severe side effects and can counteract the effects of immunotherapy. Both patients in the study had a complete resolution of their colitis following treatment with FMT. The first patient's colitis resolved within two weeks following a single FMT treatment; the second patient experienced a partial recovery after the first treatment, followed by complete recovery after a second FMT. With endoscopic evaluation before and after treatment, both patients displayed significant improvements in inflammation and ulcerations, including a reduction of inflammatory immune cells. Pre- and post-treatment stool analyses revealed patients' gut microbiomes to be most similar to the donor immediately after treatment, with less resemblance to the donor over time. Still, post-treatment gut bacteria remained distinct from their own pre-treatment microbiome. Additionally, distinct new populations of bacterial species were evident in these patients following FMT compared to pre-treatment samples, including several species known to be protective or reduce inflammation. The authors acknowledge significant limitations to this study based on the very small cohort, and they plan to pursue clinical trials to investigate the effectiveness of FMT in treating ICI-associated colitis as compared with standard immunosuppressive therapy. FMT continues to be offered to MD Anderson patients on a compassionate-use basis. Previous MD Anderson research showed that bacteria in the gut influence patient response to ICI therapy, and other evidence suggests modifying the microbiome in mice can alter their response to immunotherapy. The current data further suggests there is the potential for many molecular studies to better understand the role of the microbiome in driving ICI-colitis and immunotherapy response more broadly. Explore further Insulin shows great potential against chronic colitis More information: Yinghong Wang et al. Fecal microbiota transplantation for refractory immune checkpoint inhibitor-associated colitis, Nature Medicine (2018). Journal information: Nature Medicine Yinghong Wang et al. Fecal microbiota transplantation for refractory immune checkpoint inhibitor-associated colitis,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-018-0238-9 Electron micrographs of hepatitis C virus purified from cell culture. Scale bar is 50 nanometers. Credit: Center for the Study of Hepatitis C, The Rockefeller University. Hepatitis C drugs cure more than 90 percent of patients, but can cost more than $50,000 per patient. Findings from a new study could lead to significant cost savings. Preliminary data from the study, co-led by a theoretical modeling researcher from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and Loyola Medicine, found that in 50 percent of patients, the standard 12-week treatment regimen could be shortened to as little as six weeks without compromising efficacy. "There's a potential to save up to 20 percent of the costs of hepatitis C drugs," said Loyola researcher Harel Dahari, Ph.D., co-first author of the study along with Ohad Etzion, MD, of Soroka University Medical Center in Israel. Senior author is Amir Shlomai, MD, Ph.D., of Beilinson Hospital in Israel. The study was presented November 12 during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in San Francisco. Dr. Dahari is co-director of the Program for Experimental and Theoretical Modeling (PETM) in the division of hepatology of Loyola Medicine and Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Two other Loyola authors are Susan Uprichard, Ph.D., co-director of PETM and an associate professor in the department of microbiology and immunology and Scott Cotler, MD, head of Loyola Medicine's division of hepatology and a professor in the department of medicine of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Hepatitis C is an infection caused by a virus spread through contaminated blood. It can lead to liver damage, liver failure and liver cancer. An estimated 70 million people worldwide, including about three million in the United States, are chronically infected with hepatitis C. A class of oral medications called direct acting anti-virals (DAA) has revolutionized the treatment of hepatitis C. In more than 90 percent of patients, the medications eliminate the virus and cure the patient, with minimal side effects. But the high cost limits access and is a substantial financial burden on Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers. "Treatment currently is standardized to be given for a set period of time, usually 12 weeks, rather than being tailored to the individual patient," Dr. Cotler said. In the new study, researchers used a personalized medicine technique called modeling-based response-guided therapy to reduce treatment times when possible. After patients had undergone treatment for a few weeks, researchers measured how much hepatitis C virus levels had decreased. They used mathematical modeling to estimate how long it would take to completely eliminate the virus. The study has included 22 patients so far. Mathematical modeling predicted that treatment could be shortened to 10 weeks in one patient (five percent of the total patients), eight weeks in eight patients (36 percent) and six weeks in two patients (nine percent). The other 11 patients (50 percent) needed to be treated for the standard 12 weeks. Twenty-one patients remained virus-free. The only patient who relapsed had the most difficult-to-treat form of the hepatitis C virus, known as genotype 3. The proof-of-concept pilot study showed that using response-guided therapy to reduce treatment times is feasible. To validate the results, a large multicenter trial is underway in Israel. Dr. Dahari said that in addition to cutting costs, shorter treatment regimens would make it easier to treat hepatitis C patients who have limited health insurance benefits. The study is titled, "Response-Guided Therapy with DAA Shortens Treatment Durations in 50 Percent of HCV-Treated Patients." Explore further More cost-effective cure for hepatitis C may be close Credit: CC0 Public Domain Scientists at the University of Cambridge have completed the world's largest ever study of typical sex differences and autistic traits. They tested and confirmed two long-standing psychological theories: the Empathizing-Systemizing theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism. Working with the television production company Channel 4, they tested over half a million people, including over 36,000 autistic people. The results are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Empathizing-Systemizing theory predicts that women, on average, will score higher than men on tests of empathy, the ability to recognize what another person is thinking or feeling, and to respond to their state of mind with an appropriate emotion. Similarly, it predicts that men, on average, will score higher on tests of systemizing, the drive to analyse or build rule-based systems. The Extreme Male Brain theory predicts that autistic people, on average, will show a masculinised shift on these two dimensions: namely, that they will score lower than the typical population on tests of empathy and will score the same as if not higher than the typical population on tests of systemizing. Whereas both theories have been confirmed in previous studies of relatively modest samples, the new findings come from a massive sample of 671,606 people, which included 36,648 autistic people. They were replicated in a second sample of 14,354 people. In this new study, the scientists used very brief 10-item measures of empathy, systemizing, and autistic traits. Using these short measures, the team identified that in the typical population, women, on average, scored higher than men on empathy, and men, on average, scored higher than women on systemizing and autistic traits. These sex differences were reduced in autistic people. On all these measures, autistic people's scores, on average, were 'masculinized': that is, they had higher scores on systemizing and autistic traits and lower scores on empathy, compared to the typical population. The team also calculated the difference (or 'd-score') between each individual's score on the systemizing and empathy tests. A high d-score means a person's systemizing is higher than their empathy, and a low d-score means their empathy is higher than their systemizing. They found that in the typical population, men, on average, had a shift towards a high d-score, whereas women, on average, had a shift towards a low d-score. Autistic individuals, on average, had a shift towards an even higher d-score than typical males. Strikingly, d-scores accounted for 19 times more of the variance in autistic traits than other variables, including sex. Finally, men, on average, had higher autistic trait scores than women. Those working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), on average, had higher systemizing and autistic traits scores than those in non-STEM occupations. And conversely, those working in non-STEM occupations, on average, had had higher empathy scores than those working in STEM. In the paper, the authors discuss how it is important to bear in mind that differences observed in this study apply only to group averages, not to individuals. They underline that these data say nothing about an individual based on their gender, autism diagnosis, or occupation. To do that would constitute stereotyping and discrimination, which the authors strongly oppose. Further, the authors reiterate that the two theories are applicable to only two dimensions of typical sex differences: empathy and systemizing. They do not apply to all sex differences, such as aggression, and to extrapolate the theories beyond these two dimensions would be a misinterpretation. Finally, the authors highlight that although autistic people on average struggle with 'cognitive' empathyrecognizing other people's thoughts and feelingsthey nevertheless have intact 'affective' empathythey care about others. It is a common misunderstanding that autistic people struggle with all forms of empathy, which is untrue. Dr. Varun Warrier, from the Cambridge team, said: "These sex differences in the typical population are very clear. We know from related studies that individual differences in empathy and systemizing are partly genetic, partly influenced by our prenatal hormonal exposure, and partly due to environmental experience. We need to investigate the extent to which these observed sex differences are due to each of these factors, and how these interact." Dr. David Greenberg, from the Cambridge team, said: "Big data is important to draw conclusions that are replicable and robust. This is an example of how scientists can work with the media to achieve big data science." Dr. Carrie Allison, from the Cambridge team, said: "We are grateful to both the general public and to the autism community for participating in this research. The next step must be to consider the relevance of these findings for education, and support where needed." Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge who proposed these two theories nearly two decades ago, said: "This research provides strong support for both theories. This study also pinpoints some of the qualities autistic people bring to neurodiversity. They are, on average, strong systemizers, meaning they have excellent pattern-recognition skills, excellent attention to detail, and an aptitude in understanding how things work. We must support their talents so they achieve their potentialand society benefits too." Explore further Study finds that genes play a role in empathy More information: David M. Greenberg el al., "Testing the EmpathizingSystemizing theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism in half a million people," PNAS (2018). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences David M. Greenberg el al., "Testing the EmpathizingSystemizing theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism in half a million people,"(2018). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1811032115 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Nearly two thirds of Americans (65%) say antibiotic resistance is a public health problem and a strong majority (81%) say they are concerned that antibiotic resistance will make more infections difficult or impossible to treat and even deadly, according to a national public opinion survey commissioned by Research!America in collaboration with the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA). The survey was supported in part by Pfizer Inc. Majorities across the political spectrum say the federal government should increase funding for research and public health initiatives to address antibiotic resistancespecifically 81% of Democrats, 76% of Republicans and 70% of Independents. "Americans understand that antibiotic-resistant 'superbugs' are a public health threat, and they support putting the public and private sector research continuum to work to address this intensifying health threat," said Mary Woolley, Research!America president and CEO, said. "Americans are calling for 'all hands on deck' to confront AMRthe government, the private sector, health professionals, hospitals and individuals." Nearly three quarters (73%) of those surveyed agree that the federal government should provide incentives to encourage increased private sector investment in the development of new antibiotics, reflecting consensus among 80% of Republicans, 76% of Democrats and 63% of Independents. Some 83% of those surveyed believe pharmaceutical companies should develop more antibiotics. The survey found that 92% agree that doctors and other healthcare professionals should only prescribe antibiotics when needed. "Antibiotic resistance is threatening our ability to safely and effectively provide medical care to many patients, including organ and bone marrow transplants, joint replacements and other complex surgeries, cancer chemotherapy, and care of preterm infants," IDSA President Cynthia Sears, MD, FIDSA, said. "A multipronged approachincluding stewardship to protect the utility of antibiotics, incentives to spur development of new antibiotics, and investment in research and public health initiativeswill be necessary to turn the tide against antibiotic resistance. Despite a large majority indicating that health care providers should only prescribe antibiotics when necessary, we know high levels of inappropriate antibiotic use continue to occur, underscoring the need for the federal government to take more action to drive the implementation of educational and antibiotic stewardship programs." Survey results indicate more education is needed about appropriate antibiotic usage. Antibiotics do not have any effect on viruses, such as colds and flu, yet more than a third (37%) of those surveyed wrongly say antibiotics are effective for treating viral infections. Further, about a third (29%) would be dissatisfied if their doctor did not prescribe an antibiotic for their child's viral infection. Also, only 57% of those surveyed are aware that even a single course of antibiotics taken when not appropriate can contribute to the development of antibiotic resistance. Other findings include: Only 61% of those surveyed say they are aware that bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics can be spread from person to person. More than three quarters (76%) of those surveyed say they are aware that antibiotic-resistant infections make medical procedures like surgery, organ transplants and cancer treatment much more dangerous. Only 21 percent of those surveyed say that no action is needed from the federal government on antibiotic research and development at this time. The nationwide survey of 1,004 U.S. adults was conducted by Zogby Analytics in October 2018. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percentage points. To view the survey, visit http://www.researchamerica.org/amrsurvey Provided by Research!America While it's well reported that black patients are twice as likely as white patients to succumb to sudden cardiac death (SCD), the underlying factors that propel this disparity remain unknown. According to a first-of-its-kind study from Penn Medicine, published online today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers showed that even after controlling for risk factors like income, education, smoking, exercise, and bad cholesterol, among others, black patients remained at significantly higher risk for SCD. "While greater public health efforts to identify and decrease health risks in black populations will be a critical step in reducing their higher risk of SCD, our data suggest that it may not eliminate racial disparities entirely," said lead author Rajat Deo, MD, MTR, an associate professor of Cardiovascular Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Our research demonstrates other factors, perhaps genetic, are at play, and we need more exploration to better understand this disparity." Each year in the United States, there are more than 350,000 out-of-hospital SCDsthe immediate cessation of the heart's ability to function properly. SCD occurs unexpectedly, with little to no warning signs or symptoms, and it strikes most commonly among those in the general population without a history of cardiovascular disease. Past studies have consistently shown black patients have a higher incidence of SCD compared to white patients, but this study marked the first time a rigorous, prospective population-based analysis adjusting for risk factors. The researchers evaluated 22,507 participants over the age of 45 (9,416 black patients and 13,091 white patients) without a history of cardiovascular disease using data from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study, a prospective, population-based cohort of adults from across the United States. Among that group, there were nearly twice as many SCD events in among black patients over an average of six years of follow-up. To evaluate whether racial differences in SCDs were attributable to differences in the prevalence of risk factors or to an underlying susceptibility, the researchers performed analyses that adjusted for various demographics and socioeconomic factors including: lower incomes; cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure and diabetes; and behavioral measures of health, such as alcohol use, stress and depression. From the time participants enrolled in the study through about six years of follow up, researchers found the risk of SCD for black patients was still nearly double that of white patients, and it did not appear to be directly impacted by these known risk factors. "At the end of the day, we just don't have a full understanding of why patients who are black are more likely to succumb to SCDa clear problem and knowledge gap on many levels," Deo said. "For many in the black community, their first clinical presentation of any cardiovascular issue is a sudden cardiac death event. Of course, we don't know whether they have ignored symptoms such as chest pain and opted not to seek medical attention, or if this truly is the first indication of cardiovascular disease, perhaps due to a genetic predisposition. Either way, the data are staggering, and represent a pervasive problem in the black community." The authors suggest that the pathology underlying SCD may differ in each of these groups and could be a contributor to the disparity, the authors noted. For instance, autopsy studies have revealed that coronary artery disease accounts for a lower percentage of SCDs in black patients, despite their known higher burden of hypertension, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. Other cardiac issues, such as cardiac hypertrophythe thickening of the heart muscleare also more commonly found in autopsies of black patients, whereas autopsies of deceased white patients are more likely to show coronary plaque rupture. "Future research is needed to understand the mechanisms underlying these racial differences," the authors wrote. In the interim, Deo emphasizes that "the current findings underscore the critical importance of community-based interventions to increase awareness about SCD, warning symptoms, and improve resuscitation rates from cardiac arrest." This slide illustrates a model of cellular and humoral immunity regarding SAP. In normal individuals, SAP+ CD8+ T cells attack EBV-infected B cells via IFN-gamma, perforin, and granzyme, and EBV-infected B cells lead to cell death. SAP+ CD4+ T cells help immunoglobulin production from B cells via IL-10 and ICOS. In XLP1 patients, the SAP function is completely impaired, and the patients develop FIM or HLH and hypo- or dysgammglobulinemia. In XLP1 patients with somatic reversion, as demonstrated in this study, small populations of SAP+ T cells can rescue the function. The patients were not associated with FIM or HLH, and they presented with IgG3 and IgG4 deficiency only. Credit: Department of Child Health and Development,TMDU Human SH2D1A mutations resulting in X-linked lymphoproliferative syndrome type 1 (XLP1) are associated with a unique susceptibility to the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which may lead to fatal infectious mononucleosis (FIM). Many studies have attempted to elucidate an appropriate treatment for XLP1 that does not involve hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT); clinical evidence supporting such treatments has been minimal, until now. In a new study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, an international research team led by experts from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) investigate the mechanism of mild disease presentation in a family with XLP1 that did not undergo HSCT, and found evidence of somatic reversion, or a return to normal expression levels, of SLAM-associated protein (SAP) in T cells. Patients with XLP1 are susceptible to severe complications of EBV infections, such as FIM, which has a high mortality rate. This is attributed to poor activation and cytotoxicity of the CD8+ T cell. The only effective treatment for XLP1 has been HSCT. Unfortunately, HSCT has a high risk of treatment-related mortality and many side effects. "We analyzed the clinical features of 40 Japanese patients with XLP1," says Hirokazu Kanegane, corresponding author on the study. "We identified a family that did not experience FIM, although none of the members had undergone HSCT." In the study, whole-exome sequencing of patients in the family with mild disease revealed a known mutation, which reduced the expression of SAP in T cells in affected patients. This conflicted with the mild disease presentation. "We performed more detailed analyses of T cells in the affected family, and found small populations of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells expressing functional SAP at normal levels," says Akihiro Hoshino, lead author on the study. "Because this somatic reversion was present in multiple patients in the same family, it may be an inherited characteristic." Small populations of T cells with normal SAP expression could modify the severity of disease in these patients. The researchers speculated that gene therapy or adoptive cellular therapywhich affect fewer cells than HSCT, but are much less dangerouscould be effective for treating patients with XLP1. XLP1 is a disease with deficient immunity against EBV, which can result in fatal outcomes. Treatment has been limited to HSCT, which can be a dangerous approach. This study showed that small populations of normal T cells could reduce the severity of disease, suggesting that less invasive therapies may be useful in treatment of XLP1. Explore further Good survival for HSCT-treated thalassemia patients More information: Akihiro Hoshino et al, Modification of cellular and humoral immunity by somatically reverted T cells in X-linked lymphoproliferative syndrome type 1, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (2018). Journal information: Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Akihiro Hoshino et al, Modification of cellular and humoral immunity by somatically reverted T cells in X-linked lymphoproliferative syndrome type 1,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.jaci.2018.07.044 Provided by Tokyo Medical and Dental University Via @KirbyWTweets The races for governor, U.S. Senate and commissioner of agriculture and consumer services are close even for Florida. But are they so close that a recount is likely to change the result? History says almost certainly not. As of Saturdays reporting deadline, about 12,500 votes separated Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in the most contentious of the three upcoming recount fights. Former Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis led Democrat Andrew Gillum in the governors race by about 34,000 votes. Democrat Nikki Fried held about a 5,300-vote lead over Republican Matt Caldwell in the agriculture commissioner race. Florida law mandates that any election decided by 0.5 percent or less must go to a recount. All three races fit that bill. Yet all three candidates who appeared to lead their races Scott, DeSantis and Fried have declared victory. They may not be premature. Math says Caldwell likely has the best chance to reverse his fortune in a recount. Plus he also might get a bump from the thousands of Republican-leaning overseas votes that have yet to be counted. In the Senate race, Nelsons lawyer, Marc Elias, said he also expects Nelsons losing margin to be erased by a recount. If I had to place a bet, it is more likely than not Sen. Nelson will prevail in a recount, Elias said on a conference call with reporters Friday. But a recount that reverses an initial margin of more than a few hundred votes would be unprecedented in the recent history of American elections. According to an analysis by the nonpartisan group FairVote, which advocates for electoral reforms that make it easier to vote, out of 4,687 statewide elections between 2000 and 2016, just 26 went to a recount. Of those 26, just three recounts wound up changing the initial result of the race: The 2004 Washington governors race, the 2006 Vermont state auditors race and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race. The average swing in those three elections after the recounts? About 311 votes. Click here to read the rest. Via @JayHWeaver A Broward judge on Monday turned down Gov. Rick Scotts request to impound and secure all voting machines in Browards elections headquarters when theyre not being used to recount ballots. But Circuit Judge Jack Tuter offered a compromise: Add three Broward Sheriffs deputies to the current lineup of BSO officers and private security guards overseeing the recount under way at the countys elections center in Lauderhill. Tuter stopped short of granting the Scott campaigns request for an injunction to impound the machines, but agreed with his lawyers that there needs to be an additional layer of confidence in the vote-recount system in Broward. The votes in the U.S. Senate race between Scott and incumbent Bill Nelson are part of the recount. Tuter asked the lawyers representing Scotts campaign and attorneys for Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes to come back by 1 p.m. Monday with a plan that would assign the three additional BSO deputies to protecting the voting machines and ballots during the recount of races for U.S. Senate, Floridas governor and state agriculture commissioner. Tuter also warned the lawyers for all the candidates engaged in recounts to tone down their political attacks because the nations eyes are zeroed in on Broward once again an obvious reference to Floridas fiercely contested presidential recount in 2000. Click here to read the rest. @alextdaugherty President Donald Trump and Floridas two highest-ranking Republicans are continuing to push unfounded claims of voter fraud as the state recounts votes to decide closely watched races for governor, U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner. The president said valid ballots in Florida should be thrown out because an honest vote count is no longer possible. Governor Rick Scott said his Democratic U.S. Senate opponent, Bill Nelson, is clearly trying commit voter fraud to win this election. And Republican Senator Marco Rubio said Democrat lawyers... are here to change the results of the election and Broward is where they plan to do it. There is no evidence of voter fraud in Broward County, according to election monitors from the states Division of Elections who have been stationed there since at least Election Day. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has not received a request in writing to investigate voter fraud from Scott. And the Florida Department of State said Monday their staff has not seen any evidence of criminal activity in Broward County at this time. The president suggested Monday that Florida should certify the election based on Election Night vote tallies even though the state is in the midst of a legally mandated recount. He had previously tweeted that Democrats were trying to steal two big elections in Florida, suggesting that Broward County withheld votes during the 2016 presidential election because they were getting ready to do a number on Trumps margin of victory in Florida and that Democrats found many votes in Broward County to help Nelson and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum. The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged, Trump tweeted, while providing no evidence. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night! Read more here. Essex County, NJ - A Montclair man charged with murdering the mother of his child on October 23 has been arrested in Cuba, authorities said Wednesday. James Ray III was arrested on Oct. 31 after Mexican authorities alerted the FBI that Ray had boarded a plane in Mexico, said acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore Stephens at a Newark news conference Wednesday. Ray apparently crossed into Mexico by land somewhere in the U.S. Southwest. He was returned to New Jersey via Teterboro Airport on Tuesday and is being held in Essex County Jail. Ray's odyssey began Oct. 23, when he fled after allegedly killing his girlfriend, Angela Bledsoe, a 44-year-old financial analyst, in their Upper Montclair home. He took their 6-year-old daughter with him as he fled, the prosecutor's office said Wednesday. The three had shared the stately stucco house on tree-lined North Mountain Avenue. It sits in one of the wealthiest ZIP Codes in the state, but inside the home, a nightmare unfolded that night. Bledsoe was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds. When police arrived, Ray, 55, was gone, as was their daughter and Ray's BMW 328i. On Wednesday, authorities said that after killing Bledsoe, Ray drove to a relative's house in Pennsylvania, dropped off his daughter, then headed south. He crossed the Mexican border and caught a plane to Cuba, landing there on October 28. He was arrested Oct. 31 by FBI agents before clearing customs. Stephens said Ray was returned to New Jersey on Tuesday due to "extraordinary cooperation and coordination" among law enforcement partners, including the Montclair Police Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, ICE, Interpol and the U.S. Embassy in Havana. In addition to revealing Rays whereabouts for the past two weeks, the news conference shed light on what may have happened with the couple's daughter, who apparently was home at the time of her mothers slaying. "It is alleged that after Mr. Ray killed Ms. Bledsoe he dropped the child off with a family member and then fled," Stephens said. Child protective services "did interact with the young lady, they did retrieve her from a relative in Pennsylvania and she is with maternal family members now as we speak," he said. Among the law-enforcement agencies Stephens credited was the Allentown, Pennsylvania police department. Bledsoe's death shook the couples Montclair neighborhood and her circle of friends who recall Bledsoe as a successful businesswoman and loving mother. Ray's history was marred by lawsuits and allegations of sexual misconduct. Police reports from previous visits to the Bledsoe household painted a picture that was not a peaceful one. One report detailed Bledsoe's calls for help to police about Ray, who she described as suicidal. Another was a call from a "female" for a police escort as she was gathering her belongings from the home. Ray is expected to be arraigned on Nov. 13. If convicted, he faces a maximum charge of life in prison. Portland, OR - Three men authorities say set up a booby trap on a walking and bike path in Portland that injured a female cyclist have been arrested and released. KOIN-TV reports that 23-year-old Justin J. Jones, 27-year-old Antonio R. Tolman-Duran and 21-year-old Dakota E. Murphy were arrested Friday and face charges of assault and reckless endangering. Portland police say a woman cyclist at about 11 p.m. ran into material strung across the Interstate 205 multi-use path near Southeast Division Street. A responding police officer spotted woven string across the path and other officers found three men suspected of putting the material on the path and arrested them. It's not clear if the three men have attorneys. Portland Police Bureau news release: On Friday, November 9, 2018, at 10:53 p.m., East Precinct officers responded to the report a bicyclist was injured as a result of a boobytrap that was erected across the Interstate 205 Multi-Use Path near Southeast Division Street. Officers and emergency medical personnel arrived and located an injured adult female. Emergency medical responders provided the victim on scene medical treatment. Officers learned the victim was traveling north while riding her bicycle on the Interstate 205 Multi-Use Path when she became entangled and injured by material strung across the path. As an officer canvased the area, he located woven string that spanned the path just south of Southeast Division Street. During the investigation, officers also located three suspects believed to have positioned the woven string across the path. The three suspects were taken into custody without incident. The suspects have been identified as 23-year-old Justin J. Jones, 27-year-old Antonio R. Tolman-Duran, and 21-year-old Dakota E. Murphy. Jones, Tolman-Duran and Murphy were lodged at the Multnomah County Jail and have since been released. They were booked on charges of Assault in the Fourth Degree and three counts of Reckless Endangering. South Africas deputy energy minister expects the latest round of climate talks will make global markets cleaner starting next year and defended her nations coal use as a way to reduce poverty. With the Germans, they can say Were moving from driving a Corolla to a BMW, while we are still trying to get the bicycle, said Thembisile Majola, in an interview in London. Theyre talking about different technologies, were talking about access. Her comments reflect a 30-year debate between rich and emerging economies thats set to continue at COP24, the international climate conference in Katowice, Poland, in December. That meeting is meant to finalize the rules of the 2015 Paris climate deal while President Donald Trump is seeking to pull the U.S. out of it. Meanwhile, economic costs and deaths from storms, floods, landslides and forest fires mount around the world. Globally theres a commitment because the reality is that its out there, Majola said. I actually believe its not an optional thing because this is not something thats just been left to governments. Her confidence in the success of the UN talks seems surprising, given a lack of progress in many of the worlds rich nations. Last week in the U.S. midterms, a ballot to install a carbon price in Washington State failed. In Canada, Ontario province backed out of its carbon market. Coal-and-gas-rich Australia earlier this year ousted its prime minister as he attempted to beef up climate policy. In Germany, a government-established commission thats been running this year to decide coals fate in Europes biggest economy could make a decision around the time of the climate talks. They could do it if they really wanted because if the commission does not deliver a result, the government can decide, said Franz-Josef Wodopia, the managing director of the VDKi coal importers group. They have to think about their chance to present a result as a commission. The industrialized West is responsible for most of the emissions that have led to climate change, but emerging countries are catching up fast. Some poorer nations argue that they shouldnt have to bear an equal amount of the cost and should still be allowed to prioritize economic growth over pollution reduction. A key element of the Paris agreement that was signed in 2015 by nearly 200 nations was the promise for the developed world to transfer $100 billion a year by 2020 to the developing world to support them in transitioning their energy, industrial and agriculture systems. South Africa is looking for progress on that goal. There cant be a transition thats one-size fits all, we need a transition that brings everyone along because there are different levels of pollution, South Africas Majola said. Her nation hopes to attract about $25 billion of foreign investment in the next five years for its energy industry. The biggest opportunity is in networks, upgrading the countrys aging transmission and distribution systems. South Africa technically has enough power supply to match its demand, but the electrons are frequently not able to reach their destination because of the unreliable networks, so finance is needed. Many of the nations regions are still suffering economic depression and dealing with tuberculosis, which is linked to cooking with coal. You are not going to say cut off coal and what you cook with is not my business I need to say what Im replacing it with when I say cut down on the coal, Majola said. Deezer has partnered with Jacaranda FM and East Coast Radio, allowing its users to access the two radio stations from within the streaming service. To stream Jacaranda FM and East Coast Radio, users can log in to their Deezer profile and click through to either radio station in the Deezer Recommends section of their homepage. Deezer added that this live radio feature will soon have its own channel, which will display popular radio stations and sort them by category. Through this channel, users will be able to stream their preferred radio stations on mobile or desktop directly through the Deezer platform. Music lovers in South Africa now have the option to listen to their Flow, stream their favourite artists and listen to the hottest playlists, as well as access their favourite local radio shows, said Deezer Africa head of operations Gillian Ezra. We are very excited to launch with Jacaranda and ECR, two of South Africas most loved stations. The music streaming service said it expects to partner with further radio stations in the future. Now read: Musica is still making money E-levy is not the best of ... AMERICAN CANYON Dan Schillings name has become attached to the 1993 mission to rescue U.S. service members after the downing of two Black Hawk helicopters in war-torn Somalia. On the 100th anniversary of Veterans Day, the longtime member of the Army and Air Force shared the story of his role in the military operation that inspired the book and movie Black Hawk Down and also asked his audience to ensure that liberty lives on at home, even as troops defend it abroad. Schillings speech at the Community Center gymnasium highlighted the citys observance of the 100th Veterans Day, a century after the 1918 armistice that ended World War I in Europe. Schilling is credited with saving the lives of a Ranger and SEAL on Oct. 3, 1993, after the downing of two U.S. helicopter crews sent on a mission to capture lieutenants of the Somali warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid in the capital city of Mogadishu. I dont enjoy speaking of it, but I recognize the value of it, he said before the event. For whatever reason, those events still resonate with the public maybe its the Alamo effect, the story of a few hundred men taking on a city of over a million. But if Im to leave a message, its that to this day the U.S. forces are still a force for good. In my opinion, its an obligation America still has in the world. Despite the loss of American lives in Mogadishu and a widely publicized picture of a dead servicemen being dragged through the streets of the Somali capital Schilling asked his audience to remember the battle as an example of the countys willingness to put its lives on the line for others. No country has expended more effort, spent more money, or expended more blood for others than this country, and we should be proud of that, he said. But no one bears that burden more than our veterans, from the most basic seaman or infantryman to Omar Bradley, he continued, referring to Americas last five-star general. Relating the story of a government that locked away a minority population during World War II, Schilling surprised his audience by revealing the perpetrators not Nazi Germany but the United States, which forced Japanese-Americans out of their homes and into internment camps after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. Tyranny can start anywhere, said Schilling, who lives in Utah and has become a writer since retiring from the Air Force in 2016. When you enlist, you swear to uphold the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Thats why its so important not to fall prey to demagoguery. If youre an American, you came from somewhere else, and not that long ago. The gym was only about half full for the ceremony, as smog blowing into the Napa Valley from the Butte County wildfires apparently kept some would-be audience members away. Nonetheless, about a dozen veterans attended the American Canyon observance, part of an audience of roughly 100. Let us be reminded that we live in the land of the free because of the brave, said Pastor Rene Trejo of Iglesia El Buen Pastor de American Canyon (EBP Church) during his invocation honoring veterans. Among the veterans in attendance was Reggie Russell, who spent six years in the Army, served during the 1991 Gulf War and now is commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1123 in Vallejo. In Schillings words about service to country, he saw a call to fully honor the sacrifices made by troops to keep their countrymen safe. What caught my attention was the integrity of his speech, the idea that you rarely think of yourself how he stepped into combat and didnt think of his self-preservation, Russell said after the ceremony. Those who honored the military on Sunday should add meaning to their words volunteer their services to whatever local veterans support groups they can find, he added. Communities are suffering at the hands of self-thought, (people) without a though of what soldiers go through on a daily basis, said Russell. Its no different from when a police officer or firefighter puts on that uniform they go into a hostile environment. Locally, Veterans Day was marked by other observances in the county, with events planned in downtown Napa as well as Calistoga, St. Helena and Yountville, where the Faces of Freedom artwork depicting U.S. service members on dog tag-style bas-reliefs was to be unveiled. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Apparently Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney and Napas former Food City center have something in common. All three were born in 1942. The shared birthdate is noted on large signs newly installed at the former Food City shopping center, located at the corner of Jefferson Street and Old Sonoma Road. The original anchor tenant was the Food City market. Food City is being reborn, reads a new Food City Napa website. Were getting back to our roots as a food-centric experience and neighborhood gem, it reads. Eat drink socialize. Are you in? In May, Brooks Street and partner Michael C. Holcomb bought the south Napa center for $6.8 million from OSR Inc. We thought it was a great opportunity, Scott Goldie, partner at Brooks Street, said at the time. Brooks Street and Noble House Hotels & Resorts co-own the Napa Valley Wine Train. We want to be really thoughtful about what we do at the center, said Holcomb. The developer has been involved in a number of other Napa projects including the Borreo building rebirth at Soscol Avenue/Third Street and retail redevelopment on Second Street. For this project, Were working on a different direction for the center, Holcomb said. Visually, Its a little tired, said Holcomb. We want to bring vibrancy back to the property. The owners want to create a destination that serves the neighborhood. We want this to be a local place that people are excited about being connected to, said Holcomb. That begins with paint and other aesthetics, the new website (foodcitynapa.com), new signage, leasing efforts and remodeling. It also includes some demolition. During a tour on Wednesday, Holcomb showed how a former passageway, previously closed and turned into a storefront, will be reopened to allow access from the center of the mall to a rear alley space. Holcomb described how he plans to activate the alley for shoppers and visitors. In addition, small storage units facing the alley could be turned into retail incubator spaces, he said. With those initial improvements will come other changes. None of the current tenants have a long-term lease, Holcomb noted. As those terms come to an end, The rents will change, Holcomb acknowledged. Were going to be looking for market rates, said Holcomb. However, The tenant and the vibe is more important to us than the rent structure, he said. We feel if we create a really good sense of place, all the tenants will be successful and the shopping center will be busier, benefiting both tenant and landlord. If current tenants want to invest in their business and remain in the center, hes willing to discuss that, said Holcomb. Tenants now include a nail salon, smoke shop, convenience store, Mexican restaurant and Family Drug. Roxann Gracia, pharmacist at Family Drug, could not be reached this week, but Holcomb is particularly keen that Family Drug remains a tenant. Theyve been here from the start, he said. Theyre very important to Napa and very important to us. Change is not always easy but we do like the idea of having a pharmacy in the project, perhaps in another location, he said. The corner where Family Drug faces Old Sonoma Road and Jefferson Street is where we really want to activate a food concept or a market, with outdoor seating around the building, said Holcomb. Rajinder Kaur, owner of A&B Market at the center, agreed that the plans for redevelopment will lead to a whole new look for the center. Im not sure where they are putting us but we are staying in the center, she said. Ideally, the market would remain on the end where its easy for delivery trucks to enter and exit, said Kaur. She declined to discuss when her lease expires. We are talking to the current operator right now to see what they could do to transition to be more of a market than a convenience store, said Holcomb. The original Food City tower was recently repainted and the Food City letters that once hung on the tower have been refinished. They will be reinstalled in the coming weeks. It was such a treasure to find those letters lying flat on top of the tower roof, where theyd rested for many years. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be reinstalling the signage, said Holcomb. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. See anyone you know? Faces & Places is a space for our readers to share their photos with the community. Here are some of our favorite pho Find out how many people have quit their jobs, plus how overdoses have risen during the pandemic, and more trends from this week's data with t A few hours before the polls closed on Tuesday, an organization that tracks California political trends reported that an eye-popping $1-plus billion had been spent on campaigns this year. The tally by California Target Book implied that big things were happening. But the vote counts later that day indicated that in California, at least, it was a pretty much status quo election. Those who had been expected to win, Democrats mostly, did win. But even though Democrats flipped at least two congressional seats with the possibility of two or three others once all the votes are counted the state did not play a significant role, as once seemed likely, in determining control of the House. Democrats easily won enough seats in other states to retake the House and elevate San Franciscos Nancy Pelosi into the speakership again. The media frenzy over congressional contests overshadowed ho-hum contests for the two ballot-topping offices of governor and U.S. senator. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom coasted into the governorship, a pre-ordained outcome once he had fended off a primary challenge from fellow Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa and faced only token opposition from Republican businessman John Cox. He will become, judging from his own words, the most liberal governor of the past half-century and perhaps ever, but now must figure out how to pay for his many promises of new health, education and social welfare benefits or how to sidestep them. Becoming governor of the nations richest and most populous state also elevates Newsom into the upper ranks of national politics, and automatically makes his future career grist for the pundit mill. Could and would he run for president two years hence, given that two other Californians, Sen. Kamala Harris and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, are already putative candidates? If he opts out of 2020 and Trump wins a second term, the presidency would be open in 2024, neatly coinciding with the mid-point of a Newsom second term as governor. But if Trump loses to a Democrat in 2020, it could thwart whatever presidential ambitions Newsom might harbor. Dianne Feinstein, first elected to the Senate in 1992, won another six-year term, but shes 85 years old and it wouldnt be surprising if she stepped down before 2024, thus allowing Newsom to appoint her successor and perhaps even take the seat himself as a better pathway to the presidency. Feinsteins challenger, fellow Democrat Kevin de Leon, hoped that anti-Donald Trump fervor and the Democrats shift to the left would make Feinstein vulnerable, but his campaign never shifted out of first gear. De Leon, former president pro tem of the state Senate, could have claimed a down-ballot statewide office and moved up the ladder, but he grabbed for the brass ring and missed it. Now hell be hunting for a backup position, perhaps on the Los Angeles City Council. The most spectacular campaign spending in California this year was on 11 statewide ballot measures. They accounted for a third of the $1 billion with nearly $200 million of that spent against two measures, Proposition 6, which would have repealed a package of gas taxes and car fees passed by the Legislature, and Proposition 8, which purported to cut costs of dialysis treatments for those with kidney failure. While both measures lost, the $366 million spent on ballot measures this year made winners of campaign consultants and indicated that Californians can look forward, perhaps with dread, at deciding many more high-dollar issues at future elections. CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how Californias state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary. After a heated exchange between President Donald Trump and CNN reporter Jim Acosta during a post-election news conference Wednesday, the White House suspended Acosta's credentials. Acosta and his network have been the administration's primary targets for more than two years; the president watches hours of cable news daily, and CNN is the network he loves to hate. While far more Americans get their news from broadcast networks and local stations than from cable news, Trump's devotion to cable has elevated the political importance of those networks, which remain plagued by myths. Myth No. 1: Cable news spawned our pugilistic and polarized politics. CNN's "Crossfire," born in 1982, has routinely been held up as the avatar of punditry, blamed for ruining American politics by reducing news to left-said-right-said coverage. In 2004, Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" appeared as a guest and tore into hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson, begging them to "stop hurting America" with their punchy, polarizing show. When CNN canceled "Crossfire" a few months later, network President Joe Klein sided with Stewart. "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise," he said, pledging to give up on "head-butting debate shows." But "Crossfire" was a copy, not an innovation. Long before cable outlets began delivering round-the-clock coverage, network news programs pioneered left-right roundtables. In 1971, CBS's "60 Minutes" introduced its "Point/Counterpoint" segment, pitting conservative segregationist James J. Kilpatrick against liberal Nicholas von Hoffman and then Shana Alexander. Other networks soon followed suit, experimenting with political punditry throughout the 1970s. Even the hallowed halls of public television beat cable news to the punch. In early 1982, PBS launched "The McLaughlin Group," a roundtable show featuring pundits like Pat Buchanan and Eleanor Clift. If you want to lament, as Barack Obama did in 2010, that political commentary has devolved into "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots," you'll have to start with the networks, not cable. Myth No. 2: Conservatives can't get enough of Fox News. The trope holds that conservatives mainline Fox News like a two-pack-a-day smoker inhales cigarettes. It's even become a subgenre of confessional journalism, where people share their stories of parents radicalized by Fox News. As filmmaker Jen Senko described her own father's addiction in an interview with the Daily Beast, "His entire life became consumed by the agendas that were inundating him on the radio, the television, and through the mail." The news channel's bright colors, attractive hosts and constant repetition of conservative talking points could be addictive for some, including the president, who is estimated to watch about five hours of television per day. But with viewership on the very best days hitting 2.5 million in prime time, Fox News fans account for only a small fraction of conservatives in the United States. Those on the right are far more likely to tune into talk radio than cable news. Radio ratings work differently from television ratings, but Rush Limbaugh says he has the equivalent of 10 to 12 million listeners a day (he hits around 14 million per week). And the three broadcast network news shows draw a combined 22 million viewers a night. Fox News is absolutely influential: It shapes what other outlets cover, feeds the conservative media ecosystem and gives the president his morning talking points. But when it comes to actually watching Fox News, only a fraction of conservatives imbibe. Myth No. 3: Fox News drives the Republican Party rightward. Fox is an easy scapegoat to blame for the GOP's lurch to the fringe. "The right-wing echo chamber breeds extremism, intimidates Republican moderates and misleads people into thinking that their worldview is broadly shared," Nicholas Kristof explained in the New York Times in 2013. Or, as commentator David Frum put it, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we're discovering we work for Fox." It's true that Fox makes conservative viewers even more conservative (and more likely to vote Republican). But overall, the outfit is more weather vane than bellwether, responding to the direction of the base and the GOP instead of setting a course for those groups to follow. Take immigration: In 2013, at the urging of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Fox News hosts gave favorable coverage to the immigration bill that Rubio hoped to push through the Senate. The conservative base resoundingly rejected Fox's pivot, and hosts such as Sean Hannity quickly scurried to anti-immigration positions. And in 2016, when Fox News hosts appeared lukewarm toward Trump, the presidential candidate pilloried them until they fell in line. After his election, the network dumped its anti-Trump commentators and built a prime-time lineup that reflected - rather than created - the new direction of the party. Myth No. 4: MSNBC is the liberal response to Fox. MSNBC, with its blue palette and its starring role for Rachel Maddow, seems awfully like the political opposite of Rupert Murdoch's empire. Back in 2013, Dylan Byers wrote in Politico that "one of the great media stories of the 21st century is the rise of MSNBC as a counterbalance to Fox News and a powerful platform for the progressive agenda." The New York Times' Alessandra Stanley dubbed the network "Fox's liberal evil twin," while conservative columnist Jennifer Rubinargued in The Washington Post that it was even worse: Fox News delivered real news, she argued in 2013, while MSNBC just dished out liberal pabulum. But these parallels are wrong, both historically and in the present. While Murdoch and Roger Ailes founded Fox News with the intention of establishing a conservative network, MSNBC was launched as simply a chattier, more Gen-X version of NBC News. Even after the network "leaned in" and attempted to develop into a Fox News for progressives starting in 2006, it has never played the same role as Fox. That's partly because the left doesn't have the same suspicion of "mainstream media" and partly because MSNBC still tries to model balance. Its morning show is anchored by a conservative, former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough. (The reverse would be unthinkable for Fox.) And it has become whiter and more conservative in the Trump era. Melissa Harris-Perry and Al Sharpton are both out at the network, while Nicolle Wallace, White House director of communications under George W. Bush, now anchors the 4 p.m. hour. Myth No. 5: Cable news is why Americans lost trust in journalism. NBC's Chuck Todd blames the "Roger Ailes-created echo chamber" at Fox for the dissolution of trust in American journalism. Trump blames CNN; in Wednesday's news conference, he declared, "When you report fake news - which CNN does a lot - you are the enemy of the people." But while faith has dropped sharply in the decades since the rise of cable news (CNN launched in 1980, Fox and MSNBC in 1996), the cable channels have not been the primary drivers of that decline. Trust in journalism began to weaken during the Vietnam War, when reporters dutifully repeated the government's lies about the trajectory of the conflict. It rebounded during Watergate, but it never returned to its 1950s and 1960s heights, when Walter Cronkite was dubbed the most trusted man in America. In the early 1970s, the share of Americans who said they trusted the media hovered between 68 and 72 percent, according to Gallup polls. By 2016 it had slumped to 32 percent. That loss of faith was driven not by cable news but by a wholesale ideological attack from the right, which argued that the supposedly objective media was secretly liberal, and a smaller but still important critique from the left of the capitalist and conservative nature of news production. Richard Nixon and his vice president, Spiro Agnew, delighted in discrediting the press, picking up the "liberal bias" arguments that conservatives had already been making for nearly 20 years. By the 1980s and 1990s, it was a conservative article of faith that the only news sources that should be trusted were conservative ones. But the continuous cries of liberal media bias didn't convince only conservatives; they convinced a plurality of Americans - 44 percent as of 2014 - that the news media was slanted and, increasingly, not to be believed. Fox News capitalized on that trend, but the network didn't start it. All the negative attributes of media that cable exacerbates - manufactured urgency, polarized opinion, false equivalency - began well before CNN, MSNBC and Fox News became such prominent parts of the American political landscape. Nicole Hemmer is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia's Miller Center and author of "Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics." She is a co-editor of The Washington Post's daily historical analysis section, Made by History. She wrote this for The Washington Post. Armenian Ombudsman presents Azerbaijani aggression facts to US Congressman Adam Schiff More than 40 people killed in heavy rains in southeastern India Australia, UK and US sign first agreement under AUKUS Armenian PM to hold online Q&A conference Tuesday Armenia opposition member says Azerbaijani ex-FM expresses gratitude to Pashinyan Gas prices in Europe drop below $1,000 per 1,000 cubic meters Erdogan and Turkish ministers to discuss situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border Citizens who blocked one of Yerevan avenues are apprehended Defense ministry: Situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border is relatively stable U.S. Embassy in Israel advises diplomats not to visit Jerusalem's Old City Covid-19 in Armenia: 30 new deaths 18 citizens are apprehended for participation in Yerevan protests Russian peacekeepers ensure control in Nagorno-Karabakh Carbon monoxide causes death in Yerevan In Yerevan, citizens block main streets to draw attention to the situation at the border El Salvador plans to build the world's first Bitcoin city Canadian portal publishes list of countries with strongest Air Force on Earth Japan announces self-destruction of COVID-19 delta strain Israel to sign solar energy agreement with Jordan in UAE Japan concerned over joint air patrols of Russia and China near country's borders In Mexico, 600 migrants were found in two trucks Europe protests against coronavirus restrictions Commander of Russian airbase in Armenia: Ready to perform tasks as intended US is going to build a nuclear power plant on the moon Biden's son helps Chinese company buy mine in Africa China lowers level of diplomatic relations with Lithuania Russia and US confirm their intentions to send joint mission to Venus Putin and Pashinyan discuss situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and measures to stabilize it Honored Art Worker of Armenia, composer Ruben Altunyan passes away 492 new cases of coronavirus confirmed in Armenia Armenian Foreign Minister and Otto Luchterhandt discuss Nagorno-Karabakh settlement Armenian contract soldier dies amid violation of rules for handling weapons Man, 29, jumps from Yerevan bridge Armenia MFA confirms PM Pashinyan's readiness to meet with Azerbaijans Aliyev on December 15 Quake shakes coast of Vanuatu State minister: Nationwide quarantine, specific restrictions planned to be imposed in Karabakh Artsakh President convenes National Security Service consultation Opposition MP: Armenia FM stated that Turkey has proposed new precondition: corridor Armenia military expert: US Embassy warns its citizens to avoid Karahunj-Davit Bek, Kapan-Chakaten road sections Armenia opposition MP: Air carrier operating flights from Syunik Province cannot have any security guarantees Singapore is good example for Armenia, says President Sarkissian Iran seizes foreign ship in Persian Gulf 2 Azerbaijanis injured in anti-tank mine explosion at Karabakh conflict zone US, Turkey presidential advisors discuss situation in South Caucasus Synopsys boss pays tribute to Armenian Genocide victims Russia peacekeepers escort 15 convoys to, from Artsakh in one week Catholicos Karekin II to Patriarch Kirill: We appreciate your warm attitude towards Armenian Church, people China fines Alibaba for violating antitrust law 36 new cases of coronavirus reported in Karabakh UK Premier Johnson considering boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics Artsakh President visits Askeran city, meets with regional capitals youth President to Russia Patriarch: Armenian people highly value your efforts aimed at achieving peace in our region 870 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia 8 injured in tragic accident on Yerevan-Gyumri motorway are discharged from hospital China, Russia, US agree to promote political dialogue on Iran Azerbaijan mother, son commit suicide on same day One pedestrian dies on the spot, other hospitalized after hit by car in Armenia village area US beauty consultant is accused of killing woman by injecting silicone into her butt Brazil Amazon deforestation reaches highest level in 15 years Newspaper: Armenia soldiers are prohibited from filming episodes from their service, posting them on internet Newspaper: Armenia opposition is forming large-scale resistance network Armenia President visits National University of Singapore Gia, wanted by French law-enforcement authorities, found at Armenia's Bagratashen checkpoint Leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia agree to meet in Brussels European Council: Pashinyan and Aliyev agreed to establish direct communication line at level of defense ministers Armenia's Representative to OSCE speaks about Azerbaijan's recent attack at Permanent Council's session Armenia serviceman Meruzhan Harutyunyan, killed in Syunik Province, was buried at Yerablur Military Pantheon Armenian News-NEWS.am's special report: Drive from Kapan to Tchakatashen is 150 km instead of previous 8 km 3 Armenian servicemen killed during Nov. 16 Azerbaijani attack posthumously awarded presidential medals Left-wing trade unions hold protest against Turkey's Erdogan in Izmir Armenia FM presents situation following Azerbaijani attack during meeting with Lithuanian Seimas Vice-President Armenia delegation covers Azerbaijan's Nov. 16 attack during online meeting of CSTO PA Permanent Commissions Armenia PM receives delegation led by Vice President of Lithuanian Seimas Lavrov, Cavusoglu discuss bilateral ties and regional issues Karabakh: Azerbaijani side, in Shushi, transfers bodies of 3 Armenian soldiers killed on Nov. 16 NEWS.am daily digest: 19.11.21 Armenian Embassy in Russia: Armenia citizens - mother and child - evacuated from Afghanistan Georgia refuses to be a part of '3+3' format with regard to South Caucasus The occupied Hadrut of our days (PHOTOS) Arabologist: Photo of map of Turkic world shown by Erdogan and Bahceli is simply a gift for Armenian diplomacy Situation is tense in Armenia's Kasakh, residents protesting against acting village head (LIVE) Opposition With Honor legislature faction MP: No one knows if Armenia petitioned to Russia for military assistance Armenia opposition MP: There is a threat that Baku will always get what it wants through use of force Lavrov is certain that the Russia-Armenia-Azerbaijan summit will take place Ann Linde: OSCE working very closely with Russia to resolve Karabakh conflict Karabakh FM congratulates newly appointed Abkhazia counterpart Dollar relatively stable in Armenia Armenia parliament majority members do not deny possibility of exchange of territories with Azerbaijan Armenia ruling party MP: Public and competent authorities need to know circumstances behind captures of soldiers Armenia ruling party MP assures that situation on the border is currently stable Armenia ruling party MP: Confidentiality of process of preparing for demarcation is strictly necessary Armenia PM: Citizens of EEU countries will be able to receive loans in all territories of member states Armenian serviceman, 19, dies in Georgia's Akhalkalaki Armenia legislature majority faction lawmaker: Russia military intervention is not end in itself High commissioner: Diaspora is considering ways to help hundreds of Ethiopia Armenians Opposition With Honor parliament faction: Armenia authorities trying to push territorial losses issue to backburner Legislature majority faction MP: Armenia authorities do not make any demands on Russia Opposition Armenia Faction in parliament: Authorities are unable to distinguish between priority and secondary issues 3 more die of coronavirus in Artsakh Bruno Retailleau: France must support Armenia more firmly against aggressions by Azerbaijan 25 injured in Nawalparasi bus accident At least 25 persons were injured when a bus they were travelling in met with an accident at Amarapuri in Nawalparasi district on Monday. Anil Giri is a reporter covering diplomacy, international relations and national politics for The Kathmandu Post. Giri has been working as a journalist for a decade-and-a-half, contributing to numerous national and international media outlets. Posted by PickupTrucks.com Staff | November 12, 2018 By Aaron Bragman It's been a big year so far in the pickup truck business three of the top vehicles in the market are brand-new. These redesigned challengers have been unleashed into the red-hot full-size pickup class in the hopes of dethroning or at least taking a big bite out of America's perennial sales favorite, the Ford F-150. 2018 Best Half-Ton Truck Challenge Results | Bed Features | How We Tested Five out of six automakers accepted our invitation to this 2018 Best Half-Ton Truck Challenge, sending us what they deemed their best half-ton pickup; we did not have a price cap. The redesigned 2019 Ram 1500 is making a play for the high-end market by introducing one of the nicest interiors you can get in an American vehicle any American vehicle. The redesigned 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 is trying to entice loyal repeat customers by delivering a vehicle that drives much better than the old one. GMC's new 2019 Sierra 1500 brings some new technology to the party with a slick new tailgate and a carbon-fiber bed. The 2019 Nissan Titan continues to refine itself, now with a better multimedia screen and a Fender high-end audio system. And, of course, the best-selling truck in the class, the Ford F-150, carries over relatively unchanged for 2018 with its all-aluminum construction and turbocharged V-6 engine. Why didn't Toyota accept our invite on behalf of the 2019 Tundra? We're guessing it's because the truck hasn't been significantly updated in years, and in the last big half-ton test we did in 2015, the recently refreshed model placed a distant fifth out of five competitors. The Nissan Titan light duty, however, has never participated in one of our shootouts only its bigger brother the Titan XD has so the new Nissan was due for a shot at the title. The Judges To evaluate the latest and greatest half-ton trucks, we brought along three expert judges: Mark Williams, PickupTrucks.com editor: Williams has been driving pickups and 4x4s for more than 30 years, reporting on all aspects of pickup trucks and running PickupTrucks.com for the last eight years. Williams has been driving pickups and 4x4s for more than 30 years, reporting on all aspects of pickup trucks and running PickupTrucks.com for the last eight years. Aaron Bragman, Cars.com Detroit bureau chief: Bragman has been a truck reviewer for more than a decade, logging thousands of miles towing and hauling as well as reporting on the class and industry. Bragman has been a truck reviewer for more than a decade, logging thousands of miles towing and hauling as well as reporting on the class and industry. Andy Mikonis, regular PickupTrucks.com contributor: Mikonis has been a professional car and truck reviewer for more than 18 years, driving up to 100 new vehicles annually; he's also owned six full-size pickups and a few truck-based SUVs. Testing and Scoring Nashville, Tenn. aka Music City where they write songs about trucks like these served as ground zero for our week of testing. We had 16 empirical categories to score, of which 11 were measured through testing. These included tests of acceleration, braking, cabin noise levels and fuel economy while towing. We even threw the trucks on a dyno and measured exactly how much horsepower and torque each one was putting out. Combined with our subjective tests that had our judges rating areas like interior quality, value, cabin storage, visibility and driving dynamics, we arrived at a score for each truck. Empirical scores could stack up to a total of 1,600 points, while the subjective judges' scores added in a possible 600 more, for a total possible perfect score of 2,200 points. None of the trucks scored perfectly, of course, but it was enlightening to see where each of these models had its strengths and weaknesses. To learn more about how we conducted our Challenge testing, see our How We Tested article. To find out how each of these trucks was equipped, see the What You Get chart below. Here's how each of the five trucks fared in our tests. No. 5: 2019 Nissan Titan Pro-4X, 1,887 points Our Test Vehicle As-tested price: $54,190 Equipment: 390-horsepower, 5.6-liter Endurance V-8; seven-speed automatic transmission; part-time four-wheel drive; Bilstein off-road-tuned shock absorbers; electronic locking rear differential Rear axle ratio: 2.94:1 Torque: 394 pounds-feet Towing capacity: 9,380 pounds Observed fuel economy, towing: 12.4 mpg The verdict: Every successive Titan gets a little bit better, but the 2019 is still outclassed, outgunned and out-teched by the domestic competitors. Hampered by an older transmission and off-road gearing, the Nissan Titan scored tops only in the empty-bed 60-to-zero-mph braking test. Analysis: The lone off-road-oriented entry in this test of on-road-focused pickups, the Titan's Pro-4X trim level didn't give it a disadvantage it in our testing. It was strong, capable and felt the most trucklike of all the entrants the rest eschewed trucklike feel for carlike comfort. It did fall behind the pack due to its seven-speed transmission (its competitors had eight- or 10-speed models), tighter cabin space and a multimedia system that's improved for 2019 but still features a smaller touchscreen than all the competitors. The Good Driving dynamics: Everyone liked driving the Titan (when it wasn't towing), citing its civilized road manners and well-damped ride quality. "The drive experience here surprised me. I've been a fan of the Pro-4X for off-roading from the start, but I forgot how nice it daily drives on pavement," Williams noted. Interior layout: While not the most modern interior, nor loaded up with the latest tech, the Nissan Titan still featured a well-thought-out cabin with big, legible gauges and easy-to-reach controls. Mikonis certainly was taken by it: "The leather on the steering wheel is nice. Even rear-seat passengers are treated to soft elbow points, seat heat, nice stitching, power points and USB ports." Braking performance: The Titan scored top marks in only one empirical test: the empty-bed 60-to-zero-mph emergency braking test, where it beat the last-place Ram 1500 by a whopping 20 feet. Everyone praised its strong brakes out on the street: "Impressive brake feel on both ends of the spectrum," Williams said. "Very easy to modulate when looking to scrub just a touch of speed and when you have to dynamite the brakes." The Bad It's heavy: The Nissan Titan was the portliest truck in our test, which is amazing considering the amount of equipment both Ram and Chevrolet crammed into their respective trucks. The Titan weighed almost 6,000 pounds and had a 7,300-pound gross vehicle weight rating, but only a 1,360-pound payload capacity. Put five 200-pound guys in the cab and it doesn't leave much payload capacity for the bed. Struggles when towing: That big Endurance V-8 engine has decent power, but sometimes has issues using it when you need it most. "I got into one tight spot merging when towing and didn't have the power to get out," Mikonis said. "It was working hard to pull that trailer; I wouldn't recommend it for frequently towing heavier loads like that at least not up and down mountains." Fingers point to the Titan's 2.94:1 final drive ratio as the likely culprit. Front-seat comfort: All the judges agreed that the Titan's seating position was different than that of the other trucks. The Nissan's seat bottoms have the driver sitting very high in the cabin, and they don't lower sufficiently for comfort. One of our taller judges found them to be intolerable: "The front seats were a deal breaker for me. I couldn't adjust the angle of the bottom to not feel upward pressure on my thighs," Mikonis said. "I couldn't get comfortable with the head restraints, either." Research the 2019 Nissan Titan | Search Inventory | Photo Gallery No. 4: 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 High Country, 1,952 points Our Test Vehicle As-tested price: $67,420 Equipment: 420-hp, 6.2-liter Ecotec V-8; 10-speed automatic transmission; part-time four-wheel drive; head-up display; automatic emergency braking; LED headlamps; power up/down tailgate; moonroof Rear axle ratio: 3.23:1 Torque: 460 pounds-feet Towing capacity: 9,560 pounds Calculated fuel economy, towing: 11.9 mpg The verdict: A welcome refinement and improvement over the old Silverado 1500, with dramatically better ergonomics and road manners, but the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 is let down by a luxury trim interior that's uncompetitive. Analysis: The Chevy delivered some decent empirical scores thanks to its 6.2-liter V-8 and well-matched 10-speed automatic transmission, delivering the highest dyno-tested horsepower and torque numbers. Yet it felt more like a mid-pack player in terms of acceleration and braking tests. But the knockout punch? Sure, it has a sleeker and cleaner design than the previous gen 1500, but our judges were unimpressed by the truck's new interior appointments. For a luxury truck charging luxury money, the new digs pale in comparison to the crosstown rival Ram 1500. The Good Big engine, big power: Everyone loved the big 6.2-liter V-8's massive power and torque. Empty, the thing roars around town with basso thunder; loaded and towing, it's like there isn't even a trailer there. "The powertrain was a huge standout for me gobs of torquey thrust off the line and butter-smooth shifts at wide-open throttle," Williams said. Mikonis agreed: "For me, it's all about having the torque to handle a load drama-free." Top-notch towing tech: Chevy's new trailering app makes it a cinch for people new to towing to learn how to hook everything up. It provides all kinds of camera angles through the backup camera, a checklist to make sure you've done everything you need to do and even an automatic light-checking function so you can check the lights on your own after connection. "I'm particularly impressed with the new trailering app and a lot of the associated tools that go along with it," Bragman said. "The cameras and the content make hooking up a trailer easier than it normally is." Outstanding handling dynamics: The Chevrolet Silverado 1500 was the athlete of the group thanks to its massive engine and big 22-inch wheels. "Over good road surfaces, the suspension is impressively smooth and quiet, and it's very impressive when pushed around corners not something you typically associate with half-ton pickups," said Williams. Bragman agreed: "I really liked driving the Chevy. It has a well-tuned chassis and some of the best steering feel I've ever experienced in a pickup." The Bad Not nice enough inside: Judges were universally disappointed with Chevy's High Country trim appointments. "The interior has a lot of problems, from cheap trim why is the door handle a two-piece plastic affair with unpleasant sharp edges? to odd placement for the fake wood trim. It's all below your knees, where you can't see it anyway," Bragman said. "Underwhelmed by the High Country trim," agreed Mikonis. "You are welcomed in by chintzy plastic covers on the sills. I found uneven stitching on the seats. And the brown panel on the passenger-side dash looked like a giant turkey leg." Not enough information: Chevy continues to believe that truck buyers only need so much information in the gauge cluster and no more but we disagree. "Why have a stunningly well-matched and muscular engine and transmission if you're not going to allow your customers to see how it's working?" Williams asked. "We need to see what the tranny is doing and what gear it is in. Period." Rough ride on bad roads: The price you pay for fashion. Some judges found that the 22-inch wheels on this High Country model imparted a rough ride felt in the cabin that wasn't present in its sibling GMC, which had smaller wheels and taller tires. On top of that, we suspected that the wheels had an impact on how the Chevy towed: "I would save the money and pass on the 22-inch wheels. I think they softened the springs for ride quality, causing them to sag when towing," Mikonis said. Research the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 | Search Inventory | Photo Gallery No. 3: 2019 Ram 1500 Limited, 1,976 points Our Test Vehicle As-tested price: $68,390 Equipment: 395-hp, 5.7-liter Hemi V-8; eight-speed automatic transmission; part-time four-wheel drive; eTorque 48-volt mild-hybrid system; four-corner adjustable air suspension; RamBox cargo storage; Harman Kardon Premium Audio; adaptive cruise control; full-speed collision warning; electronic locking rear axle; panoramic moonroof Rear axle ratio: 3.92:1 Torque: 410 pounds-feet Towing capacity: 11,080 pounds Calculated fuel economy, towing: 12.1 mpg The verdict: With an interior that shames Cadillac and Lincoln, this may be the best American luxury vehicle you can buy, period but all that swag prevents the Ram 1500 from being the best pickup it can be, leaving it struggling to catch up to more powerful competitors. Analysis: The Ram's interior is a stunner from the tactile feel of its wood trim to the massive, eye-popping touchscreen. It's obvious where Ram spent the development money. It won over our judges, who subjectively scored it as their favorite pickup of the test. It's still too heavy, however. It took almost a full second more from zero-to-60 mph than the quickest truck, recorded the longest stopping distances and delivered the worst payload capacity in the test. The Good Gorgeous interior: It's no exaggeration to call this one of the nicest interiors in the auto industry today. It's nicer than any American luxury brand and rivals the Germans in fit, finish and material quality. "The Limited's interior materials are stunning," Mikonis said. "I'm glad to see Ram continuing to showcase what they can do with interiors. It's too nice for anything beyond personal use. This one would definitely be the first choice for a transcontinental trip." Hemi performance: It may not be the most powerful motor in the test, but damned if it doesn't sound like it is. "It sounds so gloriously mean," Bragman said. "And its power delivery is smooth, smooth, smooth." Around town, without a load, the Hemi V-8 is a sweet engine with plenty of usable torque and an engine bay design that we ranked as the best for most easily reaching serviceable items. RamBox utility: Ram may not be reaching into new bed technology territory like GMC is, but the improvements to the RamBox storage bins are notable. "The small upgrades they've made to the new RamBox are subtle but impressively executed: lighting, 115-volt three-prong plug and pressure-touch latches. Another feature I wish was available on every pickup ever made," Williams said. The Bad Body panel fit: Maybe it was just that our test truck was an early production model, but the panel fit and finish on the Ram 1500 was notably poor. Mikonis was especially disappointed: "There was a significantly uneven gap between the grille and the bumper cover. Going around the truck, there was inconsistent fit between doors and fenders/body, and uneven gaps side to side." Pricey luxury: Both in sticker price and performance this was the most expensive truck in our test but we weren't really upset about it. It's one of the few luxury vehicles we've driven, regardless of type, that actually feels like it's worth the cost that the manufacturer is charging. "Not surprisingly, this was the priciest player in our contest, and I understand there actually is a value argument to be made here," said Williams. "Still, this level of luxury seems designed for people who don't want or need a truck." The limited payload capacity seems to back that up. Invisible eTorque system: This model included the $2,645 eTorque mild-hybrid system (it's standard on the Ram 1500 V-6 but optional on the Hemi V-8 truck) but not one of the judges could tell if it was doing anything. It's supposed to net 1 or 2 more mpg, but driving styles vary so widely, it was difficult to determine if the system was conserving fuel. We'd love something, anything, that demonstrates the system's function in motion a power-flow screen on that fancy multimedia display or a light on the gauge cluster that lets us know when it's adding electric torque, something to prove we got our money's worth that doesn't require calculating its effect monthly at the gas pump. Research the 2019 Ram 1500 | Search Inventory | Photo Gallery No. 2: 2018 Ford F-150 Lariat, 2,005 points Our Test Vehicle As-tested price: $61,030 Equipment: 375-hp, twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6; 10-speed automatic transmission; part-time four-wheel drive; Technology Package; blind spot information system with trailer detection; B&O Play Premium Audio; leather interior; Pro Trailer Backup Assist; power telescoping tow mirrors Rear axle ratio: 3.55:1 Torque: 470 pounds-feet Towing capacity: 12,800 pounds Calculated fuel economy, towing: 13.2 mpg The verdict: No longer the new kid on the block, the Ford F-150's lightweight construction and strong motor helped it turn in a solid showing against the newcomers, proving just how right Ford got this truck for its 2015 redesign. Analysis: Just 13 points separated the F-150 from the winner of this competition, with the Ford scoring strongly in towing, fuel economy and payload capacity thanks to its lightweight construction. Judges liked its driving dynamics and amenities, but they had issues with its seat comfort and value proposition the Lariat was one of the least expensive of the group (technically a mid-level trim), but it did not offer as many safety and technology features found in its more expensive competitors. The Good Information presentation: Unlike Chevy, Ford doesn't mind providing its customers with all the details about what their truck is doing. From always showing the driver what gear the transmission is in to the best-in-class surround-view camera tech, Ford keeps the driver informed. "Maybe Ford customers like more info than Chevy customers, but if that's the case, Ford definitely played to their audience," Bragman said. "There's tons of usable data from the F-150's gauges and screens." Towing champ: The combination of the powerful EcoBoost engine and smooth 10-speed automatic transmission made the F-150 one of our favorites for towing. "It's as if Ford is dumping the money in the right places here. Everything about towing shows extra effort best towing mirrors, best surround-view camera setup, best max towing and gross combined weight rating numbers by far," Williams said. Multiple drive modes: While the GM trucks had selectable drive modes, they didn't seem to affect the truck very much. Not so on the Ford F-150, with its five driving modes that transform how the truck operates. Williams was particularly smitten with this feature: "The five-level selectable transmission settings (that also impact steering feel and throttle sensitivity) are a huge standout feature. I hope every pickup truck I ever drive for the rest of my life has the same feature." Put the Ford F-150 into Sport mode and it becomes a legitimately fun sport truck. In Tow/Haul mode, it was stout and solid, barely registering the presence of the dump trailer full of cement board. Fuel economy: The EcoBoost engine isn't known for being particularly fuel-efficient when towing a load, but when the truck is empty, it can do quite well. "Given our past experience when doing heavy towing with the EcoBoost, I was really surprised how well it performed when towing our dump beds through the Buffalo Valley," Williams reported. "Maybe with the addition of the new 10-speed transmission, we can hope for better mpg results from the F-150 twin-turbo option when empty and loaded." The Bad Seat comfort: Our judges differed greatly on the shape of the F-150's seats, with Mikonis rating them the best in the test and Bragman calling them out as odd and awful. "The seats may have been the most comfortable in the test," said Mikonis. "I've had issues with the head restraints on other Ford products, but not these. The cooling function worked the best, too." Bragman wasn't having it, however: "There's a lump in the seatback that just won't deflate enough, and the seat bottoms feel short. The combination of the two makes me feel like I'm always sitting on the edge of the seat." Nice leather, cheap plastics: Kudos to Ford's interior stylists for choosing some dramatic colors for the F-150, but some of the material choices leave much to be desired. The seat leather is good, but the plastics on the dash, doors and steering wheel feel cheap, especially at this price level. It's not just on the inside, either step on the Lariat's running boards, and they creak and flex, proving that they're just chrome-clad plastic. Challenging technology: Ford's Sync 3 may have been a massive improvement over the company's prior multimedia system, but it's starting to show its age versus the latest from GM and Ram. "The Ford feels like it's not user-friendly," Mikonis said. "There's no one-touch/one-swipe function on the windshield wiper switch. The array of climate-control buttons is overcomplicated; the fan-speed buttons are too small and at the very bottom of the cluster of climate-control buttons. The preset buttons for the radio take up a lot of real estate. The center console screen graphics look dated, and I found the home button hard to hit when moving. And I couldn't smoothly slot the transmission into Drive without going past it to the Manual setting." Bed access: This was a weird one. While every other truck had some sort of feature to help you easily get into the truck's bed power running boards on the Chevy, GMC's MultiPro Tailgate on the Sierra, a kick plate on the Ram and Nissan the brand that invented the tailgate with a step didn't have on one this $61,000 truck. The GMC MultiPro Tailgate is standard on its mid-level SLT trim why isn't Ford's integrated tailgate step standard here? Research the 2018 Ford F-150 | Search Inventory | Photo Gallery No. 1: 2019 GMC Sierra 1500 SLT, 2,018 points Our Test Vehicle As-tested price: $63,040 Equipment: 420-hp, 6.2-liter Ecotec3 V-8; 10-speed automatic transmission; part-time four-wheel drive; MultiPro Tailgate; Max Trailering Package; Bose Premium Audio; 20-inch wheels; power moonroof; Trailer Camera Package Rear axle ratio: 3.42:1 Torque: 460 pounds-feet Towing capacity: 12,260 pounds Calculated fuel economy, towing: 12.8 mpg The verdict: GMC's redesigned Sierra 1500 is the quickest, strongest truck in this test, made better by the inclusion of some novel new technology. Analysis: The new 2019 GMC Sierra 1500 turned in some positively stunning acceleration numbers thanks to its big 6.2-liter V-8 and transmission gearing, but it also came in tops in braking performance when loaded to max payload. The interior suffered from the same malaise as the Chevrolet, it but wasn't judged as harshly as the SLT trim isn't meant to be a luxury truck. It wasn't the judges' subjective favorite, but its strong empirical test results pushed it over the edge to win our comparison test. The Good Powertrain perfection: The judges were pretty sure that the powertrain combination in the Sierra 6.2-liter V-8, 10-speed auto, max towing package is what won the day for GMC. "This truck was the perfect combination for this test," Mikonis said. "The Sierra was my favorite truck for the types of driving we were doing." Williams agreed: "The 6.2 V-8 mated to the 10-speed does things effortlessly, instantly empowering the driver. The clear separator for the GMC is the towing package, which gave it the bigger rear axle, better final drive and tires, and the bigger payload and GCW numbers. In the end, that's probably what pushed it ahead." Panel fit and build quality: Williams noted that the Sierra was screwed together better than any of the trucks in the test and was notably better than the Silverado, despite being made in the same factory on the same assembly line. MultiPro Tailgate wonders: When GMC first showed the new MultiPro multiposition tailgate, we were skeptical of its usefulness, but not anymore. It's a tailgate, it's a bed extender, it's a work surface, it's a step into the bed the thing is genuinely useful. "I caught our photographer using the MultiPro Tailgate as a desk, completely spontaneously," Bragman said. "I've used it to haul loads of randomly shaped stuff, too, and it really does work." And it's standard on the mid-range SLT model. The Bad Same interior as the Silverado: While the GMC Sierra's exterior styling is substantially different than the Silverado, that didn't carry over to the interior. "The layout is fine, but at least make the buttons different," Williams said. The SLT interior really isn't all that different in materials quality from the supposedly lux Silverado High Country, Bragman noted. "The leather isn't any worse; the wood trim is still fake; and you're missing the head-up display, but you've saved around $4,000 off the sticker price, so it evens out," he said. MultiPro Tailgate worries: As cool as the new tailgate is, it's made up of a lot of pieces, parts and fiddly bits that weren't screwed together as well as we'd like. "I'm curious how people will receive the MultiPro Tailgate due to the fact that there are so many moving parts in there, with extra latches and seals that need to keep out ice, dust and water," Williams said. "It has value, but more parts and pieces could mean more expensive repairs." We also noted a potential issue with the tailgate: If you leave your hitch ball in the hitch and activate both of the tailgate panels without guiding it down with your hand, it will slam hard into the ball, potentially denting the top panel of the tailgate. Premium fuel: The price you pay for having that big engine doesn't just happen at the dealership: It's going to happen at the pump every time you fill up and decide to use Premium. The 6.2-liter Ecotec3 suggests premium fuel, adding to its expense if you so choose. While its mid-pack fuel-economy numbers seemed respectable, you'll could be paying more per fill-up than most of the other trucks depending on how you drive. Outward visibility: "One thing GM didn't change was the bunkerlike cabin visibility," Bragman said. There's a big, imposing dash in front of you, combined with a blocky, upright hood and a short windshield. "The mirrors were suitable for towing, but their wide bases and the thick A-pillars add up to a large forward blind spot," added Mikonis. "Also, the bottom of the rear side window frame kicks up at the rear accentuating the rear blind spot." In short, not the best outward visibility in this pickup truck. Just like in our 2018 One-Ton Heavy-Duty Truck Challenge, the judges all subjectively picked the Ram as their favorite, but the numbers tipped the scoring in favor of a GM product. This time, however, it's the new 2019 GMC Sierra 1500 SLT crew-cab half ton that's won the top honors. The 2019 GMC Sierra 1500's combination of impressive performance results along with a spacious, well-equipped cabin; a monster of a powertrain; and some fetching new looks put it on top for this Challenge. It performs better than its luxury Chevrolet sibling, is just as nice inside, has some unique and useful tailgate tech, and is even less expensive to boot. If you're looking for a luxury vehicle, the Ram 1500 can't be beat, and if you want a Tonka truck, the Nissan Pro-4X is a hoot. The Ford F-150 is a solid choice for someone who wants all-around performance. But if you're looking for a workhorse that combines style, ability, new technology and value, the 2019 GMC Sierra 1500 is our new champ. Research the 2019 GMC Sierra 1500 | Search Inventory | Photo Gallery More From PickupTrucks.com: Cars.com photos by Christian Lantry Baglamukhi Oil Stores sealed for giving short measure The Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology (NBSM) on Sunday sealed Baglamukhi Oil Stores in Sano Bharyang, Kathmandu, for giving customers the short measure. The operator manipulated the software in the digital dispensing system to cheat customers by giving them up to 3.2 percent less petrol than they paid for, said the NBSM Director General Bishwo Babu Pudasaini. Business of smelling nice booms in Nepal The demand for lifestyle products like perfumes and deodorants is on the rise in Nepal, with the country importing Rs335.48 million worth in fiscal year 2017-18 according to data from the Trade and Export Promotion Centre (TEPC). Chhath festival begins The Tihar celebrations may be over, but the festive season continues as another major annual festival, Chhath, got underway on Sunday. The four-day Chhath is dedicated to the Sun God, who is worshipped as the source of all power. Coastal-Pappu venture close to be blacklisted The Department of Irrigation has started the process to blacklist Coastal-Pappu Construction, the joint venture involving the firm headed by suspended lawmaker Hari Narayan Rauniyar. Deepjyoti starts Kathmandu to Janakpur bus tour service A direct tourist bus service from Kathmandu to Janakpur has come into operation from Sunday. The service, operated by Deepjyoti Tours Pvt. Ltd. Ethiopian carrier woos Nepal Airlines with tie-up offer Africas largest carrier Ethiopian Airlines has proposed to become a partner with Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC). Last week, Ethiopian Ambassador to Nepal Asfaw Dingamo Kame met with Tourism Minister Rabindra Adhikari in Kathmandu and officially proposed to form a strategic alliance with NAC. Kavre schools, colleges shut over student leaders arrest Nepal Student Union, the student wing of Nepali Congress, shut down schools and colleges in Kavre district on Sunday, demanding release of its leader Krishna Dhakal. Anup Ojha is a reporter for The Kathmandu Post primarily covering social issues and human interest stories. Before moving to the social beat, Ojha covered arts and culture for the Post for four years. Labours shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer has said Britains withdrawal from the European Union can still be halted. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, Sir Keir said all options must be on the table including a second referendum. His comments came after Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez backed calls for a second Brexit referendum. Sir Keir Starmer says Britains withdrawal from the European Union can still be halted (Picture: PA) The centre-left leader told the Politico website: If I was Theresa May, I would call a second referendum no doubt. Mr Sanchez described Brexit as a great loss for both the UK and the EU. I hope it can be reconsidered in the future, he added. Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez says the UK should vote again on Brexit (Picture: PA) Sir Keirs views appeared to be at odds with party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who said last week in an interview with a German magazine we cant stop Brexit. The Labour leader has also rejected a call by former transport minister Jo Johnson who quit in protest at the governments Brexit policy for a second referendum. However, Sir Keir insisted the Labour leadership was fully signed up to the position agreed at the partys annual conference in Liverpool including the option of another referendum. MORE: Statue of Sikh soldier to mark World War sacrifice vandalised MORE: Hedgehog has lucky escape after getting stuck in broken glass bottle Brexit can be stopped. But the real question is: what are the decisions we are going to face over the next few weeks and months? he told Sky News. Decision one is on the deal. Decision two is if the deal goes down, should there be a general election? And decision three is, if there is no general election, all options must be on the table including the option of a public vote. That is the clear position. Jeremy is signed up to it. Im signed up to that. Mr Corbyn angered some Labour MPs over the weekend when he was asked whether there should be another referendum and replied: Not really, no, as the referendum took place. There have been loud calls for a second referendum on Brexit (Picture: PA) Sir Keir acknowledged there were some slightly different voices within the party on the issue, but insisted everybody has coalesced around a common position. Story continues Insofar as he (Mr Corbyn) says the referendum took place, of course he is right about that, he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. But on this question of options on the table, we had a long, long discussion about it and we did agree all options to remain on the table, including the option of a public vote. Sir Keirs views appear to clash with those of his party leader, Jeremy Corbyn (Picture: PA) Neither Jeremy nor anyone else has altered that position, that is the position of the Labour Party. He added: The Labour Party has a healthy discussion. But did we reach an agreement? Yes we did. Are we sticking to it? Yes we are. Saudi Aramcos initial public offering (IPO) will take place, but probably in 2021, depending on market conditions and only after the acquisition of a majority stake in petrochemicals company Sabic is complete, Aramcos chief executive Amin Nasser said on Monday. Saudi Arabias government is currently suggesting 2021 for IPO listing, depending on market conditions at that time, S&P Global Platts quoted Nasser as saying at the ADIPEC conference in Abu Dhabi. Saudi Aramcowhose IPO was indefinitely postponed in the summerplans to buy the 70 percent in Sabic currently in the hands of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia in a deal expected to be worth US$70 billion. The much-awaited and several-times-postponed listing of Saudi Arabias oil giant Aramco is now on the backburner for the Saudi government, which has shifted its focus on the acquisition of the stake in Sabic. The listing of Aramco has encountered multiple potential problems, including the lofty US$2-trillion valuation that the Saudis were hoping for, the estimate of Saudi Arabias oil reserves that is shrouded in secrecy, and the international venue for the IPO. Aramcos listing plans quickly slipped from definitely by the end of 2018 early this year to indefinitely postponed this summer. [The Sabic deal] needs to be completed first before you can list Saudi Aramco, and that will take some time, Platts quoted Nasser as saying at ADIPEC today. Related: Oil Prices Rise As Saudis Cut Exports Then you need to reflect that in your balance sheet for at least a year before you can list Saudi Aramco. And this is where they are talking about 2021 and depending on the market conditions at that time the government will list it, Aramcos chief executive said. Last month, Saudi Arabias Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih told Russian news agency TASS in an interview that the Sabic deal would take at least 18 months to close, including receiving regulatory approvals from anti-competition authorities worldwide. Only after that we could share the information about the financial benefits of the deal with the investors. We are looking at 2021 as potentially the year of IPO. If all goes well, IPO will be more successful in 2021 compared to 2018, al-Falih told TASS in October. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Irans army is ready to protect its commercial fleet, including crude oil tankers, from any threats, a senior Iranian military commander said on Monday, in an apparent response to last weeks U.S. advisory to all countries and ports doing business with Iran that Iranian ships are a floating liability. Irans armed forces...are prepared today as in the past to protect our fleet of oil tankers against any threats so that it can continue to use marine waterways, Irans semi-official news agency ISNA quoted Rear-Admiral Mahmoud Mousavi, a deputy commander of the regular armed forces, as saying on Monday. Last week, after the U.S. sanctions on Irans oil, shipping, and insurance industries returned, the Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said at a press briefing that If Iranian tankers make calls to your ports or transit through your waterways, this comes at great risk. From the Suez Canal to the Strait of Malacca and all chokepoints in between, Iranian tankers are now a floating liability. Countries, ports, and canal operators, and private firms should know they will be likely responsible for the costs of an accident involving a self-insured Iranian tanker, Hook said. Self-insured Iranian tankers engaging in unsafe behavior with many tons of crude oil onboard is courting environmental and financial disaster. Our strong message to any entity considering doing business with these Iranian tankers is to rethink your decision. Protect your port, protect your business, and promote maritime safety, Hook added. In what is seen as a response to these remarks, Rear-Admiral Mousavi was quoted as saying today that Irans armed forces have the preparedness to protect our commercial fleet...as they have in the past 40 years. Related: OPEC Fears Another Downturn In Oil Iran will file a complaint at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) over the cruel sanctions on maritime transportation from the United States, the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) quoted the Head of Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran, Mohammad Rastad, as saying on Monday. After the U.S. sanctions entered into force last week, Iran is carrying on with its defiant tone, with First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri saying on Monday that Iran has so far managed to export oil as much as it needed and the US has had to issue sanctions waivers to eight countries to continue buying oil from Iran. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: I know what you think such a headline is quite reckless given that Guyana has not produced any oil so far and it is not until 2020 that we can actually start talking about a Guyanese oil miracle. Still, Guyana is one of the hottest exploration regions globally, in just three years ExxonMobil has managed to realize nine impressive finds, totaling around 4 billion barrels in reserve. And this is just the beginning further exploration will inevitably elevate Guyana into the ranks of South American leaders. Now where does this leave Senegal and the Gambia? Well, if one is to accept my somewhat precipitated assumption, many similarities are to be discovered between Senegal and Guyana, pointing to the direction of big discoveries coming very soon. The Senegal Basin and the Guyanese Basin are by-products of the same tectonic developments in what used to be West-Gondwana, where intra-continental rifts developed in Cretaceous sedimentary basins. As a result, both sides of the Atlantic Margin are structurally and compositionally similar. Yet Guyana has always ranked somewhat higher than the Senegal Basin the vicinity of oil-prolific Venezuela has always jangled the nerves of ambitious oilmen, whilst Senegal was largely overlooked. To illustrate the point when the USGS conducted an assessment of the Senegal Basin reserves in 2003, the discovered oil reserves at that point stood at a mere 10MM barrels of oil, whilst gas resources amounted to 49BCf. That, of course, has changed after the largest oil and gas find of 2017, which, having been under the radar of leading news outlets, was the Yakaar field in offshore Senegal. The deepwater Yakaar field was discovered last May, confirming Kosmos Energys expectations that it would contain 15 TCf of reserves. Yakaar, together with the development of the Greater Tortue Complex offshore Mauretania with some parts crossing into Senegalese waters, provide a solid foundation for creating two relatively low-cost LNG clusters in the area. The results attained heretofore several important questions what do relevant countries (Mauretania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Guinea) expect from their hydrocarbon endowment? Would they prefer gas reserves instead of oil? Any answer would most likely be vacillatory because the Senegal Basin has so far mostly unfolded gas fields, with only partial success in drilling for oil. The truth is that all Senegal Basin nations would love to set their sights on oil (easier to monetize and use), Senegal is a fitting example of how it could use it. Senegals oil product consumption grows by an annualized rate of roughly 4%, making the task of upgrading the energy sector increasingly time-sensitive. For this, it would need not only oil, but also downstream infrastructure, which currently is sparse and unsophisticated. However, the only refinery in the country, the 25 kbpd Mbao refinery built in 1963, will not be able to cater for Senegals needs in a highly dieselized country, it is expected that product demand would more than double in the next 20 years from the current 47kbpd to 115kbpd. It would also place Senegal in a more comfortable position as the government could renounce on buying Bonny Light and Erha from Nigeria, albeit at discounted prices, and could fully rely on its own production. Related: Nat Gas Prices Spike On Cold Weather Amid several large gas finds, so far there has been only one noteworthy oil discovery the first deepwater well in Senegalese waters in 2014 found the SNE field in Albian sandstones at a depth of 1.4km. The SNE field contains, according to the operator Cairn Energy, 3C reserves of 998MMbbl which could allow it to reach a plateau production late 2020s of 140kbpd the start of the field is expected to take place in 2022-2023. Oil from SNE would be fed into a FPSO with subsea tie-backs. Some 20km to the north of SNE, another discovery, FAN, is showing some potential, too, with estimated reserves ranging from 250-900MMbbl. The hydrocarbon column which the drillers found was more than 500 meters long, with the net oil column being 29 meters. The Gambia tries to keep abreast with regional developments, having drilled the first offshore well, Samo-1, in late October after almost 40 years of idleness. The Samo-1 well is located in Gambias Block 2, to the south of Senegals SNE fields meaning that most likely it shares its geological structure, meaning Maastrichtian sandstones that most likely contain light oil with a 32-33 API density. A positive result (the operator FAR expects that it will find around 825MMbbl of) would extend the oil-bearing play across the Senegalese-Gambian border and hype up the resource potential of the Senegal Basin. Yet as opposed to Senegal, which has fought long-standing battles with its own populace and interest groups on how to deal with its hydrocarbon resources, the Gambia fully lacks the institutional framework to manage its oil and gas. Source: API. Now back to the Senegal-Guyana comparison. One of the most interesting trends across the Atlantic is that companies which have serious positions in either Guyana or Senegal are currently trying to establish themselves on the other side of the Atlantic. ExxonMobil, which has by far played the most important part in developing offshore Guyana, clinched 3 deepwater blocks in offshore Mauretania (i.e. the part of the Senegal Basin which is most likely to contain oil) and seeks to use its profound Guyana-relevant knowledge to appraise the stratigraphic traps along the African shore. It works the other way round, too Total, the most powerful major present in Senegal, built on the intense Franco-Senegalese ties, has entered Guyana this year, acquiring interests in the Canje, Kanuku and Orinduik Blocks. Related: These Nations Are The Hardest Hit By Iran Sanctions Thus, do not be surprised if in five years time Senegal or Mauretania becomes one of the hottest locations for oil majors after several decades of torpor, partially thanks to the efforts of some risk-taking independent companies, the Senegal Basin has emerged as a genuinely attractive play with some top-quality fields (e.g.: the SNE fields breakeven oil price hovers around 40 USD per barrel). The plays are similar to Guyanas something which majors familiar with the structure of the Atlantic Margin have already noticed, with Total and ExxonMobil placing their bets on both sides of the ocean. Senegals similarities with Guyana, however, do not end with the characteristics of the fields and plays in question. Institutionally, it might still not be ready for the administration of the burgeoning oil sector. Senegals national oil company Petrosen has issued a call for expressions of interest on deepwater offshore blocks to the south of Gambias A4 and A5 blocks, which it deems might contain up to 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent. It counts on the participation of oil majors Total is sure to play a very active role in any licensing round that takes place, as well as Petronas (the operator of Gambias Samo-1 well). Yet for this, Senegal first ought to clarify how would the new petroleum code look like will PSAs be a preferred variant or will it apply concessionary agreements, too; will it introduce a petroleum export tax and if so, to what extent would it do harm; how strict would local content requirements be? It is only after all these questions are clarified that international majors will rush to the new hydrocarbon-rich region. By Viktor Katona for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The potential for more tensions in relations between the U.S. and Russia continue to mount. Late last week, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said that Washington could still impose sanctions related to the building of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would bring Russian gas directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea. Perry made his comments in Warsaw as the Trump administration tries to convince EU members to sign LNG deals with U.S. producers to offset over reliance on Russian pipeline gas. On Thursday, Polish state-run gas firm PGNiG signed a long-term LNG deal with U.S.-based Cheniere Marketing International. Poland has been fervent in its resistance to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as well as working to reduce its reliance on geopolitically charged Russian gas. Moscow, for its part, has cut gas supply to Europe in the past during cold winter months to exert its influence in the region. Warsaw and Washington also signed on Thursday a joint declaration on enhanced energy security cooperation. This is also a clear signal that the U.S. strongly supports a pro-Poland and pro-Europe energy security policy, Perry said. Energy security in turn requires energy diversity. That is the reason we oppose the Nord Stream 2 project which would further increase the dangerous energy dependence many European nations have on the Russian federation, he added. Poland consumes around 17 billion cubic meters of gas annually, more than half of which comes from Russian energy giant Gazprom under a long-term deal that expires in 2022. However, Poland has said that it would not renew the gas supply deal, making the country race against time to replace the contract with new gas volumes. When asked at a news conference whether Washington could impose sanctions on companies working on the project, Perry replied: I saw no signals where we would ever get to the point where we can support Nord Stream 2. He added that sanctions were an option that the president maintained. Related: Aramco CEO: Expect IPO In 2021 The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has also been a point of contention between Trump and Germany as well. In a televised meeting with reporters and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg before a NATO summit in Brussels earlier this year, Trump said it was very inappropriate that the U.S. was paying for European defense against Russia while Germany, the biggest European economy, was supporting gas deals with Moscow. However, since then, Germany has indicated that it wanted to buy more LNG from the U.S., with plans to build three LNG receiving terminals. Germany also remains firm in its support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The $11 billion gas pipeline will stretch some 759 miles (1,222 km), running on the bed of the Baltic Sea from Russian gas fields to Germany, bypassing existing land routes over Ukraine, Poland and Belarus. It would double the existing Nord Stream pipelines current annual capacity of 55 bcm and is expected to become operational by the end of next year. Russias Gazprom is the sole shareholder in Nord Stream 2, shouldering 50 percent of the 9.5 billion-euro ($11 billion) bill. Gazproms Western partners are Austrian OMV along with Uniper, Wintershall, Shell and Engie. Russia, for its part, claims that security concerns over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline are unfounded and that it is a purely economic venture. It also accuses the Trump administration of trying to erode Russian gas supply market share in Europe in favor of more expensive U.S.-produced LNG. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in September that the pipeline would go forward even if sanctions were put in place. "We hope that there will be no sanctions. If U.S. restrictions are imposed, the project will be implemented anyway, the pipe laying has already started," Novak told reporters, adding that the plan envisions the project to be completed by the end of 2019. By Tim Daiss for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Less than two months after Khalid al-Falihs assurances that Saudi Arabia will produce and export enough oil to keep prices steady, the Kingdoms Energy Minister has said that exports would be cut by as much as 500,000 bpd this month and next on a bid to prop up prices. At the same time, the Associated Press reports, discussions have started with Russia to curb the global supply of crude seeing as Iran sanctions failed to lift prices. Al-Falihs Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, said Moscow wouldnt mind cutting production as long as the move had the support of OPEC as a whole. The swift change in rhetoric follows signs of weaker demand and growing supply, the classic combination that served a blow to bullish traders, with benchmarks slipping into a bear market inside a month. Yet following Al-Khalids announcement of export cuts, Brent crude added more than 1 percentage point from Fridays close, as per a Reuters report that also noted that Saudi Arabia resorted to the move because of uncertainty that it would receive OPECs backing for a concerted supply cut effort. Yet there is only so much Saudi Arabia and/or Russia can do alone or together: U.S. production was among the chief reasons for the latest oil price slump, with production hitting 11.6 million bpd in the week to November 2, up by 400,000 bpd from a week earlier and almost 2 million bpd from a year earlier, according to the latest weekly petroleum status report by the Energy Information Administration. One thing that is abundantly clear, OPEC is in for a shale shocker as U.S. crude production increased to a record 11.6 million barrels per day and will cross the 12 million threshold next year, Oandas head of trading for the Asia Pacific, Stephen Innes, told Reuters. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: WTI dipped below $60 per barrel in early trading on Friday, the lowest price level in nearly a year. With prices down more than 20 percent from the October peak, WTI is now officially in a bear market. Many of the factors that conspired to push oil prices up in recent months have all seemed to reverse course at exactly the same time. First, U.S. shale production is skyrocketing. The EIA reported an unbelievable increase of 400,000 bpd in U.S. oil production in the first week of November, pushing output up to 11.6 million barrels per day (mb/d). The agency rounds off weekly estimates to the nearest hundred thousand barrels, somewhat obscuring the trajectory of growth, but the huge increase is notable by any standard. Also, the weekly estimates are not as accurate as the monthly figures, which are published on a roughly 2-month lag. As such, they should be taken with a grain of salt. However, the massive increase comes just days after the EIA reported a huge increase in production in the monthly data at 11.346 mb/d in August, the U.S. oil industry has clearly been producing a lot more than previously thought. That lends some weight to the weekly figures. Another previously-bullish factor was Iran. With Irans oil exports spiraling downwards at the end of the summer and into September, the oil market grew very concerned about adequate global supply and the rapidly dwindling volume of spare capacity. U.S. waivers on countries importing Iranian oil removed that threat. Washington still wants to tighten the screws and in fact, the sudden bearishness in the market gives the Trump administration more leeway to do just that but in the near-term, Iran will continue to export. A third factor is OPEC+ production. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Russia and Libya have all increased production in recent months, offsetting the losses from Iran. Now, the group has a different problem on its hands. A technical committee to the OPEC+ coalition is set to meet this weekend where it will take stock of the oil market. They will also consider options going forward for managing the market, including the potential for a production cut in 2019 to avoid another market downturn. The 180-degree turn from adding supply just a few months ago to now considering a cut is a remarkable indicator that demonstrates how quickly the sentiment has turned. Related: U.S. Oil Production Is Set To Soar Past 12 Million Bpd Finally, the global economy continues to throw up red flags. Demand has already been revised down by most energy forecasters, and is expected to continue to slow next year. A worse economic downturn is not out of the cards, which would result in much sharper revisions. As OPEC exports continue to rise, inventories continue to build, which is putting downward pressure on oil prices, Bernstein Energy said. A slowdown in the global economy remains the key downside risk to oil. On Friday, WTI fell below $60 per barrel for the first time in this calendar year. Brent fell below $70. There is no slowing down the bear train, Stephen Brennock, analyst at London brokerage PVM Oil, told Reuters. Instead, the energy complex has extended a rout driven by swelling global supplies and a softening demand outlook. Related: Is Shale The Future For Big Oil? To top it off, Iraq and Kurdistan are nearing a deal that could reopen shuttered oil production from disputed Kirkuk oil fields, according to the FT. After Iraq reclaimed territory from the Kurds in and around Kirkuk a year ago, operations at the fields were interrupted. The U.S. government has been pressing the two sides to resolve their differences. In fact, Washington has been reportedly pushing for more supply in several key areas in an effort to offset the outages coming from Iran. U.S. diplomats have also pressed Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to resolve their differences over the Neutral Zone oil fields, thus far with little success. If Iraq and the Kurds reach a deal, it could add another 400,000 bpd of supply to the global oil market. That would surely put a lot more pressure on OPEC+ to take action. Market participants are clearly testing the pain threshold of oil producers in a bid to force them to reduce supply, Commerzbank said in a note. With supplies rising and prices falling, oil traders are surely starting to factor in rising odds of an OPEC+ production cut when the group meets in a few weeks in Vienna. If they fail to signal any intention to reverse the latest increase in production, oil prices threaten to slide further. By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Its not only the Permian that is suffering pipeline capacity constraints while oil production is soaringproduction in the Bakken in North Dakota has been steadily rising to records while takeaway capacity dwindles, and crude-by-rail offers few options during the coming cold winter months. Crude oil prices in the Bakken, which have already weakened over the past month with a lot of U.S. refineries out for maintenance, could further slip going forward because production continues to rise while the crude could freeze on the crude-by-rail in cold winters, executives and analysts tell Reuters. According to the latest available EIA data, North Dakotas field oil production of crude oil has been rising this year to reach a record 1.279 million bpd in August, above the previous highs from the end of December 2014, just when the oil prices started to crash. The Bakken production continues to grow with over 1.34 million bpd in October and further rises expected in November. Soaring production, however, has started to outpace the pipeline capacity in the region, which is 1.25 million bpd, Reuters reports, citing data from market intelligence firm Genscape. Related: Irans Army Vows To Protect Oil Tankers From Threats North Dakotas Williston Sweet and Williston Sour traded at $43.00 and $35.77 a barrel, respectively as of November 8, with a $15-20 discount to WTI. According to data from S&P Global Platts, the average Williston Basin discount was $2.75 a barrel in September, and then fell to $8.45 a barrel in October, when more than 800,000 bpd of refining capacity in the Midwest was offline for maintenance last month. So far in November through November 12, the Bakken Williston discount has averaged around $17 a barrel to WTI. Now that refineries are returning from maintenance, it will offer some relief to the North Dakota oil prices, but growing production and the coming winter may further depress the prices, especially if the winter disrupts rail loadings. Winter weather makes crude-by-rail operations much more difficult. You have stuff freeze up, especially in North Dakota, John Zanner, crude analyst at RBN Energy, told Reuters. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Lost in summit The government is planning to organise an investment summit around March 2019 despite having nothing much to show since Nepal Investment Summit in March 2017. BP will spend US$2.8 billion next year on expanding its operations in the Middle East, a companys chief executive told The National in an exclusive interview. The supermajor will spend US$1 billion annually in Abu Dhabi, Bob Dudley told the Emirati daily, and another US$1.8 billion will be spent in Egypt in 2019. Recovering oil prices are the main reason behind this investment decision, but new discoveries in the region and new licensing rounds have also helped considerably, likely strengthening the positive outlook of BP for the Middle East. "Weve spent in the last two years $6.8 billion in Egypt and it will be about $1.8 billion dollars next year, Khazzan, is way out there and in Oman and the Adco concession each year as well is well over a $1 billion of capital expenditure each year for Abu Dhabi, so its a really important part of BPs world, Dudley told The National. One of the projects that BP is interested in investing in the UAE is the Ruwais refinery expansion, which Adnoc, Abu Dhabis state oil company, plans to spend US$45 billion on over five years, in partnership with other companies. The Ruwais refinery currently has a daily capacity of 132,000 bpd and after the expansion this will rise to 280,000 bpd. BP also has a solid and long-standing presence in Egypt where it has produced a cumulative 40 percent of total crude oil output. To date, BP accounts for a tenth of Egypts oil production and more than half of its gas production. Recently, the company tried to sell US$500 million worth of its assets in the North African country to SDX Energy, but the talks fell through. Elsewhere in the Middle East, BP earlier this year announced it would launch the second phase of development of the Khazzan gas field in Oman, which will bring its total production to 1.5 billion cu ft of gas daily. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Colombias Cano Limon crude oil pipeline that can transport 210,000 bpd of crude has been bombed again, for the 78th time since the start of this year, Ecopetrol, the state oil company, said, as quoted by Reuters. Previous attacks have been blamed by the Colombian army on a rebel group, the national Liberation Army, or ELN, which is considered a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States. The pipeline was not operational at the time of the attack, which is the second in as many months. In September, Reuters reported that the pipeline was bombed again in the same region, close to the border with Venezuela. At the time, the pipeline was shut down so the attack did not cause a lot of damage. In fact, the pipeline was shut down six months earlier precisely because of the repeated attacks. The Cano Limon pipeline carries crude from the same-name field, which is operated by Occidental Petroleum. The ELN, a Marxist organization, bombs oil infrastructure in protest of the presence of multinational companies in Colombias natural resources industry claiming it robs the locals of the benefits this sector offers. Last month, another pipeline, this one operated by Canadian Grand Tierra Energy, was bombed in Colombia, according to army sources who spoke to Reuters. The pipeline carries crude from Gran Tierras Costayaco field. This time, the perpetrators might have been members of the disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which laid their arms down two years ago after it reached an agreement with the government. Some members of the group, however, refused to accept the terms of the agreement and remained active. Last year, Colombia produced an average of a little over 850,000 bpd of crude. Reserves are estimated at 1.782 billion barrels, but a recent study from the Colombian Petroleum Association estimated the development of unconventional oil reserves in the country could generate an additional US$500 million annually. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, November 12, departed the country to participate in the 33rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit and Related Summits that will be held in Singapore PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, November 12, departed the country to participate in the 33rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit and Related Summits that will be held in Singapore on November 13 to 15. Duterte left Davao International Airport at around 5:13 p.m., Monday, the Palace said. In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Duterte and nine other Asean leaders would check on the progress of the implementation of the Asean community blueprints. "The 33rd Asean Summit in Singapore will be an opportunity for the Philippine government to join in discussions pertaining to the progress of the Asean community blueprints and in bringing Asean closer to the realization of a people-centered Asean Community," Panelo said. Duterte, along with nine other Asean leaders, will hold discussions with dialogue partners from the United States, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, India and Australia in Plus One Summit format. The Southeast Asian leaders will also have a conference with China, Japan, and South Korea through Asean Plus Three Summit. An East Asia Summit is also scheduled to allow the regional bloc leaders to have a dialogue with the leaders of the United States, China, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, India, and Australia. "The related summits in Singapore will give the President the chance to witness the progress of Aseans relations with its dialogue partners, with the goal of fostering deeper cooperation on priority areas including peace, security, economy, and overall well-being of our people," the Palace official said. Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Junever Mahilum-West earlier said Duterte would touch on key issues like the South China Sea disputes, Korean peninsula, global economy, infrastructure development, and challenges to economic integration. The President was also expected to raise non-traditional issues such as terrorism, violent extremism, illegal drugs, trafficking in persons, disaster management, women and youth development, climate change, people-to-people exchanges, and the rights of migrant workers. "This is a summit with the major players in the region. We can expect engaging discussions on regional and international issues that impact on the peace, security, and overall well-being of the peoples of our region," Mahilum-West said in a November 9 press briefing. (SunStar Philippines) PALAWAN, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte warns business owners in Palawan to be mindful of their water waste disposals so as not to turn the island into a cesspool like what happened in Boracay. So Im giving notice also to all hotels nag-operate diyan sa dagat. Huwag ninyong itapon yung tubo ninyo diretso. If you want to build a hotel, add another so many million to have a water treatment, he said during a speech on the opening of Subaraw Festival in Palawan Saturday (November 10). He advised them nothing more but to follow rules. So kindly just isang ano lang ako. Maski ako. Follow rules. Period. Wala Make the day perfect. Do not look for trouble. Just follow the law, he added. He also stressed the need to minimize the influx of tourists into the tourist province to prevent overcrowding. You know, itong ano ninyo, linisin lang ninyo. Huwag lang ninyo i-overload. Huwag ninyong i-overload. Bantay kayo diyan. Boracay is a classic case of overloading. It can carry only so much people, he said. The President cited El Nido as an example where tourist arrival has been growing by 30% per year since 2016. It can be noted that the President ordered the closure of Boracay Island because of overpopulation, pollution and corruption which brought the island into world headlines for being a cesspool. Though the island reopened late in October, rehabilitation works continue. A total of 116 establishments were ordered permanent closure due to multiple violations of environmental laws. Marje Pelayo (with reports from Andy Pagayona) The post Duterte warns businessmen not to turn Palawan into a cesspool like Boracay appeared first on UNTV News. Residents of Russian-backed areas of eastern Ukraine have voted to keep their separatist leaders, results showed Monday, cementing Moscow's hold on the disputed regions. Kiev and its Western allies denounced the elections, with Washington on Monday describing the polls as a "sham" meant to legitimise breakaway authorities. Analysts say the votes will allow Moscow to claim the region's leaders as democratically elected representatives in future talks with Kiev, although few expect Ukraine's moribund peace process to be revived any time soon. Gun-toting, camouflage-clad guards were deployed to ensure order during Sunday's vote in the Donetsk and Lugansk "People's Republics", which have been controlled by separatists since breaking away from Ukraine's pro-Western government in 2014. Authorities pulled out all the stops to encourage a high turnout, setting up food stalls near polling stations and offering lottery tickets to those who voted. Officials said more than 80 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in Donetsk, while turnout stood at 77 percent in Lugansk. Denis Pushilin, the 37-year-old acting Donetsk leader and a former negotiator with Kiev, was elected with 61 percent of the vote with almost all ballots counted, the local electoral commission said. He had been in charge of the region following the killing of the rebel Donetsk "president" in a bomb attack in August. Leonid Pasechnik, 48, the acting Lugansk leader and previously the regional head of the Ukrainian security service, took 68 percent of the vote. - 'Illegal and manipulative' - Kiev's central election commission dismissed the results as of no consequence, saying it "categorically rejects any legal significance of these illegal and manipulative elections". But the Kremlin said the regions had "nothing left but to self organise" after being "abandoned" by Ukraine. "The Minsk agreements are not being fulfilled by the Ukrainian side," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, referring to 2015 Western-backed accords aimed at bringing peace to the region. Alexei Makarkin of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies said the polls were about solidifying the authority of the regions' separatist governments. "Without these elections, they would have had less legitimacy than their predecessors," he said. Analysts said the Kremlin had greater control over Pushilin than his predecessor, and that the polls were a way to increase its influence in the regions, which represent about three percent of the Ukrainian mainland. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel branded the polls illegal after talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on the sidelines of World War I commemorations Sunday. The US State Department joined in on Monday, with spokeswoman Heather Nauert saying the votes were an attempt by Moscow to give credibility to its "proxies" in eastern Ukraine. "These entities have no place within the Minsk agreements or within Ukraine's constitutional government, and they should be dismantled along with the illegal armed formations," Nauert said in a statement. Western powers had asked Russia not to allow the polls to go ahead, arguing they would further hamper efforts to end a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people over four years. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and supported the outbreak of the insurgency in eastern Ukraine in what Kiev sees as punishment for a pivot to the West. - Peace talks in deadlock - While heavy fighting is over, the conflict regularly claims the lives of soldiers and civilians. Kiev said on Saturday that four Ukrainian soldiers had died in recent days. Peace negotiations have hit deadlock and the Minsk deal is largely dead in the water. Moscow, which denies accusations of funnelling troops and arms across the border, said the polls were necessary to fill the power vacuum after the assassination of Donetsk leader Alexander Zakharchenko. Moscow pointed the finger at Ukraine for his killing while Kiev blamed infighting among the separatists. Ukraine is set for a presidential election of its own next year, although as yet there is no clear frontrunner. "Russia will be watching the results of the 2019 elections in Ukraine. It will want the future president to start negotiations with Pushilin and Pasechnik," Makarkin said. In July, A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, was invited to the White House for a meeting with US President Donald Trump. It is the type of discussion that has happened before between his predecessors and other presidents, but came at a particularly acrimonious time for journalism in the United States. Dissatisfied with coverage of his administration, President Trump has regularly called the media the enemy of the people and labelled stories he dislikes as fake news. The Times is often a target of his attacks. Sulzberger told the president that he was deeply troubled by the anti-press rhetoric coming out of the White House, but agreed for the conversation to be off the record as requested by the presidents aides as had been the practice in the past. That changed when Trump tweeted about it. This is a really worrying time for all of us who care about journalism and the role it plays in supporting a free and informed society A.G. Sulzberger I warned that it was putting lives at risk, that it was undermining the democratic ideals of our nation, and that it was eroding one of our countrys greatest exports: a commitment to free speech and a free press, Sulzberger said in the days following the meeting. Four months later, Sulzberger said he remains disappointed that the president, who continued to attack the press this autumn in the run-up to the midterm elections in the US, has not heeded his warning. This is a really worrying time for all of us who care about journalism and the role it plays in supporting a free and informed society. That should be abundantly clear. Journalists are being jailed, murdered all over the world and the United States has publicly retreated from its historic role supporting freedom of speech and a free press, Sulzberger said. The President of the United States himself has waged a deeply cynical attack on journalism for the apparent reason that these are the institutions that exist to ask the tough questions and hold powerful people and institutions accountable, Sulzberger told the South China Morning Post. I think we see both in the US and around the world an effort to pre-emptively discredit truth tellers and journalistic institutions for short-term gain. Thats a really dangerous phenomenon. Story continues Facing down a president is one of the many on-the-job challenges that Sulzberger, 38, has had to take on since assuming the publishers job in January, when he succeeded his father in the role. He is the sixth member of his family to serve as publisher since his great-great-grandfather took control of the paper in 1896. In addition to becoming publisher, he also got married and became a father this year. Sulzberger was visiting Hong Kong for a luxury conference sponsored by the Times. A former reporter at The Providence Journal, The Oregonian and the Times, Sulzberger has taken the reins of the paper in a challenging period for the business of journalism. Newspapers have seen advertising dollars, once the backbone of their revenue, dwindle dramatically in recent years. Ad revenue at US newspapers declined by 23 per cent between 2013 and 2017, according to the PwC Global Media Outlook. The changing business environment has required the Times to shift how it reaches readers and how it pays for its journalism. Subscriptions accounted for 63 per cent of the companys revenue in the first nine months of this year. Advertising both print and digital made up about 30 per cent of its revenue through September. I think the core of my job is to wrestle with a little bit of a paradox, Sulzberger said. Im an agent of continuity and an agent of change. This is a 160-year-old institution that is justifiably proud of its history and traditions, but its also an institution that needs to succeed in a rapidly changing world. How you tell stories is changing. How people find and consume journalism is changing. And the business of journalism is changing. Sulzberger has already played a key role in that change, serving as one of the architects of the papers Innovation Report in 2014. The report prompted the newspaper to adopt a digital-first model. The shift appears to be paying off. The Times surpassed three million digital subscribers in the third quarter and has more than four million subscriptions in total. Its 20-minute, five-day-a-week podcast, The Daily, now has more listeners than people who ever opened the print edition, Sulzberger said. Overall, digital circulation is expected to increase in the US at a compound annual growth rate of 4.4 per cent between 2017 and 2022, according to PwC. Part of the reason for our significant growth over the last two years and its a big part of the reason, is that Facebook, Spotify and many other of these services have trained a generation of internet users to pay for services online, Sulzberger said. I think were benefiting from that shift in behaviour. The growth has allowed the paper to continue to invest in its journalism, particularly internationally, Sulzberger said. The paper had reporters on the ground in 163 countries last year and is the last American news organisation to have a full-time presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sulzberger said. The Times now has 100 people in its Hong Kong operations, he said. Initially we started growing it out at the home base of our Asia coverage, Sulzberger said. Increasingly its also for eight to 10 hours a day, the home base for The New York Times as a whole. This place has become really important to the Times. Despite the migration of readers to the digital product, the print newspaper remains an important part of the Times ongoing strategy, Sulzberger said. We think that the print newspaper has a really important role to play. It still reaches a million loyal readers, a million loyal subscribers, Sulzberger said. Its still a great, robust reading experience that we continue to invest money in, continue to innovate in. The mission of the Times to seek the truth, hold power to account and help people understand the world remains more important than ever, Sulzberger said. Its an extraordinary privilege to be able to serve this institution at this moment in time, Sulzberger said. This is the time when leadership actually matters. This is the time when the future of journalism is being written. Its really uncertain. There are profound forces that are coming in multiple directions, from the decline of trust and the attacks on the free press to the erosion of the business model that supports not just journalism, but a particular type of journalism quality, original, deeply reported journalism. We really need to get those questions right. This article Efforts by Trump, others to discredit press dangerous phenomenon, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger says first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. MANILA, Philippines Peace negotiators from the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) signified their intentions to meet with President Rodrigo Duterte, according to NDFP peace panel chair Fidel Agcaoili. The group seeks to hold the meeting next month upon the arrival of Agcaoili in the Philippines. In a statement posted on NDFP website, Agcaoili said their decision to reach out to President Duterte was hopefully to bring back both parties into the peace negotiating table as required of them under the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). NDFP Negotiating Panel Senior Adviser Luis Jalandoni will also join Agcaoili in the homecoming. We welcome the opportunity to meet with the President unless he does not want to or his military is against it, said the groups main peace negotiator. Agcaoili said they would also talk with the Norwegian Ambassador to the Philippines with the Norwegian government acting as the third party facilitator of the peace process. In response to the communist groups request, President Rodrigo Duterte said in an event in Palawan confirmed that he held a cluster meeting with a representation from the military to discuss the said request of the NDFP. Agcaoili and Jalandoni I will not keep it a secret. I do not want iyang confidential-confidential. Pupunta dito sabi nila gusto nila akong kausapin. Ang problema nila pagka hinuli sila. So sabi ko talagang huhulihin kayo. Sabi niya, gusto daw nila ako makipag makipag-ano sa kanila. So nagtawag ako ng cluster meeting kasali na mga military. So what do you think?, the President said. It was in November last year when President Duterte called off the peace negotiations because of the communist groups lack of sincerity for peace by continuously attacking government troops on the ground. Meanwhile, the President mentioned in March this year that he still welcomes the idea of reopening the talks however, the venue must be in the Philippines which the communist group eventually rejected. Marje Pelayo (with reports from Mirasol Abogadil) The post NDFP signifies intent to talk peace with Duterte appeared first on UNTV News. PHILIPPINE National Police (PNP) chief Oscar Albayalde said on Monday, November 12, that there is no need to deploy policemen in anticipation of the issuance of a written order to arrest Ilocos Norte Representative PHILIPPINE National Police (PNP) chief Oscar Albayalde said on Monday, November 12, that there is no need to deploy policemen in anticipation of the issuance of a written order to arrest Ilocos Norte Representative Imelda Marcos because of her age and health condition. Una the former first lady, hindi naman baka magalit sa atin ang matanda pero may edad na kasi. We have to take into consideration the age. In any arrest or anybody or that matter that has to be taken into consideration, the health, age, isa yun, Albayalde said. Albayalde sought to explain why policemen have not been deployed to the House of Representatives amid criticisms that the police were quick to deploy its men to the Senate in the case of Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who was ordered arrested following the revocation of his amnesty and the revival of the rebellion charge against him. Kanya (Senator Antonio Trillanes IV) is just a pre-emptive measure in case na talagang lumabas (ang arrest warrant). Ito naman (Imelda) kasi wala tayong nakikitang magiging problema sa kanya dahil unang-una, may edad na babae, Albayalde said. Marcos, former first lady of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was found guilty by the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division of seven counts of graft which stemmed from her financial interests and participation in the management of private foundations in Switzerland when she served as a Cabinet official during her late husbands term. The anti-graft court on November 9 verbally ordered the arrest of Marcos and meted her the penalty of imprisonment from six years and one month to 11 years for each count of graft. READ: Sandiganbayan orders arrest of Imelda Marcos The Sandiganbayan also said that Marcos is perpetually disqualified from holding any public post. The PNP said earlier that it is ready to arrest the Ilocos Norte lawmaker, but it was still waiting for the Sandiganbayan order. Opo. Nakahanda po ang PNP kahit kung may kautusan na dadalhin sa Camp Crame nakahanda po kami (The PNP is ready in case there is an order to bring her to Camp Crame), said Albayalde. Story continues Albayalde said he already tapped the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), which will lead the operation in case the arrest order against Marcos is released. We heard na 'yung decision ilalabas today. Kung lalabas 'yung warrant of arrest, it will be the CIDG. I've already told the director ng CIDG to lead kung kami talaga 'yung mautusan na mag-aresto sa kaniya," he said. (We heard that the decision will be issued today. If the arrest warrant is out, I've already told the CIDG director to lead.) Albayalde said the PNP custodial center is already clean and ready to accommodate Marcos, or she might also be detained at the PNP health service considering her age and health condition. (SunStar Philippines) To preserve the beauty of Phukets shrines, the staffs of Novotel Phuket Phokeethra, led by Mr. Cedric Besler, General Manager, donated an impressive sum of money to the three biggest shrines in Phuket town On 16 October 2018. The three shrines include Bang Niew Shrine, Jui-Tui Shrine and Lor Long Shrine that received donation. Moreover, water, rice and oil were donated to all three shrines. Religion is a large part of Thai culture, and shrines as well as temples are revered for their design and historic value. This donation is one of Novotel Phuket Phokeethras CSR activities, which was created to help the local community specifically during the Vegetarian Festival, a very big and popular festival in Phuket. The monetary assistance will go a long way in ensuring that these shrines longevity for future generations to enjoy. Illustration of Lucy. Credit: SwRI Ralph, one of NASA's most well-traveled space explorers, has voyaged far and accomplished much: on the New Horizons mission, Ralph obtained stunning flyby images of Jupiter and its moons; this was followed by a visit to Pluto where Ralph took the first high-definition pictures of the iconic minor planet. And, in 2021, Ralph journeys with the Lucy mission to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids. Ralph, however, is not an impossibly accomplished astronautit is a scientific instrument that has made many discoveries since it first launched aboard the New Horizons spacecraft in 2006. Given a name and not an acronym, Ralph enables the study of the composition and atmospheres of celestial objects. New Horizon's Ralphwhich was the first mission to visit Pluto and its moonswill fly by another Kuiper Belt object called 2014 MU69 (nicknamed Ultima Thule) in January 2019. Ralph's observations of 2014 MU69 will provide unique insights into this small, icy world. The Lucy spacecraft carries a near-twin of Ralph, called L'Ralph ("Lucy Ralph"). This instrument will investigate Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, which are remnants from the early days of the solar system. The L'Ralph instrument suite will study this diverse group of bodies; Lucy will fly by six Trojans and one Main Belt asteroidmore than any other previous asteroid mission. L'Ralph will detect the Trojan asteroids' chemical fingerprints. The Lucy mission payload will investigate the Trojans using: the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (L'LORRI), the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (L'TES), and L'Ralph. L'LORRI will take high-definition photos of the Trojans, and L'TES will analyze the heat given off of the Trojans' surface structures. L'Ralph, meanwhile, allows scientists to interpret data provided by the Sun's reflected light that are the fingerprints of different elements and compounds. These data could provide clues about how organic molecules form in primitive bodies, a process that might also have led to the emergence of life on Earth. L'Ralph's instrument suite contains the Multi-spectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) and the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA), both of which are fed by the same optics, meaning that Ralph can observe both visible and infrared wavelengths. These dual capabilities are what makes Ralph and its cousin L'Ralph so special, according to Dennis Reuter, the instrument principal investigator for L'Ralph. "Most instruments can image visible or infrared wavelengths, but L'Ralph can do both," said Reuter. "We fit everything into this one small package." At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Reuter is also the instrument scientist for Ralph on New Horizons. L'Ralph needs to have many capabilities in a small, light body structure to keep the spacecraft efficient and the mission productive. "The key to instrument design for spacecraft is that you want to keep everything as simple as you can possibly keep it," said Lucy Project Scientist Keith Noll, who is also located at Goddard. "L'Ralph splits light as a function of wavelength: shorter wavelengths of visible light are sent in one direction and the infrared light goes in another direction. You build a picture as the spacecraft flies along." Infrared telescopes are vital for modern astronomy: infrared radiation, though at wavelengths too long for the human eye to see, can be sensed by humans as heat. But breaking this infrared radiation into its constituent "colors," a process called spectroscopy, is where the infrared instruments like L'Ralph LEISA become necessary. In conjunction with L'Ralph MVIC's multi-color mapping ability, L'Ralph LEISA will allow scientists to detect the presence of surface compounds including ices and minerals made from various compounds and, particularly, organic materials. If the L'Ralph instrument suite finds these substances, it will provide key information on the material that replenished the Earth's atmospheres and oceans, after its hot and violent beginnings. In comparison to the Ralph that flies with New Horizons, Lucy's L'Ralph has enhanced technology. It can detect a broader spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, it has a moving mirror that reflects light into L'Ralph instead of requiring movements of the entire spacecraft, and Ralph's infrared detectors are 2,000 pixels square, compared to New Horizons Ralph's 256 by 256, allowing for images with more detail. Originally paired with the ultraviolet spectrometer Alice, Ralph was named for Ralph Kramden of the television show "The Honeymooners," a character whose wife was named Alice. "Since L'Ralph is using the same concept as the Ralph on New Horizons, when we did the proposal, we wanted to connect them," Reuter said. Ralph's lineage was born. As one Ralph advances deeper into the Kuiper Belt and another prepares for its voyage to the Trojan Asteroids, both instruments are tasked with examining some of the oldest bodies in our solar system. Each second of flyby brings us many steps closer to answering an ancient question: how did we get here? Perhaps L'Ralph will help us find this long-awaited answer. Explore further NASA Goddard involved in New Horizons from start Student union protests for Krishna Dhakals release Nepal Student Union, the student wing of Nepali Congress (NC), staged demonstrations in Kavre and Rautahat on Monday, demanding the release of its leader Krishna Dhakal. Parent involvement in school is seen as crucial to student success. Credit: Banter Snaps /Unsplash There is a persistent perception among public high school administrators and staff that working-class immigrant parents are disinterested and uninvolved in their children's education. Parental engagement in schooling globally has been seen as increasingly crucial over the last 15 years. The Ontario Ministry of Education has emphasized its importance for student success. One Ontario report says it is especially important "to engage parents who have been marginalized for reasons such as language, poverty, lack of familiarity with the education system, etc. These students benefit the most from parents' participation in their learning." To explore this issue, we attended weekly social studies classes with Grade 12 students at a small suburban high school in Toronto. We wanted to find out what the students felt about their parents' involvement in their school and their parents' role in their educational journey. The school resides in a neighbourhood that is a new destination for many immigrant families seeking a "better life" and enhanced opportunities for their children. The majority of the studentsabout 70 per centare South Asian while 20 per cent are Black and the remainder mostly white. Fostering parental involvement is the source of some significant concern. At the school we visited, administrators called a meeting with parents and teachers to discuss the strategic development of the school. As they have with other initiatives, the school engaged the services of South Asian interpreters with the hope that this would increase attendance. Most of the teachers were there. No parents attended. As our research unfolded, however, we heard from students that parents were actually very involved when it came to students' academic achievements. During our study, both the parent-teacher night and university information session the school held were very well attended. The discrepancy between perception and reality hinges on the definitions of what "involvement" means and looks like. Involvement: a loaded word Educators' understanding of what constitutes "parental involvement" is likely grounded in privileged middle-class values and expectations. Different cultural roles, expectations and values exist among working-class immigrants that contribute to substantially different relationships with teachers. For working-class immigrants, "home-school relationships are about separateness, whereas for middle-class families they are about interconnectedness." Besides engaging with students in the classroom, we also held a number of focus groups in which we discussed their experiences in school, in their community and in their families. The students passionately defended their parents' perceived lack of school involvement saying that they had "no interest" in having their parents show up at their school. To widespread agreement, one student reading the practices of white parents as rooted in middle class values asserted that parents' involvement in school councils and other events was "what white parents do." Another added, referencing the other neighbourhood high school from which she transferred: "That's like the white parents and stuff at [the neighbouring school]. Their parents were really involved. They'd be in the school and stuff." According to these students, their parents' physical absence from school activities was because they did not see their presence as relevant to their children's academic successes. As one student quoted his father saying: "If everything is OK, why would I go to your school?" Their parents, the students explained, were very involved when it came to emphasizing academic achievement. 'They're working people' Many of the students believed that their parents' level of involvement in institutional matters was due to work and financial necessity. One student said: "It all goes back to time. They've got their own things to do. They work. They're working people and a lot of the women work too. So now, it's both parents working late-night shifts, early shifts. They get tired by the end of the day and it's like OK, I want to come home." Another revealed that her mom worked two jobs. Another student said: "Back in India my dad was an engineer, but here he drives a truck, like all Indians." While the students' parents were not "serving on school councils, meeting with teachers, and volunteering in the classroom or on school trips," as the Ministry definition of parent involvement reads, they fully understood the value their parents placed on education. This was evident in the students' discussion of their parents' expectations about their grades and future careers. They maintained that their parents placed significant pressure on them to do well and the few students who claimed such expectations were not placed on them were told they were "lucky" and that their situation was "not normal." They emphasized that parents expected them to attend university (rather than college). One male participant claimed: "For Indians, your choices are lawyer, doctor, engineer." While not everyone shared their parents' particular career aspirations, they nevertheless took seriously their obligation and responsibility to their parents because of the "sacrifice" their parents made to provide for them. Good vs. bad parents? Writing about educational policy in Britain, sociologist Diane Reay indicates that this "political preoccupation" with parental involvement is related to a shift towards neoliberal rationalizations of education. She suggests that, "this seeming empowerment of parents as partners in their children's learning is, in effect, a delegation of work previously undertaken in the school." The implied message is that "good" parents support their children by actively participating in all aspects of their schooling whereas "bad" parents do not. Rather than benefiting students, Reay suggests that the focus on parental involvement increases "levels of stress and anxiety for all parents" at the same time as exacerbating already existing "inequalities of gender, race and social class." The students' parents demonstrated that despite the economic costs, they were willing to relocate to ensure the welfare of their children. As such, as one young man recalled: "We used to live in a pretty bad area and so now we moved to get away from it and my parents moved to the whitest area you can find. There's only me and this other girl, the only Brown people on our street. So, I think that's my parents' way of getting away from all the violence." In their new neighbourhood, parents hoped that their children would be able to attend "a good school" that would adequately prepare them for educational, occupational and career opportunities. At home, parents pressured their children to work hard, get good grades and avoid trouble. That they fail to see the value in becoming formally involved in the day-to-day operation of the school, points less to some deficiency on their part, or even to barriers to participation, and more towards the need for schools to consider meaningful alternatives for parental and community engagement. Efforts must be made to recognize and adapt to the community contexts that influence students' lives and aspirations, to "ordinary life interactions, events, and settings with family, friends and at school." An understanding of the cultural structures that inform the family situation is imperative if schools are to build a beneficial relationship with parents and their children. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Its not just about the Great Barrier Reef. Queenslands rainforests - particularly in the mountains - will also change thanks to a warming climate. Credit: Shutterstock Climate change and those whose job it is to talk about current and future climate impacts are often classed as the "harbingers of doom". For the world's biodiversity, the predictions are grim - loss of species, loss of pollination, dying coral reefs. The reality is that without human intervention, ecosystems will reshape themselves in response to climate change, what we can think of as "autonomous adaptation". For us humanswe need to decide if we need or want to change that course. For those who look after natural systems, our job description has changed. Until now we have scrambled to protect or restore what we could fairly confidently consider to be "natural". Under climate change knowing what that should look like is hard to decide. If the Great Barrier Reef still has a few pretty fish and coral in the future, and only scientists know they are different species to the past, does that matter? It's an extreme example, but it is a good analogy for the types of decisions we might need to make. In Queensland, the government has just launched the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Climate Adaptation Plan for Queensland focused on what is considered important for making these decisions. The plan is high level, but is an important first step toward preparing the sector for the future. Changing fire patterns and invasive species could see dramatic changes in Queenslands savannah woodlands. Credit: Shutterstock Changing ecosystems For the rest of Queensland's ecosystems the story is much the same as the Great Barrier Reef. There are the obvious regions at risk. Our coastal floodplains and wetlands are potentially under threat from both sides, with housing and development making a landward march and the sea pushing in from the other side. These ecosystems literally have nowhere to go in the crush. It's a similar story for species and ecosystems that specialise on cool, high altitude mountaintops. These small, isolated populations rely on cool conditions. As the temperature warms, if they can't change their behaviour (for instance, by taking refuge in cool spots or crevices during hot times), then it is unlikely they will survive without human intervention such as translocation. We are all too familiar with the risk of coral reefs dying and becoming a habitat for algae, but some of our less high profile ecosystems face similar transformations. Our tropical savannah woodlands cover much of the top third of Queensland. An iconic ecosystem of the north, massive weed invasions and highly altered fire regimes might threaten to make them unrecognisable. So where to from here? From the grim predictions we must rally to find a way forward. Critically for those who must manage our natural areas it's about thinking about what we want to get out of our efforts. The Great Barrier Reef is already seeing major climate impacts, particularly bleaching. Credit: Shutterstock Conservation property owners, both public (for instance, national parks) and private (for instance, not-for-profit conservation groups), must decide what their resources can achieve. Throwing money at a species we cannot save under climate change may be better replaced by focusing on making sure we have species diversity or water quality. It's a hard reality to swallow, but pragmatism is part of the climate change equation. We led the development of the Queensland plan, and were encouraged to discover a sector that had a great deal of knowledge, experience and willingness. The challenge for the Queensland government is to usefully channel that energy into tackling the problem. Valuing biodiversity One of the clearest messages from many of the people we spoke to was about how biodiversity and ecosystems are valued by the wider community. Or not. There was a clear sense that we need to make biodiversity and ecosystems a priority. It's easy to categorise biodiversity and conservation as a "green" issue. But aside from the intrinsic value or personal health and recreation value that most of us place on natural areas, without biodiversity we risk losing things other than a good fishing spot. Every farmer knows the importance of clean water and fertile soil to their economic prosperity. But when our cities bulge, or property is in danger from fire, we prioritise short-term economic returns, more houses or reducing fire risk over biodiversity almost every time. Of course, this is not to say the balance should be flipped, but climate change is challenging our politicians, planners and us as the Queensland community to take responsibility for the effects our choices have on our biodiversity and ecosystems. As the pressure increases to adapt in other sectors, we should seek options that could help rather than hinder adaptation in natural systems. Coastal residences may feel that investing in a seawall to protect their homes from rising sea levels is worthwhile even if it means sacrificing a scrap of coastal wetland, but there are opportunities to satisfy both human needs and biodiversity needs. We hope the Queensland plan can help promote those opportunities. Explore further A changing climate necessitates rethinking tropical marine conservation This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. A power line catches fire as the Woolsey fire burns on both sides of Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1) in Malibu, California, as night falls on November 9, 2018 Wildfires raging in California are among the deadliest recorded in the United States, with at least 31 people killed in the state as 250,000 flee their homes. The largest and most destructive of the blazes is the "Camp Fire" in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which started on November 9 and has claimed 29 lives. This death toll matches the highest previously recorded for a single wildfire in the United States, when 29 people died fighting a blaze at Griffith Park in Los Angeles County in 1933. The United States is regularly struck by wildfires in its dry late summer months. Here is a look back at some of the most deadly since the 1990s: 2018: 10 die in two blazes A fire that starts late July near the city of Redding in northern California rages for six weeks and claims the lives of eight people, three of them firefighters. Called the "Carr Fire," it razes more than 1,000 homes, forcing the evacuation of 40,000 people. The "Mendocino Complex" that starts days later southwest of the city is on August 7 declared to be the largest fire in California's recorded history. It eventually burns through nearly 460,000 acres (186,000 hectares), according to local authorities, and claims two lives. 2017: 42 dead in California California is ravaged by around 20 wildfires from early October that go on to claim 42 lives over the month, most of them in wine-producing Sonoma County, just north of San Francisco, where 22 die. As many as 11,000 firefighterssome from as far away as Australiaare involved in battling the blazes which burn through more than 245,000 acres, force the evacuation of 100,000 people and destroy about 10,000 buildings. 2016: 13 killed in tourist area A fire breaks out late November in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a popular tourist area straddling the border of southeastern US states Tennessee and North Carolina, and rapidly spreads, pushed by strong winds and tornadoes. Thirteen people are killed, 12 directly related to the blaze and one of a heart attack while fleeing, authorities say. 2013: 19 firefighters The rapidly spreading Yarnell Hill fire, which starts in the southwestern state of Arizona late June, claims the lives of 19 firefighters in a single afternoon on June 30 when it explodes into a firestorm. It is the biggest loss of life among firefighters since the September 11, 2001 attacks. 2003: 22 people die Over 10 days in October fires tear through parched southern California, destroying towns and killing at least 22 people, most around San Diego and San Bernardino and two across the border in Mexico. An army of 14,500 firefighters is called in to battle the 17 wildfires that ravage 750,000 acres of land, obliterating around 2,500 houses. 2000: 13 killed as six states burn Over July and August in 2000, 13 people die as dozens of fires burn in six statesCalifornia, Idaho, Florida, Nevada, Montana and Wyoming. Idaho and Montana are the hardest hit with 1.2 million acres ablaze. Among the dead are two prisoners in a volunteer firefighting squad in Utah. 1994: 20 firemen Wildfires that burn in the western United States over four weeks from early July 1994 claim the lives of 20 firefighters and ravage hundreds of thousands of acres of land in several states, including California, Montana and Utah. The heaviest toll is recorded on July 6, when 14 firefighters are killed after being trapped by flames at Glenwood Springs in Colorado. 1991: 25 die, again in California Over a couple of days in October 1991, 25 people are killed in a wildfire that starts in the hills of California, above the town of Oakland, going on to destroy close to 3,000 buildings. Explore further Thousands of firefighters struggle to contain giant blazes in California 2018 AFP Credit: Drexel University In October, major news outlets like The New York Times ran articles with headlines like "Transgender' Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration." Here, the Office of Equality and Diversity's Associate Director of Education and Prevention Jesse Krohn explained what that would mean. Q: What is the story behind the hashtag #WontBeErased? A: Essentially, The New York Times obtained a draft memo showing that the Department of Health and Human Services was privately considering using a definition of the word "sex" as "either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with." Under that definition, laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of "sex" would be interpreted by federal agencies (like the departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, Labor and Education) to exclude transgender and non-binary individuals and others with gender identities that do not align with their sex assigned at birth. To clarify, these agencies would hold that the laws do not cover or protect individuals experiencing discrimination or harassment on the basis of gender identity or gender expression or sexual orientationjust sex assigned at birth. Q: Is this actually happening? If so, when? A: Nothing official has been announced, so this is all speculation. There are rumors based on leaks that this definition will be propounded to relevant federal agencies by the end of the year. But again, nothing official has been announced. Q: What does this mean for the Drexel community? A: Drexel's internal policies already and will continue to explicitly prohibit discrimination or harassment on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. And, because we are located in Philadelphia, our community is also protected by local and state law. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission recently released new guidance expanding the definition of the term "sex" under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act to include "sex assigned at birth, sexual orientation, transgender identity, gender transition, gender identity and/or gender expression depending on the individual facts of the case." The Philadelphia Fair Practices Ordinance also explicitly applies to gender identity and sexual orientation. But not every institution, locality or state has the same protections as Drexel, Philadelphia or Pennsylvania. If the term does end up being redefined, federal civil rights laws pertaining to, for example, employment, education and healthcare could provide limited protections. Q: Should our LGBTQ+ students, faculty and staff be worried? A: It is not helpful to tell people not to worry. Even if this action never takes place, it is hard to overstate the existential anxiety leaks like these provoke. It makes people feel afraid, destabilized and stigmatized. However, practically speaking, lawsuits from civil rights organizations and other institutional plaintiffs would be filed immediately, and there is a significant and growing amount of legal precedent out there that this action would contradict. There are decades-old cases that protect, for example, people being harassed at school or work because of gender expression, and those precedents don't just disappear. Q: Is the new proposed definition clearly illegal? A: Unfortunately, there is a big hole in civil rights law pertaining to discrimination and harassment targeting members of the LGBTQ+ community. Federal civil rights law, and most states' civil rights laws, do not explicitly address sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expressionjust "sex." In the absence of laws that would close this gap, like the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act, courts have effectively protected LGBTQ+ people by stretching the definition of discrimination on the basis of "sex" to include gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. This is what the new definition would prohibit. For example, consider a case where employment discrimination against a lesbian woman is deemed a form of discrimination on the basis of sex because the employer would not have discriminated against a man with a woman as a partner, but the employer is discriminating against a woman with a woman as a partner. Another example would be a court determining that educational discrimination against a transgender man is a form of discrimination on the basis of sex, because the school would not have discriminated against a person assigned male at birth who identifies as a man, but the school is discriminating against a person assigned female at birth who identifies as a man. Each case is fact-specific, and each judge interprets the law individually, which can cause confusion and stress. Q: What can LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff do for support? A: The University does offer important confidential resources like the Counseling Center, pastoral counselors in Spiritual and Religious Life and the Employee Assistance Program. There are also peer resources like the LBTQA+ Faculty and Professional Staff Network, LGBTQ+ student organizations and the Gender and Sexuality Resource Space. Questions can be directed to the Office of Equality and Diversity by email, phone (215.895.1405) or in person at the James E. Marks Intercultural Center (3225 Arch St.). Finally, it is important for our heterosexual and cisgender students and colleagues to remember that our LGBTQ+ students and colleagues need support and allies. Explore further Transgender and non-binary people face health care discrimination every day in the US When rotated rapidly, symmetric molecules like phosphine (PH) lose their symmetry: The bond between phosphorus and hydrogen along the axis of rotation is shorter than the other two such bonds. Depending on the direction of rotation, two mirror-inverted versions of the molecule are formed. Credit: DESY, Andrey Yachmenev Exploring the mystery of molecular handedness in nature, scientists have proposed a new experimental scheme to create custom-made mirror molecules for analysis. The technique can make ordinary molecules spin so fast that they lose their normal symmetry and shape and form mirrored versions of each other. The research team from DESY, Universitat Hamburg and University College London led by Jochen Kupper describes the innovative method in the journal Physical Review Letters. The further exploration of handedness, or chirality (from the ancient Greek word for hand, "cheir"), does not only enhance insight in the workings of nature, but could also pave the way for new materials and methods. Like your hands, many molecules in nature exist in two versions that are mirror images of each other. "For unknown reasons, life as we know it on Earth almost exclusively prefers left-handed proteins, while the genome is organised as the famous right-handed double helix," explains Andrey Yachmenev, who lead this theoretical work in Kupper's group at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL). "For more than a century, researchers have been unravelling the secrets of this handedness in nature, which does not only affect the living worldmirror versions of certain molecules alter chemical reactions and change the behaviour of materials." For instance, the right-handed version of caravone (C 10 H 14 O) gives caraway its distinctive taste, while the left-handed version is a key factor for the taste of spearmint. Handedness, or chirality, only occurs naturally in some types of molecules. "However, it can be artificially induced in so-called symmetric-top molecules," says co-author Alec Owens from the Center for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI). "If these molecules are stirred fast enough, they lose their symmetry and form two mirror forms, depending on their sense of rotation. So far, very little is known about this phenomenon of rotationally-induced chirality, because hardly any schemes for its generation exist that can be followed experimentally." Kupper's team has now computationally devised a way to achieve this rotationally-induced chirality with realistic parameters in the lab. It uses corkscrew-shaped laser pulses known as optical centrifuges. For the example of phosphine (PH 3 ) their quantum-mechanical calculations show that at rotation rates of trillions of times per second the phosphorus-hydrogen bond that the molecule rotates about becomes shorter than the other two of these bonds, and depending on the sense of rotation, two chiral forms of phosphine emerge. "Using a strong static electric field, the left-handed or right-handed version of the spinning phosphine can be selected," explains Yachmenev. "To still achieve the ultra-fast unidirectional rotation, the corkscrew-laser needs to be fine-tuned, but to realistic parameters." This scheme promises a completely new path through the looking-glass into the mirror world, as it would in principle also work with other, heavier molecules. In fact, these would actually require weaker laser pulses and electric fields, but were just too complex to be solved in these first stages of the investigation. However, as phosphine is highly toxic, such heavier and also slower molecules would probably be preferred for experiments. The proposed method could deliver tailor-made mirror molecules, and the investigation of their interactions with the environment, for instance with polarized light, should help to further penetrate the mysteries of handedness in nature and explore its possible utilization, expects Kupper, who is also a professor of physics and of chemistry at Universitat Hamburg: "Faciliating a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of handedness this way could also contribute to the development of chirality-based tailor-made molecules and materials, novel states of matter, and the potential utilization of rotationally-induced chirality in novel metamaterials or optical devices." Explore further Modified optical centrifuge has potential to open up new ways for the study of superrotors More information: Alec Owens et al, Climbing the Rotational Ladder to Chirality, Physical Review Letters (2018). Journal information: Physical Review Letters Alec Owens et al, Climbing the Rotational Ladder to Chirality,(2018). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.193201 The Tomato, (Lycopersicon lycopersicum) flowering, associated with a young, developing fruit. Credit: Earth100/Wikipedia From elongated oblongs to near-perfect spheres, vegetables come in almost every size and shape. But what differentiates a fingerling potato from a russet or a Roma tomato from a beefsteak? Researchers at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences have recently found the genetic mechanism that controls the shape of our favorite fruits, vegetables and grains. In article published Nov. 10 in the journal Nature Communications, Esther van der Knaap, professor of horticulture, and her team at UGA detail a set of genetic traits, shared by multiple plants, that have been found to control the fruit, leaf or seed shape in each. "We may be able to explain the shapes of many fruits and vegetables through a similar mechanism to the one we described in tomatoes," van der Knaap said. "We found that in tomatoes, plant cells in the fruit divide in a column or in a row and that will determine their shape. We also found that this mechanism is likely the same in several other plant species: melons, cucumbers, potatoes. We've even been able to go as far as finding that the same mechanism controls the shape of rice grains as well as leaves." The discovery of the genetic pathways that control shape are important for plant breeders but the information is also crucial for a better understanding of plant evolution and development. As part of a National Science Foundation and United States Department of Agriculture-funded projects, this paper expands on van der Knaap's previous work to locate the genes that account for the wide variety of tomato shapes and sizes. In those studies, she found that the genetic sequences that control the shape and size of tomatoes do so by controlling cell division or cell size. Many of the genetic sequences are representing genes that each tell a small story about how the fruits form. Some of these genes affect the size and shape of the fruit at the later stages of development, just before the fruit is ripening. Others affect the shape and size much earlier even before flowering. In this study, by looking at the genetic mechanisms and genomes of other vegetables and fruits, van der Knaap's team was able to locate similar sets of genes in many other plants. Potatoes and tomatoes are members of the Solanaceae family and these species are very closely related. Nearly all genes in these two genomes are collinear with one another. This often means that the same gene controls related traits in both species. With respect to tomato, the gene that controls fruit shape also controls potato tuber shape as it is found in the same location in the genome. Explore further Crop scientists discover gene that controls fruit shape More information: Shan Wu et al. A common genetic mechanism underlies morphological diversity in fruits and other plant organs, Nature Communications (2018). Journal information: Nature Communications Shan Wu et al. A common genetic mechanism underlies morphological diversity in fruits and other plant organs,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07216-8 A view of Long Island City in the Queens borough of New Yorkit could be the new home of a satellite headquarters for Amazon New York's Long Island City, where Amazon is tipped to set up a new home, is a neighborhood in fluxa construction site of warehouses and skyscrapers where some fear the online retail giant will only make everything worse. While nothing has been announced officially, The New York Times has reported that Amazon, which is outgrowing its headquarters in Seattle, has finally found the answer to its year-long search for a second base. The plan appears to be to split the difference on the East Coast with two new sitesone in Virginia just outside Washington and the other in Long Island City, the westernmost part of Queens just across the East River from Manhattan. For those who don't venture across the water, Long Island City is synonymous with the giant neon red "Pepsi-Cola" sign visible from Manhattan, a relic from the beverage company's factory that shut down in 1999. It's a hallmark of what Long Island City was for most of the 20th centuryan industrial zone close to the river and the rail network. But de-industrialization has forced the neighborhood to reinvent itself since the dawn of the 21st century. In the last 10 years, dozens of new towers have sprung up, injecting a new, more affluent breed of resident into the area along with companies such as Ralph Lauren and Uber, seduced by the proximity to Manhattan and New York's airports. A view of the waterfront of Long Island Citywhich is just across the East River from Manhattan The bank of the East River has been transformed into a landscaped park, invaded by designer strollers and joggers. "They have built, built, built," says Pascal Escriout, who owns French bistro Tournesol in Long Island City. "Amazon coming or not doesn't make a difference. If it's not them, it'll be someone else." 'Priced out' "The place changed so much in the last 10 years, it's just going to be some part of the neighborhood," says Mike Barratt, a store manager at Spokesman Cycles in southwest Long Island City. The exact "campus" space that Amazon could inhabit has not yet been made revealed, but there are plenty of options in a neighborhood where uber-modern skyscrapers rub shoulders with disused factory chimneys. Some compare Long Island City to Williamsburg, perhaps the most chic Brooklyn neighborhoodand certainly the most fashionable and most striking example of gentrification over the last 20 years. There is an uneasy balance between young families who move in and buy at elevated pricesalbeit still lower than in Manhattanand long-term residents of the neighborhood. The exact "campus" space that Amazon could inhabit in Long Island City has not yet been made revealed, but there are plenty of options in a neighborhood where uber-modern skyscrapers rub shoulders with disused factory chimneys "A lot of people don't own but they've been living here renting for 15, 20 years, and they're getting priced out," said Barratt. "They're upset." Long Island City has turned into a commuter town, complains Escriout. "People stay home. And when they go out, they go to Manhattan." Dozens of luxury high-rise buildings, eminently suitable for senior Amazon executives, had been in the planning well before the company came on the scene, says Jonathan Miller, CEO of the real-estate firm Miller Samuel. Amazon's arrival could end up "essentially bailing out developers that went ahead despite the excess supply... most of the product that's being built is skewed to luxury rental projects," he said. 'Congested transit' Many also worry about the impact 25,000 new employees will have on the already crisis-ridden public transport system. "This isn't a done deal," said Jimmy Van Bramer, Long Island City's elected representative on the New York City Council. Many in Long Island City are worried about how an influx of thousands of Amazon employees could affect public transportation "Before anything is confirmed with Amazon, we've got to make sure that we could handle this and that sustainable infrastructure would be put in place to prevent our communities from being overwhelmed. "We cannot allow longtime residents to be driven out by rising rents and congested transit," he added. He complained about a lack of transparency, with New York's newly re-elected Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo talking about all the benefits without actually spelling out what they might be. "I will do whatever I need to do to make it a reality," Cuomo said last Monday, promising Amazon would be "a great economic boost" for the state. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who traditionally has a terse relationship with the governor, is also on board. "There will be hassles, there will be challenges, but I think we can accommodate them," he said on Wednesday. "We will have to invest in infrastructure. I think it will be worth it." Explore further Amazon mum on reports it will split new headquarters 2018 AFP New research debunks a long-held theory that Miscanthus and other grass crops are susceptible to cold because they lack the space in their leaves needed to boost photosynthetic efficiency in low temperatures. Credit: University of Illinois When temperatures drop, the enzyme Rubisco that fuels plant growth and yield gets sluggish. Many crops compensate by producing more Rubisco; however, scientists speculated that some crops may lack space in their leaves to boost the production of this enzyme, making them more susceptible to cold. A new study from the University of Illinois and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology refutes this theory but found these crops are far from reaching their photosynthetic potential. Plant scientists knew soybeans, rice, and other C3 crops have room for extra Rubisco in their leaves. However, C4 cropssuch as corn and sugarcaneuse mesophyll cells to biochemically pump carbon dioxide into their inner cells, called the bundle sheath, where Rubisco resides amongst carbon dioxide concentrations that are ten times greater than atmospheric levels. More carbon dioxide makes Rubisco more efficient. "But by isolating the enzyme to just one part of the leaf, would there be enough space for the larger amount of Rubisco needed at lower temperatures?" said Stephen Long, Ikenberry Endowed University Chair of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois. Published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, the study measured the volume of the Rubisco-holding chloroplasts that reside in the bundle sheaths of corn, sugarcane, as well as cold-tolerant Miscanthus. The team concluded that these C4 crops' chloroplast volumes are sufficient to hold more than enough Rubisco to conduct photosynthesis at low temperatures. Curiously, Miscanthus had the smallest chloroplasts, showing there was no connection between chloroplast volume and cold tolerance. By analyzing these cross sections of leaves, scientists debunked a long-held theory that several grass crops are susceptible to cold because they lack the space in their leaves needed to boost photosynthetic efficiency in low temperatures. Credit: Charles Pignon, Marjorie Lundgren, Colin Osborne, and Stephen Long "Yet these plants are still not able to reach their maximal potential energy output," said lead author Charles Pignon, a postdoctoral researcher at Illinois, whose work was supported by the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell endowment. "Now that we've ruled out space as a limiting factor, we need to explore what other factors are impacting the cold tolerance of these important crops." By unlocking the key to cold tolerance, plant scientists can extend the growing region and season of these crops to boost food and bioenergy production across the globe. Next, the researchers plan to compare the cold tolerance of Miscanthus varieties to pinpoint important differences. The open-access paper "Bundle sheath chloroplast volume can house sufficient Rubisco to avoid limiting C4 photosynthesis during chilling" is published by Journal of Experimental Botany. By analyzing the cross sections of leaves, scientists debunked a long-held theory that several grass crops are susceptible to cold because they lack the space in their leaves needed to boost photosynthetic efficiency in low temperatures. Credit: Charles Pignon, Marjorie Lundgren, Colin Osborne, and Stephen Long Explore further Designing a more productive corn able to cope with future climates More information: Charles P Pignon et al, Bundle sheath chloroplast volume can house sufficient Rubisco to avoid limiting C4 photosynthesis during chilling, Journal of Experimental Botany (2018). Charles P Pignon et al, Bundle sheath chloroplast volume can house sufficient Rubisco to avoid limiting C4 photosynthesis during chilling,(2018). DOI: 10.1093/jxb/ery345 A study conducted by ecologists from the NUS Department of Biological Sciences showed that the crab spider Thomisus nepenthiphilus lives exclusively in the slender pitcher plant Nepenthes gracilis, and provides supplementary nutrients for its host. NUS doctoral student Mr Lam Weng Ngai is a key member of the research team. Credit: National University of Singapore Two recent studies by ecologists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have shed light on the relationship between the slender pitcher plant and its 'tenant', the crab spider Thomisus nepenthiphilus, providing insights into the little known foraging behaviours of the spider. Thomisus nepenthiphilus is found only in the slender pitcher plant Nepenthes gracilis, which is native to Singapore and can also be found in Indonesia, Borneo, and Malaysia. Although the pitcher plant is a carnivore that traps and devours insects to supplement its nutrient requirements, the crab spider Thomisus nepenthiphilus is able to exploit the pitcher plant's sweet-smelling nectar to catch its prey while at the same time, provide supplementary nutrients for its host. "Our two studies provide important insights into the circumstances that favour cooperation over parasitism, and the results are pivotal in attaining a better understanding of these interactions," said research supervisor Associate Professor Hugh Tan, who is from the Department of Biological Sciences at the NUS Faculty of Science. The benefit of being 'robbed' In the first study, Assoc Prof Tan, together with doctoral student Mr Lam Weng Ngai and former undergraduate student Miss Robyn Lim, found that pitchers that are without any crab spider get more nutrients out of each prey, while those inhabited by 'tenants' trap more prey but get less nutrients from each prey. Their laboratory experiments found that the crab spider ambushes flies that feed at the pitcher plant and sucks the body fluids of the insect prey. The crab spider subsequently drops the carcasses of the prey, which still contain some nutrients, into the fluids in the pitcher for it to digest. As such, although the crab spider 'steals' from the pitcher plant and gets the first taste of the prey, the net effect of this 'burglary' can still be beneficial to the pitcher plant as it gets the residual nutrients from the prey. The findings suggest that when resources are scarce, this partnership between the crab spider and the pitcher plant is beneficial. However, when resources are abundant, this partnership is not favourable. The results of the study were published in the journal Oecologia on 14 August 2018. "A trend that has been observed in recent mutualism research is that under more stressful conditions, the frequency and intensity of mutualism between the different organisms increases. Our findings support this observation. In other words, the age-old adage 'a friend in need is a friend indeed' is true not just for humans, but also for plants and animals," said Assoc Prof Tan. Although the crab spider Thomisus nepenthiphilus steals prey from its host, the slender pitcher plant Nepenthes gracilis, a study by ecologists from the National University of Singapore found that the net effect of this burglary can still be beneficial to the pitcher plant as it gets the residual nutrients from the prey discarded by the crab spider. Credit: Lam Weng Ngai, NUS Department of Biological Sciences Big prey, big gains Assoc Prof Tan and Mr Lam also conducted additional experiments in the natural habitat of the plants. Through field surveys, the researchers identified the species of prey that were found to be in greater numbers in pitchers that were inhabited by spiders, and those that were not. Laboratory experiments were conducted to measure the nutrient contents of these prey species to estimate how much nutrients the pitchers would obtain if the prey had been trapped with, and without, the help of the crab spiders. "Our results confirm the findings of our earlier study the T. nepenthiphilus crab spider does indeed help the N. gracilis pitcher plant catch many different species of prey. More importantly, the net contribution of T. nepenthiphilus to N. gracilis' nutrition appears to be proportional to the size of prey that T. nepenthiphilus catches," explained Mr Lam. He elaborated, "If the crab spider only catches small prey, such as mosquitoes or scuttle flies, the net benefit to the pitcher plant will be negativeit will be 'stealing' nutrients from the pitcher plant. However, when the crab spider catches large insects like cockroaches or large bugs, the pitcher plant will benefit, as the 'service charge' paid to the crab spider becomes small compared to the total amount of nutrients gained through the interaction. As such, the residual nutrients that the pitcher plant receives from the carcasses discarded by the crab spider is a good trade-off." The results of this study were published in the Journal of Animal Ecology on 10 October 2018. Theoretical model to be constructed Based on the insights gained from these two studies, the research team is now constructing a theoretical model on mutualisms that involve the provision of nutrients by one species to another. Such a model will allow scientists to examine the factors that make mutualisms stable, and monitor how changes in the environment, such as global warming or habitat modification, will alter the ecological outcomes. Explore further Ants and carnivorous plants conspire for mutualistic feeding More information: Robyn Jing Ying Lim et al. Novel pitcher plantspider mutualism is dependent upon environmental resource abundance, Oecologia (2018). Robyn Jing Ying Lim et al. Novel pitcher plantspider mutualism is dependent upon environmental resource abundance,(2018). DOI: 10.1007/s00442-018-4246-8 Weng Ngai Lam et al. The crab spider-pitcher plant relationship is a nutritional mutualism that is dependent on prey-resource quality, Journal of Animal Ecology (2018). DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12915 Journal information: Oecologia , Journal of Animal Ecology As the world's population approaches 9 billion people, it's important to take note of the fact that people are getting larger and need more calories than they once did. Credit: NTNU Food demand is growing as people are getting bigger. Feeding a population of 9 billion in 2050 will require much more food than previously calculated. "It will be harder to feed 9 billion people in 2050 than it would be today," says Gibran Vita, a Ph.D. candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology 's Industrial Ecology Programme. According to WWF, the world's greatest environmental problem is the destruction of wildlife and plant habitat. A large part of the devastation is due to the demands of an ever-growing human population. On the other hand, Zero Hunger is the second U.N. Sustainable Development Goal, and its challenge is to meet a global growing food demand. The world's population could level off at around 9 billion in a few years, compared to just over 7.6 billion now. But an average person in the future will require more food than today. Changes in eating habits, attitudes toward food waste, increases in height and body mass, and demographic transitions are some of the reasons. People are changing Professor Daniel B. Muller and colleagues Felipe Vasquez and Vita analysed changes in the populations of 186 countries between 1975 and 2014. "We studied the effects of two phenomena. One is that people on average have become taller and heavier. The second is that the average population is getting older," said Vita. The first phenomenon contributes to increased food demand. The second counteracts the former one. An average adult in 2014 was 14 percent heavier, about 1.3 percent taller, 6.2 percent older, and needed 6.1 percent more energy than in 1975. Researchers expect this trend to continue for most countries. "An average global adult consumed 2465 kilocalories per day in 1975. In 2014, the average adult consumed 2615 kilocalories," says Vita. Globally, human consumption increased by 129 percent during this time span. Population growth was responsible for 116 percent, while increased weight and height accounted for 15 percent. Older people need a little less food, but an ageing population results in only two percent less consumption. "The additional 13 percent corresponds to the needs of 286 million people," Vasquez says. This in turn corresponds approximately to the food needs of Indonesia and Scandinavia combined. Major differences Considerable variations exist between countries. Weight gain per person from 1975 to 2014 ranged from 6 to 33 percent, and the increased energy requirement ranged from 0.9 to 16 percent. An average person from Tonga weighs 93 kilos. An average Vietnamese weighs 52 kilos. This means that Tonga people need 800 more kilocalories each dayor about four bowls of oatmeal. Some countries are changing quickly. On Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, the average weight rose from 62 kilos in 1975 to 82 kilos 40 years later. The lowest and highest changes are found in Asia and Africa, reflecting the disparities between the countries of these continents. Not previously calculated "Previous studies haven't taken the increased demands of larger individuals and aged societies into account when calculating the future food needs of a growing population," said Vasquez. Most studies estimate that an average adult's food needs remain constant over time and fairly similar across nations. But that's not how it is. "These assumptions can lead to errors in assessing how much food we'll actually need to meet future demand," Vasquez says. This study provides relevant information for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which is a leader in the struggle to ensure food security for all. Vasquez and Vita say that we have to look at more than just the number of people in an area to understand the mechanisms behind their consumption. This requires a multidisciplinary approach that considers both social and physiological factors. This study's analysis involved bio-demography, a hybrid of biology and demography. The researchers adapted a model for dynamic systems that is often used in industrial ecology to study resource stocks and flows. More information: Felipe Vasquez et al, Food Security for an Aging and Heavier Population, Sustainability (2018). Felipe Vasquez et al, Food Security for an Aging and Heavier Population,(2018). DOI: 10.3390/su10103683 Over 15 wounded in jackal attack A jackal attack at Likhu Rural Municipality in Nuwakot on Saturday has left over 15 people injured, according to the Area Police Office. At a town hall meeting in Ohio in March 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said: "I'm the only candidate who has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?" This statement, she later admitted in her book What Happened, was her biggest regret from the campaign trail. The reason? Coal workers and communities in the United States overwhelmingly supported the rise of Donald Trump because he promised to bring back coal jobs, while Clinton had pledged new jobs and new economic investments in coal communities using clean energy. Four key coal-producing states Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania collectively produce more than two-thirds of U.S. coal. In 2016, Trump received more than 30 per cent more votes than Clinton in three of those states. He also won the fourth, Pennsylvania, just not by as much. Once he became president, Trump pledged to pull out of the Paris climate agreement and his government launched a slew of anti-climate and pro-fossil-fuel policies. In the recent U.S. midterm elections, Republican candidates for the House of Representatives won almost all seats in coal-producing Wyoming, West Virginia and Kentucky with huge margins. Despite politically powerful coal communities helping elect a president who vowed to guarantee their continued prosperity, their future remains more uncertain than ever. To understand this, it's necessary to understand the power of coal communities and the future of coal. The political power of coal communities The configuration and structure of the coal industry reveals why coal communities remain strong politically. Our calculations show that approximately 100,000 people work directly in the coal industry in the U.S.with an almost equal split between coal miners and power plant workers. This number may seem small in a country like the United States, but these 100,000 jobs and revenue from coal operations support an even larger number of people. There are a large number of "indirect jobs" for people who work on a contractual basis within the broader coal industry. This includes, for example, workers in manufacturing industries that supply equipment and provide transportation services to coal operators. Studies have shown that every 10 coal jobs support at least an equal number of indirect jobs. But that is just the coal industry. Hundreds of thousands of people work in local retail industries in coal towns such as in coffee shops, grocery stores and bars. These are "induced jobs" and, in the absence of alternative industries, the survival of these jobs depends on the survival of coal. Additionally, older retired coal workers' pensions are dependent on the survival of the coal industry. For example, the United Mine Workers of America, the leading trade union in the U.S., runs a pension fund with only 10,000 workers supporting over 120,000 retired coal workers. There are several other pension funds in the U.S. that support retired coal workers. When we add up all these direct, indirect and induced jobs, and pensioners (and all their families), suddenly the coal community looks big. And they all are tied together by a single threadthe survival of coal. 'Sense of belonging' Studies have also shown that coal industry workers, particularly coal miners, have a strong sense of belonging to the place where they live and work, and have very strong social bonding. For several generations, the coal industry is what they know, and whatever they have is because of this industry. In coal towns, coal is considered an iconic industry that built the United States as we know it today. It's for these reasons that despite the decline of direct employment, overall coal communities still remain a formidable political force. Despite their political power, the U.S. coal industry is struggling. It has seen an unprecedented decline in both coal production and coal-based power generation in the last few years. A core issue is that coal is unable to compete with cheap natural gas and the rise of renewables is not helping either. In 2018, even with Trump almost half way through his presidency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that in 2018, the share of electricity production using natural gas will increase to 35 per cent from 32 per cent last year and coal-based power will decline from 30 per cent to 28 per cent. Coal and natural gas compete tooth and nail in the electricity sector. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has also predicted:"This year [2018] will most likely see a record set for coal-fired power capacity retirements in the U.S." If this wasn't already bad news for the coal industry, a new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report claimed that to meet the 1.5C climate target, coal's share in the energy mix would need to decrease by 59 to 78 per cent by 2030 and 73 to 97 per cent by 2050. This will likely squeeze U.S. coal exports further, even if it doesn't change domestic consumption. Europe imports a large portion of American coal and will now face increased pressure from environmental groups and political parties to stop burning coal. Domestic and foreign action on climate change will mean further declines in both coal mining and coal power plant jobs and the associated jobs and pensions. So, what's next for these communities? The coal communities are caught between maintaining the status quo or making a hard shift to a different future. That kind of shift has not always been good for workers. One only has to look at the decline of the coal industry in the United Kingdom or of steel in the U.S. Midwest to see what can happen. If the coal industry is close to a point of no return globally and in the United States, it's important that coal workers and their communities leverage their political power to elect politicians who will provide the right leadership for them looking forward. In the last presidential election and the recent mid-term elections, coal country tilted heavily towards a promise of the status quo. In future elections, a promise of a just transition for workers and their communities may hold more sway. That will probably only happen if politicians and those seeking to hasten that transition actively engage with coal communities. Explore further Warren Buffett says coal won't make a comeback This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. An analysis of major health research prizes, including the Canada Gairdner International Award, found that few Canadian-based scientists are winning these prestigious prizes. The article is published in). The prestigious Gairdner award, which is often called the "pre-Nobel," has seen numbers of Canadian-based researchers decline over time since its inception in 1959 from 35 winners in the first three decades to 12 in the last 30 years. For other major prizes, only 11% were awarded to Canadian-based scientists. Authors Dr. David Naylor, University of Toronto, and Robert Redelmeier, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, suggest that the decline is due not to chance but to a "home-ice edge" in the early years of the Gairdner and a more thorough selection process in later decades. Funding patterns could also be a factor as government funding has been inconsistent. More information: Robert J. Redelmeier et al. Canadian and international winners of major health research prizes, 19592018, Canadian Medical Association Journal (2018). DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.181056 Provided by Canadian Medical Association Journal Pant couple stage sit-in for justice Frustrated by months of inaction and a lack of progress on identifying the perpetrators, the parents of Nirmala Pant, who was raped and murdered in Kanchanpur, began an indefinite sit-in before the Kanchanpur District Administration Office (DAO) on Sunday. Sailendra Adhikari is an online reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering a wide range of issues, including politics, society, sports, arts and entertainment. American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at [email protected] | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. Provinces to act jointly against executive order A Cabinet meeting last month issued the order entitled Executive Order to maintain peace and security and Provincial Police Administration-2018, as provisioned by Schedule 6 of the constitution. Reconstruction for retention Shortly after the devastating earthquake struck Nepal in 2015, tourismone of the largest industries in the country faced a tremendous downfall. Tourist arrivals dipped down by 30 percent compared to the previous year. Fortunately, the number has risen since, reaching its all-time highestcloser to a million peoplein 2017. Judith Dale built her career in education; served or continues to serve the SYV community as Santa Barbara County 3rd District representative to the Library Advisory Board; the Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital Foundation board; and as a former mayor of Buellton. This report was compiled by Lisa Andre. You can reach her at landre@leecentralcoastnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @LAndreSYVNews Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. This article was supported by The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. This years world food security report found world hunger rising for the third year in a row. The report cited climate change and conflict as the most important drivers behind this trend. Paul Winters, associate vice-president of the Strategy and Knowledge Department at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), says hunger remains a moving target for those trying to tackle it. IFAD is one of the UN agencies behind the report, The agency aims to boost income and livelihoods for farmers in poor rural households. In this interview, part of our Bellagio Residency 2018 series, Winters tells SciDev.Net how technology features in IFADs workand why simply rolling out technological tools isnt enough to transform the poorest areas. What does IFAD see as crucial spending areas for science and technology? One of the main fields is climate change. The latest UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Changes special report shows that things are more dire than we had anticipated. The group that's going to be most affected by climate change are poor farmers. How can we use technology to address that? Part of that is developing better crop varieties that deal with droughts, floods and changing conditions. But a lot of it is about digital technologygetting information. One of the things we found is that in science there's still a bias towards staple crops, even though countries are utilising a broader crop base. Paul Winters, IFAD The IPCC said we need to have more knowledge about micro-level impacts. We have a lot of tested models of resource management that allow farmers to adapt to climate change. The problem, though, is that conditions are going to be changing [due to climate change], and so it's hard to know for sure whether the actions we're taking will be appropriate for a new context. We need to keep experimenting. Where have you seen the context change? We did an impact evaluation of an irrigation and rehabilitation system used in three regions in the Philippines, and we found that two of the areas did pretty well: we saw increased rice yields, increased market access, increased income. But in one of the areas we didn't find anything positive. This was an area that was hit by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. We hadn't factored in this kind of high-risk event. It wasn't that the tsunami destroyed the irrigation system, but it destroyed the collective management of it, as people had to deal with other issues. That's the kind of thing we need to start building into projects: to not just think in terms of the technology, but the risks associated with it. And how to respond if there's a climate event. What technologies are you investing in? Traditionally, there's been a lot of work on staple crops; rice, wheat, corn, potatoes, and so on. IFAD has moved away from that, and more towards high-value crops like coffee and cocoa. One of the things we found is that in science there's still a bias towards staple crops, even though countries are utilising a broader crop base. We need to pay more attention to other crops that have more potential value for poor farmers. In your efforts to push high-value crops, what obstacles are you finding? One very tangible example is Ethiopia: again it was an irrigation project that aimed to empower farmers in designing and maintaining irrigation systems. It worked very wellthey changed their cash crops to agricultural crops with high-market value. But we didn't plan well enough for the post-harvest stage and where the farmers would sell those crops. Now we are doing a new project there, which is a combination of trying to work with the private sector to facilitate information on where markets are, and how farmers can sell there collectively. What incentives do you think people need to get organised? When there's income to be earned, the farmers are usually happy to organise. The biggest limitation is the private sector. If I set up a factory to process food items, but the weather is bad and my suppliers get hurt, then I suddenly dont have any supply chain to draw from. So, it's always high-risk for industry to get involved. One of the things we're working on is trying to find some ways of de-risking investments. But poor farmers face constraints that require additional action to make sure that the transformation of these rural areas is inclusive. Paul Winters, IFAD The other challenge with the private sector is that it's very hard to deal with many smallholders individually. I once interviewed the buyer for Frito-Lay potatoes, and he told me he would be happy to buy potatoes from smallholders, but he did not want to deal with 1,000 of them. The transaction costs were just too high. Companies need potatoes at a certain time to meet production needs, and they need a certain quality. The private sector can be quite receptive, but they need to make money, and you have to work with them to try to overcome risks and costs. Have you seen an example of real change from a technological intervention? If you put technologies out there, the farmers in the best position to take advantage of them are the ones that are better off. A lot of what I've been mentioning has to do with how you get technology to smallholders, and how you get the poor farmers to participate. The success stories are around storage facilitiesthere's a famous one in northern India , in which the government provided subsidies to stimulate the take-off of cold storage for potatoes. They ended up with farmers getting substantial income gains. Another great example, also from India, involves information and communication technologies. Fishers would use their cell phones and go to the market where prices were best, based on real-time information.These are examples where technology has been critical for improvement. But poor farmers face constraints that require additional action to make sure that the transformation of these rural areas is inclusive. It won't happen automaticallyit has to be made to happen. This article was supported by The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. For nearly 60 years the Bellagio Center has supported individuals working to improve the lives of poor and vulnerable people globally through its conference and residency programs, and has served as a catalyst for transformative ideas, initiatives, and collaborations. From November 5 December 3, 2018, the Bellagio Center hosted a special thematic residency on Science for Development, with a cohort of up to 15 scholars, practitioners, and artists whose work is advancing, informing, communicating, or is inspired by the use or design of science and technology to address social and environmental challenges around the world. [CAPE TOWN] Keeping animals out of the home may improve childhood nutrition and reduce instances of stunting, according to a study undertaken in a Gambian village. The study analysed 230 children of Gambian staff living at the Medical Research Unit in rural Keneba between 1993 and 2009. The staff included scientists, physicians, laboratory technicians and support staff, such as cleaners. The population was chosen because of its diversity of wealth, education housing conditions and access to free health services. Not surprising, those with the lowest socio-economic scores had the shortest, most stunted children, and the gradient wasnt as big as wed expected, says co-author Andrew Prentice, professor of international nutrition at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The group at the top, however, had the widest variation. We speculate the key issue to combat malnutrition is piped water and keeping animals out of the home. Andrew Prentice, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Half of children in this upper grouping lived in Western-style housing with running water, flushable toilets and kept animals out of the home. The other half lived within the village without similar amenities. Comparisons of these children showed that those living in Western-style houses grew well, with no incidents of stunting or underweight. Children in the village fared less well, with below average height and weight. According to the 2017 WHO Africa Nutrition Report, 58.5 million children suffered stuntingbeing too short for ones agein 2016. The WHO global targets include a 40 per cent reduction of the number of low-weight-for-height children under five years old by 2025. Keeping animals such as poultry, which can be disease carriers, free range in the home can contribute to childhood diseases that exacerbate malnutrition, Prentice explains. We speculate the key issue [to combat malnutrition] is piped water and keeping animals out of the home, he says. The research, which was published in BMC Medicine on 1 November , was limited to the Gambia. Doug Mombert, a doctoral fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, says that context and culture vary significantly across the Africa continent, which needs to be taken into account when making policy decisions around animal husbandry and smallholder farming.Nonetheless, policymakers would benefit from integrating the studys findings into their policies and implementation plans, Mombert says, to better articulate and address the intricacies of water, sanitation and hygiene in various contexts.Targeted research on the governance of WASH [water, sanitation and hygiene] in relation to health-related outcomes is imperative to address the burden of child undernutrition, Momberg says. The French government announced a Paris Call for global talks about cyberspace security aimed at laying out a shared framework of rules. The French government is promoting a series of Global Talks on cyberspace security, it urges for a code of good conduct for states in the cyberspace. Events such as the interference in the 2016 Presidential election or massive attacks like WannaCry and NotPetya increase the sense of urgency among states. The risk of escalation and retaliation in cyberspace, the increasing number of cyber attacks and cyber threats even more sophisticated could have a destabilizing effect on international peace and security. The risk of conflict between states caused so cyber incidents encourages all States to engage in law-abiding, norm-respecting and confidence-building behavior in their use of ICT. Im one of the authors of the G7 DECLARATION ON RESPONSIBLE STATES BEHAVIOR IN CYBERSPACE that were signed in 2017 during the Italy G7 meeting. I had the honor to be a member of the group that worked on the proposal for voluntary, non-binding norms of State behavior during peacetime. We presented 12 points aimed to propose stability and security in the cyberspace. The declaration invites all the States to collaborate with the intent to reduce risks to international peace, security, and stability. The decision of the French government aims to relaunch the discussion of the adoption of a framework for norms of state behavior in the cyberspace, a sort of prosecution of the work started last year during the G7 meeting. Officials said the text, to be presented by President Emmanuel Macron as he opens UNESCOs Internet Governance Forum in Paris on Monday, has been signed by most European countries. reads the press release published by AFP. During the G7 meeting emerged the need to open the discussion to other states, including China, Russia, and India. Now China, Russia, and the United States have not yet joined to the initiative, even if major firms and organizations like Microsoft and the NGO Internet Society believe that a supplementary effort is essential to define the framework. The identity and number of signatories are to be released later Monday, following a lunch hosted at the Elysee Palace by Macron for dozens of technology executives and officials. continues the AFP. To respect peoples rights and protect them online as they do in the physical world, states must work together, but also collaborate with private-sector partners, the world of research and civil society, Security in the cyberspace could be improved only through the active participation of any government, for this reason, it is urgent the definition and the approval in a mandatory way of a set of shared roles. The work we made during the G7 was an excellent starting point for further discussions on a global scale. Its a domain that is managed, but not governed, an adviser to Macron said, warning that a free, open and secure internet risked quickly becoming a thing of the past. Let me close with a polemical note, in Italy the G7 group that has worked to the declaration has been dismantled and no action has been taken anymore. Pierluigi Paganini ( Security Affairs Cyberspace security, France) Share this... Linkedin Share this: Twitter Print LinkedIn Facebook More Tumblr Pocket Share On "Sentence Appeals in England: Promoting Consistent Sentencing through Robust Appellate Review | Main | Two notable SCOTUS criminal law arguments (with federal mandatory minimums at issue) November 11, 2013 How about a few clemency grants, Prez Obama, to really honor vets in need on Veterans Day? In 2008 the RAND Corporation surveyed a group of veterans six months after their return. It found that almost one in five had either PTSD or major depression. In recent years rates of substance abuse and suicide among veterans have also ticked steadily upward. A certain number of veterans suffering from mental-health issues will, invariably, end up in jail or prison. After Vietnam, the number of inmates with prior military service rose steadily until reaching a peak in 1985, when more than one in five was a veteran. By 1988, more than half of all Vietnam veterans diagnosed with PTSD reported that they had been arrested; more than one third reported they had been arrested multiple times. Today veterans advocates fear that, unless they receive proper support, a similar epidemic may befall soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. No one knows how many veterans are incarcerated, but the most recent survey, compiled by the Department of Justices Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2004, found that nearly one in 10 inmates in U.S. jails had prior military service. Extrapolated to the total prison population, this means that approximately 200,000 veterans were behind bars. On Veterans Day, I always find myself thinking about veterans who, after serving our country in the military and thereby supporting of our nation's commitment to liberty and freedom, return home and discover the hard way that these constitutional values are not always paramount in our modern criminal justice systems. This Daily Beast piece , headlined "From PTSD to Prison: Why Veterans Become Criminals," highlights that there are now probably hundreds of thousand of veterans in America's prison and jails: As the title of this post highlights, I would like to see President Obama go beyond the usual symbolic gestures and use his historic clemency powers to salute at least a few veterans in federal prison with commutations that would create just a bit more physical liberty and honor a few more veterans with pardons that would free offenders from the enduring collateral consequences of a federal criminal conviction. This effective recent op-ed by Mark Osler, headlined "Clemency is a task for people and institutions of faith; It should also be a task for the president, but he seems unwilling or unable to use his powers," starts by noting why, sadly, I am not expecting the President to step up to the clemency plate today or anytime soon: President Obama is, by a wide margin, the stingiest president in modern times in his use of the pardon power. He seems unwilling or unable to use this simple constitutional tool, even as both conservative and progressive commentators are criticizing the federal governments overincarceration of nonviolent offenders. A simple way to alleviate that problem would be to commute (shorten) the most egregious of these sentences using the pardon power. Some recent and a few older posts concerning federal clemency practices: November 11, 2013 at 10:10 AM | Permalink TrackBack TrackBack URL for this entry: https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451574769e2019b00f16769970d Listed below are links to weblogs that reference How about a few clemency grants, Prez Obama, to really honor vets in need on Veterans Day?: Comments I wonder how much of Obama's reluctance to use the pardon power is a reaction to Clinton's last-minute pardons of Marc Rich and others. It seems that Clinton gave pardons a bad name, at the end of his second term. Posted by: Late Inning Relief | Nov 11, 2013 4:10:58 PM Pardon me for saying this Mr. President but the pardon is now something that you are entitled to "give" like you give your nephew a birthday gift. The Pardon Power is an obligation of your office to exercise and not lay dormant. The word Pardon also conveys a sense of forgive. We will not forgive your failure to exercise the pardon power and especially for veterans. Screw what Clinton did. Do your job! Posted by: Liberty1st | Nov 11, 2013 11:32:58 PM Post a comment Seven men gang-rape two girls in Lahan A group of seven men gang-raped two girls at Lahan Municipality in Siraha district on Friday. "Is Proposition 47 to Blame for California's 2015 Increase in Urban Crime?" | Main | "Why many black voters don't blame Hillary for tough-on-crime laws" This article from The Frontier provides an interesting account of sentencing reform efforts in Oklahoma and why supporters of reform are turning to direct democracy to move forward. The piece is headlined "After several stalled attempts, Oklahoma group taking prison reforms to vote of the people," and here are excerpts: Kris Steele stepped up to the microphone in a packed room at Tulsas Women in Recovery office and declared this time, in 2016, Oklahoma was going to break through the political gridlock by taking criminal justice reform to a vote of the people.... For more than five years, Steele, a former speaker of the state House of Representatives, has been talking about the importance of criminal justice reform for Oklahomas fiscal bottom line, its citizens and children. Now, facing a $1.3 billion budget crisis and prisons packed above 120 percent of capacity, it appears Oklahoma is finally ready to listen. Steele, along with a bipartisan coalition of state power players, is hoping Oklahoma voters will accomplish what elected officials did not in several prior attempts: reducing the states staggering prison population. They hope to redirect some of the savings toward addressing root causes of crime, shifting the state toward a corrections system that focuses on rehabilitation, not solely punishment. As chairman of Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, Steele is leading efforts to collect more than 65,000 petition signatures that would allow two state questions to be added to Novembers ballot. State question 780 would reclassify certain low-level offenses as misdemeanors instead of felonies, such as drug possession and smaller property crimes. The idea is that reclassification would reduce Oklahomas prison population and trigger cost savings, badly needed in a state facing a budget crisis where leaders are considering trimming school days to make ends meet. State question 781 would then invest those prison cost savings in programs designed to address the root causes of crime including addiction, mental health issues and poverty and programs that provide job training and education to offenders as they leave prison.... Other states, including Texas and North Carolina, have used their own Justice Reinvestment Initiatives to realize significant savings on corrections spending. North Carolinas reforms, passed in 2011, have helped the state close nine prisons and officials expect to save $560 million in averted costs and cumulative savings by 2017, according to the Council on State Governments. Those savings have also made it possible for North Carolina to re-invest nearly $4 million into community-based treatment programs, the council reported. After Texas officials implemented sentencing reforms in 2007, including probation, drug treatment, pre-trial diversion programs and intermediate sanction facilities, cost savings from the measures allowed Texas to close three existing prisons and scrap plans to build three new ones. As Oklahoma has watched other states including Texas implement those reforms, the political climate surrounding criminal justice reform here has changed, Steele told The Frontier in an interview. Steele, who left office due to term limits, became the executive director of The Education and Employment Ministry in Oklahoma City. When we first started having this conversation in 2009 to 2011, our prisons were at 99 percent capacity. Now, theyre over 122 percent capacity, he said. The fact that the problem has not gone away in fact, its gotten worse causes us to be more willing to have this conversation.... I think the public is ready to have that conversation. I think the public is way ahead of the legislature on this issue. Theres actually a pretty significant disconnect between the voters and elected officials on this issue. Hence taking the issue to the voters through the two state questions.... Now several bills in the legislature aim to achieve similar goals of the two state questions backed by Oklahomans for Criminal Justice reform. But Steeles group wants to put the decision directly in the hands of voters. And hes got the backing of organizations like Right on Crime and the ACLU of Oklahoma. Its a little more work, but in the end we think its going to be well worth it, he said. The people of Oklahoma ought to be able to have a direct say so in this issue. It is the citizens who pay the $500 million each year to fund Oklahomas prison system, after all. The Rev. Ray Owens, pastor of Tulsas Metropolitan Baptist Church, was one who offered an amen after Steele and Neal spoke to the crowd at Women in Recovery last week. Instead of investing more money in prisons, I believe its time for us to invest more in our people, Owens said. Notable new analysis of US incarceration levels and recent (modest) changes | Main | Lamenting the ripples of Judge Persky's recall June 13, 2018 Another notable report on clemency suggesting Prez Trump will be "pardoning a lot of people pardons that even Obama wouldnt do" Vanity Fair is not usually my go-to source for sentencing news, but this new piece includes both White House gossip and a closing paragraph that suggest a lot of sentence news with be forthcoming from that building. The full headline of the piece reveals some of the gossip: "He Hate, Hate, Hates It: Sessions Fumes As Kushner Gets Pardon Fever; With Kim Kardashian and liberals like Van Jones, the princely Trump son-in-law is trying to reset his reputation. But not everyone in the administration is happy about it." And here are the most sentencing-specific parts of the piece: In recent months, Kushner has cultivated a close relationship with CNN host and criminal-justice reform advocate Van Jones. Jared is obsessed with Van, one Trump adviser said. Kushner invited Jones to the White House multiple times and the two communicate frequently, Jones told me. Jared and I have 99 problems but prison aint one, Jones said. Ive found him to be effective, straightforward, and dogged. Jones has lavished praise on Kushner publicly. In January, Jones wrote a CNN op-ed headlined, Kushners effort to sway Trump on prison reform is smart. The Kushner-Jones alliance has infuriated some Republican members of the administration, especially Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He hate, hate, hates it, a person close to Sessions said. But Sessions, who is hanging on for survival amidst frequent Trump attacks, has no power to move against Kushner. Sources say Trump may even like that Sessions is outraged because Trump is looking for anything that will get Sessions to quit so he can appoint an attorney general who isnt recused in the Russia investigation. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.) Jones told me Trump liked the positive media coverage that followed his pardon of Alice Johnson at the urging of Kardashian and Kushner. Trump was pleasantly surprised, Jones said. I hope the president feels encouraged to do more. One person who recently spoke with Kushner said the presidents son-in-law is gearing up for a big pardon push. The source said Kardashian gave Kushner a list of people to pardon, some of whom are hip-hop artists. Theyre going to be pardoning a lot of peoplepardons that even Obama wouldnt do, the person said. A few of many recent related posts about recent Trumpian clemency activity: June 13, 2018 at 09:06 PM | Permalink Comments The cynical part of me says that this is all cover for when Trump pardons Manafort and Flynn (and maybe others involved). Trump can claim that they were treated unfairly just like that black grandma he pardoned, so shut up everyone... Posted by: Daniel | Jun 14, 2018 2:07:26 PM Post a comment Judge Aaron Persky recalled by voters in response to lenient sentencing of Brock Turner | Main | Reviewing the Supreme Court's work in sentence modification cases of Hughes and Koons June 6, 2018 Kimmes accomplishment: Prez Trump commutes LWOP sentence of Alice Johnson!! Only a week after an in-person meeting with Prez Trump, Kim Kardashian West can and should be credited with getting President Donald Trump to do something bold and consequential with his clemency power. This official White House statement explains: Today, President Donald J. Trump granted a commutation to Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old great-grandmother who has served almost 22 years in Federal prison for a first-time criminal offense. Ms. Johnson has accepted responsibility for her past behavior and has been a model prisoner over the past two decades. Despite receiving a life sentence, Alice worked hard to rehabilitate herself in prison, and act as a mentor to her fellow inmates. Her Warden, Case Manager, and Vocational Training Instructor have all written letters in support of her clemency. According to her Warden, Arcala Washington-Adduci, since [Ms. Johnsons] arrival at this institution, she has exhibited outstanding and exemplary work ethic. She is considered to be a model inmate who is willing to go above and beyond in all work tasks. While this Administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance. I give Prez Trump a lot of credit for now moving beyond seemingly politically-motivated clemencies on to seemingly celebrity-motivated clemencies. Excitingly, this CNN report today, headlined "Exclusive: Trump considers dozens of new pardons," reports that the Trump Administration "has prepared the pardoning paperwork for at least 30 people," which means we might soon get a lot more than just political-celebrity-buzz-worthy grants. As we anticipate even more clemency action, I hope someone makes sure to tell Prez Trump that he is now still 1713 commutations (including 567 LWOP sentences) behind President Barack Obama's modern records. As this accounting highlights, Prez Obama, after a slow start, became the modern pace setter for federal clemency. Here is hoping that Prez Trump will look to break Prez Obama's record. Especially amusing among the stories covering all these clemency developments is this new Splinter piece (which predates the grant to Ms. Johnson). It is titled "Donald Trump is Reportedly Torn Between Kim Kardashian and John Kelly," and it starts this way: Picture if you will a befuddled Donald Trump. On one shoulder is a tiny Kim Kardashian angel. A tiny John Kelly devil is perched on the other. Both Kelly and Kardashian begin whispering their advice into the presidents ears. That, essentially, is what is apparently taking place at the White House, as Trump mulls a pardon for 63-year-old Alice Johnsona great-grandmother currently serving out a life sentence in prison for a non-violent drug-related convictionfollowing Kardashians high profile oval office visit in late May. Oh how I wish I had the computer graphics skills to turn this imagined Kimme/Kelly shoulder debate into the gif that keeps on giving, especially now that we know how it turned out. A few of many recent related posts about Trumpian clemency activity: June 6, 2018 at 01:42 PM | Permalink Comments Is it commuted to time served? The statement does not say. This is well-deserved and I am glad to see the president do the right thing here. Posted by: defendergirl | Jun 6, 2018 2:02:20 PM "I give Prez Trump a lot of credit for now moving beyond seemingly politically-motivated clemencies on to seemingly celebrity-motivated clemencies." Not true, you are a celebrity and he hasn't granted any of your suggested pardons yet. Posted by: Boom | Jun 6, 2018 2:21:46 PM "I give Prez Trump a lot of credit for now moving beyond seemingly politically-motivated clemencies on to seemingly celebrity-motivated clemencies." I get this comment might have been made in jest, but I'm not sure I see any difference between politically-motivated and celebrity-motivated in this context. It seems to me Trump has found that in addition to some pretty big sticks, the position of President also has at its disposal some pretty juicy carrots as a means of compelling others to act a certain way. The pardon power is an excellent example, and it is made even more powerful in that the President's use of is not subject to another branch's check (barring impeachment). If he is gearing-up for a political showdown with Congress over the pending investigation, then he needs public opinion to move towards him, or at least pockets of public opinion. What better way to get spokespeople on your "team" than to either pardon them (Martha Stewart) or pardon someone whose cause they support (Kim Kardashian). Kardashian has approximately 73 million Twitter followers (and Kanye West's followers can likely be added also), which puts her in the top ten on that social media platform. That means she has an audience who listen to her and accept her framing of events. She will likely now tweet about how the President "righted a wrong" and has exercised his power in "the name of justice." Members of her audience, particularly those with little political interest, may think 'this Trump guy can't be all that bad, he listened to Kim and pardoned this nice old lady; he must be a just president.' I would imagine that with Trump nothing comes free. If he pardons you or someone you are advocating for, there is going to be an expectation of something in return. That is the business mentality, and our government is now run with that mentality. I will be interested to see what other celebrities, or individuals with large followings on social media (in other words, a platform and an audience) advocate for a pardon on someone's behalf, and then suddenly start tweeting/talking about Trump in a positive light. Once the dust settles there will be some interesting research that could be done using social media statements before and after the pardoning of those who are connected with the individual being pardoned. Or I could be completely wrong. Posted by: anonuser879 | Jun 6, 2018 2:28:17 PM THREE CHEERS. Posted by: Fluffyross | Jun 6, 2018 2:58:26 PM defendergirl I don't think anyone has seen the warrant yet. Of course we're hoping for many more for nonviolent marijuana offenders serving life without parole. There are some very natural categories that would be fiscally responsible as well compassionate and just. Nonviolent offenders with life sentences most often were charged with conspiracy and went to trial. Posted by: beth | Jun 6, 2018 3:28:38 PM At this point in Obama's presidency, how many clemencies, pardons, etc. had he done? That is, how many does Trump have to do to catch up to where Obama was at the same point in time? Posted by: Duke | Jun 6, 2018 7:36:46 PM Trump is a weak leader and a NYC liberal. Berman removed my Comment on a theory of a sexual encounter between Kim Kardashian and Trump. It would totally account for this decision, and the overcoming of obstacles to it. He is going to release a drug kingpin, a feminist, who likely serially killed dozens of competitors, and hundreds of addicted customers. Because she has antisocial personality disorder, she did so without giving any thought to any. All her crimes after release are 100% the fault of the federal government. It should be sued by all future victims of her violence. Her resumption of her crime spree is 100% foreseeable. Posted by: David Behar | Jun 6, 2018 7:51:01 PM You castigated Obama at every turn and now are heaping praise on Trump because an instagram star had a private meeting with him.Yes Doug that's how it should work. Pathetic. Posted by: dontask@gmail.com | Jun 7, 2018 6:13:56 AM True, Trump was lobbied for the commute. Thats how one gets things done at the federal level. Pres if good old USA has more fish to fry than worrying about who he should pardon/commute. Its not a perfect world, but for this lady, shes out and has another chance. Thats the skinny if it.. Trump should pardon, Martha Stewart and commute Blagos sentence. Blago sucks in my book, but hey, he did enough time.. Posted by: MidWestGuy | Jun 7, 2018 7:07:02 AM Duke: at this point in Obama's presidency, he had issued exactly ZERO clemencies --- no pardons and no commutations. dontask@gmail.com: My answer to Duke is why I castigated Obama. Also Obama, notably, did not prioritize any form of criminal justice reform during his first two years in office despite hi parties having large majorities in Congress. Obama did, to his credit, support crack sentencing reform (though he indicated that there should be crack/powder equality and yet settled for legislation with an 18:1 disparity). As noted in this post, Obama by the end of his second term became a record-setting modern Prez in terms of granting clemency. But academics have long been urging change in clemency process/structure, and Obama did nothing to be transformative here. In the end, I grade both Prez on the "criminal justice curve" that they set for themselves. Prez Obama promised "hope and change" and delivered relatively little of either until very late in his Prez; Prez Trump promised to be a crime warrior and has been less awful than feared (though AG Sessions has been pretty bad, even though I sincerely worried he would be even worse). Posted by: Doug B | Jun 7, 2018 7:56:05 AM for a contrary view: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/06/trump-frees-big-time-narcotics-trafficker-even-obama-didnt-help.php Posted by: federalist | Jun 7, 2018 8:09:43 AM Would you agree that Paul Mirengoff sounds a lot like David Behar in the post you link? To be fair, David says Ms. Johnson "likely serially killed dozens of competitors" whereas Paul just says "in all likelihood Johnsons drug ring was responsible for more than a few deaths." I highlight this parallel in part to showcase for others one reason I am disinclined to ban David from commenting. I often believe some of his comments, even those most crude and childish, serve to pull back the curtain on what many persons may think (but do not say here) about a variety of crime and justice issues. Thanks to your link, federalist, it is notable to see intriguing commonalities between what David is saying here and what a more "respectable" commentator has to say. Posted by: Doug B | Jun 7, 2018 9:05:18 AM Two questions posed by the fact that none of the early pardons have gone through the Pardon Office process. First, every Administration has a curve of putting people it trusts into key positions that allow the new President to assure that his policies/standards are being implemented. (And some reports indicate that Trump is way behind the curve.) Given this time lag, how long has it taken past Presidents before they started issuing pardons that have been processed through the Pardon's Office? Second, as far as grants of pardons and commutations, what has been the balance (both overall and on a progressive year-by-year basis) between pardons/commutations granted based on the Pardon Office process and those granted outside that process for recent past presidents? (My hunch says that the percent granted through the normal process increases as you get further into a presidential term.) Posted by: tmm | Jun 7, 2018 10:49:14 AM "Prez Obama promised "hope and change" and delivered relatively little of either until very late in his Prez" "Relatively little" ... whatever that means. There actually was change in multiple ways. I won't repeat myself but I cited some examples more than once. But, not enough based on the "curve." Said "curve" needs to take into consideration the whole picture in both cases. Trump has repeatedly did things in respect to criminal justice, including his own part in corrupting justice, but DB grades on a curve here and Trump somehow comes out better. tmm's questions are good ones. Posted by: Joe | Jun 7, 2018 1:20:57 PM I have always been a quirky grader, Joe, but maybe I can provide a (fitting?) metaphor here that should make sense to lawyers: Imagine being told a law professor and a high schooler were submitting amicus briefs in a complicated SCOTUS case. The law professor's brief could be much better, but I am likely to be more impressed by the high schooler's brief if it is any good at all. (And we can throw in idea that the lawprof bragged at length about how good his brief was going to be, while the high schooler says he barely had time to work on his.) Again, it is all about expectations here. Posted by: Doug B. | Jun 7, 2018 5:30:44 PM When President Obama took office there were 210,227 inmates in federal prison. This number continued to rise until it reached an all time high in 2013. In 2013 the number was 219,298 At that time, Clemency Project 2014 was announced. Holder announced that they believed there would be 10,000 or more commutations granted. The process remained in the DOJ with layers of oversight and procedure. At the end of the Obama administration a little over 1,700 petitioners had received commutations. There were over 8,000 petitions left at the DOJ for the Trump administration. over 4,000 petitions had been closed without action and over 18,000 petitions had been denied. It was a great disappointment for the inmates and their families who had great hope for compassion and mercy. During The Trump administration, the federal prison population has decreased by 8,000 There was hope that Obama would issue clemency through a clemency board created in the White House and eliminate the natural tendency of the prosecutors in the DOJ to evaluate each petition from a prosecutors point of view. That did not happen. Gerald Ford created what he called a clemency board within the White House to evaluate petitions for clemency for those who had violated the Selective Service act. That was what clemency advocates hoped President Obama would do. In the proclamation, Ford called it a clemency board, but of course it was different. This Ford's White House Board granted 13,000 petitions that year. President Obama did not adopt that model and the result was a great disappointment to inmates, their families and advocacy groups. You can find this data on the .gov sites Posted by: beth | Jun 7, 2018 7:07:31 PM Prof. Berman. The high school brief is likely to be in plain language, terse, to contain facts from the physical world, and to appeal to ordinary common sense. The lawyer brief, well, is likely to be the opposite. That is why, I have proposed that judging become a separate profession, not in any way connected to the lawyer profession. Indeed, lawyers should be precluded from serving as judges. That way, the owners of the law, the public, would have an equal likelihood of prevailing as hyper-proceduralist, know nothing, total jerk, anti-family, anti-crime victim, male feminist running dog assholes. Posted by: David Behar | Jun 7, 2018 7:24:45 PM Prof. Berman. If you ever get a chance to strike a conversation with any random stranger, average person, with a job and regular responsibilities, and not dependent on government for a living, ask about sentencing policy. You will learn that my views are totally ordinary, widely held, and quite mainstream. The views of elitist, four eyed bookworms radicalized by Ivy Law Schools, quite divorced from any street reality, are quite deviant. That why the elitists on the Supreme Court, looking down their noses on ordinary members of the public, are quite unpopular. Their elitist views are divorced from the reality of the street and of daily living under the thumb of our tyrannical federal government. You American lawyers run a tighter ship than the KGB or Castro's secret police. Make a politically incorrect joke now, and you are destroyed. The American public, that is not progressive, has been silenced more than any Soviet citizen in the days of the Gulag. That is the best explanation why Trump is in office, and why the elitists are a little upset by their polls' failing to predict that catastrophe for them. Posted by: David Behar | Jun 7, 2018 7:38:43 PM I don't care about "quirky." Care about double standards that are ridiculous and in the process aid and abet Trump, which includes diminishing those who net improved justice, making them out as losers that bragged so much and accomplished so little. But, go ahead ... be upset at Obama "bragging," more of the "St. Obama" disappointed fatuous approach I have seen too much from people I thought were more able to realistically understand Obama as a whole, not single out his most idealistic hopes and goals. Meanwhile, what was actually done is demeaned as trivial. This isn't about that high school student, who btw in this case was the biggest braggart out there. So, that part is as fatuous as the rest. Posted by: Joe | Jun 7, 2018 7:39:03 PM Prof. Berman said, "...Prez Obama promised "hope and change" and delivered relatively little of either until very late in his Prez; Prez Trump promised to be a crime warrior and has been less awful than feared (though AG Sessions has been pretty bad, even though I sincerely worried he would be even worse)." This is an illustration of the Immutable Law of Political Irony. You decide what you want, then vote for the candidate who opposes it to the extreme. Political scientists even have a name for this immutable phenomenon, Nixon to China. Want to bash the poor on welfare, vote for Clinton; want an orgy of nation building, vote for Bush Jr. (no nation building under my administration, in the 2000 debate); wants a massive tax increase, vote for Bush Sr (Mr. Read my Lips, No New Taxes), hate and want to savage the poor, the black, the female, the gay, and the young, and not to forget, the convicted felon, vote for Obama. I wanted massive income inequality, so I strongly supported doctrinaire Stalinist, Bernie Sanders. Posted by: David Behar | Jun 7, 2018 7:53:54 PM Joe: what became clear to me, as I came to "understand Obama as a whole," was that he was much more interested in using his political skills and political capital in areas other than CJ reform. That was his choice to make as Prez, but I (perhaps foolishly) hoped for so very much more. I suppose I am glad to hear that he did not disappoint you, but I am not going to hide or sugar-coat how much he disappointed me in this context. But I will readily concede that this disappointment flows from how much I was hoping and expecting from him. Meanwhile, Trump has been a real surprise as of 2018 with both his aggressive support for prison reform and now his new affinity for clemency grants. And I will readily concede that this surprise flows from how little I was expecting from him. In all, this is an object lesson is "under-promise and over-deliver." On CJ fronts, Trump has not yet "over-delivered," but he already has done more than promised. Obama, as I see it, failed to deliver what he promised. But I concede I may have expected way too much. Posted by: Doug B | Jun 7, 2018 8:40:15 PM Post a comment "Nowhere to Go: Homelessness among formerly incarcerated people" | Main | "The American Execution Queue" This local story, headlined "49 Oklahoma inmates imprisoned for drug crimes asking for commutations; 49 asking state to consider commutations in light of State Question 780," reports on an interesting clemency echo in the wake of a notable ballot initiative passed in Oklahoma in 2016. Here are the details: Some state inmates serving 10 years to life in prison for what has been described as low-level drug crimes have applied for commutations thanks to the help of advocates and law students. The 49 inmates and those backing their commutation applications are citing recent changes in state law and Oklahomas highest incarceration rate in the nation as the reason why. A lot of these are 20-, sometimes 30-year sentences on a crime that if charged now would be a misdemeanor, said Corbin Brewster, Tulsa Countys chief public defender. Brewsters office assisted Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform with creating the list of inmates. The coalition of business and community leaders, law enforcement experts and advocates across the state is led by former state House Speaker Kris Steele. The state Pardon and Parole Board will take the up the first batch of 23 commutation requests all female inmates on Monday in Oklahoma City. The rest are scheduled to be considered next month. The requests for commuted sentences, if recommended by the parole board and approved by the governor, would only reduce the length of the prison terms. Some sentences could be modified to time served, but the convictions would remain on the inmates record. Push for commutations is spurred by the passage of State Question 780, which starting July 1, 2017, made nonviolent drug possession offenses and low-level property offenses misdemeanors instead of felonies. Steele led the call for the state question, which was approved in November 2016 by 58 percent of Oklahoma voters. Eight law school students, working as summer interns for Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, helped choose applicants and interviewed them, said Stephen Galoob, associate professor at the University of Tulsa Law School. Galoob said the effort is aimed at just making the system work. These are all cases and these are all stories that are really powerful, he said. And a lot of what the students are doing is just telling the stories of the people who are in prison for crimes that the people of Oklahoma dont really think we should be locking people up for.... The parole board uses a two-stage process to consider commutations. During the first stage, the board reviews the application before considering whether to pass the request to a second, more thorough review stage. At least a majority vote of the board is needed to forward the commutation request to the governor for final consideration. The parole board considered 477 commutation requests in fiscal 2018, which ended June 30, said DeLynn Fudge, the agencys executive director. The board passed 19 of the requests to the second stage of its review process, of which 10 were forwarded to the governor with a recommendation that they be approved, Fudge said. "Reconceptualizing Criminal Justice Reform For Offenders With Serious Mental Illness" | Main | "Unequal Justice: How Obsolete Laws and Unfair Trials Created North Carolinas Outsized Death Row" The question in this title of this post is prompted by this news as reported at Vox: "Kanye West will meet with Trump at the White House to talk prison reform, violence in Chicago." Here is some context: West is expected to visit Washington on Thursday to meet with President Trump as well as White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, according to the New York Times. The Times reports that West will meet with Kushner first and will then have lunch with Trump. The meeting was confirmed in a statement by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. West is expected to discuss a number of topics during his visit, including job opportunities for those released from prison, manufacturing jobs in Chicago, and gang violence. Sanders said West who grew up in Chicago and recently announced plans to move back into the area will also discuss what can be done to reduce violence in Chicago, days after Trump proposed implementing stop-and-frisk policing tactics in the city. The Thursday meeting wont be the first between Trump and West; the rapper previously went to Trump Tower in December 2016 to discuss multicultural issues. In May, Wests wife, reality TV star and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian West, met with Trump to discuss prison reform and pardoning Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old black woman serving life in federal prison for a first-time drug offense. Trump commuted Johnsons sentence, and in the months since, Kardashian West has returned to the White House to continue to lobby for prison reform. Kanye West has become one of the presidents highest-profile celebrity supporters, and he has favorably tweeted about Trump on numerous occasions. Last month, West delivered a pro-Trump speech after a performance on Saturday Night Live. So many times that I talk to a white person about this, and they say, How could you support Trump? Hes racist. Well, if I was concerned about racism, West said, I would have moved out of America a long time ago.... The meeting also highlights the continued power of celebrities in the Trump era. While other presidents have often brought celebrities to White House Barack Obama notably invited rappers including J. Cole and Nicki Minaj to discuss criminal justice reform these gatherings were also accompanied by policy meetings with experts. President Trump, meanwhile, has almost exclusively relied on celebrity references from figures like Kardashian West and Sylvester Stallone, as well as input from conservative figures like Ted Cruz and outlets like Fox News, to shape his approach to aspects of the justice system like pardons. Policy meetings on prison reform and sentencing, on the other hand, have been largely left to aides and advisers like Kushner. The president has also fiercely criticized celebrities who speak out against his policies, most recently telling reporters that he likes Taylor Swifts music 25 percent less after her recent endorsement of Democrats running for office in Tennessee. Not every celebrity invited to the White House has gone. For example, rapper Meek Mill, who experienced a decade-long saga with the criminal justice system, dropped out of a May discussion on prison reform, telling reporters that the event had become focused on him and Trump rather than policy. Much of this seems to be the result of how much influence celebrities or at least celebrities with minimal criticism of Trump himself appear to hold in the Trump White House when it comes to matters of criminal justice. A September report from USA Today noted that the Trump administration has taken an often chaotic, ad hoc approach to clemency. The report added that the president has granted pardons to people who havent applied for them, bypassed the formal Justice Department review process, and focused his pardon power on a handful of politically charged, high-profile cases. While there have been efforts to create a more disciplined process, it is unclear if the president would respond positively to such a development. Fraternal Order of Police now supporting FIRST STEP Act with some sentencing reform provisions | Main | "US Criminal Justice Policy and Practice in the TwentyFirst Century: Toward the End of Mass Incarceration?" November 11, 2018 How about a few clemency grants, Prez Trump, to really honor vets in need on Veterans Day? Five years ago in this post, I noted that on Veterans Day I often find myself thinking about veterans who, after serving our country in the military and thereby supporting of our nation's commitment to liberty and freedom, return home and discover the hard way that these constitutional values are not always paramount in our modern criminal justice systems. This 2015 report on "Veterans in Prison and Jail, 201112" found that in "201112, an estimated 181,500 veterans (8% of all inmates in state and federal prison and local jail excluding military-operated facilities) were serving time in correctional facilities." In my Veterans Day 2013 post, I asked "How about a few clemency grants, Prez Obama, to really honor vets in need on Veterans Day?". Five years later, especially after Prez Trump talked up possibly granting thousands of clemencies earlier this year, it seems fitting to pose the same question to Prez Obama's successor. It also seems worthwhile to link to posts from the summer and thereafter highlights reports and comments by Prez Trump which generated lots of clemency optimism on which he has yet to deliver. A few of many recent related posts: November 11, 2018 at 10:23 PM | Permalink Comments Name names and write the President, Professor Berman. Couple things---have any more of the Obama clemency recipients been bad? I know there was one. As may surprise people, I believe in a judicious but effective use of the clemency/pardon power. Sometimes people locked up for 20 years do change, or a sentence was too long. Kyrsten Simema will probably oppose clemency for military vets--she hates them. Posted by: federalist | Nov 13, 2018 7:34:13 AM I have in prior posts named a lot of names, federalist, and I appreciate that you have consistently indicated (as has Prez Trump) that you think some federal sentences can be too long. Meanwhile, I am not aware of any public accounting of the history of Obama's clemency recipients. Statistically speaking, it would be shocking if there weren't many dozens who have done something bad after release. Roughly 1 in 3 persons released from federal prison gets arrested again within two years, meaning we should expect more than 500 of the more than 1500 Obama clemency recipients to get rearrested unless his team did a good job with both clemency selection and re-entry services. Even if that means only 1 in 30 (rather than 1 in 3) gets in trouble anew, that would still mean 50+ recipients causing some trouble again. Like you, I hope the number is even lower AND I hope any future trouble is minor stuff, not significant harms. As for the new Senator from Arizona and her regard for veterans in the criminal justice system, I found this press release: "Sinema-backed Bill to Expand Access to Treatment, Support for Veterans Passes House" https://sinema.house.gov/latest-news/sinemabacked-bill-to-expand-access-to-treatment-support-for-veterans-passes-house/. This does not seem like the work of someone who hates vets, but perhaps you know better. Posted by: Doug B | Nov 13, 2018 9:50:33 AM Anyone who calls himself "federalist" likely knows everything about everything. It's almost as good as going by "Justin D. Dunning-Kruger". Posted by: G. B. Robinson | Nov 17, 2018 11:35:38 PM Post a comment "US Criminal Justice Policy and Practice in the TwentyFirst Century: Toward the End of Mass Incarceration?" | Main | "The Effects of Holistic Defense on Criminal Justice Outcomes" November 12, 2018 More encouraging clemency news in Oklahoma in wake of 2016 sentencing reform ballot initiative In this post a few month ago, I noted the important work of lawyers and law students in seeking commutations for dozens of Oklahoma inmates in the aftermath of the state's passage of Question 780, which made nonviolent drug possession offenses and low-level property offenses misdemeanors instead of felonies. A helpful reader alerted me to notable additional news on this front reported in this two local articles: "Board recommends clemency for 22 drug possession offenders." Excerpts: Nearly two dozen offenders were recommended for clemency Wednesday, the first wave of hopefuls for early release from lengthy felony prison sentences for simple drug possession two years after voters approved turning that crime into a misdemeanor. State Question 780 isnt retroactive, so Project Commutation sought deserving prisoners who were considered ideal candidates to have their sentences drastically shortened in line with the sentencing reform measure. Kris Steele, chairman of Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, is spearheading the movement and a member of the board voting on the commutation requests. Steele said a governors staff member was present for Wednesdays all-day proceedings and expressed to him that Gov. Mary Fallin is committed to signing off on the cases before the new year. The commutations modify sentences but dont erase convictions. Fallin has final authority to approve, deny or modify the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Boards recommendations within 90 days. Gov. Fallin has been monitoring these cases closely and has taken an interest in trying to expedite the process of the governors approval, with the intent, as I understand it, to get these individuals home together with their families by the end of the year, Steele said. Twenty-three offenders had their cases for commutations heard Wednesday by the five-member pardon and parole board. Only one offender failed to garner a simple majority vote, with concerns about misconduct in prison perhaps influencing decisions. Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform launched Project Commutation in partnership with the Tulsa County Public Defenders Office. Another eight applicants the final ones in this commutation campaign will be on the docket in December. "Oklahoma group wants to build on success of commutation project for prisoners with drug possession charges." Excerpts: During commutation hearings last week, offenders offered numerous reasons for why they were unable to succeed in alternative drug courts. Failing stuck them with lengthy prison sentences for possessing drugs. Project Commutation has been an opportunity for a handful of convicts to earn another shot at a new life, advocating for clemency after State Question 780 turned simple drug possession into a misdemeanor rather than a felony. But Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform wants more the advocacy group intends to encourage lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session to apply the law retroactively. The Legislature will kick off in early February, and we are urging them to look at these sentences, said Danielle Ezell, an OCJR board member, as she stood outside the correctional center where the commutation hearings took place Wednesday. Theres over 1,000 folks in for simple drug possession that, if charged today, would not be incarcerated. And we would like to see those charges (retroactively addressed). Prior related posts: November 12, 2018 at 12:10 PM | Permalink Comments Post a comment SINGAPORE (Nov 12): RHB Research is downgrading its call on Japan Foods to neutral from buy with a lower target price of 48 cents compared to 58 cents previously, as it believes the groups share price could take a breather after delivering 8.3% YTD returns and outperforming the STI Index by 17.4%. The research house nonetheless continues to like Japan Foods for its strong balance sheet, thriving Japanese restaurant franchise as well as the ability to successfully launch new brands. In a report last Friday, analyst Shekhar Jaiswal says a recent discussion with the groups management has indicated that weak consumer sentiment, higher costs from launching premium restaurant concepts, and rapid expansion in restaurant numbers could keep Japan Foods profitability in check over the next few quarters. Amidst weak consumer sentiment and rising competition, Japan Foods witnessed a 10% YoY decline in SSSG for 1HFY19 (Mar). We note that revenue/restaurant for its Ajisen Ramen and Menya Musashi brands have now declined for two consecutive quarters. Both brands accounted for 60% of JFHs revenue in FY18, notes Jaiswal. The analyst has therefore cut the groups forward earnings estimates for FY19-21 by 13-19% to factor in weak same-store sales growth (SSSG), lower gross margins and higher opex, all of which come amid expansion in the number of restaurants. On a more positive note, Jaiswal highlights the possibility of the group making an earnings-accretive acquisition in Singapore or within the region, considering Japan Foods net cash position and zero debt. Below-industry-average valuations and ability to maintain +4% yield should support the share price at current levels, though, he adds. As at 11.55am, shares in Japan Foods are trading 1.1% lower at 46 cents or 2.1 times FY19F book value. Software glitch hits Nepse trading for second day The value of trades on the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) plunged to Rs99 million on Sunday as the newly launched online platform did not work properly and transactions were disrupted. The usual daily trading value is Rs200-220 million. Singapores Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong speaks at a business forum on the sidelines of the 33rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Singapore on November 12, 2018. (Photo: ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images) Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said businesses should be prepared to accept more competition in their home markets as they benefit from Asean integration, open and connected economies. The more integrated and open our markets are, and the more conducive our rules and business environments to foreign investment, the larger the pie will grow, and the more we will all benefit, Lee said at the opening of the Asean Business and Investment Summit in Singapore on Monday (12 November). Even as businesses expand abroad, they arent alway supportive when it comes to opening up their own domestic markets to foreign entries, and may lobby governments to impose regulations or keep industries closed to protect themselves, Lee said. Lee was speaking at the event organised by the Asean Business Advisory Council ahead of the main meeting of the 33rd Asean Summit later this week. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations members and external partners, including the US and China, will meet from 13-15 November in Singapore. Asean is the worlds sixth largest economy and is projected to become the fourth largest by 2030 after the US, Europe and China, he said. Last year, Asean attracted nearly US$140 billion of foreign direct investment. Asean has great potential, but fully realising it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures, Lee said. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to attend the Asean Summit. US Vice President Mike Pence will attend the meeting in place of President Donald Trump. AEC Meeting Separately, Asean economic ministers signed an agreement on Monday to facilitate cross-border e-commerce transactions at the 17th ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Council Meeting, on the sidelines of the main Summit. Story continues Asean is the worlds fastest growing internet market, with 330 million internet users. By 2025, Aseans internet economy is set to quadruple to US$200 billion from US$50 billion in 2017, with e-commerce expected to grow to US$88 billion. Speaking during the meeting, Singapore Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing said despite growing global uncertainties and trade tensions, Asean continues to be an engine of growth. Last year, Asean attracted nearly US$140 billion of foreign direct investment, he said. The regional grouping will also be concluding the Asean Trade in Services Agreement that will broaden and deepened the integration of services sector with member states, and the Asean Comprehensive Investment Agreement to improve liberalisation and transparency in members investment regimes, he added. Related stories China-backed trade deal centre stage at summit as US retreats In bilateral meet with Putin, will Dr M bring up MH17? Three suspects nabbed in Commonwealth, Quezon City QUEZON CITY, Philippines Thirteen individuals have been arrested in simultaneous anti-drug operations in Quezon City. An alleged drug pusher and his live-in partner were arrested in a buy-bust operation of the Quezon City Police District. The suspects were identified as Joey de Ramas and Mary Rose Gordo; both are residents of Barangay Commonwealth Quezon City. Authorities also arrested the couples visiting friend, Joy Rance. De Ramas denied dealing drugs but admitted to using it and working as a runner for the illegal drugs. Hindi po, nagrarunner lang po. Inutusan lang kumukuha tapos bumibili tapos dinadala, ibinibigay ko (Im just a runner. I just follow orders to pick up the goods and deliver to buyers), he said. Meanwhile, seven men were caught in the middle of a pot session in Barangay Payatas, Quezon City. Police recovered in their possession 9 sachets of suspected illegal drugs and paraphernalia. One of the arrested men, Wilfredo Caldea, claimed innocence. Di ko po alam, napadaan lang po ako eh. Napadaan lang po ako doon (I have nothing to do with it, I just happened to drop by), he said. Police also conducted a buy-bust operation in Barangay E. Rodriguez, Cubao, Quezon City where two siblings and another individual were arrested. The suspects were identified as Juhari Suraida Ampoan, Jamail Suraida Demacore and Marie Grace Velasco. Ampoan, denied pushing drugs but admitted to using them when working. Sa ano ko lang naman eh, kapag may inaayos na cellphone. Yung natyempuhan nila may inaayos ako noon na cellphone. Kapag wala akong inaayos, wala. Halos wala nga kaming makain eh, (I only use [drugs] when Im fixing a cellphone. The police chanced upon me while I was repairing one. I dont use [drugs] when Im not working on anything. We can barely afford food), Ampoan reasoned out. Police Senior Inspector Ramon Aquiatan of QCPD Station 7 said the siblings were placed under a week-long surveillance by barangay officials. Story continues Base doon sa ating poseur- buyer, itong magkapatid ang nabilihan niya ng ilegal na droga at narecover din yung buy bust money sa posisyon nung magkapatid (According to our poseur-buyer,he was able to buy drugs from the siblings and police even found the buy-bust money in their possession), Aquiatan said. Authorities recovered the P500 buy-bust money and 10 sachets of suspected shabu in the siblings possession. Gerry Galicia The post 13 arrested in QC anti-drug sweep appeared first on UNTV News. Classes remain suspended for almost 40 primary pupils at Tsung Tsin Think Academy after suspected illegal operation at international school in Hong Kong Some secondary students may return to classes at an international school in Hong Kong that was abruptly closed over the weekend, but uncertainty remains for several dozen primary pupils. The Education Bureau said on Monday evening that some classes at Think International Schools Groups facility in Cheung Sha Wan would be allowed to resume on Wednesday. But a few dozen students attending Primary Four to Six would have to be relocated and it was unclear when they could return to class. The group, which has four facilities across the city, rented the Kwong Lee Road site from Tsung Tsin Middle School in Cheung Sha Wan in September 2015. But it failed to officially register the name of Tsung Tsin Think Academy the name it currently operates under leading to the bureau on Friday ordering the school to vacate the premises. Principal Lily Choy Lai-yu announced on Saturday all classes at the school would be cancelled on Monday and Tuesday. She promised affected pupils a relocation plan to other campuses, but did not explain when the new arrangement would begin. This is just awful, said a woman surnamed Lam, whose nine-year-old daughter was a Primary Five pupil. I dont know how to explain to my little girl why the school is closed and when she will be going back to see her teachers and classmates. Whats most important now is to settle the affected students and not disrupt their studies in the middle of the semester Lam, mother of Primary Five pupil Lam, a university teacher who declined to give her full name, expressed shock over the sudden suspension, and urged the school to come up with an arrangement for the affected pupils as soon as possible. Whats most important now is to settle the affected students and not disrupt their studies in the middle of the semester, she added. More than 200 students were affected by the order, including secondary school pupils and several classes of children from Primary Four to Primary Six. Story continues On Monday, the head of Tsung Tsin Middle School, Tung Fuk, said the school had reached an agreement after a meeting with Choy. Secondary pupils would be allowed to continue classes at the campus under Tsung Tsins name, while those from Thinks primary section would have to move out before Wednesday, Tung said. It was believed around 30 to 40 Primary Four to Primary Six students were affected. There will be no more name changing. The students, badges on the uniforms, exercise books, website and such will operate under the name Tsung Tsin Middle School, always has and always will, he said, insisting the classes had been a collaboration programme with Think and not a school operated by Think. A spokesman from the Education Bureau said they would offer help to the school and affected students during the holiday process. In an email on Saturday, Choy told parents education officials inspected the campus on Friday and questioned why the school was operating under an unregistered name. Choy said Primary Four to Primary Six pupils would relocate to the Boundary Street campus, while reception and Year One classes would relocate to the IB Lincoln Road campus. Parents have been advised to attend a meeting with the principal at the Kwong Lee campus on Tuesday afternoon. Choy explained that after working with the Education Bureau for 2 years, the application to change the school name was still pending. She added that under the leasing contract, the group would refurbish the rundown campus at Block A of Tsung Tsin on condition the venues name be changed to Tsung Tsin Think Academy. Since block B is a primary school site we might be able to operate a primary school there. But this year, Tsung Tsin Middle School changed its mind, having found another partner in Oxford International College, who did not ask for the name change. Naturally, it prefers not to change the school name. The Post has reached out to the Tsung Tsin Think Academy for comment. This article Classes remain suspended for almost 40 primary pupils at Tsung Tsin Think Academy after suspected illegal operation at international school in Hong Kong first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. BEIJING (Reuters) - China has postponed the lifting of a ban on the trade of rhino horn and tiger parts for medicine and other uses, the government said on Monday, after a storm of protest from conservation groups over a plan to water down the decades-old prohibition. In October, the State Council issued a circular replacing a 1993 ban on the trade of tiger bones and rhinoceros horn, opening up exceptions under "special circumstances", including medical "research". Environmental groups said lifting of the ban would be disastrous for endangered rhinoceros and tiger populations, even if the animal parts were only sourced from those bred in captivity. Rhinos and tigers are already under critical pressure from a black market supplying the traditional medicine trade. The "detailed regulations for implementation" of the October change had been "postponed after study", the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing State Council Executive Deputy Secretary-General Ding Xuedong. Under the October plan, exceptions to the ban could be made for parts from those animals, bred in captivity, being used for medical and scientific research, education and "cultural exchanges". Ding did not give a reason for postponing the change, or indicate if it would be permanent, but said the old ban remained in force. "The 'three strict bans' will continue to be enforced: strictly ban the import and export of rhinos, tigers and their byproducts; strictly ban the sale, purchase, transport, carrying and mailing of rhinos, tigers and their byproducts; and strictly ban the use of rhino horns and tiger bones in medicine," Ding said. China would continue to "organise special crackdown campaigns" with a focus on "addressing the illegal trade of rhinos, tigers and their byproducts". "Illegal acts will be dealt with severely," Ding said. Conservation groups argue that easing the ban would be devastating for efforts to protect tigers and rhinos because it would confuse consumers and authorities as to which products were legal and which not, and expand markets for them. Story continues China banned trade in tiger bones and rhino horns 25 years ago as part of global efforts to save the animals. Commercial tiger farms are legal in China, and although using tiger bones in medicine was banned, tiger parts from farms often end up in tonics or other medicines, animal rights groups say. (Reporting by Michael Martina) World tour: Airbus A220 makes maiden landing in Nepal The newest addition to the Airbus family of commercial aircraft, the A220, has made its first visit to Nepal as part of a world demonstration tour. A $300 bottle of wine sold in the United States and Europe is made in the unlikeliest of places: at the foot of the Himalayas in China, where farmers sing traditional songs while picking grapes. A stone's throw away from Tibet, Ao Yun's vineyards are located beneath the sacred Meili mountain at altitudes ranging up from 2,200 metres (7,218 feet) in the southwestern province of Yunnan. While wine consumption is soaring in China, it is not known as a major producer, but French luxury giant Moet Hennessy has bet on this remote location to show the Asian country can produce a first-class bottle of red. It took four years for the company to find the ideal spot in the vast country and the result was Ao Yun, Chinese for "flying above the clouds", which debuted in 2013. "The place is magical, it has this wild side," Maxence Dulou, Ao Yun's estate manager, told AFP as he carefully inspected the grapes at one of the vineyards. Dulou, 43, said he had "dreamed" of discovering a great "terroir" -- the unique French term for the ground and climatic conditions in which grapes are grown -- in China since his university days. The company wanted to show that a great wine could be made in China, where even local consumers trust French wines more than homegrown products, he said. The smooth full-bodied blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc has surprised many wine lovers. Only 2,000 cases are produced per year and are sold in China, other Asian countries, the United States and Europe. - East meets West - Moet Hennessy leased the vineyards for 30 years from local farmers in 2012 -- a decade after the municipal government encouraged villagers to switch from growing barley to grapevines in an attempt to kickstart the wine industry. But without proper knowledge or training, they floundered until the luxury giant turned up, bringing a wealth of expertise and resources to four villages: Adong, Shuori, Sinong and Xidang. The vineyards are situated in the middle of the Mekong, Yangtze and Salween rivers, a unique location which boasts moderate temperatures all year round so the vines do not need to be buried to prevent them from freezing in the winter. The property is divided into more than 300 small parcels spread over 28 hectares and grapes are harvested by hand, requiring four times more work hours on average than the biggest vineyards in the world. For villagers like 42-year-old Ci Liwudui, who leases out his land and has family members working on the vineyard, the transformation of the farms that once grew basic crops into bustling, profitable businesses was a godsend. "It has brought good changes to the four villages, lots of change, we don't have to worry about money, people don't have to go out to work laborious jobs anymore," Ci said. Dulou attributes the wine's success to the collaboration between East and West. "The Chinese are very creative and they are not afraid of change and that's extraordinary because you can be the most creative in the world, but if you are afraid of change there is no creativity," the viniculturist said. - Revamping 'Made in China' - China's appetite for wine has matured over the last 10 years, led by its burgeoning middle class. The country is set to become the world's second largest wine consumer by 2021. China's wine market was worth $71 billion in 2017 and is expected to grow 27 percent in the next five years to nearly $91 billion, according to research group Euromonitor. However, Chinese consumers are turning their noses up at local wines, as imported wine consumption grew over 17 percent year on year in 2017 while domestic wine sales plummeted for the fifth consecutive year. Chinese wine has had a history of inconsistent quality, but Dulou is determined to change the prejudice attached to the term 'Made in China'. "I think that little but little, Chinese people will realise that we can make great products in China, notably wines," he said. "We do everything with passion, and we do it with utmost precision to make the best wine possible, to have the best grape possible, and to be one of the companies that revamp 'Made in China'." Children in Israel's south were heading to school early Wednesday as an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire took effect, putting an end to a brief yet intense flare-up with Gaza. The truce, announced Tuesday by Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip, came after nearly two days of heavy shelling from both sides that had threatened to descend into full-blown war. Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas said they would abide by the ceasefire as long as Israel did the same. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the military did not comment, but the Home Front Command removed late Tuesday all limitations on southern residents, sending children back to school after two days in shelters. Hardline Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who said on Tuesday he did not support stopping the strikes, announced he will be making a statement on Wednesday afternoon. The latest violence, which saw seven Gazans killed in 24 hours as the Israeli aerial bombardment flattened buildings and sent fireballs and plumes of smoke into the sky, was the worst between Israel and Palestinian militants since a 2014 war. Sirens began sounding in southern Israel late Sunday, sending tens of thousands running for cover in shelters as around 460 rockets and mortar rounds were fired from Gaza, wounding 27 people, including three severely. A Palestinian labourer from the occupied West Bank was killed when a rocket hit a building in the Israeli city of Ashkelon. In a statement issued late Tuesday, Egypt called on Israel to cease its "military action" in Gaza. "Egypt's efforts have been able to achieve a ceasefire between the resistance and the Zionist enemy," the Gaza groups said. - 'Restraint must be shown' - The flare-up began on Sunday with a botched Israeli special forces operation inside the Gaza Strip that turned deadly and prompted Hamas to vow revenge. The clash that resulted from the blown covert operation killed seven Palestinian militants, including a local Hamas military commander, as well as an Israeli army officer. Palestinian militants responded with rocket and mortar fire, as well as an anti-tank missile that hit a bus Hamas says was being used by Israeli soldiers. A soldier was severely wounded in the attack. Schools were closed in Gaza and in southern Israel on Tuesday as the two sides warned each other they would respond forcefully to any further violence. Egypt has negotiated ceasefires following previous flare-ups, while UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov has also been seeking a long-term truce in recent weeks. After an Israeli security cabinet meeting that reportedly lasted some six hours on Tuesday, a statement was issued saying the ministers "instructed the (military) to continue its operations as necessary". - 'Like an earthquake' - Missile defences intercepted more than 100 rockets from Gaza and most others fell in open areas, though some hit houses and other civilian structures. "Within two seconds (after air sirens) we heard a huge boom, we saw our curtains flying in the air, windows (broken), and only after a few minutes when we went out, we realised that the missile had hit the building next to us," one man who lives near a block of flats hit by a rocket in Ashkelon said on Tuesday. Israel hit back with major air strikes, with targets including Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV station and internal security headquarters in Gaza City. The military said it struck some 160 targets in the enclave. "What happened was like an earthquake," said Abu Ayman Lemzeni, who lives near the targeted TV building. At least five of the dead in Gaza were claimed as members of various militant groups. Some 26 other people were wounded in the Palestinian territory, according to Gaza's health ministry. - Three wars - The escalation came despite Netanyahu's decision to allow Qatar to transfer millions of dollars in aid to Gaza for salaries as well as fuel to ease an electricity shortage. The agreements had led to calmer protests along the Gaza border after months of deadly unrest. Sunday's special forces operation and resulting clash upset those efforts, leading to questions over the timing of the covert Israeli move. Israel said it was an intelligence-gathering operation and that those efforts must continue to defend the country. Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008, and protests and clashes along the Gaza border since March 30 have repeatedly raised fears of a fourth. At least 234 Palestinians in Gaza have since been killed by Israeli fire, the majority during protests and clashes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed over the same period. A Fiji appeal court threw out a corruption case against the Pacific island nation's main opposition leader Sitiveni Rabuka on Monday, clearing the way for him to contest Wednesday's election. Rabuka, head of the SODELPA Party, had been campaigning with the threat of disqualification hanging over him if he was convicted of making false financial declarations. But the High Court in Suva backed a magistrates' court decision to acquit the former prime minister, dismissing an appeal from the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption. In a judgement handed down Monday, chief judge Anthony Gates said "essential elements (of the case) were not proved, the appeal fails and must be dismissed". He also awarded Rabuka costs of FJ$4,000 ($1,900). SODELPA supporters in the courthouse were jubilant at the verdict and Rabuka said he felt "great and getting better". "I want to thank all of them (supporters)", he said. Rabuka led two coups in the 1980s and served as prime minister from 1992 to 1999. He is challenging the ruling FijiFirst Party, whose leader Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama led his own bloodless coup in 2006 and ruled by decree until winning a 2014 election. Bainimarama is favourite to retain office, with a recent poll putting his approval rating at 68 percent compared with Rabuka's 24 percent. Flying out of Hong Kong proving to be an expensive business for travellers as airlines impose fuel tax to cover rising cost of oil Travellers flying out of Hong Kong International Airport are being charged as much as HK$1,624 (US$207) extra by airlines after a fuel surcharge fee was reintroduced on November 1. A review of ticket prices by the Post has found that almost half of the airlines operating out of the city have added the tariff to the cost of a flight, to cover the rising cost of oil. The Civil Aviation Department, the industry regulator, announced in late September that airlines would be given free rein to charge whatever they liked on fuel surcharges, without seeking approval from the authorities. The Post reviewed all 84 passenger airlines flying out of Hong Kong and of those, 36 had added the fee, 36 had not yet done so or opted not to, while the remaining 12 did not provide a breakdown of ticket costs. Garuda Indonesias fee was the highest, with the carrier adding HK$1,624 on top of the ticket only price. The most common charge was HK$1,304 per return trip. Ten airlines, including Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon added the charge for medium and long-haul trips, including on foreign carriers offering one-stop transit flights. Cathay was among the first to disclose its surcharge, which is HK$652 per flight, resulting in a HK$1,304 charge for a return journey. And travellers opting for a London-Hong Kong-Sydney round trip pay more than HK$2,600. But, with several major airlines not yet charging the fee, travellers have an opportunity to shop round for a cheaper fare, and industry insiders said some carriers were waiting to see how their competitors reacted. Among the airlines yet to add a surcharge are major airlines including British Airways, Qatar Airways, Finnair, Qantas, United Airlines, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, should fliers want to skirt the fuel surcharge while travelling to popular destinations around the world. At present, crude oil costs US$72 per barrel, its lowest price since August. The price jumped to US$86 in early October, reflecting the challenges for airlines operating with a volatile fuel price. Story continues Jet fuel is the single largest cost for a carrier, making up to 30 per cent of an airlines spend. An airline will typically hedge a percentage of its fuel needs years in advance to mitigate extreme price movements. Hong Kong has one of the busiest international airports in Asia, flying 73 million people in 2017, with 84 passenger airlines serving 148 destinations. There are still some airlines not showing the total air ticket price on the first opportunity. However, the aviation regulator has given carriers six months to change things, among them Air China and Japan Airlines have yet to make the change. Similarly, Hong Kong Airlines does not offer a breakdown of taxes and fees collected by the carrier at the first opportunity. In total, 21 airlines implemented a surcharge for long-haul destinations, and 20 carriers implemented a fee for Asian routes. With fiercer competition on routes across Asia, airlines who did charge for long-haul routes, did not always charge for short-haul routes. A typical charge ranged between HK$40 by Royal Jordanian, and HK$468 by Japan Airlines. Notably, of the 17 no-frills airlines serving Hong Kong, just three implemented a fuel fee. The Post has been told a handful of airlines hold private concerns that giving carriers free rein to charge what they want was not a good idea, and would prefer to see any fee capped by the regulator. If an airline wants more customers, they can drop the fuel surcharge quickly Consumer Council chief executive Gilly Wong Fung-han A CAD spokeswoman, repeating previous public statements on the fuel surcharge, said: Individual airlines should be allowed to make their own commercial decisions on whether to levy a fuel surcharge. The key is to encourage competition and to ensure transparency in price display to facilitate consumers in making informed choices. Consumer Council chief executive Gilly Wong Fung-han said that when an airline set the price for the fuel surcharge, it had to assess different issues such as market position, fuel position, and which markets they were targeting for growth. The beauty of this, is it gives great incentives for consumers when they have a few airlines to compare, she said. Some dont add a fuel surcharge, so it will be very easy to compare, and when the market changes quickly, consumers can grab cheap airfares more easily. If an airline wants more customers, they can drop the fuel surcharge quickly. That would offer a lot more opportunity for the industry to compete, and consumers to get more value for money. This article Flying out of Hong Kong proving to be an expensive business for travellers as airlines impose fuel tax to cover rising cost of oil first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. 1. Yes. Nonprofit youth organizations are underfunded in the city. Its a good decision. 2. Yes. In conjunction with city-run programs, it will provide needed opportunities. 3. No. The money should be used to benefit all residents, not just the citys youth. 4. No. The funds should be invested in the area where the project is being developed.. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say whether its an appropriate use of the money. Vote View Results A Bangi-area mother is mourning the horrific death of her 11-month old baby daughter this weekend, after she succumbed to injuries that doctors believe were caused by rape, sodomy and abuse at the hands of her caretakers husband. Police report that the baby was admitted to the Serdang Hospital, just outside of Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, with doctors fighting for two days to save her young life before pronouncing her dead at 10:30am Friday. Area police chief ACP Ahmad Dzaffir Mohd Yussof revealed the horrifying details of her injuries, stating that doctors who examined the girl found her to have a torn hymen, as well as a torn anus and bruising throughout her body. Post-mortem results also showed that she had a fractured skull, and that a blunt-force trauma to the head was the ultimate cause of death. Her heartbroken mother spoke to reporters from Berita Harian, where she revealed that her daughter, Nur Muarzara Ulfa Muhammad Zainal, or Zara as she called her, was sent to a babysitters home in the same housing that they all lived in.However, she discovered that it was not the woman who had initially approached her of minding both Zara and her 5-year-old brother for a monthly fee for RM550/month (US$130), but her husband. According to the victims mother, the husband called his caretaker wife slow. Both he, and his wife, are now in police custody following Zaras death, with the husband having tested positive for methamphetamine. Noraihan Ab Aziz recalls now that her daughter had been sent home on several occasions with bruises throughout her body, but the caretaker had explained that her own son had accidentally injured her. Noraihan added that Zara has started to reject milk, and had swollen lips and gums. At that point, she and her husband decided to send the baby to her husbands sisters home instead. However, the couple told Berita Harian that the baby cried while there, and they decided to return her to the caretaker where they believed she would be safe. Story continues Recalling the morning that Zaras condition became apparent, she told the daily she messaged the babysitter, who assured her that her daughter was fine. However, a few hours later, she received a call from the hospital, telling her that her baby was there, and in a serious condition. Heartbroken, the mother added that she had no idea the caretakers husband was in the picture of taking care of her baby until police told her. I feel heart sick whenever I think about what he has done to my baby. I really want to see the person responsible to be severely punished. This is a difficult time for us, and we have accepted Zaras death as fate. But we want to seek justice, she said. Zaras remains were buries yesterday morning at the Kampung Gong Muslim Cemetery in Kelantan. Our hearts go out to her devastated family. The post Heartbroken mother of baby allegedly raped and abused by sitters husband speaks appeared first on Coconuts. The guestbook at a private service for Louis Cha Leung-yung at Hong Kong Funeral Home in North Point read like a whos who of the citys media, business, showbiz and political elite featuring lawmakers, officials, tycoons and actors. Cha, better known by his pen name Jin Yong, died on October 30 at age 94. The funeral procession will take place on Tuesday morning at Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island. Floral wreaths were sent from present and past state leaders, including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, Lis predecessors Wen Jiabao and Zhu Rongji, and current Vice-Premier Han Zheng. Wreaths also came from former deputy director of the State Councils Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Chen Zuoer, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and her predecessors, Tung Chee-hwa and Donald Tsang Yam-kuen. Attending the service were legislator Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, former home affairs minister Tsang Tak-sing, fellow novelist and friend Ni Kuang, food critic Chua Lam and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma a lifelong fan of Chas. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. Ray Lui Leung-wai, who has starred in a number of television shows based on Chas novels showed up to pay respects to a man of extraordinary talent. The novels he wrote have given me a lot of happy and sad moments as I lived the days of my youth. My Chinese is good because I read a lot of them, he said at the service. Mainland Chinese actor Huang Xiaoming, who played Yang Guo in a 2006 remake of Chas The Return of the Condor Heroes, said it was an honour to have worked with Cha. He hoped for more opportunities to participate in adaptations of Chas work. On the other side of the harbour, about 400 people queued to pay tribute to Cha at a public condolence point set up outside the Hong Kong Heritage Museums Jin Yong Gallery. Before its 4pm opening, more than 100 people were queuing outside the Sha Tin museum. Story continues Mourners entered in groups of three and wrote their messages in books laid on a white-clothed table decorated with two baskets of white flowers and photographs of Cha. I loved reading his novels, which I found very appealing, said Yiu Ping-sing, a 48-year-old truck driver who took the day off and was first in line at about 1.30pm. All Chinese people would read his works. Sam Sang from Zhejiang province, who lives in Hong Kong, said Chas works were a source of escapism during his days a student. I got to see another world from a different perspective, said Sang. You could be inspired with fresh ideas from his works. The condolence point will be there until November 30. Cha published his first martial arts novel, The Book and the Sword in 1955. Following its success, Cha went on to write 14 hugely popular martial arts novels. He also co-founded the Hong Kong Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao Daily News. With more than 100 million copies sold worldwide and adapted into media ranging from films to video games, Cha was widely regarded as the most influential Chinese novelist of the 20th century. This article Hong Kongs business, showbiz and political elite attend private vigil for legendary Chinese writer Louis Cha Jin Yong first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. More from South China Morning Post: Hong Kong is moving ahead with a law to tighten requirements for tour guides after Tung Chung was inundated with holidaymakers led by agents from mainland China allegedly operating illegally. The normally quiet town on Lantau Island has been swamped by tourists in recent days following the opening of a major new cross-border bridge to Macau and Zhuhai. Some guides were accused of flouting employment laws which prevent mainlanders working in Hong Kong, but a bill currently making its way through the citys legislature would specifically make it a criminal offence for a guide to operate without a licence. The Hong Kong Tourism Commission, a government body tasked with promoting the industry, on Monday said it would push for the Travel Industry Bill to undergo a second reading by the end of the year. Tempers flared over the past two weekends when tens of thousands of mainland travellers, many in tour groups, crossed the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and flooded Tung Chung, rekindling memories of similar scenes in other border towns that have witnessed tensions between locals and visitors. Under existing laws, any non-local who provides services related to arranging accommodation, transport or sightseeing without a licensed Hong Kong tour agent is violating their conditions of stay in the city, according to the commission. But the body clarified that any mainland tour agent only arranging cross-border transport and then letting travellers arrange their own itinerary was not required to apply for a licence. The department of culture and tourism in Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong, has said it is highly concerned about alleged illegal mainland tours. It has demanded operators follow Hong Kong law. Some 96,500 visitors passed through the immigration facility on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge on Sunday. The number was slightly down on the record 102,900 seen on the Sunday a week earlier. Story continues Many made excursions to Tung Chung, which sparked queues at bus stops and restaurants and saw shops largely emptied of stock. The rush sparked a response from localist activists who on Sunday came out onto the streets to protest and reclaim the area. Alice Chan Cheung Lok-yee, executive director of the Travel Industry Council, which regulates Hong Kong tour agents, said on a Monday radio show that 100 mainland tour groups had registered with local agents to legitimately operate in Hong Kong after crossing the mega bridge on Sunday. The groups comprised an estimated 3,000 tourists, just 6 per cent of the total number crossing the bridge that day. Hong Kong tour guides who receive mainland tours must be registered with the council and cannot guide multiple groups at the same time, Chan said. To date the organisation had seen no cases of local guides flouting these rules, she added. The council has the power to issue warnings, suspend or revoke tourist guide permits. Leung Fong-yuen, chairwoman of the Tourism Industry Employees General Union, which represents thousands of tour guides in Hong Kong, said on the same radio show that she had seen about 10 tour groups at the bridge immigration port on Sunday afternoon. Among them, about three groups did not seem to have local guides, Leung said. She took the same bus to Tung Chung as one mainland tour group led by a local guide, who on the bus took off her pass and told Leung: I received them, bought bus tickets for them, and they will be dismissed soon. So my job is almost done. Many local guides were simply tasked with buying bus tickets, introducing an artificial island supporting part of the bridge, and reminding tourists not to litter or spit, Leung said. This then creates a grey area when the tourists are asked to travel on their own afterwards, she explained. Chan said funnelling one group after another into Tung Chung could be problematic as when the local guides departed, some mainlanders in the group without the right credentials might lead the tourists illegitimately, she said. Chan urged Hong Kong police to look into these types of cases. She also called on potential witnesses to come forward, as arrests would require plenty of evidence. This article Hong Kong moves to tighten tour guide rules as visitors overwhelm Lantau after mega bridge opens first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. The partnership will focus on the payments sector as Go-Jek prepares for its debut in Singapore As it nears its launch in Singapore, Indonesian ride-hailing giant Go-Jek today announced a partnership with DBS Bank to work on payment services. Starting with a focus on Singapore, their partnership will also be extended to other countries in Southeast Asia, where Go-Jek has been speeding up its regional expansion effort. It has recently launched its ride-hailing service in Vietnam and Thailand, and has begun pre-registration process for aspiring drivers in Singapore. In a press statement, Go-Jek President Andre Soelistyo said that the company is set to launch the beta version of its app for Singapore market in the coming weeks. We know that people are desperate for more choice in the sector and we believe we can satisfy this demand. The response from the driver community since we opened pre-registration has been overwhelming and we are confident that by working with DBS, we will see the same level of excitement from consumers too, he said. Also Read: Riding the irony: Can Indonesian GO-JEK afford supporting LGBTQ rights in a country that condemns it? One of the major banks in the country, DBS has over four million credit and debit cards in circulation with its mobile wallet service DBS PayLah! being one of the most popular, said Tan Su Shan, Group Head of Consumer Banking & Wealth Management, DBS Bank. In doing so we are stepping up to partner with like-minded companies like GO-JEK, one of Southeast Asias most iconic technology companies, to build inclusive digital ecosystems for our customers, she said. Go-Jek is backed by the likes of Google, Temasek, Tencent and Meituan Dianping. The company has been reported to raise another round of funding that may put its valuation to more than US$9 billion. The post Go-Jek teams up with DBS to support its Singapore expansion appeared first on e27. South Korea has sent 200 tonnes of tangerines to the North in return for mushrooms Pyongyang gave earlier, Seoul said Monday, in the latest reconciliatory gesture between the neighbours. Seoul is pushing ahead with a rapprochement with the nuclear-armed North while its security ally the US insists pressure on Pyongyang should be maintained until it denuclearises. The tangerines -- a rarity in the North -- were being airlifted to Pyongyang from the southern island of Jeju, where they were grown, in four flights, the last one due Monday afternoon. The fruits reciprocate two tonnes of pine mushrooms sent by the North's leader Kim Jong Un during his September summit with the South's President Moon Jae-in, Seoul's presidential office said. The pine mushrooms -- a delicacy claimed to help prevent heart diseases and diabetes, and a key Northern export to China -- were distributed to Southern families separated from relatives in the North. "Tangerines are a speciality of the South that ordinary North Koreans normally don't have access to," Moon's spokesman said Sunday. His office did not elaborate on the fruits' value but local media, citing local tangerine prices, estimated it at about 400 to 500 million won ($350,000-$440,000). Opposition politicians were critical. "This action runs counter to the current atmosphere of the international community," Liberty Korea Party floor leader Song Hee-kyung said in a statement. "South Koreans are sick and tired of such sentimental moves." Moon -- a dovish leader who advocates dialogue with the North to nudge it toward denuclearisation negotiations -- has met Kim three times so far and is seeking to hold another summit in Seoul in the near future. Kim also gave Moon a pair of North Korean indigenous hunting dogs after the September summit -- one of which gave birth to six puppies on Friday, according to the South Korean leader. "The gift of two dogs now grew to six more dogs. It's a good fortune for us," Moon said on Facebook on Monday, adding: "I hope inter-Korea ties will also be like this." But the peace push has increasingly met with scepticism at home and abroad as denuclearisation talks between Pyongyang and Washington falter. North Korea last week asked for a planned meeting between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Kim's right-hand man Kim Yong Chol to be delayed. No clear explanation was given, but Pyongyang is demanding sanctions imposed on it over its weapons programmes are eased while the Washington insists that they should stay in place until the North denuclearises. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended allowing Qatar to transfer millions of dollars to Hamas-run Gaza despite criticism from within his own government over the move aimed at restoring calm after months of unrest. The Israeli-authorised money transfer appeared to be part of talks that would see Islamist movement Hamas end months of often violent protests along the border in exchange for Israel easing its blockade of the Gaza Strip. Border protests have been much calmer the past two Fridays, the day they usually peak. Netanyahu's remarks late Saturday were his first on the issue since Israel allowed the money transfer to the enclave controlled by Hamas, which Israel, the United States and European Union consider a terrorist movement. "I'm doing what I can, in coordination with the security establishment, to return quiet to the southern communities, but also to prevent a humanitarian crisis," Netanyahu said, referring to Israeli towns near the Gaza border and deteriorating conditions in the enclave. Netanyahu said the Israeli security establishment supported the move and that ministers in his security cabinet approved it. "We held serious discussions," he said ahead of his flight to Paris to join world leaders marking the centenary of the end of World War I. "I think we're acting in a responsible and wise way," he said. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu's education minister and right-wing rival, compared the cash flow to "protection money" paid to criminals. - Critics of Gaza cash - On Friday, Palestinian civil servants began receiving payments after months of sporadic salary disbursements in cash-strapped Gaza, with $15 million delivered into the enclave through Israel in suitcases. A total of $90 million is to be distributed in six monthly instalments, Gaza authorities said, primarily to cover salaries of officials working for Hamas. Qatar has also said it would hand out $100 to each of 50,000 poor families, as well as larger sums to Palestinians wounded in clashes along the Gaza-Israel border. General elections in Israel are due in a year but could take place earlier, and Netanyahu is widely seen as wanting to avoid a conflict that holds unpredictable risks before then. On Sunday, the premier said that he would steer clear of another Gaza war if possible. "I do not shrink from a necessary war but I want to avoid it when it is not essential," Netanyahu said at a press conference for Israeli journalist accompanying him in Paris. He said that his Hamas policy consisted of two phases. "First of all calm and afterward to look at the possibility of an agreement. We're not there yet and I can't promise that we shall get there," he said Sunday. But if the current lull in border violence was not maintained, he pledged to use "maximum force". Deadly clashes have accompanied major protests along the Gaza-Israel border that began on March 30. At least 221 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, the majority shot during protests and clashes, since the protests began, while others died in tank fire or air strikes. One Israeli soldier has been killed along the Gaza border in that time. Netanyahu's political opponents on the right and left have criticised the Gaza cash deal. "You might buy short-term quiet, but you accustom the other side to applying violence as a way of advancing its interests," Bennett, a member of the security cabinet, told public radio Sunday. Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he had opposed "transferring the money to Hamas". It was also criticised by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, which saw it as undermining reconciliation efforts with rivals Hamas and its attempts to return to power in Gaza. The cash transfer was the latest Qatari assistance to Gaza approved by Israel in recent weeks. The Gulf emirate has also started buying additional fuel for Gaza's sole power station, allowing outages to be reduced to their lowest level in years. Egypt and the United Nations have been brokering indirect negotiations for a long-term truce with Israel, against which Hamas has fought three wars since 2008. No reason to doubt safety of Hong Kong station at heart of construction scandal, boss of firm that built it says as he goes on attack at commission of inquiry The general manager of Leighton Contractors (Asia) went on the attack on Monday as he faced the former judge investigating allegations of shoddy construction work on Hong Kongs HK$97.1 billion (US$12.4 billion) Sha Tin-Central link. Karl Speed, the firms general manager, defended the work on the station platform at Hung Hom, which is at the heart of the inquiry, with Leighton workers accused of cutting corners during the building process. While government advisers have recommended digging up a section of the platform, and opening up a diaphragm wall that is also under review, Speed said any such action was unnecessary, and there was no reason to doubt the stations structural integrity. The Leighton boss also said it was a blatant lie to suggest the firm had tried to bury evidence of wrongdoing when it signed a confidentiality agreement with whistle-blower Jason Poon Chuk-hung, managing director of concreting subcontractor China Technology Corporation. Leighton doesnt recommend physically breaking open the concrete to check the connections between the reinforcement bars with couplers in the platform slabs and diaphragm walls, Speed told the commission of inquiry. The general manager said such an inspection method would reduce the strength of the concrete and require significant and expensive strengthening and propping before the concrete was broken open. Workers for Speeds firm are accused of cutting steel bars short to fake proper installation into couplers on the platform, while there are allegations that supporting diaphragm walls were changed without authorisation. In any event, Leighton doesnt believe it is necessary and appropriate to conduct such costly and damaging inspection. There is no reason to doubt the structural integrity and safety of the diaphragm walls and platform slabs, Speed said. The Leighton boss emphasised his belief that his stance was supported by evidence supplied by the people involved in the rail project. Story continues No evidence suggests that there is anything wrong with what has been constructed, Speed said. Based on the evidence provided by the professionals that worked on the project the works had been constructed in accordance with the contract. However, Michael Hartmann, the inquiry chairman, a former non-permanent judge on Hong Kongs top court, asked if Speed had been aware of the recommendations made by government advisers in an interim report on the matter. In the report, the advisers recommended that MTR Corporation formulate a strategy for assessing the works in the expanded Hung Hom station, including methods of opening up the platform structures, non-destructive tests and load tests. The government is still awaiting another report from the rail operator with more detailed information. But, Speed told the inquiry chairman he had not read the report, and even if he had it would be unlikely to change his view on the subject. The general manager also denied suggestions Leighton had given its workers instructions to cut the rebar before placing it in the platform. Leighton has found no evidence of any instructions being given by Leighton to cut off or shorten the threaded ends of rebars, he said. Speed said Leighton was only aware of three occasions of bar-cutting by staff of subcontractor Fang Sheung Construction at the end of 2015. As a result, a nonconformance report had been issued to Fang Sheung. Leighton knows of no more than eight of these defective rebars which were promptly identified and rectified by our teams I am informed that all couplers were visually inspected, he said. As to the confidential agreement the firm entered into with Poon, Speed adamantly rejected any suggestion the move was to ensure Poon destroyed photos and videos purportedly showing shoddy work. This is categorically a blatant lie. It never happened, Speed said. Meanwhile, Cheung Chiu-fung, site foreman for Fang Sheung, said he felt ashamed when he was notified about defective work by his workers, via the nonconformance report. He believed the workers acted independently in cutting the rebar, and had done so because they encountered difficulties during its installation because of some damaged couplers. I dont think the workers did the bar-cutting on purpose, he said. They were just acting stupidly and recklessly for the sake of convenience. This article No reason to doubt safety of Hong Kong station at heart of construction scandal, boss of firm that built it says as he goes on attack at commission of inquiry first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. MAS has also officially launched its AI and data analytics guidelines The digitisation of financial services in Singapore has been kicked up a notch today, with Singapores central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), announcing a slew of fintech initiatives and updates at this years edition of the Singapore Fintech Festival. First, the MAS and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) is partnering up with six private sector partners to create a cross-border innovation hub called Business sans Borders. The six partners are GlobalLinker, Mastercard, SAP, Yellow Pages, DBS Bank and Singtel all of which service groups of small and medium enterprises in various capacities. Through this new alliance, the six partners will help SMEs build digital solutions that will strengthen their ability to conduct cross-border and domestic trade. The hub will also allow SMEs to do business with each other more effectively. For example, a logistics enterprise can use the hubs network to reach out to more business customers easily. The hub will contain the following features: A multi-ecosystem sandbox environment containing anonymised SME data so they can test out new digital services; An app store that offers various SME-targetted services such as human resources, logistics and finance. An Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine to match SMEs with different suppliers of services and products across the ASEAN region. According to a press release, the POC will also solicit involvement from interested startups as well as established industry players in developing technical frameworks and potential governance structures for the exchange of anonymised SME data. This pioneering hybrid data and solutions hub will be supported by innovative and relevant financial services and powered with self-learning artificial intelligence. We are confident that Business sans Borders will positively transform economies and propagate financial inclusion through ASEAN and beyond, said Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer, MAS. Story continues A Proof-of-Concept (POC) version of the hub will be launched next year. Collaboration through open API exchange Today, MAS also said that the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN)s new API exchange (APIX) will be officially launched this Wednesday. APIX is a fintech marketplace containing APIs developed startups. It will also feature a sandbox This means that financial institutions will be able to use startups APIs to strengthen their services, as well as collaborate with the startups to develop and experiment with new solutions. Improving the KYC process Last year, MAS said it was working with local and foreign banks to explore a shared services platform for doing corporate Know-Your-Customer (KYC) a system by which banks obtain their clients information. However, while they were able to harmonise various banking KYC systems, the cost of implementing this cross-border system was too high, so that project has now been put on hold. Now, MAS and GovTech are working with financial institutions to gather government data more efficiently so they can assess an SMEs credit score. Some SMEs do not have (or have insufficient) credit history, and that can be a hindrance if they want to apply for bank loans. What MAS and Gov Tech will do is extract trusted data from government sources on the business and key individuals associated with the SMEs to build a more informed credit assessment. They will run a pilot with three banks in the first half of next year. Guidelines for an AI and data analytics-driven ecosystem As financial institutions continue to upload and consolidate critical data (such as customer details) online to improve their KYC processes, it has become increasingly imperative to also develop stringent rules to prevent misuse of such information. To that end, MAS has launched a seat of principles called Fairness, Ethics, Accountability & Transparency, or FEAT, to oversee the use of AI and data analytics by financial institutions. MAS first announced that it was working on such a document in April this year. A committee, co-chaired by MAS Chief Data Officer, David Hardoon, and Hsieh Fu Hua, Co-Founder and Advisor, PrimePartners, was set up to prepare the guide. Also Read: Close engagement with VCs give startups a better chance at success The FEAT Principles lay the foundation for a thriving AI and data analytics ecosystem. As the financial industry harnesses the potential of AI and data analytics on an increasing scale, we need to be cognisant of using these technologies in a responsible and ethical manner, said Hardoon, in a press statement. Some of the guidelines include ensuring AI and data analytics (AIDA)-driven decisions are conducted in an ethical manner that does not disadvantage individuals or groups; and that companies AIDA-driven decisions go through proper approval processes either through its board members or internal and external authorities. The FEAT principles also outline that companies will have to give full disclosure to individuals subjected to AIDA-driven decisions. The FEAT document will be a set of guidelines that is continuously updated and renewed. It is not known how it will be enforced on companies, though. For the full details of the document, click here. Blockchain banking system progress Last year, MAS and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) said it was in the prototype and POC phase of building their distributed ledger banking system called Project Ubin Today, MAS has unveiled new progress made on this project. It has successfully developed a blockchain-powered tokenised assets transaction system. In simpler terms, buyers and sellers can use this system to conduct transactions quickly and without risks. This is because all transactions will be placed on an unalterable record on the blockchain system. So once a transaction has been initiated, the payment and goods will go to the seller and buyer respectively at the same time, and neither party can reverse or change the process ruling out any chances of fraud. MAS also announced it was working with the Bank of Canada to link their blockchain banking systems. This could ease cross-border payments between the two countries. The post Singapores central bank announces new hub for SMEs to access business services appeared first on e27. Supporters of Sri Lanka's fired prime minister and a top election official on Monday challenged in court the president's sacking of parliament, upping the ante in a political crisis that has sparked international alarm. President Maithripala Sirisena late Friday called snap elections and dissolved the legislature, two weeks after sacking the prime minister and installing the divisive Mahinda Rajapakse in his place. The United States has led a chorus of international concern over events in the strategically important Indian Ocean island nation of 21 million people. Three political parties holding an absolute majority in parliament and Ratnajeevan Hoole, an election commissioner and one of three officials tasked with conducting polls, on Monday asked the Supreme Court to declare the president's actions illegal. The court, which heard preliminary submissions, has adjourned until Tuesday. In the five-page petition, Hoole said Sirisena broke the law in calling the snap elections for January 5 after a string of unconstitutional moves since October 26 when he fired Ranil Wickremesinghe, the prime minister. Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP), the main opposition Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the leftist JVP, or People's Liberation Front challenged Sirisena's action in the court. TNA spokesman M. A. Sumanthiran said the Supreme Court agreed to take up the petitions immediately considering the importance of the issue. "We are also asking for an interim order" for an injunction against preparations for the election, which would be two years ahead of schedule, Sumanthiran said. Several petitioners also asked that parliament be restored until the court has ruled on their plea. Court officials said Chief Justice Nalin Perera and two other judges decided to fast-track the hearings. Sarath Amunugama, appointed foreign minister by Sirisena, told Colombo-based diplomats Monday that he expected a verdict within five days. Legal experts say the dissolved parliament would have to be restored if the Supreme Court holds with the petitioners. If not, the January 5 election will have to go ahead. Independent election monitors have also questioned the legality of the snap poll announced by Sirisena. - Civil unrest fears - Wickremesinghe remains holed up in the prime minister's official residence, and both he and Rajapakse are attempting to run parallel administrations. On Sunday night, speaker Karu Jayasuriya urged civil servants to defy Sirisena's "illegal orders". But later Sirisena defended his actions, saying violence among rival MPs could have led to "civil unrest" across Sri Lanka if the legislature had met as scheduled this week. "Had I allowed the parliament to meet on November 14, there would have been violence in the House and it could have spread to our villages and towns," Sirisena said in a televised address. "I acted to prevent civil unrest." Wickremesinghe rejected this outright, saying Sirisena had "brushed aside the constitution" in sacking the legislature. "He has pushed the country into an unprecedented mess, destroyed its image and damaged international confidence in the country," he said in a statement. Sirisena's rivals maintain that he had no constitutional power to sack the assembly before it completed four-and-a-half years of its five-year term that ends in August 2020. Only China has recognised the appointment of Rajapakse, who during his decade as president until 2015 relied heavily on Beijing for diplomatic and financial support as the West shunned him. While in power Rajapakse ended Sri Lanka's four-decade civil war by crushing the separatist Tamil Tigers. But 40,000 ethnic Tamils were allegedly massacred in the process. Seventeen journalists and media workers were killed during his time in power, and Rajapakse and his family have been accused of using his period in office to line their pockets through corruption. Monday's meeting of diplomats called by Amunugama was boycotted by several Western diplomats while others sent low-level representatives, diplomatic sources said. MANILA, Philippines The number of jobless Filipinos soared at 22% in the third quarter of the year, based on the latest survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS). The figure is higher by 2.3 points in comparison with the results of the survey in June. The results revealed that 9.2% or 4.1M were retrenched due to recession or cost cutting by companies; 8.4% or 3.7M voluntarily left their old jobs; while 2M were first-time job seekers. The rate is higher in Metro Manila with 26.4% followed by Balance Luzon with 22.9%, Mindanao with 19.7% and Visayas with 19.6%. Meanwhile, the number of Filipinos who believe there will be more job opportunities in the Philippines in the next 12 months dropped, according to the survey. Malacanang, meanwhile, seriously considers the results of the survey while it continuously finding ways to improve the local employment situation. Likewise, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the government is confident that this concern will be immediately addressed. We are likewise developing our human resources, and with the designation of Mr. Isidro Lapena as Director-General of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) we are confident that he can contribute in our employment targets by improving industry-relevant competencies of our youth, especially unutilized, unemployed, and underemployed school dropouts, and increase their opportunities for work experience through skills training, Panelo said in a statement Sunday (November 11). Marje Pelayo (with reports from Rosalie Coz) The post SWS third quarter polls reveal 9.8M Filipinos are jobless appeared first on UNTV News. By Luke Baker PARIS (Reuters) - President Donald Trump could not attend a commemoration in France for U.S. soldiers and marines killed during World War One on Saturday because rain made it impossible to arrange transport, the White House said. The last minute cancellation prompted widespread criticism on social media and from some officials in Britain and the United States that Trump had "dishonored" U.S. servicemen. The president was scheduled to pay tribute at a ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, about 85 km (50 miles) east of Paris, with his wife Melania. But light steady rain and a low cloud ceiling prevented his helicopter from traveling to the site. "(Their attendance) has been canceled due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather," the White House said in a statement, adding that a delegation lead by Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired general, went instead. The decision prompted a rash of criticism on Twitter, with Nicholas Soames, a British member of parliament who is a grandson of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, saying that Trump was dishonoring U.S. servicemen. "They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldn't even defy the weather to pay his respects to the Fallen", Soames wrote on Twitter. White House officials said the decision was taken due to the weather and cited security concerns in hastily arranging a motorcade. Similar concerns prevented Trump from reaching the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea a year ago when foggy weather prevented his helicopter from landing. Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser for strategic communications under President Barack Obama, said the excuse about the inclement weather did not stand up. "I helped plan all of President Obama's trips for 8 years," he wrote on Twitter. "There is always a rain option. Always." Despite the light rain, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a moving ceremony in Compiegne, northeast of Paris, to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the World War One armistice. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended his own ceremony to pay tribute to Canadian troops killed at Vimy Ridge, on the battlefields of northeastern France. Around 70 leaders, including Trump, are scheduled to gather at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Sunday morning to mark the commemoration of the centenary of the end of the war, when some 10 million soldiers were killed during four years of grinding conflict. It was not clear what Trump decided to do instead of attending the cemetery. The White House said he was at the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Paris. During that time he sent a tweet wishing a "Happy 243rd Birthday" to the U.S. Marine Corps. The president is scheduled to take part in a ceremony at the Suresnes American Cemetery to the west of Paris on Sunday afternoon, when he is expected to make formal remarks. (Additional reporting by Kate Holton and Steve Holland; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Clelia Oziel) Turkey on Monday lashed out at "unacceptable" and "impertinent" comments by the French foreign minister who accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of playing a "political game" over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey had shared recordings linked to the Saudi journalist's murder last month with Riyadh, the United States, France, Britain and other allies, without giving details of the tapes' specific content. In an interview with France 2 television on Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he "for the moment was not aware" of any information transmitted by Ankara. Asked if the Turkish president was lying, he said: "It means that he has a political game to play in these circumstances." His comments provoked fury in Ankara. "We find it unacceptable that he accused President Erdogan of 'playing political games'," the communications director at the Turkish presidency, Fahrettin Altun, told AFP in a written statement. "Let us not forget that this case would have been already covered up had it not been for Turkey's determined efforts." Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu responded even more sharply, saying that his French counterpart's accusations amounted to "impertinence". "It does not fit the seriousness of a foreign minister," he said, accusing Le Drian of "exceeding his authority". The French foreign ministry later spoke of a "misunderstanding", adding that information provided by Turkey had not allowed for the "full truth" to come out, including who might be responsible for the crime. "The full truth which we care about isn't just linked to Turkish recordings (...) the full truth is also to be sought in Riyadh and in exchanges with our other partners," the ministry said. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor and critic of the Saudi government, was last seen entering the consulate on October 2 to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage to a Turkish woman. Turkey's chief prosecutor has said he was strangled and then dismembered as part of a premeditated plan. There have been claims that his body was dissolved in acid. - 'No exception'- After repeated denials, Riyadh finally admitted the 59-year-old had been murdered at the mission in what it called a "rogue" operation. Erdogan has accused the "highest levels" of the Saudi government of ordering the hit, without directly pointing the finger at all-powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He has said he does "not believe for a second" that the prince's father King Salman ordered the crime. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the crown prince in a phone call Sunday that the United States would hold accountable all those involved in the killing. Khashoggi's murder and the war in Yemen are two of the main sources of strain in the decades-old alliance between Washington and Riyadh. The Yemen conflict has pushed that country to the brink of famine. Altun said Ankara had shared evidence linked to the murder with officials from a large number of countries and that France was "no exception". "I confirm that evidence pertaining to the Khashoggi murder has also been shared with the relevant agencies of the French government," he said. A representative of French intelligence listened to the audio recording and examined detailed information including a transcript on October 24, he added. "If there is miscommunication between the French government's various agencies, it is up to the French authorities - not Turkey - to take care of that problem," Altun said. - Canada 'fully briefed'- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday of the recordings: "Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share." He added that he had brief exchanges with Erdogan over the weekend in Paris at commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. "I thanked him for his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation." Asked if he had heard the recording himself, he said: "I have not." Trudeau was speaking from Paris, where he was attending a peace forum hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. Canada's spy chief David Vigneault travelled to Turkey at Trudeau's request to discuss the investigation into Khashoggi's death, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) confirmed. "As you can appreciate, I cannot go into specifics about the investigation but I can confirm that the director of CSIS has listened to the audio tapes in question," the agency said in an email to AFP. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters: "I can tell you that there was an exchange between secret services on this point," he told reporters, but declined to elaborate. Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt held talks Monday with Saudi King Salman and was also expected to meet the crown prince in Riyadh. "It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear," Hunt said ahead of his visit. He encouraged Saudi authorities to "co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death." 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #45 Posted on 11 November 2018 by John Hartz Story of the Week... Video of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Sighting of sperm whales in Arctic a sign of changing ecosystem, say scientists Rare sighting in the Canadian Arctic as a growing number of species expand their range into warming waters Sperm whales were spotted in the Canadian Arctic. Photograph: SeaTops/Getty Images A rare sighting of sperm whales in the Canadian Arctic is the latest sign of a quickly changing ecosystem, say scientists, as a growing number of species expand their range into warming Arctic waters. Brandon Laforest, a marine biologist with the World Wildlife Fund, and guide Titus Allooloo were working on a project monitoring the effect of marine traffic on the regions narwhal population when they spotted the pair of large whales just outside Pond Inlet, a community at the northern tip of Baffin Island in September. Video of the incident, released at the end of October, captures the second known sighting of sperm whales in the region. In 2014, hunters from Pond Inlet spotted them in the area. At first, Allooloo and Laforest thought the dark shapes in the water were killer whales another species that has become a frequent visitor to the waters as temperatures creep up. But the distinct shape of the dorsal fin surprised Allooloo a veteran hunter. Theyre not known by us, we dont know too much about them, Allooloo told the CBC. Sighting of sperm whales in Arctic a sign of changing ecosystem, say scientists by Leyland Cecco, Environment, Guardian, Nov 5, 2018 Video of the Week... California now in Perpetual Fire Season. Will Get Worse! Thanks to Global Warming Northern California blaze quadruples in size, levels Paradise, a town of 30,000; other fires rage near Los Angeles https://www.timesofisrael.com/massive... Sources Climate Scientist: California Wildfires Are Faster, Stronger, Deadlier & Will Continue to Intensify https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9KlV... As I told @BBCWorld News back in October, California no longer has a "fire season". They have a perpetual fire season: https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/stat... The #CampFire in northern California is now the most destructive in the state's history, breaking a mark set...last year https://twitter.com/billmckibben/stat... California: Hot, Dry, and on Fire https://twitter.com/ClimateSignals/st... Nick Valencia Abandoned cars, burned forests. This is what the aftermath of sheer terror looks like in Paradise https://twitter.com/blkahn/status/106... Raw footage of Camp Fire evacuees, devastation in Paradise and abandoned Feather River hospital https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt_PY... California wildfires: Paradise, California 'mostly destroyed by Camp Fire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2KAC... Residents flee Northern California wildfire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4kmm... WOOLSEY FIRE NEWS: MALIBU UNDER MANDATORY EVACUATIONS DUE TO CALIFORNIA BRUSHFIRE https://www.newsweek.com/woolsey-fire... Gov. Jerry Brown: We entered a New Climate & Weather Era https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp-P2... Calif. Governor on Wildfires: 'It's Not Over' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2IgT... California now in Perpetual Fire Season. Will Get Worse! Thanks to Global Warming, You Tube Video by Climate State, Nov 10, 2018 Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... What are the climate change consequences of the midterm elections? (Dana) (Dana) Climate science comeback strategies: Al Gore said what? (Karin Kirk) (Karin Kirk) Did bombing during second world war cool global temperatures? (Alan Robock) (Alan Robock) New findings on ocean warming: 5 questions answered (Scott Denning) (Scott Denning) New research this week (Ari) (Ari) 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46 (John Hartz) (John Hartz) 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46 (John Hartz) Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Stan Lee, the Marvel Comics icon who helped create some of the imprints most important characters, died Monday at age 95. After news of his death broke, tributes began pouring in on social media from everyone from Marvel-affiliated directors Joss Whedon, Taika Waititi, and the Russo brothers to famous fans such as Jimmy Kimmel and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Even rival DC Comics paid their respects. There will never be another Stan Lee. For decades he provided both young and old with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence, inspiration, strength, friendship and joy. He exuded love and kindness and will leave an indelible mark on so, so, so many lives, wrote actor Chris Evans, who has played both Captain America and the Human Torch. He then added Lees own signature signoff: Excelsior! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We have rounded up tributes to Lee below and will continue to update this post as additional ones come in. No one has had more of an impact on my career and everything we do at Marvel Studios than Stan Lee. Stan leaves an extraordinary legacy that will outlive us all. Our thoughts are with his daughter, his family, and his millions of fans. #ThankYouStan #Excelsior! Kevin Feige (@Kevfeige) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Weve lost a creative genius. Stan Lee was a pioneering force in the superhero universe. Im proud to have been a small part of his legacy and .... to have helped bring one of his characters to life. #StanLee #Wolverine pic.twitter.com/iOdefi7iYz Hugh Jackman (@RealHughJackman) November 12, 2018 THANK YOU, @TheRealStanLee. You gave us characters that continue to stand the test of time and evolve with our consciousness. You taught us that there are no limits to our future as long as we have access to our imagination. Rest in power! #EXCELSIOR #StanLee #rip pic.twitter.com/hnSmnHIDln Winston Duke (@Winston_Duke) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement You were a man before your time... now it feels like you are gone before your time. RIP Stan the Man... thanks for the laughs and words of support. Its a honor to live in your universe! #MarvelKnight pic.twitter.com/1TXdPqUB3x Anthony Mackie (@AnthonyMackie) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Today we lost one of the greats. @TheRealStanLee, you were a inspiration and superhero to us all. Thank you for contributing so much- and giving us all something to aspire to! #ripstanlee pic.twitter.com/GzFhwgU0WA Zoe Saldana (@zoesaldana) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Rest in Peace Stan Lee Letitia Wright (@letitiawright) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Overwhelmed with love and gratitude for the late, great hero, Stan Lee. Rest In Paradise. Thank you for your imagination, creativity, tenacity, inspiration and love!!! https://t.co/4WqHCtDXE1 Rosario Dawson (@rosariodawson) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Heartbroken.@TheRealStanLee represents the best of us. How grateful I am for his existence and influence. He lived to see his creations shape the world, and his legacy will inspire generations to come. But Ill miss him. EXCELCIOR!!https://t.co/5MMhLiZZ4C Seth Green (@SethGreen) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Stan Lee created a universe where, if a character was beloved enough, they could never really die. Now THATS thinking ahead. Thanks for so much of my life. Youll never not be in it. Joss Whedon (@joss) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement What can I say about the loss of a visionary who created one of my favorite characters I've ever played? Stan Lee's fun-loving wit, charm, and poetic legacy will keep him alive for generations to come. My heart hurts, and he will be sorely missed.#StanLee #RIP @TheRealStanLee pic.twitter.com/EPST2GkNTu Doug Jones (@actordougjones) November 12, 2018 He changed the way we look at heroes, and modern comics will always bear his indelible mark. His infectious enthusiasm reminded us why we all fell in love with these stories in the first place. Excelsior, Stan. DC (@DCComics) November 12, 2018 Advertisement His contribution to Pop Culture was revolutionary & cannot be overstated. He was everything you hoped he would be & MORE. I loved this man & will never stop missing him. They say you should never meet a childhood idol. They are wrong. #RIPStanTheMan pic.twitter.com/6OKH07ahJg Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Thank you for filling our childhoods with such joy. You will be dearly, dearly missed... pic.twitter.com/Qt2sZqaNlc Russo Brothers (@Russo_Brothers) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Damn... RIP Stan. Thanks for everything. pic.twitter.com/TMAaDJSOhh Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) November 12, 2018 Legend Godspeed Stan I feel blessed to have Known you . You made this place better and brought joy to everyone you met . Rest In Peace xo @therealstanlee @marvel https://t.co/WdWzrxrErs Karl Urban (@KarlUrban) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement At age 7, I drew this weird portrait of Stan Lee and asked my Mom to send it to him. Thankfully she didn't because 30+ years later, I got to give it to the great one in person. Thanks for all the fun Stan #Excelsior pic.twitter.com/IpfYBSjWyf Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement With Stan Lee, at The Hollywood Bowl in 2012. Rest In Peace Stan! Photo by: @RossHalfin pic.twitter.com/q4it26yIRZ Joe Perry (@JoePerry) November 12, 2018 Advertisement This is sad R.I.P. STAN LEE a few years ago we got a chance to hang out with the legend he was a cool guy you will be missed prayers up to the family friends & fans pic.twitter.com/VnWwXeP6lh juicy j (@therealjuicyj) November 12, 2018 Advertisement I want to say THANK YOU @TheRealStanLee for always making me feel special when we talk @Marvel Talk & how we share the same birthday! I cant believe youre gone I remember you telling me that I can be #MilesMorales if I keep Dreaming BIG! Youll always be missed! #RIPStanLee pic.twitter.com/GEX3zqkQcd Miles Brown (@MilesBrown) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Thank u Stan Lee for everything. TRAVIS SCOTT (@trvisXX) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Thank you Stan Lee for making people who feel different realize they are special. Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Rest in peace, Stan Lee. The many worlds of imagination & delight you created for humanity will last forever. Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Thank you, Stan, for building a comic revolution-- creating unforgettable characters, taking on important stories and themes like bigotry and prejudice when that's not what comics were doing, and defying the Comics Code Authority. We will miss seeing you. #excelsior pic.twitter.com/Ycj2yryyZY Kim Horcher (@kimscorcher) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I dont have words for this. My life has been so incredibly changed by this mans creations and words. Im going to celebrate him today by putting in the work and writing his characters the absolute best way I know how. Thank you, Stan. I love you, True Believers. Excelsior. https://t.co/rkvoh3m8w2 DONNY CATES (@Doncates) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Stan Lee, RIP. Thanks for inspiring so many of us to pick up a pen or pencil and put your dreams onto paper. Excelsior! pic.twitter.com/L33eTjUQdI edgarwright (@edgarwright) November 12, 2018 Rest In Peace Stan Lee terry crews (@terrycrews) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Horrible news... RIP Stan Lee, you changed the world of Comics and Film forever. James Cullen Bressack (@JamesCullenB) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Thank you Stan Lee. For your service in protecting our freedom and for your creativity and imagination! You were and will always be a SUPER HERO! pic.twitter.com/d1qpuImyzQ Jamie Lee Curtis (@jamieleecurtis) November 12, 2018 Advertisement We lost a real-life superhero today. Stan Lee was a visionary, who elevated imaginations across the globe. Im grateful for the time I got to spend with him. Rest peacefully, Stan. pic.twitter.com/Ie2S18y0A0 Larry King (@kingsthings) November 12, 2018 Advertisement RIP @TheRealStanLee He made everyone feel like a kid in his presence no matter what your age. pic.twitter.com/JYeWXq8iKb Jim Lee (@JimLee) November 12, 2018 Advertisement He lives forever through his work. What a giant. With great power comes immortality. pic.twitter.com/t395qw9H0L Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement RIP #StanLee, you made our dreams come true, thanks for being part of the #FreshOffTheBoat family! pic.twitter.com/Qo5IyEArke Hudson David Yang (@HudsonDYang) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement In Slates column Who?, the hosts of acclaimed podcast Who? Weekly explore the world of near-fame. To promote Homecoming, her new show on Amazon, Julia Roberts has run the usual press gamut. Shes appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Access Hollywood, Extra, Good Morning America, and the Today show. She even chatted about armpit hair on Busy Phillips new E! talk show, Busy Tonight. (Phillips inspired Roberts to join Instagram, and shes really good at it.) But the press hit that had people talking the most didnt come from any of those many, many traditional TV appearances. It came from a 42-minute chat with fellow A-lister Gwyneth Paltrow on Paltrows interview podcast for her juggernaut lifestyle brand, Goop. Advertisement Apart from an introductory moment during which we hear that Paltrow and Roberts share a lucky number (42!)to which Roberts responds, Shut your fucking face!its not a particularly illuminating or insightful conversation. We learn how much Roberts loves her husband, Danny Moder (tabloids would have you believe their relationship is constantly on the verge of disaster), how much she loves working with Oceans pal George Clooney, and that she plays mah-jongg with neighborhood friends every week. All of this would be pretty boring stuff in black and white, as it would appear in a celebrity profile. But as a recorded conversation between two A-listers, complete with pregnant pauses, gasps, and genuine laughter, its enrapturing. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In just the past month or so, you could download conversations between Dax Shepard and Amy Schumer (Armchair Expert), Anna Faris and Judd Apatow (Anna Faris Is Unqualified), Queer Eyes Jonathan Van Ness and Reese Witherspoon (Getting Curious), Marc Maron and Sissy Spacek (WTF With Marc Maron), Snoop Dogg and Mario Lopez (Snoop Doggs GGN Podcast), The Bachelors Kaitlyn Bristowe and Wells Adams (Off the Vine), Jana Kramer and Fran Drescher (Whine Down), and Alec Baldwin and Maggie Gyllenhaal (Heres the Thing With Alec Baldwin). There are hours and hours of celeb-on-celeb content out therea la carte conversations between people across the fame spectrum. You want a Them talking to a Who? You got it. Who talking to a Them? Its done. Two Thems alone in a recording booth? That ones easy. Two Whos? Even easier. With primary sources of this variety suddenly everywhere, you can practically hear E! News shaking in its boots. Advertisement This new wave of celebrity-on-celebrity podcasts provides us exactly what we want as fans: a little time with them. Paltrow is one of many celebs across the Who-Them spectrum signing up to create, produce, and star in her very own podcast. Hosting a podcast where you, a famous person, talk to other famous people might just be the new perk of celebrity, like starting a clothing line, or your own book club. And it certainly speaks to the ego: What celeb hasnt briefly imagined themselves as a talk show host in the old Johnny Carson mode, beamed into an adoring Americas living room? Advertisement These jarringly casual, if only sometimes candid, conversations are changing the way we digest celebrity gossip. No editor is finding the juiciest bits and putting them in headlines or pullquotes; instead, the good stuff is buried somewhere in 22, 45, even 75 minutes of transcript-free audio. No longer can you rely on a quick scroll through Facebook or Twitter to find the quotable bits of gossip; often, youve gotta switch to 1.5 speed and really dig into these podsor, at the very least, hope that your favorite news source has already done so. (Often, they havent.) Youve got to hand it to famous people: Theyve found a way to make us work harder to boost their celebrity while putting in even less effort themselves. So far, were entirely happy to oblige. Advertisement Advertisement Is it this new, audio-centric media landscape thats killing the celebrity profile? It certainly doesnt help that a celeb can just pick up the phone (or have their manager do so) and ask another celebrity to be on their podcast. As opposed to, lets say, a writer or editor putting in a days work going back-and-forth with multiple publicists to iron out a time for a 15-minute phoner. Lets say Oprahs on the line asking you to come do her Super Soul Sunday series: Who is too famous to say no to that? Not to mention, these celebs would often much rather be speaking to each other. Theres an understandable ease to hopping on a call with someone in your industry who a) isnt asking the same questions everyone else asks and b) will gladly redact anything you want in post-production. Its not just a comfortable space; its a safe space. Advertisement Advertisement About half an hour into their chat, Paltrow and Roberts discussed what its like to work with a bad actoryou know, someone who doesnt get the vibe. Have you ever had a bad one? Paltrow asked. Yeah, yeah, Roberts answered. (You get the impression she definitely told Paltrow who it was after they were done recording.) And Roberts quoted her go-to Clooney, who once said, of those types of co-stars, You know whats great about that person? You have somebody to talk about at the end of the night when youre all having a drink. Though far from the juiciest tidbit, its the kind of intimate industry insight that comes from talking to someone with an acute understanding of the petty on-set frustrations of A-listers. Advertisement Advertisement Even recounting the story here suddenly makes the memory of it feel a bit dull. Stripped of the wry, comfortable tone Roberts maintained throughout the interviewno, better, it was a conversationits a pretty boring quote. But piped in through headphones, this new wave of celebrity-on-celebrity podcasts provides us exactly what we want as fans: a little time with them. Though we doubt the brand of celebrity profile written by a perceptive, intellectual, and talented writer will ever die (is there any category of journalism more fun to read?), theres an undeniable attraction to hearing, unfiltered, Julia talking to Gwyneth. Advertisement We ask so little of our celebrities, really. We want them to at least seem fun; we dont want them to be criminals; lately, wed like them to vote (and talk about doing so). On the rare occasions we meet them face-to-face, we ask even less: a smile, an autograph, or (if youre lucky) a quick selfie. But we also like to imagine that they are our friends. We could spend a few minutes talking to this person we admire about anythingliterally anythingwhile sharing a cup of tea, glass of wine, or water infused with milk protein and gut food. Failing that, at least we could hang around while they talk to their friends. Thats what a podcast does that no profile, no matter how well-written, could accomplish: It fools you into thinking that, if only for your brief trip to work, you were a fly on a very, very nice wall. Daniel Mallory Ortberg is online weekly to chat live with readers. Heres an edited transcript of this weeks chat. Daniel Mallory Ortberg: Good morning, everyonelets chat. Q. Granny doesnt want a flu shot: My son and his wife are expecting their first born, my first grandchild. We are all beyond excited. Heres the hitch: I and my husband do not get or believe in flu shots, and have not for over a decade. I am a retired nurse practitioner, so am well-informed on the subject. The expectant moms mother says no one will be allowed around the baby unless they have had their flu shot. I am in a quandary. I dont want to lie and say my husband and I have gotten one when we havent. But I dont want to be left out of this little ones life because that side of the family thinks I am being unreasonable by not caving to have a shot I do not want. By the way, both my husband and I have had all our regular vaccines. What should I do? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A: Its great that you and your husband have had all your regular vaccines, but that has nothing to do with whether you could transmit the flu to your grandchild. Thats like hearing, Would you like to get lunch? and responding, I had breakfast this morning. Its a good thing, to be sure, but not strictly relevant to the question at hand. You dont say why you dont believe in flu shots, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends them for everyone over the age of 6 months. I do not encourage you to lie about your vaccination status in order to get what you want, especially when that could potentially risk the babys health. You cant get everything you want. If you decide that its very important not to get vaccinated, then you owe it to the people around you to be upfront about your vaccination status so they can make their own choices about their health. Advertisement Q. Do I have to invite my mean son?: I have three adult children: Jerry, Sandra, and Jordan. From a young age, Jerry had trouble sympathizing with others. He was blunt, often cruelly so. If something didnt hurt or bother Jerry, then it was pathetic for someone else to be hurt by that thing. Empathy never seemed to make sense to him, no matter how many specialists my husband and I took him to. Sandra and Jordan dont have a relationship with Jerry, and the last time the five of us were together as a family, Jerry was so mean to Sandra that my husband threw him out. The holidays are approaching. Well be hosting the festivities this year, and I know that many people wont come if Jerry is present. Whats more, Im exhausted thinking about how snide Jerry will be to those relatives who do visit. My husband and I have considered not inviting Jerry. Thats despicable, right? I just dont know how to have Jerry present and to also enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas. The older I get, the less I can handle him. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A: If the last time you had your son at a family gathering, you had to throw him out for being relentlessly cruel to another member of the family, and if in the intervening time, he has neither apologized, attempted to make amends, nor demonstrated any sign that hes interested in changing his behavior, then I think you should give yourself a break and leave him off of the invite list. Its sad, absolutely, but its not despicable to acknowledge your son seems either incapable of or uninterested in treating other people with respect. If youre worried about seeming cruel yourself, you can certainly tell him that you cant invite him until he shows hes committed to treating people differently. But my guess is that he wont mind not being invited. Advertisement How to Get Advice From Prudie: Send questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.) Join the live chat Mondays at noon. Submit your questions and comments here before or during the discussion. Call the voicemail of the Dear Prudence podcast at 401-371-DEAR (3327) to hear your question answered on a future episode of the show. Q. Daughters privacy: Yesterday my neighbor told me her sons best friend wants to ask out my daughter. All three go to the same high school and are close in grade levels. We carpool, and the friend wants to ride with us one day so he can say hi to my daughter. They dont have any classes together, and I dont think they have met before. He has seen her around and thinks she is cute. The boy is very nice, and I think its very sweet. The only problem is that my daughter came out to me earlier this year. She is young and still on her journey of discovering who she is, so this information was shared with me alone. Even her father does not know. I feel it is up to her to share when she is comfortable and ready. I told the neighbor if the boy wants to ride with us, the more the merrier, but I didnt really know what else to say. I dont want my daughter to think Im trying to set her up with a boy. Should I just make an excuse to get out of him riding with us? I dont want to encourage him when I know she wont be interested. Im at a loss for how to handle this. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A: You dont need to bring up your daughters sexuality in order to turn down this offer. It sounds like your neighbor said, Hey, my son knows a boy who wants to join your carpool for the express purpose of asking out your daughter, whom hes never actually met. Is that OK? Thats weird and invasive! If he wants to talk to your daughter at school, hes perfectly free to, but trying to get into a car with her (an enclosed space she cant get out of if she feels uncomfortable) via her parents is absolutely unnecessary. Go back to your neighbor and say, Im sorry, I spoke too soon and agreed to this without really thinking about it. Im not comfortable letting someone join our carpool with the goal of asking out my daughter. I dont want to put her in the position of having to figure out whether she wants to date a stranger when shes just trying to get to school. It wont be possible for him to join us. Advertisement Q. Been invited and dont want to go: My husband and I have two teens and divorced in April. We are amicable for the kids sake, which is good, but I feel my former mother-in-law is being too amicable by continuing to invite me to family events. While Im grateful she is willing to be friendly, I dont want to attend my former husbands family gatherings, for a variety of reasons that I dont feel I should have to explain. Ive been invited to Thanksgiving now and I dont want to make up a reason to get out of it, or else Ill just get invited to Christmas. I want instead to establish going forward that while I exude goodwill toward my former in-laws and appreciate theirs toward me, I am no longer part of the family in that way. How do I do this without hurting feelings? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A: That is definitely next-level too amicable. Your mother-in-laws intentions are kind, of course, but I think one can safely assume that if two people get divorced, unless they say otherwise, theyre not planning on spending the holidays together. If you two are amicable enough that youre both willing to continue running interference on each others behalf, you might ask your ex to mention to her that you shouldnt be included on future holiday invite lists. If not, you can simply thank her and say, Its so kind of you to invite me, and I hope you know how much I love you and [father-in-law], but [ex] and I wont be sharing holidays, so Ive already made my own plans. It may be impossible to get through this without at least some hurt feelingsno matter how amicable the split, you and her son are still getting divorced and changing the way you interact with each others familiesbut what youre proposing is pretty customary, and if you can also stress how much you value her and wish her the best, I think youll be safe. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Q. Re: Granny doesnt want a flu shot: Your choices arent Lie or cave. They are Cave or dont see the baby. Those are your only two options. And God help you if they find out you lied. (And they will.) Because your relationship will effectively be over with your kid and grandkid. A: Yeah, I cant imagine a much more thorough way to damage your relationship with your kids and your new grandbaby than lying about a flu shot, especially if the baby got sick as a result. Either you can refuse to get the vaccine and then see the baby once he or she is old enough to get a vaccine of their own, or you can get the shot and see the baby right away. Advertisement Advertisement Q. Spouse and the amazing technicolor stinkycoat: We have had a severe laundry crisis in our home for going on 20 years, and it has only gotten worse. My lovely spouse is a laundry nut and hates using the dryer, claiming that it shortens the lifespan of select clothing items. Granted, there are accidental casualties that occur from time to time, but not that often. Our most recent escalation is THE STINKINESS; it is palpable and ever-present. Ever since we moved to the South her clothing is not allowed to experience high heat in the dryer, which has created an unpleasant smell in her most precious items. My clothes are unaffected as I use the ultra-heat mode. Also, her sense of smell is poor and mine is quite sensitive. She denies that this phenomena exists. Said items contaminated with THE STINKINESS are worn quite frequently and have begun to impact other items. I have absconded with some items for neutral party evaluation and THE STINKINESS is clearly present and identified by all test subjects. It has begun to impact our intimacy. How do I convince her that this is a serious issue? Advertisement Advertisement A: If the smell is caused by your wifes clothes being insufficiently driedrather than insufficiently washed in the first placeand the issue is that they emerge from the dryer slightly musty or moldy-smelling, and then are tucked away in a drawer to further deteriorate, then thats got to be just as hard on the lifespan of her clothes as a tumble at the highest heat setting. She should hang her delicate/highly prized items to dry completely either on a clothesline or a drying rack. (And if she knows her sense of smell to be poor, she should trust your judgment in this area.) Advertisement Get Prudie in Your Inbox Sign up for the Dear Prudence mailing list to receive notifications of new columns and chats. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. Please enable javascript to use form. Email address: Send me updates about Slate special offers. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Sign Up Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. Q. Re: Daughters privacy: Why not just ask your daughter what she would like you to say or do? Regardless of whether she is straight or hasnt come out, I think it would be appropriate to ask her before speaking for her here. Advertisement A: Yes, absolutely! My read is that the letter writer can safely assume she would not want a guy shes never met to join the carpool because he wants to go on a date with her, but certainly check in with her first. Q. Horrible friend, or am I nuts?: My friend of 20 years lost her job and apartment and needed a place to stay. I let her, her mother, and her three kids come to stay at my home with me, my boyfriend, and our two kids. She was supposed to stay a couple months until she got herself together. For 10 months, she lived off of us, with us footing all her bills. Then she started getting Social Security, about $2,000 per month, on top of her mothers income of about $2,000 per month. I asked her if could she help out with at least her half of the expenses. She was not happy about me asking her for money and felt she shouldnt have to pay anything. She made me feel like a horrible person and told the kids that I hated them and didnt want them at my house all. Am I wrong, or is she the worst friend? Advertisement Advertisement A: It doesnt seem like you need advice, exactly, so much as for someone uninvolved with this situation to confirm that your friends behavior has been bizarre and unwarranted. Allow me to confirm! You have behaved generously and honestly toward her. What you asked was reasonable. Her response was totally unwarranted and must feel so upsetting after 20 years of friendship (and 10 months of free rent). Telling her children that you hate them is totally uncalled for, and an act of cruelty and manipulation. I think itll be best for everyone if she moves out, now that shes back on her feet. Can your friendship survive this blow-up? It will depend on whether shes ever able to apologize. Advertisement Advertisement Q. Re: Spouse and the amazing technicolor stinkycoat: Get old-fashioned powdered Borax. It will remove the smell. It even works on stinky bath towels! A: Thanks for the tip! UpdateRe: Its complicated crush: Hi, Daniel! Im delighted to update you on your good advice from last October. The sparks you suggested I could investigate literally flew on a thunderstormy night a few weeks after you answered my letterthe eve of the same-sex marriage yes vote in Australia. Its our first anniversary next week! We are revoltingly happy together. Thanks for the dose of courage. Discuss this column with Dear Prudence on his Facebook page! Care and Feeding is Slates parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Email careandfeeding@slate.com or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. Dear Care and Feeding, My 7-year-old daughter loves Christmas. Shes been looking forward to it all year, it seems. I love to do Christmas things as wellwe decorate the house, we go to holiday events each weekend. The one thing I cant embrace? Elf on the Shelf. I curse the folks who came up with this stupid tradition. Weve avoided it for such a long time, but last year, my daughter said she felt left out because, apparently, kids in school discuss where their elves appeared each morning and what they were doing. Now that this holiday season is upon us, my daughter again asked, Is the Elf going to visit our house this year? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Do you have any good answers as to why the Elf doesnt visit certain households, or do I just suck it up and get the stupid Elf and hopefully remember to move it around before I go to bed each night or wake up at 3 in the morning and move it in the dark? I certainly cannot do the Pinterest creative ideas, so moving Elf is about all I could do. I Curse You, Stupid Elf Look, Im not going to make a call on whether or not the Elf is good or bad (its bad). Dear ICYSE, Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Look, Im not going to make a call on whether or not the Elf is good or bad (its bad). But if kids from non-Santa cultures and/or religious backgrounds have to cope with everyone else talking incessantly about Santa, a kid who doesnt have Elf on the Shelf can manage to rise above it. Advertisement Personally, I would tell my kids the Elf is a cute thing parents do for fun, but he is a corporate product who does not actually have a direct line to Santa or the North Pole, please dont spoil it for the other kids. Hold the line, Mama. Fight the power. Dear Care and Feeding, I am losing my mind over this. For the last three years, Christmas has been at my house as my parents have downsized into a condo. Because my mom misses getting to host, she has not been great about sticking to her role as a guest and instead brings everything with her when she arrives. Everything = cookies, decorations, icicle lights, comically oversized nutcrackers, and Advertisement Advertisement Amaryllis plants. Real ones. For every room. Nicole, I have cats! I have told her a billion times that amaryllis plants kill cats (arent poinsettias more canonically Christmas-y anyway?), and its like talking to a wall. I know I should have put my foot down earlier (obviously each year I have told her not to bring them but have not actually frisked her at the door), but Im tired of making sticky-tape and foil boundaries around these death-plants and still fretting that a cat will manage to gorge herself on one. Advertisement I know Im a daughter but I feel like this is a parenting situation. Please help. Stop Trying to Kill Bootsie and Captain Jack Advertisement Dear Bootsie and Captain Jacks Mom, What the Sam Hell is wrong with your mother? OK, I get the sense that ultimately you want her to stop bringing about 90 things but that for now, were defending Death Plants hill, which seems extremely reasonable to me. I want you to enlist your dad and any other family members in assisting you in communicating to your mother that she cannot bring a cat-killing plant into your home, however seasonal it may be. In writing, on the phone, through messages written on the wall in Sharpie, etc. Advertisement You have been reasonable, but shes not a reasonable person. Time to throw your weight around some. If you are feeling extremely generous, you can offer to leave the Death Plants on your porch. But my suggestion is the minute you see one of those damn things exit her car, you take it and say Oh, gosh, sorry, this cant come in the house, like I mentioned, and drop it upside down into a trash can filled with used kitty litter (thanks, Bootsie!) so it cannot be retrieved. No mercy. No regrets. Advertisement Now, as for next year, lets find a different daughter or son or cousin to host, OK? Dear Care and Feeding, My kid doesnt do a great job brushing his teeth. Now that hes 6, it feels silly to keep doing it for him, and I worry hes never going to learn if I dont back off. That being said, I have lots of dental work in my mouth that I am positive wouldnt be there if my parents had been more diligent about keeping up with my toothbrushing as a kid. Advertisement I guess what Im asking is, how do you balance getting a kid to do something well, and getting them to do it independently? Advertisement Advertisement The Big Book of British Smiles Dear Simpsons Fan, Oh, buddy, I feel you here. Its a trade-off that youre going to run up against a thousand times before you shove that boy out the door. Chores, personal hygiene, being responsible for their own homework it never ends until it does. With teeth, I recommend the following: Your kid brushes their own teeth first thing in the morning, under your supervision. You can do sticker charts or whatever floats your boat. This ensures he keeps building the skills to do a decent job on his own. At night? At night you go ahead and brush those teeth like theyre your own. That way hes going to bed with the cleanest mouth possible. Once he can impress you consistently with his morning work, you can fade out. Advertisement Dear Care and Feeding, My mom wants to give my daughters Barbies. I have really mixed feelings about them and their weird bodies and regressive politics. Can I put my foot down and say she needs to find a more feminist alternative, like, I dont know, Legos? The Pointy Boobs Alone! Dear Pointy Boobs, Barring live snakes and grenades, I generally think its better not to police what people are allowed to give your children. You can say only one gift per holiday, but you cant say we prefer our daughters dolls to be more Karen Silkwood inspired, please hand-knit their union billboards. The solution here is to make sure your daughters have access to images and playthings that present a wide and fascinating number of depictions of what it means to be a woman, a man, a person in this world. Make sure you buy kids books with black people in them! Have some fat dolls! Lego models of the Death Star! Chemistry sets! One Barbie a year will not ruin your kid: Society will ruin your kid, so fight society to the death. Nicole The Satanic Temple, based in the symbolically apropos town of Salem, Massachusetts, has always had a knack for publicity. Last week, the nonprofit struck publicity gold again with a $150 million lawsuit against Warner Bros. and Netflix over a depiction of a hermaphroditic goat deity. The suit, filed in the United States District Court in Manhattan, alleges that the soapy new teen series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina copied key details from the temples proprietary depiction of the deity Baphomet. Advertisement The temple is known for emphasizing provocation over piety. It has sued the Missouri Legislature over its abortion limits, under the premise that they violated a Satanist womans belief that a womans body is inviolable and subject to her will alone. (A federal appeals court dismissed one of three similar suits in August.) The group once performed a pink mass at the gravesite of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps mother, supposedly turning her gay in the afterlife. Temple head Lucien Greavesnot his real name, but the pseudonym he goes by in the pressofficiated, wearing a horned headpiece reminiscent of Baphomet and plopping his testicles onto the headstone. (Unfortunately I have verified this by viewing photographic evidence.) But the groups latest suit may be something different: a sincere defense of Satanisms symbols and values. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Satanic Temple is not terribly Satanic, as it happens. Greaves, who co-founded the temple in 2012, has said that none of the original leaders actually believed in Satan as a supernatural being. I identify nontheistically with a Miltonic Satan that defies all subjugation, exalts scientific inquiry and promotes Humanistic, pluralistic values, he wrote in the Washington Post last year, in a piece rejecting the conservative Christian assertion that Satan is behind the rise in white supremacism. Satanism adopts a mythological backdrop that we feel is more befitting to modern culture than the monarchical, feudalistic, theocratic superstitions of old. The group once performed a pink mass at the gravesite of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps mother, supposedly turning her gay in the afterlife. The publicity-friendly Greaves has often seemed more impish than devilish. When a Vice interviewer asked him five years ago if his organization was satanic or satirical, Greaves replied, Why cant it be both? The Satanic Temple, he said, was conceived as a poison pill in the Church/State debate. Where Satanists assert themselves in public, they expose the narrowness of the dominant religious agenda. In 2016, for example, it proposed offering After School Satan Clubs for children, in answer to the custom of Christian programs meant to evangelize children. Advertisement Its not clear that the deity Baphomet has ever been an object of sincere worship, either. The name first arose in 12th-century Europe, as a rumored deity of the secretive Knights Templar. The depiction of the goat-man as a seated, androgynous figure comes from a mid19th-century image by an occult historian, Eliphas Levi. The temples suit alleges that the statue in Sabrina takes after a much more recent image: a larger-than-life bronze statue of Baphomet commissioned by the temple in 2013 to sit alongside a Ten Commandments sculpture displayed outside the Oklahoma Capitol. The state caved and removed the Ten Commandments in order to avoid having the temple install the goat-devil next to it. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The new suit claims that several aspects of the statue in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina are unique to the temples commission: the two young childrena white girl and a black boystanding by the figure, and Baphomets masculine chest rather than the large female breasts in Levis original. The shows production designer told Vice before the suit was filed that the similarities were kind of a coincidence. A few days after the show launched, Greaves tweeted images of his groups statue and a screenshot from the show. The original statue may have been conceived as a stunt. But the suit alleges that it cost more than $100,000 to develop and construct. And Greaves has said that this version of Baphomet evolved into a kind of logo for Satanism. That gets to the crux of his lawsuit: that the Netflix shows version of Satanism is contributing to the same kind of knee-jerk paranoia that led to the Satanic panic of the 1980s, which included a rash of false ritual abuse accusations against day care workers. The Satanists in Sabrina, after all, engage in cannibalism, evil, and, as the suit puts it, forced-worship of a patriarchal deity. (The unrelated Church of Satan issued a statement on Friday distancing itself from the temples childish PR stunts and clarifying that it has no problem with the Netflix show. The temple, meanwhile, faced internal dissent recently when Greaves accepted pro bono work from a lawyer known for his work with Alex Jones and various alt-right clients.) Advertisement Advertisement Its not clear how many actual followers the temple has, but its private Facebook group has about 7,500 members, and its website lists 16 chapters in the United States and Canada. Greaves has speculated about having lobbyists in Washington someday. If we find heavy benefactors, he told an audience in Utah last year, youll see us doing more heavy damage than we are now. On Friday, Greaves said by email that he could not comment on the case because Warner Bros. had contacted the temples lawyers that day, and the parties are now actively discussing the terms of an appropriate settlement. The 2020 campaign has begun, sort of. Several prominent and not-so-prominent Democrats have either already declared their candidacies or started even-more-explicitly hinting at runs to defeat Donald Trump in 2020. Sen. Sherrod Brown, the progressive stalwart who just won another statewide race in ever-reddening Ohio, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that an overwhelming number of people have asked him about running and that he would discuss it with his family. He also gave a preview of his likely message, telling the paper, My message clearly appeals to Democrats, Republicans and independents. We showed you can get votes by being authentic and standing up for workers. People in Washington dont understand the dignity of work. Advertisement I cant think what past Democratic presidential candidates he might be talking about! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Browns wife, columnist Connie Schultz, also tweeted the Plain Dealer story and said that were thinking about it. Advertisement Browns Democratic Senate colleague Kirsten Gillibrand also spoke to a local news outlet about her likely presidential ambitions. She told The View that she was thinking about it and also gave a preview of what her candidacy would focus on: I believe that Ive been called to fight as hard as I possibly can to restore that moral integrity, that moral decency. Joy Behar responded: That sounds like a yes! Asked if she's running for President, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand tells @TheView she's "thinking about it." "I believe that I've been called to fight as hard as I possibly can to restore that moral integrity, that moral decency." https://t.co/khanyTGiAI pic.twitter.com/K1zuHEShEa ABC News (@ABC) November 12, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Richard Ojeda, the West Virginia congressional candidate who lost his House race last Tuesday skipped the speculation phase and announced his candidacy on Monday. While Ojeda lost by about 13 points to Republican Carol Miller in West Virginias 3rd District, he had actually narrowed the gap by about 35 points compared Trumps margin in 2016. (Ojeda was one of those votes for Trump.) The former Army paratrooper was something of an online and media phenomenon, garnering several profiles in national publications. While there was a big rush of these hints today, Brown, Gillibrand, and Ojeda arent the only ones whove come close to saying theyre running. Elizabeth Warren has said shell take a hard look at running; former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has put himself back in the spotlight; Bernie Sanders never stopped being in the spotlight, and neither has Joe Biden. CNN called Kamala Harris the new Democratic frontrunner, while Cory Booker has recently found himself in Iowa. Maryland Rep. John Delaney also declared his run last summer. Slates expanded voting rights coverage is made possible by the support of Slate Plus members and readers like you. With Florida set this week to undertake a massive and massively politicized recount in the critical races for governor and senator, the way that election fight has played out so far has been an absolute nightmare. Perhaps most terrifyingly of all, the 2018 Florida elections have demonstrated the real possibility that President Donald Trump might attempt to ignore an unfavorable 2020 election outcome if the result is a slim loss by the president, a possibility that should give us all chills. Advertisement Theres no mincing words: We are entering into a dangerous new phase in the voting wars. Last week, various election calamities were fueled by incendiary and unsupported claims by Trump and others of fraud, by pockets of incompetence of election administration, by partisanship in election administration, and by continued fundamental defects in how our elections are conducted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The new voting wars threaten to undermine the very foundation of American democracy: that election officials can fairly and accurately count ballots and that they can declare a winner whom the losers will accept as legitimate. Recent developments portend a very rocky 2020 election. If Trump is ahead in his re-election bid on the night of the election, only to lose that lead as more ballots in largermostly Democraticcounties are counted through a normal process in the days and weeks after Election Day, it seems reasonable to be concerned that he will contest such a legitimate vote. We dont know if he would even vacate his office in such a scenario, triggering the possibility of a real constitutional crisis. Advertisement The current controversies in Florida laid bare the continued basic problems in election administration that first became evident during the disputed 2000 presidential election, leading to a recount in Florida, which twice ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court. The same pathologies I wrote about in my 2012 book, The Voting Wars, have been laid bare once again: highly decentralized election administration, with some election administrators, especially in big Democratic cities, underfunded and occasionally lacking in basic competence; partisanship in the administration of elections; poor ballot design and aging voting machinery; and poorly written electoral laws that allow for lawsuits aimed at changing the results in razor-thin elections. Advertisement Three statewide races in Florida, including those for U.S. Senate and governor, are so close that they have triggered provisions in Florida law for an automatic recounting of votes. Republican Rick Scott is ahead of incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson in the Senate race, and Republican Ron DeSantis is ahead of Democrat Andrew Gillum in the race for Florida governor. The races were close on election night, but they became much closer as large Florida counties, some with substantial Democratic majorities, engaged in their usual vote counting of hundreds of thousands of ballots in the days after Election Day. Advertisement Advertisement It is no surprise that Democrats gain votes later in the counting process in part because big cities tend to contain lots of Democratic votes, and given their population, cities take much longer to count. This is why in Arizona Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema has overtaken Republican candidate Martha McSally as votes continue to be counted in Maricopa County and elsewhere. All seems above board despite wholly unsupported Republican claims that Democratic election officials are cooking the books. Democrats continue to make gains in House races in Californias Orange County as well, in an orderly and fair process being conducted by a Republican elected official with a stellar reputation. Advertisement There is also a Democratic skew in ballots that need extra checking to count. As the careful work of professor Ned Foley has shown, in close election races that involve the counting of contested and provisional ballots, there now tends to be a big blue shift toward Democrats at the end of the count. Thats because, for a variety of reasons Foley has described, these ballots are more likely to be cast in heavily Democratic counties. Advertisement Although nerve-wracking, theres nothing at all nefarious about any of this protracted counting. But that has not stopped extremely irresponsible and unsupported claims by Trump and others about stealing elections. Trump has tweeted that the counts on election night are the ones to be accepted and claimed that elections are infected when later vote counts are included. And Trump is not alone: Rick Scott, for example, has claimed without any evidence that there has been fraud in Broward County and that Democrats are trying to steal the election from him. Trump appears upset that Republicans in Arizona have not piled on to claims of vote fraud. It is possible here for two things to be true at the same time: Theres no evidence of fraud in the counting of votes in Florida, and the incompetence of Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes is deeply troubling. First, on the fraud, state election officials in Florida, Floridas state police, and a Florida judge have said there is absolutely no evidence of voter fraud. Nonetheless, Snipes history as an election administrator prior to this weeks problems is a national embarrassment: Shes destroyed ballots she should not have, delayed voting results, and mixed up provisional ballots with regular ballots. In this election, Scott had to (rightfully) sue to get Snipes to reveal information last week about how many ballots remained to be counted. The lack of transparency and record of incompetence make it puzzling why Scott did not remove Snipes from office, as he had the power to do, or otherwise reform Floridas election system during his eight years as Florida governor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On top of all this, there is a surprising undervote for U.S. Senate in Broward County. Its possible that there was a problem with the machinery counting those ballots. A perhaps more plausible claim is that many voters simply skipped the race because of poor ballot design. A lot has been done to improve ballot design since the 2000 Florida debaclethere are no more butterfly ballots, for instancebut it appears Broward did not take advantage of these improvements. Meanwhile, the Florida timetable for counts and recounts is draconian. Scott has sued to prevent votes from Broward County that were counted late from being included in vote totals, and Palm Beach County has said it is impossible to get three recounts done by the Thursday deadline. If they are not complete in time, recount results will not be included in the count (unless a court later orders them to be included). Advertisement Of course, using partisan election officials for all this makes things worse. Snipes is an elected Democrat originally appointed by Jeb Bush. Rick Scott, candidate for U.S. Senate, is the current Florida governor who not only appoints the secretary of state; he also was the one who requested that Florida police look into Broward County. And this problem extends beyond Florida to much of the country. I recently wrote about how Georgia gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp engaged in the single most brazen act of partisanship in election administration Ive seen while as secretary of state, accusing Democrats without evidence of committing cyberhacking and placing a notice to that effect on the official secretary of state website voters used to get information about voting on Election Day. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, Stacey Abrams, has filed suit to try to get more ballots counted there to try to force Kemp into a runoff, and Nelson has filed suit to argue for voters to get a chance to cure ballots rejected for lack of a signature match. Nelsons lawsuit raises some good points about the likely unfairness of how counties conduct signature matching, but it may come too late. We have known for a long time that signature matching is not science and that changes need to be made to fix long-standing problems. Signature match laws in Georgia and New Hampshire were tossed out prior to this election by federal judges who have recognized that these policies are tainted by arbitrariness. Advertisement Advertisement Put all of these obvious voting issues together, and its a toxic and volatile mix. Thanks to Trump and others, Republicans are skeptical of vote totals that come in on and after Election Day in what used to be an unremarkable and mostly orderly process. Thanks to incompetence and lack of transparency of people like Snipes, people have reason to worry about the accuracy of results. Hyperpolarization, decentralization, late litigation, outside attempted hacking of voter registration databases, and lack of adequate funding for machine upgrades add to concerns about the fairness and legitimacy of the process. Advertisement The potential for Trump to use his current playbook to try to stay in power even if a fair count would show he has lost should be clear at this point. Its not too late, however, to make a number of fixes before 2020. Lots could be done to make vote results go faster in large counties, but it would take considerable resources. Bad election officials need to be removed. And unsupported incendiary claims of voter fraud need to be condemned by both sides of the aisle. Im not holding my breath, because I and others have been sounding this alarm since 2000, and not nearly enough has changed. Without more changes, the voting wars next time could endanger our very democracy itself. By Ritah Kemigisa. The opposition Forum for democratic change party has insisted it will not attend the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue(IPOD) summit due in December with President Museveni unless three conditions are fulfilled. Addressing journalists at the FDC headquarters in Najjanakumbi, the party spokesperson Ssemujju Nganda said they will attend the summit will only if the president attends it as a party chairman, the agenda for the meeting is clearly defined and a neutral venue chosen. President Museveni agreed to attend the summit while meeting with the members of the IPOD council at State House Entebbe on Saturday evening. Ssemujju adds that for the summit to be a success the future of Uganda has to be discussed putting into perspective the successor of Museveni. Democrats in Congress plan to investigate President Trumps involvement in payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal during the 2016 campaign, the Wall Street Journal reported. A Democratic aide on the House Oversight Committee told the Journal that when House Democrats take majority control in January, they will move to investigate the payments that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen arranged during the campaign for the two women who said they had affairs with Trump. In the meantime, Democratic members have begun requesting records, including some from the Trump Organization. Advertisement For two years, Trump has denied both the affairs and any knowledge of the deals Cohen made. Cohen, when he pleaded guilty in August to eight felony counts, including campaign finance violations, insinuated instead that he made them at the direction of the president. On Friday, the Journal also reported that federal prosecutors have gathered evidence that the president was aware of the payments at the time. Its not clear whether Trumps alleged involvement would constitute a crime that he could be prosecuted for. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Journal found that David Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, promised Trump in August 2015 that he would buy the silence of women who alleged affairs with Trump. In June 2016, the president took Pecker up on his offer and asked him to suppress the story of Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model. The company then paid $150,000 to McDougal to buy her story and kill it. Advertisement In October 2016, according to Cohen, Trump directed Cohen to find a way to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels. Cohen used a shell company to pay Daniels $130,000. Trump then paid Cohen back in installments. If House Democrats open an inquiry into the payments, it could mean a path of investigation separate from special counsel Robert Muellers work. If they conclude Trump did commit a crime, they may push for impeachment, according to the Journal. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told ABC News that any such effort would be useless and that calling the payments hush payments was an opinion not a fact. He claimed that the payments were not made to suppress serious claims but as part of a routine practice among millionaires and billionaires to avoid frivolous but inconvenient lawsuits. Listen to What Next: Get More What Next Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to What Next Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page. Listen to What Next via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Stitcher, Overcast, Google Play, or iHeart. Just as he was getting kicked out the door, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions wanted to do one last thing: strongly limit the strength and use of consent decrees moving forward. Its a move that deals a significant blow to the Department of Justices ability to rein in police abuse across the country. Today on the show: What is a consent decree? And what happened in one small town in Louisiana when Jeff Sessions took office and decided to turn a blind eye to its police abuses? Well be piloting What Next in public for the next several weeks. Tell us what you think: whatnext@slate.com. Follow us on Instagram for updates on the show. Podcast production by Mary Wilson and Jayson De Leon. Engineering by Terence Bernardo. A police officer responding to a shooting at a bar in Cook County, Illinois, reportedly killed a black security guard who witnesses say had pinned the suspect on the ground. The incident began on Sunday morning when security at Mannys Blue Room Bar in Robbins, a south suburb of Chicago, asked a group of drunken men to leave, witnesses told WGN. One of the men returned to the bar and opened fire. Security returned fire and one of the guards, 26-year-old Jemel Roberson, managed to apprehend the suspect. Advertisement Police officers soon arrived at the bar in response to reports of a shooting and saw Roberson with a gun in his hand. Witnesses said that they tried to tell the officers that Roberson was a security guard. One of the officers then shot Roberson, who later died at Christ Medical Center. Four other people, including the suspected shooter, suffered nonfatal injuries. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Authorities have released few details about the shooting, only mentioning that the violence arose out of an argument. A spokesperson also noted that Roberson had a valid firearm license, though he did not have one for concealed carry. The officer who shot Roberson is a member of the police department in nearby Midlothian. The Illinois State Police will be reviewing the officers actions, while the Cook County Sheriffs Office will be investigating the bar-room shooting. How in the world does the security guard get shot by police? asked Walter Turner, a pastor at New Spiritual Light Baptist Church, where Roberson was an organist. A young man that was literally doing his job and now hes gone. In another revelation that casts suspicion upon Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his circle of advisers, the New York Times reported that top Saudi officials asked a group of businessmen last year about using private companies to assassinate enemies in Iran. The revelation came a little over a month after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The kingdom has blamed the killing of Khashoggi on one official, Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, a close adviser to Prince Mohammad who it said had surpassed his authority in ordering the killing. Assiri was present at the 2017 meeting when assassinations were discussed. Advertisement At the time of the meeting, Prince Mohammed was beginning to consolidate power, something he did in part through what Saudi officials described as a crackdown on corruption, in which leading business and royal figures (along with many of his political rivals) were arrested. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The meeting involved a group of businessmen with intelligence backgrounds, including Lebanese-American businessman George Nader and Joel Zamel, an Israeli connected to the countrys intelligence agency. The businessmen had crafted a plan to use private intelligence operatives to sabotage the Iranian economy. Nader had previously pitched the plan to President Trumps transition team after the 2016 election. Zamel had pitched the Trump campaign on a plan to use social media to help Trump win the election. Both Zamel and Nader have been interviewed as part of Robert Muellers special counsel investigation, though its unclear how they play into the larger investigation. Advertisement In the March 2017 meeting, the businessmen were looking for funding from the Saudis. During the discussion, Assiris top aides asked about killing a senior Iranian official they deemed an enemy of Saudi Arabia. The businessmen talked to their lawyer, who rejected the idea. But Nader told the Saudis about another company he thought might take on the job. A Saudi official told the Times that Assiris interest in assassinations was not representative of the official Saudi policy. Turkish officials have repeatedly pressured Saudi Arabia to come clean about Khashoggis murder at a Saudi consulate. The official Saudi story changed several times after the discovery of Khashoggis disappearance. Several of Prince Mohammeds own security entourage were involved in the killing, putting the prince himself under suspicion of involvement, or at least having knowledge of the assassination. Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post who lived in the United States, was a vocal critic of the prince. Last month, the Saudi government acknowledged the killing. On Saturday, Turkeys President Recep Erdogan said his government had given a recording of the murder to the U.S, Britain, and France. On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged Canadian officials had heard the recordings, according to the Associated Press, but he declined to say anything about them. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with the crown prince and said that the U.S would hold anyone involved in Khashoggis killing accountable. This piece was originally published on Just Security, an online forum for analysis of U.S. national security law and policy. The most concerning question involving Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitakers relationship to Sam Clovis, the national co-chairman of the 2016 Trump campaign, has been missed by many. Its not simply that the two are friends or that Whitaker was the chairman of Clovis own campaign, back in 2014, for state treasurer in Iowa. Rather, the two mens relationship, particularly during the presidential campaign, raises potentially far more significant conflicts of interest than even Whitakers prior public statements critical of the Mueller investigation. Advertisement First, Whitaker may have served as something like an informal adviser to the Trump campaign. Clovis recently told Reuters that Whitaker was a sounding board for him when Clovis worked for the Trump campaign. To realize the full importance of that statement, and just how problematic it is, one has to understand Clovis role on the campaign. Whitaker was not advising just some random, low-level official. Alongside, Paul Manafort, Clovis served as co-chairman of the Trump campaign. Clovis also assembled the campaigns national security group, headed by Jeff Sessions, and reportedly was involved in bringing on board George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. Depending on what information Clovis shared with Whitaker in using him as a sounding board, Whitaker might be best described as a campaign insider. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its currently unknown what advice Clovis sought from Whitaker, whose main expertise would have likely been as a former U.S. attorney. We do know one instance in which Clovis referenced, in an internal campaign email with other campaign officials, legal concerns raised by a potential meeting with Russians and Trump. The proposed meeting arose out of Papadopoulos correspondence with Russian agents. There are legal issues we need to mitigate, meeting with foreign officials as a private citizen, Clovis wrote in the email. Second, Whitaker has apparently engaged in frequent private communications with a key grand jury witness while, at the same time, serving as chief of staff to thenAttorney General Jeff Sessions. That witness: Sam Clovis. Whitaker began his work as chief of staff in late September 2017. Clovis testified before the grand jury in October 2017. The fact that Clovis was a grand jury witness became public that same month. The White House first learned from the news media that Clovis had testified before the grand jury. Unlike other members of the White House staff, Clovis had not informed the presidents legal team. The two menWhitaker and Clovisthen continued to correspond regularly with on another after Whitaker must have known Clovis was a grand jury witness. In an interview last week, Clovis said that he and Whitaker have kept up, and regularly still text one another, as recently as within the last few weeks. But then just how central is Clovis to the Mueller investigation? Advertisement Clovis is an important witness in the Russia probe, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote. Thats no exaggeration. Just look to Papadopoulos plea documents provided by Robert Mueller in federal court. Clovis served as Papadopoulos supervisor. When Papadopoulos told Clovis of his initial contacts with the Russians, Clovis was very supportive, telling the young national security adviser Great work. Papadopoulos later proposed to arrange a back-channel, off-the-record meeting between Trump campaign representatives and senior Russian officials. In June 2016, when Papadopoulos emailed Paul Manafort about his efforts with the Russians, Manafort referred him to Clovis who Manafort described as running point. You read that right. In mid-August 2016, Clovis instructed him: I would encourage you and another foreign policy adviser to the campaign to make the trip, if it is feasible. Three days after Papadopoulos guilty plea was made public, Clovis withdrew from consideration for a Senate-confirmed position in the administration; his nomination hearing was already scheduled and would have taken place the following week. Advertisement Advertisement Making this situation even more problematic is the fact that Clovis reportedly advised Whitaker on how to get a job in the Trump administration, a strategy that involved Whitaker going on national television and disputing allegations of collusion and the legitimacy of the Russia probe. This reportedly succeeded with Trump, who liked what he saw. So Clovis, now a grand jury witness, also advised Whitaker in getting his job at the Justice Department. It would be important to know whether Clovis also recommended Whitaker to Sessions for the position of chief of staff (since one of Whitakers most recent jobs on his resume was the work for Clovis, and Clovis knew Sessions from their work together in the 2016 campaign). Advertisement Advertisement When I first read that Whitaker had worked as campaign chairman for Clovis run for Iowa state treasurer in 2014, it caught my attention but did not overly concern me. But these later revelations, one in the interview with Reuters and the other in an interview with Talking Points Memo, do. It may be more of a judgment call whether the pairs friendship (Clovis says they are very close friends) and Whitakers work for Clovis in 2014 are sufficient cause for recusal (I have my doubts). But serving as an informal adviser to Clovis during the 2016 presidential campaign would be a clear red line. The same Justice Department rules that precluded Sessions from overseeing the Russia investigation, because of his ties to the Trump campaign, would apply to Whitaker. Depending on the content of the communications between Whitaker and Clovis while Whitaker was Sessions chief of staff, that second set of issues could raise a host of other ethical issues. The burden is on Whitaker to resolve these problems. In the meantime, he should certainly not oversee the Russia probe. More From Just Security: Whistleblowers: The New Insider Threat Tactic to Terrorize: Child Abduction in Cameroon Must Stop The most disturbing thing about President Trumps disgraceful performance in France this past weekend is the clear signal it sent that, under his thumb, the United States has left the West. He came to the continent to join with other world leaders to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. But the significance of the armistice is not so much to commemorate the fallen in an absurd and ghastly war as it is to celebrate the special peacegrounded in a democratic European Union and a trans-Atlantic alliancethat grew in its wake and the greater war that followed. Advertisement And yet, after flying nearly 4,000 miles across the Atlantic, Trump stayed in his room in Paris on Saturday rather than making the additional 50-mile trip to the Aisne-Marne cemetery, where 50,000 American soldiers were laid to rest a century ago. His excuse for not attending was lame, to say the least. His aides said, after the fact, that rainfall precluded a trip by helicoptera claim refuted by the writer James Fallows, an instrument-certified pilot who, as a former White House official, is familiar with this helicopter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I *dont* know what happened in this case. But it simply is not true that Marine One cannot fly in rain or fog. (I speak as instrument-rated pilot, and someone who has been on Marine One.) That part of WH framing should not just be passed along. James Fallows (@JamesFallows) November 12, 2018 Advertisement A later claim, that the route posed a challenge to the large presidential motorcade, is doubly insulting. Its insulting, first, to the Secret Service and White House travel office whose professionals prepare for, and surmount, any and all obstacles on such trips (an insult exacerbated by the fact that none of the other leaders security teams had any trouble dealing with the route); second, to the armed forces and allies, who must wonder whether Trump might turn away from the challenges of mobilizing armored battalions to the front lines in the event of an invasion. Advertisement Let us stipulate that Trump didnt want to get his hair mussed or that security risks frightened him, which may also explain the fact that he hasnt yet visited American troops in any war zone. (By contrast, Obama made his first trip to Iraq three months into his term and, in his time as president, flew eight times to Afghanistan; George W. Bush, in his two terms, made four trips to Iraq and two to Afghanistan.) However, this does not explain Trumps late showing for Sundays ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, or his skipping of the march toward that event down the Champs-Elysees. Advertisement Advertisement Among the more than 60 world leaders who gathered for the ceremony, only he and Russian President Vladimir Putin were latecomers. (British Prime Minister Theresa May didnt come to France at all, perhaps owing to her own current problems with the EU.) Many cocked eyebrows have been thrown at the photo of Trump beaming at Putin, while other allied leaders went deadpan, as his friend from the Kremlin approached. Back in 1917, Russia was the first allied nation to leave the war as the Bolsheviks took power, in part thanks to the Germans, who smuggled Lenin onto a train from Zurich back home, where he proceeded to lead the revolution. That same year, the United States was the last allied nation to enter the war, supplying the aid and firepower that helped break the stalemate and secure victory. Advertisement Advertisement President Woodrow Wilson then led negotiations for a peace on such onerous terms to the defeated powershistorian David Fromkin called it a peace to end all peacethat a resumption of war 20 years later was almost inevitable. World War II was fueled by nationalist impulses and facilitated by the crumbling of empiresboth of which resonate with developments in global politics today. This was the context of French President Emmanuel Macrons speech at the Arc de Triomphe, in which he condemned nationalismthe selfishness of nations only looking after their own interestsas a betrayal of patriotism. In part, and most obviously, he was jabbing at Trump, who listened with a scowl; but he was also warning against, as he put it, old demons coming back to wreak chaos and death. Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it, George Santayana once wrote. The problem with Trump is he never knew historyand doesnt think he needs to learn it. His election marked Year Zero, as far as he is concerned: He frequently says that hes unlike, and better than, any previous president, so any lessons of the past are irrelevant. Advertisement Advertisement Macron and everyone else at the Arc had not only the rise of Trump in mind but also the turn toward right-wing nationalism in Hungary and Poland, the uncertain course of Brexit in Britain, and the collapse of Angela Merkels centrist coalition in Germanyleaving Macron as the last surviving celebrator of the post-WWII Western traditions, and he too is buffeted by pressures from the left and the right. At such an occasion so rife with moment and symbolism, any other American president would have felt compelled to repair and strengthen this union. If there were any doubts that President Trump understands little about his mission, and cares even less, this trip dispelled them once and for all. Almost a week since the midterm elections, several key contests remain up in the air and tensions are running high. On Saturday, President Donald Trump joined Republicans who are raising the specter of fraud, warning that Democrats are trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida. And it isnt just Florida that Republicans are worried about (and have been quick to raise suspicions about). Calvin Moore, a regional communications director for the National Republican Senate Committee, sent a tweet suggesting that a county election official in Arizona was destroying evidence to cook the books in favor of Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. Advertisement Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement WOW. The AZ election official destroying evidence to cook the books for @kyrstensinema defended narco-terrorists. Now its all making sense why hes stretching the rules for Kyrsten I Dont Care If Americans Join The Taliban Sinema. #AZSENhttps://t.co/NZDcaDq3Yj Calvin Moore (@CalvinMoore_) November 10, 2018 Advertisement All the fraud talk virtually assures that several key races will remain up in the air for a while, but here is where everything stands as the week begins. Florida It is a ripe time for flashbacks to the 2000 presidential election disaster, as all eyes are on Florida for the first full, statewide vote recount in its history, which began over the weekend. Gov. Rick Scotts lead in the Senate race over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson was 0.14 percentage points, or fewer than 13,000 votes. In the gubernatorial contest, Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum retracted his earlier concession to Ron DeSantis as unofficial results showed him behind by 0.41 percentage points. Under state law, a machine recount is necessary if the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. Then a manual recount would be ordered if the margin is 0.25 percentage points or below. Advertisement Advertisement For now, Floridas 67 elections departments are rushing to finish the recount of more than 8.2 million combined ballots by Thursday. But some are already saying its looking unlikely. In Palm Beach County, for example, the supervisor of elections said she doesnt believe theyll be able to meet the deadline. There was also lots of focus on Broward County, where the recount was delayed for several hours and officials acknowledged they mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots. All of this led to criticism from Republicans, and Gov. Rick Scott ended up filing suit against Browards supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes. Broward County is particularly important for the Senate race because there are almost 25,000 ballots that recorded a vote for governor but not for Senate. Arizona Senate Race Things are getting so heated in Arizona that retiring Republican Sen. Jeff Flake felt the need to come out and contradict an official from his own party who had raised the possibility of fraud in the still-open contest to take over his seat. Republicans were getting increasingly nervous over the weekend as Democrat Kyrsten Sinema widened her lead over Martha McSally on Sunday to 32,292 votes, or 1.5 percentage points. Approximately 215,000 ballots still need to be counted statewide, according to Arizona Republic estimates. As tensions increased, Flake responded to Moores tweet warning of possible fraud by saying that There is no evidence of election officials cooking the books in Arizona. Sinemas campaign is calling the Democrats lead insurmountable. Analysts appear to largely agree Sinema seems set to come out on top. Advertisement Advertisement There is no evidence of election officials "cooking the books" in Arizona. Such careless language undermines confidence in our democratic institutions. https://t.co/cNjYp0yIa1 Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) November 11, 2018 Georgia Gubernatorial Race Democrats in Georgia seem determined to go down the legal route to push Brian Kemps vote count below 50 percent, which would force a runoff. For now, Kemp is ahead with a slim, but decisive, lead of almost 60,000 votes. Stacey Abrams campaign filed a lawsuit Sunday calling on a judge to delay the vote certification in Georgia by one day to make sure all votes that may have been wrongly rejected are counted. That would mean the vote wouldnt be certified until Wednesday. Although Abrams supporters celebrated over the weekend as Kemps lead narrowed, she still needs to net about 22,000 votes to force a Dec. 4 runoff, and there arent many votes that have yet to be reported, notes the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Kemps campaign has called Abrams refusal to concede a disgrace to democracy. Advertisement Advertisement California House Races Tight congressional contests in California are turning out to be largely good news for Democrats who are at least giving a fight to incumbent Republicans. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher lost the House seat he held for three decades as Democrat Harley Rouda claimed victory on Saturday in the tight race for Californias 48th Congressional District. That left three California congressional races to be decided. In two of them, incumbent Republicans are locked in close battlesReps. Jeff Denham in the 10th District and Mimi Walters in the 45th District. Democratic candidate Josh Harder currently has a slim lead over Denham while Walters still has a tiny lead over Democrat Katie Porter. In the 39th District, Republican Young Kim has a narrow lead to take over for retiring Rep. Ed Royce, who is also a Republican. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Other Congressional Races There are still several House races that are up in the air. In Georgias 7th Congressional District, Republican Rep. Rob Woodall is leading Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux. In New Jerseys 3rd District, Democrat Andrew Kim is leading Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur. In New York, Democrat Anthony Brindisi has a slim margin ahead of Rep. Claudia Tenney in the 22nd District. In New Yorks 27th District, GOP Rep. Chris Collins is leading. In Utahs 4th District Democrat Ben McAdams is leading Republican Rep. Mia Love. In Texas 23rd District, GOP Rep. Will Hurd is leading. In Maines 2nd District, Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin is ahead of Democrat Jared Golden. So, California is burning again. Over the weekend, my buddy up in Los Angelesanother wildland firefightertexted me a picture that was bouncing around on Instagram. Taken at Zuma Beach near Malibu, the beautiful sunset shot was made all the more dramatic by an apocalyptically black column of smoke drifting out over the Pacific. The wildfire causing the smoke is just out of frame but is inferred to be massive. On the sand in the foreground are horses and other pack animals taking refuge with their owners. His only comment to accompany the picture: Theyre tying up llamas to lifeguard towers now. Because this is California. Advertisement Yeah, this is California, the land of tectonic and pyric upheaval. This is familiar territory, and all the usual events related to the fire will play out with time. The beleaguered California firefighter never really has the opportunity to relax anymore. By extension, neither does the beleaguered fire-prone California community. We are seeing this unfortunate story unfold yet again in the dry Sierra foothills in the Camp Fire, and in the Southern California canyons of western Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Just in the 20 or so years that Ive been fighting wildfire, Ive seen changes. All of us who do this work have. The problem is that its a slow-moving change and its not everywhere at once, so its hard to point your finger at the problem. Most of the time we still easily put out the fires that need putting out. Unfortunately, were still putting out most of the fires deep in the back country that we dont need to be, which is just adding to the burden. Advertisement Fires are doing things we arent used to them doing. Lately it seems that the fires that defy our initial suppression efforts are escalating rapidly and catastrophically. Fires are doing things we arent used to them doing. Climate change and a legacy of putting out every fire that would have burned naturally seem to be the most likely reasons for it. Were seeing new things on the ground while we fight fire. Live green trees are falling over for no apparent reason. Also, something caused 130 million pine trees to die essentially all at once in the Sierra Nevada. The consequences of that for our work and for the communities embedded within are staggering to contemplate. Advertisement The Camp Fire has destroyed more than 6,700 structures already, making it the new most destructive California fire ever. But the previous record only held up for a year. This year also saw us break the all-time size record in California: More than 410,000 acres in the Ranch Fire that burned in the west-central Mendocino area of the state. We like to talk about them in terms of the numbers. The problem with thinking in those terms is that everything with wildfire is changing, and its getting hard to keep track of these broken records. As recently as the 1970s, a fire reaching 100,000 acres in size was virtually unknown. The Camp Fire burned half that acreage in the first day, taking the whole town of Paradise with it. It burned another 50,000 the next day. This size fire is becoming fairly routine in California, but until recently fires have mostly just nibbled at the edges of municipalities. The Camp Fire just seemed to walk over the top of the town and keep going. This was something new altogether. Advertisement Advertisement Wildland firefighters have a more personal way of marking firsts. In 2006 we burned over an entire engine crew, in 2013 an entire hotshot crew, and now in 2018 an entire town. Is an entire county next? Certainly an entire national forest could burn. An entire state? Be careful when it comes to saying something can never happen in wildfire anymore. In recognition of the reality on its land, the U.S. Forest Service has changed its nomenclature from a fire season to a fire year. This doesnt actually solve anything, but it does acknowledge the fact that the land management agency is moving toward being a full-time fire department. Advertisement So what can we do to prevent these fires in the future? Academics will point to climate change and feed us data about long-term drying trends. Undoubtedly true, but it gives us little to work from at the community level. Firefighters will ask for more resources, despite the fact that California has the most expansive (and expensive) professional firefighting force in the world. Environmentalists will argue that people should retrofit their own properties to be fireproof and let the fires burn around them. This ignores the true extent of the problem and fails to recognize the high costs of retrofit technologies in a state that already has an extremely high cost of living. Advertisement The unpalatable truth is that there may not be an overarching solution to Californias wildfire problem. There are certainly good solutions to parts of the problem, and as these are implemented, they may aggregate to help soften the blow of future wildfires. Technology, community planning, and fire risk awareness are all improving in the wildland fire environment, but the inherent flammability of much of the state will not change. If anything, it is slated to get worse. I wish I could paint a rosier picture, but this seems to be the reality of the situation. Unless we start taking some unprecedented steps toward being proactive about the changing fire environment, those of us in California and elsewhere across the West where these scenarios are playing out will have no choice but to accept the consequences of inaction. Correction, Nov. 12, 2018: Due to a production error, the byline of this article originally misidentified the author. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. When a third-year Ohio State psychology student fell off a Bird electric scooter and fractured her ankle in September, she was using the scooter the same way many college students do: to get to and from grocery stores, pharmacies, or in her case, Target. She was a block away from her dorm when she hit a pothole and was thrown off balance. When I fell to the ground, I heard a sickening crunch, the student told me via private message on Reddit, where she goes by the name Nerdylullaby (she preferred not to have her full name associated with her account). I found her after seeing a post she wrote on the Ohio State University subreddit titled: Yall dont fuck with the scooters. Advertisement An ambulance ride later, Nerdylullaby received surgery to place screws and plates into her ankle. When we spoke in October, she was still using a (nonelectric) knee scooter to get around. Even though insurance covered most of her medical bills, she still has to pay more than $800 for surgery, X-rays, and a two-night hospital stay. Legally, the full responsibility for the accident (and the medical bills) falls on the student: By consenting to Birds user agreement, she accepted all the risks entailed in riding the scooters. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This story is not unique. Lately, there has been almost unrelenting attention to the risks of riding electric scooters. Emergency departments have decried the rise in scooter-related accidents, the Washington Post reported. In Los Angeles, injured riders accused scooter companies of gross negligence in a class-action lawsuit. And in response, some citiesincluding Denver, Santa Monica, California, and San Franciscohave temporarily banned the vehicles while they figure out how to regulate them. Advertisement Those bans are easy to stomach if you think scooters are the epitome of tech-bro arrogance or just another example of how Silicon Valley swoops into the rest of America only to break things and leave. But the scooters arent being forced on students: They actually like using them on and around campus. This is because the scooters are uniquely useful for college students, many of whom may not have cars and most of whom need an affordable, accessible way to move quickly between different places: home, class, work. So it makes sense that scooter companies have made university campuses a priority. Bird has its University Pop Up Tour, which launched in August. Similarly, Lime says it serves nearly 30 universities, from the University of South Alabama to Guilford College in North Carolina. Razor, a rideshare newcomer but a scooter old-timer, has a college program on about a dozen campuses, including Purdue University, University of ColoradoBoulder, and Texas A&M. All three of the companies operate around my university, Arizona State, where theyve been received by students with open arms. (Disclosure: ASU is a partner with Slate and New America in Future Tense.) Advertisement Advertisement But if students have been quick to embrace the scooters, universities have been slow to understand how to deal with them. Midway through the fall semester, Arizona State reminded companies that campus transportation rules prohibited electric scooters. In response, the companies instituted no-ride/no-park zones on university propertymuch to the dismay of students. In theory, this means that rides cant be started or ended on campus, and that users who try to do so may face fines or account suspension. In practice, there are still lots of scooters being parked and ridden on and around campus (albeit fewer than before). On the ASU subreddit, students reactions to the restrictions followed a common thread: The restrictions made sense from a safety perspectivebut they were also pretty disappointing. As one user wrote, some people were definitely jackasses with them, but they actually provided a pretty useful service In protest, some students painted a sheet with an electric scooter and the caption Gone but never forgotten, which they hung outside the fraternity and sorority dorms. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Arizona State isnt alone. The University of Arizona, University of Missouri, Ohio State University, Oklahoma State University, Michigan State University, and Loyola Marymount University have all taken some action against scooters on campus, ranging from temporary bans to stricter regulations to impoundment. These universities look to one another for clues on how to strike a balance between safety, company power, and student demands. As they do so, they also seek guidance from local governments, many of which are similarly unprepared to deal with the machines. Advertisement Many of the restrictions are temporary placeholders while campus and local officials come up with better plans for how (and whether) the scooters can fit into their communities. Hard data about how scooters are used and what can go wrong would help this planningbut unfortunately, that data seems far from comprehensive. For example, Jerry Gonzalez, an Arizona State police spokesperson, said there was no central office collecting information on scooter accidents. Similarly, Benjamin Johnson, an Ohio State spokesperson, told me his universitys police department doesnt track scooter-involved incidents, either. For most universities, including ASU and OSU, scooter accidents did not show up on daily crime logs. (Universities are required to publicly report crimes, but in most cases, scooter accidents dont involve criminal activity and therefore dont require a report.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Accidents occasionally appeared in crime logs from the University of CaliforniaSan Diego. On the afternoon of Sept. 8, for example, the log shows, two women lost control of their scooters while riding downhill. When I followed up with UCSDs police department about the accident, they reported injuries including a minor head injury/concussion. A few weeks later, another downhill scooter accident at UCSD ended up hospitalizing a rider, who suffered from cuts on their face and chin and a medium-sized contusion on their forehead. If universities had more comprehensive data on these types of accidents, they might be able to institute more specific and useful policiesdesignated parking zones, better enforcement of safety requirements like helmets, no-ride zones on hills or crowded areasrather than resorting to blanket bans. And companies, for their part, could use data to proactively regulate their vehicles to promote user safetysomething which theyre already trying to do through features like putting caps on speed in certain locations, including on campuses. But theres still a long way to go. Advertisement Many students treat scootering as an alternative to taking an Uber home from the bar. Theres also another, less talked about but definitely dangerous part of the scooter equation around campuses: students who ride scooters while drunk. Many students treat scootering as an alternative to taking an Uber home from the bar. But as a San Diego police officer told the San Diego Union-Tribune, Uber and Lyft are still cheaper than going to jail and being the laughing stock of the cell because you got a DUI-scooter. Advertisement Advertisement Of course, there are some things that we cant expect companies or universities to be responsible for. The couples who like to ride a single scooter together? Theyre on their own. The people who use scooters like theyre in the demolition derby of the county fair? There has to be an element of user responsibility. But as it stands, college riders like Nerdylullaby take to Reddit and other networks in order to warn each other about the dangers of scooters. Maybe they werent wearing helmets, but they also werent doing anything particularly outrageousand at the end of the day, it seems they were failed by safety measures from the companies and their universities. Universities serve as testing ground for all sorts of tech: They are full of young, savvy users more likely to be early adopters, they provide somewhat controlled and closed environments, and they run on word of mouth. If we can get the scooter safety equation right on campus, it seems like theres hope for getting it right elsewhere. And if we cant? Well, then, were going to have a lot of angry college students. It all makes sense once you realize they want to kill us, by Mike Whitney - The Unz Review : 'It is now apparent that these products in ... By Ivan Kimbowa. President Yoweri Museveni has donated another batch of Shs 200 million he pledged for the construction of the new modern science laboratory at St Henrys collage, Kitovu Masaka. The pledge delivered by the state House controller Ms Lucy Nakyobe, on Sunday during a dedication mass of senior six candidates led by the Kitovu Diocesan Vicar General Msgr Serverus Jjumba at the school chapel on Sunday. Ms Nakyobe said fulfilling the presidential pledge reduces on the burden of parents contributing towards the construction of the laboratory and enhance sciences. Ms Nakyobe also handed over an ambulance to Kyamuliibwa Health Center VI received by its Governing Board Chairperson Charles Kiberu. The British artist was wearing a T-shirt, presented to him by the Tolstoys, from start to finish at his Bratislava concert. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Tom Odell is one of the most talented singers and songwriters on the current UK music scene. Likewise, Tolstoys are one of the most promising Slovak bands. They both shared the stage in Bratislava. The British performer chose this Slovak dream-pop group to support him at his concert in Bratislava, which was listed as one of the venues on his tour. Odell is currently promoting his latest 'Jubilee Road' album across Europe. Being invited by the singer was a great opportunity for Tolstoys but they had to wait longer than expected. The concert had been set for June, but Odell had to reschedule it for November because of the huge amount of work on his new album. Tolstoys were to warm up fans The major Spanish daily portrays Slovakia as one of the EU countries with the highest level of gender inequality through the story of Svetlana Fialova. News: Receive favorite authors articles by email. Try the new feature and turn on the subscription. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Its not a very pleasant feeling to learn after two years of work experience at a university that the starting pay of your new non-female colleagues, is higher than for women in the same position, Svetlana Fialova from Kosice wrote on her Facebook profile. Spains leading daily, El Pais, became interested in her story as an example of the gender pay gap in Slovakia, a conservative country where women still earn considerably less compared to men, according to the daily. The situation has improved since 2004 when Slovakia had the widest gender pay gap of 27.6 percent in the EU, according to the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO), but men are still getting paid over 19 percent more, El Pais reported in both its Spanish and English editions. Demanding equal wage The last thing I want to do is to harm my male colleagues, who are already in a very precarious condition, Fialova told El Pais. All I demand is what I am entitled to. Fialova is a designer and associate professor at the Faculty of Arts of the Technical University of Kosice (TUKE) where she, amongst other activities, manages the graphics and experimental production studios. In spite of having more experience, the same level of education and workload, she continues to receive less money compared with her colleagues. Moreover, she only earns 120 above the minimum wage. No one has given her any help so far, even though she made an official complaint. The head of the department said it was no business of his, she told El Pais. The dean did not help her either. Gender inequality Female students significantly dominate at the faculty where Fialova lectures. However, the faculty and its departments are headed only by men. She would welcome the underdiscussed gender quotas, El Pais wrote. Many women in this country are willing to take a lower salary just as long as they have a job, Monika Uhlerova, deputy head of the Confederation of Trade Unions Associations (KOZ), said to El Pais. We lack the spirit to stand up for ourselves. Women have never raised their voices strongly enough to fight for a better economic position in society, so their representation in top positions at all levels remains low, the daily writes, and highlights as a good example the fact that five female government ministers are female. The new generation must lead the change, Fialova said. Ian Johnson will talk in Slovakia about the ideas, faiths, and values that underpin China's rise. Register now for the lecture for free. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Free entry is limited due to capacity so those wishing to attend should register at www.uniba.sk The lecture will take place on Monday, December 3, 2018 between 10 11.30 a.m. at the Historical Assembly Hall of P. J. Safarik University on Srobarova 2 in Kosice and on Wednesday, December 5, 2018 between 4 5.30 p.m. at the Assembly Hall of Comenius University on Safarikovo namestie in Bratislava. Subject of lecture: The Rise of a New Superpower (China is now the world's second-largest economy and a major player in the world, but what are the ideas, faiths, and values that underpin its rise? What are the ideas and hopes of its people? For thirty-five years, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ian Johnson has been traveling to China, and has lived there for a total of twenty years, giving him insight into the enormous changes that have turned the world's most populous country from an impoverished land into the world's newest superpower.) Organisers: Petit Academy, Tatra Banka Foundation, Comenius University in Bratislava. Ian Johnson Ian Johnson (Source: Courtesy of Ian Johnson) Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer, focusing on society, religion, and history. He spent nearly twenty years in China as a student and later a newspaper correspondent for The Baltimore Sun and The Wall Street Journal, where he covered macroeconomics, China's WTO accession and social issues. In 2009, Johnson returned to China, where he currently writes for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. He teaches undergraduates and runs a fellowship program at The Beijing Center of Chinese Studies, and advises several academic journals and think tanks. Johnson also worked as a freelancer in Germany for several publications and later contributed to The Wall Street Journal as Germany bureau chief and senior writer, focusing on European macroeconomics and Islamist terrorism. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize twice and won it in 2001 for his coverage of China. He also won two awards from the Overseas Press Club, an award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Stanford Universitys Shorenstein Journalism Award for his coverage of Asia in 2017. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author has published three books, including Wild Grass, A Mosque in Munich, and The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, which describes China's religious revival and its implications for politics and society. He has also contributed chapters to: My First Trip to China, Chinese Characters, and the Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China. This is the first time such charges have been brought. News: Receive favorite authors articles by email. Try the new feature and turn on the subscription. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled For the very first time, the National Criminal Agency (NAKA) has brought charges against a Slovak for his involvement in the military conflict in eastern Ukraine. Mario R., if found guilty, might spend two to eight years in prison, the Slovak police informed on their Facebook page. Read also: Read also: Police to check Slovak soldiers in Ukraine Read more Mario R. has been acting as a member of the organised military groups fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists since July 2015 and possibly earlier. As a result, he has been actively contributing to activities during a war that takes place on the territory of another country, particularly in the Donbass region, the police wrote. The activities of Slovaks fighting in eastern Ukraine have been described by blogger Jan Bencik, the Dennik N daily reported. Slovakia commemorated the centenary of the end of WWI with several events. News: Receive favorite authors articles by email. Try the new feature and turn on the subscription. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Strong nationalism, the arrogance of some world leaders and their desire to control new territories and power were among the main reasons why World War I started, said Slovak President Andrej Kiska who attended the celebrations in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the conflict, held on November 11. In his opinion, remembrance of these events should be used as a lesson. They were probably short-sighted when they thought that such a conflict would end after several months, Kiska said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. As he reminded his audience, the four-year conflict claimed more than 10 million lives, including more than 70,000 in Slovakia. It also left thousands of widows and orphans. For me it was a very good moment when I saw how world leaders are sitting at one table, Kiska said, as quoted by TASR, when commenting on a ceremonial lunch attended by French President Emmanuel Macron, US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. No place for the world wars barbarism International relations in the 21st century should be based on dialogue, cooperation and the principles of humanism. There is no place for the barbarism of the two world wars, reads the statement of the Foreign Affairs Ministry issued on November 11. As a result, Slovakias foreign policy advocates the principles of efficient multilateralism and the support of the UN as its basic pillar, as reported by the TASR newswire. Despite the horrors of WWI, the factors resulting in the eruption of the war have not been removed. Nationalism, the conflict between world powers, political extremism, the spread of racial and minority hatred and the disrespect of international law led to a cataclysm that was worse than the first conflict, the ministry continued, as quoted by TASR, adding that they are concerned about some dangerous tendencies that seemed to have disappeared long ago but are again beginning to surface. The bells were ringing The ceremonial events took place in various places across Slovakia. For example, Defence Minister Peter Gajdos attended the ceremony held at the military cemetery in Bratislavas borough of Kopcany on November 11. He also participated in the 5th run to honour war veterans. Im very glad that weve met here again to pay tribute to those who died in the fight for peace and freedom, Gajdos said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. He also awarded war veterans with commemorative medals. Moreover, on the occasion of the centenary of the end of WWI and British Remembrance Day, the bells of St Martins Cathedral in Bratislava rang at 13:30 on November 11. In addition, British Ambassador to Slovakia, Andy Garth and his German colleague Joachim Bleicker remembered the anniversary with a short remembrance service in front of the church. The United Kingdom celebrates Remembrance Day every year in November to pay tribute to those who died in war conflicts, said Monika Holeckova, press attache of the British Embassy in Slovakia, as quoted by SITA. The commemorative events took place at several sites in Slovakia on November 11, including the memorial in Bratislavas borough of Cunovo, which reminds of the fall of a British RAF Wellington bomber in 1944, which claimed the lives of all five crew members, the embassy wrote in a press release. The participants in the proceedings broke the law on the protection of economic competition. News: Receive favorite authors articles by email. Try the new feature and turn on the subscription. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled The Antimonopoly Office (PMU) has fined both the J&T Finance Group SE (JTFG) and the Czech and Slovak businessman Ladislav Bodok for violating the law governing the protection of economic competition. They not only failed to report the concentration of assets related to obtaining joint control over the biggest chain of brick-and-mortar bookstores, Panta Rhei, in Slovakia, but also conducted rights and duties stemming from this concentration before the PMU lawfully decided on the matter. The PMU started investigating the case back in 2012 after the media reported the sale of Panta Rhei, the SITA newswire reported. Read also: Read also: Record fine for dairy and retailers for anti-competitive behaviour Read more The PMU imposed a fine of 600,000 on JTFG while Bodok, who was the exclusive owner of Panta Rhei before the transaction, is obliged to pay a fine of 7,571. The verdict is final and the PMU expects a remedy in the form of an additional announcement about the concentration. The decision became effective on November 2. Dubious transaction Bodok sold his 40-percent stock in Panta Rhei to JTFG back in 2012, and kept control over the remaining 60 percent together with his son. However, they did not inform the PMU about the change in the ownership structure, even though the law on economic competition protection stipulates that the authority needs to check such large transactions, the Sme daily reported. This is why several raids were carried out on both J&T and Panta Rhei back in 2015. Since both JTFG and Bodok pleaded their guilt, the PMU reduced their fine by one half. The former was originally expected to pay 1.2 million, while the latter was originally fined 15,000, Sme wrote. Real owner confirmed Even though there have been rumours about the influence of the J&T group on Panta Rhei, the recent PMU decision has confirmed it, according to the daily. The reason was that the formal purchaser of the 40-percent stock was the Diversified Retail Company, which was owned by 11 managers of J&T via a network of shell firms, Sme wrote. However, part of the investment in Panta Rhei was financed by J&T Banka, which had a lien on business shares in Diversified Retail Company. J&T Banka belongs to JTFG, which is now labelled as the real purchaser of the bookstore chain by PMU, Sme reported. Apart from Panta Rhei, J&T controls Ikar, the biggest book publisher and the biggest book distributor in the country. By Damali Mukhaye. The Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education examinations kick off today. According to the Uganda National Examination Board Executive Secretary Dan Odongo, over 99,000 students will sit for this years exams. Out of these 58,300 are male while 41,300 are female candidates. Odongo says distribution of exam materials has already been done and over 800 scouts and security personnel are to be deployed to ensure the exams run smoothly. He has now warned school heads, parents and candidates to desist from any form of exam malpractice. The students will be sitting for history and mathematics as their first exams. By Ritah Kemigisa. The ministry of Education has side it is not yet time to scrap off the Universal Primary Education program (UPE) as it proposed by many. The ministrys basic education commissioner Lusambu Mukasa says the program has a number of advantages and has also made a lot mistakes which can be corrected. Mukasa says the program is faced by mainly two types of people who take their children to UPE schools as a government policy and those who are keen to see their children get quality education. He is now calling for collective efforts to ensure the UPE is more affordable for everyone. Mukasa says the ministry is now fighting all vices making the education expensive among them graduation fees demanded by nursey schools. Field gunners loading shrapnel shells I suppose I should have posted this yesterday, but I was having too mellow a day off to dip my head into thoughts of war. Yesterday was Veteran's Day, which used to be called Armistice Day. Yesterday (at 11 a.m., to be exactthe eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month) marked the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI. World War Onecalled "The Great [i.e., large] War" until there was an even greater onewas perhaps the most pointless catastrophe in modern human history. There was no reason for it to happen. It solved nothing. And no good came of itmany historians make the case that it laid the foundation for the rise of Hitler and WWII. The human waste was utterly appalling. The Wikipedia page begins, "The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million: estimates range from 15 to 19 million deaths and about 23 million wounded military personnel, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history. The total number of deaths includes from 9 to 11 million military personnel. The civilian death toll was about 8 million, including about 6 million due to war-related famine and disease." It killed so many young men that males born from 1883 to 1900 were known as "The Lost Generation" in Great Britain. The head of the German delegation that signed the Armistice was murdered by right-wing German assassins in 1921 "Armistice" means truce, but the end of WWI was not a truce. It was a surrender. Yet, as one writer put it, if there was ever a war with no victor, WWI was it. Very little fighting occurred on German soil, and home-front propaganda was so relentless and pervasive that the surrender took the German population largely by surprise, planting the seeds of resentment and dark conspiracy theories about betrayals that surely contributed, at least indirectly, to the Holocaust. The head of the German delegation that surrendered to the vengeful French Field Marshall Foch, Matthias Erzberger, was murdered three years after the end of the war by members of an ultra-nationalist death squadtwo former German naval officerswhile he was out for a walk at a spa town in the Black Forest. The weapons of war were so brutal and the conditions so miserable that it marks the point at which all of humanity became aware of what's now called PTSDin the 'great' war it was called shell-shock. The unending rain of explosives was as likely to unhinge soldiers' minds as blow them limb from limb. Roughly 60% of physical military casualties were caused by artillery. As if relentless shelling wasn't bad enough, soldiers in the trenches had to deal with poison gasthe first widespread use of chemical warfarewhich was so universally agreed to be inhuman that it later contributed to the establishment of the the Geneva Convention. There are many great books about the First World War. Best of all might be Barbara W. Tuchman's The Guns of Augustalthough her book The March of Folly might actually be more pertinent. ("Folly" is beginning to be an old-fashioned word, known mostly to people who readit means foolishness. The book chronicles four of the greatest examples of foolishness by governments. She didn't include WWI, probably because it was the subject of her masterpiece, but she could have.) Great books came out of the war, including Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On the Western Front, Robert Graves' bitter but darkly comic memoir Goodbye to All That, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, and Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory. (Consider getting the illustrated edition.) Veterans Day is a day to honor all veteransthe survivors of warsbut, as a separate occasion commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Armistice, the fictional veteran I can't help thinking of is Joe Bonham, the protagonist of Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun. I like reading books in pairs, and I'd pair that one with a book that is subtitled "The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier": U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler's War is A Racket. He should know. He was a veteran. Soldiers washing in a shell hole Off to play pool! I put this together in two torrid hours of workplease forgive typos! I'll proofread, fact-check, and make corrections when I get back home. [UPDATE: Done now. I had a great time playing pool with my friends, some of whom are veterans. My friend Loyle's father FredLoyle is soon to turn 90had the unusual distinction of serving every minute of both WWI and WWII, beginning way back when WWI broke out in 1914. Ed.] Mike Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. B&H Photo Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon Germany Amazon Canada Adorama (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from: Patrick: "Someone tweeted this link yesterday. It's quietly very striking, about a minute or two audio clip." Mike replies: Wow. There are so many written accounts of those moments, many of them very moving. V.i. Voltz: "Its little known, but a great account of the First World War is Frederic Mannings The Middle Parts of Fortune. Manning died at 53 in 1935, still wracked by the memory of the war." Mike replies: The writeup says that Ernest Hemingway re-read that novel every year. Thomas Rink: "The men who murdered Matthias ErzbergerHeinrich Tillessen and Heinrich Schulzwere members of the Organisation Consul (O.C.), a right-wing terrorist group. The O.C. was founded by Herrmann Ehrhardt, a former Captain of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy). "In the winter 1918/19, the political and social situation in Germany was very unstable; in some of the major cities, workers and disbanded soldiers seized power and established soviet republics (most notably, in Munich). Among other cities, this happened in Bremen. In this situation, Captain Ehrhardt gathered 300 troops and overthrew the local soviet system. This was the origin of what should later become the infamous Brigade Ehrhardt, a Freikorps (militia). "The problem for the Weimar Republic was that the Brigade Ehrhardt was not a singular case. Around 1919/20, there were dozens of militias which had tens of thousands of well-armed and battle-tested combatants. Initially, the social democrat German government under Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Noske relied on the Freikorps to quench leftist turmoils and soviet republics. But, what to do with these militias after the political situation had stabilized? It was not possible to integrate them into the Reichswehr (provisional army of the Weimar Republic), since the treaty of Versailles limited it to 100,000 troops. An attempt to disband them ended in the attempted coup d'etat by Wolfgang Kapp and General Walther von Luttwitz in 1920 (in which the aforementioned Brigade Ehrhardt played an important role). "After the coup failed, the Brigade Ehrhardt finally disbanded in April 1920. Some members, Ehrhardt among them, later founded the Organisation Consul. "Given all this, the treaty of Versailles doomed the Weimar Republic from its very beginning. It provided the anti-republican extreme right-wing forces with a founding myth (Dolchstolegende, or stab-in-the-back legendallegedly, the German army would have won the war wasn't it for politicians like Erzberger), and made it very difficult for the democratic government to properly disband all these armed militias." John Krumm: "I have my grandfather's diary around here somewhere, where he described the excitement on the ship heading over, how good the food was. Like most diaries, the entries became shorter and shorter as the fight went on. One was just the date and 'Gas.'Here he is before shipping out: "But he made it back and started a family in Medina, NY. Later, working as a state trooper, he was killed by a drunk driver." AlexV.: "Tragically for the people of northeast France, WWI's legacy of killing continues. Due to the stagnant battlefields in muddy terrain, poorly implemented technology, and the sheer volume of the shelling, a large swath of the region is polluted with unexploded ordinance. "On maps, is is the 'Red Zone.' Animals and plants now thrive amidst the scenery, but no one is supposed to walk in many of these places. "In other areas the have been returned to agriculture, farmers regularly dig up so many shells that they now place them by the side of the road for disposal. This 'refuse' includes shells with still active gas agents. The casings are now rusted and brittle, hence one can crack them open like an egg to release the toxicity inside. In the papers, one apparently still reads of the unlucky farmer who ran into one with a tractor, or a member of a disposal unit who had an unlucky day. "National Geographic put up this site, but it is one of many. "Just as tragically, Laos is even worse, because that country is covered in cluster bombs ('bombies' in the local patois) dropped during the Vietnam war. (I am sure there are other regions with equally grim tales of land mines, etc.)" Joe Holmes: "My grandfather was in the trenches in France for WWI. He was living in Pennsylvania at the outbreak and volunteered at age 16, lying about his age. "But over there he was gassed and also lost one finger on his left hand to a shell that landed nearby. (I inherited his Purple Heart.) "He never told any of his children about his time in the war. When they asked about his missing finger, he joked that he had accidentally bit it off when he was eating a slice of pie. As far as I can tell, I was the only one who ever heard him say what really happened. "In the trenches, he was so frightened that he promised God that he'd become a minister if he survived, and when he returned from the war, he went to a seminary and became an Episcopal priest, the rector of our town church for more than 30 years until he retired in 1970. He died only two years later at age 72his lung cancer may have resulted from that early exposure to poisonous gas in France." James Symington: "I spent a four years in the British Territorial Army (National Guard equivalent) as an artillery command post officer. As part of the training we were put in a bunker, on Salisbury Plain, with tiny, very thick perspex windows looking out over an impact area just outside. We were then subjected to a battery firing different kinds of 155mm shells at us. Even in the absolute safety of this bunker the concussion of the shells going off 10 yards away was breathtaking. I cannot imagine what months or years of it felt like whilst sitting in a muddy, open bunker." Chuck Holst: "I once met a soldier of the Great War. It was 1966, and it was in a laundromat at 9th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. He might have been in his early 70s, but he seemed older to me at the timeI was 22. As I recall, he just started talking about the war out of the blue, about the gas attacks and how so many of his friends and comrades had died in the war. I didn't know what to say to him, but I think he really just wanted someone to listen to his story, someone to serve as an excuse to talk about it. The war was still very much present for him 48 years after the events. I wish I had taken the time to sit and talk with him and hear more of his story, but I probably had things to do." 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For a film as poetic, elliptical, elusive and often beautiful as the new Italian movie,-- from co-writer and director-- the words that lead off this film are surprising: "Dedicated to that big piece of shit of my father."suspects that the English translation here may be a bit off, and that the second "of" in the dedication might better be replaced with a comma. Either way, it does seem clear that Signore Furesi (shown below) is not a huge fan of his dad.What follows this somewhat jaw-dropping dedication, however, is such a surprising and lovely story that I suspect U.S. movie-goers who appreciate foreign films and oddball tales may take quite a liking to this sweet, sad and finally take-no-prisoners endeavor. Its finale is as uncompromising as any I've seen in a long while and goes up against such a long-held taboo -- especially in its native Italy -- that I imagine the audience reactions there were rather mixed.The very leisurely beginning put us in touch with an elderly male couple -- the amazing and quitedelightful Giulio (, below, right) and his bed-ridden partner Claudio (, at left) -- and their unusual everyday life, in which the aged and himself infirm Giulio does everything from feeding and caring for his partner to mowing the lawn on their rather large-but-gone-to-seed estate.Into their life returns Giulio's estranged daughter, Valeria (the beautiful, below), who, though still angry at her father, proves to have remained very close to his partner, Claudio.On the heels of her return comes that of her son (the men's grandson) Marco (, below), along with his girlfriend, with both of them soon involved in the lives of the elder set.As for the usual back story, history and exposition that most family dramas would give us, Signore Furesi pretty much ignores all this. Oh, we get bits and pieces, but this hardly adds up to enough to deeply involve us. Instead, that involvement comes through the artful use of a kind of visual and verbal poetry that engages our mind and heart via the beauty of the well-chosen words and beautifully composed, often stunning images.These includes sunsets (above and below) -- the film is set in Sardinia, which, as shown here looks to be a most beautiful and welcoming place -- which come into play not only for their beauty but as a "hook" for investors to help resuscitate an old family hotel (shades of the recentmovie sequel).Gambling -- as art, vice and life -- also figures in the bizarre plot, as we learn that Giulio once allowed that very bad habit to intrude too heavily in his and his lover's life and finances. Now, here it comes again, this time as a possible savior, thanks to a wealthy old friend who owns the local casino (how good to see, shown below, left, in his senior years).Finally, however, it is the performances of the two old men, especially that of the amazing Signore della Piane (above, right, and below), that brings the movie to life and holds it that way. Giulio's character -- forever dithering but helping, hoping against hope, using every means at his increasingly emptying disposal, love pouring out of every pore -- proves so memorable and amazing that you never doubt the unbreakable bond that exists between these two men.There's a high-stakes poker game (below), the results of which question what is truth (in a manner than our current idiot President could never begin to appreciate or understand). By the time we reach that finale, I suspect that anyone who has lived and loved hard enough and long enough will be able to fully savor the decision that has been reached.I've often said that it is Italy that makes the best films about family. Here is yet another fine example. Fromarrived on VOD here in the USA this past Friday, November 9, and will have its American theatrical debut in the Los Angeles area atthis coming Friday, November 16. Vietnams lawmaking National Assembly on Monday passed a resolution ratifying the countrys joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Four hundred and sixty-nine legislators voted in favor of passing the resolution, with no objections or abstentions. Sixteen lawmakers, or 3.3 percent of National Assembly members, were not present to cast their vote. The ballots result means Vietnam has officially ratified the landmark deal, making it the seventh signatory to do so after Mexico, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia. After U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement last year, Japan took a leading role in pushing for a replacement pact known as CPTPP, or TPP-11. CPTPP, signed in Chile on March 8, is the third largest free trade area in the world by gross domestic product (GDP), after the North American Free Trade Agreement and European Single Market. The combined economy of 11 CPTPP countries Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam represents 13.4 percent of global GDP, approximately US$13.5 trillion. The provisions of the agreement specify that it enters into effect 60 days after ratification by at least 50 percent of the signatories, or six of the eleven participating countries. The sixth nation to ratify the deal was Australia on October 31, with the agreement coming into force on December 30. Vietnams ratification of CPTPP represents an important political decision and stands to affirm the countrys activeness in international integration, the National Assembly Standing Committee said in a statement. The move is expected to help improve the internal strength of Vietnams economy and its resilience against impacts of the global economy, while being a driving force in negotiations for other free trade agreements, the committee said. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, better known as Agribank, has rejected rumor circulating in several localities in recent days that it had gone bankrupt. The rumor started to spread on Friday, when Le Bach Hong, a former Deputy Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs and former head of Vietnam Social Security, was arrested over allegations of economic mismanagement. Vietnam Social Security was the creditor of the now-defunct Financial Leasing Company II (ALCII), the financial arm of Agribank that declared bankruptcy in July. Following the arrest of Hong, some local news websites published reports saying that Agribank is responsible for paying the debts ALCII owes the Vietnam Social Security firm, as the credit institution had guaranteed the borrowings. Soon afterward, rumor that Agribank itself had also gone bankrupt was heard in some localities. More seriously, workers in industrial parks at these places even skipped work to rush to Agribanks branches for cash withdrawal. In a statement on Sunday, Agribank asserted that all of these pieces of information are false and misleading. Agribank underlined that ALCII was allowed to legally go bankrupt by a court in Ho Chi Minh City on July 31, adding that the State Bank of Vietnam also revoked the license for the financial company's establishment and operation on October 12. The Ho Chi Minh City court also ruled that Sen Viet Asset Management and Liquidation Company had to be entrusted with the task of managing ALCIIs debts. As of early April 2018, ALCII still owed Vietnam Social Insurance VND769.3 billion (US$30.08 million), excluding interest. Agribank also said ALCII is a non-bank credit institution with legal status independent of Agribank. Therefore, the bankruptcy of ALCII will not affect the operation of Agribank as well as savings of customers at the bank, according to the credit institution. Agribank, which has recently undergone a restructuring process, said its business is improving, with pre-tax profit in steady growth over the years. Specifically, the banks pre-tax profit reached VND4,212 billion ($181.12 million) in 2016, VND5,018 billion ($215.77 million) in 2017, and VND6,000 billion ($258 million) in the first ten months of this year. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A farm worker accused of sparking a strawberry needle saga in Australia was arrested in Brisbane on Sunday, two months after Queensland police fronted the media to warn about punnets being contaminated with needles. My Ut Trinh, 50, will remain in custody after appearing in a Brisbane court on Monday morning, ABC News reports. Police have charged her with seven counts of contamination of goods with intent to cause economic loss, an offense that normally carries a maximum jail time of three years. However, police allege there is a circumstance of aggravation, meaning the maximum prison term is increased to ten years. Trinh, whose name suggests she may be of Vietnamese origin, worked at the Berry Licious/Berry Obsession farm in southeast Queensland and it is alleged she had grievances about her treatment at work. According to 7 News, Trinh allegedly told others she wanted to bring them down and put them out of business. Police launched an investigation on September 9 after a Queensland man reported swallowing a contaminated berry. The contamination saga then spread from Queensland across the country, as there were 186 reports of sewing needles being found in strawberries, 77 of which were in Queensland. Sixty-eight strawberry brands were affected, including 49 in Queensland. The contamination scares resulted in supermarkets pulling strawberries off their shelves, and metric tons of the fruit was dumped at the peak of the growing season. A needle is found inside a strawberry in Australia. Photo: Facebook At the time, health officials warned people to carefully check any Berry Licious or Berry Obsession strawberries from interstate growers for possible contaminants. Police say Trinhs DNA was found inside a contaminated punnet in Victoria as part of a two-month, complex investigation. "DNA evidence will be part of the brief of evidence that will be submitted to the court," ABC News quoted Superintendent Jon Wacker from the Queensland Police Drug and Serious Crime Group as saying. Wacker said items seized in Victoria had played an important role. "This is a major and unprecedented police investigation with a lot of complexities involved," Wacker said in a statement. "The Queensland Police Service has allocated a significant amount of resources to ensure those responsible are brought to justice." Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! AKB48, Japans biggest idol girl group, is scheduled to perform in Hanoi with their Vietnamese sister girl band this weekend as part of a cultural exchange event between Vietnam and Japan. The renowned Japanese girl group will take part in the Vietnam - Japan Cultural Exchange Day in the Vietnamese capital on Sunday, November 18. They will be accompanied by their Vietnamese sister group, SGO48. The audition for 48 members of the SGO48 came to an end last weekend following a two-month journey. About 8,000 contestants aged 13 and over submitted their application online, of whom only 350 were selected. A contestant auditions for a role in the SGO48 girl group in the final round in Ho Chi Minh City on November 11, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre The top 120 were then revealed to show off their talent in the final audition round in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday and Sunday last week. Each candidate was asked to sing a song within one minute before answering questions from a board of Vietnamese and Japanese judges. As most of the contestants are fans of AKB48 and Japanese pop music in general, they were able to perform Japanese songs. Many of the younger girls also amazed the judges with their fluent Japanese speaking skills. Some shared they are self-taught thanks to their passion for Japanese music from an early age. The 48 members have already been decided and their names will be announced in the coming days. Members of Team 8 of the AKB48 girl group. Photo: akb48.co.jp According to Takeshi Kise, AKB48s choreographer and mentor of SGO48, members of the original girl group have high hope for their Vietnamese sisters and are very excited to be performing along them in front of local fans. Established in December 2005, AKB48 is named after the Akihabara (Akiba for short) area in Tokyo, where the group's theater is located. As of January 5, 2017, the group consisted of 136 members, divided among five teams, namely A, K, B, 4, and 8. Team 8 has the highest number of members among the five, which is 47. The group had sold over 56 million records, including over six million albums, by June 2018. AKB48's producer, Yasushi Akimoto, has expanded the concept to several sister groups in China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Politics -- Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong on Sunday joined a great national solidarity festival with locals in Dur Kmal Commune, Krong Ana District in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, where he expressed his delight as the local community has made great progress in socio-economic development, culture, and education. Society -- A court in the northern province of Phu Tho convened Monday morning to try two former top police chiefs and 90 other defendants involved in a massive online gambling ring worth nearly VND9.9 trillion (US$424 million) that was busted last year. -- A judge in the town of Ypres in Belgium has ordered the arrest of a suspect in the murder of a Vietnamese girl, which occurred in Belgiums West Flanders Province in 2016, a spokesperson of the local prosecutors office said on Sunday. Business -- Vietnams lawmaking National Assembly is expected to cast a vote today to pass a resolution that would ratify the countrys joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade pact, nearly eight months after it was signed in Chile on March 8. -- Vietnamese lender Agribank, one of the countrys four state-owned commercial banks, has dismissed recent rumors that it has gone bankrupt following the bankruptcy of a company involved in economic mismanagements that led to the arrest of a former deputy labor minister last week. -- Four largest cities in Vietnam Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, and Can Tho possess over VND781.38 trillion ($33.47 billion) worth of public assets, according to incomplete statistics compiled in a finance ministry report. Education -- Private universities in Vietnam are heatedly sought after by investors who want to do business in education as buying an existing university remains less complicated than opening a new one in the Southeast Asian country. Sports -- Nine thousand tickets to the upcoming Friday match in Hanoi between Vietnam and Malaysia as part of the group stage of the 2018 AFF Championship were sold out in mere hours after sales began on Sunday morning, with fans queuing up since the early hours outside ticket booths. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The lives of thousands of families in the north-central Vietnamese province of Quang Binh have been disturbed by large swarms of flies over the past month. The insects have disturbed most of the daily activities of many people in Sen Bang Village, Hoa Trach Commune, Bo Trach District since October. Flies can be spotted virtually everywhere and every time during the day, locals said, adding that the problem is most serious in the afternoon or whenever it rains. Countless flies enter my house whenever I open the doors or windows, said Dao Thi Huong, a local resident. Flies are spotted on the floor of a house in Sen Bang Village. Photo: Tuoi Tre Cooking is also a challenge when the kitchen is overwhelmed by the insects, Huong said, adding that she had to use flypapers to deal with the issue. My three kids have suffered diarrhea over the past days, which must have been caused by the flies, the woman stated. Nguyen Thi Hoa, owner of a diner, said her business has been negatively impacted. Flies land on the food before my customers even start eating, Hoa complained. Countless flies cover a pot of rice at the house of Nguyen Trung Thong. Photo: Tuoi Tre Nguyen Trung Thong and his wife are also victims of the fly swarms, even though they live on a pepper plantation quite far away from the residential area. Thong said he had to apply all measures possible to trap and kill the insects. Local residents have attributed the problem to a nearby cow farm project of the Hoa Phat Quang Binh Husbandry Company. The fly swarms have appeared ever since the firm started spreading fresh fertilizer on the field to grow grass. Fresh fertilizer is spread on the grass field as part of a cow farm project. Photo: Tuoi Tre The same problem previously happened in early 2018 before the company initiated a large-scale fly control effort. Tran Phong, director of the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said he had not been aware of the incident. A delegation will be sent to assess the situation in Sen Bang Village, Phong added. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A court in the northern province of Phu Tho on Monday morning started trialing two former senior officers of the Ministry of Public Security and 90 other defendants for their alleged involvement in a major online gambling ring worth a whopping US$424 million. The 92 defendants face charges of using the Internet to appropriate assets, organizing gambling, gambling, illegally trading invoices, laundering money, and abusing positions and powers while performing duties. Among them are former general director of the Police General Department Phan Van Vinh and former director of the Hi-Tech Crime Department Nguyen Thanh Hoa. Both are prosecuted for abusing positions and powers while performing duties," an offense that carries a maximum jail term of ten years. The court said this is a case with a lot of complexities and a record number of defendants in Phu Tho. Defendants in a major online gambling ring stand trial at a court in Phu Tho Province, northern Vietnam on November 12, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre Nearly 100 witnesses and people with relevant interests and obligations will also be summoned to the trial. Over 30 lawyers will represent the defendants. A massive outdoor court with a capacity of 2,000 people was set up in Phu Tho over the weekend for the first-instance trial, which will last for 15 days. Security was tightened outside the court hall, as all attendees were made to go through extensive security checks before they were allowed inside. A board of five Phu Tho judges, headed by judge Nguyen Thi Thuy Huong, will hear the defendants. Attendees go through security checks outside the court hall in Phu Tho Province, northern Vietnam on November 12, 2018. Video: Tuoi Tre The 92 defendants are accused of being involved in the ring that organized online gambling through websites known under different names. The sites were run by Phan Sao Nam, former chairman of the board of directors at telecoms group VTC Online, and Nguyen Van Duong, former chairman of the council of members at the Hi-Tech Security Development and Investment Co. (CNC). The ring was busted in October 2017. According to their indictments, the defendants employed advanced technology in running the illegal businesses that took place in Phu Tho and some other provinces and cities. Phan Van Vinh and Nguyen Thanh Hoa provided support by abusing their positions and powers in their respective agencies to prevent the gambling ring from getting busted. During their 28-month operation, they attracted nearly 43 million gambling accounts and earned nearly VND9.9 trillion ($424 million) from gamblers, making VND4.7 trillion ($201.4 million) in profits. Security guards are stationed inside the court hall in Phu Tho Province, northern Vietnam on November 12, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre The board of judges who will hear the defendants in a massive online gambling case in Phu Tho Province on November 12, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre Attendees go through security checks outside the court hall in Phu Tho Province, northern Vietnam on November 12, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre Phan Van Vinh, former general director of the General Department of Police under Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security, appears at a court in Phu Tho Province on November 12, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Perth-based community TV station West Television has breached the ASTRA Open Narrowcast Television Codes of Practice for failing to respond to a viewer complaint within 60 days. The Australian Media and Communications Authority found WTV failed to address a complaint about Russian 24/7 English-language news channel RT World News in February. The complainant questioned the programming of Russian Government propaganda. Does RT pay West TV to air the programming? they asked, noting that the Code requires, factual material will be clearly distinguished from commentary, analysis or simulation. I contacted West TV three times over the specified 60 days, twice through their website, once through general email, they continued. ACMA was unable to determine the balance of the report because West TV did not supply a broadcast copy. But it did rule them in breach for failing to respond to the complainant in the required time. WTV, which claimed it did not receive initial complaints, said moving its operation from one web-hosting service to another involved a technical failure but ACMA ruled licensees must maintain a functional and accessible complaints handling system at all times. Complaints made in writing do not preclude complaints sent via direct email or electronic complaint facilities hosted on a licensees website. WTV has since changed its website complaints notice pushing for postal complaints, adding it assumes no responsibility for comments, questions and/or complaints submitted ONLY via the electronic form. Castle Rock comes with some impressive names attached both behind and in front of the camera and it sets things off with an ominous first episode, based on the prolific work of the king of horror Stephen King. J.J. Abrams is a co-executive producer and a formidable cast includes Sissy Spacek, Andre Holland, Scott Glenn, Terry OQuinn, Frances Conroy, Melanie Lynskey, Bill Skarsgard, Jane Levy, Allison Tolman and more. Even the score is penned by Thomas Newman. Castle Rock is small-town USA in Maine, but one that is down on its luck. There are dilapidated buildings, a weary working-class community and a nearby prison, the (King-created) Shawshank State Penitentiary. The series opens with two striking scene: one sees Sheriff Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn) tracking down a lost boy in the snowy woods in 1991; the other involves the dramatic suicide of Shawshanks warden (Terry OQuinn). But you just know being a King tale that somehow the two will be linked.. Meanwhile Shawshanks new warden (Ann Cusack) is determined to make her mark and wants to reopen an old wing which hasnt been used in 30 years. There guard Dennis Zalewski (Noel Fisher) discovers a timid young man hiding out, which prompts him to call lawyer Henry Deaver (Andre Holland) who is known for profile cases, and has a history with the town. To reveal much more than this would risk ruining the opening chapter for you, suffice to say that it is Henry Deaver who emerges as the through-line in a complex set-up. In this key role, Andre Holland proves obstinate and seemingly ignoring significant events from his past. Many of the marquee names such as Scott Glenn, Frances Conroy, Allison Tolman, Rory Culkin, Ann Cusack and Terry OQuinn are supporting players although Sissy Spacek is always wonderful to watch, here as a mother battling dementia. Director Michael Uppendahl sets the creepy tone of the piece well, rippling it with just enough to unsettle the viewer without resorting to B-grade horror tropes. Its hard not to sense that something spooky (either supernatural or paranormal) has affected the whole area of Castle Rock and it citizens are playing out an endgame they have no control over. Look forward to finding out more over its run of 10 episodes, and then a second season approved for 2019. Castle Rock airs 8:30pm Mondays on FOX Showcase. By Michelle Martin BERLIN (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said he favours getting a binding deal on a European Union digital tax at a meeting of EU finance ministers in December, and that he supports the French model for the move. France has long been the main supporter of the tax, but has grown increasingly frustrated with German hesitation over the details after Berlin agreed in principle to the idea in June. "If the negotiations continue the way that they have been going, we'll still be in talks in 100 years. That is why I support the French model and want to offer the proceeds to the EU," news weekly Der Spiegel quoted Scholz on Monday as saying. After months of tough lobbying, the French government has said that only Denmark, Sweden and Ireland remain opposed. Germany, meanwhile, had until now been wavering over the proposed EU plan to tax big internet firms such as Google and Facebook on their turnover, which EU officials say unfairly pay less tax than other companies. Germany called earlier this month for a revision of the plan that would exclude from the proposed tax activities linked to carmakers, which Paris has assured would not be covered. In a significant concession, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire agreed last week to delay the implementation of the tax until the end of 2020 and only if a global deal is not reached on the issue beforehand. Le Maire said on Friday that Germany's failure to back the proposed tax at a Dec. 4 EU finance ministers meeting would trigger a breakdown of trust between the two countries. MACRON'S STAKE French President Emmanuel Macron has staked considerable political capital on the tax, part of his broader vision for closer euro zone integration. The digital levy is also seen in Paris as a useful example of joint European action before EU parliamentary elections next year. Under a proposal from the EU's executive Commission in March, EU states would charge a 3 percent levy on the digital revenues of large firms that are accused of averting tax by routing their profits to the bloc's low-tax states. Story continues The plan is aimed at changing tax rules that have let some of the world's biggest companies pay unusually low rates of corporate tax on their earnings. But it requires the support of all 28 EU states and is opposed by a number of them, including small, low-tax countries like Ireland that have benefited by allowing multinationals to book profits there on digital sales to customers elsewhere. The French government and European Commission have said big internet companies like Google and Facebook are not paying their fair share under existing tax rules, to which companies respond that they are fully in line with the rules. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said a digital levy was essential, telling a business conference in Berlin: "We need a digital tax - there is no way around it." Cooperation on taxes at the EU level exists in some areas, such as regulation on VAT, though setting taxes in principle remains the business of member states. Scholz, the German finance minister, also said the EU should push ahead with minimum corporate tax rates and effective taxation of digital companies from January 2021 if states fail to reach an international agreement on tax avoidance. "We are in principle in agreement with our French friends on such a two-step strategy," he said. (Additional reporting by Tassilo Hummel in Berlin and Leigh Thomas in Paris; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Zara parent Inditex is thought to have used aggressive corporate tax avoidance measures. Photo: PA Spanish clothing giant Inditex, the owner of the Zara, Bershka, and Massimo Dutti brands, has moved to shutter the Irish-based unit that handled a huge chunk of its online sales until earlier this year. Inditex, considered to be the worlds largest fashion retailer, has come under fire in recent years for what has been described as aggressive tax avoidance measures. A report produced by Green party lawmakers in the European parliament in 2016 suggested that the firm had saved about 30m (26m) in taxes between 2011 and 2014 by basing its ITX Fashion subsidiary in Ireland rather than in Spain, where the company has its headquarters. Irelands corporate tax rate is 12.5%, while companies can pay as much as 24% in Spain. Documents filed in Irelands companies office in February indicated that Inditex was looking to wind down ITX Fashion as part of a global restructuring. On 7 November, the subsidiary filed a voluntary request to be struck off the companies register. The use of ITX Fashion for tax purposes had been criticised as early as 2011, and Inditex, which had global sales of more than 25bn (22bn) in 2017, has gradually been shifting its operations to Spain since then. The 2016 Green party report suggested that the company has avoided more than 580m (505m) in taxes by using entities based in Ireland, Switzerland and the Netherlands. At the time, the Green party called for a harmonisation of European Union tax rules. Companies like Inditex structure themselves to take advantage of the lowest tax rates and the lack of harmonisation of tax systems at the European level, the report said. Inditex rejected the report, and said that it scrupulously complied with the tax laws in all of the markets where it operates. Last week, the company announced that Zara had moved into 106 new markets, following the launch of its new dedicated online sales platform. While most of these new markets are in Africa, Zara is also making its debut in parts of the Caribbean and Asia. The Duchess of Sussex attended her first Remembrance Day events as a royal on Sunday dressing formally for the occasion in an all-black outfit. Dressing her growing bump, she wrapped up warm for the chilly weather in a tailored coat, which had a cluster of poppies pinned to it. As ever, she chose to wear her hair in one of her go-to looks for important events, styling it in a chic swept-back bun. Meghan stood next to the German president's wife, Elke Budenbender, one the balcony while watching Prince Harry lay down his wreath with the rest of the male members of the Royal Family. Meghan was placed separately to the the Duchess of Cambridge, who had was standing with the Queen and the Duchess of Cornwall this year - in the place Prince Philip would normally be. meghan-markle-remembrance-sunday-service Meghan Markle was dressed in an all-black outfit for the Remembrance Day service This weekend has been the first time we've seen Meghan since she and Prince Harry's royal overseas tour the pregnant Duchess has been deservedly spending some time away from the public eye since their whirlwind visit to Australia, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand. On Saturday, she also attended the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall, alongside her husband, Prince William and Kate and the Queen amongst others. MORE: Prince Harry reveals how he asked Prince Charles to walk Meghan down the aisle Loading the player... This years Remembrance events will commemorate all those who have lost their lives in conflicts and will also mark 100 years since the First World War ended. Sunday's service at The Cenotaph sees many members of the royal family join the Queen, viewing the service from the balcony of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office building. A wreath will be laid on The Queens behalf by The Prince of Wales. MORE: Meghan Markle shares her hairdresser with this other royal Later, Meghan and Harry will join the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent and Prince Michael of Kent to attend a service to mark the Centenary of the Armistice at Westminster Abbey. It will be a fitting finale of a day of national events to commemorate Armistice Day. The European Union has been urged to remain steadfast over its guarantees to Northern Ireland by pro-Remain parties. Senior figures from Sinn Fein, the SDLP, Alliance and the Greens said Brussels must remain firm in demanding a permanent backstop arrangement which would keep Northern Ireland aligned with the EU. Theresa May is battling to secure a UK-wide backstop to prevent a hard border with Ireland, rather than a specific measure for Northern Ireland, and also faces Tory demands to make sure that it will not become an open-ended arrangement. But at a cross-party press conference in London, Sinn Fein vice president Michelle ONeill said: The backstop needs to be permanent, the backstop is the only guarantee we have in this debacle, the only insurance policy we have throughout all of the Brexit mess. Our message is very firm: there can be no backtracking from that position on the backstop that Theresa May and her Government signed up to in December last year. (left to right) Green Party of NI leader Steven Agnew, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle ONeill and the Alliance Partys Stephen Farry held a joint news conference to set out their concerns on the backstop (Nick Ansell/PA) She warned that a hard border, with infrastructure at the frontier, could become a target for dissidents. There are still anti-peace process elements in society and any erection of hard borders on the island of Ireland will bring unwanted attention, she said. While I am very cautious not to over-egg that, I think it is important that people understand thats exactly what potentially could happen. She said that was why the backstop had to be legally operable and remain in place unless and until something else comes along which could prevent a hard border. We are very much looking towards the EU to remain steadfast in the position which they have adopted, and that we hold the Irish Government to account for their role in all of that as well. The Brexit process, and the toxic alliance between the Conservatives and DUP, had contributed to progress made in the Good Friday Agreement being thrown under the bus, Ms ONeill said. Story continues In London alongside SDLP, Alliance & Greens to meet Westminster parties & make the voice of cross-community in the North majority heard. There cant be a hard border. Must protect GFA. Cant jeopardise our peace or future economic stability. Permanent Backstop is bottom line. Michelle ONeill (@moneillsf) November 12, 2018 SDLP leader Colum Eastwood told the news conference: We have spent an awful lot of time trying to build the progress that we now have, the stability that we now have. Brexit has been like bomb going off in the middle of that stability. He added: We have to ensure that the backstop is supported and protected in the withdrawal agreement. There will not be a withdrawal agreement unless there is a backstop, a permanent one. There is no point having a temporary backstop. The backstop is there as our insurance against big mistakes being made by a future British government. The pair, along with Northern Irelands Green Party leader Steven Agnew and the Alliances Stephen Farry, were using the visit to London to meet leaders of Westminsters opposition parties. But they complained that Mrs May had refused to meet them jointly. Mr Pence also stressed American commitment to the security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region. US Vice President Mike Pence has arrived in Tokyo to discuss North Korea and other issues with Japanese officials before heading to two regional summits. Mr Pence is expected to also discuss Chinas growing regional influence and bilateral trade with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe when they meet on Tuesday, officials said. During a stopover in Alaska, Mr Pence told reporters that he planned to talk about our important alliance, our economic relationship, current negotiations for a free trade agreement of course, and well be focusing on our ongoing commitment to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, Japans NHK public television reported. .@SecondLady & I are on our way to Asia, where Ill represent @POTUS at the ASEAN & APEC summits. Ill deliver a clear message: we are committed to freedom, prosperity, & security in the region. #VPinAsia pic.twitter.com/8r46GV0ni7 Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) November 11, 2018 Mr Pence said in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post that America will soon begin negotiations for a historic trade agreement with Japan. The two countries agreed in September to start negotiations on a bilateral trade agreement. Talks are expected to begin early next year. President Donald Trumps administration has reached a trade pact with South Korea and another with Mexico and Canada. Mr Pence said in the article that the new trade deals will put American jobs and American workers first. Mr Pence also stressed American commitment to the security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region. Story continues The Vice President is to leave on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore and an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea on behalf of President Trump. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that Mr Pences visit ahead of the regional meetings is a perfect chance to reaffirm cooperation between Japan and the United States regarding our policies on North Korea and various other issues of mutual interest. He said Mr Pence and Mr Abe will discuss ways to expand trade and investment between the two sides. Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a flower laying ceremony at the monument to the soldiers of the Russian Expeditionary Force engaged in France during the World War One, in Paris, France, November 11, 2018. Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik/Kremlin via REUTERS PARIS (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday Moscow wanted to restore a full-scale dialogue with the United States about the landmark Cold War-era missile treaty, Russian news agencies reported. President Donald Trump said last month Washington would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because Russia was violating the pact, bringing a warning of retaliatory measures from Moscow. Putin, speaking to Kremlin-backed RT France television, said he could meet Trump on the sidelines of a G-20 summit in Argentina, according to the agencies. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Janet Lawrence) U.S.-backed Syrian fighters resumed their ground offensive Sunday against the Islamic State group in the last territories controlled by the extremists in eastern Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces said in a statement that the decision to resume the fighting came after threats from Turkey against the Kurdish-led force dropped due to diplomatic activities. The SDF said in late October it was temporarily suspending its campaign against IS in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, accusing Turkey of jeopardizing its efforts. The group said that the aim of the renewed operation that began two months ago is "to work for the final defeat of Daesh organization," using an Arab acronym to refer to the group. Turkey considers the SDF a terror threat and an extension of Kurdish rebels waging an insurgency within Turkey. U.S. support for the Kurdish-led forces has resulted in increased tension between Washington and Ankara. Last month, in a spike in tensions, Turkey said its military shelled Kurdish positions across the border in Syria, east of the Euphrates River. Since SDF suspended operations, IS has launched several offensives that have left scores of U.S.-backed fighters dead or wounded. Despite the cessation of ground operations, the U.S.-led coalition continued with its airstrikes against the extremist group. The SDF said its fighters captured a senior IS commander in the northern city of Raqqa which until last year was the de facto capital of the extremists. "This shows that the organization still has roots and sleeper cells in liberated areas," it said. (AP) [November 12, 2018] Playbook Logistics Co-Founders Tyson Smith & Gurjeet Basi Join LiteLink as Strategic Logistics Advisors VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Litelink Technologies Inc. (LiteLink) (CSE:LLT), a technology leader utilizing artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to move enterprises into a digital-forward world, is pleased to announce Mr. Tyson Smith and Mr. Gurjeet Basi as the first strategic logistics advisors to join LiteLink. Mr. Basi and Mr. Smith will support LiteLink in enhancing business adoption and sustainability while building growth within the 1SHIFT Logistics platform. Mr. Basi encompasses over fifteen years of proven experience in the transportation and logistics industry. He comes to LiteLink with a pedigree career track record, from his tenure at C.H Robinson, a fortune 500 company where he worked on large-scale sales and operations, to his current role as the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Playbook Logistics. Gurjeet recognizes the need to adapt to cutting-edge technologies on the horizon, in order to maintain competitiveness in the current market-place and continue to improve the customer experience. Mr. Smith holds nine years of proven experience in the transportation and logistics industry. During this time he focused on developing technologies and implementing them in the shipper/carrier supply chain. His passion for logistics began at C.H. Robinson, ultimately leading to his current role as the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Playbook Logistics. Mr. Smiths career has taken him through the operation, implementation, and selection of 5 separate enterprise level TMS systems. Mr. Smith believes that the best-executed supply chain must implement a combination of leading-edge technologies and skilled operators, which is key to LiteLink supplying the valuable service customers truly desire. The logistics industry consistently faces challenges that require a multifaceted approach. Many companies within this industry are unable to balance technology, automation, and the human element, which makes their supply chain system look like a state of controlled chaos. Our industry is one backed by a core human network of drivers, dispatchers, shippers, an brokers. LiteLink provides this human network with a platform that offers better integration between all parties, which is critical to achieving success, said Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith will also be joining LiteLink on key roadshows, including representing our platform at the BITA (Blockchain in Transportation Alliance) conference taking place November 12-14 in Texas. We see a need to balance emerging technologies, without giving up continuous human interaction in our line of business. Our industry relies on human trust and long-term relationships built on our proven track record. LiteLink enables third-party logistic providers like Playbook to do this more efficiently without giving up the human touch, said Mr. Basi. Mr. Smith and Mr. Basi will provide a vital link to key markets and significant thought leadership which will help LiteLink in its quest to scale globally. LiteLink is defining a new category in logistics solving minor and major pain points and both Gurjeet and Tyson are the logistics gurus LiteLink needs to help scale and develop the 1SHIFT platform. Im thrilled for both of their support and confident that they will make an impact while supporting our goal of creating a world where 3PLs can profitably, sustainably and reliably deliver the best value to their customers, said LiteLink CEO, Ashik Karim. About LiteLink Technologies Inc. LiteLink provides enterprise level solutions utilizing artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to solve the logistics industrys fragmented and outdated technology problem. LiteLink is creating a unified communications platform for tracking shipments, disputes, and errors to increase efficiency and reduce costs for 3PLs, carriers, and shippers. Find out more about the Company at litelinktech.com and the 1Shift Platform at 1shiftlogistics.com . About PlayBook Logistics Inc. Playbook Logistics is a technology-based, highly specialized logistics/transportation service provider that focuses on value creation for companies with complex supply chains. Playbook was designed from the ground up to address persistent issues in the supply chain and provide nimble, consistent and reliable solutions. Playbook Logistics provides its clients with expertise and technologies, which provide their supply chain operations with the ability to react quickly to market conditions, scale to handle large project shipments with ease and secure reliable same day truckload capacity. Find out more at playbooklogistics.com . For further information, contact Bronson Peever at 1-833-205-6945 Ext. 3742 or email [email protected] . Forward-looking Statement This news release may contain certain Forward-Looking Statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, target, plan, forecast, may, schedule and other similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. These forward-looking statements or information may relate to the nature of the business of LiteLink, and other factors or information. Such statements represent LiteLinks current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by LiteLink, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. LiteLink does not intend and does not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affections such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] We listen to local police and fire departments scanner traffic, but sometimes miss crimes, wrecks, fires or other incidents, especially if they happen overnight. If you know of something were not covering yet, please let Managing Editor Jeff Pownall know by emailing him at jpownall@lufkindailynews.com, or submit a news tip online by visiting lufkindailynews.com/tips. 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Representatives from more than 60 countries attended carefully choreographed ceremonies to honor the sacrifice of those who fought. The Europeans take the Great War seriously. Americans really dont. It just doesnt feel like our war. To us, its an old chest filled with musty, tattered maps and the remains of broken monarchies and shattered ambitions. Even the early film footage, jerky and grainy in black and white, looks more like a silent movie than something real. We know we participated, and naturally we were heroic. Our boys saved the Allied powers from the Huns, all the while singing Over There and wooing the local pulchritude. Its what we broad-shouldered, brave, optimistic, can-do Americans do. But, if you want to contextualize our actual contribution, consider the following: The United States committed 2.8 million servicemen to the war, and suffered 53,402 killed in action, 63,114 deaths from disease and other causes, and about 205,000 wounded. On an absolute level, thats a lot of lives. But, by contrast, in just one extended, insane battle, the Europeans fought the Somme Offensive, with more than 3 million men engaged and 1 million casualties. Then there was Gallipoli, the infamous, disastrous push by then-First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill in the Dardanelles, which provided the Ottoman Empire with its last meaningful military victory, and included a horrific sacrifice by ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand combined forces) and half a million casualties. And Verdun (between the French and the Germans), which lasted close to 11 months in 1916, and yielded nearly 700,000 casualties and more than 300,000 dead. And Passchendaele (3rd Battle of Ypres, Flanders Fields), between Great Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, in July to November 1917, in which the dead and wounded may have been as high as 700,000. And Operation Michael, the last major German offensive in the West (Germany, the UK, France, and, finally, the United States), which had almost 500,000 casualties. That, of course, skips every battle between the Germans and the Russians. Read about these and you are stunned by not just the numbers (the human cost of the Somme alone was comparable to the total of all US casualties for the entirety of World War II) but the sheer arrogance and pig-headedness of both the military and political leadership of the time. I dont know if its possible to understand the thinking that you could apply 19th Century concepts of cavalry charges (without the horses) in the face of 20th Century killing technology. It takes an astounding amount of myopia to see what is in front of you and refuse to adapt, and almost a contempt for human life to see it wasted this way. We talk about The Lost Generation (in Europe, the Generation of 1914), but they were lost by leadership who valued their lives far too little. We have to ask ourselves, what impelled so many civilized nations to walk down this road of utter and mindless self-destruction? You cant begin without recognizing that WW I didnt just happen. Europe had been seething for decades. The ground was still hot from the First and Second Balkan wars (one Balkan War not being enough). But, if the tinder was there, the match was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire crown. The killer, Gavrilo Princip, was a Bosnian Serb member of Young Bosnia, a group seeking to end Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. That should alert you to two critical tectonic forces. A monarchy that no longer exists, exercising control over an adjoining country, which had previously been under control of yet another monarchy (the Ottoman Empire) that also no longer exists. Add to this stew the rest of the Balkans, riven by centuries-old tribal rivalries, constantly shifting borders, two alpha-dogs in Serbia and Bosnia, and the toxic catnip that being the soft underbelly of Europe represented to other European powers. The stage was set. Then, an ominous pause of almost a month as Austria-Hungary evaluated its options, and then issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia considered it, consulted with its Russian allies, and acceded to certain points, but not the entire proposal. It was not enough. Austria-Hungarys pride (and hunger) unsated, and being emboldened by a German Blank Check of unconditional support, it declared war against Serbia. Both the Germans and the Austrians gambled that the Russians, who had shown a recent predilection for backing down, would do so again. This time, they were wrong. Russia saw a need to come to its Slavic brother Serbias defense. We now had a regional war. It would soon go continental, driven by the incredible entanglement of mutual defense treaties. The Russians and the Serbs and the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians werent the only pairs of allies. The British had an arrangement with Japan; France had one with Russia and another with Belgium. Finally, France, Britain, and Russia came together as the Triple Entente. As one country after another entered the war, their allies felt compelled to honor their agreements, eventually sorting themselves out into two opposing teams: The Allied Powers (the Triple Entente, then Italy, eventually joined by United States) and the Central Powers, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. Of course, these countries didnt come in just out of a sense of honor. Opportunism and empire-building played a critical role. All thought of themselves as great powers. They had spent the last few decades in competitive arms buildups, secret diplomacy that often showed a stunning lack of consistency and integrity, and a globe-spanning grand colonialism that allowed every country to dream of more land and more conquests. Those conquests could be on other continents (Africa, South America, Asia) or, quite literally, right next door. Early 20th Century European states did not see the map of Europe as immutable. Entire regions belonging to adjoining countries might be up for annexation, as they had been for the entire 19th Century. Whats more, the collective leadership of Europe seemed to agree that to the strongest went the spoils. All those allies were also rivals. This made a good little war seem a bit appealing to many, not unlike a duel on the field of honor. It would be quick; you would bloody the nose of your opponent and walk away with a deep harbor, some fertile lands, perhaps some mining interests, or even a collection of factories. Germany certainly thought that way. Since Bismarck, they had been building military strength, both on land and at sea, testing others for weakness, and pining for recognition. They resented the British for the size of their Empire, had contempt for the perceived weakness of the French, and saw the Slavic Menace as existential, yet something that could be defeated easily, if it were done soon enough. They were confident they could fight a two-front war, with speed being the essential component in the West. Their Schlieffen Plan called for a quick thrust through then-neutral Belgium to defeat the French and bottle up the British Expeditionary Force. The Kaiser told his soldiers they would be home before the autumn leaves, and what evidence we have indicates that most of them, as well as the public, thought the same. In the actual event, things didnt quite work out as planned. In both the West and East, Germanys early successes were ultimately met with determined resistance. Its ally, Austria, with an ambition greater than its abilities, decided to see what goodies it could take from the Italians, and it bogged down as well. Suddenly, Germany was in a three-front war of attritionno dashing cavalry, no lightening victories. The leaves began to fall, and the troops stayed to watch them. While theres little doubt that the making of European policy was dominated by the aristocracy and the military, what about the home front, what about the opinions of the best minds? In Germany, many of them were ardent supporters of the war. There was the Manifesto of 93, signed by 93 scientists, authors, theologians, artists and historians, musical composers and playwrights, including a dozen past and future Nobel Prize winners. As representatives of German Science and Art, we hereby protest to the civilized world against the lies and calumnies with which our enemies are endeavoring to stain the honor of Germany in her hard struggle for existencein a struggle that has been forced on her. Some of these best minds took a more active role than boosterism. On April 22, 1915, at the second Battle at Ypres, Germany shattered the 1899 Hague Declaration banning the use of chemical weapons by using massive amounts of chlorine gas. Otto Hahn, a future Nobelist in Chemistry (1944) helped install the cylinders, after being convinced by Fritz Haber (Nobel in Chemistry in 1918) that poison gas would shorten the fighting. Later, Haber would recruit two other future Nobel prize winners, James Franck and Gustav Hertz. Habers initiative ushered in a more lethal phase of the war. Once the Germans used it, the French, then the British, and then finally the United States began to develop their own brands of toxins. In a cruel twist, Habers wife, the brilliant Clara Immerwahl, a PhD in her own right, grew increasingly haunted by the use of gas. She begged her husband to stop, he refused, and one day, after a particularly heated row between them, he stalked off to conduct an attack on the Eastern Front. In his absence, she committed suicide. Of course, Haber was wrong. The gas didnt end the war, nor the introduction of tanks, nor dirigibles and planes dropping new kinds of bombs, nor extraordinary amounts of artillery. Men were stuffed into uniforms, ferried to the front with bayonet and spade in hand, and, on orders from detached commanders who saw their troops as mere abstractions on a chess board, sent to charge into the machine gun fire. Again, one has to ask, why, when it became obvious there would be no quick and decisive victories, when the death count was mounting far higher than anyone could have anticipated, did it have to continue? Why didnt saner heads draw back in 1915 and 1916? They did, a bit. There were some peace discussions going on, even as early as 1914, with the Germans attempting to cut a deal with the Russians and even the French. Before US entry into the war, Woodrow Wilson made proposals that would have largely restored the status quo ante. In 1917, the Pope, worried that Europe was falling apart, proposed something similar to Wilsons framework. Finally, the Austrians, recognizing their own efforts flagging, and with famine at home, reached out to the British and French, offering some concessions. But, with the exception of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March of 1918, where the new Bolshevik unilaterally settled with the Central Powers, none of these even approached fruition. In hindsight, one can see whynone of the combatants could bring themselves to say yes. Time and again, the parties wanted things they hadnt achieved on the battlefield. They were still building empires at the price of lives. And so, it went on. More trenches and barbed wire, more machine guns and gas. More corpses and more mourners. From the mouth of Remarques fictitious Paul Baumer, We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. Annihilation came. When it was over, four dynasties had fallenAustria, Germany, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. Between 17 and 20 million died, another 20 million wounded, the majority, civilians. The victors imposed an unwise peace at Versailles, paving the way for a second, far more destructive war. The fields of France and Belgium, pockmarked by trenches and adorned with barbed wire, were later filled with cemeteries. They were crowded yesterday with ordinary people carrying poppies, paying their respects to the fallen, and perhaps, to the end of innocence itself. We are the dead, the poet said. Their grave markers stand, not just as a reminder of their sacrifice, but also as a dignified, silent reproach to the leaders who failed them. Tyler Hampton in Inference Review: In a publication titled Russian Doll Genes and Complex Chromosome Rearrangements in Oxytricha trifallax, Jasper Braun et al. explore what they describe as architectures that transcend simple twists and turns of the DNA. The paper is short, dry, clear, and interesting. Oxytricha trifallax is a unicellular eukaryotic species and a ciliate, one widely known for beautiful, but bizarre, genetic acrobatics. Members of O. trifallax possess two nuclei within their single-cell frame. The two nuclei are analogous to the diploid somatic cells and the haploid reproductive cells found in multicellular eukaryotes. In ciliates, the physically larger nucleus is called the macronucleus; the smaller one, the micronucleus. Chromosomes in the macronucleus are accessed for ordinary biochemical affairs. DNA in the micronucleus is involved only in reproduction. Under ordinary circumstances, O. trifallax reproduces asexually by cloning. Under conditions of stress, one cell meets another in sexual conjugation. What is odd is that, in O. trifallax, all conjugal events begin and end with exactly two individuals. Each cell exchanges 50 percent of its micronuclear DNA. Both leave transformed. After O. trifallax recombines and dissociates from its partner, it goes on increasing its numbers by cloning. More here. by Andrea Scrima From November 17, Patricia Thornleys work The Western, part of her series THIS IS US, is on view as part of the group exhibition Empathy at Smack Mellon Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. The project is the latest in a seven-year series of installation and single-channel video works consisting of interviews and performances. Previous videos of the series are An American in Bavaria (2011), Dont Cry for Me (2013), and Sang Real (2015). As a whole, THIS IS US formulates multiple parallel inquiries into the collaborative fantasies Americans enact through popular media. In the current political climate, as the escalation of social and economic forces impacting millions of lives is cast into increasingly sharp relief, these fantasies take on new urgency and, in many cases, a new absurdity. The Westerns cast of characters consists of these Civil War-era archetypes: Indian Scout, Beast of Burden, Frontiersman, Savage, Deserter, Justice, and Drifter. The work is conceived as a two-part installation in which the cinematic trope of the Western is used as a framework for inquiring into the American psyche. In the exhibition space, a projected movie is installed opposite a wall of screens playing a series of interviews with the seven participating characters. Andrea Scrima: Patricia, a few years ago I conducted an interview with you about a previous work of yours, Sang Real (2015), for the online poetry magazine Lute & Drum. Now, with The Western, the overall structure of THIS IS US is coming more and more clearly into focus. The last time we spoke at length about your series was a year and a half before the last presidential election. How have recent changes on the political landscape affected your approach to the themes in your work? Patricia Thornley: From the beginning in the THIS IS US series, one of the questions I asked in my interviews with the people who featured in the individual videos was how do you feel about being an American? Historically, theres always been a certain political disconnect at play with Americans, due to less armed conflict on our own soil and a certain comfort level. I didnt ask this question because I was trying to be instructive, but because one of the most important aspects of my work is to observe opposing and conflicting states of consciousness and to create situations that attempt a kind of uncommon reconciliation of these states. So in terms of what has changed I would say that what I was perceiving as a state of unconsciousness (pre-Trump) has been pushed to the surface by outrage and fear. A.S.: Sang Real is a stark piece in which a lone man faces the rising tides of the Port Medway Harbour as waves wash over the domestic debris surrounding him. Notions of belonging, identity, and displacement collide with the stark realities of economic downturn and migration. Although the video was shot in Nova Scotia, within the context of the series it also speaks to the deteriorating economic situation in America, to the widening gap between rich and poor. P.T.: In Sang Real, the metaphor of the rising tide occurs over the course of the piece. The tide is gradual and easy to ignore, despite the loss that it ensures. Again, this interests me in the ways that it reflects a state of awareness (or lack thereof)one that could be seen as a result of fear, or perhaps as a kind of strength or practicality, a holding out. This formula plays out in The Western as well. In this project, I hold up archetypes that have persisted in our culture and examine how the vestiges of those identities are hard to shake, due to the freedoms and comforts they provide. They retain a certain normalcy and even style, or fashion, despite being anachronistic. A.S.: The attributes that turned us into a superpower and then outlived their time, morphed into something else. P.T.: I know I feel more heroic when I wear my cowboy boots. A.S.: Ha! P.T.: I want to see people as clearly as possible, and that means understanding what works for them. Life is hard, and we all adapt in unique ways. In The Western, the character who is cast as The Frontiersman could be seen as a simulation of a movie cowboy, but I would say that we are actually seeing what has become his true identitymeaning, his is a solid identity that he has built carefully over time. It is one based in his knowledge of U.S. history and one that he has found a lifestyle to support, as he is employed as an Interpretive Ranger playing a Fur Trapper in an historic fort in Colorado. So in terms of the casting in the piece, the distance between his character and role is the closest. A.S.: And yet he is playing the fur trapper; he makes his living representing an identity that is fictional. All historical research and accuracy and all methodological authenticity notwithstanding, the modern idea of what an American fur trapper once was will be inevitably overlaid with notions about what this history means to us and what we choose not to know as we choose how we want to see ourselves today. Our identity as a country is contingent on this interpretation; the ways in which settlers, hunters, fur trappers et al. contributed to the so-called Indian Removal do not fit into the image weve constructed of the Wild West frontier, the founding myth at the heart of American identity. P.T.: How we choose to see ourselves is key. Im especially interested in our capacity, or rather our inability to see, and how we then adapt our identities accordingly. In the interviews, I construct a picture of what has created my participants notions of order. This then leads to a broader acting out of the ways that we, as a culture, understand ourselves, through public ritual, iconic images, and music. The Western was inspired by Bobs proximity to his character. I saw a remarkable situation, and I wanted to build out from that, to create a fictional social landscape based on multiple archetypes of the western frontier. This is where I also become a character in the piece, a kind of straight man, if you will. As director I act out and take liberties, twisting the people around me into the roles of an affected imagination. This is seen most clearly in the Savage segment of the project, where I transform my South Asian friend Par into what I call an Indian Indian, and less dramatically perhaps, but equally intentionally, when I cast my friend Rachel as Deserter, because she chose to leave the United States to live in Canada. A.S.: The Western treads an interesting line between using tropes from media representations of the Civil War Era, particularly movies, and probing the repertoire of characteristics generally acknowledged as being quintessentially American: assertiveness, individualism, pragmatism, self-relianceand a crudeness that is now, in increasingly undisguised ways, coming to fore on the political stage. P.T.: Yes, Im interested in how these behaviors are sustained and now even revived. It seems that people are being told that is who they are, after all. Many of us thought we were learning and making progress as a culture, but now the person holding the highest office in the nation talks about grabbing pussy. I do imagine it connects back to the kicking and spitting and grunting of the Wild West, or at least the media representations of that era that imply that aggressive force is the way to prosper. A.S.: Throughout the course of the series THIS IS US, youve developed a sophisticated system of formal elements to explore the space between a persons actual identity, the cultural myths he or she enacts, and the distance between the character played and the reality of the historical source. In your role as director, you not only use conversation and employ strangely cheap effects to break the surface illusion and indicate that another level of inquiry is taking placeyou compose and perform music to accompany the videos, adding another complex layer of interpretation to the visual. P.T.: Music is used in my work to create that juncture where clarity and rationality let go and give way to a certain disconnect. These are the moments that define the work, and I cant stress this enough. I think that its impossible to sum up a person, and so in this kind of multi-layered portraiture I begin to approach what is for me an accurately complex representation, one that allows, especially through the musical elements, reverie. By singing in my work, I impose my presence in a way that I feel is also an accurate portrayal of the role of maker/director, the role that holds the cards, holds the power. Singing represents a physical embodiment of all of that for me. A.S.: Youve spoken about your interest in weaknessyour work seems to explore the blind spots, the discrepancies, the fissures between our expectations and desires and who we really are. P.T.: Yes, its very important to me to talk about weakness, and to reveal my own weakness and inability to see clearly. In the Drifter segment of the piece, when I interview Joanna, the ten-year-old Mexican-American girl whose familys future is so uncertain, I touch on the role of interrogator more so than in the other interviews, in a nod to my own inability to imagine her experience. The exhibition at Smack Mellon is titled Empathy, and while my work does achieve this in places, it more often acts out the intense desire for, and difficulty of, true understanding. So I like to speak of blind spots, but when you can call something a blind spot then its not so blind anymore, is it. A.S.: Youve also spoken about the artificiality of false identity and employ a kind of awkwardness to call attention to the scene of enactment. At the same time, your casting seems to highlight conflicts between character and social / historical role as the available roles no longer reflect contemporary reality in all its complexities. P.T.: Youve touched on some important themes for me here. As Im thinking about your question, I imagine a wonderfully odd parade, made up of all of us marching along, thinking we know what the parades about, wearing old costumes that dont fit anymore and not remembering the swing step. This is a nice way to think about the casting in The Western. Some of the people only vaguely resemble their archetype, or in some cases, connect because they are antithetical to it. That represents the hold that these roles can have; for me, they also represent basic human desires and fears. For example, the need for intel (Indian Scout), service (Beast of Burden), and protection (Frontiersman). And an acting out of dominance (Savage) and superiority (Deserter). Also a need to heroicize and elevate (Justice). And the fear of disruption, the fear of the Other (Drifter). A.S.: America is an incredibly charismatic culture; for our generation born in the 1960s, for a significant period of time growing up, we were the envy of the world. But American anxiety is the other, far less acknowledged part of that history: were the inventors of the superhero, we expect miracles, and at the same time we struggle with the facts of who we really, historically, are. Your work seems to tap into the strategies the media employs to manipulate these anxieties and perpetuate these myths. P.T.: Yes, Im playing out the machinations of this part of our culture that thirsts for greatness, for heroes, for winning. I prefer not to reject, but to explore, what feels good in that. I think we learn more about ourselves this way. Im offering something that I hope is more on the markis based less in fear, and more in claritythat acknowledges the desires that play out on both sides of the American fantasy. See the confetti for the awkward gesture it is, and still enjoy it! I chose each person in THIS IS US out of admiration, and Im grateful for the trust theyve shown in me and my work. We go through the motions of these conventions because theres a core truth there, in the human impulse to portray, to record our lives, and to try to make the clearest picture we can. I hope that Ive shown the real strength in themin their resourcefulness, adaptation, generosity, and courage. EMPATHY Smack Mellon Gallery 92 Plymouth Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 718-834-8761 Read the press release here. Group exhibition curated by Gabriel de Guzman November 17December 30, 2018 Gallery hours: WednesdaySunday, 126pm Opening Reception: November 17, 2018, 68 pm Visit Patricia Thornleys website here. by Anitra Pavlico In a recent study, data scientists based in Japan found that classical music over the past several centuries has followed laws of evolution. How can non-living cultural expression adhere to these rules? Evolution is an algorithmic process applied to populations of individuals. [1] Individuals vary, and certain individuals traits are passed on while others are culled. These steps are repeated many times. In biology, scientists can study the gene as a unit of inheritance, but an analogous unit of inheritance has to be selected in a study of a cultural practice. Eita Nakamura at Kyoto University and Kunihiko Kaneko at the University of Tokyo decided to look at unique musical features such as the tritonea dissonant interval of three whole notesand measure the number of occurrences in Western musical compositions over the centuries. According to Nakamura and Kaneko, The mean and standard deviation of the frequency (probability) of tritones steadily increased during the years 1500-1900. Because this might have been just a function of individual composers preferences or social communities and not necessarily governed by statistical evolutionary laws, they developed a mathematical model of evolution to tell the difference. The tritone is a relatively rare musical event, but its use has spread over the centuries in a way that the studys authors say follow precise statistical rules. [2] * * * Music, and likely other forms of art, has progressed in a way that involves carrying on some traditions from the pastin part so that people recognize it as the art it purports to be. (Many complain, for example, that modern music or art is not music or not art.) At the same time, musicians intermittently introduce new features to capture listeners interest. The researchers say their model can be used to analyze this balance between typicality and novelty that may well exist in other cultural areas. It appears their approach is already being used to examine evolutionary rules at play in the development of language, other musical genres, and scientific topics. When I googled evolution in music, I kept being diverted to a disagreement over whether music is hardwired into our brains by evolution, as Philip Ball writes in The Music Instinct, or whether, as Steven Pinker controversially pronounced, it is auditory cheesecake thats a pleasurable phenomenon, but a mere by-product and not a main dish of language. In other words, as Ball writes, an aesthetic parasite. I wonder how the recent study from Nakamura and Kaneko affects the equation: If humans follow evolutionary rules, and music follows the same rules, then isnt there something to the fact that we are apparently progressing in tandem? Jay Schulkin and Greta Raglan have argued that the cognitive and neural connections facilitating musical expression and understanding underscore its importance to our socialization and well-being as a species. [3] Humans may have sung even before we spoke using syntax. Schulkin and Raglan write that Music, like food ingestion, is rooted in biology, and that our evolution is tightly bound to music and to the body as an instrument. Not only that, but they note that music helps to facilitate social understanding, nurturing, and cooperationwhich, one imagines, helps to perpetuate our survival. While it may not be necessary for human life as food or water are, it is clear that music has greatly enhanced our existence. It has been with us practically from the beginning and has grown up with us over tens of thousands of years. Then again, it is reductive to characterize musical expression as a biological necessity along the lines of fins or lungs. Dutch scholar Henkjan Honing notes that rather than a by-product of evolution, music or more precisely musicality is likely to be a characteristic that survived natural selection in order to stimulate and develop our mental faculties. [4] The squabble over whether music is hard-wired in us is academic, because as Honing writes, the purely evolutionary explanations for the origins of music largely overlook the experience of music we all share. * * * I confess I didnt become exercised either way about what musics precise role in humans evolution has been. It is a fascinating topic that I look forward to exploring further, but Im with Honing when he says that we shouldnt underemphasize musics indescribable effect on our psyches. I am an amateur pianist and have loved music for as long as I can remember. What interests me more about the new study is that it signals that music is in the hands of data scientists. As in other areas of machine learning, I wish we could use it in limited, discrete ways to address particular items of interest, but not have it run roughshod over an entire discipline. As you might imagine, though, AI has started to be harnessed in not just the the analysis but also the creation of music. In a panel on AI and the music industry in April of this year, one of the panelists, Lydia Gregory of the firm FeedForward AI (which claims on its website to use AI to enable and augment human creativity), said that AI will have an impact [in] automating bits that creators find boring, or finding other ways to support the creative process. Panelist Simon Wheeler from the record company Beggars Group agreed that the interesting ideas [for AI] are around assisting creativity. Being an accompaniment to a performance, to giving creative inspiration when youve got writers block something that can introduce something, maybe based on what youve already created, or maybe its out of the blue. Whether music has evolved as a language intertwined with spoken language, or whether it is an evolutionary parasite that has grown with us simply because we love having it around, it is clear that it emanated from humans brains and not from an algorithm or otherwise from zeroes and ones. We are well on our way, however, to having AI compose music that at some point soon we may hear on the radio or buy on iTunesin fact, I suspect I already own some electronic music that humans did not write, per se. In 2016, scientists from Sony CSL Research Labs showcased the first song to be composed by AI, an odd tune called Daddys Car that features Beatles-esque harmonies. [5] CSL apparently looked at more than 13,000 songs to help it develop Daddys Car, but describes it as composed in the style of The Beatles. As it turns out, French composer Benoit Carre arranged and produced the songs and wrote the lyrics, which discuss Daddys car and the backseat and something about turns me on. I was originally sure that a computer wrote those lyrics. Its unclear what role AI actually had in it, then. Isnt this what musicians do now, anywaylook at current songs characteristics, especially when the songs are very popular such as those by the Beatles, and emulate certain characteristics? Yes, but humans writing songs can never manage to be off in quite the same way a computer can. I worry that at some point it will be much cheaper for corporate entities to purchase terrible music made by computers than music by humans. Then AI music will be everywhereat the mall, in commercials, in TV theme shows, and so on. One particular concern I have about the recent study out of Japan is that forward-thinking musicians and AI programmers will try to game the system by looking at examples of novelty noted by Nakamura and Kaneko and trying to evolve their music at an artificially accelerated rate so as to sound like the most modern music. One thing to note about the tritone, one of the musical features that they studied, is that it sounds horrible. [6] If you try to make your music vault ahead of the evolution curve as determined by machine learning by sprinkling tritones liberally into your compositions, it will not sound like music to many people. Hopefully, omnipresent AI music will not have desensitized us, and we will be able to recognize it as bad and reject it, as we have for thousands of years with music we do not like. Of course, we need to keep making music ourselves, tricking the algorithms, and influencing its evolution according to our own musical desires. [1] See MIT Technology Review, Data mining reveals the hidden laws of evolution behind classzical music, Sept. 28, 2018, at https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612194/data-mining-reveals-the-hidden-laws-of-evolution-behind-classical-music [2] The authors say they found evidence of these statistical evolutionary laws in the Western classical music data they studied: 1. Beta-like distribution of frequency features 2. Steady increase of the mean and standard deviation 3. Nearly constant ratio of the mean and standard deviation 4. (Possibly) exponential-like growth of the mean, Nakamura, E. and Kaneko, K. (2018), Statistical Evolutionary Laws in Music Styles, available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.05832. [3] Schulkin, J., and Raglan, G. (2014), The Evolution of Music and Human Social Capability, available at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2014.00292/full. [4] https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/music-matters/201309/was-steven-pinker-right-after-all [5] https://youtu.be/LSHZ_b05W7o [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u9laoGPB_o Try watching this video all the way through, I dare you. You will be running back to Daddys Car. I should add that tritones are often quickly resolved to a non-dissonant chord or interval. For example, the first two notes in The Simpsons theme (The Simp-) and the first two notes in West Side Storys Maria (Ma-ri) proceed directly to the non-tritone note higher on the scale. Admittedly this sounds pleasing, but I think overusing this ploy would weary the listener. The image accompanying this post is by Gellinger via Pixabay. Winterfest draws artisans, vendors, shoppers Vendors and artisans had a chance to peddle their wares Saturday and Sunday at Winterfest at the Aberdeen Civic Arena. The annual event offers a chance to do a little holiday shopping before the start of the holiday season. NEW YORK Nearly a year after Courtney Jackson launched her clothing business, she took on a partner to help manage the companys growth. A month into the partnership, something was wrong. Jacksons partner was supposed to handle half the companys workload, but that didnt happen. So Jackson began taking on more of the responsibilities. When Jackson tried to discuss the division of work, she was a little defensive at first, and asked me to be patient. The situation didnt improve, and they agreed to part at the end of last year, just three months after the partnership began. But under their partnership agreement, drawn up without an attorney, dividing the companys assets would have weakened it financially. The partners decided to close, and Jackson lost her company. The failure of a partnership often brings hard lessons for company owners. Problems often start when prospective partners dont think through all the ramifications of what theyre doing including whether theyll be a good fit. They may not be clear on their expectations for each other and how theyll resolve conflicts. And they may not consider the legal consequences of how they set up their partnership and how difficult it might be to unwind it. Rather than hire an attorney, they write their own agreement that can be problematic when the relationship turns sour. Jacksons experience taught her that she needed to be more strategic in her business decisions. And in choosing a partner Jackson had met hers through a mutual acquaintance. You need to make sure you know the person well enough to know what their strengths are and their weaknesses, says Jackson, who lost her enthusiasm for retailing after the company closed. She now is the sole owner of an information technology company in Tampa, Fla. Owners are so caught up in the idea of finding a partner to get investment money, help and expertise that they dont do the kind of due diligence they would do before hiring an employee, says Michael Howard, a management professor at Texas A&M Universitys Mays Business School. What will happen when you grow? Whats your process for resolving problems? How should we manage this project? If you ask these kind of questions, it could reveal a lot of problems in advance, Howard says. While partnering with strangers has potential pitfalls, so does going into business with friends. Its important to have trust and strong social ties, but if maintaining them comes at the loss of business success, thats not really appropriate, Howard says. Partners also need to be sure they share the same goals for the business, or at least understand what their differences are. You need to talk up front about what your expectations are, for long term, short term, two-year and five-year picture, says Sandy Jap, a marketing professor at Emory Universitys Goizueta Business School who has done research into partner selection. She suggests owners talk to other people who have worked with their prospective partners, in much the same way theyd check a job candidates references. Lisa Shepherd needed cash to help her marketing business grow, so she gave three employees equity stakes. Within two years, the deal went bad as the four owners argued over whether to reinvest earnings into the business or distribute the profits among the partners. They also disagreed about workloads each person thought that he or she was working incredibly hard, while the others werent, says Shepherd, owner of The Mezzanine Group, based in Toronto. One point of contention came as the partners who did the day-to-day work accused Shepherd of going out for lunch too often rather than working although those meetings led to new business. My work was outside the company, networking, opening doors, Shepherd says. They thought, shes having a grand old time and not doing any work.' Shepherd did have an attorney draw up a partnership agreement at the start, ultimately the best business decision ever, worth its weight in gold, because it took just two months to end the partnership. Since she held a 55 percent stake, Shepherd was able to buy her partners out and retain ownership. Still, she says, it was emotionally devastating. I had thought that everything would go well and having partners in the business would be utopia. Today Shepherd is a sole proprietor. She has a profit-sharing plan for her general manager but doesnt plan to bring on another partner. Even when a partnership is long-lived, there can be hard lessons among them, facing the fact that the partnership doesnt work anymore. You need to get good at saying goodbye when the value in the relationship does end, says Jap, the Emory professor. A breakup may be necessary even if the company is successful. Antonio Argibays partnership lasted more than 30 years, but during its last decade, the partners no longer agreed about the direction the architectural firm should take. But breaking up was difficult. It was always, things are too tough, theres a downturn, or things are going great. It was never the right time, says Argibay, now the sole proprietor of New York-based Meridian Design Associates. Finally, in 2013, they decided Argibay should buy his partner out, but it still took six months for them and their attorneys to work out the details. One problem was the fact the partners had a 50-50 split. Theres no way to break a tie. Someone has to withdraw, win or lose, Agibay says. His takeaway from his partnership: Without a clear, shared vision, the business was not going to survive. On Sunday morning, city and military officials gathered at the D.C. War Memorial on the Mall to mark an occasion no one present was old enough to remember. And yet, as the crepe-paper poppies pinned to their jackets attested, they could not forget it. As the 257th Army Band played, two sisters bundled in coats and hats in the autumn sunlight sang along to the 1917 patriotic song Over There, exactly one hundred years after World War I ended. Its a long road in our family our father was a veteran of Korea and World War II, and his father was a veteran of World War I, said Margaret Foxwell, 64, of Alexandria, Virginia. In fact, my sister here likes to say we wouldnt have been here except for World War I. Their great uncle met their grandfather at an Army camp during the war, and that led to his introduction to their grandmother, explained Elizabeth Foxwell, 55, of Alexandria. It made it really personal to us. Of 4.7 million Americans who served in World War I, more than 116,000 were killed, including 499 from the District. Washington, D.C., Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D, and City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, D, joined the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia and the D.C. National Guard for a celebration to honor the citys fallen including seven women. It was one of many commemorations around the Washington, D.C., region, including a military and veterans salute at the newly designated National World War I Memorial in Pershing Park and a special service and concert at Washington National Cathedral. The Women in Military Service for America Memorial, at the gates of Arlington National Cemetery, held its 21st annual ceremony with formal military honors, a wreath-laying and remarks from women veterans. More than 11,000 women served in World War I. Armistice Day in the United States was created in 1919 to remember those who served in that war; in 1954, it was renamed Veterans Day to encompass all veterans. In 1917, a couple of weeks before the United States entered the war, the D.C. National Guards 1st Separate Battalion was activated to federal service to protect government buildings, railroads, bridges, power plants and reservoirs into the District. Its members later went overseas and fought in the Meuse-Argonne region, Lorraine and Alsace, and were awarded the Croix de Guerre one of Frances highest military honors. Standing at the foot of the World War I Memorials marble rotunda, Maj. Gen. William Walker of the D.C. National Guard noted that the District troops were given their assignment knowing they were residents of the place they were protecting. Norton noted that District residents who serve in the military still dont have equal representation or equal rights as citizens as those from the 50 states. But during World War I, she said, it was worse. They didnt even have control of their local government, she said. They gave their lives for their country when they didnt have any representation . . . no home rule. A federal law granted the District of Columbia certain powers through the Home Rule Act in 1973. At the Church of the Epiphany in downtown Washington, D.C., British expatriates hosted a service Sunday afternoon to remember the 16 million people, including 1.1 million British and Commonwealth soldiers, killed in World War I. Across England, every town and village has a memorial to locals who died, the Rev. William Stafford-Whittaker said. Of 400 people in the community, there would be 40 who didnt come back, he said, adding that his great-great uncle was one of them. Theres never not been a war since in our world, and once we stop remembering, we lose something. As a student at Oxford University, Adi Balachander, 31, recalls being struck by the World War I memorial in each college; in some cases, most of the students who went to war did not return. You realize theyre not so different from you, he said. You read their letters back home, they didnt know how to describe the horrors they saw. To Stafford-Whittaker, the war marked the beginning of a new outlook on the world. Because of the modern communication of those days, the world is getting smaller. You had cables across the Atlantic. The world realized they had to work together, and especially the Western alliances. The alliance between the UK and the U.S. is important to keep on remembering, because theyre there for a reason, and especially the work of the United Nations. The armistice signed the Allies and Germany ended the war at exactly 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. At 11 a.m. Sunday, Mendelson called for a moment of silence, and those gathered at the Mall bowed their heads. What was being celebrated was our citizens, and not the war, Mendelson said. World War I accomplished very little that was positive, he said, adding that the conflict sowed the seeds for the World War II and served as a warning against the harm of nationalism and the failure of diplomacy. Earlier in the morning, President Trump, in Paris for an Armistice Day commemoration ceremony, tweeted his thoughts on the day. On this Veterans Day the 100th Anniversary of the end of WWI, we honor the brave HEROES who fought for America in the Great War, and every Veteran who has worn the uniform and kept our Nation Safe, Strong and FREE! WASHINGTON To the long list of investigations House Democrats have planned for next year, add a look into whether President Donald Trump used his office to try to punish companies associated with CNN and The Washington Post. Incoming Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., brought up the potential probe during an interview with Axios as an example of the type of oversight Democrats should be exercising. Schiff pointed to Trumps effort to block AT&T from purchasing Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, and his desire to get the U.S. Post Office to increase shipping costs on Amazon, whose owner, Jeff Bezos, also owns The Post. The president is not only castigating the press but might be secretly using instruments of state power to punish them, Schiff said in an interview with The Post on Sunday. Thats a great threat to press freedom. The threat of investigation comes after the White House revoked CNN reporter Jim Acostas press pass last week, seen as an escalation of Trumps conflict with the media. Such a probe would not go through Schiffs committee, but probably the Oversight or Judiciary panels. He said Democrats are convening this week, and he intends to raise it as a priority with his colleagues. I hold it up because its such a clear example of the vital oversight thats been missing to make sure the president is not abusing his power, Schiff said. Trump complained that the AT&T and Time Warner merger was a consolidation of too much power. And he has claimed that Amazon is ripping off the U.S. Post Office by paying low rates. An investigation into whether Trumps attempt to block AT&Ts acquisition of Time Warner over the summer or whether his personal call on the postmaster general to double Amazons rates in May were inspired by his fights with the media will have to compete with dozens of other pressing oversight matters. The Judiciary Committee will focus immediately on acting Attorney General Matthew Whitakers potential conflict of interests in overseeing the special counsels Russia investigation, while the Oversight Committee has a long list, including allegations that Trump violated the Constitutions emoluments clause forbidding a president from taking money from foreign governments. And Schiff, in his role, said he plans to pick up the Russia investigation where House Republicans left off. Whether or not Robert Mueller has wrapped up his report by January, when Democrats assume power, Schiff said, there will be important work for his committee on the issue. We never walked away from it, Schiff said of his chambers inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election. That will be our intention, to finish this work, and well now have the power to compel people to testify. NEW YORK News of another mass shooting, including the recent attack on a nightclub in Thousand Oaks, Calif., makes many people wonder what they would do if confronted with a shooter or other assailant. And small-business owners may wonder how they can prepare their companies to deal with a possible attack. Here are some questions and answers: Q. What resources are available to help small-business owners prepare their staffers to deal with potential violence? A. There are websites and videos online that describe what employees should do if there is a gunman. Government agencies have web pages with instructions and videos, among them the Department of Homeland Security (www.dhs.gov), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (www.fema.gov ) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (www.osha.gov). Another site is www.ready.gov, also operated by Homeland Security. But sending employees an email with a list of online resources may not help prepare people, says Sean Ahrens, a security consultant with AEI Affiliated Engineers. In-person training sessions that include role-playing and tours of a companys facilities to point out exit routes and potential hiding places are more likely to have a lasting impact, he says. When you put someone into that role-playing, the adrenaline gets going, Ahrens says. Owners may want to consider bringing in security consultants to train staffers. And many local law enforcement agencies are willing to analyze small businesses and help owners and employees understand where and how they can escape or hide. For example: If they hide inside a room with furniture, they should block the door with pieces of furniture piled on top of one another, creating as big a barricade as possible. Q. Whats involved in preparing to deal with a shooter? A. There is no way to prepare for the exact circumstances of an attack because each situation is unique and unpredictable. But a company can create a plan that helps people know generally what to do, says Rob Shuster, a vice president at the security consultancy AFIMAC Global. For example, all employees should know how to report that theres an assailant on the premises, and they need to know how the company will communicate with everyone on the premises. They should know that they need to run from the building if possible, where all the exits are and where they should assemble. They need to know all the possible hiding places, and how to secure the doors of rooms and closets. They need to know quirks in the building that can save their lives like a crawl space that a shooter or other assailant doesnt know about. A plan can also help people know what common mistakes to avoid, Shuster says. For example, escaping employees may want to run up to a law enforcement officer, a dangerous idea because officers may not know whether the people approaching them are innocent or assailants, he says. And, their hands should be empty, so no one mistakenly believes theyre carrying a weapon. Q. Are there potential incidents besides a random shooter that companies should prepare for? A. Security experts also train owners and workers about what to do in the case of disgruntled staffer or a domestic dispute two situations that are more likely to happen at a workplace. They also instruct companies about how to deal with a robbery or other criminal act. In the cases of a vengeful staffer or a domestic dispute, employees would take some of the same steps, starting with running and hiding, as with a random shooter. In the case of a robbery, the safest approach is to give criminals what theyre looking for, says Brent OBryan, a vice president at Allied Universal, a company that provides security and other services. While there have been videos on TV and online of some store employees tackling robbers, that is not recommended, and could be deadly, he says. Its not possible to know in advance that a current or former staffer will come into a workplace and begin attacking employees and managers. But owners can lessen the possibility of an attack by addressing problems as they come up, OBryan says. An owner should consider asking human resources professionals for advice in dealing with angry or troubled staffers. A business owner needs to make sure he or she as leaders are willing to step in and stop issues whether its an employee acting up for a problem between employees and snuff it out so it cannot evolve into something worse, OBryan says. Violence related to a domestic dispute is equally hard to predict. But owners also need to encourage staffers to speak up if they are having domestic issues or have obtained an order of protection against a spouse, partner or boyfriend or girlfriend, OBryan says. Co-workers also need to feel free to approach the boss if there seems to be a problem, such as an angry staffer, or an employee suffering through a possibly threatening domestic situation. As obituaries go, this one stood out with the first two words alone: Yo Gregory. It was published Nov. 4 in the Journal, the anniversary of Gregorys death 50 years ago. Such commemorative obits are not uncommon, but typically they are published annually in the early years after a loved one passes away. A check of the archives indicates that no similar tribute has ever appeared for Gregory, not even in those early years. Half a century has passed now, and someone out there apparently felt that this year Gregorys death should not pass again in silence without a public declaration of how much he is still missed. How much he still matters. He was Army SP4 Gregory L. Phillips from Albuquerque, killed in action during the Vietnam War. He was 20. Albuquerque was your hometown that you were always proud of, the obituary continues, its tone more pensive and solemn than it began. But now, does anyone else carry your memory and remembrance? Much has changed, and deaths so long ago seem pointless now. You were taken away, never to have the experience of holding grandchildren or of becoming an old veteran like the rest of us. The obituary caught the eye of another old veteran. In the short time it took to read it, those eyes were filled with tears. To Arthur Waskey, it was one of the simplest and most moving obituaries he had ever read. Someone remembered he was from Albuquerque and, more importantly, remembered him and did not let him be forgotten in his hometown, Waskey told me in an email. He wanted to know more about this soldier from Albuquerque and the person who would not let his memory die. And so, yo, this is what I learned. Gregory was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Phillips, one of five siblings and a resident of Albuquerque for all his short life. He graduated from Manzano High School in 1967 and quickly enlisted in the Army, did his basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas, and attended helicopter school at Fort Eustis, Va. He arrived in Vietnam mid-February 1968 with D Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry of the 25th Infantry Division. It was the middle of the bloodiest week in the war, with 543 U.S. soldiers killed in action and 2,547 wounded as the deadly Tet Offensive raged on. He celebrated his 20th birthday that July. Less that four months later, he was dead. Details of his final mission vary somewhat, dependent as they are on the memories of men who would just as soon forget the horrors they experienced flying missions over Hau Nghia province, west of Saigon. On the evening of Nov. 4, 1968, he was a crew chief for one of five Huey helicopters in the process of extracting soldiers from the field when they came under enemy fire. Phillips aircraft was struck with an RPG, sending shrapnel into his chest. He died quickly. News of his death shared the front page of the Nov. 7 Journal with the election of Richard Nixon as president and the re-election of New Mexico Gov. David Cargo. For several days that December, his family published a small classified ad thanking people for their kind thoughts and efforts during their time of bereavement. On Feb. 20, 1969, almost a year to the day after Phillips had arrived in Vietnam, the Journal published a photograph of his parents accepting four posthumous medals for their son. After that, Phillips no longer appeared in newspaper articles until this month when someone placed that obituary in the paper. Yes, we were soldiers once, and young, and your loss is not forgotten, the obituary concludes. Continue to rest in peace. The identity of the person who placed the obituary will remain confidential at his request. Though his remembrance to Phillips is a public testimony, it also remains a private agony. His efforts, however, can remind us that we must never forget those like SP4 Gregory L. Phillips who were soldiers once. With another Veterans Day gone, let us commit to honoring those men and women whose stories of service to country have faded with the passage of time and the passing of those who knew them but whose memory and remembrance must still be carried on, never pointless, never forgotten. UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor. Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal Today, Melissa King is a surgical technician at a local hospital. But a little more than three years ago, she was addicted to heroin with no hope and nowhere to go. I was in and out of jail. I had some charges pending. My life revolved around heroin and finding ways to get money to buy heroin. It was miserable. I wanted to get out of it, but I didnt know how, she said. Kings parents took her in for a time. She continued using her drug of choice. I was still figuring out ways to use, she said. I was manipulating my parents and my family. I saw this look on my moms face. I was just so sick of it and so desperate that I was willing to just surrender everything. King said she spent some time at different rehab centers but nothing worked. She then checked herself into the countys Metropolitan Assessment and Treatment Service, which provides detoxification services from alcohol and other substances. Most visits last three to five days. King said she knew she needed more time. I wasnt accepted into any aftercare program after detox, she said. I asked the staff if I could stay longer. I knew that if I left this facility, I wouldnt stay sober. I know I was going to use. I didnt have the skills or the resources to stay sober on my own. Her stay was extended to 21 days. Thats a very long time, she said. I saw the same people come in and out multiple times. Its much easier to go and get high. King was then accepted into Bernalillo Countys Supportive Aftercare Community program, a low-intensity residential service social model program designed to allow clients to remain in a supportive recovery environment after completing alcohol and drug detoxification or rehabilitative services. Ten years Operated by the Department of Behavior Health Services at a cost of $1 million annually from the countys general fund, the program, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, provides clients with the opportunity to reintegrate back into the community as productive, drug-free members. A stay at the facility, depending on the needs of the client, could last as long as 30 weeks. Participation is voluntary and provided at no cost to qualifying New Mexico residents seeking a supportive recovery environment after completing alcohol and drug detoxification or rehabilitative services. Margarita Chavez-Sanchez, the countys assistant director of behavioral health services, said clients need a true passion for sobriety to succeed in the program. Its a phased program where every minute of the day is scheduled out, from the time they wake up in the morning until they go to bed, she said. It includes programming on substance abuse and conflict mediation and resolution as well as time for physical activity. King graduated from the program. She shows off her medal to celebrate her three years of sobriety but admits the journey was not easy. The program itself is great I can look back now and I love it, she said. Im grateful for it, but when I was in it, I was rebellious. I didnt like authority. Theres all these rules. Youre living with a bunch other addicts and alcoholics that are trying to get sober, so were all kinda emotional. It was difficult and I didnt like it. But she embraced the opportunity in time, she said. Once youve reached a certain amount of time, they give you more freedom and responsibilities, she said. You can get a job and they help you to budget. It was that kind of accountability I needed. King then attended Central New Mexico Community College and graduated from the surgical technology program. Its a really cool job, she said. Im still looking into continuing into nursing. Im on my last prerequisite now and can hopefully apply in the summer. Community focus The program gives its clients a place to live rent free while dealing with finding a job, mending family relationships and resolving legal and other issues that are still a part of life after drugs or alcohol. Any New Mexico resident, age 18 or over, who has had an inability to maintain post-treatment recovery and is in need of continued supportive care can apply. In the 10 years since the program started, about 410 clients have graduated from the program, according to county records. An average of 35 clients graduate each year. But the program also affords clients something just as important as overcoming drug or alcohol addiction, Chavez-Sanchez said an opportunity to be part of a community. It creates a community where they wrap around each other and they do stuff for each others birthdays, she said. And the staff is often seen as a peer. I think that is the heart of the success of the program that they have that peer relationship. On the day of a Journal visit to the facility, clients were treated to a 10th anniversary party of sorts with Frito pie and other goodies. A lot of smiles were seen on peoples faces that likely werent there before. A recent graduate of the program was also visiting the day of the anniversary party. The woman had participated in the program in 2015, but what she called bad choices led to a relapse that resulted in the state Children, Youth and Families Department taking her son. After a 25-day stay in MATS, she returned to the SAC program. All my resources were depleted, she said. I was living on the streets. My feet hurt. I was going through a grieving process because my babys dad got murdered. It took awhile to work through that in order to get off drugs. She said she has overcome many obstacles during her participation into the program. She said her son has been returned to her. I learned quite of few things while I was here, she said. No. 1 was to stay out of relationships and work on yourself do the things that I need to do to be OK. I learned that for me thats God. Having my son back in my life was one of the most important goals while I was here. Milagro program Out of the same facility, the county also operates the Milagro program, which provides housing, medical services, case management and drug rehabilitation services to pregnant and postpartum women and their infants. The program is a collaborative effort with the New Mexico Department of Health and the University of New Mexico. We found that there is a large need in the community for women who are pregnant and postpartum in a similar program, Chavez-Sanchez said. But having their child with them hasnt always been part of process and has eliminated women from participating in programs. The role between mom and baby right after birth is critical, not only in sobriety, but also in help for the baby. The operating budget for the Milagro program is about $200,000, which comes from UNM. The recent graduate of the program said that if the programs didnt exist, she would likely still be on the streets or even worse. Im a chronic addict, she said. My next step was death. By now its well known that the present regime at Amtrak, headed by Richard Anderson, formerly of Delta Airlines, has floated the idea that the segment of the Chicago-LA Southwest Chief train that runs between Dodge City, Kan., and Albuquerque be eliminated and replaced with a Bus Bridge. Passenger-rail advocates, Rails Inc. included, almost dont know where to begin opposing this breathtaking piece of rail sabotage. Many solid reasons for preserving the integrity of the Chief, and of modern passenger trains in general, have been advanced by advocates and political leaders of all political stripes, including myself in these pages in November 2013. But the bedrock reason behind these reasons is a basic one: The SW Chief is a passenger train. Its that simple. Every modern passenger train in the world, no matter its so-called cost, delivers all the many benefits of good transportation great fuel economy, long life and smart use of land and materials, to name three out of dozens in much greater measure than does any other motorized mode. The principal challenger to the train the bus is a necessary and useful part of a complete transportation network, but not as the anchor mode for long-distances, or for that matter, along major metro boulevards. Also: The Chief carries its thousands of passengers not only between Chicago and L.A., but to and from every combination of stops in between. In other words, to paraphrase myself, the Chief is an economy, luxury, excursion, long-distance, regional and commuter train all in one long, shiny package. The Chief gets around one-fourth to one half mile per gallon of diesel fuel. Thats the entire train, including sleepers, dining cars, observation cars and baggage cars. And the Chief is durable. It has to be; many of its cars are 30 to 40 years old, no thanks to either Congress or Amtrak itself. The Chief is a perfect and presently existing job-and-revenue-generating vehicle, pun intended, for keeping our under-used track segments warm until visionary future leaders wake up, realize just what a gold mine they have on their hands, and do what it takes to make those tracks a lot busier and more profitable. Rails Inc. has, with the help of some friends savvier than we are, compiled a list of ways we can do this at nmrails.org. We need to preserve in one piece every passenger train we have left in America. We need to replace every passenger train weve abandoned since Amtraks troubled birth in 1971. And to secure these reforms for generations, we need to move toward converting our major track segments and fixed infrastructure into public utilities, much after the manner of our major highways, streets, airports and waterways. Finally, Amtrak should become either a true for-profit private corporation hustling in the marketplace with Iowa Pacific, Herzog and others like them, or a true publicly-owned nationwide rail service with a permanent funding scheme not hostage to the whims of Congress or changing administrations in Washington. As I write this, the U.S. Senate, spearheaded by Sens.Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., has passed a bill calling for: 1. The Chief to be preserved as a long-distance train, not a couple of amputated stumps. 2. For Amtrak to be adequately funded for the next year. 3. For Amtrak to cough up its promised share of funding for the renovation of its tracks through Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. But were not cheering yet. Udall and others have bought us some much-needed time. But this bill still has the U.S. House and the president to get past. As a mother living in New Mexico, I worry about the air my kids breathe and the environment they will inherit. New Mexico is currently facing record temperatures, wildfires and drought. Despite these clear indicators of climate change, the Trump administration is recklessly weakening key parts of the Environmental Protection Agencys (EPA) rules to reduce methane pollution from the oil and gas industry. Methane and associated pollution from the oil and gas industry can cause respiratory diseases, asthma attacks and cancer. Weakening these standards is a blatant attack on the health of children living, learning, and playing near these facilities. In New Mexico, there are over 32,000 children attending schools within a half mile of oil and gas wells, compressors and processors who are being exposed to the potential health impacts of these facilities. Sadly, New Mexico is also home to the nations most concentrated methane pollution hot spot hovering above northwest New Mexicos San Juan Basin. With this and the rapidly expanding drilling in Southeast New Mexicos Permian Basin, these standards are sorely needed. Methane pollution also poses a grave danger to our planet. It has over 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide, making it a major driver of climate change. Right now, oil and gas industrial facilities emit at least 8 million metric tons of methane pollution a year. That has the same climate impact as operating over 150 coal-fired power plants for a year, or driving more than 145 million cars for a year! Yikes! For my kids, and every family across the country, I find this deeply concerning. Instead of weakening the EPA methane rules, which have been in place for over a year, we need to keep them strong to protect New Mexicans and our planet. New Mexico just elected a new governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has pledged to attack the methane problem with state rules to reduce pollution. We are grateful for her and other local and state leaders who oppose climate-disrupting pollution. However, Trump is working to create huge loopholes for oil and gas companies to pollute our atmosphere. It is unconscionable that our federal government wants to weaken or revoke safeguards that protect our children from harmful oil and gas air pollution. We are already experiencing the impacts of climate change. Now is the time to cut climate pollution to head off the worst impacts. If Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Trump succeed, the health of many across New Mexico will suffer. That is why it is so important for all New Mexicans to make our voices heard on or before Dec. 17 when the comment period on this proposed rollback closes. Tell Wheeler and Trump that we oppose their attacks on our health before its too late. Our well being depends on it. Weigh in on methane Comment period is open through Dec. 17. Go to MomsCleanAirForce.org. Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal Inside a portable building on the grounds of Wilson Middle School, a group of women stand behind a long table, grabbing nonperishable food items out of boxes and stuffing them into clear-plastic gallon bags. The bags will be distributed to needy Albuquerque Public School kids to help them get through the weekend, so that when they come to school on Mondays, they wont be too hungry or distracted to learn. The women are part of an organization called Feed New Mexico Kids, a partnership with local faith-based organizations, area businesses and individual donors. It was started in March 2017 by local real estate agent Holly Slade, who was looking for an answer to a problem that weighed heavily on her mind. How is it that we live in an industrialized, civilized country, in a metropolitan area with vast resources, and still have hungry children all around us? she wondered. I just thought it was shameful, because we can do something about it. So she did just that. The organization began working with APS to identify food insecure kids and has thus far sent 34 tons of food home with them in plastic, 1-gallon bags weighing roughly 2 pounds each enough to help them get through the weekend. Now, Feed New Mexico Kids is conducting an outreach program to assemble 2,000 Thanksgiving boxes and get them into the hands of some of those needy kids and families. We started to work on the hunger issue with APS, because its the largest school district in the state, Slade says. New Mexico is ranked number one in the nation for childhood hunger, and within APS theres a percentage of schools that qualify for reduced and free breakfast and lunch under the Title I federal aid program. In 2017, APS identified 3,750 kids who qualified as being homeless, meaning they lacked a safe, reliable place of shelter at night, Slade says. This would include kids who are couch surfing, living in a car, staying in a homeless shelter, moving from motel to motel on a voucher system, living in families doubled and tripled up in housing not meant to accommodate that number, or living with grandparents or other relatives who may themselves be living on Social Security income. Starting with these students, volunteers with Feed New Mexico Kids conduct a year-round collection of nonperishable, single-serve foods, such as canned meat ravioli, tuna packets, beef jerky, peanut butter crackers, power bars, pudding and the like. The items are packed in resealable bags, along with a napkin and plastic utensils, and delivered to the schools. The schools whether its a school nurse, counselor or a principal know who their most needy students are, and they distribute the snack packs to the kids to take home for the weekend, Slade says. Were not covering all 3,750 kids. We dont have enough food yet. Still, 34 tons of food divided into individual snack packs in 19 months is impressive by any measure. Lydia Flynn has been volunteering with Feed New Mexico Kids since the program began. A former school teacher from Maryland, she says, I know the needs of children, and when I moved here I was really touched by the poverty I saw. I didnt see this kind of poverty in Maryland. Its very dramatic, and I felt like I needed to do something. Former certified nursing assistant Brenda Roybal appreciates the intention of the Feed New Mexico Kids program. I remember when my kids were little there were times that we were struggling, and my husband and I would not eat just so we would have food for our children, she says. Likewise, says Elizabeth Ortega, who attended Alameda Elementary School as child, I was one of those kids who was given food and clothing, so I just know the value of getting a little extra when we needed it and how very helpful it was to my family. Slade points to a host of statistics from various organizations that fight hunger, including Roadrunner Food Bank. It is clear that kids who experience hunger are more likely to experience physical, psychological and cognitive issues, including depression, anxiety, diabetes, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, school suspensions, suicides and more. Feed New Mexico Kids is now accepting donations to purchase enough food to assemble 2,000 Thanksgiving boxes for needy kids in grades K-12 and their families. Each donation of $40 to the food drive, A Seat at the Table, provides one box dinner that feeds four people. The prepared Thanksgiving meal includes pre-cooked turkey, containers of dehydrated stuffing, potatoes and gravy that require only the addition of hot water, as well as cinnamon apples, plates, forks and serving utensils. Weve partnered with APS Food and Nutrition, the division of APS that orders the food and prepares the lunches for the kids, so its a very sanitary and safe food production facility, Slade says. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 28 percent of children in New Mexico live in food insecure homes. Feeding America, the nationwide network of more than 200 food banks, which feeds about 46 million people a year, estimates in its Map the Meal Gap survey that the annual food budget shortfall in New Mexico is $160.3 million a year, while the shortfall in Bernalillo County alone is $51.7 million. There is no single church, business or government organization that can take care of this problem; it requires everyone partnering together, Slade says. As a community we have to take responsibility for our youngest and most vulnerable members of our society. They need a community to rally around them and help them get through school. So lets be responsible toward them and they will in turn graduate and become responsible members of our society. SANTA FE The New Mexico state House inched within four seats of gender balance with a surge in victorious female Democrats in the midterm elections, echoing the trend in Congress. Overall, 31 women won election to the 70-seat New Mexico House, an increase from 23 female lawmakers a decade ago. In 1973, there were none. I hope it changes the culture of politics for the better, said Democratic legislator-elect Micaela Lara Cadena, a research director for a progressive advocacy group and former state Corrections Department employee. Ive been around that (Capitol) enough to know that women arent always seen and heard and respected in the ways that they deserve. Lara Cadena, who highlights her perspective as a working mother of two from the historically Hispanic and agricultural community of Mesilla, emerged from a three-way Democratic primary to win against Republican Charles Wendler. Women spearheaded Democrats expansion of their house majority and will outnumber men among House Democrats when the Legislature convenes in January. In the state Senate, where elections last took place in 2016, men outnumber women 35-7. In other gender milestones, the New Mexico governors office will pass from one Latina governor to another with the election of Democratic U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham. State Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard will become the first woman to lead the State Land Office that oversees energy and mineral development on state trust land to fund public education. She defeated two-time former land commissioner Patrick Lyons and brings a background as an education administrator to the job. Democrat Maggie Toulouse Oliver was re-elected as secretary of state, one of the few statewide elected offices routinely held by women. Attorney Xochitl Torres Small, the wife of a state legislator, also appears to have won election to New Mexicos southern congressional seat, currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce. Pearce lost a bid for governor. Last weeks changes in New Mexicos Legislature echo a national outpouring of women seeking public office, in a movement driven by a backlash against President Donald Trump. A record number of women were elected to the U.S. House, including its first two female Muslim members. Christine Sierra, a research scholar on politics at the University of New Mexico, referred to elections results in New Mexico as a special bump in numbers for female candidates amid gradual increases over the decades. The Trump presidency has been a factor, but it is not the only factor, Sierra said. There have been more deliberate systematic attempts to help women run for public office. In New Mexico and nationally, she said, increases in the number of female politicians have been driven disproportionately by Democrats, whether recruited or self-motivated. Democrat Melanie Stansbury of Albuquerque waged a campaign about community well-being and crime that touched on solutions to homelessness to defeat seven-term Republican state Rep. Jimmy Hall, in a district where registered Republicans slightly outnumber Democrats. Stansbury said she tapped into instruction on the nuts and bolts of political campaigning from the Democrat-allied groups Emilys List and Emerge that both train female candidates but didnt run on gender-based issues. We knocked thousands of doors, we knocked on political registrations of every stripe, she said. What people are hungry for is a new form of government. Stansbury said she drew inspiration to run for public office from U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Maria Cantwell of Washington, whom she worked with during a stint in Washington, D.C., as staff member of a Senate committee. An early season winter storm has dumped snow on much of New Mexico, closing schools and making driving hazardous. Many schools from Santa Fe north announced they were closing for the day as well as schools in the East Mountains including APS schools and students who attend Manzano High School. East Mountain High School is also closed as are Moriarty Edgewood School District and Mountainair. Officials at Santa Fe Public Schools cancelled school district wide due to low temperatures and icy road conditions that made it unsafe to dispatch school buses. The district is also canceling after-school and evening activities. For a full listing of school closings, here is KOAT-TVs full list Heavy snow was also reported in Eastern New Mexico and in the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma. As much as 7 inches of snow was reported overnight in the Texas Panhandle and lesser amounts in the western half of Oklahoma as it moves toward Arkansas. Meteorologist John Cockrell with the National Weather Service in Amarillo said Monday that the heaviest snowfall was reported around Amarillo. No injuries or significant damage are reported as the system moved across the region. The weather service says are snow-packed, but no road closings are reported. Snow accumulation of 2 inches were recorded in Boise City and 2 inches in Guymon, both in the Oklahoma Panhandle, with 1-2 inches reported in western Oklahoma. The system extended as far east as Oklahoma City where 1-2 inches of snow is possible before the system moves into northwest Arkansas where amounts of up to 2 inches are forecast. The Associated Press contributed to this story. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. With drought a constant consideration for New Mexico, state and federal officials are warning that decisions about water are growing more complicated and opportunities to tap untraditional sources should be considered. The state, with the help of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has drafted a document that outlines areas where regulations can be streamlined to encourage the treatment and reuse of wastewater that comes from oil and natural gas operations. The white paper released late last week says oil and gas production in New Mexico generated nearly 38 billion gallons (143 billion liters) of wastewater in 2017. As the boom in oil production continues in the Permian Basins well fields along the Texas-New Mexico border, officials say so will the amount of wastewater known in the industry as produced water. Our effort to clarify the state and federal regulatory landscape dealing with produced water will facilitate greater produced water reuse and recycling and in turn help relieve the growing demand on the states water resources, state energy secretary Ken McQueen said in a statement. Aside from highlighting New Mexicos rise in 2018 as one of the largest oil-producing states in the U.S., the document outlines the arid states challenges with drought. Receiving an average of slightly less than 15 inches (380 millimeters) of rainfall a year, New Mexico is already the fifth driest state in the nation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That aridness was exacerbated this year as runoff along the Rio Grande and Pecos rivers marked some of the lowest levels in decades. Water managers were forced to broker deals to keep the Rio Grande flowing through the states most populous city. While conservation plays an important role in managing the states limited water resources, it is not enough, the authors of the white paper wrote. In New Mexico and other parts of the West, some stakeholders are asking whether production water from the oil and gas industry should continue to be treated as wastewater. Critics have voiced concerns about the lack of knowledge about the potential toxicity of the water. The water usually contains chemicals, metals and other dissolved solids. Most of it is disposed of by injecting it deep underground, where it can no longer be accessed or used. In some cases, it can be reused in the oilfield for other drilling processes. For every barrel of oil, its estimated four or five barrels of produced water are generated. The state and the EPA are looking at what steps would be needed to treat it for other purposes, acknowledging that there are still health and environmental questions that need to be answered if the water were to be used beyond the industry. State and federal officials began working on the white paper in July in hopes of clarifying existing regulatory and permitting rules related to the way produced water can be reused and recycled. The state is working to finalize the draft before the end of the year. Robert McEntyre, a spokesman for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said some companies already reuse the water for their own purposes. What New Mexico lacks right now is the regulatory framework to be able to address using it for other purposes, he said. Certainly theres an opportunity and given the growth weve seen, it could be a game-changer if the regulations catch up to where industry is. VIENNA The U.N.s nuclear watchdog said Monday that Iran is abiding by the deal reached in 2015 with major powers that aimed at preventing Tehran from building atomic weapons in exchange for economic incentives. In a confidential quarterly report distributed to member states and reviewed by The Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has been abiding with key limitations set in the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The issue has grown more complicated since the U.S. withdrew unilaterally in May from the deal and then re-imposed sanctions. Irans economy has been struggling ever since and its currency has plummeted in value. The other signatories to the deal Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China are continuing to try and make it work. In the report, the Vienna-based IAEA said the agency had access to all sites in Iran that it needed to visit and that inspectors confirmed Iran has kept within limits of heavy water and low-enriched uranium stockpiles. Timely and proactive cooperation by Iran in providing such access facilitates implementation of the additional protocol and enhances confidence, the report stated, referring to the procedure detailing safeguards and tools for verification. In its last quarterly report in August, the agency also concluded Iran had stayed within key limitations set by the JCPOA. A senior diplomat, who was speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasnt officially allowed to discuss the report, said that theres nothing that indicates that Irans cooperation or Irans attitude has changed since November 5. On that date, the U.S. re-imposed further oil and banking sanctions on Iran that where lifted under the 2015 deal but granted waivers to eight countries, including Japan and Turkey, to continue buying Iranian petroleum products without penalty for another six months. The latest batch of U.S. sanctions severely impacts Irans oil industry, the major source of the countrys foreign revenue. Tehran worries OPEC and non-OPEC countries such as Russia will increase their production to fill the gap in response. Other tourist areas in the country, like Boracay, need enough time to heal. Local Government Secretary Eduardo Ano said the healing process should at least take a month every year avoid a repeat of what happened to the world-famous Boracay, the countrys top tourist destination.rest time for the area like for example may one month a yearresting timenatural healing, Ano told reporters after the Senate hearing on the proposed P223 billion budget of the department. He said the agency has started inspecting other tourist spots in the country for possible rehabilitation, as ordered by the President.[President Rodrigo Duterte]tourist or resort areas in the Philippines.Boracay, he said. Ano said they are acting on several complaints on the environmental violations of different tourist areas. Maraming areas na nagre-report na may violation sa environmental laws sa ibang area so kailangan magpadala ng team, he said. Ano said first on their list is the El Nido and Coron in Palawan and will check Panglao in Bohol, as well. El Nido and Corontourist spotsfeedbackillegal sewer going to the sea, he said.Establishments in El Nido, however, have already conducted clearing operations and demolished illegal structures. Nagko-conduct na rin sila ng demolition dun but we have yet to assess and inspect El Nido kung talagang 100 percent compliant sila like what we did in Boracay, he said. But there is already a good sign and I have a forthcoming meeting with the mayor of El Nido, together with [Tourism] Secretary Berna Puyat. We will discuss what we will do with El Nido. Ganun din sa ibang areas, titignan natin, he added. He added that there is a possibility that establishments in El Nido will have to be closed if they are found violating environmental laws. Titignan natin. Kung talagang nakita natin ang violation, isasara natin. Depende sa affectation ng island o area. Kung kaya naman ng local government na isakatuparan ang pag-rehabilitate without closing e. Sa Boracay kasi hindi na talaga kaya na hindi isasara, he said. Ano also lauded local government units in other tourist areas are now trying to resolve the issues on their own. Maganda nga yung nangyaring ito dahil nakita na nagre-react ang local government units and officials, so sana tuloy-tuloy na ito, he said. CHEROKEE, Calif - Action News Now reporter Elizabeth Zelidon spoke with bulldozer operator Kevin Berry Monday morning. Berry says he just arrived from Missouri to fight the Camp Fire. However. while making a dozer line the fire crossed his line, and surrounded him by flames. That's when he quickly left the area of Cherokee. He finished the interview stating that the early morning winds will really cause this fire to spark up in those hot spots. BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea held a media briefing to answer questions about the Camp Fire around 12:30 p.m. on Sunday. Action News Now reporter Laura Eng asked questions provided by viewers on social media for Honea to answer. Key takeaways: There are no plans for repopulation efforts at this time as the fire is still too dangerous The fire poses no immediate threat to Chico, but he still wants residents to be prepared There have been price-gouging rumors and they have passed this information along to the District Attorney's office There is currently no information on looters, but he may be able to release more tonight at the press conference BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - Action News Now has partnered with Tri Counties Bank to create the Camp Fire Fund 2018 to aid victims of the Camp Fire. Tri Counties Bank started the fund with an initial deposit of $25,000 to benefit victims of the fire ravaging the communities of Paradise, Magalia, Concow and more. All funds will be distributed to people in need through local non-profit emergency relief agencies. These non-profit organizations include: United Way of Northern California The Salvation Army Northern Valley Catholic Social Services To donate, CLICK HERE. As the nation gears up for the State Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana, conversations and debates on Twitter in the past week alone recorded 1.2 million Tweets related to #AssemblyElections2018. From election emoji to #ElectionOnTwitter events, as well as live Q&As on the platform, Twitter has developed several initiatives to support citizens in having their say in the public conversation leading up to voting day and engaging with political candidates and political leaders directly. Customised emoji for #AssemblyElections2018 https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1060798132953346048 The platform has launched a special emoji to light up the conversations around these State Elections. From now until December 23, 2018, citizens can activate a special Twitter #AssemblyElections2018 emoji using the following hashtags in a Tweet. State-specific hashtags are included so that citizens can follow the conversations unique to their states. #ElectionsOnTwitter As part of the #ElectionsOnTwitter initiative, Twitter continues to conduct events and workshops with political parties in election states so as to share best practices, account safety and reporting tools. https://twitter.com/trspartyonline/status/1047810731964596224 https://twitter.com/hirendrakaushik/status/1040423577894318081 https://twitter.com/INCRajasthan/status/1040201925818572800 #DemocracyAdda In the lead up to the State Elections, Twitter partnered youth organisation @YouthKiAwaaz in hosting a series of #DemocracyAdda youth summits across cities. The first session was held in New Delhi in September, where Twitter co-hosted a series of 3 panels with Youth ki Awaaz, featuring speakers who were primarily Members of Parliament and political party spokespersons. They participated on three Twitter-exclusive debates: The Three Pillars (on checks and balances in Indian democracy), Can the Centre Hold (on the rise of federalism) and The Politics of Protest (on activism and social media). The event was live-streamed and also attended by over 1,000 young people. Subsequent #DemocracyAdda events were also held in three elections states (Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh) in collaboration with Youth Ki Awaaz. From topics like digital education, the importance of voting, employment and more, the events encouraged Indian youth to debate and discuss key societal issues today. Leaders from across parties and civil society representatives from the state participated in panel discussions. Also onboard were local partners from each state such as CUTS, Pravah, Commutiny, Jagran Lakecity University, The Optimist Citizen, & SPACE. Next in the series would be the #FutureOfTelangana event in Hyderabad on November 17. #AskTheLeader Twitter Q&A Series Twitter also organised a live Q&A series called #AskTheLeader, where citizens could have direct access and conversation with their leaders on a regular basis. Rajasthan Congress President @SachinPilot and Telangana IT Minister @KTRTRS were among the first to join the Twitter Q&A with voters, answering questions on key issues affecting the state. https://twitter.com/KTRTRS/status/1047815627442806784 https://twitter.com/INCRajasthan/status/1033283619152949249 Mahima Kaul, Director, Public Policy, Twitter India and South Asia, commented, The vibrancy of Indian elections is already visible on Twitter, with regional parties and leaders using the platform to connect with the voters, opinion makers, youth and media. The state elections are particularly exciting on Twitter as you can see, on one platform, voices from all parts of India converge around common themes, and see local flavours that build a national conversation. Were also seeing a rise of local language content, and are proud to empower such a vibrant conversation on the platform. Twitter is truly where India comes to see whats happening! Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System Administrator Reynaldo V. Velasco has commended West Zone concessionaire Maynilad Water Service Inc. for its project to improve water quality in the esteros before water it is released back into the Pasig River, and finally into Manila Bay. Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for Maynilads Sagip Estero, Balik Sigla, a program to restore the tributaries leading to Pasig River, Velasco stressed that collective effort is needed for the river clean up. Velasco lauded Maynilad for partnering with MWSS, the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission, the local government of the city of Manila, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The esteros involved are Estero dela Reina, Estero de Sunog Apog, Estero de Magdalena, and Estero de Concordia, said Velasco who attended the event with Maynilad president Ramoncito S. Fernandez and other executives along with officials from government. Maynilad COO Randy Estrellado supported the MWSS chiefs statement saying the joint effort as far as the environment is concerned results from each individual contribution to reach its full potential only if we all do our share with Maynilad undertaking the construction of interceptor pipes and appurtenances along the easement areas of four esteros to capture the wastewater discharges of households in the area and treating it before discharge into the waterways. Estrellado, however, lamented that wanton throwing of garbage particularly among informal settlers somehow negated Maynilads wastewater management efforts. This project by Maynilad is laudable as it manifests the concessionaires adherence to the Clean Water Act and its support to the writ of continuing mandamus issued by the Supreme Court in 2008, Velasco said.The high tribunals writ names MWSS along with its concessionaires as among those ordered to clean up, rehabilitate and preserve Manila Bay and restore and maintain its water to SB level fit for swimming, skin diving and other forms of contact recreation. The construction of the interceptor pipes and appurtenances in the four esteros is one of the components of the alignment project being undertaken by the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission and Maynilad. The alignment project was the result of the meeting among Maynilad, MWSS Corporate Office, MWSS Regulatory Office, and PRRC held on June 26, 2018. Project implementation is from 2018-2020 which will benefit 8,456 households in Estero dela Reina; 1,221 in Estero de Sunog Apog; 1,441 in Estero Magdalena; and 287 in Estero de Concordia. The generated wastewater which will be conveyed by the interceptor pipes will be treated in Maynilads Tondo Sewage Pumping Plant. MWSS together with Maynilad and Manila Water are continuously working to improve the waste water treatment and sewerage services in their services areas. The two concessionaires are infusing the needed investments to attain 100% sewerage coverage by the end of the concession period in 2037. This year, Maynilad has allotted almost P1.7 billion for wastewater projects to maintain the reliability of the wastewater network and sustain operations. The company has spent almost P14 billion in capital expenditure (Capex) projects to expand sewerage coverage in the West Zone since the companys re-privatization in 2007. A North West London Collaboration of Clinical Commission (NWLCCC) Groups spokeswoman said while the waiting times were "longer than we would like," it was lower than the average national waiting time average estimated by a parent-reported survey at 3.6 years. The concerns were revived after Westminster's local authorities published its waiting lists on May 24, finding families in the central London borough were waiting as long as a year for diagnosis, despite waiting time guidelines of three months. Parents are complaining of waiting as long as five years for an autism diagnosis for their child, and are grappling with a "postcode lottery", according to the advocate mum behind Hillingdon Manor School . The recent Department of Health report entitled, The Prevalence of Autism (including Asperger Syndrome) in School Age Children - found that the increase in children identified with Autism was 31 per cent higher in the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland - several of which are in Derry. Current resource does not meet the level of demand within the Trust and this has been highlighted to the HSCB and DoH. Commenting on the waiting lists, a spokesperson for the Western Trust said: The demand for Autism assessment and intervention for both children and adults within the Western Trust has increased significantly and this trend continues. The figures were obtained by the Journal after a recent report revealed that the number of school age children - 993 - who have come through the assessment process and been diagnosed with Autism and Asperger Syndrome in the west, has increased by almost 50 per cent over the last five years, despite intake numbers remaining static. A further 394 children and 55 adults are currently undergoing the assessment process within the Trust. At present there are 493 children and 81 adults across Derry, Limavady, Strabane and the wider western region, waiting to begin assessment to detect if they are on the Autism spectrum. The Western Trust has confirmed that the numbers referred for assessment and intervention has risen dramatically. And this has now prompted Trust representatives to relay concerns to both the Health and Social Care Board and Department of Health. Almost 600 children and adults are waiting to be assessed for Autism locally, with health officials warning resources cannot meet the soaring demand. Our Anne Dachel is creating a compendium of the changes in schools around the world as children grow sicker and less able to learn in traditional settings. Special education is exploding, school budgets crumbling and teachers and students alike are suffering. How long can this go on before we see actual collapses in programs? Or before parents of typical kid (both of them, ha ha) tell the special education programs to stuff it? Below are 15 stories from just last week. I especially like that one with the headline that an Ohio Autism School CELEBRATES its 20th year. Yes! Celebrate!! You'll be here foreverrrrrrr!!!!!!! K There were complex reasons for the delays, including increased demand for the assessment which had increased "significantly" in the last few years due to wider awareness about autism, the NWLCCC spokeswoman said. More families may believe their children are on the spectrum. Healthcare professionals were also more knowledgeable and better trained to detect the signs. After Anna Kennedy's two sons were turned away from mainstream education, she and her husband re-mortgaged their house to open Hillingdon Manor, a specialist school for pupils living with autism spectrum disorders. The school began with 19 pupils in 1999. Now her boys are adults it hosts about 190 students. Hillingdon Manor provides education, specialist therapies and psychological treatment for young people aged 3 to 19, many of whom also have learning difficulties like dyslexia. On Thursday (May 31) she asked her social media followers how long they had waited for their child to receive a diagnosis and was flooded with hundreds of messages from frustrated parents. They told of waiting times from anywhere between months to seven years. I have had 200 messages since 6pm yesterday across #socialmedia about waiting for #autism diagnosis Our #charity submitted results of survey 2000 replies submitted to #DeptofHealth in 2013 Feels like #groundhogday parents sharing same concerns and wait times poss slightly worse!... Waiting a long time for a diagnosis meant a window for early intervention could be missed, Kennedy said. "It has an impact on the child, it has an impact on the school, which doesn't know what they are dealing with. It has an impact on the siblings, and obviously the family." While some parents she encountered over her years campaigned did avoid seeking a "label", others told her of being dismissed. Some were told their children had behavioural issues or that their parenting was poor, but then a diagnosis came many years down the track, she said. One of Kennedy's sons was diagnosed by health professionals at four, but the family was not informed and only learned about it by accident at school when he was seven. "That was obviously very stressful." A National Autism Society (NAS) survey found one in 10 parents said they ended up paying for a private diagnosis. June 1, 2018, IN Public Media: Dyslexia: Finally Finding Time In The Spotlight A law that takes effect in July requires schools to screen students for dyslexia. The hope is if students are identified early, schools will be able to intervene and better accommodate them. Dyslexia was first defined in Indiana law in 2015 just three years ago. The numbers vary, but anywhere between 10 and 20 percent of kids live with the learning disability. Binnion says the passage of a dyslexia bill this year is a huge step forward. It requires all schools to screen kids in kindergarten, first, or second grade for key traits associated with dyslexia, and, every school corporation will have a reading specialist trained in dyslexia by 2019. Its far better, the earlier IDd and the earlier remediated, the better theyre going to be, Binnion says. You probably are not going to see their dyslexia rear its ugly head unless its some other like, right and left or something like that. June 1, 2018, U.K. Guardian: Our schools are broke so why arent we talking about it? Michelle Gay is the headteacher of Osborne primary, a 270-pupil local authority school in Erdington, on the north-eastern edge of Birmingham. In total, 25% of her pupils are categorised as having special educational needs, 39% have a first language other than English, and 43% are eligible for free school meals. Osborne primary has an urgent issue: a lack of money. Ofsted rates it as a good school with outstanding leadership, and since 2016 its numbers have been expanding: in September 2019 it will take on another new class, but Gay wont have enough money to pay for a new teacher, so the teaching will be done by existing staff. She says she needs at least 13 classroom assistants to help children who need extra support not least those who need help with English but only has 11. The school used to get about 100,000 a year from Birmingham city council and other agencies to pay three staff who work on child protection and supporting parents, as well as counselling children with mental health issues. Children with special needs are being pushed out of state schools. The curriculum is being stripped back to its basics. And the stuff that desiccated minds would have you believe is unnecessary guff art, music, drama is the first to go. Yet grammar schools will reportedly benefit from a new 50m expansion fund. May 31, 2018, Dallas Morning News: We can improve school safety by identifying kids with severe antisocial behavior and offering help Gov. Greg Abbott was at Dallas ISD headquarters this week to deliver 40 recommendations to improve school safety in the wake of the recent Santa Fe shooting. Although several recommendations focused on making schools safer by strengthening security and increasing law enforcement presence, what is critical is that the proposal included a resounding call for improving mental health assessments and services. Steps in this direction would include providing mental health evaluations that identify students at risk of harming others or themselves, increasing mental health training, improving mental health crisis response, and most notably the expansion of Texas Tech University's Telemedicine Wellness, Intervention, Triage and Referral Project, which seeks to identify junior and high school students who show a risk of committing violence. Efforts aimed at identifying individuals who exhibit severe antisocial tendencies and providing them the services they need should be a high priority, and this should not be limited solely to teenagers. In fact, it goes much further back. As my own research in the Journal of Criminal Justice has shown, conduct disorder, mental illness and antisocial behavior in early childhood left unaddressed can have long-term adverse impacts on children, their families and society at large. May 31, 2018, Christian Science Monitor: Discipline and special ed: Schools work to reduce suspensions Educators are being asked to pay more attention to equity in their discipline policies. While the focus remains on reducing suspensions for students of color, the number of special education students being suspended is also of concern to advocates. Last month, the Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights published a report showing that students with disabilities made up 12 percent of enrollment in 2015-16, but accounted for 26 percent of students who received an out-of-school suspension and 28 percent of students who were referred to law enforcement or arrested. Troubling statistics are among the reasons more states are taking action. Tennessee lawmakers just passed a bill banning the spanking or hitting of special education students; Washington State, which is facing a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, is promising changes to its policies by the fall. Lindsay E. Jones of the National Center for Learning Disabilities says its time to address the issue. Theres no evidence to suggest [students with disabilities] should have more behavior issues, she says. May 31, 2018, ABC13 Toledo, OH: Autism Model School Celebrates 20 Years It was originally started by parents of children with autism who didn't have any other place to turn to educate their kids. Autism Model School is celebrating 20 years of working with children within the autism spectrum. The Model school was part of the Ohio's Community School's Pilot Program and is now one of the longest running Charter Schools in Northwest Ohio. The school uses evidence based programming that specifically treats the educational challenges of children and teens living with autism. Model started with just under 30 students and now it has 110 with a waiting list of 60. May 31, 2018, (UK) Nottinghamshire Post: Worry over increasing number of home school educated children in Nottinghamshire The number of home school educated children in Nottinghamshire has doubled in the last four years. The figures have alarmed the councils chairman for children and young peoples services, who has written to the Secretary of State for Education outlining the serious concerns over the increasing numbers of children and young people being withdrawn from mainstream education to be home educated. In his letter to Damian Hinds MP sent this week, Councillor Philip Owen has also pressed the minister for the urgent mandatory registration of all home educated pupils. Councillor Owen said: There has been an alarming rise in the numbers - in September 2017, 523 children in the county were registered as home educated, but as Year 11 students get set to leave school, this figure has risen to 714, with total numbers more than doubling in under four years. In the majority of cases, where parents and carers choose to school their child at home, known as elective home education the education is suitable and the children and young people are safe. There are, however, a small, but growing number of cases where we consider this not to be the case and/or there is a potential safeguarding risk. In terms of safeguarding, the council has identified a significant number of pupils over the last two years who have been withdrawn from school for a range of inappropriate reasons which include persistent low attendance, unresolved bullying, and social, emotional, mental health or special educational needs which are not met. Councillor Owen added: If the numbers of home educated children and young people continue to grow exponentially, we will need additional resources to monitor the suitability of education and to fulfil our statutory duty. May 31, 2018, (UK) Sutherland Echo: Plans to transform former Sunderland school into support base for children with special needs A former city school site could become a support base for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) under new council plans. A PRU cares for pupils who are unable to attend a mainstream school or access special schools in the area. A 500k Government grant will be provided to the council following a consultation with parent groups, schools forums and relevant bodies. May 31, 2018, Falmouth (ME) Forecaster: Scarborough, South Portland face school budget challenges With difficulty passing budgets in the past several years, recent turmoil over the recall of three School Board members and the resignation of a popular principal, Scarborough residents are probably wary of another budget fight stretching through the summer. Although less dramatic, South Portland residents are considering a school budget that proposes an increase of 4 percent that was described as challenging by the superintendent. Both South Portland and Scarborough face rising costs and higher taxes as residents prepare to vote June 12 on fiscal year 2019 school budgets that would take effect July 1. The net budget proposal of $44.9 million seeks an additional $2.5 million in taxes next year, a nearly 6 percent increase, although the increase in expenditures is only 2.9 percent. Superintendent Julie Kukenberger in April said it covers only essential services. The budget is driven by the increasing needs of students who require individualized programming and services an increase of $375,000 as well as an additional kindergarten teacher at Pleasant Hill School due to an enrollment increase a cost of $75,000 and an increase in salaries and benefits for staff. May 30, 2018, Danbury (CT) News Times: Brookfield finance board tackles third budget proposal Under the second version of the budget, town spending would have increased 0.75 percent, while school spending would have increased 4.7 percent. Overall spending would have risen 3.5 percent and the property tax rate would have increased 4.7 percent. Most of the hike in the school budget has been attributed to a rise in special education costs, cuts to state aid and contractual salary increases. May 30, 2018, Cadillac (MI) News: Ribbon cutting for Autism Center of Michigan Parents of children with autism will have access to more services provided by Autism Centers of Michigan at their new location at 932. N. Mitchell St. The provider of Applied Behavior Analysis services has provided in-home services locally for two years. An increase in demand prompted the new location in Cadillac, now one of five locations statewide. "We are treatment providers," said Jon Timm, clinical director of Northern Michigan. "We are not diagnostics. We develop treatment plans to help children learn appropriate behavior and develop skills to reduce their problem behavior. If we can reduce one problem behavior, we've created an impact ... Even having a child that yells all the time, if we can adjust that, we can change entire lives." May 30, 2018, GetWestLondon: Children are waiting over a year for an autism diagnosis in Westminster Children are waiting over a year for an autism diagnosis in the London borough of Westminster . The figures are set against a backdrop of what are thought to be even longer waiting times around the United Kingdom, while advocacy groups wait for the Government to fulfil its pledge to start publishing the figures. A report to its health and wellbeing board tabled on Thursday (May 24) warned there will be a growth of demand for autism support services. The board heard that more support needed to be offered to families to help them find services to help them while they waited. In 2015, the National Autistic Society (NAS) launched its Autism Diagnosis Crisis campaign, calling for the Government to reduce waiting times. A study of just over 1,000 parents nationwide in 2012 found they reported waiting 3.6 years, on average, for an autism diagnosis from the first time they approached health professionals with worries. The waiting time parents reported waiting four years for an Asperger's diagnosis. Half of all respondents to a NAS survey said getting a diagnosis took a long time and was stressful. One in 10 said they ended up paying for a private diagnosis. It highlighted waiting times for referral to autism diagnosis of over a year in 2017/18 in south Westminster for children aged over 4.5 years, and 41 weeks for those referred in central and north Westminster. The waiting lists included referrals from parts of Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham too. Hammersmith and Fulham has now exited the triborough shared social services arrangement. The report said referrals to the Child Development service's Autism pathway increased by 80% since 2012/13. However there had been little increase in service capacity in the last ten years to keep pace with demand, it added. Nearly a fifth of Westminster school pupils are recorded as having special educational needs, amounting to 3,641 pupils. There tended to be significantly more boys than girls in Westminster affected by autism spectrum disorders, in line with London and the UK. The report noted diagnosis delays could cause stress to families. While they were able to obtain services while they waited, it suggested more support could be offered to them during that time. There are 559 children and young people aged 0-25 registered with their GP with autism in the borough, but the report noted this was said to be an undercount. It warned if pace continued in line with population growth, the rates of autism would generate "a larger absolute burden on the national and local health economy." May 30, 2018, (UK) Yorkshire Post: School funding boost announced by minister Hundreds of millions of pounds in funding has been announced to help improve provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The Government has provided 680m to create 40,000 more good school places in primary and secondary schools, building on the 825,000 new school places created since 2010. The Department for Education said the new allocation also included a 50m funding boost for councils to create additional school places and top-end facilities to cope with growing demand for services. The boost could help create around 740 more special school places and provide new specialist facilities to support children with complex needs, such as sensory rooms and playgrounds with specialist equipment, a Government spokesman said. This Summer, Visit Utah with Best Western Explore the fun activities Utah has to offer this summer! Get a $20 Best Western gift card after your first stay this summer! Promoted by Best Western Hotels & Resorts Children and Families Minister Nadhim Zahawi said: This funding will help to create thousands more school places across the country, with a clear focus on transforming the experience of education for children with special educational needs or disabilities. Schools in Yorkshire and Humber will also benefit from an extra 3m to improve facilities and build more school places for children with special educational needs. But Labour was critical of the announcement. Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said: Our schools finances are approaching breaking point, yet the Government can only re-announce old policies and old funding. May 30, 2018, New York City 1 TV: Charter school network accuses city of unfairly denying special ed to students At the Success Academy Bronx 2 Middle School, teachers identified 13 students who needed special education this school year. But the city's Education Department only approved help for one of them. Success Academy, the city's largest charter school network, is now alleging discrimination by the Education Department. "This year it's felt almost like a foregone conclusion that despite all of the compelling evidence, what the evaluation says, what the outside providers have to say that it's unlikely that our kids are going to get the support that they deserve and are entitled too," said Danielle Hauser, Success Academy Bronx 2 Middle School's principal. Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run. They must apply just like public schools to get students approved for special education services and the extra funding that comes with it. Success Academy says the city's special education office in the South Bronx is not treating all students equally. According to city figures, that office approves special education for 80 percent of the public school students referred for the instruction but for only 42 percent of Success Academy students referred. And Success says its applications for the help often languish. In the South Bronx, 66 percent of public school students are granted hearings within 60 days as required by federal law. But just two percent of Success Academy cases are heard on time. In fact, Success Academy students wait an average of 170 days for a hearing. One student waited a year. "We try our best to accommodate and our teachers are flexible with their time, their free time to go above and beyond but we cannot meet the full mandate of services to contract with a speech provider, etcetera," Hauser said. Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism. "Research shows that the roots of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) generally start earlymost likely in the womb. Thats one more reason, on top of a large number of epidemiological studies, why current claims about the role of vaccines in causing autism cant be right iii ." The National Institutes of Health's position can be summed up as: Probably not. While NIH has not responded to my request for an official position statement on the matter, Dr. Francis Collins wrote on June 13 th of 2017 in his NIH Director's Blog, in a post entitled Autism Spectrum Disorder: Progress Toward Earlier Diagnosis: "Adverse events reported during post-approval use of Tripedia vaccine include idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, SIDS, anaphylactic reaction, cellulitis, autism, convulsion/grand mal convulsion, encephalopathy, hypotonia, neuropathy, somnolence and apnea. Events were included in this list because of the seriousness or frequency of reporting. Because these events are reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size, it is not always possible to reliably estimate their frequencies or to establish a causal relationship to components of Tripedia vaccine ii ." At present, as the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, you currently hold four incompatible positions on the relationship between vaccines and autism in the four different departments that you manage and that contribute information to the public on vaccine safety. "November 11, 2018 Dear Secretary Azar, I am the mother of a vaccine injured child, and I am looking for an explanation as to how four of your departments within HHS can hold four different positions on the question: "Do Vaccines Cause autism?" On their page on the relationship between vaccines and autism: "Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism."iv "There is no link between vaccines and autism." "Vaccine ingredients do not cause autism." This position, which contradicts its three sister agencies, is only made more untenable as the Director of the CDC's Vaccine Safety Branch, Frank DeStefano, told reporter Sharyl Attkisson in a recorded interview when asked if vaccines can cause autism that, that is a possibility. Its hard to predict who those children might be, but certainly, individual cases can be studied to look at those possibilities DeStefano, the man responsible for the CDC's public position that, "Vaccines do not cause Autism," "there is no link between vaccines and autism," and "vaccine ingredients do not cause autism," admits not only that it is possible that vaccines do cause autism, but confesses that the has never completely looked to see if vaccines can cause autism. Further, his own research has found at least three different links between vaccines and autism, on a population basis, that he failed to disclose to the publicvi vii. Agencies that report to you therefore hold multiple and mutually exclusive opinions on this same subject. This should be enough to trigger a systematic review of the information each agency is using, what biases are causing this wide range of positions, and whether or not bad faith motives and actions are in play. Further, both NIHviii and CDCix, are multiple vaccine patent holders, which is not disclosed to the public at the point of sale, but can only be discovered by digging through patent information on the internetx. HHS, while posing as an impartial agency to research, regulate, and recommend vaccines via NIH, FDA and CDC respectively, and as "vaccine court" via HRSA to determine vaccine injury causation in individual consumer claims, is robbing the consumer of informed consent by failing to disclose that it is a profit partner in the very shots they are allowing to be administered to themselves or their minor children. But even beyond that, these vaccine safety statements (save Bowman's) ignore more than a hundred research papers that demonstrate multiple links between vaccines and autism, and the mechanisms by which vaccines and their ingredients can cause autismxi, as well as at least 83 documented vaccine-induced encephalopathy with autism claims paid by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Programxii. Because of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act that has circumvented the 7th Amendment rights of Americans to sue for vaccine injury and death, the program has become vastly corrupt, as public oversight was removed, Congressional oversight legally required by the 1986 Act has not been exercisedxiii, and Administrations over the years have both ignored and advanced the corruption. Your predecessors actually facilitated the fraud, teaching physicians falsehoods about the safety profiles of the products that they were pushing doctors to administer, and withholding from them the education that they needed to prevent injury in their patients, and to recognize and treat it when it occurred. That is the broken and dangerous system you have inherited, and are now accountable for. If you choose to leave the system and it's fraud in place unassessed and unreformed, then you too join them in making the medical professionals who believe they are serving the health interests of their patients into men and women engaging in "wicked" acts, because you have chosen to pay attention to falsehoods. While what I have written to you above is the simplest simplest description that I can offer you of the corruption burden you are now holding, the fraud runs deep, as it would have to in order to stay in place. So as to not give you a lengthy reiteration of all of the serious problems that need to be addressed in this letter, I am including a copy of a piece I wrote for the Johns Hopkins Journal, Narratives in Bioethics, for their issue published in January of last year on vaccine choices. It is entitled, Families are Under No Obligation to Put Their Children at Risk By Participating in the Corrupt Current US National Immunization Programxiv, and it enumerates the vast and serious unaddressed brokenness in vaccination in the US. It is my public statement on why we will no longer participate in the US National Vaccine Plan. To say that this program, and the deception it represents, has harmed our family would be an understatement. Our son suffered two serious reactions, neither of which was recognized or treated by our pediatricians, and which have resulted in brain damage (and an "autism" diagnosis) that we have been left with the responsibility of treating ourselves. We did this without the help of the medical establishment that harmed him, and paid for his medical treatment out of our own pockets. Americas vaccine program harmed our son, and is still actively preventing him from even being assessed for a vaccine induced brain injury 14 years after it took place. As it has done to untold thousands of hurting families with harmed loved ones who cannot get proper care and support. Every day that the fraud in this program is left unaddressed, more children are being needlessly harmed as families are denied their right to true informed consent on vaccine safety. Additionally, I want to give you a picture of what these harmful policies are doing at the state level. In 2015, in Maine, families that wanted to retain their right to vaccinate their children as was their personal choice, were under attack. It was at this time that these three bills were introduced to restrict and remove their right to school vaccine exemptions. In response, we introduced our own bill, The Maine Vaccine Consumer Protection Act, that would, among other things, require that physicians and medical professionals be mandated an education on vaccine risk, injuries, contraindications and adverse outcomes via the vaccine package insert and the HRSA Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Table. The results were stunning. Physicians and medical professionals opposed the bill with nonsense answers. They didn't even know what the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was, and confused it with the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting system. Their testimony proved that they knew nothing about federal vaccine safety guidelines, and don't even know enough to cover up that they don't know it. They did not know of the existence of the program that was implemented to replace vaccine injury liability, and provide support and care for their vaccine injured patients. There is no way for the VICP even have a pretense of functioning when a state chapter president of the American Academy of Pediatrics does not know it exists. We went farther, and reported our largest state medical provider to the Maine Department of Health and Human Resources for making fraudulent vaccine safety claims, when they stated on Maine Public Radio that several vaccinated v. unvaccinated studies had been performed and found no difference in autism rates between the two groups. No such research exists. The state replied that they found no reason to inspect a facility, and simply closed the case. I have attached the summary of our findings, entitled, "Maine Immunization Program Safety Gapsxv," which include descriptions of these, and several other actions we took that demonstrate that open fraud and malpractice can be practiced in regards to vaccination, and there is no way for members of the public to address them through any official channel. Finally, while no help is offered to us, what families like ours are given for reporting our children's vaccine injuries, need for care, and even health and functioning improvements via alternative medicine (paid for out of our pockets) are insults. To advocate for vaccine safety and program reform means that you will be called, "anti-vaccine," "anti-science," "delusional" and a "danger to society." Vaccine injury families are the last group in America that it is OK to mock, ostracize, demonize and harass. This second class citizen treatment is justified by those who perpetrate it because The Department of Health and Human Services allows the lie that, "Vaccines are safe," to continue to circulate, despite the fact that it is the position of all three branches of the US Government that, "Vaccines are unavoidably unsafe." Mr. Azar, I do not envy your position. It is likely that you yourself have been a victim of this fraud in your own work, implementing vaccine practices which you believed to be science based, while being deceived by those who came before you in this arena. Most of the physicians who have come to understand that the risk in the vaccine program was much higher than they were being told have experienced a great deal of emotional difficulty facing the painful truth that they were being used by those whose agendas were those other than the health of patients. Parents who only have one or two children that they unknowingly allowed to be put in harms way, experience a great deal of suffering. Doctors and public health officials who did so for hundreds or thousands of children, sometimes much more so. Further, we all know that the ship of state is difficult to turn, and a program this vast will not change with ease, but it has to be done. Fortunately we have a President who understands that there is a problem to be addressed and made that clear in his campaign. So I hope that you will begin to focus there now. Our family needs relief. We have suffered a great deal, and we want it to end. Fiscally and morally responsible ways to address this issue are available because our families have searched for them. I stand ready to help you end this abuse of power that is destroying families and decimating our children. Sincerely, Ginger Taylor, MS Director Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice CC: Maine Governor Paul LePage CC: Maine Attorney General Janet T. Mills CC: Maine Department of Health and Human Services Acting Commissioner Bethany Hamm i https://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-david-kirby/vaccine-court-autism-deba_b_169673.html ii https://vaccines.procon.org/sourcefiles/DTaP_Tripedia.pdf iii https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2017/06/13/autism-spectrum-disorder-progress-toward-earlier-diagnosis/ iv https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html vhttps://sharylattkisson.com/2015/01/25/cdc-possibility-that-vaccines-rarely-trigger-autism/ vihttps://mercury-freedrugs.org/docs/00mmdd_EISAbstractSubmission_IncreasedRiskOfDevelopmentalNeurologicImpairmentAfterHighExposureToThimerosal-containingVaccine_.pdf viihttps://canaryparty.org/commentary/timeline-of-events-in-the-william-thompson-cdcwhistleblower-scandal/ viiihttps://www.ageofautism.com/2010/05/a-license-to-kill-part-1-how-a-publicprivate-partnership-made-the-government-mercks-gardasil-partner.html ix https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/examining-rfk-jrs-claim-cdc-owns-over-20-vaccine-patents xhttps://patents.google.com/patent/US7223535?oq=vaccine+inassignee:centers+inassignee:for+inassignee:disease+inassignee:control xihttps://www.scribd.com/doc/220807175/139-Research-Papers-Supporting-the-Vaccine-Autism-Link xiihttps://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1681&context=pelr xiiihttps://icandecide.org/government/ICAN-HHS-Stipulated-Order-July-2018.pdf xivNarrative Inquiry in Bioethics, vol. 6 no. 3, 2016, pp. 181-185. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/646617 . xvMaine Immunization Program Safety Gaps, White Paper Summary, Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice, June 16, 2017" Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier? Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop. Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News N Augusta Breaking News Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time. Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up! Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page. Even after the police arrested Vic Ladlad, consultant of the National Democratic Front, the NDFs chief negotiator Fidel Agcaoili and colleague Luis Jalandoni confirmed that they will return to the country by next month for possible talks with President Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte had said over the weekend that Agcaoili and Jalandoni have requested to see him this November. Agcaoilis trip to the country, according to an earlier statement, is in connection with their work in the Joint Monitoring Committee under an agreement with the government that seeks to preserve human rights during armed conflict. He added that his group, which includes NDF panelist Coni Ledesma, was also invited to meet with the new Norwegian Ambassador to the Philippines. In this regard, we welcome the opportunity to meet with the President unless he does not want to or his military is against it, Agcaoili said. But Duterte said he will decide whether to push through with the meeting after attending a gathering of regional and world leaders in Singapore next week. Agcaoili and Jalandoni had been forced into hiding after the peace talks between the government and the NDF bogged down due to what the government said was the unabated rebel attacks against government troops. Negotiations for the resumptions of the talks this year was eventually suspended. The government also moved to declare the NDFs armed wing and political arm as terrorist organizations. Meanwhile, Ladlads wife Fides Lim said her husbands arrest was actually meant to derail the possible resumption of peace negotiations with the government. Ladlad was arrested Thursday with 2 others for illegal possession of firearms at a house in Novaliches, Quezon City last. There really is a strong pull coming from the hawks, who really dont want peace on the table, Lim told ANC. They are creating, manufacturing, fabricating incidents like the arrest on my husband on the basis of planted evidence to stop the doves or the mood of the moment from having peace talks. She alleged that the arresting officers planted firearms, as related to her by the owner of the house, who said that the butt of a firearm was sticking out of a box that officers allegedly planted during the raid. Lim said that Ladlad is not a member of the New Peoples Army and that his work has always been political. Lim said her husband has chronic asthma that deteriorated into emphysema, but we are not even making that a condition for his release. He is ready to face the charges against him because they are all fabricated... Ang spirit niya very strong, fighting, she said.Ladlads arrest came after Duterte ordered the arrest of all NDF consultants after peace talks between the government and communist rebels bogged down last year. The government earlier arrested NDF consultants Adelberto Silva and Rafael Baylosis. As this developed, the police dared Ladlads camp to file a complaint after his wife claimed that a bank card seized by officers from him last week recorded unauthorized use. Lim had said that among the personal items seized from her husband was a Landbank Visa debit card that contained the compensation he received for the abuses he suffered during martial law. Quezon City police director Chief Supt. Joselito Esquivel said Lim should file a formal complaint so it can request a record of the debit cards transactions from Landbank. Mas maganda po iyun ibigay nila sa amin ang detalye para maimbestigahan nang todo. Nagbabalibag po sila ng alegasyon sa ere, ayaw naman mag-complaint, he told radio DZMM. Esquivel added that only firearms and documents were seized from Ladlad during the operation with barangay officials and homeowners present. He added that Lim previously claimed that her cellphone was stolen by officers, only to find out that the device was in her lawyers bag. The police said Lim may also face charges for blocking a police car that was carrying her husband to a police camp, PNP chief Director General Oscar Albayalde earlier said. Albayalde also said that there was nothing anomalous about Ladlads arrest, after his wife claimed that police planted evidence in their home. In the House of Representatives, a militant lawmaker urged the Duterte administration to resume the stalled peace talks with the NDF to resolve the countrys decades-long armed insurgency. Anakpawis party-list Rep. Ariel Casilao said the festering crisis of Philippine society particularly landlessness among the peasants cannot be solved by military solution. The armed conflict dividing this land is rooted in fundamental socio-economic woes that cannot be resolved by purely using military means. It can only be resolved by addressing the roots, by instituting thorough and deep-going social reforms which are the talking points of the stalled peace talks, Casilao said. He said that the reforms in the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio Economic Reforms (CASER) aims to resolve massive and abject poverty in the countryside by distributing land for free to poor and landless farmers, an anti-poverty thrust which the GPH panel already agreed in principle. Casilao also said the Duterte administration must show good faith by releasing NDFP consultants Rafael Baylosis, Adel Silva and Vic Ladlad as they have participated in the peace process and helped draft documents including CASER, National Industrializationand Economic Development and the Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Electoral Reforms. He also urged the government to respect the signed documents which pertain to the protection of both panels consultants under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantee (JASIG) as well as the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and the International Humanitarian Law (CAHRIHL). After pausing operations last month because of Turkish shelling, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are resuming the fight against the Islamic State (IS) in eastern Syria. Why it matters: To put it simply, if theres no SDF, theres no anti-IS campaign. The Syrian Kurds who make up most of the SDF have served as the backbone of the Donald Trump administrations military push in Syria since early last year. The long-simmering feud between the Turks and the Syrian Kurds has derailed US plans for a rapid defeat of IS in eastern Syria. The Pentagon announced the beginning of the last phase of Operation Roundup to clear out Syrias last IS safe havens two months ago. All the while, Syrian Kurds have been in talks with Bashar al-Assads regime in Damascus to carve out a decentralized enclave after the civil war comes to an end. Strategic split: Meanwhile, US strategy appears to have also split. President Trumps March promise to bring home 2,200 US troops very soon has faded over the objections of the State Department, the Pentagon and influential US national security adviser John Bolton, who has said he hopes to rid the war-torn country of Iranian proxy forces before the United States leaves. Whats also unclear is how the United States sees the future of Syria after the war. While the United States backs the UN-led Geneva peace process seeking national elections that could see Assads departure, its not clear if the administration is comfortable with regime change as the endgame in Syria. The whole concept of Geneva was to provide a framework to get Assad out of power, said Nicholas Heras, a Middle East fellow at the Center for a New American Security. The fundamental challenge is that the new administration strategy is regime change without using the phrase 'regime change' because of the bad connotation it has in Iraq. Whats next: The SDF must get back to manning the front lines in the fight for Hajin, one of the last IS strongholds in the country, as the group threatens a resurgence in the Syrian countryside. Know more: Read Jack Detschs latest overview of the Defense Departments infighting over the IS fight. -Jack Detsch Gholamreza Shariati, the governor of Khuzestan province, denied that the individuals who were behind the Sept. 22 terrorist attack on a military parade in Ahvaz were executed. This is just the latest news to spill over from the attack in Khuzestan province that killed 25 people, including bystanders and veterans participating in the parade. Days after the attack, Irans Intelligence Ministry announced they had arrested a team consisting of 22 individuals who they claimed were responsible for the attack. The ministry also said they had confiscated explosives as well as military and communications devices. Mahmoud Alavi, Irans intelligence minister, said that a major part of the actors behind the Ahvaz attack were arrested in the roundup of the 22 individuals. When asked by reporters about the fate of the 22 individuals arrested, Shariati said they had been charged but that specific information regarding their status must be referred to the prosecutors office. Mahmoud-Javad Jamali, a parliamentarian and member of Irans National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, also denied that the arrested individuals were executed and blamed the media for creating the news. He said the case has not been discussed at the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, but that it would be addressed given the reports of their execution. On Nov. 11, foreign-based activists and foreign organizations reported that some of those arrested after the attack had been executed on Nov. 8 and that the families had been ordered not to hold funerals. Human Rights in Iran reported that the families were not given the bodies. After the attack, both Arab separatists and the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Iran accused European countries of harboring those behind the attack, including Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain. In October, Denmarks intelligence service PET claimed to have foiled an attack by Irans Intelligence Ministry on three individuals belonging to the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz. Denmark recalled its ambassador after the alleged plan. Tehran denied the allegations of planning the assassination of the individuals in Europe and called it a plot. On Nov. 7, Denmark then arrested three individuals who praised the attack on the military parade. In other news, the search for a mayor of Irans largest city and capital has been reduced to two candidates after the latest voting by the 21-member Tehran city council. Former Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Ahmad Akhoundi and Reformist politician Pirouz Hanachi received the top two votes and will compete with one another to take over the position. The office of Tehran mayor has historically been a significant and coveted seat. A number of mayors have used the position to dramatically shape the outlook of the city and elevate themselves to the national stage. Since the August 2017 departure of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who served as Tehran mayor for 12 years, a strong candidate who can maintain the seat has not yet emerged. The current mayor, Mohammad Ali-Afshani, has held the position since May. The previous mayor, Mohammad-Ali Najafi, served just eight months before that. It is too soon to determine if the next mayor will be able to maintain the seat or even want to. Given that Akhoundis tenure as minister has been under current President Hassan Rouhanis administration, conservative media has been vocal in their opposition to his candidacy and will likely oppose him if he becomes mayor. Anger is escalating in Basra over the new government's stance toward this strategic city and the demands of its people. The continued marginalization of this oil-rich city could spell a new round of unrest. Voices have been calling for new protests and sit-ins in Basra in light of what activists describe as neglect of the province by the Iraqi central and local governments. As part of their efforts to organize protests, Basra activists launched the Arabic hashtag that translates into We are coming back for you. They called on Basras residents to stage mass protests in front of the South Oil Company (SOC) on Nov. 4 and to prevent its employees from entering its premises. Mahdi al-Tamimi, head of the Basra office of Iraq's High Commission for Human Rights, confirmed Oct. 31 the existence of a strong movement by all coordination committees in the province to stage protests. Indeed, a protest took place Nov. 4 in front of the SOC. Protesters tried to prevent the entry of vehicles into the companys premises. Activists also insisted on organizing other protests. The Basra Protest Coordination Committees issued a statement Nov. 4 asking residents to take to the streets to put pressure on Baghdad. A number of members of these committees met Nov. 5 with the governor of Basra, Asaad al-Eidani. The governor confirmed his support for the protests if they remain peaceful. One of the reasons for the continuing discontent in Basra is the absence of any minister from Basra in the new government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. Basra member of parliament Thawra al-Halafi called Oct. 28 for Basra lawmakers to suspend their participation in order to pressure Abdul Mahdi to appoint ministers from Basra; eight ministerial posts remain vacant. Member of parliament Uday Awad said Nov. 5 that Abdul Mahdi has "disappointed the people of Basra. On Nov. 6, Awad threatened more protests and sit-ins. Abdul Mahdi will be given a chance to choose two ministers from Basra, Awad said, warning of the revolt of Basra citizens who have lost hope. Basras lawmakers not only warned of more street protests, but also threatened to oppose Abdul Mahdi's programs in parliament. On Nov. 5, Basra member of parliament Muzaffar al-Fadl called on the 22 MPs from Basra to break the quorum within parliament. He urged them to withdraw from the voting session on the eight vacant ministries. Activists who organized mass protests in September disagree about returning to the streets. Several governmental and party headquarters were set on fire during the protests. This time, activists question the usefulness of renewed protests. Activist Murtada Ali told Al-Monitor, We took part in the previous protests. We supported them since they were staged to demand jobs and better services, he said. Today, protests have a political nature. They are being called in tandem with the formation of the government, and are linked to the governments failure to appoint ministers from Basra. He went on, When the previous protests were held the government included three ministers from Basra. One of them was handed the ministry of oil, the most important ministry in Iraq. What did these ministers do for Basra? Civil activist Mohsen Rahim told Al-Monitor, Today's protests are an extension of Septembers events. Basras youths feel they are being marginalized by the local authorities and the federal government. They feel they are being excluded from the government formation. Basras youths are calling for protests because no ministers from Basra are appointed in the new Cabinet. Calls for protests and sit-ins coincided with renewed claims for the establishment of a Basra federal region. For many years, popular groups and political parties in Basra have been demanding turning the province into a federal region similar to the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Basra member of parliament Zahra al-Bajari announced Oct. 26 her support for the establishment of a federal region. Saying political blocs have not provided the entitlements Basra province is due, she asserted that a federal region is the best solution for the province. Civil activist Mohsen Rahim told Al-Monitor, We are protesting to demand our constitutional right to establish a federal region in the province of Basra within the borders of Iraq. We believe a federal region will provide a greater opportunity for the people of Basra to manage their affairs and address their crises. He added, The Kurdistan region is an excellent example of the success of federalism in achieving progress and prosperity. Some figures in the executive branch also back the idea of establishing an autonomous Basra federal region. On Nov. 4, the deputy governor of Basra, Muin al-Hassan, expressed his support for the movement demanding the establishment of a Basra federal region. Basra province has substantial components enabling it to become a federal region. It has nine border crossings, a large oil terminal, seaports and huge financial capacities, Hassan said. But Hassan is aware of the strong opposition to such a project, especially in Baghdad. The project of establishing a federal region in Basra is still in its infancy and needs great resolve. It also requires the support of major political authorities in Iraq. As Basra citizens continue to feel marginalized, despite the financial resources their province offers the Iraqi state, the likelihood of renewed protests and even unrest remain high. Renewed protests might persuade more Basra citizens to call for a federal region as a solution to end the tragic situation of their province. One of the most remarkable images from the Oct. 30 municipal elections comes from Haifa. It depicts dozens of ultra-Orthodox supporters of the Degel HaTorah party dancing and singing to celebrate the election of a secular woman, Einat Kalisch-Rotem, as mayor of Israels third-largest city. In the absence of ultra-Orthodox candidates for mayor of Haifa, the ultra-Orthodox had to make a choice, and decide whether to support a candidate outside their camp. But this proved to be complicated, given the split in Yahadut HaTorah (the ultra-Orthodox alliance) between the Lithuanian camp represented by Degel HaTorah and the Hasidic camp represented by Agudat Yisrael. In the end, Degel HaTorahs electorate came out in support of Kalisch-Rotem, and actively backed her at that. This included the involvement of local rabbis and feverish activity by ultra-Orthodox volunteers in her campaign headquarters. These supporters completely ignored the fact that Kalisch-Rotem is a woman (it is well-known that women have little place in ultra-Orthodox politics). As it turns out, the ultra-Orthodox can support a secular woman for a political position as long as she advances their interests. In this particular instance, a coalition agreement was signed between Degel HaTorah and Kalisch-Rotem in which she promised to maintain the status quo on matters pertaining to the Sabbath and other religious issues. At the headquarters of mayoral candidate Moshe Leon in Jerusalem, it seemed as if the entire ultra-Orthodox community was in his pocket after the first round of elections. In that round, Leon was supported by Shas (the Mizrahi ultra-Orthodox party) and Degel HaTorah. They both backed Leon, even though the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party ran its own candidate, Yossi Deutsch, for mayor. This decision by Shas and Degel HaTorah to support a candidate who is not ultra-Orthodox rather than someone from their own sector came under sharp criticism from Agudat Yisrael. As a result, Agudat Yisrael is now in no hurry to support Leon, even though Ofer Berkovitch, the second candidate in the runoff election scheduled for Nov. 13, largely represents Jerusalems secular residents. Agudat Yisraels representatives have been introducing all sorts of difficulties in their negotiations with Leons staff. They have raised the bar for their demands so high that it is now doubtful that their demands will be met. Some of the Hasidic courts, including the large Slonim Hasidic group and Chabad, seem likely to recommend that their followers stay at home and not vote at all. Other groups are likely to avoid making any recommendation whatsoever, effectively giving their followers freedom to vote for their candidate of choice. To complicate matters even more, there are divisions within the Lithuanian Degel HaTorah party. A Jerusalem branch of the Lithuanian sector is considered extremist and is opposed in principle to military conscription for anyone from its community and to any government involvement in ultra-Orthodox education. The branch announced that it would not support Leon because he has the backing of party rivals inside Degel HaTorah. This was best expressed in an editorial piece in the factions HaPeles newspaper. Editor Natti Grossman wrote that both Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael had acted hypocritically by spreading lies and supporting a candidate (Leon) whose patron is an archenemy of the ultra-Orthodox community, secular Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. However, the most intriguing group in Jerusalem is the ultra-Orthodox supporters of Berkovitch, who is secular. Ari Bombach, an ultra-Orthodox volunteer who was active in Berkovitch's campaign, was cited by the ultra-Orthodox news site Kikar Hashabbat as saying, I really identify with what Berkovitch represents. I belong to the Vizhnitz Hasidic court, but any Hasidic follower should know that when he faces the City Council with all sorts of issues, he is there as a private person, and Berkovitch will provide responses to these issues when needed. Bombach said not everyone in the Vizhnitz Hasidic court likes the fact that he supports Berkovitch, but I tell them that as much as I respect them, I am neutral, with no obligations to anyone. In Jerusalem, the reasons certain sectors of the ultra-Orthodox community support a secular candidate are mainly political. In Beit Shemesh and Bnei Brak, similar trends can be attributed to greater involvement by the ultra-Orthodox community in Israeli society at large. Unlike in Haifa, the ultra-Orthodox constitute a majority of voters in Beit Shemesh. Nevertheless, a religious but not ultra-Orthodox woman, Dr. Aliza Bloch, defeated the incumbent ultra-Orthodox mayor, Moshe Abutbul. A core group of ultra-Orthodox extremists in Beit Shemesh have given the city the image of being a bastion of religious zealotry and extremism, particularly when it comes to the separation of men and women, and the exacting demands made of women and girls to dress modestly. This is just one of the reasons why Blochs victory was especially surprising. Ultra-Orthodox volunteers at her headquarters told Al-Monitor why they supported Bloch rather than Abutbul, and their reasoning would seem completely practical to anyone who is not ultra-Orthodox. One volunteer, Moshe Yakubovitch of the Lithuanian faction, said Abutbul had failed in the day-to-day management of the city. Bloch, he said, is more talented and more educated than Abutbul, and she has a far-reaching vision for Beit Shemesh. When asked why he didnt heed the rabbis call to support Abutbul, Yakubovitch said, Because this is a practical issue, important to the day-to-day life of me, my family, and the other residents of Beit Shemesh. It is not a matter of religious law. Bloch will advance the needs of the ultra-Orthodox community, too, and she will do a better job at it than Abutbul. Blochs secret was her approach to the towns ultra-Orthodox community. She gave explicit instructions not to post her picture a photo of a woman in campaign posters in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, so as to respect the communitys customs. While secular Jews may have seen that as her succumbing to a policy of excluding women, she actually proved to the ultra-Orthodox that she would not force them to act against their conscience. Rather, she would involve them in all decisions about what happens in the city in general and their communities in particular. In Bnei Brak, a majority ultra-Orthodox city, a Likud representative had not been elected to City Council in over 25 years. In this election, however, the Likud won a seat and is sending the head of its list, Yaakov Wieder, to serve on the council. He told Al-Monitor that votes for the Likud should come as no real surprise, even as the city is becoming more religious. He said the growing numbers of ultra-Orthodox who are in the workforce and who are involved in national affairs influence people to vote for parties that are not ultra-Orthodox. It is a practical vote on civil issues, he said. The sectorial parties do not necessarily represent the new ultra-Orthodox. The Likud benefited from this. Wieder also predicted than in the next Knesset election, the Likud would win two seats from the ultra-Orthodox sector. The integration of the ultra-Orthodox into Israeli society and political rifts within ultra-Orthodox society seem to feed off each other, as Haifa, Beit Shemesh, Bnei Brak and perhaps even Jerusalem can attest. It will be interesting to see if this is also reflected in the 2019 Knesset election. At a press conference Sept. 26 on the margins of the meeting of the UN General Assembly, President Donald Trump was asked a question that he may not have been prepared for. His response included the claim that in two, three or maybe four months, he would present his administrations plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It was the first time he ever referred to his peace plan in terms of time. On the other hand, the world has long gotten used to hearing the leader of the free world say things that he doesnt usually mean, so no one will be standing there with a stopwatch, counting the days until Jan. 26, which would mark exactly four months since his off-the-cuff remark. At the same time, it is also certainly possible that this statement was more serious than his other remarks, largely because of three changes that occurred since this past September. The first took place in Israel. Conventional wisdom just two months ago was that once the Knessets summer recess ended, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would bring a proposal before the Knesset to hold early elections in the spring of 2019, just a few months before they are officially scheduled. Pundits believed that it would be in his interest to hold early elections before his coalition falls apart, and that he would take advantage of one contentious issue or another (such as the conscription of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, which has been on the governments agenda for over 70 years) to announce that he prefers to hold early elections than to surrender to the ultra-Orthodox. This would be a particularly easy issue for him since the vast majority of Israelis are uncomfortable with the idea that young ultra-Orthodox men are exempted from three years of military service, while Israelis who are not ultra-Orthodox are required to serve. Since then, the Knessets winter session has begun, and the ultra-Orthodox seem likely to accept the revised Conscription bill (even if they will vote against it for their own reasons). They do not want to give Netanyahu an excuse to break apart a government that is otherwise so convenient for them because of its right-wing, ultra-Orthodox composition. At the same time, it is also possible that Netanyahu himself has gone back on his desire to hold early elections. The polls seem to favor him, and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is in no hurry to indict him for bribery. In other words, the cases being built up against him will only be ready in 2020, when he is he hopes starting his fifth term. The second change took place in the United States. Trump may use his Orwellian language to describe every defeat as a victory. Still, the fact is that he lost the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. It doesnt matter that other presidents lost the House two years after they were elected or in some cases lost both the House and the Senate. It will now be very difficult for him to pass laws affecting internal affairs, so it is only natural that he will find himself focused more and more on foreign affairs instead. This will happen regardless of his very limited understanding of international affairs and his even more limited enthusiasm for these issues. Trump needs victories over the next two years to prove that he is a capable president before the 2020 election, and he feels that he and his staff led by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner can succeed where all their predecessors failed. In other words, they can resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Trump could not allow himself to get involved in this kind of adventurism before the midterm elections. After the elections, it is much easier for him, particularly if the plan itself has been ready for a while. Trump would like to toss a new Oslo Accord onto the world stage. He believes that this is what will distract people from the growing tide of violence in the United States and the expanding deficit, which threatens the economic future of the country in the mid-term and the stock market in the short term. It is in Trumps interest to release his diplomatic plan. He hoped that he could rely on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and present a plan tailor-made to Netanyahus specifications without any commitment to a two-state solution and a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. Then he lost Prince Mohammed as an esteemed regional partner over the Khashoggi affair. Upon realizing that there is nothing to read into Arab leaders denigrating tone regarding the Palestinian issue because, in the end, they listen to the masses sympathetic to the Palestinians, Trump realizes that the plan that he offers will have to resemble previous plans but with greater emphasis on the economic angle. Such a plan is more likely to be accepted by the PLO and by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In fact, the third and most significant change took place on the Palestinian side. A senior member of the PLO told Al-Monitor this week, right after the US midterm elections, that they expect the Trump plan to be submitted. He said that despite all of Abbas warnings after the relocation of the US Embassy to East Jerusalem this past May that he would not even be willing to look at Trumps proposal, the Palestinian leadership realizes that as soon as the plan is submitted and particularly if it includes the principle of a two-state solution and a willingness to recognize a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem Abbas will announce that the Palestinians will not be satisfied with anything less than full sovereignty within borders based on the lines that separated Israel and Jordan up to the 1967 Six-Day War, mutual agreement to a solution for the refugee problem and a capital in al-Quds (Jerusalem). Nevertheless, Abbas will not avoid engaging in negotiations based on the American plan and wont condition talks on his own red lines. After the recognition of Jerusalem by Trump, Abbas hurried to declare that he wont resume ties with the American administration unless it withdraws from moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Now he knows that his condition is not feasible. If there is, in fact, Palestinian willingness to take part in the emerging peace process, and if Netanyahu feels that his situation makes it impossible for him to turn Trump down, there will still be very limited time to act. Israels next election, if held on time, is scheduled for Nov. 5, 2019. It is reasonable to assume that Netanyahu will want to avoid diplomatic negotiations continuing right up to the very last moment of an election campaign. Over the course of such negotiations, Netanyahu will undoubtedly come under sharp criticism from HaBayit HaYehudi but not from only them. It will therefore be incumbent on him to select one of two options some reasonable time before the election. He will either have to announce that he tried to reach a historic solution to the conflict but was disappointed anew by the Palestinians failure to rise to Israels demands, or the less likely option of reaching a statement of principles in the spirit of the American proposal and to take that to the public in a new election. Regardless of what happens, the changes that have taken place since Trumps off-the-cuff two, three or maybe four months remark make the idea that such a peace plan will actually be submitted all the more realistic. If it is, Israel and the Palestinians will be obliged to face the kind of dilemmas that both parties wished they would not have to confront. The US Treasury Department last week imposed more sanctions on Iran to limit Tehran's ability to finance hostile activities in the region and fund terrorism. The sanctions now apply to more than 700 Iranian individuals, entities, vessels and aircraft. Local, regional and international parties immediately reacted. Palestinians rushed to express their fear of the sanctions' impact. Hamas condemned the sanctions in a Nov. 5 statement, charging they aim to destabilize the region. The movement said the United States is favoring Israel at the expense of the Palestinian cause, and Hamas leaders stressed their solidarity with Iran to counter what they called Zionist-US arrogance. That same day, the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said US leaders were acting like thugs" by imposing the sanctions. It said the action reinforces Palestinians' belief that Washington is wreaking havoc in the world without interference and must be confronted. Also, the Alliance of Palestinian Forces said the sanctions will not undermine Iran's will and wise leadership. The next day, the Popular Resistance Committees, an alliance of armed Palestinian groups, called the sanctions a US punishment for Irans support of the Palestinian resistance. Khaled Kaddoumi, a Hamas representative in Iran, told Al-Monitor, Our position on the sanctions on Iran is not about its support for us. Our relationship with Iran has been defined in many stages. It is not about its financial support or lack thereof. Our joint strategy is to confront Israel, our enemy. Kaddoumi added, Iran has not stopped supporting the Palestinian cause. Recently, [Iran stood by] the marches of return in Gaza." In June, Iran gave a $500 grant to each of the 190 families who have lost someone in the marches of return protests, which began in March on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. In addition, more than 20,000 injured people were given $250 each. But Kaddoumi said the relationship between Hamas and Iran "has surpassed the issue of financial support today and has turned into a strategic partnership for the fate of both. Iran has been increasingly supportive of Palestinians in recent months, both politically and financially. In July, Tehran held a video conference with Palestinian factions in Gaza, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to stress Iran's support for the Palestinian cause in confronting the US administration's pending peace plan, which the groups' believe favors Israel. During the conference, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander Gholamhossein Gheybparvar delivered a speech praising the Palestinian resistance factions in general. In May, Irans Imdad Committee for Islamic Charity set up a breakfast in the Gaza Strip for thousands of Palestinians and provided 300,000 meals throughout the month of Ramadan. In April, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh and expressed his solidarity with the Palestinian people, emphasizing Iran's support for the resistance. According to Gadi Eizenkot, chief of staff of the Israeli army, Iran supports Hamas and the Islamic Jihad with $100 million annually. As opposed to the factions in the Gaza Strip, however, the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank apparently has a different stance. A source close to PA President Mahmoud Abbas told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, The US sanctions on Iran are their business. It doesn't concern us Palestinians, and we don't see the need to express a position on every event in the region, especially if it has nothing to do with us. We have enough on our plate and we don't want any new battles with any party whatsoever." While the PA was quick to express its support for Riyadh when many countries recently accused Saudi Arabia of killing Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, Hamas remained silent. Today, as Hamas declares its solidarity with Iran against US sanctions, it is radio silence on the PAs part. Abdul Sattar Qassem, a political science professor at An-Najah University in the West Bank, told Al-Monitor he believes the sanctions will affect Iranian support for Palestinian organizations. "One of the reasons for these sanctions is Iran's support of the Palestinians," he said. "Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are concerned about the impact of sanctions on Iran's ability to continue supporting them. Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are designated as terrorist groups by many countries, including the United States and Israel. Qassem added, Iran could possibly push the Palestinian organizations to harass Israel in an attempt to export its internal crisis because of the sanctions. Israel is keeping an eye on the reaction of Palestinian factions sponsored by Iran, which can reach Israel with their missiles. Kayed al-Ghoul, a member of the political bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Al-Monitor, "The sanctions are based on an attempt to stop Iran's support for the Palestinian people. The sanctions could affect the amount of support Iran provides to Palestinians, but the support would never cease to exist, nor will the sanctions force Iran to change its stance on the resistance. Ghoul added, This resistance is not a tool in Irans hands. It has built a relationship with Iran and joined forces with it to confront the Israeli occupation. But according to United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash, Hamas is just that: an Iranian tool. He criticized Hamas' solidarity with Iran over the sanctions, saying Hamas isn't taking into account Arab concerns about Tehran's "regional interventions." In a tweeted response, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri rebuffed the UAE for its positive relationship with Israel. Saber Anbari, an Iranian researcher from Tehran, told Al-Monitor he believes the sanctions will move Iran even closer to Hamas and the other factions. The positions the Palestinian organizations have expressed against the sanctions are not only due to their fear of no longer having Iran's support. They are its allies and they stand beside it in this ordeal. Their positions are in line with the strategy of uniting fronts between Tehran and the Palestinians," Anbari added. Iran responds to the sanctions by strengthening its relationship with Palestinians and increasing support, as it needs to reinforce its foreign relations to confront the US and Israeli escalation." These Palestinian forces' decisions to side with Iran raise many questions about whether the organizations will show support merely in the media and the political arena, or if they will end up taking action on the ground. On Nov. 7, the chief commander of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), Khalifa Hifter, who also represents the government in Tobruk, visited Moscow for a meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The two discussed the present situation in Libya, the fight against terrorism and broader security in the Middle East and North Africa. Hifter also met with Valery Gerasimov, head of the general staff of the Russian army. This may indicate Moscow and Tobruk have either concluded certain agreements in the field of military cooperation or are discussing them. On an even more intriguing note, Evgeniy Progozhin dubbed Putins cook, and notorious for his alleged ownership of the Wagner private military contractor was also present at the negotiations. Moscow later explained his presence by saying he was responsible for the catering of the meeting but this nonetheless led to speculation over a possible deployment of Russian mercenaries in Libya. Hifter has visited Russia on a number of occasions. However, this particular trip became a sensation due to its timing it took place in the run-up to the international conference on the Libyan conflict to be held Nov. 12-13 in Palermo, Italy. This summit will be the next significant step in the resolution process after the agreements concluded in December 2015 in Skhirat, Morocco, and in May 2018 in Paris. While Putin said Russia would send its highest-level representatives to the Palermo conference, his press secretary later said Putin himself would not attend. Hifter had planned the visit as an opportunity to persuade Moscow to voice a more supportive position during the summit in Palermo. Another objective is to demonstrate that the LNA is Russias main ally in Libya the commanders old trick used to disrupt the relations between Moscow and the Government of National Accord in Tripoli led by Fayez al-Sarraj, which have recently seen major positive developments and regular contacts with a constructive agenda. However, Tripoli is quite sensitive to Hifters meetings with the Russian side, presuming they are likely to reach agreements behind the governments back. Hence, now, just before a significant event, Hifters trip may urge Tripoli to revise a number of negotiating positions that were supposed to meet Russias support, considering the critical lack of time left. On the other hand, it is clear that this visit could not have taken place if Russia itself had not been ready to meet Hifters demands. Moreover, while the visit by the LNA commander to Italy on Oct. 29 can be seen as Romes own measure to maintain the balance in the relations with both sides of Libyan conflict (as Fayez al-Sarraj had met Italian leaders four days earlier), Hifters talks with the Russian side were not compensated by any contacts with the Government of National Accord. This leads to a conclusion that Russia may have decided to make its bet on the LNA at the last moment before the conference. It should also be noted that the absence of Russian diplomats or presidential administration officials at the meeting with Hifter did not indicate that the talks were insignificant or exclusively demonstrative. Recently, the role of the Russian Defense Ministry in foreign policy has been increasing quite substantially, especially on issues involving so-called crisis regions such as Syria. Libya has become the field of responsibility of Defense Ministry officials who establish contacts with the Tobruk administration and the LNA, while relationships with the Government of National Accord in Tripoli are forged, in part, by people associated with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Al-Monitor previously wrote about the backlash produced by speculative reports in the British media about Russian deployment of mercenaries and the S-300 and Kalibr missile systems. However, these reports make more sense if perceived not as reporting but rather as a reflection of the intentions Moscow and Tobruk might have. The establishment of Russian military bases in Libya is actually an issue on the agenda. In the past, Russian military officers visited Tobruk and Benghazi, viewing these cities as potential locations for naval bases. It is possible that the launch of Russian facilities will depend on the role the commander of the LNA will take on as a result of the peace process. Some agreements on the supply of Russian weapons to the LNA may also exist; however, to implement them, UN sanctions on Libya should be lifted first. Hence, certain quarters of the Russian elite are interested both in achieving reconciliation in Libya as soon as possible and in ensuring that Hifter or his associates get leading offices in the new administration. Another element indicating Moscows possible shift toward Hifter is the change in the United Arab Emirates view of the Syrian problem. It should be noted that Abu Dhabi is the main ally and sponsor of the LNA and the government in Tobruk. At the same time, recently the UAE has become much more sympathetic to Assads regime. It cannot be ruled out that the UAE will not only restore diplomatic relations with Syria, but also will be ready to provide Damascus with financial aid, for instance, within the framework of the repatriation project for refugees staying in Lebanon and Jordan. Against this background Moscow could have met the UAEs requests on a Libyan resolution; Abu Dhabi wants Russia to become more supportive of Hifter in exchange for the positive shift in its stance toward the Syrian government. The Government of National Accord, in turn, seeks to build up an effective system of foreign backup for various actions, including military ones. On Nov. 6, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and General Staff chief Yasar Guler met the leaders of the Tripoli government to discuss military partnership and the issues of regional security while Libyan Presidential Council Chairman Fayez Sarraj made his own trip to Istanbul to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It is quite possible, however, that Hifters trip to Moscow was organized exclusively as an initiative of the Russian Defense Ministry, which lobbies the LNA or Hifter personally; hence, it would not fully reflect Russia's official position on a Libyan resolution. It should be also taken into consideration that the other group of Russian stakeholders that is led by Ramzan Kadyrov is backing Tripoli and still maintains high status and resources sufficient to influence the Kremlin in order to avoid an excessive shift toward Hifter in Russian policy in Libya. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Monday Deputy Administrator of the Office of Civil Defense Nicanor Faeldon could not yet assume the post of director general of the Bureau of Corrections pending Malacanangs release of his appointment papers. Guevarra made the statement after Faeldons camp said Faeldon could not report to his new position as head of the bureau because he had not received any notice from the Office of the President. I just find it curious that he has not said anything about the Presidents desire to appoint him. I suppose hes just being prudent, maybe just waiting for the appointment process to be completed, Guevarra said. The camp of former Customs Commissioner Faeldon defended Faeldons no-show at the Bureau of Corrections as there was no official appointment papers yet confirming his new assignment. Faeldons legal counsel, Jose Dino Jr., issued the statement after Guevarra said Faeldon had not appeared at the BuCor after he was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte last week. The former marine captain was supposed to replace former Philippine National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa who resigned as BuCor chief to run for senator in next years elections. Faeldon, through Dino, said he could not assume the BuCor post to which he was not appointed. To begin with, there was/is no appointment to speak of, Dino said, noting that only Guevarra had spoken on Faeldons supposed appointment.By tradition and practice, it is Malacanang, and not a Cabinet secretary, which announces official appointments. By tradition and practice too, Malacanang does not announce a proposed appointment but releases copies of officially-signed appointments, Dino said. In Captain Faeldons alleged proposed appointment, Malacanang has not confirmed the news or fake news being attributed to the DOJ Secretary. Guevarra exercises administrative supervision over BuCor, one of the agencies attached to the Justice department. Faeldons camp said Section 9 of Republic Act 10575, or the Bureau of Corrections Act of 2013, provides that the President should appoint Bucors director general. In all of my pubic positions, I have no record at all of being a no-show much less being a delinquent as I now being unfairly labeled Wouldnt I be the worst laughing stock public-office usurper if I assumed a position to which I was not appointed to? Faeldon said. He said he was forced to issue a statement after Guevarra said he had no idea why Faeldon had not reported for his new position. Under siege by Turkey, Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are trying to ensure their base at home. An unprecedented royal tour, pardons and bonuses for workers are parts of a program to protect the embattled crown prince from the fallout from the Istanbul caper. The United States, especially when it comes to Congress, is a wild card in the still-evolving situation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems determined to pursue those responsible for the premeditated murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Erdogan has allowed a steady drip of leaks about the Saudi hit team that flew in to Istanbul to commit the murder and its gruesome actions. Occasionally Erdogan publicly discusses the case to confirm key pieces of evidence such as the existence of an audio recording of the murder. Its hypocritical, of course, for Erdogan to be defending journalists, but he has other motives involving his ambitions to be the pre-eminent Muslim leader of his time. Erdogan has consistently said he is confident the king is innocent, thereby implicitly suggesting that the crown prince is the mastermind of the murder. Does Erdogan have the evidence to prove it? The pro-government Turkish press reported last month that the leader of the hit team in the consulate made four calls to Riyadh during the day of the murder. The calls reportedly were to Bader al-Asakar, the crown princes chief of staff. If these calls happened, did Turkish authorities monitor them? Do they have tapes? Is this a smoking gun? Erdogan knows. He probably has other evidence, including forensics that are damning and revealing. The Turkish press is saying that it will soon publish more details about how the body was disposed of. Erdogan seems to be in no hurry to get the truth out; he is enjoying watching the Saudis squirm. The Saudis also know the truth. Their flimsy cover story about a rogue operation simply is not credible. It is undermined by the very nature of the crown princes track record for reckless micromanagement. The Saudis are in damage control. The king last week embarked on his first-ever tour of the kingdom to rally support behind the monarchy and his son. He began in Qassim province, the heartland of Wahhabi conservatives known as the Quran belt. He issued pardons for prisoners and payments to some of them as compensation. New projects were opened across the province worth $4 billion. The Saudis also announced that public sector workers, including the military, will get bonuses in January. Salman extended extensive bonuses to public sector workers when he ascended to the throne in 2015 but has cut back on them since to cut government expenses in line with his sons Saudi Vision 2030 program. The 2030 plan called for future bonuses to be tied to performance in an attempt to get away from handouts. But last week the palace said the bonuses would be distributed in the old way, untied to performance. The kings generosity is clearly designed to ensure that the kingdom is still behind its leadership. King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saudi did the same thing when the Arab Spring began in 2011, funding a massive spending bribe to keep the contagion of the Arab Spring from spreading to the kingdom. The choice of Qassim suggests that there may be special concerns about the conservative base of the monarchy. The Saudis have been confident that the US administration is still in the crown princes pocket due to his close ties to Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law. The president still defends the Saudis but his administration has pushed for the kingdom to end the war in Yemen, the signature foreign policy initiative of the crown prince. The war is a catastrophe for the people of Yemen. It benefits Iran, which spends a pittance on the Houthis, while Saudi Arabia spends a fortune backing a collection of warring parties. Under intense pressure from Congress, the Pentagon last week halted air-to-air refueling for Saudi and coalition airstrikes. Its a mostly symbolic move but it is the first tangible American break from the war in two administrations. On Nov. 11, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo phoned the crown prince and called for a cessation of hostilities. Congress is likely to press for more action to bring Khashoggis case to closure and the end of the Saudi war in Yemen. The Israelis are urging its supporters not to go after the crown prince, a stance that does not help him in Qassim. Its a fluid game in which the revelation of potentially incriminating new evidence will play the crucial role. A century ago the Saudis played a modest role in ousting the Ottoman Empire from the Arab world. Its very ironic that a hundred years later a Turkish president who openly admires the Ottomans may have the destiny of a Saudi prince in his hands. ISTANBUL Turkey has shared an audio recording of the final moments of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggis life with its Western allies, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, as he continues to pile pressure on Riyadh to come clean about its suspected role in the killing at its Istanbul consulate. Khashoggi, a columnist with the Washington Post who wrote critically about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, vanished after entering the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2. Initially, the kingdom denied it knew of his whereabouts, but repeatedly changed its story as mounting evidence emerged and has since acknowledged he was killed at its mission in a premediated attack. Saudi Arabias pivots were largely forced by Erdogans public pursuit of the case. Outraged by a brazen attack carried out in Turkey, he has refused to turn a blind eye and has argued that his government has an international responsibility to shed light on the murder. Erdogan over the weekend confirmed for the first time the rumors that Turkish authorities possessed a recording of Khashoggis death and said it had been shared with officials from the United States, Saudi Arabia, France, Britain and Germany. It was not clear how Turkey obtained the audio. Erdogan also said the killers were definitely among the 18 people that Saudi officials have detained in connection with the case, including a 15-man hit squad Turkey said traveled to Istanbul just before Khashoggis death. The Saudi government can expose who the murderer or murderers are by making these 15 people talk, Erdogan told reporters before departing for France to attend ceremonies for the centennial of Armistice Day. In Paris, Erdogan met US President Donald Trump over dinner on Saturday and the two men reportedly discussed Khashoggis killing. In a separate meeting, Trump agreed with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that Saudi Arabia must offer clarity on Khashoggis death, though they said the matter should not be allowed to destabilize the region. Canada said on Monday its intelligence officers have heard the recordings. However, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian appeared to dispute Erdogans claim he had shared the tape with the Elysee, telling France 2 his government does not have the recording. Asked if he meant Erdogan was lying, Le Drian said, It means that he has a political game to play in these circumstances. Frustrated by what it says is a lack of cooperation from Saudi Arabia in the investigation, Turkey has leaked to the media a steady stream of grisly details from Khashoggis killing to pressure senior officials in the kingdom possibly even the crown prince himself to accept culpability. Erdogan has said he knows the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government. I'm suffocating Take this bag off my head, I'm claustrophobic, were Khashoggis final words before he was asphyxiated with a plastic bag, a senior editor at a newspaper close to the Turkish government told Al Jazeera. A Turkish official did not immediately confirm the report. The murder took about seven minutes and the men who killed him then took 15 minutes to dismember Khashoggis body, Daily Sabah editor Nazif Karaman told the Qatar-based channel. Such shocking revelations have whipped up international fury against Saudi Arabia, but few governments have taken concrete measures to punish the kingdom. The United States, Riyadhs main backer, appears reluctant to sanction its close ally on whom it relies to buy its weapons, supply the world with oil and for help in curbing arch foe Irans influence. Trump said he would form a stronger opinion on Khashoggis killing this week. In a sign of Saudis weight in global oil markets, crude prices rose sharply on Monday after the kingdom said it would supply a half-million fewer barrels next month because of what it sees as an excess of supply. This came despite a Saudi pledge to Trump to increase oil production and offset a decline in Iranian exports due to US sanctions. Relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia were tense well before Khashoggis murder, with Erdogan and Prince Mohammad at odds over policies in Iran, Syria and Qatar. Saudi Arabia also resents Turkeys support for Muslim Brotherhood figures from various Arab nations, many of whom have found refuge in Istanbul. Khashoggi was a former government adviser and newspaper editor who had fled Saudi Arabia after the crown prince took power last year and launched a crackdown on his opponents. The columnist had visited the Saudi Consulate to obtain paperwork in order to marry his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, who waited outside the facility for hours for him to emerge. Khashoggi was just shy of his 60th birthday. Cengiz, 38, wept openly at a memorial for Khashoggi on Sunday, when a few hundred people gathered to remember him and demand justice, according to news reports. Also on Sunday, protesters met outside the Saudi Consulate to condemn the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has led a coalition fighting Houthi rebels since 2015. The fallout over Khashoggis death has focused attention on Saudis role in the war in which a many as 80,000 people have been killed and a humanitarian crisis threatens to unleash a catastrophic famine. Tensions have risen in northern Syria amid threats by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to intervene in areas east of the Euphrates River and Turkish artillery fire on Oct. 26 against Tell Abyad, Kobani and Zor Mughar. The Turkish attacks, which Ankara claims killed 16 fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), came the day after Erdogan held a summit in Istanbul with the leaders of Germany, France and Russia. We will eradicate the terror structure east of the Euphrates, Erdogan asserted, referring to Syrian Kurdish groups that Turkey considers PKK affiliates. We have completed our preparations and plans. Soon we will crush the terror outfit. The timing of Turkish artillery fire gave rise to speculation about tacit approval from the United States. A Pentagon spokesman said, We are aware of Turkish statements about a planned offensive into northeast Syria and have been in touch with Turkey and the [Syrian Democratic Forces] to de-escalate the situation. He further called on all parties to focus on defeating the Islamic State. The statement followed a telephone conversation between Erdogan and US President Donald Trump on the subject. The Turkish attack also coincided with the beginning of joint US-Turkish patrols in Manbij. Yet, early November's US patrols in Jazira canton, in northeastern Syria, with the People's Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the SDF, came as a shock to those anticipating a ground operation. Thus the United States persisted with its seemingly conflicting policy of conducting patrols with Turkish troops in Manbij west of the Euphrates while cooperating with the PKK-affiliated YPG to the east. Washington has even offered a $12 million bounty for PKK leaders Murat Karayilan, Cemil Bayik and Duran Kalkan, but nonetheless continues to cooperate with the YPG. Turkey views the bounty as an attempt to appease Ankaras concerns about US relations with the YPG. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar told journalists Nov. 7, We expect the same attitude toward the YPG, which is no different from the PKK. Although the bounty might have put the brakes on Turkeys operation plans against Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ain, the reality remains that Ankara wants to expand its operations east of the Euphrates against Kurdish enclaves in northern Syria. According to Cevdet Yilmaz, vice chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey will intervene when it decides the time is right. Any possible operation is expected to begin with Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ain and stretch all the way east to the banks of the Tigris. According to this plan, if successful, the 566-mile border between Turkey and Syria will be controlled by the Turkish army, including Qamishli and excluding only Tell Rifaat on the Kilis-Aleppo Road, where potential joint action with Russia could terminate the YPG presence. The main reason Turkey is prioritizing Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ain is that in these ethnically mixed regions, the Kurds do not necessarily constitute the majority. In July 2012, while the Kurds were imposing control over the area, Turkeys proxy militias from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) had crossed from Turkey into Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ain. While the YPG repulsed the forces entering Ras al-Ain, IS seized Tell Abyad, over which Turkey seemed unconcerned. In 2015, however, when the YPG, along with its Arab partners under the SDF umbrella, began retaking Tell Abyad, Ankara protested the offensive, charging ethnic cleansing of the local population. The pro-government Turkish media insisted that Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ain were populated primarily by Arabs and Turkmens. Ever since the Turkish army and its allied militias took control of Afrin in March, Erdogan has been working on a plan to do the same east of the Euphrates. The primary deterrent has been the United States flying its flag along the border region, as it did previously, preventing a Turkish attack against Manbij. Despite Washingtons efforts to balance between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds, Ankara will not leave the YPG to hold territory along the Euphrates and in the border areas. In addition to deploying artillery fire and drone operations, Ankara is also likely to mobilize its allied opposition forces. On Nov. 3, the Syrian Human Rights Observatory reported that Turkey had dispatched some 1,200 FSA rebels from the outskirts of Aleppo to the border area. Turkey will likely try to increase the pressure east of the Euphrates to squeeze more concessions from Washington on Manbij. Right now, Turkeys main goal is to replace the Manbij Military Council, which Turkey sees as an affiliate of the YPG, with members of the allied FSA factions it backs. Such a move would require Washingtons acquiescence. Future Turkish operations east of the Euphrates depend very much on the United States giving up on its partnership with the YPG. Washington will not, however, sever ties and cooperation with the YPG before reaching its goals of curbing Iranian influence in Syria and eliminating IS. Thus far, the United States has not found Turkeys partnership proposals sufficiently convincing to sideline the SDF, though there are signs that Turkey will be allowed to take full control of Manbij now that it has released American pastor Andrew Brunson after detaining him for two years. Increasing cooperation between the United States and Turkey on Syria could ring alarm bells and trigger counter moves by Moscow, as it could change the balance of power in the Syrian equation. Ultimately Turkey must preserve its role in the Astana partnership to maintain its military presence in northern Syria. Like many young people from small towns, Ryan Turberville wanted to see the world. His best avenue to do so was the military. After graduating from Cherokee High School in 1995, Turberville enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1997. He was stationed in Texas, Germany and Korea before returning to Fort Benning, Georgia, in 2003. But his feet were not planted in Georgia for long. "When I got to Fort Benning, I had spent a lot of time out of the country in Korea and Germany. Now, I got the news that I had one week to prepare to ship out to Iraq. That depressed me. I was going to war," Turberville said. Turberville, a fuel truck driver with the 269 Armor Division, was the first group into Iraq, pushing for Baghdad. His work was to keep the Abrams tanks moving. While waiting for the orders to move into Iraq from Kuwait, Turberville was transferred to a unit up front. "I knew it was going to be bad," he said. "The enemy wanted to target us. They couldnt do much to the tanks, but they could target the fuel trucks and stop the resources." As the unit approached Baghdad, it stopped on the main road to prepare to refuel and rearm the tanks. The enemy ambushed, blowing up Turbervilles truck and wounding his leg. He and the other wounded soldiers were placed into tanks and driven to the M.A.S.H. unit set up in the Saddam Hussein hospital. Turberville remembers the blood on the floors of the tank and the solider passing en route for medical attention. "The bleeding stuck with me. His blood was all over the vehicle," Turberville said. "They had already cut my pant leg to look at my injury and I just kept asking if he was going to be OK. I remember them telling me, No, he has left us. It has always stuck that we had to stop and put his body in a different vehicle because the M.A.S.H. unit would not take the dead." Turberville was treated and released back to duty for the remaining three months of his tour. But, after returning to duty in Kuwait, a simple hop out of the Humvee left Turberville in severe pain. "My leg just buckled. I pulled up my pant leg and my leg was black," he said. He later found out a bullet from the Baghdad ambush was left in his leg. It is an injury that reminds this Purple Heart recipient of what it took to survive war. "I realized not long after crossing Iraqs border that you must fight for survival. The enemy was fighting," Turberville said. "You become numb. Mortar shells are going off everywhere and you figure, oh well, that one didnt hit us." He credits the reunion with his best buddy, Jerry Holloway, as the motivation he needed to return to the dangers of driving a fuel truck. My best buddy and I were separated when we went into Iraq because we were both experienced. When I returned after the ambush, we were put back together, Turberville said. That made it a lot easier somehow. Sharpen your pencils---and get your erasers ready, too. Big changes in middle and high school math are in store for Alabama students. A new math course of study, where the controversial Common Core State Standards reside alongside Alabama-specific ones, was posted online on Nov. 1 for the public to comment on through Nov. 30. Dive in, but dont expect an easy read. So could this mean Common Core is on the way out of Alabama classrooms? Probably not. Alabama State Superintendent Eric Mackey ran through the proposed changes---some of which alter long-time school practices---at Thursdays state board of education work session in Montgomery. Alabama public school students have struggled to achieve the same success as other states in math, landing at or near the bottom on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also called the Nations Report Card. The proposed changes could lead to improved results, Mackey said. The math course of study committee, appointed in February, looked at the kind of math needed in different careers and academic fields and worked backward, Mackey said. The biggest changes, Mackey said, are in the middle grades. These changes are being proposed to get students on a track to take higher level math courses in high school, he said. A new accelerated pathway will be created for seventh and eighth graders who want to get to those higher levels, he said. According to Mackey, students on the accelerated pathway will take three years of math study in two years in middle school, meaning theyll learn seventh and eighth grade math standards plus the standards for Algebra I. The committee also proposes to eliminate the two-year Algebra I course known as Algebra A and Algebra B, taken in the ninth and tenth grade, respectively. That course offering, in place since 1995, was for students who struggle with math, he said. Students who need extra help in algebra can take a math lab in the same year they take that first algebra course, Mackey said, essentially taking two periods of algebra within the same year. Under the proposal, that first algebra course, for students not on the accelerated middle school pathway, will be renamed Intermediate Algebra with Probability and will be taken in tenth grade. That means geometry will be taken in the ninth grade, instead of the tenth grade as it has been for many years. One of the troubles that teachers have bemoaned is that we teach Algebra I [in the ninth grade], then we interrupt it for a year with geometry [in the tenth grade] and then we come back and teach Algebra II, Mackey said. Teachers want to flip geometry to ninth grade, he said, because They did not want to interrupt the algebra sequence for those students that are not the math high-fliers. Students on the accelerated pathway will take geometry in the ninth grade, too, but will skip tenth-grade algebra and move straight to Algebra II, renamed Advanced Algebra. That opens the door for those higher math courses in 11th and 12th grade, he said, like calculus, statistics and finite mathematics along with the Advanced Placement versions of those courses. Two new high school math courses, to be taken after a student completes Advanced Algebra, are being added: Applied Finite Mathematics and Algebraic Modeling. Both were created to better prepare students in certain academic and career fields. Algebraic modeling is basically applying algebra in the everyday world, Mackey said. According to Southern State Community College, in finite mathematics, students learn analysis techniques that are used in the working world. But, Mackey said, opening those higher pathways could exacerbate math teacher shortages at the state and national level. Weve got more students who want to take higher maths, he said, but we cant find the teachers to teach them. Though a few changes were made to standards in the elementary grades, outside of sequence flipping and renaming and adding of courses at the middle and high school courses, the actual standards will remain intact, which probably comes as a disappointment to those who opposed Alabamas adoption of the Common Core State Standards in math and English in 2010. Alabama was one of 45 states that adopted the standards in math and English. Though the development of a common set of academic standards was begun by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, some accused former Education Secretary Arne Duncan of co-opting the coalition by awarding extra points for the adoption of the standards as part of the national Race to the Top grant program in 2009. Alabama did not win any grant money under the program. Alabamas new math course of study wasnt implemented until 2012, and soon after, states across the country began backing out of the coalition and revising standards. Course of study revisions are typically conducted every six to seven years. The Alabama Board of Education passed a resolution officially backing out in 2013, reaffirming the renamed Alabama College and Career Ready Standards and has tweaked the standards multiple times since then. Some state boards of education ordered new standards be developed, but found there were only so many ways to rearrange what students need to learn in math. In November 2017, Achieve, a national non-profit organization that pushes for high academic standards, reviewed standards in the 24 states, including Alabama, that had backtracked on their commitment to the Common Core State Standards. Reviewers found Alabamas standards in math and in English, though revised, were strong standards. The only weakness in Alabamas standards, reviewers said, was the absence of statistics in any course other than a fourth-year math course. The proposed course of study remedies that by including statistics in the ninth grade Geometry with Statistics course. Mackey said the math course of study committee will review public feedback in December and create a final proposal for the board to adopt in March. Mackey said he expects board members to have an extended conversation at Januarys work session and has invited the two newly-elected state board of education members, District 2s Tracie West and District 8s Wayne Reynolds, to attend the January discussion even though they wont officially take office until after Januarys board meeting and work session. Textbook recommendations will be studied and recommended during the 2019-2020 school year, and the new math standards will be fully implemented in the 2020-2021 school year. A proposed transition is included in the review to help teachers and students determine how to move into the new pathways. The health and physical education courses of study are also posted online for public comment and are available until Nov. 30. Mackey asked board members to encourage anyone with feedback to go through the online portal so the committee could capture all of the comments for consideration. Nikolas Cruz, the 20-year-old who confessed to killing 17 people at a Florida high school in February, registered to vote from jail while awaiting trial. The Miami Herald reported Cruz registered to vote as a Republican on July 25. He faces 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in connection to the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentines Day. Federal law allows defendants to vote as long as they have not been convicted. Cruz is currently being held in Broward County Jail, the address listed on his voter registration. Its unclear if he actually voted in the election. A spokeswoman for Broward County Sheriffs Office said it was illegal to take away the voting rights of a person awaiting trial. (The sheriffs office) serves as a mail courier between the inmates and the Supervisor of Elections office, spokesperson Veda Coleman-Wright said. "The process is controlled by the Supervisor of Elections office. It doesnt have anything to do with the sheriff. Cruzs registration drew the ire of Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow, was killed in the shooting. Pollack has been critical of Sheriff Scott Israel, a Democrat, for his handling of the Parkland shooting and claims he allowed in-jail voter registration drives. Florida voters recently approved an amendment that would restore voting rights for convicted felons as long as they have completed their sentences. People convicted of murder or felony sex offenses are excluded from having their rights restored, however. The change will benefit about a million people in the state. Veteran's Day is officially on Nov. 11. However, since that day fell on a Sunday, the federal holiday to honor all those who have served in the U.S. military is marked on Nov. 12 this year. The Nov. 11 date is significant - major combat of World War I ended on Nov. 11, 1918. Armistice Day, a time to honor those who served in World War I, was established in 1919. After World War II, a veteran from Birmingham named Raymond Weeks had the idea to expand Armistice Day to include all those who had served in the armed forces. In 1947 he led a delegation to Washington, D.C. to urge then-Army Chief of Staff General Dwight Eisenhower to create a national holiday that honored all veterans. In 1954, President Eisenhower signed legislation establishing Nov. 11 as Veterans Day. The first national holiday to celebrate Veterans Day was held in 1947. Heres a look at whats open and whats closed on Monday, Nov. 12: Alabama state offices - closed Alabama ABC Stores - Open Federal offices - Closed Federal courts - Closed Financial markets - Open Banks - Schedules will vary, most are open U.S. Postal Service Closed, no mail delivery or counter service Schools - Most closed City of Birmingham offices - Closed Jefferson County offices - Closed City of Mobile offices - Closed Mobile County offices Closed UPS - Open, making deliveries FedEX - Open, making deliveries City of Huntsville offices - Closed Madison County offices Closed Madison City offices - Closed Most malls and retail stores are open for business: Authorities are on the scene of a fatal crash on Interstate 459 southbound in Irondale. The crash happened shortly after 9:30 a.m. Monday on I-459 south just past the Interstate 20 interchange. Irondale firefighters and police and Alabama State Troopers responded to the scene. Authorities said it appears the dark sedan was traveling southbound on I-459 when it left the roadway during heavy rain, struck the base of the interstate light pole and came to a stop in the ravine. A woman - who was a passenger - was pronounced dead on the scene. The driver was taken to UAB Hospital with unknown injuries. The Jefferson County Coroners Office is en route to the scene. The crash has not affected traffic. No additional information was immediately available. A man critically wounded in a shootout on Interstate 59/20 in eastern Birmingham was formally pronounced dead early Sunday. The Birmingham Police Department identified the victim as Edward Tyurri Matthews. He was 29. Birmingham police and fire medics responded about 3:30 p.m. to the Shell service station on Oporto-Madrid Boulevard and Fifth Avenue North. Once on the scene, they found Matthews - a passenger in an SUV - suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to UAB hospital where he was later pronounced dead. Police said it appeared it started with shots fired between two vehicles on Interstate 59/20. The SUV then exited the interstate and stopped at the Shell for help. Sgt. Johnny Williams on Sunday said investigators learned the passengers of the SUV were involved in an altercation with another vehicle a gray sedan on I-59 northbound just before Matthews was shot and the gray vehicle wrecked. Williams said the suspects from the gray vehicle fled the scene prior to the officers arrival. One witness said when he pulled up on the wreck, bystanders had already pulled two women from the crashed vehicle. He pulled a man suffering from a head injury from the car. Another man, he said, fled the crash scene. One of the women told him the dark SUV had pulled up alongside them and shots were fired. Williams said detectives have not yet determined a motive for the shootout. No arrests have been announced. Matthews is the 95th homicide so far in 2018. Of those, six have been ruled justifiable and therefore the Birmingham Police Department will not include those in its year-end tally. There have been 140 homicides in all of Jefferson County, including the 95 in Birmingham. Anyone with information on Saturdays shooting is asked to call Birmingham homicide detectives at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777. The National Weather Service in Mobile is on the lookout for severe weather today across south Alabama and northwest Florida. The Storm Prediction Center has expanded and extended a tornado watch for the area. It now covers much of southern Alabama and will be in effect until 7 p.m. There is also a slight risk of severe storms across some of the same area today: The areas in yellow could see scattered severe storms today. There is the potential for isolated severe storms in the areas in dark green. (SPC) A slight risk means scattered severe storms will be possible. Rain, some of it heavy, and storms continued to move across much of Alabama on Monday. However, only south Alabama will run the risk of severe weather. The Alabama counties in the tornado watch are: Covington, Escambia, Baldwin, Mobile, Coffee, Dale, Geneva, Henry and Houston. The weather service in Mobile said widespread rain and storms will be possible today along a warm front near the coast -- and also ahead of a cold front moving in from the west. Areas south of a line from Wiggins, Miss., to Andalusia will have the best chance of seeing strong storms. The rain will also add up. The weather service said 2-4 inches will be possible especially along and south of a line from Mobile to Andalusia. Some spots could get up to 5 inches. A flash food watch remains in effect for Conecuh, Escambia, Covington, Mobile and Baldwin counties through Tuesday afternoon. US fighter jet crashes into Philippine waters posted November 12, 2018 at 09:58 pm by AFP November 12, 2018 at 09:58 pm FIGHTER JET CRASH. Two crewmen survive the crash on Monday when their US Navy fighter jet crashed in Philippine waters while on routine operations, the crewmen safely recovered by the USS Ronald Reagan search and rescue aircraft, according to authorities. A US Navy fighter jet crashed in Philippine waters while on routine naval operations Monday.A US Navy dispatch said two crewmen of the Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5 F/-18 survived the crash after ejecting from the aircraft, which had mechanical problems. US Navy authorities said the crew was immediately and safely recovered by the USS Ronald Reagan search and rescue aircraft. The rescued pilots were taken to the ship for evaluation by navy medical personnel and were declared in good condition. US Navy authorities said the CVW 55 was embarked onboard the USS Ronald Reagan, which was part of the US 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.The crash is under investigation. It was the second incident involving a US aircraft after a C2A Greyhound Transport Plane plummeted into the Philippine Sea in November last year. The C2-A Greyhound was carrying 11 crew and passengers when it crashed. Eight of its occupants were rescued while three others went missing. COMMENT DISCLAIMER: Reader comments posted on this Web site are not in any way endorsed by Manila Standard. Comments are views by manilastandard.net readers who exercise their right to free expression and they do not necessarily represent or reflect the position or viewpoint of manilastandard.net. While reserving this publications right to delete comments that are deemed offensive, indecent or inconsistent with Manila Standard editorial standards, Manila Standard may not be held liable for any false information posted by readers in this comments section. For years, environmental groups Mobile Baykeeper and the Southern Environmental Law Center have been urging Alabama Power to dig up and relocate the coal ash sitting in an unlined, 597-acre pond on the banks of the Mobile River. Theyve argued that harmful materials like arsenic, selenium, lead and other heavy metals are entering the river and the groundwater at the site, not to mention the possibility of a dam breach that could flood the Mobile-Tensaw Delta with a slow-moving wave of coal ash slurry, like the incident that occurred Kingston, Tennessee in 2008. Now those environmental groups say theyve found documents showing that, for a time, Alabama Power was planning to do exactly what theyve been asking: to dig out the 21 million cubic yards of coal ash from the pond at the James M. Barry Electric Generating Plant north of Mobile and relocate the material to an upland, lined landfill. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the groups discovered an application filed by Alabama Power for permits to improve a bridge leading to the ash pond. The application to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers specifically states that the company needed to improve the bridge to move the coal ash to a lined landfill. The existing coal ash pond that has been used in the past to dispose ash will be cleaned-out and closed following strict guidelines promulgated by USEPA, the document states. Part of the closure activities will require that ash material be removed and hauled away to a permitted solid landfill. Casi Callaway of Mobile Baykeeper said the application shows that Alabama Power was at one point planning to do the right thing, as she put it, and move the ash to a lined landfill. The letter from Alabama Power to the Corps of Engineers clearly shows that Alabama Power has the ability and even had plans to remove coal ash from a leaking pit on the side of the Mobile River and do the right thing to protect our communities, environment and economy, Callaway said in a prepared statement. Alabama Powers change of plans is not in keeping with their mission and commitment to the community. Alabama Power filed the application for the bridge work on March 24, 2016 in response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys new rules for coal ash disposal, which were finalized in 2015. In the documents obtained by the SELC, Alabama Power stated it would need to excavate the pond at Plant Barry to achieve compliance with the 2015 rules. A few months later, in November 2016, Alabama Power announced that instead of moving the coal ash to a lined landfill, it would take the much less expensive option of covering the coal ash in place. Alabama Power says both closure options removal and cover in place -- are permitted in the 2015 EPA rules, and that the company chose the best course for closure was to leave the ash in place. We conducted evaluations at all our ash ponds following the approval of the new rules and determined the best course to permanently close all our ponds, Alabama Power spokesman Michael Sznajderman said. The permanent closure process weve chosen goes beyond close-in-place and is recognized by EPA as safe and effective. Alabama Power did not respond to repeated questions about whether the company changed its mind about excavating the ash pond, or what factors were considered in making the decision to cover in place rather than remove the coal ash. The company says it is making significant progress to safely and permanently close all its ash facilities in the most cost-effective manner for our customers. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management still has to approve the companys plans to close the ash pond, which have not yet been formally submitted to the department. The company is also required to submit groundwater testing results to ADEM and has already been fined for groundwater contamination detected at and around the Barry ash pond. EPA coal ash rules For decades, most coal-fired power plants used water to flush the ash from their generating units into unlined, riverside ponds for indefinite storage. The large ash particles would settle to the bottom of the ponds and the water from the top would be discharged into a river or other large body of water, often carrying contaminants from the ash into the water. Groundwater testing has shown that potentially harmful substances from the ash can also reach aquifers from the unlined ponds. The 2015 rules didnt explicitly prohibit using coal ash ponds, but set new rules regarding groundwater contamination and monitoring, and for the first time limited the amount of lead, mercury, arsenic or other contaminants that power plants could discharge into rivers from the ash ponds. Those new limits led Alabama Power and most other utilities to conclude that wet ash ponds would not be compatible with the new rules. Utilities then began transitioning to dry coal ash handling and disposal and had to decide how to retire their existing ash ponds. Plant Barry is currently transitioning to dry coal ash storage and disposal, instead of flushing the material into the pond. Once that transition is complete, Alabama Power will dewater the pond, and consolidate the ash material into a smaller footprint and cover it with a custom-made liner to prevent rain from entering the ash and carrying contaminants with it into the groundwater. Once the pond is closed, Sznajderman said the ash storage area will be 200 acres smaller than it is now, and that the coal ash will be up to 750 yards from the banks of the river. He said the company is also building a redundant dike system as increased flood protection. Sznajderman said the improvements to the bridge currently a narrow structure stretching across a man-made canal that takes the cooling water from the plant out into the river would be necessary no matter which method the company uses to close the ash pond. The Army Corps determined that a permit was not necessary to improve the existing bridge, but Alabama Power has elected to build a new one instead. A permit application to build a new bridge at the site is under review. Americas Amazon From the Mobile River, the coal ash pond at Plant Barry doesnt look that much different from the surrounding landscape. Flashes of bright green from the grass-covered hill that holds back thousands of tons of coal ash peek out through a tangle of cypress trees and the same kind of wetland vegetation you see on the undeveloped stretches of the river. The red and white painted smokestacks from the plant and the barges filled with coal to keep the plant running are much more obvious to passing watercraft. But from the air, the picture becomes a little clearer. The massive, 597-acre pond of slurry sits nestled in the crook of the river, which isnt exactly one river, but the westernmost edge of a tangle of rivers, bayous, wetlands, lakes and swamps that make up the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. The Delta is largely undeveloped and uninhabited because its not really a convenient place to build a Panera Bread. Its one of the few places anymore where a person can get good and truly lost. A person can also hunt gators there, or catch your dinner on a line, or see some breathtaking meadows, stunning lotus blossoms and Delta lilies. The area has been dubbed Americas Amazon because of the unparalleled mix of wildlife found there. The environmental groups around the coal ash stored in this ecologically important area: a massive spill event, and the continued release of potentially harmful substances like arsenic, lead or other heavy metals into the groundwater. First, that a major hurricane or simple heavy rain event could cause a breach in the earthen dam holding back 21 million cubic yards of coal ash. Alabama Power says it maintains a rigorous dam inspection program and says that in several decades of storing coal ash in these lagoons, the company has never had a dam breach. Breaches or ash spills have happened at other utilities, though. In December 2008, a dam at the Tennessee Valley Authoritys Kingston plant in Tennessee ruptured, spilling 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash into the Emory and Clinch Rivers. Houses were inundated by a slow-moving wave of coal ash slurry, and cleanup costs topped $1 billion. Much of the coal ash that was recovered was shipped to a landfill in Perry County, Ala. More than 30 cleanup workers have died and 250 more have reported illnesses they believe were caused by cleaning up the spilled coal ash without proper safety equipment or training. In 2014, a pipe broke at a Duke Energy plant on the Dan River in North Carolina, sending an estimated 39,000 tons of ash into the water. According to the EPA response site, ash or grey-colored water reached a reservoir 80 miles downstream. The Baykeepers believe though that if a major event like the one at Kingston were to occur, the results would be a catastrophe of greater magnitude that the BP oil spill. The ash pond at Barry holds about four times the volume that was released in the Kingston incident, and if ash from Barry were to flow 80 miles downstream, that would put it well into Mobile Bay. Even if the ash didnt reach the city of Mobile, trying to clean up a spill in the web and tangles and swamps of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta would be an exercise in futility, said Cade Kistler, Mobile Baykeepers program director. The amount of money and time you would spend trying to clean this up only to have a vast amount of coal ash still in Americas Amazon, this unbelievable resource we have, and flowing out toward Mobile Bay You would never be able to clean that up, Kistler said. Sznajderman noted that an EPA dam inspection program implemented after Kingston rated all of Alabama Powers ash ponds as satisfactory, the highest possible rating. The groups second concern, groundwater contamination, has already been occurring in Alabama. Alabama Power was fined $1.25 million earlier this year after groundwater testing showed elevated levels of arsenic, lead, selenium and beryllium near the companys coal ash ponds, including the one at Plant Barry. The groundwater testing and public release of the testing data were mandated by the 2015 EPA rules. Alabama Power says it has a plan to address groundwater contamination from the ash ponds, but Callaway wonders how that can work if the ash is left in an unlined pond. We need Alabama Power to be a leader on this issue and do the right thing, Callaway said. The only safe option is to dig up the coal ash and move it away from the river to a lined, upland landfill. Alabama Power was prepared to do the right thing in 2016, why not now? Excavations in other states While both Alabama Power and the TVA in north Alabama plan to cover their ash ponds in place, utilities in other states are excavating their coal ash ponds, either voluntarily or to comply with legal requirements. Georgia Power -- which like Alabama Power is a subsidiary of the Southern Company -- announced plans to voluntarily excavate 19 of its 29 coal ash ponds. In North Carolina, a state law was passed forcing utilities to excavate several, but not all, coal ash ponds. Other ash ponds in the Tar Heel state are being excavated to comply with a court order after they were shown to be polluting groundwater. In South Carolina, all utilities have now agreed to excavate their coal ash to lined landfills. The groups say that leaving the material indefinitely alongside a major river in a coastal area means eventually, something will very likely go wrong. Kistler said during patrols of the site, he has seen evidence of seeps material from the ash pond trickling into the river and of ash material itself floating on the river. In addition, the group has taken aerial photographs showing river waters flooding the thin strips of marshland surrounding the ash pond after even relatively average rain events. They worry that a slow-moving hurricane like Harvey, Florence or Matthew in this location could easily cause the river to overtop the dam, flooding the impoundment. If you leave this coal ash here, its a ticking time bomb, Kistler said. And its not acceptable to say, well the cost is too high to protect Alabamians. If Georgia can do it, if South Carolina can do it, I know Alabama Power can do it. Carol Gundlach is a policy analyst for Alabama Arise, a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of congregations, organizations and individuals promoting public policies to improve the lives of low-income Alabamians. Alabamians, like all Americans, take time on Veterans Day each year to honor those who have served our country and sacrificed to keep all of us free. But we should treat this holiday as more than a chance to say thank you. It also should be an occasion to reflect on our national obligation to provide veterans with the services and support they need to return to civilian life with dignity and security. The unfortunate reality is that many people who served in our military struggle with hunger after they return home. About 26,000 Alabama veterans, or 8 percent of all veterans in the state, use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help feed themselves and their families, according to a new study released Thursday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. Nationally, nearly 1.4 million veterans, representing 7 percent of all American veterans, receive assistance through SNAP, also known as food stamps. SNAP is an essential tool to help these veterans feed their families, just as it fights hunger for tens of millions of other Americans. But a U.S. House proposal threatens to take this vital food assistance away from as many as 2 million people, including tens of thousands in Alabama. The U.S. House and Senate have passed conflicting versions of the Farm Bill, the legislation that authorizes SNAP. The House version, for which six of Alabamas seven House members voted, would impose harmful new SNAP work requirements that would take food away from many hungry families while doing little or nothing to help them find or keep work. Fortunately, the bipartisan Senate bill with support from Sens. Doug Jones and Richard Shelby offers a better path. Unlike the House approach of creating punitive new barriers to SNAP, the Senate plan would strengthen core SNAP assistance. The Senate proposal also would make needed investments in employment and training services for seniors, homeless people, people with disabilities and other SNAP participants who face additional barriers to work. Now the House and Senate must reconcile the differences between the two Farm Bills. Congress faces a choice between helping and hurting hungry people, including the veterans who could be devastated by the House version. Veterans face many barriers as they re-enter the civilian labor force. Trying to find a civilian job while still in the military can be difficult, and veterans who come home with disabilities may face additional barriers to employment. SNAP is an especially critical lifeline for families including veterans with disabilities, which are more likely to struggle to put food on the table. Young male veterans have higher rates of unemployment than do similarly situated civilian workers. While the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has programs to help these veterans gain skills and find stable employment, the VA programs are not necessarily aligned with the rigid one-size-fits-all work requirements proposed in the House Farm Bill. Should the House plan become law, many veterans would have to choose between getting the job help offered by the VA and keeping SNAP food assistance. This Veterans Day, we should thank Alabama veterans for their service by supporting SNAP, a program that helps thousands of them put food on the table. We also should urge our members of Congress to pass a final Farm Bill with the Senates SNAP provisions. By protecting and strengthening SNAP, Congress can take an important step toward ensuring that no veteran goes hungry after serving our country. A journalist with indigenous roots reflects on the making of We Are Still Here: A Story from Native Alaska. I really want to do this story justice. It is a mantra I adhered to long before I became a journalist; my parents travelled great distances to build a life together and Ive always wanted to pull my weight in that happy ending. It is also the mantra I carried with me this summer as I left my home in Qatar for the 10,000km journey to Alaska, as I boarded the nine-seater plane at the tiny air taxi office in Anchorage and as we flew over a snowy mountain range and rolling tundra. I was returning to Iliamna, my mothers remote Alaskan village, which lies on the waters of the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. My mother is an Alaska Native a member of the Denaina ethnic-language group. My father is a Qatari. Every summer, my parents, sister and I would return to Iliamna to visit family and help with the salmon run assisting with catching, smoking, brining and canning the salmon that is so central to the communitys subsistence lifestyle. I was working on a film about the pressures facing this community a community I feel both a part of and removed from. Despite knowing many people there since childhood, I was worried that people wouldnt want to talk on camera. I knew I would feel apologetic and hurt if they didnt, despite trying to reason with myself. For me it wasnt about securing or losing an interview; it was about confirming or rejecting that I had a place in the story. Telling a personal story can be scary because you are admitting that you dont know everything about your own language, culture and family. You have to ask hard questions. Were you ignorant about something because you didnt care enough to learn it? Were you too embarrassed to ask? Sometimes its hard to tell the difference between apathy and shame; you are either motionless from lack of care or paralysed by too much of it. Despite months of planning and phone calls back and forth, it was only as we sat down for our first interview with an elder in his house on a small cliff overlooking Lake Iliamna that I truly believed the film was going to happen and that people would actually talk to us. The interview began as most would in the coming days: quietly. His wife fidgeted nervously outside the camera frame. I assumed a casual slouch on the sofa, more to calm my own nerves than his. He was a distant relative and our paths hadnt crossed before because we both lived outside the village. {articleGUID} Like most people in the community, he was a good storyteller and his cadence gave the world rhythm. He offered me another thread that tied me to this place and I marvelled. Then the door burst open a team of neighbours had come to mow his lawn our interview would have to resume another day. There were logistical challenges to filming in Iliamna; time works differently in a community where the sun sets at midnight and daily activities are dictated by the weather. It is hard to track down interviews somewhere where there are few roads and people can be anywhere from over the road to somewhere upriver. We were also visiting during the busiest time of the year when residents are balancing jobs with the labour-intensive process of catching and storing salmon for the year. During the summer, residents are balancing jobs with the labour-intensive process of catching and storing salmon for the year [Showkat Shafi/Al Jazeera] On a personal level, I was worried that I would get it wrong; that I would ask the wrong questions, at the wrong time or in the wrong way. I feel this way about any story I work on I think being self-critical is essential for any journalist but when you are of mixed heritage you feel indebted to a community for giving all of itself to you when you feel like you only ever give half of yourself to it. So when an opportunity like this one comes along, you want to do everything possible to get it right. Media has rarely served Native communities well I assume most TV crews that pass through the Iliamna Lake area shoot nature documentaries or focus on the controversial Pebble mining deposit nearby or are trying to track down the mythological Iliamna Lake Monster. So, I really wanted this story to be about the community and for the community. With this came the added pressure of history. Media has rarely served Native communities well, and this has fostered a distrust towards journalists. {articleGUID} This distrust wasnt overt in Iliamna I think that was partly because of my familys connection to the community but also because it serves as a regional hub and is in relatively close proximity a 50-minute flight to the city of Anchorage. There were some exceptions; one family friend yelled me and the rest of the crew out of his workshop before we could open our mouths. He later told me that there were no hard feelings but that TV crews always twisted words. I couldnt disagree. I suspect distrust is even greater in those indigenous communities that subsist off of marine mammals. They were deeply impacted by animal welfare campaigns attacking whaling and seal hunting in the 1970s and the cultural and economic devastation of those campaigns from food shortages to sky-high suicide rates still run deep. I had previously reached out to a Native organisation in the Bering Strait region, which is located in northwest Alaska and largely made up of whaling and seal-hunting communities, and was met with defensive anger. The representative questioned my background, my company and my motives. After some discussion, she explained that they wanted to keep their way of life to themselves because people so often misunderstand it. It is hard to track down interviews somewhere where there are few roads and people can be anywhere from over the road to somewhere upriver [Showkat Shafi/Al Jazeera] She was gracious, considering what she knew was at stake; Native people have long been misrepresented and penalised for a way of life that is portrayed as primaeval, cruel or embarrassing rather than as something deeply felt and timeless in its adaptability. {articleGUID} She reminded me of an incident last year in which a 16-year-old boy from Gambell, a small Siberian Yupik community located on St Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea, faced online hate including death threats after striking a whale to help feed his community. The hundreds of messages he received came after a prominent environmental activist shared an article about him in a disparaging social media post. I think the issue is a fundamental one. Journalists have rarely done justice to indigenous communities because the language of journalism has rarely done justice to indigenous peoples. Indigenous people know that their representation has failed before theyve even begun speaking, because the medium through which they are represented a hard, sharp language rooted in ideas rather than feeling has rarely granted them territory. The language that media uses today does not heed silence and self-interpretation. It does not respect the power of conjured stories. It does not favour the collective over the individual. And this does not fit with indigenous perspectives. But we have much to learn from those perspectives. In my experience, Native culture does not flinch. It does not try to separate itself from its surroundings because that makes no sense when you rely on your surroundings to support your family and feel like yourself. It is rooted in an attitude that says this is the way it is, not this is what I need it to be. It has the ability to innovate out of necessity, not greed. It offers a different kind of normal and we as consumers, creators and polluters are in dire need of a new normal. Straddling two worlds This was my first film project, and collaborating with director Ciara Lacy and her team was exciting for me because suddenly we could speak with sound and images. In writing, tone can be a blind spot; how a person says or feels something isnt always self-evident in a direct quote, and you often have to work at making it feel right by drawing out the silent spaces of a conversation. But with film, you can say nothing and a scene will speak for itself. It is so powerful. I found comfort and solidarity working with Ciara and composer Kayla Briet, who are also mixed-heritage indigenous women. Their work teaches me more about celebrating the roots I have, no matter how big or small, and owning them as part of my identity. In my experience, Native culture does not flinch It is rooted in an attitude that says this is the way it is, not this is what I need it to be [Showkat Shafi/Al Jazeera] I wonder if it is being of mixed heritage that makes me feel more connected to my Alaskan community, because the perspectives of indigenous people today are inevitably those of mixed heritages; after colonisation we were all straddling two worlds, all putting effort into learning our own cultures and languages and often feeling guilty about it. But I think this is where we find a lot of strength and where everyone can find strength. When we move between worlds, we are positioned to tell new stories. And when we tell new stories, we invent new ways of telling them. Finding a new language can be a difficult and unsupported task, but it means we can then approach stories with the nuance of our lived experiences. And out of that, we find new truth. READ: Customs, PDEA still at odds over shabu The National Bureau of Investigation has asked the Department of Justice to prosecute former Bureau of Customs Commissionerand several unidentified individuals for criminal and administrative offenses in connection with the 105 container vans that were illegally released from the Port of Manila in March by port operator Asian Terminals Inc. In a complaint filed with the DOJ, the NBI sought the indictment of Lapena and others for violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. The NBI also asked the DOJ to administratively charge Lapena with gross neglect of duty and grave misconduct. The manifest indifference of Lapena to the established rules and procedures has led to the release of the shipments, the NBI said, resulting in a loss of revenues for the government. The container vans carrying assorted ceramic tiles with an estimated value of P69 million were illegally withdrawn from the Port of Manila. Eighty-five container vans were recovered from the Homms Trading Corp. located at Block 2, Lot 3, Phase 5 Sterling Industrial Park, Libtong, Meycauayan, Bulacan in March. READ: Palace: Lapena no sacred cow Follow-up operations resulted in the recovery of the remaining container vans, also in Bulacan. The former BOC chief earlier said the container vans left the POM premises on March 17 even if it was not accompanied by the necessary documents such as a memorandum on the lifting of alert order approved by the Office of the Commissioner and an examination report. The NBI also recommended that the Office of the Solicitor General review the Contract for Cargo Handling and Related Services entered into by and between the Philippine Ports Authority and Asian Terminals Inc. The bureau noted that under the current setup, it is clear that, even if the ATI personnel are engaged in smuggling and illegal activities, the Philippine Ports Authority could not, motu propio, institute a case for violation of Tariff and Customs laws in case its personnel failed to exercise due diligence in the performance of their duties. The NBI said Lapena bypassed the bureaus computerized processing system known as E2M (electronic to mobile system), which was fully accessible at the time of the issuance of the manual alert orders. Lapena also deliberately violated the memorandum that he himself approved when he issued the memorandum interposing no objection to the release of the shipments to the consignee in the Port of Cebu, despite being the subject of the continuing alert and the absence of any documents to support its release.[It is] worth to note that flagrant disregard of the rules is considered a gross misconduct where the elements of corruption, clear intent to violate the law, or flagrant disregard of an established rule must be manifest, the NBI said adding that to additionally affix his signature despite the lack of supporting documents only shows a gross and inexcusable disregard of the consequences of his act as approving authority. Meanwhile, Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero has named two retired military generals as acting deputy commissioners of the graft-ridden agency in a bid to stop corruption. The two former generals, retired Brig. Gen. Raniel Ramiro, and retired Lt. Gen. Donato San Juan, were both classmates of Guerrero at the Philippine Military Academy. Guerrero denied militarizing the bureau with the appointment of the two former military generals, saying both are now considered civilians as they already retired from the military service and no longer connected with the Armed Forces of the Philippines. He said there will be no military takeover since Customs officials will still run the bureau. Ramiro will take the post as deputy commissioner for Intelligence vacated by another retired police general, Ricardo Quinto, a classmate of sacked BOC commissioner Lapena. San Juan, on the other hand, is new acting deputy commissioner for internal administration group, replacing Gladys Rosales, a top aide of Lapena. The new Customs chief said appointment of the two deputy commissioners is still subject to the approval of President Rodrigo Duterte. President Duterte had earlier said that Customs officials will be replaced, all of them, by military men. It will be a takeover of the Armed Forces, the President said, who was disappointed after shabu worth P11 billion slipped out of the bureau under the watch of Lapena, who has been promoted to head the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. READ: Ex-Customs man in drug mess may turn state witness In Iraqs Kurdish region, a new generation is coming of age which has seen only two parties in power KDP and PUK. Erbil, Iraq It has been more than a month since Iraqs Kurdish region held its parliamentary election, and a new Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) is yet to be announced. Currently, intense negotiations are taking place between the two main political players in the region the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) dispelling speculations that their decades-old power-sharing agreement had come to an end after the severe political fallout from last years independence referendum. But as the two parties are busy evening out their differences and haggling over ministerial posts, there does not seem to be much enthusiasm about the new KDP-PUK government, especially among the youth. Im 23 years old. Since I was a child, Ive only seen the PUK and the KDP in control of the region, says college student Adel Hassan. I never saw a good thing these parties did for the Kurdish people. I think there is no hope coming from those parties, he says, sitting with four friends from college in a cafe under Erbils millennia-old citadel. Hassan was born during the civil war between the PUK and the KDP which lasted three years and ended with the Washington agreement brokered by the Clinton administration and signed in 1998 by PUKs leader Jalal Talabani and his KDP counterpart, Masoud Barzani. Since then, the two parties have ruled the Kurdish region under a power-sharing scheme, as the international community, and particularly the US, have encouraged them to stay united in power. But many young people like Hassan are increasingly seeing this arrangement as part of the problem in Iraqs crisis-stricken Kurdish region, rather than the solution. There is a lot of corruption here because of the political parties, they are stealing the money. They are building big projects for their parties benefit and the people close to these parties are getting benefits, says 21-year-old Rajan Mohammed, sitting across from Hassan. They are not paying salaries, they are not providing services, they are stealing our oil. Parties here are based on families, on family relations this is one of the main reason for corruption. Unlike the older generations, young Iraqi Kurds, such as Hassan and Mohammed, did not witness the nationalist uprisings Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani led against the regime in Baghdad in the 1980s and 1990s, which have been their main source of their legitimacy. At the same time, many young people face growing socio-economic difficulties which a deepening political and economic crisis in the Kurdish region have brought about. According to Renad Mansour, a research fellow at the London-based policy institute Chatham House, the KDP and PUK are increasingly losing ground among the Kurdish youth. These youths, theyve only known one kind of leaders or make it simpler theyve only known a few families who have run the entire system, he says, referring to the two prominent families, which lead the KDP (the Barzanis) and the PUK (the Talabanis). Most of [them] remain disenfranchised and disillusioned from the political process, from Suleimaniyah to even Erbil and Dohuk. They cant find jobs, they are finding difficulty, [] they dont feel the KRG has done enough to respond to their needs. For Hassan, the prospect of being unemployed or underemployed is indeed causing much anxiety. He and some of his friends readily point the finger at the KDP and PUK as being responsible for this situation. I think will be seeking a good job for 20 years [after graduation]. Most of those who graduated in 2014 are still without a job today. Those who got the jobs are people supported by some politicians or by people in the government, says 20-year-old Aziz Mawlood, another of Hassans friends at the cafe. More than a quarter of the population in the Kurdish region is aged 18 to 34 and much of it is suffering from high unemployment and increasing disillusionment. A demographic survey released in July by the Kurdish Region Statistics Office shows that over 20 percent of youth aged 18-34 have left the work force because they have lost hope in finding a job. Of those who are still searching for a job aged 18-24, nearly 30 percent cannot find one. Im studying here, in the area which is under KDP control the yellow zone. In the college, anyone a professor, a doctor if hes not one of the KDP supporters, he cannot get any high position in the college. Even in the student committees, the members have to be KDP supporters, says Mawlood. Each of the two parties informally controls a geographic area in the Kurdish region: KDP the northwest, or the so-called yellow zone with de-facto capital Erbil (which is also the capital of the region); PUK the southeast, or the green zone, with de-facto capital Sulaimaniyah. Both parties also retain control over their own Peshmerga forces which man checkpoints between Erbil and Sulaimaniyah. This arrangement has allowed the KDP and PUK to extend their control over various parts of the public sphere through vast clientelistic networks, which some youth like Hassan, Mawloud and Mohammed, see as a major barrier to accessing economic opportunities. But among Hassans friends, there are also two who support the KDP. They both voted for the party in the September 30 elections one, who refused to give his name, said he did so because he proudly supports the party; the other 20-year-old Sarkawt Qader because he worried about disunity among Kurds and supported the idea of a one-party government. Hassan himself could not vote because he was born outside the borders of the Kurdish region, while Mohammed decided not cast a ballot because she was angry. Mawloud voted for one of the opposition parties. According to Hogr Shekha, Chairman of the Public Aid Organisation and an election observer, the KDP and the PUK have managed to engage part of the youth into the political structures and patronage networks, but their political pull among younger people is continuously dwindling. The electoral commission does not release statistics on youth participation in the elections, but in Shekhas estimate, turnout in the youngest age group was the lowest among all age groups in the September 30 vote. This years vote saw 58 percent of eligible voters turn out to polling stations the lowest overall turnout since the Kurdish region gained autonomy. Some observers like Shekha doubt the validity of the official number, claiming the turnout was below 50 percent. The number of young people rejecting the political process [in the Kurdish region] is increasing for a number of reasons: the shrinking freedoms, the lack of opportunities and the worsening economic situation, he says. In his opinion, this trend will continue, as the new Kurdish government is unlikely to be able to significantly improve the economic situation. For Mansour, disillusionment with the political process among the youth and other parts of the Iraqi Kurdish society could be dangerous for the KRG. If the patronage networks are no longer able to be sustained, if the Kurds become increasingly aggrieved because they dont have their daily needs [met], and if they realise they cant change things through democratic institutions, there is going to be some kind of conflict between the citizens and the elite, probably a protest movement to begin [with], he says. Iraqs Kurdish region has seen sporadic protests over the past few years across both KDP and PUK-dominated areas. In December last year, six protesters were killed and dozens wounded after an angry crowd stormed party headquarters and government buildings in Sulaimaniyah. Earlier this year, civil servants, teachers and doctors took to the streets of Erbil to protest salary cuts and payment delays; the police forces dispersed the crowd with tear gas, beating and arresting dozens. Eight years ago, when the economic situation was much better, the region also saw mass protests. In early 2011, the ripple effects of the Arab Spring inspired thousands to take to the streets, angry at the corruption of the KRG; demonstrations took place at Kurdish universities. However, the protest wave was short-lived and was effectively suppressed by a sever security crackdown. Both Mansour and Shekha agree that despite the simmering anger among the youth, a Kurdish spring is unlikely; a possible protest movement, in their opinion, would be organised and contained within the political opposition. Yet, the kind of despair among the youth that kindled the Arab uprisings in 2010-2011 is increasingly evident in the Kurdish regions growing exodus of young people. Hundreds of Iraqi Kurds have died each year since 2014 trying to migrate to Europe to seek a better life; the latest victim earlier this month was 19-year-old Danar Fatih Ahmed from the village of Chinara, near Sulaimaniyah. At the cafe under Erbils citadel, pessimism seemed to be the dominant sentiment. For me, I dont have any hope for the future, says Hassan. Hundreds fled Syrian war and arrived in Thailand on tourist visas, but are now desperately trying to avoid arrest. Bangkok Six years ago, several days after taking his high school exams, Ibrahim and his family fled Syria to Lebanon where they boarded a flight to Bangkok. Arriving in the Thai capital on tourist visas, they experienced freedom away from the horrors of war in Syria. But since their visas expired, they have been living as undocumented migrants. We thought of Thailand as a transit point, Ibrahim told Al Jazeera, and that we would stay one or two years. Yet after six years, our lives are stuck in limbo. In Thailand, Ibrahims family applied for resettlement in the United States only to wait for two years with no progress. They then requested resettlement in Canada, restarting the entire process. In Bangkok, it takes an average of three to four years to complete the resettlement process, leaving many refugees vulnerable and frustrated. Wed love to live here, its like the Middle East. People are friendly and will talk to you, unlike people in Europe who wont say hello, said Ibrahim. We no longer dream of peace, only of a passport. Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the Thai Immigration Act of 1979 views anyone overstaying their visa as an undocumented migrant, including asylum seekers and refugees. Refugees and asylum seekers are caught up in a police raid and transported to an immigration detention centre [Al Jazeera] The UNHCR told Al Jazeera that Thailand is home to 103,000 refugees with an estimated 6,000 urban refugees from countries including Pakistan, Somalia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, and Syria. Thailand was among the last countries to maintain a consulate in Damascus, making it an obtainable visa at a time when doors were shutting to those fleeing Syria. Mirvat came to Thailand in 2012 soon after graduating from Damascus University. Six years later, she remains in Bangkok where she has had four children but has not been able to pursue her career. The most difficult thing is that our kids cant attend school and have nothing to do, she told Al Jazeera. The greatest fear facing Bangkoks urban refugees is arrest and as a result, many stay inside their homes for long stretches of time. I can no longer go to the market and am scared to go to the hospital. We feel scared by everything, said Mivrat. Syrian-Palestinian refugees sell traditional food every Friday at the Islamic Center in Bangko [Panithan Kitsakul] Refugees fears have recently been heightened by a major police operation that began in October with the appointment of Surachet Hakparn, the new immigration bureau commissioner of the Royal Thai Police. Operation X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner aims to round up and detain undocumented migrants, with asylum seekers and refugees caught up in the clampdown. Police raids have led to hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers being held at immigration detention centres. Last month, the immigration bureau also revoked bail for undocumented migrants who could have previously been released on 50,000 baht ($1,500). An estimated 200 refugees from Syria were among those summoned back into detention. The recurrent myth that refugees are a security threat and a drain on society is simply not true. Palestinians and Syrians are incredibly productive and resourceful. Evan Jones, Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network Refugees previously granted bail are now subject to increased harassment and arrest, said migrants and rights groups. The immigration detention centre is not designed for long-term stay, but hundreds of detainees stay for more than one year, Puttanee Kangkun of Fortify Rights told Al Jazeera. Most are overcrowded with more than 300 detainees held in a cell designed for 70 inmates. In violation of childrens rights under international law, children are separated from parents and siblings while unaccompanied boys under the age of 12 are held alongside adult men. Officially, Thai authorities claim that some refugees have fake UNHCR cards and that the operation will check their documents, and re-release genuine asylum seekers on bail. However, local refugee rights groups told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity that they were sceptical, noting that the Thai government works closely with UNHCR and can easily check its database. Beside the UNHCR card, which has almost no meaning under domestic legal provisions, [refugees] have no other legal protection, said Puttanee Kangkun. We do not ask for money, only to be resettled The hostile environment has made a bad situation worse for refugees. Over the past year, Thai immigration police have targeted African immigrants in Bangkok in what has been criticised as racial profiling. Compared with Somali, Nigerian and other African nationalities, Arabs have had moments where they were able to evade authorities more easily and enjoy some degree of greater freedom. Ibrahim and his mother used to supplement their remittances by selling Arab street food including shawarma, hummus, and bread at community events and near local mosques. But the recent clampdown on immigration has put a stop to this. Basil, a 20-year old Palestinian refugee from Syria, explained: For a long time, I could go out, eat, party and have a life here. But that has all changed now. Soi Arab, the Middle Eastern quarter in the heart of Bangkoks tourist district of Nana, is home to restaurants where young Syrian and Palestinian refugees work without documentation. I was paid 250 baht ($7.50) a day for a 12-hour shift washing dishes and the owner gave leftover food for me and my family, said Basil. Yet recently, fearing police raids, owners are asking refugee workers to stay home. Nobody is working now, said Basil. Despite the recent immigration raids, refugees Al Jazeera spoke to were not critical of the Thai government. We feel abandoned by the United Nations, said Mivrat. We do not ask for money, only to be resettled. Soi Arab in Nana district is popular with Middle Eastern tourists and some refugees have found work there [Kittipot Promprakai/Al Jazeera] Sources told Al Jazeera that around 20 percent of the refugees from Syria in Thailand have been resettled, which is high compared with the less than 1 percent global average for third country resettlement. The majority were Syrian passport holders, with only around 50 individuals left in Thailand. Those stuck in Bangkok are primarily Palestinian refugees whose options are more limited. No Palestinian refugees have been resettled in 2018, while resettlement to the US has ground to a halt since the election of President Donald Trump. For many Syrian and Palestinian refugees, the sad reality is that they may never be considered for resettlement in a third country, Evan Jones of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network told Al Jazeera. With global resettlement numbers dropping, these individuals may be stuck on the fringes of Thai society for years or even decades ahead, unable to access some of their most basic human rights. If given a choice, many Palestinian refugees from Syria would settle in Thailand. The majority interviewed for this story have university degrees and had established careers before fleeing the war. {articleGUID} But within some sections of Thai society, Arab refugees are perceived as posing a security threat. The Thai government should accept the reality that not every refugee could resettle in third countries, so the concept of local integration needs to be taken into consideration in balance with national security concerns for a sustainable solution, said Puttanee Kangkun of Fortify Rights. Jones added: The recurrent myth that refugees are a security threat and a drain on society is simply not true. Palestinians and Syrians are incredibly productive and resourceful and bring a range of skills and knowledge that could help benefit Thai society. Even if the Syrian war ends, Palestinian refugees who travelled to Thailand on now-expired emergency documents have lost the right to return to Palestine. Renewing their travel documents has also become much more difficult since the Syrian consulate in Bangkok closed in 2017. Refugees that Al Jazeera spoke with estimated that there are 400 Palestinian refugees from Syria remaining in Bangkok, with another 201 from Iraq and 15 from Gaza. For some of them, resettlement will be to a fourth rather than a third country. Asma was born in Haifa in 1940 and as a young girl fled Palestine for Iraq. She was displaced again by Iraqs descent into violence after 2003, living for three years in a refugee camp in Cyprus before arriving in Thailand. I asked the UN to send me home to Haifa, she said. I just want to be in my country. Based in southern India, KR Raja works to ensure children who have been essentially orphaned receive support. Names marked with an asterisk* in this piece have been changed to protect the interviewees anonymity. Madurai, India In a southern Indian village near Madurai, at around 1am one day in February 2010, Annam*, a daily wage labourer who lived with her bedridden husband, was shaken awake from her sleep by panicked neighbours. They were screaming that something had happened to my daughter, said the now 60-year-old. She ran to her daughters hut, two streets from her own, to find her childs charred body outside, wrapped in several jute sacks. She died six hours later in hospital from burn injuries. Shortly afterwards, Annams son-in-law was arrested for murder. He has now served two years of a life sentence in Madurai Central Prison. After her daughters death, Annam took responsibility for her grandchildren, a girl and a boy then aged nine and six. For years, I did back-breaking work at construction sites and as an agricultural labourer to put them through school, she said. Annam earns about Rs120 ($1.66) a day. When 17-year-old Pallavi* graduated, Annam could not afford to send her granddaughter to college. Thats when KR Raja, a differently abled prison activist and social worker living in Madurai, stepped in to help. He said he had spoken to my father in prison, and wanted to find a way to help us, said Pallavi. At first, I just couldnt believe it. Why would he care so much? But he sounded so kind and was persistent. Although Pallavi wanted to go to college, she knew it was impractical. Id planned to take a tailoring job, but Raja said the GNE (his non-profit, the Global Network for Equality) would support me, and that I shouldnt stop my studies. He helped me apply to several colleges, often travelling with us to meet the principal and to explain my situation. She is now enrolled at a college in Madurai and the GNE subsidises her tuition fees, amounting to Rs12,000 ($165) a year. GNE also provides the family with living expenses each month. I never dreamed Id go to college, said Pallavi. I feel so grateful to be in a better position to take care of my grandma and family when I graduate. On September 30, in the southern Indian suburb of Pudhur, a 60-year-old man fled his home in the middle of the night after killing his wife. I've seen even hardened criminals change their behaviour after family visits. I tell them that while I can't promise to solve all their problems, I can promise to never let them face them alone. KR Raja, activist Across the world, it has been estimated that around half of female victims of homicides are killed by partners or family members. There are no statistics for the number of women killed by their spouses each year but, under Indian law, three categories dowry deaths, encouragement of female suicide and death following cruelty by the husband deal with the issue. For an idea of the magnitude of the problem, National Crimes Records Bureau data from 2016 the most recent available figures show 39,723 cases of dowry death pending trial in court with 16,315 fresh cases registered that year. There were 12,282 cases of abatement to suicide pending trial with 6,223 new cases registered. And 515,904 cases of cruelty by the husband pending trial, with 1,68,053 cases registered that year. Children of prisoners are three times more likely to suffer from mental health problems, Raja told Al Jazeera, because of the shame, stigma and unresolved psychological issues they face in their impressionable years. Supporting hundreds of children Since 2012, he has made it his mission to seek out the children in family cases involving crime and murder. For some, he ensures their safety. For others, his GNE organisation provides financial assistance and emotional support to help them get through school. The level of financial support depends on the childs needs and is paid in instalments, directly to the childs or guardians bank account. GNE has been operating for six years and currently supports over 200 destitute children of prisoners, aged between eight and 18. The NGO focuses on those who were left parentless, essentially orphaned, after one parent murdered the other and ended up serving a life sentence. Raja pictured during a visit to the families he supports in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu [File: Global Network for Equality] Born in the southern Indian village of Kallakurichi, 300km from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, Raja is no stranger to adversity. At eight months, the eldest son of an agriculturist was struck by a fever. A local doctor treated Raja with a powerful concoction of medicines that left him paralysed. Bedridden and unable to walk, his earliest memories are filled with the sacrifices his parents made. They sold property, almost invited financial ruin to ensure that I had good schooling and medical care, he said. At the age of five, he remembers how his mother, under psychological strain, laced a glass of milk with poison and suggested they both drink it. She said that if we both died, my father could marry again and start afresh. I knocked the glass out of her hands. I wanted to live, to lead a meaningful life. I told her I would take care of us all. In the years that followed, Raja struggled to secure his independence. He endured painful physiotherapy to walk with the help of crutches. He challenged himself to keep a steady gait on muddy paddy fields and rocky village roads. KR Raja, with his wife and child outside his home in Madurai, India [Global Network for Equality] In 2010, he arrived at Puducherry Central Prison. As a masters student in social work at Puducherry University, for his final year thesis, he set out to interview 70 imprisoned men, many of whom had killed their wives in heated arguments. Over the course of these interviews, Raja realised that they were ridden with anxiety over the fate of their children, some even begging him to check on them. I began tracing their children and reporting back to them and was struck by their relief and joy, he says. In 2010, measures for prison reform were set in motion by R Natraj, the then director-general of police and chief of prisons for the state of Tamil Nadu. The inmates were being taught yoga. Prisoners grew organic produce and were gainfully employed in small manufacturing units and cottage industries run inside jails. Raja saw Natraj as a mentor. Prison reform has always focused on how to reintegrate convicts into society once theyve been released, said Natraj. But in order to ensure that they dont revert to a life of crime, you need to change their attitudes when they are still in prison. Easing prisoners minds about their families and ensuring they have better social support and resources to be productive in jail is critical, he said, in the evolution and rehabilitation of the prisoner. Rajas work addresses this and engages public interest in these issues. Ive seen hardened criminals change their behaviour To access prisoners in jail, Raja had to register as a non-governmental organisation. In 2011, he applied to study at Kanthari in Trivandrum, Kerala. The school trains social entrepreneurs who wish to create change anywhere in the world. Paul Kronenberg, Kanthari founder and codirector, remembers Raja as shy, humble and very dedicated. We realised that the impact of Rajas work has a reach beyond the lives of the children and prisoners he helps. It extends to entire families, communities and society, he said. With Kantharis support, Raja travelled to Nepal and spent three months observing the work of an organisation that had similar goals Prisoner Assistance Nepal. On his return, Kanthari provided him with funding to establish GNE. Raja then began to visit Pallayamkottai prison in Tirunelveli, which had several prisoners serving life sentences for killing their spouses. He knew he had to win their trust. On his first day, a prisoner cruelly asked him: Are you sure you can help us when you look like you need help yourself? Over time, however, when Raja brought them news from their homes and families, traced missing children and provided financial and educational support to their sons and daughters who would have otherwise dropped out of school, they embraced him. Today, financial assistance comes in fits and starts. Raja is helped by friends, donors and volunteers from all over the world. Ive seen even hardened criminals change their behaviour after family visits, said Raja. I tell them that while I cant promise to solve all their problems, I can promise to never let them face them alone. On Monday, Bangladeshs election commission announced that it had deferred the date for the countrys next parliamentary poll from December 23 to December 30, partially meeting demands from several opposition parties, who recently agreed to contest the election, for more time to prepare. The announcement came as various political parties were still demanding talks with the government to set up modalities that could ensure a free and fair election and left major politically contentious issues unsettled. Bangladeshs main opposition parties still demand the polls be deferred by a month, the current parliament dissolved, and an election-time special cabinet installed, one not led by current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Sheikh Hasina and her party, Bangladesh Awami League, on the other hand, insist that both the current set of parliamentarians and the prime minister should stay in power during the upcoming election. Because of the deep-rooted mistrust among politicians and a vicious zero-sum political culture, Bangladesh had installed provisions for election-time caretaker governments under which four previous elections 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2008 were held. The constitutional provision for election-time caretaker governments was abolished during the tenure of Sheikh Hasina prior to the 2014 parliamentary elections, which the opposition boycotted, eventually handing out the ruling party 50 percent of the parliamentary seats uncontested. Political observers soured on Bangladeshs democratic prospects since that election, some going as far as to term the entire 2014 affair as an electoral farce. If the status quo prevails and the next election is held under conditions similar to 2014, Sheikh Hasina may easily win a contiguous third term, allowing her to govern an otherwise difficult to govern nation of 170 million for more than 10 continuous years something no other leader, military or civilian, managed to achieve in post-independence Bangladesh since 1971. Relative to her beleaguered opposition, Sheikh Hasina is an authoritative leader with unparalleled political dexterity and geopolitical acumen. Under her leadership, Bangladesh Awami League was able to crush its political adversaries, while forging numerous alliances of convenience with fringe political elements both secular and religious. After 10 years in power, Sheikh Hasinas party has penetrated all layers of the key state organs of Bangladesh by appointing personnel favourable to the partys agenda. This allowed the party to govern unchallenged. Socioeconomic progress under Sheikh Hasina Hasinas strong rule brought relative political stability to Bangladesh, enabling it to make noticeable socioeconomic progress over the past 10 years. Bangladeshs per capita income was $1,355 as of 2016, 40 percent higher than it was just three years prior. During the same time, South Asian giant Indias per capita income went up by only 14 percent and Pakistans 21 percent. Indias per capita income stood only 25 percent higher than Bangladeshs in 2016, while it used to be 87 percent higher back in 2011 when the current Hasina government was just two years into its tenure. Bangladesh surpassed India and Pakistan in the human development index with higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates. Bangladesh also achieved preliminary qualifications to enter the list of middle-income countries by 2024, provided that it maintains its current socioeconomic development trajectory. Hasinas political opponents, however, want everyone to look beyond economic figures and development indices. A de-facto one-party state Bangladesh has become increasingly authoritarian under Sheikh Hasina, and in some aspects, it is now a de-facto one-party state, where the ruling party has usurped even the most basic constitutional rights of its political opponents and citizens. Arbitrary arrests, detentions, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings of political personnel have increased alarmingly over the last 10 years. Special security forces regularly engage in activities akin to death squads, operating with total impunity, killing political opponents of the government, often under officially sanctioned missions billed as anti-terror and anti-drug operations. Under an increasingly authoritarian style of governance over a decade, Bangladeshs ruling party and its cronies monopolised both the countrys politics and business. Large sums of cash left the country to safe havens abroad and income inequality measures went through the roof. Bangladesh registered the fastest growth in Ultra High Net Worth people over the past five years. The politicisation of Bangladeshs banks has resulted in a liquidity crisis with an alarming increase in defaulted and non-performing loans. Total defaulted loans increased about 20 percent from 2016 to 2017 alone. Experts are raising the alarm, comparing the current situation in Bangladesh to that of Indonesia prior to its banking crisis of 1997, which cost the country more than 50 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to fix. Marginalisation of the opposition While lopsided political and economic incentives have emboldened the ruling elite in Bangladesh, the countrys major opposition parties, both secular and religious, became increasingly marginalised some barely surviving, if at all. Begum Khaleda Zia, leader of the countrys largest secular opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was put in house arrest during the 2014 election. This time around, she is in special jail serving 10 years imprisonment on corruption charges. Her son and heir apparent, Tarique Rahman, has been in exile in London for the past 10 years, from where he is running the party as its acting chairman. One of the lower courts in Bangladesh recently sentenced Rahman to life imprisonment in absentia for a grenade attack on Sheikh Hasina which took place fourteen years ago. The countrys largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, lost its right to contest in national elections, while its central leadership, many of whom were languishing in jail during the last national election in 2014, have since been executed, defying international outcry. {articleGUID} Finding the countrys major opposition leaders in jail, in exile or already executed, some of the remaining anti-government politicians have created an alliance to force a free and fair election. However, within weeks of its formation, the new alliance faced the wrath of the state machinery. Moinul Hosein, one of the central alliance figures was sent to jail for calling a journalist characterless. Amir Khasru, the senior BNP leader who was handling western diplomats, was sent to jail for hatching a conspiracy against the government. Dr Zafarullah, another central figure of the alliance, had numerous charges filed against him, including one specific charge of stealing fish from a pond. Not only the political leaders but also anyone talking against the government is now a target of several repressive machinations installed by the government for constraining political speech. For example, the newly passed Digital Security Act 2018 makes it a crime punishable by 14 years in prison for anyone defaming the father of the prime minister, who was the first president of Bangladesh, also referred by many as the Father of the Nation. The parliament recently passed another draft law, named Broadcast Law 2018, which will jail anyone for seven years for making false statements on TV talk shows, the only remaining space for public political dissent. There are no credible polls in Bangladesh that measure the popularity of a government and its actions. Therefore, it is hard to predict whether the people of Bangladesh would prefer a repressive government delivering trophy economic indices in exchange for free speech, pluralistic democracy and basic human dignity. A free and fair election would be the best instrument capable of answering that question if only there was indeed a chance to hold such an election. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Six people were killed and 20 others wounded in the capital city amid renewed violence in recent months. At least six people have been killed and 20 others wounded after a suicide bomber hit a protest site in Afghanistans capital, Kabul, officials said. The blast on Monday took place close to the citys Pashtunistan Square, where hundreds of people had been protesting over insecurity in the country. Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for the interior ministry, said: The suicide attacker on foot wanted to target protesters, but he was stopped at a security checkpoint some 200 metres from the site. There have been casualties and I can say most of them are security forces. Twenty people were wounded in the blast, which struck in front of a high school in downtown Kabul, according to Najib Danish, an interior ministry spokesman. Videos posted on social media appeared to show bodies lying on the ground moments after the bombing, but could not be verified by Al Jazeera. The explosion came as additional security was rolled out across Kabul for the protest, which began on Sunday night and continued into Monday. {articleGUID} Hundreds of members of the ethnic Shia-Hazara community had gathered to demand action against ongoing Taliban assaults in three districts of central Afghanistan. According to Danish, the rally had ended before the explosion. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack on its website, Amaq. The group has claimed responsibility for most of the suicide attacks in Kabul in recent months. A protest for better security had ended when the blast occurred, according to officials [Omar Sobhani/Reuters] Growing unrest Mondays explosion is the latest in a series of attacks on civilians and security forces in the war-torn South Asian country. Taliban fighters killed scores of security forces in the western province of Farah and the eastern province of Ghazni overnight on Monday. Earlier, at least 37 local policemen were killed in Farah and 20 members of the Afghan security forces were killed in Ghaznis Jaghuri district on Sunday. {articleGUID} Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the Ghazni attack and said in a text message that the armed group had captured Malistan district. Fighting in the area has been ongoing since Wednesday, fanning fears that the violence could be rooted in ethnic or sectarian differences. A US watchdog agency said last week that the Afghan government was struggling to regain control of districts lost to the Taliban while casualties among security forces had reached record levels. The government has control or influence over 65 percent of the population, but only 55.5 percent of Afghanistans 407 districts, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in a report. The escalation in violence came as US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad returned to the region as part of efforts to persuade the Taliban to end the 17-year war. Last week, Russia hosted a conference aimed at seeking peace attended by members of a government-appointed body for talks with the Taliban, its members based in Qatar and officials from 12 countries. The meetings ended without the sides agreeing on a path to direct dialogue. Air raids and street battles die down only hours after scores are killed during intense fighting, residents say. Fighting in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah appears to have eased slightly, according to reports, in a possible sign of de-escalation between the Saudi-UAE coalition and the Houthi rebels in control of key parts of the strategic port city. The apparent lull in hostilities late on Monday came hours after military sources told news agencies at least 149 Yemenis, including seven civilians, were killed in the past 24 hours in fierce fighting as forces loyal to exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi closed in on areas held by Houthis. Medics in hospitals across the city which is the main gateway for imports and relief supplies into Yemen said 110 Houthi fighters and 32 pro-government soldiers had been killed in overnight fighting. Meanwhile, a military official in Hodeidah told the AFP news agency that seven civilians had died in clashes without giving further details. Sources at the al-Alfi military hospital, seized by the Houthis during their 2014 takeover of the city, said charred body parts had been delivered there overnight. Later on Monday, Reuters news agency cited civilians as saying that air raids against Houthi fortifications had halted and street battles, which had been raging for a week on the outskirts of the Red Sea city, trapping civilians and endangering hospitals, died down. However, according to coalition spokesperson Colonel Turki al-Malki, the offensive on the Houthi-held city was still on. The operation is still ongoing. Its not true that there is a ceasefire in Hodeidah, Malki told reporters in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. {articleGUID} Al Jazeeras Mohammed Adow, reporting from neighbouring Djibouti, said there was growing concern about the wellbeing of civilians trapped in the eastern and southern areas of Hodeidah city. Some of the fighting is on the streets of residential areas, something that is causing concern about the safety and welfare of the people still holed up in the city, Adow said. There are people stuck there who could not find ways of leaving because of the blocked roads and many checkpoints set up by Houthi fighters, he added. Calls for ceasefire The easing off of fighting was welcomed by UN officials, who have called to end the war which has killed more than 56,000 people according to a recent estimate. It seems that the shelling and the strafing and the bombing has stopped. Now, were not sure about the implications of this, but it is very welcome indeed, UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Lise Grande told BBC radio according to Reuters. Despite a relatively quiet moment in the battle for Hodeidah, the future of the war in Yemen remains uncertain as new talks between the warring parties were pushed back to late December after they were scheduled to take place in Sweden in November. A number of countries have recently called on for a cessation of hostilities between the Saudi-UAE-led coalition and the Houthi rebels. Among them are the United States, Britain and France, three countries that provide the coalition with military equipment, intelligence and logistics. Its a dirty war, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. The international community needs to say thats enough. Thats what the US says, were saying and the British too, Le Drian added. Catastrophic situation Bessma Momani, a professor of political science at Canadas University of Waterloo, said the Saudi-UAE military alliance was trying to take control of Hodeidah ahead of the summit. I think thats the strategy overall, but of course it comes at an enormous cost for civilians, Momani told Al Jazeera. Its important to point out, 80 percent of all food come through Hodeidah it is food scarcity and famine that we should be worried about because this is the cost that will be paid by the average civilian for the retaking of Hodeidah. On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the destruction of the vital Yemeni port could trigger a catastrophic situation. If the port at Hodeidah is destroyed, that could create an absolutely catastrophic situation, Guterres told France Info radio during a trip to Paris. Hodeidah, a large city on Yemens Red Sea coast, is the latest battleground between Houthi rebels and the Saudi-UAE alliance which has been fighting for control over the country for the past three and a half years. Since November 1, there have been more than 200 air attacks reported in the city, with AFP reporting nearly 600 deaths. Aid agencies have long warned that fighting in Hodeidah risks escalating the countrys dire humanitarian crisis. Enormous cost for civilians Momani noted that in the wake of last months killing of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, elements within the US may press for sanctions on weapons sales to the kingdom. {articleGUID} Now that we have seen the Democrats take over the House of Representatives [in the US midterm elections], one part of the legislature, we are going to see a lot of ugly facts against this war logistics, intelligence, training you name it, she said. We have to find a way to solve this because really the Yemeni people have suffered far too much. The conflict in Yemen, the Arab worlds poorest country, began when the government slashed fuel subsidies in the summer of 2014, prompting angry protests and forcing thousands onto the capitals streets. The Houthis seized the opportunity and marched south from their stronghold of Saada province to the capital, Sanaa, where they toppled Hadis government. Concerned by the rise of the Houthis, a US-backed Saudi-UAE military coalition intervened in 2015 with a massive air campaign aimed at reinstalling Hadis government. Since then, data collected by Al Jazeera and the Yemen Data Project has found that more than 18,000 air attacks have been carried out in Yemen, with almost one-third of all bombing missions striking non-military sites. Weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals, as well as water and electricity plants, have been targeted, killing and wounding thousands. Rights group withdraws top award over Myanmars leader indifference to the plight of the Rohingya. Amnesty International has stripped Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi of its highest honour over her indifference to the atrocities committed by the countrys military against the Muslim-majority Rohingya. The UK-based human rights group on Monday said it was revoking the Ambassador of Conscience Award it gave Aung San Suu Kyi in 2009 during her 15-year house arrest. Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defence of human rights, Amnesty chief Kumi Naidoo said in a letter to Aung San Suu Kyi released by the group. Amnesty International cannot justify your continued status as a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience award and so, with great sadness, we are hereby withdrawing it from you. {articleGUID} The group said it informed Myanmars leader of the decision on Sunday. She has so far issued no public response. Once hailed as a champion in the fight for democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi has been stripped of a series of international honours over a Rohingya exodus that began in August 2017. More than 720,000 Rohingya fled the Buddhist majoritys western Rakhine State in a military crackdown since August last year, with most seeking refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. Many are believed to have been either murdered or tortured and raped. Controversial tenure Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party swept to power in 2015 in a landslide victory ending decades of military rule in the southeast Asian country of around 50 million. But her tenure has been marred by a failure to speak up for Rohingya, who were driven out of the country by the army in what the United Nations has called an ethnic cleansing campaign. Aung San Suu Kyis administration rejected the UN findings as one-sided, and said the military action was engaged in a legitimate operation against armed rebels. {articleGUID} Last month, the 73-year-old was stripped of her honorary Canadian citizenship over her failure to speak up for the Rohingya. In March, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum rescinded its top award while other honours, including the freedom of the cities of Dublin and Oxford, England, were also withdrawn. She has also lost numerous smaller awards from individual universities and local and regional governments. In 1991, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which many of her critics have also called to be withdrawn. The Swedish foundation that oversees the award has refused. US investigators expand Catholic child sex abuse scandal probe At least 13 states and Washington, DC, have opened their own investigations into church sexual abuse and cover-up. At least five Palestinians were killed by Israeli air attacks on the Gaza Strip and an Israeli civilian died in a barrage of rocket fire in the worst violence between the two sides since the 2014 war. The latest escalation came less than 24 hours after at least seven Palestinians were killed in a covert Israeli operation in the besieged enclave. Hamas, the group administering the strip, said one of Mondays air attacks destroyed the building of its television station. There was no immediate word of casualties. Along with the air raids, Israeli artillery units also shelled positions across the densely populated enclave. https://twitter.com/palbahaa/status/1062067289112145922?ref_src=twsrc^tfw The attacks followed massive rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel earlier in the day. Israel said its Iron Dome system intercepted many of the 300 missiles fired from the Palestinians. One, however, hit a bus and another struck a building in southern Israel. One Israeli man was pulled out dead from the ruins of the building hit by rockets, the emergency service said on Tuesday. A woman, also recovered from the debris in Ashkelon, was in a critical state, said the organisation United Hatzalah. One soldier was seriously wounded, the Israeli army said, and at least 27 other Israelis were also hurt in the projectile fire from Gaza. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pressed all sides to back down. He urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint, UN spokesman Farhan Haq said. UN Special Coordinator Nickolay Mladenov was working closely with Egypt and all concerned parties to restore calm, Haq said in a statement. Electronic Intifadas Ali Abunimah said Israel was targeting the people of Gaza with terror, bombing and killing. But theyve also subjected their own Israeli population to the retaliatory operations of the Palestinian resistance factions, Abunimah told Al Jazeera. Mediation efforts not going well from what we are being told #gaza Stefanie Dekker (@StefanieDekker) November 12, 2018 Very hard night The rising tensions came as thousands of people in the enclave took part in rallies following the killing of seven Palestinians including Nour Baraka, a prominent commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas in the Israeli military raid on Sunday evening. One Israeli lieutenant colonel was also killed and another one was seriously wounded in the undercover operation. Hamas leader Ismail Haniya led a funeral for Palestinians killed on Sunday as mourners called for revenge. Later, Palestinian factions said in a joint statement they had begun firing rockets into Israel in response to the Israeli military incursion. Over the past two hours, the Israelis have targeted many resistance training camp and many buildings, Mukhaimar Abusada, professor at Gazas al-Azhar University, told Al Jazeera on Monday evening. It seems to me that we are going to witness a very hard night as a result of the ongoing Israeli retaliation. Smoke rises following an Israeli air raid in Gaza [Suhaib Salem/Reuters] Covert raid According to Hamas, Israeli undercover forces on Sunday entered the Strip in a civilian car and exchanged fire with the groups gunmen near the city of Khan Younis. A pursuit ensued and witnesses said Israeli aircraft fired dozens of missiles into the area to provide cover for the commandos to escape. In the immediate aftermath of the raid, more than 10 rockets were fired from Gaza as the Israeli forces carried out air raids. {articleGUID} Israels army provided few details about the reason for the covert operation. A military spokesperson claimed the raid was not intended to kill Hamas commanders, adding the forces faced a very complex battle. The escalation comes in a period where both Hamas and Israel seemed to have moved closer to a truce, mediated by Egypt, the UN and Qatar. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver aid and fuel worth $15m to besieged and poverty-stricken Gaza, which only has a few hours of electricity a day and an unemployment rate of more than 50 percent. Abunimah said Israel has a long history of sabotaging ceasefire agreements, adding the deadly commando raid was ordered to stoke the flames of conflict. You would think that after Israel violated numerous ceasefires with similar results they would learn the lesson, but it seems the Israeli leaders are pyromaniacs. They cannot tolerate calm. They cannot tolerate that the people in Gaza live in anything like peace. Israel is incapable of living in peace and calm with the Palestinians, he said. It remains to be seen what happens next as Israels security cabinet meets on Tuesday to plot a course of action. Abusada said: Hamas is not interested in another military escalation, but they feel they are under pressure especially from the other Palestinians resistance groups that there has to be a retaliation against the Israeli raid into the Gaza Strip. Great March of Return Since 2008, Israel has launched three major assaults on Gaza that have heavily damaged the Strips infrastructure and sources of livelihood. {articleGUID} Violence has flared frequently on the frontier since Palestinians in the Strip began weekly protests along the fence with Israel on March 30, demanding their right to return to the homes and land their families were expelled from 70 years ago. The protesters are also demanding an end to Israels crippling blockade of the enclave, which has destroyed its economy and deprived its two million inhabitants of many basic commodities. Since the Great March of Return demonstrations began on March 30, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more wounded by Israeli troops deployed along the other side of the fence. The Palestinians have been suffering as a result of lack of electricity for the past two years, at least, and Hamas has also been facing a very serious financial crisis, said Abusada. But the Palestinians are not in any way are ready to betray their dignity and freedom for money and fuel. The latest Israeli killing fits a pattern of targeted assassinations of Hamas commanders and affiliates. Israeli forces killed at least seven Palestinians, including a high-ranking Hamas official, in the besieged Gaza Strip late on Sunday in a ground operation that is expected to significantly boost tensions. The rare ground incursion, which was followed by Israeli air attacks on the enclave, met rocket fire from the strip. An Israeli soldier was killed when an exchange of fire erupted during the operation, the Israeli army said. Among those killed in Gaza was Nour Baraka, a senior Hamas official, the group said, after the Israeli special forces team infiltrated an area near the southern city of Khan Younis in a civilian vehicle, the group added. The killing was one of many assassinations carried out by Israel that targeted not only Hamas members, but also individuals affiliated to other groups including the Islamic Jihad movement, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and Fatah the ruling party in the occupied West Bank. Mossad, Israels intelligence agency, has been accused of several high-profile killings involving Palestinians around the world dating back to the 1950s, although Israel has consistently denied the accusations. The latest killing fits a pattern of targeted assassinations of individual Hamas commanders and members of affiliated groups. One of a handful of failed attempts targeted Khaled Meshaal, a Palestinian political leader who was the former head of Hamas political bureau. Here is a timeline of key assassinations targeting Palestinian military commanders and individuals with ties to Hamas, the group that governs the Gaza Strip. Fadi al-Batsh, killed on April 21, 2018: A Palestinian scholar and scientist, Fadi al-Batsh was shot dead by two assailants in a drive-by shooting in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. The 35-year-old, a Hamas member originally from Jabalia in the Gaza Strip, died on April 21, 2018, and was a relative of a senior official in the Gaza branch of the Islamic Jihad movement. His family accused Mossad of carrying out the killing. Mazen Fuqaha, killed on March 24, 2017: Mazen Fuqaha, originally from Tubas in the West Bank, was a senior commander in the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas military wing. He was shot in the head and chest in his car on March 24, 2017, near his home in Gaza. The gunmen who carried out the killing were believed to have arrived in Gaza by sea, according to local reports. Following his death, Hamas handed down death sentences to three Palestinians it ruled had taken part in what it described as an Israeli-led assassination. Mohammed al-Zawari, killed on December 15, 2016: Mohammed al-Zawari, a 49-year-old aviation engineer who Hamas said was a member of its drone team, was shot dead in a hail of bullets at the wheel of his car outside his home in Sfax, Tunisia on December 15, 2016, by two Bosnian nationals. Hamas credited him with developing the Ababeel drones used against the last Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014. Al-Zawaris family and Hamas both accused Mossad of being behind the assassination. Mohamed Abo Shamaleh, Raed al-Attar and Mohamed Barhoum, killed on August 21, 2014: The three high-ranking Hamas commanders were killed in a round of Israeli air raids on August 21, 2014, days after an attempt to kill the al-Qassam Brigades military chief, Mohammed Deif, failed. While Shamaleh and Barhoum served as top commanders in southern Gaza, al-Attar headed the construction of the Gaza tunnels, and reportedly oversaw the inflow of weaponry into the strip. Ahmed Jaabari, killed on November 14, 2012: A top-level operational commander in the al-Qassam Brigades, Ahmed Jaabari was killed on November 14, 2012, in an Israeli air raid during an operation targeting armed groups. Jabari, who survived four previous assassination attempts, co-ordinated much of Hamass military capability, its military strategy, and the transformation of the military wing. The 52-year-old was credited developing Hamass military arsenal and its networks in Iran, Sudan and Lebanon. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, killed on January 19, 2010: Mahmoud al-Mabhouh served as the chief logistics and weapons procurement for the al-Qassam Brigades, was killed on January 19, 2010, in Dubai. Originally from Jabalia in Gaza, al-Mabhouh was a longtime Israeli target, according to Hamas, for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers. Both Hamas and Dubai pinned the killing on Mossad. On August 3, 2014, Israels Shin Bet the secret police agency killed his nephew Ahmed al-Mabhouh, who oversaw the launching of rockets from the strip. Nizar Rayyan, killed on January 1, 2009: One of Hamas most senior figures, Nizar Rayyan was killed on January 1, 2009. Hailing from Jabalia, the 50-year-old PhD holder served as a preacher. He was also engaged in Hamass negotiations with the Palestinian factions and served as one of the main political leaders of the movement. In 2004, Rayyan became Hamass highest religious leader after Israeli forces killed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Ahmed Yassin, killed on March 22, 2004: Ahmed Yassin, 67, was an imam who founded the Hamas movement in 1987 after spending time in Egypt as a student. Yassin spent several years in Israeli prisons for allegedly forming an underground organisation and possessing weapons. At the time, the Israeli government had openly called for his assassination, before killing him on March 22, 2014, while on his way out of a Gaza mosque. Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Monday called on the government to attach a jobs odometer to next years P3.757-trillion national budget and pursue other measures to reduce unemployment. He made the statement after Social Weather Stations said in its latest survey that close to 10-million Filipinos were out of work in September. Recto warned that the optics will not be good if the government would allow the mass entry of foreign workers to take jobs in the construction sector even if this is a condition imposed by a funder of tied loans. He said the joblessness picture would also affect the discussions on two crucial billson rice tariffication and the TRABAHO measureas many sectors had expressed concerns that the two would trigger job losses. On next years national budget, Recto urged the economic managers to run the numbers on how many jobs a P3.7-trillion spending will create. We need to calculate this for many reasons. We have to ready the workforce required and identify other job generators, Recto said. Next years budget earmarks P776.08 billion for capital outlay, with P531.86 billion to be spent by Public Works, and mostly for roads, bridges and buildings, and P51.75 billion by the Transport department for railways, ports, and other transportation facilities. Not included in this count are the projects funded under the PPP mode, and some projects funded wholly or partly by foreign loans and grants. In the case of the tied loans in which the preferences by the funder were institutionalized in the loan contracts, the government should reject the ones with high imported labor content, Recto said. Any bias against local labor should not be accepted, Recto said. We have many returning [Filipino workers] who can fill the slots and do the job. No loan should discriminate against Filipino talent. We should insist on a hire-local policy.Recto said the wave of Filipinos returning home from abroad was enriching the local talent pool. They are bringing with them top-notch skills and cutting-edge know-how. And the magnificent skylines of many cities are the best calling cards of their building skills. Recto said the jobs will likewise influence the shaping of the rice tariffication and TRABAHO bills. The employment data will have a say in determining the lengths to which we shall liberalize the domestic rice market and cut the fiscal incentives to industries. All estimates point to some form of economic dislocation of farmers if rice import restrictions will be replaced with tariffs. Some 1.1 million rice growers will be negatively affected. Aggregate farmers losses could go up to P87.9 billion a year. Macon Ramos-Araneta But Recto recognized the existence of a jobs-skills mismatch. The demand for skilled labor had been ahead of the supply, he said. One way of creating an endless stream of talented Filipino engineers, technicians, and craftsmen was to align part of the Philippine educational system to the actual needs of the economy. We should wipe out the backlog in technical-vocational equipment and teachers in senior high, Recto said. In addition to more engineering and science courses, we should encourage SUCs to offer tech-voc courses because it is a job that should not be left to TESDA alone. The glory and heritage of government trade schools should be resurrected. The approach should be comprehensive. We cannot build, build, build if we do not train, train, train. Italy hosts conference to end Libyas seven-year war The peace conference in Palermo brings together not just Libyas major opposing sides, but competing foreign powers, as well. Trump accuses Democrats of trying to steal election without evidence, amid tight races for governor and Senate. State judge Jack Tuter on Monday told lawyers representing the warring sides in the Florida recount that they need to ramp down the rhetoric after Republicans, including President Donald Trump, alleged illegal activity. A vote recount is under way in the states governor and US Senate races after results showed a narrow difference between the Republican and Democratic candidates. The states law enforcement arm and elections monitors have found no evidence of wrongdoing, but lawyers for the Republican party and its candidates joined with Trump in alleging that irregularities, unethical behaviour and fraud have taken place since the polls closed last week. An honest vote count is no longer possible in Florida, Trump declared Monday, without providing evidence. The comments came just hours before Tuter held an emergency hearing on a request by lawyers for Republican Governor Rick Scott, whose lead in the Senate race over incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson has narrowed with the counting of provisional and other ballots. The lawyers allege Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, a Democrat who was appointed in 2003 by then-Republican governor Jeb Bush, of engaging in suspect and unlawful vote counting practices that violate state law and that she might destroy evidence of any errors, accidents or unlawful conduct. The motion was supported by lawyers representing the state Republican Party and opposed by Snipess office, Nelsons campaign and the state Democratic Party. Snipes denies the allegations. The lawyers asked for additional sheriffs deputies to be sent to Snipess office to monitor ballots and voting machines. The lawyers requested that the deputies be present when the ballots and voting machines are not being used and until the recount is over. Tuter said: If someone in this lawsuit or someone in this county has evidence of voter fraud or irregularities at the supervisors office, they should report it to their local law enforcement officer. He added: If the lawyers are aware of it, they should swear out an affidavit, but everything the lawyers are saying out there in front of the elections office is being beamed all over the country. We need to be careful of what we say. Words mean things these days. After Tuter told all sides to meet to discuss a compromise, they agreed to add three deputies to the elections office in Broward. The state is the scene of a bitter struggle between Republican and Democrat politicians over the results of the Senate and governor races during last weeks midterm elections. Narrow margins Republican candidates saw their leads whittled down after election night as ballots from urban areas, which lean Democrat, were counted. Margins fell to within the levels needed to force recounts in both the governor race, between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum, and the Senate race between current Republican governor Rick Scott and Democrat incumbent, Bill Nelson. Authorities ordered machine recounts of the votes this weekend, with a Thursday deadline to finish the recount. The Republicans, backed by Trump, have openly accused the Democrats of trying to steal the election despite presenting no evidence to support the claim. The Democrats want to ensure that all votes are counted, and to that end, Nelson is suing the Florida Department of State in a bid to count ballots that were postmarked before election day but were not delivered before polls closed. Nelsons lawyer, Marc Elias, filed the lawsuit Monday, saying voters should not be disenfranchised because of mail delivery delays that arent their fault. Unofficial election results show Nelson trailing Republican Scott by 0.14 percentage points, which amounts to around 12,500 votes. In the race for governor, former US Representative Ron DeSantis led his Democrat rival and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by a margin of 0.41 percent. Memories of 2000 recount The two contests, along with those for governor in Georgia and for the Senate in Arizona, are the most high-profile races still undecided after Tuesdays midterm elections. Florida is the countrys third-largest state in terms of population. It is also an important swing state in the US, especially in presidential elections. The Sunshine State has never been a sure constituency for either the Republicans or the Democrats, resulting in presidential candidates spending considerable time campaigning here. The move conjured up memories of Floridas 2000 presidential recount when the winner hung in the balance for weeks before the Supreme Court stopped the count and Republican George W Bush triumphed over Democrat Al Gore. The killing of the Saudi journalist condemned at a gathering joined by his fiancee, friends and activists in Istanbul. About 200 people gathered in Istanbul to honour the memory of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, demanding justice over the killing. Supporters met on Sunday to talk and watch videos of eulogies for the Washington Post contributor, who was killed on October 2 inside Istanbuls Saudi consulate, where he went to handle paperwork for his upcoming marriage. His fiancee was among the participants of the memorial. {articleGUID} Turan Kislakci, head of the Turkish-Arab Media Association (TAM), to which Khashoggi belonged, called for justice to be done so that these barbaric tyrants can never do the same thing again. Yemeni human rights activist Tawakkol Karman, who won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her participation in the Arab Spring uprisings, said the killing was reminiscent of crimes committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group. Saudi Arabia has changed its narrative about the murder several times amid international outcry and intensifying scepticism over its account. After insisting for more than two weeks that Khashoggi had left the consulate, it then admitted the journalist had died in a fistfight inside the building. Later, Riyadh conceded Khashoggi was killed in a premeditated murder, but that the murder was an unplanned rogue operation. Erdogans accusations However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the highest levels of the Saudi government of ordering the hit, while some officials have pointed the finger at the crown prince a charge Riyadh denies. Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey shared recordings related to the killing of Khashoggi with Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, France and Britain. The Turkish leader discussed the issue with US President Donald Trump during a dinner marking the end of the first world war in Paris, according to White House officials. Sources told Al Jazeera on Saturday that Turkish police ended the search for Khashoggis body, but that the criminal investigation into the 59-year-olds murder would continue. Al Jazeera also learned through sources that traces of acid were found at the Saudi consul-generals residence in Istanbul, where the body was believed to be disposed of with the use of chemicals. The residence is at walking distance from the Saudi consulate. North Korea is moving ahead with its ballistic missile programme, according to a new report by a US-based think-tank which identified over a dozen small undeclared bases. Based on satellite images analysed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the report detailed 13 of the suspected 20 hidden sites, which are mostly scattered in the countrys remote mountainous areas. The ballistic missile operating bases are small, dispersed throughout the nation, and, with few exceptions, located in narrow mountain valleys, the report, which was released on Monday and could not be independently verified, said. The reported findings raised new doubts over US President Donald Trumps assertion that incredible progress had been made in Washingtons talks with Pyongyang. Trump has hailed his June summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as having opened the way to denuclearisation of the divided peninsula, but the agreement between the two was short on specifics and negotiations have made little headway. Since that meeting, North Korea has forgone nuclear and missile tests, dismantled a missile test site and promised to also break up the countrys main nuclear complex. North Koreas decommissioning of the Sohae satellite launch facility, while gaining much media attention, obscures the military threat to US forces and South Korea from this and other undeclared ballistic missile bases, the CSIS report said. These missile operating bases, which can be used for all classes of ballistic missile from short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) up to and including intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), would presumably have to be subject to declaration, verification, and dismantlement in any final and fully verifiable denuclearization deal, it added elsewhere. According to Mark Fitzpatrick, from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the findings did not come as a surprise. {articleGUID} North Korea said at the beginning of the year that it would continue its mass production of missiles and nuclear weapons, and what we have here are more than a dozen missile development and production sites, Fitzpatrick told Al Jazeera. Im sure the US intelligence agencies already had a pretty good idea of these sites, and now the rest of us also have a better idea of what is going on, he added. Al Jazeeras Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, DC, said US intelligence has long been aware North Korea has not dialled back its efforts to expand its nuclear or conventional missile programme. But she added: One of the things that critics are seizing on with this CSIS report is that when Trump met with [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un in Singapore earlier this year, there was no detailed agreement that was going to prevent North Korea from carrying this work. The denuclearization deal with North Korea is being praised and celebrated all over Asia. They are so happy! Over here, in our country, some people would rather see this historic deal fail than give Trump a win, even if it does save potentially millions & millions of lives! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2018 Trump has been upbeat on the denuclearisation progress so far, as well as over his relationship with Kim, whom he once called Little Rocket Man. You got no rockets flying, you have no missiles flying, you have no nuclear testing, Trump said in the Oval Office last month. {articleGUID} Weve made incredible progress beyond incredible. But according to Fitzpatrick, the CSIS report is bound to embarrass Trump. Im very pleased North Korea hasnt tested any more missiles, but while it hasnt tested them, it continues to produce them, Fitzpatrick said. Donald Trump, who declared everything is fine, now has egg on his face. Earlier this month, North Korea expressed dismay over tough US sanctions imposed on the country, warning that Pyongyang may revert to its former policy if the US did not change its stance. Imelda Cortez is charged with aggravated attempted homicide after giving birth to stepfathers child in a latrine. Usulutan, El Salvador The trial of a young Salvadoran woman, who became pregnant after being raped and suffered complications during her pregnancy, is set to begin on Monday in the latest case tried under the countrys strict abortion laws. Imelda Cortez, 20, is accused of attempted aggravated homicide of her newborn baby. She became pregnant at the age of 17 after being raped repeatedly by her stepfather. Cortez, who said she was not aware she was pregnant at the time, suffered abdominal pains and went to the toilet where she fainted in April 2017. Her baby was found in the toilet. The baby survived, but Cortez was sent to jail to await trial. She faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Her stepfather has been charged with aggravated sexual assault of a minor and faces up to 15 years in prison, according to lawyers with the Citizen Group for the Depenalisation of Abortion. Cortezs lawyers had previously asked the judge to suspend the case due to lack of evidence of an attempted aggravated homicide. Medical reports from government institution Legal Medicine show that the young mother experienced a natural birth with no signs of having induced it herself. The baby did not show signs of aggression after birth, the institution reported. A verdict in the case is expected sometime this week. Women suffer under strict abortion laws Cortez is one of the dozens of Salvadoran women accused of attempting to kill their babies in a country with a total abortion ban and some of the highest rates of disapproval of legalising abortion. {articleGUID} The Central American country criminalised abortion in all circumstances in 1998 when the country rewrote the penal code to remove previous exceptions that allowed abortion in some cases. Since then, El Salvador has put dozens of women behind bars for suspected abortions. In the face of national and international pressure, El Salvador released some women imprisoned for suspected abortions earlier in the year. This included Teodora Carmen Vasquez, who was released in February after serving more than 10 years in prison for aggravated homicide in one of the most high-profile cases of women imprisoned for abortion in El Salvador. Carmen Vasquez was convicted in 2008 for allegedly aborting her child and sentenced to 30 years in prison. She maintained she suffered a stillbirth after health complications. Her sentence was reduced before her release. Teodora del Carmen Vasquez hugs her niece as she walks out of jail after her 30-year sentence was commuted by the Supreme Court of El Salvador [File: Jose Cabezas/Reuters] Since Carmen Vasquez was allowed to walk free, at least four other women have been released. For us women who have been detained in a prison for late-term obstetric emergencies, I consider the system unjust because they have not investigated the things as they have happened, Carmen Vasquez told Al Jazeera in September. Theyve accused us of something that weve never done, just because we had these emergencies outside a hospital. A step backwards Although Vasquezs release marked a small step forward for womens rights, recent shifts in the political makeup of the Salvadoran National Assembly worry rights advocates. {articleGUID} Despite lobbying by activists, a bill to depenalise abortion in cases of rape of a minor and risk to the life or health of mother failed to pass in April 2018. In May 2018, newly elected representatives for the legislative assembly took their seats, with the right-wing ARENA party retaking control, leaving little possibility of passing a similar bill until the next election cycle. The international community should be alert because sexual and reproductive rights often take a back seat when there are these steps backwards for human rights. The worst part is always lived by women. Sara Garcia, Citizen Group for the Depenalisation of Abortion Sara Garcia, an activist with the Citizen Group for the Depenalisation of Abortion, called the failed attempts a step backwards for the assembly, for our democracy and for the human rights of women. She also called on the international community to be alert because sexual and reproductive rights often take a back seat when there are these steps backwards for human rights. The worst part is always lived by women. Carmen Vasquez stands in solidarity with Cortez because theyve gone through the same experience, with just one difference. Now, Im free and shes still going through this process, she said. They should investigate the cases well to serve justice as it should be. Khalid al-Falihs comments come a day after unveiling Riyadhs plan to slash production by 500,000 barrels per day. Saudi Arabias energy minister has called for a global output cut of one million barrels per day (bpd) to re-balance the market, a day after Riyadh unveiled plans to cut production by 500,000 bpd from December. The technical analysis we reviewed yesterday shows that we need a reduction approaching one million bpd to balance the market, Khalid al-Falih told an energy conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday. The proposed reduction is from October production levels, al-Falih said, cautioning that further study was needed before final decisions were made. There are a lot of assumptions in their projections that may change, al-Falih said. We dont want to throttle the global economy. Russia, another major producer, struck a more measured tone, however, saying it preferred a wait-and-see approach. I would not want to focus purely on production cuts, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told Bloomberg on Monday. This is not the ultimate goal, to cut or not to cut, he added. I think we would have to wait and see how the market is unfolding because our ultimate goal is market stability. Representatives from here major oil producers met in Abu Dhabi at the weekend [Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images] Oil prices have shed a fifth of their value over the past month due to oversupply and signs of a softer-than-expected impact from sanctions on Iranian crude exports. But they climbed on Monday as Saudi Arabia, the worlds largest oil supplier, announced the plans to cut production in response to fears of oversupply. The 15 members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which include Saudi Arabia, alone pump over a third of global crude supply. Any official decision on global output cuts will be made at a key ministerial meeting for OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Vienna in early December, al-Falih said. Oil producers will continue to evaluate the market data prior to the Vienna summit, but if we need to trim production by one million bpd, we will do, he added. Suhail al-Mazrouei, the UAEs energy minister, said balancing the market would require changes in the strategy of producers. We need not overreact to falling prices, Mazrouei said, adding that crude was a dynamic market. Assem Jihad, Iraqi energy minister spokesperson, told the AFP news agency his country, also an OPEC member, was hoping for any decision that would help balance and stabilise the market. Brent crude dropped below $70 a barrel on Friday for the first time since April but it was trading above $71 a barrel on Monday. West Texas Intermediate crude also dropped to a nine-month low, below $60 a barrel. It was trading above $61 on Monday. Al-Falihs comments followed a meeting in Abu Dhabi at the weekend, where major producers started laying the groundwork to cut supply in 2019, reversing an almost year-long expansion. The group, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, warned that crude supply would outstrip demand next year. In a final statement, they said they had reviewed current oil supply and demand fundamentals and noted that 2019 prospects point to higher supply growth than global requirements. That in mind, they vowed to consider options on new 2019 production adjustments, which may require new strategies to balance the market. Al-Falih on Monday said inventories had been building up, adding that the 25 producers will not allow this to continue and that they had signalled they would do whatever it takes to balance the market. We are going to do everything we can to keep inventories and supply-demand fundamentals within a reasonably narrow band around balance, he said. Senior Saudi officials, including aides close to General Ahmed al-Asiri, who was fired last month for allegedly ordering the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, inquired about assassinating prominent Iranian officials and sabotaging Irans economy, the New York Times has reported. The paper said on Sunday that during a meeting with private businessmen in 2017, senior aides close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, inquired about killing Qassim Suleimani, the leader of the Quds Force of Irans Revolutionary Guards Corps. The paper said that al-Asiri attended a meeting in March 2017 in Riyadh where businessmen pitched a $2bn plan to use private intelligence operatives to try to sabotage the Iranian economy. George Nader, a convicted paedophile and former political adviser to the United Arab Emiratess Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, arranged the meeting, it said. Nader also met MBS and pitched the Iran plan to officials in the White House. Another participant in the meetings was Joel Zamel an Israeli whose now-defunct Psy-Group intelligence firm is under investigation by the FBI and is suspected of pitching a media manipulation plan for Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign. During the meeting about the plan to sabotage Irans economy, three people familiar with the discussions told the newspaper that the Saudis asked the private businessmen whether they also conducted kinetics lethal operations saying they were interested in killing senior Iranian officials. The businessmen reportedly hesitated, saying they would need to consult their lawyers. The NYT reported that Nader and Zamels plan dated to the beginning of 2016 when they started discussing an ambitious campaign of economic warfare against Iran similar to one waged by Israel and the United States during the past decade aimed at coercing Iran to end its nuclear programme. They sketched out operations like revealing hidden global assets of the Quds force; creating fake social media accounts in Farsi to foment unrest in Iran; financing Iranian opposition groups; and publicising accusations, real or fictitious, against senior Iranian officials to turn them against one another, the paper said. Nader and Zamel reportedly enlisted Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater and an adviser to the Trump transition team. They had already discussed elements of their plan with Prince, in a meeting when they learned of his own paramilitary proposals that he planned to try to sell to the Saudis. After Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, Nader met frequently with White House officials to discuss the economic sabotage plan, the paper added. Ronen Bergman, a journalist at the New York Times and member of the team that broke the story, told Al Jazeera that after the businessmens lawyer rejected the idea of carrying out any assassinations, Nader told the Saudis there are a group of SAS in London who might take the initiative. We dont know what the end of that connection was, but the fact that all these high-ranking Saudi officials, very close to the crown prince discussed that, pitched that, offered that project to private businessmen, suggests a total change of policy during the time of the crown prince. Rogue operation Saudi Arabia has changed its narrative about the murder several times amid international outcry and intensifying scepticism over its account. After insisting for more than two weeks that Khashoggi had left the consulate, it then admitted the journalist had died in a fistfight inside the building. Later, Riyadh conceded Khashoggi was killed in a premeditated murder, but that the murder was an unplanned rogue operation. Saudi Arabias Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told Fox News last month that This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had. They made a mistake when they killed Jamal Khashoggi. However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the highest levels of the Saudi government of ordering the hit, while some officials have pointed the finger at the crown prince a charge Riyadh denies. Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey shared recordings related to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi with Saudi Arabia, the US, Germany, France and Britain. The Turkish leader discussed the issue with US President Donald Trump during a dinner marking the end of the First World War in Paris, according to White House officials. Three main parties challenge President Sirisenas decision to dissolve parliament and call for snap election. Sri Lankas main parties on Monday petitioned the Supreme Court against President Maithripala Sirisenas decision to dissolve parliament and call for a snap election in the South Asian island nation. Sirisena late on Friday called snap elections for January 5 and dismissed parliament, two weeks after sacking the prime minister and installing the divisive former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place. Overthrown Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghes United National Party (UNP), the main opposition Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the leftist JVP, or Peoples Liberation Front, were among 10 groups that filed the action, officials said. We must all act with patriotism and independence to safeguard the future of democracy in our country Karu Jayasuriya, the speaker of parliament Three parties, which together enjoy an absolute majority in the 225-member House, on Monday asked the Supreme Court to declare the presidents actions illegal. The petitions were accepted this morning and it is up to the Chief Justice to decide when it will be taken up for hearing, a court official said. He said several civil society groups and individuals had also submitted separate petitions, all seeking a declaration against the presidential action against the legislature. On Sunday, the speaker of parliament, Karu Jayasuriya, urged civil servants to defy Sirisenas illegal orders. I have watched over the last two weeks as the executive branch has seized the rights and usurped the powers of members of parliament who were elected to represent the people, he said. We must all act with patriotism and independence to safeguard the future of democracy in our country. Civil unrest Defending his decision, Sirisena said violent clashes among rival MPs could have led to civil unrest across the country if the legislature had met as scheduled this week. Had I allowed the parliament to meet on November 14, there would have been violence in the House and it could have spread to our villages and towns, Sirisena said in his first address to the nation since the crisis erupted on Friday. I acted to prevent civil unrest. Sirisenas rivals maintain that he had no constitutional power to sack the House until it completed four-and-a-half years of its five-year term, which ends in August 2020. Only China has recognised the appointment of Rajapaksa who, during his decade as president, relied heavily on Beijing for both diplomatic and financial support as the West shunned him over his human rights record. The United States has led a chorus of international voices expressing concern over threats to democracy on the island of 21 million people, which is strategically located in the Indian Ocean. Election monitors have questioned the legality of the snap poll announced by Srisena. The Peoples Action for Free and Fair Elections said it had already asked the independent Elections Commission to seek an opinion from the attorney general and an order from the Supreme Court. Italian city hosts representatives of Libyas various factions and other countries in bid to find political settlement. Palermo, Italy Renegade General Khalifa Haftar has arrived in the Italian city of Palermo to attend an international conference seeking to explore a new United Nations road map for Libya. Haftar heads one of Libyas key rebel factions in the east of a country that has been plagued by violence and political chaos since 2011, when its former leader Muammar Gaddafi was deposed. His arrival on Monday came despite sources close to him in Benghazi increasing rumours throughout the day that he might cancel his participation due to the presence of Islamist and al Qaeda-linked delegates. Also attending the summit are Aguila Saleh, speaker of the eastern parliament, and Khalid al-Mishri, speaker of the upper chamber in the capital, Tripoli. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Tunisian counterpart, Beji Caid Essebsi, are among a number of leaders who also arrived in Palermo at the behest of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Haftar, after a brief meeting and handshake with Conte, skipped the working dinner, where representatives from other Libyan factions and their foreign sponsors were present. Italian government sources said he would return for a bilateral meeting later in the evening. General Haftars decision to participate or not in the Palermo conference is more about theatrics than blackmail, said Claudia Gazzini, a Libya expert at the International Crisis Group. He is believed to have been present in Palermo during the day, and some of his advisers even participated in the morning sessions of the conference. During the day, in a series of working groups led by the UN mission to Libya (UNSMIL) and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, delegates discussed both economic and security measures. New effort to solve crisis The Palermo conference aims to bridge the divide between secularist Haftar, believed to be supported by Russia, Egypt and France, and the UN-backed government of Fayez al-Serraj, who counts the Italians among his closest western supporters. It also seeks to bring to the table the warring factions and get them behind a new UN plan for a national conference and elections early next year in a Libya-led, Libya-owned process. The talks, however, are overshadowed by a diplomatic wrangling between France and Italy. A French plan to hold Libyan elections in December also failed. The Italians have tried to broaden the spectrum of the conference by inviting Libyas armed militias and tribal leaders, efforts that Haftar sees as a direct threat to his military ambitions. Rome insists the summit is meant to support the UN-led initiative as presented by Ghassan Salame, the UN special envoy to Libya, to the Security Council last week. While key Western leaders have stayed away from the conference, envoys from both Russia and the United States expressed their support for the UN plan on Sunday. David Satterfield, acting assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs in the US administration, and Russias Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov met Salame. Hodeida, YemenAt least 149 people including civilians have been killed in 24 hours of clashes between government loyalists and rebels in Yemens flash point city of Hodeida, medics and military sources said Monday. A source in Yemens pro-government military coalition, which is backed by Saudi Arabia and its regional allies, said the Huthi rebels had pushed back a large-scale offensive aimed at moving up the Red Sea coastline towards the Hodeida port, a lifeline to 14 million Yemenis who face mass starvation. Government forces, led on the ground by Emirati-backed troops, have made their way into rebel-held Hodeida after 11 days of clashes, reaching residential neighborhoods in the east on Sunday and sparking fears of street fights that would further endanger civilians trapped in the city. Residents and government military sources have reported rebel snipers stationed on rooftops in civilian streets in eastern Hodeida, a few miles from the port on the western edge of the city. The Hodeida offensive has sparked international outcry unprecedented in nearly four years of conflict between Yemens Huthis, who are linked to Iran, and the Saudi-backed government. Aid groups fear for the safety of nearly 600,000 people living in Hodeidaand for millions of others dependent on its port for what little food and humanitarian aid trickle into impoverished, blockaded Yemen. A military official in Hodeida on Monday confirmed seven civilians had died, without giving further details. Medics in hospitals across the city reported 110 rebels and 32 loyalist fighters killed overnight, according to a tally by AFP. Sources at the Al-Alfi military hospital, seized by the rebels during their 2014 takeover, said charred body parts had been delivered there overnight. Military sources confirmed that the Saudi-led alliance had targeted the rebels with multiple air strikes. The rebels have begun to transfer their wounded to Sanaa, the capital, which the Huthis seized during a 2014 takeover that included a string of ports on the Yemeni coastline. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the Yemeni governments fight against the Iran-backed Huthis in 2015, triggering what the UN now calls the worlds worst humanitarian crisis. The Saudi-led alliance drove the rebels from the Yemeni coast, but have failed to retake Hodeida despite multiple attempts.Nearly 600 people have been killed since clashes erupted in Hodeida on November 1, ending a temporary suspension in a government offensive to take the city that began in June. The Saudi-led alliance has come under intense international pressure to end the conflict in Yemen, particularly following the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was killed in his countrys consulate in Istanbul on October 2, was an ardent critic of Saudi Arabias powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has spearheaded the kingdoms controversial role in the Yemen war. Multiple countries, including Germany and Norway, halted arms sales to Saudi Arabia after Khashoggis killing. The United Nations Yemen envoy, Martin Griffiths, is pushing for peace talks between the Huthis and Saudi-backed government by the end of the year. Multiple UN-brokered negotiations have failed to find a solution to the Yemen conflict. The United States, which for years provided military training and aerial refueling for the Saudi-led coalition, on Saturday announced it would end its in-flight refueling support for the alliance. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will visit Saudi Arabia on Monday, where he will seek to build support for UN efforts to end the conflict, the Foreign Office said. The coalition has been blacklisted by the United Nations for the killing and maiming of children, particularly in air raids on rebel-held territory. Hodeida port has been under blockade by the coalition for a year. The alliance accuses Iran of smuggling arms to the Huthis through the port, with Tehran denies. Aid groups have urged the rebels and loyalist forces to allow civilians to escape from Hodeida, where many cannot afford even a bus fare. The World Health Organization estimates nearly 10,000 people have been killed in the Yemen war since 2015. Rights groups believe the toll may be five times as high. Hot dry winds expected to blow until Tuesday whipped up the flames and heightened the urgency of evacuation orders. The death toll from wildfires raging in the US state of California rose to 31 after six more people were found dead in what is poised to become the deadliest wildfire in state history. Officials said the bodies of five people were found in their burned-out homes and the sixth was found in a vehicle in northern Californias Camp Fire, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told reporters on Sunday evening. More than 200 people are still unaccounted for, Honea said. The devastation was so complete in some neighborhoods that its very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there, he said. The so-called Camp Fire in the northern part of the state has claimed at least 29 lives since it broke out on Thursday. Hundreds of kilometres to the south at least two people died in the Woolsey conflagration threatening the wealthy beach community of Malibu, near Los Angeles. Looting was reported in the southern fire area and arrests were made, police reported. Exponential spread Hot dry winds expected to blow until Tuesday whipped up the flames and heightened the urgency of evacuation orders, officials said. We are entering a new normal. The rate of spread is exponentially more than it used to be, said Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen, noting at a news conference that Californias fires in 2018 grow far more quickly than they did even 10 years ago. Several officials urged residents to heed evacuation orders. Sol Bechtold drove from shelter to shelter looking for his mother, Joanne Caddy, a 75-year-old widow whose house burned down along with the rest of her neighborhood in Magalia, just north of Paradise. She lived alone and did not drive. Im also under a dark emotional cloud. Your mothers somewhere and you dont know where shes at. You dont know if shes safe, he said. Get smart With proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2018 The Camp Fire burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in Paradise, more structures than any other California wildfire on record, and the death toll, which could rise, also makes it one of the deadliest. Its death toll now equals that of the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, the deadliest wildfire on record in California. President Donald Trump, on a trip to France, said in a Twitter post early Sunday, With proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart! The Republican president has previously blamed California officials for fires and threatened to withhold funding, saying the state should do more to remove rotten trees and other debris that fuel blazes. State officials have blamed climate change and said many of the burn areas have been in federally managed lands. About the show A weekly programme that examines and dissects the worlds media, how they operate and the stories they cover. Watch The Listening Post every Saturday at 0830GMT The November 4, 2018 election remains unfinished as some races remain undecided. Recounting votes is an occupational affliction in Florida. In that state Broward County, one of the largest counties, is replete with voting machines that do not count accurately, with misplaced ballots that suddenly miraculously appear, and where criminal activity over electoral behavior is never punished. Nevertheless, even if full final accurate details are outstanding, some preliminary conclusions and thoughts about results of the election can be made. First and most important, the divided American nation has a divided government, with the Democrats capturing the House of Representatives and the Republicans maintaining, even strengthening, their control of the Senate. It remains to be seen if this foretells political gridlock, more difficult government, wastage of time on irrelevant investigations, or genuine attempts at compromise. If neither political party can claim victory, some significant changes, concerning territory, women, and nonwhites have taken place. The Democrats, concentrating on health issues, appear to have done well in swing districts, in wealthy suburban areas, even in territory previously Republican, as well as in urban centers and in New York State and California. Republicans, with President Donald Trump stressing immigration issues, were stronger in less populous and rural states. The new Congress will be more female. What a dramatic change from fifty years ago when Shirley Chisholm was elected to Congress, the first black woman, in 1968, served 1969-83, and was the first African-American woman to bid for the presidency. The first important change is that women, white as well as black, who tend to vote Democratic, will be more prominent. Before the November election, women numbered 84 in the House (61 Dem and 23 Rep), 23 in the Senate (17 Dem, six Rep), along with six governors. In 2018 women candidates numbered 276; 237 (185 Dem, 52 Rep) for the House, 23 for Senate, 16 for governors. Final results are not definite, but women won over 115 seats in the House, 12 in the Senate, and nine governorships. The women differ ideologically, racially and religiously. A third of all the women running for House were women of color, as were 5 of the 16 women gubernatorial candidates. The 34 new women so far elected to the House are said to be more liberal than the 66 women re-elected. Also, 13 LGBTQ women ran for the House and Senate, and three for governors. It remains to be seen whether the more numerous women, some of whom will hold prominent positions in Congress, will propose more legislation, and whether this will be on a wider range of issues. The turnout was high, 113 million, 48% of eligible Americans voted, the highest turnout in midterm elections for at least 40 years. Higher turnout took place in areas where people have a college degree. The turnout increased among woman, Latinos, and young people. There were interesting features. For the first time an open gay man, Jared Polis, became governor of a state, Colorado. In New York City, a 29-year-old woman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat though self-described Democratic-Socialist, was elected, the youngest person to be elected to Congress. If one discounts the case of Senator Elizabeth Warren with high cheekbones, a DNA showing she is 1/1024 or .09% Native American and perhaps with tribal ancestors 6-10 generations ago, the first Native American woman, Sharice Davids, openly gay, member of Ho-Chunk Nation, from Kansas City, was elected to Congress. Another Native, Debra Haaland, member of Pueblo of Laguna tribe, was elected from New Mexico, beating a Latina. An African-American woman, Stacey Abrams, narrowly failed to become the first black woman to become governor of Georgia. In Massachusetts, the first black woman was elected to the House. More than 20 African-American women will be in the House. Perhaps the most surprising, if largely unreported, change in the 2018 election is the political emergence of Arab-Americans and Muslims in U.S., with a record number of Arab-Americans and Muslim candidates running for office. Estimates are that there are 3.5-4.5 million Arab-Americans and 7.5 million Muslims in the country, of whom 22% are Arab, and the largest section are African-Americans and Asian. The most populated states of Arab-Americans are California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Texas. and Virginia. Until 2000 Arab-Americans were little interested in elections, but in 2000 they fielded 700 candidates in local, state, and national contests, 92 from Texas. At that time, 153 were elected, all for local offices, and none for state or federal level. With 9/11 Arab-American and Muslims were less likely to go public. Before 2018, there were fewer than 300 Arab-Americans in political office. But in 2018 there appears to be a breakthrough. One survey holds that about 95% of eligible Muslims voted, and that 55 Muslims were elected to some form of public office. Current estimates are that 128 Arab-Americans ran at all levels from precinct captain to senator. Forty-six Arab-Americans ran for a number of positions at state and local government level. Twenty-five Arab-Americans ran for seats in the House, the Senate, or for governorships. They were overwhelmingly Democratic. Sixteen lost in primaries, Twelve were on the ballots, and nine were elected, and another was re-elected. These included two Muslim Arab women: Ilhan Omar in Minnesota, daughter of Somali refugees; and Rashida Tlaib, daughter of Palestinian immigrants, in Michigan, the first Palestinian and Muslim women to be elected to Congress. Omar, previously a member of the Minnesota state legislature, wears a hijab, the first to be worn in the House, and had often spoken polemically of "apartheid Israel." Two other Arab-America women won in Florida; Donna Shalala in the 2nd District and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in the 26th District. who won closely by one percentage point. Various other Arab-Americans were elected and re-elected, including Ralph Abraham in Louisiana for the third time with 67% of the vote, and Chris Sununu who won his second term as governor of New Hampshire. In Michigan, Abdul el Sayed, backed by the Muslim Brotherhoood, became governor. There also appears to be a change in political disposition of Arab-Americans. In 2000, they voted 72% for George W, Bush, 8% for Al Gore, and 14% for Ralph Nader. In 2018, 78% voted Democratic, 17% Republican. Arab-American women are more likely to support Democrats than men are. In surveys, 46% consider themselves liberal on social issues. and 35% say they are conservative. Yet, 40% consider themselves liberal on fiscal issues compared with 43% conservative. It is a crucial sign of changing times that more than half of Arab-Americans say they had become more interested in politics since 2016, and 55% are more actively involved in politics. Muslims, about 42%, say they are somewhat or very involved in activities at a mosque or Islamic Center. As always, the future is unpredictable. Green energy is an incredible money-making scam. The promoters of green energy make billions of dollars promoting dumb energy schemes that are completely useless. What makes the scam extremely clever is that the scammers have convinced the public that the purpose of their scam is to improve the environment. The scammers pretend to be earnest environmental advocates. Any really good scam needs endorsements from authoritative sounding sources. In the case of green energy, the authoritative sources are in on the scam. The beneficiaries of the green energy scam go way beyond the wind and solar industries. Non-profit environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, need to be seen as fighting against an urgent looming catastrophe. If they dont have something dreadful to fight against, no one is going to join their organizations or give them money. Global warming, allegedly caused by carbon dioxide, is the looming catastrophe and green energy is the solution. When the globe failed to warm they renamed the looming catastrophe climate change in place of global warming. Now they blame every instance of bad weather on climate change created by burning coal and oil. What were formerly acts of God are now the fault of the oil and coal companies. Scientists are a special interest group largely financed by the federal government. Global warming is a magnificent gift to the science industry. The industry has been corrupted by pathological science that is primarily intended to increase flow of money from Washington. Science directed toward discovering truth is out of fashion. The many scientists that are global warming skeptics dont exist as far as the science industry is concerned. Government agencies, and the politicians that give the agencies money, have embraced the threat of climate change. It gives them something to do that is more noble, even romantic than highways and making the trains run on time. The government spends billions on subsidizing wind and solar energy. Ironically, electric utility companies love wind and solar green energy. They know perfectly well that wind and solar are useless because wind and solar generate electricity erratically and have to be backed up by reliable conventional electric generating plants. The only economic benefit is the fuel saved in the backup plants when wind or solar is actually generating electricity. But the cost of the wind or solar electricity is much higher than the benefit of fuel saved. Thus, the more wind or solar that you have, the more money you lose. But, electric utilities are regulated by public utilities commissions. The amount of profit they are allowed is calculated as a fraction of the utilities capital investment. So, the utilities want to make capital investments, even if those investments are wind and solar plants that waste money on a grand scale. The electricity consumers bear the cost and the utilities are allowed a larger profit. In some parts of the country rooftop solar is fashionable. Homeowners who install rooftop solar often save money because the reduction in cost of electricity from the utility is greater than he cost of the solar electricity. These homeowners brag to their friends about how clever they are, and the purveyors of rooftop solar place advertisements claiming that rooftop solar is cheaper than buying electricity from the electric company. This is part of the scam. Rooftop solar is profitable because it is heavily subsidized and because the electric utility is forced, by the governmental authorities, to provide a connection to back up the solar without compensating remuneration. The real cost of rooftop solar electricity, exclusive of subsidies, is around 30-cents per kilowatt hour and the real benefit is around two cents per kilowatt hour from fuel saved in the utilitys backup plants. The subsidy, financed by taxpayers and electricity consumers, is greater than ninety percent. Hundreds of thousands of home owners, under the delusion that they have discovered cheaper electricity, are walking and talking advertisements for solar energy. The biggest victim of the green energy scam is the public in general. Everybody pays more taxes and pays more for energy as a consequence of the scam. But the waste of billions of dollars may not be noticeable when spread over the 320 million Americans. The public has been exposed to relentless propaganda promoting green energy as beneficial and less expensive. The public is the greatest victim, but most people dont know that they are being victimized, so there is little incentive to organize against the scam. There are certain other victims such as the coal industry and coal miners. But these groups mostly dont understand that they are victimized by a scam. Due to the propaganda they may actually believe that burning coal is undesirable and dangerous. Thus, they lack a clear mandate to organize against the scam. (Modern coal generating plants are environmentally clean.) The manufacturers of fossil fuel generating plants are beneficiaries, not victims. Wind and solar dont reduce the demand for fossil fuel plants because wind and solar have to be backed up by traditional plants. A campaign against coal, by the Sierra Club, has resulted in the closing of many coal plants. The closed plants are typically replaced by new natural gas plants. Due to the strain imposed on the electric grid by erratic wind and solar there are many commercial opportunities for upgrading the traditional components of the electricity grid. Rather than hurting the manufacturers of fossil fuel generating equipment, the green energy movement actually helps them. The green energy scam is the perfect scam because the beneficiaries include many influential individuals and institutions, while the victims are dispersed among large numbers of unorganized people. The few concentrated groups of victims, like coal miners, are psychologically handicapped by propaganda that has convinced them that they, rather than the scammers, are at fault. Wind and solar are truly useless, like having a 6th toe or an appendix. A detailed exposition on the uselessness of wind and solar is given in my book Dumb Energy: A Critique of Wind and Solar Energy. Green energy is often justified on the grounds that it reduces carbon dioxide emissions and thus prevents global warming. Of course, global warming, now called climate change, is itself a scam. The science on which the predictions of global warming doom are based is incredibly weak. But, the weak science is presented as if it is reliable by self-interested parties. In any case, wind and solar are very expensive methods of reducing CO2 emissions. Other, far more practical, strategies for reducing CO2 emissions are available. Anyone who criticizes the green energy scam is ruthlessly attacked. Critics are often accused of being in the pay of fossil fuel companies. Fossil fuel companies are too timid to risk the wrath of the green movement, so they hardly ever give money to the critics of the green movement. A favorite line of attack is to accuse the critics of using tobacco company tactics to cover up the danger from using fossil fuels. Critics are often depicted as being mental cases, as when Al Gore said that critics of his global warming promotions were like people who think the moon landing was filmed in a Hollywood studio or think that the Earth is flat. James Hansen, often considered that father of the global warming movement, suggested that executives of fossil fuel companies should be sent to jail for crimes against humanity. Green energy is the perfect scam because it is disguised as a do-good movement and the victims are dispersed, unorganized and disarmed by propaganda. Green energy is endorsed by government agencies, environmental non-profits, and scientific groups. These are people that are often seen as sources of reliable information but that, in reality, work to promote their own parochial interests. This is a scam that needs to be exposed. Image credit: Max Pixel Norman Rogers is the author of the book Dumb Energy and writes often about political and environmental issues. My father owned a small linens business that was destroyed by NAFTA, despite his appeals to several presidents about the deleterious effects it would have on businesses like his. It was ironic, then, that he died on the day Trump announced the new trade deal with Mexico and Canada. Whenever I would worry that this country was in a death spiral, hed reassure me that America was resilient. It had the infrastructure of durable yet flexible institutions to meet the changing demands of our nation and a tenacious population with a can-do spirit that could survive nearly any political debacle and surmount any challenges from within as well as from without. It was a nation that demonstrated it could grow beyond its worst mistakes and be an even brighter beacon to the world. When Barack Obama came to power decreeing his administration would fundamentally transform this country, my father was skeptical. As that transformation began to unfold amid assurances that the arc of history would bend toward justice under Obamas leadership, Dad became pessimistic. Before he slipped into the childlike bliss of dementia, he was convinced that America could not survive Obamas onslaught from within and the vulnerability to nefarious outside forces his policies would cause. My mother regretted that her grandchildren would inherit a dysfunctional country. Her only solace was that she wouldnt be here to see it happen. I have felt a sense of dread since my father passed away. Its as if my connection to the days of America past has been severed and the future Id normally focus on, looks bleak. But its not just me. Conservatives seem to tapped out; unwilling to fight as they did during the Tea Party years. And yet we are attacked on all fronts on any given day just as we were during the Obama years. Its overwhelming. Its exhausting. Its hard to know how to respond. Its enough to get through an election, throw some money at a few candidates, maybe stuff a few envelopes or debate a few friends. Who has time to write, call, tweet, or demonstrate? The midterms gave us something of a bittersweet victory, tempered by the threats of endless battles under the leadership of Pelosi, Waters, Schiff, and Nadler. Pelosi took impeachment off the table long enough to win the House. Waters complains about Republican dog whistling as she herself whistles for her battle dogs to harass and protest. Schiff is like a dog with a bone when it comes to undoing the presidency. And the incoming Chair of the Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler very publicly shoots his mouth off about his impeachment strategy, while on a train. This is hardly the judicious temperament required for such a position. Were he a Republican, Democrat hoodlums would be protesting in front of his house braying that he is not up to the task. Close elections in traditionally red states are being upended with mystery ballots popping up out of the ether. And its all being done with Democrat cries of count every vote! But we know Democrats dont care about integrity. Lying, cheating, and stealing are acceptable as long as they reach their destination. Anything that reflects poorly on them, they throw back to the Republicans. We see this in the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the interim appointment of Matthew Whittaker. The left is using this legitimate presidential action to create a constitutional crisis, while calling Whittakers appointmenta constitutional crisis. As they try to steal the elections in Arizona, Florida and Georgia, they say we are stealing the elections. Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes is running the show in Broward Country despite past and present election irregularities and yet, somehow, Republicans are depriving voters of their day at the polls. Georgia gubernatorial candidate and firebrand Stacey Abrams set the stage for this battle of the ballots in her Obamaesque election night speech. "Georgia is just within reach, but we cannot seize it until all voices are heard and I promise you tonight, we're going to make sure that every vote is counted." The Democrats were primed for this challenge after a federal court ruling that Georgia Secretary of State and Abrams opponent Brian Kemp had weaponized his office by rejecting ballots where the signatures didnt match those on record. Apparently, laws designed to ensure fairness to all voters while upholding the integrity of the electoral system, are voter suppression laws. Democrats twist and spin like a dreidel on acid. They demand count every vote! even though election officials do not have to count what the law determines are late ballots, ballots that do not meet standards of reliability, or have irregularities like addresses that dont exist or signatures that dont match. They insist illegal aliens are legal immigrants entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizens and legal residents. Their fellow travelers in the media dutifully recite count every vote and no racism towards immigrants and the gullible public takes it as gospel. On every front Trump is being attacked and it isnt just in the news. It occurs at White House press conferences, on the street hours after he announces the appointment of an interim AG, on trains by a congressman tempted by a committee chairmanship, in the book of the former FLOTUS, in the speeches of the former POTUS, at the front door and driveway of TV commentators, and in close elections in red states that Republicans won. Conservatives are tired. They just want their elected officials to wrap things up in a neat bow so they can work and raise their children. But thats not enough. We win this country back by weaponizing ourselves. We are the power. Because of our efforts, a majority of congressional Republicans now embrace the ideals we fought for during the Obama years. Warriors dont retreat just as they are making inroads. We may not be fighting a kinetic war, but it is our destiny to fight this ideological war for the soul of this country. It is just as vital and, in some ways harder, because the enemy is an internal hegemon--progressivism. Fortunately, it no longer hides in the shadows. We see its face every day. It is tenacious, brazenly mendacious, ferocious, avaricious, ubiquitous; it is relentless and merciless. This is not a war with swords and guns, but of words and actions. My father fought against NAFTA for 30 years. Trump couldnt have changed NAFTA without the efforts of people like Dad. The president cant do all he has to do in the next two years without us either. The midterms were a mixed bag and left us feeling pretty lousy. And its not over given the looming morass of election challenges. We also face the exhausting reality that the left will not stop until they take down a president who has our back in a way Ive never seen in a political leader, let alone a president. Are we going to let this happen? Americas conservatives are at a crossroads. We can tack to the right and commit to a new morning in America, emboldened by the power we have as the People, by judges and representatives devoted to conservatism, and a Senate majority that can punch back working in tandem with a fearless and indefatigable President. Or, we can tack to the left, where wed be mourning in America because we let the light go out on this beacon on a hill. Image: cropped screen grab from YouTube One thing Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis have going for them -- besides the obvious lead in vote totals so far -- is history. Republican presidential candidates Rutherford B. Hayes and George W. Bush both eventually ended up carrying the state of Florida in 1876 and 2000, two other prolonged elections. Even before Brenda Snipes ran elections in Broward County, Florida had real issues with counting votes. My book, Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections, opens by asking, What is it with Florida anyway? I never expected to be asking this question after the 2018 midterm elections. The country is also on edge this year over the outcomes of the Arizona Senate race where Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is slightly leading Republican Martha McSally. Also, Democrat Stacey Abrams wont concede defeat to Republican Brian Kemp in the Georgia governors race, even though it appears Kemp is the likely winner. Razor thin elections create the risk that large portions of voters will view the winner as illegitimate. Still, only Florida will definitely have recounts, in this case affecting two of the most closely-watched statewide races in the country. Perhaps the biggest common thread for 1876, 2000, and 2018 isnt numbers and geography. Rather, its the Democratic partys determination to hunt for votes after election day to gain power. Of course, other states have had past voting problems too. But Florida managed to be one of four states contested in the disputed 1876 presidential election -- eventually decided by Congress. It was the only contested state in the 2000 election -- eventually decided by the Supreme Court. In one respect, the 2018 midterms are more similar to the 1876 centennial crisis of Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, since multiples states are in question. Rather than a recount, the 1876 controversy was about who carried the Floridas four electoral votes. The other contested states in 1876 were South Carolina, which had seven electoral votes; Louisiana, which had eight; and one of Oregons three electoral votes was in question. Today, voter suppression is a bumper sticker slogan the DNC rolls out every two years to raise money and oppose voter ID laws. In 1876, just 11 years after the Civil War, the south was in reconstruction. For the newly freed black Americans, voter suppression was a reality. Democrats were also eager to cheat in those days as well. In Florida, Democrats handed out Tilden tickets decorated with Republican symbols to try to deceive freedmen they believed were illiterate. After the election, the Republican recanvasing boards determined Hayes won the Florida by 922 votes out of 47,000 cast. However, the Democratic officials found enough votes to contend that Tilden had won the state by 94 votes. A federal electoral commission made up of five senators, five House members, and five Supreme Court justices voted 8-7 along party line that Hayes had won the electoral votes in all four contested states. After much partisan debate and a compromise to preemptively end Reconstruction in the South, a Democratic House and Republican Senate voted to ratify the commissions determination and make Hayes president. In another respect, the Florida mess of 2018 more resembles the 2000 presidential showdown between Bush and Democrat Al Gore. Its a recount where Democrats insisted that new votes could be found in Palm Beach and Broward counties, among other Democratic strongholds in the state, if they looked and counted enough. Palm Beach and Broward are the two key counties today. Gore reportedly said in the midst of the 2000 recount, Im not like George Bush. If he wins or loses, life goes on. I will do anything to win. Similar to Gore, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum conceded defeat then unconceded. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson never conceded, but, almost echoing Gore, Nelsons campaign attorney Marc Elias said bluntly of the recount push, Were doing it to win. In 2000, Democratic lawyers targeted overseas absentee ballots from the military, presumed more likely to be Bush voters. Democrats threatened to sue Seminole and Duval counties in Florida, over technicalities, to stop military vote counts. Gore campaign operative Bob Beckel thought that there was a way to capture the Electoral College without the Florida recount. He said, Im trying to kidnap electors. Whatever it takes. Beckel and the Democrats were researching the backgrounds of Republican electors across the nation in hopes of persuading them to give the Electoral College vote to Gore. However, Beckel insisted this was about lobbying and not blackmail. These were both PR nightmares for Democrats, which previously had the upper hand in messaging by insisting every vote be counted. Counting every vote has been a standby line for Democrats for years, but few folks believe it anymore. Most Americans only believe that every eligible and legal vote should count -- not literally every vote. Whether its 1876, 2000 or 2018, the Democrats goal is to win and gain power. For that, Elias may deserve credit for honesty. Fred Lucas is the author of Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections and is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal. George Orwell was correct: Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them. The corollary, that some ideas are so obviously correct that only intellectuals disbelieve them, is equally true. Consider these simple facts. First, more Americans in 2018 are working than last year. In fact, as of the latest jobs report, American unemployment remains at just 3.7%, which is a 49-year-low. Second, that larger percentage of working Americans are generally earning more income and enjoying stronger benefits today, given that wages were 3.1% higher in September than they were a year ago, the report shows -- the highest wage growth since 2009. Additionally, larger private employers, in this environment are more apt to provide competitive wages and strong benefits to entice and retain talent, writes Dominic Rushe of The Guardian. Finally, consider that most Americans are also withholding much less in taxes upon their wages this year than last, leaving more money in their pockets to save, or to spend on everyday goods and services. Roughly 90% of Americans saw bigger paychecks in 2018 than they did in 2017, and even left-of-left Politifact, unable to meaningfully obfuscate or refute the claim, rates that claim as Mostly True. Thats all good for American workers. And this economy, by any measure, is booming. Contrast this to the hyper-regulated economy over which Barack Obama presided, which could rightfully be described as the worst economic recovery in modern times. Obama famously told Americans that 2% growth was the best we could hope for in the last years of his presidency, and GDP growth was actually decelerating in his final year in office, from 2.3% in Q2, to 1.9% in Q3 to 1.8% in Q4 of 2016, relates an Investors Business Daily editorial. That simple fact firmly contradicts Obamas 2018 campaign speeches claiming credit for this booming economy -- under Trumps presidency and a GOP Congress, growth has averaged at 2.9%, and was 4.2% in Q2, and 3.8% in Q3 of 2018. In short, the economy was clearly in decline by Obamas last year in office. It was only when Trump took over with a Republican Congress in 2017 that the economy began our current boom. Its hard to imagine a downside to any of the aforementioned outcomes for Americans today. But the loudest and most prominent leftists imagine circumstances very different than all of that positive economic data signifies. Due to a persistent logical fallacy, maintained by blind faith alone, leading figures among the left are screaming from the ramparts that the Republican-led Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 should be a reason for Americans outrage. As Paul Krugman argues in a recent article at the New York Times: Republicans lie about their agenda, pretending that their policies would help the middle and working classes when they would, in fact, do the opposite. What Republicans stand for is cutting taxes on the rich and slashing social programs. Sure enough, last year they succeeded in ramming through huge tax cuts aimed mainly at corporations and the wealthy. Paul Krugman as seen by Donkey Hotey No data are introduced to support that claim. The reader is meant to blindly presume that the phantom downside of Americans enjoying an unemployment rate lower than at any time since 1969, having more money in their pockets due to smaller liability in federal taxation, and reaping the benefits of a booming economy (none of which is mentioned in Krugmans piece, obviously) is that greedy American businesses also benefit from the tax cuts by having more money on their balance sheets. Therefore, the corporate tax cuts which help greedy and wealthy American businesses must come at the expense of American individuals. Never does it occur to most opponents of the GOP tax cut that American individuals are largely doing better today than a year ago because American businesses are also doing better. And it likewise never occurs to them that business owners do not pay the corporate tax, which was reduced from 35% to 21% in the GOP tax legislation, but that businesses merely tend to pass the costs of corporate taxation onward. As famed economist Walter E. Williams elucidates, a fact of the matter, which even leftist economists understand but might not publicly admit, is that: If a tax is levied on a corporation, and if the corporation hopes to survive, it will have one of three responses to that tax or some combination thereof. It will raise the price of its product, lower dividends or lay off workers. In each case a flesh-and-blood person is made worse off. The important point is that a corporation is a legal fiction and as such does not pay taxes. As it turns out, corporations are merely tax collectors for the government. [Emphasis added] It's possible that Krugman doesnt understand this simple truth, but its likelier that he understands it, but wont publicly admit it, as Williams says, because he views corporations as tax collectors for the government which exist only to finance the governments redistributive social programs. That is a leftist moral argument, not a substantive or realistic economic one. But heres another enormous, though less obvious, benefit of the GOPs slashing of corporate tax rates that Krugman wouldnt want to (and doesnt, for obvious reasons) talk about -- the massive repatriation of American companies capital and operations that had been kept overseas to avoid our previously uncompetitive 35% corporate tax (then among the highest in the developed world). To put this in perspective, consider that $38 billion repatriated to the U.S. in Q1 of 2017. While thats certainly not chump change, it is miniscule by comparison to the $300 billion that was repatriated in Q1 of 2018, after the Republican tax cuts. But we were warned by the smartest of criers in the media, incessantly, that this simply wouldnt happen. Politifact told us to Beware the Hype about repatriation of overseas profits promised by architects of the GOP tax bill. The Associated Press offered a FACT CHECK, saying that the idea that overseas profits might return after a corporate tax cut was a mirage. Why? Because those assumptions were based upon one report, focused on one recent event. The Jobs Creation Act of 2004 provided companies a one-time tax hit on repatriated capital at a rate of 5.25% rather than the then-standard 35%. There was a spike in repatriation of capital, but it didnt have the desired effect, and certainly not the effect Republicans promised in 2017. Those companies tended to buy back shares of their own stock, not to hire, or expand operations, the Associated Press writes. Just as the 2004 corporate tax cuts impact to the economy was minimal, says Mark Zandi of Moodys Analytics, the benefit to the economy with the 2017 GOP tax cuts would also be minimal, as repatriated cash would go to more stock repurchases, dividend increases, and paying for mergers and acquisitions. And yet, new data tells a different story. Americans companies had an estimated $2.6 trillion in cash parked overseas as of 2017. And $300 billion, or roughly 12.6%, came flooding back in, boosting growth, jobs, and the economy. And that is mostly predicated upon one, simple difference between 2004 and 2017. In 2004, lowering corporate rates was a gimmick to repatriate business capital. In 2017, it was firm national policy, including a much lower corporate income tax rate, which would be beneficial to repatriating American businesses in the long-term. Despite the lefts propensity to think of American businesses as soulless, greedy revenue factories which exist only to finance the benevolent federal governments social programs, as Paul Krugman clearly seems to, American businesses know the difference between such a gimmick and the suggestion of a firm, ongoing national policy. As such, American businesses have repatriated overseas capital at unprecedented levels, have hired tremendously, and have expanded operations domestically. Private companies are now offering more competitive employee benefits to American workers, employees wages are growing at the fastest rate since the Great Recession, and unemployment is now the lowest it has been since the Vietnam War. None of that is coincidence. And Im not sure which would be more aggravating about all of this for me -- that the left thinks that the booming economy and the Republican tax cuts might just be coincidental happenstance, or that the left might actually believe that any of these observations are somehow a bad thing for Americans, and that Trump and the GOP must be destroyed at all costs for having created this splendid outcome. William Sullivan blogs at Political Palaver and can be followed on Twitter. "I don't think that credit for the current US economic upsurge can be claimed by Donald Trump and his economic managers." Whenever an economy performs very well or very badly, the first instinct of most discerning people is to try to determine the place where credit or blameas the case may beshould be laid. This is both necessary and logical because good economic performance or bad economic performance, is the result of steadfast implementation of sound economic policies. This matter of who should be praised or blamed for an economys performance has come to the fore anew in the case of the current state of the US economy. The worlds No. 1 economy is doing very well. Since 2017 Americas GDP (gross domestic product) has been growing above 3 percent annually and during the most recent quarter it grew at an above-4-percent pace. Perhaps most important of all, the unemployment rate in that country is currently at its lowest level in 49 years. Most of the companies in the Fortune 500 list of the biggest US companies are operating profitably, with many companies posting record profits. As a result, Americas stock market has been experiencing one of the longest bull runs in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. And these good things have been taking place in an environment of comparative price stability. It is natural for the performance of an economygood or badto be attributed to the political party that is in power. If the economy performs well, that party gets the credit; if the economy is stumbling, it gets the blame. Accordingly, the Republican administration of President Donald Trump is being accorded the credit for the current strong performance of the most powerful economy in the world. Mr. Trump has accepted the credit, attributing it principally to the corporate and individual income tax cuts approved in 2017 by the Republican-controlled Congress and to the tariff increases that his administration has put in place against virtually all of Americas longtime allies. The Trump administration came into office in Januarymore like February2017 and has therefore been at the controls of the US economy for less than two years. Is such a period long enough for the generation of the kind of strength that the US economy has been displaying of late? Corollarily, can the Trump administration fairly claim credit for the US economys current growth momentum? To both questions my answer is No; I dont think that credit for the current US economic upsurge can be claimed by Donald Trump and his economic managers. I think that that credit belongs elsewhere. In support of my view I point to the concept of leads and lags in economic theory, more specifically in the sub-theory of economic policymaking.Leads and lags are quite easily explained. They arise because of the gap that necessarily exists between the time that a policy decision is made and the time that the projected output comes into the market. That gap may be measured in weeks or months or years. Because the first line of the proposed Metro Manila subway system is estimated to be ready for service in 2025, the lead time needed for such a facilityan urgently needed facility, to be sureis seven years. And by the time 2025 comes around, the Metro Manila commuters living then will speak of the 7-year lag between the community problem of 2018 and the inauguration of this countrys first subway system seven long years later. The implication of the foregoing discussion is clear: development planning is about always practice leading to avoid lagging. If this is not done a state of affairs with which Filipinos are familiar bottlenecks and all sorts of economic distortions materialize. The concept of leads and lags does not give rise to questions of responsibility and accountability when the leading and lagging takes place in a non-democratic setting. That is not the case in a democratic environment. A public project commenced today in a country like North Korea or a country with a president-for-life (like China) will very likely be completed during the Beloved Leaders stay in office. But in democracies there are political-term limits and government changes during the implementation of a public project. The inauguration of the first Metro Manila subway line will be undertaken by President Rodrigo Dutertes successor. Economic policy decisions generally take long periods to wind their way through an economy. The more complicated the issue that a policy decision has to deal with, the longer the needed winding-through period. 2018 marks the tenth anniversary of the onset of arguably the worst world economic recession, and it took almost that entire 10-year period for the US economy to return to normal. That is a lot longer than the less than two years that the Trump administration has been in office. The US economy had to return to normal before it could begin to move upward again after the horrendous 2008 downturn. It took all the know-how, experience and stature of Federal Reserve Board chairmen Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen to bring the worlds largest economy back from the abyss. Yet, it took them years to return it to normalcy. It is the US Fedand especially chairmen Bernanke and Yellenthat deserve almost all the credit that the vigor that the US economy is displaying these days. Not the Trump administration. I believe that Donald Trump will be the last Republican president many of us will ever see in our lifetimes. We hope that he will serve two terms, but even that is not a given, despite his popularity both personally and of his MAGA agenda. Ill call it the three Ds, in honor of Trumps first name Donald demeanor, demographics, and deception. Lets start with the first D of Demeanor, his personality. Look at Trumps 2016 election. Republicans ran a strong field of candidates, most of whom were qualified and capable of serving as president, even if some of their political agendas were more establishment than conservative, all certainly better than the alternative, Hillary Clinton. Trump was the only one of the 17 who could have prevailed in the general election against the candidate supported by the entire American left. Mrs. Clinton had the endorsement and support of virtually the entire media, academia, entertainment, and Wall Street financiers. Yet Trump won, handily. No other Republican candidate could have pulled that off. No other candidate would have filled arenas for nonstop campaign rallies. No other candidate would have punched back against media hatred with the ferocity of a junkyard dog. No other candidate would have advanced such a conservative agenda, whether on trade, immigration, taxes, or the judiciary. In other words, Trump is a one-off, an exception. Unlike Obama, Trump is the one we have been waiting for, after a string of wet noodles named Bush, Romney, McCain, and Ryan to name a few. But the Republican bench is thin. Who is the heir apparent? I dont see anyone with the charisma, fire in the belly, energy, and commitment to conservative principles and values. There is no one out there who can connect with the people as Trump does. If any of the other 17 were to win the presidency, they would be overwhelmed by the media onslaught and siren song of the establishment and globalists, pushing for Chamber of Commerce objectives of lousy trade deals, open borders, and moderate judicial picks. Its the demeanor to not only get elected, but also to govern like a boss. Thats the rare combination in Donald Trump and no one else. The next D is Demographics. For Trump to be reelected and for any Republican to follow him into the White House, the Electoral College may be the roadblock. Despite Trump prevailing comfortably in 2016, winning 30 states with an Electoral College margin of 77 votes, will this trend continue in the future? Suppose Texas and Florida flip to the blue side? Texas with 38 electoral votes and Florida with 29 votes total 67 votes, 10 shy of Trumps winning margin. Flip one more state and its lights out for the GOP. Could this happen? Absolutely and it likely will. Its just a matter of time, whether in 2020 or 2024. Ted Cruz won his Senate seat in 2012 57-41 percent, a 16 point margin. Last week, the margin was much smaller, 51-48, barely a 3 point margin. Where do demographics play into this? This headline from the Washington Examiner answers the question, New Yorkers and Californians can't stop moving to Texas. Not just Texas but also Florida, both states provide friendly economic and tax policies, attractive to those escaping economic oppression in New York and California. Ironically, many leaving those states bring their liberal values with them, at least in terms of voting. Even the most liberal individuals seek the best economic circumstances for themselves personally. Just look at the Kennedy family team of attorneys, accountants, and trusts seeking to minimize the taxes they pay, while happily advocating high taxes on everyone else. Fiscal conservatism for me, but not for thee. Or in the voting booth. Dont forget illegal immigrants, slowly populating states like Florida and Texas. How many are voting? And who might they be voting for? Are demographics shifting any states in the opposite direction, from blue states to permanent red? I dont see any. But the red to blue transition is well underway. And not accidentally. Democrats are good at playing the long game, and a slow electoral shift has been in the works for decades. Furthermore, Florida, via ballot referendum, restored voting rights to over 1 million felons. Any guesses how most of them will vote? With the governor and Senate races decided by tens of thousands of votes, if only 5 percent of these newly enfranchised felons vote for the Democrat candidate, the midterm results would be flipped. Likewise for any future presidential elections. Florida is now a toss-up state and Texas may soon be there. Trumps success in the rust belt will not likely be repeated by a more moderate GOP candidate, turning the final electoral map blue rather than red. The last D is Deception. Hugh Hewitt wrote a book whose title says it all, If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It. Look at Arizona, a Senate race won by a Republican, now through the miracle of finding votes after the fact, is all but certain to be flipped to the Democrat. Florida, with close results for Senate and Governor on election night, the losers having already conceded, is in the process of being hijacked by the Democrats. The Florida agricultural commissioner race has already been stolen and flipped to the Democrat. The Senate and Governor races are heading in the same direction. Unless the GOP fights back hard, these two races will also be stolen. I suspect that the Democrats in Broward County have learned from their mistakes in 2000 and will make sure that in a close presidential election, the necessary votes will be found after the fact to convert a slim Republican victory into Democrat hands. A comfortable GOP Senate majority, after Democrat deception, may be close again, making Trumps Supreme Court confirmations dependent on the whims of Murkowski, Collins, and Jeff Flakes NeverTrump replacement, Mitt Romney. Without another Donald Trump, with his larger than life personality and willingness to punch back against overwhelming opposition and hostility, Republicans will have a hard time electing a new president. Combined with the demographic shift to a population inclined to vote for democratic socialism, the skill of Democrats in stealing close elections, Donald John Trump may indeed be the last Republican president we see in the foreseeable future. Photo credit: croppped from Ninian Reid Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. When Democrats repeat their latest mantra, Count every vote! they mean even votes from non-citizens (not to mention the deceased). We have evidence that they believe noncitizens get to have their votes counted thanks to a transcript, made by a court reporter hired by Republicans, of the review of provisional ballots in Palm Beach County. Via the Federalist: During review of provisional ballots to determine whether a recount is justified in the tight Florida governor, senate, and agriculture commission races, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher identified a voter as a non-citizen and declared that the ballot would not be counted. Attorneys representing the Democratic candidate for Senate Bill Nelson and the Democratic candidate for governor Andrew Gillum objected. A copy of the uncertified transcript shows the interaction. During review of provisional ballots to determine whether a recount is justified in the tight Florida governor, senate, and agriculture commission races, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher identified a voter as a non-citizen and declared that the ballot would not be counted. Attorneys representing the Democratic candidate for Senate Bill Nelson and the Democratic candidate for governor Andrew Gillum objected. A copy of the uncertified transcript shows the interaction. Ace investigative reporter Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller News Foundation contacted Mark Elias, the Perkins Coie lawyer running the Democrats attempt to win the election thought vote counting efforts, and he attempted to deny that the lawyers were acting on behalf of the Democrats: Marc Elias, a lawyer for Nelson, told TheDCNF: The lawyer who was present was not someone we had authorized to make such an objection. Non-citizens cannot vote in U.S. elections. He did not explain how the lawyer, Mr. Scarola, came to be representing Nelsons interests in Palm Beach. (snip) Barry Richard, a lawyer for Gillum, did not immediately return a request for comment. Hw big is the problem of noncitizen voting in Florida? We have no idea, but this report by NBC 6 from 2012 suggests that the margin of victory in the contested races for governor and senator is far smaller than the potential number of noncitizen voters: Florida officials are now saying that nearly 200,000 registered voters may not be U.S. citizens. Earlier in the week, state election officials announced they had identified more than 2,600 people who are in Florida legally but ineligible to vote. The Department of State is asking county election officials to verify the information. Election supervisors are contacting voters and if someone is not a citizen, their name will be dropped from the voter rolls. But an initial list drawn up by the state and not widely released shows that a comparison of voter lists and driver's license information turned up a list of nearly 182,000 people who may not be U.S. citizens. The automatic registration of voters when drivers licenses are issued in California is a means to enable noncitizen voting, it is obvious to me. The applicant must be diligent in opting out of registration, meaning that negligence (or language problems) can used as an excuse. Face it: Progressive economic policies dont work, so Americans tend to catch on over time that they are better off with Republicans in office. The remedy the Democrats seek is to import a new electorate, hungry for free stuff. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith has created a firestorm of controversy for using a metaphor to describe how she felt about an invitation to speak. Hyde-Smith, appointed Senator upon the retirement of Thad Cochrane last April, is running for a full term against former Clinton HHS secretary Mike Espy. Since neither candidate received 50% of the vote on election day, a run off is scheduled for early December. Mississippi Today: According to Whites post, after a supporter praised Hyde-Smith, she said to a crowd gathered in Tupelo: If he invited me to a public hanging, Id be on the front row. In an interview with Mississippi Today, White said he did not take the video, which he says was recorded on Nov. 2 before the election and has been viewed close to 90,000 times on Facebook. White added that he has not seen the full recording. Hyde-Smith said she was referring to an invitation to a speaking engagement. In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous, Hyde-Smith said through a statement. Hang her from the highest yardarm! (Ooops...can I say that)? What she should have said is how much she enjoyed hanging around with the guy (Damn! Did I just screw up again?) And what happens if she gets a hang nail? (Perish the thought). Yes, Mrs. Hyde Smith, it's "ridiculous." The campaign of Democrat Mike Espy, who is African American and faces Hyde-Smith in an upcoming runoff election, saw the statement differently, however. Cindy Hyde-Smiths comments are reprehensible, said Danny Blanton, a spokesperson for the Espy campaign in a statement sent to media outlets. They have no place in our political discourse, in Mississippi, or our country. We need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgement to represent the people of our state. If anyone bothered to look at her statement, "public hanging" has absolutely nothing to do with lynching - if it even matters. And it doesn't. The bottom line is the only people who are "offended" by the use of a metaphorical phrase in common usage for a couple of centuries are those who choose to be offended. You have to make a conscious, calculated effort to find what she said inappropriate in any way. In other words, taking offense at her words has nothing to do with hurt feelings, and everything to do with a cold, calculated political move in the midst of a campaign for senator. As for the media, they have to pretend that what she said was offensive because not doing so would "offend" some of their readers. Anyone over the age of 5 knows that this is a political game being played by the Espy campaign and the media is all in to play it with them. This is a pet peeve of mine; hijacking the English language to twist words and phrases, taking them out of context, redefining them, and then unleashing them as part of a political attack. It's despicable. A metaphor is a metaphor. It is not meant to be taken literally. Using language as a partisan political weapon rather than a means to communicate is about as idiotic as you can get. The mainstream press has gone to great pains to tell us the migrant caravan making its way from Honduras to the U.S. has no criminals. Here's the Washington Post: The Trump administration has provided no evidence that criminals, members of the MS-13 gang or people of Middle Eastern descent form part of the caravan. Trump has been criticized for profiling people of Middle Eastern descent with these remarks. In fact, the caravan is often billed as a refuge from criminals, a safety-in-numbers bid that allows migrants to avoid having to pay coyotes for the expensive $8,000 journey. As the New York Times reported: The large size of the caravan, though making for slow progress, has provided participants with safety from the thieves and gangs that prey on migrants in Mexico. It has also apparently discouraged the Mexican authorities from trying to detain all of them. There's just one problem with that: Back near the Guatemalan border end of the journey back in late October, at least one migrant kid was kidnapped right there. Now a hundred migrants have disappeared from this caravan. Apparently someone rolled a truck up, told the migrants they were getting a free ride, lured them in, and nobody's seen them since. Their crying kids should be fine fodder on the hip of some trafficker as he seeks to get in as a "family unit" claiming asylum and benefits from "catch and release." The women may end up in border brothels. The men may end up as drug mules or in mass graves. The perverse incentive to kidnap is already there, and sure enough, some criminal likely embedded in the group started harvesting. Now NBC and The Hill are reporting that migrant women are organizing as a group to find their lost children on these journeys, which would have to include the current caravan, which up until now has been justified as a "safe" way for migrants to travel. A group of 25 women has been traveling from countries in Central America to Mexico, searching for missing relatives and raising awareness about thousands of migrants who have gone missing, NBC News reported Sunday. The group, called the Caravan of Mothers of Disappeared Migrants, says there are tens of thousands of people who have gone missing while traveling toward Mexico and the United States over the past 10 years, according to NBC News. The advocacy efforts come as thousands of migrants are traveling through Mexico toward the southern U.S. border. The Caravan of Mothers is part of the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement, a nonprofit group. The group seems to be a formation of a sort of Latin tradition - that of the pot-banging housewife looking for answers from the state which we have seen in various forms, (some good, some bad), in the last 30 years in Latin America. The women who first protested the communist regime of Salvador Allende by banging pots and pans were the first. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina (a leftist group that celebrated 9/11) were the most famous. Venezuelans have had many such women's groups organizing to protest against Hugo Chavez. Mexicans have formed similar ones against the killings of female maquiladora workers. Now we have the Central American mothers of the missing, posting posters of their loved ones. The problem here is that they are issuing a call for safe travel, rather than discouraging the journeys altogether. It's a funny thing, given that leftist groups tend to favor abolition on emotional issues. Mass shooting? Call for abolition of gun ownership. Kidnappings of caravan migrants? Just enable. Funny how these kidnappings don't happen much on legal migrant journeys. People flying to JFK and clearing customs, even with a shiny new green card, never seem to get kidnapped the way migrant caravans traveling north do. Might the inherent illegality of the venture have something to do with all of these kidnappings? The reality is, the fact that migrants are making their journey illegally is the very wedge bigger and more vicious traffickers take advantage. And isn't it significant to any of them that migrants in the current caravan are also showing signs of suffering the same terrible pattern? The illegality of the journey is the problem and the mission of these women ought to be to discourage illegal travel altogether and maybe call for the U.S. to issue more legal visas for migrants. They're not doing that. They're just blaming rule of law and calling for more enabling of lawlessness. It's not going to work because criminals gonna criminal. The only useful thing about this news is that the whole thing blows apart the phony "narrative" that the migrant caravan is a criminal-free enterprise. Tell that to the mothers of missing 101 people on this journey. Image credit: Associated Press, via YouTube screengrab According to Sam Donaldson (video below) CNN is preparing a lawsuit over the denial of a White House hard pass to Jim Acosta. Appearing on CNNs Reliable Sources Sunday, the former ABC News correspondent claimed that he had been asked to prepare an affidavit for the suit, and had done so. Donaldson added (via the Washington Examiner): "I hope I'm not mistaken, but it's my understanding that CNN and Acosta have sued, that there will be a court hearing on Tuesday on this very matter that we've been discussing," Donaldson said. Remarkably, the host of the program, a CNN employee with the media beat, denied knowing of the lawsuit: Host Brian Stelter replied that he was not aware of such a case. And CNN denied that a suit had been filed, but not asking for an affidavit (or other preparations): A CNN spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that a lawsuit has not been filed yet. "No decisions have been made. We have reached out to the White House and gotten no response," the spokesperson said. On the surface, a lawsuit contesting the decision to permit or deny a press pass seems silly, as there is no constitutional right to have a press pass. But we live in an era in which certain federal judges see their function as being the all-powerful second-guesser of executive branch authority, substituting their own judgment for that of the office-holders, including the president. But Donaldson sees it differently, arrogantly concluding his segment by saying: .the president does not understand a lot of things about our Constitution, but I expect and I believe the courts will instruct him. Watch below. Donaldsons interview begins at 2 minutes 20 seconds: All of a sudden, liberals in government care about the Constitution. Just last week they hated your free speech, freedom of religion, gun rights, and the Constitution in general. Now, the left is up in arms. In their eyes, President Trump created a Constitutional crisis after Attorney General Jeff Sessions left. Trump appointed Matthew Whitaker to act temporarily as attorney general and oversee the alleged Trump-Russia collusion investigation instead of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein staying in control. Now, Democrats are crying Constitutional crisis because of Whitakers public comments against Muellers inquiry. The day after the midterm elections, Jeff Sessions vacated the attorney general seat at the Justice Department. Many believed that he would leave after the first of the year. His sooner-than-expected departure caused the left to panic. Immediately, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), Senate Minority Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other left-wing talking heads threw a fit over Trumps temporary replacement. They argue that Rod Rosenstein should be acting head of the DOJ, since he is next in line. The same day there were protests all over the country. Many leftists took to the streets with signs and bullhorns to pushback against Trumps decision. No matter how many people went into the streets, their actions were not about Whitaker. The left is still upset that Hillary lost. Democratic politicians have no answer on how they let down their base so badly except that the Russians and Trumps campaign cheated to achieve victory. The Democratic Party cannot allow the Russia investigation hoax to end, and Whitaker may be the catalyst. They have no message to deliver to their voters without the Trump-Russia scandal. Simply put, there is no Constitutional crisis just because Whitaker may limit the scope of the Mueller investigation, which would bring his inquiry to an end. However, those on the left will say otherwise and use their favorite tactic, which is fear. They make an overdramatic, sensationalized argument that Trump diminishes the Constitution, specifically Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, which covers advise and consent by the Senate in cabinet positions to confirm. If this were Obama, the left would not bat an eye. Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe said on MSNBC that the appointment was a slow-motion constitutional crisis. When asked why, he said because the Senate did not confirm Whitaker, and the appointment shouldnt get lost in the technical details. Well, this entire issue will be hashed out in the technical details. Trump will win this battle and Tribe knows that victory will come in the minutiae, so he does not want to go there. Until Trump can nominate someone to replace Sessions, he is allowed to appoint an individual under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 which will enable him to pick a temporary fill-in for up to 210 days. He acted under United States Code 5 U.S.C. 3345 (a) (1) which allows a president to choose a first assistant who is a career civil servant that worked under the Senate confirmed officer, in this case, Jeff Sessions. These are the technical details Tribe did not want to breach. Instead, this is about complete hysterics. The left tries to portray this president as someone who is out of control and does not know what he is doing. However, they rarely can point to anything specific. Expect the left to continue a massive frenzy over Whitakers appointment. Each liberal network will have the same talking points. The echo chamber that is network news will be deafening. The pundits will get emotional and repetitious, but there will be no substance in what they say. There is no constitutional crisis; just liberals being overdramatic again. John Dempsey is a political and current events junkie with strong conservative leanings. He has also been published in BearingArms.com and can be followed on Twitter @John_Demp83. The old ironic saying, No good deed goes unpunished, helps explain the rude and inappropriate hijacking of a solemn commemoration of the end of World War 1 by French President Emmanuel Macron. By now, you probably have seen that (via Reuters): French President Emmanuel Macron used an address to world leaders gathered in Paris for Armistice commemorations on Sunday to send a stern message about the dangers of nationalism, calling it a betrayal of moral values. With U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting just a few feet away listening to the speech via translation earpieces, Macron denounced those who evoke nationalist sentiment to disadvantage others. Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism, Macron said in a 20-minute address delivered from under the Arc de Triomphe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One. By pursuing our own interests first, with no regard to others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds most precious, that which gives it life and makes it great: its moral values. This is repulsive moral preening France is a free nation today because of the immense sacrifice made by US, British and Allied forces in two world wars. Macron's arrogant and highly charged remarks were ill-timed, insulting and an act of stunning hubris. https://t.co/04gp3GCtEk Nile Gardiner (@NileGardiner) November 11, 2018 on the basis of nonsense. As Rick Moran put it: Macron can virtue signal all he wants, but in the end, if he put the interests of any other country before those of France, he would be hung from the Eiffel Tower by voters. The real question is why Macron would go out of his way to insult our president in this way. There are two related reasons, I think. One is that attacking America as somehow morally inferior to Europe or France is popular, and Macrons popularity with French voters has tanked: In May 2017, the 39-year old Emmanuel Macron was elected French president with an emphatic 62 percent approval rating. The Guardian described the victory as a vote for hope. Celebrating Macrons pro-Europeanism, Germanys Handelsblatt wrote, There is renewed hope for the European project. The Economists cover showed Macron walking on water.(snip) Instead, just 18 months later, his approval rating has fallen below 30 percent. Polls are beginning to reflect those low personal approval ratings. Even as Macron is making grand plans to lead a new political force into the European Parliament next year, his Achilles heel at home continues to undermine him. The centenary yesterday was an awkward reminder to the French that they were twice conquered by the Germans, and twice rescued by American intervention on their side. Yes, French women kissed American soldiers as liberators both times when they arrived in France, but gratitude yields to resentment over time, because it is uncomfortable to confront ones own inadequacies, personally or nationally. But there is another reason for Macrons outburst, and Jed Babbin gets it: German Chancellor Angela Merkels thirteen-year reign over Germany and thus the European Union is almost over. Since the Trump presidency became fact, Merkel has been referred to in the European press as the leader of the free world. But now shes about to lose the leadership of her own party and her chancellorship may soon be over. With the Merkel era over, and with no German leader of stature in the warm-up circle, the leadership of the EU will pass to France. As he demonstrated during last weekends centenary celebration of the end of World War I, French President Emmanuel Macron is eagerly campaigning for the job. He has a very large pantsuit to fill, and hes playing a weak hand. Babbin suspects that the decision to bash Trump was in reaction to the failure of a previous gambit by Macron: In a Paris celebration of Frances role in World War I, Macron honored several French generals including Marshal Petain. Petains role in World War I was to lead the French army to a stalemated war that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of French soldiers. During World War II, Petain headed the Nazi-collaborating Vichy government that oversaw the deportation of tens of thousands of French Jews to Nazi death camps. When that didnt go so well, Macron reverted to the other means of gathering support among French voters: America-bashing. President Macron is going to find out something: President Trump is a bad man to cross. Although he did not react during the Paris ceremonies, he will, at a time, place, and occasion of his choice. Administrators at the University of Washington-Seattle gave in to student radicals and have initiated diversity training in the computer sciences department. This, in and of itself, would not be news. But the reason why the decision to initiate the diversity training was made and what the sessions will be about will cause a few jaws to drop among more rational, reasonable people. The story begins when UW-Seattle Professor Stuart Reges published Why Women Dont Code for Quillette last June. The title of the article was, as the professor admits, "hyperbolic." He was simply pointing out the fact that women are less interested in computer science than men. The reasons are fundamental to their gender; "men tend to want to work alone and with numbers, while women are more people oriented." Still, Reges has taught hundreds of women to code and was simply stating the facts in his article. Big mistake. The gender Nazis pounced on that and petitioned the school to address the "gender harrassment" in the computer science department. PJ Media: From now on, UW will provide intersectional diversity and sexual harassment training to both [student employees] and [the professors who supervise them] which all students and professors will be highly encouraged to attend. Additionally, going forward, a group of mostly senior faculty will review the introductory programming courses to ensure that they are inclusive of students from all backgrounds. To be fair, its unclear what this means. How will professors make coding classes more inclusive of students from all backgrounds? Will they mandate textbooks feature more racial and gender minorities? When asked by PJ Media, UW spokesman Victor Balta said that nearly every aspect of 100-level computer science courses will be inspected to ensure they promote inclusivity. This includes curriculum, organization, programming language and environment, teaching methods and techniques, new devices as well as ensuring that our gateway courses are attractive and welcoming to the broadest group of students. How does "programming language" discriminate against gender to the point it must be "inspected" to ensure "inclusivity"? Of course, the school has several employees who are paid real money to examine these courses for transgressions against political correctness. But, as Reges points out, there is a real danger not just to academic freedom, but freedom of thought: In a Thursday interview with PJ Media, Reges took umbrage at the constant insinuation by students over the past few months that his Quillette memo amounts to gender harassment. The graduate students are claiming that by merely discussing ideas they dislike that I have committed gender harassment, Reges told PJ Media, noting that it is legally considered a form of sexual harassment. This would be an alarming precedent to establish, he added. Reges also finds it unfortunate that the university settled the issue without challenging students claim that my [writings] constitute gender harassment. If we can't have free and open discussion on topics like these, we have no hope of combating tribalism and finding common ground. Silly professor. He's missing the point. These people don't want, expect, or need "an open discussion of topics." They want to promote tribalism. They don't want to find common ground. It's quite simple; you will think exactly as they tell you to think or you will be reprogrammed through "diversity training." It's all for your own good, of course. They have nothing but the most honorable and moral intentions. Just ask them. I keep wondering if we'll ever reach a tipping point where this nonsense will be curtailed or eliminated. Sadly, the only way the madness will end is if parents take a hand and not enroll their children in these incubators of authoritarianism. If your only source of news is the mainstream media, you might think that Donald Trump is the first president to act against a reporter who heckled him, and that denial of a White House pass to CNN heckler Jim Acosta is a grave threat to the publics right to know. But that very same media largely applauded, or at least remained silent, when President Obama several times had reporters ejected from public events where he was speaking because he didnt like their behavior or their questions. The Political Insider takes us on a short trip down memory lane, rescuing those incidents from the memory hole. Most remarkably, some of the reporters were from officially-designated victim groups, and therefore, in the eyes of the politically correct, entitled to holy status. For one example: Not long after taking office, the Secret Service literally dragged away a black female reporter. Imagine the optics if an African-American woman were dragged away by Trumps Secret Service. YouTube screen grab Here is another view of the incident: Here's a Female, African American reporter with White House Press credentials being carried away by Secret Service in 2009 for attempting to ask President Obama to protect "traditional marriage"#KaitlanCollins https://t.co/t2UFivG6Z4 pic.twitter.com/WHLH8s4tzi Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) July 26, 2018 In 2015, President Obama had a transgender reporter who was heckling him ejected from a meeting, claiming that the White House is his house. Not the property of the American people,apparently: Hey, listen, youre in my house, the president continued. You dont start its not respectful when you get invited to somebody youre not going to get a good response from me by interrupting me like this. Im sorry no, no, no, no, no. Shame on you, Obama added. You shouldnt be doing this. You can either stay or be quite or well have to take you out, Obama told the person. But perhaps worst of all, no misbehavior, or even any words, were need to eject a reporter from a news event. Washington Free Beacon reporter Adam Kredo was reportedly ejected from a State Department media briefing in Vienna Monday, as senior department officials threatened to call security on him. Kredo, who is covering the White House's ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, tried unsuccessfully to attend a briefing with the State Department's undersecretary of state for political affairs Wendy Sherman. The Free Beacon reporter, who is credentialed through the Austrian government, suggested Monday that he was kicked out of the briefing because Obama administration officials are concerned about how media may cover its alleged concessions to Iran. Ben Rhodes wrote about the importance of the echo chamber in support of the Iran deal, bamboozling reporters who literally know nothing into ginning up public support for the shipping of billions of dollars to the worlds leading sponsor of terrorism. Having a savvy reporter with contrary views present would get in the way of Rhodess game. There are more examples at the link. But when you review them, keep in mind that in emails uncovered by Judicial Watch, Josh Earnest was caught bragging about the ability of Obama administration officials to exclude Fox News from significant interviews. (hat tip: Rosie Memos) Do you remember the firestorm this disclosure ignited? Neither do I. So, take these protests over Acosta with a grain of salt. Make that a box of salt. Hat tip: John McMahon The US Section 232 tariffs on aluminium imports reportedly are having little effect on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Arab member state producers ability to sell to the United States. The United States' Section 232 tariffs on aluminium imports are having little effect on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Arab member state producers ability to sell to the US, and also are doing little to enhance the competitiveness of the American smelters that the tariffs are meant to aid. Representatives for the major producers in the GCC area said in a panel held at the Arabal 2018 conference in Kuwait City on Monday November 12 that their businesses are not feeling any ill effects from shipping prime aluminium to the US even though none of the countries are among those exempt from the 10% Section 232 import tariff. US customers are taking the brunt [of the tariffs] today, Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) executive vice president of midstream and technology development and transfer Ali Al Zarouni said. Despite the implementation of the Section 232 tariffs, the US remains the most attractive market for us, Qatar Aluminium Ltd chief financial officer Ahmad Al-Khudairi said. US imports of unwrought aluminium from Qatar hit 16,878 tonnes in September, the highest level thus far this year. But US imports of the product overall continue to be down this year, due largely to the combination of the Sectuion 232 tariffs and sanctions placed on major importer UC Rusal Plc. The GCC aluminium executives who spoke on the panel were skeptical of the US industrys ability to take advantage of the tariffs, outside of reaping sales using an exponentially higher US aluminium premium this year. Fastmarkets AMM assessed the Midwest P1020 premium at 19.25-19.75 cents per lb on November 9, unchanged since October 26 but up from 9.4-9.5 cents per lb at the start of this year. I think its very difficult for a US smelter to restart again, Aluminium Bahrain deputy chief executive officer and chief supply chain officer Ali Al-Baqali said. Unless you address the problem of energy and long-term price stability, you cannot have a long-term restart, Al Zarouni said. High electricity costs have long been an issue for US smelters trying to stay afloat, and US industrial power rates have been rising for the past few years. Aluminium smelters' intense 24-hour-per-day power usage means high power costs are crippling their bid to be competitive, especially when smelters in the GCC enjoy far cheaper rates. But the news isnt entirely rosy for producers in the Middle East. Al Zarouni confirmed during the panel discussion that EGA is operating its smelters above the rated capacity, which other speakers at the conference said could drag on growth prospects in the region during the coming years. EGA in February reported that primary aluminium production rose to a record 2.6 million tonnes in 2017, a 4% increase from the previous year. A language storm savagely dangles over the Ilocos Mountain ranges as well as the Sierra Madre and north of the Caraballo Mountains following what observers say is the inadmissible blitz by the Commission of the Filipino Language or the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino. Recently, academics, cultural workers, creative writers and language advocates gathered at the Mariano Marcos State University Graduate School in Laoag City to protest what they called the unilateral imposition of the KWFs unilaterally crafted Ortograpiyang Ilokano years after they had published their own orthography. From the Greek orthographia which means correct writing, an orthography is a way to represent words by having set ways to spell and write them. This means orthography helps students, researchers, and language learners identify words so they can figure out their meanings. In another lingo, an existing Ilokano orthography is the system of writing conventions used to represent spoken Ilokano in written form that allows the readers to connect spelling to sound and then to meaning. The mass action in Ilocos Norte on Oct. 28 was initiated by GUMIL Ilocos Norte, through its president Joel Manuel. GUMIL Ilocos Norte is the provincial chapter of the 50-year-old national association of Ilocano writers at home and abroad, which at one point had 3,000 active members speaking and writing in the various genres including, but not limited to novels, plays, other fiction and poetry. The protest action was joined by other groups including the Nakem Conferences Philippines, through its president Dr. Alegria Tan Visaya; Dr. Marlina Lino, program coordinator of the MMSU MA cohort in Ilokano Studies; and Leo Tejano of Nakem Yoiuth. Dr. Aurelio S. Agcaoili of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in a statement obtained by the, said the stakeholders were one in their official position in rejecting what they called the authoritarian imposition of (KWFs) own brand of Ortograpiyang Ilokano that is patterned after its imposed Ortograpiyang Pambansa. In their statement, Agcaoili, Debralyn Andres and Dean Domingo of the International Committee for the Protection of the Ilokano language and Nakem Conferences International, said: We have a variety of already productive orthographies, to wit: academic orthographies from the University of Hawaii Ilokano Program, the Mariano Marcos State University Graduate School Program in Ilokano Studies, the popular forms as seen from a number of magazines and newspapers, and the religious corpus as seen from the various faith communities in the Philippines and abroad. They added: All these productive forms that are existing have been respectful of the history of the Ilokano language and are deemed not destroying each other but perfecting each other; this is not the case with the imposed Ortograpiyang Ilokano. The group, endorsed by other academics, language experts and teachers, said the Ilokanos do not need an orthography that is not respectful of what we have got at the moment, that is not respectful of the history of the language, and that is antithetical to the aim of (a) deploying the current orthographies to make full of use of the language in the various domains of our life as Ilokanos whether in the Philippines or in the diaspora, and (b) educating our young people in that act of emancipatory knowledge that demands skills in naming our world and experiences. This insistent act of disrespect and incompetence of the commission is a case of betrayal of the mandate given to that commission, and the same mandate given to the Ilokano commissioner, Purificacion Delima. We, therefore, demand that the Ilokano commission (sic) resign from her post: she does not have the expertise to represent the Ilokano people and their language. Nakem Youth itself said in a statement As the inheritors of this cultural resource of the Ilokano people, the Ilokano language, as used and represented and written in various acceptable forms today, has been respectful of the history of the language from its precolonial form to todays era of fast-paced technology.We are saddened by this mindless imposition of the KWF of its own orthography that it claims is based on the expertise of its writers and consultations. Unless these experts can prove to us their expertise and unless these consultations are proven to have followed real and not imagined democratic process, and unless the real stakeholders of the Ilokano language have been consulted as well, we univocally protest and reject such an imposed orthography that will predictably destroy our right to such a cultural resource and as inheritors of that resource. The School Principal of Ferdinand E. Marcos Senior High School in the City Schools Division of Batac, Carmencita Polendey-Lorenzo, told: I dont want to witness Generation Ortograpiya kids conversing with the present generation of learners in the future, not able to understand one another. Generation Ortograpiya kids would sound like some migrants acting like trying hard Ilocanos with their Tagalized lingo... Ilokano language observers said KWF, since its imposition of the national orthography in 2013, had chosen to work on its own by handpicking people of questionable Ilokano language expertise to write its own idea of Ilokano orthography. They noted that the commission then began to tinker with the working orthographies of the various Philippine languages, requiring those even with a written tradition such as Ilokano, to comply with the Pambansang Ortograpiya of KWF headed by National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario of San Miguel, Bulacan. Ilokanos and other language groups have protested this imposition, arguing the history of their languages had evolved a character not necessarily following the imagined national orthography that is based largely on the Tagalog language in its contemporary form, with KWF deceitfully passing off as the Filipino language. KWF has argued there is need for the harmonization of the written form of the Philippine languages, but experts stressed KWF had not considered respect for the history of these languages. There is no rhyme and reason for that dreamed-of harmonization as each of these 185 indigenous languages per the Ethnologue count of 2005 have their own sound system and syntax, the experts said. They added: These two basic features of a languagethe sounds and the way it arranges its words to make sense and to capture the meaning of what it aims to communicatesare inherent in each language. The project to harmonize these 185 languages by making all these behave as Tagalog being passed off as Filipino...is meant to hegemonize and destroy diversity in the country. Nakem Conferences Philippines and Nakem Conferences International, two groups that have collaborated to hold annual international conferences to promote diversity and inclusive education, have consistently issued out statements rejecting this national orthography as the basis for the orthography of other Philippine language groups. Forming an alliance, the protesting groups in Laoag have vowed to bring the protest to the Department of Education and to the Office of the President in Manila. More protests are being planned, the groups said in their statement. Facebook has silently announced its TikTok competitor, an app / service called Lasso. This announcement comes via The Verge, who picked up on a tweet from the Product Manager for Lasso, Bowen Pan. Facebook did not share an official press release, or anything of the sort. In any case, this new app lets users create short videos, and is made to compete with TikTok, a very popular application in this field. Using Lasso, users can record themselves while dancing and lip-syncing to music, while you can also create short video clips (general content) and share them with the public, similar to what Vine offered. The Lasso app is available for both Android and iOS, and its free to use, needless to say. Facebook allows you to sign up to its new service using your Instagram account, or you can create a new account using Facebook, though as it usually goes when logging in to other apps using Facebook, youll need to allow Lasso to get access to various parts of your Facebook account, in this case, youll need to allow it to access your profile page, photos, and videos. Like many other social media platforms, Lasso relies heavily on tags, so youll probably see a ton of them attached to videos, similar to Instagram, actually. The Lasso app currently has 67 reviews (at the time of writing this article), and it has a 3.9-star rating in the Play Store. Interestingly enough, this application seems to be region locked, as it doesnt seem to be available in Croatia at the moment. Chances are it is locked to the US, but we cannot confirm that, its possible its available in other parts of Europe. In any case, theres already a ton of content on Lasso, despite the fact its a brand new app / service, which suggests that Facebook worked with some people to prepare the content for the launch, its even possible that the company ran a beta test of the app for months now, but we cannot be sure as Facebook did not share any official info just yet. The design of the Lasso app is quite simple, as it puts a huge focus on the content itself, and it keeps everything else out of the way, the design is flat and clean. Background: Weve been seeing rumors for months now that Facebook is getting ready to launch this application in order to compete with TikTok, but we did not have any official info until now. Truth be said, it was expected for Facebook to release info piece-by-piece before announcing this service, but the company has opted to just get it out of the way, and release the whole thing, without properly announcing anything. Theres still a chance that the company may announce its release, though, of course. Facebook is probably trying to bring back teens to its side, as Facebook is losing teens at a really fast pace. In 2018, only half of the teens say they still use Facebook, compared to 2018, which is concerning for the company, but a ton of them use Instagram, which is also Facebooks service, so its not like Facebook is lacking users. Advertisement Impact: Lasso is an obvious attempt to steal some users from TikTok and similar services, and to cater to teens as much as possible. It remains to be seen if this service will be successful for Facebook, though, as the company did not really go out of its way to market it properly, at least not yet. It is possible Facebook will wait a bit until more content becomes available on the service before it becomes marketing it properly. New details now seem to have surfaced regarding two upcoming budget-friendly Samsung devices designated with the model numbers SM-M205F and SM-M305F and expected to be part of recently reported rebranding efforts from the South Korean company. Specifically, the former device is predicted to be marketed as the Samsung Galaxy M20 and will feature 32GB and 64GB storage options, according to unnamed sources. Meanwhile, the SM-M305F is expected to launch as the Samsung Galaxy M30, and to arrive with either 64GB or 128GB capacity versions available. Each will also allegedly ship in a dual-SIM configuration, with a single SIM version of either not falling outside the realm of possibility. No details have been put forward with regard to pricing, availability, or other specifications as of this writing. Background: That Samsung plans to rebrand its devices in order to consolidate its smartphones under just a few model designations is not new information. In fact, the company is presently expected to eliminate its Galaxy J, C, and Galaxy ON naming convention entirely, in favor of an easier-to-follow scheme where budget handsets and mid-range devices will be designated as M-series devices. The smartphones sold under the brand will also reportedly utilize LCD display panels instead of Samsungs own OLED or AMOLED technology, in a bid to cut costs to consumers. The only exception to that is thought to be a device that will be marketed as the Samsung Galaxy M50, which will presumably represent a true mid-range handset. However, while there will most likely be several M-branded phones made available to suit a diverse range of users needs, only a Samsung Galaxy M30 and Galaxy M40 had been expected prior to the latest reports. Just above that, in terms of pricing and features, the company also plans to continue its Galaxy A family of Android smartphones that predominantly use OLED display panels and start out at just over $250. Tentatively dubbed the Samsung Galaxy A30, A40, A50, A60, A70, and A80, that family of devices is predicted to be a step up and will be the new premiere lineup for novel features. For example, new hardware implementations from the company, such as the quad-camera setup found on the Galaxy A9, are predicted to begin appearing first on Galaxy A models. Presumably, thats because that family of devices tends to launch toward the end of the year, giving the company a chance to show off big changes well ahead of the launch of new flagship smartphones. Moreover, it will bring those to a wider audience since smartphones in the budget and mid-range tiers typically sell far better than top-of-the-line handsets. Advertisement Impact: Samsung is primarily thought to be condensing its assortment of brands into a Galaxy M and Galaxy A lineup, at least in part, to stave off increasing competition from Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers. To begin with, the new naming convention will likely help reduce confusion about the hierarchy of the models themselves. Presumably, rather than reading multiple detailed specification sheets to differentiate the devices, consumers will be able to look at the name of two devices and immediately know which is a more powerful smartphone. At the same time, it may also lead to the elimination of carrier-specific models that have different features under the hood and different branding which causes further confusion while simultaneously reducing the complexity of providing software and firmware updates. After months of rumors, leaks, and teasers, Samsung has finally announced its new flip phone smartphone, the W2019, and the device got announced in China. It can be said that this is also the companys flagship smartphone, at least its flip phone flagship. This handset is made out of metal and glass, while it comes with two displays, one on the outside, and one on the inside. The phone has a boxy shape, while its physical keys are located on the left, the power / lock, volume up, and volume down buttons. The phones displays are the same on the inside and outside, and well talk about them in a second, while its also worth saying that when opened, the device offers a number of physical keys, though youre not getting a full physical QWERTY keyboard here, but your regular numpad, with navigation keys, and some additional buttons that you can take advantage of. Two cameras are included on the back of this phone, along with an LED flash, while the W2019 also comes with a fingerprint scanner, and in the case of this phone, the fingerprint scanner is located on the right. A 3.5mm headphone jack is not a part of the package, but the device does sport Bluetooth 4.2 LE, and a USB Type-C on the bottom. You will find one 4.2-inch fullHD (1920 x 1080) Super AMOLED display on the inside of this phone, while that very same display is used on the outside of the device as well. Both of these displays are touch-sensitive, in case you were wondering. Qualcomms Snapdragon 845 64-bit octa-core processor fuels the Samsung W2019, while the device comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB / 256GB of expandable storage (expandable up to 512GB via a microSD card). Android 8.0 Oreo comes pre-installed on the device, with Samsungs custom UI which is adapted for this smartphone. The Samsung W2019 has two SIM card slots, were looking at a hybrid dual SIM setup here (2x nano SIM cards), which means that you can use the second SIM card slots in order to insert a microSD card, and by doing that, expand the phones storage. Two 12-megapixel cameras are included on the back of this phone, the main sensor offers f/1.5 f/2.4 variable aperture and OIS, while the secondary one has a fixed aperture of f/2.4, and this is probably a telephoto lens. An 8-megapixel selfie camera is also included on this phone, and it has an f/2.0 aperture lens. A 3,070mAh battery comes included in this package, while the device measures 132.9 x 63.4 x 17.3mm, and weighs 257 grams. The Samsung W2019 got announced in China, as already mentioned, and chances are it will not become available in any other country, at least if the Samsung W2018 product placement is anything to go by. Thats not exactly surprising as theres high demand for such phones in China, but thats not the case in the vast majority of other markets, if not all of them. That being said, the Samsung W2019 comes in Rose Gold and Platinum color variants, while the phones base version with 128GB of storage is priced at 18,999 Yuan ($2,729) in China, we still do not have a price point for the 256GB storage model. Advertisement Background: Samsung has been releasing one W series smartphone per year for years now, last year it was the W2018, while the year before the company introduced the W2017. Both of those devices were released in China only, which is why it seems that the Samsung W2019 will stay exclusive to China as well. The name of the smartphone basically stands for the year it was released in. It is important not to mistake the Samsung W2019 with the companys upcoming foldable smartphone, as those two devices could not be more different, the Samsung W2019 is your regular flip phone smartphone, while the Galaxy F smartphone (rumored name), will actually have a display that will be foldable. The company had already demoed that technology at its Developers Conference last week, and the company had confirmed a while back that its foldable smartphone will become available in 2019, but we still do not know when exactly. The Samsung W2019 and Galaxy F are expected to have a similar price tag, though, as the Galaxy F is also rumored to cost around $2,000, while its availability will most likely be limited as well, but not to the extent of the Samsung W2019. Impact: The Samsung W2019 is quite probably the best flip phone smartphone you can get out there at the moment, if youre interested in such a phone, but if you live outside of China, that will present a serious problem. This smartphones availability is limited for a reason, the vast majority of people are not interesting in flip phone smartphones, as there are a number of tradeoffs to consider. Youre getting a considerably smaller display than on a regular phone, so content consumption is limited. Thanks to such a small display, typing using an on-screen keyboard is not as easy as on a number of other phones, and using the phones numpad to type messages takes forever. The phone is considerably thicker than most other flagship phones out there, in fact, its 2x thicker than most other regular flagship smartphones that are available out there these days. The device is, however, considerably shorter, and narrower than most regular smartphones, and it will definitely make you get noticed if you use it in public, as very few people still use flip phone smartphones, at least outside of China. It remains to be seen if Samsung will opt to release this phone in more markets down the road, but chances are we will not see that happen, even though some people outside of China may still be interested in flip phone smartphones. Truth be said, if this phone gets released outside of China, its price tag will probably be even higher than it is in China, and that makes it cost twice as much as the Galaxy Note9, for example. The Information Manager at the Anglican Communion Office, Stephanie Taylor, explains how racism led to one of the tragedies of the Great War becoming a scandal of the war: a tragedy that was hidden in plain sight. A bracing but clear and bright day, I am at St Catherines Point on the Isle of Wight with my children. The waves crash against the rocks beneath the lighthouse and the autumn sunlight sparkles on the sea. The scene is idyllic but we are not here for the view. We are here because it is the eve of the centenary of Armistice Day, and I want my children to hear a story. As we stand looking upon the horizon there are a handful of people here walking, exercising their dogs, or surfing but just 12 miles out to sea there lies the wreck of a ship lost in the Great War, the SS Mendi. My children dont yet know the story of the Mendi, neither did I until recently. They have been learning about the First World War at school. For them, as for me as a young child, stories of the world wars meant family connections, the service of grandfathers and great grandfathers but I wanted them to know that this wasnt the only narrative, that those who paid the ultimate price were not exclusively white British but included the sons of many nations. As explained by Wessex Archaeology, in Britain the story of the SS Mendi is almost unknown but in South Africa she is famous; a symbol of a racist past and an icon of unity and reconciliation. The SS Mendi, escorted by the naval destroyer HMS Brisk was carrying 823 men from the Fifth Battalion South African Native Labour Corps en route to France where the men were to serve as labourers on the Western Front. On the night of 21 February 1917 it was hit by a cargo ship, the SS Darro in heavy fog and sank within 25 minutes. Whilst the Brisk rescued survivors, the Darro did not. Almost two weeks later the South African Prime Minister, General Louis Botha announced the tragedy to the Cape Parliament stating: I am sorry to say the loss is a heavy one. It was indeed, for 646 souls, overwhelmingly black South Africans lost their lives. None of the black servicemen, living or dead were awarded medals, and in both the UK and apartheid South Africa, the story of the Mendi was largely forgotten from official history. It was not taught as part of school curriculums but from one generation of black South Africans to the next the story of the Mendi was told. Today, 21 February is commemorated as South Africa Armed Forces Day, and the Order of the Mendi for Bravery is a South African honour. There are several memorials to the Mendi: including in Soweto unveiled by President Nelson Mandela and Queen Elizabeth in 1995; at the Delville Wood South African National Memorial at the Somme, and across the Solent from the Isle of Wight at the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton. The story and spirit of the Mendi and her precious cargo are now told through film, art, literature, and most recently as part of the 14-18 Now commissions, through theatre. To that list and to all the voices telling the story from one generation to the next, I add my own small voice, walking with my children, and laying red roses on the eve of Armistice Day at what is now a designated war grave. The British Council writes: when whole swathes of peoples experiences are overlooked by studies of the past, they are sometimes referred to as hidden histories. Often, they are hidden in plain sight. These stories are there if you have the time, energy and knowledge required to seek out the clues, or if someone points them out for you. Thank you to those who kept this story alive, and pointed it out to me. This Armistice Day let me hand it on to you, please pass it on, and let the last word fittingly be from Soweto born, Father Lawrence Mduduzi Ndlovu, from his poem about the Mendi, Waters of Wars Unknown: Wooo mtaka baba! Woo mtaka ma! Are you dead that you do not hear my voice? The living across Africas shores retort; We are not dead! Nor the sound of your voice unheard, Your voice heralded even to the future unknown, Your lying down was rightly with glee, Knowing your own will never chart waters of wars unknown, your own will in freedom's peace sail. Posted on: November 12, 2018 4:44 PM The Vicar of St Peters in Lautoka on the Fijian island of Viti Levu, Fereimi Cama, has been elected Bishop of Polynesia. When he is consecrated and installed, he will also become one of the three Archbishops and Primates of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. The election was announced yesterday (Sunday) by the Churchs two existing primates, Archbishop Don Tamihere and Philip Richardson, who have responsibility for the Churchs Maori and Pakeha Tikangas, or cultural streams. The 63-year-old archbishop-elect is a former Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Suva. Archbishop Don served as Commissary at the electoral college, describing the role as an immense privilege and honour. He added: When the final ballot was held, it was Fr Cama who was chosen and chosen with a deep sense of this being Gods will. Fr Cama is a priest of the people. He has served among family and community for decades, and is a leader grown from the grassroots. He is a good man and he is ready to serve his people anew with humility and courage. The fact that he will be the first Bishop of Polynesia of indigenous Fijian descent is something else worth celebrating though I know that Fr Cama is committed to serving all the nations and people of Polynesia with equal effort and respect. Indeed: The record shows that Fr Cama is a i-Taukei [Fijian] man who has proven his courage and his readiness to serve Polynesians of every ethnic background. Weve had a Samoan, in Bishop Bryce, weve had a Tongan in Bishop Winston and people felt that it was now time for a Fijian to lead, the archbishop-elect said when explaining why people wanted a Fijian to lead the diocese. Archbishop-elect Fereimi Cama will become Primate of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia when he is consecrated and installed as Bishop of Polynesia.. Photo: Anglican Taonga My vision is not to introduce anything new, he said, But to pressure-cook what is already there; to make it tender, attractive, and easy to digest. He was raised a Methodist and continued worshipping in a Methodist Church after marrying his Anglican wife Mereadani in 1976. That changed during a coup in 1987 which resulted in the overthrow of the elected government of Fijian Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra and the Head of State, Queen Elizabeth II, replaced with the declaration of a republic. Some prominent Methodists supported the coup leaders and Cama decided to become an Anglican and he joined the congregation of Holy Trinity Cathedral. Within a year he was elected to the cathedral vestry and soon became a lay reader. In 1990, at the prompting of the then-Dean Winston Halapua, who would go on to become the Archbishop that Cama would eventually succeed, he was ordained a deacon and then a non-stipendiary priest. He served as priest assistant at the cathedral while continuing his teaching work. When the priest in charge of the cathedral transferred two months later, Bishop Jabez Bryce asked him to hold the fort while we look for a better person. That better person turned out to be Cama, and in December 1999 he was installed as the Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral. Five months later, when Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and a group of MPs were held hostage by rebel soldiers who had stormed the Fijian Parliament, he volunteered to administer Holy Communion to the hostages. Outside the Parliament, his communion set was scrutinised by rebel soldiers. He was then taken to coup leader George Speight who scrutinised them again before he was allowed to take communion to the MPs, first to the separated Indo-Fijians, who were mostly Hindus and Muslims, but who all wanted Communion, and then to the cluster of Fijian parliamentarians, Anglican Taonga reports. Then, when the two services were over, Dean Cama returned to the cathedral, where the MPs wives and families were gathered, desperately seeking news of their loved ones. Dean Cama continued to run the gauntlet. He returned to take communion to the hostage MPs, every Sunday and Wednesday, for the duration of the 56-day siege. Virmati Chaudhry (centre), the wife of Fijis deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, pictured on 2 July 2000 next to her daughter Rani (left) and others at a daily prayer vigil at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Suva as the countrys hostage crisis entered its 45th day. Photo: Mark Baker / Reuters He stepped down as Dean in December 2012 before serving as priest to a couple of parishes in Suva parishes. He then spent 18 months studying missiology at Carey Baptist College in Auckland before returning to Suva, where he was appointed Vicar at St Peters, Lautoka, on Christmas Day in 2016. Days after his installation, he and his wife were in a car accident. Mereadani died a week later and was buried on their 40th wedding anniversary. The Archbishop-elect Fereimi says that he is passionate about building up relationships in the diocese and passionate, too, about seeking a better deal for those at the bottom of the heap, Anglican Taonga said. He is particularly concerned about the number of unemployed non-stipendiary priests who are taking full parish responsibilities but who live, he says, below the poverty line. He's also deeply concerned for the plight of the Melanesians, and part-Melanesians, who make up a significant share of Fiji's Anglican congregations. There are 44 Melanesian settlements throughout Fiji none of which has secure land tenure. Melanesians are not recorded on Fiji's tribal registry, the Vola Ni Kawa Bula and are therefore frozen out from owning mataqali (clan) land, or having access to qoliqoli, or traditional fishing grounds. I said at the electoral college that these people have been neglected, he said. They have been used by the Government, and the church hasnt uttered a word. I said to the college: Even if I have to knock at the door of the Prime Minister, I will do it. A date for the consecration and installation has yet to be announced. "The President is a lawyer. He should know better." There is this disturbing news report quoting President Duterte as having called on the military personnel assigned to the Bureau of Customs to kill fixers on sight. This is supposed to show how serious he is in the fight against graft and corruption. Santa Banana, the President was further reported as saying that soldiers will be fielded there to hunt down fixers. I told them, if you see fixers, shoot them and throw them into the sea. Do not admit to the killings. Damn those criminals. The President was also quoted as saying that the only way is to remove Customs personnel from their posts before they are investigated. While you are still there, you keep stealing while I keep investigating.I need proof and it is hard to get, and while I investigate you continue with your practice of corruption. I dont know if the President was quoted correctly, but so far he has not denied it. Was he speaking out of frustration? This reminds me of the killing spree of the Philippine National Police upon Mr. Dutertes assumption of office in 2016, in connection with the war on illegal drugs. As a democratic country, we still believe in the rule of law and still follow due process. Mr. Duterte is a lawyer and he should know that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty yes, even the fixers at Customs. I covered the Bureau of Customs in the 1950s and 1960s, and I know that fixers are assigned by high officials of Customs in an attempt to isolate them from wrongdoing like smuggling. Thus, even if the President terminates fixers with extreme prejudice, the really corrupt people at Customs will still be there. Killing the fixers wont solve the problem. It is the system that enables corruption and smuggling and allows them to thrive. For as long as there are opportunities for human intervention and discretion, there will always be corruption. Anybody who gets assigned to Customs gets swallowed by the system. Myhonest men have been assigned there but corruption has persisted. Incompetent and negligent employeesmilitary or notare the worst. Mythere was even an attempt to pre-inspect imported goods with the government hiring the well-known Societe de Surveillance (SGS), costing it billions. Soon enough, the people assigned to pre-inspect the imports were also corrupted. This brings us back to the question what can be done about Customs to end graft and corruption there? My answer is privatization. Let the private sector control imports and exports. Just leave the collection of duties and taxes to Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue, with the guarantee that the private sector can meet the required revenues. This is done in many countries. The many businessmen I have spoken to also have the same idea.With enough political will, President Duterte can finally end corruption at Customs. Is he even listening? * * * Can we learn anything at all from the just-conducted mid-year election in the United States? Personally, I dont think so. Filipinos and Americans are so different, culturally and politically. In the first place, the US does not have to rely on Smartmatic for the results. There, results are known soon after the closing of the polls. Americans can even vote earlier if they want to. Here it takes so long for the people to know who won. We are an archipelago which makes it difficult to know the results right away. Then, our elections are always personality-oriented. We have so many parties and affiliations. In the US, voters choose from just Democrats or Republicans. The only thing we can learn from the US elections is that we need a better provider of an automated election system that Smartmatic. I wonderwhy does Comelec keep on contracting it? There are also Little Garcis in the agency. Coming right down to it, much of the results do not really reflect the voice of the people. This is why there are two kinds of candidates here: Those who won, and those who cry they were cheated. Speaking of the 2009 polls, nothing much seems different. In the Senate, for instance, reelectionists and former senators have a great advantage. This is why poll surveys say newbies dont stand much of a chance. The real issues that matter are those that pertain to the gutthe rise in the prices of basic goods and services, for instance. Federalism? I doubt if it will be an issue in the elections as people are ignorant of what it is about. The dominant factor in our elections is funding. Its money from the usual taipans and conglomerates. This is why political dynasties still rule. People believe elections are a time when they can get back something from those they vote for. What is most unfortunate are the killings. To many, elections are a life-or-death affair. Welcome to elections, Philippine style. Do it yourself if you can We accept in principle that private equity can deliver (somewhat) excess returns over most other asset classes. But there are a lot of qualifications attached to that, and most of them are very relevant to whether and how pension funds should invest in private equity. Legal professionals packed out the Westin Sydney at the Legal Tech Summit on Wednesday 31st October. Delegates were provided with a full day of insights from the leading legal tech specialists in Australia and trailblazers from the profession who are already harnessing technology in their firms. Legal professionals packed out the Westin Sydney at the Legal Tech Summit on Wednesday 31st October. Delegates were provided with a full day of insights from the leading legal tech specialists in Australia and trailblazers from the profession who are already harnessing technology in their firms. As the brother of the 2020 Kia Telluride, we were expecting the Palisade to look this unconventional. Were still not sure about the underwhelming name, but as a styling exercise, the eight-seat crossover from Hyundai is the type of vehicle that you either love or hate.Leaked onto the Internet by autoreview.ru , the first photograph of the Palisade also reveals larger-than-life wheels. The rear doors are long enough to facilitate entry into the third row of seats, and even though it doesnt look like it, the Hyundai comes with front-wheel drive as standard.All-wheel drive is also available, and based on what Kia offers on the Telluride, a V6 is in the pipeline as well. The spiritual successor to the Veracruz (a.k.a. ix55) is the largest utility vehicle in the Hyundai lineup, positioned right above the Santa Fe XL.Sales of the Palisade will start in the summer of 2019 for the U.S. market, and Hyundai is certain to price the newcomer at a similar point to the Telluride . The closest competitor is the Pilot from Honda, which starts at $31,450 for the LX with front-wheel drive and the 280-horsepower V6.The Santa Fe, on the other hand, is no longer available with the 3.3-liter V6 from the Lambda II engine family. For the fourth generation of the breed, Hyundai chose four cylinders for both the gasoline and turbo diesel options. In South Korea and Europe, the 200-horsepower turbo diesel should be the engine of choice for the Palisade.Being a family-oriented model, the Palisade should come with tons of convenience features, including USB ports, parking assist, an automatic tailgate, and an eight-speed automatic transmission. Having said these, look forward to finding out all there is to know about the newcomer on November 28th. Chalk this one up here, too: late last week, just as it was about to take off from the Bordeaux Airport in France, destination Londons Stansted Airport, UK, one Ryanair plane was impounded by the French authorities.To add insult to injury, none of the 149 passengers was informed of what was happening, The Independent reports. They eventually found out the cause of the delay when they got back home, after 5 hours of lingering around the airport, waiting for someone from Ryanair to come and talk to them.According to the publication, the Boeing 737 had flown to Bordeaux that afternoon from London, and was scheduled for the flight back at 6 p.m. Passengers had passed passport control and boarding, and were on the tarmac on their way to the plane when they were ordered back inside the terminal.They were approached by the French police, informing them that there was an unspecified issue with the plane. That issue turned out to be an outstanding debt of over 500,000 euros that Ryanair had failed to pay and was refusing to, according to several media outlets.The dispute centers on payments made to Ryanair during its short-lived use of Angouleme airport in southwest France a decade ago. The European Commission ruled the subsidies constituted illegal state aid and should be repaid, The Independent says.French authorities notified the company in May of the debt, but they turned a deaf ear and a blind eye. According to the authorities, impounding the plane was the last resort they had to force the company to come up with the money.When the passengers left for London 5 hours later, on a different flight from the company, the Boeing was still in the custody of the French authorities. Ryanair has refused to discuss the matter publicly with the media or the passengers, but they did give the latter a 5 euro voucher for a meal and drink, to make up for the delay. As it happens, you cant buy half a sandwich with this money in any European airport, let alone a full meal.The Independent notes that each of the passengers is entitled a 250 euro compensation from Ryanair for the delay. A couple of runway overruns in the last few days have wrecked millions in hardware but did not hurt anyone seriously. On Friday morning, a Fly Jamaica Boeing 757 went off the end of Cheddi Jagan International Airports runway in Guyana and plowed into a sand pile at the lip of a 40-foot drop. The plane had taken off a few minutes earlier for Toronto and returned after reporting hydraulics problems. There were 120 passengers and eight crew aboard and six were slightly injured. That airplane might be useable again but a 747-400 cargo plane will be taken to the scrap heap from Halifaxs Stanfield International Airport. The Skylease Cargo jumbo left Chicago on Wednesday morning to pick up a load of live lobsters for China. It landed on a wet runway in a brisk quartering tailwind and didnt stop in time. It blasted through the localizer antenna and tore off the landing gear and two engines before stopping just short of the perimeter fence about 5 a.m. local time. The four crew members on board had minor injuries. The mishap has closed Runway 14/32, a secondary runway at the largest airport in eastern Canada, but operations are said to be relatively normal. It would appear an extreme sport video crew learned a harsh lesson in aerodynamics last month when the star of their video was killed in British Columbia. As we reported a couple of weeks ago, stunt rapper Jon James McMurrays body was found in a farmers field after he had reportedly tried wingwalking while rapping. Canadas Transportation Safety Board has released its preliminary report on the bizarre (and entirely preventable) accident and it suggests that rather than wingwalking, McMurray turned himself into an effective lift spoiler for the Cessna 172 that was to have been the platform for his hip hop performance over the rural community of Westwold at about 5,000 feet AGL. The passenger on the right wing laid down parallel to the direction of flight, and began to move slowly toward the tip of the wing. Suddenly, the aircraft entered a spiral dive, with the right wing low. The pilot then motioned to the second passenger to release from the aircrafts landing gear, while the aircraft continued to spiral to the right, the TSB says in its report. That kind of detail is undoubtedly possible because the whole thing was shot in 4K video from a Cessna 310 camera ship, a videographer on the right gear and quite likely a helmet cam worn by McMurray. When the 172 flipped, the videographer did as he was told and parachuted to safety. Its not clear how long McMurray clung to the top of the wing but his chute did not deploy. The pilot was able to recover at about 1500 feet AGL. He returned to a nearby airport and damage was found to the top of the right wing and the right aileron. The full narrative is below under the Related Files tab. Its the third item in the TSBs daily report. With recounts ongoing in Florida's Senate and gubernatorial races, President Trump tweeted Monday morning again, without evidence that new ballots are showing up "out of nowhere" and that "many ballots are missing or forged." "The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!" The big picture: As the Washington Post's Aaron Blake notes, Florida accepts overseas and military ballots through Nov. 16 as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 6. Sticking to ballots received only by Tuesday, as Trump is insisting, would disenfranchise military service-members and Americans abroad. California's wildfire siege continues and may worsen Monday and Tuesday as thousands of firefighters continue to battle massive blazes up and down the state. Fanned by strong Santa Ana winds and taking advantage of near-record dry conditions, the fires are roaring into both neighborhoods and the record books. The big picture: With at least 29 fatalities as of Monday morning, the Camp Fire has become the state's deadliest wildfire on record since 1933. With more than 200 people still missing, this wildfire, which all but destroyed the town of Paradise, about 90 miles north of Sacramento, is likely to overtake the Griffith Park Fire to become the state's deadliest such event on record. It's already the state's most destructive fire, having consumed at least 6,713 structures, including more than 6,400 homes. The latest: Another dry, warm and blustery day is forecast across California on Monday, with Santa Ana winds leading to "extremely critical" wildfire danger in areas affected by the Camp Fire and the Woolsey Fire, which is burning in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. The fire danger will remain at unusually high levels through at least Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. The Woolsey Fire has burned 91,572 acres as of Monday morning and was 20% contained. It has destroyed an estimated 370 structures, killed at least 2 people, and forced the evacuation of the entire community of Malibu. Nearly 2 dozen helicopters continuously dumped water and fire retardant on the blaze Sunday to protect more homes. The broader context: Fire season is now running year-round in California, and studies show that warmer, more parched dry seasons that last longer into the fall are consistent with expectations from climate change. They are also a key part of what's elevating wildfire risk, according to researchers. A tweet previously embedded here has been deleted or was tweeted from an account that has been suspended or deleted. The trends: California is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons on record, on the heels of a historic 2017. This year, the Golden State had its hottest month in state history and was scorched by the largest fire the state has ever recorded. According to Aon Insurance meteorologist Steve Bowen, 7 of the 20 most destructive fires in the state have occurred since October 2017. One of the biggest changes firefighters are having to contend with is an uptick in instances of extreme fire behavior, such as the massive EF-4 fire tornado that accompanied the Carr Fire in July. Other data show stark trends, too: At the regional level, Northern California has had its worst fire season on record this year, in terms of acres burned. California has had one of its warmest and driest 6-month periods on record since 1895 (May through October), according to NOAA. Much of California has not seen measurable rain in months, and vegetation moisture levels are near all-time lows. This provides abundant "fuel" for fires to burn. Longer-term climate change, land management practices and population growth are combining to cause increased wildfire risk in California, including in highly populated areas. The bottom line: The 2018 fire season is a preview of what's to come as California continues to experience the effects of climate change, population growth and other trends that are raising wildfire risks year-round. Go deeper: Last month, President Trump hailed Turkey's release of American pastor Andrew Brunson as a tremendous step toward better relations between the two countries. The administration is betting that, after the crisis that rocked U.S.-Turkey relations over the summer, bilateral ties will normalize. Reality check: With the exception of a brief moment after Trump was elected, the U.S.-Turkey relationship has been rife with tension, and the two countries interests still do not align. The U.S. and Turkey are divided over Syria, Ankaras ties to Moscow, the fate of Fethullah Gulen the alleged mastermind of the failed 2016 coup attempt and the detention of Americans in Turkey. Background: Turkey sits at the geographic center of some of the United States most pressing foreign-policy concerns, including the Syrian civil war, Iran sanctions, Russian aggression in Europe and Eastern Mediterranean stability. But Turkey opposes the U.S. on these issues: Turkish leadership wants to change the regional order that facilitates the exercise of American power in Ankaras neighborhood and has taken steps to undermine American policy. What to watch: The last time international sanctions were imposed on Iran , Ankara helped Tehran evade them, and Turkish-Iranian trade initially increased. Even though the Trump administration granted Turkey a waiver to continue to buy oil from Iran, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been vocal in his opposition to U.S. policy. Given Turkeys track record, its possible that Turkey will once again help Iran work around sanctions , Ankara helped Tehran evade them, and Turkish-Iranian trade initially increased. Even though the Trump administration granted Turkey a waiver to continue to buy oil from Iran, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been vocal in his opposition to U.S. policy. Given Turkeys track record, its possible that Turkey will once again help Iran work around sanctions As Brunson was being released, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar confirmed that Turkey would purchase Russias S-400 air defense system, which could provide Moscow with information about how the U.S.-made F-35 jet operates. (Turkey has to rely on Russian software, spare parts and technicians to maintain the system, giving them access to Turkeys F-35 fleet.) There has been speculation inside the Beltway that Turkey will walk away from the deal if U.S.-Turkey relations improve. That seems unlikely, but Erdogan is capable of sudden policy swings. The big picture: The Brunson case indicates that applying public pressure on Erdogan works. The Trump administration could have much to gain by maintaining such pressure, since, in addition to the above issues, Turkey continues to unjustly imprison other Americans and jails more journalists than any other country in the world. Steven A. Cook is a senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Go deeper: Read Steven Cooks full report at the Council on Foreign Relations. Florida Circuit Chief Judge Jack Tuter said there is no evidence of wrongdoing in Broward County, where some Republicans including President Trump and Gov. Rick Scott have, without evidence, accused Democrats of committing voter fraud, reports AP. The big picture: Tuter added that the rhetoric surrounding the ongoing recount in Florida's Senate and gubernatorial races must be toned down in order to assure citizens that the election's integrity is being protected. In addition, Sen. Bill Nelson, who currently trails Scott by about 0.14% in the Senate race, is suing the Florida Department of State in hopes of counting absentee ballots that were postmarked before Election Day but delivered late. Scott, meanwhile, will be traveling to Washington to participate in lawmaker orientation activities even as the recount continues, reports NBC News' Ali Vitali. House Republicans and Democrats will soon elect their leaders to take them through the 2020 elections. Heres a read of the field, from well-placed Republican and Democratic sources. What's happening: Republicans go first, holding their leadership elections on Wednesday. Kevin McCarthy is expected to be the minority leader. His only challenge comes from the Freedom Caucus' Jim Jordan, and nobody seriously expects Jordan to trouble him. This will be McCarthy's first time in charge of the Republican conference. But he has experience helping Republicans win back power. As chief deputy whip, McCarthy played a key role in recruiting the class of Republican candidates that flipped the House in 2010. Steve Scalise, who is popular within the conference, will be the minority whip. There was plenty of speculation that he would challenge McCarthy for the top job, but he's chosen not to. Liz Cheney of Wyoming is expected to be the House Republican Conference chair. Insiders consider Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota the leading contender to run the House Republicans' campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee. House Democrats plan to hold their leadership elections on Nov. 28. Nancy Pelosi is the overwhelming favorite for speaker and doesnt currently face a serious challenger. Many Democrats consider her the best person to keep the caucus disciplined enough to balance investigations of the Trump administration with an ambitious agenda. And some of the most powerful progressive groups and leaders including EMILY's list, Planned Parenthood and AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka have endorsed her. and doesnt currently face a serious challenger. Many Democrats consider her the best person to keep the caucus disciplined enough to balance investigations of the Trump administration with an ambitious agenda. And some of the most powerful progressive groups and leaders including EMILY's list, Planned Parenthood and AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka have endorsed her. Steny Hoyer of Maryland is expected to continue as majority leader . . Jim Clyburn of South Carolina is expected to be the house majority whip. Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette is challenging him, running on the idea that Democrats need to "repay" the trust of female voters by electing more women to leadership. The Congressional Black Caucus backs Clyburn, and DeGettes bid seems ill-fated. of South Carolina is expected to be the Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette is challenging him, running on the idea that Democrats need to "repay" the trust of female voters by electing more women to leadership. The Congressional Black Caucus backs Clyburn, and DeGettes bid seems ill-fated. Cheri Bustos of Illinois is a favorite to lead the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She'd be the only member of Democratic leadership from a Trump district, and she has made that understanding of red America a key part of her pitch for the job. Reps. Denny Heck, Suzan DelBene and Sean Patrick Maloney are also vying for the job. All four are members of the moderate New Democrat Coalition. Go deeper: Jerome Corsi, a political commentator who was recently subpoenaed to testify in Robert Muellers Russia investigation told ABC News on Monday that hes expecting an indictment from the special counsel soon. I dont know what theyre going to charge me with. I think my only crime was that I support Donald Trump. That's my crime, and now I'm going to go to prison for the rest of my life for cooperating with them. Details: Corsi was a prominent figure behind the birther conspiracy, which falsely claimed President Obama was born outside the U.S. He has connections to former Trump adviser Roger Stone Jr. 1 big thing: Trump wants no more relief funds for Puerto Rico President Trump doesn't want to give Puerto Rico any more federal money for its recovery from Hurricane Maria, White House officials have told congressional appropriators and leadership. This is because he claims, without evidence, that the islands government is using federal disaster relief money to pay off debt. Trump also told senior officials last month that he would like to claw back some of the federal money Congress has already set aside for Puerto Rico's disaster recovery, claiming mismanagement. The White House didn't comment on this reporting. Between the lines: Trump won't be able to take away disaster funds that have already been set aside by Congress, and sources close to the situation tell me the White House hasn't asked Republican lawmakers to do so. But Trump could refuse to sign a future spending bill that would make more money available for Puerto Rico's recovery. Behind the scenes: In late October, Trump grew furious after reading a Wall Street Journal article by Matt Wirz, according to five sources familiar with the president's reaction. The article said that "Puerto Rico bond prices soared ... after the federal oversight board that runs the U.S. territorys finances released a revised fiscal plan that raises expectations for disaster funding and economic growth." Sources with direct knowledge told me Trump concluded without evidence that Puerto Rico's government was scamming federal disaster funds to pay down its debt. On Oct. 23, Trump falsely claimed in a tweet that Puerto Rico's "inept politicians are trying to use the massive and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations." At the same time, White House officials told congressional leadership that Trump was inflamed by the Wall Street Journal article and "doesn't want to include additional Puerto Rico funding in further spending bills," according to a congressional leadership aide. "He was unhappy with what he believed was mismanagement of money," the aide said. A second source said Trump misinterpreted the Journal article, concluding falsely that the Puerto Rican government was using disaster relief funds to pay down debt. A third source said Trump told top officials in an October meeting that he wanted to claw back congressional funds that had previously been set aside for Puerto Rico's recovery. "He's always been pissed off by Puerto Rico," the source added. Trump's wariness about sending federal money to Puerto Rico dates back to the beginning of his administration. In early 2017, when negotiating the omnibus spending bill, Democratic congressional leaders were pushing Trump to bail out Puerto Rico's underfunded health care system that serves the island's poorest citizens. Trump insisted in the negotiations that he wouldn't approve anything close to the level of funds Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats requested, according to two sources involved. (And he didn't.) The bottom line: Congress took steps to keep disaster relief funds from being used to pay down the island's debt, and as Bloomberg reported at the time, "neither the island's leaders nor the board installed by the U.S. to oversee its budget are proposing using disaster recovery aid to directly pay off bondholders or other lenders." Why it matters: Congress will have to pass a new package of spending bills in December. Hill sources say the package may include a bill to send more federal money to disaster areas. Trump has told aides he believes too much federal money has already gone to Puerto Rico more than $6 billion for Hurricane Maria so far, according to FEMA. (The government projects more than $55 billion from FEMA's disaster relief fund will ultimately be spent on Maria's recovery.) In comparison, per the NYT, "when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, Congress approved $10 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency four days later, and another $50 billion six days later. The federal government is still spending money on Katrina assistance, more than 12 years after the storms landfall." Trump often blames Democratic-controlled states for the fallout from their natural disasters. On Saturday, Trump threatened "no more Fed payments" for California to deal with its deadly fires unless the state addresses what Trump claims is "gross mismanagement of the forests." North Korea has been making improvements to 16 hidden ballistic missile bases even as it has made halting moves to dismantle a major site to appease the United States, according to satellite images reported by the New York Times. The big picture: The Trump administration has touted great progress in its diplomatic effort to eliminate North Korea's missile program, but evidence available to American intelligence agencies suggests otherwise. Talks between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a top North Korean official were canceled last week due to "a scheduling issue," according to the State Department but the BBC reported that the meeting was canceled because "the North Koreans didn't get on the plane as planned." Crude oil prices are up on Monday following weeks of declines after OPEC and allied producers signaled yesterday that they may collectively trim output next year. Driving the news: Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih told reporters in Abu Dhabi that the kingdom plans to cut exports by 500,000 barrels per day next month. On Monday, al-Falih said the Saudis and allied producers would need to collectively cut supplies by as much as 1 million barrels per day to rebalance the market, AP reports. By the numbers: Early this morning, Brent crude was trading at $71.01 and WTI at $60.57. Why it matters: The weekend meeting of officials from OPEC and Russia (among others) is the latest twist in a volatile period for oil markets. The potential curbs by the so-called OPEC-plus group come just 6 months after the coalition agreed to loosen production constraints. The potential strategy reversal shows how petro-states are now trying to prop up prices while grappling with variables like the uncertainty of Iranian output under sanctions, the U.S. production surge and signs of softening demand. What's next: A statement yesterday from what's known as the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee lacks any firm commitment to a production cut. But it nonetheless drops hints of what OPEC will discuss at their major meeting next month. It says "new strategies" may be needed to balance the market next year. "The Committee reviewed current oil supply and demand fundamentals and noted that 2019 prospects point to higher supply growth than global requirements, taking into account current uncertainties." (Emphasis added) The intrigue: Whether Russia will go along. Via the Wall Street Journal, "Russia, the worlds largest producer, sent mixed signals on whether it would pull back on supply after moving in lockstep on such matters with OPEC for more than two years." What they're saying: "OPEC+ nations sent a clear signal they are concerned rising supply and weaker demand may keep pushing oil prices down," writes Columbia University energy expert Jason Bordoff in this Bloomberg wrap-up. Top Saudi officials, including deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri, who was blamed and fired last month for allegedly ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, inquired about assassinating the kingdom's Iranian enemies during a meeting with private businessmen in March 2017, reports the New York Times. The big picture: The meeting was part of an effort by a group of international businessman to pitch the Saudis on an operation to sabotage Iran's economy. During the discussion, Saudi officials reportedly asked about killing Qassem Soleimani, a general in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but were rejected by the businessmen's lawyer. Per the Times, the episode highlights the fact that more than a year before the killing of Khashoggi, officials close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had increasingly become interested in carrying out high-risk, covert operations targeting the kingdom's enemies. The Trump administration is considering pressuring the Afghan government to postpone next year's presidential election as it seeks a peace deal with the Taliban to end the 17-year war, reports the Wall Street Journal, citing people briefed on the talks. Why it matters: Some officials in Washington fear that voting irregularities and violence that routinely occur in Afghan elections could undermine or destroy the prospect of a peace deal. But this request would be a contentious move that runs counter to the long-held U.S. objective of promoting democracy in Afghanistan," and it could potentially create friction between both countries, the WSJ writes. President Ashraf Ghani has already come out against such a proposal. The details: Kabul would need financial and military support from the U.S. if the election were delayed, but Afghan leaders are reportedly skeptical of American influence. Ghani, whos expected to run for a second five-year term, recently said the April 20 vote will proceed as scheduled. Ghanis spokesman told the WSJ: Continuity in a democratic process is a must, and any other proposal than the will of Afghans, which is outlined in our constitution, is simply not acceptable. Go deeper: The government has selected the type of first-ever fighter jets which it is planning to acquire for Armenias armed forces, Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan said on Monday. I can put it this way: the choice already been made and some financial-technical issues are being sorted out, he told a news conference. In June, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian photographed himself in the cockpit of a Russian Sukhoi Su-30SM warplane parked at the Erebuni airbase in Yerevan. Russian media reported afterwards that that Yerevan is now negotiating with Moscow on the purchase of such sophisticated aircraft. Other news reports said last month that Sweden has offered to sell Armenia lighter JAS 39 Gripen jets manufactured by the Swedish aerospace company Saab. Tonoyan did not deny those reports. There is no decision regarding Gripen at the moment, he said. There is another offer on the table from another partner which is being very seriously considered, and a decision will be made very soon regarding acquisitions. The minister implied that the offer was made by Russia. But he did not go into details. The Moscow-based daily Kommersant claimed in June that a Russian-Armenian deal signed in 2012 called for the delivery of at least 12 Su-30SMs to Armenia but that the Armenian side did not receive them due to financial difficulties. The paper said Moscow now hopes to reach an agreement with new Armenian government on implementing that multimillion-dollar deal as soon as possible. The Armenian Air Force currently consists of 15 or so low-flying Su-25 jets designed for air-to-ground missions. Su-30SM can perform a broader range of military tasks with more long-range and precision-guided weapons. It is a more advanced version of a heavy fighter jet developed by the Sukhoi company in the late 1980s. The Russian military commissioned the first batch of such aircraft in 2012. Tonoyan first confirmed Yerevans plans to acquire multirole warplanes in August. The Armenian army, he told military officials, needs them because no missile system can be a substitute for this capacity in terms of flexibility and resilience. Tonoyan made the comments more than a week after visiting Moscow and meeting with a top executive of Rosoboronexport, Russias state-run arms exporter. By Narmina Mammadova Until now, there was not such a railway project in the country, Mehr News Agency cited deputy head of Iran Railways Maziar Yazdani. The Qazvin-Rasht railway project is a special project, he stated. He noted that Iran intends to transport cargo and passengers following the project's implementation. From the point of view of cargo transportation, this project has special importance for the countries located in the west of the Caspian Sea, especially for Azerbaijan, Yazdani added. As for the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway, a decision was made for Azerbaijan to take part in the construction of the railway, because this railway is important for the country, he said. Speaking of the construction of the Shalamja-Basrah railway, Yazdani added that 32 kilometers are left to connect Iran's railroad to Iraq. The railway bridge over the Arvand River costs 22 trillion rials (about $52,380,952), he said. The Rasht-Astara railroad project is jointly carried out by Iran and Azerbaijan, each providing 50 percent of the required funding. Azerbaijan funded $500 million and Iran invested the same amount in the project. To complete the railway links of the transportation corridor, Iran had earlier agreed to construct inland railroad segments in northern parts of the country in order to extend its railways to the border area with the neighboring Azerbaijan through the two Astara cities on both sides. The initial plan included the Qazvin-Rasht and Rasht-Astara railroad segments. The main goal of strategic cooperation between the railways of Iran and Azerbaijan is activating the International North-South Transportation Corridor which will eventually link Russia and Azerbaijan to High-Seas through the Islamic Republic. The INSTC, a 7,200 kilometer-long freight route connecting India, Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia via ship, rail and road, is meant to connect Northern Europe with Southeast Asia. The main objective of the INSTC is to provide an alternative to the traditional routes carried out by sea through the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea. This means goods could be carried from Mumbai to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and further to Baku. They could then pass across the Russian border into Astrakhan, then proceeding to Moscow and St. Petersburg, before going in the direction of Europe. The corridor is expected to bring huge benefits to the Azerbaijani budget. The route enjoys several advantages compared to other transport corridors, as it is considered to be more profitable for each parameter than other alternative routes, including reduction of the distance and delivery time two or threefold. The route would substantially cut the travel time for everything from Asian consumer goods to Central Eurasias natural resources to advanced European exports. When completed, the INSTC is expected to increase the volume of commodities currently traded between Iran and Azerbaijan from 600,000 tons to 5 million tons per year, dramatically increasing bilateral trade from the current $500 million per year. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova Azerbaijani perfumery products sales center of "Karabakh Perfume" under the brand name "Product of Azerbaijan" has been launched in Doha Festival City Mall, the largest shopping center in Doha, Qatar. Overall, 12 Azerbaijani perfumes products, Shikasta, Natavan, Bayati Shiraz, Rast, Buta, Khankendi, Shusha, Sarvan, Panahalikhan, Jidir Duzu, Khari Bul Bul, Chelebi will be sold at the center. Azerbaijani Ambassador to Qatar Rashad Ismayilov, representatives of the diplomatic representations accredited in Qatar, local community members, famous bloggers and members of the media took part in the opening ceremony. Azerbaijani products were met by buyers with great interest. The centers activity is implemented within the framework of measures taken to increase the export of competitive non-oil products, access to traditional and new markets, in accordance with the Decree of 2016 on "Additional Measures to Promote the Export of Non-Oil Products". The start of the sales center in Doha will help pass the truth on Nagorno-Karabakh, the historic and integral part of our country to the international community, as well as promoting history and culture of Azerbaijan abroad. In 2016, Joint Economic, Commercial and Technical Commission was established between the Governments of Azerbaijan and Qatar. The first meeting of the Commission was held on January 31, 2017 in Azerbaijan. Economic, trade and technical cooperation agreement, Memorandum of Understanding on tourism cooperation, Agreement on promotion and mutual protection of investments, Avoidance of double taxation with respect to taxes on income and the prevention of tax evasion agreement, Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation in the field of agriculture, Establishment of Joint Economic, Trade and Technical Commission and other documents on economic cooperation between the governments of two countries have determined the main directions of bilateral economic relations. Facilitation of visa procedures between Azerbaijan and Qatar in 2016-2017 and opening of direct flights contributed to the expansion of cooperation between the two countries. All this will open up new opportunities for establishing economic relations between Qatar and Azerbaijan, especially in a non-oil field, as well as playing an important role in the development of tourism. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova An exhibition "Melody of strokes" will open at the Museum of Modern Art on November 16. The event is timed the 110th anniversary of the National Artist of Azerbaijan Sattar Bahlulzade and the renovation of the museum, Azertag reported. The artists graphic artworks will be showcased at the exhibition. The exposition "Melody of strokes" will feature works from the private collection. More than 130 unique paintings of great painter will be presented to the viewers. The exhibition will last until January 16, 2019. The founder of contemporary Azerbaijani landscape painting, Sattar Bahlulzade skillfully put on the canvas his impressions about the fast-changing world. Strong passion for art since childhood gave him the drive to began his professional education at the National Art Institute in Baku (1927-1931). In 1931, he began to work in the "Kommunist" newspaper as a "graphic artist" under the direction of great national artist and cartoonist Azim Azimzade. Bahlulzade entered in 1933 the department of graphic arts of Moscow Institute of Arts named after V. Surikov, where he studied at the workshops of famous Soviet graphic artist Vladimir Favorskiy. For the rest of his life, the artist felt the enormous influence of his teacher, who inspired a love of beauty in his student. Sattar's legacy includes countless works that have been exhibited all over the world, including personal exhibitions in the U.S., Britain, Turkey and Russia. Many of his works include specific areas of Azerbaijan, for example, a series of landscapes dedicated to Guba area (in the north-east of Azerbaijan,): "The Shore of Gudiyalchai", "A Road to Gyz-Benevsha", "The Valley of Gudiyalchai", and "The Green Carpet". The first personal exhibition of Bahlulzade was held in 1966 in Prague. It was the first personal exhibition of a soviet Azerbaijani artist in Europe. In 1940, Bahlulzade worked on his final project "Revolt of Babek", dealing with a great hero of the 7th-century struggling against the Arabic invasion. He also created around 30 sketch diaries that contain his reflections on life and art. Bahlulzade died in 1947 due to the blood poisoning. Unlike other prominent art workers, he was laid to rest in his native village of Amirjan, next to his mother's grave. The 34th UNESCO General Assembly issued a resolution to mark the 100th anniversary of Sattar Bahlulzade in 2008-2009. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Narmina Mammadova The Kids Fashion Week - Azerbaijan Kids Fashion Week 2018, organized by Star Kids Group, will be held at the Pullman Hotel from November 16 to 18, Trend Life reported. As many as 300 young models will take part in Azerbaijan Kids Fashion Week 2018. The works of 70 fashion designers and world brands will be presented there. The project author is head of Star Kids Group Aygun Aliyeva. Children on the podium are no longer a surprise. Today, Children's Fashion Weeks have acquired a global scale, and participation in them is considered prestigious. More and more parents send their children to the modeling business. This is an interesting hobby for a kid, and for adults - taking care of the future of their child. If the baby does not want to work in this industry in the future, he will gain valuable experience of behavior in public, will win shyness and believe in himself. Podium teaches children to the beautiful, brings a sense of style. Rehearsals and performances teach responsibility, mutual assistance and teamwork. The main goals of Azerbaijan Kids Fashion Week are aesthetic education of the younger generation, an opportunity for designers to express themselves. Informational support - Trend.az, Day.az, Milli.az, Azernews.az --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The proposal of the chairman of the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons of Azerbaijan on the exchange of hostages on the principle of "all for all" is a humane approach to solving the problem, the Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Member of the Azerbaijani Parliament Azay Guliyev told Trend. "As you know, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev always pays attention to the issue of the release of prisoners of war and hostages, and by taking decisive steps to resolve this painful, complicated issue, he was able to achieve the release of a number of citizens or return of their bodies. The Chairman of the State Commission Madat Guliyev also spoke in detail about this issue at the last meeting held on November 1. Madat Guliyev noted during the meeting that he was a supporter of the principle of the exchange of prisoners of war and hostages on the basis of the "all for all" principle. I believe that this is not only a good idea, but also a very humane approach to solving the problem," the Azerbaijani MP said. He said if the current leadership of Armenia shows at least a little constructiveness and is not indifferent to its citizens, then there will be no serious problems in the implementation of this proposal. "I think that it is necessary to inform all international agencies, especially the relevant OSCE institutions, of such a humane proposal of Azerbaijan so that the international community would realize who and how behaves in regard to such a humanitarian issue," Guliyev said. Guliyev added that the OSCE PA should express its position on this issue. I would like to say that our delegation constantly raises a question about prisoners of war and hostages at sessions of the OSCE PA. At the last autumn session of the OSCE PA, which took place on October 3 - 6 in Bishkek, I, together with the Chairman of the OSCE PA General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions, Margareta Kiener Nellen separately discussed the issue of Dilgam Askerov and Shahbaz Guliyev illegally taken hostage by the Armenian side, the OSCE PA vice-president noted. Guliyev expressed hope that in the near future there will be an opportunity to get acquainted with the position of the committees chairman and her further steps in regard to this issue. "I expect an answer from her as the chairman of the committee. In addition, on December 4-8, it will be possible to discuss this issue in detail at a meeting of the OSCE PA Bureau in Milan. I believe that there is enough ground to support the proposal of Azerbaijan to exchange prisoners of war and hostages on the basis of the "all for all principle. I will also, in the framework of my authorities and capabilities, make efforts to achieve such support," the Azerbaijani MP said. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Armenia has again suffered defeat in foreign policy, Azerbaijani MP Aydin Mirzazade said. Mirzazade noted that a regular summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) held Nov. 8 in Astana attracted the attention of many people. Along with a number of issues, the agenda also included election for the vacant position of the organizations secretary general, he added. The position of the CSTO secretary general was previously held by the representative of Armenia, the Azerbaijani MP said. However, because in his home country, in Armenia, the name of the previous secretary general of the CSTO was mentioned in connection with serious crimes, the organization had to release him from his post ahead of schedule, Mirzazade noted. Armenia proposed the candidacy of its representative for the remaining term, based on the principle of rotation, the MP said. However, the summit made a different decision. Despite all the efforts of Armenia, the next Armenian general couldnt become general secretary. Mirzazade added that Armenia couldnt convince five allied states with its arguments. Armenias attempt to put its national interests above international law has failed, he noted. This event showed that Armenias authority in international organizations is low, its principled position goes against common interests. The main issue, besides changing the criminal power, is also changing the political line. Armenia is refraining from this. Accordingly, the national crisis in Armenia will deepen even more. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The results of the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Astana should be regarded as defeat of Armenian diplomacy, Azerbaijani MP Elman Nasirov told Trend. He said that the release of Yuri Khachaturov from the post of the CSTO secretary general dispelled Armenias intention to dominate this organization. Khachaturov held this position for only half a year, and his goal was to stay in that position for another half a year, Nasirov noted. However, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said that this position shouldnt be held by a representative of Armenia, but by a representative of Belarus. Perhaps this issue will be resolved during the organizations meeting in St. Petersburg. The summit in Astana was also remembered by the fact that despite all the efforts of the Armenian side, a document was signed as part of the CSTO that defines the legal status of an observer country and a partner, the Azerbaijani MP said. In fact, the CSTO, considering the place and importance of Azerbaijan in the region, makes changes in its charter and defines the state status of an observer at this organization. This document was prepared in the interests of Azerbaijan. This fact is clear evidence of the next defeat of Armenia. The MP also noted that in the process of settlement the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh process, Armenia, based on the capabilities and potential of the CSTO, constantly threatened Azerbaijan. However, the last summit demonstrated that Armenias hopes regarding this organization are illusory, Nasirov added. In reality, the CSTO seeks close cooperation with Azerbaijan. He noted that the results of the summit demonstrate that all the tactical moves of the new leadership of Armenia towards Azerbaijan dont bring any result. The results of the CSTO summit once again showed that Azerbaijan is treated with great respect and trust everywhere, said Nasirov. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The initiative to elect a representative of Belarus as the new General Secretary of the Collective Security Treaty Organization is quite reasonable, the Russian independent expert Ilya Tropinin told Trend, commenting on the initiative put forward by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the session of the CSTO Collective Security Council in Astana. The post of General Secretary has been held by Armenia since May of last year on the principle of rotation. It was held by Yuri Khachaturov, recently withdrawn by Yerevan as a result of a scandal that flared up after his arrest in the framework of the criminal case related to the events of March 1, 2008. The expert said the Armenian government has no right to dispose of the post of the General Secretary as its property, to arrest, withdraw and appoint its representatives at its own discretion. "It is clear that it is in the interests of the Armenian side to retain the post of General Secretary in this strong organization, because otherwise it will be a severe blow to image of the current government of Armenia. I think thats why the Armenian prime minister hurried to propose a new candidate in the person of Deputy Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutyunyan. Nonetheless, Yerevan should take into account the fact that this issue is not an internal affair of Armenia and the final decision will be made by all members of the CSTO at the organizations summit in St. Petersburg," the expert said. In Astana, Kazakhstans leader Nursultan Nazarbayev made another important statement, urging the interested countries to become partners and observers in the CSTO. Tropinin said the regulatory legitimization of the status of the CSTO partner and the observer at the organization testifies to the openness of the CSTO, its readiness to develop constructive relations with other states and international organizations on a reciprocal basis. "In my opinion, this is a reasonable decision that fully complies with the charter of the organization," he said. The expert also did not rule out the fears of the Armenian side about the fact that Azerbaijan, with which all other CSTO countries actively interact, could be elected as an observer. Tropinin noted that Azerbaijan can take advantage of this opportunity if it considers it necessary to make such a decision. "In any case, it will be solely the choice of the Azerbaijani state," the expert said. The Russian leaders spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Nov. 8, the summit of the CSTO, and most likely the EurAsEC, and the informal summit of the CIS will be held in St. Petersburg on December 6. The CSTO is a military-political alliance within the CIS, established on the basis of the Collective Security Treaty, signed in May 1992. The CSTO includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Armenia. The contract is renewed every five years. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva have attended the inauguration of the administrative building of E-Government Development Center under the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The president cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the administrative building. The President`s Assistant for Work with Law Enforcement Bodies and Military Issues, department head Fuad Alasgarov and chairman of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (ASAN Service) Ulvi Mehdiyev informed President Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva of the conditions created in the building. The building will feature the INNOLAND Incubation and Acceleration Center as well as the IT Training and Education Center. President Aliyev familiarized himself with the INNOLAND Incubation and Acceleration Center. INNOLAND is an incubation, acceleration and research center created to develop the private sector, promote innovation and expand the startup movement both in Azerbaijan and beyond its borders. The IT Training and Education Center is a place where young people will be taught programming, information technologies and coding skills. President Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva then viewed innovative projects there. President Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva were also informed of new development concept of e-government. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend In the first eight months of 2018, Kazakhstan exported 152,800 tons of oil and crude oil products to Uzbekistan amounting to $77 million, the Kazakh monitoring agency Energyprom.kz said in a report. Compared to the last year, when 99,400 tons worth $40.7 million were exported, the export figures grew by 53.68 percent in volume and 89.1 percent in monetary terms. Uzbekistan, thus, became the main importer of Kazakh oil and crude oil products in the CIS with a share of 56.95 percent of the volume of supplies to the countries of the region (268,300 tons). Total exports of oil and crude oil products of Kazakhstan reached 46,400 tons (an increase of 5.6 percent year-on-year) in volume and $24.3 billion in monetary terms (45.3 percent) in the first eight months of 2018. The share of Italy, the Netherlands and France accounted for 53.9 percent of exports in volume and 54.4 percent in monetary terms. In January-September 2018, Uzbekistan imported 560,500 tons of oil and oil products. Supplies from Kazakhstan, therefore, accounted for 27.26 percent of the total imports. In the first nine months of 2018, trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan amounted to $2,136.4 million, of which $1,039.8 million accounted for exports from Uzbekistan, and $1,096.6 million accounted for imports from Kazakhstan. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Some 349,462 tourists from Israel visited Turkey in January-September 2018, which is 17.76 percent more than in the same period of 2017, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey told Trend Nov. 12. This is while 49,814 tourists from Israel visited Turkey in September 2018, which is 3.25 percent less than in the same month of 2017. The ministry noted that the share of Israeli citizens in the total number of foreigners who visited Turkey in September 2018 accounted for 1.04 percent. For comparison, this figure was 1.18 percent in September 2017. The share of Israeli citizens in the total number of foreigners who visited Turkey during the nine months of 2018 accounted for 1.10 percent. The ministry noted that 5,425,845 tourists visited Turkey in September 2018, which is 15.64 percent more than in the same period of 2017. Some 589,754 tourists from Germany, 317,748 - from the UK, 308,066 - from Bulgaria and 195,850 tourists from Georgia visited Turkey in September 2018. During the above-mentioned period, 1,899,103 tourists, accounting for 39.62 percent of the total number of tourists, visited the Turkish province of Antalya. In September 2018, 1,235,301 tourists, accounting for 25.77 percent of the total number of tourists, visited Istanbul. As of January-September 2018, 31,815,952 tourists visited Turkey, which is 22.08 percent more than in January-September 2017. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline (TAPI) and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) power transmission line and railway initiated by the Turkmen side were discussed in Kabul with the participation of the Afghan leader and chief executive Abdullah Abdullah. A delegation of Turkmenistan led by Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Rashid Meredov was on a working visit to Afghanistan. The delegation was received by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, who reaffirmed Afghanistans commitment to the traditional intergovernmental dialogue. The implementation of humanitarian and economic projects were also considered in accordance with the agreements reached earlier. During the visit, Turkmen-Afghan inter-MFA consultations took place, during which the sides exchanged views on key areas of interstate cooperation. A meeting of the Joint Commission for Security Cooperation was also held, following which the relevant protocol was signed. The TAPI pipeline will run from Galkynysh the largest gas field in Turkmenistan through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar, and finally, reach the Fazilka settlement located near the India-Pakistan border. The total length of the pipeline is 1,814 kilometers, the preliminary cost of the project is $10 billion. Annual capacity of the gas pipeline will be 33 billion cubic meters. Turkmen section of TAPI, the construction of which started in December 2015, will be 205 kilometers. Then the pipeline will pass through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar (816 km), then on the territory of Pakistan, through the city of Quetta and Multan (819 km), and will reach the settlement of Fazilka in India. On February 23, 2018, hthe construction of the Afghan section of the TAPI gas pipeline, which will export gas from the Galkynysh field in Turkmenistan, was launched. The consortium, with the participation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), continues active negotiations with all interested parties. Various options of participation in the project, such as participation in the company's share, project financing, financing through international development banks and with the help of export credit agencies from around the world are being examined. As the leader of TAPI Pipeline company Limited, Turkmengas State Concern, which has a controlling stake, acts as the main financier and project manager. The consortium also includes the Afghanistan Gas Corporation, Inter State Gas Systems (Private) Limited and Indian GAIL. The foundation-laying ceremony of the TAP energy bridge was held in February with the participation of the heads of state and government of the countries involved. At this stage, issues related to the laying of transmission lines on the territory of neighboring states were agreed. In particular, the agreement defines the volume of electricity that will be supplied to Afghanistan via the new transmission line 300 megawatts to Herat and Kandahar cities each. In the future, they are planned to increase to 1,000 megawatts. For years Afghanistan has been receiving electricity and liquefied gas from Turkmenistan at discounted prices via the YmamnazarAndkhoy and SerhetabatHerat transmission lines. This summer, Rabat-KashanKalay-Nau border transmission line with a capacity of 100 megawatts per hour was commissioned for the supply of Turkmen electricity to Northern Afghanistan. A lot of work has been done to implement this project, within the framework of which the Turkmen specialists have built a number of power supply facilities, including substations and transmission lines with a total length of 112 kilometers. For years Afghanistan has been receiving electricity and liquefied gas from Turkmenistan at discounted prices via the YmamnazarAndkhoy and SerhetabatHerat transmission lines. This summer, Rabat-KashanKalay-Nau border transmission line with a capacity of 100 megawatts per hour was commissioned for the supply of Turkmen electricity to Northern Afghanistan. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Italys Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has invited Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar to join a two-day conference in Italy, aimed at pushing forward a new UN plan to stabilize Libya. The Palermo Conference kick-starts Monday despite the absence of high-level attendees from the international community, such as Frances Macron, Russias Putin, Americas Trump or Germanys Merkel. I expect Haftar to be present since there is no doubt that he is one of the decisive players of the stabilization of his country, Conte was quoted by local media as saying. Haftar, who visited Rome in late October, has confirmed he would take part in the conference, according to the Italian government. But pro-Haftar Libyan media later reported that he would boycott the talks, without explaining the reasons of the boycott. Libya fell into chaos following the NATO-backed 2011 uprising that toppled Moamer Qaddafi. Two rival administrations have since emerged- the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and an eastern administration backed by Haftar. Despite a UN-sponsored peace agreement, the North African nation remains politically divided. Haftarwho leads the Libyan National Armyis the defacto military ruler of much of Eastern Libya. The UN last week conceded elections will not be viable before at least the spring of 2019. By Trend Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has sent a letter to Slovenian President Borut Pahor on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the Turkmen government said in a message. Berdimuhamedov noted that the Turkmen-Slovenian interstate dialogue is based on the principles of mutual respect and equality. Expressing the interest of Turkmenistan in expanding the partnership, Berdimuhamedov expressed confidence in its ongoing development in the interests of the peoples of the two countries. Trade, communication, transportation, air communication, freight traffic, agriculture and food industry are among priority spheres of Ashgabat-Ljubljana partnership. Negotiations are also underway to open direct air communication between the two countries and expand business relations. Turkmenistan is one of main players in the energy market of the Caspian region and ranks fourth in the world for its gas reserves. The country is studying opportunities to export its gas to the European market. Moreover, the Trans Caspian Gas Pipeline project through Azerbaijan to Turkey and Europe is being discussed. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The State Migration Service of Turkmenistan has held a meeting with a representative of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Turkmenistan, the state agency said in a statement. The parties exchanged views on the prospects of partnership in international migration. In recent years there has been an effective mechanism of cooperation between Turkmenistan and IOM aimed at protecting the rights and legitimate interests of migrants and refugees in need of assistance, the message says. The main areas of cooperation between the State Migration Service of Turkmenistan and the IOM are counteraction to various threats and challenges of our times, migration and health, the fight against human trafficking and other relevant issues of migration policy. Turkmenistan joined the International Organization for Migration as a full member in 2013. Prior to this, in June 1998, a cooperation agreement was signed between the Government of Turkmenistan and IOM. The IOM mission in Turkmenistan began its activities in 2005. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov Russian and Uzbek senators, representatives of the executive authorities, experts, entrepreneurs discussed the implementation of agreements in the trade and economic sphere. The Russian-Uzbek round table was held in Moscow on November 6-8. Chairman of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan Nigmatilla Yuldashev declared that at the First Forum of Interregional Cooperation between the Russia and Uzbekistan, held in October in Tashkent, more than a 1,000 guests from Russia participated, contracts worth more than $ 2 billion were signed. In turn, Sergey Katyrin, President of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Russia, noted the development of cooperation with a partner organization - the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Uzbekistan. He declared that among the priority areas of cooperation is the production of machinery, equipment and vehicles, food products and agricultural raw materials, and products of the chemical industry. The complementarity of the directions of trade and economic policy of our countries, allied relations are the basis for the further development of business ties, Sergey Katyrin concluded. The creation of a system of guaranteed supplies of agricultural products from Uzbekistan to Russia was touched upon by First Deputy Chairman of the Committee of the Federation Council of Russia on Agrarian and Food Policy and Environmental Management Sergey Lisovsky and Deputy Head of the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the Republic of Uzbekistan Anvar Khakimov. Musa Chiliev, member of the Council of Russia Committee on Economic Policy, and Ilkhom Abdullayev, Chairman of the Committee on Innovative Development, Information Policy and Information Technologies of the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan, devoted their presentations to the development of cooperation in the digital economy. During the last session, the entrepreneurs themselves already talked about joint investment projects, about the prospects for cooperation, about the need to solve various problems that arise. They represented their enterprises and were interested in the opportunity to create joint ventures in Uzbekistan, to organize production in the republic, etc. The senators of both countries, the Ambassador of the Republic of Uzbekistan in Russia, Botirjon Asadov, who made a brief speech, assured that all the issues raised would be resolved. In the framework of the round table, a memorandum of the intent of the Russian and Uzbek companies was signed. In the first half of 2018, Russia ranked first among the trade partners of Uzbekistan with a share of 16 percent of its foreign trade turnover, and Uzbekistan is also one of Russias leading economic partners in the CIS. The bilateral trade in the first half of the year grew 32 percent (to more than $2 billion), while Russian exports increased by 41.6 percent and imports by almost 10 percent. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova Saffron, widely used in folk medicine centuries ago, is still one of the rarest and most precious plants in the world. In 2018, 105 tons of saffron were exported from Iran. There was a 40 percent increase compared to the same period last year. The chairman of the National Saffron Council of Iran Gulamrza Miri told Trend that the saffron harvest will last until December. It is expected that exports will grow by 50-60 percent by the end of the year. According to the six-month statistics of the Customs Office, 105 tons of saffron worth $ 145 million were exported to markets. Price per kilogram of saffron is about 60 million to -120 million rials (about $ 1,430-2,860). Iran is the first saffron exporter in the world with a share of 44 percent, while Spain ranked the top saffron importer with a share of 23 percent. Spain, packing raw material from Iran, exports its products to the world market under its brand name. Azerbaijan meets saffron needs by importing it from neighboring Iran, the largest saffron producer in the world. However, the country also grows this valuable plant in small amounts. Written sources claim that in some regions of Azerbaijan this valuable and expensive spice was cultivated more than a thousand years ago. The small village of Bilgah on the Absheron peninsula still preserves the tradition of growing this miraculous plant. Saffron, grown in this area is not inferior to any world brand and with proper storage does not lose quality for very long years. Absheron saffron has not entered the world markets yet. First of all, due to the fact that this product is not produced in sufficient quantity and does not have its own brand. Now only farmers are engaged in the production of saffron in the country. The annual increase in saffron prices in international sales markets has forced scientists from the Ministry's Agrarian Science Center to direct their research to the revival of Azerbaijani saffron, Jalal Mammadov, Director of the Absheron Subtropical Plant Practice Station of the Agriculture Ministry, said earlier. Due to the fact that the investments of the state in agriculture, the emergence of new areas, and the creation of the agricultural sector's processing industry are included to the state priorities, it is expected that further steps will be taken in the development of the production of saffron. Today one gram of saffron in the Azerbaijani market costs 10 manats ($5.8), while the same amount in world markets stands at $20-25. Simple calculations indicate that only one ton of saffron would bring Azerbaijan about $25 million. The saffron is used as a medicinal plant since ancient times. Saffron is one of the best means to prevent cancer. It normalizes blood pressure of all cells in the body, strengthens the body's immune system, increases the body's overall tone, regulates gastric and intestinal activity, is useful in the treatment of asthma and bronchitis, also improves brain activity and strengthens memory, positively affects the nervous system, provides normal sleep. Currently, saffron is widely used in the world of cosmetics. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The French water management company proposed to create an innovative system of water supply and control, its management, and also to reduce the amount of consumed water in Uzbekistan. The Tashkent city administration hosted a meeting between the head of the Tashkent City Administration, Jahongir Artikhojayev, and the Director General of the French Company SUEZ on the developing regions, Eric Ghebali Guests noted the ongoing reforms in the country, carried out by the head of state. The Uzbek side proposed to create a joint working group and roadmap between SUEZ and other competent authorities. Over the past decade, Uzbekistan has made significant investments in the modernization of water supply and sanitation services. Its portfolio of government borrowing for water supply and sanitation projects is the largest in Central Asia. Despite this, citizens still face problems with access to clean water and reliable water supply. Uzbekistan is located in the basin of two large rivers, the Syr-Darya and the Amu-Darya, and, nevertheless, is experiencing a shortage of fresh water. The lack of drinking water is associated, among other things, with the inefficient use of water resources. The Soviet-era water supply system, with the collapse of the USSR, fell into disrepair, the infrastructure developed its resource, and the new one was practically not built, especially in rural areas. As for water supply enterprises in rural areas, they often have large chronic indebtedness and cannot afford to finance even basic operating expenses for the provision of their services, partly due to low tariffs and inefficiency of the systems, not to mention the construction of new water supply systems and drilling wells. In order to improve the efficiency of water use, the quality of work while reducing tariffs for services, the head of Uzbekistan made a decision to create a center for implementing investment projects in agriculture and water management Such innovations should contribute to attracting foreign investment in Uzbekistan, and increase the efficiency of using the country's water potential, according to Shavkat Mirziyoyev. In January-August 2018, the trade turnover between Uzbekistan and France amounted to $195.1 million, of which $117.3 million accounted for exports from Uzbekistan, and $77.8 million for imports from France. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova A festival of goods titled "Tea, brown rice and citrus fruits" solemnly opened in country's southern region Lankaran on November 10. The most talented chefs, farmers, craftsmen gathered at one place to celebrate the colorful feast, Trend Life reported. Aroma tea, delicious local sweets, 50 types of pilaf such as Hashimi, Sadri, Apollo, Kampo ... juicy kebab and famous Lankaran lavangi left no one indifferent. If you visit Azerbaijan, the Land of Fire, you should definitely taste its tea. Tea has always played a major role in Azerbaijan's culture. Local people are very hospitable people and while visiting any home in Azerbaijan, you are welcomed by black tea. Lankaran is well-known throughout Azerbaijan for producing the best tea in the country. The subtropical climate of the region is ideal for its growing. The first tea plantations appeared here in 1896. In 1937, the first packs of Azerbaijani tea were released. In Soviet times, Azerbaijani tea was very popular. Over the past fifteen years, the development of the tea industry has intensified and nowadays country's tea products are exported to Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia and other countries. The festival guests tried this aroma drink, which, by the way, is drunk in this area with various additives: chamomile, mint, lemon balm, thyme, mountain herbs. Themed stands and pavilions were also installed as part of the event. Citrus fruits, tea and brown rice, various types of tea , local sweets were showcased at the pavilions in the park. The festival aroused great interest among the public, including foreign tourists. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz French rail transport company Alstom has delivered the first batch of the 50 metro trains commissioned by the Dubai government. The Emirates Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) did not disclose the number of carriages it received over the weekend but said the delivery of the 50 will be completed by October 2019. The manufacturer, Alstom, will continue supplying the remaining trains in batches, said Mattar Al Tayer, the director-general and chairman of the RTA. RTA will carry the test-run of the first train destined for Route 2020 on the Red Line of the Dubai Metro. It will start with the static tests of all operating systems of the train. In the following stage, RTA will embark on dynamic tests, which involve testing the performance of systems while in motion, such as motors, brakes and control systems, added Al Tayer. Of the 50 carriages, 15 will be used for serving Expo 2020 network and remaining 35 to enhance the service level of the Dubai Metro, RTA said in statement. The new trains have been improved to allow greater capacity. Two classes, Gold and Silver, have been introduced. Seat distribution will be transversal in the Gold class, and longitudinal in the Silver class, increasing the capacity of each train from 643 riders to 696 riders, Tayer said. The rear carriages will be dedicated to women and children. The information minister of the Yemeni rival government led by Houthi rebels has defected the rebel camp and fled to Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni internationally recognized government has told Associated Press. Moammer al-Iryani, information minister in exiled President Mansour Hadis government, Saturday told Associated Press that his counterpart in the rebel-led administration, Salam Ali Gaber, abandoned the Iran-backed side in capital Sanaa to seek refuge in Saudi Arabia. The Defector, according to al-Iryani, arrived in Saudi Arabia with his family. If confirmed, the move will be a huge blow to the rebels who took control of the Yemeni capital in 2014 after flashing out regular forces. After taking over the capital, the rebels made gains towards the south but Saudi Arabia and regional allies backed by western powers have rolled back the rebels control. Saudi Arabia has been leading since 2015 an international coalition to restore President Hadis legitimate government. The coalition is preparing to retake control of the Red Sea port of Hodeida. Meanwhile, the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, on Saturday, expressed her outrage at the unconscionable toll caused by the escalation of hostilities in Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition and pro-Hadi forces, the Houthi forces and those who supply arms or other support to the parties to the conflict all have the power or the influence to stop the starvation and killing of civilians, to give some reprieve to the people of Yemen, the UN human rights Commissioner stated. Ms. Bachelet called for an immediate end to the military escalation, as catastrophic levels of food insecurity could soon threaten the lives of 14 million people across the country. She urged the Saudi-led coalition to immediately remove restrictions on the safe and expeditious entry into Yemen of indispensable humanitarian supplies and other goods. The parties to the conflict must allow the free, regular and unimpeded passage of food and other humanitarian relief and must not take actions that would deprive civilians of their rights to food and health, she stressed. The High Commissioner called on all those with involvement or influence in the conflict to facilitate the access to humanitarian relief that the people of Yemen so desperately need. Since conflict escalated in March 2015, OHCHR has counted a total of 17,640 civilian casualties in Yemen, including 6,872 dead and 10,768 injured. The majority of these casualties 10,852 resulted from airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led Coalition. For those having survived the repeated attacks, access to basic services and sources of income has become increasingly challenging. Today, three quarters of the entire Yemeni population 22 million women, children and men find themselves dependent on some form of humanitarian assistance to survive. Seven Palestinians, including a Hamas high-ranking official, and one top officer of the Israel army died Sunday in an Israeli incursion in the Gaza Strip Sunday. A routine sortie of Israeli Special Forces in Gaza to gather intelligence turned wrong after the Israeli squad, which intruded 3km inside the enclave, with a civilian vehicle was spotted and confronted. The ensuing flare-up left one top Israeli officer, identified as Col. Mem, dead and another one injured, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Seven Palestinians, six of whom members of the Islamist Hamas movement were also killed. Nour Baraka, commander of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the resistance group, was among the dead on the Palestinian side. The deaths occurred amid fighting and Israeli airstrikes used as cover to extract the Israel forces, reports say. The Sunday bloody showdown prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut short his visit to France where he was attending with world leaders the 100th anniversary commemorations of the end of World War I, according to Israeli sources. Israel, last week, allowed Qatar to funnel in the enclave $15 million to enable Hamas to pay workers. Egypt is also working with the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process Nikolay Mladenov to broker a ceasefire between Israel and the armed groups in the Strip. UPDATED: Monday, Nov. 12, 12:44 p.m. A man shot a Woodlands firefighter to death while allegedly fending him off during a violent clash early Sunday after a rural Montgomery County house party, according to police. Nicolas Daniel, who Montgomery County Sheriffs Office identified as a member of the Woodlands Fire Department, was fatally shot at a home in the 28000 block of Denn Court where he went to confront his assailant about his text messages, Montgomery County Sheriffs Office spokesman Lt. Scott Spencer said in a news release. The nature of the text messages was not immediately known but officials said their feud started at the Saturday night party in the Dacus area, officials said. AT LARGE: Robbers on run after Houston store clerk killed The homeowner left the party at some point and a pal later warned him to lock his doors because Daniel was on his way to confront him, according to police. Daniel drove to the home in his truck and went inside, the homeowner told police. Montgomery County Sheriffs Office Lt. John Schmitt earlier said Daniel knocked first. The gun-toting homeowner came out the side door of his home and brawled with Daniel. During the fight, he opened fire and shot Daniel several times, the news release stated. The homeowner, who wasnt identified, called police and said he shot Daniel and that he believed he was dead. Nick Wolda, a spokesman for The Woodlands Township, said Daniel was not on duty as a firefighter at the time of the incident and he added the incident was not related to The Woodlands Fire Department in any manner. "The Woodlands Township Board of Directors and staff were sad to learn of Firefighter II Nicholas Daniel's death over the weekend. (Daniel) Joined The Woodlands Fire Department November, 2015; he previously worked for the Lake Conroe Fire Department as a Lieutenant since 2000," Wolda said in an email. "The township's Fire Department chaplain is on location to help our firefighters through this tragedy." An administrative report from December 2015 shows Daniel was hired as a cadet in November of that year. He received promotions in November 2016 and earlier this year, in May. The case will be referred to a grand jury to consider charges. The latest skirmish over Confederate monuments erupted this week in Orange, where video of a stranger's profanity-laden rant galvanized both sides of the ongoing debate. The verbal barrage was filmed by a husband and wife who were protesting the 5-year-old Confederate Memorial of the Wind off Interstate 10 near Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. It is one of an estimated 68 such monuments remaining in the state. WARNING: Video contains explicit language "What gives you the right to be (expletive) protesting America," the unidentified man says as he approaches. He berates the couple as "stupid idiots" and at one point screams that he would "feel better if you (expletive) Democrats would go to hell." The couple, Orange native Tracie Parzen and her husband, Jeremy, have been picketing the site periodically since last December. They raised money through a Go Fund Me campaign to purchase billboard advertising urging the Sons of Confederate Veterans to "repurpose" the site because it "doesn't reflect Orange, Texas community values." The Parzens posted the 2-minute video of this weekend's encounter to Youtube, where it generated upward of 30,000 views. A copy shared on the Beaumont Enterprise's Facebook page spread the news even farther. One commenter said she "totally" agreed with the man "with the exception of his language." She thanked him "for stopping and standing up for our country and our heritage." Her post was liked, and even loved, by more than 500 people. "Yeah," a commenter with a different view responded. "Thank him for standing up to the history of the confederacy and their love of slavery." A small minority noted "a difference between remembering and celebrating" history, which "this guy clearly does not get." Comments supporting the attack on the protesters seemed to predominate, however. One man said he "love(d) every word of" the rant and suggested the man run for public office. RELATED: PAISD will change Confederate school names The stranger first yelled at the Parzens while driving by, then circled back and parked his truck at a convenience store. He walked across the street to confront them. As the man walked away following his tirade, Tracie Parzen told him that Jesus loves him. He agreed, but assured them that "Jesus (expletive) hates you." Parzen said that and the reaction to the video reinforces the need for people to stand up against the monument. "It just tells us we're doing the right thing," she said. "There is this undercurrent of hatred where there are a lot of good people in Orange, a lot of good people who do not want this monument representing their town." Parzen said they also represent "the people who may be too scared" to protest. She and her husband live in Houston but frequently visit their immediate and extended families in Orange. "We believe those type of things belong in museums," she said. "We don't want to forget and repeat our history, but at the same time, a memorial is glorifying that history rather than educating about it." Marshall Davis, spokesman for the Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which owns the memorial to 32 Texas regiments of the Confederate Army, said the group is not trying to incite controversy. "We have no agenda other than to honor our Confederate ancestors and preserve true history," he said. Davis called the man's behavior in the video "deplorable" but said he agreed with some of his statements about heritage. He said Confederate history advocates "would like to be treated with the same tolerance and diversity that has been extended to other groups." Davis said he does not believe the man is a member of the organization. Tracie Parzen said protests are planned for December and Martin Luther King Jr. Day next year. The $50,000 monument has long been a point of contention in Orange, a community of nearly 20,000 people barely 30 miles from the Louisiana border. The city passed a resolution opposing it in 2013. City Attorney Jack Smith on Monday called the memorial "odious," but he said both sides have the right to freely express themselves. There's not much the city can do, he said, other than "try to keep the peace." "This thing is very unpopular," Smith said Thurston "Louis" Ackerman, Orange County Democratic Party chairman, said there has been bipartisan support for removing the Confederate tribute. "This is something that can pull our community together, regardless of who you vote for because it doesn't represent values that we share as a community," Ackerman said in an email. He also said he worried major companies would refuse to invest in a place "with a Confederate memorial on the highway." But David Covey, who chairs the county's GOP party, said local Republicans are not focused on the Confederate issue but on road and drainage maintenance, "issues that will help make Orange County better." The monument's supporters are not involved in the local GOP group, Covey added. "We encourage Republicans to be adults and be mature about issues," Covey said. "Generally, Republicans respect history and are not about changing history, but it's not a primary focus at all for the local Republican party." phoebe.suy@beaumontenterprise.com twitter.com/phoebesuy King Mohammed VI of Morocco took part Sunday at the commemoration of the Centenary of the Armistice Day, marking the end of World War One. The King, who was accompanied by Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan, was received at the Elysee by French President Emmanuel Macron and his spouse Brigitte before they headed to the Arc de Triomphe square where military parades, several musical interludes, and a speech by President Emmanuel Macron punctuated the first part of the Armistice commemoration ceremonies. King Mohammed VI was seen in the front row of world leaders who came to France to pay tribute to the fallen in the WWI, also known as the Great War. The commemoration is the centerpiece of global tributes to honor the 10 million soldiers who were killed during the 1914-18 war and the moment the Armistice, signed in northeastern France, came into effect at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918. After the Arc de Triomphe ceremony, the attending seventy heads of state were guest to a luncheon hosted in their honor at the Elysee by President Macron. The Moroccan Sovereigns participation in the Armistice commemoration symbolizes the friendship that has been binding Morocco and France for centuries, and is a tribute to the valiant Moroccan soldiers who had fought for the ideals of freedom and peace during World War I. Likewise, the Sovereigns participation sends a strong message to the international community about Moroccos commitment to world peace and stability and its tireless efforts to promote multilateralism and defense of the universal values of democracy, freedom and equality. In the early afternoon, the Sovereign and other attending Heads of state will join the thousand participants in the Paris Peace Forum, organized part of the Armistice centenary commemoration. The Forum, designed as a response to the rising tensions marking the contemporary world, aims to be a showcase of all the cooperative advances in the fields of peace and security, environment, development, new technologies and inclusive economy. It brings together project leaders from around the world, political and economic leaders, all the actors of civil society (companies, NGOs, foundations, think tanks, media, unions, religious representatives, philanthropists, experts) and all stakeholders in global governance. The health of Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba who is currently receiving medical attention in Saudi Arabia had greatly improved, the presidency said on Sunday. According to the government spokesman Ike Ngouoni, the president was recovering his physical abilities. The exact ailment is not known. But the presidency statement, read out on state TV, said the President is recovering from a severe fatigue and has greatly improved. The 59-year-old leader is in the process of recovering most of his functions, Ike Ngouoni added. One TV station in Gabon was banned for reporting the President had passed away. Last weekend, Jean Ping who insists he is the countrys truly elected president made a speech to the nation from his home in Libreville. He called on citizens to transcend their divisions and place the nation above our individual ethnic or clan interests. Armed with constitutional reforms in January, Bongo is strengthening his position since he replaced his father, Omar Bongo, who ruled for 41 years until his death in 2008. The new constitution overwhelmingly concentrates power in the presidency and specifically ensures that the head of state retains influence over national policies. Private equity firm Veritas Capital and Evergreen Coast Capital, an affiliate of hedge fund Elliott Management, have agreed to buy athenahealth for an estimated $5.7 billion in cash, ending a monthslong question over whether the Watertown, Mass.-based healthcare software vendor would remain independent or be acquired. Here are six things to know about the acquisition: 1. Elliott, a hedge fund known for pursuing management shake-ups, purchased a 9.2 percent stake in athenahealth in May 2017. One year later, the firm made an unsolicited all-cash bid for athenahealth worth roughly $7 billion, offering to acquire the company at $160 per share. In June, athenahealth issued a statement that the company's board of directors had initiated a process to consider "strategic alternatives" for the company, which might include a sale or merger. 2. Under the agreement, athenahealth shareholders will receive $135 in cash per share, representing a premium of roughly 12 percent over the company's closing stock price on Nov. 9, the last trading day before the companies' acquisition announcement Nov. 12, and a premium of roughly 27 percent over the company's closing stock price on May 17, 2017, the day before Elliott's announcement that it had acquired a 9.2 percent interest in the company. "After a thorough strategic review process, we have decided to enter this agreement with Veritas, which we believe maximizes value for our shareholders and accelerates our goal to transform healthcare," said athenahealth Executive Chairman Jeff Immelt. 3. Veritas, an investor focused on the government and technology sectors, and Elliott's private equity subsidiary Evergreen plan to combine athenahealth with Virence Health, a value-based care business Veritas acquired from GE Healthcare earlier this year. After the close of that transaction, the combined company will operate under the athenahealth brand and be headquartered in Watertown. 4. The combined company will be led by Virence Chairman and CEO Bob Segert, along with a leadership team comprising executives from both companies. "We are excited by the opportunity to partner with athenahealth, one of the largest and most connected provider networks in the nation, to drive outcomes that matter the most to our customers," Mr. Segert said. "Athenahealth and Virence have complementary portfolios and highly talented people, and this combination expands our depth and reach across the continuum of care." 5. Elliott affiliate Evergreen will retain a minority investment stake in the combined company. Elliott, the firm that kick-started acquisition talks in May, has expressed support for the transaction. Elliott Partner Jesse Cohn said, "We are pleased to support this transformative transaction combining athenahealth and Virence, which we believe represents an outstanding, value-maximizing outcome for athenahealth shareholders." 6. The athenahealth board of directors unanimously approved the merger agreement. The companies expect to close the transaction in the first quarter of 2019, subject to approval from shareholders and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. From a federal judge shutting down a health insurance company to a health system accused of overbilling Medicare patients, here are the latest healthcare industry lawsuits and settlements making headlines. 1. FTC: Florida company made $100M selling fake insurance A federal judge temporarily shut down Miami-based Simple Health Plans at the request of the Federal Trade Commission. 2. Judge sets deadline for HHS to clear Medicare appeals backlog A federal judge ordered HHS to clear its backlog of more than 400,000 Medicare reimbursement appeals from hospitals by the end of fiscal year 2022. 3. Mental health patients win patient dumping suit against Nevada psych hospital A Las Vegas jury awarded James Flavy Coy Brown $250,000 as part of a class-action lawsuit against a state-run psychiatric hospital in Nevada that bused mental health patients out of state without providing proper care or discharge planning. 4. PeaceHealth accused of overbilling Medicare patients An Oregon man filed a lawsuit against Vancouver, Wash.-based PeaceHealth, alleging the health system secretly overbilled Medicare patients involved in accidents. 5. Patient sues Hennepin Healthcare, says she was improperly sedated with ketamine, enrolled in drug trial A patient filed a lawsuit against Minneapolis-based Hennepin Healthcare, alleging paramedics violated her civil rights when they forcibly injected her with ketamine in 2017 and enrolled her in a clinical trial without her consent. 6. Olympic Medical Center to join AHA lawsuit against Medicare cuts Port Angeles, Wash.-based Olympic Medical Center will join the American Hospital Association's lawsuit against HHS over cuts to Medicare reimbursement rates for off-site clinics. 7. IT contractor to pay $389K DOJ settlement after inadequate EMR implementation Computer Services Corp. agreed to pay $389,355 to settle U.S. Justice Department allegations that it falsely claimed it had met requirements for a new EMR system at U.S. Energy Department occupational health clinics in Washington state. More articles on legal and regulatory issues: AHA will sue to stop CMS' site-neutral payment policy Feds claim Kansas physician involved in $30M billing fraud scheme Judge halts Maine hospital merger Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical is expected to gain European Union antitrust approval for its $62 billion acquisition of Shire, a London-based pharmaceutical company, according to Reuters. After the European Commission voiced concerns about the deal, Takeda offered to sell off Shire's compound SHP647, which is a treatment for inflammatory bowel disease. EU officials thought Shire's compound may overlap with Takeda's best-selling drug Entyvio, a treatment for uncreative colitis and Crohn's disease. If the $62 billion transaction wins approval, it will give Takeda a wider reach into the global drug market and strengthen its global pipeline for rare disease drugs. The combined company would have $31 billion in revenue, which places it among the top 10 within the global pharmaceutical industry, behind industry leaders including Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer. The EU antitrust division is scheduled to rule on the deal by Nov. 20. The deal has already won approval from U.S. regulators. The deal would also need to secure shareholder approval. Takeda investors will vote on the transaction Dec. 5. In a separate Reuters report, Takeda said it aims to close the deal Jan. 8. Fort Myers, Fla.-based Lee Health will permanently close the kidney program at Fort Myers-based Gulf Coast Medical Center in December, according to Fort Myers News-Press. Patients were notified of the center's closing via letters Nov. 2. Gulf Coast Medical Center will transfer its patients to Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital. The patients can use another government-approved transplant center without losing their places in line. Gulf Coast Medical Center is the only kidney center in southwest Florida and had a multimillion-dollar retooling in 2015 after a kidney donor's death. Hospital administrators suspended the program in August due to a surgeon shortage. One of the transplant center surgeons, Jacfranz Guiteau, MD, left the center in July and its director, Lynsey Biondi, MD, left on personal leave. Dr. Biondi will be let go due to her position being eliminated. The center's other transplant nephrologists, Gautham Mogilishetty, MD, and Shalini Saith, MD, will remain at Gulf Coast to consult transplant patients pre- and post-surgery, but will be employed by Tampa General's kidney program. "Unfortunately, despite Lee Health's efforts, the program has faced many obstacles which make the program unsustainable," a letter cited by Fort Myers News-Press said. It also indicated Tampa General "will provide Southwest Florida residents with the opportunity to access Tampa General Hospital's excellent care and transplant services while receiving the majority of their care close to home." More articles on clinical leadership and infection control: New Mexico hospital first in state to win 'patient safety excellence' award for 5 straight years Hand hygiene compliance better during flu season 5 Henry Ford Health hospitals earn 'A' safety grades from Leapfrog After an emergency department patient died Nov. 7 at Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center, the hospital is investigating the incident and has placed staffers involved on administrative leave, according to The Daily Gazette. Hospital officials said Albany police and an ambulance crew brought the patient to the ED. The patient was aggressive and belligerent, and staffers tried to calm the patient several times, according to hospital officials. "On the order of a physician, and with the agreement of the patient, a medication to calm the patient was administered," the hospital stated. "Despite these efforts, it became necessary to attempt to restrain the patient in an effort to prevent injury to staff, others in the emergency department, or to the patient." The patient and hospital staff involved were both hurt when staffers applied restraints. "Immediately after the patient was restrained and could be re-evaluated, it was determined that the patient had stopped breathing and had no pulse," the statement read. Revival efforts failed, and the patient was pronounced dead. Hospital officials said the patient's cause of death has not been determined. An autopsy and toxicology tests will be conducted. Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center said it has raised its minimum hourly wage from $11 to $12.50. The academic medical center said about 1,460 employees, or about 9 percent of its staff, will benefit from the pay boost. Overall, the increase will cost an additional $1.7 million for fiscal year 2019. "We are committed to taking care of our employees and their families. When our employees feel valued and supported, they can focus on caring for our patients," said Julie Ann Freischlag, MD, CEO of Wake Forest Baptist and dean of Wake Forest School of Medicine. "We continuously look for ways to attract and retain highly qualified employees who are committed to our mission of improving the health of those in our communities." Wake Forest Baptist said it plans to raise minimum hourly wage to at least $15 an hour over the next several years. More articles on workforce: UCHealth in Colorado seeks to fill hundreds of positions at new hospital Tennessee hospital fires man who wore offensive T-shirt to vote UTMB to hold job fairs to staff Texas hospital While Michael Raber, MD, was still in medical training, he committed to an employment contract with Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville, Ark., that included a $48,000 signing bonus, but then decided to quit months before his scheduled start date in July 2017. Now a judge has ordered him to repay the payroll taxes on his signing bonus and recruitment expenses, in addition to paying back the bonus, according to an Arkansas Business report. Here are five things to know: 1. Dr. Raber signed an employment agreement with Washington Regional during his fellowship at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The contract stated his base salary would be $716,000 with additional bonuses for potential total compensation reaching $1.5 million, according to the report. 2. Prior to signing the agreement, he visited the hospital three times on Washington Regional's dime. The hospital said it paid around $9,177 in recruitment expenses, which included airfare to the hospital, hotel stays and meals. 3. In March 2017, about four months after signing the agreement, Dr. Raber notified the hospital that he would break their contract, deciding not to work at the hospital for "personal reasons." 4. Washington Regional sought compensation for the recruitment expenses, payroll taxes on Dr. Raber's $48,000 signing bonus which totaled $3,672 as well as $305,912, which the hospital paid for a physician staffing firm to fill the role Dr. Raber vacated. The chief U.S. District Court judge of Western district of Arkansas ruled Dr. Raber owed the hospital for the payroll taxes and recruitment expenses, totaling $12,849. The judge did not require Dr. Raber to repay the cost of the physician staffing firm. 5. Dr. Raber paid back the signing bonus and is now working at Houston-based Baylor College of Medicine. Donegall Place in Belfast city centre, which has been separated from Royal Avenue by the safety cordon A retail chief has called on the public to support traders in Belfast in the run-up to Christmas as research shows a drop in footfall of over 60% there last month. The hefty decline in visitors to the city centre compared to October 2017 is largely due to the loss of the Primark store at Bank Buildings, which was destroyed in a fire in August. Northern Ireland Retail Consortium director Aodhan Connolly said the Belfast figures from the Springboard report were "worrying" for those businesses in the "cordon quarter" surrounding the Primark store. He appealed to shoppers to "come back to the city centre in their droves" to ensure the survival of traders. Footfall results elsewhere in Northern Ireland were up by 2.7%. High streets benefited from a 4% increase in footfall, while shopping centres saw footfall drop by 1%. "The effects of the Bank Buildings fire still weigh heavy on these latest set of footfall results with some areas of Belfast city centre again seeing year on year drops in shoppers of over 60%. This is in stark comparison with the overall growth in Northern Ireland of 2.7%," he said. "Some areas are doing better because of the displacement factor of the fire that has essentially cut the heart of the city centre in two, but these will be worrying figures for those businesses that are around what is being dubbed the cordon quarter. "With Christmas only weeks away it is imperative that shoppers come back to the city centre in their droves to ensure the survival of these traders." According to Belfast City Council, the drop in footfall is costing the city centre up to 3m a month and the safety cordon around Bank Buildings has forced 22 organisations to close. Hopes for traders in the area were raised last week when Primark confirmed its plans to open two new stores in Belfast city centre, with the first commencing trading on December 8. It will open in its newly-built extension at Castle Street just over a fortnight before Christmas. The opening will coincide with a new access tunnel allowing pedestrians to walk along the front of Bank Buildings from Donegall Place to Royal Avenue. Springboard's research also showed that Northern Ireland saw an improvement in shop vacancies from 14.4% in July to 13.3% in October, compared to the UK average of 9.6%. Mr Connolly added: "One bright light in this gloom is that we now have the lowest shop vacancy rate in over two years, and which is only 4% above the UK average. While this is little consolation to those businesses who have closed in recent weeks, it does show that the Northern Ireland entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well." Diane Wehrle, marketing and insights director for Springboard, said the drop in vacancies was led by the hospitality sector. Businesses in Northern Ireland are gloomy about the future as the construction sector in particular pays the price of a lack of Executive, according to a survey today. And Ulster Bank chief economist Richard Ramsey said business and politics were intertwined, with the outcome of Brexit negotiations the number one factor on business minds. He spoke as the Ulster Bank purchasing managers' index said Northern Ireland was the only UK region to see a pick-up in growth during October. But the rate of expansion was weaker than earlier this year, and exports had weakened. And while activity and job creation had picked up, business sentiment was at its weakest for more than a year and a half. Mr Ramsey said: "Northern Ireland was the only region of the UK to see private sector growth pick up in October. However, this sounds much better than it actually is. "The pace of expansion remained subdued, and two of the four sectors surveyed - retail and construction - actually saw a contraction last month." Construction was now bearing the brunt of a lack of Stormont Executive as crucial decisions on big-money projects - which could generate millions of pounds of work for firms - were not being made. Mr Ramsey said: "The lack of decision-making in government in Northern Ireland and the resulting logjam in capital projects is now being acutely felt by many construction businesses." "However, other sectors were still positive. The manufacturing sector continues to experience strong demand, despite a slowdown in export orders." That had left manufacturing as the most optimistic of sectors. "But clearly, the big factor that will determine whether this optimism is realised is how Brexit pans out," Mr Ramsey said. "The outcome of the negotiations will determine the trajectory of private sector growth here into the foreseeable future, particularly in the export-focused manufacturing sector. "Today, forecasting growth means forecasting politics." The PMI said that growth of activity in the Republic, Northern Ireland's main export market, had eased to a seven-month low in October. The rate of expansion had also eased in Canada, while there was weakness in some eurozone economies. A growing number of small and medium sized firms in Northern Ireland believe their business will suffer from Brexit, according to a new report. The Brexit Sentiment index from First Trust's parent company AIB, revealed that 62% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) here believe Brexit will negatively hit business. More than 700 companies on both sides of the border were surveyed over July to September. The level is up from 50% in the first quarter of 2018. The quarterly monitor suggests that 63% of Northern Ireland SMEs have not started planning for Brexit, with just 3% indicating they have a formal plan in place. Brian Gillan, head of business and corporate banking at First Trust, said: "There is little doubt that the lack of certainty as to what is going to happen is impacting decisions here - with 45% having postponed or cancelled plans and a further 13% having reviewed them. "An additional 11% have said they have postponed bank borrowing as a result of Brexit." Meanwhile two new studies by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) and Queen's Management School have suggested that the surge in Northern Ireland's entrepreneurs could be halted by a bad Brexit deal. The studies said the number of early stage entrepreneurs in NI has grown by 75% in 15 years. Professor Mark Hart, the ERC's deputy director, warned: "The danger is that unless we see a Brexit deal that enables the free flow of trade across an open border, we could turn the clock back on some of the enterprise progress we've seen of late." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced the appointment of Peter Pham as the U.S. special envoy for Africas Great Lakes Region. According to a State Departments statement, Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council think tank, will coordinate U.S. policy in the region, with an emphasis on strengthening democratic institutions. Pham will also work to encourage the safe and voluntary return of the regions refugees and internally displaced persons, amid renewed tensions in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Peter Pham will assume the work previously undertaken by Senior Coordinator for the Great Lakes, Ambassador Larry Wohlers. U.S. ambassadors to the countries of the Great Lakes region remain in charge of bilateral relations. The Great Lakes region includes Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, in addition to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). DRC is one of the most unstable countries in the region. Phams appointment comes ahead of December 23 presidential elections that are seen as critical for the future of the DRC. In an opinion piece in The New York Times headlined To Save Congo, Let it Fall Apart, Pham said the world could then devote scarce resources to humanitarian relief and development instead of preserving the countrys unity. A former hair salon on 338 Lisburn Road is to be converted into Belfast's second Bao Bun restaurant, with an apartment on its upper floors A second Taiwanese restaurant and a cafe are to join south Belfast's hospitality venues if new planning applications get approval. A former hair salon on 338 Lisburn Road is to be converted into Belfast's second Bao Bun restaurant, with an apartment on its upper floors. And the Vape Lounge on Stranmillis Road will become an eco-friendly cafe if plans are approved. Bao Bun, an independent Taiwanese street food restaurant/takeway, has received critical acclaim for its bao bun-based sandwiches since it launched in Botanic in 2017. Now it is seeking to expand to Belfast's Lisburn Road, just a few yards from The Chelsea Winebar. It comes on the back of a surge in popularity for casual international dining here, which saw Mexican burrito chain Boojum cross into the Republic. It also set up shop on the Lisburn Road earlier this year. And family-run Tribal Burger has announced that it will open its second store in Belfast's Callender Street soon, creating around 20 jobs. Its owners, husband and wife team Paul and Elaine Catterson, opened their first outlet on Botanic Avenue at the end of 2017. And on the Ormeau Road, Japanese noodle restaurant Bia Rebel Ramen is another success story in the sector after winning an award for 'best cheap eats' in the UK at the Observer Food Monthly Awards. The award for the venue, which opened in March, was announced at a ceremony in London last month. It is run by owner and chef Brian Donnelly and his partner Jenny Holland. Meanwhile, in Stranmillis a former e-cigarette bar will get a hospitality conversion as an application reveals plans for a cafe on the site. The focus of the new business will be to serve food with an emphasis on minimum waste and eco-friendliness, says the applicant, who has not been named. DUP Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson has said he will vote against any agreement he thinks threatens the Union DUP and Conservative Brexiteer MPs came together yesterday to step up pressure on the Prime Minister over her faltering Brexit strategy. In a stark warning to the PM, the DUP's Brexit spokesman, Sammy Wilson, and Tory Brexiteer Steve Baker, deputy chairman of the 80-member European Research Group (ERG) of Conservative backbenchers, said they would vote against any agreement which they believed threatened the Union, and could put a trade border down the Irish Sea. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the two MPs said: "We share the Prime Minister's ambition for an EU free trade agreement, but not at any price, and certainly not at the price of our Union. "If the government makes the historic mistake of prioritising placating the EU over establishing an independent and whole UK, then, regrettably, we must vote against the deal." Hope of getting the Cabinet to sign off on Brexit deal proposals this week appeared to be rapidly receding, as it was reported the EU had rejected London's plans for an independent arbitration clause that could allow the UK to quit a backstop deal on the Northern Ireland border. The DUP/ERG move comes as the Prime Minister battles to keep her Brexit agenda on track in the face of growing Tory tensions and reports of opposition from Brussels to a key part of her withdrawal proposals. The hardening line against the Prime Minster's plan comes as the representatives of the four anti-Brexit Northern Ireland parties fly into London for a meeting with Mrs May. Speaking ahead of the No.10 meeting, Alliance MLA Dr Stephen Farry said: "The government's Brexit negotiating approach has always been hamstrung due to mutually incompatible red lines. "Over the next few weeks, in order to achieve a Withdrawal Agreement and the Transition Deal, the UK government has to honour its existing commitments to be open-ended and all weather backstop. "Alliance welcomes some aspects of the backstop extending UK wide, provided the protection for Northern Ireland is maintained. UK-wide, we have an almost farcical situation in which a majority of MPs seem to want to at least keep all of the UK in a Customs Union and within the Single Market, and there is significant evidence to suggest that the people of UK would vote differently in another referendum. But democracy is being frustrated as the government and hard Brexiteers are taking the UK to the cliff edge." One of Northern Ireland's biggest private hospitals has an annual rates bill of 839 despite the facility being worth almost 35m, it can be revealed today. The Ulster Independent Clinic (UIC), located in one of the most affluent areas of Belfast, is eligible for rates relief and charitable tax status because it is a registered charity. According to the latest documents filed with Companies House, the freehold land and buildings owned by UIC were valued at 34.9m at the end of April last year. However, Land & Property Services (LPS) has said the private hospital at Stranmillis only has to pay rates for the caretaker's house. With a rateable capital value of 110,000, this means the rates' bill for this financial year was 839. The clinic, which is the only private hospital with charitable status, said it is a non-profit making charitable company and any surplus is reinvested back into the facility to ensure the highest standards for patients. If UIC did not have charitable status, its rates bill for 2018/19 would be in the region of 66,308. This equates to a total rates bill of 258,665 for the period between April 1, 2015 and the end of next March. At the same time, cash-strapped health bosses at the Belfast Trust paid out almost 5m on rates for its hospitals last year. The rates bill for the Royal Group of Hospitals was 2.2m, while the bill for Belfast City Hospital was 1.5m. A further 1.1m was needed to cover the rates for the Mater Hospital and Musgrave Park Hospital. The trust will be faced with a similar bill this year while also struggling to find enough money to provide vital NHS services, as well as funding the likes of the ongoing neurology recall. It also comes as an increasing number of patients are being forced to turn to private hospitals for treatment amid spiralling waiting times in the NHS. Meanwhile, HM Revenue & Customs said that it could not say whether the clinic had charitable tax relief. However, UIC paperwork filed with Companies House says "the company is recognised as a charity by HM Revenue & Customs and all income falls within the tax exemption". As such, UIC does not pay tax on the majority of income and gains used for charitable purposes, known as charitable expenditure. In documents submitted to the Charity Commission, the clinic said "fees totalling 26.9m were paid by private individuals, healthcare charities and insurance companies" during the financial year 2016/17. Any surplus of income must be reinvested into the services it provides to patients and 8.1m was earmarked for future development of the clinic. It is understood this money was used to fund its new outpatient department, which was officially opened during the summer. The expansion included the construction of a new three-storey extension to the existing main hospital site, the upgrade of the adjacent X-ray department facilities and the addition of a new endoscopy theatre. While the UIC must publish its accounts, the consultants who work there are not bound by the same regulations, as they are not charities. Instead, they are operating as private businesses, so no details are available on their income and any profit is not subject to the same regulations, including the requirement to invest profit back into the charity. According to the Charity Commission, UIC acquired charitable status because the work done there provides a benefit to the public. This includes the diagnosis of illness and physical injury and the relief of pain and suffering for patients as a result of receiving medical treatment. Indirect benefits include the provision of training for student nurses, radiographers and physiotherapists. Paula Bradshaw, Alliance Party health spokeswoman, has called for a review of the current situation where NHS hospitals face hefty rates bills while a private hospital providing the same service is exempt. "We need to be clear that the issue lies with existing policies and regulations, not with the clinic itself," she said. "It will seem a significant discrepancy that an independent company can be deemed charitable, yet a public sector organisation providing the same services cannot. "At the very least, we need to be open and honest about what we expect the role of charities to be and how they are accountable for that role." While UIC is the only private clinic here with charitable status, it is not uncommon for independent hospitals to register as a charity. In August last year it emerged that hospitals in England and Wales were enjoying a 52m tax break on their business rates bills through their charitable status. A spokesman for the clinic said it is a non-profit distributing charitable company, limited by guarantee and its sole purpose is the diagnosis of illness and physical injury and the relief of pain and suffering through medical treatment. He continued: "UIC's charitable status means that it is required to act in the public benefit and that any surplus from its activities is reinvested into the services it provides to patients. "The hospital is also governed by a voluntary board of directors who ensure that the clinic continues to provide patient choice and a valuable service to the healthcare sector in Northern Ireland." The Charity Commission said: "A charity cannot provide a private benefit unless it is an incidental benefit. "Sometimes there may also be incidental benefits that may result from a charity carrying out its purposes. "For example, medical staff who will be employed by a charity set up to provide health centres in deprived areas may enhance their employment prospects because of the experience they gain." It said charities are allowed to charge for services because these may be expensive to run and fees are required to cover the cost in order to operate. The deaths of 10 people during three days of shootings in west Belfast were the result of illegitimate, unjustified and indiscriminate use of force by the (British) Army, a court has heard. Inquests investigating the 1971 incidents, referred to as the Ballymurphy Massacre by bereaved relatives, began in Belfast on Monday. In 2011, Northern Irelands Attorney General John Larkin directed that new inquests be heard after a long campaign by family members who claimed the original coronial probes were inadequate. The shootings took place as the Army moved in to republican strongholds to arrest IRA suspects after the introduction by the Stormont administration of the controversial policy of internment without trial. Expand Close The 10 people who were killed (Ballymurphy Massacre Committee/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The 10 people who were killed (Ballymurphy Massacre Committee/PA) Soldiers have long been held responsible for killing all 10 in Ballymurphy between August 9 and 11 1971, but the accepted narrative became clouded earlier this year when former members of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force came forward to claim their organisation was also involved. Sean Doran QC, counsel for the Coroners Service, outlined some of the evidence that will be examined throughout the inquests. He said each individual incident and death will require careful scrutiny. In what he described as a very broad observation on the core issues, he said: The narrative of the military is legitimate use of force was used at a time of heightened tension and response to specific threats. He said this runs contrary to the Ballymurphy families who say the deaths resulted from illegitimate, unjustified and indiscriminate use of force by the Army on civilians. Expand Close The families of the 10 people who were killed (Cate McCurry/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The families of the 10 people who were killed (Cate McCurry/PA) The families claim the military action resulted in the deaths of 10 entirely innocent civilians. Mr Doran said the original investigations into the deaths were very limited, adding that there are multiple examples of failure to get witness accounts and examples that show forensic opportunities were missed. He added that examination of scenes would not necessarily have been routine given the legitimate security concerns at the time. Its important not to lose sight that these were turbulent times, he added. At the time of the deaths, officials from the Royal Military Police interviewed soldiers after mass shootings. Referring to the original inquest, Mr Doran said it did not carry out a rigorous examination of military statements. The open verdict did not allow for any finding as to whether use of force was justified, he added. This inquest will not be so limited in nature or in scope. He added that the investigation carried out by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) gathered a significant amount of material and contact details for a number of soldiers. He added that the process of getting evidence is continuing and military and civilian statements are still to be taken. The inquests are expected to run until March. The court earlier heard how difficulties surrounding the inquests have been exacerbated by the loss of records and statements from military witnesses given before the original inquest. Mr Doran described the process into these inquests as difficult and complicated. A Catholic priest was among the 10 killed in the shootings, involving members of the Parachute Regiment. Another man died of a heart attack following an alleged violent confrontation with the troops in the west Belfast estate. Mr Doran said the court will examine a period of time in Belfast when there were approximately 12 explosions, 59 shootings, 17 deaths, 25 injuries, 13 rioting incidents, 18 arson attacks and numerous reports of civil disorder. When examining the deaths through a forensic lens we ought not to lose sight of the context of when these deaths occurred, he said. That is not to say however that the context provide shield or buffer against scrutiny. The families of the 10 gathered outside Laganside Court in Belfast ahead of the inquests, holding pictures of the victims and banners calling for justice. Political representatives from Sinn Fein, the SDLP, People Before Profit and Alliance also attended. John Teggart, whose father Daniel was one of those killed, said before the hearing: Its mixed emotions going into court today but the determination of the families to get to the truth has brought us to here. Solicitor Padraig OMuirigh, who represents some of the families, said: Today, 47 years after these families lost their loved ones, 46 years after the original inquest, seven years after the direction for a new inquest, we are finally here. Its a tribute to the resilience of these brave families, so I want to commend them through all the difficult days. Hopefully this is a new start of a process to find out what happened to their loved ones. Over the next few months the court will examine the evidence and we are very confident that their loved ones innocence will be clear and their names will be cleared, finally. Michelle ONeill said the backstop needs to be permanent (Nick Ansell/PA) The European Union has been urged to remain steadfast over its guarantees to Northern Ireland by pro-Remain parties. Senior figures from Sinn Fein, the SDLP, Alliance and the Greens said Brussels must remain firm in demanding a permanent backstop arrangement which would keep Northern Ireland aligned with the EU. Theresa May is battling to secure a UK-wide backstop to prevent a hard border with Ireland, rather than a specific measure for Northern Ireland, and also faces Tory demands to make sure that it will not become an open-ended arrangement. But at a cross-party press conference in London, Sinn Fein vice president Michelle ONeill said: The backstop needs to be permanent, the backstop is the only guarantee we have in this debacle, the only insurance policy we have throughout all of the Brexit mess. Our message is very firm: there can be no backtracking from that position on the backstop that Theresa May and her Government signed up to in December last year. Expand Close (left to right) Green Party of NI leader Steven Agnew, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle ONeill and the Alliance Partys Stephen Farry held a joint news conference to set out their concerns on the backstop (Nick Ansell/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (left to right) Green Party of NI leader Steven Agnew, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle ONeill and the Alliance Partys Stephen Farry held a joint news conference to set out their concerns on the backstop (Nick Ansell/PA) She warned that a hard border, with infrastructure at the frontier, could become a target for dissidents. There are still anti-peace process elements in society and any erection of hard borders on the island of Ireland will bring unwanted attention, she said. While I am very cautious not to over-egg that, I think it is important that people understand thats exactly what potentially could happen. She said that was why the backstop had to be legally operable and remain in place unless and until something else comes along which could prevent a hard border. We are very much looking towards the EU to remain steadfast in the position which they have adopted, and that we hold the Irish Government to account for their role in all of that as well. The Brexit process, and the toxic alliance between the Conservatives and DUP, had contributed to progress made in the Good Friday Agreement being thrown under the bus, Ms ONeill said. In London alongside SDLP, Alliance & Greens to meet Westminster parties & make the voice of cross-community in the North majority heard. There cant be a hard border. Must protect GFA. Cant jeopardise our peace or future economic stability. Permanent Backstop is bottom line. Michelle ONeill (@moneillsf) November 12, 2018 SDLP leader Colum Eastwood told the news conference: We have spent an awful lot of time trying to build the progress that we now have, the stability that we now have. Brexit has been like bomb going off in the middle of that stability. He added: We have to ensure that the backstop is supported and protected in the withdrawal agreement. There will not be a withdrawal agreement unless there is a backstop, a permanent one. There is no point having a temporary backstop. The backstop is there as our insurance against big mistakes being made by a future British government. The pair, along with Northern Irelands Green Party leader Steven Agnew and the Alliances Stephen Farry, were using the visit to London to meet leaders of Westminsters opposition parties. But they complained that Mrs May had refused to meet them jointly. Belfast City Hall is bathed in the colours of remembrance as a beacon is lit to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War The haunting images of a First World War soldier and a nurse appeared on Northern Ireland beaches to mark the centenary of Armistice Day. At Murlough Bay in Co Antrim an image of John McCance from Dundrum in Co Down was etched in the sand as part of the Pages of the Sea project spearheaded by Hollywood director Danny Boyle. Mr McCance enlisted as a rifleman in Downpatrick and died at Passchendaele. He has no known grave, and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot memorial on the Western Front, along with 35,000 others. A huge artist's impression of First World War nurse Rachel Ferguson was displayed at Downhill beach. Ms Ferguson, from Moneymore, died in 1918 while working for Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service. Mr Boyle said it was a "unique moment" to honour the "millions of men and women who left these shores to fight and serve during the war, many never to return". Belfast Telegraph photographer Kevin Scott, who captured images at Murlough using a drone, said: "One hundred years on from the rifleman's disappearance in August 1917, John returned to Co Down. Not the return that was intended for the young rifleman but with the stunning scenery and the crowds looking on, one thing was certain; John got the final send off that he long deserved and I can only hope that these poignant images do justice in recording that special moment in local history." Projections of ghostly silhouettes of World War One soldiers illuminated Titanic Belfast last night, one of several landmarks across the UK to display the images of 'Tommies'. And Belfast City Hall and Parliament Buildings at Stormont were also lit up in red on Saturday night to mark the 100th anniversary of the Armistice. The area around the Bank Buildings has been cordoned off since the blaze (David Young/PA) Footfall in Belfast continues to plummet in the aftermath of the Primark fire. The retailers former store at Bank Buildings, a B1-listed building in the heart of the city centre, was badly damaged in a major fire in August. The area around the building has been cordoned off since the blaze for public safety, and city centre footfall has seen declines of over 60% following the blaze. Dramatic images captured by @Razorpix @PAImages @PA of the devastating fire at Belfasts historic Bank Buildings as the Primark store was completely destroyed in the inferno. pic.twitter.com/9oTRJUckU7 David Young (@DavidYoungPA) August 28, 2018 Covering the four weeks from September 30 to October 27, footfall grew by 2.7% in Northern Ireland overall, above the three-month average of -0.8% and the 12-month average of -1.2%. Footfall rose on the High Street by 4%, while it declined in shopping centres by 1%, a deeper fall than the -0.2% in September. Northern Ireland saw an improvement in vacancies from 14.4% in July to 13.3% in October, above the UK average of 9.6%. The effects of the Bank Buildings fire still weigh heavy on these latest set of footfall results, with some areas of Belfast city centre again seeing year on year drops in shoppers of over 60%Aodhan Connolly Aodhan Connolly, director of Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, said the effects of the fire were still being felt in the capital. The effects of the Bank Buildings fire still weigh heavy on these latest set of footfall results, with some areas of Belfast city centre again seeing year on year drops in shoppers of over 60%, he said. This is in stark comparison with the overall growth in Northern Ireland. Some areas of Northern Ireland are doing better because of the displacement factor of the fire that has essentially cut the heart of the city centre in two but these will be worrying figures for those businesses that are around what is being dubbed the cordon quarter. With Christmas only weeks away it is imperative that shoppers come back to the city centre in their droves to ensure the survival of these traders. One bright light in this gloom is that we now have the lowest shop vacancy rate in over two years, and which is only 4% above the UK average. While this is little consolation to those businesses who have closed in recent weeks, it does show that the Northern Ireland entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well. Now that more powers have been devolved to our civil servants, we need them to immediately take action to make Northern Ireland a more competitive place to do business. Diane Wehrle, marketing and insights director at Springboard, said the Northern Ireland contrast with the UK was a marker of volatility in the region. This, together with the result of -2% for the UK as a whole, not only reflects the ongoing challenges that the retail sector is facing but illustrates that the challenges for retailers have been ongoing as we moved through the year, she said. As we head into the key trading period of the year, it suggests that Christmas could be challenging. At the same time, the improvement in Northern Irelands vacancy rate over the quarter to 13.6% in October is further evidence that the offer in bricks and mortar destinations is shifting to better accommodate continued consumer demand for experience-led visits. The catalyst was the growth in demand for hospitality and, while this is continuing despite the fact that the growth in eating out visits has slowed since the heady days of 2015, it has opened up opportunities for the introduction of more diverse experience and leisure led propositions in destinations that ultimately may well broaden the definition of retail. In a recent planning application, Primark outlined their intention to restore and reconstruct the building with a minimal loss of historic fabric as is practically possible to retain historic authenticity. Hopes that Theresa Mays Cabinet might sign off a Brexit deal on Tuesday appear to have been dashed (Victoria Jones/PA) Hopes that Theresa Mays Cabinet might sign off a Brexit deal on Tuesday appear to have been dashed, as both the EU and UK sides said issues remain to be settled. Downing Street said that reports that Brussels chief negotiator Michel Barnier expected the parameters of a deal to be presented to ministers for approval at their regular weekly meeting should be taken with a bucket of salt. It is not thought that any deal will be on the table at the Cabinet meeting in 10 Downing Street, which will instead hear an update on negotiations and discuss preparations for a possible no-deal withdrawal from the EU. If no deal is agreed by Wednesday, the prospects of a special Brexit summit in Brussels in November will recede sharply, further reducing Mrs Mays chances of getting a vote in Parliament before Christmas. The Prime Ministers official spokesman rejected suggestions that Wednesday represents a hard deadline, repeating Mrs Mays position that she wants a deal as soon as possible but that it cant be at any cost. Meanwhile, one Brexit-backing Cabinet minister cautioned that the Prime Minister would not have a free hand in pushing her plans through. International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt told Sky News: The important thing is that there are two checks on this deal there is Cabinet and there is Parliament. Cabinets job is to put something to Parliament that is going to deliver on the referendum result. The PMs spokesman said: The Cabinet has backed the Prime Minister in moving forward with her negotiations with the EU and I expect Cabinet will continue to do so. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Officials from both sides were engaged in talks in Brussels which began on Sunday and lasted until 2.45am on Monday but failed to produce a decisive breakthrough. Downing Street said that there were substantial issues still to be overcome in relation to the backstop measure aimed at ensuring the frontier between Northern Ireland and Ireland remains open no matter what happens in the wider Brexit trade deal. The PMs spokesman said: We have made good progress in the negotiations in relation to the withdrawal agreement but there are substantial issues still to be overcome in relation to the Northern Irish backstop. Mr Barnier told ministers from the 27 remaining EU nations at a meeting of the general affairs council that key issues remained unresolved. Michel Barnier explained that intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet, said an official statement. Some key issues remain under discussion, in particular a solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. EU27 were informed by @MichelBarnier on the ongoing #Brexit negotiations. Intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet. https://t.co/wbtTkdLQSP See in the pic the representatives present at the meeting pic.twitter.com/62mzLGoZZi E.Arauzo (@EU_Arauzo) November 12, 2018 A witness to the meeting told the Financial Times that the chief negotiator had told the EU27 ministers that the parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined and that the UK Cabinet would meet to examine them on Tuesday. But ministers emerging from the meeting did little to encourage expectations of an early resolution. Irelands deputy prime minister Simon Coveney told reporters in Brussels said there was still clearly work to do to reach an agreement. And a senior Brussels source said that work was ongoing, adding: Were not there yet. Germanys Europe minister Michael Roth said: We all know the clock is ticking and we must now come to a good outcome. We dont have much time left. His French counterpart Nathalie Loiseau said: The ball is in the British court. It is a question of a British political decision. Good meeting with @MichelBarnier this morning - crucial week for #BREXIT - negotiating teams engaging intensively, more work still to be done. Solidarity across the EU remains very strong. @HMcEntee @dfatirl pic.twitter.com/3dPA2GwlLL Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) November 12, 2018 The lack of decisive progress in Brussels came as further details emerged of reported reservations voiced about Mrs Mays strategy by senior ministers at the crunch Chequers meeting in July. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Chancellor Philip Hammond were among Remain-supporting ministers who raised concerns about the Chequers plan, the BBC reported. Mr Javid described the proposal for a common rule book with the EU for goods and agriculture as very worrying, while Mr Hammond questioned whether the 27 other countries in the union would accept such a plan, the broadcaster said. Former transport minister Jo Johnson said he decided to quit Mrs Mays Government last week because he was concerned at reports she was planning a publicity campaign which he said amounted to a calculated deceit. Reports suggested the campaign would compare the content of any deal secured by Mrs May with the prospect of a chaotic no-deal withdrawal, rather than comparing it to the UKs current situation as an EU member. I challenge the Government to come clean on the cost of Brexit, he told the Evening Standard. The reason they cant look us in the eye, its because they know this will leave us worse-off and with less control. Its a gross abuse of civil service impartiality. Mr Johnson added: There is a sea-change in mood among my Conservative colleagues who are focused by this crisis. I would not be surprised if more colleagues in senior positions speak out. His brother, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, claimed Mrs May is on the brink of total surrender to the EU over Brexit as he urged the Cabinet to mutiny against the Prime Ministers withdrawal agenda. A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R 12 November 2018 The New York Times has announced it is accepting applications for the seventh annual New York Portfolio Review, sponsored by the New York Times column, the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York and United Photo Industries. The review gathers 160 photographers and 75 editors, publishers, video producers, gallery owners and curators for two days of free private photo critiques on April 21 and 22. According to the announcement: The first session, on Saturday, March 30, will be for photographers 21 and older. Each participant will receive six private critiques. The second session, on Sunday, March 31, will be solely for photographers 18 to 27 and will consist of at least four private critiques for each participant, as well as free workshops on how to best present, promote and publish photographs. We will screen all applicants and choose 100 participants for Saturday and 60 for Sunday. To enter, you'll need up to 20 JPEGs 1200 pixels across and 72 dpi from one or two projects and the form attached to the announcement. The deadline is Dec. 10 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time with notices going to those who are accepted by Jan. 15, 2019. You must be 18 or older and there is no fee. Good luck! Irelands deputy leader and minister of European Affairs travelled to Brussels on Monday for meetings with the General Affairs Council. Simon Coveney and Helen McEntee will attend a meeting on Brexit and a further bilateral meeting with the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier. Speaking on his departure for Brussels, Mr Coveney said focus is required for a satisfactory agreement. Expand Close Michel Barnier (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Michel Barnier (Niall Carson/PA) I am looking forward to discussing the state of play in the Brexit negotiations with our EU partners and our negotiator Michel Barnier, he said. Negotiations are at a very critical and sensitive stage. Clear and focused thinking is now required if a satisfactory agreement is to be reached. We want an agreement to be reached as soon as possible but urgency is required. The EU and Irelands position remains clear and consistent. The withdrawal agreement must include a legally operable backstop for avoiding a hard border that must be in place unless and until another solution is found. Any review mechanism must be in line with this. All sides agree that this is essential in order to protect the Good Friday Agreement and our peace process. The talks come after DUP leader Arlene Foster said on Friday that she would not support British Prime Minister Theresa Mays decision to have a Northern Ireland-specific backstop which would see a border down the Irish Sea. She added that the DUP will not support that and will not be able to support the move in the British Parliament. Boris Johnson has claimed Theresa May is on the brink of total surrender to the EU over Brexit as he urged the Cabinet to mutiny against the Prime Ministers withdrawal agenda. The former foreign secretary suggested that if Mrs Mays plans for a backstop customs deal with the EU, aimed at preventing a hard border in Northern Ireland, went through the UK could be reduced to the status of a colony. In a stinging attack on the PMs proposals ahead of a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Mr Johnson said Mrs Mays agenda would see the UK remain in captivity. Mr Johnson said plans for a backstop, which would keep the UK in a customs union with the EU if a solution to the Irish border issue could not be found, would be worse than remaining in the EU. Mrs May is under fire from both wings of the Tory party after the shock resignation from the Government of Mr Johnsons pro-European brother Jo, who also delivered a withering attack on the PMs stance. That move fired speculation that more ministers who backed Remain in the referendum campaign could also quit. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Pro-Brexit Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom added to Tory tensions by insisting the UK could not be trapped in a backstop agreement without the ability to leave at a time of its choosing. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson said: I want you to savour the full horror of this capitulation. Under Article 50, the UK is at least able in theory to leave the EU. We do not have to consult any other authority. But under these proposals we are agreeing that the EU would have a say on whether this country is capable of making that final exit from the EUs essential institution, the customs union. In other words, we are on the verge of signing up for something even worse than the current constitutional position. These are terms that might be enforced on a colony. Mr Johnson added that even if the Government got the EU to agree to giving London a unilateral exit option from the backstop it would be meaningless. The awful truth is that even if the Cabinet mutinies as they ought it will make little difference. Even if we agree with the EU that the UK must have a unilateral break clause, so that we can go our own sweet way at a time of our own choosing, it is irrelevant because the programme and ambition of the Government is to remain in captivity, to stay in our cell, even if we are given the theoretical key to escape. Mr Johnson said the PM would try to bludgeon MPs into voting for surrender by framing the argument as accepting her proposals or the chaos of no deal. Hope of getting the Cabinet to sign off on Brexit proposals on Tuesday appeared to be rapidly receding, as it was reported the EU had rejected Londons plans for an independent arbitration clause that could allow the UK to quit a backstop deal on the Northern Ireland border. The apparent impasse makes it much harder for the PM to secure a special EU conference in November to settle Brexit terms. But in a sign of Downing Street attempting to push the process forward, Mrs Mays key Brexit adviser Olly Robbins held talks in Brussels on Sunday. The funeral of John Winton took place in Limavady, where fire crews formed a guard of honour outside Limavady Fire Station The funeral of John Winton took place in Limavady, where fire crews formed a guard of honour outside Limavady Fire Station The funeral of John Winton took place in Limavady, where fire crews formed a guard of honour outside Limavady Fire Station Grieving family and friends packed Limavady's Christ Church on Saturday to say farewell to John Winton, a local binman who died in a work accident last week. Mr Winton (51), a father-of-two, was killed after being hit by the bin lorry he was a crew member on in the Mount Eden area of the town. Limavady came to a standstill as mourners lined the streets while his funeral cortege passed. Mr Winton had also been an on-call firefighter, and members from the NI Fire and Rescue Service formed a guard of honour as the procession passed the fire station from where he had served his community. A firefighter's helmet was placed on top of the coffin as it was carried into the crowded church. Canon Samuel McVeigh said the building was full to overflowing for the funeral. "He was a very popular man in the town," he told the Belfast Telegraph. "The church has a capacity of around 380, and there were as many people again outside." His cousin, the Rev Brian Hassan, spoke at the funeral. He later tweeted that Mr Winton was "a true gentleman who served his country with distinction". "He was a dedicated family man and proud Orangeman and bandsman. He will be sorely missed by his friends and family. "Called home too early," Rev Hassan added. Among the mourners were colleagues from Causeway Coast and Glens Council as well as members of the Star of the Roe flute band, of which Mr Winton had been a member. Chief Fire & Rescue Officer Gary Thompson said: "John was a dedicated firefighter serving his home town with distinction and he was extremely popular amongst his colleagues." A PSNI probe is under way into Mr Winton's death. The Health and Safety Executive has also launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the fatality. A 42-year-old man was arrested on Friday following searches in the Dunmurry area of Belfast. National Crime Agency and PSNI officers from the Paramilitary Crime Task Force (PCTF) carried out searches at three residential properties as part of an investigation into the importation and supply of class A drugs. As part of the operation a quantity of cocaine was seized. The investigation is ongoing. A man was arrested and questioned by PCTF investigators, before being released on police bail. The PSNI, NCA and HMRC have established the PCTF to tackle criminality linked to paramilitarism in Northern Ireland. NCA Belfast branch commander Billy Beattie said: Working with our PCTF partners we are determined to disrupt the illegal supply of drugs in Northern Ireland, and pursue the criminal gangs involved. This investigation is just the latest example of that, and our enquiries are ongoing. PSNIs Head of Criminal Investigation Branch, Detective Chief Superintendent Darren Evans said: Fridays action demonstrates the strength of the three agencies working together as part of the Paramilitary Crime Task Force and their commitment to tackling the abuse of these vibrant communities by the criminal individuals and groups. We would encourage anyone with information to contact the police on 101 or alternatively information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111." New Zealands deputy prime minister has said that opening an embassy in Dublin was one of the first decisions his government made after Brexit. Winston Peters, who is also the minister for foreign affairs, officially opened the first New Zealand embassy in Ireland on Monday. Speaking to the media, he said that as the UK leaves the EU, Ireland and New Zealand could enjoy a more mutually beneficial relationship. Exciting news! The #NewZealand Embassy in #Ireland is on Facebook. Like their page to keep up with the work of our colleagues in Dublin. The Embassy opens on Monday 12 November. https://t.co/fNyAIxTXeh NZ High Commission in London (@NZinUK) November 9, 2018 The moment the Brexit decision happened on the 23 June 2016, it became very clear that we would have to, with respect to Ireland, set up an embassy here, he said. It was one of the first decisions we made, and we could no longer think of carrying out the service from London, which had been going on in the past, thats why we made the decision. We can be of assistance to the Irish in the Pacific and elsewhere, and we know the Irish can be a big help to us where the European Union is concerned, so if we both put our best foot forward we can deepen our relationship and mutually get more out of it. Brexit is a slow process, which wont be over until March of next year, so in a way were getting ready early. Ireland is stretching its reach off shore, it has always been a country that has seriously understood the importance of domestic and diplomatic relationsWinston Peters The other reasons listed by New Zealand officials for the move to Dublin included Irelands growing economy, the influx of New Zealand immigrants into Ireland and historic ties between the nations roughly one in six New Zealanders have Irish ancestry. This will have a lot of ramifications, we need to have a close relationship with Ireland and vice versa, Mr Peters added. Ireland is stretching its reach off shore, it has always been a country that has seriously understood the importance of domestic and diplomatic relations. During the official opening ceremony, Mr Peters said: Weve been big fans of the Irish for a long time, and we have a similar sense of justified defiance, so I think well get along just fine. The opening ceremony, which saw Maori cultural group Ngati Raukawa perform a traditional blessing ritual, was attended by the New Zealand ambassador to Ireland, Brad Burgess, as well as new local and seconded staff who will work in the embassy. Expand Close A traditional Maori ritual at the opening of the embassy (Conor McCabe/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A traditional Maori ritual at the opening of the embassy (Conor McCabe/PA) The group, dressed in traditional Maori costume, toured the offices blessing each room and singing, before performing religious hymn How Great Thou Art in Te Reo, the native Maori language. Shortly after New Zealand announced last year that it would open the embassy, Irish President Michael D Higgins announced Ireland would likewise open an embassy in New Zealand. According to a statement released by the presidents office, the decision to establish an embassy reflects an exceptionally close partnership between Ireland and New Zealand in international affairs, including at the United Nations. Secretary of State Karen Bradley, Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast Emmet McDonough-Brown and Tanaiste Simon Coveney TD at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall yesterday Belfast fell silent on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War as the military, politicians, veterans and the public gathered to pay their respects to the fallen. It was the largest memorial service held in Northern Ireland on the centenary of the Armistice yesterday. Blue skies broke as the Union flag was lowered and the Last Post was played while crowds stood in the grounds of City Hall. More people stood in the street as the venue was full to capacity. The Band of the Royal Irish Regiment, which included pipers, drummers and a brass section, was led by Band Master Richard Douglas. Military songs were played as well as the traditional hymn Abide With Me, sung often in the trenches during the war. In a poignant and emotional hour-long ceremony, wreaths were laid by service personnel as well as by representatives from governments from around the world. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley laid a wreath on behalf of the British Government, while the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tanaiste Simon Coveney laid a green wreath for the Republic. The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Rev Dr Charles McMullen, led prayers and asked for care to be given to ex-servicemen and women. Lord Mayor of Belfast, Deirdre Hargey, did not attend the service. Sinn Fein stated last week that no representatives from the party would be taking part in remembrance events that "celebrate or attempt to legitimise British imperialism". The SDLP's Claire Hanna as well as former party leader Alasdair McDonnell, who made a plea for Northern Ireland to 'depoliticise' the tragedy of the war, were two prominent nationalists at yesterday's service. Alliance leader Naomi Long, DUP MLA Christopher Stalford and the UUP's Lord Empey paid their respects too. Mrs Bradley spoke with cadets before making her way to St Anne's Cathedral for an afternoon service. "It was absolutely beautiful, a very poignant service," she said. "It was really wonderful to be there and to share the memories and thoughts of so many." Mrs Bradley and Mr Coveney have been working closely in efforts to get an Executive sitting in Stormont again. The Secretary of State said yesterday was a signal of how far the relationship between the two governments has come. She added: "I think the fact that in 2016 when we commemorated the Somme, it was an opportunity for the UK and Irish governments to recognise the sacrifices of both our countries in 1916." Mr Coveney said he was honoured to be in Belfast on behalf of his government. "This is a shared history that we all have and it's important that 100 years later we are commemorating together with the respect that's due," he said. "I really wanted to be in Belfast today. I could've been in Dublin or Cork, Paris or London. I wanted to be here to give a signal from the Irish Government that this is something that we share with communities in Northern Ireland as well as Ireland. Where families are respecting loved ones that never returned. "In some ways in Ireland, many families didn't get to mourn or honour loved ones that were lost in the First World War because of the politics of Ireland at the time. It was a double tragedy in many ways. Hopefully the relationships are mature enough now to tell the truth in terms of history and to focus on the human tragedy that so many families on this island suffered as a result of World War One." Mr McDonnell said it was important for him on a personal level to be at Armistice Day commemorations and he welcomed Mr Coveney's decision to attend. "It's particularly important to be here on the 100th anniversary," he said. "This was a very, very poignant occasion and I'm absolutely delighted that the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs took the time to be here. "It puts the occasion in the context of remembering all of the dead of the First World War." Similar services were held cross the UK and Europe in what is also the 100th year of the RAF. Some of the damage caused Some of the damage caused Firefighters walk among the ashes of a wildfire-ravaged home A Belfast woman caught up in raging wildfires across California has said finding out her home in Malibu has been saved is "the best news". Geraldine Gilliland, who is originally from Andersonstown, has lived in California since 1975. Now running a dog sanctuary in the US, Ms Gilliland has spoken of her horror, over 10 years on from losing one of her homes in similar circumstances. Wildfires have torn through northern and southern California, claiming the lives of 25 people to date. She fled to Santa Monica to escape the danger, a journey which she says should have only taken half an hour, but took five. Roads were crammed with residents trying to leave. Bemoaning the lack of an emergency vehicle, Ms Gilliland and her dogs left in her car and are now staying with friends. Speaking to the BBC in the wake of the blaze, she described the scenes she faced. "We drove past houses on fire, hillsides on fire," said Ms Gilliland. "I was afraid of running out of petrol, the dogs were very agitated and the sirens were going crazy. "My nose started bleeding because of all the smoke and the ash that was dropping." But speaking to the Belfast Telegraph yesterday, she said finding out her house was saved had been a load off her mind. "It's just such a relief," she said. "A few of the dogs have been injured after biting each other and I've a few who are older. I'm just glad my babies are safe." The former St Louise's school teacher had to take cover in a restaurant after fleeing. Ms Gilliland owns restaurants in the state as well as welcoming tourists to stay. "I had two French people staying with me and they helped me get the dogs out safely." Labelling herself as a "recovering Catholic", she added that she really believes the power of prayer is working and urged people to keep sending their love across the Atlantic. After losing her home over a decade ago, Ms Gilliland said she had feared it could happen once more. "I just couldn't stomach that again," she said. "It cost $1m to rebuild my house and only $300,000 was paid by my insurance." A Beatles ticket from a concert in the early 1960s, her dogs and their medicine are what the businesswoman had at the forefront of her mind - and all three things were thankfully saved. Her mother, who's 92, still lives in Rostrevor and welcomed Ms Gilliland back home a couple of years ago. President Donald Trump blamed the wildfires on the "gross mismanagement of forests". Remembrance Sunday church-goers were pelted with fireworks and responding police attacked in an incident described as "senseless and shameful". It happened at a church on Union Street in Magherafelt on Sunday evening. The DUP MLA Keith Buchanan said the incident "tainted the town". Police said they were attacked as the attended the scene after reports fireworks were thrown at church-goers. Officers were attacked and their patrol vehicles damaged. "Last night saw an unfortunate and shameful end to Remembrance Sunday in Magherafelt," police said. "A band of thoughtless individuals decided that on the 11th of November of all days it would be a poignant tribute to the sacrifices made for our freedoms to throw fireworks at the people of Magherafelt attending a church service," police said. "Never mind the obvious risk to property and peoples safety the sheer disrespect and thoughtlessness is galling." The officer added in a Facebook post: "Its a bitterly disappointing black mark on an otherwise respectfully celebrated day, caused by the smallest minority of people If thats your idea of a laugh on a Sunday evening then we dont really know what to say other than youll be seeing a lot of us." Sunday marked the centenary of the end of the First World War. Mid Ulster DUP MLA Keith Buchanan condemned the actions of those responsible. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close DUP leader Arlene Foster and Fine Gael TD Heather Humphreys pay their respects at the Enniskillen Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Picture: Ronan McGrade Pacemaker Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. The Lord Lieutenant for Co Antrim Mrs Joan Christie, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Paul Givan and Pat Catney pictured at the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. General view of the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. Cyril Hawthorne is pictured after laying a wreath. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley and Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast Councillor Emmet McDonough-Brown pictured at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall, where wreaths were laid and tributes paid to all those soldiers from the volunteer Divisions raised in Ireland who made the supreme sacrifice during the 1914-1918 War. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Carol Walker attends a Service of Remembrance at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast, on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which marked the end of the First World War. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story MEMORIAL Armistice. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Belfast City Council handout photo dated 11/11/18 of a beacon that was lit at Belfast City Hall on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice. Over a thousand beacons, symbolising the end of the darkness of war and a return to the light of peace, are being lit across the country. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story MEMORIAL Armistice Ulster. Photo credit should read: Matt Mackey/Press Eye/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. PA PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/11/2018 DUP leader Arlene Foster and Fine Gael TD Heather Humphreys pay their respects at the Enniskillen Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Picture: Ronan McGrade PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/11/2018 DUP leader Arlene Foster laying a poppy wreath at the Enniskillen Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Picture: Ronan McGrade PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/11/2018 DUP leader Arlene Foster and Fine Gael TD Heather Humphreys pay their respects at the Enniskillen Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Picture: Ronan McGrade PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/11/2018 There was a large turn out for Remembrance Sunday in Enniskillen. Picture: Ronan McGrade Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. General view of the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/11/2018 Digintaries laid wreaths at the Remembrance Sunday service in Enniskillen. Picture: Ronan McGrade PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/11/2018 DUP leader Arlene Foster laying a poppy wreath at the Enniskillen Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Picture: Ronan McGrade Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. Raymond Corbett, Royal British Legion President at the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. General view of the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. General view of the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/11/2018 Fine Gael TD Heather Humphreys laying a laurel wreath at the Enniskillen Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Picture: Ronan McGrade Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. The Lord Lieutenant for Co Antrim Mrs Joan Christie is pictured laying a wreath. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/11/2018 Ballyreagh Silver Band took part at the Remembrance Sunday service in Enniskillen. Picture: Ronan McGrade Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is pictured laying a wreath. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. Members of the public at the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. Chief Executive of Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council Mr David Burns at the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. Lisburn & Castlereagh City Councillors pictured at the Remembrance Service in Lisburn at the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. General view of the poppy crosses at the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson at the Remembrance Service in Lisburn. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 A community joined together today at the Royal British LegionOs Remembrance Service in Lisburn as the centenary of the end of the First World War was commemorated. A two-minute silence was observed and wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen at the Lisburn War Memorial. Cyril Hawthorne is pictured after laying a wreath with members of his family. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker 11/11/18 REPRO FREE.. Chief Executive of Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council David Jackson pictured witH Councillors during an act of Remembrance in Coleraine, County Londonderry Northern Ireland. Picture Steven McAuley/McAuley Multimedia Pacemaker Press 11/11/2018 The annual Act of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall on Sunday 11 November, on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker 11/11/18 REPRO FREE.. On parade to the Cenotaph during an act of Remembrance in Coleraine, County Londonderry Northern Ireland. Picture Steven McAuley/McAuley Multimedia Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall, where wreaths were laid and tributes paid to all those soldiers from the volunteer Divisions raised in Ireland who made the supreme sacrifice during the 1914-1918 War. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast Councillor Emmet McDonough-Brown pictured at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall, where wreaths were laid and tributes paid to all those soldiers from the volunteer Divisions raised in Ireland who made the supreme sacrifice during the 1914-1918 War. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley, Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast Councillor Emmet McDonough-Brown and Simon Coveney TD - An Tnaiste - Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade pictured at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall, where wreaths were laid and tributes paid to all those soldiers from the volunteer Divisions raised in Ireland who made the supreme sacrifice during the 1914-1918 War. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley pictured at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall, where wreaths were laid and tributes paid to all those soldiers from the volunteer Divisions raised in Ireland who made the supreme sacrifice during the 1914-1918 War. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast Councillor Emmet McDonough-Brown pictured at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall, where wreaths were laid and tributes paid to all those soldiers from the volunteer Divisions raised in Ireland who made the supreme sacrifice during the 1914-1918 War. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley, Suzanne Wylie, Chief Executive of Belfast City Council and Simon Coveney TD - An Tnaiste - Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade pictured at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall, where wreaths were laid and tributes paid to all those soldiers from the volunteer Divisions raised in Ireland who made the supreme sacrifice during the 1914-1918 War. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/11/2018 DUP leader Arlene Foster and Fine Gael TD Heather Humphreys pay their respects at the Enniskillen Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Picture: Ronan McGrade Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast Councillor Emmet McDonough-Brown pictured at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall, where wreaths were laid and tributes paid to all those soldiers from the volunteer Divisions raised in Ireland who made the supreme sacrifice during the 1914-1918 War. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 11th November 2018 Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley, pictured at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall, where wreaths were laid and tributes paid to all those soldiers from the volunteer Divisions raised in Ireland who made the supreme sacrifice during the 1914-1918 War. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Undated handout photo issued by the There But Not There campaign of a First World War Tommy projected on to Titanic Belfast. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story MEMORIAL Armistice Landmarks. Photo credit should read: There But Not There/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. PA Handout photo issued by Belfast City Council and Northern Ireland Office of Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which marked the end of the First World War. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story Memorial Armistice Ulster. Photo credit should read: Matt Mackey/Press Eye/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. PA Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland George Hamilton attends a Service of Remembrance at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast, on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which marked the end of the First World War. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story MEMORIAL Armistice. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA The Duke of York (centre left)attends a Service of Remembrance at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast, on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which marked the end of the First World War. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story MEMORIAL Armistice. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Handout photo issued by Belfast City Council and Northern Ireland Office of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley at the Remembrance Service at Belfast City Hall on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which marked the end of the First World War. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story Memorial Armistice Ulster. Photo credit should read: Matt Mackey/Press Eye/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. PA The Duke of York (left) is greeted by Sir Jeffrey Donaldson before a Service of Remembrance at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast, on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which marked the end of the First World War. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story MEMORIAL Armistice. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA RETRANSMITTED CORRECTING NAME AND TITLE OF MR MARTIN The Duke of York shakes hands with Archbishop Eamon Martin after a Service of Remembrance at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast, on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which marked the end of the First World War. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story MEMORIAL Armistice. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Northern Ireland Secretary of State Karen Bradley and Sir Jeffrey Donaldson talk before a Service of Remembrance at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast, on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which marked the end of the First World War. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story MEMORIAL Armistice. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Belfast City Council handout photo dated 11/11/18 of Belfast City Hall illuminated in red on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Sunday November 11, 2018. See PA story MEMORIAL Armistice Ulster. Photo credit should read: Matt Mackey/Press Eye/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp DUP leader Arlene Foster and Fine Gael TD Heather Humphreys pay their respects at the Enniskillen Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Picture: Ronan McGrade Pacemaker Throwing fireworks poses obvious risk to people, their safety and property. It is a completely senseless action which offers nothing but upset and fear," he said. "Individuals involved chose Remembrance Sunday. A day which many from across the community gathered at churches and war memorials to pay their respects. "The disrespect shown by the culprits is beyond comprehension and negatively taints our town, on an otherwise dignified day." "Police were also assaulted when they arrived on the scene. This is totally unacceptable behaviour. "I thank their PSNI for their action so far and I trust those responsible will be held accountable for their despicable actions. Three people have been charged and are to appear in court over the incident. The PSNI has joined forces with its counterpart in the Republic to form a task force aimed at tackling burglaries carried out by organised crime gangs on both sides of the border The move would involve a PSNI officer moving to a Garda station in Dublin, while a garda from Tallaght - where a major crime gang is based - would work in Northern Ireland for a number of months with the PSNI, a source told the Irish Independent. It comes as the home of an elderly couple in Co Down was targeted, along with a house belonging to a 60-year-old woman in Lisburn, in separate incidents on Friday evening. The husband and wife, both in their 70s, were assaulted by three men in their property at Elmfield Villas in Warrenpoint at around 8pm. The woman was thrown to the ground while one of the masked assailants grabbed her husband by the throat before the gang proceeded to search the property, fleeing with a sum of cash and a mobile phone. They also stole three white gold rings and a leather wallet. The PSNI described the attack, which was reported yesterday, as "horrific", stressing the couple had endured a frightening ordeal at the hands of individuals who have "nothing to offer society". Police also condemned the separate attack carried out by three masked intruders on a property in Nettlehill Road, Lisburn, which left the 60-year-old female occupant "badly shaken". At around 8.30pm, the victim answered a knock at the door to discover a gang wearing balaclavas. The gang then forced their way into her home and the woman was held down on a settee by one of the assailants while the other two searched the house. The gang then took a small sum of cash and a mobile phone, before fleeing in a white or silver-coloured car. A PSNI spokesman said that the woman had not been physically injured during the incident, but she had been left "extremely shaken". Meanwhile, police are appealing for witnesses after the North Down home of a woman in her 80s was targeted by two men on Saturday evening. The men entered the property in Church Avenue, Bangor at around 7.45pm and while one stayed with the victim downstairs, the other is believed to have searched the upstairs of the house. At this stage it is not believed that anything was stolen, according to police. Last month, a spate of burglaries involving the elderly was reported in a single evening in Lurgan, Loughbrickland and Bessbrook. At the time the PSNI said only two of the incidents were possibly linked, and they have not disclosed yet whether or not it is believed these latest incidents could be connected. The PSNI is, however, linking up with the Garda in a bid to dismantle a Dublin-based organised Traveller crime gang which is believed to be behind 30 burglaries on both sides of the border in September alone. Both organisations believe it would result in even more "enhanced co-operation" as they battle to dismantle the crime gang, which is closely associated with the notorious Dublin crime boss, 'Fat' Andy Connors, who was murdered in 2014. During the year there has been an increased level of co-operation between gardai and the PSNI in tackling burglary gangs. In January, in a joint operation, gardai and the PSNI raided the homes of a gang in south Dublin, suspected of a home invasion which left an OAP fighting for her life. Lord Lieutenant for Co Antrim Joan Christie, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP, Paul Givan MLA and Pat Catney MLA at the remembrance service in Lisburn Remembrance Sunday began in Londonderry at 6am with lone pipers performing the traditional air 'Battle's O'er' throughout the city. Hours later, over 1,000 people stood in silence at the city's Cenotaph as the Guildhall bells chimed at 11am, to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. Wreaths were laid by representatives from the DUP, UUP and SDLP, as well as groups representing the Royal British Legion, PSNI and UDR at the war memorial following a two-minute silence. SDLP Mayor of Derry City and Strabane John Boyle, whose grandfather fought with the 10th Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, was among those who laid a wreath. He said it was important to remember the suffering of all on Remembrance Sunday. "It's clearly important as First Citizen of this city that you represent all shades of opinion around many things and of course that is why I am here in the first place," he said. "But I also have a very personal connection with this in that my own grandfather, Jack Rutherford, was a veteran of WWI. "He was on the Western Front for three years. He suffered, he was wounded physically and, no doubt, psychologically for many years afterwards. "My grandfather was born in this city in 1898 and lived to the grand old age of 85, thankfully. "He joined the 10th Battalion of the Inniskilling Fusiliers when he was 16 years old and found himself on the Western Front at a very young age. "One year later, in the autumn of 1915, he was in the trenches of the Western Front and ultimately was part of, and witness to, the tragedy and brutality of the first day of the Somme offensive on the 1st of July 1916. "He lost many good friends that day and on subsequent days. "Of his company of 250 men of all ranks, only 21 survived the first day of the Somme unscathed. Like so many Irishmen - nationalist and unionist - his was only one story. "I think that it is fitting that we remember our fellow countrymen and people of all nations. People can disagree with wars and the strategies and the purposes of war, but we should also recognise the circumstances and the conditions, the motives and the lack of choices of those who were put on the front line and in harm's way in wars. That is what we will be remembering today. "Indeed, it's appropriate that we now have the circumstances in which people can feel free to do that. "I think it is appropriate that we all remember the suffering, but not only of those who were involved in the conflicts of those particular times but also of their families. "On the island of Ireland there were over 30,000 children who had no father at the end of WWI. "That is why it is worth remembering because there were so many people who had much more to combat after the war was over." The Mayor also held a special 'Battle's Over' tribute marking the centenary of the end of the First World War at the Guildhall yesterday evening. An interdenominational service was held which culminated in the lighting of two beacons, one in Guildhall Square and the other in the Diamond, Castlederg. Police at the scene of fatal blaze in Kyle Street A man in his 50s has died in a house fire in east Belfast. Emergency crews from Knock and Central Fire Stations were called to the terrace house at Kyle Street in Sydenham. Wearing breathing apparatus and using thermal imaging cameras, firefighters entered the building and the man was discovered in an upstairs bedroom, where the seat of the blaze was. Group Commander Graham Lowry offered his condolences to the man's family and appealed for people to get a working fire alarm installed in their homes. He said: "This fire, which was due to an electrical fault, was not huge. "But it claimed the life of this gentleman. The search team located the man within the smoke-logged room and carried him to the ground floor, where we administered first aid until the Ambulance Service arrived. "Unfortunately, the gentleman was confirmed deceased at the scene by the Ambulance Service. "The gentleman was the sole occupant of the house, but his little dog, which was downstairs, was rescued from the house and is fine. "It is not easy to lose a loved one at any time of the year, but close to Christmas is particularly difficult. "I, on behalf of the Fire Service, offer our condolences to the family of this gentleman. "I would like to appeal to people to make sure they have a working smoke alarm installed." Arlen Noonan faces a charge of grievous bodily harm over the alleged assault at Donegall Square North. A university student appeared in court today accused of inflicting serious injuries to a man outside Belfast City Hall. Arlen Noonan, 19, faces a charge of grievous bodily harm over the alleged assault at Donegall Square North. A 23-year-old man was said to have been injured there in the early hours of Saturday morning. Handcuffed and wearing a grey sweatshirt, Noonan, of Gartan Avenue in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, spoke only to confirm he understood the charge. A detective constable initially opposed bail due to the accused living in another jurisdiction. The court was also told Noonan is currently studying at a university in Cork. His lawyer said he would be living at home with his parents, who were present for the hearing. Granting bail, District Judge Fiona Bagnall banned Noonan from contacting the alleged victim or any witnesses. He is also to report to police in Strabane as part of his release conditions. Brexit negotiations remain deadlocked over measures to prevent a hard border between the UK and Ireland. Officials from both sides were engaged in talks which began on Sunday and lasted until 2.45am on Monday but failed to produce a decisive breakthrough. Downing Street said that there were substantial issues still to be overcome in relation to the backstop measure aimed at ensuring the frontier between Northern Ireland and Ireland remains much the same as it is now no matter what happens in the wider Brexit trade deal. The Prime Ministers official spokesman said: We have made good progress in the negotiations in relation to the withdrawal agreement but there are substantial issues still to be overcome in relation to the Northern Irish backstop. Brussels chief negotiator Michel Barnier told ministers from the 27 remaining EU nations at a meeting of the general affairs council that key issues remained unresolved. The European Council released a statement to say: Michel Barnier explained that intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet. Some key issues remain under discussion, in particular a solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. A spokesman for Mr Barnier declined to comment on a report in the Financial Times suggesting he had told the EU27 ministers that the parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined. The FT reported an unnamed witness to the meeting as saying that Mr Barnier had told the ministers: As of this moment, this agreement is still not reached. As in any negotiation, the final stretch is always the most difficult. On the basis of our common efforts, the parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined. On the British side, the Cabinet will meet tomorrow to examine these parameters. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) But Irelands deputy prime minister Simon Coveney told reporters in Brussels said there was still clearly work to do to reach an agreement. Clearly this is a very important week for Brexit negotiations, said Mr Coveney. And a senior Brussels source said that work was ongoing, adding: Were not there yet. Germanys Europe minister Michael Roth said: We all know the clock is ticking and we must now come to a good outcome. We dont have much time left. His French counterpart Nathalie Loiseau said: The ball is in the British court. It is a question of a British political decision. EU27 were informed by @MichelBarnier on the ongoing #Brexit negotiations. Intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet. https://t.co/wbtTkdLQSP See in the pic the representatives present at the meeting pic.twitter.com/62mzLGoZZi E.Arauzo (@EU_Arauzo) November 12, 2018 A key sticking point is Mrs Mays call for a UK-wide backstop measure rather than the Northern Ireland-only provision proposed by the EU. The lack of decisive progress in Brussels came as Mrs Mays domestic position appeared even more difficult. Further details of the crunch Chequers meeting in July revealed a series of ministers voiced concerns about her strategy before ultimately supporting it. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Chancellor Philip Hammond were among Remain-supporting ministers who raised concerns about the Chequers plan, the BBC reported. Mr Javid described the proposal for a common rule book with the EU for goods and agriculture as very worrying, while Mr Hammond questioned whether the 27 other countries in the union would accept such a plan, the broadcaster said. Good meeting with @MichelBarnier this morning - crucial week for #BREXIT - negotiating teams engaging intensively, more work still to be done. Solidarity across the EU remains very strong. @HMcEntee @dfatirl pic.twitter.com/3dPA2GwlLL Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) November 12, 2018 Meanwhile International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt, who has not given wholehearted public support to the Chequers strategy, suggested the Cabinet would act as a check on the Prime Minister. The Brexiteer told Sky News: The important thing is that there are two checks on this deal there is Cabinet and there is Parliament. Cabinets job is to put something to Parliament that is going to deliver on the referendum result. The Prime Ministers spokesman said: The Cabinet has backed the Prime Minister in moving forward with her negotiations with the EU and I expect Cabinet will continue to do so. Former transport minister Jo Johnson said he decided to quit Mrs Mays Government last week because he was concerned at reports she was planning a publicity campaign which he said amounted to a calculated deceit. Reports suggested the campaign would compare the content of any deal secured by Mrs May with the prospect of a chaotic no-deal withdrawal, rather than comparing it to the UKs current situation as an EU member. Expand Close Former transport minister Jo Johnson (Stefan Rousseau/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Former transport minister Jo Johnson (Stefan Rousseau/PA) I challenge the Government to come clean on the cost of Brexit, he told the Evening Standard. The reason they cant look us in the eye, its because they know this will leave us worse-off and with less control. Its a gross abuse of civil service impartiality. Mr Johnson added: There is a sea-change in mood among my Conservative colleagues who are focused by this crisis. I would not be surprised if more colleagues in senior positions speak out. His brother, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, claimed Mrs May is on the brink of total surrender to the EU over Brexit as he urged the Cabinet to mutiny against the Prime Ministers withdrawal agenda. The awful truth is that even if the Cabinet mutinies as they ought it will make little difference, he said in his Daily Telegraph column. Even if we agree with the EU that the UK must have a unilateral break clause, so that we can go our own sweet way at a time of our own choosing, it is irrelevant because the programme and ambition of the Government is to remain in captivity, to stay in our cell, even if we are given the theoretical key to escape. Former culture secretary John Whittingdale said Mrs May would have to go if she could not get a Brexit deal through the Commons. He told BBC Radio 4s The Westminster Hour: I think if the Prime Ministers Brexit plan doesnt get through Parliament, I think its quite difficult to see how the Prime Minister can continue because she has staked her credibility. A new task force has been set up to tackle the serious problem of threats and attacks on social workers in Northern Ireland A new task force has been set up to tackle the serious problem of threats and attacks on social workers in Northern Ireland. A recent report by the British Association of Social Workers NI (BASW NI) revealed that almost nine out of 10 social workers here have experienced intimidation. Three-quarters have received threats, with half subjected to physical violence, the report said. Physical attacks, such as being kicked in the head or attacked with knives or items like fire extinguishers, are also documented. Several social workers described needing hospital treatment. Two women said they were assaulted while pregnant. The Department of Health said it had established the task force to improve the safety and wellbeing of social work staff. It will also consider the arrangements employers should put in place to support their staff. Chief social worker Sean Holland will chair the group, which will have representatives from trade unions, human resource directors, trusts and senior leaders in social work on it. Speaking after the task force's first meeting, Mr Holland said attacks will not be tolerated. He said: "I often talk with pride about the state of social work in Northern Ireland. I am not proud of these statistics on threats and violence and quite simply they are not acceptable. "The culture that nothing can be done and abuse goes with the territory for social workers doing their jobs has been challenged. "It is not okay and something can and will be done." A Co Tyrone town has been left in a "state of shock" after a 22-year-old pedestrian lost his life in a motorway accident on Saturday night A Co Tyrone town has been left in a "state of shock" after a 22-year-old pedestrian lost his life in a motorway accident on Saturday night. Darryl Thompson, from Beragh, was killed after being involved in a collision with a car on a section of the M1. Detailed circumstances surrounding Mr Thompson's death are not yet known but road closures remained in place yesterday morning. The small village in rural Tyrone, situated around eight miles from Omagh, has been shaken by the news. West Tyrone MLA Daniel McCrossan offered his condolences to Mr Thompson's family. "It's a tragedy. Beragh is a very close-knit, cross-community town. "I'd like to offer my thoughts and prayers to Mr Thompson's family at this difficult time." Online tributes from friends of the young man have been posted on Facebook. Paul Devine said: "You always were a character. So close to Christmas and everything - my thoughts and prayers are with your family, sleep tight big man." Another wrote: "God bless your family." "Sad news for his family," wrote Maggie Gibney. "God help them and may his soul rest in peace. So young." In a statement, a spokesperson for the PSNI said: "Police can confirm that 22-year-old Darryl Thompson from the Beragh area has died following a fatal road traffic collision involving a car and a pedestrian on the M1 motorway last night, Saturday, November 10. "Police would appeal to anyone who was travelling on the M1 motorway last night at approximately 10.20pm and witnessed this incident which occurred between junction 14 and junction 15 near Tamnamore, to contact the Collision Investigation Unit on 101, quoting reference number 1477 10/11/18." A spokesman for the Ambulance Service said: "We attended a road traffic collision at 10.20pm at Tamnamore near Dungannon. We attended with one crew but nobody was taken from the scene." Gardai at the scene of yesterdays explosion in Drogheda where a pipe bomb device was used to target car of mobsters girlfriend Associates of an Irish mob boss shot and injured in July are believed to be behind a terrifying incident where a pipe bomb was placed in the exhaust pipe of a car belonging to the girlfriend of a rival mobster. It's understood there was a small explosion when the device was discovered around 2.40pm yesterday in Drogheda. It's the latest instalment in a bitter feud in the area. The innocent woman was targeted by the gang after the tit-for-tat feud escalated significantly in recent days. Six separate attacks have taken place between Thursday night and Friday morning. Those incidents are understood to include four petrol bomb attacks, as well as an assault on a teenager. The latest incident took place yesterday afternoon when gardai were alerted to a suspicious device. It was placed close to a parked car on Dublin Road in the Co Louth town. Homes were evacuated as police puts a security cordon in place. Last night gardai said the device had been made safe by an Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. Armed officers had been carrying out stop and search patrols in recent days in an attempt to curb the rising tensions and maintain the peace. However, sources have said that more Garda resources are needed in order to tackle the feud. There have been fears in recent weeks that the spate of incidents will eventually lead to someone being killed. The feud kicked off on July 5 this year when Owen Maguire was shot. He survived the attempted murder bid, however he is still undergoing treatment at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dublin. Michelin has announced its Dundee factory is to close by 2020 (Andrew Milligan/PA) An action group set up to look at alternative options for the closure-threatened Michelin factory will hold its first meeting on Monday. Michelin confirmed last week that its Dundee plant, which employs 845 people, is due to cease operations by mid-2020. The action group will be led by Dundee City Council leader John Alexander and Steve Dunlop, chief executive of Scottish Enterprise, with both Scottish Finance and Economy Secretary Derek Mackay and Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell also involved, as well as John Reid, director of Dundees Michelin site. Mr Mackay will convene the meeting on Monday and task the group with developing an innovative proposition to outline what support can be offered to Michelin, with the aim of securing a sustainable future for the plant and its highly-skilled workforce. He will stress that time is of the essence as Michelin have agreed to look in detail at any proposals brought forward by the action group and trade unions. Speaking ahead of the meeting Mr Mackay said: Combining the expert knowledge of national and local government and our enterprise agencies, the group will seek advice from a range of manufacturing leaders and the local workforce those who know the plant and workforce inside out to explore all options for the future of the Michelin plant and its highly-skilled workforce. Despite confirming they intend to close the plant in 2020, Michelin have agreed to give our proposition a hearing and so time is of the essence. The Michelin Action Group will work tirelessly in the coming weeks to produce a proposition that outlines what can be done to help retain a presence in Dundee and examine how the plant could be re-purposed for the future if Michelin decide to press ahead with the closure. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has pledged Scottish ministers would leave no stone unturned in the effort to secure a positive future for the factory. The France-based tyre firm have given Mr Mackay some three weeks to come up with an alternative to closing the plant. The company said the market for premium smaller tyres such as those produced at the Tayside factory, which opened in 1972, has dropped significantly due to an increase in cheap imports from Asia and a shift to larger car tyres. Scottish Secretary David Mundell said: The UK Government will play an active role in the Michelin action group, working with the Scottish Government and other partners to look at all the options for the site and the city. We have been clear that we will do all we can to help find a way to keep jobs in Dundee. Alexander Deakin, pictured on a National Action rally in Darlington, who was arrested after hiding in a cupboard. (West Midlands Police/PA) National Action regional commander Alexander Deakin was arrested while cowering in an airing cupboard after bragging that incompetent counter-terrorism officers would never catch up with him. The bungling 24-year-old unemployed student, who styled himself a prisoner of conscience, joked that he would need to buy large quantities of dangerous chemicals to catch the attention of counter-terrorism unit (CTU) officers. But his role as Midlands regional organiser and senior National Action member was uncovered when he was caught on CCTV, along with others, putting up racially offensive stickers on Aston University campus. In fact I doubt they (the police) even know I'm part of National ActionAlexander Deakin Details of his case and that of self-confessed racist and Army Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen were subject to reporting restrictions but can now be revealed after the conclusion of the latest National Action prosecutions. Deakin was sentenced to 12 months for inciting racial hatred with the stickers, which had slogans including White Zone and Britain is ours the rest must go. He was also among the first people to be convicted after a trial earlier this year of being members of National Action, which was banned in December 2016. He was jailed for eight years on April 13, with Judge Melbourne Inman QC telling Deakin he was deeply committed to the most extreme racist views. In rants on encrypted chat app Telegram, Deakin told fellow NA members that in a future race war, the organisation would have a KKK (Ku Klux Klan)-themed death squad. Also jailed alongside Deakin, of Becon Road, Great Barr, was then serving British soldier Vehvilainen, of Sennybridge Camp, Powys, Wales. He was sent to prison for eight years for terrorist group membership. Expand Close British soldier and self-confessed racist Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen who was convicted of being a neo-Nazi terrorist in March (West Midlands Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp British soldier and self-confessed racist Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen who was convicted of being a neo-Nazi terrorist in March (West Midlands Police/PA) Their trial heard of Deakins contempt for UK counter-terrorism officers. In a Skype conversation at the end of 2015, he told one activist: CTU are incompetent to f*** anyway. Id have to start buying up large quantities of ammonium nitrate to draw their attention. In fact I doubt they even know Im part of National Action. He later bragged about evading the authorities by using encrypted emails and chat messengers services. But Deakin , who ran his operations from his bedroom at his parents home, was found by West Midlands CTU officers hiding in a cupboard at an address in Moseley. And the former University of Aberystwyth and University of Coventry student was reduced to telling comrades that electronic devices full of incriminating messages, images and material had fallen into the polices hands. In the encrypted email he sent out the day after his arrest on May 4 2017, he wrote: That night I was staying at a friends house and at 0945 they let themselves into his apartment. I was intoxicated at the time and so acted irrationally by hiding in an airing cupboard. He added: As I wasnt at home during the raid they were able to seize the computer and hard-drive with everything therein. Deakin said: Seized phone is full of texts that will mark me as an organiser. I can understand if you despise me for this sloppiness (it really couldnt have been any worse if I tried) but I really need you to get back to me as soon as possible and advise me on what to do. The Prince of Wales is entering his eighth decade (Joe Giddens/PA) The Prince of Wales celebrates his 70th birthday this week a milestone moment for the heir to the throne. Charles is about to begin his eighth decade from a position of confidence with his charitable work in full swing, his sons forging their own public lives and the Duchess of Cornwall by his side providing support. The future king turns 70 on Wednesday November 14 and is likely to take part in a public event to mark the day. Expand Close Charles cuts a birthday cake made for him and other guests in Ghana (Joe Giddens/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Charles cuts a birthday cake made for him and other guests in Ghana (Joe Giddens/PA) In the evening the Queen will throw a private Buckingham Palace birthday bash for her eldest son and heir. The guest list is likely to include Charles friends from his public and private life, members of the Royal Family and others who have played an important role in the princes life. Birthday celebrations have already begun with a gala comedy and magic night staged for the prince at the London Palladium in October. The event called We Are Most Amused And Amazed was in aid of the Princes Trust and will be screened on ITV on Tuesday evening. Expand Close Kylie Minogue, pictured with the Prince of Wales at a Princes Trust Invest in Futures event in 2016, performed at a gala to mark Charless birthday (Chris Jackson/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kylie Minogue, pictured with the Prince of Wales at a Princes Trust Invest in Futures event in 2016, performed at a gala to mark Charless birthday (Chris Jackson/PA) Among the all-star line-up for the event were Bill Bailey, Rowan Atkinson, Sandi Toksvig, Omid Djalili, Alistair McGowan and Kylie Minogue. The heir to the throne, who is facing the growing prospect he will assume the role of head of state, made headlines last week when he spoke about how he sees his future. In a BBC documentary he said his days of speaking out on issues, dubbed meddling by critics, will end when he becomes king. Speaking about being heir to the throne compared to being monarch, Charles said: But the idea somehow that Im going to go on in exactly the same way, if I have to succeed, is complete nonsense because the two the two situations are completely different. Expand Close Charles watches some traditional dancing during his visit to the British Council Arts Festival in Lagos, Nigeria (Joe Giddens/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Charles watches some traditional dancing during his visit to the British Council Arts Festival in Lagos, Nigeria (Joe Giddens/PA) The Queen is 92 and she still carries out her full duties as head of state but her family, led by Charles, are increasingly supporting her public work. Charles has recently returned from a major tour of West Africa where he promoted the Commonwealth, Britains interests and helped strengthen the UKs links with Nigeria, the Gambia and Ghana. Andrew Tinkler arrives at the Rolls Building in London, where his former bosses at the Stobart Group are suing him in the High Court (Victoria Jones/PA) The chairman of a multi-million pound infrastructure business which started up in an isolated Lake District village half a century ago has told a High Court trial how he was on the receiving end of a tirade of abuse from a former chief executive. Iain Ferguson, chairman of the Stobart Group, which began life when founder Eddie Stobart went into business as an agricultural contractor in Hesket Newmarket, Cumbria, during the 1960s, told a judge how former chief executive Andrew Tinkler shouted and swore during a meeting earlier this year. Mr Ferguson said Mr Tinkler directed his ire at him and asked not to be treated like a small boy. Stobart bosses have sued Mr Tinkler. They say Mr Tinkler conspired with other businessmen to harm the companys interests and made claims about money spent on air travel. Bosses want Judge Jonathan Russen to rule that Mr Tinkler was lawfully dismissed. Mr Tinkler, who was chief executive of the business between 2007 and 2017, denies wrongdoing, saying he was removed for no good reason, and has counter-claimed. Judge Russen began overseeing a trial, which is due to last more than two weeks, in London on Monday. Barrister Richard Leiper QC, who leads the Stobart Group legal team, told the judge how board members had earlier this year learned that Mr Tinkler had been talking to shareholders and briefing against the board. He said there had been a significant campaign to oust Mr Ferguson. Mr Tinkler disputes allegations against him. The judge was told that Mr Tinkler did not like the briefing against the board characterisation and had spoken of having concerns about Mr Fergusons chairmanship and being worried that Stobart was going off strategy. Mr Ferguson described events at a meeting earlier this year in a written witness statement given to the judge. Mr Tinkler stood up and directed his ire at me and told me not to treat him like a small boyIain Ferguson Mr Tinkler stood up and directed his ire at me and told me not to treat him like a small boy, said Mr Ferguson. He said that either he or I had to resign. I was somewhat taken aback by this but responded by saying I would not resign and that was a matter for shareholders to decide. That precipitated a further tirade of abuse from Mr Tinkler. Mr Ferguson also told the judge about a telephone call in May and said Mr Tinkler had become very shouty. He again told me that he wanted me to resign as chairman, and again I refused, said Mr Ferguson in his witness statement Mr Tinkler became very shouty during this telephone call. Mr Ferguson said Mr Tinkler accused him of trying to cling to power for my own benefit. He added: I said that was not the case. Mr Leiper had told the judge how Mr Tinkler had agreed to step down as chief executive in 2017. He added: Mr Tinkler appears to have found it difficult to let go of the reins. A timeline on the Stobart Group website outlines the development of the business over the past half century. It says Eddie Stobart Ltd was created in 1970, moved into road transport and became one of Britains best-known brands. Stobart had sold its transport and distribution division as part of a strategic partial realisation in 2014. The timeline said the Stobart Group retained a share of the Eddie Stobart business, which operated privately. The website says the Stobart Group is now an infrastructure and support services business which owned and managed a range of key infrastructure sites. Police at the scene in Frenchmans Way, South Shields, South Tyneside, where police shot a man (Tom Wilkinson/PA) An inquest will be held on Monday into the death of a man who was shot in the chest by police. James Carlo Wilson, 24, died in hospital in April 2016, days after he was shot by a firearms officer in Frenchmans Way, South Shields, South Tyneside. At the time, Northumbria Police said officers were called to the scene after receiving reports that a man was seen carrying a handgun. According to reports, police were heard to shout: Put the gun down. The inquest is being held at the Mansion House, Jesmond, Newcastle, and is scheduled to take three days. A fanatical neo-Nazi couple who named their baby son after Hitler have been convicted of membership of a terrorist group. Adam Thomas, 22, and Claudia Patatas, 38, were found guilty on Monday of being members of the extreme right-wing organisation National Action, which was banned in 2016. A jury at Birmingham Crown Court was told the couple had given their child the middle name Adolf, which Thomas said was in admiration of Hitler, and had Swastika scatter cushions in their home. Photographs recovered from their home also showed Thomas cradling his new-born son while wearing the hooded white robes of a Ku Klux Klansman. In conversation with another National Action member, Patatas said all Jews must be put to death, while Thomas had once told his partner he found that all non-whites are intolerable. Former Amazon security guard Thomas and Patatas, a wedding photographer originally from Portugal who also wanted to bring back concentration camps, were found guilty after a seven-week trial. Expand Close Claudia Patatas in a selfie found on her mobile phone, and a neo-Nazi flag on the wall behind her (West Midlands Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Claudia Patatas in a selfie found on her mobile phone, and a neo-Nazi flag on the wall behind her (West Midlands Police/PA) A third defendant a leading member in National Actions Midlands chapter, Daniel Bogunovic, 27, of Crown Hills Rise, Leicester, was also convicted of membership. Jurors heard he already had a conviction from earlier this year for stirring up racial hatred after being part of a group who plastered a Birmingham university with offensive National Action stickers. Expand Close Daniel Bogunovic (West Midlands Police/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Daniel Bogunovic (West Midlands Police/PA) Thomas, a twice-failed Army applicant, was also convicted on a majority verdict of having a terrorist manual, namely the Anarchists Cookbook, which jurors heard contained instructions on making viable bombs. Three other men who had been due to stand trial alongside the trio Thomas close friend and goods vehicle driver Darren Fletcher, 28, IT worker Joel Wilmore, 24, and van driver Nathan Pryke, 26 all admitted being National Action members before proceedings began. All six were part of a Midlands cell of the terrorist group, which also counted a serving British soldier Mikko Vehvilainen, and a university student, Alexander Deakin, among its leading members. Expand Close Mikko Vehvilainen, who was convicted of National Action membership in March (West Midlands Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mikko Vehvilainen, who was convicted of National Action membership in March (West Midlands Police/PA) Following the lifting of legal restrictions, details can only now be reported of how Vehvilainen, 34, and National Actions Midlands organiser Deakin, 24, were both convicted of membership back in March. Both were later jailed at Birmingham Crown Court for eight years and were the first members of the banned organisation to be convicted under terrorism legislation. Expand Close Alexander Deakin (West Midlands Police/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Alexander Deakin (West Midlands Police/PA) Deakin and Vehvilainen, who was thrown out of the Army on conviction, had been members of private chat groups alongside with Patatas, Thomas and Bogunovic, discussing the groups operations. In a chat involving Thomas, Fletcher, Pryke, Patatas, Vehvilainen and Wilmore, in February 2017 two months after the ban Deakin was telling his fellow members: All Jews need burning its symbolic. In another chat, on March 30, Vehvilainen told his comrades: These things will be decided when we have won the war against the Jews, deported the muds (Muslims), and cleansed our lands. During the Thomas-Patatas trial, a photograph was shown of Fletcher performing a Nazi-style salute in the couples lounge, as Patatas smiled and cradled her baby. Expand Close Darren Fletcher, who admitted being a National Action member, gives a Nazi-style salute with Claudia Patatas and her baby, at her home (West Midlands Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Darren Fletcher, who admitted being a National Action member, gives a Nazi-style salute with Claudia Patatas and her baby, at her home (West Midlands Police/PA) More images from what prosecutors called the the Thomas-Patatas family album showed Thomas brandishing a machete in front of a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) flag in the lounge. Another photo showed him with a powerful crossbow one of two found inside the house while police found a makeshift firing range in their yard. One of the crossbows was found under the couples bed, a few feet from the babys crib, along with an axe in a sheath. Expand Close Adam Thomas brandishing a machete in front of a KKK flag, in the lounge of his Oxfordshire home (West Midlands Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Adam Thomas brandishing a machete in front of a KKK flag, in the lounge of his Oxfordshire home (West Midlands Police/PA) During two police searches at their home, officers also recovered further weapons from an extensive arsenal, including two machetes, one with a serrated 18in (46cm) blade, in their first-floor bedroom. The couple also had a National Action poster stuck to their fridge reading Britain is ours the rest must go, and a pastry-cutter shaped like a Swastika, kept in a kitchen cupboard. Expand Close The pastry cutter (West Midlands Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The pastry cutter (West Midlands Police/PA) There was also a Christmas card on the sideboard showing three robed KKK figures and the message may all your Christmases be white. Expand Close A Christmas card found in the Thomas-Patatas home (West Midlands Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A Christmas card found in the Thomas-Patatas home (West Midlands Police/PA) In a message to vehement Nazi Fletcher, Patatas said all Jews must be put to death, while Thomas, originally from Kingshurst Road, Birmingham, told his partner, all non-whites are intolerable. Fletcher, of Kitchen Lane, Wednesfield, Wolverhampton, was jailed for a year in 2014 for stirring up racial hatred after posting a video in which he dressed as a Klansman, and hanged a golliwog from a stage at a white supremacy event in Wales. Expand Close Darren Fletcher (West Midlands Police/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Darren Fletcher (West Midlands Police/PA) He was later jailed again for eight months for posting racist remarks online in 2015. Thomas, a Holocaust-denier, told police he had held white supremacist views from the age of 11, and his stepfather was a member of white power band Skrewdriver. Expand Close Adam Thomas. (West Midlands Police/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Adam Thomas. (West Midlands Police/PA) However, it emerged during the trial that Thomas had travelled to Israel aged 18, where he lived for nearly two years. He had considered converting to Judaism, he told jurors, despite also telling his trial that he believed the issue of whether the Holocaust happened or not was complicated. National Action was banned by the Government in December 2016, as a racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic organisation, in part because of its members support for the killer of MP Jo Cox, Thomas Mair. In one message, Fletcher had said: Mair had the right idea. During a conversation on Telegram messenger in February 2017, Thomas and Fletcher talked of bumping off MPs. Expand Close Joel Wilmore (West Midlands Police/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Joel Wilmore (West Midlands Police/PA) In the same conversation, Wilmore called Muslims an infection on western civilisation, adding they deserve the fire and brand just as much as the Jews. Jurors heard evidence of more social media chats involving Thomas, Patatas and Bogunovic, discussing what prosecutors have alleged was National Actions continuing operation, under a different name. Pryke, who railed against Jews in the chats and cleared his incriminating message logs every night, spoke with Thomas of a forthcoming race war. Expand Close Nathan Pryke (West Midlands Police/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Nathan Pryke (West Midlands Police/PA) Thomas, in a Skype message just days after the ban, said: F***ing traitors. Midlands will continue the fight alone. Jurors also heard how Thomas and Patatas plastered National Action stickers in public locations after the ban, while Bogunovic was calling for a leadership meeting in a chat group for senior members in April 2017. Expand Close Fletcher, Thomas and Patatas with the Swastika flag, at the couples home (West Midlands Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Fletcher, Thomas and Patatas with the Swastika flag, at the couples home (West Midlands Police/PA) Barnaby Jameson QC, prosecuting, said National Action had simply shed one skin for another by re-branding in order to evade the law. In his trial opening, Mr Jameson said: They were fanatical, highly motivated, energetic, closely-linked and mobile. And they all had, we say, a similar interest in ethnic cleansing, with violence if necessary, and the evidence in this case, we say, speaks for itself. Expand Close Thomas and Patatas house in Banbury, Oxfordshire, was littered with far-right paraphernalia (West Midlands Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Thomas and Patatas house in Banbury, Oxfordshire, was littered with far-right paraphernalia (West Midlands Police/PA) Trial judge the Recorder of Birmingham Melbourne Inman QC told Bogunovic, Patatas and Thomas they and the three men who admitted membership prior to trial would be sentenced together in a two-day hearing beginning on Friday December 14, and concluding on the Monday. Turning to the jury, who deliberated for more than 12 hours, the judge added: Thank you very much for your hard work. Expand Close Convicted neo-Nazi terrorist Claudia Patatas, 38, leaving Birmingham Crown Court on Monday, with supporter Michael Woodbridge, after she was granted bail by the trial judge (West Midlands Police/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Convicted neo-Nazi terrorist Claudia Patatas, 38, leaving Birmingham Crown Court on Monday, with supporter Michael Woodbridge, after she was granted bail by the trial judge (West Midlands Police/PA) The three will be sentenced alongside Wilmore, 24, an IT technician and former Army reservist, of Bramhall Road, Stockport, Greater Manchester, and goods drivers Pryke, of Dartford Road, March, Cambridge and Fletcher. Wilmore will also be sentenced for possession of a terrorist document, called Homemade Molotov Cocktails. Patatas, who was bailed pending sentencing, left court without comment. Following the convictions, West Midlands Police chief superintendent Matt Ward said that National Action, the Midlands chapter is no more. He added: Weve been able to dismantle one terrorist cell operating in the Midlands, it doesnt mean there wont be others, and it doesnt mean they wont adopt different names and identities going forward. Peers are expect to vote on Thursday whether to accept the committees recommended punishment (Chris McAndrew/UK Parliament/PA) The veteran human rights campaigner Lord Lester of Herne Hill is facing a record suspension from the House of Lords after he was found to have offered a woman a peerage to sleep with him. The Lords Privileges and Conduct Committee recommended he should be suspended until June 2022, after offering the complainant corrupt inducements to become his mistress. Peers are expected to vote on Thursday whether to accept the recommendation, which would amount to the longest suspension from Parliament in modern times. In a statement, Lord Lester, 82, a prominent QC, rejected the claims as completely untrue and denounced the investigation conducted by the Lords Commissioner for Standards, Lucy Scott-Moncrieff as flawed. Lord Lester made a dishonourable promise backed by a dishonourable threatLords Privileges and Conduct Committee In its report the committee upheld the commissioners finding that Lord Lester had breached the Lords code of conduct in failing to act on his personal honour by sexually harassing the complainant and offering her corrupt inducements to sleep with him. According to her statement to the commissioner, the woman said the peer had told her that if she slept with him he would make her a baroness within a year but if she refused he would ensure she never gained a seat in the Lords. The committee said: Lord Lester made a dishonourable promise backed by a dishonourable threat. The report is likely to be seen as another damaging blow to the reputation of Parliament, following Dame Laura Coxs highly critical report into the bullying and harassment of Commons staff. Because the complaint against Lord Lester which dates back over a decade ago was received more than four years after the alleged misconduct, Ms Scott-Moncrieff had to obtain the approval of the sub-committee on Lords conduct before launching her inquiry. The peer stood down as a Liberal Democrat human rights spokesman and withdrew from the party whip after it was disclosed in February that he was under investigation. Expand Close Lord Lester is facing a record suspension from the House of Lords (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Lord Lester is facing a record suspension from the House of Lords (PA) The woman, who is said to be well-known to government as an expert in her field, told the commissioner she first met the peer during the course of her work relating to parliamentary business. After she missed her train following a meeting in the House of Lords, she said Lord Lester had suggested she should stay the night with him and his wife at their London home. On the drive to the house she said the peer had put his hand very firmly on her thigh and despite her protests had continued to grope my thigh for the length of the journey. The next morning, after his wife had left, she said the peer had come up behind her and put his arms around her waist and when she pushed him away he pursued her around the kitchen. Not long afterwards, when she was attending another meeting in the Lords, she said he had made the offer to make her a peer if she was a good girl and did as he asked. He made a number of further inappropriate sexual comments to me such as that he could see me becoming a demanding mistress. I was distressed and shocked by his behaviour, she said. These allegations are completely untrueLord Lester of Herne Hill The woman said she had not made a complaint at the time as she did not think she would be believed, and that her word against that of Lord Lester was not an equal contest. Lord Lester told the commissioner that while he recalled the woman coming to stay with him and his wife after she missed her train, he denied groping her thigh or making other sexual advances. He had no recollection of any conversation with her in which he spoke of matters of a sexual nature, and categorically denied making an offer of a peerage or threatening the woman if she refused to sleep with him. In a statement he said: These allegations are completely untrue. I produced evidence which clearly demonstrated that what I was said to have done 12 years ago did not happen. Independent counsel who previously advised the committee on its procedures provided an advice which concluded that the investigation was flawed. I regret the committees conclusions in the light of these materials. There has to be a fair process for investigating sexual harassment claims in Parliament. Parliament is supposed to be a bastion of the rule of law but has ignored calls to reform this procedure properly for 20 years. I hope to be judged by my work over decades for gender equality, race relations and free speech. A prisoner at one of Britains largest jails had to ask someone on the outside to alert staff after he was placed in a cell without a working toilet, a watchdog has disclosed. Monitors also raised concerns that phone calls into crisis-hit HMP Birmingham were not always answered. In one instance, the father of an inmate was unable to get a message to his son informing him of his mothers death for two days. HMP Birmingham came under scrutiny earlier this year when Chief Inspector of Prisons Peter Clarke raised the alarm over appalling squalor and violence at the establishment. As his findings were revealed in August, the Ministry of Justice confirmed it had taken over running of the jail from G4S for at least six months. A man, placed in a cell without a working toilet, had to arrange for a person outside the prison to phone the duty director to get this resolved In a new report, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) for the prison said it had observed instances of men being placed in cells that are not fit for purpose. The report said: A man, placed in a cell without a working toilet, had to arrange for a person outside the prison to phone the duty director to get this resolved. The board said it was concerned that telephone calls from outside the prison are not always answered. In one instance the father of a prisoner was unable, for two days, to get a message via the phone line informing the prisoner of his mothers death, the report said. In another case, calls were made about concerns for the safety of a vulnerable prisoner, who was subsequently seriously assaulted. The report covering the 12 months to the end of June found bullying, debt, drugs and gang-related issues continued to be the main causes of violence in the prison. Security activity had increased significantly, with mobile phone finds in the first half of 2018 exceeding the number for the whole of last year. Despite it being a non-smoking prison, men were observed smoking in cells and on landings, according to the report. It also warned that rats and cockroaches were in evidence in many areas of the jail. The board said the prison is considered by many to be the most violent and challenging in the country but concluded that it is turning a corner and showing early signs of improvement in conditions for prisoners and staff. Roger Swindells, chairman of the IMB, said: We have monitored a prison in crisis for the last 18 months and have described many incidents that have caused great concern. Since August we have seen a step in by HMPPS (Her Majestys Prison and Probation Service) to take over the running of the prison and are now seeing early signals that outcomes for prisoners are improving in terms of cleanliness, safety, security activity and the provision of an acceptable daily regime. Prisons Minister Rory Stewart said: We took decisive action at HMP Birmingham, stepping in to strengthen the management, bringing in additional staff and reducing the population, and Im pleased the IMB recognises that we are making progress. Mr Stewart said the prisons new governor and his staff are working tirelessly to drive up standards and urgent action continues to improve safety and living conditions, adding: We will keep a close eye on progress to ensure Birmingham becomes a place of stability and reform. The Prince of Wales led the royal family's tributes to the nation's war dead on the centenary of the Armistice as the Queen looked on from a nearby balcony. The event marked 100 years since the signing of the treaty which ended the battle on the Western Front as well as the First World War at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Prince Charles laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in London on behalf of his mother for the second year in a row, while an equerry laid a wreath on behalf of the Duke of Edinburgh. The Queen viewed the service from the balcony of the nearby Foreign and Commonwealth Office, although Prince Philip was absent - one of the few times he has missed the occasion. He was previously unable to attend in 1956, 1964, 1968 and 1999, a spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said. The monarch was flanked by the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchess of Cambridge, while the Duchess of Sussex, the Countess of Wessex and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence stood on neighbouring balconies. The President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also laid a wreath on behalf of the German people. It is the first time since the Cenotaph was inaugurated in 1920 that a representative of the country has taken part in the UK's national service of remembrance. President Steinmeier's presence was a symbol of the friendship that exists between the two countries today, a Government official said. The Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex, the Princess Royal, the Duke of Kent and Prince Michael of Kent all laid tributes to Britain's veterans. Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also laid wreaths at the foot of the Whitehall memorial, along with Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow. The traditional two minutes' silence was held at 11am and was signalled by the chiming of Big Ben - despite the ongoing renovations to the clock tower. The 13.7 tonne bell has been silent since August 2017 when works began, except for ringing in New Year 2018. It has been fitted with a custom-built electronic mechanism to power the 200kg striking hammer to ensure it can still sound for important national events while the clockwork mechanism undergoes vital repairs. The end of the two-minute silence was marked by cannon fire and The Last Post sounded by the Buglers of the Royal Marines before the wreaths were laid. Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright said: "On the centenary of the Armistice we will come together as a nation to stand in silence, and honour the fallen of all conflicts. Over the past four years, we have told the story of the First World War and the unique generation who served so bravely and made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. "Today, we will also give thanks for all those that returned and the peace they fought so hard for." Sinn Fein could influence how Brexit unfolded in Parliament if they took their seats and stopped engaging in "stunt politics," the DUP said. It comes after a delegation of representatives from Sinn Fein, the SDLP, Alliance and the Greens travelled to London to meet with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and other opposition parties including the Liberal Democrats, the SNP and Plaid Cymru. Prime Minister Theresa May refused to meet the group. Read More After the meetings Sinn Fein described the trip as a "crucial show of unity" and underlined how "the majority of people" in Northern Ireland opposed Brexit. Michelle O'Neill emphasised how the backstop - which would see Northern Ireland remain part of the EU's customs and single market - had to be permanent in any withdrawal agreement. She also said that in the event of a no-deal Brexit in March there had to be a vote on a united Ireland and her party would be pushing for one. However, the DUP described it as a "classic example of stunt politics," saying Sinn Fein would have more impact if its MPs took their seats on the green benches of the Commons. The Liberal Democrats also raised Sinn Fein's long-standing abstentionist policy as hampering the pro-remain arguments in parliament during its meeting with the party. DUP deputy leader and the party's Westminister leader Nigel Dodds pointed to how many crucial votes passed on the slimmest of margins. One vote passed in the Brexiteers' favour by just three votes. "The MPs who take their seats will get on with the job of making a difference for Northern Ireland and being part of the decision making," said Mr Dodds. "The contrast could not be more striking. "At a time when crucial decisions are being made for Northern Ireland and the whole of the UK, Sinn Fein continue to boycott not just Westminster but the Assembly and Executive also. "If they really cared or believed their own rhetoric they would end the boycotts but they are more interested in political stunts. "On Brexit our voice and votes are counting whereas the boycotters render themselves increasingly isolated. It would be desirable for Northern Ireland to be fully represented. Sir Vince Cable "The efforts of certain parties today to use Brexit to undermine the union must not succeed. Their message is one which actually undermines the principles of successive agreements they purport to subscribe to. On Sinn Fein not taking their seats, Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable added: "We can't tell them what to do and they have an historic mandate which we understood. "Obviously it would be desirable for Northern Ireland to be fully represented in the House of Commons and we raised this issue in an amicable and business like way." When it was raised with Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O'Neill outside the Houses of Parliament she pointed toward the apparent internal warfare within the Conservative party between its remain and leave wings. "We can analyse many hypothetical situations," she said, "What's important in the here and now at this crucial point is we make our voices heard." In a statement the MLA added: "The DUP and British government do not represent or speak for the cross-community majority of people who voted against Brexit. "The backstop as already agreed must be maintained and there can be no backsliding from that position. Thats the message we brought to the Labour Leader and the other parties. "A permanent backstop is the absolute bottom line as we enter the endgame of the Brexit negotiation process on Britains Withdrawal Agreement with the EU27. The British government can not be allowed to unilaterally withdraw from the backstop." A small Highland community has been left isolated after a landslip blocked the only road out. The route between Kinloch Hourn and Loch Garry has been closed as a result of the incident on Monday, which saw 9,000 tonnes of debris cover the road. It has also caused disruption to the main overhead power line. Kinloch Hourn landslip- there is approx 9000T of soil & rock half way along the public road which connects Loch Garry to Kinloch Hourn. The landslip has also disrupted the main overhead power line. Council Engineers & SSE reps are on site but road is closed to all traffic The Highland Council (@HighlandCouncil) November 12, 2018 Highland Council said arrangements are being made made for residents and guests at the Kinloch Hourn end of the road. The settlement is at the end of a 22-mile single-track road, which runs west from the A87 in the west Highlands. Andrew Tinkler arrives at the Rolls Building in London (Victoria Jones/PA) A High Court battle featuring bosses at a multimillion-pound infrastructure business which started up in an isolated Lake District village half a century ago has begun. Bosses at the Stobart Group, which began life when founder Eddie Stobart went into business as an agricultural contractor in Hesket Newmarket, Cumbria, during the 1960s, have sued former chief executive Andrew Tinkler. They say Mr Tinkler conspired with other businessmen to harm the companys interests and had his own interests at heart. Bosses have also have made claims about money spent on air travel, and want a judge to rule that he was lawfully dismissed. Mr Tinkler, who was chief executive of the business between 2007 and 2017, denies wrongdoing, saying he was removed for no good reason, and has counter-claimed. Judge Jonathan Russen began overseeing a trial, which is due to last more than two weeks, in London on Monday. Expand Close Mr Tinkler denies the allegations made against him (Victoria Jones/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mr Tinkler denies the allegations made against him (Victoria Jones/PA) Barrister Richard Leiper QC, who leads the Stobart Group legal team, told the judge: The company would say this is a man who truly has his own interests at heart. Mr Leiper said board members had earlier this year learned that Mr Tinkler had been talking to shareholders and briefing against the board. He said there had been a significant campaign to oust chairman Iain Ferguson and said Mr Tinkler had used the words: Either Mr Ferguson or me. Mr Tinkler disputes allegations against him. The judge was told that Mr Tinkler did not like the briefing against the board characterisation. Mr Leiper said Mr Tinkler had spoken of having concerns about Mr Fergusons chairmanship and being worried that Stobart was going off-strategy. Lawyers representing Mr Tinkler say there is no proper basis for conspiracy allegations made by Stobart bosses. They also say allegations that Mr Tinkler had taken 5 million of so-called expenses from the company in breach of fiduciary duties should never have been brought. John Taylor QC, who leads Mr Tinklers legal team, said Stobart bosses had made allegations of excessive or unnecessary helicopter use by Mr Tinkler. He said there had also been claims about air transport and jet transport. Mr Taylor said the claims were part of a campaign against Mr Tinkler. He suggested that the allegations had been made to provide an excuse to splash lurid headlines across newspapers. Mr Taylor said documents backing up the claims had not been disclosed and he said the allegations had not been proved. Asia Bibi was acquitted after being sentenced to death for blasphemy (AP Photo, File) Pakistans government struggling with a crisis surrounding a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy charges after eight years on death row says it is having to deal with fake images on social media purporting to show her leaving the country. Information minister Fawad Chaudhry slammed the postings on Monday, one of which claims to show Asia Bibi meeting Pope Francis. The photo is actually of Ms Bibis daughter from two years ago. Mr Chaudhry says the images misidentifying Ms Bibi prompted death threats to a politician in one photograph. Radical Islamists have blocked Ms Bibis freedom and demanded she be publicly executed. They have also filed a petition to repeal her Supreme Court acquittal. The government says Ms Bibi remains in Pakistan, at a secret location for her own protection, until the review process is finished. Expand Close Supporters of Pakistani religious parties rally against the acquittal of Asia Bibi (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Supporters of Pakistani religious parties rally against the acquittal of Asia Bibi (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned radical religious groups against using her plight to further their political aims with street protests. He has defended the Supreme Court judges who on October 21 acquitted the 54-year-old mother-of-five of blasphemy charges but has also acquiesced to Islamists that the acquittal be reviewed in an appeal process. Blasphemy is a highly charged issue in Pakistan, where mere allegations or accusations that someone had insulted the Prophet Mohammed can incite mobs into a frenzy of violence. The charge also carries the death penalty and critics say the controversial blasphemy law is abused to settle religious scores. Ms Bibi and her family have always maintained her innocence and say she never insulted the prophet. Mr Chaudhry said the images prompted death threats to Fazal Khan from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party. The politicians constituency is in a deeply conservative region in the countrys north-west. People can even be killed because of such fake postings, Mr Chaudhry said. The pictures were widely circulated on social media in Pakistan and shared on several local journalists groups, even a police and a media group. We are trying to seek co-operation from Twitter and Facebook against such fake news, Mr Chaudhry added. Ms Bibis ordeal dates back to 2009 when she went to fetch water for herself and fellow farm workers. An argument took place after two Muslim women refused to drink from the same container as Ms Bibi, who is Roman Catholic. The women later said Ms Bibi had insulted the Prophet Mohammed, and she was charged with blasphemy. She was put on trial, convicted and sentenced to death in 2010. Following Ms Bibis acquittal last month, the founder of the radical Tehreek-e-Labbak Party, Mohammed Afzal Qadri, issued a fatwa calling for the death of the three Supreme Court judges who handed down the acquittal and the overthrow of Mr Khans government. He also incited the military to mutiny. Protesters wave their national flags while others burn tyres near the Gaza Strip border with Israel (Adel Hana/AP) At least six Palestinians have been killed as a fresh wave of fighting erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Sunday. The violence came as Israel and Hamas had appeared to be making progress towards ratcheting down months of border violence. It was not immediately clear what set off the sudden, late-night burst of violence. In a statement, Hamas armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said Israeli undercover forces in a civilian vehicle infiltrated two miles into Gaza and fatally shot one of its commanders. It said militants discovered the car and chased it down, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed a number of people. The clashes were still going on, it said. The Israeli military reported an exchange of fire had taken place during operational activity in Gaza and said that all IDF soldiers back in Israel. It did not elaborate. Expand Close A Palestinian protester hurls stones during a protest on the beach at the border with Israel near Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip (Khalil Hamra/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A Palestinian protester hurls stones during a protest on the beach at the border with Israel near Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip (Khalil Hamra/AP) The Palestinian Health Ministry said six people, including at least five militants, were killed and seven others wounded. In Israel, the military said it had intercepted two rockets fired from Gaza as air raid sirens continued to sound. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on an official visit to France, announced he was going back to Israel to deal with the crisis. Sundays development shattered what appeared to be a turning point after months of bloodshed along the Israel-Gaza border, with weekly Hamas-led protests drawing thousands to the perimeter fence with Israel. More than 170 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the border protests, in which Palestinians throw rocks, burning tyres and grenades towards Israeli troops. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver 15 million dollars (11.6 million) in aid to Gazas cash-strapped Hamas rulers. Hamas responded by lowering the intensity of Fridays border protest. Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu had defended his decision to allow the transfer of the Qatari money, rejecting criticism that the move had strengthened the Islamic militant group. Expand Close Benjamin Netanyahu was returning from Paris to deal with the crisis (Thibault Camus/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Benjamin Netanyahu was returning from Paris to deal with the crisis (Thibault Camus/AP) Netanyahu told reporters that it was the right step at the moment and that he was committed to restoring quiet along the Israel-Gaza frontier and preventing a humanitarian crisis in the coastal Palestinian territory. Every action, without exception, has a price, he said. If you cant handle the price you cannot lead. And I can handle the price. Israeli critics, including members of Netanyahus hard-line coalition, accused him of capitulating to violence and of granting relief to the embattled Hamas group. The internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007, angrily accused the US and Israel of being involved in a conspiracy to permanently sever Gaza from the West Bank. He promised to take unspecified measures against his Hamas rivals in the coming days. Hamas leaders in Gaza have described the arrival of the 15 million dollars, delivered last week in three suitcases by a Qatari diplomat, as their first major gain of more than seven months of weekly protests along the perimeter fence. Hamas has been leading the protests since March 30 in a bid to ease a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade that was imposed in 2007 in order to weaken the militant group. The blockade has led to over 50% unemployment and chronic power cuts, and prevents most Gazans from being able to leave the tiny territory. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltrations, but its army has come under international criticism because of the large number of unarmed protesters who have been shot. Protesters near the fence on Gaza Strip border with Israel on Friday (AP/Adel Hana) A fresh wave of fighting has erupted in the Gaza Strip, leaving an Israeli soldier and seven Palestinians dead. It was not immediately clear what set off the sudden, rare late-night burst of violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants. However it came just as Israel and Gazas Hamas rulers had appeared to be making progress toward ratcheting down months of border unrest. In a statement early on Monday, the Israeli military said an officer had been killed and another one was moderately injured during an operational activity in southeast Gaza Strip, during which an exchange of gunfire was evolved. The operation had ended and the families of the soldiers were notified, it added. During IDF special forces operational activity in #Gaza, an exchange of fire broke out, during which an IDF officer was killed and an additional IDF officer was moderately injured. Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 11, 2018 Earlier, Hamas armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said Israeli undercover forces in a civilian vehicle infiltrated 2 miles into Gaza and fatally shot Nour el-Deen Baraka, its local commander in Khan Younis town. It said militants discovered the car and chased it down, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed a number of people. The clashes had abated by early Monday morning. The Israeli military reported earlier that all IDF (Israel Defence Forces) soldiers (are) back in Israel but it did not elaborate. The Palestinian Health Ministry said six people, including at least five militants, were killed and seven others wounded. In the early hours of Monday a seventh body was found. In Israel, the military said it had intercepted two rockets fired from Gaza as air raid sirens continued to sound. Expand Close Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, second right, with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Sunday (AP/Christophe Ena) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, second right, with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Sunday (AP/Christophe Ena) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on an official visit to France, announced he was rushing back to Israel to deal with the crisis. Sundays development shattered what appeared to be a turning point after months of bloodshed along the Israel-Gaza border, with weekly Hamas-led protests drawing thousands to the perimeter fence with Israel. Over 170 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the border protests, in which Palestinians throw rocks, burning tires and grenades toward Israeli troops. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver 15 million dollars (11.6m) in aid to Gazas cash-strapped Hamas rulers. Hamas responded by lowering the intensity of Fridays border protest. Earlier on Sunday, Mr Netanyahu had defended his decision to allow the transfer of the Qatari money, rejecting criticism that the move had strengthened the Islamic militant group. Mr Netanyahu told reporters that it was the right step at the moment and that he was committed to restoring quiet along the Israel-Gaza frontier and preventing a humanitarian crisis in the coastal Palestinian territory. Every action, without exception, has a price, he said. If you cant handle the price you cannot lead. And I can handle the price. Israeli critics, including members of Mr Netanyahus hard-line coalition, accused him of capitulating to violence and of granting relief to the embattled Hamas group. The internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007, angrily accused the US and Israel of being involved in a conspiracy to permanently sever Gaza from the West Bank. He promised to take unspecified measures against his Hamas rivals in the coming days. Hamas leaders in Gaza have described the arrival of the 15 million dollars, delivered last week in three suitcases by a Qatari diplomat, as their first major gain of more than seven months of weekly protests along the perimeter fence. Hamas has been leading the protests since March 30 in a bid to ease a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade that was imposed in 2007 in order to weaken the militant group. The blockade has led to over 50% unemployment and chronic power outages, and prevents most Gazans from being able to leave the tiny territory. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltrations, but its army has come under international criticism because of the large number of unarmed protesters who have been shot. US Vice President Mike Pence has arrived in Tokyo to discuss North Korea and other issues with Japanese officials before heading to two regional summits. Mr Pence is expected to also discuss Chinas growing regional influence and bilateral trade with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe when they meet on Tuesday, officials said. During a stopover in Alaska, Mr Pence told reporters that he planned to talk about our important alliance, our economic relationship, current negotiations for a free trade agreement of course, and well be focusing on our ongoing commitment to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, Japans NHK public television reported. .@SecondLady & I are on our way to Asia, where Ill represent @POTUS at the ASEAN & APEC summits. Ill deliver a clear message: we are committed to freedom, prosperity, & security in the region. #VPinAsia pic.twitter.com/8r46GV0ni7 Vice President Mike Pence Archived (@VP45) November 11, 2018 Mr Pence said in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post that America will soon begin negotiations for a historic trade agreement with Japan. The two countries agreed in September to start negotiations on a bilateral trade agreement. Talks are expected to begin early next year. President Donald Trumps administration has reached a trade pact with South Korea and another with Mexico and Canada. Mr Pence said in the article that the new trade deals will put American jobs and American workers first. Mr Pence also stressed American commitment to the security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region. The Vice President is to leave on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore and an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea on behalf of President Trump. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that Mr Pences visit ahead of the regional meetings is a perfect chance to reaffirm cooperation between Japan and the United States regarding our policies on North Korea and various other issues of mutual interest. He said Mr Pence and Mr Abe will discuss ways to expand trade and investment between the two sides. The United Nations refugee agency has cautioned against returning ethnic Rohingya Muslims to Burma from Bangladesh, urging that officials be allowed to assess whether it is safe for them to return. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees issued the warning after the Burmese government said on Sunday that this week it would begin repatriating the more than 700,000 Rohingya who have fled from the Rakhine state in the west of the country to Bangladesh to escape deadly violence carried out by security forces. Authorities should allow these refugees to undertake such go-and-see visits without prejudice to their right to return at a later date, if indeed the refugees decide after the visits that the current conditions in Rakhine State would not allow them to return in safety and dignity, the UNHCR said in a statement. Statement by UN High Commissioner for Refugees on the repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar https://t.co/iSsAIwmE2V UNHCR News (@RefugeesMedia) November 11, 2018 The Rohingya refugees generally have been denied citizenship and civil rights in Buddhist-majority Burma, where prejudice against them runs high. The overwhelming majority of people in Burma do not accept that the Rohingya are a native ethnic group, instead seeing them as illegal migrants from Bangladesh and calling them Bengalis. Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, attending a business conference in Singapore on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian summit, did not mention the issue and did not take any questions. On Sunday, officials in Burma announced that Bangladesh had said repatriations would begin on Thursday, with an initial group of 2,251 to be sent back from mid-November at a rate of 150 per day. Expand Close Balukhali camp in Coxs Bazar, southern Bangladesh (Jemma Crew/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Balukhali camp in Coxs Bazar, southern Bangladesh (Jemma Crew/PA) Senior officials said they would do their best to be ready, but Bangladeshs repatriation commissioner said he was unaware that a date had been set. The UNHCR said it supports the voluntary and sustainable repatriation of Rohingya refugees in safety and in dignity to their places of origin or choice, and will work with all parties towards this goal. It is Burmas responsibility to improve conditions in the restive Rakhine region, it said. Sundays government statement said the returning Rohingya would stay at repatriation camps for two days and receive food and clothing before moving on to transit camps. It said China, India and Japan were providing necessary assistance for the repatriation process, but did not give details. The Rohingya exodus began after Burmese security forces launched a brutal crackdown following co-ordinated insurgent attacks in August 2017. The scale, organisation and ferocity of the operation led to accusations from the international community, including the United Nations, of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Burmas government has denied this. Last week's target for a vengeful left-wing mob was Sir Roger Scruton, assailed because he had been appointed by Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government James Brokenshire to the (unpaid) job of chairing the new Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission. Remember the hounding of my friend Kevin Myers, possibly Ireland's most gifted journalist, whose career was wrecked in July 2017 by hysterical accusations spread all over the world through Twitter that one of his columns revealed him to be an anti-Semite? A clumsy sentence and a controversial headline were wrenched out of context, but anybody who had done half-a-minute's research on Kevin would have known that he was a great admirer of Jews and a defender of Israel. Indeed, the chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland said: "Branding Kevin Myers as either an anti-Semite or a Holocaust denier is an absolute distortion of the facts." It was too late. Having been a fearless critic of - among others - Irish paramilitaries, fellow-travellers, hypocrites and stupid enforcers of political correctness, Kevin had many enemies who duly flooded social media with lies and abuse. The mob was, of course, on the left. As Roger Scruton presciently said years ago: "Once identified as right-wing you are beyond the pale of argument. "Your views are irrelevant, your character discredited, your presence in the world a mistake. You are not an opponent to be argued with, but a disease to be shunned. This has been my experience." This would also be the experience of Toby Young when last January he was appointed to a modest position as a non-executive member of the Office for Students, a new body intended to ensure institutions in higher education are accountable. Jo Johnson, the Universities Minister, had been impressed with Young's dedicated work in setting up free schools, which did a lot - through traditional educational methods - to help poor children to achieve. That went for nothing, because Young had also been, like Myer, a controversial journalist and slaughterer of sacred cows, and what are now known as "offence archaeologists" got to work searching decades of his writings to find material - particularly jokes - they could frenziedly misrepresent as racist, sexist, homophobic and so on. Theresa May gave him lukewarm support, he resigned from the board so as not to embarrass it, and ended up losing his other part-time jobs. One of the characteristics of these kind of witch-hunts is that those in authority are usually craven. It looks as if Scruton may be more fortunate, for both he and Brokenshire seem to be standing up to the bullies, and many commentators have weighed in on their side. Brokenshire had to step down as Northern Ireland Secretary of State last January due to ill health, but having emerged successfully from cancer treatment was brought back into the Cabinet in April. He seems to be enjoying a job where he can actually achieve something without being impeded by tribal politics, and he was impressed by a think-tank report, of which Scruton was a co-author, entitled Building More, Building Beautiful: How Design And Style Can Unlock The Housing Crisis. Its main thesis was that, rather than 'Nimbyism' (Not In My Back Yard), public opposition to new housing developments signified a dislike of ugly, non-traditional housing. Among Scruton's 50 books are several about beauty in art and architecture, but many modern architects hate beauty and therefore cheered on a mob who knew nothing of this internationally admired thinker except that he was a conservative. But he's no wimp. In the early 1980s he had the temerity to found the Salisbury Review, which sought to establish an intellectual basis for traditional (not Thatcherite) conservatism and was intelligently critical of feminism, multiculturalism and modernism among other hot issues. He would write afterwards: "It cost me many thousand hours of unpaid labour, a hideous character assassination in Private Eye, three lawsuits, two interrogations, one expulsion, the loss of a university career in Britain, unending contemptuous reviews, Tory suspicion, and the hatred of decent liberals everywhere. And it was worth it." We have to hope he and Brokenshire hold their nerve. If not, the self-styled progressives will add another notch to their bedpost. Is the DUP defending free speech? The centenary of the Armistice of November 11, 1918, was commemorated with great sensitivity and dignity across Northern Ireland and further afield, as our long search for a permanent peace continues. (Elizabeth Fitzpatrick/PA) The centenary of the Armistice of November 11, 1918, was commemorated with great sensitivity and dignity across Northern Ireland and further afield, as our long search for a permanent peace continues. The commemorations provided much food for thought. There were the haunting images of Danny Boyle's artistic Pages of the Sea, with the portraits of First World War Ulster rifleman John McCance in the sand at Murlough Bay, and nurse Rachel Ferguson at Downhill beach. Time and tide wait for no one, but what is so wonderful and right is the enduring sense of remembrance and - in many ways during this Armistice centenary - the rediscovery of the almost unbelievable sacrifice in two World Wars, and in the many conflicts since then. This sense of rediscovery is having a profound influence on this island. For many nationalists there was a communal amnesia and unease about wearing a poppy. Fortunately, times are changing and in 2018 we are more willing to accept that our historical complexity defies the simplicities of tribal myths and political posturings. In this context it was significant that Tanaiste Simon Coveney and Irish Cabinet minister Heather Humphreys paid their respects at Belfast and Enniskillen Cenotaphs. Politicians from across the spectrum, including nationalists, paid their respects at a number of venues. The only sour note came from Sinn Fein which, for depressingly self-serving reasons, failed to take part. Catholic Primate Archbishop Eamon Martin made history by preaching in St Anne's Cathedral during its cross-community Armistice service yesterday, and in a powerful sermon reminded us of what we have in common, rather than that which divides us. He referred to the sacrifices of the Great War and said those who died "have bequeathed us a shared responsibility for healing the past, and building lasting trust and peace". Sadly our politics are still riven by division nationally and at home, as fear and uncertainty hangs over the Brexit outcome. Our forefathers shed blood to build a new Europe, and the sombre events of this weekend have shown that post-Brexit we can still have a pivotal role in the search for peace and progress. That is the most noble way we can honour those who have bravely gone before us, and paid the supreme sacrifice in doing so. A convicted gang rapist sat on the management committee of a government-funded group set up to help the vulnerable. Sunday Life can reveal that sex offender Gerry Spence was among 13 community appointees to North Belfast Alternatives - a UVF-linked restorative justice group that was handed 23,000 of public money last year. The predator's name was listed on the charity's official website alongside that of teachers and church leaders until last Friday when we asked the organisation who approved his appointment. Alternatives replied claiming that its website needed updating and Spence had left. Spokeswoman Debbie Waters said: "Mr Spence became a member in 2017 and resigned a number of months later. To reflect this change, we will update our website accordingly." Spence (58) - nephew of late UVF chief Gusty Spence - was jailed for eight years in the early 1980s for being part of a four-man gang that raped a young woman on playing fields near Ballysillan Leisure Centre. North Belfast Alternatives' new office on the Ballysillan Road is just yards away from the spot where the sickening sex attack occurred. After being charged with rape, Spence denied involvement, but entered a guilty plea on the eve of his trial to avoid the lurid details of his crime being made public. In an interview with this newspaper in 2010, the brother of the rape victim revealed the trauma and "mental torture" it caused his sister. He said: "She had to move out of north Belfast and even though it happened 30 years ago she is still scarred. "Gerry Spence and his cronies tried to make out that the sex was consensual but they all ended up pleading guilty before their trial." Spence, who is from a prominent loyalist family, served part of his prison sentence for rape on the UVF wing of the Maze prison. After getting out of jail, he was caged for a further 15 years in 1988 for conspiracy to murder after police caught him in a car with a machine gun. He was part of a UVF gang that was on its way to shoot leading north Belfast republican Anthony 'Booster' Hughes. Due to his status as a former loyalist prisoner, Spence found a role in North Belfast Alternatives, which tries to broker resolutions to disputes in loyalist areas without involving the police. Last year, it pulled in 23,000 in public and charitable funding from Belfast City Council, the Housing Executive and George Williams College. Its parent body NI Alternatives received more than 1m from government and charitable funds. The group's director Tom Winstone, a convicted double killer, was on the UVF wing of the Maze prison alongside Gerry Spence in the 1980s and has known for decades the loyalist is a gang rapist. Alternatives is refusing to say who approved Spence's appointment to the North Belfast management committee, restating only that he is no longer a member. According to its end-of-year Trustee Report, the oversight body meets six times per year. Along with the other members, Gerry Spence, who also works for the Wheatfield Action Project, had responsibility for "the strategic direction and policy of the charity". The report adds that the committee has "members from a variety of professional backgrounds relevant to work with the charity". North Belfast Alternatives says it is committed to "promoting a non-violent restorative community response to justice issues in north Belfast". It also pledges to "help and work with young people in order to resolve the problems affecting their lives". According to UVF sources, Spence was given a "bye-ball" by the terror gang because of his family's strong loyalist connections. They say that after he served his rape sentence he would have done anything to get back in the UVF fold. In 1988 - the same year that Spence was convicted of trying to murder republican Anthony 'Booster' Hughes - he was acquitted of killing Ardoyne IRA leader Larry Marley. In 1999, the sex offender took part in journalist Peter Taylor's acclaimed Loyalists television programme in which former UVF and UDA men talked about their lives as paramilitaries. In a candid interview, Spence recalled holding a gun for the first time. He said: "It was like a feeling nobody could touch me. It just felt like I was a soldier and that was it. It was like being on a high. I got a buzz from it." Despite being a convicted gang rapist, Gerry Spence remains in the Orange Order. The organisation has defended his membership of LOL 1913 Ligoniel True Blues lodge saying that rules barring sex offenders from joining were introduced after his conviction. The family of the woman raped by Spence have previously called on the Order to withdraw his membership. Her brother said: "It's gutting for my family to see Gerry Spence walking with the Ligoniel True Blues. He has taken part in parades with DUP ministers Nigel Dodds and Nelson McCausland. I'm sure they would be horrified to know that they were marching next to a convicted rapist. "We still cannot understand how the Orange Order could take a well-known sex offender into its ranks." Pete Tong and the Heritage Orchestra perform during filming of the Graham Norton Show at The London Studios, south London, to be aired on BBC One on New Year's Eve. Pete Tong is a proper superstar DJ. With more than four decades of experience in the club scene, he is - in dance music circles at least - a tastemaker, a trusted guide for millions of music lovers the world over. He's been at Radio 1 for more than two decades and jets off around the globe to do his DJ thing the way most of us scoot down the corner shop. He's so famous his name is even ingrained in English parlance. "It's all gone Pete Tong", a neat bit of rhyming slang for "It's all gone wrong", which was coined by his old DJ pal Paul Oakenfold in 1987, is used casually in conversation by millions of people every single day. Now that's proper fame. In person, the 58-year-old is initially shy and unassuming, a million miles away from the brash and flashy image people in his profession usually project. In Belfast on a flying visit to promote his Ibiza Classics show, which arrives at the SSE Arena on the November 25, he's good company. His passion for the project, which filters 20 years of dance music favourites through the sound of the 65-piece Heritage Orchestra and a selection of guest vocalists, is undeniable. Kicking back over a coffee in the rooftop bar of The Grand Central hotel, he tells me how the project first came about. Expand Close Teenage Pete Tong - Credit: @petetong/twitter - Posted 30 Sep 2017 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Teenage Pete Tong - Credit: @petetong/twitter - Posted 30 Sep 2017 "I was called up by Radio 1 in January 2015," he says, "and they said, 'The Proms want to do something, do you want to get involved?' Straight away I said yes." So, the idea of combining dance with classical music, something very different at the time, didn't worry him at all? "Maybe 20 years before I might have said no or scratched my head and asked too many questions," he says, "but I've learnt in life that sometimes it's just better to say yes quickly to things like that." Working alongside conductor Jules Buckley, the DJ swiftly prepared a show for a late-night Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in London that reflected Radio 1's relationship with Ibiza down the years. Initially, he had his fears about the whole thing. "I was nervous about not doing the songs justice," he admits. "I was concerned it was going to sound pants. "I wanted to make a real heavyweight statement about the music by playing it with an orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall. It was adding gravitas to the whole scene, so I wanted it to be great. I trusted in Jules and he really delivered." Rave reviews of that one-off gig led to a stadium tour that saw Tong and company sell out the O2 in London in just a couple of hours and even bag a record contract into the bargain. Making the jump from the Royal Albert Hall to full-blown stadium performances wasn't exactly easy, though. "At the Proms we just kind of walked in and plugged in. We had to turn this thing that was like a concert into what it is today, where it's like a kind of immersive theatrical show. I'd never done anything like that before." To date, the show has wowed arena audiences from Sydney to the Hollywood Bowl, with guest artists like Candi Staton, Seal and Craig David lining up to get involved. Despite the success, Tong still feels the need to quash the myth that it's just a guy pressing a few buttons on his laptop. Expand Close Ibiza classics - conductor Jules Buckley, and DJ Pete Tong - Credit: @Barbara07200982/twitter Posted 16 Dec 2017 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ibiza classics - conductor Jules Buckley, and DJ Pete Tong - Credit: @Barbara07200982/twitter Posted 16 Dec 2017 "The orchestra aren't playing along to a record," he says firmly. "Everything is 100% live." A passion for real music has served the DJ well down the years. An early pre-teen fascination with Radio 1 saw the future dance music guru making tapes, cataloguing records and feeding his obsession relentlessly. A Saturday job in a record shop gave him further access to all the pop music of the time and he devoured it all. Expand Close Pete / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Pete "When I started DJing, I realised that records by Funkadelic and James Brown made people jump around more than when I played Stairway To Heaven, so I got into dance music that way." Those early experiences left a deep impression on the future radio presenter. "I was just transfixed," he says of first seeing a DJ in action in his school gymnasium. "First it was me and my mate doing it, me and a guy called Nigel Burns, and the reason I had a DJ duo is because I had one turntable and he had the other." It's that down-to-earth attitude that has helped Tong navigate his way around the often dangerous world of modern dance music. The suicide of fellow performer Avicii earlier this year is a good example. "It was a real wake-up call," he says of the death of the young Swedish producer. "That's one that everybody watched happening but didn't do much about. Hopefully it will never happen again. "He never really had a normal life. Suddenly he's a world-famous DJ, travelling on jets everywhere, not because he's being flash but because it was essential for him to fulfil all the work commitments. Expand Close Pete Tong is made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by the Duke of Cambridge during an Investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace. PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Pete Tong is made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by the Duke of Cambridge during an Investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace. "I think, even if you're a resident DJ in a pub three nights a week, it's hard being that life and soul of the party. You can easily get lost in the party. I was lucky. I always had a day job, so I couldn't go on two-week benders. I always had to come back." Does the thought of slowing down a little ever enter his head then? "I constantly look at it," he says, smiling a slightly weary smile. "I crave it to be simpler, but other times I look around and think how fortunate I am to be doing something I like and still here talking to you. I'm fairly at peace with it all." Pete Tong Presents Ibiza Classics performed by the 65-piece Heritage Orchestra is at the SSE Arena, Belfast, on November 25. Tickets from www.ticketmaster.ie Lelectricite est devenue, de nos jours, un besoin dune importance majeure, et cela, dans tous les domaines dactivite. Que ce soit dans les maisons ou [] Bangladeshis watch television in Dhaka as chief election commissioner Nurul Huda announces that the nation will hold its general election in December despite bitter wrangling between the government and the opposition, Nov. 8, 2018. Bangladesh election officials on Monday rescheduled the general election by a week to Dec. 30, acknowledging that the decision was aimed at meeting a demand by the main opposition alliance that it be given more time to campaign. The move took place a day after opposition parties, including those that boycotted the 2014 national polls, announced that they would participate in the general election, which authorities had set last week for Dec. 23. At the request of several political parties, the date of general election is deferred by a week, K.M. Nurul Huda, the countrys chief election commissioner, told reporters in Dhaka on Monday. Its a matter of pleasure that the BNP, Jukta Front and other political parties have decided to participate in the polls, he said. Were waiting for all political parties to participate in the polls and believe that we would be able to hold a well-accepted election. Huda was referring to the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and a new alliance called Jatiya Oikya Front or National United Front (NUF), which is headed by former Foreign Minister Kamal Hossain. Hossain, 81, announced Sunday that the opposition would contest the polls even after the government had rejected its seven demands, including the creation of a neutral caretaker administration that would run the country during the electoral period. The ruling party had earlier described those demands as unconstitutional. The general election will be the first since 2014, when the BNP led by jailed ex-premier Khaleda Zia boycotted the polls over fears they would be rigged and after a ruling coalition led by the Awami League had refused to allow a caretaker government to run the country during the election season. The December election will decide if Sheikh Hasina, 71, will get a fourth term as prime minister. She first served as prime minister from 1996-2001 and was elected again in December 2008. Zia, the BNP chief, remains behind bars since February after her conviction in two corruption cases. Among other demands, opposition leaders had asked for Zias release so she could participate in the elections. They also demanded for dissolution of parliament, which is controlled by the Awami League and its allies. No reaction from BNP, NUF On Monday, most of the major political parties hailed the election commissions decision, but neither the newly formed NUF nor BNP, its key partner, issued a statement responding to it. The Election Commission has taken a positive decision for ensuring participation of all political parties in the election. We hail this decision, Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader told journalists in Dhaka. Meanwhile, the entire country has switched into election mode following the oppositions decision to contest the elections. Thousands of jubilant leaders, activists and supporters crowded the central party offices of both the Awami League and BNP in Dhaka on Monday as party officials began selling nomination papers. The fear for violence and one-sided election has apparently ended after the election commissions decision to accept the oppositions demand to delay the election, human rights activist Sultana Kamal told BenarNews. Nur Alam, a Rohingya refugee, says he is not ready to leave his shelter at a camp in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh, to return to Myanmar, Nov. 12, 2018. Bangladesh will not repatriate Rohingya to Myanmar unless the U.N.s refugee agency confirms they are willing to leave voluntarily, a Bangladeshi government official told BenarNews on Monday. In late October, Dhaka and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reached a memorandum of understanding in which UNHCR was to gauge whether more than 2,000 Rohingya, whose names were on a repatriation list agreed to by Bangladesh and Myanmar, were ready to go back to Rakhine state, a Bangladeshi foreign ministry official said. Our policy is we will not send any Rohingya back by force. It is the decision of the individual Rohingya whether they want to get back, Delwar Hossain, the ministrys director general in charge of the Southeast Asia desk, told BenarNews. The Bangladesh government is relying on UNHCR to make that determination, he said. According to our MoU with the UNHCR, the UNHCR will assess whether the returnees are going voluntarily, Hossain added. On Oct. 28, we handed over the list of the 2,260 Rohingya, whom the Myanmar government verified for repatriation, to ascertain their status, but we have yet to get any response from the UNHCR. Also on Monday, Lwin Oo, Myanmars ambassador to Bangladesh told reporters that the first 150 refugees from that list were to be sent back to Rakhine on Thursday. A similar number were to be returned daily through end of the month, Myanmar officials said. The repatriation will start on Nov. 15, the ambassador said. Meanwhile, a UNHCR spokesman said this was not the right time to send Rohingya back to Rakhine, from where more than 700,000 had fled to camps in southeastern Bangladesh since August 2017 to escape violent attacks by Myanmar police and border guards. The attacks began in retaliation for a Rohingya rebel attack on guards that month. Our position is clear we dont believe that conditions are conducive for return at this moment, Firas Al-Khateeb, a UNHCR spokesman in Coxs Bazar district, told BenarNews in an email. Therefore at this stage, we cant support any repatriation process, but we have been asked by the government of Bangladesh to assess the voluntariness of the refugees according to our MOU signed earlier this year, he said. Therefore we will perform this assessment, he said. It is better you slaughter me here Meanwhile, some Rohingya whose names are on the list of 2,260 refugees slated for repatriation said they were not ready to pack up and leave the refugee camps in Coxs Bazar. Nur Alam, 30, who lives at a refugee camp in Teknaf, a sub-district of Coxs Bazar, told BenarNews he did not plan to return until Myanmar gave him and the other Rohingya citizenship status. Myanmar officials have balked at granting Rohingya citizenship, offering them instead a national verification card that, officials say, is the first step for persons interested in obtaining citizenship. Three days ago, an official came and informed me that I was on the repatriation list. He told me to prepare to go back on Nov. 15, Alam said without identifying the official. They need not build houses for us. We all will go if they [give us] our citizenship, ensure our safety and a guarantee to return to our original houses, he said. The current situation is not favorable for return, said Alam, adding, It is better you slaughter me here than to send me there. He said he knew of at least nine Rohingya families on the list. All of them have been hiding in fear of repatriation, Alam said. Abul Kalam, a 28-year-old refugee sheltering at the Unchiprang camp, said he was on the list as well. An official came and wrote my name and names of my family members in a yellow card. Later, I came to know that I would be sent back but I will not go now, Kalam said. US: Premature returns Elsewhere on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that China had applauded the repatriation efforts while the United States called the move to begin sending back Rohingya to Rakhine, starting this week, premature. We have engaged both governments [Myanmar and Bangladesh] at the highest levels to express our serious concerns about premature returns, and to emphasize that, consistent with international practice, returns must be informed, voluntary, safe, dignified, a State Department spokeswoman told the Journal. And as leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) prepared to meet in Singapore for their regional summit starting on Tuesday, Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo was expected to raise the Rohingya crisis during those talks, an official with the foreign ministry in Jakarta said late last week. Indonesia, as family with Myanmar within ASEAN, expects there to be steps taken in resolving the humanitarian crisis. The involvement of ASEAN will be far better than that of other parties, Benny Siahaan, the ministrys director of ASEAN External Cooperation, said in a statement, according to Detik.com, and Indonesian language news website. Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos arrives at the Commission on Elections in Manila to lend her support for her daughter, Gov. Imee Marcos, who filed her certificate of candidacy for a Senate seat in the May 2019 elections, Oct. 16, 2018. Updated at 6:11 p.m. on 2018-11-12 Philippine authorities said Monday they would not yet arrest convicted former First Lady Imelda Marcos, despite a court convicting her of large-scale graft punishable by more than 40 years in prison. National police chief Director General Oscar Albayalde told reporters that officials would first consider the health of the 89-year-old Marcos matriarch, who was convicted of creating false Swiss bank accounts to hide millions in dollars plundered from state coffers. We have to take into consideration her advanced age. In any arrest (of) anybody for that matter, that has to be taken (into) consideration, the age, the health, Albayalde said, referring to Imelda Marcos. His statement came as many Filipinos, including rights victims who suffered under the brutal two-decade regime of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, waited to see whether the flamboyant ex-first lady would be booked and taken to jail. Albayalde said he had asked the head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group to be ready to serve the warrant once released. As of early evening Monday, however, it appeared that Marcos would not be arrested, three days after the graft court Sandiganbayan handed down the sentence. While the case is bailable and can be appealed, legal experts have argued that under the law, Marcos should be arrested and booked first. But the Marcoses are known to be close to President Rodrigo Duterte, a self-confessed fan of the late dictator who has credited his 2016 win partly on the clan's political support. Pictures of Mrs. Marcos with the president's daughter at a birthday party circulated on social media. The Marcos family had issued a statement that she would appeal the case. In stark contrast with Trillanes case The polices light-handed approach on the Marcos matriarch was in stark contrast to how they had recently treated Sen. Antonio Trillanes, whose criticism of Dutertes deadly drug war had angered the president. Duterte had issued a proclamation revoking an amnesty granted to Trillanes, who led failed rebellions against the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. But Dutertes order to arrest Trillanes backfired because the courts did not side with him. For Trillanes, it was just a pre-emptive measure in case that something really comes out. For this, we are not seeing any possible problems because, first of all, she is old, and a woman, Albayalde said, explaining why Marcos was not a flight risk. Rights group Karapatan slammed Albayaldes statement, noting that it had documented many cases of elderly and sickly political detainees in the country. Imelda and the Marcos family should be jailed, Karapatan said in a statement. They continue to be the face of impunity in the country, coddled by this equally-murderous and vindictive regime. The Duterte government is just as accountable for allowing these parasites to return to power. Dutertes spokesman, Salvador Panelo, said the anti-graft court's decision was not yet final and Marcos could pursue legal actions to counter the ruling, which he had earlier described as proof that the justice system worked in the country. But opposition politicians urged the police to make the arrest. She cannot avail of the probation law because the penalty carried by her case is more than six years, former Rep. Neri Colmenares told reporters. Another lawmaker, Carlos Zarate, said the courts decision put "to rest the Marcos familys contention that they have not amassed ill-gotten wealth nor plundered the countrys coffers during their reign. Many would be happy with this decision but it would be better if the Marcoses also return all their ill-gotten wealth to the Filipino people, he said. Imelda Marcos and her children were allowed to return to the Philippines after Ferdinand Marcos died in exile in 1989, three years after he was toppled by a people power revolution. She led the family in regaining lost political clout and is the outgoing congresswoman in the northern province of Ilocos Norte, where daughter Imee is the outgoing governor. Imee is running for a Senate seat and Imelda is looking to replace her as governor in next years polls. Meanwhile, Imee's brother, Ferdinand Jr., is contesting the vice presidency he narrowly lost two years ago. Thousands went missing or were killed during Marcos two-decade regime, and anti-graft investigators had accused the family raiding state coffers of up to $10 billion. The discovery of some 3,000 pairs of shoes left behind at the basement of Imeldas bedroom provided a jarring reminder of the opulence and extravagance of the Marcos family, while millions of Filipinos went hungry under the bankrupt government. Jeoffrey Maitem in Cotabato City and Karl Romano in Dagupan City contributed to this report. CORRECTION: An earlier version incorrectly reported that pictures of Imelda Marcos attending a birthday party for Duterte's eldest daughter circulated on social media after the ruling was handed down on Friday. PR Newswire HONG KONG, Nov. 11, 2018 HONG KONG, Nov. 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cogobuy Group ("Cogobuy" or the "Company", stock code: 400.HK; with its subsidiaries (the ''Group'')), a platform providing artificial intelligence and internet of things ("AIoT") business solutions in China, is pleased to announce that the Group won the Outstanding Performance Component Distributor: IoT award at the 2018 Distributor Awards Ceremony, hosted by ASPENCORE, the world's largest electronics industry media group, on 9 November. The award recognizes component distributors who have made outstanding contributions to the development of China's Internet of Things ("IoT") industry, and promoted upstream and downstream cooperation within the electronics industry during the year. Winners of the award were chosen by ASPENCORE's jury of analysts, Electronics Supply and Manufacturing-China, EET Times China and EDN China readers, and user community. The award highlights the success of Cogobuy's dual business model as an AIoT Business Service Platform and IC component Trading Platform, and the Company's broad industry influence. Mr. Jeffrey Kang, CEO of Cogobuy Group, said, "Cogobuy has been committed to the development of China's artificial intelligence and Internet of Things industries -- introducing Chinese and worldwide leading chip manufacturers and AIoT solution providers to the AIoT's ecosystem -- and it is an honor to be recognized for our efforts. Artificial intelligence is a strategic priority for our country, which is now engaged in a nationwide push for technological development and industrial transformation. China's AI industry is entering a golden period of development, which will in turn support innovation and new opportunities in the electronic components industry. We will look forward to maintaining our innovative spirit, focusing on the needs of high-growth customers in emerging areas, and continuing to promote the coordinated development of our industry." About Cogobuy GroupCogobuy Group is headquartered in Shenzhen, with offices and branches across major cities in China, including Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Chengdu, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Xi'an, as well as overseas branches in the United States, Singapore, Israel, and Japan. The Group is comprised of Cogobuy.com, the top largest IC Components distributor, and INGDAN.com, the leading AIoT Business Service Platform. Cogobuy's AIoT ecosystem connects cloud computing and AI core technologies with the Group's expertise in edge computing, machine learning, and deep customization. With the ecosystem, the Group aims to provide AIoT solutions to vertical industries such as smart cars, smart homes, robotics, and customized AIoT chips. For further information, please refer to the Company's website at http://www.cogobuy.com/. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cogobuy-won-outstanding-performance-component-distributor-iot-300748079.html SOURCE Cogobuy Group Reciba en su email: noticias de ultima hora, analisis tecnicos o el cierre de mercado Email no valido Nombre requerido Recibira las informaciones mas relevantes del dia en tiempo real Que informacion desea recibir? Noticias de Ultima hora Boletin Cierre de Mercado Boletin analisis tecnico Boletin Fundsnews Debe seleccionar un tipo de boletin Acepto la Politica de privacidad Debe aceptar la politica de privacidad Responsable EMPRESAS DEL GRUPO WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Finalidad La remision de informacion, novedades y promociones Establecimiento o mantenimiento de Relaciones Comerciales. Legitimacion Consentimiento del interesado. Interes legitimo en el desarrollo de la relacion comercial Destinatario Empresas del Grupo WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Derechos Acceso, rectificacion, supresion, limitacion, oposicion y portabilidad Informacion adicional Politica de Privacidad de nuestra pagina Web + INFORMACION Lt.-Col. Ryan Stimpson knows all about the cost of war. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 11/11/2018 (1106 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Lt.-Col. Ryan Stimpson knows all about the cost of war. The commanding officer of 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery at Shilo, shared his own personal pain as he gave the address at Sundays Remembrance Day service in Brandon. "I give thanks to my good friend, Jeff Francis, an artillery forward observer with TF 1-07 who died in Kandahar in 2007 when the vehicle he was in drove over an improvised explosive device," Stimpson told the hundreds of visitors, participants and guests who attended the service at Westoba Place. "I keep an email of his that he sent me a week before he died," he continued. "It described some of the stresses and frustrations of deployment, but his morale, as always, remained positive. He felt fortunate that he had the opportunity to be where he was and serve his country. "From time to time I read that email, when I feel stressed or anxious about something at work or in life, and I am reminded that my rough days arent so bad. Though sometimes difficult, I am blessed to have a day." Stimpson, whose two great-great uncles and grandfather also served in the military, has been deployed to Afghanistan three times. "The actions and events undertaken by our soldiers at Vimy and the Somme in World War One,Dieppe and Juno beach in World War Two, Kapyong during the Korean War, United Nations deployments and most recently Afghanistan have had an enormous impact on who we are as Canadians," Stimpson said. Sundays service marked the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, giving the annual parade of servicemen and women, cadets, police officers and others poignant new meaning. The Shilo Canadian Military Wives Choir raised their voices to the rafters. Bishop Jim Njegovan gave the invocation, Lt. Dan Robertson played Last Post and Reveille while piper JP Reil played the lament. Poppies descended from above. As surely as this day comes around now each year, we are in the presence of the dead," Stimpson reminded those gathered for the service. For about an hour, once a year, in this place, ghosts of those that have fallen are present and outnumbering the living," he said. "And when we remember their names, tell stories of their lives and lay poppies on their graves, they come back to live with us for a brief moment in time." Later in the day, church bells across the city rang out at 5:01 p.m. as part of the Royal Canadian Legion, Veterans Affairs Bells of Peace initiative that saw bells ring 100 times at sunset in communities across Canada. At St. Andrews Presbyterian Church on Russell Street, candles were lit for attendees to pay their respects to Canadas war veterans. brobertson@brandonsun.com Twitter: @Bud Robertson4 Lt.-Col. Ryan Stimpson knows all about the cost of war. The commanding officer of 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery at Shilo, shared his own personal pain as he gave the address at Sundays Remembrance Day service in Brandon. "I give thanks to my good friend, Jeff Francis, an artillery forward observer with TF 1-07 who died in Kandahar in 2007 when the vehicle he was in drove over an improvised explosive device," Stimpson told the hundreds of visitors, participants and guests who attended the service at Westoba Place. "I keep an email of his that he sent me a week before he died," he continued. "It described some of the stresses and frustrations of deployment, but his morale, as always, remained positive. He felt fortunate that he had the opportunity to be where he was and serve his country. "From time to time I read that email, when I feel stressed or anxious about something at work or in life, and I am reminded that my rough days arent so bad. Though sometimes difficult, I am blessed to have a day." Stimpson, whose two great-great uncles and grandfather also served in the military, has been deployed to Afghanistan three times. "The actions and events undertaken by our soldiers at Vimy and the Somme in World War One, Dieppe and Juno beach in World War Two, Kapyong during the Korean War, United Nations deployments and most recently Afghanistan have had an enormous impact on who we are as Canadians," Stimpson said. Sundays service marked the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, giving the annual parade of servicemen and women, cadets, police officers and others poignant new meaning. The Shilo Canadian Military Wives Choir raised their voices to the rafters. Bishop Jim Njegovan gave the invocation, Lt. Dan Robertson played Last Post and Reveille while piper JP Reil played the lament. Poppies descended from above. "As surely as this day comes around now each year, we are in the presence of the dead," Stimpson reminded those gathered for the service. "For about an hour, once a year, in this place, ghosts of those that have fallen are present and outnumbering the living," he said. "And when we remember their names, tell stories of their lives and lay poppies on their graves, they come back to live with us for a brief moment in time." Later in the day, church bells across the city rang out at 5:01 p.m. as part of the Royal Canadian Legion, Veterans Affairs Bells of Peace initiative that saw bells ring 100 times at sunset in communities across Canada. At St. Andrews Presbyterian Church on Russell Street, candles were lit for attendees to pay their respects to Canadas war veterans. brobertson@brandonsun.com Twitter: @Bud Robertson4 A Cork tech firm is aiming to modernise the recruitment process for employers, writes Trish Dromey. Cork start-up The Hire Lab has harnessed the power of technology to streamline and automate the recruitment process for employers and provide an enhanced application experience for candidates. Targeting the healthcare sector, government agencies and companies engaged in large volume recruitment, the Carrigaline-based company now has sales in the UK and Ireland and plans to make a move on Europe and the US within the next three years. Set up in 2013, the company had an early success in 2016 when it won a contract, jointly with accounting firm BDO, to develop an intelligent matching recruitment solution for the Jobs Ireland brand. The contract with the Department of Social Protection was worth 4.5m over eight years, said company co-founder Lorraine Scroope, pointing out that this was a huge achievement for a young company. This year weve gone on to win a contract with the NHS in the UK, which has been another major success for us, said Ms Scroope, explaining that The Hire Lab is now partnered with the NHS Jobs website. Shortlisted for a Technology Ireland award in the emerging digital company of the year category, The Hire Lab is, according to Ms Scroope, now achieving rapid growth. In 2017, our turnover grew by 40%, and this year we expect to exceed this. Currently employing a staff of 15, the company since last year has an office in the UK, a market which now accounts for 45% of sales. In setting up The Hire Lab, Ms Scroope, who previously founded two start-ups, was joined by Maurice Buckley, who had 30 years in the technology industry and had previously worked for Motorola. The establishment of The Hire Lab was prompted by two realisations one was that recruiters who were basing their interview choices on CVs were not getting the information they needed and were wasting their time interviewing unsuitable candidates. The second, said Ms Scroope, was that candidates were often being badly treated by the system. Candidates were complaining that their CVs werefalling into a black hole, and that they frequently never heard back fromemployers. Signing up with the New Frontiers programme in Tralee, the founders set out to develop technology to improve the process We started with the idea and talked to employers and multinationals. All of them said that dealing with CVs was not giving a good insight into candidates and that candidates were being treated poorly because of a lack of time and resources. By the end of the year, The Hire Lab had developed a minimum viable product and landed their first few clients, which included Ibec and Enterprise Ireland. Five years on, the company has a solution which automates the recruitment process and includes tools which allow employers to match and filter CVs, carry out language, psychometric and skills testing, and also conduct interviews online. We provide a candidate portal which ensures a great brand experience for applicants. It handholds them through every stage of their hiring journey from application and assessment to interviewing to offer right through to full contract management and onboarding, said Ms Scroope, adding that The Hire Lab is the only recruitment system with a candidate centred philosophy at its heart. Back in 2014, The Hire Lab raised 500,000, half from Angel investors and half from Enterprise Ireland and used the funding to set up operations in Carrigaline with a staff of eight. Since winning the contract with the Department of Social Protection in 2016, The Hire Lab has moved to Carrigaline and taken on over 30 customers including recruitment firm CPL and Harvey Norman in Ireland as well as the designer house Mulberry in the UK. The focus for 2019 will be on the UK, where the company will be paying specific attention to the healthcare market. Chief executive Maurice Buckley expects sales contribution there to grow to 60% next year. Aiming to double its workforce during 2019, the company is already in discussions with government agencies in Denmark, Sweden, Scotland and Canada and is planning to enter the US market by 2021. Eir has announced it is investing 150 million in rolling out 4G mobile broadband across the country. The company is aiming to give coverage to 99% of the country within two years. It is thought the 4G broadband could ensure homes in rural Ireland currently without a connection are covered. Eir chief executive Carolan Lennon says the investment will strengthen coverage in both urban and rural areas. "This is a significant investment into our mobile network, which will allow us to deliver best-in-class mobile voice and data services to our customers wherever they are, from Mizen to Malin and from Aran to Arklow," she said. Building on the substantial infrastructure we already have in place, we will strengthen significantly our coverage in both urban and rural Ireland, transforming the mobile data experience for our customers. The investment will also see the roll out of 5G services in 2019. "The programme will also see an expansion of our high-speed fibre-to-the home (FTTH) rollout to deliver broadband speeds of up to 1,000Mbps to a further 1.4 million homes and businesses across the country," Ms Lennon added. Digital Desk Women are effectively working for free from tomorrow until the end of the year. Men are on average paid 14% more than women. Dress for Success Dublin has launched its annual #WorkEqual campaign to draw attention to the gender pay gap. They have designated tomorrow as a day of action during which a range of activities have been planned including an event at Dublin's Liquor Rooms, briefings at Leinster House and an online awareness campaign encouraging members of the public to show their support for ending the gender pay gap. "This is the third year weve run our #WorkEqual campaign, which aims to highlight the gender pay gap, the issues that feed into it, and the measures that can be taken to achieve true workplace equality," said founder Sonya Lennon. "As the campaign has grown in impact, weve noticed more high-profile gender pay gap deniers airing their views. "In recent weeks alone, national media outlets have given airtime and column inches to people who refuse to accept the pay gap exists or who want to paint it as some sort of motherhood penalty. "This is ridiculous: impartial statistics agencies ranging from the CSO to Eurostat have collated and analysed the data that irrefutably shows Ireland has a gender pay gap of 14%. Poor childcare facilities and lack of shared parental leave certainly contribute to the gender pay gap, but it is an immensely complex issue and it is not something that just impacts on working mothers it affects us all. Ms Lennon said that those who deny the gender pay gap are "doing a huge disservice to both men and women". Tomorrow, Senator Lorraine Clifford-Lee will host Dress for Success Dublin to deliver briefings to members of the Oireachtas. "It is only a matter of time before workplaces in Ireland will be legally obliged to disclose their gender pay gap," said Senator Clifford-Lee. "Those who deny this issue now are burying their heads in the sand. Instead, they should look to jurisdictions like Australia and the UK to see the positive legislative measures that have been implemented there, and the way in which workplaces have proactively responded." Dress for Success has also announced the establishment of a Pay Disclosure Pioneers initiative, which will see the charity bringing together leading businesses that have committed to early pay disclosure and progress towards workplace equality before Irelands proposed new gender pay gap laws come into effect. Digital Desk If Ireland can keep improving its migrant-integration strategies particularly in the labour market then the country has real long-term growth potential, writes Kyran Fitzgerald. Immigrants are playing an increasingly important role in a tight Irish labour market. But a report by leading think-tank, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), shows that they should be knitted more strongly into Irish society. The employment gap between Irish and non-Irish nationals has disappeared. Indeed, the employment rate among people born outside the country is now actually higher than it is among the Irish-born. Given that the non-Irish are younger and at peak working age, this is to be expected. We should all welcome this development. At a time when skilled people are in increasingly short supply, all available sources of labour should be tapped. Moreover, the best way of ensuring maximum integration is work. This should avoid the development of the ethnic ghettos that have triggered radicalisation among young immigrant males in countries such as France, Belgium, and Holland. Irelands demographic make-up is changing fairly rapidly. In 2017, the percentage of foreign-born residents in the country stood at 17%, one of the highest in the EU. The corresponding figure 15 years ago was barely 5%. We have a growing complement of Irish-born people from non-white ethnic backgrounds. According to the ESRI study, 185,683 reported an ethnicity other than white Irish. One-third of those of black African origin just under 22,500 were born here. Almost 370,000 of people resident here report that they speak a language other than English or Irish at home. However, of those non-Irish nationals who arrived in the mid-to-late 1990s, 80% say that they now speak English. One of the key findings in the report is that the unemployment rate among African nationals living here stood at 16% in 2017, having risen from 14% in 2016. This group had an employment rate of just over half of adults, causing the authors, Philip OConnell and Eamonn Fahey, to conclude that racism and discrimination may be major causes of African labour market discrimination in Ireland. There are other factors. African mothers tend to have large families, and, given that they often lack family back-up and find the cost of childcare here to be very high, it is easy to understand why they might be deterred from taking jobs. Cultural factors could be holding them back, not least the traditionalist attitudes of partners/husbands and of the wider family unit. Many women from Africa or Asia have been held back in their personal development. Others are reluctant to break out from established patterns of behaviour centred on the home and the care of children. The challenge is one of persuasion. Obstacles must be negotiated with care to avoid antagonism. The spectre of discriminatory behaviour on the part of employers, sometimes prompted by customers, is real. Many studies of race discrimination in labour markets have been carried out in the US. Twenty years ago, the Nobel prize-winning economist Kenneth Arrow wrote extensively on race discrimination persisting long after the enactment of civil rights laws. More recently, a young academic, Devah Pager subsequently a professor at Harvard University dispatched a group of young male testers, as part of a carefully balanced control group, half white and half black, across the city of Milwaukee, to assess what happens to people of differing races responding to job ads. Half of the testers supposedly had a criminal record, while the other half did not. Her findings caused something of a stir. Some 34% of whites with no record were called back by the employer for interview, compared to just 14% of the black men. Furthermore, 17% of whites with a criminal record were called back, as against just 5% of the black testers. The Irish government attracted much criticism over what some academics regard as its laissez faire approach to integration during the noughties. Even NESC, the government body, concluded, in 2006, that it is beyond the capacity of the government to make integration happen. After the financial crash, various supports were unwound for reasons of cost. In 2010, the Government did launch an intercultural educational strategy, but this ended five years later. There are real signs, however, that the Governments are raising their game, now that the State coffers are filling up, once more. A migration integration strategy was published early last year. This contains a lengthy series of targets. READ MORE: Kyran Fitzgerald: Ireland needs a plan for next recession By 2020, it is hoped that education and training programmes specifically targeting migrants will be in place. There should be measures to boost the number of non-Irish born public servants, along with initiatives to boost the number of migrant-background entrepreneurs. The focus on difficulties faced by Africans should not detract from the real issues faced by eastern Europeans or those in the fast-growing Muslim community up from 2,000, in 1990, to over 60,000 today. Many young eastern Europeans, for example, leave school early to work in areas such as farming and construction. Difficulties with English remain considerable, as teachers in areas of high eastern European concentration will attest. Joanna Dukkipati from India at a Citizenship Ceremony that was held in the National Concert Hall. Photo: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie The ESRI researchers believe that the focus on integration should not be confined to the national level. What is happening at the level of communities is just as important. Irelands immigration population is highly diverse. On the whole, this is a good thing, as it means that there is less scope for polarisation of relationships between the recent arrivals and the indigenous population, but the complex nature of our new Irish population brings its own challenges. If handled correctly, the migration integration challenge can result in longer-term opportunities for example, in accessing consumer markets in some of the fastest-growing regions of the world. The rapid changes across much of urban Ireland, and in Europe, can be jolting, if not frightening, but contained in all this change are the seeds of real potential growth. By Grant Smith Many Opec and allied oil producers see a need to cut output to stave off a new surplus, a key member of the coalition said, as delegates gathered in Abu Dhabi amid sinking prices. A number of global producers agree they should pump less oil in 2019, and a reduction of one million barrels a day would be a good number, Omans Oil Minister Mohammed Al-Rumhy said. The producers are considering a range of cutbacks, including a decrease in output by as up to a million barrels a day, according to delegates. I think probably there is support that right now there is too much oil in the market and stock, inventories are building up, Mr Al-Rumhy said. A technical committee representing the coalition, projected that a global oil surplus will resurface in 2019 if they continue pumping at current rates. Nonetheless, Saudi Arabias energy minister Khalid Al-Falih, representing Opecs biggest member, said ahead of yesterdays meeting that it was too premature to discuss cutting output. Brent plunged below $70 a barrel for the first time in six months, shedding 4%, last week. A production cut in 2019 by the Opec+ producers cannot be ruled out, Magzum Mirzagaliev, Kazakhstans deputy energy minister, told reporters in the UAE capital. Russia isnt ready to disclose its position on whether the group should reduce output further before the committees meeting, according to sources. Opec and its allies meet under mounting pressure to consider renewed production cuts after a slump in oil prices. - Bloomberg Like it or loathe it, social media is a key feature of modern life. With every day that passes, we live more of our lives on the internet, says Patrick Walshe Thats fine as far as private life goes, but what happens when an employees social media postings affect their employers business? Its an important question because the last 10 to 15 years have seen a sharp upsurge in cases involving social media coming before the courts and employment tribunals. There is this is a trend that will continue. Claims usually involve an employee being fired because of abuse of social media. This tends to happen in three situations. Firstly, employees abusing or insulting their employers online. Secondly, employees abusing social media within the workplace itself, by harassing or bullying co-employees, for example. Thirdly, where employees actions on social media have the capacity to cause embarrassment for their employer. The final category is easily the hardest for employers to deal with. Very often it involves employees posting images or videos depicting inappropriate conduct that could damage their employers reputation. Past cases in Ireland have included employees posing with imitation guns in holiday resorts in Bangkok and, notoriously, a case in 2016 in which an employee was fired after posting a video of himself snorting cocaine in a work bathroom, wearing a t-shirt with the company logo emblazoned on it. It isnt always a slam dunk for employers. There have been a number of cases where employees were fired because of their behaviour on social media, but still won unfair dismissal claims. Typically, this happens because an employee is able to demonstrate there was something unfair in the way they were dismissed or because they can satisfy the tribunal that firing them was a disproportionate reaction to what they did. Some cases are black and white but the majority are not. Employers, therefore, need to tread very carefully if they havent followed fair procedures, or have been too punitive, they risk a damages claim being made against them. Usefully, there are a few simple precautions that an employer can take to reduce the risk. First of all, its very important to maintain a written policy dealing with the use of social media, email and the internet in the workplace. That policy should set out clear and understandable rules on what is, and what is not, allowed. It should be handed to all staff when they start work. The policy should also set out what an employer is realistically prepared to allow in practice. For example, if you have only a low threshold for personal email use in the workplace, that should be set out. Employers should also be explicit in saying that disciplinary action may be taken if employees breach the terms of the policy. As well as that, its important that employers act fairly and proportionately when taking disciplinary action. The punishment should always fit the crime in social media cases, if no damage has actually been suffered by the company, its going to be much harder to justify terminating the employee. Importantly, the mere fact that an employer is understandably upset isnt automatically enough. In a recent High Court case, for example, which involved allegations of inappropriate images being circulated by email, the High Court put some emphasis on the fact that there hadnt actually been complaints about the images in the messages. Social media is here to stay and employers have to adapt to it. The area can be extremely difficult to navigate sometimes. Both employers and employees, alike, need to be smart. Patrick Walshe is a partner and employment law expert at commercial law firm Philip Lee Amnesty International announced that it has withdrawn its highest honour from Aung San Suu Kyi. The Ambassador of Conscience Award was awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi in 2009 and after being released from house arrest she was finally able to accept the award at an event in Dublin in 2012. The award was revoked in light of the Myanmar leader's "shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for". Amnesty International's Secretary General Kumi Naidoo yesterday wrote to Aung San Suu Kyi to inform her that the organisation is revoking the award. "As an Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience, our expectation was that you would continue to use your moral authority to speak out against injustice wherever you saw it, not least within Myanmar itself, wrote Kumi Naidoo. Digital Desk Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defence of human rights. Amnesty International cannot justify your continued status as a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience award and so with great sadness we are hereby withdrawing it from you. When she accepted the honour in Dublin six years ago, Aung San Suu Kyi asked the organisation to "not take either your eyes or your mind off us and help us to be the country where hope and history merges". Speaking today, Colm OGorman, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland, said that they took her request very seriously "which is why we will never look away from human rights violations in Myanmar". When we honoured Aung San Suu Kyi in Dublin, it was for a Myanmar that would defend the human rights of all. Her failure to speak out for the Rohingya is one reason why we can no longer justify her being an Ambassador of Conscience- @Colmogorman. https://t.co/0ITb93rnPG pic.twitter.com/AxxCEWtXEW Amnesty Ireland (@AmnestyIreland) November 12, 2018 Amnesty International has repeatedly criticised the failure of Aung San Suu Kyi and her government to speak out about military atrocities against the Rohingya population in Rakhine State. Amnesty said that although the civilian government does not have control over the military, Aung San Suu Kyi and her office have shielded the security forces from accountability by dismissing, downplaying or denying allegations of human rights violations and by obstructing international investigations into abuses. Update: Pilots who reported a UFO over Ireland on Friday, most likely saw a shooting star, according to a leading expert. Shannon Air Traffic control was contacted by a captain flying over Kerry to say she had seen a speeding bright light, with two other pilots in the area confirming the sighting. The Aviation Authority of Ireland has launched an investigation. Aviation journalist Gerry Byrne said: "In all probability they were meteorites and it's not uncommon for meteorites to come in at a low angle, a low trajectory into the Earth's atmosphere." - Additional reporting by Digital Desk Earlier: Audio: Close encounter with UFO off Irish coast leaves pilots wondering The Irish Aviation Authority has begun an investigation into the sighting of an unidentified flying object (UFO) by a number of aircraft off the south-west coast of Ireland last Friday. At approximately 6.47am on November 9, the pilot of a British Airways flight, call sign Speedbird94, contacted Shannon Air Traffic Control (ATC) to ask if there were military exercises taking place in the airspace through which her Boeing 787 was passing. There were no military exercises underway. Shannon ATC replied: There is nothing showing on either primary or secondary [radar]. The pilot responded: OK. It was moving so fast. The controller then asked: Alongside you? The BA pilot, flying from Montreal to Heathrow, describes how the UFO came up along the left-hand side of the aircraft, then rapidly veered to the north. She said it was a very bright light that disappeared at very high speed. She said they were wondering what it could be, that it did not seem to be on a collision course. Scroll to 17m to hear interaction The pilot of a Virgin Airlines Boeing 747, call sign Virgin76, then joined the conversation and made reference to a meteor or another object re-entering the earths atmosphere and said there were multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory. He said they were very bright where we were. Shannon ATC than asked if the pilots knew which direction the objects were heading. The Virgin Airlines pilot said it was in his 11 oclock position with two bright lights over to the right, that then climbed away at speed. Shannon ATC told the pilot it would pass that information on. Shannon ATC then told Speedbird94 that other aircraft in the air have also reported the same thing so we are going to have a look and see. Another pilot said the speed of the UFO was astronomical, it was like Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound. Very interesting report on Shannon high level Friday 9 November at 0630z with multiple aircraft with reported sightings of a UFO over County Kerry. Skip to 17 minutes to listen reports on @liveatc https://t.co/VP1p0hrScn #Aviation #UFO #Ireland Trevor Buckley (@IrishAero) November 11, 2018 The Virgin Airlines flight, from Orlando to Manchester, can carry 455 passengers, while the 787 has 214 seats. A third aircraft, a Norwegian Air 737 travelling from Stewart, New York, to Shannon, which can carry 200 passengers, was also party to the conversation. The BA flight was passing over Kerry at the time, while the other two flights were off the south-west coast, heading eastbound, and in high-level airspace, which extends from 24,500ft upwards. The Irish Examiner contacted the Irish Aviation Authority to ask if it was investigating the UFO. In a statement, the authority said: Following reports from a small number of aircraft on Friday, November 9, of unusual air activity, the IAA has filed a report. This report will be investigated under the normal confidential occurrence investigation process. By Ann O'Loughlin The Hermitage Medical Clinic has apologised in the High Court for the failures in the care provided to a woman who died from sepsis after developing a rare infection following a hernia operation. The apology was read out as part of a 300,000 settlement to the family of 52-year old Susan McGee who died 11 days after the hernia operation. Ms McGee, a mother of two died at a Dublin Hospital on July 24, 2013, having developed a rare Clostridium Difficile infection affecting almost her entire bowel following the hernia operation at The Hermitage Medical Clinic 11 days earlier. A verdict of medical misadventure was returned at the inquest into the death of Susan McGee (52) from Skerries Road in Rush, Co Dublin. Ms McGee's daughter Melissa Barry outside the High Court today said the death of her mother had a catastrophic effect on the family and their world has never been the same since her death. "Our mother is missed every day by her entire family and a large circle of friends. We owed it to our amazing mam to seek answers and justice. "We hope she can now rest in peace while we can rebuild the rest of our lives," Ms Barry said. She said the apology and admission are welcome but they have arrived five years too late. She added: "The Hermitage Medical Clinic has reassured us new procedures are in place for the handover of patients and we hope lessons have been learned. "Patients need to be assured that details of their medical condition and care plan are properly communicated if they are being put into the hands of a different medical professional. "Hospital staff must also listen to and act on the concerns of a patient's family." Melissa Barry, Grange Rise, Stamullen, Co Meath and her brother John McGee , Bretton Woods, Skerries Road, Rush , Co Dublin had sued the Hermitage Medical CLINIC, Old Lucan Road, Dublin and consultant surgeons Arnold Hill and Colm Power who practised at the Hermitage Clinic over the circumstances of their mother's care when she attended the clinic in 2013. It was claimed there was a failure to respond adequately or at all to the deterioration in the condition of Ms McGee when she was readmitted to the Hermitage Clinic over the weekend of 19 to 21 July 2013, days after the original hernia operation and that her care had been delegated to two surgeons without clearly delineating appropriate reporting structures and ensuring that one doctor would be in receipt of all relevant information. Liability was admitted in the case. The apology read to the court stated The Hermitage Medical Clinic together with Professor Hill and Mr Power extend their sincerest condolences and apologies to Susan McGee's family arising out of her death and "for the failures in her care." It added: We have put in place additional measures to address the lessons learned from our review of her care. The family's counsel Simon Mills SC told the court Ms McGee was admitted to the Hermitage Medical Clinic on July 13, 2013 and she had a hernia operation. During the surgery, she suffered a tear to the bowel which he said was a non-negligent act and antibiotics were prescribed. She was discharged from Hermitage Clinic on July 16 but readmitted the next day as she was unwell. Counsels said Professor Hill went on a planned vacation on July 19 for which there is no criticism offered. Ms McGee was left in the care of Mr Power and another doctor. However, Mr Mills said the third doctor was not available as he was rostered to work in another hospital. Ms McGee's condition deteriorated and it was claimed she was not seen by a doctor of consultant status at any time between Friday, July 19 and the morning of Monday, July 22, 2013. She deteriorated very significantly and when assessed on July 22, 2013, she had emergency treatment but died two days later. Approving the settlement Mr Justice Robert Eager sympathised with the family on their loss. A teenager and four men in their 20s and forties are being questioned tonight after gardai discovered a man with stab wounds at a house in Drogheda, Co. Louth. The injured man who is believed to have been the victim of an earlier kidnap attack, was brought to a hospital where his wounds have been described as non-life-threatening. By Liam Heylin A man accused of harassing his sister by sitting for hours in her Co Cork cafe staring at her, putting two fingers up to her and once threatening to kill her, was found not guilty by a jury today. The jury took 30 minutes to reach their verdicts at the end of the trial of Eddie Ryall of Castlepooke South, Doneraile, at Cork Circuit Criminal Court. Mr Ryall, aged 48, pleaded not guilty to making a threat to kill his sister Myra OCallaghan at Castlepooke Bridge in Doneraile on May 10 this year. He also denied harassing her at her cafe over a three-month period in 2016. The jury found him not guilty on those charges. Judge Sean O Donnabhain acceded earlier to a defence application by barrister Sinead Behan in relation to three other charges of alleged harassment one related to his sister Myra, and two related to her husband Ray OCallaghan. The judge directed the jury to find Mr Ryall not guilty by direction of the trial judge. Myra OCallaghan told the seven women and five men of the jury she operated an interiors business in Mallow and Doneraile. She added to their business by opening a cafe in the Doneraile premises from December 2015. When she opened the cafe, her brother began to come in for a pot of tea and, at first, she was quite pleased to see him. But he used to come in then for hours on end from early 2016 until roughly about March. He would order his tea. He would sit for hours and constantly stare. He would sit and stalk for days or weeks on end. He would constantly stare and say horrible things under his breath. He would put his two fingers up. He would say the same thing to Ray calling him a creep, under his voice. It did not stop until he left months later, she said. Her brother also waved his fist when she was driving past on her way home, she said. Mrs OCallaghan said she also found objects that her brother occasionally left at her front gate. Asked by Donal McCarthy, prosecution barrister, what the items were, she replied: Newspaper articles about murders. The witness said she would never forget May 10 when she and her husband were in their car travelling over Castlepooke Bridge and her brother was standing on it. They had to slow down because it was so narrow, she said. He pointed at my eyes and said I will kill you. I was petrified. Garda Ray Massey took a cautioned statement which the accused blamed his brother-in-law, Ray, for the falling out with his sister. Asked about allegedly 'giving the finger' to his sister and her husband, he said: Not in a threatening manner, more expressing opinion. I have given it to the car and a dirty look if that counts. I might have given a dirty look but that was it. On the alleged threat to kill his sister, he replied, Jesus no, absolutely not I am completely shocked to be accused of threatening to kill anyone. "It would have been something like cop yourselves on or you should be ashamed of yourselves. A disagreement over parking spaces led to a man using black spray paint to cover over freshly-laid lines and numbers in what a Judge ruled was a case of criminal damage. Simon Toussifar, of 3 Blind Gate, Rose Abbey in Kinsale, denied two charges of criminal damage near his property on October 31 and November 1 last year. He had been accused by Antoinette Fitzgerald, who manages number 2 Blind Gate on behalf of her partner, Declan Browne, of using the spray paint to deface the freshly-laid white paint lines marking and numbering the car parking spaces. Bandon District Court heard there are three properties in the area, and each has been allocated two spaces. Garda John Corcoran of Kinsale Garda station said on November 1 last year he received a call alleging criminal damage and that he spoke to Antoinette Fitzgerald. She had paid a painter 50 to paint the lines for number 2 and, at the request of the residents, those for number 1. Garda Corcoran said the painted white lines had been painted over in black. He said he then received a later phone call from Ms Fitzgerald, this time at 3pm, saying she had seen Mr Toussifar painting over the lines. Garda Corcoran said he then spoke with Mr Toussifar, who denied the allegation but refused to make a statement. The Garda told Judge James McNulty: "When I spoke to Simon Toussifar I got a smell of paint from him." Ms Fitzgerald said 2 Blind Gate had been bought by Cork County Council prior to Mr Toussifar moving in, and that he had parked in the wrong spaces "on numerous occasions". Helen O'Donovan, an officer in the housing section of Cork County Council, said the parking issue had not been clarified for Mr Toussifar when he first moved in but was later following a query from him on November 7, 2017. Mr Toussifar, a father-of-two, denied defacing the parking lines. He also said any smell of paint was possibly due to having dropped his jacket on the ground when he and his family had returned from Cork shopping. Judge McNulty said the court found the evidence of Garda Corcoran and Ms Fitzgerald to be "coherent, convincing and truthful", whereas the evidence from Mr Toussifar was "less than truthful". He convicted Mr Toussifar, who had no previous convictions and who told the court he is his partner's carer, on one of the charges and fined him 500, with six months to pay, taking the other charge into consideration. By Ann O'Loughlin A man who refused to comply with orders restraining him interfering with a fund-appointed receiver taking possession of his lands in Co Wexford must be jailed for contempt, the High Court has ruled. Mr Justice Senan Allen said Pat Carty has repeatedly refused to comply with orders restraining interference with David Van Dessel, a receiver appointed by Ennis Property Finance over the 52 acres and a rented house at Rathduff, Rathnure. The lands were security for loans advanced by Bank of Scotland Ireland to Mr Carty. After they were transferred by Bank of Scotand to the fund, it appointed the receiver over default on loan repayment. On March 16, 2017, the High Court granted the receiver orders restraining Mr Carty interfering with his taking possession of the lands. Those orders apply pending a full hearing of proceedings between the receiver and Mr Carty. The receiver initiated committal proceedings in late 2017 after his agents went onto the lands and were met by signs with the words: Trespassers shall be shot and No Trespass. Mr Carty and others had told the agents they were refused entry onto the lands and the receiver also believed Mr Carty was collecting rents or other payments connected with the property. Mr Carty, a father of five, had appealed to the judge not to jail him. His "life and livelihood are at stake" he said. He has various financial issues, had had his head in the sand for some time and wanted mediation as he feared the receiver would sell the property at an undervalue. His father is in poor health and walks the lands daily and he was concerned about the impact on his father, he added. Andrew Fitzpatrick SC, for the receiver, said his client was prepared to talk with Mr Carty but only if the latter agreed to comply with the orders. The attachment and committal application was heard last week. Before and after the judge gave his ruling today, the judge again asked Mr Carty would he comply but Mr Carty said he could not, the lands are my whole life and my familys. The judge said he would make the committal order but he told Mr Carty he was free pending the order being executed by gardai. The jailing order applies until Mr Carty agrees to purge his contempt. In his judgment, the judge said Mr Carty, who represented himself but received assistance at various stages from others including anti-eviction activist Ben Gilroy, had advanced no legal grounds or any new material to support his arguments against committal. The High Court previously rejected his claims the receivers appointment was invalid for reasons including the transfer of charges on the lands by Bank of Scotland Ireland to Bank of Scotland to Ennis, he said. Mr Carty had not sought a stay on those orders or appealed them and had shown no basis for the court to vary them, he held. Various other arguments advanced by Mr Carty in resisting committal were also dismissed. While a statement of claim should have been advanced by the receiver within 28 days of the March 16, 2017, hearing but was not delivered until after the 28 days, the March 2017 orders were not dependent on the claim being delivered in time, he said. The law is clear and there is no dispute on the facts, he said. Mr Carty was in breach by impeding the receiver in taking possession but, while the court thought Mr Carty was probably collecting rents, the evidence did not establish that beyond reasonable doubt. By Ann O'Loughlin The Mental Health Tribunal has rejected claims by a solicitor that it made remarks that were discriminatory of her when she was attempting to represent a client. The claims were made by a solicitor who had attempted to represent a woman who was detained as an involuntary patient at a hospital under the Mental Health Act. The solicitor had claimed she was not allowed by the tribunal to represent the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, at the hearing. The patient did not want to be represented by another solicitor and left the tribunal hearing. The tribunal in the patient's absence decided that the woman, who wants to return home, should remain an involuntary patient at the hospital for another six months. As a result, the woman's lawyers sought and were granted an inquiry under Article 40 of the Constitution into the legality of her continued detention by the High Court on Friday afternoon. When the case returned before Mr Justice Seamus Noonan today, the judge was informed by Feichin McDonagh SC for the woman that the application was not being challenged. Counsel said it had been agreed that an order directing the woman's release could be made, but a stay was to be placed on the order so discussion concerning the woman's ongoing care can take place between the relevant parties. A statement on behalf of the Mental Health Commission by Donal McGuinness SC, appearing with Mairead McKenna Bl, told the court that his client accepted "a patient is entitled to separately retain a solicitor who is not on the panel of solicitors maintained by the Commission". The patient was denied this opportunity, therefore the case is conceded as her current detention is not in accordance with the law, counsel said. "We sincerely regret that this issue arose," the statement said. The statement added that there was some media attention which referred to a statement by the solicitor that she considered certain of the tribunal's questions as discriminatory. "These queries had nothing to do with her ethnicity or gender and the suggestion to that effect is strenuously objected to by all three members of the tribunal who also have the right to the protection of their good name." the statement said. Counsel said if a sworn statement on this issue is necessary the Tribunal would be more than happy to submit it to the court. The solicitor had said in a sworn statement that when she was attempting to represent the woman certain remarks were made to her which she considered discriminatory. She said the woman's family wanted her to represent her at a Mental Health Commission Tribunal, which periodically reviews decisions to make persons involuntary patients. The woman had another solicitor previously assigned to represent her by the Commission. The solicitor said she formally notified the Mental Health Commission that she was now representing the woman. The solicitor claimed she was asked by the tribunal if she was qualified to practice in Ireland, and if she knew about the Mental Health Acts, and she was not allowed to represent the woman by the tribunal. She said she found the remarks disturbing and considered them discriminatory given she is a woman and a black African. The solicitor said she was admitted to practice as a solicitor in Ireland in 2013, holds a Masters Degree in Law from TCD, and is about to receive a Doctorate in Law from the same university. She also claimed she was asked to be quiet and was permitted to sit at the back of the room where the tribunal was sitting but was not allowed to speak, take notes or make a recording. Fenit and Kilrush RNLI were involved in a major multi-agency search and rescue operation last night for a windsurfer who was missing at sea for seven hours. The alarm had been raised after the windsurfer, who was last seen at approximately 4pm off the Ballybunion coast in Co Kerry, had not returned to shore. Fenit RNLI was requested to launch their all-weather lifeboat at 5.34pm yesterday evening following initial reports from the Irish Coast Guard that there was a person reported overdue. The search continued until approximately 11pm when news came that the windsurfer had managed to make it ashore and raise the alarm with a member of the public. He was subsequently transferred by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick. The windsurfer had managed to travel by sea the 25 nautical miles from Ballybunion in Co Kerry to Kilkee in Co Clare. "This is such good news this morning and we are delighted that after the windsurfer was missing for so long yesterday evening, that this man is alive," said Charlie Glynn, Kilrush RNLI crew member and lifeboat press officer. "While we dont have the details from the casualtys perspective, he had to have been an experienced windsurfer who was wearing the correct clothing and gear and who knew what to do when he got into difficulty. He stayed with his board and managed somehow to travel the long distance to shore. "All in the RNLI wish him well for a full and speedy recovery following what must have been a frightening experience for him. "We would remind everyone taking to the sea to always respect the water. Always carry a means for calling for help, such as a personal locator beacon, especially if you are on your own, it could be a lifesaver. "Always tell someone you are going out and when you will be back. Make sure they know where you are sailing and who to call if you are not back in time." Digital Desk A man accused of murdering his partner has been described as a "big soft teddy bear" and a gentleman by a friend of the couple giving evidence in his trial. Lois Farrell told defence counsel Caroline Biggs SC that she knew the accused Desmond 'Des' Duffy (aged 70) and the deceased Desmond 'Dessie' Sullivan (aged 59) for about eight years and was friends with both men. When they were drunk she often noticed that Mr Sullivan would put Mr Duffy down, interrupt him and talk over him. Ms Farrell met the two men in a pub on the evening Mr Sullivan died. It was her birthday and they invited her along to give her a gift of earrings and buy her drinks. As they got more drunk she said Mr Sullivan became rude and disrespectful towards Mr Duffy. Mr Sullivan, she said, was the boss in the relationship, would tell Mr Duffy what to do and at times it seemed as though Mr Duffy wasn't allowed to talk. She had seen similar behaviour a number of times before, when Mr Sullivan was drunk and noted that Mr Duffy was always quiet and submissive. When Ms Biggs asked her if the accused ever fought back the witness said: "I never even heard him raise his voice before, He might even just walk away at times." She described the accused as intelligent but lacking confidence. He would walk with his head down and she never saw him react to Mr Sullivan's behaviour. She told Ms Biggs that she stands over a description she gave to gardai of Mr Duffy as a "big soft teddy bear and a gentleman". Mr Duffy has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Sullivan at the home they shared in Somerville Park, Rathmines, Dublin 6 on May 23, 2016. He told gardai he was acting in self-defence and is on trial at the Central Criminal Court. State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy told prosecution counsel Conor Devally SC that Mr Sullivan died from compression of his neck causing a lack of oxygen to the brain. Mr Sullivan's hypertensive heart disease and a combination of alcohol and Diazepam in his system may have contributed to his death, she said. She explained that the deceased's history of heart disease increased his risk of arrhythmia of the heart. Professor Cassidy agreed with Ms Biggs that the injuries to Mr Sullivan's Adam's Apple are consistent with the neck being compressed by a "pincer-like" use of the fingers and thumb of one hand against the neck. She said the presence of petechiae haemhorrhage around the eyes suggested that the pressure was applied for some seconds. Research suggested that it takes 15 seconds for petechiae to haemhorrhage but it could be shorter, she said. The prosecution has completed its evidence in the trial. Justice Paul McDermott asked the jury of six men and six women to return on Wednesday. - Digital Desk Minister for Mental Health and Older People Jim Daly took an unexpected tumble into a swimming pool last week while opening a new leisure facility in West Cork. He spoke of the shock and lasting panic that he feels following having fallen into the pool in Baltimore last Friday evening. "I was crouching down to just feel the water and somebody in the group with me just did a pretend push, [saying] 'watch yourself, watch yourself Minister' and unfortunately I was just starting to get up at that very moment, to rise from my crouch, and in I went to the water. Before I knew where I was submerged in the pool in my suit," he told The Ryan Tubridy Show on RTE Radio 1. He said it was a surreal moment that ended up with him swallowing a lot of chlorinated water. "It was a very surreal moment. I suppose there's a serious side to all of this as well, that's water safety and I did go down and I got an awful fright. I was inhaling, gulping litres of chlorinated water and I couldn't get back up. The Minister told Ryan Tubridy that he is still shaking at the thoughts of Friday night's events. "I panicked, I got an awful fright. I'm actually physically shaking just thinking of it again, I'm not exaggerating." He spoke of how his clothes pulled him down and that he couldn't get back up. "This was all in a split second but I got a terrible fright. Eventually I got up above the water again and I was just dazed. I didn't know where I was, what it was or what had happened. I froze in time and then I made my way out of the pool eventually." He said the moment was not captured on camera but he was snapped exiting the pool. "Nobody actually got the moment when I fell in but there were lots of photographs of me coming out in the soaking suit." He said his mobile phone was spared, as he has taken to leaving it in his car when attending events. Making arrangements to get this covered over before @jimdalytd arrives back in Dublin. Cant be too careful pic.twitter.com/tIbgdqF4EW Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) November 12, 2018 "I don't take my phone, thankfully. It has gone off on too many occassions at the wrong, inappropriate time somewhere. More often than not I leave my phone in the car when I'm going in and out of events." Minister Daly says there is a silver lining to his unexpected swim: more attention for Baltimore. By Olivia Kelleher A rally to protest against victim blaming is to take place in Cork city centre on Wednesday following a recent case in the Central Criminal Court where a barrister representing a man in a rape trial said that the jury should reflect on the underwear worn by a teenage girl. The 27-year-old man was found not guilty of raping a 17-year-old woman in a laneway in Cork. At the sitting of the court in Cork a barrister told jurors they should have regard for the underwear the complainant wore on the night. "Does the evidence out rule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front." The jury of eight men and four women took 90 minutes of deliberation to reach their unanimous not guilty verdict earlier this month. The head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre Noeline Blackwell hit out at the use of what she deemed "rape stereotypes" in trials. Now the Rosa Socialist Feminist Movement in Cork has decided to hold a lunchtime protest outside Brown Thomas in Cork on Wednesday to express their fury at the contents of the closing argument. Cork Solidarity councillor, Fiona Ryan, has contacted Cork's 96M to highlight the protest which will take place at 1pm. She says action needs to be taken in relation to the language used in courts. "This is just one example of what is every day in cases of sexual violence where your clothes, your manner, which has nothing to do with sexual violence can be used as evidence against you, can be used as evidence of consent. "I was inundated over the weekend with people outraged and with people wanting to show their anger." Meanwhile, the Rosa movement in Cork says victim blaming is, unfortunately, a common tactic used in sexual violence cases before the courts. "The system has proven itself time and time again to be utterly damaging to survivors of sexual violence." More information about the event can be obtained here Housing groups have said the current rental situation is "unsustainable" after the latest report showed rents rose nationwide by an average of 11.3% in the year to last September. The Daft.ie quarterly report showed yet another all-time high for rents, representing the 10th quarter in a row in which average rents increased. Rents in Dublin are now 36% higher than during the boom a decade ago and South Co Dublin is the area with the highest average rent anywhere in the country, at 2,156. The average rent nationwide is 1,334 and increases are most acute in urban areas. Rents are 20% higher in Limerick and Waterford than a year ago while, in the same period, rents in Galway were up 16% and rents in Cork up by 13.7%. The chair of Threshold, Aideen Hayden said the report represented "a bleak Christmas for renters and an uncertain future for 2019". "These type of rent increases are unsustainable and out of control its telling that the cost of renting now exceeds the cost of a mortgage," she noted. "It is also worrying rent increases outside of Dublin are rising faster attributable to displacement from Dublin where rents have risen by more than 100% since 2012 in nine Dublin postal districts. For some, the increase in rent is greater than the cost of a Christmas dinner for a family and exceeds the cost of a weekly shop therefore what are the sacrifices that so many are making just to keep a roof over their heads? "Many of us are not feeling any real impact from a sustained economic recovery. The tax benefits from last months budget are effectively wiped out, with rising household costs from home heating to electricity costs also a problem. The report's author Prof Ronan Lyons told RTE there was a "mismatch" between housing supply and demand. Ms Hayden said: The issue here is lack of availability, leading to lack of affordability, compounded by a lack of enforcement of rent pressure zone legislation which caps rent increases at 4% per year. Lack of availability of social housing is pushing up rent in the private rented sector as those who would traditionally have been accommodated in social housing are vying for the same limited stock as those who would traditionally have rented in the private sector. Lack of enforcement of the RPZ legislation is seeing those increases go beyond the legal limit." The Simon Communities also raised concerns regarding the report's findings, tweeting: "RPZs are not having the desired effect as people continue to be priced out of the market." The Department of Housing said the Government had approved the priority drafting of the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill earlier this year which would give the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) more powers, including in relation to RPZs. The Bill is currently being drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and according to a recent response to a parliamentary question, will permit the RTB to "investigate any contravention of the law regarding the 4% rent increase limits in Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs) and to take enforcement action, if necessary, including the imposition of sanctions on landlords in breach; and - initiate an investigation without the need for a complaint to be made". The nation's biggest superannuation fund, AustralianSuper, might be forced to rethink its partnership with private equity firm BGH Capital after two landmark takeover bids by their consortium, worth more than $6 billion, were rejected. The private hospital group Healthscope spurned BGH-AustralianSupers $4.2 billion bid on Monday morning and offered due diligence to a $4.5 billion rival bid from Canada's Brookfield Capital Partners. One hour later, education provider Navitas also rebuffed the BGH-AustralianSuper consortium after it returned with an unchanged $2 billion offer, saying the proposal "would not be in the best interests of all Navitas shareholders". But the low offer price was only one of its concerns. The Tracey Horton-chaired Navitas board expressed its reluctance to deal with the consortium, which includes Navitas founder Rod Jones, and highlighted the agreement with BGH that compels AustralianSuper and Mr Jones to reject any higher offer from other potential suitors. Investors have deepened Lendlease's rut bringing the total value destroyed at the building giant over the last two trading days to almost $2.2 billion as debate continued on whether it should ditch its troubled engineering division. The company's shares fell a further 6.3 per cent on Monday to $13.49 to a fresh two year low on the back of a savage sell-off on Friday after the company revealed a $350 million hit to its ailing engineering and services business. Lendlease chief executive Steve McCann Credit:Peter Braig It was the second provision since June, when it wrote-off $200 million, which the company blamed on a number of largely unspecified issues across a series of projects including the NorthConnex site in Sydney. Citi analyst David Lloyd said Lendlease's engineering track record was ''abysmal'', having lost a total about $500 million over the past five years. Online gambling site Betfair Australia has been ordered to repay $150,000 to a problem gambler after failing to identify his red-flag betting behaviour, in what is considered a landmark verdict regarding the responsibilities of digital gambling providers. The complainant, a heavy-spending customer, in February this year requested that Betfair cash out $150,000 from his Betfair account and deposit it into his bank account. But a few hours later, and in a desperate mindset after losing a total of $190,000 in a short period of time, the gambler requested that Betfair reverse the transaction and put the money back into his betting account. Australia's only online betting exchange, Betfair, is owned by ASX-listed Crown Resorts. Credit:Pat Scala After a series of phone calls, Betfair agreed to approve a reversal of $145,000 as a one-off, which the punter proceeded to gamble and lose on bets placed through Betfair that same day. Betfair left $5000 in his bank account, which he gambled and lost the following day. Owned by James Packers casino giant Crown Resorts, Betfair Australia is said to have about 20,000 active monthly customers. It operates like a stock exchange, by facilitating gamblers with opposing views about the outcome of a horse race or sport event to bet against each other. Jacqui Ramagge says she'll know there has been a necessary cultural shift when we have a mathematical insult in Australia. "My background is Spanish and I have a favourite insult which is, 'you are more useless than a zero on the left'," Professor Ramagge, head of the University of Sydney's school of mathematics and statistics, said ahead of the launch of Global Mathematics Institute for Sydney on Monday night. Head of the University of Sydney's school of mathematics and statistics Professor Jacqui Ramagge, director at Sydney Mathematical Research Institute Professor Geordie Williamson and Jared Field, Sydney University graduate and PhD candidate in mathematical biology at Oxford University. Credit:Peter Braig "I'll know we've made it because having a mathematical insult is an assumption that the entire community is participating and understanding." The institute, which has been established through donations totalling $6.5 million from various individuals, the Simon Marais Foundation and the Hooper Shaw Foundation, will invite international mathematicians to visit Australia and take up long-term residencies. Douglas Rain, who voiced the soft-spoken HAL 9000 artificial intelligence that went rogue in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, has died. He was 90. The Stratford Festival, which Rain, who was a dedicated Shakespearean actor, co-founded in 1952, said that Rain had died of natural causes in Stratford, Ontario, in Canada. The festival said Rain had performed there for more than 45 years. What such a dramatic structure seems to offer is the juxtaposition of scenes from the play with potted reflections from the performers themselves, as well as a good deal of stylised physical theatre that erupts into and across the performance, decorating the tragedy with scenes of hysteria and hedonism from the end of the world. Its a production of Hamlet performed at one minute to midnight on the doomsday clock, condensed and often ruptured by actors dropping character to react to the impending Armageddon. An acquired taste, this one, but at least Hamlet Apocalypse does what it says on the box. Some intriguing cross-currents emerge offering implied critique, if not deconstruction, of the play no one can escape. The actor playing Claudius directs the performance a bit tyrannically, forcing other actors to repeat if they stumble, while the one playing Ophelia is cut off mid-sentence as the show closes. And the visual design creates a haunted sort of antechamber to the end-time, with moments of sonic and photic crisis as the countdown to apocalypse proceeds. The mise-en-scene looks more inspired by Beckett than Shakespeare and creates a spectral frame for the frenetic unravelling onstage. You only wish the precision and stylistic completeness of the design were matched in the physical theatre. The ensemble movement needs a deliberateness and force of presence it doesnt always receive. And if the mask-dropping direct address doesnt reliably bear fruit, its because creditable gestures towards a verbally secure and inventively staged production of the play are undermined by a sense that the performers are more convincing, and certainly more interesting, as Shakespeares characters than they are as some doomed version of themselves. No one needs glib and unenlightening remarks from actors thrown into scenes from Hamlet, and if the pretentiousness of that prospect is to be overcome, Hamlet Apocalypse needs better dramaturgy, more rigorous physical performance, and a more sophisticated engagement with the text. The Berejiklian government's controversial plan to raise the height of the Warragamba dam is likely to have "significant impacts" on threatened species in the Blue Mountains, the federal environment department has found. The assessment contained in a document released under freedom of information laws of the plan to lift the wall 14 metres was made under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation act. Warragamba Dam, which is about 60 per cent full, is being considered for a wall-raising that would flood part of the Blue Mountains World Heritage area. Credit:Brendan Esposito The review noted the project aims to protect downstream communities in the flood-prone Hawkesbury-Nepean region of north and western Sydney. The wall raising would result in at least temporary inundation of parts of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. "The impact of increased flood water levels within the dam is likely to have extensive and significant impacts on listed threatened species and communities and world and national heritage values of the [area]," the department said. Three times, one-year-old Isabella Rees was sent home from hospital, as doctors wrote off vomiting and fever as symptoms of an infection. Her mother now says the doctors told her there was no need for an ultrasound or x-rays. On the fourth visit, after her mother had found her covered in blood, an X-ray discovered a small silver button battery lodged inside her. By then, it was too late. Isabella would pass away hours later, despite intensive resuscitation efforts. We stood with her for 10 minutes, and held her hand. And then they called time of death, her mother, Allison, told the Coroners Court of Victoria on Monday. Following the latest Melbourne terror attack, one senior AFP officer was quoted as saying: "The event yesterday for us is a reality check, even with the fall of the [Islamic State] caliphate ... the threat continues to be real." This comment was somewhat surprising given that such attacks are the new normal, and the fall of the caliphate was never likely to lead to a reduced terrorism threat in Australia. Indeed, Islamic State has been encouraging revenge against the countries that were part of the US-led coalition that caused it to lose its physical caliphate in Syria and Iraq - and Australia is well-known to have been a key player. The scene in Bourke Street on Friday where Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was shot by police after setting a vehicle alight and stabbing multiple people. Credit:Stuart Gaut The Sydney plot to bring down an Etihad flight in July 2017 was also intended as revenge - both against Australia for its part in the US-led coalition and against the UAE for hosting our RAAF contribution at its Al Minhad Airbase. A woman whose car was hit by a highway patrol vehicle in Sydney's south remains in a coma almost 10 weeks after the incident. Senior Constable Harry Thomas Little, 40, has been charged with dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm after an on-duty collision, injuring Gai Vieira, on The Kingsway in Cronulla on September 5. Bert and Gai Vieira. Credit:Facebook Mr Little was allegedly driving at a dangerous speed when his NSW Police Ford Falcon XR6 hit Ms Vieira's Mercedes at The Kingsway and Connels Road intersection, according to court documents. Mrs Vieira, then 68, was taken to St George Hospital in a critical condition. The former head of safety at Dreamworld parent company Ardent Leisure says deficiencies in the park's corporate structure were at the heart of its safety issues. Angus Hutchings was the first company official giving evidence at the resumption of the inquest into the deaths of four tourists on a ride at Australia's biggest theme park. An inquest is examining the Dreamworld accident that caused the deaths of (clockwise from top left) Cindy Low, Roozi Araghi, Luke Dorsett and Kate Goodchild. Credit:Composite/AAP. Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, her brother Luke Dorsett and his partner Roozi Araghi died when two rafts on the Thunder River Rapids ride flipped and crashed into each other in October 2016. Mr Hutchings told the inquest on Monday there were numerous issues with the park's management hierarchy. Hospitality leaders and direct competitors of iconic Northbridge venue PICA Bar have joined a new campaign to convince the state government to save the popular bar from possible closure. Owners Melissa Bowen and Brian Buckley and their 15 employees have worked in limbo since learning last month their sublease from the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts would soon end. They have since been granted an extension on the lease until March while the Department of Culture and the Arts puts the sublease for the space at the Perth Cultural Centre out for EOIs, despite PICA Bar driving the centre's revival since Ms Bowen and Mr Buckley took over the derelict space in 2012. Support for the bar to remain open has come far and wide from across WA and from nearby hospitality competitors after a mystery donor launched a creative 'Save Pica' campaign. He said he had confidence Imams were doing the right thing in their religious teachings and how their influenced their communities. If youre an Imam or a leader in one of those communities, you need to know who those people are in your community that might be doing that. They are the infiltrators, Mr Morrison told Sky News on Monday following last week's deadly Bourke Street terrorism attack. Mr Morrison has doubled down on previous calls for Muslim leaders to be more proactive, saying on Monday that security agencies and police couldn't monitor everyone and it was therefore up to communities to spot infiltrators who are spreading extremism. Prime Minister Scott Morrison says some Muslim leaders clearly dont know enough about radical influences in their midst and has urged them not to look the other way, in an escalation of his demands on Islamic communities in the wake of Friday's terror attack in Melbourne. But asked whether they knew who the extremists in their communities were, he said: In many cases they will, and what Im saying is you cant look the other way. Asked whether leaders knew what was going on in their communities, he said: Clearly not. Clearly not. I think many are, but more needs to happen in this area and I want to work with the Muslim community across Australia. As questions continued about why Bourke Street attacker Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was not regarded as a threat despite having had his passport cancelled in 2015 because he wanted to fight with Islamic State in Syria, Mr Morrison said that with 400 priority ASIO investigations and about 230 people stripped of their passports, not all of them can be under observation all the time. Asked whether such low-tech attacks would become something Australians would simply have to live with, Mr Morrison said: What we have to live with is the understanding that the only way that youre going to be able to thwart something like this with an individual that was exhibiting no greater level of agitation than the other 399 on the list that had done nothing to elevate their status in the view of agencies who examine this stuff very, very carefully, what you rely on is the relationship with the community and understanding whats going on. My encouragement to the Muslim and religious communities across Australia is, I think, to raise the level of awareness and alertness and to raise the level of proactivity - both members of that community and the leaders of that community because their community is the one thats being infiltrated and we have to say that because its true and it presents a real risk to the safety of Australians and themselves and their own children." Two new parties registered this year have excellent chances of making the new council, after getting indulgent treatment from the other micro-parties in the deals masterminded by preference whisperer Glenn Druery. The disparate crossbenchers could increase their grip on Victoria's upper house Legislative Council with good chances of winning seats in all eight regions, under group voting tickets revealed on Monday. In the Eastern Metropolitan region, for example, the little-known Transport Matters party founded by hire car owner Rod Barton has been allocated second preferences by nine of the other 17 parties in the race, including Labor. ABC analyst Antony Green estimated yesterday that Barton could be elected with as little as 0.31 per cent of the vote. A similar set of deals in South-Eastern Metropolitan could see medico Dr Ali Khan elected for the party. And another preference swag could see Carrum Downs life coach Stuart ONeill elected in the western suburbs as leader of the Aussie Battler party. 'Preference whisperer' Glenn Druery. Credit:Andrew Meares All but one of the 18 parties standing appear to have been involved in some way in the deals organised by Mr Druery, now chief of staff to Senator Derryn Hinch, and the mathematical talent who has installed many clients into Australian parliaments after winning few votes but many preferences. The group voting tickets, now abolished everywhere except Victoria and Western Australia, allow voters to simply tick a box above the line, allowing the parties to allocate their preferences. In 2014, Team Druery won five of the 40 Council seats that way. "A lot of people here are have-a-go people, but you shouldn't just assume that everyone has benefitted from the mining boom. "There's plenty of pockets of disadvantage as well." Mr Shorten said he had done the hard yards to understand the state, and had travelled outside Perth as much as possible to understand why the GST distribution was such an hot issue. On the verge of a Labor landslide Judging by the numbers, Mr Shorten's WA campaign strategy appears to be paying dividends. The only published polls of Western Australian voting intentions indicate the Liberals are headed for their worst primary vote drubbing in a generation. While that may not translate into a landslide of seats, it will certainly put a dent in the dominance enjoyed by the Liberal party in the west since the 1990s. Mr Shorten appears to have shaved off much of the advantage his opponents have enjoyed in WA since John Howard was Prime Minister. Next time around, Labor is hoping to pick up at least three seats in the west, but more importantly, are competitive enough to put some of the Liberal party's next generation of leaders under pressure, if not into electoral oblivion. Ken Wyatt in Hasluck, Steve Irons in Swan and Christian Porter in Pearce are all in Labor's firing line. Mr Porter, a formidable parliamentary performer and prospective federal Liberal leader, is high on the list of Labor targets and Mr Shorten has campaigned in the seat just about every time he has been to the west. University of Notre Dame political analyst Martin Drum said many of these seats were competitive for Labor for the first time in a long while and Labor was looking to inflict some damage on the Liberal party's front bench. "If you look at the WA marginals, the first most marginal seat is Hasluck," Dr Drum said. "It's the 10th most marginal seat [in Australia], so actually they can lose nine seats before they get to a single WA seat. "A lot of those seats are in Queensland, so that's going to be a massive battle ground, but the most marginal seats in WA, the seat of Hasluck and the seat of Pearce, they're both held by ministers, and the fate of Ken Wyatt and Christian Porter will be the interesting story in WA on election night." Mr Shorten would also be hoping to supplement his own ranks with new talent, including Hannah Beazley in Swan, who would be the third generation of her family to be in federal parliament, after her father, now governor, Kim Beazley and grandfather Kim Beazley, Snr. "I think they're trying to give themselves the best possible shot of really putting a long-term dent in the Liberals' fortress here," Dr Drum said. "One thing you can't deny about Shorten is that he has done a fair bit of work campaigning-wise, hasn't he. "I mean, he gets around." Time for the big picture? Mr Shorten flew into Perth last week to face a Liberal party attack on Labor's negative gearing policies. Speaking to Fairfax Media, he seemed frustrated his media stops for the day would be hijacked what he thought was misinformation about changes to the decades-old tax breaks for property investors. He said people were "hungry for a deeper debate about the future". "We've taken some strong positions on a couple of economic reforms, such as on the multinationals and negative gearing," Mr Shorten said. "There'll be some people who won't like that, but what I'm able to do is explain how I'm paying for my promises, I can explain that my vision is for what Australia should be like in the 2030s, not just Monday. "I've got a vision that sees Australia as pre-eminent in the Indo-pacific, we should have the best pre-school system in the world, we should have the best hospitals, we should have the best universities, the best TAFEs, we should tackle inequality, we should be on the front foot on climate change." Loading He predicted home ownership would be an important campaign theme. "I think keeping the great Australian dream of a first home alive is important," the opposition leader said. "I'm determined that on election night, we put forward all the ideas we have and that we won't be a government who gets elected and says 'now what do we do'. People will know what we stand for and our values, we're fair dinkum Labor." A built-for-WA campaign? Mr Shorten said he could see a different campaign unfolding in WA than the rest of the country. "It's entirely possible that for the first time in a long time, the election results in Western Australia could determine the direction of the nation, that's one thing," he said. "We've got all our candidates in place, we've got a lot of strong women running, that's a feature of our campaign. "I think that the treatment of Julie Bishop hasn't been well received in the west. "I think the division and instability in the Liberal party has got people really cheesed off. I couldn't have predicted this over five years ago when I became leader, but we're now the party of stability and we've got the runs on the board there." Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, the Liberal party's point man in WA, said he doubted Mr Shorten would win over the west no matter how often he came to the state. "Bill Shortens destructive, anti-business, anti-aspiration, politics of envy driven high taxing agenda would make our country and our state weaker, would put jobs at risk and hurt families wanting to get ahead," he said. "Contrast that with Scott Morrison, who is the architect of our plan to deliver a fairer, better deal for Western Australia on the GST." Yangon: Amnesty International has withdrawn its most prestigious human rights prize from Aung San Suu Kyi, accusing the Myanmar leader of perpetuating human rights abuses by not speaking out about violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Once hailed as a champion in the fight for democracy, Suu Kyi has been stripped of a series of international honours over a Rohingya exodus that began in August 2017. Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Credit:AP More than 700,000 members of the mostly stateless group fled across Myanmar's western border into Bangladesh after the Myanmar military launched a crackdown in response to Rohingya insurgent attacks on the security forces. UN-mandated investigators have accused the military of unleashing a campaign of killings, rape and arson with "genocidal intent". Ankara: Turkey's foreign minister has reacted with fury after his French counterpart said President Tayyip Erdogan was playing a political game over sharing intelligence about the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. Credit:AP French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had questioned Erdogan's weekend remarks that Turkey gave tapes relating to Khashoggi's killing to the United States, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France and Britain. Le Drian said he was not aware that France had any tapes. Asked if Erdogan was lying, he said: "He has a political game to play in these circumstances". That prompted a furious response from Ankara. Democrats, who have accused Scott and Republican attorneys of voter suppression, reacted harshly. Mark Herron, an election lawyer who represented Al Gore in the 2000 presidential recount, called Scott's push to involve state police an "abuse of power." Joe Geller, a Miami state representative and election lawyer called it an "extraordinary" and unwarranted request, although courts in New York recently ordered ballots impounded in a congressional race at the request of Democratic frontrunner Anthony Brindisi. Scott's campaigns filed the lawsuits - including a third that seeks to invalidate any ballots counted in Broward after Saturday's deadline to submit unofficial results - as elections departments around the state hustled Sunday to try and meet a 3pm Thursday deadline to recount the ballots cast during the state's midterm elections. Recounts were also ordered in contests for governor and commissioner of agriculture due to a state law that requires a machine recount for any statewide election decided by a half of a percentage point or less. In Georgia, Republican Brian Kemp's campaign didn't have any immediate comment on the Abrams lawsuit, filed over alleged problems in populous Gwinnett and DeKalb counties in metro Atlanta. But Kemp aides previously said Abrams has no path to victory and called her refusal to concede a "disgrace to democracy." Filed a lawsuit: Georgia candidate Stacey Abrams. Credit:AP Abrams' campaign manager, Lauren Groh-Wargo, said the state's numbers can't be trusted and that 5000 votes came in Saturday that previously were unknown. "This race is not over," she said on a conference call with reporters. "It's still too close to call." Abrams hopes to become the nation's first black woman elected governor, while Kemp is trying to maintain GOP dominance in a diversifying state that could be important in the presidential election in two years. The campaigns disagree how many votes remain to be counted. But no matter which side is right, it's clear Abrams is trailing and only a limited number of ballots are left to close the gap. "So her margin in those uncounted votes needs to be really high," Jeffrey Lazarus, who teaches political science at Georgia State University, said Sunday in an interview conducted by email. "To put it simply, she's running out of votes." Starting on Saturday, Miami-Dade had employees working 24 hours a day to finish the process. Broward and Palm Beach have struggled. Machine troubles delayed the start of Broward's recount operations until late Sunday morning. The Palm Beach Post reported that Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher warned this weekend that Thursday's deadline will be "impossible" to meet, presenting the possibility that her unofficial results provided to the state on Saturday will stand. Loading Interjecting state and local police into the mix could complicate the timeline. "In suing to seize ballots and impound voting machines, Rick Scott is doing his best to impersonate Latin American dictators who have overthrown Democracies in Venezuela and Cuba," said Florida Democratic Party Executive Director Juan Penalosa in an emailed statement on Sunday evening. "The governor is using his position to consolidate power by cutting at the very core of our democracy." But missteps by Bucher and Snipes, at the very least, have opened the door to warranted skepticism. Scott last week won court orders from judges in both counties after he alleged in lawsuits that Bucher was improperly conducting activities involving ballots in private that should have been performed in front of the canvassing board, the body responsible for overseeing the ballot-counting process and ruling on ballots of questionable validity. Snipes, who has been repeatedly slapped by judges over gaffes in recent years, was ordered by a judge to provide information related to uncounted ballots and issues after she repeatedly declined to provide basic details about her operations to the press or the candidates. Snipes' staff also managed to mix up 22 invalid provisional ballots with 183 valid ones this week, and included the votes deemed illegitimate by the Broward County canvassing board in her unofficial vote total to the state. In a conference call with reporters, Tim Cerio, an elections attorney representing Scott in South Florida, noted that the only reasons the problematic ballots were discovered in the first place is because attorneys observing the canvassing board demanded that Snipes present the ballots to the board. "We're going to stand up to those who would violate the law and particularly those with a rampant history of voter fraud," said U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, chairman of the Republican Senate campaign committee. The recounted vote tallies in South Florida could prove crucial in the ongoing recounts. Once recounted vote tallies are submitted to the state on Thursday, any races still within one quarter of 1 per cent will be subject to an automatic hand recount, during which so-called "under-votes" and "over-votes" - ballots in which voters chose too few or too many candidates - will be reviewed ballot by ballot by canvassing boards. While former Congressman Ron DeSantis is far enough ahead of Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum that a hand recount is unlikely to occur in the race for governor, Scott and Nelson are expecting to continue fighting on into the weekend. Hand recount tallies would be due by November 18. And South Florida, a heavily Democratic region of the state, contains more than 35,000 ballots that are considered under-votes in the Senate race. Nelson's campaign is also fighting to include ballots rejected over signature mismatches in voting totals. With so much attention paid to Broward County, protesters have been virtually camped outside Snipes' Lauderhill office for three days. An angry crowd shouted down Florida Sen. Perry Thurston and Florida Democratic Party attorney Mitchell Berger when they appeared in a make-shift "free speech zone" designated in the parking lot outside to address the media Sunday afternoon. "Everyone wants these votes counted," Berger said, arguing that hundreds of mail-in ballots were caught up in an Opa-locka mail centre and not counted due to a federal investigation of the Aventura man who sent more than a dozen pipe bombs to Democrats around the state. "Fake news," someone shouted. "More Democratic lies," another yelled. Berger said he and a Republican counterpart, lawyer William Scherer representing Scott's senate campaign, both observed the recount process Sunday morning and decided it was all above board. "We both agree there's no fraud going on," he said, to jeers and laughter. Inside Snipes' headquarters, Eugene Pettis, attorney for Broward's Supervisor of Elections office, said there will be a hearing in front of a judge sometime Monday to discuss the issue of ballot and voting machine custody. Washington: Senator Sherrod Brown said on Monday that he is weighing a presidential bid, potentially joining what is expected to be a large field of Democrats seeking to topple President Donald Trump in 2020. Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio. Credit:Zach Gibson Brown, from Ohio, who won reelection to the Senate last week, told Cleveland.com that he thinks his message of worker empowerment during his campaign can serve as a blueprint for Democrats trying to win back the White House. "My message clearly appeals to Democrats, Republicans and independents," Brown said. "We showed you can get votes by being authentic and standing up for workers. People in Washington don't understand the dignity of work." In a swing state, Brown won more than 53 per cent of the vote against his Republican challenger, Representative James B. Renacci, Ohio, who was closely aligned with Trump. Los Angeles: Devastating wildfires in California, which have now claimed 44 lives, are burning an area equivalent to almost half of Sydney's urban zone. Authorities confirmed today they had found 13 more bodies in the ruins of of Paradise, the small northern Calfornian town worst affected by the fires. A sign still stands at a McDonald's in the northern California town of Paradise. Credit:AP That confirmation brings the total to 42 dead in northern California; in addition two people have been confirmed dead in the southern California fires. Authorities say at least 228 people are still missing as support services struggle to manage the more than a quarter of a million people who have been evacuated in the last four days. Wellington: New Zealand's government has announced it will investigate the abuse of children in the care of religious organisations. The Labour-led coalition government has this year been preparing to launch a royal commission into the historical abuse of children in state care, but on Monday announced the inquest would also cover those abused in the care of "faith-based institutions". Since the initial announcement there would be a state inquiry, numerous survivors and organisations have publicly come forward, strongly urging the government to ensure it also covered churches. "We had to listen.": New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Credit:AP "It was very hard to ignore the strength of feeling that came through ... We had to listen," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters. The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] Latest News Big Four reports suggest radical changes in home buying trends Both NAB and CBA have released data that suggests that Covid and housing affordability crisis have drastically altered how people buy property in Australia Brokers are leading customers away from the Big Four, says research The broker channel is sending more clients than ever away from the Big Four and customers are loving them for it The new CEO at Yellow Brick Road has announced a number of new appointments to help grow the business. Frank Ganis was announced as CEO at the end of October. His new appointments include former head of broker at Aussie Home Loans, Stephen McKenzie. McKenzie will now take on the role of general manager, operations. At Aussie he was head of broker and customer services as well as deputy chief financial officer. Ganis also announced Michael Abboud as the head of RESI Lending business. Abboud joins from Macquarie Group where he served as the national partnership manager for YBR Group and had oversight of YBR Retail as well as Vow Financial. His role will help to increase the groups footprint and new business flows both internally across YBR Retail and Vow but also external platforms of Connective, FAST and Choice. A third appointment announced by Ganis is Jason Knauer, who is the new Queensland and South Australia state manager for YBR Retail. Knauer previously served as area manager for QLD and WA with CBAs Home Lending Solutions department and was regional manager with Mortgage Choice prior to that. Ganis said that getting the right people into key positions was the strategic agenda he had set for the company. He said, Recruiting the best people is a key must-do in our play-to-win strategy and now that we have the best people in the correct places, we are set to successfully execute on our strategic agenda and propel the business forward. YBR also recently announced Clive Kirkpatrick to lead the sale and distribution of lending products and Adam Youkhana to lead the sale and distribution of wealth products across the business. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC Officials on Oct. 30 announced they will stop BrooklynManhattan L-train service on April 27, 2019, to begin their 15-month repairs of the subways East Riverspanning tube, roughly six and a half years after the infrastructure sustained significant damage during superstorm Sandy (Final countdown: L-pocalypse to begin April 27 of next year, MTA says by Julianne Cuba, online Oct. 30). The bi-borough L train will make its last run across the River on Fri. April 26, and the next day will begin its Brooklyn-only routes between Bedford Avenue station and Canarsie, forcing the roughly 250,000 who ride it to the outer borough daily to find other ways onto the distant isle until the second half of 2020. Readers shared their concerns: One of the biggest question marks about this shutdown is whether the streets will be flooded with inexperienced and veteran bike riders who cant be bothered to obey traffic laws, ride at night without lights (while wearing black, of course, because theyre so cool), race along on sidewalks, and basically act like entitled a- on two wheels. Yes, cars suck. And so do many, many, many of the bicyclists one encounters on a daily basis throughout NYC. Benny from Park Slope Just take alternate subway lines or use the buses. There are plenty of ways to getting around when you cant use the L line itself. Some of you are just blowing this out of proportion. If you dont know what other ways to get around, then just use a subway or bus map to plan your route for the time being. Also, take extra time so that it wont be a factor when using said new route.Tal Barzilai from Pleasantville, NY Ill be not surprised if there is 24-7, 365-day overcrowding on all of the subway lines that connects with the L train in some capacity during this shutdown. In addition, therell be overcrowding on the shuttle bus system between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Its all hands on deck, thats for sure.The Hunkster from Bed-Stuy Mayor DeBlasio shot down Borough President Adamss call for off-duty and retired police officers to bring their weapons to their houses of worship (Showdown: Hizzoner butts head with beep over his call for armed off-duty cops in houses of worship by Kevin Duggan, online Nov 2). A DeBlasio spokeswoman told this paper that Hizzoner does not believe that having more firearms in places of worship will solve the problem, and that he trusts the citys police department to keep congregants safe. Borough President Adams called on off-duty and retired police officers to bring their weapons to their places of worship at a press conference in Midwood on Oct. 28, in response to a mass shooting that killed 11 worshippers and wounded several more at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27. Our readers debated the issue: Is there anyone dumber than DeBlasio in this city? Homey from Crooklyn I dont always agree with the borough president, but at least he is suggesting that previously trained people and are licensed to carry weapons do so. I also agree that the NYPD is very good at evaluating threats, but not perfect.Frank from Furter More guns do NOT make people safer! What a terrible suggestion. There are too many guns already. This will only make people more nervous and less safe. Michael from Bay Ridge I sometimes think Chirlaine grinds stupid pills into Duhblahsios morning protein shake. But I am too harsh. After all, he is the leader of a progressive movement in his own mind. By contrast, Eric Adams lives in the real world and relates to peoples legitimate concerns. This practical suggestion happens anyway, as most off-duty cops always carry. Mustache Pete from Windsor Terrace This is a terrible idea and a way-out-of-proportion response. No cops in churches unless they are there to arrest child molesters. Joey from Clinton Hills Adams is right on; if you are a retired cop, active cop, or security professional, bring your gun into houses of worship and take care of problems when they arise. WTF does DeBlasio care? He has security. Brooklyn from Bed-Stuy What percentage of retired cop(s), active cop(s) or security professional(s) are Jewish? Mathematician from Brooklyn A Bensonhurst assemblyman blasted the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for spending more than $40 million to install countdown clocks and make other cosmetic changes to a subway station in his district instead of fixing chronic problems such as leaks and mold (Train wreck: MTAs million-dollar makeover of Kings Highway hub didnt fix problems, pol says, by Julianne McShane, online Nov. 5). Assemblyman William Colton (DBensonhurst) accused leaders of the state-run agency of wasting money on unnecessary aesthetic enhancements that do nothing to solve the issues riders of the beleaguered subway system face every day at Gravesends Kings Highway station. Readers gave their two-cents: The MTA is still not going our own way, thats for sure. The Hunkster from Bed-Stuy No money made in fixing leaks and nuisance problems. The money is being made and doing big-ticket item fixing. $40 million sounds about right.Bob from Gerritsen Beach Happy birthday! To the editor, Happy 114th anniversary to the New York City subway system! On Oct. 27, 1904, the first subway line running nine miles from City Hall to 145th Street opened to the public. More than 150,000 riders payed a five-cent fare. The original BMT (Brooklyn Manhattan Rapid Transit todays B, D, J, M, N, Q, R, and Z lines) and IRT (Interboro Rapid Transit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Franklin Avenue and Times Square shuttles) systems were constructed and managed by the private sector with no government operating subsidies. Financial viability was 100 percent dependent upon farebox revenues. They supported both development and economic growth of numerous neighborhoods in the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Queens. As part of the franchise agreement which owners had to sign, City Hall had direct control over the fare structure. For a period of time, owners actually make a profit with a five-cent fare. After two decades passed, the costs of salaries, maintenance, power, supplies, and equipment would pressure owners to ask City Hall for permission to raise the fares. This additional revenue was needed to keep up with maintaining a good state of repair, increase the frequency of service, purchase new subway cars, pay employee salary increases, and support planned system expansion. Politicians more interested in the next re-election (and subscribing to the old Roman philosophy of free bread and circuses) refused this request each year for well over a decade. As a result, in order to survive, owners of both systems began looking elsewhere to reduce costs and stay in business. They started curtailing basic maintenance, delayed purchases of new subway cars, postponed salary increases for employees, canceled any plans for system expansion, and cut corners to survive. (Does any of this sound familiar today?) In 1932, the city began building and financing construction of the new IND (Independent Subway todays A, C, E, F, and G lines). This new municipal system subsidized by taxpayers dollars would provide direct competition to both the IRT and BMT. Municipal government forced them into economic ruin by denying them fare increases that would have provided access to additional badly needed revenues. Big Brother, just like the Godfather, eventually made them an offer they couldnt refuse. The owners folded in 1940 and sold out to City Hall. In 1953, the old NYC Board of Transportation passed on control of the municipal subway system, including all its assets, to the newly created NYC Transit Authority. Larry Penner Great Neck Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC State transit officials must install an elevator at Park Slopes Seventh Avenue subway station as part of their recently unveiled plan to make more hubs accessible across the city, locals and pols demanded. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority must include the Seventh Avenue station in any plans for accessibility upgrades, Councilman Brad Lander (DPark Slope) said at a Friday rally outside the station. Lander called on the head of the state-run agencys local arm, New York City Transit chief Andy Byford, to include the F and G train hub as one of the 50 across the city set to receive accessibility upgrades including elevators as part of the $40-billion so-called Fast Forward plan to modernize the beleaguered system that he revealed in May. Byford, who said no New Yorker should live further than two stops away from an accessible station in announcing his plan, has yet to name the locations that will be improved. And Lander said the Seventh Avenue station deserves to be at the top of the list, due to its proximity to Methodist Hospitals main campus just down the street as well as the hospitals new outpatient-care facility set to open on Sixth Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues in 2020 and the Park Slope Center for Successful Aging, which serves more than 4,000 oldsters each year. Atlantic Terminal station is currently the areas nearest elevator-equipped hub, so bringing an elevator to Seventh Avenue would go a long way to opening Brooklyn and beyond to the neighborhoods disabled residents, who now must schedule trips with transportation service Access-a-Ride 24 hours in advance just to get around, according to one handicapped mom. Theres a lot more New York has to offer that I would like to take advantage of, said Aisling Wharton, who lives two blocks from Seventh Avenue station, and is scooter bound due to chronic-fatigue syndrome. The Fast Forward plan is not funded, however, and many locals are concerned that its $40-billion price tag underestimates its actual cost, which Park Slopes Assemblyman suggested is closer to $60 billion. I think Andy Byford is very well intentioned, but his Fast Forward plan right now is a 70-page Power Point presentation its not a budget and it is not detailed, Carroll said. Lander promised to scrounge up whatever cash he can to help foot the estimated $30-million bill to install an elevator at Seventh Avenue station, but admitted whatever he may contribute from his discretionary budget would only be a drop in the bucket. The volume thats needed is going to be a lot bigger than what we can do from a Council account, and the most important thing is its part of a real, systemic approach from the MTA, the councilman said. The subway system predates the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, meaning that only new stations are legally required to be made accessible. But the Authority is currently fighting a class-action lawsuit filed last year on behalf of six organizations for disabled people and several handicapped individuals, which could potentially require all stations be made accessible, according to a plaintiff in the suit, Joe Rappaport, who is also the executive director of the Brooklyn Center For Independence of the Disabled. And until a settlement is reached that legally requires the state-run agency to make all hubs accessible, Rappaport is skeptical about any promise including the Fast Forward plans pledge to bring elevators to some 50 stations that isnt backed by cold hard cash. I guess you could say, without a legally binding statement, theres just no guarantee that these stations, or any others will be made accessible, he said. Research News UB professor using podcasts to connect Native American teachings with STEM education By GINA MARIE CIAPPINA If you want people to learn science, then it is important that we align the science material with their epistemology. As with many indigenous communities, Native American students often find contemporary science teaching methods challenging because they conflict with the traditional way these students learn. Native Americans traditionally gather knowledge through their oral tradition of storytelling, while most academic institutions follow the Western scientific methods. Thus, Native American students often find STEM educational experiences in institutions ranging from middle schools through higher education isolating and inaccessible. Sameer Honwad, assistant professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction in UBs Graduate School of Education, is trying to find an answer to this problem. Honwads approach is to use podcasts as a catalyst for Native American students to communicate their STEM-related research orally, rather than using Western academic methods, such as written research papers. Given that Native Americans have an oral tradition, they are oftentimes hindered by the fact that in Western systems, you write a lot, he says. How can we get Native American students to be interested in science research? We believe if the students can build stories about environmental problems in their community using Western scientific data combined with traditional knowledge, they would be more interested in pursuing science careers. Honwad is the principal investigator on a $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation for his Voices to Hear (V2H) project in which Native American students will create podcasts to tackle environmental issues. At the same time, these podcasts will build in these students a stronger wisdom and awareness of their ethnic identity, Honwad and his fellow researchers say. The collaborative grant awards $473,261 to Honwad and $869,744 to his fellow researchers at the University of Idaho and the Coeur dAlene Tribe in Idaho. Creating a podcast aligns with the oral traditions of Native American tribes, and also reinforces academic research, Honwad explains, noting that it involves identifying an idea, collecting data, analyzing that data and then having a discussion about it. These are all elements in writing a research paper, he says, except that a podcast tells a story. The students podcasts will be broadcast over the main tribal radio station of the Coeur dAlene Tribe, so they must be high quality, Honwad says. I love podcasts, he adds. Two of my favorites are This American Life and Radiolab. This grant has merged a lot of my passions and interests together. Honwads research focuses on how best to teach young people to solve environmental problems in their communities. The process of environmental problem-solving requires material to be aligned with the students epistemology his or her way of knowing and thinking. Each cultural group has different epistemology, he says. For example, I am Indian (Honwad grew up in Mumbai, India), so the way I go about collecting knowledge is very different from people from other parts of the world. Thus, if you want people to learn science, then it is important that we align the science material with their epistemology. Given that Native American epistemology is different, the STEM that is presented to them has to be aligned with their ways of knowing and thinking, Honwad says. Knowing the processes of how different cultural groups generate knowledge requires researchers to be embedded within those cultural groups for several years. Unless you have a long-term partnership, unless you are embedded in the community, you cant know how they construct knowledge. Honwad, who joined the UB faculty this semester, hopes that his skills in community partnership building can be useful in creating long-term, equitable partnerships with Native American tribes from upstate or Western New York. He is a co-principal investigator on another NSF grant that is bringing together elementary school teachers and cooperative extension science volunteers in New Hampshire in a community-based professional development partnership to improve the educators science knowledge and instructional practice. As a part of the V2H grant, Honwad also plans to build a mentoring model to support retention of Native American college students. We are building a mentorship model where undergraduate students instead of adults guide the younger students in making podcasts and investigating community problems, he says. Undergraduate students mentoring high school and middle school students will provide a more relatable experience to the younger students. They are closer to undergrads in age, so the middle and high school students could see where they can possibly end up in five years. For V2H, Honwad is looking to recruit 10 undergrad students, preferably from the Pacific Northwest, to work directly with researchers. They will be trained to investigate an environmental problem in their community, make podcasts, and mentor middle and high school Native American students. The researchers are also open to any Western New York Native American students interested in talking part in this project. My door is always open, Honwad says. I love to collaborate, and the possibility of expanding V2H to Western New York is exciting. We are hoping these students in the coming years will be able to assess a problem in their community, investigate it and then make small podcasts about their research, he says. This will provide Native American students with an understanding of pathways to a diverse set of career opportunities in STEM-related subjects, while continuing their sacred traditional teachings. For more information on the Voices to Hear project, visit the projects website. Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. 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Digital Editor The government told the Supreme Court on Monday that 74 meetings of the Indian Negotiating Team (INT) took place, including 26 with the French side, from May 2015 to April 2016 on the deal. INT was constituted to negotiate the terms and conditions of the procurement of 36 aircraft. The INT was headed by the Deputy Chief of Air Staff (DCAS) of IAF and comprised of the Joint Secretary & Acquisition Manager (Air); Joint Secretary (Defence Offset Management Wing); Joint Secretary & Additional Financial Advisor; Finance Manager (Air); Advisor (Cost) and Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Plans) as members from Indian Government side. The French side was headed by the Director General of Armament (DGA), Ministry of Defense, Government of France, it said. "Negotiations between INT and the French side started in May 2015 and continued up to April 2016. A total of 74 meetings, which included 48 internal INT meetings and 26 external INT meetings with French side were held during the negotiations. "As mandated by the Defence Acquisition Council, the INT undertook a collegiate process involving due deliberations and diligence at various levels during the negotiations. Aspects pertaining to the responsibility and obligations of French Government, pricing, delivery schedule, maintenance terms, offsets, IGA terms, etc. were discussed and negotiated during these meetings," the Centre told the top court. India signed an agreement with France for the purchase of 36 fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of the upgrading process of the equipment. The estimated cost of the deal is Rs 58,000 crore. A reference to the (RSS) in the Congress's manifesto continued to be at the centre of a spat between the opposition party and the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) ahead of elections in Madhya Pradesh. State Congress chief on Monday accused the BJP of "distorting" the reference in the manifesto to divert public attention, prompting Chief Minister to say the opposition party was "nursing an ego". "The is an organisation of patriots and every nationalist and government staffer can attend its shakhas. The Congress is nursing an ego," said Chouhan at Khargone. He said he had lifted a ban on government staffers attending shakhas. Jyotiraditya Scindia, who is the Congress's chief whip in the Lok Sabha and who was speaking in Khargone, said religion should not be mixed with politics. "Our intention is that politics should be kept away from religion. This is our old line of thinking. The Congress, (in order) to see that no government employee joins a political organisation, has raised the issue in its Vachan Patra (manifesto)," he said. Speaking at Khargone, state BJP chief Rakesh Singh took a swipe at senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, without naming him, by saying that the opposition party spoke about banning the RSS, while calling terrorist Osama bin Laden "Osamaji". At Indore, the BJP's chief whip in the Lok Sabha, Anurag Thakur, said, "The ancestors of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, despite holding big posts at the Centre, could not ban the RSS. So, how can his (Gandhi's) party fulfil its poll promise in Madhya Pradesh? The Congress should stop bothering about the RSS." Earlier in the day, Nath said, "The BJP is intentionally fanning the RSS issue to divert people's attention from the public welfare issues mentioned in our Vachan Patra (document of pledges). In our manifesto, we have not said the RSS will be banned, nor do we have any such intention." He asserted that neither the party nor he himself had said the RSS would be banned. The Congress manifesto, released Saturday, under a head titled "Administrative Reforms", reads, "The holding of RSS shakhas on government premises would be banned and the order regarding the relaxation given to public servants to attend those will be revoked." The Congress government had banned RSS activities on government premises in Madhya Pradesh in 1981. The ban was revived in 2000 by then chief minister Digvijay Singh under the Civil Services Conduct Rule, senior journalist Rakesh Dixit said. Thereafter, he said, the ban continued under BJP chief ministers Uma Bharti and Babulal Gaur, before incumbent Chief Minister Chouhan lifted it in September 2006, describing the RSS as a "socio-cultural organisation and not a political outfit". "The BJP is trying to put words in our mouth. The RSS is free to hold its shakhas (classes) except on government premises. People will decide whether the RSS is a cultural or political organisation. We do not want to get into it," Nath clarified. The Congress leader accused the BJP of intentionally trying to create confusion so that the "people-friendly" points in the Congress manifesto were ignored. "The public is intelligent, it will not get carried away with such tactics," he said. The Chhindwara MP said the Congress had incorporated the RSS issue in its manifesto after getting reports that the shakhas being held in tribal hostels and other government schools were hampering studies. On the Ram temple issue, he said the BJP raised it whenever polls drew close. "Where was the BJP for the last four-and-a-half years? When elections are round the corner and six months are left for it (the 2019 Lok Sabha polls), the BJP is remembering the Ram temple," Nath said, adding that the saffron party was running a smear campaign claiming that the Congress was against the (building of) Ram temple. "This (the RSS point in the Congress manifesto) is not an issue. I know (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and (BJP president) Amit Shah very well. They turn a non-issue into an issue," Congress spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil told reporters here. On Sunday, in a hurriedly-convened press conference, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra had claimed that the Congress believed in "mandir nahin banane denge, shakha nahin lagne denge (won't allow the temple, won't allow shakhas)". "These are the very people who had earlier said Lord Ram did not exist, that he was a mythical character. That is why they were opposed to the construction of the Ram temple," he had said. The 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly will go to the polls on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11. The government told the on Monday state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) failed to become an offset partner in the deal, as it had unresolved issues with French company Dassault. The government, in documents submitted before the top, said the issues pertained to lack of common understanding between and Dassault Aviation. "The contract negotiations could not conclude mainly due to unresolved issues related to 108 aircraft to be manufactured in India. These issues pertained to lack of common understanding between and Dassault Aviation on following," the documents said. It said required "2.7 times higher man-hours compared to the French side for the manufacture of aircraft in India". The Congress party, the country's main Opposition, claims Dassault was pressurised by the government to do away with HAL as strategic offset partner. Referring to earlier aborted deal, the document said Dassault was required to undertake necessary contractual obligation for 126 aircraft (18 direct flyaway and 108 aircraft manufactured in India) as per request for proposal requirements and contractual issues with HAL on manufacturing of 108 jets in India could not be resolved. The submissions were made in the document titled "Details of the steps in the decision-making process leading to the award of 36 fighter aircraft order", which were made public by the Centre on Monday. The inter-government agreement (IGA) was signed by the defence ministers of both countries on Sept 23, 2016. Congress President Rahul Gandhi has been accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of forcing the French company to select a Reliance group firm of Anil Ambani as an offset partner to help it "pocket" Rs 30,000 crore. Congress has also alleged the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by UPA government when it was negotiating a deal for procurement of 126 Rafale jets. However, the document, placed by the NDA government, said, "It is reiterated that the procurement process as laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP)-2013 was followed in procurement of 36 Rafale aircraft. Army chief Bipin Rawat on Monday said while the government's policy was that those triggering terrorism in Kashmir should be neutralised, the Army's focus was to ensure that the Kashmiri youths do not join The Army chief said infiltration was going on from across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. "The government has a clear-cut policy that it will not allow terrorists to create violence. Anybody who creates violence will be neutralised," he told reporters here. Rawat, who was on a two-day visit to Pathankot, presided over a conclave of disabled soldiers here. "Our focus is terrorists in the valley. The basic aim of the Army is to ensure that young boys do not join militancy," he said. Rawat said the Army's aim was that it approached the youth's family and told them that they could ask the youth to surrender as it was still giving them a chance. "Then if the people still do not behave and continue with violence, then the alternative left (with us) is to neutralise them," the Army chief said. ALSO READ: Kashmiri migrant pandit youths stage protest outside Raj Bhavan Asked whether India is following a tit-for-tat policy towards Pakistan, which was resulting in many casualties, Rawat said the policy keeps on changing. "See we have to keep changing the policy...We have to keep doing something different. It has to be reviewed so that we keep ahead of an adversary," he said, adding that it had to be more than a tit-for-tat policy. He said what the Indian Army was doing along the LoC was not being put into the public domain and they were doing more than Pakistan. "We do not want to blow our trumpet unnecessarily. Whenever they do something, it is given a befitting reply. Whenever they are doing something, it is a reaction. They don't take initiative. They know we are strong and we can take strong action," he said. The Army chief said Pakistan kept sending terrorists to cause damage and ultimately it led to violence against the people. "Kashmiris are our people. We have to look after them," he said, adding Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions were part of the country and violence would not be allowed there. On sniping, Rawat said it was a regular affair and there was nothing new in it. ALSO READ: Sikh organisation demands probe into govt packages for Kashmiri Pandits "Pakistan have got snipers and India also has snipers. It is subject to exposure of any soldier. Our drills should be good and we have to ensure that we do not give them any opportunity to snipe at us," he said. On former chief minister Omar Abdullah and Kashmiri politicians advocating for dialogue instead of muscular policy, Rawat said the government had a clear policy that it would not allow terrorist to create violence. He said it had already initiated dialogue through an interlocutor with the people. "The government has tasked an interlocutor to speak to the people in the valley. Dineshwar Sharma is saying that he is open to everybody and those interested in talking to him can come up and speak to him," he added. "I don't understand who is saying talks are not going on. Sharma is the government's interlocutor. If the people are not listening to him, what can he do," he asked. He said they were holding indirect talks to see if they could approach stakeholders. "What makes us think that necessary action by the government is not being taken to bring people into the mainstream", Rawat questioned. He said infiltration attempts were being made from across the border but the Army was out to foil them. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In the general elections next year, Twitter is likely to be the biggest campaign manager for political parties or at least thats what its Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey would like. During his maiden visit to India, the 41-year-old, nose ring-sporting Dorsey wants to experience everything, according to a tweet he posted on November 10. He might do a few touristy things going to Jaipur, or getting his ring pulled by the Dalai Lama but his six-day trip has other things on the itinerary. He wants to reach out to all political parties ... trade unions opposing the dilution of the government stake in has urged the employees against participating in the ongoing five per cent offer for sale (OFS) meant for employees. The OFS of five per cent or 99,00,196 shares to employees at Rs 254.22 after discount opened on Monday and will remain open till November 15. "We maintain our stand of opposing the dilution of stake by We urge the employees not to subscribe to the shares," Citu backed union All India Coal Workers Federation general secretary D D Ramanandan told PTI. Ramanandan said all trade unions are likely to meet at the end of the month for their next course of action. The government had recently sold 3.19 per cent stake in In the IPO of 2010, CIL had received a lacklustre response from its employees. A voter turnout of between 60-70 per cent was recorded Monday in the first phase of elections in Chhattisgarh covering 18 assembly segments of the Naxal-hit Bastar division and Rajnandgaon district, officials said. There were three encounters between security personnel and Naxals, and an IED blast in the districts that went to the polls during the day but the voting process, held under heavy security cover, was not affected, they said. The Election Commission, at a press conference in New Delhi, said 70 per cent turnout was recorded in phase one of However, Chhattisgarh chief electoral officer Subrat Sahoo, told reporters at Raipur later that 60.49 per cent turnout was recorded, adding the figure may go up. Prominent among the 190 candidates in the first phase of polling was Chief Minister Raman Singh (Rajnandgaon). "An average voting turnout of 60.49 per cent was recorded in 18 constituencies which went to polls on Monday. This is an interim figure while the final (percentage of) turnout may rise," Sahoo said. Around 52 per cent turnout was recorded in 10 segments till 3 pm where polling time was from 7 am to 3 pm. In rest of the constituencies, where poling time was from 8 am to 5 pm, the turnout was 70.08 per cent till 5 pm, he said. "The final turnout will be declared once final reports are received from all constituencies," he said. Polling in 10 constituencies - Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur and Konta -- concluded at 3 pm amid tight security. In the other eight segments - Khairgarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Bastar, Jagdalpur and Chitrakot -- the polling process ended at 5 pm. Five personnel of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), an elite unit of the Central Reserve Police Force, were injured in two separate encounters with ultras in Pamed police station area of Bijapur district, police said. Two Naxals were gunned down in an encounter with security forces in Sukma district, they said. An improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated by Naxals early Monday in Katekalyan area of Dantewada district, police said. No one was injured, they added. Four IEDs - two each in Kanker and Bijapur - were also recovered, an official said. In remote Naxal-affected areas, the polling received a good response from voters who appeared excited to exercise their franchise, Sahoo said. The Chintagufa polling booth within the Konta assembly constituency in Sukma district reported 68 per cent polling, he said. After 15 years, polling was held for the first time in Palam Adgu village of Sukma district, he said. Similarly, polling was held for the first time in remote Nilawaya and Moolar villages in Dantewada district where 19 and 10 voters respectively exercised their electoral rights, he said. "It reflects faith of people on this festival of democracy," he added. A surrendered Naxal couple, Mainuram and his wife Rajbatti, also voted in the Narayanpur assembly segment. ALSO READ: Cong accuses Raman Singh govt of ruining education in Chhattisgarh In Kanker constituency, a polling booth was shifted from Amapani to nearby Thema village due to Naxal problem, Sahoo said. This booth was shifted in the last polls in 2013 also but villagers boycotted voting this time citing shifting of the booth, he said. Forty-six polling parties, comprising 197 polling members, were ferried from polling booths to their respective district headquarters by helicopters after the voting ended, he said. The remaining 171 polling parties would be airlifted Tuesday, he added. During the polling, 53 ballot units, 47 control units and 84 VVPATs of EVMs were replaced due to technical snag, he added. As many as 4,341 polling booths were set up and 19,079 polling personnel deployed for the first phase, he said. Over 1.25 lakh police and paramilitary personnel were also deployed in the 18 constituencies falling under Naxal-hit areas of Bastar, Kanker, Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada, Kondagaon, Narayanpur and Rajnandgaon districts. Among the prominent candidates in the fray in the first phase were state ministers Kedar Kashyap (Narayanpur) and Mahesh Gagda (Bijpaur) and Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Kanker Lok Sabha MP Vikram Usendi (Antagarh). Nine Congress MLAs were also among the candidates. Besides the ruling BJP and the main Opposition Congress, the other parties in the fray include Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), former chief minister Ajit Jogi's JCC(J) and the Communist Party of India (CPI). Of the 18 seats, 12 were reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs) and one was for Scheduled Caste (SC) category. The second phase of polling in 72 seats, out of the 90-member Assembly, would be held on November 20 and counting of votes would take place on December 11. The French civil aviation authority said Friday it had seized a plane to get the Irish low-cost airline to repay illegal public aid, the latest in a string of troubles for the carrier. The EU Commission in 2014 ruled that subsidies received from a regional authority had to be repaid, but the airline had not complied despite repeated warnings. The plane, a Boeing 737, was seized on Thursday at Bordeaux airport in southwestern France. "This measure was taken as a last resort by the French authorities after several reminders and attempts to recuperate the money failed," the DGAC civil aviation body said. "By this action, the government reaffirms its intention to guarantee the conditions of fair competition between airlines and between airports," it said. The plane "will remain immobilised until the sum is paid". It was "regrettable" that the 149 passengers on board the plane had to wait five hours before being able to take off from the Bordeaux-Merignac airport in another aircraft, the civil aviation body added. Regional newspaper Charente Libre reported that the plane was close to take-off for London's Stansted airport when a bailiff, accompanied by police, declared it seized on the tarmac and sealed the aircraft. The airline owes the regional authority 525,000 euros ($595,000), regional officials said. The president of the regional airport authority, Didier Vallat, told AFP he expected the money to be disbursed Friday or Saturday. "Ryanair practically promised that they will pay us today," he said. Ryanair's fleet is made up mostly of Boeing 737-800 aircraft, which have a list price of around USD 98 million each. In October, EU anti-trust authorities opened an investigation into whether Ryanair benefited from measures at a German airport that give the Irish low-cost carrier an unfair leg-up over competitors. And last week ministers from five European governments warned Ryanair that it could face legal trouble if it ignores national labour laws after a series of strikes across the continent. The pan-European stoppages prompted the airline to cut its profit forecast, but it still expects to make profits after tax of 1.10-1.20 billion euros in its current financial year. Ryanair is also fighting an order by Italian regulators to suspend a charge for carry-on bags. Seeking a voluntary, safe and dignified return of from Bangladesh to Myanmar, the US asserted that Dhaka must ensure that the returnees have the freedom of movement and "not be confined to camps". Dhaka and Naypyidaw have agreed last month to begin by mid-November the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled to Bangladesh to escape a Myanmar army crackdown. Under the agreement, Myanmar will take back 2,000 Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh in the first batch, which will be followed by a second batch. "We have engaged both governments at the highest levels to express our serious concerns about premature returns, and to emphasize that, consistent with practice, returns be informed, voluntary, safe, and dignified. Further, returnees to Burma must have freedom of movement and not be confined to camps, the US State Department said in a statement on Sunday. However, the State Department also said it agrees with the assessment of the UN high commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that conditions in Myanmar are not yet conducive for returns of the Rohingyas. "This is because full access to Burma is needed to understand the conditions in areas of return and to allow refugees and internally displaced persons to make an informed choice about returning to Burma," it said. Over 720,000 of Myanmar's stateless Rohingya fled in August last year, taking shelter in crowded camps in Bangladesh and bringing with them harrowing tales of rape, murder and arson in the brutal military crackdown. Urging Myanmar to play a constructive role in resolving the Rohingya issue, the US said the country should address the root causes of the crisis in the Rakhine state and provide access to a transparent and efficient citizenship verification process, freedom of movement and access to livelihoods to the minority Muslims. Oil neared three-month lows on Thursday, surrendering early gains as investors focused on global crude supply, which is increasing more quickly than many had expected. Chinese data earlier in the day that showed record oil imports offered some temporary respite to bearishness that has developed in the past couple of weeks over the expected crude market balance in 2019. Record U.S. crude production and signals from Iraq, Abu Dhabi and Indonesia that output will grow more quickly than expected in 2019 pushed the price of Brent oil to its lowest since mid-August earlier in the ... Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar, who has been summoned by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing police firing on protesters in Punjab in the wake of the Bargari sacrilege case, clarified that he had "never ever met" Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, contrary to media reports stating otherwise. In a statement put out on Twitter, Akshay refuted "rumours and false statements" about his involvement with Ram Rahim Singh following reports that he was playing the role of a mediator between the Badals and Gurmeet Ram Rahim. "I have never ever met Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in my life, anywhere. I learnt from social media at some point that Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh resided for a while at some place in my locality Juhu in Mumbai but we never ever crossed each other's paths," the statement read. Akshay continued: "Over the years, I have dedicatedly made films promoting the Punjabi culture and the rich history and tradition of Sikhism through films like 'Singh is Kinng' and 'Kesari' (based on the Battle of Saragarhi). I'm proud of being a Punjabi and have the highest regard for the Sikh faith." "I shall never do anything that would even remotely hurt the sentiments of my Punjabi brothers and sisters, for whom I have utmost respect and love," added Akshay. The statement comes a day after Akshay, along with former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal, were asked to be present before the SIT at the Circuit House in Amritsar later in the month for the investigation related to the Bargari sacrilege. The five-member SIT was set up by the incumbent Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh in September this year, soon after issuance of the notification to withdraw investigation of sacrilege incidents of Sri Guru Granth Sahib from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister passed away in the wee hours of Monday in Bengaluru. The 59-year-old political leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had not been keeping well for the past few months. Union Minister DV Sadananda Gowda expressed grief over Kumar's demise and tweeted, " Shocked , it's unbelievable, my friend , Brother Ananthkumar is no more." Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted, "Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri is no more with us. Served BJP all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss." Kumar holds charge of two key ministries - serving as Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers since May 2014 and as Minister of Parliamentary Affairs since July 2016 in the Narendra Modi government. Since 1996 he has represented Bengaluru South constituency in the Lok Sabha. Born on 22 July 1959 in Bengaluru, Kumar did his graduation in faculty of Arts (B.A) from K S Arts College, Hubli affiliated to the Karnataka University and later, completed his bachelors in law (L.L.B) from J.S.S. Law College affiliated to the Karnataka University. He is survived by two daughters- Aishwarya and Vijeta and wife Tejaswini. The stellar work done by and his wife Dr. Tejaswini through their NGO should keep his legacy alive for years to come. Prayers and condolences from the entire @prasarbharati parivar. Shashi Shekhar (@shashidigital) November 12, 2018 The 11th General Elections in Bangladesh, which were scheduled to be held on December 23, has been deferred for a week to December 30, 2018. Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda said that the decision was taken after several political parties had requested the top electoral body to defer the General Elections for a month as they were undecided about their participation in the polls, Daily Star Bangladesh reported. On November 8, the Bangladesh Election Commission had announced the schedule of the 11th General Elections. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its alliances demanded the elections should be deferred by a month as they had yet to decide whether they should participate in the elections or not. They added that if the polls were postponed, it would still be possible to hold the voting process within a 90-day timeframe, as proposed by the ruling Bangladesh Awami League. With this, candidates are expected to get more time to file their nomination papers. The Election Commission will announce the new dates later. Almost 104.2 million registered voters will cast their votes at about 40,000 polling stations to elect 300 representatives to the Bangladesh Parliament. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday made it clear that his government had no role in the summoning of former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal and actor Akshay Kumar by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the 2015 sacrilege and police firing incidents. "The SIT is an independent entity and is functioning without any government interference," he said in response to a question while addressing the media after inaugurating the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital in Sangrur in Punjab. "My government's job was to form the SIT as per the unanimous decision of the Vidhan Sabha, which it has done, and now the onus of investigation is on the SIT," said the Chief Minister. In response to another question, the Chief Minister reiterated his government's commitment to ensuring that every single grain of the farmers is lifted from the grain markets. He had already written to Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution to resolve the moisture content issue, he said, adding that the problem had arisen due to the untimely and excessive rainfall just ahead of the harvest. On the issue of shortage of doctors in the government hospitals, the Chief Minister said that 588 doctors would be posted shortly in all hospitals. He said that he was in favour of posting of doctors close to their place of residence to ensure more effective functioning. To a question on the ongoing teachers' protest in the state, the Chief Minister said that the government had given a fair offer to teachers to either join regular services as probationers or continue on contract basis. "It is up to them now to accept or reject the offer," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An hour after the first phase of polling in Chhattisgarh ended, two Naxals were killed in an encounter with security forces here on Monday. Two rifles were also recovered from their possession. At around 6 pm, the gunfight started between District Reserve Guards (DRG) Sukma and Naxals near Mudwal. Initial reports indicated that the Naxals of military platoon formation were planning to attack the security forces returning from area domination. However, alertness of the security forces averted a major incident. Earlier in the day, three CoBRA personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) suffered bullet wounds in a gun battle with the Naxals in Chhattisgarh's Majiguda village. The first phase of Assembly elections began today for 18 seats, out of which 12 are Scheduled Tribe seats while one is a Scheduled Caste-reserved seat. The remaining 72 constituencies in the state will go to polls on November 20. The result of the assembly polls will be announced on December 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nilambar Acharya, a member of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) formed by India and Nepal, has been nominated as next ambassador to India. "The ministers have agreed to nominate Nilambar Acharya as next envoy to India. The position of the ambassador to India has remained vacant for long. The procedure for his approval as ambassador will start soon," a source inside Nepal's Prime Minister Office said. Acharya, who is a senior advocate and political analyst, also served as a minister in the interim government in the 1990s. "The parliamentary hearing for his appointment will start soon. There is less chance that he will be rejected as his name has been placed in the cabinet after consultations," said another source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On July 16, the Nepal government had endorsed former Chief Election Commissioner Neelkantha Upereti as the envoy to India. However, he was rejected for the post as the Constitution barred him from taking over the post. The newly-adopted Constitution of Nepal states that any former Chief Election Commissioner or those from governmental bodies cannot be referred as the envoy to any of the nations. The post of the ambassador to India has been vacant since last year after the then envoy to India, Deep Kumar Upadhyaya, stepped down to contest the legislative elections on a Nepali Congress ticket. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a police checkpoint here on Monday killing at least 10 people, confirmed Ministry of Interior. According to Tolo News, the explosion happened close to Pashtunistan Square in Kabul City Centre which is not far from where hundreds of demonstrators have been protesting against the government over neglecting the security of Ghazni and Uruzgan provinces. The demonstrators were urging the National Unity Government (NUG) to clear Khas Uruzgan, Jaghori and Malistan districts in Ghazni and Uruzgan provinces of Taliban and to send in emergency humanitarian aid to displaced residents, along with extra, permanent, troops to the areas and to establish a military corps in the region. The protest comes after Taliban last week launched group attacks from different directions on Jaghori district. Reportedly, despite the government sending reinforcement troops, the security in the central provinces has deteriorated. In the past few days, security forces have suffered a high casualty toll. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sugal & Damani, pioneers who crafted and molded the of government-licensed lotteries in India, who are also the parent company of the renowned Rajshree Lottery has now introduced a new dimension to the lotto industry with their new digital lotto platform - Luckykhel. This paradigm shift from offline to online has come to light owing to the massive digital progress in India in the past decade. The online platform is all set to serve and reach a larger set of audience including the digitally forward millennials, with the aim to make playing the lotto an exciting and fun experience. Luckykhel is a new age digital lotto platform specially designed with technological superiority, operational efficiency and also has a strategic & qualitative edge. It has been made with the objective of serving as a platform for internationally acclaimed lotto games in India. Luckykhel will offer 9 different lotto games with winning prizes of Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 2.5 crore and more. The minimum cost of a single ticket is Rs. 2 and maximum is Rs. 25. Multiple lotto tickets can be purchased by a single individual at the same time. All rules and regulations will be mentioned for each of the lotto games on the platform. Results will be declared on the specified time. Description of the 9 lottos on Luckykhel: 1. SaturdayLotto: Ticket price: INR 25/- Winning amount: INR 2,50,00,000/- (Two Crore and fifty lakhs only) Frequency: Played weekly only on Saturday (1 per day) 2. ThursdayLotto: Ticket price: INR 20/- Winning amount: INR 2,00,00,000/- (Two Crore only) Frequency: Played weekly only on Thursday (1 per day) 3. PowerBall: Ticket price: INR 20/- Winning amount: INR 1,50,00,000/- (One Crore and fifty lakhs only) Frequency: Played weekly only on Tuesday (1 per day) 4. Keno: Ticket price: INR 15/- Winning amount: INR 31,00,000/- (Thirty one lakhs only) Frequency: Played daily (2 per day) 5. BonusBall: Ticket price: INR 10/- Winning amount: INR 10,00,000/- (Ten lakhs only) Frequency: Played weekly only on Monday (1 per day) 6. Dream 5: Ticket price: INR 10/- Winning amount: INR 5,00,000/- (Five Lakh Only) Frequency: Played weekly only on Friday (1 per day) 7. Mega 5: Ticket price: INR 10/- Winning amount: INR 5,00,000/- (Five Lakh Only) Frequency: Played weekly only on Wednesday (1 per day) 8. MagicLotto: Ticket price: INR 20/- Winning amount: INR 5,00,000/- (Five Lakh Only) Frequency: Played daily (1 per day) 9. LuckyFour: Ticket price: INR 2/- Winning amount: INR 10,000/- (Ten Thousand Only) Frequency: Played daily (38 per day) Participants need to be adults (Age: 18+). Currently, the app's offerings are available in the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Punjab, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Nagaland and Mizoram, as per relevant state and central lottery laws. Winnings up to INR 10,000 will be deposited directly in the winner's Luckykhel e-wallet after which he can withdraw the amount to his bank account. Winnings above INR 10,000 can be claimed in accordance with the government policies. Legacy of Rajshree Lottery: Rajshree has more than 25,000 points of sales across India. Sugal & Damani Group through Rajshree has distributed winnings of more than 5.5 Billion Dollars in the last 3 years. According to the Global Lottery Market Report 2018-2022 by Technavio, experts forecast that the global lottery market will grow at a CAGR of 9.67% during the period 2018-2022. It also mentions that one of the key drivers to this growth will be the contribution towards the country's economy. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) People in Dantewada's Madenda village cast their votes even after threats from Naxals, who had warned them of losing their fingers if an ink mark is seen on them. Defying threats, as many as 263 voters came out of their houses to cast their votes on Monday. A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) official told the media, "After Nilwaya Naxal attack, the challenges have multiplied manifold. Naxals had threatened villagers with dire consequences if they go for casting votes. We assured the villagers of a secure environment, put in place a three-level security so that people can vote without fear." Earlier in the day on Monday, a 100-year-old woman, Viswas, cast her vote at a polling station in Dornapal district. The old woman was helped by her son as she visited the polling booth set up near her house. The woman was visibly fragile, but it did not stop her from exercising her right to franchise. The first phase of Assembly elections began on Monday in Chhattisgarh where 18 seats went to polls, out of which 12 are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes, while one is a Scheduled Caste-reserved seat. In the first phase of the polling, over 31 lakh voters were slated to exercise their franchise to choose their representatives from 190 candidates. The remaining 72 constituencies in the state will go to polls on November 20. The result of the assembly polls will be announced on December 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Commission for Minorities chairperson Syed Ghayorul Hasan Rizvi backed construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya so that Muslims can live peacefully in the country. Speaking to ANI, Rizvi said it is imperative that Muslims in the country be allowed to live without any fear. He further announced that the commission has called for a meeting on November 14 on the matter. "I have been approached by many leaders of Muslim organisations who agreed that since a mosque cannot be built there under any circumstances, there should not be any objection in allowing a Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya. This will ensure Hindus and Muslims to live in harmony in the country," he said. Reiterating that a Ram temple should be constructed in Ayodhya for the sake of peace, Rizvi said, "If you ask me about my opinion on the entire episode, I can only say that it is the top court which reserves the right to pass a verdict. If anyhow the court fails to do that, we should seek other options as to how the matter can be sorted. The matter should be sorted as soon as possible." Of late, both the Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have raised the issue pertaining to the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. While Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has accused the Congress of being the main obstacle in the construction of the temple, a Congress leader from Karnataka Zameer Ahmed has said that if a Ram temple is constructed then a mosque should also be built alongside the temple. The Babri Masjid, built by Mughal emperor Babur in Ayodhya in 1528, was, on December 6, 1992, razed to the ground allegedly by Hindu activists, claiming that the mosque was constructed after demolishing a Ram temple that originally stood there. On October 29, the Supreme Court had adjourned the Ayodhya title suit till January next year to fix a date for the hearing. The court was hearing a challenge to the 2010 ruling of the Allahabad High Court which divided the disputed land into three parts. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West and her family recently received an award for their reality show at the 108 People's Choice Awards and dedicated the gong to firefighters and first responders who are battling to douse the forest fires in California. The family, including Kris Jenner, Kourtney Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, and Kendall Jenner, accepted the award on Sunday night (local time) for 'Keeping up with the Kardashians', where they thanked fans and humbly paid respects at the beginning of their speech to victims of some of the tragic events that have transpired as of late. "It's been a really rough week in our home in Calabasas, Hidden Hills, and [for] our neighbors in Thousand Oaks and Malibu," said Kardashian West who, along with Kourtney and Khloe, evacuated their homes after finding out that their neighborhoods were under threat from a wildfire. A lot of Hollywood stars including Alyssa Milano, Lady Gaga, Caitlyn Jenner and more were among the thousands of people who were forced to evacuate their homes due to the Woolsey Fire that ravaged the Los Angeles County. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday dedicated first multi-modal terminal constructed on river Ganga in his Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi. He reiterated that the foundation stones for various projects have been laid to make Ganga pollution-free. "Today is a historic day for all Indians. For the first time since Independence, we are using our extensive river network for commercial purpose at this scale. Varanasi should have had these projects decades ago, which we have finally made possible now," he said. "Being a Member of Parliament (MP) from Varanasi and the Prime Minister of the nation, my happiness has doubled," he added. The Prime Minister said with the completion of the multi-modal terminal, east Uttar Pradesh has now been connected to the Bay of Bengal. In his address, Prime Minister Modi also mentioned about his trip to Kedarnath on Diwali and said that he was feeling lucky to be a part Ganga 'darshan' just a week after his visit to the holy hill shrine. "At Kedarnath, I offered prayers to Lord Baba Kedarnath. Today I offered prayer to Maa Ganga in Varanasi," he said. Prime Minister Modi also laid the foundation stones for various projects on the occasion, which are aimed at making river Ganga pollution-free. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, while speaking about development plans for Varanasi, said that the decision to use water as a means of transport was taken in 1986 but no work was properly started before the NDA came to power at the Centre in 2014. "This year, we will transport 80 lakh tonnes of cargo," he said. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath thanked Prime Minister Modi for infrastructure projects. He said, "On behalf of 23 crore people of Uttar Pradesh, I thank Prime Minister Modi for launching First multi-modal terminal of the country." It is worth noting that this is the first of four multi-modal terminals being constructed on NW-I (River Ganga) as part of the World Bank-aided Jal Marg Vikas project of the Inland Waterways Authority of India. The other three terminals are under construction at Sahibganj, Haldia, and Gazipur. The project would enable commercial navigation of vessels with a capacity of 1500-2,000 DWT on river Ganga. The project, an inland port, has been unveiled as Prime Minister Modi received India's first container vessel that sailed from Kolkata on the inland waterway on October 30, carrying cargo belonging to food and beverage giant PepsiCo India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate several development projects in his Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi on Monday. The government in an official release said that the Prime Minister will dedicate to the nation, two important highways in Varanasi, having a total length of 34 kilometres and constructed at a cost of Rs 1571.95 crore. The release added that 16.55 km Varanasi Ring Road Phase-I has been completed at a cost of Rs 759.36 crore, while the work of four-laning and construction of 17.25 km Babatput-Varanasi road on NH-56 has cost Rs 812.59 crore. It said that the Babatpur Airport highway will link Varanasi to the airport and go on to Jaunpur, Sultanpur and Lucknow. "With a flyover at Harhua and an ROB at Tarna, the road will reduce the travel time from Varanasi to the airport. This will prove a big relief to the people of Varanasi and to tourists and other visitors to the city," the release read. According to the release, the Ring Road, with two ROBs and a flyover, will provide a way for traffic on NH 56 (Lucknow-Varanasi), NH 233 ( Azamgarh-Varanasi), NH 29 ( Gorakhpur-Varanasi ) and Ayodhya - Varanasi highways to by pass Varanasi city, thereby reducing traffic congestion in the city. The government claimed that these projects will also provide increased employment opportunities, development of small and medium industries and give a boost to economic development in the area. Currently NH projects of total length 2833 km, costing Rs 63,885 crore are underway to link Varanasi to other places in Eastern Uttar Pradesh. During his visit, the Prime Minister will also dedicate to the nation an inland waterways terminal on river Ganga in Varanasi. "This is the first of the four multi modal terminals being constructed on NW-I ( River Ganga) as part of the World Bank aided Jal Marg Vikas project of the Inland Waterways Authority of India. The other three terminals are under construction at Sahibganj, Haldia and Gazipur. The project would enable commercial navigation of vessels with capacity of 1500-2,000 DWT on river Ganga," the release stated. Prime Minister Modi will also receive the country's first container consignment (post independence) to be sent on an inland waterways vessel. This consignment containing cargo of the food and beverage company Pepsico set sail from Kolkata in the last week of October. The Prime Minister will be accompanied by Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Shipping, Water Resources, River Development, and Ganga Rejuvenation Nitin Gadkari and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet United States Vice President Mike Pence on the sidelines of the 13th East Asia Summit in Singapore on November 14, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) confirmed. Addressing a presser here, Secretary (East) in the MEA, Vijay Thakur Singh said, "We can confirm that a meeting will take between the Prime Minister and the US Vice President on November 14. We will brief you later about the meeting and the outcomes of that meeting." Delving on Prime Minister Modi's two-day visit to Singapore, Singh said that this would be Prime Minister's second visit to the island nation. Previously, he undertook a visit to Singapore in June. "He will leave for Singapore on 14th morning and leave for Delhi late afternoon of 15th November. His first engagement would be a keynote address in the Singapore FinTech festival, where there is an Indian pavilion. It is one of the largest festivals. This year's FinTech festival will be the third edition. This will be the first time a head of government will give a keynote address. This is because India has done lots of work in leveraging technology for innovation, development and financial inclusion," Singh elaborated. On November 15, the Prime Minister will participate in the ASEAN-India breakfast summit, followed by East Asia lunch retreat. After that, Prime Minister Modi would take part in the East Asia Summit in a plenary setting. After the meetings, the Prime Minister will then depart for India. Prime Minister Modi will also meet with the participants of the India-Singapore hackathon programme. "There has been an enthusiastic participation where about 80 participants are participating," Singh said. In the East Asia summit, regional and global issues would be discussed between the leaders. Prominent issues such as ICT, Smart Cities project, maritime cooperation and terrorism would be on the agenda during the plurilateral meeting. "We hope that the Prime Minister's visit would give a new momentum to our relationship and engagement with ASEAN and East Asia Summit and would also strengthen India's relations with Singapore. India has been engaging with ASEAN countries because we have an active Act East Policy, thereby having continued engagement with our eastern neighbours," Singh said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russian President Vladimir Putin will be visiting Turkey's Istanbul city on November 19 to attend a ceremony marking the completion of the TurkStream gas pipeline's offshore section, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Monday. An export gas pipeline project, the TurkStream is set to transport natural gas under the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey and also further extend up to Turkey's borders with the neighbouring countries, Anadolu News Agency reported. In the first leg, the TurkStream would carry 15.75 billion cubic metres of natural gas to Turkey. The pipeline project will also have a second line, destined for Europe, with a capacity of 31.5 billion cubic metres. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ministry of Railways will run a special tourist train -- Shri Ramayana Express -- from November 14, covering four important destinations associated with the life of Lord Ram in a 16-days tour package spread over India and Sri Lanka. Named as Shri Ramayana Yatra-Sri Lanka, the pilgrimage circuit will have two travel components --one each in India and Sri Lanka. After leaving Delhi, the train will make its first stop in Ayodhya followed by Hanuman Garhi Ramkot and Kanak Bhawan temple. The train will then cover the important destinations of Ramayana circuit such as Nandigram, Sitamarhi, Janakpur, Varanasi, Prayag, Shringverpur, Chitrakoot, Nasik, Hampi and Rameshwaram. According to Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the tour package will cover all meals, accommodation and wash and change facilities in dharmashalas, all transfers, sight-seeing arrangements and dedicated tour manager of IRCTC who will be travelling with the tourists during the entire tour. The Ramayana Express train will have an overall capacity for 800 passengers and the tickets have been priced at Rs. 15,120 per person. The Sri Lanka leg of the tour will be charged separately as the passengers opting for Sri Lanka leg of the Ramayana Yatra package can take a flight to Colombo from Chennai. The 5-night/6-day Sri Lanka tour package will cost from Rs 36,970 per person and the tour package will cover destinations like Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Colombo and Negombo. The IRCTC also recently operated an AC Tourist Train from 28th August to 9th September 2018 on the Ramayana Circuit from Trivandrum covering Panchavati, Chitrakoot, Shringverpur, Tulsi Manas Mandir, Darbhanga, Sita Marhi, Ayodhya and Rameshwaram. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Foreign Office on Sunday refuted social media reports of Asiya Bibi, the Christian woman, who was acquitted by the Supreme Court for blasphemy charges last month, of leaving the country. Terming the reports as "false and baseless", a spokesperson for the Foreign Office said, "Asiya Bibi has not left Pakistan and she is in the country," Geo News reported. Last week, the Foreign Office had dismissed reports of Asiya and her family leaving Pakistan. On November 7, Asiya was released from a women's prison in Multan after the completion of all formalities by the jail administration. However, speculations were rife that she had left the country soon after she was released from prison. On October 31, mass protests had erupted in various parts of Pakistan after the country's top court acquitted Asiya pertaining to a blasphemy case. A three-judge special bench headed by Justice Nisar, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel heard Asiya's 2014 appeal against her conviction and death sentence and overturned the ruling in favour of her. Asiya was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010 for allegedly insulting Islam during an argument with three Muslim women. Meanwhile, Asiya's lawyer, Saif-ul-Mulook, who fled Pakistan, following threats to his life told CNN last week that an asylum application was filed in the Netherlands for Asiya and her family, and the same was submitted to the authorities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Human Rights organisation Amnesty International withdrew its highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, from Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday. Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty's Secretary General tweeted, "Aung San Suu Kyi once stood as a symbol of hope, courage and the undying defence of human rights in #Myanmar. @amnesty recognised her with our highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience award. Sadly, we can no longer justify this honour and today we are withdrawing the award." Naidoo also attached a letter he penned to Suu Kyi on November 11 that read, "As an Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience, our expectation was that you would continue to use your moral authority to speak out against injustice wherever you saw it, not least within Myanmar itself." He further stated that the organisation is "deeply alarmed" and "disappointed" by Suu Kyi's "clear and consistent betrayal of the very values" she promoted for decades. "You have chosen to overlook and excuse the brutal oppression and crimes against humanity committed by the military against the Rohingya and against minorities in Kachin and the northern Shan States, and your office has actively shielded the military from international scrutiny and accountability. We have also been appalled to witness your administration spread hate narratives against minorities, fostering rather than challenging discrimination and hostility," the letter noted. "We have also been appalled to witness your administration spread hate narratives against minorities, fostering rather than challenging discrimination and hostility," Naidoo added in the letter. Highlighting the efforts made by Amnesty International for her release when she was kept under house arrest for 15 years during military rule, the letter mentioned, "As an organization which campaigned tirelessly for your release - and the release of all prisoners of conscience in Myanmar - we are dismayed that your government has not only failed to repeal or amend repressive laws but has actively used them to curb freedom of expression, and arrest and imprison human rights defenders, journalists and other peaceful activists. " "Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defence of human rights. Amnesty International cannot justify your continued status as a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience award and so with great sadness we are hereby withdrawing it from you. We will publicly announce the withdrawal two days from now, on 13 November," the Secretary General's letter to the Nobel Laureate stated. Suu Kyi, a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, is currently halfway through her term in office during which large-scale violence was unleashed against the Rohingyas in the Rakhine State and a clampdown on freedom of press was witnessed. A blog released by Amnesty International highlighted the atrocities meted out against the Rohingyas under Suu Kyi's regime. "During the campaign of violence unleashed against the Rohingya last year the Myanmar security forces killed thousands, raped women and girls, detained and tortured men and boys, and burned hundreds of homes and villages to the ground. More than 720,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh," according to the human rights group who further mentioned a UN report that calls for the investigation of senior military officials for genocide. The organisation strongly criticised Suu Kyi's actions and opined, "Her administration has actively stirred up hostility against the Rohingya, labelling them as terrorists, accusing them of burning their own homes and decrying faking rape." The human rights watchdog also criticised Suu Kyi's administration for failing to repeal repressive laws in the nation, including those that are used to imprison journalists and human rights activists in the nation. The State Counsellor had previously defended a Yangon court verdict on the arrest of the two Reuters journalists who were investigating the Rohingya crisis in the country while speaking at the Economic Forum on September 13 this year. More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh fled since last year to escape deadly violence carried out by Myanmar's security forces. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh will return to Myanmar, a year after they fled the Rakhine state following a military crackdown. Newly-constructed transit camps have been set up for the refugees who are scheduled to repatriate on November 15, according to media reports. Myanmar has received a list of Rohingya families who are supposed to return to the country, however, many Rohingyas of Ukhiya and Teknaf camps of Cox's Bazar are not yet ready to return due to safety concerns. The concerned authority asserted that the repartition process would start soon if everything goes well, reported Dhaka Tribune. As many as 22,000 names were put on the list and after scrutiny, Naypyidaw has agreed to the return of 5,000 Rohingyas in the first phase. "Transit camps have been prepared on the banks of Naf River near Keruntali Nayapara in Teknaf and on the land of Ghumdhum Border for Rohingya repatriation. Two transit camps have been completed since last two months. We hope to start the process of repatriation of Rohingyas next week," said Cox's Bazar Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam as quoted by Dhaka Tribune. Last month, the two nations agreed on the repatriation of the Rohingya minority following the third Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting. Myanmar and Bangladesh had set up the JWG, comprising 15 members from each side in December last year. However, the international community including the United Nations expressed concerns over the repatriation of the refugees. "UNHCR supports the voluntary and sustainable repatriation of Rohingya refugees in safety and in dignity to their places of origin or choice, and will work with all parties towards this goal. The repatriation of refugees is premised upon the free and informed decision by refugees, on an individual basis, to return," stated UN High Commissioner in a statement. He further emphasised on the need of a dignified and voluntary return saying, "Before making a choice of whether to return or not, the refugees reportedly verified by Myanmar as having the right to return should be allowed to visit their places of origin in Rakhine State, or other places to which they might choose to return, so that they themselves can make an independent assessment of whether they feel they can return there in safety and dignity." Meanwhile, Dhaka has assured that no individual will be forced to return. Naypyidaw had signed an agreement with Dhaka to resettle around one million citizens of Rakhine State currently living as refugees in Bangladesh. The Rohingyas are a minority ethnic group in Myanmar and are considered to be illegal immigrants. More than 700,000 of them are languishing in Bangladeshi refugee camps, after fleeing a brutal Myanmar army campaign in August last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress party on Monday released its first list of 65 candidates for the upcoming Telangana assembly elections. The names of the candidates were finalised after Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy held talks with party leaders in Delhi. The filing of nominations for Telangana Assembly elections began on Monday with the issuance of notification. The last date for filing of nominations is November 19. The state will go to polls on December 7, while the results will be announced on December 11. The 119-member assembly was dissolved on September 6, 2018, on the recommendation of the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three more CoBRA personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) suffered bullet wounds in a gun battle with the Maoists in Chhattisgarh's Majiguda village. The encounter took place at a time when the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly polls is underway in Bijapur and other Maoist-affected areas in the state. The injured personnel have been identified as Amit Deswal (injury to left thigh), General Duty (GD) officer Sunil (injury to leg), and Chaitanya. However, all three injured continue to remain at the encounter site because of heavy firing. Earlier in the day, two CoBRA personnel, identified as GD officer Lalchand and Mohanty, suffered bullet injuries but they were evacuated to Pamad, and are said to be out of danger. There are no reports of any casualty. More details are awaited. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister passed away in the wee hours of Monday in Bengaluru. The 59-year-old political leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had not been keeping well for the past few months. He was suffering from pancreatic cancer. Union Minister DV Sadananda Gowda expressed grief over Kumar's demise and tweeted, " Shocked , its unbelievable , My friend , Brother Ananthkumar is no more." also expressed sorrow over his death and said in a tweet, "Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss." Kumar held charge of two key ministries - serving as Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers since May 2014 and as Minister of Parliamentary Affairs since July 2016 in the Since 1996 he has represented Bengaluru South constituency in the Born on 22 July 1959 in Bengaluru, Kumar did his graduation in faculty of Arts (B.A) from K S Arts College, Hubli affiliated to the Karnataka University and later, completed his bachelors in law (L.L.B) from J.S.S. Law College affiliated to the Karnataka University. He is survived by two daughters Aishwarya and Vijeta and wife Tejaswini. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, on Sunday, stressed the importance of effective multilateralism to explore solutions to challenges faced by humanity across the Speaking at the high-level panel discussion titled, "Dialogue of the Continents on Global Governance" on the sidelines of Paris Peace Forum, held to commemorate the centenary of the end to the First War, the Vice President called for the combined efforts of countries to chalk out plans to deal with the issues of global importance such as eradication of poverty, providing education, health care and jobs, ensuring gender parity and others. Vice President Naidu further suggested that for effective multilateralism, organisations like the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) must reflect the realities of the 21st century. He that India has always been at the forefront and pitched for the need of strong multilateralism He also urged the communities to come together to fight the menace of terrorism and sought the cooperation of world leaders for an early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the United Nations (UN) to deal with terrorism. Underlining the importance of peace for the progress of the world, the Vice President pressed on the need to have security and economic development. "Even though there has been the advancement of civilisation, the threat of war always remain and poses challenges like environmental degradation, economic crisis, and escalating humanitarian needs," he said. He complimented the French Government for organising the event on the Armistice Day and appreciated the country for being a driving force of the post-war European integration. Earlier on Sunday, the Vice President participated in the wreath-laying ceremony organised at Arc de Triomphe in Paris along with world leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron, United States President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders from 51 countries. He also paid homage to Indian soldiers who fought selflessly for human liberty and freedom on the occasion of 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day. Vice President Naidu, who was on a three-day official visit to France (November 9-11), emplaned for India on Sunday night. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United States Secretary of State Michael R Pompeo spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday and said that the US would hold people involved in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi accountable. In a statement released by the White House, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said that Pompeo asked Saudi Arabia to hold the murderers of the dissident journalist accountable too. Addressing the Yemen conflict and crisis, Pompeo called on the involved parties to join hands to find a peaceful solution to the situation. "On Yemen, the Secretary reiterated the United States' calls for a cessation of hostilities and for all parties to come to the table to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict under the UN Special Envoy," Nauert said in the statement. Khashoggi disappeared on October 2 after stepping into Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul to collect documents that would have allowed him to get married to his fiancee Hatice Cengiz. Cengiz, who was waiting outside the consulate, raised an alarm after Khashoggi failed to re-emerge from the consulate, leading to a chain of revelations by both Turkey and Saudi Arabia regarding this case. Saudi authorities had earlier confirmed that Khashoggi had died inside its consular premises in Istanbul, leading to the arrest of 18 Saudi officials in connection with the crime. On Saturday, Turkey stated that recordings related to the death of Saudi journalist Khashoggi have been shared with the United States, France, UK, Saudi Arabia, and Germany. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had asserted that Saudi Arabia knows that Khashoggi's killer is amongst the 15 Saudi nationals who landed in Istanbul before the October 2 incident. Erdogan had repeatedly called for transparent investigations into the scribe's death, going as far as demanding that the arrested Saudi nationals be tried in Turkey. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Karnataka government on Monday declared a three-day mourning in the state following the death of Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar earlier in the day here, an official statement said. "Three-day mourning and one-day state holiday (on Monday) will be observed in the state as an homage to Ananth Kumar who breathed his last this morning," a statement from Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy's office said. All schools and state government offices across Karnataka will remain shut on Monday. "Central government offices in the city will also be closed," state unit Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson S. Shantaram told IANS. Kumar, 59, died at around 3 a.m. at Shankara Cancer Hospital in the city's southern suburb due to multi-organ failure, three weeks after he was admitted on October 21, Shantaram said. Kumaraswamy called Kumar a politician who was pro-people and made significant contribution to the nation as a Union Minister. "Our families had a friendship beyond I have lost a great friend," Kumaraswamy said in the statement. Deputy Chief Minister and Congress leader G. Parameshwara also condoled Kumar's death. "Extremely sad to hear the news of the demise of Ananth Kumar. He was without doubt one of the towering political talents of his generation -- a sharp debater who used knowledge, experience and wit to wonderful effect. I express my condolences to his family and colleagues," Parameshwara tweeted. --IANS bha/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Samsung India will introduce Galaxy A9 -- its first smartphone with quadruple primary (rear) camera system -- this month that is going to be aggressively priced to take on the leader OnePlus 6T, industry sources said on Monday. The premium-segment smartphone is likely to come in two variants -- 6GB/128GB and 8GB/128GB -- both expandable up to 512GB. The device has vertically stacked four cameras consisting of an 8MP ultra-wide sensor, a 24MP main sensor, a 5MP depth sensor and a 10MP telephoto sensor at the back. Galaxy A9 will come with larger and wider 6.3-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display for immersive viewing experience. The device is powered by Octa-core Snapdragon 660 and will house an ergonomic design with a 3D glass-curved back. Samsung globally launched Galaxy A9 in Malaysia last month. --IANS na/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Debutante Sara Ali Khan, daughter of Bollywood actors Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh, has a neutral approach towards competition with Janhvi Kapoor, who made her Bollywood foray with "Dhadak" earlier this year. Sara is stepping into the acting world with "Kedarnath". During the film's trailer launch here on Monday, Sara was asked if she feels the pressure to win the Best Debutant Award over Janhvi this year. Sara replied confidently: "All of us are here to do our job and no one can decide anything on what is going to happen next. I think she has done a fantastic job in 'Dhadak'. I watched the film and I loved it. People loved her work. I hope people will like my work too." Coming from a family of actors that includes not only her parents, but also grandmother Sharmila Tagore and aunt Soha Ali Khan, the young actress said that initially, her parents emphasised that she must finish her studies before entering Bollywood. "My father wanted me to finish my studies before entering the film industry. My parents were supportive all through (for me) to work in films, but education was a priority. But when I heard the story of 'Kedarnath', I loved the script so much that that time nobody could have stopped me from doing the film. I was in love with the story. So they also did not stop me, and rather supported it," Sara said. In "Kedarnath", Sara plays a Hindu girl from Uttarakhand. She falls in love with a Muslim man -- played by Sushant Singh Rajput -- during the journey to Kedarnath, a Hindu pilgrim centre. Asked about her mother's view on Sara's performance, she said: "I think it would be very difficult for my mom to be unbiased because I am her baby. She will love everything that I do. I also look like her, so you know, she wishes me the best and she hopes that the audience loves my work." "Kedarnath" will release on December 7, and Sara will then soon be seen in another film, Ranveer Singh-starrer "Simmba" which will hit the screens on December 28. Is she feeling any pressure? "Yes, we can say that there is a pressure because two films are on the row, but there are some advantages also which I cannot deny. I have got two films and I am really lucky to ask for work from filmmakers like Abhishek Kapoor sir and Rohit Shetty sir. I have tried my level best to justify the opportunity," said Sara. What are the tips she has got from Kareena Kapoor Khan, the second wife of her father Saif, Sara said: "Kareena is a very professional lady and the way she works with so much dedication is very amazing. So I would love to imbibe her professionalism." "I stay with my mom so she tells me what to wear on which occasion and keeps giving me tips on how to take care of myself." --IANS aru/rb/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar died on Monday at a private hospital here due to multiple organ failure, a BJP spokesman said. He was 59. "Kumar passed away at around 3 a.m. at Shankara Cancer Hospital three weeks after he was admitted on return from the US on October 21," party's state unit spokesman S. Shantaram told IANS. The Karnataka government declared a three-day mourning across the state and one-day public holiday for Monday as a mark of respect. The departed leader was also the Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister in the NDA-led government since May 2014. A six-time parliamentarian from the Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency since 1996, Ananth Kumar had been undergoing treatment for cancer in the UK and US since August. "He first went to London after the monsoon session of Parliament in July-August and later shifted to a New York hospital. "The cancer had spread to other parts of his body that resulted in his multi-organ failure and death," said Shantaram. The late Union Minister is survived by his widow Tejaswani, two daughters Aishwaraya and Vijayeta, younger brother Nand Kumar and younger sister Suhasini. Kumar's body was shifted to his residence and home-office at Basavangudi here. "It will be kept in state at the National College grounds in Basavangudi for the public to pay homage till the last rites on Tuesday," said the party official. "The national flag will fly half-mast on public buildings across the state and all official engagements are cancelled till Wednesday," the Congress-JD-S government here announced. State and central government offices will remain closed on Monday as a tribute to Kumar, a state official told IANS. The Karnataka Education Department declared holiday for all schools and colleges in the city on Monday as a mark of respect. As news of Kumar's demise spread across the city, hundreds of people, including party's state unit leaders rushed to his residence to pay their last respects. Several Bharatiya Janata Party's leaders, including state unit chief B.S. Yeddyurappa and legislators R. Ashok and Suresh Kumar visited Kumar's house and condoled his untimely death. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers and the party's national leadership are expected to attend Kumar's state funeral in the city on Tuesday," Shantaram said. President Ram Nath Kovind, Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Arun Jaitely, Nirmala Sitharaman and Nitin Gadkari mourned Kumar's death and expressed condolence to the bereaved family. Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara, cabinet ministers of the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Congress coalition government joined BJP's state unit leaders and cadres in condoling Ananth Kumar's death. --IANS bha/fb/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Finance Ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on Monday signed the bloc's first agreement to facilitate e-commerce transactions in the region. Asean, the third largest trading bloc in the world, is holding meetings on Monday and Tuesday prior to its official summit scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in Singapore, reports Efe news. The newly signed agreement will foster speed and cooperation between businesses and governments, generating more efficient transactions, said Singaporean Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing. At a parallel business summit, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for greater integration among Southeast Asian nations at a time when multilateralism was under threat from protectionist measures by the US and China. The US-China trade war is expected to be a major topic on the ASEAN Summit agenda with participation of member countries Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. The summit will also have the presence of the US, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. US President Donald Trump will be represented by Vice President Mike Pence, who will also participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Papua New Guinea later. It is not known so far whether Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Pence will hold a bilateral meeting to address the trade war between the two countries that has undermined world markets in recent months. --IANS ksk/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bangladesh Election Commission on Monday postponed the polling date for the country's general election from December 23 to December 30 amid calls for a deferral from the new opposition alliance Jatiya Oikya Front and other parties. Chief Election Commissioner K.M. Nurul Huda made the announcement in capital Dhaka, a day after the opposition alliance, including former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), decided to contest the polls, bdnews24.com reported. The alliance also called for the election to be deferred by a month. Huda said the poll body welcomed the opposition alliance's decision to contest the polls. BNP Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir had earlier urged the government to ensure a level playing field for holding a free, fair and neutral election. The Election Commission will now accept nominations till November 28, said Huda. "They (BNP and Oikya Front) said they are interested in participating in the polls... The election commissioners discussed the matter and came to this decision." The ruling Awami League (AL) of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the parliamentary opposition Jatiya Party said they had no objection to the revised schedule. The AL was founded by the late Sheikh Mujibur Rehman who led the country's struggle for liberation from Pakistan in 1971. It has been in and out of power sunce 1973, when it first formed the government. It stormed back to power with a landslide election victory in early 2009 and won a second second term in 2014. It is now facing challenges from Khaleda's BNP and its allies, which boycotted the 2014 elections. --IANS soni/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi's ruling AAP on Monday flayed the BJP for creating an "environment of terror" after a group of purvanchalis, preparing for Chhath pooja, was attacked by another "faction" of BJP workers. "BJP's Chandan Chaudhary, along with some purvanchali people, was preparing for the Chhath pooja on Sunday when another group of BJP supporters attacked and threatened him to leave Delhi," said Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) South Delhi Lok Sabha in-charge Raghav Chadha. This is the second time Chandan Chaudhary was attacked by other workers of the BJP. On October 31, two groups of BJP workers -- one led by Chaudhary and the other owing allegiance to BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri -- clashed at a 'Run for Unity' event in South Delhi. The AAP National spokesperson said that it is unfortunate how BJP treats its own members only because they are Purvanchalis. "If this is how they treat their own workers, imagine the condition of the common man from Purvanchal under the BJP rule," Chadha said. He said the Bhartiya Janta Party is trying to divide the country in the name of provinces to win elections. "When their strategies to divide the country in the name of religion and caste failed, they opted to play by dividing the society by discriminating against people based on their provinces," he said. He said the BJP should not forget that it is because of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that it is in a majority. --IANS sd/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor-turned-politician Rajinikanth on Monday said if the opposition parties feel BJP is dangerous, then it must be so. He told reporters that the demonetisation implementation was wrong. Answering a reporter's query whether the BJP is a dangerous party, Rajinikanth said if the opposition parties are thinking the BJP is a dangerous party, then it must be so. The actor is considered close to BJP and had earlier said his political philosophy will be spiritual Two years after the demonetisation by the BJP government, Rajinikanth who had welcomed the move initially seems to have a different view. He said the implementation of demonetisation was wrong and that the issue should be deliberated in detail. Rajinikanth said strict laws should be enforced against those who induldge in sexual harassment of girls. --IANS vj/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused the BJP of misleading people in the name of religion before elections and said nobody needs a lesson on Hinduism from the saffron outfit. Taking a swipe at the BJP for trying to consolidate the Hindi-speaking vote bank in the state, Banerjee said the ruling party at the Centre had done nothing for them except making fake pre-electoral promises. "They (BJP) only talk about religion when election comes. Those who celebrate Diwali, tell me, did BJP start the Diwali or are we celebrating it for many years? These festivals are thousands of years old. BJP is misleading people in the name of religion," Banerjee said at the inauguration of a Jagadhatri Puja here. "We also celebrate all the Hindu festivals. We did not learn to celebrate them from the BJP, The BJP tries to divide people and when the election comes they ask the Hindi speaking people to vote for them. But what have they done for them?" she asked the people of central Kolkata's Posta area, a predominantly Hindi-speaking belt. Referring to the National Register of Citizens in Assam, the Trinamool supremo claimed the BJP was trying to drive away Bengalis from Assam while doing the same with the people of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in Gujarat. "I want to ask the BJP why did they drive away the people of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from Gujarat? At this rate, they would drive people away the people of other states even from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan or Delhi one day." --IANS mgr/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP on Monday hit out at the Congress over its stand on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said that if voted to power in 2019 it shall run a country-wide campaign to implement NRC to identify and send back the infiltrators. "After the BJP came to power in 2014, we have boosted the national security. We also implemented the NRC in Assam and identified 40 lakh infiltrators," Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah told the booth-level workers of 230 Assembly constituencies of Madhya Pradesh through video conferencing. He said that the Assam government identified 40 lakh people in Assam, who were unable to prove their citizenship. However, corrections are going on. Attacking Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Shah said, "The Congress opposed the NRC. They made it a human rights issue. The Congress and Rahul Gandhi should clear their stand over the NRC issue and tell the nation whether the infiltrators should be sent back to their countries or not." Shah said that people have faith in the Modi government and they would be voting for him in 2019. "And once voted back to power, we shall run a country-wide campaign to send back the infiltrators," he said, adding that the party was not bothered about vote bank as national security was a prime concern for it. The BJP Chief accused the Congress chief of sympathising with urban Maoists and said, "BJP governments have taken strong steps against the Maoists. When Maharashtra government arrested a few urban Maoists, Congress President and their leaders took their side and opposed it." "The Congress and its leaders have soft corner for the urban Maoists. What is Congress' stand on Maoists and urban Maoists they should clear," he said. The Rajya Sabha MP also attacked the Congress for describing Maoists as revolutionaries and said that the party and the government believe in revolution when "we provide medicines to poor, when we provide electricity, when we provide good education system for the children." He urged the party workers to go to all homes and explain the party's ideology over the NRC and Maoists and government intention towards them. He also praised state Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for brining the state out of the "sick" state category and said, "The state has done a lot of growth in last 15 years in all sectors." The BJP leader asked the party workers to not take the 2018 Assembly election in the state as any normal election. "Don't treat the 2018 Assembly election as any normal election. It is a crucial election as after it we shall start preparing for the 2019 general elections." "And we want to win under the leadership of Modiji in 2019. We want to make the country a super power in economy. So five years rule is not enough to make it," Shah added. --IANS aks/vsc/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a bid to prevent up to 100 gigatons of carbon emissions by 2050, and reduce up to 0.5 degree Celsius of global warming by 2100, the Indian government on Monday announced a $3 million award in collaboration with an American enterprise. The Ministry of Science and Technology joined hands with Mission Innovation and Rocky Mountain Institute in the US to launch the two-year-long competition for breakthrough in innovations in cooling technology. The "Global Cooling Prize" aims to spur the development of a residential cooling technology that will have at least five times less climate impact than the standard Room Air Conditioning (RAC) units. "The health and productivity of billions of citizens living in tropical and subtropical climates will be affected by rising temperatures," Union Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan said in a statement. "The government supports this innovation challenge, which aims to develop sustainable and efficient technology to provide thermal comfort to all, and invites applicants from around the world," Vardhan added. He was speaking at a two-day Global Cooling Innovation Summit here. Vardhan urged innovators to participate and develop a super-efficient technology that would be accessible and affordable to people around the world. Up to 10 short-listed competing technologies would be awarded up to $200,000 each in intermediate prizes to support the design and prototype development of their innovative residential cooling technology designs. The winning technology will be awarded at least $1 million to support its incubation and early-stage commercialisation. The initiative is backed by British entrepreneur Richard Branson, who said that if something was not done to arrest the growing global impact of air conditioning on the climate, the Paris Agreement goals would be derailed. --IANS rt/in/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) He knows the world of Bhagavad Gita, he knows about saint Sai Baba and follows a spiritual guru -- Diego Luna has a special bond with India. But the "Narcos: Mexico" star doesn't like to talk about the connection as it is a very "personal" matter for him. The actor expressed his thoughts about Indian culture during a panel discussion with director Shakun Batra and actress Alia Bhatt here on Monday. When Batra asked Luna to open up about his spiritual connect with India, referring that his grandmother was born in India, the actor said: "No (I don't want to talk since) spiritual connection is different." Prodded further by pointing out that he knows part of Bhagavad Gita, knows Sai Baba and follows a spiritual guru, Luna said: "It is something that I told you because I had four vodkas in me. I don't see how it connects with 'Narcos'. It is really personal." He might have evaded the question of his 'desi' connect, but that didn't stop him from expressing his love for the country. "I can just say that I find so many similarities between the Indian culture and Mexican culture... Like the cultural diversity," said Luna, who is in Mumbai to promote forthcoming "Narcos: Mexico" -- the fourth season of the hugely popular "Narcos" franchise by Netflix. With "Narcos: Mexico", showrunner Eric Newman is turning back the clock to explore the origins of the modern drug war by going back to its roots. It begins at a time when the Mexican trafficking world was a loose and disorganised confederation of independent growers and dealers. It will showcase the rise of the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s as Felix Gallardo (Luna) takes the helm, unifying traffickers to build an empire. When DEA agent Kiki Camarena (Michael Pena) moves his wife and young son from California to Guadalajara to take on a new post, he quickly learns that his assignment will be more challenging than he ever could have imagined. The show will premiere on November 16 on Netflix. Luna is in India to promote the show with Pena and Newman. Talking about the show, he said: "I don't think of it as fourth season. It's a new series for me. It is about a new place with a new cast -- everything is different. They complement each other but 'Narcos: Mexico" won't remind you of previous seasons." "Narcos: Mexico" is also a very personal story for Luna. "It is the foundation of Mexico where we are living today. It happened in the 1980s. I was six when this event happened. I don't remember that because my father was hiding that from me. But when 1990s came, I was reading about violence erupting and understanding how crucial 1980s were," said the actor, who hails from Mexico. He is also grateful to the previous cast, which include names like Pedro Pascal, Wagner Moura and Boyd Holbrook, for making the show popular around the world. "For the first time, I don't have to worry about the opening of my project." (Sugandha Rawal is in Mumbai on an invitation of Netflix India. She can be contacted at sugandha.r@ians.in) --IANS sug/rb/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain. Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred. For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here. A 65-year-old doctor was found dead at his home here on Monday, police said. Deputy Commissioner of Police Aslam Khan said the victim, Mukim Ullah, was alone in the house when the crime took place. His daughter, a guest teacher, had left for school at 7.30 a.m. An almirah at his house was found ransacked. "There were no injury marks on the body. The door was open. It seems to be a friendly entry," the officer said, adding that the cause of death was yet to be ascertained. --IANS mg/pgh/mr (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A doctor was on Monday found dead at his house in north Delhi, police said, adding the house was ransacked and cash and jewellery kept for his daughter marriage, were found missing. Deputy Commissioner of Police Aslam Khan said the victim, Mukim Ahmed (57), was alone in the house when the crime took place. His daughter, Sofia, a guest teacher in a government school, had left for school at 7.30 a.m. Police said preliminary investigation has suggested that the incident occurred around 8 a.m. but it was reported to police at 10.30 a.m. when Ahmed's distant relative, identified as Suvesh, informed the local police about Ahmed's death. "Having seen Ahmed's closed clinic below his residence at Jahangirpuri, Suvesh went to check. When he entered his residence, he found the main door opened and Ahmed was lying on his bed," Aslam Khan said. "During initial investigation, it was found that an almirah in the house was also found ransacked. Cash of Rs 5 lakh and jewellery items worth Rs 6 lakh as claimed by the deceased's family members were found missing," Khan said. "A knife was also found near the bed of the deceased, which suggested that the unknown attackers committed the robbery at knife-point. Prima facie there is strong possibility, they later allegedly strangled Ahmed to death when he resisted their attempts. Though there was no visual injury marks found on his body, the exact reason of Ahmed's death will be confirmed after his autopsy on Tuesday," the DCP said. "We have registered a case of murder and robbery against unknown attackers," the DCP said. "During investigation, it was found that Ahmed, a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) degree holder, was preparing for his daughter's marriage scheduled next month. He had gone to distribute her wedding cards yesterday with Suvesh," she said. "It was a planned crime as the attackers targeted the house after Sofia left for school," she added. --IANS sp-mg/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Election Commission of India on Monday launched its newly designed website that offers improved functionality and enriched content. Chief Election Commissioner O.P. Rawat said he was sure the visitors would "love the new look and the feel of the site". "We are excited about the launch of our new site, we hope every citizen will be able to find information on the Election Commission of India website with ease. Visitors would love the new look and the feel of the site, especially the new navigation where all the content is available in one place," Rawat said. "The revamped website demonstrates our commitment to free, fair and inclusive elections. The new site is an important piece for our voter-centric strategy and aligns EC digital platform much more closely to the Commission's vision," he added. The the revamped website features a streamlined and simplified design, improved functionality, and enriched content areas which will help visitors to make well-informed decisions regarding their election-related matters, the EC said in a release. "The new website has been built keeping users in mind. The streamlined user interface provides a more interactive experience, allowing users to easily find the information they are looking for," it added. Visitors can browse the website based on their own interests and learn more about the electoral process in a more engaging way. --IANS mak/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Five CRPF personnel on a foot patrol suffered bullet wounds in a three-hour gun battle with Maoists in a forested area here in Chhattisgarh to aid the first phase of Assembly polls, authorities said. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers were targeted around 12.20 p.m. when they were on an "area domination" operation in a dense forest near Majiguda village in Bijapur district. The commandos, proficient in guerrilla tactics and jungle warfare, left their Tippapuram-based camp around 3 a.m., around 12 km from the site. An Assistant Commandant, a Sub-Inspector and three Constables were injured when 80-90 Maoists opened fire on the CRPF team, its Deputy Inspector General M. Dinakaran told IANS. Earlier, the officer said two troopers were injured. The Maoists were heading towards Pamed to disrupt the election, said the official, adding the gun battle lasted for around three hours. "Pamed was around six km away from the site when our personnel spotted the Maoists and an encounter began. The Maoists were equipped with LMG, UBGL and mortars. Our personnel cordoned off the area and mounted a flanking attack. Five of our personnel were injured. They were evacuated and flown to Raipur by helicopter," Dinakaran said. A CRPF statement said many Maoists were seen getting hurt by bullets. "It is reasonably believed that 12-15 Maoists fell injured or dead. The bodies of the Maoists could not be retrieved due to heavy firing and injury to our men. Our party withdrew to Pamed camp after firing with the Maoists stopped," said the statement. Based on the intensity of the gun battle, weapons used by the Maoists and the area, it is suspected that Central Regional Committee No 2 led by Sagar was involved in the Maoist attack, it said. The attack occurred at a time when the first phase of the Chhattisgarh Assembly polls was on in Bijapur and other places in the Maoist-affected region. It was the sixth Maoist attack in 17 days in Chhattisgarh. Minutes before the polls began, Maoists detonated an IED in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district that narrowly missed a CRPF foot patrol. The IED went off around 6.20 a.m. just 700 metres from polling booth number 183 in Nayanar village in Katekalyan area. The Maoists had called for a boycott of elections but villagers voted in large numbers. --IANS rak/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Border Security Force on Monday seized gold biscuits worth Rs 95 lakh from the Indo-Bangladesh border area of West Bengal's Nadia district and arrested a gold smuggler, a BSF officer said. Acting on a tip-off, the BSF troopers conducted a raid near border outpost Mustafapur in Nadia district's Krishnanagar area and apprehended one Indian national with the smuggled gold biscuits. "Lokman Pal (47) of North 24 Parganas district's Gangulia village was arrested with 26 gold biscuits worth Rs 95.16 lakh while he was returning after talking to a Bangladeshi national near the international border fence," said Rabi Ranjan, a senior officer of BSF's South Bengal frontier. "The accused had the gold biscuits hidden in an artificial knee cap on his right leg. He has been handed over to Bagda police station along with the seized consignment for further legal action," he said. The South Bengal frontier of BSF has seized smuggled gold worth more than Rs 8 crore and arrested 10 gold smugglers so far in 2018. --IANS mgr/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) will spend about Rs 7,000 crore on its Tamil Nadu facility, as India's second-largest car maker plans to expand its production capacity, make powertrains, launch new models and roll out electric vehicles, said a top company official here. Officials of HMIL, led by its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Y.K. Koo on Monday met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K.Palaniswami here. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Koo said the company plans to increase the production capacity by another 100,000 units of completely-built units (CBU) and completely knocked-down (CKD) units for exports. Currently, HMIL has a total manufacturing capacity of about 700,000 units a year at its Irungattukottai plant near here. Koo said the company has requested the state government to give tax incentives and ensure power and water supplies. According to him, the company will produce more than 10 models, including electric vehicles, imported in CKD form in the first stage and later start manufacturing the same within three years. "We have the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) signing in January (during the Global Investors Meet) with the Tamil Nadu Government," Koo said. According to B.C. Dutta, Vice President, Corporate Affairs at HMIL, the fresh investment would create about 700 new jobs. --IANS vj/shs/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India and Morocco on Monday signed an agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, a move to strengthen bilateral cooperation and provide strong legal base for extradition of fugitive offenders, a Home Ministry statement said. The pact was signed by India's Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and Morocco's Minister of Justice Mohamed Aujjar here. "The agreement will strengthen bilateral cooperation with Morocco and enhance effectiveness and provide a broad legal framework for prevention, investigation and prosecution of crimes; as well as in tracing, restraint and confiscation of funds meant to finance terrorist acts," the statement said. The Ministers reiterated their resolve to jointly counter the threats posed by organised crime and terrorism. The agreement will provide a strong legal base for the extradition of fugitive offenders who are accused of economic offences, terrorism and other serious offences in one contracting state and found in another contracting state. This agreement will enhance co-operation in the service of summons, judicial documents, letters of request and the execution of judgments decrees and arbitral awards. On November 8, the union Cabinet gave its approval for the agreement. India and Morocco have enjoyed cordial and friendly relations and over the years bilateral relations have witnessed significant depth and growth. Both nations are part of the Non-Aligned Movement. --IANS rak/ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday discussed data sovereignty and privacy along with other issues with Nisha Biswal, President of US-India Business Council (USIBC), a government official said. The minister also noted that "democratic countries including the US and India" need to work together on both the opportunities and challenges emerging in the digital space, he said. "The issues of net neutrality and the need for recognising the rising urge for data sovereignty of the people were taken up and she (Biswal) agreed for discussion on these issues," the official said. The meeting also had a discussion on the H1B visa issue and the minister was of the opinion that there must be a change of narrative and emphasis must be on the value addition that Indian IT professionals and companies have made to the US. Further, regarding the ongoing US-Sino trade tension, the USIBC President was of the view that it may open up opportunities for India as American companies may be forced to relocate from China to other countries. --IANS rrb/pgh/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A close relative of a Minister quit on Monday as the demand for Higher Education Minister K.T. Jaleel's resignation gathered momentum following allegations of nepotism in the appointment. K.T. Adeeb's appointment as general manager in a state-owned corporation in September had sparked protests by the youth wing of the Indian Union Muslim League -- the second biggest ally of the Congress-led-UDF. Adeeb, who joined the Minorities Development Finance Corporation, under Jaleel's ministry, finally submitted his papers earlier in the day. However, Youth League chief P.K. Firos said: "We will not stop our protest till Jaleel quits and faces a probe into the entire episode as it is a clear case of nepotism." Despite Jaleel, an Independent MLA, receiving support of the ruling CPI-M, Firos came out with incriminating documents to negate Jaleel's claims, leading to Adeeb's resignation. The developments have taken place a day after Jubilee Navaprabha, wife of Public Works Minister G. Sudhakaran, quit her post in the University of following criticism that her husband played a role in getting her the job. Industries Minister E.P. Jayarajan, who quit in 2016 following similar charges, was reinstated earlier in 2018 after a court gave him a clean chit. Dozens of protesters took to the streets of Beirut on Monday, calling for the rights of Lebanese women who marry foreigners to pass their nationality onto their children. The protest coincided with the legislative session held at Parliament to pass a number of bills, according to the National News Agency (NNA). The demonstrators gathered at Riad Al Solh in central Beirut, protesting against the law that currently prohibits Lebanese women married to foreigners from giving the Lebanese nationality to their children, Xinhua news agency reported. Mustafa El Shaar, head of the campaign, said the protest was symbolic and warned of further escalations if the Parliament did not take into account the demands of these Lebanese women to pass nationality to their children. Lebanese officials previously defended the law by saying that it was to prevent geographic imbalance. Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil proposed to allow Lebanese women to pass on their nationality, except in cases where their husbands were from "neighbouring countries". Lebanese civil society criticized his statement as vague and ambiguous as it could be applied to all Arab countries. Lawmaker Hadi Abul Hassan prepared a draft law in which Lebanese women can automatically pass the nationality to their newborns. "We sent the law to the Parliament. When committees meet, it will be discussed by the committee of administration and justice, then it will be transferred to the joint committee prior to the public committee, which approves it before it becomes a law," Hassan said. --IANS soni/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday attended a dinner hosted by his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at Paris' Orsay Museum. Mr Trump made the comment in a Tweet as he arrived in Paris for ceremonies this weekend to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. In his talks with the USA leader Macron said he was merely arguing that Europe needed to take greater ownership of its own security, and Trump described the pair as "very good friends". Trump, who champions a nationalist "America first" policy, will not attend the forum. Dozens of world leaders have gathered at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to mark the 100-year anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. Macron's words during a solemn Armistice Day ceremony were intended for a global audience but also represented a pointed rebuke to Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and others in the audience. Trump and Putin are also set to meet at a working lunch in the Elysee Palace in the French capital, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said, reports Reuters. And Trump was not present as the other leaders arrived, walking side-by-side in a somber, rain-soaked line holding black umbrellas as bells finished tolling. More than three million French and German troops were among an estimated 10 million soldiers who died in the Great War of 1914-1918. The White House's decision on Saturday to scrap the president's visit to a cemetery for fallen American soldiers due to weather is creating a bit of a storm of its own. Trump had been scheduled to visit a different American cemetery outside Paris on Saturday, but rain grounded the helicopter Trump had planned to take so he cancelled the trip. By contrast, in the week ahead of Sunday's commemoration, Macron has been touring First World War battlefields in northern and eastern France, repeatedly warning in speeches of the resurgence of nationalism, saying it threatened the unity so carefully rebuilt in Europe over the past 70 years. Netanyahu is hoping to convince Paris to pressure Beirut over what Israel says are Iranian plans to build precision missile factories in Lebanon, according to Hebrew media reports. "We had a regular discussion this morning and he confirmed in front of the press that he was ok", Macron told CNN. "Right now the burden sharing has been largely on the United States". "They are ready to wreak chaos and death", he added. "Sometimes, history threatens to retake its tragic course and threaten our heritage of peace that we believed we had definitively settled with our ancestors' blood". Singling out the "American and French patriots" who served in the war, he said: "It is our duty to preserve the civilisation they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago". "And so the message, if we want to live up to the sacrifice of those soldiers who said 'never again, ' is to never yield to our weakest instincts, nor to efforts to divide us", Macron said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national President Amit Shah on Monday urged voters to take part in large numbers in the first phase of the polling process for 18 Assembly seats. "The first phase of voting in Chhattisgarh is today. I urge all voters to take part in the great festival of democracy with full enthusiasm and in huge numbers," Modi tweeted. The BJP President told voters to come out and exercise their franchise if they wished to maintain the momentum of development. "I appeal all the voters to vote in huge numbers to maintain the pace of development, progress and good governance," Shah tweeted in Hindi. The first phase of polling is for 18 seats in the Left-wing extremism affected districts of Chhattisgarh is underway. The ruling BJP had lost 12 of the 18 seats in the 2013 Assembly polls. The remaining 72 constituencies will vote in the second phase on November 20. The counting is scheduled on December 11. --IANS aks/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government of planning a 'demonetisation part-2' by forcing the central bank to part with a large chunk of its reserves. "Modi-made disaster of demonetisation shaved off 1.5 per cent of India's GDP and severely denigrated the institutional autonomy of the RBI. Now, the Modi government is planning demonetisation part-2 by coercing the RBI to pay a special dividend of Rs 3.6 lakh crore," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters here. Singhvi rejected as "bunkum" the government's argument that it was planning to fix the capital framework of the Reserve Bank of India, and not dip into its reserves, and accused the Centre of hatching a "nefarious ploy" to trample upon the institutional integrity of the central bank. "Staring at an imminent defeat in the 5 state elections and the ensuing Lok Sabha elections, a desperate Modi government wants to grab the family silver of the RBI in order to indulge in pre-elections sop-splash," he charged. Dismissing reports that the government had sought Rs 3.6 lakh crore from the RBI reserves as "misinformed speculation", Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg on November 9 said there was no such proposal and that the country's fiscal deficit target was on track. He, however, said that the proposal under discussion between the government and the Reserve Bank of India was to fix "appropriate" economic capital framework of the RBI. Singhvi questioned the need to fix the RBI's capital framework. "The Modi government has come forth with a bunkum and bogus argument that it wants to fix the economic capital framework of the RBI. "What is the meaning of 'fix appropriate economic capital framework of RBI' which is being discussed by the government? What is the need of this quick-fix solution, which will further deteriorate the contingency stability," asked Singhvi. He said that the move will shave 2 per cent off India's GDP. "A cobweb of fraudulent narrative, which smacks of despotism and complete disregard for institutional integrity towards the RBI, is being carefully weaved by the Modi government so that it snatches away the family silver in an election season in order to hide its malgovernance and failures," he added. --IANS and/shs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet US Vice President Mike Pence during a visit to Singapore on November 14-15 for India-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit and the 13th East Asia Summit (EAS), a senior official said on Monday. "Let me confirm that there will be a meeting between the Prime Minister and US Vice President Mike Pence," Vijay Thakur Singh, Secretary (East) in the External Affairs Ministry, said at a media briefing here. More details will be shared after the meeting between Modi and Pence on November 14, Singh said. The meeting assumes significance as US President Donald Trump has turned down an invitation to attend India's 2019 Republic Day celebrations as chief guest ostensibly due to scheduling reasons. Singh said other bilateral meetings were also being arranged between Modi and other visiting leaders in Singapore. There have been much speculations about the India-US ties over New Delhi's oil imports from Iran and signing of a missile deal with Russia after Washington imposed fresh sanctions on Tehran and Moscow for different reasons. India and Russia signed the S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile deal during the course of the 19th India-Russia Annual Bilateral Summit between Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin here last month. The US pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that Tehran had signed with the five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council, Germany and the EU and imposed the new sanctions on the West Asian nation over its nuclear programme. Under the sanctions, the US urged all countries in the world to stop importing oil from Iran. Singh said that high on Modi's agenda will be a summit meeting on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on November 14. The RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement between the 10 Asean member states and the six countries with which this regional bloc has existing free trade agreements -- Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. The RCEP is expected to be concluded by the end of the year as New Delhi continues to increase its engagement with southeast Asia under its Act East Policy. Modi will attend the 13th EAS and his fifth India-Asean Summit during his 36-hour visit to the Southeast Asian city state. The EAS member states comprise 10 Asean nations and Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the US and Russia. On November 14, Modi will also deliver the keynote address at the Singapore Fintech Summit. India will be the largest participant at the event with 400 exhibitors. Modi will also confer awards on winners of a hackathon between Indian and Singaporean students. On November 15, he will have a breakfast meeting with leaders of the Asean countries. The Prime Minister will also attend a meeting of the leaders of the quad -- comprising India, the US, Japan and Australia -- that was revived last year and which seeks to work for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. --IANS ab/soni/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Defying Maoist threats, lakhs of people voted on Monday in 18 constituencies in the first phase of the Chhattisgarh Assembly election, with officials putting the voting percentage at nearly 20 per cent in the first four hours. "So far 18-20 per cent polling has been registered in all the 18 seats. Thirty-one EVMs and 61 VVPAT machines were replaced due to technical snags. Except for one incident, polling so far is peaceful and is steadily picking up," Chief Electoral Officer Subrat Sahoo said. Voting was on at 10 seats since 7 a.m. and eight others from 8. Polling would end at 3 p.m. in Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur, Konta, Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal and Kondagaon. Polling in Khairagarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Bastar, Jagdalpur and Chitrakot, which started an hour later, would continue till 5 p.m. Maoists who had asked people to boycott the elections detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Katekalyan area in Dantewada district, minutes before the polling began. A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) foot patrol team narrowly escaped the attack just 700 metres from a polling booth in Nayanar village, an officer said. So far there have been five Maoist attacks in 17 days in which a BSF officer and a Doordarshan crew member have been killed. Over 31 lakh voters, including over 15 lakh men and in excess of 16 lakh women, are eleigible to exercise their franchise in 4,336 polling booths on Monday when a total of 190 candidates are in the fray. Chief Minister Raman Singh is contesting from Rajnandgaon. His challenger is none other than late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's niece, Karuna Shukla, who joined the Congress in 2014. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has ruled Chhattisgarh for the past 15 years, lost 12 of these 18 seats in the 2013 Assembly polls. The election is witnessing a third factor in the form of Mayawati's BSP which has aligned with the Chhattisgarh Janata Congress of former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi and the Communist Party of India. Twelve of the 18 seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs) and one is reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) category. The second phase of polling in 72 seats would be held on November 20. Counting of votes would take place on December 11. --IANS and/in/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew into Bengaluru on Monday night and paid respects to Union Minister Ananth Kumar at the latter's residence in the city's southern suburb where his body has been kept for public to pay homage. Landing at the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) airport in the city's eastern suburb from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Modi drove to Kumar's residence amid tight security. After laying a wreath on the glass casket draped in tricolour in which the body was kept, Modi consoled Kumar's widow Tejaswini. The Prime Minister was accompanied by Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala and BJP state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa. Kumar passed away around 3 a.m. on Monday at Shankara Cancer Hospital in the city due to multi-organ failure while undergoing treatment for cancer. --IANS bha/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the phone to discuss murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi's case. The State Department on Sunday said Pompeo emphasised that the US would hold all of those involved in the killing of The Washington Post journalist accountable and that Saudi Arabia must do the same, reports Xinhua news agency. Khashoggi was killed after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 2. After releasing the results of the initial investigations, the Saudi authorities announced that 18 people were arrested over alleged connections to his killing. On October 23, US President Donald Trump denounced the Saudi handling of the case, calling it the "worst cover-up ever" and "a total fiasco". --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Centre has defended the deal to procure 36 Rafale fighter jets in a fly-away condition and asserted that the purchase of the French fighter aircraft was in conformity with the process laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure of 2013. "It is reiterated that that the procurement process as laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP)-2013 was followed in procurement of 36 Rafale aircraft. The approval of DAC (Defence Acquisition Council) for procurement of 36 Rafale aircraft was taken, Indian Negotiating Team (INT) was constituted which conducted negotiations with the French side for about a year and approval of CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security) being CFA (competent financial authority) was taken before the signing of IGA (inter-government agreement)," the Centre has said. The Centre has given other procedural details of the deal to the top court in a sealed cover, which it shared with the petitioner, M.L. Sharma and NGO Common Cause, on Monday, in pursuance of the top court's October 31 order. On the contentious issue of HAL being dislodged as an Indian Offset Partner, the Centre has contended that in the IGA between India and France there was no mention of any private business entity. "In so far as discharging the offset obligations by OEM and its Tier-I vendors through Indian Offset Partners (IOPs) is concerned, there is no mention of any private India business house(s) in IGA or Offset Contract," the Centre told the top court. "The offset contract does not envisage manufacture of 36 Rafale aircraft in India by any public or private sector firm," the government has said. Washing its hands of any involvement in the choice of private player as Offset Partner by Dassault Aviation, the Centre has said that it was entirely up to the French aircraft manufacturer to decide. "As per the Offset Contract, the vendor/OEM is required to confirm the details of the IOPs/products either at the time of seeking offset credits or one year prior to discharge of offset obligations," the Centre said. "The vendor/OEM is yet to submit a formal proposal in a prescribed manner indicating details of IOPs and products for offset discharge", which is likely to happen only in 2019. Amongst the papers given to the top court, the Centre has also included the statement issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) by way of clarification on former French President Francois Hollande's interview concerning the selection of Reliance Defence as the offset partner. On September 22, the Defence Ministry issued a clarification on the offset guidelines, saying, "As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner." It described the JV between Reliance Defence and Dassault Aviation as a "purely commercial arrangement between two private companies". The Centre has cited security considerations to justify the aborting of the earlier process for the procurement of 126 jet fighters (18 in fly-away condition and 108 to be manufactured in India), and opting to purchase 36 Rafale aircraft instead, contending that,"During this long period of inconclusive 126 MMRCA process, our adversaries inducted modern aircraft and upgraded their older versions. "Further," the government said, "They (adversaries) modernised and inducted aircraft with advance weapon and radar capabilities. As per available information, our adversaries inducted more than 400 fighters (equivalent to more than 20 Squadrons) during the period from 2010 to 2015." "They not only inducted 4th Generation aircraft but also inducted 5th Generation Stealth Fighter Aircraft" and the "combined effect of our own reducing combat potential and our adversaries' enhancing their combat potential made the situation asymmetrical and extremely critical". Thus, the government said that an "urgent need was felt to arrest the decline in the number of fighter squadrons in the IAF and enhance their combat capabilities." --IANS pk/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Top Saudi intelligence officials close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked a small group of businessmen last year about using private companies to assassinate enemies of the Kingdom, The New York Times reported. The Saudis inquired at a time when Prince Mohammed, then the deputy crown prince and defence minister, was consolidating power and directing his advisers to escalate military and intelligence operations outside the Kingdom, informed sources told The Times on Sunday. Their discussions, more than a year before the killing of The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, indicate that top Saudi officials have considered assassinations since the beginning of Prince Mohammed's ascent. Saudi officials have portrayed Khashoggi's death as a rogue killing ordered by an official who has since been fired. But that official, Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, was present for a meeting in March 2017 in Riyadh where the businessmen pitched a $2 billion plan to use private intelligence operatives to try to sabotage the Iranian economy, the sources said. During the discussion, part of a series of meetings where the men tried to win Saudi funding for their plan, General Assiri's top aides inquired about killing Qassim Suleimani, the leader of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps and a man considered a determined enemy of Saudi Arabia. George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman, arranged the meeting. He had met previously with Prince Mohammed, and had pitched the Iran plan to Trump White House officials. Another participant in the meetings was Joel Zamel, an Israeli with deep ties to his country's intelligence and security agencies. Both Nader and Zamel are witnesses in the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and prosecutors have asked them about their discussions with American and Saudi officials about the Iran proposal, The New York Times reported. General Assiri was dismissed last month when the Saudi government acknowledged Khashoggi's killing and said he had organised the operation. On Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government had handed over a recording of Khashoggi's killing to the US, Saudi Arabia, Britain and France, pressuring President Donald Trump to more harshly punish the Saudis over the murder. --IANS ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lanka's main political parties filed petitions in the Supreme Court on Monday challenging President Maithripala Sirisena's dissolution of Parliament and Speaker Karu Jayasuriya called on public servants to refuse to execute any "illegal" orders they may receive in the midst of an ongoing political crisis. The political turmoil escalated in the island nation when Sirisena dissolved Parliament on Friday and called for a snap parliamentary election on January 5, over two weeks after sacking Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replacing him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa. The parties which filed Fundamental Rights petitions on Monday included the United National Party led by sacked Wickremesinghe, the main opposition Tamil National Alliance, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the Tamil Progressive Alliance and the All Ceylon Makkal Congress, the Daily Mirror reported. The petitioners said Sirisena had no powers to dissolve the Parliament under the 19th amendment of the Constitution and requested the apex court to issue an order voiding the gazette issued by Sirisena and to suspend the upcoming parliamentary election until a verdict was announced. The petition filed will be considered later in the day by a three-judge Supreme Court bench including Chief Justice Nalin Perera, according to Xinhua news agency. Speaker Jayasuriya said in a statement that every citizen who was entrusted with responsibilities under the Constitution, should think first of the country and not of party or personal affiliations. "Under these dire circumstances, I urge all public servants who have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution to revisit that oath. "I call upon all public servants to refuse to execute any illegal orders they may receive, no matter from whom," he added. Jayasuriya also had requested Sirisena to convene the Parliament immediately to see which party held a majority. Sirisena's sudden move to dissolve the Parliament came one and a half years ahead of the scheduled parliamentary polls. Meanwhile, a member of the country's Election Commission, S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole, joined the political parties in challenging the Parliament's dissolution. Hoole along with two other members of the poll body called the President's move "illegal". On Saturday, when the Election Commission met for the first time after Sirisena's illegal sacking, Hoole refused to sign the order directing Commissioner General of Elections to begin preliminary administrative work on holding the polls. --IANS soni/sed (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday appealed to members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to invest in her country. Suu Kyi, who called Myanmar the "last frontier of Southeast Asia", was delivering the keynote speech to the Asean Business and Investment Summit being held in Singapore. "Reform measures have been undertaken to create a more attractive, investor-friendly environment in Myanmar," Suu Kyi said, describing her country as a "very new player in the market economy scene", Efe news reported. "We are very concerned with responsible business, because as a country that was under an authoritarian system for more than half a century, responsibility was something that many people were unaware of, because everything was taken care of by the authorities," she added. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate highlighted the host nation Singapore's rapid development as an example for her country to follow and aspire to, but cautioned that it would take decades before Myanmar would start to see similar results to the city state's or other countries in the region. Her appeal for foreign investment came amid widespread international criticism over her handling of the Rohingya refugee crisis, which has seen over 700,000 members of the mostly Muslim minority flee a military crackdown in western Rakhine state to neighbouring Bangladesh. The two countries agreed to begin the repatriation process later this week, but international groups, including the UN, warned that conditions for their safe return were not met. Suu Kyi, who was detained by the military dictatorship in Myanmar for over two decades, led her National League for Democracy party to power in 2015 to bring the dictatorship to an end. Once seen as an icon for democracy, she has been widely criticized for her government's handling of the Rohingya crisis, which the UN has called "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing". --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) But Dutton said there was no available evidence or intelligence Shire Ali had been preparing an attack. Mr Dutton said parliament also needed to pass the Morrison government's encryption laws to give law enforcement agencies a better chance of thwarting terror attacks. "Where there is not (that information), where someone makes a spur-of-the-moment decision - under the influence of drugs or alcohol - the police can't contemplate every circumstance", Mr Dutton said. Police said Shire Ali had his Australian passport cancelled in 2015 after an intelligence report that he planned to travel to Syria but an assessment was made that while he had radical views, he posed no threat to national security. "These are complex matters and we need the evidence to supplement the intelligence we have". "As I say, the police and ASIO have been clear about this for a long time - you have a soft target, that is where you have a place of mass gathering, a mall, or a food court or somewhere else, you have somebody, as we've seen overseas with a vehicle, with a knife, an explosive device otherwise, it is very hard to deal with every one of those situations". "In relation to his connections with ISIL (another name for IS) or with any terrorist group. there's not, as I'm advised, a membership of an organisation or a definite link to ISIL", Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told reporters in Brisbane. He said discussions around what can be done to prevent similar incidents in future were underway. Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was one of more than 400 "persons of interest" being monitored by ASIO after he was investigated for his association with other individuals linked to terrorism. Footage shows the security guard was stabbed in the neck. "I know there's critics out there who have suggested otherwise but the fact is, nobody can truly comprehend how [they'd] respond [to] a vehicle on fire, gas bottles involved and a person who is of a fairly strong build and stature.lunging a knife toward people or police officers". - An unnamed hero joined the fray, affectionately nick-named "Trolley Man" after he attempted to stop the knifeman by repeatedly attacking him with a trolley. - Police were made aware of other victims of the knife attack. Three men were taken to hospital. Two other men received non-fatal stab wounds in the attack. Scott Morrison said Australia "would be kidding ourselves if we did not call out the fact that the greatest threat of religious extremism in this country is the radical and unsafe ideology of extremist Islam" following Friday's attack. He also confirmed Ali was known to state and federal police, as well as ASIO. Tigress Avni was shot and killed "when she was facing away" from the gunman hired by the Maharashtra government, the report of an independent government-appointed expert revealed here on Monday, giving a new dimension to the operation. The detailed analytical report has been prepared by wildlife biologist Milind Pariwakam of the Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) who attended Avni's autopsy as a representative of Maharashtra's Principal Chief Conservator of Forests. "Bullet trajectory as inferred from the post-mortem observations shows that the animal was facing away from the person who fired the bullet," Pariwakam has stated in the report, which forms an annexure to the autopsy report released earlier. Contacted by IANS, Pariwakam declined to comment as separate committees appointed by the Centre and the state government are now probing the tigress' shooting. Pariwakam's report raises doubts on the claims made by the hired shooter and officials that Avni was shot in 'self defence' after a darting attempt failed. On this, the expert's observations during the autopsy was that only one bullet was found in Avni's carcass, plus no solid food remains recovered, indicating she was hungry since days. "The path from the entry wound to the place where the bullet was lodged indicates that the trajectory is at an obtuse angle (as measured from the direction of the tigress' head) to the axis of the body (spinal axis, nose-to-tail), the place where the bullet was lodged and the trajectory of the bullet shows that the animal was facing away from the person who fired the bullet," he said in the report. The official version that attempts were made to tranquilize the alleged man-eater fertile tigress also came under a cloud, with Pariwakam asserting that the dart was found with cannula (thin tube) piercing the skin on the left thigh. "Dart fired from a syringe projector (a tranquilizing gun) always leaves a significant and obvious haematoma (bleeding with clots) which was not observed in this case," the report says, implying the dart was probably inserted after Avni's death. Another interesting observation is that the weapon remains unidentified as also the empty bullet cartridge. Both were not deposited or made available to the autopsy team. The tigress - identified as T1 - was shot dead in a late night operation on November 2 in the Pandharkavada Forest Division of Yavatmal district, sparking outrage and a public spat between Union Minister Maneka Gandhi and Maharashtra Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar. Official sources, declining to be identified, indicated late on Monday evening that the expert's report with the fresh revelations would be submitted to the two committees enquiring into Avni's killing. Avni's autopsy was conducted on November 3 afternoon at the Gorewada Zoo in Nagpur by Ajay Phoharkar, Livestock Development Officer, Veterinary Polyclinic, Nagpur, Dr S.V. Upadhye, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Wildlife Research & Training Centre, Nagpur, Dr P.M. Sonkusale, Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology, Nagpur Veterinary College, and Dr B.M. Kadu, Veterinary Officer (Wildlife), Nagpur, besides Pariwakam attending as WCT and the state government's expert representative. Soon after the autopsy, Avni's body was cremated on a funeral pyre at the Gorewada Zoo. --IANS qn/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two women aged above 100 years and a US-based software engineer were among the lakhs who voted despite Maoist threats in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly polls on Monday. Despite the rebels' call for an election boycott, an overwhelming number of voters - over 70 per cent as per data till 5 p.m. - came out to exercise their right in 18 of the 90 constituencies. Among them were 100-year-old Vishwas, who voted at Dornapal polling station, and 103-year-old Soni Bai, who voted at Gorgunda in Sukma district. US-based software engineer Supraja Murti and her sister-doctor Vijaylaxmi, belonging to Kanker district, travelled all the way to cast their vote, Election Commission officials said. Surrendered Maoist couple Mainu Ram and his wife Rajbati also exercised their voting rights. Voters voted for first time at Muller (10) and Nilavaya (19) polling station of Dantewada. At Palamabuda of Sukma, voting was done for the first time after 15 years. A total of 44 persons voted. Voters of Banda, Kistaram of Sukma and Kodnar river valley of Dantewada reached their polling stations crossing the river. In the previous election, the boat was destroyed by the Maoists to obstruct the poll process. Similarly, around 4,500 villagers from Pahunar Tumdigunda, Cherpal and Kauragaon of Dantewada crossed Indrawati river on 'dongis' (small boats) to vote. A total of 315 votes were cast at Senduguda. In 2013, only five votes were cast here. In Kanker Assembly constituency, the polling station of gram panchayat Amapani was shifted to gram panchyat Themu. The Sarpanch did not allow anybody to go for polling. Villagers supported the boycott. Voting in the second and final phase of Assembly elections will taken place on November 20 for the rest of 72 seats. The vote count will take place on December 11. --IANS mak/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar died on Monday at a private hospital here due to multiple organ failure, a BJP spokesman said. He was 59. "A state funeral with 21-gun salute and guard of honour will be accorded to the mortal remains of Kumar at a crematorium in the city's southwest suburb on Tuesday afternoon in accordance with Hindu rites," an official told IANS. The veteran BJP lawmaker from this tech city died around 3 a.m. at Shankara Cancer Hospital due to multi-organ failure three weeks after he was admitted on return from the US on October 21. Prime Minster Narendra Modi flew into the city on Monday night from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and paid last respects to Kumar at his residence in the city's southern suburb by laying a wreath on the tricolour-draped glass casket in which his body lay in waiting for public homage. Modi has also consoled Kumar's widow Tejaswani, their two daughters Aishwarya and Vijeta and expressed grief to Kumar's siblings -- brother Nand Kumar and sister Suhasini. Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala and BJP's state unit president B.S. Yeddyruappa accompanied Modi to Kumar's residence for homage. "The body will be taken to the party's state unit office in the city's northwest region on Tuesday at 8 a.m. for tributes by state leaders and cadres and kept at the National College grounds in Basavangudi in the southern suburb from 10 a.m to 1 p.m for public homage," said the party in a statement later. Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, party's national president Amit Shah, several Union Ministers and party leaders will visit the city on Tuesday to pay homage to Kumar and attend his last rites. Earlier in the day, the Karnataka government declared a three-day mourning across the state and one-day public holiday for Monday as a mark of respect to Kumar. The departed leader was also Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers in the NDA-led government since May 2014. A six-time parliamentarian from the Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency since 1996, Kumar was undergoing treatment for cancer in the UK and US since late August. "He first went to London after the monsoon session of Parliament in July-August and was later shifted to a New York hospital. "The cancer had spread to other parts of his body that resulted in his multi-organ failure and death," said Shantaram. As news of Kumar's demise spread across the city, hundreds of people, including party's state unit leaders rushed to his residence to pay their last respects. President Ram Nath Kovind, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Arun Jaitely, Nirmala Sitharaman and Nitin Gadkari mourned Kumar's death and expressed condolences to his bereaved family. Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, cabinet ministers of the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Congress coalition government joined BJP's state unit leaders and cadres in condoling Kumar's death. "The national flag will fly half-mast on public buildings across the state and all official engagements are cancelled till Wednesday," the Congress-JD-S government announced. --IANS bha-fb/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress will form a government of "farmers and people" in Maharashtra after the 2019 assembly elections, state party President and former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said here on Monday. Claiming that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena had formed the state government in 2014 with "only 30 per cent vote share", Chavan said that the Opposition would now not allow the remaining 70 percent votes to get divided in the next assembly elections, due in October 2019. "Across Maharashtra, the Opposition is speaking out against Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP-Shiv Sena government. The Congress' 'Jan Sangharsh Yatra', the Nationalist Congress Party's 'Halla Bol' campaign and the CPI (M)'s Kisan Long March are all proof that this government is facing resistance from all sections of society," he said. He was speaking at the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha's (AIKS) Kisan Hakka Parishad Monday evening. NCP President Sharad Pawar, state NCP chief Jayant Patil, CPI(M) leader Hannan Mollah, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil and other senior leaders were also present. Attacking the ruling alliance for its failure to provide relief to people in the parched regions of the state despite repeated declarations of drought, Chavan accused Fadnavis of indulging in wordplay, while farmers across Maharashtra continued to suffer. "For the first time in Maharashtra, the government has used words like 'drought-like' solution to trick the people of the state. Despite declaring a drought, they have made no provisions to provide drought relief," he pointed out. He also criticised the government's flagship farm loan waiver announcement, claiming that the party's Jan Sangharsh Yatra travelled across rural areas "but found that many had failed to get the benefit" from the scheme. Chavan said that despite assurances over the past four years, the government could not introduce legislation to ensure minimum support prices in the state for agriculture produce, and though MSP centres are inaugurated, they are not functional. He targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's crop insurance scheme, terming it as "a failure" which did not benefit the farmers, but enriched the private insurance companies. Chavan reiterated that a united opposition front would take on the BJP-Sena in 2019 and efforts are underway to establish a common ground among all the opposition parties. --IANS qn/shs/sed (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Buying a home is exciting and yet tedious, as a mesh of issues surrounding purchasing property tends to confuse buyers. A critical decision to make is whether to buy an apartment under construction or a ready-to-move-in (RTM). Here is an analysis of both options. An RTM apartment is more expensive than an under-construction flat in the same locality. You should have deep pockets for an RTM flat, as you would have to pay the full cost of the property before the builder gives you the keys. Your home loan should be sanctioned, and EMIs on the full loan amount will start ... The Karnataka government has declared a three- day state mourning till November 14 as a mark of respect to Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar, who died in the early hours of Monday. The State government has also declared a holiday on Monday as a mark of respect to Kumar. His last rites would be performed with all Government honour, an official release said. Kumar died at a private hospital here after battling lung cancer for several months. A government notification said, during state mourning there would be no official programmes. The national flag would fly at half-mast atop all government buildings, it said. Condoling Kumar's death Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said, he has lost a great friend. "Our families had a friendship beyond He always valued and gave priority to friendship. I have lost a great friend in his death, Kumaraswamy said in a statement. Describing him as a value-based politician, who made a significant contribution to the country as an MP and Union Minister, the Chief Minister said, his pro-people attitude and activities had made him the "apple of the eye of Bengalurians". Kumaraswamy will directly arrive at the National College Ground from Mysuru on Monday and will pay his last respects to the departed leader, the Chief Minister's Office said. One of the 62 stranded job seekers from India who was allegedly held captive in Malaysia will return home from Kuala Lumpur by Monday morning, an NGO official said. Sanjay Mallick (27) would return home to Pandua in Hooghly district, Sheikh Jinnar Ali, the official of the Kolkata-based NGO National Anti-Trafficking Committee said. The NGO had flagged the plight of the job seekers who had gone to Malaysia. Ali said the Malaysian police have traced Mallick and recovered his passport, following which he was sent back to India. Altogether 62 Indians, including 32 from West Bengal, were "sold" by Indian agents to two Malaysian organisations as "slaves" and Mallick was one of them, he said. "I am waiting at the airport to return home. My employer has dropped me off here. I have no money left," Mallick was shown by vernacular TV channels as saying at the Kuching airport in Malaysia. The National Anti-Trafficking Committee had sought assistance from the Ministry of External Affairs to rescue all the others who were held captive in Malaysia by the two organisations which had hired them. The NGO had also written to the Prime Minister's Office and the West Bengal Chief Minister's Office to rescue the people, whose plight came to light through a video shared on social media, Ali said. In the video, two people from the group claimed that after reaching Malaysia, their passports and visas were snatched and they were taken to Kuching, capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak. "The two said that they, along with 23 others, were locked in one room in Malaysia by a casino staff, while seven others were held captive in another room," Ali said. The group of 32, including two children, hail from districts of North and South 24 Parganas, Hooghly and Birbhum, he said. Ali said Indian High Commission officials have informed the NGO that Malaysia police have started a probe into the matter and were able to locate their whereabouts at Kuching. The National Anti-Trafficking Committee had played a big role in bringing back home a few goldsmiths stranded in Iran recently. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Palestinian medics say at least 6 people were killed in what the Israeli Defense Forces dubbed an exchange of fire during "operational activity" in Gaza following reports of Israeli strikes and the killing of Hamas commanders. Gaza's health ministry said six Palestinians were killed. Hamas's armed wing alleged in a statement that an Israeli special forces team infiltrated near Khan Yunis in a civilian auto. During the pursuit, Israeli aircraft fired more than 40 missiles in the area, witnesses told Reuters. Israel's army is warning of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip after a Hamas commander allegedly was killed in a Gaza raid that also left one Israeli officer dead. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended his decision to permit Qatar to pay the salaries of thousands of Gaza civil servants, saying he deems it to be "the right step", which would essentially calm tensions and help avoid a Palestinian humanitarian crisis. A Hamas spokesman denounced a "cowardly Israeli attack". The sudden, late-night burst of violence comes as Israel and Hamas had appeared to be making progress towards minimising months of border violence. It said militants discovered the vehicle and chased it down, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed "a number of people". Residents of Israeli communities near Gaza said the scope of these airstrikes was exceptional and "sounded nearly like a war", Haaretz said. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu's education minister and right-wing rival, compared the cash flow to "protection money" paid to criminals. "I'm doing what I can, in coordination with the security elements, to return quiet to the southern communities, but also to prevent a humanitarian crisis", Netanyahu said, mentioning the further deteriorating conditions in the war-torn Gaza Strip. Lieberman said he had opposed "transferring the money to Hamas". "We ask the Palestinian Authority to allow the "Great March of Return" protests reach the West Bank and be held there", Abu Zuhri added. The funds were primarily to cover salaries of officials working for Hamas. For the second week in a row, the Palestinians kept Friday's protests carefully restrained, burning fewer tires and refraining from breaching the fence. An eight-year-old boy was allegedly sodomised by a barber here on Monday, police said. The incident took place in a village in Tarabganj area when the boy had gone to the accused Mohit's shop for a haircut, Superintendent of Police (SP) Lallan Singh said. Mohit was arrested after a first information report was lodged by the victim's family. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India Monday signed an initial pact to lease out a part of its underground strategic oil storage at Padur in Karnataka to Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) for storing crude oil, the second such deal with the UAE firm this year, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said. India has built 5.33 million tonne (MT) of emergency storage -- enough to meet its oil needs for 9.5 days, in underground rock caverns in Mangalore and Padur in Karnataka and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. It has allowed foreign oil companies to store oil in the storages on condition that the stockpile can be used by New Delhi in case of an emergency. ADNOC had in February this year signed a pact to fill half of the 1.5 MT strategic oil storage at Mangalore. On Monday it signed a similar pact for Padur. "ISPRL (Strategic Petroleum Reserve entity of India) and ADNOC of UAE signed MoU to explore possibilities of ADNOC investment in filling up of crude oil in Padur strategic reserve in Karnataka," Pradhan, who is in Abu Dhabi for the agreement signing, tweeted. The agreement allows ADNOC to sell or trade crude oil storage in the storages to local refiners but give Indian government the first right to the oil in case of an emergency. Official sources said the pact followed the Cabinet's last week decision of approving filling up of the underground strategic oil storage at Padur by foreign oil companies. While a third of the Visakhapatnam facility has been hired by Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), ADNOC and government of India filled the storage at Mangalore. The 2.5 MT Padur facility remained empty. Allowing foreign companies to use the storage for storing crude oil helps the government save on the cost of filling the reserves. Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had after the Cabinet meeting on November 8 said that allowing foreign companies to store oil in Padur would help the government save Rs 10,000 crore. The Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) has constructed and commissioned underground rock caverns for storage of total 5.33 MT(around 39 million barrels) of crude oil at three locations -- Vishakhapatnam (1.33 MT), Mangalore (1.5 MT) and Padur (2.5 MT). Padur storage has four compartments of 0.625 MT each and ADNOC may use half of the storage capacity for stocking its oil. The total 5.33 MT capacity under Phase-I of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) programme is estimated to supply about 9.5 days of India's crude requirement. In Mangalore, it had agreed to stock 5.86 million barrels of 0.75 MT of oil. In Phase-II, India plans to build an additional 6.5 MT facilities at Chandikhol in Odisha and Padur, which is expected to augment the emergency cover against any supply disruption by another 11.5 days. Sources said oil firms like ADNOC could use the Padur storage to stock their oil and sell it to refineries in the region on commercial terms. India, which meets 83 per cent of its oil needs through imports, will have the right of first refusal to buy the crude oil stored in the facilities in case of an emergency, they said. Indian refiners maintain 65 days of crude storage, and when added to the storage planned and achieved by ISPRL, takes the Indian crude storage tally to about 87 days. This is very close to the storage of 90 days mandated by IEA for member countries. ADNOC had last year given up its crude storage lease in South Korea and instead agreed to store oil at Mangalore in a bid to establish a ground presence in the world's third-largest oil consuming nation. Out of the crude stored, a part would be used for commercial purposes by ADNOC, while a major part would be purely for strategic purposes. The Visakhapatnam facility can meet two-and-half days need while Mangalore can meet 2.8 days requirement. Padur can meet 4.7 days requirement. The Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) at Mangalore consists of two compartments with a total storage capacity of 1.5 MT (11 million barrels). While one compartment has been filled with crude oil through funds made available by the government, the other compartment will be filled with crude supplied by ADNOC. ADNOC hired the Mangalore storage just as it ended a contract to store 6 million barrels of crude oil at Korea National Oil Corp's Yeosu facility in the country's southwest coast. South Korea had first right over the oil in the event of a supply emergency. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Attorney General K K Venugopal on Monday lodged protest in the Supreme Court against dismissal of cases without hearing the lawyers. Venugopal's protest came before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. He said citizens from far flung areas of the country come to the apex court and the bench headed by the CJI was dismissing their petitions without hearing them at the admission stage. "People come to this court after travelling thousands of miles and Your Lordships do not even hear their arguments and dismiss cases saying you have read it. This is not the way, at least at admission stage they should be heard," the top law officer said. The CJI, who was presiding the bench along with Justice S K Kaul, said that he was taking note of his concerns. "Alright, Mr Venugopal. We take your statement in the right spirit. You may now argue," the CJI said. Venugopal was appearing on behalf of Rajashtan government in a tax-related matter before the bench and when he sensed that the court was not inclined to entertain the plea, he made the protest. The bench led by the CJI has been taking tough stand on urgent mentioning of cases and disposes them of quickly. The law officer said that the bench should have issued the notice as it related to the revenue of the state. "It is related to revenue of a state..Why the CJI bench is hesitating to issue notice. It is about state government's revenue," Venugopal said. "Do not presume we didn't see the file...we might have misread it but we read it," the CJI said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar Monday denied arranging any meeting between former Punjab Chief Minister and SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and Dera Sacha Sauda sect head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. Kumar also denied having ever met Sirsa headquartered Dera head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term in a rape case. Kumar issued the denial a day after the SIT, probing the 2015 police firings at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura in Faridkot at mobs protesting the state-wide sacrilege incidents, summoned him along with former Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal and SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal. It has come to my knowledge that some rumours and false statements are being loosely made on social media about my involvement with a person named Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the context of a fictitious meeting involving Sukhbir Singh Badal, Akshay tweeted Monday. With all humility, I would like to state the following facts. I have never ever met Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in my life, anywhere. I learnt from social media at some point that Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh resided for a while at some place in my locality Juhu in Mumbai but we never crossed each other's paths, Akshay said on micro-blogging site. Over the years, I have dedicatedly made films, promoting the Punjabi culture and the rich history and tradition of Sikhism through films like Singh is King, Kesari (based on the battle of Saragarhi) etc. I am proud of being a Punjabi and have the highest regard for the Sikh faith. I shall never do anything that would even remotely hurt the sentiments of my Punjabi brothers and sisters for whom I have the utmost respect and love," tweeted Kumar. "My statement above is the utmost and absolute truth. I challenge anyone who can prove it otherwise, he added. Actor Kumar's name figures in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on the sacrilege incidents. The report was tabled in Punjab assembly in August. The report claimed Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh had met former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal at the actor's flat in Mumbai in 2015 in connection with the release of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect head's movie 'MSG'. The meeting was allegedly held before the Dera chief was pardoned in a blasphemy case. The movie MSG could not be released in Punjab in September 2015 because of an edict by the Akal Takht against it. Akshay Kumar, however, had denied having met Dera Sacha Sauda sect head even then. SIT member Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, an inspector general of Punjab police, has issued separate summonses to the Prakash Singh Badal, Sukhbir Singh Badal and Akshay Kumar on behalf of the SIT. While the senior Badal has been asked to appear before the Punjab Police SIT on November 16, the junior one has been summoned on November 19. Akshay Kumar has been asked to appear before the SIT on November 21. The three have to report to the SIT at the Amritsar circuit house. IGP Singh said the summonses relate to the investigation of cases involving various incidents of sacrilege in 2015. The summonses have been issued under the section 160 of the CrPC, requiring the attendance for investigation, relating to the Bargari sacrilege case and the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura police firing incidents. The summonses say, "The presence of the aforesaid person is necessary for the purpose of inquiry into the above-mentioned offence and the person summoned needed to give such information relating to the said alleged offence as he may possess. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Monday asked the Centre and Uttar Pradesh government to file counter affidavits within a week on a petition challenging the decision to rename Allahabad as Prayagraj. A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan passed the order on a PIL moved by H S Pandey. The petitioner argued that it was necessary to invite objections from the public under Section 6 (2) of the Revenue Manual before changing the name of a district, but the said provision was not followed in the present case. The state counsel opposed the plea by submitting that the provision was applicable in case the revenue area had to be changed. But, he added, only the name was changed in the present case and, therefore, the petition was not maintainable. After hearing both sides, the court asked the state and the central government counsel to place their arguments on record by filing counter affidavits. The next hearing of the matter is on Monday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Monday condoled the death of Union Minister Ananth Kumar, saying he was a "popular leader" who had a "deep attachment" with the masses. In a statement issued here, Adityanath said, "Ananth Kumar was a popular leader, and had deep attachment with the public. He had effectively discharged his responsibilities pertaining to the organisation and government." The Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Chemicals and Fertilizers, Kumar passed away early Monday morning in Bengaluru. He was a BJP MP from south Bengaluru constituency. Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya in a tweet condoled the senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader's demise, terming it as an "irreparable loss" for the saffron party. UP Legislative Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit too condoled the death of the Union minister. In a tweet, Dixit said, "The demise of Ananth Kumar has left a deep void in the political arena. May God give strength to the family members to bear the irreparable loss." Kumar, 59, was suffering from lung cancer and died at a private hospital in the early hours of Monday. He is survived by wife and two daughters. He (Kumar) breathed his last around 4 am. His wife Tejaswini and his two daughters were with him when he passed away, a party spokesperson told PTI in Bengaluru. The Union minister had returned from the US in October after treatment at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, New York. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Gujarat chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela recently met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar as part of efforts to forge an anti-BJP grand alliance ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabh polls. "Met NCP President Sharad Pawarji and Praful Patelji before few days and shared my support towards Uniting and Strengthening Mahagathbandhan for upcoming National Loksabha Elections," Vaghela tweeted. His aide said Vaghela met Pawar and Patel in Delhi before Diwali. Vaghela had earlier declared that he will act as coordinator between regional parties to forge such a front. As part of the effort, Vaghela has also met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, West Bengal CHief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Loktantrik Janata Dal leader Sharad Yadav, his aide Partesh Patel said. Vaghela had told the media that he will meet leaders from different political parties who are opposed to the BJP and work to form a front that can fight against the BJP and its allies unitedly. He had earlier ruled out any plan to join Pawar's NCP or any other political party. "I firmly believe anti-BJP votes must never get divided. Thus, my intention is to unite regional parties such as the TRS, the TDP, the CPI(M) and the NCP, and clear their differences in order to give a united fight to the BJP," Vaghela had then said. Vaghela, a former Union minister, was with the BJP till 1998. He quit the Congress after the Rajya Sabha polls last year and floated 'Jan Vikalp', a third front, ahead of the 2017 Gujarat Assembly polls. However, all the 100-odd candidates of his Jan Vikalp lost the polls held in December. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Army Chief General Bipin Rawat Monday sought to counsel Kashmiri youths having the propensity to veer off to radical paths to see through the designs of terror outfits, which use them up as "cannon feeders" even before training them to fight. Terming those hindering the security forces' anti-terror operations as "supporters of terrorists", and warning them of "stern actions", the Chief of Army Staff said the security forces are also acting against those involved in terror funding and aiding and abetting terrorism. Talking of situation on borders, Gen Rawat said the infiltration was under control and the cease fire violations by Pakistan army are being replied to befittingly. Terming the situation along the border and hinterland as "totally under control", the Army chief, however, noted that attempts are being made to revive terrorism in Jammu region. Holding "misinformation and disinformation" campaigns responsible for the radicalisation of the youths in the Valley, the COAS called upon them to understand the terror outfits' designs. "The radicalisation is happening more because of the misinformation and disinformation campaigns. Youths are being fed up with wrong and incorrect information," Gen Rawat said in a reply to a question by PTI on the sidelines of a function to facilitate disabled soldiers here. "The youths are being recruited by militant outfits through disinformation. And then, they don't even have any training and get eliminated in a few days," he added. Counselling the misguided youths to see through the designs of the militant outfits, the CAOS said, "If they (radicalised youth and militants) understand properly that they are being used as a cannon fodder, they will better shun violence and join mainstream." "And then there will be peace in valley. There will be jobs. Everything that we are looking for, will come that way," Gen Rawat added. Urging media to discard misinformation campaigns, he said the media has a major role to play in it and they need to come out with factual information. "Let people know the truth. Every time, when an action takes place, they are looking for media support and if you (media) give them that support and mileage, it will embolden them and do more actions," he added. Talking of those hindering anti-terror operations by security forces, Gen Rawat warned, "Whoever disrupts the security forces' operations, needs to be dealt with sternly." "Security forces conduct operations to neutralise those who are out to cause violence. But if some people out there prevent the security operations, stop them from eliminating militants and allow them to escape, they are simply the supporters of terrorists," said Gen Rawat. He added that the action is being taken also against those, who are aiding and abetting terrorism in the Valley. "Some of them finance militants and some provide them with information. Where ever such information is given, we take action," he added. On infiltration, the Army chief said the security forces' resolve to stop infiltration from across the border was intact. "We have been successful in stopping infiltration. Most of the terrorists operating are locals," he said, but added that the launch pads across the border are still active and they keep changing. "Their full efforts are focused on staging infiltration of militants into the state. As the winter is approaching, these infiltration attempts would increase. They would try to infiltrate but our troops are alert. They would foil the militants' infiltration bids and force them to return," Gen Rawat said. Maintaining that the situation along the border and in the hinterland is "totally under control", Gen Rawat said the Army is replying befittingly to cease fire violations by the Pakistan army and "nothing that we have seen in the past, is been done now." Talking of bids of infiltration via International Border in Jammu, Gen Rawat said, "They are trying to stage infiltration via IB in Jammu. We are alert. Recently a security review meeting took place in Jammu. We will take action. We neutralised militants and did not allow them inside where they can cause damage." Replying to a question on disruption of the ongoing poll process in Chhattishgarh by Naxals, he said that these people are trying disrupt democratic processes by triggering violence. "But let us wait for the result to come. People will come out in large numbers. We are a proud democracy and believe in governance through democracy," he said. He said, "We want to ensure that the governance is carried through democratic process via grassroots level. "Panchayati institutions and others are being favoured by the government (in J&K). But these people are forcefully preventing the people to come out and vote. Otherwise, they will vote in large numbers," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Army Monday reached out to village defence committees (VDCs) to strengthen the security apparatus of the population of rural and remote areas in Jammu region, Army officials said. An interaction with village defense committee and sarpanch was organised at Bagga Village, they said, adding that the aim of the interaction was to discuss security issues, maintaining peace and harmony in the region. In order to strengthen the bond between the locals and the Indian Army in a bid to strengthen the security, regular interactions are organised in the region, the officials said. Various issues related to development in the area, problems faced by the local populace and the work done by the Army to sustain peace and improve the quality of living of the local populace was discussed, they said. Jammu region has over 1,000 VDCs setup in the middle of 1990 with an aim to strengthen the security of the remote and moutanious area population in Doda, Kishtwar, Ramba, Rajouri, Reasi, Kathua and Poonch districts of the region. The village authorities appreciated and lauded the support provided by the Army in all spheres. Locals said that such meetings not only enhance the bond between the Army and Awam, but also boosts the morale of the locals which in turn assists in maintaining peace and harmony in the region. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Army soldier was killed and another injured Monday by a Pakistani sniper along the Line of Control (LoC) in district of Jammu and Kashmir, a defence spokesperson said. Two Army personnel fell to sniping in Sunderbani and Noushera sectors of Rajouri district on Saturday and Sunday, while an Army porter lost his life in a similar attack in Akhnoor sector of Jammu district a day earlier. At about 5.15 PM Monday, Pakistan Army resorted to an unprovoked ceasefire violation in Krishna Ghati Sector (Mendhar) on the Line of Control (LoC), resulting in the death of a soldier and injuring another, the spokesperson said. Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM was critically injured and succumbed to gunshot injuries. Havildar Mari Muthu D was critically injured in the firing, he said, adding that immediate resuscitation and medical aid was provided to the soldier and has been evacuated to Military Hospital, Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM, 34, belonged to Manakunnam village in Kerala and is survived by his wife. "The Indian Army has retaliated strongly and effectively on Pakistan Army posts. The martyrdom of the Indian Army soldier will not go in vain," he said. On Sunday, Naik Gosavi Keshav Somgir, 29, was killed in unprovoked ceasefire violation in Noushera sector and on Saturday Rifleman Varun Kattal, 21, a resident of Mawa-Rajpura area of Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir, was killed in Sunderbani sector. Earlier, an Army porter lost his life in Akhnoor sector on Friday. The officials said Indian troops guarding the border retaliated strongly and effectively following the latest ceasefire violation. The casualties suffered by Pakistani troops were not known immediately but several of their posts were hit in the retaliatory action, the officials said. On October 21, three soldiers of Jammu and light infantry regiment and two heavily-armed infiltrators, believed to be members of the Border Action Team (BAT) of the Pakistan army, and terrorists, were killed in Sunderbani sector. On November 6, a soldier was injured when he was hit by a sniper from across the border at Kalal in Noushera sector of Rajouri, while a BSF jawan was injured in a separate incident of firing by Pakistan along the in the Manjakote area of the Rajouri- sector Friday. Seven Palestinians were killed Sunday night, including a senior Hamas commander, when an Israeli military force staged an incursion into the southern Gaza Strip. Israel had stressed its covert operation on Sunday was an intelligence-gathering mission and "not an assassination or abduction", but Hamas strongly denounced it and vowed revenge. In the immediate aftermath of the clash, Israel said it identified 17 launches - likely rockets or mortars - toward its territory from Gaza, with three intercepted by missile defences. In a separate incident, an anti-tank missile from Gaza struck a bus that had been used by Israeli soldiers, critically injuring one. Six others were injured. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped to reach an "arrangement" that would avoid another conflict and ease Israeli-blockaded Gaza's economic hardships. Hamas said that during Sunday's fighting, assailants in a passing vehicle opened fire on a group of its armed men, killing one of its local commanders, Nour Baraka. "In response to yesterday's crime, the joint command of Palestinian factions announce the beginning of bombardment of the enemy's settlements with scores of rockets", Hamas's armed wing said in a statement after funerals were held for the militants. The Israeli military said there had been more than 200 rocket and mortar launces from Gaza. Hamas militants in pursuit were bombed by air, residents said, and Israeli aircraft destroyed the auto used by its forces after they had left. An Israeli helicopter landed near the fence and took away the special forces troops, according to Al-Qassam. "It was very unpleasant". Today's violence came a day after an Israeli incursion prompted deadly fighting in Gaza. Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008 and recent unrest has raised fears of a fourth. Violence has flared frequently on the frontier since Palestinians began weekly protests in March. "One young girl was also treated by our volunteers after her finger was partially cut off by a door in a secure room when it was slammed shut", according to United Hatzalah. Palestinian officials said at least three people, including two militants, were killed by Israeli fire and nine were wounded. Egyptian and United Nations officials have been mediating between Israel and Hamas in an effort to reach a long-term truce deal. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu Monday has condoled the untimely demise of Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar. Kumar died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months. He was 59. In his condolence message to Kumars wife, Khandu said, "It pains my heart to write to you at this moment of extreme grief. I humbly endure to share with you the saddest times of your life though I know that it would be hard to do so and ease the pain you and your family are going through." The chief minister said "he will be remembered as a peoples leader, a veteran parliamentarian and a supreme organiser. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An atonement ritual has been performed at the famous Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple here following suspicion that some non-Hindus entered it in violation of traditional customs. The ritual was held Sunday night based on the temple tantri's (head priest) order, temple sources said. However, the sources rejected reports that 'seeveli', a traditional ritual performed at nights before the sanctum sanctorum closes, was cancelled by the priests for two days for the completion of the atonement ceremony. "The atonement ritual was heldas per the directions of tantri. It is true that the seeveli ritual was a bit delayed yesterday due to that," a temple staff, who did not want to be quoted, told PTI. According to the sources, a group of devotees had arrived at the temple on November 9 and some women among them reportedly covered their heads with veils. The women had entered the shrine after changing into traditional Hindu attire from a cloakroom nearby. Some other devotees had taken photographs of the women with veils standing outside the shrine and sent them to the priests raising questions about their religious background, following which it was decided to perform the atonement ritual, they said. According to custom, only believers of Hinduism were permitted entry into the temple, a major pilgrimage centre and a tourist attraction in the southern part of the country. Non-Hindus can enter the shrine and offer prayers only after submitting a declaration that they believe in Hinduism, the sources said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bangladesh poll authority on Monday deferred the date for next month's general elections by a week to December 30, a day after the country's main Opposition alliance demanded delaying the polls by a month to allow them to prepare for the poll. Last week, the Bangladesh Election Commission announced that the 11th general election will be held on December 23. The Jatiya Oikya Front a political alliance of opposition parties that includes the main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has urged the Election Commission to defer the polls by a month. The BNP, led by imprisoned ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia, on Sunday said it would participate in the general election next month, after it boycotted the 2014 polls that returned Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League to power. The BNP boycotted last election, citing unfair conditions for the polls. "The 11th general election will be held across Bangladesh on December 30," Chief Election Commissioner Nurul Huda announced while attending an exhibition on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) at the Bangabandhu Convention Centre here. He said the commission discussed the letter sent by the Jatiya Oikya Front requesting a deferral of the polls. The Election Commission will now accept nominations until November 28 he said. Nearly 104.2 million people, including some 51.6 million women, are registered as voters. They will elect 300 representatives to Parliament through the balloting in about 40,199 polling stations. "They [BNP and Oikya Front] said they are interested in participating in the polls," said Huda. "The election commissioners discussed the matter and came to this decision." "There was some delay in getting their written proposal. We met on the matter today. But it is reassuring to the commission that the BNP and Oikya Front will take part in the polls." "Despite extreme adverse situation Jatiya Oikya Front (NUF) has decided to take part in the election as part of our movement to restore democracy," convenor of the platform and prominent lawyer Kamal Hossain announced on Sunday. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina immediately welcomed the NUF's decision, saying it will "strengthen the democracy...we will jointly contest in the poll to reflect the verdict of the people". Ruling Awami League's general secretary Obaidul Quader earlier said they would have no objection if the commission deferred the election date. The NUF came up with the announcement to participate in the polls three days after the election commission unveiled the election schedule, setting December 23 for the voting. The BNP, whose leader 73-year-old Zia is behind bars, abstained from the 2014 polls over fears it would be rigged, allowing Hasina to walk into a second term unchallenged. But rallying supports of the NUF partners, some left leaning and right-wing groups and individuals, it still insists installation of a non-party caretaker government to oversee the polls. The BNP remained to be in a state of political disarray as Zia is now serving a 10-year prison term in two graft charges and her elder son and "fugitive" acting chief Tarique Rahman's is staying in London while a Dhaka court recently handed him down life term imprisonment for masterminding a deadly attack on a political rally in 2004. Meanwhile, senior BNP officials bought three sets of nominations for Zia. BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir secured nomination papers for Zia from her ancestral home in Feni-1. BNP Standing Committee member Nazrul Islam Khan bought a nomination form for her from the Bogura-6 seat. BNP Standing Committee member Mirza Abbas bought a nomination form for Bogura-7 seat on behalf of the BNP chief, BDNews24.com reported. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP leaders in Bihar on Monday condoled the death of Union minister Ananth Kumar, recalling his close association with the state of which he had been the national secretary general in-charge at one point of time. Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi said he is going to Bengaluru to pay homage to the departed leader. "(Ananth Kumar) Will always be remembered as a great organiser, always smiling, who lost no election. He personally knew hundreds of workers in Bihar", Modi tweeted. Stating that Kumar was his friend since 1977, Modi said both of them worked together in the ABVP and then in the BJP. "A great loss for BJP. Only yesterday I telephoned to enquire about his health," he said. State BJP president Nityanand Rai said "Ananth Kumar's contribution as the party's in-charge for Bihar can never be forgotten. Working with him, we learnt a lot". Ananth Kumar had served as the party's national general secretary in-charge for Bihar in the first decade of this century which saw the BJP, in alliance with Nitish Kumar's JD(U), dislodging Lalu Prasad's RJD from power. In a statement, Rai recalled Kumar's role in strengthening the party in the south, especially his home state of Karnataka and remembered his performance as "the youngest minister in the government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee". Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey said, "I have known Anant Kumar for 40 years. In his death I feel I have lost a family member. He was deeply attached to Bihar." Choubey also said he would be leaving for Bengaluru to attend the funeral of the deceased leader. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Monday said it was "quite shocked" that the Bihar police was unable to trace and arrest former state minister Manju Verma, who had stepped down from the cabinet in the wake of the Muzaffarpur shelter home scandal, in a case related to alleged recovery of illegal ammunition from her. A bench of justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta summoned the Bihar director general of police (DGP) to explain why the state police had failed to trace the whereabouts of Verma and arrest her in connection with the case. Verma had resigned as the social welfare minister in the Bihar government following the Muzaffarpur case, where several women inmates of a shelter home were allegedly raped and sexually abused, after it came to light that her husband Chandrashekhar Verma had spoken to Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the case, several times between January and June. At the outset, the bench asked, "Has the lady (Verma) been arrested?" The counsel appearing for the Bihar government said Verma was not arrested yet as the police were not able to trace her. "That is fantastic. A (former) cabinet minister is not traceable. Fantastic. How could it happen that a (former) cabinet minister is not traceable and nobody knows where she is? Do you realise the seriousness of this? You have to explain to us how a (former) cabinet minister is not traceable," the bench said. "You call the DGP. This is too much," Justice Lokur told the counsel appearing for the state. The bench, which posted the matter for further hearing to November 27, also said, "We are quite shocked that a former cabinet minister cannot be traced for more than a month." It also made it clear that if Verma was arrested in the meanwhile, the DGP need not appear before it. Advocate Fauzia Shakil, appearing for petitioner Nivedita Jha, raised the issue of the state of affairs in 14 other shelter homes in Bihar, which was highlighted in a report submitted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to the Bihar government in March. Shakil argued that the "high and mighty" were involved in these matters and despite the fact that rampant physical and sexual abuse of boys and girls was going on at these 14 shelter homes, no action was taken by the state till date. "There appears to be widespread mismanagement in the shelter homes of Bihar," the bench said and asked the chief secretary of the state to remain present before it on November 27. It also referred to a recent newspaper report that said five girls had run away from a shelter home in Bihar. Advocate Aparna Bhat, assisting the court as an "amicus curiae" (an impartial adviser to a court of law in a particular case) in the shelter home case, said the Child Welfare Committee was not functioning properly in Bihar. "Child Welfare Committee? Even the police is not functioning in Bihar," the bench observed. On October 31, the apex court had expressed displeasure over the failure of the police in arresting Verma, whose anticipatory bail plea was dismissed by the Patna High Court on October 9. Verma's husband had earlier surrendered before a court in Begusarai, Bihar in connection with the case related to recovery of ammunition. The top court had last month directed that Thakur be shifted to the high-security jail in Punjab's Patiala from a jail in Bihar's Bhagalpur. The order to shift Thakur out of Bihar was passed after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had, on October 25, told the top court that he was an influential person and was found in possession of a mobile phone inside the Bhagalpur jail. On September 20, the court had said it had come on record that Chandrashekhar Verma and his wife were in "possession of illegal ammunition of a fairly large quantity". It is not clear whether they were in possession of illegal arms as well. The court had observed that the CBI, in its status report filed earlier, had noted that an FIR was lodged against Chandrashekhar and Manju Verma. "The affairs of these two need to be looked into, particularly with regard to their procurement and possession of illegal ammunition and availability of illegal weapons, if any. We request the local police in the state of Bihar to look into this aspect with some degree of seriousness," the bench had said in its order. Over 30 girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused at the Muzaffarpur shelter home and the issue was first highlighted in an audit report submitted by the TISS to the social welfare department of the Bihar government. An FIR was lodged on May 31 against 11 people, including Thakur, who was running the shelter home. The probe was later taken over by the CBI and so far, 17 people have been arrested. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A war of words erupted Monday over the issue of renaming of places with the BJP strongly defending the change of names, saying it was an attempt to reconnect the present generation with the country's glorious past, and the opposition slamming it as a "threat to democracy". According to officials, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre has given consent to the renaming of at least 25 towns and villages across the country in the last one year. Allahabad and Faizabad in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh are the latest additions to the growing list of places that have been renamed. Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, "You (BJP) do not understand the pride of India, you do not understand its identity, you do not understand its character, nor its definition. "Today, I will change the history of the last 500 years, tomorrow you will change my history by changing the history of 500 years before that. After that, a third person will come, who will change the history of the last one thousand years, and then, a fourth person will come, who will change ancient India's 2,500-year-old history...," he said. Singhvi said if jobs could be provided with such moves, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and prosperity of the country could be increased, divisions could be reduced and the nation could be taken forward, then this could be permitted. BJP spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP GVL Narasimha Rao said the proposed changes of names of cities was not symbolic, but had a huge historical and cultural significance. "It is an attempt to reconnect today's generation with our glorious past and to erase the deep scars of subjugation that have badly injured our cultural psyche," he said. "For obvious reasons of vote-bank politics, the Congress is undermining a praiseworthy effort towards cultural renaissance and baring its religious, fundamentalist fangs. The people of the country will punish the Congress for hurting national heritage and culture at the altar of appeasement politics," Rao added. On a historian suggesting that BJP president Amit Shah should change his name, Singhvi said it was said sarcastically and if it was wrong, one had the right to react sarcastically. Taking a dig at some BJP-ruled states over their "name-changing spree", All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi also targeted Shah, saying his surname was a Persian word and wondered if it would be changed. Other opposition parties such as the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) also hit out at the BJP over the changing of names of places such as Allahabad and Faizabad. Close on the heels of renaming Allahabad as Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had on November 6 announced that Faizabad district would henceforth be known as Ayodhya district. RJD spokesperson Manoj Jha said the BJP's state governments and the Modi regime had no other work apart from changing names and that "democracy is being finished". "We want to tell the prime minister that once and for all, the names of cities, towns, villages and streets -- any name you want to change, must be changed. But after the renaming, give employment to all, save the children from malnutrition, give protection to women and provide education and healthcare facilities to all," he said. SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary criticised the BJP government on the issue, saying it had started to think that changing names was its real job. "This trend is a threat to democracy. The public is watching and the BJP will be given a befitting reply by people in the upcoming elections," he said. Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi said, "This government has no work except changing names. They are doing all this to divert attention from their failures." On a separate question on the Railway Ministry announcing the Ramayan Express, Singhvi said the Congress did not have any objection, but apart from the name, equal attention should also be given to the facilities in the train. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP on Monday asserted that it would not join hands with the TRS if the latter falls short of numbers to form government post-December 7 assembly elections, even as it rejected the Congress charge that two parties were hand-in-glove. The Telangana BJP spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao also challenged the Congress to give a similar "guarantee." The Congress has in recent times repeatedly alleged that the caretaker Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was a "stooge" of the BJP and the two parties have a "tacit undertanding" in the upcoming Assembly poll. "There is 100 per cent tactical understanding between the TRS and BJP", the AICC in-charge of Telangana affairs, R C Khuntia told PTI. In his counter, Krishna Saagar Rao said, "I have a challenge for (TPCC President) Uttam Kumar Reddy and (Congress President) Rahul Gandhi. Will you guarantee the people of Telangana that if KCR (as Chandrasekhar Rao is referred to by many) falls short of winning that you (Congress) will not help." "We (BJP) can assure you that we will not. Even if the TRS falls short, that BJP will not, no matter how many seats we get, we will not form government with TRS. We can assure you that," he said. The TRS had supported NDA candidates in the Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections, as also the GST and demonetisation measures, giving rise to speculation in some quarters over the proximity between the two parties. BJP fought the 2014 Assembly elections in alliance with the TDP, winning five seats in the 119-member House. This time it's going it alone. TRS leaders also dismissed the Congress allegation of a tacit electoral understanding with the BJP. "In the present Telangana and also undivided Andhra Pradesh (before 2014), TRS is the only party which has not aligned with BJP. TRS will not align with any other party, much less the national political parties (BJP and Congress)," TRS deputy floor leader in Lok Sabha, B Vinod Kumar told PTI. Meanwhile, a senior BJP leader said on condition of anonymity said, "KCR understands that BJP wants him to be neutral and not go to Congress-led alliance at the national level". "And he (KCR) also understands that we (BJP) don't want the Congress to rise," he said. "If we (BJP) fight hard (in Telangana polls), who are we going to defeat (TRS or Congress) is the question. If you fight hard, you are defeating a wrong person (TRS). If Congress wins...that's not our objective," the leader said alluding to his party's "predicament." Assembly polls in Telangana are scheduled to be held on December 7 and counting would be held on December 11. The 119-member Assembly was dissolved on September 6 on the recommendation of the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led government, more than eight months ahead of the expiry of its term. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two years after the plan to build a memorial to Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray was announced, the Mumbai civic body has handed over the possession of the land earmarked for it to the trust which will construct the structure. The land selected for the proposed memorial, announced in November 2016, currently houses the bungalow of Mumbai mayor located near Shivaji Park in Dadar, central Mumbai. According to a civic official, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) handed over the possession of the land to the Balasaheb Thackeray Memorial Public Trust Tuesday last. "Built in 1928 in an area spread over four acres, the possession of mayor's bungalow has been officially handed over to the trust," said Parag Masurkar, assistant municipal commissioner (estate department), BMC. "Now physical possession will start as and when the current mayor vacates his official residence and we get further instructions," he said. "The plot, ad measuring 11,500 sq metre, has been handed over to the trust on a nominal lease of Re 1 per annum for 30 years," he said. Another official said as Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar is expected to vacate his official residence by the end of this year, the trust may organise the ground-breaking ceremony at the site on January 23, 2019, the birth anniversary of the late Sena founder. The BMC bought the sprawling bungalow in 1962 for use as the official residence of mayor and B P Devgi was the first mayor to occupy it. The official added, "All administrative decisions have been taken to shift mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar to a bungalow built in the premises of the zoo at Byculla in South Mumbai." Shivaji Park holds an important place in the history of the Shiv Sena, founded by Thackeray in 1966. The Sena patriarch held the first rally of his party at Shivaji Park. He also addressed the party's annual Dussehra rally at the iconic ground year after year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Union Cabinet will meet Tuesday morning to condole the demise of senior minister Ananth Kumar, official sources said. A resolution condoling the demise of the Union parliamentary affairs minister and hailing his contribution would be passed. As per established practice, resolutions are passed by the cabinet in the memory of ministers and senior leaders. Similar resolutions were passed following the demise of then Union ministers Gopinath Munde and Anil Madhav Dave. Usually, cabinet meetings are held on Wednesdays. It was not immediately known whether the meeting will take up other agendas or there would be another meet on Wednesday to consider other listed issues. Kumar died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months. A six-time member of Parliament, Kumar had climbed the political ladder steadily from being an RSS worker to becoming a Union minister in his thirties. He had been in the inner circle of the central leadership of the BJP -- be it during the heydays of Atal Bihari Vajpayee or L K Advani and now Narendra Modi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nobel laureate Harold E Varmus has said that research on cancer genomics needs to be more widespread as it provides a deeper understanding of the disease and helps save a large number of lives. Stressing on the need for gathering genomic data for patients of diverse ethnic and geographical backgrounds, Varmus said at present there is enough data for Caucasian white patients but data from other regions like India, Africa is critically required without delay. The medical scientist made the observations while delivering a lecture on 'The transformation of cancer research' at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics here on Sunday. Genomics is the branch of molecular biology concerned with the structure, function, evolution and mapping of genomes. There is a need for a deep rational understanding of how cancer arises and genomics provides a deeper understanding of cancer, he said. He gave some examples of how genomic insights have provided more precise treatment of various types of cancers, such as leukaemia and lung cancer. Prof Varmus has been engaged in cancer research for about 50 years. Varmus and J Michael Bishop were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1989 for the discovery of 'the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes'. The Nobel laureate expressed his happiness that India, through the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics(NIBMG), was participating in the International Cancer Genome Consortium, and has already generated the landscape of genomic alterations that drives oral cancer. "Cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease and treatment needs to be more precise," he added. He asked the NIBMG to play a leadership role and requested the government to provide sustained funding for cancer genomic research. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Saudi Arabia's energy minister called Monday (Nov 12) for a global output cut of one million barrels per day to re-balance the market, as Riyadh unveiled plans to cut production by 500,000 bpd from December. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, said on Sunday it would cut its shipments by half a million barrels per day in December due to seasonal lower demand. While its meeting with other producers on Sunday yielded no change in supply policy, OPEC+ warned in a statement that it might need "new strategies", raising the prospect of a wider and coordinated cut in 2019. West Texas Intermediate crude also dropped to a nine-month low, below $60 a barrel. The slide also comes during signs of a softer-than-expected impact from United States sanctions on Iran oil exports. But he said the option of reducing production is possible, only if the market needs it. Oil prices have shed a fifth of their value in just one month after surging to a four-year high in early October, driven by a combination of factors centred on higher supply and fears of sluggish demand. The sources said any such deal would depend on factors including the level of Iranian exports after the United States imposed sanctions on Tehran but granted Iran's top oil buyers waivers to continue buying oil. Since then, OPEC production has risen 820,000 bpd since May, according to the latest S&P Global Platts OPEC survey. The oil producers could agree (though Russian Federation doesn't want to) to reduce the output to somewhere between the May and October figure (say a cut of up to 1 million) - cutting all the way to May level may attract the wrath of Donald Trump. He insisted it was "premature to talk about a specific action", when asked about the possibility of an output cut. They worry that a continued fall in crude oil price will cause a 2014-16 style oil crash when oil price dropped 70%, in large part due to the U.S. shale oil boom. "With the Iranian sanctions not being as severe as initially feared, officials from the OPEC and non-OPEC producers may discuss at the weekend the need to bring compliance back down... or risk another 2014-style slide in prices". "In 2019 there will be a growth in supply so we're looking at a different strategy than the 100 per cent conformity in 2016", UAE energy minister and outgoing Opec president Suhail Mazrouei said, after the group's Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting in Abu Dhabi. He also attributed the sharp drop in prices to "microeconomic uncertainties", and signs of a build-up in crude inventories. But producers eased output cuts in June after signs of a tighter market and higher prices, selling hundreds of thousands of extra barrels. Commerzbank, Germany's second-largest lender, said on Friday that oil producers must act to prevent prices tumbling. Casualties are feared after a huge explosion rocked Kabul on Monday close to where scores of Afghans had been protesting against Taliban attacks on the minority Hazara ethnic group. The blast struck in front of a high school in the downtown area of the Afghan capital, the interior ministry said. A photo shared on the popular WhatsApp messaging app showed several bodies laying on the ground. "It was a huge blast near Istiqlal high school, very close to where the demonstrators were gathering," witness Qais Nawabi told AFP. A police officer at the scene said he could see 10 to 15 casualties on the ground, as well as body parts. "It is hard to see whether it was a suicide attack or a bomb (that had been planted)," he told AFP on the condition of anonymity. Hundreds of protesters, including university students, had taken to the streets of Kabul to demand the deployment of reinforcements to Hazara-dominated districts in Ghazni province which have been attacked by the Taliban. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The city is all set for Chhath puja celebrations with the Delhi government declaring a public holiday on Tuesday and the traffic police issuing an advisory on special arrangements and restrictions during festival days. With various Delhi government agencies stating that 'ghats' have been set up for the four-day festival at around 1,000 locations, the ruling AAP and BJP have engaged in blame game over preparations for the festival. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) meanwhile said necessary directives have been issued, like specific areas where people could take a dip in water. The devotees, mainly women offer 'arghya' to the setting sun and the rising sun in succession on Chhath. It is a major festival in eastern UP, Bihar and Jharkhand, although it is celebrated in other parts of the country as well where Purvnanchalis are settled in significant numbers. The festival is celebrated on the sixth day after Diwali. Chhath Puja relives the age-old tradition of paying obeisance to the Sun God. The Delhi government said it has declared public holiday on the occasion of Chhath on Tuesday and all the state government offices would remain closed on the festival, said an order issued by the government. Agencies of Delhi government have set up ghats for Chhath at around 1,000 locations, officials said. Arrangements of the ghats and facilities for worshippers have been made by different agencies of the Delhi government as well as the municipal corporations. A monitoring committee has been constituted by the Delhi government to look after preparations of Chhath including ghats and tents. Municipal corporation officials said over 700 ghats have been prepared by the three civic bodies. The mayors and other leaders of BJP-ruled corporations visited and took stock of the facilities in the past few days. The municipal corporations are also looking after cleanliness, fogging and lighting of ghats. With Purvanchalis numbering around 40 lakh among the Delhi electorate, the AAP and BJP are levelling allegations on one another regarding arrangements. Senior AAP leader Raghav Chadha alleged beating of Chhath Puja Samiti members in South Delhi on Sunday, charging BJP with creating an atmosphere of insecurity by dividing society on the basis of religion. "On the one hand AAP government has made arrangements of 1,000 ghats for chhath, on the other hand there is a party (BJP) which is beating people," he said in a press conference on Monday. BJP's Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly, Vijender Gupta, said arrangements for Chhath made by Delhi government are "totally insufficient" as compared to the requirement. "Chhath is identified with religious faith of the people but Kejriwal government is politicising it. Hoardings are being installed with photographs of ministers and AAP MLAs at Chhath ghats," he said. The CPCB said all the directions are in place like specific areas where people would be allowed to take a dip in water. "No new restrictions would be imposed for tomorrow except the ones already there which include specific areas for taking a dip in the Yamuna, not allowing people to throw garbage or eatables in water. Burning of fire crackers is not allowed," a CPCB official said. The Delhi Traffic Police issued an advisory about special traffic arrangements and restrictions for November 13 and 14. The police have advised commuters to avoid roads including Outer Ring Road from Mukarba Chowk to Chandgi Ram Akhara, Wazirabad Bridge, roads near ISBT Kashmere Gate, Pushta Road (Khajoori/Shastri Park), Kalindi Kunj Bridge on these two days. According to the advisory, normal flow of traffic is likely to be affected on roads adjoining the major ghats of the Yamuna river and water bodies like the Bhalaswa Lake and the Haiderpur Canal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took a swipe at the BJP government in Chhattisgarh Monday, saying it could not tackle the Maoist problem in the state during its 15-year rule, which she was able to do in her state "in just two years". Polling in 18 Assembly constituencies in the first phase of the Chhattisgarh election was held Monday. These 18 constituencies fall in the Maoist-hit districts. "The BJP government has been in power in the state for 15 years, but has not been able to tackle the Maoist problem. We routed them in just two years in Bengal," Banerjee said. Maoists had set up strong bases in the Jangalmahal area comprising three districts of West Bengal -- West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia -- and almost had a free run from 2009 to 2011 in the region. The Mamata Banerjee government, after taking over in 2011, had initiated steps to wipe out the ultras from their stronghold in the state. Inaugurating a Jagadhatri Puja organised by the Posta Traders' Association, the chief minister said traders and businessmen were hit hard by demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST). "Traders used to support the BJP, but do you continue to do so after demonetisation?," she asked, adding that the wholesale trading hubs of Burrabazar and Posta in the city were severely affected for the last two years owing to the BJP-led Centre's decision to scrap high-value currency notes, along with the implementation of the GST. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief said her government had supported replacing the earlier taxation system with the GST, but not in a hurried manner in which it was done, and that the state wanted the new tax regime to be introduced in a proper and systematic manner. She also alleged that threats of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Income Tax raids were being used to retain the support of the trading and business community. "We want the harassment of traders, businessmen, farmers, common people and everyone in the country to stop," Banerjee said. Claiming that the new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office in New Delhi was more swanky than a five-star hotel, she said "While party offices are growing taller, the common people are going down." Stating that she did not want unrest, the chief minister said no one should instigate rioting and that the country belonged to all. The saffron party would sometime want to throw Biharis out of Gujarat and sometime Bengalis from Assam, Banerjee claimed and alleged that "it is a ploy of the BJP" to instigate divisive feelings among people. "During elections, the BJP asks the Hindi-speaking people to vote for them, while sometimes, they seek votes in the name of Ram. They are all fake leaders," she said. Banerjee said the TMC took people of all hues, including religion, profession and economic status, together and celebrated the festivals of all religions with equal fervour. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a fresh crackdown on unauthorised money pooling schemes, the has barred Pragya Dairies & Agro and Vayaa Builder and Developers as well as their directors from raising funds from public and from launching any new investment plans. The directions come after the regulator received complaints against these companies. The Sebi, prima facie, found that Pragya Dairies mobilised about Rs 130 million from public through its schemes pertaining to cattle/ghee and Vayaa Builder (formerly known as Veenayaka H&H Property Makers) collected a little over Rs 40 million from investors through different land/plot allotment scheme under the garb of a real estate business. The companies were carrying on these collective investment schemes (CIS) without obtaining registration from the (Sebi), the regulator said in separate orders dated November 9. Consequently, has directed Pragya Dairies and its directors or promoters -- Punam Chand Patidar, Nana Lal Patidar, Pooja Patidar, Durga Patidar, Rajesh Jain, Ansar Ahmed, Alok Sahai Vidyarthi and Pramila Jain -- as well as Vayaa Builder and its directors -- Yogendra Bisay and Jitendra Bisay -- not to collect any fresh money from investors under their existing schemes and not to launch any new schemes or plans or float any new companies to raise funds. The entities have also been ordered to immediately submit the full inventory of the assets owned by these companies out of the amounts collected from the investors. Besides, the firms and their directors have been asked not to dispose of any of the properties or alienate the assets of the existing scheme as well as not to divert any funds mobilised from the public. The companies and their directors will have to furnish all the information sought by the with regard to scheme-wise list of investors along with the details of amount mobilised. The directions will take effect immediately and be in force until further orders, as per the regulator. Taiwan's President has called on Taiwanese Americans to return home and vote in local elections this month, urging them to help safeguard the country's democratic values in the face of Chinese pressure. In an address to the Taiwanese Association of America in Washington DC, Tsai Ing-wen said the island could always count on the expat group that has chapters across the US "to stand up and help in times of need". "I want to make a plea to everyone, come back to Taiwan to vote, or call your relatives and friends in Taiwan to support us," she said. "The whole world is watching whether the Taiwanese people are going to choose a pro-China party or a party that is committed to democracy and sovereignty," she added in a recorded message on Saturday that marked the association's 50th anniversary. Tsai also said the relationship between Taiwan and the US has improved in recent years. Earlier this year, US congress passed the Taiwan Travel Act and the 2019 National Defence Authorisation Act which promote high level visits and military exchanges between the two sides. Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is struggling to retain control of several key cities in Taiwan, according to opinion polls ahead of major local elections on November 24. The opposition Kuomintang Party (KMT), seen as China-friendly, is making headway in four of Taiwan's biggest cities. The island-wide vote is seen as a crucial barometer for Tsai as she battles a backlash on domestic reforms and concerns over relations with China, which have become increasingly tense since she took office in 2016. Tsai has repeatedly accused China of launching an online "fake news" campaign to influence voters. "We cannot let the international community think that Taiwanese people will yield under China's suppression," she told DPP supporters at a weekend rally in Yilan. According to Taiwan's National Security Bureau, Taiwan is hit with 20 million cyber attacks every month, mostly from China. Taiwan's Investigation Bureau is also probing Chinese influence on elections through campaign funding of candidates. The investigation bureau's chief Leu Weng-jong told legislators last month that it was investigating 33 cases of alleged illegal Chinese campaign funding. Taiwan set up a police task force last month to counter "fake news" from China, and the military has also announced it will set up a department to counter disinformation and cyber attacks. In June, Taiwan authorities barred a television reporter from China from working in Taiwan, accusing him of spreading "fake news" at a time of heightened cross-strait tensions. It is the first time a mainland Chinese reporter has been banned from the island for "creating cross-strait conflict," according to Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which deals with its China relations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : The Congress Monday continued its consultations on finalising candidates for the December 7 assembly elections in Telangana. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy and state party leaders held talks with the party leadership in Delhi Monday. Reddy told reporters in Delhi that discussions were on. The process of filing nominations began Monday with the Election Commission issuing notification for the polls. The last date for submitting nominations is November 19. Congress has teamed up with TDP, CPI and Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) to form a "grand alliance". Congress had earlier announced its decision to leave 14 seats to TDP, eight to TJS and three to the CPI. However, the CPI has been pushing for at least five seats, though it said it would remain in the alliance. AICC incharge of party affairs in Telangana R C Khuntia said on Thursday last that the first list of candidates for the polls would be released on November 10. There are 119 assembly segments. Senior Congress leader M Bhatti Vikramarka, TDP politbureau member Ravula Chandrasekhar Reddy and TJS president M Kodandaram held talks Monday on preparing an agenda for the elections. Meanwhile, the ruling TRS kept up its attack on the "grand alliance". TRS leader and minister in the caretaker government T Harish Rao alleged that Kodandaram, who headed the Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) during the separate statehood agitation, has now joined hands with those who acted against the interests of Telangana then. The JAC then comprised several parties, including TRS, and various people's organisations. However, differences cropped up between Kodandaram and the TRS after the latter formed government in separate Telangana. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of speaking "untruth" by linking demonetisation with "vindictive action" in the National Herald issue, adding he should not befool public through his 'jumlas' anymore. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi also hit out at Modi saying "it takes a thief to know a thief" and alleged that the only shell firms identified after demonetisation were that of BJP chief Amit Shah's son Jay Shah, Piyush Goyal and Anil Ambani. There was no immediate reaction available from the Prime Minister's Office on the charges. "The PM's latest Demonetisation barf is, Shell Firms. Ironically, the only Shell firms identified after the great Demonetisation tragedy are: JAY SHAH'S, Temple Enterprises; PIYUSH GOYAL's Flashnet; ANIL AMBANI'S, Reliance Airports. It takes a thief to know a thief," Gandhi said on Twitter. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the remarks made by the prime minister needed to be ignored with the contempt they deserved. "It is well established that lies and fabrications and fraud have no legs to stand on and truth always is fearless and emerges victorious. "Today you have heard the greatest of untruth from the greatest orator of untruth. The Prime Minister is connecting 'demonetisation' with petty vindictive, vendetta based cases filed against Congress Party," he said. Singhvi compared Modi's rule with that of the British, saying the Congress party would not cow down to any kind of vendetta as launched by the British in pre-Independence days. "We had the same vindictive revengeful cases foisted upon us to cower us down by the British, merely because you are the incarnation of the British as far as vendetta policies are concerned, so not think we are going to be cowed down - not then not now. "So please do not fool the public yet again after having fooled them so many times through 'jumlas' (gimmicks) and 'demonetisation'," he told reporters. Congress treasurer and senior leader Ahmed Patel earlier accused the BJP-led central government of embarking on a "witch-hunt" and claimed that it was putting pressure on the machinery to revoke the lease of the Herald House at any cost, but its design would be defeated. He said National Herald, Qaumi Awaz and Navjivan -- all the newspapers run by the National Herald newspapers from the Herald House had the spine to speak the truth, which made those in power uneasy. "The BJP Government has embarked on a witch hunt and is pressurising the machinery to revoke lease of Herald House at any cost. National Herald, Qaumi Awaz and the Navjivan have the spine to speak the truth which makes those in power uneasy. "The Government's design will be defeated," he said on Twitter. Hitting out at Rahul and Sonia Gandhi for questioning him on demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday said he did not need a "certificate of honesty" from the "mother-son duo" who are out on bail. Singling out the Gandhis for "seeking account of demonetisation", Modi asked "whether the mother-son duo who are out on bail for financial irregularities would give him certificate of honesty". "They want an account of demonetisation. It was due to the demonetisation that fake companies were identified. And because of that you had to seek bail. Why do you forget that it was due to the note ban that you had to seek bail," he said without naming the Gandhis. Modi announced the ban on high-value currency notes on November 8, 2016. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress workers Monday staged a demonstration before the RBI office here against the "failure" of demonetisation, terming it as a 'maha ghotala' (grand scam). Raising slogans against Narendra Modi, the Congressmen demanded a reply from the prime minister over his promise-- back in November 2016-- to weed out ill-gotten wealth from the country within 50 days. Over 150 died while standing in queues to change their old currency notes after demonetisation and over 20 lakh lost their jobs following the draconian order issued on November 8, 2016, Congress spokesman Anshu Awasthi said. Neither corruption was curbed nor the Naxal and terror attacks have stopped, Awasthi said, adding that claims of black money returning to the country after note ban turned out to be hollow. All the promises made by the prime minister on this count have failed, Awasthi said. Similar protests were staged before the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) building in Kanpur as well as other parts of the state on the call of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Raj Babbar, Awasthi added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : The Opposition Congress in Kerala Monday lashed out at local administration minister K T Jaleel, demanding his ouster in the nepotism row,even as his relative, who was appointed as general manager in a Minorities corporation, stepped down following mounting protests. The Muslim Youth League had on November 2 alleged that Adeeb K T, a cousin of Jaleel, was appointed general manager in the Kerala State Minorities Development Finance Corporation, flouting rules. "The Minister's relative stepping down from the post is not going to end the issue. He has to resign from the post. Otherwise the United Democratic Front (UDF) will take up the protests," leader of the opposition in the Kerala assembly Ramesh Chennithala said in a statement here. He alleged that there was blatant violation of procedures and the law in the appointment. "The resignation proves it. Serious allegations are coming out against the minister every day. Still the CPI(M) leadership is protecting him," he said. Amid strong protests by the Muslim League, Adeeb had Sunday night had e-mailed his resignation to the corporation Chairman, which was accepted by the Director Board at Kozhikode Monday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Incredible work by police in Melbourne but also bystanders - one using a trolley to try subdue the man", Cyndi Lavrencic said. The horrifying scene was over in a matter of minutes after police shot the attacker, who died after being rushed to the hospital under police guard. The incident happened in a busy street and police responded to the attack by firing at him. The attacker was not publicly identified but had been "a person of interest" to Australian intelligence agencies, Ashton said. He says Khalif was known to police and federal intelligence authority ASIO. He also attempted to attack police who arrived on the scene before being shot in the chest by an officer. One of the cops then shoots him. Emergency services were called to a auto fire about 4.20pm. The reports were made at around 16: 20 local time and the area was busy at the time. Asked about what the attacker had been planning, Ashton referred to the gas cylinders in the auto and said: "You could make certain assumptions from that". Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said Shire Ali's plan "wasn't sophisticated", with the auto catching fire but not exploding. "Joint Counter Terrorism Team investigators are executing search warrants at two addresses in Werribee and Meadows Heights this morning" Victoria police said in a statement. The police there issue a statement saying that a vehicle had burst into flames and that a small number of people were being treated for stab wounds. Users on social media have reported hearing an "explosion", while vision of the incident has suggested a man attacked police with a knife, before seemingly being shot by an officer. Earlier, paramedics said they assessed three people at the scene. "As they got out of the vehicle, they were confronted by a male brandishing a knife and threatening them", Supt David Clayton said in a news conference. It is not the first time that this area sees a deadly incident. However, the NZ Herald stated that in 2009, he was acquitted for his role in a terrorist plot; he'd aimed to launch a suicide attack at Sydney's Holsworthy army barracks. The attack horrified hundreds of onlookers during the afternoon rush hour in Australia's second-biggest city. James Cargasoulas is accused of driving his auto into pedestrians. "He is the brother of an offender or a suspect that we arrested late previous year in relation to the preparation of a terrorist event". He was detained during a raid by authorities. Police are confident the event was a terrorist attack, which Islamic State has claimed responsibility for. He was arrested before he could purchase the weapon. Police believe he was acting alone. "They were around him trying to take the knife out of his hand-I'm pretty sure it was a kitchen knife", he said, according to Perth Now. Twitteratis have been asking for an edit button for the longest time. But that may still be some time away as the company does not want to "rush it" and will take a considered view of a use case for allowing individuals to make changes to their tweets. "We have been considering edit for quite some time but we have to do the right way. We can't just rush it out. We have to make sure that we are actually solving the predominant reason why people would do it first and foremost and not making something that is distracting or takes anything away from the public record...," Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said. Speaking at a townhall at IIT-Delhi, the top executive said many users have been asking for the edit button because they want to correct mistakes like spelling errors or adding the wrong URL. "...that's a lot more achievable than allowing people to edit any tweet all the way back in time...ultimately, we need to make sure that we are solving a real problem and solving a use case that people seeing as a friction in the service and making that easy for people," Dorsey said. On his maiden visit to India, Dorsey met Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama and Congress President Rahul Gandhi. Addressing the students at an hour-long townhall, the Twitter co-founder answered a multitude of questions ranging from topics like best and worst decisions, changes needed in education system and impact of social media on youth globally. In response to a question, Dorsey said the followers count no longer matters and users should rather focus on having meaningful conversations. Having founded Twitter with Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in 2006, Dorsey said the follower count was designed to encourage engagement on the platform. "...we made it (follower number) bold and the font size a little bigger than everything else on the page and we didn't think much and we moved on to the next thing to create. "What that has done is we put all the emphasis, not intending to, on that number of how many people follow me. So, if that number is big and bold, what do people want to do with it? They want to make it go up," he said. He further said: "It may have been right way back then 12 years ago but I don't think it's right today...I think a more interesting number is how many conversations do you contribute to in your network, how many healthy conversations do you have". Talking about bad decisions made, Dorsey spoke of how he -- in the early years of the company -- was afraid of letting some "amazing" engineers as he feared that doing so would bring down the platform even though these staff had negative attitude. He reminisced that six months later, when some of these people were let go, the site indeed went down but also some other team members stepped up as leaders in the situation. Advising would-be entrepreneurs, Dorsey said it is important that these businesses and algorithms based on new technologies like artificial intelligence are built with a "sense of ethical and moral responsibility" as this will affect lives of people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid business proposals and investment commitments, corporate honchos, who attended the the'Make in Odisha' conclave here on Monday, fondly recalled their associations with the state's former chief minister, Biju Patnaik, calling him a pioneer of industrial growth. Addressing the mega event, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani said his father Dhirubhai Ambani and the veteran leader were close friends. "Both (DB Ambani and Biju Patnaik) shared a deep friendship and inspired millions of people in the country. I have learnt from these two legendary persons that nothing is impossible," he said. Odisha has been growing at eight per cent per annum, faster than other states, Ambani noted. "Under the exemplary leadership of current Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik (son of Biju Patnaik), Odisha is becoming one of the best investment destinations in the nation," the RIL chairman added. Vedanta Resource Inc founder-chairman Anil Agarwal also hailed Biju Patnaik for his contributions to the state. "During the 1990-95 tenure of Biju babu, he had a strong desire to develop Kalahandi area which was completely disconnected from rest of the state." Agarwal has set up his company's alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi with an aim to connect the tribal-dominated district with the mainstream and ensure speedy development of the region. Jindal brothers - Naveen and Sajan - also shared stories of their company's association with the legendary politician on this occasion. The entire plenary session saw a host of industry captains showering praises on the veteran leader. Quoting from one of the speeches of the former chief minister, the RIL chaiman said, "In my dream of the 21st century for the state, I would have young men and women who have pride in themselves By their brain, intelligence and capacity, they will recapture the glory of Kalinga. "This was Biju Patnaik's dream, and this should be your dream and our dream The chief minister (Naveen Patnaik), too, is carrying on with this vision." Kalinga was an ancient kingdom encompassing a large part of presen-day Odisha, northern part of Andhra Pradesh and parts of Chhattisgarh. The second edition of the five-day conclave was inaugurated here Sunday in the presence of a host of dignitaries, including Japanese Ambassador to India Kenji Hiramatsu and consul generals of several countries. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Over 1,000 fireworks units here, most of them cottage units, went on an indefinite closure from Monday demanding lifting of the time restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court for bursting crackers and the ban on use of certain chemicals. A body of the manufacturers claimed there was 60 per cent fall in sale of firecrackers in view of the apex court order, badly affecting the industry, which has an annual turnover of around Rs 6,000 crore. Sivakasi, about 550 km from Chennai, in southern Tamil Nadu is the country's fireworks hub and around eight lakh people are directly dependent on about 1,070 manufacturing units, including the big factories, for their livelihood. The decision to resort to the indefinite closure was taken at a meeting of the Tamil Nadu Fireworks and Amorces Units Owners Association, its Secretary E Mariappan told reporters here. He said the industry had been "severely affected" by the apex court order restricting the timing for bursting crackers on Deepavali to two hours, the ban on use of certain chemicals and allowing only green crackers. Pressing for lifting of all the restrictions, he claimed that besides the eigh lakh people in and around Sivakasi, one crore people were directly or indirectly dependent on the fireworks industry throughout the country and they would also be affected. Mariappan said there was no such thing as "green crackers" and claimed that domestic crackers were much better compared to those in foreign countries. The apex court's order banning the use of important raw materials like barium hydrite in the manufacture of crackers would also affect theindustry. The ban on chain crackers would make a large number of people jobless and indirectly destroy the cracker units, he said. He said theSupreme Court should respect the sentiments of the people while deciding on important issues related to religion such as bursting crackers during Deepavali. Meanwhile, the association representatives met state Minister K T Rajendra Balaji, who represents Sivakasi in the assembly, and held talks with him over the issue. The association has earlier said it would file a reivew petition in the Supreme Court against its order on crackers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jabir Moti, an alleged "top lieutenant" in underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's organised crime syndicate, will stand trial in March next year in his extradition case on money laundering and extortion charges brought by the US authorities, a Westminster Magistrates' Court judge in London said on Monday. Judge Tan Ikram remanded Pakistani national Jabir Moti, aka Jabir Motiwala and Jabir Siddiq, in further custody to appear for a case management hearing on December 10, before a three-day trial scheduled for March 13-15 in 2019. The 51-year-old appeared before the court via routine procedure of video link from Wandsworth Prison in south-west London on Monday, when a previously set date for the trial in February 2019 was delayed due to scheduling reasons. "Due to non-availability of counsel, the trial will now take place in March. I am mindful of the delay but the delay is very small," said Judge Ikram. Moti, who has made an application to the court to have his name changed on the case documents to Jabir Siddiq, was arrested by Scotland Yard officers from a London hotel in August following an FBI investigation dating back to 2005. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), arguing on behalf of the US authorities, has told the court that he is a "senior member" of D Company, a crime syndicate associated with Dawood Ibrahim, a key accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case. Prosecutor Ben Lloyd told the court at a hearing in September that the summary of the US charges against Moti cover allegations of laundering USD 1.4-million of purported proceeds from narcotics smuggling and "conspiracy to collect credit extensions by extortionate means", amounting to around USD 80,000. The charges relate to a period between December 2011 and September 2012, which carry a maximum sentence of 25 years behind bars in the US. "For a fee, D Company uses the power of violence for debt collection and has a reputation of intimidating members of the family of its debtors in India and Pakistan," the prosecution said in its case summary. Moti's defence team has disputed allegations of him being a key aide of D Company as "obvious nonsense", describing their client as a "man of exemplary character" who is a tax paying, prominent businessman based in Karachi and accredited as a stock broker, with a family stock-broking business dating back to the 1950s in Pakistan. At a previous hearing, the Pakistan government had also vouched for Moti's "good character" but the court ruled that it remained unconvinced that Moti did not pose a "flight risk" and denied him bail. Moti's defence, led by Toby Cadman of Guernica law firm, has said it intends to depose a number of legal experts as witnesses in the case, with the key issues being "abuse of process and entrapment" by the authorities. While Dawood Ibrahim's name has not come up specifically during the UK court proceedings, Westminster Magistrates' Court has been told that D Company is "named after the leader of the company based in Pakistan", associated with trafficking and money laundering through international smuggling routes across South Asia that were also linked to terrorist funding. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) - An exchange of fire erupted during an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing six Palestinians and an Israeli soldier, officials said, while potentially dashing hopes that a recent agreement would restore calm. As tensions rose following the clash, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he would cut short his trip to Paris, where he had been attending World War I commemorations, and return home. Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the blockaded Gaza Strip, denounced a "cowardly Israeli attack". Palestinian security sources said the clash included Israeli air strikes. After the clash erupted, sirens were reported in southern Israel indicating possible rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Ten launches from Gaza towards Israel were identified and two were intercepted by Israeli missile defences, the army said. It was not immediately clear where the others had landed. Details were still emerging of the incident that Palestinian officials said occurred east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Gaza's health ministry said six Palestinians were killed. The dead included a local commander for Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the brigades said in a statement. He was identified as Nour Baraka. Israel's army confirmed one soldier was killed and another was injured. "During an (Israeli) special forces operational activity in the Gaza Strip, an exchange of fire evolved," the army said in a statement. "At this incident, an IDF officer was killed and an additional officer was moderately injured," it added, referring to the Israel Defence Forces. It added that the operation was now over. Hamas's armed wing alleged in a statement that an Israeli special forces team infiltrated near Khan Yunis in a civilian car. Israel's military had not confirmed those details nor described what type of operation it carried out. A ground operation inside the Gaza Strip would be rare and likely significantly boost tensions. Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman held security consultations at military headquarters, his office said. The clash comes after months of deadly unrest along the Gaza-Israel border had appeared to be calming. Recent weeks have seen Israeli decisions to allow Qatar to provide the Gaza Strip with millions of dollars in aid for salaries as well as fuel to help ease an electricity crisis. Netanyahu had earlier defended his decision to allow Qatar to transfer the cash to Gaza despite criticism from within his own government over the move, saying he wanted to avoid a war if it wasn't necessary. "I'm doing what I can, in coordination with the security establishment, to return quiet to the southern communities, but also to prevent a humanitarian crisis," Netanyahu said late Saturday, referring to Israeli towns near the Gaza border and deteriorating conditions in the enclave. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu's education minister and right-wing rival, compared the cash flow to "protection money" paid to criminals. Lieberman said he had opposed "transferring the money to Hamas". Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008, and recent months of unrest have raised fears of a fourth. Deadly clashes have accompanied major protests along the Gaza-Israel border that began on March 30. At least 227 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, the majority shot during protests and clashes, since the demonstrations began, while others died in tank fire or air strikes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in that time. On Friday, Palestinian civil servants began receiving payments after months of sporadic salary disbursements in cash-strapped Gaza, with USD 15 million delivered into the enclave through Israel in suitcases by Qatar. A total of USD 90 million is to be distributed in six monthly instalments, Gaza authorities said, primarily to cover salaries of officials working for Hamas. Qatar has also said it would hand out $100 to each of 50,000 poor families, as well as larger sums to Palestinians wounded in clashes along the Gaza-Israel border. The Gulf emirate has also started buying additional fuel for Gaza's sole power station, allowing outages to be reduced to their lowest level in years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi Police constable was allegedly shot at after he intervened in a quarrel between two groups in central Delhi's Patel Nagar, police said Monday. The constable, Amarjeet, who is posted at the Patel Nagar police station, was in civvies when he was going to investigate about a criminal Sunday night, they said. He saw two groups of men fighting near Kunwar Singh Chowk in Patel Nagar and intervened to pacify them. The members of one of the group's felt he was supporting the other group and shot at him, police said. Police said he was injured in the stomach and is currently undergoing treatment. Special teams have been formed to nab the accused and some suspects have been identified, they added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Aviation regulator DGCA Monday suspended the flying licence of Air India Operations Director Arvind Kathpalia for three years following his failure to clear the mandatory pre-flight breath analyser test. On Sunday, Kathpalia, who is also an AI board member, was grounded by the airline after he tested alcohol positive twice during as many breath analyser tests performed on him before he was to operate Air India's New Delhi-London flight. "In exercise of the power delegated under clause (a) of sub-rule (3) of rule 19 of the Aircraft Rules 1937... the undersigned hereby suspends in public interest the privileges of the pilots licence held by Capt A Kathpalia for a period of three years from Nov 11, 2018," DGCA joint director general J S Rawat said in an order in New Delhi. The suspension of Kathpalia's flying licence is effective from the date on which he was tested BA (breath analyser) positive, the order stated. Repeated calls and text messages to Air India chairman and managing director Pradeep Singh Kharola on the issue did not yield a response. Air India spokesperson was also not available for comments. Rule 24 of the Aircraft Rules prohibits crew members from partaking any alcoholic drink 12 hours prior to the commencement of a flight, and it is mandatory for him/her to undergo an alcohol test both before and after operating a flight. The prescribed punishment for such offences under the DGCA rules is suspension of flying licence for three months in case of first breach. For violating the norms for a second time, the licence is suspended for three years and for a third time, the licence is permanently cancelled. This is the second time Kathpalia has been taken off flying duties as in February 2017 DGCA suspended his licence for three months for skipping the BA test before a flight when he was working as an executive director for operations with the airline. He was subsequently removed from the post of executive director, operations. Later, in March the government appointed him to the post of Director for Operations. Significantly, as many as 132 pilots and 434 cabin crew of AI were found to have allegedly skipped both the pre- and post-flight alcohol tests last year, forcing the then airline CMD Rajiv Bansal to request the regulator to take a "lenient view" on the issue, maintaining they (the crew members) never intended to violate norms. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The body of a 65-year-old doctor was found at his residence in northwest Delhi's Jahangirpuri area Monday, police said. The police received a call at around 10.30 am, following which they rushed to the spot and found the body of the man on a bed, they added. The deceased was identified as Mukim, a medical practitioner, the police said, adding that no injury marks were found on the body. The door of the house was found open, so it seemed to be a "friendly entry", the police said, adding that however, an almirah in the house was found ransacked. The exact cause of the death would be ascertained after post-mortem, Deputy Commissioner of Police (northwest) Aslam Khan said. During a preliminary probe, the police learnt that Mukim was alone at home after his daughter, a teacher, left for school at 7.30 am, the DCP added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Election Commission Monday sought two more names from the Mizoram government for the post of chief electoral officer, highly-placed sources in the poll panel said. The Mizoram government has already proposed the names of three IAS officers, as desired by the commission. The poll panel had asked the state government to suggest names after it decided to find an alternative to CEO S B Shashank, who had courted controversy in the poll-bound state. The poll panel decided to seek two more names at a meeting held here, the sources said. The names already suggested by the Mizoram government are -- Lalhmingthanga, H Lalengmawia and K Lalthawmmawia. An official in Aizawl had on Sunday said that Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain, who led the second EC team to Mizoram Friday, had told officials there that it would take two-three days to select and appoint a new CEO. Jain had also assured the NGO Coordination Committee leaders -- who were spearheading the movement against Shashank -- that the CEO would be replaced and the Bru voters in Tripura relief camps would exercise their franchise from Mizoram, which were the primary demands of the organisation. The EC had initiated the process of finding an alternative to the Mizoram CEO Saturday. An EC spokesperson had said in New Delhi that the poll panel had "only decided to call for a panel of names for the post of the state CEO from the chief secretary of Mizoram". Shashank had reportedly sought deployment of additional central armed police forces (CAPFs) in the north-eastern state and complained to the EC that the state's former principal secretary, Lalnunmawia Chuaungo, was interfering in the poll process. Chuaungo, a native of Mizoram and a Gujarat-cadre IAS officer, was relieved of his duties earlier this month. Thousands of people took to the streets and picketed in front of Shashank's office for two days since Tuesday. The protesters, under the aegis of the NGO Coordination Committee, had also given an ultimatum for Shashank to leave urgently, prompting the EC to send the first team to the state Tuesday. Shashank left Mizoram Wednesday after being summoned by the chief election commissioner in Delhi, which resulted in the withdrawal of the agitation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A senior Russian diplomat said Monday that Moscow is trying to be an Afghan peace broker because it considers the U.S. has failed in Afghanistan. Russia's presidential envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said a Moscow conference on Afghanistan Friday that brought together representatives of the Afghan authorities and the Taliban marked an attempt to "take a modest first step toward full-fledged peace talks." Kabulov said Monday that Russia's efforts to help an Afghan peace settlement have been driven not by a desire to undercut the U.S. efforts, but by legitimate security concerns. He emphasized that the continuing fighting in Afghanistan threatens the interests of Russia and its allies in Central Asia. "Afghanistan is close to our underbelly so national interests of Russia and its allies are at stake," Kobulov said at a briefing. "We can't just sit back and watch impassively what's going on, and we have let the U.S. know that it doesn't appear to be successful in settlement efforts." Kabulov charged that "the presence of the U.S. and NATO hasn't only failed to solve the problem but exacerbated it," noting that the Taliban has steadily expanded its foothold. "The West has lost the war in Afghanistan, and it's reluctant to acknowledge that obvious fact," Kabulov said. "If they continue to rely on force, it would only lead to thousands more victims and further ravage the country." He noted that regional powers, including Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran have a strong interest in ending the conflict and should play a more active role. The U.S. Embassy sent a diplomat to observe Friday's conference in Moscow that was attended by several members of Afghanistan's government-appointed Peace Council and the Taliban. Envoys from China, India, Pakistan and the ex-Soviet nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan also attended the meeting. Taliban officials and Peace Council members have met at past forums elsewhere, and while no formal talks were ever held they have had some face-to face discussions. The Taliban has refused direct talks with the Afghan government, which it sees as a U.S. puppet, saying it will only negotiate the end of the 17-year war directly with Washington. The group reaffirmed that position in Moscow, saying it would talk directly to the U.S. to demand its pullout from the country. Kabulov said that he may meet with the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, later this fall. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Elite Israeli occupation soldiers crossed the border into Gaza on Sunday in a civilian vehicle in a special operation to assassinate Hamas commander prompting an exchange of fire between Zionist soldiers and the Palestinian resistance. Gaza's Health Ministry reported the slain Palestinians were: Hamas commander Nour al-Din Muhammad Salama Baraka, 37; Mohammed Majid Mousa Al-Qara, 23; Alaa al-Din Muhammad Qwaider, 22; Mustafa Hassan Mohammed Abu Odeh, 21; Mahmoud Attallah Musabeh 25, and Alaa Fawzi Mohammed Fseifes, 19. Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is visiting in Paris, held consultations on the topic while the Zionist War Minister Avigdor Lieberman is holding consultations at the military headquarters in Tel Aviv. There have also been reports of Israeli warplanes targeting the area with some 40 missiles shortly after the incident. Israel's army is warning of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip after a Hamas commander allegedly was killed in a Gaza raid that also left one Israeli officer dead. Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008, and recent months of unrest have raised fears of a fourth. On Friday, Palestinian civil servants began receiving payments after months of sporadic salary disbursements in cash-strapped Gaza, with $15 million delivered into the enclave through Israel in suitcases by Qatar. It was not immediately clear what set off the sudden, rare late-night burst of violence. Since March 30, thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have gathered at weekly protests along the Israeli border to demand a lifting of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade. On Sunday, he defended his decision to allow through the Qatari cash to Gaza as a way to avert an "unnecessary war", maintain quiet for residents of southern Israel and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the impoverished Gaza Strip. "Without exception, every step has a price", the Israeli prime minister remarked before stressing: "When you take steps of leadership, if you can not bear the price, you cannot lead". "Everyone knows where that money is going to go ultimately", said Netanyahu's agriculture minister, Uri Ariel. Later at a press conference in Paris, when asked about his longer-term vision for Gaza, Netanyahu said there could be no political resolution as long as Hamas is in power. Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations have been trying to broker a long-term ceasefire. In the West Bank, Abbas angrily accused Israel and the USA of ganging up behind his back to entrench Hamas' control over Gaza. "IDF operated in the Gaza Strip, exchange of gunfire ensued". The European Union's chief Brexit negotiator warned ministers from the other 27 member states on Monday that no deal has been sealed on Britain's departure from the bloc. "Michel Barnier explained that intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet," the European Council, which represents the member states, said in a statement. "Some key issues remain under discussion, in particular a solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Facebook on Monday categorised fake as an "existential threat" to the social media platform, leading to the company taking some tough measures to combat it. The American giant said its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has created a "large number of teams" to combat disinformation and fake "[Fake news] is an existential threat to the platform. As a social media platform, we are devoted to doing good and misinformation is the opposite of that," said Manish Khanduri, Head of Partnerships at Facebook. "If it [content] violates community standards, eg. pornography that content, we have a very strong process for it and that gets taken down immediately. But when somebody says this is propaganda from a political party, we are entering the realms of speculation as well as opinion and that's not what Facebook could do," he said at the Beyond Fake News conference organised by the BBC in New Delhi. Facebook was joined by representatives from other major social media platforms, such as Twitter and Google, for the first time in an open discussion about fake news as part of the BBC's new drive to combat disinformation. The representatives from the global media giants discussed the threat the phenomenon of fake news poses, as well as the decision-making process around choosing what to take down and what to keep up on their platforms. "In terms of identifying what is misinformation, there is a certain limit we have. We don't want to sit in judgment. We identify certain parameters around which misinformation exists and then we leave it to fact-checking agencies," said Irene Jay Liu, Lead for Google News Labs, Asia Pacific region. "We believe training and upskilling is important and that's why we launched the Google news initiative training network, which will train 8,000 journalists in several local languages. We have already trained over 10,000 journalists," she said. It emerged during the conference that none of the major social media has any board-level positions dedicated to tackling fake news. "Do you want individual like ours to make decisions about what is true and what is not? That would be a tremendous challenge," noted Vijayya Gadde, Global Head of Trust and Safety on Twitter. Beyond Fake News is the British public broadcaster's new international anti-disinformation initiative, looking at highlighting the problems posed by the fake news phenomenon and seeking solutions to it. A Fiji appeal court threw out a corruption case against the Pacific island nation's main opposition leader Sitiveni Rabuka on Monday, clearing the way for him to contest Wednesday's election. Rabuka, head of the SODELPA Party, had been campaigning with the threat of disqualification hanging over him if he was convicted of making false financial declarations. But the High Court in Suva backed a magistrates' court decision to acquit the former prime minister, dismissing an appeal from the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption. In a judgement handed down Monday, chief judge Anthony Gates said "essential elements (of the case) were not proved, the appeal fails and must be dismissed". He also awarded Rabuka costs of FJ$4,000 ($1,900). SODELPA supporters in the courthouse were jubilant at the verdict and Rabuka said he felt "great and getting better". "I want to thank all of them (supporters)", he said. Rabuka led two coups in the 1980s and served as prime minister from 1992 to 1999. He is challenging the ruling FijiFirst Party, whose leader Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama led his own bloodless coup in 2006 and ruled by decree until winning a 2014 election. Bainimarama is favourite to retain office, with a recent poll putting his approval rating at 68 percent compared with Rabuka's 24 percent. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government has cancelled ED's chief investigating officer for 2G cases Rajeshwar Singh's leave, granted to him last month for pursuing a masters in law, without citing any reason, officials said Monday. Rajeshwar Singh, who was under investigation for writing a letter against Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia a few months ago, is on medical leave at the moment. In his letter, he had asked Adhia, who was then revenue secretary, if he had developed animosity against him by "siding with scamsters and their affiliates". The Department of Revenue (DoR), under the Union Finance ministry, disallowed Rajeshwar Singh's study leave even as he is understood to have applied for fresh medical leave and is undergoing treatment for an ailment, officials said. The Enforcement Directorate joint director's leave was sanctioned last month by then ED director Karnal Singh for pursuing an LLM before he retired from the agency on October 27. IRS officer Sanjay Kumar Mishra was subsequently appointed the new ED chief. The ED director is the competent authority to sanction leave to officers in his department. This sanction order was also sent to the DoR but somehow that has now been overturned. No reasons have been cited, they said. The ED functions under the DoR. Rajeshwar Singh's last task in office was filing a charge sheet under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against former finance minister P Chidambaram on October 25. The officer, who completed his LLB recently, had sent his leave application a few months ago. But he was not allowed to undertake the course as the Aircel-Maxis charge sheets against Chidambaram and his son Karti were pending, among other cases. According to the leave sanction order approved by the former ED chief, Rajeshwar Singh will be available whenever he is required for "assistance in investigations or trial in court" with regard to cases probed by him, including the 2G spectrum allocation and the Aircel-Maxis money laundering cases. Rajeshwar Singh had last month also handed over his charge of joint director (Lucknow zone) of the ED. The Union Finance ministry submitted a secret report to the Supreme Court in June, apparently carrying details of a phone call received by Rajeshwar Singh from Dubai. The report is said to have been prepared by country's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and handed over to the DoR. Karnal Singh had issued a press statement, saying the overseas call received by Rajeshwar Singh pertained to an "ongoing investigation" and that he was a responsible officer with outstanding career records. The government subsequently launched an investigation against Rajeshwar Singh for the letter against Adhia. According to an official, Rajeshwar Singh's promotion to the next level of additional director in the agency has been pending before the Finance Ministry since last year and a final call on all the issues related to him could soon be taken by the government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Goa Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar Monday said the ban on import of fish into the state should not affect the economy and traders complying with regulations should be allowed to bring in fish. The Goa government Saturday announced a ban on import of fish into the state for six months, against the backdrop of a scare that formalin, a potential cancer-causing chemical, was being used to preserved fish. "Government decisions should not affect the economy. This is peak tourism season in Goa. Those who comply with necessary statutory guidelines (laid down by FDA) should be allowed to import fish. I request (state) Health Minister Vishwajit Rane to act accordingly," Ajgaonkar said in a statement Monday. The Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG), an umbrella organisation of tourism stakeholders, had called the ban a "drastic step" with its president Savio Messiah claiming that the state government had not taken them into confidence while announcing it. The Goa Shack Owners' Welfare Society president Cruz Cardoso also claimed that the six-month ban would have an adverse impact on business. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress Monday said the Centre's response to the Supreme Court on the Rafale issue was a "virtual admission" that the Cabinet Committee on Security was not consulted before finalising the deal with France. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi also criticised the government for not disclosing the price of the Rafale fighter jets, alleging that the saffron party was being "elusive" and was beating around the bush over the pricing issue. "There is a virtual admission that the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) was not consulted before. Will you consult after giving the contract or before the contract?" he said. "It is common ground that the CCS was consulted for the first time after you gave your solemn, sovereign word in France," he alleged. "The government is trying to mislead and beat around the bush as is being witnessed for the past one year, as it does not have an answer on this," Singhvi said. The Congress leader said he was relying on the documents in public domain furnished to the party, and would come out with a detailed response to the Centre's submission before the top court on the matter later. "We are the Congress Party, we have no direct access, we are not a party to the court proceedings but all over your domain - you have these copies and we have all got it from you. Now this needs to be studied and I can assure you that we will be troubling you with a separate Press Conference. "This is like 20 pages and these 20 pages is like 'Hamlet' without 'Prince of Denmark'. 'The Prince of Denmark' is the price. Price we still do not have. Prince of Denmark remains elusive," Singhvi added. The Centre Monday informed the Supreme Court that the Defence Procurement Procedure was "completely followed" in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and the deal was subsequently approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security. The Centre's stand was reflected in a document submitted to the court, which had asked the government to furnish details and the steps taken in the decision making process for the procurement of the jets. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Monday said they were inquiring into the Bomdila incident in Arunachal Pradesh and would take action against the guilty. On November 2, a group of soldiers allegedly misbehaved with civilians and police personnel at the Buddha Mahotsav celebrations in Bomdila area of West Kameng district, officials had said. The local station house officer went to the spot and two soldiers were brought to the police station. After that, some soldiers vandalised the Bomdila police station, assaulted police personnel and civilians, they had said. "We are inquiring into it. If any jawans are found guilty, we will take action against them," Rawat said here, while replying to a question about action being taken against the jawans. Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Kiren Rijiju had on Wednesday took stock of the situation. On Sunday, Rijiju had said the Army and the police should respect each other. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel Monday said the state government is mulling a law to curb the spread of fake and information on social media. He said some people with malafide intentions were misusing social media to create enmity between castes and communities, to harass people and destabilise the country. "Such misuse of social media would harm the country's unity, peace and security. Inciting conflicts between various castes and communities, spreading religious rumours or about any person is not good," Patel said Monday. "It is necessary to stop such practice (of spreading fake and information). While some laws are being enacted (at the Centre), the Gujarat government is also mulling to enact a law in this regard," Patel said. He said the state government is taking time to bring such a law to ensure that people do not see it as "censorship" imposed by the government. "Discussions (in the government) are going on for the last three-four months on how the law can be implemented. People should not feel we are imposing censorship on them," Patel said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani Monday condoled the death of Union minister and BJP leader Ananth Kumar. Kumar died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer. He was 59. "Saddened by the demise of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji - Union Cabinet Minister of Chemicals, Fertilizers & Parliamentary Affairs. I pray for the departed soul. My condolences to family members. Om Shanti..." Rupani said on Twitter. Kumar was suffering from cancer and had come back from the US in October after treatment at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, New York. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At last year's march, some marchers carried racist and anti-Islamic banners calling for a "White Europe" and displayed white supremacist symbols like the Celtic Cross. She noted that the chief organizer of the Warsaw march is a leader of the National Radical Camp, a group she has appealed to the justice minister to outlaw. "We want the march to be peaceful and not provoke tensions", Morawiecki told reporters. Extremists from Hungary and elsewhere have in past years joined Poland's November 11 march, which is meant to mark Poland's regaining of its independence at the end of World War I. Saying he expected up to 200,000 participants Sunday at the inclusive Warsaw march, Morawiecki acknowledged it could be hard to control them all, but said "we will try to eliminate all banners which are extremist". Typically the marches feature many flares and firecrackers, and there have been a few cases of violence. The announcement of the state event comes after the Warsaw city mayor earlier in the day banned a march by radical nationalists that has marred Poland's worldwide reputation in the past and proven deeply divisive at home. Numerous protesters carried provocative banners and shouted slogans, such as "Pure blood, clear mind" and "Europe will be white or uninhabited". An annual march organised by far-right groups in Poland to celebrate the country's independence has been banned by Warsaw's mayor over security concerns. Hours later, President Andrzej Duda's office announced he would lead a new march, which will take place at the same time and place as the banned rally, inviting "all Poles" to join him under the country's red-and-white colored banners. Earlier this week Gronkiewicz-Waltz said she would consider banning the march "if there was any element of hatred", according to local Polish broadcaster TVN24. Chants included "The whole Poland sings with us: F*** off with the refugees", "Not red, not rainbow but national Poland", "One nation across the borders", and "F*** Antifa". But with organisers of the march already saying they will appeal the ban, and hinting they will march regardless, the Polish capital could well face a volatile showdown between marchers and the police on Sunday. He has also said there will be no tolerance for foreign agitators. "We're meeting at 2 p.m.in Warsaw", they said on Facebook. "It's absolutely excluded and not allowable on Polish soil". The mayor's ban follows a dispute between the government and the police, with as many as 20 percent of the country's officers now on medical leave in a dispute over pay. The Defense Ministry was asked to help organize security and police are being offered extra money if they show up to work. The developments reflect the chaos surrounding independence day preparations by the European Union country's right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government, just days ahead of Poland's centenary coinciding with the World War I armistice. In another development, the ruling authorities drew criticism from pro-business lawmakers after the president signed a law late Wednesday that makes next Monday a day off work since the national holiday falls on a Sunday. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. Three bike-borne gunmen looted more than Rs 16 lakh from a manager of a petrol pump in Bhagalpur district on Monday, police said. The incident occurred at Majrohi village under the jurisdiction of Pirpainty police station when the manager of the petrol pump was about to go to a bank to deposit the money, the police said. The robbers held Vikas Kumar Singh, the manager of the petrol pump, at gunpoint and looted Rs 16.2 lakh from him, the Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Kahalgaon, Dilnawaz Ahmad said. Vibhuti Goswami, the ruling JD(U)'s Bhagalpur district president is the owner of the pump, Ahmad said. Efforts are on to ascertain the identities of the miscreants the SDPO said, adding, raids are on to nab the culprits. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the Centre and the AAP government as to what steps they have taken to put in place schemes for providing financial assistance and funds to the clerks of lawyers working in various courts of the national capital. A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao asked them to inform the court about the monetary and welfare schemes that can be made available to the clerks. The court said it will take care of the issue of providing a designated room and other facilities for the clerks in the high court, and asked the Centre and Delhi government to give details of "the financial assistance and funds that can be made available to lawyers' clerks". With the direction, the court listed the matter for hearing on January 18, 2019. The bench had earlier observed that clerks played an "important" role in the legal system. The court was hearing a PIL moved by an association representing lawyers' clerks seeking social security and welfare measures for them. The petition, by the Delhi High Court Bar Clerks Association, has sought enforcement of several welfare measures like providing for provident fund, pensions and group insurance policies. It has claimed that several states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Odisha and Himachal Pradesh have already enacted a law to promote the welfare of clerks who have to depend on charity and donation of the advocates employing them. The association, which represents over 20,000 lawyers' clerks working in the various courts of the national capital, has contended that its members have been deprived of their fundamental rights, including right to medical benefits to a workman. In its petition, the association has urged the court to direct the authorities to promote, safeguard and implement the clerks' fundamental rights to social security and welfare measures. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Orissa High Court Monday revoked the state government's decision to reinstate three policemen who were suspended for allegedly assaulting an advocate. The policemen were suspended for misconduct after they had allegedly thrashed an advocate at a busy marketplace here on August 28. While the standoff between the police and the agitating advocates continued with the matter being pending before the court, the state government had on November 3 reinstated the suspended policemen. In our considered opinion, during pendency of this case the state government ought not to have done that without the permission of the court, said an order passed by a division bench headed by Chief Justice K S Jhaveri. The order revoking the suspension of the policemen is put in abeyance, the HC said as it restored the suspension of the Odisha Police personnel. In a related development, Justice C R Dash of the HC, who is monitoring the police investigations of all the criminal cases arising out of the police-lawyer standoff, proposed a compromise formula to end the two-and-half-month row. The proposal, it seemed, was acceptable to the lawyers who have been on strike since August 29. Although, the details were not yet known, sources said Dash had suggested summoning the concerned policemen and the advocate to the court to settle the dispute. Meanwhile, the striking lawyers at a general body meeting of the High Court Bar Association decided to continue their stir till Wednesday-- the day Justice Dash's formula is likely to be implemented. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court Monday hoped that the Tamil Nadu government would bestow its full attention to introduce spoken English course to students studying in Tamil medium in government schools. Passing interim orders on a public interest litigation, the division bench, comprising Justices M Sathyanarayanan and P Rajamanickam impleaded the Directorate of State Council for Research and Training, Chennai as respondent to the PIL filed by former DMK MLA M Appavu. "This court, taking note of the fact that English is a link language for communication outside of the state, as well as outside of the country, hopes and trusts the government will bestow their full attention for introduction of spoken English course to the students studying in Tamil medium in the government schools," the bench said. It directed the authorities concerned to file a counter affidavit by December 6 and also impleaded the director of the State Council for Education, Research and Training, Chennai, as a respondent. The petitioner submitted that there were about 37,211 government schools, 8,403 government aided schools and 12,419 private self-financing schools such as matriculation and CBSE schools in the state, imparting to about 1.25 crore students. About 40 lakh students were studying in private schools, he said. The government spends Rs 27,000 crore annually for education, he said. Submitting that though English was taught as a second language in accordance with the educational policy of the state from class 2 to 12 in Tamil medium, government, aided and un-aided schools, the petitioner said that a student, even after successfully completing plus-two, was unable to speak, write or understand English. This causes problems when the student pursues professional and other degree courses in various institutions where English is the medium of instruction, he said. On the other hand, students who pursue school in English medium in CBSE schools find it easy to understand and communicate in that language and mingle with others, including the faculty, who were fluent in English. This inability continues even in work places, he said, adding that a need has arisen to emphasise on spoken English in all the Tamil medium government, aided and un-aided schools from primary to higher secondary-level. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Automobile major Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL) would sign a MoU with the Tamil Nadu government in January 2019 to take up Rs 7,000 crore expansion work at its facility here, a top official said Monday. The management of Hyundai Motor India, led by its Managing Director and CEO, Y K Koo, vice-president (corporate affairs), B C Datta, assistant vice-president (Finance) N Ramesh called on Chief Minister K Palaniswami at the Secretariat and had a brief interaction with him. Later, talking to reporters, Datta said the chief minister had assured them that the government would conisder their request for providing them tax incentives for the expansion work He said HMIL would sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the state government at the Global Investors Meet scheduled to be held in January 2019. "This Rs 7,000 crore project means increasing production capacity, new model launches and powertrains. We have the MoU signing in January with government", he said. With the new investments, the production capacity (at the two manufacturing facilities in Sriperumbudur) would increase to eight lakh units a year from the present seven lakh units, he said. "Next year, we will also introduce a new electric vehicle", he said. Nearly 700 new jobs would be created after the expansion, he said. HMIL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Company, Seoul, retails nine models across the country. The company also exports its vehicles to around 87 countries, inclduding Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Australia and the Asia Pacific. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A vast consumer market and government initiatives to promote manufacturing and digital penetration provide huge opportunities for Swedish companies to invest in India, an Indian official said Monday. "India's growth which is complemented by a large consumer market offers huge business opportunities for Swedish companies. There is a tremendous scope for investment," India's Ambassador to Sweden Monika Kapil Mohta said here at the India Sweden Business Day, organised by India Unlimited. She noted that India is the fastest growing major economy in the world and is moving towards building a USD 5 trillion economy. Mohta said that flagship programmes such as Make in India, Skill India, Swachh Bharat, Digital India and public healthcare plans are some of the areas that hold huge investment potential. "These are the areas which are of particular interest to you. India has undertaken an ambitious plan to build the next generation infrastructure including smart cities, airports, high-speed trains, high cyber connectivity. "There is a rapid growth in construction of national highways. There are ambitious plans to develop more than 100 rivers and national waterways. All these areas further open up immense opportunities for our Swedish partners," the ambassador added. She outlined that the government is taking several steps to improve ease of doing business and is also carrying out comprehensive reforms to attract investments. "Today from this forum, I invite all of you to participate in this vast business opportunities that await you in India. I assure you that you will be helped, facilitated all the way in your journey in every possible manner," she said. India Unlimited Chief Executive Director Sanjoo Malhotra said that Indian economy is growing at a fast pace and innovation plays a critical role in this. Innovation will help achieve the sustainable development goals, he said, adding in this area businesses of both countries can increase cooperation. India Unlimited was constituted in 2013 in association with the Embassy of India in Sweden, industry body CII and Sweden Indian Business Council to promote ties between the countries. Speaking at the function, Niklas Johansson, state secretary to the minister for enterprise and innovation, said that enormous potential is there to increase economic cooperation between the two countries and the core will be innovation. He said that Swedish companies can benefit from the talent pool of India. He added that cut in red tape, modernise regulations, and tax administrations help promote economic engagement. The bilateral trade between the two countries increased to USD 2.23 billion in 2017-18 from USD 1.87 billion in the previous fiscal. India has attracted USD 1.48 billion foreign direct investments during April 2000 and June 2018. Famous Swedish companies including Volvo and IKEA has presence in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Air India plans to operate four direct flights every week between New Delhi and the Swedish capital from next year, a senior official of the national carrier said Monday. Air India presently operates three direct flights to Stockholm every week. "We are operating presently only thrice weekly to India ... and in the forthcoming year we intend to make this thrice weekly into the fourth flight. This will hopefully happen by the summer schedule because the response has been tremendous," said Sangeeta Sanyal, country manager Sweden, Air India at the india Sweden Business Day event organised by India Unlimited. Sanyal also expressed hope that by 2020 Air India would be having daily flights to Stockholm. Last year, she added, was very successful with over 75 per cent of occupancy in the flights operated by Air India. Air India launched direct flights to Stockholm in August last year, making the Swedish capital its tenth such destination in Europe. It offers thrice a week service from Delhi to Stockholm with flights every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The only female member of the "Bali Nine" heroin-trafficking gang will be freed from an Indonesian prison next week, a corrections official said Monday, after serving 13 years in a case that caused a diplomatic furore. Australian Renae Lawrence, 41, was arrested in 2005 after she was caught with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin strapped to her body as she tried to fly out of the international airport on the holiday island of Bali. Lawrence was sentenced to life imprisonment, but her sentence was later reduced to 20 years and then further reduced due to good behaviour. "She will be released on November 21," Made Suwendra, head of the Bangli prison on Bali where Lawrence is incarcerated, told AFP. "(Lawrence) is a nice person. Accommodating, easy to work with and be friends with. There have been no problems since she's been here." It is likely that Lawrence will be deported shortly after her prison release. She will be the only member of the Bali Nine to win their freedom so far. Gang ringleaders Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were executed by firing squad in 2015, sparking a diplomatic row between Australia and Indonesia, which has some of the world's strictest drug laws including the death penalty. In June, another Bali Nine member Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died in prison from stomach cancer, while the remaining five are currently serving life sentences. Some critics have lashed out at the Australian police for tipping off their Indonesian counterparts about the gang and putting its members at risk of execution in Indonesia. High-profile cases like that of Australian Schapelle Corby, who spent more than nine years behind bars for smuggling marijuana into Bali, have stoked concern that Indonesia is becoming a destination for trafficked drugs. Corby was deported in 2017 after several years of parole. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A three-member gang of interstate fraudsters were arrested Monday for fleecing people on the pretext of having magical powers to cure life-consuming diseases in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir, a senior police officer said. About Rs 12.03 lakhs and stolen jewellery worth Rs 60,000 were recovered from the self-styled 'tantrics', while their bank accounts containing Rs 4 lakh were frozen, senior superintendent of police, Udhampur, Rayees Mohammad Bhat said. He identified the accused as Maan Singh from Utter Pradesh, Gouri Devi from Madhya Pradesh and Sachwinder Singh from Punjab and said police acted after getting reliable information about fraudulent activities of a gang some time back. A case was registered under various sections of the Ranbir Penal code and a special police team was formed to bust the gang, the SSP said, adding that police, during investigation, succeeded in identifying the victims. "A massive hunt was launched to nab the fraudsters by utilising human and technical intelligence and raids were conducted in various suspected locations which ultimately led to the arrest of the accused red handed," the officer said. He said the modus operandi of these fraudsters was that they used to gain entry in a house on the pretext of being 'tantric' who can cure various diseases especially terminal illness with their magical power. "Soon after entering the house in this way, they used to befool the house owners by claiming that some hidden treasure or wealth is present in the house which they can trace after performing some special kind of prayers," he said. Accordingly, the SSP said they used to collect money from the house owners for prayers so that the hidden wealth could be extracted and shifted in the household utensils by way of rituals. "Besides, Maan Singh, the leader of the gang, used to utilise many other ways which included fasting, performing rituals along with family members and sometimes alone inside the house keeping all the family members out of the house thereby committing thefts with a free hand," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Iran has been abiding by the terms of its nuclear deal with global powers, the latest report from the UN atomic watchdog indicated Monday, days after fresh US sanctions hit the country. The International Atomic Energy Agency's latest report showed that as of early November, Iran had been complying with the restrictions to its nuclear programme laid down in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Sweeping new American sanctions against Iran, which came into effect on 5 November, have raised fears about whether the deal can survive. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) He was to deliver remarks at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial, located five miles west of Paris, before returning to Washington. President Donald Trump faced backlash on Saturday after he made a decision to skip a visit to a World War I cemetery in France for American soldiers, citing bad weather. The White House said in a statement: "The president and first lady's trip to Ainse-Marne American cemetery and memorial has been cancelled due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather". So they deserve a ton of credit for tackling an embarrassing issue like this for President Trump in a similar manner they'd treat Obama if he missed a memorial service honoring fallen US soldiers due to very light rain. It said the bad weather grounded the presidential helicopter and cited security concerns in hastily arranging a motorcade for the two-hour drive east of Paris. Obama wasn't the only one featured in the rain in Twitter messages attacking the president. Trump was criticized for not going to the cemetery by former White House officials David Frum and Ben Rhodes as well as Nicholas Soames, a grandson of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He and his wife Melania had been scheduled to fly to the site of a 1918 battle that US Marines led against German forces after talks with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron. "There is always a rain option". Sunday marked 100 years since the end of World War I, and President Trump traveled to France this weekend to participate in a variety of events to honor those who fought and died. Trump did courageous the weather Sunday and joined French President Emmanuel Macron and dozens of other world leaders to mark 100 years since the end of World War I. Twitter was quick to point out that maybe Trump didn't attend because he's not very good with an umbrella. The battle has become a key piece of lore for the US Marine Corps, and is presumably something that a US president would be keen to commemorate with a visit. ITC Ltd on Monday said its integrated foods manufacturing facility and luxury hotel in Odisha will be operational in 2019. The FMCG major will manufacture some of its foods brands like 'Aashirvaad', 'Sunfeast', 'YiPPee!' and 'Bingo!' in the integrated unit in Khurda, ITC said in a release. "ITC's investment projects in Odisha, including the integrated foods manufacturing facility and luxury hotel in Bhubaneswar under the 'WelcomHotel' brand will commence operations by the end of next year," ITC MD Sanjiv Puri was was quoted as saying at the 'Make in Odisha Conclave-2018'. The company said its hotel, once operational, will add to Odisha's "vibrant tourism" landscape. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik Monday expressed grief over the demise of Union Minister Ananth Kumar. Describing Kumar as a "diligent leader" who devoted his life to public service, Malik said it would be difficult to fill the void left by Kumar in the country's politics. The governor prayed for peace to the departed soul and strength to the bereaved family in its hour of grief, an official release said. Kumar (59), parliamentary affairs and chemicals and fertilizers minister, died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Monday said the state would be declared open defecation free (ODF) on November 15, its foundation day. Das said complete electrification of three districts - Deoghar, Hazaribagh and Lohardaga - will be announced on the occasion. Ten persons will also be felicitated for their contribution to the society, an official release said quoting the chief minister. He called upon everyone to participate in the foundation day programme. Jharkhand was carved out of the southern part of Bihar on November 15, 2000. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy Monday said the alliance led by former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi will "upset" the BJP and the Congress in the polls to the 90-member state assembly. "The alliance led by Jogi's Janta Congress Chhattisgarh will upset both the ruling BJP and the Congress. People in the state are fed up with Raman Singh government's misrule. The Congress, too, is a weak political force in Chhattisgarh after Jogi left the party," Reddy said. He said that the Congress has failed to corner the Raman Singh government on crucial issues. Reddy said the CPI could not have any understanding with Mayawati's BSP as it fielded candidates in the Dantewada and Konta constituencies which his party's considers as its strongholds. The CPI general secretary also slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking "urban Maoist' jibe during the election campaign in Chhattisgarh. "This is a pretext to hunt intellectuals in the country. They are saying that the Congress is supporting urban Maoists or urban Naxals. This is a blatant lie. In Chhattisgarh, Naxals killed more Congress workers than those of the BJP," Reddy claimed. The first-phase polls for 18 seats in the state were held on Monday. The second phase of polling in the remaining 72 seats would be held on November 20 and counting of votes would take place on December 11. In the 2013 assembly polls, the CPI had lost all the constituencies it had contested. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After challenging his Haryana counterpart to conduct surprise inspections at Mohalla clinics in the national capital in a recent letter, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sent another letter to Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar Monday expressing dismay at not getting any response to his earlier communique. In the beginning of the month, Kejriwal had written to Khattar expressing his wish to inspect some state-run dispensaries in Haryana on November 12. Further, he had also invited Khattar to visit 'mohalla clinics', which have been set up by the AAP dispensation, to check the "ground reality" of the health institutions of Delhi. "I had written a letter to you on November 2, but received no reply. I felt a little bad about this. No matter how many political differences we may have, it is expected that a chief minister will respond to the letter of another CM," Kejriwal wrote to Khattar in his latest letter. In the communication, the Delhi chief minister mentions about inviting Khattar to visit 'mohalla clinics' in the national capital, while expressing his wish to visit some government dispensaries in Haryana. You have not replied to my (November 2) letter. Should I assume that you agree with the fact that hospitals and schools in Delhi have become better and that the condition of schools and hospitals in Haryana is not good?, wrote the Aam Aadmi Party leader. With state assembly polls in Haryana due next year and AAP eyeing to wrest power from the ruling BJP, Kejriwal said in his letter that this time people are not going to vote on the basis of caste and religion He told Khattar that the party which raises the standards of schools and hospitals and works for the people's welfare will form the next government in Haryana. The AAP supremo had challenged the Haryana CM to visit Delhi government-run mohalla clinics after the latter dubbed them as "halla" (chaos) clinics. "I will inspect some dispensaries in Haryana on November 12. If this date is not suitable to you (Khattar), give me a suitable date, I will come on then," Kejriwal had said in his previous letter. Kejriwal, who has made multiple visits to Haryana in recent weeks, has been targeting the BJP-led government over "poor" education and health services and urged the people to help theAAP to come to power in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP's alliance in Bihar appeared headed for trouble on Monday with RLSP president Upendra Kushwaha meeting with opposition leader Sharad Yadav and the JD(U) prodding the saffron party to "take notice" of his campaign against NDA governments at the Centre and in the state. Kushwaha's meeting with Yadav fuelled speculation that he may switch camps before the Lok Sabha polls over the growing acrimony with Kumar and objections to the proposed seat-sharing arrangement among the BJP and its three allies in the state. The Union minister described the meeting as a courtesy call. Sources said the two leader discussed the current political situation, especially in Bihar. Kushwaha later said in Patna that the JD(U)'s attempt to poach his party's MLAs may harm the NDA. Yadav, who had snapped ties with Kumar after the JD(U) chief joined hands with the BJP last year, has been working to rally the opposition against the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) headed by the saffron party. RLSP workers later protested against Kumar and burnt his effigy over his alleged humiliation of their leader. An angry JD(U) hit back at Kushwaha with its spokesperson K C Tyagi accusing him of campaigning against the NDA governments at the Centre and in Bihar. "They are meeting with leaders of 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance), those who are waging war against the Narendra Modi government," Tyagi told PTI and asked the the "NDA high command" to take notice. Kushwaha had met with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar some time ago. He has often asserted that he would work to get Modi elected as prime minister for another term but his unease with Kumar and meetings with opposition leaders have left everyone guessing about his plans. Kushwaha has expressed reservations to BJP president Amit Shah's proposal that both his party and Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP contest fewer number of seats in 2019 than they did in 2014 so that Kumar's JD(U) could be allotted as many seats as the saffron party fights. The RLSP, which had fought three seats in 2014 and won all, is unlikely to be spared more than two seats. An old rival of Kumar, Kushwaha had also attacked the chief minister for allegedly insulting him and had targeted him again Sunday over reports that two MLAs of his party may join the JD(U). He had said he would apprise Shah of the "humiliation" he had suffered at the hands of Kumar and also request him to clear the confusion over seat-sharing among the BJP and its allies in the state at the earliest. He also took a jibe at Kumar, saying the JD(U)president had an expertise in breaking parties but he would continue with his fight. Kushwaha said in Patna that attempts by the ruling JD(U) to poach his MLAs could "harm the NDA" in Bihar and sought intervention of the BJP in the matter. The BJP has so far refrained from offering any comment on the feud between its two parties but sources have said it is unlikely to antagonise Kumar as the party sees an alliance with him as key to the NDA's fortunes in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) RLSP and ally Upendra Kushwaha met opposition leader Monday, fuelling speculation that he may switch camps over his differences with Chief Minister and the proposed seat-sharing arrangement among the saffron party's allies for the polls. Kushwaha, also a Union minister, met Yadav at the latter's residence and both the leaders were believed to discussed the current political situation, especially in Bihar, RLSP sources said. In a tweet, Kushwaha described the meeting as a courtesy call. He has often asserted that he would work to get Narendra Modi elected as prime minister for another term but his unease with Kumar and meetings with opposition leaders, including RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, have sparked speculation about his future course. Yadav had snapped ties with Kumar after the JD(U) chief joined hands with the last year, and he was working to rally the opposition against the saffron party. Kushwaha has expressed reservations to the Amit Shah's proposal that both his party and Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP contest fewer number of seats in 2019 than they did in 2014 so that Kumar's JD(U) could be allotted as many seats as the saffron party fights. The RLSP, which had fought three seats in 2014 and won all, is unlikely to be spared more than two seats. An old rival of Kumar, Kushwaha had also attacked the chief minister for allegedly insulting him and had targeted him again Sunday over reports that two MLAs of his party may join the JD(U). He had said he would apprise Shah of the "humiliation" he had suffered at the hands of Kumar and also request him to clear the confusion over seat-sharing among the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituents in the state at the earliest. He also made a jibe at Kumar, saying the JD(U) had an expertise in breaking parties but he would continue with his fight. Oxia Planum, an area on Mars which preserves clues from the planet's wetter past, has been recommended as the landing site for the ESA-Roscosmos Mars rover -- scheduled to be launched in 2020. The proposal, by ExoMars Landing Site Selection Working Group, will be reviewed internally by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos with an official confirmation expected mid-2019. At the heart of the ExoMars programme is the quest to determine if life has ever existed on Mars, a planet that has clearly hosted water in the past, but has a dry surface exposed to harsh radiation today. While the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, launched in 2016, began its science mission earlier this year to search for tiny amounts of gases in the atmosphere that might be linked to biological or geological activity, the rover will drive to different locations and drill down to two metres below the surface in search of clues for past life preserved underground. It will relay its data to Earth through the Trace Gas Orbiter. Both landing site candidates -- Oxia Planum and Mawrth Vallis -- preserve a rich record of geological history from the planet's wetter past, approximately four billion years ago. They lie just north of the equator, with several hundred kilometres between them, in an area of the planet with many channels cutting through from the southern highlands to the northern lowlands. Since life as we know it on Earth requires liquid water, locations like these include many prime targets to search for clues that may help reveal the presence of past life on Mars. "With ExoMars we are on a quest to find biosignatures. While both sites offer valuable scientific opportunities to explore ancient water-rich environments that could have been colonised by micro-organisms, Oxia Planum received the majority of votes," said Jorge Vago, project scientist at ESA's ExoMars 2020. "Mawrth Vallis is a scientifically unique site, but Oxia Planum offers an additional safety margin for entry, descent and landing, and for traversing the terrain to reach the scientifically interesting sites that have been identified from orbit," Vago said. The Landing Site Selection Working Group also emphasised that the discoveries generated during the landing site selection process are essential to guide the science operations of the ExoMars rover. The recommendation was made following a two-day meeting held at the National Space Centre in Leicester, UK, which saw experts from the Mars science community, industry, and ExoMars project present and discuss the scientific merits of the sites alongside the engineering and technical constraints. The quest to find the perfect landing site began almost five years ago, in December 2013, when the science community was asked to propose candidate locations. Eight proposals were considered in the following April, with four put forward for detailed analysis in late 2014. In October 2015, Oxia Planum was identified as one of the most compatible sites with the mission requirements -- at that time with a 2018 launch date in mind -- with a second option to be selected from Aram Dorsum and Mawrth Vallis. In March 2017, the down-selection identified Oxia Planum and Mawrth Vallis as the two candidates for the 2020 mission, with both undergoing a detailed evaluation over the last 18 months. The ESA-led rover and Roscosmos-led surface science platform will launch in the 25 July-13 August 2020 launch window on a Proton-M rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and cruise to Mars in a carrier module containing a single descent module, arriving at Mars 19 March 2021. The descent module will separate from the carrier shortly before reaching the Martian atmosphere, and will use two large parachutes, along with thrusters and a damping system, to slow its descent to land on the red planet. While the rover will drive to different locations to analyse the surface and subsurface, the stationary platform will provide context imaging at the landing site, and long-term climate monitoring and atmospheric investigations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Drug firm Lupin Monday said it has received an establishment inspection report (EIR) from the US health regulator post the inspection of its Nagpur facility. "The United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) conducted a pre approval inspection for its Phenytoin Sodium Extended Release 100 mg capsules," Lupin said in a filing to BSE. The plant was inspected by USFDA in September 2018, the company added. USFDA gives EIR on closure of inspection of an establishment that is the subject of an FDA or FDA-contracted inspection. Commenting on the development, Lupin MD Nilesh Gupta said: "The successful completion of the Nagpur facility inspection is a positive development as we continue our journey to meet and exceed international regulatory standards." Shares of Lupin were today trading 1.64 per cent higher at Rs 868.20 apiece on BSE. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and state Congress president Ashok Chavan paid tributes to Union minister Ananth Kumar, who died in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday. Fadnavis said he was "shocked and deeply pained" by Kumar's "untimely" demise. "His contribution towards society, service to the people will be remembered forever. My deepest condolences to his family, friends, followers, karyakarta," the senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said in a tweet. Senior Congress leader Ashok Chavan also took to the micro-blogging site to express grief over Kumar's death. "Deeply saddened by the passing of Union Minister, Shri Ananth Kumarji. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace," the former chief minister of Maharashtra tweeted. Kumar, 59, a six-time parliamentarian, died at a private hospital in Bengaluru after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. He is survived by wife and two daughters. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) News Story not available This story has been published on: 2021-11-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. This story is no longer available on our site. Donald Trump didn't attend an event honouring USA military dead because he didn't want to disrupt the traffic in Paris, the White House said on Sunday, as the fallout for his no-show on Saturday continued. For reasons apparently related to the weather Trump on Saturday canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, about 55 miles east of Paris. White House officials said the decision was taken due to the weather and cited security concerns in hastily arranging a motorcade. US President Donald Trump's umbrella is turned inside out by a gust of wind while stepping off Air Force One during his arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Saturday, April 28, 2018. The American flag flies at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery dedicated to the USA soldiers killed in the Belleau Wood battle during World War One at Belleau, France, November 10, 2018. The battle has become a key piece of lore for the US Marine Corps, and is presumably something that a US president would be keen to commemorate with a visit. Paris was covered in clouds with drizzling rain through most of the day. The Secret Service determines when it's safe to fly Marine One, the president's helicopter. On Sunday, November 11, as many as 70 world leader will gather at the tomb of the Unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, which was officially brought to an end by The Treaty of Versailles in on 11 November 1919. The US president's moan at Paris's Suresnes American Cemetery followed controversy on Saturday when he cancelled an appearance at a different graveyard because of "scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather". "Those veterans the president didn't bother to honor fought in the rain, in the mud, in the snow - & many died in trenches for the cause of freedom", tweeted former Secretary of State John F. Kerry. He was to deliver remarks at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial, located five miles west of Paris, before returning to Washington. The military office then presents the recommendation to the White House in collaboration with the Secret Service. Other world leaders, however, paid their respects, including Canada's Justin Trudeau, Germany's Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. Twitter user @jimmyjazz1968 tweeted this image, comparing Trump to a character from Lewis Caroll's Through the Looking-Glass And What Alice Found There. A 62-year-old man was Monday killed in neighbouring Navi Mumbai's Koparkhairane area after he was hit on the head with a pressure cooker, police said. The victim's son, reportedly suffering from schizophrenia, was also inside the flat when the incident took place and was found with hand injuries and rushed to hospital, police added. The incident happened Monday afternoon in a fifth floor flat of Krishna Tower building in Sector 14 of Koparkhairane, an official said. "Vijaykumar Dohatre was found in a pool of blood with a head injury by neighbours who heard sounds of a scuffle from the house. A pressure cooker and a hammer were found at the spot," said Sudhakar Pathate, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-I), Navi Mumbai police. Dohatare was declared dead on arrival by hospital authorities, while his son, who suffered injuries to the hand, is undergoing treatment, the official said. Pathate said that prima-facie, the son's involvement is under suspicion, adding that a probe into the incident was underway. Police has registered an offence of murder against an unidentified person, he informed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Human life is more important than that of a tiger, senior Congress leader and former minister Vijay Wadettiwar said Monday. Wadettiwar's statement is not entirely on the lines of that of his party colleagues who have held protests and have demanded the sacking of Maharashtra Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar over the killing of tigress Avni. The Congress leader, however, added that "the tigress could have been tranquilised properly" instead of being shot down. The tigress, officially known as T1, was shot dead in an operation in a forest in Yavatmal district on November 2, leading to outrage among animal lovers who accused the state government of violating norms. Mungantiwar has come under fire from animal rights activists for the killing of the tigress, mother of two 10-month-old cubs, though he and the state government have defended it, calling the incident "sad" but necessary after Avni had attacked forest staff trying to tranquilise it. "Human life is more important than (that of) tigers. People who reside on the borders of forests are always under threat. A tiger should be protected but human life is more important than the tiger," Wadettiwar told reporters in Nagpur Monday. "It is not only about few hundreds of people losing their lives in last few years. But as many as 26 tigers have also died in the last four years in the Vidarbha region alone," he claimed. "The government has failed to offer better job opportunities in rural areas. Hence farmers are forced to enter forest areas and seek livelihood. This is causing a rise in man-animal conlfict," Wadettiwar said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday expressed her deep grief over the passing away of Union minister Ananth Kumar. "Saddened at the passing away of Ananth Kumar ji, six time MP and Union Cabinet minister. My heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and supporters," Banerjee wrote in her Twitter handle this morning. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. Kumar, 59, had come back to Bengaluru only recently after undergoing treatment in the US and Britain. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 40-year-old man allegedly brutally killed a barn owl to perform black magic in order to attract a woman he liked in outer Delhi's Sultanpuri, police said Monday. The accused, identified as Kanhaya, 40, a truck driver, was arrested on November 11 after police got a tip-off from the Animal Welfare Board Of India (AWBI) about him, they said. A raid was conducted and police found the owl's carcass in a cooler in his house, said a senior police official, adding that the accused has been evasive during questioning and has been saying different things. However, he showed police a Youtube video, which detailed the process of sacrificing an owl and the 'tantric' rituals that had to be followed while performing it to that you could hypnotise the person you wanted to. "He said he liked a girl and he wanted that she should be attracted towards him. He said he procured the owl to perform the rituals he saw in the video. The accused is married with three children and even his family was aware about him sacrificing the owl after Diwali," said the officer. The post-mortem report of the owl said it "died due to multiple puncture wounds", he said. "The post-mortem report said the accused had allegedly cut the claws of the owl with a knife and inserted several needles into its liver and lungs, suggesting that he sued the owl as a voodoo," he added. Kanhaya's father died on Diwali and initially it was suspected he was carrying out the sacrifice ritual to appease the gods or pray to gods for his father but that angle has been ruled out. His father apparently died due to dehydration caused by dysentery. The accused has also been evasive as to how he got the owl. He has been claiming that he found the owl lying injured and brought it home but it has been found that the owl only had injuries that were sustained during the attack by the accused, the officer said. He has also claimed that his brother-in-law got the owl but it has not been confirmed as of now. "We are probing as to how he procured the owl, what price he paid for it, whether he has previously sacrificed animals and whether he was making a living out of it," he added. Initially, it was also probed whether his wife was practicing black magic, but it is clear that he was the one who was doing it but we are questioning his family members about it. Police also said the owl sacrifice had nothing to do with Diwali. On November 2, wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC had issued an advisory to enforcement agencies, asking them to increase efforts to curb trafficking and sacrificing of owls on Diwali for 'tantric' rituals. TRAFFIC India, which operates as a programme division of WWFIndia, the largest conservation organisation in India, had said as Diwali celebrations peak in India, so does the number of owls that are illegally trapped and sacrificed to supply 'tantric' rituals and ceremonies. "TRAFFIC has issued an 'advisory' to enforcement agencies calling for increased efforts to help curb trafficking and sacrifice of owls casting a shadow over the future of the species in India," it said in a statement. While the exact number of owls traded domestically is unknown, estimates place the figure in thousands of individuals throughout the country, it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hollywood star Diego Luna hopes the Indian audience will embrace "Narcos: Mexico" as he believes both the countries share a lot of cultural similarities. Luna, his co-star Michael Pena and showrunner Eric Newman joined Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt and director Shakun Batra, to talk about the latest season of the Netflix drug drama, which starts streaming from November 16. "I find so many similarities between the Indian culture and the Mexican culture... There is so much in common. The contrast you live when you go out and the richness in terms of cultural diversity is amazing. It feels like you are from here. I think this is why you would love 'Narcos: Mexico'," Luna said. The actor, however, was hesitant to talk about his spiritual connection with India despite Batra's prodding about a chat they had Sunday night. "I told you this because I had four vodkas inside me... the spiritual connection is different... It is personal. I don't see how it connects with 'Narcos'," he said when Batra shared with the audience that Luna's grandmother was born in India and he had read parts of Bhagavad Gita. While the earlier seasons dealt with Pablo Escobar, the man behind the rise of Medellin Cartel, and then the Cali Cartel in Colombia, the fourth season shifts to Mexico and revolves around the rise and fall of Guadalajara Cartel. Luna, who grew up in Mexico at the time when the Cartel was at its peak, said the show was "personal" for him because it is the "foundation of the mess" that his country is in today. He plays the role of Felix Gallardo, the man behind the rise of Guadalajara Cartel. Gallardo is currently serving a 37-year-sentence in Altiplano in Mexico. "The case of Kiki Camarena determines the relationship between the States and Mexico... I was six when this happened but I did not know about it because my father was hiding this Mexico from me. "But in the '90s, I was reading about the violence erupting and understood how crucial 1980s were," he added. Wagner Moura and Pedro Pascal were the two popular faces of the previous seasons but Pena and Luna are not worried about comparisons. "I don't think about it like that. It was not like Pedro Pascal had enough and they brought the little me... It was not like he played Kiki Camarena (the DEA agent) and then I came. We were constantly working, travelling and had pages to memorise," Pena said. For Luna, it was a blessing to be a part of a show that is already well established. "Obviously, when you see something, you compare it with the last thing you saw. Those guys made the show so popular that for the first time, I don't have to worry about people watching my show," Luna said. "...The team they put together is amazing... I have to be very honest. It is very bold to say 'Let's start all over again'. It is a different project... there is a new director, place and cast... They complement each other very well but you won't be thinking about the previous seasons." The actor said he read a lot of stories and other people's commentary about the notorious drug dealer to understand the inner world of character, whose personality was different from the usually flamboyant cartel bosses. "There was a period of time when he (Gallardo) liked to be in the newspaper. He wanted to be seen as a businessman and wanted to be seen on the social part of it... But it is difficult to find images of his personal life... While many of these characters are very flamboyant, this guy knew the value of being discreet in this world... He was like a politician," Luna said. Pena said it took him a while to understand what motivated Camarena to put himself in the harm's way and talking to Camarena's wife helped shape his portrayal. "I was not really getting the gist of what made him tick. What would motivate somebody to put himself in the harm's way to accomplish what he thought was justice. I had more understanding when I talked to Mika Camarena, his wife. "He is a person who is jut fed up with injustice... The local police, the federal police, the local government, everybody was turning a blind eye. This fuelled him to bring it upon himself to make some difference," he said. Newman believes the drug lords are not the real star of the show but cocaine, whose trail they have been following season after season. "It would be a mistake to think that these characters are monsters. They are not... They are the product of their environment, economic disparity and the endless appetite for cocaine that America represents... The mistake that we make in America is that we are always looking for the monster and we ignore the monster taking shape behind us," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The last rites of an Army soldier from Nashik district, killed in Jammu and Kashmir, were performed with full state honours at his native place near here late Monday evening. Naik Keshav Somgir Gosavi (29) was killed Sunday by a Pakistani sniper along the LoC in Rajouri district of the militancy-affected state. The 29-year-old soldier's mortal remains were brought here Monday in an aircraft from New Delhi, official sources said. The plane carrying his body landed at the Ojhar airport here from where it was taken to his native place in an Army vehicle for last rites, they said. Gosavi hailed from Shrirampur village near here in North Maharashtra, where his last rites were held with full state honours. Maharashtra Water Resources Minister Girish Mahajan, Nashik Collector Radhakrishnan B besides Army and Air Force officials paid homage to the martyred soldier by placing wreaths on hiscoffin. Gosavi got critically injured in the sniper fire and later succumbed to gunshot wounds, said a release issued by the Press Information Bureau (Defence). The soldier is survived by his eight-month pregnant wife Yashoda Gosavi, father and sister. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his last respects to Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar, who passed away here in the early hours of Monday. Modi flew in here from Varanasi and drove straight to the residence of Kumar at Basavanagudi, where the body was kept and consoled his family members. The Prime Minister laid a wreath on the mortal remains of Kumar. He consoled Kumar's wife Tejaswini and his two daughters Vijeta and Aishwarya. Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala and BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa were also present. Earlier, Modi was received at the HAL airport by the Governor and Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Veteran Italian music composer Ennio Morricone has rubbished the interview with Playboy Germany in which he was quoted calling director Quentin Tarantino "a cretin". In the interview, Morricone, who won the Oscar for his work on Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight", was quoted as criticising the filmmaker for his "trash" films. The music composer released a statement Sunday in which he dubbed the comments "totally false". Morricone denied giving any interview to the magazine and even threatened legal action against the publication. "I have not given an interview to 'Playboy Germany' and even more, I have never called Tarantino a cretin and certainly do not consider his films garbage. I have given a mandate to my lawyer in Italy to take civil and penal action," the 90-year-old composer said in a statement obtained by Variety. The composer said he considers Tarantino as "one of the greatest directors of this time" and owes his Academy Award to the filmmaker. "I am very fond of my collaboration with him and the relationship we have developed during the time we have spent together. He is courageous and has an enormous personality. "I credit Tarantino for being one of the people responsible for getting me an Oscar, which is for sure one of the greatest acknowledgments of my career, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity to compose music for his film," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A pall of gloom descended on Union minister Ananth Kumar's residence in the city on Monday as mourners turned up in large numbers to pay their last respects. Kumar, 59, died at a private hospital here in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. A steady stream of BJP leaders, relatives, family friends, party workers and people made a beeline to pay homage to the "most loved" Bengaluru MP, known for his affability. The state government announced a three-day mourning and holiday on Monday in honour of Ananth Kumar. Schools and colleges were closed on Monday. Governor Vajubhai Vala paid his last respects, placing a wreath on the body of Kumar. BJP state chief B S Yeddyurappa, former deputy chief minister R Ashok, former minister S Suresh Kumar and many senior BJP and RSS functionaries offered their condolences to Kumar, who had remained unconquerable in Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency, winning it six times. Yeddyurappa said it was a personal loss and Kumar was his guiding force. Yeddyurappa later tweeted, "I am under deep grief to hear about the untimely demise of my friend and union minister Shri Ananth Kumar ji.He worked tirelessly to strengthen the BJP in Karnataka and nation. May his soul rest in peace and God give strength to bear his loss to his family." Leaders cutting across the party line expressed grief over the demise of Kumar. In his condolence message, chief minister H D Kumaraswamy said, "Our families had friendship beyond politics. He always valued and had given priority to friendship. I have lost a great friend in his death." The chief minister described him as a value-based politician, who made significant contribution to the country as an MP and union minister. "His pro-people attitude and activities had made him apple of eyes of Bengalurians". Deputy chief minister G Parameshwara said in his message that Kumar was his close friend and his death was a personal loss. AICC general secretary and Karnataka in charge K C Venugopal said he was saddened by the demise of Kumar, whom he called a "remarkable personality." Kumar has left behind a deep void in national politics as well as Karnataka politics, he said. Congress state president Dinesh Gundu Rao said, "Kumar was a stalwart of BJP from Karnataka who had a stupendous career at the national level from a very young age. He always did his politics with decency and decorum. We are going to miss him. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's former military dictator general (retd) Pervez Musharraf on Monday challenged an order of a special court to form a commission to record his statement in the high treason case against him, according to a media report. The 75-year-old former army chief, who currently stays in Dubai, was indicted in the case in March 2014. The special court on October 15 ordered that Musharraf's statement in the case would be recorded through a commission. The former president challenged the order of the special court in the Islamabad High Court. In his petition, Musharraf stated that the formation of the commission by the special court to record the statement was alien to Pakistan's criminal procedure and unprecedented, Geo reported. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had filed the treason case against Musharraf over the imposition of extra-constitutional emergency in November 2007. On March 18, 2016, Musharraf left Pakistan for Dubai for medical treatment. A few months later, the special court had declared him a proclaimed offender and ordered the confiscation of his property owing to his no-show in the case. Later, on the orders of the Supreme Court, Musharraf's passport and identity card were also cancelled since he failed to return to the country despite a last chance. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Home Minister Rajnath Singh are expected to attend the cremation of Union minister Ananth Kumar in Bengaluru Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with the family of the senior BJP leader in Bengaluru and paid his last respects to his cabinet colleague on Monday evening. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister and senior BJP leader Ananth Kumar died at a private hospital here in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. The 59-year-old Bangalore South MP breathed his last around 2 am at the Sri Shankara Cancer Hospital and Research Centre where he was under care after returning home in October following treatment in the US and Britain. Naidu in his condolence message said he was "shocked" and "deeply saddened" to learn about the untimely demise of Kumar. "He has been a valued colleague of mine for years, right from the times of the students' movement to the Parliament. He was a committed nationalist a celebrated and loved leader and a good administrator. "A reputed parliamentarian and a captivating speaker, his personality was multifaceted. His illustrious career and the long list of his accomplishments in public life bear testimony to the selfless service he offered to out country," he said. The vice president said Kumar's demise is a "big loss" to Indian democracy and polity. Rajya Sabha deputy speaker Harivansh said the death of Ananth Kumar is a huge loss for Indian politics. "His sudden and untimely death is a matter of shock for me," he said. Harivansh said Kumar was known for his mild manners and cordiality among the people across all the political parties and he had all the qualities of head and heart which had endeared him to everyone. Describing him as a distinguished leader of his age, the RS deputy chairman said Kumar was so popular that he acted as a bridge between south and north in Indian politics. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Network for Development of Agricultural Cooperatives in Asia and the Pacific (NEDAC) will have its general assembly on November 15-16 in the national capital. The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), one of the members of the NEDAC, will host the general assembly to be inaugurated by Minister of State for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala. The Agriculture Secretary will also address the event. The NCDC, which was established in 1963 through an Act of Parliament, is an apex financial and development institution engaged exclusively for the co-operative sector in the country. The NEDAC is a regional forum linking cooperative organisations of eight countries of the region and sensitises governments in the region on the role of agricultural cooperatives in promoting agricultural and rural development to ensure food and livelihood security for millions of people in Asia Pacific region. The event would witness a participation of delegates from the member countries of NEDAC. Initially, NEDAC had 16 co-operative organisations from nine Asian countries as members. From India, Union Agriculture Ministry and NCDC were the initial members. At present, NEDAC has 24 member organisations. Its secretariat is at FAO Annex, Bangkok. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Centre Monday disclosed to the Supreme Court the pricing details for the 36 Rafale jets that were negotiated on "better terms" and said it "completely followed" the Defence Procurement Procedure laid out in 2013 and secured the CCS approval before the deal that has whipped up a political storm was inked with France. The submission by the Centre was made in a 14-page document titled "Details of the steps in the decision making process leading to the award of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft order" that has since been made public. But the pricing details provided in a sealed cover remained in the custody of the top court. Initially, the Centre was reluctant to part with the information on pricing saying it was not even disclosed in Parliament. The details of the decision making process and pricing were placed in the court in compliance with its October 31 order. The court will now peruse both the documents and take up the matter on Wednesday. A senior law officer, who did not want to be identified, said, "subject to various reservations, the price details of the deal has been filed in a sealed cover in the apex court". The document said the process as laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure-2013 has been "completely followed" in procurement of the Rafale aircrafts and the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) on August 24, 2016 approved the agreement which was arrived at after negotiations between the Indian and the French sides. The UPA was in power in 2013. "The approval of Defence Acquisition Council(DAC) for procurement of 36 Rafale aircraft was taken, Indian Negotiating Team (INT) was constituted which conducted negotiations with the French side for about a year and approval of CCS being Chief Financial Authority(CFA) was taken before signing the IGA." The inter-government agreement (IGA) was signed by the defence ministers of both countries on Sept 23, 2016. "As mandated by Defence Acquisition Council, Indian negotiating team completed negotiations and arrived at better terms relating to price, delivery and maintenance as compared to the earlier offer of Dassault Aviation," the document said. Congress has alleged that the NDA government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating a deal for procurement of 126 Rafale jets. The document also addressed oft repeated allegations by Congress President Rahul Gandhi that Prime Minister Narendra Modi forced the French company Dassault Aviation to select a Reliance group firm of Anil Ambani as an offset partner to help it "pocket" Rs 30,000 crore. It stated that as per the Defence Offset Guidelines, the vendor is "free to select its Indian Offset Partners (IOPs) for implementing offset obligation". The document dealt in detail as to to why state-owned PSU Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) failed to become an offset partner in the deal as there were several unresolved issues it had with Dassault. Congress has alleged that Dassault has been pressured by the government to do away with the HAL as strategic offset partner by saying the future of India's aerospace industry has been destroyed by snatching Rafale from HAL. "The contract negotiations could not conclude mainly due to unresolved issues related to 108 aircraft to be manufactured in India. These issues pertained to lack of common understanding between HAL and Dassault Aviation on following," the document said. The document said HAL required "2.7 times higher man-hours compared to the French side for the manufacture of Rafale aircraft in India" The Congress said the government's reply to the court is a "virtual admission" that the CCS was not consulted before finalising the contract with the French. "There is a virtual admission that the Cabinet Committee on Security was not consulted before. You will consult after giving the contract or you will consult before the contract - contract meaning before giving a word to President and country of France," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters. The Rafale deal was announced in April 2015 in Paris after summit talks between Modi and French President Francois Hollande. Referring to the earlier aborted deal, the document said Dassault was required to undertake necessary contractual obligation for 126 aircraft (18 direct flyaway and 108 aircraft manufactured in India) as per RFP requirements and contractual issues with HAL on manufacturing of 108 jets in India could not be resolved. The NDA government referred to the failed deal during the UPA regime and said India's adversaries in the meantime inducted modern aircrafts and upgraded their older versions and this necessitated the urgent need to procure the jets at a fly-away condition. "As per available information, our adversaries inducted more than 400 fighters (equivalent to more than 20 Squadrons) during the period from 2010 to 2015. They not only inducted 4th Generation Aircraft but also inducted 5th Generation Stealth Fighter Aircraft," it said. The first petitions in the matter were filed by advocates M L Sharma, Vineet Dhanda and later AAP MP Sanjay Singh, through advocate Dheeraj Singh, also moved the apex court. Thereafter, former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie along with advocate Prashant Bhushan also filed a joint petiiton for registration of an FIR in the Rafale deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nine people were injured during a clash between two groups over the harassment of a woman in Khaikheri village here, police said Monday. SHO Jitender Kumar said on Sunday Bahadur Singh had an arguments with Balraj after the woman, who was known to him, was harassed by an acquaintance of Balraj. The quarrel turned violent and lathis and sharp weapons were used during the clash between two Dalit groups belonging to the same community, he said. Nine people were injured and they were rushed to a hospital, the SHO said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Monday expressed profound grief over the untimely demise of Union minister Ananth Kumar. Kumar, 59, died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months. "Union minister Ananth Kumar's death is a saddening incident. His death has caused an irreparable loss to the politics. Kumar was an energetic, hardworking and a noted social worker. He had significant contributions to Karnataka's politics," Kumar said in a statement. The CM prayed to almighty to grant eternal peace to the departed soul and give strength to the bereaved family relatives, followers and fans to bear the loss, the statement said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The talks between the Haryana roadways unions and the state government representatives held here on Monday failed to end the standoff between the two parties over the state's decision to induct 700 private buses into the transport fleet. A government delegation, led by Additional Chief Secretary (Transport) Dhanpat Singh, spoke to the coordination committee of the roadways unions. However, the talks made no headway as the unions reiterated their demand that the government must scrap the private buses scheme. "The talks failed yet again as the state government is adamant in implementing the scheme to run private buses," Sarbat Singh Punia, a member of the coordination committee of the roadways unions told reporters here. He said the union leaders were assured by Dhanpat Singh that a meeting of the agitating employees with chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar would soon be arranged. "We were assured that a meeting will be arranged with the chief minister to find an amicable settlement in the issue. "The delegation also assured us that the government is ready to hold an inquiry into the tendering process for the hiring of private buses. However, we have demanded scrapping of the kilometre scheme under which private buses are being inducted and told them that an inquiry can be held later, Punia said. The roadways employees have called the move to induct private buses as "an attempt to privatise transport services", an allegation which has been strongly denied by the state government. The talks held earlier between the roadways union leaders and the state delegation during the strike period last month had also failed. Roadways employees had ended their fortnight-long strike on November 2 after the Punjab and Haryana High Court had intervened. The court had fixed November 14 as the next date of hearing in the matter. Haryana Advocate General B R Mahajan had assured the court that the government would resolve the matter amicably. The employees had been on strike since October 16 against the government's decision to hire 700 buses from private owners. There are about 19,000 employees in the Haryana Roadways, which has a fleet of 4,100 buses, catering to about 12 lakh passengers daily. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said Monday there was no threat of the revival of militancy in Punjab, but said there was a need to stay alert. "There is not much threat (of revival of militancy) in Punjab, but we need to be alert about it. It is better to be alert than to allow things (to go out of hand)," Rawat told reporters here. The Army chief responding to a question about the threat of revival of militancy in Punjab after recoveries and arrests of some people in various places of the state and the 'Referendum 2020' campaign started by separatist and pro-Khalistan elements from other countries. "The governments were fully aware of this and were taking appropriate action. (The) Union government is taking full action on this. We are fully aware of what is happening. "Punjab Chief Minister (Amarinder Singh) is concerned about this. He is taking action to ensure that this kind of violence does not spread in the state of Punjab," Rawat said. The Army chief said the people of Punjab, who had gone through this, would not allow the insurgency to grow. "While outsiders will attempt to revive militancy, the people, are very strong, will not allow it." Asked about the threats issued to him by the separatist group, Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), Rawat said he was not bothered by them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan Monday said demonetisation had made the country's economy "unstable". On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced scrapping of then in use Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination bank notes with immediate effect. Chavan was here to take part in a Congress protest against the note ban exercise which the party observed nationwide as "black day". "The demonetisation exercise brought instability in the lives of peoplewho faced tremendous hardship. Lot of people lost their lives too," he said. He added that Modi had said the objective of note ban was to eradicate black money, counterfeitcurrency and curb corruption. "However, not a single objective was achievedas 99.3 per cent demonetised notes came back to the Reserve Bank of India," he said. Chavan claimed demonetisation was imposed on the people due to pressure from some American credit card and "fintech" companies. He also criticisedthe Central government for its ongoing tussle with the RBI. "The RBI is having a board meeting on November 19 in which the institution will take a call on whether to bow before the government or resist," Chavan claimed. He also attacked the BJP for raising the issue of renaming cities, adding that it was being done as the government had nothing to show by way of development. Chavan also ruled the possibility of standing from Pune for the 2019 Lok Sabhs polls. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Renowned economist T N Srinivasan, known for his contribution to developmental economics, died following a brief illness here with experts and contemporaries hailing him as a "strong advocate" of liberalisation. Srinivasan(85), died of aspirated pneumonia Saturday night in the city, family sources told PTI. He is survived by wife and son. The cremation is scheduled to take place Tuesday, they said. A distinguished economist, Srinivasan who had received Doctorate from Yale University was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2007. Several economists including former chief economic adviser to the central government Arvind Subramanian condoled his death. Former Chairman of Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, C Rangarajan said, "I am deeply saddened by the death of Dr T N Srinivasan. TN as he was known to his colleagues and friends was one of the India's outstanding economists." Noting that Srinivasan worked in all areas of economics and particularly in international trade, Rangarajan said, he was a "strong advocate" of liberalisation. Srinivasan had spoken and written extensively on India's growth and was often unhappy with the pace of reforms, he noted. "Policy makers listened to his criticisms because of his standing as an eminent economist" he said. Subramanian described Srinivasan as a 'great Indian economist.' "His legacy; outstanding scholarship; principled belief in growth, free trade & multilateralism; unassuming; mentoring and wit. A great TN quip: Perfect examples of self-referential systems are papers written by Indian economists," he said in a tweet. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Eminent linguist, folklorist and academician Dr Pramod Bhattacharya died on Monday following a prolonged illness at a local hospital here, family sources said here. He was 94 and is survived by four sons. A linguist of repute, Bhattacharya took special initiative to develop and encourage Bodo language and literature and also carried out widespread research on Indo-Tibetan languages. Bhattacharya was also a former principal of B Barooah College here. Bestowed with the title of 'Sahityacharya' by the Asam Sahitya Sabha, Bhattacharya received several awards including Dr Lila Gogoi Award, Dr Krishna Kanta Handique Award, Bhasacharya Honour by Assam Linguistic Society, Bodofa Upendra Nath Brahma Award, Kalicharan Brahma Award among others. He was also awarded the Honarary D.Litt by Gauhati University. Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi and Chief Minister Sarbabanda Sonowal mourned his death and extended their condolences to the bereaved family. Sonowal directed that the mortal remains of Bhattacharya would be cremated with full state honours. The Asam Sahitya Sabha along with several, literary, social and cultural organisations have condoled Bhattacharya's death. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Odisha on Monday received investment commitments totalling over Rs 1,38,000 crore as RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani, Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and other industry captains pledged to pump in additional funds into existing projects in the state. At the first day of the 'Make in Odisha Conclave' here, Ambani said he would make a fresh investment of Rs 3,000 crore. "I announce an additional investment of Rs 3,000 crore in Odisha from Reliance Jio. We are on a mission to transform Odisha and we have created employment opportunities for 30,000 people in the last two years in Odisha," Ambani said. Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekharan announced Rs 25,000 crore investment on capacity expansion of Tata Steel's Kalinga Nagar plant from 3 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 8 mtpa. JSPL chairman Naveen Jindal said his company would invest Rs 55,000 crore to augment capacity of Angul steel plant from 6 mtpa to 20 mtpa by 2030. Vedanta chairman Anil Agarwal said his company will spend Rs 15,000 crore for its alumina refinery expansion to 6 mtpa from 3 mtpa. The second edition of the conclave would conclude on November 15. Joining the investment bandwagon, Birla said his company would invest about Rs 14,500 crore in the state, while SAIL chairman Anil Kumar said the CPSU would pump in Rs 41,000 crore to ramp up its Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) from 4.5 mtpa to 10 mtpa in the next three years. The ITC Group has pledged an additional investment of Rs 550 crore for its food processing unit in Kurda in the next three-five years. "Odisha has already become a vibrant state and a preferred investment destination... ITC is committed to working together with Odisha in the socioeconomic development of the state," ITC MD Sanjiv Puri said. Britannia Industries announced an investment of Rs 60 crore over the next two-three years for its bakery plant in the state. Adani Group's Dhamra Port Company Ltd signed an MoU with the Odisha government for construction of an air strip at Dhamra in Bhadrak district at an investment of Rs 500 crore in one-and-a-half years. A pact was also signed between ITEES Singapore and the Odisha Skills Development Authority to build upon the existing partnerships between both entities for skills development. In his speech, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik urged the industry bigwigs to plan a long-term strategy for investment in Odisha to help it develop as a manufacturing hub of South Asia. "I propose that each of the industry captains present here today, plan a long-term strategy for investment in the state over the next 10 years. Dedicated teams will be appointed by my government to handhold the implementation of your long-term plans. I assure you of unmatched facilitation support from my government," Patnaik said. He also said Odisha has formulated a new Biotechnology Policy to build an optimal biotech ecosystem. The CM added that the first edition of Make in Odisha conclave held in 2016 was a "huge success" with 124 investment intents worth more than Rs 2 lakh crore, and employment opportunities for over one lakh people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Supreme Court Monday admitted the country's anti-graft watchdog's appeal for hearing over the suspension of the prison sentences of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law in the Avenfield corruption case. On July 6, Sharif was awarded 10 years imprisonment while his daughter Maryam, and son-in-law Capt (retd) Safdar were given seven and one year jail terms respectively in the Avenfield apartments corruption case. However, on September 19, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) suspended their sentences on the petitions filed by the Sharifs. A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, was conducting preliminary hearing of the case. The bench ordered that the defendants' bail in the case would be maintained while the National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) plea against the suspension of the sentences would be heard separately, Geo reported. The apex court said it would see if there was any need to change the bench or constitute a larger bench to hear the appeal over the suspension of the sentences. The next hearing of NAB's appeal against the IHC's suspension of the sentences will take place on December 12. Sharif, Maryam and Safdar were also disqualified from contesting elections or holding public office for a period of 10 years after their release in the Avenfield case, a ruling that ruined their political career. The Avenfield case was among the three corruption cases filed against the three-time former premier and his children by the NAB on the Supreme Court's orders in the Panama Papers case which disqualified Sharif. Sharif has denied any wrongdoing and says the charges are politically motivated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan on Monday launched a massive nationwide anti-polio vaccination drive, including 1.5 lakh personnel, against the crippling disease which authorities said will cover 21.3 million children under five years of age. Pakistan is one of the three countries in the world, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, that suffers from endemic polio. Polio virus can cause paralysis or death. The three-day campaign will begin in 88 out of the 94 planned districts, The Express Tribune reported. The drive has been delayed till November 19 for six districts of Balochistan (Zhob, Killa Saifullah, Dukki, Loralai, Musakhel & Barkhan) due to by-elections. The programme will target a total of 21.3 million children, including under the age of five. 6.88 million in 12 districts of Punjab, 7 million in 36 districts of Sindh, 5.5 million in 25 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 1.5 million in 20 districts of Balochistan and 0.33 million children in Islamabad. The campaign will involve a total of 150,000 personnel striving to achieve the set targets across Pakistan, including 16,847 area incharges, 4,004 medical officers, 110,449 mobile, 5,305 fixed and 7,842 transit team members, the report said. The National Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) has deployed 46 experts to facilitate preparedness and ground implementation of campaign activities by the local teams in priority areas. Government support at every level and cooperation of communities and parents has been imperative in Pakistan's recent successes actualising a case decline from 306 in 2014 to 8 so far in 2018. The last two polio cases were reported last month which increased the number of polio cases in the country to six this year, local media reported. A country must have no cases for three consecutive years in order to be considered to have eradicated polio by the World Health Organisation. Polio workers have faced problems during vaccination drives in many parts of the country, including Karachi where in the past militants have attacked female health workers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Gujarat Congress Monday claimed that the people of Ahmedabad had launched a "public movement" to prevent the authorities from changing the city's name to Karnavati, even as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) issued a warning to those against the renaming. Earlier on November 8, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had said the name change could be effected before next year's Lok Sabha election and claimed that it was the people's demand for long. "People have been demanding for long that Ahmedabad be renamed as Karnavati. The government is considering the demand. The consultation process has started (to find out) if legally we can do it. After the consultations, we will take a concrete step," the chief minister had said. Gujarat Congress chief Amit Chavda Monday said people's "feelings" were associated with the historic city. "Ahmedabad is a historic city. UNESCO has given it the prestigious tag of Heritage City. We all take pride in being residents of this city. People's feelings are associated with this city for generations," he told reporters here. "The people of Ahmedabad have taken up a movement to ensure that the city's name is not changed," Chavda claimed. In another development, Gujarat Congress MLA Gyasuddin Shaikh Monday shot off a letter to Rupani on the issue and threatened to launch a stir if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government went ahead with the name change. Shaikh, who represents the Dariyapur constituency here, claimed in his letter that the BJP government was trying to polarise the voters ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. "This city was established by Sultan Ahmed Shah in 1411. The ruling BJP is indulging in dirty by projecting a twisted version of history. The people of Ahmedabad are also against such a move to change its name, which is only aimed at polarising the voters ahead of the 2019 polls. "Ahmedabad is a well accepted name among the masses. The renaming will adversely affect the communal harmony and peaceful atmosphere of the city. Such dirty must end. I will launch a stir against such of polarisation," Shaikh said in the letter. Meanwhile, irked over the Congress's stand on the renaming, the VHP Monday issued a warning, saying "Hindus" would not "tolerate" any attempt to stall the process of renaming Ahmedabad as Karnavati. It further said "Babur devotees" would be taught a lesson if they put up hurdles in the renaming of the city. "We have learned that some Babur devotees and elements having political interests are creating obstacles. We want to warn them that Hindus will end their political career if they do not stop their activities. Karnavati is a well accepted name and all the Hindus support it," a VHP statement said. According to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) website, King Karandev I, a Solanki dynasty ruler, had established the city of Karnavati on the banks of the Sabarmati river in the 11th century, after defeating Bhil king Ashapall. Gujarat was conquered by the Sultanate of Delhi at the end of the 13th century and in 1411, Ahmed Shah, who had rebelled against his overlords in Delhi, had founded Ahmedabad next to the old city of Ashval or Karnavati, the AMC website informs. Mughal emperor Akbar had conquered the province of Gujarat in 1573. The Mughal rule had ended in 1753 when the armies of Maratha generals -- Raghunath Rao and Damaji Gaekwad -- took over Ahmedabad. In 1818, the city came under the rule of the British East India Company. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday inaugurated two important roads, having a total length of 34 kilometres and built at a cost of Rs 1,571.95 crore, in his Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi. He was accompanied by Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Shipping, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Nitin Gadkari. The 16.55-km-long Varanasi Ring Road Phase-I has been built at a cost of Rs 759.36 crore, while the work of four-laning and construction of 17.25 km Babatput-Varanasi road on NH-56 cost Rs 812.59 crore, an official release said. The Babatpur Airport highway will connect the city with the airport and go on to link Jaunpur, Sultanpur and Lucknow. With a flyover at Harhua and a rail overbridge at Tarna, it will reduce the travel time from Varanasi to the airport, providing a big relief to the people of the holy city and tourists. The Ring Road, with two rail overbridges and a flyover, will allow traffic on NH 56 (Lucknow-Varanasi), NH 233 (Azamgarh-Varanasi), NH 29 (Gorakhpur-Varanasi) and Ayodhya-Varanasi highways to bypass Varanasi, thereby reducing traffic congestion in the city. This will reduce travel time, fuel usage and pollution in the area. The Ring Road will provide easier and more convenient access to Sarnath, an important site for Buddhist pilgrimage. These projects will also provide increased employment opportunities, development of small and medium industries and give a boost to economic development in the area. Currently, national highway projects of total length 2833 km, costing Rs 63,885 crore are underway to link Varanasi with other places in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Of these, 15 road projects of 1143 kilometre length are under various stages of construction. These include Varanasi-Jaunpur, Varanasi-Sultanpur, Sultanpur-Lucknow, Varanasi Ghaghra Bridge, Varanasi-Azamgarh among others. Besides, there are seven targeted projects of 235 km costing Rs 8,265 crore. Also, 20 projects for 1455 km roads are in detailed project report stage. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to chair a special meeting of the Union Cabinet Monday to condole the demise of senior minister Ananth Kumar, official sources said. A resolution condoling the demise of the Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister and hailing his contribution would be passed. As per established practice, resolutions are passed by the Cabinet in the memory of ministers and senior leaders. Similar resolutions were passed following demise of then union ministers Gopinath Munde and Anil Madhav Dave. Kumar died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months. A six-time Member of Parliament, Kumar had climbed the political ladder steadily from being an RSS worker to becoming a Union minister in his thirties. Kumar had been in the inner circle of the central leadership of the BJP -- be it during the heydays of Atal Bihari Vajpayee or L K Advani and now Narendra Modi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress leader Randeep Surjewala Monday accused the BJP governments at the Centre and in Rajasthan of "betraying" the jobless youths of the country and the state. The Congress chief spokesperson also alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ordered the labour department to stop releasing employment figures to "cover its failures". "After coming to power, the BJP government at the Centre promised to generate two crore jobs annually in the country, while in Rajasthan, 15 lakh jobs were promised in five years," Surjewala said at a press conference here in the poll-bound state. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments betrayed jobless youngsters. People of the country and the state are feeling deceived and cheated, Surjewala said. The Congress leader further said that in Rajasthan, which goes to polls on December 7, the unemployment rate was double that of the national average and the state ranked fourth in the unemployment index. "The prime minister asks youths to fry pakodas and sell pan, while the chief minister calls protesting jobless youths 'lafangas'. What is the future of the youth of this country?," he said. Surjewala alleged that the state government was providing bogus figure of providing over 44 lakh jobs in five years. He said of the total 1.50 lakh state government jobs, notifications for 1.10 lakh were released by the previous Congress government. Citing a report of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), Surjewala said Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje had no right to remain in office due to her alleged involvement in the employment scam in the state government's skill training programmes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Politicians across party lines paid tributes to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union minister Ananth Kumar, who died in Bengaluru on Monday. The 59-year-old parliamentary affairs minister breathed his last at a private hospital in the Karnataka capital after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. Union Minister for Water Resources Nitin Gadkari said his "close friend" Kumar had played a huge role in expanding the BJP's base in Karnataka, the latter's home state. "He performed very well working as a minister in various portfolios and left an impeccable imprint with his work. I feel that I have lost a young brother from my family. His sudden death is a huge loss for me. May his soul rest in peace," Gadkari said. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said he was "shocked and deeply pained" by Kumar's "untimely" demise. He also lavished praise on Kumar for his performance as Union minister in the governments led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee (earlier) and Narendra Modi (currently). "His contribution towards society, service to the people will be remembered forever. My deepest condolences to his family, friends, followers, karyakarta," the chief minister said in a tweet. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar also expressed grief over Kumar's demise and remembered him as a "very cooperative minister". "His visionary decision to make Neem coating of urea mandatory will have far reaching benefits for the farming community. He will always be remembered as a farmers' leader," Pawar said. Senior Congress leader and former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan also took to twitter to condole Kumar's death. "Deeply Saddened by the passing away of Union Minister, Shri Ananth Kumar ji. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace. #AnanthKumar," he tweeted. NCP leader Ajit Pawar, too, expressed grief. "May Ananth Kumar's soul rest in peace. Tributes!" he said on Twitter. Kumar, a six-time parliamentarian, is survived by wife and two daughters. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu is leading a delegation for the meeting for trade ministers of RCEP member countries, which are negotiating a mega trade deal, in Singapore, beginning Monday. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a pact that aims to cover goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights. Trade Ministers of the 16-member RCEP are meeting in Singapore to continue to efforts to resolve the issues which are hindering the conclusion of the negotiations. The chief negotiators had recently concluded the 24th round of meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, last month, the commerce ministry said in a statement. The RCEP members include 10 ASEAN members Brunei Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam and their 6 free trade agreement partners India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. India already has a free trade agreement with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan and South Korea and it is negotiating similar pacts with Australia and New Zealand. India is pushing for liberalizing norms to promote services trade as the sector accounts for about 55 per cent of India's GDP. India is looking for a balance trade agreement as it would cover 40 per cent of the global GDP and over 42 per cent of world's population. The ministerial meeting will be followed by the second RCEP Leaders Summit on November 14 in Singapore. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An art teacher of a Pune based residential school was booked for allegedly hitting a student in the face for not completing a drawing assignment. The child's parents, who filed a police complaint Monday, claimed the assault has led to the child suffering from "facial paralysis". The alleged incident took place between October 15-25 in the Shri Chhatrapatil Shivaji Maharaj Preparatory Military School (SSPMS) where the child is a Class VI student, police said. The parents Monday approached Shivajinagar police station where a case under section 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) was registered against the teacher who has been identified as Sandeep Gade, an official said. School principal S Patil said Gade had been suspended. "On November 3, we came to the school to take our child home for Diwali. However, we noticed some abnormalities in the left side of his face. Upon inquiring, our child told us that the teacher had hit him in the face and banged it against a bench for not completing an assignment," said the victim's father. He claimed that a doctor had said the child was suffering from facial paralysis. The family resides in Indapur area of Pune district, he informed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Centre told the Supreme Court Monday that as per the Defence Offset Guidelines, the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select its Indian Offset Partners (IOPs) for implementing the offset obligation in the deal. Justifying its stand on the Rafale deal, the Centre said that to promote indigenisation, a robust offset clause has been included in the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) since 2005. It said the aim was to leverage "our capital acquisitions to develop the Indian defence industry, improve defence research and encourage the development of synergistic sectors such as civil aerospace and internal security". It further said: "The offsets are to ensure that for every dollar that went to a foreign arms supplier, 30-50 per cent get back into India for an investment or procurement. As per DPP-2013, the offset clause would be applicable for all procurement proposals where indicative cost is Rs 300 crore or more involving outright purchase from foreign/Indian vendors and purchases from foreign vendors followed by licensed production." The Centre said that offset discharge is to be undertaken through various offset avenues like direct purchase of eligible products/services, FDI in Joint Venture and transfer of technology/provision of equipment. "As per the Defence Offset Guidelines, the vendor/ Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select its...IOPs for implementing the offset obligation," it said. Congress President Rahul Gandhi has been accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of forcing the French company Dassault, which is the OEM in Rafale deal, to select a Reliance group firm of Anil Ambani as an offset partner to help it "pocket" Rs 30,000 crore. The Centre further said that in so far as the discharging of the offset obligations by OEM and its Tier-I vendors through IOPs is concerned, there is no mention of any private Indian Business House(s) in IGA or Offset Contract. "The Offset Contract does not envisage manufacture of 36 Rafale Aircraft in India by any public or private sector firm. As per the Offset Contract, the vendor / OEM is required to confirm the details of IOPs/ products either at the time of seeking offset credits or one year prior to discharge of offset obligation. "The annual offset implementation schedule, as per offset contract, will commence from October 2019. The vendor /OEM is yet to submit a formal proposal in the prescribed manner indicating details of IOPs and products for offset discharge." it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Defence Procurement Procedure was "completely followed" in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and the deal was subsequently approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the Centre informed the Supreme Court on Monday. The Centre's stand was reflected in a document submitted to the court, which had asked the government to furnish details and the steps taken in the decision making process for the procurement of the jets. The apex court directive on October 31 came after a group of petitioners approached it and sought the court-monitored probe into the procurement of 36 Rafale jets. The document was also handed over to the petitioners, including former BJP leaders and Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie. The process as laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure-2013 has been followed in procurement of the Rafale aircrafts and the CCS on August 24, 2016 approved the agreement which was arrived at after negotiations between the Indian and the French sides, said the 14-page document. The document also said that the Indian negotiating team was constituted which held negotiations with the French side for about an year and approval of the CCS, being the Competent Financial Authority, was taken before signing the Inter-Government Agreement. The apex court had said details, including the steps in the decision making process for the procurement of jets, which could "legitimately" be brought into public domain, be made available to the parties who have filed petitions before it in the matter. It had also asked the Centre to place before it in a sealed cover within 10 days the pricing details of 36 Rafale fighter jets India is buying from France. Later, the Centre also submitted the price details of the fighter jets in a sealed cover to the court. The apex court, which will hear the matter on November 14, had categorically told the Centre that if the pricing detail was "exclusive" and could not be shared with the court then the Centre should file an affidavit in this regard and say so. India signed an agreement with France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of the upgrading process of the Indian Air Force equipment. The estimated cost of the deal is Rs 58,000 crore. The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. The petitions seeking the probe in the Rafale deal were first filed by advocates Manohar Lal Sharma and Vineet Dhanda. Later, AAP MP Sanjay Singh had also filed the petition. Sinha, Shourie and acivist lawyer Prashant Bhushan had filed a joint petition. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A total of 23 nominations were filed on Monday by 16 candidates, including BJP's Srichand Kriplani and Kalu Lal Gurjar from Nimbahera and Mandal assembly constituencies respectively. BJP dissident and senior leader Ghanshyam Tiwari also filed nomination from Sanganer constituency today, which was the first day of filing nominations. All three leaders are sitting MLAs from their respective constituencies. Tiwari has been representing Sanganer Assembly constituency since 2003. He has been a six-time legislator and has held education minister portfolio in the previous Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government. We will field 70 to 80 candidates and contest election with third front on all 200 seats. We would announce candidates in a couple of days, Tiwari said after filing his papers. Srichand Kriplani is the urban housing and development minister and Gurjar is BJP's chief whip. Last date of filing nomination is November 19 and polls are due in the state on December 7. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Top actor Rajinikanth, who is expected to foray into politics, said Monday that the implementation of the demonetisation exercise by the Centre was flawed. The Tamil superstar, when asked about his view on the impact of demonetisation vis-a-vis its second anniversary, told reporters that "the implementation was flawed. It is a matter that should be discussed in detail." Asked if the BJP was such a 'dangerous' (electorally) party that warranted formation of a mega national alliance against it, he said "they (opposition parties) feel that way, then it should be definitely like that." On the rising incidence of rape and murder of girls in Tamil Nadu, Rajinikanth said tougher laws and stricter implementation was the way out. Asked about his stand on the release of seven Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts, he asked "which seven convicts... I am hearing about it only now." The Tamil Nadu government had recommended the release of all the seven prisoners to Governor Banwarilal Purohit, who had stated that the matter was under his consideration. On October 22, a 13-year old Dalit girl Rajalakshmi was beheaded by a 25-year-old man near Salem, which led to public outrage and an outcry, demanding tough action. Days ago, a tribal girl was allegedly raped by two men in Dharmapuri district. The victim died on Saturday. TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu recently visited DMK president M K Stalin here as part of his efforts to bring together various parties for the 2019 Lok Sabha election to dislodge the BJP government at the Centre. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has also been batting for opposition unity against the BJP and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is a vocal critic of the saffron party led government at the Centre. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Haryana government told the Delhi High Court Monday that it has completed the repair of the old Delhi Sub Branch Canal (DSBC) which carries water to the national capital. The counsel for Haryana government filed a status report and informed the bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao that the water supply has resumed. This submission was contested by Delhi Jal Board's (DJB) counsel Sumeet Pushkarna who said the water supply was deficient and it has not been resumed properly. The court asked the DJB to file its reply to the Haryana government's status report and listed the matter for further hearing on January 14. The court had earlier asked the state government about the status of the repair works on the old DSBC. The direction had come after petitioner advocate S B Tripathi told the court that the repairs were getting delayed affecting the water supply to Delhi, especially in the sub-city of Dwarka. Haryana had on May 24 this year told the court that it has floated tenders for the repair works and that they would be opened in June and the work was expected to be completed in four months thereafter. Prior to that, the court had on May 10 pulled up the Haryana government for not issuing any tender for repairing the old sub-branch canal, despite payment of Rs 28.16 crore to it by the DJB for the work. The court was also displeased with the fact that Haryana had till then not encashed the cheques sent to it in March. The high court on March 13 had directed Haryana and Delhi governments to take steps to immediately carry out repair works on DSBC, saying any delay would lead to wastage of water really needed by the national capital. The court was hearing a PIL moved by Tripathi who has said that the population in Delhi was increasing each day, while the raw water available stayed the same or even decreasing. Tripathi has also filed an application for concrete lining of DSBC, similar to the other, Munak canal, claiming that due to seepage in the older canal, 50 per cent of the 330 cusec water released into it by Haryana is lost. The plea has claimed that the wastage can be brought down to 5 per cent by concrete lining. The bench had earlier asked the Haryana government to ensure that it releases the entire quantity of water required as per the undertaking given to the court. Haryana has to release 719 cusecs of water per day into Munak canal and 330 cusecs per day in DSBC, according to the undertaking and earlier court orders. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government on Monday rejected the reports claiming has fled abroad, saying the images on the social media showing the recently-acquitted Christian woman being greeted overseas are "fake". Bibi, a 47-year-old mother of four, was release from Multan jail last week after the Supreme Court in its landmark decision acquitted her of blasphemy charges. She was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. Bibi always maintained her innocence, but spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. "Fake news is a big challenge. is in and images of her leaving the country and greeted abroad are fake," Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry told PTI. He said some media outlets showed irresponsibility by reporting that Bibi had left the country after her release from the jail. Chaudhry said the government was considering to introduce a law to regulate the social media. "There is a need to check the unchecked social media and bring it within the ambit of law," he said, adding that fake news and fake notifications come up from fake accounts on social media on almost daily basis and needed to be checked. Bibi's acquittal sparked violent protests from radical Islamists across The Imran Khan-led government had agreed to their demand to stop her from leaving Pakistan and extend its help to place her name on no-fly list. The BBC Urdu's report that she had been taken to another country created a lot of confusion and the Foreign Office had to issue a clarification that Bibi was in the country. Earlier, Bibi's husband had appealed to US President Donald Trump and premiers of the UK and Canada to help her and other family members leave Pakistan as their lives were in danger. Italy had offered asylum to Bibi. Reacting to the uproar over Aasia's acquittal, Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) said it had "some reservations over the acquittal" but respects the national institutions including the judiciary. A Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) has awarded over Rs 40 lakh to the family of a 55-year-old man who died after coming under a bus in the city while alighting from it more than four years ago. MACT Presiding Officer Rakesh Kumar asked United India Insurance Company Limited, insurer of the offending vehicle to pay Rs 42,66,016 as compensation along with interest to the family of Rajinder Singh. "The respondent No. 3 (United India Insurance Company Limited) being the insurer is directed to deposit the award amount within a period of 30 days," the court said. It also said that Kumar, driver of the bus and the state-run Delhi Transport Corporation were "jointly and severally" liable to pay the compensation. The court, after considering the documentary as well as oral evidence, noted that it was clear that Kumar, the driver of the offending vehicle was driving in a rash and negligent manner. Delhi resident Singh, who worked in the MTNL, was travelling by a DTC bus on June 1, 2014. The bus started moving as Singh was alighting from it following which he fell down and came under the bus. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died during the treatment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A team of state RSS leaders Monday called on DMK President M K Stalin at the party headquarters here and handed over to him, among others,a condolence message passed for the late party chief M Karunanidhi, adopted at the saffron outfit's meeting in Mumbai recently. Seperate releases from both said the meeting took place at 'Anna Arivalayam', the DMK headquarters. The RSS delegation was led by its state chief Dr K Kumaraswamy, who handed over the condolence message for Karunanidhi, adopted at the RSS' Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal (ABKM) held from October 31 to November 2 in Mumbai. "Kumaraswamy handed over the condolence message letter of late Shri Karunanidhi, passed at ABKM held recently at Mumbai, to Shri Stalin," the RSS release said. Further, copies of the ABKM statement, Coffee Table book of RSS and other publications of the saffron organisation were also handed over to Stalin "for his reading," it added. The DMK release also mentioned about the condolence message passed for Karunanidhi, who passed away here on August 7 after days of hospitalisation. In the resolution, the RSS said Karunanidhi's demise "has saddened us all." "His thoughts, actions and his conduct, while discharging his social responsibilities,earned his respect and recognition in society. He will now me remembered only by his memories," it says. All ABKM members expressed their "heartfelt condolences" by maintaining two minutes' silence, the message, dated October 31, 2018, said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Monday declined early hearing of the petitions in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case, saying it has already listed them in January next year. The apex court on October 29 had fixed the case for the first week of January before an "appropriate bench", which will decide the schedule of hearing. "We have already passed the order. The appeals are coming up in January. Permission declined," a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said while rejecting the request of early hearing the cases. The plea for early hearing was mentioned by lawyer Barun Kumar Sinha, representing Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM) which is one of the respondents in the appeal filed by legal heirs of M Siddiq in the case. "Since Ram Janam Bhoomi at Ayodhya is the matter of tremendous faith of Hindus and they are very much hopeful about the decision at an early date of the aforesaid appeals," the ABHM said in its plea. The case is of great concern for both Hindus and Muslims of the country and the pendency of these cases have earlier caused communal disharmony, it said. A three-judge bench of the top court had on October 29, by a 2:1 majority, refused to refer to a five-judge constitution bench the issue of reconsideration of the observations in its 1994 judgement of the Allahabad High Court that a mosque was not integral to Islam. The matter had arisen during the hearing of the Ayodhya land dispute. As many as 14 appeals have been filed against the high court judgement, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77 acre land be partitioned equally among three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea challenging the Constitutional validity of Section 375 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) which deals with rape on the ground that the provision is not gender-neutral. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul said the issue raised in the petition is a subject matter of the legislature's domain. "The issue falls in the realm of the Parliament. We don't want to say anything on it right now", the bench said, while granting liberty to the petitioners to make a representation to the legislature. While Section 375 of the IPC deals with rape committed on a woman by a man, Section 376 lists out the punishment for the offence. The top court was hearing a petition filed by NGO Criminal Justice Society of India, through advocate Ashima Mandla, contending that Section 375 violates Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution as it does not account for rape of men and Transgender persons. The plea sought that the definition of rape under Section 375 be held "ultra vires" for being "discriminatory and violative of Articles 14 (right to equality), 15 (prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex...) and 21 (right to life and personal liberty) of the Constitution". The petitioner has submitted that the section applies only to women as victims and men as perpetrators. It does not take into account non-consensual sexual assault inflicted on a woman by a woman, on a man by another man, on transgender by another transgender or a man or woman, on a man by a woman. The plea referred to the August 2017 order passed by a nine-judge bench of the top court that declared privacy as a fundamental right and also cited the NALSA judgment that recognised transgenders as the third gender. "It is imperative to note that transgenders including but not limited to homosexuals & bisexuals, and men are sequestered from the point of view of victims of rape under the existing penal laws of the country, despite an impending need for the same", the plea said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Monday dismissed the pleas filed by some Manipur Police personnel seeking recusal of judges of the bench hearing the case of alleged fake encounters in Manipur in which CBI's Special Investigation Team (SIT) is conducting a probe. The applications claimed that on July 30, the court had allegedly termed the accused, charge sheeted by the SIT in some of the encounter cases, as "murderers". A bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit said that arguments raised before it that the Indian Army, paramilitary forces and Manipur Police have been "demoralised" by the oral observations made by the top court on July 30 was a "rather over-broad submission". "In any event, in our opinion, it should be clear to everyone that officers and personnel of the Indian Army, paramilitary forces and the state police are made of much sterner stuff than is sought to be projected and they can hardly be demoralised by observations said to have been made by anybody," the bench said in its 20-page order. "It is unfortunate that a bogey of demoralization of the Indian Army, paramilitary forces and the State Police is being raised. We are unable to comprehend the reason for this," the bench said, adding that this submission was made for some "unfathomable reason". It said the Indian Army, paramilitary forces and Manipur Police were disciplined forces strong enough to take "everything in their stride". "To contend that some observations said to have been made by this court have demoralized the Indian Army, the paramilitary forces and the Manipur Police is suggestive of a weakness in them. Be that as it may, this is really stretching the argument to the vanishing point," the bench said. It said there was no reason for the petitioners to have any doubt that the SIT or the judiciary would be influenced by the observations said to have been made by the top court. It made it "absolutely clear" that the observations made on July 30 by the court were not intended to and should not in any manner be construed as compromising the independence, integrity and fairness of the SIT and the concerned judges. "Institutional integrity of the CBI and the judiciary is positively required to be maintained," the bench said, adding that so far no allegation of unfairness was made against the functioning of the SIT. It said that apprehension of petitioners that "justice will not be done to them is misplaced if not unfounded". The bench noted that case related to the alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur pertained to the allegations of serious violations of human rights of persons "described as insurgents". "There is no allegation of any nature with respect to the impartiality and integrity of the SIT. Indeed, the Attorney General made it clear that no one was disputing the capability, expertise and fairness of the CBI and the investigations carried out by the SIT," it said. The apex court said that law of the land was clear that no one could interfere in the investigations being carried out by the investigating officer or an investigating team. "The purpose of a continuing mandamus (a judicial order issued as a command to subordinate court or authority for performing a statutory duty) is only to ensure that there is no interference during the course of investigations from anybody, whether due to political pressure or executive pressure or any other pressure (including, as it seems, 'judicial pressure') that could compromise the investigations," it said. The court also said that a probe would be meaningful and fair only when the investigating officer or the investigating team was given a free hand. It said that once the judicial process has begun with the filing of final report or a charge sheet in a case, the concerned court was in complete charge and full control of the proceedings and no one could interfere in it. "We are fortunate to have an independent judiciary and as far as the EEVFAM (extra-judicial execution victim families association) case is concerned, there has been no allegation of any kind that any trial judge dealing with the case has shown a lack of independence," it said. "The applicants/petitioners are indirectly, perhaps unwittingly, questioning the fairness and independence of the judiciary," the bench said. It also noted that, "We have been given to understand that these petitions have the support of a few hundred officers from the Indian Army, the paramilitary forces and Manipur Police". The Centre had on September 28 supported the plea by the Manipur policemen and questioned the apex court for its reported remark, saying it has "completely shaken" the morale of the armed forces and security men operating in insurgency-hit areas. The court, which is hearing a PIL seeking a probe into as many as 1,528 cases of alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur, had on July 14 last year constituted the SIT and ordered lodging of FIRs and probe into them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Shiv Sena Monday said the RSS' and its allied organisations "woke up" to plan 'hunkar' (exhortation) rallies to press for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya after the Sena announced its plans to visit Ayodhya on November 25. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad had Saturday announced that it would organise rallies on November 25 in Ayodhya, Nagpur and Bengaluru. A meeting to discuss preparations for these rallies was also held at RSS's Smriti Mandir at Reshimbagh in Nagpur Saturday which was attended by hundreds of RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal workers. Questioning the RSS and other organisations over their choice of date for the Ayodhya rally, the Sena said, "Which almanac is being used by the organisors for the Ayodhya rally? The RSS has no intention of hosting such a rally for the Ram temple. But because the Sena announced in its Dusshera rally that it would visit Ayodhya on November 25, others have woken up." In an editorial in its mouthpiece 'Saamana', the Sena further said, "Had (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi worked towards it in the first six month of his rule, the Ram temple would have come up in Ayodhya." "The construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya was almost forgotten by everyone. We did not check any almanac or calendar for our plans for the Ayodhya visit. Till then, everyone was keeping mum about the Ram temple," Sena said. The Sena said these rallies by RSS-backed organisations would not change its plans, adding that its visit to Ayodhya was because the party had "received an invitation from Lord Ram". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena's move to dismiss Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replacing him with Mahinda Rajapaksa was a "poor decision" that went haywire, prominent think tanks in the US said, emphasising on the need of a free and fair election in the island nation. Sirisena on October 9 dissolved parliament and announced snap polls on January 5 next year after it became evident that he did not have enough support in the House to prove the premiership of Rajapaksa. Rajapaksa needed the support of minimum 113 parliamentarians in the 225-member House to prove his majority "The dissolution of parliament underscores the fact that Sirisena misunderstood and misjudged his ability to muster political support from the parliamentarians," Bharat Gopalaswamy, Director of the South Asia Centre at the Atlantic Council think tank said. "It was a poor decision to sack Wickremasinghe. It is important that the elections that will be conducted now be fair, free and credible as it is important to restore faith in the democratic process in Sri Lanka for its international partners," he said. On October 26, Sirisena abruptly sacked Wickremesinghe and replaced him with Rajapaksa, a move which made the country plunge into a constitutional crisis. Sirisena had suspended parliamentary proceedings until November 16. Later, owing to domestic and international pressure, he issued a notice to reconvene parliament on November 14. However, on Friday last week, Sirisena dissolved parliament and announced snap polls on January 2019. "Sri Lanka's political instability is definitely worrisome," Aman Thakker, research associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank, said. "The return of Rajapaksa as prime minister certainly has many in New Delhi worried about whether he continue with his pro-China engagement, which saw Chinese investment of billions of dollars in the island nation and even a Chinese submarine dock at Colombo," he said. However, he noted that Rajapaksa has shown an ability to mend ties with India, as was evident by his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year. "India will need to look beyond which personalities cycle in and out of power, and rather develop a more long-term strategy to engage with China and respond to the inroads it is making in the Indian Ocean," Thakker said. Aparna Pande, Director of Hudson Institute's Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia, said Delhi is watching closely the recent developments in Colombo not only because India seeks internal stability in Lanka but also out of concern that "Beijing may have had a role to play in the latest development". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) There are huge opportunities for South African companies in India, which was undergoing massive market reforms, a senior official here has said. The investment in India from South Africa is small and needs to be scaled up, the official told a business forum organised here on Monday by the Indian High Commission. "Although these investments are small (in number), they are value-added investments," Yunus Hoosen, the head of Investment South Africa, said at the Invest in India Business Forum. "South Africa's investment in India today stands at about 30 companies, basically in the finance, banking and healthcare sectors," Hoosen said as he explained the value South African companies have brought to India. But there are still huge opportunities for South African companies in India, which was undergoing massive market reforms, Hoosen said. "All major Indian banks are in South Africa with full licences, and this is what we would like to see for South African banks (in India), with the opening up through market reforms and the ease of doing business there. Hoosen said the relationship between the two countries could be significantly improved in a number of sectors as South Africa also embarked on economic reforms, including in mining, gas, tourism and telecommunications, which have been constrained by policy until now. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Relief and heartache await those starting to return home to a Southern California wildfire zone. Eager to know the status of his house, 69-year-old Roger Kelly defied evacuation orders Sunday and hiked back into Seminole Springs, his lakeside mobile home community in the Santa Monica Mountains north of Malibu. His got the thrill of finding his house intact. But some a half-block away were laid to waste, as were dozens more, and virtually everything on the landscape around the community had been turned to ash. "I just started weeping," Kelly said. "I just broke down. Your first view of it, man it just gets you." The community where Kelly and his wife have lived for 28 years and raised two children was among the hardest hit by the so-called Woolsey fire that broke out Thursday, destroying at least 177 homes and leaving two people dead. Despite strong Santa Ana winds that returned Sunday, no additional structures were believed to have been lost, meaning many would return in the coming week to find their home as Kelly did, authorities said. Santa Ana winds, produced by surface high pressure over the Great Basin squeezing air down through canyons and passes in Southern California's mountain ranges, are common in the fall and have a long history of fanning destructive wildfires in the region. Huge plumes of smoke still rose in the fire area, which stretches miles from the northwest corner of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley to the Malibu coast. Airplanes and helicopters swooped low over hills and canyons to drop loads of fire retardant and water. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended at midmorning and authorities warned that the gusts would continue through Tuesday. The lull allowed firefighters to gain 10 percent control of the Woolsey fire, which has burned more than 130 square miles (335 square kilometers) in western Los Angeles County and southeastern Ventura County since Thursday. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby stressed there were numerous hotspots and plenty of fuel that had not yet burned, but at sunset he said there had been huge successes despite "a very challenging day." The count of destroyed homes was expected to increase when an update is reported Monday. Osby noted that a November 1993 wildfire in Malibu destroyed more than 270 homes and said he would not be surprised if the total from the current fire would be higher. The fire's cause remained under investigation but Southern California Edison reported to the California Public Utilities Commission that there was an outage on an electrical circuit near where it started as Santa Ana winds blew through the region. SoCal Edison said the report was submitted out of an abundance of caution although there was no indication from fire officials that its equipment may have been involved. The report said the fire was reported around 2:24 p.m. Thursday, two minutes after the outage. Venture County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen hadn't heard about the Edison report. "It wouldn't surprise me" if it turns out that winds caused equipment failure that sparked a fire, he said. The two dead were severely burned, their bodies discovered in a car on a long residential driveway on a stretch of Mulholland Highway in Malibu, where most of the surrounding structures had burned. Authorities said investigators believed the driver became disoriented and the car was overcome by fire. The deaths came as authorities in Northern California announced the death toll from a massive wildfire there has reached 29 people, matching the deadliest fire in state history. Progress was made on the lines of smaller fire to the west in Ventura County, which was 70 percent contained at about 7 square miles (18 square kilometers), and evacuations were greatly reduced. But thousands remained under evacuation orders due to the Woolsey fire. Three firefighters suffered minor injuries, Osby said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi minister Imran Hussain has urged for a "strong need" to control local air polluting factors such as dust and garbage burning. He directed municipal corporations to intensify mechanical sweeping of roads, including PWD roads, for preventing suspension and re-suspension of dust due to plying of vehicles. Dust being one of the major contributors to air pollution, Hussain directed the Municipal Corporations to increase enforcement of compliance of directions regarding prohibition of permitting uncovered building material on their respective roads and spaces, according to a statement. "The increased incidence of paddy stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana and other neighbouring states coupled with meteorological condition and low wind speed is a cause of concern," he said. Hussain has urged "strong need" to control local air polluting factors such as burning of garbage and dust. He also stressed that no construction material should be kept open and regular sprinkling of water at all construction sites must be done. "All high-rise building should have the arrangement of water sprinkling for dust suppression. Strict action against violators of norms should immediately be initiated by the respective authority," he said. Hussain directed that joint teams of officials from the Revenue Department, concerned Municipal Corporations and Civil Defence Volunteers deputed in each of the districts for monitoring construction activity and taking preventing and punitive action against the violators of the Dust Control Norms may be continued for the time being. The minister observed that ready mixed concrete plants need to be inspected regularly for checking air pollution. He directed all three MCDs to ensure control of instances of burning in open and compliance of dust control measures, failing which senior officers should be held accountable. Hussain directed commissioners of MCDs/PWD and the Delhi Fire Services for undertaking water sprinkling from high-rise buildings especially for settling the suspended dust particles. He also urged the citizens of Delhi to minimise use of private vehicles and use public transport during this period. In a meeting attended by Delhi chief secretary, MCD, NDMC, Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Revenue Department, Department, Transport Department, Power Department, Industries Department, Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) among others. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Monday denied the charge by RLSP president Upendra Kushwaha that he was called "neech" (lowly person) by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. "Nitish Kumar never used the word NEECH against any leader in his interaction with the media. I was present at the programme. Still some people are trying to become martyr, but will not succeed," Modi tweeted. The senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was referring to a programme held here by a private channel on November 4. At the function, in response to a query about seat-sharing among NDA allies in the state and Kushwaha's reservations about it, Kumar had said: "Do not lower the level of discourse so much." Kushwaha had construed this as him having been called a "lowly person" by Kumar. Reacting to Modi's tweet, Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) spokesperson Madhaw Anand alleged that the deputy chief minister was playing the role of a counsel "who did not charge a fee". "Honourable Deputy Chief Minister, do not think the people of Bihar are so naive that they are incapable of comprehending the hidden meaning of a statement. You are requested, with folded hands, to focus on solving problems of the people of Bihar instead of becoming a counsel who does not charge a fee," Anand posted on Twitter. Another NDA ally, the Lok Janshakti Party, also asserted that Nitish Kumar cannot make any inappropriate remark against anyone. "I do not think Nitish Kumar can make any inappropriate remark against anybody. Moreover, Kushwaha must not go public with every grievance that he has with other NDA partners. He should look at Kumar's JDU. It has not spoken a word on his allegations," LJP leader Chirag Paswan told reporters. Kushwaha on Sunday met Chirag's father and LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan in a bid to solicit the latter's support on the issues of seat-sharing and Kumar's alleged remark. Kushwaha has reportedly been peeved after the and the Janata Dal (United) decided to contest an equal number of seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election in Bihar. The state sends 40 members to the Parliament and after the BJP-JDU deal, there is speculation that this would mean fewer seats for other allies like the RLSP and the LJP. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Telangana Caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and leaders of various political parties Monday condoled the death of Union Minister Ananth Kumar. Rao remembered Kumar's services as a parliamentarian and political leader and conveyed condolences to the bereaved family, a release from Rao's office said. Recalling his long association with Kumar, both in the party and in Parliament, BJP MP Bandaru Dattatreya said Kumar had rendered yeoman's services as a Union Minister in the NDA governments led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi. Dattatreya also hailed the services of Kumar to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Expressing shock over the demise of Kumar, BJP state unit president K Laxman recalled the departed leader's services, including as the 'pramukh' for veteran leader L K Advani's 'yatra' in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Ananth Kumar, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister and long-time BJP leader, died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months. The Bangalore South MP, who returned home in October after undergoing treatment in the US and Britain, breathed his last around 2 am. President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and leaders across the political spectrum condoled the death of the death of the six-time parliamentarian. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The supervisor-cum-store keeper of Sati Tea Estate at Namsai district in Arunachal Pradesh has been abducted by armed militants, police said Monday. The tea estate belongs to former MLA Nang Sati Mein and the abductors have demanded a ransom of Rs three crore, the police said. The victim, identified as Debabrata Deb works at Sati Tea Estate was abducted from his temporary residence at around 7.15 pm on Saturday evening. The kidnappers were carrying sophisticated weapons and had reportedly introduced themselves as members of Udoy Asom group of the outlawed ULFA-Independent faction, the police said. Security forces have swung into action to ensure safe release of the person, the police added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami and DMK President M K Stalin condoled the death of Union Minister Ananth Kumar, who passed away in Bengaluru on Monday. Kumar (59), Parliamentary Affairs and Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister, died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months. Expressing grief over the senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader's demise, Palaniswami said Kumar had joined politics at a young age with the aim of doing public service. "He had the distinction of being elected MP for six times from Bengaluru South from 1996 to 2014," Palaniswami said in a statement, expressing sympathy with Kumar's family. Stalin, Leader of Opposition in the state assembly, also condoled Kumar's demise. "Very sad to hear the demise of Union Minister Thiru (Mr) Ananth Kumar. My sincere condolences to his family and near ones," the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader said in a tweet. The BJP's state President Tamilisai Soundararajan, said Kumar's demise was not only a loss for the party's Karnataka unit, but also for the country. He "efficiently coordinated" Parliament's affairs and was instrumental in the BJP's growth in south India, she said on Twitter. "He was a guide for Tamil Nadu BJP unit," she added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "The Canadian summer swim trials were not well attended." Jason Walton was this week's winner. The winner's name will be put into a drawing for a free month subscription or extension. Look for a new photo Monday. Cyclonic storm Gaja will cross Tamil Nadu coast between Cuddalore and Pamban on Nov 15, bringing heavy rainfall coupled with gale wind, the Met office said Monday as the state government put its machinery on alert and kept on standby 30,500 rescue personnel. Neighbouring union territory of Puducherry, which is also covered by the cyclone alert, said it is on high alert as well and precautionary steps are being taken to meet the situation. The cyclone lay about 720 km east northeast of Chennai over the Bay on Monday and it is very likely to move west southwestwards and intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm by Tuesday, the IMD said in its latest bulletin. Tamil Nadu Chief Minsiter K Palaniswami chaired a high- level meeting at the Secretariat of Ministers and top officials to review the preparedness in the wake of the storm and forcast of heavy rainfall. Revenue Minsiter R B Udaya Kumar said 30,500 rescue personnel were on standby while arrangemets had been made for food and shelter at relief centres for those in low lying areas. Across the state, a total of 4,399 locations have been identified as vulnerable and teams have been deployed for rescue, he told reporters. Also, teams of the National and State Disaster Response Forces are ready for deployment. Vigil has been mouted in coastal districts and meetings have been held to review preparedness, he said. Coatal and vulnerable districts including Cuddalore and Nagapattinam have been advised high alert, Udaya Kumar said. The IMD said the system was likely to weaken gradually and cross Tamil Nadu coast between Cuddalore and Pamban as a cyclonic storm on November 15 forenoon. It forecast rainfall at most places in Tamil Nadu on November 14 and extremely heavy (over 20 cm) in isolated places in norther parts of the state the next day. It also advised fishermen not to venture into sea whose condition will be rough to very rough from Tuesday morning while the wind speed is expected to up further touching 110 kmph. Storm surge of height of about 1.0 meter is very likely to inundate low lying areas of Nagappattinam, Thanjavur, Pudukkottai and Ramanathapuram districts of Tamil Nadu and Karaikal district of Puducherry at the time of landfall. The IMD also warned of major damage to thatched huts and houses. "Roof tops may blow off ...damage to power and communication lines," it said adding standing crops could also be hit and cautioned sea water intrusion in low lying areas. Citing the IMD forecast of heavy rains, the Central Water Commission issued an advisory to Tamil Nadu and Kerala authorities to maintain strict vigil at various dams which come under the "cyclone field" and are already 80 per cent to 91 per cent full. Puducherry Revenue and Industries Minister M O H F Shah Jahan said the union territory has been put on high alert. Services of NDRF personnel will be requisitioned if warranted, he said after a review meeing with top officials. Banners, billboards should be removed considering safety, he said. The Minister appealed to people to not trust fake information on social media. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Puducherry Chief Minister and Congress leader V Narayanasamy Monday alleged that the ruling TRS in Telangana did not implement its electoral promises and failed on other counts and said it was high time it should be ousted from power. "By the time of bifurcation, it was a surplus state (Telangana). Now, it has become debt-ridden state. Rs 2.20 lakh crore is the debt for this governemnt. The burden is on the common man, not on the Chief Minister. Therefore, he is instrumental in making the state bankrupt," he told PTI here. Narayanasamy visited Gandhi Bhavan, the headquarters of Congress in Telangana, here Monday. More than 4,000 farmers committed suicide in Telangana due to the failure of the state government, he claimed. "Twelve per cent reservation for STs, 12 per cent reservation for minorities. It has been given a go by. It has not been done," he said. The Chandrasekhar Rao government had failed to serve the cause of those who sacrificed their life for separate Telangana, he claimed. It was "surprising to know" that there was no woman member in the state cabinet, he said. It was during Congress regime that prestigious projects like Central government institutions, IT sector, and flyovers came up in Hyderabad, he said. "It is high time the KCR government should go," he said. Narayanasamy said he would be available to the party for campaigning in Telangana if he was invited. Asked about TRS' criticism that the alliance between Congress and TDP for the Assembly polls is "unholy" as the Telugu Desam Party was formed on anti-Congress plank, he asked whether the TRS 'alliance' with the BJP was holy. The TRS supported NDA in the no-confidence motion moved against the government in Lok Sabha, he said. Telangana goes to polls on December 7. Congress has teamed up with TDP, CPI and Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) for the elections. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump discussed a host of issues -- including Syria, trade, the situation in Saudi Arabia, sanctions, Afghanistan, China and North Korea -- during his meetings with the world leaders in France, the White House said. Around 70 world leaders, including US President Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, gathered in Paris on Sunday to mark the centenary of the 1918 Armistice in the French capital. Trump returned to Washington late Sunday night. "Today (Sunday) at lunch, the President sat with (French) President (Emanuel) Macron, (German) Chancellor (Angela) Merkel, and (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin, and many other world leaders," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. "The leaders discussed a variety of issues, including the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty), Syria, trade, the situation in Saudi Arabia, sanctions, Afghanistan, China, and North Korea. They had very good and productive discussions during the two-hour lunch," she said. Sanders also defended Trump's decision to cancel his scheduled visit to a US cemetery in France due to rain. Trump was heavily criticised for cancelling a trip to Belleau Wood battlefield in northern France on Saturday due to rain, with some critics accusing him of disrespecting America's war dead. "Because of near-zero visibility, Marine One was unable to fly, as had been planned," Sanders said. "A car ride of two-and-a-half hours, each way, would have required closures to substantial portions of the Paris roadways for the President's motorcade, on short notice. President Trump did not want to cause that kind of unexpected disruption to the city and its people," she explained. Sanders further said Trump was "honoured" to be able to attend a similar event on Sunday at the Suresnes American Cemetery and was "deeply moved by the sacrifices of so many for the cause of freedom". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Turkey on Monday slammed as "unacceptable" comments by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian accusing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of playing a "political game" over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey had shared recordings linked to the Saudi journalist's murder last month with Riyadh, as well as the United States, France, Britain and other allies, without giving details of the tapes' specific content. In an interview with France 2 on Monday, Le Drian said he "for the moment was not aware" of any information transmitted by Ankara. Asked if the Turkish president was lying, he said: "It means that he has a political game to play in these circumstances." His comments provoked fury in Ankara. "We find it unacceptable that he accused President Erdogan of 'playing political games'," communications director at the Turkish presidency Fahrettin Altun told AFP. "Let us not forget that this case would have been already covered up had it not been for Turkey's determined efforts." Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor and critic of the Saudi government, was last seen entering the consulate on October 2 to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage to a Turkish woman. After repeated denials, Saudi Arabia finally admitted the 59-year-old had been murdered at the mission in a "rogue" operation. "Le Drian's most recent comments on Turkey's handling of Jamal Khashoggi's murder does not reflect the facts," said Altun. He said Ankara shared evidence linked to the murder with officials from a large number of countries and that France was "no exception". "I confirm that evidence pertaining to the Khashoggi murder has also been shared with the relevant agencies of the French government," he said. A representative of French intelligence listened to the audio recording and detailed information including a transcript on October 24, he added. "If there is miscommunication between the French government's various agencies, it is up to the French authorities -- not Turkey -- to take care of that problem. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Shehla Rashid has deactivated her Twitter account since the "toxicity and negativity" on the microblogging platform had started affecting her psychologically. "After 8 yrs of using Twitter, I'm deactivating my account. I've tried engaging, I've tried blocking/reporting but the amount of toxicity & negativity that exists out here is insane. I can't deal with such hate, lies and manipulation. Thanks to all of you who've been supportive," Rashid said on Sunday. Talking to PTI, Rashid, who had close to 500 thousand followers, said her going off on Twitter should be an "SOS call" to it. "The abuse on Twitter started in 2010. The platform is such that it enables an ecosystem where abusers can gang up against you using many hashtags and it has been effectively used by the right-wing voices. It is not freedom of expression but an attack on freedom of expression," she said. Rashid said it was not a good thing to wake up to abusive tweets in the morning and almost a 1,000 such tweets everyday had started taking a toll on her "psychogically". "The platform has become extremely polarised. If I extended condolences to the Opposition over something or even congratulated the Opposition over something, I used to get hate messages," she said. Rashid said there is a "chalta hai" attitude here and the twitter accounts are not suspended very proactively. "Take the case of Jagrati Shukla (a consultant at Lok Sabha TV) whose Twitter account was suspended for hateful comments only recently. She had earlier tweeted in support of the Sikh genocide and other such messages but it was only now that her account was suspended," she said. There were claims made on Twitter that Rashid left the microblogging platform since there were allegations against her of "not giving the funds she collected through crowdfunding for the Kathua gangrape victim", but she denied the charges. "This is rubbish! These allegations are being levelled for a long time now," Rashid said, adding that she is not sure whether she would be returning to Twitter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two Palestinians were killed and three others wounded as Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza on Monday, the strip's Hamas-run health ministry said in a statement. The ministry said that the dead men were civilians, but the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militant group said in a statement that they were its fighters. The air raids followed a barrage of rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave into southern Israel, for which Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas claimed responsibility. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) British Prime Minister Theresa May said Tuesday her government was working "extremely hard" to save a Brexit deal that continued slipping out of grasp despite frantic negotiations with the European Union. May spoke to leaders of London's City financial district with anxiety mounting over the doomsday possibility of Britain crashing out of the 27-nation bloc in March without an agreement. The British prime minister hopes to seal divorce terms that can maintain frictionless trade -- and assure there is no panic on the markets -- by the end of November. But the latest in a series of crunch meetings between top negotiators in Brussels on Sunday broke up without a breakthrough a few hours after midnight. "The negotiations for our departure are now in the endgame," May's office quoted her as telling a reception in the heart of London's financial district. "And we are working extremely hard, through the night, to make progress on the remaining issues in the withdrawal agreement, which are significant." A UK government source said a deal must happen by Wednesday if there is any hope of an extraordinary EU summit this month to sign the withdrawal agreement. The crisis could otherwise drag on until a regular EU summit on December 13. This would dramatically curtail the time May will have to get any agreement past a rebellious British parliament before Brexit day on March 29. The pound dropped to 1.285 dollars from Friday's close of 1.297 on fears of the saga ending in a messy divorce that fails to establish short-term trading rules between one of Europe's biggest economies and the rest of the bloc. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will visit Saudi Arabia on Monday where he will press King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. During a trip to the region that includes a visit to the United Arab Emirates, Hunt will also seek to build support for UN efforts to end the conflict in Yemen, the Foreign Office said. His visit comes amid an international diplomatic crisis over the murder of Saudi journalist Khashoggi, a US resident, at his country's consulate in Istanbul in October. "The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago," said Hunt, who will also meet Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. "It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear. "We encourage the Saudi authorities to co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death, so that we deliver justice for his family and the watching world." During his brief visit to the Gulf, Hunt will also meet Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Yemeni Vice President Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani. Britain is seeking support among regional partners for new action at the UN Security Council for peace talks in Yemen. "The human cost of war in Yemen is incalculable: with millions displaced, famine and disease rife and years of bloodshed, the only solution is now a political decision to set aside arms and pursue peace," Hunt said. "Britain has a unique position, both as pen-holder at the UN Security Council and as a key influencer in the region, so today I am travelling to the Gulf to demand that all sides commit to this process. "We are witnessing a man-made humanitarian catastrophe on our watch: now is the window to make a difference, and to get behind both the UN peace process and current UK efforts in the Security Council." The Foreign Office also said Hunt would raise the case of Matthew Hedges, a PhD student who denies charges of spying in the UAE. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Separatist leaders in Russian-backed areas of eastern Ukraine on Monday looked set for an expected victory according to preliminary results in polls condemned as illegal by Kiev and Western countries. Elections in the Donetsk and Lugansk "People's Republics", controlled by separatists since breaking away from Ukraine's pro-Western government in 2014, took place after the killing of the rebel Donetsk "president" in a bomb attack in August. Security was tight with gun-toting, camouflage-clad guards deployed to ensure order. "Today we have proved to the world that we can not only fight, not only win on the battlefield but also build a state based on real democratic principles," Denis Pushilin, the 37-year-old acting Donetsk leader who is expected to win, told a crowd during a concert at the main square. In partial results that matched expectations, Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik, the acting Lugansk leader, were largely ahead with 57 percent and 70 percent respectively, with around a third of votes counted. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel branded the vote "illegal and illegitimate" following a meeting with Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko on the sidelines of World War I commemorations also attended by Russian leader Vladimir Putin. "These so-called elections undermine the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine," the pair said in a joint statement. Washington and Brussels had asked Russia not to allow the polls to go ahead, arguing they would further hamper efforts to end a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014. "The people in eastern Ukraine will be better off within a unified Ukraine at peace rather than in a second-rate police state run by crooks and thugs, all subsidized by Russian taxpayers," tweeted Kurt Volker, the US special envoy to Ukraine. Kiev urged the West to punish Russia for violating a 2015 peace agreement, while Poroshenko earlier called on east Ukrainians to snub the vote "at gunpoint". "Russia is conducting fake elections in Donbass," Poroshenko said, referring to war-torn eastern Ukraine. But Russia and local authorities rejected the criticism, saying residents in eastern Ukraine deserved a chance at a normal life and stressing that the turnout was high. "There was mortar shelling again yesterday. I was even afraid of going to vote," Natalya, who declined to give her last name, told AFP at a polling station on the outskirts of Donetsk, a few kilometres (miles) from the frontlines. The 61-year-old retiree, who lives in a building with boarded-up windows, said all she wanted was peace and a better pension. Another voter, Lyudmila Sharakhina, said she wanted her rebel region to join Russia. "Of course, we would like to become (part of) Russia, like Crimea did," the 60-year-old said at a polling station at a school that doubles as a bomb shelter. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and supported the outbreak of the insurgency in eastern Ukraine in what Kiev sees as punishment for its pivot to the West. While heavy fighting is over, the conflict regularly claims the lives of soldiers and civilians. Four Ukrainian soldiers died in recent days, Kiev said on Saturday. Peace negotiations have hit deadlock and Western-backed accords agreed in 2015 are largely moribund. Many analysts say the polls are a way for Moscow to strengthen its grip on around three percent of Ukrainian territory where 3.7 million people live. Moscow, which denies funnelling troops and arms across the border, says the polls are necessary to fill the power vacuum after the assassination of rebel Donetsk leader Alexander Zakharchenko. While several candidates ran in each of the two regions, Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik were expected to win. Officials pulled out all the stops to encourage a high turnout, setting up food stalls near polling stations and offering lottery tickets to those who voted. Officials said more than 80 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballots in the Donetsk stronghold, while turnout stood at 77 percent in the Lugansk region at the close of polls. People also cast votes for local councillors but some voters said their opinions did not matter. "Two global masters -- the United States and Russia -- are dividing territories," said Yury, a 50-year-old Donetsk resident, declining to give his surname. Vladimir, a 36-year-old customs broker, said he did not vote, adding that Pushilin would likely win in Donetsk. "It appears that Russia has already chosen him," he told AFP, also declining to provide his surname. Kiev's Western backers say that in order to settle the conflict, Russia should withdraw troops from eastern Ukraine and agree to a UN peacekeeping mission. The last separatist elections were held in 2014 despite protests from the West and Kiev. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister and long-time BJP leader Ananth Kumar died at a private hospital here in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months. He was 59. The Bangalore South MP, who returned home in October after undergoing treatment in the US and Britain, breathed his last around 2 am with his wife Tejaswini and two daughters by his side, B R Nagaraj, chairperson of the board of trustees of Sri Shankara Cancer Foundation, told PTI. The Union minister, who passed away from complications following cancer and infection, had been on the ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit for the last few days, his office said in a statement. His mortal remains will be kept at his residence here the entire day Monday and the last rites will be performed Tuesday, the Karnataka unit of the BJP said. The body will be taken to the state BJP office and the National College ground, which falls in his constituency, before the funeral at Chamarajapete crematorium, it said. The national flag will fly at half mast throughout the country on Monday as a mark of respect to Kumar, the Home Ministry announced in Delhi. The Karnataka government has declared three-day state mourning and a holiday on Monday as a mark of respect to the leader, a staunch RSS idealogue who was the first person to speak in Kannada in the United Nations. President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and leaders across the political spectrum condoled the death of the death of the six-time parliamentarian. Expressing his condolences, President Kovind said, "This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates." Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu described Kumar as a "colleague for years together, from students' movement to Parliament" and hailed him as a "dedicated statesman". The prime minister said he was extremely saddened by the passing away of a "valued colleague and friend" and described him as a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. "Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas," Modi said in a tweet. He said he had spoken to Kumar's wife to express condolences. "My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti," he said. "I'm sorry to hear about the passing of Union Minister, Shri Ananth Kumar ji, in Bengaluru, earlier this morning. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace. Om Shanti," Congress chief Gandhi said in his message. Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy described Kumar as a "value based" politician who made significant contribution to the country as a parliamentarian and a union minister. "Kumar's pro-people attitude and activities made him apple of the eye of Bengalurians," Kumaraswamy said. Kumar steadily climbed up the political ladder, beginning as an RSS worker to becoming a Union minister when he was only in his 30s. He enjoyed the credit of being the "youngest" minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet in 1998. He remained in the inner circle of the central leadership of the BJP -- be it during the heyday of Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Narendra Modi now. Kumar first got elected to Lok Sabha in 1996 from Bangalore South, the constituency which remained his bastion till his death. He joined the BJP in 1987 and never looked back, holding the posts of state secretary, state president of the Yuva Morcha, party general secretary and national secretary. Along with state BJP chief Yeddyurappa, Kumar is among the few party leaders who can be credited for the growth of the BJP in Karnataka, bringing it to power in 2008 and making it the first saffron party government in the South. Senior BJP leader R Ashoka said Home Minister Rajnath Singh has confirmed that he would be in the city to pay his last respects but the party was yet to receive any intimation about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Algeria has not yet responded to Moroccos invitation for a frank dialogue in order to mend bilateral relations and build a strong regional union. After no formal response was issued, some Algerian papers cited a senior official in the Algerian regime as qualifying the call for dialogue as a non-event. The same official reiterated his countrys stance of laying pre-conditions for dialogue between the two countries. Such statements show Algerias lack of interest in reviving the moribund Maghreb Union, which can only be built through a frank dialogue between the two heavyweights, Morocco and Algeria. In Algeria unfortunately there is only much fuss when it comes to the Maghreb Union. Algeria, the country that shares borders with all countries of the Maghreb, is urging efforts to build the Maghreb but at the same time maintains its borders closed with almost all its neighbors. This closed-border attitude is reflective of a lack of a neighborhood policy in an increasingly integrated continent where collective efforts are the best means to countering trans-border challenges. Algeria has kept its borders closed with Morocco since 1994. Despite multiple calls from its western neighbor to open the borders for the flow of people and goods, Algeria sticks to its decision in a bid to suffocate Moroccos eastern region economically. The hidden agenda behind closing the borders with Morocco was an illusion nurtured by the Algerian regime that the Kingdom will succumb to their oil-funded hegemonic schemes in the region. Algeria, which hosts, arms and funds the separatist Polisario militia, has made of isolating Morocco the supreme goal of its diplomacy. Deeming the Maghreb integration as a zero sum game, Algerian officials, who continue to be hostage to a cold war mentality, think that opening the borders will be more beneficial for Morocco, which has an attractive tourist market luring Algerian tourists. They also think that the free movement of goods will mostly benefit Morocco, which has a free market and a more competitive industry in contrast to Algerias full dependency on hydrocarbons as a source of revenue. Yet, they ignore that maintaining the status quo by keeping the Algerian economy isolated will further undermine competitiveness and leave Algeria in the rear bottom of doing business ranking. Using the security alibi to prevent the freedom of movement of people and goods in the region is flawed. Fighting terrorism and drug trafficking in the region should be a collective endeavor as national approaches have long proved their inefficiency. Algerias hegemonic schemes, its closed-border policy and support for separatism in the Sahara have been factors that hampered the achievement of the Maghreb Union. The economic cost is tremendous. The low performance of this regional block is evidenced in an intra-Maghreban trade not exceeding 4.8% of the Maghrebs trade volume representing less than 2% of the sub-regions combined GDP. If the five Maghreb countries were integrated, each would gain a minimum 5% rise in GDP, the World Economic Forum said in a report published in late 2017. Deeper integration, including the liberalizing of services and reform of investment rules would have increased the per capita real GDP between 2005 and 2015 by 34% for Algeria, 27% for Morocco and 24% for Tunisia. In light of the lack of willingness from Algerian officials to engage in sincere efforts to reinvigorate the Union along the lines of its founding Marrakesh Treaty, the Maghreb Union will remain one of the worst performing trading blocks in the world, pushing its member states to seek alternatives elsewhere. Senior BJP leader and Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar died at a private hospital here in the early hours of Monday, party spokesman said. He was suffering from cancer and had come back from the US in October after treatment at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, New York. Kumar, 59, is survived by wife and two daughters. He breathed his last around 4 am, party spokesman Prakash told PTI. Kumar's wife Tejaswini and his two daughters were with him when he passed away, he said. Kumar was a BJP MP from south Bengaluru constituency. Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the demise of Kumar. "Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work," he tweeted. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also expressed deep sorrow over Kumar's death. "Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss," she tweeted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States on Monday dismissed leadership elections in separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine as a "sham" one day after voters cast their ballots. "The United States joins our European Allies and partners in condemning the November 11 sham 'elections' in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. "Yesterday's illegitimate processes were an attempt by Moscow to institutionalize its Donbas proxies, the so-called 'Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Steel wire maker Usha Martin Monday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 25.27 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2018, helped by asset sales and write-backs. The company had incurred a loss of Rs 72.68 crore during the same quarter a year ago, Usha Martin Limited (UML) said in a statement. Its total income rose to Rs 645.63 crore in the quarter from Rs 534.36 crore in July-September of financial year 2017-18. Its expenses were at Rs 616.46 crore as against Rs 504.30 crore in the same quarter of the preceding fiscal. "Other income for the quarter ended September 30, 2018 include profit on sale of land Rs 260 lakhs, profit on sale of asset held for disposal Rs 612 lakhs and liabilities no longer required written back Rs 1,064 lakhs (June 30, 2018 includes Rs 204 lakhs towards liabilities no longer required written back)," the company said in a statement. On November 11, UML had said that its shareholders have approved the sale of the company's steel business to Tata Steel as a going concern on a slump sale basis. A special resolution in this regard was passed with requisite majority at Usha Martin Limited's extraordinary general meeting, with 99.99 per cent shareholders voting in its favour, the company had informed the exchanges in a regulatory filing. "The resolution proposed herein above has been passed with requisite majority," Usha Martin said. Tata Steel had earlier said it has executed definitive agreements for the acquisition of UML's steel business for Rs 4,300-4,700 crore through a slump sale on a going concern basis. According to Usha Martin Limited (UML), the sale of its steel business to Tata Steel will help the company significantly reduce its debt. Meanwhile, Prashant Jhawar, former Chairman of Usha Martin, urged stock exchanges to seek information from the company related to its debt level as on September 30, 2018 besides other financial details. In a letter to stock exchanges on Monday, he said that "as per two articles, the MD (Managing Director) and CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of Usha Martin reported that post sale of steel division of the said company, the outstanding debt of Rs 4,700 crore as on June 30, will get reduced to close to Rs 400 crore." Jhawar has claimed that the this could be a possible attempt to mislead investors and manipulate the share price. "We urge your exchange to seek information from authorised representative of the UML," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US-India Business Council President Nisha Biswal Monday met IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to discuss various issues ranging from proposed data protection law to visas. The meeting comes at a time when changes are being proposed by the US administration around definition of specialty occupations under the H-1B visas, which would potentially raise costs for IT services companies. Sources in the IT ministry said that the visa issue figured prominently during the meeting that lasted for over 30 minutes. The minister is said to have emphasised the value addition being done by Indian IT companies in making US firms more competitive. Sources said that the Minister also highlighted the benefits that accrue to American companies in using the services of Indian IT firms, which are, in turn, making significant investments and creating jobs in the US. The discussions also touched upon promoting business-to-business links and issues around data privacy, sources said. The Minister is learnt to have underlined the increasing significance of data sovereignty, and how certain sensitive data concerning individuals needs to be accorded sanctity. India is taking firm measures to safeguard personal information and has drafted data protection bill that proposes "explicit consent" for processing 'sensitive personal information', defines obligations of data processors and rights of individuals. Prasad is also said to have discussed the Digital India initiative, and the opportunities it presents for companies. The Minister is said to have pointed out the importance of co-operation between democratic nations, particularly the US and India, to address the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital world. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Gulf-bound passenger was barred from boarding his flight after CISF personnel found a venomous snake in his baggage, police said Monday. Sunil, a resident of Palakkad, had bought a packet of Chinese potatoes from a local farmer which had the reptile in it, they said. On Sunday evening, he was scheduled to leave for Abu Dhabi on an Air India Express flight but was stopped after the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel detected the reptile in his bag during checking at the airport, they added. The CISF personnel identified the reptile as an Indian Krait, a venomous species. The officials handed over Sunil to the airport police, however, no case was registered against him as the snake, small in size, was found in the packet bought by Sunil unsuspectingly, the police said. He was later let off, they added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) VF Worldwide Holdings, operating as VFS Global, Monday said it has signed a contract with the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic for providing visa services in 10 countries, including in India. Under this new contract, VFS Global will provide visa services for Slovakia in India, China, Kazakhstan, Palestine, Belarus, Russia, Kuwait, UAE, Turkey and Egypt, through 38 Visa Application Centres, a release said. The rollout of all these new operations is expected to be completed by December 2018, it added. ******************* UFO Moviez Q2 net drops marginally to Rs 9.96 cr * Digital cinema distribution firm UFO Moviez Monday reported a marginal decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 9.96 crore in the September quarter, against Rs 10.20 crore posted in the same period previous fiscal. Its consolidated revenue stood at Rs 133.50 crore, against Rs 139.18 crore in the year-ago period, the company said in a release. ******************* DSP Investment Managers launches open-ended fund * DSP Investment Managers Monday launched an open-ended scheme DSP Healthcare Fund, which will invest in equity and equity related securities of healthcare and pharma sectors, with some portfolio allocation to foreign securities. The new fund offer that closes on November 26, may invest up to 25 per cent in international healthcare stocks, especially large US companies, the company said in a release. The fund will be managed by Aditya Khemka and Vinit Sambre, while Jay Kothari would be the dedicated fund manager for overseas investments. The benchmark for the fund would be S&P BSE Healthcare Index. ******************* Gulf Oil Lubricants Q2 net drops marginally to Rs 40.29 cr * Gulf Oil Lubricants Monday posted a marginal decline in net profit to Rs 40.29 crore in the September quarter, from Rs 40.42 crore reported in the year-ago quarter. Net revenue rose 29.19 per cent to Rs 417,21 crore, against Rs 322.95 crore in the year-ago period, the company said in a release. The company continued its growth momentum during the quarter under review recording a volume growth of 22 per cent in its core business with growth coming in from across all business segments and product categories, it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday expressed grief over the passing away of Union minister Ananth Kumar. "Saddened at the passing away of Ananth Kumar ji, six time MP and Union Cabinet minister. My heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and supporters," Banerjee wrote in her Twitter handle this morning. Describing him as a "brilliant organiser" and an "able administrator", who handled many ministerial portfolios, Tripathi said his tragic demise is a great loss to the country. The Governor also conveyed his heart-felt condolences to Ananth's bereaved family and his numerous followers. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. Kumar, 59, had come back to Bengaluru only recently after undergoing treatment in the US and Britain. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Australia's ODI captain Aaron Finch on Monday warned the "under-pressure" batsmen of his side to be ready for some shake-ups ahead of the series against India following their lacklustre showing recently against South Africa. Australia's one-day batsmen are under mounting pressure to keep their places after losing the series 1-2 against South Africa on Sunday. "We're all under pressure when we lose, no doubt about that,"admitted Finch, hinting at possible changes in the batting line-up ahead of the forthcoming series against India in January. "Between the batting line-up not having got it right for a little while now there's going to be questions asked whether it's Maxi (Glenn Maxwell), Lynny (Chris Lynn), Heady (Travis Head), or myself or (Marcus) Stoin," he said. Finch said Australia need to find balance in their batting line-up ahead of the important series against India. "It's important that we really nut out the balance of the side and get that right over the next two months," he said. "We have to either adapt our game plan a little bit around the way the side structures up best or we slightly change our personnel to fit a style that we think can win. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi Monday conveyed his greetings to the people of the state on the occasion of the Chhath Puja celebrations. In a statement, Tripathi hoped that the festival provides an opportunity to reconfirm faith in the cultural heritage and spirit of friendship among all sections of the society. Chhath Puja is celebrated in Bihar, Jharkhand, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and also in neighbouring Nepal. This year Chhath Puja is being celebrated over four days starting Sunday to Wednesday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The governments of Morocco and India agreed on Monday to provide mutual legal assistance (MLA) in the fight against crimes and particularly in the extradition of fugitives who are accused of economic offenses, terrorism and other serious crimes. The cooperation pact was signed in New Delhi by Indias Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju and Moroccos Minister of Justice Mohamed Aujjar. The agreement will strengthen bilateral cooperation with Morocco and enhance effectiveness and provide a broad legal framework for prevention, investigation and prosecution of crimes; as well as in tracing, restraint and confiscation of funds meant to finance terrorist acts, said Indias ministry of Home Affairs in a press release. In August, Moroccos Interior Ministry and India International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore inked a Memorandum of Understanding for developing a modular open source platform (MOSIP), a digital platform that will enable the North African Kingdom to register its citizens and foreign residents with unique identities. Morocco will be the first country to participate in the development of MOSIP and will be its first user. The project is backed by the World Bank as part of its efforts to implement digital identification systems across the world. Sri Lanka's ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced Monday to forge a new political alliance to fight the January 5 general elections even as he dismissed President Maithripala Sirisena's justification for dissolving Parliament, saying no one had feared any bloodshed. Sirisena dissolved Parliament on November 9 and announced snap polls to be held on January 5 next year after it became evident that he did not have enough support in the House to prove the premiership of 72-year-old Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he appointed prime minister after abruptly sacking Wickremesinghe on October 26. The President said the decision to dissolve Parliament was taken to prevent clashes among rival lawmakers and blamed Speaker Karu Jayasuriya for not accepting his presidential powers. Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party (UNP), said his party will form a new alliance with the other parties with a new face to pull the nation out of the present crisis, Daily Mirror reported. He also responded to Sirisena's address in which he blamed Speaker Jayasuriya for creating a situation to force snap polls, saying no one had feared any bloodshed in Parliament or murder inside the chamber. "If the President had any information, he should have informed the Speaker then it would be the Speaker's duty to take necessary steps," Wickremesinghe said. On Sirisena's charge that parliamentarians were being traded for large sums of money to extend support, Wickremesinghe said: "it was the President who took some of our people to his side and gave them ministerial posts, so he should know about members of Parliament being traded for money". Recalling his uneasy three-year alliance with Sirisena, the ousted premier said: "I faced various challenges, slander and heartburn. I tolerated them with patience because I wanted to uphold the mandate we received in 2015". "It is not possible to build up a nation through undemocratic and destructive means. We will not allow anyone to destroy this nation which we have managed to safeguard at the risk of our lives. "I promise to pull this nation through the present curse by associating myself in a new and a broad alliance. Therefore I invite everyone to join this new political force," Wickremesinghe was quoted as saying by the daily. Rajapaksa, who ruled Lanka for a nearly decade from 2005, was unexpectedly defeated by his deputy Sirisena in the presidential election held in January 2015 with the support from Wickremesinghe's UNP. However, the power-sharing arrangement between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe became increasingly tenuous on several policy matters, especially on issues like the economy and security. And subsequently, Sirisena abruptly ousted Wickremesinghe and replaced him with Rajapaksa. The island nation plunged into a constitutional crisis following the move. Sirisena suspended parliamentary proceedings until November 16. Later, owing to domestic and global pressure, he issued a notice to reconvene Parliament on November 14. last week, he dissolved Parliament and announced snap polls in January, 2019. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A woman security guard at a hostel attached to a nursing college was Monday stabbed multiple times in the neck in Maharashtra's Thane district, police said. Babita Dubey (40) suffered grievous injuries and is being shifted to state-run JJ Hospital in neighbouring Mumbai from the Thane Civil Hospital here, a senior police official said. Zonal Deputy Commissioner of Police Avinash Ambure said accused Vikas Dhanavade was handed over to the police by onlookers. He said further probe was underway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu Monday said he raised the issue of multilateralism, black money and economic offences before global leaders who had come together at the centenary of the armistice of World War I in Paris. Naidu, who represented India at the just concluded meeting, said the world has moved from World War 1 for territories to the modern battles for markets' and effective integration of global markets through multilateralism is the battle of the present times. He also highlighted the issue of terrorism and climate change as major challenges faced by humanity and the need for collective efforts to address these issues. The Vice-President called for addressing the present asymmetries and the need for reform of United Nations Security Council, which he said currently does not represent 70 per cent of the world population, and stressed on making it a multilateral forum. "The wars of the kind of the World War I may be a remote possibility but we have the battles of a new kind to face in the present world order to further the interest of the humanity. "I have told the fellow leaders who attended the Paris events that India would always be willing to play its role in improving the lot of mankind across the territories," he told reporters here. For India and Indians, Nationalism is a spirit for action by which all Indians give their best so that each Indian gets the best due, he said. "In the present world order, national agendas shall merge to form the global agenda for action so that citizens all across the world benefit equally. This approach helps in breaking the walls of protectionism that stand to threaten multilateralism," he noted. "There is a certain need for the world to ensure effective multilateralism that brings all the nations on a common platform to explore common solutions for challenges faced by humanity. We need united efforts of the world to deal with global development priorities such as eradication of poverty, providing education, health care, employment and gender parity," he said. The Vice President, who met around 40 global leaders including US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, said all praised the development efforts and successes being registered by India in its quest for contributing to the progress of humanity. "Wars take different forms in different periods of time. Need of the hour is to draw right lessons from the catastrophic World War I and be united in conquering the battles of the day for the collective benefit of humanity," he told the gathering. The Paris meet provided an opportunity for around 70 global leaders to look at the challenges to the multilateralism and work unitedly to prevent any disaster hitting the mankind in the form of growing protectionism. Naidu said he also unveiled the Indian War Memorial in VillersGuislain, about 200 kms from Paris, commemorating the brave battles fought by Indian soldiers of whom over 40 thousand died during the battle of Cambrai. He also participated in a panel discussion titled Dialogue of Continents on Global Governance' focusing on issues of multilateralism, international institutions and global governance challenges and the means to craft sustainable peace. "I reminded the fellow leaders that thousands of brave Indian soldiers sacrificed their lives 100 years ago fighting for the cause of righteousness and the interest of peace, human liberty and freedom," he said. Since the days of ancient civilization, India has believed in the principle of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam', which means the World is one family, he said. Naidu said free flow of capital and human resources holds the key for betterment of humanity across physical boundaries. "I raised the issue of economic offences and economic fugitives that requires a global consensus and action, especially to make extradition easy," he told the leaders. Stockpiling of arms and military buildup pose distinct threat to world peace and the world should aim at a shared future in a world order guided by commitment to peace, justice and inclusive sustainable development, he said. "To enable this just and peaceful new order, there is a felt need for reform in global institutional structures and systems to ensure transparent and responsive global governance," he said, noting that India has been playing a positive and pro-active role in addressing challenges concerning humanity in the world. The World War I fought between July 1914 November 11, 1918 claimed lives of about 17 million people. About 14 lakh Indian soldiers fought with valour and distinction on numerous battle fields and about 74,000 Indians were killed in this war, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) PARIS (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday he had discussed U.S. steel and aluminium tariffs with President Donald Trump over the weekend and that he hoped to reach a resolution on the matter by the G20 summit in Argentina."I absolutely brought up the issue of steel and aluminium tariffs," Trudeau told a news conference in Paris on Monday.Trump and Trudeau spoke to one another on the sidelines of the Paris Peace Forum.The leaders' summit takes place on Nov 30 and Dec 1. (Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Richard Lough)(This story has not been edited by Business ... By John Geddie and Manuel MogatoSINGAPORE/MANILA (Reuters) - China will further open its economy in the face of rising protectionism, Premier Li Keqiang said as he arrived in Singapore on Monday for meetings with Asia-Pacific leaders that will focus on speeding up work on a major new trade pact.Li's remarks in an article in Singapore's Straits Times newspaper came as Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for more regional integration, saying multilateralism was under threat from political pressures."China has opened its door to the world; we will never close it but open it even ... By Aditi ShahNEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's air safety watchdog on Monday suspended the licence of a senior Air India pilot, who is also the carrier's director of operations, for three years, a day after he failed two breathalyzer tests before a flight to London from New Delhi.This is the second time Arvind Kathpalia has been in trouble over alcohol tests. He was suspended for three months in 2017 for allegedly refusing to take breathalyzer tests. "The privileges of his licence have been suspended for a period of three years from 11.11.2018 as per the provisions of applicable regulations," a ... General Electric Co is pursuing assets sales with "urgency" to reduce its high debt and is unsure when its ailing power business will hit bottom, Chief Executive Officer Larry Culp said in a television interview on Monday, sending its shares down as much as 10 per cent. Culp is facing tough questions about GE's financial strength and earnings prospects after he was named CEO on October 1 with a mandate to turn around the 126-year-old conglomerate. "We have no higher priority right now than bringing leverage levels down," Culp told CNBC. "We have ... By Lawrence White and Emma RumneyLONDON (Reuters) - Britain's big banks, long able to shrug off competition from start-ups, have been spooked by an account launched just six weeks ago by Goldman Sachs that pays savers more.One of the banks admitted privately that it has seen a spike in savers switching, while others have launched new accounts or raised rates to try to nip "Marcus" in the bud.British savers have got used to payouts of 1 percent or less thanks to rock-bottom central bank rates, but the launch of Marcus with a 1.5 percent rate on Sept. 27 has shaken things up.Google searches for ... By Nidhi Verma and Rania El GamalNEW DELHI/DUBAI (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) has signed a preliminary agreement to use half of the Padur strategic reserve facility in Southern India, which can store about 2.5 million tonnes or 18 million barrels of crude, the UAE firm said on Monday.Officials of Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) and ADNOC signed the memorandum of understanding in the presence of Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and ADNOC Chief Executive Sultan al-Jaber.India, the world's third biggest oil importer, is scouting for partners to fill the ... FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Italy's budget crisis is raising broader concerns about the sustainability of its public debt and risks spreading turbulence to others, European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos said on Monday.With Rome locked in a fight with the European Commission over its plans to raise spending, the ECB has made it clear that it will not step in to bring down Italy's borrowing costs as the rise in yield was the result of the government's breach of EU rules. "In Europe, we observe re-emerging debt sustainability concerns," de Guindos told a conference. "As regards public ... Spanish NGO Freedom is Their Right has condemned the systematic violations committed by the Algeria-backed Polisario militia of the rights of the Sahrawi women sequestered in the Tindouf camps, southern Algeria. Speaking at a meeting held over the weekend in Northern Italy on behalf of the NGO, Elisa Pavon Mulero said: we denounce the violations committed by the polisario in the Tindouf camps against several young Sahrawi women. Over fifty Sahrawi girls, who left Tindouf camps seeking better future and who spent several years in Spain with their adoptive families, are being sequestered in the camps after they visited their biological parents, added Mrs. Mulero. These young women are married against their own will, suffer all forms of physical and psychological abuse and are forced to work as domestic servants in flagrant violation of their most basic rights, she stressed, calling the international community to intervene to put an end to their ordeal. Mulero also recalled the complaint filed against the Polisario in 2017 at UN Human Rights Council in addition to the meetings held with members of the European Parliament on the sufferings endured by the Sahrawi women sequestered by the Polisario mercenaries, who are armed, funded and sheltered by the Algerian regime. Freedom is Their right is an NGO representing the host families and adoptive families in Spain of fifty girls sequestered by the Polisario separatist group. In June, a European parliamentary committee held a hearing on the dire and inhumane situation suffered by these Sahrawi women. During the debate, some MEPs called on the European Commission to exert pressure on Algeria to ensure the respect of the fundamental rights of the Tindouf camps inhabitants, including freedom of movement. The MEPs said they were shocked and outraged by the horrifying testimonies of forced marriages, kidnapping, ill-treatment and torture of Sahrawi girls. They called for urgent actions to end the tragedy and the unbearable situation of these Sahrawi girls, several of whom having a Spanish nationality. By Arnab Paul and Aditi ShahBENGALURU/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Debt-laden Indian carrier Jet Airways Ltd will cut flights on less profitable routes and add capacity to more lucrative markets, as part of its effort to lower costs and boost revenues as it struggles to stay aloft. Jet, India's biggest full-service carrier posted its third straight quarterly loss on Monday, hurt by higher fuel expenses and a weaker rupee. "The airline has embarked on a comprehensive review ... The measures will include rationalisation of operations on select, uneconomic routes," Jet said in a statement, adding that ... MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is considering a loan restructuring package for small and medium sized businesses, as well as reviewing lending curbs on some banks, the Economic Times reported on Monday, in a move that could see the regulator bow to government pressure. RBI has barred 11 state-run banks from lending under the so-called prompt corrective action plan until they improve their capital ratios, reduce bad debt and become profitable.But the central bank and the government have been at loggerheads in recent weeks with the latter ramping up pressure on the regulator ... By Maria Kolomychenko and Katya GolubkovaMOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian cybersecurity company Group IB is to open a global headquarters in Singapore this year or in early next as part of international expansion plans, Chief Executive Ilya Sachkov said. Sachkov, 32, is a co-founder of the Moscow-based company which was set up in 2003 and focuses on investigating high-tech crimes and online fraud. Its clients include banks, energy companies, telecom firms ranging from Russia to Latin America, Canada, the United States and Britain. The company also has offices in London, New York and Dubai.The move ... By Tom MilesGENEVA (Reuters) - India has paid out far more in cotton subsidies than the World Trade Organization allows, with payments "vastly in excess" of what it had officially declared, the United States said in a filing to the trade watchdog on Monday.The U.S. assessment of India's market price support (MPS) for cotton said New Delhi was allowed to pay out up to 10 percent of the value of production, but the actual figure had ranged from 53 percent to 81 percent since 2010."It appears that India provides MPS for cotton vastly in excess of what it has reported to the WTO," the U.S. filing ... The free travel insurance that the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) was mandatorily offering till September 1, reportedly left around two lakh passengers vulnerable to hacking attack. And the body handling the online ticketing operations of the Indian Railways learnt about this security vulnerability less than a month before it decided to take back the provision of free insurance. According to The Economic Times, in August, security researcher Avinash Jain discovered the bug in IRCTC's website and mobile app link that connects to a third-party insurance company for free travel insurance. The latter, introduced in December 2016 to encourage customers to book their tickets online, entailed IRCTC sharing passenger details of all travellers with third-party insurers to take the cover. The bug would have given hackers unfettered access to passenger details such as name, age, gender and insurance nominees without their knowledge or consent. Given that the IRCTC handles a huge number of e-tickets daily, this bug could have led to a massive data breach. As per IRCTC's annual report for 2016-17, e-ticketing accounted for 62% of reserved railway tickets in India, with more than 573,000 tickets sold daily through the IRCTC website. The daily could not verify whether any data had been compromised during the nearly two years that IRCTC was clueless about the vulnerability. "Within 10 minutes (after finding the bug) we were able to read almost 1,000 passenger and nominee information," Jain told the daily. On August 14, he wrote to IRCTC alerting them about the problem, which was acknowledged and fixed on August 29. That's just two days before the Indian Railways decided to discontinue offering free mandatory travel insurance and instead allow travellers to choose to pay for the same. Till September 1, after booking a ticket on IRCTC's website or mobile app, passengers had to fill nominee details at the respective insurance company website, generating an encrypted transaction ID. "To get the personal details of a traveller, we needed a valid combination of the transaction ID and passenger name record (PNR) number," said Jain, who has reported critical security vulnerabilities and been rewarded by NASA, Google, and Paytm, among others. "We were able to fetch details of any passenger by decoding the encrypted data (transaction ID/PNR) through brute force." The 10-digit PNR number, which is a record of a person in the database of a computer reservation system, was also obtainable through the brute force technique. "There are three companies offering rail travel insurance, and we found vulnerabilities in the linkage to only Shriram General Insurance," Gurunatha Reddy Gopireddy, co-researcher in the disclosure, told the daily. Links to the other two insurance companies, ICICI Lombard General Insurance and Royal Sundaram General Insurance, did not carry the same bug. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the agency that handles cybersecurity threats, had 53,081 reported incidents in the country in 2017. According to Jain, less than 1% of the reporting to CERT-In comes from security researchers. "Responsible disclosure of flaws is not rewarded by the government," said Jain, adding that Indian researchers received over $1.8 million in bounties last year. (Edited by Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal) The newly-minted millionaires spawned by the $16 billion Walmart-Flipkart deal are busy looking for parking spots for their newfound wealth, and wealth managers and financial services startups are making a beeline for them. As per Walmart's filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, it is obligated to purchase ESOPs worth $800 million from Flipkart's past and present employees in tranches. A chunk of that was doled out to the employees of the ecommerce giant as well as its units Myntra and PhonePe late last month, resulting in a windfall for plenty of folks. So what are the top beneficiaries planning to do with this money? "Largely there are three buckets where Flipkart people are spending," Ankit Nagori, CureFit co-founder and former Flipkart chief business officer, told the daily. "One is on buying cars and bikes and similar luxury items. Secondly, a bunch of people are investing in mutual funds and other investment vehicles. And third, the top earners will invest in startups and become LPs (limited partners) in venture funds." For instance, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal, who made $1 billion from his stake sale to Walmart, is reportedly in talks to invest in homegrown cab aggregator Ola and electric scooter startup Ather Energy. The wealth creation event, the largest in Bengaluru since the historic listing of software giant Infosys Ltd in the late 1990s, has also spawned new business opportunities. Consider Groww for instance. This investment platform, started by former Flipkart employees, launched an investment product with the title "Better Than FD (fixed deposit) for ESOP and Bonus Money" on the day Walmart paid out cash to Flipkart employees. According to Lalit Keshre, the platform's chief executive and a former senior product executive at Flipkart, more than 250 people have invested in the new product. Another personal finance and wealth management platform, Upwardly, which was started by former Myntra executive Prateek Mehta, has reportedly seen a few hundred Flipkart employees approach it for investment advice over the past month. "The ones who have had significant payouts are looking at angel investment or portfolio management," a Flipkart employee told the daily. "IIFL and other wealth management guys have been making a beehive for senior management at Flipkart, Myntra and PhonePe to manage their wealth. They [employees who received the least] are spending on paying off home loans or buying their first home." At least a dozen employees have reportedly booked new apartments in high-rises coming up in Bengaluru's startup belt spanning Koramangala, HSR and Sarjapur. Of course, not all are looking at growing their newfound wealth - many are looking at luxury spends, too. Several employees told the daily that they had started planning vacations abroad, among other things. Edited by Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal Discretionary spending on electronics, which had dropped post demonetisation in November 2016, seems to have rebounded, courtesy factors like ecommerce festive discounting, GST rate cut on more than 50 goods in July, and deeper penetration of consumer finance. Sales of consumer electronics and white goods have grown 12-15% over last year, The Economic Times reported. Last Diwali had seen flat sales due to prices going up after GST implementation but things are markedly different this time round. Overall television sales went up by 12-15% this Diwali with online-focused players such as Xiaomi, TCL, Vu, Thomson, BPL and Sanyo driving sales in 32-43 inch TV models, and Samsung, Sony and LG driving demand for larger-screen TVs. Significantly, Indians are not only buying white goods again, but are also spending more on them. At Tata-owned retail chain Croma, average ticket size was reportedly up by 29% with overall festive sales jumping 61%. Citing marketers the daily added that the return of consumer discretionary spending was aided by easy availability of no-cost EMI, which allowed consumers to upgrade their purchase. Nilesh Gupta, director at Vijay Sales, told the daily that consumers purchased more by value this year with average billing value up by Rs 2,000 despite price drops. "Same-store sales are up by 5% in spite of the impact of online discounting eating away sales in entry-level TV and smartphones," he added. According to Sony India MD Sunil Nayyar, the company had run out of the 55-inch TV stock even before Dhanteras. He said sales of large-screen models, priced in lakhs, grew between three to 20 times as compared to last Diwali with Sony meeting its festive sales target of 20% growth in revenue. LG India meanwhile reported that it completely sold out side-by-side refrigerators priced between Rs 80,000 to Rs 5 lakh with sales doubling, while there was 50% growth in 300-litres plus refrigerators. LG's sales of 4K and OLED TV - selling from Rs 58,990 to Rs 30 lakh - were up by three times. Godrej Appliances business head Kamal Nandi told the daily that the overall festive period - covering Onam, Durga Puja, Dussehra and Diwali - saw a 7% jump in appliance sales despite the Kerala floods, increased fuel prices and negative sentiments around rupee-dollar rates. "Premiumisation drove sales, even for entry-level products and up-country markets, with prices lower by 4% as compared to summer," he added. Interestingly, financing contributed over 80% of purchases this festive season versus 60% last year. Despite smaller non-banking finance companies shying away from lending due to the ongoing liquidity crunch, consumer durable loans were easy to come by since the larger lenders like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank had pushed them, thereby filling the gap. In fact, Kotak Mahindra Bank reportedly saw card transactions spiking 30% year-on-year - with tier 2 and 3 towns showing higher growth - and UPI transactions mushrooming 300%. The same trend played out in the ecommerce space. An Amazon India spokesperson told the daily that customers purchased more premium products this year and EMI transactions grew two times over last year. Moreover, 70% of the customers who used the option hailed from tier 2 cities and beyond, and credit customer adoption grew 19 times. (Edited by Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal) Can technology give people with severe physical disabilities, like quadriplegia, more independence in everyday life? How about for something as routine as watching TV? Samsung believes it is possible. In fact, the South Korean conglomerate has developed a prototype that makes it possible to operate a Samsung Smart TV only with the brain. So, basically, the space between your ears acts as the remote control allowing you to change channels and adjust sound volume. Samsung's Swiss operations started work on this civic initiative, called Project Pontis, three months ago in partnership with the Center of Neuroprosthetics of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. CNET reported that the company demoed its second prototype TV just last week, at its annual developer conference in San Francisco. So how did Samsung go about building this futuristic brainwave-controlled TV software? The first step is to collect a sample of how the brain behaves when the user wants to do something, say, select a movie. Samsung and EPFL combined indicators from the environment as well as brain scans to build a model and apply machine learning to let the user select shows using eye movements (tracking) and brainwaves. To collect the brainwaves in the prototype, a user wears a headset covered with 64 sensors while looking at an eye tracker. The headset is connected to a computer that's mirrored to the TV. According to the report, the current prototype uses eye tracking to determine when a user has selected a particular movie. The system then builds a profile of videos the user gravitates toward, which makes it easier to provide lists of content in the future. Samsung and EPFL are also working on a system that goes a step further and relies on brain signals alone. That would be helpful for users who aren't able to control their eyes or other muscles reliably, Ricardo Chavarriaga, a senior scientist at EPFL, who's working on the project with Samsung, told the website. He added that currently the technology has to be tailored to each person because of the variations in our brains. "Samsung initially considered building the technology into a smartphone but opted for the TV in part because of its bigger screen and because most homes have a TV," Martin Kathriner, head of public affairs for Samsung Electronics Switzerland GmbH, told CNET. He added that TVs also can be used as smart home hubs, which could be attractive for the brainwave technology. Samsung plans to work on its second prototype through the first quarter of 2019 and subsequently start tests in Swiss hospitals to gauge patients' reactions to the prototype. Of course, it's early days yet for the project. According to CNET, there are limitations with the current hardware. Also, the sensor helmet requires a layer of gel applied to the head, something consumers likely aren't going to do at home. Incidentally, Samsung is not the only company trying to use brainwaves to control devices. In March 2017, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk launched Neuralink, a company dedicated to creating "neural lace", which involves installing tiny electrodes in the brain to transmit thoughts. Besides, neuroscientists the world over have been researching ways to make a digital interface for the brain. So although Brain-Computer Interface technology is still very nascent, it might one day replace touch screens and voice assistants in devices. And make everyday life easier for the differently-abled. Bollywood's golden couple - Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh - are all set to tie the knot on November 14 and 15. The couple will have two wedding ceremonies, one with Konkani customs and the other with Singhi rituals. Needless to say, all eyes are on the star couple, documenting all of their moves, as well as the venue - Villa Del Balbianello in Lake Como. The much-sought-after venue, Lake Como, is not only tranquil and beautiful, it has also been the preference of the rich and wealthy since the Roman times. Located in Italy's Lombardy region, Lake Como has been the top choice of aristocrats, businessmen as well as of global stars like David Beckham, Antonio Banderas, George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones. More recently, the glorious locales of Lake Como made headlines as the Ambanis and Piramals headed there to throw a weekend-long engagement bash for Isha Ambani and Anand Piramal. But that's all for the rich and famous. What does the common man have to do to take a lovely, peaceful vacation at Lake Como? How much will you have to save for that trip? If you want to take your partner on a romantic getaway to Lake Como, here's how much you will have to shell out: Airfare: To begin with, the nearest airport to Lake Como is in Milan. A return trip for one individual from Delhi to Milan will cost anything from Rs 43,000 to Rs 70,000. If the dates kept in mind are December 14, 2018 and December 18, 2018 - factoring in only a weekend - then one may have to spend anything up to Rs 50,000. So, two return trip tickets from Delhi to Milan are going to cost you around Rs 1,00,000. Train to Lake Como: The best way to travel from Milan to Lake Como is onboard a train, soaking in the exquisite vistas the Italian countryside has to offer. Two return train tickets from Milan to Lake Como will cost you anything from Rs 1,600 to Rs 2,000. It will, like airplane tickets, depend on different factors including timing and duration. Let's assume it will cost you around Rs 1,800 for two people. Stay: This is, perhaps, a rather welcoming news as there are accommodations available at affordable rates, if you are willing to stay at home-stays or hostels. Hotels are available from around Rs 4,000 to Rs 45,000 per night. Let's pick a reasonable range that would also offer all the amenities. Such options could come up to Rs 16,000 to Rs 25,000 for two nights. Some hotels may also want you to deposit a certain amount as security that will be fully returned to you when you check-out. So, a reasonable option would come up to Rs 20,000. Food: Lake Como offers some really good food options from pizza to sea food. Anyone would love to try the finer things in life aka Italian food. Moreover, the vineyards at Lake Como would entice you to try a glass of their finest wines. However, food available at Lake Como is on the steeper side. Let's factor in around Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000. Other expenses: Travelling within Lake Como and visa expenses are other key amounts that need to be factored in. According to VFS Global, a visa to Italy costs around Rs 4,800, which will be Rs 9,600 for two people. Public transport at Lake Como is very convenient, highly recommended and not very expensive. So, a trip to Lake Como will range anywhere around Rs 1,50,000 for two people for the weekend, not factoring in stay-over in Milan, if necessary. Morocco has once again made proof of its open arms policy by calling on Algeria for a frank dialogue to transcend differences, an invitation that was described by Secretary General of the Maghreb Union Taieb Baccouche as a chance to reinvigorate the five-state regional union. This Royal initiative beers the seeds of a revival of the Maghreb Union, Taieb Baccouche said after talks in Rabat with Speaker of Moroccan Parliament Habib El Malki. The invitation made by the Moroccan Monarch who called on Algeria to set up a joint mechanism to develop bilateral relations is reflective of not only Moroccos good intentions but also represents a feasible proposal promoting openness and bilateral dialogue at all levels with the ultimate goal of overcoming differences, he added. Baccouche noted that the Royal initiative is in line with the aspirations of the Maghreb peoples to more integration, underscoring the potential of the five North African states which complement each other. Algerias support for separatism in southern Morocco has left the Maghreb Union in a state of paralysis hijacking the dreams of the peoples of the region to an integrated region where people and goods can move freely. Besides Morocco and Algeria, the Maghreb Union musters Libya, Mauritania and Tunisia. The GST implementation was a "monumental reform" which had the disruptionist impact on growth only for two quarters, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Sunday, hitting out at "critics and cynics" who blame it for hurting the GDP expansion. The remarks come a day after former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan blamed the indirect taxation reform for derailing India's growth story. Jaitley did not name Rajan. "You will always have critics and cynics who will come up and say it (GST) slowed down India's growth," Jaitley said, speaking at state-run Union Bank of India's 100th-anniversary celebrations event here over a video link. The finance minister said after suffering for two quarters, growth increased to 7 per cent, then to 7.7 per cent and went up till 8.2 per cent last quarter and specifically pointed out that this is much higher than the 5-6 per cent expansion achieved between 2012-14. The Goods and Services Tax (GST), India's biggest tax reform since independence which came into force on July 1, 2017, had "disruptionist" impact on economic growth only for two quarters, he said. Jaitley also said there is a need to bring down non- performing assets (NPAs) in the banking system to strengthen the banking system and support growth. "To maintain the strength of the banking system and help India grow, we need to minimise our NPAs. Various, multiple options have been exercised," he said, adding, experiments are bringing results certainly. The strength of the banking system has to be improved so that liquidity in markets is maintained, Jaitley said. Riding high on rising demand for commercial, office and retail spaces especially from small companies, property portal Nobroker.com has entered the segment and expected this to contribute 30 per cent of revenue in a few years, a top company official has said. The company which is operational in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, and Gurugram, is also planning to expand its presence to the top 50 cities in the next few years. "There are over 42.5 million small and medium enterprises, which are the biggest consumers of small commercial properties in the country. There is also a huge investment potential in the commercial real estate market that offers a rental yield of 7-12 per cent, which is way higher than a residential real estate. "Our entry is in line with the rising demand for commercial office and retail spaces, especially with the fall in rupee and the rising interest from NRIs," founder and chief executive Amit Agarwal told PTI. In the new business, the company is targeting small commercial units, offices and retail spaces in the 100-5,000 sqft range. "Our typical tenants are owners of SMEs looking to take on rent these premises for shops or offices. The other customers are those looking to enter commercial space for better rental yield. We have also seen a lot of demand from NRIs thanks to the rupee plunge and better yields," Agarwal said. As per estimates, currently, the top 25 cities generate annual brokerage worth Rs 14,000 crore in the commercial rental, which is growing at 13 per cent annually. The brokerage from commercial market sales is around Rs 7,000 crore. "We realised that after successfully establishing ourselves as a key player in the residential real estate, we are ready to take the next natural step. We understand the pulse of the market and aim to disrupt this annual brokerage of Rs 21,000 crore with this recent expansion into the commercial real estate sector," he added. When asked how much revenue the company is expecting from the commercial segment, he said, "almost all the revenue comes from the residential segment now. In the long run, the revenue mix would be 70:30, where residential would be 70 per cent and commercial would be 30 per cent." Since opening for the public on November 1, the 182-metre tall Statue of Unity in Narmada district of Gujarat has attracted more than 1.28 lakh tourists, officials said. A huge rush of tourists was seen during the weekend, with over 50,000 people visiting the world's tallest statue at Kevadiya village on Saturday and Sunday alone (November 10- 11), they said. "Since November 1, when the statue opened for the public, we have recieved around 1.28 lakh tourists (till Sunday)," Superintending Engineer of Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL) R G Kanungo said. Over 24,000 tourists visited the site Sunday and more than 27,000 Saturday, he said. The statue, dedicated to `Iron Man of India' Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, is situated on an islet near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Kevadiya. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated it on October 31. Talking to PTI, Principal Secretary (Tourism) S J Haider said more than 10,000 tourists had visited the statue on the very first day of its opening. "The number of tourists kept on increasing since November 1," he said. Haider said the government is ready to welcome any number of tourists at the site. He said the new tourist attraction in Gujarat would help increase the number of travellers visiting the state from other parts of the country and also abroad. "Gujarat has registered 17 per cent year-on growth in tourism with a total 5.2 crore tourists visiting the state in 2017. The Statue of Unity will help in achieving considerable growth in the arrival of tourists to Gujarat," he said. The towering structure, built at the cost of Rs 2,989 crore, is near twice the height of Statue of Liberty in the United States and also bigger than Spring Temple Buddha, China (153 metres) and Ushika Daibustum Japan (120 metres). Along with the Statue of Unity, Gujarat Tourism has added many attractions nearby for sight-seeing. Two tent cities have been created along the backwater lakes of the Narmada dam reservoir for tourists who want to stay there. Among the prime attractions at the site is a viewers gallery inside the statue located at the height of 135 metres with a capacity to accommodate 200 persons at a time. High-speed lifts installed there are capable of taking 5,000 people per day to the viewing gallery, which offers a panoramic glimpse of the surrounding areas. The ambitious project was announced in 2010, and a special purpose vehicle was set up by the state government for its construction. The Tata Motors stock fell in trade today after its subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover reported a 4.6 per cent decline in total retail sales at 44,282 units in October. The stock was the top Sensex loser and fell up to 3.4% to 188.75 level on the BSE compared to its previous close of 195.40. At 12:09 pm, the stock was trading 3.02% lower at 189.50. It closed 4.84% or 9.45 points lower at 185.95 on the BSE. The large cap stock fell 55.07% during the last one year and lost 55.96% since the beginning of this year. 25 of 40 brokerages rate the stock "buy" or 'outperform', 12 "hold" and three "underperform" or "sell", according to analysts' recommendations tracked by Reuters. The stock is trading below its 50 day moving average of 228.41 and 200 day moving average of 275.85. Sales in China fell 49 per cent as market conditions remained challenging amid tariff changes and continued trade tensions with the US, which are impacting consumer confidence and automotive purchases, Tata Motors said. Retail sales rose significantly in the UK by 46.9 per cent and North America by 24.1 per cent on the back of newer models -Jaguar I-PACE and E-PACE and refreshed Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, it added. During the month, Jaguar retail sales were 13,764 units, up 11.6 per cent, driven by the EPACE and I-PACE as well as the long wheel base XEL from the company's Chinese joint venture, JLR said. On the other hand, Land Rover retailed 30,518 units in October, down 10.5 per cent as increased sales of refreshed Range Rover and Range Rover Sport as well as the Velar were offset by lower sales of the Evoque and Discovery Sport, primarily in China, it added. Tata Motors is engaged in manufacture of motor vehicles. It is engaged mainly in the business of automobile products consisting of all types of commercial and passenger vehicles, including financing of the vehicles sold by the company. The company's segments include automotive operations and all other operations. In the automotive segment, the company manufactures and sells passenger cars, utility vehicles, light commercial vehicles, and medium and heavy commercial vehicles. The company's all other operations segment mainly includes information technology (IT) services, and machine tools and factory automation services. The company operates in over 160 countries across the world. New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu is leading a delegation for the meeting for trade ministers of RCEP member countries, which are negotiating a mega trade deal, in Singapore, beginning Monday.The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a pact that aims to cover goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights.Trade Ministers of the 16-member RCEP are meeting in Singapore to continue to efforts to resolve the issues which are hindering the conclusion of the negotiations.The chief negotiators had recently concluded the 24th round of meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, last month, the commerce ministry said in a statement.The RCEP members include 10 ASEAN members Brunei Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam and their 6 free trade agreement partners India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.India already has a free trade agreement with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan and South Korea and it is negotiating similar pacts with Australia and New Zealand.India is pushing for liberalizing norms to promote services trade as the sector accounts for about 55 per cent of Indias GDP. India is looking for a balance trade agreement as it would cover 40 per cent of the global GDP and over 42 per cent of world's population.The ministerial meeting will be followed by the second RCEP Leaders Summit on November 14 in Singapore. PTI RRMKJ Johannesburg, Nov 12 (PTI) There are huge opportunities for South African companies in India, which was undergoing massive market reforms, a senior official here has said. The investment in India from South Africa is small and needs to be scaled up, the official told a business forum organised here on Monday by the Indian High Commission."Although these investments are small (in number), they are value-added investments," Yunus Hoosen, the head of Investment South Africa, said at the Invest in India Business Forum. "South Africas investment in India today stands at about 30 companies, basically in the finance, banking and healthcare sectors," Hoosen said as he explained the value South African companies have brought to India.But there are still huge opportunities for South African companies in India, which was undergoing massive market reforms, Hoosen said."All major Indian banks are in South Africa with full licences, and this is what we would like to see for South African banks (in India), with the opening up through market reforms and the ease of doing business there.Hoosen said the relationship between the two countries could be significantly improved in a number of sectors as South Africa also embarked on economic reforms, including in mining, gas, tourism and telecommunications, which have been constrained by policy until now. PTI FH NSANSA Grant Thornton today announced plans to hire 400 new people over the next two years. The announcement was made today at a visit to the companys new headquarters on City Quay by the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure & Reform, Paschal Donohoe, T.D. Grant Thornton is targeting high calibre professionals from accounting and non-accounting backgrounds who can bring specialist and sectoral expertise, client service and commercial acumen to a range of positions in financial services advisory, tax, audit and consulting, as well as specialist areas such as cyber and forensics, technology and aviation. Of the 400 new hires, half will be experienced candidates from industry and practice looking to further their career. New graduates will account for the remaining 200 roles. Grant Thorntons latest graduate recruitment campaign has already resulted in a 50% increase year-on-year in applicants looking to secure a training contract with the firm for 2019. The firms community ethos, direct access to partners, buddy system and diversity programmes are among the non-financial hallmarks of Grant Thornton for new recruits. The roles will be predominantly based at Grant Thorntons head office in Dublin, with opportunities also at the firms offices in Belfast, Cork, Galway, Kildare, Limerick and Longford. To accommodate significant growth, Grant Thornton has also relocated to a custom-built new headquarters on City Quay. Leased from Irish Life, the seven-storey building was designed by Henry J Lyons, the fit-out designed by MCA architects and built by Bennett Construction with input from Grant Thornton throughout the design, build and fit-out. Speaking today, Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe said, "I am delighted that Grant Thornton has plans to hire 400 new people over the next two years. This will provide skilled professionals and new graduates with valuable opportunities to work with Grant Thornton not just in Dublin, but across the firms locations in Ireland and as part of its global network." Source: www.businessworld.ie Irish Distillers are looking for graduates with "serious character" to join the 2019/20 Jameson International Graduate Programme. The programme, which is now in its 27th year, provides graduates with the opportunity to realise their personal and professional goals while working with a global Irish brand, on an international stage. Jameson say successful graduates are provided with the opportunity to shape their own experience supported by a competitive benefits package; a multi-award-winning training and development programme and a global support network, empowering them to hone and develop the necessary skills required to progress their career, while contributing to the global Irish whiskey success story. To date, over 400 graduates have completed the Jameson International Graduate Programme since it was established in 1991. Alumni of the programme have progressed to roles internally within Irish Distillers and Pernod Ricard globally and externally across various sectors in over 33 cities around the world. Over half of Irish Distillers Dublin based International Marketing Team launched their careers through the programme, and 34% of alumni remain within the wider company network. Jameson is the fifth most popular graduate employer in Ireland as voted for by students and recent graduates, according to the 2018 Irelands 100 Leading Graduate Employers survey, published by gradireland. The Jameson International Graduate Programme accepts applicants from all disciplines, so a marketing or business background is not essential. Head of Jameson International Graduate Programme, Sinead DArcy said, "Every year we look for driven, charismatic and creative graduates, from a range of diverse backgrounds, to serve as brand ambassadors in cities across the world. The programme provides graduates with the resources to establish the brand in a seed market or accelerate the brands growth in an established one, while building professional confidence and competence. Applications are now open, and we would advise graduates with serious character to apply." To date, over 400 graduates have completed the Jameson International Graduate Programme since it was established in 1991. Alumni of the programme have progressed to roles internally within Irish Distillers and Pernod Ricard globally and externally across various sectors in over 33 cities around the world. Over half of Irish Distillers Dublin based International Marketing Team launched their careers through the programme, and 34 percent of alumni remain within the wider company network. Source: www.businessworld.ie Diageo Plc is selling 19 spirits brands, including Seagrams VO Canadian whisky and cinnamon schnapps Goldschlager, to U.S.-based company Sazerac for $550 million as it focuses on its premium whisky brands such as Johnnie Walker in the United States. Diageo, also known for Smirnoff vodka and Guinness stout, said on Monday it would return the net proceeds of about 340 million pounds to shareholders through a share repurchase. Sky News reported in May that the company was in talks to sell some U.S.-focused brands for an overall price tag of between $500 million and $1 billion. The sale, which also includes whisky brands such as Seagram's 83, Seagram's Five Star and Jamaican rum Myers's, will reduceDiageo's pre-exceptional earnings per share by 1.9 pence per share in the first full financial year after closing. "The disposal of these brands enables us to have even greater focus on the faster growing premium and above brands in the U.S. spirits portfolio," the company said in a statement. The North American region is the biggest market for premium drinks in the world, and accounts for a third of the British company's sales and nearly half its operating profit. Diageo has been expanding the reach and improving the marketing of premium, global brands like Johnnie Walker. U.S. liquor sales hit a record $26.2 billion in 2017, fueled by high-end brown liquor and a big thirst for tequila and vodka, an industry group, the Distilled Spirits Council, said in February. The council, which represents companies such as Diageo, Pernod Ricard SA and Brown-Forman Corp, had then said higher volumes reflected millennials' taste for high-end and super-premium blended scotch and whisky products. Diageo, part of the UK's blue-chip index, said it expects the sale to close in early 2019 and to bring in a one-time gain of roughly 110 million pounds. Jefferies analysts said the deal is about 2 percent dilutive to FY19 earnings per share but worth 40 basis points to U.S. organic growth and was medium-term value accretive via the shift to the more premium U.S. segment. The company has also agreed to long-term supply contracts with Louisiana, U.S.-based Sazerac. Sazerac, which traces its roots to the early 19th century, is an independent, family owned company in the United States, home to brands such as Buffalo Trace and Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. Shares of Diageo were down about 0.1 percent at 2,744.25 pence by 0846 GMT, after trading in positive territory initially. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie An immigration story turns ugly. Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images 7-Eleven franchisees believe the corporation is using U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target critics, Bloomberg Businessweek reported on Monday. As the corporations CEO, Joe DePinto, tightens his grip on franchises demanding, in Businessweeks words, more inventory, more money, more adherence in matters large and small the company has chosen draconian methods to discipline franchisees who step out of line: As detailed in a series of lawsuits and court cases, the company has plotted for much of DePintos tenure to purge certain underperformers and troublemakers. Its targeted store owners and spent millions on an investigative force to go after them. The corporate investigators have used tactics including tailing franchisees in unmarked vehicles, planting hidden cameras and listening devices, and deploying a surveillance van disguised as a plumbers truck. The company has also given the names of franchisees to the government, which in some cases has led immigration authorities to inspect their stores, according to three officials with Homeland Security Investigations, which like ICE is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security. In January, the New York Times reported that ICE agents raided 98 7-Elevens in 17 states and arrested 21 workers in what appeared to be a coordinated assault. At the time, ICE described the raids as a follow-up to a 2013 investigation that put nine franchisees and managers in prison for hiring undocumented workers. Businessweeks new report adds more dimension to a grim picture. 7-Eleven told the magazine that it had no advance knowledge of the raids, but reporters say they documented at least four raids on franchisees whod openly criticized DePintos practices. One, Gurtarn Sandhu, had participated in two lawsuits against the corporation. 7-Elevens reputed collaboration with ICE also reinforces the racialization of the American dream. For immigrant franchisees like Sandhu, the opportunity to own a 7-Eleven presented itself as a path to prosperity in a new country. 7-Eleven itself promoted that belief. As Bloomberg reports, 7-Elevens heavily immigrant workforce made its stores hate-crime targets after September 11. The corporations former CEO, James Keyes, aired commercials that celebrated immigrant store owners, after vandals threw bricks through the windows of several stores, Businessweek noted. Keyes even held the companys 75th anniversary party, in 2002, on Ellis Island. But times have changed, and the prospect of work at 7-Eleven does not promise security for either franchisees or rank-and-file workers if indeed it ever did. Instead, 7-Elevens franchisees and workers face assaults from two directions. Within 7-Eleven, DePinto wields massive power as CEO, building a group of ex-cops and private eyes charged with identifying stores that were cooking the books, skimming cash, or otherwise gaming the system. The corporations franchise structure also exempts it from certain overtime and expense-reimbursement obligations to franchisees, a California court ruled in March. The average 7-Eleven worker already occupies the bottom rung of a system ordered against their interests, and franchisees arent much better off. Meanwhile, external to 7-Eleven, ICE has a White House mandate to step up immigration enforcement and deport undocumented workers from the U.S. even if theyre married to U.S. citizens or have clean criminal records. 7-Eleven may not have had advance knowledge of the ICE raids, and DePinto does not have the legal authority to tell ICE to do his dirty work. In practice, however, ICE agents reportedly behaved as the enforcement arm of DePintos own private surveillance state. Businessweeks story is cautionary. For a corporation that possesses unchecked power and a paranoid suspicion of its own workers, a federal agency with the power to root out vulnerable people is a useful weapon. (Bloomberg) The annual round of Asian summitry kicks off this week with one person notably absent: Donald Trump. The U.S. president is staying at home, sending Vice President Mike Pence in his place. The snub means the world wont pay as much attention to a set of summits that are usually more notable for what happens on the sidelines than in the meetings themselves. It does, however, give Chinese President Xi Jinping an opportunity to steal the spotlight. 1. So, what are the events? The first set of meetings will be held in Singapore, with most of the action taking place from Tuesday to Thursday. Hosted annually by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the summits produce various communiques covering everything from territorial disputes and trade to womens empowerment and wildlife trafficking. After Singapore, many of the same leaders will go to Papua New Guinea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting. This event includes relatively more speeches, usually focused on the economy and trade, and also produces a lengthy document that tends to be ignored by the markets. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are among leaders attending the Asean meetings in Singapore. Xi will only head to Papua New Guinea for APEC. 2. How will Pence get treated? Pences speech last month lambasting China has been seen by some in Beijing as a declaration for a new Cold War. That makes it unlikely hell be able to have substantive meetings with Chinese officials that would lead to a more successful outcome of Trumps planned meeting with Xi at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina in the coming weeks. While its not unprecedented for a U.S. president to skip these summits, the optics are particularly bad with Trump. His America First rhetoric and persistent questions about the value of U.S. alliances in place since World War II has exacerbated concerns in the region over Americas long-term commitment in the face of a rising China. In a statement announcing his trip, the White House said Pence would deliver the message that authoritarianism, aggression, and the disregard for other nations sovereignty by any nation in the Indo-Pacific will not be tolerated by the United States. 3. What big announcements are coming? One thing markets will be watching is for progress on a 16-nation Asia-Pacific trade pact backed by China. Known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, the deal has been under negotiation since 2013. While China wanted it completed this year, opposition from India makes that unlikely. Beyond that, Singapore is keen to announce progress on a code of conduct between Asean and China in the South China Sea, home to several overlapping territorial claims. Negotiations have been taking place for more than a decade, and any agreement is unlikely to be legally binding. 4. What else could make headlines? Ahead of the APEC meetings, Xi is set to meet with the heads of 14 independent Pacific island nations. Chinas activities in the region have raised strategic concerns in nearby Australia, prompting Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week to pledge more infrastructure funds and naval deployments on what he called our patch. Any comments that touch on sensitive human-rights issues, something that Asian countries typically like to leave off the agenda at these events. Particularly controversial topics include Myanmars treatment of Muslim minority Rohingya, which the United Nations likened to genocide, and Chinas handling of Muslim minority Uighurs, including allegations that as many as 1 million are in reeducation camps. 5. Are any surprises possible? Any interaction between Putin and Pence or U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, who met the Russian leader in Moscow last month, would be notable. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is expected to address the APEC CEO Summit in Papua New Guinea. The 93-year-old leader hasnt been shy in taking on China, and also may comment on the ongoing investigation into 1MDB. By Coco Feng / Nov 12, 2018 12:36 PM / Business & Tech Leading Chinese auto group SAIC Motor said Monday that it would launch a ride-hailing service, just weeks after Daimler AG and its Chinese partner Geely made a similar announcement moves that will ramp up competition in a sector long dominated by local giant Didi Chuxing. China's other big three state-owned automakers all have ride-hailing initiatives in the works. They are tapping an industry that totals about $23 billion, according to consultancy Bain & Co., more than the rest of the world combined. Industry leader Didi has run into problems this year, notably a passenger security crisis resulting from multiple riders being raped and two being murdered by their drivers. whats-on, food-and-wine A Caboolture woman charged with placing needles in strawberries, triggering a nationwide food tampering crisis, has been refused bail. My Ut Trinh, 50, appeared calm in the dock after spending the night in custody. She was arrested on Sunday night after a protracted investigation into the sabotage of three Queensland strawberry brands, and was charged with seven counts of aggravated contamination of goods, which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence. Ms Trinh was an employee of the Berrylicious strawberry farm in Caboolture, north of Brisbane, working as a supervisor. Police prosecutors strongly opposed bail, saying there was a risk of witnesses from within the Vietnamese community being interfered with and a risk of retribution toward Ms Trinh. Court documents show Ms Trinh was charged with contaminating strawberries at unknown times between September 2 and September 6, with the intent to cause financial loss to the owner of Berrylicious strawberry farm. Magistrate Christine Roney described the case as "highly unusual" with Ms Trinh's motive "hard to understand". Her lawyer Michael Cridland told the Brisbane Magistrates Court Ms Trinh arrived in Australia more than 20 years ago as a refugee and was an Australian citizen. The months-long investigation into Queenslands strawberry sabotage was broken open by information from Victoria Police, with DNA evidence expected to form a part of the polices case. Delays to Ms Trinhs case being heard on Monday morning were due to her lawyer seeking an interpreter, the court heard. Mr Cridland withdrew an application for bail after Ms Roney advised him more detail about the case was needed before she could hear such applications. He had earlier argued the Berrylicious strawberry farm supervisor was no flight risk, pointing out she had been aware she was a person of interest in the case for nearly two months and had made no move to leave. Ms Trinh went to a prearranged meeting with police to provide a DNA sample two weeks ago, prior to her arrest, Mr Cridland said. A match for her DNA was allegedly found on a needle in a strawberry found in Victoria. Ms Trinhs niece was in the courtroom working with the lawyer to interpret for her aunt, while a police interpreter was also present. Bail was denied and Ms Trinh was remanded in custody to reappear at Brisbane Magistrates Court on November 22. Queensland's strawberry industry collapsed during the growing season, with thousands of strawberries dumped as supermarkets and shops pulled the fruit from shelves. The crisis prompted Prime Minister Scott Morrison to announce legislation extending the possible jail time for anyone convicted of food tampering to 15 years. Queensland Police Detective Superintendent Jon Wacker, of the Drug and Serious Crime Group, said the investigation had been unprecedented. Superintendent Wacker said the case was finally broken open upon information received by Victoria Police as part of the interstate investigation. These offences are a crime and, if convicted, carry a maximum of 10 years in prison, Superintendent Wacker said. The farm involved had been notified of the arrest and was very relieved, he said. Police handled more than 230 reports of fruit sabotage across Australia, across 68 brands. Forty-nine of those brands were Queensland-based, with 186 of the total complaints about needles as the primary contaminant. Superintendent Wacker said there were 77 reports in Queensland alone, of which 15 were believed to be hoaxes. He thanked the public for its support in the investigation, with Crime Stoppers receiving 61 calls about the alleged sabotage. This is one of the most trying investigations Ive worked on, Superintendent Wacker said, noting the extensive involvement of interstate police and Australian Border Force during the months-long investigation. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/149ebcea-3ecf-401d-a594-d49fe1807ea5/r0_100_3000_1795_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg Photo: Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg via Getty Images Around the same time President Trump suffered a massive reversal in the midterm election and subverted the rule of law by installing a pliant right-wing hack as acting attorney general, he was engaged in the most blatant and public display of sustained racism against African-Americans of his entire public career. Trumps racism binge included a series of absurd insinuations that three African-American journalists and two political candidates lacked the qualifications for their positions. The official Republican defense of this behavior is that Trump is not a racist, but merely combative. He does it to everyone. Not everything is about race, sniffs former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. I think hes just combative, explains Rick Santorum. Trumps defenders have settled on this explanation long ago. After Trump questioned allowing any immigrants from shithouse countries, Lindsey Graham insisted Trump is absolutely not a racist. Its not the color of your skin that matters, its not the content of your character. Its whether or not you show him respect and like him. The Trump of the Republican imagination is some kind of Don RicklesMartin Luther King hybrid figure, spraying out wanton abuse without regard to race, creed, or gender. It is obviously impossible to prove what is going on inside Trumps brain. And his promiscuous verbal abuse has complicated the case a bit its clearly true that Trump also denigrates white people and men. But the defense of Trump against the charge of racism, which was never especially plausible, has collapsed altogether. Trumps presidential campaign began with a splashy racist attacks on Mexican immigrants, followed by a racist attack on a Mexican-American judge. But his racism toward African-Americans forms the longer through-line of his career. The Department of Justice proved that Trumps housing empire discriminated against prospective African-American renters (by sending black customers, who would be told no units were available, and then white ones, who would be told otherwise.) Trump famously took out a full-page ad demanding the execution of the Central Park Five for a rape for which they were later exonerated, and captured conservative enthusiasm by promoting the birther hoax against President Obama. The twin themes in all these actions is Trumps association of African-Americans with crime and disorder, and a belief that they are inherently unworthy of representation among the elite. These are beliefs Trump has formed without evidence and clung to even when they are debunked which is to say, they are the very definition of prejudice. Michael Cohen recently disclosed a series of racist comments Trump made in private remarking of a poor neighborhood in Chicago, Only the blacks could live like this; saying, Name one country run by a black person thats not a shithole; and the like. No doubt Republicans dismiss any claims made by Cohen as revenge by a disgruntled former loyalist trying to curry favor with Trumps opposition. But if Cohen has decided to make up offensive comments by Trump, he has done an unusually skillful job of mimicking both the presidents lexicon and his worldview. These are not random racist comments. They are distinctly Trumpian racist comments. His recent spate of attacks on various African-American antagonists closely track these themes. Trump has a general template for lashing out at anybody who threatens him. He calls them losers, complains theyre nasty or treat him unfairly, calls them jealous of his success or ungrateful for his help (if they once supported him) or ugly (if they are female.) If he cant think of any other insults, hell call his target sleepy. His comments about African-Americans, though, have a more specific connotation. When CNNs Abby Phillip asked if he wanted acting attorney general Matt Whitaker to rein in Robert Mueller, which he has publicly asked Whitakers predecessor to do, Trump lashed out, What a stupid question that is. What a stupid question. But I watch you a lot. You ask a lot of stupid questions. When April Ryan asked if his self-styled nationalism encouraged white nationalists, who regard Trump with palpable enthusiasm, he said, You talk about someone whos a loser. She doesnt know what the hell shes doing. She gets publicity and then she gets a pay raise, or she gets a contract with, I think, CNN. Likewise, Trump dismissed Stacey Abrams, who has a public policy degree from the University of Texas and a law degree from Yale, in addition to a bachelors degree from Spelman, as not qualified. He charged that Florida Democratic governor candidate Andrew Gillum is not equipped to be your governor. Its not for him, and called him a thief. Conservatives believe liberals automatically accuse them of racism a somewhat understandable complaint, because many progressives do assume that any comment that a racist would say is presumptively racist. But it is long past the point where Trumps behavior can be explained any other way. And the Republicans refusal to acknowledge Trumps bigotry fatally undermines any presumption of good faith. news, latest-news Here we go again. A "disruptive" company comes in, privatising public space and wanting to use public resources. Steam-rolling over community concerns, it thumbs its nose at democracy by making sure it has set up shop before governments have a chance to catch up. By the time the issues become widely understood, it's that much harder for governments to regulate. And what a disruptive company we have here, with Project Wing. The drones that have been over Bonython in recent months have been driving people around the bend with their noise. People who moved to Canberra in part because of the quiet suddenly find themselves living under a flight path. Birds and other wildlife, which make Canberra's suburbs so special to live in, are being scared away. And we have no idea what's being done with the private information this Google-owned corporation is collecting as it flies over homes, filming as it goes. This isn't about being a technophobe not at all. Most of the people complaining about Project Wing are, like me, involved in online communities of all kinds, use smartphones to stay constantly connected, find our way to new places using GPS mapping services, and celebrate the way technology can improve our lives. Drones can, of course, play a vital role in emergency services. They can help with conservation efforts. They can assist with siting of solar panels, and so much more. But the speed of technological development doesn't mean we can abandon the important process of making well-thought-out decisions about our common future. Just because we can do something doesn't necessarily mean we should. When a development will have major impacts on the lives of a large number of people, we need to make the decision about it together, making sure evidence is collected and people's voices are heard. It's called democracy. The idea that Project Wing would announce acquisition of a permanent site, and the expansion into a whole new area of Canberra, just days after the Legislative Assembly has established an inquiry into the trial shows contempt for the community's wishes and concerns. This is far from the only example of the privatisation of public space going on in Canberra that residents are troubled by. One of the most obvious in recent times has been the expansion of advertising in public space, which has been held off by a concerted campaign and public outcry. Chief Minister Andrew Barr clearly thought he was being uncontroversial when he suggested that our city's stringent controls on billboards could be relaxed. But the Assembly's inquiry into the idea saw the largest number of submissions in the Assembly's history flying in, with an astonishing 96 per cent of them firmly opposed to the idea. Because the government was clearly sceptical that these submissions were representative of community feeling, the Green Institute commissioned a poll to test it. We found that a full 90 per cent of Canberrans feel there is enough, or already too much, advertising in public spaces across the city. Remarkably, 48 per cent say there is too much. The poll also found that 69 per cent of Canberrans agree or strongly agree that advertising reduces the quality of public space, 71 per cent agree that advertising benefits large corporations over small business, and 78 per cent feel that Canberra's relatively advertising-free nature makes it a more pleasant place to live than other cities. There's an obvious parallel here between advertising and drones. People don't like companies coming in and privatising public space, whether it's streetscapes or the skies above their heads. They cherish the quality of life we have in Canberra, which has a long history of prioritising public good over corporate profit. They clearly want their voices heard when decisions about our common future are made, and are unhappy with government helping corporations and sidelining good democratic process. That goes for drones, for advertising and for development at a local level. It applies equally to coal and gas companies setting national climate policy, the banks lobbying against regulation despite the findings of the royal commission, and so much more. Democracy is important. Canberrans know that better than most. We need to cherish it, and we need to practise it. The drones might seem like small fry, but this is as good a place as any to demand it. We should press pause on any further expansion for drone deliveries until the community has had its say. Tim Hollo is executive director of the Green Institute and Greens candidate for the federal seat of Canberra. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/5df28344-7348-4b2b-838e-ea1e93e83fd2/r0_105_2000_1235_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact. Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here. Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing. You are our people. You Care. We Care2. Embers fall from burning palms and the sun is obscured by smoke as flames from the Woolsey Fire close in on a house on November 9, 2018 in Malibu, California. About 75,000 homes have been evacuated in Los Angeles and Ventura counties due to two ongoing fires in the region. Photo: David McNew/Getty Images November always marked the beginning of rainy season in California. Now it is fire season. Last November, the Thomas Fire in Southern California grew 50,000 acres in a single day, eventually burning 440 square miles and forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate. It was not an outlier. Five of the worst 20 wildfires in California history hit the state in the fall of 2017, a year in which more than 9,000 separate ones broke out. All told, they burnt through more than a million acres, or nearly 2,000 square miles. This summer, there were just 6,000 fires, but more land was burnt more than 1.5 million acres, the smoke visible by satellite and blanketing half the country. And then came this years November fires, just as fire season was supposed to be ending: the Camp fire, which has already killed 31 and left at least 200 others missing; the Woolsey fire, near Los Angeles, which has forced 170,000 people to evacuate; and the nearby Hill fire, also shedding its smoke into an American jet stream that will be carrying it as far as the countrys northeast. By 2100, should we not change course on carbon, the California acreage burned each year by wildfires is expected to grow sixteen-fold. In the California of that future, every season would be fire season. In fact, that is already how climate scientists and firefighters are now describing the states wildfire season: year-round. Multiply the devastation, as the coming decades almost surely will, and it begins to seem all-encompassing: the burning nearly nonstop, and the fearsome prospect of new fires looming just over every crest and down every valley in a state full of them, nearly every week of the year, with no meaningful reprieve. Against that possible future, the simple inversion of November from rainy season to fire season is a powerful poetic reversal and a sort of map for how all of us will wake up to climate horrors in the decades ahead. Scientists may say that warming proceeds incrementally, and that the most dramatic impacts of warming deadly heat waves like the one that struck globally this summer, from Oman to Quebec, killing hundreds; or droughts, like the one this summer that turned much of Europes farmland brown; or hurricane systems that deliver 500-year storm after 500-year storm, like the one that made Harvey the third such storm to hit Houston in three years arrive erratically, with one extreme season likely followed by a few more normal ones. They are right. But, with climate as with everything else, we tend to ignore developing news at first, sometimes until we reach an inflection point and start exaggerating it, out of fear and perceived novelty. And so, in the decades ahead, the experience of living through climate change will likely be defined by sudden, cascading inversions, the changes creeping along imperceptibly before they feel terrifyingly all-consuming. Rainy season becomes fire season, which gives way, now, to mudslide season. From Paradise to Malibu, the natural backdrops that seemed so perfect they could almost have been soundstages, manmade paradises, are becoming real-world theaters of climate catastrophe nature reclaiming dominion from developers and homeowners, reminding everyone living on the planet that we are merely its tenants. In its swaggering 20th century, the United States built two states of paradise. One, Florida, was erected out of a swamp so total the entire state was once reviled as a liquid wasteland. The other, southern California, had been largely desert. By 2100, should our patterns of consumption not change, neither will endure as postcards of pleasure or plenty indeed, as anything but the front lines of a new future of onrushing climate devastation. Even in their heydays, each state produced its own counter-narratives: the Los Angeles of film noir and Chinatown, Charles Manson and Skid Row, Watts and Rodney King; the Florida of Elmore Leonards noir, the Mariel boatlift and Scarface, Aileen Wuornos and Florida Man. But those were notes of cynicism and desperation played in a minor key, and climate change will bring a much more explicit and unmistakable reversal: tens of thousands of square miles turned to ash, each year, in California, with much of the rest of the state choked by smoke; in Florida, seawater wont just flood the Fontainebleau and the shops at Bal Harbour and Calle Ocho but the Everglades, too. Even the alligators will be drowned. Can California survive? Of course, in some form. But what will it look like? The footage from this weekend, arriving from Paradise and Malibu, too, did not offer a vision of a future that many today would consider livable. In fact, they seem eerily familiar from disaster movies using such images as visual shorthand to suggest the offscreen presence of mad, panicked stampedes away from a rampaging threat: abandoned buses, burnt gray, empty home after empty home. Were we watching the news or the zombie apocalypse? This harrowing footage of an escape-route drive flanked by fire, captured by dashcam, had the character of a stunt driver demonstration you might stumble upon on YouTube: But when it comes to climate horrors, the real world is already outpacing our imaginations. In Hollywood, you couldnt sell a script in which the states firefighting force was made up of penitentiary inmates, earning, for their labor and their valor, the pittance of $1 or $2 a day? Meanwhile, the fires are growing by the thousands of acres. In Washington, last week, voters rejected a ballot initiative to establish a modest carbon tax. That the referendum was defeated in such a liberal state, by voters who arent even burdened with state income tax, struck some observers as a possible death knell to the dream of a carbon tax, which seemed, as recently as William Nordhauss Nobel Prize a few weeks ago, the obvious technocratic solution. One wonders whether the outcome might have been different, were the election staged just one week later, with the images of the Camp fire, or the Malibu evacuations, fresh in voters minds. It is distressingly hard to say. In an age of cascading climate change, we forget so quickly. And normalize so much. Photo: The Canadian Press Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, prepares to lead the USCCB's annual fall meeting, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, in Baltimore. In an abrupt change of plans, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opened the group's national meeting Monday by announcing it will delay for at least several months any action on proposed new steps to address the clergy sex abuse crisis that is rocking the church. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston said Monday that the delay was requested by the Vatican, which asked that the U.S. bishops wait until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February. DiNardo told the U.S. bishops that "I remain hopeful that this additional consultation will ultimately improve our response to the crisis we face." They are meeting through Wednesday in Baltimore and had been expected to consider several steps to combat abuse, including a new code of conduct for themselves. Photo: The Canadian Press Actress Oprah Winfrey poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'A Wrinkle In Time' in London. Michelle Obama's "Becoming," already expected to sell millions of copies, now has the official backing of Oprah Winfrey. "This book is everything you wanted to know and so much you didn't even know you wanted to know. I believe it's going to spark within you the desire to think about your own becoming," Winfrey, who on Monday told The Associated Press in a statement that she had selected "Becoming" for her book club. "It's so well-written I can hear her voice; I can hear her expressions; I can feel her emotion. What she allows us to see is how she was able to discover, define and then refine her voice." In "Becoming," Obama shares such deeply personal revelations as suffering a miscarriage and sharply criticizes President Donald Trump for promoting the false "birther" rumour that Barack Obama was not a U.S. citizen. The former first lady's book comes out Tuesday and is among the most anticipated political memoirs in years, topping Amazon.com's bestseller list throughout the weekend. Winfrey, publishing's most established hit maker, knows the Obamas well, to the point where Michelle Obama and Ellen DeGeneres once teased each other over who was closer to her. Winfrey was a prominent backer of Barack Obama's candidacy in 2008 and has interviewed both Obamas over the years. She is scheduled to be onstage Tuesday night with Michelle Obama at Chicago's United Center, the first stop on Obama's promotional tour. Winfrey has already taped an interview with Obama, which airs Thursday on the OWN network, and excerpts of the book will appear in O, the Oprah Magazine and in Elle. A two-part podcast will run Thursday and the following Monday, Nov. 19. "Becoming" is Winfrey's first pick by an author from the political world since she started her club in 1996, although Obama has said repeatedly she has no interest in running for office. Winfrey's previous picks have ranged from novels such as Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad" and Tayari Jones' "An American Marriage" to Anthony Ray Hinton's memoir "The Sun Does Shine." Photo: The Canadian Press Jim Carr, Minister of International Trade Diversification A full-scale trade deal between Canada and China is possible even as Canada remains open to striking smaller sector-by-sector agreements, says International Trade Minister Jim Carr. Speaking in Beijing Monday after bilateral economic meetings, Carr said China is interested in a wide range of Canadian products across many different sectors. But while Canada is in talks with China on a number of fronts, he insisted those efforts don't preclude a wide-ranging trade agreement between the two countries. "It's not one or the other," he said. "These are trade conversations over a period of time. Trade is not an event and we're having a continuous dialogue with our Chinese counterparts about a whole variety of products." Last week, Treasury Board President Scott Brison told the Globe and Mail the best way to move forward quickly with China on trade would be to focus on opportunities for immediate gains in areas such as food and agriculture. And indeed Canada has sector-by-sector targets, including an aim to double Canadian agricultural exports to China to $75 billion by 2025, Carr said. "We're well on our way to meeting those goals," he said. Brison's comments echoed those put forward by dozens of business experts in a recent Public Policy Forum paper, warning that a sweeping deal risks provoking the United States. President Donald Trump has been raising trade barriers with China. Canada's efforts to start formal free-trade talks with China stalled late last year after Chinese leaders bristled at a Canadian trade agenda that includes gender, labour and Indigenous rights. Meanwhile, concerns have been raised over a clause in the new United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement that allows any of the countries to withdraw from the deal on six months' notice if one of the partners enters a free-trade agreement with a non-market economy language widely seen as referring to China. China questioned Canada about the USMCA during talks this week and was informed of the provision that could affect negotiations between China and any of the three USMCA countries, Carr said. A number of federal and provincial officials have been in China over the last week to talk trade and drum up import and export deals between Canadian and Chinese businesses. Canadian companies taking part in the China International Import Expo last week secured $1.67 billion in agreements. China's interest in so many Canadian products could ultimately lead to a comprehensive trade agreement, Carr said. Finance Minister Bill Morneau, who's also in China, said high-level economic and financial discussions this week between the two countries were productive, and those talks will continue regularly to keep the momentum going. But he also noted that while Canada is actively promoting itself as "open for business" with China, when it comes to state-owned enterprises looking to invest in Canadian companies, Canada will be cautious. "We will examine those investment to make sure there are no security or other challenges for the Canadian economy," Morneau said. "It's consistent with the way other countries consider these investments." On Tuesday, Ojeda lost his bid for West Virginias 3rd Congressional district. Photo: MICHAEL MATHES/AFP/Getty Images Less than a week after losing a bid for Congress in West Virginia, Democrat Richard Ojeda, a no-nonsense populist and former Army paratrooper, is running for president, he tells The Intercept. Were going to have quite a few lifetime politicians that are going to throw their hat in the ring, Ojeda, whose new Twitter handle is @VoteOjeda2020, said of the crowd of Democrats expected to vie for the White House, but I guarantee you theres going to be a hell of a lot more of them than there are people like myself. That is, a working-class person that basically can relate to the people on the ground, the people that are actually struggling. Huntington, West Virginias WOWK reports that Ojeda will make his announcement Monday at the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C. His first campaign ad went online Sunday night. The appeal of Ojeda, who plans to focus his campaign on corruption in D.C., is straightforward, The Intercepts Ryan Grim writes: The Democratic Party has gotten away from its roots, and he has a unique ability to win over a white, black, and brown working-class coalition by arguing from a place of authority that Trump is a populist fraud. Hes launching his campaign with an anti-corruption focus that draws a contrast with Trumps inability to drain the swamp. To sell Democratic voters on that message though, hell first have to convince them to forgive his vote for Trump in 2016. Ojeda backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, but after Hillary Clinton won the partys nomination, he swung his support to Trump. The lying billionaire, unlike Clinton, promised to get the coal miners back to work, Ojeda has explained. He would eventually recant his support for Trump, and go on to gain a following across the state of West Virginia, when he emerged as a leader of the teachers strike. A State Senator, Ojeda gave fiery speeches and deftly used social media as teachers stormed the state capitol to demand raises. He went on to win the Democratic primary for an open seat previously occupied by Republican Evan Jenkins. Ojeda campaigned on a staunchly pro-worker and pro-union platform. He supports marijuana legalization and rails against the pharmaceutical companies that have used his district as a dumping ground for opioids. He also cuts a good ad: Ojedas personality and policy appeared to give him a real shot to win a district that Trump took by 49 percent. Instead, Ojeda lost by 12 percent, in part because Trump campaigned on behalf of his opponent, Carol Miller. In his concession speech last week, Ojeda ripped both of them. Because of you, the people in southern West Virginia will have another voiceless representative that supports legislation that hurts our working-class citizens! Ojeda said in the speech, addressing Trump. On several occasions, you came here to speak for Carol Miller! You called me a stone-cold crazy wacko and then you mispronounced the way I say my name! But make no mistake about it! Youre going to know my name! Im Richard Ojeda! Im Richard Ojeda! Im Richard Ojeda, and Im not done fighting, and neither are we! Photo: retailer Whether youre working from home at a DIY desk setup or commuting to an office, you may have begun to feel the strain that sitting for seven or more hours a day can put on a body. If said strain has led you to wonder whether its worth investing in a better, more ergonomic office chair, the answer is almost certainly yes, according to experts we spoke to. Makeshift setups can cause a laundry list of problems, including back, shoulder, and wrist pain, explains Dr. David Perna of Back and Body Medical. Dr. Marc Agulnick, an orthopedic surgeon based on Long Island whos affiliated with NYU Winthrop Hospital, agrees: If youre sitting for a long period of time in one position thats not natural or a bad position from a postural standpoint, over time, thats going to break down your spine. Finding the right ergonomic office chair, though, can be tricky there is no universally perfect model, because every body is different, according to Agulnick. If you take a one-size-fits-all approach, there are a lot of people who are miserable with it, because whats comfortable for one person is going to be miserable for another, he explains, and being comfortable in your office chair is definitely a priority. That said, there are certain types of office chairs that are going to make it easier for you or your kids to maintain a healthy posture while you work, regardless of body type or personal preferences. Below, a variety of office chairs (and ergonomic chair attachments) that Agulnick, Perna, and 11 other doctors say will help you sit up straight and comfortably, while minimizing long-term damage to your body. Best overall ergonomic office chair Herman Miller Aeron Chair From $1,313 $1,545 now 15% off From $1,313 A good office chair is going to help you maintain a neutral posture, which means sitting with your feet flat on the floor, your knees slightly higher than your hips, and your hips, shoulders, and ears all lined up with each other. Try to create 90-degree angles at the waist and knees, recommends chiropractor Dr. Randi Jaffe. Since that position will be slightly different for each person, the best way to find a neutral posture is with an adjustable chair one thats as intuitive as possible. Jaffe loves Herman Millers Aeron Chair because it has adjustable lumbar support, as well as an adjustable seat and armrests, and three different size options. The chairs mesh material also provides full-body support and adjusts to temperature changes to keep you cool. While she admits that the price is high, if your budget allows, it is a great investment in your health and well being. Perna also loves the Aeron chair, calling it the standard for ergonomic chairs and adding that many companies have tried to copy its design. (The chair, which New York Magazine writer Brian Kennedy dubbed the The Dot Com Throne way back in 2006, also makes an appearance in our expert-recommended guide to everything you need to work from home.) Jaffes other tip: Do not work from the couch or the bed. Have a designated spot for work at home, including a table or desk or countertop, in addition to a good chair. From $1,313 at Design Within Reach Buy $1,313 at Herman Miller Buy Best (slightly) less expensive ergonomic office chair Herman Miller Mirra 2 Chair $895 now 15% off From $761 For a less expensive option (that, we know, still isnt cheap), Perna likes Herman Millers Mirra chair because it has a mesh back like the Aeron. Mesh breathes, its dynamic, it kind of bends and moves with you throughout the day as you change positions, he says. This chair has other ergonomic features similar to those of the Aeron, namely adjustable arms, seat angle, and lumbar support. From $761 at Herman Miller Buy Best affordable ergonomic office chair Modway Articulate Ergonomic Mesh Office Chair $159 $349 now 54% off $159 For a far less expensive alternative, Dr. Rudy Gehrman, the founder of New York Citybased wellness center Physio Logic, recommends this chair from Modway, which has supportive mesh as well as the ability to adjust its armrests and seat height. Should you go this route, Gehrman suggests investing the money you would save on the above chairs in an alternative seating option, like an exercise ball or kneeling chair (both of which appear below), because the more variety you have, the more likely you will decrease the chances of repetitive stress injuries. $159 at Amazon Buy Best affordable ergonomic office chair with a headrest Ticova Ergonomic Office Chair $200 $220 now 9% off $200 According to Dr. Jasmine Bhoola, prolonged sitting has been associated with musculoskeletal dysfunction, especially in work-from-home culture. One reason she likes this office chair is for its completely customizable headrest that can help better support your upper back, neck, and head. Bhoola also likes the chairs adjustable armrests as well as its solid lumbar support, which maintains the curve in the lower back and promotes effortless upper-back posture. When adjusting your office chair, she has these tips: First, stand in front of the chair, and adjust the height so that the highest point of the seat is below the kneecap. Then she suggests adjusting the angle and height of the chairs backrest so that it supports the hollow in the lower back. Finally, she says to adjust the seat-pan tilt to a comfortable position, adding that the seat of the chair should be seven inches below whatever surface youre working at. $200 at Amazon Buy $200 at Amazon Buy Sleekest affordable ergonomic office chair Branch Ergonomic Chair $329 $329 Bhoola personally uses this chair from Branch, a direct-to-consumer brand that specializes in products for the office. Much of it is adjustable including the armrests, height, tilt, tilt tension, seat depth, and lumbar support making it quite ergonomic. The lumbar support, she adds, moves forward and backward and is removable so people with a range of body types or conditions can use this chair. Its high-density cushion can support up to 300 pounds, and the backrest is made of double-layered mesh, making it breathable. It lacks a headrest, but that gives the chair a sleeker profile. Those who care even more about aesthetics will appreciate that they can choose from two colors (black or white) for the chairs frame, and three (black, gray, or light blue) for the cushion. Summing it up, Bhoola says the chair is comfortable and completely customizable. $329 at Branch Furniture Buy Best foldable ergonomic office chair In Stock Chairs Mesh Back Nesting Chair with Flip Seat $269 now 48% off $139 Photo: retailers If you are dealing with a very tiny space, an Aeron chair or even a less-expensive imitation is probably not going to be an option. But there are some space- (and spine-) saving solutions if youre willing to compromise a few features. According to Jaffe, It is hard to create a chair with all the bells and whistles think adjustable armrests, adjustable height, a swivel option, good lumbar support that also folds up. To wit, this chair, which she recommends, does not have adjustable armrests or an adjustable height. But it does have some lumbar support, and its undoubtedly more ergonomic than working from a couch or bed, which makes a chiropractor cringe. $139 at In Stock Chairs Buy Least fussy ergonomic office chair Humanscale Freedom Office Chair $1,049 $1,626 now 35% off $1,049 Dr. Scott Bautch, a Wisconsin-based chiropractor whos currently the president of the American Chiropractic Associations Council on Occupational Health, likes the chairs from Humanscale, a New York Citybased company that designs chairs with the minimum amount of levers and the maximum amount of adaptability for the person sitting in it, he says. Its Freedom office chair uses whats called a self-adjusting recline, allowing you to change the chairs angle simply by leaning back rather than by fussing with a separate lever. $1,049 at Wayfair Buy Best ergonomic office chair for shorter people Humanscale Freedom Desk Chair From $879 $1,099 now 20% off From $879 If you prefer a chair without a headrest, or want a less expensive option from Humanscale, the Freedom desk chair has many of the same features and ergonomic benefits as the Freedom office chair above (including a self-locking recline mechanism that allows you to lean back without tipping over). Perna especially likes it for shorter people because it has an adjustable seat depth, so you can make sure your feet are flat on the floor. From $879 at 2Modern Buy Best ergonomic office chair for bigger people La-Z-Boy Trafford Big and Tall Executive Office Chair From $483 $520 now 7% off From $483 This chair is designed for those with bigger builds and taller heights and can accommodate up to 400 pounds, says Dr. Manasseh Nwaigwe. (Amazon says it has a maximum capacity of 300 pounds, but Wayfair and other retailers list 400.) He likes that the chair contains memory foam designated to support a users lower back, as well as an elevated headrest that can support the neck and upper back. But Nwaigwe notes that even though the right ergonomic office chair may help to alleviate pain as you sit throughout the day, you should also take a few minutes every day to perform easy exercises. Exercises like chin tucks 10 reps, three times a day help you maintain good posture throughout your cervical spine. From $483 at Amazon Buy Best (less expensive) ergonomic office chair for bigger people Neo Chair Essential Office Chair From $70 $75 now 7% off From $70 Bhoola says this chair, which can accommodate up to 300 pounds, has a wide lumbar support, making it a good option for those with bigger builds who want to spend less. In addition to that lumbar support, Bhoola points to the chairs adjustable mesh back and adjustable seat height as other ergonomic features. Its fabric-covered seat is also padded for even more comfort. From $70 at Amazon Buy Best ergonomic gaming (and office) chair BestOffice PC Gaming Ergonomic Desk Chair $100 $100 In talking to other experts about the best desk chairs for kids, our writer Lauren Ro discovered this gaming chair that chiropractor Dr. Brook Sheehan told her is also quite ergonomic. She suggested it for teens or tweens looking for an ergonomic desk chair they could use into adulthood, explaining that the chairs design helps to maintain the spinal curves that are present in adolescence and over time, it can help correct bad postural habits set early on. The chair features adjustable lumbar support, a seat with an adjustable height that also tilts, a headrest pillow, armrests, and a footrest that pulls out from beneath the seat. It provides the support necessary for all three regions that make up the spinal column, according to Sheehan. $100 at Amazon Buy Best ergonomic office chair for stretching in place Gabrylly Ergonomic Mesh Office Chair $330 now 12% off $290 Photo: retailer Bautch says that if youre sitting in your chair slightly hunched over toward your screen, it can be helpful to lean away from your computer and pull your shoulders back like youre going to put a pencil between them. An office chair with a wider range of motion, like this one from Amazon that Bhoola recommends, allows you to lean back whenever you feel like you need to do one of those stretches. This chair also offers seat-height adjustment, lumbar support, and an adjustable armrest and headrest. In addition to stretching in your chair, Jaffe recommends getting up every hour and walking and moving a little, or getting on the floor and doing some gentle yoga poses like cat-cow or childs pose. $290 at Amazon Buy $290 at Amazon Buy Best ergonomic office chair with a pop of color Autonomous ErgoChair 2 $499 Jaffe likes this ErgoChair, which checks a lot of boxes: a headrest and armrests that are adjustable, as well as a breathable mesh back with flexible, full-body support and a tilt-tension mechanism that allows you to stretch your back and shoulders. It also comes in several bright colorways, including lime green and baby blue, that you can match to your office decor. $499 at Autonomous Buy Best ergonomic office chair with a rocking seat ALL33 BackStrong C1 Office Chair $1,199 now 33% off $799 Photo: retailer Dr. Jason Wersland, the founder and chief wellness officer of Theragun, loves this one of a kind chair that he says decompresses the lumbar curve and gently lifts your thoracic spine for instant posture improvement and relief on crucial pressure points throughout your back, neck, and shoulders no matter how long you sit. The chairs unique design incorporates something the brand calls Sit-in-Motion technology, which refers to how the bowl of the seat cradles your pelvis and lower back and is made to move and rock with you, stimulating circulation and decreasing discomfort. This chair also has 360-degree swivel arms that can fold away so that you can scoot closer to your computer and reduce eye strain, no matter what type of desk or table youre working at. $799 at All33 Buy Best ergonomic office chair for kids SitRite Ergonomic Kids Desk Chair $150 $200 now 25% off $150 If youre looking for an ergonomic chair to complete your childs homework setup, you will want one that has an adjustable footrest, an adjustable seat, and armrests, explains Dr. David Kwon, a physical therapist who works as the general manager at Next Level Physio in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. Footrests are especially important because they help prevent feet from dangling all day, which Kwon says can cause unnecessary fatigue. Armrests give kids more places to rest limbs, he adds, and a seat that can adjust up and down in height and lean back will also help kids remain comfortable, especially at the end of a long day of sitting in class. This chair from SitRite took the top spot in our story on the best ergonomic chairs for kids and checks all of the above boxes. It comes recommended by both Kwon and Dr. Gbolahan Okubadejo, a spinal and orthopedic surgeon with offices in New York and New Jersey. Okubadejo likes how the chair is well-cushioned, with adjustable mechanics to raise the height or lock the chairs angle, features that can prevent a relaxed, slouched position that can affect the alignment of the spine. $150 at Amazon Buy $150 at Amazon Buy Best (less expensive) office chair for kids ApexDesk Little Soleil DX Series Childrens Height Adjustable Chair $150 $150 While this chair doesnt have a footrest or armrests, California-based chiropractor Dr. Brook Sheehan says that it is still a solid, more affordable option, because it has an adjustable seat and backrest that can be adjusted between 21 and 32-inches to accommodate your childs height. She also likes that the chair has a locking base that allows it to swivel 15 degrees to the left and the right when engaged. The locking mechanism stops the chair from swiveling too much, keeping the child in a proper, stable position, but also allowing for easy exit should they need to stand up, she explains. $150 at Amazon Buy $150 at Amazon Buy Best ergonomic balance-ball chair Gaiam Classic Balance Ball Chair $95 $100 now 5% off $95 I love balls and ball chairs, says Bautch. I think theyre one of the most reasonable solutions to add more motion to your everyday routine. While it might take some time to get comfortable sitting on a ball chair, once youre used to it, Bautch says theres no real reason that you cant use it as your only office chair. Jaffe agrees, adding that ball chairs not only promote good posture while engaging the core, but their balls can also be removed for workouts. While they dont have built-in lumbar support like the chairs above, they engage your trunk muscle and thus increase core strength, improve posture, and engage muscles that are normally not engaged when sitting in a traditional chair, explains Wersland. Jaffe and Gehrman love this one from Gaiam, which comes with an illustrated guide with stretching and strength moves you can do at your desk. But before you add it to your cart, Jaffe cautions that ball chairs, like this one, are typically best for people of heights between five feet and five-11, due to their design. $95 at Amazon Buy $95 at Walmart Buy Best less-expensive ergonomic balance-ball chair URBNFit Exercise Ball From $25 In general, I recommend a variety of sitting options, as opposed to a singular chair solution, says Dr. Andrew Veech. If someone is sitting for hours on end, changing up the positioning proves most helpful, which is why he recommends simply sitting on this anti-slip exercise ball that comes in ten different colors in addition to an ergonomic office chair. From $25 at Amazon Buy From $25 at Amazon Buy Best ergonomic kneeling chair DRAGONN Ergonomic Kneeling Chair $120 $120 If you want to try a kneeling chair, Gehrman recommends this one. The advantage to this style of chair is it puts you in a more upright position, he explains. A kneeling chair will also lengthen your hip flexors (which get tight while sitting), take some pressure off your glute and hamstring muscles, and promote a more neutral lumbar spine. But he cautions to use kneeling chairs intermittently ideally, you should alternate between a kneeling chair, a regular chair, and standing throughout the work day, Gehrman says. $120 at Amazon Buy Best ergonomic stool Autonomous ErgoStool $99 Another affordable but still ergonomic alternative to a proper office chair is a stool, which Jaffe says can help improve posture while engaging the core as you sit. It also makes it easy to go from sitting to standing, she explains, and would be easier to move or stow away, we add (a plus if youre working from home with roommates or working from a small space). She recommends this one because it has an adjustable seat to accommodate lots of different heights. Dr. Adam Lamb of Lamb Chiropractic, a New York Citybased practice that offers house calls, also likes stools, saying he personally sits on one at his office because it encourages good posture and allows you to build strength and balance as you answer emails. $99 at Autonomous Buy Best ergonomic accessories for office chairs ErgoFoam Ergonomic Footrest $33 $40 now 18% off $33 Even if youve found the ideal ergonomic office chair, our experts told us about a few accessories you might consider for your setup to make it even more comfortable. Chiropractor Dr. Jan Lefkowitz of Body in Balance Chiropractic explains that a footrest can improve your circulation by taking pressure off the veins in the back of your thigh where a chair compresses your legs. Footrests also encourage better body positioning while sitting at your desk: Because the footrest is static, this will force you to sit back against a desk chair in proper posture, explains Dr. Daniel Huang, chiropractic-sports physician at Level Up Sports Chiropractic. Both Huang and chiropractor Dr. Cariann Paul love this memory-foam footrest. The material and shape is ideal for those who prefer their calves to have a nice, gentle but constant stretch, says Huang. Its available in two different heights: 3.9 inches and 5.5 inches. And if you turn it upside down, it becomes a foot rocker that prompts what Huang calls active sitting, which, he explains, allows the hip joint and the lumbopelvic region (the lower backpelvis) to shift positions occasionally. $33 at Amazon Buy $33 at Amazon Buy Easy Posture Lumbar Back Support Mesh $32 now 53% off $15 Supporting the lumbar curve in your lower back is key, says Agulnick, because if the lumbar spine is comfortably supported, its going to help people stay in a good posture and prevent them from slouching over and going into postures that could add a lot more stress. While all of the traditional office chairs weve recommended have solid built-in lumbar support, if youre craving more, this is a reasonably priced product you can strap onto the back of your chair. Writer Maureen OConnor told us about it, explaining, It comfortably curves into the lower back near the base of the spine. Its a gentle nudge to sit up straight and can be strapped onto the chair of your choice and, most critically, removed whenever you want. Plus, because youre adding it to your chair, you can place it so that it fits exactly in the small of your back. $15 at Amazon Buy $15 at Amazon Buy Ajuvia Back Vitalizer $60 Lamb gives this lumbar-support cushion to all of his patients, telling us its an easy way to make any seat whether its in your office, car, or home more comfortable. You can put it on a chair back for lumbar support, sit on it to improve your posture, and even use it as a tool while stretching, he adds. $60 at Amazon Buy $60 at Amazon Buy Gaiam Balance Disc $27 $27 If youre ball-chair curious but not ready to fully commit, the lowest-intervention option is a half-ball like this balance disc from Gaiam a favorite of Jaffes that you can place on any office chair you might already own or use. Itll activate your core and give you many of the same health benefits as a more traditional ball chair would but with significantly less risk of falling. It also makes it easy to switch between sitting on a ball and on a regular chair. $27 at Amazon Buy $27 at Amazon Buy get the strategist newsletter Actually good deals, smart shopping advice, and exclusive discounts. Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Terms & Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. The Strategist is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Some of our latest conquests include the best acne treatments, rolling luggage, pillows for side sleepers, natural anxiety remedies, and bath towels. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. Over 2,500 five-star reviewers use the word warm to describe this Orolay parka, which we discovered was the coat that took over the Upper East Side. This jacket feels like a down comforter warm, cozy, and puffy, says one shopper. Another writes, I have had every expensive brand-name winter coat but have never ever had one that has kept me this warm. And a third attests, I currently live in an area where the temperature reaches to the single digits/below zero, and so far this jacket has kept me extremely warm and comfortable. Customers also love how stylish and high-end it looks, with one reviewer writing, I first saw this jacket on a fellow dog person while walking our dogs. She is a designer, so I assumed this was some expensive designer jacket, cause it looks it! The convenience of the coats many pockets is a big draw, as this reviewer explains: It has a ton of big, deep pockets one on each side, two zippered on the front, and two zippered vertically at the chest (thats three pockets on each side, making six pockets total). The zippered pockets are useful for small, important items such as keys, and were so roomy that I had no need to carry a purse, which was nice. Shoppers also appreciate that the sides unzip, allowing for extra room. If youre feeling claustrophobic or just need a little extra room in the jacket, one says, theres a zip on each side which allows you to expand. As one reviewer sums it up, this is, hands down, my favorite winter jacket Ive ever had. Its stylish but practical and keeps me warm even in the chilly Colorado winters. I actually look forward to the cold now so I can wear this jacket because I love how it looks so much. Buy it, you wont regret it. Where oh where has my country gone is the beginning few words of a child's nursery rhyme. The issue is that what is our leadership, the president, is no longer a fairy tale but reality. The lies, the insults, prejudicial, and the harshness of a cruel, insecure man. The distant drum beats are getting louder and a few Americans are waking from their slumbers and realizing that our votes do count. The most recent midterm elections spoke loudly that the voter does not appreciate Donald Trump. 2020 is a ways away and it is my hope to bring along a few others that understand and agree with my words that we need leadership in both the Senate and the House. A few more voices other then Democrats need to be heard. The country cannot allow Trump to trample every decent action the press does; the newspapers and the few distant voices that are screaming to be heard. Wake up voters. We have not been sold swamp land in Florida, I hope. Robert Brooks * * * Mr. Brooks, President Trump is a direct result of the previous eight years of Democratic control. Mr. Obama managed to ignore middle America and the average Joe through his ineptness and ineffective policy. The average Joe has been exhausted by being talked down to and largely ignored by politicians, whilst the Democrats attempted to create the beginnings of a socialist government. Your best candidate against President Trump was the worst choice your party could have made. Our President is not perfect by any stretch, but he has one thing no Democrat seems to understandthe willingness to protect and govern for the average Joe. Instead of attempting to change Republican voters minds and opinions, maybe you should contact the DNC and find out what their platform truly represents, not what they are against. Electing socialist and extremely progressive politicians isnt the answer and as long as thats the goal of the new Democratic party, men like President Trump will continue to be elected. As for the mid-terms, please do your homework on history. The loss of House seats by historical standards was minimal, but Im sure you know that. Wayne Baker * * * Mr. Brooks, I am not sure where you are getting your facts about the midterm elections. To say it spoke loudly about how voters support President Trump couldn't be any further from the truth. Look at the areas where Obama and his Hollywood stars campaigned and Trump campaigned. Those areas were wins for conservatives. If you look at the turnover in seats. Trump was first Republican President to gain seats in the Senate in his first midterm election. President Trump also lost the fewest seats in the house in 60 years and the third lowest total ever. Obama lost 63 seats in the house and six Senate seats. So you ask where has your country gone. I say it's still here but too many believe everything the media tells them without looking up facts for themselves. This by far still the greatest country in the world. Mike Payne Long-time insurance advisors join to form Bluffview Insurance Group, which specializes in life insurance, long-term care, and employee and executive benefits. Bluffview Insurance member advisors have 170 years of experience. They include Bob Berz of Berz Financial Partners, Melissa Woodall Curtis of Woodall Agency Insurance, DeForest Spencer of Spencer Benefits, Mike Jenkins of J Group and Larry White of Larry White Insurance The structure of this agency is most beneficial for clients, said Mr. Berz, Bluffview Insurance founding partner. Were able to combine national resources with local market knowledge to better protect families, estates and businesses. Through its affiliation with PartnersFinancial, Bluffview Insurance can leverage an expansive advisor and carrier network to provide clients competitive pricing and underwriting, HR compliance consulting, and best practices in individual and business insurance solutions. PartnersFinancial has over 150 member firms and unique resources, technology and intellectual capital that Bluffview Insurance can leverage. Bluffview Insurance is not affiliated with any one carrier and can work with a range of other local legal and financial advisors on clients behalves. Our independence allows for objective advice and recommendations that best suit our clients goals, Mr. Berz said. At PartnersFinancial, we have a long-standing partnership with each of these advisors, said Mike James, President of NFP Life Solutions at PartnersFinancial, Were thrilled to see them combine their talents and strengths to provide a seamless experience for their customers. Bluffview Insurance can be contacted through any of its member advisors at (423) 269-8941. The visitors said it best. The Vols were tougher than the No. 11-ranked Wildcats and that's why Tennessee picked up its 17th consecutive victory over Kentucky at Neyland Stadium on Saturday night. "They played more physical than us definitely they just outplayed us," UK senior safety Mike Edwards said. No Vol played more physical than redshirt junior outside linebacker in the 24-7 win. The Waverly, Va., native finished with four sacks, a forced fumble and seven total tackles. No player in the country has had a game with more sacks this season than Taylor. The Waverly, Va., native finished with four sacks, a forced fumble and seven total tackles. No player in the country has had a game with more sacks this season than Taylor. Taylor was named the ADT Defensive Player of the Week by CBS Sports following the performance. "All week we've been stressing not letting the quarterback get out of the pocket, and I think the interior guys did an awesome job of pushing the pocket so the edge guys could get around the edge and make sacks and make plays," Taylor said. "That's what we stressed all week and it turned out good for us in the game." The Vols held Kentucky to only 77 rushing yards their second-lowest of the season, while holding the SEC's leading rusher, Benny Snell, to 81 yards on 20 carries. The Vols stopped the run, took an early lead and forced Kentucky to pass the ball. "Early in the game, they had a lot of third-and-longs," Tennessee head coach said. "I don't know how many there were, but there were several of them that were more than 10 yards, so it gives you an advantage if you're going to be a pass-rush guy." While Taylor has shown flashes of dominance this season he had three sacks and two forced fumbles at Georgia earlier this season it was actually Kentucky's Josh Allen, who was billed as the game's top edge rusher. Allen entered the game with an SEC-best 10 sacks. He got one sack against the Vols, but Tennessee's offensive line shut down Allen for the most part, allowing UT to hold an impressive 412 to 262 edge in total yards. It was Taylor who wound up as the star of the game and played like an All-American, lining up with his hand in the dirt in four-man fronts more than usual. "I've been working a lot on get offs with my hand down and it's been working for me," Taylor said. His sacks were timely, too. He strip-sacked Kentucky quarterback Terry Wilson with the Wildcats driving into Tennessee territory at the Vols' 31-yard line with just under 10 minutes remaining in the game. He thwarted Kentucky's next drive, too, sacking Wilson for a 13-yard loss to force a 2 nd -and-23. Taylor will look to channel his dominant performances against Kentucky and Georgia for the final two weeks of the regular season with bowl eligibility and bragging rights on the line. Tennessee hosts Missouri at 3:30 p.m. next week and caps the regular season at Vanderbilt. "I think it's just my coaches staying on me about not running past the quarterback or not letting the quarterback get of out of the pocket," Taylor said. "I think we did a great job this weekend. Our coaches stressed it and it showed in the game." Overall, it was the Tennessee defense's finest performance of the season, and it came a week after allowing only three points to Charlotte. "This was far and away the most complete game that our guys have played," Pruitt said. "I thought our staff did a fantastic job I thought for the first time, we had a little bit of physicality for the entire game. It wasn't perfect, but it was definitely very positive." Hail Mary TD Carries Momentum into the Second Half Holding a 10-0 lead and getting the ball back to start the second half, Tennessee started its final drive from its own 28 with 1:00 on the clock in the second quarter. The Vols could've ran the clock out, but 14-yard scamper on third-and-8 gave the Big Orange an opportunity to pad its lead with 13 second left before the break. "That was a big play," Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops said. "It led to seven points. That was a big, big play for us. That one we'll be kicking ourselves for a while with the call that we made. That set up the seven [points], and that's kind of like a punch in the gut - when you give up one of those Hail Mary's at the end of the half there. That's a tough one to come back from." After a timeout, quarterback found wide receiver for a 17-yard catch down the sideline to set up the last-second heave from the UK 39-yard line with six seconds left in the half. Guarantano evaded a tackle, stepped up in the pocket and zipped a dart to the end zone, where a group of Vols and Wildcats were bunched up. Callaway leapt in front of the pack to catch his first touchdown of the season and give the Vols a 17-0 halftime lead. "I thought Jarrett did a good job evading a little bit of rush there," Pruitt said. "He stepped up in the pocket and made a good throw to give us a chance and Marquez went up and got it." , who caught a game-winning Hail Mary from Josh Dobbs at Georgia two years ago, appeared in position to catch the touchdown before Callaway came down with the ball. "If I would've dropped it he probably would've been mad, but since I caught it he was happy for me," Callaway said with a smile after the game. "We are all supposed to go to certain spots, and by the time I got there I just saw the ball and they want us to attack it so that's what I did." Guarantano finished with two touchdowns, 197 yards passing and no interceptions in the game. "We went up 17-0 going into halftime (so) it was a big momentum play," he said. "There is a spot we know to throw to and I got a little pressure and I was able to step up because the guys made a good pocket for me, and I was able to throw it into the center and they made a play." I am not in favor of the State of Tennessee spending $276 million to basically rebuild Moccasin Bend Hospital. For many years the thought was to relocate the hospital and expand the Moccasin Park to include this tract of land. Does the hospital really need 105 acres of land to operate? Could the state find another smaller site for the hospital, build a new hospital while continuing ... (click for more) During my lifetime, with a colorful history of an infectious disease known as osteomyelitis, I have endured over 150 surgeries. I no longer have a right leg and my right arm is ornamental, as my longtime readers know. I have undergone surgeries in nine different states in an effort to corral the disease and the truth is Ill have osteo for the rest of my life. Big deal. ... (click for more) Cleveland City Schools Board of Education invites everyone to the Colonel (Ret) Tom Rowland JROTC Classroom Dedication on Monday, 9:30 am at Cleveland High School. For more information contact Andrea Byerly, abyerly@clevelandschools.org. Stuart Elementary and Cleveland Middle hosts Veterans Day Programs on Monday, 2:00 pm. All Veterans and family members are invited to attend. Cleveland Middle School Library Media Center hosts the Fall Scholastic Book Fair all week, 7:45 am - 3:30 pm. The Book Fair will remain open during Parent Teacher Conferences on Tuesday, 4:00-7:00 pm; donuts and coffee will be served! We are pleased to make available carefully selected, quality books at affordable prices in time for your early Christmas shopping. As always, proceeds from this event will benefit our school by helping build the CMSs library collection and classroom libraries. Our Scholastic Book Fair promises to be a great event for literacy. We urge you to attend, and look forward to seeing you there! For more information contact Grace Dyrek, gdyrek@clevelandschools.org. Blythe-Bower Elementary hosts Family Science Night for grades K-2 on Tuesday, 6:00-7:00 pm. The program will be presented by Dr.Jason Robinson of Lee University. Students and their families will participate in nine interactive stations. The evening promises to be a fun-filled educational experience. For more information contact Linda Tyler, ltyler@clevelandschools.org. George R. Stuart Elementary hosts Thanksgiving Lunch for families. Grades K, 1st, and 5th will be Tuesday during lunch. Grades 2nd, 3rd, and 4th will be Thursday during lunch. For more information contact Richelle Shelton, 423-476-8246, rshelton@clevelandschools.org. George R. Stuart Elementary hosts ESL Night on Tuesday, 6:00 pm. Students and families are invited for a fun evening with a scavenger hunt, pizza, and crafts. For more information contact Savannah Shell, sshell@clevelandschools.org. E. L. Ross Elementary hosts Digital Parenting Night on Thursday, 5:45-7:30 pm. Parents will learn how to navigate both the dangers and benefits of today's technology. Childcare will be provided. Click here for more information. Cleveland High School Theater presents its annual Class Play Off Production. Class Plays Offs are a festival of grade-level one-act plays that are student-directed by Senior Thespian Members. Performances of all shows will be held at Cleveland High School's Betsy Vines Memorial Theater on November 15 and 16 at 7:00 pm and November 17 at 2:00 pm. Tickets are $5.00 and doors open 30 minutes prior to the show. Cleveland High School Theater, home of Thespian Troupe 505, is under the supervision of Don Markham, theater director. For more information or contact Don Markham, dmarkham@clevelandschools.org. Blythe-Bower Elementary will host the All Pro Dad Breakfast on Friday, 7:40 am. All students and fathers are invited to attend this monthly breakfast program. For more information contact Laura Murray, 423-479-5121, lmurray@clevelandschools.org. Parent Teacher Conferences: Cleveland Middle School - Tuesday, 4:00-7:00 pm Mayfield Elementary - Tuesday, 4:00-7:00 pm PTO Meetings: Stuart Elementary - Tuesday, 5:30 pm Thanksgiving Break will be November 19-23. Students will return to school on Monday, November 26. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a 2-hour church schedule. Beginning in January 2019, the new schedule will affect members everywhere, including in the greater Chattanooga area. Church services were previously three hours. The church has also released a new home-centered, church-supported curriculum entitled, Come, Follow Me For Individuals and Families. The curriculum focuses on lessons to be taught not only at church but at home, too. There are a lot more hours in a week than the hours spent in church on Sundays. This is why the new curriculum focuses on encouraging everyone to spend more time studying the scriptures in their homes. In 2019, study will be from the New Testament. Every household will be provided a home study guide that goes over the scriptures for that week. Those scriptures will also be discussed during Sunday classes. The home study guide includes a few pages of content that contains the scripture passage, an introduction paragraph, ideas, and prompts for scripture study and activities, as well as ideas for family home evening, the church says. The manual is available digitally at lds.org. Anyone can go online and get a copy for free at https://www.lds.org/study/2019-come-follow-me?lang=eng. The purpose of these changes is to encourage individuals and families to improve gospel learning and living. The word gospel means good news. The good news is that Heavenly Father has a plan for His children. His plan is a plan of happiness made possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. President Russell M. Nelson, prophet, said, Without our Redeemers infinite Atonement, not one of us would have hope of ever returning to our Heavenly Father. Without His Resurrection, death would be the end. Our Saviors Atonement made eternal life a possibility and immortality a reality for all (full text at https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2018/04/revelation-for-the-church-revelation-for-our-lives?lang=eng). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invites everyone to follow Christ and live by and read the word of God at home and at church. Church services at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are open to the public. Chapels are located in Ooltewah, Hixson, Chattanooga Valley, Signal Mountain, Dayton, Cleveland, Athens, and elsewhere, including Dalton. Megachurch Pastor Fired for Viewing Porn Talks About Overcoming His Addiction, New Pastor Job Christian Post Contributor | 12 November, 2018 by Samuel Smith Pastor Scott Crenshaw said he felt like a rock star when he was senior pastor of the multicampus New River Fellowship Church based in Weatherford, Texas. After helping Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston grow its young adults worship ministry, Crenshaw went onto become New River's senior pastor and helped expand the congregation from one campus to three and from about 500 members to over 2,500. But that all came to a crashing halt in 2016 when his departure from the church for "viewing inappropriate images" on his church computer made national headlines. It was then that Crenshaw and his family were forced to seriously address a problem affecting their family that data show a majority of Christian men have some sort of struggle with an addiction to pornography. "Technology was my downfall but now technology is helping my restoration process," Crenshaw told The Christian Post in an interview on Monday. A little over two years removed from his fall from grace, Crenshaw is now serving full-time as an interim pastor at Lake Country Church in Fort Worth, Texas, a role he began about six weeks ago. Crenshaw's return to full-time ministry follows the nearly two-year journey that he and his wife, Renee, have been on in their quest to liberate Crenshaw from the grips of sexual addiction and heal the emotional harm that Crenshaw's addiction has caused to his wife of 31 years. "When all this came down, I had three overseers. These were the men that were there for me in case of emergency," Crenshaw explained. "One of my overseers was on staff at a megachurch in Dallas. They pointed us to a ministry called Pure Desire and they pointed us to a man named Dr. Ted Roberts." The road to recovery The Crenshaws flew out to Portland, Oregon, to meet with Roberts, a former megachurch pastor who founded Pure Desire Ministries along with his wife to provide "hope and freedom from sexual addiction" with a biblically-based and clinically informed approach to recovery. "I hurt my wife. I betrayed her. I stole from our marriage," Crenshaw said. "It is not just me that needed healing. She needed to learn how to trust me again and learn to deal with the wounds that were inflicted on her." "When I walked into Dr. Roberts' office, I was shame ridden," he added. "I had so much guilt. It was all my fault. It was me. I owned every bit of it. The beautiful thing was that I had a wife that said, 'If it is your pain, it's my pain too.'" When the Crenshaws got back to Texas after meeting with Roberts and his wife, Dianne, they were told that they would be prefect candidates for the Pure Desire program. For the next year-and-a-half, the Crenshaws met online every other week with Ted and Dianne Roberts. Roberts suggested that the Crenshaws take part in separate small group sessions one for men and the other for women. Crenshaw told Roberts that he had tried other small men's groups in the past for those struggling with pornography addiction that didn't produce the desired liberation they were looking for. But Roberts informed Crenshaw that the key to success is "having someone who knows how to walk you into freedom." "In the past, I had confessed this to pastors. I had been in prayer lines. I was in small groups and I never could find just complete freedom," Crenshaw said. "It is when you find the people that know the steps out of it." The Crenshaws took part in weekly small groups in Dallas. For Crenshaw, his group featured people struggling with different types of sexual sin prostitution, pornography, strip clubs and homosexuality. "We are walking through material in men's group and being transparent with each other," he said. Meanwhile, Renee Crenshaw was in a group with women going through similar issues with their husbands. Through the program, Crenshaw was also connected with other pastors in his area who suffered the same struggle but were about a year further down the road to recovery than he was. The pastors were able to counsel, lead, guide and encourage him in one-on-one settings. "If the statistics are right, 70 percent of men in America struggle in this area," Crenshaw said. "I am learning about it. This whole time I thought I was the only one, as a minister, struggling with this. You would see the articles about pastors falling to affairs but where was the guy with the pornography? It was liberating meeting these men face-to-face and talking to them and hearing their stories as well." In addition, Crenshaw did his own research and started listening to podcasts addressing the dangers of pornography and steps to healing. "What the church doesn't talk about, I started finding the communities of people that were," explained Crenshaw. Accountability measures As a nonnegotiable element of Crenshaw's participation with Pure Desire, he had to submit to accountability measures. These included putting a parental passcode on the television that only his wife had access to and putting the accountability software Covenant Eyes on his phone, computers and devices. Crenshaw also uses Victory App, an app that provides "a strategic battle plan for liberty in the struggle against pornography." "Every device in our home is on lockdown," Crenshaw said. "Dr. Ted said this is nonnegotiable." Now that Crenshaw is two years along in his road to recovery, he has found ways to help other families and communities struggling with this problem. Crenshaw also helped a church in Utah launch a small group that is being attended by about 30 men every Sunday night, he said. That same church has since started a group for women and plans to start a group for teens. Crenshaw said that he and Renee are also providing support for a 60-year-old man and his wife after he was removed from church over pornography. "I know God has called me to be a minister. I want to minister to men who are having those kinds of struggles," Crenshaw said. "My wife says that the tools that God is using on me right now are the tools that God is going to put in my toolbelt." Return to preaching After leaving New River, the Crenshaws searched for a church community where they could heal. Crenshaw was reached out to by Bishop Gary Oliver, the pastor of the Tabernacle of Praise in Fort Worth. Read more about Pastor Scott Crenshaw on The Christian Post. The tragic shooting on Wednesday in Thousand Oaks, California, took the lives of 12 unsuspecting people. One of the victims was 27-year-old Telemachus Orfanos, a survivor of last years Las Vegas shooting. Orfanos mother, Susan, spoke out in a recent interview with ABC 13 saying, "My son was in Las Vegas with a lot of his friends and he came home. He didn't come home last night, and I don't want prayers. I don't want thoughts. I want gun control, and I hope to God nobody sends me anymore prayers. I want gun control. No more guns," pleaded the grieving mother. According to USA Today, the horrific events occurred after 28-year-old David Long entered the Borderline Bar and Grill, set off a smoke device, and open fired into the crowd. Orfanos, who served two-and-a-half years in the navy, was a survivor of the 2017 Route 91 music festival shooting in which 58 individuals were killed and nearly 500 were left wounded. The victims father, Marc Orfanos, addressed the heartbreaking irony, stating: "It is particularly ironic that after surviving the worst mass shooting in modern history, he went on to be killed in his hometown." Pastor Shawn Thorton of Cavalry Community Church in Westlake Village informed ABC 2 that 20 to 30 members were visiting Borderline Bar and Grill when the massacre took place. He also stated that a total of three families from the church were directly impacted by the attack, either by a death or an injury. If God is God, how could this happen? That's a question that will emerge," stated Thorton. Part-time Cavalry Community Church staff member Noel Sparks was one of the 12 lives lost in the shooting. Senior pastor at the United Methodist Church Walter Dilg informed the San Gabriel Valley Tribune that Sparks was an active member of the church throughout her childhood, serving in Sunday groups and singing in the choir. "It is with heavy hearts that we notify you that Noel Sparks was among the victims of last night's shooting. We grieve with Tony Sparks and Wendy Anderson," the United Methodist Church Westlake Village said on Facebook. "Having her reared at our church, there are a lot of people who are terribly heartbroken over this," said Dilg. CNN reports that the shooter, David Long, served as a corporal in the Marines from August 2008 to March 2013. He was in Afghanistan from November 2010 to June 2011. Thomas Burke, a pastor who served alongside Long in the same U.S. Marine Corps regiment, mentioned that Long experienced extreme combat in Helmand province. In regard to whether or not PTSD might be to blame, Burke had this to say: "PTSD doesn't create homicidal ideation. We train a generation to be as violent as possible, then we expect them to come home and be OK. It's not mental illness. It's that we're doing something to a generation, and we're not responding to the needs they have." Photo courtesy: Getty Images/Kevork Djansezian/Stringer The recent films Unbroken: Path to Redemption and Indivisible center on spiritual responses to the personal toll of war. Those responses are, first and foremost, personal and individual. It would be a mistake to think that the transformations we see in the films can be generalized to all, most, or even a significant minority of war-zone veterans. But, however limited their perspectives, the films are helpful in that they show us two of the paths war veterans can taketwo of the ways the Lord can meet veterans in their particular circumstances. Unbroken (a follow-up to the hit 2014 biopic) tells the postwar story of Louis Zamperini, who survived nearly 50 days on a raft in the Pacific only to be imprisoned and brutalized by the Japanese. His first response to the hatred and nightmares that followed the war was alcohol. The more lasting answer was the gospel, preached at a Billy Graham crusade and responded to in the form of a traditional altar call. Indivisible is also based on a true storythat of Darren Turner, an Army chaplain who discovered that Sunday school theology and the world of war dont easily mix. Early in the film, we see an eager Turner anticipating a long deployment to Iraq, saying, I signed up to be where the need is. The film depicts him making a difference in some soldiers livesnot so much the result of his homilies, which seem to fall flat, but because of his personal example. Yet war wears on him and he unravels. Back home, a senior chaplain tells him, Im not sure there is faith without some doubt. I approach these films not as a movie critic but as one who over 20 years has interviewed hundreds of combat veterans. Much was familiar. Unbroken, for example, shows Zamperini mentally replaying wartime scenes. In his memoir, he tells us that he wondered how he was able to get free of a plane that had crashed into the sea. I relived every moment. This is common. Theres the case of Bennett. The German plane that would shoot down his bomber was coming directly at him. His job as a machine gunner was to shoot, but he didnt because his gun jammed. Or did he panic and freeze? Was Bennetts bomber shot down and most of the crew killedwas he himself made a prisoner of warbecause his gun had jammed or because he had frozen in fear? He relived every moment for decades but went to the grave not knowing. Then there is Chris, the driver of a Humvee, who remembers the Iraqi woman he was ordered to run down in an episode of high stress. Did she stand in the vehicles way paralyzed with fear, or steady in defiance, or because she was an insurgent, the goal being to stop the Humvee so it could be attacked? The tape replaysshe and Chris lock eyes againbut he doesnt know. Chriss faith has deepened since his war, but he has a hard time relating it to what he saw and did. Zamperinis conversion stopped the tape and the nightmares. Turners post-war-zone faithtested, toughened, and deepenedmade it possible for him to continue his work as a chaplain. But, as a young Marine officer I know would tell us, this kind of resolution isnt universal, however deep ones faith. Once, while on patrol, this officer and a few troops came across an unwitting group of North Vietnamese soldiers eating lunch. He gave the order to gun the enemy down before they had a chance to defend themselves. Zamperini, Turner, and this Marine all experienced hideous war, but different experiences lead to different responses. Zamperini found instant, lifelong spiritual relief. Turners exit was more complicated, yet spiritually and intellectually deeper. But the Marine, also a Christian, speaks only of 50 years of agony and heartache. Article continues below Of course, faith matters in these instances. But personality also matters. Experiences and processing styles differ. One veteran was a door gunner in Vietnam and served on three helicopters that were shot down. He never felt postwar wrath or had problems adjusting to civilian life. He took in stride a visit to the The Wall, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. But when another veteran, a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, drives on open highways, he finds himself again aloft over Phu Bai, Da Nang, and Chu Lai. When I first saw the Wall, he says, I lost it. And even when it does offer some relief, faith doesnt always provide answers to our biggest questions. Indivisible shows Chaplain Turner carrying the lifeless body of an Iraqi girl. A soldier asks him: You got a Bible verse to explain why a little girls life was taken before it even began? This soldier sounded like Pete, a missionary kid, who served a combat tour in Iraq. Seeing kids die did it for me, he says. They had nothing to do with the war and never had a chance. Its hard to believe a fair and just God could have a hand in a five-year-old girl getting run over by a truck while trying to beg for food. The movie soldier converts. Pete lost his faith. As Indivisible shows, this is the sort of thing that makes the work of combat-zone chaplains difficult. Surprising as it may seem, the world of battle is often a prayer-free zone, if we exclude the quick, semi-conscious utterances for help in a jam. War is hell, and if a basic definition of hell is Gods absence, then (in some sense) God isnt there. Few Christian combat veterans will say this, many will contradict it, but their own reflections usually tend toward that conclusion. Who could possibly say with conviction that Jesus can be found in the thrusting of a bayonet, the hurling of a grenade, the dropping of a bomb, the laying of a mineeven if, in a given situation, these acts are necessary? As with many things in the world of war, memories of chaplains differ. Before he died of conditions probably complicated by Agent Orange, my uncle wrote of the evening in Vietnam when he realized that God was not involved in the conflict. He tried to talk to chaplains about his fear, but they had no scriptural comfort, and at the end of the day they were paid soldiers. He became a Jehovahs Witness and a pacifist. On the other hand, David Hess, who fought at Hill 875 in the battle of Dak To, remembers Chaplain Charles Watters with the deepest admiration. Watters was killed while assisting the wounded. He didnt have to be on the mission. He would have served wounded enemy Vietnamese. He died a non-combatant hero. For all the difficulties, many see that God turns hard experiences to good. In Indivisible, an improvised explosive device takes a soldiers leg but saves his family. Humbled and constrained, the soldier understood that he needed to make significant changes in his life. And, referring to his chief prison-camp tormentor, Zamperini said that if it hadnt been for the Bird I never would have been converted. The day after his conversion he woke up and realized I hadnt had a nightmare about the Bird. And to this day Ive never had another. It isnt a common story, but it is a real one. Both Zamperini and Turner found postwar meaning in connecting with and helping others. Isolation for the combat veteran is a path to disaster; reaching out not just to ask for help, but also to help others, can be a source of profound relief. Zamperini started a program for troubled boys. Turner continued to serve fellow soldiers while remembering not to neglect his own family. Article continues below Luke Ryan, who served four tours in Afghanistan, encourages war veterans to look outside themselves. In combat, you live one of the purest forms of service, he says. You throw your very life into the fray for the sake of the mission and the sake of those around you. The last person you think about is yourself. You have to find a way to do that again. And so it goes, according to other combat veterans Ive worked with: Reconnect with family and friends. Dont isolate yourself. Remember Philippians 4:8. Stay busy and think of others. After all, it was for others that you went to war in the first place. (Ken Leach, Vietnam) When I was discharged, veterans were seen as pariahs and baby killers. I sought to distance myself from other vets, which was a big mistake. (Gary Heald, Vietnam) Look for ways you can serve others, says Derl Horn, who has published his Vietnam memoir. Through prayer, I have released many of my difficult memories to God. After his combat tour in Vietnam, Ron Maines flew for Mission Aviation Fellowship. The work of service was a work of healing. Unbroken and Indivisible tell individual stories about individual war-zone veterans. For me, these stories go into the same mental container as the two conversations I had yesterday with veteransone who saw close up killing in the invasion of Panama in 1989, the other a sailor who saw combat in the Mekong Delta in 1968. Veterans stories have much in common, but their ways with memories are personal. Experiences, personalities, and processing styles differ. Wars differ. Situations within wars differ. Zamperini had his answer. Turner has his. The combat veteran at your church may have another. The important thing is not to generalize, not to sentimentalize, but to listen to and be ready to learn from those who live with hard memories of war. Pray for them. Sometimes faith doesnt answer everything. But time, interest, and individualized responses, informed by faith, can pave a trail to recovery and, in many cases, healing. A professor of history at John Brown University, Preston Jones has recently posted dozens of discussions with combat veterans at his YouTube channel. He is the author of Gods Hiddenness in Combat: Toward Christian Reflection on Battle. 4 priests kidnapped in Nigeria are free Four priests kidnapped in Nigeria's Delta State last week have been released. The Catholic priests were abducted by gunmen as they returned from a meeting in Warri. They were released on Friday, allegedly after a ransom was paid. SaharaReporters.com said it had been told by an anonymous priest that money had changed hands, though not the N20 million ($55,500) ransom the kidnappers had demanded. The priests were named as Victor Adigboluja of Ljebu Ode Diocese, Anthony Otegbola of Abeokuta Diocese, Joseph Ediae of Benin Archdiocese, and Emmanuel Obadjere of Warri Diocese. The Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Benin, Fr Mike Oyanoafoh, announced the priest's release, saying: 'To God be the glory.' Contacted by SaharaReporters, the Delta State police commissioner Muhammad Mustafa, confirmed the release of the priests and said arrests had been made. Kidnapping and violence are frequent occurrences in Delta State, with the British government warning against travel to the area. Kidnapping in the Delta region is likely to be for criminal or political reasons rather than religious terrorism, prevalent in other parts of the country. Four British missionaries were abducted from their accommodation a year ago in the state. One of them, optician Ian Squire, died in captivity. They had been operating clinics there for 14 years. Amnesty International strips Burma leader Aung San Suu Kyi of human rights award Amnesty International has withdrawn its most prestigious human rights prize from Aung San Suu Kyi, accusing the Myanmar leader of perpetuating human rights abuses by not speaking out about violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Once hailed as a champion in the fight for democracy, Suu Kyi has been stripped of a series of international honours over a Rohingya exodus that began in August 2017. More than 700,000 members of the mostly stateless group fled across Myanmar's western border into Bangladesh after the Myanmar military launched a crackdown in response to Rohingya insurgent attacks on the security forces. U.N.-mandated investigators have accused the military of unleashing a campaign of killings, rape and arson with "genocidal intent". Suu Kyi's administration rejected the findings as one-sided, and said the military action was engaged in a legitimate counterinsurgency operation. The international human rights group named Suu Kyi as its 2009 Ambassador of Conscience Award recipient when she was still under house arrest for her opposition to Myanmar's oppressive military junta. In the eight years since she was released, Suu Kyi led her party to election victory in 2015 and set up a government the following year, but she has to share power with generals and has no oversight over the security forces. Amnesty International said in a statement on Tuesday she had failed to speak out and had "shielded the security forces from accountability" for the violence against the Rohingya, calling it a "shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for". The global advocacy organisation's secretary general, Kumi Naidoo, wrote to Suu Kyi on Sunday saying the group was withdrawing the award because it was "profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defence of human rights". Zaw Htay, the Myanmar government's main spokesman, did not pick up Reuters calls seeking comment on Monday. In March, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum rescinded its top award from Suu Kyi and she has had other honours withdrawn, including the freedom of the cities of Dublin and Oxford, England, over the Rohingya crisis. In September, Canada's parliament voted to strip Suu Kyi of her honorary citizenship. Critics have called for her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize to be withdrawn but the foundation that oversees the award said it would not do so. Amnesty International also said Suu Kyi had not condemned military abuses in conflicts between the army and ethnic minority guerrillas in northern Myanmar and her government had imposed restrictions on access by humanitarian groups. Her government had also failed to stop attacks on freedom of speech, it said. Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Robert Birsel Bulgarian evangelicals warn of parliament's move to take control of religion Bulgarian evangelicals have asked for prayer in the face of a new religion bill that threatens a draconian clampdown on minority faiths. The bill has passed its first reading through parliament and they have warned its impact on all faith communities will be serious if it becomes law. In a letter to the European Evangelical Alliance, the Bulgarian Evangelical Alliance (BEA) said the new law represents an infringement on religious liberty. The letter from BEA president Pastor Rumen Bordjiev says: 'By intending to control donations, to interfere with theological education and to install state regulations on issues of clergy responsibilities, the Bulgarian state is wrongly assuming power into the internal life of religious communities. Almost every single article in the newly proposed bills erroneously and unfairly claims political authority over religious life.' According to the BEA, the new law means Bulgarian citizens will only be able to carry out 'liturgical activity' if they have had theological training in Bulgaria or their foreign school is approved, and that only Eastern Orthodox and Muslim believers will be able to train clergy and run schools. Foreigners will only be able to preach if doing so with a Bulgarian ordained minister. Foreign donations will only be allowed for building construction or social aid and will need government approval so for example no salaries of pastors could be paid from abroad. No religious activities can take place outside of buildings designated for them and only religious groups with more than 300 people will have legal status. The letter says the new legislation would give huge power to the state to interfere in religious affairs and is not supported by any of the country's faith communities. It says the legislation is so flawed it should be scrapped, and is urging Christians to write to the Bulgarian embassy in their country or, in EU countries, to their MEP. The consultation process ends on November 16. The World Evangelical Alliance issued a statement supporting the BEA. Should the law pass, it said, 'existing theological seminaries are at risk of shutting down, evangelical church pastors may no longer be able to conduct worship services, and the acceptance and use of donations will be subject to government approval and limitations'. It said the draft law 'puts unjustified and disproportionate restrictions on the right to freedom of religion or belief and is in direct violations of the democratic principles enshrined in Bulgaria's constitution and in the legislation of the European Union, of which Bulgaria is a member since 2007'. WEA secretary general Bishop Efraim Tendero said: 'The proposed law legalizes state interference in the affairs of religious communities, which invariably comes at the expense of religious freedom. At a time when governments worldwide face the challenge of strengthening freedoms while maintaining security, we call on Bulgaria and other democratic countries to lead by example and to strengthen the right to religious freedom rather than to weaken it.' Church warns of fundraising scams as California wildfires wreak havoc A church caught up in the devastating California wildfires is urging people to be cautious in giving to online fundraising campaigns. The congregation of Paradise Alliance Church was forced to evacuate before the town in northern California was incinerated by the deadly Camp Fire. 'Friends. Our hearts break for you all right now. We will get through this together,' the church posted to its Facebook page. The church is welcoming donations but has also warned people to be wary of online scams. It is inviting those in a position to give to do so straight to its website. 'We have set up a separate #campfire relief fund to be used just for this tragedy. Be careful of many scams right now,' it said. The church, which has relocated services to nearby Chico, posted to Facebook on Friday that the building had so far escaped the flames but it is unknown whether it is still standing. At least 29 people have been confirmed dead in the Camp Fire, with another 200 unaccounted for. Many of the fatalities were in Paradise. A second fire raging around Malibu has caused further destruction, with Hollywood celebrities Miley Cyrus and Gerard Butler being among those to have lost their homes. Christian film director Scott Derrickson, who helmed Doctor Strange, thanked people for their support after his house burnt to the ground. 'Just a quick update to say that I'm overwhelmed by the incredible outpouring of love and support,' he said on Twitter. 'Thank you to everyone who messaged me, and for the dozens upon dozens of you who offered us a place to stay. We are blessed and grateful to be safe and so loved.' Did Britain refuse asylum to Asia Bibi? Some questions There's a story doing the rounds from the Huffington Post which I've seen widely shared. It's about Asia Bibi, and the claims by the chair of the British Pakistani Christian Association, Wilson Chowdry, that Britain has decided not to offer her asylum in the event of her being allowed to travel abroad. It's no reflection at all on Wilson Chowdry who is a doughty campaigner for Pakistani Christians and deserves huge respect for his work to say that this story raises certain questions, or rather its reception by many Christians does. Chowdry told HuffPo that he had been 'led to believe' that 'the UK government had concerns that her moving to the UK would cause security concerns and unrest among certain sections of the community and would also be a security threat to British embassies abroad which might be targeted by Islamist terrorists'. Cue outrage among campaigners for Asia Bibi's freedom, both British and foreign. 'How on earth could we let ourselves be browbeaten by these fanatics?' was the cry. We should be ashamed of ourselves for giving in to terrorists. Was this the kind of country our brave boys fought for? (It was Remembrance weekend, after all.) We should be honoured to receive her, and it's only because our government is so weak, cowardly and generally useless that we have caved in. The trouble is that there is absolutely no evidence that this story is true. Of course I believe that this is what Wilson Chowdry told HuffPo and that he said it in good faith. But the government has not confirmed it. No one actually knows, unless we know who told him and how they know. It may be true. It may not. What's more interesting, though, is the traction it's got from so many people who are prepared to believe the worst of our government and just to be clear, if it turns out to be true, it would be the worst. It would be one thing to tell Asia Bibi and her family, 'There might be safer countries for you to live in, but you're most welcome here'; another thing entirely to say, 'You can't come.' In the latter case, everything the retweeter army says would be true however counter-intuitive it is. (Let's not forget that Malala Yousafzai, another Pakistani woman targeted by fundamentalist terrorists, was welcomed to the UK and has lived very happily here; the parallels are not exact, but they should make us hesitate before assuming Britain is frit.) Why, then, are so many people so keen to believe it? Partly, I'm sure, it's because of our generalised disgust and disillusionment with a government that seems incapable of meeting the minimal standards of competence required of any legislature. But there's a darker side. HuffPo's story plays to a wider narrative, a story told by people with a particular agenda. In that narrative, Islam is a violent and alien force intent on conquest. In some countries, like the UK, it's the enemy within, getting its way through useful liberal idiots and naked intimidation. In others, like the US, it's (largely) the enemy without, to be kept that way by a huge wall. A caravan of Middle Eastern jihadis is on its way through Mexico right now; best vote Trump, that will help. Well, no, no and no. It shouldn't really need saying that 'Muslim' does not equal 'terrorist' or even 'terrorist sympathiser', but it does. Put these two narratives together the notion of a weak, incompetent and defeatist government intimidated by a powerful fifth column of religious fanatics and you can see the story's attraction. But it's a pity those so keen to like and share it don't pause for thought before doing so. No one can seriously doubt the truth of its first element; the second, not so much. So does the story really add up? I beg leave to doubt it, and pending the truth being established either way which it may never be I suggest we all remain firmly on the fence. Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods Faith, patience and a thick skin: How ethical investment can change the world Ephesians tells us to put on the armour of God, and in September the Archbishop of Canterbury had to make full use of his as he faced a media backlash to comments he made about Amazon's policies on corporation tax and staff wages. The Spectator branded him a 'hypocrite', the Guardian called him an 'irrelevance' and suggested that he was an 'idiot that hadn't done his homework'. I am full of admiration for Justin Welby. He put his head above the parapet and spoke out on behalf of the underprivileged in our society that bear their fair share of the tax burden. He was using Amazon as an example of a failing system that perpetuated inequality in our already unequal society. The day after his speech, the media in all its forms, electronic, print, radio reported on the archbishop's comments. Most were highly critical. However, he achieved what he set out to do; he made the issue current and relevant. I believe that in all likelihood, he was fully aware of the fact that the Church of England owned shares in Amazon and made his remarks in spite of this. Through this, he recognised that raising awareness of the inherent injustices of the UK tax and welfare system would far outweigh any criticism he may receive for his comments. Two weeks after Justin Welby's speech, Amazon announced that 'it had listened to its critics' and increased its minimum wage in both the USA and UK. While we may not know what caused them to ultimately make this decision, I think the archbishop's comments certainly made them aware of the magnitude of this issue. At the Central Finance Board, we look after the investible assets of the Methodist Church. With that role comes responsibility, and our priority is to both maximise our long-term investment returns while acting in accordance with our Christian principles. There are some 'sin' stocks that our ethics committee feels go beyond any acceptable tolerances for the Christian investor and we currently exclude about 14 per cent of the UK stock market on these grounds. However, there are also many examples of companies whose management teams are focused on improving their ethical practices in otherwise grey areas. For example, on climate change, Shell and Total have shown some good progress by projecting what their emissions are on 'scope three' emissions this relates to the emissions from using their products eg if we were to go into one of their garages and fill up our cars, the emissions from the point we drive off. We aim to encourage these improvements in behaviour. The extractives industry should be rewarded where it prioritises employee health and safety; power generators when they reduce their reliance on coal. The question we must constantly be asking ourselves is whether we should give up on companies that are slow or resistant to change. As shareholders, we have a voice that is more powerful than that of the general public. We can file resolutions, table difficult questions at general meetings and vote. The faith community in the UK tends to vote together our voice still commands respect in this country. We are stubborn and have thick skins. Just ask Justin Welby. For me, divesting from a company is the last step in a prolonged assault upon company management. It is proof that we have failed. I would much rather accept criticism, both internally and externally, than concede defeat on some of the great challenges of our day. As Solomon said in Proverbs 29:25: 'It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you...' Patience and faith are the key pillars of our faith and I believe they will also be the key drivers of change in the corporate world. David Palmer is chief executive of the Central Finance Board of the Methodist Church. The CFB and sister organisation Epworth Investment Management manage in excess of 1 billion for charities and pension funds. We are stewards of our investors' money and carefully select investments using Christian ethical criteria. It's a daily choice: How adoption shaped my view of love I would like to be able to say that love for my children happened all at once, but instead I'm learning what true love really means and it has nothing to do with feelings. Sitting on a hot bus three years ago in the middle of tropical China I wondered if God would ever come through for me again. The vines hanging from the trees with rainbow flowers seemed dark and gray because of the sorrow I held in my heart. The heat was penetrating, but my heart was ice. Just days before, I had been handed a very sick little girl. Her heart had been broken emotionally. Physically she was incredibly weak. In turn, my heart shattered as I was told by my Heavenly Father: You will be her mother. Me? How could I do this? Her special needs are way too much....my prayers floundered. How could I love and attach to this person I barely knew? At first I called this bonding, loving attachment a process, but that implies an end. A process means 'a systematic series of actions directed to some end'. Attachment (love) doesn't end, so it's not a process. It's a journey. My heart melted as I sat beside my newly adopted daughter on that hot bus. I will never come back to China, I thought to myself that day in Guangzhou. I never wanted to step foot on this side of the earth again because my idea of love had been shattered. At the very core of my heartache was the whispered question: Does God really love me? If he did, why did he call us to adopt, only to have it be this hard? You see, our daughter struggled with attachment the moment she was handed to us. I expected it. She didn't know us. We were strangers. But I was blindsided by my lack of feelings for her at the beginning. True love was something I never thought about, before our two adoptive children. (Yes, two God sent us back to China two years later because he loves me so much and I needed to learn some more lessons.) Love that is true grows slowly and is so much deeper. Like roots in the ground, it can happen even in the winter season. Trees will grow even in the winter. Their roots reach further into the soil, away from the cold, to where the water and food are hidden in the earth. Even when the days are bleak, love grows because true, real love is not dependent on outward circumstances. Love that grows slowly and over time is a lasting kind of love. It is a love that comes when we make choices. It's the love that cleans up the mess at 2 am and a love that holds them while they hate and scream and cry. A deeper love is one that says: 'I love you' when the feelings say, 'Nope.' It will last through the ups and downs. It is the kind of love God the Father has for us. Let me tell you, my love for all of my children is equal. Each child is unique and the way we attach and bond varies, but from my first born, with all the mistakes as a mother, to my last little boy who tests my patience daily, I love them all so very deeply. I learned that true love is a choice we make daily. And that made all the difference. Sarah Frazer is a writer, Bible teacher and mother to five children. She blogs at sarahefrazer.com. More than 200 still missing in California's deadliest wildfire on record More than 200 people were missing early on Monday in California's deadliest and most destructive blaze on record, one of two fires raging in the state which have killed at least 31 people and forced more than a quarter of a million evacuations. The so-called Camp Fire 40 miles northwest of Sacramento burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in the town of Paradise, more structures than any other wildfire recorded in California. The fire had burned more than 111,000 acres and was 25 per cent contained by late Sunday, officials said. Its death toll of 29 now equals that of the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, the deadliest wildfire on record in California. At least 228 people were still missing, according to Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. In southern California, the Woolsey Fire has scorched at least 85,500 acres and destroyed 177 structures. The blaze was only 15 per cent contained. At least two people have died in that fire, according to officials from the statewide agency Cal Fire. The blaze has forced the authorities to issue evacuation orders for a quarter of a million people in Ventura and Los Angeles counties and beachside communities including the Malibu beach colony. Celebrities at the People's Choice Awards Sunday night in Santa Monica asked for prayers and donations for residents and first responders. Reality television star Kim Kardashian said, 'It's been a really rough week in our home in Calabasas, Hidden Hills and our neighbors in Thousand Oaks and Malibu.' Actor Melissa McCarthy said: 'Please keep the victims, volunteers and firefighters in your thoughts.' She also asked people to donate to the Los Angeles fire Department Foundation. Hot, dry winds were expected to whip up the fires burning in both tinder-dry southern and northern California until Tuesday, officials said. Officials urged residents to heed evacuation orders. 'Winds are already blowing,' Chief Daryl Osby of the Los Angeles County Fire Department said Sunday. 'They are going to blow for the next three days. Your house can be rebuilt but you can't bring your life back.' Governor Jerry Brown asked President Donald Trump to declare a major disaster to bolster the emergency response and help residents recover. Trump has criticised the California government in tweets this weekend, blaming poor forest management for the infernos. Mother of man killed in California bar shooting says she doesn't want any more prayers Susan Orfanos, the mother of 27-year-old Telemachus Orfanos who was killed in Wednesday's mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, after surviving last year's shooting in Las Vegas, said in a recent interview that she wants no more thoughts and prayers. "My son was in Las Vegas with a lot of his friends and he came home. He didn't come home last night, and I don't want prayers. I don't want thoughts. I want gun control, and I hope to God nobody sends me anymore prayers. I want gun control. No more guns," the grieving mother told ABC 13. Telemachus was one of 12 people killed after gunman Ian David Long, 28, entered the Borderline Bar and Grill, a country western bar 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles, deployed a smoke device and opened fire on the crowd, according to USA Today. The 2009 Thousand Oaks High School graduate who served 2 1/2 years in the U.S. Navy was a survivor of the massacre at the Route 91 music festival last year, where 58 people were killed and nearly 500 others were wounded or injured. "It is particularly ironic that after surviving the worst mass shooting in modern history, he went on to be killed in his hometown," Marc Orfanos, the victim's father, said. Pastor Shawn Thornton of Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village told ABC 2 that between 20 and 30 members were inside Borderline Bar and Grill during the deadly shooting. His church held a vigil for the victims Thursday night and pledged to offer counseling throughout the week. Three families from his church, he said, were directly affected either by a death or injury from the attack. Noel Sparks, a part-time staff member who worked at the church while going to college, was among the dead. "'If God is God, how could this happen?'" Thornton said. "That's a question that will emerge." The Rev. Walter Dilg, senior pastor at the United Methodist Church, told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune that Sparks was active at the church during her childhood years, serving in the choir and in Sunday groups. When she got into college, she started going to a different church. "Having her reared at our church, there are a lot of people who are terribly heartbroken over this," he said. "It is with heavy hearts that we notify you that Noel Sparks was among the victims of last night's shooting. We grieve with Tony Sparks and Wendy Anderson," the United Methodist Church Westlake Village said on Facebook. According to CNN, the Thousand Oaks gunman was a corporal in the Marines from August 2008 to March 2013. He went to Afghanistan from November 2010 to June 2011. Thomas Burke, a pastor who served with Long in the same U.S. Marine Corps regiment, said the gunman experienced intense fighting in Helmand province. He warned against blaming Long's actions on PTSD. "PTSD doesn't create homicidal ideation," Burke said. "We train a generation to be as violent as possible, then we expect them to come home and be OK. It's not mental illness. It's that we're doing something to a generation, and we're not responding to the needs they have." Courtesy of The Christian Post Samaritan's Purse denies Guardian columnist's claim that its Christmas shoeboxes are anti-Muslim Samaritan's Purse, the organization behind the Operation Christmas Child project, has responded to accusations that it's anti-gay and anti-Muslim. The Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee argued in an article on Thursday that the gift boxes sent to children, many in Muslim countries, stem from an organization that holds anti-Muslim and anti-homosexual sentiments. Samaritan's Purse, which is led by evangelist Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, responded to the op-ed in an email to The Christian Post on Friday, stating that Operation Christmas Child is "aimed specifically to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas the birth of Jesus." "Our purpose is to show God's love in a tangible way to children in need around the world. We do this by distributing millions of shoebox gifts to children who are affected by war, disease, disaster, poverty and famine to let them know that they are not forgotten," the group said. "No matter where we go, we don't hide the fact that we are Christians. As our name illustrates, we are upfront about who we are," it told CP. "Shoebox gifts are given to children regardless of religious affiliation and with no strings attached. Our method is demonstrated in love and we hope that our acts of compassion are an example of our faith." The Guardian op-ed made several accusations against Samaritan's Purse, positioning that it's ran by "fundamentalist American evangelical Christian missionaries." It took issue with the Bible stories and books dispatched alongside the children's gifts, arguing that such a strategy targets Muslim families. Graham, who's also CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, was further accused of being anti-gay for adhering to biblical teachings on marriage that it's is a union between one man and one woman. The op-ed also highlighted several of his Facebook posts opposing radical Islamic extremism as an example of perceived anti-Muslim sentiment. Toynbee, then accused participants in the annual Operation Christmas Child shoebox project of participating in "anti-Muslim proselytizing." Graham recently faced similar controversy in the U.K. when he preached in Blackpool in September at the invitation of local churches, but was accused by a small group of LGBT activists of promoting "hatred" and "bigotry." The evangelist declared earlier in the year that that is far from the truth, however. "I'm not coming to preach hate, I'm here to preach about a Savior, Jesus Christ who can make a difference in our lives if we put our faith and trust in Him," he told Premier of his intentions. "We're not here to preach against anyone, we're here to talk about God," he added. In December 2017, the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District in Canada ended its participation in Operation Christmas Child over complaints against the evangelical group's stance on same-sex marriage. Director of Education Tony Stack said at the time: "For example, a child with two moms or two dads, unfortunately, has been put in the position of choosing between fitting in and partaking with other classmates in an activity, or supporting an organization opposed to the very existence of that very child's family unit." Samaritan's Purse amended its statement of faith in 2016 to say that "human sexuality is to be expressed only within the context of marriage," and that a marriage by biblical definition is between "a genetic male and genetic female." Samaritan's Purse Canada spokesperson Jeff Adams said: "We included these specifics NOT because our views on these issues had changed, but simply because the world's views on these has changed to the point where we felt the need to again remind our volunteers that our organization accepts the Bible as the inspired and infallible word of God." Courtesy of The Christian Post OPEC members may be weighing oil production cuts again, worried that a slowing global economy will undermine prices, but in the groups Middle East heartland producers are spending billions to add output capacity for the long term. As the global oil industry recovers from one of the worst slumps in its history, the biggest international energy companies are keeping their checkbooks closed and tightening up on investment so as to boost returns to shareholders. National oil companies in the Middle East, home to 48 percent of the worlds reserves, are bucking the trend. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are among Middle Eastern producers that are drilling wells to maintain or boost output, in an expansion comparable to the surge in U.S. shale oil since 2010. Abu Dhabi, home to most of the U.A.E.s oil deposits, this month increased planned spending by 22 percent to exploit recent discoveries and raise capacity. RELATED: Saudis see need for major oil supply cut as fears of a glut grow Globally were looking at a pretty flat picture, but underneath that headline number there is growth in some areas of upstream investment, said Richard Mallinson, an analyst with consultant Energy Aspects Ltd. in London. Were beginning to see a pick up in activity from some of the state-owned producers in the Middle East. Ministers from OPEC and allied producers met in Abu Dhabi on Sunday to discuss scenarios including the possibility of cutting output. Crude futures are wilting in the face of another historic shale boom, prompting the suppliers to discuss an about-face in production. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said Monday that producers need to cut about 1 million barrels a day from October output levels. The planned boost in capacity signals that Persian Gulf producers want to be ready to meet future demand. Almost two-thirds of the 7.8 million barrels of extra oil that OPEC expects the world to need in 2025 could come from planned capacity expansions in Iraq, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, Bloomberg calculations show. APACHE FOUNDER: Colorful Texas wildcatter dies at age 96 There are many countries that are suffering production declines, therefore we need to continue to invest, U.A.E. Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei told reporters on Sunday in Abu Dhabi. OPEC members have sometimes fallen short of similarly ambitious targets. In June 2014, Iraq announced that its production would more than double to 8.4 million barrels a day by 2018. That was just before crude prices collapsed and Islamic State militants seized much of the nation, stifling the planned increase. Its now producing about 4.6 million barrels a day. We in Abu Dhabi have been very optimistic and, in a way, bullish about the market situation, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. Chief Executive Officer Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said on Nov. 6 in Singapore. In our view, the market is actually physically very stable. It is only the emotions that are somewhat unstable, he said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. This sentiment is evident in the reluctance of oil majors to commit to new investments and to opt instead to give out cash to shareholders. Investors are still cautious about supporting listed companies forays into costly development projects, said Mustafa Ansari, a senior economist at the Arab Petroleum Investments Corp. in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. That reflects the general risk associated with oil prices, and the stability of the market going forward. EARLIER: OPEC now talking about moves to support oil prices The calculus for oil-producing countries in the Gulf is different. State-owned companies in the region are shielded from the demands of stock-market investors, and they benefit from some of the worlds lowest production costs. Government-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil wants to raise capacity to 4 million barrels a day by the end of 2020 and 5 million by 2030, aided by a recently approved five-year, $132 billion budget. Saudi Aramco plans to spend more than $300 billion over the next decade to maintain its 12 million barrel-a-day capacity and boost gas output. Iraq targets capacity of 7.5 million barrels a day by 2025, while Kuwait has a goal of 4 million. U.S. shale output is also on a tear and will help total American production grow by at least 1.3 million barrels by 2025, according to the Energy Information Administration. All of this may still not be enough. While global spending on new and existing oil and gas projects will rise 5 percent this year to $480 billion -- nearly 40 percent less than in 2014 -- investment wont reach the $600 billion the industry needs annually through the next decade to meet future demand, according to consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. On a global basis, we arent seeing enough supply to keep the market adequately supplied in the mid-2020s, Mallinson of Energy Aspects said. 2018 Bloomberg L.P. Saudi Arabia said OPEC and its allies should reverse about half the increase in oil output they made earlier this year as fears of shortages are supplanted by concerns about oversupply and collapsing prices. Producers need to cut about 1 million barrels a day from October production levels, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said in Abu Dhabi on Monday. The kingdom will reduce shipments by about half that amount next month, making its second policy U-turn after a summer surge in prices was followed by a swift collapse into a bear market this month. This announcement of at least Saudi Arabia reducing probably will firm the price, BP Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said in a Bloomberg TV interview. Oil rallied as much as 2.4 percent in London and 1.8 percent in New York. EARLIER: Oil's rapid run of declines kicks up pressure as OPEC gathers The largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is once again taking the lead to address huge shifts in the market. In June, it persuaded fellow producers to end 18 months of production cuts and pump more crude in response to falling output in Venezuela and Iran and pressure over prices from U.S. President Donald Trump. This time, Saudi Arabia is urging allies to focus on the risk of rising oil inventories and forecasts for massive growth in rival supplies next year including U.S. shale. The kingdom still has some work to do persuading other major producers to follow suit, notably Russia, the largest non-OPEC nation in the alliance. I would not want to focus purely on production cuts, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in a Bloomberg television interview. We have to wait and see how the market is unfolding. From HoustonChronicle.com: Wall Streets favorite oil company A meeting between Novak, Al-Falih and other producers on Sunday yielded no formal change in supply policy, but did acknowledge they may need new strategies. Venezuelan Energy Minister Manuel Quevedo told reporters it might be worth discussing cuts to address rising oil inventories. Omans Oil Minister Mohammed Al-Rumhy said there is a consensus that there is an oversupply and we need to do something. OPEC and Russia added almost 2 million barrels a day to the market between May and October, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While they were willing to take that action to ease prices and shield themselves from attacks from the White House, many countries also need the value of a barrel to stay high enough to balance their budgets. Thats no longer true for some members after oil collapsed into a bear market in New York last week, suffering its longest series of daily declines on record. We are going to do everything we can to keep inventories and supply demand fundamentals within a reasonably narrow band around balance, and we believe markets will calm down, Al-Falih said in a speech at an industry event in Abu Dhabi. The caution of some other members of the group over whether respond swiftly to the recent price collapse arises partly from the unpredictability of Iranian supply amid U.S. sanctions. The Trump administration at first insisted it would seek to curtail all of the countrys exports, only to grant waivers to eight of its customers just as the sanction look effect on Nov. 5. RELATED: Russian oil may gain a lot by giving a little on OPEC U-turn That confounded a market that was anticipating stricter enforcement and a more significant reduction in Iranian exports. In addition to those doubts, the economic outlook for the year ahead, which underpins the strength of oil demand, is cloudy. Current crude prices are still higher than a year ago, but theyre well below what Saudi Arabia needs to balance its budget. Russia, by contrast, is in a more comfortable position. Novak showed no sign he was ready to act immediately and Vagit Alekperov, the CEO of Russias second-largest oil producer Lukoil PJSC, said theres no need to cut output now. I think it all comes down to Russia, said Helima Croft, chief commodities strategist at RBC Capital Market LLC. They seem to be sitting squarely on the fence about pulling the barrels back. --With assistance from Manus Cranny, Hussein Slim, Giovanni Prati, Sarah Forster, Javier Blas and Elena Mazneva. 2018 Bloomberg L.P. Emergency room physicians did not take kindly to being scolded last week by the National Rifle Association to "stay in their lane" and not get involved in the nation's gun debate. As of Monday morning, 26,000 doctors, nurses, paramedics, social workers and other health professionals, including some in Houston, had signed an open letter to the NRA, penned Friday night and headlined "Gun Violence Is Our Lane." In addition, the hashtag #ThisISOurLane continues to grow and has spread outside the United States. READ LETTER: This is Our Lane: An Open Letter to the NRA from American Healthcare Professionals "As an emergency physician, I see the injuries and death toll from guns as part of my daily routine," said Dr. Cedric Dark, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Houston's Baylor College of Medicine who also treats patients at Ben Taub Hospital, one of the nation's busiest Level I trauma centers. "The NRA would have the American people discount the years of medical school, residency training and practice experience of emergency physicians, trauma surgeons, nurses and countless other health care professionals in order to cry 'fake news' to the scientific data we have about how to prevent loss of life," Dark said. The dust-up began over an Oct. 30 position paper by doctors published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, an academic medical journal published by the American College of Physicians. The physician authors called for gun violence to be treated as a public health crisis and urged reasonable restrictions on gun purchases. They also asked for the freedom to speak to patients about gun safety. READ THE PAPER: Reducing Firearm Injuries and Deaths in the United States: A Position Paper From the American College of Physicians Three days later, the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action responded with its own position paper that began: "Everyone has hobbies. Some doctors' collective hobby is opining on firearms policy." READ THE NRA RESPONSE: Surprise: Physician Group Rehashes Same Tired Gun Control Policies But things really heated up on Nov. 7 when the NRA, in promoting its paper, tweeted: "Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane." And it was on. Doctors around the country quickly slammed the tweet, creating #ThisISOurLane." That same night, a gunman opened fire at a bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., killing 13 people, including a police officer and the shooter. About a dozen others were wounded. One of the dead had survived the mass shooting in Las Vegas just a year before. "It didn't even make 12 hours until the next shooting," Dark said Monday about the NRA's tweet. RELATED: Measures outlined to help reduce gun violence in Houston The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Dr. Megan Ranney, a Rhode Island physician and chief research officer for AFFIRM, a national nonprofit organization that studies gun violence, wrote the letter to the NRA in response to the rapidly cascading events and, in part, out of frustration. "With each time, we say this is the tipping point," she said Monday. In her letter she writes: "We are not anti-gun. We are anti-bullet-hole." She conceded she was surprised by the number of doctors who have signed on for the fight and the attention the protest is stirring. She said she was scheduled to be interviewed by the BBC later Monday. "I think the time is here," she said. Meridiana, a master-planned community in the Manvel and Iowa Colony areas south of Houston, will get new side-by-side middle and high schools in the coming years. The schools will be funded by a recently approved bond by the Alvin Independent School District. The community, which opened an on-site elementary school in 2016, will open a middle school in fall 2020, followed by a high school in fall 2021, developer Rise Communities announced. Houston-based SeeHerWork designer and seller of personal protective equipment (PPE) for tradeswomen is helping fill out a dearth of options in the workwear market. Launched in September, the online startup currently sells garment pieces with female body proportions in mind. Company founder and CEO Jane Henry, who has served as a management consultant for energy companies like BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil asserted many corporations continue overlooking women when furnishing them with work clothes. Women "don't want pink it and shrink it," Henry said. "If folks are still taking men's sizes and shrinking them down, they're failing these women. ... It needs to be for the female form." READ MORE: Texas Tech helps design clothing for women in oil fields Among the products being featured on the company's website, is a safety vest in fluorescent yellow green and specifically designed to fit a woman's body. It is priced at $29.99 and available in sizes extra small through double-extra large. There are also a couple of long-sleeved shirts for $35.99 and $44.90. Henry first realized the disparity in women's protective apparel after doing Hurricane Harvey recovery, saying she was "appalled" at the difficulty to find useful clothing and equipment. She said it took a lot of extra effort to pick things up with oversized gloves, for instance. This prompted her to conduct a study on the issue at Rice University, finding out that "it's an endemic, industry-wide problem," she said. There are gloves included on the website, of course. Two different types, each sold at $39.95. Work pants, footwear and coveralls are on their way, too, according to the website. READ MORE: Woodlands firefighter invents unique uniform dryer SeeHerWork is in partnership with the Rice Angel Network entrepreneurial program. At Rice, Henry conducted focus groups with hundreds of women to help determine the best-fitting PPE clothing. "We're talking to ladies on the ground floor. ... We're using female patterns to build out our products, but we're also listening to what the females need," Henry said. "We want theses women to feel powerful, to feel safe." She argues that STEM jobs are not effectively using the women working in them. "We want to keep women safe and we want to attract and retain more women in these careers," she said. "Clothing and equipment matter." Jeff Wheeler /Minneapolis Star Tr /Jeff Wheeler /Minneapolis Star Tr Oil and gas producer Chesapeake Energy has signed a long-term frac sand supply agreement with Hi-Crush Partners for Northern White sand. The agreement between the Oklahoma City oil and gas company and the Houston frac sand supplier will supply sand to Chesapeake's operations in Pennsylvania's Marcellus shale and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. Oil climbed the most in 2 1/2 weeks, halting an unprecedented decline, as Saudi Arabia pledged to curb output and urged allied crude producers to follow suit. Futures in New York gained as much as 1.8 percent after entering bear-market territory last week. OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo on Monday warned that an international supply glut on par with the 2014 surplus that crushed oil markets is imminent. The 500,000-barrel-a-day production cut promised by the Saudis probably is only about half the curtailment required to forestall a glut, according to the kingdom. "If we believe that Saudi Arabia will cut supply we'll see what happens in December, but this will tighten up the market and should rally things up a bit," said Bart Melek, head of global commodity strategy at TD Securities in Toronto. "I wouldn't be too surprised to see crude head back closer to recent highs, maybe not to the October levels, but certainly off the recent lows." RELATED: Saudis see need for major oil supply cut as fears of a glut grow The Saudis are taking the lead to counter a price slide of about 20 percent since early October, which reflected U.S. waivers that tempered the impact of sanctions on Iran, as well as signs of an emerging glut in America. West Texas Intermediate for December delivery advanced 73 cents to $60.92 a barrel at 10:43 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Total volume traded was 72 percent above the 100-day average. Brent futures for January settlement rose 76 cents to $70.94 on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark crude traded at a $9.98 premium to WTI for the same month. From HoustonChronicle.com: Wall Streets favorite oil company Softer Demand Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said Sunday that demand for the kingdom's oil is "tapering off," in part for seasonal reasons. As it cuts December shipments, the world's biggest crude exporter may struggle to convince others to follow. Iraq has boosted production to a record and its more fragile economy may make it loathe to reverse course. Meanwhile, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said he "would not want to focus purely on production cuts." A meeting between Novak, Al-Falih and other producers on Sunday yielded no formal change in supply policy, but did acknowledge they may need "new strategies." Oil chiefs from Venezuela and Oman indicated they may side with the Saudis on the issue of output cuts. --With assistance from Alex Longley and Tsuyoshi Inajima. 2018 Bloomberg L.P. The prices contractors say they'll charge for nonresidential construction has made the sharpest increase since 2009, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began recording them. In October, prices jumped 2 percent from the previous month and 5 percent from the previous year, marking both the largest monthly and yearly increase on record. BUILDING HOUSTON: Construction costs in Houston ten percent below national average An analysis of federal data by the Associated General Contractors of America suggests that costs have increased even more quickly, rising 6.6 percent year over year. "Contractors and subcontractors raised their bid prices in November to make up for past cost increases, but the cost of goods and services that they buy rose even faster," the association's chief economist, Ken Simonson, said. "That makes further bid-price increases likely but also implies some contractors will just stop bidding on projects where costs are too unpredictable to ensure they can be built profitably." The association said materials necessary for construction that saw sharp rises in costs included diesel fuel, up 27 percent year over year, steel mill products, up 18 percent, asphalt paving mixtures and blocks, up 12 percent, and truck transportation of freight, up 7.1 percent. "It appears that the tariffs imposed on steel, aluminum and thousands of Chinese imports are starting to affect the cost of many items used in construction," Simonson said. "As inventories of goods purchased before the tariffs took effect are depleted, contractors are likely to face even higher costs, which they will need to put into their bid prices if they hope to make any profit on future projects." One by one, Houston Northwest Medical Center CEO Tim Puthoff read the names and branches of the hospitals employees that have served in the military. Guests gathered at the medical center on Friday, Nov. 9, for the Veterans Day event, which featured the Spring High School Color Guards presentation of colors, a reading of the poem, What is a Vet?, the Servicemens Prayer, as well as the history of both Veterans Day and of Taps, followed by a performance of the Taps. WASHINGTON - Former U.S. Congressman Stephen E. Stockman was sentenced today to 120 months in prison and ordered to pay $1,014,718.51 in restitution, to be followed by three years of supervised release, for orchestrating a four-year scheme to defraud charitable donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars and secretly to funnel the proceeds to pay for personal expenses and to illegally finance his campaigns for public office. Stockman represented Texas 36th congressional district, which includes Dayton, Liberty and much of Cleveland and Liberty County. The position is currently held by Brian Babin, who won re-election last week. Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick of the Southern District of Texas, Special Agent in Charge Matthew J. DeSarno of the FBIs Washington Field Offices Criminal Division and Special Agent in Charge D. Richard Goss of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Houston Field Office, made the announcement. Former Representative Stockman stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from charities, then used the money to pay personal expenses and fund his political campaigns, said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski. As this case demonstrates, the Justice Department and our law enforcement partners will aggressively pursue corrupt public officials, including those who seek to corrupt our elections for personal gain. At trial, the government proved to the jury that former Congressman Stockman ran his campaign and fraudulent charities to simply enrich himself and defrauded well-meaning donors, said U.S. Attorney Patrick. This type of corruption by public officials gives our entire democratic system a black eye. Former U.S. Representative Stephen E. Stockman, 61, was convicted by a federal jury in Houston on April 12, of 23 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to make conduit contributions and false statements to the Federal Election Commission, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, making excessive coordinated campaign contributions, money laundering, and filing a false tax return. Two of Stockmans former congressional staffers previously pleaded guilty in the case. Thomas Dodd, 39, of Houston, Texas, pleaded guilty on March 20, 2017, to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to make conduit contributions and false statements. Jason T. Posey, 48, of Tupelo, Mississippi, pleaded guilty on Oct. 11, 2017, to one count of mail fraud, one count of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering. Former Congressman Stockman was entrusted by his constituents to serve in their best interest, said FBI Special Agent in Charge DeSarno. Instead, Stockman used his position in a series of schemes for personal gain at the expense of the public. Todays sentence should send a clear message that the laws of the land apply to everyone, regardless of position or power. The FBI and our partners at the IRS will continue our efforts to identify fraudulent practices carried out by elected representatives. Public officials who abuse their position will be investigated, prosecuted, and subjected to the full punishment of the law for their actions. Congressman Stockman used his position to defraud charitable foundations to advance his political career and pay for personal expenses, said IRS-CI Special Agent in Charge Goss. His actions and failure to pay taxes on these illicit funds not only undermines the American tax system, but cultivates a lack of trust in our elected officials. Todays sentencing demonstrates IRS-Criminal Investigations commitment to bring justice to those public officials who believe they are above the law. According to the evidence presented at trial, from May 2010 to February 2014, Stockman and his co-defendants solicited $1,250,571.65 in donations from charitable organizations and the individuals who ran those organizations based on false pretenses, then used a series of sham nonprofit organizations and dozens of bank accounts to launder the money before it was used for a variety of personal and campaign expenses. Specifically, the evidence established that in 2010, Stockman and Dodd solicited an elderly donor in Baltimore, Maryland for $285,000 to be used for legitimate charitable and educational purposes. Stockman and Dodd used a sham charity named the Ross Center to funnel the money to be used for a variety of personal expenses. The evidence further established that, in 2011 and 2012, Stockman and Dodd received an additional $165,000 in charitable donations from the Baltimore donor, much of which Stockman used illegally to finance his 2012 congressional campaign. The trial evidence also showed that shortly after Stockman took office as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2013, he and Dodd used the name of another sham nonprofit entity, Life Without Limits, to solicit and receive a $350,000 charitable donation, to be used to create an educational center called the Freedom House. Stockman, Dodd, and Posey instead used this donation for a variety of personal and campaign expenses, including illegal conduit campaign contributions, a covert surveillance project targeting a perceived political opponent, an in-patient alcoholism treatment for a female associate, and payments for hundreds of thousands of robocalls and mailings promoting Stockmans candidacy for U.S. Senate in early 2014. In addition, the evidence established that, in connection with Stockmans Senate campaign, Stockman and Posey used another sham nonprofit entity to secure a $450,571.65 donation in order to fund a purportedly legitimate independent expenditure promoting Stockmans candidacy. The evidence showed that the purportedly independent expenditure was in fact secretly controlled by Stockman, who directed his campaign and Posey to file false affidavits with the FEC covering up Stockmans involvement. Finally, the evidence at trial demonstrated that Stockman failed to pay taxes on any of the $1,250,571.65 in fraudulently acquired donations. In addition, during the early stages of the investigation, Stockman directed Posey to flee to Cairo, Egypt, for two and a half years so that Posey could not be questioned by law enforcement. The FBI and IRS-CI investigated the case. Trial Attorneys Ryan J. Ellersick and Robert J. Heberle of the Criminal Divisions Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Annis of the Southern District of Texas are prosecuting the case. A water conservation notice was issued by the city of Galveston on Monday after a water line serving residents throughout Galveston County sprung a leak. The city will be under a Stage 5 water conservation notice while the Gulf Coast Water Authority, the city's water supplier, assesses a leak in a 42-inch water line. The fifth stage of Galveston's water conservation plan means that all irrigation of landscaped areas with potable water is prohibited. Use of potable water to wash any motor vehicle, motorbike, boat, trailer airplane or other vehicle is also banned. The water authority shut down the line during the assessment, and water will be re-routed to the City of Galveston through other water lines starting Tuesday. The city also will reduce water pressure as a precautionary measure, and curtail deliveries to wholesale water customers. Galveston has prepared for this Gulf Coast Water Authority project by filling its water storage tanks. The city is expected to have a better assessment on Tuesday Nov. 12 of how much water the city is receiving from the water authority via the re-routed lines. The 42-inch water line operated by the Gulf Coast Water Authority serves customers in Galveston, Tiki Island, Bayou Vista, Hitchcock and Santa Fe, as well as portions of La Marque, Dickinson and League City. These restrictions will continue until further notice. During this time, the City will monitor water supply and demand on a constant basis and send notifications to the public every four hours. Local residents and businesses are encouraged to follow the city of Galveston's social media pages for updates. Nick Powell covers Galveston County for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and send him tips at nick.powell@chron.com After one Instagram post she was in front of 8 million users. Ashley Greene, a deaf-education teacher at Atascocita High School, had no idea about #10FeaturedTeachers, a trending and Hollywood-backed school supply drive. Fast forward to Oct. 3 and there she was on the Instagram feed of Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell, all smiles in a photo with the aforementioned hashtag. I had no idea how large this campaign was or how many people it was going to reach, she said in an email. I didnt even know whose campaign it was. Greene was the second of 10 teachers in Bells second round of selections, right after another Texan, too math teacher Bill Becker of YES Prep North Forest school. Greene only had maybe 20 items on her list initially, but in the end she got close to 400. There were letters, too. A few from Atascocita, most from the U.S. and one from a deaf-education teacher in Ireland, Greene described. Capeless heroine Dawn Ribbeck, a former Humble ISDs educational interpreter, nominated Greene upon finding out that the Frozen actress was spotlighting teachers. I immediately thought of Ashley because of her servants heart, she said. Ashley goes above and beyond not only for her students daily, but also her friends and co-workers. Ribbeck definitely got proof of that, which she put into writing to send to Bell as one of three things the other two being a photo and an Amazon wish list for a teacher to be considered. Aside from many achievements listed, Ribbeck also revealed that Greene was deaf. If you look at the statistics, I should never have been here, Greene said, after sharing it was meningitis that claimed her hearing. I attribute every single one of my successes to my family and all of my teachers. None of them let me think less than the best about myself. That is also the very mindset Greene will continue to impart to her students, giving them a boost of self-worth in an area where she said the term learned helplessness frequents. My first group of seniors graduated last year, and when I got them none of them really had concrete goals for themselves, the teacher of five years said. Now 75 percent of them are in college and they still reach out to keep me updated on their lives. In her classroom, not just knowledge reigns. There is a positivity wall where Greene would write notes for her students so they know she is both their teacher and a believer in their abilities. All the way. Not a loss In the past, while she was interviewing for a teaching position at various districts, Greene tended to meet doubters. Among the questions for her: How can you even teach if you dont speak? A disability is not a loss, it is just a difference, she said. I dont have my hearing, but I have not lost anything. In contrast, I have gained so much. Gains is also something she loves to see in her students lightbulb moments, Greene coined them. She saw students, who had never read anything past the third-grade level, finished Of Mice and Men. One even had To Kill a Mockingbird down with the assistance of Sphero, a robot from a Colorado-based company that helps with teaching. The kids are the true rock stars, she said. All of our students, regardless of their disability or background, have so much worth and so much potential. nguyen.le@chron.com West Katy residents met Nov. 8 at Katy City Hall to learn more about a multi-million project to upgrade First Street that includes flood mitigation. Several of the approximately 30 residents at the meeting asked what would happen after the project is completed if another Harvey visits the area. David Leyendecker, the city engineer, said the project capacity is designed for a 100-year storm. After Harvey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration set newer standards for rainfall amounts within a 24-hour period to define a 100-year event. The NOAA chart shows 16 inches within a 24-hour period. In 2017 when Hurricane Harvey occurred that rainfall total was 12.4 inches in 24 hours. Visit https://tinyurl.com/y7984gzt for details. Leyendecker said Harvey was more like a 500-year event. Theres only so much you can do, it (flooding) can still happen. According to Costello, the contract engineer hired by the city, 685 Katy-area homes flooded after Hurricane Harvey. Harvey did impact the First Street project. City officials authorized larger storm sewers after Hurricane Harvey. Were putting in a much larger storm sewer because so many houses flooded just north of First Street, explained Leyendecker in a September interview. He detailed the First Street project to residents and added that the city also is working to expand detention at Pitts Road, where the city hopes to build another detention pond. After the meeting, which was attended by Katy City Council, Councilman at Large Chris Harris explained that the bottom line is to increase the capacity to hold water with both the Pitts Road detention and with the upgraded First Street storm sewers. Both Harris and Leyendecker emphasized that whatever measures Katy takes cannot adversely impact those living south of the city. The First Street project encountered a delay because of the need for CenterPoint to relocate a gas line, said Leyendecker, but work started this month and could take a year to complete. City Council awarded a construction contract in late August to Trans-Tex Construction of Pattison. The $3,857,299 contract was the lowest of three bids submitted for the project, according to city officials. Total project cost is $4,461,728, which includes engineering, surveying, inspection and a drainage study. Leyendecker said the First Street project is funded from the Metro sales tax that the Katy Development Authority receives for mobility projects. Katy receives revenue from a half-cent of the 1-cent sales tax collected by the Metropolitan Transit Authority within its boundaries. Brad Munsell, president of TransTex, outlined for residents a four-phase traffic control plan, which would impact some access to the neighborhood. Were trying to work closely with CenterPoint, said Munsell, who said the projects end result will be a street that looks a lot better and drains a lot better. In addition to larger storm sewers, Leyendecker said the project will include storm inlets at each intersection off First Street. The two-lane asphalt road will become a three-lane concrete road with a dedicated left-turn lane, from Bartlett west to near Cane Island Parkway. A five-foot sidewalk will run from Cane Island along the south side of First Street to Bartlett and the roadside ditch will be filled in. Leyendecker added that construction of a third reservoir to handle Cypress Creek overflow also is key to flood mitigation in the Katy area. That is a federal project that has won support of District 10 U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, and Houston and county officials. karen.zurawski@chron.com It took two years for the occasion to materialize, Julie Waters said. As founder and executive director of Free the Captives, a faith-based nonprofit thats been countering human trafficking in Houston since November 2009, Waters believes it was important to have a space to recognize supporters and provide updates. Then, Hurricane Harvey barreled in, and hosting a gala was forced to become secondary. The scenario reversed 7 p.m. Saturday at Kingwood Country Club, also known as the venue for the first Evening of Hope. Houston-based fashion designer and writer Elaine Turner was the events keynote speaker. Its amazing what the women of Kingwood have pulled together to fight sex trafficking, said Waters, who has a law background. Among them, she highlighted community engagement coordinator Denise Mears and her successful outreach campaign during the 2017 Super Bowl where she collected purses filled with hygiene products. She shared last March that Free the Captives, while operating in a donated space, was searching for a permanent facility. Waters told gala attendees that a place has been found (the address is undisclosed). She also credited the finding for enabling Free the Captives to launch a credit recovery and GED school for our girls. Most of the girls whove been trafficked are between 12 to 14 years old, she said. When youre being trafficked, youre not going to school and so most of our girls are extremely behind in their education. When theyre finally rescued, and theyre out of that and its time to go back to public high school, theyre 16, 17, 18. With that, Free the Captives has one more on its list of ways to help victims of trafficking besides hosting group therapy, mentoring, workplace preparation (mock interviews and resume writing) and candle-making. Proceeds from the live auction later in the night will support this initiative, Waters said. On top of her organizations achievements, she also congratulated the law enforcement teams behind the unraveling of a human-trafficking and prostitution ring in The Woodlands area from Oct. 15 to 30. Its definitely motivating to help more, said Ashlee McCrary, a legal assistant, attending the event with her husband David. Definitely just growing more awareness of these organizations and the issues thats on Houston streets and our backyards that a lot of people are oblivious to. Waters said Free the Captives had worked with girls in Third Ward, Alief, Pasadena, Humble, Katy and The Woodlands. I think its important for people to know its not just happening in Houston, but also out here in our suburbs, she said. Wherever there is the money there is trafficking. If given the opportunity, Waters would love to see Free the Captives influence beyond Texas the U.S, even. For the latter, she said one of the first places to start will be Vietnam, her parents home country, which the Department of States Trafficking in Persons Report in June deemed not meeting the minimum standards to eliminate trafficking although major efforts are being made. Visit Free the Captives at www.freethecaptiveshouston.com for more information about the nonprofit, ways to support, upcoming events and job openings. nguyen.le@chron.com Considering the Earth-shattering $10.1 million raised during UTHealth's third bi-annual Constellation Gala, the event itself was relatively low-key. Following the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston's inaugural soiree honoring the late, great Dr. James "Red" Duke back in 2014, organizers have made "keeping it simple" something of a tradition. More than 550 supporters arrived at the Marriott Marquis Houston in cocktail attire; a few even self-parked their vehicles in an adjacent George R. Brown Convention Center garage and entered the party via a same-level Sky Bridge - can you believe it? No excess was spared in transforming the hotel ballroom into a luminous scene worthy of Space City, however. Aerialists and dancers from Elan Artists hung and spun from six elevated platforms surrounding the central stage. Tables of varying shapes and sizes were topped with alternating high or low, overflowing or towering floral centerpieces. And much to the delight of diners, sightings of a rare albeit beloved fourth course - in this case, individual cheese plates - were an added bonus of taking one's seat in a timely fashion. Not that the program was lengthy. On the contrary, after an a capella performance by McGovern Medical School students (where do they find the time?), emcee Melanie Lawson introduced gala chairs Diana and Russell Hawkins who thanked supporters for their generous contributions, poked fun at themselves with some endearing relationship humor, and promptly invited guests to enjoy dinner. Autumn salads, petite filets with scallops and root vegetables and key lime cheesecakes circled before Dr. Giuseppe N. Colasurdo joined Lawson onstage to recognize honorees Jane and Robert Cizik. A touching video featuring voice-over by the couple's son Greg Cizik flashed across wall-spanning screens. Greg spoke of his parents' near life-long relationship, which began as high school sweethearts in Connecticut, and later, how his father worked to put himself through college. His mother put her own higher education on hold to raise five children. She eventually graduated from the University of Houston with honors around the same time Greg earned his degree from Texas A&M University. "Her grades have always been just a tad bit better than mine," he quipped in the recording. Jane and Robert's recent transformational gift helped establish student scholarships and faculty and research endowments at the newly renamed Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth. The couple humbly remained seated during thunderous applause; Jane quietly thanked her husband from her chair. "It's his money," she said with a wink as the crowd roared. Colasurdo also presented actor William Devane, the voice behind UTHealth's "Many Voices" campaign with the Medal of Distinction. Then the ballroom doors swung open, and star donors ventured out to the pop-up Supernova Lounge when Brandy Alexanders and rows of endless desserts (cookies or cake balls, anyone?) lifted festivities into the stratosphere. In his day job, Matt Leighton wears a state trooper hat. But you will see him in an elf stocking hat in Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some), playing Nov. 29 through Dec. 8 at Dinner Theatre at Francas. The League City lawman plays Gary, the stage manager for a troupe of actors who perform a spoof of widely known holiday tales, in the comedy by Michael Carleton, James Fitzgerald and John K. Alvaerez. After every rehearsal, I leave on a high, said Leighton, who made his stage debut just two seasons ago after taking his daughter, Cara, to audition for A Christmas Story at Clear Creek Community Theatre in Nassau Bay. At the tryouts, he said, It was all women and children; so the director asked me to read the part of The Old Man, as the director auditioned the children. The next thing Leighton knew, he was offered the role. Hooked by audiences laughter The director helped me learn how to read my lines and get a system down for memorizing them, Leighton said. When I heard the audience reaction, especially the laughter, thats when the bug bit me. A steady stream of shows followed, including roles in The Fox on the Fairway, Calendar Girls and Laughter on the 23rd Floor at the Nassau Bay theater. Cara Leighton, now 12 and a student at League City Intermediate School, most recently played a soldier, alongside her father (in three roles), in Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders at CCCT. Matt Leighton, 48, was born in Sussex, England, but moved with his family to the United States when he was about 8 years old. His mother, Sally Roberts, had enjoyed visiting America several times as a member of an Elvis Presley fan club; so it was at her prodding that the family moved to the United States. Roberts lives in Dickinson. Leighton graduated from Alvin High School in 1989. For the past 15 years, he has worked as a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper, mainly in commercial vehicle enforcement, covering Galveston, Brazoria, Matagorda and Wharton counties. He and his wife, Linda, an accountant, also have a son, Chase, 15 who is a student at Clear Creek High. Joining Leighton in Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some) are Pete and Teri Muse Miller of Clear Lake, Kathy Edge of Bacliff, Dianne Foussac of Nassau Bay, Steve Quimby of Sugar Land and Jada August and Hunter Mehrens of Houston. The show was directed by Kathleen Heffernan Pero of Dickinson. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays, Nov. 29 through Dec. 1 and Dec. 6-8. Dinner starts at 6:30 p.m. and show time is 8 p.m. Admission is $35 per person plus tax and gratuity. Call 281-488-2207 for reservations. For further information, visit www.francasrealitalian.com The restaurant/theater is at 1101 E. Nasa Parkway. Oct. 29 At 7:44 a.m., Officer M. Santillanes was dispatched to a burglary of a motor vehicle call at 5206 Locust St. Officer Santillanes met with the victim who stated an unknown suspect broke into his vehicle and stole his work laptop. At 3 p.m., officers were dispatched to 5106 Bissonnet St. in regards to an indecent exposure call. Officer Delgado was given the description of a black/male, slim build, wearing a black shirt and black shorts who had exposed himself to the victim. Officer Delgado was able to locate and detain a suspect matching the description given. The suspect was positively identified and placed in custody for indecent exposure. Officers Lysack and Liccketto assisted. At 7:40 p.m., Officer Younger made contact with a victim in the 7700 block of Balwin Avenue who advised earlier in the day an unknown suspect approached her while she was walking and exposed himself while masturbating. The suspect fled in an unknown direction and was not located. At 5:57 p.m., Officer Younger made contact with a victim in the 5100 block of Braeburn Drive who advised an unknown suspect, driving a white four door sedan, approached her while she was out walking and exposed himself while masturbating. The suspect fled in an unknown direction. Oct. 30 At 12:57 a.m., Officer D. Norman observed a grey SUV parked near the front doors of the Randalls grocery store at 5130 Bellaire Blvd. with the drivers door open. As Officer Norman was turning into the parking lot, a black male came from behind the vehicle. Officer Norman asked the male if everything was okay in which he responded he was looking for cigarettes. Officer Norman advised the male Randalls was closed. At this time the male got into the drivers seat of the vehicle and began to drive away. Officer Norman conducted a computer query of the Texas license plate of the vehicle which returned to be stolen out of the Houston Police Department. Officers stopped the vehicle and the driver was taken into custody for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Officers J. Clisham, T. Younger and T. Quimby assisted in this case. At 2:40 p.m., Officer Lysack was dispatched to the 4900 block of Wedgewood Drive in reference to a stolen vehicle. Officer Lysack arrived on scene and met with the reportee who stated he left his keys in the vehicle and the engine on while he was away from his vehicle. Officer Lysack reviewed a nearby security camera and observed an individual enter the vehicle and drive away. The vehicle was entered into NCIC/TCIC as stolen. Oct. 31 At 9:47 a.m., Officer Vorhees was dispatched to a call in the 1300 block of North First Street in reference to a burglary of a motor vehicle. Officer Vorhees made contact with the victim who stated two of their unlocked business vehicles were entered and construction tools stolen around 2 p.m. Oct. 30. Nov. 1 At 6:01 p.m., Officer Guerra was patrolling the 5300 block of Bissonnet Street when he observed a white Ford Focus fail to obey sign and drive straight in a right turn only lane. Officer Guerra conducted a traffic stop for this violation. As Officer Guerra approached the vehicle he observed the backseat passenger to have a handgun on his lap. After further investigation, one subject was arrested for unlawful carry of a handgun and credit card abuse. The second subject was arrested for fail to id fugitive. The third was checked, cleared, and released from the scene. Officers Younger, Delgado, and Vorhees assisted in this case. Nov. 2 At 2:11 a.m., Officer Bellard was running stationary laser radar in the 8100 block of IH 610 West Service Road when he observed a blue Toyota Camry traveling at 99 MPH in a 40 MPH zone. Officer Bellard initiated a traffic stop on the vehicle and after further investigation the driver was placed into custody for driving while intoxicated. At 7:23 p.m., officers were dispatched to an in progress assault in the 4500 block of Oleander Street. Officers arrived on scene and after further investigation it was determined the mother and daughter got into a physical altercation. Prosecution was declined by both parties involved and the Harris County District Attorneys Office. Officer Bellard will be the reporting officer for the family violence report. Officers Younger and OSullivan assisted in this case. At 11 a.m., Officer Vorhees was dispatched to the 5000 block of Holt Street to meet with the reportee regarding a burglary of a building. An unknown suspect stole lawn equipment from the attached garage. At 12:57 p.m., Officer C. Barber was dispatched to the Bellaire City Hall to meet with a victim regarding identity theft in the 4600 block of Cedar Oaks. The victim states he was contacted by a credit card company informing him and unknown person attempted to open an account fraudulently using the victims identifying information. Nov. 3 At 5:43 p.m., Officer Barrientos was dispatched to the 4500 block of Pin Oak Lane to meet with the owner in reference to an animal bite that occurred about 5 p.m. by the owners dog. At 8:50 a.m., Officer Trujillo was dispatched to 4572 Bissonnet St. in reference to a general disturbance call. Upon arrival he spoke to the victim who stated a black male came by and asked him about purchasing weapons from the location. Employee advised the black male they did not sell weapons at the location and the suspect became irate and threatened the employee. The suspect was located and checked. After further investigation the suspect was released and given a criminal trespass from the location. Nov. 4 At 9:53 p.m., Officers Lysack, Bellard, Younger, and Corporal Kramer were dispatched to an in progress assault in the 4900 block of Spruce Street. Officers arrived on scene and discovered the mentally handicapped child was upset and became physical. The child continued to throw a fit until Officers arrived on scene. Nov. 2 At 5:42 a.m., an officer was dispatched to the 7800 block of Katy Freeway in regards to outstanding warrants issued through the City of West University Place. Upon arrival the officer made contact with the detainee and confirmed the warrants. The officer then brought the detainee to the West University Place jail for booking and processing. At 3:12 p.m., officers conducted a traffic stop in the 6300 block of Buffalo Speedway. The driver (Malik Rashaad Joseph) was subsequently arrested for possession of marijuana. An Officer observed a vehicle fail to signal from a parked position in the 6400 block of Rutgers. A traffic stop was initiated and upon further investigation, the driver (Rafael Gomez) was arrested for Driving While License Invalid and the vehicle was towed and stored for safekeeping. Nov. 4 A subject was taken into custody at the HPD SE Jail for outstanding warrants issued through the City of West University Place. The subject (Anthony Michael Martin) was transported to the West University Place Jail where he was booked in without incident. At 2:35 a.m., and officer was sitting stationary in the 6200 block of Buffalo Speedway running radar when she observed a vehicle traveling southbound with no headlights on. The officer conducted a traffic stop and after further investigation, the driver was arrested for suspicion of Driving While Intoxicated with open container. Nov. 5 An officer was dispatched to the West U PD Lobby Blvd in regards to an Auto Theft that had already occurred. Nov. 6 An officer was dispatched to meet with Pearland Officer, who had a prisoner in custody with two outstanding West University Place warrants. The prisoner was transported to the West University jail facility and booked without incident. Nov. 7 An officer was dispatched to the Harris County Sheriffs Office Jail to pick up an individual with warrants out of the City of West University Municipal Court. The individual (Lawrence Phillips) was taken into custody and transported without incident. At 11:10, an officer was dispatched to the 2900 block of Wroxton in regard to FSGI (failure to stop & give information). An officer was dispatched to the 3400 block of Tangley in regards to a report of fraudulent activity. An officer observed a vehicle traveling south bound in the 5900 block of Community and then stop in a moving lane of traffic. The officer pulled along the drivers side of the vehicle and observed the driver slumped over appearing to be looking at a phone in his lap. The officer sat parked alongside vehicle for several minutes and received no response from the driver. Contact was made and after further investigation, the driver was taken into custody for the suspicion of Driving While Intoxicated. Nov. 8 An officer was dispatched to the 6400 block of Wakeforest in regards to a report of fraudulent activity that had already occurred. Cullinan Park Conservancy, in conjunction with the City of Sugar Land, hosted a groundbreaking for its first phase of improvements of the Park on Nov. 5. The improvements include a permanent restroom, a new trail, two new trailheads, a boardwalk, lake overlook, interpretive signage, landscape improvements, understory clearing and additional benches. A few benches have recently been installed by local Boy Scouts and the Citys Parks & Recreation Department. The improvements total approximately $1.2 million, of which the Conservancy has raised through primarily foundation grants, but also individual and corporate donations. The fundraising efforts started in 2015, with a challenge grant by The George Foundation, of which the first $250,000 raised was matched 1:1. The Wortham Foundation donated $250,000 in early 2016 and the remaining $750,000 is being matched fifty cents to every dollar. The Brown Foundation also made a significant contribution in 2016 with a grant for $200,000. This one of a kind, blue-green oasis serving the greater Fort Bend and Houston communities, said Conservancy Executive Director Angie Wierzbicki, provides habitat for 250 species of birds and dozens of other types of wildlife. Gary Tuma, Conservancy Board president, added, The park has been a quiet respite for years for residents and visitors to the area. Now it will have more amenities so more people can take in nature in our ever-growing urban community. Construction for most of the development was bid out in the summer of 2018. At a public meeting on Aug. 30, Millis Development and Construction was awarded the bid for most of the improvements, except the restroom building. Wallis Construction will be providing the restroom, which will be an aerobic system due to the absence of a sewer system at the park. Water and electricity lines are a large part of the expense for this phase since the park had none prior to this development. The park will remain open, as will most of the trails, with minimal fencing in the parking lot area near the construction. Visitors are asked to respect the park and avoid the fenced in areas and construction zone. Construction is slated to finish at the beginning of March 2019. The Conservancy was created in 2010 to advocate for, enhance and protect the natural beauty of Cullinan Park for all. Joseph S. and Lucie H. Cullinan Park (aka Cullinan Park) consists of 754 acres, just north of Sugar Land Regional Airport on Texas 6. Email cullinanparkconservancy@gmail.com, visit www.cullinanparkconservancy.org or call 281-616-7860 for information about the park. Authorities on Monday raided the law office of former Harris County Republican Party chairman Jared Woodfill. Investigators with the Harris County District Attorneys office wheeled carts of documents from Woodfills office at 3 Riverway at least an hour after they arrived. Houston Chronicle Woodfill was the chairman of the county GOP for 12 years until 2014. He frequently practiced in juvenile and divorce courts in Harris County. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Woodfill is the subject of two separate formal complaints one to the State Bar of Texas and the other to the Houston Police Department. In both complaints, Woodfill is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients trust accounts. In the criminal complaint, filed in March 2017, Richard Rodriguez accused Woodfills firm of stealing more than $300,000 from a divorce trust account. Rodriguez said Monday he believed the search was related to his complaint. A Monday hearing in Rodriguezs case was suspended shortly before the search at Woodfills office, according to court records and an interview. In a separate case also involving a divorce, a federal bankruptcy court judge found in 2016 that Woodfills firm acted in extreme bad faith by misrepresenting how much its attorneys were owed while in Harris County family court and in a subsequent bankruptcy case. Woodfills firm had taken funds from the (trust) account that have not yet been earned and, thus, several thousands of dollars have been unaccounted for, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Jeff Bohm wrote in a February 2016 finding of fact document, federal court records show. Indeed, Bohm continued, based on the information provided at trial, there is at least $140,449.36 in unaccounted funds and/or overpayments to (Woodfills firm). Woodfills firm disputed and planned to appeal Bohms finding, court records show. In November, the State Bar of Texas publicly reprimanded Woodfill in a complaint that the Chronicle found is related to the bankruptcy matter. Woodfill had direct supervisory authority over members of his firm who violated the disciplinary rules during the representation in a divorce, the State Bar of Texas wrote, and Woodfill failed to take reasonable action. He was ordered to pay $3,490 in attorneys fees and direct expenses. rob.downen@chron.com lise.olsen@chron.com A Houston-based company has been hired by the DEA and ICE to produce an undisclosed number of hidden surveillance cameras inside street lights in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. "I can tell you thisthings are always being watched. It doesn't matter if you're driving down the street or visiting a friend, if government or law enforcement has a reason to set up surveillance, there's great technology out there to do it." Christie Crawford, who co-owns Cowboy Streetlight Concealments with her husband, a Houston police officer, told news website Quartz.com. Federal contracting documents reveal that their Houston-based company has been hired by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to produce an undisclosed number of hidden surveillance cameras inside streetlights in cities across the U.S., including Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio, Quartz reports. RELATED: One injured after DEA plane crashes in west Houston near Sugar Land "Basically, there's businesses out there that will build concealments for the government and that's what we do. They specify what's best for them, and we make it. And that's about all I can probably say," she said. While the exact locations of the cameras are unclear, the DEA has reportedly paid Cowboy Streetlight Concealments approximately $22,000 since June 2018 for "video recording and reproducing equipment," while ICE has paid the local business around $28,000 over the same period of time. What's more, the DEA has placed covert surveillance cameras inside traffic barrels and operates a network of digital speed-display road signs that contain automated license plate reader technology within them. RELATED: Houston-area crimes caught on camera Surveillance cameras in U.S. cities are expected to become more prevalent as the development of facial recognition algorithms becomes more commonplace among law enforcement agencies. One corporation looking to outfit cameras with facial recognition used by the US Department of Homeland Security is mega e-commerce company, Amazon. "We are ready and willing to support the vital [Homeland Security Investigations] mission," an Amazon employee wrote in an email, part of a chain of emails recently unearthed by the Project on Government Oversight. "Efforts to put cameras in streetlights have been proposed before by local law enforcement," senior advocacy and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union Chad Marlow told the website. "It basically has the ability to turn every street light into a surveillance device." Marcy de Luna is a digital reporter specializing in social media, the famous, and food. You can follow her on Twitter @MarcydeLuna. Read her stories on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | Marcy.deLuna@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message A woman was injured after slamming her car into a Washington Avenue bar on Monday morning, Houston police said. The crash happened around 1 a.m. at the Darkhorse Tavern bar, in the 2200 block of Washington near Hemphill. The driver lost control of her car, left the road and hit the building, police said. Police say a 6-year-old girl was shot Monday in north Houston as a security guard across the street tried to foil a robbery. The incident began around 3:50 p.m. as two men tried to rob the T-Mobile store in the 5500 block of Airline Drive. As the five-day International Quilt Festival drew to a close on Sunday, many quilters at the George R. Brown Convention Center had not yet had their fill. Theres not enough time to see it all! said T.J. Wolff of San Antonio, who wore a custom-made t-shirt with the words Material Girl emblazoned across her chest. Over 1,700 quilts were on display at what organizers call the largest quilt festival in the United States. An estimated 55,000 people flocked to Houston, filling three floors of the convention center with quilting exhibits, vendors and classes. Many in attendance said they had booked their hotel rooms and even planned their outfits for the festival over a year in advance. If youre a quilter, and someone asks, Are you going to Houston? you know theyre talking about this show. Its like a code, said Bob Ruggiero, vice president of communications at Quilts, Inc., which organizes the festival. Quilters from near and far have been coming to the festival, first started in 1987, for decades. Shannon Clubb, who stood out from the crowd in her troll doll costume (she and her friends Imogene Hayek and Lari Ainsworth have made a tradition of dressing in hand-sewn costumes every day of the festival) said shed been attending for roughly 30 years. Angela Lawrence, owner of Applique After Hours, has been making the two-and-a-half-day drive down from Des Moines, Iowa for 10 years. Some quilting enthusiasts even flew in from other continents. Rosa Rojas, owner of Apliquick, had flown 14 hours from Spain. Its the biggest festival in the world, she explained as she showed festival goers a method she had invented for quilting shapes with curves or unusual contours. In addition to vendors, there were quilt exhibits ranging from traditional to modern. One quilt from around 1810 was sewn by hand out of 45,000 hexagons each a quarter inch across. A crowd of dumbfounded quilters gathered around to marvel over the time and attention contained within the work. Can you imagine the patience? said Suzy Karcher from San Antonio. Then there were more recent works quilted landscapes and portraits, quilted leather saddles and tributes to the King of Rock and Roll, including one that showed Elvis Presley and his car. There were glow-in-the-dark quilts and quilts made of digitally printed fabrics, trompe loeil quilts such as one that used perspective to create a labyrinth. Quilts told the tales of every day life, such as Hollis Chatelains scenes from West Africa sisters pounding millet, friends braiding hair. Quilts also told the tales of life gone awry, such as Cynthia Parrys image of a Japanese-American internment camp or Michelle Flamers memorial to the four African American girls killed in 1963 in a Birmingham church bombing. Theres always a story behind a quilt, said Sharmie Williams, who also had a quilt on display. Im not a quilter, but I love to come because its world-class art, said Audrey Lokker of Houston as she examined a portrait of former President Jimmy Carter. The tiny pieces of fabric sewn together in his likeness offered up clues about his life a peach in recognition of his Georgia roots, a formula in reference to his background as an engineer. Lokkers aunt, Kathleen Henighan of Boston, had flown in for the festival. She said her travels reminded her of the importance of quilting. While people dont strike up conversations in airports the way they used to, when Henighan quilts in an airport terminal, she says strangers are drawn to her work, offering memories it brings up. She believes the tactile nature of quilting can bring people together in a way that screens do not. It becomes a powerful social tool, she said. Its a way of connecting with people. rebecca.schuetz@chron.com; twitter.com/raschuetz A west Texas couple has been accused of illegally buying four expensive rifles in Mineral Wells for someone in Mexico, according to federal court documents filed earlier this month. Francisco Javier Sevilla-Alvarez and Perla Melissa Franco-Hernandez, of Presidio, have been charged with making false statement to a gun dealer after they admitted to the scheme, charging documents say. RELATED: Measures outlined to help reduce gun violence in Houston Sevilla-Alvarez is a permanent U.S. resident, while Franco-Hernandez is a naturalized citizen, documents say. During an interview, they said they frequently traveled to Mexico, where Sevilla-Alvarez owned a home. "I know, based on my training and experience, that the state of Texas' firearms laws are not very onerous, and as such, Texas is a source for illegal firearm traffickers," a veteran investigator with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wrote in the charging document. "I know that Mexico has very strict firearm laws and as such, illegal firearms trafficking into Mexico is a large problem for law enforcement." The investigator spoke to the gun dealer in Mineral Wells in October. The dealer said couple had purchased three rifles from him in September 2018, including two M249S rifles and an M240SLR. Those rifles cost between $9,000 and $14,000. The dealer said in federal charging documents that the couple purchased the rifles in cash and were both present during every transfer. The dealer said Franco-Hernandez filled out all the required forms during the transfers, as well as background check documents. Sevilla-Alvarez told the dealer that he wouldn't be able to pass the background check, documents say. RELATED: Democratic state gains may mean tighter gun, looser pot laws After Sevilla-Alvarez bought a fourth gun from the dealer, the ATF agent detained the couple in Mineral Wells. Sevilla-Alvarez told the agent that he worked in the oil fields and frequently went to Mexico. He said he was buying the guns for someone in Mexico who would leave him large sums of cash in his unlocked vehicle. Sevilla-Alvarez said his wife would help him pay for the rifles, fill out the appropriate documents and drive them back to Presidio, where he placed the weapons at predetermined locations to be picked up. The ATF agent referred to the couple as "straw purchasers" in his affidavit, which refers to people who purchase firearms on another person's behalf. Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message AUSTIN Houston native and Angleton Republican Dennis Bonnen locked down enough votes to become the next Texas Speaker of the House on Monday, promising to focus on reforming the states school finance system. Were here to let you know the Speakers race is over, and the Texas House is ready to go to work, Bonnen told reporters at the Texas Capitol. Bonnen, 46, said he has 109 other members of the 150-member House who have signed on to support him for House Speaker. That list includes at least 67 current House Republicans, with almost the entire conservative Freedom Caucus. He needs a majority of the House members to elect him on the first day of the Legislative Session in January to secure the post. The announcement comes after other key contenders gave up the fight. State Reps. Four Price of Amarillo, Phil King of Weatherford, Tan Parker of Flower Mound and Eric Johnson of Dallas all announced over the last three days they were pulling out of the race. Rep. John Zerwas of Richmond dropped out in October. The two remaining contenders, Reps. Travis Clardy of Nacogdoches and Drew Darby of San Angelo dropped out Monday. Bonnen would take over a Texas House in which Republicans lost 12 seats on Election Day. Republicans still have more seats than Democrats, but the margin is down to 83 to 67. Bonnen his colleagues in the House will dictate the priorities, but after talking to members, he knows one top issue already. I can guarantee you that priority is school finance, Bonnen said. It is time Texas took on the challenge of fixing our broken school finance system. Bonnen was at the center of the property tax reform negotiations in the Texas Legislature in 2017 that ultimately failed to pass. While the Senate pushed for caps on how much cities and counties could raise property taxes, Bonnen pushed for transparency measures that would give homeowners more clear information about which government agencies were responsible for the hikes. The two chambers never came to an agreement. For subscribers: Gov. Greg Abbott pushes for limit on school property tax hikes With Bonnen as House Speaker, both chambers of the Texas Legislature would be under the leadership of Republicans from southeast Texas for the first time. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who oversees the Senate, has lived in Houston and now lives in Montgomery County. The last time southeast Texas had both top spots was in the early 1970s when Houstons William Hobby Jr., a Democrat, was lieutenant governor overseeing the Senate and Price Daniel Jr., a Liberty County Democrat, was speaker. In Bonnens camp: Both Freedom Caucus members and Democrats After the 2017 Legislative Session, House Speaker Joe Straus declared he would not run for re-election. The speaker sets the pace, tone and direction of the House, appointing fellow members to key legislative committees that will vet hundreds of bills during the legislative session that begins in January. Republicans in the tea party-aligned House Freedom Caucus often took aim at Straus. Centrists and Democrats praised Straus and his committee chairmen for blocking legislation such as the so-called bathroom bill that would have forced transgender people to use bathrooms opposite of the gender with which they identify. More conservative members of the House blamed him for committees refusing to advance several of their key bills. But while Bonnen was a top Straus lieutenant, Bonnens bid for Speaker has been supported by some of Strauss biggest critics in the House. Ten of the 11 returning members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, including chairman Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, are among those who are publicly backing Bonnen, as are 31 Democrats. In total, 78 Republicans (including House members-elect) have announced support for Bonnen. I think that Rep. Bonnen is going to return the power to the members, said Jordan Berry, a political consultant representing about a dozen Republican House members, including some from the Freedom Caucus. I think everyones hopeful that we can get things done. Empower Texans, a conservative group that clashed frequently with Straus, lauded Bonnen for his approach to running for speaker. Empower Texans CEO Michael Q. Sullivan told followers on social media that Bonnen sought to win the GOP caucus instead of trying to court Democrats and just enough Republicans to become speaker. That should be very reassuring to @TexasGOP activists, he wrote on Twitter. A little more than half of the chambers Democrats have not offered their support to Bonnen, including Chris Turner, the House Democratic Caucus chairman. House Democrats remain committed, as we always have, to working with anyone who is willing to put the voters of Texas first. We expect any Speaker to let members represent their district, and to prioritize real solutions for all Texans, said Turner, from Grand Prairie. Bonnen offered reassurance to members of the House who have not pledged to support him yet. Speaking at a Monday news conference, Bonnen said all 150 members of the House will be part of the team. Whether their name is on the list or not is unimportant, Bonnen said. Were going to be the House. When the House stands together, it does great things. Bonnen said the House stands ready to work with Gov. Greg Abbott, Patrick and the Senate going forward. I know from my dealings with Chairman Bonnen that no one works harder or more passionately for Texas, Abbott said in a statement. There are a number of important and pressing issues facing Texas as we head into this next legislative session, including reforming school finance and elevating our education system, and I look forward to working [with] the new Speaker and the entire House of Representatives to address these topics and much more." Bonnen has served in the Texas House for more than 20 years. He holds a bachelors degree in political science from St. Edwards University in Austin and was elected to the House in 1996 at just 24 years old. The married father of two is the CEO and chairman of the board of Heritage Bank. The Wockhardt stock closed higher in trade today even as the firm widened its Q2 net loss to Rs 23 crore compared to Rs 3 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal. The stock ended 9.02% or 47 points higher on the BSE. The stock has been gaining for the last four days and has risen 11.40% during the period. The stock touched an intra day high of Rs 578 (10.89%) intra day. The mid cap stock has lost 19.23% during the last one year and is down 39.18% since the beginning of this year. The pharma major on Saturday reported widening of its consolidated net loss at Rs 23 crore for the second quarter ended September 30. The plans to raise up to Rs 1,800 crore through private placement of non-convertible debentures. Sales during the quarter under review stood at Rs 1,125 crore. It was at Rs 1,022 crore in the year-ago period, it added. The company said its total expenses during the quarter were higher at Rs 1,163.56 crore as against Rs 1,104.76 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal. The board of directors in its meeting held on Saturday approved raising of funds through issuance of non-convertible debentures or bonds on private placement basis up to an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 1,800 crore. Wockhardt further said its board has also approved issuance of non-convertible non-cumulative redeemable preference shares of face value of Rs 5 aggregating up to Rs 500 crore on preferential basis to members of the promoter group, for which shareholder nod would be taken through postal ballot. It, however, did not specify where the funds would be utilised. Mustafa Nadeem, CEO at Epic Research said, "Wochardt Pharma has announced earnings which were negative and not in line with high expectations. However, there were a few positives. The company was not able to deliver on bottom line but if you look at sales, it has increased 12% QoQ basis and 10% over the same period of previous year. Domestic business which accounts for 40% and EU markets which contribute 30% were flattish. Emerging markets and US business have grown 68% and 18% respectively in Q2FY19 as against Q2FY18. Another big positive is infusion of capital. The company plans to raise Rs 1800 crore via debt instruments and Rs 500 crore by issuance of preference shares to promoter group. Capital infusion by promoters is seen as a big positive for investors because you get confidence on promoter ownership and management. So, overall though bottom-line is negative, we see margins improving for H1 FY19 along with robust sales figures and capital infusion by promoters. Markets have a knack for discounting future and as we consider the current scenario is favourable for the pharma sector." The business performance of the company during the second quarter showed marked improvement driven by growth in US and emerging markets, Wockhardt said. India business stood at Rs 455 crore in the quarter as against Rs 452 crore in same period last year. It contributed 40 per cent of the global revenue, it said. The company said its US business grew by 18 per cent in rupee terms mainly on account of new products launches and increased market share of some of its products. The US business contributed 17 per cent of global revenue. On the other hand, emerging market business contributed about Rs 144 crore, around 13 per cent of global revenue. The segment witnessed strong growth of 68 per cent in the second quarter, it said. Wockhardt Limited is a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company which is engaged in manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical formulations, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and vaccines. It operates a chain of approximately 10 super specialty hospitals, which offer treatment and care facilities in cardiology, neurosurgery, orthopedics, critical care, oncology, nephrology, urology and others. The firm has over 10 manufacturing plants located in India, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States. Gov. Greg Abbott shouldnt be getting all giddy about a double-digit victory in his bid to serve a second term. After all, his little-known Democratic opponent, Lupe Valdez, pulled down 43 percent of the vote with very little cash to campaign and no discernible message to propel voters to the polls. The governor should instead consider that he likely would have lost if voters had understood how his misguided efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act in Texas had risked their health. Abbott had the audacity during his lone debate with Valdez to brag that Texas has lowered the number of uninsured adults and children by more than 20 percent since he took office. He undoubtedly knows that decline was in spite of him, not because of him. Its largely due to Texans obtaining insurance through the ACA. The governor also refuses to admit that Texas continues to lead the nation with the highest rate of uninsured residents 17 percent, according to last years census figures. The uninsured rate would go down if Texas joined the ACA expansion of Medicaid, but Abbott has refused to do that. When it was pointed out that the federal government would pay nearly all of the cost to expand Medicaid, Abbott argued that the nations increasing debt might lead to less Medicaid funding in future years, which could leave Texas holding the bag. Thats certainly possible, but pondering Washingtons spending habitsisnt Abbotts job. Leave federal budgets to Congress and the president. The governor of Texas should concern himself with the future of Texans who cant afford health insurance. Medicaid provides health services to more than 4 million Texans a month, according to the Texas Hospital Association. The need is greater than that. The Texas Medical Association calls the state the uninsured capital of the United States. More than 4.3 million Texans, including 623,000 children, lack health insurance. Other states have gotten the message. Thirty-seven have expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. Meanwhile, Idaho, Nebraska and Utah voted to expand in Tuesdays elections and Kansas, Maine and Wisconsin elected Democratic governors who plan to expand Medicaid in their states. One telling congressional outcome in Virginia saw a novice Democrat who supported the ACA, Abigail Spanberger, oust Republican Dave Brat, who famously won the seat in 2014 by opposing the ACA. The tide has turned. Surveys show Americans, including Texans, support the ACA now that the anti-Obama politics associated with it have faded. Abbott should stop playing political games with peoples health. Theres no good reason, other than obstinacy, not to expand Medicaid in Texas. Hours after senior pilot Arvind Kathpalia was grounded for failing the pre-flight breath analyser test on Sunday, another flight was forced to return to Delhi as the co-pilot allegedly missed his breathalyser test. As mentioned on agency reports, Air India 332 from Delhi to Bangkok took off from the Indira Gandhi International Airport and landed back 36 minutes later after making several sharp manoeuvres as shown in its flight path. Passengers on the flight took to Twitter to complain about the flight and about being stranded at the airport for more than four hours. There is no official statement so far. Before that, senior pilot Arvind Kathpalia, who is also the Director of Operations for India said that he was told by the carrier he failed two breathalyzer tests on Sunday before a flight to London from New Delhi. Kathpalia has also had responsibility for flight safety and training earlier. It is the second time Arvind Kathpalia, who is also on the loss-making airline's board, has been in trouble over alcohol tests. He was suspended for three months in 2017 for allegedly refusing to take breathalyzer tests. According to a description for the operation director's job when Kathpalia got appointed in June 2017, he was responsible for flight operations, ground operations, and flight safety and training operations. It is unclear if those remain the job specifications. Kathpalia, who denies he had been drinking, corroborated the results of the breathalyzer and said he was tested twice in a span of 20 minutes, adding that the second test's reading was higher than the first. In 2017, Kathpalia was suspended for three months when he had allegedly refused to take breathalyzer tests before and after his flight between Bengaluru and New Delhi and back in January 2017, according to a court document available on law portal Indiakanoon. In August last year, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association, a trade union representing pilots of the state-owned carrier, filed a court case against Kathpalia requesting stern action against him over the missed breathalyzer tests and some other behaviour. (With Reuters inputs) Our weekly summary of the latest movers in the charity sector. Chief executives Tom Lawson is to leave Leap Confronting Conflict and join Turn2us as chief executive. Read the full story here. The Small Charities Coalition has appointed Angela Style as interim chief executive following the departure of Mandy Johnson. Style is chair of Endometriosis UK and was most recently the director of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance. The Spinal Injuries Association has announced the appointment of Nik Hartley as chief executive. He was formerly chief executive of Restless Development, and will join the SIA staff team in early January 2019. Forget Me Not Childrens Hospice, which supports children with life-shortening conditions and their families across West Yorkshire and North Manchester, has appointed Luen Thompson as the charitys new chief executive. She has previously held senior positions at national childrens charities Barnardos and NSPCC, as well as Carers Trust. Finance and operations The Big Lottery Fund has appointed Shane Ryan as senior head of partnership funding. The new role has been created as part of the Big Lottery Funds commitment to supporting civil society and helping community and voluntary organisations to thrive. He joins from Working With Men, where he was chief executive for eight years. Sarah Lambert, former head of policy, public affairs and volunteering at the National Autistic Society, has moved to RNIB as head of social change. She joined the charity's relationships directorate, leading the policy and campaigns team, and the external communications team. Non executives Carolyn Clarke will become the chair of CARE International UK on 1 January 2019. She will succeed Oliver Stocken, who steps down after serving two full three-year terms. Clarke has been a trustee of CARE International UK for almost five years and has acted both as vice-chair and as chair of its finance and audit committee. She is also a trustee of the Institute of Business Ethics. Environmental charity, Keep Scotland Beautiful, has announced the appointment of two new charity trustees; Jane Cumming, a PR professional, and Jean Morrison, who is a former councillor. Starlight Childrens Foundation has appointed five new trustees. They are: Dr Chris Hanvey, deputy chief executive of Barnardos; Dr Chris Evans, an NHS paediatric anaesthetist; James Innes, an accountant; Alain Wolffe, a former executive director of strategy and governance at Canada Life, and the father of a 12-year-old with cerebral palsy; and Hina Patel, a senior strategic project manager from investment firm BlackRock. The scientist and broadcaster Alice Roberts has been appointed president of Humanists UK, and will prioritise promoting awareness of humanism to the British public. She said: I am so honoured to become the next president of Humanists UK - to be joining a community of like-minded, thoughtful and compassionate people in this way. I will be working harder than ever to promote humanism. Our good news is not that there is life after death to look forward to - but that this is the one life we have - and we need to make it meaningful, by looking after each other and the planet better than weve ever done before. To tell us about your charity's latest appointments please email: [email protected] California is burning again. Separate fires in the north and south of the state wreaked devastation over the weekend and are not done yet. In SoCal, the Woolsey Fire has killed two people so far. In Butte County, north of Sacramento, the death toll from the Camp Fire is 29 and rising, with more than 200 people still missing. Many news organizations have stressed the historic proportions of the latter fire, in particularon Sunday night, it tied as the deadliest recorded in California history. While outlets at all levels have painted poignant portraits of human suffering, local newspapers, as is their responsibility, have led with more pragmatic coverage. Small titles like the Chico Enterprise-Record have reported on what dislocated residents can expect to happen next. The San Francisco Chronicle, meanwhile, took a bigger picture look at how the states intensifying fire threat might be mitigated going forward. The Woolsey and Camp fires are not coincidental, one-off monstrosities, but rather significant new evidence of a rapidly changing climate. Sadly, far too much media coverage has failed to draw that link. That oversight is not surprisingin turn, it fits its own trend of big news organizations investing in detailed reporting on climate change, then failing to cite it in their quick turnaround stories when the threat strikes close to home. (As Hurricane Michael made landfall in Florida last month, CJRs Pete Vernon pointed out that newspaper front pages did not mention climate change, despite having splashed dire UN climate projections just days earlier.) ICYMI: NPR kills journalists piece over her accent Over the weekend, fire stories that did reference climate change often did so in quotation marks, referencing, variously, high-profile comments from outgoing California Governor Jerry Brown, Los Angeles fire chief Daryl Osby, and the musician Neil Young (the latters remarks, on his website, were a rare benefit of a cycle that otherwise paid wildly disproportionate attention to celebrities losing their homes). These are weighty voices, and editors hesitation to blame individual meteorological events on climate change in the absence of conclusive proof is not without reason. Nonetheless, this sort of attribution is not sufficiently authoritative. Browns comments, in particular, were framed as a political dispute with President Trump, even though the latters weekend tweets blaming poor forest management for the fires carried significantly less merit. There is clear contextual evidence of the role of climate change in Californias worsening wildfire problem, and not enough outlets have cited it. The San Francisco Chronicle, at least, quickly got bona fide experts on the record: LeRoy Westerling, a climate and fire scientist at the University of California, Merced, for example, told the paper that Climate change is drying out our landscape. Sign up for CJR 's daily email The Chronicles editorial board itself weighed in definitively as the fires spread on Friday, adding a practical call to action. Rather than absolve us of responsibility for the growing human and material devastation of wildfires, it wrote, global warming should spur more urgent efforts to mitigate the danger with policies that make sense in any weather. ICYMI: Reporters must convey the perils of climate change without paralyzing their audience Below, more on the California wildfires and climate change: Newspapers affected: Concern grew on Sunday as Chico Enterprise-Record Editor David Little struggled to locate two of his employees. They were both later found safe. Concern grew on Sunday as Chico Enterprise-Record Editor David Little struggled to locate two of his employees. They were both later found safe. Keeping the receipts: San Francisco Chronicle Editor Audrey Cooper yesterday tweeted her papers fire coverage budget. It ran to around $24,000, much of which went on safe clothing and equipment for reporters. San Francisco Chronicle Editor Audrey Cooper yesterday tweeted her papers fire coverage budget. It ran to around $24,000, much of which went on safe clothing and equipment for reporters. Mismanagement: On Sunday, CNN meteorologist Tom Sater dismantled Trumps claims about the fires. On Sunday, CNN meteorologist Tom Sater dismantled Trumps claims about the fires. You have to experience it: The Daily Beast interviewed UCLA geography Professor Glen MacDonald, who has studied climate change and wildfires for decades, after he was forced to evacuate his home on Friday night. You write about it. You study it. Then you suddenly get a call at 11:30pm saying your home is under voluntary evacuation. Then you see that red glow in your rear mirror when you leave, MacDonald said. You have to experience it. The Daily Beast interviewed UCLA geography Professor Glen MacDonald, who has studied climate change and wildfires for decades, after he was forced to evacuate his home on Friday night. You write about it. You study it. Then you suddenly get a call at 11:30pm saying your home is under voluntary evacuation. Then you see that red glow in your rear mirror when you leave, MacDonald said. You have to experience it. One to come back to: In July, The New Republics Emily Atkin criticized news outlets for treating extreme weather events as acts of God rather than linking them to climate change. Some of the same tropes were on display in fires coverage over the weekendespecially around the Northern California town of Paradise. Other notable stories: A telling story in the Times last night: Intelligence officials close to Saudi Arabias crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, discussed using private companies to assassinate enemies more than a year before the dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the countrys Istanbul consulate. Relatedly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that he passed an audio recording of the murder to the US and other Western governments. Also in the Times, Sahil Chinoy, Nicholas Kristof, and Jessia Ma track historic covers of The American Rifleman, an NRA magazine. The Rifleman has been published under its current title since 1923, revealing how the group has politicized and mobilized its members over the past century, the trio writes. The covers of the magazine show how the NRAs conception of itself has evolved from a largely apolitical association of hunters and sportsmen to the last line of defense against gun-banning politicians. The Washington Posts Sarah Ellison looks at the parallel faultlines inside the White House, Fox News, and the Murdoch family. The West Wing contains various factions; so does Fox, Ellison writes. [Bret] Baier and [Martha] MacCallum are like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, projecting a reasonable mien and moderate opinions, while [Sean] Hannity and others lean toward the extremes. The government of the Philippines said late last week that it would pursue news website Rappler and its founder, the crusading journalist Maria Ressa, for tax evasion. Ressa, who has strongly criticized the countrys authoritarian president, Rodrigo Duterte, called the move a clear form of continuing intimidation and harassment by the regime. After The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, reported that hard-right Iowa Congressman Steve King referred to immigrants as dirt during his recent re-election campaign, King accused its reporter of misquoting him. On Saturday, the magazine released audio of the remarks. (ICYMI, King barred two local papers, the Des Moines Register and Storm Lake Times, from his election night event last Tuesday.) After offloading Time magazine to Marc and Lynne Benioff earlier this year, Meredith Corporation announced late last week that its selling Fortune, too, striking a $150 million deal with Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon. The Atlantics Scott Nover re-ups the story of Robert Sherrill, an anti-establishment writer for The Nation who, in the 1970s, sued the Secret Service for denying him White House press credentials. While the court did not demand Sherrill be issued a pass, it did lay out a series of steps administrations should take to guarantee reporters First Amendment rights. Experts say the precedent could help Jim Acosta, the CNN White House correspondent Trump banned from the briefing room last week. And CJR published a must-read series of dispatches from its print issue on race and journalism. Reporters checked in with 10 newsroomsin Honolulu; Seattle; LA; Baltimore; New York; Denver; Houston; Orlando; Jackson, Mississippi; and South Bend, Indianawhose staffs do not reflect the diverse demographics of their communities. ICYMI: A swarm of stories, and whats missing Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop. AVON, Ohio -- When Illinois-based Beerhead Bar & Eatery opened a location in the Cleveland Flats in 2015, the craft beer chain also planned for future locations in Ohio. Three stores are finally in the works, including a location in Avon. Other sites include Concord Township and Columbus. Game Day Tavern recently opened at 39140 Center Ridge Road. The cozy bar specializes in gourmet all-beef hot dogs, and also offers a vegan option. The new franchise locations will be owned and operated by Aaron Rasmussen, Jim Maclellan and Eric Engelke of Three 30 Ventures LLC. The Avon location is targeting a spring 2019 date for opening and will be located at 1813 Nagel Road near the GetGo Gas Station. "We were immediately drawn to the distinct franchise opportunity of Beerhead Bar & Eatery and we are looking forward to bringing three locations to Ohio," Rasmussen said in a press release. "We've seen the success of the Cleveland Flats location and we believe its unique vibe and impressive offerings of beer and food will continue to be a hit." Beerhead will feature hundreds of local and American craft beer choices in its wide selection, as well as lunch and dinner casual dining. Beerhead was founded in 2012 and has several locations in the Midwest and Northeast. It began franchising in 2015. For more information, go to beerheadbar.com. In North Ridgeville, Game Day Tavern recently opened at 39140 Center Ridge Road. The cozy bar specializes in gourmet all-beef hot dogs, including a Chili Cheese Dog, Sweet N Spicy Dog and Reuben Dog. Vegan hot dogs were also recently added to the menu. Draft beer is on tap, and the tavern features wine from John Christ Winery in Avon Lake. The restaurant is owned and operated by North Ridgeville resident John Rutherford, who is a certified home inspector by trade but also has 10 years of hospitality experience with Marriott hotels. "I am opening the bar to try to help change the bar business," Rutherford said. "And to try to bring the bar business up to the new day and age of fancy-tasting drinks. There are no fancy hot dogs in the North Ridgeville area. I have lived here for 33 years, and I have always wanted to give back to the city." Feel lucky? Game Day Tavern also offers the popular Queen of Hearts game. For more information, follow on Facebook @Gamedaytavern. AVON Veterans Memorial Park expansion: City Council members discussed the purchase of additional land during a recent work session for the expansion of Veterans Memorial Park. Council approved legislation to re-appropriate nearly $450,000 in support of the project, which will add additional acreage to the park. Much of the land will be used as a passive park, with walking trails that connect to Veterans Memorial Park, as well as a fishing pond. Some of the funds will come from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources through the Land and Water Conservation Fund grant. Mayor's Choice Awards: Mayor Bryan Jensen continues to recognize talented Avon student artists with the Mayor's Choice Award. Winning artwork is on display at City Hall each month. November Mayor's Choice winners include Giuliana Pompeani (Grade 4, Holy Trinity), Katie LeHoty (Grade 11, Avon High School) and Sydney Machovina (Grade 7, Avon Middle School). Certificates of Recognition students include Samantha Brokaw (Grade 8, Avon Middle School), Lia DeGrandis (Holy Trinity), Olivia Eavenson (Grade 8, Avon Middle School), Dylan Kramer (Holy Trinity), Jenna Mitzlaff (Grade 11, Avon High School) and Olivia Oprea (Grade 11, Avon High School). Excel for Beginners: The Avon Library will host two Excel for Beginners courses to teach participants the basics of composing spreadsheets. Classes are from 6 to 8 p.m. Nov. 26 and Dec. 17. Pre-registration is required; call 440-934-4743. AVON LAKE Scholarship program: In an effort to give all residents an opportunity to participate in programs through the Avon Lake Parks and Recreation Department, a scholarship program is available for those who might not otherwise be able to afford a program. Scholarships will are awarded for youth programs and classes. Some of the programs may not be eligible for scholarship awards. The city is committed to providing the benefits of recreation to all residents, regardless of their financial condition. For more information, go to avonlake.org. School building configurations: The original proposal for changes for elementary school building configuration was to occur for the 2019-2020 school year. In June, members of the B.E.S.T. (Building Excellent Schools Team) Committee presented two options to the Avon Lake City Schools Board of Education. As city planning leaders continue to hear proposals for new housing developments in the city, Schools Superintendent Bob Scott recently recommended to make no new changes to the district's elementary buildings/neighborhood lines at this time. The recommendation to the Board of Education will allow the district to obtain more detailed information to help prevent a potentially short-sighted solution. Fall play: Avon Lake High School Drama Club presents "The Faerie King's Daughter." Show dates and times are 7 p.m. Nov. 29 through Dec. 1 and 2 p.m. Dec. 2 at Avon Lake High School, 175 Avon Belden Road. Tickets range in price from $5 to $7. To purchase tickets, go to avonlakedramaclub.com. Community television honors: Congratulations to Avon Lake Community Television (ALC-TV) for earning several honors at the recent Philo Festival of Media Arts Award Ceremony in Alliance. ALC-TV production assistant Brian Bowles has been named a finalist for his work on the ALC-TV Summer Channel ID in the Channel Bumps & Station IDs (:30 or less) category. Production coordinator Stephanie Biggers has been named a finalist in the Health category, for her program created in collaboration with Assist Communities, "Recovery is Possible." ALC-TV was also the winner in the Non-Professional Division of the Interview/Talk Show category for Jackie Tomco's "The Jackie-O Show at Big Trucks," with production assistance from Bowles. To view the shows, go to avonlake.org and click on Streaming Community TV. Holiday craft show: The Avon Lake High School PTA's 22nd annual Christmas By-the-Lake Craft Show takes place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 1 at Avon Lake High School, 175 Avon Belden Road. Browse the gym for a variety of gifts, woodworks, homemade baked goods and other items for the holiday season from more than 90 vendors. Admission is $3; children 10 and younger will be admitted free. NORTH RIDGEVILLE Fire Department Strategic Plan: As construction continues on the city's new fire station, the department recently completed a strategic plan with input from both internal and external stakeholders within the community. The plan will be used over the next five years as a tool to guide the decision-making process for the department. Items addressed in the plan include staffing levels; measuring the performance of the updated employment plan; identifying and analysis of hazards and risks in the community; and developing and implementing a community risk reduction and outreach program to create a safer, more educated city. The complete plan is available for review on the city's website; go to nridgeville.org. Race Road closure: Plan accordingly beginning Nov. 26, as Race Road will be closed for four weeks just north of the railroad tracks. Only local traffic will be able to access the road. Avon Lake Regional Water will be making an emergency repair on a water line. Holiday utility gift: Consider it an early Christmas gift. Thanks to an excess balance of funds above what is needed for continued operations in the city's solid waste account, city officials voted to return any excess cash balance to customers, in the form of a rate holiday. No user charges will be billed to residential customers for the monthly trash collection fee for December 2018. Normal monthly trash charges will resume on the Dec. 31, 2018, utility bill, which would be for the January 2019 trash collection period. For more information, call the North Ridgeville Utilities Department at 440-353-0841. If you have news to share regarding an event, award or other interesting tidbit happening in Avon or Avon Lake, and North Ridgeville send me an email at jshortavon@aol.com. The column's online version is at Cleveland.com/Avon, which offers direct links for many of the news items listed. BEREA, Ohio -- The Berea Board of Education voted unanimously Nov. 6 to dismiss bus driver Carl Angeloff as the result of a Sept. 20 transportation incident involving a student. Board members and Superintendent Mike Sheppard had no comments prior to or after the vote, which took place during the board's regular meeting. According to the board resolution, Angeloff was under contract as a non-teaching employee. "Audio/video from Sept. 20, 2018, shows Mr. Angeloff ranting at and scolding the student (who was the only passenger on the bus and en route from home to Berea-Midpark High School), while at the same time committing numerous safety violations regarding the operation of the bus," the document indicates. "Mr. Angeloff verbally berated the student in an intimidating, disrespectful and unwarranted manner." Safety violations committed included failure to set the parking brake at the student's bus stop; closing the door and pulling off before the student sat down; failure to make a complete stop at any stop sign; and driving with only one hand on the steering wheel. In addition, Angeloff failed to perform the proper procedure when addressing a railroad crossing. Director of Transportation Corrine Mollica investigated Angeloff's behavior and found that he violated not only Ohio law, but also Berea school board policies, the resolution indicates. "Mr. Angeloff's conduct constitutes incompetency, discourteous treatment of the public, neglect of duty, misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance, and, therefore, provides good and just cause for termination," the resolution states. According to Article 22, Discipline, of the current Ohio Association of Public School Employees contract, the school board acted properly and within its authority to dismiss Angeloff. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A clean-water project with the potential to save lives worldwide, spearheaded by Case Western Reserve University students, could win $10,000 in a national competition. The student-run nonprofit Billion Bottle Project is a finalist in the 2018 Collegiate Inventors Competition sponsored by the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The Billion Bottle Project is making the solar disinfection of water, which uses ultraviolet light to kill disease-causing bugs, easier and more accurate. Team members invented an ultraviolet light sensor that measures the amount of UV light a water bottle has received. Contest entries will be showcased at the CIC Expo, held Wednesday through Friday this week, at the United States Patent and Trademark Office headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The inventors hall of fame is located at the patent and trademark office. The National Inventors Hall of Fame was known as Inventure Place in Akron until it relocated to Alexandria, Virginia in 2008. The hall of fames headquarters is in North Canton. The old Inventure Place is now the National Inventors Hall of Fame STEM School. Case School of Medicine students Sanjit Datta, Charit Tippareddy, David Pfau and Eric Salomon are on the Case team headed to the national competition. Datta is the executive director of the Billion Bottle Project. The Case team used forward-thinking research and inventiveness to solve a global health issue, said Anthony Scharf, program relations coordinator for the National Inventors Hall of Fame. They are interested in turning their invention into a reality that has the potential to drastically reduce waterborne illnesses worldwide, using innovation and entrepreneurship to achieve success, Scharf said in an email. The idea for the Billion Bottle Project sparked about three years ago. Class discussions about the social determinants of health, such as access to clean water, prompted Datta, 27, to resurrect an idea hed had years earlier but never pursued. He told some fellow medical students his idea for a sensor that would change color when a bottle of water had absorbed enough ultraviolent light to kill disease-causing germs. Three co-founders started the project about three years ago. Now the project includes about 35 students from Case and other NEOhio universities, and their device is in prototype. Their enthusiasm and hard work turned a vague idea into an organization, Datta said. The nonprofit took its name from the founders goal to disinfect a billion water bottles by 2025. Lack of clean water is a major health problem across the globe. Waterborne diarrheal illnesses cause 2 million deaths each year worldwide, with the majority occurring in children under 5, according to the World Health Organization. More than two million people in 28 developing countries use solar disinfection to make their drinking water safe. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions instructions for solar disinfection call for filling 2-liter clear, recycled soda bottles and placing them in the sun for six hours on sunny days, or two days in cloudy conditions. It works because, unlike a river or lake, a bottle is a closed system and no new bacteria can enter it. But a myriad of factors such as cloudiness and thickness of the bottle affect how much sunlight is needed to make the water safe to drink. Datta and his team invented the Optimized Solar Purification with a Reusable Indicator (OSPRI), a reusable UV sensor that changes color to indicate when the water has been purified. A cartridge containing a sensor is dropped into a water bottle; the sensor measures the amount ultraviolet light reaching the water. If the sensors color changes from blue to white, you know youre good to go, Datta said. His team is also working on a UV sensor in a sticker that can be affixed to the outside of the bottle. The OSPRI cartridge will cost less than a dollar. Users will be encouraged to recycle bottles they have on hand, Datta said. The Billion Bottle Project isnt your usual student project, said Daniel Lacks, the organizations faculty advisor and chair of the Case department of chemical and biomolecular engineering. The sensor they developed is sophisticated, in that it requires the interplay of several component materials and draws on physics and chemistry, Lacks said in an email. The team invented the sensor 100% on their own. The Case team is one of six graduate finalists in the Collegiate Inventors Competition; five undergraduate teams are also finalists. Graduate and undergraduate finalists come from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Harvard, John Hopkins and Brown universities; and other top institutions. Starting Wednesday, the public can vote for its favorite Collegiate Inventors Competition team on the contests website. The graduate teams are vying for a $10,000 gold, $5,000 silver and $2,500 bronze prizes. The undergraduate teams will win gold, silver and bronze prizes of the same amounts. The Peoples Choice Award winner will receive $1,500. No matter the contest results, the Billion Bottle Project will continue developing its clean-water device. The nonprofit has raised $50,000 in grants; an additional $75,000 will be needed to take the invention to market, Datta said. A solar disinfection project in Nairobi is ready to start testing an OSPRI prototype, and another pilot project is slated for Uganda. Its certainly needed in many other countries, Datta said. NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio An elderly deacon and his wife were found shot to death Sunday at their North Royalton home, police said. Dennis and Helen Lucak, both 72, died from gunshot wounds, police said. Their bodies were found about 9 p.m. in an apartment complex on Harbour Light Drive off Abbey Road. No arrests have been made in the case. Dennis Lucak was a deacon at the Archangel Michael Church, an Orthodox Church in America church, in Broadview Heights, according to the churchs website. Det. David Loeding said both were shot multiple times. Both deaths are homicides, he said. Dennis Lucaks sister alerted North Royalton police about 6:45 p.m. Sunday after Dennis and Helen did not show up for a Sunday church function earlier in the day. She, along with police, went to the home for a welfare check. Officers found the couple dead inside a locked bedroom, according to police and dispatch logs. Loeding said investigators are honing in on a motive, but that they were still piecing things together. The dispatch logs show they were tracking someones phone in connection with the case. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is assisting North Royalton police, Loeding said. Both were longtime parishioners at the church and Dennis Lucak a longtime deacon, said Phil Tesar, the churchs marketing director. He said church officials would likely comment further out of respect for the family. Obviously this is shocking and most distressing news," Tesar said. We ask all of you to pray for their souls and the peace of their family. ECC approved financial package for PIA A meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee on Monday approved a financial support package worth Rs17.022 billion for national flag carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). Members of the meeting chaired by Minister of Finance Asad Umar also decided to allocate 10 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) gas from the Bitrism field to Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL). Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) has also been allocated 12MMCFD gas from the Dhok Hussain fields. It was proposed that the government should provide a direct subsidy to SNGPL for domestic consumers with an injection of about 150MMCFD additional gas at three peak consumption intervals around cooking hours. The winter months December to February are expected to be very tough for urban residential consumers in terms of gas shortfalls amid commitments from the new government to ensure uninterrupted gas supplies to the industrial sector, particularly the zero rated five export industries, at highly subsidised prices. DAYTON, Ohio An off-duty police officer was arrested early Sunday morning after he reportedly entered a home and had a struggle with a male inside. Police say Torrence Edward Laprath, 33, was intoxicated and told officers he thought the home was his, according to WSOC Channel 9. The homeowner tells police that Laprath kicked open the door. After a struggle with Laprath, the homeowner was able to restrain Laprath until police arrived, the Dayton Daily News reports. Police tell the Daily News the department is aware of the incident and that it is under investigation. Laprath was booked into the Montgomery County Jail at 4 a.m Sunday, reports say. To comment on this story, visit Sundays crime and courts comment section. WASHINGTON, D.C. - After comfortably winning re-election to his U.S. Senate seat last week in a state that President Donald Trump won comfortably two years ago, Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is weighing a run for president. In an interview with cleveland.com, Brown said that he's heard from an "overwhelming" number of people who have told him he should think of a presidential run, and that he and his family intend to discuss it over the holidays, when his children and grandchildren will be around. "This will very much be a family decision," said Brown. "It would affect a decade of our lives. It is a very personal, serious decision." He said he believes the message of worker empowerment that he espoused in this year's re-election should be a blueprint for the national Democrats to win back the White House in 2020 and that he'd be happy if his message is adopted by other Democrats running for president. "My message clearly appeals to Democrats, Republicans and independents," said Brown. "We showed you can get votes by being authentic and standing up for workers. People in Washington don't understand the dignity of work." In a state where Republicans won all but a few statewide offices in last week's election, Brown won more than 53 percent of the vote against his Republican challenger, Wadsworth GOP Rep. Jim Renacci, who aligned himself with Trump. Brown said that elected officials inside and outside Ohio have approached him about running for president, as have activists and labor union members and leaders, although he wouldn't reveal their names. Brown says that running for president is not his lifelong dream, but his actual lifelong dream of playing center field for the Cleveland Indians is unlikely to come true at this point. "For a progressive to win a state Donald Trump carried by almost double digits by a pretty big margin tells me you can be a progressive, you can stand up for women's rights, gay rights and civil rights, and not compromise on these core values and still win in a state that Trump won decisively," said Brown. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican who lost the 2016 GOP presidential nomination to Trump, and Niles-area Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, whose worker-empowerment message is similar to Brown's, have also indicated they're exploring presidential runs. If he runs for president, Brown said he expects that Trump, "who has made a career of attacking people personally," would recycle abuse allegations from his 1980s divorce that Renacci tried to use to discredit him. Brown's ex-wife said she supported Brown's campaign, asked Renacci to stop and issued a statement that said "disparaging my family for political gain is disgusting." "My opponent attacked my family, while we talked about what I would do in support of Ohio families," said Brown. "The voters chose to vote for the candidate who wants to support Ohio families." Brown, 66, won election to the U.S. Senate in 2006 by defeating incumbent Republican Mike DeWine, whom Ohio voters elected governor last week. Before that, he spent 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and eight years as Ohio Secretary of State. He grew up in Mansfield and resides in Cleveland. He currently serves as the top Democrat on the Senate's Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Hillary Clinton vetted him to be her vice-presidential running mate in 2016, but instead chose Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine. After she lost the election, Brown and others said having him on the ticket might have improved her prospects in rust belt states like Ohio. Over the years, Brown has been a vocal critic of trade agreements that he said would harm American workers, and in favor of measures like the Affordable Care Act, which he argued would improve health care and lower its costs. "When we see a White House that looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives, we know that our fight is far from over," Brown said in his latest re-election victory speech. "We have so much left to do to raise wages, lower health care costs and make sure everyone who works hard can retire with the dignity that they have earned. "Let our country - our nation's citizens, our Democratic Party, my fellow elected officials all over the country - let them all cast their eyes toward the heartland, to the industrial Midwest, to our Great Lakes state," his speech continued. "Let them hear what we say. Let them see what we do. And we will show America how we celebrate organized labor and all workers - the waitress in Dayton, the office worker in Toledo, the nurse in Columbus, the mine worker in Coshocton. That is the message coming out of Ohio in 2018, and that is the blueprint for our nation in 2020." COLUMBUS, Ohio - With voters being asked to alter the Ohio Constitution every election, Republican legislative leaders say they want to make it tougher to get such proposals on the ballot. The Constitution has been has been used and abused for decades by out-of-state activists who fund ballot campaigns, Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof said. However, people behind constitutional amendments note hundreds of thousands of Ohio signatures are required and they have to get their ideas on the ballot since the highly gerrymandered legislature is not responsive to the issues of the day. Argument for status quo Its not easy to get on the ballot. It costs campaigns millions of dollars just to get on the ballot, said Dennis Willard, a Columbus political operative who worked on the recently failed Ohio Issue 1, last years drug pricing Issue 2 and a recreational marijuana amendment. Campaigns must hire signature gatherers and campaign staff to coordinate activities in every county and ensure there are enough signatures -- campaigns need to present the state with more than the required number of signatures because many get disqualified. Willard said hes working with Ohioans for Gun Safety, which would like to put a background check amendment on the ballot but lacks the money -- despite volunteers who have worked thousands of hours for about 18 months on the topic. We have an issue 80 to 90 percent of people would support, simple background checks, he said. We cant get to the ballot because its so onerous to do it and so expensive. Lawmakers have complained that outsiders fund idea experiments in Ohio. For instance, Mark Zuckerbergs foundation contributed $3 million to Issue 1. However, Willard said outsiders get involved in lots of Ohio campaigns. For instance, the pharmaceutical industry donated tens of millions of dollars to shoot down Issue 2 last year, he said, and he didnt hear lawmakers complain about that. Thanks to gerrymandering, the General Assembly is a majority Republican and from rural areas. That means urban Ohioans struggle to get heard, Willard said. Cleveland and Cuyahoga send a bunch of money to Columbus" in taxes, Willard said. But because its a blue county, the red legislators not only ignore them, I think theyre hostile to Cleveland and Cuyahoga and other blue areas. And thats not representative government. The constitutional amendment process is direct democracy, he said. The other way to effect change -- initiated statute -- is also expensive, and Willard said campaigns usually prefer amendments because theyre harder for the legislature to change. Even if a constitutional amendment fails at the ballot, a message is usually sent to lawmakers that the public expects action on an issue. The state is studying drug pricing middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers after Issue 2 failed, for instance. Argument for change People have long criticized Ohios constitution for having items that dont belong in it, and should instead be in the lawsuch as the property locations of casinos in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. I think there is a valid argument that we ought to be real careful about what sort of questions we put before the voters with respect to amending the constitution," said Mark Weaver, another longtime campaign and communication consultant. Weaver has worked on campaigns to allow bonding -- also required in the Ohio Constitution. Were trying to raise money to do things like job creation or cleaner water or whatever," he said. "And instead of making that argument before the legislature and giving someone the authority to sell bonds, we have to amend the Constitution to raise the limit to allow more bonding. It seems like the Constitution is not the right place to do this. In recent decades, ballot changes have become more prevalent -- starting in the Pacific Northwest, spreading to California and eastward, Weaver said. The result is power is being taken from state legislatures, and the founders likely didnt want this to occur, he said. Lawmakers know the details about issues that the public doesnt understand or doesnt pay attention to because theyre tedious. Weaver uses a analogy of cotton candy versus broccoli. Americans are distracted by the cotton candy of cable television, internet, their Facebook feeds and Netflix and the less theyre interested in eating the broccoli of history, economic and civics. PARMA, Ohio -- After instituting a moratorium earlier this year on short-term residential rentals of less than 30 days, City Council appears ready to approve legislation related to Airbnb -- a popular online marketplace and hospitality service that allows people to lease or rent short-term lodging. "We didn't want a situation where a number of homes in a neighborhood or on a block would be purchased and used solely for this short-term rental type of situation," Parma Safety Director Tom Weinreich said. "So the legislation pending before City Council is based largely on what the City of North Olmsted did. "The crux of it basically requires the residence itself be owner-occupied. It wouldn't be a situation where someone could purchase the property and leave it vacant for an Airbnb-type rental," Weinreich said. The legislation is in relation to a transient renter who resides as a renter in a dwelling for a period of no more than 30 consecutive days, compared to a non-transient renter in the same dwelling for a period of more than 30 consecutive days. The moratorium, which is set to expire Dec. 31, was in response to a New Year's Eve incident last year in Seven Hills in which a party got out of hand and drew regional attention regarding Airbnb homes. "We need to be proactive about it just to protect our housing stock in our neighborhoods," Ward 2 Councilwoman Debbie Lime said. "I think it's important that we have something in place to regulate these because of what other cities have gone through as far as problems are concerned." While both Lime and Weinreich said they weren't aware of any Airbnb operations currently in Parma, the councilwoman did note that rental property owners were contacted about short-term lodging availability during the 2016 Republican Convention. "We have to make sure we have something in stone," Lime said. "I think this a good piece of legislation because of the fact that we looked at what other communities have gone through and put together. Out of that, we crafted something that's unique and good for Parma." Lime said she expects the short-term residential rental ordinance to pass before the end of the year. "Also, we don't want to get rid of (Airbnb)," Lime said. "We just want to make sure we protect the person who owns the house, as well as the neighborhood, to make sure somebody coming in and doing this knows there are restrictions in Parma." PARMA, Ohio -- The Parma Fire Department received an overwhelming vote of confidence on Election Day. On Nov. 6, residents passed Issue 70, with 68 percent of voters casting ballots in favor of the 2-mill renewal levy that costs the owner of a home valued at $100,000 $70 annually. Vote totals were 17,978 in favor vs. 8,587 against, according to final, unofficial results from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. "It was a little more than a 2-to-1 margin," Fire Chief Mike Lasky said. "That speaks a lot for the city and for the Fire Department that the residents have faith in us. The people see that we provide an excellent service." The passage of Issue 70 means the Fire Department will be able to keep its five stations manned daily with 23 firefighters and paramedics. The Fire Department currently has 102 firefighters, with five new recruits expected to be added soon. Mayor Tim DeGeeter said he was grateful for the support of voters. "We have a very professional, dedicated Fire Department and the response on the renewal shows that the voters think that, as well," DeGeeter said. While Lasky admittedly was surprised at the 68 percent support for Issue 70, he said random surveys result in a 96 percent approval rating. He noted this year that the Fire Department expects to go on more than 15,000 runs, which will be a record. "Our community is changing, and we're getting older, where more people are obviously using the service," Lasky said. "Also, some of the increase has to do with the opioid crisis. "At some point in time, we're going to have to run a fifth ambulance because we're getting so many calls. We're relying on other cities to come in and take care of some calls when our units are on other runs," he said. The five-year levy, which is the only one for the Fire Department, was originally passed in 2013 as a replacement to a tax increase that dated back to the late 1990s. The Fire Department has a $16 million annual budget, which includes roughly $2.65 million from the current levy, around $1.9 million from ambulance Billings and the rest coming from the city's general fund. Looking ahead, Lasky said he plans on asking City Council to approve the replacement of a 1990 firetruck with 97,000 miles and a 1995 firetruck with 101,000 miles. "When you buy a firetruck, it takes 10 to 12 months to build them," Lasky said. "So we hope to make a purchase request for two firetrucks next year." SEVEN HILLS, Ohio -- Drivers who frequent the bumpy ride that is West 9th Street, which straddles the eastern border between Seven Hills and Parma, will be getting relief next year, thanks to a joint construction project between both communities. "It's a no-brainer. The condition of the road ranges from poor to very poor, depending on which section," Seven Hills City Council President Anthony D. Biasiotta said. "It benefits many people who cut through for both cities. Also, it's an opportunity to make the road conditions better for many residents. "This is part of an overall Seven Hills strategy of partnering with our neighbors to get the greatest value out of resurfacing efforts. This agreement calls for a split, 50/50," he said. Seven Hills, which Biasiotta said initiated the partnership, will be responsible for engineering and bidding. The proposed repaving isn't related to the current sanitary sewer line construction, which has West 9th Street closed south of Rockside Road. Parma Mayor Tim DeGeeter said the $433,582 West 9th Street project is slated for the 2019 construction season and will cost each city roughly $216,000. "It will be a mill and fill with full-depth concrete repair and an asphalt overlay from Rockside Road to East Dekker Drive," DeGeeter said. Parma Ward 4 Councilwoman Kristin Saban said the West 9th Street project has been a long time coming. "Over the last several years, the street really has gotten bad, with many calls coming in regarding pothole repairs," Saban said. "Discussion with both cities began last spring. "Projects like these are great, because residents from both the city of Parma along with the city of Seven Hills benefit." In a related story, Seven Hills recently submitted an application to Cuyahoga County for participation in the 50/50 program to resurface McCreary Road. "If it's approved, it may happen in 2019 or 2020," Biasiotta said. "The estimate is $496,000. Our share will be about $250,000. Also, Cuyahoga County will be resurfacing Sprague Road in 2020. The estimated cost on Sprague Road is $1.3 million and our share will be $130,000." STRONGSVILLE, Ohio - The Strongsville schools will again seek approval of the proposed tax increase that voters overwhelmingly rejected Nov. 6. However, Superintendent Cameron Ryba said the district administration and school board haven't yet decided when to return to the ballot or whether to adjust the millage rate. He said school officials will discuss those matters over the next few weeks and months. "We will seek another opportunity to place this operating levy on the ballot, as these dollars are critical to the future of our district and the opportunities we are able to provide students," Ryba said in a Nov. 7 press release. "Continued failure of this operating levy will result in cost-reduction measures that will negatively affect our district's programs, services and resources for our students," Ryba said. Ryba said the tax would have supported advanced-placement and honors courses, extracurricular activities, safety measures, transportation, updated technology and textbooks. He didn't say whether these items are at risk due to the levy failure. According to unofficial results from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, Issue 8 -- a new, 7.9-mill tax that would have generated about $11.3 million annually for Strongsville schools' operating expenses, including teachers' salaries -- was defeated 12,346 to 7,605 on the Nov. 6 ballot. About 62 percent of voters said no to the tax. "Although we are disappointed with the election results for Issue 8, our district will continue to move forward," Ryba said. "We would like to thank the many volunteers who supported Issue 8, going door to door, hosting neighborhood coffee talks, placing yard signs throughout the community and endorsing Issue 8 by sharing the positive story of Strongsville City Schools," Ryba said. The new tax would have cost the owner of a Strongsville home valued at $100,000 an additional $23 a month, or $276 a year, district officials said before the election. Property owners currently pay about $1,256 a year in taxes to the district, according to calculations based on Ohio Department of Taxation records. Ryba said the 7.9-mill tax would have allowed the district to maintain its existing level of staffing, programs and services through the 2025-2026 school year. In May, district officials said that, without the tax, Strongsville schools would start deficit spending in 2019 -- meaning that expenses would exceed revenues and that the district would need to tap into its savings to balance the budget -- until district savings are wiped out in 2022. No crisis-like situation exists in PTI: Fawad Chaudhry LAHORE: Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry Sunday said the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was united and no crisis-like situation existed with the party. Differences do emerge within parties. However, there is no crisis in PTI and the whole party is united under the leadership of Imran Khan, the minister told a press conference here. There is no administrative crisis in the country, rather it is the societal one as some elements want to gain political benefits in the name of religion, he added. The minister said the first-ever crisis which the PTI government faced was the repayment of loans. About 84 per cent of the total loans were acquired by the Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz governments. The country would not have needed to beg had the huge loans been recovered from these two parties, he said, adding that when corruption was brought under discussion in the parliament, the opposition got disturbed the whole atmosphere. However, it will be an injustice to the voters if the PTI government did not take up the issue. Without holding the powerful accountable, justice cannot be ensured in the country, he maintained. Replying to a question, the minister said Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who remained head of Kashmir committee for many years, never protested about Indian atrocities against the people of Held Kashmir. All is well for the Maulana if he is in the government, and everything is bad for him if he is not part of the government, he said. To a question, Fawad said it is strange that the degree of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Lahore director general was valid when he recovered Rs 4.5 billion in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but turned into a fake one when he arrested Shehbaz Sharif. To another query, he said the prime minister had given clear instructions that the anti-encroachment operation should not be carried out in slums as well as localities where the poor live. The minister said it was the responsibility of people at the helm of affairs to take ownership of the ideological narrative. He said a state which did not protect the rights of the minorities could not be one like the State of Madina. With the grace of Allah Almighty, Pakistan will become a progressive and welfare country, he added. Responding to a query about the advertisements, he said the previous government used ads for corruption and for personal projection. He announced providing health cards worth Rs 487,000 to media persons registered with the journalist organizations. The minister said the PTI must get chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee as it was illogical that the younger brother is assigned the task of conducting audit of the projects carried out by the elder brother. Fawad said the birth anniversary of Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) would be celebrated at the government level with great reverence. Prime Minister Imran Khan will inaugurate the Rehmatul-lil-Aalmeen Conference on November 20 while President Dr Arif Alvi will be chief guest at its concluding session on November 21. The Imam-e-Kaaba and other personalities including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mufti of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will attend the conference and shed light on different aspects of the life of the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him). Earlier, addressing a seminar titled Adam Bardasht Ka Rujhan Aur Riyasat ki Zummadariyan, Fawad said the war of ideologies can never be fought with guns, rather it could be won only through arguments and dialogue. Unfortunately those spreading rifts and disharmony in the society were devoid of any logic, he said, adding that the PTI government will extend support to all those ulema, mashaikh and religious leaders who advocated peace, tolerance and harmony in the society through logic and dialogue. The minister said the country was faced with an ideological crisis which was evident from the situation that arose due to the Supreme Courts judgment in Asia Bibi case. It was not an institutional or state crisis, but social intolerance, which served the interests of those who wanted to achieve their political motives in the name of religion, he said. The religious circles, he said, should have rebelled against those who created chaotic situation in the country in the name of religion. India, Iran to speed up Chabahar plan before US sanctions take effect 10/16/18 Source: Press TV Indian media have quoted informed officials as saying that the country plans to speed up the development of Iran's Chabahar port before the new round of US sanctions against Tehran is put into place. India's PM Narendra Modi with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani After signing documents for Chabahar port development. Tehran, February 2018 The Economic Times quoted unidentified officials as saying that Tehran and New Delhi would rush to complete the first berth of Chabahar port to make it operational within the next weeks. Earlier reports said that India had pledged $500 million for the port, which would become operational by 2019. The port would allow Indian shipments to bypass Pakistan on the way to Afghanistan and farther into Europe. In May 2016, India Ports Global Private Ltd and Iran's Arya Banader had signed a commercial contract for the development and operation of Chabahar port. According to the contract, India would construct two terminals (five berths) at the port with an investment of $85 million for procurement of port equipment. In addition, India would provide Iran a $150 million loan through the Export-Import Bank of India (EXIM Bank) for the project. In February, Iran signed an agreement to lease the operational control of phase one of Chabahar port to India for 18 months. The project would provide India with an easier land-sea route to Afghanistan. Last November, India sent its first cargo of wheat to Afghanistan through the same port in what appeared to be a run dry of a multi-modal connectivity route. The cargo was shipped from India's western port of Kandla, was unloaded at Chabahar and eventually taken to Afghanistan's Nimroz province by trucks. The project to develop Chabahar port started in 2007 through an investment that officials previously said already amounted to $1 billion. The annual cargo tonnage of the port which is Iran's only oceanic facility has now almost tripled to reach as high as 8.5 million tonnes. It can also accommodate 100,000-tonne ships - what officials say can help promote the country's international trade activities. The overall development project is planned in four phases and is expected to bring the port's total annual cargo capacity to 82 million tonnes. A rail link between Chabahar and Zahedan and thereon to Afghanistan is a crucial part of India's extra-regional connectivity ambitions over which Tehran, New Delhi and Kabul have signed a basic agreement. An NBC projection shows that Democrats will gain at least 30 seats in the House, while Republicans are going to expand their thin majority in the Senate. "We're focused on building broad-based policy coalitions. We will work aggressively to bring together a divided government to make progress on the issues," he said. These were the network's goals in 2018, as Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. Yet Davis said the network is open to working with anyone regardless of party affiliation. The organization also plans to battle corporate welfare and the trade barriers implemented by President Donald Trump 's administration. For one, the Koch group will be pushing lawmakers to pass the FIRST STEP Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform measure that recently made its way through the House, said James Davis, the network's chief spokesman. It will also focus on finding a permanent fix for the Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals program, which gives protections to immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. The network, which traditionally backs Republicans, is mounting a multimillion-dollar campaign to push some key priorities such as immigration reform and free-trade initiatives before Democrats to take over the House in January. The libertarian-leaning political network funded by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch is getting ready for two-party rule in Congress. The Koch network plans to use a mix of tactics to push these goals, including advertising, lobbying and grassroots organizing. It hopes to make gains on these issues during the lame-duck session of Congress over the next two months in order to build momentum for 2019. "We see an opportunity to engage the American people to address some of the toughest problems facing our country: a broken criminal justice system, an immigration system that prevents good people from contributing, eliminating cronyism and promoting open trade," Davis said. "We're launching an effort to address these challenges at all levels." Ahead of this new influence campaign, the network quietly bolstered its lobbying division in order to better work with congressional members on both sides of the aisle. Americans for Prosperity, one of the groups in the larger Koch political organization, recently hired Mike Dingell, the former vice president of government relations at the National Association for Biomedical Research, a nonprofit group that advocates for the humane care of laboratory animals being used for medical research. He also was an intern in the office of former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who became an independent, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. As the head of the association's government relations team, Dingell lobbied numerous pieces of bipartisan legislation, including the Senate Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, which tries to modify various programs within the Department of Agriculture. The bill was introduced by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and co-sponsored by recently re-elected Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. In the run-up to the elections, the Koch network announced it would be dedicating $400 million to the midterms. During the group's donor summit in Colorado Springs, Colorado, earlier this year, Koch announced they were open to backing Democrats. However, the network ended up supporting only Republicans through their super PACs and have won at least half of the federal races it was involved with that have been called so far. The organization also worked on races that are still undecided, including the Senate race in Florida, a House race in Utah and a congressional contest in Texas. The network's victories included spending millions in support of Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who defeated former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen for retiring GOP Sen. Bob Corker's Senate seat. The group also netted a win in Missouri, where Americans for Prosperity spent at least $700,000 against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, who lost to Republican challenger Josh Hawley. However, one of its biggest losses came in Wisconsin, where Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin fought off a surge in spending against her by the network and defeated her Republican opponent Leah Vukmir. As 2018 comes to an end, the network has yet to solidify its plans for the 2020 campaign, including whether it will be involved with Trump's bid for re-election. "No idea yet!" said one network official who declined to be named. "Still recovering from 2018." The Koch network did not participate in the contest between Trump and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in 2016. WATCH: Here's why the Koch brothers are at odds with President Trump Those numbers may surprise some as an entirely counter-intuitive outcome because one would normally expect the U.S. exports to China, and the rest of the Pacific Rim, to grow much faster than American sales to Europe. Why? Simply because the Pacific Rim economies are growing at a rate of 5 percent with China marking a 6.7 percent growth in the first three quarters of this year while Europe is barely eking out 2 percent GDP growth. In spite of that, the U.S. is doing much better in the slow-growing European markets than in the strongly expanding markets routinely called by raving observers as the "future of the world economy." What's the problem? Why is the U.S. taking a beating in markets where it should be making a mint? Here is a thought: Isn't that part of what U.S. President Donald Trump never tires of calling a "rip-off" of the U.S. economy? A decades-old outrage neglected and tolerated by Washington? And does that strike you like something Trump is trying to stop and reverse with his "free, fair and reciprocal trade" amid a chorus of catcalls led by official international organizations richly funded by Washington that he is killing the so-called "free and multilateral" trading system? The answer seems clear. The U.S. is selling more to the lackluster European economies than to the Pacific Rim those "dynamic" Asian economies because the European markets are much more open and accessible to American companies. So, the trade policy conclusion for Washington should be a proverbial "no brainer." Just tweak a few things with Europeans to even out the playing field. The Pacific Rim, however, is an entirely different story. That's where the U.S. needs a root and branch review of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, trade practices, comity and basic rules of reciprocity. Concerns about political instability in Australia are "overly stated," the country's Prime Minister Scott Morrison told CNBC on Monday. Morrison, a Liberal and formerly the country's Treasurer, assumed his new role in August to become the nation's fifth prime minister in five years. His predecessor Malcolm Turnbull lost his title in a leadership vote, becoming the fourth premier to be removed from office by his own party since 2010. Australia's policies on major areas such as trade, infrastructure investment and defense have remained the same since the Liberal party first took power, Morrison stated. "There's a continuity and a stability in the policy agenda being pursued by our government." His administration remains committed to open trade and boosting security on areas such as cyber-security, he said. The country is now bracing for a federal election next year and it's unclear how the ruling Liberal party will fare. "It's very reasonable to say that we have a big job ahead of us, that's no surprise," Morrison said. He added that he had faith in his party's ability to maintain a strong economy and ensure national safety following Friday's terror incident in Melbourne. Shares of Comcast slipped Monday after President Donald Trump alleged in a tweet the company "routinely violates antitrust laws." The stock lost just under 1 percent by the end of trading Monday, amid overall market declines. "American Cable Association has big problems with Comcast. They say that Comcast routinely violates Antitrust Laws. 'These guys are acting much worse, and have much more potential for damage to consumers, than anything AT&T-Time Warner would do.' Charlie Gasparino," Trump tweeted Monday. Trump's tweet follows a call earlier Monday by the American Cable Association for the Department of Justice to investigate Comcast. Gasparino, who Trump quotes in his tweet, is a reporter with the Fox Business Network. The ACA claims Comcast owns "significant must-have local programming," allowing the company to raise prices and harm consumers. The ACA cites a recently closed merger between AT&T and Time Warner which the Trump administration is still appealing and claims Comcast's market power is a great threat than AT&T-Time Warner. "We believe that ACA's letter is without merit and constitutes an inappropriate attempt to gain leverage in the commercial marketplace," Comcast said in a statement to CNBC. Trump has previously tweeted about antitrust action against social media companies. Recently fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions held a meeting with state officials in September to review big tech and antitrust concerns. Disclosure: Comcast owns CNBC's parent company NBCUniversal. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference with China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017. CNBC's Jim Cramer said on Monday he does not expect a trade deal between the United States and China any time soon. "I think we are at war against the Chinese, and it's not over. And the war is not just trade," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street," taking cues from the hard-line speech that White House trade advisor Peter Navarro delivered last week. Navarro, a longtime China critic, said Friday any agreement between Washington and Beijing to end their trade dispute, which resulted in back-and-forth tariffs, will be on "President Donald J. Trump's terms, not Wall Street terms." Cramer said the tone of Navarro's speech on economics reminded him of the kind of rhetoric that then-President Ronald Reagan used decades ago during the Cold War with Russia over nuclear arms. "That's a speech that Reagan gave against the Soviet Union. And that didn't end well for the Soviet Union," said Cramer, the host of "Mad Money." "The G-20 is going to be so important." Cramer was referencing the summit of the Group of 20 leaders in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the end of the month when Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping plan to meet. In September, the White House imposed its latest round of tariffs, totaling $200 billion of Chinese products. In response, China levied tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods. Trump has also threatened additional tariffs of $267 billion, which would basically cover the rest of all Chinese imports into the U.S. WATCH: This trade deal may be what Trump needs to take on China Michael Cohen, former personal attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump, exits the Loews Regency hotel and walks toward a taxi cab, July 27, 2018 in New York City. Cohen's meeting with Mueller's team was only the latest in a series of sit-downs the attorney has had with the special counsel's office since pleading guilty in August to federal criminal charges. Those included campaign contribution violations related to payments to two women, purportedly at the behest of Trump. That case was brought by federal investigators in the Southern District of New York, not Mueller's team. A person familiar with the matter, who declined to be named, told CNBC that Cohen visited Washington with criminal defense lawyer Guy Petrillo to speak with Mueller's team. Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump , took a train Monday to Washington from New York to talk to investigators from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller. On Monday, an ABC News reporter caught Cohen on video walking through the Union Station railroad complex on Capitol Hill in Washington, accompanied by Petrillo. Tweet Cohen did not respond to a series of questions fired at him during the video, including ones asking why he was in Washington, whether he was meeting with Mueller, or whether he was going to "meet with the president." Cohen kept a deadpan look on his face during all the questions except for the last, when he was asked how his train ride was. "The train was great," Cohen cracked, flashing a grin. Petrillo did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC. Read more: Democrats are waiting for a Mueller report that may never come Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign, and potential obstruction of justice by Trump himself. The president has repeatedly called Mueller's investigation a "witch hunt" and denied any wrongdoing by him or his campaign. The White House also has denied Trump had an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, or with former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Cohen paid $130,000 to Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election for her silence about the alleged tryst with Trump. McDougal received $150,000 that same year from the publisher of the Trump-friendly supermarket tabloid The National Enquirer, which did not publish her account of a relationship with the president before Election Day. Last week, Trump forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions and installed Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general in his place. The president had often publicly criticized Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia probe. Whitaker's appointment put him in charge of Mueller's case. It also led to calls by a number of members of Congress to allow the special counsel to complete his work unimpeded. Watch: Mueller's investigation could make money for taxpayers President Donald J. Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker President of the European Commission walk out for a joint statement about how the US will work with the European Union to try and eliminate trade tariffs, in the Rose Garden of the White House on Wednesday, July 25, 2018 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump plans to meet with his trade team on Tuesday to discuss a draft report on European auto tariffs, according to Bloomberg News, citing three people familiar with the matter. Trump's focus remains on crushing foreign automakers with heavy tariffs, according to an Axios report earlier on Monday. The president reportedly sees the threat of auto tariffs as a successful negotiating tactic. Trump used the auto tariffs threat when he negotiated with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this year. "Trump says gleefully that the moment he started talking about maybe tariffs on cars, that [European Commission President Jean-Claude] Juncker got on the fastest plane known to mankind, comes straight over to Washington and starts offering deals," a senior European official told Axios. General Motors shares turned negative after the report, falling as far as $35.45 in trading. The stock closed nearly unchanged at $35.69 a share. Tariffs would be adverse to the U.S. automaker if other countries decided to retaliate. Goldman Sachs shares slumped the most since November 2011 after Malaysia's finance minister demanded a full refund of fees it paid the bank tied to a doomed investment fund. The company's stock was down 7.5 percent by the close of regular trading Monday, leading shares of financial firms lower amid a broad decline in equities. It was the biggest drop since an 8.2 percent drop in early November 2011. Goldman has attracted scrutiny for its role in helping set up the Malaysian state investment fund known as 1MDB. The bank arranged three bond deals in 2012 and 2013 to fund 1MDB, raising $6.5 billion to supposedly attract foreign investment. Instead, U.S. authorities accused a Malaysian financier of stealing billions of dollars from the fund and using some of that money to pay hundreds of million of dollars in bribes. While a Goldman investment banker named Tim Leissner has plead guilty to participating in the scheme, the bank has said that Leissner and others deceived the firm and dodged its internal controls. In his guilty plea, Leissner said his actions to hide facts from Goldman's compliance staff were part of the bank's culture. Now, Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the country is seeking a full refund of the $600 million in fees Goldman was paid for the bond deals, according to a Bloomberg news report based on a radio interview. Goldman also faces "significant fines" from a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into its role in the 1MDB scandal. Stocks in emerging markets are looking "very cheap" now, and that's a buying opportunity, prominent investor Mark Mobius told CNBC on Monday. Investors sold their holdings in emerging markets in a big way in recent months as they feared financial problems in countries such as Turkey and Argentina could spill over to other economies. Adding to concerns were the strengthening U.S. dollar and rising oil prices, which hurt emerging economies with large amounts of foreign debt and those that are net energy importers. As a result, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index which tracks large and mid-cap stocks in 24 countries has fallen by around 16 percent this year. But Mobius said the sell-down has opened investment opportunities in emerging markets. "At the end of the day, emerging markets equities look very cheap now. It's time to get in," the co-founder of Mobius Capital Partners told CNBC's "Street Signs." Some countries are already seeing a recovery in their currencies and stock prices, the investor noted. That's because the U.S. dollar has started to stabilize, which lessens the burden on emerging markets to service their debt denominated in the greenback, he said. What to buy? Mobius, a seasoned investor in emerging markets, said Latin American markets particularly Brazil have so far led recovery in the asset class. Asia's rebound has lagged, but the region still presents opportunities, he added. In particular, a number of China's small and medium-sized companies are looking "interesting," the investor said, though without giving names. Mobius also said he likes India where growth rates have surpassed that of China and Southeast Asia. "We're beginning to look now in Indonesia again, Thailand of course has not done badly I mean they've been in pretty good shape, Malaysia is another area which is going to be very interesting going forward," he said. In terms of sectors, Mobius said he focuses on companies in traditional industries such as retail that are using technology to improve their productivity. He also has a preference for firms with strong balance sheets, little debt, and those that split their cash reserves between investing for expansion and paying dividend to shareholders. "Dividends are a sign that the company first has cash and also thinks about shareholders," he said. The risks A large number of experts including Mobius had projected oil prices would touch $100 per barrel by the end of 2018, which would be bad news for emerging markets. But that level looks now out of reach by the end of the year, Mobius noted, adding that oil could still hit that price in the longer term. The good news is by the time oil touches $100 per barrel, currencies in emerging markets would have recovered enough against the U.S. dollar, so that price increase wouldn't hurt their finances so much, he explained. Another major risk facing emerging markets is "a real nasty" escalation in trade tensions between the world's two largest economies, but the possibility of that happening is also small, he said. "If there's a real nasty increase in the trade war between the U.S. and China, that can't be good for Southeast Asia. But I don't see that happening, I really don't," Mobius said. "I think the Chinese are smart enough to know if they give Trump something to go home with, they'll be a winner in the long term. They may have to give up something in the short term, but longer term they'll be doing well," he said. WATCH: Investor Mark Mobius says post-midterms rally will be short-lived Authorities searched on Monday for more than 200 people unaccounted for in one of the wildfires rampaging through parts of California, voicing concern about a possible rising death toll, as gusty, dry winds spurred the spreading flames. The raging blaze in northern California known as the Camp Fire, the state's most destructive on record, had left at least 228 people missing as of early Monday, according to Kory Honea, sheriff of Butte County, site of the fire. That fire and one in southern California called the Woolsey Fire have killed at least 31 people. The blazes left behind scenes of utter ruin, with homes and businesses reduced to charred wreckage and the winds also spreading large amounts of ash. Both fires have been whipped up by hot dry winds. Winds of up to 40 miles per hour (64 km per hour) were expected to continue in southern California through Tuesday, heightening the risk of fresh blazes ignited by scattered embers, while the winds were forecast to begin diminishing later on Monday at the site of the Camp Fire. The wildfires flared in two new locations on Monday morning in southern California, officials said. The fires have displaced more than 224,000 people, officials said. About 8,000 firefighters using fire fighting equipment including helicopters and air tankers were battling the flames, with assistance coming from out of state. The Camp Fire, 40 miles (60 km) north of Sacramento, burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in the town of Paradise, more structures than any other wildfire recorded in California. The fire had scorched more than 113,000 acres (45,729 hectares) and was 25 percent contained, officials said on Monday. Its death toll of 29 equals that of the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, the deadliest wildfire on record in California. The blaze has probably caused between $2 billion and $4 billion in insured property damage, Morgan Stanley estimated in a report on Monday. Gabonese President Ali Bongo is seriously ill but on the mend, his spokesman says, ending weeks of official silence on his condition. Speculation has mounted on the health of President Bongo, 59, with some reports saying he suffered a stroke. He is being treated in Saudi Arabia, with the initial announcement last month saying he was suffering fatigue. His spokesman Ike Ngouoni said Mr Bongo was "recovering all of his physical abilities". No mention was made of a stroke but the president had suffered "bleeding which required medical care", Mr Ngouoni said. Ali Bongo succeeded his father Omar Bongo as president in 2009, who governed the western African nation for more than 40 years. He narrowly won re-election in 2016 in a poll marred by violence and accusations of fraud. Earlier this month, with President Bongo away in the Saudi capital Riyadh, Gabon's opposition leader Jean Ping again claimed victory in the poll. On Friday a Gabonese newspaper was suspended for three months for saying the country was on "autopilot" and that the prime minister should be appointed interim leader. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Silicon Valley is battling a new report of anti-conservative culture, fanning the flames of an already-intensifying debate. A weekend report by The Wall Street Journal on the 2017 firing of Facebook executive Palmer Luckey claims the Oculus co-founder was forced out for factors relating to his political leanings and online support for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Facebook and its executives have repeatedly said Luckey's firing was not the result of his political views. CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified as much before Congress in April, and vice president of AR/VR at Facebook, Andrew Bosworth, said on Twitter late Sunday, "Any claims that his departure was do to his conservative beliefs are false." A Facebook spokesperson told CNBC on Monday, "We can say unequivocally that Palmer's departure was not due to his political views." The conflicting reports could add to existing concerns of anti-conservative bias among tech companies. In recent months, Facebook, Google and Twitter have all faced intensifying claims of online censorship and an environment that's not welcoming to right-leaning employees. The Journal report claims Luckey's activity on a polarizing, and often extreme, right-leaning Reddit channel caused an uproar among Facebook employees. It also says the company pressured Luckey to write in an internal email that he supported libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, instead of Trump. "We always made it clear that any mention of politics was up to Palmer and we did not pressure him to say something that wasn't factual or true," a Facebook spokesperson told CNBC. Facebook executives have said they're limited in what they can say about Luckey's departure, since it deals with confidential personnel matters. Luckey, who received a $100 million payout, according to the Journal, told CNBC last month it wasn't his choice to leave Facebook. CNBC's Julia Boorstin contributed to this report. Two incredibly devastating wildfires are raging across California, already killing at least 31 people, displacing over 250,000 residents and destroying thousands of homes and businesses. The town of Paradise in Butte County has been virtually reduced to ashes by what's called the Camp Fire. At least 29 people have died there, making it the deadliest wildfire in the state's history in over 85 years. More than 200 people are unaccounted for. Firefighters were still trying to contain the roaring blaze, which broke out Thursday. In Southern California, the Woolsey Fire was raging in parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, including in Thousands Oaks, where a gunman killed 12 people at a bar on Wednesday, and in celebrity-studded Malibu. More than 150,000 residents were under mandatory evacuation orders. The fire, which killed at least two people, has consumed over 85,000 acres and was only 15 percent contained as of the latest official report. Here are some scenes of the devastation. The Asia Pacific region is a key growth driver for Australia's largest airline Qantas, its CEO said on Monday. Qantas has increased its capacity in the region partly because more tourists from Asia are heading to Australia, Alan Joyce told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "Ten years ago, when I took over as CEO, we had one-third of a capacity to Europe, one-third to Asia, one-third to the Americas. Today, it's 8 percent to Europe, it's 52 percent in this region, and I think it will grow a lot further into the future," he said. "We see the Asia Pacific market as the huge growth opportunity for us." When an airline raises its capacity, it usually refers to an increase in the total number of seats made available to passengers, either by adding more flights or using bigger planes. Joyce pointed to a recent prediction from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in October that said current trends in air travel suggest that the total number of passengers travelling by air could double to about 8.2 billion by 2037. IATA said the "Asia-Pacific region will drive the biggest growth with more than half the total number of new passengers over the next 20 years" coming from the region due to a combination of factors such as strong economic growth, increased household incomes and favorable population and demographic profiles. "This region is going to grow by an average of 4.8 percent. We think Qantas is well-positioned to take advantage of that," Joyce said. When asked if he had seen any dent in travel sentiment due to an ongoing trade fight between the United States and China, which experts warn could affect economic outlook for much of the region, Joyce said the outlook for Qantas remained positive. "Our forward bookings are up 8 percent in value, we're seeing real strong growth across the Australian economy ... and then the inbound tourism and the outbound tourism are still extremely strong," he said, adding that the airline's forward bookings would likely help manage higher fuel costs in the next fiscal year. Saudi Aramco's CEO has told CNBC its long-awaited plan to sell shares in the oil giant will happen, but he doesn't expect it until at least 2021. The initial public offering (IPO) of the state-controlled firm is a stated aim of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has valued the firm at more than $2 trillion. Speaking to CNBC's Steve Sedgwick at the ADIPEC forum in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Aramco's CEO Amin Nasser, said both the crown prince and Saudi Arabia's energy minister Khalid al-Falih were targeting a listing within three years. "I think his royal highness and his excellency, the minister, talked about 2021. At the end of the day the government will decide when the market is good," he said. Oil prices surged Monday after Saudi Arabia said it was cutting supply by half a million barrels per day in December. However, the bigger picture is that oversupply concerns have seen crude prices drop hard in recent months. Eventbrite's first earnings report on Monday could draw the interest of one particular company: Square. That's because Square owns a small ownership stake in Eventbrite that more than doubled in value over the past year. Square disclosed in a public filing last week that the $25 million investment it made in Eventbrite last year has more than doubled in value to $61.9 million. The huge gain helped Square turn its first quarterly profit of $20 million in the third quarter. The ownership stake adds another reason why some investors are so bullish on Square, whose stock has roughly doubled in price this year. While Square has a healthy core payments business, the investment in Eventbrite shows how it's diversifying its business in many different ways, including lending and food delivery. The gains also highlight the business-savvy of Sarah Friar, Square's former CFO, who recently stepped down to take on the CEO position at Nextdoor, a social-networking start-up focused on neighborhoods. Friar is credited for bring a critical part of Square's business over the years, helping the company go public. The value of Square's ownership stake could change substantially following Eventbrite's earnings on Monday. Square noted this in its filing last week, saying the investment could fluctuate significantly "due to volatility of the investee stock price." Square's spokesperson wasn't immediately available for comment. The Mueller probe has been hanging like a dark cloud over the White House, but maybe not over the stock market anymore. The exit of Attorney General Jeff Sessions comes as expectations build for a final report from special counsel Robert Mueller that will show whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians or not, among other things. But President Donald Trump's naming of Matt Whitaker as an interim attorney general has assuaged some concerns on Wall Street that Mueller will find Trump at the center of his probe. "I think the market consensus is they probably have something but not enough to change the administration," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley FBR. "I think the market looks at this as yes, it's a bit of an overhang, but not one that's going to create a constitutional crisis. ... I think that's been compartmentalized." Trump has repeatedly said there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia. So far, Mueller's probe has led to the indictments of more than 30 people, including mostly Russian nationals, but also former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Trump, however, appears ready to point to any potential problems he might face as a reason behind stock market weakness. As stocks sold off Monday, Trump tweeted that the "prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems is causing the Stock Market big headaches!" tweet "There's Trump the man," said Wedbush Securities' Steve Massocca. "Then there's Trump the agenda, and the market loves the agenda lower taxes, less regulation, pro-business. Anything that is potentially disruptive to that agenda is bad. Or anything that is going to prevent the agenda from being stopped is good." "To the extent that people think the Mueller investigation is not going to do anything negative to the Trump administration, they will like that," said Massocca. "Whitaker is very supportive of Trump, and he's publicly made negative comments about the Mueller investigation." While strategists do not see a huge threat to Trump from the Mueller probe at this point, there are still doubts about what might come up elsewhere. "Mueller is investigating Trump and Russia cooperation in influencing the election. If he can't show it, it's got to be a bullish signal. NY AG is looking into Trump's personal financial dealings. That's a risk that has legs," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Wealth Advisors. Federal prosecutors in New York, meanwhile, are separately investigating whether there was violations of campaign finance law in the payoffs of porn star Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and is cooperating with prosecutors. Check out the companies making headlines before the bell: Alibaba The Chinese e-commerce company set a new record for its Singles Day event, with nearly $31 billion in goods sold in 24 hours. Alibaba had previously set a record for Singles Day last year, with $25.7 billion in goods sold. SAP The U.S.-listed shares of the German software company fell more than 4 percent in the premarket after the company announced it would buy Qualtrics for $8 billion. Qualtrics, a privately held company that competes with SurveyMonkey, had plans to go public in the near future. Athenahealth Reuters reported that hedge fund Elliott Management and private-equity firm Veritas Capital agreed to buy Athenahealth for $5.5 billion in cash. Elliott, which already had a stake of about 9 percent in Athenahealth, had been pressuring the health-care software maker to sell itself. Shares of Athenahealth rose nearly 9 percent before the bell. Skyworks, Qorvo Analysts at Citi downgraded Skyworks to "neutral" from "buy" as demand for smartphones falls broadly, while iPhone XR sales disappoint. Weaker iPhone XR sales also led Citi to trimming its price target on Qorvo to $75 a share from $86 a share. American Airlines, JetBlue Shares of both airlines were initiated with "buy" ratings at Goldman Sachs. The analysts said American Airlines can benefit from "idiosyncratic opportunities" that will drive up earnings. JetBlue, meanwhile, is expected to improve as its cost-reduction initiatives ramp up between 2019 and 2020 increase profitability. L Brands Analysts at Wells Fargo upgraded shares of Victoria's Secret's parent company to "outperform," noting the company could be on the verge of a massive turnaround. In a note to clients, Wells said L Brands "appears set to begin embracing change with an 'all options on the table' mentality." President Donald Trump is one factor among many impacting oil markets right now, according to Bob Dudley, the chief executive of oil giant BP. "He's (Trump is) keeping people guessing on many, many fronts and it also impacts the oil markets," Dudley told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe," but he added that the U.S. president was not the only factor affecting prices. "It's more than that (the Trump administration). There's uncertainty in the supply from Venezuela, there's still disruptions in Libya, for example, there's a lot of uncertainty out there," Dudley said. Dudley's comments at the ADIPEC energy conference in Abu Dhabi come at a pivotal moment for oil markets with Saudi Arabia performing an about-turn this weekend by announcing a 500,000 barrel per day production cut in December. The surprise move comes after it had ramped up production this summer along with other major producers Russia and the U.S. due to concerns over a decline in supply once sanctions on Iran came into effect in November. The measure, taken by the defacto leader of OPEC, is seen as a way to halt a 20 percent slump in prices seen since early October on the back of the surge in production. Saudi Arabia's oil minister said Sunday that markets were well supplied and that price rises over the summer due to a feared Iranian shortfall had been an overreaction. Meanwhile, Dudley said OPEC's ministerial committee was not getting anything "wrong" in changing course, it was just recognizing that circumstances surrounding Iranian sanctions had changed, with the U.S. granting exemptions to eight countries that purchase Iranian oil. This had meant the impact of sanctions was not as bad as it could have been and so upping production was not as necessary. "They (Saudi Arabia) were worried about (the) under supplying of the market and triple-digit oil prices. Now they're saying, actually, it (upping production) might be a little bit too much right now because of the exemptions," Dudley added. Dudley said Trump's decision to grant waivers to the sanctions was not unsurprising, saying "I don't think he wanted to see $100 (a barrel) oil." WATCH: Here's what drives the price of oil A worker checks the valve of an oil pipe at Nahr Bin Umar oil field, north of Basra, Iraq. President Donald Trump on Monday tweeted that he hopes OPEC does not cut oil output, the same day Saudi Arabia's energy minister said the cartel and its allies may need to throttle back production by about 1 million barrels per day. "Hopefully, Saudi Arabia and OPEC will not be cutting oil production. Oil prices should be much lower based on supply!" he wrote on Twitter. See the tweet. The tweet marks Trump's latest attempt to influence OPEC policy on Twitter. The president has tweeted at the 15-nation producer group several times this year, blaming it for rising oil prices and ordering its members to take steps to tamp down the cost of crude. Trump's latest broadside comes on the heels of a sharp pullback in oil prices that has seen U.S. crude plunge into a bear market and post its longest losing streak on record. Prices tumbled over the last five weeks as global equity markets sold off, crude supplies rose and the outlook for growth in oil demand weakened. The sudden drop in oil prices from four-year highs just last month has forced OPEC and a group of crude exporters including Russia to rethink how they are managing the market. On Sunday, a committee representing the group said oil supply is growing faster than demand, suggesting the alliance may have to launch a fresh round of production cuts. The same day, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al Falih said the kingdom's oil shipments would fall by 500,000 bpd in December. On Monday, Falih told an oil conference in Abu Dhabi that technical analysis suggests "there will need to be a reduction of supply from October levels approaching a million barrels" from the alliance. yorkfoto / Getty Images Indonesia tries to maintain neutrality Indonesia's model, announced by former Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa in 2013, is based on regional cooperation. It was developed as a means for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to maintain its unity. Natalegawa said the initiative was open to all countries that participated in the 2011 East Asia Summit, which includes China and Russia. President Joko Widodo's government has echoed that all-embracing approach, with Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi describing the program as inclusive and comprehensive. Indonesia wants an independent foreign policy and prefers to remain neutral when it comes to rivalry between major powers, researchers at the ISEASYusof Ishak Institute, a Singapore think tank, wrote in a recent note. Marsudi intends to bring up her country's Indo-Pacific blueprint at the 13th East Asian Summit later this month, but it will be difficult for participating nations to accept the neutral and inclusive concept, the note continued. That's because the U.S. and Japan are pushing to counterbalance Beijing's diplomatic, economic and military reach through their own schemes. "It will take much effort by Indonesia to resist the push towards a counter-China, liberal Indo-Pacific," according to a note published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute last week. The Indo-Pacific idea "may already be too deeply entangled with U.S.-led strategic maneuvering," wrote the note's authors. Like Indonesia, India has stressed a broad view of the Indo-Pacific. Speaking in Singapore earlier this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the term Indo-Pacific included all nations in the geography as well as others with stakes in the area. US and Japan try to counter China About Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profile Virgin Hyperloop One, one of the best-known players developing the high-speed transportation technology, is attracting "big interest" from Saudi investors, the company's newly appointed chairman said Monday. "There is a big interest in Hyperloop in Saudi Arabia," Ahmed bin Sulayem told CNBC's Dan Murphy in an interview Monday. "I think when the right time comes, we will restart talking to Saudi Arabia about their plans and how Hyperloop can fit in those plans," he added. Sulayem is also group chairman and chief executive of Dubai-headquartered port operator DP World, which is a major investor in Virgin Hyperloop One. He was appointed as Richard Branson's successor shortly after the British billionaire departed his role as chairman of the firm. Branson left the position last month, stating the company would need a "more hands-on" chairperson, and that it would be "difficult" for him to continue in the role due to constraints resulting from his work in philanthropy and Virgin Group's various business units. The executive's exit from the company followed uncertainty around whether Virgin Hyperloop One would continue to conduct business with Saudi Arabia, owing to Branson distancing himself from the country after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Branson suspended negotiations over a proposed $1 billion investment in Virgin's space companies, Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit, after Khashoggi's death. Source: Hyperloop One A Financial Times report last month added to that uncertainty, claiming that Saudi Arabia had cancelled a planned deal to conduct a feasibility study with Virgin Hyperloop One. However, this was later contradicted by a CNBC report that said the firm was still in talks with the Saudis to reach a deal. For Sulayem's part, he said that any talks over a Saudi deal with Virgin Hyperloop One would likely come after the completion of a project in India. He said it was better to concentrate on "a project we have in hand" in India, and then look to push expansion into other markets. "We had good discussions with Saudi Arabia and they had interest in utilizing Hyperloop," Sulayem said. "This is something we're going to discuss with them hopefully in the next few months." Multiple firms are attempting to dominate the space with their own versions of hyperloop technology. The technology, which involves pods that are propelled through low-pressure tubes at ultra-fast speeds, was first envisioned by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk in 2013. In this Tuesday, May 15, 2018 photo, Richard Ojeda talks at his campaign headquarters in Logan, W.Va. The midterm elections have nearly drawn to a close and, without skipping a beat, the 2020 presidential field is starting to burst open. The latest politician to join the list of President Donald Trump's potential challengers is Richard Ojeda, who lost the race to represent West Virginia's 3rd Congressional District on Tuesday night. He also voted for Trump in 2016, he said, but he eventually withdrew his support for the president. "We have far too many pigs eating at the trough," Ojeda, a 48-year-old retired Army major and state senator, said Monday in a Facebook Live feed while standing at the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C. But Ojeda, who helped lead teachers strikes in West Virginia earlier this year, is not the first to formally announce a 2020 presidential campaign, and he certainly won't be the last, as the slate will grow dramatically over the next few months. Ojeda and others who declared early candidacies will have a lot of trouble breaking out of what's expected to be a large field consisting of several big-name Democrats, potentially including Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden. At least two other people officially declared their presidential ambitions well in advance of even the November midterms. Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., announced in July 2017 that he would run for president rather than seek re-election to his seat in Congress. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, 43, began mounting his presidential campaign months before the midterms and appeared to file a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission on Election Day itself. Both Delaney and Yang are running as harbingers of a technological reckoning that, without quick action, will pose daunting problems for the economy and society. Delaney highlighted infrastructure and tax reform amid a laundry list of other issues in a Washington Post op-ed explaining his decision to run. Yang has called for enacting a universal basic income that would simply have the government send a $1,000 check to most Americans every month. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., has also said he was considering a run for president. A slew of more high-profile politicians have yet to formally announce their campaigns though many have dropped hints. Connie Schultz, writer and wife of Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, said in a tweet Monday that "We're thinking about" a run for president. Schultz Other Democrats, including Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, and Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California, have drawn heavy speculation, as well. Not all of the would-be challengers are Democrats, nor are they all currently politicians. Billionaire and Trump-impeachment advocate Tom Steyer has said he is not ruling out a 2020 run, and ex-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is building a public relations team as he mulls a run of his own. In October, billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg re-registered as a Democrat amid speculation that he will run. But Ojeda has actually taken the next step. He filed paperwork with the FEC on Sunday night. Ojeda, who supported Trump in 2016 against Democrat Hillary Clinton but has since said he regrets the choice, ran as a hyper-aggressive populist Democrat in one of the most Trump-friendly districts in the country. Trump won 68 percent of the vote in West Virginia in the 2016 presidential election. In the state, Trump received the most support from the 3rd District, where he trounced Clinton by a spread of 50 percentage points, 73-23. Ojeda fought tooth and nail against Republican Carol Miller for the seat vacated by incumbent Evan Jenkins, who won a seat on the state's Supreme Court of Appeals. Polls of the race curated by RealClearPolitics showed Miller holding a single-digit lead over Ojeda on the eve of Election Day, although he ended up losing by a margin of approximately 56-44, according to NBC News data. "To come as close as he did in that district in the state at this time was really something," said John Kilwein, chair of the political science department at West Virginia University. Ojeda has drawn comparisons to other Democrats who ran competitive races in deep-red regions, such as Rep. Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania and Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas, who lost in a close contest to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. Kilwein said Ojeda is a "more bare-knuckles, kind of paratrooper version" of Lamb, who won a special election in his Rust Belt district in part by distancing himself from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "If I don't feel what they are doing is going to benefit the people, they need not darken my doorstep," Ojeda said in an intense early campaign video, which spliced together footage of the tattooed former paratrooper lifting weights with images of his own bloodied face after he was viciously assaulted during his 2016 state Senate campaign. Ojeda's aggressive style and no-punches-pulled approach to Trump may not endear him to the president's staunchest supporters. In his concession speech, Ojeda (pronounced oh-JED-uh) tore into Trump for mispronouncing his surname and promised to continue to fight. "You called me a stone-cold crazy wacko and then you mispronounced the way I say my name! But make no mistake about it! You're going to know my name," Ojeda yelled during the speech. "I'm Richard Ojeda! I'm Richard Ojeda! I'm Richard Ojeda, and I'm not done fighting, and neither are we!" Despite his feisty style, Ojeda doesn't appear set to make much of an impact on the 2020 race. And his announcement left the political world surprised and confused. West Virginia University's Kilwein, for instance, said that he was "taken aback" by Ojeda's decision to run for president after losing the House race. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Monday that he would be surprised if U.S. President Donald Trump wins another White House term in 2020. He said he based that prediction on what he deemed a "poor showing" by the Republican Party in the midterm elections. On top of that, Mahathir told CNBC's Sri Jegarajah, Trump's leaving office would end any potential for the "very disruptive trade war" to continue in the years to come. "As you can see from the midterm elections, he has not done so well. The chances of him getting a second term is a bit bleak at the moment ... I will be surprised if he's re-elected after his poor showing in the midterm elections," the 93-year-old leader said. The November elections were widely seen as a referendum for Trump and his policies. The Republican Party which controlled both the Senate and the House before the election lost the House majority to the Democrats. "If Trump is not there, the other members of the U.S. government, whether they are Republican or Democrat, they will not continue with this very disruptive trade war," Mahathir added, referring to the tit-for-tat tariff fight between the U.S. and China. Trump's presence in the White House will determine how far the ongoing tariff fight will go, the Malaysian leader said. He added he's not sure the expected G-20 meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would yield any compromise or breakthrough in the trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. Bazaar Corporate Radar | Feb 22, 2021, 12:00 AM IST Bazaar Corporate Radar Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar. The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form Rumors swirling all over the blogosphere have Microsoft re-releasing the ill-fated Win10 version 1809 on Patch Tuesday this month. Personally, given the dearth of worthwhile features in 1809 and the painful first release last month, Id rather that they just wait a week or a month or six, until its fully baked, but that probably wont happen. Better still, I wish theyd wait a year or two, roll in some new features worthy of a full reinstall, and then unleash something new and worthwhile. If wishes were horses ... While we wait for Pennywise the September October November 2018 Update clown to appear again, nows a very good time to make sure your machine wont install it or any other poorly tested patches until the cannon fodder has weighed in. If you leave Automatic Updates turned on in the aftermath of what weve seen in the past month, I salute you. Somebody has to walk around with a Kick Me sign stuck on their back. The methods for blocking Windows Update are pretty straightforward. If youre using Windows 7 or 8.1, click Start > Control Panel > System and Security. Under Windows Update, click the "Turn automatic updating on or off" link. Click the "Change Settings" link on the left. Verify that you have Important Updates set to "Never check for updates (not recommended)" and click OK. If youre using Windows 10 Pro version 1703, the jig is up Microsoft stops supplying security updates effective this Patch Tuesday. Ive been testing ways to upgrade to 1709 or 1803 with minimal hassle, and should have a report for you shortly. New approach for Windows 10 Pro If youre using Win10 Pro version 1709, 1803, or 1809 (yes, some folks got pushed onto 1809 during the four days Microsoft let it out of the Ninth Circle), I have some new advice. Ends up, this is the same technique Microsoft recommends for Broad Release in its obscure Build deployment rings for Windows 10 updates which is intended for admins, but applies to you, too. (Thx, @zero2dash) After watching Microsoft stumble over Win10 updates and upgrades for more than three years, this approach seems to hit the sweet spot: It holds your machine in limbo until Microsoft has a chance to yank or re-issue its worst mistakes, and (just as importantly) it lets you off the hook for clicking Check for Updates. You may recall that clicking Check for Updates turns you into a seeker, which is the Microsoft version of a mortal sinner: When youre a seeker, Microsoft feels it has permission to push anything and everything onto your machine. Heres how to get your Win10 Pro machine out of the direct line of fire: Step 1. Using an administrative account, click Start > Settings > Update & Security. Step 2. On the left, choose Windows Update. On the right, click the link for Advanced options. You see the settings in the screenshot. Woody Leonhard Step 3. To pull yourself out of beta testing (or, as Microsoft would say, to delay new versions until theyre ready for broad deployment), in the first box, choose Semi-Annual Channel. Step 4. To further delay new versions until theyve been minimally tested, set the feature update deferral setting to 120 days or more. That tells the Windows Updater (unless Microsoft makes another mistake, as it has numerous times in the past) that it should wait until 120 days after a new version is declared ready for broad deployment before upgrading and reinstalling Windows. Step 5. To delay cumulative updates, set the quality update deferral to 15 days or so. In my experience, Microsoft usually yanks bad Win10 cumulative updates within a couple of weeks or so. By setting this to 10 or 15 or 20 days, Win10 will update itself after the major screams of pain have subsided and (with some luck) the bad cumulative updates have been pulled or reissued. Step 6. Just X out of the settings pane. You dont need to explicitly save anything. Step 7. Dont click Check for updates. Ever. If there are any real howlers months where the cumulative updates were irretrievably bad, and never got any better, as they were in July of this year well let you know, loud and clear. Tired old approach for Windows 10 Home Heres the thing about Windows 10 Home. Microsoft considers Home customers fair game. It really should call it Win10 Guinea Pig edition. Microsoft has no qualms whatsoever in pushing its new, untested (perhaps I should say less-than-thoroughly-tested) updates and upgrades onto Windows 10 Home machines. Gregg Keizer nailed it when he said: One of the foundational characteristics of Windows 10 is Microsoft's two-tier classification of customers. The lower tier includes those who operate Windows 10 Home, the upper tier, all others. Windows 10 Home users predominantly consumers are forced to accept every feature upgrade and are not meant to delay the installation of those upgrades, or the monthly waves of security and non-security updates. This isnt a mistake or an oversight. Win10 Home customers by design are Microsofts extended beta-plus testing force. Cannon fodder. Its unconscionable, and its been that way since day one. As Susan Bradley says, Every version of Windows should be able to defer and pause updates. Microsoft, your customers deserve better than this. If upgrading to Win10 Pro isnt an option and I sympathize if youd rather not hand over another $100 to Microsoft for something that should come standard your only option is to set your internet connection to metered. Metered connections are an update-blocking kludge that seems to work to fend off cumulative updates, but as best I can tell still doesnt have Microsofts official endorsement as a cumulative update prophylactic. To set your Ethernet connection as metered: Click Start > Settings > Network & Internet. On the left, choose Ethernet. On the right, click on your Ethernet connection. Then move the slider for Metered connection to On. To set your Wi-Fi connection as metered: Click Start > Settings > Network & Internet. On the left, choose Wi-Fi. On the right, click on your Wi-Fi connection. Move the slider for Metered connection to On. If you set your internet connection to metered, you need to watch closely as the month unfolds, and judge when its safe to let the demons in the door. At that point, turn metered off, and just let your machine update itself. Dont click "Check for Updates." Were at MS-DEFCON 2 on AskWoody. PM Modi to award winners of India Singapore Hackathon on November 15 in Singapore Photo courtesy: High Commission of India, Singapore PM Modi will present awards to the winning teams of the India Singapore Hackathon 2018: Solutions for Humanity, on 15 November. During his Singapore visit, earlier in the year, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, proposed to the Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that India and Singapore should organise a joint hackathon to harness and showcase the "innovation potential" of youth. Leading to Nanyang Technological University's(NTU) innovation and enterprise arm, NTUitive taking the charge of organising the joint hackathon aptly called the India Singapore Hackathon 2018: Solutions for Humanity, with India's All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) as equal partners. High Commission of India in Singapore facilitated the event in collaboration with Ministries of Education and Foreign Affairs of Singapore. Students taking part in the India Singapore Hackathon 2018: Solutions for Humanity Photo courtesy: High Commission of India, Singapore The 36 - hour hackathon began today at 09.00 am at NTU, which will end on 13 November at 9.00 pm. 20 teams each from both countries comprising university and college students selected on nationwide basis are participating in the Hackathon. Each of these teams has three students and one dedicated mentor. From India, an 83 member delegation, comprising 60 students, 20 mentors and 3 officials of AICTE, is visiting Singapore for the Hackathon. The Problems Statements presented to the Participants are in the areas of mapping, synchronised output of diverse social media, shared digital identity verification, effective number estimate, space management and allotment, effective learning and personal security. These Problem Statements are based on campus scenarios which students can easily relate to. The solutions will act as seeds to address larger problems in these areas in society. On 14 November, top six teams (three each from India and Singapore) will be announced after a final pitching session. First prize of S$ 10,000, second prize of S$6,000 and third prize of S$4,000 have been announced for each of the three winners from India and Singapore. Singapores fintech journey is about innovation, inclusion and inspiration: Ravi Menon Singapores fintech journey is about innovation, inclusion and inspiration. Innovation because we want to find better ways of doing things. Inclusion because we want to benefit as many people as possible. Inspiration because amidst all challenges around us, there is hope in a better world, said managing director of MAS, Ravi Menon, at the opening of the third Singapore FinTech Festival 2018 today. Ravi Menon, Managing Director of MAS speaking at the opening of the third Singapore FinTech Festival 2018 today. Photo courtesy: Singapore Fintech Festival Menon also announced that ASEAN Financial innovation Network (AFIN) will also be launching an online fintech marketplace API Exchange (APIX) on Wednesday in a bid to increase financial inclusion in hard-to-reach markets. AFIN is being spearheaded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the ASEAN Bankers Association, and the World Banks International Finance Corporation. This Wednesday, AFIN will launch API Exchange, or APIX. It is worlds first cross-border, open architecture platform to enhance financial inclusion. APIX is both an online FinTech Marketplace and FinTech Sandbox. MAS (@MAS_sg) November 12, 2018 Talking about APIX, Menon said, It is the worlds first cross-border, open architecture platform to enhance financial inclusion. APIX is both an online FinTech Marketplace and FinTech Sandbox. As a marketplace, it will enable FIs to discover and connect with FinTech firms through APIs on a globally curated platform. As a sandbox, it provides a platform for FIs and FinTech firms to collaborate and experiment on solutions in a contained environment." He urged the financial institutions to step forward to participate in this exciting enterprise to deepen financial inclusion in ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific region. Speaking on how @MAS_sg is working with like-minded central banks to facilitate cross-border payments, Ravi Menon speaking now at #SGFinTechFest https://t.co/Btp9yzK9J5 SG FinTech Festival (@sgfintechfest) November 12, 2018 He expressed concern over the number of unbanked persons globally and said, There are about 1.7 billion adults globally who are unbanked, and one in three of them come from four countries in Asia - China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia. Singapore Fintech Festival started with the story of Saqib about how his passion for technology and AI was nurtured in an inclusive environment. Photo courtesy: Twitter@/MAS_sg Elaborating the need for fintech ecosystem, the veteran banker said, We need a FinTech ecosystem. We need common standards, open architecture, and inter-operable infrastructure. We need collaboration across government, financial industry, research institutions, and the FinTech community at large. We need a free flow of ideas, knowledge, investment, people. Ravi Menon spoke about the six components of fintech ecosystem. Photo courtesy: Singapore Fintech Festival Speaking about the six components of fintech ecosystem on which the financial institutions are working, Ravi Menon, said, First, people. Without people their skills, their energy, and their enterprise - there is no FinTech. Second, identity. Establishing who we are dealing with and authenticating information about that person is the first step in any digital transaction. Third, payments- swift, secure, and seamless payments are fundamental to a digital economy. Fourth, data governance- we must ensure the responsible use of data and seamless and secure flow of data. Fifth-applied research - we need to build strong capabilities in FinTech-related research directed at solving real-world problems. Sixth - platforms for innovation -we need mechanisms to foster collaboration and co-creation .. to translate ideas into products; bridge problems with solutions. Not every financial instruction has a coherent strategy to digital, which is one problem #FinTechs face in helping them implement new #tech - Kelvin Teo, Modalku, @Prudentialplc Stage, #SGFinTechFest pic.twitter.com/qwwvx3MaEH SG FinTech Festival (@sgfintechfest) November 12, 2018 Giving a fillip to innovations and patents in the field of fintech, Ravi Menon said, And earlier this year, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore established a FinTech Fast Track initiative for patents. Under the Fast Track, FinTech patents can be granted in as quickly as six months, compared to the industry convention which can be up to two years. Once patented in Singapore, applicants can leverage on our global patent highways to expedite the registration of their patents in more than 30 overseas markets. Awards were given to the promising SMEs at the Singapore Fintech Festival. Photo courtesy: Twitter@/sgfintechfest Meanwhile, MAS has also released a set of principles to promote fairness, ethics, accountability and transparency (FEAT) in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics. This is the first of its kind in the world - where regulator and industry have come together to set guidance on the responsible use of AI and data analytics, said Menon. "This will be a living document that will continue to be modified as we learn more." Financial inclusion problems do not end with simply opening an account, the key ingredient would be credit and thats where #FinTechs come in on risk assessment - Justo Ortiz @unionbankph, @prudentialplc Stage #SGFinTechFest pic.twitter.com/FV1hdKYood SG FinTech Festival (@sgfintechfest) November 12, 2018 Menon also announced other initiatives to boost small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The MAS and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore are working with industry to facilitate financial institutions credit assessment of SMEs using trusted government data. Currently, young SMEs face difficulties in obtaining bank financing due to a lack of credit history. Everything we do in #FinTech must have a larger purpose ... promoting a more inclusive community. This is the FinTech spirit. Ravi Menon @MAS_sg closing the session on a grand note #SGFinTechFest pic.twitter.com/gOxZ7BhaK5 SG FinTech Festival (@sgfintechfest) November 12, 2018 The MAS plans to pool data from trusted government sources on the business and key individuals of the SMEs to facilitate informed credit assessment. A pilot with three banks will run in the first half of 2019. In the Singapore Fintech Festival, about 40,000 participants from more than 100 countries will be attending the festival making it the biggest gathering of the global fintech community. Johnson: The Cabinet ought to mutiny against Mays Brexit capitulation Savour the full horror of this capitulation. Under Article 50, the UK is at least able in theory to leave the EU. We do not have to consult any other authority. But under these proposals we are agreeing that the EU would have a say on whether this country is capable of making that final exit from the EUs essential institution, the customs union. In other words, we are on the verge of signing up for something even worse than the current constitutional position. These are the terms that might be enforced on a colony. No member of the Government, let alone the Cabinet, could conceivably support them, or so you would have thought. And yet the awful truth is that even if the Cabinet mutinies as they ought it will make little difference. Even if we agree with the EU that the UK must have a unilateral break clause, so that we can go our own sweet way at a time of our own choosing, it is irrelevant: because the programme and ambition of the Government as set out at Chequers and never yet repudiated by the Prime Minister is to remain in captivity. Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph >Today: Amber Rudd & Andrew Percy on Comment: Brexit. Why a Canada-type deal wont work for Britain. The Prime Minister has 48 hours before she must authorise No Deal plans Whitehall sources warned the chances of a deal being ready to present to Cabinet meeting on Tuesday or Wednesday morning were drifting away. They admitted if the PM is unable to put a withdrawal agreement before the Cabinet in 48 hours the chances of a November summit with the EU are OFF. This means having to authorise No Deal projects for new IT systems and projects to protect Britains borders. November 15 is the deadline for Ministers to place an order for ships to bring in necessary supplies and to put plans in place to stockpile medicines in a cash of a chaotic No Deal. One source said: Its going down to the wire. If it doesnt happen this week it will have to be a December summit and it all gets much tighter. The Sun >Yesterday: Hammond excluded Truss from Budget preparations Its good that the Chancellor is fixing Universal Credit The Sun Says Council tenants struggling to keep up to date on payments The Sun Johnson will lead a rebellion over delays to Fixed Odds Betting limits The Sun Millions of workers in line for pay increases Daily Telegraph Free childcare hours are being supplemented by nurseries raising prices The Sun High Street customer numbers continue to fall Daily Mail UK-China trade rises 15 per cent in a year Daily Mail France hopes to capture a share of the world gold market Daily Telegraph Hunt visits Riyadh to discuss Yemen and Khashoggi Liz Truss was excluded from key meetings in the run-up to the budget amid claims of tensions with Philip Hammond, who sources said was angry that she attended pizza club cabinet gatherings with Andrea Leadsom. Friction has been growing between the chancellor and the chief secretary to the Treasury, his deputy, over her stance on Brexit and her public support for a low-tax, low-regulation BritainSome spending measures proposed by Ms Truss were rebuffed by Mr Hammond and his team. The chief secretary to the Treasury wanted to spend 155 million on 2,500 special needs places to help local authorities avoid using expensive independent providers. She also wanted 1,000 one-off payments for maths and physics teachers, at a cost of 19 million. Both were blocked by the chancellor. In one episode, an official who was working for Ms Truss was hauled out of a budget meeting by an ally to the chancellor. The advisor told Ms Trusss official that under no circumstances were they to inform the chief secretary about the measures under discussion. The Times Jeremy Hunt will be the first British minister to meet Saudi Arabias crown prince since the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The foreign secretary arrives for talks in Riyadh today and will meet King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Foreign Office confirmed last night. Yesterday President Erdogan of Turkey said he had given Britain, the US and other countries access to the tape recording the Turkish authorities say is of Khashoggis last moments at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Britains close ties to Saudi Arabia have come under scrutiny over the killing. The Foreign Office insists Mr Hunt will hold Riyadh to account and demand a credible investigation. The Times >Today: ToryDiary: Asia Bibi should be offered asylum in Britain Macron uses Armistice Day as an opportunity to criticise nationalism Donald Trumps rising feud with Emmanuel Macron took a new turn on Sunday as the French leader forcefully denounced nations looking after their own interests and decried nationalist policies like the ones the American president has embraced. Macron specifically referred to the selfishness of nations only looking after their own interests in remarks at an Armistice Day event in Paris that Trump and other world leaders attended. Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying our interests first, who cares about the others, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what gives it grace. And what is essential its moral values, he said in an English-language translation of the speech he delivered with Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting in the front row. Daily Mail >Yesterday: Police lobby Javid to reduce limits on stop and search Police chiefs want to trigger an expansion of stop and search by lowering the level of suspicion an officer needs against a suspect to use the power, the Guardian has learned. They want to scrap the requirement that reasonable grounds are needed before a person can be subjected to a search, amid mounting concern over knife attacks. Senior officers have held talks with advisers to the home secretary, Sajid Javid, within the last fortnight to discuss the issue. It would fuel the debate about police discrimination against minority ethnic communities, civil liberties and the role stop and search has to play in tackling violent crime. The plans were confirmed by Adrian Hanstock, the deputy chief constable of the British Transport Police and national lead on stop and search for the National Police Chiefs CouncilStop and search is one of the most controversial powers police use on a daily basis, because black people are around nine times more likely to be targeted for its use than white people, by a police force that remains disproportionately white. The Guardian We must put bobbies back on the beat Rupert Reid, Daily Telegraph Teach young children about the dangers of knife crime, victims commissioner urges Daily Mail Get to grips with city violence now Nick Ferrari, Daily Express Shameless Albanian crime gang post pictures of guns and money online Daily Mail Id do the same again, Tony Martin says 19 years on Daily Mail New Labour didnt tax the rich enough, Lewis argues Governor accused of harming the Bank of Englands credibility and independence New Labour failed to tax the richest in society heavily enough, the shadow Treasury minister Clive Lewis has claimed, after his party came under fire last month for backing the governments tax cuts for middle-earners. As MPs prepare to debate the finance bill, Lewis defended Labours decision not to reverse Philip Hammonds planned increases to the tax-free personal allowance and the higher-rate threshold, which will largely benefit richer households. Increasing the threshold for the higher paid wouldnt be our priority but, after eight years of Tory austerity, with real wages still below their 2010 level, and with even the relatively better off feeling the pinch, it is hard to justify taking even this small amount away from people, he said. The Guardian The Bank of Englands standing has been damaged since Mark Carney took over as governor, a former ratesetter has claimed.Andrew Sentance, who sat on the Banks monetary policy committee between 2006 and 2011, has accused the governor of allowing the Banks independence to be diluted in various ways, most recently by his shambolic reappointment. The former British Airways and CBI chief economist also criticised the lack of debate at the Bank and the uniformity on the MPC, where there has been very little dissent. It seems that group think has become more consolidated, he said. Mr Sentance, 60, is a rate hawk and longstanding critic of the Bank, which he believes should have raised rates from 0.5 per cent between 2013 and 2015. The Times Democrats plan to use new position to intensify scrutiny of Trump but hang back from impeachment Ballot chaos continues in Florida Daily Mail CNN set to sue the White House Daily Mail Tough borders are the best hope for continued public acceptance of legal immigration Clare Foges, The Times German Greens struck by migrant row The Times The meat processing industry is worried about immigration limits FT Fresh off a resounding midterm elections victory, House Democrats on Sunday began detailing plans to wield their newfound oversight power in the next Congress, setting their sights on acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker while rebuffing calls from some liberals to pursue impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who is poised to take control of the House Judiciary Committee, said he will call Whitaker as a first witness to testify about his expressed hostility to special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs Russia investigation. Nadler said he is prepared to subpoena Whitaker if necessary. Another incoming chairman, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) of the House Intelligence Committee, raised the possibility of investigating whether Trump used instruments of state power in an effort to punish companies associated with news outlets that have reported critically on him, including CNN and The Washington Post. Washington Post >Yesterday: WATCH: Tugendhats message to Trump In Iraq and Afghanistan, when it was -15 or 50 degrees, we soldiered on News in Brief Amber Rudd is a former Home Secretary, and is MP for Hastings. Andrew Percy is currently trade envoy to Canada, and is MP for Brigg & Goole. Canada, a great and progressive free-trading nation, of so much more than moose and Mounties, is an unwitting participant in our Brexit debate. Canadian friends are a little nonplussed to find their wonderful country, or rather its trading relationship with the EU, quoted repeatedly as a basis for a future UK-EU relationship. We are two Conservatives who voted for different sides in the EU referendum; one Leave, one Remain. We both understand that there was a public call for change. Moreover, we are two patriots who want the best for our country and recognise the difficulty in securing a deal that works for everyone, let alone one that satisfies everyone! There has been plenty of talk on what that deal should look like. Politicians from across the political divide have spoken out in favour of various arrangements, the advantages that they feel each option would bring and how they plan to get there. Perhaps none more so than Canada, with or without the addition of any number of pluses. We understand why a Canada-style deal is, on face value, attractive. Those who argue for it say that it will give the UK a clean break from Europe. But at what cost? To our mind Remain and Leave alike a Canada-style deal fails to recognise that the UKs relationship with the EU is wholly different to that of Canada, and fails to understand such a deal could exact a heavy price. First, it could be economically damaging. A Canada-style deal is not an extension of the status-quo, and in many ways could be seen as a failure of the UKs negotiating position. The EU-Canada trade deal, positive though it is for that trading relationship, is a somewhat limited agreement, principally focusing on the elimination of tariffs and the raising of quotas on certain sectors, such as dairy. In the context of the UK, it would introduce considerable friction in our trading relationship with Europe, where there is presently none. There would be customs checks at the border, disrupting established supply chains of British success stories; car manufacturers, aerospace and pharmaceuticals companies. A Canada-style deal wouldnt cover services, the overwhelming majority of our economy; accountancy, insurance and legal services would be impacted. It seems ironic that at a time when we might be free to talk to Canada about co-operating more in the area of services as part of a future UK-Canada free trade agreement, we would be putting up substantial, and potentially damaging, barriers with the EU. Second, it would be constitutionally dangerous. Such a deal would need a hard border and there, we have two choices; one on the island of Ireland, or one down the Irish Sea. No serious politician, who cares for either our security or our Union, can accept that. A hard border in Ireland would split communities, throwing away decades of work to bring about cohesion and peace. A hard border in the Irish Sea would split our country and recklessly put our Union at risk. Finally, it is politically impossible and flies in the face of parliamentary arithmetic. There is no majority in the Commons that would see a Canada-style deal voted through. It would fall at the first hurdle. No plan riddled with so much uncertainty and reliant on goodwill alone would win the requisite number of votes. Brexit is about making tough decisions in the national interest. It is about pulling together to secure the best possible deal for the UK. We should also be realistic about what we can deliver for the British people. When Canada negotiated its free trade agreement with the EU it did so on the basis of what was in Canadas economic interests. It secured a good deal for Canadians, and did not seek to copy anyone elses arrangements: neither should the UK. Canada works for Canada. The UK should copy Canada only in regard to how it pursues a deal, and that means securing a deal that is bespoke to the economic needs and realities of the UK. These matters are too important to play fast-and-loose with. Aspiration and ambition are worthy traits. But pursuing an agreement that ignores the political reality would at best put jobs at risk and, at worst, do the same to our precious Union. That is why we back the Prime Minister in getting the best deal that she can. But we all have to recognise that, for now, that isnt, and cant be, Canada. Benedict Rogers is the East Asia Team Leader at the international human rights organization CSW, the co-founder and Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, the co-founder of the International Coalition to Stop Crimes against Humanity in North Korea, the co-founder and Chair of Hong Kong Watch, and author of three books on Burma. Jeremy Hunt is the first Foreign Secretary since William Hague to really articulate a values-based foreign policy, and a plan to implement it. Even when Brexit dominates, when the Government is fragile, and when others are more concerned with trade deals than human rights, he appears to be thinking bigger. He wisely avoids Robin Cooks ethical terminology, but speaks actively of Britains role in defending our beliefs. While Boris Johnson hinted at similar themes, with talk of Global Britain and girls education, his tenure was so overshadowed by his ambitions, character and Brexit that he never developed the narrative. Philip Hammonds two-year stint was associated only with bean-counting. Not since Hague as Shadow Foreign Secretary promised to put human rights at the very heart of foreign policy have I heard an articulation of a vision for a British foreign policy that I could wholeheartedly cheer. Until Hunt. And it is not simply his rhetoric. The Foreign Secretary has already taken some bold steps. On his first visit to Beijing he met the wives of imprisoned human rights lawyers in China. His foreword to the Foreign Offices six-monthly report on Hong Kong was noticeably stronger than previous reports, and his statement in response to the expulsion from Hong Kong of Victor Mallet, the Financial Times Asia Editor, was robust. In his Diwali message he spoke of the victory of good over evil and the need to defend freedom of religion or belief, and in the Evening Standard he pledged to make the defence of press freedom a priority. His statement in response to the appalling death of Jamal Khashoggi was good. His decision to visit Burma in September was welcome, and his call for accountability for appalling crimes against humanity and genocide there, while long overdue, was further than his predecessor had gone. What is essential now, he said, is that the perpetrators of any atrocities are brought to justice, because without that there can be no solution to the huge refugee problem. We will use all the tools at our disposal to try and make sure there is accountability. So where does he go from here? In his recent speech to Policy Exchange, the Foreign Secretary set out his vision. Post-Brexit, Britain must establish a new role for itself as a defender of democratic values and human rights, and a builder of multi-lateral coalitions to protect liberty in an era when it is under increasing threat. As the home of parliamentary democracy, and an outward-looking, seafaring nation, with a network of friendships that is unparalleled, Britain has the opportunity and the responsibility to lead. Our democratic values are under greater threat than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, he said. We can use our influence, our reach and power to defend our values by becoming an invisible chain that links the worlds democracies. How will he do this? Through the biggest expansion of our diplomatic service for a generation, the opening of more embassies, increasing the languages taught to our diplomats and reform of major multi-lateral institutions the United Nations, NATO, the World Trade Organisation and the Commonwealth. These are bold, necessary and welcome steps. There is, however, much further to go if this vision is to develop into a lasting narrative. There will be many competing areas in which Britain could develop multi-lateral leadership, but two different but equally important focuses come to mind. Both are areas where Hunt has shown interest and could shape further. The first is ensuring accountability for mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. In the case of Burma, will he lead an international effort to ensure that the perpetrators of crimes are brought to justice, either through the International Criminal Court or an ad hoc tribunal? Will he work to build international support, to invite other countries to follow if he leads? Similarly, will Britain step up to hold China to account for its horrific repression of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, investigate allegations that prisoners of conscience are targeted for forced organ harvesting, and put pressure on China to stop the intensifying persecution of Christians and Tibetan Buddhists? Will the Foreign Secretary play a leading role in ensuring that North Koreas crimes against humanity are not swept under the carpet in the rapprochement with South Korea and the United States? Will he hold IS/Daesh accountable for genocide? Will he study the Conservative Party Human Rights Commissions recent report on Russia Poison, Torture, Lies and Repression: Human Rights in Russia Today and act to end the impunity with which Vladimir Putins regime behaves by ensuring that targeted sanctions under the global Magnitsky legislation are implemented? Hunts willingness to call on the Security Council to act to stop the war in Yemen was right, if overdue. Lets hope such boldness can be applied to the worlds other mass atrocities. The second area in which Britain should lead is in response to the erosion of basic freedoms, the rule of law and autonomy in Hong Kong. Over the past five years, democratic values in Hong Kong have taken an enormous hit. Booksellers have been abducted, peaceful protestors jailed and pro-democracy legislators and candidates disqualified. I was denied entry to the territory a year ago, and the Financial Times Asia News Editor, after being expelled, was then barred. The undermining of press freedom, academic freedom and freedom of expression is spiralling daily. Asias world city, as its slogan puts it, is increasingly closing its doors and becoming just another Chinese city. Here Britain has a special responsibility, as a signatory to the Sino-British Joint Declaration. We have a legal as well as moral duty, and it is in our own interests too. If Hong Kongs openness, transparency, rule of law and autonomy continue to unravel, it puts at grave risk British business and trade. But it is also a matter of international concern, and I was encouraged that in Chinas recent Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations, twelve countries, including the UK, raised Hong Kong. In the previous review Hong Kong was not mentioned. In Washington DC, Ottawa, Berlin, Geneva and Brussels this year, policy-makers have indicated to my colleagues and me growing concern and willingness to work with like-minded allies to address the deteriorating situation. It is in everyones interests, including Chinas, that Hong Kong remain an open, free international business centre. When we act in concert, we are strong. When we act together, the price for transgression becomes too high for the perpetrator, Hunt said. We must be better at standing together to defend the values we share. Whether that is: the prevention of sexual violence in conflict, the struggle against the illegal wildlife trade, or threats to freedom of expression. Because access to fair and accurate information is also something we should remember is the lifeblood of democracy. He is absolutely right. So I hope he will lead the international community to build coalitions of like-minded nations to ensure accountability for mass atrocities, and a coalition to ensure that the promises made to the people of Hong Kong are honoured, not trampled on. The early signs are welcome. I encourage him to go on and build that invisible chain to defend and promote democratic values and human rights for everyone. Not only because it is right, not only because we have a responsibility, but also because it is in our national interests to do so. Six years ago, the TaxPayers Alliance reported that in the last year, five times more Labour people were appointed to public bodies than Tories. Since then, the figures have varied, and some Conservative members or supporters have been selected to fill important posts. Nonetheless, it remains the case that, since it took office in 2010, our Party has punched beneath its weight when it comes to public appointments. One of the reasons seems to be that Tories simply dont apply in the same number as Labour supporters. To help remedy this, every week we put up links to some of the main public appointments vacancies, so that qualified Conservatives might be aware of the opportunities presented. British Transport Police Authority Members Members of the BTPA play an active role in working towards ensuring that an effective and efficient police service is provided on the railways. Collectively, the BTPA will be accountable for the discharge of the responsibilities set out in the legislation. Members primary responsibility will be to the work of the BTPA as a whole rather than as a representative of any area from which they may come. In order to fulfil this role, the Secretary of State expects that a Member will be required to commit 30 days a year to BTPA business, although this may not necessarily arise in a regular pattern. Whilst the majority of the work will take place in Camden in London, where both the BTPA and BTP Force headquarters are based, there may be some requirement to travel to other parts of the country where the BTP operates. Time: 30 days per annum. Remuneration: 16,497 per annum. Closes: 12 November Ministry of Justice Her Majestys Chief Inspector of Probation The Chief Inspector has a duty to ensure the inspection of probation and youth offending services in England and Wales and provide independent scrutiny of the quality of work undertaken with individual offenders. Probation provision is currently delivered by Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) which are subject to contract management oversight by Her Majestys Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and the National Probation Service (NPS), which is directly line managed as part of HMPPS. HMI Probation is responsible for delivering and developing programmes of inspection and the inspection methodology or framework against which both probation services provision and Youth Offending Teams are inspected. The Chief Inspector is actively engaged in leading the day to day inspection process. Time: Full-time, three years. Remuneration: 135,000 per annum, pensionable. Closes: 12 November HS2 Ltd Non-Executive Directors As Non-Executive Director, you will champion the HS2 vision and objectives, challenging Board decisions where appropriate to maintain the aspired strategic direction and culture of the organisation whilst holding the leadership team to account for effective and efficient delivery against the agreed strategy and business plan. This will include offering alternative perspectives to the sector norm, with the ability to consider strategic, complex and often sensitive issues from an informed and balanced perspective. You will need recent and relevant Executive Board or Non-Executive Director experience with the tenacity and interpersonal skills to operate in a high profile organisation tasked with delivering against demanding objectives. Time: Two days per month. Remuneration: 950 per diem. Closes: 16 November Health and Care Professions Council Chair of Council We are seeking to appoint a Chair of Council. You will have experience of providing strong non-executive leadership and be able to uphold the principles of transparency and accountability in all of the HCPCs activities. You will act as an ambassador for the HCPC, influencing and building effective relationships internally and externally with a range of senior level stakeholders, inspiring confidence in the organisation and promoting the organisations central commitment to public protection. The Chair of Council appointment is open to both Lay and Registrant candidates. The HCPC is committed to equality of opportunity and actively guards against unfair discrimination on any grounds (including sexual orientation, religion or beliefs, race, sex, age or disability). We are a UK-wide regulator and encourage applicants from all countries of the UK. Time: Three days per week approx. Remuneration: 65,000 annual allowance. Closes: 19 November Met Office Non-Executive Directors The Met Office employs around 1900 people in sites across the UK and overseas. It operates as a Trading Fund, meaning that, whilst it is sponsored by HM Government, it self-funds through the services it provides to its diverse client base. The Met Office steering Board has a vital role in advising and supporting the Chief Executive and the Executive Team to deliver the organisations strategic priorities and ensuring that resources are allocated effectively for their delivery. The Board reviews the management and performance of the Met Office and ensures high standards of corporate governance are maintained As a Non-Executive Director (NED) on the Met Office Board, you will have an important and demanding role and will provide a valuable external perspective to the organisation. This includes providing influence and access to networks which the organisation would otherwise not have. Time: 27 days per annum. Remuneration: 15,000 per annum. Closes: 26 November Office of Tax Simplification Chair We are looking for a motivated individual to Chair the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS). This role offers a unique opportunity to participate in tax policy-making at the heart of government. The Chair will lead the OTS boards bimonthly meetings and the Offices engagement with HM Treasury ministers. The OTS board is responsible for shaping the strategy and priorities of the OTS, deciding on proposals for potential reviews to put forward to the Chancellor and agreeing key recommendations in the reviews. The Chair will also represent the OTS at public engagements and can be requested to present evidence on the Offices work to Parliamentary Committees. The recommended candidate for the Chair role will require approval by the Chancellor of the Exchequer before the appointment can be confirmed and will be subject to a post-appointment hearing held by the Treasury Select Committee. Time: Up to two days per month. Remuneration: 400 per diem. Closes: 27 November Committee on Fuel Poverty Member The Committee on Fuel Poverty (CFP) advises the Government on the effectiveness of policies aimed at reducing fuel poverty to help keep UK residents warm and improve energy efficiency in their homes. It also persuades greater co-ordination across organisations working to reduce fuel poverty in the UK The responsibilities of the new Members will include monitoring and reporting on progress towards the Governments 2030 fuel poverty target and interim milestones, supporting and challenging the Government on its delivery approach, and encouraging a partnership approach between and within Government and stakeholders in tackling fuel poverty. Time: Two days per month. Remuneration: 8400 per annum plus reasonable travel and subsistence. Closes: 06 December Chloe Westley is the Campaign Manager of the TaxPayers Alliance. Much has been written about Jordan Peterson. The Canadian academic has been accused of being sexist, misogynist, racist and worse of all a white man. As a reaction to a recent interview with Peterson in GQ, Marina Hyde published a Guardian piece expressing concern that Peterson (spent) most of the interview looking like hes about to urinate out of his face. Its a wonder that these many compelling and thoughtful counter-arguments have so far failed to debunk Petersons academic work. Perhaps if more of his critics had the attention span to look beyond the fact that he happens to be a white man, and listened to what he is actually saying, we would take them more seriously. For when Peterson challenges the idea of an imposed patriarchy he does so on behalf of women like me. Ive been told my whole life by modern feminists that I should be resentful of men, that I should fear discrimination at every opportunity, and that the world will always treat me badly because of my gender. Whilst that may be true in some countries, particularly in the Middle East, its certainly not the case in modern Britain. Young women in Britain are being misled by feminists. Take the stories over the weekend based on Equal Pay Day. Were told that there is a gender pay gap between men and women, and that this is due to rampant discrimination. But this gap is simply a comparison of the average salaries of men and women: its not indicative of any kind of discrimination. Equal pay for equal work is guaranteed by law. It is illegal to pay women less for the same work if they are equally qualified. The difference in average earnings are more likely down to womens choices. The pay gap between men and women aged between 22 39 is virtually non existent, it has fluctuated between -0.8 per cent and 2.2 per cent during 2015-2017. What is a more likely indicator of the difference in average earnings is that women are choosing, at a certain stage in their life, to raise a family and opt for more flexible or part-time work. And I dont think thats a bad thing. To say that its somehow wrong for women to choose different kinds of work to men implies that we are not fully entitled to make their own independent choices. What right do do feminists have to look down on women who prioritise family life over the pursuit of a higher salary at a FTSE 100 company? Feminism used to be about opportunity and choices for women. Now I fear their aim is to socially reconstruct society, regardless of the cost to the rights of the individual. But whilst the media obsess over Petersons views on women and gender, they are actually the least interesting thing about him. His academic contributions are really about how human beings can live in the world with dignity, and without destroying each other. He explores the history of human societies and theology in order to identify what it might mean to be human, and the best way to preserve human life and prosperity. At nearly every opportunity, he argues passionately against the doctrines of Postmodernism and Marxism and almost any ideology which seeks to destroy and rebuild society in its own image. Marxists aspire towards an ideal order of human life, in which unjust hierarchies are torn down and replaced with a utopia of fairness and equality. The only problem is that in order to overthrow the system you have to kill a lot of people. And in the end, youre left with another hierarchy one that is based on loyalty to the regime. Peterson rejects collectivist doctrines, and instead emphasises the importance of the individual. This is why, I believe, so many people say they have been inspired by his work. Instead of seeing people as victims, he praises our potential for greatness and compassion. But individualism isnt just about the actualisation of the individual. Its our defence against evil. Authoritarian regimes have relied on the abdication of individual responsibility in order to rise to power. Things go wrong when enough people absolve themselves of being informed citizens who are awake and capable of stating the truth. And in order to have informed citizens who are capable of stating the truth, you must protect free speech. On BBCs Question Time last week, Peterson warned against the dangers of a government regulating speech. There is no question of whether hateful speech exists. It does. But who decides what to criminalise? In socialist Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro uses a Law Against Hatred to imprison political opponents, who are accused of promoting fascism, hatred, and intolerance. Those who speak out against the regime in media outlets or on social media can be accused of hate speech, and put in prison for up to 20 years. Some of us may dismiss or laugh at Social Justice Warriors in the UK, but their attempt to shut down debate and dismiss any opposing argument as fascism should alarm us all. This isnt just a phenomena on University campuses: even an elected politician has pathetically called for me to be banned from TV. The ad hominem attacks on Jordan Peterson are lazy. Hes not interested in dividing society into group identities, and pitching them against each other: thats the goal of the identitarian Left. Instead, Peterson offers a thoughtful defence of the individual, and warns against the tyranny of the collective. Its not a patriarchy that women in the west should fear. Its Marxism. Its obvious why the rise in violent crime and knife crime in particular grabs peoples attention. Its horrific, it disproportionately affects the young, and its downright scary. The idea that someone you pass in the street might mutilate or kill you or those you love for the tiniest offence, or for no reason at all, tends to stick in ones mind. That applies from a distance, if you hear about it on the news or read about it in the paper, but as a father of young children living in South London I can confirm it applies all the more when youre physically rather more near to the events in question. And it seems that the proportion of the country who find themselves in relatively close proximity to such crime is rising. While the London murder rate, and the seeming absence of the capitals mayor, is often the go-to reference, police statistics suggest a rise in violent crime involving a knife in every region of England and Wales. There is local variation, including a few forces which have seen a fall to some degree, but overall the police recorded 28 per cent more violent crimes including a knife in June 2017-July 2018, than in April 2010-March 2011. Its a particularly stark change because we have more generally enjoyed a sustained fall in most types of crime for several years now part, as per Steven Pinkers book The Better Angels of Our Nature, of a trend seen in many similarly developed countries. The fact might be that youre less likely to be a victim of crime than ten or 20 years ago, but the good news of hypothetical crimes failing to occur does not outweigh the grim sight of kids bleeding on the pavement, for obvious reasons. Rightly in a democratic society such horrors leap from the streets into the minds of the public and the pages of the press and thereby onto agendas in Westminster. Its a measure of concern about the issue that while other topics are swamped by the dominance of Brexit, knife crime in particular has established itself as a major question of the day. As City Hall and Whitehall are yet to produce a clear answer, the clamour for action will surely grow as will the tally of attacks. The poser for policymakers is what to do that will actually work. Inside and outside the police, stop and search has become a common answer. The implication is that Theresa Mays decision as Home Secretary to limit the use of the power is responsible for the rise in stabbings, and that reversing those changes would duly nip the problem in the bud. There are a few problems with this theory. For a start, lets remember what Mays policy and reasoning (cited by this site in 2015 as a Reason To Vote Tory) actually were. Home Office statistics (albeit now disputed by one source) suggested the power was used disproportionately against ethnic minority people, without any sign of a resultant higher rate of arrests, which troubled her on two levels first as an unjust mistreatment of innocent people by law enforcement, and second as a waste of police time and resources. She took the view not that stop and search was wrong, but that misusing it was an ineffective way to fight crime. As Stephen Bush summarises in the New Statesman, by cutting the number of suspicion-free stops, and raising the proportion of stops which led to an arrest, Mays reforms essentially kept the number of actual criminals being stopped and caught the same, while reducing time wasted and resentment incurred among the innocent. As Bush points out, David Blunketts 2001 experiment, in simply reducing the number of stops generally, produced an almost immediate rise in crime, while Mays specifically targeted reduction in 2014 did not. It might be, of course, that while Mays approach did not cause crime directly it might instead have made policing vulnerable to a problem which has subsequently arisen. We know that organised criminals are adept at identifying and taking advantage of flaws in police procedure the widely-reported practice of scooter gangs taking off their crash helmets in the knowledge that doing so meant pursuing police officers were forbidden from knocking them off their bikes is a good example. Perhaps what were seeing now is a change in criminal tactics to belatedly take advantage of the stop and search reform. Maybe its something else changes in the subculture of crime, or Trevor Phillips idea that it represents the influence of refugees from war zones, or a shift in the economics of the drug trade, or a symptom of the expansionist strategy of county lines gangs, or all of the above. It falls to the Home Secretary to take a clear, swift and effective decision about what to do in response. The police want a drastic relaxation of the requirement for suspicion, and they have a following wind in the press. Politically, it would be easiest just to give them exactly what they want, and boast of ones toughness. Doing so might tick the clear and swift boxes, but its not certain that it would also be effective. It remains true that targeting suspects has a higher hit-rate than targeting people without suspicion, and even if there were sufficient resources to sizeably expand police numbers (which there arent) it wouldnt be wise to squander officers time on inefficient tactics. Furthermore, not all police officers used such powers fairly or even legally in the past simply undoing Mays reforms would risk undoing any gains in trust made among those who were unfairly stopped without good reason under the old system. The Government definitely wants to lower the barriers faced by police in the fight against knife crime, and be seen to do so. But it cannot simply repeat policies that dont work properly. Notably, Javids recent discussion of cutting bureaucracy around stops and making police confident to use the power was still couched in terms of requiring grounds for suspicion: If the police think that theres good reason that they may be carrying an offensive weapon, the police should be absolutely empowered to stop them. His eventual answer, when it comes, has to persuade people that the law can be enforced while maintaining that principle. And then, crucially, it must work. The most intractable conversation I had with Kashmiri and Pakistani-origin constituents, during my nine years as MP for Wycombe, wasnt about the Iraq war, Israels two military campaigns against Gaza, its incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah, or the Afghanistan war. Discussion about all these was often difficult, but it was always straightforward debate about what Britains foreign and security policy ought to be. No, it was about the so-called Danish cartoons the twelve illustrations published in Jyllands-Posten, a newspaper in Denmark, which depicted Mohammed. I met with a delegation of these constituents for a discussion about them though, on second thoughts, I withdraw the word discussion, which implies a common basis for talking about a subject, however swiftly or strongly disagreements about it then emerge. There was no such shared ground. Instead, the group and I talked past each other for the best part of half-an-hour. Their starting-point, though seldom directly stated, was that cartoons of Mohammed should not be published. It wasnt clear whether they believed that the state should ban any such illustrations, or whether artists should simply self-censor: this seemed to shift back and forth. But what quickly became evident was that two conflicting worldviews were present in the room that spoke different languages. They were like the lines in Marvells poem that though infinite can never meet. One was mine: that free speech about religion is integral to liberal democracy. The other was theirs: that blasphemy must be barred. One was modern, the other pre-modern (though it is worth bearing in mind that common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel werent abolished until as recently as 2008, though they had recently been honoured in the breach rather than the observance). This may be a useful background against which to consider the Asia Bibi case. She is a Christian who faced the death sentence under Pakistans blasphemy laws. Originally framed to prohibit blasphemy against any recognised religion, they have increasingly targeted non-Muslims. Since 1990, those who make remarks considered derogatory of Mohammed can be punished by death. A Muslim judge must preside at the trial. Bibi was arrested after an altercation with fellow villagers in the Punjab. It is claimed that her family had previously been involved in a dispute about property with another family in the village. They are reportedly the only Christians in the village. Bibi was tried and convicted. The High Court then upheld the sentence on appeal. Last month, the Supreme Court quashed it citing material contradictions and inconsistent statements of the witnesses. Whatever may or may not have been said, the manipulation of the blasphemy laws as a means of paying back grudges happens in Pakistan. It may be worth noting that the woman whose quarrel with Bibi led to the arrest she said that the latter should not have drunk from a cup used by Muslims is reported to have been a member of the family involved in the property row. Found not guilty by the court, Bibi is apparently now in hiding. In short, Imran Khans government has done a deal with the Islamist Tehreek-e-Labbaik political party, which bars her from leaving the country. She must wait until the Supreme Court makes a final review of its verdict. Such proceedings can take years. Some of Bibis supporters here claim that the Government is too frightened of a hostile reaction from British Muslims to offer Bibi asylum. The claim is unproven and, after all, she is not presently in a position to travel anywhere. Government sources suggest that Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are not closed to an asylum offer. Like William Hague last week, they indicate that more may be going on than meets the eye. However, it would not be surprising were Ministers to be lobbying for Bibi to be freed from Pakistan to find refuge elsewhere in the West, in concert with other governments. (By the way: theres not been a peep on her case from Labour.) At any rate, hers is a test case for freedom. It should not be assumed that opinion in Pakistan is universally supportive of the original verdict. The country has a liberal middle class. But theirs is a minority view. Pakistan has travelled a very long way from the vision expressed by Jinnah, the founder of the state: Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic State to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. Horrifying videos show crowds chanting for Bibis death. Salmaan Taseer, the Governor of the Punjab, who spoke up for Bibi and against the laws, was assassinated by a member of his own bodyguard. The only Christian member of the countrys Cabinet, Shahbaz Bhatti, who took the same position, was shot dead by gunmen in a car ambush. Returning to Britain, we understand why Ministers are reluctant to spell out their plans in public. But we believe that they should be making an asylum offer for Bibi private. We hope that she comes to Britain. Finally, hers is not only a test case for the Government, but also for Muslim organisations in Britain or at least those who claim to speak for British Muslims. Some are effectively blackballed by Ministers for reasons connected with extremism. There is debate back and forth about how extremism can be defined. We are very doubtful whether it can or should be be in law. But one can surely say of extremism, as an American judge once said of pornography, that one knows it when one sees it. Support for murdering someone who expresses a view about religion is extreme, by any reasonable standard. If groups shunned by Ministers want to to meet with them, they can start by condemning Pakistans blasphemy laws, loud and clear. And add that Bibi would be welcome here. We are analyzing the site. Please wait a few seconds.. 100% Website horaire.com uses latest and advanced technologies. It is very popular on the web, it's within the 1 million most visited websites of the world at position 203435 by Alexa. It supports HTTPS. The main html page has a size of 29518 bytes (28.83 kb uncompressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2019-09-26, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. In Queensland, Gladstone Ports Corporation is expecting five calls in 2018, including its first visit from Holland America Line. This 2018 calendar year has already been a success, with two new lines joining P&O on the Gladstone cruise schedule; Carnival and Holland America, said Gladstone Ports Corporation CEO Peter OSullivan. Another eight cruise ships will berth at the Port of Gladstone during 2019, with calls from P&O, Carnival and Holland America scheduled, he said. A local market is set up for cruise calls, showcasing local art, food and other crafts, OSullivan noted. Gladstone Area Promotion and Development has put together a custom shore excursion program for cruise guests, highlighted by a Port Curtis harbor cruise, as well as a visit to the Quoin Island Turtle Rehabilitation Centre. Infrastructure wise, the port is investing around $30 million AUD into the development of East Shores Stage 1B, including the construction of a dedicated cruise passenger area. One of the other features of the project will be the floating ferry transfer pontoon, offering 270 degree views of the harbor. It will also be well positioned for our cruise ship visitors to board a boat tour. Gladstone is not a region naturally associated with cruise ship tourism, so creating awareness of the opportunities the region holds can be one of our greatest challenges, OSullivan said. We are working hard to attract more cruise ships to the region. Future plans include improving the berths and fender system to accept the latest megaships, he added. The Marine Hotel Association (MHA) and Cruise Industry News (CIN) today announced a new partnership, making CIN the official media partner of the MHA. MHA is a not-for-profit international association representing the cruise industry and its supporting supplier community, and dedicated to enhancing the overall quality of the guest experience. CIN is the leading media authority on the industry and has been covering the cruise industry for over four decades. Through exclusive interviews and research, the CIN Quarterly Magazine covers all aspects of the industry, and will be soon available to MHA members via a new section on the MHA website at www.MHAweb.org. MHA members will now receive complimentary access via the Associations website to CINs Quarterly Magazine, as well as access to select CIN reports, as well as other key industry resources. In a joint statement on the new partnership, MHA board president, John McGirl, and executive director, Caroline Pritchard expressed enthusiasm for the decision to cement a collaborative partnership with CIN. MHA wants to focus on its own mission and with this new partnership comes the perfect melding of expertise from two sides, both connected by a common interest, they said. Our collaborative efforts will introduce an important and meaningful addition to our membership services through the sharing of CIN publication resources. The MHA plays a vital and unique role in the industry by bringing together key decision makers and vendors, both small and large, in a friendly and cost effective environment, said Monty Mathisen, managing editor of Cruise Industry News. Its not-for-profit status and scholarship program is commendable. The MHAs 34th annual trade show and conference in Naples next April will be a key industry event in 2019. About the Marine Hotel Association: The Marine Hotel Association is a not-for-profit international organization run by and for the cruise line industry and dedicated to enhancing the overall quality of the cruise experience. This goal will be achieved by focusing the Associations energies and resources toward: Providing a forum for continued and open dialogue between the cruise lines and a broad range of committed suppliers, and raising the level of cruise line staff proficiency by creating both the opportunities and the tools for professional development and career growth. About Cruise Industry News: Cruise Industry News (CIN) is a New York-based niche publishing company and is the leading media source on the global cruise ship business, covering the industry with a variety of publications including the Quarterly Magazine, the 400-page Annual Report, select Digital Reports, a daily e-newsletter, and online www.CruiseIndustryNews.com. CIN covers all the cruise lines, shipyards and other key decision-makers. The American Queen Steamboat Company has announced a definitive agreement to acquire the Victory I and sister ship Victory II from Sunstone Ships, Inc., as well as the Victory brand. These vessels are currently being marketed by Victory Cruise Lines. Terms of the transaction are not being disclosed and expected to close in early January 2019, according to a press release. We are pleased to purchase the Victory I and Victory II which will fuel the continued success and growth of American Queen Steamboat Company, said American Queen Steamboat Company Chairman and CEO John Waggoner. We look forward to working closely with Victory Cruise Lines new and existing travel partners. These vessels enable us to provide guests with more diverse cruising options particularly in the Great Lakes, a region that our customers have been requesting for years. The 5,000-ton, 300-foot-long, 202-passenger Victory I and Victory II are both identical and details of upcoming operations on both of vessels will be announced in the coming months. The Victory I and Victory II will join the American Queen Steamboat Company fleet under the Victory Cruise name, alongside the flagship American Queen and 166-guest paddlewheeler American Duchess sailing the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and American Empress in the Pacific Northwest. The new American Countess, currently under construction in Louisiana, will debut in 2020. Victory Cruise Lines has established itself as the leading cruise line on the Great Lakes, and our bookings for 2019 are already 35 percent ahead of our actuals of 2018. AQSCs established and strong product and brand is well-suited to take the Victory vessels and Victory Cruise Line brand forward creating one of the largest North American Great Lakes and U.S. River cruising companies in the country, said Victory Cruise Lines President and CEO Hans Lagerweij. One of the most pressing concerns facing organizations today is the widening cybersecurity skills gap. According to recent estimates, there will be as many as 3.5 million unfilled positions in the industry by 2021. One often overlooked pipeline that may help close the skills gap is servicemembers transitioning out of the military. The US military today is comprised of about 1.2 million active duty servicemembers with another 800,000 people in the seven reserve components. And right now, about 550 servicemembers leave military service every day, with about 250,000 military members expected to leave each year for the next five years. These veterans are entering the civilian workforce with an average of about 15 years of training and experience behind them. As a result, many of them are transitioning with unique skillsets that make them ideal candidates for a career as a cybersecurity professional. Todays military is highly technical, and many of these men and women have been trained to use some of the most sophisticated technologies running on some of the most highly targeted networks in the world. As a result, much of their situational, hands-on experience translates to the cybersecurity battlefield. Situational awareness, maintaining security, intelligence gathering, and support for chain of command are all skills that translate well to a role in cybersecurity. And many of these individuals also possess security clearances, which are not only expensive for private organizations to obtain and maintain, but can also take up to 18 months to complete. A Q&A with Dawood Manzur Dawood Manzur is one of those individuals. He is an 8-year veteran of the US Marine Corp and a recent graduate of the Fortinet Veterans Program. The FortiVets program facilitates the transition of exceptional military veterans into the cybersecurity industry by providing professional networking, training, and mentoring. Dawood is one of dozens of trained FortiVets now actively working in the field of cybersecurity, with many more currently enrolled or successfully starting their careers. Dawood is now working as a System Engineer at Fortinet, and Veterans Day is a great opportunity to get his take on programs like the one sponsored by Fortinet that are helping to fill that critical cybersecurity skills gap. To start, perhaps you could give us a summary of your background in the military and how that prepared you for a career in cybersecurity Fortinet Supplied I started my Marine Corps career as a communications Marine focused on routing, switching, and help desk IT. While in that role I was fortunate enough to get some exposure to security and transferred to the cybersecurity job field. In that position I experienced many aspects of security which culminated with my having the pleasure of teaching cybersecurity courses to Marines at the Cybersecurity Training Center. What do you do now? I am a Systems Engineer for Fortinet working as part of the SoCal commercial sales team. How did you get into the FortiVet program? Towards the end of my transition process out of the Marine Corps, a friend referred me to the FortiVet Program. They spoke highly of the program and I saw this as a great opportunity since I had experience with Fortinet products within the Marine Corps. The program is set up really well to help you transition from a military culture over to a civilian, commercial culture. Why do you think this program is important in helping to fill the talent gap in cyber security? The number of resources the FortiVets program provides far outweighs any others I have seen. The program is structured to assist veterans with a variety of skill levels and cybersecurity knowledge. They then provide all of the resources and training necessary to help you become the best job candidate you can be. Once you have all the skills in place, they then connect you with organizations looking for talent. Given how hard it is for some companies to hire trained cybersecurity professionals with actual hands-on experience, programs like this help fill vital cybersecurity roles while providing veterans with the resources to grow their careers. What is the benefit of hiring a military veteran? The military produces well-rounded professionals that have received continuous training in their job field. If they worked in IT, they most likely hold industry certifications that pertained to their job. In addition, they have years of hands-on experience operating sophisticated networks and technologies, often under extreme conditions. To employers looking for talent, this background is extremely valuable because getting experienced and certified professionals can be very difficult given the cybersecurity jobs market. What would you say are the benefits to a company that hires someone from the FortiVet program? They are getting someone who is able to contribute from day one. The biggest benefit is that candidates that have come through the FortiVet program have been fully vetted through an extensive training and certification process run by one of the top cybersecurity companies in the world. Candidates are then thoroughly interviewed to ensure that their knowledge and experience is matched to positions where they can succeed. Check out our entry level designation of the Fortinet Network Security Expert (NSE) program. It is intended to provide a basic understanding of the threat landscape facing networks today. Anyone interested to learn about the threat landscape and cybersecurity should take this course for more learning. Also learn more about the Fortinet Network Security Academy available to educators and students or the FortiVets program. Explore The CISO Collective - an online content hub and mobile application that provides CISOs with one stop to find the most relevant news and information to enable them to be more effective in Changing the narrative of a city isnt easy, but Bridgeport-based podcaster Dayna Lindo is up for the task. Lindo has been tackling topics of concern in her community on her show BPT Talks since January while also providing local youth with an opportunity to hone their creative skills in a professional setting. Its dedicated to telling the untold stories of Bridgeport and humanizing our collective experience, Lindo said. My goal is to increase Bridgeport citizens pride in themselves and our city by changing the current narrative and by developing the skills for people to do it themselves. From criminal justice affairs to the local LGBT community, Lindo hasnt shied away from any discussion in the quarterly hourlong show focused on changing perceptions of the states largest city. For the past year, the podcast has been run out of the radio station at the University of Bridgeport student center, with the help with local social action network, Bridgeport Generation Now. The grassroots organization, which focuses on civic engagement in the Park City, has been sponsoring the podcast. Our work lies at the intersection of community building, self-determination and systems change, said Callie Gale Heilmann, president of Bridgeport Generation Now. Last year, we really thought deeply about how there is a pretty large gap in Bridgeport between the stories the established media wants to tell and the stories that we want to hear. BPT Talks doubles as local grassroots journalism program providing youth with the opportunity to build their resumes and hone their skills in storytelling, writing, graphic design, photography, videography and more. The program provides paid internship and volunteer opportunities to local creatives aged 16 to 24. The program currently has five people involved, including Lindo, who plans on adding more interns to the roster as the show grows. While Lindo is leading the program, she said her goal is to develop it into something sustainable for residents. My goal is to increase Bridgeport citizens pride in themselves and our city by changing the current narrative and by developing the skills for people to do it themselves, Lindo said. As BPT Talks nears its one-year mark, the next step is to invite local businesses and nonprofits to buy time for a topic or advertise their business or nonprofit, Lindo said. Looking even further into the future, the Bridgeport podcaster is looking to eventually expand the program model into other cities. My vision for this is to have a NYC talk, ATL talk, NOLA talk and LA Talk, Lindo said. Thats the long-term goal. Jordan.grice@hearstmediact.com STRATFORD The legislative race for the 120th state house district could be headed to state court. Thats because about 80 ballots at Bunnell High School which served two different polls were handed out to the wrong voters, candidates have said. The race between incumbent Democrat Phil Young and his challengers, Republican James Feehan and Prez Palmer, an independent candidate, was decided by just 18 votes in Youngs favor. For now, a recount is planned beginning Tuesday morning in Town Hall. The current count shows Young with 5,217, Feehan with 5,199 and Palmer with 54. Its unfortunate this happened, said Young. Its not my fault. Its not Jims fault. But it is an issue. Feehan said the moderator advised his lawyers that the vote total in the 120th was off by 79 people meaning there were 79 fewer votes then people who voted in that district. Meanwhile, he said the 122nd district, which also voted at Bunnell, showed there were 76 more votes cast than people voted. Theres no way to figure out who voted where or how they would have voted, Feehan said Tuesday. But I won that polling place by a 60 to 40 percentage. Mathematically, those votes (the wrong ballots) probably would have given me the election. Feehan called the situation a tragic mistake. People who wanted to vote were disenfranchised, he said. He said his lawyer, Proloy Das, is ready to challenge the election in state Superior Court if the recount shows he lost. I believe if those people were given the proper ballot, I would have won the election, said Feehan, who previously served as the chairman of the town council and Board of Education. A Superior Court judge could require a special election. The 120th District has 18,118 registered voters. Of these, 5,361 are Democrats, 3,958 are Republicans, 8,601 are unaffiliated and 198 belong to minor parties. This wasnt the only local district or municipality where there was a vote count issue. In Ansonia, more than 200 votes were mistakenly given to Jorge Cabrera, the Democratic challenger, pollsters said. That resulted in his apparent victory over Republican State Sen. George Logan in the 17th district. The mistake was discovered Thursday and in an unofficial recount in the Registrars office, it was determined Logan now leads by 65 votes. The change necessitates an official recount in all the municipalities that make up that district: Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Derby, Hamden, Naugatuck and Woodbridge. After all this is cleared up, maybe we need to look at how the Registrar of Voters are doing their jobs, Young said. People need to be held accountable. Following the lead of corporations like Comcast, T-Mobile and Amazon, U.S. businesses of all sizes and industries are making a concentrated push to hire veterans. And why not? The training and experience veterans receive in the military instills a steadfast work ethic, a mission-mindedness and an ability to learn quickly. U.S. servicemen and women are trained to act fast under intense pressure in resource-constrained environments, giving them an ability to focus, a level head under stress, and an adaptability that prepares them to tackle any obstacle. Theyre forced to work, live and sleep in close quarters, often in dire circumstances, with diverse groups of people. When conflicts arise, they dont have the luxury of transferring or firing someone or even of walking away themselves; they are trained and focused leaders, adept at finding solutions that benefit the organization. But perhaps above all, veterans are defined by a value system and sense of loyalty that make them one of your companys strongest assets. And yet, many businesses arent set up to recognize the full value of their military talent. Most businesses approach the hiring, development and retention of military talent as they do that of civilian employees. This is a mistake. The unique circumstances in which veterans gained their experience and honed their skills demand special consideration to avoid these three factors driving them away. The reality is that 65 percent of Veterans leave their first post-military job within two years. Heres why. 1. Youve typecast them into a role. For their first job in the civilian world, veterans are often hired into positions that match their Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). Their resumes are a list of jargon, acronyms and hard skills for recruiters and hiring managers to cross-reference with technical requirements of open jobs. The problem with this approach is that it doesnt recognize the soft skills -- leadership, work ethic, analytical thinking and teamwork -- that indicate the greater career potential (and organizational value) of military applicants. Compoundng that, veterans who may associate asking for help as a weakness dont advocate for themselves for new opportunities the way their civilian colleagues might. As a result, they may not be offered ongoing training or considered for new or more senior positions as their civilian colleagues might. Their career stagnates. Thirty-one percent of veterans leave their first post-military job because of a lack of career development or advancement; nearly 30 percent leave because they find the work meaningless, unchallenging or tedious; and 23 percent leave because of inadequate professional development opportunities. In the military, servicemen and women know their current standing and future career path, and they crave that same transparency and opportunities to learn, grow and advance in their new civilian careers. Companies should encourage a culture of servant leadership, in which managers purposefully engage with veteran candidates and employees to learn their interests and career aspirations, and keep them challenged and invested in the company. Related: Discover the Raw Talent of Millennials and Veterans 2. Youre speaking a different language. The hierarchy of a business -- more horizontal and collaborative than the vertical chain of command veterans are accustomed to -- introduces challenges in reporting, productivity and long-term growth. Veterans accustomed to answering to one commanding officer might be disoriented by having a field of superiors to report to for different projects or assignments. At the same time, they may feel slighted if a peer contacts one of their direct reports without going through the approved chain of command. Veterans in the corporate world are surrounded by these shades of gray, when in the military it was either black or white, yes sir or no maam. Communication gaps persist, with veterans often not picking up on certain innuendos or the nuances of certain business vernacular. These disconnects can hurt both a veterans ability to bond with their colleagues and to uncover opportunities for their own personal advancement. Consider pairing veterans up with a mentor, ideally (though it doesnt have to be) another veteran who has successfully assimilated into the corporate world. Invest in formal training to teach mentors how to be empathetic and understanding, and to respond to whatever issues or concerns corporate, personal, even medical the veteran may be coping with. Giving veterans someone to help them navigate their new environment and decipher new types of interpersonal interactions could prevent minor miscommunications from escalating into a larger problem, or a reason to leave. Related: Veterans and Reservists Are Your Secret Talent Weapon. But, Careful, You May Lose Them. 3. Youre not offering service opportunities. Veterans are defined by their selflessness and commitment to country. When they leave the military and its built-in service culture, they can feel disoriented, purposeless and lost. While many companies grant employees the occasional day of service, these eight hours a year often arent enough to satisfy a veterans innate desire to serve. Service cant be an afterthought. It needs to be woven into the very fabric of your company culture. Consider unique work arrangements like job sharing or shortened work weeks (for instance a 35-hour work week and five hours of volunteer time). Organize after-hours or even lunchtime volunteer events like reading to children at a neighborhood school or counseling other transitioning veterans. Understand, too, that some service members may choose to remain in the reserves to fill the void, and youll have to create an environment that is accepting of that service. Arrange lunch and learns or additional manager check-ins to help Reservists seamlessly step back into their civilian jobs after returning from drills so they dont feel as if theyre falling behind. At the same time, educate your entire workforce on the continued sacrifice these service members make to encourage camaraderie and prevent feelings of resentment from surfacing. Related: 3 Ways the Army Prepared Me for Entrepreneurship A top-down mentality. The biggest mistake companies can make when it comes to hiring and managing Veterans is not recognizing the unique qualities and valuable perspectives they bring to the organization. Instead of ignoring Veterans or trying to fit them into a traditional corporate mold, companies need to create a culture that attracts, embraces, and nurtures military talent. That starts with a commitment from leadership to understand, challenge, and support Veterans during their transition. Your companies will reap the rewards in the long run. Related: Hiring Veterans Is Smart Strategy but These 3 factors Drive Them Away The Best Way to Honor Veterans Is to Hire One 5 Ways This Veteran Used His Military Experience to Grow a $3.5-Million Beard Grooming Business Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved 3 1 of 3 NASA / Patrick Black Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Show More Show Less 3 of 3 Anyone willing to wake up early Thursday could witness a rare treat in Connecticuts night sky a rocket on its way to the International Space Station should be visible shortly after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia. Northrop Grummans Antares rocket launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility at 4:49 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 15. As Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman tries to escape consequences for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, it has been revealing to see who has stepped forward to help him out. There have been fellow Arab dictators, such as Egypt's Abdel Fatah el-Sissi. There have been cynical opportunists, like Russia's Vladimir Putin. Then there's Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of a nation whose right to exist has yet to be recognized by Saudi Arabia. You wouldn't think Israel, in contrast to every Western democracy, would be explicitly endorsing a latter-day version of Saddam Hussein - a man so toxic that even K Street lobbyists are rejecting his money. And yet Netanyahu is emerging as Mohammed bin Salman's friend-in-need. For a month after Khashoggi disappeared inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, the Israeli government was conspicuously silent. Then, a day or two after it was reported that Netanyahu had phoned the White House to lobby for Mohammed, he spoke up: While "what happened in the Istanbul consulate was horrendous, and should be duly dealt with," he said, "it's very important for the stability of the world . . . that Saudi Arabia remain stable." In case there is some doubt what it means to "duly deal" with the strangling and dismemberment of a journalist by a team of 15 thugs, Israel's ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, was more clear: It means, he said, that the United States should "not throw out the prince with the bathwater." Why throw a lifeline to this killer? For Netanyahu, the Khashoggi crisis threatens to undo a carefully constructed regional strategy built around the 33-year-old Saudi crown prince - and President Donald Trump. The idea is to forge a de facto alliance between Israel and the Middle East's new generation of Sunni dictators, united against Iran - and to enlist the United States to provide muscle. As a side benefit, Mohammed would support a Trump Middle East peace plan that, while yet to be unveiled, seems to amount to coercing Palestinians into accepting Israel's terms. Until Khashoggi's disappearance, everything was going smoothly: Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran and restored economic sanctions; cut off U.S. aid to Palestinian refugees in Gaza while moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem; and resumed U.S. support for a Saudi bombing campaign against Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen that has killed tens of thousands of civilians. Netanyahu was meanwhile invited to visit Oman, a Saudi ally. Netanyahu also has made a show of identifying himself with Trump. He has been the Mike Pence of the Middle East; he even called out CNN for "fake news." When Trump visited Tree of Life synagogue following the Pittsburgh massacre, against the wishes of local leaders, just one official was there to welcome him: Dermer. Naftali Bennett, a Netanyahu cabinet member who also flew in, spent the next few days vigorously defending Trump against charges that his support for white nationalism had encouraged U.S. anti-Semites. On the eve of the midterm elections, Bennett, who aspires to succeed Netanyahu, took to Twitter to heap still more praise on the president - in English - for "Making TheAyatollahs Scared Again." Of course, Israel has a long history of cultivating nasty dictators, as well as occupants of the Oval Office. Netanyahu's problem is that in betting so heavily on Mohammed and Trump, he took a large risk with two very unstable actors, each of whom has polarized their political systems. If Mohammed survives - something that for now seems more likely than not, given that the Trump administration remains committed to him - he will be weakened and wary. He won't be able to deliver the Palestinians for Trump's peace plan. There's a good chance Congress will cut off aid for bombing Yemen. Saudi Arabia's support for the anti-Iran coalition will amount to pumping oil. Trump, too, has been weakened by the Democrats' capture of the House of Representatives - and so has Netanyahu. What was once bipartisan U.S. support for Israel disappears when it comes to its current leader, who feuded with Barack Obama and all but campaigned for Mitt Romney in 2012. According to a Pew Research Center poll released this year, only 18 percent of Democrats had a favorable view of Netanyahu; twice as many regarded him unfavorably. That compared with 52 percent of Republicans who approved of the Israeli leader. While key Democratic leaders in the incoming House, including likely Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel of New York, are staunchly pro-Israel, many of their new rank and file will not be. And a lot of Republicans as well as Democrats will be repelled by Netanyahu's appeals on Mohammed's behalf. Instead, the spectacle of an Israeli leader lobbying to excuse an Arab dictator for murder will only compound the damage he has done to his country's relationship with the United States. China Has taken the gloves off In Hacking Attacks Remember the good old days, when the US and China were supposedly working out new norms for cyber, and China was going to stop all that hacking of US companies to steal intellectual property? It turns out the Chinese were just upping their hacking game, improving their operational security and penetration skills, learning from the methods of their Russian counterparts. A recent example of that "island hopping" tactic is the "Cloud Hopper" hacking campaign, active since at least May of 2016. In October the US Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a new alert on the campaign, warning of a surge in activity by the campaign over the past few months. Cloud Hopper has been attributed to the threat group known as APT 10, aka Stone Pandaa hacking group that has been tied to the Chinese Ministry of State Security's Tianjin Bureau. Based on data from incident response companies gathered by the security firm Carbon Black , China is now the leading source of cyber-attacks. Of 113 investigations conducted by Carbon Black's incident response partners in the third quarter of 2018, nearly half, 47 in total, came from China or Russia. "What was notable was that we saw a resurgence of Chinese attacks, where they actually surpassed Russian activity," said Carbon Black's chief cybersecurity officer, Tom Kellermann. "And I think that's in direct line with the increasing tension with the South China Sea coupled with the trade war. Essentially, the Chinese have taken the gloves off." The data backing this analysis, part of a report released recently by Carbon Black, came from 37 incident-response firms that partnered with the company. It's the second quarterly report compiled from incident-response data and an attempt by the intrusion-response community to understand more about the behavior of attackers, and how they manage to spend so much time within networks before they are detected. "The Verizon data-breach report, which we all appreciate as being probably the best report out on data breaches, always failed to explain why [dwell time] was over 130 days," Kellermann told Ars. That Verizon report "talked about the vector and some of the weaknesses in security but never described why that dwell time was so expansive. This report is specifically trying to drive out how are they getting in, how are they staying in, how are they moving laterally, how are they changing, and are they becoming more punitive." And, in fact, attackers on the whole do appear to be turning more "punitive", engaging in more destructive behavior either as part of a deliberate sabotage campaign or to counter the efforts by victims of intrusions to respond to them. But as far as the Chinese attackers go, it's clear that they have also significantly upped their game, improving their stealth and tactics in a way that has allowed them to dig deeper into targets and stay longer than before. "They're doing a much better job of operational security for their campaigns and doing a tremendous amount of 'island hopping', targeting the major service providers and corporations' brands in order to island hop into their constituencies," Kellermann explained. This type of stealth is a significant departure from Chinese state-sponsored hacking operations in the past. "The joke used to be that when the Chinese would come after you, they would throw the kitchen sink at you, and inevitably they would get into your house, and it would sound like a bunch of drunks in your kitchen at night," Kellermann said. "The Russians, if they targeted you. You would just wake up feeling funny in the morning." But now, the Chinese groups are mirroring some of the clandestine techniques used by the Russian underground and "cyber militias," including: Using multiple command and control (C&C) systems to communicate with backdoors and other malware, with at least one of them on a "sleep cycle", left inactive until after other C&C systems have been purged by the targeted organisation's security team. "Living off the land" and moving within the targeted network by using 'known good tools' (legitimate software packages or system tools that may already be installed on the target network, such as PowerShell). Using techniques such as process hollowing to conceal malicious code within an existing system process to evade detection, Windows Management Instrumentation, and other alternatives to PowerShell to conceal activity on Windows systems. Chinese hacking groups aren't the only ones to have improved their game against intrusion detection and response. Attackers from Iran, North Korea, and Brazil have also been evolving their behavior to adjust to the widespread use of breach-detection tools and common intrusion-response practices. The data gathered for the report showed that more than 40 percent of the incident-response investigations in the last three months found a secondary command and control network in place "on the sleep cycle." And more than 50 percent of the incidents were cases where the victim was not the primary target of the attack. That said, the resurgence of the Chinese attacks is concerning when combined with their shift in tactics. While Chinese attacks against US targets never really stopped after the 2015 agreement on cyber norms, they had become much less brazen, which Kellermann attributes to their realization that they were "terrible at operational security." But they may have refocused their activities elsewhere, targeting India, Japan, and South Korea, as they learned more about how companies defended themselves and responded to breaches. Bringing the Pain Across the board, the financial sector was the most commonly targeted victim, followed by healthcare. "With North Korea and Iran, as well as Russia, they're understanding how they can offset economic sanctions by targeting the financial sector," Kellerman suggested. But there was also a spike over the third quarter of 2018 in attacks against manufacturing companies, a type of attack that has been frequently tied to Chinese economic espionage. "Hacking a manufacturing entity, it's very hard to create a liquid asset to capitalise financially on that," Kellermann noted, "unless it's for the purpose of economic espionage or economic sabotage." There was another spike that drew notice, a shift toward what Kellermann described as "a more punitive adversary." In 32 percent of the documented investigations over the past quarter, the attackers engaged in some sort of data destruction, either as economic sabotage or as a way of countering incident-response efforts by the victim. "We're seeing destruction of logs, not just the logs specific to the footprint of the adversary on various hosts, but just massive amounts of logs," Kellermann said, "and that should be concerning to all of us. In the first three months we looked at, back in the spring of this year, we were at 10 percent for destructive attacks. Now we're at 32 percent. Is it the geopolitical context, or is it just that the actors have become far more punitive?" The trend suggests, Kellermann said, that the days of "the straight burglary" of data are now gone, and sophisticated attackers are turning toward the tactics of a home invasion. Kellermann compared most companies' tactics in dealing with intrusions to responding to an intruder by "standing at the top of the steps and shouting 'I've got a gun and the police know you're here' and assuming that would scare them away." The problem with that approach, he noted, was that it assumes that there is only one intruder, that the threat is enough to intimidate them to leave, and that the intruder(s) "would not get punitive enough to come upstairs and set the house on fire." We've already seen the potential threat of purely destructive attacks in the past from malware such as Shamoon, WannaCry, and NotPetya. But as tensions continue to build over trade, that sort of virtual arson attack on networks could become increasingly more common and much more sophisticated in its application. And that's something that current security practices and US "cyber deterrence" don't yet appear to be prepared to deal with. You Might Also Read: How Did Iran Find CIA Spies? They Googled It! A covert "transitional" channel used for communicating with sources that Central Intelligence Agency handlers couldn't reach directly was exposed and infiltrated by Iranian intelligence in 2009. The breakdown in operational security, which apparently relied heavily on security through obscurity, was the result of Iranian intelligence officials simply using Google to locate the websites used as the communications channel after a double-agent exposed the method used by the CIA, according to a report from Yahoo News. Once a double agent presented information about a website the agent had been directed to in order to communicate with the CIA, Iranian intelligence apparently used aspects of the URL to search for other, similar websites. Iranian officials were reportedly able to rapidly identify a number of other such sites, which were set up as temporary communications systems for new, unvetted sources by the CIA. As a result, Iran's intelligence was able to quickly identify the Iranians communicating through those sites. The breach led to the roundup in 2011 of 30 people identified by Iran as CIA spies. Further digging into these compromised sites may have exposed the identity of CIA personnel as well. During the same timeframe, Iranian intelligence officials were also directly approaching US CIA officers, trying to recruit them to be double agents. The exposure didn't end there. A similar system used to manage Chinese sources was also compromised, leading to the arrest and execution of another approximately 30 people working on behalf of the US between 2011 and 2012. Some of those deaths have been attributed to information provided to China by former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee. Former intelligence and national security officials told Yahoo News that the CIA's recruited agents in China were rounded up so quickly because the Chinese government had gained access to the temporary system used by the CIA to communicate with unvetted new sources, possibly because Iranian intelligence officials shared information about the details of the CIA's communications that they had discovered. The former intelligence officials that spoke with Yahoo believe that the compromise of CIA assets may have been worldwide. And when coupled with the breach of the Office of Personnel Management discovered in 2015 and its potential counterintelligence value, the damage done was likely compounded, as the CIA reportedly was forced to withdraw field agents around the world that might have been exposed. The nature of the "transitional" communications system isn't clear beyond it having a Web front end that was identifiable by using advanced Google search terms. But given that Iran and China both tightly control Internet traffic, simply identifying the sites could have allowed counter-intelligence teams to identify who was visiting sites like them, allowing those countries to potentially redirect them to bogus versions of the sites in order to further extract information about those individuals. Ars Technica: You Might Also Read: Iran Targets Kurds With Spyware: Iranian Political Influence Campaign Goes Global Build Back Better: What the U.S. House plan means for Pa. WASHINGTON Is Democratic discipline an oxymoron? For years, it was. But in the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats prevailed in the House because they managed to keep a singular and unrelenting focus on health care refusing to take President Trumps bait to engage in fights about MS-13, caravans, socialism, tax increases and other distractions du jour. Since Democrats have finally found the formula for defeating Trump, now comes the most important question: Can they keep it together? There will be an immediate clamor from the progressive base for impeachment proceedings and Medicare-for-all legislation, as well as votes on the guns, abortion, LGBTQ rights and immigration wish lists. Though oversight is important, there will be pressure for the party to consume itself with investigations of the president and multiple high-profile showdowns. Democrats must resist this clamor. It is pointless to take up impeachment and single-payer health care and the like with Trump in the White House and his sycophants controlling the Senate. A GOP-style investigative orgy would help Trump politically by providing him an easy foil. This would jeopardize the people who gave the Democrats their majority first-term Democrats from suburban swing districts. And it would deprive Democrats of their newly discovered path to success: message discipline. Message discipline brought us into the majority; message discipline will be necessary for us in order to keep the majority, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, N.Y., co-chairman of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, told me. The last time Democrats were in complete control of government we failed to adequately communicate what we were doing and why we were doing it. We cannot make that mistake this time around or it will be a short-term majority. Jeffries could be in a position to make good on this. A rising star, he is running to be caucus chairman, a top leadership post. And he, along with DPCC co-chairs Cheri Bustos, Ill., and David N. Cicilline, R.I., played a significant role in keeping House Democrats on message during the campaign. Again and again, they told their colleagues to keep it simple, even handing out laminated cards with a Campaigning-for-Dummies-style message, just three bullet points totaling 28 words: Lower your health care costs and prescription-drug prices. Increase your pay through strong economic growth by rebuilding America. Clean up corruption to make Washington work for you. Democrats in the most competitive races did stick to the script, avoiding the siren songs of impeachment and Medicare-for-all, Trumps race-tinged cultural warfare and the Democratic tendency to muddle the message with scores of proposals. Fifty-seven percent of pro-Democratic ads in October were on health care, the Wesleyan Media Project reports. That, as well as the GOPs attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and its protections for pre-existing conditions, helped elevate health care to the No. 1 voter priority, above the economy, more than doubling its importance to Democrats and independents since early 2017. The only way to successfully shape public sentiment in the era of Donald Trump is to have a message that is clear, concise, compelling and repeated over and over and over again, Jeffries said. For us to keep the majority we have to stay on message, which means a focus on kitchen table, pocket book issues that unify the American people. This is what the voters asked for Tuesday. The majority makers for the Democrats were candidates who, though generally liberal, appealed to moderate voters in suburban districts with nonideological campaigns. Democrats who attempted to win districts like that by appealing to the lefts base and running on issues like Medicare-for-all didnt fare as well, Vox observed, declaring 2018 was not the year of the winning progressive Democrat. Bernie Sanders-style progressives lost seats that were within Democrats grasp in Nebraska, New York, California, Wisconsin, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Virginia. All this also means that Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., should reclaim the speakers gavel. I agree with the many House Democrats who believe the 78-year-old minority leader should announce, preferably before party elections this month, that this will be her last term and that she will preside over an orderly transition to younger leadership. But she is exceptional at keeping Democrats in line, a skill akin to the proverbial herding of cats. With no need to placate party factions for future leadership elections, she could be a merciless disciplinarian for this session. Democrats will not get off track, Jeffries vowed. Were going to stay focused like a laser beam on the issues we presented to the American people in seizing the majority. Be disciplined, Democrats. Dana Milbank is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. Embattled Brexiteer Arron Banks is being investigated by the National Crime Agency over his 8 million donation to the Leave EU campaign. The insurance tycoon is also fighting the Government over a 160,000 tax bill on the 1 million he gave to Ukip in 2014. Intriguingly, Banks may secure victory from a most unlikely source: the European Court of Human Rights. Brexiteer Arron Banks is being investigated by the National Crime Agency over his 8 million donation to the Leave EU campaign Banks was going to pay 100,000 to Ukip when he defected from the Tories, but raised it to 1 million after the then Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said he had never heard of him. The Treasury viewed the 1 million as a gift, not a political donation, because under government legislation an organisation has to have at least two MPs to qualify as a political party. In 2014, when Nigel Farage was its leader, Ukip had no Westminster MPs but 24 MEPs, having won 27.5 per cent of the vote at the European elections. The insurance tycoon is also fighting the Government over a 160,000 tax bill on the 1 million he gave to Ukip in 2014 Banks lost his case over the tax bill at a tax tribunal even though the judge did say he'd suffered a violation of his human rights but now he has gone to the European Court of Human Rights. A ruling is expected within days. What a howling irony it will be if Banks wins. So is it a case of double standards? A friend of Banks says: 'It's about time he got something good out of Europe.' A real page-turner! Alan Johnson, the Paddington postman who became a Labour MP and Home Secretary, has declared his interest in writing a thriller set in the 17th century. 'Friends have already suggested that if I want to write fiction, then I should have a stab at writing my party's next election manifesto,' he confesses. Mysterious billboards celebrating a 'Brexit collaboration' between the UK and Russia have been put up across London by a group called Proud Bear, which claims to be a 'collective of Russian intelligence agents'. One reads 'Let's celebrate a red, white and blue Brexit', with a picture of a winking Putin waving a Russian flag. Another proclaims 'Thank you! Boris', picturing the former Foreign Secretary and leader of Vote Leave. In fact, the boards are the work of satirists who want an inquiry into whether Russia had any influence on the referendum. Iron lady's steely response In the Spectator diary Marigold Johnson, whose author husband Paul celebrated his 90th birthday last week, recalled an icy exchange with Lady Thatcher. They were alone in the drawing room of Grade II-listed Winfield House, the U.S. ambassador's imposing residence in Regent's Park, London. 'What a treat to be here in this lovely house for dinner,' ventured Marigold, to which Lady T tersely replied: 'When I get up, I don't think about treats. I think about the work for the day.' Home Secretary Diane Abbott enjoyed 82 per cent voter recognition in a YouGov poll of the shadow cabinet The good news for shadow Home Secretary Diane 'Abacus' Abbott is that in a YouGov poll of the shadow cabinet she enjoyed 82 per cent voter recognition. It's the second highest figure after Comrade Corbyn on 96 per cent. The bad news is that she has the worst net approval rating, at minus 42 per cent. In a discussion on BBC Radio 4's Farming Today on a new environmental watchdog post-Brexit, Labour MP Mary Creagh said: 'If we leave the EU.' When will these MPs accept the verdict of the referendum not least given that it's in her own party's manifesto? Admirable candour from former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, who says: 'A thought. A referendum on the Brexit deal looks increasingly possible, maybe even likely. 'There is every chance, though, that Remain would lose that referendum. 'Time to dial down on remoaning and start preparing.' JOKE OF THE WEEK: 'Why did President Donald Trump reject the peace offering of two African wildebeest from U.S. channel CNN? Because he said they were 'fake gnus'. PopSockets have been around since in 2014. What is a PopSockets? It's a plastic accessory that attaches to the back of a mobile device to provide the user with a much better grip. It's made of three parts: a disc, an accordion-like stem, and a circular base that attaches to the phone with a sticky, reusable adhesive. Today, the Colorado-based company launches an all new charitable platform called Poptivism, kicking off with Zendaya. Giving back: Today, PopSockets launches an all new platform called Poptivism, kicking off with Zendaya For a cause: The star designed her very own PopSocket to benefit FoodCorps, a charity close to her heart For each PopSockets grip sold through Poptivism, the company will donate 50% of the sale to the non-profit assigned to it by its creator. Zendaya designed her very own PopSockets to benefit FoodCorps, a charity close to her heart that she wants to raise awareness for. The star's grips feature holding hands in the shape of hearts in black, white and red. The platform will expand beyond celebrities and influencers, to allow consumers to become Poptivists themselves. The brands goal is to fund a new wave of social impact and to reach an audience that aspires to not only buy products from companies whose values they endorse, but to also create their own products and businesses to make a positive impact in the world. Do good: The brands goal is to fund a new wave of social impact Donation: Half of Poptivism sales goes to the designated non-profit organization of the designer's choice WHAT'S NOW & HOW TO DO IT: POWER POWDER Elsa McAlonan revealed a selection of loose powders you can set your make up with without it looking caked (file photo) Always loathed loose powder? The new lighter-than-air formulas set make-up without it looking caked. Make-up artist Lina Cameron advises applying loose powder with a cotton pad, starting from under the cheekbone and using a pressing motion to set it into skin for a long-lasting result. Laura Mercier's Translucent Loose Setting Powder Look out for the glow version of this product. spacenk.com Shop RACE YOU THERE The first vegan collagen treatment to deliver fuller, younger-looking lips the new Algenist Genius Liquid Collagen Lip (35, spacenk.com) is infused with active plant collagen, micro-algae oil and botanic lip-enhancers. In tests, lips felt nourished, softer, less crepey and smoother after 28 days. With a ceramic tip to help application, it can be used alone, under balm, lipstick or gloss. Use twice a day, morning and night. The first vegan collagen treatment to deliver fuller, younger-looking lips the new Algenist Genius Liquid Collagen Lip is infused with active plant collagen, micro-algae oil and botanic lip-enhancers KATE'S PERFECT PRIMER Actress Cate Blanchett, 49, looked sublime at the Rome Film Festival last month. Her skin secret? Armanis Maestro UV Make-up Primer (42, Debenhams) which evens out your complexion and leaves skin looking super-smooth. With a SPF of 50 and anti-UVA/UVB filters, this primer also protects from damage, helping to keep skin looking luminous for longer. Actress Cate Blanchett, 49, looked sublime at the Rome Film Festival last month. Her skin secret? Armanis Maestro UV Make-up Primer THIS WORKS L'Oreal Paris Magic Retouch Precision This new root cover-up hides greys in seconds, with no fuss or mess. LOreal Paris Magic Retouch Precision is like mascara for your hair. The super-fine brush disguises grey or white hairs without leaving any tell-tale stains on the scalp. Available in five shades, from black to blonde, you simply apply, comb and let it dry. Thats what we call magic! boots.com Shop SHOULD I PUT CREAM ON MY EYELIDS? Although eye creams help to smooth out fine lines and can help reduce undereye puffiness, it is best to avoid putting them on eyelids. In general, I am not a believer in rich heavy creams and moisturisers as they disrupt the skins natural moisturising functions and I would certainly recommend that theyre never used over the eyelids, recommends clinical facialist Kate Kerr. Trilogy Eye Contour Cream This is a lightweight gel-cream formulation that delivers essential nourishment and helps smooth fine lines johnlewis.com Shop La Roche-Posay Hyalu B5 Eyes Or try La Roche-Posay Hyalu B5 Eyes which guards against wrinkles, and plumps skin. boots.com Shop 3 OF THE BEST: SOFT LIP CRAYONS SHAMELESS INDULGENCE An Australian model and influencer who claimed she was refused entry to the Louvre museum in Paris because of her revealing dress has received a barrage of negative comments online. Model and social media star Newsha Syeh, 25, vented her frustration about the refusal to her 247,000 Instagram followers by sharing a photo of the low-cut black mesh ensemble in question, saying: 'Yesterday at the Louvre, I was stopped at the entrance by a guard for my outfit.' Ms Syeh said the incident last week left her 'heartbroken', but most social media users branded her outfit wildly inappropriate for the art gallery, with some accusing her of dressing like a sex worker. FEMAIL had contacted the Louvre for comment. Social media influencer Newsha Syeh (pictured) was refused entry to the world famous Louvre museum last week and has since received a flood of hateful comments from trolls In her post to Instagram stories, the blogger spoke of her humiliation at being denied entry by a security guard. 'He made the most disgusted and horrible gestures and facial expressions, swore at me to cover up, with hate filled eyes stopped me entering. 'I am heartbroken, because I thought the Louvre enforced this archaic rule. Turns out it does not.' She posted a screen-grab of her Google search for the museum's dress code, the result of which indicated the gallery does not stipulate specific clothing regulations. Speaking to Femail, Turkish-born Newsha said: 'Ive been to the Louvre before, its beautiful! 'It also hosts many portraits and statues of naked women, so I found it ridiculous that someone who worked there could be so offended and disgusted by the female body. 'If I was visiting a sacred church I would absolutely understand, and dress accordingly.' 'He made the most disgusted and horrible gestures and facial expressions, swore at me to cover up, with hate filled eyes stopped me entering,' Ms Syeh said of the security guard Explaining her love for fashion she continued: 'I tend to be a little rebellious with the way I dress, but I was born in a country where women would be arrested just for showing their hair, so I celebrate the freedom other countries afford me now.' Newsha added of the guard: 'He eventually did let us into the museum after I put on my giant coat on that very hot day, but I didnt feel in the mood to enjoy art anymore after that. We walked straight back out and enjoyed the rest of Paris.' While the museum's website does not specify a dress code, section 1, article 2 of its visitor regulations states that it is prohibited to 'wear swimsuits, or be naked, bare-chested or barefoot'. Ms Syeh posted a screen-grab of her Google search for the museum's dress code, the result of which indicated the gallery does not stipulate specific clothing regulations A review from an information guide at the top of the search results said: 'There is no Louvre dress code; you can wear for visiting the Louvre what you want. Just have in mind that you are going to walk A LOT. Bring comfortable shoes. Dress in layers, like an onion.' A significant number of people supported the guard's decision, with one writing: 'I'm glad you were turned away. There is a time and place for everything and it was certainly not the time or place for your outfit. 'Show some respect for yourself and the places you visit. Leave the partial nudity for the clubs and your bedroom - young women need to get a clue! 'The lack of respect for yourself and the Louvre is really disturbing. A lesson in class is sorely needed.' Ms Syeh (pictured outside the Louvre) declared she was 'heartbroken' over the refusal Another agreed the outfit was unsuitable for the gallery and encouraged the model to dress more conservatively: '[Definitely] not appropriate for the Louvre, it's a classy establishment. You are a beautiful woman, you don't need those clothes to express yourself.' 'You represent everything terrible and narcissistic about Instagram influencers get a life! Looks like you're dressed for the red light district instead of a museum. 'You are pure click bait with zero taste, zero culture and zero sense of appropriate behaviour and respect for cultural institutions. 'You look like you are a street walkeron an all-night bender, completely disheveled,' other trolls wrote. A flood of comments branded Ms Syeh 'narcissistic' for choosing to wear the controversial dress Many users agreed the dress was unsuitable for the world famous gallery and encouraged the model to dress differently But some followers jumped to the model's defence, flooding a picture in which she is wearing the controversial dress with comments of support and outrage. 'I'm sorry that happened I think your outfit is the most beautiful thing. Biggest love!' one wrote. Another recalled her own experience, claiming: 'When I visited the Louvre with my sister a few years ago, we wore winter clothes with boots and [were] denied entry by security for being 'under-dressed'. 'They were so rude about it too and cussed us out until we had no choice but to walk away feeling embarrassed. Your outfit is beautiful.' One follower branded the guard's reaction old-fashioned, writing: 'I'm speechless about what happened to you at the Louvre, the fact is there aren't rules about what you can wear when you enter it. 'We are in the 21st century and there are still people that are hostile about what you're wearing and the way you wear it.' The Louvre (pictured) is the world's largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris situated on the Right Bank of the River Seine While the museum's website does not specify a dress code, section 1, article 2 of its visitor regulations states that it is prohibited to 'wear swimsuits, or be naked, bare-chested or barefoot' Another user noted the hypocrisy of the guard's refusal, as the Louvre is renowned for its nude paintings and sculptures. The Louvre is the world's largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris, containing famous pieces including the Mona Lisa. Located on the Right Bank of the River Seine, the museum is so vast that it is said that it would take one hundred days to look at every piece of art for thirty seconds - hence why visitors are advised to wear comfortable clothing. With Christmas right around the corner, parents all around the world are turning their minds towards what to buy their children. But you could do worse than listen to Oprah Winfrey, whose latest yearly round-up of her 'favourite things' features a $99 children's suitcase made by an Australian designer. The See-Ya suitcase by Olli Ella comes in a range of colours including rose pink, mint blue and mustard. The See-Ya suitcase (pictured) by Australian brand, Olli Ella, has been named as one of Oprah Winfrey's 'favourite things' in her list of top items from the year The See-Ya suitcase by Olli Ella comes in a range of colours including rose pink (pictured), mint blue and mustard Writing in the December issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, the American TV personality (pictured) said: 'These sophisticated, lightweight trunks are built for jet-setters with little legs' The luggage is not only perfectly suited to travel, but is also the ideal place to store toys in a bedroom or a playroom. Writing in the December issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, the American TV personality said: 'These sophisticated, lightweight trunks are built for jet-setters with little legs. 'They stand just 16 inches tall, but they come in gorgeously grown-up hues like rose, mustard, mint and rust.' The case also includes a retractable handle, so that it can be wheeled as well as carried. There is a built-in elastic band so that kids can carry their favourite soft toy in their bag, too. The case also includes a retractable handle, so that it can be wheeled as well as carried; they also feature a built-in elastic band so that kids can carry their favourite soft toy in their bag The suitcases stand at just 16 inches tall (pictured) and as are well-suited to playrooms as they are to travel Speaking to FEMAIL about her multi-million-dollar interiors range, Byron Bay-based designer sisters Chloe and Olivia Brookman explained that the business was initially very much a 'side project' while they worked in their own gallery. 'We had always both been creative, and had had countless business ideas. But by the time we'd figured out a business plan and bought a domain name, we realised they weren't necessarily viable,' Chloe told Daily Mail Australia. The ambitious pair landed on a decent idea when Chloe became pregnant with her first child in 2009. 'I was looking for a nursing chair for my son, and at that time all there was that was on the market was nursing chairs that looked like nursing chairs,' she said. 'And so, I decided to make my own.' Speaking to FEMAIL about their multi-million-dollar interiors range, Byron Bay-based designer sisters Chloe and Olivia Brookman explained the business was initially a 'side project After painstakingly sourcing local materials and putting together a beautiful chair, it wasn't long before Chloe's friends all started asking for one of the sisters' pieces for their own home. 'That was when we thought the idea might have legs,' the 35-year-old explained - adding that they took their product to trade shows, where it swiftly sold out. 'When we started out, we had really limited investment - we were just two women in our early twenties, it was our own money,' she added. 'I remember when we saw our accountant they told us the idea was too niche, it wouldn't work.' Chloe Brookman (pictured) said: 'I still get that butterflies feeling when I hear someone has bought one of our pieces' But the pair decided to continue on their business path anyway, and before they knew it they found success. Within six months, Olli Ella was approached by the British department store, Harrods, who wanted to stock their pretty, handmade wares. Today, Olli Ella turns millions of dollars, and it's stocked around the world in various stores, as well as online. 'I still get that butterflies feeling when I hear someone has bought one of our pieces,' Chloe said. 'That never goes away.' Twelve readers of Oprah's magazine will have the chance to win every item, including the See-Ya suitcase, on Oprah's Favourite Things List in the 12 day give-o-way sweepstakes, which runs from November 28 to December 9. For more information, please click here. The 'fast fashion' industry is booming with labels selling on-trend dresses, swimwear and shoes for a fraction of the price online. Thousands of women see their favourite influencers sporting the items on Instagram and are often excited to learn the products are within their budget. Lauren Curtis was scouring one such label's website and decided to make a purchase on a few summer appropriate mini dresses and high-waisted bikinis. While many shoppers have walked away pleased with the website, the problem the 25-year-old from Perth, Western Australia, faced was that the quality didn't match what she had seen online. Scroll down for video Lauren Curtis (pictured) is a beauty expert with 3.5 million followers on YouTube Slide me Lauren Curtis was scouring one such label's website and decided to make a purchase on a few summer appropriate mini dresses and high-waisted bikinis To start with she had bought a pale blue mini dress with buttons running down the front, thinking it would be a welcome addition to her wardrobe. 'I tried it on... and the rest is history. It was a mess,' the beauty expert told her 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube. 'Obviously if you are selling them so cheap you have to take shortcuts somewhere and that's been done with the quality.' To start with she had bought a pale blue mini dress with buttons running down the front, thinking it would be a welcome addition to her wardrobe (pictured) She found the blue dress 'the most shocking' because of its frayed seams, material as thin as a 'tablecloth' and lack of a zipper. 'It reminded me of something you'd buy off eBay for $2. I can't get it over my head,' she explained. Miss Curtis wears a size 6-8 in most department stores or a sizing of extra small to small. Miss Curtis (left) wears a size 6-8 in most department stores or a sizing of extra small to small And even if she did that the shape of the swimwear resembled something of a 'nappy' when looked at from the back But she found many of the products, including a pair of deep brown bikini bottoms, required her to go up a few sizes to a 12. And even if she did that the shape of the swimwear resembled something of a 'nappy' when looked at from the back. A second bikini didn't hold in her chest and was different sizing across the left and right sides of the cup. While the Australian model in the campaign, Belle Lucia, (right) looked flawless in the pieces, they just didn't seem to sit the same way on Miss Curtis Miss Curtis' followers found the video to be both enlightening and hilarious, saying they'd had similar experiences with the global brand While the Australian model in the campaign, Belle Lucia, looked flawless in the pieces, they just didn't seem to sit the same way on Miss Curtis. In a feminine white dress she found the seams 'strangely tried to invert my boobs' and made her look like a 'three-year-old wearing a lampshade'. Miss Curtis' followers found the video to be both enlightening and hilarious, saying they'd had similar experiences with the global brand. 'I'm so glad you did this! I was thinking about getting some stuff from there,' one woman wrote 'I'm so glad you did this! I was thinking about getting some stuff from there,' one woman wrote. 'I'm dying this is bloody hilarious. Annoying for you for sure but best haul yet,' another added. Others wanted Lauren to shine a light on 'ethical' fashion brands that don't subscribe to 'cheap labour'. It's the sale that 'broke the Internet' last year, and on Tuesday, Australia's biggest online bargain bonanza is back with up to 99 per cent off more than 4,000 items. Click Frenzy's 24-hour online shopping event starts at 7pm AEDT on Tuesday, November 13, with deals on everything from homewares to flights and spa treatments. Organisers say this year is set to be the biggest year yet, with the Managing Director of Click Frenzy, Grant Arnott, explaining: 'The interest from the Australian public continues to grow each year. 'We attracted a staggering 2.2 million visitors last year and search interest was even bigger than Black Friday.' Click Frenzy's annual 24-hour online shopping event starts at 7pm AEDT on Tuesday, November 13, with deals on everything from homewares to flights (stock image) As part of the online bargain bonanza, shoppers can get their hands on Malaysian Airlines flights to Ho Chi Min City from $608, as well as a host of other travel deals (stock image) Oroton (products pictured) - recently endorsed by the Duchess of Sussex - will also give up to 70 per cent off their Outlet products So what can you expect to get your hands on if you're quick with Click Frenzy? Shoppers will be able to browse thousands of jaw-dropping deals from over 500 retailers including Myer, Webjet, Nike, Flight Centre, Optus, Sony, Adidas, ASOS, Cathay Pacific, Mon Purse, Seafolly and Cotton On. Sheridan will be offering a whopping 70 per cent off selected products, while Oroton - recently endorsed by the Duchess of Sussex - will also be offering up to 70 per cent off their Outlet products. Sheridan will be offering a staggering 70 per cent off selected products (pictured: Sheridan sheets) What are the best Click Frenzy travel deals? * Air New Zealand: Brisbane to Los Angeles from $959 per person return. * Contiki: Up to 20 per cent off European Contiki packages. * Malaysian Airlines: Flights to Ho Chi Minh City from $608. * TFE Hotels: Up to 25 per cent off across Australia and New Zealand. * Cruise and Maritime Voyages: Up to 50 per cent off a second guest for boutique northern European cruises. Advertisement What are the best Click Frenzy deals? * Sheridan: Up to 70 per cent off. * Puma: Up to 30 per cent off. * Oroton: Up to 70 per cent off. * North Hem: Up to 80 per cent off. * Sketchers: Up to 50 per cent off. * FILA: Up to 70 per cent off. * Endota Spa: Up to 75 per cent off. * Goodlife Health Clubs: $19 membership deals. Advertisement There are also plenty of impressive travel deals, including Air New Zealand flights from Brisbane to Los Angeles (pictured) for $959 per person return - or $479 one way Managing Director of Click Frenzy, Grant Arnott, said: 'We attracted a staggering 2.2 million visitors last year and search interest was even bigger than Black Friday' (pictured: Oroton bag) It's not just fashion and homewares that are up for grabs either. There are also plenty of impressive travel deals, including Air New Zealand flights from Brisbane to Los Angeles for $959 per person return - or $479 one way. Malaysian Airlines are also offering flights to Ho Chi Min City from $608, while Cruise and Maritime Voyages will give 50 per cent off to a second guest on boutique northern European cruises. Travellers will also be able to save up to 20 per cent on European Contiki packages, and Webjet are offering an 11-day China tour including flights for $799 per person or a three-day trip to Sea World including access to the theme parks for $699. There will be up to 80 per cent off selected homewares items from North Hem (pictured) Endota Spa (pictured) are offering up to 75 per cent off, meaning that one treatment comes down to as low as $10 For those turning their minds towards Christmas presents, there are plenty of options in the Click Frenzy sale. Puma will give buyers 30 per cent off items, and you can also get up to 50 per cent off men and women's sneakers from Sketchers. North Hem are offering a huge 80 per cent off a range of couches, coffee tables and chairs, while those with a plan to get fit before summer truly hits can enjoy $19 membership deals for four weeks at Goodlife Health Clubs. There is up to 50 per cent off Sketchers trainers (left), and if you sign up to the 'Go Wild' section and follow the rules, you could get an Apple Watch for $4 (right) If you subscribe to Click Frenzy for free, you can also enjoy a limited range of products at 99 per cent off - as part of the 'Go Wild' deals. What are the Click Frenzy 'Go Wild' deals? - GHD Platinum Professional Styler - $2 - Beats Headphones - $4 - Apple Watch Series 3 GPS - $4 Advertisement These include a GHD Platinum Professional Styler for an unbelievable $2, Beats headphones for $4 and an Apple Watch Series 3 GPS for $4. To be in with a chance to land one of these incredible purchases, buyers will have to complete a treasure hunt with clues sent from Click Frenzy. They will have to log into Click Frenzy during a specified time window, when they will receive a push notification on their mobile or desktop. When they follow the directions in the push notification, they will have to answer a quiz question. The fastest to answer correctly will have access to these deals. There is also a cashback offer available for 'top level' subscribers. The first 200 shoppers to purchase goods on Click Frenzy to the value of $500 or more will receive a $100 Visa card. Goodlife Health Clubs (pictured) are offering $19 membership for the first four weeks for new joiners as part of Click Frenzy Speaking about this year's offers, Grant Arnott added: 'We want to provide Australians with a one-stop shop for all of their necessities at a fraction of the price. 'With research revealing that Australians are projected to spend a collective $11 billion on Christmas presents in 2017, with the average person spending $955, using sales like Click Frenzy can save consumers up to 99 per cent on their Christmas shopping.' To find out more about Click Frenzy, please click here. Click Frenzy's annual 24-hour online shopping event starts at 7pm AEDT on Tuesday, November 13. In her time as a 'Sugar Baby' Brooke West has received lavish gifts totalling $30,000, including an expensive laptop, flights and even a dog. But the 26-year-old from Auckland, New Zealand, doesn't classify her work as 'prostitution' and argues there is a clear difference between them. 'The most surprising thing about these relationships to outsiders is that they don't involve sexual services, it's about companionship,' she explained. In her time as a 'Sugar Baby' Brooke West has received lavish gifts totalling $30,000, including an expensive laptop, flights and even a dog 'Sleeping with men for cash is just prostitution and I'm going to need some of us to be honest about that. Prostitution and Sugars are two separate things.' Miss West told the NZ Herald that she meets her 'Sugar Daddies' at the strip club she dances in and makes a choice about whether they're someone she wants to engage with. 'Regulars are men that I met in strip clubs, over numerous occasions, developing a familiarity that was organic and tangible; and if at any point I wasn't comfortable I could remove myself or them from the situation,' she said. Miss West meets her 'Sugar Daddies' at the strip club she dances in and makes a choice about whether they're someone she wants to engage with 'Regulars are men that I met in strip clubs, over numerous occasions, developing a familiarity that was organic and tangible; and if at any point I wasn't comfortable I could remove myself or them from the situation,' she explained 'It's not necessarily easy money though - there are definitely men that can become intense and controlling, creating a pretty toxic situation if you don't know what you're doing and how to manage that. 'I have noticed a trend of "everyday" women engaging in the online trends which does worry me, especially for young girls who clearly skipped the "stranger danger" seminar at school.' Initially interested in the 'obvious financial gain' as well as just plain 'idle curiosity', Miss West said there are discrepancies about the type of men she is meeting. 'There's a huge misconception that Sugar Daddies are decrepit 80-year-olds with an oxygen tank or skin condition in tow, it's just not true,' she said. 'Majority are in their 40s and in the age of "d*** pics" and the online equivalent of "cat calling", having a man that could actually hold a conversation, that genuinely just wanted to help me achieve or obtain certain things and was in a position to do so - felt pretty good.' Initially interested in the 'obvious financial gain' as well as just plain 'idly curiosity', Miss West said there are huge misconceptions about the type of men she is meeting The 'regulars' that she speaks to sometimes give her bookings 'every few weeks' while others just prefer to give her gifts in the way of perfumes, shoes, jewellery and cash The 'regulars' that she speaks to sometimes give her bookings 'every few weeks' while others just prefer to give her gifts in the way of perfume, shoes, jewellery and cash. 'I've known of cars and breast implants being paid for, and I personally have been given the latest iPhone, a MacBook Pro, return flights and accommodation to other countries and my French Bulldog,' she explained. But not every 'Sugar Baby' is the same and neither is what they're willing to do. 'Online Sugar Babies on websites like Seeking Arrangement essentially skip straight to whatever agreement both parties accept,' she explained. 'Online Sugar Babies on websites like Seeking Arrangement essentially skip straight to whatever agreement both parties accept,' she explained 'While that site has kind of been hijacked by inexperienced girls with no clue, and guys who just want to hook up, there are other sites dedicated to more traditional forms that are initiated and maintained online, commencing with both parties outlining the terms of what they can each expect and refuse from the relationship.' And Miss West has no issue with the business, so long as the correct safety precautions have been taken and the women understand what they want from the outset. 'With the increasing rate of student loans, house prices and avocados, the age of the internet and entrepreneurship has popularised these kinds of situations providing Sugar Babies with fairly regular income streams on their terms, with flexible hours and plenty of bonus gifts and experiences along the way,' she said. 'If both parties are informed, consenting and equipped to manage their agreement - then maybe the question shouldn't be "why do I?" but instead "why aren't you?"' A young woman has lived the tell the tale after a shark bite she suffered whilst paddling close to the shore became infected by a rare and dangerous flesh-eating bacteria. Kelly Kohen, 33, from New Orleans, was wading in the shallows of the sea in Louisiana, US, in May 2016 when she felt a sharp pain in her left foot. Quickly prising it free, she raced back up the beach where panic set in when she realised she had been bitten by a baby blacktip shark - common visitors to the area's coastline. In agony, as the creature had chomped through a major nerve, the self-employed model and motivational speaker who had just been fishing with a friend, was rushed to hospital. But, despite her swift actions, in the following days, Kelly recalled how her foot continued to swell - with further tests revealing she had the flesh-eating infection necrotising fasciitis (NF). Kelly Kohen, 33, of New Orleans was bitten by a baby shark in Louisiana, USA in May 2016. Just three days later, the wound became infected with a rare dangerous bug, leaving Kelly at risk of having her leg amputated 'The infection had started spreading up my leg and they warned me that if I didn't start responding to antibiotics soon, it could mean an amputation. I hoped and prayed and, thankfully, I kept my leg. I feel so lucky to be alive. 'Doctors told me that it was most likely caused by dirty seawater getting into the wound site. She recalled: 'I went into the water not particularly far and felt an animal brush past my leg. It felt bigger than it should, but I wasn't sure what it was. 'Next thing I knew, I felt some teeth clamp down on my left foot. I pulled my leg back and ran up the beach screaming, 'Oh my god.' 'Someone nearby told my friend and I that they'd heard there were blacktip sharks out there. I was really panicking then and trying so hard not to cry, but I was in agony. There was blood everywhere.' Just days after being bitten by the baby shark, Kelly's foot continued to swell - with further tests revealing she had the flesh-eating infection necrotising fasciitis also known as NF (above) Doctors told Kelly the flesh-eating infection was most likely caused by dirty seawater getting into the wound site. She had surgery to remove tissue (left) followed by a 'wound vac' to seal off the area (right) Terrified, Kelly and her friend raced to hospital and the beach was closed to prevent anybody else from going in the water. After being examined and given three different types of antibiotics, doctors sent Kelly home but, over the next few days, her foot began to mysteriously swell. 'Eventually, I went back to hospital, where they told me they were going to admit me,' she said. 'I started crying then, as I'd never spent a night in hospital before. 'Initially, they believed the swelling was down to cellulitis, a type of bacterial skin infection. From speaking to other people who've survived NF it sounds as if this is a common misdiagnosis to make. 'Nobody I've spoken to has had NF diagnosed on first inspection, because it's so rare, doctors don't always know what to look out for. 'It's also incredibly dangerous, so not many people live to tell the tale.' Kelly was told she did not have cellulitis when her symptoms worsened, although it was still unclear exactly what type of bacteria was causing her agonising discomfort. 'The infection had started spreading up my leg and they warned me that if I didn't start responding to antibiotics soon, it could mean an amputation. I hoped and prayed and, thankfully, I kept my leg. I feel so lucky to be alive,' says Kelly As well as running tests, doctors sent Kelly to theatre for surgery, where the dead tissue was cut away, in a bid to stem the infection's progress. She recalled: 'They sliced away the tissue and also a spot on my ankle, where they found the infection had started to travel up my leg' Kelly was fitted with a wound vac to seal off the area and quicken the healing, before having another bout of debridement surgery, followed by a graft, using umbilical tissue to patch up her ravaged foot 'I couldn't believe it,' Kelly said. 'I had never heard of NF (necrotising fasciitis), and didn't even think flesh-eating bacteria were real' Despite suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder, for which she continues to take medication, she feels thankful to be alive, and hopes by sharing her story, she will raise awareness of deadly NF As well as running tests, doctors sent her down to theatre for debridement surgery, where the dead tissue was cut away, in a bid to stem the infection's progress. She recalled: 'They sliced away the tissue and also a spot on my ankle, where they found the infection had started to travel up my leg.' Next, Kelly was fitted with a wound vac to seal off the area and quicken the healing, before having another bout of debridement surgery, followed by a graft, using umbilical tissue to patch up her ravaged foot. Eventually, medics - including experts from the Centre for Disease Control - were able to conclude that she had indeed been struck down by a flesh-eating bacteria. 'I couldn't believe it,' she said. 'I had never heard of NF, and didn't even think flesh-eating bacteria were real.' She said: 'The first time I went back to the sea after this happened, I completely freaked out. I was overwhelmed with emotion, and couldn't stop crying Since being released from hospital, Kelly has worked hard in the gym to regain her strength. Despite suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder, for which she continues to take medication, she feels thankful to be alive, and hopes by sharing her story, she will raise awareness of deadly NF. She said: 'The first time I went back to the sea after this happened, I completely freaked out. I was overwhelmed with emotion, and couldn't stop crying. Blacktip sharks are thought to be common visitors to the coastline in Louisiana, USA where Kelly was attacked 'But I've since been back a second time, and felt much calmer. It wasn't nice to feel creatures around my legs, but after a while, I relaxed more plus the water was much cleaner, which made me feel safer. 'I want others to be aware of NF, and just how easily it can strike. It was a lot to go through, and a scary time, but now I'm feeling much more positive. 'Coming that close to something so serious put life in perspective for me, which I really needed.' A 69-year-old Dutchman who identifies as a man more than 20 years younger turned the air blue on Good Morning Britain on Monday, while defending his campaign to have his date of birth legally changed. Emile Ratelband, who has been married three times and is father to seven children, insisted the 'times have changed', and that he should be allowed to change his date of birth from 11 March 1949 to the same day in 1969, because doctors tell him he has the body of a man in his forties. But in doing so the positivity guru swore live on air, causing hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid to jump in and immediately apologise for their guest's bad language so early in the morning. 'You can be born as a small girl and as beautiful as you are you could say I feel like a man I want to have a d***,' Emile argued. Piers quickly shut him down: 'Woah! You can't bring Holland over here I'm afraid. We'd like to apologise to anyone offended by Emile.' Emile, who has said that if transgender people are allowed to change sex he should be allowed to change his date of birth, has cited reasons including being able to get more work, and attract more women on Tinder. Dutch pensioner Emile Ratelband, 69, is suing suing his local authority after they refused to amend his age, he claims to be 42 after doctors told him that was his body age Appearing on Good Morning Britain the positivity guru from the Netherlands defended his controversial decision to identify a different age, but swore while explaining 'times have changed' Viewers took to Twitter to joke about Emile's accidental slip up, saying they didn't expect to hear the word 'd***' on breakfast television Viewers found the whole debate rather amusing, with one tweeting: 'Funniest thing I've seen this age fluid guy.' 'Oh dear... he dropped the D bomb. I am 27 but want to be 65 plus just so i can get my free bus pass is that possible?' joked one. 'That guy saying If you want to have a d***, you can on GMB is possibly the funniest thing Ive heard on breakfast TV ever!' added another. Emile is battling to legally reduce his age by 20 years so he can get more work and attract more women on Tinder, as well as have more children. He argued that if transgender people are allowed to change sex, he should be allowed to change his date of birth because doctors said he has the body of a 42-year-old. The motivational speaker, a media personality in the Netherlands, is suing his local authority after they refused to amend his age on official documents. He said: 'I don't cost anymore to the government, I don't take my pension, I will still pay my pension for another 20 years!' Many other viewers said that they wouldn't choose to turn the clock back rather backwards so they could collect their pensions early. 'I am self identifying as 70 so I can apply for my pension 25 years early!!' joked one. Another added: 'If he wins, every Monday morning there will be thousands of applications for people to be of retirement age #gmb' The professor believes that he has the same rights as transgender people saying it's the same principle and if he identifies as a younger man he should be able to change his age Many others discussed Emile's decision to try and become legally younger, joking that they'd add on 20 years so that they could collect their pensions earlier The real-life Benjamin Button? Emile Ratelband (pictured in front of court) is battling to reduce his age by 20 years The court said there would be practical problems in allowing people to change their birth date and it would mean legally deleting part of their lives. Pictured: Emile Ratelband Mr Ratelband's case has gone to a court in the city of Arnhmen in the eastern Dutch province of Gelderland. He was born on 11 March, 1949, but says he feels at least 20 years younger and wants to change his birth date to 11 March, 1969. Mr Ratelband, who has converted to Buddhism, said previously: 'I have done a check-up and what does it show? My biological age is 45 years. The positivity guru, a media personality in the Netherlands, is suing his local authority 'When I'm 69, I am limited. If I'm 49, then I can buy a new house, drive a different car. I can take up more work. 'When I'm on Tinder and it says I'm 69, I don't get an answer. When I'm 49, with the face I have, I will be in a luxurious position. 'Transgender people can now have their gender changed on their birth certificate, and in the same spirit there should be room for an age change.' The Dutchman said he is discriminated against because of his age on a daily basis. He complains that companies are reluctant to hire someone the age of a pensioner as a consultant. And he says his move would also be good news for the government as he would be renouncing his pension until he reaches retirement age again. The judge said that he had some sympathy with Mr Ratelband as people could now change their gender which would once have been unthinkable. But the court said there would be practical problems in allowing people to change their birth date and it would mean legally deleting part of their lives. The judge asked Mr Ratelband about the status of his early years, from 1949 to 1969, if his official birth date was put back. 'For whom did your parents care in those years? Who was that little boy back then?,' the judge asked. The court is due to deliver a written ruling within four weeks. Advertisement It was a solemn occasion, but the Duchess of Sussex looked like she was ready for a turn on the red carpet as she joined the Royal Family for the Armistice Day service at the Cenotaph yesterday. Former actress Meghan, 37, returned to her showbiz roots with a Hollywood-inspired palette as she observed the moving centenary service from a balcony overlooking the war memorial in London. The mother-to-be, who is expecting her first child with Prince Harry, 34, next spring, opted for a sultry smokey eye in soft shades of lilac and brown - and added highlighter on her cheekbones to ensure she looked great from 'every camera angle', according to a professional make-up artist. It stood in contrast to her sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge, 36, who chose a more 'classic' and 'grown-up' look for the appearance. Glamorous: The Duchess of Sussex, 37, returned to her showbiz roots with a Hollywood-inspired palette as she observed the Armistice Day service at the Cenotaph yesterday, opting for glowing skin, highlighter that made her look good from every angle and 'sultry' eye make-up Grown-up: It stood in stark contrast to her sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge, 36, who opted for a more 'classic' and 'grown-up' look for the appearance, keeping her skin matte and elements such as blusher and lipstick as neutral as possible Speaking to FEMAIL, Laura Kay, Professional Makeup Artist of Laura Kay London, explained Kate had opted for a 'serious' look while Meghan's was 'youthful and fresh'. 'The Duchess of Cambridge tends to play it safer and her look here is very elegant and classic,' London-based Laura said. 'Perhaps Meghan is more used to her Hollywood style and prefers her makeup look to reflect that.' Award-winning makeup artist Stacey Whittaker noted Meghan's look was more 'sultry' than her sister-in-law. 'The main difference between to two looks in my opinion are the finish on the skin as Kate has opted for a more matte look and Meghans looks more dewy and fresh,' she said. Radiant: Meghan's highlighted cheeks ensured she looked good from 'every camera angle' Fresh: Meghan looked 'youthful and fresh' with shades of lilac and brown incorporated into her eye palette, professional make-up artist Laura Kay observed Debut appearance: Meghan joined the German president's wife Elke Budenbender as the pair watched the German leader lay a wreath to remember the lives lost in the First World War Both have quite bold and defined brows but Kates eye makeup looks more precise and Meghans is slightly more smoky and sultry.' Despite the differences, both royals opted for looks that were 'appropriate' for the occasion, she noted. Meanwhile Jade Elliott, founder of make-up brand ICONIC London, added Kate opted for something 'understated' and 'traditional', while Meghan was 'luminous' and 'pretty'. Delving into the details of Kate's make-up, Laura said: ' Her strong brow was probably defined with a dark brown brow powder. Natural looking false lashes were used to open up the eyes and were lined with black eyeliner with a small cat-eye flick. Experienced: Kate's make-up look was described as a 'prototype' for such royal appearances Keeping it classic: Jade Elliott, founder of make-up brand ICONIC London, added Kate opted for something 'understated' and 'traditional' for her Armistice Day service look Sombre: The Duchess of Cambridge joined the Duchess of Cornwall, left, and the Queen on the balcony of the Foreign Office to observe the moving centenary service from above 'The sockets of the eyes are dabbed with earthy browns and rusts to add warmth and to not let her strong eye look become too severe. 'Theres a hint of pink blush strobbed across her cheekbones with a barely there nude lipstick or gloss.' Laura added that Kate might benefit from being more 'experimental' with her make-up on occasion. Turning to Meghan, who is expecting her first child with Prince Harry, 34, next spring, Laura reasoned: 'Meghans makeup was also subtle but was fresh. Instead of using heavy tones like Catherine did, Meghan used soft browns and lilacs inside the sockets of the eyes with a hint of highlighter on the brow bone. 'A creamy dusty pink blusher is blended into the apples of her cheeks and there appears to be highlighter swept down the bridge of her nose and across her cheekbones to define the contours of her face - and to look great in every camera angle.' His sons are known for gamely posing for photos, but Prince Charles is fed-up with having phones 'shoved in his face' on royal walkabouts, it is claimed. The Duke of Cornwall, who celebrates his 70th birthday this week, has grown tied of people 'poking their phones' at him when he approaches well-wishers on official engagements, according to a filmmaker. Director John Birdcut, who spent a year following Charles while filming Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70 for BBC One, revealed he heard the royal telling supporters he is 'trying to give up selfies' when they request a quick snap together. Prince Charles grows frustrated with having phones 'shoved in his face' on royal engagements as he would rather take the time to meet well-wishers. Pictured, on a Sydney walkabout in 2015 Despite his hesitation, the royal has still posed for a number of selfies, including this one taken in Hertfordshire in 2013. The insights came from royal filmmaker John Birdcut Speaking to Vanity Fair, Birdcut described Charles as 'unexpectedly warm' and 'remarkably easy with crowds' but drew a line at mobile phones. 'He gets irritated by people poking their phones at them,' Birducut said. 'I heard him tell people, "Im trying to give up selfies". 'He wants to meet people, and it irritates him getting camera phones shoved in his face.' Prince Charles, seen from behind, is surrounded by mobile phone-wielding well-wishers during an outing in Sydney in 2015. He told one fan he is 'trying to give up selfies' Despite his apparent resistance, Charles has posed for photos - including selfies - with royal supporters. Meanwhile his youngest son Prince Harry, 34, and daughter-in-law the Duchess of Sussex, 37, happily posed for several photos with royal supporters during their recent 16-day tour of Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand. Harry made headlines around the world when he stepped up to take a photo of his pregnant wife with one schoolgirl who looked strikingly like she did as a child. Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex posed for a snap with two 10-year-old girls who had queued for nine hours to see them during an engagement in Wellington last month Prince William has expressed his reservations about selfies but happily poses for photos. Pictured, with royal well-wisher Madison Lambe at Sandringham in January 2014 And on an outing in Wellington, the couple posed for a snap with two 10-year-old girls who had queued for nine hours to see them. Prince William appears slightly less convinced of selfies, once telling a fan that he's 'allergic' to them, but is often happy to pose with fans. The Duchess of Cornwall, Zara Tindall and Prince Andrew have also been captured in selfies. Princess Beatrice is particularly on board with selfies and has even helped take them when meeting royal fans. Advertisement A daring young couple, who wanted their wedding photos to be original, have shared their breath-taking pictures after eloping at the top of a boggy, gale-lashed mountain in Scotland. James Mortier, 33, and his partner Lisa, 31, flew from their home in Chicago to the Isle of Skye for the amazing photo shoot on September 25 after considering locations around the globe. The couple, who have been together for four years, got in touch with Andrew Rae - a Scottish photographer - on Instagram after viewing his incredible gallery of past images. James and Lisa Mortier, 33 and 31, flew from their home in Chicago to elope in the Isle of Skye on September 25. Their breath-taking wedding photographs show the raw beauty of the area after being hit by gale-force winds and lashings of rain However, the pair were hit with strong winds and a barrage of mud as they posed for the pictures. Lisa said: 'We anticipated cooler, misty weather similar to that of the Pacific Northwest in the states. 'Boy, were we in for a surprise. The wind was unreal. 'The weather in Chicago fluctuates pretty regularly in spring and fall. We could have a week of 70F and have snow the next. 'We have a fair amount of wind that comes off of Lake Michigan, but nothing like the wind in Skye. I'm sure it was 65F and sunny back home on our wedding day.' After considering locations around the globe, including France, the loved-up couple settled on the mountainous terrain of the Isle of Skye in beautiful Scotland James and Lisa wanted their wedding photos, captured by Scottish photographer Andrew Rae, to reflect their love of the outdoors and adventurous nature Lisa said the couple took a while to decide on their perfect destination to elope but after spotting pictures of the Isle, their mind was made up. Lisa added: 'We wanted a unique wedding experience that was reflective of us. 'We both love the outdoors and are always up for an adventure. 'We were interested in a remote area overseas, the idea just seemed more romantic. 'Our first destination thought was French countryside, but the more I researched it, the more difficult it seemed to be due to the language barrier. 'Scotland continually came up as an elopement destination and neither of us had been before so we just kind of went with it. 'Photographs of Skye really solidified it as the perfect place for us.' 'Scotland continually came up as an elopement destination and neither of us had been before so we just kind of went with it. 'Photographs of Skye really solidified it as the perfect place for us,' said Lisa The couple prepared for the weather conditions and Lisa said she didn't mind getting her wedding dress covered in mud. She commented: 'It was expected. I searched for the perfect dress that could pack well and was lightweight for hiking around for this purpose' Some of the photos capture the bride traipsing through muddy bogs in her stunning white wedding dress with her bridal hair whipped up by gale force winds. Others portray the groom in the stark landscape, his neatly tailored wedding suit soaked through by sheets of rain lashing the crags Despite the weather, the results of the couple's bold choice of venue are a series of stunning images that capture both the raw beauty of the wilderness setting and their love for each other. Some capture the bride traipsing through muddy bogs in her stunning white wedding dress with her bridal hair whipped up by gale force winds. Others portray the groom in the stark landscape, his neatly tailored wedding suit soaked through by sheets of rain lashing the crags. 'We knew of each other in high school but connected well after college at a neighbourhood bar. We now own a home in the same neighborhood we grew up in,' said Lisa We're pretty boring,' commented the bride who said she'd recommend a similar shoot to anyone who wants incredible wedding photographs' The weather was a far cry from their native Chicago. 'The weather [there] fluctuates pretty regularly in spring and fall. We could have a week of 70F and have snow the next,' said Lisa The couple prepared for the weather conditions and Lisa said she didn't mind getting her wedding dress covered in mud. She added: 'It was expected. I searched for the perfect dress that could pack well and was lightweight for hiking around for this purpose. We wanted to end up in the fairy pools, but due to the weather we never made it. I've been dreaming of Skye every day since.' The newlyweds grew up just half a mile away from each other. 'We knew of each other in high school but connected well after college at a neighbourhood bar. We now own a home in the same neighborhood we grew up in. We're pretty boring,' commented Lisa who said she'd recommend a similar shoot to anyone who wants incredible wedding photographs. The couple couldn't have imagined quite how dramatic the weather would be. Lisa said: 'We anticipated cooler, misty, weather similar to that of the Pacific Northwest in the states. Boy, were we in for a surprise. The wind was unreal 'We planned to marry at Loch Coruisk but could not make the trip due to bad weather. We chose to marry at Honeycomb Rock, an area near the pier to travel to Loch Coruisk,' said Lisa 'We planned to marry at Loch Coruisk but could not make the trip due to bad weather. We chose to marry at Honeycomb Rock, an area near the pier to travel to Loch Coruisk. 'Andrew's photography skills are truly an art form. I never imagined I would look at such a beautiful photograph and see myself in it. 'We had such a wonderful experience, everyone was so warm and welcoming. 'The people really made the trip. For those interested, expect the worst with the weather and embrace it,' said Lisa who had just one more word of advice for anyone visiting the stunning area. 'Please, leave Skye as beautiful as you found it.' 'Andrew's photography skills are truly an art form. I never imagined I would look at such a beautiful photograph and see myself in it,' remarked Lisa The BBC's lavish adaptation of John le Carre's The Little Drummer Girl has received the ultimate seal of approval from the author himself, who made a short cameo in Sunday night's episode. Carrying on his tradition of appearing in TV adaptations of his wildly successful thrillers, le Carre was spotted by viewers who pointed out that the waiter serving Florence Pugh's character Charlie a shot of alcohol was in fact the 87-year-old spy turned author. Viewers watched as Charlie called out her drinks order upon arriving at an Austrian cafe, and taking a seat on the outdoor terrace. An elderly waiter confirmed her request for 'slivovitz'; and headed inside to fetch her a glass of plum brandy. Although fans were thrilled with the cameo, the big budget drama has failed to win over all viewers, many of whom have said on Twitter they're giving up on the 'confusing' slow-burn plot. Author John Le Carre made a cameo appearance in the third episode of The Little Drummer Girl, starring as a waiter who serves Charlie, played by Florence Pugh (seen in the background) a drink Le Carre carried on his tradition of starring in adaptations of his own work, following on from his turn in The Night Manager and the movie version of Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy 'Really trying to understand #TheLittleDrummerGirl but I'm soooo confused,' complained one. 'Is anyone else confused,' asked another. One person savagely critiqued: '#TheLittleDrummerGirl Never was international security and espionage so dull. Leaden paced. Not even the tan and orange set decor can save it. Plot marching to the beat of a different drum.' Others had mixed feelings about the spy drama: 'The Little Drummer Girl is achingly stylish. But still no clue what is going on.' 'Still not sure what is going on in #TheLittleDrummerGirl but I'll stick it out cos it's the BBC! Can anyone help me #explainplease,' said another. The Little Drummer Girl viewers took to Twitter where they complained how confused they were and needed notes on the spy thriller to keep up with the plot Le Carre on set during his scenes, it was reported that he initially went off script but the extended scenes were cut leaving just a single line in response to Charlie (Florence Pugh) Others were thrilled to spot John Le Carre acting in the drama with many other rushing to praise the BBC programme for being 'pure class' Le Carre filmed the scene with star Alexander Skarsgard, who hinted that he had given his character a monologue in German which didn't make the final cut As well as The Night Manager, Le Carre has appeared in the film adaptation Our Kind of Traitor, as a museum guard, and the 2011 movie version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as a Christmas party guest. Radio Times reported that while on set Le Carre attempted to go off script as he did while filming The Night Manager. Actor Alexander Skarsgard told the site: 'Hes a better actor than I am! He was really good. It was all in German: hes obviously fluent in German, of course he is.' He added: 'He stole the scene for sure, stole the whole thing. He was just going to serve my coffee but it ended up being a long German monologue.' In the third episode Charlie's skills were put to the test when she was sent to deliver a shipment of explosives to a terror cell in Austria, but finds her loyalties divided as she comes face to face with the real terrorist Michel. Kurtz convinces Becker of a risky plan - faking the death of the militant they have in custody before anyone notices he was missing, while Charlie returned to London and tried to reconnect with her old life. The Little Drummer Girl continues next Sunday on BBC One at 9pm The son of a wealthy Italian estate agent broke down in tears on Rich Kids Go Skint when he learned that his 10,000 Rolex could wipe clear a struggling single father-of-two's debts. Andrea, who is originally from Milan but moved to London three years ago, sported the 10,000 timepiece when he left behind his Chelsea pad for a Swansea council house to appear on the 5STAR show. The spoilt 23-year-old jetsetter usually prefers to spend his spare time - and cash - travelling the world with his boyfriend, as well as curating his 100,000 designer wardrobe. But he was reduced to tears during filming when he realised just how little his host David, 40, had to spare at the end of each month. 'When people are literally struggling very much. Why life can be so cruel sometimes?' he said. 'Theyre a happy family but they deserve more,' he wept. Andrea, originally from Italy, is used to the finer things in life and is reduced to tears when he learns that his 10,000 Rolex watch could clear the single father-of-two's debt David, 40, who supports his two daughters Marta, 10, and Emily, seven, can't believe how much Andrea's flashy timepiece costs and could only dream of that amount of money Andrea, whose parents work in Italy's Lake Como where George and Amal Clooney are residents, dubbed himself a 'material girl' due to his fondness for expensive threads. He left behind a palatial home with a swimming pool for his London apartment and a wardrobe full of designer brands like Chanel, Burberry, and Gucci - as well as an Hermes Birkin worth 10,000. He's also the proud owner of a collection of 50 pairs of shoes that he estimates is worth about 25,000. 'I am a material girl. I just like the feeling of when you own stuff which is valuable,' he mused. In stark contrast former chef David, who supports his two girls Marta, 10, and Emily, seven, with 1,400-a-month on benefits, is left with just 65 disposable income - a figure that left Andrea aghast. You go out one night and spend 65 like that, its ridiculous,' Andrea said to the camera. After speaking with David, Andrea was left shocked. He broke down in tears as he began to understand the difference in his lifestyle compared to the single father's Andrea had arrived clad in designer gear including his Rolex which David was immediately drawn to and said he was a fan of watches David, who was left homeless for three months following the breakdown of his relationship with his daughter's mother, remarked that the two men were 'worlds apart', before asking the well-dressed PA about his expensive Rolex watch. After telling the skint dad how much it cost, David explained: '10,000 would pay off all my debts in one go and it would make me about 400 a month better off.' 'I am feeling bad now, spending all that money just to say oh my god I have a Rolex,' Andrea said after. David was also floored to hear that Andrea had 100,000 worth of clothes, bags and shoes, and told him: 'You can buy two decent houses in Swansea for that.' Andrea revealed how he lives a lap of luxury, having travelled to 23 countries in the space of just nine months, refusing to stay in anything less than five-star hotels. Andrea explained how he has been to 23 different countries in the space of nine months and refuses to stay in places that have less than five stars The spoilt rich kid has a wardrobe bursting with designer clothes. He also has a shoe collection worth 25,000, and several expensive handbags He said his kitchen was always completely empty because he had no idea how to cook, preferring instead to eat out for all his meals. 'When I'm out with my boyfriend, luckily he pays for it, to save money for my clothes,' Andrea quipped. Asked by the girls about his lifestyle back in Italy, he confesses that he was spoilt, growing up with maids and servants. 'I think I was a spoilt person when I was young, I think I still am now,' he said. Marta and Emily agreed that they were apprehensive about meeting Andrea because they were worried he'd be a 'bratty rich kid' who did nothing, but that they liked him after getting to know him. During the show Andrea is tasked with going food shopping for the family on a tight budget and confesses that he has never had to do anything like it because he has people to do it for him But he confessed: I am very spoiled. I have never done anything, I have never cooked for myself, I have never done any cleaning for myself, always someone else would do it for me.' Andrea spent time with the family, indulging in face masks with his 40 tub of cream as well as going to the local leisure centre for a climbing session. David also took his guest to beach where he slept rough in a tent before securing a council house for him and later his two girls were able to move in with him. Andrea said: 'Knowing his story is literally more heartbreaking than before, I understand why he is happy.' Rich Kids Go Skint airs tonight on 5STAR at 9pm Michelle Obama is not in the White House anymore - and she proved just how much she is enjoying life outside of its claustrophobic walls by posing for a very glamorous Elle cover shoot, while wearing a series of daring fashion-forward ensembles. The 54-year-old, who has spent a very busy few months promoting her new memoir Becoming, which debuts on Tuesday - and which earned her part of a $65 million advance in a joint deal with her husband Barack - also sat down with Oprah for an interview to accompany her glamorous spread, opening up about how much she is enjoying life in the 'real world'. '...What I came to realize is that there was absolutely no time to reflect in the White House,' she told the TV mogul. 'We moved at such a breakneck pace from the moment we walked in those doors until the moment we left. From first lady to fashion star: Michelle Obama appears on the cover of the latest issue of Elle as she continues to promote memoir, Becoming, which is released on Tuesday Easy breezy: She also posed for a shoot inside its pages, modeling a pair of $1,200 Sally LaPointe culottes and a sheer $739 bodysuit from Ann Demeulemeester 'It was day in and day out because we, Barack and I, really felt like we had an obligation to get a lot done. 'We were busy. I would forget on Tuesday what had happened on Monday. I forgot whole countries I visited, literally whole countries.' The former first lady, who posed in a $2,400 leather corset, $4,900 skirt, and a $1,350 blouse - all from Dior - for her Elle cover, recalled a conversation she once had with her chief of staff, during which she expressed her desire to one day visit Prague - only to be told that she had already been there on one of her many official trips. Michelle admits that she only managed to jog her memory when she was shown a picture of herself in the country. Personal: The 54-year-old was interviewed by Oprah for the spread in the fashion magazine Life has certainly changed since the entire Obama family left the White House, and Michelle says it was only after they had settled into their 'regular' $8.1 million house in Washington, D.C.'s exclusive Kalorama neighborhood, that she felt able to reflect on the eight years she spent as first lady. Oprah asked her about what she called 'the toast story' - a simple moment that Michelle uses to quantify just how much her world had been altered by the end of Barack's presidency. She recalled one of the first nights she was home alone with the family's two dogs - Bo and Sunny - in their new home, which is a just a few minutes' walk away from Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's house, and decided to make herself some toast, something she was never able to do in the White House, because there was 'always somebody there' to do it for her. '...I made myself toast. Cheese toast,' she said. 'Then I took my toast and I walked out into my backyard. I sat on the stoop, and there were dogs barking in the distance, and I realized Bo and Sunny had really never heard neighbor dogs. 'Theyre like, "Whats that?" And Im like, Yep, were in the real world now, fellas.' 'As first lady, youre not alone much. There are people in the house always, there are men standing guard,' she added. 'There is a house full of SWAT people, and you cant open your windows or walk outside without causing a fuss.' When pressed by Oprah about whether she was being serious about opening a window, Michelle insisted she was telling the truth, explaining that both of her daughters 'tried to' but they quickly 'got the call' from the Secret Service telling them to 'shut the window'. Swish, swish: Michelle, who donned an all-Dior ensemble for the cover, including a $4,900 skirt and a $2,400 leather corset, spoke to Oprah about life after her husband's presidency Stylista: She admitted that she never really wanted Barack to run for president, because she knew how 'ugly and nasty' politics was There she goes! The former lawyer has had a busy few months promoting her book, for which she earned part of a $65 million advance in a joint deal with her husband While promoting her book, the mother-of-two has spoken candidly about a number of very personal experiences, revealing that she suffered a miscarriage 20 years ago, and opening up about 'having to do IVF' in order to conceive her daughters Malia, now 20, and Sasha, now 17. She has also spoken at great length about her struggles as first lady, which started before she even set foot in the White House; beginning in the months leading up to her husband's decision to run for president, right up until his eight-year term was over. While speaking with Oprah, Michelle admitted that she knew what she was getting into when the idea of Barack running was first suggested, noting that she was hesitant to agree because she knew what a toll it would take on him, and their family. 'Imagine having that burden. Could he, should he, would he? That happened when he wanted to run for state Senate, then Congress, then the U.S. Senate,' she explained. '...politics was ugly and nasty. I didnt know that my husbands temperament would mesh with that. And I didnt want to see him in that environment.' In the end, however, she said she knew that she couldn't deny someone with all of Barack's 'gifts' the opportunity to make a difference, explaining that she had to 'take off her wife hat and put on her citizen hat' in order to support his decision. Even after they had vaulted over that initial hurdle, however, Michelle says she didn't initially think her husband stood a chance of winning, explaining to Oprah that they 'felt the pressure from the minute we started to run'. Memory loss? Michelle's life as first lady was so hectic, she says she used to forget when she had visited amazing countries, like Prague, where she is pictured with Barack in 2009 The real world: The mother-of-two says she didn't really feel able to reflect on her eight years in the White House until they settled into their 'regular' $8.1 million Washington, D.C. home In an interview with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts, which aired on Sunday, Michelle admitted that she didn't think the country was 'ready' for the first black president when they kicked off Barack's campaign. She told Roberts: 'I think I did what a lot of black folks were doing. We were afraid to hope because it's hard to believe that the country that oppressed you could one day be led by you, you know? 'I mean, my grandparents, you know, lived through segregation. My grandfather, his grandfather was a slave, you know? So this, these memories were real. 'And they didn't think the country was ready. And, and so my attitude was a reflection of that skepticism.' Stifling: The mother-of-two, pictured with her family at the White House in 2015, says she and her daughters weren't even able to open a window without 'causing a fuss' As far as her marriage, Michelle says she and Barack have always had very different personalities, describing him as someone who 'swerves', while she says she is a 'box checker'. Oprah highlighted one excerpt from the book in which the former first lady talks about how difficult she found her husband's schedule, even before he became president, recalling nights when he would say he was on his way home, only for her and her daughters to wait up for hours before realizing he wasn't going to make it. However, Michelle noted that - despite their differences - the two of them have learned to strike a great balance, both through personal learning, and through counselling, which she details in her book. When they made it to the White House, she says she tried to be 'the calm in his swerve', ensuring that their family maintained some normalcy and order, and that Barack spent enough time with his wife and children, no matter what else was going on in his day. 'Family dinners,' she told Oprah of how she ensured her husband made time for his family. 'That was one of the things I brought into the White House that strict code of, You gotta catch up with us, dude. This is when were having dinner. Yes, youre president, but you can bring your butt from the Oval Office and sit down and talk to your children.' She also opened up about her mission to make the East Wing - where the offices of the FLOTUS are traditionally based - as the 'happy side of the house', in an attempt to counteract all of the strain and stress that was dealt with in the West Wing. She's had a hectic few days of royal engagements, but fresh-faced Sophie Countess of Wessex was all smiles this morning as she continued her busy schedule on a visit to the Royal Victoria Chapel in Hampshire. The royal, 53, attended Armistice Day commemorations in London on Saturday night and Sunday morning, before travelling on to Wales for a church service yesterday and ending up 132 miles away in Southampton today. On arrival, the Countess received a reminder of her husband Prince Edward's ancestors as she met a woman dressed as Queen Victoria during a visit to open the restored Royal Victoria Chapel. The mother-of-two looked chic for the visit in a black polo neck and midi skirt with a white stitched design down the front. Fancy seeing you here! The Countess of Wessex met a woman dressed as Queen Victoria during a visit to open the restored Royal Victoria Chapel at the Royal Victoria Country Park in Netley, near Southampton, Hampshire The mother-of-two looked chic for the visit in a black polo neck and midi skirt with a white stitched design down the front, teamed with knee high boots and a cream coat The Countess of Wessex unveiled a plaque as she officially re-opened the restored Royal Victoria Chapel in Hampshire Sophie looked in great spirits amid a busy few days of engagements as she waved to the waiting crowd during a visit to open the restored Royal Victoria Chapel at Royal Victoria Country Park in Netley. The mother-of-two has been hard at work on royal engagements since attending the Festival of Remembrance on Saturday night She paired the ensemble with suede knee high boots and covered up in an elegant cream coat. Based in the at the Royal Victoria Country Park in Netley, near Southampton, the chapel is the last remaining part of a military hospital which was opened by Queen Victoria in 1863. It served the military for more than a century, treating wounded from the Boer War, the First World War One and the Second World War. It was thought to be the world's longest (435m) building when it was completed. All but the chapel was demolished after a fire in 1966. Warm welcome! Locals turned out to greet the Countess and presented her with a pretty posy of flowers as she arrived to officially re-open the restored Royal Victoria Chapel Sophie was on hand today for the official re-opening of the restored chapel and unveiled a plaque to commemorate her visit. Wellwishers had also turned out to welcome the Countess who paused to wave to onlookers and chat to some younger members of the crowd as she arrived. It's been a busy few days for the royal who attended the Festival of Remembrance at The Royal Albert Hall in London on Saturday night, alongside the Queen and other senior royals. The royal mother-of-two paused to chat to some younger members of the crowd as she arrived to re-open a hospital first opened by Queen Victoria in 1863 The Countess of Wessex waved to the waiting crowd during a visit to open the restored Royal Victoria Chapel at the Royal Victoria Country Park in Netley, near Southampton, Hampshire. Busy schedule! The Countess of Wessex looked in great spirits as she chatted and laughed with wellwishers amid a hectic few days of engagements Next morning she and her husband Prince Edward were at the Cenotaph for commemorations marking 100 years since the end of the First World War. While the rest of the family remained in London for a service at Westminster Abbey, the couple travelled to Cardiff to attend a service at Llandaff Cathedral. This morning she made her fourth appearance in 48 hours, 132 miles away in Southampton. Sophie Countess of Wessex attended the National Service of Remembrance in London yesterday morning (pictured with Princess Anne's husband Sir Timothy Laurence) No rest for these royals! Edward and Sophie travelled to Cardiff yesterday to attend a service at Llandaff Cathedral after Remembrance Day commemorations at the Cenotaph in London M&S has unveiled its new Christmas advert - starring brand ambassador Holly Willoughby showing off her festive 'must-haves'. The advert begins with Holly, 37 - dressed in a yellow pom-pom jumper and tartan mini skirt - clambering beneath a Christmas tree to plug the fairy lights in. In another scene, she is seen at the bus-stop with a nurse and pantomime dame who compliments her on her purple coat - to which Holly whispers 'M&S'. The campaign, narrated by the TV presenter, goes through various Christmas essentials - from music and parties to comfy pants and Bridget Jones. Model David Gandy, 38, also stars in the campaign, donning a pair of marigolds to do the washing up, while Sir Tom Jones provides the soundtrack with his feel-good track Give A Little Love. Holly Willoughby is seen turning the Christmas lights on in a teaser for this year's festive campaign from M&S A teaser clip, shared by M&S on Instagram shows Holly clambering under a Christmas tree in order to turn the fairy lights on The advert will air on television for first time during Good Morning Britain on Tuesday morning. M&S released a teaser on Instagram ahead of the official launch, showing Holly switching the Christmas tree lights on. Instagram users have been given a chance to buy Holly's yellow jumper and checked skirt, both priced at 35, in an exclusive pre-sale today. For the first time, the campaign focuses on the retailer's products and festive must-haves, rather than a broader heart-warming story seen in years gone by M&S brand ambassador Holly shows off a cosy yellow pom-pom jumper and tartan mini skirt in the short clip Model David Gandy, who has had several clothing collections with M&S, dons a pair of marigolds as he plays the role of a son-in-law desperate to impress by doing the washing up. The feel-good campaign is set to Sir Tom Jones' track Give A Little Love The 60-second ad opens with Holly asking, 'What makes Christmas, Christmas?,' before she wriggles under a beautifully decorated Christmas tree to plug in a set of twinkling fairy lights. As the music picks up, the party season gets underway with an attractive model strutting her stuff through a series of soirees while dressed in a trio of outfits from the retailer. Model David Gandy, 38, meanwhile is seen swapping his smouldering campaign shoots for a messy kitchen as he dons a pair of marigolds to do the washing up. Another scene shows three friends cuddling up on the sofa to watch Bridge Jones in a selection of brightly-coloured jumpers while singing their hearts out to the film's unofficial anthem All By Myself. In another scene from the advert, Holly is seen showing off her purple coat as she waits at a bus stop with a nurse and a pantomime dame In another scene, three friends are seen cuddling up on the sofa to watch Bridget Jones, while singing to the film's unofficial anthem All By Myself The advert also offers three different endings in a bid to keep customers interested in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Marks & Spencer also released a second campaign focusing on its food section, which sees customers across the UK revealing their favourite festive treats, from Brussels sprouts to Christmas pudding. The brand is the latest in a string of stores to release their festive offerings, with Aldi, Currys PC World and TK Maxx among those who have already launched. Among the big names still to emerge is John Lewis - arguably the biggest release of the festive season. Instagram users have been given a chance to buy Holly's yellow jumper and checked skirt, both priced at 35, in an exclusive pre-sale today. he campaign sees Holly modelling pieces from the retailer's winter collection, including this purple coat. It is part of her role as M&S brand ambassador The advert, which will be released in full next week, also offers three different endings in a bid to keep customers interested in the weeks leading up to Christmas They have previously stunned down the runway of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. And now models Joan Smalls, 30; Barbara Palvin, 25; and Winnie Harlow, 24, join an all-star group of supermodels for V Magazine's Winter 2018 issue for fashion shoot entitled Glamorama. Each of the models served looks during the wind-swept photo shoot as they showed off their curves in cheetah print sets, slit dresses and thigh-high boots. Stunning: Joan Smalls, 30, joins an all-star cast of models for V Magazine's Winter 2018 issue fashion shoot Sensual: The fashion shoot, entitled Glamorama, also features Barbara Palvin, 25, wearing a stunning slit dress and metallic booties Baring it all: Winnie Harlow, 24, modeled metallic blue shorts and thigh-high boots for her page in the fashion spread In the fashion spread, Joan looked fierce as she lounged across the floor wearing tight cheetah-print pants and a fitted bustier to match. The cheetah-print continued down towards her toes with platform-heels in a matching pattern, all created by Moschino. Joan's hair was swept back in a messy fashion, but her eyes were the real highlight of the photo shoot as they were accented with purple eye shadow to enhance her fierce expression. This shoot comes after the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in New York City where Joan was notably absent for the second year in a row. Barbara, who boasted her long toned legs in a a slit dress designed by Paco Rabanne, made a return to the Victoria's Secret runway this year after first walking for the brand in 2012. Debut: Winnie walked in her first Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on Nov. 8 in New York City The return: Barbara was absent from the show for six years before she came back this year Missing in action: Despite walking in the show from 2011 to 2016, Joan has been notably absent from the last two runway shows Her fashion look was paired with metallic-heeled booties with her swept back to show off the dress. Winnie Harlow proudly displayed her vitiligo which is a long-term skin condition that produces patches of skin that lose their pigmentation when modeling a pair of metallic blue shorts and thigh-high boots while topless. Her eyes were accented with blue eye shadows to provide a smokey and alluring effect to the entire look. She made her Victoria's Secret Fashion Show debut this year when the show taped on Nov. 8. It will air for the public on Dec. 2 on ABC. The three women were joined with other lingerie models in the photo shoot including Candice Swanepoel, Irina Shayk and Natasha Poly. A black student at a college in Michigan has received messages of love and support after she and her two roommates were targeted by unnamed racist trolls, who left a threatening note on their door. Last Wednesday evening, Yasmeen Duncan returned home to her university dorm room to find a vicious message scrawled across a white board hanging on the door. The note, which was written anonymously, read: 'F**k you monkey black w****s'. Anonymous: a message that read 'F**k u monkey black whores' was printed on the dorm room door of three black students at a University in Michigan You are loved: kind, positive messages were posted on the student's dorm room door in the aftermath of the incident Duncan, a sophomore student at Central Michigan University, had returned from eating dinner at a local restaurant when she noticed the message on a whiteboard hanging on the door of her room in Sweeney Hall. According to Central Michigan Life, Duncan took a photo of the message and sent it to her roommates before removing it. She then posted a photo of the message on Twitter, saying: 'This was on the door to my dorm tonight. 'My roommates and I (all black women) are okay, but of course the police can do nothing but file a report. 'And of course, the officer we spoke to compared the hate of his badge to our blackness.' She added: 'What a night. We will not be silenced.' The tweet, which was posted on November 7, has over 13,000 likes, and almost 300 comments. CMU president Robert Davies released a statement shortly after the incident, which read: 'I assure you racism, misogyny, bigotry and hatred will not be tolerated on this campus. 'Many leaders, offices and teams across campus are involved in investigating this, determining our next steps and supporting those affected and our entire university community.' Supported: Yasmeen and her roommates have received an abundance of supportive messages since the incident occurred last week Protest: A peaceful protest was held on Thursday evening in response to the hateful message, and was held by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at CMU 'Thank you for listening. Thank you for coming': The incident has since been referred to the office of Civil Rights and Institutional Equity In the aftermath of the incident, fellow students at CMU responded with messages of love and support for the three victims. Notes reading 'You are a fantastic individual', 'Keep your head up', 'Positive vibes and love to you' and 'You are such an inspiration to us all' were stuck to the girl's dorm room door. Duncan responded to the positive messages on Twitter, saying: 'Thank you to all my fellow Sweeney residents for all of the support. We love you.' On November 8, CMU students gathered for a peaceful protest in response to the racist message. The protest was hosted by the CMU NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) chapter. Speaking at the gathering, Yasmeen Duncan said: 'Last night I didn't feel like I belonged here.' 'Today, seeing all these people here, it makes my heart so happy.' Duncan later took to Twitter to express her gratitude to those who attended the protest. She wrote: 'Thank you for listening. Thank you for coming. Thank you to the organizations that brought us together. #WeWillNotBeSilenced and we wont stop until we see change.' CMU police officers have referred the investigation into the incident to the office of Civil Rights and and Institutional Equity. An account director has come under fire after admitting she borrows money from her parents every month - despite living at home and earning 40,000 a year. Sian Teasdale, 30, left London 18 months ago to move to Bournemouth so she could save up for a house deposit. Despite renting being far cheaper in the seaside resort, Sian ended up moving in with her parents, and now pays a reduced rate to her mum and dad. But writing for Grazia in a piece titled 'I earn 40k and live at home, but I still need my parents to bail me out each month', Sian admitted that she still has no savings and regularly sponges off her mum and dad. Many Twitter users questioned how Sian could spend more than 1,000 a month after paying her rent Twitter users have ridiculed Sian, saying she 'needs a wake up call' and should drink less and take public transport instead of driving so she can save more. Sian wrote in her piece: 'I work in a very sociable industry and there's an unspoken pressure to join in with Friday night drinks, and I do need to buy clothes for work. 'Apart from that, I don't splash out on luxuries. I don't have a gym membership, I do my own nails, I colour my own hair, and fancy holidays abroad are a pipe-dream. The odd mini-break with friends is as much as I can afford right now.' In the article, Sian claimed that after paying her rent, car and phone bills and buying petrol, there is 'not a great deal left' of her 2,200 monthly take home salary. Her parents give her between 100 and 500 every month when she runs out of money, and Sian even admitted to borrowing 20 for a takeaway. The 30-year-old said it was 'demoralising' to have to rely on her parents at that stage, and admitted she felt like a 'burden', but insisted she is not a 'frivolous millennial' who doesn't know how to budget - the cost of living is simply too high. 'But the reality is that even earning that much, it can be hard nowadays to lead a normal, and in no way extravagant, 30-something lifestyle. It's embarrassing, but not unusual.' Readers have been left baffled by the piece, taking to Twitter to complain that Miss Teasdale is 'insulting'. Louise said: 'This is a facepalm of embarrassments. Loads of people live at home to save deposits, but THAT should be a full stop of parental support if she has 2000 take-home. 'Write down everything you spend in a month, take a long look at it and feel embarrassed. 20 to sit in? Gimmeabreak.' Wendy Gill added: 'OMG how insulting to everyone who earns less money, spolit comes to mind.' Lucy Robinson posted: 'Seriously, stop drinking and take public transport - there you go, problem solved. Welcome to normal adult life.' Others questioned whether the magazine article was satirical, as they struggled to believe that it was real. One tweeted: 'This is parody right? I mean this can't actually be a real story. I earn about half of what she does in a month and yet I somehow manage to pay my mortgage, feed my family, and still have money left over at the end of the month. 'Learn to budget. It's not hard.' Tania Hinds agreed, and replied to the article on Twitter, stating: 'I just find this completely insulting. 'I earn half of that and live and work in London. It's called budgeting and having self control. But Twitter users disagreed, saying they earn far less and manage to save. Some even thought the article must be a parody 'It's a pretty basic concept knowing not to spend outside of your means.' But whilst her income is much higher than the average UK salary of 27,271, Miss Teasdale insists that she doesn't know how she could save more money. She said: 'My 20-year-old self assumed I'd have my own flat, savings in the bank and be able to look after myself. 'The reality is I'm not even close to being in that position. 'By the time I've paid rent, done some food shopping (I want to pay my way as much as I can), settled my phone bill and insured, taxed and put petrol in my car, there's not a great deal left.' Miss Teasdale did not respond to a request for comment. Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb made history earlier this year when they became the first female duo to co-anchor the Today show, and now they are being honored with one-of-a-kind Barbie dolls in their likeness. The two role models proudly showed off their mini-me Barbies on the Today show Monday after being awarded the dolls at the Glamour Women of the Year Summit the day before. Glamour's editor-in-chief Samantha Barry joined them on the show to speak about the significance dolls, explaining that they are dressed in recreations of the outfits that Savannah, 46, and Hoda, 54, wore the first day they co-anchored together. Scroll down for video Surprise! Savannah Guthrie (left) and Hoda Kotb (right) have been honored with their own Barbie dolls in their likeness See the resemblance? Their dolls are dressed in recreations of the outfits that they wore the first day they co-anchored together Savannah's Barbie is decked out in a cornflower blue button-front dress that is identical to the Michael Kors version she wore back in January, while Hoda's doll has on a striking hot pink sheath. 'It's the special "Sheroes" Barbies,' Samantha told the anchors. 'Barbie and Glamour have done this for the last couple of years, and we just honor some one-of-a-kind with one-of-a-kind Barbies.' She added: 'It's really about role models and helping young girls know that they can be anything that they want to be including two anchors at the Today show.' The Barbies are part of the brand's commitment to showing girls more role models through the Dream Gap Project, a global initiative that aims to give girls the resources and support they need to continue to believe that they can be anything. Special occasion: Glamour's editor-in-chief Samantha Barry (far right) joined them on the show to speak about the significance dolls Having fun: Savannah, 46, and Hoda, 54, proudly showed off their mini-me Barbies Unusual situation; Savannah had Hoda laughing when she admitted that her four-year-old daughter, Vale, is probably going to rip the legs off of her Barbie Savannah and Hoda were clearly excited about the dolls, and they couldn't help but shriek: 'We have Barbies!' The two co-anchors both have young daughters, and Savannah admitted her new Barbie has put her in an unusual situation. 'I'm going to bring it home and my daughter is going to pull her legs off,' she joked of her four-year-old, Vale. The brand has previously honored Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first American Olympian to compete while wearing a hijab, and Ashley Graham, model and body activist, with their own dolls at past Glamour Women of the Year events. 'I think one of the really nice things about you two together in this is that it not only shows that you can be anything you want to be, but you can bring other women with you,' Samantha told the Today show stars. Added touches: Hoda's doll has on a striking hot pink sheath, while Savannah's Barbie is decked out in a cornflower blue button-front dress Exciting moment: Savannah took to social media on Monday to share a photo of herself shaking her Barbie's hand Casual look: Savannah revealed that her Barbie doll comes with an outfit change 'We are very honored,' Savannah replied. 'Mostly, we just like to play with Barbies.' Their co-star Craig Melvin was impressed by the dolls, and he noted: 'I love that you captured their hair.' 'I know on a good hair day,' Savannah agreed. Savannah took to Instagram and Twitter on Monday to share photos of herself and Hoda with their new Barbies. In one snapshot, she is shaking the Barbie's hand. In another photo, she and Hoda are smiling from ear to ear as they pose with their new dolls. Twins: Savannah couldn't resist sharing a snapshot of herself wearing the same black blazer as her Barbie Happy as can be: The Today show star said shaking hands with her own Barbie was one of her greatest 'lifetime thrills' Savannah also revealed that her doll also comes with an outfit change, and she couldn't resist snapping a picture of herself wearing the same black blazer as her Barbie. 'Nice to meet you, Barbie! Of lifetime thrills, shaking hands with my very own Barbie is up there,' she captioned the images. 'What a cool thing for Mattel and @glamourmag to do! She even has an outfit change into my favorite jeans-blazer-glasses uniform complete with charm necklace. Im charmed!' Savannah and Hoda joined Mindy Kaling at Glamour's 2018 Women of the Year Summit on Sunday for a panel called Closing the Dream Gap: Showing Girls (and Ourselves) What's Next. All three women agreed that hard work is what builds confidence and makes dreams come true. Event: The anchors joined Mindy Kaling at Glamour's 2018 Women of the Year Summit on Sunday for a panel called Closing the Dream Gap: Showing Girls (and Ourselves) What's Next Inspiration: The Barbies are part of the brand's commitment to showing girls more role models through the Dream Gap Project Moms: Savannah and Hoda took their respective daughters Vale (center) and Haley (second from right) to Sesame Street earlier this year 'The work is the confidence,' Savannah said. 'Confidence isn't some slogan. Confidence is earned.' She also revealed that representation is what helped her realize she could be the lead anchor of a news show. 'I felt like I connected with [Katie Couric],' she said. 'She made sense to me. And I was like, Maybe I could do that.' Hoda, meanwhile, credits overcoming adversity, including breast cancer and a divorce, with helping her feel more confident. 'You start to think to yourself, Well, now what am I afraid of? What am I afraid of?' she said. 'I remember I woke up one morning and I got four words: You can't scare me. All of a sudden I became empowered.' As for her one-year-old daughter, Haley Joy, Hoda said she wants her to be both 'gentle and bold.' 'You can change and evolve by watching other women,' she added. Proud Sarah Ferguson has shared a snap of Prince Andrew while watching him on TV on Remembrance Day - after declaring she's 'divorced to him not from him'. The Duchess of York, 59, posted the image, which appeared to be a photograph of her television screen, on Instagram with her 150,000 followers on Sunday. The picture shows the Duke of York, 58, saluting at the Cenotaph, alongside Prince William, Prince Harry and Prince Edward. Sharing the snap, Fergie wrote: 'To all those died for our freedom, you will always be in our hearts. We must never forget' Proud Sarah Ferguson has shared a snap of Prince Andrew while watching him on TV on Remembrance Day. The image shows Andrew (second from left) saluting at the Cenotaph along with Prince Edward, Prince Harry and Prince William Fergie, 59, posted the image on Instagram with her 150,000 followers, with the caption: 'To all those died for our freedom, you will always be in our hearts. We must never forget' It comes after she spoke about her divorce to Prince Andrew in her first full interview for 20 years. Speaking to the Daily Mail, Fergie said: 'Were the happiest divorced couple in the world. Were divorced to each other, not from each other.' When asked whether she still loved Andrew, she replied: 'We are completely compatible. Our bywords are communication, compromise and compassion. July 23, 1986 was the happiest day of my life. Andrew is the best man I know. What he does for Britain is incredible; no one knows how hard he works for his country.' The Duchess of York described her and Andrew as 'divorced to each other, not from each other' in her first full interview in 20 years The Duchess also described how she watches her daughters Princesses Beatrice, 30, and Eugenie, 28, on television every Christmas as they join the other royals at Sandringham. I will watch Ben-Hur and really enjoy it, then watch the news and see how the girls are doing,' she said. Proud mother Sarah regularly shares photographs of her two daughters, along with ex-husband Andrew, on Instagram, including after daughter Eugenie's wedding day last month. Sharing a snap of Eugenie with Andrew, Fergie wrote: 'So proud of Eugenie #wedding @princesseugenie @hrhthedukeofyork' She also posted a gushing tribute to her ex-husband in February, sharing a throwback snap of the prince. Fergie commented: 'Happy birthday to the best man, father, friend....Prince Andrew. Feb 19...ooh the best looking @hrhthedukeofyork #birthday' The Duchess of York regularly shares photographs of her daughters and Andrew on Instagram, including this picture of Princess Eugenie and her father on her wedding day in October Fergie also posted a gushing tribute to Andrew on his birthday in February, which included a throwback snap of the royal Celebrities including Dame Judi Dench and James McAvoy are offering up signed prints to raise money for a British photographer who was left with a serious brain injury after a car crash. Sarah Dunn, who is originally from London, was placed into a medically induced coma after being struck by a car as she crossed the road in Los Angeles in April. Eight months on, Sarah is now able to walk with assistance and is making 'great progress' - but needs treatment to help with her eyesight so she can get back to photography. Her family have already raised nearly $100,000 (77,800) through a GoFundMe page, and are also auctioning off 20 signed celebrity portraits. Jenna Coleman, Lupita Nyong'o, Hugh Jackman, Tom Hanks and Sir Ian McKellen are among those who have signed prints that will be sold over the next ten days. British celebrity photographer Sarah Dunn, pictured, was left with a serious brain injury after being struck by a car as she crossed a road near her home in Los Angeles Celebrities including James McAvoy, pictured, have signed portraits by Sarah for a charity auction that launches tonight The money raised will go towards full-time care for Sarah, pictured in April, and medical treatment Prices start at 650 and the money will help pay for Sarah's full-time care, as well as mounting medical costs from treatment at hospital. Her husband, Marcus Doyle, said: 'Since her accident Sarah has made great progress overcoming many painful physical and mental boundaries. 'Although recovery of this kind is slow, she is showing continued progress and determination and just wants to get back to doing what she loves.' Sarah has enjoyed a glittering career as a well-respected and well-liked photographer, specialising in celebrity portraits. Over the course of her career, Sarah has photographed a number of A-listers such as Dame Judi Dench, and specialises in celebrity portraits A signed copy of this stunning portrait of Lupita Nyong'o is among those being auctioned off. Prices start at 650 Her husband, Marcus Doyle, said: 'Although recovery of this kind is slow, she is showing continued progress and determination and just wants to get back to doing what she loves.' Pictured: Idris Elba's portrait Alongside her A-lister portfolio, she has worked on a number of movies including The Hobbit, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. A Givergy page for Sarah reads: 'While the impact spared most of her major organs, she suffered serious brain trauma. 'She now faces a long and difficult fight to return to the vibrant talent she was before the accident and needs extensive specialized care to recover fully and get back to making art.' At the time of her accident in April, the family shared a harrowing image of her bruised face while she was connected to machines in hospital as they appealed for funds. Sarah suffered a serious brain trauma called a Diffuse Axonal Injury, which affects coordination, perception and balance. Eight months on, Sarah can now walk with assistance, and the funds will go towards treatment for her eyesight so she can get back to photography. Pictured: Sir Ian McKellen Sarah's family are hoping to raise $1million in total for her treatment and hospital costs. Pictured: Tom Hanks Sarah suffered a serious brain trauma called a Diffuse Axonal Injury, which affects coordination, perception and balance. Pictured: Jenna Coleman Her GoFundMe page explained: 'It will likely take years to heal. We don't yet know what specific challenges she may face in coordination, perception, balance, and other aspects of brain function. 'However, it is clear is that she faces a long, difficult fight and will need extensive specialized care to recover fully and return to making art.' Her close friend Nicholas Hoult also shared an Instagram post appealing to followers to donate to the GoFundMe page. Sharing a photo taken of him by Sarah, the Skins star, 28, wrote: 'My close friend Sarah Dunn has been badly hurt by a car when she was crossing the street. Close friend Nicholas Hoult, 28, who starred in TV series Skins before moving to Hollywood, shared an Instagram post appealing to followers to donate to the fund back in April 'Sarah is a brilliantly talented photographer, she took the above photo, along with so many other wonderful portraits. 'She is a spark of fun, and warmth, and happiness who Ive been so lucky to work with and have as a friend for many years. 'A go fund me page has been set up to help aid in her recovery, please support by sharing or donating if you can, link in my bio.' The online auction, which can be found on her Givergy page, launched tonight at 7.30pm. While most political wives of Europe keep a discreet distance from the public eye, the Czech Republic's First Lady is the exception to the rule with an Instagram feed that could easily be mistaken for the account of a glamorous reality star. Monika Babisova, 44, has been the partner of Andrej Babisov for more than 20 years, after meeting when she worked for the billionaire former businessman as his secretary. Since his election as Prime Minister just under a year ago, she's certainly been enjoying the opportunity to network on the world stage, and sharing her encounters with her 23,000 Instagram followers. This weekend, the couple attended commemorations in Paris marking the 100 years since the end of the First World War, and Monika wasted no time sharing glamorous snaps of herself contemplating the Eiffel tower and cosying up to Melania Trump. 'She is soooo beautiful,' she captioned a snap of the pair together wearing similar grey dresses at a lunch at the Palace of Versailles. Monika Babisova, 44, wife of the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic shared a snap of herself with Melania Trump at the Palace of Versailles over the weekend, declaring the US First Lady 'so beautiful' Monika and her husband Andrej on holiday in Mykonos. The couple met 23 years ago when she worked as his secretary and share two children, but only married in 2017 Monika is not shy about sharing loved-up selfies with her husband who she first met more than 20 years ago when she worked as his secretary She also shared a snap with Brigitte Macron, following on from previous selfies she's posted with Angela Merkel and Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. Her love of Instagram also offers followers a candid glimpse into her life with the Prime Minister, who originally made his fortune in the agriculture business and owning two media organisations. And she's certainly not shy about sharing a loved-up selfie of the pair kissing or larking about at home. The couple share two children Vivien and Frederik who are in their teens. Friends in high places! Monika shared a selfie taken with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at an after party during the Bayreuth music festival in July 2018 The glamorous First Lady of Luxembourg shared this snap of herself contemplating the Eiffel Tower as she attended Armistice Day commemorations in Paris at the weekend Dedicated follower of fashion! Monika, who admits she pends 'a lot' on her wardrobe on her way to the Fendi show at Milan Fashion Week in September 2018 In her downtime, she's a keen follower of fashion and is likely to be seen on the front row at Fendi, after previously admitting she spends 'a lot' on fashion. 'I really do not know. I've never counted it, and I do not even want to know,' she told vaaju.com. 'I think now that Andrei is in politics, I started spending even more. Because I have to have quite decent clothes, I really spend a lot.' She listed her vices as smoking, although she's now given up, prosecco and not going to the gym. Time with the girls! Monika (centre) enjoying herself on a recent girls holiday to Dubai She loves a selfie! Monika couldn't resists getting a snap with the Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel during celebrations marking 100 years since the establishment of Czechoslovakia Happy families! Monika, 44, and her husband Andrej enjoying cocktails with their daughter Vivien Even though she's a First Lady, Monika took to Instagram to plug a new sock brand called Soxit 'I try to keep looking as good as possible, to be pleasant, and above all to be myself. Thats how he knows me and I think thats how he likes me.' However she's not content to live in her husband's shadow or spending her time flitting from one glamorous event to another. As well as her charitable foundation, she has also been working on the launch of a boutique hotel and restaurant. 'I dont just wait at home for my husband to come home from work and tell me whats next. I am simply independent,' she told Luxury Prague Life. 'Ive been working on the entire project for about two years. I design and furnish the interiors, and I also invented and created the entire hotel. So I am definitely not bored.' Queen Letizia looked elegant in a monochrome ensemble as she and husband King Felipe arrived in Peru today. The Spanish royal, 46, opted for a striped fit-and-flare dress as she and Felipe, 50, were given a red carpet welcome in Lima. The couple were greeted by Peru's President Martin Vizcarra and First Lady Maribel Diaz shortly after touching down in the capital. Letizia and Felipe are conducting a three-day tour of the country in a bid to strengthen ties between the two nations. Queen Letizia of Spain looked elegant as she arrived in Lima with husband King Felipe. The couple were welcomed by Peru's President Martin Vizcarra (second from right) and First Lady Maribel Diaz (far right) Letizia, 46, opted for a striped fit-and-flare dress as she and husband Felipe arrived in Peru ahead of a three-day tour of the country Opting for a typically chic ensemble for the occasion, Letizia teamed her frock with black stiletto heels and a white clutch. Wearing her brunette locks in an up-do, she finished off the look with a pair of pearl drop earrings. Letizia and Felipe were welcomed at the Government Palace in Lima with a Guard of Honour after arriving in Lima. They both looked in high spirits as they waved at well-wishers while posing with President Martin Vizcarra and his wife Maribel Diaz. Letizia (pictured inside the Government Palace in Lima) accessorised her look with a pair of pearl drop earrings, while wearing her brunette locks in an elegant up-do Letizia and Felipe gave a rare display of affection as they walked into the Palace with their arms around each other The Spanish couples were also seen linking arms (right) as they entered the Palace, while Peru's President Martin Vizcarra and wife Maribel Diaz were seen holding hands (left) The couple later gave a rare PDA, placing their arms around one and another while inside the Palace. Letizia and Felipe were also seen linking arms with one another, as the Peruvian president and First Lady held hands while going inside for a meeting. Peru's Foreign Office explained how the Spanish royals were visiting the country at the invitation of President Vizcarra. In a statement, a spokesperson said: 'The presence of Their Majesties in Peru has particular significance, as it helps strengthen the solid friendship with Spain and renew deep historic-cultural, economic, and cooperation ties binding the two nations'. Letizia and Felipe both looked to be in high spirits during the meeting at the Government Palace in Lima, appearing to share a joke The Spanish royals posed for photographs with Peru's President Martin Vizcarra and First Lady Maribel Diaz outside the Government Palace in Lima Letizia looked typically chic in a monochrome dress and black stiletto heels on her first engagement of her and Felipe's Peruvian visit The visit to Peru comes after Felipe travelled to France at the weekend for Remembrance Day commemorations. The Spanish King met with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte at the Elysee Palace in Paris as part of a ceremony marking 100 years since the end of the First World War. Letizia did not join her husband in Paris, despite a number of other 'First Wives' attending the commemorations. Princess Charlene of Monaco, Brigitte Macron and Melania Trumo were among those who attended a dinner at the Orsay Museum in Paris. After arriving in Lima, Felipe and Letizia attended a meeting at the Government Palace in Lima with President Martin Vizcarra and First Lady Maribel Diaz Letizia looked in high spirits as she chatted to Peruvian First Lady Maribel Diaz during a ceremony to sign bilateral agreements between their countries Letizia and Felipe (pictured with the Peruvian president and his wife) are conducting a three-day tour of the country in a bid to strengthen ties between the two nations A veteran has recounted how she and her husband spent the first few months of their marriage fighting side by side in Iraq after they were both shipped off to Baghdad just weeks after tying the knot. In her new book, Honeymoon in Baghdad, Heidi Radkiewicz, 38, details how she and her husband, Jake, 39, developed an unbreakable bond as they battled the stifling heat, boredom, and frequent ambushes from murderous insurgents while in a war zone. 'Other spouses dont have the opportunity to go through this together, like we did,' the Iowa native told the New York Post. 'Normally the soldiers wife doesnt have any idea what her husband has been through.' Newlyweds: Heidi Radkiewicz, 38, and her husband, Jake, 39, spent the first few months of their marriage fighting side by side in Iraq after being shipped off to Baghdad Timing: A few weeks after they said 'I do' at their courthouse wedding in 2002, they were called to serve in a six-month deployment in the Middle East Heidi was in college when she realized school wasn't the right fit for her. Unsure about what she should do with her life, she signed up with the National Guard as a student. Memories: In her new book, Heidi details how she and Jake developed an unbreakable bond while in combat together She met Jake at a drill weekend in Laramie, Wyoming, and he proposed to her just nine months later. A few weeks after they said 'I do' at their courthouse wedding in 2002, they were called to serve in a six-month deployment in the Middle East. The National Guard recruits were allowed to be deployed together and stay in the same unit due to their marital status. As newlyweds, the two relied on stolen moments and secret trysts that were often interrupted by other members of their unit. According to the New York Post, Heidi describes in her book the moment she and Jake were called out by a fellow soldier after he caught them being intimate while the other soldiers were sleeping. It was just one night after they had arrived at Camp Safir in Kuwait, and she and Jake 'flagrantly disregarded the delicate sensibilities of our fellow soldiers and, under cover of darkness, got pleasantly busy.' Team: The National Guard recruits were allowed to be deployed together and stay in the same unit due to their marital status Far from traditional: The two are pictured enjoying their 'honeymoon suite' Unique: Many soldiers admitted to Heidi that they could never fight in a war zone alongside their spouses However, any previous embarrassment she would have felt before she joined was non-existent, as 'Army life strips all that anxiety and social pressure away.' On another occasion, the two hung ponchos around the catwalk of Jake's truck to take a shower together using water bottles. The 'moment of private, intimate companionship,' was spoiled when they realized a fellow soldier was taking photos of them from up above. Jake ended up smashing the soldier's new camera after he refused to apologize for his actions, which he tried to defend. 'Come on, man, you guys already get to be with each other I just have myself. How is that fair?' the soldier said. Start of it all: Heidi signed up for the National Guard when she was in college. She met Jake at a drill weekend in Laramie, Wyoming Stolen moments: Heidi and Jake were once caught being intimate while other soldiers were sleeping Conditions: Heidi is pictured shielding her face from the sand and dirt while working on the trucks in Kuwait Staying positive: Heidi is pictured giving two thumbs up next to their new sleeping quarters Although many soldiers admitted to Heidi that they could never fight in a war zone alongside their spouses, she and Jake couldn't imagine doing it with anyone else. 'You know, this isnt the traditional way people spend their honeymoon, but youve got to admit, its kind of cool being here together,' Jake told her when they were hand-washing their laundry at a camp north of Baghdad. 'How many husbands and wives get to experience something like this? I mean, after this, what could life possibly throw at us that we cant handle?' The couple faced constant attacks from armed insurgents as well as roadside bombs and mortars. When they weren't in immediate danger, they were battling boredom. 'The hours crawled by more slowly every day,' Heidi writes in her book. 'We spent a lot of time playing Risk and doing equipment maintenance, generally losing our minds with the boredom and the waiting.' Positive: 'This isnt the traditional way people spend their honeymoon, but youve got to admit, its kind of cool being here together,' Jake once told her while they were hand-washing laundry Struggles: The couple faced constant attacks from armed insurgents as well as roadside bombs and mortars. When they weren't in immediate danger, they were battling boredom Difficult moment: Heidi was sent home after she found out she was two months pregnant. In her book, she recalls bursting into tears when it was time to say goodbye to Jake Heidi and Jake were taking a belated honeymoon at the German military resort Garmisch-Partenkirchen when she found out she was two months pregnant. The mother to be had to be sent home immediately because of her pregnancy, and she recalls bursting into tears when it was time to say goodbye to her husband because she didn't know if she would ever she him again. She returned home to stay with her parents in Iowa, but she struggled with a severe case of PTSD. 'Trash by the side of the road became a bomb. Every underpass was a place to hide insurgents,' she explains in her book. Heidi eventually had to go to the VA hospital for antidepressants, and while the medication helped her symptoms, it didn't completely diminish them. Jake took a leave of absence to be with Heidi when she delivered their son, who was born via C-section. After consulting a baby name book, they decided to name their little boy Wyatt, which means 'Little Warrior.' Difficulties at home: Heidi was constantly worried about Jake (pictured), and she struggled with a severe case of PTSD Bond: Heidi's husband returned home 10 months after she did, and he also struggled with PTSD. However, unlike most soldiers' wives, she knew exactly what he was going through Family: The two now live outside of Chicago with their children Wyatt, 14, and Summer, 12 They felt the name was fitting a baby who was most likely conceived in a semi-truck during one of their war zone trysts. Heidi's husband returned home 10 months after she did, and he also struggled with PTSD. However, unlike most veterans, his wife knew exactly what he was going through and was able to help him with the transition. Nearly two years after Jake came home, they welcomed their daughter, Summer. They now live outside of Chicago, where Heidi is a stay-at-home mom and Jake works full-time as a software developer. Heidi told the New York Post that she and Jake treated 'parenting like it was a mission.' 'We had our wartime missions and our civilian missions,' she said. 'After what we went through, we knew how to work together as a team. 'We were buddies on the battlefield, and were buddies in life, too.' Bake Off finalist Kim-Joy Hewlett has revealed she suffered 'severe social anxiety' as a child - describing how she was 'pretty much mute' at school. The 27-year-old, from Leeds, explained how she would 'talk at home' and sometimes whisper to people, but was 'very careful about who could hear me talk'. She described how she continued to struggle to interact with people at university, but 'started making friends by baking'. Kim-Joy, a mental health specialist, also revealed how contestants got regular calls from Bake Off producers throughout the show, and still gets calls to see if she needs any support, after being thrust into the limelight. Bake Off finalist Kim-Joy (pictured above during the Bake Off final) has revealed she suffered 'severe social anxiety', describing herself as 'pretty much mute' at school Speaking to the Guardian's G2 magazine, Kim-Joy said: ' I didn't really speak when I was at school, I was pretty much mute. 'I would talk at home, and sometimes I whispered to people, but I was very careful about who could hear me talk; I didn't want people to know that I could. I would say it was severe social anxiety.' She explained how she attempted to 'break out of [her] shell' at university, but 'really didnt know how to talk to people'. However, Kim-Joy's love of baking while she studied sociology at the University of Bristol, helping her to make friends. Kim-Joy (pictured as a child) explained how she would 'talk at home' but was 'very careful about who could hear me talk' The Bake Off finalist also explained the level of support she has received from the show's producers both while the series aired on TV, and afterwards. 'Someone rings you every few days just to have a chat. And I think that carries on for quite a while. She called us throughout the whole show, and still calls now,' she said. Kim-Joy narrowly missed out on the Bake Off crown to Rahul, after winning the technical challenge in the final, as well as securing praise from judges following the signature bake. In fact, many fans were left outraged that she hadn't taken the title, declaring her the 'real winner'. Kim-Joy (pictured on Lorraine earlier this month) described how she continued to struggle to interact with people at university, but 'started making friends by baking' Kim-Joy narrowly missed out on the Bake Off crown to Rahul. The pair were reunited, along with fellow finalist Ruby (far left) at a book signing earlier this month One viewer posted on Twitter: 'What even just happened with GBBO? How on Earth is Rahul the most consistent and ambitious baker? Consistently messed it up and Kim-Joy was far better overall. Robbed.' Another added: 'Kim-Joy was the real winner by a bakers dozen.' Despite not winning the competition, Kim-Joy declared that she's the 'happiest she's ever been' since appearing on the show. Posting on Twitter, she said: 'I didnt win but Im the happiest Ive ever been. Ive learnt so much about baking and have become so much more confident. AND Ive made 11 amazing new friends! Thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way, it means the world THANK YOU #gbbo A five-minute neck scan could predict dementia a decade before symptoms appear, research shows. Measuring someones pulse from their neck can predict damage in the brain which causes problems with memory and thinking skills in old age. A British study of more than 3,000 people found those with the most intense pulse in this area were around 50 per cent more likely to suffer rapid cognitive decline over the next ten years. A five-minute neck scan could predict dementia a decade before symptoms appear, according to research (stock image) If the result is repeated in a larger study of more people, the neck scan could become a routine test which doctors give middle-aged people at risk of dementia. The scan is so telling because someones pulse the throbbing of arteries as the heart pumps blood through them is cushioned by healthy, elastic blood vessels which stop it becoming too powerful. In older people, and those with high blood pressure, the blood vessels grow stiffer and the pulse becomes too strong. A strong pulse can travel deep into the fragile blood vessels which supply the brain, causing thinking problems and potential minor bleeds known as mini-strokes. Researchers at University College London measured the pulse of 3,191 people with an average age of 61 using one of the large carotid arteries which supply blood to the head and neck. This was done in minutes with an ultrasound which records the sound waves that bounce off blood vessels. Over the next 15 years the participants were monitored to keep an eye on their memory and problem-solving skills. The quarter of people with the highest intensity pulse at the start of the study were around 50 per cent more likely to have accelerated cognitive decline. This meant falling within the 15 per cent of people with the most rapid drop in thinking abilities. A British study of more than 3,000 people found those with the most intense pulse in their neck were around 50 per cent more likely to suffer rapid cognitive decline over the next ten years (stock image) Cognitive decline is a noticeable reduction in memory, language, thinking and judgment skills and is often one of the first signs of dementia although it does not always lead to the condition. Dr Scott Chiesa, of University College London, said the findings, presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions conference in Chicago, showed an easily measurable and potentially treatable cause of cognitive decline in middle-aged adults which can be spotted well in advance. Professor Metin Avkiran, of the British Heart Foundation, which co-funded the research, said: What we need now is further research for example, to understand whether lifestyle changes and medicines that reduce pulse wave intensity also delay cognitive decline. Health Secretary Matt Hancock is heading to Paris to meet experts, technology companies and world leaders to discuss how to revolutionise the NHS. Mr Hancock will champion the use of using AI and gene technologies to transform patient care at the GovTech summit today in the French city. The summit comes amid Mr Hancock's plans to overhaul the health service using artificial intelligence and robots some of which has been met with controversy. An app to arrange GP appointments, robot receptionists at a hospital in Suffolk, and robots performing surgery are all among technological developments in the NHS. Mr Hancock, who was the first MP to launch his own app for constituents, said: 'I've said I'll scour the world to find technology to improve the NHS.' Health Secretary Matt Hancock is heading to Paris to attend a summit on new technologies that could revolutionise the NHS. He will champion how the UK's AI, biological and gene technologies can transform patient care to build a 'dynamic HealthTech ecosystem' Since becoming the Health and Social Care Secretary in July, Mr Hancock the first MP to launch his own app has said he wants more technology used in healthcare. In the past he has criticised the NHS, the world's biggest buyer of fax machines, for using outdated computer systems. But his plans have not always been met with positive responses the GP at Hand app, which connects people with GPs, could leave people 'falling through the cracks'. Patients have to de-register from their family doctor to use the app, which could lead to them missing screenings, tests or treatment, experts have warned. And the use of a robot for the first time in a heart operation in 2015 led to the death of the patient, who would have had a 98 per cent chance of survival if the robot wasn't used. A coroner last week decided the use of the robot had directly contributed to the death of retired music teacher, Stephen Pettitt, 69, three years ago. But Mr Hancock and NHS trusts around the country are pressing ahead with plans to upgrade health service technology. NHS 111 calls may be answered by robots within years, and there are mobile apps which claim to be able to diagnose skin cancer just by using photographs. 'As we build the most dynamic HealthTech ecosystem on the planet,' Mr Hancock said, 'it's vital we work closely with our friends and neighbours. 'Britain and France have a centuries-long tradition of medical collaboration and now we want to turn that into a collaboration on cutting edge health technology.' Other attendees of the GovTech summit will include the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is attending the summit. He is pictured yesterday at the Grande Hall de La Villette, Paris, marking the anniversary of the First World War Armistice People from the UN and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as well as academics and representatives from tech giants like Facebook and Microsoft will attend the conference. Also attending will be the Cabinet Office minister for implementation Oliver Dowden, who will promote the UK's life sciences, gene technology and AI sectors. He will also identify opportunities for collaboration between countries. 'Britain is a global leader in digital innovation, with some of the best technology companies in the world operating in this country,' Mr Dowden said. MR HANCOCK PLEDGES TO OVERHAUL IT SYSTEM Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock vowed in August to overhaul the NHS IT network, saying it would be unacceptable in any other 21st-century organisation. The 'bleary eyed' minister, who replaced Jeremy Hunt in July, said he saw first hand how staff were hindered by poor technology as he shadowed front-line staff during an overnight shift. Mr Hancock reflected on his stint at Chelsea and Westminster hospital in a lengthy Facebook post, saying the IT has 'so far to go' after he witnessed staff reverting to pen and paper. He wrote of the 'lack of technology': 'I was already motivated to improve the IT of the NHS but boy! Chelsea & Westminster Hospital is one of the better trusts for IT, but even there there is so far to go.' He added that a lack of 'national interoperability standards' whereby information can be shared across the NHS IT network held staff back. Advertisement 'We are keen to build on that, learning from best practice, both in the UK and overseas, to ensure we deliver the best possible public services. 'By harnessing the power of technology we are delivering public services that are simpler and faster for users and significantly cheaper to run.' Mr Hancock is due to sit on a panel at Paris City Hall named 'From Lab to Gov: Harnessing the power of innovation'. The so-called Gov-tech industry is growing at a rate of 20 per cent a year in the UK alone. Daniel Korski, a former adviser to David Cameron and chair of the summit, told The Guardian: 'If you look at the exponential growth weve seen in other sectors, and consider the growing demands of ageing populations and increasing demands of citizens, its not so crazy to imagine govtech becoming the next big digital sector very soon.' The Cabinet Office is due to publish an innovation strategy next spring that will set out how the Government can use emerging technologies to improve public services. This will look at issues that prevent collaboration between the public and private sector in order to introduce emerging technologies to the Government. It will also identify areas where investment can increase the speed of innovation. This comes after news released last month revealed the middle-aged and over 65s may soon be taxed to cover the cost of their later life care if proposals are given the go ahead. Mr Hancock said he was 'attracted to' a cross-party plan for a compulsory premium deducted from the earnings of over 40s and over 65s. A mother who put off going to the optician while caring for her leukaemia-stricken son has revealed her side-lining her own health saw her lose an eye. Janna Clark, 36, was diagnosed with cancer the day before her son, George Wyatt, now seven, was given the all-clear after a three-year battle. She received the devastating news that she had a tumour inside her right eye, and the only option left was to have the eye removed. The mother, of Harold Wood, Essex, had dismissed her symptoms of tiredness, headaches, and blurred vision down to stress. The former hairdresser has now posted a moving video to Facebook, urging other carers and parents to look after themselves and get their eyes tested. Janna Clark, 36, was diagnosed with cancer the day before her son, George Wyatt, now seven, was given the all-clear after a three-year battle She received the she had a tumour inside her right eye, and the only option left was to have the eye removed. Now, she wears a plastic shield to protect the socket as it heals George was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia aged three. He was given the all-clear after three years of cancer treatment In a video that has already attracted 15,000 views, Ms Clark takes off her sunglasses to reveal her lost eye. She recalls the horror her family, including daughter Bonnie Wyatt, 10, and partner security engineer Jay Wyatt, 40, have suffered. 'On 23 February 2018, George rang the bell on his hospital ward, to show he was cancer free,' she said. 'And it should have been an iconic and amazing day for us. Unfortunately, the day before I got the heartbreaking news that I had eye cancer. 'I didn't know what was going to be happening, I didn't know my course of treatment, all I felt was that moment of joy for our family had been taken away, yet again, by this cruel disease.' George was diagnosed with leukaemia aged three in October 2014, after suffering with constant infections, including streaming colds and suspected asthma. 'As a mum, I knew something wasn't right with him', Ms Clark said. 'We'd been up to the accident and emergency department around 12 times before he was finally diagnosed.' Ms Clark and Mr Wyatt, who have been together for 14 years, were told their little boy had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, an aggressive form of the disease. 'All I felt was that moment of joy for our family had been taken away by this cruel disease': Ms Clark, pictured before her diagnosis, recalls the day she was told she had eye cancer (pictured with partner Jay and children George and Bonnie before her diagnosis) Told treatment needed to start straight away, George started three gruelling years of chemotherapy on the NHS. 'It was totally devastating for us,' Ms Clark said. 'When we were told I just lay on the floor and cried and screamed, I couldn't believe it was true.' Supporting her son left Janna with little time to worry about herself and when her vision blurred, she dismissed it as stress. Ms Clark said: 'I had all the symptoms of eye cancer, but just did not read my body. I didn't recognise what was going on. 'I had constant headaches, dizzy spells, was always tired, had stabbing pain and blurred blobs in my eyes, but I just thought they were migraines.' In November 2017, when she started getting headaches every day and her energy hit an all-time low, she finally visited her GP. Told to get a blood test, Ms Clark admits she was too preoccupied with the final months of her boy's treatment and forgot all about it. Then, whilst shopping in January in Grays, Essex, Mr Wyatt finally persuaded her to get her eyes tested. She said: 'He coaxed me, saying, "Why don't you just go to Vision Express here and get them tested?" Ms Clark's partner, Jay Wyatt, convinced her to get an eye test in January, after Ms Clark admits she was too preoccupied with her son's final months of treatment to check her own Ms Clark had a 7.8mm tumour inside her right eye, called a uveal melanoma. Being darker skinned and dark eyed, it was rare for Ms Clark to have eye cancer 'I'd not been in a good way over Christmas, shutting one eye without even knowing it and losing some of my peripheral vision. 'So I told the assistant I was never without a headache, had blurring and saw flashing lights sometimes so big when I was driving that I thought they were a car.' The alarmed optician referred Ms Clark to London's Moorfield Eye Hospital and a month later, she received the devastating news there was a 7.8mm tumour inside her right eye, called a uveal melanoma. 'Statistic-wise, it's so rare for it to happen anyway', Ms Clark said. 'But for it to happen in a woman, under the age of 65 with dark skin and dark eyes, I didn't fit the bill anywhere.' Eye melanoma occurs when the pigment-producing cells in the eyes divide and multiply too rapidly. This produces a lump of tissue known as a tumour. People with lighter eye colour and skin are at a greater risk of developing eye melanoma, although it is unclear why. Told she would need proton beam therapy - a type of radiotherapy, which can cause less damage to surrounding tissue but is not widely available in the UK, she was referred to The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool for treatment. But there, just two days into the four-day treatment, doctors discovered her retina had become badly detached. Sadly, reattaching it came with a high chance of spreading the cancer, meaning the only option left for Ms Clark was to have the eye removed. Telling her children that she had a poorly eye, so was 'getting a new one', was one of the hardest things she had ever done. But due to complications since going under the knife in May, Ms Clark has been unable to wear a prosthetic eye. The prosthetic had to be removed in order to surgically remove a benign lump that had developed in Ms Clark's eye. She also had a reaction to the prosthetic which made her eye swell up and weep - but doctors are unsure why. For now, she is wearing an ocular conformer - a temporary acrylic plastic shield used to protect the healing eye socket, and hopes to wear a prosthetic eye in the future. Both she and George have now had the all clear, and Ms Clark wants her story to act as a cautionary tale to others, who are putting health checks off. Telling her children, daughter Bonnie Wyatt and son George Wyatt, that 'Mummy had a poorly eye, so was getting a new one' was one of the hardest things Ms Clark had ever done Both George, now seven, and Ms Clark are clear from cancer (pictured: George recently) WHAT IS EYE CANCER? Eye cancer most commonly affects the middle layer of the organ. Around 750 new people in the UK are diagnosed with eye cancer every year. It affects approximately 3,500 new people annually in the US. Common symptoms include: Bulging Complete or partial sight loss Pain A pale, raised lump on the eye surface Blurred vision Change in eye appearance The main cause is over exposure to UV light, leading to melanoma. This is more common in people with fair skin, hair and eyes, as well as those with a large number of moles. Treatment depends on the type and size of the cancer, as well as whether it has spread. It may involve radio or chemotherapy and surgery. Source: Cancer Research UK Advertisement She said: 'The moral to this is, if I had got seen quicker I would probably still have my eye. 'Now I want parents or carers to remember to look after themselves while they are looking after others. As a parent or a carer you put yourself on the back-burner. 'I had headaches for over a year, but I thought I was tired and stressed out, because I was looking after everybody. 'I am ashamed to say the last time I'd had a sight test was nine years before the one that detected something was amiss. 'Call me ignorant, but I never knew you could get eye cancer. Going to the optician is not just about getting glasses, it's about your eye health.' 'Please watch my video and please share it, it could save a life.' Jay Ghadiali, director of professional services at Vision Express said: 'As Janna's story highlights, even if you believe your vision is fine, it is still crucial to get a regular eye test, and the NHS recommends one at least every two years. 'Janna is not alone - 13.8 million Brits don't have regular eye tests and over 2.3 million believe they should only head to an optician when they start having problems or experiencing pain.' And some countries are using last resort drugs which are meant to be preserved Experts say prescribing too many or too few medications can be damaging Doctors in Mongolia hand out more than three times as many drugs as in Europe Urgent action is needed to tackle the global misuse of antibiotics, the World Health Organization today warned. The UN body has compared data from 65 countries to reveal the nations which dish the drugs out the most and least often. Doctors in Mongolia are guilty of prescribing the most antibiotics per person, according to the WHO analysis. At the other end of the scale, Burundi in Africa had the lowest rate. Antibiotics have been doled out unnecessarily by GPs and hospital staff for decades, fuelling once harmless bacteria to become superbugs. And countries using too many, too few, or the wrong types of antibiotics may all be adding to the risk of medicines becoming less effective against common illnesses. Some countries use too many antibiotics whereas others don't use enough and the World Health Organization has warned 'urgent action' is needed to avoid diseases like pneumonia becoming untreatable 'The large difference in antibiotic use worldwide indicates that some countries are probably overusing antibiotics,' the World Health Organization warned. 'While other countries may not have sufficient access to these life-saving medicines.' There is a need to 'take urgent action, such as enforcing prescription-only policies, to reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics,' said Suzanne Hill, the head of the WHO's essential medicines unit. The WHO, which wrote the report, warned that both too many antibiotics or not enough can contribute to antibiotic resistance. Europe has an average of 18 defined daily doses per 1,000 people whereas Mongolia has more than 64. This suggests a figure which is too high, overuse of medicines allows bacteria and viruses to get used to the constantly-used drugs. But in Burundi, near the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the rate is just 4.4 daily doses suggesting people don't have enough access to medicines. Not having enough can be just as damaging because people may only take half a course, meaning what's left of the infection will learn to survive. COUNTRIES USING THE MOST ANTIBIOTICS (Daily doses per 1,000 people) Mongolia (64.4) Iran (38.78) Turkey (38.18) Sudan (35.29) Greece (33.85) Serbia (31.57) Montenegro (29.33) Romania (28.5) South Korea (27.68) Tanzania (27.29) Advertisement COUNTRIES USING THE FEWEST ANTIBIOTICS (Daily doses per 1,000 people) Burundi (4.44) Brunei (5.92) Azerbaijan (7.66) Philippines (8.21) Uzbekistan (8.56) Jordan (8.92) Netherlands (9.78) Peru (10.26) Armenia (10.31) Ivory Coast (10.68) Advertisement Ms Hill added: 'Overuse and misuse of antibiotics are the leading causes of antimicrobial resistance. 'Without effective antibiotics and other antimicrobials, we will lose our ability to treat common infections like pneumonia.' Other countries with particularly high use of antibiotics are Iran, with 39 daily doses per 1,000 people, Turkey with 38, Sudan with 35 and Greece with 33. The data is incomplete and only includes 65 countries, with the US, Australia, China and India left out. The most commonly used drug worldwide is amoxicillin a member of the penicillin family, which is the first line of defence but can already be resisted by bacterial infections like MRSA. And some countries are more guilty than others of readily using back-up medicines, which are stronger versions supposed to be saved for when frontline drugs fail. Italy, Spain and Japan are heavy users of these drugs, which the WHO says need to be preserved for future use. In Italy, two per cent of all antibiotics given are taken from the 'reserve' category, more than six times as many as in Britain, where the figure is just 0.3 per cent. Pneumonia is set to kill nearly 11 million children around the world by 2030, research suggests. Based on current infection rates, Nigeria, India, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo will be the four countries worst hit. But more than a third of these deaths - 4.1 million - could be avoided by vaccination, effective treatment or good nutrition, according to forecasts by John Hopkins University. Dr Ellie Cannon, a GP in the UK, is pictured while visiting Save the Childrens health programmes in the Democratic Republic of Congo on October 4. She is pictured with a local doctor at the bedside of two-year-old Femi who is battling life-threatening pneumonia The researchers predicted future global rates of pneumonia alongside experts from Save the Children in a model they called the Lives Saved Tool. Results show that based on current trends, 10,865,728 children will die from pneumonia in the next 12 years. Nigeria will have the most fatalities at 1,730,000, followed by India (1,710,000), Pakistan (706,000) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (635,000). But scaling up vaccination so it covers 90 per cent of children under five could save 610,000 lives. Cheap antibiotics may also prevent 1.9 million deaths, while ensuring youngsters have good nutrition could save 2.5 million. Combining all three of these treatment techniques would avert 4.1 million deaths. WHAT IS PNEUMONIA? Pneumonia is a type of chest infection that affects the tiny air sacs in the lungs. The condition causes these sacs to be become inflammed and fill with fluid, making it harder to breathe. Pneumonia is caused by bacteria or viruses, with the most common being Streptococcus pneumoniae. It affects between five and 11 out of every 1,000 adults every year in the UK. Anyone can suffer from pneumonia, however, at-risk groups include: Babies and young children People over 65 Those with long-term heart, lung or kidney disease People with cancer, particularly those having chemotherapy Smokers Those on drugs that suppress their immune systems Antibiotics or mechanical ventilator use in hospitals also raise the risk. Symptoms include Coughing up mucus Fever Chest pain Loss of appetite Fatigue In severe cases, sufferers may cough up blood, vomit or have a rapid heart rate. Treatment is usually antibiotics, which may need to be given intravenously in hospital in severe cases. Source: British Lung Foundation Advertisement Pneumonia is the biggest infectious killer for children globally, according to Save the Children. The lung infection kills more youngsters than malaria, diarrhoea and measles combined, the charity adds. Last year, 880,000 children, who were mostly under two, died from the disease worldwide. 'It beggars belief that close to a million children are dying every year from a disease that we have the knowledge and resources to defeat,' Paul Ronalds, CEO of Save the Children Australia, said. 'There is a vaccine available and a course of antibiotics costs just 54 cents AUD (38 cents USD or 69p). 'There are no pink ribbons, global summits or marches for pneumonia. 'But for anyone who cares about justice for children and their access to essential healthcare, this forgotten killer should be the defining cause of our age.' Pneumonia is an infection that causes the air sacs in the lungs to become inflamed. They may then fill with fluid or pus that makes breathing difficult. The disease can be deadly if it triggers severe inflammation of the lungs or a secondary infection. In developed countries pneumonia typically affects the elderly, with between 0.5 per cent and one per cent of the over 65s developing the condition a year in the UK. Less than 60 children under 14 die from pneumonia annually in the UK. 'This is the ultimate disease of poverty,' Kevin Watkins, CEO of Save the Children UK, told The Telegraph. 'Children who are malnourished or live in urban slums are typically at a greater risk. 'Because pneumonia is less infectious than cholera or measles, it doesnt cross social boundaries, so it is ignored by those with political influence.' Dr Cannon said: 'Doctors simply dont have the basic supplies like oxygen and antibiotics to treat them. My medical colleagues in the DRC are forced to watch children die.' Dr Ellie Cannon, a GP in the UK, visited Save the Childrens health programmes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 50,000 children died from pneumonia in 2016. Speaking at the bedside of an infected two-year-old named Femi last month, Dr Cannon said: 'It was shocking to see children dying from a disease we can treat so easily in the UK. 'Children are arriving on the brink of starvation, their immune systems weakened by malnutrition. 'And even when they get to medical help, doctors simply dont have the basic supplies like oxygen and antibiotics to treat them. 'These are medics with the same training as me. I could write a simple prescription or arrange a quick X-ray. 'My medical colleagues in the DRC are forced to watch children die.' The Sustainable Development Goals aims to 'end preventable child deaths' and achieve universal health coverage by 2030. Save the Children wants the cost of major pneumonia vaccines dramatically reduced to allow more than 76million children to receive the jabs. It also wants the Governments of low- and middle-income countries to prioritise building health and nutrition systems that reach the most needy. A mother who was paralysed in a car crash can finally walk again because of an Iron Man-style robo-suit. Monique Kelley, 28, from Bend, Oregon, was pinned to the ground by her SUV after it slid across black ice, flipped over and smashed into a tree last January. The barbershop owner woke to the sound of her six-year-old son Kamden's voice on a rural road near Klamath Falls. While Kamden - who had been asleep in the back seat - was uninjured, Ms Kelley had to be freed from the wreck by rescuers. She suffered devastating injuries including a spinal burst fracture, which left her paralysed below the chest, as well as broken ribs, a punctured lung and concussion. The timing of the crash was particularly emotional, seeing as Ms Kelley's younger brother Kevin Mayo died aged 25 just three weeks earlier in an alleged road rage incident. Defying expectations, Ms Kelley has since learned how to use a wheelchair, stand without support and is even adapting to walking with a robotic exoskeleton just 10 months on from the crash. Scroll down for video Monique Kelley is pictured wearing the Iron Man-style robotic skeleton as part of a clinical trial with Stanford University. Ms Kelley was left paralysed from the chest down after her SUV swerved on black ice, overturned and hit a tree last January. She had a spinal burst fracture Three weeks before the crash, Ms Kelley's brother Kevin Mayo (pictured left with his sister) died aged 25 in an alleged road rage incident. Raleigh Rodrigues, 65, is accused of causing the fatal crash when he swerved his pickup truck into Mr Mayo's motorbike Pictured before the crash with her six-year-old son Kamden, Ms Kelley woke to find herself pinned to the ground when she heard his voice. The youngster was asleep in the back of the car at the time of the ordeal and suffered no injuries. She then lost consciousness again Ms Kelley is taking part in a clinical trial at Stanford University, which involves her being given a high-tech ReWalk suit for a year. The wearable device is strapped to her legs, which powers them to take steps and helps strengthen the muscles. 'Using the exoskeleton for the first time was an extremely emotional experience,' Ms Kelley said. 'It was in fact the first time my legs had taken steps like that since the crash. 'When you become "a disabled person", every part of your identity gets stripped away and then this is all you have left. 'For someone living with a spinal cord injury, the exoskeleton technology is the next best thing to being cured.' Although it took a while for her to get used to, Ms Kelley is now comfortable using the robotic suit. 'There is certainly a learning curve involved, however once you get used to motions it starts to feel natural,' she said. 'The human body is meant to stand up and ambulate, but for someone with a spinal cord injury you spend most of your time sitting or laying down. 'The exoskeleton fixes that. I feel human again.' Pictured using the exoskeleton, Ms Kelley describes it as 'the next best thing to being cured' Ten months on from the crash, Ms Kelley is pictured in her wheelchair with her son. She has also learned how to stand without support and claims the exoskeleton has made her feel 'human again' rather than just being defined by her disability WHAT ARE REWALK WALKING AIDS? ReWalk is a wearable robotic exoskeleton that helps those with spinal cord injuries stand, walk, turn, and even go up and down stairs. It has motors at the hip and knee joints that power them to move. Movement is controlled via subtle changes in the user's gravity. For instance, a forward tilt of the upper body is sensed by the system, which then initiates the first step. Repeated body shifting generates a series of controlled steps that mimic the natural gait of the legs. It is the first exoskeleton to be approved by the FDA for personal and rehabilitation use in the US. ReWalk has also received regulatory clearing in parts of Europe. In the US, the exoskeleton is thought to cost between $69,000 and $85,000. The company has a reimbursement team that can help potential users get insurance coverage. Source: ReWalk Advertisement Miss Kelley's ordeal began on January 8 when she lost control of her car while driving home. 'I remember waking up to my son's voice. He was standing outside of the car completely unharmed,' she said. 'At the time I thought I was okay and I told my son to call 911. 'He crawled into the front seat and I could hear him with panic in his voice because he couldn't find my phone. 'I told him to stay back from the vehicle and attempted to pull myself from the car.' Ms Kelley then realised her chest was anchored to the ground by the overturned vehicle. 'I thought maybe I could pull my leg out and get unstuck. When I couldn't find my right leg I turned to my left and found my foot conveniently located next to my head,' she said. 'It was completely lifeless. For some reason I didn't panic. I just started yelling for help. 'I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew there was someone's hand gripping my shoulder.' Pictured in hospital after the crash, Ms Kelley was initially treated at a local centre before being rushed to Oregon Health & Science University Hospital in Portland. Surgeons operated on Ms Kelley's spine, which had almost being severed in the horrific accident Pictured in hospital, Ms Kelley spent a month in intensive care before starting rehabilitation A passing driver found the wreck half-an-hour after the collision and Ms Kelley was rushed to a local hospital. She was then transferred to Oregon Health & Science University Hospital in Portland where medics operated to stabilise her spine, which had almost been severed. After spending a month in intensive care, Miss Kelley began rehab at the Rehabilitation Institute of Oregon. She continues to attend physical therapy twice a week at the Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center, Oregon. Just six months after the collision, Ms Kelley managed to stand with support after being inspired by a woman who approached her while out shopping. 'She walked over to me and told me she was in a wheelchair for four years,' she said. 'She broke her neck, back and legs, and showed me the scars. She told me: "Don't ever give up". 'I went to therapy that day and had that urge to stand up. I did it on my first time and everybody just erupted in tears.' Pictured during her recovery, Ms Kelley attends physical therapy sessions twice a week Pictured before the crash with Kamden, Ms Kelley is determined to one day walk unaided Ms Kelley's next milestone is to walk unaided, which she hopes she will achieve while on the clinical trial. The nationwide programme sees patients suffering from spinal cord injuries test ReWalk walking aids, with Ms Kelley being one of five taking part at Stanford University. Provided she can raise the $30,000 (23,300) needed to cover travel costs, Ms Kelley will undergo up to 40 hours of training before being given an exoskeleton to take home for a year. 'I have not been told that I won't walk again, but I also have not been told that I will,' she said. 'I just have to stay stubborn and never give up.' Pictured during rehab, Ms Kelley was motivated to get better after a stranger approached her while out shopping and told her to never give up. Ms Kelley has been given the robotic exoskeleton for one year and hopes that will help her achieve her milestone of walking again With her recovery being traumatic, Ms Kelley relies on the memory of her brother to stay strong. 'Everything I do is in honor of my brother,' she said. 'I push myself to the absolute limit and beyond because of him. 'I even bought myself some custom shoes in memory of him that I believe I will walk in someday and carry him with me in each step. 'He truly is my guardian angel.' Raleigh Rodrigues, 65, is accused of causing the fatal crash when he swerved his pickup truck into Mr Mayo's motorbike. He is charged with manslaughter. Ms Kelley is fundraising towards her travel costs here. It's a mystery that has long puzzled scientists. But researchers now claim they understand how an anaphylactic shock can shut down the body in a matter of minutes. They found exposing mice to small amounts of known allergens triggers different immune cells to work together. This then launches a life-threatening anaphylactic response, according to the team at Duke University. The researchers hope their findings may help scientists develop better anaphylaxis treatments. Scientists have discovered how an allergic reaction can shut down the body in minutes (stock) Currently, patients with potentially serious allergies are often prescribed adrenaline auto-injectors to carry at all times. Around 250,000 people in the UK rely on auto-injectors, of which the most popular is EpiPen, manufactured by Pfizer. Figures show around 3.6 million prescriptions for EpiPens are dished out in the US each year. For the new study, the scientists then looked at the cells under a microscope. They found some process details about the allergen, which is then communicated to others to stimulate the release of histamine. The researchers suppressed different immune cells in mice before injecting them with toxins that trigger anaphylaxis. After analysing the rodents half-an-hour later, they found that mast cells, which release histamine, do not pick up on allergens alone. But when the scientists reduced the rodents' dendritic cells - another component of the immune system - they did not suffer anaphylaxis even when exposed to triggers. When they looked at these dendritic cells under a microscope, they found the cells are made up of long tendrils that penetrate other cells when seeking out allergens. And when the dendritic cells identify an allergen, they send out tiny bubbles that contain information on them to surrounding mast cells. WHAT IS ANAPHYLACTIC SHOCK? Anaphylaxis, also known as anaphylactic shock, can kill within minutes. It is a severe and potentially life-threatening reaction to a trigger, such as an allergy. The reaction can often be triggered by certain foods, including peanuts and shellfish. However, some medicines, bee stings, and even latex used in condoms can also cause the life-threatening reaction. According to the NHS, it occurs when the immune system overreacts to a trigger. Symptoms include: feeling lightheaded or faint; breathing difficulties such as fast, shallow breathing; wheezing; a fast heartbeat; clammy skin; confusion and anxiety and collapsing or losing consciousness. It is considered a medical emergency and requires immediate treatment. Insect stings are not dangerous for most victims but a person does not necessarily have to have a pre-existing condition to be in danger. An incremental build-up of stings can cause a person to develop an allergy, with a subsequent sting triggering the anaphylactic reaction. Advertisement The study was published in the journal Science. 'In addition to their well-known capacity to internalise, process and present antigens to immune cells,' lead author and research scientist Hae Woong Choi said. 'Dendritic cells now appear to actively distribute antigens they have acquired to surrounding immune cells even before they are internalised.' This method quickly spreads information about the invading allergen to surrounding mast cells, which then kick off anaphylaxis by filling the bloodstream with histamine. They add, however, studies first need to identify if the same process occurs in humans and if dendritic cells could actually be beneficial. 'While it's detrimental in the context of allergens, this function might be needed to fight diseases and actually be helpful,' senior author Dr Soman Abraham said. 'Maybe these dendritic cells are designed to detect blood-borne parasites, viruses or bacteria. 'So we need to understand any other circumstances that activate them before contemplating shutting them down or impeding their activity.' An allergic reaction occurs when a person's body mistakenly identifies a harmless substance - commonly nuts, shellfish and pollen - as a dangerous toxin. It therefore launches an immune response against the allergen, which can cause sneezing, itchy eyes and hives. In rare, severe cases, an allergic reaction can lead to anaphylaxis, which can result in swelling of the throat, difficult breathing and even loss of consciousness. Allergies are very common and are thought to affect more than one in four people in the UK at some point in their lives. And in the US, food allergies alone cause around 200,000 hospitalisations a year. Paramedics will be given self-defence lessons because over-stretched police no longer respond quickly enough to their calls for help. South Western Ambulance Service staff will be given the training after its boss revealed assistance from police has been 'reduced'. Restraint training, known as safer holding training, has already been given to five per cent of staff at the service and will be rolled out to the rest over the next two years. It comes after it was reported incidents relating to violence and aggression against SWAS staff had almost doubled in a year up to 1,049 in 2017/18. South Western Ambulance Service staff will be given the training after its boss revealed assistance from police had been reduced Health workers' union, Unite, said it has 'professional concerns' over the training. 'Two things had happened which had led the trust to now move to restraint training,' said SWAS chief executive Ken Wenman, according to minutes from a board meeting. 'One had been that police response to an incident to restrain a member of the public had reduced therefore the risk to staff would be increased.' The second thing, Mr Wenman said, was to ensure staff could cope with patients who were mentally unstable or incapable. He added: 'If a patient does not have capacity and they run if the staff were not trained they could get injured and they would be open to criticism from the public.' The College of Paramedics states restraint can lawfully be used against patients to prevent harm or injury to others. When restraint is used urgent police assistance should be requested via 999, according to the college. But response times by police forces across the South West have been dropping. A spokesman for SWAS said: 'Safer holding training has only just been launched in the Trust with a planned implementation between September 2018 and March 2020. MORE PEOPLE WAITING OVERNIGHT FOR AMBULANCES Thousands of people who phone ambulances have to wait until the next day before one arrives. NHS figures revealed in September that more than 2,000 people waited overnight for an emergency ambulance last year up from just 440 in 2013. And among those were a man who had been shot or stabbed, at least seven people over 100 years old, people who had attempted suicide and somebody who had suffered a stroke. There were more than 10 million 999 calls for ambulances last year, compared to 8.5 million in 2013-14. 'Its hard to escape the feeling that patients cant quite rely on the NHS as thoroughly as they used to, and this is a clear example,' Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association told The Times. Advertisement 'At the time of writing, approximately five per cent of staff have undertaken the training.' South West Ambulance Service serves patients in Gloucestershire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bristol, Bath, South Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. The SWAS spokesperson added: 'Low level safer holding will always be an absolute last resort and will only be used to act in the patient's best interests in the emergency setting when all other options have been exhausted. 'The mental capacity code of practice and mental capacity act provides a framework for staff to act in the patient's best interests when they do not have capacity to make decisions for themselves. 'The types of incidents may include conditions where the normal functioning of the patient's brain is disturbed, affecting their ability to make informed decisions in their own best interests.' Unite regional officer Nick Bailey said: 'This development has been generated by the drop in police numbers nationally. 'Paramedics are now expected to fill in for that shortfall in police numbers this is another responsibility our already hard-pressed members will have to absorb into their very busy shifts. 'We will be having discussions with our members on this proposal and relaying their professional concerns to the trust's management in the near future.' The one-day training course features learning the mental capacity act, mental capacity code of practice, conflict resolution and methods of low-level safer holding. A lawyer whose doctor told her she was complaining of 'too many symptoms' was diagnosed with leukaemia the next day and told she needed immediate treatment. Jenna Ostrowski, 34, was told she had a gum infection and that she could come back for a blood test two-and-a-half weeks later. But Ms Ostrowski knew something was wrong and took matters into her own hands, arranging a test for the next day through her work's private health insurance. Before the end of the day, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia and told she could have as little as a week to live if she didn't start treatment right away. Ms Ostrowski is in remission now, nearly 18 months later, after gruelling chemotherapy and wants to raise awareness of the symptoms of blood cancer. Jenna Ostrowski, a lawyer, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia after having blood tests done privately because her NHS GP told her she had a gum infection and she was complaining of 'too many symptoms for a 10-minute consultation' 'I had recently come back from a holiday in Bali, and I had a gum infection that wouldn't go away,' Ms Ostrowski explained. 'I also had swollen glands and lumps under my arms, so I was concerned that I might have breast cancer. 'But when I went to the doctors, they said the gum infection had just spread to my lymph nodes. 'He made me feel like I was being a hypochondriac.' Ms Ostrowski had already made countless trips to the doctor in Birmingham, about symptoms that included bruising, lumps under her arms, sore gums and severe headaches. But when she visited her dentist in July 2017, he was immediately concerned Ms Ostrowski was wearing a summer dress and the dentist noticed bruising on her calves. 'He told me that he wanted me to get an appointment that day, and for the GP to call him afterwards,' she recalls. 'I've had that dentist for years, and I'd never had problems with my gums before. He was taking it so seriously that I knew I had to follow it up.' But when Ms Ostrowski went to see the GP he told her: 'You're giving me too many symptoms for a 10-minute consultation.' He added that she would have to be referred to a 'headache clinic' to discuss any headache symptoms, and refused to phone her dentist. Ms Ostrowski persisted with the doctor for a blood test. He agreed to give her an application form but the receptionist told her there would be a two-and-a-half-week wait. Ms Ostrowski needed four gruelling rounds of chemotherapy over the course of seven months last year and is now in remission, but has to have bone marrow biopsies to make sure the cancer isn't coming back The lawyer said the private health insurance from her employer saved her life because she otherwise would have had to wait more than two-and-a-half weeks for a blood test she was able to get the next day when it was paid for WHAT IS ACUTE MYELOID LEUKAEMIA? Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a type of blood cancer that starts in young white blood cells in the bone marrow. AML affects around one in 200 men and one in 255 women in the UK at some point in their lives. Approximately 19,500 new cases occur every year in the US. It is most often diagnosed in older people. Symptoms can include: Fatigue Fever Frequent infections Bruising or bleeding easily, including nosebleeds or heavy periods Weight loss Bone and joint pain Breathlessness Swollen abdomen Pale skin AML's exact cause is unclear, however, risks include: Smoking Being overweight Radiation exposure Previous chemotherapy Certain blood disorders, such as myelodysplastic syndrome Some immune conditions, like rheumatoid arthritis AML is usually treated via chemotherapy. A bone marrow or stem cell transplant may be required. Source: Cancer Research UK Advertisement 'A few months beforehand, my mum had a cancer scare, so that was on my mind,' explains Ms Ostrowski. 'Also my dentist had been so concerned I decided to see if I could get a test done privately through work. 'That weekend, my boyfriend Matt was best man at a wedding, and I wanted to put my mind at rest. 'So I went to the BMI Priory Hospital in Edgbaston and got a test.' Using private healthcare cover from her job as a lawyer at auditing firm KPMG, she got tested straight away. By lunchtime that day, the Priory had faxed Ms Ostrowski's results through to her GP. He rang her to tell her that her blood results were 'very irregular', and that she was being referred to a consultant haematologist at the BMI Priory Hospital. There, she was told she had acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), an aggressive form of blood cancer in which stem cells produce too many immature white blood cells. She'd had it for around three to four months. 'They told me that if I hadn't started chemotherapy within a few days, then I could have been dead within as little as a week,' reveals Ms Ostrowski. 'I felt like a zombie. The groom of the wedding drove Matt up to see me in hospital that night, on his last night of freedom! 'I wanted him to still go to the wedding the next day as he was best man. 'Despite already being in hospital having been diagnosed, two-and-a-half weeks later I got a call from the GP surgery saying they could no longer do my blood test, as the nurse was sick. 'I most likely would have been dead by then.' For the next seven months, Ms Ostrowski endured four rounds of gruelling chemotherapy at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. While there, she had to stay on an isolation ward because her immune system was so weak. Now, almost 18 months on, Ms Ostrowski is in remission, although she must still undergo painful bone marrow biopsies every three months. 'There is no doubt that I would be dead if I had not had that blood test done privately,' she says. 'That is both terrifying and unfair in equal measure. It simply cannot be right that the only reason I am here now is thanks to the private healthcare I receive through my employer and that is why I am determined to help raise awareness. 'I owe the NHS my life, and I know it is under an ever-increasing amount of pressure. But I believe that GP training is not adequate. Ms Ostrowski, pictured with her boyfriend, Matt Greenaway, said it 'cannot be right' that somebody who was relying on NHS care might have died in her situation 'The doctor did not see the signs of leukaemia whereas my dentist did. 'I have seen this in the news a lot recently, tragically with Simon Thomas's wife and also a young lady also from the Midlands with a scarily similar story to mine. 'I don't think this is purely coincidence, so we must stop it happening.' AML affects around one in 200 men and one in 255 women in the UK there are approximately 19,500 new cases a year in the US. Regular infections, bleeding and bruising, weight loss and bone and joint pain are all possible symptoms of the illness. Ms Ostrowski added: 'The problem is that blood cancer symptoms don't manifest themselves as obviously as other cancers. Ms Ostrowski (pictured after a 500km cycle from London to Paris to raise money for Cure Leukaemia) now wants to raise awareness of blood cancer after her doctor missed the signs of the deadly condition 'In my case it was significant bruises, very bad headaches, night sweats, recurrent infections, specifically a gum infection and swollen glands. 'My GP simply didn't spot the signs or share my concerns, but I knew something was wrong and so persisted that I needed a blood test, which I had to have privately due to the long wait on the NHS, and even that appointment was cancelled. 'It terrifies me to think how many other patients are out there in a similar position to me right now, and who don't have the means to seek private healthcare. 'That is why I am so keen to share my story in the hope that the symptoms of blood cancer are more widely known.' A new cream developed by scientists can remove sun spots without the pain of conventional treatment, trials show. The product, marketed as Ameluz, works on the lesions which can turn cancerous, causing them to scab over and then drop off. Finnish researchers found the cream, which needs the sunlight to work, can remove 80 per cent of a person's sun spots within a week. The product has proven in trials to work on the lesions which can turn cancerous, causing them to scab over and then drop off (stock of an actinic keratoses sun spot) Patients can currently have their sun spots known medically as actinic keratoses removed by having them frozen off with liquid nitrogen. However, pain is a known side-effect of cryotherapy, which turns a couple of the patches into blisters which then fall off on their own in a few weeks. Creams that work in the same way already exist for people concerned about their sun spots - but often take much longer to kick-in. Actinic keratoses, which can turn into skin cancer, are rough patches of brown skin caused by damage from years of sun exposure. They are different from liver spots, which are known as solar lentigo and can also occur from spending too much time in the sun. Officials estimate that around a quarter of people living in the UK have a sun spot. The figure is similar in the US but higher in Australia. Ameluz, based on aminolevulinic acid, is available for treating sun spots in the US and UK. It was given the greenlight in Europe in 2011. Dr Janne Rasanen, study author, at the University of Tampere, said the cream can minimise pain and, therefore, allow patients to have more taken off in one go. HOW DOES THE CREAM WORK? The new cream, based on aminolevulinic acid already approved for use in cancer, was tested by a team at the University of Tampere. It is yet to be approved in the UK but the chemical is available for treating sun spots in the US and was given the greenlight in Europe in 2011. Patients seeking to remove their sun spots must sit outdoors for two hours while wearing the aminolevulinic acid-based cream. The UV rays from the sun then react with the product to form protoporphyrin IX, which releases reactive oxygen species molecules. Dr Rasanen and colleagues said this reaction then causes the cells in the sun spots to die and fall off, New Scientist reports. Advertisement Patients seeking to remove their sun spots must sit outdoors for two hours while wearing the aminolevulinic acid-based cream. The UV rays from the sun then react with the product to form protoporphyrin IX, which releases reactive oxygen species molecules. Dr Rasanen and colleagues said this reaction then causes the cells in the sun spots to die and fall off, New Scientist reports. Their study, published in the British Journal of Dermatology, compared two different creams on nearly 70 adults with sun spots. The researchers found the aminolevunlic acid-based cream was more effective than methyl5aminolevulinate and the participants denied it caused them any pain. Professor Stephen Shumack, involved in other trials of the cream, said the aminolevunlic acid-based cream can work after being applied just once. He compared it to fluorouracil cream, approved by the NHS and US drug regulators, which has to be applied daily for four weeks to work. Professor Shumack, of Sydney University also said fluorouracil cream known as Efudex in the US and Efudix in the UK - causes more irritation. Commenting on how the cream works on the skin, Professor Shumack told New Scientist: 'You look like you've had a bad sunburn for the first few days. 'Then the skin gets scabby and crusted over and the sun spots peel off within a week. The skin looks a lot better afterwards it becomes very smooth.' Dr Adil Sheraz, consultant dermatologist and British Skin Foundation spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Sun spots also known as actinic keratoses are pre-cancerous skin lesions that can present as scaly, skin coloured, brown or yellowish patches often on sun exposed areas such as the face, ears and back of the hands. 'Creams are available that will need to be applied for up to four weeks without any light treatment and will clear sun related skin damage. 'However, these can often be associated with significant redness, soreness and inflammation at the site of application.' Get your kids exercising from as young as age three, new federal guidelines recommend. The updated suggestions, from the US Department of Health and Human Services, have moved the start age for physical activity from age six to between ages three and five. This is the first update to the government's physical activity guidelines since they were created in 2008. Low adherence to the first set of guidelines and rising rates of childhood obesity have prompted the push to aim younger to prevent poor health later in life. Updated guidelines from the US Department of Health and Human Services have changed the start age for physical activity from age six to age three (file image) The new advice was presented on Monday at the American Heart Association conference in Chicago. Under the old guidelines, parents were recommended to begin getting their children physically active starting at age six. But the new guidelines lower the ages to between three and five years old, saying 'preschool-aged children should be physically active throughout the day to enhance growth and development'. No set amount of time was given but the guidelines suggest children be lightly, moderately, or vigorously active for at least three hours per day. It is likely that scientists adjusted the guidelines due to the growing rate of childhood obesity, which has tripled since the 1970s. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity affects one in five children in the US and 14 percent of those between ages two and four years old. Childhood obesity is now the number one health concern among parents in the US, topping drug abuse and smoking. Being obese at such as young age can increase the risk of several health problems including heart disease, kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes and stroke, as well as elevating the risk for obesity in adulthood. However motor development in children isn't completely defined until about age five. According to Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU, children at age three are just learning how to balance on one foot for a few seconds and can long jump around one foot. By four years old is when they learn how to skip and can hop one foot. It is at age five that they can skip on alternating feet and are mastering their skills so they can jump rope, skate, swim and even do somersaults. Targeting young children is the goal of a project that Dr Valentin Fuster, a cardiologist at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, has worked on for years with the Heart Association and Sesame Workshop, producers of PBS's Sesame Street. At the heart conference, he gave results of an intensive four-month program to improve knowledge and attitudes about exercise and health in Head Start preschools in Harlem. Of the more than 560 children between ages three to five in the study, half received no intervention while the other half underwent 50 hours of lessons on topics such as what healthy food are and how to take care of the heart. Results showed that children who received health education had higher scores on tests about health knowledge than the preschoolers who did not have lessons. Dr Fuster told The Wall Street Journal that children between ages three and five are in a 'golden age' where they are not only interested in how their body works but can easily absorb information. 'This is the age where you store things in your brain very easily and they come back later when you are an adult,' he told the newspaper. He added that the benefits were not just evident in the children, but also in adults. 'We found that the impact that children have on their parents in terms of health is much more impressive than the impact parents have on the children,' he told The Journal. A record number of Americans are being tested for vitamin D deficiencies - despite new evidence suggesting the nutrient has little impact on your risk of heart disease. The 'sunshine vitamin' has been touted over the last several years as a way to boost heart health and lower cancer rates. But a new study presented at the American Heart Association conference found that participants' vitamin D levels had no effects on cancer risk or preventing serious heart issues as heart attacks and strokes. It comes on the heels of a recent report that found more than 10 million US adults were tested for vitamin D deficiencies, costing taxpayers $365 million. A new study has found that high doses of Vitamin D are not effective in lowering the risk of heart disease or cancer in older people (file image) Vitamin D, which the skin makes from sun exposure, has been a hot topic among both the medical community and the general public for years due to long-held beliefs that it promotes heart health. It is naturally found in foods including milk, eggs and fatty fish, but many foods are now fortified with it. A 2009 study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham reported that lower levels of vitamin D was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. And a study conducted on mice earlier this year from the Westmead Institute for Medical Research in Australia found that vitamin D helped prevent scar tissue from building around mice hearts. This has led to more than a quarter of American aged 60 and older taking a daily vitamin D supplement. The new study, led by Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, looked at the effects of vitamin D in preventing heart disease and cancer. Nearly 26,000 adult participants were involved, none of whom had a history of either health condition. Participants were split into three groups: one that took a daily dose of 2,000 unit capsules of D-3 (the most active form of vitamin D), one that took the same dosage of D-3 and a placebo, and one group that took two placebo dosages. TWO BRANDS OF DOG FOOD RECALLED OVER VITAMIN D TOXICITY Nutrisca and Natural Life Pet Products have issued a voluntary recall for certain bags of dry dog food containing chicken, chickpea and potato because they have too much Vitamin D in them. The voluntary recalls were issued earlier this month after three pet owners reported their pets suffered from vitamin D toxicity after eating the dry food. An investigation 'revealed a formulation error led to the elevated Vitamin D in the product,' according to their recall notices. Nutrisca is recalling: 4 lbs bags Nutrisca Chicken and Chickpea Dry Dog Food Bag (UPC: 8-84244-12495-7), 15 lbs bags Nutrisca Chicken and Chickpea Dry Dog Food (UPC: 8-84244-12795-8) and 28 lbs bags Nutrisca Chicken and Chickpea Dry Dog Food (UPC: 8-84244-12895-5). The bags were distributed to retail stores across the country and have best by date codes of February 25, 2020 through September 13, 2020. Natural Life Pet Products, meanwhile, is recalling its 17.5 lbs bags of Natural Life Chicken & Potato Dry Dog Food (UPC: 0-12344-08175-1). These bags have best by date code of December 4, 2019 through August 10, 2020. They were sold in retail stores in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and California. The date codes can be found either on the back or bottom of each bag. Signs of dogs who've eaten too much Vitamin D are said to include vomiting, loss of appetite, increased thirst, increased urination, excessive drooling and weight loss. Advertisement Researchers followed the participants for five years and, at the end of the study period, concluded that the vitamin did not lower the risk of heart disease or cancer. 'Supplementation with vitamin D did not result in a lower incidence of invasive cancer or cardiovascular events than placebo,' the authors wrote. Vitamin D did seem, however, to reduce cancer deaths - but not diagnoses - by around 25 percent. 'I think we need to accept that that's a good test' and that the vitamin is not worthwhile,' Dr Jane Armitage, a professor of clinical trials and epidemiology at Oxford University in England, told the AP. 'We do not see any benefit.' Kaiser Health News reported in August that vitamin D has become a big business for researchers at the expense of US taxpayers. In 2016, doctors ordered more than 10 million vitamin D deficiency tests for Medicare patients - a 547 percent increase from the amount of tests ordered in 2007 and costing taxpayers $365million. Dr Michael Holick, an endocrinologist from Boston University, is the man most responsible for the boost in supplement sales and testing. He has written several books and conducted numerous studies on the benefits of vitamin D. However, Kaiser Health News found that Dr Holick has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical companies that make vitamin D supplements and healthcare companies that make vitamin D tests. Dr Clifford Rosen, a senior scientist at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute who was not involved in the research, wrote in an accompanying editorial to the new study that the results are evidence that healthy adults do not need to undergo routine blood tests for vitamin D levels. Health experts do stress that, despite the lack of evidence that vitamin D can prevent heart disease, it is important for absorbing calcium and building strong bones and muscles. Men and women really do think differently, according to the world's largest study of sex differences in the brain. Scientists found men are typically less good with feelings and more likely to want to know how things work. While women are more interested in people and emotions. The study also compared autism with male personality traits and uncovered striking similarities. On the back of their findings, the researchers said autism is an extreme version of the 'male brain' which makes it harder to read others' emotions. The world's largest study comparing autism with male personality traits has found striking similarities (stock) Compared to women, men tend to be more uneasy in social situations, less socially perceptive and may fail to understand why they have caused offence. Researchers at the University of Cambridge, who analysed personality tests for more than half a million men and women, found both men and autistic people were more 'systematic' than 'empathetic'. The opposite was seen in women, of whom 40 per cent scored highly for empathy, compared to just 24 per cent of men and 13 per cent of autistic men. They conclude that being diagnosed with autism may mean having an extreme 'male brain', which can make it easier to obsess over a railway timetable than to work out how someone feels. The male brain is seen most in men who work in science, technology, engineering and maths-based jobs, and could explain why men are two to three times as likely as women to be diagnosed with autism. Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge, proposed the extreme male brain theory for autism two decades ago, suggesting that men were better at 'systemising' by finding patterns and rules, while women were better at empathising. THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF AUTISM According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people with autism have trouble with social, emotional and communication skills that usually develop before the age of three and last throughout a persons life. Specific signs of autism include: Reactions to smell, taste, look, feel or sound are unusual Difficulty adapting to changes in routine Unable to repeat or echo what is said to them Difficulty expressing desires using words or motions Unable to discuss their own feelings or other peoples Difficulty with acts of affection like hugging Prefer to be alone and avoid eye contact Difficulty relating to other people Unable to point at objects or look at objects when others point to them Advertisement As senior author of the new study, he said: 'These results only apply to groups of men and women, on average, not individuals. We cannot use it to say an individual will behave in a certain way. 'But there are evolutionary reasons why it may make sense for more men to have a systemising brain, for survival reasons, to learn different methods of hunting for example. 'Women on average may have developed better empathy, over millions of years, because it was important for child-rearing. 'These results provide strong support for the theory that autism arises as an extreme version of the male brain.' The study is based on 671,606 people who answered questions on a website for a channel 4 programme called Are You Autistic? Participants, who included 14,354 people diagnosed with autism, answered questions designed to test their empathy, such as whether people found they were insensitive and if they could understand when people were upset or offended. They also rated their agreements with statements which showed a systematic approach to life, such as 'I enjoy looking through catalogues of products to see the details of each product and how it compares to others' and 'When travelling by train, I often wonder exactly how the rail networks are coordinated'. The results show 44 per cent of men are systematic or extreme systematic types, compared to just 27 per cent of women. This matters because more than half of people with autism have this personality trait, based on a follow-up study of more than 14,000 people. The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows suggestions that autism is linked to over-exposure to the male hormone testosterone in the womb. But the authors have denied claims of 'neurosexism' based on the differences they identify in male and female brains. They also make it clear that autistic people do have empathy and care about others, concluding: 'Difficulties with cognitive empathy tend to lead autistic people to avoid or be confused by social situations, rather than to act with cruelty.' A concentrated prescription fish oil may be the only omega-3 supplement to reduce the risk of heart problems, a new study has found. Around 22 percent of Americans aged 60 or older take a daily omega-3 pill despite few studies to support the many health claims made for it. And a new study, presented at the American Heart Association conference confirmed that fish oil taken by healthy adults has no clear ability to lower heart disease or cancer risks. In fact, the benefits were only seen in those who were on medication to lower their cholesterol and prevent a heart attack or stroke. A new study has found that Vascepa, a prescription fish oil for those with high triglycerides, reduced the risk of heart disease by 25 percent Fish oils, also called omega-3 fatty acids, are found in salmon, tuna and certain other fish. There are different types, including EPA and DHA. A study conducted by Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, looked at the effects of the prescription Vascepa, which is concentrated EPA, on more than 8,000 patients with high triglycerides. Triglycerides are a type of fat found in the blood and high levels of them are often signs of other conditions that increase the risk of heart disease, such as obesity and metabolic syndrome. All the study participants were already taking a statin, which combats high cholesterol. Half the patients were given a four-gram dose of Vascepa every day and the other half were given mineral oil capsules. At the end of the five-year study period, 17 percent of patients on Vascepa had suffered a heart problem - heart attack, stroke, heart-related death or clogged arteries - compared to 22 percent of the controlled group. Researchers determined that, overall, the prescription reduced the risk of heart disease by 25 percent. 'The...trial sets a new standard of care for patients who have elevated triglycerides and are at increased cardiovascular risk despite statin therapy,' lead researcher Dr Deepak Bhatt, executive director of interventional cardiovascular programs at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said in a news release. 'This may be the biggest development in cardiovascular prevention since statins.' Side effects may be a concern, however. More people on Vascepa were hospitalized for an irregular heartbeat - three percent versus two percent of the comparison group. Doctors say this is puzzling because past research has suggested fish oil lowers the risk of arrhythmia. The other study, also led by Brigham and Women's Hospital, tested a lower one-gram daily dose of a different type of fish oil, an EPA/DHA combo sold as Lovaza or Omacor and in generic form. Nearly 26,000 adult participants were involved, none of whom had a history of either heart disease or cancer. One group took doses of fish oil and the other group took a placebo pill. After five years, the rates of heart problems among fish oil users were similar to the placebo group. However, fish oil seemed to lower the risk of heart attacks by 28 percent. There were 145 heart attacks in the supplement group compared to 200 in the placebo group. Study leader Dr JoAnn Manson, a professor in the department of epidemiology at Brigham and Women's, called this 'a substantial benefit'. However, several independent experts disagreed because of the way the study was set up to track this and certain other results. 'These findings are speculative and would need to be confirmed in a separate trial,' Dr Steven Nissen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, told the Associated Press. Health officials poured bleach on vats of food made for homeless people because it was being distributed by volunteers who didn't have a permit to do so. The food, which included sandwiches, home-made chili and soup, was due to be handed out in parks across Kansas City, Missouri, by a volunteer group Free Hot Soup KC. However, on Sunday November 5, health officials raided the parks as they were setting up, pouring away soup and spraying the rest of the food with toxic chemicals that would make it inedible. Defending the move, the Health Department said they were protecting the health of homeless people because 'E. coli or salmonella or listeria can grow in food.' Free Hot Soup KC hit back, saying permits are not required because they are not an organization and they are merely sharing soup with fellow citizens - and yesterday, a week after the sting, they returned to the parks, this time with no opposition. The food, which included sandwiches, home-made chili and soup, was due to be handed out in parks across Kansas City, Missouri, by a volunteer group Free Hot Soup KC 'Outdoor food sharing is one of the oldest forms of human communication,' Kirsten Anderson of the Southern Legal Council told KCTV5. 'The reason it's protected is that it communicates a message.' Another attorney working with the group, Amy Bell, told KSHB: '[F]or many people here, it's a freedom of religion issue ... that their religion dictates that they come and share their food and help the needy.' The group, founded in November 2015, operates using a buddy system to prepare, store, transport and distribute food once a week, and manage crowd control and cleanliness. According to their Facebook page, they appoint a lead cook who prepares at least three gallons of soup, which is then stored in a cooler to be transported to a local park. One woman who has been homeless for two years, Jackie Richardson, told KSHB that she struggled last week because she arrived at the park shortly after the raid They serve from 2pm until the food is gone, with around three people running the service. If there is any food leftover, it's sent to a local church which acts as a sanctuary for homeless people. Officials insist they feared that the freshly-made produce would pose a mortal risk to homeless people. There is no evidence of any homeless people being sickened by food from Free Hot Soup KC in the three years it's been running. But one woman who has been homeless for two years, Jackie Richardson, told KSHB that she struggled last week because she arrived at the park shortly after the raid. 'All week was a hard week for me, because I didn't have any of the food I usually get from over here at the park,' she said, adding that the volunteers are 'angels'. A few weeks ago, 29-year-old Jered Chinnock made world headlines when he took his first steps in five years after being paralysed from the waist down in a snowmobile accident. It was a moment that will go down in medical history: the young American, who might once have been expected to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, walked more than 100 metres with the aid of a wheeled walking frame. Jered had undergone a pioneering treatment called epidural stimulation, where electrodes are surgically attached to the lower part of the spinal cord to reconnect nerve cells to his brain. Legend: Superman actor Christopher Reeve (centre) with wife Dana (L) and son Matthew (R) He also underwent intense rehabilitation exercise to reactivate his nerves and muscles. As a result, he can now, by thinking about moving, actually do so when he is wearing the implant. Thousands of miles away, in Sweden, one man was taking particular interest in the news. Matthew Reeve is the eldest son of the actor Christopher Reeve, who, at the age of 42, was left paralysed from the neck down after a horse-riding accident in 1995. Matthew says his father, who died in 2004, would have been ecstatic about the latest breakthrough. Jered Chinnock (pictured) made world headlines when he took his first steps in five years after being paralysed from the waist down in a snowmobile accident The actor pictured before his tragic accident in the 1978 game-changing Superman When he was injured, he was told: This is your wheelchair. Get used to it. You will not recover any mobility. Nobody who is injured today should be told that because its not true, says Matthew emphatically. Back then, a cure for spinal injury wasnt thought to be a possibility but my father had great hope and worked relentlessly to raise money for research. He had such belief and would say: We want to find a cure: lets get it done, says Matthew. The actors efforts led to what became the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, dedicated to funding research into curing spinal cord injury and improving the quality of life of people living with paralysis. Christopher on a tilt table accustoming his body to being upright, therapy in hopes of being able to walk again, at his summer home In fact, the centre where Jered received his treatment, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, is one of three where research into spinal cord injury and the seminal work on epidural stimulation has been part-funded by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. Matthew, along with his two siblings, works part-time for the Foundation. A couple of years ago we made an announcement about our first four guys who were able to stand up, says Matthew, now 38, a screenwriter and vice-chairman of the Foundation. Pictured before his accident with a Golden Retriever This year, other patients of ours have been able to take steps, which is a truly remarkable watershed moment. Its difficult for me not to get emotional when I see or hear about patients standing up out of their wheelchairs and taking steps. One of the earliest guys to receive epidural stimulation stood up to get married. Matthew, speaking exclusively to the Mail from Stockholm, where he lives with his partner and their two-year-old daughter, adds: I believe it is only a matter of years before innovative, technology-based therapies like epidural stimulation will become standard practice in the treatment and recovery from spinal cord injuries and that patients like my father will walk again. Matthew was 15 and living in London with his mother, Christophers former long-term partner Gae Exton, and his younger sister Alexandra when Dana, Christophers wife, rang to tell them about his fathers accident. We knew his life was in the balance and flew over immediately, Matthew recalls. His level of injury was one of the most severe, at C1 and C2, the highest two vertebrae in the neck. He was a quadriplegic, had to be ventilated and needed 24-hour care. He actually regained a little bit of movement through doing his exercise, beginning from five years after the accident. He was able to move his index finger, his arm a little and sense touch and there was one pool session where he moved his leg a bit. Matthew Reeve After the accident, he also endured many potentially life-threatening health problems. One drug sent him into anaphylactic shock. He flatlined three or four times, says Matthew. He also had attacks of autonomic dysreflexia, where some stimulus below the level of injury, such as bladder or bowel issues, or even tight clothing, causes the autonomic nervous system to become overactive and blood pressure shoots up. My father had a brief moment of depression at first, taking it hard because he was such an active guy, recalls Matthew. Yet he chose to embrace what had happened, to put a face to a whole field of research and a community that didnt really have a public voice, bringing awareness to the daily struggles they endure. If he was feeling down, he got through it as quickly as possible. Christopher during Christopher Reeve at the Westin Rio Mar Beach Resort He wanted to continue to be there as a husband and father. My youngest brother Will was three at the time of the accident and Dad taught him to ride a bike just by giving him instructions. His father, says Matthew, kept himself very well informed about the research we would hear about it over dinner or in the sitting room. It would have surprised him that technology is playing such a pivotal role in spinal cord injury research back then it was presumed that any solution would be biochemical. My father talked a lot about stem cells. The hope was that stem cells might one day help repair a damaged spinal cord. Christopher sat beside his wife Dana who are co-founders of the the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation The Foundation has invested nearly 110 million ($142 million) in research over the years, and epidural stimulation is the chief focus. Matthew explains: For now we will continue to fund electrical stimulation, as the results are truly astonishing and leading to a lot of thinking about how the spinal cord works. Last month another group of researchers, based in Switzerland, published a paper in the journal Nature revealing that the same technology had allowed patients to walk about half a mile when the implant was turned on. They also found something unexpected: the treatment was helping damaged nerves in the spine to regrow. Were learning that the spinal cord is not just a simple telephone wire that carries signals from the brain to the body but is smart and capable of learning or relearning, says Matthew. With the benefit of hindsight, the family now believe that Christopher, too, benefited from this. He insisted from the outset that physical activity was essential for those with spinal cord injuries. He wanted to have his body ready for when a cure came along, says Matthew. He had a fixed bike and three times a week he would get on that. He had a physical therapist and a nurse would apply electrodes to his leg muscles so he could cycle. This functional electrical stimulation caused his leg muscles to contract in a pedalling motion. He also used a pool. It needed an army of helpers, with his ventilator attached to a long extension tube, says Matthew. He actually regained a little bit of movement through doing his exercise, beginning from five years after the accident. He was able to move his index finger, his arm a little and sense touch and there was one pool session where he moved his leg a bit. An MRI scan years later suggested at least part of the explanation. It showed Christopher had an incomplete injury, meaning the brain may still be able to send signals below the point of injury, rather than a complete injury, where the cord is fully compressed or severed, as was previously thought. There was only a small channel of nerves but the spinal cord wasnt severed, says Matthew. This raised the hope, tragically not realised in Christophers case, that there could be some improvement. Christopher and Mariel Hemingway during filming of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace The Foundation also funds non-tech-related research, for instance its trial into riluzole, a drug thought to repair damage in the aftermath of acute spinal cord injury and delay the need to use a ventilator. In 2004, just ten days after Christophers death, his vision for a chain of rehabilitation centres using the latest scientific developments came to fruition with the establishment of the Neuro Recovery Network (NRN). The organisation is also now linked to a rehab centre at Crawley, near Gatwick Airport. When someone sustains a spinal cord injury, its not just the disability thats the problem, says Matthew. Theres a whole host of secondary complications: everything from loss of bladder and bowel control and body temperature regulation to blood pressure issues, pressure sores and sexual dysfunction. Data collected at the 15 NRN centres shows that staying active can improve respiratory and cardiovascular function. Mariel andChristopher in a scene from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace The guys in our research studies who have done this in combination with epidural stimulation have regained control of these secondary complications and it has vastly changed the quality of their lives. Now we want to run studies using activity-based therapy and electrical stimulation on more diverse groups of patients. Ultimately, the goal is to have a standardised programme, he says. Every injury is different, every patient has a different medical and physical history, so there wont be a one-size-fits-all cure. What will be defined as a cure will be a bespoke solution, and stem cells for some individuals may be part of it. Christopher with Gae Exton and their children Alexandra, then one, and Matthew, then five For some people, the activity-based therapy that precedes electrical stimulation might on its own lead to a recovery of mobility and enough function to be able to stand up and work. Fourteen years after his fathers death from sepsis, following an allergic reaction to an antibiotic, he remains a towering figure in Matthews life. Its an honour to continue the work my father began, he says. He was allergic to horses but, playing Count Vronsky in Anna Karenina in 1985, he felt a professional responsibility to learn to ride. He never regretted it. He remained a magnetic, larger-than-life figure. He was charming and funny and socially active. He also never took a day off fighting for more research dollars. People said he really was Superman but he emphasised that the ability to endure, the power to love, everyone has that. For further information, go to christopherreeve.org First, you are strapped from the chest upwards on to the table, with your feet hoisted into stirrups. The table is swung down backwards, so you are tilted, head-down, at an angle of 45 degrees. Then a machine, known by some surgeons as the 800lb gorilla, can get to work. It sounds so medieval, but this is the most modern of surgical techniques robotic surgery. The extraordinary posture, known as the steep Trendelenburg, is necessary to position the patient precisely so the robot arms can reach inside them. But this precarious positioning, as it has been described in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, demands significant care to protect patients. Left in this position, often for up to four hours, they can develop complications including injuries to their cornea and nerve damage in their hands and feet, as well as dangerous build-ups of fluid in the brain and lungs and blood clots that can cause strokes, warned a study published last year by Imperial College London and the Royal Marsden Hospital. Not perfect: Robotic surgery sounds like the ultimate in flawless, high-tech, 21st-century care, but it can cornea and nerve damage in their hands and feet, plus blood clots that cause strokes To all this complexity, add the convolutions required for a surgeon to command his team through a highly challenging operation, with his head immersed in a console. The rest of the medical staff is scattered, usually unable to see each others faces... for long stretches, warned researchers at Cornell University in the U.S. at a conference earlier this month. This hampers effective teamwork, say the investigators, who spent two years watching robotic surgeries. They definitely have to do more to overcome the challenges brought by the robot. Robotic surgery sounds like the ultimate in flawless, high-tech, 21st-century care a whirring world of foolproof shiny machines performing intricate medical procedures with perfect precision. But, in reality, it can be convoluted and time-consuming. And, make no mistake, controlling these machines requires enormous skill and training. FLAILING ROBOT CAUSED PROBLEMS The machines might be called robots, but they are entirely under the control of a potentially fallible human surgeon. And things can go horribly wrong. This was tragically seen in the shocking case heard last week at an inquest into robotic heart surgery at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle in February 2015. The revelations about the death of father of three Stephen Pettitt, 69, following a disastrous operation performed by surgeon Karunakaran Sukumaran Nair, must surely call into question the use of surgical robots in the NHS. The 1.7 million, U.S.-built machines, called Da Vinci robots, are already beset by controversy over whether they offer any real advantage over traditional human surgeons. Shocking: The revelations about the death of father of three Stephen Pettitt, 69, following a disastrous operation performed by surgeon Karunakaran Sukumaran Nair, must surely call into question the use of surgical robots in the NHS Now, evidence presented to the coroner has exposed the perilous way in which medics may use these vastly complex gadgets without exhaustive technical training and supervision. Stephen, a retired music teacher, died of multiple organ failure after the failed procedure to repair a damaged heart valve. Stephen was slim and otherwise in sufficiently robust health to be considered a good candidate for the untested robotic technique, the first heart valve surgery in the UK to involve the Da Vinci robot. But the procedure descended into a bloody morass of mistakes. Conditions in the operating theatre were tense and chaotic. Mr Nairs assisting surgeon, Thasee Pillay, told the coroner that, at one point, a nurses arms were knocked by the flailing robot. The robot surgeon was ultimately abandoned after its viewing camera was blinded by blood from Stephens failing heart. Theatre staff tried to save him by performing conventional open-heart surgery. But it was too late, and he died a few days later. Robotic surgery has been used increasingly in prostate cancer surgery since the early 2000s, but Stephen was not told the technique had never been tried on mitral heart valves before in the UK, which placed him at an increased risk of death. Nor did the surgeon inform him that he was not properly trained. For, as Mr Nair admitted at the inquest, when he undertook the operation, hed not had one-to-one training on the use of the Da Vinci robot. He had only observed others and practised on it alone. SURGEONS NEED PROPER TRAINING Hed also missed a training session in Paris and another at his hospital because he was busy operating. He was said to have told a colleague that he could have done with some more dry-run training. At the inquest, assisting surgeon Mr Pillay complained that communication with Mr Nair was disturbed by the sound from the robot and he had to shout when he realised that sutures were not being placed in an organised fashion into the patients heart. Mr Nair agreed with coroner Karen Dilks that it was more likely than not that Stephen would have survived had conventional open-heart surgery been used. He no longer carries out robotic surgery. The question is whether enough is being done to protect other patients. Professor Naeem Soomro, director of robotic surgery at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Freeman Hospital, said: With Da Vinci surgery, the surgeon must undertake a series of dry lab and simulation courses before they can start operating, only under the supervision of a mentor. On its website, the trust hails itself as offering the most comprehensive robotic surgery programme in the UK, conducting robotic surgery in six specialities. Professor Soomro said: There has been a paradigm shift in our attitude; it has gone from Why should it be done by robot? to Why shouldnt it? Did you know? Shockingly, there are no legal requirements as to how surgeons should be trained to operate the machines or who should trial new operations and how But such enthusiasm carries the risk of running far ahead of surgeons competence and of evidence to prove that robot surgery is either useful or safe in complex operations. Shockingly, there are no legal requirements as to how surgeons should be trained to operate the machines or who should trial new operations and how. In 2014, the European Commissions RoboLaw project concluded surgeons must meet professional requirements for training in robotic surgery. But it was never stipulated how much training surgeons must receive. Some studies have suggested that a surgeon must be involved in 100 robo-ops before they can be deemed proficient. But currently, training is being introduced across differing specialities piecemeal. Greg Shaw, a consultant urological surgeon at University College London Hospitals NHS Trust, and director of the trusts robotic urology training fellowship programme, says that he cant understand how Mr Nairs case came about. I do a lot of robotic surgery the robot is a specialised tool requiring training and I cant imagine anyone working alone on the robot without them proving they know what they are doing, he says. Mr Shaw adds that his specialism, urology, is the most advanced in terms of training and education in robotic surgery. There is a defined process of robotic training in urology, with formal training programmes in place, a process where, until surgeons are deemed competent, they are allowed only to work with the robot under supervision. Even when surgeons are allowed to do the whole robotic operation, they are supervised by mentors in the early stages of their independent practice. But not all specialisms are so advanced, he suggests. The relevant authorities for other specialisms are in the process of drawing up training programmes. And herein lies a peril for developing new robotic procedures in the NHS, especially first-ever ops such as Stephens heart surgery. They involve heading into the unknown. The expected approach is to ensure anything new is performed by teams of experts working in concert, with a series of small adaptations, rather than one major change, and on patients who understand what is being proposed, says Mr Shaw. Instead, numerous surgeons eager to operate Da Vinci robots are flying by the seat of their pants. In January, analysts at GlobalData Healthcare warned that increasing numbers of surgeons are teaching themselves, often just by watching others do it. Another concern is that the machine can go awry. A 2016 study in the journal PLOS One said that faults during robotic surgery include burnt and broken pieces of instruments falling into patients, electrical short circuits burning flesh and the robots computer and camera breaking down. In more than a thousand cases, the whole system had to be switched off and restarted, or surgeons had to revert to conventional surgery or abandon the operation entirely. MARCH OF THE 1.7 MILLION DA VINCI ROBOTS The words robotic surgery might conjure up an image of a sleek machine making medical judgments but the reality is slightly more cumbersome. The 1.7 million Da Vinci, the most commonly used robot, is more than 4ft wide and 6ft tall. And, far from making decisions, the robot is merely moving in accordance with the surgeons controls. It consists of a tower and separate console. The tower is positioned over the patient and has four arms three hold specially adapted instruments such as scalpels, while the fourth contains the crucial 3D camera that acts as the surgeons eyes, relaying 3D images of what is going on inside the patients body. The surgeon sits at the console, which can be several feet from the patient. In front of the surgeon is a monitor with the images transmitted from the camera. The surgeon can twist and turn the robotic hands using either two joysticks or foot pedals. The idea is that the robot hands can move in ways a human surgeon never could. In this country, robots have been most commonly used in urology for example, for prostate and bladder removal. However, they are also used for kidney removal, colorectal cancer, heart valve repair and hysterectomy. Advertisement Then there is the fundamental question as to whether expensive and complex robots are any better than human hands. Consider the operation Stephen Pettitt was offered mitral heart valve repair. In April, a study in The Journal of Thoracic Cardiovascular Surgery, which compared the outcomes of 142 patients who had robotic surgery with outcomes from conventional surgery, found that more patients in the robotic group had serious complications. A similar picture emerged across all specialisms in a report in PLOS One in January: Despite its higher costs, robot surgery does not result in statistically better outcomes...conventional surgery has significantly more favourable operation lengths and complication rates. Last week, coroner Karen Dilks warned that there remains a risk of further deaths from robotic operations and said she would contact the Royal College of Surgeons and the Department of Health to ask them to consider whether national guidelines on training and practice should be brought in. Meanwhile, the Royal College of Surgeons told Good Health: It would be wholly unacceptable for any surgeon to perform an operation they have not fully trained for. All NHS trusts have guidelines for performing innovative surgical techniques, as well as using new technologies, which trained surgeons are expected to follow as they expand their area of practice. Dr Andy Welch, medical director of Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust, says that following Stephens death, the robotic heart programme was stopped and significant changes have been made. But Mr Shaw has this advice for anyone offered a robo-op: do your own research into the competence of the surgical staff before agreeing to it. If people believe that the robot does the operation, then they are mistaken, he says. These machines are not autonomous robots. The machines only perform the action that the surgeon instructs them to. Skin Deep is published by Penguin, price 7.99. To order a copy for the special price of 6.39 until 16 December, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640; free p&p on orders over 15. THE STORY We first meet Cordelia Russell, the narrator of this mesmerising novel, as she stumbles out of her flat in the South of France leaving behind the blood-soaked body of a stranger. A few hours later at a glitzy film industry party, she is snorting cocaine and drinking cocktails with a man shes picked up in a hotel bar. Its a breathless opening, but deceptive. Cordelia, once a captivating beauty whose looks are fading in middle-age, turns out to have had an impoverished childhood in a remote part of Ireland. How she goes from Delia OFlaherty, mending her fathers fishing nets as a young girl, to life on the Cote dAzur and an apartment overlooking the Mediterranean is the compelling story she relates. It is not a rags-to-riches fairy tale, but a disturbing confessional of tragedy, cruelty, deception and, ultimately, murder. Delia - emotionally detached, self-centred and completely beguiling - uses her looks and cold heart from the start to manipulate those around her, unconcerned by the casualties she leaves in her wake. That includes family, friends, lovers and even her own child. But is she about to get her comeuppance? THE TASTER I loved, loved, loved Skin Deepbrilliantly done Marian Keyes What is this love that everybody is so obsessed by? There have been people I enjoyed spending time with, people who made me laugh sometimes, people who have taken care of me, fed and clothed me, but am I expected to reward them with declarations of love at every turn? I dont know what it is. The only person I ever had strong feelings for was my father. I loved him. But if Daddy felt the same way about me, why did he shoot himself? I dont think love is useful. THE QUESTIONS 1. Nature or nurture? What makes Delia the way she is? 2. Does she have any redeeming qualities? 3. How significant is her relationship with her father in forming her character? 4. Should Delia have had an abortion? How different would her life have been? 5. Why are people so attracted to her? Is it more than just her beauty? 6. Apart from physically, how does she change after the fire? 7. Why does she allow herself to be abused when she moves to France? 8. What does Delia learn about herself over the course of her life? 9. The story is narrated by Delia. Can we trust her version of events? 10. What do you think of the novels ending? THE AUTHOR Liz Nugent was born to a family of six children in Dublin in 1967. A childhood accident put paid to her plans to be an Olympic gymnast, and consequently she types with one hand. Liz Nugent, author of Skin Deep Liz admits she was not the most diligent student and took off to London at the age of 17, only to arrive back in Dublin on a stretcher after another accident clipped her wings. She found her escape from long hospital stays between the pages of books and, she says, if such a thing as Books Anonymous existed to treat her addiction, she still wouldnt go, because its not a habit she intends to break. Liz had several careers before becoming a writer. She was, among other things, a hospital administrator, a buyer for a construction company, a welfare office civil servant, a theatrical stage manager for Riverdance and a story associate on a popular Irish TV soap opera, Fair City. As a novelist, Liz was heavily influenced by two books in particular: Engleby by Sebastian Faulks, and The Book of Evidence by John Banville. Both books feature very flawed and dangerous protagonists, something which attracts her in fiction. Liz published her first novel, Unravelling Oliver, in 2014. It won Crime Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and film rights have been optioned by Leonardo di Caprios production company. She turned her attention to flawed women for her second novel, Lying in Wait, which came out in 2016. It also picked up an Irish Book Award and was chosen by the Richard and Judy Book Club for their Spring 2017 list. Writing makes me feel better about the world. I can talk to readers through my books and I value the connections I have made as a result, she says. Liz lives quietly in Dublin with her flawless husband Richard, a musician and sound engineer. No children, no pets, no plants. America's mid-term elections have been seen as a score draw. There is a new majority for Democrats in the House of Representatives and a strengthening of the Republican hold on the Senate. Much of the focus has been on the capacity of the House leadership to stir up trouble for President Trump by convening hearings on his tax affairs and other sins. But amid the bitterly divided politics, one of the few areas where there is agreement is the need to tackle the omnipotence of the FAANGs: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google. Alex Brummer say: 'In their own way the FAANGs, although much loved by younger technophiles, have much the same market power as Standard Oil when it controlled about 90 per cent of global energy production' Trump is no 20th Century trustbuster Teddy Roosevelt. No one is expecting a full throated anti-trust pursuit as when the White House took on the power of John D Rockefeller and Standard Oil of New Jersey. Yet in their own way the FAANGs, although much loved by younger technophiles, have much the same market power as Standard Oil when it controlled about 90 per cent of global energy production. Amazon, for instance, has to be held largely responsible for the devastation on the High Street. Taming the Silicon Valley giants is a tricky business as we have learnt in Europe. Danish trust-buster Margrethe Vestager has made a fist of it with her 3.8 billion fine on Google and the contested 11.5 billion fine imposed on Apple for allegedly using Ireland as a tax shelter. The EU also has drawn a line in the sand with the irritating, but necessary, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) designed to protect privacy. But Europe is struggling with the idea of a digital sales tax. Initial opposition from Ireland and Luxembourg, where prosperity partly rests on tax avoidance, has won support in recent days from Germany. Brummer says so far only the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, is 'showing the backbone to take on the FAANGs, ignoring the fact they have become some of the biggest inward investors in the UK' Since such a tax would require assent from all 28 EU members, this European wide levy doesn't look as if it will be happening any time soon. So far only the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, is showing the backbone to take on the FAANGs, ignoring the fact they have become some of the biggest inward investors in the UK. Hammond supports a temporary tax on turnover, to be introduced in the Spring, pending a more sophisticated user charge based around clicks. Donald Trump may be a Twitter addict but in the mid-terms he was sharply critical of the power of Google, Amazon and Facebook. The new group of Democrats, taking control of the House and its powerful committees, also are committed to taking on big tech. The first line of fire is likely to be political rather than economic. The use of private data during the 2016 presidential election campaign has made an American equivalent of the GDPR attractive. It is increasingly likely that the US anti-trust authorities will get in on the act. But the bigger bazooka is held by the US Department of Justice (DoJ). Down the decades it has been responsible for the biggest anti-trust cases forcing the break-up of AT&T creating a much more competitive dynamic in American telecoms and media. The political tides are turning against big-tech both in Europe and the US. The direction of travel, from both a populist White House and frustrated Democrats, is clear. The long honeymoon for the FAANGs is over. Cocktail chain Dirty Martini is for sale LAST ORDERS Cocktail chain Dirty Martini, which has bars in London, Manchester, Leeds and Cardiff, is for sale. Its owner, David Coffer, who holds the chain through his company CG Restaurants & Bars, could rake in a multi-million windfall. FACTORY FEARS Confidence in the UK's manufacturing sector, which accounts for 8 per cent of jobs, has slumped to its lowest level since June 2017, says accountancy firm BDO. Firms are worried about a global trade downturn, and fear Brexit may weaken demand. QUIDS IN Telephone-answering service Moneypenny has nabbed a 'significant' investment from private equity firm ECI, which formerly owned Evans Cycles. The investment values Moneypenny at more than 100 million. CURRENCY FLOAT A business which allows customers to swap currencies, rather than having to go through an exchange bureau, is looking to join London's junior stock market AIM. WeSwap hopes to raise 15 million - 20 million, valuing it at around 45 million. GOLD RUSH Miner Barrick Gold has signalled it could seek a listing on the London Stock Exchange after merging with Randgold Resources. Barrick is currently listed in Toronto and New York, and will be worth 14 billion when the Randgold deal completes. Sir Philip Green sold BHS for just 1 to Dominic Chappell's RAL Group A group of MPs have ramped up pressure on regulators to punish the directors of companies which collapse after accounting irregularities. Frank Field, chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, is set to meet with the Insolvency Service which has announced it will not reopen its investigation into the downfall of BHS in 2016. He wants its boss Sarah Albon to reveal more details of its probe, so he can assess why neither the Insolvency Service nor the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) were able to hold individual BHS directors to account for the catastrophe which left a 571 million pensions black hole. Field said: 'It is difficult for the outside observer to understand why the Insolvency Service sees no reason for further action on what happened at BHS. 'The current system apparently cannot prevent, capture or punish the conduct that ran BHS into the ground and left its pensioners well short of their entitlement.' It comes as Parliament's business select committee launched its own inquiry today into the future of audits, criticising the dominance of so-called Big Four accountants PwC, Deloitte, KPMG and Grant Thornton. Rachel Reeves, chair of the committee, said: 'The audit market is broken. The Big Four's overwhelming market domination has failed to deliver audits which are fit-for-purpose. The lack of meaningful competition has bred conflicts of interest at every turn.' Frank Field, chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, is set to meet with the Insolvency Service which has announced it will not reopen its investigation into the downfall of BHS The Government has already launched an independent review of the FRC, led by Sir John Kingman and due at the end of the year. The role of the auditors was a major element in the BHS collapse. Just five days after major accountancy firm PwC rubber-stamped the 2014 accounts of BHS's then-parent company Taveta, owned by Sir Philip Green (pictured), the business tycoon sold the company for just 1 to Dominic Chappell's RAL Group. Though PwC was fined a record 6.5 million for its shoddy work over the audit, no Taveta directors who actually prepared the accounts were held responsible. The Insolvency Service originally brought charges against Chappell and two of his colleagues, but found insufficient evidence to disqualify Green or any other Taveta directors. It considered reopening its investigation earlier this year, after the FRC handed over evidence from its own probe. However, Albon decided there were no grounds for review. Another investigation of the audit sector is being carried out by the Competition and Markets Authority. Fund manager Neil Woodford has dumped around 1.4billion worth of shares in the past six months to raise money as unhappy investors pull money from his underperforming funds. Woodford has reduced his holdings in some companies including brickmaker Forterra and travel website Hostelworld. A combination of investor redemptions and underperformance stemming from bad bets on some blue-chip firms, such as Provident Financial and the AA, has seen the assets under management across his three funds shrink from 17 billion to 11 billion. Fund manager Neil Woodford has dumped an estimated 1.4bn worth of shares The value of Woodfords flagship Equity Income fund has halved from a peak of 10.7bn in the summer of 2017 to 5.1billion. How Woodford has stumbled Woodford earned a reputation as one of Britain's best stock pickers during his 26-year tenure at Invesco before launching Woodford Investment Management. Under his stewardship, the Invesco High Income fund was the best-performing fund in the equity income sector, turning a 10,000 investment into 230,000 over 25 years, according to Hargreaves Lansdown. Woodford also won plaudits for his contrarian approach during the dotcom boom in the early where investors flooded into internet start ups in the hope that those companies would one day become profitable. His approach was validated when the bubble burst in the early noughties. But some investors feel Woodford has lost his way, given the lackluster start made by Woodford Investment Management resulting in paper losses for tens of thousands of investors who bought into two of his funds at launch. Woodford's flagship Equity Income fund has underperformed against the benchmark FTSE All Share index and the average fund in the Investment Association's All Companies sector over four years His Income Focus fund is down 8 per cent since March 2017, while the Patient Capital investment trust is down by almost 15 per cent since April 2015. The Equity Income fund has fared better (up 15 per cent) but its performance is over a longer period (since June 2014) and still lags behind the FTSE All-Share Index (up 26 per cent). It also trails behind the 26 per cent return generated by the average fund with a similar mandate in the Investment Association's All Companies sector. Woodford admitted in last weeks Mail on Sunday the past two years have been his most difficult period. Although the fund manager insists he does not want to portray himself as a victim, it is obvious he is feeling unloved: targeted by a hostile press, abandoned by many investors (and some financial advisers) writes Jeff Prestridge. He adds Woodford also feels victimised by hedge fund managers who have shorted some of his funds' holdings betting on them falling in price. Click here to read the interview in full. British ministers have been blasted as 'racist' by the UNA-UK as it accuses UK media reportage and politicians to have 'undermined' the UN's work in several recent visits to the UK by UN Special Rapporteurs. The comments came just as the UN launched a two week inquiry into poverty and austerity in the UK- with its findings due later this month. Politicians have been critical of previous UN investigations and the UNA-UK, which is independent from the UN and a UK based charity, have now published a list of politicians it has claimed to have 'undermined' UN investigations and their values. This includes Prime Minister Theresa May, who has been slammed by the UNA-UK after she criticised lawyers for pursuing forces veterans. Theresa May is one of a number of members of parliament who the UNA-UK said 'undermined' previous investigations In an outline statement the UNA-UK said: 'Unfortunately several recent visits to the UK by UN Special Rapporteurs have been marred by misleading, hostile and occasionally racist reportage. 'At times this reporting appears to have been encouraged by MPs and on occasion government ministers.' Philip Alston, the UN's special rapporteur on poverty and human rights, is set to visit some of the UK's poorest towns, and visit a number of charities, MPs and community groups over the next few weeks. He will gather evidence and then write an interim report before he leaves the UK later in November. He said 'I think the UK is at a crossroads, partly because of Brexit, and partly because of the comments made by the prime minister and the chancellor in terms of austerity [being over],' 'My hope is that there is a real possibility for a dialogue about future policy direction.' Florida Governor Rick Scott has filed three lawsuits against county officials involved in the recount of ballots as a Palm Beach County administrator says they probably won't make the recount deadlines. Scott's campaign filed the suits over his virtual dead-heat race for the Senate against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. One lawsuit is aimed at Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher. Bucher said that she doesn't believe her department will be able to meet the state's Thursday deadline to complete the recount, throwing into question what would happen to votes there. She blamed the issue on aging equipment. Florida Governor Rick Scott has filed three lawsuits against county officials involved in the recount of ballots as a Palm Beach County official says they probably won't make the recount deadlines One lawsuit is aimed at Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher (pictured in blue). Bucher said that she doesn't believe her department will be able to meet the state's Thursday deadline to complete the recount Scott filed a separate lawsuit late on Saturday against Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes (left). Snipes is being accused by Scott of counting ballots that were submitted after the Saturday noon deadline Scott's lawsuit on Sunday targeted the election supervisors in Democratic-leaning Broward and Palm Beach counties. It asked a judge to issue an emergency injunction for the county sheriffs and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to seize all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots when they are not being used until the end the end of the recount and any related litigation is over. According to Florida law, if a county does not submit their results by the deadline, the results on file at the time take their place. Scott filed a separate lawsuit late on Saturday against Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes. Snipes is being accused by Scott of counting ballots that were submitted after the Saturday noon deadline, according to CNN. Scott's lawsuit is asking the judge to order that any ballots counted after noon on Saturday be disregarded, saying that to include them would break state law. 'The Broward and Palm Beach County Supervisors of Elections has already demonstrated a blatant disregard for Florida's elections laws, making it more important than ever that we continue to do everything possible to prevent fraud and ensure this recount is operated responsibly,' Chris Hartline, a spokesman for Scott's campaign, said in a statement. An automatic recount was triggered after Tuesday's election result showed Scott leading by just a tiny margin. In the Senate race, Scott's lead over Nelson (left) is 0.14 percentage points Democrat protesters confront pro-Republican protesters outside the Broward County Supervisor Elections office Protesters demonstrate outside the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office The lawsuits also request both supervisors preserve all ballots and records related to the 2018 election. An automatic recount was triggered after Tuesday's election result showed Scott leading by just a tiny margin. In the Senate race, Scott's lead over Nelson is 0.14 percentage points. State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. Once completed, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or below, a hand recount will be ordered. Nelson blasted Scott on Sunday over the lawsuits, saying the legal actions were designed 'to stop every legal vote from being counted'. 'He's doing this for the same reason he's been making false and panicked claims about voter fraud - he's worried that when all the votes are counted he'll lose this election,' Nelson said in a statement. 'We will not allow him to undermine the democratic process and will use every legal tool available to protect the rights of Florida voters.' After some early bumps, more than half of Florida's 67 counties began recounting votes Sunday in the razor-thin Senate and gubernatorial races, bringing back memories of the 2000 presidential fiasco. Republican protesters call for the resignation of Snipes during a protest outside her offices in Lauderhill on Sunday Supporters of President Donald Trump are seen above chanting outside the offices on Sunday The Republican Party attacked Snipes, accusing her of 'incompetence and gross mismanagement' following the delay, which was resolved within two hours. Pro-Republican demonstrators are seen above in Lauderhill on Sunday Broward Supervisor of Elections Joe D'Alesandro (right) shows voting materials to campaign representatives on Sunday in Lauderhill In Democratic-leaning Broward County, the scheduled start of the recount was delayed Sunday because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. The Republican Party attacked Snipes, accusing her of 'incompetence and gross mismanagement' following the delay, which was resolved within two hours. The county, the state's second-most populous, is emerging as the epicenter of controversy in the recount. Broward officials said they mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected, mostly because the signature on the return envelope did not match the one on file. '#BrowardElections office admits the vote count they submitted to state includes 22 illegal votes,' Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio wrote on Twitter Saturday. 'We know about these 22 because they got caught breaking law in reviewing 202 ballots. How can anyone trust more illegal votes aren't in their final count?' It is a problem that appears impossible to fix because the ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots. Snipes said it would be unfair to throw out all the ballots. The recount in most other major population centers, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, was ongoing without incident on Sunday. Pro-Republican protesters are seen above, one of whom is dressed as Hillary Clinton, Sunday in Lauderhill The reviews are an unprecedented step in Florida, a state that's notorious for election results decided by the thinnest of margins State officials said they weren't aware of any other time either a race for governor or US Senate in Florida required a recount, let alone both in the same election Smaller counties are expected to begin their reviews Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. All counties face a Thursday afternoon deadline to complete the recount. The reviews are an unprecedented step in Florida, a state that's notorious for election results decided by the thinnest of margins. State officials said they weren't aware of any other time either a race for governor or US Senate in Florida required a recount, let alone both in the same election. Unofficial results show that Republican former Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in the election for governor. As the recount unfolded, Republicans urged their Democratic opponents to give up and allow the state to move on. Scott said Sunday that Nelson wants fraudulent ballots and those cast by noncitizens to count, pointing to a Nelson lawyer objecting to Palm Beach County's rejection of one provisional ballot because it was cast by a noncitizen. 'He is trying to commit fraud to win this election,' Scott told Fox News. 'Bill Nelson's a sore loser. He's been in politics way too long.' Nelson's campaign issued a statement Sunday saying their lawyer wasn't authorized to object to the ballot's rejection as 'Non-citizens cannot vote in US elections.' Gillum and Nelson have argued each vote should be counted and the process allowed to take its course. Both the state elections division, which Scott runs, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have said they have found no evidence of voter fraud. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (left) withdrew his concession on Saturday. He trails former Rep Ron DeSantis (right) by 0.41 percentage points in the election for governor That didn't stop protests outside Snipes' office, where a crowd of mostly Republicans gathered Sunday, holding signs, listening to country music and occasionally chanting 'lock her up,' referring to Snipes. A massive Trump 2020 flag flew over the parking lot and many members of a Bikers For Trump group wore matching shirts and carried flags, mingling among a crowd that included a protester wearing a Hillary Clinton mask. Registered independent Russell Liddick, a 38-year-old retail worker from Pompano Beach carried a sign reading, 'I'm not here for Trump! I'm here for fair elections! Fire Snipes!' He said the office's problems 'don't make me feel very much like my vote counted.' Florida is also conducting a recount in a third statewide race. Democrat Nikki Fried had a 0.07 percentage point lead over Republican state Rep. Matt Caldwell in the race for agriculture commissioner, one of Florida's three Cabinet seats. From a distant glance, the recounts might dredge up memories of the 2000 presidential recount, when it took more than five weeks for Florida to declare George W. Bush the victor over Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes, thus giving Bush the presidency. But much has changed since then. In 2000, each county had its own voting system. Many used punch cards - voters poked out chads, leaving tiny holes in their ballots representing their candidates. Some voters, however, didn't fully punch out the presidential chad or gave it just a little push. Those hanging and dimpled chads had to be examined by the canvassing boards, a lengthy, tiresome and often subjective process that became fodder for late-night comedians. Now the state requires that all Florida counties use ballots where voters use a pen to mark their candidate's name, much like a student does when taking a multiple-choice test. From a distant glance, the recounts might dredge up memories of the 2000 presidential recount, when it took more than five weeks for Florida to declare George W. Bush the victor over Vice President Al Gore (above) by 537 votes, thus giving Bush the presidency It also now clearly mandates how the recount will proceed. Those ballots are now being run through scanning machines in each county for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties and the campaigns. Any ballot that cannot be read for any of the recounted races will be put aside. If a race's statewide margin falls below 0.25 percentage points after the machine count, the state will order a manual recount in each county. At that point, only the rejected ballots for that race will be examined by counting teams to determine if the voters' intentions were obvious. For example, some voters circle the candidate's name instead of filling in the ballot properly and some cross out their vote and then mark another candidate. If either side objects to a counting team's decision or the team can't make one, the ballot will be forwarded to the county's canvassing board, with the three members voting on the final decision. The members are usually the county supervisor of elections, a judge and the chair of the county commissioners. Nicholas Meriwether filed a federal lawsuit on November 5 against officials at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, roughly 85 miles south of Columbus, Ohio An evangelical Christian professor is suing officials at his small, public university in Ohio after receiving a written warning for violating its nondiscrimination policy by not addressing a transgender student using the gender terms preferred by that student. Nicholas Meriwether filed a federal lawsuit on November 5 against officials at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, roughly 85 miles south of Columbus. He contends they violated his rights by compelling him to speak in a way that contradicts his religious beliefs as a Christian. Meriwether argued he didn't discriminate and that he treated the student like 'other biologically male students.' He unsuccessfully challenged his reprimand in a grievance process. The university wouldn't comment on the lawsuit but said in a statement that it values freedom of expression and provides a nondiscriminatory environment. 'In January 2018, a male student demanded that Dr. Meriwether address him as a woman because he identified as such and threatened to have Dr. Meriwether fired if he declined,' the lawsuit, the text of which was obtained by NBC News, read. 'To accede to these demands would have required Dr. Meriwether to communicate views regarding gender identity that he does not hold, that he does not wish to communicate, and that would contradict (and force him to violate) his sincerely held Christian beliefs.' The lawsuit alleges that the university 'punished' Meriwether for 'expressing views that differ from its own orthodoxy and for declining to express its mandated ideological message.' 'Continuing in their role as the self-appointed grammar police, Defendants threaten to punish him again if he continues to express his views,' the lawsuit reads. 'Under their policies, all professors must refer to each student - both in and out of class - using whatever pronouns the student claims reflect his gender identity.' Meriwether argues in his lawsuit that 'the number of potential gender identities is infinite' and that there are 'over one hundred different options currently available.' Meriwether contends the university (seen in the above stock image) violated his rights by compelling him to speak in a way that contradicts his religious beliefs as a Christian The legal action was filed on Meriwether's behalf by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian conservative law firm based in Arizona specializing in cases involving 'religious freedom, sanctity of life, and marriage and family.' ADF has been condemned as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which accuses it of attempting to 'recriminalize homosexuality.' The university said in a statement that it values 'freedom of expression' and offers 'an educational and work environment that is free from discrimination, retaliation and harassment.' 'We expect that as this case progresses, and details come to light, it will become clear that we made decisions in an effort to both respect our faculty members deep-rooted religious beliefs and our students right to equal treatment in the classroom,' the university said in a statement. Parents are being warned about the hidden dangers lurking in children's playgrounds as summer looms around the corner. The surfaces of children's playgrounds have been found to reach skin-burning temperatures, with parents warned to take extra precautions. The warning comes just a week after a Queensland toddler suffered second-degree burns to her feet and a three-year-old boy suffered serious burns after using a public park slide. Parents are being warned about the hidden dangers lurking in popular public playgrounds as children suffer horrific injuries (stock image) The surfaces of children's playgrounds were found to reach dangerously high temperatures, with one Queensland toddler suffering second-degree burns to her feet (pictured) One of the seemingly more innocuous offenders - astro turf - reached temperatures of almost 90 degrees Celsius, a study by the University of Western Sydney found. The 'soft fall' rubber covering many children's playgrounds didn't fare much better, reaching 80 degrees Celsius in hot weather. Speaking with Daily Mail Australia, Sebastian Pfautsch, senior research fellow in Urban Ecosystem Science at Western Sydney University, suggested avoiding artificial surfaces like rubber softfall and astroturf as much as possible. Plastic toys left out in the sun were also found to reach up to 76 degrees Celsius, the study found. Last week, an 18-month-old toddler was burned on the soles of her feet after standing on a scorching hot metal plate while playing at a Queensland park. Simone Pickering was sitting just metres away from her daughter at Ipswich River Heart Parklands, south-west of Brisbane, when she said she heard harrowing screams before glancing over to see her baby 'paralysed' on top of the grate. A toddler was burned on the soles of her feet after standing on a scorching hot metal plate (pictured) as her mother was just metres away (bench circled) at Ipswich River Heart Parklands, south west of Brisbane The parents rushed their child to Lady Cilento Children's hospital where she was pumped with painkillers and underwent surgery (pictured during surgery) before being sent home days later The toddler was taken to Lady Cilento Children's hospital, where she was pumped with painkillers and underwent surgery. 'Watching her tiny little body laying limp on the hospital bed with cords and tubes running everywhere crippled me,' Ms Pickering wrote on Facebook. Given that the weather was a mild 25 degrees, Ms Pickering said she felt comfortable allowing her daughter to walk around shoe-less. Mason Byrne was playing at a park on the Hastings River in Wauchope on the NSW mid-north coast when he suffered serious burns to both his buttocks. Despite the fact the three-year-old was wearing swimmers at the time, the upper layers of his skin peeled away completely, while the layers underneath were left painfully raw. Mason spent 24 hours in hospital due to his injuries, which could result in permanent scarring. Dr Pfautsch echoed Ms Pickering's experience, saying many children just freeze on hot surfaces. 'The kids just stop on the hot surfaces and start crying,' he said. 'Depending on the actual surface temperature and contact thermal conductance of the material, it takes more or less time to pass a threshold after which skin begins to burn.' 'Bare skin should only be in contact for three seconds if polished metal has a surface temperature of 60 degrees Celcius ... Surface temperature of wood can be higher due to the different contact thermal properties.' He suggested designing playgrounds around shady areas and deciduous trees, using bark mulch, sand and best of all grass. Semi-natural surfaces, such as wood, woodchips, brick, rock and cement were hotter, with woodchips reaching 75 degrees in sunlight and wood hitting 65 degrees. Increasing time spent indoors and more sedentary learning could result from avoiding the playground hazards - 'a situation that can limit the social and emotional development of children,' the report said. Greenery and natural surfaces were offered as solutions for playground designs, with suggestions for artificial surfaces to be used sparingly. Ms Pickering said she was 'angry that councils are aware of the issue' but neglected to do anything about it due to a lack of funding (grate pictured) Ms Pickering is now taking aim at Ipswich Council, claiming they're to blame for what she said is irresponsible placement of a potential safety hazard. 'This time it was the negligence of our local council and the engineers that has left our 18 month old with partial thickness (second degree) BURNS to the bottom of both feet.' 'What you don't expect to have to tell your children is to watch out for scorching hot metal covers placed right in the path of little feet at a Splash and Play Water Park of all places.' Ms Pickering said she was 'angry that councils are aware of the issue' but neglected to do anything about it due to a lack of funding. She said it was unlikely her daughter, even after a full recovery, would ever know a 'normal' feeling in the bottom of her feet. In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, Ipswich Council said it had 'erected a safety barrier around the pit cover' after receiving a call about the incident. 'Council received a call about this incident on 1 November 2018. It was the first reported incident of this type at River Heart Parklands,' it read. 'Water parks will always need service pits and as this one is not located in the immediate vicinity of the water play area it may not have been identified as a potential hazard in safety audits. 'The pit cover has since been coated with a heavy paving paint that has reduced its temperature. As an additional measure inspections have been carried out in other water parks for potentially similar situations. 'Council urges parents of young children to be mindful of the risk of all exposed surfaces being hot during summer.' Cherry farmers are optimistic for the upcoming season, with a bumper crop expected this summer. However despite a potentially huge crop, consumers are unlikely to find the fruit being sold cheaper as farmers look to the ever growing export market. According to recent figures released by Cherry Growers Australia, 5,593 tonnes of cherries were exported at a value of $76.1million from an overall yield of 18,584 tonnes in 2016. Cherrybrook Cherry Farm owner Tony Rak told Daily Mail Australia export deals had the potential to give a producers a head start in selling their crop. Cherrybrook Cherry Farm owner and producer Tony Rak told Daily Mail Australia export deals had the potential to give a producer a head start 'You don't know how your crop is going to go until the money starts to come in,' he said. 'Most export is price fixed so it give you the chance to budget ahead of time and for the next season.' 'We won't know for sure (seasonal outcome), it depends on the produce quality.' Some industry experts say China could play a large part in keeping cherry prices high in Australia this summer as they import a large quantity of Australian cherries - which is good news for farmers. Mr Rak said Chinese investors had already opted to purchase 50 per cent of his current crop. 'It certainly gives you a head start,' he said. Some industry experts said China could play a large part in keeping cherry prices high in Australia due to large quantities of exports, which is a positive for both bigger and smaller farmers Even with export deals in place, Mr Rak said the crop could still be decimated by heavy rain and weather. He added that irrigation was also crucial to getting crop yields to their peak each year. 'You can be as confident as you want but mother nature has a way of letting you know who's boss,' he said. When larger producers export some of their crops overseas it actually helps out the smaller producers, Mr Rak said. 'The larger growers do a lot of export which leaves space for small producers in the local market,' he said. Third generation Thornbrook Orchard farmer Paula Charnock (right) said they hadn't received as much rain as they would have liked before picking season but were glad that prices are predicted to remain steady Mrs Charnook said the news of prices remaining steady for the summer cherry season was also a good sign for all growers, both big and small Despite forecasts of cherry prices staying high for the Christmas and New Year periods, Mr Rak said nothing was for sure until the cherries were out in the market. Cherry Growers Australia president Tom Eastlake told ABC News that expectations were for a bumper season. 'The forecast at the moment depends on how bullish you want to be we would have to be starting this year at a baseline of 20 per cent higher than 15,000 tonnes, so it will be about 18,000 tonnes,' he said. Despite these predictions, Mr Eastlake was also wary of the impact unforeseen weather conditions could have. 'Assuming we don't have any adverse weather events come through, I would be reasonably confident we hit that mark.' Some smaller cherry producers, such as Thornbrook Orchard, don't export their cherries and instead opt to sell to local farmers markets and encourage the public to come and pick their own. Third generation Thornbrook Orchard farmer Paula Charnock told Daily Mail Australia they hadn't received as much rain as they would have liked before picking season. 'We start harvesting in about two to three weeks, we have had little bits of rain but the soil is still very dry,' she said. Paula Charnock said sales of cherries at $7 for a 300g punnet, or around $21kg, was a good indicator of crop yields 'Our expectations are for it to be an OK crop.' She said the news of prices remaining steady for the summer cherry season was also a good sign for all growers, both big and small. She said sales of cherries at $7 for a 300g punnet, or around $21 a kilogram, was a good indicator of crop yields. Prior to the 2018 season Cherry Growers Australia revealed that 'export volume declined by 33 per cent year over year' with China being one of the countries listed. In 2017 this resulted in a loss of $14.6 million in comparison with the year prior. However China, Taiwan and Hong Kong still remain the largest export destination for Australian cherries, making up 61 per cent of all cherry exports. An adult film actress has hit back at an Australian town that is trying to stamp out porn, saying that women are simply jealous that their boyfriends watch it. Australian porn star Kiki Vidis, who has 11 years experience in the adult film industry both here and in the US, is visiting the town of Toowoomba, in south-east Queensland, just weeks after the community held its third annual anti-porn rally. 'I get 90 per cent fan mail and 10 per cent hate mail, and the hate mail usually comes from the wives or girlfriends of men,' Ms Vidis told The Chronicle. An adult film actress has hit back at an Australian town that is trying to ban porn saying that woman are simply jealous that their boyfriends watch it Kiki Vidis, who has 11 years experience in the adult film industry both here and in the US, is visiting the town of Toowoomba just weeks after the they held their third annual anti-porn rally Ms Vidis believes woman view porn negatively due to relationship insecurities and says she thinks 'it's jealousy from women and they need to learn about forgiveness'. Toowoomba held its third annual anti-porn rally on October 16 during which men from all over the city pledged not to watch pornography. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Letitia Shelton from the city's anti-porn campaign City Women, said that there is an 'avalanche' of information proving the dangers pornography poses to communities. In particular the group is focusing on the younger generation who Ms Shelton said are 'at greater risk'. 'We're working with school principals, talking to them about how we can bring better education into schools locally, and also how we can help parents,' she said. Ms Vidis, who will be visiting the town to headline an event at The Vault nightclub, countered her point saying that it is up to the households to protect their children. 'Porn isn't a crime... My parents put the restrictions on the computer in the family room when I was growing up. If you choose to put a computer in a child's room and no filters on, you are bringing it upon yourselves,' Ms Vidis said. Ms Vidis began her career as a nurse in 2007 before making the move into the adult film industry - scoring a television contract with Playboy. She has now stepped back from filming and focuses on live shows after she said the industry, which many thought was recession proof, collapsed during the Global Financial Crises. The City Women campaign began two years ago, when the first rally was held in Toowoomba, and Ms Shelton said that support for the campaign is now 'in the thousands'. Toowoomba (pictured, Toowoomba City Hall) will hold its third annual rally on October 16 which will see men from all over the city pledge not to watch pornography Toowoomba Mayor Paul Antonio (pictured) is the rally host and Ms Shelton said he was 'very passionate' on the issue 'There's so much research out there now that porn fuels domestic violence, child-on-child sexual assault, grooms paedophiles and even links to human trafficking,' she said. Toowoomba Regional Council Mayor Paul Antonio is the rally host and Ms Shelton said he was 'very passionate' on the issue, noting that it is not just women backing the campaign. The Toowoomba rally has prompted similar events up and down the country, with the Gold Coast, Kingaroy, Illawarra and even Melbourne expressing an interest. Ms Shelton said that she had received a huge number of messages in support of the campaign from all sorts of different groups, 'from feminists to Muslims'. And, according to the Catholic Leader, even former French president Francois Hollande had been in touch with City Women to find out more. 'The president was just fed up with the destruction that porn is doing, and saw there was a mayor in another city doing something,' Ms Shelton told reporters. City Women has been working closely with the local council and churches, which are also expected to discuss dangers of pornography during next month's rally. 'We're not out to ban porn that's the impossible task,' Ms Shelton concluded. 'It's more about raising awareness and creating a conversation.' Tough new laws could soon make it easier for the Government to deport extremist refugees in the wake of last week's Bourke Street attack. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he is open to suggestions to improve the response to terror after Hassan Khalif Shire Ali crashed his car full of gas cylinders and stabbed three people - killing one - in the heart of Melbourne on Friday. 'I've been very open about the cancellation of visas, the numbers have ramped up, because there are some people who should not go on to become Australian citizens,' Mr Dutton said on Sunday. The Home Affairs Minister, renowned for his hardline stance on immigration, told the Seven Network on Monday that the Government was looking to 'refresh the way we do things'. Tough new laws could soon make it easier for the government to deport extremist refugees after Hassan Khalif Shire Ali stabbed three people in the heart of Melbourne on Friday Peter Dutton said he is open to suggestions to improve the response to terror threats 'There are different ways we can tighten the laws up and we're looking at that right now,' he said. 'We need to get it through the Senate and so far, we don't have the support of Labor or the Greens. We need that to make it work.' Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said his government would back any move to deport anyone willing to 'do us harm'. 'Deportation and the cancellation of visas are matters for the Commonwealth Government, but we certainly support this action being taken against extremists and those who wish to do us harm,' he told the Herald Sun. Video showed a man wielding a knife attempt to stab and slash at two police officers before he was shot with a taser and fell to the ground, while a brave shopper tried to hit him with a trolley Somalia-born Shire Ali was known to federal police and had his passport cancelled in 2015 amid concerns he planned to travel to Syria to fight with Islamic State. Mr Dutton reiterated that although the Federal Government would look at what it can do to improve anti-terrorism measures, the help of the Muslim community was key. 'We need the community, particularly leaders within the Islamic community, to do even more to encourage people to alert authorities, to change behaviour. That might give us a tip-off to stop the sort of behaviour we saw last week,' he said. Labor spokeswoman Michelle Rowland also stressed the role Australians can play in fighting extremism. Both sides of politics are keen to do their bit on the issue, she said. Somalia-born Shire Ali was known to federal police and had his passport cancelled in 2015 Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said his government would back any move to deport anyone willing to 'do us harm' 'Everyone in the parliament is united in ensuring that the first responsibility of us as public office holders is to keep Australians safe and ensure we do everything in our power in order to make that happen,' she told Sky News on Monday. Shire Ali was shot in the chest by a police officer he had threatened with a knife and later died in hospital. His family said he had been experiencing mental health problems for which he had refused help. 'Please stop turning this into a political game. This isn't a guy who had any connections with terrorism but was simply crying for help,' they said in a note handed to reporters. Karl Stefanovic has slammed 'politically correct' police management, saying officers should never hesitate in shooting dead anyone who lunges at them with a knife. The Today Show co-host lashed out at critics who say the Melbourne terrorist should not have been killed after Friday's barbaric Bourke Street attack. 'I feel sorry for Victorian cops at the moment. They're the ones on the front line across a multitude of significant problems facing the city,' Stefanovic said Monday. 'They're consumed at the moment by timid and politically correct management. Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was shot and killed by police after stabbing coffee maestro Sisto Malaspina, 74, to death and injuring two others Video showed Ali wielding a knife in an attempt to stab and slash at two police officers before he was shot and fell to the ground 'You had Melbourne people yelling the other day "shoot him, shoot him" and they tried their best not to. 'But there should be, I reckon, no second thought. Someone confronts the public, someone comes at police with a knife. You shoot them dead straight away.' Stevanovic said every Australian was horrified by the disturbing events which unfolded in Melbourne on Friday afternoon. 'There's not a person in Australia who didn't feel that story. There's not a person in Australia who wasn't shocked by what they saw,' he said. Ali stabbed three men, one fatally, before lunging at police, who shot him in the chest Mr Malaspina (pictured) was stabbed to death by Ali after the 74-year-old rushed outside to help him out of his burning car Shocking footage emerged on Saturday of Ali attacking a 24-year-old security guard Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was shot and killed after stabbing coffee maestro Sisto Malaspina, 74, to death and injuring two others in the attack on Bourke Street. He crashed his ute into Bourke Street Mall at about 4:10pm, setting it on fire with 'barbecue-style gas bottles' opened and primed to explode inside. He then stabbed Malaspina, who rushed outside to help him out of the burning car. Tasmanian man Rodney Patterson, 58, was stabbed in the head and a 24-year-old security guard was impaled in the neck. He then lunged at police with the knife, swinging wildly before he was shot in the chest and later died in hospital. Ali's intention was to crash his car, set it up to explode and stab as many people in the busy city street as he could, according to police. A US congresswoman spoke of the terrifying moment she was shot five times by followers of the notorious cult leader Jim Jones during the Jonestown massacre. In November 1978, Jackie Speier, who was then a legislative assistant to California Congressman Leo Ryan, flew with her boss to investigate human rights abuses at the Jonestown commune in Guyana. But four days later as she tried to leave with people she helped rescue from the cult, the group came under siege by his followers at the airport and Speier was shot in the arm, leg and back five times. Scroll down for video California congresswoman Jackie Speier (pictured) recalled surviving the Jonestown massacre of 1978 in a new memoir titled 'Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Finding Hope in the Darkest Places, and Breaking the Silence' Dead bodies litter the ground after a mass suicide at the People's Temple in Guyana She survived but Congressman Leo Ryan and NBC news correspondent Don Harris were murdered during the siege, along with three others. Speier, 68, has as detailed her horrific ordeal in a new memoir, 'Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Finding Hope in the Darkest Places, and Breaking the Silence,' published by Little A. Ryan eventually agreed to fly to Guayana after hearing stories of physical and mental abuse perpetrated by Jim Jones against his constituents. He agreed to fly there with Speiers who was elected to the House herself in 2008, serving Californias 14 congressional district, and was re-elected this week. Speier brought letters from concerned relatives to some of the Jonestown inhabitants, but few were interested in reading them. It was strange, I felt like I was speaking to people who had had something removed in them, like they had severed all emotional attachment to their parents and families and even identities back home,' Speier wrote. US Congressman Leo Ryan (left) was shot dead by followers of notorious cult leader Jim Jones (right) at an airstrip as he tried to help people escape following physical and mental abuse Members of Congress hold an informal hearing on cult worship with Jackie Speier (pictured) as the star witness . Her arm was still in a cast from wounds she suffered at Jonestown Later on, Jonestown members put on a show for guests as 'Jones sat on his de facto throne, beneath a black sign that read, mysteriously, Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. On the same night, members approached NBC news correspondent Don Harris with notes reading: 'Please help us get out of Jonestown'. Speier told the defectors to pack their things but soon Ryan and Speier were besieged by over 60 people hoping to leave. Jim Jones soon discovered that people were planning to leave and his tone became menacing and he began to threaten those 'committed treason'. NBC correspondent Don Harris (left) and cameraman Bob Brown (right) were killed when temple members opened fire at Port Kaituma airstrip as people tried to escape Photographer Greg Robinson (right) was killed and San Francisco reporter Tim Reiterman (left) was injured by gunfire at Port Kaituma Airstrip as they tried to leave Guyana When cameras were rolling, [Jones] spoke of how he loved [his followers] and how there would always be a place for them but those declarations would be followed by thinly veiled mutters about treason and liars,' Speier wrote. 'He was visibly cracking. Speier piled almost two dozen defectors onto a dump truck to take them to Port Kaituma Airstrip in Guayana. They subsequently heard a commotion and she turned to see Congressman Ryan emerge from a throng of people with a torn and bloodied shirt. While trying to keep the peace, he had been attacked by a member with a knife. Speiers is taken from a plane at Georgetown on November 19 1978 after being shot five times Bodies lie on the Port Kaituma airstrip by the plane which was to carry them back to Georgetown Temple members then launched an attack at the airstrip from which Ryan and his company were to depart. Speier was helping people to board a plane when a large red tractor-trailer rumbled onto the airstrip. About a dozen men leapt from the tractor, leveled their automatic weapons, she writes. Screams of shock and anguish filled the air, underscored by the rapid pounding of gunfire. 'I dove to the ground behind the wheel of one of the airplanes and waited, as the onslaught of bullets thumped against the metal above me. I was lying on my side with my head down, feigning dead, when my body was suddenly crushed by a shocking blow to my side. Bodies of cult followers lie around the throne used by sect leader Jim Jones and above it his slogan reads: 'Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it' Over 900 bodies were found at the People's Temple cult headquarters on November 20 1978 Many of the bodies in Jonestown were found clutching each other as they knew they were about to die. Around 300 children died in the worst mass suicide in modern history 'It felt like a Mack truck had just sped over me'. Speier was struck by five bullets fired at point blank range in her right arm, leg and back. She recalled: 'Indescribable pain ripped through my body, consuming me, only leaving room for a fleeting thought that I should lie still and pretend to be dead, she writes. I remained there, paralyzed by shock, for what felt like an eternity. Five people, including Ryan and three members of the press, were shot and killed, and 11 others were wounded. Soon afterwards Jones had enacted his 'revolutionary suicide' plan at the compound where he and his followers drank a cyanide concoction. Jim Jones, founder of the Peoples Temple, pictured shortly before his death in November 1978 A sign marks the entrance of Jim Jones' former temple at a site deep in the Guyanese rainforest in Jonestown in 2011 Nine hundred people died including some 300 age 17 and under - making the incident one of the largest mass deaths in American history. The poison was first squirted into the mouths of babies and children via syringe and then imbibed by adult members. Jones himself died of a gunshot wound. When Speirs glanced down, she saw 'a bone was shooting out of my right arm, and my leg was destroyed. A huge hunk of flesh had been blown off of my thigh'. While she had waited for rescue, uncertain if shed survive, Speier had a revelation that changed her life. Speier's new memoir depicts the horrific events as they unfolded during the Jonestown massacre She wrote: Twelve hours had passed as I lay, teetering on deaths precipice when a light switch was turned on inside me. I realized that the simple fact that I knew I was dying was proof that I was, indeed, still alive. I just needed to hang on. 'Until were tested, we never know how much we can handle. That day taught me that each of us is capable of far more than we might imagine. 'I vowed that if I got out of there alive, I would make every day count, I would live as fully as possible, and I would devote my life to public service'. A remote desert community is calling for better mobile phone coverage after a young family died when their car broke down on an outback road. The bodies of a yet unnamed young couple, both aged 19, and their three-year-old son were found in the Northern Territory on Wednesday, 4.5km away from their broken-down car. The body of a 12-year-old boy was found a day later at around 2pm just 120 metres away after a desperate air and land search. A remote desert community is calling for better mobile phone coverage after a young family died when their car broke down on an outback road (pictured, the access road near to where they were found) The bodies of a yet unnamed young couple, both aged 19, their three-year-old son and a family friend were found in the Northern Territory on Wednesday, 4.5km away from their broken-down car (pictured Willowra where they started their ill-fated journey) Central Desert MLA Scott McConnell (pictured) said it wasn't just better signal that was needed, but improved data connectivity to ensure stranded travelers could contact their family via Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp It is believed the group had been unable to find phone signal. Central Desert MLA Scott McConnell said it wasn't just better signal that was needed, but improved data connectivity to ensure stranded travelers could contact their family via Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. He told Daily Mail Australia: 'If we are serious about development in northern Australia then we need to have better infrastructure. 'Most of my electorate have no coverage at all. We need 4G or better. 'Mobile coverage has reached 96 per cent of Australia - what we need to do is redouble our efforts to get the whole of the country covered.' 'It's not just calling, it is also about messaging - if there was that greater connectivity and they'd been offline for a long time someone might have noticed sooner,' he said to The NT News. A staff member from the Ti-Tree Roadhouse, near to where the group set off from, told Daily Mail Australia a phone signal from Optus could be found in Willowra (pictured annotated) but only Telstra offered connectivity in the surrounding areas According to cellular map provider nperf.com , only Telstra provides a service to the area surrounding Willowra - located between two of the state's major road arteries (dots symbolise phone and data connectivity) The ill-fated group had left Willowra in central Northern Territory on Friday bound for the remote community of Jarra Jarra, 500 kilometers north of Alice Springs. According to cellular map provider nperf.com, only Telstra provides a service to the area surrounding Willowra - located between two of the state's major road arteries. A staff member from the Ti-Tree Roadhouse, near to where the group set off from, told Daily Mail Australia a phone signal from Optus could be found in Willowra but only Telstra offered connectivity in the surrounding areas. An Optus spokesman said the company recommended customers travelling to remote areas of Australia with little coverage to use their Thuraya SatSleeve+ device. The spokesman said: 'The Thuraya SatSleeve+ transforms a compatible smartphone into a satellite device, enabling mobile coverage anywhere in Australia with line of sight to the sky. Telstra has been contacted for comment. The car and the bodies were found 18km from Jarra Jarra community on a dry but unsealed access road. The vehicle had a flat tyre and had run out of fuel. Jarra Jarra would have been the nearest water source and it would have taken around ten minutes to drive the short distance. Their deaths have been attributed to hyperthermia and starvation after what was meant to be a five-hour commute turned into five days in the wilderness. The car and the bodies were found 18km from the Jarra Jarra community on a dry but unsealed access road (pictured) Authorities said the 12-year-old had 'broad family linkages' with the deceased family. Out of respect for the families involved, the authorities have not released the hometowns of the dead or said which specific community they belonged to. The teenage parents left morsels of food and water at their abandoned car and attempted to find help in the Jarra Jarra community. They never made it that far, and even if they had police said there was no-one living in the isolated community at the time. Police are still continuing precautionary land and air searches to rule out anyone else being stranded in the Outback An alarm was raised by a 'distraught' man at an Aboriginal health clinic at remote Willowra who found their dead bodies just before 12.30pm on Wednesday. Ryan, the manager of the Ti-Tree Roadhouse, said the situation was tragic and he felt especially for the youngest victim. He said: 'I feel for the three-year-old the most - he would have had no idea what was going on. At least the rest of them would have known the trouble they were in.' The governing Central Desert Regional Council, meanwhile, has offered their sympathy to the communities affected while saying the incident was 'a timely reminder of the harshness of the Australian outback'. The searing heat reached 40C (104F) at the start of the week in Willowra and 38C (100F) on Wednesday before dropping off in the past few days. Police said they would prepare a report for the coroner. The deaths were initially thought to have been caused by a car crash - but that was quickly ruled out as the tragic reality of the situation became clear. Investigators were only able to arrive at the scene on Thursday due to flooding and the remoteness of the area. The 12-year-old boy's body was found near the young family's corpses, after they had all left Willowra (inset) on Friday destined for nearby Yarra Yarra 'One of the avenues of inquiry that we're looking at is if people walked away from a broken down vehicle and may have suffered as result of that,' duty superintendent Shaun GIll said on Thursday. Mr Gill said the two adults and child may have died several days before they were found, and NT Police stated in a press conference on Friday they believed the family could have been at the location since the day they set off . 'This does serve, unfortunately, as a timely reminder for anyone travelling on NT roads to ensure that when you travel your vehicle is in a fit state and that you have sufficient supplies including water and a first aid kit,' Superintendent Jody Nobbs said. 'Also make sure someone is aware of what your travel itinerary is when you intend to leave, arrive and your anticipated routes.' Mr Gill said an 'extreme weather event' may have caused the deaths. Australians hoping to escape to a tropical destination for the winter months are in luck, with one way flights to Bali up for grabs for a minuscule $53. Bargain flights can be snapped up by Perth travelers holidaying between May 2019 and February 2020, who don't mind flying with low-cost airline AirAsia. They will also need to have their bookings locked in before the airline's flash 24 hour sale ends at midnight on Monday. Australians hoping to escape to a tropical destination for the winter months are in luck, with one way flights to Bali (pictured) up for grabs for a minuscule $53 Those in the eastern states can cash in on the discounts too, but will need to fork out a little extra given the extra kilometres needed to be covered. The cheapest return fares from Sydney and Melbourne to Bali during the same period will still be pretty cheap at a cost of between $350 and $400. People flying out of Melbourne however will need to do so out of Avalon, as opposed to the more frequented Tulamarine airport. AirAsia customers hoping to take advantage of slashed fares will need to have a BIG Member account, and select return dates for the 'lowest fares' option to appear. When round trip tickets from Perth are booked between May 2019 and February 2020, AirAsia BIG Members will notice the cost of their return ticket drop down to $53 They will also need to have their bookings locked in before the airline's flash 24 hour sale ends at midnight on Monday ($53 fare pictured) People flying out of the Gold Coast could also bank on some cheap fares to Bali from mid 2019 to early 2020, with the lowest return fare costing as little as $357. Additional baggage, meals and seat preferences would set fliers back a bit extra, while a 'premium flatbead' experience would see them paying more than four-times the budget flight. Bargain hunters in Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin and Canberra unfortunately don't get a look-in, with no flights to Bali available for them included in the sale. Muslim leaders have demanded an apology from Prime Minister Scott Morrison for describing radical Islamism as Australia's greatest threat in the wake of the Melbourne terrorist attack. Mr Morrison made the comments after Somali terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, crashed a ute filled with gas cylinders on Bourke Street in the city before fatally stabbing Italian-born cafe owner Sisto Malaspina and subsequently being shot dead by police. 'We would be kidding ourselves if we did not call out the fact that the greatest threat to religious extremism in this country is the radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam,' the Prime Minister told reporters. Scroll down for video Moderate and hardline Muslim leaders have demanded an apology from PM Scott Morrison for describing Islamist ideology as Australia's greatest threat (Melbourne's Bourke St pictured) Mr Morrison (pictured) held a media conference after Somali terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali crashed ute in Melbourne's city centre and fatally stabbed cafe owner Sisto Malaspina Kuranda Seyit, the executive director of the Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations, hit back on Monday and described Mr Morrison's weekend comments as 'irresponsible'. 'Let's call this out for what it really is. It's political expediency and it's timely to try and create a wedge between the Muslim community and the broader community,' he told the Seven Network. 'This is why the Prime Minister's comments are out of line. I think that's a shame. It really undermines the great work that we've been doing.' Scott Morrison told reporters the Melbourne terrorist attack (Hassan Khalif Shire Ali pictured on Bourke Street) showed the need for Muslim leaders to stop 'dangerous teachings' Kuranda Seyit (pictured), the executive director of the Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations, told Sunrise Mr Morrison was 'irresponsible' One Nation leader Pauline Hanson (pictured) said Islamic extremism needed to be called out and suggested immigrants be forced to wait eight, instead of three years, to become citizens Victoria deputy police commissioner Shane Patton said there was no evidence to suggest Shire Ali was suffering from mental illness. 'We certainly haven't been made aware of any mental health issues with this person from our enquiries to date,' he told ABC radio on Monday. On Monday morning, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said extremist Islam was 'the elephant in the room', adding Shire Ali's reported marriage problems and drug addiction did not negate the fact he was radicalised. 'I think that's an excuse. This bloke, radicalised in Australia with extreme Islam, took a knife and cut down a fellow Australian on Bourke Street,' he told the Ten Network's Studio 10 program. Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Uthman Badar (pictured) linked terrorist attacks with Western foreign policy Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has a draft constitution calling for the death of ex-Muslims, responded to the Prime Minister by describing 'secular liberalism' as dangerous 'I'm not going to make excuses ... he was a terrorist. He was a radicalised, extremist terrorist.' Mr Morrison said he could not speak of Friday's car bomb attack in Melbourne, which left an innocent man dead and two others stabbed, without calling out the threat of 'radical, violent, extremist Islam' behind it. Somali-born terrorist Khalif Shire Ali, 30, had links to Islamic State and had been radicalised, Victorian police said. Despite that, the Australian National Imams Council accused the Prime Minister of political point scoring against Muslims. 'It is extremely disappointing in such difficult times and during a national tragedy, when all Australians of all faiths and backgrounds should be called upon to unite and stand together against any form of extremism and violence, to see our nation's leader politicising this incident and using it for political gain,' it said in a statement on Sunday. The Australian National Imams Council (president Imam Shady Alsuleiman pictured) accused the Prime Minister of political point scoring against Muslims Muslim leaders have accused Prime Minister Scott Morrison of politicising a terrorist attack that saw Italian-born cafe owner Sisto Malaspina (pictured) stabbed to death Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has a draft constitution calling for the death of ex-Muslims and is banned in many Muslim countries, responded to the Prime Minister by slamming Western societies. 'PM Scott Morrison has asked Muslims to call out dangerous ideologies when it comes to terrorism,' the group's spokesman Uthman Badar told his 18,782 Facebook followers. 'I'd like to oblige and call out the dangerous ideology of secular liberalism. 'The violent exploits abroad of this extreme ideology are well knownwars, invasions, propping up dictators, wreaking political and economical havoc of an enormous scale on weaker nations.' Australia's first female Muslim federal MP, Labor's Anne Aly, said the PM's response to the events in Melbourne was ignorant and 'politically desperate', after he called Islamic extremism the greatest threat to Australia's national security. 'There is no country that is immune to the threat of terrorism,' Dr Aly told Sky News. 'I don't care how politically desperate you are, now is not the right time to divide the community.' Australia's first female Muslim federal MP, Labor's Anne Aly (pictured), said the PM's response to the events in Melbourne was ignorant and 'politically desperate' Hijab-wearing Muslim psychologist Hanan Dover suggested politicians who supported the detention of asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island were 'extremist' and 'radical' elements One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said the recent attacks meant immigrants should be forced to wait eight, instead of three years, to become citizens. 'We do not give out citizenship for eight years and then for a further 10 years after that, they can't get rid of their dual citizenship,' she told Sunrise on Monday. 'If they are incompatible with our culture and way of life, send them back to where they come from.' Hijab-wearing Muslim activist Hanan Dover also sought to turn the accusations back on to politicians. Hardline Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah Association preacher Jamil El-Biza (pictured), who has urged Muslims to avoid wishing Christians a Merry Christmas accused PM of 'division' Muslim psychologist Hanan Dover described Prime Minister Scott Morrison's comments as 'disgraceful' 'Australian federal politicians won't get rid of extremist and radical elements within Parliament who continue making deliberate and conscious decisions traumatising and /or killing asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island,' the psychologist said. The hardline Sunni group, Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah Association, which urges Muslims to avoid wishing Christians a Merry Christmas also accused the Prime Minister of being divisive. 'A Prime Minister saying we should do more, yet his words are what creates more tension and divide,' Wollongong-based sheikh Jamil El-Biza said on Facebook. The ASWJ advocates a Salafist, seventh-century version of Islam and its preachers have described it as sinful for women to show their ears in public and for children to listen to music. Jeremy Hunt today came face to face with the Saudi King whose son is accused of ordering the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Foreign Secretary became the first minister to visit Riyadh to confront the royal family over the killing of the Washington Post writer and leading Saudi dissident. He held talks with King Salman, whose son and heir Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been accused of ordering the murder which has sparked global outrage. Mr Khashoggi was lured to the Saudi consulate in Turkey last month where he was suffocated, killed and dismembered by a 15-man hit squad. Mr Hunt was also due to hold talks with the Crown Prince on his visit to the oil-rich Gulf state today. Human rights activists said it is not enough for Mr Hunt to 'politely' ask the Saudis for action, and urged him to demand a UN investigation into the murder. Jeremy Hunt (pictured today in Riyadh with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) jetted into Saudi Arabia for showdown talks with the King over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi Jeremy Hunt (pictured in Riyadh today with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and other officials) is demanding answers about the murder of the Washington Post journalist, who was brutally murdered in the country's consulate in Turkey The Foreign Secretary tweeted from his visit today where he called the more to be done to stop the famine and cholera outbreak in Yemen Speaking ahead of the visit, Mr Hunt said: 'The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago. 'It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear. Who is the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? The Crown Prince - known simply as MBS - (pictured at a conference in Riyadh in October) was warmly embraced by the West for his liberal reforms, but the murder of Jamal Khashoggi has left his reputation severely tarnished Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is known as the true power behind the throne in Saudi Arabia. His father, King Salman, was made ruler in 2015, and his son has been given a huge amount of say in how the country is government. He won plaudits from Western leaders after he introduced some moderate reforms - allowing women in Saudi Arabia to drive for the first time ever and introducing cinemas to the country. The Crown Prince - known simply as MBS - also reigned in the country's fierce and ultra conservative religious police. Leaders including Theresa May and Donald Trump have rolled out the red carpet for him during his lavish visits. But the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi has severely damaged his reputation. MBS has been accused of ordering the journalist's murder, and the killing sparked calls for him to be replaced as Crown Prince. While the Saudi authorities have publicly insisted the Prince does not have blood on his hands and did not order the killing, his reputation has been badly tarnished. He also has directed the Saudi war in Yemen, were the kingdom has been accused of breaching international human rights law and plunging millions into famine. And questions were already raised about how ruthlessly he will crush opposition after he imprisoned Saudi royals in the country's five star Ritz hotel last year. He said he locked them up in a massive anti-corruption drove. But his critics said that the move was a way for MBS to purge his political rivals. Advertisement 'We encourage the Saudi authorities to co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death, so that we deliver justice for his family and the watching world.' And in a Twitter message, he said that he has pressed Saudi royals for answers on the murder and to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where the regime has been waging war against rebels. He said: 'I met King Salman and Foreign Minister Adel Aljubeir this morning, and will see the Crown Prince as well as UAE and Yemeni politicians this afternoon. 'We have been discussing Khashoggi but also the vital need to seize the moment in Yemen and stop famine and cholera intensifying.' But Mr Hunt is under pressure to ensure his visit does not just entail 'polite' chats but gets real, concrete answers from the Saudis. Labour 's shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said: 'It will be deeply concerning if Jeremy Hunt's visit represents yet more empty talk, when what we urgently need is concrete action to hold Saudi Arabia to account for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and bring an immediate end to their assault on the port of Hodeidah, which is threatening the lives of millions of Yemeni civilians.' Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK's Director, said: 'It's not enough for Jeremy Hunt to politely ask the Saudi authorities to investigate Khashoggi's murder, there should be a UN investigation. 'Mr Hunt's efforts to secure a peace deal in Yemen would carry far more weight if the UK finally ends its role as a major arms supplier for one side in this terrible conflict. 'One thing the Foreign Secretary absolutely must do while he's in Saudi Arabia is publicly raise the plight of jailed human rights activists.' It comes as Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan confirmed the journalist's killing - and his pleas to his murderers to spare his life - was captured on a recording. He said: 'We gave them the tapes. We gave them to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them. 'Saudi officials also listened to the conversations and they know for certain who among the 15 is the killer or are the killers.' The Washington Post journalist is said to have begged his killers to stop attacking him in his final moments. According to reports in the Turkish newspaper The Daily Sabbah, he said: 'I'm suffocating Take this bag off my head, I'm claustrophobic'. The assassins reportedly placed plastic bags down to protect the floor before dismembering Mr Khashoggi. Jamal Khashoggi (pictured) is said to have begged his killers to spare his life as they suffocated him in the consulate in Turkey. His final moments were captured on an audio recording , the Turkish President said It took 15 minutes to carry out the grisly killing and traces of acid were discovered at the Saudi consul general's home in Istanbul, according to the newspaper. Mr Hunt is the first British minister to visit Saudi Arabia since Mr Khashoggi - a leading critic of the Saudi regime - was killed by a 15-strong hit squad flown into Istanbul from Riyadh. Under intense global pressure, Saudi Arabia has admitted he was murdered there, but fiercely denied that its royal family was involved. Instead they insist the killing was carried out by a team of 'rogue agents'. The grisly killing has piled a huge amount of pressure on the Saudi regime, which has been opening up its countries to some moderate reforms - allowing women to drive and the introduction of cinemas. And it has also shone a light on Britain's close ties to the oil-rich Gulf state. Saudi Arabia buys a large amount of arms from the UK, helping to maintain thousands of jobs in the defence industry. Theresa May has come under massive pressure to halt the sale of arms to the country over the killing and its war in Yemen - which has been raging since 2015. The Saudis have been accused of breaching international human rights laws in its war against the Houthi rebels. And millions are on the brink of starvation as a result of the Saudi-enforced blockade. But Mrs May has refused to halt arms sales, saying that the lucrative contracts provides crucial jobs in the UK. Mr Hunt is expected to also urge Saudis to end the bloodshed in Yemen - following in the footsteps of the Americans who have called for an end to the war. The Foreign Secretary will also visit the United Arab Emirates, where he will raise the case of British student Matthew Hedges who has been charged with spying 'for a foreign state'. Mr Hunt will hold talks with the Yemeni vice president. Graphic footage has been released of the terrifying moment four masked men armed with planks of timber beat up a man on the doorstep of a home. The brazen attackers stormed the property in Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, as onlookers standing inside screamed for help. The footage of the attack - which is understood to have occurred on Wednesday - was shared to the Nhulunbuy Notice Board Facebook page by the alleged victim, before it was removed. Four masked men have beaten a man with planks of timber in terrifying footage shared online The brazen attackers stormed the property in Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, as horrific screams can be heard in the background The release of the footage comes amid a police appeal for four masked men who allegedly assaulted a resident at a property in Klyn Circuit, Nhulunbuy. Northern Territory Police said the men attended the property at about 8.30pm on Wednesday. Senior Sergeant Daniel Whitfield-Jones said three men carried timber while one attacker was armed with a knife. 'The group knocked on the front door of the property and hid in the darkness until a man at the residence came outside,' he said. 'The men then repeatedly struck the victim with their weapons before fleeing to a waiting car in a nearby street and speeding away.' The victim was taken to hospital with serious injuries. Police are seeking help from the public to identify this man following an alleged assault at a property in Klyn Circuit, Nhulunbuy, on Wednesday evening Northern Territory Police said four masked men attended the property, three armed with timber and one armed with a knife (pictured: man are seeking public assistance to identify this man who could assist with their inquiries) 'We're told the four men were all of a similar height, around 175 and 180cm tall, of medium build and wearing long sleeved shirts, balaclavas and gloves,' Snr Sgt Whitfield Jones said. 'The car they fled in is described as a small white hatchback or SUV.' Police believe the persons of interest were in a white Kia Carnival with Victorian registration 1NU3YV, travelling south on the Stuart Highway. They are urging for anyone who has seen the vehicle to report the sighting to police. Police believe the persons of interest were in a white Kia Carnival with Victorian registration 1NU3YV, travelling south on the Stuart Highway Snr Sgt Whitfield Jones is also appealing for CCTV footage that faces onto Wuyal Street. Police have released images in the hope that members of the public can identify two people of interest to assist with enquiries. Anyone with information about the incident is urged to contact police. Almost 5,000 children under 11 had to be counselled for bullying and cyberbullying last year, Childline has revealed. The national helpline said young children were regularly being targeted by peers online, at school and in their neighbourhoods. And bullying was the most frequently discussed problem for under-11s who contacted its counsellors, the charity added. Childline said young children were regularly being targeted by peers online, at school and in their neighbourhoods (file photo) A total of 19,681 children and teenagers contacted Childline in 2017/18 about bullying, with around half aged 12 to 15. The figures were released ahead of Anti-bullying Week, starting today, to highlight the scale of the problem facing youngsters. Childline service manager Wendy Robinson said: 'Every year thousands of young people receive counselling from us having suffered bullying and cyberbullying. 'These experiences can have a devastating impact on their lives, potentially leading to low self-esteem, anxiety, depression and in the very worst cases, suicide. 'Whether it's happening online or in the real world, it is vitally important that any young person who is experiencing bullying talks to someone they trust, be it a friend, parent, teacher or a Childline counsellor.' Earlier this year, a study by the NSPCC, which runs Childline, found schools are sending increasing numbers of children for mental health treatment amid an explosion of depression. A total of 19,681 children and teenagers contacted Childline in 2017/18 about bullying, with around half aged 12 to 15 (file photo) The number of referrals by schools seeking mental health treatment for troubled pupils has shot up in the past four years. Across 53 NHS Trusts, there were 34,757 referrals in 2017-18, compared with 25,140 in 2014-15. Many experts blame the rise of cyberbullying for the trend, as many children now have no escape from their tormentors, who can reach them at all hours via their smartphones. Mrs Robinson added: 'We hope that Anti-bullying Week encourages young people to remember how their actions and words can impact other children and teenagers.' In May, Esther Rantzen, who set up Childline, said it had more youngsters calling about depression than about abuse. She added: 'With the loss of the extended family and the loss of the community, it means that young people that have some really distressing problem in their lives come to us. 'It has been creeping up for the last ten years.' This is the moment a brazen passenger taunts police during a high-speed chase by leaning out of a luxury car and waving to officers in pursuit. The Lexus was caught speeding across Brisbane's southside on Saturday night. The car had been reported stolen from Carindale at 5pm before it was seen driving dangerously at 8.30pm through Sherwood, police allege. Scroll down for video This is the moment a brazen passenger (pictured above) taunts police during a high-speed chase, leaning almost entirely out of the car and boldly waving to officers chasing from behind Police attempted to catch the car at Salisbury, but the 24-year-old man driving the car allegedly failed to stop and continued to drive dangerously. Footage of the incident shows the car crossing to the wrong side of the road, zipping through red lights and travelling at dangerous speeds. A police helicopter followed from above as the car sped through tyre spikes. Undeterred by the wild sparks flying from underneath the car, the driver continued to dodge traffic despite having three burst tyres. Eventually the car smashed head-on into a four-wheel-drive. Five youths inside the car allegedly fled from the scene as officers followed on foot. The group were eventually cornered on a main road and arrested at 8.50pm. Footage of the incident (above) shows the car crossing on to the incorrect side of the road, driving through red lights and driving at dangerous speeds Five people ranging in ages from 16 to 22 have been charged over the wild chase. The driver, a 22-year-old man, was charged with nine offences including burglary, unlawful use of a car, driving without a license, evading and obstructing police and possession of dangerous drugs. He will appear in the Richlands Magistrate Court on November 12. A 21-year-old woman was charged with unlawful use of a motor vehicle and will appear in court next month. Three boys, two aged 16 and one aged 17, were charged with a variety of offences including burglary, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, and possession of drugs. It was the moment we paid tribute to those lost a century ago. But last night generals and MPs warned that todays veterans are still being shamefully neglected. As the centenary of the end of the First World War was marked at emotional events around the globe, ministers were accused of shirking their duty of care under the Armed Forces covenant. Service personnel and veterans have the legal right to priority NHS care, decent homes and a good education for their children. For the Fallen: Deep in contemplation, the Duchess of Sussex, the Queen and the Duchess of Cambridge at the wreath-laying at the Cenotaph yesterday Yet new research suggests that they fare worse than civilians in terms of both health and housing. Around 50,000 veterans have mental health issues, often sparked by combat stress. Another 6,000 are homeless and 10,000 are in prison or on probation. Some veterans face the further ordeal of investigations over their tours of duty in Northern Ireland decades ago. Others who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hounded by ambulance-chasing lawyers. Lord Dannatt, who was head of the Army from 2006 to 2009, said: Is the Britain of 2018 a fit country for heroes, for our wounded service personnel or grieving families? Last night generals and MPs warned that todays veterans are still being shamefully neglected (stock image) In many ways, sadly, it is not. The resources committed to alleviating post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental illnesses remain woefully short and the need very great. Defence minister Tobias Ellwood, who was a captain in the Royal Green Jackets, said: We need to advance our support for our brave veterans. They served our country well, we owe them a debt of gratitude and I dont want to see anybody homeless or indeed requiring support or denied the support that they deserve. Johnny Mercer, a Tory MP who saw action in Afghanistan, said improvements had been made in looking after veterans but progress had been slow and unambitious. Defence minister Tobias Ellwood, who was a captain in the Royal Green Jackets, said: We need to advance our support for our brave veterans' (pictured on November 6 at Tyne Cot Cemetery near Ypres) There are around 2.5million veterans in the UK, although some estimates suggest there may be as many as 6.2million in the wider ex-service community, including families. New findings from Plaid Cymru suggest 50,000 veterans have mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by conflict. Some suffer crippling flashbacks, nightmares, depression and anxiety attacks. Many fall into chronic alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness and crime. Since November 2003, at least 274 have taken their own lives. The analysis said a further 6,000 veterans have nowhere to live and 10,000 have been convicted of crime. Working-age veterans are less likely to be employed than the general population and face discrimination from employers. Even military widows can lose out under rules that force them to give up their pensions if they enter a new relationship. Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts said: We remember the sacrifices made by so many in order for us to be here today. But it is not just words that best honour their memory we need actions too. Action so that their fellow servicemen and women are today treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. It is shocking that in 21st-century Britain 66,000 veterans are either homeless, in the justice system or suffering with mental health conditions. We may not forget those that gave their lives, but for todays suffering veterans its a case of out of sight, out of mind. New research suggests that veterans fare worse than civilians in terms of both health and housing (stock image) Working-age veterans are less likely to be employed than the general population and face discrimination from employers (pictured: Prince William and Prince Harry at the Cenotaph) Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded troops in Afghanistan, said: The Government has an enduring responsibility to properly look after the men and women who put their lives on the line for us. They must ensure they receive the finest possible medical and psychiatric care if necessary for the rest of their lives and are not simply thrown at the mercy of an over-stretched NHS. Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the Defence Staff, yesterday warned that the Armed Forces risk being left unable to take the risks that are necessary to take on the battlefield because of the threat of litigation. Speaking on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show, he said: It obviously makes me uncomfortable to see people being investigated for what we all thought was an extraordinarily good effort in helping with the security of Northern Ireland. Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the Defence Staff, yesterday warned that the Armed Forces risk being left unable to take the risks that are necessary to take on the battlefield because of the threat of litigation He said so-called lawfare could paralyse military chiefs. Labour defence spokesman Nia Griffith said: In spite of the best efforts of many of those working in the sector, too many veterans are still not getting the support that they need. The Governments long-overdue veterans strategy needs to be far reaching and properly funded. It must strengthen the transition phases and implement proper joined-up thinking to ensure that no veteran who needs support falls through the net. The Department of Veterans Affairs is dedicated to caring for ex-service personnel in the United States. It provides comprehensive healthcare services at specialist medical centres and outpatient clinics, and non-healthcare benefits including disability compensation, vocational rehabilitation, education assistance, home loans and life insurance. At yesterdays main Remembrance Day event in London Prince Charles laid a wreath at the Cenotaph on behalf of the Queen, who watched the service from a balcony in Whitehall. She was joined by the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Cornwall. The Duchess of Sussex, attending her first Cenotaph parade, stood shoulder to shoulder with the wife of German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier. It was the first time a German leader has laid a wreath there. Aldi's heartwarming Christmas advert has hit TV screens with its tale of Santa crash-landing in the Outback and becoming an honorary Australian. It made its debut appearance last night, ahead of both Coles and Woolworths. The advert is a celebration of the Australian Outback, featuring big beautiful skies, friendly and hard-working locals, as well as an incident with a rather large snake and an outdoor toilet. Aldi has launched its Christmas advert which tells the heart-warming tale of Santa becoming an honorary Australian after crash-landing into the Outback Named 'Santa crashes Christmas', it tells the story of Santa's accidental arrival in the Outback, and his journey to rebuild his sleigh with help from the local community. The tagline 'The More the Merrier' becomes increasingly evident as the community knits him a brand new suit, while Santa himself helps his new friends with their building work. Throughout the advert, traditional Christmas elements continually crop up including a glimpse of a reindeer among wild horses and Santa seen sharing his customary glass of milk with friends in a pub. The advert is a celebration of the Australian outback, featuring big beautiful skies, friendly and hard-working locals, as well as an incident with a rather large snake and an outdoor toilet Named 'Santa crashes Christmas', it tells the story of Santa's accidental arrival in the outback, and his journey to rebuild his sleigh with help from the local community The tagline 'The More the Merrier' becomes increasingly evident as the community knits him a brand new suit, while Santa himself helps his new friends with their building work Paul Coles, who helped create the Aldi ad, said he was 'incredibly proud' of this year's advert. 'It's a quintessential Aussie Christmas story with an abundance of food, family, friends and Santa all set against a beautiful background of the Australian outback.' The advert's creative director Alex Derwin said: ''The More the Merrier' is an idea that places ALDI right where it should be at Christmas: between the Aussie generosity of spirit and the reality of not blowing your budget sky-high.' Throughout the advert, traditional Christmas elements continually crop up including a glimpse of a reindeer among wild horses and Santa seen sharing his customary glass of milk with friends in a pub The brave security guard who was stabbed in the neck by the Bourke Street terrorist on Friday has been released from hospital. The unnamed employee of SECUREcorp was one of three bystanders brutally stabbed by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali after he crashed his ute on the busy Melbourne shopping street and set it alight. The 24-year-old from Hampton Park was discharged from Royal Melbourne Hospital on Monday morning. 'The officer was hurt in the line of duty and has received medical care as well as support for himself and his family through our employee assistance program,' an official statement statement read according to The Sydney Morning Herald. 'He is recovering well. 'SECUREcorp would like to thank the first responders to the incident, for the support and assistance provided to our officer.' Tasmanian Rod Patterson, who was also injured in the terror attack, is said to be in a stable condition at The Alfred Hospital in the CBD's south-east. The brave security guard who was stabbed in the neck by the Bourke Street terrorist on Friday has been released from hospital Confronting footage showed the security guard being stabbed in the neck by the Bourke Street terrorist. The video shows the young guard standing at his post out the front of a shopping centre on Bourke Street, seemingly unaware of the terror approaching him. Ali turns the corner, straight into the security guard, and stabs him once in the neck. The guard clutches at his neck before running inside, leaving spots of blood on the floor. Ali chases after him before the footage, acquired by Nine News, ends. SECUREcorp provide security guards for organisations across Australia. Rodney Patterson (right) was also stabbed and survived the attack - and is said to be stable Mr Patterson (second from left) was commended by the Tasmanian Premier for his bravery Mr Patterson's wife Maree said the couple were 'caught up in the attack' as her husband was stabbed. Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman tweeted out a message of support for Mr Patterson on Friday night. 'Our thoughts are with a brave Tasmanian, Rod Patterson, his family and friends,' he wrote. 'A nicer bloke you wouldnt meet. Its not surprising he would step in to help others. 'We all wish him well.' 74-year-old Melburnian coffee figurehead, Sisto Malaspina (pictured) died in the attack Tributes have poured in for Malaspina whose Pellegrini's Espresso Bar was considered an instrumental institution for Melbourne's coffee scene He was stabbed in the face by Ali, who died on an operating table shortly after police shot him in the chest The victim who died in the attack was identified as Melbourne coffee maestro Sisto Malaspina, who initially approached Ali to help him out of a burning car. Tributes have poured in for Malaspina, 74, whose Pellegrini's Espresso Bar was considered an instrumental institution for Melbourne's coffee scene. He was stabbed in the face by Ali, who died on an operating table shortly after police shot him in the chest. Tobias Ellwood revealed contingency plans are being made in case negotiations with the European Union collapse The military is on standby to help in the event of a 'no-deal' Brexit, it emerged last night. Defence minister Tobias Ellwood revealed contingency plans are being made in case Government negotiations with the European Union collapse. His comments came after the head of the British Army, chief of the defence staff General Sir Nick Carter, told yesterday's Andrew Marr Show that the military was 'thinking hard' about what no deal might involve. Mr Ellwood told Sky News: 'It is the job of the chief of defence staff, indeed the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Secretary, to consider all scenarios, whether how vague or rare they might be. 'We have to plan for every scenario. 'So there are contingency plans being made. 'There are discussions being held as to what our Armed Forces will do. 'We are looking right across the full spectrum of requirements to make sure that we are prepared.' The Democrats plan to investigate Donald Trump for an alleged abuse of authority for taking adverse action against retail giant Amazon and two of his left-leaning media rivals. California representative Adam Schiff said he will employ committee subpoena powers to conduct a triple-threaded inquiry into Trump's possible use of the 'instruments of state power to punish the press'. Schiff will take over as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when the Democrats officially take control of the House in January. The president signed an executive order earlier this year mandating a review of what he called the 'unsustainable financial path' of the United States Postal Service (USPS). Donald Trump (left) will be investigated by Adam Schiff (right) into Trump's possible use of the 'instruments of state power to punish the press' He has reportedly met with Postmaster General Megan Brennan several times to push for hikes to the shipping rates paid by companies like Amazon. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos separately owns The Washington Post. Trump has repeatedly attacked the political coverage at the Post, which is critical of the White House administration. In an interview with Axios on HBO, Schiff claimed Trump was secretly meeting with the postmaster [general] in an effort to 'browbeat her into raising postal rates on Amazon', whose founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, separately owns The Washington Post. 'This appears to be an effort by the president to use the instruments of state power to punish Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post,' Schiff said in the interview. Schiff said Congress also needs to examine whether Trump attempted to block AT&Ts merger with Time Warner as payback to CNN. We don't know, for example, whether the effort to hold up the merger of the parent of CNN was a concern over antitrust or whether this was an effort merely to punish CNN,' Schiff said. Donald Trump was criticized this week for clashing with CNN correspondent Jim Acosta CNN may be gearing up for a legal battle over the Trump administration's revocation of chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta's permanent press credentials 'It is very squarely within our responsibility to find out,' Schiff said. Along with incoming House Oversight Committee Chairman Representative Elijah Cummings, and other top Democrats, Schiff will have a mandate to serve a slew of subpoenas on the Trump administration. Trump, who has branded media outlets as 'the enemy of the people' and 'fake news', this week revoked the press credentials of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta and berating another CNN correspondent for asking 'stupid' questions. Nancy Pelosi warned that Democrats will be 'very strategic' in wielding the use their subpoena power Trump has also feuded specifically with Amazon throughout the year, saying it is taking advantage of taxpayer-subsidized shipping rates. In March, he argued in a series of tweets that the online retailers 'scam' shipping deal with the US Postal Service is costing the agency 'billions of dollars'. The Democrats had claimed that before last week's midterm election, they would aggressively investigate the Trump administration if they took power in Congress. Nancy Pelosi has warned that Democrats will be 'very strategic' in wielding the use their subpoena power now they have control of the House. Some Republicans fear the Democrats will issue countless subpoenas to try and make President Trump's life more difficult. The House speaker told Face The Nation Sunday: 'We are not scattershot. We are not doing any investigation for a political purpose, but to seek the truth. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos separately owns The Washington Post which Trump has repeatedly criticized over the publication's political coverage 'So I think a word that you could describe about how Democrats will go forward in this regard is we will be very strategic.' Some Democrats have suggested looking into Trump's taxes, his businesses and the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was replaced by Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker. Meanwhile Pelosi, who believes she will be re-elected as House Speaker, also took a shot at Trump for railing against the voter recount in the Arizona senate race, and the Florida congressional and gubernatorial races. A primary school has cancelled a class trip to Melbourne over security fears after the Bourke Street attack. Healesville Primary School in rural Victoria, about an hour east of Melbourne, posted a message to Facebook saying that the planned trip was called off. 'Dear Parents and Carers, on advice from the Department of Education, in light of recent events that occurred in Bourke Street yesterday, we have had to cancel the Grade 5/6 City Camp that was due to begin on Monday,' the post, which has now been deleted, read. A primary school has cancelled a class trip to Melbourne over security fears after the Bourke Street attack Healesville Primary School in rural Victoria posted a message to Facebook saying that the planned trip was called off after a violent attack in Melbourne on Friday 'This is not a decision taken lightly but the safety of our students is the main priority. School will run as normal next week and a discussion will be had about the next step,' the post continues. Speaking to 3AW radio on Monday Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton of Victoria Police said he was surprised the school would cancel their trip. 'That's exactly what terrorists want in those situations. We've been encouraging people to get on with their lives,' Commissioner Ashton said. 'It's exactly what we want to avoid. If that's right that it's come from the Education Department I'll be having a chat to them this morning,' he said. When asked if it was an overreaction Commissioner Ashton said that he thought it was, adding that hundreds of thousands of people were in the city over the weekend and the threat level has not been raised. 'In light of recent events that occoured in Bourke Street yesterday, we have had to cancel the Grade 5/6 City Camp that was due to begin on Monday,' the post reads (stock image) Speaking to 3AW radio on Monday Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton of Victoria Police said he was surprised the school would cancel their trip (pictured; a victim of the attack) The post from the school received mixed responses from commenters with some saying they thought it was an overreaction, while others said they thought it was the right decision. 'I can understand people's concern but cancelling the camp is a bit over the top. I realise the advice came from the DoE but perhaps parents could have been given the oppourtunity to cancel without penalty if they were really that worried,' said one commenter. 'As a teacher this is a ridiculous overreaction. What are you teaching the kids?' said another. 'I'm happy with this. Thank you for making this difficult decision,' said one relieved parent. 'Thank you Healesville Primary for getting this sorted so quickly, I'm so relieved my three are no longer going,' agreed another. The Department of Education and Training told Daily Mail Australia they have not issued advice for schools to cancel excursions. 'The decision to postpone the excursion was taken by the Principal,' DET Deputy Secretary for Regional Services Group Bruce Armstrong. 'This decision was made just hours after the exclusion zone was lifted and we still weren't clear on what exactly had happened and whether there was still any risk,' he said. 'Regional staff helped the Principal with a risk assessment early on Saturday morning.' 'We'll work with the school to rearrange the trip and to make sure that no parents are out of pocket.' 'I'd like to echo the calls for Victorians to go about their lives, and that includes schools.' A farm worker accused of planting needles in strawberries during the contamination crisis may have been motivated by revenge, a court has heard. My Ut Trinh, 50, who worked for the Berrylicious/Berry Obsession farm in Caboolture, Queensland, was denied bail at Brisbane Magistrates Court on Monday. The refugee, who asked for a Vietnamese interpreter, is charged with seven counts of contamination of goods - between September 2 to 5 - with intent to cause economic loss. Her alleged crimes came at the height of the strawberry contamination crisis that rocked Australia earlier this year. Scroll down for video My Ut Trinh (pictured), known as Judy, could be facing 10 years behind bars because she allegedly expressed she was unhappy with the company she worked for A two-month police investigation linked Trinh's DNA to the first discovered needle found in a punnet from Queensland's Berrylicious/Berry Obsession farm (Pictured is a needle found in a punnet in Gladstone, Queensland) The first discovery of needles in strawberries was on September 9, and Trinh has known she was a person of interest from the 12th, the court heard. Trinh's lawyer Michael Cridland made a bail application but withdrew it after magistrate Christine Roney advised it was 'premature' because the motivation behind the alleged contamination was still unclear. 'The case that was put is that she was motivated by some fight or revenge,' Ms Roney said. Trinh, a former refugee who arrived in Australia by boat more than two decades ago, will remain in custody until her next hearing later in November. Earlier on Monday, Detective John Walker told reporters in Brisbane that Trinh was employee in the strawberry industry in the Caboolture area. She provided staff for the Berrylicious/Berry Obsession farm. Needles were then found in packets of strawberries nation-wide and the contamination was dubbed 'food terrorism' The company is one of many, such as Donnybrook Berries (pictured), that have been forced to scrap many thousands of dollars in stock as frightened customers refuse to buy Police began investigating in September when sewing needles were first found in fruit, with a further 230 incidents ultimately reported nationwide impacting 68 strawberry brands. The investigation was not over, with further investigative strategies being undertaken, he said. If found guilty, Trinh - also known as Judy - could face 10 years in jail. It was earlier reported that she 'wanted to bring the company down' and 'put them out of business, 7 News reported. More than 100 reports of tampered fruit are being investigated by police across Australia, many of which are thought to be fake or copycat cases Needles were then found in packets of strawberries nation-wide and the contamination was dubbed 'food terrorism' The day prior to a needle being found in a punnet of strawberries in a Woolworths in Geelong, Trinh allegedly told the pickers at the farm their services would no longer be needed. Police began investigating in September when sewing needles were found in fruit, with a further 230 incidents reported nationwide impacting 68 strawberry brands. Forty-nine brands were Queensland-based. In Queensland, 77 incidents were reported. Of those, 15 were believed to be a hoax or a false complaint. TIMELINE OF THE STRAWBERRY TAMPERING SCANDAL September 9 - Brisbane man rushed to hospital after eating punnet of strawberries containing needle. September 10 - Woman from Gladstone, Queensland finds needle in strawberry. September 12 - 'Disgruntled ex-employee' suspected contaminating. Queensland Health officials issued a safety warning. September 13 - Thin metal object found in Gatton, Queensland. Three more punnets found contaminated in Tweed Heads, Taree, Guyra and Maitland. Reports of contamination in Victoria. September 14 - Chantal Faugeras find needle in punnet in Wingham. September 15 - Coles shopper finds contaminated punnet in Engadine, Sydney. September 16 - Contamination spreads to South Australia after a pin is found in Mal's Black Label brand. September 21 - Police announced DNA testing would be carried out to catch saboteurs. November 11 - My Ut Trinh was taken into custody and charged with seven counts of contamination of goods. Advertisement The late Senator John McCain was remembered on Veterans Day by his daughter Meghan more than two months after his passing. Meghan McCain, who is co-host of The View on ABC, wrote on her Instagram account: Today on #VeteransDay we remember and honor those who have selflessly served and sacrificed. Those who have and continue to fight to protect our freedoms in this incredible country of ours. I am forever grateful. I miss you so much Dad, thank you for showing me what fighting for something greater than yourself means. The late Senator John McCain was remembered on Veterans Day by his daughter Meghan more than two months after his passing Meghan McCain, who is co-host of The View on ABC, wrote on her Instagram account: Today on #VeteransDay we remember and honor those who have selflessly served and sacrificed' Meghan McCain is photographed alongside her father during his chemotherapy treatments after he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an agressive, malignant form of brain cancer. The above photo was posted to Instagram on April 16 She ended the post with the hashtag #homeofthefreebecauseofthebrave. The caption was attached to a photo of John McCain during his stint as a pilot in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. John McCain died of brain cancer on August 25. He was honored with a state memorial service before he was buried in Annapolis, Maryland. On Oct. 26, 1967, a missile the size of a telephone pole blew the wing off of McCain's Skyhawk dive bomber. McCain, then a 31-year-old lieutenant commander in the Navy, parachuted out of the plane and landed in a lake in Hanoi, North Vietnam. He broke both arms and a leg in the fall, was dragged from the lake by an angry crowd, and was beaten and bayoneted. Thus began a harrowing, five-year ordeal that was to define the future senator and presidential candidate's life. When McCain was shot down, his father was poised to assume command over the entire Pacific theater. John McCain died of brain cancer on August 25. He was honored with a state memorial service before he was buried in Annapolis, Maryland. Meghan McCain is seen above touching her father's casket during a memorial service at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix on August 29 Once McCain gave his captors his name, rank and serial number they realized they had a potential propaganda coup on their hands. McCain was taken to the hospital for some basic treatment - his left arm was left broken, to heal on its own. His captors filmed him there for propaganda purposes and McCain later found out the North Vietnamese had crowed: We have the crown prince. McCain's captors asked him if he wanted to go home. It was a trick question. The U.S. military's code of conduct required prisoners to be released in the order they were detained. The North Vietnamese wanted to make a show of releasing McCain early, as his father assumed command over the Pacific. McCain refused. On Oct. 26, 1967, a missile the size of a telephone pole blew the wing off of McCain's Skyhawk dive bomber. McCain, then a 31-year-old lieutenant commander in the Navy, parachuted out of the plane and landed in a lake in Hanoi, North Vietnam. He was held captive for five years For four days after he refused release, McCain was beaten every two hours to three hours by 10 guards. Filled with thoughts of suicide, McCain broke and agreed to sign an anti-U.S. propaganda statement confessing to black crimes. He later wrote: I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine. It was the last time McCain would break. He refused to sign any other statements or meet with visiting American anti-war activists. In December of 1972, McCain and his fellow prisoners cheered as American bombs fell around the prison complex where he was held - the Hanoi Hilton - during the Christmas bombing that marked an escalation of the U.S. offensive. They might die in the attack, but the prisoners figured it was the best chance of subduing the Vietnamese and getting home. On March 14, 1973, it was finally McCain's turn to be released. He was bused to a nearby airport and escorted onto an American plane. There is no way I can describe how I felt as I walked toward that U.S. Air Force plane, McCain wrote. For the rest of his life, McCain would be unable to lift both his arms over his head because of the injuries he suffered during his captivity in Vietnam. But he gained something, too. In prison, I fell in love with my country, he wrote. Prominent racing figure Bert Vieira has slammed the police officer facing charges over the crash that left his wife in a coma for not attending court. Senior Constable Harry Thomas Little, 40, has been charged with dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm after an on-duty collision, injuring Gai Vieira, in Cronulla, in Sydney, at about midday on September 5. Little was allegedly driving at a dangerous speed when his NSW Police Ford Falcon XR6 hit Ms Vieira's Mercedes at the Kingsway and Connels Road intersection, according to court documents. Gai Vieira (pictured), the wife of a millionaire racehorse owner, was placed in an induced coma after her car was T-boned by a police patrol car in Cronulla, Sydney's south, on September 5 Gai Vieira (pictured in white), the wife of a millionaire racehorse owner, suffered extensive injuries as a result, including broken bones, punctured lungs from the crash Horse owner Bert Vieira (pictured) has slammed the officer charged over the incident that left his wife in a coma as 'disgusting' for not appearing in court Ms Vieira, then 68, was taken to St George Hospital in a critical condition. Police say a young boy, who was a passenger in the Mercedes, escaped injury. Little was not required to attend Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Monday for the first hearing. Despite this, outside court, Mr Vieira told reporters he was 'totally disgusted' the officer had not attended. Mr Vieira's wife remains in hospital in a coma and has shown 'very slight signs' of improvement. Senior Constable Harry Thomas Little, 40, has been charged with dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm after an on-duty collision, injuring Gai Vieira, in Cronulla about midday on September 5 'We grab at anything - a blink of an eye, a swallow, we grab at anything we can,' Mr Vieira said. 'They (the doctors) say it will take a long time, a miracle.' Little has been excused from appearing when the matter is next heard on February 5, 2019. Outside court, his solicitor Warwick Anderson said the police officer is doing 'as well as can be expected', adding that 'it's a very difficult time for him and his family'. Police confirmed that the officer was travelling at a speed of 124 km/hr in a 70km/hr zone when he crashed into Mrs Vieira's car The fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi wept yesterday as hundreds gathered in Istanbul to honour the memory of her husband. Hatice Cengiz, 38, was pictured in tears as tributes were paid and images shown of her fiance to a crowd of around 200. It comes as Turkish newspaper, The Daily Sabah, reports the last words of Jamal Khashoggi as 'I'm suffocating Take this bag off my head, I'm claustrophobic.' Ms Cengiz had waited outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 for her fiance Jamal Khashoggi to emerge before raising the alarm when he failed to appear. Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi rulers, was killed inside the consulate after going to collect papers for his forthcoming marriage to Ms Cengiz. Hatice Cengiz, the Turkish fiancee (left) of killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi weeps during a commemoration event in Istanbul. She is pictured here seated next to Yemeni human rights activist Tawakkol Karman (right), who won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her participation in the Arab Spring uprisings Yasin Aktay speaks in front of images of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a commemorative ceremony held yesterday People in the crowd wear face masks of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi during the commemoration ceremony. Around 200 people are believed to have been in attendance Nobel Prize winner Tawakkol Karman of Yemen speaks in front of images of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi. She was earlier pictured in the crowd sitting next to Khashoggi's finace Hatice Cengiz After repeated denials, Saudi Arabia finally admitted the 59-year-old had been murdered at the mission in a 'rogue' operation. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt to fly to Saudi Arabia over murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi The Foreign Secretary will meet King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit to the oil-rich Gulf state today. He will say it is unacceptable that details of the killing remain unclear. Jeremy Hunt (pictured) will be the first minister to visit Saudi Arabia since Mr Khashoggi was murdered Mr Hunt is the first minister to visit Saudi Arabia since Mr Khashoggi was killed by a 15-strong hit squad flown into Istanbul from Riyadh. Speaking ahead of the visit, he said: The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago. It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear. We encourage the Saudi authorities to co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death, so that we deliver justice for his family and the watching world. Advertisement It had originally argued that the writer had left the premises unharmed. Supporters met today to talk and watch videos of eulogies for the Washington Post contributor. Turan Kislakci, head of the Turkish-Arab Media Association (TAM), to which Khashoggi belonged, called for justice to be done 'so that these barbaric tyrants can never do the same thing again'. Yemeni human rights activist Tawakkol Karman, who won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her participation in the Arab Spring uprisings, said the killing was reminiscent of crimes committed by the Islamic State Group. Protesters also yesterday gathered outside the consulate where Khashoggi was attacked. The murder has pushed attention back to the war in Yemen and brought increased pressure on the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman. Khashoggi was last seen entering the consulate on October 2 to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage. Turkish pro-government daily Sabah on Saturday reported Khashoggi's killers poured the remains of the insider-turned-critic of Riyadh down the drain after dissolving him in acid. Samples taken from the consulate drains showed traces of acid, Sabah said without quoting sources for its story. Erdogan has accused the 'highest levels' of the Saudi government of ordering the hit. Some officials have pointed the finger at the all-powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and some analysts say Ankara is keen to have the heir sidelined from the nexus of power in Riyadh. Hatice Cengiz, fiancee of murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, reacts while watching a tribute video to her husband at the commemorative ceremony Hatice Cengiz had waited outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul for her fiance Jamal Khashoggi before raising the alarm when he failed to emerge. Khashoggi had gone to the consulate to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage. She is pictured here weeping at a commemorative ceremony to the journalist in Istanbul yesterday People chant slogans and hold posters in protest of Saudi Arabia's actions in Yemen during a protest outside the Saudi Arabian consulate Istanbul - where Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered The recent murder of journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (protesters are seen outside yesterday) has also pushed attention back to the war in Yemen and brought increased pressure on the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman, and has stretched diplomatic ties between Turkey, the U.S and Saudi Arabia It comes as a Turkish newspaper reports the last words of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident Saudi journalist killed at his country's consulate in Istanbul last month, reveal the way he pleaded with his murderers moments before his death. The Daily Sabah says they will soon publish images of the tools used by a team of 15 people who are suspected of slaying the Washington Post writer, and claim to have heard his final utterances in secret audio recordings on October 2. 'I'm suffocating Take this bag off my head, I'm claustrophobic,' Khashoggi said according to the head of investigations for the Turkish newspaper Nazif Karaman. Dissident Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was murdered at the Istanbul Saudi consulate A tough critic of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Khashoggi, disappeared after he entered the Saudi consulate (pictured) in Istanbul on October 2 to collect a document The Turkish newspaper claims it took 15 minutes to carry out the grisly killing and traces of acid were discovered at the Saudi consul general's home in Istanbul. The Daily Sabah reports the planning of the murder was led by the head of the Saudi Scientific Council of Forensics, Salah al-Tubaigy. With the Middle Eastern royal being accused of planning the attack, the US-Saudi alliance came under immense strain as people called for America to get to the bottom of the story. Three humble tradesman have found success after they saw a gap in the food market and decided they had the perfect business idea to fill it. Haydn Graham, 41, Glen Ellis, 37, and Ben Huppatz, 41, founded the BlackBear BBQ after they discovered a large and hungry market for U.S. Southern-style food in Australia. Rather than set up in the restaurant-heavy inner city, the trio chose an industrial block in Blacktown, in Sydney's west, for their first restaurant in August of 2017. And word spread quickly among locals - and through other tradesmen - that the boys were doing some of the best BBQ in Sydney. Scroll down for video Starting their journey in the heart of industrial Blacktown (pictured), the boys set up shop to serve all the hard-working tradies and locals of Blacktown Haydn Graham, Glen Ellis and Ben Huppatz (pictured together) founded the BlackBear BBQ after the noticed there was a market for BBQ cooked food in Australia Mr Graham said word of mouth has played a big part in their early success in becoming one of the southern hemisphere's biggest smoke house BBQ places, and doing so in just one year Mr Graham told Daily Mail Australia the biggest hurdle the team had to overcome was knowing what demand they would have for their product, which in turn would inform their supply levels. But they were quickly deluged with hundreds of hungry customers - and business hasn't stopped. 'Trying to get enough food to cook for enough of the customers was a trick at first,' Mr Graham said. 'It's really gratifying and its a reward for all the hard work, time and money that has gone into this,' he added. 'We are flooded with people every weekend.' Mr Graham said they offer food that is discernibly different to anything else in Sydney. Mr Huppatz and Mr Graham met at TAFE when they were 16-years-old, while learning their trade in the building business and remained friends Shortly after Mr Graham would go on to marry Mr Huppatz's sister. They then met Mr Ellis through a mutual friend a few years later and the three men hit it off with their shared interest in barbecue. Both Mr Huppatz and Mr Ellis would then go on to marry twin sisters. Mr Graham said the biggest hurdle the team had to overcome early on was knowing what demand they would have for their product which in turn would inform their supply levels All the while the group of mates let the idea of a BBQ smoke house percolate in the background, until one day they decided to follow their dream. Mr Ellis said it was easy to see that people enjoyed BBQ food and creating a restaurant that provided it was a no brainer. 'Cooking over fire, I think humanity is going back to the simple stuff,' he said. The friends discussed the idea over a few nights around the campfire and eventually all three made the leap of faith and left their day jobs. Each man took on a different role within their business with Mr Ellis taking care of the paperwork while Mr Huppatz is the head pitmaster and Mr Graham takes on creative design and engineering. BlackBears biggest selling point is its menu which consists of locally sourced produce, smoked in the traditional 'lownslow method' over ironbark for up to 15 hours. They offer a reasonably priced menu with such offers as a Pork Belly Box for just $15 or the Hungry Bear Box for $25. BlackBears biggest selling point is its menu which consists of locally sourced produce, smoked in the traditional 'lownslow method' over Ironbark for up to 15 hours The three friends gave up their day jobs as tradesmen and put everything into their business venture which they say has been paid off by the strong community support they receive Seeing their growing success, the guys decided to get the word out there. The team travelled to different food festivals around Sydney and saw a growing interest in the food they provided. Mr Graham said word of mouth has played a big part in their early success in becoming one of the southern hemisphere's biggest smoke house BBQ places, and doing so in just one year. 'And now the challenge is more shops,' Mr Graham said. He said they had dedicated staff who love working for them, some even coming in on their days off to help out. 'And I think that is something that people see happening,' Mr Graham said. 'They pick up on that vibe, we don't run our kitchen like a Gordon Ramsay would.' Since their opening BlackBear BBQ has received a healthy flow of positive reviews online. 'The pork belly is to die for, the brisket is good but a bit over seasoned for my tastes and the cheesy corn is amazing,' one customer wrote. Since their opening BlackBear has received a healthy flow of positive reviews online for their large range of barbecue food (pictured) 'We turned up late but still managed to get what we wanted with very friendly service. The food was delish (sic) except the coleslaw had coriander in it which I don't like but my partner loved it another added. They have opened their latest 'pop up store' at Sydney's Moore Park and it will remain there until Cirque Du Soleil, which is yet to have its dates finalised. 'We wonder how many people out there still haven't heard of us, it is a daunting thought,' Mr Graham said in reference to spreading the word. You can find the BlackBear BBQ restaurant on Forge Street in Sydney's Blacktown. However at their pop up location in Moore Park the men are offering some extra summer fun for their customers. The Moore Park location has just launched cornhole tossing, giant beer pong, new party packages with bottomless beer and a masterclass on the art of barbecuing. The BlackBear BBQ in Blacktown can comfortable seat from 60 to 70 people at maximum capacity while their location at Moore Park can seat up to 100. They have opened their latest 'pop up store' at Sydney's Moore Park and will remain there until Cirque Du Soleil (pictured) Both locations are open air restaurants which affords patrons the chance to enjoy the weather and their food at the same time. The men aren't looking to covert their recipes and have a range of classes for people to attend if they want to cook their own smoked BBQ at home. For example the Pitmaster Masterclass will reveal insights into seasoning, the origins of the barbecue and exactly how to cook low n slow. Attendees will also get a tasting platter of each of the menu items during class. Bookings and further inquiries can be made via their website www.blackbearbbq.com.au. Michel Barnier raised hopes a Brexit deal could be done within days as he said the outlines of an agreement are ready to present to senior ministers tomorrow. The EU's chief Brexit negotiator is said to have told EU ministers the 'parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined' and ready to be presented to tomorrow's Cabinet. But the reports were immediately slapped down by Number Ten who said they should be taken with a big 'pinch of salt'. Negotiating teams worked until 2.45am this morning as they desperately try to make enough progress to thrash out a deal amid bitter wrangling over the Irish border. Theresa May is facing a crunch week in the talks and had been hoping to reach a settlement by Wednesday - the deadline for calling a Brussels summit this month. And after her plans were thrown into fresh chaos by the resignation of Transport Minister Jo Johnson last Friday, Mr Barnier raised hopes a deal could be looming. Michel Barnier (pictured today in Brussels) raised hopes a Brexit deal could be done within days as he said the outlines of an agreement are ready to present to senior ministers tomorrow Aid Secretary Penny Mordaunt (pictured in Downing Street today) risked fuelling tensions by suggesting the Cabinet would act as a 'check' on what deal the PM does with Brussels Theresa May (pictured returning to Downing Street this morning) is struggling to keep Brexit talks alive amid a backlash from the EU, Remainers and Brexiteers Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom (pictured left in Downing Street last week) warned yesterday that the UK 'cannot be held against its will in a customs arrangement'. Boris Johnson (right) warned that Britain is on the verge of 'total surrender' to Brussels According to the Financial Times, he told EU ministers: 'On the basis of our common efforts, the parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined. 'On the British side, the cabinet will meet tomorrow [Tuesday] to examine these parameters. 'We are at an extremely sensitive moment. The smallest public comment from my side could be exploited by those who want the negotiation to fail.' Although he also warned that no deal is yet done and said that 'as in any negotiation, the final stretch is always the most difficult'. But the PM's official spokesman poured cold water over expectations the deal could be approved by the Cabinet tomorrow. He said: 'I read some quotes attributed to Barnier by some anonymous minister. I have talked about taking things with a pinch of salt before - that applies here - I would apply a bucket of salt to this one. Negotiations are ongoing.' While government sources dismissed the claim as 'total b******s'. And the PM continues to face enormous pressure from her ministers who have vowed to stop her making too many Brexit concessions to the EU. Aid Secretary Penny Mordaunt said the Cabinet would act as a 'check' on what deal the PM does with Brussels. If the Wednesday deadline is missed, the next summit is not expected to happen until mid-December - making it almost impossible to get a deal through Parliament before Christmas. Mrs May now faces mounting pressure to activate large scale no-deal plans, amid warnings that otherwise the country will not be prepared to crash out in March. Why hasn't a Brexit divorce deal been agreed yet? The Brexit divorce negotiations have boiled down to the issue of the Irish border. The line between Northern Ireland and the Republic will be the UK's only land border with the EU after we leave the bloc. Brussels had initially demanded that Northern Ireland stays within its jurisdiction for customs and most single market rules to avoid a hard border. But Mrs May flatly rejected the idea, saying she would not agree to anything that risked splitting the UK. Instead, the government has mooted a temporary customs union for the whole UK, and accepted the need for extra regulatory checks in the Irish Sea. Brussels has also given ground, and now appears to be prepared to sign off a UK-wide backstop in the divorce deal. That leaves the mechanism for ending the backstop as the final hurdle to overcome - but the two sides have different views. These are the options on the table: UNILATERAL EXIT Dominic Raab has been arguing that the UK should be able to scrap the backstop arrangements by giving three to six months' notice. That would assuage Eurosceptic fears that the country could end up being trapped in an inferior customs union indefinitely, unless the EU gives permission for it to stop or a wider trade deal is sealed. ALL-WEATHER BACKSTOP For its part, the EU has been adamant that the backstop must offer an 'all-weather' solution to the Irish border issue and stay in place 'unless and until' it is superseded by other arrangements. The bloc has already effectively killed off calls for a hard end date to the backstop - and No10 is now convinced that a simple unilateral notice period will not unlock the talks. COMPROMISE PLAN Mrs May and Irish PM Leo Varadkar have discussed a 'review mechanism' for the backstop, which could involve an independent arbitration body assessing whether the terms were being honoured and if the arrangement should be ended. Potentially this could provide a solution that allows Mrs May to say the backstop would not go on for ever. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox - an eminent QC and strident Brexiteer - has been tasked with coming up with a text that satisfies both sides. But the devil will be in the detail, and ministers are keen to ensure there are 'robust' ways for the UK to escape. Advertisement The walls appear to be closing in on the PM, with both wings of the Tory party launching furious attacks on her Brexit approach. No10 is on high alert for more resignations by Eurosceptics or Remainers, in the wake of the dramatic departure by Boris Johnson's pro-EU brother Jo last week. In his latest salvo at her blueprint today, former foreign secretary Boris warned that the PM's plans would keep the UK 'in captivity' and urged a Cabinet 'mutiny'. Meanwhile, Labour has descended into fresh infighting after shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer insisted the process of leaving the EU 'can be stopped' - despite Jeremy Corbyn saying exactly the opposite last week. The situation is threatening to spiral out of control with just over four months to go until the UK is due to leave the EU. Ms Mordaunt, a Brexiteer, delivered a thinly-veiled warning to Mrs May today by vowing the Cabinet would act as a 'check' on her plans. 'The important thing is that there are two checks on this deal - there is Cabinet and there is Parliament,' she told reporters. 'Cabinet's job is to put something to Parliament that is going to deliver on the referendum result.' Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom fueled fears about a meltdown yesterday by insisting the UK must not be 'trapped' in an Irish border 'backstop' agreement. Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey are among the other senior ministers on 'resignation watch' if Mrs May makes more concessions. Downing Street has pinned its hopes of a breakthrough on a proposal drawn up by Attorney General Geoffrey Cox. The idea is to include a 'review clause' in the Irish border backstop in a bid to convince Brexiteers the UK will not be trapped indefinitely. But sources in London and Brussels say the EU has so far torpedoed efforts to strike a compromise, once again raising the risk of a no-deal Brexit. Wednesday evening is seen as a 'hard' deadline for settling a deal in order to call an EU summit this month that would sign it off. The next opportunity is likely to be mid-December. That would leave almost no time for a detailed debate in the Commons and a vote before Christmas. After the briefing for foreign ministers in Brussels today, an EU council spokesman said: 'Michel Barnier explained that intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet. 'Some key issues remain under discussion, in particular a solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.' According to the FT, Mr Barnier told the session: 'As of this moment, this agreement is still not reached. As in any negotiation, the final stretch is always the most difficult.' But is said to have added: 'On the basis of our common efforts, the parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined. 'On the British side, the cabinet will meet tomorrow to examine these parameters. We are at an extremely sensitive moment. 'The smallest public comment from my side could be exploited by those who want the negotiation to fail.' Ramsgate harbour set for upgrades in a no deal Brexit Ramsgate harbour is set for a massive upgrade in the event of a no deal Brexit. The dock will need to take on some of the load currently imposed on Dover in the event the main cross-Channel route gets bogged down. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is scrambling to set up possible alternative shipping and cargo routes. Ramsgate could open up routes to Belgium and bypass France entirely if President Emmanuel Macron plays hardball in a no deal Brexit. A government spokesman told the Express: 'There are two reasons for developing Ramsgate. 'The first is obviously making sure that Dover-Calais doesn't become a serious bottleneck. 'The second is that Ramsgate is better placed for trade with Zeebrugge and the Belgians want a bigger share of cross-Channel freight. 'If Macron really makes life difficult after Brexit, then he would have to explain why trade was moving out of the Pas de Calais to Belgium.' Advertisement In public politicians were far less optimistic, with Belgian foreign minister Didier Reynders saying: 'For this moment it's difficult to make real progress, but before Christmas I'm hoping it will be possible.' Asked if a special Brexit summit could be staged in November, Mr Reynders said: 'We are ready to do that but to organise a summit you need to have some progress. 'If we are in the same situation as 10 days ago it is a nonsense to organise it this month. It will be maybe the case in December. 'We have seen some movement but it seems to be not enough.' French Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau said: 'The ball is in the British court. It is a question of a British political decision.' In another worrying sign for Mrs May, ministers have been briefing that they had doubts about her Chequers plan for future trade relations with the EU when she pushed them through Cabinet in July. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Trade Secretary Liam Fox, and Aid Secretary Penny Mordaunt are also said to have voiced concerns at the crunch meeting over the summer, according to the BBC. Former education secretary Justine Greening, a staunch Remainer, today repeated her warning that Mrs May's plan is the 'worst of all worlds' and said she knew other ministers were on the brink of resigning. 'It leaves us with less influence, loses controls over the rules we have to follow and I have to say, if we were to accept it as a parliament, less credibility as a country in the rest of the world, because they would see that we would be prepared to go for a bad deal,' she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Several pro-EU ministers, including universities minister Sam Gyimah and business minister Richard Harrington, are said to be contemplating walking out. French Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau (pictured with Mr Barnier today) said: 'The ball is in the British court. It is a question of a British political decision.' In his latest Telegraph column today, Mr Johnson backed his brother Jo's resignation from the Government and attacked the Prime Minister's Brexit proposals as 'shameful'. 'I can't really believe it but this Government seems to be on the verge of total surrender,' he said. Rudd warns Canada-style Brexit deal would harm the UK A Canada-style trade deal with the EU would inflict a 'heavy price' on the UK, Amber Rudd has warned. In a joint article with Tory Brexiteer Andrew Percy, the former home secretary said the favoured option of many Eurosceptics was undesirable and unrealistic. Britain's relation with the bloc was 'wholly different' and trying to use the model could be 'economically damaging', they said. 'A Canada-style deal is not an extension of the status-quo, and in many ways could be seen as a failure of the UK's negotiating position,' they wrote on the ConservativeHome website. 'The EU-Canada trade deal, positive though it is for that trading relationship, is a somewhat limited agreement, principally focusing on the elimination of tariffs and the raising of quotas on certain sectors, such as dairy.' The article also warned that the Canada model would be 'constitutionally dangerous' as it would require a hard Irish border. The final objection was said to be that it is 'politically impossible' as there would be no majority in the Commons. Advertisement 'With every day that passes we seem to be getting more craven. 'We have agreed to become the punk of Brussels, signing up not just to their existing rulebook but to huge chunks of future regulation even though we will have no say in drafting that legislation.' He condemned proposals to hand over the timing for leaving the customs union and the backstop to an independent mechanism, saying: 'We are on the verge of signing up for something even worse than the current constitutional position. 'These are the terms that might be enforced on a colony. 'On the present plans we will be a vassal state, and in the customs union, until such time as our EU partners may feel moved to enter into fresh negotiations on a trade deal. 'No member of the Government, let alone the Cabinet, could conceivably support them, or so you would have thought. 'And yet the awful truth is that even if the Cabinet mutinies as they ought it will make little difference.' That is because, he said, Mrs May wants 'to remain in captivity'. Mr Johnson added: 'It is a recipe for continued strife, both in the Tory party and in the country. 'This deal, when it comes, must be thrown out wholesale. It is not too late to do better and the country deserves it.' Mr Johnson said the PM would try to 'bludgeon MPs into voting for surrender' by framing the argument as accepting her proposals or the 'chaos of no deal'. His brother said Brexit threatened to be the biggest failure of statecraft since Suez in 1956. What happens if Theresa May doesn't get a Brexit deal? Fears of a no deal Brexit are growing by the hour amid continued stalemate in the negotiations. Leaving in March without an agreement would have far-reaching impact and the Government has published more than 100 notices to help people and business prepare. It could mean: MONEY Leaving without a deal would mean an immediate Brexit on March 29 after tearing up a 21-month transition agreement. This included giving 39billion to the EU as a divorce payment. The figure would be slashed - but Britain will be legally obliged to pay some of it. GOODS TRADE The Chequers agreement effectively proposed keeping Britain in the single market for goods and agriculture to preserve 'frictionless' trade and protect the economy. Customs checks on cross-Channel freight would cause havoc at ports, hitting food supplies and other goods. There are contingency plans that will cost billions to effectively turn the M20 into a giant lorry park and the Government could even lease lorry ferries to ease congestion. TARIFFS All EU-UK trade in goods is free of tariffs in the single market. Many prices in the shops would rise if tariffs are applied. Trade would revert to World Trade Organisation rules. The EU would charge import tariffs averaging 2-3 per cent on goods, but up to 60 per cent for some agricultural produce, damaging UK exporters. We have a trade deficit with the EU of 71billion they sell us more than we sell them so the EU overall would lose out. German cars and French agriculture would be worst hit, as would UK regions with large export industries. Tariffs could also mean price inflation. IMMIGRATION The UK would immediately have control over its borders and freedom to set migration policy on all EU migrants. More than 1million UK nationals living in Europe could lose their right to live and work in the EU. Britain has unilaterally guaranteed rights for the 3.7million EU nationals living here but almost none of them are so far registered for their 'settled status'. CITY OF LONDON Many firms have already made contingency plans for no deal, but there would probably be a significant degree of disruption and an economic hit. Ministers would be likely to take an axe to tax and regulations to preserve the UK's economic advantage. AEROPLANES Without a side deal, no deal Brexit could see planes grounded. The UK currently is part of the EU 'open skies' system and replacement agreements have not yet been finalised. EUROPEAN COURTS Britain would be free from the edicts of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg and all EU laws. Parliament would be sovereign. FARMING & FISHING The UK would quit the Common Agricultural Policy, which gives farmers and landowners 3billion in subsidies. Ministers would come under pressure to continue a form of subsidy. NORTHERN IRELAND Northern Ireland would be outside the EU, with no arrangements on how to manage 300 crossing points on the 310-mile border. The EU would want Ireland to impose customs and other checks to protect the bloc's border something it has said it will not do. No deal could blow a hole in the Good Friday Agreement, with pressure on all sides to find a compromise. Advertisement But in a sign of Downing Street attempting to push the process forward, Mrs May's key Brexit adviser Olly Robbins held talks in Brussels yesterday. The negotiations ran until 2.45am amid desperate efforts to find a way through. The two sides have resumed today, with sources saying things could 'move quickly' if the pieces 'fall into place'. But there is an atmosphere of gloom among UK officials, with apparent resignation that the November summit is a distant prospect. A Downing Street spokesman said: 'We have made good progress in the negotiations in relation to the withdrawal agreement but there are substantial issues still to be overcome in relation to the Northern Irish backstop.' In another example of the clear and present danger for Mrs May, the DUP and Tory Eurosceptic backbenchers issued a joint threat to vote down the premier's blueprint if it does come to Parliament. To make matters worse, four more Remainer ministers are said to be on the brink of quitting, after Boris Johnson's brother Jo walked out demanding another referendum to reverse the whole process. Mr Johnson said today he decided to quit after reports Mrs was planning a publicity campaign for her deal which he said amounted to a 'calculated deceit'. 'This is a calculated deceit on the British people,' Mr Johnson told the Evening Standard. 'I challenge the Government to come clean on the cost of Brexit. The reason they can't look us in the eye, it's because they know this will leave us worse-off and with less control. It's a gross abuse of civil service impartiality.' Mr Johnson added: 'It's clear that we are seeing a deepening crisis. The options for a smooth Brexit are non-existent and each day shows this more clearly. We need to consider alternatives, including the public having a final say in a referendum. 'There is a sea-change in mood among my Conservative colleagues who are focused by this crisis. I would not be surprised if more colleagues in senior positions speak out. Downing Street had pinned its hopes of a breakthrough on a proposal drawn up by Attorney General Geoffrey Cox. The idea was to include a 'review clause' in the Irish border backstop in a bid to convince Brexiteers the UK will not be trapped indefinitely. But sources in London and Brussels say the EU has torpedoed the 'Cox compromise', once again raising the risk of a no-deal Brexit. Mrs May might now be forced to pull the trigger within days on full-blown preparations for the country crashing out - after officials warned that there is no chance the contingency plans will be ready by March otherwise. Billions of pounds is set to be spent on issues like rushing through new customs infrastructure, ensuring supplies of medicine and food, and protecting energy provisions in Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, Labour's Brexit chaos deepened after shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer has said Britain's withdrawal from the European Union can still be halted. The comments appeared starkly at odds with Jeremy Corbyn, who said last week in an interview with a German magazine: 'We can't stop Brexit.' The Labour leader has also rejected a call by former transport minister Jo Johnson - who quit in protest at the Government's Brexit policy - for a second referendum. However, Sir Keir insisted the Labour leadership was fully signed up to the position agreed at the party's annual conference in Liverpool - including the option of another referendum. 'Brexit can be stopped. But the real question is: what are the decisions we are going to face over the next few weeks and months?' he told Sky News. 'Decision one is on the deal. Decision two is if the deal goes down, should there be a general election? And decision three is, if there is no general election, all options must be on the table including the option of a public vote. 'That is the clear position. Jeremy is signed up to it. I'm signed up to that.' Boris Johnson's brother Jo, above, resigned from the Government and attacked the Prime Minister's Brexit proposals as 'shameful'. Boris urged the Cabinet to mutiny against Theresa May's plans [File photo] (PA Graphics) DUP leader Arlene Foster (pictured with deputy Nigel Dodds) has warned she will not tolerate any Brexit package that risks splitting the UK Keir Starmer defies Jeremy Corbyn and says Brexit CAN be stopped as Labour faces new chaos over a second referendum Sir Keir Starmer insisted Brexit can be stopped today in defiance of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's claim there is no way of halting the referendum result. The shadow Brexit secretary insisted 'all options must be on the table' including a second referendum. Mr Corbyn said last week he was powerless to stop Brexit but instead wanted to negotiate an exit on his own terms. Sir Keir's intervention deepens Labour's chaos on quitting the EU. Just yesterday shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry endorsed a new referendum. Sir Keir Starmer (pictured on Sky News today) insisted Brexit can be stopped in defiance of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's claim there is no way of halting the referendum result Sir Keir told Sky News: 'Brexit can be stopped. But the real question is what are the decisions we are going to face over the next few weeks and months? 'Decision one is on the deal. Decision two is if the deal goes down should there be a general election and decision three is if there is no general election all options must be on the table including the option of a public vote. 'That is the clear position. Jeremy is signed up to it. I'm signed up to that.' Last week Mr Corbyn said in an interview: 'We can't stop it. 'The referendum took place. Article 50 has been triggered. What we can do is recognise the reasons why people voted Leave.' What happens if Theresa May does NOT get a Brexit deal with the EU? With the clock ticking down on negotiations, Westminster's attention is turning towards what happens if there is no deal. But the consequences are chaotic and incredibly hard to predict. Senior Labour figures and Remainers such as Tony Blair insist the government will find it politically impossible to proceed with a no-deal Brexit. They say rather than crash out, the PM will be forced to call a referendum, or extend the Article 50 process. But Mrs May is adamant that there is no prospect of her cancelling or delaying Brexit. Mrs May is adamant that there is no prospect of her cancelling or delaying Brexit Commons Clerks have pointed out that, short of two-thirds of the Commons voting for an election, there is no legal mechanism for MPs to oblige the government to change course. The Withdrawal Act has already been passed by Parliament - meaning that the 'default' position is for the UK to leave the bloc on March 29, deal or no deal. Constitutional Clerk Graeme Cowie said that did not mean MPs could not avert a no deal - but it would come down to the strength of political pressure. 'There is not any legal mechanism by which they can insist upon an alternative other than no deal,' he told the BBC's Westminster Hour. 'The means by which they might achieve that (avoiding no deal) are necessarily political, rather than legal.' Failure to agree a deal by January 21 Under pressure from Tory rebels, the government ceded a provision in the Withdrawal Act that means they must set out 'next steps' to Parliament if a deal has not been done by January 21. That could be the starting point for massive pressure to be piled on Mrs May to switch her strategy and avoid a no deal outcome. But while MPs will be able to hold a debate on the plan, any vote would be on a motion in 'neutral terms' - along the lines of 'take note' - and not amendable. While MPs will be able to hold a debate on the plan, any vote would be on a motion in 'neutral terms' - along the lines of 'take note' - and not amendable What could Remainer MPs do? Government cannot last long without the support of Parliament, as they must pass Budgets and get their policies through. But since the Fixed Term Parliaments Act was introduced it is considerably harder to force an election. MPs keen to avoid a no deal could cause a huge amount of trouble, including wrecking any legislation ministers put forward to ease the impact of a no-deal Brexit. But a government that is determined to press on, and willing to risk a chaotic exit from the EU, could conceivably cling on until it is too late. The nuclear option for Tory MPs would be to back a vote of no confidence. However, under the new rules, that would only force Mrs May out, and trigger a two-week period when she is likely to be replaced by another - and potentially more Brexiteer - PM. A vote of no confidence could force Mrs May out - but she would likely be replaced by another - and potentially more Brexiteer - PM Will political reality intervene? Bulldozing through a no deal Brexit in the face of Parliamentary opposition might be possible in theory - but it could prove all-but impossible in reality. Mrs May could endure 'death by a thousand cuts' if she tries, and risks tainting the Tories' reputation for economic governance by throwing the country into turmoil. However, the Conservatives will need to balance the reputational problems from crashing out against the political damage of failing to push through Brexit. Advertisement A teenage boy is recovering in hospital after a horrific crash claimed the life of his parents and girlfriend. Grace Hill, 16, was killed alongside her boyfriend's parents Jeremy and Tania Kay when their car collided with another vehicle in Hamilton, New Zealand, in the early hours of Sunday morning, NZ Herald reported. The car was driven by Mitchell Kay - the lone survivor of the vehicle - when it crashed into a Toyota Prado at the intersection of Mangaharakeke Drive and Avalon Drive. Auckland teenager Grace Hill (right), 16, was killed alongside her boyfriend's parents Jeremy and Tania Kay when their car collided with another vehicle in Hamilton, New Zealand, in the early hours of Sunday morning The driver of the Prado and Mitchell are both recovering in Waikato Hospital. Grace's mother Hayley Ellwood, who received a knock on the door from police at 4.30am on Sunday, said she was struggling to understand how the cars collided. 'What can you say. The guy is pretty lucky. He gets to walk away and I don't understand how it happened, we drove past there yesterday a couple of times and I just don't understand how it could have happened,' she told the NZ Herald. 'But what he's done to our family and the Kay family... (Mitchell) and his sister are orphans. You just can't get your head around any of that.' Ms Ellwood said the family, including Grace's two older twin sisters, were struggling to comprehend the loss. The car was driven by Mitchell Kay - the lone survivor of the vehicle - when it crashed into a Toyota Prado at the intersection of Mangaharakeke Drive and Avalon Drive (pictured) Jeremy Kay (pictured), who was killed alongside his wife in the crash, has been remembered by his band Tenfoot Leap She said her daughter was well looked after by the Kay family and she had been dating Mitchell for about three years after they met through their love of rowing. The young couple would bus between Auckland and Hamilton to see each other. Ms Ellwood described her daughter as a determined and strong woman who was hilarious and 'amazing'. 'Amazing grace, that's how she got her name. That's my favourite and that's how she got her name and she lived up to that,' Ms Ellwood. While Ms Ellwood is unsure how the crash happened, police told her it was not Mitchell's fault. Police are appealing for sightings of a blue and grey Toyota Prado in the moments before the crash occurred. Grace was due to turn 17 at the end of the month. Grace's mother Hayley Ellwood said her daughter was well looked after by the Kay family and she had been dating Mitchell (right) for about three years after they met through their loves of rowing Jeremy Kay, who was killed alongside his wife in the crash, has been remembered by his band Tenfoot Leap. 'Hey there fans. We have some extremely sad news in the Tenfoot camp today,' the band wrote on Facebook. 'A car crash over the weekend claimed the lives of our beloved drummer Mr Jeremy Kay and his wife. 'We hope you all share our extended condolences to the family in the aftermath of this tragedy. 'We love ya Jerm!! Jam well with those who have gone before us and we'll see you again at the great gig in the sky.' Greg Wells responded to the post and recalled the moment Jerry told him his drumming was 'average at best'. 'But I soon learned that what you lacked in talent you more than made up for in your passion for music and your determination to get better,' Mr Wells wrote. 'Then after my last gig (you) said you had learned a lot from playing alongside me... perhaps one of the greatest compliment(s) I've ever had from another muso.' 'Rock In Peace to you and Tans... thoughts are with your family.' A fugitive fraudster fled justice after persuading a flying instructor to drop him off in France during a lesson, a court has heard. Jamie Colwell had been convicted of a 1m VAT scam alongside his ailing father Brian and both men faced lengthy prison sentences. But while on bail, Jamie Colwell, 51, came up with an elaborate plan to flee the country. He first hired a third party to drive his 74-year-old father to France via Dover in his new Porsche Cayenne. Jamie Colwell masterminded the plan that saw him convince a pilot to let him out in France The driver then returned bringing back with him Brian Colwell's passport for his son to use as his had been confiscated as part of his bail conditions. He then booked a flying lesson in south east Kent in his father's name. When the light aircraft entered French airspace he convinced the instructor to land at an airfield in the Pas-de-Calais region and let him out, the court heard. He met up with his father and the pair fled to Malaga in Spain. Jamie, along with his father Brian Colwell (pictured) faced lengthy prison sentences in the UK A court heard the two men hired the same person to drive a rental van with their furniture to the Costa Del Sol. Officials from HMRC launched an investigation after the defendants failed to re-appear at Bournemouth Crown Court in January for sentencing. They were able to track the rental van's journey to an address in southern Spain where the father and son were arrested in May. They were extradited back to the UK where Jamie Colwell was jailed for five years and three months and his father imprisoned for two years and eight months for fraud. Officials from HMRC launched an investigation after the defendants failed to re-appear at Bournemouth Crown Court in January for sentencing The pair also admitted offences of breaching court bail conditions and were each given an extra six months on top of their original sentences. Judge Jonathan Fuller adding: 'You were at large for five months. 'You deliberately flouted bail conditions in the way that's been described.' The Colwells were bogus property developers involved in a house building scam. They had raked in almost 1m in VAT repayments they weren't entitled to by lying about building 14m of new properties. The pair told the HMRC they had spent 14m building new properties. Such homes are zero-rated, which means developers can claim back VAT. In total, the Colwells claimed some 965,421 over six years through companies Belgravia Construction Services South Ltd and Robert Lloyd Property Ltd. However, following an investigation by HMRC, it was found the homes had never been built Brian Colwell was brought by a third party to France via the port of Dover (pictured) The defendants spent their money on a series of luxury purchases. Jamie Colwell rented a 2.8m seafront property on Sandbanks in Poole and bought a speedboat and high-performance cars. He admitted two counts of fraud to obtain payment of VAT credit, while his father pleaded guilty to one count of acquiring criminal property. Tom Wilkins, prosecuting, said: 'It was a very simple fraud, they had been reclaiming VAT for fictitious business expenses they had never incurred because the work had never been done. 'They bought high performance cars for their own use - Range Rovers, Porsches and the like.' Mr Wilkins described the pair's attempt to escape justice as an 'egregious and flagrant breach of bail'. He said: 'It was done with some sophistication, it wasn't just a sudden flight, it involved preparation and planning. 'They have obviously been living on the proceeds since absconding.' Richard Wilkinson, assistant director of HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service, said: 'The Colwells thought they could evade prison and use their criminal cash to fund a new life but they were wrong. 'With close cooperation from our international law enforcement partners we tracked the fugitives down, so they can now look forward to jail instead.' The incoming House Judiciary Chairman says they could subpoena Robert Mueller if the Trump administration restricts the investigation of possible meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said the House Judiciary Committee has the power to demand to know the contents of Mueller's Russia interference probe if necessary. It came after the US resident this week hired Matthew Whitaker as his Attorney General a man who previously suggested draining financial resources to limit the probe in a CNN interview. Scroll down for video Incoming House Judiciary Chairman, Democrat Jerrold Nadler, says they could subpoena Robert Mueller Nadler (pictured in May) said they could ask the Special Counsel what was in his report if it's restricted 'We could subpoena the final report. We could subpoena Mueller and ask him in front of the committee and ask him 'what was in your final report?' he told ABC News on Sunday. He was speaking to Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on his show, This Week after he warned on Wednesday he could take action when the new Congress gathers next year. Nadler added that he didn't think Whitaker's appointment was legal. 'His appointment is simply part of an attack on the investigation by Robert Mueller,' Nadler said. 'It's part of a pattern of interference by the president and part of a pattern of obstruction ... of that investigation.' It echoed a statement he made on Wednesday. 'The firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions fits a clear pattern of interference from President Donald Trump,' he wrote. 'If he abuses his office ... then there will be consequences.' He added on Sunday that Whitaker could be subpoenaed if he's still the acting AG in January. It came after Donald Trump hired Matthew Whitaker (right) as his acting Attorney General Wednesday 'We will make sure that Matt Whitaker immediately - one of our first orders of business will be to invite him, and if necessary to subpoena him ... to appear before the committee,' Nadler said. As well as overseeing the federal courts and federal law enforcement, Nadler's committee will supervise the Department of Justice and would be the first to consider articles of impeachment. However Nadler wouldn't say whether he thought Trump had obstructed justice. 'I'm not prepared to say that,' Nadler said. 'We will provide a check and a balance, we will hold the president accountable. He will learn that he is accountable, that he's not above the law and that's part of what we'll have to look at.' Counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway told the show there's 'no evidence' to suugest Whitaker knows anything about the Mueller investigation. 'He's been the chief of staff to the recused attorney general for 13 months. But the president wanted to have a continuum,' she said. 'I think comments that Matt Whitaker made as a private citizen on cable TV does not disqualify him from being fair and impartial, by overseeing this investigation.' Robert Mueller has 'dozens of sealed indictments' associated with US President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign This week it was claimed Mueller has 'dozens of sealed indictments' for people associated with Donald Trump's 2015-16 campaign and his administration, according to an insider who worked with the Special Counsel. 'Nobody who's close to the Russians is getting out of this,' the official told the Observer. Mueller has been investigating Trump for the past 18 months and quietened down about the probe in the two months leading up to the midterm elections on Tuesday so not to seem to interfere with voting decisions. He is expected to soon be done with the final draft of his report as to whether Trump's Russian ties helped him in the 2016 presidential elections. The Russia collusion probe headed by Robert Mueller (pictured) appeared to be under threat when Trump hired Matthew Whitaker Donald Trump Jr is predicted to be a focus point. The American leader's son is believed to have lied about a meeting with Russian intelligence officials in in June 2016. He initially said it was about adoptions but changed his tune when talking to the New York Times in July 2017, saying a former 2013 Miss Universe contact had requested a meeting. It emerged Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort, had spoken about alleged links between campaign rival Hillary Clinton and the Russians that could damage her reputation. Manafort has since been tied to the Kremlin. Mueller could ask to interview the president's son about possibly involving Russia in the election and whether he has obstructed the investigation. Donald Trump Jr (left) and Roger Stone (right) could be both be focuses in Mueller's investigation Protests erupted in defense of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia collusion investigation after President Donald Trump appointed Mueller critic Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general The Special Counsel could also be on the heels of former campaign consultant Roger Stone. Stone a friend of the president and Manafort since the 70s could be linked in various ways to the Russian interference. Perhaps most notably, he posted Twitter direct messages between himself and alleged Democratic National Committee hacker Guccifer 2.0 on his blog. According to a February 2018 it was operated by Russian military intelligence. Whitaker's appointment was met with protests in different cities calling for the protection of the Mueller probe. In radio and television interviews last year, Whitaker repeatedly supported Trump's 'illegal witch hunt' charge against the investigation. Members of Congress said his appointment was unconstitutional, because he has never been confirmed for top office by the US Senate. Republican Senate chief Mitch McConnell insisted the probe was not under threat and that Whitaker was only a 'very interim' Justice head, while Trump weighs candidates for a permanent attorney general. A group of Australian scientists have fired a meat pie into the stratosphere in a world record attempt - and found a new but expensive way to cook the nation's favourite pastry. The beef savoury was sent more than 30 kilometres above New South Wales' Hunter Valley on Saturday. Engineers from the University of NSW used a helium balloon to float the pie to a height three times higher than the flight path of commercial passenger planes. It reached the top one per cent of the earth's atmosphere, where temperatures drop to minus 60 degrees Celsius. Alex Herihly, an organiser with UNSW's TechConnect Flashbuild program, said he was confident this was the highest a pie had ever been sent into the Australian sky. 'We've submitted to the Guinness Book of Records and we're waiting to hear back,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Monday. 'It's certainly the highest pie we've heard of in Australia. Definitely the highest meat pie.' Australian scientists have sent a meat pie (pictured) into space in a world record attempt. The beef savoury was sent more than 30km above the New South Wales Hunter Valley on Saturday Researchers from the University of NSW used a helium balloon (pictured) to float the pie to a height three times higher than a passenger commercial aeroplane's flight path The pie was warm after returning to earth at Merriwa, a three-hour drive north-west of Sydney, as sun radiation warmed it up from the ultra-freezing temperatures. 'Once it got back down, and we retrieved it from the tree, it was actually warm,' Mr Herihly said. 'It's totally still edible. 'We make the assumption it did freeze when it was up there.' Mr Herihly said the demonstration was not just for novelty value but to show Australia could have a successful space program that could one day develop solar-powered satellites. 'Generally speaking, we think we can do absolutely everything in terms of putting things into space,' he said. Next time, the researchers are hoping to send a pie further into space that will come back to earth 'hot on re-entry' instead of lukewarm. Young children should be taught about the dangers of knife crime, the Governments victims commissioner has said. Baroness Newlove said children needed to be educated so they understand that to carry a knife or to stab anyone is a crime. She told The Daily Telegraph: Any strategy must start long before children have been sucked into gangs and a hostile and violent culture. Helen Newlove, who has campaigned against drink-related violence since her husband was killed in 2007 Baroness Newloves husband Garry was murdered by a gang on the doorstep of the familys home in Cheshire in 2007. She said: I speak from the unenviable position of having been widowed because of violent crime. But no child is born with a knife in its hand. We must do something in the intervening years before it becomes the essential accessory. Baroness Newlove said the Governments 40 million spending pledge towards its serious violence strategy was a drop in the ocean and less than a 100 per violent offence. She also said internet giants Google and YouTube must shoulder their share of blame for failing to take down music videos which promote violence and glamorise gang culture. More than $100,000 has been raised for the 'Trolley Man' after he helped police during the Bourke Street terror attack - but some have questioned whether the convicted criminal and recovering drug addict is worthy of the cash. By 2pm on Monday, $116,000 had been raised for Michael Rogers, 46, who used a shopping trolley to ram Hassan Khalif Shire Ali as officers tried to disarm the Somali-born radical before shooting him dead in the heart of Melbourne on Friday. Australia's most famous homeless man told The Age in the aftermath he spent five years behind bars for aggravated burglary, had been in and out of jail for 20 years - and had a history of drug use dating back to his teenage years. 'Trolley Man' Michael Rogers helped police tackle the Bourke Street attacker on Friday While more than 4,000 people have donated to the online fundraising effort since it was launched by registered charity Melbourne Homeless Collective on Saturday, many were shocked to learn of his checkered past. 'This human has been in and out of jail for two decades on burglary and other charges,' one wrote online. 'He also has a drug addiction. Basically, this guy is a criminal and a deadbeat and you gave him $82K. Well done Australia.' ISIS-inspired attacker Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (left) crashed his ute, set it alight and stabbed three bystanders - one fatally - in Melbourne on Friday While more than 4,000 people have donated to the online fundraising effort since it was launched by registered charity Melbourne Homeless Collective on Saturday, many were shocked to learn of his checkered past More than $100,000 has been raised for the 'Trolley Man' after he helped police during the Bourke Street terror attack Melbourne radio host Dee Dee Dunleavy also voiced her concern after initially praising Rogers and the fundraising cause on social media. 'I was unaware when I tweeted this that he is a convicted criminal. The fact remains that he tried to help, but maybe direct funds to The Salvos instead,' she said. Broadcaster Neil Mitchell questioned how the raised money would be distributed and said 'great care' was needed. 'As has been reported, Michael has a criminal history, he did five years in jail for aggravated burglary so it must have been a bad one,' he said on 3AW Radio. 'He's got drug problems which he has talked about himself. Great care needed there in my view.' Video showed a man wielding a knife attempt to stab and slash at two police officers before he was shot with a taser and fell to the ground Melbourne Homeless Collective initially announced 'all funds donated to this campaign' would go directly to Rogers to 'help get him back on his feet'. Poll Should Trolley Man get the money? Yes No Should Trolley Man get the money? Yes 929 votes No 331 votes Now share your opinion 'He's a hero in our eyes and he can do what he feels best with any funds he receives,' the charity said. 'He risked his own life that day for nothing in return and you can't put a price on that.' The charity's Founder and Managing Director Donna Stolzenberg later told 3AW a 'conversation' was needed regarding what happens with the money. 'We're not going to go and hand over a $100,000 cheque, that would put Michael at risk as well,' she said on Monday. Shire Ali, 30, stabbed three men before being shot in the chest by a police officer he threatened with a knife on Friday Melbourne radio host Dee Dee Dunleavy voiced her concern after initially praising Rogers and the fundraising cause on social media 'We do have accountants on board to make sure that the money is put into a trust for Michael so that he can use it for living expenses.' While a small minority argued the 'Trolley Man' wasn't entitled to the cash, thousands more slammed that suggestion and labelled him 'a hero' and 'a champion'. 'Maybe just don't define people as the sum of their greatest mistakes. Life isn't as black and white as ''good guys'' and ''bad guys'',' Melbourne-based author Jill Stark wrote. 'Trolley Man is everything great about Australia. He's not running away. He's helping in a crisis, and he's doing it in a ridiculous but effective way,' another posted online. Melbourne Homeless Collective founder Donna Stolzenberg established a GoFundMe page (pictured) in order to help Rogers 'get back on his feet' 'Total respect to the shopping trolley hero trying to take down a mad knife man with nothing but a metal basket on not very good wheels,' a third tweeted. Rogers told 7 News on Saturday he didn't see his actions as heroic, but believes they may have helped to save lives. 'I've seen the trolley at the side and so I picked it up and ran,' he said, while imitating the action. 'I threw the trolley straight at him, and I got him. I didn't quite get him down, though. I did that motion quite a number of times but it just wasn't getting him down.' Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said Rogers' help was 'greatly appreciated' by the police on the scene on Friday. Sisto Malaspina (pictured), a 74-year-old Melburnian coffee figurehead, died in Friday's attack 'There's no doubt he acted bravely,' he told ABC radio. 'His assistance was greatly appreciated.' However, Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said while the man acted on instinct, his intervention could have led to a tragic outcome. 'I don't like to criticise people in that situation, he's acting instinctively about what he's looking at in front of him,' Mr Ashton told Melbourne radio 3AW on Monday. 'But certainly if a trolley had hit a police member and knocked him over and then this offender was on top of him, it could have had a tragic consequence. Luckily in this case, it didn't. 'I think he was trying to support the police in his own way, so I haven't been jumping on him over the weekend.' Shire Ali, 30, stabbed three men before being shot in the chest by a police officer he threatened with a knife on Friday. Sisto Malaspina, a 74-year-old Italian restaurateur, died at the scene. Another victim is recovering in Royal Melbourne Hospital while a third was released on Monday. Members of the Victorian Police write in a condolence book as they pay their respect for Sisto Malaspina A mother and daughter have been living in a hospital room for 15 months as they wait for a new council home 165 miles away despite being cleared for release last year, it was revealed today. Ruth Kidane, 21, was admitted to Barnet Hospital, north London, last summer and her mother Mimi Tebeje, 50, moved in shortly afterwards. After a few weeks, doctors declared Ruth ready to be discharged, yet she still remains at the north London hospital, with her mother beside her, because there is no council home for them in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. Ruth, who needs a wheelchair or mobility scooter because she struggles to walk, has tweeted about leaving to hospital to go shopping for clothes and is reportedly studying art and design at the local college. Her mother reportedly gets mail delivered to their room and ASOS clothes sent to the front desk. Their long stay means taxpayers may have forked over more than 150,000 to cover their stay, more than the 147,000 average house price in Grimsby, with critics claiming Barnet Hospital has been turned into a B&B. Experts also claimed 100 or more patients may have missed out on a bed because of Ruth and Mimi's living arrangements because an average hospital inpatient stays for just under five days. Ruth Kidane, 21, was admitted to Barnet Hospital, north London (pictured shortly after her admission) 15 months ago and her mother moved in shortly afterwards Mimi and her daughter Ruth (pictured in an August Facebook post) were forced into the extended stay because someone had moved into their old home and a new one hasn't been found. Ruth tweeted in August how she and her mother went shopping for a summer dress in H&M The mother and daughter were forced into the extended stay because North East Lincolnshire Council has yet to find them a new home in Grimsby. They lost their old home because another tenant moved into their council-owned flat. Ruth is disabled and uses a mobility scooter to get around and was admitted to hospital for unknown reasons. Barnet Council says it can't help as the mother and daughter are registered in North East Lincolnshire. The hospital, meanwhile, continues to pay for their living costs. Patient Concern's Joyce Robins told the Sun: 'This case is shocking, disgraceful. Apart from the incredible cost, it is hugely unfair to others. 'I can't understand why the hospital would let this continue. Their job is to make people better not offer a free B&B.' Ben Ramanauskas, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, added: 'People should not be using the cash-strapped NHS as a free hotel service.' They are served two meals a day by NHS staff in the room, which has a bed, chair, TV and sink. Ruth even reportedly attends an art and design course at a nearby college three days a week. Ruth (pictured in September 2017) uploads photos to her Instagram account of her time at the hospital - and even reportedly attends an art and design course at a nearby college three days a week She is believed to get a taxi to the college. Ruth is also an active Instagram user, posting on her account 'UK Fashion Lifestyles Beauty Disability'. On the account, she has also shared photos from the room and days out with her mother in the city. Mimi, meanwhile, apparently gets mail delivered to their room and even has ASOS clothes sent to the front desk. North East Lincolnshire Council said they have a 'statutory duty' to help homeless people. They said that if Ruth and Mimi returned to Grimsby, they would provide them with accommodation. Under law, hospitals and trusts are entitled to try and get patients to leave a bed. In fact, there were 413 such orders agreed by courts in 2016. However, Royal Free Hospital Trust, which runs Barnet, has not issued any legal proceedings against Ruth and Mimi. Advertisement As the human death toll for the deadliest wildfire on record in California history reached 31 on Sunday, rescuers have been risking their safety to save animals too. Rescued animals were held on Zuma beach in Malibu as the thickness of the smoke created a hazy sky for creatures including llamas, donkeys, horses, a pig, bunnies and even a giraffe. As fire that has already ravaged homes of many celebrities fast approached the Pacific Coast Highway, with Lady Gaga's residence very close by, the likes of Khloe Kardashian and Ariel Winter posted on social media about their well-being. Scroll down for video Llamas were tied to a lifeguard stand on the beach in Malibu as the Woolsey Fire comes down the hill Friday Rescued animals were corralled on Zuma beach in Malibu, California. This included llamas (pictured) Nina Hungerland, 20, could be seen with rescued animals on Zuma beach in Malibu The animals dealing with the thickness of the smoke as the fire fast approached the Pacific Coast Hightway included horses A badly burned bunny was rescued from the fires and treated for its wounds California Highway Patrol officers attempted to transfer a potbelly pig they rescued to Butte County Animal control officers in Paradise Friday The pig was moved as the Camp Fire continued to burn out of control through the region A rescued donkey stood tied to a road sign on the side of the road after the Camp Fire moved through the area Friday Kardashian shared messages of her family group chat with Kourtney Kardashian as she asked followers for updates on Stanley - a giraffe from the Malibu Wines safari. In a 2012 episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Khloe's then-husband Lamar Odom gifted her an inflatable giraffe which she named Henry. Stanley is one of several exotic animals at Saddlerock Ranch that were shrouded in smoke in the aftermath of the Woosley Fire. Actress Ariel Winter also showed her concern for the creature. The animals on the ranch survived, but several buildings on the property we destroyed or damaged by the fire. Ariel Winter also posted about the giraffe to Twitter, sharing pictures where the fire can be seen in the background Stanley the Giraffe, was one of several exotic animals at Saddlerock Ranch shrouded in smoke in the aftermath of the Woosley Fire The animals on the ranch survived, but several buildings on the property we destroyed or damaged by the fire On Saturday, the likes of geese and dogs were also seen being cared for by animal lovers in the area. Equine veterinarian Jesse Jellison carried an injured goose to a waiting transport during the Camp Fire in the Paradise area. It's also where Officer Share from Yolo County Animal Services tended to a horse that was stranded. The Camp Fire has already burned through 109,000 acres and destroyed 6,713 buildings - most of them homes. As of Sunday morning, it was 25 per cent contained. As of Sunday evening, 29 people were found dead in Northern California's Camp Fire. Equine veterinarian Jesse Jellison carried an injured goose to a waiting transport during the Camp Fire in Paradise Saturday Officer Share from Yolo County Animal Services tended to a horse that was stranded during the Camp Fire in Paradise Members of the UC Davis Veterinary Emergency Response Team, Ashley Nola (left) and Catherine McFarren (right), tended to burns on a dog that was brought into the Butte County Fair Grounds where large animals were being sheltered Camp Fire continued to burn through the region, fueled by high winds in Butte County, California Saturday Woolsey had spread to 83,275 acres and was 5 per cent contained as of Saturday night. Two people were killed in Southern California's Woolsey Fire. Authorities had four coroner search and recovery teams combing through the remains of Paradise, which was almost completely destroyed when a fire raged through the town on Thursday and Friday. A whopping 228 people remain unaccounted for since the fire began Thursday. Members of the UC Davis Veterinary Emergency Response Team, Ashley Nola and Catherine McFarren, treated burns on a dog that was brought in to the Butte County Fair Grounds. An evacuated horse had contact phone numbers written on her hooves as she waited in a shelter at the Pierce College Equine Center where evacuees were bringing their large and small animals in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles on Friday Wildfire evacuee Eva Loeffler walks with her 20-year-old pony Mini at the Pierce College Equine Center Goats were cared for at The Pierce College Equine Center where evacuees are bringing their large animals Large plumes of smoke from a fast moving wildfire were seen in the background as volunteers cared for evacuated horses at The Pierce College Equine Center Wind-driven wildfire raged through Southern California communities on Friday, burning homes and forcing thousands of people and animals to flee as it relentlessly pushed toward Malibu and the Pacific Ocean Teresa Merritt, left helped her sister Mary Lou Miller with her dogs after being evacuated at The Pierce College Equine Center where evacuees are bringing their large and small animals in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles on Friday Goats are cared for at The Pierce College Equine Center where evacuees are bringing their large animals after being evacuated from the wildfire in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles on Friday It was where small and large animals, including goats, were being sheltered during the Camp Fire, as it continued to burn through the region, fueled by high winds in Butte County. In a surreal scene California Highway Patrol officers attempted to transfer a potbelly pig as plumes of smoke filled the sky. Many animals had been left to wait for things to return to normal as residents flee. Cathy Fallon was with her dog Shiloh at their home Friday in Paradise, California. Shiloh was burned when a wildfire scorched the property, burning down Fallon's home People covered their faces to walk their dog as smoke from a wildfire filled the air during the Woolsey Fire in Malibu Friday Marty Cable was one of dozens of horse owners who evacuated Friday. She left her home in Encinal Canyon to bring her animals to an evacuation area at Zuma Beach in Malibu The count of destroyed homes remained at 177 but it was expected to increase when an update is reported Monday. An evacuated horse with contact phone numbers written on her hooves waited in a shelter at the Pierce College Equine Center where evacuees were bringing their large and small animals in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles on Friday. Evacuee Eva Loeffler was pictured walking with her 20-year-old pony Mini. California Fire Captain Steve Millosovich carried a cage full of cats that were found in the road after the Camp Fire moved through the area Friday Millosovich saved the small felines in the Bend Bend area People tend to their animals after they were evacuated as the Woolsey Fire swept through Malibu Friday Amy Mancia hugged her miniature pony after they were evacuated as the the Woolsey Fire swept through Malibu People led horses and ponies down Pacific Coast Highway to an evacuation area at Zuma Beach in the Point Dume Friday A group of deer walked through properties destroyed by the the Camp Fire in Paradise Friday Dogs roamed burned out neighborhoods as the Camp fire tore through Paradise, north of Sacramento, California on Friday In Big Bend, Fire Captain Steve Millosovich carried a cage full of cats that were found in the road after the Camp Fire. Firefighters in other areas were known to have suffered minor injuries as approximately 8,000 fight the blazes. The Big Bend area also held a donkey tied to a road sign so it didn't flee and a group of deer were seen walking through destroyed properties. Outside of Pulga on the North Fork of the Feather River, the Camp Fire continued to burn on Sunday A grandmother's body was taken in a panel van to a local shopping centre to be declared dead in front of curious onlookers, in what her family describes as a 'disheartening' failure from medical professionals. Elizabeth O'Kane, a grandmother of 29, died peacefully at her daughter's home near Maitland in the NSW Hunter Valley late on Tuesday night, just as she wanted to. But when her family tried to have someone come to verify the 71-year-old's death, they were told it was not possible, and they would need to bring her body to the doctor's surgery instead. An undertaker had to drive Ms O'Kane's body to the nearby medical centre where she was declared dead, just metres from a highway and across the road from an ALDI as onlookers tried to get a peek at what was going on. Doctors lean inside a panel van to inspect the body of Elizabeth O'Kane, 71, and formally declare her dead (pictured) while the vehicle is parked outside a shopping centre after her family were told no doctor would make a home visit to sign off on her death Her grandson, Josef Krausert-O'Connor, told Daily Mail Australia watching his beloved grandmother die was hard, but the ordeal that followed was even more distressing. The family had arranged for Ms O'Kane's doctor to come over when she died and verify her death. Mr Krausert-O'Connor said the practitioner was the only one at the practice who made home visits, and they were left stranded when they discovered he was hours away in Sydney for the next few days - and the practice said they would not send someone else. The distraught family tried to call another doctor's office, but when the receptionist learned Ms O'Kane was not a patient, they were 'abrupt', Mr Krausert-O'Connor said, and told him they could not help. The funeral parlour tasked with putting Ms O'Kane to rest offered to help have her verified, and picked her up in a panel van to take her to the doctor. While Ms O'Kane's relatives were not happy with having to move the family matriarch in such an undignified way, they were even more upset at what happened next. Ms O'Kane was not brought into the practice, and the van was forced to park on the street at a local shopping centre - across the road from a skate park, and in full view of curious rubberneckers. One doctor walked out of the practice and climbed into the van to begin verifying Ms O'Kane's death. The practitioner said he heard a heartbeat, and called out a second doctor to be sure. 'We were 20 metres from a highway, 13 hours after her death,' Mr Krausert-O'Connor said. 'And he thought he heard a heartbeat.' 'If this is a standard practice, where families are left traumatised watching their loved ones in the back of a van being verified like cattle, something needs to change,' he said. The family matriarch (left), who had terminal lung cancer, died peacefully in her daughter Anne's (right) home on Tuesday night, but was not declared dead until Wednesday As the doctor examined his grandmother, Mr Krausert-O'Connor said he was unable to stop himself from sharing his anger at the situation. '"How would you feel if that was your mother, that was your loved one and you had to do that? Would you feel that was dignified?" I asked him,' he said. '[The doctor] didn't answer.' Mr Krausert-O'Connor says he is not alone in his experience, and dozens of locals have stepped forward to say they have been in a similar situation. 'This isn't an uncommon thing,' he said. 'We've heard about people waiting days to be verified, doctors refusing to go to funeral parlours to verify people. 'Is it about money? Have we lost the heart in healthcare? 'All we asked is she have the final stages between death and being laid to rest be dignified, and this is what we got.' After Ms O'Kane was legally declared dead, he began to research, and found their ordeal could have been much easier, if only he had known - and if only more medical practitioners had known. Under NSW Health policy, Ms O'Kane could have been verified by a registered nurse, a midwife or a qualified paramedic - though Mr Krausert-O'Connor acknowledges she would still have to be verified by a medical practitioner within 48 hours. Her grandson, Josef Krausert-O'Connor (top right) is determined to change the NSW health care directive to ensure no other family goes through what his did Despite this, Mr Krausert-O'Connor says his grandmother's death should have been handled with more empathy and she should have been afforded more dignity. He said reception staff were not accommodating of his family's needs, and 'were far from sympathetic or empathetic'. 'They said the only way to get it sorted was to bring her up,' he said. 'So the funeral director drove less than 5km, parked, and had a doctor come out to verify nan's death. 'There was no thought to empathy, sympathy or professionalism.' Mr Krausert-O'Connor now wants to see the NSW Health directive for the verification of death overhauled, for there to be clear guidelines as to who can verify a death and in what manner that should occur. Where a body needs to be transported for verification, he also wants to see proper transportation provided, which would have allowed his grandmother to escape her ordeal in the back of a panel van. The directive should also be communicated clearly to all parties. Not only was Mr Krausert-O'Connor unaware of any contingent procedure, but the health specialists he spoke with appeared to be equally as naive. With the support of his local MP, he has launched a petition to see the directive changed so people who want to die at home are not disadvantaged. 'It's really important we do everything possible to support families who are providing palliative care for their loved ones,' Ms Aitchison told Daily Mail Australia. 'Part of that has to be equipping them to deal with the death of their loved ones - which means making sure they have access to proper verification procedures, and making sure everyone knows what to do when it comes time to say goodbye. 'Ms Aitchison said she wants to see more resources directed towards end of life care, particularly in cases where a patient chooses to die at home, not a hospital. 'The resources are not there,' she said. 'We had a palliative care doctor resign last year because she was promised extra resources and never got them. 'There is only one palliative care nurse after hours.' The MP said it was a 'great tragedy' that Ms O'Kane's relatives would be forced to remember their ordeal as their last moment with her, and urged anyone who had found themselves in a similar position to get in contact with her. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the medical centre for comment. Australians are calling on the government to start covering trips to the dentist under Medicare as they slam the 'unaffordable' out-of-pocket costs of having work done. Medicare does not cover dental care and a recent report found one in five Australians do not receive the recommended level of oral treatment. A petition has now been launched online urging the government to change policy. Australians are calling on the government to start covering trips to the dentist under medicare as they slam the 'unaffordable' out-of-pocket costs of having work done (stock image) Commenters on Reddit were largely supportive of the call on Health Minister Greg Hunt (pictured) to expand Medicare's coverage Posted on change.org by disability support pensioner Alexandra Silva, the petition said dental health was just as vital as other health services covered under medicare. It already has more than 1,500 signatures. The post description read: 'Dental health is vital to our overall health as everything we eat passes through our mouth. 'If full of cavities, then the person is being constantly poisoned every time they eat.' Commenters online were largely supportive of the call on Health Minister Greg Hunt to expand Medicare's coverage. One noted how their friends were forced to use the limited number of 'free dentists' - who told them the solution to every problem was to rip the tooth out. But another said prevention was better than a cure. One noted how their friends were forced to use the limited number of 'free dentists' - who told them the solution to every problem was to rip the tooth out But another said the person whose mouth was used to illustrate the petition 'should have invested $3 in a tooth brush' They added the person whose mouth was used to illustrate the petition 'should have invested $3 in a tooth brush'. A user with knowledge of the Canadian healthcare system said the government in the North American country was similarly stingy when it came to dental coverage. They said: 'Just a quick reminder that Canada also does not consider your dental hygiene/health to be a top priority and considers all check ups, cleanings and extractions to be completely cosmetic.' The Commonwealth and the states provide public dental services only for those on the lowest incomes. There are long wait times for those trying to see a public dentist in Australia - with Tasmanians waiting 916 days for an appointment in 2015-16. A recent poll found almost half of Australians would prefer abolishing the taxpayer subsidy on private healthcare to fund dental coverage. Donald Trump and wife Melania arrived home from their Paris trip tonight after he was heavily criticized for missing a Marine Corps commemoration due to rain. However the President did brave Parisian showers earlier today to attend another solemn ceremony honoring veterans of what was called the Great War. His visit to the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial in suburban Paris ended a diplomatically difficult visit to France, during which Trump endured barbed criticism from French President Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders. Tonight Trump tweeted a video of the commemorative events with the caption: 'Exactly 100 years ago today, on November 11th, 1918, World War I came to an end. We are gathered together, at this hallowed resting place, to pay tribute to the brave Americans who gave their last breath in that mighty struggle...' Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive back at the White House after participating in events marking the 100th Anniversary of the World War I The couple appeared in good spirits as they arrived at the White House tonight and thankfully there was no rain which had apparently forced POTUS to drop out of a commemorative event The couple appeared in good spirits as they arrived back at the White House, with Melania sporting the same stylish grey cashmere coat she had worn earlier when meeting the wives and partners of other political leaders. 'We are gathered together at this hallowed resting place to pay tribute to the brave Americans who gave their last breath in that mighty struggle,' Trump said at the US cemetery. More than 1,500 Americans who died in what Trump called a 'horrible, horrible' war are buried there. Before he spoke, the President stood alone amid the cemeterys white crosses, protecting himself against the drizzle with a black umbrella. 'It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago,' he said. The veterans had been offered limited space underneath the monument, out of the rain, to watch the speech from. 'You look so comfortable up there, under shelter, as we're getting drenched. You're very smart people,' he said to laughter. 'America is forever in debt, and we are forever in your debt. And we really appreciate you being here.' Attendees of the president's speech, including members of Congress in Paris for the event, huddled together under umbrellas and ponchos. Trump stands in front of headstones during an American Commemoration Ceremony in Paris Donald Trump looks on as German chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron - who get along famously - appear deep in conversation Lightening the mood, he told six veterans he said were in attendance: 'You look like you're in really good shape, all of you. I hope I look like that someday. You look great.' He attended an internationally broadcast gathering for world leaders at the Arc de Triomphe and lunched with his counterparts earlier on Sunday before driving a half-hour outside of the city to Suresnes for the invite-only ceremony commemorating the end of WWI. The speech ended an awkward chapter in his relationship with the host nation's president that began when Trump blasted him on Twitter as he arrived at Orly airport late on Friday. Trump pays his respects at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial in Paris Trump's feud with Emmanuel Macron boiled on Sunday as the French leader forcefully denounced nations 'looking after their own interests' and decried nationalist policies like the ones Donald Trump has embraced. Macron specifically referred to the 'selfishness of nations only looking after their own interests' in remarks at an Armistice Day event in Paris that Trump and other world leaders attended. 'Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying our interests first, who cares about the others, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what gives it grace. A man holds up a placard in front of a large inflatable blimp depicting President Donald Trump in Republique square in Paris 'And what is essential its moral values,' he said in an English-language translation of the speech he delivered with Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting in the front row. Trump sat mostly stone-faced with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others as Macron spoke. For reasons apparently related to the weather Trump on Saturday canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, about 55 miles east of Paris. Trump drew wide criticism for skipping the ceremony at the site of one of the greatest battles ever fought by Marines. White House officials said the weather was too poor for Trump to travel to the cemetery by helicopter. In response to critics who said Trump could have made the trip by car, the White House issued a statement Sunday night saying Trump did not want to disrupt traffic around Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech next to Trump before the official lunch following the commemoration ceremony for the Centenary of the WWI Armistice On Sunday morning a topless feminist activist from the group Femen made it close to Trumps motorcade on the Champs-Elysees. The protester sported the words 'fake peacemaker' across her torso. She was one of many protesters who criticized Trumps attendance of an event about peace. Despite the rain, roughly 1,500 people attended a rally against Trump at a Paris plaza several miles away, according to police. They rallied under a banner that said 'Trump War' and slammed policies such as US help for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Jailed youths have rioted at a detention centre, taking over a swimming pool before going on to trash equipment. The incident is believed to have taken place at the Wacol facility in Brisbane, a frequent location for a number of previous riots involving juvenile offenders. Rioting and vandalism at Queensland's two youth detention centres is said to have cost taxpayers over a quarter of a million dollars this year. Incidents at the Cleveland youth detention centre in north Queensland cost just under $130,000 between January and May, while incidents at the Brisbane youth detention centre cost $123,376 over the same time frame. A juvenile prisoner rioting at the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre on Monday A juvenile prisoner takes a dip in a swimming pool during a riot at the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre on Monday Queensland Opposition leader Deb Frecklington has previously criticised the Labor government for failing to crack down on violence at both facilities. 'This is absolutely shocking, to think that we're spending $50,000-a-month to repair TVs and air conditioners for these thugs, it's got to stop,' she told the Brisbane Times. 'Why should we have a good kid sweltering in a Brisbane classroom because they don't have air conditioning and yet the bad kids in juvie can wreck their air conditioner and get it replaced?' Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said any inmates who cause damage in the youth detention centres will face the full consequences of the law. 'We as a government and a community want to address all of the issues around youth offending,' she said. 'As I've said before, the best way to stop youth offending is to get them into work.' Charges are expected to follow once an investigation of the cause of the riot is completed. A baby girl who died after swallowing a button battery was denied an x-ray in the weeks before despite horrific symptoms including clots and blood vomiting, her parents claim. Isabella Rees died on February 4, 2015, and an inquest has now heard Ms Rees took Bella to Melbourne's Sunshine Hospital three times in just two weeks to find out if something was stuck inside her. But the court heard despite presenting with the symptoms, which also included blackened faeces, doctors said whatever was inside her would pass through. Isabella Rees (pictured) died on February 4, 2015, and an inquest has now heard Ms Rees took Bella to Melbourne's Sunshine Hospital three times in just two weeks to find out if something was stuck inside her Mrs Rees' husband Robert also told doctors the first time they went to the emergency room on January 16, 2015 he had seen the baby holding a double-A battery at their Taylor's Hill home. On the first day of the inquest into Bella's death, her mother said she knew each time they went into the hospital they would be turned away. According to The Herald Sun, she said: 'I knew they weren't going to believe us. The family also said at inquest they wished they had known more about the impact swallowing a button battery could have on their child (stock image) 'Because every time we went we had evidence - we were just disregarded.' The family also said they wished they had known more about the impact swallowing a button battery could have on their child. The Rees' have banded together since the baby's death and fought regulations around the batteries. Bella's mother claimed the reason she wanted the case taken to inquest was not to place blame, but to better educate people about the risk of children and batteries. She said the hospital had since told her they had reformed their triage procedure. But she added they also told her it was not hospital policy to x-ray a small child unless it could be proven they had swallowed something that could endanger them. Pictured is an x-ray of a button battery lodged in a child's throat, shared by parents trying to raise awareness of the danger of button batteries Ms Rees denied accusations from Western Health barrister Arushan Pillay she had researched battery button symptoms before she made a statement to police after Bella's death. In a statement given to Daily Mail Australia, Western Health said they would not comment on the matter while the inquest is underway and before the coroner had released their findings. In a tribute to Isabella after she died her family wrote 'what we would give to have another chance to hear your voice, to feel your kiss and to see you grow. Our hearts are broken. We love you Bella.' In 2013 Summer Steer, 4, died after swallowing a battery when she was wrongly diagnosed in Queensland. A 25-year-old man who allegedly attempted to mow down a police officer on Remembrance Day while almost three times over the legal limit has been granted bail. Michael Dooley was charged after he allegedly used his mother's Subaru Outback to swerve at a police officer in North Sydney on Sunday afternoon. The officer was among other members of the force who were in attendance at a Remembrance Day ceremony in St Leonards Park. Michael Dooley (pictured) was charged after he allegedly used his mother's Subaru Outback to swerve at a police officer in North Sydney on Sunday afternoon At about 4.30pm they were brought to the attention of a nearby vehicle that was revving loudly. A constable approached the Subaru parked on Ridge Street and spoke to Mr Dooley before he allegedly sped away from the scene. As the car drove away, the officer struck his arm on the door frame. Mr Dooley then allegedly spun the car around and swerved at the officer. He was forced to take evasive action to avoid being hit and escaped the incident without physical injury. Police found Mr Dooley and the Subaru Outback, which crashed into a concrete barrier, a short time later on Albert Street, North Sydney. At about 4.30pm police were brought to the attention of a nearby vehicle that was revving loudly A constable approached the Subaru parked on Ridge Street and spoke to Mr Dooley (pictured) before he allegedly sped away from the scene. Mr Dooley then allegedly spun the car around and swerved at the officer He allegedly failed a roadside breath test and was taken to Chatswood Police station. Police allege he returned a breath analysis reading of 0.139 at the station. He was charged with assaulting a police officer, driving dangerously, drink driving and using an offensive weapon to prevent lawful detention. His licence was suspended. Mr Dooley appeared at Manly Local Court on Monday where he was granted bail despite police prosecutor John Sharpin opposing the bail application, the Daily Telegraph reported. Sgt Sharpin argued Mr Dooley's 'unexplained behaviour' was a concern for public safety. Mr Dooley appeared at Manly Local Court (pictured) on Monday where he was granted bail despite police prosecutor John Sharpin opposing the bail application 'He has driven a car while intoxicated straight towards a police officer,' he said. Mr Dooley was released on strict conditional bail by Magistrate Christopher Longley. The 25-year-old must stay with his mother in Glebe and report to Glebe police station three times a week. He is not allowed to take drugs and alcohol. Mr Dooley is expected to appear at Manly Local Court on November 22. Parents of a teenager killed after falling from the tray of a ute have urged for the 'well-loved' driver not to be jailed as it would 'do more harm than good'. Dylan Luke Stubberfield was drunk at the wheel of the vehicle his friend, Clancy Shannon, fell from during a late-night joy ride, Brisbane District Court heard. The 19-year-old pleaded guilty to dangerous driving while intoxicated on March 2 about 2am on North Stradbroke Island's Main Beach, Courier Mail reported. Dylan Luke Stubberfield was drunk at the wheel of the vehicle his friend, Clancy Shannon (pictured), fell from during a late-night joy ride Clancy's father, Mike, pleaded for Stubberfield not to be jailed, saying he had made the 'exact same poor choice myself as a young man'. The court heard Stubberfield blew a 0.129 blood alcohol reading when breathalysed shortly after the incident, and had been cooperative throughout the process. He had earlier in the night been urged by friends not to drive, the court was told, but ignored their advice and took at least seven friends on a dangerous beach joy ride. 'I do not hold any malice towards Dylan, and I can't see the benefit in jail time for Dylan, I feel it would do more harm than good,' Mike said in his victim impact statement to the court. Clancy's mother also defended Stubberfield, saying he had worked for her part-time and she was fond of him. Clancy's mother also defended Stubberfield, saying he had worked for her part-time and she was fond of him 'The biggest challenge (our family) faces is that Clancy is no longer physically with us. Dylan Stubberfield is here, and is well-loved in this tight-knit community,' she told the court. The case's prosecution asked the judge to consider a jail sentence of between five and eight years, with about a third served before being allowed parole. Crown prosecutor Vicky Loury QC said similar offences were all too common. 'Sadly, this offence is not uncommonly committed by young men who come from good families and who are remorseful,' Ms Loury said. About 70 people squished into the courtroom in support of Stubberfield, who was due to be sentenced later on Monday. Dengue cases in Delhi this year mount to over 7,100; nearly 5,600 cases in Nov alone: Civic body report. Chilling footage has been released of a two-year-old girl walking with a woman and another child on a suburban street hours before she died, as police hunt her killer. The CCTV footage shows Safa Annour, who police believe was murdered on April 30, dressed in school uniform, walking with an unidentified older woman and another child, also in school uniform. The three are seen in the footage walking along Sturt Avenue, Narrabundah, a south Canberra suburb, at about 9.40am on April 29. The footage shows Safa Annour, who police believe was murdered on April 30, dressed in school uniform, walking with an unidentified older woman and another child Police have confirmed the woman is not a suspect but are asking the public for assistance to identify her saying she may be able to provide vital information to help their investigation. Two other people have been identified as being responsible for Safa's care during the time it is believed she suffered fatal injuries. Safa died on April 30 as a result of fatal internal bleeding and blunt force trauma, which a subsequent examination found to be caused by another person. Footage was previously released by police showing the toddler on a bus at about 8.40am on April 30. She is seen getting off the bus uninjured but she died as a result of injuries that same day. Police are urging anyone with information that could assist in their investigation, to contact the detectives directly on 0427 598 207 or Crime Stoppers online or on 1800 333 000. President Donald Trump said Monday that the state of Florida should abandon what he sees as a hopelessly corrupt election recount process and hand a U.S. Senate seat and the governorship to Republicans who led by narrow margins on Election Day. Florida law requires machine recounts of ballots in races where less than 0.5 per cent of votes separate the top two finishers. For races with margins less than 0.25 per cent, votes must be recounted by hand. But Trump claims corruption among Democratic officials in charge of a few Florida counties has rendered the process a crooked political exercise designed to overturn a legitimate result. 'The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged,' Trump tweeted. 'An honest vote count is no longer possible ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!' Miami-Dade Election Center supervisors recount the ballots. As of Monday afternoon they had recounted half of the ballots A worker organizers a stack of ballots in the midst of the controversial recount. Florida law requires machine recounts of ballots in races where less than 0.5 per cent of votes separate the top two finishers 'The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged,' Trump tweeted Trump (pictured on Sunday) claims corruption among Democratic officials in charge of a few Florida counties has rendered the process a crooked political exercise designed to overturn a legitimate result Elections for governors and members of Congress are run by states, not by the federal government. Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, a candidate for governor who conceded the race last Tuesday only to change his mind as more votes came in, responded to Trump on Monday. 'You sound nervous. #CountEveryVote,' he tweeted. In Florida, a combination of official incompetence, litigation and political protests are overshadowing the vote recount, reviving memories of the 2000 presidential fiasco there. All 67 counties are facing a state-ordered deadline of Thursday to complete their recounts, and half have already begun. Many other counties were expected to begin the work Monday after a weekend of recount drama in Broward and Palm Beach counties, home to large concentrations of Democratic voters. Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, left, and judge Betsy Benson of the election canvassing board, listened to arguments on Sunday about whether to include or exclude specific ballots Republican protesters gathered outside the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office on Sunday as the statewide election recount got underway A worker cleans a ballot counting machine before a ballot recount in Lauderhill, Florida. For races with margins less than 0.25 per cent, votes must be recounted by hand The recount process is unprecedented even in a state notorious for settling elections by razor-thin margins. State officials said they weren't aware of any other time a race for governor or U.S. Senate required a recount, let alone both in the same election. Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Senate, said Monday on 'Fox & Friends' that he smells a rat. 'We won by 57,000 votes that night. So we know that since then, just in these two counties, 93,000 new votes showed up. How did that happen?' As of Monday morning his edge had been reduced to about 12,500. He also targeted Broward's supervisor of elections, a Democrat named Brenda Snipes. 'We know that Brenda Snipes said that she ballots that she acknowledged, knows, were illegal, she mixed them in with legal ballots. We know that!' he said. 'I want to make sure there are free and fair elections, but there's laws. Compliance with the law is supposed to prevent fraud.' Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, a candidate for governor who conceded the race last Tuesday only to change his mind as more votes came in, responded to Trump In Broward County, the recount was delayed for hours Sunday because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. That prompted the Republican Party to accuse Snipes of 'incompetence and gross mismanagement.' Broward officials faced more headaches after acknowledging the county mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected. The problem seemed impossible to fix because dismissed ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots and Snipes said it would be unfair to throw out all the votes. Scott filed a lawsuit against Snipes. He's seeking a court order for law enforcement agents to impound all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots 'when not in use until such time as any recounts.' The suit accused Snipes of repeatedly failing to account for the number of ballots left to be counted and failing to report results regularly as required by law. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, the Democrats' candidate for Florida governor, got a standing ovation while addressing supporters on Sunday and urging that they keep politically engaged as the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office spends the next five days recounting votes Republican Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey celebrated after appearing to win the Florida governor's race last Tuesday but more votes appeared and his margin shrank significantly Election workers placed ballots into electronic counting machines on Sunday as the Florida recount began The court didn't immediately respond, though the outcry from Democrats was immediate. Juan Penalosa, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, accused Scott of 'using his position to consolidate power by cutting at the very core of our democracy.' Meanwhile, in Palm Beach County, the supervisor of elections said she didn't think her department could meet Thursday's deadline to complete that recount, throwing into question what would happen to votes there. The recount in other major population centers, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, has been continuing without incident. Smaller counties were expected to begin reviews between Monday and Wednesday. Unofficial results showed Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis ahead of Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in the governor's contest. In the Senate race, Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson was 0.14 percentage points. State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. Once completed, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or below, a hand recount will be ordered. Florida's current governor, Republican Rick Scott, led in the U.S. Senate race on Election Night but his advantage has dwindled by more than two-thirds since then Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson has brought in heavy-hitter lawyers to oversee his effort to tilt the recount process in his favor, and they believe he'll succeed Republicans urged their Democratic opponents to give up and let the state to move on. Gillum and Nelson insist that each vote should be counted and the process should take its course. Scott said Sunday that Nelson wants fraudulent ballots and those cast by noncitizens to count, pointing to a Nelson lawyer's objection of Palm Beach County's rejection of one provisional ballot because it was cast by a noncitizen. 'He is trying to commit fraud to win this election,' Scott told Fox News. 'Bill Nelson's a sore loser. He's been in politics way too long.' Nelson's campaign issued a statement later saying their lawyer wasn't authorized to object to the ballot's rejection, as 'Non-citizens cannot vote in US elections.' Gillum appeared Sunday evening at a predominantly African-American church in Fort Lauderdale, declaring that voter disenfranchisement isn't just about being blocked from the polling booth. He said it also includes absentee ballots not being counted and ballots with mismatched signatures that 'a volunteer may have the option of ... deciding that vote is null and void.' Both the state elections division, which Scott runs, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have said they have found no evidence of voter fraud. That didn't stop protests outside Snipes' office, where a mostly Republican crowd gathered, holding signs, listening to country music and occasionally chanting 'lock her up,' referring to Snipes. A massive Trump 2020 flag flew over the parking lot and a Bikers For Trump group wore matching shirts. One protester wore a Hillary Clinton mask. Registered independent Russell Liddick, a 38-year-old Pompano Beach retail worker, carried a sign reading, 'I'm not here for Trump! I'm here for fair elections! Fire Snipes!' He said the office's problems 'don't make me feel very much like my vote counted.' A crowd of protesters gathered in Broward County as ballots were run through scanning machines for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties Florida also is conducting a recount in a third statewide race. Democrat Nikki Fried had a 0.07 percentage point lead over Republican state Rep. Matt Caldwell for agriculture commissioner, one of Florida's three Cabinet seats. For some, the recounts bring back memories of the 2000 presidential recount, when it took more than five weeks for Florida to declare George W. Bush the victor over Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes, thus giving Bush the presidency. Much has changed since then. In 2000, each county had its own voting system. Many used punch cards - voters poked out chads, leaving tiny holes in their ballots representing their candidates. Some voters, however, didn't fully punch out the presidential chad or gave it just a little push. Those hanging and dimpled chads had to be examined by the canvassing boards, a lengthy, tiresome and often subjective process that became fodder for late-night comedians. Now the state requires all Florida counties to use ballots where voters use a pen to mark their candidate's name, much like a student taking a multiple-choice test, and the process for recounts is clearly spelled out. Congregants of a historic Manhattan synagogue are suing the rabbi for $21million because he allegedly turned the house of worship into a disco and told worshipers to go to hell when they complained. The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court by five members of Congregation Emunath Israel in Chelsea, according to the New York Post. The suit alleges that Rabbi Yechezekel Wolff reneged on an agreement whereby he would lease the building housing the synagogue on West 23rd Street in exchange for paying operating expenses and covering repairs. Instead, Wolff ripped out old pews from the 100-year-old building and turned off the heat in the winter time in order to kill off the congregation, the lawsuit alleges. Congregants of a historic Manhattan synagogue are suing Rabbi Yechezekel Wolff (above) for $21million because he allegedly turned the house of worship into a disco and told worshipers to go to hell when they complained The rabbi is also accused of letting secular film crews and art exhibits use the synagogue. Wolff is alleged to have torn down memorial plaques to Holocaust survivors because he didnt want them to ruin fundraisers he held at the synagogue. The suit alleges that Wolff would rent out the synagogue to people who threw dance parties and turned up the music so loud that neighbors called the police to complain. I guess having memorial plaques to dead people is not consistent to renting out the sanctuary for discotheques, Ira Glauber, one of the plaintiffs, told the Post. The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court by five members of Congregation Emunath Israel in Chelsea The suit alleges that Wolff reneged on an agreement whereby he would lease the building housing the synagogue on West 23rd Street in exchange for paying operating expenses and covering repairs The Post obtained a recording in which Wolff is heard calling the congregants crazy people. I cannot think about these people, he is heard saying. I dont wanna know of them. I dont want to think of them. They should all go to hell. In another recording, he is reportedly heard saying that he wishes the synagogues board would get the f*** outta here. Glauber said: A rabbi using four letter words? Ive never heard of that in my entire life. Wolff declined to comment on the lawsuit. Sisto Malaspina, the legendary and much loved cafe owner killed in the Bourke Street terror attack on Friday, will be farewelled next week. His family gratefully accepted Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews' offer of a state funeral, which will likely be held next Monday or Tuesday. The famous Pellegrini's Espresso Bar on Melbourne's Bourke Street is due to reopen in a limited capacity on Tuesday, four days after its popular co-owner, 74, was tragically stabbed to death. Legendary cafe owner Sisto Malaspina (pictured) will be farewelled at a state funeral early next week A statement from the Premier Andrews said the funeral will be an opportunity to celebrate Sisto's life on Bourke Street, not his death. The Malaspina family spoke for the first time through a heartfelt statement via Victoria Police on Monday. 'We would like to thank Dad's friends, customers, and all the wonderful people that have come forward to pay their respects and show their love and support,' the statement reads 'To the people of Melbourne, your heartfelt tributes have shown us why our Dad loved this great city so much.' Pellegrini's Espresso Bar (pictured) remained closed on Monday but will reopen on Tuesday The Malaspinas also paid tribute to emergency services personnel, particularly the first responders and police at the scene of Friday's fatal attack. They remembered Sisto as beautiful man, a loving husband and a doting father renowned for his colourful clothing and flamboyant personality. 'Dad was a larger than life character and his natural generosity made every individual he met feel welcome and important,' the family statement said. 'Each customer of Dad's was given the same respect and service regardless of their standing in society. To him everyone was special. His love and passion for his customers remained the same for over 40 years. To him it was a joy to go to work every day.' The family has since requested the media respect their privacy. Sisto Malaspina (pictured) was renowned for his colourful clothing and flamboyant personality Thousands of customers stopped outside the cafe on Monday to pay tribute to Sisto (pictured) Customers gathered outside Pellegrini's on Monday to pay their respect, express their condolences and lay flowers, which the family will generously donate to nursing homes and hospitals to cheer up others. A handwritten note in the window of the cafe from staff paid tribute to 'the best boss.' 'The wonderful staff at Pellegrini's are determined to continue his legacy with the same passion,' the note states. Former kitchen worker Lucia, who worked for Sisto for 18 years offered mourners chocolate and almond cake, which was his favourite. Victoria Police officers expressed their sympathies to Sisto's family in a condolence book There is already talk of renaming a nearby laneway in memory of the legendary cafe owner 'He was my big brother, he wasn't my boss,' she told The Herald Sun. 'I would tell him everything. Those years were the best years of my life. We joked. He was a marvellous man.' Dozens of celebrity customers have also publicly paid tribute to Sisto in recent days. 'I've been going to Pellegrini's since 1987. Never been to Melbourne without dropping in on my man Sisto. South Sydney stickers on the wall and caps on display. My sweet loyal friend, stabbed in the street by a mad man. Cosi triste,' actor Russell Crowe tweeted. Nick Giannopoulos added: 'Icon & legend. Always a friendly smile & a chat about how the bombers were traveling. Thank you for everything you gave to Melbourne. You were loved by all and will be missed.' The family will donate the floral tributes (pictured) to hospitals and nursing homes Ideas are being considered for a lasting tribute to Mr Malaspina, including renaming the laneway next to Pellegrini's. 'I know there's been a bit of talk about renaming the lane, renaming Crossley Lane, I think that's a fantastic idea and I would fully support that,' Mr Andrews told reporters. The laneway pitch will be considered by Melbourne City Council. 'In the coming weeks, the City of Melbourne will consider a range of measures to recognise the life of Sisto Malaspina,' a council spokesman told The Age. 'When appropriate, we will reach out to the family regarding the best way to honour Mr Malaspina. The founder of a reclusive Muslim sect and his brother will be released from prison after a court heard they believed they are exempt from Australian laws. Dr Mustapha Kara-Ali and his brother Diaa were arrested on Sunday at their religious site in the regional New South Wales town of Colo after ignoring court appearance orders for months. They were charged with four counts of contempt of court after ignoring instructions to remove buildings, fences and flagpoles, which were allegedly illegally installed. The founder of a reclusive Muslim sect, Dr Mustapha Kara-Ali (pictured) has faced court after ignoring a court summons for months He and his brother Diaa (pictured) say the gated guild isn't required to 'comply' with Australian law The brothers argue they are exempt from Australian law because the work performed on their property was done as an imam of the guild, classifying it as a religious charity. The court also issued an order for re-vegetation after a plot of land was illegally cleared for the buildings, Nine News reports. During the hearing, Dr Kara-Ali denounced the court's ability to fairly judge him, saying they showed 'the emblem of another religion', referring to the Southern Cross and St George Cross emblazoned on the front of Australian courthouses. THE RECLUSIVE MUSLIM GUILD Diwan Al Dawla ( ) is a guild that advances a way of living based upon a unitarian epistemology and narrative. Members of Diwan Al Dawla, known as ashab al dawla, live as a religious guild separated from secular worldviews to pursue a religious mode of worship and lifestyle under an oath of self-sacrifice and dedication to the purposes of Diwan Al Dawla. Advertisement 'We are not being dictated to by another religion,' he said. Justice Terry Sheahan replied: 'You are not exempt from the law of the land, you thumbed your nose at the authority of the court.' Dr Kara-Ali claims the council has no power to tell Diwan Al Dawla - the religious guild - what to do because they are 'not required to comply with the law'. The brothers say the guild is a 'basic religious charity' registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for profits Commission (ACNC). Dr Kara-Ali (pictured) says he won't be 'dictated by another religion' by abiding by Australian court orders They were ordered to re-vegetate the once-lush forest where the guild has set up camp (pictured) 'Charities who meet the definition of Basic Religious Charity do not have to submit annual financial reports, and they do not have to comply with the ACNC governance standards which include... 'Compliance with Australian laws',' Dr Kara-Ali wrote. According to the imam, that also puts his guild above the law. That claim is not supported by the ACNC. The pair had been issued with court appearance orders in September, but vehemently refused to attend because of the Southern Cross and the Cross of St George to be an affront to Islam. 'Because of the religious symbolism of the court, that contradicts with my religion. For my religion to be free I can't be dictated to by another religion,' Dr Kara-Ali said. The court heard the brothers had ignored repeated calls for them to stop developments on the site. Lawyer for the council, Mark Cottom, said an officer had requested police accompany them on an inspection of the property in case they were required to force entry, according to the ABC. 'The police appear to have significant concerns in relation to safety... wishing to have the riot squad and Polair available,' Mr Cottom said. Dr Kara-Ali said that was 'just plain ridiculous'. Dr Kara-Ali (pictured) says the Southern Cross is an 'affront to Islam' and ignored authorities in the past They were told to remove buildings (pictured), fences and flagpoles allegedly illegally installed 'There is no need for the police,' he said. All the police would find is 'a group of people praying and a few horses.' 'We are living our life like we desire. We desire to be separate from the secular. Is this too much to ask? And the secular wants to intimidate us with military might.' 'We are more powerful than their helicopters.' The brothers were granted bail on Monday and will be allowed to walk free from the Amber Laurel Correctional Centre once they surrender their passports and pay $8,000. The Somali born extremist responsible for the attack on Melbourne's Bourke Street complained 'terror was just another word for Muslim' in Australia and vocally supported a woman who infamously made an ISIS salute in court. And before launching his shocking attack on Friday that left one dead, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, had regularly commented on Facebook about similar terror incidents in the city. In May 2017, after the attempted hijacking of a Malaysia Airways plane at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport, Ali complained attacker Manodh Marks, 25, had been branded a 'terrorist' by the media - until it was discovered he was not Muslim. Scroll down for video In the lead up to his Bourke Street attack, terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (above) commented on a number of social media posts relating to similar incidents in the city 'If that guy was a Muslim in that same position it would have been a different outcome': The 30-year-old complained about the treatment of a man who tried to hijack a plane at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport last year 'We're no longer treating it as terrorism (event) since we found out he's not a Muslim lol... terrorist is another word for Muslim,' Ali posted on a story about the incident. 'At the end of the day if that guy was a Muslim in that same position, it would of been a different outcome and saying he's mentally ill wouldn't have been an option. 'End of story lol.' A few months later Ali also appeared to support Moutia Elzahed - the wife of jailed Islamic State extremist Hamdi Alqudsi - after she refused to stand before a judge in a Sydney court. In a comment below an article about the infamous burqa-wearing extremist, Ali wrote a cryptic complaint about the treatment of those related to terrorists. His passport was cancelled in 2015 after he was flagged by ASIO as one of 300 potential security risks when it was discovered he planned to travel to Syria. 'It's funny how they say deport them and yet take the passports of those who want to leave the country for good at the airport and say: "You'll stay in this country by force",' the Somali-born refugee wrote. 'Either let those who want to leave go or shut up about "deport them" if you're going to force them to stay in this country.' Ali wrote a cryptic complaint about the treatment of those on ASIO watchlists. His passport was cancelled in 2015 when he was flagged by authorities after planning to travel to Syria The comment came below a story about Moutia Elzahed (pictured) - the wife of ISIS extremist Hamdi Alqudsi - after she refused to take off her burqa and gave an Islamic state salute outside court After confronting Ali, officers retreated to the other side of the road as the bearded attacker with a shaved head and dressed in a long brown tunic, pursued them as horrified bystanders called on police to shoot him According to family and friends, Ali became increasingly disillusioned in the lead up to his shocking knife rampage last Friday. Imam Isse Musse from the local mosque claimed that some of Ali's decisions prior to the attack had left his family concerned. '[He was] complaining he was being chased by unseen people with spears... They don't know if he's taking drugs or what,' the Imam said. 'If a person is Muslim and has a mental health problem, then Islam will be one of the things they may speak.' Another friend told The Age the terrorist 'had a difficult time in his life the last couple of years and (it had) spun out of control'. Ali attempt to stab and slash at two police officers before he was shot and fell to the ground. He earlier stabbed three people and set fire to his car on Melbourne's Bourke Street Ali blew up his car before going on a stabbing rampage in the busy Bourke Street Mail (above) Neighbours claimed Ali had stormed out of the bungalow he shared with his wife in an 'agitated state' just days before he went on his knife rampage through the CBD. He had lived with his wife and young child in a bungalow at the back of a home in Meadow Heights, in Melbourne's north, for about a year before the ISIS-inspired attack on Friday. The Somali immigrant mounted the kerb on the busy shopping strip about 4.20pm before setting the car on fire and stabbing three men, one fatally, before being shot dead by police. Neighbours said Ali stormed out of the home on Pinnaroo Circuit a 'few nights ago', pursued by his wife who always wore full Islamic dress, including keeping her eyes covered and wearing gloves. 'He appeared agitated,' the neighbour said. Melbourne cafe legend Sisto Malaspina was stabbed to death during a terrorist's knife rampage through Bourke Street just blocks form his iconic Pellegrini's coffee shop Mr Malaspina's body was on Friday seen lying in the street covered by a white sheet with a bare foot sticking out after bystanders unsuccessfully tried to save his life Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, is believed to have lived in a bungalow at the back of the home in Meadow Heights before he went on a knife rampage through Burke Street on Friday Officials seized bags worth of contraband as they left the second home. Friends earlier told authorities he had abused drugs Sisto Malaspina, 74, was murdered after he ran to help Ali, who he thought was a car crash victim, just blocks from his iconic Pellegrini's coffee shop. However, Ali had deliberately crashed his truck that was loaded with gas canisters and set the car alight after mounting the kerb near the Swanson Street intersection. In the moments that followed he stabbed a security guard in the neck before being involved in a fight with two police officers, who rushed to the scene. Video taken by horrified onlookers showed him swinging his knife at police before being shot dead. Detectives raided Ali's bungalow across the weekend, seizing bags of evidence. Kane Morris was found stabbed to death in a flat in Coupar Angus, Perthshire with his sister next to him with 'life-threatening injuries' A 10-year-old boy has died and his eight-year-old sister is fighting for her life today after being stabbed in a flat in a rural Scottish town. Police found Kane Morris lying dead in a flat in Coupar Angus, Perthshire with his sister next to him with 'life-threatening injuries'. An injured 37-year-old man found nearby was taken to hospital and arrested after the incident around 2.30am yesterday having apparently jumped out of a window at the property. Last night, a source close to Kane's family told the Mail that the children were stabbed - and there were also unconfirmed reports that he had slit his throat. As the eight-year-old girl was being treated at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, last night, police insisted the incident had been 'isolated and contained'. The children's mother, Laura Anne Gillie, 39, a nurse at NHS Tayside, is engaged to George Stewart, from Glasgow. She was at her daughter's bedside last night. Police Scotland did not disclose the nature of the attacks because the results of a postmortem examination yesterday had yet to be finalised. Detectives also refused to confirm reports that the children's father was the man arrested. The property where Kane died is believed to be a second-floor flat near a filling station in Union Street. Kane attended the local primary school where he took part in school plays and twice won a local community talent show. The children's heartbroken mother, Laura Anne Gillie, 39, (left) has lost her son Kane (right) and is at her gravely ill daughter's bedside Miss Gillie split from the children's father, Karl Morris, 37, some years ago, but the family were still very close, according to a friend, who said: 'Kane was a happy-golucky wee boy, always smiling. My wee girl hung about with him. They used to stay at each other's houses. We were like family, really close. 'It's just hard to believe Kane is not here. He loved his dancing and he was always in the plays at school. Kane won Coupar Angus' Got Talent twice in a row and was just a lovable wee thing. The whole thing is tragic.' The friend said Mr Morris was 'so close to his kids, he loved them and would do anything for them'. A local resident said Kane and his sister were often seen playing out in the street on their bikes with their father. Coupar Angus man Murray McGregor tweeted yesterday: 'Sometimes things happen that give you a real shake.' He said he had been in the area at around 8am but there were 'police everywhere' and he had been 'denied access (with) the streets all taped off due to a "major incident"'. Mr McGregor said he believed a man had allegedly 'stabbed his young children, killing one and leaving the other critical in hospital, before jumping from a secondfloor window'. He added: 'Horrific. Everyone here is in shock.' Chief Inspector Ian Scott of Police Scotland said: 'At this time our thoughts are very much with the family and friends of the young boy who has died in this incident, and with the young girl who remains in a serious condition in hospital. 'I can confirm that a 37-year-old man has been arrested in connection with this incident. 'Inquiries are ongoing, however I believe this to have been an isolated and contained incident with no threat to the wider public. 'There will be a police presence at the scene for some time while we undertake our investigation and I would like to thank the local community for their patience while we carry out our work.' He added: 'There will be additional patrols by local community based officers in Coupar Angus to help provide some reassurance to the community.' The main street of the town, which is around 14 miles from Perth and has a population of about 2,300, was still cordoned off last night. Uniformed police officers were patrolling the area. Local residents were seen placing flowers and lighting candles in tribute to Kane. Police Scotland are trying to trace anyone who may have witnessed anything suspicious in the Union Street area of Coupar Angus, Perthshire as they carry out the forensic examination One tribute, signed 'Kaseyla', read simply: 'I will remember you and I miss you.' Another said: 'RIP wee man, you will be missed, even your dancing at Coupar Angus' Got Talent.' A third described Kane as 'the dance king and P6 will miss you, signed Chloe'. On Facebook, tributes were posted with images of two candles, as family friends expressed hope that Kane's sister would survive. Colette Main said: 'Poor wee souls didn't deserve this, my heart goes out to their family at this horrific time.' Ewan Grant posted: 'Everyone will be holding their children a little tighter tonight', while another tribute read: 'God has gained such an amazing wee angel.' Perthshire North MSP John Swinney said: 'This is devastating news and my heart goes out to the children and their family and friends. 'The Coupar Angus community is so close to home for me and the news is literally impossible to comprehend.' Deputy First Minister Mr Swinney added: 'I urge anyone with relevant information to share that with Police Scotland. I will do all that I can to help everyone affected by this tragedy.' Four men accused of torturing two kangaroos until they died allegedly have links to the Outlaws motorcycle gang. Dylan Leslie Griffin, 22, Ricky Ian Swan 28, Ben Jaydon Malpuss, 26 and Luke Kevin Dempster, 26, have been charged over two alleged incidents of animal torture occurred on May 19 May and June 16 in Joondalup in Perth, Western Australia. Officers arrested the group after police uncovered graphic footage showing one kangaroo being burned and shot in the eye, before being held and repeatedly punched with knuckle dusters. Scroll down for video Dyan Leslie Griffin (left) and Ricky Ian Swan (right) have pleaded guilty for the fatal torture of two kangaroos Ben Jaydon Malpuss (left) and Luke Kevin Dempster (right) are yet to plead Another kangaroo was stabbed with a knife more than 20 times before being kicked in the head. A senior police officer described the incident as one of the most disturbing acts of animal cruelty he had seen in his 17-year career, reports the ABC. Dylan Leslie Griffin from Banksia Grove pleaded guilty to shooting one of the kangaroos in the eye at Joondalup Magistrates Court on Monday. He faces a potential jail term of up to five years for the charges of ill treatment of an animal and possessing things intended to inflict cruelty. Police opposed Griffin's bail application, but the judge released him on the condition his father, a retired member of the Outlaw bikie gang, post a $10,000 surety. A kangaroo was burned and shot in the eye with a firearm and kicked, before being repeatedly punched with knuckle busters Another kangaroo was stabbed with a knife over 20 times before being kicked in the head Ricky Ian Swan from Aveley pleaded guilty to animal cruelty and possession of a knife in October and was released on bail. He will be sentenced later this month. Ben Jaydon Malpuss from Woodvale is facing a string of other charges, including common assault and discharging a firearm to cause fear. A letter from his lawyer indicated Malpuss was 'likely' to plead guilty and be sentenced at his next court appearance on 10 December. Luke Kevin Dempster, from Wanneroo, is facing three counts of animal cruelty, one count of possessing a thing intended to inflict cruelty and other charges, including discharging a firearm to cause fear. One of Dempster's counts of animal cruelty included a charge relating to the torture of a chicken, which he allegedly set on fire. He faced court on 26 October and will reappear in December. The mother of a young girl fighting for her life after contacting meningococcal disease overseas says her daughter isn't receiving appropriate levels of care. Elisha Robinson's Thailand holiday turned to disaster after her eight-month-old daughter, Lilliana, was diagnosed with meningococcal disease as a result of septic poisoning in October. The young girl's parents' nightmare was eased by staff at two Thai hospitals, who are credited with saving Lilliana's life. But now back on home soil, Ms Robinson says staff at the Lady Cilento Hospital in Brisbane, Queensland, needs to 'step up'. Mother of a meningococcal-stricken eight-month-old girl, Elishia Robinson (right) has slammed a Queensland hospital for her interpreted lack of appropriate care Lilliana Robinson (pictured) contracted meningococcal disease from septic poisoning in Thailand 'You have had my very ill daughter fasting for over 24 hours, no milk, no food, no nutrients, no time of the operation which I was told two days ago was booked for her,' she wrote on Facebook. 'I've not been treated like a parent of a child whose got meningococcal, I'm being treated like a parent of a child with a common cold.' She also shared how dismayed she was at the reception she and her daughter received when they arrived with Lilliana's father, Jai Sheridan, in Australia on Friday. 'Her first day here I was transported from the plane to a waiting bay in ED where they made Lilli fast from 10am to 12am and left her vacuum dressing with no suction for 24 hours.' Lilliana's (pictured) mother said hospital staff needed to 'step up' in their care for her isolated daughter In a Facebook post, Elisha credited two Thai hospitals for saving her daughter's life She said she expected there to be an entourage of doctors waiting and was disappointed that wasn't the case. WHAT IS MENINGOCOCCAL DISEASE? Meningococcal disease is a bacterial infection that can cause death within hours if not recognised and treated in time. There are five main strains of the infection, each of which now have a vaccine available in Australia. Although the majority of victims will recover fully, 10% of those infected will die, and around 20% will have permanent disabilities. If left untreated, the disease is fatal. Amputation is not uncommon. Neither is organ failure and kidney damage, with extreme cases requiring long-term dialysis. Babies and children up to five-years-old account for two-thirds of cases due to their less mature immune system Advertisement 'I was brought here at 12pm by ambulance straight from the plane and the (sic) she was taken into triage.' But the hospital maintains Lilliana is being cared for properly. 'The child is stable and is receiving safe and appropriate care for her condition, including surgery today,' a spokesperson for Childrens Health Queensland told Daily Mail Australia. For now, Lilliana will continue to recover in isolation in Lady Cilento Hospital. Mr Sheridan posted a plea for vaccinations for meningococcal disease being administered earlier throughout Australia, writing on Facebook that vaccines should be given for all strains at seven months old instead of 12. Meningococcal disease has five main strains, with different vaccines protecting against different strains. Strains A, C, W and Y were placed under a government vaccination scheme on July 1 this year. Strain B, the most common, was placed on the scheme last month. More than 1,000 donations to the Thai Red Cross gave Lilliana the blood she needed to live Convicted killer Oscar Pistorius is set to be secretly freed from prison on 'compassionate grounds' this week to attend a memorial service for his beloved grandfather. Former Paralympian Oscar, 31, is serving a 15-year-sentence for the murder of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, 29, who he blasted to death in his own bathroom in Pretoria, South Africa. Last month, Oscar's unwell grandfather Hendrik Pistorius who the former athlete called Oupa died aged 101 just hours after going into hospital for a routine operation. The once much-hailed star was said to be devastated when Hendrik died and he applied to the Department of Correctional Services to attend his memorial to say goodbye. Oscar Pistorius (pictured with Reeva Steenkamp) is set to be secretly freed from prison on 'compassionate grounds' this week to attend a memorial service for his grandfather The athlete has previously been given leave to attend the memorial service of Hendrik's wife Gerti who was his maternal grandmother who died aged 92 in August 2016. And in August last year, Pistorius was again allowed 'compassionate leave' to attend the funeral of his other grandmother, English-born Joyce Bekker, who died aged 93. Being allowed out of Atteridgeville Prison in Pretoria, South Africa, for a third time has led to questions that the former national hero may be getting preferential treatment. Sources in the Pistorius family have confirmed to local media that they expect Oscar to be present but the prison authorities claim a final decision has not yet been made. Pistorius a double amputee who was known as The Blade Runner for the carbon fibre racing blades he wore over his stumps shot Reeva dead in 2013. He has always claimed he thought he was shooting an intruder who had broken into the bathroom of his exclusive home while he was in bed with Reeva on St Valentine's Day. Pistorius admitted firing four shots through the bathroom door after walking from his bed on his stumps claiming he was convinced that a burglar had broken into his home. Reeva was found dead behind the door in a pool of her own blood with a fatal wound to her head. Pistorius was initially found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years but this was increased to 15 in total after a prosecution appeal saw him convicted of murder. Last month, Oscar's unwell grandfather Hendrik Pistorius (pictured with his son Leo Pistorius) died aged 101 just hours after going into hospital for a routine operation Department of Correctional Services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo told the Weekend Argus: 'An application has been made but it has not yet been fully considered. 'The Head of Centre has to consider a number of factors before an inmate is temporarily placed outside of a correctional facility as that carries risks'. However the paper quotes a trusted family source of telling them that they have a green light for Pistorius to attend the memorial service at a secret address in Pretoria. Oscar last met grandad Hendrik during a prison open day visit last year and in the week before Reeva was killed in 2013 he had introduced her to both Hendrik and wife Gerti. The former Paralympian was said to be devastated when Hendrik (pictured with his son) died Pistorius has previously been given leave to attend the memorial service of his maternal grandmother Gerti (pictured, with the former athlete) who died aged 92 in August 2016 The Blade Runner turns 32 on November 22 and is likely to become eligible for parole around 2023. The prisons spokesperson denied that Pistorius was getting any preferential treatment and insisted that all the inmates in the low security prison are treated equally. Compassionate leave he said was dependent on how the inmate was responding to correctional programmes and rehabilitation on their behaviour when in prison. The Weekend Argus quoted a source in the Department of Correctional Services who claimed Pistorius was a model prisoner who was 'humble and caring'. The source said: 'The Oscar I've come to know in jail is kind-hearted and cares for his fellow inmates. He buys food for those who can't afford it or those who are far away from their relatives. And he does this without asking for anything in return. 'Oscar also doesn't deny what he did and shows remorse every day without faking it or to manipulate people's opinions. This is the side he shows in jail and people should stop judging him'. The source said that Pistorius keeps a low profile behind bars and did not enjoy any preferential treatment adding: 'He likes his privacy and spends a lot of his time reading and visiting the prison library. He's a real bookworm.'. Murdered Reeva's mother June Steenkamp, 71, recently told local media that she had forgiven Oscar for murdering her daughter but believed that he should still be punished. Being allowed out of Atteridgeville Prison (pictured) in Pretoria, South Africa, for a third time has led to questions that the former national hero may be getting preferential treatment Pistorius was refused permission by the South African Constitutional Court earlier this year to make any more appeals against his conviction or sentence for murdering Reeva. The Blade Runner was the first double amputee to race in the Olympics competing in the 2012 London games becoming a role model for the disabled worldwide. The following year Pistorius plummeted from grace after being arrested for the brutal murder of Reeva shooting her four times including a fatal wound to the head. Reeva's parents English born June from Blackburn, Lancs, and her South African born retired horse trainer husband Barry, 75, were always convinced she was murdered. The couple told a TV channel that they believe Reeva had packed her bags and told Pistorius she was leaving him on the evening of her death and that he killed her. A fantasist who poisoned his wife with laxatives for three years is set to be freed from jail after serving just 21 months in prison. David Smith was jailed for three-and-a-half years after hiding pills inside the food of his partner Elizabeth, leaving her so weak that relatives thought she was dying. He also stole thousands of pounds from her bank account and told a series of lies, including that he was an SAS hero involved in the 1980 Iranian embassy siege. The 62-year-old also claimed to build secret components for the Ministry of Defence and that his first wife was a ballerina who had died while she was pregnant. David Smith was jailed for three-and-a-half years after hiding pills inside the food of his partner Elizabeth (pictured together), leaving her so weak that relatives thought she was dying In reality he worked as a tool maker for his former father-in-law's factory and had left his wife and three children just a month before meeting Elizabeth. She told the Daily Record: 'Where is the justice in this? Sentenced to 42 months, only to serve less than 21. 'I suffered for three-and-a-half years at the hands of this evil man. I just thought I had met the perfect man. 'But he poisoned me and stole thousands from me. He made me so ill. I loved him with every bone in my body. Now I hate him. He told me so many lies.' Smith was convicted in 2017 of culpably and recklessly administering laxative substances over a three-year period from 2012 to 2015. Sheriff John Montgomery told Smith in a court in Ayr, Ayrshire, that his conduct had caused 'physical and mental anguish' to his victim. Sheriff John Montgomery told Smith in a court in Ayr, Ayrshire, that his conduct had caused 'physical and mental anguish' to his wife (pictured) Smith had made his wife, a beauty therapist from Ayr, so ill through his poisoning that doctors believed she might have had motor neurone disease. The couple had met at a TK Maxx store in Ayr and the couple quickly began a romantic relationship. But after about six months Elizabeth began to become ill and before long she found herself bedridden, suffering from exhaustion and fainting over a period of two years. She married Smith on the Scottish island of Arran in January 2015 but by this time had become so gaunt and unwell that her family feared for her life. Her husband's web of lies began to reveal itself after he staged a break-in at their house. More than 100 army veterans have been asked to give evidence at a new four-month inquest into the 1971 Ballymurphy Massacre, when 10 people were killed after the Paras opened fire. In 2011, Northern Ireland's Attorney General John Larkin directed that new inquests be heard after a long campaign by family members who claimed the original coroners' probes in the aftermath of the shootings were inadequate. Last month, officials said 119 soldiers had been asked to give statements and military sources today told MailOnline they expect up to 100 may give evidence at the inquest. Family members of Ballymurphy Massacre victims gather outside the Laganside Courts in Belfast for today's inquest into the incident Soldiers have long been held by the families to be responsible for killing all 10 people between August 9 and August 11 1971, but the accepted narrative became clouded earlier this year when former members of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force came forward to claim their organisation was also involved. Sean Doran QC, counsel for the Coroner's Service, detailed the evidence that will be examined throughout the inquests. He said described the process into these inquests as 'difficult and complicated'. He added the difficulties have been exacerbated by the loss of records including statements from military witnesses which they gave before the original inquest. A Catholic priest was among the 10 fatally injured in the shootings, involving members of the Parachute Regiment. Father Hugh Mullan was waving a 'white handkerchief' over his head as he went to tend to Robert Clark on a patch of waste ground. Mr Clark survived but Father Mullan died from 'multiple lacerations to the chest and abdomen''. Another man died of a heart attack following an alleged violent confrontation with the troops in the west Belfast estate. The shootings took place as the Army moved in to republican strongholds to arrest IRA suspects in the wake of the introduction by the Stormont administration of the controversial policy of internment without trial. The ten victims of the shootings in 1971 are pictured, left to right top row: Joseph Corr, Danny Taggart, Eddie Doherty, Father Hugh Mullan, Frank Quinn, Paddy McCarthy. Bottom row: Joan Connolly, John McKerr, Noel Philips, John Laverty and Joseph Murphy Mr Doran told Coroner Mrs Justice Keegan that the deaths followed a period of civil unrest across Belfast and Northern Ireland following the introduction of internment in the early hours of August 9, 1971 which was codenamed Operation Demetrius. The inquest heard that the then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Brian Faulkner, met with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Ted Heath and a number of his ministers, on August 5, 1971 to inform him that he was introducing internment under the Special Powers Act of 1922. During the meeting, Mr Heath is said to have told Mr Faulkner that he would provide the appropriate 'military support' for Operation Demetrius which was to arrest paramilitary suspects and detain them without trial. 'The operation commenced at 4 am on August 9, 1971 and involved large numbers of British soldiers going directly to the homes of those targeted and to carry out arrests,' said Mr Doran. Those arrested were subsequently taken to a holding centre in Girdrwood Barracks across the city in North Belfast. The inquests were ordered after the original ones were deemed inadequate. Pictured: Father Mullan, in an undated photo, was one of the 10 who died in the shooting The QC said that following the large scale arrests, there was 'widespread civil disorder and rioting across Belfast and Northern Ireland''. Mr Doran said the court will examine a period of time in Belfast when there were approximately 12 explosions, 59 shootings, 17 deaths, 25 injuries, 13 rioting incidents, 18 arson attacks and numerous reports of civil disorder. 'When examining the deaths through a forensic lens we ought not to lose sight of the context of when these deaths occurred,' he said. 'That is not to say however that the context provide shield or buffer against scrutiny.' The families of the ten victims who were killed in 1971 gathered outside Laganside Court in Belfast ahead of the inquests. Family members held pictures of the victims and banners calling for justice. Political representatives from Sinn Fein, the SDLP, People Before Profit and Alliance also attended. John Teggart, whose father Daniel was one of those killed, said before court: 'It's mixed emotions going into court today but the determination of the families to get to the truth has brought us to here.' Solicitor Padraig O'Muirigh, who represents some of the families, added: 'Today, 47 years after these families lost their loved ones, 46 years after the original inquest, seven years after the direction for a new inquest, we are finally here. 'It's a tribute to the adversity and resilience of these brave families, so I want to commend them through all the difficult days. 'Hopefully this is a new start of a process to find out what happened to their loved ones. The shootings happened after the Army moved into Republican areas to arrest IRA suspects, sparking rioting. Father Hugh Mullan, a Catholic priest, was among those killed. Pictured: His funeral in Ballymurphy in 1971 'Over the next few months the court will examine the evidence and we are very confident that their loved ones' innocence will be clear and their names will be cleared, finally.' Many soldiers have previously complained they are victims of a witch hunt. 'I find it hard to believe that 11 innocent civilians were gunned down just for slaughter,' Alan Barry, a former Grenadier Guardsman who founded the group Justice for Northern Ireland Veterans, told The Guardian. 'We fought terrorism. We didn't go to Northern Ireland to oppress people. To claim we were running amok and shooting civilians at will is just appalling.' The inquest into the deaths of Francis Quinn, 19, Father Hugh Mullan, 38, Noel Phillips, 20, Joan Connolly, 50, Daniel Teggart, 44, Joseph Murphy, 41, Edward Doherty, 28, John Laverty, 20, Joseph Corr, 43 and John McKerr, 49, is expected to last six months. Hundreds of other British veterans have been called to give evidence before inquiries into incidents during the Troubles from up to 40 years ago. Some could face criminal charges as they have not been granted immunity from prosecution. Those include Chelsea Pensioner and former Royal Marine David Griffin, 77, who was questioned by police in Northern Ireland earlier this year over the death of a man during an ambush. Mr Griffin said he was simply following orders and does not know what happened in the heat of battle. Family members of the victims hold up a banner showing their faces today outside the Laganside courts in Belfast The surgeon in charge of the UK's first robotic heart surgery which ended in his patient's death was employed by a troubled cardiac unit in London, a year after the 'catastrophic' surgery, it has emerged. Sukumaran Nair was described as 'walking before he could run' when he missed training but went ahead with the surgery on retired music teacher 69-year-old Stephen Pettitt at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital. Mr Pettitt, a father of three, died days after the Da vinci robot surgery in 2015 which turned into chaos when the machine was so loud the surgeons could not hear one another. Mr Nair was dismissed by Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS foundation trust over the surgery at the city's Freeman Hospital, which was to repair a leaking heart valve. Had it been done conventionally, Mr Pettitt's chance of survival was up to 99 per cent. However, according to The Times, the surgeon was then given a job as a locum at St George's Hospital, southwest London, in February 2016, despite an ongoing review into what happened to Mr Pettitt. Surgeon Sukumaran Nair was hired as a locum - a professional filling in a vacant spot on a temporary basis - by St George's in London Father Stephen Pettitt died days after his surgery which was carried out by Mr Nair using a robot called the Da vinci which translates human hand strokes into smaller, more precise movements In August, a review found there was major issues with the cardiac unit in London, including what was described as a 'toxic' work environment. The south London facility had a cardiac surgery death rate of 3.7% - above the national 2% average, a leaked report said. A damning review written by former NHS England deputy medical director Mike Bewick came in the wake of the higher mortality rates at the hospital. He concluded there had been two rival camps who were exhibiting 'tribal-like activity'. Internal scrutiny was said to be 'inadequate' and the department was so dysfunctional it left staff feeling a high death rate was inevitable. Mr Nair admitted he was 'running before he could walk' in using the Da Vinci robot (pictured) St George's Hospital heart unit was suffering from a 'dark force' and the mortality rate rose, a report which has been leaked, found It is believed bosses at St George's knew about investigations by the police and the General Medical Council (GMC). No charges were ever brought against Mr Nair.] NHS guidance says those under investigation should not be employed elsewhere. It states: 'Locum doctors should not be appointed if they are currently the subject of an investigation or if there are concerns about standards or competence of previous performance.' Staff at the hospital are alleged to have complained about Mr Nair's employment. The heart unit at St George's has been attempting to repair its own reputation in recent months. Mr Nair has been criticsed by many of his peers. Leading heart surgeon Professor David Anderson told Newcastle Coroner's Court this month the operation conducted by under trained Sukumaran Nair, using the Da Vinci surgical robot, would not likely have ended that way had the robot not been used. Professor Anderson, a consultant cardiac surgeon at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital, London, told the Newcastle hearing that Mr Pettitt's euroSCORE - the risk factor applied to heart surgery patients - was just 1-2% in normal circumstances. Mr Pettit's intra-aortic septum was damaged in the op and he died days later on March 3, 2015, after going into multi organ failure. Details over the events which unfolded on the day include the surgical team, Mr Nair and assisting surgeon Thasee Pillay, shouting at one another. Communication was difficult because of the 'tinny' sound quality coming from the robot console being operated by Nair, it was revealed. The coroner concluded that Mr Pettitt's death was partly 'because the operation was undertaken with robotic assistance'. Mr Nair said to The Times: 'I will not be saying anything about St George's.' The 'scruffy' grey anorak worn by Jeremy Corbyn at yesterday's Armistice Day service is from Marks & Spencer and costs 79, it was revealed today. The Labour leader's hooded waterproof jacket stood out at the Cenotaph in a sea of black overcoats as smartly-dressed politicians and dignitaries attended the Remembrance Sunday commemorations in London. Last year Mr Corbyn wore a smart black dress coat but jettisoned it for this year's 100th anniversary commemorations and replaced it with a mac from M&S. The day before he lay the wreath he was photographed wearing the same coat while eating chips on the pier during a visit to Saltburn-by-the-Sea in North Yorkshire. Mr Corbyn modelled M&S clothing on the cover of GQ magazine last year and was gifted a suit from the high street store by a neighbour after he won the Labour leadership contest in 2016. Questions have been raised over why he wore a mac yesterday instead of the smarter black coat from a year earlier. Corbyn's coat row: Critics of the Labour politician were angered by his choice of jacket, with some saying he looked 'scruffy' - last year he wore a smart dress coat (right) Mr Corbyn wore a 79 coat from M&S at the Cenotaph yesterday Several people have pointed out that Mr Corbyn wore a smart black jacket last year but not for the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War this year A critic tweeted: 'Last year he wore a smart black coat like everyone else, so clearly knows the dress code' and another added: 'Corbyn wore a perfectly suitable coat last year so this was a deliberate choice to try make a political stunt out of this solemn occasion'. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wearing the same coat while weating chips on the pier in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Yorkshire, on Saturday One viewer wrote: 'Mr Corbyn does own a black coat, he wore it last year. Perhaps he was paying tribute to Michael Foot?' Lee James tweeted: 'He wore a black coat last year, why not this year?' Mr Corbyn has been asked to comment on the allegations. His outfit yesterday evoked memories of former Labour leader Michael Foot's infamous donkey jacket moment 37 years earlier, when he was subjected to barbs over his appearance at the Cenotaph in 1981. Yesterday scores said they were 'shocked' at the politician's choice of attire, with one man claiming he looked as though he was 'going fishing'. Princes William and Harry, as well as their father Prince Charles were in full military uniform as they attended the parade in Whitehall. Others, including Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and David Cameron, attended wearing dress coats. The criticism of Mr Corbyn was similar to that delivered in the Michael Foot 'donkey jacket' row in 1981. The then Labour party leader was blasted for wearing the mid-length jacket. Another politician in his party said he was 'disgusted to see that the leader of Her Majesty's opposition looked more like an Irish navvy than a party leader'. Later, it emerged the coat was in fact an expensive one, chosen by Mr Foot's wife Jill to make him look elegant. Britain's leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn lays a wreath during a National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph - wearing an anorak Those surrounding Corbyn opted for dress coats as they remebered the war dead Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stands beside Michael Foot in 1981 - on the day he was accused of wearing a 'donkey jacket' to the Cenotaph Mr Corbyn bowed his head after laying the wreath, and wore a poppy, yet scores of critics were angry about his jacket However, critics of Mr Corbyn said he looked 'scruffy' beside them in his choice of jacket. TalkRADIO Presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer was among the critics. She said on Twitter: 'I know it's petty but does @jeremycorbyn seriously think that a bright red tie and a scruffy hooded coat are appropriate wear for the Cenotaph? Or is he just trying to signal to his Leftie anti-war chums that he doesn't really want to be there? Such poor judgement.' Michael Foot wore 'donkey jacket' at Cenotaph in 1981 that made him look like 'an out of work navvy' Jeremy Corbyn is not the first hard-Left Labour leader to run into trouble over his attire on Remembrance Day. In 1981 Michael Foot was notoriously accused of wearing a 'donkey jacket' to a service at the Cenotaph. Lined up alongside an impeccably turned out Margaret Thatcher, Foot stood out in a patterned tie and distinctively collared coat. Times diarist Michael Horsnell jibed that Foot was 'dressed as if he had just returned from walking his dog on Hampstead Heath, in green donkey jacket, sneakers and Paisley tie'. The Labour MP for Derby South at the time, Walter Johnson, was even harsher, saying Foot looked like 'an-out of-work navvy' and had displayed 'gross discourtesy to the servicemen he was supposed to be honouring'. For many, the image at the Cenotaph summed up the problems with the shambolic-looking left-wing academic. Labour was later routed at the 1983 general election, with the party's manifesto branded the 'longest suicide note in history'. Ironically, that was the year Mr Corbyn was first election as an MP. Foot later admitted that he never expected the opprobrium over his coat, saying it was actually an expensive gift from his wife. He said the Queen Mother had voiced approval by remarking: 'That's a lovely warm coat you've got on'. Advertisement Ben Youngman added: 'Nice to see that Jeremy Corbyn has turned up for remembrance day dressed as a scruffy geography teacher! Not even wearing a black jacket! At least he's got a poppy on I suppose.' Tina Elliot said: 'Scruffy and disrespectful #Corbyn it wouldn't take much to wear smart attire on this special remembrance day Why do you feel the need to stand out and be an embarrassment to our country? Shame on you!' Cheryl Townsend added: 'Could @jeremycorbyn look any more scruffy for the remembrance service. This is a man who wants to lead our country #joker.' Elaine parry urged him to get a new coat. She said: 'We'll have to say it Jeremy Corbyn still hasn't got any respect at the cenotaph with his purple anorak on with hood inside out scruffy not even holding his wreath up someone buy him a Black Crombie for goodness sake to show some respect.' Prime Minister Theresa May teamed a smart black coat with a hat and a large string of pearls. She also laid a wreath, alongside German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. However, supporters of Corbyn said his coat does not matter at all. Richard Oneill said: 'Before you idiots start banging on about Jeremy Corbybn's coat. I'm a 79 year old ex Army, "War pensioner" And I don't give a flying toss what he wears. 'He is the only politician I know who would actively protect ex service personnel, unlike the Tories who create their problems!' Others said his choice of clothing does not matter as they praised him for his politics. Another user added: 'I see they're out for Jeremy Corbyn again - it's the wrong coat this time. You want to judge political leaders on respect they show for war? Fine. Check their voting record, not their clothing: this man shows more respect than anyone.' Lined up alongside an impeccably turned out Margaret Thatcher in 1981, Foot stood out in a patterned tie and distinctively collared coat. Times diarist Michael Horsnell jibed that Foot was 'dressed as if he had just returned from walking his dog on Hampstead Heath, in green donkey jacket, sneakers and Paisley tie'. The Labour MP for Derby South at the time, Walter Johnson, was even harsher, saying Foot looked like 'an-out of-work navvy' and had displayed 'gross discourtesy to the servicemen he was supposed to be honouring'. For many, the image at the Cenotaph summed up the problems with the shambolic-looking left-wing academic. Labour was later routed at the 1983 general election, with the party's manifesto branded the 'longest suicide note in history'. Ironically, that was the year Mr Corbyn was first election as an MP. Foot later said the Queen Mother had voiced approval for his outfit by remarking: 'That's a lovely warm coat you've got on'. Angered viewers of the Remembrance Sunday parade said they were outraged at his coat Critics said 'only Jeremy Corbyn' would shun a dress coat for an anorak but Michael Foot did something similar in 1981 He's been laid to rest next to sister Vicki, who died of leukaemia 30 years ago The grieving father of gangster John Macris has broken his silence after his son was murdered in Greece. Stelios Macris, 82, spoke of the pain of burying his son at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney's west on Saturday. 'I'm so upset, I saw my son die in front of me,' he said. 'Do you know what it's like to have to bury your own blood? I've lost two children now. I watched them both die.' Stelios Macris (pictured left with his daughter-in-law) at the funeral of his gangster son John Macris in Greece Viktoria Karida (pictured), the widow of John Macris, has no plans to return to Greece after her husband was murdered In a secret ceremony, Macris, 46, was laid to rest next to his sister Vicki, who died of leukaemia more than 30 years ago. According to friends, Macris' widow, former Playboy playmate Viktoria Karida, is fearful of her life after her husband was brutally assassinated in Greece on October 31. The mother-of-two now plans to stay permanently in Australia, raising the children at her in laws' residence in Mosman, an affluent suburb on Sydney's lower north shore. 'She's not going back to Greece, no way,' a source close to the family told the Daily Telegraph. 'She saw John get gunned down that day, she's finished with Greece.' Athens newspaper Kathimerini recently released CCTV footage of a man shooting Macris outside his luxury home on October 31. The assassin remains at large. Macris' burial in Australia came one week after he was farewelled in a traditional Greek Orthodox funeral service in southern Athens. The assassin (pictured), who remains at large, murdering John Macris in Greece outside his home on October 31 The murder scene of Australian gangster John Macris on October 31 in Greece A handful of family and friends accompanied Macris' body home in a flight from Athens last week. Former Sydney gangster Macris was well known in Athens and Mykonos, often rubbing shoulders with A-List celebrities. After fleeing Australia when a warrant was issued for his arrest in 2013, Macris moved to the greek capital. He soon became a business partner in My Services, a company offering private security, hospitality and cleaning staff. Australians may reconsider holidaying in Bali after warnings of an Islamic 'fatwa' declared against the Measles-Rubella vaccine. The 'fatwa' was issued by the Indonesian Ulemi Council in August and states that the MMR vaccine is 'haram' as it contains gelatine derived from pig. Gelatine is added as a stabiliser to many vaccines and medicines to prevent them degrading during transportation. Despite not being enforced by law, many Indonesians have been put off getting the vaccine and rates in the Southeast Asian country have dropped from the recommended 95 per cent to as low as just eight per cent in some areas. Australians may reconsider holidaying in Bali after warnings of an Islamic 'fatwa' declared against the Measles-Rubella (MR) vaccine (Pictured: A nurse seen vaccinating school children in Aceh, Indonesia) The 'fatwa' was issued by the Indonesian Ulemi Council in August and states that the MMR vaccine is 'haram' as it contains gelatine derived from pig The Ulemi Council issued the 'fatwa' despite recognising there is currently no viable medical alternative to the MMR vaccine. The Council also recognised the lack of vaccination could be detrimental to public health. The lack of vaccination puts the country's immunisation campaign at risk. The Indonesian Ministry of Health launched a campaign in 2017 to ensure more children received vaccinations to protect them from the potentially deadly diseases. Last year, the country was deemed to have the third largest number of measles outbreaks in the world. The Southeast Asian country switched to a combined MR jab as part of the WHO-led plan to eliminate measles and rubella globally by 2020. However, a significant drop in vaccinations due to religious objections promises to inflame the problem. The Ulemi Council is a body which declares whether consumer products are permitted, or 'halal', according to the Islamic religion. The Ulemi Council deemed the vaccine as 'haram', despite Muslim and Jewish organisations in other countries deciding to allow it. Friends have paid tribute to a British motorbike enthusiast killed in an Algarve road accident. Paul Raine, 28, died after colliding with a van on the EN 267 national road in Marmelete, a village near Monchique just over half an hour's drive from the coast. He had flown out to Portugal with friends for a trail riding holiday and decided to take part in the MadRon Hard Enduro, a GPS-based four day off-road motorbike event in the forests and mountains above the Algarve. He was not competing in the event, which started on Thursday and finished on Sunday, when the fatal collision occurred, just before 2pm local time on Friday. Friends have been paying tribute to British motorbike enthusiast Paul Raine, 28, who died after colliding with a van on the EN 267 national road in Marmelete, a village near Monchique, Portugal Event promotor Ian Robinson confirmed in a Facebook tribute: 'It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that we lost one of our enduro comrades today. 'Paul Raine, 28, has lost his life in what can only be described as tragic circumstances that no one could have foreseen or been able prevent. 'Paul travelled out to Portugal for a trail riding holiday with friends, something Paul always wanted to do. 'He and one of his riding buddies decided to take part in the MadRon Hard Enduro Event for one day only before travelling back to the UK. 'It was whilst riding on the public highway that he was involved in a road traffic collision and sustained injuries he could not recover from.' Mr Raine had flown out to Portugal with friends for a trail riding holiday when he decided to take part in the MadRon Hard Enduro which is a four day off-road motorbike event. The fatal collision occurred just before 2pm local time on Friday He added: 'I have known him as an acquaintance for several years having spoken to him on many occasions at local enduro events and he can only be described as a very likeable person and we always had some laughs together about his enduro escapades. 'As you can imagine this has changed things for the event he was involved in and I can whole-heartedly say that we are all devastated.' Friend Vickie Cooper added: 'We have all lost an amazing young man, someone who was a giver, a true, genuine passionate individual who loved life and would do anything for anyone. The accident happened on a national road in Marmelete, a village near Monchique, which is just is a half an hour drive from the coast 'Absolutely devastated. I have no words at this time. RIP to a very special person.' Paul is thought to have worked as a mechanic. He was in a long-term relationship with partner Rose Wilkinson. A lap of honour will be held in his memory this Sunday at an offroad event in Catterick, North Yorkshire, Paul's native county. Friend Becky Dean said on Facebook: 'Terrible news. So sad to hear this. Feel desperately sorry for his family and for Rose, his fab girlfriend.' This is the heartwarming moment a dog is rescued from the ice on a Siberian lake after its tail and hind legs froze to the spot. The stranded Moscow Watchdog, a cross between the St Bernard and the Caucasian Shepherd, was gently freed by a rescue patrol who got to it on a hovercraft. However, a mystery remains as to why the well-cared for dog was marooned on Lake Kenon near Chita city, almost 3,000 miles east of Moscow. People have speculated that the dog's master may have been fishing and fallen into the freezing water but no obvious traces of a human being there has been found. Another thought is that the animal was abandoned by a cruel owner on the ice amid -2C temperatures that day. Rescuers from the TransBaikal firefighters warmed up the dog before feeding it. A Moscow watchdog is gently freed after it was found frozen to the ice in Siberia last month TransBaikal firefighters found the marooned pet on Lake Kenon near Chita City when on patrol However, they later released the animal on to the streets. A source told the Siberian Times: 'No owner came to claim the animal. It was allowed to go on its way.' There was social media criticism as to why no effort was made to find the dog a good home or have it taken to a shelter. Its fate after its dramatic rescue is now unknown. Mystery remains as to why the well-cared for dog was marooned on the ice during -2C weather China has postponed the lifting of a ban on certain trade of rhino horn and tiger bone products, the government said on Monday. The announcement came after Beijing last month reversed a 25-year-old law and legalised the use of parts from the two endangered animal species for medical and other purposes. The decision quickly sparked an uproar from conservation groups around the world, some of whom called it a 'death warrant' for the animals. Beijing has delayed the implementation of a new law which would allow rhino horn and tiger bone products from being traded under 'special circumstances', including 'medical research' Rhino horns are usually ground into powder to be used in traditional Chinese medicine. The 'magic powder' is believed to be able to help treat everything from cancer to hangovers But today, a senior Chinese government official said Beijing was having a second thought on easing the ban. The 'detailed regulations for implementation' of the October change had been 'postponed after study', the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing State Council Executive Deputy Secretary-General Ding Xuedong. Ding did not give a reason for postponing the change, or indicate if it would be permanent, but said the old ban would remain in force. 'The 'three strict bans' will continue to be enforced: strictly ban the import and export of rhinos, tigers and their byproducts; strictly ban the sale, purchase, transport, carrying and mailing of rhinos, tigers and their byproducts; and strictly ban the use of rhino horns and tiger bones in medicine,' Ding said. China would continue to 'organise special crackdown campaigns' with a focus on 'addressing the illegal trade of rhinos, tigers and their byproducts'. 'Illegal acts will be dealt with severely,' Ding said. Animal conservationists said they were 'relieved' to hear about the postpone. Bones from tigers are crushed and made into a paste by traditional medicine practitioners. Tiger bone past has been said to be usable to treat a variety of ailments, including rheumatism Tiger, a protected animal species, are hunted and sold illegally for their skin, meat and bones. Pictured, Chinese police hold a piece of tiger skin confiscated from a group of illegal sellers On October 29, the State Council issued a circular replacing a 1993 ban on the trade of tiger bones and rhino horn, opening up exceptions under 'special circumstances', including medical 'research'. According to the circular, horns of rhinos or bones of tigers that are bred in captivity could be used 'for medical research or clinical treatment of critical illnesses'. Rhinos and tigers are already under critical pressure from a black market supplying the traditional medicine trade. Rhino horn is made primary from keratin - a protein found in fingernails and hair - and is believed to be able to help treat everything from cancer to hangovers when consumed. On the other hand, tiger bone, which is crushed and made into a paste, has been said to be usable to treat a variety of ailments, including rheumatism and back pain. There are no proven medicinal benefits in humans from either product, according to the National Geographic. In October, Beijing revised a 25-year-old ban to legalise the use of rhino horn products to be used for medical purposes. The reversing decision has caused an outrage around the world Conservation groups said lifting of the long-time ban would be disastrous for endangered rhinoceros and tiger populations, even if the animal parts were only sourced from those bred in captivity. They also argued that easing the ban would be devastating for efforts to protect tigers and rhinos because it would confuse consumers and authorities as to which products were legal and which not, and expand markets for them. Animal rights group Humane Society International said in October that permitting the trade of tiger bones and rhino horn would inevitably increase pressure on animals in the wild, and would be a 'death warrant' for the animals. Iris Ho, a senior specialist for wildlife program and policy, said in a statement to MailOnline that the changes were essentially 'a laundering scheme for illegal tiger bone and rhino horn to enter the marketplace'. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) heavily criticised the new law last month in a press release, expressing 'profound concern' over the changes. Animal conservationists have expressed relief at the postponement of the new law, but urged for a permanent and complete ban on the products in question. Police in China have had a long-time battle with smugglers and sellers of wild animal parts. Officers are seen examining ivory and rhino horn products seized from a criminal ring in 2016 Leopard skins seized by Hong Kong customs officials are displayed during conference in 2013 Gilbert M. Sape, Global Head of Campaign for Bears and Traditional Medicine at the World Animal Protection, said: 'We are relieved that China has chosen to postpone lifting the ban on tiger and rhino products for medicinal purposes and we strongly encourage them to scrap the policy all together. 'Keeping these products banned is the only way we stand a chance of protecting the future survival of these incredible animals that are already in decline.' Iris Ho from Humane Society International said: 'For China to reinstate the ban on domestic trade in tiger parts and rhino horns would provide a vital lifeline for these species.' But Humane Society International expressed the desire to see an official document from Beijing that 'permanently reinstates a complete ban'. 'Species extinction is irreversible and we cannot afford any missteps,' added Ho. China banned trade in tiger bones and rhino horns 25 years ago as part of global efforts to save the animals. Commercial tiger farms are legal in China, and though using tiger bones in medicine was banned, tiger parts from farms often end up in tonics or other medicines, animal rights groups say. Sir Keir Starmer insisted Brexit can be stopped today in defiance of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's claim there is no way of halting the referendum result. The shadow Brexit secretary insisted 'all options must be on the table' including a second referendum. Mr Corbyn said last week he was powerless to stop Brexit but instead wanted to negotiate an exit on his own terms. Sir Keir's intervention deepens Labour's chaos on quitting the EU. Just yesterday shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry endorsed a new referendum. Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown predicted there would be a second poll on Brexit today, insisting Britain must be reunited in the aftermath of the 2016 vote. Sir Keir Starmer (pictured on Sky News today) insisted Brexit can be stopped in defiance of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's claim there is no way of halting the referendum result Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured last night in London) said last week he was powerless to stop Brexit but instead wanted to negotiate an exit on his own terms Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown (pictured today in London) predicted there would be a second poll on Brexit today, insisting Britain must be reunited in the aftermath of the 2016 vote Sir Keir told Sky News: 'Brexit can be stopped. But the real question is what are the decisions we are going to face over the next few weeks and months? Labour to try and use Commons rules to make ministers reveal Brexit legal advice Labour will try and use Commons rules to force ministers to publish legal advice on the Brexit deal tomorrow. Sir Keir Starmer will table a 'humble address' demanding publication of the advice, a mechanism that would force ministers to reveal the document. Full legal advice documents are almost always confidential. Ministers rarely publish even summaries of advice given. Tory Brexiteers could rebel to back the motion and if they do Labour's motion is almost certain to pass. Sir Keir said: 'It's simply untenable for the Government to put forward any Brexit deal to Parliament without providing the legal advice on what's been agreed. 'At this critical stage, MPs can't be kept in the dark nor can we risk Parliament being bounced into a decision without having all of the facts available. 'Ministers should accept this motion and allow MPs to have an informed debate about the UK's future relationship with the EU after Brexit.' Advertisement 'Decision one is on the deal. Decision two is if the deal goes down should there be a general election and decision three is if there is no general election all options must be on the table including the option of a public vote. 'That is the clear position. Jeremy is signed up to it. I'm signed up to that.' Last week Mr Corbyn said in an interview: 'We can't stop it. 'The referendum took place. Article 50 has been triggered. What we can do is recognise the reasons why people voted Leave.' Many of Labour's MPs have been demanding a so-called 'People's Vote' to stop Brexit. The muddled stance came as Theresa May struggles to thrash out a deal with the EU - amid rising fears that negotiations could fail. Ms Thornberry said yesterday that the option of campaigning for a second referendum was still on the table. 'Theresa May is simply giving us a devil in the deep blue sea - she's saying you can either fall off a cliff or get on this bridge to nowhere, and you're going to have to vote on that,' she told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show. 'That's not a meaningful vote, that's not an injection of democracy. 'So, we say if you're going to give us that, we refuse to play that sort of game and, frankly, if you can't come up with a decent suggestion then we should have a general election, if we don't have a general election then yes, of course, all the options remain on the table and we would campaign for there to be a people's vote.' Labour MP Mike Gapes praised Sir Keit for 'correcting the erroneous statements by Jeremy Corbyn' as party splits continued People's Vote supporter Ben Bradshaw said Sir Keir was making the 'crystal clear' point it was not too late for a second referendum to 'avert Tory Brexit shambles' Tottenham MP David Lammy said Sir Keir was 'absolutely right' and that Labour policy was to 'keep this option open' Calls for a referendum were fueled on Friday when Boris Johnson's brother Jo dramatically quit, saying the emerging divorce package was a disaster and urging another national vote. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has risked accusations of intruding on domestic politics by backing a second Brexit vote. 'If I was Theresa May, I would call a second referendum no doubt,' he told Politico. Sir Keir's intervention deepens Labour's chaos on quitting the EU. Just yesterday shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry (pictured yesterday on Marr) endorsed a new referendum Large numbers of Labour MPs, the SNP, the Lib Dems and some Tories have joined the campaign to force a new vote that could cancel Brexit altogether. Polls have also suggested that the balance might have swung away from the 52 per cent to 48 per cent result last time. But Mrs May has dismissed the idea pointing out that the country made a clear decision on the issue in 2016. The Labour leadership has so far resisted grass roots pressure to endorse the plebiscite. Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott laid bare internal splits last week by delivering a stark warning that people should be 'careful what you wish for' On BBC Question Time last week, shadow home secretary Diane Abbott admitted her constituents were furious about leaving the EU but played down second referendum calls Ex-transport minister Jo Johnson (pictured right last week) resigned calling for a second referendum on whether Brexit should go ahead She admitted her constituents were furious about leaving the EU and said MPs should not be forced to back a 'bad and destructive deal'. But she said she believed that another national vote on whether to leave the bloc would just give the same result, with the public asking: 'Didn't you hear us the first time?' Mrs Thornberry was pressed on how Labour would secure a better Brexit deal and asked if she has had a 'serious conversation' with a senior EU official who has suggested the UK could meet the party's demand for the exact same single market and customs union benefits post-Brexit. She replied: 'Oh, no, no, no, no, of course not. But what we've had are discussions and they know what it is that we want, and they know we are democrats and if they were in our position they'd be trying to negotiate exactly the same way as we are.' Told it was a fantasy prospectus, Ms Thornberry replied: 'It is not a fantasy prospectus.' This is the shocking moment a drag racer who allegedly drove with a man on his bonnet for at least 150metres lashed out at a journalist after leaving court. Jack Maffescioni is accused of driving straight into Necip Tali, 32, while trying to leave a burnout meeting with racers. The 19-year-old is now facing charges of conduct endangering life and failing to render assistance. Jack Maffescioni is accused of driving straight into Necip Tali (pictured) while trying to leave a burnout meeting with racers Upon leaving court on Monday, Mr Maffescioni lashed out at a A Current Affair cameraman. 'Do you want me to shove it up you're a***?' he yelled. His mother also lashed out, telling a reporter: 'He said leave him alone so p*** off!' Mr Tali was lucky to escape with non-life threatening injuries following the alleged incident in Coburg North, Melbourne, on September 22. Mr Maffescioni told A Current Affair that he was 'sorry' for what happened. 'I didn't intend for it to go that way...I'd rather have it all dealt with,' he told journalist. 'I'm extremely sorry for what happened.' Upon leaving court on Monday, Mr Maffescioni (pictured) lashed out at a A Current Affair cameraman At the time of the incident, Fawkner Highway Patrol Acting Senior Sergeant Dean Pickering said the hit-and-run could have been a lot worse. 'It was a very deliberate action and decision for that driver to do what he did it has gone from a burnout to a serious criminal matter,' Acting Sen-Sgt Pickering said at the time of the incident. 'It is only fortunate that the victim did not wind up with more serious injuries, given the circumstances.' Advertisement Two new wildfires have broken out in Southern California as the state continues to fight back blazes that have left 31 dead and wreaked havoc for days. Firefighters were already battling the deadly Woolsey fire, which has killed two people and is only 20 per cent contained, as well as the Hill fire when two new blazes suddenly sparked on Monday. The Lynn fire broke out in Thousand Oaks, which is still reeling from a horrific mass shooting that took 12 lives last week. Scroll down for video Two new wildfires have broken out in Southern California as the state continues to fight back blazes that have left 31 dead and wreaked havoc for days. Pictured is the Peak fire on California State Route 118 The California Highway Patrol has since closed part of the 118 freeway as firefighters worked to fight back against the blaze The area covered by the Woolsey fire is shown in red on the right, while the Hill fire is in red on the left. Celebrities affected by the fire include: 1) Gerard Butler, whose house was partially destroyed; 2) Miley Cyrus, house destroyed; 3) Robin Thicke, house destroyed; 4) Lady Gaga, who has been evacuated; 5) Will Smith, evacuated; 6) Simon Cowell, evacuated It burned five acres as of Monday morning but the Ventura County Fire Department said the threat to nearby structures was 'diminishing' as firefighters were able to 'get a handle' on the flames, according to LAist. By 11.45am officials said surrounding homes were not under threat and that the fire was holding. Meanwhile, a new blaze dubbed the Peak fire was seen burning right by the 118 Freeway in Simi Valley. It was reported around 10.30am and at least 105 acres have been burned. Fire crews said they stopped forward progress of the flames around 1pm. People could be seen turning their cars around and driving the wrong way on the freeway to get away from the smoke and flames. The California Highway Patrol temporarily closed part of the 118 Freeway as firefighters worked to contain the flames. Two water-dropping helicopters and a firefighting airplane were spotted at the scene and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department initially issued evacuation orders for nearby residents. The statewide total of deaths from wildfires is now at 31, including two people who died inside a car in Malibu while trying to flee the Woolsey fire on Sunday night. Firefighters were already battling the deadly Woolsey fire, which has killed two people and is only 20 per cent contained, as well as the Hill fire when two new blazes sparked on Monday This map shows the location of the Camp, Hill and Woolsey fires in California. In total, 31 people have died in the blazes Smoke from the initial three California wildfires have been so intense that they even reached the metro Detroit area by Monday as it stretched across the US (pictured) Smoke from the initial three California wildfires have been so intense that they even reached the metro Detroit area by Monday. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association maps showed smoke from the wildfires stretching across the US. Officials said that smoke is expected to stay present in Detroit until around 7pm, according to WXYZ. Firefighters put out a red weather alert late in Southern California on Sunday, fearing high Santa Ana winds could reach up to 50mph and keep fanning the flames into Tuesday - making things worse before they get better. Huge plumes of smoke rose in the fire area, which stretches miles from the northwest corner of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley to the Malibu coast. 'Sadly, with these winds, it's not over yet,' Scott Jalbert, chief of Cal Fire's San Luis Obispo Unit, said Sunday morning. A one-day lull did allow firefighters to gain 20 per cent control of the Woolsey fire, which has burned more than 91,572 acres since Thursday. The Lynn fire broke out in Thousand Oaks, which is still reeling from a horrific mass shooting that took 12 lives last week. Pictured is a map showing the area where the fire has broken out A wildfire-ravaged property is seen Monday in Malibu. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby says he expects further damage assessments to show that hundreds more homes have been lost on top of the 370 already counted The inside of a car that was completely incinerated as the Woolsey fire burned through Malibu over the weekend Several animal rescue volunteers have risked their lives saving dozens of animals. A burned cat waits for animal control to arrive after they were called by responders who discovered it near Bille Road in Paradise, California on Sunday It has destroyed 370 homes and businesses in the Los Angeles and Ventura countries and 57,000 structures are still threatened, according to the Los Angeles Times. Officials said firefighters will be focusing on keeping the blaze within containment lines on Monday. 'We didn't see any spread of fire outside the containment lines on Sunday, but as we've clearly seen over the last couple of days, it only takes one ember and one spark to see rapid rates of fire spread,' said Cal Fire Division Chief Chris Anthony. Areas including Malibu, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, and Topanga are among those still under evacuation orders. Gerard Butler, Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, and Camille Grammer Meyer of 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' were among those whose Malibu homes were destroyed in the Woolsey fire. Meanwhile the Kardashian clan, Simon Cowell, Will Smith, Lady Gaga and Martin Sheen were among other those who had to evacuate the star-studded Malibu and Calabasas areas. Two water-dropping helicopters and a firefighting airplane were spotted at the scene trying to fight back the new blaze A helicopter drops water on brush burning near Pepperdine University as the Woolsey Fire continues to burn in Malibu on Monday morning The Woolsey fire has destroyed 370 homes and businesses in the Los Angeles and Ventura countries and 57,000 structures are still threatened The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said approximately 600 officers would be 'saturating evacuated areas' on patrol for looters and to 'ensure the protection of residents and their properties'. A sign in the area read: 'Welcome 2 Point Dume. Looters get bullets. Fireman get HUGS' The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said approximately 600 officers would be 'saturating evacuated areas' on patrol for looters and to 'ensure the protection of residents and their properties'. A sign in the area read: 'Welcome 2 Point Dume. Looters get bullets. Fireman get HUGS.' Los Angeles County has also advised all residents to stay indoors as much as possible and keep windows and doors closed due to unhealthy air quality and exposure to 'ash, soot, and small particles'. Meanwhile, in northern California, firefighters are still trying to beat back a blaze that has taken 29 lives and become tied with the deadliest fire in the state's history. The majority have died in Paradise, which has been almost totally destroyed. Rescue teams are now on the ground in what remains of the town and have been identifying more victims each day. New footage emerged on Monday that showed panicked residents of the town trying to escape as the roads became blocked with traffic. When the Camp Fire struck near Paradise on Thursday morning, 27,000 people tried to flee the town on roads that were quickly blocked (pictured, a downed power line stops traffic) or else clogged with cars Journeys that should have taken minutes ended up taking hours, with dozens of people telling how they jumped out of the cars and ran, carrying whatever they could At least seven people burned to death inside their vehicles while trying to escape from Paradise on Thursday as 27,000 people packed on to a four-lane road - the only route out of town that wasn't blocked. Survivors sat in miles-long tailback as flames licked at their car doors, while others jumped out and ran, carrying pets and valuables. Greg Woodcox who led a caravan of vehicles that was overcome by flames from a wildfire says he saw his friend die. Woodcox said Monday that he heard his friend scream as the heat blew out windows. Four other people in the vehicles died. Woodcox said he was too exhausted to talk more by phone. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, the 58-year-old said he was in a Jeep ahead of the other vehicles and ran when the flames overtook them. He said he followed a fox to a path down a steep embankment, and he survived by submerging himself in a stream for nearly an hour. Evacuations were hindered by the fact that Paradise is a popular retirement community, meaning many residents are elderly and struggle to move Medics at the Feather River Hospital in Paradise were given just 20 minutes to clear all the patients out before the fire arrived Nichole Jolly, 34, a nurse at the hospital in Paradise, said she attempted to flee in her truck before being rammed into a ditch by another motorist trying to get out. She climbed out of her truck and tried to get into another, but the handles had melted off, so she ran up the road as her pants leg caught on fire. 'I'm breathing in the hottest air I've ever been in. My throat is bloodied, I'm about to hit the ground but the bottom of my shoes were melting,' she told NBC. CALIFORNIA FIRES BY THE NUMBERS - 29 people have died in Northern California's Camp fire - 2 people have died in Southern California's Woolsey fire - 228 people are still missing - 7,000 structures have been damaged - 57,000 structures still remain under threat - 149,000 people still under evacuation order - 8,000 firefighters on the front lines Advertisement 'I put hand out in front of me and prayed to God, 'Please, don't let me die like this.'' She did eventually make it to a fire truck, where the crew told her to 'brace yourself because we might not make it'. It was only after a bulldozer arrived to clear the road that the truck, and Jolly, were able to escape. Meanwhile Lauri Kester, a caretaker for the elderly, told the New York Times that it took an hour to drive just three miles on Thursday as the fire advanced. Eventually, a police officer running past told Kester to abandon her vehicle and make a break for it. She grabbed her dog Biscuit and ran. 'It was hot, it was smoky and - this sounds like such an exaggeration, but - it was apocalyptic,' she said. Wendell Whitmore, 62, was another of those who tried to flee Paradise in his car, but was forced to make a break for it on foot as the situation became desperate. He told the Sacramento Bee: 'There were flames to the left of me and flames to the right. The flames were up in the trees, all the houses were on fire. 'The fire was three feet from my car. The rubber around the windows was melting. That's when I decided to get out.' Butte County Sheriff Cory Honea revealed another 228 people are unaccounted for, adding that finding their remains is proving difficult, as many bodies have been reduced to little more than bone fragments The death toll rose on Sunday after the remains of five people were found inside houses in Paradise, while another was found in a nearby car (pictured, body bags are loaded into a hearse in Paradise) The extent of the Camp Fire is seen in this satellite image taken on November 10, as it burned through northern California At least 29 people have died in the Camp wildfire, making it the joint-deadliest in California's history alongside the Griffith Park fire which struck Los Angeles in 1933 (pictured, bodies are located in the town of Paradise) University of Nevada Reno archaeology students recover human remains in a mobile home park in Paradise on Sunday A car sits next to a trail of metal which was melted by the heat of the fire before solidifying again as the blaze moved away Barbara Hall has been calling shelters and the sheriff's office hoping to find out whether her aunt, Arlene and her husband Paul Bickel made it out of their home in a retirement community in Paradise. So far, Hall has had no luck. Her relatives are in their 80s and 90s and Hall isn't allowed into Paradise to see if their car is in front of a house that may no longer be standing. Hall asked: 'Did they make it in their car? Did they get away? Did their car go over the edge of a mountain somewhere? I just don't know.' She said she was making phone calls with her daughter's mobile phone from nearby Redding, where her daughter lives. The couple only had a landline, which had phone numbers programmed into it, and calls to it don't go through. Hall says her aunt's parents adopted her father when he was a boy and that she is like a big sister to her. Jody Jones, mayor of Paradise who previously worked as a traffic specialist in LA, said the town did put together an evacuation plan after a fire tore through in 2008. One of the fire's victims was an ailing woman whose body was found in bed in a burned-out house in Concow, near Paradise. Ellen Walker, who was in her early 70s, was home alone when the fire struck on Thursday, according to Nancy Breeding, a family friend Pieces of crumbling wall and a chimney is all that remains of this house which was gutted in the Camp Fire Some cars never made it off the driveway before being consumed by the flames, which have also destroyed 6,500 buildings The plan called for Paradise to evacuate neighborhood by neighborhood, and they even practiced it last year, but it fell to pieces within moments on Thursday. 'I don't know that you could build the infrastructure to evacuate an entire town that quickly,' she said. 'I just don't know if that's possible.' The Rocklin Police Department, which was called on to assist Butte County with the Camp fire, also shared a chilling video of the area's destruction over the weekend. Officers filmed apocalyptic scenes that showed dozens upon dozens of burned-out cars, buses, and trucks, and residential streets that had been completely leveled by the fire. Men 'dressed as US Forest Service workers' are arrested for suspected looting in devastated Paradise Suspected looters who appeared to be impersonating US Forest Service workers have been arrested in Paradise, California. The town of Paradise has been nearly decimated by the Camp fire, which has already taken 29 lives. But it appears some were hoping to take advantage of the devastating tragedy. Men who were dressed in bright yellow jackets similar to those worn by US Forest Service workers were arrested in the fire zone on Saturday night. Suspected looters who appeared to be impersonating Forest Service workers were arrested in Paradise, California on Saturday night. One is pictured here Men who were dressed in bright yellow jackets similar to those worn by US Forest Service workers were arrested in the fire zone Authorities said the men may have worn the jackets to gain access to the evacuated area, according to CBS San Francisco. Police have not disclosed what the men were trying to steal. There have been 53 reports of suspected looting in the scorched area. And law enforcement have confirmed that the Camp fire has sparked a crime wave in Butte County. Authorities said the men may have worn the jackets to gain access to the evacuated area Police have not disclosed what the men were trying to steal. There have been 53 reports of suspected looting in the scorched area Sheriff Kory Honea promised on Saturday that looting suspects would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 'If we discover looting and evidence of looting, we will investigate,' he said during a press conference on Saturday. 'And even if we don't catch you there, we will investigate to determine if we can identify you and make an arrest.' As of Sunday night, Honea said the department had received 66 additional calls about 'suspicious incidents' - including looting - in the area. Advertisement Sunday saw Paradise's death toll rise after five bodies were found inside houses in the burned-out town, while another was discovered in a nearby car. Authorities said 228 people are still unaccounted, meaning that death toll could rise considerably in the town, which is a popular retirement community. A quarter of Paradise's population was over the age of 65. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the devastation is so complete in some neighborhoods that 'it's very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there'. 'In some cases, the only remains we are able to recover are bones or bone fragments,' Honea said. In southern California, the Woolsey Fire has torched more than 83,000 acres and destroyed 175 buildings along the way The remains of a house can be seen in Westlake Village, near Thousand Oaks, after the Woolsey Fire swept through Sunday This was the scene in Westlake Village, in California, on Sunday. The suburb is located in Thousand Oaks, just a few miles from where last week's mass shooting took place Firefighters work to extinguish a flare-up of the Woolsey Fire on a hillside in West Hills, California on Sunday afternoon FOUR OUT OF 42 VICTIMS ARE IDENTIFIED One of the fire's victims was an ailing woman whose body was found in bed in a burned-out house in Concow, near Paradise. Ellen Walker, who was in her early 70s, was home alone when the fire struck on Thursday, according to Nancy Breeding, a family friend. Breeding said Walker's husband was at work and called a neighbor to tell his wife to evacuate, but she was on medication and might not have been alert. A total of four victims killed by the Camp Fire have been identified since Sunday. Officials stand over human remains at a burned out home destroyed by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California He assumed she had escaped the inferno and was trying to find her at rescue centers until authorities confirmed her death late Friday. 'Yesterday a fireman took him to the house to confirm, she apparently died in bed,' Breeding said. 'This is a devastating thing, and it's happening to so many people,' she added. Butte County Sheriff Cory Honea identified three more victims on Monday. Ernest Foss, 54, of Paradise, Jesus Fernandez, 48, of Concow, and Carl Wiley, 77, of Magalia, were identified as victims. Advertisement Ten search and recovery teams are working in Paradise, along with a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify victims. The Camp Fire has been the state's most destructive fire in the state's history, decimating 6,700 homes and businesses. Officials expect the numbers to increase significantly. The fire originated on Camp Creek Road near Highway 70 around 6.30am on Thursday. Firefighters were dispatched to a vegetation fire in the area 'under the high tension power lines' at 6.33am. Officials said the wildfires may intensify due to strong Santa Ana winds as more than 8,000 firefighters continue to battle the deadly infernos Gerard Butler was among those celebrities able to return to their homes on Sunday after being evacuated, only to find it destroyed. Pictured is what is left of his Malibu home Robin Thicke's home was also completely destroyed by the fire, leaving nothing more than a pile of rubble and ash behind Aerials show the extent of damage inflicted on Thicke's mansion, which he shares with girlfriend April Love Geary Firefighters immediately realized that the blaze would be hard to access, and that the flames were being fanned by 35mph winds. Betsy Ann Cowley, who owns land near where the deadly wildfire started in Northern California, said Monday that Pacific Gas & Electric Co sought access to her property just before the blaze started because the utility's power lines were causing sparks. PG&E has said it experienced a problem on an electrical transmission line near the site of the massive fire, minutes before the blaze broke out. The fire started on 64 acres of land in Pulga, California, owned by Cowley. Cowley said she received an email from the utility on Wednesday telling her that crews needed to come to her property to work on the high-power lines because 'they were having problems with sparks'. PG&E declined to discuss the email. Two days before the fire started, PG&E told customers in nine counties, including Butte County, that it might shut off their power November 8 because of extreme fire danger. But the utility company called off the shutdown, telling customers nine hours after the Camp Fire began that the weather conditions 'did not warrant this safety measure'. The fire started about 6.30am that morning. The cause of the fire remains under investigation but CalFire spokesman Scott McLean said 'electric equipment' was being included in the probe. Officials said the Camp Fire only grew moderately on Sunday despite new wind gusts, which are expected to lessen by Monday. But dangerously low humidity levels will continue into the week. Miley Cyrus also took to Twitter on Sunday to reveal that her home had been destroyed The ground at the home of Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth still smolders after the Woolsey Fire in Malibu Miley's dog statue (pictured) could be seen with smoke coming from the ground next to its feet from the blaze Camille Grammer also revealed on Sunday that she had lost her home (pictured on Monday), saying it 'couldn't be saved' Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson also lost his home in the blaze this weekend. He posted photos of what was still left standing on Saturday 'In terms of the overall long-range (forecast), there is no significant precipitation or cooldown,' National Weather Service meteorologist Ryan Walbrun told the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday. 'The forecast remains dry and unseasonably warm through the rest of the week and through the weekend at this time.' The California Department of Forestry and Protection expanded its red-flag warning through Monday due to the 'gusty winds and low humidity'. Officials say fire behavior has changed statewide after years of drought and record summer heat that have left vegetation extremely crisp and dry. 'Things are not the way they were 10 years ago...the rate of spread is exponentially more than it used to be,' said Lorenzen, urging residents to not put their lives at risk by trying to defend their own homes instead of evacuating. FIREFIGHTERS AND POLICEMEN SAVE AMERICAN FLAGS IN DECIMATED TOWNS In a town almost completely destroyed by one of the deadliest fires in California's history, a firefighter was able to save an American flag. The firefighter was captured on video walking through the destroyed town of Paradise with the Stars and Stripes this weekend. He makes sure to hold the tattered but intact flag above the ground until he finds a mailbox standing in front of a decimated house. A firefighter was captured on video rescuing an American flag in the decimated town of Paradise, California this weekend The firefighter then gently drapes the flag over the mailbox, tying two of its strings together to secure it. Footage of the firefighter has since been shared by CBS News and quickly went viral. Many found the video to be especially moving as it was released on Veteran's Day. The firefighter was then seen gently draping the flag over the mailbox in a touching tribute He took two of the flags dangling strings and tied them together to secure it to the mailbox It was also a touching tribute to a town that has been almost completely wiped out by the Camp fire, which has killed 29 people. Two hours south of Paradise, in the city of Elk Grove, police came upon another patriotic scene. Every house in the street had been leveled by the Camp fire. Nothing had been left standing, except for a flag pole. And flying on top of that pole was a flag in almost perfect condition. Elk Grove Police said they secured the flag and wrote down the address of the home, hoping they can one day return the flag to its rightful owners. Two hours south of Paradise, in the city of Elk Grove, police came upon an American flag still standing on a street where every house had been destroyed Nothing had been left standing, except for a flag pole and the flag (pictured) which was still in almost perfect condition Advertisement That change has impacted the ability to move firefighting resources around the state, officials said. 'Typically this time of year when we get fires in Southern California we can rely upon our mutual aid partners in Northern California to come assist us because this time of year they've already had significant rainfall or even snow,' said Osby, the LA County fire chief. With the devastation and loss of life in the Northern California fire, 'it's evident from that situation statewide that we're in climate change and it's going to be here for the foreseeable future,' he said. Gov Jerry Brown has asked President Donald Trump to declare a major disaster to bolster the emergency response and help residents recover. Brown's request for a major-disaster declaration from Trump would make victims eligible for crisis counseling, housing and unemployment help, and legal aid. The burnt out remains of a Malibu mansion that was decimated by the Woolsey fire is seen on Sunday afternoon The neighborhood was run over by the Southern California fire, which leveled a number of mansions including many that belonged to celebrities Trump has blamed 'poor' forest management for the fires. Brown told a press briefing that federal and state governments must do more forest management but said that's not the source of the problem. 'Managing all the forests everywhere we can does not stop climate change,' Brown said. 'And those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies that we're now witnessing, and will continue to witness in the coming years.' Brown warned that it would take 'hundreds of billions' of dollars to continue to fight California's growing number of wildfires and blamed climate change for 'threatening our whole way of life'. 'This is not the new normal,' he said. 'This is the new abnormal.' A deck is seen burning at a Malibu mansion that was hit by the Woolsey fire, which consumed more than 70,000 acres In a new BBC series actress Ruth Wilson, 35, (pictured last week) will play her grandmother Alice, who found out on her husband Alec's death that he was a bigamist As the star of television drama The Affair, Ruth Wilson played a fictional cheating wife - and now she is set to expose real-life adultery in her own family. In a new BBC series Surrey-born Ms Wilson, 35, will play her grandmother Alice, who found out on her husband Alec's death that he was a bigamist. It later transpired that Alec, an MI6 agent and author, had four wives and four families over the course of 30 years. In t he three-part Mrs Wilson, Alice learns the truth when a woman turns up on her doorstep claiming to be the 'real' Mrs Wilson. Alice sets out to prove that her own marriage was genuine only to unearth more disturbing secrets about Alec. In real life, Alison, who was married to Alec for 22 years and bore him two sons, Gordon and Nigel, only learned part of the shocking truth after he had a fatal heart attack in 1963. He had given Alison a number to call if he died. So she rang it. Hours later, a Gladys Wilson turned up at her home in Ealing, West London. She claimed to be Alec's wife and the mother of his kids Adrian, Dennis and Daphne. Ms Wilson, who also starred in Luther, learned of the scandal at 18, when her grandmother let her read a memoir she had written. After Alice's death a journalist discovered that Alec had two further wives and a son with each. He had also been arrested for fraud, theft and falsely wearing a colonel's uniform and medals. And he had written 18 spy novels as Alexander Wilson, drawing on his MI6 experiences. In a BBC series Ms Wilson, 35, will play her grandmother Alice (right), who found out on her husband Alec's (left) death that he was a bigamist Ms Wilson told The Sun: 'It was quite an interesting process because my grandmother wrote her memoir with a perspective... she only knew about one wife. 'She had destroyed anything else that had any mention of my grandfather any diaries or anything else. So she had this one thing that she was giving to the family, that was her narrative, her journey.' 'When she died, a year later, we had two correspondence from two people to my uncle saying they thought they had the same father. My granny in reality only knew about one wife and, thank God, she didn't really know about those two.' Alison wrote in her memoirs that the only thing she really believed of the man she was married to for 22 years was that he was full of lies. Wife number one: Alec with his first wife Gladys are pictured on their wedding day She wrote: 'He had not only died, he had evaporated into nothing. He had destroyed himself. There was nothing left but a heap of ashes. My love was reduced to a heap of ashes.' A few genuine facts are known about Alexander Wilson, known as Alec. He was born in Kent in 1893 to an Irish mother and an English sergeant in the British Army hospital corps and grew up moving from base to base, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Mauritius and Ceylon. He wanted to follow his father into service and trained as a pilot, but a knee injury prevented him from fighting in the First World War. In 1916 he married his first wife, Gladys. Their first child, Adrian, was born a year later. After the war Wilson became a purser in the merchant navy but was prosecuted for theft. After six months' hard labour, he and Gladys started a touring theatre company and had two more children, Dennis and Daphne. He also wrote two books based on his experiences in a touring troupe. Wife number two: Things became complicated when Alec met and married a touring actress called Dorothy Wick (pictured) and they had a son, Michael Everything changed in 1925 when, out of the blue, he was appointed professor of English Literature at the University of Punjab, a troublesome region of the British Raj in India. Tim Crook, an academic and journalist who spent six years investigating Alec's life and wrote a book about him called The Secret Lives Of A Secret Agent: The Mysterious Life And Times Of Alexander Wilson, is convinced that this was the start of his work for the intelligence services after discovering letters from Alec begging to be allowed to serve either as a soldier or an agent. 'The academic who appointed him at the university had connections with the intelligence world,' Tim says. 'I suspect some Army connection, possibly through his family, led to him being either recruited or activated at this point. The British needed to combat the threat of Communist-backed insurgents on the Northwest frontier.' Alec became an honorary major in the Indian Army Reserve, and with his academic cover allowing him to spy, he travelled across Ceylon, Arabia and Palestine while Gladys and his children remained in England. He also began writing a series of spy novels that became a critical success. While professionally he was already leading several lives as a spy, a novelist and an academic things became even more complicated when Alec met and married a touring actress called Dorothy Wick and they had a son, Michael. Wife number three: Ruth's grandmother Alison. In 1940 Alec joined MI6, eavesdropping on conversations held by foreign embassies. He also began a relationship with Alison McKelvie, an MI6 secretary and Ruth's grandmother. A year later he left Dorothy and his second family to start his third They returned to Britain in 1933, but while Dorothy and Michael lived in London for a year and a half, Alec went back to his first family and his only legal wife, Gladys, in Southampton. Dennis Wilson, Alec and Gladys's son, later recalled: 'My father had been this rather glamorous figure who would turn up on leave driving a flash hired car and bringing us loads of presents before leaving again. 'The 18 months he lived with us after he returned from India were the only time we were a family.' That happy existence all of Alec's children seemed to adore their father ended in 1935 when he left Southampton for London, saying he was going to look for somewhere for them to live in the capital. Wife number four: in 1955, he married yet again after meeting a 26-year-old nurse called Elizabeth. She became pregnant with another boy, Douglas, and for two years Alec carried on a double life with Alison and Elizabeth until Elizabeth moved to Scotland But he never sent for his family; instead he moved in with his second wife Dorothy. 'I imagined him arriving at Waterloo with his luggage and looking for lodgings,' said Dennis. 'But I now know that all he did was return to Dorothy.' In 1940 Alec joined MI6, eavesdropping on conversations held by foreign embassies. He also began a relationship with Alison McKelvie, an MI6 secretary and Ruth's grandmother. A year later he left Dorothy and his second family to start his third. Michael remembers being seven the last time he saw his father in 1941 on a railway platform; by then the family had moved to Yorkshire. Alec was in uniform and going off to war. 'Don't cry,' his father told him. 'There's a brave chap. I won't be away long, you know.' A few months later, a maternal uncle told Michael that his father had died an honourable death at the battle of El Alamein; all Michael was left with was a photograph album and one of his father's novels. But Alec had not gone to war. He'd only travelled as far as London to live with Alison, who he had married, and they had a son Gordon. Alison had known he was married (to Dorothy) when they began their romance, but believed he was now divorced. Still barely out of her teens, she recalled a charming older man who was known as 'Buddha' at MI6 because of his experience in India and fluency in eight languages. He also told her he was related to the noble Marlborough family and Winston Churchill. His ancestral home had been requisitioned for war work, he added. As she was soon to find out, none of this was true. Not even the name he had given her; he'd changed his middle names for their wedding certificate so nobody would realise he'd been married twice before. In 1942, shortly after the birth of Gordon, he was dismissed from the Secret Service. He told Alison this was for 'operational reasons' and he was now an agent in the field, but all she knew was that suddenly the family were plunged into poverty and insecurity. Ruth Wilson as her grandmother Alison and Iain Glen as Alec in the upcoming Mrs Wilson In 1944, while Alison was pregnant with their second son Nigel (Ruth's father), Alec was arrested after attending Mass for wearing a fake colonel's uniform and medals. He told Alison this was a contrivance enabling him to infiltrate subversive groups in prison. Four years later he was arrested again, this time for embezzlement at the Hampstead cinema he was managing. He wrote four unpublished spy novels after the war but spent most of the years between 1948 and his death in 1963 working as a hospital porter, then as a clerk in a wallpaper factory. The family had little money and moved house 17 times in 17 years, often just one step ahead of their creditors. All the while, Alec insisted to an increasingly sceptical Alison that it was all part of MI6's plans. Astonishingly, in 1955, he married yet again after meeting a 26-year-old nurse called Elizabeth. She became pregnant with another boy, Douglas, and for two years Alec carried on a double life with Alison and Elizabeth until Elizabeth moved to Scotland. Ruth Wilson attends the premiere screening of new BBC One drama 'Mrs Wilson' at The Courthouse Hotel on November 5 2018 Ruth wonders now if he married bigamously so many times through a sort of misplaced sense of duty. 'He never just got a girl pregnant and ran off,' she says. 'He felt he had to keep marrying them.' To avoid upsetting her two sons and causing a fuss, Alison asked Gladys to pose as a distant relative at the funeral. 'My Uncle Gordon was a captain in the Navy,' adds Ruth. 'And when he appeared in uniform Gladys almost fainted because he was the image of the military man she had married nearly 50 years before.' It was only when Tim Crook, who was investigating Alec on behalf of Michael, the son of wife number two Dorothy, got in touch with his findings in 2006 that Ruth realised what a story it was. 'It got too big for us to ignore any more,' she says. The shock was immense, although fortunately none of the wives were around to understand the extent of their husband's duplicity; three were dead and one was suffering from Alzheimer's. In 2007, a gathering was organised where nearly 30 of Alexander Wilson's relations met for the first time. Despite the difficulty of the circumstances, they were all pleased to have found each other, particularly the seven half-siblings who discovered they had much in common. Alec had raised all his children as Catholics and taught them to be patriotic, 'modest, humble, strong-willed and caring', says Ruth Wilson. All of them enjoyed sport and many of them had joined the forces. The BBC1 drama will air on November 27. The company at the center of the Boston gas explosions has announced it will provide thousands of displaced residents with Thanksgiving dinner. Columbia Gas announced Sunday it would be offering hundreds of people free meals on November 22 after they were forced to leave their homes following a string of gas explosions in suburban areas of Boston last month. People in the towns of Andover, North Andover and Lawrence can either pick up the meal or sit down to enjoy it with fellow members of the community, but must reserve the meals beforehand. Scroll down for video Firefighters battle a raging house fire in Lawrence, Massachusetts after a series of explosions last month Hundreds of firefighters were called out to deal with the fires as they tore through neighborhoods in suburban Boston townships Residents cover their face from the smoke while being evacuated from homes as firefighters battle a fire on Bowdoin Street in Lawrence The company said it already has 3,700 meals reserved and is urging affected residents to call and book one of 20,000 dinners before the big day. The meals will be served at a temporary trailer park where some residents are being housed, as well as a hall in Lawrence, according to the local station. Colombia Gas has drawn criticism from Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera as he claimed they were 'hiding from the problem'. Tens of thousands of people were left without homes, a teenager was killed and several others injured in September's carnage. More than 7,500 people are currently living in temporary housing, WCVB reported. Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera ripped into Columbia Gas after he claimed the firm did not respond to gas explosions which killed teenager Leonel Rondon and left 12 others injured 'Theyre hiding from the problem. If they were here theyd have to see the major whos here from State Police, theyd have to see the governors staff, my staff, the chiefs. Theyd have to see their faces every five seconds,' Rivera said at a press conference. 'Theyre not here, Ill be damned if we are going to wait another 6 hours for them to get off their ass,' he said at the time of the incident last month. Dozens of homes and businesses were destroyed, 12 people were injured and 18-year-old Leonel Rondon was killed. According to the state fire marshal, which is still investigating the cause of the accident, it is likely that an over pressurized gas main is what caused it. It is not known if Columbia Gas was planning to replace it as part of its improvement works. The top floor windows of a property in Lawrence were all blown out as a result of the explosions. The gas company whose pipes were the ones which blew were due to replace them over the next few weeks North and South Korea have withdrawn troops and firearms from 22 front-line guard posts as part of September's agreement to reduce tensions across the world's most fortified border. The two countries plan to destroy 20 of the structures by the end of November, while symbolically leaving one demilitarized guard post on each side. South Korea says the military agreement is an important trust-building step that would help stabilize peace and advance reconciliation between the rivals. But critics say the South risks forfeiting some of its conventional military strength before North Korea has taken any meaningful steps towards denuclearization - an anxiety that is growing as larger nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang seemingly drift into a stalemate. South Korean soldiers leave a border guard post at an undisclosed area in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Both North and South Korean militaries withdrew troops and firearms from 22 front-line guard posts on Saturday South Korean soldiers locking a military gate as they withdraw from a border guard post at an undisclosed area in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas South Korea reportedly has about 60 guard posts stretched across the ironically named Demilitarized Zone, consisting of bunker-like concrete structures surrounded by barbed-wire fences and manned by soldiers equipped with machine guns. The 155-mile border buffer is peppered with millions of land mines and has been the site of occasional skirmishes between the two forces since the 1950-53 Korean War. The North is believed to have about 160 guard posts within the DMZ. In the September military agreement, reached on the sidelines of a summit in Pyongyang between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the Koreas pledged to eventually withdraw all guard posts within the DMZ, but to start by removing 11 from each side as a 'preliminary' measure. South Korean soldiers saluting before leaving from the Guard Post (GP) on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Gangwon-do, South Korea, November 6 2018 South Korean soldiers carring military equipment before leaving from the Guard Post (GP). ). The Koreas' military agreement prohibiting hostile activities on ground, sea and air in buffer zones signed during the Pyongyang summit on 19 September between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un The South Korean Defense Ministry official said soldiers on Saturday completed the disarming of 11 guard posts on the southern side of the DMZ. The official, who did not wanted to be named, said the ministry believes the North has also finished withdrawing personnel and weapons from 11 guard posts on the northern side. The Koreas exchange gifts across the border South Korea airlifted 200 tons of tangerines to North Korea on Monday in return for shipments of pine mushrooms by the North in September. It was a sign that liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in is pressing on with efforts to improve ties with the North despite stalemated global diplomacy on its nuclear program. A South Korean military transport aircraft is loaded with tangerines bound for North Korea at an airport on Jeju island After a summit meeting between the Koreas in Pyongyang in September, North Korea gave South Korea 2 tons of pine mushrooms - white and brown fungi considered a healthy delicacy in both Koreas and one of the North's most prized regional products. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also gave Moon a gift of two white Pungsan dogs. On Monday, Moon tweeted that one of the dogs, named Gomi, gave birth to six healthy puppies last Friday. 'Six dogs were added to a gift of two dogs. I cannot help saying it's a big fortune and I hope that South-North ties will be like this,' Moon said. Pungsan is a dog breed native to North Korea and is best known for its loyalty and bravery during hunting. South Korean President Moon Jae-in touches Gomi the white Pungsan dog, a gift from North Korea Advertisement The Koreas plan to destroy 20 of the structures by the end of November, while symbolically leaving one demilitarized guard post on each side. They plan to jointly verify the results in December. The September deal also contained an agreement to create buffer zones along their land and sea boundaries and a no-fly zone above the border, which took effect on November 1. The Koreas and the U.S.-led U.N. Command recently finished removing firearms and troops from a jointly controlled area at the border village of Panmunjom and eventually plan to allow tourists to freely move around there. The two countries have also been clearing mines from front-line areas and plan to start in April their first-ever joint search for remains of soldiers killed during the Korean War. While their militaries move ahead with tension-reducing steps, President Moon is otherwise running out of goodwill gestures toward North Korea, which is under heavy U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons program. Unless the sanctions are lifted, it would be impossible for Moon to push ahead with his more ambitious plans for engagement, such as reconnecting railways and roads across the border and normalizing operations at a jointly-run factory park. After a provocative series of nuclear and missile tests North Korea entered talks with the United States and South Korea this year. The north has since taken measures such as dismantling its nuclear test site and parts of its rocket-engine testing facility. Now, Pyongyang insists that sanctions should be removed before there is any further progress in negotiations. Washington, however, says they will remain until the North takes more concrete steps toward the irreversible and verifiable removal of its nuclear weapons. Analysts say the discord may have caused the last-minute cancellation of a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Yong Chol, that had been scheduled for this past Thursday. The two were due to discuss denuclearization issues and had planned to set up a second summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump. South Korean soldiers saluting as they withdraw from a border guard post at an undisclosed area in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) - the two Koreas began destroying 20 guard posts along their heavily-fortified frontier on November 11 under a plan to reduce tensions on the border A military vehicle waits to carry equipment before leaving from the Joint Security Area (JSA) on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea. The two Koreas agreed to turn the JSA into a weapon-free zone under the agreement signed by their defense chiefs during the Pyongyang summit in September President Moon, who has met Kim three times this year, believes that better ties between the Koreas will help resolve the nuclear issue. South Korea's Unification Ministry said Monday it has approved a visit by seven North Koreans to attend an academic forum in the South later this week. The forum is on regional issues, including Japan's wartime mobilization of laborers in the Asia-Pacific region. Several staff members of one of Australia's biggest hospitality empires have launched legal action amid claims they are being denied weekend penalty rates. Workers claim the Merivale Group's existing 2007 employee collective agreement leaves workers worse off than under the current hospitality industry award - a claim the company has denied. Two employees launched legal action with the Fair Work Commission earlier this month, calling for the agreement to be terminated. Current and former staff have since gone public with their accusations, speaking with ABC's 7.30pm Report on Monday night. Justin Hemmes, pictured with former partner Kate Fowler is chief executive of hospitality empire Merivale Group, which he took over from his late father The Merivale Group operates more than 60 trendy venues across Sydney, including The Ivy, the Coogee Pavilion, Establishment, Mr Wong, The Newport and the recently purchased Queen Victoria Hotel in Enmore. Chief executive and pub baron Justin Hemmes took over the hospitality company after his father, Merivale Group founder and nightclub mogul John Hemmes, died in 2015. Merivale Group's 2007 workplace agreement is still legal, despite expiring in 2012. A company spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia the Fair Work Ombudsman found Merivale fully compliant with all legal obligations in July. Law student Mackenzie Waugh claims he has never received penalty rates in the two years he's worked as a casual employee at the Coogee Pavilion. 'For a long time I just copped it on the chin. I just didn't think there was anything I could do about it,' he told 7.30. The 20-year-old is one of the group's employees who has launched legal action with the Fair Work Commission. Merivale Group employee Mackenzie Waugh (pictured) recently launched legal action with the Fair Work Commission, calling for the company's workplace agreement to be terminated 'It became clear to me my case wasn't isolated. And there were other people who were experiencing the same thing as me,' Mr Waugh said. Maddie Lucre, who worked as a waitress at the Coogee Pavilion claims she never got paid weekend penalty rates until she made a complaint to Merivale Group's head office. She says she was offered more than $2,700 - the amount she claimed she was owed in weekend and public holiday pay. But there was one catch, the company requested she sign a non-disclosure agreement. 'Part of why I wanted to raise it, was that, underpayment should never be acceptable and especially when you're making as much money as they are,' Ms Lucre told the program. Former Merivale Group bartender Myf Nizette (pictured) thought getting her first hospitality job would be fun, until she discovered she was being paid a flat rate Maddie Lucre (pictured) claims she was never paid weekend penalty rates while working as a waitress at the Coogee Pavilion Former Merivale bartender Myf Nizette said she also questioned why she was being paid a flat rate. She was shocked to see the 'ridiculous' pay schedule listed in the workplace and quit shortly afterwards. 'They're building this empire and they're buying up more and more venues within Sydney and probably looking elsewhere in Australia as well, and yet they're doing that on the backs of workers who are not getting paid properly,' Ms Nizette said. Coogee Pavilion (pictured) is one of many Merivale Group's swanky establishments A Merivale Group spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia the Fair Work Ombudsman conducted a comprehensive audit in July and found the company fully compliant with all legal obligations. 'Merivale takes an industry lead in ensuring its compliance with national employment standards and the applicable industrial instruments, while at the same time maintaining the working experience that makes Merivale a sought-after employer,' the spokeswoman said. 'In addition to external independent audits, Merivale also undertakes continuous internal audits to ensure compliance. Given the results of the Ombudsman's recent comprehensive review and our own audits, we are confident that all Merivale staff are paid their full legal entitlements according to the relevant industrial instrument and the national employment standards.' Much-loved former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer has spoken candidly about his battle against a fifth cancer diagnosis. The 72-year-old retired from the public eye to undergo chemotherapy treatment for leukemia and spend more time with his wife Judy at their farmhouse in Mudgegonga in regional northwest Victoria. The ex-Nationals leader and ambassador to the Vatican has revealed his son Harrison, who has autism, helps get him through the harrowing treatments. Revered former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer (pictured) has revealed what gives him strength as he endures chemotherapy treatments at the age of 72 Mr Fischer stepped down from his governmental role in 1999 when Harrison was only five-years-old. His resignation brought about a rare showing of public respect by then-Labor leader Kim Beazley, who said he was 'one of the genuinely loved people in this place'. Mr Fischer said a 'convergence of certain political and personal factors' was the reason for his shock resignation, declining to elaborate at the time. But not long after, his son's autism diagnosis emerged as a leading factor. Mr Fischer's wife, Judy Brewer, told the ABC she vividly remembered the doctor putting a negative inflection on the diagnosis. 'We were told, "your son has autism. He'll probably never live independently, he will probably never have a job, he will probably never be able to do the other things that other children or adults do".' Mr Fischer's son, Harrison (pictured), is 25 and diagnosed with autism. The fact he holds a job and mostly lives independently gives his father comfort The early years of Harrison's life were difficult. He was bullied throughout high school and struggled to fit in with the other kids. But like any loving parents, Tim and Judy always supported their son, finding common interests to connect with him. Tim found himself sharing characteristics of autism with his son, self-diagnosing himself as also being on the spectrum. Now aged 25, Harrison is thriving. He has a job and is living independently, committing himself to being a role model for children with autism. He works part-time as a technology consultant at a primary school in Wodonga and prides himself as someone children on the spectrum can't confide in. 'I'm proud to have autism, I'm proud to be who I am, and I don't have any regrets about that,' Harrison says. Harrison says he is 'proudly autistic', a confidence that resonated in Tim (pictured together) as he endures cancer His self-confidence has also resonated in Tim, who says he takes comfort in knowing his son can fend for himself. 'I will eventually leave this planet Earth, sooner or later, in the knowledge that Harrison is now far better placed than he was 10 years ago or 20 years ago.' Tim revealed he was diagnosed with leukaemia in late October. He's faced a series of cancers in recent years, starting with a bladder cancer diagnosis, then prostate cancer, two melanomas, and now, acute myeloid leukaemia. At least one specialist told Mr Fischer his time serving in the First Battalion Royal Australian Regiment damaged his immune system. The 72-year-old says he knows his days are numbered, but takes some comfort knowing his son will carry on his legacy. Advertisement Fascinating images have revealed the heroic actions of Britain's 'broo-wenches' who scandalised Victorian society by working in trousers and even naked while mining underground. When a Victorian newspaper ran a front page picture of a Wigan colliery girl in her uniform, it sent shockwaves through Britain. This had followed a report containing sketches of half-naked women working underground alongside men, a report that resulted in calls for women to be kicked out of the searing hot coal pits. The 'unladylike' image disgusted many, but the Northern working-class women had their supporters too. One such man was Arthur Munby, whose fascinating collection of images of the Pit Brow Women have recently been unearthed. Jane Brown, a pit brow girl from Wigan, poses with a large shovel (shown left), while a trio of women are shown in their traditional uniform with a sieve, which they used to pick stones from the coal after it was hauled to the surface from deep inside the coal mines dug out from underground A drawing of a half-naked girl dragging a loaded corf along a low mine passage near Halifax in Yorkshire, sometime in 1842. The engraving was used to illustrate a report on the employment of women in mines, that saw them banned from working underground that same year. Many expressed disgust at the idea of women working while partially clothes Sketches of half-naked women (including a man, second image) working underground alongside men resulted in calls for women to be kicked out of the searing hot coal pit, with Victorian Britain taking a dim view on women working in such close proximity with men while in a state of undress Young looking pit brow girls just before starting work, Wigan, 1893. Several decades before, women and boys under under 10 years old were banned from working underground, meaning all the little girls became broo lasses, working on the surface above the mines Pictured left is Ellen Grounds as a 17-year-old as a broo lass at the Rode Bridge Pits in 1866. Shown right, Ellen is pictured once again as a 22-year-old at the same pits with photographer Arthur Munby, who chose to pose alongside Ellen to show how tall she was, which was common among broo lasses A particularly tall female collier from Rose Bridge Pits in Wigan, who measured 5ft 9in, is pictured left on August 10, 1869. Meanwhile, a similarly dressed lass is shown resting on her shovel. Notice the outfit, which featured both trousers and a skirt over the top Shevington Colliery near Wigan, photographed in 1863. Pictured are a group of women working at the surface. They worked on the pit bank (pictured) at the shaft top, where they were tasked with picking stones from the coal after it was hauled to the surface Mr Wright, landlord of the Three Crowns and two Pit Brow Women in Wigan on some date in 1865 is pictured left. Meanwhile, shown right is an unknown pit brow woman in Wigan, circa 1867 to 1888 The striking pictures show the heroic women in their working gear. A uniform that consisted of a headscarf to shield their hair from dirt, a long ankle-length skirt and most shockingly of all, trousers underneath. Munby, an enthusiastic supporter of working women in the 19th century Britain, would make frequent trips to Wigan and other industrial towns to document his heroines. However, as photography was a new invention in the mid 19th-century, it wasn't straight forward. He would have to convince the labouring women into a nearby photographer's studio where they would have to pose very still for up to several seconds whilst the exposure was made. This makes for interesting pictures that show rugged, weather-worn women posing in front of a back drop that was intended to be used for the middle-classes posing in their Sunday best. The women, also known as broo-wenches, pose with giant spades and other working equipment such as lanterns, baskets and flasks. In 1842, there had been outrage when it had been discovered that women around the country had been working underground in coal pits half-naked. This of course, being due to the extreme temperature in the pit. They were eventually banned from underground work, but continued to work on the surface. This led to a further inquisition in 1865, when the miners of Northumberland and Durham petitioned Parliament on a variety of matters including surface labour by women. In the mid-1860s, the House of Commons set up a Select Committee to look into the matters raised and questions were asked about the morality of women employed on the pit banks. The Committee had difficulty to stand up the charges of 'degradation' and 'immorality,' and great interest was shown in the 'peculiarity' of females wearing trousers Shown are yet more unidentified broo wenches. The striking pictures show the heroic women in their working gear. A uniform that consisted of a headscarf to shield their hair from dirt, a long ankle-length skirt and most shockingly of all, trousers underneath Women worked underground alongside men until 1842, as did children as young as eight years old. However this was stopped by Queen Victoria, who decided to put an end to such working following a disaster at Huskar Colliery in Silkstone Common, in which 26 children were killed after a mine flooded Interesting pictures show rugged, weather-worn women posing in front of a back drop that was intended to be used for the middle-classes posing in their Sunday best. The women, also known as broo-wenches, pose with giant spades and other working equipment such as lanterns, baskets and flasks After women were banned from going underground, they took to carrying out work on the surface. Here they would load carts, sort coal from stone and haul materials from the pit face. This pit brow women are pictured alongside a man at Rode Bridge Pits, Wigan in 1865 They asserted 'that the practice of employing females on or about the pit banks of mines and collieries is degrading to the sex, leads to gross immorality, and stands as a foul blot on the civilisation and humanity of the kingdom.' Why were they called 'broo-wenches'? Pit brow women or pit brow lasses were women who worked on the surface at British collieries. They worked on the pit bank (or brow) at the shaft top, where they were tasked with picking stones from the coal after it was hauled to the surface. Women and boys under the age of 10 were banned from working underground following the passing of the Mines and Collieries Act 1842. Advertisement The House of Commons set up a Select Committee to look into the matters raised and questions were asked about the morality of women employed on the pit banks. The Committee had difficulty to stand up the charges of 'degradation' and 'immorality,' and great interest was shown in the 'peculiarity' of females wearing trousers. Peter Dickinson, a male miner from Wigan, was questioned specifically on his colleagues' dress. He said: 'The entire person of the woman is covered and there nothing indecent in the dress.' He then boldly undermined the Committee by adding: 'Though you spoke of the dress as being one of the leading features of the degrading character of the employment?' In 1867 the Select Committee on Mines presented its final report. Concerning the employment of women at the pit's mouth, they concluded 'that the allegations of either indecency or immorality were not established by the evidence.' Therefore, they concluded that no government legislation or interference was required, a great victory was struck for the working girls of collieries across the nation. Shown are some anonymous pit brow lasses, shown with some of the instruments they used to carry out work on the surface at mines across the north of England. The last pit brow lasses were finally made redundant from the Harrington No 10 mine in Lowca, Cumberland, in 1972 Munby would make frequent trips industrial towns to document his heroines. However, as photography was a new invention in the mid 19th-century, it wasn't straight forward. He would have to convince the labouring women into a nearby photographer's studio where they would have to pose very still for up to several seconds whilst the exposure was made An undercover investigation has revealed the horrifying conditions pig farms inflict on their animals - including one piglet having its head smashed against the floor. The footage, which was collected by Mercy For Animals, in farms across Tennessee between March and May this year shows the awful treatment of the pigs. Hundreds of pigs can be seen crammed into small pens inside the factory farms with some even having their heads trapped between the metal bars. Piglets inside a red box are seen being pulled out by workers who appear to be ripping off the piglets' testicles and cutting their tails without any pain relief. Other animals have their heads smashed against the ground and are kicked by workers in the shocking video. Non-profit group Mercy For Animals said the gestation crates used in the undercover footage are barely larger than the pigs' own bodies. Pigs were squeezed into confined places. Mercy For Animals recorded at pig farms across Tennessee from March to May this year Piglets were taken from containers barely large enough to hold them and handled roughly. This piglet is being castrated while being hung upside down Large pigs were even packed in to tiny areas, unable to turn around, lie down comfortably, play or explore Isolated and nearly immobilised, the animals are unable to turn around, lie down comfortably, play or explore. They can suffer painful pressure sores from rubbing against the bars of their crates and crippling joint problems as their muscles atrophy from lack of use. The use of gestation crates has been banned in 10 U.S. states, Canada, the European Union, New Zealand, and Australia. The practice is widely denounced as one of the worst factory farming practices in the world, and more than 60 major food companies including McDonald's, Walmart, Burger King, and Krogerhave adopted policies to ban the practice from their supply chain. Pigs can suffer painful pressure sores from rubbing against the bars of their crates The use of gestation crates has been banned in 10 U.S. states, Canada, the European Union, New Zealand, and Australia Man handling a pig roughly, holding it by the back legs. The United States is the third-largest pork producer and consumer in the world Pigs lay dead after being killed for the pork industry. The bodies writhe before falling silent Leah Garces, president of Mercy For Animals, said: 'From the day these pigs are born until the day they are killed, their lives are filled with misery and deprivation. 'As a civilized society, it is our moral obligation to protect pigs and other animals from extreme confinement and cruelty.' The United States is the third-largest pork producer and consumer in the world. A worker in the process of killing two pigs whose bodies shake before falling still In 2017 about 121.3 million pigs were slaughtered in the U.S. The 13 largest slaughter facilities accounted for 59 percent of total pigs killed. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, more than 1.4 billion pigs are killed worldwide every year. Temple Grandin, associate professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University, states: 'Gestation crates for pigs are a real problem. 'Basically, you're asking a sow to live in an airline seat. I think it's something that needs to be phased out.' North Korea are still operating undeclared missile bases and even improving some of their missile sites instead of shutting them down. The latest report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said it had identified 13 of an estimated 20 secret missile operating bases inside North Korea. They could be used to house ballistic missiles of various ranges, with the largest believed to be capable of striking anywhere in the United States. The Hwasong-12 long-range missile, above, was in development at an undisclosed site in North Korea in April last year. North Korea has said it has closed its Punggye-ri nuclear testing site and the Sohae missile engine test facility The report, written by researcher Joseph Bermudez, said maintenance and minor infrastructure improvements have been observed at some of the sites. The sites identified in the report are scattered in remote, mountainous areas across North Korea. It even identified improvements being made to its Sakkanmol site, close to the border with South Korea. President Trump is still hoping to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. President Trump is still hoping to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, shown in in this parade in April last year. A report has identified undeclared missile bases operating inside North Korea The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to work towards 'denuclearization' at their landmark June summit in Singapore. Shortly after the summit, Trump tweeted that there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea. North Korea declared its nuclear force 'complete' and halted missile and nuclear bomb testing earlier this year. North Korea has said it has closed its Punggye-ri nuclear testing site and the Sohae missile engine test facility. It also raised the possibility of shuttering more sites and allowing international inspections if Washington took 'corresponding measures'. Last week, North Korea called off a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo abruptly shelved plans to travel to New York on Thursday to meet with his North Korean counterpart Kim Yong Chol In the months since President Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un there has been little to quiet skeptics who believe the North will never give up weapons The country's state media said on Monday the resumption of some small-scale military drills by South Korea and the United States violated a recent agreement aimed at lowering tensions on the Korean peninsula. 'Missile operating bases are not launch facilities,' Bermudez wrote. 'While missiles could be launched from within them in an emergency, Korean People's Army (KPA) operational procedures call for missile launchers to disperse from the bases to pre-surveyed or semi-prepared launch sites for operations.' None of the missile bases have been acknowledged by North Korea, and analysts say an accurate disclosure of nuclear weapons and missile capabilities would be an important part of any denuclearization deal. A rape victim is facing 20 years in jail in El Salvador for allegedly trying to terminate her abuser's child - despite giving birth to the baby. Imelda Cortez, 20, who underwent years of abuse at the hands of her step-father, has been in custody since April of last year after giving birth to her 70-year-old abuser's baby in a toilet. Ms Cortez, from San Miguel, was rushed to a nearby hospital after her mother found her bleeding heavily and in severe pain. Hospital staff suspected an abortion and called police who found the baby girl healthy and alive. Cortez, from San Miguel, was charged with attempted murder and was sent to prison after only a week in hospital. Imelda Cortez, 20, is facing 20 years in jail after she was charged with attempted murder for giving birth to her abuser's baby in a toilet in El Salvador. Pictured: Members of a feminist organisation demonstrate in favour of abortion rights outside the Courthouse of San Salvador Ms Cortez, who was at the time a teenager, was rushed to a nearby hospital after giving birth to her baby and accused of having an abortion. Pictured: Demonstrators walk in favour of changing abortion laws in El Salvador According to the Guardian, while the teenage mother was in hospital she was also visited by her stepfather who threatened to kill her if she spoke out about her abuse. Ms Cortez, who was abused by her abusive stepfather from the age of 12, was unaware she was pregnant. She was accused of lying about the abuse at the hands of her step-father, but a paternity test later confirmed he was the father. Defence lawyer Bertha Maria Deleon, told the Guardian: 'This is the most extreme, scandalous injustice against a woman I've ever seen. Pictured: Salvadorean women seen rally demanding the decriminalisation of abortion in front of the Legislative Assembly in San Salvador in September 2016 Salvadoran women protest on the streets during the International Women's Day in March 2017 in San Salvador, El Salvador 'The state has repeatedly violated Imelda's rights as a victim; she's deeply affected but denied psychological attention.' The case highlights the continuing persecution and lack of freedom faced by women in a country were abortion is illegal in all circumstances. In 2011, Maria Teresa Rivera was sentenced to 40 years in prison in El Salvador on 'aggravated homicide' charges following a miscarriage. She was exonerated four and half years later after a court in El Salvador decided to annul the sentence. The criminal trial for Ms Cortez's case begins today and a ruling is set to occur with the next week. A toddler has been left with serious burns after playing with matches at an apartment. Paramedics were called to the unit in Logan Village, Queensland, at 4pm on Monday. The girl, aged three, suffered burns to her arms, legs and stomach. Paramedics were called to the unit unit in Logan Village, Queensland, at 4pm on Monday (stock image) Eighteen per cent of both of her legs were burnt, the Courier Mail reported. The girl was playing with matches when her clothes caught on fire. She was rushed to Queensland Children's Hospital in South Brisbane in a serious, but stable condition. The Queensland Ambulance Service was not immediately available for comment. A high-ranking Facebook executive was allegedly forced to resign after refusing to back down on his support for Donald Trump - it has been revealed. Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey was said to have come under intense pressure from Facebook's leading figures after it emerged he had donated $10,000 to an anti-Hillary Clinton group during the 2016 Presidential election. According to correspondence revealed by the Wall Street Journal, the revelation about his donation sparked a furore which saw him fired six months later. Facebook higher-ups including founder Mark Zuckerberg himself were said to have attempted to pressgang Luckey into publicly supporting libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson. Scroll down for video Palmer Luckey was reportedly fired by Facebook in March 2017 after it emerged he had donated $10,000 to an anti-Hillary Clinton group Luckey founded Oculus VR in 2012 while still a teenager and sold it to Facebook two years later for more than $2billion, staying on as the company's head Sources said after he refused to support Johnson to draw attention away from his donation, Luckey was put on indefinite leave, and eventually fired. Zuckerberg, however, claimed Luckey's departure had nothing to do with politics while testifying before Congress about data privacy earlier this year. Shortly after his dismissal Luckey, 26, allegedly hired an employment lawyer who argued Facebook had violated California law in pressuring the executive to voice support for Mr. Johnson and for punishing an employee for political activity. Luckey and his lawyer were then able to negotiate a payout of at least $100 million, in stock awards and bonuses he would have received until July 2019. A Facebook spokeswoman said in an email: 'We can say unequivocally that Palmer's departure was not due to his political views. We're grateful for Palmer's contributions to Oculus, and we're glad he continues to actively support the VR industry.' Zuckerberg denied Luckey had been fired because of his political views while testifying before Congress about data privacy earlier this year Luckey began working for Facebook after his company Oculus VR was bought by the tech giant in 2014. Only two years earlier Luckey had started Oculus while still a teenager, with a $2.4 million crowdfunding campaign. The startup's eventual sale to Facebook in 2014 for more than $2 billion, was rumored to have netted the exec a cool $600 million and allowed him to stay on as head of the company. The embattled tech genius is a longstanding supporter of President Trump having written to him in 2011 urging him to run for the White House. Luckey has also previously stated he was inspired to become an entrepreneur at age 13 after being inspired by Trump's book 'The Art of the Deal'. Facebook has previously come under fire for allegedly censoring conservative content during the 2016 elections Facebook has come under increasing scrutiny over its political affiliation in recent months, particularly with regards its role in the 2016 Presidential election. Zuckerberg has previously testified to the Senate that the generally left-leaning company didn't let its politics affect its content moderation. Republican lawmakers accused the tech giant of censoring conservative news and views during a congressional hearing in July this year. Earlier this month, Trump himself accused social networks of interfering in the 2016 presidential election and November's midterm elections. 'I mean the true interference in the last election was that if you look at all, virtually all of those companies are super liberal companies in favor of Hillary Clinton,' Trump said. 'Maybe I did a better job because I'm good with the Twitter and I'm good at social media, but the truth is they were all on Hillary Clinton's side, and if you look at what was going on with Facebook and with Google and all of it, they were very much on her side.' Allies of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed assassinating the kingdom's Iranian enemies more than a year before journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, it has been claimed. Top Saudi intelligence officials asked a group of businessmen about using private firms to carry out assassinations at a meeting in Riyadh in March last year according to three sources 'close to the discussions', the New York Times reports. At the time, Prince Mohammed was deputy crown prince and defense minister suggesting top Saudi officials were considering assassinations even before he became the kingdom's de facto ruler. The businessmen used the meeting, one of a series with Saudi officials, to pitch a $2billion plan to use private intelligence operatives in a bid to sabotage Iran's economy. Also present at the meeting was Major General Ahmed al-Assiri, a close advisor to Prince Mohammed, who was sacked last month after the government said Khashoggi's killing was a rogue operation ordered by him. Scroll down for video Major General Ahmed al-Assiri, a close advisor to Prince Mohammed, was at the meeting According to the Times, General Assiri's top aides asked the businessmen about killing an enemy of Saudi Arabia - Qassin Suleimani, who is the leader of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps. Lebanese-American businessman George Nadar organised the meeting and Joel Zamel, an Israeli with deep ties to his nation's intelligence and security agencies, also attended. Nadar previously met with Prince Mohammed and also pitched the Iran plan to Trump administration officials. Both Nadar and Zamel are witnesses in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign and have been asked about their discussions with American and Saudi officials about the Iran plan, the Times reports. General Assiri's top aides asked the businessmen about killing an enemy of Saudi Arabia - Qassin Suleimani (pictured), the leader of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps The Saudis asked whether the businessmen conducted 'kinetics' meaning lethal operations and said they were interested in killing senior Iranian officials. But the businessmen said they would need to consult their lawyer, who rejected the proposal. According to the Times, Nader told them about a company based in London that is run for former special operations troops that may be able to work with them. They also reportedly met with Saudis, including Assiri, in a suite on one of the top floors of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York. Last month, Saudi Arabia announced it had sacked al-Assiri as well as royal media advisor Saud al-Qahtani and that 18 Saudi nationals had been detained over Khashoggi's killing. Khashoggi, a critic of Prince Mohammed, was killed at Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consulate by a team sent from Riyadh. Saudi authorities have acknowledged that the killing was premeditated, but his body has not been found. At the time of the meeting in March 2017, Prince Mohammed was deputy crown prince and defense minister Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said the operation was not ordered by the crown prince. 'We are determined to punish those who are responsible for this murder,' he told Fox News 'The individuals who did this, did this outside the scope of their authority. There obviously was a tremendous mistake made, and what compounded the mistake was the attempt to try to cover up.' 'We don't know, in terms of details, how. We don't know where the body is.' But Turkish officials have accused Riyadh of carrying out a state-sponsored killing and said Khashoggi was 'strangled' and then 'dismembered' in a premeditated plan. A sand animation has brought to life the heart-breaking story of the last fighting Tommy's loss of his friends during World War One. Harry Patch was only 19 when he was called up to serve in the 7th Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry and was conscripted to Belgium. He became one of the half a million casualties of Passchendaele but survived a blast from a German artillery shell that killed three of his best friends. Harry Patch was only 19 when he was called up to serve in the 7th Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. He died age 111 in 2009 The outline of five men are drawn in the sand while Harry narrates the story of his friends dying in September 1917 The beautiful animation from Studio Panda, Alex Harwood and Testimony Films, uses an audio recording of Harry re-telling his painful story. He says: 'We were a team together, and that was it. We were five of us in the team, we lost three of them. 'I shall never forget the three I lost behind me. That upsets me more than anything.' As Harry speaks on the video, an artist's hand can be seen reshaping the sand into the shape of soldiers faces, their helmets and the destroyed ground. Their facial expressions change as Harry speaks about his experiences and poignant music is played. As Harry speaks the figures change slightly with the artist adding tears and frowning faces The black outlines of other soldiers are also drawn as Harry reveals his friends died and he 'never found anything of them' after the shelling Harry (left with medals) first went over the top on August 16, 1917 in the Battle of Langemarck. More than 1,000 people, including military dignitaries, attended his funeral in 2009 When Harry reveals his friends were 'simply blown to pieces' by the artillery shell, the sand animation draws the shape of a lone soldier lying on the ground with smoke spirals building around him. He continues: 'I never found anything of them. They took the whole blast of the shell. 'I knew what had happened to them after, not before. Because when I went down with the blast I don't know how long I lay there before I was picked up but I was told after what had happened to them. 'I'd lost three good mates. September 22 1917 that is my remembrance day not Armistice Day.' The animation then draws the trenches and poppy flowers growing out of the ground. The images are made by moving sand grains over a lightbox. The moving images of the trenches are made by moving sand grains over a lightbox A poppy is drawn in the sand as Harry reveals the day his friends died is his remembrance day Harry kept the horrors he witnessed secret for many years but opened up before he passed away aged 111 in 2009. The Battle of Passchendaele Known as the Third Battle of Ypres, Passchendaele, along with the Somme, has come to symbolise the Great War. The Allied assault was launched in the early hours of 31 July 1917. Because of the torrential rain, the British and Canadian troops found themselves fighting not only the Germans but a quagmire of stinking mud that swallowed up men, horses and tanks. After three months, one week and three days of brutal trench warfare, the Allies finally recaptured the village of Passchendaele but by then around a third of a million British and Allied soldiers had been killed or wounded in some of the most horrific trench warfare of the conflict. Advertisement He first went over the top on August 16, 1917 in the Battle of Langemarck - the second Allied general attack of the Third Battle of Ypres, during the First World War. The battle lasted two days and was Harry's first experience of fighting at the front. The conflict resulted in 15,000 casualties but the village, where a memorial to Harry now lies, was successfully taken. At the end of the animation video, the story of Harry's life after the war is shared. After he opened up about his time fighting in WWI at the age of 100, Harry was given a new lease of life and found love with Doris, his soulmate. He also wrote a book with Richard Van Emden called The Last Fighting Tommy, which became a best seller. With the proceeds from the book Harry bought a lifeboat and named it The Harry And The Doris. Harry didn't speak about the war for most of his life but opened up in his final years The last fighting Tommy wrote a book and used the royalties to buy a lifeboat as he wanted to help save lives after seeing so many die in the war He said he had seen so much death as a young man he wanted to help save lives. Growing in confidence and speaking more and more in public, Harry became an international figure warning of the dangers of war and the need for world peace. He was also given an honorary degree from the University of Bristol. Harry told historian Mr van Emden he knew what to expect before he was sent to Belgium after a grave warning from his brother. William Patch, who was wounded a year before Harry was enlisted, told him: 'Don't go until you are called up. You are in for absolute hell. It's as bad as it gets.' On his last trip back to the fields of Flanders before his death, he said: 'This was all mud, mud and more mud, mixed together with blood. 'We fought for a few yards of this soil and that cost the lives of most of my comrades. There was no excuse for such slaughter for so little gain.' Jean Paul Gaultier has become the latest high-profile fashion designer to drop fur from all his future collections, calling the ways animals are slaughtered 'absolutely deplorable'. The Parisian designer, perhaps most famous for creating Madonna's 1990 cone bra, joins a long list of luxury fashion brands in ditching fur permanently, including Gucci, Galliano, Burberry, DKNY, Stella McCartney, Ralph Lauren, Vivienne Westwood, Armani, Michael Kors and Versace. Gaultier, 66, made the announcement during an interview on the show 'Bonsoir' on French television channel Canal+ on Saturday, saying he would 'rectify' the situation and take on the creative challenge of working without fur. French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier has announced he will no longer allow the use of fur in his collections 'It's true that fur is more sensual than faux fur, it's unfortunate to admit, but you can find other ways to warm yourself up, and it might allow you to get creative, which won't hurt,' he said. Humane Society International, which calls for a global end to the fur trade, said that going fur-free is the fashion zeitgeist, and animal-rights organisation PETA agreed, calling it a 'sign of the times'. Wendy Higgins, HSI's Director of International Media said: 'Jean Paul Gaultier is absolutely right when he says that the way animals suffer for the fur trade is deplorable, so we are thrilled that he has indicated he is looking at rectifying his current use of fur. 'We are waiting anxiously to receive official confirmation from Gaultier that this signals a definitive ban across the collection as we hope.' Following his decision, PETA 'blew champagne corks' according to a statement from the association, which claimed credit for years of activism. 'It's true that fur is more sensual than faux fur, it's unfortunate to admit, but you can find other ways to warm yourself up, and it might allow you to get creative, which won't hurt,' Gaultier said Jean Paul Gaultier has used fur in the past, such as at his autumn/winter 2008-2009 ready-to-wear collection show in Paris, 26 February 2008 'The news comes after years of pressure from PETA, including a member of the organisation being thrown out of his fashion week show in 2002 after causing a runway ruckus with her anti-fur message as well as a takeover of his Paris boutique in 2006 led by PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk,' the association said. 'The vast majority of people want nothing to do with items that have come from animals who were caged and electrocuted or bludgeoned to death or caught in steel traps, many being left to die slowly from blood loss which is the way coyotes are still being killed for the frivolous trim on Canada Goose's jackets.' 'Fur today is as dead as the poor animals it was stolen from, and any designers not clued up enough to see that may as well hang up their sewing needles now.' However, a number of household name fashion brands continue to include animal fur, including Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Salvatore Ferragamo and Valentino. Responding to Jean-Paul Gaultiers decision to drop fur, Mark Oaten CEO of the International Fur Federation, said: He should think again and stick with fur, a natural and sustainable material that is good for the environment unlike the fake and plastic alternative. A former RAF electrical engineer, 95, has finally been honoured with her War Medal 73 years after she helped keep the planes flying during World War Two. Vera Clachers, who was one of the first women to serve in the role, simply forgot she was entitled to the award and never applied for it. It was not until her daughter, 58-year-old Lorraine MacLeod, contacted the Ministry of Defence earlier this year that she was handed the medal in a special ceremony. Vera Clachers was finally awarded a medal for her service in World War Two 73 years after her service. She is pictured left, at Edinburgh Castle after the medal ceremony on November 12; and right, wearing her RAF uniform in 1942 It is believed to be the longest period of time that has elapsed between the honour being awarded and it being received. Mrs Clachers, who joined the RAF in 1942, aged 19, said: 'It didn't seem important at the time. 'I was only doing my duty. My husband had been presented with his war medals before we met and I just thought nothing of it. 'But now, I am very pleased to have received it. I am so happy and so proud. The presentation of the medal was a complete surprise to me.' Mrs MacLeod, who is her mother's carer, was prompted into action when the pair, from Edinburgh, attended an air show in Glasgow to mark the 70th Anniversary of World War Two. Mrs Clachers pointed out at a plane and told her daughter she had worked on it at which point Mrs McLeod realised how important her mother's contribution to the war effort had been. After speaking to other veterans, she discovered her mother was entitled to the War Medal and it was suggested she apply via the RAF Benevolent Fund. And just two months later, on November 1, Mrs Clachers was finally presented with the medal during a reception at Edinburgh Castle. Mrs McLeod arranged for her mother to be handed the medal by the youngest cadet at the ceremony - 17-year-old Samantha Terry. I had to hide it from my mother for two weeks, it was so difficult. She did not have a clue until the cadet was standing in front of her with the medal, she said. 'Samantha saluted mum and mum saluted back. That was the moment that moved every single person in the room. Everyone began clapping. I was very emotional.' The War Medal was awarded to those who served at least 28 days between September 3, 1939 and September 2, 1945. Image undated Air Vice-Marshal David Murray, Chief Executive at the RAF Benevolent Fund, said: 'It was an absolute honour to be able to present Vera with her medal - an honour which was richly deserved even though it was decades late! 'Vera's humility is common among her generation of brave men and women who quietly answered their country's call and did their duty without a second thought to the personal cost. 'Which is why I am proud to lead a charity which ensures that that debt to society is repaid. 'The RAF Benevolent Fund has stood side by side with RAF personnel, past and present, for almost 100 years, ensuring whenever they face hardship or suffering we are there with them.' The War Medal was awarded to those who served at least 28 days between September 3, 1939 and September 2, 1945. Mrs Clachers trained and worked at various RAF bases in England, including North Coates in Lincolnshire, to become an electrical engineer - one of just three or four females in the role at the time. Mrs Clachers was handed her medal by the youngest cadet at the ceremony - 17-year-old Samantha Terry. They are pictured at Edinburgh Castle on November 11 She was posted out to Germany in 1948 to help with the post-war effort, working mainly on the bases in Varn and Sylt. While based in Varn, Mrs Clachers met and fell in love with Thomas Clachers - a corporal and 'leading aircraft man'. They were married in 1949. Vera went on to work at Ethicon, the surgical suture company, and then a dressmakers in Edinburgh. Thomas passed away in 1991. Mrs McLeod added: 'I am so pleased with how this has all turned out. I just cannot believe it has taken 73 years. I am so happy and proud Mum's contribution has been recognised.' Khalif Shire Ali was 'known' to ASIO, but not considered a major threat Despite politicians previously claiming otherwise, Australia does not have a current active 'terror watch' list. The disturbing development follows last Friday's frenized attack in Melbourne, during which a terrorist who was once allegedly on the national watch list killed a beloved business owner. According to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation's (ASIO), the supposed list does not exist - and never has. Instead, individuals deemed a potential threat to national security are monitored by ASIO or the Joint Counter Terrorism Team, part of the agency that works with state and Federal Police. Police pay their respect outside Pellegrini's on Bourke St in Melbourne's CBD Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (pictured), who carried out the lone attack on Friday afternoon on Bourke St which shocked the nation, was known to ASIO officials. In 2015, his passport was revoked, amid fears he was planning to fly to Syria to fight for Islamic State. It's understood ASIO was tracking his movements due to his behaviour and links with terror suspects but wasnt under constant physical or electronic surveillance on Friday when he carried out the deadly attack, the Herald Sun reported. Peter Dutton, Australia's Home Affairs Minister, dismissed speculation Ali had direct links to Islamic State. 'In relation to his connections (with Islamic State) or with any terrorist group there's not, as I'm advised, a membership of an organisation or a definite link,' he said. 'The working theory is at the moment a case where this person (Ali) had been downloading information or receiving messages in his own mind about what he should be doing. It's inspired, as opposed to affiliation or membership.' Mr Dutton also conceded it was impossible to stop all terrorist attacks in Australia, before going on to defend ASIO - who failed to classify Ali as a high-risk terror threat. 'These are very difficult circumstances to stop,' he said. 'Yes, (Ali) was referred to by ASIO and other agencies before.' 'But police did not have intelligence in relation to this person that he was about to commit such an act.' Terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (pictured left) who was eventually shot dead by police Dutton also revealed 14 terror attacks had been prevented, but seven had resulted in serious adverse results, including Sydney's Lindt Cafe siege in 2014 which saw two hostages killed. Victoria's Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton says hundreds of radicalised potential terrorists who arent being monitored at all times have the potential to carry out a atrocity similar to the Bourke St tragedy. He told the Herald Sun counter-terrorism agencies need thousands more officers to physically watch every suspect, with terrorist numbers seemingly always on the rise. A private jet was a split second from hitting a drone which was being flown at more than 17 times the legal height, a report has revealed. The 13 million luxury Embraer Legacy 500 jet was flying at 280mph when it came within just 50ft of the potentially catastrophic collision. The close call happened 7,000ft over the skies of Surrey, near Weybridge. The nine-seater jet was coming in to land at Heathrow after a flight from Bristol. It is not known who was on the jet at the time. The jet was inbound to Heathrow in June when it came within 50ft of the drone - which at 7000ft was flying 17 times over the legal height limit The UK Airprox Board which investigates near misses rated it as the most serious Category A incident where there was a serious risk of collision. A report by the board said the incident happened at 9.31am on June 27 this year when the jet was around 12 minutes from Heathrow, It said the co-pilot 'saw an object pass the aircraft on the right which he believed to be a drone'. The captain immediately notified Heathrow air traffic controllers, but it is believed that the operator of the drone was never found. The Embraer Legacy 500 jet was introduced into service in 2014 and costs $17 million. The report found that the drone was being flown far above visual line of sight limits which normally restrict the gadgets to a height of 400ft. It added that the drone was at an altitude where it was 'endangering other aircraft' and had been flown into conflict with the jet. The report concluded: 'The Board considered that the pilot's overall account of the incident portrayed a situation where providence had played a major part in the incident and/or a definite risk of collision had existed.' Sky Law: how high can drones fly? New laws introduced in May restricted all drones from flying above 400 feet and within 1 kilometre of airport boundaries. The change followed a year-on-year increase in reports of drone incidents with aircraft, up to 93 in 2017. The tightened regulations, which came into effect in July, are intended to reduce the possibility of damage to windows and engines of planes and helicopters. From next November the law will also requires owners of drones weighing 250 grams or more to register with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and for drone pilots to take an online safety test. Operators of drones who are convicted of endangering an aircraft can be jailed for up to five years. Advertisement The jet is operated by Bristol-based private jet charter firm Centreline. A spokesman for the firm refused to comment, but said: 'We co-operate with all the relevant authorities.' The Legacy 500 jet from Brazilian manufacturer Embraer was introduced into service in 2014 and retails for around $17 million. It can be configured to carry up to 12 passengers, and as with all small jets its range is dependent on its load - with eight passengers it can fly less than 5,500km but with four it can manage nearly 5,800km. This incident is the latest in a growing number of near misses between drones and aircraft. Last week it was revealed that a Falcon 7X private jet also came within 50ft of a drone as it came in to land at Farnborough airport after a flight from Nice on the French Riviera. Everard Cunion, 62, said he 'never got over' Julie Taylor An obsessed engineer who stalked a woman he had fallen in love with 50 years earlier has been landed with a five year restraining order after he pursued her once again. Everard Cunion, 62, admitted stalking Julie Taylor- once Julie Allen - saying he 'never got over' her despite having not seen her since they left school in 1972. The lifelong bachelor decided to try and get back in touch with her earlier this year after losing his job made him re-evaluate what was important in life, Poole Magistrates Court was told. The court heard he had 'hurt her' while at school, but details over their falling out were not given. Mr Cunion, who lives with nine life-size dolls at his home in Christchurch, Dorset, researched births, deaths and marriage registers in order to find Mrs Taylor and obtained her wedding photo. Obsessed Cunion also turned up at her old family home where her 88-year-old mother Georgina Allen still lived, a court heard. Although Cunion was told to leave, he went on to send eight letters addressed to Ms Taylor to her mother's address. He also went jogging past her mother's house every day over a four-month period and once even followed a woman he thought might be Ms Taylor from the property. Ms Taylor, nee Allen, did not respond to his letters but she and her mother became concerned when Cunion made a joke about kidnapping her in one. Mr Cunion pictured with one of the nine female dolls he lives with at home and calls 'family' Cunion gives each of his dolls names and personalities and designates them family member roles such as sisters, a wife and a daughter 'Faina' is a doll Mr Cunion has owned. He said: 'We comfort each other in our shared suffering. We promised each other that, should either of us get married and/or have children, we will never live more than a short walk away from each other. A more wonderful sister I cannot imagine.' Mr Cunion's doll 'Caroline'. This doll has been owned by Mr Cunion since 2004 Ms Taylor, from Christchurch, Dorset, reported the IT software engineer to the police. Cunion initially denied his behaviour amounted to harassment but admitted one charge of stalking Ms Taylor, 62, and one of harassing her mother. He was sentenced at Poole Magistrates Court to 120 hours of unpaid work and ten rehabilitation days, as well as the five-year restraining order which prevents him from contacting Ms Taylor or her mother and 'limited entry' to Ms Allen's road. After his previous hearing Cunion said he felt 'stupid' over the matter. He said: 'I upset her (Ms Taylor) when I was at school and it's haunted me for 50 years. Mr Cunion said he 'felt stupid' after the stalking of his former school friend and did not mean to upset her 'I was determined to try to find out if she was okay but clearly I alarmed her. 'I wanted to find a way of making it up to her. 'Girls have to be able to reject guys they don't want and those guys have to accept that. For some reason I have not really been able to. 'It's a shame and I do feel really stupid about the whole thing.' At the earlier hearing prosecutor Lee Turner explained Cunion's unrequited love for Ms Taylor began when he went to school with her between 1968 and 1972. He said: 'They last saw each other on the last day of school in 1972. He wrote a letter to her in the early 1970s but it didn't reach her as her mother burnt it and in 1978 she received a letter from him but disposed of it and didn't reply. A doll named 'June' in October 2018. Mr Cunion lives with nine dolls in total. He collects them 'Eleanor': Mr Cunion wrote: 'Unlike a real daughter, Eleanor will never leave home and be swept off her feet by a daring young fellow. There will be no fairy-tale wedding for her at the priory. She will never leave me.' 'The wife': Mr Cunion's first doll was called Rebecca and was shipped over from California California in what he said was an initiation 'for me a new life surrounded by life-size dolls' 'In May this year he went to the old family home and the door was answered by her 88-year-old mother. 'He started asking questions about her daughter and she immediately recognised him as the male who used to have an infatuation with her daughter at school. 'He tried to give her a letter but she said no and shut the door. 'A couple of days later post arrived addressed to Julie Allen, her maiden name, detailing how much he wanted to get in touch. 'He sent a further seven letters in May, June, July, August and September. 'He made reference to some gates that the mother had only just had installed and she started worrying he was watching the property. 'The letters started off short and over time became lengthier and more rambled. 'The fifth letter, in August, caused her to phone the police as he made reference to wanting to kidnap her. It was written in a light-hearted way saying his kidnapping days were done but it caused her alarm. Mr Cunion admitted stalking but said it was never his intention to upset his former flame who he had not had contact with since 1972 'He also made reference to having researched her and knew little-known private details. 'In a letter in September he detailed an incident where he followed a female leaving the address on foot, believing it was Julie - it wasn't. 'She never replied to any letters.' James Moore, defending, previously said Cunion intended 'no malice' He said: 'Redundancy caused him to take stock of his life and all he wanted to do was see if he could rekindle a friendship with her. 'He realises that is not going to happen and since his arrest he hasn't engaged in any behaviour like this with Julie or her mother. 'He doesn't oppose a restraining order and is keen to draw a close to the matter.' A mother and father who named their baby after Adolf Hitler have been convicted of being members of a neo-Nazi group. Amazon security guard Adam Thomas, 22, and his girlfriend, Claudia Patatas, 38, are facing up to 10 years in jail after being found guilty of being part of banned extreme right group National Action today. A search of the couple's Oxfordshire home uncovered Nazi memorabilia, a Ku Klux Klan outfit and an arsenal of deadly weapons including crossbows, machetes and axes. Pictures later emerged of Thomas, originally from the West Midlands, wearing the white hooded mask synonymous with the white supremacist group as cradling his young child. A jury at Birmingham Crown Court was told the couple had given their child the middle name 'Adolf', which self-confessed racist Thomas admitted was in 'admiration' of Hitler. Adam Thomas (middle) and his partner Claudia Patatas (right), at their home in Waltham Gardens, Banbury, Oxfordshire, with friend Darren Fletcher (left) Adam Thomas (right) and Claudia Patatas (left) are pictured holding a Swastika flag while holding their baby. Today they have been found guilty of being members of extreme right group National Action, banned by the Government in 2016 A white Ku Klux Klan hood was found during a search of the couple's home in Banbury, Oxfordshire (left). Photos then emerged of Thomas wearing the outfit while holding his baby in his arms Adam Thomas and Claudia Patatas's house in Oxfordshire where memorabilia which had the swastika emblazoned on it was found Guilty: Adam Thomas (left) and his girlfriend Claudia Patatas (right) are pictured in their police mugshots The KKK robes that Thomas wore in a series of photos shown to the jury including one with his baby were inherited from his great-grandfather, a supporter of Oswald Mosleys British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. Born in Sutton Coldfield but raised in Birmingham, Thomas spent much of his childhood with his maternal grandparents, but he continued to see his parents. The extremism that would lead him to National Action was already so ingrained in him that at school he was referred to the Governments Prevent strategy after teachers overheard him racially abusing fellow pupils at the age of 13. The only white child in his class, he was eventually expelled and went to a special school. Thomas left without any GCSEs but in a bizarre turn of events two years later the self-confessed Holocaust denier moved to Israel, where he lived first in a kibbutz and then a college where he tried to convert to Judaism. He met Patatas via the encrypted Telegram messaging app also favoured by Islamic State recruiters after flying back to the UK in 2016. Patatas was born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal, and graduated in English and Germanic philology. She had no known connections to the far Right. Patatas moved to the UK in 2010 to live with a pagan far Right activist she met on a camping holiday. She fell under Thomass spell in November 2016 and soon became pregnant with their child. Police said the couples baby son, looked after by his mother throughout the trial, will now be the subject of normal safeguarding procedures but it was for social workers to decide on his future. A third defendant, a leading member of National Action's Midlands' branch, Daniel Bogunovic, 27, of Leicester, was also convicted of being a member of National Action. Bogunovic already had a conviction from earlier this year for stirring up racial hatred by plastering Aston University in Birmingham with the group's offensive stickers. The jury of six men and five women found Thomas guilty of an additional offence of having a terrorist manual called the Anarchist's Cookbook. Patatas was bailed ahead of sentencing. They were told he and his partner intended to wage a 'holy war' against black, Jewish, Asian and gay people. Asked about his child's middle name, Thomas said it did 'reflect an interest' and 'admiration' of the Nazi leader. He told the court: 'It definitely doubles up as the name of Adolf Hitler. Claudia Patatas is pictured leaving Warwick Drown Court this afternoon, covering her face after she was bailed ahead of sentencing Thomas brandishes his crossbow as he stands in front of a Confederacy flag A swastika pastry cutter (pictured) was found at the couple's home in Banbury, Oxfordshire The US confederate Ku Klux Clan branded flag was founding hanging from the window of the couple's home in Banbury, Oxfordshire A mug displaying the emblem of the Nazi-era SS organisation, found on the living room side board, during police searches of the couple's home 'It's undeniable and I don't make a secret of it. It does reflect an interest in that topic and admiration for what it represents.' He said the name Adolf was 'not controversial' in Portugal, where his partner Patatas is from, claiming the couple planned to move there. Who are the National Action members and what were they convicted over? Mikko Vehvilainen, 34, from Sennybridge, was convicted of being a member of National Action and was jailed for eight years. Adam Thomas, 22, from Oxfordshire, was found guilty of National Action membership and could face up to 10 years in jail. Claudia Patatas, 38, from Oxfordshire, was also convicted of National Action membership and similarly faces up to 10 years in prison. Daniel Bogunovic, 27, from Leicester, was found guilty of belonging to National Action and will be sentenced on December 14. Darren Fletcher, 28, from Wednesfield, pleaded guilty to membership of the group and will be sentenced on December 14. Joel Wilmore, 24, from Stockport, also admitted to being part of National Action. He is due to be sentenced on December 14. Nathan Pryke, 26, from March, pleaded guilt to National Action membership. He will also be sentenced on December 14. Alexander Deakin, 24, from Birmingham, jailed for 12 months for inciting racial hatred. He was National Action's Midlands Leader. Advertisement Asked by the prosecution if he was a racist, he answered: 'Yes'. Prosecutor Barnaby Jameson QC told the court earlier in the trial: 'National Action is a group of vehement neo-Nazis, glorifying Hitler and the Third Reich. 'Openly and aggressively Nazi, National Action is anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-Islamic and anti-gay. 'The world into which this case will take you is a world in which any right-thinking person would wish did not exist. 'All the defendants in this case were cut from the same National Action cloth. They were fanatical, highly motivated, energetic and closely linked.' Thomas was described in court as a 'vehement Nazi' who worked as an Amazon security guard. Over the course of a seven-week hearing, jurors were told how the racist couple met online in November 2016 before moving in together the following April. Photographs from their 'family album' showed Thomas cradling his newborn son dressed in hooded white KKK robes. The fascist pair can also be seen smiling for another picture with the baby, who was born in late 2017, while proudly displaying a Swastika flag. They joined National Action after being 'fuelled by hatred and division' and engaged in a 'terror born out of a fanatical and tribal belief in white supremacy,' the court heard. Both defendants had attended meetings of the far-right group, formed in 2013, prior to its ban in December 2016. The group was prohibited by the Government after members celebrated the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by far-right terrorist Thomas Mair earlier that year. Despite being outlawed, the group carried out 'White Jihad' - a white holy war - to uphold white supremacist values around the country. The court heard transcripts of encrypted Telegram chat messages following the ban proving all three defendants were still members of the group post-proscription. Patatas, a wedding photographer, used the chat platform to message another 'vehement Nazi' Darren Fletcher, 28, saying 'all Jews must be put to death'. The Portuguese-born mother, who has a black sun SS symbol tattooed on her back, also revealed she once celebrated Hitler's birthday by eating a cake with a 'Fuhrer face' decorated on it. She wrote: 'I did struggle to slice his face. Adolf is life.' Meanwhile Thomas called on refugees to be gassed, black people to be killed and the Chinese people to be turned into biofuel in a string of vile racist messages. A photograph shows Claudia Patatas's tattoo, a 'black sun' used by the SS in Nazi Germany Weapons found in Adam Thomas and Claudia Patatas' house included a dagger (left) and a hammer which had a blade attached to it (right) Adam Thomas is pictured wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe, clutching and machete and posing in front of a US confederate Ku Klux Klan branded flag One of the weapons found was marked with a Swastika (left) and the house had many Ku Klux Klan flags (right) A crossbow which seemed to be in camouflage print was also found at the couple's home A black jacket with a Swastika armband and an SS death skull badge was found in the house in Barnbury, Oxfordshire He also said homosexuals and mixed-race children should be killed by stoning, beheading and hanging and wanted to start a British chapter of the KKK. Thomas put: 'We could slaughter billions of non-whites no problem, we are superior....Personally all I want is a white homeland. What is the black sun? It was a symbol employed by the SS during the Nazi-era and can also be found in some occult subcultures such as Satanism, or Old Norse and Celtic cultures. It has countless variations, and was featured on the floor of Wewelsburg castle near Paderborn, in Germany- which was refurbished and used as a base for the SS by Heinrich Himmler. Post-World War II the symbol continued to be used by neo-Nazi and alt-right groups. Advertisement 'I don't accept anyone who isn't 100 per cent white.' The messages from the chat group 'TripleK Mafia' were found by police on a mobile phone seized from National Action Midlands leader Alex Deakin, 23, from Birmingham. Jurors heard Thomas - who posed for photos in front a US Confederate flag with his crossbows - used his weapons for target practice in his back garden. When counter terror police raided their home they found Nazi flags, Ku Klux Klan robes and a variety of fascist memorabilia - including Swastika cushions and pastry cutters. The couple even had racist Christmas cards - including one bearing a picture of KKK members and the message 'May All Your Christmasses Be White'. Newspaper cuttings relating to the Norwegian far-Right mass murderer Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, were also found in the couple's living room. Patatas is pictured with Thomas's close friend Darren Fletcher, who is awaiting sentence after admitting being part of National Action at the beginning of court proceedings Ku Klux Klan-styled Christmas card shown to jurors at Birmingham Crown Court, found on the side board during police searches of Adam Thomas and Claudia Patatas' home in Oxfordshire Jurors were also shown two scatter cushions with Swastikas that were found in the living room of the couple's home during police searches Thomas also claimed his racist views came from when he was a small child - and were influenced by the notorious 'white power' skinhead band Skrewdriver. He told jurors his stepfather had been in the band and had a tattoo of the group's logo on his arm. Asked by his barrister Frida Hussain when his 'support for white nationalism' developed, Thomas said at the age of five. He said: 'My stepfather was in the band Skrewdriver.' Ms Hussain asked: 'What was the band's attitude towards race?' He replied: 'It was widely known as a white power band. It has very racist views.' His barrister quizzed him again: 'How did your stepfather indicate his allegiance to that band?' The father-of-one replied: 'He had a tattoo of Skrewdriver on his forearm. 'When I was five, he'd talk to me about that (the tattoo) and shave my head as well. 'He talked a lot about it and used the usual derogatory terms about race.' The band was formed in Poulton, Lancashire, in 1976 and was originally non-racist but became a white supremacist rock band after reuniting in the 1980s. Thomas claimed family members, including his parents and grandparents on both sides, had routinely used racist language around him. Adam Thomas is pictured with his face covered and posing with a long-bladed knife His mother's partner, who was not named in court, was a member of the rock group, fronted by Ian Stuart Donaldson. A reflection of the group's ethos can be found in the opening lyrics to the 1983 single White Power: 'I stand and watch my country, going down the drain. We are all at fault, we are all to blame. 'We're letting them take over, we just let 'em come. Once we had an empire, and now we've got a slum.' The group had associations with far-right groups in the UK, including the National Front. Donaldson died in a car crash in Derbyshire in September 1993, but has since become a figurehead of far-right groups. Thomas's close friend Darren Fletcher, 28, of Wednesfield, West Midlands, Joel Wilmore, 24, of Stockport, Greater Manchester, and Nathan Pryke, 26, of March, Cambridgeshire all admitted being part of the group at the beginning of the trial. They will be sentenced on December 14. British Army veteran who tried to recruit soldiers for terror group National Action is jailed for eight years A British Army veteran who fought in Afghanistan and was described as an 'outstanding' soldier was at the heart of a neo-Nazi terrorist group which set its sights on recruiting from within the armed forces, it can be revealed today. White supremacist and self-confessed racist Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen, 34, believed a 'race war' was coming and tried to establish an all-white armed stronghold in Powys, Wales, a court heard. The Royal Anglian Regiment soldier who served with distinction since 2012 was convicted of being a member of neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action, and was jailed for eight years. He was kicked out of the Army after his arrest in September 2017, along with another soldier as he tried to form an underground network and stockpiled weapons. His case has not been able to be reported until today as six others accused of joining the terror organisation had been to trial. The fallout from his trial led to Sergeant Major Glenn Haughton posting a social media video which said: 'If you're a serving soldier or a would-be soldier, and you hold these intolerant and extremist views, as far as I'm concerned, there is no place for you in the British Army - so get out.' Mikko Vehvilainen, now 34, who joined the Army in 2012 was known as an 'outstanding soldier' and boxer but he was jailed for eight years in March. Pictured above, believed to be in Afghanistan Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen, 33, kept swastika bunting, an SS ceremonial dagger and a 'crudely made' electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device capable of inflicting serious wounds Vehvilainen believed a 'race war' was coming and attempted to recruit soldiers in the British Army. He was pictured performing a Nazi salute in his native Finland Jailing Vehvilainen in March, Judge Melbourne Inman QC told the veteran he had a 'long and deep-seated adherence' to racist ideology. Now, details of how National Action followers were planning their 'battle' have emerged now other cases have been completed. Today, a mother and father were found guilty of membership to National Action, while three others admitted charges earlier in their trial. Vehvilainen appeared in the Birmingham Crown Court dock at his trial alongside fellow 2 Anglians soldier Private Mark Barrett, who was also accused of membership of the banned group. Barrett was acquitted of being a National Action member, but jurors heard that he had a cardboard swastika openly displayed on his windowsill at Alexander Barracks in Cyprus. Joel Wilmore, 24, who admitted membership of neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action, which was banned in 2016 The 25-year-old told police during interviews that his sketchbook doodles of the Nazi symbol and Second World War German tanks had been at the behest of 'intimidating' Vehvilainen. It is understood that Vehvilainen and Barrett, formerly of Kendrew Barracks, Cottesmore, Rutland, have since been thrown out of the Army. Two other soldiers, both of whom knew Vehvilainen, faced criminal charges but were internally disciplined and remained in the Army. Police discovered Vehvilainen kept swastika bunting, an SS ceremonial dagger and a 'crudely made' electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device at his home. Police officers also discovered a swastika flag, Adolf Hitler stickers, and a CD containing Third Reich music at his properties in Brecon and Llansilin, Powys. Machetes, knuckledusters, a crossbow with arrows, a large knife and a hammer were also recovered from the properties. He had a picture at the property in Llansilin, which showed him giving a Nazi-type salute at a memorial to his native Finland's independence, in 1917. Earlier this year, a Birmingham Crown Court jury cleared him of possession of a terrorism document - the Anders Breivik manifesto. Breivik killed 77 people in two attacks in Norway in 2011. He was also found not guilty on two counts of stirring up racial hatred relating to forum posts on a white nationalist website. However he was jailed in March for being a member of National Action. Vehvilainen's weaponry was found when police searched his home as they investigated his links to a banned extremist organisation in Britain known as National Action Before his conviction, Vehvilainen was considered an 'outstanding' soldier and Army boxer who had risked his life for Queen and country. RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 2 Next The Nazi in the BRITISH Army: 'Outstanding' corporal who... The Albanian drug lords of London: Shameless gangsters who... Anger as SAS fantasist, 62, who poisoned his wife with... Share this article Share Vehvilainen had been a key part of National Action's strategy of attempting to grow its membership within the armed forces. Other National Action members, some who pleaded guilty and some convicted after trial, also tried repeatedly to join the Army but were rejected. Vehvilainen, a married father-of-three, lived at Sennybridge Camp, Powys, Wales, but was renovating a home he had bought in the village of Llansilin, in efforts to build a whites-only stronghold. It was in that house police found a photograph showing him giving a Nazi-style salute at a 1917 memorial to his native Finland's independence. Officers also uncovered what prosecutors described as an arsenal of weapons, including a warhammer, a legally held shotgun, swastika bunting and other Nazi paraphernalia. In the garage of his house at Sennybridge, he kept a makeshift target dummy, and body armour which had been spray-painted black. Advertisement What is National Action? How 'racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic' far-right group became the first to be outlawed since WWII National Action (NA) was founded in August 2013 by Benjamin Raymond and Alex Davies. Raymond was a politics graduate from the University of Essex, then living in Bognor Regis. He immersed himself in a disturbing online world of right-wing content. Raymond backed calls for a 'nationwide fascist army'. Davies was a University of Warwick student and British National Party member when he became involved in National Action. At the soldier's home officers found weapons including guns, large knives, ammunition and knuckle dusters. He was attempting to recruit others to form an armed group for terror organisation National Action in Wales He was once quoted as saying 'I don't want to say what I'd do to Jews, it's too extreme', while Raymond had said: 'There are non-whites and Jews in my country who all need to be exterminated', adding he 'loved Hitler'. Both men worried that the right-wing of politics had become diluted and founded National Action as an uncompromising National Socialist outfit. The group's logo borrowed heavily from the Second World War Nazi organisation the SA. NA was also known for its slick propaganda on social media, but also leaflets and stickers, with mottos such as 'White Jihad' and 'Britain is ours - the rest must go'. Experts have described NA as 'potentially the most dangerous... of any fascist movement to appear in the UK for many years'. The group itself would proclaim in August 2015, that 'only bullets will stop us'. Its first demonstration was a banner drop in Birmingham in November 2013. Black-clad members donned face coverings, warning of race war and pushing the conspiracy that an elite was bent on destroying the white population through immigration. Islamic State, Pol Pot's brutal Khmer Roughe and Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik all served to inspire the organisation. Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik (pictured) served as an inspiration to the group Senior member Matthew Hankinson said the group would see that 'traitors' ended up 'hanging from lampposts' and said if innocent people are hurt in the process 'so be it'. The organisation hit headlines when members voiced support for the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016 by Thomas Mair, with its North East division's Twitter account stating: 'Vote Leave - don't let this man's sacrifice be in vain. The organisation even took Mair's outburst at his trial - 'death to traitors, freedom for Britain' - as its slogan on its former website. Members attended demonstrations along with other far right groups, in places like York, Liverpool, Darlington and Newcastle. At its height it had between 70-100 members, recruiting mainly young people aged 15-29, but also trying - and succeeding in at least one case - to attract members of the Armed Forces. In 2015, 25-year-old member Zack Davies attacked a Sikh with a hammer and machete while screaming 'white power'. In 2016, 17-year-old member Jack Coulson was arrested after posting pictures of a homemade pipe-bomb on Snapchat alongside threats against Muslims. It was banned by Home Secretary Amber Rudd on December 16, 2016 after a series of incidents, including its voicing support for the murder of Jo Cox. The group had not carried out any terrorist attacks but was linked to a plot to kill Labour MP Rosie Cooper. In total, 10 people have now been convicted or admitted membership of the terrorist group. Advertisement A bar manager thought she had suffered a stroke and only discovered she had been choked by a chef at her Christmas party when she checked the CCTV footage, a tribunal heard. Molly Phillips, 24, passed out after chef Nathan Webb gripped her neck at the festive party. Manager Miss Phillips went to hospital to get checked for a suspected stroke because she had no recollection of what happened. Bar manager Molly Phillips, pictured, was told how she passed out after chef Nathan Webb gripped her neck at a Christmas party The alleged incident took place at the Cameo Club in Roath, Cardiff (pictured). Miss Phillips said she went back to hospital the following day to get checked out after sending her mother a photo of her sloping mouth Pictured left, Huw Davies outside Cardiff Magistrates Court on Friday and pictured right, Jason Pearce also outside Cardiff Magistrates Court on Friday. Miss Phillips told company director Jason Pearce about the incident days later A tribunal was told Miss Phillips checked the CCTV of the Cameo Club in Penylan, Cardiff, days later - and saw herself being strangled. She told company directors about the attack on New Year's Day but claims they 'dismissed' her complaints. Miss Phillips has now brought an unfair dismissal claim against Pontcanna Pub Company Ltd - saying she felt unsafe and had to resign. The 24-year-old said she only checked the CCTV out of 'curiosity.' She added: 'It wasn't until I watched the CCTV properly that I realised what had happened. 'Nathan Webb puts his arms around my neck, pulls it tighter with his fists clenched, and despite my trying to push him off me, he doesn't let go. 'I then pass out in his arms, he then drops me and I smash my head against a fridge, and he is laughing the whole time.' Miss Phillips was told her injuries 'were either caused by lack of oxygen or nerve damage' The alleged incident took place at the Cameo Club in Roath, Cardiff. Miss Phillips said she went back to hospital the following day to get checked out after sending her mother a photo of her sloping mouth and had a 17 and a half hour wait in A&E. In a statement Miss Phillips said: 'I was checked for a suspected stroke, Bell's Palsy, and other tests were done but all of these were ruled out.' She was told her injuries 'were either caused by lack of oxygen or nerve damage', and also claims she was left with facial paralysis. Miss Phillips told company director Jason Pearce about the incident days later. She claimed he responded by joking with Mr Webb saying: 'All right buddy? Hear you've been choking girls lately'.' Mr Pearce said during the hearing that he 'didn't think it was as serious as it was' but that he had made the comment. He said it was a few weeks after the meeting with Miss Phillips at a dinner at the restaurant and had not happened more than once. In his statement, he said he told Miss Phillips he wanted to speak to Mr Webb but she said she was 'fine' and was 'adamant' she didn't want anything done. 'I was shocked and our conversation finished quickly afterwards,' Miss Phillips said. Miss Phillips later spoke to another director Huw Davies. A tribunal was told Miss Phillips checked the CCTV of the Cameo Club in Penylan, Cardiff, days later - and saw herself being strangled. She told company directors about the attack on New Year's Day but claims they 'dismissed' her complaints But she told him she did not want anything to happen because she was buying a house - and needed secure employment. Miss Phillips said: 'After this one chat the whole incident seemed to be completely forgotten about by everyone, except for me. 'I was never asked if I was comfortable, how my medical condition was, nothing.' On March 19 Miss Phillips went to police and Mr Webb was arrested on May 8. She also told her bosses she was submitting a personal injury claim. Miss Phillips said: 'My opinion of Nathan changed and I realised he is a violent, nasty guy and that it was only a matter of time before another incident happened. 'Around the end of March I was in tears to Huw telling him that I just didn't feel comfortable in work anymore but I was given the same response over and over, that he couldn't 'wave a magic wand and fix everything'.' Miss Phillips also told the hearing that months later, other alleged behaviour by Mr Webb towards other staff included putting chilli in a staff member's soup and threatening someone on a night out. She told her employers she had begun lose faith in their ability 'to keep her safe in her workplace'. The employment tribunal hearing in Cardiff Magistrates heard Miss Phillips resigned on May 16. She said: 'I had been assaulted by a colleague. When I tried to raise it with my employer they dismissed my complaints out of hand.' Miss Phillips (pictured) told company director Jason Pearce about the incident days later. She claimed he responded by joking with Mr Webb saying: 'All right buddy? Hear you've been choking girls lately' In a statement Mr Davies said: 'At every stage we met with Molly and asked her what she wanted us to do. 'However, Molly was insistent that she didn't want us to take any action against Nathan. 'Everything we did or didn't do was with Molly's complete agreement.' In his statement, Mr Pearce said: 'I am extremely surprised by Molly's tribunal claim against the Cameo since, as far as I am concerned, Molly never raised any concern or complaint with me or Huw concerning Nathan or the incident at the party. 'The only time she notified me of the matter was at our meeting on January 6 when she was insistent that she did not want any action to be taken and that the matter was in effect resolved. 'I do not see how Molly can complain that no action was taken when she did not want any action to be taken and this was despite the fact I had suggested that I speak to Nathan.' Mr Webb remains employed as a chef at Cameo Club, the tribunal heard. Judge Alison Frazer reserved judgement to make her findings. Donald Trump was caught on camera looked distinctly unimpressed with the king of Morocco after the monarch appeared to have dozed off at an Armistice day ceremony in France. In the clip, which was posted yesterday on discussion website Reddit and quickly went viral, King Mohammed VI of Morocco is seen with his eyes closed during French President Emmanuel Macron's speech honouring those who died in the First World War. President Trump, who was seated two places along from King Mohammed, stared past his wife Melania in apparent annoyance. King Mohammed VI of Morocco was filmed appearing to doze off during the ceremony, seemingly irking the US president in the process - in a scene that caused much hilarity online Sunday's ceremony marking 100 years since the Armistice took place at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Trump may also have been disgruntled over the content of Macron's speech, which included a forceful rebuke of nationalism, just weeks after the American President declared himself a 'proud nationalist' at a rally in Houston, Texas. Seated between Melania and Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday, Trump looked impassive as Macron warned against 'old demons coming back to wreak chaos and death.' Moroccan King Mohammed VI (L) closes his eyes in a move that appeared to frustrate US President Donald Trump (2-R). America's First Lady Melania Trump (2-L) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) are also pictured at the ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on November 11, 2018 to marking the 100th anniversary of the 1918 armistice, ending WW1 During the ceremony, French President Emmanuel Macron (R) fiercely criticized nationalism in a thinly veiled rebuke of Trump (2-L) who has openly called himself a nationalist and uses the slogan 'America first' According to one Twitter user, the Moroccon King was demonstrating that 'Moroccan dads can sleep anywhere' 'Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism,' Macron said. 'In saying, 'Our interests first, whatever happens to the others', you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: its moral values.' This was understood to be a thinly veiled criticism of Trump, who has pulled out of numerous unilateral agreements and ran his 2016 election campaign on the platform of 'America First'. At the beginning of his trip of France, Trump made clear how far apart he stands from America's European allies when he wrote on Twitter that Emmanuel Macron's suggestion of a joint European army was 'very insulting'. US President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the Armistice Trump's moralistic glare at the King of Morocco is made more ironic by the fact that the President himself was the subject of accusations of disrespectful behaviour during his remembrance trip to France. On Saturday it emerged he had skipped a planned appearance honouring fallen World War One soldiers at a U.S. military cemetery in France because it was raining. 'The President and First Lady's trip to Ainse-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial has been cancelled due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather,' the White House said at the time. Ben Rhodes, who was deputy national security adviser for strategic communications under President Barack Obama, said that this was no excuse. 'I helped plan all of President Obama's trips for 8 years,' he wrote on Twitter. 'There is always a rain option. Always.' A driver has been sacked by Amazon and is now under investigation by police after being accused of stealing 400 worth of another firm's parcels. CCTV footage allegedly shows the driver, who was delivering an Amazon parcel to a block of flats in Islington, north London, steal another resident's packages, which had been left outside her door. Video footage shows the driver enter a block of flats on November 1. Another camera appears to show the same man in another part of the building, before he allegedly threw the 'stolen' items over a fence. The driver is let into the building by a resident (left) and is pictured delivering his parcel (right) Amazon have repaid the alleged victim of the crime while the Metropolitan Police have confirmed they are investigating. The customer posted the CCTV to Amazon's social media page, and wrote: 'This Amazon delivery driver stole 400 worth of deliveries (not Amazon) from outside of my flat on Thursday, November 1. This is not acceptable.' Footage from another camera appears to show the same man walking towards a gate at the back exit of the complex and carrying what appears to be an ASOS bag. The victim of the alleged theft claims the man threw this bag over the gate and the video shows him walking back to the building empty handed. The driver looks directly at the CCTV camera mounted on the wall inside the building CCTV footage appears to show him throw the 'stolen' Asos parcel over a wall just minutes later Finally, he is seen leaving the front entrance. The customer claims at this point he retrieved the stolen goods thrown over the fence. The woman wrote on Friday: 'I have exhausted all routes to try and make Amazon take some action but it has so far been futile, so futile. 'Amazon don't give a crap basically. I have spent hours and days trying to get some resolution on this. It is causing me untold stress. Would you want this man lurking around your home? 'At the very least this man should have been questioned and suspended until this investigation is complete.' But days after the matter was raised with Amazon by journalists, the woman revealed that she had been reimbursed for the 400 lost and given a gift voucher. The man appears to carry the parcel (left) to the wall before returning empty handed (right) A spokesman for Amazon said: 'We have very high standards for our delivery partners and how they serve customers. 'We have taken this incident seriously and have reached out to the customer to ensure the matter is resolved to their satisfaction.' A source confirmed the driver 'is no longer delivering Amazon parcels.' A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: 'Police received an allegation of theft on Friday, 2 November. 'The victim...claimed two parcels had been stolen from outside her address in N1 the previous day.' The spokesman said enquiries are ongoing and there have been no arrests. Hours after Hassan Khalif Shire Ali died following his deadly terrorist attack in Melbourne last Friday, his father called the killer's wife and passed on a brief but grim message: 'This is life.' Ali was shot in the chest by a young police officer and died on the operating table soon after, following a terror attack in the heart of Melbourne that included the killing of well-known cafe owner Sisto Malaspina. In the wake of the attack, politicians had put the onus on Muslim leaders to do more to prevent such acts by exposing extremists within their community, while those leaders had reacted angrily to being blamed for what they claimed was the shortcomings of police. After Ali died, police raided the home he shared with his Turkish wife, believed to be aged in her 20s, and their infant son, in Meadow Heights on Melbourne's northern fringe. Their modest home was a converted garage in the backyard of an unassuming family who rented it to the young couple. It was the daughter of the elderly woman who lived in the main house who answered the phone when Ali's father's rang to pass on a message to his daughter-in-law. 'He said 'I'm watching the news and tell her ... not to panic, it's not her problem, this is life'. That's all he said,' the woman told The Age. High-profile members of the Muslim community have had varying reactions to Hassan Khalif Shire Ali's terror attack in Melbourne (pictured) Controversial Sheik Mohammed Omran (pictured) says blame should be directed to the government She said Ali's wife moved into the bungalow six months before the tragedy after having separated from her first husband. Her father, who remained in Turkey, had been due to come and take her home with him, on the very day of the Bourke Street attack. However Ali beat him to it, marrying the young woman and moving into their new home about two months ago. Ali had appeared troubled in the days leading up to the attack, with neighbours telling The Age he had been seen 'storming out' of the family home, and his wife desperately pursued him. In the hours after Friday's attack, she was initially reported missing but was located the day after and interviewed by police. Since the attack, the mourning for Mr Malaspina had been mixed with political recriminations. Muslim leaders had responded angrily to being blamed for the attacks, saying the government should instead be examining how these extremists were eluding authorities and why containment measures were not working. Ali, 30, was an active member at the Hume Islam Youth Centre (HIYC) in Melbourne's west in the months leading up to Friday's attack. Those close to him in the community, including imam Isse Musse, said Ali was growing increasingly 'delusional'. But HIYC Sheik Mohammed Omran said while Ali was 'crazy', it's 'bl***y Prime Minister' Scott Morrison who should shoulder the blame. 'He has spent billions of dollars - billions - on security service. And what is the end result? We have crazy people in the street,' Omran told The Australian. Omran says 'bl***y Prime Minister' Scott Morrison (pictured) wasted money on counter-terror measures Ali was one of 400 'persons of interest' being monitored by anti-terrorism police, according to Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. But with resources spread thin, counter terrorism authorities could not spare the resources to watch him constantly. Instead, he drove to Bourke Street in his truck, which was filled with open 'barbecue-style gas bottles', primed to cause an explosion which thankfully never went off. When he crashed the car, he set it alight and stabbed the man who came to his aid, later revealed to be Mr. Malaspina, the 74-year-old pioneer of the longstanding Pellegrini's cafe further up Bourke Street. He died from his wounds. Ali then repeatedly lunged at two police officers with his knife, while a homeless man dubbed 'Trolley Man' rammed him with a shopping cart. Ali stabbed three men in the rampage, including a 24-year-old security guard in the neck (pictured) Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton (pictured) said his officers performed 'bravely' Sheikh Omran pointed to the fact that pedestrians felt the need to get involved as further evidence of police incompetence. 'After he jumped in the street and started waving his knife to them - sometimes they are running after him and sometimes they are running after them, and even the public interfered to take his attention because the police, they couldn't handle him.' Eventually an officer shot the attacker in the chest at the corner of Bourke Street and Royal Lane. Ali (pictured) moved into a bungalow with his wife about four months after she moved there Police raided two properties on the day after the attack, interviewing Ali's wife at their home (pictured) Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton told Neil Mitchell's breakfast radio program 3AW the young officers at the scene acted as he would have. 'In my view they acted very bravely on the day and certainly in line with their training,' he said. A young officer within Victoria Police shared the sentiment. 'They honestly handled it as well as they could,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'Those two blokes will never have a harder job in their career.' The White House jumped in late Sunday to defend the president from criticism that followed a visit it cancelled to a war memorial in France amid a light drizzle. Press Secretary Sarah Sanders insisted to press on the flight back to the United States that the weather was too bad for Trump to fly in Marine One and a motorcade would have snarled traffic. Yesterday, because of near-zero visibility, Marine One was unable to fly, as had been planned. 'A car ride of two and a half hours, each way, would have required closures to substantial portions of the Paris roadways for the Presidents motorcade, on short notice, she said of the Saturday afternoon trip Trump was supposed to make to the Belleau Wood battlefield and monument. President Trump delivered remarks in a steady downpour on Sunday at an American war memorial and cemetery in France, without the cover of an umbrella, as he honored American vets and heroes Trump noted in the speech, which he gave after coming under fire for calling off a war memorial tour the day before, that Nov. 11 marks the centennial anniversary of the First World War President Trump did not want to cause that kind of unexpected disruption to the city and its people. He was honored to be able to attend todays event at the Suresnes American Cemetery and was deeply moved by the sacrifices of so many for the cause of freedom. Trump delivered planned remarks on Sunday in the unyielding rain, without the cover of an umbrella, at Suresnes to lawmakers and veterans just before he departed France. He had come under scrutiny the day before from the grandson of Winston Churchill, a former national security adviser to Barack Obama and political commentators for opting out of the previously planned with the first lady to Belleau Wood to honor American marines who fought in the battle in WWI. They called it a disgrace and ripped the White House for failing to come up with an alternative site to visit or way to get to Trump to the memorial in the custom-made limousine that travels around the world with every U.S. president. Trump gave speech on Sunday at Suresnes cemetery that coincided with centennial anniversary of the First World War, which he was in Paris to celebrate over the weekend 'Exactly 100 years ago today, on Nov. 11 1918, World War One came to an end. Thank god,' he said. 'It was a brutal war.' President Donald Trump, left, arrives for an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris Trump gave the speech on the centennial anniversary of the First World War, which he was in Paris to celebrate over the weekend, after coming under scrutiny for calling off a trip to a similar memorial while it was raining the day before The U.S. president called it 'one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history' and a 'horrible, horrible war' in an 11-minute address with the Eiffel Tower behind him. 'We gathered together at this hallowed resting place to pay tribute to the brave Americans who gave their last breath in that mighty struggle,' he said. Lightening the mood, he told six WWII veterans he said were in attendance, 'You look like you're in really good shape, all of you. I hope I look like that someday. You look great.' 'You look so comfortable up there, under shelter, as we're getting drenched. You're very smart people,' he said to laughter. 'America is forever in debt, and we are forever in your debt. And we really appreciate you being here.' Attendees of the president's speech, including members of Congress in Paris for the event, huddled together under umbrellas and ponchos. 'Thank you very much. I know you wanted to be here very badly. We appreciate it,' he told lawmakers who made the trek. Attendees covered themselves in ponchos during the remarks that Trump made in spite of a light rain With the celebration of war's end, also came mourning for the lives it claimed. 'On this day, in the year 1918, church bells rang, families embraced, and celebrations, as you know, filled the streets like never before, in towns throughout Europe and the United States. But victory had come at a terrible cost,' Trump acknowledged. More than a million French had died, and 116,000 American soldiers were killed. 'Countless would come home bearing the lasting scars of trench warfare and the grisly horrors of chemical weapons,' he said. 'Here on the revered grounds of Suresnes American Cemetery lie more than 1,500 U.S. service members who made the ultimate sacrifice in the First World War.' Trump said the patriots 'embody the timeless virtues' of France and the United States: 'honor and courage; strength and valor; love and loyalty; grace and glory. 'It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago,' he stated. The president kept his remarks at the monument brief. As the rain continued, he claimed without irony, 'This has been a wonderful two days we spent in France. And this is certainly the highlight of the trip. Trump left Paris later on Sunday for the United States, where he arrived in the evening on the same day. He had been there to attend an internationally broadcast gathering for world leaders at the Arc de Triomphe. He lunched with his counterparts on Sunday before driving a half-hour outside of the city to Suresnes for the invite-only ceremony commemorating the end of WWI. The speech closed out an awkward chapter in his relationship with the host nation's president that began when Trump blasted him on Twitter as he arrived at Orly airport late on Friday. Trump's rising feud with Emmanuel Macron boiled on Sunday as the French leader forcefully denounced nations 'looking after their own interests' and decried nationalist policies like the ones the American president has embraced. Macron specifically referred to the 'selfishness of nations only looking after their own interests' in remarks at an Armistice Day event in Paris that Trump and other world leaders attended. 'Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying our interests first, who cares about the others, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what gives it grace. And what is essential its moral values,' he said in an English-language translation of the speech he delivered with Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting in the front row. Still, Trump kindly acknowledged Macron, saying that he and the first lady 'were deeply honored to be the guests' of the French government at the event that morning. He said, 'It was very beautiful and so well done. ' Trump and Macron have been sparring over comments that Macron made last week about his desire to form a European army. The U.S. president said in a stinging tweet that Macron's comments were 'very insulting' as he landed in Paris on Friday evening with the first lady. Donald Trump 's rising feud with Emmanuel Macron took a new turn on Sunday as the French leader forcefully denounced nations 'looking after their own interests' and decried nationalist policies like the ones the American president has embraced The leaders later attended a luncheon at Elysee Palace with other heads of state as part of a program that Macron is hosting in France this weekend commemorating the cessation of hostilities in World War One. Donald and Melania Trump skipped an arrival ceremony at the residence of the French president earlier in the day and did not walk down the Champs-Elysees with fellow leaders, traveling to the Arcin the U.S. president's bullet-proof limousine, instead. They remained inside the car and out of the rain until after visiting leaders and Macron lined up under a covered seating area. President Trump greeted President Macron again -- having already sat down with him at Elysee and across from him at a dinner for dignitaries that took place on Saturday -- and took his place nearby in the front row of a riser below the arc. The U.S. president's grand entry was then upstaged arrival of Russia's Putin, who shook Trump's hand and gave him a thumbs up before taking his own seat to Macron's left. Trump was seated two down from Macron, next to Germany's Angela Merkel. UPSTAGED: Russian President Vladimir Putin was the last to arrive at the Arc de Triomphee. He hook Trump's hand and gave him a thumbs up before taking his own seat to Macron's right President Trump greets Angela Merkel as he arrives at the Arc in Paris on Sunday Trump gave Putin a pat on the back as he bid the Russian leader hello in Paris First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump arrive in the rain for the ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe on Sunday Right to Left: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Brigitte Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump Putin upstaged Trump by arriving at the ceremony last, after the American president and his wife had entered. Macron and other world leaders came together on buses. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told DailyMail.com in response to an inquiry about Trump's delayed arrival, and the possibility that Trump was meeting with Putin during the time that he was missing, that he was merely abiding by protocol. 'Due to security protocols the President arrived separately,' she said, without commenting on the possibility that he was talking privately with the Russian leader. Putin confirmed later that he and Trump did not talk in Paris and would have a formal meeting at the G20 in Argentina later this month. As President Trump was arriving at the unity ceremony in Paris on Sunday, a topless woman bearing the messages 'fake' and 'peace' on her chest threw herself at the president's motorcade in protest as it pulled up. Two other women also tried to approach the president and were physically arrested by security guards. Several minutes later, the Trumps entered the ceremony under separate umbrellas, the president in a blue coat and red tie and the first lady in a grey dress and matching overcoat. The American president and his wife participated in a centennial celebration of Armistice Day, honored in Europe annually on Nov. 11, after the Pentagon indefinitely postponed a military parade Trump planned to have in Washington. In America, the holiday is marked by Veteran's Day, which Trump honored at the Suresnes cemetery in the afternoon. World leaders including Donald Trump greet Russian President Vladimir Putin as he arrives for the ceremony The armored limousine known as 'The Beast' carrying US president arrives ahead of the ceremony BY NOW: Trump gets in the his vehicle just before attending the Sunday leaders' lunch Bells tolled in Paris on Sunday in remembrance of the cessation of fighting that concluded at 11:00 in the morning on Nov. 11, 1918 in Compiegne, France. The United States entered the war on April 6, 1917 in response to a declaration of war request against Germany from President Woodrow Wilson. A year and a half later, the war ended, but Europe was again thrown into chaos two decades later with WWII, when America also fought alongside France. The two sides have become close allies in the nearly 75 years since the fighting began. Macron and Merkel entered the ceremony in Paris on Sunday as part of a united front after walking hand-in-hand through Compiegne on Saturday. In remarks that were broadcast in French and translated to English, Macron appeared to take a shot at Trump's self-proclaimed nationalism. 'The lesson of the Great War can not be that of resentment between peoples, nor should the past be forgotten,' Macron said during the broadcast that included a military fly-over. 'It is our deeply rooted obligation to think of the future, and to consider what is essential.' As Trump was arriving in France, they fought over Macron's proposal to draft a 'true European army' that would protect the continent's interests in the face of a recoiling United States. He suggested the fighting force would also serve as a check on U.S. military might, lumping the ally in with threats from Russia and China. Trump said the comment was 'very insulting' and ignored the United States' generous contributions to Europe's defense via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The following day, the leaders proclaimed themselves to be 'very good friends' at a one-on-one meeting, even as Trump's body language told a different story. 'You know what my attitude has been, and we want a strong Europe. Its very important to us to have a strong Europe. And whichever way we can do it the best and most efficient would be something that we both want,' Trump said. Macron told him that he agrees. 'But its unfair to have the European security today being assured just by the United States, and we need a much better burden sharing. 'Thats why I do believe that we need more European capacities, more European defense, in order to take this part of the burden,' he assessed. 'When President Trump has to protect or to defend one of the states of the United States, he doesnt ask France or Germany, or another government of Europe to finance it.' President Trump visited Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial after cancelling a trip to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial on Saturday when a bad weather call grounded Marine One. He and first lady Melania Trump had planned to visit the memorial for American marines near the Belleau Wood battlefield, however their program was nixed at the last minute due to a storm that would have prevented them from helicoptering to the site that is more than an hour's drive from Paris. Despite the heavy security presence a topless female protester was able to break through near the President's motorcade Trump caused controversy on Saturday after his trip to the Ainse-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial was called off because of the rain 'The President and First Lady's trip to Ainse-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial has been canceled due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather,' the White House said. 'An American delegation led by Chief of Staff General John Kelly and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joe Dunford will attend on their behalf.' The site honors United States Army's 2nd Division and an attack it led on the Germans on June 6, 1918 that liberated the Bouresches. The skirmishes ended 20 days later on June 26. According to the American Battle Monuments Commission, 8,100 soldiers died in the wooded area near Belleau, France that month. Macron gifted Trump with a sapling from the area during a state visit in April. Trump was blasted abroad and at home for skipping the trip to the memorial and was compared to Canada's Justin Trudeau, who last year visited monuments in France under a steady downpour. The U.S. president sidestepped the controversy on Sunday but gave a nod to the battle site in his speech at Suresnes. 'Among those buried here are legendary Marines who fought in the Battle of Belleau Wood,' he said. 'In that treacherous forest and the surrounding fields, American Marines, soldiers, and Allied Forces fought -- and they fought through hell -- to turn the tide of the war. And that's what they did -- they turned the tide of the war,' he stated. The pathologist who examined Georgia Jones (pictured) was stunned at the 'extremely high' levels of MDMA found in her body A teenager who took two 'double-strength' ecstasy tablets at a music festival died after fitting for 50 minutes, an inquest has heard. The pathologist who examined Georgia Jones was stunned at the 'extremely high' levels of MDMA found in her body. Georgia and Tommy Cowan, 20, both died at Mutiny Festival in Portsmouth after taking drugs at the event headlined by rapper Dizzee Rascal. They did not know each other but both fell ill around the same time, the inquest was told. A detective investigating her death told the inquest it is 'almost impossible to identify the person that supplied the pills' following her death on May 26. Georgia's devastated sister Danielle, who went to the festival with her, told the hearing she found her 'fitting' on the floor. Danielle said friends described seeing Georgia, who also had a bag of MDMA in the form of powder in her bumbag, 'stumbling around' and 'slurring her words'. Hours after she and Tommy Cowan died, the dance festival was cancelled. Detective Constable Sharon Lewry said that Georgia suffered a cardiac arrest at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth. He told the inquest: 'A consultant at the hospital said the fit went on for 50 minutes. A detective investigating the death of Georgia (pictured) told the inquest it is 'almost impossible to identify the person that supplied the pills' following her death on May 26 'Georgia had taken two tablets not knowing they were double-strength and had more MDMA in her bag. 'We were told she had taken two pills but it could have been more. It's almost impossible to identify the person that supplied the pills to her. 'Danielle said Georgia was meeting friends who were not arriving until later. Danielle later met up with Georgia with someone she does not know. 'Danielle saw Georgia by the ice cream van and told us "Georgia looked f***ed". She told her "sort yourself out".' DC Lewry said Georgia, who had a mutual friend with Mr Cowan, had been with a young man, however they have been unable to identify him. Pathologist Brett Lockyer said Georgia, a care assistant, had a temperature of 105F (41C) when she arrived at hospital and died from 'MDMA intoxication'. He added: 'Georgia had 3,856 nanograms of MDMA per millilitre of blood in her body, which is extremely high. 'MDMA is not a very nice drug. It caused haemorrhaging on her heart and brain. Had she survived this she would not have been the same person as before. 'When she went into her seizure she would not have known what was going on, so although seeing her was distressing for the family she would not have known.' Hours after Georgia and Tommy Cowan (pictured) died, the dance festival was cancelled Georgia's tearful mother Janine Milburn paid tribute to her daughter at the inquest. Ms Milburn, 41, said: 'She was a typical teenager; talkative, stubborn and argumentative but very caring and family-and-friends-orientated. 'This was the second time she had been to a festival as she went to Mutiny the year before. 'She had got into the wrong crowd after school and I was aware she had done drugs but she sorted herself out and started working at a care home which she loved. Georgia and Tommy Cowan, 20, both died at Mutiny Festival (pictured) in Portsmouth after taking drugs at the event headlined by rapper Dizzee Rascal 'I knew she hadn't touched drugs for six months before this. On the day of the festival she got ready at home with Danielle and was excited.' Portsmouth Coroner's Court heard Georgia had been 'excited' about Mutiny Festival and got ready with Danielle at their home in Havant, Hants. Danielle struggled to fight back tears during the hearing. She said: 'At the festival she came up to me and was gurning so I asked her what she had taken. 'The next time I saw her was when she was on the floor.' Friend Megan McGraw said: 'I remember seeing her stumbling around, I could tell she was gone. 'She was oblivious to everything and had white patches on her face. I've never seen anything like that, then she just fell.' Five people were arrested in connection with drugs supply at Mutiny, however they were all released under investigation. The inquest has been adjourned until tomorrow. Mr Cowan's inquest will take place Wednesday. The man accused of killing 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida, registered to vote while behind bars awaiting trial, enraging the father of one of the young victims. Nikolas Cruz registered as a Republican on July 25 at the Broward County Jail. He is charged with 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for the Valentine's Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Andrew Pollack, the father of 18-year-old Meadow Pollack who lost her life in the mass shooting, unleashed a series of furious tweets Saturday directed at the county sheriff and 'Despicable Democrats,' whom he blamed for allowing Cruz to register from behind bars. Scroll down for video Andrew Pollack, the father of Parkland school shooting victim Meadow Pollack, was outraged to have discovered that gunman Nikolas Cruz was allowed to register to vote in July Cruz (left) registered as a Republican on July 25 at the Broward County Jail while waiting to be tried on 34 counts murder and attempted murder. Meadow (seen with her dad, right) was among 17 people killed on February 14 The family of Meadow Pollack receives her high school diploma, which was awarded posthumously, during a graduation ceremony on June 3, 2018 'I'm sick to my stomach,' Pollack ranted. '18-1958 [Cruz's case number] murdered 17 students & staff, including my daughter Meadow. Yet in July, Broward Sheriff @ScottJIsrael let people into the jail to get him & other animals registered to vote.The Despicable Democrats have no shame.Can't let them steal this election.' Although Cruz has made a videotaped confession, he has not been convicted of a crime and was eligible to vote this year, as Sun-Sentinel first reported. Sheriff's spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright says the supervisor of elections controls the process, not the sheriff. Once inmates are registered, absentee ballots are mailed to them in jail. 'Taking away the voting rights of an eligible person awaiting trial is illegal,' she explained. In the wake of the Parkland shooting, Pollack has emerged as a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association, and has defended a controversial plan to arm school teachers. He made headlines in February when he appeared at the White House with his sons to meet with Trump and delivered an emotionally charged speech, saying he was 'pissed' and demanding that politicians protect America's school children at all costs. During Saturday's tweet-storm, Pollack argued that since his daughter did not get the chance to vote in what would have been her first-ever election because of Cruz, whom he labeled a 'monster,' he should not have been allowed to register. Pollack, an outspoken right-wing conservative, spent the rest of the weekend railing against the controversial ballot recount happening in Broward County in the ongoing race between incumbent Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, outgoing Florida Governor Rick Scott. Pollack (center) waded into the ballot recount underway in Broward County, accusing Democrats of trying to steal the senate election from Governor Rick Scott (pictured right) A second recount is also under way for the Florida gubernatorial race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum. 'We wont allow these unethical liberal Democrats to steal @ScottforFlorida US Senate seat,' Pollack tweeted. 'They stoop as low as registering a known mass murderer to vote. How can you even trust a recount when the ballots may be compromised.' Scott on Saturday tweeted at Pollack to thank him and his son Hunter for their joint appearance on Fox News, during which they sought to unmask alleged corruption in Broward County. Pollack continued raging against Democrats, tweeting: 'the most mentally deranged people in this country are victims of a disease called: liberalism. May God have mercy on their poor, poor souls.' During last week's midterm elections, Floridians voted to restore voting rights for convicted felons who have served their sentences. This years Remembrance Day was Meghan Markles first as part of the Royal Family, with the pregnant Duchess of Sussex attending the official Armistice Day service at the Cenotaph for the first time. Meghan solemnly watched on from the balcony as Prince Charles laid a wreath on the Cenotaph honouring the nations war dead, taking over the role usually carried out by the Queen for the second year in a row. However, many questioned why Meghan was stood on a separate balcony from the Queen and Kate Middleton. Meghan Markle attended her first Remembrance Day service with the Royal Family on Sunday The former Suits actress was instead stood by the German presidents wife Elke Budenbender, with both women watching on as the president placed a wreath down from a separate window to the Queen and the Duchess of Cambridge. The reasoning behind the positioning of Royals is reportedly based on a pecking order when it comes to areas of limited space. For example, back in June, when Meghan made her Trooping the Colour debut, she was stood just behind Kate and Prince William. At the time, Joe Little, the editor of Majesty magazine told People: She was not as prominent perhaps as some people might have expected, but theres a pecking order. There was no slight intended, but William being the older, more senior brother would go out first with his wife. [Meghan] was still in a good position, Little added. She was central rather than the alternative of being in the front row and along the balcony to the left or right. This reasoning seems in line when considering last years Remembrance Day service. In 2017, the Queen was accompanied by her husband Prince Philip and the Duchess of Cornwall. Kate Middleton was stood next to Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Princess Alexandra, the Honourable Lady Ogilvy. Prince Philip, was not in attendance at the 2018 Remembrance Day service, which is why Kate appeared alongside the Queen this year. Politicians and passengers have accused British Airways of bailing out of the UK ahead of Brexit after it was claimed the carrier could relocate to Madrid. The firm is seeking help from the Spanish government to ensure its planes can keep flying across the EU in the event of a no-deal exit. Labour deputy leader Tom Watson said today that BA should be renamed 'Spanish Airways' if they have to move senior staff from the UK to Spain in 2019 while his colleague Mary Creagh tweeted: 'British Airways, the UKs national flag carrier bails out of Brexit Britain'. Leaked letters show high level talks between Spain's Ministry of Development and the European Commission started a month ago over doubts BA's owner International Airlines Group [IAG] will keep its EU airline status. Brussels has already warned airlines including BA, Ryanair and easyJet they may have to relocate to the continent or sell UK-based shares to European citizens to remain part of the European Open Skies deal. But IAG, which is run by Willie Walsh, has denied it would move its headquarters from London to Madrid to satisfy the EU. British Airways' owners IAG are in talks with the Spanish Government and the European Commission amid claims a no deal Brexit could be catastrophic for them Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson suggested that BA should be renamed Spanish Airways if they moved to Madrid, a claim which IAG has denied Remainer MP Mary Creagh accused BA of baling out of Brexit Britain as talks between IAG and the Spanish government emerged in El Pais Experts and rivals including Ryanair's Michael O'Leary have said the Anglo-Spanish airline group could fail ownership rules demanding that 50 per cent of its shares must be held inside the EU and be forced to break itself up. This is because British Airways shareholders took 55 per cent of the business in 2011 as part of the 5billion merger with Iberia and they will be classed as non-EU shareholders when the UK cuts ties with Brussels in March next year. Qatar Airways is also believed to own a fifth of the business and a US investment firm another ten per cent. What could happen to London-based BA if there is a no-deal Brexit? Experts have warned millions of air passengers could be grounded in the event of a no deal Brexit. If British Airways' parent company IAG doesn't retain its EU status it could be catastrophic, experts have The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said possible ramifications for these airlines could include: UK-based flights grounded after losing automatic right to fly into EU destinations Longer queues at security for British citizens entering the EU Longer waits for bags as they may be scanned again on entering the EU TransAtlantic flights could also be disrupted UK-run flights between EU destinations such as Paris to Milan could be stopped The IATA said last month that planning for a no-deal Brexit needed to move much faster to ensure planes can keep flying and safety and regulatory frameworks keep functioning whatever the new relationship between the pair after March 29. 'We predict chaos if nothing is done,' IATA Director General Alexandre de Juniac sad. He warned: 'On April 1 it will be us, the airlines, who have to manage millions of passengers potentially grounded in airports unable to take a flight ... It will be a nightmare in European airports and UK airports'. Advertisement Michael O'Leary of Ryanair, said last year: 'They're hoping that it'll go away. They'll have to front up to how catastrophic it is at some point though. They don't know themselves [how to solve it]. But their shareholders will have to sell, and the group has to get broken up'. If IAG loses its EU airline status it would also be denied access to the lucrative routes that cross Europe, such as between France and Germany or Spain and Italy. While BA does not fly these routes other airlines owned by its parent company including Iberia, Aer Lingus and budget airlines Vueling and Level, would lose a fortune if they are shut out. It would also be bad news for consumers because it could reduce competition, increase prices or lead to routes being axed completely. Letters published in El Pais suggest IAG is now seriously planning for a no deal scenario and have asked the Spanish government for their support to avoid this nightmare scenario. One letter from October 1, sent to IAG's president Antonio Vazquez, confirms contact with the European Commission to 'address the incidence of Brexit in the ownership and control of the IAG group airlines located in Spain'. Theresa May's Brexit deal is on a knife-edge and planes could be briefly grounded and free access to the EU market stopped or curbed if there is no deal, experts have said. And last month Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling said the EU had not yet agreed a 'bare-bones' aviation deal to keep planes flying after March 29 next year. The worst case scenario if a deal is not reached would see many UK registered planes grounded on the day after Brexit. But leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has dismissed claims that planes would be grounded post Brexit. He told LBC today: 'Everyone has said, from the President of the European Council downwards, that flights will continue after March 29. I don't see why we should disbelieve them. 'I think this crashing out terminology is very misleading. It would be a clean break. We would leave the European Union, we would be out by March 30. We would have no further legal obligations to the European Union'. Experts have warned there could be chaos in airports when Britain leaves the EU if no deal is done to ensure British airlines can still fly in the event of a no deal The UK Government would need to negotiate access to the European Common Aviation Area or try for a new deal completely because there are no World Trade Organisation rules to fall back on. Some have claimed this could take up to five weeks if no framework is in place. How BA became an international conglomerate and Europe's third largest airline when it joined forces with Spanish carrier in 5bn merger It is the UK's flag carrier, and was once known as 'the world's favourite airline'. But in 2010, British Airways joined forces with Spanish airline Iberia in a 5billion merger to create IAG, Europe's third largest scheduled airline. British shareholders took 55 per cent of the business and the firm based its operational headquarters in London, although the parent company is officially registered in Madrid. Willie Walsh, who first went to BA as chief executive after turning around Aer Lingus, is chief executive of IAG and saw his salary rise from 735,000 to 825,000 following the merger. With its roots in the pioneers of commercial flight soon after the First World War, British Airways came from a merger of British European Airways and BOAC in 1974. IAG is also the parent company of Aer Lingus, Iberia and Vueling. In 2017, IAG launched LEVEL a new low cost longhaul airline brand that flies from Barcelona to four transatlantic destinations and will start flights from Paris in July 2018. Advertisement The most likely consequence is that the EU would treat British airlines the same as American rivals by allowing them to fly to the EU but stopping them flying within the bloc. This would mean intra-Europe routes dominated by airlines such as easyJet, Ryanair and Norwegian, could be stopped or reduced for UK airlines. This would mean that some routes could disappear or be taken over by more expensive European airlines. Experts believe that IAG may have to take evasive action including buying out British shareholders or convince the EU to relax its strict ownership laws. The International Air Transport Association, which represents some 290 of the world's airlines, said last month that a no-deal would be a disaster for UK airlines. They say 'thousands, millions of passengers' would be stuck because of grounded flights in the worst case scenario. BA's boss Willie Walsh has insisted it is 'nonsense' to suggest a no-deal Brexit would stop BA flights. But last month the EU's top transport official said she 'will not bend the rules' to help IAG if the UK crashes out without a deal. Violeta Bulc, EU transport commissioner, told the Financial Times: 'If there is no deal [between the EU and UK], I don't need to point out which side the EU will be on', adding: 'It's Spain that we will have in mind'. IAG said it is 'confident that we will comply with the EU and the UK ownership and control rules post-Brexit'. A spokesman added: 'We remain confident that a comprehensive air transport agreement between the EU and the UK will be reached. It's in the UK and EU's interests to have a fully liberalised aviation agreement. 'Aviation liberalisation has been a great success story across Europe benefitting one billion customers each year and creating a huge number of jobs across the continent. Even if there is no Brexit deal, both the EU and UK have said they will put an agreement in place that allows flights to continue'. But industry experts have said that a no deal could require them to break up the company into two businesses: BA for Britain and the rest of its airlines in a European company. Easyjet is believed to be setting up a new Austrian headquarters and registering 100 plaes there while founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou who has dual UK and Cypriot nationality can class his share EU-owned. Ryanair's headquarters is in in Ireland but has a large number of UK shareholders but should pass the EU's ownership test. A 25-year-old man has been killed after a riot broke out in an Indigenous community that is in mourning over the deaths of four local young people. Police were called to the troubled community of Ali Curung, south of Tennant Creek, on Monday morning after reports of at about 100 people fighting with weapons and looting. The man's body was found and police are investigating his death, Southern Desert Division Superintendent Jody Nobbs said. An autopsy will be conducted. A 25-year-old man has been killed in a violent fight that broke out in Alu Curung The riot followed the deaths of a couple, both 19, their three-year-old son and a 12-year-old child At least one person was also injured during the fight. The brawl followed the deaths of a 19-year-old-man, his 19-year-old female partner, their three-year-old son and a 12-year-old child. The town is now in lockdown after significant damage to property, including cars being set on fire. Up to eight cars were ignited during the ongoing riot, Tennant Creek Mayor Steve Edgington was told. Knives, pipes, hunting spears and sticks were also used during the violence. Several rumours have circulated the town about black magic, reports The Australian. Questions have also been raised about why the 12-year-old was travelling with the couple. Police were forced to close the local arts centre after it was ransacked by people looking for weapons. The young couple and two children who were found dead last week most likely died from exposure after their car broke down on a remote road in the region. Knives, pipes, hunting spears and sticks were also used during the violence A 'sorry camp' has been set up in Ali Curung for mourning family members. The dead parents and their baby lived in the community. Police would not confirm if the violence was related to their deaths. There is ongoing tension between rival clan groups in Ali Curung, with occasional violence breaking out. 'We won't rule anything out in terms of the cause,' Supt Nobbs said. 'It is certainly well known there was a tragic event that occurred last Friday involving broad community linkages to Ali Curung ... that tragic event from last week may have some involvement in today's matter. 'Ali Curung has been a community that has had its challenges over the years.' Extra police from Alice Springs, Darwin and Tennant Creek have been sent to the community to keep the peace and services operating. Local government Barkly Regional Council also sent a bus to evacuate any residents, including women and children, who wanted to leave. Mayor Steve Edgington described it as the most serious incident for a long time in a town that has had problems for years. He said Ali Curung had settled by Monday night due to the increased police presence, and because some of the people involved in the fighting had fled into the bush. Matthew Oram, pictured outside Maidstone Crown Court today, was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to Adam Ashurst A dog owner who left his next-door neighbour with a fractured eye socket in a revenge attack for killing his beloved English bull terrier Dave with a samurai sword has been jailed for five years. Matthew Oram was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to Adam Ashurst by pushing him to the ground and repeatedly punching and kicking him. The attack on July 15 last year occurred exactly four months to the day that 10-year-old English bull terrier Dave was effectively 'cut in two' by Mr Ashurst, a court heard. The dog, said to have been 'treated like a baby' by the Oram family, had been killed by Mr Ashurst on March 15 last year. He struck it with one blow with the ornamental weapon after it escaped from its home in Gillingham, Kent, and into his neighbouring terraced house. Mr Ashurst, 30, told a court that having been alerted by screams and yelps, he grabbed the steel-bladed katana from his bedroom and struck Dave after finding him in the living room attacking his toy poodle. He was arrested but when police decided not to charge him in relation to Dave's death, it was said the Oram family became 'very upset and very resentful'. Oram first embarked on a campaign of harassment against his neighbour before carrying out the brutal attack in the street, Maidstone Crown Court in Kent heard. He later admitted to police that he was angry and frustrated by their decision not to prosecute over his dog's death and so, having been told by his wife she had seen Mr Ashurst leaving his house, he went after him to 'give him a slap'. But although he agreed he lost control and fractured Mr Ashurst's eye socket, leaving him in need of surgery, he denied that he intended to cause such serious harm. The court heard Oram, his wife Vicky and their two children had given Dave (pictured) a new home in 2012 when his previous owners could no longer keep him due to personal circumstances The 46-year-old industrial painter and decorator also maintained he had not kicked and stamped on his head. However, the a jury took less than three hours to convict the fahter-of-two of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and harassment causing alarm or distress. This included stones being thrown at Mr Ashurst's bedroom window, verbal and physical threats, spraying water from a hosepipe into his property, smashing a front window with a brick and cutting a telecommunications cable. The court heard Mr Ashurst, who lived with his mother and 85-year-old grandmother at the house in Castlemaine Avenue, became so scared he installed CCTV cameras to film the front and rear of his neighbour's home. Oram, who admitted during his trial that he was 'disappointed' with himself, was cleared of the more serious harassment charge of putting a person in fear of violence. Sentencing had been adjourned after Judge Philip St.John-Stevens told Oram, who suffers from depression and sobbed when he gave evidence about his dog, there was a 'degree of provocation'. Adam Ashurst, pictured left outside Maidstone Crown Court today, and Jade Pram, pictured right, outside the same court today But he told Oram today that although he accepted he felt 'aggrieved' over his dog's death and that the offences could be viewed 'in context', he had subjected Mr Ashurst to a 'frightening and premeditated' attack. 'Your actions and reactions over that period of time cannot be condoned but it must be placed in the context of your mental health at the time, the anxiety and history of depression,' said Judge St.John-Stevens. 'That is not excusing it but perhaps explaining why you acted and reacted in the way that you did. 'I am quite sure now with mature reflection you do regret and have remorse, not only for your actions and your position but more importantly and more significantly towards your victim. 'But you appreciate the seriousness of causing an injury with such intent. It must be a term of custody.' Oram waved and blew kisses to his family sitting in the public gallery. He will serve half his sentence less 241 days spent on tagged curfew. It was alleged Oram's daughter Jade, 20, had also been involved but she was cleared by the same jury of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent, the alternative offence of inflicting grievous bodily harm, and harassment. The court heard Oram, his wife Vicky and their two children had given Dave a new home in 2012 when his previous owners could no longer keep him due to personal circumstances. The court heard Oram's father was also called Dave and, having recently died at the time, the family saw it as 'a sign'. They already owned another bull terrier called Lola and Oram told the jury they all treated Dave 'like a baby'. Prosecutor Tony Prosser said the harassment began within hours of Mr Ashurst being released by police without charge over the animal's death. 'The Crown say the Oram family, whose pet dog had been killed by Adam Ashurst, were clearly very unhappy with the police decision and very resentful towards Adam Ashurst and his family for what he had done in killing their dog,' said Mr Prosser. 'They describe a series of unpleasant incidents that followed over the next few months...The Crown say this all amounts to a campaign of harassment.....as a result of the fact he had killed their dog in March.' Mr Ashurst was then set upon just after 11.30am on July 15. The court heard that he had rarely ventured out after the dog incident, and only usually by taxi. The court heard Oram, having been informed by his wife that she had seen Mr Ashurst, pulled up in his car with his daughter and got out. Mr Ashurst told the court he saw Miss Oram standing one to two metres behind her father, who looked like 'a man on a mission'. 'He was just coming straight towards me. As soon as he got to me he pushed me with two hands on my chest to the floor,' he said. 'I landed on my butt. He started coming towards me, followed by Jade, and I just went into the foetal position and covered myself as best I could. I was just trying to protect my face. I couldn't see, apart from shoes coming towards me. 'I just felt kicks to the face, head, stomps on my back. I was just screaming for assistance. It felt like it was not going to stop.' As well as the fractured eye socket, he was left with a zigzag-patterned imprint on his shoulder from Oram's trainers. He admitted when giving evidence that he shoved and punched his neighbour before kicking him to his body, and said when he eventually stopped, his daughter looked to be in 'absolute shock'. Asked about the day his dog was killed, Oram said he was driving to work when Jade phoned him to say, having realised Dave had escaped, she banged on Mr Ashurst's door but he would not let her in. Oram told her to call police and then he headed back home only to discover the pet, who suffered a large gash to his body, had died before he got there. Oram sobbed as he told the court of the effect on his family: 'There was just devastation and silence, just blown away that this happened. Everyone was upset. I was numb.' James Ross, defending, said Oram was 'a family man who had let his emotions get the better of him'. But he told the court he maintains he never meant to cause such serious injury to Mr Ashurst. 'This wasn't a random attack by a vicious thug. This was someone who in his life had suffered a great deal of pain and suffering from depression and was grieving at the loss of his dog,' added Mr Ross. The Ashurst family has since moved home. A kindergarten in east China has lost its licence to operate after two of its teachers were caught physically abusing students. Shocking footage has emerged showing a teacher savagely slapping a student in one clip while another shows an instructor kicking a pupil at a pre-school in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, prompting a police investigation. Two teachers have been fired from the school and detained by the authorities, according to the local education ministry. Shocking footage has emerged showing a teacher savagely slapping a student in one clip at a preschool in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, prompting an investigation by the local police Another clip shows a teacher repeatedly hitting a student to force him to nap Local police were alerted to the school on Friday at noon following claims of child abuse. After investigating, the authorities decided to revoke the operating licence of the kindergarten. The school has also fired two teachers and a caretaker involved in the incidents. The instructors have also lost their teaching licences, according to a statement released by the local education bureau. Officers have detained two teachers - 41-year-old Liu and 31-year-old Zhang - on suspicion of abuse, according to Xuzhou police in a statement. Footage shows a female teacher violently hitting a boy across the face as he sat at a table with other students. She then picked up his textbook and hit him two more times One parent told reporters that the children have been beaten with textbooks, buckets and even threatened by scissors. She added that the children were afraid of going to school Video released by BTime showed a female teacher violently hitting a boy across the face as he sat at a table with other students. The teacher was seen slapping the boy three times before picking up the boy's textbook and hitting him at least two more times. In another clip, another instructor was seen dragging two boys across a classroom during nap time. A third clip shows a woman kicking a student so hard the child lost his balance and stumbled forward. In another clip, an instructor was seen dragging two boys across a classroom during nap time Officers have detained 41-year-old Liu and 31-year-old Zhang on suspicion of abuse One parent told reporters that the students have been beaten with textbooks, buckets and even threatened by scissors. 'A lot of the children were afraid to go to school,' the unidentified parent said. Various incidents of child abuse in recent years have haunted China's pre-school industry. Experts have previously told South China Morning Post that abuse in mainland schools was due to a mindset widely accepted in society that adults can use methods they themselves deem appropriate, like beating, scolding and emotional abuse or 'cold violence' to control or educate children. The wife of the Bourke Street terrorist who stabbed three men, one fatally, is reportedly refusing to co-operate with police investigations. Hours after Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was shot dead by police in Melbourne on Friday, police raided the bungalow he shared with his wife and young son in the city's north. His wife was initially reported missing, but was found one day later and spoke to police. She has allegedly also been radicalised. But, it has since been revealed she reportedly refuses to co-operate with investigations, as police try to understand what was going through Ali's mind in his final hours. The wife of Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (pictured) reportedly refuses to co-operate with police investigations Ali was seen 'storming out' of the bungalow the couple shared only days before the attack with his wife desperately pursuing him, neighbours told The Age. She returned to the converted garage in the backyard of an unassuming young family with her son, where she remained until the Friday afternoon attack. When she heard of the attack, she was whisked out of the home, reportedly by her mother, until police caught up with her the next day. Ali's father left a message for her with the owner of the main house: 'This is life.' She is now being closely monitored by the national security authorities as they work to understand the last movements of the dead terrorist, The Australian reports. Neighbours (pictured) saw Ali and the woman believed to be his wife arguing before the attack In lengthy raids on the couple's bungalow, police seized bags worth of evidence (pictured) During their raids of the couple's bungalow, as well as Ali's family home in the city's western suburb of Werribee, they seized a number of electronics. They're currently being worked on by hackers, since the passwords were only known by Ali, but authorities are hopeful they'll provide some answers. Ali's motive, however, may have been made clearer by the revelation of his connection with a number of notorious Jihadis. Ali was reportedly friends with Brighton siege terrorist Yacqub Khayre (pictured) Ali was also Facebook friends with notorious ISIS extremist Khaled Sharrouf (right) He was reportedly friends with the Somalian terrorist responsible for the Brighton siege in June 2017. Yacqub Khayre, 29, murdered receptionist Nick Hao and took another woman hostage in a serviced apartment complex in the southeastern Melbourne subur. He reportedly made a phone call from the apartment, saying: 'This is for IS, this is for al-Qaeda.' He was shot dead by police in a brief shootout. The female hostage survived. While Ali and Khayre ran in the same circle of friends, his name didn't surface when Joint Counter-Terrorism Team detectives investigated Khayre, a source told the Herald Sun. Ali did, however, emerge as a friend of one of Melbourne's most notorious jihadists, Khaled Sharrouf. The pair were friends on Facebook, with Ali listing his occupation as 'Mujahid in sha Allah (God willing) at Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham'. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sat down with Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb on Monday in her first major television interview since presiding over the sentencing of convicted pedophile Larry Nassar back in January. The Ingham County judge and grandmother did not hold back either, doubling down on her decision to let any Larry Nassar victim who wished to come forward speak at the seven-day sentencing hearing and defending her sentencing of the disgraced doctor. She also spoke about the moment before sentencing when she chose to toss a copy of the letter Nassar had written to her from his prison cell, and informed him that she had just signed 'his death warrant.' 'He still has no idea what he did,' Aquilina told Today. 'He still thinks he's a good doctor, that it was medical. It's not medical, sir.' The judge appeared on Today in honor of her most recent accolade, being named one of the 'Women of the Year' by Glamour, an honor she shared with the women who came forward and spoke at Nassar's sentencing. Scroll down for video Boot, scoot and boogie: Judge Rosemarie Aquilina appeared on Today after being named one of Glamour's Women of the Year (above) for how she presided over the Larry Nassar trial MeToo: Judge Aquilina (above on Today) also credited the young women who came forward with saving the lives of thousands of people, who identified with their stories Judge Aquilina said that many have asked her how she was able to sit in a courtroom for a week hearing all the harrowing details of the sexual abuse and assaults these young women - and at least one man - endured at the hands of Nassar. Glamour has opted to honor the 'army of women' who took Nassar down, but it is worth noting that at Nassar's January sentencing Kameron Moore revealed that both she and her brother Jacob were abused by the disgraced doctor. 'They energized me as they got their power back from him and said, "I am NOT a number I am a name. And here's what you did to me,"' explained Judge Aquilina. 'They took their power back, they know they mattered and then when we spoke they were just transformed into butterflies.' That not only helped them in their own lives, but also saved the lives of women and men around the world according to the Judge Aquilina. 'There's been a change around the world, women have contacted me and said, "I felt those girls were telling my story verbatim and when you spoke to them and you believed them your words are healing me, and I'm not committing suicide today, I've stopped cutting, I'm eating, I've sought out therapy, I want to live and it's because you believed me.' Some even taped the seven-day hearing to watch back when they are feeling down, said Judge Aquilina. She later spoke about the moment she became the star of one of the year's most popular GIFs after literally tossing Nassar's letter into the courtroom. 'I tossed it because he wrote a bunch of junk in there,' said Judge Aquilina. 'And the primary problem they had with his letter is that he still thinks he's a doctor and he still thinks that he was performing medical [procedures].' The spotlight her case received is still a shock for Judge Aquilina though, but she is grateful that it reached so many people. 'No one is more surprised than me and I'm just so pleased that really the world took notice because this is a worldwide epidemic,' explained Judge Aquilina, who went on to applaud the 'responsible journalism' done by the media over those seven days as well as the 'sister survivors' and their families. 'It really opened up the world to #MeToo, to say let's start the discussion which should have happened years ago and this never would have happened.' Contempt in court: She said that Nassar does not think he did anything wrong, stating: 'He still has no idea what he did. He still thinks he's a good doctor, that it was medical' (Judge Aquilina during the trial in January) On trial: She also defended letting every victim who wanted to speak have the chance to come forward, noting that it is the 'people's court' She also revealed what speaking out did for the women, while defending her decision to let them speak. 'It catapults their healing and I know this because I always, for 14 years as a judge, let everyone speak,' said the first female JAG in the state of Michigan. 'And so I hear back in the community how well they're doing now.' She then spoke about the growth of the women. 'And when they came, they came very hesitant about what was going to happen. I am going to face not just a judge but Nassar in the eyes,' she said. 'And as they spoke, I literally watched them grow ten feet and they got their power back, and it was so transformational even for me.' To end the interview, she discussed having every victim speak and said not only does she stand by it but would step down if it were not allowed in her courtroom. 'It was important to hear the whole story, to see the picture of his grooming his control, and I am fair and impartial at sentencing,' said Judge Aquilina. 'The fact that I kept listening is justice. I always listened to both sides, and considered that he didn't have anybody.' She continued: 'And his words were simply, I'm not sorry. I'm still a doctor. I shouldn't be here. So I considered all of that fairly and partially in conjunction with the Constitution and the law and I made my decision.' 'But it is the people's courtroom first and foremost and when somebody tells me it's not I'm off the bench. And I will fight for it to be people's courtroom.' Suspected looters who appeared to be impersonating US Forest Service workers have been arrested in Paradise, California. The town of Paradise has been nearly decimated by the Camp fire, which has already taken 29 lives. But it appears some were hoping to take advantage of the devastating tragedy. Men who were dressed in bright yellow jackets similar to those worn by US Forest Service workers were arrested in the fire zone on Saturday night. Scroll down for video Suspected looters who appeared to be impersonating Forest Service workers were arrested in Paradise, California on Saturday night. One is pictured here Men who were dressed in bright yellow jackets similar to those worn by US Forest Service workers were arrested in the fire zone Authorities said the men may have worn the jackets to gain access to the evacuated area, according to CBS San Francisco. Police have not disclosed what the men were trying to steal. There have been 53 reports of suspected looting in the scorched area. And law enforcement have confirmed that the Camp fire has sparked a crime wave in Butte County. Sheriff Kory Honea promised on Saturday that looting suspects would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Authorities said the men may have worn the jackets to gain access to the evacuated area Police have not disclosed what the men were trying to steal. There have been 53 reports of suspected looting in the scorched area 'If we discover looting and evidence of looting, we will investigate,' he said during a press conference on Saturday. 'And even if we don't catch you there, we will investigate to determine if we can identify you and make an arrest.' As of Sunday night, Honea said the department had received 66 additional calls about 'suspicious incidents' - including looting - in the area. Four people were arrested after they threatened a man and pointed guns at him in his driveway, according to the Sacramento Bee. A firefighter walks through a charred neighborhood on Saturday after the Camp fire devastated Paradise. The fire has since sparked a crime wave in the area Three of the four suspects had outstanding warrants for their arrest. One was also found to be in possession of methamphetamine. A firefighter's uniform was also stolen out of his car while he was resting in a hotel in Butte County. Authorities said officers located the suspect, who was found wearing the uniform in public. The uniform has since been returned. It is unknown if an arrest was made in the case. Advertisement Dozens of boys from a Wisconsin high school have been busted giving a Nazi salute and the white power hand signal while posing for their junior prom photo. The photo shows a group of teenage boys from Baraboo High School dressed in their suits and tuxedos with their arms raised in salute. At least one student in the front row was also pictured making the white power hand signal. The majority of the teenagers, who are believed to be the school's Class of 2019, can be seen laughing in the photo. Dozens of boys from Baraboo High School in Wisconsin have been busted giving a Nazi salute and the white power hand signal while posing for their junior prom photo At least one student in the front row was also pictured making the white power hand signal. The majority of those pictured laughed as they gave the salute The photo emerged on Twitter on Sunday night after being shared by an account called 'Welcome to Baraboo'. 'We even got the black kid to throw it up #barabooproud,' the caption on the photo read. Jordan Blue, one of the students pictured who didn't salute, said in a statement that the photographer told them to raise their arms The hashtag is often used by the school district to celebrate achievements and student athletes. The Twitter account that shared the image has since been made private. One of the students pictured, who was only one of the few that didn't salute, told Young Turks reporter Jules Suzdaltsev that the photograpgher taking the picture told them to salute at their junior prom. 'I am the boy captured in the photo to the far right. I am clearly uncomfortable with what was happening,' the student, Jordan Blue, said in a statement. 'I couldn't leave the photo as it was taken within five seconds. The photographer took the photos telling us to make the sign. I knew what my morals were and it was not to salute something I firmly didn't believe in.' The student also indicated a culture of bulling at the school, saying those in the photo had bullied him since middle school. The photo was posted online with a collection of other prom photos on the website of local motorcycle photographer Peter Gust. He has since removed the photos and posted a bizarre message in its place, saying: 'Due malevolent behavior on the part of some in society; this page has been modified. The photo emerged on Twitter on Sunday night after being shared by an account called 'Welcome to Baraboo' 'It is too bad that there are those in society who can and do take the time to be jerks; knowingly and willingly to be jerks! The internet can be a wonderful tool but for some there is an overwhelming urge to destroy. 'The destruction may not be physical but instead it can be bullying that is intellectual or emotional. To anyone that was hurt I sincerely apologize.' A Twitter account for the Auschwitz Memorial in Poland tweeted their horror on Monday after seeing the photo A Twitter account for the Auschwitz Memorial in Poland tweeted their horror after seeing the photo. 'It is so hard to find words... This is why every single day we work hard to educate. We need to explain what is the danger of hateful ideology rising,' the tweet read. 'Auschwitz with its gas chambers was at the very end of the long process of normalizing and accommodating hatred.' Baraboo School District Administrator Lori M. Mueller condemned the photo on Monday and said officials were investigating. 'Early this morning, a photo that was taken last spring of some Baraboo School District students who appear to be making extremely inappropriate gestures began circulating on social media,' she said in a statement. 'The District has confirmed at this time that the photo was not taken on school property or at a school-sponsored event. 'The school district is investigating this situation and is working with parents, staff and local authorities. If the gesture if what it appears to be, the district will pursue any and all available and appropriate actions, including legal, to address the issue. 'The Baraboo School District is a hate-free environment where all people, regardless of race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or ancestry, are respected and celebrated. A UFO investigation is under way in Ireland after pilots flying BA and Virgin Airlines jets reported seeing mysterious bright lights as they crossed the country. The Irish Aviation Authority launched the probe after sightings on November 9 at around 7.40am. The pilot of British Airways flight BA94 from Montreal to London contacted Shannon Air Traffic Control after seeing the object on the left-hand side of her Boeing 787. A UFO investigation is underway in Ireland after pilots flying BA and Virgin Airlines jets reported seeing mysterious bright lights as they crossed the country (stock image of a Boeing 787) She asked whether military exercises were taking place, according to Airlive. Air traffic control reportedly said nothing was showing on their radar systems, to which the unnamed pilot replied: 'OK. It was moving so fast.' She added that after approaching on the left side, it 'rapidly veered to the north'. She described it as a 'very bright light' that 'disappeared at very high speed'. The pilot of Virgin Airlines flight VS76 from Orlando to Manchester then reported seeing a similar thing, the website reports. The pilot of Virgin Airlines flight VS76 from Orlando to Manchester then reported seeing a similar thing, the website reports He described it as a 'meteor or another object making some kind of re-entry' and said it was 'multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory very bright from where we were.' Both planes were flying in high level airspace - an altitude from between 28,500ft and 42,000ft. Airlive says a third pilot also saw the bizarre lights and that the Irish Aviation Authority has filed a report with the sightings due to be 'investigated under the normal confidential occurrence investigation process'. A retired Army paratrooper and West Virginia lawmaker seeking to restore the Democratic Party's blue-collar roots chose Veterans Day to formalize his campaign for the presidency in 2020. State Sen. Richard Ojeda filed his campaign committee paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday. The military veteran known for his tattoos and populist message lost a congressional race to a Republican this month. Ojeda, who is of Mexican descent, was elected to the West Virginia senate in 2016 and became a champion of teachers during their fight for better pay and benefits. He sponsored successful legislation to make medical marijuana legal, and has stressed health care and economic issues in a district reeling from lost coal jobs. I'm in: Richard Ojeda, a West Virginia Democratic state senator who lost his bid for the state's 3rd Congressional district, used Veterans Day to announced he would run for president On the trail: Army veteran Richard Ojeda's campaign for Congress failed to pay off but the self-described populist says he will run for president In combat: Richard Ojeda served in Iraq and Afghanistan and received a Bronze Star. He posted this picture saying it was taken on a bridge south of Baghdad after a suicide bomb attack when he and his unit feared they were about to also become targets Baghdad candidate: Ojeda posted this picture saying it was taken in the Green Zone of Baghdad in 2005, and that while on that posting he would travel along the ultra-dangerous Route Irish to the Iraqi capital 'a few times a week' The 48-year-old told The Intercept that he would be a voice for 'the dirt poor', saying: 'The filthy rich convinced the dirt poor the filthy rich are the ones who care. 'We need someone in Washington, D.C. who's going to be a voice for these people.' He voted for Donald Trump in 2016 because he would not vote for Hillary Clinton, but later said he regretted that he did because Trump was not delivering what he had promised for blue collar workers. But the president called him 'stone cold crazy' and a 'total wacko' during a campaign rally in Wheeling, West Virginia, before the midterms. Ojeda lost the race for West Virginia's third district 56-40, while Trump won the same district by 40 points in 2016. Described as part GI Joe, part steadfast advocate for West Virginia's working poor, and also 'JFK with tattoos and a bench press', he lost his bid to flip one of America's most conservative congressional districts in last week's midterm elections. Impoverished Appalachia is a culturally conservative bastion on edge, ground zero in an opioid abuse crisis that has devastated families, and where wages are stagnant, health care costs are rising and the coal industry is gasping for air. Two weeks before midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress, tough-talking Ojeda urged voters in West Virginia's third district to swallow a dose of the economic populism he preaches. 'I have no problems making some noise when they're not doing right by the working-class citizens of this state,' Ojeda told AFP in an interview in Huntington, where his insurgent campaign is based. 'We've been absolutely duped and abused for far too long.' After 24 years in the military with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, the muscular 47-year-old father pulled no punches when it comes to lambasting Republicans including Trump, for whom he voted in 2016. Trump, campaigning for Republican foot soldiers during a rally in Wheeling, West Virginia, branded Ojeda 'stone cold crazy.' Ojeda's response? Bring it on. 'Stone cold crazy': Trump attacked Richard Ojeda when he campaigned in West Virginia last month, an insult the now would-be Democratic candidate for president laughed off Deployed: Richard Ojeda posted this picture from a tour in Afghanistan. He served both there and in Iraq, earning a bronze star Officer: Ojeda posted this picture of him in Afghanistan with one of his paratrooper's helmets. The man had been shot in the head with a rocket propelled grenade but survived, he wrote, adding that the previous month he had been 'shot in the buttocks' But he reserved his harshest criticism for those in his own party, which had dominated West Virginia politics for decades until Republicans snatched the legislature in 2014. Two years later, Trump won Ojeda's district by nearly 50 percentage points, among the largest margins in the country. 'The reason why the Democratic Party lost power was because the Democrats sucked,' Ojeda said. 'That's the truth. We have people that were in office for 30, 40 years,' he said, pointing to establishment politicians 'sticking their hand in the cookie jar.' The parties' demographic and cultural realignment shifted the state from deep blue to red in just a few years. Now, as Trump's GOP fights to hold their majority in Congress, West Virginia Democrats aim to swing the pendulum back. To do so they'll need someone who fits in. Enter Ojeda. He is a retired US Army paratrooper who often ends a speech or encounter with an exclamation: 'Airborne.' Tattooed on his back are the names of fellow soldiers killed in action. Some of his campaign staffers' relatives have died of overdoses. He supports gun rights and the coal industry, walks a delicate line on reproductive rights, and fumes about the prospect of health insurance companies discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions. When West Virginia teachers went on strike in February demanding better insurance and higher pay, Ojeda was an early backer. 'I've got Republican people from all over that have contacted and said 'Look, we're going to support you,' because I say what needs to be said,' Ojeda recalled. 'A lot of them are just, they're tired of the garbage.' Ojeda returned home from military tours to a state ravaged by drug abuse. In particular he blames the pharmaceutical companies that he says 'sprinkle their Oxycontin and Hydrocodone on our people like Tic Tacs.' But he also attacks the 'fake leaders' who receive massive contributions from the industry. 'We got kids that go to bed hungry at night, we got elderly people cutting their meds in half, we got an opium epidemic ripping apart our community and that has killed thousands of our people, and we don't have nobody that's got the guts to stand up against big pharma,' he said. Ojeda decided to act, and ran for state senate in 2016. Weeks before the election he was nearly murdered when a man struck him in the head with a metal object. Ojeda recovered, and won. 'At the end of the day, if nobody steps up, I'm not scared at all,' he said about a run for higher office. 'I have no problems doing that.' Hunter King, an 18-year-old son of a coal miner, says he will likely cast his first-ever ballot in November, for Ojeda. 'He's the person who has made me feel most like I have a voice,' King said. Not everyone is appreciative. Trump-voting bar owner Bob Ellison, of the town of Rainelle, called Ojeda an 'arrogant' pretender. Ellison lost a daughter to opioid abuse and his son is hooked on methamphetamines. But Ellison waves away suggestions that Ojeda could help end the crisis. 'I believe Republicans are going to take care of it,' he said. Stanislaw Wlosek Jr, 46, was pulled from the water that day and was pronounced dead The body of a Chicago woman who disappeared into the waters of Lake Michigan while doing a 'cold weather swim' on a treacherous day on the lake is believed to have been recovered. The group of cold weather swimmers went into the lake on November 4 while there were warnings of large waves and wind gusts. The city of Highland Park has said 52-year-old Lena Lemesh, of Elgin, was in the group of about 10 people when she was pulled under and vanished. Forty-six-year-old Stanislaw Wlosek Jr. was pulled from the water at the time. He was pronounced dead at a hospital and an autopsy determined that he had drowned. The Chicago Sun-Times says a woman's body was found Saturday in Highland Park, about 20 miles north of downtown Chicago. The Lake County coroner's office will officially release the woman's identity after conducting an autopsy Tuesday. The body of Lena Lemesh is believed to have been recovered after she was pulled under water doing a 'cold weather swim' in Lake Michigan near Chicago Skokie and Lake Forest Fire emergency personnel move toward the Lake Front at Highland, Park, Ill. where authorities say a 46-year-old man, Stanislaw Wlosek, died, while 52-year-old Lemesh disappeared into the waters on November 4 Meanwhile, Steve Knapp, the man who tried to rescue her said he felt horrible he couldn't do more to save her. The waters were extremely treacherous that day, and Knapp along with his friend Tim Peterson, attempted to throw flotation devices towards Lemesh. The attempts were unsuccessful. The men, realizing the dangers of the situation, decided that if they jumped in after her, the situation could have gotten worse. However, Lemesh's family reached out to him to comfort him and let them know his efforts were appreciated. After reading Knapp's struggle with his decision not to dive in after the woman, her family reached out to the Sun Times, writing: 'We just wanted to ask you to pass a message to him thanking him for everything he tried to do for Lena.' 'No one can ever blame anyone for thinking of his own life or family, and no one can ever expect anyone to do anymore than what he and his friend tried to do,' said Zina Lemesh, who is married to Lena's ex-husband. Zina and Lena are close friends and Zina has been a stepmother to her son for many years. Soon-empowered House Democrats have so many ready targets for subpoena and investigation in the Trump administration they are vowing to sort them strategically but that still leaves more than six dozen targets. The avenues of potential inquiry for Democrats who take over the investigatory machinery of the House include President Trump's finances, his family's ethics disclosures, and the president's firing of FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Democrats raised the prospect of getting hold of the president's tax returns even before the elections where a Democratic wave took down close to 40 Republican seats once California results came in. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (left) says the Democrats will be strategic in using their subpoena power once they officially take control in January. They have more than 6 dozen potential targets The heads of congressional tax-writing panels have the authority to get any return under existing law, though Trump has resisted making his returns public for years. President Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki this past summer, which attracted a flurry of criticism when Trump explained Putin's position on election meddling, also may be the subject of investigative oversight, which each congressional panel is empowered to conduct. A list generated by Axios based on public comments and other information lists a whopping 85 potential targets for investigation before Republicans even hand over the gavel. A Democratic aide referred to it in the report as a 'subpoena cannon.' House Democrats want to examine the firing of attorney general Jeff Sessions The incoming House Intelligence Committee chairman is warning new acting attorney general Matt Whitaker any role he plays with the Mueller probe 'will be exposed' one of several leaders stating more oversight is on the way LOYALIST: Former Sessions chief of staff Matt Whitaker has taken over oversight of the Russia probe, but will be summoned to testify before the House Judiciary Committee President Trump's meeting in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where the two men met in private, could get additional oversight House Democrats may probe payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Trump On the list are payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Trump. The payment is the basis for a guilty plea in federal court for longtime Trump fixer Michael Cohen, for breaking campaign finance laws at the direction of a candidate (Trump). The House speaker told Face The Nation Sunday: 'We are not scattershot. We are not doing any investigation for a political purpose, but to seek the truth. So I think a word that you could describe about how Democrats will go forward in this regard is we will be very strategic.' Trump son in law Jared Kushner's compliance with ethics rules could invite requests for documents and information Incoming Judiciary chair Rep. Jerrold Nadler says he will summon new acting AG Matt Whitaker Trump's post-election actions also are certain to generate scrutiny. Incoming Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler is already promising to probe the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump installed loyalist Matt Whitaker as 'acting' attorney general another action to generate formal oversight on constitutional and other grounds. Whitaker was never Senate-confirmed to a senior post. Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's compliance with ethics rules he submitted multiple amended financial disclosure forms is also on the list. Kushner is a key unpaid advisor to Trump in a senior White House role. His wife, Ivanka Trump, also works in the White House. The administration's handling of the hurricane response in Puerto Rico and its family separation policy at the border the type of administration policy issues that normally would get scrutiny even outside of a hyper-partisan environment will also get probed now that there is divided government. The administration's transgender military ban, which met resistance from inside the Pentagon when it was suddenly announced, also could get review. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in theory could be blocked from issuing his final report, could still get a venue to speak if House Democrats invite him to testify, as they say they may if necessary. The flurry of subpoenas are certain to take up time and energy of an administration also accustomed to being whipsawed by new policy pronouncements from the White House. Republicans fear the Democrats will issue countless subpoenas to try to make President Trump's life more difficult. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi responded: ''Well, if the Republicans would say that, they're just projecting their own attitude toward investigations, which was very political.' 'We are coming to do something that is very important for our country: a more open Congress with accountability to the public, with a, seeking bipartisanship where we can find it. Stand your ground where we can't,' Pelosi told Face The Nation Sunday. 'We are not scattershot. We are not doing any investigation for a political purpose, but to seek the truth. So I think a word that you could describe about how Democrats will go forward in this regard is we will be very strategic,' she said. They were young and idealistic, most of them students and all but one of them male, many on a six-week break from their studies as they drove around Belgium with the ever-present sound of gunfire and shelling in the distance. They were neutral Americans thrust into the fraught war zone of WWI, only to be harassed by battle-hardened German soldiers occupying Belgium and buttoned-up native businessmen navigating their own pride and interests. The Yanks were trying to feed a nation, supervising as provisions were shipped to and distributed through German-occupied Belgium. They were delegates with the US-led Commission for Relief in Belgium, an oft-forgotten effort spearheaded by future president Herbert Hoover which sent naive, well-meaning Americans behind German lines before the US entered the war. And the CRB succeeded; not only that, the effort became the largest food relief program the world had ever seen. No one ever thought it could be done, says author Jeffrey B. Miller, who has written a new, comprehensive book about the CRB published 100 years after the end of WWI titled WWI Crusaders: A band of Yanks in German-occupied Belgium help save millions from starvation as civilians resist the harsh German rule, August 1914 to May 1917. And yet Hoover and a group of people and the British people, the UK people got behind it so much that it succeeded. So it was an incredible operation. And everyone only talks about the trenches; they talk about the killing. Just over nine million soldiers died in the First World War; well, Herbert Hoover saved just over nine million people from starvation during the First World War. So theres some great symmetry there, I think. A column of German foot soldiers marches during the invasion of Belgium that began on August 4, 1914; the small neutral nation clamored to prepare for an occupation but relied heavily on imported food, and it soon became apparent that relief efforts would be needed The American-led Commission for Relief in Belgium, along with the Belgian Comite National de Secours et dAlimentation, known as CN, sourced food for Belgium, shipped it to the small country and sent neutral American delegates to make sure the food was not claimed by Germans until it was turned over to the CN for distribution Each CRB ship was outfitted with large signs on both sides to alert German U-boats that it was not an enemy vessel; Jeffrey B. Miller, author of new book WWI Crusaders, tells DailyMail.com: Every day, at any one time, there would be 50 ships, 50 ocean-going ships coming towards Rotterdam.' From there, the food was transferred to 500 canal barges; once they reached Belgium, 40,000 Belgian volunteers prepared the food and distributed the food to the nearly 10million civilians so that, logistically, its a massive, massive operation American mining executive Herbert Hoover - who would later become the 31st US President - was living in London at the time of the German occupation and became the driving force behind the US-led Commission for the Relief of Belgium (CRB) While the US-led relief effort involving fewer than 200 delegates sent into Belgium to supervise is rarely discussed in-depth in history books and other accounts, Miller grew up hearing about the program. His grandfather, Milton M. Brown, had been one of the young idealists who volunteered, and it was during the effort that he met Millers Belgian grandmother. I get really passionate about this, Miller tells DailyMail.com. This is my whole lifes work, right now, is just to get the story out there. He adds: Its just to tell Americans, this is a story we should learn about its always good to look at the past as a chart towards where we should go in the future. We did this totally without any self-interest; we went in there without any transactional thought in mind. There was nothing expected in return; we did this because it was the morally and ethically right thing to do. The American-led CRB, Miller says, really radically changed the way the world does humanitarian aid. The CRB also changed the way the world saw America and the way that America saw itself on the world stage, which is really interesting because for the last 100 years anywhere there is a huge catastrophe, a major catastrophe in the world, or any time there are civilians in harms way, the first thought everybody has is: America will help. And that was not the case before World War I. Millers grandfather had always hoped to write a book about CRB compiling letters and correspondence and when he died in the 1980s, the author took up the mantle. His grandparents story is included in Millers newly published book WWI Crusaders, but the 700-page non-fiction tome also tells the story from start to finish of how the relief effort came to be, who was involved and how the whole thing and the life stories of the key figures played out. Even before the CRB and before the first shots in the war were fired tiny, neutral Belgium was making provisions for occupation, Miller writes. The Belgian government had bought the entire wheat supply on the market in Antwerp and stored it for the coming need. Some began stockpiling on a local level as well. The highly industrialized country, however, relied on imports for 75 percent of its food, and within weeks of the German occupation the food situation was obvious to anyone who could read the signs, Miller writes. According to one later history, It was practically impossible to purchase more than a pound of flour or sugar at a time, and almost all stocks of tinned goods were sold out, bought by anxious people who besieged the shops in the desire to get hold of a private stock before all was gone. The price of food rose to exorbitant figures. The Belgians began scrambling to come up with a solution, and a group of wealthy individuals in Brussels including three Americans formed a non-governmental organization for the purpose of supplying Brussels with food. CRB volunteers included American Milton M. Brown, left, who met the Bunge family of Belgian activists, including (right, from l-r: Hilda, Eva and Erica); he later married Erica, and the pair became the grandparents of author Miller, who grew up hearing about the frequently overlooked CRB and his grandparents' efforts during the war The group, Comite Central de Secours dAlimentation (Central Committee of Assistance and Provisioning) invited still-neutral American and Spanish ministers to be patrons, and it was quickly established that, in order for a relief effort to work, four major jobs had to be accomplished. The Germans had to agree to allow the food in and to not requisition it, Miller writes. The English had to allow food through the blockade that it was establishing to cut off Germany from world trade. Processes had to be developed for determining how much food was needed to feed Brussels; then the food had to be bought, shipped, and transported into Belgium; and then it had to be distributed to the 16 communes of Greater Brussels. Some entity had to be found to pay for such a giant undertaking. The book continues: The task was a little easier than some would have imagined. At this stage of the war, the German thought process was straightforward: they would not feed the Belgians; there was little left to take from Belgium; they needed every man at the front; peaceful Belgians did not require many soldiers to control; and Belgians would remain peaceful if they were fed. The Germans agreed, and planning began in earnest and American mining engineer Herbert Hoover, who was living in London at the time with his wife and two sons, became hugely involved. Ultimately the CRB was formed, and the Comite Central transformed into the nationwide Belgian Comite National de Secours et dAlimentation, known as CN. It was stipulated that neutral American delegates would put boots on the ground in Belgium to make sure the food was not claimed by Germans until it was turned over to the CN for distribution. The English had said, Okay, well allow the food in and the Germans said, Yeah, yeah, we wont touch the food, Miller tells DailyMail.com. And the English said, Hell, no we dont trust the damn Germans. We think theyre going to take the food anyway. So Hoover, you have to have neutral Americans as supervisors inside German-occupied Belgium. By September 1914, Belgians (left, right) throughout the country had no choice but to join the soup-kitchen lines as the country quickly consumed its dwindling supplies. Miller tells DailyMail.com that, various factions were mulling over such large-scale relief efforts, No one ever thought it could be done ... And yet Hoover and a group of people and the British people, the UK people got behind it so much that it succeeded' When it came to organizing food relief efforts to German-occupied territory, Miller writes in the book: The Germans had to agree to allow the food in and to not requisition it. The English had to allow food through the blockade that it was establishing to cut off Germany from world trade. Processes had to be developed for determining how much food was needed to feed Brussels; then the food had to be bought, shipped, and transported into Belgium; and then it had to be distributed to the 16 communes of Greater Brussels. Some entity had to be found to pay for such a giant undertaking The Belgians prominently displayed the American flag wherever possible, including the children's canteen in Brussels, until the Germans demanded that most American flags be taken down. There was, however, 'constant stress and tension throughout this period on so many different levels,' Miller writes, explaining how 'the Belgians themselves some of the upper echelon Belgians were saying, We dont need the Americans; this is rude. We want to do it ourselves. We should be allowed to do it ourselves. So they were harassing the Americans at a higher level, while the regular Belgians loved them. The regular Belgians just thought, Hey, these are our salvation Miller tells DailyMail.com: 'Just over nine million soldiers died in the First World War; well, Herbert Hoover saved just over nine million people from starvation during the First World War. So theres some great symmetry there' He says: Where would he get people who would drop everything, work for free, go into German-occupied Belgium and do a job no one had ever known before? Where could he find them in London or in England, when it was going to take months to get people from America because there were no commercial airlines? They all had to come by steam ship. Well, he went to Oxford University the Rhodes Scholar program, Miller says. This is a great story. These students were about to go on six weeks winter break, and so they said, Of course with their spirit of adventure, young men. They said, Of course well go. One of them was 19 years old only 19 years old [and] had to go into German-occupied Belgium, face battle-hardened German officers and button down Belgian businessmen Its a story you cant make up. After the first batch of delegates, more recruits were brought over from the States, most in their 20s, many of them Ivy Leaguers, Miller tells DailyMail.com. There were only about 185 of these young men and one woman. Future president Hoover, he says, did everything. He set up everything and he brought this is what was so amazing he brought business practices and business organization to what had been, in the past, humanitarian relief by kind of wealthy people who didnt really know what they were doing. It was, however, a massive effort. Every day, at any one time, there would be 50 ships, 50 ocean-going ships coming towards Rotterdam, Miller tells Dailymail.com. From there, the food was transferred to 500 canal barges; once they reached Belgium, 40,000 Belgian volunteers prepared the food and distributed the food to the nearly 10million civilians so that, logistically, its a massive, massive operation. The delegates were the only ones in Belgian other than the military that could use an automobile, because they had to go from province to province about 40 of these men in Belgium at any one time and they were scattered around through the provinces. He continues: They had to drive around almost all the time supervising, going to the warehouses, checking the bakers who were baking the bread, checking to make sure that the Germans werent taking the food. As theyre driving around, they have passes from the German Governor General saying that they are there on food relief, and dont harm them or stop them. Well, the German sentries at the sentry posts that were throughout Belgium, they all thought they were spies and they would strip search them. They would take apart their cars looking for contraband. It was a constant setup of hassle and harassment. Millers book includes the stories of about 50 delegates, including one arrested for no apparent reason and kept in custody for days by the Germans, worrying that no one knew where he was or what might happen to him. Throughout Belgium, they could always hear the big guns going off n the trenches, the huge artillery guns, Miller tells DailyMail.com, calling it a reminder of: You shouldnt be here, you should be in the trenches, look whats happening and the mental stress intention of that was an incredible thing for these young men. I mean, think about that theyre not completely fully formed yet, and theyre having to deal with these kinds of conditions. Miller says: A lot of the actual physical work was a lot of documentation, a lot of checking of invoices making sure the bakers used the exact amount of flour to create the exact sized loaves of bread tedious stuff, on one hand. And then on the other hand, they had to also turn in Germans or report Germans who were stealing the food or that there were some smugglers that they caught, those kinds of things. As the delegates endeavored to feed a nation and complete their volunteer duty, however, controversy continued to rage about the CRB program itself. The English military totally opposed this, led by Winston Churchill, because they said it prolonged the war, Miller tells DailyMail.com. Well, Herbert Hoover knew the only way he was going to succeed in this program was to get worldwide opinion behind him so he really manipulated the press. He did an incredible job to make sure that the story of Belgium was always in the press all over. The ancient Belgian university town of Louvain in ruins after the Germans ransacked it on August 25-30, 1914; when American CRB delegates later arrived in Belgium, they were among the only people besides German soldiers allowed to use automobiles as they traveled from province to province checking on food delivery and proper distribution Baron Moritz Ferdinand von Bissing, right, became governor general of Belgium on December 3, 1914; both the Germans and the British agreed to let the US-led coalition feed the Belgians and the Northern French, though the British were worried it could prolong the war According to Miller's book, Belgian children were the most affect by the war and the relief program, followed closely by the destitute, 'who had little before the war and had practically nothing during the German occupation' Wealthy Belgians often opened up their homes to CRB delegates; pictured is the Chateau Oude Gracht on Hoogboom estate, home to Antwerp merchant Edouard Bunge, father of Erica, who would become the author's great-grandfather When the United States joined the war in April 2017, American CRB delegates were swapped for observers of other neutral nations; Miller writes at the end of his new book: Unfortunately, most of the CRB delegate stories have long been forgotten, innocent victims swept away by the tidal wave of negative public opinion surrounding Hoovers later efforts as president. Because Hoover is perceived as having been a bad president, much of his great humanitarian work and the work of those associated with the relief have been neglected ... Their stories deserve to be told and remembered' Miller tells DailyMail.com that he feels 'really passionate' about the history and impact of the CRB. This is my whole lifes work, right now, is just to get the story out there,' he says, adding: Its just to tell Americans, this is a story we should learn about its always good to look at the past as a chart towards where we should go in the future. We did this totally without any self-interest; we went in there without any transactional thought in mind. There was nothing expected in return; we did this because it was the morally and ethically right thing to do' Hoover had complete trust and support of the British people, so thats why the British government civilian government could not go along with what the British military wanted to do and the same with the Germans, Miller says. The civilian government felt they needed to, because they didnt want bad public opinion in the world. They decided they were not going to shut down the CRB, even though the German military wanted them to shut it down. There was constant stress and tension throughout this period on so many different levels. And then the Belgians themselves some of the upper echelon Belgians were saying, We dont need the Americans; this is rude. We want to do it ourselves. We should be allowed to do it ourselves. So they were harassing the Americans at a higher level, while the regular Belgians loved them. The regular Belgians just thought, Hey, these are our salvation. Millers grandmother was one of those regular Belgians, a young woman helping in the relief effort herself, working to provide much-needed milk to the children of Antwerp. The author found out after her death that shed kept a diary, and an edited version edited by the authors mother also proved a useful source for him during his research. His grandfathers correspondence from his time in Belgium was also incredibly useful. When he got back after the war, he asked everyone to send him copies of his letters back to him, Miller tells DailyMail.com. He had a huge collection of all of the letters he had written to everyone He had done almost all the work for me, from the personal standpoint. Ultimately, however, the American CRB delegates had to leave when the US entered the war in April 1917; they were swapped out with other neutral representatives, though Hoover was allowed to remain in charge of the effort. Unfortunately, most of the CRB delegate stories have long been forgotten, innocent victims swept away by the tidal wave of negative public opinion surrounding Hoovers later efforts as president, Miller writes in the books epilogue. Because Hoover is perceived as having been a bad president, much of his great humanitarian work and the work of those associated with the relief have been neglected. Their stories deserve to be told and remembered. While Miller has wanted since childhood to share that history and the story of his own grandparents he feels that now, 100 years after the end of WWI and in the midst of such a politically charged atmosphere, is an ideal time to publish his book. The effort marked one of our finest hours as human beings, he tells DailyMail.com, adding: This is just one of the finest moments of American history for Americans and boy, dont we need that as Americans right now? To hear a really good story about how weve done good things in the past. After surviving a Paris political onslaught against his brand of 'America First' nationalism, President Donald Trump said Monday morning that he won't allow European allies of the U.S. to continue benefiting from 'ridiculously unfair' military protection agreements. 'It is time that these very rich countries either pay the United States for its great military protection, or protect themselves,' he wrote on Twitter. Trump tweeted that 'much was accomplished' in his meetings tied to the centenary of the end of World War I. But the U.S. pays billions 'protecting other countries, and we get nothing but Trade Deficits and Losses,' he complained. French President Emmanuel Macron played to his base during the American president's visit, declaring that 'patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism' and 'nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism.' Unlike past presidents, Trump sees the United States as an important standalone contrast to multilateral groups of nations like the United Nations and NATO. He has complained bitterly about America's historical obligations to fund those international alliances, and has pushed allies to fund more of their own defense. President Donald Trump claimed his meetings in Paris over the weekend were productive but renewed his warning to allies who depend on America's military might for protection 'It is time that these very rich countries either pay the United States for its great military protection, or protect themselves,' the president wrote Monday morning on Twitter Trump's foreign policy revolves around trade as much as national security and he wants nations the U.S. protects to offer more favorable terms His foreign policy revolves around trade as much as national security, and he uses the economic might of Washington to correct what he sees as a global playing field left tilted against America's interests by his incompetent predecessors. That left him largely on his own over the weekend a man with few visible friends on the world stage. Trump began his visit with a tweet slamming the French president's call for a European defense force, arrived at events alone and spent much of his trip out of sight in the American ambassadors' residence in central Paris. On Sunday, he listened as he was lectured on the dangers of nationalist isolation, and then he headed home just as the inaugural Paris Peace Summit was getting underway. His France trip made clear that, nearly two years after taking office, Trump has dramatically upended decades of American foreign policy posture, shaking allies. That includes French President Emmanuel Macron, who on Sunday warned that the 'ancient demons' that caused World War I and millions of deaths were once again making headway. Macron, who has been urging a re-embrace of multinational organizations and cooperation that have been shunned by Trump, delivered a barely veiled rebuke of Trumpism at the weekend's centerpiece event: A gathering of dozens of leaders at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the base of the Arc de Triomphe to mark the passage of a century since the guns fell silent in a global war that killed millions. Trump and the first lady sat between Morocco's King Mohammed VI and his son on one side, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron on the other Trump stood alone during an American commemoration ceremony on Sunday at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris, after missing a larger commemoration on Saturday when weather grounded his helicopter With Trump and other leaders looking on, Macron took on the rising tide of populism in the United States and Europe and urged leaders not to turn their backs by turning inward. After dismissing nationalism as a 'betrayal of patriotism,' Macron claimed that when nations put their interests first and decide 'who cares about the others' they 'erase the most precious thing a nation can have ... its moral values.' After Trump was gone, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who recently announced that she will not be seeking re-election, made an impassioned plea for global cooperation at the peace forum, saying World War I had 'made clear what disastrous consequences a lack of compromise in politics and diplomacy can have.' Trump, who has made clear that he has limited patience for broad, multilateral agreements, sat mostly stone-faced as he listened to Macron, who sees himself as Europe's foil to the rising nationalist sentiment, which has taken hold in Hungary and Poland among other countries. Trump did engage with his fellow leaders, attending a group welcome dinner hosted by Macron at the Musee d'Orsay on Saturday night and a lunch on Sunday. He also spent time with Macron on Saturday, when the two stressed their shared desire for more burden-sharing during a quick availability with reporters. The Trumps returned to the White House late Sunday night following a trip to Paris where he was challenged on his 'America First' platform But Trump was terse during some of his private conversations with world leaders, according to people with direct knowledge of his visit. One of the people described the president as 'grumpy.' They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations. The symbolism during Trump's visit couldn't have been more stark. Trump was missing from one of the weekend's most powerful images: A line of world leaders, walking shoulder to-shoulder in a somber, rain-soaked procession as the bells marking the exact moment that fighting ended - 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918 - finished tolling. The president and first lady Melania Trump had traveled to the commemoration separately - White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited security protocols - from the other dignitaries, who had traveled together by bus from the Elysee Palace. As Trump's motorcade was making its solo trip down the grand Champs-Elysees, which was closed to traffic, at least one topless woman breached tight security, running into the street and shouting 'fake peace maker' as the cars passed. She had slogans, including the words 'Fake' and 'Peace,' written on her chest. Police tackled the woman and the motorcade continued uninterrupted. The feminist activist group Femen later claimed responsibility. Also traveling on his own was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who shook Trump's hand, flashed him a thumbs-up sign and patted Trump's arm as he arrived. Trump responded with a wide smile. National security adviser John Bolton had said at one point that Putin and Trump would meet in Paris, but they will instead hold a formal sit-down later this month at a world leaders' summit in Buenos Aires. A Kremlin official said later that U.S. and Russian officials decided to drop plans for the Paris meeting after French officials objected. Trump, who ran on an 'America First' platform, has jarred European allies with his actions. He has slapped tariffs on the European Union, pulled the U.S. out of the landmark Paris Climate Accord and the Iran nuclear deal and suggested he might be willing to pull the U.S. out of NATO if member counties don't significantly boost their defense spending. Trump's eagerness to get along with the Russian leader - in spite of Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and numerous other aggressive moves in recent years - has alarmed those who view Russia as a growing threat. Trump has also repeatedly branded himself a 'nationalist,' despite criticism from some that the term has negative connotations. At a news conference last week, Trump defended his use of the phrase. 'You know what the word is? I love our country,' he said, adding: 'You have nationalists. You have globalists. I also love the world and I don't mind helping the world, but we have to straighten out our country first. We have a lot of problems.' But Trump did not broach the divide as he paid tribute Sunday to U.S. and allied soldiers killed in World War I during 'a horrible, horrible war' that marked America's emergence as a world power. 'We are gathered together at this hallowed resting place to pay tribute to the brave Americans who gave their last breath in that mighty struggle,' Trump said at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial in the suburbs of Paris, where more than 1,500 Americans who died in the war are buried. 'It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago,' he said after spending a moment, standing alone amid the cemetery's white crosses, holding a black umbrella. Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen, who was convicted after a trial in March of being a member of neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action, and was jailed for eight years A British Army veteran who fought in Afghanistan and was described as an 'outstanding' soldier was at the heart of a neo-Nazi terrorist group which set its sights on recruiting from within the armed forces, it can be revealed today. White supremacist and self-confessed racist Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen, 34, believed a 'race war' was coming and tried to establish an all-white armed stronghold in Powys, Wales, a court heard. The Royal Anglian Regiment soldier who served with distinction since 2012 was convicted of being a member of National Action, and was jailed for eight years. He was kicked out of the Army after his arrest in September 2017, along with another soldier, as he tried to form an underground network and stockpiled weapons. Two other serving soldiers faced criminal charges but were internally disciplined and remained in the Army. The Army's most senior soldier, Sergeant Major Glenn Haughton, posting a social media video which said: 'If you're a serving soldier or a would-be soldier, and you hold these intolerant and extremist views, as far as I'm concerned, there is no place for you in the British Army - so get out.' The soldier's case has not been able to be reported until today until six others, connected through the terror organisation which has been banned in Britain since December 2016, had also been to trial. Alexander Deakin, the group's 'regional commander' was jailed for eight years in April 2018. Today, Adam Thomas and Claudia Patatas from Oxfordshire, who named their baby Adolf Hitler, were found guilty of being members of the group. Before the group was disrupted, Thomas asked whether or not he could buy a fun from Vehvilainen. He also asked if it would notices if guns were stolen from his base. Vehvilainen believed a 'race war' was coming and attempted to recruit soldiers in the British Army. He was pictured performing a Nazi salute in his native Finland Mikko Vehvilainen, now 34, who joined the Army in 2012 was previously known as an 'outstanding soldier' and boxer but he was jailed for eight years in March. Pictured above, believed to be in Afghanistan National Action member Alexander Deakin (pictured, left) bragged police would never find him but was discovered inside a cupboard. Daniel Bogunovic, 27, from Leicester, (right) was found guilty of belonging to National Action Nathan Pryke (left) and Darren Fletcher (right) were also found to be members of the proscribed organisation Joel Wilmore, 24, (left) admitted membership of neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action, which was banned in 2016. Alexander Deakin, 24, (right) was known as the 'regional commander' of the National Action group. He believed he could not be caught by police Adam Thomas and Claudia Patatas from Oxfordshire, who named their baby Adolf Hitler, were found guilty of being members of the group Thomas's close friend Darren Fletcher, 28, of Wednesfield, West Midlands, Joel Wilmore, 24, of Stockport, Greater Manchester, and Nathan Pryke, 26, of March, Cambridgeshire all admitted being part of the group at the beginning of their trial. They will all be sentenced on December 14. Another solider, fellow 2 Anglians soldier Private Mark Barrett, was acquitted of being a National Action member, but jurors heard that he had a cardboard swastika openly displayed in his window at Alexander Barracks in Cyprus. The 25-year-old told police during interviews that his sketchbook doodles of the Nazi symbol and Second World War German tanks had been at the behest of 'intimidating' Vehvilainen. Vehvilainen and Barrett, formerly of Kendrew Barracks, Cottesmore, Rutland, were thrown out of the Army. A licensed firearms holder, Vehvilainen moved from Finland to the UK with his mother and sibling at the age of four when his parents marriage broke down. His mother, formerly from Lincolnshire but now living abroad, said in court that as a teenager her mischievous son was a little bit challenging. Asked when he might have developed his deeply offensive and racist views, she said: I really dont know. I was in complete shock and disbelief [when he was arrested in September 2017]. His father Erkki told the Daily Mail that when his son returned to Finland to work in his company he appeared to be extremely interested in religion and kickboxing. Vehvilainen married a Bolivian woman and moved to Bolivia with her and their daughter for three years, but returned but when the relationship faltered. He settled in the Finnish city of Turku, where he met the Russian woman who was to become his second wife, and joined the far Right Finnish Resistance Movement. Vehvilainen was arrested after threatening a neighbour with an air pistol in a dispute over loud music, although it is unclear whether he was ever convicted. He returned to the UK with his wife and their two children in 2013, when his application to join the British Army was successful. Jailing Vehvilainen in March, Judge Melbourne Inman QC told the veteran he had a 'long and deep-seated adherence' to racist ideology. Now, details of how National Action followers were planning their 'battle' have emerged now other cases have been completed. Adam Thomas wearing the hooded white robes of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) whilst brandishing a machete in front of a KKK flag at his home in Oxfordshire. Thomas, 22, and his partner Claudia Patatas, 38, have been found guilty of being members of the extreme right-wing organisation National Action A which Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen, 33, practiced knife throwing on was made with foil and old Army uniform (pictured). He also kept swastika bunting, an SS ceremonial dagger and a 'crudely made' electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device capable of inflicting serious wounds Vehvilainen's weaponry, including an SS dagger (bottom row, second from left) was found when police searched his home as they investigated his links to the banned extremist organisation When searching two properties, police discovered Vehvilainen kept swastika bunting, an SS ceremonial dagger and a 'crudely made' electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device at his home. Officers also discovered a swastika flag, Adolf Hitler stickers, and a CD containing Third Reich music at his properties in Brecon and Llansilin, Powys. Machetes, knuckledusters, a crossbow with arrows, a large knife and a hammer were also recovered from the properties. He had a picture at the property in Llansilin, which showed him giving a Nazi-type salute at a memorial to his native Finland's independence, in 1917. Earlier this year, a Birmingham Crown Court jury cleared him of possession of a terrorism document - the Anders Breivik manifesto. Breivik killed 77 people in two attacks in Norway in 2011. He was also found not guilty on two counts of stirring up racial hatred relating to forum posts on a white nationalist website. However he was jailed in March for being a member of National Action. Before his conviction, Vehvilainen was considered an 'outstanding' soldier and Army boxer who had risked his life for Queen and country. Vehvilainen had been a key part of National Action's strategy of attempting to grow its membership within the armed forces. Vehvilainen, a married father-of-three, lived at Sennybridge Camp, Powys, Wales, but was renovating a home he had bought in the village of Llansilin, in efforts to build a whites-only stronghold. It was in that house police found his collection. Officers also uncovered what prosecutors described as an arsenal of weapons, including a warhammer, a legally held shotgun, swastika bunting and other Nazi paraphernalia. In the garage of his house at Sennybridge, he kept a makeshift target dummy, and body armour which had been spray-painted black. Who are the National Action members that have been convicted? Mikko Vehvilainen, 34, from Sennybridge, was convicted of being a member of National Action and was jailed for eight years. Adam Thomas, 22, from Oxfordshire, was found guilty of National Action membership and could face up to 10 years in jail. Claudia Patatas, 38, from Oxfordshire, was also convicted of National Action membership and similarly faces up to 10 years in prison. Daniel Bogunovic, 27, from Leicester, was found guilty of belonging to National Action and will be sentenced on December 14. Darren Fletcher, 28, from Wednesfield, pleaded guilty to membership of the group and will be sentenced on December 14. Joel Wilmore, 24, from Stockport, also admitted to being part of National Action. He is due to be sentenced on December 14. Nathan Pryke, 26, from March, pleaded guilt to National Action membership. He will also be sentenced on December 14. Alexander Deakin, 24, from Birmingham, jailed for 12 months for inciting racial hatred. He was National Action's Midlands Leader. Advertisement He had a part-time job at an activity centre nearby, and had served with distinction since joining the Army in 2012, until his arrest in September 2017. His sentencing hearing was told he 'served his country and risked his life in Afghanistan', and was considered 'an outstanding soldier'. Pavlos Panayi QC told the trial judge: 'His career in the Army is over and he leaves having brought dishonour on himself and what is more, infamy.' Today, a mother and father who named their baby after Adolf Hitler were convicted of being members of a neo-Nazi group. Former Amazon security guard Adam Thomas, 22, and his girlfriend, Claudia Patatas, 38, are facing up to 10 years in jail after being found guilty of being part of banned extreme right group National Action, today. A search of the couple's Oxfordshire home uncovered Nazi memorabilia, a Ku Klux Klan outfit and an arsenal of deadly weapons including crossbows, machetes and axes. They will be sentenced at a later date. On the day of Vehvilainen's arrest in September 2017, his father-in-law was at home and the resulting shock caused him to suffer a stroke, and he died a month later. Mr Panayi said: 'The defendant will always have that on his conscience.' When he was arrested, Vehvilainen told his wife: 'I'm being arrested for being a patriot.' He admitted possession of a banned pepper spray before his trial, but was cleared of having a document useful to a terrorist and two counts of stirring up racial hatred in forum posts on the website Christogenea.org. A jacket bearing a Swastika armband found during police searches of Adam Thomas and Claudia Patatas' home. The couple have been found guilty of having a role in National Action Claudia Patatas leaves Birmingham Crown Court this afternoon, November 12, after being found guilty of being a member of National Action The Press Association asked the Ministry of Defence how many members of the armed forces had been disciplined for involvement in far-right extremism in the year to December 2017. The MoD was unable to provide information on how many had faced court martial or internal disciplinary procedures, because the data was not recorded by the Royal Military Police database. It added that a manual check of the database would be cost-prohibitive. In a statement provided with its freedom of information response, the MoD said: 'Extremist ideology is completely at odds with the values and ethos of the armed forces. 'The armed forces have robust measures in place to ensure those exhibiting extremist views are neither tolerated nor permitted to serve. 'All allegations of unacceptable behaviour are investigated and action taken as appropriate.' All Armed Forces personnel are subject to vetting during recruitment, to establish previous convictions or existing links to extremist or banned organisations. All ranks receive training on the standards expected of the forces, with annual refreshers. Following conviction, Colonel Graham Taylor, of the Army Personnel Services Group, said: 'Far right ideology is completely at odds with the values and standards of the Army and whilst we are only talking about a very small number of cases we take this issue very seriously. 'We have robust measures in place, including during the recruitment process, to ensure those exhibiting extremist views are neither tolerated nor permitted to serve. 'Any soldier receiving a custodial sentence will be discharged from the Army.' What is National Action? How 'racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic' far-right group became the first to be outlawed since WWII National Action (NA) was founded in August 2013 by Benjamin Raymond and Alex Davies. Raymond was a politics graduate from the University of Essex, then living in Bognor Regis. He immersed himself in a disturbing online world of right-wing content. Raymond backed calls for a 'nationwide fascist army'. Davies was a University of Warwick student and British National Party member when he became involved in National Action. At the soldier's home officers found weapons including guns, large knives, ammunition and knuckle dusters. He was attempting to recruit others to form an armed group for terror organisation National Action in Wales He was once quoted as saying 'I don't want to say what I'd do to Jews, it's too extreme', while Raymond had said: 'There are non-whites and Jews in my country who all need to be exterminated', adding he 'loved Hitler'. Both men worried that the right-wing of politics had become diluted and founded National Action as an uncompromising National Socialist outfit. The group's logo borrowed heavily from the Second World War Nazi organisation the SA. NA was also known for its slick propaganda on social media, but also leaflets and stickers, with mottos such as 'White Jihad' and 'Britain is ours - the rest must go'. Experts have described NA as 'potentially the most dangerous... of any fascist movement to appear in the UK for many years'. The group itself would proclaim in August 2015, that 'only bullets will stop us'. Its first demonstration was a banner drop in Birmingham in November 2013. Black-clad members donned face coverings, warning of race war and pushing the conspiracy that an elite was bent on destroying the white population through immigration. Islamic State, Pol Pot's brutal Khmer Roughe and Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik all served to inspire the organisation. Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik (pictured) served as an inspiration to the group Senior member Matthew Hankinson said the group would see that 'traitors' ended up 'hanging from lampposts' and said if innocent people are hurt in the process 'so be it'. The organisation hit headlines when members voiced support for the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016 by Thomas Mair, with its North East division's Twitter account stating: 'Vote Leave - don't let this man's sacrifice be in vain. The organisation even took Mair's outburst at his trial - 'death to traitors, freedom for Britain' - as its slogan on its former website. Members attended demonstrations along with other far right groups, in places like York, Liverpool, Darlington and Newcastle. At its height it had between 70-100 members, recruiting mainly young people aged 15-29, but also trying - and succeeding in at least one case - to attract members of the Armed Forces. In 2015, 25-year-old member Zack Davies attacked a Sikh with a hammer and machete while screaming 'white power'. In 2016, 17-year-old member Jack Coulson was arrested after posting pictures of a homemade pipe-bomb on Snapchat alongside threats against Muslims. It was banned by Home Secretary Amber Rudd on December 16, 2016 after a series of incidents, including its voicing support for the murder of Jo Cox. The group had not carried out any terrorist attacks but was linked to a plot to kill Labour MP Rosie Cooper. In total, 10 people have now been convicted or admitted membership of the terrorist group. Advertisement Ex-Amazon security guard, 22, and his girlfriend, 38, who named their baby 'Adolf' and posed for pictures with Ku Klux Klan masks are facing 10 years behind bars after they were found guilty of being part of a neo-Nazi terrorist group By Lara Keay for MailOnline and Andy Dolan for The Daily Mail A mother and father who named their baby after Adolf Hitler have been convicted of being members of a neo-Nazi group. Former Amazon security guard Adam Thomas, 22, and his girlfriend, Claudia Patatas, 38, are facing up to 10 years in jail after being found guilty of being part of banned extreme right group National Action today. A search of the couple's Oxfordshire home uncovered Nazi memorabilia, a Ku Klux Klan outfit and an arsenal of deadly weapons including crossbows, machetes and axes. Pictures later emerged of Thomas, originally from the West Midlands, wearing the white hooded mask synonymous with the white supremacist group as cradling his young child. A jury at Birmingham Crown Court was told the couple had given their child the middle name 'Adolf', which self-confessed racist Thomas admitted was in 'admiration' of Hitler. Guilty: Adam Thomas (left) and his girlfriend Claudia Patatas (right) are pictured in their police mugshots Meanwhile, the KKK robes that Thomas wore in a series of photos shown to the jury including one with his baby were inherited from his great-grandfather, a supporter of Oswald Mosleys British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. Born in Sutton Coldfield but raised in Birmingham, Thomas spent much of his childhood with his maternal grandparents, but he continued to see his parents. The extremism that would lead him to National Action was already so ingrained in him that at school he was referred to the Governments Prevent strategy after teachers overheard him racially abusing fellow pupils at the age of 13. The only white child in his class, he was eventually expelled and went to a special school. Thomas left without any GCSEs but in a bizarre turn of events two years later the self-confessed Holocaust denier moved to Israel, where he lived first in a kibbutz and then a college where he tried to convert to Judaism. He met Patatas via the encrypted Telegram messaging app also favoured by Islamic State recruiters after flying back to the UK in 2016. Patatas was born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal, and graduated in English and Germanic philology. She had no known connections to the far Right. Patatas moved to the UK in 2010 to live with a pagan far Right activist she met on a camping holiday. She fell under Thomass spell in November 2016 and soon became pregnant with their child. Police said the couples baby son, looked after by his mother throughout the trial, will now be the subject of normal safeguarding procedures but it was for social workers to decide on his future. A third defendant, a leading member of National Action's Midlands' branch, Daniel Bogunovic, 27, of Leicester, was also convicted of being a member of National Action. Bogunovic already had a conviction from earlier this year for stirring up racial hatred by plastering Aston University in Birmingham with the group's offensive stickers. The jury of six men and five women found Thomas guilty of an additional offence of having a terrorist manual called the Anarchist's Cookbook. Patatas was bailed ahead of sentencing. They were told he and his partner intended to wage a 'holy war' against black, Jewish, Asian and gay people. Asked about his child's middle name, Thomas said it did 'reflect an interest' and 'admiration' of the Nazi leader. He told the court: 'It definitely doubles up as the name of Adolf Hitler. Adam Thomas and Claudia Patatas's house in Oxfordshire where memorabilia which had the swastika emblazoned on it was found 'It's undeniable and I don't make a secret of it. It does reflect an interest in that topic and admiration for what it represents.' He said the name Adolf was 'not controversial' in Portugal, where his partner Patatas is from, claiming the couple planned to move there. Asked by the prosecution if he was a racist, he answered: 'Yes'. Prosecutor Barnaby Jameson QC told the court earlier in the trial: 'National Action is a group of vehement neo-Nazis, glorifying Hitler and the Third Reich. 'Openly and aggressively Nazi, National Action is anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-Islamic and anti-gay. 'The world into which this case will take you is a world in which any right-thinking person would wish did not exist. Patatas is pictured with Thomas's close friend Darren Fletcher, who is awaiting sentence after admitting being part of National Action at the beginning of court proceedings 'All the defendants in this case were cut from the same National Action cloth. They were fanatical, highly motivated, energetic and closely linked.' Thomas was described in court as a 'vehement Nazi' who worked as an security guard with a company contracted by Amazon. Over the course of a seven-week hearing, jurors were told how the racist couple met online in November 2016 before moving in together the following April. Photographs from their 'family album' showed Thomas cradling his newborn son dressed in hooded white KKK robes. The fascist pair can also be seen smiling for another picture with the baby, who was born in late 2017, while proudly displaying a Swastika flag. They joined National Action after being 'fuelled by hatred and division' and engaged in a 'terror born out of a fanatical and tribal belief in white supremacy,' the court heard. Adam Thomas is pictured with his face covered and posing with a long-bladed knife Both defendants had attended meetings of the far-right group, formed in 2013, prior to its ban in December 2016. The group was prohibited by the Government after members celebrated the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by far-right terrorist Thomas Mair earlier that year. Despite being outlawed, the group carried out 'White Jihad' - a white holy war - to uphold white supremacist values around the country. The court heard transcripts of encrypted Telegram chat messages following the ban proving all three defendants were still members of the group post-proscription. Patatas, a wedding photographer, used the chat platform to message another 'vehement Nazi' Darren Fletcher, 28, saying 'all Jews must be put to death'. The Portuguese-born mother, who has a black sun SS symbol tattooed on her back, also revealed she once celebrated Hitler's birthday by eating a cake with a 'Fuhrer face' decorated on it. She wrote: 'I did struggle to slice his face. Adolf is life.' Meanwhile Thomas called on refugees to be gassed, black people to be killed and the Chinese people to be turned into biofuel in a string of vile racist messages. He also said homosexuals and mixed-race children should be killed by stoning, beheading and hanging and wanted to start a British chapter of the KKK. Thomas put: 'We could slaughter billions of non-whites no problem, we are superior....Personally all I want is a white homeland. 'I don't accept anyone who isn't 100 per cent white.' The messages from the chat group 'TripleK Mafia' were found by police on a mobile phone seized from National Action Midlands leader Alex Deakin, 24, from Birmingham. Jurors heard Thomas - who posed for photos in front a US Confederate flag with his crossbows - used his weapons for target practice in his back garden. When counter terror police raided their home they found Nazi flags, Ku Klux Klan robes and a variety of fascist memorabilia - including Swastika cushions and pastry cutters. The couple even had racist Christmas cards - including one bearing a picture of KKK members and the message 'May All Your Christmasses Be White'. Newspaper cuttings relating to the Norwegian far-Right mass murderer Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, were also found in the couple's living room. An motorcyclist died in a tragic in an accident just months after he staged his own accident to propose to his girlfriend. Miguel Angel Pena, 39, was enjoying another ride along the Dominican Republic's resort town of Las Terrenas with a group of other bikers when he lost control of his motorcycle on a highway on Friday. A video camera mounted on Pena's helmet shows the moment he loses the handle of his motorcycle as he is about to maneuver around a curve at a dangerous high speed and crashes on his right side. WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES Miguel Angel Pena [right] staged an accident in the Dominican Republic months ago to propose to his girlfriend Mayra Vargas [left]. He died Friday after suffering a motorcycle accident. A camera mounted on Miguel Angel Pena's helmet shows the deadly accident the avid biker suffered Friday on a road in the resort town of Las Terrenas, located in the northern coast of the Dominican Republic The 39-year-old president of Inmortales MC, a biker's club in the Dominican Republic, poses with his fiance Mayra Vargas and his 11-year-old daughter who lives in New York According to Noticias SIN, who obtained the footage to the horrific accident, preliminary medical reports indicated Pena, a father of an 11-year-old girl living in New York City, suffered fractures in his cranium and died at a local medical center in the province of Samana. The married Dominican, who was the president of the local racing club Inmortales MC [Immortals MC], gathered his friends together and made up an accident scene on the side of a road in the Caribbean Island. But Pena did it with the sole intention of asking his then girlfriend, Mayra Vargas, to marry him. The video, obtained by DailyMail.com, shows the motorcycle enthusiast laying on his back on a road's shoulder filled with dirt and rocks. Miguel Angel Pena gets on a knee and proposes to his girlfriend Mayra Vargas after he plotted a fake accident with the assistance of other bikers to lure her in. She said yes. Vargas cries in anguish, asking him Pena is he didn't see the road ahead of him while his friends acted out their parts in the biker's marriage proposal skit. Pena could be heard complaining of leg pain moments before the other bikers assist him in getting to his feet while Vargas asks why is the entire event being filmed. Then moments later, Pena get on his right knee and pulls out a box with a diamond right as Vargas kneels on the ground. The biker's friends tell her if she is going to say 'yes' before she willingly accepted her boyfriend's proposal with a kiss. In a June 27, 2017 video Pena posted on his Facebook account, the thrill-seeking biker entertained the idea of life without his motorcycle before quickly dismissing it. 'You can live without a bike ... BUT IT'S NOT WORTH IT!!!' Friends bid farewell to Miguel Angel Pena during a procession before Sunday's burial service Video footage shows the moment a biker in the Dominican Republic loses control of his motorcycle and crashes on the side of a road on Friday. He suffered fractures to his cranium and was declared dead at a local medical center. A military family got a very welcome Veteran's Day surprise when they were reunited live on TODAY. Army Sgt. Dennis Glass, who had been stationed in Baghdad for the last few months, flew all the way to New York City to surprise his unsuspecting wife and three daughters during a live taping of TODAY on Monday morning. The TODAY anchors began the segment by saying that they were speaking with Glass via satellite. In the video, Glass is shown standing against a drab grey background, appearing as though he's speaking from a remote location. Army Sgt. Dennis Glass gave his family a pleasant Veteran's Day shock with help from the TODAY show, which helped him pull off the on-air surprise TODAY anchors pretended to be speaking with Glass - who had been stationed in Iraq - via satellite, while his unsuspecting family was standing on the TODAY plaza in New York City Glass then said he's a public affairs journalist for 361st Press Camp Headquarters who have been stationed in Iraq with the Special Operations Joint Task Force for the last few months. He told the TODAY anchors, who were standing outside in Rockefeller Plaza, that it had been 11 months since he last saw his family wife, three daughters and a nephew who also stays with them in person. The TODAY anchors then tell Glass that they have a surprise for him, with Hoda Kotb saying, 'Take a look at who is on the plaza with us!' as Glass' wife and three daughters enter the plaza and wave at the cameras and blow kisses at Glass who they can see on a monitor. Glass' wife, an Army veteran, has tears in her eyes, just looking at her husband on the video screen, while Glass appears emotional as well. Al Roker reveals the truth - that Glass is closer than his family thinks - by popping into frame Glass then jogs out from a backstage area, much to the delight of his family and the crowd 'How does it feel to see him?' Kotb says. 'Wonderful, wonderful,' she says, while holding the couple's youngest daughter. Meanwhile, Glass mouths,'Wow,' as he watches them on a monitor from his backstage room. 'You want to say hello to your family?', Savannah Guthrie asks. 'Hello, I wish I could be there,' Glass starts to his family, only to be interrupted by a grinning Al Roker, who pops into the frame and says, 'Oh sure you could! Come on!' The cheering audience seems to figure out that Glass is closer than he appears long before his stunned family is able to work it out for themselves. Glass hugs his family, while his wife, an Army veteran, can be heard crying into the mics Glass hadn't seen his family, including youngest daughter, in person for 11 months. He is back stateside on leave and plans to spend it at home, hanging out with his family Roker leads Glass, who is wearing fatigues, in a jog out from behind the backstage area to Rockefeller Plaza to come face-to-face with his family. Glass' wife covers her mouth in shock as he approaches and then puts their daughter down on the ground so she can give him a bear hug. His daughters quickly follow suit. Glass' wife can be heard crying tears of joy over the microphone. 'Did we get ya?', Kotb asks. 'Yes, you got me!' Glass' wife admits, adding, 'I'm so happy to see him.' Meanwhile, one of Glass' daughters, says 'It's pretty weird,' presumably either because of the current situation or because it's been so long since they last saw him. Roker commends Glass' acting skills, then says to Glass' wife and children, 'Thank you for your service because you families are the ones who give up so much while your loved ones are away. Thank you so much.' Glass then reveals that he'll be home for a little while because he has leave, which he plans to spend relaxing and spending time with his family. Adrian Rodi, 50, murdered his ex wife Angela Rider A 'paranoid' and 'psychotic' husband who strangled his wife to death has been jailed for more than nine years. Adrian Rodi, 50, killed his estranged wife Angela Rider after becoming 'increasingly controlling' of the way the beautician and property developer dressed and acted. Rodi repeatedly 'manipulated' Ms Rider's 'caring nature' in a bid to rekindle their romance before violently asphyxiating her on three separate occasions, a court heard. He even bought a house on the same street as her after they separated. The pair broke up after Rodi strangled Ms Rider, his girlfriend at the time, to the point of losing consciousness during a holiday in Greece. But the pair soon got back together and married in secret, telling neither family nor friends. Afterwards, they went on a honeymoon to Thailand where Rodi shoved the mother-of-one's face into a pillow and accused her of 'acting provocatively towards men'. In 2014, he again strangled her following an argument, leading to him being given a hospital order at York Crown Court in December 2014. Rodi, who suffers from depression and multiple-sclerosis, was discharged from a mental health unit in March 2015 and stopped taking his psychotropic medication despite being advised against it by doctors. Following an argument over dinner on March 4 this year, Rodi strangled Ms Rider to death at her home in Cawood, North Yorkshire. Rodi killed his estranged wife Angela Rider after becoming 'increasingly controlling' of the way the freelance beautician and property developer dressed and acted Rodi made a 'serious' suicide attempt after Angela, 51, separated from him following the incident in Thailand. However, the court was told how he would 'use emotional tools to get [Angela] to resume the relationship' with him. Judge Tom Bayliss QC told how in the months prior to her murder Rodi became increasingly abusive. Ms Rider's daughter Sara spent time with her and Rodi in the Lake District the week before Angela's death and described him as 'smothering' her. Rodi and Ms Rider were 'halfway through a dinner' when he strangled her on March 4, the court heard. She was found at her home after Rodi 'picked her up and laid her on the sofa' then called the police to them he had 'strangled his ex-partner'. Police caught up with Rodi just after 1.30am on March 5 in a carpark in the Lake District in his vehicle. Told he was under arrest under suspicion of murder, he told officers: 'There's no suspicion of murder. I've just f****** killed someone and we're standing here.' Ms Riders's sister Tracy Mills sobbed as she told how Rodi had 'stolen her future' Police at the scene of the murder after Rodi rang police and confessed he had murdered his ex wife HEARTBROKEN SISTER TELLS COURT HOW KILLER HAS 'STOLEN HER FUTURE' In a statement read to the court, Ms Riders's sister Tracy Mills sobbed as she told how Rodi had 'stolen her future'. She said: 'Angela and I had dreams of living together when we were old - we were going to grow old together. 'She told me (Rodi) was a slob - I never understood why she stayed with him. 'Angela was always a strong character but I remember a change in her character and coming back from Greece with (Rodi). 'She lacked confidence and even her dress sense had changed - her character was always more controlled around Rodi. 'I feel like half of me is gone - my best friend has been taken from me. 'I will never get over the loss of my baby sister - she must have suffered before her death and I will never get that out of my mind.' Advertisement Ms Rider's body was found with lacerations and bruises caused by blunt force trauma. Rodi pleaded guilty to manslaughter in September this year. As he sentenced him to a hospital life with a minimum term of nine years and 114 days today Judge Tom Bayliss QC told Rodi: 'The victim of this terrible crime is Angela Ryder. 'She is your ex-wife and someone who I do not doubt you loved. 'Her family will miss her greatly - their loss is unimaginable. 'She was a generous and strong independent woman who could stick up for herself - she was an amazing daughter. 'The picture is one of a controlling and coercive relationship with occasional acts of violence. 'After what you did in Greece your relationship broke down - what is surprising is that you two got back together. 'I am quite sure you intended to kill her. 'It was not premeditated and I have no doubt you regretted it afterwards.' Judge Bayliss QC sentenced Rodi to nine years and 114 days. Pictured, police at the scene of the murder Judge Bayliss QC said Rodi's illness had played a 'significant contributory role' in Angela's death. He said it was Rodi's fault he had stopped taking his medication and the consequences had been 'catastrophic'. Rodi, who showed no emotion as he was led from the dock, was made the subject of a hospital order at Newton Lodge medium secure unit in West Yorkshire. He will serve the remainder of his time in prison after his release. A fugitive wanted for shooting dead a Navy captain and injuring his five-year-old son has been killed by police during a tense standoff filmed live on Instagram. A team of officers in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic raided a home on Friday morning and shot dead Ruben Dario Hipolite Martinez. The 27-year-old went on Instagram Live as he pleaded with the cops for his life while he tried to negotiate his surrender from behind close doors. He begged for his life while his two children looked on in horror. Ruben Dario Hipolite Martinez's frightened son and daughter looked on as their father took to Instagram Live and tried to negotiate his surrender at their home in the Dominican Republic Cops then shot dead the suspected killer in front of his two children after raiding the property Video on the suspect's social media account shows his son and daughter on one side of the room as he and cops shout back and forth in the standoff. 'You are right. Don't cause me any pain, commando. I doing a live recording,' Hipolite Martinez said. 'Everyone is watching this, you heard,' he added. After a National Police agent warns Hipolite Martinez that they will 'break the door', the scared man shouts, 'No, I am already coming out'. Hipolite Martinez then turns to another young male in the room and tells him he is calling his wife to come pick up the children before loud knocks on the door are heard. One of the children cries and their dad assures them everything will be OK. Moments later he tells his son and daughter amidst their cries to get to the side before the door is finally broken down. A fugitive hid behind a locked door inside his home with his two children and another person before cops in the Dominican Republic stormed the room and killed him Hipolite Martinez then lets the squad of law enforcement agents know that he is ready to come out before the video recording comes to an end. According to Diario Libre, a report from the National Police stated shots were fired between both Hipolite Martinez and the officers. But some reports have questioned whether Hipolite Martinez even fired at the cops. On Saturday, after reviewing the viral Instagram Live recording, Ney Aldrin, the National Police director, announced the suspensions of the officers although he did not specify how many were on the scene when Hipolite Martinez was shot dead. During the search, cops found a 9mm handgun in the home and Aldrin said Hipolite Martinez was the ringleader of a gang that dedicated themselves to mugging children and elders. Hipolite Martinez previously recorded himself waving a pair of guns in front of the cameras and threatening another man Hipolite Martinez's brother Alexander Almanzar Martinez told media outlets in the Dominican Republic that his sibling was not a 'saint' but did not deserved to have been shot dead by cops The police had been trying to arrest Hipolite Martinez after he allegedly participated in the May 20 shooting of Augusto Alberto Lizardo Gonzalez, a naval captain. His five-year-old son was also shot in the foot. Hipolite Martinez's checkered past came up in a video that made rounds on social media in which he is seen showing off two guns as he issues a threat to an unknown person. Alexander Almanzar Martinez said his brother was 'not a saint' but said the cops had no reason to shoot him in front of his children because he never fired his gun at them. 'I am asking for justice because my brother was murdered like a dog,' he said. 'My brother really did not deserve that death because if he said he was going to turn himself in, why did they kill him like that?... Everyone is clear he was not a saint.' The Vatican has requested that U.S. Catholic bishops delay any votes on proposed new steps to address the clergy sex abuse crisis that is rocking the church. The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opened the group's national meeting Monday by announcing it will delay the vote for at least several months. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, of Galveston-Houston, said the abrupt change of plans was requested by the Vatican. U.S. bishops have been asked to wait until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February. President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, opened the group's national meeting Monday saying it would delay votes on steps to combat sex abuse crisis for several months DiNardo expressed disappointment but told the U.S. bishops: 'I remain hopeful that this additional consultation will ultimately improve our response to the crisis we face.' The bishops are meeting in Baltimore and had been expected to consider several steps to combat abuse, including a new code of conduct for themselves and the creation of a special commission to review complaints against the bishops. At their meeting, which continues through Wednesday, the bishops may proceed with discussions of these proposals, which were drafted in September by the bishops' Administrative Committee. But there will be no immediate vote. Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, of Chicago, suggested that the bishops hold a special assembly in March to vote on the measures after considering the results of the global meeting in February. Abuse scandals have roiled the Roman Catholic Church worldwide for decades, but there have been major developments this year in the U.S. The bishops are meeting in Baltimore and had been expected to consider several steps to combat abuse, including a new code of conduct for themselves At their meeting, which continues through Wednesday, the bishops may proceed with discussions of these proposals, but there will be no immediate vote In July, Pope Francis removed U.S. church leader Theodore McCarrick as a cardinal after church investigators said an allegation that he groped a teenage altar boy in the 1970s was credible. Subsequently, several former seminarians and priests reported that they too had been abused or harassed by McCarrick as adults, triggering debate over who might have known and covered up McCarrick's misconduct. In August, a grand jury report in Pennsylvania detailed decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses, alleging that more than 1,000 children had been abused over the years by about 300 priests. Since then, a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia has begun working on a federal criminal case centered on child exploitation, and attorneys general in several other states have launched investigations. DiNardo, in his address opening the bishops' assembly, told survivors of clergy abuse that he was 'deeply sorry.' Cardinal Daniel DiNardo (left) and Bishop Timothy Doherty (right) answer questions at a press conference after the announcement was made Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, protests outside the venue of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops general assembly in Baltimore on Monday The church, he said, should not revictimize survivors 'by demanding they heal on our timeline.' Announcement of a delay in the voting drew skeptical reactions. 'We had this agenda, we were moving forward on these documents, this was our goal,' said Bishop Christopher Coyne, of the Vermont diocese of Burlington, and the communications chair for the three-day conference. 'And now ... it will look like we don't have to come up with much.' Coyne said he believed there were 'no machinations' leading to the delay, but he had concerns about how it would be perceived outside the assembly hall. 'The Vatican just made a big mistake in asking US bishops to delay their votes on clergy abuse protocols,' tweeted John Gehring, the Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life, a Washington-based clergy network. 'The optics are terrible, and it sends a message, intended or not, that Rome doesn't recognize the urgency of the moment.' Robert Hyslop, 49, has been charged with kidnapping, sexual abuse and sodomy for allegedly for kidnapping two Missouri college students for sexual purposes A convicted felon has been charged with abducting two Christian college students and forcing them to perform sex acts on each other at gunpoint after they violated curfew and were locked out of their southwest Missouri campus. Robert Hyslop, 49, of Branson, Missouri, was booked into the Taney County Jail without bond on charges of kidnapping, sexual abuse and sodomy. If convicted, he could face life in prison. College of the Ozarks, a Christian liberal-arts college in the small town of Point Lookout, has a 1am. curfew. Gates to the front entrance, known as the Gates of Opportunity, remain locked until 5am. Charging documents say the two victims, a man and a woman, arrived back at campus 10 minutes too late in the early hours of October 29, so they went to a nearby commuter lot to sleep in their car until the gates reopen. Hyslop, who was on probation for a 2017 drug conviction, told Taney County investigator Dan Luttrell that he had been high on methamphetamine for three days when he spotted the sleeping students around 3am, according to court documents. The victims returned to the College of the Ozarks campus 10 minutes after curfew and went to a parking lot to sleep in their car Video courtesy KSPR Hyslop allegedly used a hammer to smash the passenger window, produced a gun, and got inside the car, reported the Springfield News-Leader. Luttrell said Hyslop admitted to forcing the male student to drive to a highway lookout. Once there, he allegedly forced the students to perform sex acts on each other, and forced the woman to touch his penis. Hyslop then told the students to drive him back to his car, Luttrell wrote. The students immediately went to the police and gave a detailed description of their attacker, saying he had no teeth. He was arrested several days later after his vehicle was pulled over. College of the Ozarks spokeswoman Valorie Coleman said the college received a report about the incident on October 29 and issued a campus safety alert the next day. Sue Head, the college's vice president for cultural affairs and dean of character education, said students returning home after hours can call a 24-hour security number to unlock the gate. Hyslop allegedly had the victim drive to this overlook, where he forced them to perform sex acts on each other 'We do have the phone number posted clearly at the front gate,' Head said. Coleman and Head said there are legitimate reasons for students to break curfew, including working off-campus jobs. But, she said, 'If they are habitually late, they are going to have to have a conversation with the dean of students.' Coleman said the college has offered the victims confidential counseling. 'We are sick over this incident for the students. We are trying to protect their privacy,' Coleman said. 'The fact that all the details have been in the media, I just hate that for them.' A campus for another school, Ozarks Technical Community College, also is near the commuter lot. That college was not notified of the alleged crime, spokesman Mark Miller said. 'We are a little bit concerned that neither C of O (College of the Ozarks) or Taney County reached out,' Miller said. Records indicate that in January 2018, Hylsop received a suspended sentence and five years of probation after pleading guilty to drug possession charges. In a town almost completely destroyed by one of the deadliest fires in California's history, a firefighter was able to save an American flag. The firefighter was captured on video walking through the destroyed town of Paradise with the Stars and Stripes this weekend. He makes sure to hold the tattered but intact flag above the ground until he finds a mailbox standing in front of a decimated house. Scroll down for video A firefighter was captured on video rescuing an American flag in the decimated town of Paradise, California this weekend Camp Fire: Firefighter saves American flag A firefighter in Paradise, California is seen saving an American flag from rubble near a home destroyed by the Camp Fire. Follow the latest updates on the California wildfires: https://cbsn.ws/2QwnBYk Posted by CBS News on Sunday, November 11, 2018 The firefighter made sure to hold the tattered but intact flag above the ground until he found a mailbox standing in front of a decimated house The firefighter then gently drapes the flag over the mailbox, tying two of its strings together to secure it. Footage of the firefighter has since been shared by CBS News and quickly went viral. Many found the video to be especially moving as it was released on Veteran's Day. The firefighter was then seen gently draping the flag over the mailbox in a touching tribute He took two of the flags dangling strings and tied them together to secure it to the mailbox It was also a touching tribute to a town that has been almost completely wiped out by the Camp fire, which has killed 29 people. Officials said 228 people are still unaccounted, meaning that death toll could still rise considerably. Most of the dead have been found in Paradise. Many bodies were discovered in the burned-out cars of people who had been desperately trying to outrun the blaze. Two hours south of Paradise, in the city of Elk Grove, police came upon another patriotic scene. Two hours south of Paradise, in the city of Elk Grove, police came upon an American flag still standing on a street where every house had been destroyed Nothing had been left standing, except for a flag pole and the flag (pictured) which was still in almost perfect condition Elk Grove Police said they secured the flag and wrote down the address of the home, hoping they will one day be able to return the flag to its rightful owners Every house in the street had been leveled by the Camp fire. Nothing had been left standing, except for a flag pole. And flying on top of that pole was a flag in almost perfect condition. Elk Grove Police said they secured the flag and wrote down the address of the home, hoping they can one day return the flag to its rightful owners. As of Monday morning, the Camp fire had burned through 113,000 acres and is now 25 percent contained. A 19-year-old man has been critically wounded in an explosion after a mortar attack from Gaza struck a bus in Israel. Air raid sirens sounded throughout southern Israel and black smoke could be seen billowing into the air this afternoon from the area of the mortar strike. Rockets were launched from Gaza toward Israel, one day after an Israeli undercover military raid in Gaza sparked fighting that left seven Palestinians and an Israeli officer dead. Israeli security forces and firefighters gather near a bus set ablaze after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave at the Israel-Gaza border near the kibbutz of Kfar Aza. A 19-year-old man was critically wounded A cloud of black smoke rises during an Israeli air strike in Gaza in which seven people died, November 12, 2018 Hamas's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, announced a bombardment following funerals for their members killed during yesterday's fight. 'In response to yesterday's crime, the joint command of Palestinian factions announce the beginning of bombardment of the enemy's settlements with scores of rockets,' it said in a statement. Israel reported at least 80 'launches' of rockets and mortars. The Iron Dome rocket defense system was deployed to protect against the incoming fire. Yesterday's firefight saw an Israeli officer was killed and another was moderately wounded during an operation in southeast Gaza Strip involving an exchange of gunfire, the country's military confirmed this morning. Hamas' armed wing said Israeli undercover forces in a civilian vehicle infiltrated about 2 miles into Gaza on Sunday and fatally shot Nour el-Deen Baraka, its local commander in Khan Younis town. It said militants discovered the car and chased it down, and the resulting clashes killed an Israeli lieutenant colonel and prompted Israeli airstrikes and a salvo of rocket fire from Gaza toward Israel. The empty vehicle apparently used by the Israeli force was reduced to a charred chassis after aircraft fired several missiles at it, leaving a gaping crater in the ground. Israel's military later said the operation had ended. A picture taken from the Gaza Strip on November 12, 2018 shows missiles being launched toward Israel The skies of southern Israel while rockets and mortar were being fired from Gaza on Sunday 11th November The rare burst of violence last night, in which seven Palestinians were killed, came as Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers had appeared to be making progress toward ratcheting down months of border violence. Just days ago, the two sides reached indirect understandings, backed by Qatar and Egypt, to allow cash and fuel into Gaza. The understandings are meant to be part of a broader effort to alleviate deteriorating conditions in the impoverished territory after 11 years of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade. Palestinian mourners carry the bodies of two of the seven Hamas militants who were killed in an Israeli raid late on Sunday A clash that erupted during an Israeli special forces operation in the Gaza Strip and killed eight people threatened on Monday to derail efforts to restore calm to the Palestinian enclave after months of unrest Israeli security forces and firefighters gather near a building set ablaze after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in the southern Israeli town of Sderot on November 12 The blockade has led to over 50 percent unemployment and chronic power outages, and prevents the vast majority of Gazans from traveling. It was not clear if the burst of violence, which appeared to have subsided early Monday, would derail those arrangements. Chanting 'revenge', thousands of mourners in the Gaza Strip, led by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, held a funeral for the dead. Masked gunmen in uniforms carried the coffins, wrapped in the flag of Hamas' armed wing on Monday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a trip to Paris because of the flare-up. He was set to meet French President Emmanuel Macron after having participated in ceremonies marking 100 years since the end of World War I. The incident took place along the Gaza Strip yesterday (pictured). It is a self-governing Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean sea Instead, he returned to Israel on Monday for consultations with top security officials. In a tweet after his arrival back home, Netanyahu praised the slain officer, whose identity was being kept confidential for security reasons, and said 'our forces acted courageously.' The officer's funeral was being held Monday. The ruling Hamas authorities beefed up security measures after the incident, deploying checkpoints across Gaza in a show of force after what appeared to be a major security breach. It also restricted movement through crossings with Israel, preventing foreign journalists, local businessmen and some aid workers from leaving the territory. The gun fight took place east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian officials who said the undercover Israeli forces travelled in a civilian car. A number of members of a Hamas Islamist group are believed to have died in the fighting last night (pictured) following a clash with Israeli forces in Khanyounis city, southern Gaza Strip A man looks at the body of Nour el-Deen Baraka, a commander for Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, at a hospital morgue in Khan Yunis. The commander is believed to have died during fighting with Israeli forces Daughter (L) and sister (R) of Khaled Quider of al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades mourn during his funeral in Khan Younis town, southern Gaza Strip, 12 November 2018 Hamas also canceled a weekly beach protest in northwestern Gaza along the border with Israel. The organizers cited 'the ongoing security situation.' The Israeli military provided few details about the reason for the raid. The military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, said a 'special force' carried out 'a very meaningful operation to Israel's security,' without elaborating. Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the operation was 'not intended to kill or abduct terrorists but to strengthen Israeli security.' He said the force faced a 'very complex battle' and was able to 'ex-filtrate in its entirety.' The overnight violence came after several months of confrontations along the Israel-Gaza perimeter fence. Since late March, Hamas has been leading mass marches, with turnout driven by growing despair in Gaza, to try to break the border blockade. Smoke billows following Israeli air strikes targeting Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt Palestinians inspect a crater and the wreckage of vehicles destroyed by an Israeli raid that killed seven Hamas Palestinian militants late on Sunday More than 170 demonstrators, most unarmed, have been killed by Israeli army fire in the confrontations, in which some of the participants threw stones, burned tires or hurled grenades toward Israeli forces. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltrations, but its army has come under international criticism because of the large number of unarmed protesters who have been shot. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver $15 million in aid to Gaza's cash-strapped Hamas rulers. Hamas responded by lowering the intensity of the border protest last Friday. Advertisement Celebrities have slammed Malibu Wines for failing to evacuate their mascot Stanley the giraffe from the deadly California wildfires which have already claimed dozens of lives. Taking to Instagram, actresses and celebs like Khloe Kardashian and Ariel Winter slammed the wine estate for its apparent abandonment of the animal. Pictures emerging from Stanley's enclosure show him standing near a fence just meters away from scorched earth caused by the devastating fires. The death toll for the deadliest wildfire on record in California history reached 31 on Sunday, and rescuers have been risking their safety to save animals too. The animals on the ranch survived, but several buildings on the property we destroyed or damaged by the fire Stanley the Giraffe, was one of several exotic animals at Saddlerock Ranch shrouded in smoke in the aftermath of the Woosley Fire Whitney Cummings posted a picture of herself with the giraffe on the wine estate after going to check on it having become worried by rumours Ariel Winter also posted about the giraffe to Twitter, sharing pictures where the fire can be seen in the background Kardashian shared messages of her family group chat with Kourtney Kardashian as she asked followers for updates on Stanley - a giraffe from the Malibu Wines safari. In a 2012 episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Khloe's then-husband Lamar Odom gifted her an inflatable giraffe which she named Henry. Stanley is one of several exotic animals at Saddlerock Ranch that were shrouded in smoke in the aftermath of the Woosley Fire. Actress Whitney Cummings also hit out at the wine company, posting pictures after she went to check on Stanley herself. 'I went rogue and went to check on Stanley the giraffe myself. There were a lot of rumors and i didn't want to be contributing to untrue gossip,' she wrote in her first post. 'I didn't want to speak until i had all the information. Now I do. They didn't evacuate their animals and still won't. I wanted to be understanding and gracious, but once you treat your animals like this (when you have plenty of money) we simply aren't on the same page. 'The pastures were still burning in areas when I got there, an injured pig was found by us that nobody was looking for, and the owners of boarded horses were told they were evacuated which is a lie. So now we have a problem.' The animals on the ranch survived, but several buildings on the property we destroyed or damaged by the fire. Rescued animals were held on Zuma beach in Malibu as the thickness of the smoke created a hazy sky for creatures including llamas, donkeys, horses, a pig, bunnies and even a giraffe. As fire that has already ravaged homes of many celebrities fast approached the Pacific Coast Highway, with Lady Gaga's residence very close by, the likes of Khloe Kardashian and Ariel Winter posted on social media about their well-being. Khloe Kardashian tweeted about Stanley the giraffe, from Malibu Wines, that appeared stuck in the wildfires Shannen Doherty reposted Cumming's Instagram photos showing the giraffe standing next to charred pieces of wood in its enclosure Llamas were tied to a lifeguard stand on the beach in Malibu as the Woolsey Fire comes down the hill Friday The animals dealing with the thickness of the smoke as the fire fast approached the Pacific Coast Hightway included horses On Saturday, the likes of geese and dogs were also seen being cared for by animal lovers in the area. Equine veterinarian Jesse Jellison carried an injured goose to a waiting transport during the Camp Fire in the Paradise area. It's also where Officer Share from Yolo County Animal Services tended to a horse that was stranded. The Camp Fire has already burned through 109,000 acres and destroyed 6,713 buildings - most of them homes. As of Sunday morning, it was 25 per cent contained. As of Sunday evening, 29 people were found dead in Northern California's Camp Fire. Woolsey had spread to 83,275 acres and was 5 per cent contained as of Saturday night. Two people were killed in Southern California's Woolsey Fire. Authorities had four coroner search and recovery teams combing through the remains of Paradise, which was almost completely destroyed when a fire raged through the town on Thursday and Friday. A whopping 228 people remain unaccounted for since the fire began Thursday. Members of the UC Davis Veterinary Emergency Response Team, Ashley Nola and Catherine McFarren, treated burns on a dog that was brought in to the Butte County Fair Grounds. California Highway Patrol officers attempted to transfer a potbelly pig they rescued to Butte County Animal control officers in Paradise Friday Members of the UC Davis Veterinary Emergency Response Team, Ashley Nola (left) and Catherine McFarren (right), tended to burns on a dog that was brought into the Butte County Fair Grounds where large animals were being sheltered An evacuated horse had contact phone numbers written on her hooves as she waited in a shelter at the Pierce College Equine Center where evacuees were bringing their large and small animals in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles on Friday It was where small and large animals, including goats, were being sheltered during the Camp Fire, as it continued to burn through the region, fueled by high winds in Butte County. In a surreal scene California Highway Patrol officers attempted to transfer a potbelly pig as plumes of smoke filled the sky. Many animals had been left to wait for things to return to normal as residents flee. The count of destroyed homes remained at 177 but it was expected to increase when an update is reported Monday. An evacuated horse with contact phone numbers written on her hooves waited in a shelter at the Pierce College Equine Center where evacuees were bringing their large and small animals in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles on Friday. Evacuee Eva Loeffler was pictured walking with her 20-year-old pony Mini. In Big Bend, Fire Captain Steve Millosovich carried a cage full of cats that were found in the road after the Camp Fire. Firefighters in other areas were known to have suffered minor injuries as approximately 8,000 fight the blazes. The Big Bend area also held a donkey tied to a road sign so it didn't flee and a group of deer were seen walking through destroyed properties. Cathy Fallon was with her dog Shiloh at their home Friday in Paradise, California. Shiloh was burned when a wildfire scorched the property, burning down Fallon's home Teresa Merritt, left helped her sister Mary Lou Miller with her dogs after being evacuated at The Pierce College Equine Center where evacuees are bringing their large and small animals in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles on Friday Wind-driven wildfire raged through Southern California communities on Friday, burning homes and forcing thousands of people and animals to flee as it relentlessly pushed toward Malibu and the Pacific Ocean The French army poked fun at the President of the United States after he missed a memorial service marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The army took the time on Monday to say how they were unaffected by rain using a picture of its soldiers crawling under barbed wire in heavy rain with the hashtag #MondayMotivation. Taking a light-hearted dig at President Trump, the tweet ridiculed his failure to attend the memorial service in France which saw President Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders pay their respects. The French army poked fun at President Donald Trump after he missed a memorial service marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I in France. Pictured: French President Emmanuel Macron greets Trump upon his arrival at the Elysee Palace in Paris The translated french tweet pictures a soldier crawling under barbed wire and reads: 'There is rain, but it does not matter... We remain motivated' A translation of the tweet reads: 'There is rain, but it does not matter... We remain motivated.' Trump drew widespread criticism over the weekend for not attending a scheduled wreath-laying event at the Ainse-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in Belleau, France. The cemetery contains nearly 2,300 graves for soldiers who fought in the surrounding areas in 1918. Amid the increasing criticism, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders noted that the weather had caused visibility issues and the trip was 'canceled due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather'. She later added that the presidential motorcade would have disrupted Paris's traffic and added: 'President Trump did not want to cause that kind of unexpected disruption to the city and its people.' US President Donald Trump pictured visiting the American Cemetery of Suresnes, outside Paris, on November 11 as part of Veterans Day and the commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the armistice, ending World War I He drew widespread criticism over the weekend for not attending a scheduled wreath-laying event at the Ainse-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in Belleau, France Canadian President Justin Trudeau made reference to the rain in his memorial speech saying: 'As we sit here in the rain, thinking how uncomfortable we must be these minutes as our suits get wet and our hair gets wet and our shoes get wet, I think it's all the more fitting that we remember on that day, in Dieppe, the rain wasn't rain, it was bullets.' Former presidential staffers and politicians also shared their disbelief at the president's cancellation to the service. The president received criticism on Twitter for his inability to attend the service with Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser under Barack Obama writing on Twitter: 'I helped plan all of President Obamas trips for 8 years. There is always a rain option. Always' British defence minister Tobias Ellwood, wrote on Twitter: As a duel National Im sorry to read this. Rain was a regular feature on the Western Front. Thankfully it did not prevent our brave heroes from doing their job. Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser under Barack Obama wrote on Twitter: 'I helped plan all of President Obamas trips for 8 years. There is always a rain option. Always.' A student union president who sparked fury when she threatened to paint over an historic war mural returned to work today, the day after Remembrance Sunday. Emily Dawes caused anger when she tweeted that the Rothenstein Mural at Southampton University should be 'taken down' because it contained only white men, 'even if I have to paint over it myself'. The 21-year-old, whose family live in Virginia in the US, was put on leave until further notice after her incendiary tweets last month. She returned to her 20,000-plus role today, but faces continued calls from fellow students to stand down. Emily Dawes, the student union president who tweeted that a war mural should be taken down or painted over, has returned to work the day after Remembrance Sunday Her comments were aimed at this mural in the university's Senate Room. It shows the awarding of a degree to an unknown soldier and was painted in memory of students and staff who died in the First World War Dawes apologised after this tweet led to her being criticised by students, staff and veterans Students are campaigning for her to resign from the role following the offensive tweets The mural she complained about shows an unknown soldier receiving a degree and was painted in memory of students and teachers who did not return from the First World War. Two petitions have been launched by students calling for Miss Dawes to resign, with one receiving over 21,000 signatures. Third year history student Dan Lake, who started the change.org petition for Miss Dawes to step down from her position, said she needed to be held accountable for her tweet which was 'not representative' of students. He said: 'Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but she used a twitter account for work which is supposed to be representative of the students. What she said is not representative of us at all. 'The university runs associations with naval squadrons and the armed forces, and people who study here have family that served. 'It's a mural for people who left university to fight and didn't come back.' Activist Dawes has family in the US but came to Southampton, UK to study physics She tweeted a picture of the mural, saying 'f*** yes' the mural should be 'covered up' Mr Lake said the student union is hoping people 'will just forget about it'. He added: 'Emily Dawes needs to be held accountable. I wasn't expecting the petition to get loads of signatures - maybe a hundred, but it blew up and got shared everywhere.' Today, members of the Student Union refused to comment on Miss Dawes' return. What is the Rothenstein Mural in Southampton? The Rothenstein Mural was painted in 1916 by Sir William Rothenstein, former principal of the Royal College of Art. It shows a procession of academics and the conferring of a degree on an 'unknown soldier' undergraduate by the then Chancellor of Cambridge University. It was presented to the Southampton in 1959 by the artist's son and features many noted academics from the time, including Vice-Chancellors and Chancellors, and the then-Poet Laureate Robert Bridges. The mural was installed in the Senate Room in in 2014 as part of a commemoration of the centenary of the start of the war. Advertisement Dawes enjoyed a privileged education at the $6,500 (6,000) a term Northwood College for Girls in north London. She has take part in activism since graduating in from High School in the US three years ago, joining the SlutWalk rally in Washington DC in 2015, aimed to prevent violence against women, an hour's drive from her family's six- bedroom home. After coming to Britain to study physics on the south coast, she took a year out of her studies to be Students' Union president, where salaries for sabbatical officers start at $25,000 (20,000). But in the build up to Remembrance Sunday, she took aim at the Rothenstein Mural, which was painted in 1916 'as a memorial to members of the British universities serving in the Great War'. 'It depicts an academic procession and the conferring of a degree on an unknown soldier,' according to the university. She tweeted: 'Mark my words - we're taking down the mural of white men in the uni Senate room, even if I have to paint over it myself.' She had earlier tweeted a picture of the wall, with the expletive-ridden message: 'ONE OF THE WOMEN JUST SAID 'it's nearly armistice day so are we covering up this tapestry??' AND HOLY S***. F*** YES. GRL PWR #sotonsenatelive'. Dawes has styled herself as an activist, posting pictures online of her at a series of protests It was presented to the university by the son of its artist, Sir William Rothenstein, in 1959 and appears on the wall of the university's senate room in this building on campus After her comments were criticised by the student union, the university and armed forces veterans, Dawes apologised. She released a statement saying: 'Firstly, and most importantly, I would like to apologize for the offense and upset I have caused with what I have said. 'I never meant to the disrespect to anyone past, present and future. 'I had no intention of the tweet being taken literally, and upon reflection have realised how inappropriate it was. 'My intention was to promote strong, female leadership and not the eradication and disrespect of history. I do not believe that to make progress in the future, we should look to raise the past.' The world's largest firefighting plane has joined the battle against California's deadliest ever inferno, according to authorities in the state. The Global SuperTanker, a modified Boeing 747-400, has already taken to the skies to try and fight back the deadly wildfires which have so far killed 31 people and burned down thousands of homes. The remarkable machine was filmed over the weekend pouring an 18,000 gallon load of fire retardant over affected areas. Footage shot by a firefighter shows the enormous aircraft dropping red fire-retardant solution on one of the worst-hit patches of land in the state. The SuperTanker could be seen dropping a huge cargo of red fire retardant liquid over an affected area In comparison to normal firefighting aircraft the SuperTanker can hold nearly 17 times more liquid. The jumbo aircraft dropped four loads of fire retardant in California on Friday and more on Saturday, according to local media reports. 'We plan on being there until we're released by Cal Fire,' CEO Dan Reese of the plane's Colorado Springs-based owning company said. The Global SuperTanker was not used against previous California fires during the summer because the company lacked a contract to work on federal land, the Post reported. Three major fires are currently scorching the Golden State: The Camp Fire, in the area of Paradise, Butte County, and the Woolsey and Hill fires, in Southern California just northwest of Los Angeles. The fires have now killed a total of 31 people, burned tens of thousands of acres and displaced tens of thousands of residents. The enormous SuperTanker can hold nearly 17 times more liquid than a normal firefighting aircraft Theresa May's plans for the Brexit deal are a 'calculated deceit of the British people' designed to 'fake' the honouring of the 2016 referendum, Jo Johnson warned today. Mr Johnson, brother of Brexiteer ringleader Boris, said the 'fake Brexit' on offer was a 'rout' of Britain's interests as he renewed calls for a second referendum. He sensationally quit as Transport Minister on Friday lambasting the Prime Minister's proposed deal as leaving Britain the choice of 'vassalage or chaos'. The Remain support said today he resigned because he 'reached my limit' - but stopped short of predicting other ministers would follow his lead. Theresa May's plans for the Brexit deal are a 'calculated deceit of the British people' designed to 'fake' the honouring of the 2016 referendum, Jo Johnson (pictured at the BBC on Saturday) warned today Mr Johnson told the Standard: 'It's clearly not Brexit. 'The Government has boxed itself in by trying to codge together this weird fake Brexit in the hope of committing people to somehow delivering on the referendum result. 'It keeps repeating that [phrase] and it's obviously a nonsense. It's misleading to present it as delivering on the referendum result. 'Brexit was meant to be about taking back control, we are ceding control; it was meant to be about trade deals, we are not going to have any meaningful trade deals; it was meant to be about having a turbo-charged tiger economy on the edge of Europe, we are going to be bound by the common rule book that we won't have a hand in shaping.' Mr Johnson said it was 'striking' how the outline of the deal - which could be confirmed in days - had united him and Boris despite their differences on the Brexit question. Mr Johnson said it was 'striking' how the outline of the deal - which could be confirmed in days - had united him and Boris (file) despite their differences on the Brexit question He said: 'We are both in strong agreement that this [deal] is an appalling basis for us to leave the EU. 'We are being presented with a ridiculous choice: ''my way or the highway'' vassalage with the Prime Minister's deal, or the chaos of ''no deal''.' Asked if other Remain ministers would follow him out of Government, Mr Johnson urged colleagues 'to look deep in their consciences and ask whether in five years' time they will want to be associated with this decision'. But he added: 'You can't predict MPs behaviour.' Mrs May is taking fire from all sides today as ministers vowed to stop her making too many Brexit concessions to the EU. Aid Secretary Penny Mordaunt said the Cabinet would act as a 'check' on what deal the PM does with Brussels. Mrs May (pictured at Downing Street this morning) is taking fire from all sides today as ministers vowed to stop her making too many Brexit concessions to the EU The comments by the senior Brexiteer came amid conflicting signals over whether a breakthrough in negotiations could be imminent. The Prime Minister has been hoping to reach a settlement by Wednesday - the deadline for calling a Brussels summit this month. But despite negotiating teams working until 2.45am this morning, Downing Street sources said this morning that the two sides were still wrangling over the Irish border and people should not 'get their hopes up' of a package being settled in time. African swine fever virus has been detected in home-made dumplings brought by a Chinese tourist overseas as concerns about the highly contagious animal disease deepen. The virus was found last month in the luggage belonging to a Chinese traveller at Tokyo Haneda Airport, the world's fourth largest airport. The news comes as the deadly viral disease sweeps through the pig population around the world, including East Europe and China. African swine fever is sweeping through the pig population around the world, including East Europe, Africa and China. 200,000 pigs have been culled in China this year so far as a result It also comes as China - the world's largest pork producer - struggles to control the rapid spread of African swine fever after first reporting an outbreak in August. A major Chinese animal feed maker yesterday said some of its product could have been contaminated by African swine fever virus, raising further fears of the fatal disease. Japan's farm ministry said the African swine fever virus was found in uncooked pork-filled dumplings brought by a traveller from Shanghai on October 14, reported Japanese news site The Mainichi. This is the second time African swine fever virus has been found in food brought into Japan. The highly contagious virus was found in pork-filled dumplings (file photo) brought by a Chinese tourist to Tokyo Haneda Airport, the world's fourth largest airport, last month African swine fever has also been detected in sausages brought by Chinese travellers to Japan (file photo). China first reported an outbreak of the disease in August in the city of Shengyang Last month, it was detected in a bag of pork sausages belonging to a Chinese passenger at Hokkaido airport in northern Japan. African swine fever is a highly contagious viral disease of pigs and is different from classical swine fever and swine influenza. It is not harmful to humans, but can cause haemorrhagic fever in domesticated pigs and wild boars that almost always ends in death within a few days. China produces almost 700 million pigs a year, or about half of the world's total. The country first reported an outbreak of African swine fever in August in the north-eastern city of Shenyang. The viral disease quickly reached most of the country's pig-farming regions. Tangrenshen Group, a publicly traded company specialising in making pig feed, reported on Sunday that feed produced by one of its units had been contaminated with a virus suspected to be African swine fever virus. In a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the company said the virus was found in feed samples provided by its 51 percent-owned subsidiary, Bili Meiyingwei Nutrition Feedstuff. The discovery occurred during inspections after an outbreak of African swine fever on a farm in Qingyang county in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui. As of October, a total of 41 outbreaks of African swine fever had been reported affecting 27 Chinese cities. China produces almost 700 million pigs a year, or about half of the world's total Beijing earlier said many of the cases in Anhui were caused by feeding kitchen waste to pigs that was not properly processed to kill the virus. However, many industry experts have long suspected feed supplies could be contaminated with the disease. Tangrenshen said the origin of the disease remained unclear and the matter was still under investigation. As of October, a total of 41 outbreaks affecting 27 Chinese cities had been reported and 200,000 pigs were culled in the country as a result. Cases of African swine fever have been recorded across Europe, Russia and sub-Saharan Africa, but it has never occurred in East Asia until now, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation. There have been over 360,000 cases of African swine fever so far in 2018, including 240,000 in Romania and 5,000 in China, reported The Guardian last month. A total of 19 countries have been affected, according to the article. Prisoner Charles Bronson was seen for the first time in more than a decade today when he left his trial for attacking a prison govenor Long-serving prisoner Charles Bronson has been pictured for the first time since 2004 after appearing in court accused of launching himself at a prison governor and trying to gouge the man's eyes out. The 65-year-old inmate is said to have been whistling the tune from the film The Great Escape moments before he attacked Wakefield Prison governor Mark Docherty. He shouted 'I will bite your f*****g nose off and gouge your eyes out' following a row about guests not being able to take pictures during his wedding, a court heard today. Bronson, who now goes by the name of Charles Salvador, is representing himself at his GBH trial at Leeds Crown Court and appeared before the jury in green and yellow Frankland Prison issue boiler suit and a pair of sunglasses today. His trial got off to an unusual turn when he made derogatory comments about one of the jury when they were being selected. When asked, three members of the jury panel had indicated they had links to the Prison Service. The inmate wore a prison issue boiler suit as he represented himself at Leeds Crown Court The trial is the first time Bronson has been seen in public since he launched an appeal in 2004 Bronson was last pictured in this image from inside Wakefield prison in June 2004 Judge Tom Bayliss QC asked Bronson whether he minded any of them sitting on the jury, to which Bronson replied: 'That big fat one there. I will have him.' The judge told him: 'Insulting the jurors at this stage is not a good plan.' Bronson continued: 'The one who has been eating all the pies, I'll have him,' to which the juror involved laughed. Judge Bayliss asked the jury to bear in mind and forgive Bronson's 'blunt manner of speaking'. Bronson is charged with attempting to caused Mr Docherty grievous bodily harm with intent on 25 January this year. Bronson married actress Paula Williamson in November 2017 Prosecutor Carl Fitch told the jury that Bronson had an arranged meeting with Mr Docherty to discuss 'welfare within the prison system' in the adjudication room at Wakefield Prison. Bronson, who was not in handcuffs, was escorted from his cell by five prison officers at 2pm, to the adjudication room. 'He began to dance on his toes and started to whistle the tune to the movie The Great Escape,' said Mr Fitch. As the door was opened Bronson rushed at the governor. 'He wrapped his arms around Mr Docherty's neck with such force that he fell off his chair,' said Mr Fitch. Bronson then shouted his threats and tried to reach his eyes, but Mr Docherty was able to move his face away until the inmate was overpowered by prison guards, the jury heard. The court heard how, once Mr Docherty was on the floor, Bronson shouted: 'You can f*** with me but you can never f*** with my mother.' Supporters of Bronson, including his brother Rod Harrison (left) attended court today The prosecutor said that, once the prisoner had been restrained, he told officers he had wanted to attack the governor since November 2017 after he 'disrespected his wife'. Jurors were told how Bronson had married the actress Paula Williamson during a ceremony at Wakefield Prison in November last year, with guests being told they were not allowed to bring in electronic devices or attempt to take pictures. But prison staff were allowed to take photos which were to be distributed to Bronson and his new wife, the court heard. Bronson's trial heard he has spent more than 40 years in prison. He is pictured in his younger years Mr Fitch said: 'The prison would never allow these photographs to be taken outside the prison, as they feared that Ms Williamson would give them to the media if they did. 'The Crown says that it is for that reason, among others, that Mr Salvador had a grudge against Mr Docherty, who he held responsible for the withholding of these photographs.' Police interviewed Bronson about the attack and he claimed he had spent 40 years in prison and much of that time in solitary confinement and said he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder as a result. The court session on Monday afternoon was briefly halted as members of the press were brought into the court room, at which point the prisoner said: 'Shall we have a sing-song while we wait?' Bronson denies the charge of attempting to cause GBH with intent. The trial continues. A Texas man who tried to hire a former U.S. Marine to kill his ex-girlfriend because she was dating a black man was caught on hidden cameras arranging the would-be hit. Keith Cote, 62, was arrested in October last year after the hitman he hired to murder his ex-girlfriend, SanDee Jones, alerted authorities and worked with them to expose his plans. Joey Sees told police that he was with his wife at Cote's house in Austin last year when the murder-for-hire plan was first mentioned. Keith Cote, 62, was arrested in October last year in Austin, Texas, for trying to hire former Marine Joey Sees to murder his ex-girlfriend. Cote is pictured above on a secret recording after the hitman worked with police to expose his plans Cote, who was in a wheelchair after being left paralyzed in 2013, told Sees he needed a 'dirty deed, done dirt cheap', KXAN reports. He asked him if he could get a silencer and a 9mm handgun before offering him $10,000 cash to kill Jones and an additional $15,000 to 'watch him put a bullet in her head'. Sees said Cote had initially told him that he would be perfect for the job because he knew he had killed before given his career as a Marine. 'When we're in a warzone, we're just trying to get home and we're just protecting each other. I guess he thought every Marine is a hitman,' Sees said. 'We're not killers. We just do our job, but our job isn't to come home and murder someone because she's dating a black guy.' The ex-Marine agreed to help Cote because Sees feared he would just hire someone else to carry out the hit. The 62-year-old (above) was arrested in October last year after the hitman he hired to murder his ex-girlfriend alerted authorities and worked with them to expose his plans. Cote killed himself just one week after being released on bond in September Jones said Cote was abusive and controlling during their relationship and described him as a racist. She had not see him since 2015. They are pictured above together Sees alerted authorities and agreed to wear a wire and secretly film his conversations with Cote. One video shows the pair in Sees' truck as they drive around the area near the murder location - Jones' office. Sees (above) said Cote had initially told him that he would be perfect for the job because he knew he had killed before given his career as a Marine Cote was filmed saying that Sees would need to sneak up on Jones after she left work. He also pointed out the location where she parked her car and that there were no surveillance cameras nearby. 'I would say just stay along the perimeter,' Cote said as he explained how Sees should approach. 'It's dark and you're a ninja.' Sees also told police that Cote had asked if he could ride in the back of the truck on the night of the would-be murder so he could see it unfold. He told Sees to walk up to his ex-girlfriend's car, tap on the window and then shoot her twice in the head. In other recorded conversations, Cote said it 'ain't about revenge, it's about the reckoning'. Cote was eventually arrested but pleaded not guilty criminal solicitation to commit capital murder. Sees and Jones have since met for the first time so she could thank the former Marine for saving her life. They are pictured above embracing during their first meeting He was eventually released on bond in September and killed himself a week later. Sees and Jones have since met for the first time so she could thank the former Marine for saving her life. 'He's a hero, not only for our country, but for me,' Jones said. ' 'What Joey did is about nothing except love. That's the greatest and he didn't even know me. Not everyone would do what Joey did.' Jones said Cote was abusive and controlling during their relationship and described him as a racist. She had not see him since 2015. Sees told the news outlet that he was glad Cote asked him. 'I'm just glad he asked me. I felt I was the right person to do it. (He) trusted me enough to think that I was that type of individual to murder someone. 'So, I knew that I wanted to handle this myself. I knew I had to do what I had to do and contact the police.' Guwahati : Ten days after the Tinsukia killing incident, Assam police still in fight to get clues of killers identity. Five Bengali-speaking people were killed by unidentified gunmen at Khoirabari area near Dhola-Sadiya bridge in upper Assams Tinsukia district on November 1 evening. But, Assam police havent able to find out the killers identity so far. Earlier, Assam police claimed that, militants of the banned outfit ULFA (I) are behind the killing incident, but the outfit denied their involvement into the incident. Following the incident, Assam police and other security agencies launched combing operation in Tinsukia district and the bordering areas with Arunachal Pradesh to nab the killers, but failed to make any arrest. Police had arrested a ULFA (I) linkman for their alleged involvement in the incident but failed to arrest the killers. A top official of Assam police said that, the attackers might be fled to Arunachal Pradesh after the incident and Assam police in touch with its Arunachal Pradesh counterpart to launch combing operation. On the other hand, former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi slammed the BJP-led Assam government and said that, the government is totally failed to protect common people in the state. The former Assam CM also questioned why the killers not held yet. A baby elephant got trapped in a 30-foot well in India before rescuers battled for six hours to free the terrified beast. Footage of the event on Saturday shows the clearly distressed juvenile bashing against the walls of the well frantically. Heroic rescuers worked to dig a ramp for the elephant to climb out despite the animal becoming dangerous due to its frenzied state. The terrified baby elephant got trapped in a 30-foot well in southern India Debris collapse into the hole as a large digger moves earth to make way for a ramp. The debris and large rocks bounce off the elephant's back and head as it clings to the perimeter of the hole. The falling dirt soon created a ramp for the elephant to climb up, to a chorus of jubilant cries from the onlookers it scurried off down a dirt path into the forest. A rescue operation with a digger was launched as hundreds of people watched on The young elephant was travelling with a herd of 50 others while passing through a forest near the village of Hosur in Tamil Naddu, south India. A group of 10 elephants separated from the herd and strayed near the village before returning into the forest, when the young one slipped into the farm well. The alarmed herd hung around the distressed elephant but later left the spot. The falling dirt created a natural ramp and the elephant was able to scramble up to safety The youngster bypassed the digger and bolted into the nearby woods after successful rescue It seems in a frantic bid to climb out, the young elephant injured itself. Villagers from Hosur noticed the elephant in the well and informed Forest officials, hundreds of them watched on as the rescue operation took place. Forest officials started rescue operations and retrieved the baby elephant after six hours of digging work with excavators. The rescued elephant climbed out and swiftly ran back into the forest to join its herd. President Trump's acting attorney general Matt Whitaker is telling associates he won't use his new power to starve the Russia probe of funds although he mentioned the budget choking strategy last year. Whitaker has fallen under intense scrutiny since Trump installed him last week and ousted Jeff Sessions as attorney general, handing Whitaker direct oversight of the Robert Mueller probe. Democrats howled and brought up some of Whitaker's many public comments about the investigation, which include saying he could see a scenario where the acting AG 'just reduces his budget to so low that his investigations grind to almost a halt.' Now Whitaker, having obtained that very post, is saying he won't use the tactic. He is telling associates he won't slash the funding and will allow the Mueller probe to go forward, Bloomberg News reported. TAKE ALL THE TIME YOU NEED: Acting United States Attorney General Matt Whitaker is telling associates he will not seek to cut off funding and will allow the Mueller probe to continue The probe ran up a $16 million tab during its first year of operation, and had spent an additional $10 million through the end of March, according to its public filings. Mueller's team has recently assigned staff to other projects, leading to speculation he could be bringing the investigation toward a conclusion. President Trump has repeatedly demanded what he calls a 'witch hunt' be ended. Whitaker, too, has applied that term to the investigation. He wrote in an op-ed for CNN in 2017: 'Mueller has come up to a red line in the Russia 2016 election-meddling investigation that he is dangerously close to crossing,' he wrote. President Donald Trump has repeatedly slammed the Mueller probe as a 'witch hunt' and railed against former attorney general Jeff Sessions for recusing himself of oversight of the inquiry Special counsel Robert Mueller's team ran through $16 million in funding during its first year 'If he were to continue to investigate the [Trump family's] financial relationships without a broadened scope in his appointment, then this would raise serious concerns that the special counsel's investigation was a mere witch hunt.' Since Trump tapped him, Democrats have threatened to investigate Whitaker and closely monitor his conduct. 'Our very first witness on after January 3, we will subpoena, or we will summon if necessary, subpoena, Mr. Whitaker,' incoming House Judiciary chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler told CNN 'State of the Union' on Sunday. A British tourist was allegedly raped in an abandoned house by a sushi chef in Thailand. The 24-year-old woman said she drank with the chef in a bar near Kata beach in Phuket on Thursday night. She asked for a lift home but passed out and woke up in an empty house with the chef assaulting her, she said. The 24-year-old woman said she drank with the chef in a bar near Kata beach (pictured) in Phuket on Thursday night The woman escaped and sought help from locals. A woman who owned a local bakery saw her crying and helped her file a police report. The 24-year-old was then rushed to hospital, the Thai Post reported. Police arrested 40-year-old sushi chef Amnat Atthajak the same day. They said he admitted assaulting her but denied raping her. The UK embassy has been informed. In September a British backpacker who was allegedly drugged, tied up and raped on the Thai island of Koh Tao warned others not to go there. The 19-year-old Brit claimed she was drugged while drinking on Sairee Beach, and later woke up on the sand with no underwear on, next to an unknown man who had sexually assaulted her. U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday urged Florida election officials to end a recount and declare his fellow Republicans the winners of disputed races in last week's midterm elections as a judge urged both parties to be careful with claims of fraud. As Florida officials scrambled to review more than 8 million ballots by Thursday, Trump, without providing evidence, cast doubt on the recount process. Leads by the Republican candidates in the races for a seat in the U.S. Senate and for the governor's office shrank as more ballots were tallied following last Tuesday's election. State law mandates recounts in elections where margin of victory is within 0.5 percentage points. Trump called for an end to the recount even though state rules allow election officials to wait 10 days for absentee ballots submitted by registered voters living outside the United States, including active-duty military personnel. A machine recount began over the weekend in the race between outgoing Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott and Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, with another recount underway for the Florida gubernatorial race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum. Florida Gov. Ricj Scott is under new pressure to recuse himself from overseeing his state's razor-thin race for the U.S. Senate because he's the GOP's candidate Protesters have descended on Broward County, Florida as ballot recounts proceed in Senate and governor's races Republicans have outstripped Democrats in their grassroots zeal but not in their lawyering Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is trying to overcome a deficit that was 56,000 votes on election night but has dwindled to fewer than 13,000 since then Republicans are eager to cement victories in a key battleground state after maintaining their control of the U.S. Senate in last week's midterm congressional elections, while Democrats are eyeing another possible state governorship win. Both parties accused the other of trying to subvert democracy. Scott on Sunday had asked a Broward County judge to issue an emergency injunction calling for law enforcement to seize all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots when they are not being used until the end of the recount and any related litigation. The judge rejected that request on Monday, according to Marc Elias, an attorney representing the Nelson campaign. The Scott campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Broward County Circuit Judge Jack Tuter urged both sides to be restrained in their public statements as the state faces a repeat of its dramatic role in the 2000 U.S. presidential vote recount. 'I am urging (the lawyers) to tamp down the rhetoric,' Tuter told a hearing, according to the Miami Herald. 'We have to be careful about what we say.' Trump repeated his complaints over the Florida races in a Twitter post on Monday. The president instead called on state authorities to go with the initial vote count totals. Trump alleged voter fraud had taken place, but provided no evidence. President Donald Trump said Monday on Twitter that the recount should bestopped, claiming Democrats in a few counties are committed fraud, but a judge said that's not been proven Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, right, is the Democrats' lightning rod, accused by the GOP of presiding over an incompetent department that has also mized ineligible ballots with legally cast ones, and destroyed others 'The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!' he wrote. Studies have found no evidence of large-scale voter fraud in the United States, though through the nation's history courts have found evidence of policies intended to suppress voting by minorities. 'There's zero evidence backing up claims by Republican extremists that Democrats are trying to steal the election,' Nelson said on Twitter on Monday. 'What we're trying to do is make sure every lawful vote is counted.' Nelson on Monday called on Scott to recuse himself from playing any role in overseeing the recount. Florida law gives local election officials until the Saturday after an election to submit their first round of unofficial election results. It is common for elections supervisors to process results well after election night. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which has said it will review allegations of criminal fraud, stated that it had no active investigations as of late Friday. Scott has said he won the Senate race even as the ballots are tallied again, telling Fox News on Monday: 'I want to make sure there's a free and fair election. But there's laws. Comply with the laws.' This Republican protest sign is hanging around the neck of a skeleton, representing deceased Floridians who the voter rolls show cast ballots An employee at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office prepares to sort ballots before being counted on Monday Neighboring Georgia's gubernatorial race also remains undecided as does the U.S. Senate contest in Arizona. Several U.S House of Representative races are also still too close to call. Democrats seized control of the House in last week's election. The Democratic National Committee and veterans' advocacy group VoteVets Action Fund filed a new lawsuit on Monday asking a federal judge to order state officials to accept all mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day, rather than only those received by 7 p.m. that day, the same time that polls closed. The lawsuit noted that nearly 875,000 of the 3.5 million vote-by-mail ballots requested this year had not been counted as received by the Nov. 6 deadline. The lawsuit noted that voters had no control over potential mail delays resulting from U.S. Postal Service delivery changes, or from an October bomb scare that evacuated a distribution center in a small and heavily minority community outside Miami. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West paid for private firefighters to save their home from the destructive Woolsey wildfire in California, it has been revealed. The couple hired a private team to fight back the flames that were inching closer and closer to their $60million Hidden Hills home on Friday, according to TMZ. On the same day, Kim revealed the family had been forced to evacuate. The couple are now being credited with helping save the whole neighborhood by funding the private team. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West paid for private firefighters to save their home from the destructive Woolsey wildfire in California Kim and Kanye's mansion (pictured) sits at the end of a cul-de sac that borders a field. If their residence had been torched, it would have started a domino effect that could have leveled dozens of surrounding homes in the neighborhood Kim revealed on Friday that the couple had been forced to evacuate from their home Kim and Kanye's mansion sits at the end of a cul-de sac that borders a field. If their residence had been torched, it would have started a domino effect that could have leveled dozens of surrounding homes in the neighborhood. The couple's private firefighting team dug a number of ditches to create a fire break and help stave off the blaze. Neighbors told TMZ they were thankful the couple had funded the private team and brought in firefighters to save their homes. California's Woosley fire was still on the couple's mind as Kim attended the People's Choice Awards with her sisters before heading to Kanye's performance at Camp Flog Gnaw in Los Angeles on Sunday night. Kim dedicated her family's People Choice Award win to first responders on Sunday night. Keeping Up With The Kardashians won the Reality Show of 2018 award The Kardashian sisters took their mind of the blaze with a trip to Dodger Stadium to enjoy Kanye West's concert with Kid Cudi at Camp Flog Gnaw on Sunday Kendall Jenner donned a medical mask, likely to protect herself from the smoke-filled air, as she danced with Kim, Kourney, and Khloe The Kardashian sisters and Kris Jenner happily accepted the award for Best Reality TV show and dedicated their win to those on the front lines of California's fires. 'We would like to dedicate this win to all of the firefighters, police offers, and first responders,' Kim said after the family made their way to the podium. 'As horrible as this has been, it's been amazing to see the spirit of everyone involved,' she told the audience. 'So anything that we can do to help the many organizations - no form of help is too small. We must continue to reach out and help each other in these trying times.' Kim then made her way to Dodger Stadium with sisters Khloe, Kourtney, and Kendall to support her husband, who was performing with Kid Cudi. Kendall Jenner could be seen wearing a medical mask, likely to protect herself from the smoke-filled area, as she enjoyed the concert with her sisters. Kim posted frequent updates during the blaze, revealing on Friday that she had left her home. 'I heard the flames have hit our property at our home in Hidden Hills but now are more contained and have stopped at the moment,' she tweeted. Kardashian tweeted on Instagram story that she had received an hour to evacuate her home after returning to Calabasas on Thursday She later posted a picture of herself with Khloe Kardashian's daughter True and said she was 'trying to get my mind off of this fire' Kanye West took to Twitter during the blaze to tweet his support for firefighters during the blaze this weekend Khloe revealed on Friday that she had evacuated with just the clothes on her back but that she had packed up her daughter's 'entire bedroom and closet in the car' 'It doesn't seems like it is getting worse right now, I just pray the winds are in our favor. God is good. I'm just praying everyone is safe.' 'Fire Fighters, I love you and thank you for doing all that you can to keep us safe!' she wrote in a separate tweet. Kim later posted a picture of herself snuggling with her sister Khloe's daughter True. 'Trying to get my mind off of this fire and snuggling with my niece. We are all safe and that's all that matters,' she wrote. Kanye West also took to Twitter during the blaze to tweet his support for firefighters. 'In light of these situations, I am so inspired by the firefighters and first responders who are risking their lives to do whatever they can to help,' he wrote. 'They are our true heroes. We must all come together during these difficult times to support each other May God Bless us all.' Kourtney Kardashian's neighborhood (pictured) is saved by Phos-Chek, a flame retardant material that aids in stopping or slowing down fires Various members of the Kardashian clan also took to Twitter to shares updates about their evacuations and to thank firefighters. Kris Jenner shared photos of a few brave firefighters that were battling the blaze in her neighborhood, along with a heartfelt message of gratitude. 'We spent yesterday evacuating our homes and I want to take a moment to thank all of the incredibly brave firefighters, servicemen, first responders, volunteers and all of those who are working tirelessly to protect our lives and our homes,' she wrote. 'We are so appreciative of your bravery and everything you're doing for us. I'm praying for everyone's safety.' Khloe asked her fans to make a donation to help victims of the fire and to the California Fire Association in order to support those still battling the deadly blaze. Santa Ana winds pushed the deadly blaze toward Malibu, forcing dozens of celebrities to leave their home and destroying the houses of Miley Cyrus and Gerard Butler, among others She also revealed she had left her home with just the clothes on her back but had packed 'True's entire bedroom and closet' into her car. 'Obviously she's all that matters to me,' Khloe added. Kourtney left her Calabasas home and posted an Instagram picture of suitcases in her car as she went to stay with at Kendall's house in Beverly Hills. The Woolsey fire has spread to 91,572 acres and was 20 percent contained as of Monday morning. Two people have died in the fire and 31 total have been killed statewide as the Camp fire continues to blaze through Northern California. The ground at the home of Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth (pictured) still smolders after the Woolsey Fire in Malibu Camille Grammer posted a photo of her home up in flames and revealed it had been destroyed Gerard Butler returned to his Malibu home on Sunday and found it had also perished in the fire Santa Ana winds pushed the deadly blaze toward Malibu, forcing dozens of celebrities to leave their home. Miley Cyrus, Gerard Butler, Robin Thicke, Camille Grammer, and Neil Young are among the stars who have lost their homes in the flames. Young took to his personal website on Sunday night to blast President Donald Trump for his comments on the devastating fires. Trump was widely criticized over the weekend after blaming 'poor' forest management for the fires and threatening to withhold federal funds. Neil Young hit back at President Donald Trump following his comments on the California fires As dozens of people perished in flames, Trump criticized forest management and even threatened to withhold federal funds Young, who has now lost two homes to wildfires in the state, hit back against the president and said it was climate change that was to blame for the frequent blazes. 'California is vulnerable - not because of poor forest management as DT (our so-called president) would have us think,' Young wrote in the post obtained by Page Six. 'We are vulnerable because of Climate Change; the extreme weather events and our extended drought is part of it.' 'Our temperatures are higher than ever here in our hottest summer on record. California is a paradise for us all. We are sad not to be able to defend it against Mother Nature's wrath.' Miss Whitmore, 20, above, posing with damp in the council flat bricks, has been signed off of work as a cleaner due to health issues. She said they have to keep her furniture away from the walls A young couple who live in a mould-plagued council-house claim they are forced to sleep on a wet mattress under damp sheets every night. Millennials Mark Kent and Mary Whitmore, both aged 20, say they are constantly battling eye infections, dizziness and migraines due to the state of their council-owned flat in Kings Norton, Birmingham. These shocking photos of their council flat show mushrooms sprouting from dank crevasses and black mould stains on the walls. They had to throw away a whole wardrobe of clothing after the mould crept its way into their storage and stained all their clothes. Their bed suddenly broke after the leather fell apart after the slats crumbled with damp, and instead sleep on the floor. Millennials Mark Kent and Mary Whitmore, both aged 20, claim they are forced to sleep on this wet mattress under damp sheets every night. The young couple say they are constantly battling eye infections, dizziness and migraines due to the state of their council-owned flat, with their bedroom pictured above The couple have endured the horrific conditions, in what they are calling an 'uninhabitable' property, for three years. Mr Kent and Miss Whitmore are on their third mattress - which is already stained, clammy and saturated with damp. The pair say they have to change their bed sheets every night because they become soaking wet within 24 hours. They also have to go shopping every two days, since their food packaging grows mould and the contents go rotten. They had to throw away wardrobes-full of clothing after the mould, pictured on the ceiling above, crept its way into their storage and stained all their clothes. The couple have launched legal proceedings against Birmingham City Council Mushrooms even started growing from the tiles in the shower of their damp-ridden abode. Mr Kent has suffered with conjunctivitis five times along with excruciating migraines. He said: 'I never suffered with my eyes until I lived here, now I get migraines and keep getting eye infections. Miss Whitmore said her dad has asthma and has to go outside when he comes round, 'because he's coughing his guts up at the smell'. Birmingham City Council confirmed they are aware of the problems and are working with the couple 'We looked into it online and it said it was because the mould spores have been going into my eyes.' 'One day their bed just suddenly broke after the leather fell apart and the slats crumbled with damp. Miss Whitmore said: 'My dad has asthma and when he has come round he has had to go outside because he's coughing his guts up at the smell. This photo shows just one of the black mould stains, above, which they claim is on every wall. Birmingham City Council reportedly advised them to keep windows open, push everything three inches away from walls and to dry their clothes outside Mr Kent has suffered with conjunctivitis five times along with excruciating migraines. They claim they are constantly battling eye infections, dizziness and migraines due to the state of their council flat 'It is a nightmare, it has changed my life. We can't be us here, we've just had to adapt to it.' Birmingham City Council reportedly advised them to keep windows open, push everything three inches away from walls and to dry their clothes outside. 'They told us we have to keep the window open all the time, but we live in a ground floor flat, so everyone can see in and it isn't safe.' Fed-up Mr Kent said: 'When I moved in, it looked great, it was all freshly painted - then the mould started coming through. They had just painted over it, covering up the ten years it has been rotting. 'Even if the council repaired the house, it still has all these bad memories. 'It has been a stressful period battling for three years. 'We need to see something at the end for what we've gone through.' The pair say they have to change their bed sheets every night because they become soaking wet within 24 hours because of the mould, seen on their ceiling above Mushrooms even started growing from the tiles in the shower of their damp-ridden abode. Miss Whitmore has been signed off work as a cleaner due to health issues Mushrooms even started growing from the tiles in the shower of their damp-ridden abode. The couple have endured the horrific conditions, in what they are calling an 'uninhabitable' property, for three years Birmingham City Council confirmed they are aware of the problems and are working with the couple. A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: 'Our housing team is aware of issues raised by the tenant, through a notice of disrepair received in December 2017, and we have been actively working with the family. 'However as these are subject to active legal proceedings, we are unable to comment further.' Sales of PG Wodehouse's Jeeves stories are rocketing in Japan after the Empress revealed she planned to spend her retirement reading them. Empress Michiko, whose husband Akihito plans to abdicate as Emperor next April, is a huge fan of the English author's tales of wealthy young Londoner Bertie Wooster and his ingenious valet Jeeves. She was recently asked about her retirement plans and replied that she was looking forward to reading Wodehouse's 35 short stories and 11 novels about the pair. Emperor Akihito plans to abdicate in favour of his son Naruhito in April 2019. His wife, Empress Michiko (pictured together), has said she plans to read lots in her retirement A post by Japanese bookstore Isehara Shoten which was captioned: 'We have Her Majesty's beloved Jeeves series in stock!' She said: 'There's been a book series I've sought to read for a long time, that I have left untouched for years. I am looking forward to taking the time to read each and every one.' When asked why she had not yet got around to reading them before now, Empress Michiko replied: 'When I read them, I get completely hooked and can't do anything else, so up until now I've kept away from them. 'But after retirement I can easily keep them on hand. I've got two or three volumes standing by.' Wodehouse's stories about the industrious and clever valet, who is always getting his carefree master out of trouble, were written between 1915 and 1974, a span of almost 60 years. They are regarded as much-loved classics of English literature but were rather less well known in Japan, until now. Empress Michiko's recommendation has reportedly led to thousands of Japanese people rushing to bookstores to buy or order their own copies. One publisher, Kokusho, said its telephones barely stopped ringing after the Empress spoke out about her love of the series, with thousands of orders coming in. Some publishers even printed new editions, featuring the Empress's comments on the cover, while many Japanese bookstores posted displays of Jeeves books. The English novels were turned into a British TV series with Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as Wooster in 1990. Meghan McCain hit back at defeated Republican Jason Lewis for claiming it was her late father's fault that the GOP lost its House majority in the recent midterm elections. In an article for The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Lewis, who was unseated by Democrat Angie Craig last week, said it was McCain's vote against the Obamacare repeal in 2017 which led to the overall result. He was lambasted for it on Twitter by critics who included McCain's daughter Meghan. She labeled the op-ed 'abhorrent'. Meghan McCain tweeted her disgust over Jason Lewis's article on Monday She said it was 'abhorrent' for Lewis, right, to blame the GOP's House defeat on her late father In his article, Lewis, who is the outgoing Representative for Minnesota's 2nd district, wrote: 'The Republican Party lost its House majority on July 28, 2017, when Sen. John McCain ended the partys seven-year quest to repeal ObamaCare. 'House leadership had done an admirable job herding cats. On the second try, we passed the American Health Care Act in May. 'Then McCains inscrutable vote against the Senates skinny repeal killed the reform effort. ' He went on to suggest that McCain, a war hero who spent five years in captivity during the Vietnam war, only voted against the repeal because he did not like President Trump. 'The late Arizona senators grievance with all things Trump was well known, but this obsession on the part of Never Trump Republicans has to end. Lewis's op-ed was published by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday Lewis's article drew criticism from other Twitter users 'Disapprove of the presidents style if you like, but dont sacrifice sound policy to pettiness,' he said. He was lampooned for the article online. Critics labeled it 'disgusting' and poignantly offensive given it was published on Veterans Day. He was previously criticized for his remarks about calling women 'sluts'. In a 2012 radio show which he hosted, he said: 'Are we beyond the days that a woman can behave as a slut but you can't call her a slut?' Europe must 'become an Empire' to rival China and the US, a French minister said yesterday. Economics and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the EU must project its power around the globe to promote peace and protect the environment. He told German newspaper Handelsblatt: 'It's about Europe having to become an Empire, as China is. And how the US is. But a peaceful empire that relies on green growth. Neither China nor the US, who are leaving the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, are on this line.' Economics and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire (right with EU President Jean-Claude Juncker) said the EU must project its power around the globe to promote peace and protect the environment Asked why he used the controversial word empire, Mr Le Maire clarified: 'Do not get me wrong, I'm talking about a peaceful empire that's a constitutional state. I use the term to raise awareness that tomorrow's world will be shaped by the powerful. 'Power will make the difference: technological power, economic, financial, monetary, cultural power will be crucial. Europe should no longer shy away from playing its power and being an empire of peace.' It comes after President Macron last week called for 'a real European army' to protect the continent from growing military threats - including the United States. The French President said China and Russia were becoming increasingly powerful, and that the US under President Donald Trump could not be relied upon for defence. French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a Europe-wide army to protect the continent against growing threats of 'China, Russia and even the United States of America' The 40-year-old said some of the actions taken by the US President would have consequences for security in Europe. 'We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America,' Mr Macron told Paris radio station Europe 1. 'When I see President Trump announcing that he's quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and its security. 'We will not protect the Europeans unless we decide to have a true European army.' President Trump called Mr Macron's comments 'insulting' in a Tweet and said Europe should pay more towards NATO. He wrote: 'President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly!' The EU launched a multi-billion-euro defence fund last year designed to develop Europe's military capacities and make the continent more strategically independent. France has also led the creation of a nine-country force designed to be capable of rapidly mounting a joint military operation. A Nazi fanatic found guilty of being part of an extreme right-wing group and who named his baby son after Adolf Hitler spent a year in Israel trying to become a Jew, MailOnline can reveal. Adam Thomas and his girlfriend Claudia Patatas are facing up to 10 years in jail after being found guilty of being part of banned extreme right group National Action today. The right-wing extremist couple, who hoarded Nazi memorabilia at their Birmingham home, posed with their newborn baby wearing white Ku Klux Klan outfits. But a Rabbi has told MailOnline how Thomas, 22, developed a bizarre obsession with Judaism and contacted him to convert. Avishai Grosser said he spoke several times on the phone to Thomas, who showed an impressive knowledge of the religion. Adam Thomas (left and right), a Nazi fanatic found guilty of being part of an extreme right-wing group and who named his baby son after Adolf Hitler spent a year in Israel trying to become a Jew, MailOnline can reveal Thomas (right) and Claudia Patatas (left) holding a Swastika flag with their baby, who was named after Hitler despite Thomas previously being obsessed with converting to Judaism Rabbi Avishai Grosser (pictured at the head of the table) told MailOnline that Thomas (far left) repeatedly said he wanted to join the Israeli military. He also expressed an interest in killing Arabs Rabbi Grosser, who is based in Jerusalem, said Thomas then started wearing Jewish clothing at his grandparents' home where he was living. The Rabbi said he helped Thomas move to the northern Israeli city of Haifa in February 2016 and took the name Avi ben Avraham. Rabbi Grosser told MailOnline: 'He repeatedly confided that his dream was to join the Israeli military and to become an Israeli citizen.' Two months after moving to Haifa Thomas was given a place at Machon Meir, a religious school in Jerusalem, where he began the education required to convert. But two months later he dropped out of the school. Former school friends recall that his pseudo-Jewish views became increasingly violent and he urged Israel to be more like Saudi Arabia where gays could be stoned to death. Thomas holds his baby, who he gave the middle name Adolf after the Nazi leader, in a white Ku-Klux Klan costume that he inherited from his great-grandfather, a supporter of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists in the 1930s Despite his repugnant anti-Semitic views, Thomas moved to the northern Israeli city of Haifa in February 2016 and took the name Avi ben Avraham Benjamin Moss, 23, said: 'He saw himself as more Jewish than the Jews and had a massive superiority complex. He would say all Jews who disagreed with him were going to hell. As time went on, students and teachers at the seminary raised concern about Mr Thomas' 'obsession' with violence. 'He was obsessed with going to the army and was obsessed with killing,' Mr Moss said. 'I was serving in the army myself, and he would ask if me if I got to kill Arabs. He seemed pretty excited about wanting to kill them. Thomas (left) and his girlfriend Patatas (right) were convicted of being members of the proscribed terror group National Action Police found Nazi memorabilia which had the swastika emblazoned on it in the Oxfordshire home of Thomas and Patatas Another former school friend said Thomas persuaded a group of Jewish extremists in Hebron, on the West Bank, to give him a circumcision even though he was not a Jew. David Simpkins, 34, his room-mate at Machon Meir seminary, said: 'When he came back, it was just obvious he was in some kind of pain and he told me he'd been circumcised. I told him that was incredibly stupid.' After dropping out of school Thomas moved to Tel Aviv to live with a non-Jewish girlfriend. In March 2016, the relationship broke down and he ended up living rough on the streets. Out of concern for his welfare, Rabbi Grosser tracked him down, bought him food and persuaded him that 'it was the wrong time to convert to Judaism and that he should return to the UK, where he resumed his racist and anti-Semitic views and joined National Action. SNc Channels: Search About Salem-News.com Nov-12-2018 13:31 TweetFollow @OregonNews California AG Denounces Trump's Plan to Roll Back LGBTQ Civil Rights Protections Rumored change would deny the existence of transgender people (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) - A change in federal law would effectively deny the existence of transgender Americans, denying them basic protections that allow people to learn, work, and seek medical care in a safe environment without discrimination. Friday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sent a letter to President Trump, Secretaries Azar, Acosta, and DeVos, and Acting Attorney General Whitaker, condemning the Administrations reported plan to alter the law to narrowly define sex as an immutable, biological condition assigned at birth. Once again, the Trump Administration seems intent on rolling back the civil rights advancements of the last half century: this time with another unlawful and disgraceful attack on transgender Americans, said Attorney General Becerra. This latest proposal contradicts the values of equality that our nation was built on. Whats worse, it threatens the health, job security, and education of our community members. We urge the Trump Administration to abandon these harmful and discriminatory efforts, and we stand ready to protect the civil rights of all Americans. In the letter, Attorney General Becerra asserts that the Trump Administrations proposed changes are discriminatory and unsupported by federal law. In addition to being contrary to law, the letter warns that the Trump Administrations plan would have harmful impacts on the health and security of thousands of Californians as well as the public health system. The American Medical Association has noted that those who live in states with discriminatory policies have statistically significant increases in mental health and psychiatric diagnoses. California has been a leader in protecting civil rights and liberties for our transgender residents, working to ensure that individuals can work, learn, and receive care in a safe environment, free from discrimination. California has protected transgender people from workplace and housing discrimination for over a decade and was one of the first states to explicitly protect transgender students in our schools. These protections are crucial for the health and well-being of students and workers, regardless of gender or gender identity. In December 2017, Attorney General Becerra obtained a nationwide injunction protecting transgender Americans serving in the military. He also joined an amicus brief in support of transgender rights for veterans in the case Fulcher v. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, defending the right to health care coverage from the Department of Veterans Affairs for medically necessary care, including sex reassignment surgery. A copy of the comment letter can be found here. _________________________________________ United-states | Business | Most Commented on Articles for November 12, 2018 | Articles for November 13, 2018 Firefighters have fought desperately to stave off the death and destruction that the California wildfires have wreaked on residents, but devastating before and after images reveal just how much some have lost. At least 31 people have died since the wildfires broke out last week and hundreds remain unaccounted for. Firefighters are working round-the-clock to get the fires under control despite losing their own homes to the flames. Slide me An entire home is gone after the California wildfires incinerated this Malibu home, leaving just the chimney and the driveway entryway Slide me A visitor center at Leo Carrillo State Park has been gutted after wildfires swept through Slide me A chimney stack is all that's left of this Malibu property after the wildfires razed entire communities to the ground Firefighters were already battling the deadly Woosley fire, which has killed two people and is only 20 percent contained, as well as the Hill fire when two new blazes sparked on Monday. The Lynn fire broke out in Thousand Oaks, which is still reeling from a horrific mass shooting that took 12 lives last week. It burned 15 acres as of Monday morning but the Ventura County Fire Department said the threat to nearby structures was 'diminishing' as firefighters were able to 'get a handle' on the flames. Meanwhile, a new blaze dubbed the Peak fire was seen burning right by the 118 Freeway in Simi Valley. It was reported around 10.30am and at least 105 acres have been burned. Fire crews said they stopped forward progress of the flames around 1pm. People could be seen turning their cars around and driving the wrong way on the freeway to get away from the smoke and flames. The California Highway Patrol temporarily closed part of the 118 as firefighters worked to contain the flames. Slide me The coast line in Santa Monica is covered in smoke after fires ripped through and left clouds Meanwhile, authorities have more than doubled their estimates of buildings destroyed in huge wildfires. Firefighters put out a red weather alert late in Southern California on Sunday, fearing high Santa Ana winds could reach up to 50 mph and keep fanning the flames into Tuesday, making things worse before they get better. Huge plumes of smoke rose in the fire area, which stretches miles from the northwest corner of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley to the Malibu coast. 'Sadly, with these winds, it's not over yet,' Scott Jalbert, chief of Cal Fire's San Luis Obispo Unit, said Sunday morning. A one-day lull did allow firefighters to gain 20 percent control of the Woolsey fire, which has burned more than 91,572 acres since Thursday. Officials said Monday that an estimated 370 structures burned in the Woolsey fire and that only 15 per cent of their damage estimate has been completed. They said over the weekend that 177 buildings had burned amid predictions that the number would grow higher with new damage assessments. Slide me A sign reading 'Malibu. 21 miles of scenic beauty' can be seen before and after the fires Slide me Wooden structure at this Malibu restaurant burned like matches in the California wildfires In Northern California, the Camp fire blaze almost completely wiped out the town of Paradise and killed at least 29 people. Rescue teams are now on the ground in what remains of the town and have been identifying more victims each day. Authorities said 228 people are still unaccounted, meaning that death toll could rise considerably in the town, which is a popular retirement community. A quarter of Paradise's population was over the age of 65. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the devastation is so complete in some neighborhoods that 'it's very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there'. 'In some cases, the only remains we are able to recover are bones or bone fragments,' Honea said. Ten search and recovery teams are working in Paradise and authorities called in a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify victims. Bali Nine drug smuggler Renae Lawrence will be released from prison on November 21 following a 13-year stint behind bars in Indonesia for heroin trafficking. The 41-year-old will become the only member of the notorious syndicate to leave prison in Bali alive when she is released next week. Lawrence will likely be deported back to Australia after she leaves Bali's Bangli jail. 'She will be released on November 21,' the head of Bangli jail, Made Suwendra, told AFP. Bali Nine member Renae Lawrence (pictured) is set to be released from prison in Indonesia on November 21 Lawrence has been behind bars in Bali's Bangli jail since she was convicted of attempting to smuggle 2.6kg of heroin into Australia '(Lawrence) is a nice person. Accommodating, easy to work with and be friends with. There have been no problems since she's been here.' Lawrence has been behind bars in Bangli jail since she was convicted of attempting to smuggle 2.6kg of heroin into Australia through Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport on April 17, 2005. The drugs were found strapped to her body - and the bodies of three other drug mules - after the Australian Federal Police tipped off Indonesian authorities. Two separate sources previously confirmed to 10 Daily News that the sole female member of the drug trafficking group will be released from jail by the end of the month. Bali's head of Board Corrections, I Made Badra, told the publication that his team are working with the Australian consulate on Lawrence's release. 'On the day of her release, we'll take her to Denpasar Immigration for her passport and plane ticket,' he said. Bali's head of Board Corrections, I Made Badra, said his team are working with the Australian consulate on Lawrence's release Lawrence hopes to work when she returns to Australia but believes it may not be easy to find an employer that will take on an ex-prisoner Lawrence could have been freed from prison in May but couldn't make the $100,000 payment and opted to remain in jail for another six months. Fellow Bali Nine members Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were executed by firing squad in 2015, while Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died from cancer earlier this year. Lawrence hopes to work when she returns to Australia but believes it may not be easy to find an employer that will take on an ex-prisoner. 'In Australia, it's difficult because we already have the status of prisoner,' Lawrence told News Corp in August. 'If the owner of the company is a kind person and can accept us but that person rarely exists.' She was the only Bali Nine member to not receive life imprisonment and has been making the most of the rehabilitation programs while in jail. Myuran Sukumaran (right) and Andrew Chan (left) were executed by firing squad in 2015 An iconic Melbourne cafe co-owned by a man who was brutally killed by a barbaric terrorist has reopened for the first time since his death. Beloved coffee maestro Sisto Malaspina, 74, was stabbed to death just a few hundred metres from his Pellegrini's Bar Espresso on Friday afternoon. Pelligrini's reopened on Tuesday at 8am in a limited capacity but heartbroken staff left Mr Malaspina's famous seat the bar empty. The Melbourne espresso bar co-owned by beloved coffee maestro Sisto Malaspina (pictured) reopened on Tuesday, the first time since his death Heartbroken staff left Mr Malaspina's famous seat the bar empty when they reopened on Tuesday Melbourne's Pellegrini's Espresso Bar has been closed since Mr Malaspina was killed by a barbaric terrorist on Friday afternoon When the cafe reopened, customers were being offered free long blacks. 'We will be serving long blacks for free. It was Sisto's favourite and will be in memory of him,' Pellegrini's co-owner Nino Pangrazio said. The family of Mr Malaspina will reportedly not attend the reopening but on Monday evening they issued a statement thanking the community for their support. 'To the people of Melbourne, your heartfelt tributes have shown us why our Dad loved this great city so much,' the statement said. 'Dad was a larger than life character and his natural generosity made every individual he met feel welcome and important. 'Each customer of Dad's was given the same respect and service regardless of their standing in society. To him everyone was special. His love and passion for his customers remained the same for over 40 years. To him it was a joy to go to work every day. Pellegrini's co-owner Nino Pangrazio received a hug outside the cafe on Tuesday 'We will be serving long blacks for free. It was Sisto's favourite and will be in memory of him,' Mr Pangrazio said Mr Pangrazio spoke to emotional cafe staff before Pellegrini's was reopened on Tuesday Mr Malaspina (pictured) was stabbed to death by terrorist Khalif Shire Ali after the 74-year-old rushed outside to help him out of his burning car 'His love and passion for his customers remained the same for over 40 years. To him it was a joy to go to work every day,' a statement from Mr Malaspina's family said Customers lined up to get their coffee from Pellegrini's on Tuesday after it was closed for four days following Mr Malaspina's death Pelligrini's cake maker Lucy walked with flowers as she visited the espresso bar on Tuesday 'He was a distinctly recognisable figure in his colourful choice of clothing and his flamboyant personality. To us he was just a beautiful man, a loving husband and a doting father. 'In honour of Dad's memory the wonderful staff at Pellegrinis are determined to continue his legacy with the same passion.' There are expected to be many important guests at the state funeral, possibly including Prime Minister Scott Morrison who has indicated a desire to pay his respects. Mr Malaspina was killed and two other men were injured when 30-year-old terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali drove a ute into Melbourne and launched a knife attack. Ali crashed his ute in Bourke Street at about 4:10pm on Friday, setting it on fire with 'barbecue-style gas bottles' opened and primed to explode inside. He then stabbed Malaspina, who rushed outside to help him out of the burning car. The restaurateur died in the street while police shot Ali, who died later in hospital. The family of Mr Malaspina has issued a statement thanking the community for their support Mr Malaspina had co-owned Pellegrini's Espresso Bar on Melbourne's Bourke Street since 1974 Mr Malaspina had co-owned Pellegrini's, on Bourke Street, since 1974 and both man and venue had become icons in Melbourne. A state funeral will be held for Mr Malaspina next week. Premier Daniel Andrews had spoken with Mr Malaspina's family over the past two days and was pleased they had taken up his offer of a state funeral. 'The governor will speak at that state funeral on behalf of all Victorians. There will be many others that will pay tribute to such a beautiful man. And I'm sure that the crowds will be enormous - a great show of strength that we won't be cowered by this evil,' Mr Andrews told the Nine Network on Tuesday. 'So many Melburnians knew him and even if you had not spent a lot of time with him, you had a sense you knew him because he is the father of our cafe culture. He is the father of that kind of generosity of spirit right throughout our hospitality industry that we value and cherish so much.' A celebrity surgeon, who once boasted of doing five nose jobs a day, has had his medical licence suspended. Dr William Mooney, 51, was working in Sydney's affluent eastern suburbs, and claimed to be Australia's 'leading ear, nose and throat surgeon'. One of Dr Mooney's patients was feared standover man and bikie associate Alex 'Little Al' Taouil, who died after undergoing surgery for sinus issues at East Sydney Private Hospital in December. Aspiring pilot Pouya Pouladian, 24, suffered a huge brain bleed just two days after he underwent an operation for sleep apnoea performed by Dr Mooney at Strathfield Private Hospital in March. Dr William Mooney, 51, was working in Sydney's affluent eastern suburbs, is one of Australia's 'leading ear, nose and throat surgeon In April, stripper Melissa Demaj sued Dr Mooney after receiving a nose job at a strip club in Melbourne where she was working His family later turned his life support off on March 3, the same day it emerged Taouil, 41, had died. Mr Pouladian had been working long hours at two jobs while training to become a pilot, and to support his mother and sister after the death of his father. His mother Sisi said he had 'many dreams', and wanted to 'do something for this country'. Dr Mooney has denied any wrongdoing, and previously said in a statement he was 'terribly sorry' and that 'each (death) was a tragedy... neither was caused by a complication in my procedure'. In April, stripper Melissa Demaj sued Dr Mooney after receiving a nose job at a strip club in Melbourne where she was working. She claimed the only medical consultation she received before the procedure happened in the early hours of the morning at the club. 'That nose job literally destroyed my life,' she said. Before his suspension, Dr Mooney was ordered not to perform procedures on the nasal cavity above and between the eyes as part of restrictions on his registration. The register does not disclose the reason why Dr Mooney's medical registration is suspended and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation (AHPRA) does not comment on individual cases. A Health Care Complaints Commission spokesperson said it had received 'a number of complaints' regarding Dr Mooney earlier this year, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Aspiring pilot Pouya Pouladian, 24, suffered a huge brain bleed just two days after he underwent an operation for sleep apnoea performed by Dr Mooney Aston Martin-driving Dr Mooney is the founder of the Face Plus Medispa chain, which has clinics in Bondi Junction and Bondi Beach in the city's east and in Bankstown in the west. He claimed to be 'Sydney's Premiere Rhinoplasty Surgeon'. The AHPRA does not comment on specific cases, and has not disclosed why Dr Mooney was suspended. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the AHPRA and Dr Mooney for comment. Dr Mooney previously told Daily Mail Australia thousands of office workers were flocking to his Bondi clinic for a 'lunch break nose job', in which patients received injections to reshape their noses. One of Dr Mooney's patients was feared standover man and bikie associate Alex 'Little Al' Taouil, who died after undergoing surgery for sinus issues. Pictured: A tattoo tribute to Taouil 'I have a lot of people who come in with little irregularities or little bumps who want to reshape their nose quickly and without surgery,' Dr Mooney said. 'It takes about an hour and people often come in and go straight back to work. It's a real 'millennial nose job' because that generation just craves immediacy and wants everything right away.' Dr Mooney said he was performing about five nose jobs per day. 'I've had one girl come in, who was really beautiful but had this dent in her nose that I fixed straight away with the procedure. I also get a lot of Greeks, Italians and Oriental people wanting to alter their noses slightly,' Dr Mooney said. A Florida judge overseeing a fierce recount battle is urging all sides to 'ramp down the rhetoric' after Florida Gov. Rick Scott alleged voter fraud and President Trump weighed in to claim ballots were 'massively infected.' Circuit Chief Judge Jack Tuter said during emergency hearing Monday that there is a need to reassure citizens that the integrity of the Florida recount is being protected, and said there was not in face evidence of fraud. The judge said he's seen no evidence of wrongdoing in the vote-counting in Broward County. But Trump claims corruption among Democratic officials in charge of a few Florida counties has rendered the process a crooked political exercise designed to overturn a legitimate result. A Florida judge overseeing a fierce recount battle is urging all sides to 'ramp down the rhetoric.' Florida Gov. Rick Scott holds a lead but is alleging fraud as he tries to prevent a recount form peeling away votes He issued the admonition as President Donald Trump complained Democrats had corrupted the process and even called for stopping the count of ballots in favor of the election-night projections reached by broadcast networks. 'The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged,' Trump tweeted. 'An honest vote count is no longer possible ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!' Circuit Chief Judge Jack Tuter said during emergency hearing Monday all sides should 'ramp down the rhetoric' Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson trailed by about 13,000 votes Monday Trump (pictured on Sunday) claims corruption among Democratic officials in charge of a few Florida counties has 'infected' ballots, and called for going with the result projected by TV networks Miami-Dade Election Center supervisors recount the ballots and are already halfway through the recount total on Monday, Nov. 12, 2018 Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, right, shows a ballot box that was found in a rental car after the elections and turned out to only contain election day supplies, as election employees sort ballots and prepare to count them A worker touches a vote counting machine before a ballot recount in Lauderhill, Florida, U.S., November 12, 2018 A worker pushes a cart full of early ballots before a ballot recount in Lauderhill, Florida, U.S., November 12, 2018 An employee at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office prepares to sort ballots before being counted, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. But having made no such determination of fraud Judge Tuter urged lawyers for Gov. Rick Scott the GOP Senate candidate and others representing the Republican and Democratic parties and their candidates as well as the Broward County elections office to agree on some minor additions in security, including the addition of three more law enforcement officers to keep an eye on things. Scott himself had alleged voter fraud without providing proof. And the judge said from the bench that if anyone any evidence of voter fraud or irregularities, they should report it to law enforcement. Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is suing the Florida Department of State in an effort to count vote-by-mail ballots that were postmarked before Election Day but not delivered before polls closed. 'The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged,' Trump tweeted Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, a candidate for governor who conceded the race last Tuesday only to change his mind as more votes came in, responded to Trump Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, left, and judge Betsy Benson of the election canvassing board, listened to arguments on Sunday about whether to include or exclude specific ballots Nelson's attorney, Marc Elias, filed the lawsuit Monday, saying voters should not be disenfranchised because of mail delivery delays that aren't their fault. Unofficial election results show Nelson trailing Republican Gov. Rick Scott by 0.14 percentage points. As an example, he cited the Miami-Dade County postal facility that was evacuated because explosive devices sent to prominent Democrats were processed there. 'Florida's 7 p.m. Election Day receipt deadline for vote by mail ballots burdens the right to vote of eligible voters,' the suit said. Elias wants all ballots postmarked before Nov. 6 to be counted if they are received within 10 days of the election. A worker organizers a stack of ballots in the midst of the controversial recount. Florida law requires machine recounts of ballots in races where less than 0.5 per cent of votes separate the top two finishers A state recount is mandated under Florida law if the candidates are separated by less than 0.5 per cent of the vote. Scott's lead has dwindled to about 13,000 votes, a number that is still a tall hurdle for Nelson to overcome even in a populous state like Florida. As a percentage, Scott is at 51.1 to Nelson's 49.9 per cent of the vote following an angry contest that saw repeated interventions by Trump in the final days of the campaign. Florida law requires machine recounts of ballots in races where less than 0.5 per cent of votes separate the top two finishers. For races with margins less than 0.25 per cent, votes must be recounted by hand. Trump tweeted Saturday: 'Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida!' and warned: 'We are watching closely!' Scott once again leveled fraud accusations on 'Fox News Sunday,' saying: 'Sen. Nelson is clearly trying to commit fraud to try to win this election' and branding him a 'sore loser' even though the recount was mandatory. 'His lawyer said that a non-citizen should vote. That's one. No. 2 two, he's gone to trial and said that fraudulent ballots should be counted. Ballots have already been thrown out because they were not done properly. He said those should be counted,' Scott said. Nelson responded that Scott was 'suing to try and stop voters from having their legal ballot counted as intended.' He added: 'He's doing this for the same reason he's been making false and panicked claims about voter fraud he's worried that when all the votes are counted, he'll lose the election,' Nelson said in a statement.' Juan Penalosa, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, accused Scott of 'using his position to consolidate power by cutting at the very core of our democracy.' Theresa May has warned that she will not sign up to a Brexit agreement 'at any cost' as she said 'significant' issues continue to block the path to a deal with Brussels. The Prime Minister used a speech to City grandees in London to say she 'will not compromise' on what people had voted for in the 2016 referendum, telling them Britons 'overwhelmingly' wanted her to 'get on' with leaving the EU. Her comments in an address to the annual Lord Mayor's Banquet seemed to extinguish hopes that the Cabinet might sign off a deal when it meets on Tuesday. They were seen as a public rebuke to EU President Michel Barnier who many feel tried to force the pace of negotiations by claiming Mrs May will present her cabinet with the outline of a deal. Theresa May (pictured giving her speech) warned she will not sign up to a Brexit agreement 'at any cost' as she said 'significant' issues continue to block the path to a deal with Brussels Prime Minister Theresa May delivers a speech during the annual Lord Mayor's Banquet at Guildhall in London Bottoms up: Mrs May enjoys a sip of red before giving her speech at the banquet Lord Mayor of London Peter Estlin (left) and Prime Minister Theresa May at the banquet If no deal is agreed by Wednesday, the prospects of a special Brexit summit in Brussels in November will recede sharply. Pictured: Mrs May speaking at the banquet If no deal is agreed by Wednesday, the prospects of a special Brexit summit in Brussels in November will recede sharply, further reducing Mrs May's chances of getting a vote in Parliament before Christmas. Mrs May told the audience at the Guildhall in London that while both sides wanted to achieve a viable Withdrawal Agreement, 'what we are negotiating is immensely difficult'. She added: 'Overwhelmingly, the British people want us to get on with delivering Brexit, and I am determined to deliver for them. May offers Putin an olive branch: PM wants 'different relationship' with Russia Mrs May said in her speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet that the UK is ready for better relations with Moscow if Putin stops attacks like the one in Salisbury. 'We remain open to a different relationship - one where Russia desists from these attacks that undermine international treaties and international security - and instead acts together with us to fulfil the common responsibilities we share as permanent members of the UN Security Council,' she said. 'And we hope that the Russian state chooses to take this path. If it does, we will respond in kind.' The Prime Minister also said Russia's intelligence capability has been fundamentally degraded for years to come after Western powers expelled diplomats and spies in the wake of the Salisbury attack. Advertisement 'I want them to know that I will not compromise on what people voted for in the referendum. 'This will not be an agreement at any cost.' She repeated her assertion that a deal must give the UK control of 'our laws, borders and money', plus the freedom to strike trade deals while protecting jobs, security and the Union. Both the EU and UK sides had earlier said issues remain to be settled despite weekend talks that went on into the early hours of Monday morning. Downing Street said that reports that Brussels' chief negotiator Michel Barnier expected the 'parameters' of a deal to be presented to ministers for approval at their regular weekly meeting should be taken 'with a bucket of salt'. It is not thought that any deal will be on the table at the Cabinet meeting in 10 Downing Street, which will instead hear an update on negotiations and discuss preparations for a possible no-deal withdrawal from the EU. The Prime Minister's official spokesman rejected suggestions that Wednesday represents a hard deadline to arrange a summit, repeating Mrs May's position that she wants a deal 'as soon as possible' but that it 'can't be at any cost'. Meanwhile, one Brexit-backing Cabinet minister cautioned that the Prime Minister would not have a free hand in pushing her plans through. International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt told Sky News: 'The important thing is that there are two checks on this deal - there is Cabinet and there is Parliament. Lord Mayor of London Peter Estlin (left) and Prime Minister Theresa May at the banquet on Monday night Lord Mayor of London Peter Estlin and his wife Lindy Estlin, Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip May Ireland's deputy prime minister Simon Coveney told reporters in Brussels said there was 'still clearly work to do' to reach an agreement. Pictured: Mrs May speaking at the banquet The Lord Mayor Peter Estlin, and his wife Lindy with The Prime Minister, Theresa May, and her husband Philip 'Cabinet's job is to put something to Parliament that is going to deliver on the referendum result.' Officials from both sides were engaged in talks in Brussels which began on Sunday and lasted until 2.45am on Monday but failed to produce a decisive breakthrough. Mr Barnier told ministers from the 27 remaining EU nations at a meeting of the general affairs council that key issues remained unresolved. 'Michel Barnier explained that intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet,' said an official statement. 'Some key issues remain under discussion, in particular a solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.' A witness to the meeting told the Financial Times that the chief negotiator had told the EU27 ministers that 'the parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined' and that the UK Cabinet would meet to examine them on Tuesday. But ministers emerging from the meeting did little to encourage expectations of an early resolution. Ireland's deputy prime minister Simon Coveney told reporters in Brussels said there was 'still clearly work to do' to reach an agreement. And a senior Brussels source said that work was 'ongoing', adding: 'We're not there yet.' The lack of decisive progress in Brussels came as further details emerged of reported reservations voiced about Mrs May's strategy by senior ministers at the crunch Chequers meeting in July. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Chancellor Philip Hammond were among Remain-supporting ministers who raised concerns about the Chequers plan, the BBC reported. Mr Javid described the proposal for a common rule book with the EU for goods and agriculture as 'very worrying', while Mr Hammond questioned whether the 27 other countries in the union would accept such a plan, the broadcaster said. A former New York City correction officer and his girlfriend have been charged with murder, two years after the pair allegedly beat the womans mother with a barbell. Nassau County police say 27-year-old Ralph Keppler and 21-year-old Francesca Kiel, both of Lynbrook, Long Island, brutally attacked 56-year-old Theresa Kiel at her Long Beach apartment on the night of December 4, 2016. The victim lost her right eye and multiple teeth, had a portion of her skull shattered and remained in a vegetative state until she succumbed to her injuries at North Shore Manhasset Hospital on Saturday evening. Scroll down for video Ralph Keppler, 27 (left), and his girlfriend, 21-year-old Francesca Kiel (right), have been charged with second-degree murder in the beating death of Kiel's mother, Theresa Theresa Kiel, 56 (pictured), passed away on Saturday, nearly two years after being beaten into a coma with a barbell at her Long Island apartment In the wake of Mrs Kiels death, her daughter and Keppler were charged with second-degree murder. Keppler had been charged back in late January with attempted murder and assault and was out on bail. His lawyer says he's innocent. 'Theresa Kiel was robbed of all quality of life when this defendant allegedly shattered her skull with a metal barbell as she walked to her Long Beach apartment,' Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a press release from February 2018 announcing Keppler's indictment on the initial charges, which have now been upgraded. 'This barbaric attack, allegedly motivated by a business dispute and perpetrated by a man employed as a corrections officer, has left Ms. Kiel in a persistent vegetative state, and prosecutors in my office are committed to holding this defendant accountable.' Prosecutors alleged that Keppler had accused Theresa Kiel and her son, Vincent, of swindling him out of $350,000 that he had given them to develop a new dating app, according to ABC Eyewitness News. Kiel (pictured being loaded into an ambulance) was struck in the face with such force that a portion of her skull caved in and she lost her right eye Prosecutors say Francesca and her former correction officer boyfriend attacked Mrs Kiel over a business dispute According to a lawsuit filed by Keppler in May 2016, Theresa and her son spent the former prison guards money on cosmetic surgeries, a luxury car, hair salon appointments and clothes, reported the New York Post. Theresa Kiels family, in turn, filed court documents accusing Keppler of holding Francesca as a financial, emotional and sexual hostage. The complaint, which was dismissed by a judge in December 2017, claimed that Keppler monitored Francescas phone and email, forced her to get breast implants and coerced her into saying that her own mother was prostituting her. Keppler had been out on bail, but was re-arrested on Sunday. During their arraignment on Monday, both Keppler and his girlfriend were ordered held in jail without bail. Channing Cowan, 17, was conducting an experiment about racism for his high school psychology class when he was accused of stealing a woman's wallet by two white men who grabbed him at a Colorado mall A simple high school psychology experiment at a Colorado mall appears to have exposed an unexpected case of racism. Channing Cowan, 17, and three of his classmates from a psychology class at Centaurus High School in Lafayette, Colorado, were at the Denver's Cherry Creek Mall, conducting a social experiment to see whether strangers responded differently to requests based on a person's skin color when the incident occurred. The class project involved the students stopping people and asking if they could borrow their cell phones. Channing, who appears to be a person of color, told KDVR that he received 'ten straight noes' while asking to borrow a phone. However, when he stopped one adult white man, the man turned around and accused him of stealing a woman's wallet. The incident was caught on camera from a discreet distance. Earlier in the experiment, Cowan, right black sweatshirt and pants, could be seen asking strangers if he could borrow their cell phone. He said he was told 'no' 10 times When he stopped the man in the blue cap for the experiment, the man turned around and accused him of stealing a woman's wallet. The man then grabbed Cowan and held onto him The man in the beige cap can also be seen grabbing Cowan's arm, restraining him A white teen in a red cast quickly rushes down the stairs to help Cowan out, while other bystanders do nothing. It's later revealed that the woman left her wallet inside a store. The two men didn't apologize for the false accusation and walked away instead In the video, the man can be seen grabbing Channing's arm and shoulder and putting his hands on his back. A second adult white man can be seen pulling Channing's sweatshirt. Channing can be seen pulling out his own brown wallet and showing it to the man, as a white teen with a red cast rushes down the stairs and appears to try to diffuse the situation. Nobody else in the vicinity tries to help Channing. The man 'actually grabbed me and threatened to whoop my you know what if I didn't give his wallet back,' Channing told the news station. It was later revealed that the woman, who is not seen in the video clip, left her wallet inside the store. She apparently apologized to Channing, but the two men who put their hands on him didn't apologize, merely walked away. Channing's parents, Alice and Michael Cowan, believe that their son was accused of stealing the woman's wallet purely based on his skin color. 'My heart didn't break because I know it happens all the time, but it was so scary for me because I wasn't there,' Alice Cowan said. 'I know he's a senior, but at the same time he's my baby.' Michael Cowan said that he he was likewise disturbed. 'This is stuff I've dealt with a lot,' he said. Michael then went on to question what would have happened 'if the roles were reversed and I was putting my hands on your child?' he said. 'How would you feel?' Channing's parents would like to identify the man who accused their son of theft and manhandled him, so that they can ask him why he did what he did. 'Lately it just seems like things have gone so far back,' Alice said, noting that now 'People just feel like they can say and do whatever they want to do.' Police officers have been caught on camera beating a man who laid motionless on the ground in Mexico City. Residents in the town of San Juan Ixhuatepec have become enraged by the tactics cops were utilizing as they hunted down four suspected thieves on Sunday. Dozens of cops could be seen in one video posted on Twitter by user Miquell_1 ganging up on a man, repeatedly kicking him and slapping him in the head. A female protester (top center) puts her hands up as security forces in Mexico City use physical force Cops in Mexico City were caught on video kicking and slapping at man who laid motionless on the floor as law enforcement agents dealt with an intense crowd of residents who rioted after some cops tried to enter homes utilizing illegal measures After the crowd of law enforcement agents breaks up, another officer comes in and kicks the man in the midsection while another reaches down and grabs a personal object belonging to the victim. As soon as three cops walks away from the injured man, another cop comes out of nowhere and brutally destroys a home's garage, kicking it open with just two kicks. He then enters before the video it comes to an end. Also in the distance, another group of cops can be seen teaming up on a female protester, backing her against the external wall of a building. One cop delivers a blow with his right hand and then grabs her hair and tosses her to the side before she disappears out of the cell phone camera's view. In a separate confrontation with cops, a man was kicked and shoved towards a dimly lit street while another man is led away from two cops by a companion. A police officer in Mexico City kicks down a door with just two kicks before attempting to enter the home on Sunday A male protester (center) is led away from a possible serious confrontation with cops in Mexico City Residents denounced the cops' tactics during the operation by the Mexican security forces after the four suspects were taken to the Public Ministry's headquarters in the municipality of Tlalnepantla later in the evening. Security agents that descended on the town were accused of illegally entering some of the homes by forcing there way in. Residents in the town with a population of 350,000 rioted late into the night, blocking the main entrance to a highway that runs north from Mexico City to the city of Pachuca in the state of Hidalgo. Investigative journalist re-examining the kidnapping and suspected murder of Trudie Adams claim they have uncovered a possible location for her body - 40 years after she went missing on Sydney's northern beaches. Ms Adams was 18 when she vanished in 1978 after hitchhiking home from a dance at Newport Surf Club - but her body has never been found and no-one was ever charged. ABC's Unravel podcast, which has been investigating the case, have now received a tip off that could potentially lead to her body. ABC's Unravel podcast has been attempting to find answers to the mysterious disappearance of Trudie Adams 40 years ago, and they have now received a potentially crucial tip off In the final episode of the series, a former law enforcement officer said that anyone looking for Ms Adams' body should do so around Christmas Tree Hill. Christmas Tree Hill is located near Cottage Point in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. NSW Police searched Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and the surrounding areas in the weeks after Ms Adams' disappearance, but the ABC understands this did not include Christmas Tree Hill. In the final episode of ABC's Unravel podcast, a former law enforcement officer said that anyone looking for Ms Adams' body should do so around Christmas Tree Hill Christmas Tree Hill is located near Cottage Point in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park NSW Police searched Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in the weeks after Ms Adams' disappearance, but the ABC understands this did not include Christmas Tree Hill The source, who wished to remain anonymous, said a local criminal called Guido, also known as 'chicken wire man', suggested the location to him. Guido's nickname was allegedly derived from his methods of disposing of dead bodies. He worked at a smash repairs shop in Brookvale, north Sydney, with another convicted criminal called Gary Batt. The source was given the information by a local criminal called Guido. Guido was known for disposing of dead bodies and he worked at a smash repairs shop with a man called Gary Batt, who was an associate of Neville Tween Batt was an associate of Neville Tween the prime suspect in Ms Adams case and both men were imprisoned for the sexual assault of a young man for a short period prior to Ms Adams disappearance. Guido, Batt and Tween are all now reportedly dead. The new information has been passed on to NSW Police's cold case unit. Neville Tween (pictured) has long been suspected of Ms Adams' murder but he has now died Three men are under arrest after a woman in Oregon was injured riding on a popular path that police say was booby-trapped with material strung across it. The Portland Police Department received a call about an injured person on the Interstate 205 Multi-Use Path at around 10.53pm Friday, and arrived at the scene to find an injured woman, according to Fox 12. The woman, Carlene Ostedgaard, said she was riding downhill when her bike was entangled in the material. Carlene Ostedgaard (pictured) is lucky she wasn't more injured after she flew into a booby-trap on a bike path in Oregon Police have arrested three men after they say the men tied strings across the popular bike path where Ostedgaard was injured Friday night. The incident left rope burns on her face Cyclists along the 205 Multi-Use Path say that this is not the first time they've heard of people putting traps down for cyclists 'It got like hot and I could actually feel the pieces unraveling across my face,' Ostedgaard said. As officer's investigated the area that she was riding through they found strings that had been tied up across the path. 'I was crying, it was like this feeling of sadness and despair that like human beings would do this,' she said. 'But then upon reflection, it's like there are a lot of hurt people and I just happened to be the one in the way.' Luckily Ostedgaard instinctively knew to put her head down and let her helmet protect her. Police arrested 27-year-old Antonio R. Tolman-Duran, 21-year-old Dakota E. Murphy and 23-year-old Justin J. Jones on assault and reckless endangering charges. Left to right: Justin Jones, Dakota Murphy, and Antonio Tolman-Duran were all arrested and charges with assault reckless endangerment Its not the first time this happened in the area either. Cyclists told Fox12 they're always on the lookout in the area because this was not the first time they heard of people setting up traps along the route. 'This is kind of just the reality of riding the multi-use paths around here,' cyclist Rob Dolan said. Portland Police have asked the public to notify the department or the park rangers to investigate if they spot any safety hazards on a bike path. A police troop horse is growing a mo to raise money for Movember. Officers within the New South Wales Police Force are growing out Anzac's moustache to promote men's health issues, including prostate and testicular cancer and suicide. Anzac has raised $950 of the $1000 goal from 40 donors in the past week, and officers say the moustache is here to stay. Images of Anzac's impressive 'tache were shared to social media, with the police saying Anzac wanted 'to show off his beautiful moustache!' 'Its a work in progress but Anzacs mo wont be trimmed at all this month so he can help raise money for the Movember Foundation.' The one year old gelding's biography reads: 'Although Im a gelding, Im still man enough to put down the clippers and grow my mo again to raise funds for The Movember Foundation. 'These much needed funds help tackle some of the biggest health issues faced by men; prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention.' Ryan McKinnis, from the Movember Foundation was quick to praise the hard work of Anzac's team. Anzac has raised $950 of the $1000 goal from 40 donors in the past week, and officers say they won't shave his mo for the entire month 'Wanted to let you know that we love the fact you are growing a Mo to help raise awareness amongst your station,' he wrote on the Movember Australia fundraising page. 'The combination of raising awareness for serious issues in a fun way is exactly what we're about. Keep up the great fundraising.' The New South Wales police force uploaded a video to Twitter of Anzac thanking everyone who donated and 'showing off his mo', with the horse reaching forward to kiss the camera. Boris Johnson last night demanded a Pakistani Christian mother freed from death row be given refuge in Britain. In an extraordinary intervention, the former foreign secretary said Asia Bibi, 53, was at serious risk if she stayed in her home country. She was cleared last month after eight years in jail on blasphemy charges but now faces being lynched by extremists. Mr Johnson said 'brave' Mrs Bibi had suffered appalling treatment because of her faith. Boris Johnson said Asia Bibi, 53, was at serious risk if she stayed in her home country He has told Sajid Javid that the danger of retaliatory attacks against British interests should not stop her being granted asylum. In a letter to the Home Secretary, he said: 'I am well aware, as a former foreign secretary, of the constant threat to our overseas missions but we cannot allow the threat of violence to deter us from doing the right thing. 'I do not think it is a dignified position for the UK, given our historic links with Pakistan and the extent of our influence there, to look to others to do what we are allegedly nervous to do ourselves.' In the letter, seen by the Mail and also sent to Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Mr Johnson said Mrs Bibi had an overwhelming claim for compassion from the British Government. Asia was cleared last month after eight years in jail on blasphemy charges While at the Foreign Office he was heavily criticised for his handling of the case of British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was jailed in Iran on spying charges. He was accused of risking an additional five years being added to her sentence when he told MPs that she had been in Iran to train journalists. Mr Johnson had to apologise, retracting 'any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity'. His intervention on behalf of Mrs Bibi comes only 24 hours after he urged Cabinet ministers to mutiny against the Prime Minister over her proposed Brexit deal. Mr Javid, the son of Pakistani immigrants, is one of Mr Johnson's main rivals for the Tory crown if Mrs May steps down. Some will see Mr Johnson's move as an attempt to claim the credit if Britain does offer Mrs Bibi a safe haven. Government sources say Mr Javid is keen to help but the decision is being held up by Foreign Office red tape. Some diplomats have urged caution as a result of fears that such an initiative could lead to attacks on UK Government offices in Pakistan. Allies of Mr Johnson insist his intervention is not a criticism of Mr Javid or Mr Hunt. One said: 'He was touched by her case and he thinks that now there is an opportunity for the UK to do the right thing. We can act and he thinks we should.' Mrs Bibi, a Roman Catholic from Punjab province, was jailed in 2010 after she was accused of defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed. The mother of five was harvesting fruit with a group of Muslim women when a row broke out over a bucket of water. The women said that because she had used a cup they could no longer touch it, because her faith had made it unclean. Prosecutors alleged that in the ensuing row the women said Mrs Bibi should convert to Islam. It was claimed she made offensive comments about the Prophet in response. At her home she was given a beating, during which her accusers say she confessed to blasphemy. Police arrested her and she was sentenced to death. Mrs Bibi's conviction was quashed last month following eight years in solitary confinement. The supreme court said the case was based on flimsy evidence and her confession was delivered in front of a crowd 'threatening to kill her'. She has always denied the allegations. The acquittal prompted days of demonstrations by thousands of hardline Islamists who had campaigned for her to be hanged. Mrs Bibi is in hiding after Imran Khan's government agreed to allow a petition against the court's decision, as part of a deal to halt the protests. Officials agreed to stop her leaving Pakistan and her husband has appealed to Canada, the UK and the US to consider granting asylum. Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, confirmed his government was in talks with Pakistan. He said: 'There is a delicate domestic context that we respect which is why I don't want to say any more about that, but I will remind people Canada is a welcoming country.' Bibi, a mother of five, was reported in 2009 by women who alleged that she had insulted Islam during a discussion near a well in the province of Punjab and was sentenced to death in 2010 for blasphemy The Bishop of Coventry, the Right Reverend Dr Christopher Cocksworth, said Mrs Bibi must be offered protection. The Church of England's spokesman for international affairs in the House of Lords said: 'In common with Christians around the world, the Church of England has been deeply distressed by the case of Asia Bibi. We call on the government of Pakistan to ensure that the decision of the nation's supreme court is upheld. It is important she is offered every protection as she and her family seek to rebuild their lives.' He said he had written to Foreign Office minister Lord Ahmad 'supporting the calls for Mrs Bibi and her family to be offered asylum in the UK'. He said he urged the Government to clarify its position on the matter. On Sunday a UK campaign group in touch with the family said the British Government was concerned about attacks in the UK. Wilson Chowdhry of the British Pakistani Christian Association said: 'They have not offered automatic asylum, whereas several countries have now come forward. They won't be coming to Britain.' Home Office sources have dismissed claims that Mrs Bibi had not been offered asylum owing to security fears. Paul Coleman, executive director of ADF International, a global human rights organisation, said: 'We are alarmed to learn that European governments, including the United Kingdom, seem reluctant to grant asylum at this critical hour. 'Bibi's life is clearly in extreme danger and no one could be more deserving of refuge.' Nineteen Catholic MPs and peers have written to Mr Hunt urging him to allow her to come here.= Private IVF clinics are selling desperate couples expensive add-on treatments despite zero evidence they actually work, the fertility regulator has admitted. In a remarkable statement, the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority said there was no conclusive evidence they boost chances of falling pregnant, or giving birth. The statement contained in a confidential document released in error by the HFEA comes amid growing controversy over these experimental add-ons, and whether couples are being conned into paying for them. The Daily Mail has repeatedly highlighted the issue. Couples are often convinced by private doctors to buy these add-ons, costing up to 3,500 a time, such as glue or a painful scratch to help an embryo stick to the wall of the womb. Private IVF clinics are selling desperate couples expensive add-on treatments despite zero evidence they actually work, the fertility regulator has admitted However, some can actually harm a womans chances of getting pregnant, while also risking miscarriage, premature birth and kidney failure. Following growing pressure from academics and experts, the HFEA has now drawn up a statement on the add-ons a draft of which appeared on its website yesterday. It read: Practitioners have a duty of care to patients, which should separate pressure from patients and commercial interests from their best practice advice. We believe that culture change is required if the potential benefits of new treatments are to be offered responsibly. The draft statement, also due to be signed by the British Fertility Society and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, added: There is currently no conclusive evidence that any of the add-ons offered in fertility treatment increase the chance of a pregnancy or live birth. In a remarkable statement, the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority said there was no conclusive evidence they boost chances of falling pregnant, or giving birth. Professor Robert Winston, Britains leading fertility expert, last night said the intervention had come far too late. Lord Winston, chairman of the Genesis Research Trust at Imperial College London, said: It is simply not good enough for the regulatory authority to have licensed clinics providing treatments which were not validated. A 2016 review by Oxford Universitys Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine concluded that 26 out of 27 add-ons were useless. In its statement, the HFEA said their rise was partly due to an intensively competitive market, where 60 per cent of IVF treatments are paid for privately. Couples are forced to go private as the NHS cuts back on fertility treatment. The nine treatments on the website include artificial egg activation in which a womans egg is stimulated with chemicals to mimic the trigger for embryo development when it meets sperm. This can cause miscarriage. It also includes assisted hatching, in which clinics use acid and lasers to help the embryo hatch from a thick layer of proteins, and risk damaging the embryo before it becomes a baby. Sarah Norcross, director of fertility charity the Progress Educational Trust, said: PET has been concerned for some time that there may be an element of upselling by clinics to private patients. And Professor Geeta Nargund, of Create Fertility, said: Not only do add-ons increase the cost of treatment hugely, but some unnecessary and unproven laboratory interventions can be harmful and increase epigenetic errors. HFEA chief Peter Thompson said: We are concerned that too many patients are being offered unproven treatment add-ons. That is why weve been working with professional groups to agree a statement about how treatment add-ons should be offered ethically in clinical practice in the UK. Two Senate Democrats who scored election victories Tuesday have said they are 'thinking' about running for president, as the field of potential Democrats begins to proliferate. 'I'm obviously very dedicated to serving New Yorkers,' said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Monday, less than a week after cruising to reelection and getting two-thirds of the vote. Gillibrand, who took over Hillary Clinton's Senate seat and who gained prominence pushing to stop sexual assault in the military, acknowledged she was thinking about a run for higher office just days after her win. 'That is a very important moral question that I've been thinking about,' she told host Joy Behar on ABC's 'The View.' Sen. Kisten Gillibrand said she is 'dedicated to serving New Yorkers' but also 'thinking about' running for president 'I've been thinking about it because ... what President Trump is putting into this country is so disturbing, so divisive, so dark, that I believe I've been called to fight as hard as I possibly can to restore that moral integrity, that moral decency.' Bejar told her that 'sounds like a yes.' 'So, I'm thinking about it,' Gillibrand said. Another member of the 49-member Senate Democratic caucus, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, also wasn't ruling out a presidential run. Sen. Sherrod Brown is 'thinking about' a potential run after getting plaudits for his six-point win in red state Ohio Brown has stressed working class issues in his House and Senate career 'What President Trump is putting into this country is so disturbing, so divisive, so dark,' Gillibrand said on ABC's 'The View' Democrats have begun lining up to challenge President Donald Trump Brown scored a six-point victory on Tuesday even as Republican Mike DeWine kept the governor's office in the GOP column in a critical state in determining the president. Brown said after winning election to a third term in the Senate he was hearing 'sort of a crescendo' from voters urging him on. 'We're hearing it increase, so we're thinking about it as a result,' he told the Columbus Dispatch, then added of he and his wife Connie Schultz: 'We're not close to saying yes.' He told Cleveland.com: 'My message clearly appeals to Democrats, Republicans and independents. We showed you can get votes by being authentic and standing up for workers. People in Washington don't understand the dignity of work.' JOE BIDEN AND THE 28 DEMOCRATS HE RAN AGAINST TO BECOME PARTY'S 2020 CANDIDATE JOE BIDEN Age on Inauguration Day 2021: 78 Entered race: April 25, 2019 Career: No current role. A University of Delaware and Syracuse Law graduate, he was first elected to Newcastle City Council in 1969, then won upset election to Senate in 1972, aged 29. Was talked out of quitting before being sworn in when his wife and daughter died in a car crash and served total of six terms. Chaired Judiciary Committee's notorious Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Ran for president in 1988, pulled out after plagiarism scandal, ran again in 2008, withdrew after placing fifth in the Iowa Caucuses. Tapped by Obama as his running mate and served two terms as vice president. Contemplated third run in 2016 but decided against it after his son died of brain cancer. Family: Eldest of four siblings born to Joe Biden Sr. and Catherine Finnegan. First wife Neilia Hunter and their one-year-old daughter Naomi died in car crash which their two sons, Joseph 'Beau' and Robert Hunter survived. Married Jill Jacobs in 1976, with whom he has daughter Ashley. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter's marriage to Kathleen Buhle, with whom he has three children, ended in 2016 when it emerged Hunter was in a relationship with Beau's widow Hallie, mother of their two children. Hunter admitted cocaine use; his estranged wife accused him of blowing their savings on drugs and prostitutes Religion: Catholic Views on key issues: Ultra-moderate who will emphasize bipartisan record. Will come under fire over record, having voted: to stop desegregation bussing in 1975; to overturn Roe v Wade in 1981; for now controversial 1994 Violent Crime Act; for 2003 Iraq War; and for banking deregulation. Says he is 'most progressive' Democrat. New positions include free college, tax reform, $15 minimum wage. No public position yet on Green New Deal and healthcare. Pro-gun control. Has already apologized to women who say he touched them inappropriately Would make history as: Oldest person elected president Slogan: Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead AND THE 28 WHO HAVE WITHDRAWN MICHAEL BENNET, Colorado senator Entered race: May 2, 2019 Quit: February 12, 2019, evening of New Hampshire primary MIKE BLOOMBERG Entered race: November 24, 2019 Quit: March 4, 2020, day after Super Tuesday primaries CORY BOOKER, New Jersey Senator Entered race: February 1, 2019 Quit: January 13, 2020 STEVE BULLOCK, Montana governor Entered race: May 14, 2019 Quit: December 2, 2019 PETE BUTTIGIEG, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana Entered race: January 23, 2019 Quit: March 1, 2020, day after South Carolina primary JULIAN CASTRO, former Housing Secretary Entered race: January 18, 2019 Quit: January 2, 2020 BILL DE BLASIO, New York City mayor Entered race: May 16, 2019 Quit: September 20, 2020 JOHN DELANEY, former Maryland Congressman Entered race: July 8, 2017 Quit: January 31, 2019 KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York senator Entered race: January 16, 2019 Quit: August 28, 2019 TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii congresswoman Entered race: January 11 2019 Quit: March 19, 2020 MIKE GRAVEL, Former Alaska governor Entered race: April 2,2019 Quit: August 2, 2019 KAMALA HARRIS,California senator Entered race: January 21, 2019 Quit: December 3, 2019 JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Former Colorado governor Entered race: March 4, 2019 Quit: August 15, 2019 JAY INSLEE, Washington governor Entered race: March 1, 2019 Quit: August 21, 2019 AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota senator Entered race: February 19, 2019 Quit: March 2, 2020 WAYNE MESSAM, mayor of Miramar, Florida Entered race: March 28, 2019 Quit: November 20, 2019 SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts congressman Entered race: April 22,2019 Quit: August 23, 2019 RICHARD OJEDA, former West Virginia state senator Entered race: November 12, 2018 Quit: January 25, 2019 BETO O'ROURKE, former Texas congressman Entered race: March 14, 2019 Quit: November 1, 2019 DEVAL PATRICK, former Massachusetts governor Entered race: November 13, 2019 Quit: February 13, 2019, morning after New Hampshire primary TIM RYAN, Ohio congressman Entered race: April 4, 2019 Quit: October 24, 2019 BERNIE SANDERS, Vermont senator Entered race: January 25, 2019 Quit: April 8, 2020 JOE SESTAK, former Pennsylvania congressman Entered race: June 23, 2019 Quit: December 1, 2019 TOM STEYER, billionaire activist Entered race: July 9, 2019 Quit: February 29, 2020 ERIC SWALWELL, California congressman Entered race: April 8, 2019 Quit: July 8, 2019 ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts senator Entered race: December 31, 2018 Quit: March 5, 2020, two days after Super Tuesday MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, author Entered race: November 15, 2018 Quit: January 10, 2020 ANDREW YANG, entrepreneur Entered race: November 6, 2018 Quit: February 12, 2019, evening of New Hampshire primary Advertisement 'For a progressive to win a state Donald Trump carried by almost double digits by a pretty big margin tells me you can be a progressive, you can stand up for women's rights, gay rights and civil rights, and not compromise on these core values and still win in a state that Trump won decisively,' he said. Not only does Brown hail from a state Trump carried, his career working to reshape trade deals and focus on working class Americans could position him to try to peel off some of the lunch bucket voters who helped deliver Trump's victory in Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. 'Voters in Ohio trust me,' Brown said, explaining his win. He complained his GOP opponent, Jim Renacci, attacked my family repeatedly even though I am fighting for Ohio families.' Brown told MSNBC's 'Morning Joe': 'I respect the dignity of work, and I think that's what Washington forgets about.' Brown tweeted on election night, in language that called to a national stage: ' Let our countryour nation's citizens, our Democratic Party, my fellow elected officials all over the countrylet them all cast their eyes toward the heartland, to the industrial Midwest, to our Great Lakes state. Let them hear what we say. Let them see what we do.' Brown, 66, was vetted as a possible Hillary Clinton running mate in 2016 The incident took place in Holbeck, Leeds, in Britain's first legal red light district A 13-year-old girl waiting at a bus stop with her mum is asked 'if she's working' A pervert tried to have a baby handed over to him in Britains first official red-light district, locals have revealed. The man asked a grandmother to let him have an hour alone with her four-month-old grandson as she pushed him down the road in his buggy. It is the latest and most shocking example of children targeted by strangers in and around the managed zone in Holbeck, Leeds, where kerb crawlers can pick up prostitutes without fear of arrest. A man asked a grandmother to let him have an hour alone with her four-month-old grandson. The sick incident took place in Holbeck, Leeds, above, in Britain's first legal red light district [File photo] What began as a pioneering scheme by a Left-wing council to improve the safety of sex workers has blighted the entire neighbourhood. Now a residents group wants the scheme, which has been running for four years, scrapped. Councillors will discuss the future of the legalised red-light district at a meeting tomorrow. Discarded condoms and syringes are said to be everywhere in Holbeck, pictured above. Pupils walking to and from school are taking detours to avoid the area for fear of being propositioned [File photo] Incidents involving children, compiled by the Save Our Eyes campaign group, include: A girl of ten out with her grandmother, who was asked how much for her? and offered 10; A 13-year-old girl waiting at a bus stop with her mother on a Saturday morning was asked are you working? by a man looking to hire a prostitute and; A 12-year-old reported seeing a screaming woman being raped against a wall at 4pm. Pupils walking to and from school are taking detours to avoid the area for fear of being propositioned. Discarded condoms and syringes are said to be everywhere. Adults have had similar problems as they run the gauntlet of punters, prostitutes and drug dealers. Police no longer issue cautions or make arrests between 8pm and 6am for loitering, soliciting or kerb-crawling offences. The rules apply to a specific managed zone in Holbeck predominantly used by light industry, retail and small businesses but the problem has spread to surrounding residential streets. Three weeks ago, a 47-year-old woman was walking home along a main road at 6pm with her four-month-old grandson in a buggy when a man in a car beeped his horn, pulled up alongside and asked her how old is it? The woman continued walking and he added: Give me an hour with it and I will bring it back. Shocked, she knocked on the door of the babys other grandmother. The other grandparent said: She was upset by what happened and we called the police. I think its disgusting. The man asked a grandmother to let him have an hour alone with her four-month-old grandson in Holbeck, Leeds, pictured above, as she pushed him down the road in his buggy. Police have not got back to her [File photo] 'We wanted the police to come straight out and find the man but they didnt and ... havent rung her back. A spokesman for Save Our Eyes said there were three attempted murders of sex workers this summer, adding: We call on all councillors to oppose the managed approach, or be willing to move to Holbeck and live among the filth, fear and chaos. Debra Coupar, a Leeds councillor, said the scheme was under continuous review. Advertisement Palestinian militants bombarded Israel with dozens of rockets and mortar shells while Israeli planes struck targets throughout the Gaza Strip today. The fighting appeared to be the most intense exchange of fire since a 2014 war. Palestinian officials said at least three people, including two militants, were killed by Israeli fire and nine were wounded. An Israeli air strike destroyed the ruling Hamas group's Al-Aqsa TV station after Israel told journalists inside to evacuate. Israeli security forces and firefighters gather near a bus set ablaze after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave, at the Israel-Gaza border A picture taken from Gaza City on November 12, 2018, shows smoke billowing in the distance during Israeli air strikes on the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave Smoke rises from the building of Al-Aqsa channel belonging to Hamas movement after Israeli air strike in Gaza City In Israel, the national rescue service said at least seven people were wounded, including a 19-year-old soldier who was in critical condition. Later, Avi Mayer of the American Jewish Committee tweeted that a 60-year-old Israeli man was killed after a rocket fired from Gaza hit his apartment building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. This has not been confirmed by officials. The fighting, triggered by a botched undercover Israeli military raid in Gaza, cast doubt over recent understandings brokered by Egypt and UN officials to reduce tensions. A day earlier, Israel's prime minister said he was doing everything possible to avoid another war. The UN said it was working with Egypt to broker a halt in the violence. 'Rockets must STOP, restraint must be shown by all!' the UN Middle East envoy's office tweeted. The undercover troops, apparently on a reconnaissance mission, were discovered several miles inside Gaza on Sunday, setting off a battle that left seven militants, including a Hamas commander, and an Israeli military officer dead. A picture taken on November 12, 2018, shows a ball of fire above the building housing the Hamas-run television station al-Aqsa TV in the Gaza Strip during an Israeli air strike Smoke and flames blow up above the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV during Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Monday evening An Israeli air strike destroyed the ruling Hamas group's Al-Aqsa TV station after Israel told journalists inside to evacuate Israeli Iron Dome anti-missile systems firing a missile toward missiles fired from the Gaza Strip near the southern city of Sderot, Israel Around sundown on Monday, militants launched 100 rockets in less than an hour, the most intense barrage since the 50-day war four years ago. The rockets, which continued into the evening, lit up the skies of Gaza and set off air raid sirens throughout southern Israel. The military said planes, helicopters and tanks had struck more than 30 militant targets, including military compounds, observation posts and weapons facilities. It also said it targeted a squad that was launching rockets. Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said the army had sent additional infantry troops, rocket defence systems and intelligence units to the Gaza border. 'We continue to strike and retaliate against the military targets belonging to terrorist organisations in Gaza, and as for our intentions we will enhance these efforts as needed,' he told reporters. Smoke rises after Israeli air strike in Gaza City. Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, said the army had sent additional infantry troops, rocket defence systems and intelligence units to the Gaza border An Israeli injured woman, evacuated from her apartment that was set ablaze after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, arrives at the hospital on an ambulance Security personnel check a damaged house in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, following a rocket attack from Gaza November 12, 2018 Late on Monday, an air strike destroyed the Gaza City headquarters of Hamas's Al Aqsa TV station. Israel had fired warning shots ahead of the strike, prompting the station to halt programming and replace it with a logo. Minutes later, the air strike flattened the three-storey building and the station went black. Workers had evacuated the building after the warning shots, and there were no immediate reports of casualties. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum condemned the bombing as 'a barbaric, brazen aggression'. Ten minutes later, the station resumed broadcasts, airing pre-recorded national songs. Israel said the station 'broadcasts violent propaganda' and provides 'operational messaging' to militants. A second air strike destroyed a five-storey office building that housed Hamas media offices. The strike also followed warning shots, and there were no reports of casualties. A picture taken from the Gaza Strip on November 12, 2018 shows missiles being launched toward Israel Two men walk past a vehicle that was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon, on November 12, 2018 Hamas and the smaller militant group Islamic Jihad said the rocket fire was revenge for Sunday night's Israeli incursion. Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shehab said the groups wanted 'the occupation and its supporters to know that the lives of our sons come with a price'. In all, 200 rockets were fired into Israel by mid-evening, the army said. The Israeli military said it intercepted 60, and most of the others fell in open spaces, but rockets landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, setting off a large fire near a shopping centre. Another rocket landed near a factory, and several homes were hit in southern towns. The military said a bus travelling near the border was struck by an anti-tank missile, critically wounding a 19-year-old soldier. The strike set the bus on fire, sending a large plume of black smoke over the area. Lt Col Conricus said others were injured in the attack, but gave no further details. Six other people were lightly wounded by shrapnel in various attacks, medical officials said. This picture shows a ball of fire above the building housing the Hamas-run television station al-Aqsa TV in the Gaza Strip during an Israeli air strike As he wheels his suitcase to the airport with a broad grin across his face, Zac Oliver looks like a little boy who cannot wait to get away on his holidays. Only the oxygen tube attached to his nose gives a hint to the four-year-old's true reason for being so excited. For after months of uncertainty and a fundraising campaign which exceeded its 500,000 target the little leukaemia patient is finally about to get the pioneering treatment that could save his life. Zac Oliver is going to have a course of treatment currently unavailable in Britain Fighter: Zac is believed to be the only child with his rare form of leukaemia in the UK As he flew off to America from Manchester airport yesterday, his mother Hannah Oliver-Willets, 33, spoke of their mixture of happiness and relief, saying: 'We just can't wait to go now. I want us to be there.' Zac, who has a rare form of the blood cancer, is going to a world-leading hospital for a course of treatment currently unavailable in Britain. And it is thanks to the generosity of Daily Mail readers. After we highlighted Zac's plight last month you rushed forward with donations, including one mystery donor who stumped up 100,000. It meant the target for Zac's treatment at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was reached. He is expected to begin his therapy as soon as he has recovered from his flight. The fundraising campaign to send Zac to America exceeded its 500,000 target The hospital is the leading authority on CAR T-cell therapy, which doctors say will give Zac a 60-80 per cent chance of survival. Zac is believed to be the only child in the UK with the near-haploid strain of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a condition which affects one in 200 childhood sufferers worldwide. His mother and his father, Mark Garbett, launched their fundraising drive after learning that a bone marrow transplant or chemotherapy the only treatments available to Zac in Britain had a less than 25 per cent chance of saving him. Yesterday Mr Garbett said: 'Zac's excited about flying because he knows going to America is hopefully how he is going to be able to get better. 'It's been a long slog but now we are just looking forward to the start of Zac's treatment.' Plumber Mr Garbett, 37, said 630,000 has now been raised, easing worries over how the family would meet ongoing costs in the months of treatment ahead. He added: 'We just want to thank everybody once again for their support, both financial and emotional. 'It is heart-warming how Zac's plight has caught people's attention. The good news is, no matter what happens to Zac, there should be money left over at the end of this for us to help another child.' Mr Garbett, who is separated from Mrs Oliver-Willets but still lives close by in Broseley, near Telford in Shropshire, will fly out tomorrow to join them. Zac's plight captured hearts across Britain, with X Factor guru Simon Cowell's 50,000 donation among thousands made to his crowdfunding page. After the target was reached, a bone marrow biopsy in the UK was brought forward by three weeks to clear the way for Zac to fly to the US. Authorities evacuated the entire city of Calabasas, which is home to Kim (left), Khloe (right) and Kourtney Kardashian (third from right), Sunday evening as the Woolsey Fire continued to devastate communities Authorities evacuated the entire city of Calabasas, which is home to Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian, Sunday evening as the Woolsey Fire continued to devastate communities. Calabasas City Manager Gary Lysik said in a statement: 'For your safety, and the safety of your family, please collect necessary personal items and evacuate the City as quickly as possible, and please follow instructions by Law Enforcement.' Lysik also encouraged residents of the area to monitor the city's website for updates. Earlier in the day, the Calabasas city order only applied to Parkway Calabasas, including The Oaks, Vista Point, Westridge, Calabasas Hills and Calabasas Park Estates. By 8pm Sunday night, the entire city was under mandatory evacuation. Other celebrities in California lost their homes in the fire, including actor Gerard Butler and Camille Grammer Meyer of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. April Love Geary, Robin Thicke's girlfriend, revealed on Sunday that their $2.4million mansion had burned to the ground. Kourtney's neighborhood was saved by Phos-Chek, a flame retardant material that aids in stopping or slowing down fire. Singles' Day, or Bachelor's Day, emerged in 1993 after a group of single male university students in east China's Nanjing coined an idea for an 'anti-Valentines Day'. The day, on November 11, started as an excuse for locals to get together and celebrate being single, but quickly developed into a phenomenon across China. November 11 is chosen because the date comprises four ones. The four digits, written out as 11.11, signifies the status of 'being alone'. Hence the festival is also called 'bare sticks holiday' in China. People pick up packages from private delivery company couriers outside of an office building in Beijing on Nov 12, 2018 It was adopted by e-commerce giant Alibaba when it started to launch 'Double 11' deals on Singles' Day in 2009, rapidly transforming the festival into the massive online haul it is today. It was also seen as a chance to boost sales in the lull between China's Golden Week national holiday in October and the Christmas season. In that first year consumers spent 50 million yuan (around 5m) and 27 merchants offered discounts. Sales officially opens at midnight, releasing a wave of pre-orders that shoppers place ahead of the event and propelling the first billion dollar of transactions in just minutes. 'Back in 2013, 35 billion yuan (4 billion) was our one-day GMV (gross merchandise volume),' said Alibaba's Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang in a live microblog posting on Alibaba's event. 'Now we can achieve it in one hour.' Director of the Center of Educational Testing and Evaluation of Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam National University (VNU-HCM), Dr. Nguyen Quoc Chinh said that the Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City with three member schools including the Natural Science University, the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT) and the University of Information Technology have had online learning programs and blended courses which have classical form of learning and online learning. In the schools regulation, an online course will have the maximum of 20 percent of credits. Likewise, Dr. Nguyen Trung Nhan, head of the Training Department of the Industrial University in HCMC, said that the school has adopted international high-quality blended courses for years. After piloting years, blended courses have proved its effectiveness; accordingly, the school has encouraged all faculties to apply them. The school has spent some billion dong to pilot the blended courses. Valuation of online course learners is easier than before. Principal of the HCMC University of Technology and Education Associate Professor Do Van Dung said after five-year pilot program, the number of online courses jumped from 17 to 45,000 with 5 million viewers a semester. Simultaneously, valuation of students also increased from twice to seven times a semester. Classical form of learning will put great pressure on lecturers in valuating students progress. For instance, with a 100-student class, a lecturer must write score on 700 homeworks, projects, thesis while a lecturer can valuate learners in online courses. Nguyen Tat Thanh University expanded also blended courses to all faculties in 2017. Till now, 70 percent of subjects in the school are delivered online to learners who both work and study. More and more students take online courses. Truong Tien Tung from the Hanoi Open University said that the online network not only keeps data and helps search for information but also helps lecturers and learners during their study process. When lecturers login procedure, they can value whether learners work hard by counting the number leaners login into the system, their participation in the lass and frequencies of taking part in learning forum. Subsequently, teachers can warn lazy students of timetables and participation in the class. Notwithstanding, Dr. Nguyen Quoc Chinh said that online learning has developed drastically in the world and learners are certificated whereas Vietnam does not appreciate online learning and its qualification. Only those who are really thirst for learning register to pursue online learning. Moreover, former Head of the Education Department Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh said that concerns over the e-learning quality is correct because of ambiguous recruitment in some localities. In addition to high quality online courses, learners need is the key factor in improving the e-learning, he added. Furthermore, the Ministry of Education and Training must set up an inspection group to check the quality of online courses. Qualification is just the first condition that employees must have; recruiters must assess employees working ability. Additionally, schools applying online courses must invest in IT infrastructure and training lecturers. By THANH HUNG - Translated by UYEN PHUONG With the clock ticking down on negotiations, Westminster's attention is turning towards what happens if there is no deal. But the consequences are chaotic and incredibly hard to predict. Senior Labour figures and Remainers such as Tony Blair insist the government will find it politically impossible to proceed with a no-deal Brexit. They say rather than crash out, the PM will be forced to call a referendum, or extend the Article 50 process. But Mrs May is adamant that there is no prospect of her cancelling or delaying Brexit. Mrs May is adamant that there is no prospect of her cancelling or delaying Brexit Commons Clerks have pointed out that, short of two-thirds of the Commons voting for an election, there is no legal mechanism for MPs to oblige the government to change course. The Withdrawal Act has already been passed by Parliament - meaning that the 'default' position is for the UK to leave the bloc on March 29, deal or no deal. Constitutional Clerk Graeme Cowie said that did not mean MPs could not avert a no deal - but it would come down to the strength of political pressure. 'There is not any legal mechanism by which they can insist upon an alternative other than no deal,' he told the BBC's Westminster Hour. 'The means by which they might achieve that (avoiding no deal) are necessarily political, rather than legal.' Failure to agree a deal by January 21 Under pressure from Tory rebels, the government ceded a provision in the Withdrawal Act that means they must set out 'next steps' to Parliament if a deal has not been done by January 21. That could be the starting point for massive pressure to be piled on Mrs May to switch her strategy and avoid a no deal outcome. But while MPs will be able to hold a debate on the plan, any vote would be on a motion in 'neutral terms' - along the lines of 'take note' - and not amendable. While MPs will be able to hold a debate on the plan, any vote would be on a motion in 'neutral terms' - along the lines of 'take note' - and not amendable What could Remainer MPs do? Government cannot last long without the support of Parliament, as they must pass Budgets and get their policies through. But since the Fixed Term Parliaments Act was introduced it is considerably harder to force an election. MPs keen to avoid a no deal could cause a huge amount of trouble, including wrecking any legislation ministers put forward to ease the impact of a no-deal Brexit. But a government that is determined to press on, and willing to risk a chaotic exit from the EU, could conceivably cling on until it is too late. The nuclear option for Tory MPs would be to back a vote of no confidence. However, under the new rules, that would only force Mrs May out, and trigger a two-week period when she is likely to be replaced by another - and potentially more Brexiteer - PM. A vote of no confidence could force Mrs May out - but she would likely be replaced by another - and potentially more Brexiteer - PM Will political reality intervene? Bulldozing through a no deal Brexit in the face of Parliamentary opposition might be possible in theory - but it could prove all-but impossible in reality. Mrs May could endure 'death by a thousand cuts' if she tries, and risks tainting the Tories' reputation for economic governance by throwing the country into turmoil. However, the Conservatives will need to balance the reputational problems from crashing out against the political damage of failing to push through Brexit. AND THE 28 WHO HAVE WITHDRAWN Slogan: Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead Views on key issues: Ultra-moderate who will emphasize bipartisan record. Will come under fire over record, having voted: to stop desegregation bussing in 1975; to overturn Roe v Wade in 1981; for now controversial 1994 Violent Crime Act; for 2003 Iraq War; and for banking deregulation. Says he is 'most progressive' Democrat. New positions include free college, tax reform, $15 minimum wage. No public position yet on Green New Deal and healthcare. Pro-gun control. Has already apologized to women who say he touched them inappropriately Family: Eldest of four siblings born to Joe Biden Sr. and Catherine Finnegan. First wife Neilia Hunter and their one-year-old daughter Naomi died in car crash which their two sons, Joseph 'Beau' and Robert Hunter survived. Married Jill Jacobs in 1976, with whom he has daughter Ashley. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter's marriage to Kathleen Buhle, with whom he has three children, ended in 2016 when it emerged Hunter was in a relationship with Beau's widow Hallie, mother of their two children. Hunter admitted cocaine use; his estranged wife accused him of blowing their savings on drugs and prostitutes Career: No current role. A University of Delaware and Syracuse Law graduate, he was first elected to Newcastle City Council in 1969, then won upset election to Senate in 1972, aged 29. Was talked out of quitting before being sworn in when his wife and daughter died in a car crash and served total of six terms. Chaired Judiciary Committee's notorious Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Ran for president in 1988, pulled out after plagiarism scandal, ran again in 2008, withdrew after placing fifth in the Iowa Caucuses. Tapped by Obama as his running mate and served two terms as vice president. Contemplated third run in 2016 but decided against it after his son died of brain cancer. Read articles that feature this panel Tattooed paratrooper vet who voted for Trump but got called 'total wacko' by him announces he is running for president as a Democrat -... West Virginia state senator Richard Ojeda, 48, said he would be a 'voice for the dirt poor' as he became the third to formally run for the... TWO Democratic senators say they are thinking about running for 2020 with New York's Kirsten Gillibrand and Ohio's Sherrod Brown both... Democratic Sens. 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Universal health care, free pre-K and college, abolishing ICE and a $15 minimum wage: Democrats lurch left to capture liberal voters in 2020... Democrats wanting to get the 2020 candidacy are fighting to win over their party's base, which is demanding a presidential nominee dedicated... Democratic 2020 field grows to EIGHT (and counting) as openly gay 37-year-old mayor from Indiana who served in Afghanistan launches... Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, says he's forming an exploratory committee for a 2020 bid touting his work... Cory Booker becomes NINTH Democrat to launch 2020 White House bid as New Jersey Democratic senator enters race on first day of Black History... The New Jersey Democrat is the second black candidate in a primary field that's already historically diverse. He delivered a message of... 'I am not a tribal citizen': Elizabeth Warren offers 'from the heart' apology for calling herself 'American Indian' on bar registration... Sen. Elizabeth Warren repeatedly apologized Wednesday for claiming on a 1986 form to be 'American Indian, saying only tribes can determine... Michael Bloomberg will spend at least $500 MILLION to defeat Trump whether or not he runs for the White House himself (but he is worth $50... Michael Bloomberg is prepared to drop $500 million of his own money to defeat President Trump next year, no matter if he runs for the... Presidential hopeful Amy Klobuchar's former staff say she tried to torpedo their next jobs after they quit by calling employers to get... Sen. Amy Klobuchar would call her staffers' new employers and try to get the employment offers rescinded, it's been revealed of the... First Democratic White House debates will be over TWO nights because there are so many candidates - and if there are more than 20 some of... The Democratic party is preparing to have more than 20 candidates running by the time the first TV debates are held in June and July in two... Trump is testing out nicknames for Democrats running for the White House (but it's only 'Pocahontas' Elizabeth Warren who's got one so far) Trump has been workshopping attempts to imprint his new adversaries with lasting labels, according to two people on whom the president has... Independent Bernie Sanders is to sign a pledge affirming he WILL run for president as a Democrat in 2020 Sen. Bernie Sanders plans to sign a pledge saying he will run as a Democrat in his bid for the presidency in 2020 and to govern as a... THIRTEENTH Democratic candidate enters race as liberal Washington Gov. Jay Inslee promises to make global warming America's 'number one... 'We're the first generation to feel the sting of climate change,' Inslee says in a launch video ahead of a public announcement later Friday... 'We are living through a full-fledged crisis in our democracy': Hillary issues grave warning at Selma civil rights event as Jesse Jackson... The air remained chilly between 2016 Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders when the two were in Selma, Ala., on Sunday as... 'I'm asking you to interview me for President': Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper who once drank fracking fluid to show it was safe... Hicklooper, 66, begged for national attention Monday on Twitter: 'It's official: I'm asking you to interview me for President,' he tweeted. End of an era: Hillary Clinton confirms for the first time she is NOT running for president in 2020 and says she won't seek elected office... Hillary Clinton officially ruled out running for president in 2020 on Monday night but said she wasn't going anywhere and would continue to... Finally, a Democrat ISN'T running for president: Oregon senator Jeff Merkley says he's out - but there are 14 and counting still in the race Merkley says he wants to focus on his 2020 re-election campaign, rather than take on the White House run as well. 'I've never shied from a... Michael Bloomberg WON'T mount presidential campaign in 2020 as he says 'Trump is a threat to our country' but decides not to run against him Bloomberg ended a political guessing game that had the potential to upend the Democratic field and make Trump sweat. The former New York... 'Why are you so obsessed with me?' Hillary Clinton mocks Trump by tweeting 'Mean Girls' clip after he trolls her with his 'regrets' that... Donald Trump looked backward fondly at 2016 on Tuesday, reacting to Hillary Clinton's political retirement with a tweeted chuckle. And... Has Hillary changed her mind? Clinton now says she is 'surprised her announcement NOT to run in 2020 was taken at face value and is waiting... The former presidential candidate confirmed it for the first time in an interview with News12 Westchester on Monday night that she would not... Democrats exclude Fox News from hosting 2020 primary debates saying claims of the network having an 'inappropriate relationship' with Trump... The Democratic Party is excluding Fox News from hosting any of its primary debates in the 2019-2020 cycle, claiming the network cannot be... 'Ill do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats': Trump threatens retaliation after Democrats dump Fox... President Trump threatened to block the 'Fake News Networks' from general election debates in retaliation for Democrats excluding Fox News... Another Democrat is out of the White House race as Ohio senator Sherrod Brown says he will NOT be a candidate despite building national... Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown said Thursday he will not run for president, after making trips to early primary states and considering a run... Is New York's ultra-liberal mayor going to run too? Speculation rises that Bill de Blasio will make a play for the White House after... New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio could be the next in a long line of Democrats to launch a presidential bid. He and NYC's first lady,... Amy Klobuchar admits eating salad with a comb on a plane when she was 'doing a mom thing' and responds to bullying claims by agreeing she... Democratic presidential contender Amy Klobuchar admitted Saturday at SXSW she did eat a salad with a comb but brushed it off as a 'mom... Julian Castro whacks Bernie Sanders over reparations asking why not 'be bold' for descendants of slaves when you're willing to write big... Democratic presidential contender Julian Castro whacked at rival Bernie Sanders over reparations, asking why he's not willing to write a... The very awkward moment New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio flaps his arms as the pastor and congregation of a South Carolina church sing... New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio spent Sunday morning awkwardly standing by while a South Carolina church pastor and the congregation... Long-shot Democratic White House contender Pete Buttigieg blasts Bible-thumping Mike Pence as 'cheerleader for the porn-star presidency' Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a presidntial long-shoti but had an hour to himself Sunday at the South By Southwest... Bernie Sanders says all his 'radical' 2016 ideas are now mainstream Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says his campaign ideas, which were once considered 'radical,' have taken off among the public and among... 'Democrats finally located Wisconsin on a map!' Republicans laugh as Dems pick Milwaukee for 2020 convention because Hillary Clinton... 'Four years too late, Democrats go to Wisconsin,' Kellyanne Conway tweeted. And a GOP congressman from the dairy state snarked about the... 'Is he crazy?' Trump mocked Beto O'Rourke for 'a lot of hand movement' during first campaign event because he watched it with the sound OFF... A White House official said after Trump scoffed at Geto's 'hand movements' that the president saw 'a few minutes' of the Democrat's campaign... Presidential hopeful Cory Booker reveals his joy at dating 'wonderful' Rosario Dawson while campaigning in New Hampshire Sen. Cory Booker, 49, of New Jersey admitted during a campaign stop in New Hampshire he was dating Rosario Dawson, 39, adding that he is... Sen Kirsten Gillibrand officially launches 2020 presidential run with announcement video hitting out at Trump as she declares 'brave doesn't... Gillibrand is the next prominent Democrat to enter the 2020 presidential race. She also revealed she will give a speech in front of Trump... Facebook performs U-turn after removing Sen. Elizabeth Warren's ads calling for break up of social media giant and Amazon and Google because... The Massachusetts Democrat named Facebook, Amazon and Google in the ad which argued they have 'so much power over everyone else'. Kirsten Gillibrand had a SECOND sexist on her staff and kept him on payroll after 'firing' military aide for saying a woman 'couldn't get... Kirsten Gillibrand had a second male aide who was accused of making sexist comments to a female staffer and Marc Brumer was kept on the... Dark horse Democrat Andrew Yang draws audience of 3,000 with promise of guaranteed income, free financial counseling and a website full of... Businessman Andrew Yang is drawing in crowds of millennials with his call for a universal basic income and a website chock full of policies... Rosario Dawson confirms she is dating 'kind and loving' presidential hopeful Cory Booker as she arrives in Washington DC The actress made the admission to TMZ on Thursday as she touched down at Reagan National Airport in D.C. Joe Biden's advisers want him to announce failed Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams as his running mate on day one of his presidential... Advisers to former Vice President Joe Biden want him to name failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams as his running mate. Another Democrat is about to run for president - meaning there will be SIXTEEN of them! Colorado senator Michael Bennet is close to... Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado is close to joining the race for the 2020 presidential nomination, which would make 16 candidates including... I took my mom to see Deep Throat: Democratic hopeful and ex Colorado governor John Hickenlooper reveals bizarre episode when he was a... Presidential candidate former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper retold the story of how he once took his mom to see 'Deep Throat' on a trip... 'I think she would make an incredible First Lady!' Cory Booker gushes about his girlfriend actress Rosario Dawson saying 'the future is... New Jersey senator Cory Booker gushed about his actress girlfriend Rosario Dawson on Friday saying she'd 'make an incredible First Lady -... 'You don't run for second place': Failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams dismisses report she could be Joe Biden's 2020 running-mate... Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams dismissed a report she could be Joe Biden's 2020 running mate and said she's keeping... Democratic presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand throws down gauntlet by publishing her 2018 tax returns - showing she paid $29,170... The New York senator became the first 2020 candidate to disclose the latest filing. Her income included her $167,000 Senate salary, a... ANOTHER Democrat is running for president: Now college football star-turned mayor of Miramar, Florida, is the SIXTEENTH would-be nominee Wayne Messam, 44, the first black mayor of Miramar and a Florida State University football player in the 1993 national championship team... 'Are you with me?': Beto O'Rourke wraps up his presidential launch with late appearance at Austin rally after traveling 900 miles through... Beto O'Rourke wrapped his official presidential launch on Saturday with a night time rally before the state Capitol, where he kept the... 'Don't tell anyone but I'm announcing in two weeks!' California Rep. Eric Swalwell set to take the Democratic field near record levels as... California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell was overheard at a fundraiser saying he will announce for president in two weeks, the latest sign... Amy Klobuchar becomes latest 2020 Democrat to release tax returns showing she and her law professor husband paid $62,787 on $292,306 income... The Minnesota senator released tax returns dating back to 2006, following Kirsten Gillibrand's lead. In 2017 Klobuchar and her husband John... Don't pack the Supreme Court says Bernie Sanders, warning Democrats considering the plan that Republicans would do it too 'My worry is that the next time the Republicans are in power they will do the same thing,' the 2020 Democratic candidate said at a forum for... Elizabeth Warren calls Trump administration 'walking, talking, living, breathing threat to national security' as she swings at the White... Elizabeth Warren slammed President Trump at a forum for Democratic hopefuls to woo union workers; Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke and Cory... Bernie Sanders rakes in $18.2 million in first three months of the year and has $10m more in the bank as he catapults to top of 2020... The firebrand Vermont senator revealed he has 525,000 donors, the majority under 39, who had donated a total of $18 million so far in 2019.... ANOTHER Democrat is running for 2020: Ohio congressman Tim Ryan becomes the record-equaling 17th candidate by announcing on The View Ohio congressman Tim Ryan, 45, has become the 17th Democrat to officially run for the 2020 nomination with an announcement on ABC's The... 'I'm looking forward to running in 2020': Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet says he's campaigning for president despite his prostate cancer... Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet said on Sunday he is looking forward to running for president in the coming year despite his recent diagnosis... Bernie Sanders promises to release 10 years of tax returns after April 15 as his $28 million fundraising haul puts him at the front of... Sanders' campaign says he wants to wait until after the April 15 tax filing deadline to release a decade worth of returns. A handful of... Trump critic Eric Swalwell becomes record-breaking 18th Democrat running in 2020 as he says in launch video that the president's boldness is... The California Democratic congressman drew blood in a launch video released late Monday, dismissing the president's aggressive political... Bernie Sanders admits he is a MILLIONAIRE as he prepares to release ten years of tax returns and says: 'If you write a best-selling book,... Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders announced he will release 10 years of his tax returns and revealed he is a millionaire... Nancy Pelosi say Democrats DON'T have to have a woman on the 2020 ticket and says Biden shouldn't be judged as Creepy Joe but on 'what he's... Pelosi said that despite the 2020 field including five women so far, including Kamala Harris, it was not a requirement for at least one to... 'He knows me. He knows better.' Mike Pence says openly gay Democratic 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg is playing to party 'sliding to the... Vice President Mike Pence shot back at South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, saying the mayor 'knows better' than to criticize his faith and... 'We're trying to win an election; not the news cycle': Cory Booker's team downplays low poll numbers and slow fundraising ahead of his... Democratic presidential contender Cory Booker's team downplayed his low poll numbers and scant fundraising ahead of his formal campaign... I'm here to 'tell a different story than Make America Great Again': Pete Buttigieg officially announces that he is running for president in... South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a breakout star of the 2020 campaign, formally launched his presidential bid on Sunday with a criticism of... Bernie Sanders scores viral moment when Fox News town hall host asks audience who backs socialist's single-payer healthcare plan and rust... Democratic presidential front-runner Bernie Sanders faced off in a town hall with two Fox News hosts Monday night about who would pay for a... Democrats fear their 2020 fundraising is in crisis because they have so many candidates that donors are sitting out the race Fundraising figures for the start of 2019 show Democratic candidates not only lag behind Trump, who raised $30 million, but took in less... Socialist Bernie Sanders publishes tax returns showing he made $2.7 million in three years thanks to running for president (but he was down... Sanders - who rails against the 'millionaires and billionaires' he says have rigged the system - and his wife Jane O'Meara had adjusted... Bernie Sanders is a Fox News star as network boasts of record ratings for town hall - and Democrat breakout star Pete Buttigieg moves to do... Sen. Bernie Sanders' town hall meeting set record ratings for Fox News and now Democratic breakout star Pete Buttigieg is moving to hold one... 'Many Trump fans and signs were outside. What's with Fox News?': President hints his favorite network BANNED his MAGA supporters from their... President Trump once again criticized Fox News on Tuesday over its town hall with Senator Bernie Sanders, this time claiming that the... Trump slams 'crazy Bernie' Sanders after the Democratic front-runner touted universal healthcare and tax hikes at a Fox News town hall - and... Trump called Fox News host Bret Baier and the 'audience' 'smiley and nice' during a town hall with Sen. Bernie Sanders Monday night -... Amy Klobuchar becomes next 2020 Democrat to hold a Fox News town hall after Bernie Sanders' is a ratings smash - and Beto and Mayor Pete... Bernie Sanders was the first to venture onto Fox. His Monday town hall reached 2.55 million viewers, the campaign audience so far and now... 2020 Democratic candidates unload on Bill Barr for clearing Trump calling his press conference 'a farce', an 'embarrassment' and 'a stunt' Several 2020 Democratic candidates are lashing out at Attorney General Bill Barr, calling his press conference, where he cleared Trump of... Elizabeth Warren calls for the House to begin IMPEACHMENT proceedings against Trump, saying Trump 'welcomed' help from Russia Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Friday called for the House to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Democrat 2020 presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg says supporters of Bernie Sanders and President Trump 'have more in common than they might... Mayor Pete Buttigieg ended up taking a dig at fellow 2020 candidate Senator Bernie Sanders' supporters during a campaign stop in Nashua, New... Marine veteran who saw combat in Iraq and unsuccessfully challenged Nancy Pelosi becomes 19th Democrat to try to unseat Trump Seth Moulton, 40, an Iraq War veteran and Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, entered the field of Democrats seeking to go up... Democrats fear Pete Buttigieg's tiny campaign run by his high-school friend is out of its depth as he admits supporters have to 'organize... Buttigieg, 37, said it was a 'good problem to have' that interest in his campaign is far greater than he had prepared for. His tiny team is... Pete Buttigieg says impeaching Donald Trump is the only way to get Republicans to abandon their 'deal with the devil' Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg said Republicans made a deal with the devil in working with President Trump, and the only... Joe Biden will officially announce he is running for president on Thursday after chaos inside his campaign over how to unveil his 2020 bid Obama's vice president will enter the crowded Democratic field on Thursday in a video message, before campaigning in Pittsburgh on Monday.... Record 19th Democrat set to enter presidential field with Massachusetts congressman Seth Moulton expected announcement - and Joe Biden will... Massachusetts Senator Seth Moulton will be the 19th Democrat to enter the presidential field with his upcoming announcement. Joe Biden is... Likely 2020 Presidential candidate Joe Biden ISN'T losing support from female Democrats despite allegations of inappropriate touching, polls... Biden is expected to announce his presidential bid soon. A new poll found his support has not waned among Democratic primary voters since... Michael Bloomberg ISN'T hanging up his White House ambitions yet despite announcement that he wouldn't run because he's not sure Joe Biden... Michael Bloomberg may enter the 2020 race after all - especially if former Vice President Joe Biden doesn't run - despite announcing last... We want Joe! More than 60 percent of Democrats want Biden to run in 2020 as they rate his ability to beat Trump as 'extremely important' More than 60 percent of Democrats want Joe Biden to run for the Democratic nomination and cite his ability to beat President Donald Trump as... 'I don't see the candidate who can do what has to be done': Joe Biden hints he is the only Democrat who can beat Trump in 2020 as he ponders... Friends of the former Vice President, pictured in Utah last month, have said Biden likely to is likely to decide in the next two weeks... Trump attacks Joe Biden as 'another low I.Q. individual' after former vice-president's weekend gaffe suggesting he is already committed to a... President Donald Trump mocked Joe Biden on Monday morning for a verbal flub over the weekend that had him quieting a crowd after he... Joe to the rescue! Biden is a mile in front of other 2020 Democrats in new poll and is their only hope to beat Trump in Iowa Joe Biden tops Democrats' wish-list for their 2020 presidential candidate and, in the battleground state of Iowa, he's the only member of... Beto O'Rourke will amend his taxes after publishing decade of returns which revealed $4,000 underpayment - and that he and his wife barely... He and his wife deducted almost $16,000 worth of medical expenses in 2013 and 2014, newly-published returns revealed - and will now pay the... Beto O'Rourke turns on the charm as he campaigns for unity in Las Vegas just one week after his teenage fantasy fiction about killing... The former Texas congressman was on a two-day swing through Nevada, an early Western caucus state with a significant Latino population. Beto O'Rourke's campaign website sells t-shirts but STILL contains nothing about his policy ideas nearly a week after he entered White House... Democratic presidential contender Beto O'Rourke's campaign website is selling t-shirts and hats but has no policy ideas nearly a week after... Beto beats Bernie: O'Rourke raises $6.1 MILLION in first day of his campaign The 'record-breaking' haul came 'without a dime' from PACs, corporations or special interests,' an O'Rourke spokesman tweeted, boasting of... 'I'm not at any disadvantage at all,' Beto O'Rourke says of being white male in Democratic presidential field after admitting it would be... Beto O'Rourke claims he's not at any disadvantage at all being a white male in the crowded Democratic presidential primary field after... 'He's apologized for being born!' Michael Bloomberg bashes 'Beto or whatever his name is' for changing to suit Democratic primary voters 'Beto whatever his name is he's apologized for being born,' Bloomberg said during a Bermuda Executive Forum in New York City. 'I don't... Dr Drew says he thinks 'something's not right' with Beto O'Rourke as weird 'wax my a**, scrub my balls' poem, written by the Democratic... The Celebrity Rehab host shared his 'gut' feeling with Fox Nation host Brian Kilmeade on Friday, after listening to a portion of Democratic... 'I need a butt-shine. Wax my a**, scrub my balls. The Cow has risen.' Bizarre poem Beto O'Rourke wrote to a COW when he was a computer... Hackers have revealed that O'Rourke, the latest Democrat to run for president, was part of a hacking group until the age of 18 and posted... REVEALED: Reuters reporter struck deal that allowed Beto O'Rourke to keep his Cult of the Dead Cow computer hacking a secret until AFTER his... Beto O'Rourke benefited from a deal between Reuters reporter Joseph Menn and his former hacker buddies to keep his membership in the 'Cult... Beto O'Rourke IS running for president in 2020 and will make his official announcement tomorrow - hot on the heels of his Vanity Fair cover... O'Rourke, 46, ended months of speculation over a potential run by confirming it via text to a local Texas news station on Wednesday... 'He was sent from an alternate timeline to warn us about something': Twitter users post hilarious memes about Beto O'Rourke's 'sad dog' on... O'Rourke, 46, announced on Wednesday that he was running for president. His Vanity Fair cover was released on the same day, featuring his... Beto O'Rourke heads to Iowa as speculation about a 2020 run builds at SXSW conference in Texas Beto O'Rourke heads to Iowa on Saturday as speculation grows the former congressman will announce a 2020 presidential campaign. We're doomed! Beto O'Rourke starts presidential campaign by claiming the world faces 'catastrophe' and warns 'hundreds of millions' of... The former congressman warned Thursday in his first campaign stop that parts of the planet will become uninhabitable, driving a massive wave... Taking advantage of the hype? Beto gets a huge ovation at his documentary screening at SXSW after teasing a 'big announcement to supporters'... Beto O'Rourke got a standing ovation at the South by Southwest festival but he dodged questions about any presidential plans even as an... 'He's Barack Obama, but white!' Democrats in frenzy over Beto O'Rourke running for 2020 with Iowa donors refusing to give to rivals until... Democratic donors are in a frenzy over Beto O'Rourke, sitting on their cash until they hear if he'll run for president and comparing him to... 'They arent going to win with the people I see': Trump mocks field of 20 different Democrats who want his job and says their only chance is... President Donald Trump mocked an ever-growing field of Democrats seeking his job on Wednesday, claiming that none of them hold a candle to... Elizabeth Warren tries to BAN Trump and his successors from launching a nuclear first strike saying it would cut the risk of accidental... Warren, together with House legislator Adam Smith, submitted the No First Use Act to codify what they said most Americans support, that the... 'My parents told my sisters and I stories too... they're called fairy tales': Elizabeth Warren is called out for blaming her FAMILY for... 'This is who I grew up believing with my brothers,' Warren said of what she thought was her heritage. 'This is our family story. It's all... Elizabeth Warren APOLOGIZES for ever claiming she was Native American after her State Bar registration card from 1986 emerges on which she... Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said Tuesday: 'I can't go back. But I am sorry for furthering confusion on tribal sovereignty and... First campaign fail? Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren is blasted for 'desperate' and 'try hard' Instagram Live video which shows her... The 69-year-old U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, cracked open a beer on-camera on an Instagram livestream on New Year's... Kamala Harris gets an eight-point bump among Democratic White House contenders in poll that puts new entrant Beto O'Rourke in fourth place Kamala Harris shot up eight points in a CNN poll out Tuesday on the Democratic presidential primary field while Beto O'Rourke entered the... 'It's not about a cost. It's about an investment': Democratic contender Kamala Harris REFUSES to put price tag on Green New Deal and... Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris dismissed the trillions of dollars programs supported by liberals Bernie Sanders and... Kamala Harris leads Senate Democrats' push to offer paid congressional jobs and internships to DACA recipients even though they're not... Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris is leading the charge to lift the ban that keeps Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals... 'Foreign powers infecting this White House like malware': Kamala Harris slams the Trump administration and says 'America's position in the... Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris formally launched her presidential bid Sunday in her hometown of Oakland, Calif., in a speech containing... Trump warns Biden that 'nasty' Democrats will overwhelm him with 'sick & demented' primary plans as he welcomes former VP to the race (but... President Donald Trump welcomed Joe Biden to the presidential race with a tweet that called him 'Sleepy Joe' and said he would face a... Obama is 'unlikely' to pick a horse in the presidential race until the massive field of 20 Democrats shrinks, insider says The Republican Party mocked Biden for failing to win his former boss' backing: 'We don't need eight more years of Biden. Just ask President... I'll win this on my own! Joe Biden says he asked Obama NOT to endorse him as he finally throws himself into 2020 race by taking fight to... Joe Biden said Thursday he asked former President Barack Obama not to endorse his presidential campaign, saying whoever won the Democratic... Anita Hill throws Joe Biden's apology for how he treated her at Clarence Thomas hearings 28 years ago back in his face on launch day of his... Hill says when Biden called her this month to express his regret over 'what she endured' 28 years ago, his speech left her cold and didn't... Kamala Harris becomes first prominent black American to enter 2020 race as Democratic senator uses Martin Luther King Jr. Day to join... First-term Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California, a rising party star and outspoken critic of Trump's immigration policies,... 'El Paso to me represents America at its very best': Beto launches his presidential campaign with outdoor rally in his hometown near the... Beto O'Rourke launched his presidential campaign on Saturday by stressing the value immigrants brought to the U.S., a message in direct... Democratic 2020 hopeful Elizabeth Warren unveils 'Amazon tax' plan of levy on the biggest firms to stop them paying nothing on their profits Warren is proposing that all profits over $100 million are taxed at 7 per cent with no exemptions and singled out Jeff Bezos' Amazon which... Elizabeth Warren unveils plan to cancel $640 BILLION in college debt in one-off amnesty she says would be paid for by tax on ultra-wealthy Warren, one of 20 Democrats so far running for 2020, plans to write off up to $50,000 of college debt for each person with household income... Long-shot White House contender Pete Buttigieg exceeds expectations with $7 million fundraising haul since January but onetime front-runner... South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg raised an astonishing $7 million in the first quarter of his long-shot campaign while Elizabeth Warren is... Elizabeth Warren and her husband reveal $900,000 income and $200,000 in federal taxes as she publishes her 2018 return Warren and her husband, Bruce Mann, jointly reported a gross income of about $900,000, with Warren reporting income of $176,280 as senator... Elizabeth Warren says she will break up tech giants Facebook, Google and Amazon if she wins White House race, accusing them of 'bulldozing... Warren said she would pick regulators who would seek to break up 'anti-competitive mergers' such as Facebook buying Instagram and Amazon's... Elizabeth Warren cheers AOC's Green New Deal, calls for an 'ultra millionaires tax', calls Trump bigoted and says climate change means 'our... The 69-year-old Democrat officially launched her campaign at a rally on Saturday in Lawrence, Massachusetts, one of New England's poorest... 'The monopolists will make fewer monopoly profits. Boo-hoo': Elizabeth Warren defends plan to break up tech giants Facebook, Google and... Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Saturday defended her plan to break up top tech giants Amazon and Alphabet's Google and Facebook, saying... Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate? Trump can't resist having dig at Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren after she... President Donald Trump wrote about Elizabeth Warren, 69, on Twitter Saturday after her Massachusetts event: 'Has she decided that after 32... Elizabeth Warren dodges reporter's question about 'Native American' DNA test PR disaster in first press conference since jumping into 2020... Warren entered the presidential fray but showed no sign she's ready to overcome the self-inflected scandal that has dogged her for years:... Elizabeth Warren dives into 2020 race to take on Trump as middle-class warrior but his aides say liberal who the president mocks as... Aides licked their chops and laughed as they anticipated a battle between the president and the ultra-liberal swashbuckler with a dubious... Elizabeth Warren chugs on a beer and takes questions in Instagram video promoting herself as President for 2020, after Trump takes aim at... In a homely video livestream Warren looked to replicate the approachable manner of social media efforts by Beto O'Rourke and Alexandria... Cindy McCain says she won't endorse Joe Biden but calls him a 'wonderful man' after claims she and Meghan will throw their weight behind... Cindy McCain denied that she would get involved with the 2020 presidential race after a report emerged that she and her daughter, Meghan,... Joe Biden will throw himself into 2020 race on Thursday with plan to dominate 20-strong field with massive fundraising power but already... Former Vice President Joe Biden is expected announce presidential bid Thursday with a video message positioning himself as the best... Joe Biden will announce he's running for president NEXT WEEK as Bernie Sanders rakes in cash and becomes ratings smash Former Vice President Joe Biden will formally announce next week he is running for the Democratic nomination as Sen. Bernie Sanders has made... Pete Buttigieg soars to third place in new Democratic poll that puts him ahead of Kamala Harris AND Beto O'Rourke - and puts Bernie Sanders... Pete Buttigieg hit third place in popularity among Democratic primary voters. He raised more than $7 million in the first quarter of 2019... Joe Biden leads Democratic field on eve of 2020 announcement with minorities and over-55s helping him leap nine points ahead of Bernie Joe Biden leads all other candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and he hasn't even officially announced yet. Most... Shock new poll puts Biden EIGHT points ahead of Trump and makes him the front-runner among his Democrat rivals as the former VP announces a... The poll was published on Wednesday, a day before Biden (left) announced his challenge for the presidency, showing him leading Trump... Biden takes fight directly to Trump in his White House campaign launch with video about 'battle for the soul of this nation' Biden, 76, ended months of speculation with an early morning video message announcing his run and aimed squarely at Trump, saying:... Biden raised $6.3 million in first 24 hours of campaign beating financial frontrunner Bernie Sanders who raised $5.9 million on the first... Former Vice President Joe Biden raised $6.3 million in the first 24 hours of his presidential campaign, another indicator that he is a... Biden breaks down in tears on The View over his dead son Beau in first TV interview of 2020 run - after refusing to apologize for his... In his first interview of his campaign, Biden was challenged on 'Creepy Joe' claims and on the treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence... Trump's no average Joe! 72-year-old President declares he'll beat Biden 'easily' because he's 'a young, vibrant man' whom 76-year-old former... President Donald Trump said Friday morning that he expects to make quick work of former Vice President Joe Biden if he survives the grueling... Obama sent an aide to talk Biden out running for president in 2016 so Hillary Clinton could be the Democratic nominee and he hasn't... It worked. Biden scrapped an announcement speech he had drafted and instead framed his decision to drop out as the product of grieving the... Bizarre moment presidential candidate Cory Booker is cut off mid-speech when a van crashes into the side of the mall where he was... New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, 50, was giving a talk on voting rights in Miami Gardens, Florida on Sunday. During his speech a silver van... Pete Buttigieg makes pilgrimage to Sylvia's in Harlem for talks on race with Rev. Al Sharpton over fried chicken and collard greens (with a... Buttigieg and the civil rights leader met for lunch at Sylvia's Restaurant, a cornerstone of black American culture where Sharpton has... Trump savages firefighters union's 'dues-sucking' leaders for endorsing Joe Biden as Obama's VP hits the 2020 campaign trail for the first... President Donald Trump attacked Joe Biden on Monday, hours before the former vice president made his first campaign stop and after he won a... 'Truth over lies': Biden rallies union workers in Pittsburgh to start his 2020 presidential run saying he is in the rust belt to beat Trump... Former Vice President Joe Biden launched his first campaign rally Monday to the crowd of blue-collar voters who he believes can put him in... Joe Biden hits the campaign trail for the first time in Pittsburgh with endorsement of firefighters' union Joe Biden earned the endorsement of the powerful firefighters union ahead of his first formal campaign stop in Pittsburgh and the wrath of... Joe Biden seals front runner status among Democrats with commanding 24 point lead over nearest rival Bernie Sanders in new poll Former Vice President Joe Biden sealed his status as the Democratic front runner on Tuesday when a new poll showed him leading his nearest... Pete Buttigieg publishes 10 years of tax returns revealing he and his husband earned least in Democratic 2020 field - and he had a negative... South Bend, Indiana, mayor Buttigieg, 37, and his husband Chasten Glezman reported earning $128,630 in taxable income in 2018. They paid... Is Oprah going to endorse Pete Buttigieg? 37-year-old Democratic 2020 hopeful lunches with TV queen who crowned Obama Oprah Winfrey had lunch with young Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg over the weekend as she says shes studying the 2020... Now there's ANOTHER Democrat running for 2020! Colorado senator Michael Bennet becomes number 21 after beating prostate cancer Colorado senator Bennet, 54, held off from running until he had beaten a diagnosis of prostate cancer. He told CBS This Morning he is... Beto O'Rourke emerges as the most electable Democrat in poll that shows he would beat Trump by 10 points and the only front-runner the... Former Texas Representative Beto ORourke emerged in a new poll as the most likely to beat President Donald Trump if he were to win the... Pictured: Topless Bernie Sanders banqueting at vodka-laden table in the Soviet Union on his 'honeymoon' - where he attacked the U.S. for... Independent Senator Bernie Sanders criticized the U.S. for its foreign policy during a visit to the Soviet Union in 1988. The then... The number of the day is 22 - 2020 candidates! New York mayor Bill de Blasio set to be the NEXT Democrat to run, after officially naming... De Blasio's possible run has not attracted wide support. A poll last month found that 76 percent of New York City voters don't want him to... Cory Booker makes dramatic gun control call after Charlotte shooting with promise of compulsory licences, background checks and assault... The New Jersey Democratic senator, one of 21 running for the party nomination, is suggesting the most sweeping federal gun laws of any... Mayor Pete is 'more impressive' than I expected and America WILL elect a gay president someday, says Al Sharpton as he calls Trump's... Sharpton spoke with DailyMail.com at a D.C. restaurant that allows smoking but refused to be photographed holding his cigar. He said Trump... Biden takes HUGE 32-point lead over Sanders in a new poll where almost half of Democratic registered voters support the former vice... Former Vice President Joe Biden has 46 per cent support in the 2020 elections from Democratic voters, according to a Monday Hill-HarrisX... Biden trounces Trump by TEN points despite not being in the White House race yet and Kamala Harris beats him by 4 in new poll that suggests... The former vice president would crush the current president by a 55-45 margin if the 2020 election were held today, according to poll... Mayor Pete says God would NEVER be a Republican like Trump as he reveals he and his husband want children because 'Chasten was made to be a... God doesn't belong to a political party, Pete Buttigieg says, 'and if he did, I can't imagine it would be the one that sent the current... You don't need a white man to beat Trump says Kamala Harris as she vents to voters: 'It's short-sighted! It's wrong!' Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris slammed the chattering class for advocating that only a white male like Joe Biden could beat... We're the 2020 frontrunners and we love it say Trump's re-election campaign as they reveal plans to paint Democrat who wins nomination as a... President Donald Trump's re-election team say they are confident Trump is a front runner in the 2020 election. 'We're confident, not cocky,'... Amy Klobuchar becomes second 2020 Democratic candidate to participate in Fox News town hall even though the DNC refuses to allow the... Senator Amy Klobuchar became the second 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to participate in a Fox News town hall on Wednesday evening.... Elizabeth Warren unveils $100 BILLION plan to tackle the opioid epidemic and says she will give back donations she took from Sackler family... Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren rolled out a new plan to combat the opioid crisis on Wednesday, pledging $100 billion to the... Mayor Pete isn't giving his campaign staff ANY healthcare benefits while Bernie Sanders unionizes his team Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is not offering healthcare benefits to any of his campaign staff while Bernie Sanders has... 'Spiritual author Marianne Williamson becomes 18th Democratic 2020 candidate to qualify for first primary debate and there's still time for... Spiritual author Marianne Williamson announced Thursday that she hit the donor thresh hold to join June's first primary debate for the... Pete Buttigieg is running on 'the fact that he's gay' and Joe Biden is 'off the rails' says dark horse Democrat Mike Gravel whose campaign... Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel berated Democratic presidential candidates former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Indiana Mayor... Stacey Abrams WON'T run for Georgia's Senate seat in 2020 raising speculation that she is still planning to join packed Democratic president... Stacey Abrams announced she will not challenge Republican Senator David Perdue for his seat next year. 'I am announcing today that I will... Kamala Harris reveals her step kids call her 'Momala' after 'stepmother' was adapted by Disney as 'not necessarily a great word' Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris revealed on Sunday that her two step children call her 'momala' after the word stepmother... Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom back Pete Buttigieg and will raise money in Hollywood for the Democratic 2020 breakout star Celebrity couple Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom are backing breakout 2020 Democrat Pete Buttigieg it was revealed over the weekend. They will... Elizabeth Warren says she will NOT do a Fox News town hall like Bernie Sanders and claims he and other Democrats are letting 'outlet that... Elizabeth Warren rejected Fox News's invitation for her to participate in a town hall. 'Fox News is a hate-for-profit racket that gives a... Kamala Harris goes toe-to-toe with weakened NRA as she pledges to ban AR-15 imports by executive order if she becomes president Kamala Harris will expand her crack down on guns Wednesday with a proposal to ban the importation of AR-15-style assault weapons - the kind... Billionaire Trump rival Mark Cuban says 'nobody' among 23 Democratic candidates can beat Trump and their proposals are all 'headline porn'... 'Well see what happens,' Shark Tank star Cuban said in a cable TV interview, parroting one of Trump's favorite non-commitment lines. 'It... Biden uses TELEPROMPTER in speech to small audience as he tries to protect himself against campaign gaffes but his staff keeps losing... Joe Biden's campaign rolled out a teleprompter during a stop in New Hampshire on Monday. Instead of a complete script, the teleprompter... New York's ultra-liberal mayor Bill de Blasio will become 24th Democrat to run for president - with even his own city voters telling him NOT... De Blasio, 58, will announce on Good Morning America that he is joining the overcrowded Democratic 2020 field, then travel to Iowa and to... Rival campaign official donates money to Kristen Gillibrand because weakened New York senator risks NOT qualifying for Democratic... Cory Bookers deputy 2020 campaign manager said she donated to his Democratic primary opponent, Kirsten Gillibrand, to try to help get her... 'It will never happen!' Trump blasts his latest challenger Bill de Blasio in video recorded on Air Force One and called Democrat 'worst... President Trump blasted Mayor Bill de Blasio as the 'worst mayor' in history in a video message recorded on Air Force One as he flew to New... 'I am open to the conversation': Stacey Abrams backtracks and says she could be someone's vice president after claiming 'you don't run for... Former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams backtracked on Thursday and said that she would now be open to running on the eventual... Bill de Blasio isn't his real name, he's a climate fanatic who takes three SUVs to the gym and his wife was a lesbian until they got... Bill de Blasio is the 24th 2020 Democrat. Meet the New York mayor who feuds with Democrats, campaigns against climate change from his SUV... Trump doesn't want to face another woman, claims Elizabeth Warren as she swings back at the president's prediction that Biden, Beto, Bernie... Asked about the president's reduction of a historically diverse field to a short-list of four white men, Elizabeth Warren shot back to... If Democrats don't go on Fox, we miss speaking 'directly to millions of American voters,' Pete Buttigieg argues ahead of his town hall... Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg condemned commentators on Fox News who 'spread fear and lies' ahead of his appearance on... Buttigieg backs up women who have THIRD trimester abortions as he tells Fox News audience that government doesn't make 'impossible,... 'That decision's not going to be made any better medically or morally because the government is dictating how that decision should be made,'... Trump declares 'Bernie Sanders is history' as Biden's 11-point lead over him in Iowa shrinks to ZERO (but Joe is still crushing it in New... Biden was ahead by 11 points in a Monmouth University poll last month, before he made his presidential candidacy official. Now they're... Kamala Harris says she will FINE companies which fail to achieve pay equality for women and ban employers for asking about salary history The California senator's plan would require companies to disclose pay policies while applying for a mandatory 'Equal Pay Certification'... 'If other people got a message I ain't heard it': Senior Joe Biden aide hits out at the former Vice President's 2020 rivals 'This is not a coronation. This is going to be a fight. We know it's a fight. We've said it's a fight from day one,' Symone Sanders, a... Afghanistan veteran Pete Buttigieg slams Trump for 'using his privileged status to fake a disability' and avoid Vietnam war 'so that... 'I don't have a problem standing up to somebody who was working on Season Seven of 'Celebrity Apprentice' when I was packing my bags for... Trump's actions are an 'assault on the honor of this country,' Afghanistan vet Pete Buttigieg slams the president for 'slander against... Pete Buttigieg charged President Trump with committing an 'assault on the honor of this country' for avoiding the Vietnam War and accused... 'Personally, no': Even Bill de Blasio's maxed-out $5,000 donors don't want him to be president as New York mayor has the worst approval... So far 115 people have contributed $5,000, the maximum allowed, to his Fairness PAC. But few think he would make a good replacement for... Democrats make it TWICE as hard for candidates to qualify for the third presidential primary debate in September and it might only last one... Candidates running in the Democratic primary will need to reach 2 per cent in four approval polls and collect contributions from 130,000... Biden is 18 points clear of Bernie in new poll showing rest of the Democratic field lagging on single figures with less than a month until... Joe Biden is still leading in the polls and in a new Morning Consult poll published Tuesday earned an 18 point lead against the No. 2 ranked... Cory Booker launches assault on Joe Biden saying notorious 1994 Crime Bill was 'shameful' and 'awful' after former VP denied it caused mass... Democratic presidential contender Cory Booker took a swipe at front runner Joe Biden for his support of the 1994 crime bill, which experts... Pete Buttigieg's brother-in-law says he is 'not fit to be president' and accuses 2020 candidate's husband of lying about being thrown out by... Rhyan Glezman, the brother of Chasten Buttigieg, is pushing back against media portrayals of how Chasten's family responded to news that he... Now Pete Buttigieg's brother-in-law says that HE is the one being 'shunned' by family as a born-again Christian pastor as he again accuses... Rhyan Glezman, the born-again Christian minister and brother of Chasten Buttigieg, said he is the one who was shunned by the family for his... AOC turns her fire on Joe Biden by throwing her weight behind Democratic 2020 unknown's 'green new deal' days before frontrunner is due to... Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned her fire power on Joe Biden when she gave her blessing to a little known 2020 candidate's environmental... Here we go again! President will launch 2020 campaign four years to the day after riding down Trump Tower escalator as MAGA World gets ready... President Donald Trump will launch his 2020 reelection campaign around Father's Day this year, according to a new report Monday. Stacey Abrams says she might STILL run for the presidency in 2020 despite Democratic field already being at 22 with first debate weeks away When former Georgia House minority leader Stacey Abrams, was asked if she was still considering launching a bid for president, she told... Joe Biden opens up an even bigger lead in the packed 2020 Democratic primary - but millennials narrowly favor Bernie Sanders, new poll shows Joe Biden has expanded his lead over a wide field of candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination by 5 percentage points since... EXCLUSIVE: 'He was never shunned. He was never homeless.' Pete Buttigieg's brother-in-law says 2020 candidate's husband is loved by his... Chasten Buttigieg's older brother Dustin Glezman, 32, says his claims that he was alienated when he came out to the family at age18 are... 'We can't take four more years!' NINETEEN Democrats descend on the same Iowa stage in 2020's first cattle-call audition to take down Trump -... The high-profile audition comes as Democrats are jockeying for position on abortion rights, economic inequality, health care, gun control... Beto O'Rourke plunges to just 3% in new 2020 Democratic poll, putting one-time star in sixth place for nomination O'Rourke, the former Texas congressman who nearly won a U.S. Senate seat last year, has lost support from young voters and minorities,... Now Trump blasts 'phony polls' and says aides who leaked them 'don't exist' - saying internal polling numbers have him the 'strongest ever' President Donald Trump blasted 'phony polls' following a report he told aides to deny internal polling that showed him struggling against... Democrats bicker about 'Hunger Games' presidential primary as TWO DOZEN candidates race to qualify for 20 spots in first debate by midnight... Democratic candidates are complaining about the crowded 2020 field and the list of requirements ahead of Wednesday midnight's deadline to... Trump would lose to Biden in TEXAS say pollsters as deep-red state is falling out of love with the president and even Beto and Elizabeth... In an unlikely turn of events, Former Vice President Joe Biden would beat President Donald Trump in the deep red state of Texas, according... Beto O'Rourke, 46, attacks 76-year-old Joe Biden as 'a return to the past' saying the U.S. can do 'far better' than elect Obama's... Beto O'Rourke slammed Joe Biden on Thursday as a return to the past and says the U.S. can do better than elect the former vice president in... Twenty Democrats WILL take part in marathon two-night primary debate as party shuts out just four candidates from prime-time event The Democratic Party announced the 20 contenders who will make the first presidential primary debate leaving four candidates off the stage. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders will face each other on second night of Democratic debates this month as luck of the draw produces a clash of... Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders will find themselves on the same stage during the first Democratic primary debate in a clash of the front... Trump fears he called Elizabeth Warren 'Pocahontas' too early as he watches her soar up the Democratic polls President Donald Trump is privately fretting he may have acted too soon by labeling Sen. Elizabeth Warren as 'Pocahontas,' as her campaign... Don't mess up: Pressure is on Biden ahead of first Democratic primary debate as his 2020 rivals prepare to aim their fire at the front... The pressure is on Joe Biden not to make a mistake this week in the first primary debate as his 2020 rivals - such as Bernie Sanders and... Democrats' packed 2020 field descends on Miami for two nights of debates as Joe Biden's race gaffes do nothing to hit his poll lead Democratic 2020 candidates began descending on Miami Tuesday in preparation of the first primary debates - a two night event on Wednesday... First 2020 debate erupts into a fiery shouting match on immigration in wake of father and daughter's border deaths - and candidates compete... The Democratic party held the first half of its first debate Wednesday night in Miami, Florida, with 10 presidential nominees taking the... Fight night! Ten Democrats will debate in primetime tonight in first of two debates with NBC promising moderators Lester Holt and Savannah... The first ten of 20 Democratic presidential contenders who qualified for the party's first debate will take the stage in Miami on Wednesday... How did Hawaiian Hindu who has met Bashar al-Assad become internet's most-searched Democratic 2020 candidate? Tulsi Gabbard,38, becomes... It was Tulsi Gabbard, the quiet, soft-spoken congresswoman from Hawaii, who ended up making the biggest punch out of Wednesday night's... Biden and Bernie are ready to rumble: Democrats' big beasts go head-to-head in second debate after Obama's VP was NEVER mentioned in first... Ten more Democrats will take the stage with the biggest bullseye on Joe Biden, who emerged unscathed from the first round of the debate, but... Fifteen million tuned in to first night of 2020 Democratic debates according to early estimate - nothing like the record 24 million who... The first night of the Democratic primary debate season of the 2020 elections on Wednesday night drew in an impressive 15.26 million... Kamala Harris throws Joe Biden's candidacy into crisis with ferocious attack on race as Democratic debate explodes: candidates split on... Joe Biden is in crisis after Kamala Harris savaged his record on race during the stormy Democratic debate in Miami, Florida. The candidates... 'That little girl was me.' Kamala Harris tears into Joe Biden on praising segregationists and opposing busing telling how SHE was bused to... Kamala Harris left Joe Biden's candidacy in doubt when she attacked his record on race. In an emotional moment, she spoke of being bused in... Kamala Harris leaps to a statistical dead heat with Joe Biden in new poll taken after their clash over race at Democratic 2020 debate Kamala Harris has jumped in popularity in a new poll released Tuesday that show her reaching levels of support that rival even front-runner... Joe Biden apologizes for praising segregationists and defends his record on race saying he was 'vetted' by Barack Obama During a campaign rally in Sumter, South Carolina on Saturday, Joe Biden, the former vice president, invoked Barack Obama's name to defend... Trump berates Biden after the former vice president finally apologized for praising his relationship with pro-segregationist lawmakers but... Trump slammed Biden after he owned up to praising segregationist lawmakers. 'Sleepy Joe Biden just admitted he worked with segregationists,'... Billionaire 'impeach Trump' crusader Tom Steyer could become 26th Democrat in the 2020 race as he gears up to push his global warming... Tom Steyer plans to formally announce he is running for president on Tuesday, even though he previously ruled out the possibility of running... Pass the torch back! Low-polling Eric Swalwell is out of the Democratic field as 38-year-old who promised he would 'burn the boats' and quit... 'Today ends our presidential campaign. But it is the beginning of an opportunity in Congress,' said Swalwell, a liberal who pinned his White... Elizabeth Warren raised $19.1 million in three months and did it WITHOUT big-dollar fundraisers as only Buttigieg and Biden pulled in more... Elizabeth Warren raised an impressive $19.1 million in the last three weeks, all without bringing in any money from big-dollar fundraisers. Billionaire Trump-impeachment cheerleader Tom Steyer launches 2020 campaign after saying he wouldn't run as he blasts 'hostile corporate... The billionaire investor and activist said Tuesday he's joining the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, reversing course after... Long shot 2020 contender who said making soccer star Megan Rapinoe his secretary of state was a 'tongue in cheek' comment claims she would... Jay Inslee, one of the 25 candidates running in 2020, said he was only half joking when he said he would nominate soccer star Megan Rapinoe... ScarJo backs Warren, Tom Hanks is Team Biden and Ben Affleck is with Cory Booker: How Hollywood celebrities are donating to Democratic... In the second quarter of 2019, several celebrities have come out to support Democratic primary candidates, some maxing out on the... Joe Biden and Kamala Harris rematch is set while Bernie Sanders will face off with Elizabeth Warren in the second Democratic debate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will face off again in round two of the Democratic presidential debates while Bernie Sanders will brawl with... Presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard SUES Google claiming tech giant suspended her advertising account while she was the most-searched... Tulsi Gabbard, a 2020 presidential candidate, filed a lawsuit against Google LLC after the technology company suspended her advertising... Dem debate moderates savage socialists Bernie and Elizabeth Warren for promising 'free everything' and open borders Democrats debating in Detroit attacked their rivals more than the president, with moderates accusing ultra-liberals of making impossible... 'The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math': Businessman Andrew Yang makes the case during the second night of Detroit... Andrew Yang, a long shot 2020 candidate, told the audience Wednesday night that he is the opposite of Donald Trump because he is of Asian... CNN moderator Don Lemon doubles down on calling Trump a racist in questions to Democratic debate contenders after president raged at... In a question to Julian Castro, Lemon referred to Trump's 'racist tweets' about Baltimore. It was hours after Trump tweeted in rage at... Biden's plea to 'go easy' falls on deaf ears as Kamala AGAIN rips him over busing and Booker accuses ex-VP of 'dipping into the Kool-aid' in... The second night of the second Democratic debate kicked off at 8pm Wednesday in Detroit, Michigan, featuring front-runners Kamala Harris and... Pork chop on a stick, X-Treme balls on a stick, bacon-crisp ice cream on a stick, a butter cow (oh, and the odd voter): Democrats descend on... Iowa State Fair has a long history of photo-ops: Donald Trump arriving in a helicopter; Hillary Clinton and a cow; Barack Obama riding... Please drop out, fed-up Iowans implore 2020 Democrats as 24 presidential hopefuls take over their state fair, inundate them with calls and... As virtually every Democratic contender swings through Iowa this weekend to participate in the famed state fair, even some die-hard... 'We choose truth over facts!' Gaffe-prone Joe Biden hits the Iowa State Fair by mangling campaign soundbite and mistakenly calling himself... Joe Biden mangled another soundbite at the Iowa State Fair on Thursday as he launched a broadside at Donald Trump. 'Joe is not playing with a full deck' says Donald Trump as Biden escalates attack on president - but is tripped up by his own gaffes... Donald Trump shot back on Friday that 'Joe Biden is not playing with a full deck' in response 2020 candidate's claims that the president is... 'Leave our health care system alone!' Elderly nursing home resident challenges stunned Kamala Harris on bingo night as she demands to know... A 91-year-old resident at a senior living facility in Iowa told Kamala Harris during a campaign event not to 'mess' with the American... Democrat John Hickenlooper will END his 2020 bid for president after struggling with fundraising and low polling numbers John Hickenlooper is expected to drop out of the Democratic presidential primary on Thursday, according to a source close to him. He's John Hicken-LOSER: Former Colorado governor Hickenlooper drops out of 2020 Democratic primary to mull Senate run (but there are still... John Hickenlooper dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary race on Thursday, making him the second candidate to do so in the 2020... Elizabeth Warren opens speech to Native Americans with apology for her claim to have Indian heritage saying: 'I am sorry for the harm I have... Speaking at a Native American forum in Sioux City, Iowa, she said 'I know I have made mistakes,' over claiming to be part Cherokee and using... I'm in it for the long run claims New York mayor Bill de Blasio as his 2020 bid stays at virtually zero in the polls and claims voters won't... Bill de Blasio said Tuesday his low poll numbers don't worry him because he claims most Democratic primary voters won't make their decision... Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are the ONLY Democrats to beat Trump in new poll with former vice president ahead by seven points and the... Joe Biden still has the most likely chance of the 23 Democratic primary candidates in beating Donald Trump in the 2020 general elections,... Make America nasty again! 2020 Democrats prepare for a brawl with Donald Trump as pollsters and voters urge them: 'Go low. We're not in the... As primary voting approaches, many 2020 candidates including Bernie Sanders are embracing an aggressive posture to convince voters they have... New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand drops out of Democratic 2020 race after failing to make third debate - as mocking Donald Trump tweets... New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand dropped out of the Democratic presidential race on Wednesday after she failed to qualify for the third... Joe Biden accuses Donald Trump of 'deporting sick kids' after administration ended special immigration status for illegals seeking... The 2020 Democrat spoke out after the administration confirmed that it ended a policy that lets immigrants apply for deportation protection... Kamala Harris launches radical criminal justice reform plan saying she will abolish the 'immoral' death penalty and tackle police shootings The California Democrat also calls for eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing at the federal level and ending the use of private prisons... FIVE Democratic candidates lead Donald Trump in 2020 race, new poll shows - but president claims North Carolina win shows his re-election... As the third Democratic debate approaches and the president's approval rating down, a poll shows that five Democratic candidates would beat... Ted Cruz and Andrew Yang will suit up in 4-on-4 basketball game for charity after Democratic candidate challenged senator who beat Jimmy... Ted Cruz challenged Andrew Yang to a basketball game as the 2020 Democratic candidate prepares take stage for the third round of primary... Andrew Yang unveils dramatic $120,000 giveaway at start of Democratic debate in bid to prove his 'universal basic income' works - to... Democratic candidate Andrew Yang promised Thursday to give $120,000 to 10 lucky people. Yang said that 'someone watching this at home' could... 'Have you forgotten what you said two minutes ago?' Julian Castro, 44, astonishes Democrats by hinting that Joe Biden, 76, is struggling... Julian Castro, 44, attacked Joe Biden, 76, about his age on the Democratic debate stage Thursday night, leaving the audience gasping in... Immigration protesters storm Democratic debate stage shouting 'We are DACA recipients! And our lives are at risk! Please save us!' and stop... Protesters at Thursday's debate in Houston, Texas waited until the last question of the night to storm the stage and break out in chants... The Democrats' family feud: Insults fly as the top 10 candidates go head-to-head for the first time with Joe Biden targeted for his age,... Ten presidential hopefuls took the stage for the presidential debate Thursday night at Texas Southern University's Health and PE Center in... Andrew Yang is crowned winner in Drudge poll but pundits can't decide who came out on top in 2020 Democratic Debate Andre Yang won the internet in an online Drudge poll with 14,975 votes (38%). He and nine other presidential hopefuls went head to head in a... 'This was a disagreement about the best way to do healthcare!': Julian Castro, 44, DENIES he was attacking Joe Biden, 76, over age when he... Julian Castro denied he was attacking Joe Biden's age when he went after the former vice president for forgetting what he said earlier in... Bill de Blasio QUITS long-shot presidential bid after never escaping bottom tier of Democrats and Trump twists the knife: 'NYC is... The New York City mayor's dalliance with White House ambitions made him deeply unpopular at home as he pursued what critics called a vanity... I'll impose an 'extreme wealth tax' on America's richest 180,000 people says Bernie Sanders as he unveils plan to tax Jeff Bezos by an extra... Sanders said his proposed tax would begin at 1% for those with a net worth above $32 million and rise in increments to 8% on wealth over $10... Bernie Sanders unveils 'equality' plan to hike taxes on companies which give CEOs more than 50 times the average worker's pay - such as Elon... The 202 Democrat's proposal would raise taxes on companies in line with their compensation to the CEO. Sanders called the ratio between CEO... Kamala Harris says Twitter should SUSPEND Donald Trump's account because his social media posts 'beat people down' and could put them in... Kamala Harris called on Twitter to suspend Donald Trump's account, arguing his posts 'beat people down' and put them in harms way. Kamala Harris ramps up push to get Donald Trump banned from Twitter for 'abuse' and 'harassment' with demand letter to company's founder Kamala Harris ramped up her push to get Donald Trump suspended from Twitter, sending a letter to company CEO Jack Dorsey to make her case. 'We're not electing a planner': Joe Biden snipes at Elizabeth Warren's 'I have a plan for that' campaign as she overtakes him in Democratic... Joe Biden stuck out at Elizabeth Warren as she gains on him in the polls for the Democratic primary nomination, swiping at her campaign... I'm not a Russian asset! Tulsi Gabbard makes bizarre boast during 2020 debate as she accuses U.S. of trying to fight 'regime change wars' in... Gabbard, 38, a Hawaii congresswoman, lashed out at claims she is valued by Putin and claimed that the U.S. had been trying to overthrow... 'You can't control me': Defiant Tulsi Gabbard says Hillary has 'the blood of thousands on her hands' and calls her the 'queen of warmongers'... Hillary Clinton appeared to suggest Tulsi Gabbard was being groomed by Russians to be a third-party spoiler - an accusation that led Gabbard... Tulsi Gabbard's fellow candidates Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang back her against Hillary's 'character assassination' - as Clinton... Clinton canceled her upcoming appearance at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit next week in Washington DC, just as her war of words with... 'I can't control what anyone else does': Tulsi Gabbard defends herself against Hillary Clinton's claims she's being 'groomed' by Russia as... Tulsi Gabbard insists she can't control what others say as she continues to receive backing from Russian media outlets. Veteran Tulsi Gabbard blames Hillary Clinton for the deaths of thousands of servicemen and calls her the 'embodiment of corruption' after... Tulsi Gabbard hit back at Hillary Clinton on Friday, telling Fox News that the former Secretary of State has 'blood on her hands' because of... Elizabeth Warren says she will quadruple federal cash for schools, cancel student meal debt and crack down on for-profit charter schools 2020 Democrat says she would have the federal government investing an additional $450 billion in elementary and secondary schools over the... Democratic 2020 contender Julian Castro says he will drop out by the end of the month if he doesn't raise $800,000 (which would STILL leave... Julian Castro said Monday he will drop out of the 2020 presidential race if his campaign doesn't raise $800,000 in the next 10 days. Could the 2020 field get BIGGER? Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Michael Bloomberg, Eric Holder and even John Kerry field anxious requests... Democrats worried about whether their front runners could beat Trump are musing about others who could run including Hillary Clinton,... Judge Judy tells Michael Bloomberg to run for president: Star says former New York mayor is 'only way we can begin to come together' as she... TV's Judge Judy Sheindlin is calling for former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run for president to provide 'healing' after President... And then there were 18! Hot yoga-loving Ohio congressman Tim Ryan quits 2020 Democratic presidential primary Tim Ryan announced he will be dropping out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race. Instead, the representative said he would be... Half of Americans say they are personally ready for a gay president but just 40 per cent believe the rest of the country is, new poll shows... As Pete Buttigieg moves up to the top tier of candidates in the Democratic presidential field, a new poll shows half of voters say they are... Kamala Harris fires dozens of campaign staff in desperate bid to keep her 2020 run alive, after going deep into the red amid cratering polls The presidential campaign of California Sen. Kamala Harris is slashing staff and repositioning talent in Iowa amid a cash shortfall. Beto O'Rourke QUITS 2020 race as his campaign runs out of cash after launching run on the front of Vanity Fair saying: 'Man, I'm just born... The 47-year-old former Texas congressman's campaign was running out of cash rapidly despite beginning like a rock star. He was at 1 per cent... Is Kamala Harris next to go?: California Democrat on brink of exiting presidential race after firing dozens of campaign staff and dropping... California senator Kamala Harris, 55, is struggling in the polls and has announced she is laying off dozens of staffers. This has prompted... Michael Bloomberg, 77, gets ready to put his name on 2020 Democratic ballot in Alabama - opening way for $52 BILLION former NY mayor to make... Michael Bloomberg is preparing to enter the 2020 Democratic presidential field and will file the paperwork in one of the states with an... 'Little Michael will fail!' Donald Trump says he would LOVE to run against 5' 8" Bloomberg and mocks multi-billionaire saying 'he doesn't... President Trump dusted off his nickname for the five-foot-eight Michael Bloomberg when he was asked about the former New York City mayor... Billionaire Mike Bloomberg beats Donald Trump by 6 per cent in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, showing Democratic support for a... Billionaire Michael Bloomberg could beat Donald Trump by 6 per cent in a hypothetical head-to-head general election match up, a Sunday... Donald Trump's Republican 2020 challenger Mark Sanford drops out saying he can't compete with his rival's impeachment in race for voters'... The former South Carolina governor who claimed he was on the Appalachian trail when he was really cheating on his wife quit the 2020... Democratic debate to feature attacks on new Iowa leader Pete Buttigieg on site of former Confederate Army post as race takes center stage... Pete Buttigieg will attract a new level of heat when his fellow 2020 Democrats target the small-town mayor who surged last week to sit atop... Another one bites the dust! Virtual unknown 2020 Democratic candidate Wayne Messam drops out of race (but that STILL leaves 17 running) Messam said he was ending his 2020 bid for the White House after failing to make any impact. The 45-year-old is the two-term mayor of Miami... Billionaire Michael Bloomberg takes new step towards running for president by registering a campaign committee - but STILL says it's not a... The former New York City mayor, who became a Democrat just last year, filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to formally... The billionaire with his own media megaphone: Michael Bloomberg's media company announces it will no longer investigate him - or any other... Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait announced the new rules in a note to his news organization's 2,700 journalists and analysts... 'I guess you can buy followers, but not Retweets or personality?' Donald Trump Jr. mocks Michael Bloomberg after former New York mayor's... Don Jr. taunted billionaire Michael Bloomberg after his video announcing his candidacy for president flopped on Twitter. guess you can buy... Billionaire Mike Bloomberg launches 2020 presidential bid becoming 19th Democrat in race as he kicks off $31M ad buy promising to make... Michael Bloomberg has officially announced he is running for president, bringing the Democratic primary field back up to 19 candidates. Michael Bloomberg says America needs MORE immigrants to 'improve our culture, our cuisine, our religion, our dialogue and our economy' Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, long been a promoter for increased immigration, said Tuesday that the United States needs 'an... Pete Buttigieg is called a 'lying MF' by black journalist in viral condemnation of his claim poor minority children lack role models of the... Pete Buttigieg made a personal call to a senior writer at The Root to hash it out after the black columnist called the 2020 candidate a... Michael Bloomberg hires top staffer from Kamala Harris' 2020 campaign as he kicks his Presidential bid into full gear A spokesperson for the billionaire confirmed Thursday that Kelly Mehlenbacher has joined Bloomberg's team as deputy chief operating officer. Mike Bloomberg jumps ahead of Kamala Harris in new poll just days after former New York mayor announced his candidacy and lured away a top... Michael Bloomberg (left), the billionaire media mogul, has 6 per cent support of likely Democratic voters compared to just 2 per cent for... 'Don't worry, Mr President. I'll see you at your trial.' Kamala Harris drops out of 2020 presidential race with attack on Donald Trump after... California senator Harris traded Twitter blows with the president hours after dropping out. She will be a juror if a Senate impeachment... No hard feelings! Joe Biden says he would consider Kamala Harris for his running mate if he gets 2020 nomination and predicts she can STILL... Joe Biden said that he isn't holding Kamala Harris' criticism of him against her, and even said he would consider his former competitor to... John Kerry endorses Joe Biden saying he will 'put back the world Donald Trump has smashed apart' and will hit the trail for Obama's VP The Biden campaign rolled out Kerry's endorsement as it hammers Trump as a dangerous commander in chief and head of state. The 2004... Mike Bloomberg accuses Donald Trump of 'accepting' gun violence as he launches plan for mandatory firearm permits at site of 2012 Aurora... Bloomberg spoke at a center near the Aurora, CO, movie theater where gunman James Holmes murdered 12 in 2012, slamming the president on gun... Mike Bloomberg says Donald Trump will 'eat up' the other 2020 Democrats - and tells rivals who say he's trying to 'buy' the presidency: 'You... Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says his presidential run is not a vanity play and that he is not running to 'take away the job'... Elizabeth Warren launches frontal attack on Pete Buttigieg demanding he 'open up the doors' of his big-donor fundraisers - as he faces... The millennial South Bend, IN, mayor, has been a highly successful fundraiser through big-dollar events. But Warren, the Massachusetts... Mike Bloomberg is the least popular top-rated Democratic candidate new poll shows as he flies to Madrid to highlight his fight against... Among the top five Democratic primary frontrunners, billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is the least popular,... Elizabeth Warren unveils 'Blue New Deal' to end offshore drilling and spend cash on wind turbines saying she will 'clean up the oceans' Warren's latest initiative calls for significant increases in offshore renewable energy projects and would o direct federal agencies to plan... I'm NOT dropping out of 2020 race says Cory Booker after failing to make the stage in next Democratic debate The New Jersey senator will not be at the Los Angeles debate next Thursday, his campaign said. But he claimed he has a 'path to victory and... Joe Biden warns Democrats that British Labour party's thumping defeat shows what happens to the radical left and calls UK prime minister... Joe Biden warned Democrats that Labour Party loses could foreshadow 2020 election in U.S. and calls Boris Johnson a 'physical and emotional... Democratic Party tries to save Thursday debate after ALL the candidates say they'll boycott if hosting university doesn't resolve labor... The Democratic Party is trying to rescue the sixth primary debate in Los Angeles after all seven qualifying candidates said they would not... Donald Trump leads ALL the Democratic front-runners in 2020 poll despite impeachment saga as support for his ouster DROPPED by 5 points... A USA Today/Suffolk University poll shows Trump ahead of the leading Democrats by margins ranging from 3 to 10 points, despite 45 per cent... If you leave men alone too long 'we become MORONS' says 2020 Democrat Andrew Yang as he says American needs more women in charge (but he... Andrew Yang said during Thursday night's debate that if men are left to their own devices to lead without female influence they will become... Democratic debate erupts as Elizabeth Warren accuses Pete Buttigieg of being a billionaires' shill at his $900 wine bottle fundraisers and... A slimmed down Democratic primary field took the stage Thursday night in Los Angeles for the last primary debate of 2019. Elizabeth Warren unveils $10.7 TRILLION 'green new deal' to end all electricity generation by fossil fuels by 2035 and claims it will create... The plan calls for new transport and water infrastructure, off-shore wind farms and encouraging states and cities to implement stronger... Elizabeth Warren in hypocrisy row after it's revealed she held $2,700 per head fundraiser at Boston winery - but berated fellow 2020... Elizabeth Warren held a swanky fundraiser at a winery in Boston in June 2018, raising questions over her criticism of her fellow Democratic... Barack Obama has spoken up for Elizabeth Warren to wealthy Democratic donors telling them that if she wins the nomination she is a 'capable'... While Elizabeth Warren has eschewed taking money from wealthy donors, President Obama is networking behind-the-scenes with the party's... REVEALED: Elizabeth Warren held high-rolling fundraiser at restaurant that sells $6,600 wine bottles - after attacking Dem rival Pete... Elizabeth Warren held several high-cost fundraisers, including one at a restaurant where bottles of wine cost up to $6,600, it was revealed... Joe Biden favored in Florida over Donald Trump, new poll reveals, even though the president changed his residency to the battleground state Joe Biden is the only Democrat favored to beat Donald Trump in the battleground state of Florida, a poll released Tuesday revealed. Biden... Elizabeth Warren blasts 'fawning, spineless' Republicans while Bernie Sanders rallies with Prince's band members as 2020 Democrats see in... Elizabeth Warren slammed the ultra-rich of both parties at a final 2019 rally in Boston 's Old South Meeting House while Sanders is in Des... Bernie Sanders leads Democratic field by raising $34.5 MILLION in the last three months of 2019-but Donald Trump tops him with $46 million... Donald Trump touted on Thursday his fundraising numbers in the last quarter of 2019 by citing his two-day, $10 million surge following the... Julian Castro drops out of 2020 Democratic race with stinging farewell video listing 10 black and Hispanic 'victims of police... Castro, 45, failed to garner enough support or donations to make the recent Democratic presidential debates, and never broke through with... Joe Biden lags behind Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg with $22.7 million fundraising total in last quarter of 2019 and hints at his son's... Joe Biden lagged behind rivals Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg in fourth quarter fundraising but thanked supporters for donating to him... Marianne Williamson lays off her entire campaign staff - but spiritual guru is STILL in the race to be the Democrat who takes on Donald... 2020 hopeful Marianne Williamson has laid off every member of her campaign staff, but hasn't dropped out of the presidential race. Elizabeth Warren's fundraising goes DOWN to $21.2 million as 2020 Democrat loses momentum - and others see their totals go up The Massachusetts senator saw a slip in donations unlike other Democrats who have announced their totals. Bernie Sanders leads the field... Long-shot Democrat Deval Patrick says in first campaign ad that he entered 2020 race late because his wife was diagnosed with cancer Deval Patrick, a latecomer and long-shot 2020 presidential candidate, revealed Sunday that he announced his candidacy later than expected... Bernie Sanders' feud with Elizabeth Warren erupts into open warfare with claims he told her in 2018 that a woman COULDN'T win Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's feud has erupted into open warfare as it was reported he told her a woman can't win the presidential... Cory Booker drops out of presidential race after polling less than 2 per cent as Democratic field gets smaller and whiter and Donald Trump... The 50-year-old represented one of the party's few remaining opportunities to spotlight ethnic diversity in its quest to unseat President... 'I thought a woman could win. He disagreed': Elizabeth Warren doubles down on feud with Bernie Sanders and confirms he told her a female... Elizabeth Warren doubled down on her feud with Bernie Sanders and confirmed he told her a woman couldn't win against President Donald Trump. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders feud boils over as Democrats prepare for high-stakes debate - the last before Iowa votes on the party's... Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders's feud threatens to boil over into Tuesday debate - a sign of the increased pressure as the first... Democrats turn their fire on Donald Trump: Debating 2020 candidates ignore each other's records to slam president as a LIAR over Iran Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden accused the president of lying about his reasons for taking out Iranian general Qassem Soleimani as they... Elizabeth Warren REFUSES to shake hands with Bernie Sanders after they clash at 2020 debate over claim he said a woman can't win the... Elizabeth Warren refused to shake Bernie Sanders hand at the end of the debate, a tart ending after the two handled growing tensions between... New York Times endorses radical Elizabeth Warren AND moderate Amy Klobuchar for 2020 Democratic nomination in blow to frontrunner Joe Biden The Times described Warren as the 'radical' and Klobuchar as the 'realist' choice. It has never offered a split endorsement before. Both... Mike Bloomberg says he WOULD vote to convict and remove Donald Trump at his impeachment trial if he was a senator but says he would rather... Mike Bloomberg said that he would prefer if voters decided who was president in the general elections in November rather than Congress take... 'Remove Trump from office - and if the Senate won't, I will.' Mike Bloomberg launches new TV ad to capitalize on impeachment trial as part... The country's eighth richest man is spending lavishly and his latest ad is targeted at the Senate saying they should 'act now' on Trump -... Fetch... me votes! Elizabeth Warren sends her golden retriever Bailey on the campaign trail in Iowa while she is stuck in D.C. for Donald... Warren's 20-month-old golden retriever Bailey made three campaign stops with Warren's husband Bruce Mann, as the senator remained stuck in... Mike Bloomberg unveils $10 million Super Bowl but focuses on gun violence and DOESN'T attack Donald Trump who has also bought a slot during... Michael Bloomberg is using his $10 million Super Bowl ad spot to highlight the work he has done to combat gun violence and enact stricter... Longest-running 2020 Democrat quits on eve of Iowa caucus: John Delaney says it's over after pouring millions of his own cash into failed... 'At this moment in time, this is not the purpose God has for me,' Delaney , 56, said as he dropped out. The former Congressman had spent... Democrats change rules so Mike Bloomberg CAN make next presidential debate - as billionaire is revealed to have spent $200 MILLION in just... The party announced three different ways for candidates to reach the debate stage but scrapped the need to have any donors. Bloomberg is... 'The president is a pathological liar': Mike Bloomberg's campaign hits back at 'fake hair, obese' Donald Trump's claims the 5ft 8in... Bloomberg attributed his abundant ads for 'keeping you up at night' as he slammed Donald Trump for being a 'pathological liar' in claiming... Iowa Democratic results will not be known for HOURS as fiasco deepens with party admitting they have 'inconsistencies' in the count and are... Voting officials admitted a string of failures in a panicked conference call which saw their app collapse, the backup call center not... Pete Buttigieg declares VICTORY in Iowa amid Democratic vote fiasco saying 'you shocked the nation' despite there being NO official results... The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, 38, declared himself the sensational victor in Iowa despite there being no official results because... Democratic presidential candidates campaign across New Hampshire as they scramble to put the Iowa fiasco behind them even though there are... Democratic presidential candidates deployed across New Hampshire Tuesday for campaign events, after a snafu in Iowa kept the state party... Democrats will publish HALF of the Iowa caucus results by 5pm - but crisis could last for weeks leaving state with NO official winner State party chairman Troy Price informed campaigns that he would release at least 50% of results at 5 p.m. EST, but he declined say when the... More Iowa poll results keep Pete Buttigieg in the lead - but Bernie Sanders climbs by 0.1% and more than a quarter of the final Democratic... Iowa Democrats trickled out another 9% of the overall results more than 24 hours after the caucuses ended, with no end in sight to a fiasco... 'I had no idea he'd only be FOURTH!' Joe Biden's supporters sound alarm after Iowa blow - and start to look at Mike Bloomberg instead Bill Freeman, a Biden donor from Nashville, Tennessee, said: 'That's a bad night, no matter how you spin it.' Now supporters are taking a... Pete Buttigieg IS ahead in Iowa caucus results as Democrats FINALLY unveil two-thirds of votes - with Bernie Sanders in second place and Joe... Almost 24 hours after Iowans caucused Democrats unveiled two-thirds of the voting results giving Pete Buttigieg 26.9% of state delegates,... Amy Klobuchar won two of the first three midnight primary tallies in New Hampshire and Mike Bloomberg took the tiny Dixville Notch precinct... Amy Klobuchar came out ahead when the New Hampshire primary election kicked off Tuesday morning, winning two of the three midnight tallies. Bernie Sanders edges towards New Hampshire victory but moderates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar storm into second and third places as Joe... Bernie Sanders appeared set to win the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night - but not by the convincing margin he had hoped to win next door... Last black Democratic 2020 candidate will quit: Deval Patrick will admit failure leaving Tulsi Gabbard as only person of color in final... Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is reported to be dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary race on Wednesday, the last... Flailing Joe Biden unveils new ad saying 'This is only getting started' after he falls to disastrous FIFTH place in New Hampshire and Bernie... Joe Biden's campaign unveiled a new ad claiming he isn't giving up despite shocking losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, but an adviser... 'I'll be damned if we're gonna lose this nomination to Donald Trump!' Flailing Joe Biden makes desperate call to supporters as major donors... Joe Biden claimed he would rally in the South after his dismal showing in New Hampshire during the call. Politico, who obtained last night's... This race is 'wide open' Elizabeth Warren says as she boasts she raised $6 million after disastrous showing in New Hampshire (but Bernie... The Massachusetts senator said 'there's a lot of froth' and hailed $6m in online donations despite questions over her future in the... Left wing protesters ambush Joe Biden with a COFFIN and chant 'drop out, Joe' as he leaves New York fundraiser after dismal showing in New... Following dismal results in Iowa and New Hampshire, Biden was attacked by the New York Communities for Change organisation as he left the... I'd happily vote for a gay candidate says Donald Trump after Rush Libmaugh said president would 'have fun' with Democrat Pete Buttigieg's... The president said sexuality would not affect how he would vote, but he suggested it could change others' votes. Rush Limbaugh said Trump... Mike Bloomberg 'is considering picking Hillary Clinton as his running mate in the 2020 Democratic race to help take on Trump' Mike Bloomberg is considering making Hillary Clinton his running mate, a source close to his campaign has told Drudge Report. 'He's focused on the debate, not VP speculation': Mike Bloomberg campaign refuses to rule out Hillary Clinton as his running mate as it's... Michael Bloomberg's campaign has not denied an internet report that the former New York mayor and current presidential candidate is... 'We must defeat Donald Trump': Nancy Pelosi warns Democrats they must unify to beat president and says she's not 'counting Joe Biden out' Nancy Pelosi warned Democrats they need to unify ahead of the November election as 'we must defeat Donald Trump' and said not to count out... Mike Bloomberg tops two new Super Tuesday state polls before he makes his debut on the debate stage Wednesday, as Donald Trump chides 'Mini'... Former Mayor of New York Mike Bloomberg will appear alongside candidates in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Wednesday night after spending... Democrats plan to go after Mike Bloomberg during his first debate appearance Wednesday as Elizabeth Warren threatens to attack the... Democrats plan to focus their attention on attacking newcomer Mike Bloomberg Wednesday as he makes h The Crown Prince - known simply as MBS - (pictured at a conference in Riyadh in October) was warmly embraced by the West for his liberal reforms, but the murder of Jamal Khashoggi has left his reputation severely tarnished Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is known as the true power behind the throne in Saudi Arabia. His father, King Salman, was made ruler in 2015, and his son has been given a huge amount of say in how the country is government. He won plaudits from Western leaders after he introduced some moderate reforms - allowing women in Saudi Arabia to drive for the first time ever and introducing cinemas to the country. The Crown Prince - known simply as MBS - also reigned in the country's fierce and ultra conservative religious police. Leaders including Theresa May and Donald Trump have rolled out the red carpet for him during his lavish visits. But the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi has severely damaged his reputation. MBS has been accused of ordering the journalist's murder, and the killing sparked calls for him to be replaced as Crown Prince. While the Saudi authorities have publicly insisted the Prince does not have blood on his hands and did not order the killing, his reputation has been badly tarnished. He also has directed the Saudi war in Yemen, were the kingdom has been accused of breaching international human rights law and plunging millions into famine. And questions were already raised about how ruthlessly he will crush opposition after he imprisoned Saudi royals in the country's five star Ritz hotel last year. He said he locked them up in a massive anti-corruption drove. But his critics said that the move was a way for MBS to purge his political rivals. Flick through any interiors magazine and it will be full of owners or designers purporting their passion for 'one-off, unique' finds. Mini masterpiece: The Royal College of Art Secret Postcard annual auction will be held on November 30 That's all very well for those whose day job it is to scour the globe for furniture. But where do we mere mortals start? A spate of upcoming auctions may prove a fruitful source for unusual treasures. Some will leave you feeling good rather than guilty about what you've spent, too. Take the five hand-painted lamps going under the hammer in honour of home specialist Porta Romana's pledge to raise 30,000 to build an education centre for children in South Africa. Inspired by a former colleague's involvement with a small family-run charity, SOS Africa, Porta Romana's founders Sarah and Andrew Hills have enlisted help from the artist Adebayo Bolaji and leading designers Kit Kemp, Alidad, Martyn Lawrence Bullard and Turner Pocock (supported by Porta Romana's own team of artisans). They have each decorated a Porta Romana lamp, in a shape and style of their choosing. Online viewing and bidding opens on November 15, ending November 29 (portaromana.com/charity). Bright idea: Decorated by interior designer Turner Pocock, this is one of the Porta Romana lamps being auctioned off in aid of the charity SOS Africa Meanwhile, multiple generations of the Conran clan have contributed a 33-piece dinner service to Women for Women International's #SheInspiresMe auction (womenforwomen.org.uk) taking place online now until November 19. The white Portmeirion bowls, plates and mugs, have been decorated in blue with hand-painted motifs, from flowers to faces, by members of the family including designers Sophie and Sebastian, restaurateur Tom, plus their offspring. Also up for grabs is a large-scale drawing by Barnaby Barford (whose work is displayed in the V&A), a bespoke fragrance by Azzi Glasser, a masterclass and late lunch for you and five friends with chef Thomasina Miers (co-founder of Mexican restaurant group Wahaca) and a four hour design consultation with House of Hackney founders Frieda Gormley and Javvy M. Royle, in Loddiges, the couple's magnificent Victorian townhouse. The latter comes with a set of bespoke curtains thrown in. Pottery lottery: Sophie Conran with her design on a Portmeirion mug, part of the 33-piece dinner service for the Women for Women International's charity auction Even if you never had the chance to sashay across Mark Birley's Annabel's nightclub dancefloor at 44 Berkeley Square, the romance of its heady days - where the worlds of music, theatre, aristocracy and royalty (including the Queen) collided in private abandon - still holds an allure. The club has since been usurped by new owner Richard Caring's gaudy venture two doors down. But on November 20, Christie's (christies.com) will be auctioning everything from the old club, including its iconic Buddha to drawings by political cartoonist Nicholas Garland and paintings by Sir William Nicholson. There are some bargains to be had - a William IV rosewood library table is estimated to sell for 2,000, a gilt occasional table or powder room vanity for 300, a Haviland Limoges dinner service for about 1,000. Plush perch: The Annabel's red sofa which is to be auctioned at Christie's with an estimate of 2,000 to 4,000 If those prices are too steep, register now for the Royal College of Art Secret Postcard annual auction on November 30. An online preview of postcards will be available the day before. Who knows, you might be lucky to take home a mini masterpiece; past contributors have included Anish Kapoor, Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry and Paula Rego. Funds raised provide the next generation of Royal College of Art (RCA) students with financial support. Of course, normal everyday auctions are just as good a place to pick up a bargain or an unusual find. Antique treat: A William IV Brazilian rosewood library table circa 1835 with an estimate of 2,000 - 3,000 Designer Christopher Jenner has revamped the interiors for stores such as perfumers Atkinsons 1799 and tea merchants Kusmi, as well as launching Gestalt, a new crystal lighting collection, in his own home. 'Most of the pieces I've collected have been given over to chance,' he says. 'I place bids with a string of specialist auction houses across Europe, then sit back and wait.' Through Stockholm-based auktionsverket.com or Italian wannenesgroup.com he has picked up gorgeous, relatively affordable mid-century Italian lighting and charming pieces of Scandinavian furniture. London-based Criterion Auctioneers (criterionauctioneers.com) is also a favourite - in next week's auction there is a pretty Clarice Cliff bowl, estimated at only 80, and a pair of Howard & Sons leather armchairs for 300. Visit Invaluable (invaluable.co.uk) for details of auctions at any given time around the world and The Saleroom (the-saleroom.com) for what's on in Britain and Europe. At 1stdibs.com, a worldwide online portal connecting dealers with buyers, they recommend friendly bartering as many sellers will consider bids below their estimates. Show the seller you're serious by offering no less than 10 per cent to 20 per cent off the listed price. Research, research, research so you understand better the standards of quality and prices for similar pieces on the market. Know your budget (and stick to it), and be aware of the additional costs which come with an auction bid (including VAT and a buyer's premium, levied at different levels according to final sale sum). Happy hunting! Private spaceflight company Rocket Lab has launched its first commercial delivery to space, successfully sending seven payloads into orbit. The start-up launched a 56 foot (17-metre) rocket from the Mahia Peninsula in the North Island, New Zealand, as part of a new nanotechnology space race. The mission was named 'It's Business Time' and has now put the company in a dominant position in the fast-growing market for flying small satellites into space. On board were seven space craft equipped with small satellites and one drag sail named NABEO - designed to retire inactive satellites to help combat space junk. Scroll down for video Rocket Lab's Electron rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 1 on New Zealands Mahia Peninsula, reaching orbit in 45 minutes and releasing seven payloads The US and New Zealand-owned Rocket Lab runs the world's first privately-owned launch facility. It focuses on delivering small payloads, such as research satellites, into orbit at low costs. Rocket Lab's creation has a black carbon composite fuselage with 'Electron' emblazoned on the side in white lettering. The Electron - which is about a quarter the size of SpaceXs 230ft (70m) tall Falcon 9 - released the payload about 45 minutes after the launch. The rocket is designed to carry smaller payloads of around 150 to 225kg (330 to 495lb) compared to SpaceX's 23 tons (46,000lbs). Although the going-rate for deliveries is much lower for SpaceX, customers are flocking to Rocket Lab for reduced wait time and speedier deliveries. Sunday's live-streamed take-off was the third attempt at the mission after technical difficulties in April and June. The mission's final payload was two miniature satellites - or 'Cube Sats' as they've been dubbed - used for research purposes from South Australia's Fleet Space Technologies. The Electron rocket was launched from the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. The mission was named 'It's Business Time'. On board there were seven spacecraft, mostly small satellites The firm completed a successful test launch with one of its Electron rockets in January when it deployed three satellites. Its engine is produced by a 3D printer in California, a move that helped cut costs, the company's chief financial officer Adam Spice told AFP. Earlier this year Rocket Lab founder and chief Peter Beck described the mission as a milestone in the global space industry and said it marked the beginning of commercial operations to get small satellites into orbit. The company has six Electron rockets in production and is said to have rapidly scaled up production at its California headquarters to meet ever-growing bookings for this year and next. Rocket Lab are also constructing a second pad on the East Coast of the US. The New Zealand-based start-up launched a 56 foot (17-metre) rocket from the Mahia Peninsula on the North Island as part of the new nanotechnology space race Electron is designed to carry smaller payloads around 150 to 225 kg (330 to 495 lb), and the company intends to start ramping up its launches in 2019 Rocket Lab hopes to complete a launch every two weeks in 2019 and weekly in 2020. The company say that the schedule for the next mission will be announced shortly. The new nanotechnology space race started about a decade ago and focuses more on private innovation rather than competition between rival countries. The company's nearest competitors in the small rocket sector, including Virgin Orbit and Stratolaunch, now face even more pressure to get into orbit. The launch followed January's successful test flight where it deployed three satellites. Companies are paying around 31,000 ($40,000) a kilo to get delivered into orbit The customers who used the most recent vehicle included Spire, a company that uses satellites to track ships, planes and weather from orbit and Fleet Space systems which hopes to provide communications for internet. These smaller rockets should help reduce launch wait times from 18 to 24 months or more, at the bigger companies, to a mere six months. The going rate at Rocket Lab is about 31,000 ($40,000) a kilo, as compared with 2,300 ($3,000) a kilo at SpaceX. This image shows the rock on the launch pad in Mahia, New Zealand in June 2018. Rocket Lab's creation has a black carbon composite fuselage with 'Electron' on the side in white lettering The two-stage Falcon 9 operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX is 230ft (70m) tall is more than four times bigger than the Electron and can carry 23 tons of cargo into space, as opposed to a maximum of 550lbs (250kg) for the Electron. Pictured - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket takes off China has revealed the frightening arsenal of missiles carried by its J-20 stealth fighter jets. The advanced warplanes were paraded to the public yesterday as the grand finale to a six-day airshow in Zhuhai. Two J-20 fighter jets opened their cargo bay doors and revealed four missiles in its fuselage and one on either side of the aircraft. Top Chinese officials, according to the Global Times, said the demonstration displayed the J-20's superiority to the top US fighter jets, the F-22 and F-35. Two J-20 fighter jets opened their missile bay doors and revealed four missiles in its fuselage and one on either side of the aircraft (pictured) at the Zhuhai Airshow WHAT IS CHINA'S J-20 STEALTH FIGHTER? China's new war plane made its first flyby in November 2016. The fighter jet is swift, stealthy, and armed with long-range missiles. Its design is similar to U.S. fighter jets, stoking concerns that the Chinese military used 'stolen' plans obtained by hackers to develop the stealth plane and further drive its military ambitions. Beijing has firmly denied the allegations. Experts have said that the plane represents a leap forward in China's ability to project power in Asia, and will compete with US military technology. China is set to overtake the U.S. as the world's top aviation market in the next decade. Advertisement The newspaper said two J-20 fighter jets opened their missile bay doors during a flypast. Military expert Song Zhongping as saying the four missiles in the J-20's fuselage were long-range air-to-air missiles, while the two on the sides were short-range combat missiles meant for aerial combat. According to footage released by China Central Television Station, the J-20 is equipped with four PL-15 mid-range air-to-air missiles and one PL-10 short-range 'combat' missile on either side. Chinese news site Sohu previously claimed PL-15 was a wing-less missile and 5.7 metres (18.7 feet) long. It was said to boast an impressive range of 400 kilometres (249 miles) and could help PL-15 out-perform F-22. PL-10, on the other hand, was reported to have exceptional abilities to intercept other missiles. In a post on the PLA's English-language website earlier this year, Chinese military expert Song Zongping said the J-20 will 'engage with rivals in the future who dare to provoke China in the air.' When the aircraft was shown to the public, there were claims to suggest that it had been built in part from plans of US war planes, particularly the F-22 Raptor, obtained by Chinese hackers jailed last year. Beijing has firmly denied the theory as it insists that J-20 had been developed and built solely with the Chinese technology. Military analysts previously said it was still too early to tell if the jet matches the capabilities of the US F-22 Raptor. Although pictures of the medium and long-range fighter jets had been released in the past, never before had they shown the weaponry they would carry. Top Chinese officials said the demonstration displayed the J-20's superiority to the top US fighter jets, the F-22 and F-35 (file photo) The advanced warplanes were paraded to the public as the grand finale to the six-day airshow in Zhuhai and performed a flypast to onlooking spectators (file photo) When the aircraft was shown to the public at an air show in China last November, there were claims to suggest that it had been built in part from plans of US war planes, particularly the F-22 Raptor (file photo) As China's fourth-generation fighter jet, J-20 made its maiden flight in 2011. According to China Central Television Station (CCTV), J-20 be powered by a made-in-China engine and possess similar combat capabilities to America's F-22 Raptor. In 2016, a Chinese national, 51-year-old Su Bin, was sent to prison for his part in stealing US military plans and sending documents to Beijing. The documents were reported to include plans for the F-35 and F-22 fighter jets, which would have enabled the Chinese military to rapidly catch up with US capabilities. China claims it is set to overtake the US as the world's top aviation market in the next decade. Experts say China has been refining designs in hopes of narrowing a military gap with Washington. Although pictures of the medium and long-range fighter jets had been released in the past, never before had they shown the weaponry they would carry (file photo) China claims it is set to overtake the US as the world's top aviation market in the next decade. Experts say China has been refining designs in hopes of narrowing a military gap with Washington (file photo) Cao Qingfeng, an aircraft engineer at the 2016 Zhuhai Airshow, said J-20's 'stunning' display was a show of China's strengthening aircraft industry and manufacturing - and Western officials agreed. 'This shows they now have confidence to put it out in public,' said a Western industry official who has monitored the biennial show from its inception 20 years ago. 'This is the airplane for China in the way that the J-31 is not; this is the one they develop for themselves,' he added. Despite the impressive show of aerial military might, some foreign observers have questioned its stealth capabilities. CHINA'S J-20 Top speed: 1,305 mph Range: 2,113 mi Length: 67 Wingspan: 42 0 Weight: 43,000 lbs Engine Type: Xian WS-15 turbofan engines Cost: $110m Manufacturer: Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group Advertisement A rare 'shark nursery' has been discovered by a team of marine scientists 200 miles (320km) off the western coast of Ireland. The Marine Institute's remotely operated vehicle Sea Rover was investigating Ireland's deep cold-water coral reefs at depths of around 2,460ft (750m). Scientists recorded a large school of catshark pups, usually found in the north east Atlantic, along with the more unusual solitary sailfin roughshark. Sea Rover's operators spotted thousands of egg cases, commonly referred to as mermaid's purses, strewn along the ocean floor. Scroll down for video The scientists discovered a large school of catshark pups, usually found in the north-east Atlantic. This is a rarely observed habitat within an offshore Special Area of Conservation Experts believe the 'mermaid purses' were deposited by the females during the summer months, which may mean that they regularly come to the area to lay their eggs. Coral skeletons - a reef made of thin layers of calcium carbonate - found in the region make ideal environments for marine wildlife to lay and deposit their eggs. Other sea creatures are seen in the footage co-existing with the sharks - including sea urchins, crabs and other smaller fish. The scientists recorded a large school of catshark pups, usually found in the north east Atlantic, along with the more unusual solitary sailfin roughshark The solitary sailfin roughshark is on the 'Near Threatened' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature meaning it may be considered threatened with extinction in the near future The rare Sailfin roughshark is seen on the periphery of the 'nursery' area and is thought to be moving through the site potentially to forage on the egg cases, although this was not observed by the science team. The species is listed as 'Near Threatened' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature meaning it may be considered threatened with extinction in the near future. The species grows up to a length of four feet (1.2m) and is usually observed moving slowly with deep water currents feeding on small benthic invertebrates. The findings were announced at INFORMAR Seabed Mapping Seminar in Kinsale, where the marine scientists played highlights taken by the underwater vehicle. The Marine Institute's remotely operated vehicle Sea Rover was investigating Ireland's deep cold-water coral reefs at depths of around 2,460ft (750m) Scientists believe the egg cases or 'mermaid purses' were deposited by the females during the summer months, may mean that they regularly come to the area to lay their eggs WHAT IS A CAT SHARK? The family Scyliorhinidae is the largest shark family, with at least 15 genera and over 100 species. Their common name, catsharks, likely derives from their elongated, cat-like eyes, although their scientific name is based on the Greek words, 'Scylla,' meaning 'a shark,' and 'rhinos,' meaning 'nose.' Some members of Scyliorhinidae are also commonly known as dogfish. Members of this family tend to be small, usually less than three feet (one metre) long, and are harmless to humans. Most catsharks live in seas above the upper continental slope, a location that makes it difficult to observe these sharks and collect specimens. As such, more information about catsharks remains to be discovered. Advertisement INFORMAR is an Irish Gorvernment Initiative which monitors deep water sharks as part of its marine conservation programme. David O'Sullivan, of INFORMAR said: 'We are delighted to report the discovery of a rare shark nursery on a scale not previously documented in Irish waters. 'This discovery shows the significance of documenting sensitive marine habitats, and will give us a better understanding of the biology of these beautiful animals and their ecosystem function in Ireland's Biologically Sensitive Area.' While there were no shark pups swimming around the site, the researchers that captured the footage want to keep an eye on events there and potentially watch them hatch in the future. 'No pups were obvious at the site and it is believed that the adult sharks might be utilising degraded coral reef and exposed carbonate rock on which to lay their eggs,' said David O'Sullivan, chief scientist at SeaRover. 'A healthy coral reef in the vicinity, may act as a refuge for the juvenile shark pups once they hatch. 'It is anticipated that further study of the site will answer some important scientific questions on the biology and ecology of deep water sharks in Irish waters.' The RMS Lusitania - sunk during the First World War - has been recreated in 3D alongside hundreds of other vessels submerged in Irelands territorial waters. Coastal waters around the island are being mapped to provide greater detail about the wrecks' locations and dimensions - as well as to limit who can access them. A total of 360 ships have already been identified and recorded as part of the Infomar project that began in 1996 and is set for completion in 2026. Once finished, experts hope it will aid the enforcement of official heritage orders used to preserve maritime remains dating back more than 100 years. They limit access to archaeological divers who have applied to the Irish government for specific licenses. Scroll down for video The RMS Lusitania has been recreated in 3D alongside hundreds of other vessels submerged in Irelands territorial waters. Cunard's Lusitania was travelling from New York City to Liverpool when it was torpedoed during the First World War - killing nearly 1,200 people on board (file) Coastal waters around the island are being mapped to provide greater detail about the wrecks' locations and dimensions - as well as to limit who can access them. The wreck, seen here using sonar equipment for maximum detail, is positioned 11 miles (18 km) south of Kinsale Experts from the Marine Institute (MI) and Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) are behind the scheme. They believe the move will help to maintain a site's integrity - not least because they're often filled with valuable goods and human remains. 'Before the National Monuments Act 1930, any amateur diver could find a wreckage and essentially claim it as their own,' marine geologist Charise McKeon of GSI told MailOnline. 'We work in tandem with the National monument service and, by getting these 3D scans, it helps them to identify which sites are deemed of national importance and worthy of protection. 'This means that only trained and licensed people can access them.' One 3D image of the Lusitania shows the doomed passenger ship in greater detail than earlier technology allowed. This includes scour marks and how the boat rests on the sea bed. 'We use a whole fleet of marine vessels and a hull mounted directly underneath a vessel with multibeam echo sonars that send sound down the seabed,' says Maria Judge from GSI. The mapping of Ireland's territorial waters first began in 1996 and is expected to be concluded in 2026. Some of the island's ocean territory breaks off into vast chasms - more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon - after the continental shelf 'That builds a very smooth three-dimensional image of the seabed. Another aspect of the mapping of our seabed is we get to see extraordinary features its not just deep, dark, wet and flat down there. 'We began mapping the late 1990s and were still mapping now. It does take an extraordinary amount of time.' The news of Lusitania's digital recreation comes more than 103 years after the infamous boat was torpedoed by Germans on May 7, 1915. Of of the 1,959 people on board 1,198 were killed and the wreckage, which is positioned 11 miles (18 km) south of Kinsale's lighthouse, County Cork, is their final resting place. Other heritage sites protected in the region include that of RMS Leinster, which was sunk by a German submarine in October 1918. Samsung's foldable smartphone was announced last week and leaked reports from Korea are claiming it will be more expensive that its rival, the iPhone XS. It is believed the pioneering handset will cost approximately two million Korean Won, which is around 1,370 ($1,760), before taxes. The pricey gadget has been labelled the Samsung 'Galaxy F' and is expected to be available to buy in early 2019. iPhone's current marquee device, the XS, starts at 999 ($999) while the larger XS Max is available for a minimum of 1,099 ($1,099). Scroll down for video It is believed the pioneering Samsung galaxy F will cost approximately two million Korean Won, which is around 1,370 ($1,760), before taxes. iPhone's current marquee device starts at 999 ($999) and the prices for the XS max begin at 1,099 ($1,099) Kim Jang-yeol, head of research at Golden Bridge Investment, told the Korean Times that the device will be so expensive as a result of it being the first mainstream device to enter the unknown territory of foldable handsets. According to the leak, the screen will expand to a 7.3-inch OLED screen when unfurled and it will shrink to a 4.5-inch display when closed. The device is shrouded in mystery and Samsung has yet to release any confirmed details about the gadget's specifications or release. Samsung's Developer Conference last week provided the first glimpse at the device when a prototype was displayed on a deliberately dark stage. The tech giant has already confirmed that the phone has an Infinity Flex Display, which enables it to transform into a phone or a tablet when it's opened and closed. There's a small screen on the outside of the phone and another, larger display that reveals itself once the device is unfolded. Samsung says the 7.3-inch screen can be folded 'hundreds of thousands of times' thanks to the display's thinness and flexibility. 'Users now have the best of both worlds: a compact smartphone that unfolds to reveal a larger immersive display for multitasking and viewing content,' Samsung explained. 'The app experience seamlessly transitions from the smaller display to the larger display as the device unfolds. 'In addition, users can browse, watch, connect and multitask without losing a beat, simultaneously using three active apps on the larger display,' the firm added. 'There's a device inside here,' Justin Denison, Samsung's senior vice president of mobile product marketing, said on stage. 'And it is stunning.' The screen has a protective layer, giving it the same finish as a photograph, that's both flexible and tough. Justin Denison, Samsung's senior vice president of mobile product marketing, unveiled the firm's first folding phone onstage at the 2018 Developer Conference in San Francisco. It features a 7.3-inch screen that can transform into a phone or tablet As part of the launch last week, Android also unveiled a new software format specifically modified for 'foldables.' Android will now support devices that are half-phone, half-tablet When users open the phone, their apps move seamlessly from the outside of the device to the interior screen. Users can have up to three apps running at once on the tablet-sized screen, using what Samsung calls its Multi-active window feature Samsung says the 7.3-inch screen can be folded 'hundreds of thousands of times' thanks to the display's thinness and flexibility. The device was teased ahead of the event 'For this display to be foldable, it had to be thinner than any other display we've ever made,' Justin Denison, Samsung's senior vice president of mobile product marketing, said on stage. The display is 45 per cent thinner than Samsung's other smartphone models. On top of that, Samsung says it has some other high-tech screen technology up its sleeve. It's also working on rollable and stretchable displays - though it's unclear when these will come to fruition. When users open the phone, their apps move seamlessly from the outside of the device to the interior screen. Users can have up to three apps running at once on the tablet-sized screen, which Samsung calls its 'Multi-active window' feature. 'Apps you were using when the device was closed are right there waiting for you when its open,' Mr Denison said. Samsung says the 7.3-inch screen can be folded 'hundreds of thousands of times' thanks to the display's thinness and flexibility. When users open the phone, their apps move seamlessly from the outside of the device to the interior screen. Users can have up to three apps running at once on the tablet-sized screen, using what Samsung calls its Multi-active window feature Samsung put its proprietary Infinity Flex Display technology in its new foldable phone. It's likely that this device won't be hitting the shelves any time soon, however, as Samsung hasn't yet given it a name, price tag or release date Samsung didn't reveal too many details about the device, hoping to keep the design safe from competitors. There's no price tag for the product, or a release date, although Samsung said it expects to begin mass production of the device soon When users open the phone, their apps move seamlessly from the outside of the device to the interior screen. Users can have up to three apps running at once on the tablet-sized screen It's likely that this device won't be hitting the shelves any time soon, as Samsung hasn't yet given it a name, price tag or release date. That said, Mr Denison said Samsung expects to begin mass production of the device 'in the coming months.' As part of the launch, Android also unveiled a new software format specifically modified for 'foldables.' Android will now support devices that are half-phone, half-tablet with a high-tech, wraparound screen. 'It's an exciting concept and we expect to see foldable products from several Android manufacturers,' Dave Burke, vice president of engineering for Android, told a Google conference. 'In fact, we're already working closely with Samsung on a new device they plan to launch early next year,' Mr Burke said. Islands and cities could be flooded with water from melted ice sheets - even if global warming targets are met, experts say. Glaciers in both Antarctica and Greenland may still defrost despite dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from transport and industry. Previously, in the Paris Agreement, 195 UN member states agreed to limit the rise in global average temperature to less than 2C (3.6F) - ideally 1.5C (2.7F) - above pre-industrial levels. But a new review of computer models, including those from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), found warming above 1.5C may still be 'catastrophic.' Scroll down for video Glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland may disappear despite dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from transport and industry, experts say (stock image) The findings - which follow a study by British scientists - show that even if the goal is achieved, sea levels may still rise 13 feet (four metres). This would trigger disaster for Earth's climate as well as for coastal communities, experts say. 'For these ice sheets a tipping point - or irreversible mass loss - may be crossed this or next century if global atmospheric temperatures are kept below two degrees. 'It gets more likely above 2 degrees,' says lead author Professor Frank Pattyn. An international team, including colleagues at the universities of Lincoln and Bristol , say it's vital to limit global warming to 1.5C (2.7F). Greenland has warmed by roughly 5C in winter and 2C in summer since the mid-1990s - over double the global average rate in that period. The ice sheet has been losing mass at an increasing rate since - equivalent to up to 0.73 mm a year in sea level rise between 2012 and 2016. This is the same as the accelerated melting that has been discovered in the Antarctic ice sheet over this period. Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are considered the planet's 'sleeping giants' and could potentially lead to sea-level rise by more than 230 ft (70 metres) over the years The researchers said current predictions of future changes in ice-sheet mass balance in a 1.5C (2.7F) warmer world are questionable. This is due to a lack of understanding of atmospheric and ocean circulation changes around Greenland and Antarctica respectively. Professor Pattyn added: 'Even if man-made warming were constrained to less than 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will continue to lose mass this century - with rates similar to those observed over the past decade. 'However, non-linear (unpredictable) responses cannot be excluded - which may lead to larger rates of mass loss. 'Furthermore, large uncertainties in future projections still remain, pertaining to knowledge gaps in atmospheric and oceanic forcing.' Today sea levels are rising at an increasing pace that currently stands at around 4mm per year. This is due to ocean expansion, melting glaciers and specifically melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. These are considered the planet's 'sleeping giants'. Together they can potentially lead to sea-level rise by more than 230 ft (70 metres) over thousands of years. THE KEY GOALS OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT The Paris Agreement on Climate Change has four main goals with regards to reducing emissions: 1) A long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels 2) To aim to limit the increase to 1.5C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change 3) Goverments agreed on the need for global emissions to peak as soon as possible, recognising that this will take longer for developing countries 4) To undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with the best available science Source: European Commission Advertisement Despite improved observations and simulations since the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report published in 2013 the study identified key gaps in knowledge. On longer time scales both ice sheets may reach tipping points above around a 1.5-2C (2.7 to 3.6F) limit - leading to irreversible mass loss. For Greenland this is due to increased melting of the ice sheet, while for Antarctica it's caused by marine instabilities of certain parts - in particular the West Antarctica ice sheet. This could lead to 'multi-metre sea level' rise in the next century - which has consequences for small island states and coastal cities across the world. Professor Pattyn added: 'Limiting global atmospheric warming to 1.5C will avoid short and long-term surprises coming from both ice sheets - and significantly reduce adaptation cost when global sea-level rise is limited and not catastrophic.' The full findings of the study were published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The river starts from Binh Phuoc province, running through Tay Ninh, Binh Duong provinces and Ho Chi Minh City. The stretch in HCMC is approximately 80 kilometers long. Alongside the riverbanks, lot of houses and other construction works have been built. Specifically, tens of houses are found encroach the riverbed along the riverbank from District 12 to Binh Thanh, Go Vap, Thu Duc districts and District 2. The worst transgressed area is in Thu Duc district with tens of houses and villas. The riverbank area in Thao Dien ward, District 2 has been handed over to investors of housing and high class villas projects. They have surrounded their projects with solid fence wall in the river edge, blocking the rivers access way. The river embankment in the right bank of the river in Districts 12, Hoc Mon and Cu Chi districts has been built for traffic also, still the route has been cut off at some spots. Specifically, a house is built right on the embankment in An Phu Dong ward, District 12. Adjacent to the house is a land plot being filled up for construction. When the embankment project was implemented, site clearance was not completed. So many sections of the embankment now go through residents properties. To tackle the river encroachment, HCMC Peoples Committee has assigned the Department of Planning and Architecture to work with the Department of Tourism, the Department of Transport, HCMC Institute for Development Studies, Steering Center for Urban Flood Control Program, the management board of the urban area south of the city, nine districts and Tan Thuan Industrial Development Company to review Saigon River plan and control construction along the river. After reviewing, they reported that the riverbank has been covered with 83 construction projects over about 454 hectares to build houses, trade and service centers and parks. Of these, 76 projects reported to affect the riverbank safety corridor as per city regulations. Some works have been built before 2004 and some after 2004 when the city issued Decision 150 on protecting riverbank corridor. According to the decision, rivers have a 30-50 meter wide riverbank protection corridor that is same for canals and public ponds. However many construction projects have been licensed narrowing the safety corridor to only 7.5 meters at some places. Estimating construction situation along the Saigon River, the Department of Planning and Architecture said that projects have been approved both before and after 2004, so the riverbank corridor width has not accorded with current regulations of 30-50 meters. That has impacted riverside landscape exploitation to serve the community. The agency proposed the city Peoples Committee to estimate the status quo of riverbank encroachment, intensify inspection to handle violations, review to have overall estimation of projects and call on experts opinions to have plan management regulations concerning the riverside landscape. Architecture Ngo Viet Nam Son said that the safety corridor encroachment would affect the river flow and pose a danger of landslide. To settle the issue, he said it needed to specifically consider each work and project to make clear which projects were licensed in the past and which have been licensed after the citys issue of Decision 150 to have solutions. Those licensed after the decision issue time must be removed to return the riverbank safety corridor as per regulations. By QUOC HUNG Translated by Hai Mien The key to long-term space travel may lie inside lichens, one of Earth's most primitive forms of life. Lichens produce hydrogen and this could allow for the refilling of fuel tanks on intergalactic trips. A lichen contains fungi and algae or bacteria and the partnership produces hydrogen via a unique form of photosynthesis. Hydrogen is a key component in rocket fuel and scientists have found that lichens may be able to survive on the surface of Mars and other alien planets. Scientists believe that these simple, moss-like growths could be taken on space journeys of the future to produce hydrogen while travelling to refill fuel reserves. Scroll down for video Lichens contain fungi and algae or bacteria and they produce hydrogen via a unique form of photosynthesis. Hydrogen is a key component in rocket fuel and scientists have found lichens may be able to survive on the surface of Mars (stock) HOW DOES A LICHEN PRODUCE HYDROGEN? Photosynthesis in cyanobacteria and green algae splits water into hydrogen ions and electrons. A series of enzymes are used to combine the ions and electrons to create hydrogen gas. These enzymes are deactivated by the presence of oxygen and therefore are considered to be anaerobic. Advertisement It is the partnership - known as a symbiosis - between the various microorganisms that makes them incredibly durable. Algae, and therefore some lichens, can produce hydrogen by splitting water into hydrogen ions and electrons before using a series of enzymes to combine them into hydrogen gas. Kiriakos Kotzabasis at the University of Crete subjected lichen to harsh conditions to assess their durability. The research simulated the conditions on Mars, with low oxygen, no water and temperatures as low as -196C (-321F). Lichens managed to survive the unfathomably harsh environment and rebound back to full health after such brutal conditions. Research simulated the conditions on Mars, with low oxygen, no water and temperatures as low as -196C (-321F). Lichens managed to survive the unfathomably harsh environment and rebound back to full health after such brutal conditions (stock) When back in ambient conditions the basic creature was able to resume the normal production of hydrogen. 'Despite their exposure to an unfavourable environment or to repeated extreme conditions, lichens remain alive,' Dr Kotzabasis told New Scientist. Hydrogen is a key component in many forms of rocket fuel and the constant production from the durable lichen could help refuel spacecrafts of the future, the researchers say. Lichens survived Earth's most adverse conditions and the next test of their mettle is to subject them to the harsh environment exclusive to space, such as high radiation levels. The research was published in the journal Astrobiology. Farmers are more to blame than badgers for spreading tuberculosis among cattle, a report said yesterday. Vaccination and other non-lethal alternatives to shooting badgers should be explored urgently, the official review into the badger cull said. Animal welfare groups welcomed its finding that badgers were not 'solely responsible' for TB and its call for a pause in the cull to test vaccinations. Badgers, which are blamed for passing TB between herds, have been culled since 2013 across Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Cheshire and Somerset. Scroll down for video Contrary? It comes weeks after DEFRA published data which said cases of bovine tuberculosis (TB) has fallen by 50 per cent since 2013, when the Somerset and Gloucestershire cull began But they may have gained a reprieve yesterday after Professor Sir Charles Godfray published his review of the Government's plan to eradicate bovine TB by 2038. He said the evidence showed culling had 'a modest effect', reducing TB by just 15 per cent. But he claimed farmers were probably more responsible for spreading the disease. Sir Charles said farmers should spend more money on other measures, adding: 'If I was to say more one than the other, I would say definitely more on the cattle-to-cattle side. 'We do think wildlife transmit TB to cattle, but understandably there has been in some quarters an unconscious feeling that everything can be blamed on badgers.' He said farmers were increasing the danger of infections by moving cattle from high-risk TB areas to low-risk areas around the country including 1.7million in 2016. Muck-spreading also passed the disease on because TB can live for six months in manure. Instead, farmers should bury slurry. Some were also raising the infection risk by failing to clean machinery when moving between areas, and not creating buffer zones between herds on neighbouring farms to stop any contact. Badgers Britain's largest native carnivorous mammal are a protected species, with around 485,000 in England and Wales. But farmers in regions where a cull is in place can kill 70 per cent of the local population by shooting or trapping. Last year, 32,000 were killed a figure expected to exceed 40,000 this year. Around 44,000 cows that tested positive for TB were destroyed last year. The report called for a two-year pause in the cull to test vaccinations, adding: 'Should it become clear that vaccination is providing comparable benefits to culling then all areas should adopt it.' Professor Rosie Woodroffe, of the Zoological Society of London, said: 'The report is very clear cattle are more likely to acquire TB from other cattle than badgers.' Dominic Dyer, of the Badger Trust campaign group, said: 'Incompetence, negligence and deceit at the heart of the Government and farming industry has resulted in a bovine TB policy which is failing farmers, taxpayers and our precious wildlife.' However, the National Farmers' Union insisted culling remained the best option. Vets accuse ministers of fiddling badger culling figures as research shows TB numbers are actually RISING in target areas The British government has been accused of lying about the success of their badger cull strategy, animal rights activists have claimed. Prion Interest Group say the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) overstated the effects of its initiative in Somerset and Gloucestershire, where 3,656 of the distinctive creatures have been killed. DEFRA published data in September that said cases of bovine tuberculosis (TB) has fallen by 50 per cent since 2013, when the cull began. 'So, either their figures were calculated on an extremely inaccurate basis and they've got it very badly wrong, or they have actually gerrymandered those figures to make it look as if the incidence is falling when the evidence clearly shows that the prevalence has gone up. 'Badger culling has not worked. They are issuing barefaced lies in this matter.' The new claims come in a letter addressed to the UK's next Chief Veterinary Officer, Christine Middlemiss, which was published via the Network for Animals website on Monday Previously, Farming Minister George Eustice said the opposite: 'Our strategy for dealing with this slow-moving, insidious disease is delivering results.' Today, a spokesman for DEFRA defended his assertion. 'The latest statistics showed reductions in new outbreaks of bovine TB in the initial cull areas, an encouraging sign that the steps we have taken have had a positive impact,' they told the BBC. 'Based on this scientific data, Minister Eustice was absolutely correct to describe this progress as encouraging.' England has the highest incidence of bovine TB in Europe, according to Farming UK. The Government is seeking to eradicate it in England and Wales by 2038, which it says costs taxpayers more than 100 million a year and causes 'devastation and distress' for hard-working farmers. However conservationists have warned the programme could see badgers wiped out completely in some areas. A Japanese venture group have devised a wearable exoskeleton which can carry the burden of heavy lifting. The so-called Muscle Upper weighs just 17 pounds (8 kilograms) and has the power to raise a maximum of 66 pounds (30 kilograms), it's inventors say. The brainchild of Innophys - a company set-up by the Tokyo University of Science - it could relieve humans of muscle and joint damage through repetitive heavy-lifting. Specifically, it alleviates wear-and-tear on the back and arms, which means it could be ideal for those who work in factories. A video showcasing the frame reveals that compressed air is used to flex the 'muscles', which are made of rubber. A demonstrator can then be seen carrying a heavy box with ease at the university's Morito Memorial Hall in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward. Priced at 17,600, orders have already been received for the robotic device, which officially launched this month. The product is an enhanced version of its original guise - 2014's Muscle Suit. 'The product is compact and could be used in various settings,' Innophys President, Takashi Furukawa, told The Asahi Shimbun. 'It leaves it up to human hands to do the work, while allowing the wearer to hold and lift all kinds of things.' Earlier this year, in June, a French start-up developed a futuristic exoskeleton device that can help patients with complete lower body paralysis to walk without crutches or a walker. IN ACTION: Wearing the Muscle Upper, a demonstrator can then be seen carrying a heavy box with ease at the university's Morito Memorial Hall in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward Called the 'Atalante', it's a robotic suit that uses sophisticated computers and motors to emulate the way humans walk. The device was developed by Paris-based Wandercraft and is now undergoing patient trials. To use it, the wearer sits into the device and begins moving their hips. In doing so, that activates motors that are located in the hips, knees and ankles, which forces the device to stand upright. A computer located in the device's back rest helps analyze a person's 'gait,' or how they walk, in order to balance the device and propel them forward. The back rest and legs are strapped to a wearer in various places to distribute pressure evenly and so that the device remains comfortable. The researcher who discovered a cigar-shaped interstellar rock zooming through our solar system has dismissed claims from Harvard University it could be an alien spacecraft. The Harvard researchers noted in a pre-print of their article that it was an 'exotic scenario,' but that 'Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.' However, Robert Weryk, who discovered the strange interstellar object in 2017 at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, told CBC's Afternoon Drive their theory is 'a bit of wild speculation'. Scroll down for video This photo released by the European Southern Observatory on November 20, 2017 shows an artist's impression of the first interstellar object known to enter our solar system: Oumuamua WHAT IS A LIGHTSAIL? Much like the wind pushing a sailboat through water, solar sails rely on sunlight to propel vehicles through space. The sail captures constantly streaming solar particles, called photons, with giant sails built from a lightweight material. Over time, the buildup of these particles provides enough thrust for a spacecraft to travel in space. Advertisement 'I think it's a remnant from another solar system. It's just something that happened to run into us, and we were very lucky to have been operating the telescope that night and looking in that direction,' Weryk said. Oumuamua, the first interstellar object known to enter our solar system, accelerated faster away from the Sun than expected, hence the notion that some kind of artificial sail that runs on sunlight - known as a light sail - may have helped push it through space. 'Currently there is an unexplained phenomena, namely, the excess acceleration of Oumuamua, which we show may be explained by the force of radiation pressure from the sun,' co-author and Harvard astrophysicist Shmuel Bialy said. 'However this requires the body to have a very large surface and be very thin, which is not encountered in nature.' Their suggestion of an alien force at work went viral. 'Honestly, that's a bit of wild speculation,' Weryk said when asked about the paper by Harvard scientists Abraham Leob and Shmuel Bialy. '(The Harvard researchers) decided to focus on another aspect of that, that it's an alien space craft and that it has a solar sail type material that's causing the non-gravitational trajectory. But we actually believe that's not true based on the data we obtained.' The Harvard team hypothesize that Oumuamua 'may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth's vicinity by an alien civilization.' Other astronomy experts aren't buying it either. 'Like most scientists, I would love there to be convincing evidence of alien life, but this isn't it,' said Alan Fitzsimmons, an astrophysicist at Queens University, Belfast. 'It has already been shown that its observed characteristics are consistent with a comet-like body ejected from another star system,' he told AFP. 'And some of the arguments in this study are based on numbers with large uncertainties.' The JPL team has not yet worked out how to power the craft - and many of their ideas rely on technology that doesn't yet exist, such as this laser sail being developed by the Breakthrough project, which hopes to make to same trip to Alpha Centairi. Katie Mack, a well-known astrophysicist at North Carolina State, also took issue with the alien hype. 'The thing you have to understand is: scientists are perfectly happy to publish an outlandish idea if it has even the tiniest sliver of a chance of not being wrong,' she wrote on Twitter. 'But until every other possibility has been exhausted dozen times over, even the authors probably don't believe it.' Asked if he believed the hypothesis he put forward, Bialy told AFP: 'I wouldn't say I 'believe' it is sent by aliens, as I am a scientist, and not a believer, I rely on evidence to put forward possible physical explanation for observed phenomena.' A photo released by the European Space Agency on June 27, 2018 shows an artist's impression of Oumuamua The other co-author, Avi Loeb, chairman of Harvard's astronomy department, told NBC News humanity may never know more about the mysterious object, since it has traveled far away and isn't heading back. 'It is impossible to guess the purpose behind Oumuamua without more data,' Loeb was quoted as saying. Their paper was accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, and will appear on November 12. Oumuamua, Hawaiian for 'messenger' or 'scout,' was first viewed by telescopes in October 2017. The alien rock is about 1,300 feet long (400 meters) long, and only about 130 feet wide. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has shed fresh light on the firm's plans to allow users to edit tweets. Speaking at an event in India's capital of New Delhi, he said the most likely outcome was a system aimed at correcting spelling mistakes, according to TNW. The firm came under fire in 2016 when the feature was first mentioned by Dorsey, with many pointing out it could potentially be used to change the meaning of tweets already shared. Scroll down for video Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey addresses students during a town hall at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India, November 12, 2018.He said the most likely outcome of the firm's plan to allow users to edit tweets was a system aimed at correcting spelling mistakes HOW COULD TWEET EDITING WORK? Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has previously said two types of editing were under consideration. One would give users a brief window of time after the post was sent five minutes, for example to make any corrections. The other would work in a similar way to Facebook's editing feature, allowing allows users to amend what they wrote at any time, but with a log of the changes visible. Advertisement Dorsey said Twitter would probably ban unlimited editing. 'You have to pay attention to what are the use cases for the edit button,' Dorsey said. 'A lot of people want the edit button because they want to quickly fix a mistake they made. Like a misspelling or tweeting the wrong URL. That's a lot more achievable than allowing people to edit any tweet all the way back in time,' Dorsey said. He said the feature was unlikely to appear quickly, despite the firm already having spent two years thinking about it. He claimed the wait was so that Twitter can come up with a solution that solves a problem and removes what 'people see as friction in the service.' 'We have been considering this for a while and we have to do in the right way. We can't just rush it out. 'We can't make something which is distracting or takes anything away from the public record,' said the Twitter CEO. Kim KardashianWest asked Dorsey in person about the feature at her husband Kanye West's birthday party The possibility of an edit button has been widely discussed - and even Kim Kardashian asked Dorsey in person about it at her husband Kanye West's birthday party. Kardashian West said she spoke with Dorsey at husband Kanye West's birthday bash. 'I had a very good convo with @jack this weekend at Kanye's bday and I think he really heard me out on the edit button,' she wrote to her 60 million Twitter followers. In response to her tweet, Dorsey replied, 'Now I see why I was invited!' Users have been requesting the ability to edit tweets virtually since Twitter's birth. IS TWITTER SET TO KILL OFF THE LIKE BUTTON? Twitter could soon kill off the 'Like' button. The social media giant said it's in the 'early stages' of considering whether or not to remove the like button, which appears as a heart icon, as part of an overall redesign of the platform. It comes after CEO Jack Dorsey reportedly said at an event last week that he would get rid of the heart-shaped button 'soon,' according to the Telegraph. But Twitter said the change may not be coming as soon as users think. 'As we've been saying for a while, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing healthy conversation, that includes the like button,' Twitter's communications unit said in a tweet. 'We are in the early stages of the work and have no plans to share right now.' At the WIRED25 summit this month, Dorsey further detailed his thoughts on the like feature, saying he was unhappy with the 'big like button with the heart on it.' Dorsey stopped short of saying the firm would remove the feature, however. Some have noted that Twitter may get rid of the like button and, in its place, emphasize the 'Bookmark' feature rolled out earlier this year. Advertisement In 2016, Dorsey said that a form of the feature is 'definitely needed,' raising hopes it would soon appear. When one user wrote that it should be enabled for verified accounts, Dorsey responded, that 'a form of edit is def needed. But for everyone, not just those w badges.' The CEO suggested two possible types of edits that could work at the time. One could give users a brief window of time after the post was sent five minutes, for example to make any corrections. The other method would work similarly to Facebook's editing feature, which allows users to amend what they wrote at any time, but shows a log of the changes. This would ensure the edits don't go 'off the public record,' Dorsey explained. Still, many users have pointed out that even these options come with risks. Advertisement The world's largest underwater restaurant is almost fully-booked until next summer as the 100-foot structure nears completion. Named 'Under', the eatery will open in the coastal village of Baly in the region of Lindesnes located on the southernmost tip of Norway in spring 2019. It is Europe's first and the world's largest underwater restaurant, boasting a 36 foot-wide panoramic window looking out into the blue beyond. Scroll down for video Called 'Under', the restaurant has been designed by the imaginative Snohetta agency and will be located at the southernmost point of the Norwegian coastline by the village of Baly. Guests will have a view of the seabed through a 36ft window According to local media, the building sits on the seabed 16 feet below the surface and looks like a modern bunker. The ambitious structure was constructed on ground level on top of a barge for half a year and is designed to withstand extreme weather conditions. It was then towed to its location 600 feet away, lowered into the water and attached to a foundation on the seabed. Revealing what diners can expect, Under's chef Nicolai Ellitsgaard Pedersen explained: 'My team and I work in close cooperation with local farmers, fishermen, hunters and harvesters to provide the freshest ingredients. The structure, Snohetta says, will 'surface to lie against the craggy shoreline. The structure will become a part of its marine environment, coming to rest directly on the sea bed five meters below the water's surface' The restaurant was designed by the Snohetta company, based in Oslo and New York City with studios in San Francisco, Innsbruck, Singapore and Stockholm 'In this way, we create flavorful, innovative dishes that reflect our landscape.' The restaurant was designed by the Snohetta company, based in Oslo and New York City with studios in San Francisco, Innsbruck, Singapore and Stockholm. Commenting on the novel design, senior architect Rune Grasdal said: 'The first challenge is water pressure as it is 16 feet below the surface, but the biggest problem is the waves.' There will be three levels covering an area of 5,300 square feet that include a champagne bar and a large dining area. There will be three levels altogether, with a cloakroom on the first floor, a champagne bar on the next and the restaurant at the bottom, where food rustled up by Danish chef Nicolai Ellitsgaard Pedersen will be enjoyed The restaurant has been designed to hold between 80 and 100 guests, who will be able to watch the wildlife on the seabed through a window that's 36 feet wide and 13 feet high. The dining room will mainly serve seafood delicacies sourced from the local area, including mussels, lobster and cod. However, with 'Under' nearly booked-out until after summer 2019, diners will have to book their table soon. The restaurant recommends that guests allot three and a half to four hours 'to fully escape into our immersion menu.' Outside opening hours, parts of the restaurant will be dedicated to marine biology research. Snohetta explains that researchers will come to the building to study, among other things, whether wild fish can be trained with sound signals Tables, if there are any left, can be booked via https://under.dinesuperb.com/reserve/date. Outside opening hours, parts of the restaurant will be dedicated to marine biology research. Snohetta explains that researchers will come to the building to study, among other things, whether wild fish can be trained with sound signals. The design firm adds: 'Through its architecture, menu and mission of informing the public about the biodiversity of the sea, Under will provide an under-water experience inspiring a sense of awe and delight, activating all the senses both physical and intellectual.' Advertisement If you've ever fancied playing at being Robinson Crusoe, then this remote island retreat might pique your interest. Bird Island is located on an atoll in Belize, with a colourful private retreat accommodating six guests. The quirky property is currently available to rent via Airbnb, with rates working out at roughly 64 per person per night. If you've ever fancied playing at being Robinson Crusoe, then this remote island retreat might pique your interest. Bird Island is located on an atoll in Belize, with a colourful private retreat accommodating six guests The quirky property is currently available to rent via Airbnb, with rates working out at roughly 64 per person per night Other than the colourful accommodation building, there is nothing much else on the outcrop bar a few trees. Travellers are advised to fly into Belize City and transfer to the village of Placencia via car or plane. From there, Bird Island is a short boat ride away. Guests must stock up on supplies first, as once on the island, there is nothing in the way of food other than fresh fish. However,the Airbnb listing notes that there is a 'very well-stocked kitchen' with a myriad of condiments such as cake mixes, flour, rice, spices and oils to use. In total there are three accommodation blocks on Bird Island. A main house with a master bedroom, an over-the-water cabana with queen-sized bed and a smaller cabana with a double-size bed Guests must stock up on supplies first, as once on the island, the only food option is to fish. However, an Airbnb listing for the island notes that there is a 'very well-stocked kitchen' with a myriad of condiments such as cake mixes, flour, rice, spices and oils Other amenities include a fridge, small freezer, a phone to call local numbers and 'very good' WiFi. On the activity front, there are two single-person and two new double-person kayaks to cruise the atoll that surrounds the island. The island's owner recommends a four to five-day stay. In total there are three accommodation blocks on Bird Island. A main house with a master bedroom, an over-the-water cabana with queen-sized bed and a smaller cabana with a double-size bed. Guests are left in complete isolation until they are picked up at the end of their stay. A view of one of the property's en suite bathrooms, with tropical artwork adorning one of the walls outside There are hammocks swinging above the decks, so that guests can sit back and soak up the watery views The island runs on solar-power and has a wind generator. The property's owner highlights that the island is constantly undergoing improvement. Last year new decks were added, along with a fishing dock and an observatory overlooking the atoll. Previous guests have left rave reviews of the property, deeming the place 'beautiful' and 'magical'. Anthony wrote: 'What an amazing place to spend our honeymoon! We couldn't have chose a better place. Looking back now, it probably was one of the highlights of our trip.' Meanwhile, Clara exclaimed: 'Wow! We had this trip planned for two years and we can't even explain how amazing it was! Snorkeling, reading, fishing, hanging out and star gazing. Everything was great.' Bird Island has proved to be very popular with holidaymakers and it is already booked up for the majority of 2019. The property's owner highlights that the island is constantly undergoing improvement. Last year new decks were added, along with a fishing dock and an observatory overlooking the atoll Advertisement Skimming over sub-zero waters and giant mounds of ice, this extreme athlete certainly needs thick skin. Nikita Martyanov, 28, from Russia, journeyed to the remote town of Ilulissat on the west coast of Greenland to tackle the region's largest glacier on a wakeboard. Goosebump-inducing footage shows the daredevil surfing at high speed across the icy landscape, with him performing jumps and flips as he goes. Scroll down for video Nikita Martyanov, 28, from Russia, journeyed to the remote town of Ilulissat on the west coast of Greenland to tackle the region's largest glacier on a wakeboard Goosebump-inducing footage shows the daredevil surfing at high speed across the icy landscape, with him performing jumps and flips as he goes Martyanov had to wear a special insulated wetsuit to perform the stunt to protect him from the elements. He said that he worked with filmmakers from Red Bull and they spent two to three hours filming a day, with temperatures in the water hovering around zero degrees Celsius. While he said his wetsuit saved him from the cold, it couldn't protect him from 'brutal falls'. He explained: 'From heights of two to three metres it was really painful. There's a lot of needle ice floating around the icebergs that's masses of pieces of ice, a bit like a smoothie in consistency. Martyanov had to wear a special insulated wetsuit to perform the stunt to protect him from the elements While the sportsman said his wetsuit saved him from the cold, it couldn't protect him from 'brutal falls' 'A couple of times we had a situation where I saw a clear spot for landing, I lined up to do the trick, and as I was taking off it turned out that I was flying straight towards a block of ice. Falls at full speed that's no fun at all!' Another problem was the fact that Martyanov's yacht broke two days before he landed into Greenland - nicknamed the 'iceberg capital of the world' - and his itinerary had to be completely rejigged. While Martyanov said he struggled to navigate the landscape, he makes it look like an easy endeavour on camera. The camera catches him being tugged along by a rib, with him using just one hand most of the time. At other points he cruises along alone, using the momentum from the boat to continue speeding solo. He concluded: 'In projects like this it's always difficult to predict your stunts. I really wanted to do a somersault, I wanted stylish flights, a backside 180 with a good grab, for example. 'Overall, the basic idea for the tricks came down to showing some beautiful wake in difficult conditions.' While Martyanov said he struggled to navigate the landscape, he makes it look like an easy endeavour on camera She is currently starring in the third series of the Mummy Diaries. And Sam Faiers has defended her sister Billie's decision to ban her fiance Greg Shepherd from posting wild antics from his Marbella stag do on social media, after viewers were left bemused by the strict rule on Wednesday's show. Showcasing her new NSPCC Christmas jumper as part of the charity's Get Your Sparkle On campaign, the reality star, 27, stunned in a glitzy photoshoot and spoke to MailOnline exclusively ahead of the launch. Festive: Sam Faiers has designed her own NSPCC Christmas jumper as part of the charity's Get Your Sparkle On campaign, stunning in a glitzy photoshoot with her daughter Rosie Speaking about the reaction from the episode, Sam said: 'She was completely misunderstood by the fans. 'What Billie means is, post whatever you want but, dont overstep the mark. Greg's a dad and he's in the public eye. 'Don't embarrass her. People said "oh you've put all your hen do on social media" and we did, but what Billie meant was dont post rude things, embarrass and humiliate me.' The pair were left shocked when Greg uploaded a video of a playful pal pulling his shorts down at a beach club, with his modesty protected by an '18' emoji. Glitzy: The Mummy Diaries star will be jetting off to the Maldives for Christmas with her family and has designed two jumpers as part of the charity's Get Your Sparkle On campaign Touch of sparkle: The former TOWIE star used glitter to paint her legs during the fun photoshoot, as she showed off the grey jumper, wearing it as a jumper dress Despite Greg having a wild stag-do in Marbella, Sam said she had no worries whatsoever when her boyfriend Paul Knightley, 30, joined him on his trip to Las Vegas. She said: 'Paul has a drink and a laugh but he's not the type of person to get out of control. I knew they would have a laugh and a brilliant time in Vegas.' And with the main story-line of the series being 28-year-old Billie's upcoming wedding in the Maldives, the star divulged more details how preparations were going for the big day. 'Billie has it all pretty much all under control,' she said. 'I know that Billie wants quite a lot of surprises for all of her guests as well. Spilling the beans: The star spoke to MailOnline all about the series of Mummy Diaries, Billie's wedding and Greg's 'embarrassing' naked Instagram video 'When she was trying on wedding dresses, everything she put on and she just looked so beautiful. 'She was standing there, looking like a princess and I thought "wow, this is actually happening". It made me get excited for the wedding day, I can't wait for her to walk down the aisle. 'Me, my mum and Greg's mum are all flying out the week before the wedding so I will be there to help Billie with whatever she wants,' she added. 'There's only so much you can do at home when the wedding is abroad.' The Mummy Diaries: Billie Faiers was FUMING with fiance Greg Shepherd over his 'inappropriate' stag night on last week's episode Not impressed: Greg shared a picture of his friend Nick The Greek having his shorts pulled down on his stag do but did cover his modesty with an '18' emoji And the reality star revealed she has fallen in love with the Maldives, deciding to spend her first Christmas abroad with boyfriend Paul, son Paul Tony, two, and baby Rosie, 11 months. Her mother-in-law Gaynor and mum Suzanne Wells will also be jetting to the idyllic location for the festive period. She said: 'Its the first time I've ever been away for Christmas. We're going to the Maldives. 'Im really, really excited for it but its going to be weird because I've never been away for Christmas before. 'Im going to a completely different island from Billie but its definitely going to get me into the mood. I know that everyone is going to be thinking about Billie's wedding. In preparation for the Christmas period, Sam, who owns fashion brand All Bits London, has used her sartorial flair to design her own festive jumper for NSPCC, with 100% of proceeds going to charity. The jumper is part of the charitys Christmas fundraising drive, Get Your Sparkle On, encouraging people to wear something sparkly in the month of December and text to donate to the NSPCC. 'Its a charity thats close to my heart, especially being a mum it makes me feel, if not more passionate about, the cause,' she added, with the mum-of-two even bringing in her daughter Rosie to star in the photoshoot. Sam's NSPCC jumper is available in two different colours and sizes from extra small to xxx-large, and can be bought from the NSPCC online shop. Newlyweds Tim Robards and Anna Heinrich have just shelled out $1.9million for a luxury unit in Sydney's affluent Rose Bay. So to help towards the upkeep, the former Bachelor hunk has put his modest Newscastle investment property on the market for $440k, according to the Sunday Telegraph. Purchasing the home in 2001, Tim will stand to make a significant profit after paying $164,000 with the aid of the first home buyer's grant. Bachelor Pad! Tim Robards puts modest three-bedroom investment property on the market for $440k...after snapping up $1.9million Rose Bay unit with new wife Anna Heinrich According to the Street Property listing, the townhouse features three bedrooms and one bathroom. The property is located within walking distance of Newcastle suburb, Charlestown. Set in a pristine complex, the house boasts an inviting floor plan designed for open plan living. According to the Street Property listing, the three-bedroom one-bathroom townhouse is located within walking distance of Newcastle suburb, Charlestown Spacious: Set in a pristine complex, the house boasts an inviting floor plan designed for open plan living A neat and tidy kitchen featuring an electric cook top and dishwasher opens out to an easily maintained north-facing courtyard. Upstairs, three robed bedrooms share a full-size bathroom while the laundry includes a handy second toilet. And an exterior shot reveals a single garage, complete with a roller door. Airy: Upstairs, three robed bedrooms share a full-size bathroom Practical: A neat and tidy kitchen featuring an electric cook top and dishwasher opens out to an easily maintained north-facing courtyard The property sale comes after Tim and Anna, 31 finalised the purchase on a stunning three-bedroom harbourside pad in Sydney's Rose Bay this week, according to The Daily Telegraph. While the pair are currently based in their 'love nest' at Sydney's Bondi, their new pad is in an art-deco building and features beautiful waterside views. Clean and bright: The property boasts a bathroom roomy enough to fit a tub Sunkissed: A north facing courtyard needs little in the way of maintenance Their new unit is in a small block of six and was built in the 1930s, and was previously renting at $1,500 a week. Meanwhile Anna took to Instagram on Saturday, to share a shot of herself on Tim's shoulders, as they posed near the sold sign outside their pad. 'Welcome to our home sweet home,' she captioned the shot. Luxury: The Bachelor newlyweds snapped up a spacious $1.9 million three-bedroom unit in Rose Bay (pictured) During the visit, the Cuban leader held talks with General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee and President Nguyen Phu Trong.Under the witness of the two leaders, Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh and Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung, representing the Vietnamese Government, and Vice President of the Cuban Council of Ministers Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz, on behalf of the Cuban Government, signed a new trade agreement and a protocol on capital disbursement and financial management of cooperation in rice production development for 2019-2023.The Cuban leader also met with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, and Secretary of the Party Committee of Ho Chi Minh City Nguyen Thien Nhan, as well as representatives of the Vietnam-Cuba Friendship Association. He also attended a Vietnam-Cuba business workshop.Earlier, the Cuban leader, his spouse and the Cuban delegation laid a wreath at the Monument of Heroic Martyrs and paid tribute to President Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum in Hanoi.He also visited the Cu Chi Tunnels historical relic site and the Saigon Hi-Tech Park in Ho Chi Minh City.At the meetings, the two sides briefed each other on the situation in their respective countries and discussed orientations and measures to deepen the special relationship between the two nations in an effective and practical manner, while discussing a number of regional and international issues of mutual concern.The two sides applauded the growth of the bilateral comprehensive cooperation, including increasingly trustworthy political ties through the regular exchange of delegations and experiences.Cooperation mechanisms between the Vietnamese and Cuban Governments, ministries, and sectors have been maintained and become more and more effective. Relations between the two parties, parliaments, and peoples have also been enhanced, they noted.The two sides pledged to maintain close and all-round cooperation during their processes of national construction and development. They promised to make every effort to intensify and tighten their exemplary fraternity, traditional friendship, comprehensive cooperation, and faithful solidarity.The two sides discussed a wide range of measures to foster economic, trade, and investment partnerships in a result-oriented and practical manner. They also agreed to strength cooperative ties in defence, security, external relations, agriculture, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, education, and science-technology, and people-to-people exchanges.They agreed to direct ministries and sectors to actively promote the implementation of the bilateral trade cooperation agreement, seek ways to facilitate businesses access to each others markets, and strive to raise trade to US$ 500 million by 2022.On behalf of the Vietnamese State, Party General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong bestowed a Ho Chi Minh Order upon the Cuban leader in recognition of his contributions to the Vietnam-Cuba friendship and cooperation. VNA He's one third of Nova hit drive show alongside Kate Ritchie and Marty Sheargold. But it appears Tim Blackwell is happiest when he is at home with his wife Monique and their two children, Bo and Alfie. Speaking to Stellar magazine on Sunday, the 37-year-old described himself as 'lucky' that he gets to spend the morning with his children. 'It doesn't get much better than that': Nova's Tim Blackwell reveals his favourite moments in life...as he and with Monique prepare for their third child 'I'm so lucky to be able to spend the morning at home with Mon and the kids and then just drive off to do [radio] every day at one o'clock in the afternoon and then be home to read them a story at night. It doesn't get much better than that,' the 37-year-old told the publication. He said most days he takes his daughter to school and helps with packing lunches. 'My little boy is three so we do the park or take him to the library. I did a lot of years of breakfast radio and I was constantly a zombie, and for that I'm not wishing these hours away, that's for sure,' he continued. Tim and Monique are expecting their third child next year. Doting dad: Tim said most days he is fortunate enough to have enough time to take his daughter to school and help with packing lunches The radio star also admitted he still remembers the day he met his wife of eight years. In 2002, Tim had moved to Perth to host Nova 93.7's local drive show and after the station launched with an interview with the Red Hot Chili Peppers there was a party downstairs to celebrate. Monique, who was working was at the network in the promotions team at the time, also attended the celebrations. Eight years married! He said the key to their relationship was when they can get a word in between the screaming and laughing they still love each other's company He said that she walked over to him, and he summoned the courage to ask her out for coffee and the rest was history. When asked by Stellar what the key to their successful relationship was, Tim said that they relished time together despite the chaos that comes with having kids. 'When we can finally get a word in over the screaming and the laughing in the house, we still love the same things and we still love each others company,' he said. It was previously reported that Myer 'replaced' Jennifer Hawkins with Elyse Knowles 'at a fraction of the price'. And according to The Sydney Morning Herald, the 'tension between the pair was super evident' when they posed for one photo at Melbourne's Derby Day last Saturday. The publication went on to allege that the models took to the media wall to play down any speculation of a rift. 'The tension was evident': Elyse Knowles [left], 26, and Jennifer Hawkins [right], 34, 'pose for one awkward photo' at Derby Day last Saturday, to play down rumours of a rift Jennifer, 34, and Elyse, 26, obliged for one photo at race day last Saturday, where they stood with an 'awkward gap between them,' according to The Sydney Morning Herald. And while Jennifer concluded her obligations as a Myer ambassador by attending Melbourne's Oaks Day on Thursday, Elyse was notably absent. In response, Myer issued a statement saying that the former Block winner was 'not contracted to attend Oaks Day'. The reports come after Elyse appeared to try and silence rumours of a feud with Jennifer, who previously represented the retail giant for 12 years. Claims: The models obliged for one photo at race day last Saturday, where they stood with an 'awkward gap between them,' according to The Sydney Morning Herald The blonde beauty took to Instagram on Derby Day, sharing a photo of the pair together while gushing about the former Miss Universe in the caption. In the photo, Elyse is seen standing in front of the media wall, highlighting her slim figure in a black one-shoulder frock by Alex Perry. Jennifer, who also looked stylishin a white ruffled Toni Maticevski design, was seen embracing Elyse in the photo. 'Girls girls girls', Elyse wrote in the caption, before declaring that Jennifer was 'looking smoking'. What feud? Elyse has long claimed that there has been no feud, and Jennifer has always been 'an inspiration' She also made sure to thank Myer for a 'beautiful day'. This is not the first time Elyse has praised Jennifer, telling Stellar in August that the property mogul has always been 'an inspiration'. 'Jen was a big inspiration to try and get (the same job) myself one day. We're in the Myer family together, which is nice,' Elyse told the publication. Earlier that month, The Sunday Telegraph reported that Elyse inked a deal for $300,000 with Myer, to replace the far costlier model, who is believed to have commanded $1 million a year for the same gig. Shortly after, Jennifer took to Instagram to make the announcement that she will retire as Myer ambassador in November. Rumoured to have left over an alleged 'pay dispute', Jennifer spoke highly of the department store - writing: 'Myer will always hold a special place in my heart. New chapter: Jennifer previously took to Instagram to make the announcement that she will retire as Myer ambassador in November 'After 12 years it's time to move onto a new a chapter in my life. I'll be finishing up my role with Myer this November. 'But I would like to take this moment to thank everyone at Myer - the staff, the amazing designers, the suppliers and everyone else for working alongside me over those 12 years. 'Myer will always hold a special place in my heart and I wish the Myer team every success for the future,' she continued. When approached for comment regarding an alleged pay dispute, a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia at the time: 'Jennifer Hawkins is under contract as the Face of Myer until the end of 2018. 'Jennifer will also be actively involved in our spring racing carnival campaign and Myer Fashions on the Field hosted across the Melbourne Cup Carnival.' Jackie 'O' Henderson shocked fans last month when she announced she had split with her husband of 15 years, Lee. But it seems it might not be just the radio star's emotions that will take a hit. New Idea reported this week that the 43-year-old's divorce could leave her $10 million out of pocket. The cost of heartbreak! Jackie 'O' Henderson's (right) divorce from ex-husband Lee (left) could set her back $10 million... after the radio star blasted 'disgusting' rumours she 'found comfort in the arms' of Beau Ryan The magazine claimed that Jackie, who reportedly earns $6 million a year hosting The Kyle & Jackie O Show, could be forced to shell out in a hefty divorce settlement, as well as pay Lee spousal maintenance. 'Jac is and has always been the breadwinner in the relationship, so there is no doubt Lee will struggle without her,' a 'source' allegedly told the publication. 'When she fell pregnant with Kitty, the plan was always to go back to work and make the money and Lee would stay at home and look after [their seven-year-old daughter] Kitty, even though they could have easily afforded a nanny.' The former couple own a lavish $6.7 million home in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Vaucluse, which they bought in 2012. And after the KIIS FM host recently moved out of their marital home, Daily Mail Australia believes Jackie is allowing her ex to 'keep it.' 'It's definitely easier for everyone for him to keep [the house] and [seven-year-old daughter] Kitty will be more settled this way,' an insider said. 'She's got the money to easily buy somewhere new and it isn't really a problem.' Jackie and Lee have made extensive renovations to the 1920s home, with realestate.com.au estimating that it is today worth between $5 and $6.7 million. The radio star has given glimpses inside the luxury abode in Instagram posts shared across the past three years. 'There is no doubt Lee will struggle without her,' A 'source' allegedly told Woman's Day that Jackie has always been the breadwinner and that following their split, Lee will 'struggle' Pictured: Lee and Kitty with their seven-year-old daughter Kitty Big hitter: Jackie reportedly makes $6 million a year hosting the Kyle & Jackie O Show alongside Kyle Sandilands (left) Meanwhile, financial woes aren't the only thing that may be causing concern for Jackie. Last week the blonde presenter slammed rumours she has 'found comfort in the arms' of her colleague Beau Ryan. Woman's Day claimed Jackie's close friendship with Beau caused friction within her marriage to Lee. 'I completely understand why Lee was jealous. Jackie gushes about Beau all the time, and they laugh a lot together,' a 'source' allegedly told the magazine. 'And he's been raving about Jackie to anyone who will listen.' Rival magazine New Idea also got in on the action, claiming that Jackie sought 'comfort in the arms' of Beau, and that the former NRL player made her laugh 'like no one else'. Speculation: Last week, Woman's Day claimed Jackie's close friendship with Beau caused friction within her marriage to Lee, but the blonde was left fuming at the allegations Jackie was irate at the accusations and didn't hold back with her fury during her radio show last week. 'It is completely false and those types of allegations are really hurtful to both families involved in this,' Jackie fumed. 'I would have welcomed a phone call from either magazine for my side of the story but of course there was no phone call made, they just ran with those allegations.' Beau, who regularly fills in for Jackie's co-host Kyle Sandilands, is married to Kara Ryan, and the couple share two children: Remi, five, and Jesse, one 'Those types of allegations are really hurtful to both families involved in this': Jackie last week denied that she had 'found comfort in the arms' of colleague Beau Ryan (pictured) A spokesperson for ARN previously told Daily Mail Australia that any speculation that Jackie and Beau's relationship is anything but 'professional' is completely false. 'Beau is a regular guest on KIIS 1065 with Kyle and Jackie and is a great contributor to the show,' the statement read. 'Confirming that their relationship is strictly professional and any speculation otherwise is completely fabricated and categorically untrue. It's the reality TV spin-off series which brings back the most memorable stars from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette for another shot at love. And as production for Bachelor In Paradise kicks off, more cast members have been 'revealed'. According to New Idea, fan-favourite beauty Vanessa Sunshine from Nick Cummins' season of the Network Ten show will be heading off to Fiji for a second chance at romance. More cast members revealed! Vanessa Sunshine (pictured here) from Nick 'The Honey Badger' Cummins' season of The Bachelor is tipped to join Brooke Blurton and Cass Wood for Bachelor In Paradise 2019 She will be joining Brooke Blurton and Cassandra Wood from who have already been confirmed by Network Ten. Recently eliminated contestant Nathan Favro, who made an appearance on Ali Oetjen's season of The Bachelorette, is also rumoured to make a comeback. 'Nathan was cast as a villain pretty early so producers wanted to give him the chance to redeem himself by going back on TV in a more relaxed environment,' an insider told New Idea. 'And Vanessa? They just love her.' 'Producers wanted to give him the chance to redeem himself': Recently eliminated contestant Nathan Favro (pictured here), who made an appearance on Ali Oetjen's season of The Bachelorette, is also rumoured to make a comeback according to New Idea The source added that crew have been 'begging' Davey Lloyd and Dutch beauty Florence Alexandra to give their relationship another shot after she 'regretted' choosing Jake Ellis over him last season. 'I wouldn't say we're in a relationship but we've been catching up and speaking to one another,' Florence previously told The Daily Telegraph. Other stars believed to be in the cast include blonde bombshell Shannon Baff, who appeared on The Honey Badger's season of The Bachelor and Jules Bourne from Ali Oetjen's season of The Bachelorette, according to Woman's Day. They're back! Blonde beauty Shannon Baff (left), who appeared on Nick Cummin's season of The Bachelor, is reported to return for the spin-off alongside Jules Bourne (right) from Ali Oetjen's season of The Bachelorette Network Ten has already confirmed Cassandra Wood and Brooke Blurton as part of the cast, after they failed to win the heart of Nick Cummins. Meanwhile, the 'mean girls' Cat Henesy and Alisha Aitken-Radburn from the sixth season of The Bachelor are also reported to be contestants. New Idea also claims Bachelor 2016 winner Alex Nation and her former flame, Richie Strahan, are set to star on the upcoming series. Rekindling the romance? The source added that crew have been 'begging' Davey Lloyd (right) and Dutch beauty Florence Alexandra (left) to give their relationship another shot after she 'regretted' choosing Jake Ellis over him last season Former Bachelor In Paradise star Sam Cochrane has previously been rumoured to be given another chance at finding love after his shock split from co-star Tara Pavlovic. And likely joining Sam in sun-soaked Fiji is heartthrob James Trethewie from Sophie Monk's season of The Bachelorette. Meanwhile, rounding out the names is brunette bombshell Rachael Gouvignon, who first appeared on The Bachelor in 2016 and later appeared on the last season of Bachelor in Paradise, but went home single. Take two! Network Ten has already confirmed Cassandra Wood (left) and Brooke Blurton (right) will be heading off to Fiji for a second chance at love after they failed to win the heart of Nick Cummins The Bachelorette star Ali Oetjen claims to have found 'true love' in a preview for this week's dramatic fairy tale finale. And the blonde bombshell, 32, says she has no regrets about her controversial journey to finding her happily ever after, which has included a headline-making cheating scandal. 'I have no regrets,' she told TV Week. 'I was happy I was myself and that I wasn't afraid to be myself.' 'I have no regrets' Bachelorette star Ali Oetjen hits back at critics after THAT controversial staircase cheating scandal... ahead of show's dramatic fairy tale finale After ex boyfriend Grant Kemp accused her of infidelity earlier this year, the scandal was said to have caused low ratings for the show. Ali was famously accused of cheating on Grant on a staircase at his home in Los Angeles earlier this year. She herself has never refuted Grant's allegations, and Channel 10's only statement on the matter did not include a denial. The last time Ali appeared on the Kyle and Jackie O show, she was asked to address the claims and simply responded: 'Everyone has a past'. THAT scandal! After ex Grant Kemp (pictured) accused her of infidelity earlier this year, the scandal was said to have caused low ratings for the show Who will she pick? In the upcoming finale, the blonde will choose between bank manager Taite Radley (left), sales manager Todd King (middle) and plumber Bill Goldsmith (left) Back in May, Grant described the alleged cheating incident in graphic detail. He claimed that Ali engaged in oral sex with another man on his staircase after he briefly left his home to greet other party guests. 'I was shocked, I mean, I didnt even know what to think at the time... I was like, "You need to get all your stuff in your suitcase now and leave",' he said. Grant further alleged that Ali later bombarded him with a series of text messages, apologising for what she had done. 'She was like, "Please, please I hate myself for this, I'm so sorry, I cant believe I did this..." It's like, "Dude, you did it, I dont care if you were drunk or not, that's no excuse."' For the most part, Ali has remained quiet on the allegations. 'I'm so in love': Ali confesses to the show's host Osher Gunsberg that she's in love and excited to tell the winner of the show that she loves him But in an interview with Stellar magazine in September, she accused Grant of only looking for attention. 'My major reason for not saying anything is that I don't want to give him any ammunition or any reason to keep coming back in the limelight, which is what he wants,' she said. Meanwhile, Ali has also faced criticism during her time on Ten romance series for kissing several suitors. But the beauty has gratefully embraced the opportunity. 'When I entered the mansion, I didn't do it for the ratings,' she told TV Week. 'I had the mindset that I'd make the most of every moment and be in every moment.' The reality TV regular is set to choose a winner of the show in what is being billed as a 'dramatic' fairy tale finale for the series. The blonde will choose between plumber Bill Goldsmith, Melbourne bank manager Taite Radley and Perth sales manager, Todd King. In the latest preview for the finale, Ali first confesses she's 'found love' before show host Osher Gunsberg questions her choice of love match. 'Are you sure you're making the right decision?' he asks Ali pointedly. Dressed in a stunning purple evening gown, the dramatic twist sees Ali inconsolable as she brings her hand up to her as she continues to cry. The teaser finishes with Ali confessing: 'I'm so in love.' Hollywood's biggest and brightest stars came out in support of environmental champion, Leonardo DiCaprio. And on Friday, Kate Beckinsale proved herself among the Hollywood elite, as she scored an invite to the Titanic's star's 44th birthday celebration at the Spring Place members club in Los Angeles. Although the festivities began earlier this weekend, the star's official birth date was Sunday. Looking great, Kate! On Friday, Kate Beckinsale, 45, stepped out at the Spring Place members club in Beverly Hills The British beauty displayed her toned arms in a black, spaghetti strap blouse. Kate appeared to pair her top with a set of dark trousers. The well-dressed actress accessorized with dangle earrings and a classic, animal print bag. The star's demure outfit allowed her updo to be the center of attention. Kate wore part of her thick, brown locks down and curled, while the other half was pulled back in a low, loose bun. Lovely: The British beauty displayed her toned arms in a black, spaghetti strap blouse. Joining the star at the exclusive bash were superstars such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Brad Falchuck, Beyonce and Jay Z, Tobey Maguire, Jennifer Aniston, Naomi Campbell, among others. Additionally, Tony Romo, Chace Crawford, Larry David and Sacha Baron Cohen also attended, according to People. According to Page Six, about 50 guests, including Oprah Winfrey, were invited to a private dinner at the Spring Place rooftop. Working woman: Kate has a busy schedule ahead of her. The Underworld talent is currently filming the comedy, El Tonto, alongside Jason Sudeikis, John Malkovich and Adrien Brody. She is seen in LA last month Kate has a busy schedule ahead of her. The Underworld talent is currently filming the comedy, El Tonto, alongside Jason Sudeikis, John Malkovich and Adrien Brody. She'll also appear in the TV series, The Widow, as well as in the film, Toff Guys. As California firefighters continue to battle the Woolsey Fire, which is only at 10% containment, Kris Jenner took to social media to thank them and reached out to fans to help support them. Jenner, 62, took to Twitter on Saturday, sharing photos of a few brave firefighters that were battling the blaze in her neighborhood, along with a heartfelt message of gratitude. 'We spent yesterday evacuating our homes and I want to take a moment to thank all of the incredibly brave firefighters, servicemen, first responders, volunteers and all of those who are working tirelessly to protect our lives and our homes,' Jenner said. Appreciative Kris: Kris Jenner tweets out her admiration and appreciation for Los Angeles firefighters battling the Woolsey Fire in her neighborhood Kris in New York: Kris Jenner was in New York at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on Friday She added in another tweet, 'We are so appreciative of your bravery and everything youre doing for us.' 'Im praying for everyones safety,' she added, along with the hashtags #thankful #gratitude and #woolseyfire. The Kardashian momager also sent out a tweet Saturday to get her fans and followers to help out these brave firefighters in a few different ways. Kris sending her appreciation: She added in another tweet, 'We are so appreciative of your bravery and everything youre doing for us.' 'Please pray for those affected by the fires and to those who are fighting to keep everyone safe!' Jenner added in another tweet. 'Join me in donating to the CA Fire Foundation to help the firefighters who are working to rescue people and battle the fires,' the Kardashian matriarch added. She also asked fans to 'Donate today' to the California Fire Foundation, including a link to their website where fans can donate. Helping the firefighters: 'Please pray for those affected by the fires and to those who are fighting to keep everyone safe!' Jenner added in another tweet. Gracious Kris: 'Join me in donating to the CA Fire Foundation to help the firefighters who are working to rescue people and battle the fires,' the Kardashian matriarch (seen Friday at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in New York) added In her most recent tweet, she shared an image that was passed along by her daughter Kylie Jenner, on the family's group text chain. The image featured items that the local firefighters need, which people are encouraged to drop off at any fire station. The items are 'gallon ziplock bags, eye drops, face wipes, energy drinks, water, granola bars, beef jerky, sunscreen, Gold Bond powder and chapstick.' Group text help: In her most recent tweet, she shared an image that was passed along by her daughter Kylie Jenner, on the family's group text chain She added that, after Kylie sent this image in the group text, Khloe Kardashian took action. 'After @kyliejenner sent this on our family group text @khloekardashian ran to the pharmacy to shop for the Firefighters... such a huge heart Bunny!!' Jenner continued, stating, 'Lets take care of our guys! Thank you to all of the men and women fighting these fires and risking their lives!!' Kris, along with daughters Kim Kardashian-West, Khloe Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian and Kendall Jenner were forced to evacuate their homes due to the fire, but the fire didn't claim any of their homes. Her mansion in Malibu burned to the ground in the Woolsey fire that's devastating a large part of Southern California. And now, according to UsWeekly, Camille Grammer has pulled out of a trip to France with her fellow Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills stars. 'The fires changed her plans at the last minute,' a source told the publication Sunday. Not going: Her mansion in Malibu burned to the ground as wildfires raged and now, according to UsWeekly, Camille Grammer has pulled out of a trip to France with her RHOBH co-stars Lost: The reality star, 50, posted a photo to social media showing her mansion home in flames, confirming that it had been destroyed The source added: 'Camille only had time to pack a few suitcases when the evacuations were ordered. She took some of her jewelry, passport and other items. She will rebuild and she is thankful that she, her husband and kids are safe.' The reality star's 6,000-square-foot mansion went up in flames as the Woolsey fire raged out of control this weekend. She posted an image of the burning home to social media, telling fans: 'Sadly my house couldn't be saved. The courageous firefighters were able to save my cars and personal items recovered from my home. I thanked the fire captain and his team of firemen for all of their hard work.' 'Sad we lost our home but grateful that my family is safe. Luckily we quickly evacuated our house yesterday after a patrol car drove up the street announcing mandatory evacuations. I'm grateful for my lovely neighbors and friends who kept me informed and for their help this evening. Thank you all for caring,' she wrote. Too real: 'The fires changed her plans at the last minute,' a source said Sunday about the upcoming trip overseas. Camillle is pictured with Denise Richards, Dorit Kemsley, Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave and Erika Jayne in September Thankful: Last month, Camille tied the knot in Hawaii with second husband David C. Meyer. She said she's grateful she and her loved ones are safe after losing her home Camille, 50, purchased the property following her 2011 divorce from Frasier star Kelsey Grammer. She shares two children with the actor - Mason, 17, and Jude, 14. On October 20, she married for the second time, tying the knot in Hawaii with David C. Meyer. Camille's RHOBH co-star Denise Richards also lives in the area impacted by the Woolsey fire. She posted a snap to Instagram on Saturday showing her with husband Aaron Phypers and some friends with breathing masks perched on their heads. 'Exhausted, delirious, so grateful to get our fur babies out of our ranch & also help a rescue group with theirs,' Denise, 47, wrote in the caption. 'Thank you to all the firefighters & volunteers working tirelessly & helping all of us.' Celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels is lending a helping hand to the pets of families affected by the California fires. The 44-year-old took to social media to urge evacuated residents - who were forced to leave their animals behind - to contact a number she provided. The Biggest Loser star, along with a pal and police escort, was on location to rescue animals trapped behind barricade. Stepping up: Celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels, 44, is lending a helping hand to the pets of families affected by the California fires On Saturday, Jillian took to both her Instagram and Stories to alert her followers, as well as update them on her search and rescue mission. 'If your animals are behind blockades in danger call 1-424-248-7458,' she wrote in one post. She also requested fans to direct message her if they were able to 'take animals in to shelter.' On high alert: The fitness star took to social media to urge evacuated residents - who were forced to leave their animals behind - to contact a number she provided Keeping them in the loop: Jillian took to both her Instagram and Stories to update her followers on her search and rescue mission Seeking help: She also requested fans to direct message her if they were able to 'take animals in to shelter' The star was joined by several other volunteers waiting to rescue the animals trapped behind the blockades. In another part of her Story, Jillian shared snaps of rescued pets. All animals rescued included 'chickens, cats, alpacas, cow and tortoise.' The beauty promised to continue the rescue on to Sunday. 'No tortoise left behind': In another part of her Story, Jillian shared snaps of rescued pets Saving animal lives: Another shot featured a collection of chickens Gathering a herd: She also rescued animals from a local farm The California wildfires, affecting both the northern and southern part of the state, have so far claimed the lives of 25 people. Reportedly, over 170,000 Los Angeles residents have had to evacuate their homes, many in the Thousand Oaks and Malibu areas of the city. Celebrities such as Gerard Butler, Robin Thicke and Camille Grammer have had their homes completely demolished. She has returned to Cornwall with her on-screen husband Aidan Turner to reprise her role as Ross Poldark's wife Demelza for the final time. And Eleanor Tomlinson, 26, channelled her Poldark character in a dramatic windswept photoshoot for Town & Country magazine. The red-haired beauty looks every inch the star as she posed with a gorgeous horses on the stunning Cornish beaches. In Character: Eleanor Tomlinson, 26, channelled her Poldark character in a dramatic windswept photoshoot for Town & Country magazine Another photo shows the star galloping on the beach with her flame hair blowing in the wind, the picture of a Cornish heroine. The actress has said she feel lucky to have bagged her role in Poldark as it has opened up so many doors. The London born stunner told Town & Country UK: 'I see it as a privilege to be part of Poldark'. Country girl: Another photo shows the star galloping on the beach with her flame hair blowing in the wind, the picture of a Cornish heroine. She looked a perfect country girl as she rode the horse along the beach, before posing with her dog, Burt, on the cliff edge. 'I feel extremely lucky to be working, and it has opened up so many doors for me. 'Without sounding too corny, it's taught me about the kind of actress I want to be; and playing Demelza has shown me how to be fearless and follow my heart.' Star-studded: Tomlinson's latest projects include a BBC adaptation of The War Of The Worlds, and playing Keira Knightley's character's lover in the film Colette Tomlinson's latest projects include a BBC adaptation of The War Of The Worlds, and playing Keira Knightley's character's lover in the film Colette. 'Working with Keira was quite extraordinary,' said Tomlinson. The winter issue of Town & Country UK is on sale from November 15. Earlier this week, the Angus Thongs, and Perfect Snogging star shared a snap of herself on Instagram, where she posted in front of a Demelza road sign writing: 'Cornwall - the heart of Poldark. Last day filming here. Thank you for the last 5 years and the wonderful memories. It has been a blast. Until our next adventure.' As Poldark nears its final chapter, the actress revealed travelling around the country to film the hit BBC show has convinced her to move away from London. 'As you travel around and see so many beautiful parts of the world, it makes you think, "Why am I in London, not seeing anyone?" she told the magazine. 'I don't even know my neighbours. I want something more homely. There was a time when if you were in acting, you had to be in the capital, but that's definitely changing. You can live anywhere.' She has recently joined the social media site, but joked it was only to promote her dog, Burt. 'The only reason I joined Instagram was to promote my dog. I thought, if he gets a Pedigree Chum advert, I can just sit back and relax, and not worry about what the next job is. Exploit him, make money out of him, that's my plan.' In June, she split up with her co-star boyfriend Harry Richardson, who plays her brother Drake Carne. Fans were understandably devastated by the finale of the fourth series of Poldark, when Ross was left shattered after his childhood sweetheart Elizabeth Warleggan (Heida Reed) died. The winter issue of Town & Country UK is on sale from November 15. Property of the whole society Reports from many international organizations show that Vietnam needs to gather necessary content to develop its digital economy. In particular, it should quickly create an effective digital database, form a corresponding legal basis, adjust the education system to have suitable human resources for this development, and build as well as manage the open-sourced data so that businesses and citizens can easily access this information. According to Vice Chairman of the HCMC Peoples Committee Tran Vinh Tuyen, 80 percent of the population in HCMC possess smart devices, and the city has the greatest capacity related to information technology, both of which have become advantages for the city to develop its digital economy. Since HCMC is transforming into a smart urban area, the demand to access and make use of open-sourced data of administrative units, businesses, and citizens is so high that it is critical for the government to immediately build one, in the hope that the growth of the e-government, economy, and startup ecosystems can simultaneously developed thanks to the complete unity. Many experts also stated that open-sourced data is the shared property of the whole society, contributing to the growth of a digital economy. At the moment, the city is building its ecosystem of open-sourced data to integrate databases of different departments, industries, and district units. Priority to major critical fields Open-sourced data include different national databases like the national statistics, the government budget, the information on weather, maps and the local databases such as information on social security, transport and logistics, business permits, educational institutes. At present, despite the appearance of many open-sourced data from social networks and businesses or organizations, the most widely used is still the formal ones from the government and state-related units. According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Phuc, Head of the Authority of Information Technology Application under the Ministry of Information and Communications, the e-government is now developed on the track of a digital government with three basis of considering citizens as the center, the government its foundation, and databases the core. As a result, administrative officers are able to use those databases to design planning policies, making quick and precise decisions, while citizens can access administrative services online and companies can develop applications that take advantage of governmental data. As Vietnam only begins the process of building such a necessary open source, there is a serious lack of data and data applications, so it is essential to prioritize certain major fields with a clear goal and route. Mr. Phuc said that the construction of an e-government in Vietnam to some extent has achieved positive results. However, some national databases like population, national land, finance is not very effectively collected, leading to a difficulty in sharing information on these fields. What is more, the access of online administrative services is still incoherent and unfriendly. In reality, the number of processed online documents is quite low. Some administrative services are not even allowed online. Another drawback is that integrated platforms to share data are sluggishly carried out. By BA TAN Translated by Vien Hong She's made millions laugh as the star of Bridesmaids and Spy as well as her turn as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday Night Live. And on Sunday night, Melissa McCarthy was honored with the first-ever People's Icon award at the People's Choice Awards in Santa Monica. 'It was so overwhelming and incredibly sweet of all of you,' the actress, 48, told her fans as she thanked them for voting for her. 'I am thankful to you because you actually engaged and you cared about things - movies and music and people in the world around you and you took the time and put the effort in to have your voice be heard and that is tremendously inspiring to me,' she said. Winner: Melissa McCarthy was honored with the first-ever People's Icon award at the People's Choice Awards in Santa Monica on Sunday night and thanked her fans in an emotional speech McCarthy also took the time in her acceptance speech to mention the out-of-control wildfire that is ravaging the Southern California communities of Malibu, Thousand Oaks, Oak Park, Agoura Hills and Calabasas just outside of Los Angeles. The blaze has charred more than 83,000 acres, displaced 250,000 people and destroyed at least 177 structures. The Mike And Molly sitcom star urged her fans: 'And, if you can just do one more thing with your power - because when people come together, there is such incredible power in it - please keep the victims and firefighters in your thoughts and any contribution to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation.' 'One dollar, 50 cents, it will be put into great use and it will make a difference. There is great power in this room and everyone who's watching,' McCarthy urged. 'It was so overwhelming and incredibly sweet of all of you,' the actress, 48, told her fans after receiving her trophy Touched: 'I am thankful to you because you .... took the time and put the effort in to have your voice be heard and that is tremendously inspiring to me,' she said Pals: McCarthy was presented with her trophy by actress Allison Janney, who worked with her in 2015's Spy Fun times: The two stars had a blast as they posed for photos together The star, who is married to Ben Falcone, was presented with her trophy by actress Allison Janney, who worked with her in 2015's Spy. McCarthy's latest movie is the based-on-a-true-story dramatic comedy Can You Ever Forgive Me? It's garnering awards buzz for the actress who received Oscar and SAG nominations for her supporting role in the 2011 big screen hit Bridesmaids and a Golden Globe nomination for Spy. For her big night Sunday, McCarthy chose a stylish ensemble of long black and white patterned coat over a black turtleneck sweater and black trousers. She wore her brunette shoulder-length hair with a center parting and as made up with lashings of black mascara and ruby red lip color. She was accompanied to the awards show by Falcone, 45, whom she wed in 2005. Couple goals: The actress was accompanied to the awards show by Falcone, 45, whom she wed in 2005 Stylish duo: McCarthy chose an ensemble of long black and white patterned coat over a black turtleneck sweater and black trousers while Janney rocked a one-shoulder white jumpsuit In a press release, Jen Neal, the Executive Producer of Live Events and Executive Vice President of Marketing for E!, explained why McCarthy was chosen to receive the People's Icon award. She said: 'Melissa McCarthy is a multi-talented actor, writer, producer and director and who has starred in some of the most iconic movies and television shows of the past decade.' Neal added: 'She is beloved by the people and we couldn't think of anyone more fitting or deserving to honor as The People's Icon of 2018.' Melissa rose to fame as Sookie St. James on the hit television drama Gilmore Girls. and went on to headline the sitcom Mike and Molly. The mother-of-two received a coveted star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2015. T Critically acclaimed: McCarthy is garnering awards buzz for her latest role in the based-on-a-true-story dramatic comedy Can You Ever Forgive Me? She's been touted as Australia's answer to Kim Kardashian as she seemingly copies everything from her risque selfies to idyllic holiday destinations. And on Monday, the Gold Coast-based Instagram model, Tammy Hembrow appeared to imitate Hollywood's most famous socialite once again. The blonde fitness entrepreneur, 24, was seen flaunting her assets in an eye-popping plunging neon pink mini-dress, which bared an uncanny resemblance to the bodycon dress Kim, 37, wore to her sister, Kylie Jenner's 21st birthday family dinner. Scroll down for video Keeping Up With Kim! Instagram model Tammy Hembrow pulls a Kim Kardashian as she squeezes into an eye-popping neon pink mini-dress. Tammy (left) pictured in November 2018 and Kim (right) as she celebrates sister Kylie Jenner's 21st birthday at family dinner in August The Aussie upstart continued to channel the popular Kardashian sister as she showcased her taut abs and sunkissed frame in the midriff-baring ensemble. Just like Kim, Tammy also drew attention to her pert derriere as she pressed her bodacious backside down on the bed. However the blonde bombshell decided to straighten her flaxen locks into a silky, smooth hairstyle, unlike the brunette reality TV star, who opted for wet-look waves. Meanwhile, Tammy accessorised her Barbie Girl look with a hot pink clutch, which she placed beside her perfectly bronzed pins. Seeing double! The Aussie upstart continued to channel the popular Kardashian sister (pictured) as she showcased her taut abs and sunkissed frame in the midriff-baring ensemble Earlier, the buxom blonde took to her Instagram Story to flaunt her cavernous cleavage in the skin-tight ensemble. The busty star filmed herself playfully poking her tongue out of her mouth alongside the caption: 'So Temmy.' Tammy's Kardashian-esque post comes after she made headlines across the world in August when she was carried out of Kylie Jenner's 21st birthday party face down on a stretcher. SO Kimmy! The busty star filmed herself playfully poking her tongue out of her mouth alongside the caption: 'So Temmy' Following the incident, it was reported that several members of the Kardashian family - including Kim - had unfollowed her on Instagram. While the model's relationship with the Kardashian-Jenner family remains uncertain following the incident, it seems she is nonetheless determined to continued to be inspired by the US superstar's aesthetic. Back in April, Tammy posted a picture of herself wearing white tracksuit trousers and a matching hoodie as she kicked back on board a plane. Keeping Up with the Kardashians! Instagram model Tammy Hembrow (right) appears to be transforming into Kim (left) as she copies her poses, outfits and even holiday destinations Fans will of course know that Kim frequently travels in the same laid-back, luxe look - as demonstrated by a remarkably similar Instagram post from 2017. What's more, a photo from Kim's Instagram account shows her rocking a black bikini and braids as she soaks up the sun in a tropical destination. Interestingly, Tammy shared a near-identical photo several months later - although it appears to be a throwback snap, meaning it could potentially have been taken before Kim went on vacation. Inspiration! There's no denying Tammy has been inspired by the American superstar's unique aesthetic - namely the sweatpants-and-sneaker ensemble that has become her signature look. Pictured left: Kim. Right: Tammy Two of a kind! The younger model also appears to be taking style tips from the reality TV queen, as they have been seen sporting similar outfits and haircuts. Furthermore, even their holiday destinations seem to be remarkably similar. Pictured left: Kim. Right: Tammy Meanwhile, Tammy is a doting mother to two young children - two-year-old daughter Saskia and three-year-old son Wolf, who she shares with ex-fiance Reece Hawkins. Furthermore it seems she could even be taking parenting tips from Kim when it comes to posing for Insta-perfect family snaps. Kim is well-known for sharing images of her children - North, Saint and Chicago - on social media, and Tammy has a similar habit of documenting every detail of her kids' lives. Rising star Jacob Tremblay has landed another big role, playing an unspecified character in Doctor Sleep, a sequel to the 1980 classic The Shining. TMZ reports that the 12-year-old actor closed a $100,000 deal for the role, but the report doesn't mention what character Tremblay is playing in this adaptation of Stephen King's 2013 novel. Ewan McGregor leads the cast as the adult version of Danny Torrance, with other characters from The Shining such as Danny's mother, Wendy Torrance and Overlook Hotel caretaker Dick Halloran played by Alex Essoe and Carl Lumbly, respectively. New cast member: Jacob Tremblay (seen here at the Toronto International Film Festival in September) has signed on for an unspecified role in The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep Given that younger actors are playing characters from The Shining, presumably in flashbacks, it's possible that Tremblay is playing a young Danny Torrance in flashbacks as well, though that is not confirmed. The story follows Danny, who became an alcoholic like his father Jack Torrance, but he eventually gives up drinking and settles into a small New Hampshire community, working at a nursing home where his 'shining' powers comfort the dying. He meets a young girl named Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), whose shining ability are the most powerful she's ever seen. Rising star: TMZ reports that the 12-year-old actor closed a $100,000 deal for the role, but the report doesn't mention what character Tremblay is playing in this adaptation of Stephen King's 2013 novel Danny helps Abra as they both try to elude a powerful cult known as The True Knot, who live off the 'steam' given off by children who can 'shine,' lead by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson). The cast of Doctor Sleep also includes Bruce Greenwood as Dr. John, Emily Alyn Lind as Snakebite Andi and Jocelin Donahue as Lucy. Mike Flanagan, whose Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House has been getting rave reviews, is directing from his own script, adapted from King's novel. Mystery role: Given that younger actors are playing characters from The Shining, presumably in flashbacks, it's possible that Tremblay is playing a young Danny Torrance in flashbacks as well, though that is not confirmed There is no word yet on when production will begin on Doctor Sleep, but Warner Bros. has already set a January 24, 2020 release date. As of now, Doctor Sleep is the only movie slated for release on that date. Tremblay has already had quite a big year, starring in The Predator, with his film The Life and Death of John F. Donovan premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Standing tall: Tremblay (seen at WE Day in September) has already had quite a big year, starring in The Predator, with his film The Life and Death of John F. Donovan premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September Tremblay had his breakthrough role in 2015's Best Picture nominee Room, starring as the on-screen son of Brie Larson The young star will be reuniting with director Flanagan, who directed him in the 2016 thriller Before I Wake. He also lends his voice to the title character of the Amazon animated series Pete the Cat, and he stars in the upcoming Good Boys, slated for release in August 2019. Young star: Tremblay had his breakthrough role in 2015's Best Picture nominee Room, starring as the on-screen son of Brie Larson Porsha Williams had her 'first argument' with her boyfriend Dennis McKinley on Sunday's episode of The Real Housewives Of Atlanta. The outspoken reality star was celebrating her 37th birthday in Miami with Dennis which began with romance and lavish presents. First he gifted her with a Rolex watch, flowers and dinner cooked by a top chef. First argument: Porsha Williams had her 'first argument' with new boyfriend Dennis McKinley on Sunday's episode of The Real Housewives Of Atlanta During the meal she made him feed her the last piece of her dessert, then lay supine on the bed enticingly. 'Oh lord, we ain't going nowhere are we,' chuckled Dennis, a Detroit-born businessman. Her next gift was a diamond crucifix necklace, but an argument followed shortly afterward. It began when he refused to let her borrow his toothbrush and quickly escalated. Quickly escalated: The 37-year-old reality star got upset when Dennis refused to let her borrow his toothbrush Heated up: Porsha raged at Dennis over the toothbrush but quickly calmed down and decided that 'ignorance is bliss' Birthday presents: Dennis gifted Porsha with several lavish presents before their argument 'You were drunk last night,' she raged, before promptly calming down and deciding that 'ignorance is bliss.' 'I'm supposed to be hiding the crazy,' she decided. Meanwhile, NeNe was opening her new 'swaggalicious' boutique. Hiding it: The Atlanta native said she forgot that she's supposed to be 'hiding the crazy' Designer outfit: Porsha got back at Marlo Hampton by wearing her designer clothes 'I'm like a cereal entrepreneur,' she announced. 'I'm just trying to keep my wig above water honey,' she added. In Miami, NeNe Leakes was set to hit the comedy stage for the first time since her husband Gregg's cancer diagnosis. 'It's my first time getting on stage since last year's whole Uber thingoh my god,' said the 50-year-old comic, who faced fierce criticism after telling a heckler at a previous show that she hoped she'd get 'raped by her Uber driver.' On stage: NeNe Leakes was getting back on the comedy stage for the first time since an ugly incident with a heckler Prayer time: The women prayed for NeNe and her husband Gregg after his cancer diagnosis 'I've learned a better way of handling the heckler,' she said, noting that these days she planned to call 'security' or 'let the audience rip' them up. As NeNe prepped for the event the other RHOA women downed cocktails and argued over who should get the penthouse suite. They then rocked up to surprise NeNe, which left her touched to the point of tears. Suprise appearance: NeNe playfully scolded her friends for surprising her in Miami 'It really warms my heart,' she said gratefully. Gregg confessed that he'd been so ill that he'd been unable to eat for three days, but NeNe bravely hit the stage moments later. 'B**** I'm a motherf***ing hustler,' she told the crowd. Stand-up routine: The Atlanta resident performed on the comedy stage for the first time since Gregg's cancer diagnosis The show went off without a hitch so the ladies went for celebratory drinks. Kandi Burruss advised Porsha to not bully Dennis into marriage. 'I think that advice is pretty generalbut thank you,' shrugged Porsha dismissively. Marriage talk: Porsha gushed about her new boyfriend and was already talking marriage as Kandi Burruss looked on 'I know a few different women who have dated him,' Kandi added later while talking to her husband Todd. At the Swaggilicious opening NeNe prayed for Gregg's health and 'money' for her cash registers. 'Dealing with my husband's health is a lot for me right now,' she said sadly. Boutique opening: NeNe also opened her new Swaggalicious boutique in Atlanta Gregg got overwhelmed by the crowds and had to sit outside. 'In sickness and in health, those vows mean something to me,' said NeNe with gravitas. RHOA will return next week on Bravo. Showing support: The women also supported NeNe at the opening of her Swaggalicious store Larissa Dos Santos Lima of TLC's 90 Day Fiance has been arrested in connection with domestic battery. The 32-year-old Brazilian beauty, who's in a domestic partnership with Colt Johnson, was taken into custody in Nevada this past weekend, according to jail records. She's waiting to make her initial appearance before a judge in a hearing on Tuesday, according to E! News. Troubles: Larissa Dos Santos Lima, 32, of TLC's 90 Day Fiance has been arrested in connection with domestic battery. She's pictured here with partner Colt Johnson, 33 Her bail amount was first posted as $3,000 bail, and subsequently lowered to $1,000, the outlet reported. According to InTouch, the spat between the two began after Colt asked her to downplay their relationship on social media to sync with their storyline on the TLC program. That led to unusual Instagram activity indicating trouble on the horizon. Larissa switched her username to @helpmeimwithoutphone and wrote on her profile: 'HE TURNED OFF ... HIDE MY PHONE ... HELP ME ... HE WANTS TO CALL THE POLICE HELP ME.' Johnson subsequently detailed the duo's problems in a string of Instagram Stories messages that he subsequently deleted, according to the outlet. 'Larissa was arrested this afternoon. She suffers from high anxiety and several depression. She over reacted to problems that do not exist.' She said he 'deactivated her phone to try to defuse the situation,' which 'escalated issues and matters became worse.' Reality stars: The pair have appeared on the TLC hit 90 Day Fiance Recurring: Larissa earlier this year was taken into custody in connection with domestic violence, with the charges subsequently dismissed, according to E! He continued: 'She felt this action was a threat towards her and tried to reach out for help. Not long after her cry was posted, the police came and knocked down the front door. They drew their guns at me and handcuffed me.' Johnson said that authorities 'decided to arrest Larissa' after speaking with both parties, clarifying that 'no one was hurt and I did not press charges against my wife.' He said that state law required an arrest to be made 'since [he and Larissa] are in a domestic partnership.' Larissa earlier this year was taken into custody in connection with domestic violence, with the charges subsequently dismissed, according to E!. Six-time Emmy nominee Christina Hendricks found a fashionable way to celebrate Veterans Day while attending the People's Choice Awards in Santa Monica on Sunday. The 43-year-old Mad Men alum dressed her famously curvaceous 5ft7in figure in an olive-green aviator jumpsuit and sparkly silver pumps selected by stylist Lawren Sample. The Tennessee-born beauty's flight suit, which was embellished with several military-style patches, was her salute to those who fought for the United States Armed Forces on the national holiday. Coveralls: Six-time Emmy nominee Christina Hendricks found a fashionable way to celebrate Veterans Day while attending the People's Choice Awards in Santa Monica on Sunday Red clutch: The 43-year-old Mad Men alum dressed her famously curvaceous 5ft7in figure in an olive-green aviator jumpsuit and sparkly silver pumps selected by stylist Lawren Sample Hairstylist Kat Thompson coiffed Christina's signture red bob, which was accented with large silver hoop earrings. And make-up artist Vanessa Scali added a pop of color to Hendricks' alabaster complexion with red lipstick. 'I've been warned I'll be criticized [about my fashion choices],' the former teen goth told Variety back in August. 'I don't care anymore. We need interesting and unique fashion choices on the red carpet...I will wear what I truly love and not worry about the critics.' Embellished with military-style patches:The Tennessee-born beauty's flight suit was her salute to those who fought for the United States Armed Forces on the national holiday Flame locks: Hairstylist Kat Thompson coiffed Christina's signture red bob, which was accented with large silver hoop earrings Red-y for her close-up! Make-up artist Vanessa Scali added a pop of color to Hendricks' alabaster complexion with red lipstick The former teen goth told Variety in August: 'I've been warned I'll be criticized. I don't care anymore. We need interesting and unique fashion choices on the red carpet...I will wear what I truly love and not worry about the critics' The Candy Jar actress served presenting duties at the Barkar Hangar ceremony alongside her Good Girls castmates Mae Whitman and Retta. The 30-year-old blonde - who plays Annie Marks - took took the plunge in a white double-breasted blazer, matching scallop-hemmed shorts, and coral suede pumps. And the 48-year-old comedian - who plays Ruby Hill - donned a blue sheer blouse with a coordinating floral green maxi-shirt selected by stylist Jaime Elyse. The talented trio were photobombed by none other than The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, who took home the People's Choice Awards trophy for best nighttime talk show. Hey ladies! The Candy Jar actress served presenting duties at the Barkar Hangar ceremony alongside her Good Girls castmates Mae Whitman (L) and Retta (M) Bra-less: The 30-year-old blonde - who plays Annie Marks - took took the plunge in a white double-breasted blazer, matching scallop-hemmed shorts, and coral suede pumps Sixties retro: The 48-year-old comedian - who plays Ruby Hill - donned a blue sheer blouse with a coordinating floral green maxi-shirt selected by stylist Jaime Elyse Stealing spotlight: The talented trio were photobombed by The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, who took home the People's Choice Awards trophy for best nighttime talk show Premieres next year on NBC! Fans can catch more of Christina as Beth Boland pursuing a life of crime with her fellow financially-strapped, lifelong best friends in the second season Fans can catch more of Christina as Beth Boland pursuing a life of crime with her fellow financially-strapped, lifelong best friends when the second season of the drama premieres nexy year on NBC. On October 11, Hendricks and her husband Geoffrey Arend impressively celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary at chef Josef Centeno's Asian-Italian restaurant Orsa & Winston in Los Angeles. The Tin Star stunner and the half-Pakistani 40-year-old do not plan on expanding their family outside of their beloved 'surrogate daughter' - six-year-old dog Zouzou. 'There's only one place we'd celebrate!' On October 11, Hendricks and her husband Geoffrey Arend celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary at chef Josef Centeno's Asian-Italian restaurant Orsa & Winston in Los Angeles Not having children: The Tin Star stunner and the half-Pakistani 40-year-old do not plan on expanding their family outside of their six-year-old dog Zouzou (pictured October 6) Geoffrey pulled double duty directing and starring as speechwriter Matt Mahoney in this Sunday night's episode of Madam Secretary on CBS. Surprisingly, the acting pair's only onscreen collaboration thus far was a 2011 episode of ABC's medical drama Body of Proof. Christina currently plays vulnerable actress Olivia Rogers in Matthew Weiner's eight-episode Russian descendents drama The Romanoffs, which streams Fridays on Amazon. 'Proud to say I directed tonight's episode!' Geoffrey pulled double duty directing and starring as speechwriter Matt Mahoney in this Sunday night's episode of Madam Secretary on CBS Streams Fridays on Amazon! Christina currently plays vulnerable actress Olivia Rogers in Matthew Weiner's eight-episode Russian descendents drama The Romanoffs They tied the knot in September 2013 and now share two children together, sons Ted, three, and Jack, two. And now radio star Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli, 39, and wife Lisa, 36, have revealed their sweet love story. Speaking to Monday's New Idea, the pair revealed how it was love at first sight for them when they first met at a cafe in Sydney and shared details of their intimate first date. 'Our eyes connected': Lisa and Michael Wipfli reveal how it was love at first sight when they first met... and share details of their intimate date 'I was ordering a chicken wrap downstairs and she was getting a sandwich and our eyes connected,' Wippa said about the moment which was six years ago. 'I looked at the sandwich, looked back at her, she looked back at the sandwich, then at me and it was like "Oh my God, do we just love food or do we love each other?" The pair said they enjoyed a small chat in the elevator back up to the office, with Lisa being new at radio station Nova after five years in London. To think they first met when ordering lunch! The pair revealed how they met at a cafe on a lunch break at work. She admitted to the publication that she found Wippa 'very handsome,' but didn't know who he was She admitted to the publication that she found Wippa 'very handsome,' but didn't know who he was. Wippa said he chased Lisa a little and would always walk past her desk to see her. 'But I think she was just as keen on me as I was on her. It kind of grew from there.' The pair soon shared a dinner date. Wippa explained how at the restaurant, Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High came on TV and he told her how much he wanted to watch it. He then said he asked her to watch it at his place with some wine. Wippa said they enjoyed watching the show and shared a kiss, saying how important 'humour' is in a relationship. Family: The couple tied the knot in September 2013 and now share two children together, sons Ted, three, and Jack, two This year, the pair celebrated their five-year wedding anniversary. Lisa took to Instagram in September to mark the occasion, gushing over her man, calling him the 'husband of my dreams'. 'Even with your current pink eye situation, I love you beyond words and I sure am the luckiest girl in the world,' she wrote. 'That day I walked into the sandwich shop under the Nova offices, fresh off the plane from London, I was instantly attracted to you.' She added how she knew he was 'The One' right away. 'Two weeks into meeting you, I knew you were the man I was going to marry (creepy), I've never felt so sure about anything in my life. Thank you for making me the happiest I've ever been and giving me the two most perfect little boys.' Advertisement She's currently in Sydney to attend the swanky GQ Australia Men Of The Year Awards. And on Monday, Emily Ratajkowski made the most of Australia's sunny weather by heading to Sydney's Camp Cove beach for a swim clad in a very revealing two-piece. The 27-year-old model and actress turned heads in a skimpy string bikini that could barely contain her Insta-famous curves and put her at risk of getting some very awkward tan lines. Summer just got hotter! Emily Ratajkowski made the most of Australia's sunny weather by heading to Sydney's iconic Camp Cove beach for a swim on Monday The Blurred Lines bombshell flaunted her incredible cleavage in the skimpy bikini with a tiny top that barely contained her ample assets, and a pair of minuscule G-string briefs that displayed her pert derriere. While almost every inch of her body was left uncovered under the scorching Sydney sun, Emily made sure that her eyes were protected behind a pair of dark sunglasses. Despite being dressed for a swim, the star only waded knee-deep into the ocean before returning to the comfort of her towel to strike some poses and work on her tan. The brunette briefly covered up in a black crop top, but her derriere and taut abs were still visible for all to see. Stringy! The star's unique bikini, which is from her own bikini line, featured string ties around the torso Wardrobe malfunction? Emily suffered a nip slip during a beverage break at a kiosk by the beach as her scanty bikini top slipped to the side and exposed her modesty To help keep cool in the sweltering weather, Emily and her female pal headed to a kiosk by the beach to pick up an icy beverage. Looking every inch the supermodel, the scantily-clad actress appeared to pose against the counter as she sipped what looked like an iced coffee. Unfortunately, her bikini appeared to shift during the beverage break, resulting in an awkward nip slip for the star, however, she didn't seem too fazed by the mishap, adjusting her swimwear before heading back out onto the beach. Wild thing! The Instagram sensation ran her fingers through her luscious brown mane as the sun beat down on her tanned skin Just the two of us: Emily and her pal returned from the kiosk with a snack and a cool drink in hand Supermodel strut: Emily strutted along the sand, turning the sandy shores of Camp Cove into her own personal runway The brunette beauty is in the country to host GQ Australias Men Of The Year Awards on Wednesday night. She arrived in Australia after a trip to Las Vegas over the weekend to attend the REVOLVE Awards, where she won the coveted Woman of the Year award. Earlier this year, Emily surprised friends and fans when she announced she married Sebastian Bear-McClard in a courthouse wedding in February after dating just a few weeks. Talking about the weather? Emily and her female friend engaged in a deep conversation as they stared out to sea Back to front! The Gone Girl stunner twirled around at the kiosk, giving onlookers a glimpse of her famous behind Girl power! The self-proclaimed feminist hugged her stunning friend from behind after fixing up her bikini top A friend in need is a friend indeed! The Gone Girl starlet proved that her friendship is the real deal by stopping everything to fix her friend's top Sebastian, who is an actor and producer, wooed his lady to the altar in unique fashion that included some fast-thinking ingenuity. Turns out, he proposed to her with a ring made out of the paper clip from her restaurant bill. 'He proposed to me at Minetta Tavern [an upscale restaurant in New York City], and he didn't have a ring so I was like, mmm, nah,' the model and actress revealed during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. 'And then he took the paper clip that the bill was paid with and made me a ring which I actually thought was really romantic.' Splish splash! The model, who famously appeared nude in Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines music video, splashed around the surf Staying dry? Despite being dressed for a swim, the bikini-clad beauty only waded knee-deep into the ocean before returning to her towel Twinning! Emily and her gorgeous friend showed off their peachy derrieres in similarly revealing bikini bottoms Sebastian does not appear to have joined his wife on her trip Down Under. Besides being an actress and a model, Emily is also a well-known activist who regularly speaks out about political and social issues. The self-proclaimed feminist uses popular hashtags like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter on social media, and often attends protests with her celebrity friends. Nothin' but a G-string thing: The tiny black bikini bottom was almost too small to contain Emily's pert derriere Shady lady! While almost every inch of her body was left uncovered under the scorching Sydney sun, Emily made sure that her eyes were protected behind a pair of dark sunglasses In October, Emily and comedian Amy Schumer were arrested while protesting Brett Kavanaugh. 'Today I was arrested protesting the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a man who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault,' she tweeted after the arrest. 'Men who hurt women can no longer be placed in positions of power.' Amy later jumped on social media too, where she said that Emily had 'sacrificed herself fighting to protect women's rights to choose what they do with their own bodies.' Blown away! The wind blew Emily's brunette locks into her face, which may have made it difficult for her to see as she walked Just a minor adjustment? The political activist adjusted her busty cleavage before settling down on her beach towel Time to relax: Emily got down on all fours as she arranged herself on her beach towel to enjoy the Sydney sunshine Just chilling: The political powerhouse let the warm sunshine bronze her body while wisely keeping her face out of the sun with a hat and sunglasses Flashing her flesh! Emily showcased her chiselled abs as she lay down on the towel, Thirsty? To ensure that she wouldn't dehydrate in the Australian sun, the brunette carried a yellow drink bottle with her Time to go already? The I Feel Pretty actress stood up and slipped a skimpy crop top over her busty cleavage When she's not working as a political activist, Emily is booked in for a variety of stunning photoshoots. In an interview with The New York Times, Emily revealed how she stays in shape for her modelling career, explaining that its about feeling good about what you eat. I do love turmeric and beet juice. Its so L.A., you cant avoid it. But I dont have a trainer, and I dont really go to the gym.' I go on long walks and hikes with my girlfriends. Thats about it. Im just not a crazy fitness person. Im definitely an outlier in the industry. In addition to this, Emily told Harpers Bazaar that she goes to Blacktop Coffee and get this pastry called kouign-amann with my black coffee every day.' Emily also has a salad or a sandwich for lunch, but told Elle that she really likes to eat meat. I crave iron so I am definitely not the kind of person who you will often find eating a plain salad.' Let's go! Emily got dressed in a crop top and a pair of sneakers as she left the beach with her pal in tow No need for jeans! Instead of wearing her jeans, Emily decided to carry them in her hand as she walked All right in white! Emily took to social media to share a raunchy photo of herself wearing a cream bikini She added: 'I like to keep it really balanced to give my body energy and also be healthy. For dinner, the model usually uses this time to socialise and orders a takeaway, as she revealed when speaking to Jimmy Kimmel, You should see my refrigerator. Its insane. I have a relationship with Postmates. Its basically Indian food and Thai food, preferably when Im horizontal in bed. She added: I cook a lot, so that really helps: You know how much salt and sugar and all of that kind of stuff you are putting in your body. The Real Housewives of New Jersey's Joe Giudice has reportedly filed to appeal immigration Judge John Ellington's October 9th decision to deport him back to his native Italy next March after his 41-month prison sentence. The Saronno-born 46-year-old moved to the States as a one-year-old baby with his parents, but he somehow never became a US citizen despite being married to New Jersey-born Teresa Gorga since 1999. 'The appeal has been filed and we remain optimistic that Joe will soon be home with his family where he belongs,' Giudice's attorney James Leonard Jr. told Page Six on Sunday. Legal battle: The Real Housewives of New Jersey's Joe Giudice has reportedly filed to appeal immigration Judge John Ellington's October 9th decision to deport him back to his native Italy next March after his 41-month prison sentence (pictured in 2014) 'We are extremely grateful for Joe's immigration attorneys Jerry Gonzales and Tom Moseley and are very confident in them.' Joe (born Giuseppe) has already 'lost 60lbs and got his GED' while serving his time at the nearby Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution. According to his 46-year-old high school sweetheart, their four daughters Gia, 17; Gabriella, 14; Milania, 12; and Audriana, 9; 'were very upset' about their father's deportation. 'They were very upset. I was shocked,' the Standing Strong author admitted on Wednesday's episode of Bravo's Watch What Happens Live. 'I'm not getting divorced.' 'Juicy Joe': The Saronno-born 46-year-old moved to the States as a one-year-old baby with his parents, but he somehow never became a US citizen despite being married to New Jersey-born Teresa Gorga (L) since 1999 Giudice's attorney told Page Six: 'The appeal has been filed and we remain optimistic that Joe will soon be home with his family where he belongs. We are extremely grateful for Joe's immigration attorneys Jerry Gonzales and Tom Moseley and are very confident in them' (pictured December 24) Incarcerated: Joe (born Giuseppe) has already 'lost 60lbs and got his GED' while serving his time at the nearby Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution Shockingly, Teresa - who hasn't had sex in 'two years and seven months' - has not discussed the idea of moving the entire family to Italy. 'We're just taking one day at a time. I don't even want to think about that. I don't want to put that out in the universe,' Giudice told host Andy Cohen. 'Work comes first, then the girls' activities, and after that, he's next. Once a month.' According to his 46-year-old high school sweetheart, their four daughters Gia, 17; Gabriella, 14; Milania, 12; and Audriana, 9; 'were very upset' about their father's deportation (pictured October 10) The Standing Strong author admitted on Wednesday's episode of Watch What Happens Live: 'They were very upset. I was shocked...I'm not getting divorced' 'We're just taking one day at a time': Shockingly, Teresa - who hasn't had sex in 'two years and seven months' - has not discussed the idea of moving the entire family to Italy Friends in high places: The Gorga's Homemade Pasta & Pizza co-owner didn't rule out contacting her former Celebrity Apprentice boss, President Donald Trump, for help on the legal matter (pictured in 2016) However, the Gorga's Homemade Pasta & Pizza co-owner didn't rule out contacting her former Celebrity Apprentice boss, President Donald Trump, for help on the legal matter. Teresa - formerly known as FCI Danbury inmate No. 65703-050 - completed her own 11-month sentence for fraud in December 2017. The Italian-American duo were originally sentenced in October 2014 on 41 counts of bankruptcy fraud and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. 'I visit him once a month': Teresa - formerly known as FCI Danbury inmate No. 65703-050 - completed her own 11-month sentence for fraud in December 2017 (pictured Sunday) BRIAN VINER: Dune is not the masterpiece some have proclaimed it to be, but it is the roaring, sprawling embodiment of a film that demands to be seen on the biggest screen available. Apia played host to another cruise ship and its passengers of tourists yesterday morning the second vessel to visit our shores in five days. The word at Matautu wharf yesterday is that another cruise ship is due in Apia today, which if true would make it vessel # 3 in six days. Apia residents would probably be unfazed with the increasing regularity of visiting cruise ships, but ask a tourism expert and they would probably make reference to cruise tourism. Cruise Tourism revolve around cruise liners, their destination countries, and the business opportunities that it could offer to the residents and communities at those destinations. A 2016 report on Cruise Tourism commissioned by the Netherlands government describes this component of tourism as, one of the fastest growing segments in the tourism industry which can make a significate contribution to a destinations economy and local communities. According to the report, the market has experienced growth from approximately 3.8 million passengers in 1990 to over 22.2 million in 2015. The growth projections in the same report estimate that by next year 25.3 million passengers would have gone on cruise liners. But what are economic benefits of Cruise Tourism? The report states that Cruise Tourism industry globally represented roughly 119.9 billion in economic impact and 39.3 billion in wages and 939,00 jobs in 2014. The Caribbean and Europe (Mediterranean) continue to be main attractions for cruise liners according to the report, thanks to their weather and seasonality. But if Samoa can get three cruise liners in six days each with 500 to 1000 passengers then we can conclude that this island paradise is in the top bracket in terms of destinations in the Pacific Islands. Perhaps more investment in Samoas tourism marketing strategy will go a long way in ensuring luxury cruise line operators around the world put the island on their bucket list. Food for though for the Samoa Tourism Authority. And while we celebrate the arrival of another cruise liner to our shores, with much needed revenue for our local tourism industry operators, we cannot help but notice developments in the west with Fiji counting down to their general election. Fijis eligible voters will cast their votes on Wednesday. The countrys political parties and their candidates have been on the campaign trail in recent weeks, with the current Prime Minister and Fiji First leader Frank Bainimarama going head-to-head with the Sodelpa Party leader and former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka. The two party leaders are bother former military commanders, who instigated coups that overthrew democratically-elected governments in 1987 and 2006. The 2018 election campaign in Fiji has not been without drama with Mr. Rabuka summoned to police headquarters last week, in relation to comments he made on a radio talkback show while on air with Mr. Bainimarama. Mr. Rabuka is already in court over a separate matter, alleged electoral offences. Yesterday Mr. Bainimarama made headlines when he told an Australian journalist covering the elections to go back to Australia, when the reporter asked him about media restrictions that his government imposed in Fiji through the 2010 Media Industry Development Decree. Australias SBS News reported that Fijis current P.M. was visibly irritated when SBS News asked if he encouraged criticism during the campaign. I think you go back to Australia. Go back to Australia and then come back to Fiji and see what life is all about in Fiji, he said. The response of the current P.M. is probably an indication that a Fiji First-led coalition government will keep the draconian media law, if it is voted back into power. The 2010 Media Industry Development Decree has been an impediment to press freedom in Fiji and we hope the new government of Fiji regardless of whether it is led by Fiji First or Sodelpa Party or any other party for that matter makes it its business to remove the oppressive law and consign it to the annals of history. All the best to the people of Fiji at this critical juncture of their journey as a nation. And further to the west, the regions largest nation Papua New Guinea (P.N.G.) is preparing to host the leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (A.P.E.C.) from November 17-18 in the capital Port Moresby. The A.P.E.C. Leaders Summit this Saturday and Sunday will be the largest international conference that the country has ever hosted in its 43-year history. Chinas President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will join leaders from the other member economies at a conference hosted by what some commentators have described as the regional groupings poorest member economy. Prime Minister Peter ONeill and senior members of his Cabinet have over the last 24 months talked about the economic benefits that would trickle into the PNG economy following its hosting of A.P.E.C. Only time will tell if the countrys hosting of this international conference which has come at a big price to ordinary PNG citizens with millions of PNG Kina diverted away from basic services will have a transformational effect on the lives of its 8 million people. If there are lessons to learn from PNGs hosting of conferences of this magnitude, it should not be done at the expense of delivering essential basic services to the masses. Nonetheless, it is the start of another working week in this island paradise. Have a lovely week Samoa and God bless. Mickey Rourke found himself the perfect lunch companion on Saturday when he dined al fresco in a cafe in Los Angeles. The film star brought along his pet Pomeranian, called Number One, and sat him in a high chair, where he fed him like a baby. Just behind him, was a sign which read 'No animals allowed in a food facility, except service animals.' Special treatment: Mickey Rourke, 66, sat his tiny pet Pomeranian in a HIGH CHAIR and fed him like a baby... as he found a loophole in the LA cafe's animal ban on Saturday Taking great care of him: Mickey is a huge dog lover and he has called this pet Number One But Mickey found a way around it, by sitting outside and feeding his pet off a fork. Mickey was sporting his famous grey hairpiece for the outing, as well as a leather jacket over a plunging black vest which showed off his inkings. He wore tracksuit bottoms and white high-top trainers for the outing and hid his eyes behind dark sunglasses Who needs rules? There was a sign behind Mickey's head which said that no animals were allowed at the cafe Giving him the star treatment: Mickey tended to his dog more than himself as he gave Number One water from a bowl while sweetly holding it for him Mickey is a huge dog lover and in 2015, he had his late dog Jaws nickname tattooed across his forearm. The star had the Mexican inscription Guapo Siempre translated as Handsome Forever tattooed onto his skin. That same year, he credited his dog, Beau Jack, with saving him from committing suicide. Doting: The actor wore tracksuit bottoms and white high-top trainers for the outing and hid his eyes behind dark sunglasses as he fed his beloved dog One for me, one for you: Mickey made sure he managed to get a little food for himself during the al fresco outing He told Page Six: 'I was going through a really rough time. I was hurting myself and I was sitting in the closet one day. I couldn't take it anymore and picked up a gun. 'I was deciding what part of my head to put it on and my dog, Beau Jack, he [cried] and I looked over and he looked up at me like this and ... he said [with his eyes], "Who's going to look after me?" And it made me put the gun down. I was ready to go.' Rourke's fascination with dogs began after he received one from his second wife Carre Otis (who he divorced in 1998). He's often credited his dogs as being partly responsible for his career resurgence, which happened after a string of flops throughout the 1990s. Candid: In 2015, he credited his dog, Beau Jack, with saving him from committing suicide He previously said: 'I was going through a really rough time. I was hurting myself and I was sitting in the closet one day. I couldn't take it anymore and picked up a gun Saved him: 'I was deciding what part of my head to put it on and my dog, Beau Jack, he [cried] and I looked over and he looked up at me like this and ... he said [with his eyes], "Who's going to look after me?" He concluded: 'And it made me put the gun down. I was ready to go' His white chihuahua Jaws has appeared with him on screen in 2003's Once Upon a Time in Mexico. During his acceptance speech at the 2009 Golden Globes for his role in The Wrestler, Rourke thanked his dogs, which he's thought to currently own at least four. 'I'd like to thank all my dogs,' he said, 'the ones that are here, the ones that aren't here anymore because sometimes when a man's alone, that's all you got is your dog. And they've meant the world to me.' His chihuahua Loki, who he referred to as 'the love of my life' and was frequently photographed with, died at the age of 18 in his arms a month after the tribute. Roukes representative Judy Woloshen later confirmed the death. Loki is deeply missed but with me in spirit. I feel very blessed that she fell asleep peacefully in my arms, the actor said shortly afterwards. He's a fan: Rourke's fascination with dogs began after he received one from his second wife Carre Otis (who he divorced in 1998) Nasser Sultan recently returned from a solo trip across Bali earlier this month. And it appears the holiday turned romantic for the Married At First Sight star after sparks flew between him and another holidaymaker in Indonesia. The 51-year-old reality TV personality has since shared a series of loved-up snaps online alongside a tattooed beauty while lounging overseas. Scroll down for video Fun in the sun! Married at First Sight's Nasser Sultan puts on very amorous display with swimsuit-clad love interest during romantic trip to Bali In one romantic photograph, Nasser is seen playfully pretending to grope his female friend's bust as they soak up some sun side by side. Another photograph shows the Nine talent then cupping the blonde's ample asset as they put on a flirty display for the playful picture. The pair were reclining in five star hotel The Edge situated in Uluwatu, where rooms average at around $1,000 a night. A handful of trouble! The 51-year-old reality TV personality has shared a series of loved-up snaps alongside a tattooed beauty while in Bali recently The new Gabrielle Bartlett? The pair were reclining in five star hotel The Edge situated in Uluwatu, where rooms average at around $1,000 a night Further photographs show the potential new couple sipping cocktails together. The blonde is seen happily smiling in each shot from their holiday album, staring into Nasser's eyes in one sunset snap. Nasser also rented his trademark means of transportation while on the island, a moped. Hitting it off: The tattooed blonde is seen happily smiling in each shot from their holiday album, staring into Nasser's eyes in one sunset shot In a final shot the reality star is seen posing with the mystery woman, and a second female, riding on the back. Speaking of the holiday romance, Nasser told Daily Mail Australia: 'I get a lot of love wherever I go. I got mobbed in the airport when I landed. It's a Nasser thing.' Nasser found fame on Married At First Sight earlier this year, where he was paired with on-screen 'wife' Gabrielle Bartlett. They are just days away from launching the new series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! So Holly Willoughby, Declan Donnelly and his wife Ali Astall were making the most of their free time as they headed for lunch on Australia's Gold Coast on Sunday. With Extra Camp host Scarlett Moffatt and her mother Betty also in attendance, the team seemed in high spirits as they chatted away in the sunshine. Group fun: Holly Willoughby, Declan Donnelly and his wife Ali Astall were making the most of their free time as they headed for lunch on Australia's Gold Coast on Sunday Holly, 37, looked to be settling into life in Oz quite happily, slipping into a white summer dress for the hot weather. No doubt more than happy to leave the autumnal chill back in London, she showcased her physique in the garment which featured buttoned detailing, tied shoulder straps and a slight slit at the hem. She added brown leather sandals to the look as she chatted with Ali, who also looked chic in a polka dot bardot dress. Terrific trio: Both Holly and Ali looked stylish in summer dresses as they chatted with Dec All together now: With Extra Camp host Scarlett Moffatt and her mother Betty also in attendance, the team seemed in high spirits as they chatted away in the sunshine A dream in cream: Holly, 37, looked to be settling into life in Oz quite happily, slipping into a white summer dress for the hot weather Loving life: The ladies seemed in high spirits as they chatted away before grabbing some food Chic: Ali looked stylish in a black bardot polka dot midi dress and cross body bag Scarlett stood out from the group with her stylish yet bold co-ord which boasted an eye-catching gold zebra print. The brunette beauty, who was crowned Queen Of The Jungle in 2016, accessorised with a pair of cat eye shades as she chatted with the group. Rounding off the gang, Dec looked smart casual in a navy polo top and shorts. A vision in white: Holly showcased her physique in the garment which featured buttoned detailing, tied shoulder straps and a slight slit at the hem Two's company: Dec and Holly were chatting away as they headed out after lunch The group will have to take it easy whilst they can, as filming will soon get underway ahead of the show's premiere on November 18, airing, as usual, on ITV. This Morning presenter Holly will join her new co-host Dec, while his partner Ant McPartlin continues his recovery from a painkiller addiction, drink-driving offence and a marital breakdown. Holly's television producer husband Daniel Baldwin, 43, and their three children will also relocate to Australia for the duration of filming. The couple, who wed in 2007, share sons Harry, nine, and Chester, four, and daughter Belle, seven. Fashionable: Scarlett stood out from the group with her stylish yet bold co-ord which boasted an eye-catching gold zebra print Leggy lady! The brunette beauty, who was crowned Queen Of The Jungle in 2016, accessorised with a pair of cat eye shades as she chatted with the group Two's company: Scarlett joined her mother Betty on the outing In an interview with Hello! magazine recently, Holly said that her brood will not be treating the trip Down Under as a holiday. 'The children will have a tutor out there, they've got loads to do. I've spoken to their teachers. The kids are like, "What do you mean we're not going on holiday?",' she explained. 'I've had to be really clear with them, they can play for a couple of hours but none of us are on holiday? We're all doing work,' Holly added. All-smiles: The girls seemed in high spirits as they chatted away with one another Blonde bombshells: Holly and Ali were in high spirits as they chatted away with one another I'm A Celebrity... let's take a selfie: Holly and Dec happily posed for snaps with fans In an interview with You magazine, Holly revealed she has been given the blessing of her friend Ant McPartlin - long-time sidekick of Dec - to take his place in Australia. Yes, weve spoken and hes happy he was part of the decision that Id do it, she said. He just needs to look after himself thats the most important thing. She has no desire to break up the Ant and Dec award-winning partnership, saying: He knows Ill look after the show and keep it warm for him. Holly is stepping in for I'm A Celeb host Ant whilst he takes a year away from television to focus on battling his drug and alcohol addiction. She's no stranger to combining late nights at showbiz parties with early morning wake-up calls at Good Morning Britain. But Kate Garraway has revealed how discovering the true age of her liver during a dry January experiment forced her to cut down on boozing as she opened up on her health on a family holiday to the Caribbean. The TV personality, 51, spoke to this week's OK! magazine while soaking up the sun with husband, psychotherapist Derek Draper, 51, and their two children, Darcey, 12, and Billy, nine, in Turks and Caicos. Family fun: Kate Garraway spoke to this week's OK! magazine while soaking up the sun with husband Derek Draper, 51, and their children, Darcey, 12, and Billy, nine, in Turks and Caicos Explaining Lorraine Kelly's Dry January plans caused her to look at her alcohol intake, Kate explained: 'I had my liver tested at the start and at the end of the month and quitting booze has really improved the way it was functioning. 'The change was so dramatic that the doctor said I had the liver of a four-year old. Now I try not to drink unnecessarily.' Kate added that she's cut down her intake to one glass of wine at an event, but admits to drinking because husband Derek is. The Good Morning Britain star also revealed how a meningitis health scare prompted her to take the well-earned family holiday. Early mornings: Kate filled in for her Good Morning Britain co-hosts over the summer and said having two alarms at 2.15am made her desperate for time out Kate told OK!: 'I felt really groggy for a couple of weeks, then one morning I went into GMB and my temperature shot through the roof. 'I couldnt look at the light and I was quite delirious because my temperature was so high. 'Weve done a lot of stories on the show over the years about meningitis and I was displaying some of the signs.' Kate revealed that after being rushed to hospital she was 'fortunate' to be diagnosed with a virus. Happily married: Kate and psychotherapist Derek have been married for 13 years and may renew their wedding vows after being inspired in the Caribbean (pictured in June 2008) Kate recently revealed that after giving birth to son Billy she had a brief breast cancer scare when she found a lump while breastfeeding. She added: 'I had an operation to remove it and thankfully it turned out to just be a cyst.' Kate and Derek have been married since 2005 but Kate revealed that their date night plans in the Caribbean were curbed because they were too tired. The news anchor admitted her holiday was long overdue as she spent the summer covering her Good Morning Britain co-hosts Piers Morgan, Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid. The early morning TV presenter said waking up at 2.15am made her 'desperate for a bit of time out'. Tough: Kate (pictured with GMB's Charlotte Hawkins and Richard Madeley) revealed a series of health issues inspired her to take a well-earned break with her family Out now: Read the full story in this week's OK! Magazine - out today The mother-of-two confessed being by the beach prompted her to think about renewing her wedding vows: 'We saw a few people getting married on the beach while we were on holiday and it did make me think how nice it would be to renew our vows. She added: Maybe well do it for our 15th wedding anniversary. Kate was previously married to Ian Rumsey for four years and revealed how she and Derek face their problems: 'If we ever have a problem, we confront it head on. Im very lucky that hes so good at expressing his emotions.' She admits that her husband's career helps them work through problems: 'Derek is a psychologist so he's very good at talking things through.' Read the full interview with Kate Garraway in this week's OK! magazine, on sale now. Girls night: Kate and daughter Darcey spend lots of time together despite Kate's early morning starts on a daily basis Sophie Monk split with Stu Laundy in January after revealing she'd hoped they'd have a child together within a year after the pair fell in love on The Bachelorette. Shortly afterwards, the now single 38-year-old announced she was going to go ahead with her baby plans, with or without a man, by freezing her eggs. And on Monday, the former Bachelorette star appeared to be taking steps towards having that much longed-for child, as she underwent a mystery procedure at a Sydney IVF clinic. The battle for a baby: Sophie Monk undergoes treatment at Sydney IVF clinic after revealing she plans to freeze her eggs to ensure she becomes a mother after failed romance with Stu Laundy. Pictured: Sophie having surgery on Monday The blonde shared a confronting video to Instagram Stories in which she was seen unconscious in hospital after undergoing surgery. She thanked doctors and nurses at Monash IVF, a Sydney In Vitro Fertilisation clinic, calling the team 'angels'. While it is unclear what procedure the beauty underwent, she did reveal that doctors had discovered she has endometriosis during the surgery. Working on it: On Monday, the former Bachelorette star appeared to be taking steps towards having that much longed-for child, as she underwent a mystery procedure at an IVF clinic Hospital bound: She thanked doctors and nurses at Monash IVF, a Sydney In Vitro Fertilisation clinic, calling her team 'angels' Prior to IVF treatment, women may undergo investigative procedures, such as an endoscopy, to check for conditions such as endometriosis or fibroids, conditions which can make conceiving a child more difficult. In a candid chat with KIIS FM's Jackie 'O' Henderson in May, Sophie confirmed that she was in the process of freezing her eggs. 'It's all booked in. So I go to Spain to do Love Island and I'm going to do a travel special with [best pal] Oscar [Gordon] in Italy, and fly straight back and freeze them,' Sophie told Jackie 'O' Henderson. Over: Sophie confirmed she split with Stu Laundy (left) in January after initially revealing she'd hoped they'd have a child together within the year The process of freezing eggs begins with eight to eleven days of injecting a thin needle filled with a fertility hormone into the soft tissue of the lower stomach. Eggs are then collected with an ultrasound-guided tool that is inserted into the vagina, and once frozen, the eggs can be stored for many years. In an interview with A Current Affair in February, Sophie said that she's still determined to start a family despite breaking up with Stu, who she thought was 'The One'. Baby love: Shortly afterwards, the now-single 38-year-old announced that she was going to go ahead with her baby plans by freezing her eggs. Pictured with her nephew 'I'd love to [have kids] because I know they'd be so loved. I'd love to be a mum but I'm going to have to freeze eggs,' she told reporter Leila McKinnon. Slightly shocked by the admission that Sophie had thought about fertility treatments, Leila asked if this was just 'a headline' or something she was genuinely considering. 'I've made a plan,' Sophie replied. 'It's just the injections and all of those things...and fitting them into my schedule. I'm definitely doing it.' Moving on: In an interview with A Current Affair in February, Sophie said that she's still determined to start a family despite breaking up with Stu, who she thought was 'The One' Sophie, who previously dated Good Charlotte's Benji Madden, Sam Worthington and Jason Statham, chose millionaire pub baron Stu in the grand finale episode of last year's The Bachelorette. During a chat with KIIS FM ahead of the show's premiere, Sophie revealed her baby plans with her chosen suitor. 'I told him I want a baby and to get married,' she said at the time. Missing out: The blonde revealed she felt she was missing out by not experiencing motherhood: 'But now I'm like, yeah, I feel like I'm missing out [by not being a mum]' she said After the show's finale in October, Sophie revealed that she was looking into having Stu's vasectomy reversed. '[The vasectomy] doesn't really matter because it can be reversed pretty quickly or regardless, I could go freeze my eggs and chuck 'em over to wherever he's got his sperm banked,' Sophie told news.com.au. However while the romance was not to be, it appears that Sophie has forged ahead with her plans to ensure she becomes a mother. On her own? Whether the former radio star decides to have a child alone is however up for debate, as late last year Sophie admitted that she'd find it 'lonely' to be a single mother Whether the former radio star decides to have a child alone is however up for debate, as late last year Sophie admitted that she'd find it 'lonely' to be a single mother. 'If I did it [have a baby] by myself, I think I'd find it really difficult. And also lonely,' she told news.com.au. However the blonde did add that she felt she was missing out by not experiencing motherhood. Sophie admitted to the publication at the time: 'But now I'm like, yeah, I feel like I'm missing out [by not being a mum].' Vicky Pattison has been left upset and planning crisis talks with fiance John Noble after video emerged of him cosying up to a pretty blonde in a Dubai nightclub on Sunday, during a lads' holiday. The footage came as a shock to the 30-year-old reality star, who is planning to confront her other half about the scenes when John returns home. A source told MailOnline: 'Vicky is upset with the pictures and looks forward to speaking to him when hes back about it.' Shocking: Vicky Pattison has been left upset and planning crisis talks with fiance John Noble after video emerged of him cosying up to a pretty blonde in a Dubai nightclub on Sunday Her understandable distress comes as John was filmed with his lips just inches away from the mystery blonde before she started grinding on his lap. An eyewitness told MailOnline that the scenes were 'shocking', describing the interaction as 'very flirty'. The Newcastle businessman got up close and cosy with the mystery blonde just hours before a posting a photo of Vicky on Instagram along with the words Cant wait to get back to this little monster. Very close: Vicky's understandable distress comes as John was filmed with his lips just inches away from the mystery blonde before she started grinding on his lap Working through it: The couple, who got engaged in July 2017, have been going through a difficult patch recently but seemed to be getting back on track John had been partying at the Billionaire Mansion when he met the blonde, with an eyewitness telling MailOnline: I was really shocked. I recognised John as soon as he got into the club because Im a fan of Vickys. I couldnt believe that he was talking so close to her. The music was loud so he was leaning into her so that he could hear her. Then she started grinding on his lap. It was very flirty and they were really close. Living it up: John had been partying at the Billionaire Mansion when he met the blonde and has been documenting his holiday with his friends on Instagram John had begun the evening dining in the Taj Hotel restaurant that turns into a nightclub when he struck up a conversation with the girls on the next table. The insider added: John asked the girls on the neighbouring table if they were all right and if theyd mind posing for a selfie with him and his friends, which seemed a bit strange but the girls didnt seem to mind. Then his group were joined by this really attractive young blonde, aged only in her early 20s, wearing a revealing nude dress and nude heels and with really long hair extensions.' The shocking scenes come after Vicky admitted she is 'fighting a battle' in her relationship after being plagued by rumours of strife following the death of her best friend Paul Burns and two of John's grandparents' passing earlier this year. Speaking to New Magazine, the former Geordie Shore star was typically candid about her battles as she admitted the couple are struggling. She said: 'We're going to Dubai, so we're out of the hardest bit. My birthday's coming up, his birthday is coming up, so we're on a nice run of seeing each other a lot. Everyone's fighting a battle to make it work.' The couple, who got engaged in July 2017 - were apparently not on speaking terms before their romantic trip and had severed ties on social media, with sources claiming their relationship is 'hanging by a thread'. Make-or-break: Vicky and John recently went on a make-or-break holiday, and she asked him to accompany her in Dubai where she was working so they could 'talk things through' Vicky reportedly asked John to accompany her in Dubai where she was working at the time so they could 'talk things through'. John had allegedly felt like he was playing 'second fiddle' to Vicky's busy lifestyle in London. The businessman is also reportedly desperate to start a family while Vicky was said to be less keen. It seemed the pair were back on track, however, when just last week she shared pictures of herself trying on wedding dresses at Suzanne Neville's Knightsbridge boutique. He was spotted on a romantic date with new Jennifer Garner on Friday. And it seems like a budding new relationship isn't the only thing working out for John Miller. The burger CEO was seen leaving a sweaty gym session in Los Angeles on Sunday. The outing came just two days after being spotted on his first public outing with the 46-year-old A-lister. Chill: John Miller was seen leaving a sweaty gym session in Los Angeles on Sunday just two days after being seen on his first public outing with A-list girlfriend Jennifer Garner Family time: Meanwhile Jennifer, 46, was spotted attending church in Los Angeles on Sunday with daughter Seraphina, age nine, on the same day John - who is the CEO of holding company CaliGroup - made sure to represent his companies as he looked in good shape wearing a white T-shirt with the logo of Miso Robotics. He also sported a pair of grey sweatpants rolled up to the calf along with brown suede shoes. Meanwhile Jennifer was spotted attending church in Los Angeles on Sunday with daughter Seraphina, age nine, on the same day. John and Jennifer looked happy to be in each other's company as they attended a performance of the musical Dear Evan Hansen at Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and arrived via limo on Friday. His own best advert: John - who is the CEO of holding company CaliGroup - made sure to represent his companies as he looked in good shape wearing a white T-shirt with the logo of Miso Robotics They arrived just before 8 p.m. in a limo, with Garner exiting first and Miller a few minutes afterwards. The burger CEO looked over adoringly at his new love while they sat in the back seat of the vehicle. Jennifer was dressed casually in a pair of skinny jeans, a white blouse and a double breasted grey blazer. Looking good: The 46-year-old actress looked chic in a white blouse and camel-colored pumps as she arrived for the mid-morning service Her brunette locks were down and air dried and the actress opted for her eyeglasses and a makeup free look. Meanwhile, her date looked proper in a white Oxford shirt under a grey pull over sweater. The new couple appeared happy as they smiled while sitting next to each other in the limo. Going strong: Radar recently reported that the Camping beauty had been dating burger CEO John Miller for longer than the past six months And whilst Jennifer is quite active on social media, she's yet to share a post with her new beau. Radar recently reported that the Camping beauty had been dating burger CEO John Miller for longer than the past six months. 'Garner and Miller both have separate families that they are focused on,' reported People last week. Family: Jennifer shares children Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine, and Samuel, six, with ex-husband Ben Affleck 'They see each other when they can. It's not serious, but she enjoys his company. She seems very excited about the future.' Jennifer's 2015 divorce from ex Ben Affleck was reportedly finalized 'without a lawyer' on Thursday. The active co-parenting duo used an attorney Laura Wasser to mediate the divorce, according to TMZ. Jennifer shares children Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine, and Samuel, six, with Ben. Ben Affleck has been seen arriving to his home in Los Angeles after reportedly checking back into rehab. The 46-year-old star was dressed comfortably as he arrived back at his home in Southern California's Pacific Palisades on Sunday night. Bearded Ben held onto a large soft drink as he walked down the driveway of his stunning $20 million estate. Road to recovery; Ben Affleck has been seen arriving to his home in Pacific Palisades on Sunday night after reportedly checking back into rehab. This comes just after he reportedly checked back in to rehab just a month after finishing a 40-day stint last month in a Malibu clinic. The Oscar winner has allegedly admitted to friends that he needs to continue treatment for several more months in the hopes of staying sober. A source close to the Pearl Harbor actor said: He was going to move out and become an outpatient but hes checked back in. He will stay most nights in the clinic. Back in: The 46-year-old actor has reportedly checked back into rehab - after finishing a 40-day stint last month in a Malibu clinic This is not just a disease you cure in one go, an insider told the Mirror. Ben has and will always be working hard to get better. He wants to work, see his children and focus on his recovery. DailyMail.com has contacted a representative of Bens for comment. This comes after his now ex-wife Jennifer Garner was spotted enjoying a romantic date with burger CEO John Miller in Los Angeles on Friday. It comes as the Good Will Hunting star finalised his divorce with Garner, 46, who he shares children Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine, and Samuel, six with. The end: It comes as the Good Will Hunting star finalised his divorce with Jennifer Garner, 46, who he shares children Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine, and Samuel, six with New man: This comes after his now ex-wife Jennifer was spotted enjoying a romantic date with burger CEO John Miller in Los Angeles on Friday The 13 going on 30 actress was the one to help her struggling ex earlier this year, when she drove him to a rehab facility in August. Ben - who previously spent time in rehab in 2001 and 2017 - agreed to seek treatment once again following an emotional outburst from Jennifer, who urged him to get help. Witnesses at the time said she arrived at his Pacific Palisades home in Los Angeles, carrying a bible and accompanied by a lawyer. Despite their split in 2015, the pair remain close and were seen with their son, Samuel in Los Angeles, last week - a day after a judge signed the final divorce papers. Sincere: Ben shared a long and heartfelt statement on social media after his 40 day stint The pair will share legal custody of their children and will have to consult one another regarding all major decisions relating to the youngsters health, education and welfare. Taking to his Instagram account earlier this month, Ben explained that he'd spent 40 days at a treatment centre and was still in outpatient care. He said in his post: 'The support I have received from my family, colleagues and fans means more to me than I can say. It's given me the strength and support to speak about my illness with others.' Happier times: Despite their split in 2015 (pictured two years prior), the pair remain close Ben also revealed he was determined to fight his addiction for the sake of himself and his family. The Gone Girl star shared: 'Battling any addiction is a lifelong and difficult struggle. I am fighting for myself and my family.' He is believed to have cooled his his relationship with 22-year-old Playboy model Shauna Sexton, as he chooses to focus on his recovery instead. Glamorous: Ben's 'ex' Shauna Sexton cut a glamorous figure as she visited the Chiltern Firehouse restaurant in London on Saturday They have been going strong for seven years now. And Vanessa Hudgens held hands with her longtime beau Austin Butler when they were seen enjoying a Sunday stroll in Los Angeles' Atwater Village. The 29-year-old High School Musical starlet slipped into a floral dress that hinted at her cleavage and was hemmed at mid-thigh to showcase her shapely legs. The look of love: Vanessa Hudgens held hands with her longtime beau Austin Butler when they were seen enjoying a Sunday stroll in Los Angeles' Atwater Village She slipped into fashionable Gerard Darel tan boots and swept her hair back into a bun, carrying a black clutch, while also carrying a Henri Bendel bag over her shoulder, and modeling a pair of swinging hoop earrings. Meanwhile, her dashing 27-year-old The Carrie Diaries star boyfriend kept it casual in skintight charcoal pants and a true blue sweater, plus a black knit beanie. As fires raged in California, Vanessa posted a message to her Insta Stories offering moral support to those affected by the situation. Simple glamour: The 29-year-old High School Musical starlet slipped into a floral dress that hinted at her cleavage and was hemmed at mid-thigh to showcase her shapely legs 'My dad was a firefighter and would be loosing his mind right now if he was still around,' wrote the Salinas, California native. 'Big thank you to all the fire fighters risking their lives and to everyone helping eachother out. Be safe out there. Sending all my thoughts and prayers,' she went on. Her father Gregory died of cancer in 2016 - and with astonishing dedication, Vanessa gave her scheduled performance in NBC's Grease: Live the next day. Touch of glitz: She slipped into fashionable Gerard Darel tan boots and swept her hair back into a bun, carrying a black clutch and modeling a pair of swinging hoop earrings Vanessa is featuring in Second Act, an upcoming movie that stars Jennifer Lopez amid an impressive cast that also includes Leah Remini. This August, she dished to Access about her romance with Austin, sharing a tip on how they have kept the romance alive over the years. 'Communication,' she said. 'I think communication is key. It's so easy to let things get lost in the shuffle, or to kind of push things down because you think that they don't really bother you, but if anything even remotely bothers you, you gotta talk about it.' He has been taking care of his children from his marriage to Katie Price as she deals with her split from her husband Kieran Hayler and a series of personal woes. But Peter Andre took a night off from Daddy duty as he mingled with the stars at the launch of his new luxury bed collection A by Andre on Monday in London. The Mysterious Girl hitmaker, 45, looked dapper as ever in a suave deep blue suit which he paired with a powder blue open-collar shirt. Keeping busy: Peter Andre took a night off from Daddy duty as he mingled with the stars at the launch of his new luxury bed collection A by Andre on Monday in London Pairing the outfit with a classic brown shoe and belt, the father-of-four looked incredibly handsome as he wondered into NoHo studios in west London. Never looking anything but his best, the star slicked her raven locks back and showed off a glowing tan. Love Island's Alexandra Cane, 27, was also at the event. Star studded: Peter's night is set to be star-studded event with the likes of Emma Bunton and Gino D'acompo set to arrive later in the night Suave: Pairing the outfit with a classic brown shoe and belt, the father-of-four looked incredibly handsome as he wondered into NoHo studios in west London Doting: The father has been co-parenting Junior and Princess with ex Katie, as she continues to battle with bankruptcy and other personal issues, which led to a recent stay in rehab following her drink-drive arrest The brunette beauty showed off her famous curves in a skintight mauve midi-dress with a plunge neckline. The star, who was rumoured to be in this year's line-up of I'm A Celebrity! styled her raven tresses down in a tight curl and finished off the look with a sexy smokey eye. Peter's night is set to be star-studded event with the likes of Emma Bunton and Gino D'acompo set to arrive later in the night, with Peter's pal Leigh Francis - also known by his character's name Keith Lemon - there in a Celtic inspired tartan suit. Strict: Meanwhile, Peter and Emily said they instil the same domestic rules on all four kids, including a 'one screen' policy on playing with technology Peter was also joined by TOWIE stunner Megan McKenna, 26. The blonde star wore a black strapless jumpsuit with a cropped wide leg with frill detail. She paired the simple look with a sky-high heel and a floral kimono, while she wore her golden tresses in a glamorous coiffed 'do. Primed to perfection: Meghan paired the simple look with a sky-high heel and a floral kimono, while she wore her golden tresses in a glamorous coiffed 'do Pals: Peter posed with Meghan on the red carpet at the glitzy event - who both looked preened to perfection in their stylish looks Also at the launch was businessman Richard Desmond, who matched Peter in a pinstripe suit. The outing comes following Peter's wife Emily MacDonagh, 29, told OK! magazine that the couple don't drink as alcohol causes arguments in their house. Speaking about their successful six-year-marriage, Emily told the publication: 'Neither of us drinks alcohol; I think drinking can sometimes cause rows.' Tv stars: Peter was joined by Love Island's Scott Thomas, his I'm A Celeb brother Adam, Meghan Mckenna and Leigh Francis at the star-studded event Not in the jungle! Love Island's Alexandra Cane, 27, was also at the event, showing off her famous curves in a skintight mauve midi-dress with a plunge neckline Sexy: The star, who was rumoured to be in this year's line-up of I'm A Celebrity! styled her raven tresses down in a tight curl and finished off the look with a sexy smokey eye Peter added: 'Our relationship gets better every day.' The father has been co-parenting Junior and Princess with ex Katie, as she continues to battle with bankruptcy and other personal issues, which led to a recent stay in rehab following her drink-drive arrest. Meanwhile, Peter and Emily said they instil the same domestic rules on all four kids, including a 'one screen' policy on playing with technology. Stunning: Ellie Brown, 20, looked the epitome of cool as she showed off her gorgeous figure at the launch of A by Andre in NoHo studios in west London on Monday Gorgeous: The blonde beauty joined her fellow Love Island alum at Peter Andre's bash as she commanded attention in a skin-tight maroon midi dress Sober: The outing comes following Peter's wife Emily MacDonagh, 29, telling OK! that the couple don't drink as alcohol causes arguments in their house Chatting about the day-to-day battles of parenting, Peter said: 'We have rules like all sitting around the table to eat together as a family, no phones at the table, and the one screen rule you can't watch the telly while looking at your phone.' The couple hinted they've already discussed the prospect of having a third child after welcoming their son Theo in 2016, joking they'd consider expanding their brood when he's 'a bit older.' Junior and Princess had moved in with Peter and Emily in June, following Katie's split from husband Kieran Hayler. Dad duty: It comes after it was also revealed in June that Junior and Princess had moved in with Peter and Emily, following Katie's split from husband Kieran Hayler Celtic chic: Peter's pal Leigh Francis - also known by his character's name Keith Lemon - was there in a Celtic inspired tartan suit The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless. The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well. By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism. She reportedly hired a private team of firefighters to save her $60 million Hidden Hills home following their Woolsey Fire evacuation on Friday. But Kim Kardashian took to social media on Monday to remind her followers what was really important - her family. The 38-year-old was seen in a bikini as she posed between her two eldest children North, five, and Saint, two. Family first: Kim Kardashian shared a sweet shot of her two eldest children North, five, and Saint, two, on Monday, after it was reported that she had hired private firefighters to save her $60 million home The photo, which was taken during their recent trip to Bali, saw Kim opt for a nude triangular bikini top. The reality star's breasts were busting out of the tiny top and she completed the look with a sheer matching wrap skirt. Her dark locks were styled with a straight path and left out effortlessly over her shoulders. Pouty: Kim wore a full makeup look for the photo with a dark smokey eye and a plump nude lip Hot mama: The photo, which was taken during their recent trip to Bali, saw Kim opt for a nude triangular bikini top Family: Kim and husband Kanye West are the parents to North, five, Saint, two, and Chicago, eleven months Kim donned a full makeup look for the photo with a dark smokey eye and a plump nude lip. North was dressed in a white singlet and shorts with Saint in a similar colored Adidas shirt and matching shorts. The KKW Beauty entrepreneur also shared another shot of her glam which once again saw an overlined nude lip and extra long lower lashes. Praying for safety: Kim's posts comes after it was revealed on Monday that she and husband Kanye West had hired private firefighters to save their $60 million Hidden Hills mega mansion from destruction Kim's posts comes after it was revealed on Monday that she and husband Kanye West had hired private firefighters to save their $60 million Hidden Hills mega mansion from destruction. 'The team was armed with hoses, and also tirelessly dug ditches to create a fire break,' reported a TMZ source. The publication also reported that a few of the Kardashian-West neighbors were very thankful for saving their homes. Private help? 'The team was armed with hoses, and also tirelessly dug ditches to create a fire break,' reported a TMZ source Kim once again thanked those helping contain the horrific Woolsey Fires on Sunday, when she accepted the award for Best Reality Show with her sisters Kourtney, Khloe and Kendall Jenner, as well as mom Kris. 'We would like to dedicate this win to all the fire fighters, police officers, and first responders,' said Kim whilst accepting the award with her sisters and mom Kris Jenner. 'As horrible as this has been, it's been amazing to see the spirit of everyone involved,' the mother-of-three began. She continued: 'So anything that we can do to help the many organizations no form of help is too small. We must continue to reach out and help each other in these trying times.' Giving their thanks: 'We would like to dedicate this win to all the fire fighters, police officers, and first responders,' said Kim whilst accepting the award with her sisters and mom Kris Jenner People Choice Award winners: The Kardashian's picked up the award for Best Reality Show The fire first erupted on Thursday afternoon and has since seen thousands of people lose their homes. Miley Cyrus revealed on Monday that her Malibu home with fiance Liam Hemsworth had been burned down. Robin Thicke, Gerad Butler, Camille Grammer and Blanca Blanco have also lost their homes. Meanwhile, The Kardashians, Lady Gaga, Will Smith and Simon Cowell have all evacuated. She was left red-faced after the usual mixture of consonants and vowels spelled out an unfortunate word during a recent appearance on Countdown. But Rachel Riley was clearly over the unexpected embarrassment as she made an appearance at the British Takeaway Awards in association with Just Eat in London on Monday evening. The presenter, 32, looked stunning in a metallic silver minidress while attending the Savoy Hotel event without her partner, Russian Strictly Come Dancing star Pasha Kovalev. Striking: Rachel Riley looked stunning in a metallic silver minidress while attending the British Takeaway Awards in London on Monday evening With a thigh-skimming design the dress drew attention to Rachel's slender physique, while a disconnected cut-out panel partially exposed her torso as she posed for photos. Strappy peep-toe heels gave the distinctive look a conventional flourish as the Cambridge educated star made her way inside. A generous layer of red lipstick gave the overall look an added splash of colour, while her hair was neatly styled with a simple side-parting. Looking good: With a thigh-skimming design the dress drew attention to Rachel's slender physique, while a disconnected cut-out panel partially exposed her torso Strike a pose: Rachel inevitably commanded attention as she greeted photographers at the event Finishing touches: Strappy peep-toe heels gave the distinctive look a conventional flourish as the Cambridge educated star made her way inside Finishing touches: A generous layer of red lipstick gave the overall look an added splash of colour, while her hair was neatly styled with a simple side-parting Countdown viewers were left blushing on Friday afternoon when a crass word appeared on the board, with host Rachel forced to spell out rude letters for a second time in a week. The blonde beauty - who often leaves viewers tickled when cheeky moments pop up - appeared shocked after the contestant chose the 'unsavory' words. The third round of the show's letters game gave the options 'R, V, O, E, P, T, E, R and S' and one contestant saw it as a chance to bag lots of points with an eight letter word. Say cheese: Rachel was joined by guests including football pundit Chris Kamara The contestant confidently blurted out 'perverts' leaving Rachel giggling while host Nick Hewer appeared totally unfazed. Adrian Chiles, who was joining brain box Susie Dent in Dictionary Corner, described the word as 'unsavory'. It comes just a week after viewers may have seen the show's rudest blunder yet, as Rachel was left horrified and extremely red faced after spelling out 'c** budgie' on the show's famous letter board. Later taking to Twitter with a snapshot of the awkward moment, Rachel joked: 'Anyone in need of a new creative insult, @C4Countdown is at your service! Come on, we all know one' Good times: The star offered a beaming smile as she let her hair down at the event on Monday evening Centre of attention: Her dazzling outfit ensured she stood out as she made her entrance Heading off: The star maintained her chic display while leaving the starry event Off she goes: Rachel beamed with delight as she carried her goodie bags All smiles: The blonde appeared in high spirits as she made her way home She's moving on from heartbreak since her split with Charlie Brake. And Ellie Brown, 20, looked the epitome of cool as she showed off her gorgeous figure at the launch of A by Andre in NoHo studios in west London on Monday. The blonde beauty joined her fellow Love Island alum at Peter Andre's bash as she commanded attention in a skin-tight maroon midi dress. Stunning: Ellie Brown, 20, looked the epitome of cool as she showed off her gorgeous figure at the launch of A by Andre in NoHo studios in west London on Monday The Newcastle-born stunner, matched the ribbed number with nude stilettos and a sparkling clutch bag as she turned heads in the sultry number. Looking every inch the star, Ellie opted for a glamorous make-up look with Hollywood-style eyelash extensions, a pale peach lip and heavy strokes of foundation. Wearing her beach blonde tresses loose, the star let her hair tumble down past her very ample chest and paired it with dangling diamante earrings. Made-up: Looking every inch the star, Ellie opted for a glamorous make-up look with Hollywood-style eyelash extensions, a pale peach lip and heavy strokes of foundation Solo outing: Despite heading out onto the town on her own, the model has been romantically linked to Joey Essex since the breakdown of her relationship with Charlie Brake Blondes have more fun! Wearing her beach blonde tresses loose, the star let her hair tumble down past her very ample chest and paired it with dangling diamante earrings Ellie's night is set to be star-studded event with the likes of Emma Bunton and Gino D'acompo set to arrive later in the night, with Peter's pal Leigh Francis - also known by his character's name Keith Lemon - there in a Celtic inspired tartan suit, and her Love Island co-star Alexandra Cane and TOWIE's Megan McKenna also there. Despite heading out onto the town on her own, the model has been romantically linked to Joey Essex since the breakdown of her relationship with Charlie. The reality star has been piecing back together the broken shards of her heart after her pal Laura Anderson revealed Ellie was dumped publicly over social media. Moving on: The reality star has been piecing back together the broken shards of her heart after her pal Laura Anderson revealed Ellie was dumped publicly over social media Striking: The TV personality 's fitted dress accentuated her curves as she posed for photos on Monday night Pals: The blonde bombshell was joined by her Love Island co-star Alexandra Cane at the event Meanwhile, Ellie's Love Island BFF Zara McDermott confessed she saw the 'issues' with her summer romance and knew it wasn't made of the stuff to last. Adam Collard's girlfriend said: 'Ellie is strong but she has a really sensitive side and that's what makes her so special. 'She was so good to Charlie with all the lovely little things she used to do for him and I saw their relationship from the outside and there were issues and cracks that I saw.' Charlie moved on quickly with Kimberley Owen, daughter of New Zealand billionaire Steve Owen, but things soon cooled off between the duo. All smiles: Ellie looked to be in high spirits as she left Peter Andre's star-studded event Strike a pose! Ellie and Alexandra beamed as they stormed the red carpet on the outing She's been supporting Travis Scott in the midst of his ASTROWORLD tour. And on Monday, Kylie Jenner, 22, took to her official Instagram page as she plugged her new Kylie Cosmetics holiday palette in a series of photos. For her first post, the Keeping up with the Kardashians star wore a figure-hugging tracksuit while her bleached tresses curled all the way down to her ends. Working mama: Kylie Jenner, 22, took to her official Instagram page as she plugged her new Kylie Cosmetics in a series of photos It went without saying that the mother-of-one looked incredible while seemingly having opted for a radiant look in the makeup department. For her next Instagram photo, Kylie pouts her lips while placing one hand over her shoulder as she poses while staring into the distance. 'playing with my new holiday palette because it's my favorite yet,' the businesswoman captioned the accompanying photograph. It went without saying that the mother-of-one looked incredible while seemingly sporting a radiant look in the makeup department. Some of her 119 million followers were quick to share their excitement for the new range of cosmetics lifted from the TV personality's billion-dollar brand. 'Which one is this? Those palette colors look so good on you,' one of Kylie's fans expressed in the commenting section, clearly thrilled about the announcement. Another social media user followed suit, saying: 'Tracksuit is literally on point. You actually look like a Barbie in this photo, I'm obsessed.' Earlier in the week, Kylie Jenner caused headlines after having given her fans the impression that she was engaged to her rapper boyfriend Travis Scott, 26. Getting married? Kylie Jenner caused headlines after having given her fans the impression that she was engaged to her rapper boyfriend Travis Scott, 26 That's quite the suggestive gesture: During the outing, Kylie appeared calm and collected while walking toward the building with best pal Jordyn Woods On Saturday, for example, the rumors continued after the Hollywood beauty was spotted heading to her Miami Beach hotel wearing a stunning diamond encrusted ring on her wedding finger. During the outing, Kylie appeared calm and collected while walking toward the building with best pal Jordyn Woods. She would go on to sport the same ring on Sunday, before making her way to her beau's concert in Miami, Florida. Here we go again: The TV star sported the ring again for dinner with a pal before heading off to one of Scott's concerts in Miami Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the cosmetics entrepreneur arrived home to a stunning display of roses from Travis, which had given many social media users the impression that the gesture was in relation to a possible engagement. But while the gesture was exceedingly romantic, it was not a proposal. 'Travis' gesture was to celebrate Kylie Cosmetics partnering with Ulta Beauty stores,' a source told TMZ. 'It was also an elaborate bon voyage gift to mark the beginning of his tour. She and the baby are going with.' Meanwhile: On Tuesday, the cosmetics entrepreneur arrived home to a stunning display of roses from Travis, giving fans the impression that Travis had proposed to his girlfriend Boyfriend material: Roses filled up Kylie Jenner's entire home, who seemed completely surprised upon her return home Jenner, who launched Kylie Cosmetics in 2015, announced on Tuesday that her products would be in every single Ulta Beauty store starting November 17. 'So I'm going to be starting off with just my best lip kits first, and then I'm going to be expanding and adding a lot more things super fast,' she told her social media followers. Kylie will also be peddling lip kits while on tour with Scott. An iconic Melbourne business won't open its doors until Monday after its owner Sisto Malaspina died in the terror attack on Melbourne's Bourke Street. The popular Pellegrini's Espresso Bar shut its doors after the 74-year-old Italian restaurateur was killed by Islamic State-inspired attacker Hassan Khalif Shire Ali on Friday. "Due to an incident Pellegrini's will be closed until Monday 12th," a sign on the door reads. Mr Malaspina was walking down Bourke Street, just a few hundred metres from the business he had run for more than 40 years, went he was caught up in the tragedy. Lifeline 13 11 14 beyondblue 1300 22 4636 For retired Major Benjamin, the armistice of World War I is just as important today as it was 100 years ago. The retired British Royal Engineers major came to honour those he served with and those still in theatres of war. "It is important to remember friends and colleagues, the guys that I trained ... who never came back, and those who are still had some life-changing injuries that are battling with it now on a daily basis," he told AAP at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. "It is important that everyone understands the impact it has." He served in tours in the Middle East including the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in Afghanistan. His wife Amanda Day said it important to share the sacrifices with their two children, so they understand the freedoms Australians enjoy. Hundreds of veterans and their families gathered on Sunday at Shrine of Remembrance, observing a minute's silence. Sandra Borthwick, from Pascoe Vale, came with her daughter and granddaughters to pay respect to her great uncle, who served in the Boxer Rebellion and World War I. "He came home. He was one of the lucky ones," she said of Frank Richard Morris, who served until age 46. The Last Post bugle call sounded and silence fell across those gathered as planes flew overhead Governor of Victoria Linda Dessau gave the key address, speaking of the armistice at 11am on November 11, 100 years ago. Premier Daniel Andrews, opposition leader Matthew Guy and Senator Mitch Fifield also laid wreaths. Greenpeace's flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, has moored in Sydney to launch a campaign against oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight. The environmental organisation's ship was opened to the public in Circular Quay on Sunday as Greenpeace ramped up opposition to proposed drilling in the region. Federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan has warned against locking oil companies out of the region, arguing that drilling in the Bight could make Australia self-sufficient in oil production. New oil projects in the region could generate billions in tax revenue for the federal and South Australian governments and create up to 1500 jobs a year over 40 years, some modelling has suggested. But Greenpeace chief executive David Ritter said drilling in the region was "insanity" that risked the ecology and human settlements along Australia's southern coastline. "The commonwealth government is pursuing a reckless and ideologically driven attitude to the insanity of deepwater oil drilling in the Great Australian Bite," he told AAP on Sunday. "BP's own modelling showed that an oil spill from deepwater drilling in the Great Australian Bight could be twice as bad as the disaster that occurred with Deepwater Horizon (in the Gulf of Mexico)." He called for a permanent ban on oil exploration and extraction in the region. Mr Ritter said there was a disconnect between Australia's politicians and the public on energy policy - particularly when it came to the use of fossil fuels like oil and coal. "Renewables are now clean, safe, affordable and reliable and a prime minister who says the opposite is doing so for narrow, ideological and political reasons," he said. "It's time for the Australian prime minister to show he's 'fair-dinkum' - to use his favourite phrase - about getting on with clean energy and doing something serious about global warming." The Rainbow Warrior will leave Sydney and head south to Melbourne tomorrow to continue raising awareness for its campaign. Veterans could be employed to help build the $500 million expansion of the National War Memorial in Canberra. Veterans groups have called for more practical employment opportunities for returned service men and women, rather than symbolic gestures. War Memorial director Brendan Nelson said internal discussions had already looked at how to get veterans employed on the nine-year expansion project. "One of the things we'll obviously look at in relation to the sub-contractors is the extent to which veterans can be involved," Dr Nelson told reporters on Sunday. "We obviously want to make sure we do the best thing for them in the appropriate use of their skills, and the best thing for Australians who obviously are investing heavily in their stories being told." A record crowd attended the War Memorial on Sunday to mark Remembrance Day and 100 years since the end of the Great War. Dr Nelson said the expanded memorial will mark the "Invictus generation " of soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Timor Leste, the Solomon Islands, and other peacekeeping operations. It will include a space for non-government veterans organisations to offer emotional support and employment transition help. "There are a lot of young veterans who come through this place who become extremely emotional, who have problems approaching (the Veterans' Affairs Department), they have problems approaching even Soldier On and Legacy and so on," Dr Nelson said. "But when they get here, it all comes to the fore." Tens of thousands of dollars has been raised to help a Melbourne homeless hero dubbed "trolleyman" who helped police during the Bourke Street terror attack. Michael Rogers, 46, used the shopping trolley to ram Hassan Khalif Shire Ali as police officers tried to disarm the Somali-born radical before fatally shooting him on Friday. "I threw the trolley straight at him, and I got him. I didn't quite get him down, though. I'm no hero," Mr Rogers told Seven News. An online fundraiser started by registered charity Melbourne Homeless Collective has raised more than $45,000 to help Mr Rogers. "Our hero is humble as can be and had no idea about this fundraiser. We'll be catching up tomorrow to hand over his donations. He is amazing," the GoFundMe page reads. "We believe his efforts deserve a reward that can really help him out," it said. Shire Ali stabbed three men before being shot in the chest by a police officer he threatened with a knife. Sisto Malaspina, a 74-year-old Italian restaurateur, died at the scene. Two others are recovering in Royal Melbourne Hospital. Rising protectionism and nationalism must be reined in instead of allowing the international system to be thrown into "chaos and conflict", Australia's former foreign minister says. Julie Bishop is speaking at a World Economic Forum in Dubai on Sunday night and is set to tell the crowd how the current international system must be reformed and protected. The comments come after the United States under President Donald Trump has raised tariffs, renegotiated trade deals and started a trade war with China. "There are challenges to the existing international rules-based order, as some nations and policymakers seek to maximise their advantages and adopt a more assertive zero-sum approach to engagement with other nations," Ms Bishop will say on Sunday. "There is a harder unilateral edge, however, there is not a concerted effort to abandon or overthrow this order. "Any such effort would lead to chaos and conflict, to no one's advantage. "Nations and policymakers must redouble their commitment of that order, as it has brought enormous global benefit." Ms Bishop urged countries considering going down the protectionist and nationalist route to think again. "A world without rules to regulate relations between nation states would not be a supportive environment of economic growth and would be a less certain world for everyone," she says. "The World Trade Organisation Consensus Model needs to be reformed and we need to find a way to reinvigorate enthusiasm for global trade reform and to guard against protectionism. "We should resist giving way to short-term populist stances by those seeking political advantage which is a risk in many nations today." A Queensland man has been extradited to NSW accused of raping a child three times and assaulting her nine other times during the 1970s. The 70-year-old man has been charged with a dozen historical child sexual offences, allegedly stemming from incidents with the girl in NSW between 1974 and 1978, police say. He was extradited from a Mackay suburb to Sydney on Saturday before he appeared before Parramatta Local Court on Sunday, when he was refused bail. He is due to appear before Penrith Local Court on Tuesday. Australians have solemnly marked the centenary of guns falling silent in World War I in Villers-Bretonneux with remembrance of the dead and warnings for modern times. About 1500 people including Australian soldiers' descendants, those living in Europe and tourists as well as local French attended the Centenary of Armistice commemoration at the Australian National Memorial in the northern French town on Sunday. Most were in raincoats or plastic ponchos with steady wind and rain lashing them with the temperature at 13C. MC Major General (Retired) Mark Kelly said 416,000 Australian soldiers fought in the Great War, out of a population of just five million during 1914-18. By the end of the fighting 60,000 had died, 150,000 were wounded, and almost 11,000 had no known grave. Many simply disappeared into the muddy battlefields of France and Belgium. Maj Gen Kelly says war remains Australia's costliest in terms of human life. "Today we are gathered to remember all those who served, who those we lost and all those we left behind," he said. Air Vice-Marshall Warren McDonald AM CSC said the loss of so many left a terrible void for many in Australia with many, even years later, unable to visit the faraway memorials in Europe. But he said those who died remain an enduring presence both in physical sense in the memorials and in all Australians' thoughts. "In the words of Charles Bean: 'The Australian Imperial Force is not dead. That army of great-hearted men', as he called them, 'lives on in the nation's memory'," he said. "And it is that very nation that thanks the gracious people of France who for 100 years have respected and honoured our fallen." Veterans Affairs Minister Darren Chester said reading names on headstones, honour rolls and memorials keeps a promise to never forget the dead, wounded and all those who fought. "As we remember, we can commit ourselves to respecting their service in all that we do today," he said. "We honour the fallen of the Great War by the way we choose to live in 2018." But Mr Chester warned that Australia faced a new threat from modern terrorism, alluding to the attack in Melbourne on Friday, which everyone had a duty to unite against. 'The bravery of those named on the walls behind me and those men and women who serve in our uniform throughout the world today ... stands in contrast to the cowards who seek to attack innocent citizens on the streets of our cities," he said. "It is the challenge of our times and we must stand united. "United in defence of our hard fought freedoms and our enduring national values of respect for human life, tolerance, equality and a fair go for all." General Secretary of the Somme and 2nd Prefect of Amiens Jean Charles Geray, representing President Emmanuel Macron, also issued a stark warning for modern times. He said fierce nationalism and totalitarian ideologies had been re-emerging in Europe and threatening to return the continent to the horrors of the two world wars. "We know with what speed the multilateral order can suddenly collapse. We know that a united Europe, created through reconciliation between France and Germany, is more fragile than ever," he said. "Vigilance! This is the sentiment that should drive us when remembering the terrible massacre of the Great War." Victorian voters will get a chance to cast their ballot early as the Andrews Labor government promised more than $50 million to rebuild a well-known pier. Early voting centres will open from 9am on Monday with the electoral commission expecting thousands to cast their votes before the election on November 24. While more Victorians than ever are expected to cast their votes early the Labor government promised to spend $50.3 million to build a curved pier at St Kilda. The new pier will have a penguin viewing area, tiered seating, new toilets and sheltered areas for one of the state's most popular tourist locations. Liberal leader Matthew Guy has also promised to spend $60 million on relaunching the Life.Be in it campaign. But it may be too late to sway voters with more than ever expected to vote early. More than 4.1 million Victorians are enrolled to vote in this year's election. A shark has mauled a bodyboarder south of Perth with the man flown to hospital. The man, aged in his 20s, felt something grab his leg on Pyramids Beach at Dawesville about 8.30am on Sunday, police said. St John Ambulance said the injured man "suffered traumatic injuries to a foot and ankle" and was flown to Royal Perth Hospital. The injuries are not believed to be life threatening. "He had been attacked on the lower part of the leg, with a couple of meaty bites," witness Damian Baker told Fairfax Media. The Sharksmart website says the beach was closed until further notice and advised those in waters in the Mandurah area take additional caution. WA Premier Mark McGowan urged people not to be frightened but take precautions. "We just have to keep a level head and make sure we put in place sensible policies based on evidence," he told reporters on Sunday. It is not clear what type of shark was involved in the attack. Almost 2000 extra scholarships will be available for regional and remote university students as part of a $135 million funding boost for higher education. It includes extra money to build or expand regional study hubs in every state and the Northern Territory. Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan will announce the funding on Monday. "Every Australian, no matter where they live, should have access to Australia's world-leading higher education system," Mr Tehan says. "Our commitment to regional education is in the national interest because we need to support regional communities to retain and attract smart young people." The package includes $34.1 million for an additional 1955 scholarships for regional and remote students over four years, more than doubling the 1200 scholarships currently available. James Cook University Vice Chancellor Professor Sandra Harding said the funding will allow an expansion of a successful diploma of higher education program. "Almost 11 per cent of students in this program have been Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders, and 10 per cent have English as a second language," she said. "Student success rates as they transition from the program are strong." Five regional universities have been singled out to share in $92.5 million to support more students. A national strategy for increasing regional, rural and remote higher education participation will also be developed, with an advisory group chaired by former Victorian premier Denis Napthine. Regional Universities Network chair Professor Greg Hall said 70 per cent of graduates from regional universities stay on to work in the regions. "A one-size-fits all policy for higher education does not meet the needs of regional Australia or the nation," he said. "Place-based initiatives, such as those announced, are needed to make a difference." The community is being called on to help Australian authorities prevent further terrorist attacks after a man known to intelligence agencies killed one man and injured two more in Melbourne. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton on Sunday said police and other government agencies could not stop spontaneous acts of terror without tip-off or alerts from the public. His comments were in response to a deadly attack in Melbourne's Bourke Street on Friday by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, who crashed his car full of gas cylinders before stabbing three people, killing prominent Italian restaurateur Sisto Malaspina. The man was known to federal police and had his passport cancelled in 2015 amid fears the Somali-born man would travel to Syria. "It is important for us to get as much information from the imams, from spouses, family members, community members, council workers, people that might be interacting with those that might have changed their behaviours, that they think have been radicalised," Mr Dutton told reporters in Brisbane. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he backs religious freedoms but has also called on Islamic leaders to call out the attack. Those remarks that have in turn been labelled divisive by Muslim groups who say their community is not to blame for the actions of an individual and fear it could stoke Islamophobia. "It is extremely disappointing in such difficult times and during a national tragedy, when all Australians of all faiths and backgrounds should be called upon to unite and stand together against any form of extremism and violence, to see our nation's leader politicising this incident and using it for political gain," the Australian National Imams Council said in a statement on Sunday. Mr Dutton says the government's community engagement programs have worked in building solid relationships with members of the public who have provided critical intelligence that has helped stop other attacks, but that there were still gaps in information gathering. Hundreds of individuals were under the watchful eyes of authorities and that talks of how to improve in the wake of last week's attack were under way, he added. But the family of the attacker have said the man had mental health problems in a note to reporters. "Hassan suffered from mental illness for years and refused help. He's been deteriorating these past few months," a note given to the Nine Network showed. "Please stop turning this into a political game. This isn't a guy who had any connections with terrorism but was simply crying for help," it read. Shire Ali was shot in the chest by a police officer he had threatened with a knife and died in hospital. Lifeline 13 11 14 beyondblue 1300 22 4636 An anti-slavery commissioner is needed to clamp down on corrupt business practices, according to the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The Modern Slavery Bill is back in the Senate on Monday, where proposed amendments will be floated. More than 40 million people worldwide are believed to be victims of modern slavery, including 4300 Australians. Modern slavery covers such things as forced labour, child labour, people trafficking, debt bondage, and the sale or sexual exploitation of children. ACTU president Michele O'Neil says significant changes are needed to protect the rights of Australians. "We call for changes to this bill that hold companies accountable for the presence of slavery in their supply chain, and provide penalties for those companies that choose not to investigate and report," she said. "If these changes come into place, companies will need to report what they have done to deal with slavery in their supply chains and they will face penalties if they do not. "The appointment of an independent anti-slavery commissioner will ensure proper monitoring takes place, rather than having oversight of the scheme buried within Peter Dutton's department." The bill was last debated in the lower house in September. Scott Morrison will focus firmly on free trade and security during international summits in Asia and the Pacific this week, as regional leaders grapple with escalating tensions between China and the United States. The prime minister is also expected to concentrate on international partnerships around counter-terrorism, deradicalisation and the return of foreign fighters. Mr Morrison will travel to Singapore on Tuesday to attend the East Asia Summit. With the US and China squaring up over trade, progressing a 16-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will be a major focus. The free trade pact includes the 10 member states of the Association or Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The deal - which does not include the United States - is considered increasingly important after President Donald Trump pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement last year. Leaders are also due to discuss violence in Myanmar and tensions in the South China Sea. Although Jean Bogais, a specialist in Southeast Asia at the University of Sydney Business School, does not expect tensions in the politically-charged waters to dominate debate. Associate Professor Bogais said issues around the South China Sea were magnified in the West, but not such a big deal in Southeast Asia. "The South China Sea is always talked about but it's a bit like a painting on a wall," he told AAP. "The reality is around terrorism and the growing footprint of Islamic State throughout Southeast Asia." Associate Prof Bogais identified Chinese foreign investment as a major hot topic. ASEAN nations are increasingly concerned about the rapid pace of Beijing-backed developments in their region. "Many fear they are losing custody - if not control - of some of these situations," Associate Prof Bogais said. The potential economic and security implications of tensions between the US and China will be writ large over the summit. Australia could face some uncomfortable questions about ramping up its defence spending in lockstep with the US. "There's a bit of distrust there ... that is something people are very touchy about," Associate Prof Borgais said, adding ASEAN nations were wary of upsetting China. "They know that Australia is mortgaging its future on militarisation, literally, and the question is why." Australia and Indonesia could sign a two-way trade deal on the sidelines of the Singapore summit. Mr Morrison and Indonesian President Joko Widodo will both be in town and have previously agreed to finalise the deal by the end of this year. However, the prime minister's decision to consider moving Australia's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem has angered Indonesia, and could prove a stumbling block. Later this week, Mr Morrison will fly to Darwin to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Mr Abe is making an historic visit to Darwin 75 years after his nation's imperial army bombed the city during World War II. His visit to Darwin is the first by a Japanese leader since the country's military devastating air raids on the city in 1942 and 1943, which killed more than 250 people. Mr Abe is due to tour a gas pipeline project run by a Japanese company and cement military ties with Australia through joint training exercises and increased defence co-operation. The pair will then travel on to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Papua New Guinea. Mr Morrison will meet with Pacific leaders in PNG to talk about Australia's new focus on island nations and aims to meet with other key international leaders. Australians say it was an honour and a privilege to be at the Centenary of Armistice commemoration in northern France. About 1500 people attended the service at the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, near the city of Amiens, on Sunday. Some travelled from Australia, others came from Europe and a number of local French people had walked up the road from the town. There was even a crowd of people, including uniformed soldiers, lining up for tickets less than an hour before the event began. NSW south coast resident David Russell said it was a privilege to be there, and that hearing the Ode of Remembrance and the Australian and French national anthems played was emotional for him. "I remembered my father, who was in the Second World War, and just the incredible sacrifice in this dreadful theatre of war," Mr Russell told AAP. "To realise that my great uncle was younger than my son when he was killed ... just the sheer devastation in this place was just dreadful. "I wouldn't ever want to glorify war, but they (the soldiers) need to be honoured I suppose." Adelaide brothers Ed and Dean Osmond had been planning the trip to Villers-Bretonneux for a couple of years and were glad to be there rather than watching the ceremony on TV. Their grandfather fought in WWI and came home but their great uncle was killed in the conflict. His name is among more than 10,000 names of Australian soldiers with no known grave that are inscribed on the memorial's wall. "We thought we would come to this service just to honour what they did," said Ed Osmond, who was himself conscripted in the Vietnam War. The service was also a chance for the brothers to reflect on their father, who fought in World War II. "It was solemn, I think it made us think about our relatives as well. What they could have been had they lived on," Dean Osmond said. Ed Osmond said he was glad to see Australians who were not descendants travelling so far to be at the service. Frenchwoman Virginie Vincent said she came with her husband because she felt indebted to the Australians who fought for her country 100 years ago. "Forever we remember them and we are very, very gracious," she said. A drunk driver has allegedly tried to run over a police officer after disturbing a Remembrance Day ceremony in North Sydney. The constable had left the Sunday afternoon ceremony at St Leonards Park after the man's car on adjacent Ridge St revved loudly and caused a disturbance. Police said the man, 25, drove off while the officer was talking to him, but then turned his car around and swerved at the constable, who had to get out of the way to avoid being hit. The car crashed into a concrete barrier on nearby Albert Street. Police arrested the driver and a breath analysis allegedly returned a 0.139 reading. The man is due to appear in Manly Local Court on Monday charged with five offences including assaulting police, dangerous and negligent driving, and driving with a mid-range prescribed concentration of alcohol. A teenager is in a critical condition in hospital after he was attacked with a metal vase at a home in Logan, in southeast Queensland. The 19-year-old suffered serious face and head injuries in the attack, which happened about 6.30am on Sunday at Crestmead. Police said a woman at the residence was also assaulted and a vehicle and mobile phone were damaged. A 21-year-old Waterford West man is due to appear in the Beenleigh Magistrates Court on Monday charged with grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning bodily harm and two counts of wilful damage. Former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello has reportedly been reappointed as chair of Australia's sovereign wealth fund for another five years. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Finance Mathias Cormann are expected to announce Mr Costello will remain chairman of the $149 billion Future Fund until 2024, The Australian Financial Review reported on Monday. Mr Costello set up the fund - which manages money to pay for the future superannuation payments of retired civil servants - in 2006 when he was treasurer in the Howard government. He joined its board in 2009 and became chair in 2014. Some businesses might not like the policies Labor would have in government but at least they already know exactly what they are, shadow treasurer Chris Bowen says. This transparency and the stable leadership of Bill Shorten are among the party's key offerings to the business community, Mr Bowen has told a business conference in Sydney. "I am not suggesting that everyone loves all our policies," he said on Monday. "But I am suggesting that a business environment that craves certainty can take comfort from the fact that we have used our stability in personnel and leadership to construct a clear and comprehensive plan for government, which business can factor into its plans." Mr Bowen has particularly pushed the certainty federal Labor would deliver businesses on energy policy. He has also highlighted Labor's competition policy, plan to keep economic growth going and the edge to its corporate tax policy by its Australian Investment Guarantee. The guarantee would give all businesses in Australia the ability to immediately deduct 20 per cent of any new eligible asset worth more than $20,000. The balance would be depreciated in line with normal depreciation schedules from the first year. A woman whose car was hit by a highway patrol vehicle in Sydney's south remains in a coma almost 10 weeks after the incident. Senior Constable Harry Thomas Little, 40, has been charged with dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm after an on-duty collision, injuring Gai Vieira, in Cronulla about midday on September 5. Little was allegedly driving at a dangerous speed when his NSW Police Ford Falcon XR6 hit Ms Vieira's Mercedes at the Kingsway and Connels Road intersection, according to court documents. Ms Vieira, then 68, was taken to St George Hospital in a critical condition. Police say a young boy, who was a passenger in the Mercedes, escaped injury. Outside Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Monday, racing horse owner Bert Vieira told reporters his wife remains in hospital in a coma and has shown "very slight signs" of improvement. "We grab at anything - a blink of an eye, a swallow, we grab at anything we can," Mr Vieira said. "They (the doctors) say it will take a long time, a miracle." Little, who didn't face court, has been excused from appearing when the matter is next heard on February 5, 2019. Outside court, his solicitor Warwick Anderson said the police officer is doing "as well as can be expected", adding that "it's a very difficult time for him and his family". Former NSW Labor leader Luke Foley won't be returning to state parliament for the final sitting weeks of the year after being accused of sexual harassment. Mr Foley on Thursday resigned after an ABC journalist issued a statement alleging he groped her at a 2016 Christmas party. He denied this and flagged possible legal action for defamation. Mr Foley later announced he would not seek re-endorsement for his western Sydney seat of Auburn and would leave politics at the March 2019 state election. Now he has taken leave and won't attend parliament for the final six sitting days of the year. "He did the wrong thing ...[but]... we have to look after his welfare as well," Michael Daley, who was elected Labor leader at a caucus meeting on Saturday, said on Monday. NSW parliament is scheduled to rise for the year on November 22. A man accused of bashing his girlfriend to death in Sydney had a history of assaulting another female partner and was once seen karate-kicking her in the head, a jury has heard. Onitolosi Etuini Atiai Latu, 30, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 26-year-old Rhonda Baker, who suffered head injuries in a Liverpool apartment block and later died in August 2016. In NSW's Supreme Court on Monday, Latu's ex-girlfriend Hailey Bingley - who he dated during a separation with Ms Baker - testified that he threw a wine glass at her chest and knocked her out with a closed fist in July 2013. Crown prosecutor Guy Newton asked: "You told Mr Latu you would not get back together with him until he received help for his anger issues?" "Yes," Ms Bingley replied. "I just said no, I can't have him back living with me anymore. I couldn't do it." Her friend, Melissa Pinto, gave evidence that Latu "was bouncing, like going to pounce" when Ms Bingley said "no" then leapt onto a dining table, punched his partner in the head, threw her to the floor and hit and kicked her. Ms Pinto said she saw Latu on an earlier occasion "karate kick" Ms Bingley in the head because she hadn't bought coathangers and "his clothes were not hung", and he'd also been arguing about her past relationship. "He was quite angry and he kind of just did a big kick in the air," Ms Pinto said, sobbing throughout her evidence. "From what I recall, he pulled her hair, dragging her on the ground ... he was in a rage. "She just kept begging him to stop. I was trying to (stop him) but he was a big man." Ms Baker's high school friend Jahleen Gray told the court she was an "independent" and "happy" woman when separated from Latu, but when they got back together he controlled her money, phone and the use of her car. Ms Gray said her own partner worked with Ms Baker at Dial A Dump Industries for a few months in 2016 and would call her whenever he saw her friend at work with injuries. She said Ms Baker was "really good" at covering her bruises with makeup and would "contour" around swelling. "I wanted her to leave, to get away from it. She said she couldn't leave him (Latu) unless she knew he was going to jail, away for a very long time," Ms Gray said. "She said that he would find her and he would hurt her." His barrister, Gregory Woods QC, has argued while Latu "was a less-than-perfect partner" he didn't kill Ms Baker. The trial before Justice Julia Lonergan continues. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Lifeline 13 11 14 Today's Birthday, November 13: Tony Jones, Australian journalist, (1955 - ) Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sat alone on the Q&A panel bench, his first public appearance since being knifed by his own party. Facilitating questions from the public, Tony Jones held Turnbull to task while the former prime minister explicitly named the ministers who, in his words, "blew up the government". The six-time Walkley award winner has hosted the program since its inception in 2008. It follows an impressive career with the ABC, including a stint as foreign correspondent in Yugoslavia and years hosting flagship current affairs show Lateline. Born in 1955, Jones graduated from the University of Sydney, switching from English Honours to anthropology. While living at all-boys college St Paul's, a chance encounter with prominent journalist Francis James led him to embark on a career in journalism after hearing his account covering Vietnam. Missing out on cadetships with leading mastheads The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian, Jones joined the ABC as a cadet working on radio current affairs programs AM, PM and The World Today. In 1985 he joined Four Corners as a reporter. He was appointed to London in 1990 soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. From there he covered leading world stories around the destabilisation of communism, the Gulf War and the collapse of apartheid in South Africa. He returned to Australia in 1993 and became Executive Producer of Foreign Correspondent. This was followed with a few years as their Washington DC correspondent. He's won numerous awards for his work over the years. International acclaim followed his Four Corners special Frozen (1980) on the exploitation of Antarctica, which won gold at the New York Film and Television Festival. A 1987 report Horses for Courses about the Waterhouse racing dynasty and his work on Lateline in 2004 and 2007 resulted in three Walkley awards. During his time on Lateline he also headed up a number of stories prompting the Northern Territory Intervention in 2007, a series he is particularly proud of. In 2017 he made his crime fiction debut with his first novel The Twentieth Man. This year he continues to host Q&A. He lives with his partner and fellow journalist Sarah Ferguson. TOP 10 ROOKIES HEADING INTO THE 2019 NRL SEASON * Patrick Carrigan (Brisbane) Yet another monster young forward off the Broncos production line. Was part of the Queensland Emerging Origin squad this year and captained the Maroons under-20s to their first ever win over the junior Blues. * Corey Allan (South Sydney) After being poached from the Broncos on a three-year deal, he's considered a genuine contender to wear the Bunnies' No.1 next year. He became the first player to represent the Prime Minister's XIII having never played NRL. * Blayke Brailey (Cronulla) The brother of Sharks No.9 Jayden, smart judges consider him the best player in his family. Has been elevated to Cronulla's top 30 and could start round one off the bench. * Albert Hopoate (Manly) The son of John and brother of Will, he has dominated junior grades for several years. He attracted interest from rugby union, who saw him as a potential sevens star. He missed most of 2018 due to an ACL tear. * Scott Drinkwater (Melbourne) He made his NRL debut in round 24 and signed to a two-year contract extension. Has set his sights on inheriting Billy Slater's No.1 jersey. But with Jahrome Hughes and Ryan Papenhuyzen in the squad, he has stiff competition. * Chanel Harris-Tavita (Warriors) Find a video of his "scorpion kick" try assist for Isaiah Papalii for the Junior Kiwis against Australia and that will tell you everything you need to know. While behind Shaun Johnson and Blake Green, the playmaker is blessed with freakish talent. * Maika Sivo (Parramatta) Signed from Penrith on a two-year deal, he's being touted as the next Fijian sensation. He's been compared to Semi Radradra and has the size and speed to match. * Bronson Xerri (Cronulla) A part of the generation next emerging in the Shire, the skilful and powerful centre has already been earmarked as a future NRL player. Still only 18, he's been signed up for the next three years. Stepped up to NSW Cup last year and scored three tries on debut. * Kurt Dillon (South Sydney) The powerfully built front-rower received his first NRL call-up this year with Cronulla. But he's been signed by Souths and is considered a strong prospect to be in their forward pack in 2019. *Greg Leleisiuao (Parramatta) He's been touted as a future star ever since dominating the under 20s competition in 2017. An explosive winger, defence remains the issue for the Auckland native. Was on the verge of debuting this year. Australia's free trade deal with Indonesia was meant to be signed before Christmas but a delay means the deal likely won't be ratified until after the next election. Any deal that gets signed has to spend at least five parliamentary weeks being scrutinised, but there are unlikely to be enough sitting weeks before next year's election. In a speech to be given to the Australia Indonesia Business Council in Surfers Paradise on Tuesday, Labor's shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh says economic connections between the countries must deepen soon. "Australia has too often neglected our relationship," he says. "Between our two countries, we still have too little economic activity, and too few interpersonal connections. "We need a relationship based on more than Batik, Bali and Bintang." The free trade deal was meant to be a step in that direction, but it appears on hold as Indonesia is angry about Australia's potential move of an embassy to Jerusalem. Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously said he wanted the deal signed by Christmas, but on Monday said there was "no rush". "The intention was the trade ministers would be able to deal with that by the end of the year, but there's no hurry," Mr Morrison told Bloomberg. "Australia doesn't conflate these issues." Mr Leigh says that means the deal will be delayed significantly. "Given the likely timing of the next election, this will effectively push the process over to the next election," he says. Mr Leigh spent years in Indonesia as a child and says links between the two countries had become weaker since the 1970s. "When I was born in 1972, there were more Australian school students studying Bahasa Indonesia than there are today," he says. If Labor wins the election it aims to improve Asian language skills and cultural knowledge among Australian businesses, so they can feel confident about operating overseas. Labor also plans to send 1000 Australian professionals to Indonesia and bring 1000 Indonesians to Australia on business exchanges. Mr Morrison is due to meet Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the East Asia Summit this week in Singapore, where the embassy issue will be discussed. A Melbourne Muslim religious leader has criticised the prime minister after he urged imams to report people who try to radicalise young men in the Muslim community. The spiritual leader of the Hume Islamic Youth Centre, which Bourke St terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali attended, has questioned what authorities did to stop Shire Ali, who had been known to federal police. "This person was on the watch list. So what did they do? Nothing," Mohammed Omran told The Australian on Tuesday. "... This bloody prime minister, instead of turning the heat on somebody else, he should answer us about what he did. "He has spent billions of dollars -- billions -- on security service. And what is the end result? We have crazy people in the street." Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday urged imams to watch out for "infiltrators" and "shady characters" in mosques who preyed on vulnerable young men, and said imams "can't look the other way". Somalia-born Shire Ali, 30, fatally stabbed Melbourne restaurateur Sisto Malaspina and injured two others on Friday after driving a ute into Bourke St and setting it alight. He was shot by an officer and later died in hospital. Shire Ali's family said he had mental health issues for years, had refused help and was deteriorating before he was shot dead in the attack. But Mr Morrison rejected this as an "excuse" saying he was a terrorist extremist who had been radicalised. "My encouragement to the Muslim religious communities across Australia is to raise the level of awareness and alertness," he said. Shire Ali was known to federal police and had his passport cancelled in 2015 amid concerns he planned to travel to Syria to fight with Islamic State. The federal government says 14 potential terror attacks have been thwarted in recent and that 400 people are on a terrorist watch list. Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza. Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres. Members of the Australian armed forces played the Last Post as war veterans gathered at the ANZAC war memorial in Sydney India, Australia and New Zealand paused Sunday on the centenary of the end of World War I to remember the more than 150,000 of their countrymen who died fighting on the other side of the world. In sombre ceremonies from Wellington to New Delhi, huge crowds paid tribute to the servicemen and women who gave their lives in the Great War. The leaders of these Commonwealth nations -- whose forces were deployed across the globe 100 years ago -- also sounded a message of peace and hope for the world in the new century. "This was a war in which India was not directly involved yet our soldiers fought world over, just for the cause of peace," said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter on Sunday. A Scottish piper performed at the Delhi War Cemetery where marigolds, a flower symbolic in India, intermingled with the poppies traditionally worn to remember the carnage in Europe and beyond. British Army officers pay their respects at a ceremony at Delhi War Cemetery The centenary comes as India, then a British colony, seeks greater recognition of its contribution of 1.3 million troops to the allied war effort -- and the 74,000 who never came home. In Canberra, Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke of the ultimate sacrifice made by Australians on gruesome battlefields far away in places like Fromelles in northern France. "For our tomorrows, they gave their today. In silence, we commit ourselves to standing by those who have returned home," he told thousands of people gathered at the national Remembrance Day ceremony. Of the more than 400,000 of the young Australian federation's citizens who enlisted, more than 300,000 served overseas and almost 62,000 died in the trenches. More than 10,000 servicemen from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) died during the abortive Gallipoli campaign on the Turkish peninsula -- a military failure that gave rise to the legacy of courage and close friendship between the two countries. - 'Roaring chorus' - Almost 62,000 of the young Australian federation's citizens who enlisted died in the trenches The New Zealand commemoration followed two minutes of silence at 11:00 am on November 11, when the armistice took effect. There was a 100-gun salute on the Wellington waterfront, while nationally people cheered, church bells rang, emergency services sounded their sirens and ship and car horns blared. "The carillon and roaring chorus has recaptured the wave of spontaneous jubilation and hope which swept New Zealand when news of the Armistice broke," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a service at the National War Memorial in Wellington. New Zealand's commemoration of the centenary of World War I's end included a 100-gun salute on the Wellington waterfront The June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, ignited a conflict that was contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars". More than 70 million military personnel were mobilised and an estimated 10 million lost their lives. More than 100,000 New Zealanders -- about 10 percent of the population at the time -- served overseas during the war, and 18,300 were killed. "No family, no community in New Zealand went untouched by the effects of the war," Sarah Davies, the director of the World War I centenary programme, told AFP. burs-cf-grk-np/rma High voter turnout in the 2018 US midterm elections came amid record digital ad spending Even as online platforms tightened rules for political ads, digital spending set new records in the 2018 US midterm elections and appears poised for further growth in 2020. Digital media campaign spending rose 2,400 percent from the 2014 midterms to $1.8 billion, roughly 20 percent of the total $8.9 billion in ad spending, according to preliminary estimates from the research firm Borrell Associates. Online spending, much of it on social networks like Facebook, has been a significant factor in campaigns for a decade, but tighter rules imposed by digital giants in the wake of the 2016 election could have curbed some of that growth. Kip Cassino, lead author of the Borrell study, said the online sector kept up a strong growth pace despite new guidelines from Facebook, Twitter and others requiring verification of advertisers to address concerns about foreign influence campaigns. Digital has some unique advantages over traditional media like television, notably the ability to send out messages quickly and targeted to specific groups of voters. "They can take advantage of an opportunity very quickly, within seconds," Borrell said. "You can't do that with legacy media." Additionally, campaigns can finely target voters by geography, age, affiliation and interests, based on data gleaned by online firms. "You can focus your messages to those people who are going to vote for your or those you want to vote for you," Cassino said. "You don't want to waste your money on those who don't want to listen to you." - Privacy changes ahead? - Facebook established a "War Room," to root out misinformation during the 2018 elections but some analysts say bad information and misleading ads still appeared It remains unclear, however, what if any new privacy rules may come into effect before the 2020 election. Any regulations similar to those imposed in Europe could in theory limit campaigns' ability to target ads without consent from users. "I would be surprised if (tough ad targeting regulations) happen with this administration," said Michelle Amazeen, a Boston University professor specializing in political communication. Amazeen said campaigns this year were able to use finely targeted ads, including many "attack ads," whose source was not clearly identified -- in some cases seeking to get press attention from "sensational" or inaccurate claims. "There are certain loopholes where people can run ads and there's no real confirmation of whether that individual or group is who they say they are," Amazeen said. She added that Facebook's decision to keep these ads without better disclosure "suggests they are not really concerned about protecting the integrity of the election." Facebook's political ad report showed $353 million spend by campaigns on its platform since May, with unsuccessful Texas Democratic Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke the largest spender with $7.1 million, followed by Donald Trump's campaign committee with $3.4 million. - Embracing digital - Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke was the biggest political spender on Facebook in the 2018 midterms but fell short in his bid to unseat Republican Senator Ted Cruz While many candidates embraced digital, some strategists say other office seekers failed to take advantage of cost-effective online ads. Broadcast TV still made up nearly 40 percent of all campaign spending and cable TV for 12 percent. Amazeen said television remains a key medium because of a large body of research showing its effectiveness, and because older voters are less reachable on online platforms. According to Cassino, Democrats outspent Republicans three-to-one on digital, but some analysts say much of that was in fundraising and not to help get the vote out. Mark Jablonowski, managing partner at DSPolitical, a digital targeting consultancy for Democrats and progressive candidates, said Republicans were well-organized early in the campaign on digital, forcing Democrats to catch up with a late online surge. "We did not see the growth in digital ad spending we were expecting" from Democrats, Jablonowksi said. Even with candidates like O'Rourke, he said, "almost all of that (digital) spending was to raise more money, not for persuasion." Campaign strategists say smartphone messaging is one of the best ways to reach young voters, because that's where "the eyeballs" are Jablonowski said it will be increasingly important in 2020 to direct more ad dollars to digital to reach younger voters. "You want to be where the eyeballs are, and more people are cancelling their cable television subscriptions, don't have landline telephones," he said. "There's a whole universe of people not reachable by television." Some analysts say even old technology, like text messaging, were effective tools in 2018. Roddy Lindsay, co-founder and chief of the smartphone organizing group Hustle, said activists for Democrats and progressives sent out more than 200 million text messages, calling it an important element in driving turnout. Although text messages have been used for decades, organizers were able to use targeted campaigns to deliver "peer to peer" messages to young voters who might not be reached by traditional media. "This was one of the breakout tools of the 2018 election cycle," Lindsay said. "We know the youth voter turnout made the difference." While many question the nature of Fiji's democracy under Frank Bainimarama, there is no denying the radical makeover his image has undergone in recent years Fiji's former military strongman Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama is overwhelming favourite to win an election in the Pacific island nation this week, after transforming himself from coup leader to climate change campaigner. While many, including rights group Amnesty International, question the nature of Fiji's democracy under Bainimarama, there is no denying the radical makeover his image has undergone in recent years. The 64-year-old was denounced as a dictator by Australia and New Zealand after seizing power in a bloodless 2006 coup, resulting in sanctions and Fiji's suspension from the Commonwealth and the Pacific Islands Forum. Fast forward 12 years and the naval officer is president of the UN's COP 23 efforts to mitigate climate change, with Hollywood action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger hailing him for "kicking some serious butt" on the issue. Canberra and Wellington now court the one-time pariah in a bid to limit China's growing influence in the Pacific and his approval rating is running at 68 percent as Fijians enjoy a period of sustained economic growth. "He's done exceptionally well in terms of positioning Fiji internationally and changing perceptions," developmental historian Robbie Robertson of Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology told AFP. "He refused to kowtow to Australia and New Zealand (after the coup) and when they threatened to cut his funding he said 'we'll go to China'. "He's played the international scene exceedingly well." The softening of Bainimarama's strongman persona has been a key element in his road to international acceptance, with credit partly going to Washington-based public relations firm Qorvis. - 'Doesn't like criticism' - Bainimarama hired the spin doctors in 2011 when his government was still facing international isolation and their website boasts of how they prepared him for the COP 23 role. Rather than the "finger pointing and blame laying" of previous climate talks, it says, Bainimarama promoted "a process of open, constructive and respectful dialogues" to promote global action. Critics say Bainimarama does not extend the same consensus approach to domestic politics, where his FijiFirst party dominates with 32 representatives in the 50-seat parliament. The largest of the five opposition parties running against Bainimarama is SODELPA, led by former prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka -- a controversial choice who himself led two coups in the 1980s. Rabuka has faced corruption charges in the lead up to the election, echoing charges laid against opposition figures ahead of the 2014 poll -- a pattern which has raised questions over judicial independence. Opposition parties have also alleged during the campaign that FijiFirst is using government resources to try to win over voters. "He has scant regard for other people's views and he doesn't like criticism," Robertson said. "But he hasn't blown it, he's kept it together on the campaign trail." A military man to his bootstraps, Bainimarama joined Fiji's navy as an ordinary seaman aged 21 and earned a commission after two years, receiving training in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Malaysia. He served two stints as a UN peacekeeper in Sinai on his way to becoming commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces in 1999. At the time of the 2006 coup, he said the army was the only institution disciplined enough to usher in real reform, describing it as a long overdue "clean up". It was Fiji's fourth coup since 1987 and Bainimarama insisted he was determined to stop instability and stamp out corruption. - 'Rights under attack' - Supporters say he achieved that and introduced a constitution in 2013 granting equal rights for Indian-Fijians, a sizable minority brought in to work on sugar plantations during British colonial rule. They also point to improved living standards through policies such as cheap education and improved spending on rural roads. He won a landslide victory in the first post-coup election in 2014 and is on track for similar success at Wednesday's poll, in which opposition parties appear divided and ineffective. Amnesty said Bainimarama's government was yet to fully restore the freedoms which were suspended for several years after the coup. "Since the last general elections in 2014, the human rights situation in Fiji has remained under attack," it said, pointing to police brutality, curbs on freedom of assembly and media, as well as persecution of rights advocates. Robertson said an unexpectedly poor showing in the election could force Bainimarama to relax his grip on power and take heed of critics, but it appeared unlikely. "I think even some supporters of FijiFirst would like to see a slightly more liberal interpretation of the constitution and for the government to be less autocratic in some of the ways it behaves," he said. "But whether they will go that way, I don't know. I doubt it." Macron called on his fellow leaders not to forget the lessons of the past World leaders gathered in Paris on Sunday to mark 100 years since the end of World War I, with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN chief Antonio Guterres each warning that rising nationalism again poses a threat to peace. US President Donald Trump -- who prides himself on being called a nationalist -- was among around 70 leaders to attend a solemn ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in the driving rain. But neither he nor Russian President Vladimir Putin joined other leaders in a symbolic walk up the Champs-Elysees to the monument. Three topless protesters from radical feminist movement Femen were arrested trying to reach Trump's motorcade, although French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said his security had "in no way been threatened". Around 70 leaders including US and Russian Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin marked the centenary of the 1918 Armistice in Paris Paris, the site of repeated jihadist attacks since 2015, had mobilised some 10,000 police for an event also attended by Canada's Justin Trudeau, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After church bells rang out across France at 11.00 am -- exactly a century after the signing of the Armistice -- leaders gathered for a ceremony which included a cello performance and readings from letters written by World War I soldiers. Macron delivered a stinging indictment of nationalism in a 20-minute speech and called on leaders to learn the lessons of the past. "Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism," he said. Britain's Queen Elizabeth and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier attend a service in London to mark the centenary of the World War I Armistice "By saying our interests come first and others don't matter we are erasing what makes a nation precious, what makes it live, what makes it great and most importantly of all, its moral values." He warned that to dash hopes for peace through "isolation, violence or domination" would "be a mistake for which future generations would rightly find us responsible". The service concluded with the bugle call that was played at 11.00 am on November 11, 1918 to signal the end of fighting on the Western Front. Trump thanked Macron in a tweet for the "beautiful ceremony" before heading to the US military cemetery at Suresnes, west of Paris to pay tribute to America's war dead. Queen Mathilde of Belgium and King Philippe of Belgium stand during the Last Post ceremony at the Ypres Memorial Ceremonies in New Zealand, Australia, India, Hong Kong and Myanmar had launched a day of remembrance services for a conflict that involved millions of troops from colonised countries in Asia and Africa. "This was a war in which India was not directly involved yet our soldiers fought world over, just for the cause of peace," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter. "For our tomorrows, they gave their today," Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told people gathered at a ceremony in Canberra. Sydney Opera House is lit up with poppies marking the centenary of the end of World War I In London, Prince Charles laid the first wreath of red poppies, Britain's emblem of remembrance, at the nation's annual commemoration ceremony on behalf of his mother Queen Elizabeth II, who watched from a nearby balcony. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier became the first German leader to take part in the service, which was also attended by Prime Minister Theresa May. - Return to the 1930s? - After the ceremony, Merkel and UN Secretary-General Guterres gave the opening speeches at a new peace forum in Paris set up by Macron -- with both warning that rising nationalism threatens the rules-based international order. War veterans take part in a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the World War I at Taukkyan War Cemetery, in Yangon "The concern I have is that blinkered nationalist views may gain ground once again," Merkel said, warning that people were calling the "European peace project" into question. Guterres warned of "many parallels with both the start of the twentieth century and the 1930s, giving us grounds to fear that an unpredictable chain of events could ensue". The earlier show of unity at the Arc de Triomphe comes at a time of growing tensions between liberals and populists in the EU, as well as between Europe and the US, two years into Trump's "America First" presidency. Around 1,500 anti-Trump protesters held a demonstration at Republique square in eastern Paris on Sunday, at which the giant "Baby Blimp" balloon depicting Trump as an infant was flown, following previous appearances in London and New York. "Mr Hate, Leave Europe," read one banner at the protest. An Indian military band performs during an event in Kolkata commemorating the contribution of the Indian Army during World War I Trump had snubbed the Peace Forum, instead visiting a military cemetery in the Paris suburbs, a day after coming under heavy fire for cancelling a similar trip due to rain. Putin meanwhile said he and Trump -- at odds over Washington's sanctions and the abandonment of a Cold War-era nuclear treaty -- had had a brief but positive conversation during the centenary events. The Kremlin said earlier that the prospect of a full meeting between the US and Russian presidents had prompted huge international media interest, leading to concern from the French organisers this could overshadow the commemorations. burs-adp/kjl/cb/har China, Japan, India and other Asia-Pacific countries could this week announce broad agreement on a trade pact covering half the world's population World leaders will push for the rapid completion of a massive, China-backed trade deal that excludes the US at a summit this week, in a rebuke to rising protectionism and Donald Trump's "America First" agenda. China, Japan, India and other Asia-Pacific countries could announce a broad agreement on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which covers half the world's population, on the sidelines of the annual gathering. Not only is the US absent from the deal, but Trump is skipping the summit in Singapore, highlighting how far he has pulled back from efforts to shape global trade rules and raising further questions about Washington's commitment to Asia. Trump launched his unilateralist trade policy with a bang shortly after coming to office by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal spearheaded by predecessor Barack Obama that aimed to bind fast-growing Asian powers into an American-backed order to counter China. His approach has left the floor open for Beijing to promote a rival pact it favours, the 16-member RCEP, a free trade deal which also aims to cut tariffs and integrate markets, but gives weaker protection in areas including employment and the environment. Donald Trump is skipping the summit in Singapore, highlighting how far he has pulled back from efforts to shape global trade rules The pact championed by Obama has been kept alive even without the US, and is due to go into force this year, but the Beijing-backed pact has now overtaken it as the world's biggest. Announcing in Singapore that talks for the deal -- which formally began in 2012 -- are mostly concluded would be "important as a symbol of Asia's commitment to trade at a time of rising global tensions", Deborah Elms, executive director of the Asian Trade Centre, told AFP. - US commitment questioned - She said negotiations in some areas were likely to continue into next year, however, while a diplomat attending the summit, speaking anonymously, said "substantial progress" had been made but there were still sticking points. The gathering of 20 world leaders comes against a backdrop of a months-long trade dispute between China and the United States after Trump imposed tariffs on most Chinese imports this summer, and Beijing retaliated with its own levies. Washington, however, argues that it remains committed to Asia, pointing to regular visits by top officials The standoff is having an impact far beyond the US and China, and leaders at the four days of meetings that begin Monday will be keen to voice their grievances to Vice President Mike Pence, attending in Trump's place, and Premier Li Keqiang. Trump's absence from the Singapore gathering and a subsequent meeting of world leaders in Papua New Guinea is even more notable given Obama, who launched a so-called "pivot to Asia" to direct more US economic and military resources to the region, was a regular participant. Washington, however, argues that it remains committed to Asia, pointing to regular visits by top officials. "We are fully engaged," insisted Patrick Murphy, one of the State Department's most senior Asia diplomats. "That is very sustained and has been enhanced under the current administration." - Nukes, sea tension - Myanmar's embattled leader Aung San Suu Kyi is attending the meetings, and will deliver a keynote address at a business forum Monday. She may face criticism over a military crackdown on the Muslim Rohingya that saw hundreds of thousands flee to Bangladesh last year, and has sparked rare criticism of Myanmar from within regional bloc the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Myanmar's embattled leader Aung San Suu Kyi is attending the Singapore meetings Also on the agenda will be North Korea's nuclear programme. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a vaguely worded agreement on denuclearisation at a historic summit in June, but progress has been slow since. Pence will also keep on pressure on Beijing over its growing aggression in the South China Sea. China claims almost all the strategically vital waters, a source of friction with Southeast Asian states that have overlapping claims as well as the US, the traditionally dominant military power in the region. Other leaders attending include Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But much of the focus will be on the RCEP as leaders seek to send a message in support of free trade. The deal groups the 10 ASEAN members plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. World leaders "should present a united front advancing trade liberalisation in (the Asia-Pacific) despite global headwinds to trade from the rising tide of global protectionism," Rajiv Biswas, chief regional economist at IHS Markit, told AFP. Oil prices lost a fifth of their value in just one month, driven down by higher supply and fears of slowing demand Major oil producers meet in Abu Dhabi on Sunday to consider reverting to output cuts after a sharp slide in crude prices revived fears of a 2014-style crash. Oil prices shed a fifth of their value in just one month after surging to a four-year high in early October, driven by a combination of factors centred on higher supply and fears of sluggish demand. Brent crude dropped below $70 a barrel on Friday for the first time since April while the New York's West Texas Intermediate (WTI) sank below $60 a barrel, a nine-month low. The United States has upped production of shale oil, while Saudi Arabia, Russia and others have raised supplies of crude amid signs of slowing demand. The slide also comes during signs of a softer-than-expected impact from US sanctions on Iran oil exports. "Prices have been falling amid a continued rise in crude supplies from big producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US, more than compensating for lost Iranian barrels," Forex.com analyst Fawad Razaqzada told AFP. "With the Iranian sanctions not being as severe as initially feared, officials from the OPEC and non-OPEC producers may discuss at the weekend the need to bring compliance back down towards the 100-percent level or risk another 2014-style slide in prices," he said. Energy ministers of top producers Russia and Saudi Arabia will join other OPEC and non-OPEC officials for the meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, which oversees production levels. The world's second and third crude producers -- after they were overtaken by the United States thanks to shale oil -- Russia and Saudi Arabia are the core of an alliance of producer nations that succeeded in solidifying oil prices after the 2014 crash. Through large production cuts starting at the beginning of 2017, they managed to push up oil prices from below $30 a barrel to over $85 a barrel in October, strongly improving their revenues. But the producer nations eased the output cuts in June after signs of a tight market and higher prices, allowing hundreds of thousands of extra barrels into the market. Saudi Arabia raised its production from around 9.9 million barrels per day in May to around 10.7 million bpd in October, according to Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih. Kuwait, Iraq, Russia and the United Arab Emirates also boosted their output. Cailin Birch, analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said a slowing oil demand is beginning to appear in China, the world's largest importer of crude oil. "The recent drop in oil prices reflects a combination of factors. For one, signs of slowing oil demand are beginning to appear; the rate of GDP growth in China is beginning to ease," Birch told AFP. The meeting, which will also be attended by the oil ministers of Kuwait, Venezuela and host nation the UAE, is not due to make decisions but will most likely send signals. The JMMC, a technical committee, is expected to make important recommendations on production cuts to a key ministerial meeting in Vienna next month for the OPEC and non-OPEC producers. Commerzbank, Germany's second-largest lender, said Friday oil producers must act to prevent a free fall of prices. "If they fail to signal any intention to reverse the latest increase in production, oil prices threaten to slide further," the bank said in a note. The president's praise for the minimum wage hike idea may have been premature On the campaign trail for re-election in February, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari may have spoken too soon when he backed an initiative to hike his country's minimum wage by a whopping two thirds. Buhari, who had been advised on the wage by a negotiating committee made up of union representatives, the government and the private sector, praised the "patriotic and professional" members. The recommendation to hike the minimum wage to 30,000 naira ($82, 72 euros) from 18,000 was "realistic, fair and implementable" and would be studied by the executive "within the shortest possible time", before being returned to parliament for final approval, he said. The unspoken agreement was that Nigeria's unions, which had threatened to paralyse Africa's largest economy of more than 180 million people with a massive, open-ended strike, would deliver their members' vote to Buhari in a presidential poll set for February 2019 in return for the pay hike. But the very next day the information minister poured cold water on the idea, claiming that the Nigerian government had in no way acceded to the 30,000 naira demand and said this "recommendation should first be studied". Standing in the way of Buhari's strategy to win the popular vote with the wage promise are the 36 state governors who say they are already struggling to pay civil servants and public officials with the current wage. David Umahi, governor of southeast Ebonyi state, warned this week that the 30,000 naira minimum wage for public servants couldn't work. "Many states are experiencing various problems and cannot pay salaries," he told reporters after Buhari's remarks. - 'Sensible compromise' - The proposed minimum wage would still only pay for three big bags of rice Even if it went through, a higher wage would still be modest given that a 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of rice costs nearly 10,000 naira. "It is very low considering the cost of living," Charlie Robertson, Renaissance Capital economist and Nigeria specialist, told AFP. But attempting to do more would be unrealistic because Nigerian businesses already have high overheads, and many workers are unqualified, making a pay hike hard to justify, he said. Nigeria's patchy power supply is another factor undermining the competitiveness of businesses, and therefore their margin for any wage increase. "Nigeria's difficulty on the minimum wage is that because its electricity, literacy are less than most countries, its wages must be less too. Or it will attract no foreign investments," Robertson said. "30,000 is a sensible compromise but still debatable." Ivory Coast, for example, has a higher minimum wage than Nigeria but its good energy network still allows it to stay competitive with its West Africa neighbours. In contrast, electricity is almost non-existent in most of Nigeria and the literacy level of the adult population is close to 60 per cent, a number that falls to less than 50 percent in the predominantly Muslim north. - Staggering inequality - Workers are unhappy about the government dragging its feet over the minimum wage hike Nevertheless, it will be hard to explain to voters that Nigeria, Africa's largest oil exporter producing more than two million barrels per day can neither afford a modest minimum wage for its civil servants nor provide a decent level of education and infrastructure to attract investors. Several months ago, a senator caused a scandal by revealing lawmakers' salaries: 14.25 million naira a month with bonuses, making it one of the highest salaries of politicians in the world. At 30,000 naira, it would take 35 years for a Nigerian worker to earn what deputies make in a month, and 68 years at the current minimum wage level of 18,000 naira. Life expectancy in Nigeria is barely above 53. There is hardly a better reflection of the staggering inequality in Nigerian society. On the eve of a presidential election and after two years of painful recession beginning in 2016, voters are demanding accountability. "Where are you going to find the money to pay the salaries?" asked Gbenga Omotoso, a columnist in the normally pro-government newspaper The Nation. "Reduce these outrageous wages, force the rich to pay their taxes, pursue the corrupt and engage the economy in a real program of diversification." Cafe owner Sisto Malaspina was stabbed to death in a terror attack in Melbourne on Friday A Somali-born Australian who went on a deadly knife rampage in the country's second-largest city Melbourne was inspired by Islamic State but did not have a direct link to the jihadist group, the government said Sunday. Hassan Khalif Shire Ali stabbed to death well-known local cafe co-owner Sisto Malaspina and injured two other men in Bourke Street in the heart of Melbourne on Friday afternoon before he was shot and killed by police. The 30-year-old had gone to the bustling city in a utility vehicle filled with gas cylinders before setting it alight. Islamic State (IS) said via its propaganda arm that Shire Ali was an "Islamic State fighter and carried out the operation", but provided no evidence to back its claim. "In relation to his connections with ISIL (another name for IS) or with any terrorist group... there's not, as I'm advised, a membership of an organisation or a definite link to ISIL," Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told reporters in Brisbane. "The working theory is at the moment a case where this person has been downloading information or receiving messages in his own mind about what he should be doing. It's inspired as opposed to affiliation or membership." Shire Ali, known to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), had his passport revoked in 2015 on fears he was trying to travel to Syria to join IS. But he was also assessed by authorities as not being a domestic threat. Dutton defended the actions of ASIO, saying they had more than 400 investigations and people of interest to monitor. "Police did not have intelligence in relation to this person that he was about to commit an act," he added. "The fact is that many people, particularly where there is a low level of sophistication, where you have someone who can grab a knife from a kitchen drawer... it is impossible for authorities to cover every one of those circumstances." Dutton's comments came as Melbourne's Herald Sun reported Sunday that Shire Ali had drug and alcohol problems, and had split from his wife and become distanced from his family. Melbourne's The Age raised questions about his mental health, quoting a local imam as saying Shire Ali told him he was being "chased by unseen people with spears". Meanwhile more than Aus$50,000 (US$36,000) has been raised on GoFundMe for a bystander dubbed "trolley man", who was hailed as a hero for trying to stop Shire Ali by knocking him over with a shopping cart. The man, named in local media as Michael Rogers, is homeless according to the GoFundMe page creators. Authorities say more than a dozen terrorist attacks have been prevented in recent years, but several have taken place, including a cafe siege in Sydney in 2014 where two hostages were killed. Shire Ali's brother will go on trial next year on separate terror-related charges -- accused of trying to acquire a firearm and kill people in a New Years' Eve crowd. Farmers like Aidan Young were forced to destroy tonnnes of strawberries over the needle scare A woman has been charged after a "complex" investigation into an Australian strawberry scare where needles were found stuck into the fruit, police said Sunday, in a crisis that sparked nationwide panic. Queensland state authorities offered a large reward and the national government raised jail terms for such crimes after sewing needles were found in plastic boxes of the fruit sold in supermarkets in September. Since the first case came to light when a man was taken to hospital with stomach pains after consuming strawberries, more than 100 alleged incidents of pins and needles found in fruit, mostly strawberries, were reported in September around the country. One incident was also reported in neighbouring New Zealand. Police said a 50-year-old woman was arrested and charged on Sunday with seven counts of contaminating goods "following a complex... and extensive investigation". "This is a major and unprecedented police investigation with a lot of complexities involved," Detective Superintendent Jon Wacker said in a statement. "The Queensland Police Service has allocated a significant amount of resources to ensure those responsible are brought to justice." She faces up to 10 years' imprisonment and is due in a Brisbane court on Monday. Police did not reveal the reasons and motives behind her alleged involvement. The sabotage crisis led supermarkets to pull the fruit from the shelves and saw farmers dump tonnes of the unwanted berry. The government raised the maximum prison sentence for fruit tampering from 10 to 15 years. Queensland Strawberry Growers Association spokeswoman Jennifer Rowling welcomed the news and said the crisis had a "crippling impact" on the state's strawberry growers. "However, it is disconcerting that the charges relate to only six or seven punnets (plastic boxes) of strawberries, proving that the majority of... incidents were copycats or false reports," she told national broadcaster ABC. Yemeni pro-government forces gather on the eastern outskirts of Hodeida on November 8, 2018 Fighting for control of Yemen's rebel-held city of Hodeida reached residential streets on Sunday, as the Huthi insurgents mounted fierce resistance to government forces backed by Saudi Arabia, military sources said. Troops entered residential streets in eastern Hodeida with the aim of "purging them of insurgents," according to a pro-government military official. Fears for civilian safety have been rising since the loyalist forces renewed an operation to take Hodeida, which has been under the control of Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels since 2014. More than 400 combatants have been killed in 10 days of clashes in the city on Yemen's Red Sea coastline that is home to the impoverished country's most important port. Hodeida is a vital lifeline for Yemenis across the war-torn country, as the majority of imports and humanitarian aid enter through its port. The docks have been blockaded by the Saudi-led alliance since November 2017 over what the coalition says is arms smuggling from Iran to the Huthis. Tehran denies the charge. Aid groups have urged warring parties to keep the port open. "We cannot predict what will happen in the future, but at the moment there are no problems," Yahya Sharafeddine, deputy director of Hodeida port, told AFP. Pro-government fighters moved into the neighbourhood between the May 22 hospital -- the largest in Hodeida -- and Sanaa Road, which links the port city to inland Yemen. Fighters clashed around the Al-Waha (Oasis) Resort, closing in on a civilian district located south of the hospital and north of Sanaa Road. The World Health Organization estimates nearly 10,000 people have been killed since 2015, when Saudi Arabia and its allies joined the government's war against the Huthis, driving the insurgents from the Red Sea coastline but failing to retake Hodeida. Other rights groups believe the toll may be five times as high. The conflict has triggered what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation. A file picture taken on January 12, 2016 shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attending a ceremony for the arrival of the German-made INS Rahav, the fifth Israeli Navy submarine, at the Israeli military port of Haifa Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he was unaware of any corruption linked to a deal to buy German submarines, after police recommended charging his lawyer in the investigation. "As you know, there are no claims as to my involvement," Netanyahu said late Saturday in his first comments on the issue since police issued their findings in the long-running investigation last week. "Which is not a minute thing since people don't hesitate to blame me with the most absurd claims." Asked about the alleged offences committed by his relative and family lawyer David Shimron, Netanyahu said: "You know I didn't know." "Secondly, I suggest to wait until the end of the procedures and not rush to make a judgement," he said before boarding a plane for Paris, where he will join world leaders in marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Police said Thursday there was evidence to charge Shimron and others with bribery in connection with negotiations for Israel's purchase of submarines and other vessels from German industrial giant ThyssenKrupp. The investigation into the deals reportedly worth $2 billion is one of several cases that have put Netanyahu's long tenure in office under the spotlight. Besides Shimron, police said the former chief of Netanyahu's office, David Sharan, is also suspected of bribery, as is the former head of the navy, Eliezer Marom. Two other navy ex-generals were named as being suspected of similar offences, as was a former minister, Eliezer Zandberg. Netanyahu was questioned as a witness and not a suspect in the case. The police's findings will now be handed over to the attorney general, who will decide whether the suspects should be charged. Israeli opposition politicians have questioned how Netanyahu could be unaware of the alleged corruption and called for a commission of inquiry. In February, police recommended Netanyahu be indicted in two other graft probes, though the attorney general has yet to decide whether to do so. Allegations against Netanyahu include seeking a secret deal with the publisher of Israel's top-selling newspaper Yediot Aharonot to ensure positive coverage in return for pushing forward a law that would have limited the circulation of a rival. Another case involves suspicions that the prime minister and his family received luxury gifts from wealthy individuals in exchange for financial or personal favours. Netanyahu denies all the allegations, calling them a bid by his political enemies to force him from office. BNP veteran leader Khaleda Zia remains behind bars, her prison sentence doubled last month to ten years for corruption charges her supporters say were politically motivated Bangladesh's main opposition party announced Sunday it would not boycott next month's general election and would challenge Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the polls, despite its leader being in jail. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party said it would contest the December 23 election but has expressed fears it will not be democratic and has threatened protests. The BNP boycotted the 2014 election over fears it would be rigged, allowing Hasina to walk into a second term unchallenged. The prime minister's tenure has been marred by a crackdown on dissent in the South Asian democracy of 160 million. The opposition says thousands of its activists have been detained in recent months, depriving it of a grassroots presence necessary to fight any polls. BNP veteran leader Khaleda Zia remains behind bars, her prison sentence doubled last month to ten years for corruption charges her supporters say were politically motivated. The two-term prime minister has virtually no time to appeal her sentence, and will almost certainly be banned from contesting the election against her arch-rival Hasina. The opposition has said the charges against Zia, and other party activists, were deliberately planned by Hasina's increasingly authoritarian government. Zia's exiled son and heir apparent, Tarique Rahman, will not be able to contest the polls after being sentenced to life in prison last month over a 2004 grenade attack at Hasina's rally. He lives in exile. The arrest of activists and prominent dissidents including student leaders and a top photographer have also cast a shadow over the buildup to the vote. - 'Democratic struggle' - BNP senior leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said the decision to contest the election was not easy given their circumstances. "We are going to the polls as part of a democratic struggle," he told AFP. The opposition has formed an alliance with other parties, including Islamist outfits. Its main ally, the Jamaat-e-Islami, has been banned from contesting the election. But its leaders are expected to take part running on BNP tickets in the Muslim-majority country. The opposition wants the election delayed by a month to ensure there is adequate time to campaign, but Bangladesh's election commission has not responded to their request. The deputy head of Hasina's Awami League, Obaidul Quader, has said the ruling party has no issue deferring the poll if the decision is made. But early this month Hasina rejected a request from BNP and its allies to dissolve parliament and let a neutral caretaker government organise the election. It had also asked for Zia to be released so she could run. The rivalry between Hasina and Zia dates back 30 years. The pair were briefly allies in the late 1980s as they joined forces to oust a military dictator from power. They alternated throughout the prime minister's office in the 1990s and 2000s, but their relationship soured and Zia decided to boycott the 2014 election. Analysts had warned the BNP had little choice but to run next month or risk losing its credibility as a viable political force in Bangladesh. Thunderstorms brought heavy rains, strong winds and fresh flooding to the desert state of Qatar on Sunday for the second time in less than a month, as bad weather battered the region claiming lives. Some areas of Qatar received almost half-a-year's worth of rainfall in just a few hours as thunderstorms struck, said the Qatar Meteorology Department (QMD). It said a northwestern part of the country received almost 31 mm (more than an inch) of rainfall, compared to the emirate's annual rainfall of 77 mm. Roads flooded and workers were seen mopping up inside office buildings. The QMD had warned residents to stay indoors ahead of the rain and "to take extra care during thunderstorms". Further thunderstorms are forecast later in the week. Sunday's weather was not as extreme as last month when Qatar was hit by floods which saw more than a year's rain in one day. Roads became impassable, air traffic was disrupted and homes were flooded. Bad weather has hit several countries in the region, including Jordan where 12 people were killed and nearly 4,000 tourists forced to flee the famed ancient desert city of Petra. On Sunday, hundreds of rescuers from Jordan's civil defence, backed by troops and other security forces were still searching for a Jordanian girl missing south of the capital Amman since Friday's flooding. Flash floods also hit Kuwait on Saturday, killing a man and causing damage to roads, bridges and homes. Beaming bystanders waved at drag queens dressed in floor-length gowns, who were ferried in rickshaws with the parade As more than 1,000 Vietnamese joined Hanoi's Gay Pride parade Sunday in a rousing show of support for the LGBT community, activists called on the government to make a long-tabled transgender rights law a reality. Vietnam in 2015 changed its civil code to allow transgender people who have undergone surgery to be registered and recognised by their new gender. But a long-promised trans law that would cover a wide range of issues has stalled and activists are pushing for more rights and services, including making gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy legally available to its citizens - and also allowing gender changes without surgery. The community says without such a law in place they still face discrimination and have trouble accessing banking and other public services. "There is a high demand for a change in gender recognition in Vietnam but the demand cannot be met now. We don't know how and when things will be more realistic," Vuong Kha Phong, secretary of Hanoi Pride 2018's organising committee, told AFP. "The LGBT community is waiting in limbo as they have rights in theory but the rights cannot be realised," he said. "We want to tell (the authorities) to please make or realise the laws so that we can live our lives according to our gender identity." People in the parade Sunday were all smiles as they rode colourful bicycles and waved rainbow flags, marching down Hanoi's tree-lined streets People in the parade Sunday were all smiles as they rode colourful bicycles and waved rainbow flags, marching down Hanoi's tree-lined streets. Beaming bystanders waved at drag queens dressed in floor-length gowns, who were ferried in rickshaws with the parade. But a woman told AFP that having a body fit her identity of a man would be a "dream". "I don't have much money to go abroad (to do the surgery). I don't know how long I have to wait to realise my dream," said the woman, who identified herself as Lan. Another sticking point for participants is the lack of a law allowing for same-sex marriage. While lesbian and gay couples are no longer fined for symbolic unions, they were still unable to get a legal marriage certificate, rendering them ineligible for rights like joint property ownership or adoption opportunities. "We want to be treated equally by being allowed to get married as freely as others," said Nguyen Huong Ly, 20, who was attending the parade with her girlfriend. Hoang Giang Son, an LGBT coordinator at iSEE -- Vietnam's Institute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment -- said activists have seen a big shift in public awareness towards LGBT rights, but same-sex marriage is still out of reach. "I really hope same sex legalisation can happen in 2020. We will do more to help (authorities) change their minds," he told AFP. Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar, parliament speaker Aguila Saleh and unity government head Fayez al-Sarraj (L-R) hold talks in Paris on May 29, 2018 Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar held talks with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Benghazi on Sunday, one of his officials said ahead of talks aimed at stabilising the war-torn North African country, although Rome later denied the visit. Libya's key political players are to meet international leaders in Palermo, Sicily on Monday in the latest bid by major powers to kickstart a long-stalled political process and stage elections. A senior official from Haftar's self-proclaimed Libyan National Army said that Conte travelled to Benghazi, 650 kilometres (400 miles) east of Libya's capital Tripoli, to discuss the "latest developments on the Palermo conference". However, a source close to the Italian government categorically denied that Conte had been in Libya in recent days. The source could not confirm whether the two had been in telephone contact. Haftar, who visited Rome in late October, has confirmed he would take part in the conference, according to the Italian government. But pro-Haftar Libyan media later reported that he would boycott the talks, without saying why. Contacted by AFP, his staff declined to confirm or deny those reports. Libya fell into chaos following the NATO-backed 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. Two rival administrations have since emerged -- the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and an eastern administration backed by Haftar. They agreed in May to hold national elections on December 10. But acknowledging the country's chaotic political situation, the UN on Thursday conceded elections will not be viable before at least the spring of 2019. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih listens to questions during a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi on November 11, 2018 Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, said Sunday it will cut oil output from next month, as major producers held a key meeting to discuss shoring up sliding prices. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih announced the kingdom was cutting its supplies by 500,000 barrels per day from December. But Falih said ahead of the meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC key producers that there was not yet consensus on a broader output cut. Oil prices have shed a fifth of their value in just one month after surging to a four-year high in early October, driven by a combination of factors centred on higher supply and fears of sluggish demand. The meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee in Abu Dhabi will not take decisions, ministers said, but will propose recommendations for a crucial ministerial meeting in Vienna early in December. Among those attending were Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, Oman's Oil Minister Mohammed al-Rumhi and the energy minister of host UAE Suheil al-Mazroue. Falih told reporters ahead of the meeting that Saudi Arabia's "crude exports for December will be 500,000 bpd lower than November". The world's top oil exporter has been pumping 10.7 million bpd since October, he said. The Saudi minister acknowledged that so far there was no fresh agreement on reducing production among OPEC and non-OPEC producers, who struck a deal in late 2016 to cut output by 1.8 million bpd to remedy an oversupply crisis. "There is no consensus yet among oil producers about cutting production," Falih said at the gathering. He insisted it was "premature to talk about a specific action", when asked about the possibility of an output cut. "We have to study all the factors," Falih said. - 'Surprised us' - Brent crude dropped below $70 a barrel on Friday for the first time since April while the New York's West Texas Intermediate (WTI) sank below $60 a barrel, a nine-month low. In his speech at the start of the meeting Falih said the recent sharp drop in prices has "surprised us". He said the market sentiment has shifted from one of fearing shortages to one worried about oversupply. He also attributed the sharp drop in prices to "microeconomic uncertainties", and signs of a build-up in crude inventories. The UAE's Mazrouei said that the goal of the OPEC and non-OPEC cooperation was to strike a balance in the market, adding that recommendations for possible action will be made to next month's ministerial conference. The latest price slump comes as the United States has upped production of shale oil, while Saudi Arabia, Russia and others have raised supplies of crude amid signs of slowing demand. There have also been signs of a softer-than-expected impact from US sanctions on Iranian oil exports. "Prices have been falling amid a continued rise in crude supplies from big producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US, more than compensating for lost Iranian barrels," Forex.com analyst Fawad Razaqzada told AFP. "With the Iranian sanctions not being as severe as initially feared, officials from the OPEC and non-OPEC producers may discuss at the weekend the need to bring compliance back down... or risk another 2014-style slide in prices." Producers implemented large cuts starting at the beginning of 2017 and managed to push up oil prices from below $30 a barrel to over $85 in October, strongly improving their revenues. But the producer nations eased the output cuts in June after signs of a tighter market and higher prices, allowing hundreds of thousands of extra barrels to hit the market. Commerzbank, Germany's second-largest lender, said Friday oil producers must act to prevent a free fall of prices. "If they fail to signal any intention to reverse the latest increase in production, oil prices threaten to slide further," the bank said in a note. Libyans wait to withdraw money from an ATM machine outside a bank in the capital Tripoli on March 27, 2016 Queueing up outside banks in Tripoli, Libyans say they have little hope of an end to the political and economic turmoil shaking their country, on the eve of international crisis talks in Italy. Accompanied by his five-year-old son, architect Mohamad Kredigh was hoping to get hold of a ticket to let him withdraw cash the next day. "I've been waiting since six in the morning and, five hours later, I still haven't been able to get a number," he told AFP. Withdrawals are rationed when cash becomes available at Libyan banks, prompting the long lines. "There are hundreds of people like me," Kredigh added. To try and manage the crowds, some branches organise different days for women and men. In front of another bank in Hay al-Andalous, in the west of Tripoli, dozens of women await their turn, many gripping pieces of cardboard to shelter themselves from the sun. "It's sad to see. It looks like this is a poor country," said onlooker Lotfi, observing the scene from a cafe opposite. Oil-rich Libya has failed to overcome the chaos which swept across the country after the overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. It remains divided, with the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) controlling western Libya from the capital Tripoli. A rival administration operates in the east, where an elected parliament sits and strongman Khalifa Haftar leads his self-styled army. "Libyan politicians haven't stopped their back and forth for four years... and they've spent millions of dollars without results," said Kredigh. Most Libyans fail to benefit from oil output, with profits largely going to warlords in a country which has been pillaged by militias. In September, the GNA announced economic reforms to tackle corruption and remedy chronic shortages. But the measures received widespread criticism, with analysts doubting their effectiveness. GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj, however, said the queues forming outside banks shows that the reforms are working. "A few weeks ago we didn't see them. That demonstrates that there's money in the banks again," he told AFP on Thursday. - Home-grown solutions - But on the eve of an international meeting hosted by Italy to address the plethora of problems in Libya, residents remained sceptical that their daily struggles were nearing an end. Waiting outside the bank, Kredigh predicted the summit's "total failure". He saw little more than "international staging for Rome to appear before its European neighbours as sponsoring an initiative in Libya". Some view the upcoming meeting as an international power play, with Italy wanting to host Libya's key players after France brought them to Paris in May. Rivalries between both western and Arab governments are blamed for aggravating Libya's crisis. Suad Maluq, a professor at the University of Tripoli, would rather Italy stayed out of her country's affairs. Rome is not "an impartial mediator", she said, as it gives "support to some parties to the detriment of others". Faten Mahmud, a 54-year-old pharmacist, said her earnings had fallen significantly owing to the plummeting value of the national currency. "Us Libyan are still waiting for a solution to our problems to come from foreign countries, those same foreign countries that we never stop cursing and accusing of all the bad things we suffer," she said. "Skhirat, Istanbul, Paris, Rome, Palermo... This is nothing but a tourist itinerary to me," she said, referring to cities which have hosted Libya talks in recent years. "The solution must come from (Libyan cities) Tripoli, Benghazi, Sebha, Misrata and Zintan!" For Tripoli resident Ramadan Nassif, the guest list was more of a problem than the location. As well as Sarraj and Haftar, the top invitees are Aguila Salah, the eastern parliament's speaker, and Khaled al-Mechri, speaker of a Tripoli-based upper chamber. But talks should first be held with the multitude of militias, 45-year-old Nassif said. Until the armed groups put down their weapons "political dialogue won't succeed" the 45-year-old said. "How can there be talks with a gun in hand?" US President Donald Trump takes part in a ceremony at the American Cemetery of Suresnes, outside Paris, on November 11, 2018 as part of Veterans Day and commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the 1918 armistice ending World War I President Donald Trump paid tribute to the "great warriors" who died in World War I as he visited a US cemetery in France, a day after drawing fire for cancelling a similar trip due to bad weather. Speaking at Suresnes military cemetery in the western Paris suburbs, Trump hailed the "great warriors who gave everything for family, country, God and freedom". Trump, who was in Paris to attend a ceremony marking 100 years since the end of the war, also praised the courage of the French and other Allied troops killed in "one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history". Singling out the "American and French patriots" who served in the war, he said: "It is our duty to preserve the civilisation they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago." Over 1,500 US soldiers who fought in World War I are buried at the hillside cemetery in Suresnes. Trump's visit had been much anticipated after he called off a trip to the Belleau Wood battlefield in northern France on Saturday due to the rain, a decision for which he was widely criticised. Some 2,289 others are buried at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery next to Belleau Wood. On Sunday, Trump shrugged off the continuing wet weather to remember those who braved "rain, hail, snow, mud, poisonous gas, bullets and mortar" fire in pursuit of a "great, great" Allied victory. Speaking on an open-air podium, without an umbrella, he named a group of World War II veterans present and thanked them each in turn. Addressing one veteran, he joked: "You look so comfortable up there under shelter as we're getting drenched. You're very smart people!" Earlier, Trump and his wife Melania joined dozens of other leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, in marking the centenary of the Armistice at the Arc de Triomphe war monument on the Champs-Elysees. "It was very beautiful, so well done," was Trump's verdict on the ceremony, at which his host, French President Emmanuel Macron, delivered a stinging indictment of nationalism. While he was speaking in Suresnes, Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders attending a peace forum in Paris -- an event Trump snubbed -- again warned against attempts to undermine the rules-based post-war international order. After the cemetery visit Trump left for Orly airport to fly back to Washington. Republican Rick Scott (pictured), the state's governor until January 2019 when his term expires, accused his rival Bill Nelson of orchestrating "fraud to try to win this election" Senior Republicans on Sunday doubled down on claims by Donald Trump that Democrats were attempting to steal the razor-thin senatorial race in Florida, accusing both the incumbent and election officials of fraud. The intensifying feud comes 18 years after the Sunshine State found itself at the heart of a battle for the US presidency, when George W. Bush prevailed over Al Gore after recounts were halted by the Supreme Court. Republican Rick Scott, the state's governor until January when his term expires, launched into his rival Bill Nelson in his most direct terms to date Sunday, accusing him of orchestrating "fraud to try to win this election" as county officials scrambled to complete a recount by a Thursday deadline. The theme was echoed by prominent Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, escalating a campaign led by the president who said Saturday on Twitter: "Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely!" Democrats for their part have accused Republicans of attempting to prevent votes from being counted, and pointed to the fact law enforcement has not found any evidence to substantiate rigging claims. Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to be the Speaker of the House when the new Congress begins its term in January, hit back. "There's no election fraud," she told CBS News, adding: "My experience with the president is, any time he charges somebody with something, he's just projecting what he might have done himself." Florida produced some of the nation's closest results in Tuesday's midterm voting, including apparently narrow victories by Scott over Nelson and, in a gubernatorial race, by Republican Ron DeSantis over Democrat Andrew Gillum. But with late-counted ballots narrowing Scott's lead to some 12,000 of the just over eight million votes cast -- an edge of less than half a percent -- state law mandates a recount. The governor's race has also gone to a recount and Gillum -- in a move echoing Al Gore's withdrawal of his concession in 2000 amid electoral chaos in Florida -- withdrew his concession. But analysts say DeSantis's lead of nearly 34,000 votes will be tough for Gillum to overcome. - Rejected ballots - Florida produced some of the nation's closest results in 2018 midterm voting Scott had earlier accused Democratic election officials in two large counties of "rampant fraud," but speaking on "Fox News Sunday," he accused his rival by name. "Senator Nelson is clearly trying to commit fraud to try to win this election," he said. "That's all this is." Scott added: "Somehow they came up with 93,000 votes after election night. We still don't know how they came up with that." That number apparently included many mail-in and provisional ballots, typically among the last counted. Speaking on CBS, Graham denied Republicans had launched a campaign to undermine the integrity of the election. "I think what undermines election integrity is Broward County can't get their act together," he said. - 'Incompetence and mischief'- "The problem is not with President Trump's rhetoric, it is the incompetence and mischief of Broward County," he said. Nelson's lawyers say local canvassing boards have wrongly rejected ballots when signatures did not precisely match those on record. They said in a court filing that this led to the "disproportionate rejection of (mail-in) and provisional ballots cast by ethnic and racial minorities, as well as young, first-time voters." Those groups tend to lean Democratic. Scott has asked state law enforcement authorities to investigate. Scott also accused Nelson's team of saying that a noncitizen should have the right to vote. But the single ballot in dispute was not counted, and Nelson's aides later said that was the correct decision. In neighboring Georgia, Republican Brian Kemp, the secretary of state, holds a slim lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams. If late-arriving votes bring his total below 50 percent, a runoff will be held. Counting meanwhile continues in Arizona in another tight US Senate race, with Democrat Kyrsten Sinema leading Republican Martha McSally by 1.3 percentage points but with thousands of votes remaining uncounted. Trump on Friday tweeted: "Just out -- in Arizona, SIGNATURES DON'T MATCH. Electoral corruption - Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!" But outgoing senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, a fellow Republican but sometime Trump critic, tweeted, "There is no evidence of 'electoral corruption' in Arizona, Mr. President." As things stand, Republicans have added a few seats to their 51-49 edge in the US Senate, while Democrats have taken clear control of the House of Representatives, picking up more than 30 seats. Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a previous meeting in Moscow on July 11, 2018 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris on Sunday, their first face-to-face talks since the accidental downing of a Russian plane in Syria provoked tensions. Netanyahu, who like the Russian leader was in the French capital for World War I commemorations, told journalists he "spoke to many leaders, with President (Donald) Trump of course and also with President Putin." "My conversation with President Putin was good and to the point -- I would even say very important," Netanyahu said. "Beyond that I do not intend to elaborate." Their conversation was their first face-to-face meeting since the Russian plane was downed on September 17 by Syrian air defences, fired in response to an Israeli raid in the country. Fifteen Russians were killed in the incident, which Moscow blamed on Israel, accusing its pilots of using the larger Russian plane as cover. Israel disputes the Russian findings and says its jets were back in Israeli airspace when the plane was downed. The two leaders have spoken at least three times by phone since the incident. Russia backs President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria's civil war, alongside Iran and Hezbollah -- arch-enemies of Israel. Following the plane incident, Moscow announced new security measures to protect its military in Syria, including supplying the Syrian army with S-300 air defence systems and jamming radars of nearby warplanes. That has sparked concern in Israel that it will be forced to limit its strikes in the neighbouring country, where it has carried out hundreds of raids against what it calls Iranian military targets and advanced arms deliveries to Hezbollah. Russia and Israel set up a hotline in 2015 to avoid accidental clashes in Syria. A girl holds a portrait of late leader Yasser Arafat as Palestinians mark the 14th anniversary of his death in the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 11, 2018 Palestinians on Sunday marked 14 years since the death of iconic leader Yasser Arafat, with their campaign for statehood still deadlocked and beset by internal divisions. Arafat, who for decades embodied the struggle for independence, died aged 75 in a French hospital on November 11, 2004, with fellow Palestinians accusing Israel of having poisoned him. The Israeli government firmly denies the allegation. His body was exhumed in 2012 for tests but a subsequent French investigation found no proof of poisoning. Swiss experts, however, said they found high levels of radioactive polonium on his personal effects. Arafat's successor, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, laid a wreath at his tomb in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, flanked by senior officials of his Palestinian Authority. After paying tribute to "the leader of the nation and the leader of the martyrs", Abbas went on to accuse Israel and the United States of seeking to sabotage Palestinian statehood through a nascent peace plan that President Donald Trump calls "the ultimate deal". "There is an American conspiracy through the ultimate agreement and the Israelis are conspiring to implement it," he said. Abbas suspended diplomatic contact with Washington following Trump's 2017 recognition of the disputed city of Jerusalem as capital of Israel. A poster of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 11, 2018 Palestinians claim the Israeli-annexed eastern part of the city as the capital of their future state. Abbas added that the Islamist Hamas movement, his bitter rival which rules the Gaza Strip, was also hindering the cause. "Another plot, by Hamas, aims to disrupt the establishment of an independent Palestinian state," he said. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Abbas's Palestinian Authority in a 2007 near civil war. Multiple reconciliation attempts aimed at restoring the PA to power in Gaza have failed. In recent weeks, Abbas has been angered by indirect truce negotiations between Hamas and Israel, mediated by the United Nations and Egypt, that have bypassed the PA. In his first address to the nation since the sacking of parliament, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena defended his move, which alarmed the international community Sri Lanka's speaker on Sunday accused President Maithripala Sirisena of usurping parliament and urged public servants to defy his "illegal orders", as the president scrambled to defend his controversial sacking of the legislature. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya said Sirisena's actions over the past two weeks in sacking prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and dissolving parliament undermined the freedoms of the people. "I have watched over the last two weeks as the executive branch has seized the rights and usurped the powers of members of parliament who were elected to represent the people," he said. "I call upon all public servants to refuse to execute any illegal orders they may receive, no matter from whom....We must all act with patriotism and independence to safeguard the future of democracy in our country." He urged public officials to uphold "the independence of the public service, police and the judiciary". Sirisena triggered an unprecedented constitutional crisis last month when he sacked Wickremesinghe and replaced him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse before suspending parliament. In his first address to the nation since the sacking of parliament, Sirisena defended his move -- which has alarmed the international community -- saying violent clashes among rival MPs could have led to "civil unrest" across the country if the legislature had met. Sirisena said there were media reports that politicians would clash during a vote to decide between the two men claiming the premiership. "If I allowed the parliament to meet on November 14, there would have been violence in the House and it could have spread to our villagers and towns," Sirisena said in his televised address. "I acted to prevent civil unrest." He also claimed that he was disturbed by reports that MPs were being "bought" for up to $2.8 million dollars each. His party had secured the defection of eight MPs from Wickremesinghe's side. Mahinda Rajapakse says the snap polls will go ahead despite facing legal challenges to his appointment as prime minister Sirisena's rivals maintain that he had no constitutional power to sack the assembly until it completed four-and-a-half out of its five-year term that ends in August 2020. Despite bowing to international pressure and repeatedly promising that he would reconvene parliament, he instead dismissed MPs and called a snap election for January 5, nearly two years ahead of schedule. Wickremesinghe's United National Party as well as several other groups representing a majority of 124 members in the 225-member House are due to petition the highest court on Monday against Sirisena's actions. "Since the president has prevented parliament from ruling on the legitimacy of the president's actions, it will be up to the Supreme Court to determine the legality of these actions," Jayasuriya said. - International ridicule - Sirisena's party had acknowledged that it did not have a majority in the assembly, despite arranging defections. The president's new foreign minister, Sarath Amunugama, had told diplomats on Saturday that the assembly was sacked because speaker Jayasuriya planned to block an address to the legislature by the president. Jayasuriya hit back saying the excuse was laughable. Karu Jayasuriya said President Maithripala Sirisena's actions over the past two weeks have undermined the country's freedoms "I wish that the purported minister had proposed a more honest and plausible excuse for the actions of his colleagues, that would have drawn less ridicule to our country on the world stage," Jayasuriya said. "Based on this fiction, several of his cohorts have openly threatened to send me to jail," Jayasuriya said, adding that he would gladly face any consequence for his actions to defend the rights of MPs. Wickremesinghe insists he still heads the government and has refused to vacate the prime minister's official residence in Colombo until the highest court decides on the power struggle. Hundreds of his supporters staged a candle-light vigil near a lake in the capital to protest his sacking. His rival Rajapakse said that nobody would stop the snap elections going ahead. "The international community must realise that this is democracy. They must understand our position. We are seeking a mandate from the people," he said. Only China has recognised the appointment of Rajapakse, who during his decade as president relied heavily on Beijing for both diplomatic and financial support as the West shunned him over his human rights record. Sri Lanka's ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe insists he still heads the government and has refused to vacate the prime minister's official residence in Colombo until the highest court decides on the power struggle The United States has led a chorus of international voices expressing concern over threats to democracy in the island of 21 million people strategically located in the Indian Ocean. "The US is deeply concerned by news the Sri Lanka parliament will be dissolved, further deepening the political crisis," the US State Department said in a statement. Election monitors have questioned the legality of the election. The People's Action for Free and Fair Elections said it had already asked the independent Elections Commission to seek an opinion from the attorney general and an order from the Supreme Court. Martin Fayulu, the leader of the Engagement for Citizenship and Development party, will stand against Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a hardline former interior minister backed by Kabila Seven opposition leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday picked little known lawmaker Martin Fayulu as their joint candidate for key and long delayed presidential elections at the end of December when Joseph Kabila stands down after ruling the country for 18 years. Fayulu, the leader of the Engagement for Citizenship and Development party, will stand against Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a hardline former interior minister backed by Kabila in the December 23 vote, a statement said after three days of gruelling talks in Geneva. The opposition leaders meeting in the Swiss city included two heavyweights in former warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba and ex-provincial governor Moise Katumbi. Both have been barred from standing in the election. Three others besides the 61-year-old Fayulu had been authorised to contest the poll: Felix Tshisekedi, head of the long-standing UDPS opposition party; Vital Kamerhe, a former National Assembly speaker; and former finance minister Freddy Matungulu. "I'm sure we will succeed in making our country democratic, free and independent," Fayulu told a news conference after the vote. "I am only a spokesman for the fight for freedom and democracy," he said. The choice was a surprise development with Tshisekedi widely regarded as the front runner before the announcement. The elections are critical for the future of the DRC, a sprawling, mineral-rich country that has never experienced a peaceful transition of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Kabila, 47, has been in power since 2001 at the helm of a regime with a reputation for corruption, incompetence and human rights abuses. His second and final elected term in office ended nearly two years ago, but he stayed in office thanks to a caretaker clause in the constitution. Months of speculation over his intentions, marked by protests that were repressed at a cost of dozens of lives, ended in August when he threw his weight behind Ramazani Shadary. On October 25, opposition parties agreed in Johannesburg to name a joint candidate by November 15. One of the issues dividing the opposition is the introduction of South Korean electronic voting machines which some say will be used to rig the vote. Fayulu had said he would not contest if these machines were used, in contrast to Tshisekedi who had said he was willing to take part in the vote even if they were. After Sunday's announcement Fayulu -- when questioned about this -- said the opposition would "work relentlessly to seek the scrapping" of the machines. "The battle continues, we want an election without voting machines," he said. The opposition said a rally would be organised soon in Kinshasa to present their candidate. Bangladeshi people watch television in an electric goods store as Chief Election Commissioner Nurul Huda addresses the nation in Dhaka on November 8, 2018, days before the country's main opposition party said it would not boycott the election Bangladesh's main opposition party said Sunday it would not boycott next month's general election and would challenge Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the polls, despite its leader being in jail. "We have announced that we will participate in the election," Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) senior leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain told AFP. The BNP boycotted the 2014 election that returned Hasina to power over fears it would be rigged. The party has expressed fears this poll, slated for December 23 by the election commission, will not be democratic and has threatened protests. BNP veteran leader Khaleda Zia remains behind bars serving a decade-long jail term for corruption charges her supporters say were politically motivated. Zia, 73, has virtually no time to appeal her sentence and will almost certainly be banned from contesting the election against her arch-rival Hasina. The opposition says some 5,000 of its activists have been detained in a recent crackdown, depriving it of a grassroots presence vital to fight any polls. The arrest of activists and prominent dissidents including student leaders and a top photographer have also cast a shadow over the buildup to the vote. The opposition has said the charges against Zia and other party activists were deliberately planned. Diane Rwigara, a critic of Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, has gone on trial for inciting insurrection and forgery President Paul Kagame insisted Sunday that Rwanda's courts will operate freely in the case of leading dissident politician Diane Rwigara, as prosecutors push for her to face 22 years in jail. Rwigara went on trial in the capital Kigali on Wednesday for inciting insurrection and forgery. The 37-year-old denies the charges as "politically motivated" after the electoral commission blocked her attempt to challenge Kagame in last year's elections. "Our justice works freely, everybody should know that," Kagame told AFP on the sidelines of the Paris Peace Forum conference. Rwigara has repeatedly denounced alleged human rights abuses in Rwanda and accused the government of inflating economic statistics to give a false impression of the country's performance. Prosecutors also want her mother sentenced to 22 years for inciting insurrection and promoting sectarianism in a country still overshadowed by the 1994 genocide. Kagame took aim at Michaelle Jean, outgoing head of the world organisation of French-speaking nations known as La Francophonie (OIF), who has raised concerns over the highly sensitive trial. "This matter has nothing to do with La Francophonie," Kagame said. Jean had urged people in a tweet this week to "follow the trial as closely as possible". Jean, a Canadian, is set to be replaced shortly at the head of the OIF by Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo. Kagame, who is credited with overseeing rapid economic development in Rwanda after the genocide, faces regular accusations from rights groups of muzzling the opposition. He was re-elected for a new seven-year term in August 2017 with nearly 99 percent of the vote. Constitutional reforms adopted by referendum in 2015 would potentially allow him to stay in power until 2034. Rwanda's successful bid to lead the OIF sparked controversy, not least since the organisation's remit includes reinforcing democracy and as the country switched to English as the language of education in 2008. Kagame on Sunday insisted: "French has never disappeared in Rwandan schools and it will continue." Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih (R) talks as UAE's Energy Minister Suhail Mohammed Faraj al-Mazroui listens during a meeting of oil ministers in Abu Dhabi on November 11, 2018 Major oil producers said Sunday that crude supply next year would outstrip demand, calling for new strategies based on production adjustments. Khalid al-Falih, Energy Minister of the world's top supplier Saudi Arabia, said the kingdom would cut its production by 500,000 barrels per day. Russia, the world's second-biggest producer, said it would commit to any new agreement among producers to cut output. Meeting in Abu Dhabi to examine how to curb a sharp slide in oil prices, the producers said they "reviewed current oil supply and demand fundamentals and noted that 2019 prospects point to higher supply growth than global requirements." They would therefore consider "options on new 2019 production adjustments, which may require new strategies to balance the market," they said in a statement at the end of the meeting. Suheil al-Mazrouei, energy minister of the host country UAE, hinted that producers are preparing to cut output. "A new strategy needs to be formed... whether it is a cut in production or something else, but it will not be an increase in production," he said. A decision is expected only when the OPEC and non-OPEC ministers meet in Vienna on December 5 to assess the global energy market. Falih said they would then decide whether to adjust production and by how much. Oil prices have shed a fifth of their value in just one month after surging to a four-year high in early October, driven by a combination of factors centred on higher supply and fears of sluggish demand. Energy ministers from Russia, Oman, Kuwait and Algeria were among those who attended the one-day meeting. Saudi Arabia has been pumping 10.7 million bpd since October, Falih said. Ahead of the meeting, he acknowledged that so far there was no new deal to cut production among OPEC and non-OPEC producers, who struck an agreement in late 2016 to cut output by 1.8 million bpd to tackle an oversupply crisis. "There is no consensus yet among oil producers about cutting production," Falih said. When asked about the possibility of an output cut, he insisted it was "premature to talk about a specific action". "We have to study all the factors," he said. - Price drop 'surprised us' - Brent crude dropped below $70 a barrel on Friday for the first time since April, while the New York's West Texas Intermediate (WTI) sank below $60 a barrel, a nine-month low. In his speech at the start of the meeting, Falih said the recent sharp drop in prices had "surprised us". He said market sentiment had shifted from fears of shortages to worries about oversupply. He also attributed the sharp drop in prices to "microeconomic uncertainties" and signs of a build-up in crude inventories. The UAE's Mazrouei said the goal of OPEC and non-OPEC cooperation was to strike a balance in the market. The latest price slump comes after the United States boosted production of shale oil, while Saudi Arabia, Russia and others raised supplies of crude amid signs of slowing demand. There have also been signs that renewed US sanctions on Iranian oil exports may have a softer-than-expected impact. "Prices have been falling amid a continued rise in crude supplies from big producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US, more than compensating for lost Iranian barrels," Forex.com analyst Fawad Razaqzada told AFP. "With the Iranian sanctions not being as severe as initially feared, officials from the OPEC and non-OPEC producers may discuss at the weekend the need to bring compliance back down... or risk another 2014-style slide in prices." Producers implemented large cuts starting at the beginning of 2017 and managed to push up oil prices from below $30 a barrel to over $85 in October, strongly improving their revenues. But producers eased output cuts in June after signs of a tighter market and higher prices, selling hundreds of thousands of extra barrels. Commerzbank, Germany's second-largest lender, said Friday that oil producers must act to prevent prices tumbling. "If they fail to signal any intention to reverse the latest increase in production, oil prices threaten to slide further," the bank said in a note. Chamisa, who lost to Mnangagwa in July 30's presidential polls, claims he was the rightful winner and has staged several victory rallies in recent weeks Zimbabwe's government publicly denied claims on Sunday that its spy agency had attempted to kidnap main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa as he left a rally this weekend. Chamisa's Movement for Democratic Change party tweeted Saturday that "Central Intelligence Organisation agents (participated) in a failed attempt to abduct" Chamisa following a rally in Marondera, 72 kilometres (45 miles) east of Harare. The post was accompanied by a screengrab of a video which showed a group of men gathered around an SUV. The party later said that Chamisa was safe following the alleged incident. But President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government fiercely denied the claims. "Government is dismayed at the imputation that state agents would attempt to abduct opposition leaders. That notion is not only false but malicious," Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said in a statement. November 21 will mark the one-year anniversary of former president Robert Mugabe's resignation following a brief military takeover that was followed by Mnangagwa's appointment. Opposition politicians faced frequent harassment and actual violence at the hands of the security forces under Mugabe's authoritarian rule. Chamisa's predecessor Morgan Tsvangirai was detained on numerous occasions and was brutally beaten by police in 2007 when he attempted to stage an anti-government rally in a Harare suburb. Chamisa, who lost to Mnangagwa in July 30's presidential polls, claims he was the rightful winner and has staged several victory rallies in recent weeks. He has also called for a transitional authority to run Zimbabwe and the country to hold a fresh vote. Former vice president Atiku Abubakar, a Muslim from Nigeria's north, was nominated last month as the main opposition party's candidate to challenge incumbent Muhammadu Bahari The presidential nominee of Nigeria's main opposition party alleged Sunday that he was "intimidated" by armed government agents who searched his private plane at the Abuja airport. Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) who will challenge incumbent Muhammadu Buhari in February, said he was manhandled upon his arrival at the Nigerian capital from Dubai. "@atiku I arrived to Abuja this morning, to a search by agents of the state, aimed at intimidating me and my staff," Abubakar said on his Twitter account. The PDP issued a statement saying it "condemned in the strongest terms the unleashing of a special security squad of army, police and paramilitary agencies by the Muhammadu Buhari presidency to physically harass our presidential candidate." It alleged that the "Gestapo-style attack" was carried out "on orders from above". The statement said the agents "rushed our candidate... and attempted to physically manhandle him before invading his aircraft with dangerous weapons to conduct a violent search." It said the search did not turn up "anything incriminating" but that the agents "tampered with" Abubakar's belongings including campaign documents. The minister of aviation Hadi Sirika described the incident as "routine" and said the process applied "to all international arrivals", in a statement responding to the claims. "While it is true that the Task Force on Currency at the airport did the routine action of checking the former Vice President's travel bag, he was accorded full respect as a senior citizen," he said. Abubakar earlier voiced concern about tensions surrounding the presidential campaign, telling reporters his rival was "uncompromising" and "power drunk". Buhari, a 75-year-old former military ruler, was the first opposition candidate to win a presidential vote in the West African country in 2015. Despite being an outsider from a minor party, Martin Fayulu rapidly become one of the three leading candidates tipped to take over from Kabila after the December 30 elections Much responsibility for shaping DR Congo's post-election future now lies with a former oil executive who made a stellar rise from political obscurity. The man in the middle is Martin Fayulu, who insists that electoral fraud has cheated him of the presidency of sub-Saharan Africa's biggest country. A fiery orator who made his name during months of protests against President Joseph Kabila, Fayulu went from being a relative nobody to being the alternative face of DR Congo's opposition. One of Kabila's most vociferous critics, the 62-year-old ran as a unity candidate for a handful of opposition parties in the December 30 vote, taking the few opinion polls by storm. But when the provisional results were announced on Thursday, the surprise victor was his rival Felix Tshisekedi, son of the country's late opposition leader, who won with 38.57 percent of the vote, with Fayulu coming a close second with 34.8 percent. Fayulu quickly hit back, denouncing an "electoral coup", telling Radio France Internationale that the results had "nothing to do with the truth of the ballot box." The country's powerful Catholic Church also voiced deep suspicion. - Shot, arrested at protests - Impulsive at times, Fayulu took the forefront of several protest marches as the 2016-2017 crisis over Kabila's extended term in office escalated. He was arrested several times and in one rally was even struck on the head by a rubber bullet. Although Engagement for Citizenship and Development party held just three seats in the National Assembly, Fayulu was thrust into the limelight in November when he became the consensus choice of opposition stalwarts meeting in Geneva. His nomination was backed by six other opposition leaders. They included two heavyweights -- ex-warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moise Katumbi, the exiled former governor of the mining province of Katanga, whom Kabila reviles. Both men had been prevented from running. Just days later, the deal fell apart as Tshisekedi, who heads the country's oldest and biggest opposition party, said he would pursue his own bid for the presidency. - Barn-storming campaign - Fayulu was backed by a group of opposition leaders before going on the campaign trail, where he took a rubber bullet to the head in one demonstration. Fayulu began his campaign to great fanfare in the northeastern city of Beni, drawing huge crowds as he toured one of the DRC's most dangerous regions, ravaged by more than two decades of violence and an Ebola epidemic. He promised to move a huge army base from Kinshasa to the region to boost security if elected. When Fayulu moved on to the Katanga region in the southeast, the campaign heated up even more. Five of his supporters were shot dead by police and he was barred from holding a rally in Lubumbashi, DRC's second city. Kinshasa meanwhile accused him of trying to sabotage the election because of his implacable opposition to imported touch-screen voting machines. - Jobs and investment - The onetime oil industry executive was greeted by large crowds as he took his challenge to DRC's rulers round the country. Born on November 21, 1956, in Kinshasa when it was still known as Leopoldville, Fayulu went on to do his university studies in France and the United States, later taking up a role with the US oil group which became Exxon Mobil. Starting in 1984, he spent nearly two decades working for the oil giant in successive African countries, first as an auditor and then as director-general. He stepped down in 2003. He vowed, if elected, to invest $126 billion (108 billion euros) in the economy and to create 20 million jobs over five years in a country which remains one of the world's poorest despite its wealth in prized minerals and land. His first foray into politics was during a national conference in 1991-92 that ended the single-party rule of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, but it was years later, in 2006, that he entered parliament. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by telephone Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday the US will hold accountable all involved in the killing of a dissident Saudi journalist in a wide-ranging telephone call that also took in the conflict in Yemen. Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident, was murdered in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul on October 2 and the crown prince has been accused of orchestrating the killing, which has strained the decades-old alliance between Washington and Riyadh. "The Secretary emphasized that the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable, and that Saudi Arabia must do the same," spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. The top US diplomat has previously said Khashoggi's killing "violates the norms of international law," and that the US was reviewing possible sanctions on individuals identified as having been involved. But Pompeo and Trump have also both emphasized America's important commercial, strategic and national security relationships with the petro-state. Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, was critical of Prince Mohammed and the country's intervention in Yemen, a conflict which also came up during the call, said Nauert. Pompeo "reiterated the United States' calls for a cessation of hostilities and for all parties to come to the table to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict," she said. Pompeo has previously called for an end to hostilities in the rebel-infested Arab state, emphasizing the need for the Saudi-led coalition to halt strikes in populated areas. Prince Mohammed has overseen Saudi Arabia's Yemen war effort, a highly controversial intervention to bolster President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government in the face of an insurgency by Huthi rebels. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Yemeni Tawakkol Karman (L) hugs killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi's Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz at a gathering of his supporters in Istanbul Around 200 people on Sunday gathered in Istanbul to honour the memory of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Supporters met to talk and watch videos of eulogies for the Washington Post contributor who was killed inside the Saudi consulate in the city on October 2. Turan Kislakci, head of the Turkish-Arab Media Association (TAM), to which Khashoggi belonged, called for justice to be done "so that these barbaric tyrants can never do the same thing again". Yemeni human rights activist Tawakkol Karman, who won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her participation in the Arab Spring uprisings, said the killing was reminiscent of crimes committed by the Islamic State Group. Khashoggi was last seen entering the consulate on October 2 to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage. After repeated denials, Saudi Arabia finally admitted the 59-year-old had been murdered at the mission in a "rogue" operation. Turkish pro-government daily Sabah on Saturday reported Khashoggi's killers poured the remains of the insider-turned-critic of Riyadh down the drain after dissolving him in acid. Samples taken from the consulate drains showed traces of acid, Sabah said without quoting sources for its story. Erdogan has accused the "highest levels" of the Saudi government of ordering the hit. Some officials have pointed the finger at the all-powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and some analysts say Ankara is keen to have the heir sidelined from the nexus of power in Riyadh. The mother of Nour Baraka, a commander for Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades who was killed during an Israeli operation on Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, reacts at a hospital morgue where his body was transported November 11, 2018 An exchange of fire erupted during an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, leaving six Palestinians dead, officials said, while potentially dashing hopes that a recent agreement would restore calm. As tensions rose following the clash, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he would cut short his trip to Paris, where he had been attending World War I commemorations, and return home. Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the blockaded Gaza Strip, denounced a "cowardly Israeli attack." After the clash erupted, sirens were reported in southern Israel indicating possible rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Two launches from Gaza toward Israel were confirmed and both were intercepted by Israeli missile defences, the army said. Details were still emerging of the incident that Palestinian officials said occurred east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Gaza's health ministry said six Palestinians were killed. The dead included a local commander for Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the brigades said in a statement. Israel's army had not provided details, but said all its soldiers had returned. "During (Israeli military) operational activity in the Gaza Strip, an exchange of fire evolved. More details to follow," an Israeli army statement said. Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said on Twitter the army "operated in the Gaza Strip, exchange of gunfire ensued." "All IDF soldiers back in Israel," he wrote, referring to Israel Defence Forces. "Several alarms have sounded in southern Israel." Hamas's armed wing alleged in a statement that an Israeli special forces team infiltrated near Khan Yunis in a civilian car. Israel's military had not confirmed those details nor described what type of operation it carried out. A ground operation inside the Gaza Strip would be rare and likely signficantly boost tensions. - 'Protection money' - Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman held security consultations at military headquarters, his office said. The clash comes after months of deadly unrest along the Gaza-Israel border had appeared to be calming. Recent weeks have seen Israeli decisions to allow Qatar to provide the Gaza Strip with millions of dollars in aid for salaries as well as fuel to help ease an electricity crisis. Netanyahu had earlier defended his decision to allow Qatar to transfer the cash to Gaza despite criticism from within his own government over the move, saying he wanted to avoid a war if it wasn't necessary. "I'm doing what I can, in coordination with the security establishment, to return quiet to the southern communities, but also to prevent a humanitarian crisis," Netanyahu said late Saturday, referring to Israeli towns near the Gaza border and deteriorating conditions in the enclave. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu's education minister and right-wing rival, compared the cash flow to "protection money" paid to criminals. Lieberman said he had opposed "transferring the money to Hamas". Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008, and recent months of unrest have raised fears of a fourth. Deadly clashes have accompanied major protests along the Gaza-Israel border that began on March 30. At least 227 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, the majority shot during protests and clashes, since the demonstrations began, while others died in tank fire or air strikes. One Israeli soldier has been killed along the Gaza border in that time. On Friday, Palestinian civil servants began receiving payments after months of sporadic salary disbursements in cash-strapped Gaza, with $15 million delivered into the enclave through Israel in suitcases by Qatar. A total of $90 million is to be distributed in six monthly instalments, Gaza authorities said, primarily to cover salaries of officials working for Hamas. Qatar has also said it would hand out $100 to each of 50,000 poor families, as well as larger sums to Palestinians wounded in clashes along the Gaza-Israel border. The Gulf emirate has also started buying additional fuel for Gaza's sole power station, allowing outages to be reduced to their lowest level in years. Prince Harry and his wife Meghan were cheered by adoring throngs during their visit to Australia Public support for Australia breaking its ties to the British monarchy has slumped following the triumphant visit Down Under by Prince Harry and his pregnant wife Meghan, according to a survey published Monday. The Newspoll survey found only 40 percent of respondents favoured Australia becoming a republic, the lowest level of support in 25 years and 10 points down from a similar poll conducted before the royal couple's October visit. A total of 48 percent of the 1,800 people questioned said they opposed ending the colonial tradition of having the British monarch act as Australia's head of state. It was the first time since a 1999 referendum on the issue which maintained Australia's status that supporters of the monarchy outnumbered republicans. Australia's opposition Labor Party, which is favoured to take power in the next national elections due by May, announced Monday that it would organise another plebiscite on becoming a republic if elected. Monday's poll indicated that bid would likely fail as it did in 1999. The turnaround in public sentiment came after Prince Harry and Meghan spent two weeks touring Australia, New Zealand and Pacific islands in a tour that drew adoring throngs. It was the first international tour for Harry and the American-born former actress since the couple were married in May, and began with the announcement that Meghan was pregnant. She charmed crowds with a down-to-earth style which saw her halt the royal entourage several times to give shy toddlers a cuddle and bring home-made banana bread to an afternoon tea in the outback town of Dubbo. Jeremy Hunt's visit comes amid an international diplomatic crisis over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will visit Saudi Arabia on Monday where he will press King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. During a trip to the region that includes a visit to the United Arab Emirates, Hunt will also seek to build support for UN efforts to end the conflict in Yemen, the Foreign Office said. His visit comes amid an international diplomatic crisis over the murder of Saudi journalist Khashoggi, a US resident, at his country's consulate in Istanbul in October. "The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago," said Hunt, who will also meet Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. "It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear. "We encourage the Saudi authorities to co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death, so that we deliver justice for his family and the watching world." During his brief visit to the Gulf, Hunt will also meet Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Yemeni Vice President Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani. Britain is seeking support among regional partners for new action at the UN Security Council for peace talks in Yemen. "The human cost of war in Yemen is incalculable: with millions displaced, famine and disease rife and years of bloodshed, the only solution is now a political decision to set aside arms and pursue peace," Hunt said. "Britain has a unique position, both as pen-holder at the UN Security Council and as a key influencer in the region, so today I am travelling to the Gulf to demand that all sides commit to this process. "We are witnessing a man-made humanitarian catastrophe on our watch: now is the window to make a difference, and to get behind both the UN peace process and current UK efforts in the Security Council." The Foreign Office also said Hunt would raise the case of Matthew Hedges, a PhD student who denies charges of spying in the UAE. Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (C) met his Libyan counterpart Fayez al-Sarraj in Rome in October Libya's key political players meet with global leaders in Palermo on Monday in the latest bid by major powers to kickstart a long-stalled political process and trigger elections. A summit in Paris in May had seen the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and eastern Libya strongman Khalifa Haftar agree to hold national polls on December 10, but that date has fallen by the wayside. Acknowledging the chaotic political situation since dictator Moamer Kadhafi was deposed in 2011, the UN on Thursday conceded elections will not be viable before at least the spring of 2019. A question mark hangs over Haftar's crucial presence in Palermo, with Rome on Sunday denying a Haftar official's statement that Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had paid a lightning visit to his Benghazi headquarters amid reports he might not attend. A source close to the Italian government could not confirm if the two had been in telephone contact. Analysts say the Sicily summit risks being compromised not only by tensions between Libyan factions, but also the competing agendas of foreign powers. Just as in May, the key Libyan invitees are Haftar, the eastern parliament's speaker Aguila Salah, GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj and Khaled al-Mechri, speaker of a Tripoli-based upper chamber. Sarraj, in an interview with AFP, urged the international community on Thursday to find a "common vision" for the future of his chaos-hit North African nation. The GNA says it will use the Palermo talks to lobby for security reforms that unify the army, a constitutionally rooted electoral process, economic reform and an end to "parallel institutions". - 'A fundamental step' - The US, Arab countries and European nations will all send representatives to the Tuesday talks, after a dinner set for Monday. For Rome's populist government, a top priority is stemming the flow of migrants who exploit Libya's security vacuum in their quest to reach European shores, often via Italy. "The Palermo conference is a fundamental step in the goal of stabilising Libya and for the security of the entire Mediterranean", Conte said last week. UN envoy Ghassan Salame told the Security Council on Thursday that a national conference in early 2019 would be organised to provide "a platform" for Libyans to spell out their vision for the future. The presence of eastern Libya strongman Khalifa Haftar at the summit is seen as crucial But diplomatic wrangling between Italy and France hangs over next week's summit. In September, Italy's defence minister and parliamentary speaker both partly blamed France for Libya's security crisis, which continues to simmer some seven years after the NATO-backed uprising toppled Kadhafi. The Italian swipes came as Tripoli was plagued by militia clashes that killed at least 117 people and wounded more than 400 between late August and late September. Rome and Paris have for months been at loggerheads over Libya's election timetable. While France repeatedly endorsed the December date, Italy opposed it. Italy has not been alone in pushing for elections to be delayed -- the December 10 date was also viewed sceptically by Washington and Moscow. One Italian diplomatic source said that no definitive poll date should be set at the summit and it is "not sure that there will be a final document" after the talks. According to diplomats and analysts, Russia, France, Egypt and the UAE support Haftar, while Turkey and Qatar have thrown their weight behind rivals to the eastern strongman, especially Islamist groups. Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has called for markets across Southeast Asia to be more open Singapore's prime minister made an impassioned plea Monday for open markets and warned "political pressures" were driving countries apart, in a swipe at rising protectionism at the start of a gathering of world leaders. Dignitaries including Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and US Vice President Mike Pence are attending this week's summit in the city-state against the backdrop of a months-long trade dispute between Beijing and Washington. Some of the leaders are expected to announce major progress on a massive China-backed trade deal that excludes the US, in a rebuke to President Donald Trump's increasingly unilateralist approach to international commerce. Trump is skipping the annual summit -- which was regularly attended by his predecessor Barack Obama -- in a sign of how far he has withdrawn from attempts to shape the global rules of trade and raising new questions about Washington's commitment to Asia. Association of Southeast Asian Nations Addressing a business forum ahead of this week's main meetings, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for Southeast Asian companies to invest more in each others' markets and be more open to foreign competition. "The more integrated and open our markets are, and the more conducive our rules and business environments to foreign investment, the larger the pie will grow, and the more we will all benefit," he said. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) "has great potential, but fully realising it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures". - Economic standoff - The US-China trade dispute has seen Trump slap higher tariffs on roughly half of Chinese imports, and Beijing retaliate with its own levies. The standoff is having an impact far beyond the world's top two economies, and leaders at the four days of meetings will be keen to voice their grievances to Pence, who is participating in Trump's place, and China's Li. Many of those attending the Singapore summit are expected to send a message in support of free trade by announcing major progress on a China-backed deal, the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) While Trump has railed at trade deals and pushed his isolationist "America First" agenda, Beijing has increasingly talked up the benefits of open markets. In an editorial in Singapore's pro-government Straits Times newspaper Monday, China's Li said the world was facing "challenges of rising protectionism and unilateralism". "We should work for an open world economy by advocating, practising and upholding openness," he wrote. This week's meetings are the biggest in a series of gatherings organised every year by ASEAN. The main summit day is on Thursday, and the meetings are being attended by 20 world leaders, including those from the Southeast Asian bloc as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Many of those attending the summit are expected to send a message in support of free trade by announcing major progress on a China-backed deal, the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). With Trump having pulled the US out of rival pact the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the RCEP is now the world's biggest trade deal, covering half the world's population. The pact -- which is less ambitious than the TPP in areas such as employment and environmental protection -- groups the 10 ASEAN members plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The TPP, which was championed by Obama as the economic plank of his "pivot to Asia", has been kept alive without the US and will go into force this year. Indian security personnel were deployed in large numbers to keep the peace as the restive state of Chhattisgarh goes to the polls Tens of thousands of armed police were on duty Monday as a restive Indian state wracked by violence went to the polls. Maoist militants have unleashed a string of deadly attacks ahead of the vote in mineral-rich Chhattisgarh, one of India's poorest states, killing 13 people in recent weeks. Hours before voting began, insurgents blew up an improvised explosive device in Kanker district on Sunday, killing a police officer. The Maoists, who say they are fighting for the rights of local tribes and poor farmers, have put up posters across the state urging voters to boycott the polls. The vote -- one of five state elections this month and next ahead of 2019 general elections -- is staggered because of the violence, with a second round on November 20. "Some 100,000 security personnel, including central paramilitary force, have been deployed to ensure peaceful polling in the first phase," said senior police officer D. M. Awasthi. Election officers were airlifted to the most volatile areas where landmines planted by Maoists are a common threat, he said. The state has been governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for 15 years. Chief Minister Raman Singh is seeking a fourth term and has blamed the rebels for impeding development projects in the state, home to around 25 million people. Maoist groups are believed to be present in more than 10 states across India. But they are most active in remote parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, where much of the population remains mired in poverty and lacks access to critical services. The left-wing insurgency began in West Bengal state five decades ago when peasant farmers rose up against feudal landlords. Some 10,000 people have been killed since. The military strategy of the Maoists, also known as Naxals, is loosely based on the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong. Before the end of the year elections will also be held in the states of Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Rajasthan. Results will be announced for all on December 11. Yemeni pro-government forces drive through the eastern outskirts of Hodeida as they battle to seize the key Red Sea port city from Huthi rebels on November 10, 2018 At least 150 people have been killed in 24 hours of clashes in the Yemeni port city of Hodeida, medics said Monday, as Britain's top diplomat visited the Gulf seeking to boost international calls for a ceasefire. Government loyalists supported by a Saudi-led coalition are fighting to oust the Iran-backed Huthi rebels from the strategic Red Sea city, whose docks are a lifeline to 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation. Asked about the possibility of a ceasefire, a coalition spokesman told reporters in Riyadh that "the operation is still ongoing", adding that it was meant to pressure the rebels to come to the negotiating table. A Hodeida resident reported an ebb in fighting around the city by Monday evening, but UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of a possible "catastrophic situation" if the port is destroyed. "The fighting must stop, a political debate must begin, and we must prepare a massive humanitarian response to avoid the worst next year," he said. A military source in the pro-government coalition said the insurgents had pushed back a large-scale assault aimed at moving towards the port, under rebel control since 2014. In a statement sent via the Telegram messaging app, the Huthis said they had "lured" loyalists up the western coastline of Hodeida, where the rebels then launched an attack on the troops. Government forces, led on the ground by Emirati-backed troops, have made their way into Hodeida after 11 days of clashes, reaching residential neighbourhoods in the east on Sunday and sparking fears of street fights that would further endanger civilians trapped in the city. Residents and government military sources have reported rebel snipers stationed on rooftops in civilian streets in eastern Hodeida, a few kilometres (miles) from the port on the western edge of the city. The fighting forced hundreds of terrified medical workers and patients to flee the al-Thawra hospital -- Hodeida's largest public medical facility -- as a series of explosions rocked the area on Sunday, Amnesty International said. A medical worker told Amnesty that they "dodged a hail of shrapnel" as bombardment near the hospital lasted more than 30 minutes. - 'Enough is enough' - The Hodeida offensive has sparked an international outcry unprecedented in nearly four years of conflict between the Huthis and the Saudi-backed government. Britain, the United States and France have all called for an end to hostilities. All three countries are major suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a major ally of Washington, to engage in peace talks. The battle for Hodeida British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt met with Saudi King Salman and Prince Mohammed on Monday during a visit to the kingdom to press its rulers to support UN efforts to end the conflict. Hunt also flew to the United Arab Emirates, a key pillar of the Saudi-led coalition, to meet the crown prince of Abu Dhabi. In France, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said it was time "the international community said enough is enough. "There will be no victor in this war," Le Drian told France 2 TV. - Civilian toll - Aid groups fear for the safety of hundreds of thousands of people living in Hodeida -- and for millions of others dependent on its port for what little food and humanitarian aid trickle into impoverished, blockaded Yemen. A military official in Hodeida on Monday confirmed seven civilians had died, without giving further details. A 15-year-old boy died last week of shrapnel wounds in Hodeida, Save the Children said. Medics in hospitals across Hodeida province reported 111 rebels and 32 loyalist fighters killed overnight, according to a tally by AFP. Sources at the Al-Alfi military hospital, seized by the rebels during their 2014 takeover, said charred body parts had been delivered there overnight. Military sources confirmed that the Saudi-led alliance had targeted the rebels with multiple air strikes. A Yemeni woman carries her child who is suffering from severe malnutrition at a hospital in northwestern Hajjah province on November 11, 2018 The rebels have begun to evacuate their wounded to Sanaa, the capital, which the Huthis seized during a 2014 takeover that included a string of ports on Yemen's coastline. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the Yemeni government's fight against the Huthis in 2015, triggering what the UN now calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Nearly 600 people have been killed since clashes erupted in Hodeida on November 1, ending a temporary suspension in a government offensive to take the city that began in June. - Diplomatic pressure - The coalition has come under intense international pressure to end the conflict, particularly following the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an ardent critic of Prince Mohammed, in his country's consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Displaced children from Hodeidah province wait for water supplies in a camp in the northern district of Abs in Yemen's northwestern Hajjah province on November 10, 2018 Multiple countries, including Germany and Norway, have announced the suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi's killing. The United Nations' Yemen envoy, Martin Griffiths, is pushing for peace talks between the Huthis and the government by the end of the year. The United States, which for years provided military training and aerial refuelling for the Saudi-led coalition, on Saturday announced it would end its inflight refuelling support for the alliance. The alliance accuses Iran of smuggling arms to the Huthis through Hodeida port. Tehran denies the charges. bur-faw-ny-ac/nla The UN is already providing food aid to some eight million Yemenis but that number could reach 14 million next year UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that the destruction of the Yemeni port of Hodeida, a vital lifeline for millions of starving civilians, could trigger a "catastrophic" situation. Medics and military sources say at least 149 people have been killed in 24 hours of heavy clashes as government loyalists, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, fight to oust Huthi rebels from the Red Sea city. "If the port at Hodeida is destroyed, that could create an absolutely catastrophic situation," Guterres told France Inter radio during a trip to Paris. Yemen is already facing a "disastrous" humanitarian situation, Guterres said, adding: "The hostilities must stop." The Saudi-led coalition currently "appears determined to take Hodeida, which in my opinion will still not allow the real start of a political solution", Guterres said. "The fighting must stop, a political debate must begin, and we must prepare a massive humanitarian response to avoid the worst next year." Guterres said there was "an opportunity to make the direct parties in the conflict -- the Huthis, the government, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia -- understand that this is ultimately a war that no one is winning." He added that there was "a consensus, between the United States, Russia, Europe and many states in the region, that it is finally time to end this conflict". "There is already a framework for a solution which has been presented to the different parties," he said. "The early reaction has been relatively positive but in my opinion things are frozen due to the Hodeida situation." The UN is already providing food aid to some eight million Yemenis but that number could reach 14 million next year, Guterres warned. Renae Lawrence was arrested in 2005 after she was caught with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin strapped to her body at Bali airport The only female member of the "Bali Nine" heroin-trafficking gang will be freed from an Indonesian prison next week, a corrections official said Monday, after serving 13 years in a case that caused a diplomatic furore. Australian Renae Lawrence, 41, was arrested in 2005 after she was caught with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin strapped to her body as she tried to fly out of the international airport on the holiday island of Bali. Lawrence was sentenced to life imprisonment, but her sentence was later reduced to 20 years and then further reduced due to good behaviour. "She will be released on November 21," Made Suwendra, head of the Bangli prison on Bali where Lawrence is incarcerated, told AFP. "(Lawrence) is a nice person. Accommodating, easy to work with and be friends with. There have been no problems since she's been here." It is likely that Lawrence will be deported shortly after her prison release. She will be the only member of the Bali Nine to win their freedom so far. Gang ringleaders Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were executed by firing squad in 2015, sparking a diplomatic row between Australia and Indonesia, which has some of the world's strictest drug laws including the death penalty. In June, another Bali Nine member Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died in prison from stomach cancer, while the remaining five are currently serving life sentences. Some critics have lashed out at the Australian police for tipping off their Indonesian counterparts about the gang and putting its members at risk of execution in Indonesia. High-profile cases like that of Australian Schapelle Corby, who spent more than nine years behind bars for smuggling marijuana into Bali, have stoked concern that Indonesia is becoming a destination for trafficked drugs. Corby was deported in 2017 after several years of parole. The pilot was due to fly a Air India plane to London when he failed the alcohol test A veteran pilot had his flying licence revoked Monday after failing a breath test moments before captaining an Air India plane to London, India's aviation regulator said. Arvind Kathpalia, a pilot and senior executive with the national airline, blew positive for alcohol before entering the Dreamliner jet's cockpit for the nearly 10-hour flight to the United Kingdom on Sunday. "He failed the breath analyser and as per rules we have decided to cancel his licence for three years with immediate effect," an official with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation told AFP. He said Kathpalia was handed a three-month ban in 2017 for skipping a mandatory alcohol breath test. All pilots and crew are barred from consuming alcohol in the 12 hours before their flying duties and are subject to regular breath tests. Kathpalia has denied the allegations, describing them as a smear campaign levelled by rivals, local media reported. More than 150 pilots from different Indian airlines have failed breath tests for alcohol in the past four years, the government said in response to a 2018 freedom of information request. India's aviation safety record tumbled this year, slipping from 66 percent to 57 percent on a ranking system kept by the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation. A perfect safety rating score is 100 percent. India's aviation sector has surged in recent years, with nearly 120 million domestic passengers taking to the skies in 2017, almost double the figure in 2012. Martin Fayulu was named on Sunday as joint opposition candidate in DR Congo's presidential election on December 23 Plans to field a single opposition candidate in DR Congo's presidential elections floundered on Monday, just weeks before polling day, after two major parties walked away from the deal under grassroots pressure. A day after he joined other opposition leaders in naming a little-known MP as their joint candidate, Felix Tshisekedi, head of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), reversed course. "I gather that the agreement reached in Geneva was not accepted by the grassroots and was rejected by them," he said in an interview with the radio station Top Congo. "As a result, I am withdrawing my signature from this agreement, which we signed yesterday," he said. Vital Kamerhe, head of a smaller opposition party called the UNC, followed suit. Tshisekedi spoke shortly after UDPS secretary general Jean-Marc Kabund said party members had angrily rejected his decision and gave him 48 hours to backtrack. The December 23 elections -- which are also unfolding at legislative and municipal level -- are a watershed for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Mired in poverty and troubled by conflicts in two regions, the mineral-rich country has not known a peaceful transition of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Since 2001, it has been ruled by President Joseph Kabila, whose regime has been widely criticised for corruption, incompetence and human rights abuses. Kabila, 47, is unable to seek a new term in office because of constitutional limits, but has handpicked his party's candidate -- Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a loyalist and hardline former interior minister. - Shock for activists - It was to boost their chances of winning that the divided opposition sought to choose a unity candidate. Late Sunday, they announced the choice of Martin Fayulu, whose party has just a small handful of MPs and far less national recognition than Tshisekedi. Tshisekedi, pictured in Geneva on Sunday, was named UDPS leader and election candidate in March after the death of his father Etienne, who co-founded the party in 1982 It came as a shock to many in the UDPS, the country's oldest and biggest opposition party. Just eight months earlier, Tshisekedi, 55, had been massively approved as the party's leader and election candidate after the death of his popular father, Etienne Tshisekedi, who co-founded the party in 1982. Demonstrators gathered in pouring rain on Monday to express discontent outside party headquarters in Kinshasa, burning effigies and pictures of Felix Tshisekedi, police spokesman Pierrot Mwanamputu told AFP. Witnesses also reported seeing them burning tyres. A similar protest took place outside the offices of Kamerhe's Union for the Congolese Nation, or UNC. Kabund, speaking before a crowd of furious UDPS activists, said party members opposed the Geneva agreement as "they consider him (Tshisekedi) to be the candidate for the presidency." "We don't understand how he can withdraw in favour of an unpopular candidate. For us in the UDPS, it's an insult. We say president Tshisekedi must pull himself together and return to reason." UDPS activist Simon Kashama said that if Tshisekedi refused to withdraw his signature from the Geneva deal, "he will be stripped of office -- it's the party base which decides". "We haven't been fighting for 36 years to have a joint candidate but to have a change of government, to win power," he said. Tshisekedi was defensive about his decision to back Fayulu. "If I went to Geneva, it was with the approval of the grassroots," he said. "It's not a personal initiative, but a desire from the grassroots and the public to nominate a joint opposition candidate." Under Sunday's agreement, Fayulu would run at the head of a new opposition coalition called "Lamuka," which means "wake up" in both Lingala and Swahili. But the future of the accord is now uncertain. Tshisekedi, who has yet to return to Kinshasa, did not say whether he intended to maintain his own candidacy for the elections. - Voting machines - A 61-year-old former oil executive educated in the US and France, Fayulu gained prominence for his role in marches opposing Kabila after he remained in power beyond his constitutional term. His chances at the Geneva meeting may have been boosted by a storm over the planned use of South Korean-made electronic voting machines. The authorities insist the technology will cut costs, prevent fraud and provide a faster tally, but critics claim they could be used to rig the election. Fayulu threatened to quit the race if the devices are introduced for the vote, while Tshisekedi said he would run whether the machines are used or not. A picture provided by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) on November 12, 2018 shows Saudi King Salman (R) meeting Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt in Riyadh British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt held talks Monday with Saudi Arabia's king and crown prince, state media said, as he sought to press the kingdom over journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder and the escalating Yemen war. Hunt discussed the "latest developments in the region" with 82-year-old King Salman and later Monday held separate talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the monarch's son and heir apparent, the Saudi Press Agency said. The visit comes as the kingdom faces a torrent of international criticism over the murder of Saudi insider-turned-critic Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Ahead of his trip, which included a visit to the United Arab Emirates, Hunt said the international community was united in its "horror and outrage" at Khashoggi's murder. "It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear," Hunt said. "We encourage the Saudi authorities to co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death, so that we deliver justice for his family and the watching world." Hunt, who is seeking to boost support for UN efforts to end the nearly four-year conflict in Yemen, also met Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. Britain and the United States are major suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia, which leads a military coalition backing the Yemen government in its fight against Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels. Britain is seeking support among regional partners for new action at the UN Security Council for peace talks in Yemen. "The human cost of war in Yemen is incalculable: with millions displaced, famine and disease rife and years of bloodshed, the only solution is now a political decision to set aside arms and pursue peace," Hunt said ahead of his trip to the Gulf. "Britain has a unique position, both as pen-holder at the UN Security Council and as a key influencer in the region, so today I am travelling to the Gulf to demand that all sides commit to this process. "We are witnessing a manmade humanitarian catastrophe on our watch: now is the window to make a difference, and to get behind both the UN peace process and current UK efforts in the Security Council." Hunt's visit comes after British undersecretary for foreign affairs Simon McDonald held talks with Prince Mohammed and Jubeir in Riyadh. Hunt also flew to the United Arab Emirates, a key pillar of the Saudi-led coalition, to meet Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan. The Foreign Office said Hunt would raise the case of Matthew Hedges, a PhD student who denies charges of spying in the UAE. Khashoggi's murder has stirred international outrage, while intensifying the spotlight on Riyadh's role in the devastating war in Yemen Turkey on Monday lashed out at "unacceptable" and "impertinent" comments by the French foreign minister who accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of playing a "political game" over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey had shared recordings linked to the Saudi journalist's murder last month with Riyadh, the United States, France, Britain and other allies, without giving details of the tapes' specific content. In an interview with France 2 television on Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he "for the moment was not aware" of any information transmitted by Ankara. Asked if the Turkish president was lying, he said: "It means that he has a political game to play in these circumstances." His comments provoked fury in Ankara. "We find it unacceptable that he accused President Erdogan of 'playing political games'," the communications director at the Turkish presidency, Fahrettin Altun, told AFP in a written statement. "Let us not forget that this case would have been already covered up had it not been for Turkey's determined efforts." Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu responded even more sharply, saying that his French counterpart's accusations amounted to "impertinence". Turkey has avoided directly pointing the finger at Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the Khashoggi killing "It does not fit the seriousness of a foreign minister," he said, accusing Le Drian of "exceeding his authority". The French foreign ministry later spoke of a "misunderstanding", adding that information provided by Turkey had not allowed for the "full truth" to come out, including who might be responsible for the crime. "The full truth which we care about isn't just linked to Turkish recordings (...) the full truth is also to be sought in Riyadh and in exchanges with our other partners," the ministry said. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor and critic of the Saudi government, was last seen entering the consulate on October 2 to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage to a Turkish woman. Turkey's chief prosecutor has said he was strangled and then dismembered as part of a premeditated plan. There have been claims that his body was dissolved in acid. - 'No exception'- After repeated denials, Riyadh finally admitted the 59-year-old had been murdered at the mission in what it called a "rogue" operation. Erdogan has accused the "highest levels" of the Saudi government of ordering the hit, without directly pointing the finger at all-powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He has said he does "not believe for a second" that the prince's father King Salman ordered the crime. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the weekend he had shared recordings linked to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi with a number of countries Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the crown prince in a phone call Sunday that the United States would hold accountable all those involved in the killing. Khashoggi's murder and the war in Yemen are two of the main sources of strain in the decades-old alliance between Washington and Riyadh. The Yemen conflict has pushed that country to the brink of famine. Altun said Ankara had shared evidence linked to the murder with officials from a large number of countries and that France was "no exception". "I confirm that evidence pertaining to the Khashoggi murder has also been shared with the relevant agencies of the French government," he said. A representative of French intelligence listened to the audio recording and examined detailed information including a transcript on October 24, he added. "If there is miscommunication between the French government's various agencies, it is up to the French authorities -- not Turkey -- to take care of that problem," Altun said. - Canada 'fully briefed'- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday of the recordings: "Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share." He added that he had brief exchanges with Erdogan over the weekend in Paris at commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Jamal Khashoggi was murdered after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 "I thanked him for his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation." Asked if he had heard the recording himself, he said: "I have not." Trudeau was speaking from Paris, where he was attending a peace forum hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. Canada's spy chief David Vigneault travelled to Turkey at Trudeau's request to discuss the investigation into Khashoggi's death, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) confirmed. "As you can appreciate, I cannot go into specifics about the investigation but I can confirm that the director of CSIS has listened to the audio tapes in question," the agency said in an email to AFP. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters: "I can tell you that there was an exchange between secret services on this point," he told reporters, but declined to elaborate. Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt held talks Monday with Saudi King Salman and was also expected to meet the crown prince in Riyadh. "It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear," Hunt said ahead of his visit. He encouraged Saudi authorities to "co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death." The choice of the little-known Martin Fayulu was a surprise as UDPS leader Felix Tshisekedi was widely regarded as the front-runner DR Congo's main opposition party on Monday rejected a deal agreed by its leader just a day earlier to select a single opposition candidate for upcoming presidential elections. After hundreds of activists protested, Jean-Marc Kabund, secretary general of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), announced "the grassroots want (party leader) Felix Tshisekedi to withdraw" from the deal, and set a 48-hour deadline for him to do so. Seven opposition leaders, meeting in Geneva on Sunday, picked the little-known Martin Fayulu as their joint candidate for the December 23 ballot to succeed President Joseph Kabila, who has been in power for 18 years. The choice of Fayulu, a 61-year-old former oil executive, was a surprise as Tshisekedi, who heads the UDPS -- for years the country's main opposition party -- had widely been seen as the front-runner. Kabund said UDPS activists opposed the Geneva agreement as "they consider him (Tshisekedi) to be the candidate for the presidency." Fayulu will run at the head of a new opposition coalition called "Lamuka" -- which means "wake up" in both Lingala and Swahili. He will stand against Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a hardliner and former interior minister backed by Kabila. The vote is crucial for the Democratic Republic of Congo. The vast, mineral-rich country has never experienced a peaceful transition of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Tshisekedi, who has a home in Belgium, has not yet returned to Kinshasa. The International Atomic Energy Agency monitors Iran's compliance with an international nuclear deal that the United States has pulled out of Iran has been abiding by the terms of its nuclear deal with global powers, the latest report from the UN atomic watchdog indicated Monday, days after fresh US sanctions hit the country. The International Atomic Energy Agency's latest report showed that as of early November, Iran had been complying with the restrictions to its nuclear programme laid down in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Sweeping new American sanctions against Iran, which came into effect on 5 November, have raised fears about whether the deal can survive. Some parts of the fieldwork in the report took place before the sanctions came into effect, but a senior diplomat with knowledge of the situation said there was "nothing that indicates that... cooperation from Iran or its attitude has changed since 5 November". The report said that as of November 4, Iran's stockpiles of low-enriched uranium stood at 149.4kg, 10kg up from the time of its last report in August. However, this is still well within the limits set by the JCPOA. The agency repeated language which has appeared in two previous reports emphasising the importance of "timely and proactive cooperation in providing such access" on Iran's part. However, the senior diplomat suggested that this was meant less as an admonition to Iran than as encouragement to maintain the current level of cooperation. - 'Face value' - The report makes no mention of recent claims made by Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran was harbouring a secret atomic warehouse. The latest American sanctions aim to cut off Iran's banks from international finance and significantly cut its oil exports. Those have already fallen by up to one million barrels a day since May, when US President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, branding it a "disaster". Iran's economy was already reeling from the effect of US sanctions imposed earlier in the year. On Friday US National Security Advisor John Bolton warned that more sanctions were possible. Iran has said the future of the JCPOA would be called into question if it no longer received the economic benefits of the deal. The deal envisaged sanctions on Iran being lifted in return for it accepting IAEA inspections and limits on its nuclear activities. The remaining five signatories to the JCPOA -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- have backed an EU effort to set up a special payment system in an attempt to continue trade and business ties with Iran. However, some European companies have already pulled out of Iran. Earlier this month senior EU officials admitted that the mechanism was proving difficult to set up. US President Donald Trump points to progress in defusing tension with North Korea since his summit with Kim Jong-un, right, but a new study says it maintains at least 13 undeclared missile bases North Korea is operating at least 13 undeclared bases to hide mobile, nuclear-capable missiles, a new study released Monday has found, raising fresh doubts over US President Donald Trump's signature foreign policy initiative. Trump has hailed his June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as having opened the way to denuclearization of the divided peninsula, defusing tensions that less than a year ago brought the two countries to the brink of conflict. Since the summit in Singapore, North Korea has forgone nuclear and missile tests, dismantled a missile test site and promised to also break up the country's main nuclear complex. But researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said they have located 13 missile operating bases that have not been declared by the government, and that there may be as many as 20. "It's not like these bases have been frozen," Victor Cha, who leads CSIS's North Korea program, told The New York Times, which first reported on the study. "Work is continuing. What everybody is worried about is that Trump is going to accept a bad deal -- they give us a single test site and dismantle a few other things, and in return they get a peace agreement." Cha had been in line for appointment as US ambassador to South Korea, but was dropped because of disagreement with the Trump administration's approach. While US sanctions on North Korea remain in place, enforcement by traditional trading partners China and Russia has relaxed since the summit, US officials have acknowledged. The bases, which are scattered across the country, are located in underground facilities tunneled in narrow mountain valleys, according to the researchers. They are designed to enable mobile missile launchers to quickly exit the underground facilities and move to previously prepared launch sites. "Any missile at these bases can take a nuclear warhead," the report's co-author, Joseph Bermudez, an authority on North Korea, told the Times. The bases are arranged in three belts across North Korea, according to the report, with those for strategic missiles deep inside the country. Medium-range missiles capable of striking Japan and all of South Korea reportedly are deployed in an operational belt 55 to 100 miles (90 to 150 kilometers) north of the demilitarized zone. Bases for shorter range missiles fit into a tactical belt 30 to 55 miles from the DMZ. The researchers relied on satellite imagery, defector interviews and interviews with intelligence and government officials for their findings. - Sakkanmol - The report included a detailed profile of one such tactical missile operating base, illustrated with commercial satellite imagery, just 84 miles northwest of Seoul. The imagery shows barely visible entrances to seven underground facilities at the Sakkanmol missile base -- each protected from artillery fire and air strikes by 60-foot-high (18-meter) berms made from rock and dirt excavated from the site. The size of the entrances, as well as the volume of soil removed, indicates the base could house a brigade-size missile unit with up to 18 mobile launchers, the report said. Concealed under two earth-covered shelters near one of the entrances is a drive-through facility where missile launchers are armed, fueled and maintained. Barracks, administration facilities, support buildings and greenhouses for food are visible further down the valley. The entrances to the underground facilities "are frequently hidden from sight in satellite imagery during spring and summer, just visible during fall and visible in winter after a snowfall," the report said. The Times said the Pentagon had planned to begin deploying a new generation of small, inexpensive satellites to track North Korea's mobile missiles, but the program has been held up by bureaucratic and budget disputes. - Stalled negotiations - Trump has said he hopes to meet again soon with Kim, but there are signs of growing friction in the negotiations with North Korean officials, which appear to have stalled. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been scheduled to meet Kim's right-hand man, Kim Yong Chol, in New York last week to discuss denuclearization efforts and prepare for a possible second summit, according to the State Department. But on Thursday, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said North Korea postponed the meeting "because they weren't ready." The United States, meanwhile, has delayed approval of several requests for exemptions to UN sanctions to deliver tractors, spare parts and other humanitarian relief supplies to North Korea, according to documents seen by AFP. Aung San Suu Kyi has been accused of ignoring the murder, torture and rape of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar Amnesty International on Monday stripped Aung San Suu Kyi of its highest honour over the de facto Myanmar leader's "indifference" to the atrocities committed by the military against Rohingya Muslims. It was the latest in a string of awards the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner lost since Myanmar's military drove 720,000 Rohingya out of the Buddhist majority country in what the United Nations has called an act of genocide. The London-based global human rights organisation said it was revoking the Ambassador of Conscience Award it gave Suu Kyi in 2009 while she was still under house arrest. "Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defence of human rights," Amnesty International chief Kumi Naidoo said in a letter to Suu Kyi released by the group. "Amnesty International cannot justify your continued status as a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience award and so with great sadness we are hereby withdrawing it from you." Amnesty said it informed the 73-year-old of the decision on Sunday. She has so far issued no public response. - Fallen icon - Suu Kyi was globally hailed as a freedom fighter who stood up to her country's feared military junta while spending 15 years under house arrest. Her plight received added attention when she was visited by Hillary Clinton when the two-time US presidential candidate was still Secretary of State in 2011. Suu Kyi then reaffirmed her committment to working with the United States to bring democracy to her country of around 50 million people. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party swept to power in a 2015 landslide that brought hope of Myanmar correcting injustices inflicted over 50 years of brutal military rule. But her tenure has been marred by a failure to speak up for Rohingya Muslims. Her government is also fighting an uphill struggle against corruption and local conflicts. Amnesty said it believes thousands of Rohingyas were killed in Myanmar's western Rakhine province since the campaign began August 2017. Many more are thought to have been either tortured and raped. Myanmar has justified the military's actions as necessary to combat terrorism. Rohingya refugees attend a ceremony in Bangladesh to remember the first anniversary of the military crackdown Amnesty conceded that the civilian government Suu Kyi informally heads does not directly control the powerful security services. But it accused her of standing up for the crimes and "obstructing international investigations into abuses". It added that human rights campaigners and journalists continued to be detained and intimidated by the government since her party's victory. Suu Kyi was stripped of her honourary Canadian citizenship over her failure to speak up for the Rohingyas last month. She has also lost numerous smaller awards from individual universities and local and regional governments. US National Security Adviser John Bolton is holding talks in the UAE amid increased calls for an end to the war in Yemen where Emirati forces are part of a US-led coalition battling Iran-backed rebels US National Security Adviser John Bolton held talks Monday with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on regional issues and the fight against "terrorism", state media said. Bolton's visit comes as international pressure mounts to end the war in Yemen, where government loyalists backed by a Saudi-led coalition, including Emirati forces, are battling Iran-aligned Huthi rebels. Medics said Monday that at least 150 people have been killed in 24 hours of clashes in the Yemen port city of Hodeida, the docks of which are a lifeline to 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation. Government forces, led on the ground by Emirati-backed troops, have made their way into Hodeida after 11 days of clashes, reaching residential neighbourhoods in the east on Sunday and sparking fears of street fighting that would further endanger civilians. Ahead of the trip to the United Arab Emirates Bolton said in a tweet he was "looking forward to meeting with out friends in the UAE to discuss important regional issues". WAM state news agency said the talks focused on "cooperation between the two countries in several fields, as well as issues of concern to both countries". Bolton and Sheikh Mohammed, who is also deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces, "exchanged views on several regional and international issues" and also discussed "international efforts and cooperation to confront terrorism and terrorist groups", the agency reported. The Hodeida offensive has sparked international outcry unprecedented in nearly four years of conflict between the Huthis and the Saudi-backed government. Britain, the United States and France have all called for a cessation to the hostilities. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a major ally of Washington, to engage in peace talks. On Saturday Saudi King Salman held talks in Riyadh with the Abu Dhabi crown prince after the US halted a controversial refuelling arrangement for coalition aircraft engaged in Yemen. Anglophone separatists have attacked troops and police, boycotted and torched schools and attacked other state symbols, prompting a brutal official crackdown A Cameroon military tribunal has dropped a lawsuit against a TV presenter from the country's restive anglophone region who was detained for several days last week accused of "attacking state security", her lawyer said Monday. Mimi Mefo, who heads English news for privately-owned Equinoxe broadcasting, was released from detention on Saturday after being charged by a military in the commercial capital Douala on Wednesday. "The tribunal ordered that the lawsuit be stopped," said the journalist's lawyer Me Alice Nkom, adding that Mefo had attended court to hear the decision. Mefo was charged over a social media post which said the army was responsible for the death of US missionary Charles Trumann Wesco who died in October after an attack in the English-speaking Northwest region, her lawyer said earlier. Nkom said her client had also posted the government's version of what happened -- that Wesco had died after a raid by anglophone separatists. After she was released, the army's spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck said the decision to stop the prosecution was taken personally by President Paul Biya as "a gesture of magnanimity." In 2016, anger at perceived discrimination in education, the judiciary and the economy fanned demands for autonomy there. A year later radicals declared an independent state -- the "Republic of Ambazonia" -- taking up arms soon after. Militants on Monday released three more hostages -- two students and a staff member -- after a mass kidnapping last week in which 83 people, mostly students, were seized from a school in Bamenda, capital of the Northwest Region. Seventy-nine pupils were released on November 7. "The three hostages released are two students and a staff member. There is one last staff member whose release we have not yet confirmed," said a regional administrative officer. Separatists have since attacked troops and police, boycotted and torched schools and attacked other state symbols, prompting a brutal official crackdown. Fighting in the English-speaking regions has killed between 450 to 500 civilians, 185 members of the security forces and hundreds of armed separatists think-tank International Crisis Group said in a report this month. "The Anglophone conflict is gradually turning into a civil war," it added. According to an October update by the UN's refugee agency OCHA, there are a total of 437,000 people from the anglophone regions displaced within the country, while some 27,000 people have fled to Nigeria. Biya, 85, who was sworn in for his seventh term in office this month, has ruled out secession for the English-speaking regions, home to around a fifth of Cameroon's 22 million people. A group of scientists and engineers in Leicester has recommended Oxia Planum as the best landing site for the British-built Mars rover. Image of the proposed landing site (from ESA) Due to land in 2021, the ExoMars rover will be the first of its kind to travel across the Martian surface and drill down to determine if evidence of life is buried underground. Dr. Graham Turnock, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency said: "After the Earth, Mars is the most habitable planet in the solar system, so it's a perfect destination to explore the possibility of life on other planets, as well as the history of our own." Both of the potential landing sites -- Oxia Planum and Mawrth Vallis -- preserve a rich record of geological history from the planet's wetter past, approximately four billion years ago, however the potential for science return had to be balanced with the prospect of landing safely. Professor John Bridges, from the Space Research Centre, University of Leicester, a member of the Landing Site Selection Working Group, explains why Oxia Planum has been recommended: "After over 4 years of careful study of HiRISE and more recently CaSSIS images Oxia Planum was chosen because scientists were convinced that its fine grained sediments, deposited during the ancient Noachian epoch, were ideally suited for the exobiology rover. With an enormous catchment area the sediments will have captured organics from a wide variety of environments over a long period of time, including areas where life may have existed. The fine sediments should also be ideal for the ExoMars drill -- it aims to get to 2 metres depth. "Remote identification with the Mars Express and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Infrared spectrometers shows the presence of clays and other minerals giving clues to its aqueous history. A large group of scientists have been working on proposing, characterising and down selecting the sites, all of which had fascinating aspects, but Oxia Planum is the clear winner on both science and engineering constraints." The UK Space Agency is the second largest European contributor to the ExoMars mission, having invested 287 million in the mission and 14 million on the instruments. This, in addition to successful negotiations with the European Space Agency (ESA), secured key mission contracts for the UK space sector. Sue Horne, Head of Space Exploration at the UK Space Agency said: "I have been working on ExoMars for over 10 years and am amazed at the ingenuity and dedication of UK engineers and scientists in building the rover and instruments that will work in the extreme environment of Mars. Our end goal is in sight and it is getting very exciting." The government's modern Industrial Strategy is backing businesses to succeed by increasing investment in science, because countries that invest in ideas create more opportunities for business. The ambition is for the UK be the world's most innovative economy -- and the development of the ExoMars rover in the UK is a part of this ambition. Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage is leading the build of the rover while the UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory is leading on a key instrument known as the PanCam, a high-resolution 3D camera which will be used to look at the terrain and rocks to try to detect signs of life. The University of Leicester and Teledyne e2v are working on the Raman Spectrometer with STFC RAL Space providing some of the electronics, including the data processing board. The recommendation was made today following a two-day meeting held at the National Space Centre in Leicester, UK, which saw experts from the Mars science community, industry, and ExoMars project present and discuss the scientific merits of the sites alongside the engineering and technical constraints. The Leicester recommendation will be reviewed internally by ESA and Roscosmos with an official confirmation expected mid-2019. Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar's forces dominate the east of the country Libya's key political players including strongman Khalifa Haftar met with global leaders in Italy on Monday in the latest bid by major powers to kickstart a long-stalled political process and trigger elections. A summit in Paris in May had seen the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and eastern Libya strongman Haftar agree to hold national polls on December 10, but that date has fallen by the wayside. Acknowledging the chaotic political situation since dictator Moamer Kadhafi was deposed in 2011, the United Nations on Thursday conceded elections will not be viable before at least the spring of 2019. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte welcomed Haftar in the Sicilian capital Palermo after days of doubts over his crucial presence. Haftar decided not to attend a working dinner at the Villa Igiea venue, with roundtable talks set for Tuesday morning. "Haftar already succeeding in making the Palermo Conference about the importance of his role in any potential agreement in Libya going forward and reinforcing his position as the key actor in the Libyan crisis," said Mohamed ElJarh, CEO of research and consulting firm Libya Outlook. Analysts say the Sicily summit risks being compromised not only by tensions between Libyan factions but also the competing agendas of foreign powers. Just as in May, the key Libyan invitees are Haftar, the eastern parliament's speaker Aguila Salah, GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj and Khaled al-Mechri, speaker of a Tripoli-based upper chamber. In an interview with AFP, Sarraj urged the international community on Thursday to find a "common vision" for the future of the chaos-hit North African nation. The GNA says it will use the Palermo talks to lobby for security reforms that unify the army, a constitutionally rooted electoral process, economic reform and an end to "parallel institutions". - 'A fundamental step' - The US, Arab countries and European nations are all sending representatives to the Tuesday talks, after a dinner set for Monday. Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi arrived on Monday evening. Map showing areas of control in Libya For Rome's populist government, a top priority is stemming the flow of migrants who exploit Libya's security vacuum in their quest to reach European shores, often via Italy. "The Palermo conference is a fundamental step in the goal of stabilising Libya and for the security of the entire Mediterranean," Conte said last week. UN envoy Ghassan Salame told the Security Council on Thursday that a national conference in early 2019 would be organised to provide "a platform" for Libyans to spell out their vision for the future. But diplomatic wrangling between Italy and France hangs over this summit. In September, Italy's defence minister and parliamentary speaker both partly blamed France for Libya's security crisis, which continues to simmer some seven years after the NATO-backed uprising toppled Kadhafi. The Italian swipes came as Tripoli was plagued by militia clashes that killed at least 117 people and wounded more than 400 between late August and late September. Rome and Paris have for months been at loggerheads over Libya's election timetable. While France repeatedly endorsed the December date, Italy opposed it. The presence of eastern Libya strongman Khalifa Haftar at the summit is seen as crucial Italy has not been alone in pushing for elections to be delayed -- the December 10 date was also viewed sceptically by Washington and Moscow. One Italian diplomatic source said that no definitive poll date should be set at the summit and it is "not sure that there will be a final document" after the talks. According to diplomats and analysts, Russia, France, Egypt and the UAE support Haftar, while Turkey and Qatar have thrown their weight behind rivals to the eastern strongman, especially Islamist groups. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The Florida secretary of state ordered recounts in the U.S. Senate and governor races on Saturday, an unprecedented review of two major contests in the state that took five weeks to decide the 2000 presidential election. Secretary Ken Detzner issued the order after the unofficial results in both races fell within the margin that by law triggers a recount. His office was unaware of any other time either a race for governor or U.S. Senate in Florida required a recount, let alone both in the same election. The recount sets up what could be several days of political tension in this deeply divided state. President Donald Trump tweeted without evidence that the elections were being stolen. Protesters gathered at an elections office in Broward County, which is quickly becoming a battleground in the recount. The protesters waved signs, used bullhorns and even harangued a food delivery person at one point, asking if there were ballots inside the food bags. The unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in the election for governor. In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is 0.14 percentage points. Detzner ordered machine recounts in both races. Once completed, if the differences in the races are at 0.25 percentage points or below, a hand recount will be ordered, said Department of State spokeswoman Sarah Revell. Susan Bucher, second right, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections and Judge August Bonavita, seated at center left, look at provisional ballots in Riviera Beach, Fla., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. A possible recount looms in a tight Florida gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and agriculture commission race. (AP Photo/Josh Repogle) Following the announcement, Gillum withdrew his concession in the governor's race. "Let me say clearly, I am replacing my words of concession with an uncompromised and unapologetic call that we count every single vote," he said, adding that he would accept whatever outcome emerges. In a video released Saturday afternoon, DeSantis thanked the state's supervisors of elections, canvassing boards, and the staffs for "working hard to ensure that all lawful votes are counted. He said he is preparing to become the state's next governor. "It is important that everyone involved in the election process strictly adhere to the rule of law which is the foundation for our nation," he said, adding that the election results were "clear and unambiguous." In a statement, Scott implored the state's sheriffs to "watch for any violations and take appropriate action" during the recount. Scott and his supporters, including Trump, have alleged that voter fraud is underway in Democratic-leaning Broward County, where the Republican lead has narrowed since Election Day. There's no evidence of voter fraud and the state's election division, which Scott runs, said Saturday that its observers in Broward had seen "no evidence of criminal activity." The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Friday it has not launched any investigation into election fraud. Florida's 67 counties will decide when to begin their recounts, but they must be completed by Thursday. Revell said Saturday that recounts can't begin until the county canvassing boards post a public meeting notice, hold that meeting and then do a public test of equipment. Miami-Dade County elections officials disclosed they had begun a machine recount Saturday evening. The process involved loading paper ballots into scanning machines and could take days, considering there were some 800,000 ballots cast. Elections officials in two large counties in the Tampa Bay area - Pinellas and Hillsborough - said they would begin recounts Sunday morning. Machine recounts must be finished by 3 p.m. Thursday. The Associated Press had called the governor's race for DeSantis. Following the recount announcement, the AP retracted its call. It is AP policy not to call a race that is facing a recount. No new call will be made until the recount is complete and the results of the election are certified by Florida officials. The scene was reminiscent of the 2000 presidential recount, when it took more than five weeks for Florida to declare George W. Bush the victor over Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes, and thus giving Bush the presidency. Florida was mocked for the way it handled the infamous 2000 recount, especially since there was no uniform process then on how to proceed. That has changed, with the Legislature passing a clear procedure on how a recount should be conducted. Florida is also conducting a recount in a third statewide race. Democrat Nikki Fried had a 0.07 percentage point lead lead over Republican state Rep. Matt Caldwell in the race for agriculture commissioner, one of Florida's three Cabinet seats. ___ AP writer Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale and Tamara Lush in St. Petersburg contributed to this report. ___ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics A crowd protests outside the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. A possible recount looms in a tight Florida governor, Senate and agriculture commission race. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper) Susan Bucher, right, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections and Judge August Bonavita, left, look at provisional ballots in Riviera Beach, Fla., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. A possible recount looms in a tight Florida gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and agriculture commission race. (AP Photo/Josh Repogle) Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum gives his concession speech as he is joined on stage by his wife R. Jai Gillum, right, and running mate Chris King and his wife Kristen Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Tallahassee, Fla. Gillum lost the Florida governor's race to Republican Ron DeSantis. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Republican Florida Governor-elect Ron DeSantis, center, waves to the supporters with his wife, Casey, left, and Republican Lt. Governor-elect Jeanette Nunez, third right, after thanking the crowd Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Orlando, Fla. DeSantis defeated Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum. (Chris Urso/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott speaks to supporters at an election watch party, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018, in Naples, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) Death toll in Northern California wildfire rises to 23 PARADISE, Calif. (AP) - The air thick with smoke from a ferocious wildfire that was still burning homes Saturday, residents who stayed behind to try to save their property or who managed to get back to their neighborhoods in this Northern California town found cars incinerated and homes reduced to rubble. People surveyed the damage and struggled to cope with what they had lost. Entire neighborhoods were leveled and the business district was destroyed by a blaze that threatened to explode again with the same fury that largely incinerated the foothill town. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said Saturday 14 additional bodies were found, bringing the death toll to 23. The victims have not been identified. Two people were found dead in a wildfire in Southern California, bringing the total number of fatalities for the state to 25. The fire became California's third deadliest since record-keeping began, with the death toll surpassing that from a blaze last year that ravaged the city of Santa Rosa. An additional search and recovery team on top of the four already on the ground was being brought in to search for remains, Honea said. An anthropology team from California State University, Chico was helping with that effort, he said. ___ 2 dead, homes destroyed in Southern California wildfires MALIBU, Calif. (AP) - Two people were found dead as a pair of wildfires stretched from inland canyons to the Pacific in Southern California on Saturday, leaving people sifting through the remains of both mansions and modest homes for anything they had left. The two bodies were found severely burned inside a car on a long residential driveway in Malibu, Los Angeles County sheriff's Chief John Benedict said. The home is on a winding stretch of Mulholland Highway with steep panoramic views, where on Saturday the roadway was littered with rocks, a few large boulders and fallen power lines, some of them still on fire. Most of the surrounding structures were leveled. The deaths brings to 25 the number of people killed in the state's wildfires in the past few days, with 23 found dead in a Northern California wildfire. Firefighters have saved thousands of homes despite working in "extreme, tough fire conditions that they said they have never seen in their life," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said. Those vicious conditions on Friday night gave way to calm Saturday, with winds reduced to breezes. No new growth was reported on the larger of the two fires, which stands at 109 square miles (282 square kilometers), and firefighters now have the blaze 5 percent contained. ___ Recounts ordered in Florida Senate, governor races TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The Florida secretary of state ordered recounts in the U.S. Senate and governor races on Saturday, an unprecedented review of two major contests in the state that took five weeks to decide the 2000 presidential election. Secretary Ken Detzner issued the order after the unofficial results in both races fell within the margin that by law triggers a recount. His office was unaware of any other time either a race for governor or U.S. Senate in Florida required a recount, let alone both in the same election. The recount sets up what could be several days of political tension in this deeply divided state. President Donald Trump tweeted without evidence that the elections were being stolen. Protesters gathered at an elections office in Broward County, which is quickly becoming a battleground in the recount. The protesters waved signs, used bullhorns and even harangued a food delivery person at one point, asking if there were ballots inside the food bags. The unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in the election for governor. In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is 0.14 percentage points. ___ Gunman who killed 12 died from self-inflicted gunshot THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) - An autopsy determined that the gunman who killed 12 people at a Southern California bar died from a self-inflicted gunshot, police said Saturday. Ian David Long, a 28-year-old ex-Marine machine-gunner, fatally shot 11 people at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks and a police officer who responded just before midnight Wednesday. The officer exchanged gunfire with Long, who was found dead at the scene. Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said an autopsy determined Long fatally shot himself. Authorities have yet to determine a motive and are exploring all possibilities. Among them is whether Long believed a former girlfriend might have been at the bar, which was filled with about 150 people on its popular college night that attracts students from several nearby schools. Sheriff's Capt. Garo Kuredjian said investigators were still interviewing witnesses, have served a search warrant at Long's home and searched the car Long drove to the bar. ___ Migrant caravan heads north after departing Mexico City MEXICO CITY (AP) - Thousands of Central American migrants set up tents and strung tarps at a stadium in the central Mexican city of Queretaro, where they arrived Saturday afternoon after departing the country's capital at dawn on their long trek to the U.S. border. Their day began with dedicated Mexico City metro trains whisking them to the outskirts of the capital. At the end of the metro line, migrants began making their way to a main highway to resume walking and hitching rides with the tacit approval of Mexican officials. Near a major toll plaza about 19 miles (30 kilometers) north of the city, Mexico state police and human rights officials helped load men, women and children onto eighteen-wheelers and asked passing buses and trucks if they would carry migrants. Maria Yesenia Perez, a 41-year-old who left La Ceiba, Honduras nearly a month ago with her 8-year-old daughter, said she was prepared to wait to gain entry at the U.S. border. "I decided to come (with the caravan) to help my family," she said, before she and her daughter were hoisted onto the back of a semitrailer. ___ Trump visit to US cemetery in France canceled due to rain PARIS (AP) - President Donald Trump canceled a planned visit Saturday to a cemetery for Americans killed in World War I, the White House citing bad weather that grounded his helicopter. Trump had been scheduled to lay a wreath and observe a moment of silence at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, located adjacent to Belleau Wood and about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Paris. Instead, Trump spent much of the day following a meeting and lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron at the U.S. ambassador's residence, where he was staying during events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Attending in Trump's place were the White House chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joe Dunford; and several members of the White House staff. The Battle of Belleau Wood was a critical conflict in the war and a pivotal encounter in Marine Corps history. The Secret Service determines when it's safe to fly Marine One, the president's helicopter. Paris was covered in clouds with drizzling rain through most of Saturday. ___ Erdogan: Saudi officials, others heard tapes of writer death ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Officials from Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, France and Britain have listened to audio recordings related to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey's president said Saturday, in the first public acknowledgement of the existence of tapes of the slaying. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also told reporters that Saudi Arabia had to "act fairly" and disclose those responsible for the Oct. 2 killing of The Washington Post journalist to rid itself of "suspicion." "We gave them the tapes. We gave them to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them," Erdogan said before departing for Paris to attend ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. "They (Saudi officials) also listened to the conversations and they know. There is no need to distort this. They know for certain who among the 15 is the killer or are the killers," he said. He was referring to an alleged 15-member assassination squad that Turkey believes was sent to kill Khashoggi at the consulate where he had arrived to obtain papers to marry his Turkish fiancee. ___ Tight race in Georgia shines light on voting restrictions ATLANTA (AP) - He aggressively deleted inactive voters from registration rolls, enforced an "exact match" policy that could have prevented thousands of Georgians from registering to vote and launched an investigation that disrupted a major voter registration drive. Now Republican Brian Kemp is declaring himself the victor in Georgia's race for governor, a race so close that even marginal differences in voting and turnout could make the difference in determining whether the race goes to a runoff. The Associated Press has not called the race between Kemp, who until this week was Georgia's secretary of state, and Democrat Stacey Abrams, a former state lawmaker seeking to become the nation's first black woman to be elected governor. In a state dominated by Republicans, Abrams staked her campaign largely on getting new and infrequent voters to participate. Meanwhile, Kemp and the state's Republican legislature have imposed tighter voting and registration rules that can make it more difficult for just those voters to register and cast ballots. Most of those rules have come since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. ___ Big studies give mixed news on fish oil, vitamin D CHICAGO (AP) - Taking fish oil or vitamin D? Big studies give long-awaited answers on who does and does not benefit from these popular nutrients. Fish oil taken by healthy people, at a dose found in many supplements, showed no clear ability to lower heart or cancer risks. Same for vitamin D. But higher amounts of a purified, prescription fish oil slashed heart problems and heart-related deaths among people with high triglycerides, a type of fat in the blood, and other risks for heart disease. Doctors cheered the results and said they could suggest a new treatment option for hundreds of thousands of patients like these. Up to 10 percent of U.S. adults take fish oil . Even more take vitamin D , despite no major studies to support the many health claims made for it. "Those who peddle it promote it as good for everything," but in this definitive test, vitamin D "showed a big nothing," said Dr. James Stein, a heart specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He had no role in the studies or ties to the companies involved. ___ Homeowners - famous and not - await word of wildfire's toll LOS ANGELES (AP) - Rich or not, famous or not, there was little reprieve Saturday from the California wildfires sweeping through towns as different as the star-filled oceanside enclave of Malibu and the modest communities nearby and in the state's north. Lady Gaga, Martin Sheen and Kim Kardashian West were among the celebrities who joined thousands of others in evacuating from the affluent coastal city that is as well-known as its residents. Stars went online to share their worries, with some able to follow up with good news Saturday. Alyssa Milano, who on Friday tweeted that her house was "in jeopardy" but she had gotten needed help to evacuate her horses and that her children were safe, was among the lucky ones. "My house is still standing. I'm on my way to bring firefighters water and food," she tweeted. She previously said her heart was with others facing "this awful disaster." Others were left to wait. HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) - Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a one-time speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan who later became Russia's leading defender on Capitol Hill and an outspoken advocate for legalized marijuana, was defeated Saturday, a victim of California's Democratic tilt and voters' distaste for President Donald Trump. Rohrabacher, 71, was beaten by real estate executive Harley Rouda, 56, a Republican-turned-Democrat who pilloried the congressman for his skepticism over climate change and depicted him as an out-of-touch abettor in Washington gridlock. With votes continuing to be counted, Rouda's edge grew steadily. The vote count updated Saturday showed Rouda with 52 percent of the vote and about 8,500 more votes than Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher's ouster from his seat in Orange County has historical and symbolic significance. The county southeast of Los Angeles was home to President Richard Nixon and long considered a foundational block in the modern conservative movement. Reagan himself likened it to a Republican heaven. Orange County was once a Republican lock on Election Day, said Fred Smoller, associate professor of political science at Chapman University. "Their lock is over," he said. Harley Rouda, Democratic congressional candidate in the 48th district, addresses his supporters at his election night party Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Newport Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Kyusung Gong) With Rouda's win, Democrats have picked off two GOP seats either all or partly in the county since Tuesday's election, and are threatening in two others. Democrat Mike Levin this week captured the seat long held by retiring Rep. Darrell Issa, which cuts through the southern end of the county. Democrats have also seized a GOP-held seat north of Los Angeles. Rouda credited his victory to support from "voters across the political spectrum." In a statement, he said he intends to be "honest, transparent, accessible and tireless" in Washington. Rohrabacher's campaign said in a statement that tens of thousands of ballots remain uncounted, and the campaign will have a statement once the vote count is complete. Democrats had targeted seven GOP-held House districts in California this year that were carried by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, including Rohrabacher's 48th. They've now won three of those seats, with the potential to pick up three more and pad their new majority in the House. Democrat Katie Porter is inching closer to Republican U.S. Rep. Mimi Walters in Orange County's 45th District. In the nearby 39th District held by retiring GOP Rep. Ed Royce his protege, Republican Young Kim, sees her lead over Democrat Gil Cisneros tightening. In central California's farm belt, Democrat Josh Harder grabbed a nearly 2-point lead after a vote count update Friday after trailing Rep. Jeff Denham in the 10th District. For state Republicans, Rohrabacher's defeat represents another stinging blow for a party that has seen its fortunes wither for years. Democrats hold every statewide office, both chambers of the Legislature and a 3.7 million advantage in voter registrations. With Rouda's win, Democrats will hold at least a 42-11 edge in California U.S. House seats. Meanwhile, Republicans have tumbled to third-party status in the state: they are even outnumbered by registered independents. Behind the shift: A surge in immigrants in recent decades transformed the state and its voting patterns. In Orange County, largely white, conservative homeowners once delivered winning margins for GOP candidates year after year. But most of the state's new voters, Hispanics and Asians, are Democrats or independents. It's also hard to discount the influence of Trump, who lost California by over 4 million votes in 2016. California is home to the so-called Trump "resistance," which has stood in opposition to his policies on the environment and immigration. Rohrabacher reflects the dramatic shift of fortunes in Orange County: He was re-elected by nearly 17 points just two years but met his end when Democrats backed a wealthy, pro-business moderate in Rouda. Rohrabacher has long been an unusual figure on Capitol Hill. The one-time Cold Warrior transformed into an outspoken supporter of improved ties with Russia, and his name has come up in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election; he has denied any wrongdoing. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was heard on tape in 2016 saying Rohrabacher was being paid by Russian President Vladimir Putin. McCarthy's office said the comments at a private meeting, disclosed by the Washington Post, were misconstrued and McCarthy was joking with colleagues. In the campaign, Rohrabacher was faced with the prospect of making his Reagan-era conservative views appealing to newer voters, while holding college-educated Republican women who polls suggest are turned off by Trump. His departure from Congress will mark a milestone of sorts. He's one of the last members of Congress who served in the Reagan administration. The guitar-strumming, surfing congressman apparently saw the danger coming. He positioned himself as a maverick willing to buck both parties. Republican Party mailers never mentioned he was a Republican. ___ Follow Michael R. Blood at http://twitter.com/MichaelRBloodAP TALLALHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The Latest on the recounts in Florida's U.S. Senate and governor elections (all times local): 7:50 p.m. Miami-Dade County elections officials say they've started recounting ballots from Tuesday's election. Officials from the county's elections office confirmed Saturday evening that they've started a machine recount, which means they will load paper ballots into scanning machines. This could take days, considering there were some 800,000 ballots cast. The unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points, which will require a machine recount of ballots. In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 percentage points, which will require a hand recount of ballots from tabulation machines that couldn't determine which candidate got the vote. Susan Bucher, second right, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections and Judge August Bonavita, seated at center left, look at provisional ballots in Riviera Beach, Fla., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. A possible recount looms in a tight Florida gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and agriculture commission race. (AP Photo/Josh Repogle) The Florida secretary of state earlier Saturday ordered the recounts in the U.S. Senate and governor races, an unprecedented review of two major races in the state that took five weeks to decide the 2000 presidential election. Nov. 15 is the deadline for each county to submit vote counts to the state. ___ 6:15 p.m. A lawyer for Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson says the campaign is looking into whether vote-by-mail ballots handled by the same U.S. mail facility that processed explosive packages intended for Democratic leaders weren't delivered on time. Marc Elias says he's concerned about news reports that ballots in an Opa-locka postal facility may not have been delivered before the 7 p.m. Election Day deadline. Opa-locka is in Miami-Dade County, which tends to heavily support Democratic candidates. Elias says, "I would hope that we can all agree, I would hope that even folks on the other side of the aisle would agree that no one should be disenfranchised because the postal service, for one reason or another, was unable to deliver ballots." A 30-count indictment was handed up recently in Manhattan federal court against 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc of Plantation, Florida. Authorities say he sent improvised devices intended for numerous Democrats, critics of President Donald Trump and CNN. None of the devices exploded and no one was hurt. ___ 5:40 p.m. Two voting rights groups are asking Gov. Rick Scott to remove himself from any oversight of the 2018 election. They said that if he doesn't, they will take him to court. In a letter to Scott released to the media, the League of Women Voters and Common Cause said he should step down to ensure there's no appearance of any impropriety, undue influence or conflict of interest. The groups said that Scott intentionally "politicized" his oversight of the elections by calling for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate his suspicions of voter fraud in South Florida. The FDLE said it hasn't launched an investigation of voter fraud, and the state's election division, which Scott runs, said Saturday that its observers in Broward had seen "no evidence of criminal activity." In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 percentage points, which will require a hand recount of ballots from tabulation machines that couldn't determine which candidate got the vote. ___ 4:30 p.m. Republican Ron DeSantis says Florida election results are clear and he is moving forward as he prepares to be the state's next governor. "Those results are clear and unambiguous, just as they were on Election Night," DeSantis, a former congressman, said in a video posted Saturday on YouTube by the Republican Party of Florida. Unofficial election results submitted Saturday show DeSantis ahead of Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points. Under state law, that margin requires a machine recount of ballots. While DeSantis said it's important to follow state law, he added, "With the election behind us, it's now time to come together as a state as we prepare to serve all Floridians." ___ 3:40 p.m. Democrat Andrew Gillum has withdrawn his concession in the Florida gubernatorial race following a recount. "I am replacing my words of concession with an uncompromised and unapologetic call that we count every single vote," Gillum said at a press conference in Tallahassee on Saturday. Unofficial election results showed Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis ahead of Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points. Under state law, such a margin requires a machine recount of ballots. Gillum had conceded the race to DeSantis on Tuesday night. ___ 1:55 p.m. The Florida secretary of state is ordering recounts in the U.S. Senate and governor races, an unprecedented review of two major races in the state that took five weeks to decide the 2000 presidential election. Secretary Ken Detzner issued the order on Saturday after the unofficial results in both races fell within the margin that by law triggers a recount. The unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points, which will require a machine recount of ballots. In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 percentage points, which will require a hand recount of ballots from tabulation machines that couldn't determine which candidate got the vote. ___ 12:40 p.m. The deadline to submit unofficial vote tallies in Florida's election has passed. County elections supervisors had until noon Saturday to submit results. Now the state must announce whether recounts are needed in the U.S. Senate and governor races. As the deadline arrived, Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points in the governor's race, which would require a machine recount of ballots. In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson was less than 0.25 percentage points, which would require a hand recount of ballots in which tabulation machines couldn't detect a vote. A crowd protests outside the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. A possible recount looms in a tight Florida governor, Senate and agriculture commission race. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper) Susan Bucher, right, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections and Judge August Bonavita, left, look at provisional ballots in Riviera Beach, Fla., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. A possible recount looms in a tight Florida gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and agriculture commission race. (AP Photo/Josh Repogle) Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum gives his concession speech as he is joined on stage by his wife R. Jai Gillum, right, and running mate Chris King and his wife Kristen Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Tallahassee, Fla. Gillum lost the Florida governor's race to Republican Ron DeSantis. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Republican Florida Governor-elect Ron DeSantis, center, waves to the supporters with his wife, Casey, left, and Republican Lt. Governor-elect Jeanette Nunez, third right, after thanking the crowd Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Orlando, Fla. DeSantis defeated Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum. (Chris Urso/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott speaks to supporters at an election watch party, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018, in Naples, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) MALIBU, Calif. (AP) - Two people were found dead as a pair of wildfires stretched from inland canyons to the Pacific in Southern California on Saturday, leaving people sifting through the remains of both mansions and modest homes for anything they had left. The two bodies were found severely burned inside a car on a long residential driveway in Malibu, Los Angeles County sheriff's Chief John Benedict said. The home is on a winding stretch of Mulholland Highway with steep panoramic views, where on Saturday the roadway was littered with rocks, a few large boulders and fallen power lines, some of them still on fire. Most of the surrounding structures were leveled. The deaths brings to 25 the number of people killed in the state's wildfires in the past few days, with 23 found dead in a Northern California wildfire. Firefighters have saved thousands of homes despite working in "extreme, tough fire conditions that they said they have never seen in their life," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said. Those vicious conditions on Friday night gave way to calm Saturday, with winds reduced to breezes. No new growth was reported on the larger of the two fires, which stands at 109 square miles (282 square kilometers), and firefighters now have the blaze 5 percent contained. Progress also came against the smaller fire, prompting Ventura County officials to allow people in a handful of communities to return to their homes. The charred remains of the burned out home are seen in Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Officials took advantage of temporarily calm conditions Saturday to assess damage from the blaze that's burned 109 square miles outside downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) Hundreds of thousands across the region remain under evacuation orders, and could stay that way for days as winds pick up again. Osby said losses to homes were significant but did not say how many had burned. Officials said earlier that 150 houses had been destroyed and the number would rise. Fire burned in famously ritzy coastal spots like Malibu , where Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian West, Guillermo del Toro and Martin Sheen were among those forced out of their homes amid a citywide evacuation order. "It was way too big a firestorm," said Lani Netter, whose Malibu home was spared while her neighbor's burned. "We had tremendous, demonic winds is the only way I can put it." The flames also burned inland through hills and canyons dotted with modest homes, reached into the corner of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, and stretched into suburbs like Thousand Oaks, a city of 130,000 people that just a few days ago saw 12 people killed in a mass shooting at a country music bar. Wildfire raged on both sides of the city still in mourning, where about three-quarters of the population are under evacuation orders that officials urged them to heed. "We've had a lot of tragedy in our community," said Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks, whose district includes Thousand Oaks. "We don't want any more. We do not want any more lives lost." Nothing was left but the horses for Arik Fultz, who spent Saturday sifting through the remains through the charred remains of his 40-acre ranch near Malibu. "It just doesn't feel real that it's all gone," Fultz said. "Just yesterday, what, 24 hours ago I was feeding horses in the morning." Two houses, two barns, three trailers and decades of accumulated possessions are gone. All 52 horses survived, after a wild scramble to save them. Fultz's mother, 61-year-old Tricia Fultz, said everyone expected the fire to stay well south of their property, but shifting winds forced them to take the horses out to open pastures as quickly as they could. Three were still in their pens when the adjacent barn caught fire, and Tricia Fultz just had to open the pens, burning her hands and hoping for the best. She, her husband and six others rode out the fire in a tunnel a short distance up the road as the fire burned the hillsides above and all around them. "It's so surreal because it's so dark, and when we're in the tunnel you can't see anything," Tricia Fultz said. "There was so much burning and so much black." The fire hopscotched around the Oak Park neighborhood of 70-year-old Bill Bengston, leaving most houses untouched. The home for 22 years of Bengston and his wife, Ramona, was the only house on his block that burned. And it burned everything. "It's all gone," he said softly as he sifted through the remains. "It's all gone." The hardest to lose were the photos and the mementos handed down through the family - a cigar box that belonged to his great-grandfather; the handcuffs his father carried in World War II. "We're somewhat devastated," Bengston said. "Still a little bit numb." The area burning in Southern California is in severe drought, U.S. government analysts said. California emerged from a five-year statewide drought last year but has had a very dry 2018, pushing parts of the state back into drought and leaving others, like the area of the Northern California fire, abnormally dry. ___ Dalton reported from Los Angeles. Alexander Tobolsky, right, and his girl friend Dina Arias, return to his home where burned out by the fire in Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Officials took advantage of temporarily calm conditions Saturday to assess damage from the blaze that's burned 109 square miles outside downtown Los Angeles.(AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) A home is spared after a wildfire swept through Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Residents Damon Webb, left, and Brendon O'neal clean up the road after the Woolsey fire burned in Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Officials took advantage of temporarily calm conditions Saturday to assess damage from the blaze that's burned 109 square miles outside downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) Horses are tied to lifeguard booths on the beach in Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Wildfires are burning in both Southern and Northern California. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) Firefighter Eric Santana, with the MRCA Fire Divison Santa Monica Mountains, looks for hot spots after a wildfire swept through Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Park Billow, 27, sprays water on the hot spots in his backyard as the Woolsey Fire burns in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. Authorities announced Friday that a quarter of a million people are under evacuation orders as wind-whipped flames rage through scenic areas west of Los Angeles and burn toward the sea. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) A firefighter keeps watch as the Woolsey Fire burns a home in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. A Southern California wildfire continues to burn homes as it runs toward the sea. Winds are blamed for pushing the fire through scenic canyon communities and ridgetop homes. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) In this Friday, Nov. 9, 2018 photo, smoke from the wildires fills the air in Malibu, Calif. Los Angeles County fire Chief Daryl Osby said Saturday that firefighters told him they were working in the toughest, most extreme conditions they had seen in their lives on Friday night. He says conditions are far better Saturday, with a lull in winds that are expected to return Sunday. (Courtesy of Ben Watkins via AP) A Spanish-style home is consumed by flames on Dume Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. Known as the Woolsey Fire, it has consumed tens of thousands of acres and destroyed multiple homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) A firefighter walks by the a burning home in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. A Southern California wildfire continues to burn homes as it runs toward the sea. Winds are blamed for pushing the fire through scenic canyon communities and ridgetop homes. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) Wind-driven flames from a wildfire race up a slope and cross the road in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. Known as the Woolsey Fire, it has consumed tens of thousands of acres and destroyed multiple homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - A suspended West Virginia Supreme Court justice who was recently convicted of 11 federal charges is stepping down just ahead of a special legislative session to consider his removal, the governor's office disclosed Saturday. It was the latest development in an impeachment scandal miring some past and present justices in varying accusations including abuse of authority and failure to rein in excessive spending that has engulfed the state's highest court for months. Republican Gov. Jim Justice's office said late Saturday that he received a letter from Justice Allen Loughry and accepted his resignation effective at the close of business Monday, a day ahead of Tuesday's scheduled special session. Justice had no further comment in his brieft statement, and Loughry's one-sentence resignation letter didn't elaborate. Loughry was convicted last month of federal criminal charges including wire fraud involving his personal use of state cars and fuel cards and mail fraud. He has requested a new trial. Loughry couldn't be reached for comment and phone and email messages seeking comment from his attorney, John A. Carr, were not immediately returned. Justice recently called a special legislative session for Tuesday, saying in his proclamation that it would consider removing Loughry from his post. FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018 file photo, West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Allen Loughry leaves the Robert C. Byrd United States Courthouse in Charleston, W.Va. after a federal jury was selected for his criminal trial. On Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, the office of Gov. Jim Justice said that he has accepted the resignation of the suspended state Supreme Court justice recently convicted of federal charges, days ahead of a legislative session set to consider the justice's removal amid an ongoing scandal involving the court. (Craig Hudson/The Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP) Loughry and three other justices were impeached by the West Virginia House in August over questions involving lavish office renovations that evolved into varying accusations of corruption, incompetence and neglect of duty. One of them, Justice Beth Walker, was cleared of an impeachment charge at a Senate trial last month. The West Virginia Supreme Court last month effectively halted the Legislature's remaining efforts to impeach the state's justices as a violation of the separate of power doctrine. The court ruled that the Senate lacks jurisdiction to pursue its impeachment trial of Justice Margaret Workman. The Senate had postponed Workman's trial after the presiding judge didn't show up following the court ruling. A panel of acting justices said the court's decision to stop Workman's impeachment hearing also applies to retired Justice Robin Davis and Loughry, who had petitioned the court to intervene. It wasn't immediately clear whether Loughry's imminent departure would alter Tuesday's special session plans. Meanwhile, Senate President Mitch Carmichael, a Republican, lauded the resignation announcement Saturday. "We appreciate that Justice Loughry has decided to do the right thing and step down from the Court," Carmichael said in a statement. He added that with the resignation and recent voter approval of a judicial budget oversight amendment, "I believe we are well on our way to rebuilding the trust of our citizens in the judicial branch." Judicial elections in West Virginia became nonpartisan in 2016, but the court's impeachment scandal this year stirred political attacks. Some Democrats argued that the court's shakeup over spending and other issues was a power grab by the Republican-led legislature. On Election Day, two state Supreme Court justices appointed to the court after the scandal broke won election to continue on the bench: Former House speaker Tim Armstead and ex-Congressman Evan Jenkins won those races Tuesday night, each defeating nine other candidates. They had originally been appointed by Justice to fill two of the seats on the state's highest court pending the midterm election. Armstead will complete the term of Justice Menis Ketchum, who announced his resignation on the eve of the House's impeachment proceedings. The term runs through 2020. Jenkins will serve until 2024, when the term of retired Justice Robin Davis ends. Davis also was impeached. The ballot measure approved by voters allows the Legislature to decide each year whether to reduce the courts' budget but not less than 85 percent of the previous year's budget. It also would require the Supreme Court's chief justice to answer budget questions before lawmakers. Opponents have said limiting the Supreme Court's budgetary control would infringe on its independence. The chief justice currently has constitutional autonomy in deciding how the system spends a $139 million annual budget. HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) - The Latest on the California House race (all times local): 7:15 p.m. Several undecided U.S. House races in California remain too close to call, as ballots continue to be counted. All of those districts are held by Republicans, and they were targeted by Democrats after Hillary Clinton carried them in the 2016 presidential election. In the 45th District in Orange County, Republican Rep. Mimi Walters was holding a 1-point edge over Democrat Katie Porter on Saturday, a margin unchanged from a day earlier. Walter's edge was about 2,000 votes, with about 212,000 votes counted. In the nearby 39th District, Republican Young Kim was in a close contest with Democrat Gil Cisneros. She was holding a 2,400-vote lead, or about 1.4 percent, with about 173,000 votes tallied. The seat is held by retiring Republican Rep. Ed Royce. Harley Rouda, Democratic congressional candidate in the 48th district, addresses his supporters at his election night party Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Newport Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Kyusung Gong) In the state's farm belt, Democrat Josh Harder was holding a narrow edge over Republican Rep. Jeff Denham in the 10th District. Harder had a 3,300-vote lead, with 177,000 votes counted. ___ 6:20 p.m. Democrat Harley Rouda is crediting his victory over 15-term Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher with support from "voters across the political spectrum." The real estate executive defeated Rohrabacher in the 48th Congressional District in Orange County, a one-time GOP stronghold. The vote count updated Saturday showed Rouda with 52 percent of the vote and about 8,500 more votes than Rohrabacher. Rouda declared victory earlier Saturday. He says he intends to be "honest, transparent, accessible and tireless" in Washington. During the campaign, Rouda criticized Rohrabacher for his skepticism over climate change and depicted the congressman as out-of-touch and the face of Washington gridlock. Rohrabacher's campaign says in a statement that tens of thousands of ballots remain uncounted. The statement says volunteers are monitoring the count and the campaign will have a statement once the vote count is complete. ___ 5:40 p.m. Democrat Harley Rouda has upset 15-term Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in California's Orange County. The vote count updated Saturday showed Rouda with 52 percent of the vote and about 8,500 more votes than Rohrabacher. Divisions over President Donald Trump and the #MeToo movement shaped the race. Rouda, a millionaire real estate investor and former Republican, also depicted Rohrabacher as the face of Washington gridlock and criticized the congressman's climate change skepticism. Rohrabacher was first elected in 1988 while running as a supporter of President Ronald Reagan. He's perhaps best known as Russia's leading defender on Capitol Hill. Three other California U.S. House races remain too close to call. __ 11:42 a.m. Democrat Harley Rouda has declared victory over Republican U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in a closely fought congressional contest in Southern California. However, votes continue to be counted in Orange County, California's 48th District, and The Associated Press has not declared a winner in the race. In a statement Saturday, the 56-year-old Rouda said his lead has increased over Rohrabacher since the election and he's confident he defeated the Republican. A Rohrabacher spokesman says thousands of ballots remain to be counted. The 71-year-old Rohrabacher is seeking a 16th term. The seat is one of seven in California targeted by Democrats after those districts were carried by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. PARADISE, California (AP) - Devastating wildfires on both ends of California pushed into new territory Saturday, as fatigued firefighters worked to evacuate residents in harm's way and contain blazes that already have claimed at least 25 lives, destroyed thousands of homes and other structures and scorched hundreds of square miles. The three fires began Thursday - the largest in Northern California, where a Sierra Nevada town of 27,000 was destroyed by a fast moving-fire that quickly grew into the state's most destructive on record. In Southern California, two fires were burning in the drought-stricken canyons and hills north and west of downtown Los Angeles. Here's a closer look: ___ NORTHERN CALIFORNIA The death toll from the fire that quickly overwhelmed and incinerated the historic Northern California town of Paradise rose to 23 after 14 additional bodies were found Saturday. The victims have not been identified. Sheriff's deputies recover the remains of Camp Fire victims on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Paradise, Calif.. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) The fire became California's third deadliest since record-keeping began, with the death toll surpassing that from a blaze last year that ravaged the city of Santa Rosa. The Butte County Sheriff's office has 110 outstanding reports of missing people, Sheriff Kory Honea said. In some cases, investigators have only been able to recover bones and bone fragments, he said. He encouraged family members of the missing to submit DNA samples that could be compared with remains that are recovered. The fire, which grew to 156 square miles (404 square kilometers), destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Saturday. More than 50,000 people evacuated the area. Officials say more than 3,000 firefighters are battling the blaze, which began Thursday in the hills near Paradise, about 180 miles (289 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco. Pacific Gas & Electric Company told state regulators that it experienced a problem on an electrical transmission line near the site of the blaze minutes before the fire broke out. The company said it later observed damage to a transmission tower on the line. The utility said it will cooperate with any investigations, though a spokeswoman said Friday the information was preliminary and the cause of the fire has not been determined. ___ SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Two people were found dead as a pair of wildfires stretched from inland canyons to the Pacific in Southern California on Saturday, leaving people sifting through the remains of both mansions and modest homes for anything they had left. The two bodies were found severely burned inside a car on a long residential driveway in Malibu, Los Angeles County sheriff's Chief John Benedict said. The home is on a winding stretch of Mulholland Highway with steep panoramic views, where on Saturday the roadway was littered with rocks, a few large boulders and fallen power lines, some of them still on fire. Most of the surrounding structures were leveled. Officials said 109 square miles (282 kilometers) had burned north and east of the city, including in Malibu, home to many Hollywood stars. Officials were taking advantage of calm conditions to try to contain the blaze before winds pick up again on Sunday. ___ TWIN TRAGEDIES Just days after a gunman killed 12 people and himself at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, California, many grieving residents were urged to evacuate as wildfires burning on both sides of the city shut down part of the main freeway to town. Some evacuees sheltered at a teen center that just a day earlier was where grieving family members had gathered to receive news on the fate of loved ones who had been in the Borderline Bar and Grill, where 28-year-old former Marine Ian David Long carried out an attack that shook a city that had been considered one of the safest in the nation. "It's like 'welcome to hell,' " resident Cynthia Ball said of the back-to-back disasters. Three-quarters of residents in the city of 130,000, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Los Angeles, were under evacuation orders - and that likely included people affected by the shooting, Thousand Oaks Mayor Andy Fox said. ___ CELEBRITIES FLEE Hollywood celebrities were forced to flee as a devastating Southern California wildfire tore through mansions in the coastal community of Malibu. Actor Martin Sheen told Los Angeles Fox affiliate KTTV that the fire was the worst he has ever seen, and he expects that his house was destroyed. The television station tracked down the "West Wing" actor after son Charlie Sheen tweeted Friday night that he had been unable to contact his parents. Martin Sheen gave a shoutout to his family to let them know he and his wife, Janet, were safe and planned to sleep in their car at the beach. Alyssa Milano tweeted Saturday that she was waiting to hear of her home's fate. On Friday she said she had gotten help to evacuate her horses and that her children were safe, but her house was "in jeopardy." "I'm so sorry and my heart is with each of those who are impacted by this awful disaster," she tweeted Saturday. Also left waiting was Caitlyn Jenner, whose hilltop home appeared intact when it was shot by a photographer for The Associated Press on Saturday morning. Jenner's representative noted that the Olympic gold medalist wouldn't know the extent of any damage to the home until she was allowed to return to it. The entire coastal enclave of Malibu was ordered to flee, with Jenner's former step-daughter Kim Kardashian West, Lady Gaga and Guillermo del Toro among the other celebrities forced to abandon their homes. The Woolsey blaze also destroyed the home of "Dr. Strange" director Scott Derrickson and the historic Paramount Ranch where HBO's "Westworld" and many other shows have been filmed. ___ Associated Press writers contributing to this story include Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles; Jonathan J. Cooper in Malibu; Lynn Elber in Los Angeles; Paul Elias and Gillian Flaccus in Paradise; Don Thompson in Chico; Olga R. Rodriguez and Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco; and Tammy Webber in Chicago. Krystin Harvey, left, comforts her daughter Araya Cipollini at the remains of their home burned in the Camp Fire, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. The blaze that started Thursday outside the hilly town of Paradise has grown and destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, almost all of them homes, making it California's most destructive wildfire since record-keeping began. But crews have made gains and the fire is partially contained, officials said Saturday. (AP Photo/John Locher) Horses are yieded to a lifeguard booth on the beach in Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Officials took advantage of temporarily calm conditions Saturday to assess damage from the blaze that's burned 109 square miles outside downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) The charred remains of the burned out home are seen in Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Officials took advantage of temporarily calm conditions Saturday to assess damage from the blaze that's burned 109 square miles outside downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) Courtenay Jenvey walks by the melted remains of a jet ski at his home Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. Jenvey was able to save his house during the fire. (AP Photo/John Locher) In this Friday, Nov. 9, 2018 photo, smoke from the wildires fills the air in Malibu, Calif. Los Angeles County fire Chief Daryl Osby said Saturday that firefighters told him they were working in the toughest, most extreme conditions they had seen in their lives on Friday night. He says conditions are far better Saturday, with a lull in winds that are expected to return Sunday. (Courtesy of Ben Watkins via AP) A donkey rests on a roadside as the Camp Fire burns in Big Bend, Calif., on Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) A firefighter keeps watch as the Woolsey Fire burns a home in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. A Southern California wildfire continues to burn homes as it runs toward the sea. Winds are blamed for pushing the fire through scenic canyon communities and ridgetop homes. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) Araya Cipollini cries near the remains of her family's home burned in the Camp Fire, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. The blaze that started Thursday outside the hilly town of Paradise has grown and destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, almost all of them homes, making it California's most destructive wildfire since record-keeping began. But crews have made gains and the fire is partially contained, officials said Saturday. (AP Photo/John Locher) Abandoned cars, scorched by the wildfire, line Pearson Rd. in Paradise, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Not much is left in Paradise after a ferocious wildfire roared through the Northern California town as residents fled and entire neighborhoods are leveled. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) A deer walks past a destroyed home on Orrin Lane after the wildfire burned through Paradise, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Not much is left in Paradise after a ferocious wildfire roared through the Northern California town as residents fled and entire neighborhoods are leveled. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Park Billow, 27, sprays water on the hot spots in his backyard as the Woolsey Fire burns in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. Authorities announced Friday that a quarter of a million people are under evacuation orders as wind-whipped flames rage through scenic areas west of Los Angeles and burn toward the sea. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) A swimming pool is behind one burned home, with others at left, some of at least 20 homes destroyed just on Windermere Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Known as the Woolsey Fire, it has consumed tens of thousands of acres and destroyed dozens of homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) Glass and plastic melted from intense heat are seen on a car on Windermere Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif.,Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Known as the Woolsey fire, it has consumed thousands of acres and destroyed dozens of homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) Vehicles and a home are in ruins, one of at least 20 homes that were lost on Windermere Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Known as the Woolsey Fire, it has consumed tens of thousands of acres and destroyed dozens of homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) A man who gave his first name as John, background, looks over the ruins of his home, one of at least 20 homes destroyed just on Windermere Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Known as the Woolsey Fire, it has consumed tens of thousands of acres and destroyed dozens of homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) These lawn figures of geese stand in the backyard of one of at least 20 homes destroyed just on Windermere Drive, with a burned-over slope behind them, in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif., aturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Known as the Woolsey Fire, it has consumed tens of thousands of acres and destroyed dozens of homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) HAVANA (AP) - A JetBlue flight from Boston landed in Havana on Saturday, as the U.S. airline expanded its routes to Cuba despite a drop in American visitors amid tensions between the countries. The plane with more than 120 passengers on board was received with flags from both countries at the Jose Marti airport in Cuba's capital. "From the first day we've been willing to commit ourselves to this island long term," said Giselle Cortes, director of international airports at JetBlue. "We've been the only one who has not canceled any routes but have added Havana to Boston." Commercial flights between the countries were ended a half century ago during the Cold War. But they resumed in 2016 amid the rapprochement between Washington and Cuba that followed the 2014 return of diplomatic relations under the Obama administration. However, Donald Trump took over the U.S. presidency and placed new restriction on travel to Cuba. The number of U.S. visitors to the island dropped. A Cuban report shows that in the first quarter of 2018 the number of Americans visiting the island fell by 43 percent compared to the same period last year. Airlines such as Alaska, Spirit, Frontier and Delta dropped service to Cuba because of weak demand. Besides Boston, Jetblue also has flights to Cuba from Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and New York. We can't seem to find the page you are looking for. You may have typed the address incorrectly or you may have used an outdated link. ATLANTA (AP) - When Barbara Williams arrived at the Pittman Park Recreation Center just before noon on Election Day to cast her vote, she saw a line so long that the end wasn't in sight. "There were so many people, you couldn't count them," Williams recalled. "They were looped around. The line started at the door and it snaked around to the left." She ultimately waited four hours to use one of the three voting machines at the precinct where the 58-year-old retiree has voted in every election since she turned 18. Others reported similar challenges to voting at Pittman Park, located in the heart of Atlanta's oldest black neighborhood: Hours-long waits and voters leaving in frustration. For Williams and others who sought to vote at Pittman Park, the hurdles echoed a long history of voter suppression unfolding in a race in which Democrat Stacey Abrams is seeking to become the nation's first black female governor. "I feel like they didn't want her to win," Williams said of Abrams. "They made things so that we would get aggravated and people would leave." The race between Abrams and her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, is still too close to call five days after the election. Kemp has denied any attempt to suppress the vote. But his background as someone who, as secretary of state, deleted inactive voters from registration rolls and enforced an "exact match" policy that could have prevented thousands from registering to vote, has brought the issue of minority access to the polls to the forefront. That's especially true at Pittman Park, which has long been a center of black civic and community life. Many residents learned to swim there at the only pool they were allowed to use during the segregation era. Today, it offers after school care, classes for seniors and a space for local meetings. Helen Brosnan, of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, trains volunteers who are working the phones in a warehouse, Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in Atlanta, where they are frantically trying to reach Georgians who voted with provisional ballots to make sure their votes are counted. (AP Photo/Jeff Martin) It has been a precinct for as long as Douglas Dean, head of the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Association, can remember. Three years ago, it was consolidated with a nearby polling station, doubling the number of registered voters to nearly 3,800, according to the Fulton County Board of Elections, one of the factors that may have played into last week's lines. "There is no excuse for what happened here in this election," said Dean, 71, and a former state representative. "Georgia is changing and there are some whites who want everything to stay the same so that they remain in power. We've been fighting this battle for years. This is nothing new." The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had been troubleshooting election irregularities in the city that day, was at the precinct Tuesday to investigate. "They were four deep in the room," Jackson said, describing the scene in an interview. "Some were in wheelchairs, some were on walkers, some were sick. I appealed to them to stay. Either incompetence or corruption or both is what happened." Williams fought back, maintaining her place in line and pleading with others to do the same. "It was important for me to vote," she explained. "I vote in every election. I'm a human being and I have a life and I try for it to be better. A whole lot of people left. I even tried to get some of them to stay. I said, 'That's what they want you to do.'" Joseph Jarrett came at around the same time as Williams, with his 4-year-old son in tow to show him the significance of voting. When he saw the line, Jarrett left, not wanting to stand there with a restless toddler. He debated whether or not to come back. On his mind were lessons from childhood. He thought of the Mississippi voting activist Fannie Lou Hamer, a personal hero, and what she did for the community. Jarrett retuned to the line just after 2 p.m. Three hours later, he cast his ballot. "I was determined to vote," said Jarrett, 38. "Our whole community was galvanized by Stacey Abrams' campaign. But some people came in, saw the line, and walked right back out." Others also tried to persuade people to be patient, attempting to counter frustration with a festive atmosphere. A band arrived and played music. Dozens of pizzas and refreshments appeared. When the rain broke, the sizzle of a grill began in the parking lot. Jackson took selfies to try to lift spirits. He also went to a playbook that has worked for him since the civil rights movement: He mobilized the press and created a scene. Soon, five brand new machines, still in the wrapper, were brought to the concrete building on Garibaldi Street. But by then, some of the damage had already been done. "Some people had to leave and go to work," Jackson said. "Some had to go home and get their medicine. Some people became discouraged. Denial of opportunity, denial of access to democracy ... That's what voter suppression looks like. I've seen this for a long time." Voters in other black neighborhoods complained of long lines and inadequate resources, too. As the hour drew near for the polls to close, the Georgia NAACP won its lawsuit to extend voting hours for three precincts in Fulton County, including Pittman Park. When the lights were turned off after the last ballot was cast, it was 1 a.m., according to workers at the center. Nearly a week after the election, even those who were able to vote are left wondering whether they were excluded from the process, despite their perseverance. The fight continues, as Abrams has sued a southwest Georgia county over absentee ballots and has vowed to stay in the race until the recount is complete. "I think she probably did win, but I don't think she'll be the governor, because I don't think they'll do the right thing," Jarrett said of Abrams. "It's a damn shame, because people really came out. For their votes not to be counted ... it's like a disgrace to democracy." ___ Whack is The Associated Press' national writer on race and ethnicity. Follow her work on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/emarvelous . This combination of May 20, 2018, photos shows Georgia gubernatorial candidates Stacey Abrams, left, and Brian Kemp in Atlanta. Democrats and Republicans nationwide will have to wait a bit longer to see if Georgia elects the first black woman governor in American history or doubles down on the Deep South's GOP tendencies with an acolyte of President Donald Trump (AP Photos/John Amis, File) Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Stacey Abrams' campaign chairman, stands with attorneys during a news conference Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018, in Atlanta. Republican Brian Kemp resigned Thursday as Georgia's secretary of state, a day after his campaign said he's captured enough votes to become governor despite his rival's refusal to concede. Abrams' campaign immediately responded by refusing to accept Kemp's declaration of victory in the race and demanding that state officials "count every single vote." (Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) PARADISE, Calif. (AP) - With hearses standing by, crews stepped up the search for bodies in the smoking ruins of Paradise, and relatives desperately looked for more than 100 missing loved ones, as wind-whipped wildfires raged Sunday on both ends of the state. The statewide death toll stood at 25 and appeared certain to rise. At least five search teams were working in Paradise - a town of 27,000 that was largely incinerated on Thursday - and surrounding Northern California communities. Authorities called in a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify victims of the most destructive wildfire in California history. By early afternoon, one of the two black hearses stationed in Paradise had picked up another set of remains. The search also went on for the missing. "I still haven't heard anything," said Laurie Teague, who was looking for her 80-year-old stepfather, Herb Alderman. She and her brother called shelters, hospitals, the sheriff's department and the coroner's office. "He has friends in that area," Teague said. "I'm hoping one of them grabbed him and took him to shelter." A plane drops fire retardant on a burning hillside Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Officials and relatives held out hope that many of those unaccounted for were safe and simply had no cellphones or other ways to contact loved ones. Sol Bechtold drove from shelter to shelter looking for his mother, Joanne Caddy, a 75-year-old widow whose house burned down along with the rest of her neighborhood in Magalia, just north of Paradise. She lived alone and did not drive. Bechtold posted a flyer on social media, pinned it to bulletin boards at shelters and showed her picture around to evacuees, asking if anyone recognized her. He ran across a few of Caddy's neighbors, but they hadn't seen her. As he drove through the smoke and haze to yet another shelter, he said, "I'm also under a dark emotional cloud. Your mother's somewhere and you don't know where she's at. You don't know if she's safe." He added: "I've got to stay positive. She's a strong, smart woman." More than 8,000 firefighters in all battled three large wildfires burning across nearly 400 square miles (1,040 square kilometers) in Northern and Southern California, with out-of-state crews continuing to arrive and gusty, blowtorch winds starting up again. The worst of the blazes was in Northern California, where the number of people killed in that fire alone, at least 23, made it the third-deadliest on record in the state. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the county was bringing in more rescue workers and consulted anthropologists from California State University at Chico because, in some cases, investigators have been able to recover only bones and bone fragments. The devastation was so complete in some neighborhoods that "it's very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there," Honea said. Authorities were also bringing in a DNA lab and encouraged people with missing relatives to submit samples to aid in identifying the dead after the blaze destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, nearly all of them homes. Firefighters gained modest ground overnight against the blaze, which grew slightly to 170 square miles (440 square kilometers) from the day before but was 25 percent contained, up from 20 percent, according to the state fire agency, Cal Fire. But Cal Fire spokesman Bill Murphy warned that gusty winds predicted into Monday morning could spark "explosive fire behavior." "We're at a pivotal point now," said another Cal Fire official, David Clark. Two people were also found dead in a wildfire in Southern California, where flames tore through Malibu mansions and working-class Los Angeles suburbs alike. The severely burned bodies were discovered in a long residential driveway in celebrity-studded Malibu, where residents forced from their homes included Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian West, Guillermo del Toro and Martin Sheen. A member of the Malibu City Council was burned trying to save his home but was expected to recover. Flames also besieged Thousand Oaks, the Southern California city in mourning over the massacre of 12 people in a shooting rampage at a country music bar Wednesday night. Fire officials said Sunday morning that the larger of the region's two fires, the one that hit Malibu, grew to 130 square miles (337 square kilometers) and was 10 percent contained. But the strong, dry Santa Ana winds that blow from the interior toward the coast returned after a one-day lull, fanning the flames. The count of lost structures in both Southern California fires climbed to nearly 180, authorities said, and that number seemed certain to rise. The large mobile home community of Seminole Springs, in the rugged Santa Monica Mountains north of Malibu, appeared devastated. About 300,000 people statewide were under evacuation orders, most of them in Southern California. Gov. Jerry Brown said he is requesting a major-disaster declaration from President Donald Trump that would make victims eligible for crisis counseling, housing and unemployment help, and legal aid. Drought, warmer weather attributed to climate change, and the building of homes deeper into forests have led to longer and more destructive wildfire seasons in California. While California officially emerged from a five-year drought last year, much of the northern two-thirds of the state is abnormally dry. "Things are not the way they were 10 years ago. ... The rate of spread is exponentially more than it used to be," said Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen, urging residents to evacuate rather than stay behind to try to defend their homes. One of the Northern California fire's victims was an ailing woman whose body was found in bed in a burned-out house in Concow, near Paradise. Ellen Walker, who was in her early 70s, was home alone when the fire struck on Thursday, according to Nancy Breeding, a family friend. Breeding said Walker's husband was at work and called a neighbor to tell his wife to evacuate, but she was on medication and might not have been alert. He assumed she had escaped the inferno and was trying to find her at rescue centers until authorities confirmed her death late Friday. "They were married for 20-something years. He's having a difficult time accepting," Breeding said. "This is a devastating thing, and it's happening to so many people." ___ Selsky reported from Salem, Oregon. Associated Press writers Janie Har and Daisy Nguyen in San Francisco; Don Thompson in Chico, California; Martha Mendoza in Oroville, California; Christopher Webber in Malibu, California; and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this story. Sheriff's deputies recover the remains of Camp Fire victims on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Paradise, Calif.. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Firefighters take pictures of fire retardant dropped on a burning hillside Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) A man who gave his first name as John, background, looks over the ruins of his home, one of at least 20 homes destroyed just on Windermere Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Known as the Woolsey Fire, it has consumed tens of thousands of acres and destroyed dozens of homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) A plane drops fire retardant on a burning hillside Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Fire retardant is dropped on a burning hillside Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) A firefighter monitors a wildfire burning along a hillside Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) The Camp Fire burns along a ridgetop near Big Bend, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Crews working to contain the blaze overnight faced deteriorating weather conditions according to CalFire as winds picked up and humidity dropped. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) A firefighter hoses down hot spots on a wildfire-ravaged home Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) John Honigsfeld surveys the damage to a neighbor's property after a wildfire swept through Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Firefighters Jason Toole, right, and Brent McGill with the Santa Barbara Fire Dept. walk among the ashes of a wildfire-ravaged home after turning off an open gas line on the property Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Capt. Adrian Murrieta with the Los Angeles County Fire Dept., hoses down hot spots on a wildfire-ravaged home Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. Scores of houses from ranch homes to celebrities' mansions burned in a pair of wildfires that stretched across more than 100 square miles of Southern California, authorities said Saturday. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Glass and plastic melted from intense heat are seen on a car on Windermere Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif.,Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Known as the Woolsey fire, it has consumed thousands of acres and destroyed dozens of homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) Vehicles and a home are in ruins, one of at least 20 homes that were lost on Windermere Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Known as the Woolsey Fire, it has consumed tens of thousands of acres and destroyed dozens of homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) MALIBU, Calif. (AP) - Strong Santa Ana winds returned to Southern California on Sunday, fanning a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles. Huge plumes of smoke were rising again in the fire area, which stretches miles from the northwest corner of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley to the Malibu coast. Aircraft swooped low over flaming hills to drop lines of fire retardant as flames marched through brush lands on the edges of cul-de-sac communities. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended at midmorning and authorities warned that the gusts would continue through Tuesday. The lull allowed firefighters to gain 10 percent control of the so-called Woolsey fire, which has burned more than 130 square miles (335 square kilometers) in western Los Angeles County and southeastern Ventura County since Thursday. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby stressed there were numerous hotspots and plenty of fuel that had not yet burned. A home overlooking the Pacific Ocean is consumed by a wildfire Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) The count of destroyed homes remained at 177 but it was expected to increase. Osby noted that a November 1993 wildfire in Malibu destroyed more than 270 homes and said he would not be surprised if the total from the current fire would be higher. The death toll stood at two. The severely burned bodies were discovered in a long residential driveway on a stretch of Mulholland Highway in Malibu, where most of the surrounding structures had burned. The deaths remained under investigation. The deaths came as authorities in Northern California announced the death toll from a massive wildfire there has reached 23 people, bringing the statewide total to 25. Progress was made on the lines of smaller fire to the west in Ventura County, which was 70 percent contained at about 7 square miles (18 square kilometers), and evacuations were greatly reduced. But thousands remained under evacuation orders due to the Woolsey fire. Three firefighters suffered unspecified injuries, authorities said. Also injured was a well-known member of the Malibu City Council. Councilman Jefferson "Zuma Jay" Wagner was injured while trying to save his home, which burned down, Councilman Skylar Peak told reporters Sunday. Peak said Wagner was hospitalized down the coast in Santa Monica and was expected to recover. Wagner runs Zuma Jay Surfboards, a longtime fixture on Pacific Coast Highway near the landmark Malibu Pier. Areas that suffered significant destruction included Seminole Springs, a mobile home community nestled by a lake in the rugged Santa Monica Mountains north of Malibu. News helicopters showed numerous homes wiped out. "I smelled the fire and didn't think, grabbed my dog and left," resident Lisa Kin said Sunday, tears in her eyes and her voice breaking. "It hasn't burned in decades and I knew we didn't stand a chance." She described Seminole Springs as a "beautiful community" of families and older people who appreciate its tranquility. But she said she always feared a wildfire since she moved there 15 years ago, especially during recent years in which there's been almost no rain. Santa Ana winds, produced by surface high pressure over the Great Basin squeezing air down through canyons and passes in Southern California's mountain ranges, are common in the fall and have a long history of fanning destructive wildfires in the region. But fire officials say fire behavior has changed statewide after years of drought and record summer heat that have left vegetation extremely crisp and dry. "Things are not the way they were 10 years ago ... the rate of spread is exponentially more than it used to be," said Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen, urging residents to not put their lives at risk by trying to defend their own homes instead of evacuating. That change has impacted the ability to move firefighting resources around the state, officials said. "Typically this time of year when we get fires in Southern California we can rely upon our mutual aid partners in Northern California to come assist us because this time of year they've already had significant rainfall or even snow," said Osby, the LA County fire chief. With the devastation and loss of life in the Northern California fire, "it's evident from that situation statewide that we're in climate change and it's going to be here for the foreseeable future," he said. Glass and plastic melted from intense heat are seen on a car on Windermere Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif.,Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Known as the Woolsey fire, it has consumed thousands of acres and destroyed dozens of homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) A man who declined to give his name looks at a mobile home consumed by a wildfire at a camping site overlooking the Pacific Ocean Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) A statue sits unharmed in front of a home consumed by a wildfire Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The deaths of two young Saudi sisters, whose bodies washed up along the New York City waterfront last month, have shined a light on the often secretive and risky journeys Saudi women take to flee their homes, both within the kingdom and abroad. Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 23, ran away from home in Fairfax, Virginia before being placed in a shelter amid allegations they were abused at home. They then made their way to New York City, staying in high-end hotels and eventually maxing out the older sister's credit card. What happened next is still under investigation. Their bodies, fully clothed and showing no obvious signs of trauma, were found Oct. 24 along the rocky banks of the Hudson River wrapped together with tape. New York City Police Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said people who knew the Farea sisters in Virginia told investigators that they made statements within the last year indicating "that they would rather inflict harm on themselves - commit suicide - than return to Saudi Arabia." That may be because in Saudi Arabia, women who try and flee have few good options. Under the kingdom's guardianship system women must have the approval of a male relative - such as a father, husband, brother, or even a son - to marry, obtain a passport or travel. "The fact that they continue to be subjected to the guardianship system ... to the more sort of sinister issues which include physical or sexual abuse that they face at home, we've seen women in all these cases attempt to flee," said Human Rights Watch researcher Adam Coogle. FILE - These two undated file photos provided by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) show sisters Rotana, left, and Tala Farea, whose fully clothed bodies, bound together with tape and facing each other, were discovered on on the banks of New York City's Hudson River waterfront on Oct. 24, 2018. The apparent suicide the sisters highlights the often secretive and risky attempts by Saudi women trying to flee abusive families. (NYPD via AP, File) Coogle said there are also women being pressured into marriages against their will. He did not specifically discuss the Farea sisters as their case is still under investigation. In other instances, women are being barred by their guardians from marrying or their salaries are being confiscated. If women who run away are caught, they can be pressured to return home or placed in shelters where often the only way out is to escape again. Others are jailed and only a male guardian can sign for their release. Last year, Saudi women's rights activist Mariam al-Otaibi spent more than 100 days in the women's section of al-Malaz prison in Riyadh after her father filed a complaint to police against her for leaving home. She'd moved from the ultraconservative province of Qassim to the capital, where supporters helped her rent an apartment and find work. She was released after her case attracted the attention of activists and rights groups. Also last year, a plea for help by a 24-year-old Saudi woman triggered a firestorm on social media with people seeking details about her disappearance. In an online video, Dina Ali Lasloom said her passport was confiscated at an airport in the Philippines on her way to Australia where she planned to seek asylum. Women's rights advocates in Saudi Arabia said Lasloom was ultimately forced to board a plane to the kingdom with two of her uncles, who flew from Riyadh to stop her. They said authorities then took her to a women's shelter because of the attention around her case. A Saudi woman who tried to meet Lasloom at the airport in Riyadh to assist her was detained for several days by authorities. A group of Saudi women's rights activists had raised money locally for runaways and were planning to start a non-governmental organization to shelter abused women. But in May, authorities arrested at least nine of them and three of their male supporters. They remain detained on vague charges related to national security. For runaway Saudi women, fleeing can be a matter of life and death, and they are almost always doing so to escape male relatives. It's a problem Saudi society is grappling with. State-aligned newspapers report when women flee shelters and articles question the level of care and support women receive at such facilities. The shelters have been described by Saudi activists as prison-like. Women inside cannot freely access the internet or mobile phones, their movements are restricted and often the only way to leave is with the signature of a male guardian. The shelters say they offer women psychiatric care and therapy, but do not take in women who, for example, are pregnant out of wedlock. Premarital sex can lead to criminal prosecution in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries. The most recent statistics from the Ministry of Labor and Social Development show that 577 Saudi women tried to flee their homes in 2015. That figure is likely to be much higher in reality because many families don't report runaways due to social stigma. The Farea sisters had moved to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia with their mother and two brothers in 2015. The father spent time between the two countries, according to Arab News, which spoke to a relative. Investigators say they believe the Farea sisters had filed for asylum. One of the problems women face in seeking asylum, though, is proving abuse. "You have to have evidence for it and unless you have a threatening text (message), you may not have a very good asylum case," said Coogle of Human Rights Watch. After the Farea sisters died, witness called police with something he said had been "haunting" him. He'd seen the sisters standing apart at Riverside Park in New York, with their heads bowed into their hands praying loudly hours before their bodies were found. Investigators have stopped short of saying the sisters killed themselves, but say they have "no credible information that any crime took place." The sisters' bodies were returned to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 3 and they were buried the same day in Medina - home to one of Islam's holiest sites where the Prophet Muhammad is buried. "This is a tragedy all the way around," said Shea, the chief of detectives in New York. ___ Follow Aya Batrawy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ayaelb . MINSK, Belarus (AP) - Residents of the eastern Ukraine regions controlled by Russia-backed separatist rebels voted Sunday for local governments in elections denounced by Kiev and the West. The elections were to choose heads of government and legislature members in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, where separatists have fought Ukrainian forces since the spring of 2014 in a war that has killed more than 10,000 people. Although a 2015 accord on ending the war calls for local elections in Donetsk and Luhansk, critics including Ukraine's president, the U.S. and the European Union say the vote is illegitimate because it is conducted where Ukraine has no control. But the separatists say the vote is a key step toward establishing full-fledged democracy in the regions. "It's another exam for the civic position, political position for the whole Donetsk Republic," said Denis Pushilin, who became acting head of the Donetsk separatist regime since predecessor Alexander Zakharchenko was killed in a restaurant bombing in August. His Luhansk counterpart, Leonid Pasechnik, said Sunday that "we are a free republic, a free country" and denied that the voting was being held contrary to the 2015 agreement signed in Minsk. Acting leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic Denis Pushilin, right, and his wife wait to get their ballots at a polling station during rebel elections in Donetsk, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Residents of the eastern Ukraine regions controlled by Russia-backed separatist rebels are voting for local governments in elections denounced by Kiev and the West. (AP Photo) The leaders of Germany and France, which helped negotiate that accord, dismissed "the illegal and illegitimate elections ... held today despite numerous appeals by the international community." "These are elections for entities that have no legitimacy under the Ukrainian constitution," Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, said last week. "The people in eastern Ukraine will be better off within a unified Ukraine at peace rather than in a second-rate police state run by crooks and thugs, all subsidized by Russian taxpayers," he said Sunday on Twitter. Both regions reported voter turnout of more than 70 percent as of two hours before the polls closed at 8 p.m. (1700 GMT). Later Sunday, the spokesman for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he discussed the elections with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron amid ceremonies in Paris commemorating the end of World War I Sunday. In a statement after the meeting, Merkel and Macron said that holding "so-called" elections undermines Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, and urged all sides to respect the ceaseefire and release political prisoners. Germany, France and Ukraine are part of the so-called "Normandy format" countries seeking a resolution to the conflict. Russia is the fourth country in the format, which has not held talks in two years. Andrei Yermolaev, an analyst at the New Ukraine think-tank in Kiev, said "conducting the elections despite the opinions of Kiev and the West means that the Kremlin completely controls the situation in the region and intends to use this 'frozen conflict' as a lever of pressure on the Ukrainian authorities." ___ Jim Heintz in Moscow and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this story. A woman casts her ballot at a polling station during rebel elections in Donetsk, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Residents of the eastern Ukraine regions controlled by Russia-backed separatist rebels are voting for local governments in elections denounced by Kiev and the West. (AP Photo) Acting leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic Denis Pushilin casts his ballot at a polling station during rebel elections in Donetsk, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Residents of the eastern Ukraine regions controlled by Russia-backed separatist rebels are voting for local governments in elections denounced by Kiev and the West. (AP Photo) PARIS (AP) - World leaders with the power to make war but a duty to preserve peace solemnly marked the end of World War I's slaughter 100 years ago at commemorations Sunday that drove home the message "never again" but also exposed the globe's new political fault lines. As Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and dozens of other heads of state and government listened in silence, French President Emmanuel Macron used the occasion, as its host, to sound a powerful and sobering warning about the fragility of peace and the dangers of nationalism and of nations that put themselves first, above the collective good. "The old demons are rising again, ready to complete their task of chaos and of death," Macron said. "Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism," he said. "In saying 'Our interests first, whatever happens to the others,' you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: Its moral values." Trump, ostensibly the main target of Macron's message, sat stony-faced. The American president has proudly declared himself a nationalist. But if Trump felt singled out by Macron's remarks, he didn't show it. He later described the commemoration as "very beautiful." As well as spelling out the horrific costs of conflict to those with arsenals capable of waging a World War III, the ceremony also served up a joyful reminder of the intense sweetness of peace, when high school students read from letters that soldiers and civilians wrote 100 years ago when guns finally fell silent on the Western Front. (From L) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Morocco's Prince Moulay Hassan, Moroccan King Mohammed VI, US First Lady Melania Trump, US President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Australian Governor-General Peter Cosgrove attend a ceremony the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, as part of the commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the 11 November 1918 armistice, ending World War I, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP) Brought alive again by people too young to have known global war themselves, the ghostly voices seemed collectively to say: Please, do not make our mistakes. "I only hope the soldiers who died for this cause are looking down upon the world today," American soldier Capt. Charles S. Normington wrote on Nov. 11, 1918, in one of the letters. "The whole world owes this moment of real joy to the heroes who are not here to help enjoy it." The Paris weather - gray and damp - seemed aptly fitting when remembering a war fought in mud and relentless horror. The commemorations started late, overshooting the centenary of the exact moment when, 100 years earlier at 11 a.m., an eerie silence replaced the thunder of war on the front lines. Macron recalled that 1 billion shells fell on France alone from 1914-1918 . As bells marking the armistice hour rang across Paris and in many nations ravaged by the four years of carnage, Macron and other leaders were still on their way to the centennial site at the Arc de Triomphe. Under a sea of black umbrellas, a line of leaders led by Macron and his wife, Brigitte, marched in silence on the cobbles of the Champs-Elysees, after dismounting from their buses. Trump arrived separately, in a motorcade that drove past three topless protesters with anti-war slogans on their chests who somehow got through the rows of security and were quickly bundled away by police. The Femen group claimed responsibility. French authorities said the three women faced charges of sexual exhibitionism. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited security protocols for the presidential motorcade's solo trip down the grand flag-lined avenue, which was closed to traffic. Last to arrive was the Russian president, Putin, who shook Trump's hand and flashed him a thumbs-up. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was positioned in pride of place between Trump and Macron, an eloquent symbol of victors and vanquished now standing together, shoulder to shoulder. Overhead, fighter jets ripped through the sky, trailing red, white and blue smoke in homage to the French flag. The geographical spread of the more than 60 heads of state and government who attended, silent and reflective, showed how the "war to end all wars" left few corners of the earth untouched but which, little more than two decades later, was followed so quickly and catastrophically by the even deadlier World War II. On the other side of the globe, Australia and New Zealand held ceremonies to recall how the war killed and wounded soldiers and civilians in unprecedented numbers and in gruesome new, mechanized ways. Those countries lost tens of thousands of soldiers far away in Europe and, most memorably in the 1915 battle of Gallipoli, in Turkey. In central London, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, clad in black, watched from a balcony as her son Prince Charles laid a wreath on her behalf at the foot of the Cenotaph memorial that honors the fallen. Britain had 880,000 military dead in the war. The gulf between Trump's "America First" credo and European leaders was starkly underscored again later Sunday, when Trump went his own way. He visited an American cemetery outside Paris at precisely the moment that Macron, Merkel and other dignitaries were opening a peace forum where the French leader again sounded the alarm about crumbling international harmony as he ruminated about the legacy of the morning's commemorations. "Will it be the shining symbol of durable peace between nations or will it be a picture of a last moment of unity before the world goes down in new disorder?" Macron asked. "It depends only on us." While praising France for "a wonderful two days," Trump described his rainy stop at the American cemetery at Suresnes as "the highlight of the trip." On Saturday, Trump drew criticism for canceling a separate commemorative visit to the Belleau Wood battleground northeast of Paris because of rain. Remembered for brutal trench warfare and the first use of chemical weapons, WWI pitted the armies of France, the British empire, Russia and the U.S. against a German-led coalition that included the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. Almost 10 million soldiers died, sometimes tens of thousands on a single day. The U.S. came late to the war, in April 1917, but over 1 years it became a key player and tipped the scales for the allies. At the war's end, the U.S. had 2 million troops in Europe and another 2 million ready to cross the Atlantic if needed, a force that turned the United States into a major military power whose soldiers then fought and died again for Europe in World War II. Even though Germany was at the heart of provoking two world wars over the past century, the nation has become a beacon of European and international cooperation since. With so many leaders in Paris, the commemoration also provoked a flurry of diplomacy on the sidelines, with conflict in Yemen and Syria among the hot-button issues. On Sunday, Merkel met with the head of the United Nations, an organization born from the ashes of World War II, and the president of Serbia. It was a Serb teenager, Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated the Austro-Hungarian crown prince in Sarajevo in 1914 to set off events which led to the outbreak of war. ___ Associated Press writers Angela Charlton, Sylvie Corbet, Elaine Ganley and Thomas Adamson contributed to this report. ___ For more information on World War I, go to The Associated Press' WWI hub: https://www.apnews.com/WorldWarI ___ World War I: An AP Centennial Commemorative Edition. Available now exclusively at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2JGrx5U U.S. President Donald Trump visits the Suresnes American Cemetery, near Paris, as part of the Paris commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day, 100 years after the end of the First World War, France, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Christian Hartmann/Pool Photo via AP) French President Emmanuel Macron pays his respects by the Tomb of the Unknown soldier during in a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, as part of the commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the 11 November 1918 armistice, ending World War I, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP) President Donald Trump sits in front of headstones during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, center, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, right, attend the Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph in London, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Remembrance Sunday is held each year to commemorate the service men and women who fought in past military conflicts. 2018 marks the centenary of the armistice and cessation of hostilities in WWI, which ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,1918. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) French President Emmanuel Macron re-lights the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during a commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day, 100 years after the end of the First World War at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Benoit Tessier/Pool Photo via AP) Heads of states and world leaders attend ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. Over 60 heads of state and government were taking part in a solemn ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the mute and powerful symbol of sacrifice to the millions who died from 1914-18. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool) President Donald Trump speaks during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. In rear is the Paris landmark the Eiffel Tower. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) The motorcade of President Donald Trump drives up the Champs Elysees to an Armistice Day Centennial Commemoration at the Arc de Triomphe, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, in Paris. As he was arriving, at least one woman ran out toward the presidential motorcade with slogans - including the word FAKE - written on her chests. The woman was tackled by police and the motorcade continued uninterrupted. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Cadets form the New York military academy wait near the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. More than 60 heads of state and government are in France for the Armistice ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, exactly a century after the armistice. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool) President Donald Trump and his first lady Melania Trump attend ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. Over 60 heads of state and government were taking part in a solemn ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the mute and powerful symbol of sacrifice to the millions who died from 1914-18. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool) French President's Emmanuel Macron's wife Brigitte and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. Over 60 heads of state and government were taking part in a solemn ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the mute and powerful symbol of sacrifice to the millions who died from 1914-18. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool) French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte, right, welcome German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. International leaders are taking place in a ceremony in Paris on Sunday at mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) Military officer Garcia plays the original Armistice bugle from 1918 under the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. More than 60 heads of state and government are in France for the Armistice ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, exactly a century after the armistice. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool) French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte wait for guests in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. More than 60 heads of state and government are in France for the Armistice ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, exactly a century after the armistice. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) A cemetery employee walks between graves of American serviceman killed during WWI ahead of celebrations of the WWI centenary at the American Cemetery in Suresnes, on the outskirts of Paris, France, Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. World War I ended on Nov. 11, 1918. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda) French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron arrive at the official dinner on the eve of the international ceremony for the Centenary of the WWI Armistice of 11 November 1918 at the Orsay Museum, in Paris, France, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. (Ian Langsdon/Pool Photo via AP) President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan arrive at the official dinner on the eve of the international ceremony for the Centenary of the WWI Armistice of 11 November 1918 at the Orsay Museum, in Paris, France, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. (Ian Langsdon/Pool Photo via AP) President Donald Trump, left, is accompanied by Secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission, William Matz as he arrives for an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) MIAMI (AP) - Coast Guard officials have rescued nearly 100 Haitian migrants from a dangerously overloaded freighter. Miami Coast Guard officials said their helicopter crew spotted the overcrowded, 40-foot sail freighter near Cuba on Saturday. Officials deployed a cutter from Key West to rescue the migrants, saying the vessel was not equipped to carry its passengers and was perilously overcrowded. Coast Guard officials said it could have been a life threatening situation for the 86 migrants onboard. Once safely on the Coast Guard cutter, the migrants were given food, water and medical treatment. The migrants were repratriated to Cap-Haitien, Haiti. The Coast Guard says roughly 221 Haitian migrants have attempted to cross open waters to illegally migrate to the U.S. since Oct. 1. PATNA, India (AP) - Maoist rebels on Sunday triggered a blast and exchanged gunfire with government forces in a central Indian state on the eve of legislative elections, police said. One suspected rebel was killed while a paramilitary officer was wounded in the violence in Chhattisgarh state, said top police officer D.M. Awasthi. The insurgent was killed in the Bijapur area during an exchange of gunfire while the officer was wounded after Maoists targeted soldiers during their patrolling in a forested area in the state's Kanker district, Awasthi said. The New Delhi Television channel said rebels detonated seven explosive devices simultaneously. Tens of thousands of police and soldiers have been deployed to guard the polling, which starts on Monday and is being held in two phases. Authorities have also deployed drones for surveillance, NDTV reported. Monday's polling is scheduled for 18 constituencies that are considered strongholds of the rebels. Rebels have stepped up their attacks in the state ahead of state elections and have warned people against voting. On Thursday, rebels blew up a bus, killing three civilians and a paramilitary soldier in the state. The Maoist rebels, inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been fighting the Indian government for more than four decades, demanding land and jobs for tenant farmers, the poor and indigenous communities. The government has called the rebels India's biggest internal security threat. The rebels, also known as Naxalites, have ambushed police, destroyed government offices and abducted officials. They have blown up train tracks, attacked prisons to free their comrades and stolen weapons from police and paramilitary warehouses. BAGHDAD (AP) - The U.S. military says American and Iraqi forces killed more than 50 Islamic State militants, including several commanders, in northern Iraq last month. U.S. Central Command said Sunday that an Oct. 30 operation in Salahuddin province killed five IS leaders and more than 30 other militants, and that an operation the following day in the Makhmour Mountains killed around 20 IS fighters. It says the leaders killed in the first raid were responsible for coordinating attacks across northern and western Iraq. Iraq declared victory over IS last year, but the group has continued to carry out scattered attacks, particularly in the north. The extremists have lost virtually all the territory they once ruled in Syria and Iraq, but still control small, remote pockets in eastern Syria along the border. PARIS (AP) - For President Donald Trump in Paris, America First meant largely America alone. At a weekend commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the president who proudly declares himself a "nationalist" stood apart, even on a continent where his brand of populism is on the rise. He began his visit with a tweet slamming the French president's call for a European defense force, arrived at events alone and spent much of his trip out of sight in the American ambassadors' residence in central Paris. On Sunday, he listened as he was lectured on the dangers of nationalist isolation, and then he headed home just as the inaugural Paris Peace Summit was getting under way. The visit made clear that, nearly two years after taking office, Trump has dramatically upended decades of American foreign policy posture, shaking allies. That includes French President Emmanuel Macron, who on Sunday warned that the "ancient demons" that caused World War I and millions of deaths were once again making headway. Macron, who has been urging a re-embrace of multinational organizations and cooperation that have been shunned by Trump, delivered a barely-veiled rebuke of Trumpism at the weekend's centerpiece event: A gathering of dozens of leaders at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the base of the Arc de Triomphe to mark the passage of a century since the guns fell silent in a global war that killed millions. Bells tolled across Europe's Western Front and fighter jets passed overhead to mark the exact moment the devastating war came to a close. With Trump and other leaders looking on, Macron took on the rising tide of populism in the United States and Europe and urged leaders not to turn their backs by turning inward. President Donald Trump stands amongst the headstones during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) "Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism," Macron said, adding that, when nations put their interests first and decide "who cares about the others" they "erase the most precious thing a nation can have... Its moral values." After Trump was gone, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who recently announced that she will not be seeking re-election, made an impassioned plea for global cooperation at the peace forum, saying World War I had "made clear what disastrous consequences a lack of compromise in politics and diplomacy can have." Trump, who has made clear that he has limited patience for broad, multilateral agreements, sat mostly stone-faced as he listened to Macron, who sees himself as Europe's foil to the rising nationalist sentiment, which has taken hold in Hungary and Poland among other countries. Trump did engage with his fellow leaders, attending a group welcome dinner hosted by Macron at the Musee d'Orsay on Saturday night and a lunch on Sunday. He also spent time with Macron on Saturday, when the two stressed their shared desire for more burden-sharing during a quick availability with reporters. But Trump was terse during some of his private conversations with world leaders, according to people with direct knowledge of his visit. One of the people described the president as "grumpy." They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations. The symbolism during Trump's visit couldn't have been more stark. Trump was missing from one of the weekend's most powerful images: A line of world leaders, walking shoulder to-shoulder in a somber, rain-soaked procession as the bells marking the exact moment that fighting ended - 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918 - finished tolling. The president and first lady Melania Trump had traveled to the commemoration separately - White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited security protocols - from the other dignitaries, who had traveled together by bus from the Elysee Palace. As Trump's motorcade was making its solo trip down the grand Champs-Elysees, which was closed to traffic, at least one topless woman breached tight security, running into the street and shouting "fake peace maker" as the cars passed. She had slogans, including the words "Fake" and "Peace," written on her chest. Police tackled the woman and the motorcade continued uninterrupted. The feminist activist group Femen later claimed responsibility. Also traveling on his own was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who shook Trump's hand, flashed him a thumbs-up sign and patted Trump's arm as he arrived. Trump responded with a wide smile. National Security Adviser John Bolton had said at one point that Putin and Trump would meet in Paris, but they will instead hold a formal sit-down later this month at a world leaders' summit in Buenos Aires. A Kremlin official said later that U.S. and Russian officials decided to drop plans for the Paris meeting after French officials objected. Trump, who ran on an "America First" platform, has jarred European allies with his actions. He has slapped tariffs on the European Union, pulled the U.S. out of the landmark Paris Climate Accord and the Iran nuclear deal and suggested he might be willing to pull the U.S. out of NATO if member counties don't significantly boost their defense spending. Trump's eagerness to get along with the Russian leader - in spite of Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and numerous other aggressive moves in recent years - has alarmed those who view Russia as a growing threat. Trump has also repeatedly branded himself a "nationalist," despite criticism from some that the term has negative connotations. At a news conference last week, Trump defended his use of the phrase. "You know what the word is? I love our country," he said, adding: "You have nationalists. You have globalists. I also love the world and I don't mind helping the world, but we have to straighten out our country first. We have a lot of problems." But Trump did not broach the divide as he paid tribute Sunday to U.S. and allied soldiers killed in World War I during "a horrible, horrible war" that marked America's emergence as a world power. "We are gathered together at this hallowed resting place to pay tribute to the brave Americans who gave their last breath in that mighty struggle," Trump said at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial in the suburbs of Paris, where more than 1,500 Americans who died in the war are buried. "It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago," he said after spending a moment, standing alone amid the cemetery's white crosses, holding a black umbrella. The Veterans Day speech came a day after Trump was criticized for failing to visit a different American cemetery about 60 miles (100 kilometers) outside of Paris on Saturday because rain grounded the helicopter he had planned to take. A handful of senior administration officials, including White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, went in the president's place, while Trump remained behind at the ambassador's residence with no alternate schedule for hours. Trump delivered the speech as other leaders were gathered for the inaugural Paris Peace Forum, which aims to revive collective governance and international cooperation to tackle global challenges. Afterward he headed back to Washington. France was the epicenter of World War I, the first global conflict. Its role as host of the main international commemoration highlighted the point that the world mustn't stumble into war again, as it did so quickly and catastrophically with World War II. ___ Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Julie Pace in Washington and Lori Hinnant and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. ___ For more information on World War I, go to The Associated Press' WWI hub: https://www.apnews.com/WorldWarI ___ Follow Superville and Colvin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dsupervilleap and https://twitter.com/colvinj President Donald Trump speaks during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. In rear is the Paris landmark the Eiffel Tower. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump stands in front of headstones during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Longtime horse trainer and natural-born horse whisperer Clare 'Shipwreck' Cressman has passed away at the age of 89. Born in Wilmot Township to Manassah and Olive (Gingrich) Cressman, Clare is survived by brother Earl and children Patricia (Bill), Paul (Susan) and Robin (Joanne) and their families. Clare lived simply, and he was always ready to lend a hand or fix a car, but his real love was horses. Clare will be missed by special friends Sue and Bob Ellis, John Braid and Turk Whitehead, as well as his many friends at Grand River Raceway and the 404 Wing. Many thanks to the staff at Caressant Care, Fergus. Cremation has taken place. Family and friends are invited to the Mannheim Mennonite Church on Saturday, Nov. 17 at noon for the interment. A reception will follow. Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Clare Cressman. PARIS (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump's trip to Paris. (all times local): 11:30 p.m. President Donald Trump paid tribute to U.S. and allied soldiers killed in World War I during what he called "a horrible, horrible war" that marked America's emergence as a world power. Trump made his comments Sunday at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial in the suburbs of Paris, where more than 1,500 Americans who died in the war are buried. He said that world leaders "are gathered together at this hallowed resting place to pay tribute to the brave Americans" who gave their lives in that war. Trump said: "It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago." He made the comments after spending a moment standing alone amid the cemetery's white crosses. ___ U.S. President Donald Trump visits the Suresnes American Cemetery, near Paris, as part of the Paris commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day, 100 years after the end of the First World War, France, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Christian Hartmann/Pool Photo via AP) 6:16 p.m. A top Kremlin foreign affairs aide says the French government requested that President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump back away from plans to meet during their Paris visit. Whether the U.S. and Russian presidents would meet on the sidelines of the ceremonies commemorating the end of World War I had been a subject of speculation in the lead-up to Sunday's events. Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign affairs adviser, said on Russian state television that a preliminary agreement on a Trump-Putin meeting had been reached but was dropped after taking into account what he called French considerations. He said this decision was made in consultation with American officials. ___ 4:15 p.m. President Donald Trump says victory came at a "terrible cost" to allied forces that fought and died in World War I. Trump said that 26,000 Americans were killed in just the last battle of the war alone. Trump spoke during a WWI centennial at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial where more than 1,500 U.S. military servicemen are buried. He says it's the duty of today's generation to defend the peace they nobly gave with their lives. Trump introduced six American veterans of the Second World War and an U.S. eighth-grader who saved money for two years so he could attend the ceremony to honor the heroes of WWI. ___ 4:10 p.m. The "Baby Trump" balloon is back, hovering over a demonstration of several hundred people in eastern Paris. The main message of the anti-Trump protest was to speak out against the president and what he stands for to those who oppose his "America first" message and policies. Trump is in Paris to mark Sunday's centennial of the end of World War I. The protest, held in steady rain, drew a range of groups and causes from Trotskyists to Communists and some seeking to free a convicted Lebanese terrorist from jail. ___ 3:30 p.m. Russian President Vladimir Putin says he didn't have a separate meeting with President Donald Trump at events in Paris marking the end of World War I, but says they will meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina later this month. Putin said he and Trump decided "not to interrupt the schedule" of the World War I events with a separate meeting. Putin spoke to RT's France network. Putin also praised the idea of a European army because he said it could "strengthen the multipolar nature of the world." Macron has pushed the idea of a European army. ___ 1:30 p.m. President Donald Trump is attending a lunch with world leaders who have gathered in Paris to mark 100 years since the end of World War I. French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting the gathering at the Elysee Palace, where he and Trump met and had lunch Saturday. Trump arrived without his wife, Melania, who is visiting Versailles Sunday with Macron's wife, Brigitte Macron. The menu: lobster from Brittany, France's iconic Bresse chicken, and potatoes from the Somme, in a nod to one of the war's deadliest battles. They have just come from a ceremony to commemorate the Armistice that ended World War I at the base of the Arc de Triomphe. ___ 11:47 a.m. The feminist activist group Femen has claimed responsibility for topless protesters who disrupted President Donald Trump's motorcade on its way to a ceremony commemorating the end of World War I. One woman easily breached tight security along the Champs-Elysees avenue, walking in the midst of the motorcade and shouting "fake peacemaker" as the cars passed. Officers seized her afterwards. At least one other topless protester also made it into the avenue, but was unable to reach the cars. Femen's topless protesters have repeatedly breached security around world leaders and major events. ___ 11:40 a.m. President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin have greeted one another at a ceremony in Paris marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Cameras at the event captured Trump and Putin briefly shaking hands after Putin arrived. Putin also flashed Trump a thumbs-up sign and patted Trump's arm. He also greeted several other leaders sitting in the front row, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Trump is sitting between his wife, first lady Melania Trump, and Merkel at the event. ___ 11:25 a.m. At least one topless woman ran out toward President Donald Trump's motorcade on Sunday as he traveled to the Arc de Triomphe for a ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. She had slogans written on her chest that included the words "Fake" and "Peace." Police tackled the women and the motorcade continued uninterrupted. Trump is among dozens of leaders attending the centennial anniversary ceremony. Most of the other leaders traveled together, from the Elysee Palace. Trump arrived on his own. ___ 10:30 a.m. President Donald Trump joined French President Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders Sunday to the mark 100 years since the end of World War I. More than 66 leaders gathered in Paris - a century after guns fell silent in a global war that killed millions. Trump was accompanied by first lady Melania Trump at the Tome of the Unknown Soldier at the base of the Arc de Triomphe. The president also was attending a leaders' lunch hosted by Macron. Afterward, Trump plans to visit and deliver Veterans Day remarks at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial outside Paris where more than 1,500 Americans who died during the war are buried. Rain on Saturday forced the cancellation of Trump's helicopter trip to a different American cemetery in France. ___ This story has been corrected to show that Trump introduced six American veterans of the Second World War, not World War I. President Donald Trump stands in front of headstones during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) JERUSALEM (AP) - A fresh wave of fighting erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, leaving an Israeli soldier and seven Palestinians dead, just as Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers had appeared to be making progress toward ratcheting down months of border violence. It was not immediately clear what set off the sudden, rare late-night burst of violence. In a statement early Monday, the Israeli military said an officer was killed and another one was moderately injured during "an operational activity" in southeast Gaza Strip in which an exchange of gunfire was evolved. The operation had ended and the families of the soldiers were notified, it added. Earlier, Hamas' armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said Israeli undercover forces in a civilian vehicle infiltrated three kilometers (two miles) into Gaza and fatally shot Nour el-Deen Baraka, its local commander in Khan Younis town. It said militants discovered the car and chased it down, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed "a number of people." The clashes cooled down early Monday. The Israeli military reported earlier that "all IDF soldiers back in Israel." It did not elaborate. The Palestinian Health Ministry said six people, including at least five militants, were killed and seven others wounded. In the early hours, a seventh body was found. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves as he arrives at the Elysee Palace in Paris for a lunch after participating in a World War I Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018. International leaders are taking place in a ceremony in Paris on Sunday to mark the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) In Israel, the military said it had intercepted two rockets fired from Gaza as air raid sirens continued to sound. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on an official visit to France, announced he was rushing back to Israel to deal with the crisis. Sunday's development shattered what appeared to be a turning point after months of bloodshed along the Israel-Gaza border, with weekly Hamas-led protests drawing thousands to the perimeter fence with Israel. Over 170 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the border protests, in which Palestinians throw rocks, burning tires and grenades toward Israeli troops. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver $15 million in aid to Gaza's cash-strapped Hamas rulers. Hamas responded by lowering the intensity of Friday's border protest. Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu had defended his decision to allow the transfer of the Qatari money, rejecting criticism that the move had strengthened the Islamic militant group. Netanyahu told reporters that it was "the right step" at the moment and that he was committed to restoring quiet along the Israel-Gaza frontier and preventing a humanitarian crisis in the coastal Palestinian territory. "Every action, without exception, has a price," he said. "If you can't handle the price you cannot lead. And I can handle the price." Israeli critics, including members of Netanyahu's hard-line coalition, accused him of capitulating to violence and of granting relief to the embattled Hamas group. The internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007, angrily accused the U.S. and Israel of being involved in a "conspiracy" to permanently sever Gaza from the West Bank. He promised to take unspecified measures against his Hamas rivals in the coming days. Hamas leaders in Gaza have described the arrival of the $15 million, delivered last week in three suitcases by a Qatari diplomat, as their first major gain of more than seven months of weekly protests along the perimeter fence. Hamas has been leading the protests since March 30 in a bid to ease a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade that was imposed in 2007 in order to weaken the militant group. The blockade has led to over 50 percent unemployment and chronic power outages, and prevents most Gazans from being able to leave the tiny territory. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltrations, but its army has come under international criticism because of the large number of unarmed protesters who have been shot. With Hamas threatening to intensify the protests and international officials warning of a looming humanitarian crisis, Netanyahu on Thursday allowed the cash into Gaza. It is the first installment of $90 million that Qatar has pledged to cover the salaries of thousands of unpaid Hamas employees for six months. Israeli opposition figures lambasted Netanyahu for appearing to cave in to violence. Army Radio played decade-old sound clips of Netanyahu, from when he was the opposition leader, threatening tough action against Hamas and criticizing his predecessor for being too soft. Even his erstwhile allies attacked him for indirectly doing business with a militant group that has fought three wars against Israel and is sworn to Israel's destruction. "Everyone knows where that money is going to go ultimately," said Netanyahu's agriculture minister, Uri Ariel. But in comments to reporters before traveling to Paris, Netanyahu said it was a "question of alternatives." He said the step was coordinated with security officials to restore quiet for Israeli citizens living near the Gaza border and to avert a humanitarian crisis. Later, at a press conference in Paris, when asked about his longer-term vision for Gaza, Netanyahu said there could be no political resolution as long as Hamas is in power. "You can't have a political resolution with those who are committed to your dissolution, to your destruction. That's absurd," he said. The alternative is to "do the minimal things necessary to maintain our security and to prevent the collapse of the humanitarian situation," he added. The payment is part of what is expected to be a set of informal understandings between Israel and Hamas reached through Egyptian and U.N. mediation. Hamas is demanding an expansion of the permissible fishing zone off the Israeli-controlled Gaza coast, uninterrupted flow of fuel to mitigate chronic power shortages and the lifting of Israeli restrictions on exports and imports. In return, Israel wants quiet and an end to the border protests. For the second week in a row, the Palestinians kept Friday's protests carefully restrained, burning fewer tires and refraining from breaching the fence. In the West Bank, Abbas angrily accused Israel and the U.S. of ganging up behind his back to entrench Hamas' control over Gaza. He also accused Hamas of undermining his goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state that includes all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Abbas fears that the U.S. is preparing to float a peace plan, called the "Deal of the Century" by President Donald Trump, which would leave Hamas in control of Gaza and give him only limited autonomy in pieces of the West Bank. "We are going to take tough measures (against Hamas) in the coming days," Abbas said. "There is an American conspiracy, which is the 'Deal of the Century,' and there is an Israeli conspiracy to implement the 'Deal of the Century,'" he said. "To my dismay, there is another conspiracy from Hamas to foil the independent state." Abbas, speaking at a ceremony marking the 14th anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, did not elaborate on what steps he might take against Hamas. Abbas has repeatedly limited financial aid to Gaza in order to pressure Hamas into returning control to him. ___ Associated Press writer Josef Federman reported in Jerusalem and AP writer Fares Akram reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Mourners cry during the funeral of Palestinian Mohammed Shreteh, in the West Bank village of Mazraa al-Gharbiya, near Ramallah, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Shreteh succumbed to his wounds that were sustained during clashes with Israeli soldiers in the village last month. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser) Mourners take a last look at the body of Palestinian Mohammed Shreteh during his funeral in the West Bank village of Mazraa al-Gharbiya, near Ramallah, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Shreteh succumbed to his wounds that were sustained during clashes with Israeli soldiers in the village last month. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser) DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Rain denied Pakistan any chance of winning its first ODI series against New Zealand since 2011 as the third and final game was abandoned Sunday. New Zealand, missing injured regular captain Kane Williamson, was 35-1 in 6.5 overs in reply to Pakistan's 279-8 when rain in Dubai prevented further play and both teams shared the series 1-1. Earlier, three half centuries by Babar Azam (92), Fakhar Zaman (65) and Haris Sohail (60) propelled Pakistan to a strong total despite fast bowler Lockie Ferguson's (5-45) first five-wicket haul in limited overs games. New Zealand won the first match by 47 runs before Pakistan came back strongly and leveled the series 1-1 with a six-wicket win. Left-arm fast bowler Shaheen Afridi had struck on the second delivery when Colin Munro was undone by pace and was clean bowled without scoring. George Worker was unbeaten on 18 and Henry Nicholls was not out on 15 before rain forced the players off the field. New Zealand's frontline paceman Trent Boult, who had a hat trick in the first game, was the prime target of Pakistan's batsmen. The left-armer couldn't get a wicket in the second match and finished with his second most expensive ODI figures of 1-80 off 10 overs on Sunday. Mohammad Hafeez replaced injured Imam-ul-Haq at the top order as Pakistan won the toss and opted to bat. Zaman and Hafeez were unruffled by New Zealand in a 64-run first-wicket stand before Hafeez went too deep in his crease while playing Ferguson and was out hit wicket as he dislodged the bails with his back heel. Zaman scored his second successive half century before he holed out in the deep while attempting a big shot off Colin de Grandhomme. Pakistan shifted gears once Sohail joined Azam as the left-hander played aggressively during his 59-ball knock, which featured six fours and two sixes. Sohail raised his half century with a pulled six off leg-spinner Ish Sohil. Sohail and Zaman shared a run-a-ball 108 for the third wicket before Ferguson beat Sohail off a slower delivery and Worker picked up a smart low catch at square leg boundary. Azam should have been caught on 80 but Nicholls dropped a sitter before the fielder made amends and had Azam caught in the penultimate over. Ferguson grabbed three wickets in the last over by having Asif Ali and Faheem Ashraf clean bowled and Hasan Ali was caught off the last delivery. ___ More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's Foreign Ministry is complaining that the interrogation of a website editor at a U.S. airport shows authorities are persecuting Russian journalists. Alexander Malkevich, editor of the USA Really website, reportedly was detained and questioned for several hours Friday at a Washington airport and told that his site must register in the U.S. as a foreign agent. The website is funded by the sponsors of the Russian "troll factory" accused of interference in the 2016 U.S. vote. Malkevich was released and traveled to Paris, according to state news agency RIA-Novosti. A ministry statement on Sunday said the incident was "evidence of the campaign of pressure by the American authorities not only on the Russian press, but on any independent opinion about the United States." LONDON (AP) - British police say a man has been arrested after a thief stole a marked police van from the police department parking lot. Suffolk Police said Sunday the police van had been taken from Lowestoft police station 160 miles (more than 250 kilometers) northeast of London on Saturday evening. It was found after it had been abandoned 15 miles (25 kilometers) away in Bungay early Sunday. The 27-year-old suspect is from Bungay and is being questioned. He hasn't been charged or identified. PARIS (AP) - Excerpts from speeches by the leaders of former enemies France and Germany, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, at events Sunday commemorating the centennial of the World War I armistice . MACRON "Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying 'our interests first, whatever happens to the others,' you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it lives, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: Its moral values." ___ "I know, the old demons are resurging, ready to finish off their work of chaos and death. New ideologies manipulate religions, push a contagious obscurantism. Sometimes, history threatens to retake its tragic course and threaten our heritage of peace that we believed we had definitively settled with our ancestors' blood." ___ German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron hold hands after leaving books at the peace library of the Paris Peace Forum as part of the commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day, in Paris, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. International leaders attended a ceremony in Paris on Sunday at mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. (Gonzalo Fuentes, Pool via AP) "For four years, Europe almost committed suicide. Humanity had sunk into a hideous labyrinth of merciless battles, in a hell that engulfed all fighters, whichever side they were on, whatever nationality they had ... 10 million dead, 6 million injured and mutilated, 3 million widows, 6 million orphans, millions of civilian victims." MERKEL "This war, with its senseless bloodshed, showed where national arrogance and military hubris can lead. And it made clear what disastrous consequences a lack of compromise in politics and diplomacy can have." ___ "It's anything but self-evident" that Germany and France should have such friendship now, "especially after the suffering that Germans caused to their neighbor, to Europe and the world in two world wars." ___ "The First World War showed us what kind of ruin isolationism can lead us into. And if seclusion wasn't a solution 100 years ago, how could it be so today?" French President Emmanuel Macron delivers his speech as he attends a commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day, 100 years after the end of the First World War at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, Sunday, November 11, 2018. (Benoit Tessier/Pool Photo via AP) PARIS (AP) - William Kearsey's war was long over by the time his son ever heard about it. By then, the World War I veteran had undergone 28 surgeries to knit back together the bones and flesh of his face, which was shattered in a trench in Belgium in 1917. A century after fighting in the first war of its kind ceased, Kearsey's son, Peter, stood on a rain-soaked avenue in Paris on Sunday to honor the armistice that ended the war his father and so many other soldiers endured. "It's appropriate, really, like what they went through in the trenches. It was raining and very muddy," he said. "It's raining today, 100 years later." Kearsey and his wife traveled to Europe to tour World War I battlefields "to honor the lost." Official commemorations held to mark the 100th anniversary of the agreement between the Allies and a defeated Germany that silenced guns on the Western Front have provided an opportunity to contemplate the implications of the first war of its kind. A veteran's medals are worn during a commemorative event to mark the Centennial of the ending of the First World War, in Blackpool, England, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018. The commemorative event marks the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which ended the First World War. (Danny Lawson/PA via AP) But for the children and grandchildren of soldiers who were injured or killed in more than four years of brutal fighting, the centennial offered a moment to reflect on the enduring toll of decisions made by world leaders very much like the presidents, prime ministers and kings also standing in the rain. In central London, thousands of people marched in a "people's procession" to honor fallen soldiers. Descendants of many veterans attended the march , which was described as an expression of gratitude for those who fought in WWI and other conflicts. Participants passed central London's Cenotaph war monument, where senior members of Britain's royal family and national leaders had placed wreaths earlier in the day. Among them were Marion Lewis and Dorothy Heslop, sisters who said they wanted to honor their grandfather. Pvt. John Waters who suffered a severe head wound during World War I while fighting in France. "They did not expect him to survive, so they left him outside the medical tent and we think it's the cold that probably saved him," Heslop told Britain's Press Association. Growing up, they said, it was an unspoken rule not to ask granddad about the war. Oliver Davies was a 21-year-old driver for the Royal Engineers when he was hit by a stray bullet while taking animals to water near Jerusalem in 1917. His family still has the letter from Davies' captain informing his mother of his death. His great-grandniece, Jackie Sheridan, attended the London march. "It's a very proud moment to represent my family who are descendants," Sheridan said. "It's going to be emotional to see everybody here, knowing there's 10,000 of us." As for William Kearsey of Australia's 33rd Battalion, he survived the trench in Belgium hit by enemy fire because of a friend who dragged him out. But coming home with severe damage from the first war to use industrial-era war equipment like machine guns, Kearsey faced a new hell. His injuries included lost sinuses and tear ducts. But years of surgery in Britain and South Wales gave the veteran another chance at life, Peter Kearsey said of his father, who died in 1971. "He was a kind, gentle man. He suffered a lot right up till his death," the son recalled. Some 62,000 Australians died on the battlefields of the Great War, and 150,000 were injured, according to Kerry Neale of the Australian War Memorial. She stood with Peter Kearsey and his wife in the rain. "He didn't talk of the fighting, except how he was saved by his best friend," Kearsey said. Undated handout photo from the Kearsey family made available on Sunday Nov. 11, 2018 of Australian soldier William Kearsay after facial reconstruction surgery. Shrapnel blasted apart the face of William Kearsey, a World War I soldier fighting in Belgium in Australia's 33rd Battalion. But a friend pulled him from a trench and he survived _ after 28 surgeries to reconstruct his face. Kearsey's son, Peter, was among hundreds lining the rain-soaked Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on Sunday to honor along with world leaders those who fought in the Great War 100 years after it ended. (Kearsey Family via AP) Peter Kearsey poses for a photo in Paris, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018. Kearsay is the son of Australian soldier William Kearsay whose face was badly damaged in World War I while fighting in Belgium with Australia's 33rd Battalion. He survived _ after 28 surgeries to reconstruct his face. Peter Kearsey, was among hundreds lining the rain-soaked Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on Sunday to honor along with world leaders those who fought in the Great War 100 years after it ended. (AP Photo/Elaine Ganley) Undated handout photo from the Kearsey family made available on Sunday Nov. 11, 2018 of Australian soldier William Kearsay. Shrapnel blasted apart the face of William Kearsey, a World War I soldier fighting in Belgium in Australia's 33rd Battalion. But a friend pulled him from a trench and he survived _ after 28 surgeries to reconstruct his face. Kearsey's son, Peter, was among hundreds lining the rain-soaked Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on Sunday to honor along with world leaders those who fought in the Great War 100 years after it ended. (Kearsey Family via AP) A bagpiper plays from the tower of the World War I Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, France, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. The memorial walls at the site bear the names of 11,000 missing Australian soldiers who died in France during World War I. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) An Australian flag with a koala bear adorns a grave of a soldier at the World War I Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, France, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. The memorial walls at the site bear the names of 11,000 missing Australian soldiers who died in France during World War I. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) An Australian soldier walks by a wall of the missing at the World War I Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, France, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. The memorial walls at the site bear the names of 11,000 missing Australian soldiers who died in France during World War I. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) Vietnam veteran Graham Edwards, from Western Australia, leads the prayer under the Menin Gate during a Last Post ceremony in Ypres, Belgium, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Edwards, a member of the assault pioneer platoon of 7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, lost both legs to a landmine in Vietnam in 1970. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - A Pakistani official says Iranian border guards have killed two people trying to cross through an illegal route from the Panjgur district in Baluchistan. Sabir Baluch, a Baluchistan Levies Force official, says Sunday three others were wounded and taken to a Panjgur hospital. In search of opportunity, hundreds of Pakistanis attempt to cross over to Iran through illegal routes every year hoping to continue on to Europe. Many have faced arrest or gunfire by border guards. Iranian border guards have been especially vigilant after last month's abduction of 14 guards in a militant attack on one of their posts. Iran has previously called on Pakistan to help secure kidnapped guards held in a border area. From New York to New Mexico, residents in a number of states can expect a leftward push for expanded health care coverage, gun control, education funding and legalized recreational marijuana as Democrats who gained new or stronger powers in the midterm elections seek to put their stamp on public policy. While Republicans remain in charge in more states, Democrats nearly doubled the number of places where they will wield a trifecta of power over the governor's office and both chambers of the state legislature. Democrats also broke up several Republican strongholds, forcing GOP lawmakers who have been cutting taxes and curbing union powers to deal with a new reality of a Democratic governor. All told, Democrats gained seats in 62 of the 99 state legislative chambers, according to data provided by the National Conference of State Legislatures (Nebraska is the lone state with a single legislature). Democrats also added seven new governorships. In New York, where a new Democratic-run Senate will provide the missing link in liberals' political power, the expansive agenda could go beyond guns, pot and health care to also include more protections for abortion rights and higher taxes on millionaires. "We will finally give New Yorkers the progressive leadership they have been demanding," said Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who stands to lead the Senate when the new session begins in January. The U.S. is a deeply divided nation politically, a fact reflected in a midterm vote that gave Democrats the U.S. House while adding to the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate. But within states, the overall outcome of the 2018 elections was a continued trend of one-party control - Democrats in some places, Republicans in others. FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, stands with Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul during an an election night watch party hosted by the New York State Democratic Committee in New York. Democrats who gained new or expanded powers in state elections are gearing up for a left-leaning push on gun control, universal health care and legal marijuana. Meanwhile, some Republican legislatures that have cut taxes and limited union powers are adjusting to a new reality of needing to work with a Democratic governor. The midterm elections Tuesday, Nov. 6, increased Democratic relevance in state capitols that have been dominated by Republicans during the past decade. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File) For the first time since 1914, there will be only one state - Minnesota - with its two legislative chambers led by different parties. If Republican gubernatorial candidates maintain their slim leads in Florida and Georgia, Republicans will hold full control over the governor's office and legislative chambers in 22 states compared with 14 for Democrats. Just 13 states will have a split partisan control between the governor's office and legislature, nearly matching the 60-year low point set in 2012. There also has been a decrease in ticket-splitting between governors and state attorneys general, with the number of such divisions expected to decline from 12 to 10 as a result of Tuesday's elections. "This is the most hyper-polarized, hyper-partisan time we've see in generations, and nobody can deny that," said Illinois state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, a Democrat who is president of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Illinois is one of a half-dozen states where Tuesday's election put Democrats in control of the governor's office and legislature. Democrat J.B. Pritzker, who ousted Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, wants to legalize and tax recreational marijuana. He also has promised to push for a constitutional amendment to replace Illinois' flat income tax system with a progressive one that requires the wealthy to pay a greater share. Democrats also are planning aggressive agendas in other states where they expanded their political power: - Nevada is expected to pass a ban on bump stocks on guns as the state Legislature meets for the first time since the October 2017 mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. Democrats also will be pushing to spend more on education, expand Medicaid coverage, raise the minimum wage and require employers to provide paid sick leave. - In New Mexico, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth said minimum wage and teacher pay increases will be at the top of the agenda. Democrats also could overhaul the state's approach to climate change, gun control and marijuana. - In Colorado, Democrats are planning a renewed push to expand health coverage, adopt gun controls, boost public education funding and enhance environmental protections. - In Maine, new Democratic Gov.-elect and Attorney General Janet Mills has vowed to finally expand Medicaid. Voters demanded that in a 2017 referendum, but the effort has been slowed by departing Republican Gov. Paul LePage. The states shifting to Democratic dominance can look to New Jersey, which held its governor's election in 2017 and replaced a Republican with a Democrat. With the Legislature already controlled by Democrats, the state promptly tightened gun regulations, passed a paid sick-leave requirement and restored funding to Planned Parenthood. But it hasn't been like Christmas every day for liberals. It took a last-day deal before the budget expired over the summer to avoid a state government shutdown as Democrats disagreed over which taxes to raise. Lawmakers have missed their own deadlines on legalizing marijuana for adults, and some advocates are upset the state has not moved faster to boost the minimum wage. New Jersey state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a Democrat who's been in the legislature since 1992, said there's a big difference in legislative debates when there's one-party control. "It is more about details than the broader principles," she said. Some states that became accustomed to Republican control over the past decade also will be making adjustments. In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers have been privately discussing ways they could limit the rule-making powers of Democratic Gov.-elect Tony Evers, who narrowly defeated Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said they are looking at reconstituting boards to make sure they have equal representation. North Carolina's Republican-led Legislature did something similar after Democrat Roy Cooper won the governor's race in 2016. But Cooper successfully sued over a law weakening his influence over the state elections board. In Kansas, Democrat Laura Kelly's election as governor immediately recasts the debate over several big fiscal issues. She supports expanding the state's Medicaid health coverage as encouraged by the Affordable Care Act. While bipartisan backing for that has grown, supporters had not achieved the legislative supermajorities that would have been needed to overcome the opposition of Republican Govs. Sam Brownback and Jeff Colyer. Kelly also is pledging to reinstate an executive order barring anti-LGBT bias in state hiring and employment decisions, something Brownback rescinded in 2015. In Michigan, Democratic Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer broke a Republican trifecta while campaigning to "fix the damn roads" and replace aging water pipes with a multibillion-dollar infrastructure plan. But tax increases or increased borrowing could be a tough sell in the Legislature, which remains under Republican control. The next Senate majority leader, Republican Sen. Mike Shirkey, signaled that he would oppose raising Michigan's corporate income tax and said he would fight any attempt to repeal Michigan's right-to-work laws "with every ounce of my body." Republicans who control the Minnesota state Senate said they will fight Democratic Gov.-elect Tim Walz if he follows through with a proposal to raise the gas tax to pay for infrastructure improvements. A number of states have taken that step in recent years to fund road repairs. That includes states where Republicans control the legislature and governor's office, including Indiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Split power at the Minnesota Legislature also could lead to gridlock on the top issue from the election - health care. Walz campaigned on expanding one of the state's low-income health care programs to offer a public option, but Senate Republicans have shot that down as an unworkable government takeover of health care. ___ Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri, and Mulvihill from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. AP reporters Jim Anderson in Denver; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; David Klepper in Albany, New York; Morgan Lee in Albuquerque, New Mexico; John O'Connor in Springfield, Illinois; Kyle Potter in St. Paul, Minnesota; Michelle Price in Las Vegas; and Marina Villeneuve in Augusta, Maine, contributed to this report. ___ Follow Lieb at http://www.twitter.com/davidalieb and Mulvihill at http://www.twitter.com/geoffmulvihill FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, Democratic gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker, right, and his running mate Lt. Governor candidate Juliana Stratton celebrate as they wave to supporters after they won over Republican incumbent Bruce Rauner in Chicago. Democrats who gained new or expanded powers in state elections are gearing up for a left-leaning push on gun control, universal health care and legal marijuana. Meanwhile, some Republican legislatures that have cut taxes and limited union powers are adjusting to a new reality of needing to work with a Democratic governor. The midterm elections Tuesday, Nov. 6, increased Democratic relevance in state capitols that have been dominated by Republicans during the past decade. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File) DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Australian member of parliament Julie Bishop has spoken out against "hard-edged unilateralism" from the United States as she called on world leaders to think about the long-term consequences of rising populism and protectionism. Speaking at a World Economic Forum meeting in Dubai on Sunday, the former Australian foreign minister said she supports reforming the current international system rather replacing it for short-term political gains. "I don't believe there's a model on the table that can replace it, but we have to take into account the changing power structures and relativities to ensure that order can be resilient and continue," she said. Her comments come as President Donald Trump declares himself a "nationalist" and advocates an "America First" policy that's rattled U.S. allies by raising tariffs and tearing up trade agreements. Australian MP Julie Bishop takes part at the opening panel of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. More than 700 delegates are attending which is the precursor to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, 22-25 January 2019. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) Australian MP Julie Bishop talks at the opening panel of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. More than 700 delegates are attending which is the precursor to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, 22-25 January 2019. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) Australian MP Julie Bishop talks at the opening panel of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. More than 700 delegates are attending which is the precursor to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, 22-25 January 2019. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) Australian MP Julie Bishop, right, listens to former U.S. diplomat William Joseph Burns at the opening panel of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. More than 700 delegates are attending which is the precursor to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, 22-25 January 2019. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) Australian MP Julie Bishop takes part at the opening panel of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. More than 700 delegates are attending which is the precursor to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, 22-25 January 2019. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Most of the time, gondoliers row slowly and sing softly. It's all very peaceful. But for one weekend, they row like mad, scream at each other (sometimes in Italian), and it's complete chaos. That's how Greg Mohr describes the U.S. Gondola Nationals, a convention for the small community of U.S. gondoliers. The nationals were held Friday-Sunday on the Providence River and featured a variety of events including solo and tandem races on sprint, distance and slalom courses. Mohr, a gondolier from Newport Beach, California, traveled to Rhode Island to compete. Known as "Gondola Greg," Mohr often yells "forte," or "strong" in Italian, when racing, and "alla morte" when he wants to row to the death at the finish. "I love nationals and it is because you get to be among a whole bunch of people who are just as weird as you are," said Mohr, who also operates gondolas in Irving, Texas. Matthew "Marcello" Haynes, owner of La Gondola Providence, held the first U.S. Gondola Nationals in Providence in 2012. A gondolier who attended was inspired to hold the convention the following year in Huntington Beach, California, and it turned into an annual gathering. Along with Providence and Huntington Beach, gondoliers have gathered in Newport Beach and Stillwater, Minnesota. Michael Angelo Ruffino, of Huntington Beach, Calif., front, prepares to take part in the 2.6-mile tandem race in the U.S. Gondola Nationals, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, on the Providence River, in Providence, R.I. About 30 Venetian-style gondoliers from across the nation are competing in the U.S. Gondola Nationals that includes single and tandem races for sprint, distance and slalom courses. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) "It's going great," Haynes said during a telephone interview as the event was winding down Sunday, though he noted that windy conditions and unseasonably cold temperatures probably kept crowds along the river a little smaller than what organizers had hoped. "We did have a number of fans and I was pretty thrilled about that," he added. There are 100 gondoliers nationwide, at most, Haynes estimates. About 30 were competing in Providence and others were attending for fun. Not everyone stayed dry during the Venetian style rowing events. Gusty winds blew Haynes' brother, Alexander Haynes, a bit off course Saturday, and as he struggled to keep his boat from hitting a wall, he lost his footing and ended up waist deep in the chilly waters. Though a bit damp, he managed to recover and row back. "You want to leave it all on the water, not in the water," Alexander Haynes said. "But hey ... this is the first time I have gone into the water during the competition." Gondoliers don't sing during the races, but they did showcase their serenading skills at social events throughout the weekend. Marcello Haynes, who was last year's slalom champion, described himself as passionate about gondola history and culture and hoped to inspire others to open similar businesses. ____ Associated Press writer Bob Salsberg in Boston contributed to this report. Gondoliers Kalev Pallares, left, of Newport Beach, Calif., and Adam Alves, right, of Bristol, R.I. compete in the 2.6-mile tandem race in the U.S. Gondola Nationals, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, on the Providence River, in Providence, R.I. About 30 Venetian-style gondoliers from across the nation are competing in the U.S. Gondola Nationals that includes single and tandem races for sprint, distance and slalom courses. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Gondoliers Alex Haynes, left, of Providence, R.I., and his brother Matthew Haynes, second from left, of Foster, R.I., compete with gondoliers Michael Angelo Ruffino, second from right, of Huntington Beach, Calif., and Parker Harrison, right, of Newport Beach, Calif., during the 2.6 mile-tandem race in the U.S. Gondola Nationals, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, on the Providence River, in Providence, R.I. About 30 Venetian-style gondoliers from across the nation are competing in the U.S. Gondola Nationals that includes single and tandem races for sprint, distance and slalom courses. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Gondoliers Parker Harrison, left, of Newport Beach, Calif, and Michael Angelo Ruffino, right, of Huntington Beach, Calif., paddle during the 2.6-mile tandem race in the U.S. Gondola Nationals, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, on the Providence River, in Providence, R.I. About 30 Venetian-style gondoliers from across the nation are competing in the U.S. Gondola Nationals that includes single and tandem races for sprint, distance and slalom courses. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Gondoliers Parker Harrison, front right, of Newport Beach, Calif., and Alex Haynes, bahind left, of Providence, R.I., paddle during the 2.6-mile tandem race in the U.S. Gondola Nationals, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, on the Providence River, in Providence, R.I. About 30 Venetian-style gondoliers from across the nation are competing in the U.S. Gondola Nationals that includes single and tandem races for sprint, distance and slalom courses. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Gondolier Simon Atkins, of Newport Beach, Calif., top, attaches a camera to a gondola that features a painting of the Grand Canal, in Venice, Italy, front, at the U.S. Gondola Nationals, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, on the Providence River, in Providence, R.I. About 30 Venetian-style gondoliers from across the nation are competing in the U.S. Gondola Nationals that includes single and tandem races for sprint, distance and slalom courses. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) SANAA, Yemen (AP) - Street battles raged on Sunday in several areas of Yemen's contested port city of Hodeida, where a U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition is trying to drive out Iran-backed Shiite rebels, officials said. They say airstrikes from warplanes and Apache attack helicopters shook residential neighborhoods throughout the day, while ground forces clashed around the university in the city's south, as well as al-Thawra and May 22 hospitals to the east. Residents said they heard heavy gunfire and saw smoke rising from both areas, with several military vehicles on fire near the university. Intense fighting around al-Thawra Hospital blocked access to it for hours, while rebels retook the May 22 hospital after it fell briefly to the coalition, they said. Photos of damaged hospital buildings have been circulating on social media. Closer to the port facilities, the gateway for vital humanitarian aid, rebel gunmen occupied one the country's largest flour mills and posted fighters on its rooftop, one official added. He said efforts are ongoing to evacuate workers inside the site he feared could now be targeted by airstrikes. Medical officials in the southern port city of Aden, a coalition stronghold, say some public hospitals there have reached capacity from a steady flow of war wounded from contested fronts across Yemen, and are refusing to accept new patients except for some civilians with critical wounds. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to brief reporters, while the residents did so for fear over their safety. FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2017 file photo, Houthi Shiite rebels inspect the rubble of the Republican Palace that was destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes, in Sanaa, Yemen. Airstrikes by Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen are on a pace to kill more civilians in 2018 than last year despite US claims that the coalition is working to prevent such bloodshed, a database tracking violence shows. The war, nearly four years old, may have killed as many as 80,000 people, according to the figures. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File) The conflict in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by the rebels, known as Houthis, who toppled the internationally recognized government. A Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015 in an attempt to restore the mostly exiled government to power. The war has killed an estimated 10,000 people, and left around two thirds of Yemen's population of 27 million relying on aid, with more than 8 million at risk of starvation. Doctors have reported several civilians including children killed since the latest offensive on Hodeida began on November 1, shortly after the U.S. called for a cease-fire by the end of the month. ___ Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report FILE - In this Aug. 25, 2018 file image made from video, a severely malnourished seven-year-old Amal Hussein - whose name means "hope" in Arabic, is weighed at the Aslam Health Center in Hajjah, Yemen. On Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018, Geert Cappelaere called the situation a "living hell" for all Yemeni children, noting the death of Amal a child whose emaciated body gained attention on the front page of the New York Times last week. In a speech delivered in Amman Cappelaere said, "There is not one Amal - there are many thousands of Amals." (AP Photo/Hammadi Issa, File) LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AP) - Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba is recovering from an undisclosed illness in Saudi Arabia and still performing his duties, according to a statement released Sunday amid mounting speculation about his health. The issue is a particularly sensitive one in the Central African nation. When Bongo's father died in 2009 after more than four decades in power, Gabonese officials angrily denied French media reports of his death for almost a day, and shut down the internet in the country for several hours. The statement said that Ali Bongo was suffering dizziness at his hotel in Riyad, Saudi Arabia on Oct. 24 when he sought medical care at King Faysal Hospital. The information about the president's health is "extremely reassuring" and the president "continues to perform his duties," the presidency said. The communique came amid a swirl of rumors over the president's health back home in the Central African nation. Some media reports suggested that Bongo had suffered a stroke, though government spokesman Ike Ngouoni cautioned people about "fake news." "It would be in his interest entirely to make his presence. I think they're not putting him in front of the cameras intentionally," said Douglas A. Yates, a Paris-based Gabon expert. One of the world's largest producers of oil, Gabon's wealth is far from evenly distributed. About a third of the population, estimated to be below 2 million people, live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. The elder Bongo, who ruled the oil-rich nation from 1967 until his 2009 death, was viewed by many as the father of the nation. His time in power, though, was dogged by allegations of corruption and the use of oil profits for personal luxuries, including properties in several European and American cities, and lavish trips abroad. Ali Bongo won a special presidential election that was held a few months after his father's death. The opposition claimed it was rigged. In 2016, protesters took to the streets of the capital, Libreville, and the Parliament building was burned after Bongo's opponent, Jean Ping, accused Bongo of vote-rigging. The European Union, the United States, and France also expressed concerns about some of the results. Gabon's constitutional court later upheld Bongo's victory. ___ Nierenberg reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Krista Larson also contributed to this report. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The Latest on the Florida election recount (all times local): 8 p.m. The Democratic candidate for Florida governor, Andrew Gillum, has told an overflow crowd at an African-American church that voter disenfranchisement isn't just about being blocked from the polling booth. Gillum said Sunday evening that disenfranchisement also includes absentee ballots not being counted and ballots where "a volunteer may have the option of looking at that ballot and deciding that vote is null and void" because of a mismatched signature. Gillum warned against vote suppression at the close of a day of mishaps, protests and litigation overshadowing the vote recounting in the pivotal races for governor and the U.S. Senate. Gillum has argued each vote should be counted and the process should take its course. Unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Gillum the Tallahassee mayor, by less than 0.5 percentage points. In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 percentage points. Mayor Andrew Gillum addresses supporters and urges that they keep politically engaged as the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office have five days to recount cast votes over an entire month leading up to Tuesday's midterm election. Gillum held a faith-based recount rally inside New Mount Olive Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP) ____ 6:15 p.m The recount of Florida's razor-thin Senate and gubernatorial races is off to a bumpy start with some mishaps and litigation, bringing back memories of the 2000 presidential fiasco. Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Senate, filed suit on Sunday against Brenda Snipes as Broward County's election supervisor. The suit asks a circuit court judge to order law enforcement agents to impound and secure the county's voting machines, tallying devices and ballots "when not in use until such time as any recounts." The lawsuit says Snipes has failed to account for the number of ballots left to be counted and failed to report results regularly as required by law. The county is emerging as the epicenter of controversy in the recount. The Florida secretary of state ordered the recounts to be completed by Thursday in all 67 Florida counties. Unofficial results in the governor's race show Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points. In the Senate race, Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 percentage points. ___ 2:30 p.m. Delays and some mishaps have marked the start of the recount in Florida's razor-thin Senate and gubernatorial races. The start of the recount in Florida's Democratic-leaning Broward County was delayed Sunday because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. The Republican Party attacked Broward's supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, of "incompetence and gross mismanagement" following the delay, which was resolved within two hours. The county, the state's second-most populous, is emerging as the epicenter of controversy in the recount. Broward officials said they mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected, mostly because the signature on the return envelope did not match the one on file. It is a problem that appears impossible to fix because the ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots. Snipes said it would be unfair to throw out all the ballots. ___ 11:40 a.m. The recounting of Senate and gubernatorial ballots is underway in Florida's second most-populous county after it fixed problems with its machines. Broward County began counting about 700,000 ballots Sunday after a more than two-hour delay caused by a tested machine that wasn't registering all ballots. Republican representatives asked that all machines be retested and county officials agreed. The heavily Democratic county is one of two where Republicans have made allegations of possible ballot fraud. State elections and law enforcement officials say they have seen no evidence suggesting the allegations are true. The Florida secretary of state ordered the recounts Saturday. The count must be completed by Thursday. Unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points. In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 percentage points. ___ 9:40 a.m. The recounting of Senate and gubernatorial ballots has been delayed in Florida's second most-populous county because of problems with the machines. Broward County is scheduled to begin counting about 700,000 ballots Sunday morning, but a tested machine wasn't registering all ballots. Republican representatives asked that all machines be retested and county officials agreed. The heavily Democratic county is one of two where Republicans have made allegations of possible ballot fraud. State elections and law enforcement officials say they have seen no evidence suggesting the allegations are true. The Florida secretary of state ordered the recounts Saturday. The count must be completed by Thursday. Unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points. In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 percentage points. ___ 12:05 a.m. Elections workers are beginning to recount ballots in Florida's U.S. Senate and governor races under a state-ordered review of the two nationally watched races. Miami-Dade County election officials began feeding ballots into scanning machines Saturday evening, among the first in Florida's 67 counties tasked with a Nov. 15 deadline to submit vote counts to the state. The Florida secretary of state ordered the recounts Saturday. Unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points. In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 percentage points. Protestor Jeremy Gallagher, 34, of Fort Lauderdale, holds his sign as many gathered outside the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office during the statewide election recount which is underway while ballots for governor, Senate, Agricultural Commission were run through scanning machines in Broward for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties and the campaigns on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP) Crowd of protestors gather outside the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office as the statewide election recount is underway while ballots for governor, Senate, Agricultural Commission were run through scanning machines in Broward for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties and the campaigns on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP) Protesters are seen Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) Crowd of protestors gather outside the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office as the statewide election recount is underway while ballots for governor, Senate, Agricultural Commission were run through scanning machines in Broward for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties and the campaigns on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP) Crowd of protestors gather outside the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office as the statewide election recount is underway while ballots for governor, Senate, Agricultural Commission were run through scanning machines in Broward for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties and the campaigns on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP) Crowd of protestors gather outside the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office as the statewide election recount is underway while ballots for governor, Senate, Agricultural Commission were run through scanning machines in Broward for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties and the campaigns on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP) Election workers place ballots into electronic counting machines, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla. The Florida recount begin Sunday morning in Broward County.(Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) Election workers place ballots into electronic counting machines, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla. The Florida recount begin Sunday morning in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) Protesters call for the resignation of Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla where the Florida recount began. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) Protesters call for the resignation of Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla., where the Florida recount began. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, left, and judge Betsy Benson of the election canvassing board, listen to arguments, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla. The Florida recount began Sunday morning. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) Election workers place ballots into electronic counting machines, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla. The Florida recount begin Sunday morning in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) Broward Supervisor of Elections Joe D'Alesandro, right, shows voting materials to campaign representatives, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) Election workers sort ballots, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill, Fla. The Florida recount began Sunday morning in Broward County. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) Protesters who refuse to give their names, chant outside of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office during a recount on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) Protesters gather outside of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office during a recount on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) Mayor Andrew Gillum gets a standing ovation while addressing supporters and urging that they keep politically engaged as the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office have only five days to recount cast votes over an entire month leading up to Tuesday's midterm election. Gillum held a faith-based recount rally inside New Mount Olive Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP) LISBON, Portugal (AP) - An Air Astana plane with six crew on board and no passengers declared an emergency over Portugal on Sunday after experiencing problems with its command and control system but landed safely just over an hour later, a senior Portuguese Air Force officer said. Lt. Gen. Manuel Costa told The Associated Press the plane, made by Brazilian manufacturer Embraer, landed at Beja air base, about 180 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Lisbon, on Sunday afternoon. He said nobody was hurt in the incident, though the plane was unable to land on its first attempt at Beja. Two Portuguese Air Force F-16s were scrambled to accompany the plane while authorities initially evaluated how to handle the emergency, he said. Air Astana is the flag carrier of Kazakhstan. The plane can seat around 100 people. Portuguese media reports said the plane was in Portugal for maintenance work and took off around 1430 GMT from an airfield at Alverca, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) northwest of the capital Lisbon. SRINAGAR, India (AP) - Two Indian soldiers were killed when Pakistani soldiers fired along the highly militarized de facto frontier that divides the disputed region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the Indian army said Sunday. Pakistani soldiers on Sunday targeted a forward post in Rajouri sector along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir between the two rivals, said Lt. Col. Devender Anand, an Indian army spokesman. He said a soldier was killed after getting hit by sniper fire. On Saturday, another Indian soldier was killed when he was hit by a sniper in Sunderbani sector, Anand said. Anand called the two incidents a "blatant violation" of the 2003 cease-fire accord between India and Pakistan. In a statement late Sunday, India's military said its soldiers "retaliated strongly and effectively." Pakistan did not immediately comment. Family members and villagers grieve during the cremation ceremony of an Indian Army soldier Varun Katal in village Mawa in Samba district, 62 kilometers (51 miles) from Jammu, India, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. An Indian soldier was killed when Pakistani soldiers fired at Indian positions along the highly militarized frontier in disputed Kashmir on Saturday, Indian military said. (AP Photo/Channi Anand) In the past, each side has accused the other of starting the hostilities along the along the rugged and mountainous Line of Control, as well as a lower-altitude 200-kilometer (125-mile) somewhat defined portion of boundary separating Indian-controlled Kashmir and the Pakistani province of Punjab. The fighting has become a predictable cycle of violence as the region convulses with decades-old animosities over Kashmir, where rebel groups demand that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country. Family members and villagers grieve and console each other as the body an Indian Army soldier Varun Katal is brought to his house before the cremation in village Mawa in Samba district, 62 kilometers (51 miles) from Jammu, India, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. An Indian soldier was killed when Pakistani soldiers fired at Indian positions along the highly militarized frontier in disputed Kashmir on Saturday, Indian military said. (AP Photo/Channi Anand) PARADISE, Calif. (AP) - The Latest on the California wildfires (all times local): 2:05 p.m. Actor Gerard Butler and Camille Grammer Meyer of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" are among the celebrities whose homes have been damaged or destroyed in a Southern California wildfire. Butler said on Instagram that his Malibu home is "half-gone," and shared a photo of himself standing in front of a burned-out section of the house and a badly burned vehicle. Meyer's publicist Howard Bragman confirms that her house in Malibu was destroyed Saturday night. He says she's grateful to have safely evacuated with her family, is appreciative of firefighters who have risked their lives fighting the blaze, and is grateful to the love and concern shown for her. Alyssa Milano, Lady Gaga, Martin Sheen and Kim Kardashian West are among those who have evacuated from the wildfire that has destroyed at least 177 homes and left two people dead since it broke out Thursday. Firefighters take pictures of fire retardant dropped on a burning hillside Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) ___ 2 p.m. Lisa Jordan was driving down from Seattle to search for her uncle, Nick Clark and his wife Anne Clark, who are missing. Jordan said two shelters told her that evacuees were coming in so fast that officials there couldn't keep up with a roster and were instead directing inquiries about loved ones to a Red Cross database. "We figured it's better to drive down and look for them," Jordan said in a telephone interview Sunday after crossing into California on her roughly 700-mile (1,000-kilometer) drive. "I heard on Twitter that all the shelters within a 75-mile (120-kilometer) are full." Jordan said her aunt suffers from multiple sclerosis and is unable to walk, and that it is unknown if they were able to evacuate from their home in Paradise. ___ 1:55 p.m. Union officials say at least 39 firefighters lost their homes as they tried to protect thousands of others from two deadly California wildfires. International Association of Fire Fighters state service representative Tim Aboudara said Sunday that dozens of other firefighters' homes likely also burned. Officials have confirmed that 36 firefighters' homes were among thousands destroyed in Northern California, most when the Sierra Foothills city of Paradise was leveled. Three are confirmed lost in a Southern California blaze south of Simi Valley. The confirmed losses affect more than 110 family members and 75 pets. But all are believed to have escaped with their lives. Most worked for the state's firefighting agency, but some for the city of Chico and one who commuted to the San Francisco Bay Area. ___ 1:15 p.m. The Northern California sheriff overseeing search and rescue in a deadly wildfire says he feels guilty and blessed that his family is safe while others are mourning the loss of homes and family. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a press briefing Sunday that he is personally invested in anguished searches for missing family, including many who are frail and older. Honea said he would update numbers on the dead, which was 23 as of Saturday, later Sunday. The Camp Fire is the third-deadliest fire on record in California and the death toll appeared likely to rise. Relatives are trying to locate more than 100 people who are missing. Honea said investigators can't reach neighborhoods where there is active fire or downed power ___ 12:05 p.m. Sol Bechtold is driving shelter to shelter searching for his 75-year-old mother, who remains missing after her house burned down in Magalia, just north of Paradise, in Northern California. Bechtold made a flyer with a photo of his mother, Joanne Caddy, which he posted on social media and was pinning to bulletin boards at shelters, and showing to displaced people there. He found some of her neighbors, but they had not seen Caddy since the fire. Most had been working when the fire hit last week, and were unable to make it back to their neighborhood because roads were closed amid the advancing flames, Bechtold said in a telephone interview. Caddy and her husband had moved to Magalia, a former gold-mining camp, from Fremont, California, in the Bay Area, 30 years ago. ___ 11:55 a.m. A mobile home community has suffered significant destruction from Southern California's huge wildfire. News helicopters have shown extensive devastation in Seminole Springs, which is nestled by a lake in the rugged Santa Monica Mountains north of Malibu. Resident Lisa Kin says Sunday that when she smelled the fire she grabbed her dog Gidget and fled, and has since spent two nights at an evacuation center. Kin says she fears the worst for her community, a mix of families and older people. ___ 11:40 a.m. The body of woman who died in the massive Northern California wildfire was found in bed in a burned house in Concow. A family friend said Ellen Walker, who was in her 70s, was sick and home alone when the fire began Thursday morning. Nancy Breeding said Walker's husband Lon was at work and had called a neighbor to knock on the door to get his wife to evacuate, but it's unclear whether she was alert at the time. Breeding said Walker's family had assumed she escaped the inferno until authorities confirmed her death late Friday. ___ 11:15 a.m. A celebrated 132-year-old Gold Rush-era wooden footbridge in Butte County is among the losses from a devastating Northern California wildfire. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the 238-foot (73-meter) Honey Run Covered Bridge near Chico was leveled in the in the fire that ripped through the area late Thursday. All that's left are charred wooden beams, rippled sheet metal and red steel beams protruding from concrete. The newspaper says it is the only three-span truss bridge of its kind in the United States. It was the backdrop for countless wedding and other celebration photos over the years and in recent years had been used for movie nights. The Honey Run Covered Bridge was listed on the Register of Historic Places and even had its own association to look after it. ___ 11:05 a.m. A Northern California newspaper is among those searching for missing people in the wake of a deadly wildfire that started Thursday. David Little, who is editor of the Chico Enterprise-Record and Oroville Mercury-Register, says they hope to hear from employees Dan Sloane and Sarah Release. Sloane is a press operator who was scheduled to work Saturday but did not show. Sloane lives in Magalia, which is one of the places hit hard in Butte County. Release works in classified ads and lives in Paradise, which was decimated by the Camp Fire. Little says the publisher heard Sunday from friends of a second press operator who also lives in Magalia. The operator is safe. Little says he hopes the employees are safe and hunkered down somewhere. ___ 11:00 a.m. A member of the Malibu City Council has been injured by the huge wildfire burning in Southern California. Councilman Skylar Peak said Sunday that colleague Jefferson "Zuma Jay" Wagner suffered burns trying to save his home, which burned down. Peak says Wagner is hospitalized down the coast in Santa Monica and is expected to recover. Wagner runs Zuma Jay Surfboards, a longtime fixture on Pacific Coast Highway near the landmark Malibu Pier. ___ 10:18 a.m. Strong Santa Ana winds have returned to Southern California, fanning a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended Sunday morning and authorities warn that the gusts will continue through Tuesday. Fire officials say the lull allowed firefighters to gain 10 percent control of the so-called Woolsey fire, which has burned more than 130 square miles in western Los Angeles County and southeastern Ventura County since Thursday. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby says that means 90 percent of the fire lines are uncontained and there are numerous hotspots and plenty of fuel that has not burned. Huge plumes of smoke are rising again in the fire area, which stretches miles from the northwest corner of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley to the Malibu coast. ___ 10:10 a.m. Relatives are desperately trying to locate more than 100 people who are missing after a wildfire destroyed the town of Paradise in Northern California. Laurie Teague has been looking for her 80-year-old stepfather for days. Teague has called two hospitals in the area in her search for Herb Alderman, but there was no sign of him. She called a third hospital but learned it had been destroyed in the fire after all patients were evacuated. She even called the coroner's office. After answering the phone on the first ring, Teague told a reporter she hopes a friend picked up her stepfather and took him to a shelter. However, Teague's brother has checked several shelters, and not found him. She said it's been tough doing the search but is still holding out hope. ___ 9:50 a.m. A parking lot in Paradise, California, is a staging area for hearses as search teams try to find the bodies of casualties from a devastating wildfire. Authorities called in a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify the dead as the search went on for victims of the most destructive wildfire in California history. The death toll stood at 23 Sunday and appeared likely to climb. The hearses are waiting for calls from the forensic teams searching for bodies. California Gov. Jerry Brown is requesting a "major disaster declaration" from the president for the wildfires burning at both ends of the state. Two people died in Southern California fires. ___ 9:45 a.m. Chico police are searching for a man who stole a firefighter's uniform shirt and then tried to sneak into his hotel room. California Highway Patrol Lt. Denis Ford said Saturday that the thief broke into a marked fire department pickup truck from one of the numerous agencies fighting the fire that devastated the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Paradise this week. He stole items including the uniform shirt marked with the firefighter's last name Saturday. The thief then wore the uniform shirt as he tried to talk a Chico hotel clerk into letting him into the firefighter's room, using the last name. But Ford said the clerk grew suspicious in part because he couldn't fully identify himself and he fled without being arrested. ___ 9:30 a.m. Authorities say more than 8,000 firefighters are battling three large wildfires at both ends of California that have destroyed thousands of structures and killed 25. About 397 square miles (795 square kilometers) of California is burning with the Camp Fire in Northern California's Butte County being the largest. The Camp Fire has killed 23 and is the third-deadliest wildfire on record in California. The Woolsey Fire in Southern California has hit hard celebrity-studded Malibu as well as the city of Thousand Oaks, which was the site of a deadly shooting at a country music bar last week. Weather conditions for fires are ripe, with strong winds continuing through Sunday in Northern California and through Tuesday in Southern California. Firefighters from out of state continue to arrive to help. ___ 9:20 a.m. The wind-driven fire that ripped through the Northern California town of Paradise this week did not make a similar overnight run Sunday on the towns north east of Oroville as officials had feared it might. "It definitely grew and it definitely grew in those areas," said fire Capt. Bill Murphy, a spokesman for California's firefighting agency. "It didn't grow as much as we thought it potentially could based on the weather forecasts, but the wind will continue ... so that potential still exists." High, gusty winds predicted from Sunday into Monday morning mean another 24 hours of "red flag" conditions that could spark "explosive fire behavior" of the sort that leveled Paradise and other Sierra Foothill communities Thursday, he said. That first chaotic day, the fire spread about 20 miles, from the tiny town of Pulga west to the edge of Chico. The overall death toll from the outbreak of fires across California stood at 25 Sunday and appeared likely to rise. ___ 9 a.m. California Gov. Jerry Brown is requesting a "major disaster declaration" from the president for the wildfires burning at both ends of the state. His office said in a statement Sunday that the declaration would bolster ongoing emergency assistance and help residents recover from fires burning in Butte, Los Angeles and Ventura counties. If granted, the declaration would make individuals eligible for crisis counseling, housing and unemployment help, and legal aid. The Camp Fire in Northern California's Butte County has killed 23 people and is the third-deadliest on record in the state. The overall death toll from the outbreak of fires in California stood at 25 Sunday and appeared likely to rise. ___ 8:30 a.m. Conditions for firefighting in Southern California were favorable overnight and progress was made, but that's expected to change. Cal Fire Battalion Chief Lucas Spelman says firefighters have achieved 10 percent containment of the largest of two fires in the region. Forecasters, however, say the calm conditions will give way sometime Sunday morning to a new and prolonged round of Santa Ana winds, the withering gusts that blow out of the interior toward the coast. The count of lost structures in both fires has reached 179, but that's expected to rise as damage assessments continue. ___ 7:40 a.m. Firefighters battling the third-deadliest wildfire in California record fended off strong winds overnight and increased their handle on the blaze. California fire spokesman David Clark said Sunday that the Camp Fire grew slightly to 170 square miles (440 square kilometers), from 164 square miles (425 square kilometers) Saturday night. It is now 25 percent contained, up from 20 percent Saturday. Clark says crews are at a "pivotal point" and that high winds and dry conditions similar to when the fire started Thursday are expected for the next 24 hours. The fire has destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, nearly all of them homes, and killed 23 people. A pair of fires burning in Southern California has killed two and 250,000 remain under evacuation orders. ___ 7:30 a.m. Authorities called in a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify the dead as the search went on for victims of the most destructive wildfire in California history. The death toll stood at 23 Sunday and appeared likely to climb. With the town of Paradise reduced to a smoking ruin and the fire still raging in surrounding communities, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the Northern California county was bringing in a fifth search and recovery team. An anthropology team from California State University at Chico was also assisting, because in some cases "the only remains we are able to find are bones or bone fragments." The department compiled a list of 110 people unaccounted for, but officials held out hope that many were safe but had no cellphones or some other way to contact loved ones. A firefighter monitors a wildfire burning along a hillside Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Fire retardant is dropped on a burning hillside Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) A tattered flag flies over a burned out home at the Camp Fire, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) A statue sits unharmed in front of a home consumed by a wildfire Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) A home overlooking the Pacific Ocean is consumed by a wildfire Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) The Camp Fire burns along a ridgetop near Big Bend, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. Crews working to contain the blaze overnight faced deteriorating weather conditions according to CalFire as winds picked up and humidity dropped. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) MILWAUKEE (AP) - Pabst Brewing Company and MillerCoors are going to trial, with hipster favorite Pabst contending that MillerCoors wants to put it out of business by ending a longstanding partnership through which it brews Pabst's beers. The case has high stakes for Pabst, whose lawyers argue that the company's very existence relies on the partnership with Chicago-based MillerCoors, which produces, packages and ships nearly all its products, which include Pabst Blue Ribbon, Old Milwaukee, Natty Boh and Lone Star. MillerCoors, meanwhile, says it's not obligated to continue brewing for Pabst and that Pabst doesn't want to pay enough to justify doing so. The trial in Milwaukee County Circuit Court begins Monday and is scheduled through Nov. 30. Pabst's attorneys have said in court documents and hearings that MillerCoors LLC is lying about its brewing capacity to break away from Pabst and capture its share of the cheap beer market by disrupting Pabst's ability to compete. At a March hearing in which MillerCoors tried to have the lawsuit dismissed, Pabst attorney Adam Paris said "stunning documents" obtained from MillerCoors show that it went as far as hiring a consultant to "figure out ways to get rid of us." MillerCoors has called that a mischaracterization of the consultant's work. The 1999 agreement between MillerCoors and Pabst, which was founded in Milwaukee in 1844 but is now headquartered in Los Angeles, expires in 2020 but provides for two possible five-year extensions. The companies dispute how the extensions should be negotiated: MillerCoors argues that it has sole discretion to determine whether it can continue brewing for Pabst, whereas Pabst says the companies must work "in good faith" to find a solution if Pabst wants to extend the agreement but MillerCoors lacks the capacity. Pabst needs 4 million to 4.5 million barrels brewed annually and claims MillerCoors is its only option. It is seeking more than $400 million in damages and for MillerCoors to be ordered to honor its contract. In this photo taken on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018, cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon and Coors Light are stacked next to each other in a Milwaukee liquor store. Pabst Brewing Company and MillerCoors are heading to trial starting Monday, Nov. 12, to settle a contract dispute in which Pabst accuses the brewing giant of trying to undermine its competitor by breaking a contract to make their products. (AP Photo/Ivan Moreno) During 2015 negotiations about extending the contract, MillerCoors announced it would close its brewing facility in Eden, North Carolina, and that it eventually might have to shutter another facility in Irwindale, California. Pabst contends that MillerCoors refused to provide any information to substantiate its claim that it would no longer have the capacity to continue brewing Pabst's beers, and that it wouldn't consider leasing the Eden facility and would only sell it for an "astronomical" price. Pabst says MillerCoors wouldn't agree to an extension unless Pabst paid $45 per barrel - "a commercially devastating, near-triple price increase" from what it pays now. At the March hearing, Paris said MillerCoors knew Pabst couldn't accept that proposal "because it would have bankrupted us three times over." In court filings, MillersCoors said Pabst's proposals to keep the Eden facility open "were commercially unreasonable" and that Pabst sought "a windfall through litigation" instead of offering to pay enough to keep a facility open. It also said the facility's closing was "to ensure the longer-term sustainability" of MillerCoors because thousands of new brewers have entered the market over the past decade. MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch, which have the biggest U.S. market share at 24.8 percent and 41.6 percent, respectively, have been losing business to smaller independent brewers, imports, and wine and spirits in recent years, according to the Brewers Association. "The beer market has shifted and beer lovers are increasingly demanding more variety, fuller-flavor, and local products from small and independent producers," said Bart Watson, the Brewers Association's chief economist. Overall U.S. beer sales have declined, with shipments down from 213.1 million barrels in 2008 to 204.2 million in 2017, according to the Brewers Association. Pabst depends on MillerCoors because the only other U.S. brewer with capacity to make its products is Anheuser-Busch, which doesn't do contract brewing, Paris said. "It really is an existential issue for Pabst because it has no real alternatives," Paris said at the March hearing. Paris said the report from the consultant MillerCoors hired in 2013 proves the company never intended to act in good faith. Pabst's attorneys say the report had sections focused on how to "eliminate Pabst altogether" and noted that MillerCoors would need to close two breweries "to be sure they don't have excess capacity for contract manufacturing." MillerCoors' attorney, Eric Van Vugt, said in court that the company didn't rely on the consultant's report when it decided to close Eden or when it has contemplated closing the Irwindale brewery. "If we keep Irwindale open, yes, we can supply their beer," Van Vugt said. "No one disputes that. That's the only factor that we need to look at." ___ Ivan Moreno is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/1TrueIvan NEW YORK (AP) - In a history-making election, plenty of new and unexpected faces - many of them black and brown, many of them female - will now be taking their first steps into their congressional futures. For inspiration and example, the list of winners that includes Ayanna Pressley, Lucy McBath, Jahana Hayes, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and others might want to learn from the lessons of Shirley Chisholm, the Brooklyn, New York, native who made history 50 years ago as the first African-American woman elected to Congress. It was the start of a national political career in which Chisholm, who died in 2005, fearlessly and relentlessly stood up and spoke out for such causes as civil and women's rights and that included a run for president just four years after her first federal win. "We should be inspired by the fact that she always went up against the status quo," said Rep. Yvette Clarke, whose Brooklyn district now includes a portion of the area that Chisholm was elected to represent and who introduced a bill earlier this year calling for a statue of Chisholm to be placed at the U.S. Capitol. "She was able to assert a moral political direction that galvanized people across this nation." In the days before the November 1968 general election, there was a lot of conventional wisdom spouted about the issues Chisholm faced in her first congressional campaign. Her opponent, civil rights activist James Farmer, had a national reputation, while she was local. He had the endorsement of powerful politicians while she organized on the ground in her Brooklyn community. And he was a man. FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, Letitia James, D-NY, speaks to supporters after winning the New York Attorney General's race in New York. James, who made history that night as the first African-American woman elected to hold statewide New York office as the state attorney general, said the example set by the late Rep. Shirley Chisholm matters all this time later because "we're fighting for the same people who don't have a voice at the table." (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File) A newspaper headline about the race in the days before the election simply referred to her as "woman." But Chisholm won the race by a 2-1 margin. She didn't let the institutional power her campaign faced rattle her, said Zinga Fraser, professor and director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on women and activism at Brooklyn College. Instead, Chisholm went with a campaign theme of "unbought and unbossed" and reached out to build a coalition of black women and others who had been excluded from the power structure for their electoral support. It was the same approach she took in 1972, when she ran for president as a Democrat and became the first black major-party presidential candidate, competing in 12 state primaries and winning 28 delegates. Chisholm "called herself the people's candidate because she wanted to bring on a new way to think about democracy, and who was privileged and who had the audacity to run," Fraser said. "We all just take so much strength and inspiration from her, to walk in her footsteps," said Kimberly Peeler-Allen, co-founder of Higher Heights, an organization that promotes the political power of black women as voters and candidates. "How she led, how she had no fear of speaking truth to power." Hayes, a Democratic teacher and first-time candidate who becomes the first black woman that Connecticut has sent to Congress, even referenced Chisholm in her victory remarks Tuesday night, acknowledging the 50th anniversary of Chisholm's Nov. 5, 1968, election. Chisholm, born in Brooklyn to West Indian immigrant parents, was already the first black woman in the New York state Legislature when she decided to run for the seat representing the newly drawn 12th Congressional District, which included central Brooklyn neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights and had been created in a way that made it more likely Brooklyn would have its first black member of Congress. After winning the Democratic primary, she faced Farmer, nationally known co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality and leader of the 1961 Freedom Ride, who was endorsed by then-New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and other powerful politicians. Letitia James, the New York City public advocate who made history Tuesday as the first African-American woman elected to hold statewide New York office as the state attorney general, said Chisholm's example matters all these years later because "we're fighting for the same people who don't have a voice at the table." On Nov. 5, the 50th anniversary of Chisholm's congressional victory, Rep. Clarke and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who also represents some of what was Chisholm's district, announced legislation that if it passes would recognize Chisholm with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress. Lessons learned from Chisholm were clearly resonant for black women running for office this year, incumbents and challengers alike, those who won and those who didn't. Vanessa Enoch, 48, who ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the Ohio congressional seat once held by John Boehner that hasn't been out of Republican hands in decades, said she identified with Chisholm's determination to run, in spite of how obvious it was that the power structure had lined up behind her opponent. "I admire her courage, I admire her stamina to stick with the things that she believed in as she went into those places that were not welcoming to her, her wherewithal to continue to stand her ground and make sure her voice was not ignored," Enoch said. Chisholm left a legacy, she said, "that we don't allow the status quo to continue to be comfortable ignoring our voices and ignoring those things that concern us." ___ Deepti Hajela covers issues of race, ethnicity and immigration for The Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dhajela . For more of her work, search for her name at https://apnews.com . FILE - In this March 26, 1969, file photo, Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-N.Y., poses on the steps of the Capitol in Washington with material she plans to use in a speech before the House of Representatives. Fifty years have passed since the Brooklyn, N.Y. native made history on Nov. 5, 1968, as the first African-American woman elected to Congress. (AP Photo/Charles Gorry, File) FILE- In this March 3, 2009, file photo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, second left, joins members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Capitol Hill in Washington, for the unveiling of the portrait of the late Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-NY. The event marked the 40th anniversary of Congresswoman Chisholm's swearing in as a member of the House of Representatives. From left are Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Barbara Lee, D- Calif., Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., and Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File) FILE - In this Nov. 6, 1968, file photo Shirley Chisholm, D-NY, is surrounded by campaign workers in New York as she flashes the victory sign shortly after winning election to Congress. Chisholm was already the first black woman in the New York state Legislature when she decided to run for the seat representing the newly drawn 12th Congressional District, which included central Brooklyn neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights and had been created in such a way so as to make it more likely Brooklyn would have its first black member of Congress. (AP Photo/File) FILE - In this March 11, 1972, file photo, Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-NY, addresses a crowd of several hundred on the steps of the Jackson County court house in Marianna, Fla. Chisholm was stumping the panhandle of north Florida seeking votes in Florida's presidential primary. Running as a Democrat, Chisholm became the first black major-party presidential candidate, competing in 12 state primaries and winning 28 delegates. (AP Photo/Bill Hudson, File) FILE- In this Nov. 5, 1968, file photo, New York State assemblywoman Shirley Chisholm, D-NY, poses at voting booth in Bethany Methodist Church in the Brooklyn borough of New York. The Brooklyn, N.Y., native made history 50 years ago as the first African-American woman elected to Congress, starting what would become a national political career in which she fearlessly and relentlessly spoke out for causes like civil and women's rights and which included, four years after her first federal win, a run for president. (AP Photo/John Rooney, File) FILE - In this Feb. 15, 1972, file photo, Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-NY, addresses about 400 people in the gymnasium of the Cambridge Community Center, Cambridge, Mass., as she opened her campaign for the U.S. presidency. In a history-making campaign, Chisholm became the first black major-party presidential candidate, competing in 12 state primaries and winning 28 delegates. (AP Photo/Bill Chaplis, File) FILE - In this May 16, 1972, file photo, Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-NY, talks during a speech in San Francisco while campaigning for the U.S. Presidency. Reaching out to hose who had been marginalized in the power structure as she did in her congressional campaign, Chisholm became the nation's first black major-party presidential candidate, competing in 12 state primaries and winning 28 delegates. (AP Photo/ Richard Drew, File) NEW YORK (AP) - "Saturday Night Live" cast member Pete Davidson has apologized for mocking the appearance of a veteran who lost an eye in Afghanistan. He says Lt. Com. Dan Crenshaw, now a congressman-elect from Texas, "deserves all the respect in the world." On SNL's "Weekend Update" segment , Davidson was joined by Crenshaw, a Navy SEAL. Davidson had mocked Crenshaw a week earlier, saying viewers might be surprised he's "not a hit man in a porno movie." Crenshaw, a Republican who won a House seat Tuesday, took some joking shots at Davidson. And when his cell phone rang, the tone was "Breathin" by Ariana Grande, Davidson's former fiancee. Crenshaw got serious at the end, encouraging civilians and veterans to connect and paying tribute to heroes like Davidson's father, a firefighter who died on 9/11. Donations trickled in slowly during the pandemic, but the new bookstore run by the Hermosa Beach Friends of the Library looks to change that. BEIRUT (AP) - U.S.-backed Syrian fighters resumed their ground offensive Sunday against the Islamic State group in the last territories controlled by the extremists in eastern Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces said in a statement that the decision to resume the fighting came after threats from Turkey against the Kurdish-led force dropped due to diplomatic activities. The SDF said in late October it was temporarily suspending its campaign against IS in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, accusing Turkey of jeopardizing its efforts. The group said that the aim of the renewed operation that began two months ago is "to work for the final defeat of Daesh organization," using an Arab acronym to refer to the group. Turkey considers the SDF a terror threat and an extension of Kurdish rebels waging an insurgency within Turkey. U.S. support for the Kurdish-led forces has resulted in increased tension between Washington and Ankara. Last month, in a spike in tensions, Turkey said its military shelled Kurdish positions across the border in Syria, east of the Euphrates River. Since SDF suspended operations, IS has launched several offensives that have left scores of U.S.-backed fighters dead or wounded. Despite the cessation of ground operations, the U.S.-led coalition continued with its airstrikes against the extremist group. The SDF said its fighters captured a senior IS commander in the northern city of Raqqa which until last year was the de facto capital of the extremists. "This shows that the organization still has roots and sleeper cells in liberated areas," it said. WASHINGTON (AP) - Now that Democrats have captured control of the House for the next two years, the party's most senior members are poised to regain the wide-ranging power of committee chairmanships. While some of the Democrats have gained fame in feuds with President Donald Trump, others are relatively little-known outside of Capitol Hill. A look at the Democratic lawmakers expected to wield the gavels and shape the party's top priorities: ___ NITA LOWEY Appropriations Committee FILE - In this July 25, 2016, file photo, Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., speaks during the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) Lowey, 81, would be the first woman to oversee the committee that determines where the federal government spends its money. The New York Democrat, who represents the lower Hudson Valley, said the committee will seek to increase funding for infrastructure and for safety-net programs such as Head Start and Pell grants. The committee will also work to increase budget caps so lawmakers can avoid steep cuts to defense and nondefense programs. The committee can also conduct oversight of any Trump administration action that involves government funding, such as how much Cabinet members are spending on travel or how much it is costing the Pentagon to send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. ___ ADAM SCHIFF Intelligence Committee Schiff, 58, represents parts of Los Angeles, including Hollywood and Burbank. As the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, he has been one of Trump's favorite foils in Congress. Schiff has repeatedly criticized the House's Russia investigation, which his GOP colleagues conducted, saying it was inadequate. Now Schiff will get his chance to conduct his own targeted investigation into Trump's 2016 campaign and its ties to Russia. He has said that he wants to look at whether Russians used laundered money for transactions with the Trump Organization. He also wants more information about communications the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., had with his father and others about a June 2016 meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer. ___ ELIJAH CUMMINGS Oversight and Government Reform Committee Cummings, 67, will likely head the committee that could make life the toughest for the Trump White House because of its broad investigative powers. Cummings would likely seek Trump's business tax returns and other company-related financial records. He said he will work to make the president accountable, but will also challenge Republicans to uphold their oversight responsibilities, saying, "I think we as a body can do better." The Maryland Democrat, who represents parts of Baltimore city and most of Howard County, has said he would also like the committee to examine prescription drug prices and whether some states have engaged in voter suppression. "We cannot have a country where it becomes normal to do everything in Trump's power to stop people from voting," Cummings said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." He would also seek to bring Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross before the committee to testify about the decision to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census. ___ JERROLD NADLER Judiciary Committee Nadler, 71, has been in Congress since 1992 and has served on the Judiciary Committee for much of that time. He represents a large swath of Trump's hometown of New York. He is expected to make one of his first priorities as chairman protecting special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and requesting that Mueller's materials are preserved in case he is fired. Nadler said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that Matthew Whitaker, whom Trump named acting attorney general last week, "should recuse himself" from Mueller probe because he "expressed total hostilities to the investigation" and "if necessary" the Judiciary Committee will "subpoena" him to appear before the committee The Judiciary panel would also oversee impeachment proceedings, if Democrats decided to move in that direction. But Nadler has expressed caution about the idea, saying there would have to be "overwhelming evidence" from Mueller and some bipartisan support. The panel is also expected to look into family separation at the border and the Trump administration's management of the Affordable Care Act. ___ MAXINE WATERS Financial Services Committee Waters, 80, is expected to chair a committee with oversight of banks, insurers and investment firms. She has opposed Republican-led efforts to roll back the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and is promising colleagues that she will prioritize protecting consumers from abusive financial practices. The California lawmaker, whose district centers on south Los Angeles County, can also conduct aggressive oversight of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and steps it has taken to reduce enforcement actions against student lenders, pay-day lenders and others. The president railed against Waters on the campaign trail this year, frequently mentioning her during his rallies. Waters accuses Republicans of serving as Trump's "accomplices." ___ COLLIN PETERSON Agriculture Committee Peterson, 74, is a moderate from a heavily rural congressional district in western Minnesota. He is a strong critic of Trump's trade policies and could use his platform to highlight how farmers have been harmed by retaliatory tariffs from China and other nations. His top priority now is to get a farm bill passed, if not in the current Congress, then in the next one. Peterson will also have the committee take a close look at the reorganization underway at the Agriculture Department, including the push to move its top independent research office out of Washington. ___ JOHN YARMUTH Budget Committee Yarmuth, 71, is serving his sixth term from Kentucky, where he represents much of the Louisville area. He'll put together a budget blueprint that includes Democratic lawmakers' top priorities. He also has said he will hold hearings on a single-payer health plan modeled on the Democratic push to create "Medicare-for-All." ___ ELIOT ENGEL Foreign Affairs Committee Engel, 71, who represents parts of the Bronx and New York City's northern suburbs, has been a consistent critic of the president's foreign policy. He has told colleagues that one of his top priorities will be to investigate where the Trump administration's foreign-policy actions are intertwined with the president's business interests. Protecting the State Department is also a priority for him, including looking into whether career officials have been "purged" because they were deemed insufficiently loyal to the president. ___ RICHARD NEAL Ways and Means Committee Neal, 69, who represents western and parts of central Massachusetts, is expected to lead the committee that has oversight of tax and trade issues. He is promising hearings on the $1.5 trillion tax cut Republicans pushed through last year and has said he would consider a middle-income tax cut, but only if rates for the top income earners go up to help pay for it. The committee has jurisdiction over trade, and Neal said he expects Trump's trade deal with Mexico and Canada to come before his committee soon. The panel is also expected to seek Trump's tax returns from the IRS, likely triggering a court fight. ___ BOBBY SCOTT Education and the Workforce Committee Scott, 71, is poised to lead the Democratic oversight of changes that Secretary Betsy DeVos has enacted at the Education Department. The Virginia Democrat, who represents parts of the Tidewater area, has told colleagues that he would continue work to free students from the burden of crippling debt, ensure workers have a safe job environment and conduct rigorous oversight to the administration's "deregulatory agenda." ___ FRANK PALLONE Energy and Commerce Committee Pallone, 67, hails from north-central New Jersey and was a key player when a Democratic-led Congress passed President Barack Obama's health care law. Pallone said he'll focus on putting forward legislation to protect that law and on lowering the cost of prescription drugs. He'll likely revisit legislation he has sponsored that would, among other things, restore marketing and outreach efforts to get more people enrolled in health insurance coverage and increase subsidies for poor and middle-income Americans. Pallone said he also wants to boost broadband access, renewable energy and access to clean drinking water. ___ PETER DeFAZIO Transportation and Infrastructure DeFazio, 71, has hopes of working with the Trump administration on infrastructure legislation to generate jobs and repair roads, bridges and airports. He said he wants to work fast, before the 2020 presidential election process kicks in and makes it harder for anything substantial to get done. The obvious barrier is finding the money, at a time when the national deficit is already exploding. DeFazio, who represents Oregon's southern coastal counties, has put a tiny uptick in gasoline and diesel taxes on the table, but that's a tough sell with lawmakers. The committee also has jurisdiction over the General Services Administration, the agency that manages real estate for the federal government, including the lease for the Trump Hotel in Washington. Democrats have sought information about the hotel's profitability and whether Trump is using the office of the presidency for private gain. ___ ADAM SMITH Armed Services Committee Smith, 53, says his top national security priority for the next Congress is oversight of the president, from "the politicization of the military, to his mismanagement of disaster response, to the lack of a consistent policy concerning civilian casualties, to his policies on Russia, and more." He said the panel needs to conduct aggressive oversight of the Pentagon's budget and weapons programs to ensure taxpayers are getting the best value. The Democrat from Washington state, who represents the central Puget Sound area, also said it's also important to safeguard "an inclusive military" by eliminating discriminatory barriers. ___ BENNIE THOMPSON Homeland Security Committee Thompson, 70, of Mississippi, will lead aggressive oversight of actions that the administration has taken on immigration, including its "zero tolerance" policy of prosecuting all adults caught crossing the border illegally and putting their children under the care of the Department of Health and Human Services. The committee will also examine the administration's response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico, incidents of domestic terrorism by U.S. citizens and what can be done to ensure election security. He represents the western and central parts of Mississippi. ___ RAUL GRIJALVA Natural Resources Committee Grijalva, 70, will likely lead a committee that has oversight over national parks and other public lands. The Arizona Democrat has pushed back against the Trump administration's efforts to expand mining and drilling on federal lands. He'll conduct oversight into the environmental toll of the administration's actions. He'll also emphasize stronger consultation with federal tribes before energy projects are approved. Tribes have complained that the Trump administration moved forward with the Keystone XL pipeline without adequate consultation and analysis of the potential impact on tribal lands. Grijalva's southwest Arizona district includes parts of Tucson. ___ MARK TAKANO Veterans Affairs Takano, 57, who represents the Riverside, California, area, is the favorite to serve as chairman of the committee after being endorsed by Rep. Tim Walz, who won election to serve as governor of Minnesota. The committee will have oversight of efforts to expand access to private health care providers. He says he would work to hold for-profit colleges accountable when they mislead student veterans and that he would continue work to advocate for deported veterans to ensure they get their citizenship and can access their benefits. ___ JIM McGOVERN Rules Committee McGovern, 58, will likely lead a panel that determines what bills are debated on the floor and what amendments are allowed to be voted on. McGovern has been critical of Republicans for blocking votes on amendments with broad public support, but it's unclear how far Democrats will go in reversing those practices. Pelosi has tasked McGovern, who represents central Massachusetts, with coming up with a package of rules governing the chamber, and it's expected to include a ban on House members sitting on corporate boards. Rep. Julia Brownley of California, 66, is vying to serve as chairwoman. She tells colleagues that she would focus on ensuring the VA has the necessary resources to get veterans care from local health care providers without cannibalizing other VA programs. She would also seek to ensure that the administration takes steps to fill senior leadership vacancies and an estimated 46,000 vacant positions within the VA. ___ Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report. FILE - In this June 27, 2018, file photo Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., asks a question of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) FILE - In this Sept. 2, 2014, file photo, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., listens to a question in Hot Springs, Ark. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston, File) FILE - In this April 12, 2018, file photo, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File) FILE - In this Aug. 17, 2017, file photo Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., listens as Sen. Bob Menendez, left, speaks about flood insurance in Union Beach, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File) In this Oct. 26, 2018, photo, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., poses for a photo in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File) PARIS (AP) - Buried in French President Emmanuel Macron's speech on the sacrifice of "young men" in World War I Sunday was a reference to the "three million widows" the fallen soldiers left behind. The role women played in the war was only mentioned in passing as dozens of world leaders, including Angela Merkel of Germany, gathered in Paris to mark a century since WWI ended. Yet, war impacted women far beyond the obvious hardships of widowhood and the prospect of raising children alone. As the nations at war mobilized their entire populations, women in every country contributed during the four and a half years of conflict. Women not only served as factory workers, farmers, drivers, teachers and child carers - they were also sent to the front lines as volunteers and nurses. Some in Russia fought in battalions. In every warring country, they gave their lives. FILE - This file photo taken on Friday, Nov. 2, 2018 shows the graves of US nurses Dorothy Cromwell, left, and Gladys Cromwell, right, at the American Cemetery in Suresnes, near Paris, France. The two were beloved American nurses who worked tirelessness for Red Cross in France, but committed suicide shortly after the war overs the horrors they saw. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File) Many of their jobs involved danger and caused death. In Britain, women worked in factories, including in the production of weapons - a key role, given that the side that could produce the most weapons in the war of attrition would ultimately win. By 1917, munitions sites, which mostly employed women workers, produced 80 percent of the weapons and shells used by the British Army, according to historian A. V. M. Airth-Kindree. She said some female workers in Britain were known as "canaries" because they had to handle TNT, which caused their skin to turn yellow. Around 400 women in Britain died from overexposure to TNT during WWI, according to estimates. Among the Allies, organizations such as the Red Cross depended on thousands of female volunteers. By June 1918, there were over 3,000 American nurses in over 750 in hospitals in France, as many more served in the Nurse Corps in the US army and naval. As nurses, it was common for them to be sent to the front line and witness its horror first hand. One solemn reminder of that lies in the headstones of the Cromwell twins at the Suresnes American Cemetery that US President Donald Trump visited Sunday. The two were beloved American nurses who worked tirelessly for the Red Cross in France. They survived the war only to commit suicide in 1919, it's believed, due to the trauma. While most countries banned women from fighting, Russia was the sole country to allow them in combat, from 1917. One female combatant, Maria Bochkareva, founded Russia's "Women's Battalion of Death," recovered from injuries and became a decorated commander. Despite the inequities, the war period was a key moment in the women's movement as it marked the first time on a wide scale that women realized their roles could be beyond domestic. During Sunday's ceremony, a letter written by Denise Bruller to her soldier fiance Pierre Fort was read out, speaking of her emotion and anguish at the end of the war that caused "upheaval to the very depths of my being." Love and emotion were very much part of the war - and its propaganda - and such stories help color the narrative of loss. Less mentioned, but perhaps equally commonplace, was the sleeves-rolled-up grit displayed by female civilians during WWI's bruising slaughter. ___ For more information on World War I, go to The Associated Press' WWI hub: https://www.apnews.com/WorldWarI ___ World War I: An AP Centennial Commemorative Edition. Available now exclusively at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2JGrx5U Francesca Shaw, from Leed, England, prepares to lay a poppy wreath during an Armistice ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Sunday marks exactly 100 years since the end of the First World War. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) Paper poppies are silhouetted against the setting sun during a ceremony commemorating the 100th year since the end of the First World War at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver, British Columbia, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP) The famous Paris landmark, the Eiffel Tower, looms in the background of the headstones during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) NEW YORK (AP) - For much of the country, the 2018 midterm season is over. But unresolved races for governor in Georgia and Florida are raising major strategic questions for Democrats as they turn their attention to the upcoming battle for the White House. As in other states, Democrats in Florida and Georgia drew record turnout in last week's election. The coalition of suburban women, young people and minorities delivered the House to Democrats for the first time in nearly a decade. But it wasn't enough to score decisive victories in the closely watched races for governor in Georgia and Florida, where fresh-faced African-American Democratic candidates for governor trailed their older, white Republican competitors. In Georgia, Stacey Abrams hasn't conceded her race while Andrew Gillum's contest in Florida is undergoing a recount. For some Democrats, the lesson emerging from the 2018 midterms is that massive turnout can win suburban House races across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California. But the coalition that produced some success elsewhere may not be enough in Florida, the nation's premier presidential battleground state, and Georgia, a state Democrats view with increasing optimism. "It's not a viable long-term plan to constantly rely on record turnout," said Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who led former President Barack Obama's efforts in Florida. "We have a national issue we have to deal with." While Gillum and Abrams have much in common, they ran on different messages. Andrew Gillum the Democrat candidate for governor speaks at a news conference on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Tallahassee, Fla. Gillum has withdrawn his concession in the Florida gubernatorial race following a recount. "I am replacing my words of concession with an uncompromised and unapologetic call that we count every single vote," Gillum said. (AP Photo/Steve Cannon) Gillum, the 39-year-old mayor of Florida's capital city, ran as an unapologetic member of the Trump resistance. He openly called for President Donald Trump's impeachment. And he accused his Republican opponent, former Rep. Ron DeSantis, of blatant racism. Abrams, the 44-year-old former minority leader in Georgia's House of Representative, highlighted her bipartisan credentials throughout her bid for governor. While she and Gillum embraced liberal policy priorities, such as "Medicare for All," she promoted her work with Republicans in the state legislature, even highlighting a handshake with GOP Gov. Nathan Deal in a campaign ad. Still, both were viewed as rising stars within the evolving Democratic Party, a new generation of Democratic leadership that could expand the party's appeal among all voters. Racial divisions appear to have limited their appeal, however. Both Gillum and Abrams won African-Americans and young voters by overwhelming margins. But they struggled with older, white voters, particularly noncollege-educated white voters, who make up the core of Trump's political base. Gillum won 92 percent of black voters, according to VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the electorate conducted by The Associated Press. He also won 60 percent of voters 18 to 29 years old, and 54 percent of women. But Gillum earned just 44 percent of the male vote. And he won only 39 percent of the overall white vote - and 35 percent among noncollege-educated white voters. It was worse for Abrams, who was poised to become the nation's first African-American female governor. She won 94 percent of Georgia's black vote, but just 25 percent of white voters. She carried 56 percent of women, but just 40 percent of men. A dismal 19 percent of noncollege-educated white men supported her, according to VoteCast. Nationwide, 43 percent of white voters backed Democrats, including 38 percent of noncollege-educated whites. The results "absolutely" demonstrated black candidates like Gillum and Abrams have a harder time winning in the Trump era, NAACP President Derrick Johnson told the AP. "What the president has done is played to the lowest common denominator and created a culture of intolerance and racial hatred," Johnson said. "You build up negative energy based on fear to a point where there are segments of the population who are reacting to fear and not pure policy considerations." Leading Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg agreed that racism likely shaped the elections. "This was a big election in which the president used immigration to send a kind of racist message about the need to stand up whites against the invasion," Greenberg said of Trump's final-days focus on a caravan of Latin American immigrants heading to the U.S. border to seek asylum. Trump and his allies took "every opportunity," he continued, "to attack black politicians and athletes and others. It's not subtle in terms of what they've done." Greenberg acknowledged Democrats' nationwide struggle among working-class white men, but he highlighted Gillum and Abrams' ability to drive tremendous turnout overall. With votes still being counted, Gillum received more than 4 million votes, shattering the previous midterm record set in 2014 by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist, who earned 2.8 million votes. While significantly fewer voters typically participate in off-year elections, Gillum came close to matching Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's 2016 total of 4.5 million votes. It was much the same in Georgia, a smaller state, where Abrams actually exceeded Clinton's 2016 vote total, earning a midterm Democratic record 1.9 million votes. But so far, at least, the Republican candidates in both states earned more votes. The dynamic does not bode well for Democrats' fight to deny Trump a second term, even as America grows more diverse. Schale said Democrats in Florida and Georgia - and others - must do a better job managing their losses among voters in Republican-leaning regions, which are increasingly turning away from his party. It's unclear, however, how exactly to do that. "In a lot of places right now, it's very foreign to vote for a Democrat," he said. "We've got to find a way to broaden the appeal." ___ This story has been corrected to reflect that Abrams is the former minority leader in Georgia House of Representatives, not the current minority leader. WASHINGTON (AP) - Stepping up Democratic efforts to shield the Russia investigation, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday he would seek to tie a measure protecting special counsel Robert Mueller to must-pass legislation if acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker does not recuse himself from oversight of the probe. Schumer pointed to Whitaker's "history of hostile statements" toward the Mueller investigation. "If he stays there, he will create a constitutional crisis by inhibiting Mueller or firing Mueller. So Congress has to act," Schumer told CNN's "State of the Union." "We Democrats, House and Senate, will attempt to add to must-pass legislation, in this case the spending bill, legislation that would prevent Mr. Whitaker from interfering with the Mueller investigation." Schumer sent a letter to the Justice Department on Sunday along with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats that calls for Lee Lofthus, an assistant attorney general and the department's chief ethics officer, to disclose whether he had advised Whitaker to recuse himself from oversight of the probe. The Democrats cited Whitaker's past public statements, which have included an op-ed article in which he said Mueller would be straying outside his mandate if he investigated President Donald Trump's family finances and a talk radio interview in which he maintained there was no evidence of collusion between the Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. The letter asked Lofthus to explain his reasoning for any recommendation he made to Whitaker regarding recusal and to provide all ethics guidance provided to the acting attorney general. Acting United States Attorney General Matt Whitaker, center, and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, second from right, attend a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Whitaker, a Republican Party loyalist and chief of staff to just-ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions, was elevated Wednesday after Trump forced Sessions out. Whitaker has faced pressure from Democrats to recuse himself from overseeing Mueller based on the comments, which were made before he joined the Justice Department last year. He has also tweeted an ex-prosecutor's opinion piece that described a "Mueller lynch mob," which he said was "worth a read." The Mueller protection bill would give any special counsel a 10-day window to seek review of a firing and ensure that the person was fired for good cause. It's unclear if Republicans would agree to add the bill to the spending legislation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said there is no need for it, but other Republicans, like Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, have called for the bill since Whitaker was appointed. Schumer declined to say whether Democrats would be willing to force a government shutdown if Congress did not pass a measure protecting Mueller, suggesting it wouldn't come to that because of bipartisan support. "There's no reason we shouldn't add this and avoid a constitutional crisis," he said. "If that doesn't happen, we will see what happens down the road." The bipartisan Mueller legislation was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in April and was co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, described Trump's appointment of Whitaker as "an attack" on the Mueller investigation and said protecting that probe will be his committee's top priority. Nadler told ABC's "This Week" if Whitaker is still acting attorney general when Nadler becomes Judiciary chairman next year, "one of our first orders of business will be to invite him, and if necessary to subpoena him, to appear before the committee." BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) - Independent candidates won the most seats in Slovakia's local elections, while the senior ruling party of former populist Prime Minister Robert Fico suffered losses. It was the first election since massive anti-government protests triggered by the slaying of an investigative journalist forced the collapse of Fico's government. The same three coalition parties created a new government. Investigators have linked Jan Kuciak's death to his work probing possible widespread government corruption. Independent candidates won over 42 percent of mayors' seats in Saturday's vote. Fico's Smer-Social Democracy did not win in any regional city, but remains the strongest force with 20 percent, compared to 30 percent in the 2014 election. President Andrej Kiska, Fico's rival, said the results published Sunday show people want a change. GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - The latest on a fresh wave of fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip (all times local): 2:05 a.m. The Israeli army says an officer was killed and another was moderately wounded during an exchange of gunfire in Gaza. The Israeli army said early Monday that the families of the soldiers have been notified. It adds that Israeli forces were conducting "an operational activity" late Sunday in southeast Gaza when the clashes erupted. Palestinian health officials and the Hamas militant group that controls Gaza say the fighting killed at least seven Palestinians, including a local Hamas commander. ___ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, second left, and his wife Sara, left, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Moroccan King Mohammed VI, right, and Crown Prince Moulay Hassan attend ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. Over 60 heads of state and government were taking part in a solemn ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the mute and powerful symbol of sacrifice to the millions who died from 1914-18. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool) 12:05 p.m. Israel's prime minister is cutting short a trip to Paris because of a new spasm of violence in the Gaza Strip. A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said late Sunday that he would return overnight. Netanyahu was in Paris along with dozens of world leaders to commemorate the end of World War I. At a news conference there earlier, he defended his decision to take steps toward an unofficial cease-fire with Hamas, which appeared to be ratcheting down months of violence. Sunday's violence also prompted Israeli authorities to cancel school Monday for students in communities near the Gaza Strip, where air raid sirens were sounding following the fresh fighting. It was not immediately clear what sparked Sunday's conflagration. Health officials in Gaza say at least six Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire. ___ 11:45 p.m. Hamas' militant wing says undercover Israeli forces drove a civilian vehicle into the Gaza Strip and shot dead one of the group's commanders. Hamas was providing details on a sudden, late-night burst of violence between Israel and Gaza militants Sunday that came just as the sides were taking steps that appeared to be toning down months of fighting. In a statement late Sunday, Hamas says militants chased the car down, which prompted Israeli airstrikes that led to the deaths of at least five militants. The Israeli military said only that there had been an exchange of fire during operational activity. It said that its rocket defense system intercepted two launches from the Gaza Strip and that air raid sirens were sounding in southern Israel. ___ 11:30 p.m. A spokesman for Israel's Airport's Authority says some flight landings and departures have been changed at the country's international airport amid a new spasm of violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Ofer Lefler said Sunday that the runway changes were made after the fighting began. He says they would not affect the flight schedule. It was not immediately clear what sparked Sunday's fighting. Shortly after the exchange of fire, air raid sirens sounded in southern Israel, indicating rocket fire from Gaza. Gaza militants have rockets capable of reaching into the Israeli heartland, where Ben-Gurion International Airport is located. Sunday's exchange of fire came as Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers appeared to be making progress toward an unofficial cease-fire. ___ 11 p.m. Palestinian health officials in the Gaza Strip say six militants have been killed and six have been wounded by Israeli fire in a sudden, late-night burst of fighting. Sunday's exchange of fire came as Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers appeared to be making progress toward an unofficial cease-fire. Israel last week allowed Qatar to deliver $15 million to Hamas, while Hamas scaled back its weekly demonstration along the Israeli border. It was not immediately clear what sparked Sunday's fighting. Shortly after the exchange of fire, air raid sirens sounded in southern Israel, indicating rocket fire from Gaza. PARADISE, Calif. (AP) - As relatives desperately searched shelters for missing loved ones on Sunday, crews searching the smoking ruins of Paradise and outlying areas found six more bodies, raising the death toll to 29, matching the deadliest wildfire in California history. Wildfires continued to rage on both ends of the state, with gusty winds expected overnight which will challenge firefighters. The statewide death toll stood at 31. The Camp Fire that ravaged a swath of Northern California was the deadliest. A total of 29 bodies have been found so far from that fire, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told a news briefing Sunday evening. He said 228 people were still unaccounted for. Ten search and recovery teams were working in Paradise - a town of 27,000 that was largely incinerated on Thursday - and in surrounding communities. Authorities called in a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify victims of the most destructive wildfire in California history. By early afternoon, one of the two black hearses stationed in Paradise had picked up another set of remains. People looking for friends or relatives called evacuation centers, hospitals, police and the coroner's office. A vehicle drives through smoke from a wildfire near Pulga, Calif., Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Sol Bechtold drove from shelter to shelter looking for his mother, Joanne Caddy, a 75-year-old widow whose house burned down along with the rest of her neighborhood in Magalia, just north of Paradise. She lived alone and did not drive. Bechtold posted a flyer on social media, pinned it to bulletin boards at shelters and showed her picture around to evacuees, asking if anyone recognized her. He ran across a few of Caddy's neighbors, but they hadn't seen her. As he drove through the smoke and haze to yet another shelter, he said, "I'm also under a dark emotional cloud. Your mother's somewhere and you don't know where she's at. You don't know if she's safe." He added: "I've got to stay positive. She's a strong, smart woman." Officials and relatives held out hope that many of those unaccounted for were safe and simply had no cellphones or other ways to contact loved ones. The sheriff's office in the stricken northern county set up a missing-persons call center to help connect people. Gov. Jerry Brown said California is requesting aid from the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has blamed "poor" forest management for the fires. Brown told a press briefing that federal and state governments must do more forest management but said that's not the source of the problem. "Managing all the forests everywhere we can does not stop climate change," Brown said. "And those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies that we're now witnessing, and will continue to witness in the coming years." Firefighters battling the Camp Fire with shovels and bulldozers, flame retardants and hoses expected wind gusts up to 40 mph (64 kph) overnight Sunday. Officials said they expect the wind to die down by midday Monday, but there was still no rain in sight. More than 8,000 firefighters in all battled three large wildfires burning across nearly 400 square miles (1,040 square kilometers) in Northern and Southern California, with out-of-state crews arriving. Two people were found dead in Southern California , where flames tore through Malibu mansions and working-class Los Angeles suburbs. The burned bodies were discovered in a driveway in Malibu, where residents forced from their homes included Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian West and Martin Sheen. Actor Gerard Butler said on Instagram that his Malibu home was "half-gone," and a publicist for Camille Grammer Meyer said the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star lost her home in the seaside enclave. Flames also besieged Thousand Oaks, the Southern California city in mourning over the massacre of 12 people in a shooting rampage at a country music bar Wednesday night. In Northern California, Sheriff Honea said the devastation was so complete in some neighborhoods that "it's very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there. Authorities were also bringing in a DNA lab and said officials would reach out to relatives who had registered their missing loved ones to aid in identifying the dead after the blaze destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, nearly all of them homes. The 29 dead in Northern California matched the deadliest single fire on record, a 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, though a series of wildfires in Northern California wine country last fall killed 44 people and destroyed more than 5,000 homes. The Camp Fire on Sunday stood at 173 square miles (450 square kilometers) and was 25 percent contained, but Cal Fire spokesman Bill Murphy warned that gusty winds predicted into Monday morning could spark "explosive fire behavior." About 150,000 people statewide were under evacuation orders, most of them in Southern California, where nearly 180 structures were destroyed, including a large mobile home community in rugged Santa Monica Mountains north of Malibu. Brown's request for a major-disaster declaration from Trump would make victims eligible for crisis counseling, housing and unemployment help, and legal aid. Drought, warmer weather attributed to climate change, and the building of homes deeper into forests have led to longer and more destructive wildfire seasons in California. While California officially emerged from a five-year drought last year, much of the northern two-thirds of the state is abnormally dry. "Things are not the way they were 10 years ago. ... The rate of spread is exponentially more than it used to be," said Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen, urging residents to evacuate rather than stay behind to try to defend their homes. One of the Northern California fire's victims was an ailing woman whose body was found in bed in a burned-out house in Concow, near Paradise. Ellen Walker, who was in her early 70s, was home alone when the fire struck on Thursday, according to Nancy Breeding, a family friend. Breeding said Walker's husband was at work and called a neighbor to tell his wife to evacuate, but she was on medication and might not have been alert. Authorities confirmed her death late Friday. "A fireman took him to the house to confirm," Breeding said. "This is a devastating thing, and it's happening to so many people." ___ Selsky reported from Salem, Oregon. Associated Press writers Janie Har and Daisy Nguyen in San Francisco; Don Thompson and Martha Mendoza in Chico, California; Christopher Weber in Malibu, California; and Andrew Dalton and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this story. This undated photo provided by Sol Bechtold, Joanne's son, shows an undated photo of his missing mother, Joanne Caddy, a resident t of Paradise, Calif. Sol Bechtold was driving on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, from shelter to shelter as he searched for his 75-year-old mother, who remained missing after her house burned down in Magalia, just north of Paradise, Calif. (Courtesy of Sol Bechtold via AP) As the Camp Fire burns nearby, a scorched gas pump rests on its cradle near Pulga, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) As the Camp Fire burns nearby, a scorched car rests by gas pumps near Pulga, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) As the Camp Fire burns nearby, a scorched car rests by gas pumps near Pulga, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Power transmission lines crest a hilltop above Camp Creek Road, the point of origin of the Camp Fire, in Pulga, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) A helicopter drops water while battling the Camp Fire burning near Pulga, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Smoke billows from the Camp Fire as a firefighting helicopter flies near Pulga, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Smoke billows from the Camp Fire as a firefighting helicopter flies near Pulga, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) A firefighter looks through a home destroyed by the Camp Fire where human remains were found, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) Deputy Coroner Justin Sponhaltz, of the Mariposa County Sheriff's Office, recovers human remains found at a home destroyed by the Camp Fire, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) Anthropology students observe as human remains are recovered from a burned out home at the Camp Fire, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) Sgt. Nathan Lyberger, of the Yuba County Sheriff's Department, right, and Sgt. Kevin Packard, of the Mariposa County Sheriff's Office, prepare to move human remains found at a burned out home from the Camp Fire, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) Deputy Coroner Justin Sponhaltz, right, of the Mariposa County Sheriff's Office, carries a bag with human remains found at a burned out home at the Camp Fire, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) ATLANTA (AP) - Stacey Abrams' Democratic campaign filed a federal lawsuit Sunday asking a judge to delay vote certifications in Georgia unsettled governor's race by one day and to make officials count any votes that were wrongly rejected. If successful, the suit would prevent officials from certifying county vote totals until Wednesday and could restore at least 1,095 votes that weren't counted. The campaign said thousands more ballots could be affected. Republican Brian Kemp's campaign didn't have any immediate comment on the lawsuit, filed over alleged problems in populous Gwinnett and DeKalb counties in metro Atlanta. But Kemp aides previously said Abrams has no path to victory and called her refusal to concede a "disgrace to democracy." Abrams' campaign manager, Lauren Groh-Wargo, said the state's numbers can't be trusted and that 5,000 votes came in Saturday that previously were unknown. "This race is not over," she said on a conference call with reporters. "It's still too close to call." Abrams hopes to become the nation's first black woman elected governor, while Kemp is trying to maintain GOP dominance in a diversifying state that could be important in the presidential election in two years. FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams speaks to supporters about a suspected run-off during an election night watch party in Atlanta. For the vast majority of the nation, the 2018 midterm season is over. Yet the fight rages on in Florida and Georgia, two political battlegrounds where the strength of a Trump-era political realignment among voters by culture and class is being put to the test. Abrams hasn't conceded her race while Andrew Gillum's contest in Florida is undergoing a recount. (AP Photo/John Amis, File) The campaigns disagree how many votes remain to be counted. But no matter which side is right, it's clear Abrams is trailing and only a limited number of ballots are left to close the gap. "So her margin in those uncounted votes needs to be really high," Jeffrey Lazarus, who teaches political science at Georgia State University, said Sunday in an interview conducted by email. "To put it simply, she's running out of votes." The Associated Press has not declared a winner. AP will reassess the race Tuesday, the deadline for counties to certify election results to the state. Unofficial returns show Kemp with 50.3 percent of nearly 4 million total ballots, or a 58,875-vote margin over Abrams that has narrowed slightly as votes were counted. Libertarian Ted Metz received about 37,000 votes in the three-way contest. Kemp's lead is enough for an outright victory if totals remain the same, but it's a tight race considering the large, 61 percent turnout. Abrams campaign leaders said she needs to get the margin down to about 22,000 votes to force a runoff, and they sent a fundraising email to supporters Sunday saying at least 30,823 votes remain to be counted. The Kemp campaign contends far fewer votes remain, less than 18,000, and that Abrams mathematically can't force a runoff. "There are not enough remaining ballots for Stacey Abrams to win the election, force a run-off, or trigger a recount so her legal team filed a shocking lawsuit to undermine Georgia law and count illegal votes," said Ryan Mahoney, the Kemp campaign communications director "These sore losers will stop at nothing to gain power. They are blatantly and desperately trying to disrupt the democratic process, create new votes, and steal the election for a radical, failed candidate who clearly lost on November 6." Allegations by Abrams supporters of voter suppression, long voting lines and other balloting problems are hard to ignore given Kemp's "aggressively partisan conduct as secretary of state," said Michael Kang, who teaches election law at Northwestern University's law school. "That said, I think the Abrams campaign still faces an uphill battle in first convincing a court about the need for a recount and second, having the recount net enough votes to force a runoff. As a general matter, recounts rarely end up changing the outcomes of elections," Kang, who previously taught at Emory University in Atlanta, said in an email interview. Each of Georgia's 159 counties must certify final returns by Tuesday, and many have done so already. The state must certify a statewide result by Nov. 20. Audrey Haynes, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, said Kemp's best move is to let the process play out. "The bottom line is that if the votes are there, they are there. If not, then there is less recourse for continued delay. But if he acts to limit the ability to fully determine that question, then there will be a bit of a cloud not only hanging over him, but the state as well," she said by email. ___ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics Local boxers appeal vacated, CJ to sentence him LEGAL counsel for boxer Jim Kelly Joseph withdrew his appeal from consideration by the appellate court on Monday (November 5). The action came after lawyer Ashwood Forbes was unable to provide the three appeal court justices with relevant case law or authority - both locally and internationally - to persuade them that they should hear the appeal. Counsel was then left with no choice but to withdraw the appeal. His client has since been sent back to the Supreme Court for sentencing on the gun and ammunition possession charges to which he has pleaded guilty. Following the sentencing by Chief Justice Margaret Ramsay-Hale, which is expected to take place on Monday, November 12, the defence attorney will then be able to make an appeal to the appellate court. Josephs initial appeal was a challenge to the chief justices ruling to reject his application to change his plea on the gun and ammunition possession charges from guilty to not guilty. In June, Joseph was charged, granted bail and taken to court on the above-named offences. When he appeared in court on June 29 for a plea and direction hearing, he pleaded guilty to charges while he was the client of attorney Lara Maroof-Missick. Shortly after the guilty plea was accepted and entered into the record, the defendant fired his lawyer and recruited the services of Ashwood Forbes. While representing him for the first time, Forbes argued in front of the court that his client was given bad advice when he entered the guilty plea. This advice, Forbes claimed, caused Joseph to plead guilty to charges for which the defendant says he is innocent, and wished to contest at a trial. A change of plea application was thereby made. But the court found no grounds upon which to grant the lawyers application, and thus his arguments were rejected. The court found that Joseph made an unequivocal confession of his guilt by his plea with full understanding of the elements of the offences of keeping a firearm and ammunition. On Monday, when the defendant appears in front of the Chief Justice, he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years in prison and up to 10 years. Josephs lawyer was advised by the appellate court to apply for a stay (of serving the prison sentence) after the defendant is sentenced by the chief justice. This means that the defendant could potentially be allowed to remain on bail until his appeal is heard and determined by the appellate court when it sits again in March 2019. Convictions quashed in Sunny Foods robbery HAITIAN nationals Wilbert Almonor, Fritznel Prevalus and Reginald Presil have won the appeal of their convictions and sentencing for conspiracy to rob. The decision was handed down on Wednesday (November 7) by the three appellate justices just after 1pm. The court quashed the mens convictions and ordered a new trial be conducted. The men can now appeal for bail while they await a decision on a new trial from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The DPP could potentially not try the men a second time, dismiss the case and hand them over to the immigration department for deportation to Haiti. The alleged crime took place against officer and retired police superintendent Alboin Williams who went to pick up money from two businesses in Providenciales on Sunday, April 10, 2016. During his testimony at the trial last year, Williams said that he saw nothing suspicious on his route to the first stop - Quality supermarket. After making the pickup of large sum of cash at that location, he then drove to the Sunny Foods supermarket for his next pick up. There he signed for the cash from the supervisor and proceeded to leave the store with the money in his backpack. He testified that on his way out of the establishment he saw nor heard anything suspicious, but about five or seven steps from his vehicle he heard someone shout in English "drop the bag, drop the bag! He turned around and saw a masked man with a pistol pointed directly at his face about three feet away, trying to cock the pistol without success. Further perusal of the scene, revealed a second man also pointing a gun at him and telling the first man to "shoot him shoot him, shortly after shouting this, the second gunman opened fire on Williams, hitting him twice in the shoulder and once in the leg. As he fell to the ground, a third masked gunman appeared. The victim was then shot several more times to his lower back, shoulders, head and belly. He further testified that the men then dragged his bullet riddled body over the ground in an attempt to get the backpack off his back. While doing, so his licensed firearm was exposed in the bag and the clip dropped out of it. The men were successful in stealing the backpack with all of its contents as well as the gun and ammunition. They made good their escape in a vehicle. The defendants were later arrested, charged with conspiracy to rob, tried, convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment each. Although the Crown could not place the man at the scene of the crime, during the trial they contended that the men knew the times, dates and locations of Williams pick routes and used this knowledge to plan and execute the near fatal robbery. The physical evidence against them was their Whatsapp messages communicating the plan to commit robbery on the date and time it was committed. The Crown contended that they were in a conspiracy with each other and other persons, including another Haitian national who testified against them, to commit the crime. Reginald Presil was the alleged driver of the getaway vehicle, Fritznel Prevalus the alleged look out guy and Wilbert Almonor was the alleged mastermind along with others unidentified or unknown to the police. In summing up to the jury, retiring justice Joan Joyner called the crime a cold, callous and planned act and directed the jury that the sentences must mirror the substantive crime which is robbery. Lawyers for the men in their appeal contended that the trial judge was faulty in her sum up of the evidence to jury. The lawyers outlined many deficiencies in Joyners summary in front of the appellate court this past week. These were held up and the convictions and sentences were overturned. FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Mishaps, protests and litigation dominated Florida's first day of recounting the vote for pivotal races for governor and Senate, bringing back memories of the 2000 presidential fiasco. Much of the drama on Sunday centered on Broward and Palm Beach counties, home to large concentrations of Democratic voters. In Broward County, the recount was delayed for several hours Sunday morning because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. That prompted the Republican Party to slam Broward's supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, for "incompetence and gross mismanagement." Broward officials faced further headaches after they acknowledged the county mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected. The problem seemed impossible to fix because the dismissed ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots and Snipes said it would be unfair to throw out all of those votes. By the end of the day, Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Senate, filed suit against Snipes in a circuit court. He sought a judge's order that law enforcement agents impound and secure all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots "when not in use until such time as any recounts." The lawsuit accused Snipes of repeatedly failing to account for the number of ballots left to be counted and failing to report results regularly as required by law. Juan Penalosa, the executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, accused Scott of "using his position to consolidate power by cutting at the very core of our democracy." Crowd of protestors gather outside the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office as the statewide election recount is underway while ballots for governor, Senate, Agricultural Commission were run through scanning machines in Broward for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties and the campaigns on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP) Meanwhile, in Palm Beach County, the supervisor of elections said she doesn't believe her department will be able to meet the state's Thursday deadline to complete the recount, throwing into question what would happen to votes there. The developments added up to a tumultuous day in America's premier political battleground state. More than half of Florida's 67 counties began a recount process that's unprecedented even in a state notorious for settling elections by razor-thin margins. State officials said they weren't aware of any other time a race for governor or U.S. Senate required a recount, let alone both in the same election. The recount in other major population centers, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, was ongoing without incident Sunday. Smaller counties are expected to begin their reviews in coming days. Unofficial results showed Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in the election for governor. In the Senate race, Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson was 0.14 percentage points. State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. Once completed, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or below, a hand recount will be ordered. As the recount unfolded, Republicans urged their Democratic opponents to give up and let the state to move on. Scott said Sunday that Nelson wants fraudulent ballots and those cast by noncitizens to count, pointing to a Nelson lawyer objecting to Palm Beach County's rejection of one provisional ballot because it was cast by a noncitizen. "He is trying to commit fraud to win this election," Scott told Fox News. "Bill Nelson's a sore loser. He's been in politics way too long." Nelson's campaign issued a statement Sunday saying their lawyer wasn't authorized to object to the ballot's rejection as "Non-citizens cannot vote in US elections." In Fort Lauderdale, Gillum appeared at a predominantly African-American church Sunday evening, telling an overflow crowd that voter disenfranchisement isn't just about being blocked from the polling booth. He said it also includes absentee ballots not being counted and ballots where "the 'w' in their signature may look different today than the 'w' in their signature yesterday, that a volunteer may have the option of looking at that ballot and deciding that vote is null and void." The fact that Trump and Scott "are fighting like you know what to stop the vote count, that ought to tell you something," Gillum said. "They don't get to shut down the process because they're not winning." Gillum and Nelson have argued each vote should be counted and the process should take its course. Both the state elections division, which Scott runs, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have said they have found no evidence of voter fraud. That didn't stop protests outside Snipes' office, where a crowd of mostly Republicans gathered, holding signs, listening to country music and occasionally chanting "lock her up," referring to Snipes. A massive Trump 2020 flag flew over the parking lot and many members of a Bikers For Trump group wore matching shirts and carried flags, mingling among a crowd that included a protester wearing a Hillary Clinton mask. Registered independent Russell Liddick, a 38-year-old retail worker from Pompano Beach, carried a sign reading, "I'm not here for Trump! I'm here for fair elections! Fire Snipes!" He said the office's problems "don't make me feel very much like my vote counted." Florida is also conducting a recount in a third statewide race. Democrat Nikki Fried had a 0.07 percentage point lead over Republican state Rep. Matt Caldwell in the race for agriculture commissioner, one of Florida's three Cabinet seats. The recounts might dredge up memories of the 2000 presidential recount, when it took more than five weeks for Florida to declare George W. Bush the victor over Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes, thus giving Bush the presidency. But much has changed since. In 2000, each county had its own voting system. Many used punch cards - voters poked out chads, leaving tiny holes in their ballots representing their candidates. Some voters, however, didn't fully punch out the presidential chad or gave it just a little push. Those hanging and dimpled chads had to be examined by the canvassing boards, a lengthy, tiresome and often subjective process that became fodder for late-night comedians. Now the state requires all Florida counties use ballots where voters use a pen to mark their candidate's name, much like a student does when taking a multiple-choice test. And how counts proceed is now clearly spelled out. Those ballots are now being run through scanning machines in each county for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties and the campaigns. Any ballot that cannot be read for any of the recounted races will be put aside. ___ AP writers Tamara Lush in St. Petersburg and Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee contributed to this report. ___ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics Workers load ballots into machines at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office during a recount on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) Workers load ballots into machines at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office during a recount on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) Elections staff prepare for a recount at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office during on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) A party observer watches as workers load ballots into machines at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office during a recount on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) A worker loads ballots into machines at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office during a recount on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) Elections officials move ballot boxes to be counted at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office during a recount on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes watches as workers load ballots into machines at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office during a recount on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) Workers load ballots into machines at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office during a recount on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) PARIS (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump's cancelled visit to a cemetery in northern France (all times local): 2:45 a.m. The White House is offering an additional reason besides bad weather for President Donald Trump not attending a ceremony Saturday to honor American war dead at a cemetery in northern France. Stung by criticism for not attending the event, the White House said Sunday that Trump didn't want to disrupt roadways with a last-minute motorcade. Traveling by car would have been the only option after weather grounded the president's helicopter. Trump had been scheduled to lay a wreath and observe a moment of silence Saturday at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, located adjacent to Belleau Wood and about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Paris. On Sunday, Trump attended a scheduled event honoring American war dead at a different U.S. cemetery just outside of Paris. ___ U.S President Donald Trump gestures outside the Elysee Palace after his talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, Saturday, Nov.10, 2018. Trump is joining other world leaders at centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the end of World War I. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) 6:30 a.m. President Donald Trump canceled a planned visit to a cemetery for Americans killed in World War I, the White House said, citing bad weather that grounded his helicopter. Trump had been scheduled to lay a wreath and observe a moment of silence Saturday at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, located adjacent to Belleau Wood and about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Paris. Trump was in France for events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Attending in Trump's place were the White House chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joe Dunford and several members of the White House staff. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea has airlifted 200 tons of tangerines to North Korea in return for shipments of pine mushrooms by the North in September, officials said Monday. South Korean military planes flew to Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, on Sunday and Monday to deliver the fruit from the southern island of Jeju, according to Seoul's Defense Ministry. The airlifts are another sign that liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in is moving ahead with efforts to improve ties with North Korea despite stalemated global diplomacy on the North's nuclear program. After a summit meeting between the Koreas in Pyongyang in September, North Korea gave South Korea 2 tons of pine mushrooms as a goodwill gesture. Pine mushrooms are white and brown fungi that are considered a healthy delicacy in both Koreas and other Asian countries. They are one of the North's most prized regional products, and the country shipped them to South Korea in 2000 and 2007 after previous summit talks. After their summit, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also gave Moon a gift of two dogs, both white Pungsans. On Monday, Moon tweeted that one of the dogs, named Gomi, gave birth to six healthy puppies last Friday. "Six dogs were added to a gift of two dogs. I cannot help saying it's a big fortune and I hope that South-North ties will be like this," Moon said. Pungsan is a dog breed native to North Korea and is best known for its loyalty and bravery during hunting. North Korea sent a pair of Pungsans to South Korea after the 2000 summit, and South Korea gave two indigenous Jindo dogs to the North. In this Nov. 11, 2018 photo, South Korean soldiers prepare to load boxes of tangerines near South Korea's Air Force cargo plane C-130 at the Jeju International Airport on Jeju Island, South Korea. South Korea has airlifted thousands of boxes of tangerines to North Korea in return for the North's large shipments of pine mushrooms in September.(Park Ji-ho/Yonhap via AP) Despite warming ties between the Koreas, there have been no major recent breakthroughs in U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at stripping North Korea of its nuclear program. According to officials in Seoul and Washington, North Korea recently postponed high-level talks with the United States on the North's disarmament and on setting up a second summit between President Donald Trump and Kim. After a provocative series of nuclear and missile tests last year, North Korea entered talks with the United States and South Korea this year, saying it's willing to deal away its growing nuclear weapons arsenal. The North has since taken measures such as dismantling its nuclear test site and parts of its rocket-engine testing facility, but U.S. officials want it to take more significant, irreversible steps toward denuclearization. Moon, who has met Kim three times this year, believes that better ties between the Koreas will help resolve the nuclear issue. South Korea's Unification Ministry said Monday it has approved a visit by seven North Koreans to attend an academic forum in the South later this week. The forum is on regional issues, including Japan's wartime mobilization of laborers in the Asia-Pacific region. Seoul said Saturday that the two Koreas have finished withdrawing troops and firearms from some of their front-line guard posts as part of their agreements to lower military tensions. The Koreas have also halted military exercises along their border and have been clearing mines from a border area to conduct their first-ever joint searches for Korean War dead. In this photo provided on Oct. 2018 by South Korea Presidential Blue House, South Korean President Moon Jae-in touches a white Pungsan dog, named Gomi, from North Korea, in Seoul, South Korea. (South Korea Presidential Blue House via AP) In this photo provided by South Korea Presidential Blue House in Sept. 2018, a white Pungsan dog named Gomi, from North Korea, is seen in Seoul, South Korea. (South Korea Presidential Blue House via AP) In this Nov. 11, 2018 photo, South Korea's Air Force cargo planes C-130 carrying boxes of tangerines, is seen before its take off for North Korea at the Jeju International Airport on Jeju Island, South Korea. South Korea has airlifted thousands of boxes of tangerines to North Korea in return for the North's large shipments of pine mushrooms in September.(Park Ji-ho/Yonhap via AP) BEIJING (AP) - A look at recent developments in the South China Sea, where China is pitted against smaller neighbors in multiple disputes over islands, coral reefs and lagoons in waters crucial for global commerce and rich in fish and potential oil and gas reserves: ___ EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a weekly look at the latest developments in the South China Sea, the location of several territorial conflicts that have raised tensions in the region. ___ CHINA DEMANDS END TO US OPERATIONS China has demanded the United States stop sending ships and military aircraft close to its South China Sea island claims during talks to prepare for a meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping. FILE - In this Monday, March 5, 2018, file photo, a Vietnamese passenger boat sails past U.S aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson as it docks in Danang Bay, Vietnam. Over this last week, China demanded the United States stop sending ships and military aircraft close to its South China Sea island claims during talks to prepare for a meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping later this month. (AP Photo/ Hau Dinh, File) The U.S. pushed back Friday, insisting it will continue to "fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows." In late September, U.S. and Chinese vessels nearly collided close to a disputed reef. Tensions have also flared amid a bitter trade dispute that Trump and Xi are expected to tackle at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina later this month. The talks were scheduled to be held in Beijing last month but were postponed after Washington announced new arms sales to Taiwan, and after a Chinese destroyer came close to the USS Decatur in late September in what the U.S. Navy called an "unsafe and unprofessional maneuver." "The Chinese side made it clear to the United States that it should stop sending its vessels and military aircraft close to Chinese islands and reefs and stop actions that undermine Chinese authority and security interests," said Chinese senior foreign policy adviser, Yang Jiechi, who also had sharp words over U.S. support for Taiwan. However, Yang and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe also spoke of the need to improve cooperation, including between the U.S. and Chinese militaries, to ease the risk of conflict as the two powers jockey for pre-eminence in the Asia-Pacific. ___ VIETNAM PROTESTS CHINESE WEATHER STATIONS Vietnam has protested China's launch of weather stations in the disputed Spratly islands, saying they violate Vietnam's sovereignty and complicate the situation in the South China Sea. China last week announced it started operations of the stations on three islands to offer weather forecasts to fishermen in the South China Sea region, neighboring countries and passing ships. Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told reporters at a regularly scheduled briefing Thursday that Vietnam has the legal basis and historical evidence to assert its sovereignty over the Spratlys and Paracels and asked China to stop the action. The Chinese stations are built on man-made islands constructed atop coral reefs that also have airstrips, radar stations and other military features. "The fact that China started use of meteorological observation stations on the illegally built structures in the Spratlys has seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty over the islands," she said. "Vietnam persistently opposes this act and asks China to immediately stop the above-said actions," she said. Hang said China should abide by the principles reached between the two countries guiding the settlement of the maritime issues and the Declaration of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea "without complicating the situation, affecting peace, security and stability" in the South China Sea. ___ CHINESE SHIP GREETS JAPANESE VESSEL Despite Beijing's strenuous objections to "outside parties" becoming involved in the South China Sea, a Chinese warship sent friendly greetings to a Japanese navy vessel as part of an overall improvement in relations between the regional rivals. Japanese state broadcaster NHK reported last week that the message was sent in later October from the Chinese destroyer Lanzhou to the Japanese helicopter carrier Kaga. "Good morning, glad to see you," NHK quoted the Chinese message as saying. China frequently evokes memories of Japan's brutal World War II invasion and occupation of much of its territory to warn of what it calls the threat of resurgent Japanese militarism. China is also a strong critic of the U.S.-Japanese defense alliance and opposes all actions by their two militaries seen as challenging its claim to almost the entire South China Sea. However, trade friction with the U.S. appears to be drawing the two closer, with Chinese President Xi Jinping telling Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month that the two countries are "sharing more common interests and concerns." China-Japan relations have undergone turbulence but are now "back to a normal track," Xi told Abe during the first formal visit to Beijing by a Japanese leader in nearly seven years. Abe's visit highlights the improvement in ties after they hit a low in 2012 during a dispute over East China Sea islands controlled by Japan but claimed by China. ___ Associated Press writers Mathew Pennington in Washington and Tran Van Minh in Hanoi, Vietnam contributed to this report. PARIS (AP) - For President Donald Trump in Paris, America First meant largely America alone. At a weekend commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the president who proudly declares himself a "nationalist" stood apart, even on a continent where his brand of populism is on the rise. He began his visit with a tweet slamming the French president's call for a European defense force, arrived at events alone and spent much of his trip out of sight in the American ambassadors' residence in central Paris. On Sunday, he listened as he was lectured on the dangers of nationalist isolation, and then he headed home just as the inaugural Paris Peace Summit was getting underway. Back at the White House on Monday, Trump tweeted that "much was accomplished" in his meetings, but voiced a familiar complaint about America's allies. He said the U.S. pays billions "protecting other countries, and we get nothing but Trade Deficits and Losses." He added: "It is time that these very rich countries either pay the United States for its great military protection, or protect themselves." His France trip made clear that, nearly two years after taking office, Trump has dramatically upended decades of American foreign policy posture, shaking allies. That includes French President Emmanuel Macron, who on Sunday warned that the "ancient demons" that caused World War I and millions of deaths were once again making headway. Macron, who has been urging a re-embrace of multinational organizations and cooperation that have been shunned by Trump, delivered a barely veiled rebuke of Trumpism at the weekend's centerpiece event: A gathering of dozens of leaders at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the base of the Arc de Triomphe to mark the passage of a century since the guns fell silent in a global war that killed millions. Bells tolled across Europe's Western Front and fighter jets passed overhead to mark the exact moment the devastating war came to a close. President Donald Trump stands amongst the headstones during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) With Trump and other leaders looking on, Macron took on the rising tide of populism in the United States and Europe and urged leaders not to turn their backs by turning inward. "Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism," Macron said, adding that, when nations put their interests first and decide "who cares about the others" they "erase the most precious thing a nation can have ... its moral values." After Trump was gone, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who recently announced that she will not be seeking re-election, made an impassioned plea for global cooperation at the peace forum, saying World War I had "made clear what disastrous consequences a lack of compromise in politics and diplomacy can have." Trump, who has made clear that he has limited patience for broad, multilateral agreements, sat mostly stone-faced as he listened to Macron, who sees himself as Europe's foil to the rising nationalist sentiment, which has taken hold in Hungary and Poland among other countries. Trump did engage with his fellow leaders, attending a group welcome dinner hosted by Macron at the Musee d'Orsay on Saturday night and a lunch on Sunday. He also spent time with Macron on Saturday, when the two stressed their shared desire for more burden-sharing during a quick availability with reporters. But Trump was terse during some of his private conversations with world leaders, according to people with direct knowledge of his visit. One of the people described the president as "grumpy." They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations. The symbolism during Trump's visit couldn't have been more stark. Trump was missing from one of the weekend's most powerful images: A line of world leaders, walking shoulder to-shoulder in a somber, rain-soaked procession as the bells marking the exact moment that fighting ended - 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918 - finished tolling. The president and first lady Melania Trump had traveled to the commemoration separately - White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited security protocols - from the other dignitaries, who had traveled together by bus from the Elysee Palace. As Trump's motorcade was making its solo trip down the grand Champs-Elysees, which was closed to traffic, at least one topless woman breached tight security, running into the street and shouting "fake peace maker" as the cars passed. She had slogans, including the words "Fake" and "Peace," written on her chest. Police tackled the woman and the motorcade continued uninterrupted. The feminist activist group Femen later claimed responsibility. Also traveling on his own was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who shook Trump's hand, flashed him a thumbs-up sign and patted Trump's arm as he arrived. Trump responded with a wide smile. National security adviser John Bolton had said at one point that Putin and Trump would meet in Paris, but they will instead hold a formal sit-down later this month at a world leaders' summit in Buenos Aires. A Kremlin official said later that U.S. and Russian officials decided to drop plans for the Paris meeting after French officials objected. Trump, who ran on an "America First" platform, has jarred European allies with his actions. He has slapped tariffs on the European Union, pulled the U.S. out of the landmark Paris Climate Accord and the Iran nuclear deal and suggested he might be willing to pull the U.S. out of NATO if member counties don't significantly boost their defense spending. Trump's eagerness to get along with the Russian leader - in spite of Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and numerous other aggressive moves in recent years - has alarmed those who view Russia as a growing threat. Trump has also repeatedly branded himself a "nationalist," despite criticism from some that the term has negative connotations. At a news conference last week, Trump defended his use of the phrase. "You know what the word is? I love our country," he said, adding: "You have nationalists. You have globalists. I also love the world and I don't mind helping the world, but we have to straighten out our country first. We have a lot of problems." But Trump did not broach the divide as he paid tribute Sunday to U.S. and allied soldiers killed in World War I during "a horrible, horrible war" that marked America's emergence as a world power. "We are gathered together at this hallowed resting place to pay tribute to the brave Americans who gave their last breath in that mighty struggle," Trump said at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial in the suburbs of Paris, where more than 1,500 Americans who died in the war are buried. "It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago," he said after spending a moment, standing alone amid the cemetery's white crosses, holding a black umbrella. The Veterans Day speech came a day after Trump was criticized for failing to visit a different American cemetery about 60 miles (100 kilometers) outside of Paris on Saturday because rain grounded the helicopter he had planned to take. A handful of senior administration officials, including White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, went in the president's place, while Trump remained behind at the ambassador's residence with no alternate schedule for hours. Trump delivered the speech as other leaders were gathered for the Paris Peace Forum, which aims to revive collective governance and international cooperation to tackle global challenges. Afterward he flew back to Washington. France was the epicenter of World War I, the first global conflict. Its role as host of the main international commemoration highlighted the point that the world mustn't stumble into war again, as it did so quickly and catastrophically with World War II. ___ Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Julie Pace in Washington and Lori Hinnant and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. ___ For more information on World War I, go to The Associated Press' WWI hub: https://www.apnews.com/WorldWarI ___ Follow Superville and Colvin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dsupervilleap and https://twitter.com/colvinj President Donald Trump speaks during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. In rear is the Paris landmark the Eiffel Tower. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump stands in front of headstones during an American Commemoration Ceremony, Sunday Nov. 11, 2018, at Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris. Trump is attending centennial commemorations in Paris this weekend to mark the Armistice that ended World War I. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) PARADISE, Calif. (AP) - The dead were found in burned-out cars, in the smoldering ruins of their homes, or next to their vehicles, apparently overcome by smoke and flames before they could jump in behind the wheel and escape. In some cases, there were only charred fragments of bone, so small that coroner's investigators used a wire basket to sift and sort them. At least 29 people were confirmed dead in the wildfire that turned the Northern California town of Paradise and outlying areas into hell on earth, equaling the deadliest blaze in state history, and the search for bodies continued Monday. Nearly 230 people were unaccounted for by the sheriff's reckoning, four days after the fire swept over the town of 27,000 and practically wiped it off the map with flames so fierce that authorities brought in a mobile DNA lab and forensic anthropologists to help identify the dead. Meanwhile, with the cause of the inferno under investigation, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. came under scrutiny after telling state regulators that it had been having a problem with an electrical transmission line in the area before the fire broke out. Investigators with the state fire agency were at the scene of the transmission line Monday. PG&E had no comment. As the search for victims dragged on, friends and relatives of the missing called hospitals, police, shelters and the coroner's office in hopes of learning what became of their loved ones. Paradise was a popular retirement community, and about a quarter of the population was over 65. Tad Teays awaited word on his 90-year-old dementia-stricken mother. Darlina Duarte was desperate for information about her half-brother, a diabetic who was largely housebound because he had lost his legs. And Barbara Hall tried in vain to find out whether her aunt and the woman's husband, who are in their 80s and 90s, made it out alive from their retirement community. Fire crews clear rubble from the road near a building burned in the Camp Fire, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) "Did they make it in their car? Did they get away? Did their car go over the edge of a mountain somewhere? I just don't know," said Hall, adding that the couple had only a landline and calls were not going through to it. Megan James, of Newfoundland, Canada, searched via Twitter from the other side of the continent for information about her aunt and uncle, whose house in Paradise burned down and whose vehicles were still there. On Monday, she asked on Twitter for someone to take over the posts, saying she is "so emotionally and mentally exhausted." "I need to sleep and cry," James added. "Just PRAY. Please." The blaze was part of an outbreak of wildfires on both ends of the state. Together, they were blamed for 31 deaths, including two in celebrity-studded Malibu in Southern California, where firefighters appeared to be gaining ground against a roughly 143-square-mile (370-square-kilometer) blaze that destroyed at least 370 structures, with hundreds more feared lost. Some of the thousands of people forced from their homes by the blaze were allowed to return, and authorities reopened U.S. 101, a major freeway through the fire zone in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Malibu celebrities and mobile-home dwellers in nearby mountains were slowly learning whether their homes had been spared or reduced to ash. All told, more 8,000 firefighters statewide were battling wildfires that scorched more than 325 square miles (840 square kilometers), the flames feeding on dry brush and driven by blowtorch winds. In Northern California, fire crews still fighting the blaze that obliterated Paradise contended with wind gusts up to 40 mph (64 kph) overnight, the flames jumping 300 feet across Lake Oroville. The fire had grown to 177 square miles (303 square kilometers) and was 25 percent contained, authorities said. There were tiny signs of some sense of order returning to Paradise and also anonymous gestures meant to rally the spirits of firefighters who have worked in a burned-over wasteland for days. Large American flags stuck into the ground lined both sides of the road at the town limits, and temporary stop signs appeared overnight at major intersections. Downed power lines that had blocked roads were cut away, and crews took down burned trees with chain saws. The 29 dead in Northern California matched the deadliest single fire on record, a 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. A series of wildfires in Northern California's wine country last fall killed 44 people and destroyed more than 5,000 homes. ___ Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Janie Har and Daisy Nguyen in San Francisco; Paul Elias and Martha Mendoza in Chico, California; and Andrew Selsky in Salem, Oregon. Flames consume a home as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) Krystin Harvey, left, comforts her daughter Araya Cipollini at the remains of their home burned in the Camp Fire, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) Capt. Steve Millosovich carries a cage of cats while battling the Camp Fire in Big Bend, Calif., on Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. Millosovich said the cage fell from the bed of a pick-up truck as an evacuee drove to safety. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) Evacuees from a wildfire rest on cots and blankets supplied by the Red Cross in the gymnasium at Taft Charter High School in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File) A firefighter keeps watch as the wildfire burns a home near Malibu Lake in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File) Fire crews clear rubble from the road near a building burned in the Camp Fire, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) As the Camp Fire burns nearby, a scorched car rests by gas pumps near Pulga, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Jimmy Clements, who stayed at his home as the Camp Fire raged through Paradise, Calif., leans against his fence, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Clements, whose home stands among destroyed residences, said he built an FM radio out of a potato and wire to keep up with news about the fire. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Santos Alvarado, right, and his son Ricky recover a safe deposit box from their destroyed home at Seminole Springs Mobile Home Park, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, following devastating wildfires in the area in Agoura Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) An American flag is draped over the charred remains of an old pickup truck entering Point Dume along the pacific coast highway in Malibu, Calif., on Sunday Nov. 11, 2018. Strong Santa Ana winds have returned to Southern California, fanning a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended Sunday morning and authorities warn that the gusts will continue through Tuesday. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) Burned trees surround a destroyed home leaving only the fireplace in Point Dume in Malibu, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Strong Santa Ana winds have returned to Southern California, fanning a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended Sunday morning and authorities warn that the gusts will continue through Tuesday. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) A burned out hot tub and a fireplace are all that remains of a house in Point Dume, Malibu, Calif., Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Strong Santa Ana winds have returned to Southern California, fanning a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended Sunday morning and authorities warn that the gusts will continue through Tuesday. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) Donna Phillips shows a charred Route 66 sign she found among the possessions of her friend Marsha Maus, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, after wildfires tore through the Seminole Springs Mobile Home Park in Agoura Hills, Calif. Maus has been a resident of the neighborhood for 15 years. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) A firefighting DC-10 makes a fire retardant drop over a wildfire in the mountains near Malibu Canyon Road in Malibu, Calif. on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Strong Santa Ana winds have returned to Southern California, fanning a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended Sunday morning and authorities warn that the gusts will continue through Tuesday. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) Anthropology students observe as human remains are recovered from a burned out home at the Camp Fire, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) Deputy Coroner Justin Sponhaltz, right, of the Mariposa County Sheriff's Office, carries a bag with human remains found at a burned out home at the Camp Fire, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) ATLANTA (AP) - His election still undecided, Republican Brian Kemp is proceeding as a victorious candidate and promising to be a governor for all Georgians. That might not be so easy. Should his narrow lead hold over Democrat Stacey Abrams and send him to the governor's mansion, Kemp would face lingering questions about how and why he oversaw his own election as secretary of state. His victory would be fueled by an even starker than usual urban-rural divide, with Abrams drawing most of her votes in metro Atlanta and smaller cities, and Kemp running up massive margins in rural and small-town Georgia, eclipsing 85 percent in some counties. Then there's his embrace of President Donald Trump's coarse rhetoric, from Kemp warning about "illegal votes" to promising to "round up criminal illegals" in his pickup truck. That plays into what civil rights leaders and observers from both parties describe as a bitter, race-laden contest that pitted Abrams' bid to become the nation's first black woman governor against Kemp's fierce effort to preserve his overwhelmingly white party's hold on a diversifying Deep South state. The after-effects, they say, won't easily dissipate. "In the hypothetical scenario that Brian Kemp becomes governor," said NAACP activist and former congressional candidate Francys Johnson, "then he and Donald Trump will have both won because they were able to stoke the deepest darkest fears among their base." Republican Brian Kemp, right, speaks during a news conference as Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal listens in the Governor's ceremonial office at the Capitol on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018, in Atlanta, Ga. Kemp resigned Thursday as Georgia's secretary of state, a day after his campaign said he's captured enough votes to become governor despite his rival's refusal to concede. (Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Some Republicans acknowledge the atmosphere even as they defend Kemp from charges he ran a racially and culturally divisive campaign. "Some of this is beyond Brian Kemp's control," said Brian Robinson, a former adviser for outgoing Gov. Nathan Deal and for Kemp's vanquished GOP primary rival. "Brian Kemp cannot extricate himself from the national political environment that now drives every election down to the county level. You run for coroner, you have to say whether you want to 'make America great again.'" For his part, Kemp notes "a very polarizing climate that we've been in." But he defends his pledge to "put Georgians first" - a rhetorical cousin to Trump's "America First" - and he rejects any notion that he could take office under a cloud that would make his job harder. "It was a tough election," Kemp said two days after the vote. He pointed to his time as a state senator representing a swing district: "I'm going to serve this whole state and move forward with the plans we have." Undeterred, Abrams' campaign filed a federal lawsuit Sunday asking a judge to delay the vote certification until Wednesday and make officials count certain absentee and provisional ballots that would otherwise be rejected. The campaign said thousands of ballots could be affected. Kemp spokesman Ryan Mahoney said Monday the lawsuit shows Abrams has "moved from desperation to delusion." "Stacey Abrams lost," he said, "and her concession is long overdue." Georgia Secretary of State Robyn Crittenden, who was appointed after Kemp resigned last week, sent a bulletin to county election officials Monday telling them to count absentee ballots even if voters have not included their year of birth on the envelope as long as the signature and other information is sufficient to verify their identity. Crittenden also noted in the bulletin that the period for verifying eligibility of provisional ballots ended Friday required by Georgia law. The Abrams campaign lawsuit asks that a judge order that deadline extended until Wednesday at 5 p.m. Meanwhile, two Democratic senators - Cory Booker of New Jersey and Brian Schatz of Hawaii - sent a letter asking the Justice Department for "a thorough investigation into the potential voting rights abuses that have been reported before, during, and after the election" in Georgia. Leading up to the election, Abrams called Kemp "an architect of suppression." Kemp says he's faithfully enforced state and federal elections laws, though that's not convinced some voters. Nina Durham, a 50-year-old Powder Springs resident, joined a small a group of protesters last week. She said she didn't have confidence in the results. Asked whether she could see Kemp as her governor, Durham, who is African-American, replied, "No. He hasn't represented me as secretary of state." Unofficial returns show Kemp leading by about 60,000 votes out of more than 3.9 million votes cast. That's enough for a narrow majority, but Abrams says enough uncounted absentee, early and provisional ballots remain to bring Kemp below a majority. That would trigger a Dec. 4 runoff. The Associated Press has not called the race. The AP will revisit its decision after Tuesday's deadline for Georgia's 159 counties to send certified results to the state. Robinson, the former Deal adviser, noted razor-thin general elections such as this one are mostly new to Georgia. "Brian did what he had to do to win," Robinson said. But, "In two years, we will be at parity or a slight Democratic advantage. ... His re-election in a purple state already has to be under way" and "he has to be seen in minority communities, and not just African-American." Robinson noted Deal's work with black lawmakers - including Abrams - on a criminal justice overhaul that is reducing mass incarceration, particularly among young black men. He said Kemp could find ways to relax his opposition to expanding Medicaid insurance, perhaps "allowing legislators from both parties to take the lead" on some compromise that could draw more federal money to Georgia's health care system. Expanding Medicaid is Abrams' top policy priority. Ben Williams, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference leader in suburban Atlanta's Cobb County, said Kemp must acknowledge- if not apologize - for some elements of the campaign. Williams pointed to a photo of Kemp standing with a supporter later identified as a white supremacist. Kemp's campaign distanced itself at the time, noting Kemp agreed to snapshots with anyone who asked at his public rallies. In the campaign's closing days, Kemp criticized a racist robocall from an out-of-state white supremacy group. But he took heat for his campaign's official Twitter account sending out a photo of purported Black Panthers holding Abrams' campaign signs and calling it proof of her radicalism. There was no proof of the affiliation of those pictured, and they were not with Abrams' campaign. Williams said it adds up to a "blatantly racist" effort, intentional or not. For all their skepticism, Williams and Johnson predicted Kemp's leading critics always would be willing to meet with him. Said Johnson: "In civil rights work, our mantra is this: No permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent issues." ___ Associated Press writer Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report. ___ Follow Barrow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams speaks to supporters about a suspected run-off during an election night watch party in Atlanta. For the vast majority of the nation, the 2018 midterm season is over. Yet the fight rages on in Florida and Georgia, two political battlegrounds where the strength of a Trump-era political realignment among voters by culture and class is being put to the test. Abrams hasn't conceded her race while Andrew Gillum's contest in Florida is undergoing a recount. (AP Photo/John Amis, File) John Chandler, one of Stacey Abrams' attorneys, speaks during a news conference Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018, in Atlanta. Republican Brian Kemp resigned Thursday as Georgia's secretary of state, a day after his campaign said he's captured enough votes to become governor despite his rival's refusal to concede. Abrams' campaign immediately responded by refusing to accept Kemp's declaration of victory in the race and demanding that state officials "count every single vote." (Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Palestinian militants bombarded Israel with dozens of rockets and mortar shells Monday, while Israeli warplanes struck targets throughout the Gaza Strip in what appeared to be the most intense exchange of fire since a 2014 war. Palestinian officials said at least three people, including two militants, were killed by Israeli fire and nine were wounded, and an Israeli airstrike destroyed the ruling Hamas group's TV station. In Israel, the national rescue service said at least 20 people were wounded, including a 19-year-old soldier and a 60-year-old woman who were in critical condition. Early Tuesday, Israeli media reported that a man was found dead under the rubble of a building in the southern coastal city of Ashkelon hit by Gaza rockets. Gaza's health ministry, meanwhile, said a 22-year-old Palestinian who was wounded in an earlier airstrike died, putting the Palestinian death toll since the current flare-up started late Sunday to 11, the majority of them militants. The fighting cast doubt over recent understandings brokered by Egypt and U.N. officials to reduce tensions. Just a day earlier, Israel's prime minister had defended those understandings, saying he was doing everything possible to avoid another war. The United Nations said it was working with Egypt to broker a halt in the violence. "Rockets must STOP, restraint must be shown by all!" the U.N. Mideast envoy's office tweeted. An Israeli soldier stands near a burning bus after it was hit by a mortar shell fired from Gaza near the Israel Gaza border, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Israeli media say six people were wounded by Palestinian fire, including a 19-year-old who was critically hurt when a mortar shell hit the bus. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov) U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, urged Israel and the Palestinians "to exercise maximum restraint," according to a statement. The rocket fire was triggered by a botched Israeli military raid in Gaza on Sunday. Undercover troops, apparently on a reconnaissance mission, were discovered inside Gaza on Sunday, setting off a battle that left seven militants, including a Hamas commander, and an Israeli military officer dead. Around sundown Monday, militants launched some 100 rockets in less than an hour, the most intense barrage since the 50-day war four years ago. The outgoing rockets, which continued into the evening, lit up the skies of Gaza and set off air raid sirens throughout southern Israel. By early Tuesday, at least 300 rockets had been launched from Gaza, the Israeli military said, adding that up to 70 of them were intercepted by the anti-missile defense system Iron Dome. The military said warplanes, helicopters and tanks had struck over 70 militant targets, including military compounds, observation posts and weapons facilities. It also said it targeted a squad that was launching rockets. The airstrikes and rocket barrages resumed at dawn after nearly two hours of calm. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said the army had sent additional infantry troops, rocket defense systems and intelligence units to the Gaza frontier. "We continue to strike and retaliate against the military targets belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, and as for our intentions we will enhance these efforts as needed," he told reporters. Late Monday, an airstrike destroyed the Gaza City headquarters of Hamas' Al Aqsa TV station. Israel had fired warning shots ahead of the airstrike, prompting the station to halt programming and replace it with a logo. Minutes later, the airstrike flattened the three-story building and the station went black. Workers had evacuated the building after the warning shots, and there were no immediate reports of casualties. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum condemned the bombing as "a barbaric, brazen aggression." Ten minutes later, the station resumed broadcasts, airing prerecorded national songs. Israel said the station "broadcasts violent propaganda" and provides "operational messaging" to militants. A five-story office building that housed Hamas media offices and another building used by Hamas' internal security service were also destroyed. No casualties were reported. Hamas and the smaller militant group Islamic Jihad said the rocket fire was revenge for Sunday night's Israeli incursion. Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shehab said the groups wanted "the occupation and its supporters know that the lives of our sons come with a price." In all, well over 300 rockets were fired into Israel by midnight, the army said. The Israeli military said it intercepted 70 rockets, and most of the others fell in open spaces. But rockets landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, setting off a large fire near a shopping center. Several homes were hit in southern towns, including one that was destroyed in Ashkelon. Around midnight, a rocket struck another building in Ashkelon, wounding at least 10 people, including one woman in critical condition, according to police and rescue workers. Earlier, a bus was struck by an anti-tank missile, critically wounding a 19-year-old soldier. The strike set the bus on fire, sending a large plume of black smoke over the area. Gaza militants released a video of what they said was the attack, showing a bus pulling up to an open area before going up in flames. The video, with ominous music playing, showed Israeli soldiers milling about the area. Michael Oren, an Israeli Cabinet minister, said Israel "will do whatever it takes" to defend itself. "We expect the world to stand with us," he said. The EU's ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, called for a halt in "indiscriminate" rocket fire toward civilians. "Everyone must step back from the brink," he said. Earlier Monday, thousands of Palestinian mourners buried the seven militants killed in Sunday's incursion. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh led a funeral as masked gunmen in uniforms carried coffins and mourners chanted "revenge." Hamas set up checkpoints across Gaza in a show of force. It also restricted movement through crossings with Israel, preventing foreign journalists, local businessmen and some aid workers from leaving the territory. Hamas also canceled a weekly beach protest in northwestern Gaza along the border with Israel. The organizers cited "the ongoing security situation." Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. In the most recent war, over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them civilians, and tens of thousands were left homeless. Seventy-three people were killed on the Israeli side. Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas takeover. The blockade has devastated Gaza's economy. For over seven months, Hamas has been leading protests along the Israeli border aimed in large part at breaking the blockade. More than 170 Palestinians, most unarmed, have been killed by Israeli fire during the protests. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltration attempts. In recent weeks, Egyptian and U.N. mediators had appeared to make progress in brokering informal understandings aimed at quieting the situation. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver $15 million to Gaza to allow cash-strapped Hamas to pay the salaries of thousands of government workers. At the same time, Hamas has lowered the intensity of the border protests in recent weeks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a visit to Paris because of the flare-up and returned to Israel on Monday for consultations with top security officials. The Hamas military wing said that in Sunday's incursion, Israeli undercover forces drove about 3 kilometers (2 miles) into southeastern Gaza and shot and killed a mid-level commander in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Hamas militants discovered the car and chased it, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed several people, the group said. The military provided few details about Sunday's raid. The Israeli military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, said a "special force" carried out "a very meaningful operation to Israel's security," without elaborating. In a tweet after his arrival back home, Netanyahu praised the slain officer, whose identity was kept confidential for security reasons, and said "our forces acted courageously." The officer's funeral was held Monday. On Sunday, Netanyahu defended his decision to allow through the Qatari cash to Gaza as a way to avert an "unnecessary war," maintain quiet for residents of southern Israel and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the impoverished Gaza Strip. ___ Associated Press writer Fares Akram reported in Gaza City and AP writer Josef Federman reported from Jerusalem. AP writer Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem contributed to this report. An explosion caused by Israeli airstrikes on Al-Rahma building in Gaza City, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Palestinian militants on Monday fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, and the Israeli military responded by dispatching fighter jets to strike throughout the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Smoke rises from a mortar attack by Gaza militants on Israel, in Gaza City, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Palestinian militants on Monday fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, critically wounding an Israeli teen, in an intense barrage of projectiles aimed at seeking revenge for a deadly Israeli military incursion late Sunday. The Israeli military responded by dispatching fighter jets to strike throughout the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Palestinian mourners carry the bodies of two of the seven Hamas militants who were killed in an Israeli raid late Sunday, during their funerals in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Thousands of mourners in the Gaza Strip buried seven Palestinians, including a local Hamas commander, killed after an Israeli incursion into the territory, which also killed one Israeli army officer. The cross-border fighting came just days after Israel and Hamas reached indirect deals, backed by Qatar and Egypt, to allow cash and fuel into Gaza. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Palestinian rockets cross the sky after militants attack an Israeli bus with a mortar, in Gaza City, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. The Israeli military says a bus has been hit by fire from the Gaza Strip as air raid sirens sound throughout southern Israel. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) Israeli soldiers take cover near the Israel Gaza border, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. The Israeli military said it has dispatched fighter jets to strike "terror targets" throughout Gaza following a barrage of mortar and rocket fire that wounded six people. The attacks from Gaza appeared to be an act of revenge after a botched Israeli raid the day before killed seven Palestinian militants. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov) Israeli soldiers take cover near the Israel Gaza border, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. The Israeli military said it has dispatched fighter jets to strike "terror targets" throughout Gaza following a barrage of mortar and rocket fire that wounded six people. The attacks from Gaza appeared to be an act of revenge after a botched Israeli raid the day before killed seven Palestinian militants. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov) Smoke rises following Israeli strikes on Gaza City, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Palestinian militants on Monday fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, critically wounding an Israeli teen, in an intense barrage of projectiles aimed at seeking revenge for a deadly Israeli military incursion late Sunday. The Israeli military responded by dispatching fighter jets to strike throughout the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Smoke rises following Israeli strikes on Gaza City, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Palestinian militants on Monday fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, critically wounding an Israeli teen, in an intense barrage of projectiles aimed at seeking revenge for a deadly Israeli military incursion late Sunday. The Israeli military responded by dispatching fighter jets to strike throughout the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Mourners chant Islamic slogans while carrying the body of Hamas militant commander Nour el-Deen Barakas, who was killed during an Israeli raid late Sunday, during his funeral, at his family house in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Thousands of mourners in the Gaza Strip buried seven Palestinians, including Barakas, killed after an Israeli incursion into the territory, which also killed one Israeli army officer. The cross-border fighting came just days after Israel and Hamas reached indirect deals, backed by Qatar and Egypt, to allow cash and fuel into Gaza. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Mourners carry the body of Hamas militant commander Nour el-Deen Barakas, who was killed during an Israeli raid late Sunday, during his funeral, at his family house in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Thousands of mourners in the Gaza Strip buried seven Palestinians, including Barakas, killed after an Israeli incursion into the territory, which also killed one Israeli army officer. The cross-border fighting came just days after Israel and Hamas reached indirect deals, backed by Qatar and Egypt, to allow cash and fuel into Gaza. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) Israeli firefighters work at the scene where a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit in Sderot, Israel, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Israel's military says it is prepared to step up its efforts against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip if rocket fire at Israel continues. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov) An Israeli soldier stands near a burning bus after it was hit by a mortar shell fired from Gaza near the Israel Gaza border, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Israel's military says it is prepared to step up its efforts against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip if rocket fire at Israel continues. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov) Israeli firefighters work at the scene where a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit in Sderot, Israel, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Israel's military says it is prepared to step up its efforts against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip if rocket fire at Israel continues. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov) Flares fired from Israeli forces light up the night sky in Gaza City, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, as the Israeli military launched fighter jets to strike "terror targets" throughout the Gaza Strip. Palestinian militants on Monday fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, critically wounding an Israeli teen, in an intense barrage aimed at seeking revenge for a deadly Israeli military incursion late Sunday. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) Smoke rises following Israeli strikes on Gaza City, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Palestinian militants on Monday fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, critically wounding an Israeli teen, in an intense barrage aimed at seeking revenge for a deadly Israeli military incursion late Sunday. The Israeli military responded by dispatching fighter jets to strike throughout the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) ISLAMABAD (AP) - The Pakistani government, already struggling with a crisis surrounding a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy charges after eight years on death row, now has to deal with "fake" images on social media purporting to show her outside the country. The deceptive images have prompted death threats to a lawmaker shown in one photograph, and are likely intended to whip up radical religious fervor over Aasia Bibi's case. It's unclear who is behind the circulation of the images. Radical Islamists have held mass protests and demanded that she be publicly executed. They've also filed a petition to repeal her Supreme Court acquittal. The government says Bibi remains in Pakistan, at a secret location for her own protection, until the review process is finished. Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned hard-line groups against using her plight to further their political aims with street protests. He has defended the Supreme Court judges who on Oct. 21 acquitted the 54-year old mother of five of blasphemy charges. But he has also acquiesced to demands by the Islamists that the acquittal be reviewed in an appeal process. Blasphemy is a highly charged issue in Pakistan, where mere allegations of insulting Islam or the Prophet Muhammad can incite mobs into a frenzy of violence. The charge carries the death penalty, and critics say the blasphemy law is abused to settle religious scores. FILE - In this Nov. 1, 2018, file photo, Pakistani protesters burn a poster image of Christian woman Aasia Bibi, in Hyderabad, Pakistan. Pakistan's government struggling with a crisis surrounding Bibi - a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy charges after eight years on death row - now has to deal with "fake" images on social media purporting to show her leaving the country. (AP Photo/Pervez Masih, File) Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry slammed the "fake" postings on Monday, one of which claims to show Bibi meeting Pope Francis. The photo is actually of Bibi's daughter from two years ago. Bibi and her family have always maintained her innocence and say she never insulted Islam's prophet. Chaudhry said the images misidentifying Bibi prompted death threats to a lawmaker in one photograph, Fazal Khan from the ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf Party. The lawmaker's constituency is in a deeply conservative region in the country's northwest. "People can even be killed because of such fake postings," Chaudhry said. The pictures were widely circulated on social media in Pakistan and shared on several local journalists' groups, even a police and a media group. "We are trying to seek cooperation from Twitter and Facebook against such fake news," Chaudhry added. Bibi's ordeal dates back to 2009 when she went to fetch water for herself and fellow farmworkers. An argument took place after two Muslim women refused to drink from the same container as Bibi, who is Roman Catholic. The women later said Bibi had insulted the Prophet Muhammad, and she was charged with blasphemy. She was put on trial, convicted and sentenced to death in 2010. Following Bibi's acquittal last month, the founder of the radical Tehreek-e-Labbak Party, Mohammed Afzal Qadri, issued a fatwa calling for the death of the three Supreme Court judges who handed down the acquittal and the overthrow of Khan's government. He also incited the military to mutiny. In 2011, the governor of Punjab province was killed by his own guard after he defended Bibi and criticized the blasphemy law. A year later, the minister for minorities was shot and killed. Bibi, who was freed from detention last week, is being held at a secret, closely guarded location in Pakistan. Those who are familiar with her circumstances say she is expected to remain there until the Supreme Court carries out the review. On Sunday, the prime minister said the Supreme Court's decision would be final. For now, it's unclear when the review will be held or who would defend Bibi. Her lawyer, Saiful Malook, fled the country following her acquittal, fearing for his life. BERLIN (AP) - Germany's interior minister on Monday denied reports that he was planning on stepping down as the nation's top security official but said he will relinquish his post as leader of the sister party to that of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Horst Seehofer told reporters at an event in the eastern city of Bautzen that rumors he was resigning as interior minister were incorrect. "I am the federal interior minister and I continue to serve in that office," the 69-year-old said. Seehofer has clashed frequently with Merkel, primarily over her policies on migration. The friction between the two threatened to bring down the chancellor's coalition government earlier this year over his insistence that some categories of asylum-seekers should be turned away at the country's borders. More recently, Seehofer's backing of domestic intelligence chief Hans-Georg Maassen over comments he made downplaying the extent of violence in anti-migrant protests in the eastern city of Chemnitz put him at odds again with Merkel as well as with other cabinet ministers. Merkel's junior coalition partner Social Democrats had demanded Maassen's removal from the BfV spy agency in September after the comments. FILE - In this April 10, 2018 file photo German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, and German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, right, look at their watches after they and other members of the government posed for a group photo during two-day retreat at the government guest house Meseberg castle in Gransee north of Berlin, Germany. In the center is German Justice Minister Katarina Barley. Germany's top security official, who has frequently criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel's migrant policy, is reportedly planning to quit his post in government. German news agency dpa quoted multiple unnamed party officials as saying Horst Seehofer told a meeting of the Christian Social Union on Sunday that he plans to relinquish its leadership and his role as interior minister in Merkel's government. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, file) Maassen was removed, and on Monday the ministry confirmed it was replacing him with longtime civil servant Thomas Haldenwang. Despite staying on as interior minister, Seehofer confirmed that he had decided to step down from the Christian Social Union, which operates only in Bavaria as the partner of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. "Change is a part of life," he said, adding he'd announce specifics on timing later in the week. Seehofer stepped down as Bavarian governor earlier this year in favor of a younger rival, Markus Soeder, but clung to the post of CSU leader until the party's dismal result in September's regional elections increased the pressure for him to leave. _____ Frank Jordans contributed to this story. ___ This story has been corrected to say that the friction in the coalition was earlier this year, not last year. German interior minister Horst Seehofer looks on during his visit to a police station in Bautzen, eastern Germany, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. (Monika Skolimowska/dpa via AP) FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2018 file photo shows a name sign marking the place of German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer who did not attend the weekly cabinet meeting of the German government at the chancellery in Berlin. Germany's top security official, who has frequently criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel's migrant policy, is reportedly planning to quit his post in government. German news agency dpa quoted multiple unnamed party officials as saying Horst Seehofer told a meeting of the Christian Social Union on Sunday that he plans to relinquish its leadership and his role as interior minister in Merkel's government. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, file) FILE - In this Oct. 10, 2018 file photo German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer arrives for the weekly cabinet meeting of the German government at the chancellery in Berlin. Germany's top security official, who has frequently criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel's migrant policy, is reportedly planning to quit his post in government. German news agency dpa quoted multiple unnamed party officials as saying Horst Seehofer told a meeting of the Christian Social Union on Sunday that he plans to relinquish its leadership and his role as interior minister in Merkel's government. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, file) By Delana Isles ON THE heels of the latest and ninth murder for 2018, politicians are now calling for a stronger safety net to divert the wayward youths of the territory from a life of crime. Among those voicing these calls in the House of Assembly last week were elected member George Lightbourne, Leader of the Opposition (PNP) Washington Misick and Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson. The latest murder was that of 28-year-old Kyle Williams. Williams was shot three times at a bar in Over Back, Grand Turk, at about 4am on October 27. He later to succumbed to his injuries. In the month of March, one murder was recorded, in April another one, yet another one in July, four more in August, one in September and two murders in October. This is an increase from 2017 overall murder figures of seven for the entire year. During his two minute speech in the House on October 29, Lightbourne, elected member for Grand Turk North, said that given the rising violence and gun crimes, there seems to be no hope. He expressed dismay that the violence, which has primarily been concentrated in Providenciales throughout the year, has spread to the capital. "We seem to be heading in a very dangerous direction in the TCI, things that we didnt expect to happen in Grand Turk were now confronted with it and we will be forced to come to terms with it, the member said. While expressing that he does not blame anyone in the House for the crime situation, Lightbourne bemoaned the seeming lack of hope among the youths in the country. "There seems to be no hope, they are acting up and acting out in a negative way and they are doing it without remorse. He said it is incumbent on everyone to change the course in the territory and that it has to start at the top. "I say to the Government that the signs are around us and if you look in the mirror and check yourself. "If you want to be honest with yourself, you would conclude, like most of us have already concluded, that you are not up to the count. The leader of the opposition also shared his thoughts, stating that the territory needs to stop the young people who are engaging in these criminal acts from falling through the cracks and becoming perpetrators and victims of crime. "I think we all have a responsibility not to be against anything but to be for something, in the words of Mother Teresa. "Sometimes when we come here and we speak against things, like we speak against violence and appeal to the young people, sometimes it comes as blaming them and criticising them when it fact what we really need to do is to build a stronger safety net and stop them from falling through. He called on the leaders to think outside the box and not to follow the script of other countries. "I believe we can save our youth and we can convert this country into a beacon on the hill that is something the rest of the Caribbean and small nations in particular ought to be proud of, he added. He also appealed to the youth of the territory not to be drawn into the negatives of American culture. The party leader believes that more mentorship is needed if the country is to progress and the youth are to be saved, and thinks that a more spiritual approach is needed. "Sometimes we have to leave the concrete and appeal to that aspect of our souls because that is where everything emanates. In her two minute presentation, Premier Cartwright Robinson shared the sentiments expressed by the PNP leader. However, she pointed out that while the news of the murders and other violence is disheartening, not all of the young people of the Turks and Caicos Islands are engaged in these criminal activities. She said there are many Islanders, both at home and abroad, who continue to make the TCI proud. She pointed to last weekends university graduation of four new medical doctors and the territorys first local radiologist from the University of the West Indies Mona Campus in Jamaica. "We have a number of young people that continue to make us proud in the TCI but there is something that is going on with some young people of this country, and a lot of parents are at a lost and we continue to call on the church we need to understand what is happening and grasp the seriousness of it. "To date we have had nine murders, eight of them are related to young people, the premier bemoaned. Meanwhile, the National Security Council has reported that crime is down 30 percent, for the first six months of 2018. No figure has been released as yet for the second half, or third quarter, which saw a marked increase in murders and other gun related crimes. SINGAPORE (AP) - Singapore's leader vowed Monday to strengthen ties with Malaysia, which is now led by a historic rival following a game-changing election. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said during a visit by his Malaysian counterpart, Mahathir Mohamad, that the countries had a "special bond" and were each other's second-biggest trading partners. Singapore is also Malaysia's second-largest foreign investor. "Singapore and Malaysia will always have a good place for each other in our hearts, and because of our proximity and interdependence, we will always have an interest in each other's development and success," Lee said, adding that he looked forward to working with Mahathir. Mahathir led Malaysia for 22 years before stepping down in 2003. During his term there were frequent sharp exchanges with neighboring Singapore and Lee's father, its first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. In May, an electoral upset that toppled former Prime Minister Najib Razak brought Mahathir into power again. Mahathir had put aside a dispute with a former political nemesis to lead a four-party coalition to victory. The 93-year-old plans to lead the country for at least two years before handing the reins to his former nemesis, Anwar Ibrahim. Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, left, shakes hands with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Istana in Singapore, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. (Feline Lim/Pool Photo via AP) Mahathir is on his first official visit to Singapore since winning the election. He said he hopes the two countries will maintain good relations, even with different administrations in power. "Singapore and Malaysia are mutually dependent. Singapore has got no hinterland, but it must regard Malaysia as its hinterland. On the other hand, for a very long time, Malaysia had to depend on Singapore for its exports and imports," Mahathir said. Neither leader addressed bumps in projects since Mahathir has taken office. He has put the brakes on the construction of a high-speed rail connecting the country's capital, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore. Mahathir is also renegotiating a decades-old water treaty, and plans to raise the price of water sold to Singapore by more than 10 times. On Monday, Mahathir expressed hope that the countries will be able to work together despite having a rivalry. "Malaysia and Singapore are twins, in a way. Except that perhaps the elder twin is a little bit bigger than the younger twin and a little bit older," he quipped, to laughter. "It is not often that we see countries which come together, and then separated and still be able to ... work together and help each other," Mahathir added. The two countries were briefly merged in 1963, but they separated two years later due to political and economic differences. Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, right, inspects an honor guard with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during a visit at the Istana in Singapore, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. (Feline Lim/Pool Photo via AP) Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, center, inspects an honor guard with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, center left, during a visit at the Istana in Singapore, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. (Feline Lim/Pool Photo via AP) BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - An Oklahoma deputy acquitted in a 2016 fatal shooting of an unarmed black man is no longer scheduled to speak at a homicide investigators conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. News outlets report the Southeastern Homicide Investigators Association rescinded Roger County Sheriff's Deputy Betty Shelby's invitation on Sunday following pressure from civil rights leaders. Shelby is a former Tulsa police officer charged and acquitted of manslaughter in the killing of Terence Crutcher. She later resigned. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund sent a letter to the conference Friday opposing Shelby speaking at the conference this week about "Surviving the Aftermath of a Critical Incident." A Sunday letter by the conference says Shelby's presentation would teach officers about the shooting's aftermath, but its cancellation supports the community's relationship with law enforcement. ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - OPEC and allied oil-producing countries will likely need to cut crude supplies, perhaps by as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day, to rebalance the market after U.S. sanctions on Iran failed to cut Tehran's output, Saudi Arabia's energy minister said Monday. The comments from the minister, Khalid al-Falih, show the balancing act the U.S. allies face in dealing with President Donald Trump's actions related to the oil industry. Trump in recent weeks demanded the oil cartel increase production to drive down U.S. gasoline prices. "Hopefully, Saudi Arabia and OPEC will not be cutting oil production. Oil prices should be much lower based on supply!" he tweeted Monday. The U.S. has meanwhile allowed some of its allies - Greece, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey - as well as rival China to continue to purchase Iranian oil despite re-imposed sanctions, as long as they work to reduce their imports to zero. Al-Falih, who on Sunday said the kingdom would cut production by over 500,000 barrels per day in December, said Monday that Saudi Arabia had been giving customers "100 percent of what they asked for." That appeared to be a veiled reference to Trump. Before the United States re-imposed sanctions on Iran, "fear and anxiety gripped the market," al-Falih said at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference. Now "we're seeing the pendulum swing violently to the other side," he added. UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei, left, talks to Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi Energy and Oil Minister, in the opening ceremony of the Abu Dhabi International Exhibition & Conference, ADIPEC, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. OPEC and allied oil-producing countries likely need to cut crude supplies to rebalance the market after proposed U.S. sanctions on Iran failed to cut Tehran's ouput, top Saudi and Emirati energy officials said Monday. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) The energy minister of the United Arab Emirates, Suhail al-Mazrouei, currently the president of OPEC, said "changes" likely would be necessary as the oil cartel meets in December in Vienna. However, he added: "We need not to overreact when these things happen." Al-Falih said OPEC officials have seen analysis papers suggesting a production cut of upward of 1 million barrels of crude a day may be necessary to rebalance the market. However, he stressed that more study needed to be done. "There are a lot of assumptions in their projections that may change," al-Falih said. "We don't want to throttle the global economy." A gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. on average now sells for $2.69, down from $2.90 a month ago, according to AAA. Those lower prices likely quieted Trump, but production cuts could again boost prices at the pump. Neither al-Falih nor al-Mazrouei directly criticized Trump, but Mohammed Hamad al-Rumhy, Oman's oil and gas minister, blamed the U.S. president for some of the volatility striking the oil market. Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, maintains close diplomatic ties to Iran and often serves as an interlocutor between Western powers and Tehran. "Supply and demand is perhaps the easy part because you can measure it," al-Rumhy said. It's "extremely difficult to quantify what is happening in (the) White House - almost impossible." Iran, which has tense relations with Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, did not have a high-level official at the summit. Crude oil dropped to a low of $30 a barrel in January 2016. That forced OPEC to partner with non-OPEC countries, including Russia, to cut production to help prices rebound. Benchmark Brent crude, which had been trading above $80 a barrel recently, now hovers just over $70 after the U.S. sanction waivers on Iran. Meanwhile, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the head of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., said the UAE planned to increase oil production to 4 million barrels a day by 2020 and 5 million barrels a day by 2030. The UAE now produces some 3 million barrels of oil a day. Al-Jaber also said the UAE would begin fracking - injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals - to gain access to otherwise unreachable natural gas reserves. "Make no mistake: Hydrocarbons will continue to play an absolutely essential part of a diversified energy mix," al-Jaber said. But the highs and lows of the market need to end for both oil consumers and producers to profit, said al-Rumhy, the Omani official. "If it was my heart beat going that way, I think I would be in the hospital right now," he said. ___ Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap . Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi Energy and Oil Minister, talks during the opening ceremony of the Abu Dhabi International Exhibition & Conference, ADIPEC, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Monday, Nov.12, 2018. OPEC and allied oil-producing countries likely need to cut crude supplies to rebalance the market after proposed U.S. sanctions on Iran failed to cut Tehran's ouput, top Saudi and Emirati energy officials said Monday. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) BRUSSELS (AP) - Britain and the European Union appeared to be inching toward agreement on Brexit on Monday, but British Prime Minister Theresa May faced intensifying pressure from her divided Conservative government that could yet scuttle a deal. Britain leaves the EU on March 29 - the first country ever to do so - but a deal must be sealed in the coming weeks to leave enough time for the U.K. and European Parliaments to sign off. May faces increasing domestic pressure over her proposals for an agreement following the resignation of another government minister last week. The British leader had been hoping to present a draft deal to her Cabinet this week. But no Brexit breakthrough was announced Monday after talks between European affairs ministers. The two sides are locked in technical negotiations to try to bridge the final gaps in a move laden with heavy political and economic consequences. May said talks were in their "endgame" but that negotiating a divorce agreement after more than four decades of British EU membership was "immensely difficult." May told an audience at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London that "we are working extremely hard, through the night, to make progress on the remaining issues in the Withdrawal Agreement, which are significant. "Both sides want to reach an agreement," May said, though she added she wouldn't sign up to "agreement at any cost." European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, right, shakes hands with Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney during a meeting at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Britain's European Union partners on Monday ratcheted up political pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May amid signs that some progress is being made in Brexit negotiations. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) The main obstacle to a deal is how to keep goods flowing smoothly across the border between EU country Ireland and Northern Ireland in the U.K. Both sides have committed to avoid a hard border with costly and time-consuming checks that would hamper business. Any new customs posts on the border could also re-ignite lingering sectarian tensions. But Britain and the EU haven't agreed on how to achieve that goal. "Clearly this is a very important week for Brexit negotiations," Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told reporters after the meeting in Brussels. "The two negotiating teams have really intensified their engagement ... There is still clearly work to do." And Martin Callanan, a minister in Britain's Brexit department, said all involved were "straining every sinew to make sure that we get a deal but we have to get a deal that is right for the U.K., right for the EU and one that would be acceptable to the U.K. Parliament." EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier didn't speak to reporters Monday and a planned news conference with him was canceled. Instead, EU headquarters issued a short statement saying that Barnier explained to the ministers that "intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet." Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said the two sides "are getting closer to each other." "But in negotiations there is only a deal if there is full agreement," Blok said. "There is only a 100-percent deal. There is not a 90-percent deal or a 95-percent deal." Earlier, France's EU affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, stepped up pressure on May. "The ball is in the British court. It is a question of a British political decision," she said. The EU is awaiting Barnier's signal as to whether sufficient progress has been made to call an EU summit to seal a deal. Rumors have swirled of a possible top-level meeting at the end of November. But Austrian EU affairs minister Gernot Bluemel, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said "so far progress is not sufficient to call in and set up another (summit)." In recent days there have been signs of progress behind the scenes, but all parties have remained tight-lipped about the developments, given the politically charged atmosphere. In Britain, pro-Brexit and pro-EU politicians alike warned May that the deal she seeks is likely to be shot down by Parliament. Boris Johnson, a staunch Brexit supporter, wrote in a column for Monday's Daily Telegraph that May's plan to adhere closely to EU regulations in return for a trade deal and an open Irish border amounts to "total surrender" to the bloc. The proposed terms are scarcely more popular with advocates of continued EU membership. Former Education Secretary Justine Greening on Monday called May's proposals the "worst of all worlds," and said the public should be allowed to vote on Britain's departure again. "We should be planning as to how we can put this final say on Brexit in the hands of the British people," Greening told the BBC. Johnson's younger brother, Jo Johnson, resigned last week backing calls for a second referendum on whether the country should leave the EU. May has consistently rejected the idea of another nationwide vote on Brexit. ___ Jill Lawless reported from London. European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier touches his head during a meeting at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Britain's European Union partners on Monday ratcheted up political pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May amid signs that some progress is being made in Brexit negotiations. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) Passers-by are reflected in an artwork based on the European Union flag, with one star missing, in the European Commissions headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Britain's European Union partners on Monday ratcheted up political pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May amid signs that some progress is being made in Brexit negotiations. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018 file photo, British Prime Minister Theresa May listens as Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis speaks at the start of their meeting inside 10 Downing Street in London. Prime Minister Theresa May says Britain aims to reach a Brexit deal with the European Union as soon as possible, but that it can't come "at any cost." May briefed her Cabinet Tuesday, Nov. 6 on progress toward an elusive divorce deal. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, file) European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, left, talks to France's EU Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau during a meeting at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Britain's European Union partners on Monday ratcheted up political pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May amid signs that some progress is being made in Brexit negotiations. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier arrives to a meeting at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Britain's European Union partners on Monday ratcheted up political pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May amid signs that some progress is being made in Brexit negotiations. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) PALERMO, Sicily (AP) - Representatives of Libya's quarrelling factions and of countries keen on stabilizing the North African nation started meetings in Sicily on Monday, as Italy encourages a political settlement that could bolster the fight against Islamic militants and stop illegal migrants from crossing the Mediterranean to Europe's southern shores. Italy's anti-migrant populist government organized the two-day conference in Palermo with an eye to making progress on a long-elusive goal of ending years of lawlessness in Libya. Rival Libyan administrations jockey for power, militias clash in often deadly bids to boost prestige and influence, and human traffickers exploit the chaos to pursue their lucrative business from their base in the North African country. Arriving a few hours before a closed working dinner to begin the conference, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte told reporters the conference aims to "help end the armed conflicts and to help the Libyan stabilization process" in the framework of the United Nations. Eventually, the West hopes Libyans will have a democratic election, but the conference isn't aiming to fix a date. "We want the Libyan people to be able to democratically decide their own future," Conte said. There was skepticism on how much progress might be made toward stability at the conference in a luxury seaside hotel in large part because it wasn't clear if a key player, Gen. Khalifa Hifter, commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army with a power base in eastern Libya, would meet with his Libyan rivals in plenary sessions set for Tuesday. Conte warmly shook hands with Hifter as he greeted guests arriving for the dinner session. FILE - In this Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018 file photo, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at the informal EU summit in Salzburg, Austria. A gathering of leaders of Libya's quarrelling factions and of countries keen on stabilizing the North African nation opens in Monday Nov. 12, 2018, where Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte will be greeting arrivals Monday evening in Sicily, aimed at finding a political settlement that would bolster the fight against Islamic militants and stop illegal migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe's southern shores. (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson, File) Libya plunged into chaos after the 2011 uprising that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and it is now governed by rival administrations in the east and west with both relying on the support of militias. It has also become a haven for Islamic militants and armed groups, including several from neighboring countries, which survive on looting and human trafficking, particularly in the remote south of the country. Conte met on Monday with Ghassan Salame, the U.N. special envoy to Libya, who last week told the U.N. Security Council that the "status quo in Libya was untenable" with the country. One of Salame's other meetings on conference sidelines saw him exchange views on political developments with Fayez Serraj, the prime minister of the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli and a chief rival of Hifter. Italy has been a staunch Serraj backer. Libya's neighbor to the east, Egypt, backs Hifter. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, among the participants, had recently reiterated Cairo's call for lifting the international arms embargo against Libya. In an interview published Monday in Italian daily La Stampa, Conte portrayed the gathering as an opportunity to "sustain the creation and deployment of regular armed forces and security forces." For rights advocates, the conference posed another kind of opportunity: To draw attention to the plight of migrants trapped in Libya, now that the nearly nightly launching of human traffickers' boats from Libya's coasts has sharply dropped off as Italy and Malta have closed their ports to private rescue groups' vessels. "Amnesty International is calling on all those taking part in the conference to ensure that human rights of all people in the country, including refugees and migrants, are placed at the center of their negotiations," the rights group said in a statement. It decried that Libya has "repeatedly delayed" the opening of a long-promised processing center for the U.N. refugees organization, to relocate refugees from "abusive detention centers." With Libya's rich oil and gas resources, energy-rivals Italy and France have been jockeying for influence. France hosted a meeting on Libya in May, when rival Libyan leaders tentatively agreed on a roadmap for parliamentary and presidential elections but declined to sign a declaration outlining their commitments. Conte's six-month-old government - and especially anti-migrant Interior Minister Matteo Salvini - sees a more stable and secure Libya as the best outcome for Italians, and for the right-wing voter base in particular. Hifter has been instrumental in the fight against militants, going after them in their eastern hideouts and occasionally foraying into the vast and largely lawless south. However, a deadly overnight attack last month by militants from the extremist Islamic State group showed the limitations of his army. Meanwhile, encounters on the conference's sidelines focused on encouraging Libyan economic reforms. Stephanie Williams, a deputy to Salame, the U.N. special representative, official, said in a tweet that there was a "positive tendency" in the economic sphere. She noted that bank reserves' liquidity had increased and thus there was a decline in black market exchange activity. "Dealing with the economic dimension of the Libya crisis will help prepare the grounds for a future political settlement," Claudia Gazzini, a former political adviser to Salame and currently a consulting analyst on Libya with the International Crisis Group, commented in a tweet. ___ Frances D'Emilio in Rome, and Rami Musa in Benghazi, Libya, contributed to this report. ___ A previous version of this story was corrected to eastern instead of western Libyan in Hifter reference. A Carabinieri (Italian paramilitary) officer patrols the area next to Villa Igiea, the site of an international conference on Libya, in Palermo, Italy, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. A gathering of leaders of Libya's quarrelling factions and of countries keen on stabilizing the North African nation is taking place Sicily. It aims to find a political settlement that would bolster the fight against Islamic militants and stop illegal migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe's southern shores. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni) Police officers stand in the area of Villa Igiea, the site of an international conference on Libya, in Palermo, Italy, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. A gathering of leaders of Libya's quarrelling factions and of countries keen on stabilizing the North African nation is taking place Sicily. It aims to find a political settlement that would bolster the fight against Islamic militants and stop illegal migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe's southern shores. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni) TOKYO (AP) - A U.S. combat jet from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan crashed into the sea northeast of the Philippines on Monday, but its two pilots were rescued safely. The U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet said the F/A-18 Hornet had a mechanical problem during routine operations in the Philippine Sea. A rescue aircraft quickly plucked the pilots from the water and brought them back to the ship, the Navy said in a statement. They were in good condition and the aircraft carrier has since returned to normal operations, the Navy said. The cause of the crash is under investigation. The crash was the second involving aircraft belonging to the USS Ronald Reagan in less than a month. In mid-October, a MH-60 Seahawk crashed shortly after takeoff, causing non-fatal injuries to a dozen sailors. In this image made from Nov. 3, 2018, video, an F-18 fighter jet prepares to take off from the USS Ronald Reagan during maneuvers in the waters off Iwakuni, Japan. On Monday, while on routine operations in the Philippine Sea, an F-18 from the USS Reagan crashed into the sea but its two aviators were rescued safely. (AP Photo/Richard Columbo) The aircraft carrier participated in a joint exercise known as "Keen Sword" with Japan and Canada from Oct. 29 to Nov. 8 in waters around Japan and near Guam in the Pacific. The F/A-18 was part of Carrier Air Wing 5 onboard the Ronald Reagan, the Navy said. In this image made from Nov. 3, 2018, video, an F-18 fighter jet prepares to take off from the USS Ronald Reagan during maneuvers in the waters off Iwakuni, Japan. On Monday, while on routine operations in the Philippine Sea, another F-18 from the USS Reagan crashed into the sea but its two aviators were rescued safely. (AP Photo/Richard Columbo) In this image made from Nov. 3, 2018, video, F-18 fighter jets are anchored on the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan during maneuvers in the waters off Iwakuni, Japan. On Monday, while on routine operations in the Philippine Sea, an F-18 from the USS Reagan crashed into the sea but its two aviators were rescued safely. (AP Photo/Richard Columbo) KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A suicide bomber struck near an anti-Taliban rally in Kabul on Monday, killing at least four people, officials said, as a lawmaker reported that insurgents killed at least 20 Afghan policemen over the past 24 hours in eastern Ghazni province. According to Basir Mujahid, spokesman for the Kabul police chief, the bomber was on foot and detonated his vest full of explosive after he was spotted by police. Hours later, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place about 500 meters (yards) from where hundreds of minority Shiites had gathered to denounce the latest Taliban attacks in Ghazni districts of Jaghuri and Malistan. Wahid Mujroh, spokesman for the Health Ministry, said so far at least four were confirmed dead while 22 people were wounded. The casualties were taken to hospitals, he added. In a statement posted on its media arm, the Aamaq news agency, IS said it targeted a gathering of Shiites. Both the Taliban, who now control nearly half of Afghanistan and stage near-daily attacks on Afghan forces, and the Islamic State group's affiliate in the region have been behind many recent Kabul attacks and bombings. Meanwhile, Afghan lawmaker Ali Akbar Qasemi said the fighting in Ghazni since Sunday has focused on the district of Jaghuri where 20 policemen have been killed. Security forces inspect the site of a deadly blast near a demonstration by hundreds of minority Shiites, in the center of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Afghan officials confirmed several people were killed in the explosion near a high school and about 500 meters (yards) from where people gathered to denounce Taliban attacks in Jaghuri and Malistan districts of eastern Ghazni province. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) The Afghan army chief, Gen. Mohammad Sharif Yaftali, told reporters that government forces have sustained casualties but declined to elaborate on specifics or say how many were killed. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid took responsibility for the Jaghuri attacks and claimed in a text message to the media that the Taliban have also captured Ghazni's district of Malistan. There was no immediate response from authorities on Malistan. Ghazni is the only one out of 34 Afghan provinces where the country's October parliamentary elections could not take place for security reasons. Voting there has been postponed for a year. In August, the Taliban overran parts of the provincial capital, also called Ghazni. At the time, hundreds of people fled the city amid intense fighting between Afghan forces and insurgents that killed about 120 members of the security forces and civilians. According to Afghan authorities, nearly 200 insurgents, many of them foreign fighters, were also killed. ___ Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this story. Security forces inspect the site of a deadly blast near a demonstration by hundreds of minority Shiites, in the center of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Afghan officials confirmed several people were killed in the explosion near a high school and about 500 meters (yards) from where people gathered to denounce Taliban attacks in Jaghuri and Malistan districts of eastern Ghazni province. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) Security forces inspect the site of a suicide attack in the capital of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Afghan officials confirm at least three people killed in a blast happened near a high school and the Kabul municipality office while hundreds of people gather to protest against Taliban attacks in Jaghuri and Malistan districts of eastern Ghazni province. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) MOSCOW (AP) - Separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine have secured their hold on power in weekend local elections that have been denounced by Ukrainian authorities and the West as illegitimate. Local election officials in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics said Monday that acting leaders Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik won the votes with 61 and 68 percent respectively. Voters also cast ballots for local legislatures in the provinces, where Russian-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces since 2014 in a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people. Although a 2015 peace deal called for local elections in Donetsk and Luhansk, critics, including Ukraine's president, the U.S. and the European Union say the vote is illegitimate because it was conducted in areas where Ukraine has no control. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko discussed the elections with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron during ceremonies in Paris on Sunday commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. In a statement after the meeting, Merkel and Macron said that holding "so-called" elections undermines Ukraine's territorial integrity, and urged all sides to respect the cease-fire and release political prisoners. Acting leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic Denis Pushilin casts his ballot at a polling station during rebel elections in Donetsk, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Residents of the eastern Ukraine regions controlled by Russia-backed separatist rebels are voting for local governments in elections denounced by Kiev and the West. (AP Photo) Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the vote came as the regions were fighting for survival as a result of a Ukrainian blockade and a looming threat of the resumption of full-scale fighting. "The republics had nothing else but to self-organize in order to ensure their existence and fulfill their obligations to the people who were abandoned by their own country," Peskov told reporters. Rebel leaders have similarly rejected Western criticism, arguing that Ukraine has failed to fulfill its commitments under the terms of the 2015 peace deal, notably of granting broad powers to the rebel regions. "It's another exam for the civic position, political position for the whole Donetsk Republic," said Pushilin, who became acting head of the Donetsk separatist regime after his predecessor Alexander Zakharchenko was killed in a restaurant bombing in August. His Luhansk counterpart, Leonid Pasechnik, said Sunday that "we are a free republic, a free country" and denied that the voting was being held contrary to the 2015 agreement signed in Minsk, the capital of Ukraine's neighbor Belarus. A woman casts her ballot at a polling station during rebel elections in Donetsk, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Residents of the eastern Ukraine regions controlled by Russia-backed separatist rebels are voting for local governments in elections denounced by Kiev and the West. (AP Photo) A woman exits a polling booth during rebel elections in Donetsk, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Residents of the eastern Ukraine regions controlled by Russia-backed separatist rebels are voting for local governments in elections denounced by Kiev and the West. (AP Photo) A woman casts her ballot at a polling station during rebel elections in Donetsk, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Residents of the eastern Ukraine regions controlled by Russia-backed separatist rebels are voting for local governments in elections denounced by Kiev and the West. (AP Photo) RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Britain's top diplomat met Monday with King Salman in Saudi Arabia, where he was expected to press the kingdom to fully cooperate with a Turkish investigation into last month's killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is the first British minister to visit Saudi Arabia since Khashoggi was killed in the consulate in Turkey on Oct. 2 by what Ankara says was an assassination squad sent for the writer, who was a critic of the crown prince. The state-run Saudi News Agency said King Salman and Hunt discussed bilateral relations and the latest regional developments. Hunt is also scheduled to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Also in the kingdom was Simon McDonald, who serves as British Prime Minister Theresa May's special envoy, and who also met the king and crown prince earlier. May has rebuffed calls from opposition lawmakers to end weapons sales to the kingdom in the wake of Khashoggi's killing. However, in recent days Britain has backed renewed U.S. calls for a de-escalation of the conflict in Yemen. Hunt is also to meet with Yemeni officials while in the region and travel to the United Arab Emirates to press for an end to the conflict in Yemen. Britain has backed renewed U.S. calls for a de-escalation of the war. Hunt's office said he is seeking support for new action in the U.N. Security Council to bolster the U.N.-led peace process. In this photo released by Saudi Press Agency, Saudi King Salman, right, talks to the UK's foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, in Riyadh, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Hunt was expected to press the kingdom to fully cooperate with a Turkish investigation into last month's killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul. The foreign secretary is the first British minister to visit Saudi Arabia since Khashoggi was killed by what Ankara has said was an assassination squad sent for the dissident writer. (Saudi Press Agency via AP) "The only solution is now a political decision to set aside arms and pursue peace," Hunt said ahead of his trip. A Saudi-led coalition allied with the internationally recognized Yemeni government has been fighting Yemen's Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, since 2015 in an attempt to restore the mostly exiled government to power. The war has killed thousands of people pushed millions to the brink of starvation. MOSCOW (AP) - A senior Russian diplomat said Monday that Moscow is trying to be an Afghan peace broker because it considers the U.S. has failed in Afghanistan. Russia's presidential envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said a Moscow conference on Afghanistan Friday that brought together representatives of the Afghan authorities and the Taliban marked an attempt to "take a modest first step toward full-fledged peace talks." Kabulov said Monday that Russia's efforts to help an Afghan peace settlement have been driven not by a desire to undercut the U.S. efforts, but by legitimate security concerns. He emphasized that the continuing fighting in Afghanistan threatens the interests of Russia and its allies in Central Asia. "Afghanistan is close to our underbelly so national interests of Russia and its allies are at stake," Kobulov said at a briefing. "We can't just sit back and watch impassively what's going on, and we have let the U.S. know that it doesn't appear to be successful in settlement efforts." Kabulov charged that "the presence of the U.S. and NATO hasn't only failed to solve the problem but exacerbated it," noting that the Taliban has steadily expanded its foothold. "The West has lost the war in Afghanistan, and it's reluctant to acknowledge that obvious fact," Kabulov said. "If they continue to rely on force, it would only lead to thousands more victims and further ravage the country." Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, second left, speaks as he attends a conference on Afghanistan bringing together representatives of the Afghan authorities and the Taliban in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. The conference marks Moscow's attempt to get the Afghan authorities and the Taliban together at a table. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has sent a diplomat to observe the discussions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) He noted that regional powers, including Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran have a strong interest in ending the conflict and should play a more active role. The U.S. Embassy sent a diplomat to observe Friday's conference in Moscow that was attended by several members of Afghanistan's government-appointed Peace Council and the Taliban. Envoys from China, India, Pakistan and the ex-Soviet nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan also attended the meeting. Taliban officials and Peace Council members have met at past forums elsewhere, and while no formal talks were ever held they have had some face-to face discussions. The Taliban has refused direct talks with the Afghan government, which it sees as a U.S. puppet, saying it will only negotiate the end of the 17-year war directly with Washington. The group reaffirmed that position in Moscow, saying it would talk directly to the U.S. to demand its pullout from the country. Kabulov said that he may meet with the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, later this fall. Participants of the conference on Afghanistan including representatives of the Afghan authorities and the Taliban read papers in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. The conference marks Moscow's attempt to get the Afghan authorities and the Taliban together at a table. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has sent a diplomat to observe the discussions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, center, arrives to attend a conference on Afghanistan bringing together representatives of the Afghan authorities and the Taliban in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. The conference marks Moscow's attempt to get the Afghan authorities and the Taliban together at a table. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has sent a diplomat to observe the discussions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) Participants attend the conference on Afghanistan bringing together representatives of the Afghan authorities and the Taliban in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. The conference marks Moscow's attempt to get the Afghan authorities and the Taliban together at a table. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has sent a diplomat to observe the discussions. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Chongqing Changan Automobile Co.,Ltd (Changan Automobile) said that its Oct. sales plunged 35.2% over a year ago to 170,575 units, the sixth straight month facing year-on-year (YoY) drop. For the first ten months, the automaker delivered 1,818,191 vehicles in total, a relatively steep YoY decline of 21.7%. The sales of Changan Automobile's self-owned brand exceeded 1.2 million units during the first 10 months among which over 800 thousand units were passenger vehicles. In October, the sales of the CS55 and the CS75 SUV amounted to 17,034 units and 14,980 units, climbing up 15.5% and 8.2% compared with the previous month. Besides, the sales of the CS35 SUV reached 8,191 units, 593 units less than that of a month ago. From January to October, the respective year-to-date (YTD) sales for the three major SUV driversthe CS55, the CS75 and the CS35 were 140,878 units, 120,644 units and 104,363 units. Meanwhile, the sales of the EADO sedan amounted to 13,530 units in October, skyrocketing 134.7% from the year-ago period, and totaled 111,157 units through October. The all-new CS35 PLUS, hitting the market on October 30, is quite attractive to young consumers by featuring Tencent's intelligent-connected in-car system that builds a social network platform to entertain users in their driving journey. The automaker will reportedly showcase the CS85 SUV, the all-new CS15 and the EADO ET at the forthcoming Auto Guangzhou 2018. As to the performance of joint ventures, Changan Ford had a sales volume of 26,938 units in October, tumbling 67.3% over the year-ago period and sliding 18.4% over the previous month. In addition, its Jan-Oct sales were nearly halved compared with the same period a year ago. Changan Mazda posted a YoY decrease of 18.1% with its Oct. sales reaching 15,155 units. By the end of October, a total of 143,649 vehicles were delivered for the Sino-Japanese automaker, a YoY decline of 7.3%. Moreover, the company's NEV sales reached 7,554 units last month, basically the same as that of the previous month, and aggregated 56,043 units for the first ten months. LUMBERTON, N.C. (AP) - A total reward of $20,000 is being offered in the case of a 13-year-old girl kidnapped from a North Carolina mobile home park. News outlets report Lumberton police announced Friday that Gov. Roy Cooper's office is offering $5,000 for information that leads to Hania Noelia Aguilar. The FBI is offering $15,000. Relatives say the eighth-grader went outside last week to start a relative's SUV to prepare to leave for the bus stop. Police say a man then forced her into an SUV and drove off. The FBI says the SUV was found in Lumberton Thursday, several miles from the mobile home park. Police Chief Michael McNeill asked nearby residents to check their property for anything unusual. Investigators are seeking help identifying a person seen on surveillance video near the scene. This Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018, photo provided by FBI shows Hania Noelia Aguilar, the day before she went missing in Lumberton, N.C. Authorities say they have found the SUV stolen during the kidnapping of the 13-year-old girl at a North Carolina mobile home park, and now hope to identify a person seen in a surveillance video. (FBI via AP) This Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018, photo provided by FBI shows Hania Noelia Aguilar, the day before she went missing in Lumberton, N.C. Authorities say they have found the SUV stolen during the kidnapping of the 13-year-old girl at a North Carolina mobile home park, and now hope to identify a person seen in a surveillance video. (FBI via AP) This photo provided by the Lumberton Police Department shows Hania Noelia Aguilar. Police in North Carolina say the 13-year-old girl has been kidnapped from a mobile home park. Lumberton police Capt. Terry Parker tells news outlets that witnesses described a man with a yellow bandana over his face grabbing Aguilar from a yard in the Rosewood Mobile Home Park just before 7 a.m. Monday, Nov. 5, 2018. (Lumberton Police Department via AP) TOKYO (AP) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Tokyo on Monday to discuss North Korea and other issues with Japanese officials before heading to two regional summits. Pence is expected to also discuss China's growing regional influence and bilateral trade with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe when they meet Tuesday, officials said. During a stopover in Alaska, Pence told reporters that he planned to "talk about our important alliance, our economic relationship, current negotiations for a free trade agreement of course, and we'll be focusing on our ongoing commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Japan's NHK public television reported. Pence said in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post that America will soon begin negotiations for "a historic trade agreement with Japan." The two countries agreed in September to start negotiations on a bilateral trade agreement. Talks are expected to begin early next year. President Donald Trump's administration has reached a trade pact with South Korea and another with Mexico and Canada. Pence said in the article that the new trade deals "will put American jobs and American workers first." U.S. Vice President Mike Pence walks with his wife Karen as they exit Air Force Two upon landing at Yokota Air Base in Fussa on the outskirts of Tokyo Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Pence has arrived in Tokyo on an overnight visit to discuss North Korea and other issues with Japanese officials before heading to two regional summits. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) Pence also stressed American commitment to the security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region to keep it free and open. He said the U.S. will continue to put diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea and urged all Indo-Pacific nations to keep the pressure campaign and sanctions in place until the complete denuclearization of North Korea is achieved. Pence is to leave Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore and an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea on behalf of Trump. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters Monday that Pence's visit ahead of the regional meetings is a "perfect chance to reaffirm cooperation between Japan and the United States regarding our policies on North Korea and various other issues of mutual interest." He said Pence and Abe will discuss ways to expand trade and investment between the two sides. Japan has faced demands that it reduce its trade surplus with the U.S. and is also concerned about the impact of Trump's trade war with China. ___ Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/mariyamaguchi U.S. Vice President Mike Pence waves with his wife Karen as they exit from Air Force Two upon landing at Yokota Air Base in Fussa on the outskirts of Tokyo Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Pence has arrived in Tokyo on an overnight visit to discuss North Korea and other issues with Japanese officials before heading to two regional summits. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) U.S. Vice President Mike Pence waves with his wife Karen as they exit from Air Force Two upon landing at Yokota Air Base in Fussa on the outskirts of Tokyo Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Pence has arrived in Tokyo on an overnight visit to discuss North Korea and other issues with Japanese officials before heading to two regional summits. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) PARIS (AP) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday became the first Western leader to acknowledge his country had heard recordings of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. "Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share," Trudeau said from Paris, where he was attending the Peace Forum following the World War I armistice centenary. His comments come just two days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had given recordings "to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them." The Canadian leader is the first since that announcement to officially confirm that his country's intelligence had listened to the audio as Canada's intelligence agencies continue to work "very closely" with Turkish intelligence on Khashoggi's killing. Trudeau said that he himself had not heard the shared audio, which is the latest move by Turkey to maintain international pressure on Saudi Arabia to stop a cover up of the Oct. 2 killing. He declined to give any details on the contents of the tapes. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the Paris Peace Forum as part of the commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day, in Paris, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. International leaders attended a ceremony in Paris on Sunday at mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias) Trudeau also said he thanked Erdogan in person for "his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation" when the two leaders met in Paris this weekend. The cooperation between the two countries comes at a rocky moment. In an unrelated diplomatic spat, Canada in August criticized the arrests of Saudi women's rights activists. In response, Saudi Arabia ordered the Canadian ambassador to leave the kingdom and froze all new business between the two countries. France's account somewhat differed on Erdogan's claim to have shared the audio. When questioned on France 2 Television Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that Turkey has "not to my knowledge" given the French government any such recordings, and suggested the Turks were playing games. "If the Turkish president has information to give to us, he must give it to us... That means he is playing a political game in this situation," Le Drian said. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused his French counterpart of "impertinence" and said Turkish officials had shared "all information" with France's intelligence on Oct. 24. Going further, Cavusoglu suggested that Le Drian may be trying to cover-up the killing so as not to endanger agreements with Saudi Arabia. "No one should be surprised if soon they begin to deny the murder that even Saudi Arabia accepted," Cavusoglu said. "Who has recently reached which agreement - this should be carefully looked into." He said: "Are they trying to cover up this murder? There are things we know ... What kind of an agreement are they in? We are following these." CIA Director Gina Haspel, who visited Turkey last month for information on the investigation, is reported to have heard the recordings, the existence of which was leaked to the media but never openly confirmed until Saturday. Also Monday, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt was in Saudi Arabia where he met King Salman and was expected to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Hunt - the first British minister to visit Saudi Arabia since Khashoggi was killed - said he would press the kingdom to fully cooperate with a Turkish investigation into the writer's killing. "The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago. It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear," Hunt said in a statement ahead of landing in Riyadh. A statement by the state-run Saudi News Agency did not make any references to Khashoggi, saying only that King Salman and Hunt discussed bilateral relations and the latest developments in the region. On Sunday U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with the Saudi crown prince on the telephone and "emphasized that the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable, and that Saudi Arabia must do the same." The crown prince is widely suspected of at least having knowledge of the killing, which involved some members of his security entourage. Khashoggi was a Washington Post columnist and a critic of the crown prince who was living in self-imposed exile before his death. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia has changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing, first saying that he walked out of the embassy the day he disappeared before eventually acknowledging Khashoggi died inside the consulate. Saudi Arabia has also recently acknowledged Turkish evidence that showed the slaying was premeditated. Turkey says a 15-member Saudi assassination squad strangled and dismembered Khashoggi at the consulate. Media reports have suggested that his body could have been chemically dissolved as it has not yet been found. Saudi officials characterize the killing as a rogue operation carried out by Saudi agents who exceeded their authority. ___ Associated Press writers Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Suzan Fraser in Ankara and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report. Yasin Aktay, an advisor to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaks during an event organized to mark the 40th day of the death of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, in Istanbul, late Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Officials from Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, France and Britain have listened to audio recordings related to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Erdogan said Saturday, Nov. 10. in the first public acknowledgement of the existence of tapes of the slaying.(AP Photo/Neyran Elden) PARIS (AP) - Fifty nations and over 150 tech companies pledged Monday to do more to fight criminal activity on the internet, including interference in elections and hate speech. But the United States, Russia and China are not among them. The group of governments and companies pledged in a document entitled the "Paris call for trust and security in cyberspace" to work together to prevent malicious activities like online censorship and the theft of trade secrets. The push is supported by EU countries, Japan and Canada as well as tech giants Facebook, Google and Microsoft, among others. French President Emmanuel Macron had pushed for the initiative, whose unveiling comes a day after dozens of world leaders gathered in Paris on Sunday for the centenary of the end of World War One. Speaking at the Internet Governance Forum organized at the Paris-based U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, Macron said it's urgent to better regulate the internet. The French leader also said that Facebook had accepted to let a team of French officials observe the way it monitors and removes hate speech content. French President Emmanuel Macron, right, meets Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Paris Peace Forum in Paris, Sunday, Nov.11, 2018. International leaders attended a ceremony in Paris on Sunday at mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. (Thomas Samson, Pool via AP) It will happen in the early part of next year, and the goal is to "elaborate precise, concrete joint proposals about the fight against hate speech and offensive content," Macron said. Speaking at another summit focusing on new technologies in Paris city hall, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said "one of the things we have to do as a society as tech leaders but also as government is reassure people that the innovation, technology ... is going to empower them in ways they will feel part of the world we're building, of the workplaces we're creating." LONDON (AP) - A British couple with neo-Nazi views who named their son after Adolf Hitler was convicted Monday of membership in an outlawed far-right group. A jury at Birmingham Crown Court in central England found 22-year-old Adam Thomas and 38-year-old Claudia Patatas guilty of being members of National Action. A third defendant, Daniel Bogunovic, was also convicted of membership in the banned group. Three others pleaded guilty before the trial started. During the trial, jurors were shown photos of Thomas holding his baby son - who was given the middle name Adolf - while wearing the white robes of the Ku Klux Klan. Prosecutors said the defendants attended meetings of the banned group and exchanged WhatsApp messages praising the Nazis' murder of Jews. The government banned National Action in 2016 after Labour Party lawmaker Jo Cox was murdered by a far-right extremist. Ten people have now been convicted of membership in the group, including a British soldier who had served in Afghanistan. British police say the threat from violent far-right groups is growing, with four plots foiled in the year to March. All six defendants are due to be sentenced on Dec. 14. LONDON (AP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May says the West's response to the nerve-agent poisoning of a former spy has seriously hurt Russia's intelligence capability. May's office says she'll urge countries "to stand up for the rules around the world" during a foreign-policy speech on Monday. Britain accuses Russia of poisoning ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a Soviet-made nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury in March - a claim Moscow denies. After the attack Britain and other countries expelled a total of 150 Russian spies working under diplomatic cover. Russia expelled a similar number of those countries' envoys. May plans to tell the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London that this was "the largest-ever collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers, fundamentally degrading Russian intelligence capability for years to come." The devastation is complete in Paradise, California, where a wildfire tore through town and destroyed everything, killing at least 29 and destroying so many houses it's already the most destructive fire on record in the state. In other places in the state, fires were more selective, leaving some houses leveled and others still standing. Two people were also found dead in a wildfire in Southern California, where flames tore through Malibu mansions and working-class Los Angeles suburbs alike. More than 8,000 firefighters in all battled three large wildfires burning across nearly 400 square miles (1,040 square kilometers) in Northern and Southern California, with out-of-state crews continuing to arrive and gusty, blowtorch winds starting up again. ___ Visit the AP Images blog: http://apimagesblog.com Visit AP Images online: http://www.apimages.com Flames burn inside a van as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) Firefighter Jose Corona sprays water as flames consume from the Camp Fire consume a home in Magalia, Calif., on Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) Flames consume a home as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) Krystin Harvey, left, comforts her daughter Araya Cipollini at the remains of their home burned in the Camp Fire, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) A vehicle drives through smoke from a wildfire near Pulga, Calif., Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) Sheriff's deputies recover the remains of a victim of the Camp Fire on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) A firefighter monitors a wildfire burning along a hillside Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) Capt. Steve Millosovich carries a cage of cats while battling the Camp Fire in Big Bend, Calif., on Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. Millosovich said the cage fell from the bed of a pick-up truck as an evacuee drove to safety. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) Firefighters push a vehicle from a garage as a wildfire fire burns a home near Malibu Lake in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File) Fires burn toward the pacific ocean as seen Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, from a helicopter over Santa Monica, Calif. Flames driven by powerful winds torched dozens of hillside homes in Southern California, burning parts of tony Calabasas and mansions in Malibu and forcing tens of thousands of people - including some celebrities - to flee as the fire marched across the Santa Monica Mountains toward the sea. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File) Evacuees from a wildfire rest on cots and blankets supplied by the Red Cross in the gymnasium at Taft Charter High School in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File) Flames consume a Kentucky Fried Chicken as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) A firefighter keeps watch as the wildfire burns a home near Malibu Lake in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File) Flames climb trees as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Jordanian search teams have found the body of a five-year-old girl, bringing the death toll from last week's flash floods in the kingdom to 13. The state news agency Petra says the girl was found Monday, a day after her father and four of her sisters - also flood victims - were buried. Petra says the girl was discovered by searchers in a valley in the Madaba district, south of the capital, Amman. On Friday, flash floods unleashed by heavy rains struck several areas of Jordan, including the kingdom's main tourist attraction, the ancient city of Petra. All visitors were evacuated safely from Petra, but the flooding claimed lives elsewhere. Two weeks earlier, 21 people, most of them children, were killed in flash floods near the Dead Sea. PARADISE, Calif. (AP) - The Latest on wildfires in California (all times local): 9:10 p.m. Authorities have lifted mandatory evacuation orders for the Los Angeles neighborhood threatened by an enormous wildfire. But thousands of homes remain at risk. Fire officials announced Monday night that the evacuation order for a portion of West Hills in the northwestern San Fernando Valley has been lifted. Several areas of Ventura and Los Angeles counties also had evacuation orders lifted Monday. However, large areas of those counties and the entire city of Malibu remain under mandatory evacuation orders. The Woolsey fire that began last week has killed two people and burned at least 435 buildings, most of them homes. Fire crews clear rubble from the road near a building burned in the Camp Fire, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) State fire officials say about 57,000 structures remain at risk. ___ 8:10 p.m. Authorities picking their way through burned-out neighborhoods say a Southern California wildfire has now destroyed at least 435 buildings, most of them homes. The new figures released Monday evening come as a wildfire continues to burn its way through scenic but drought-stricken canyonlands in and around Malibu, where celebrity homes have burned along with modest mobile homes. Fire officials say the immense fire, which stretches from north of Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean, is only 30 percent contained - although that is significant progress from only a few days earlier. Fire crews also had to stamp out two new smaller fires. Thousands of homes are still at risk, and forecasters expect gusty Santa Ana winds that drove the flames to continue into Wednesday. ___ 7:35 p.m. Authorities have reported 13 more fatalities from a blaze in Northern California that destroyed a town, bringing the total death toll so far to 42 and making it the deadliest wildfire in recorded state history. The dead have been found in burned-out cars, in the smoldering ruins of their homes, or next to their vehicles, apparently overcome by smoke and flames before they could jump in behind the wheel and escape. In some cases, there were only charred fragments of bone, so small that coroner's investigators used a wire basket to sift and sort them. The search for bodies was continuing. Hundreds of people were unaccounted for by the sheriff's reckoning, four days after the fire swept over the town of 27,000 with flames so fierce that authorities brought in a mobile DNA lab and forensic anthropologists to help identify the dead. The statewide death toll from wildfires over the past week has reached 44. A 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles killed 29 people, and a series of wildfires in Northern California's wine country last fall killed 44 people. ___ 5:50 p.m. President Donald Trump says he has approved an "expedited" major disaster declaration for California over the deadly wildfires burning at both ends of the state. Trump tweeted Monday night that he "wanted to respond quickly in order to alleviate some of the incredible suffering going on." Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown had requested the declaration, which would make victims eligible for crisis counseling, housing and unemployment help, and legal aid. Trump previously blamed "poor" forest management for the fires. Brown says federal and state governments must do more forest management but says climate change is the greater source of the problem. More than 30 people have been confirmed dead in the wildfires. Most of the deaths have come from the fire that obliterated the Northern California town of Paradise. ___ 3:55 p.m. A Northern California man who led a caravan of vehicles that was overcome by flames from a wildfire says he saw his friend die. Greg Woodcox told The Associated Press Monday that he heard his friend scream as the heat blew out windows. Four other people in the vehicles died. They were among at least 29 people who have lost their lives in a wildfire that decimated the town of Paradise. Woodcox said he was too exhausted to talk more by phone. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, the 58-year-old Woodcox said he was in a Jeep ahead of the other vehicles and ran when the flames overtook them. He said he followed a fox to a path down a steep embankment, and he survived by submerging himself in a stream for nearly an hour. ___ 2:40 p.m. A newspaper says firefighters and state employees are clearing brush and spreading water to prevent damage to a Northern California reservoir and dam if a wildfire passes through. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the work was underway Monday at Lake Oroville while the fire is still about 10 miles from the reservoir's power plants and water-supply facilities. State Department of Water Resources spokeswoman Erin Mellon said officials were closely monitoring the blaze. The fire has killed at least 29 people and destroyed the town of Paradise. Spillways at the 770-foot Oroville Dam crumbled and fell away during heavy rains in early 2017, prompting thousands to flee over fears of a possible catastrophic release of water. A $1.1 billion reconstruction project was completed last month. ___ 2:20 p.m. A woman who owns property near the location where a deadly wildfire started in Northern California says she got an email from utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co. last week. It said crews needed to come on her property because their transmission system was causing sparks. It's still not clear what caused the massive fire that has killed 29 people. PG&E said Thursday it experienced a problem on an electrical transmission line near the site of the massive fire, minutes before the blaze broke out. It started in the area of 64 acres of land in Pulga, California, owned by Betsy Ann Cowley. She said she had received an email on Wednesday, the day before the fire started, saying that crews needed to come to her property. Cowley said the email said crews were coming to work on the high-power lines because "they were having problems with sparks." PG&E declined to discuss the email when contacted by The Associated Press. California fire investigators were at Cowley's property on Monday. ___ 1:15 p.m. Fire officials in Northern California say firefighters are battling two spot fires south of the town leveled by a blaze that has killed at least 29 people. Cal Fire Deputy Operations Chief Monty Smith says dense, dry vegetation is fueling the spot fires Monday on each side of Lake Oroville. A fire behavior specialist at Cal Fire, Jonathan Pangburn, said earlier that major winds combined with tinder dry conditions helped the fire jump over the lake Sunday night. The area near Paradise is expected to see wind gusts as high as 40 mph (64 kmph) by Monday evening. Smith says firefighters are working to build a contingency line to stop the fire from reaching Oroville, a town of 19,000 people. ___ 12:10 p.m. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby says he expects further damage assessments to show that hundreds more homes have been lost on top of the 370 already counted as lost in Southern California's huge wildfires. Osby also emphasized Monday that about 57,000 homes have been saved from the so-called Woolsey fire, which burned along a path about 20 miles (32 kilometers) long and 14 miles (22.5 kilometers) wide. Residents have been allowed to return home in some areas, but Osby says at least 200,000 people remain evacuated. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Osby says nothing has been ruled out. ___ 11:30 a.m. A utility is facing increasing criticism following a deadly blaze that leveled a Northern California town and killed at least 29 people. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. told state regulators last week it detected a problem on an electrical transmission line near the town of Paradise minutes before the fire broke out Thursday. Paradise resident Jim Flint tells television stations KHSL/KNVN in the nearby city of Chico he was kicked out of a community meeting Sunday night after asking a PG&E executive if the company was responsible for the deadly fire. Flint says he has lived in Paradise for 29 years and the threat of a wildfire has always been there but says "the issue has been electrical power lines." He adds that "we need answers from these people." The fire has destroyed more than 6,000 homes. A cause has not been determined. ___ 11:25 a.m. Barbara Hall has been calling shelters and the sheriff's office hoping to find out whether her aunt, Arlene and her husband Paul Bickel made it out of their home in a retirement community in the town of Paradise, where a massive fire killed at least 29 people. So far, Hall has had no luck. Her relatives are in their 80s and 90s and Hall isn't allowed into Paradise to see if their car is in front of a house that may no longer be standing. Hall asks: "Did they make it in their car? Did they get away? Did their car go over the edge of a mountain somewhere? I just don't know." Hall was making phone with her daughter's mobile phone from nearby Redding, where her daughter lives. The couple only had a landline, which had phone numbers programmed into it, and calls to it don't go through. Hall says her aunt's parents adopted her father when he was a boy and that she is like a big sister to her. ___ 11:20 a.m. Gusty Santa Ana winds are rising again in Southern California and firefighters are battling two new wildfires. Officials say the fires Monday morning west of Los Angeles in the Rocky Peak and Thousand Oaks areas show that the risk of more fires breaking out is high. Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen says the Rocky Peak fire is about 20 acres (8 hectares) and has forced the shutdown of the State Route 118 freeway. The blaze is being bombarded with water drops and ground crews are on the scene. That fire started not far from where the region's huge Woolsey fire began last Thursday. The new Thousand Oaks fire is about 15 acres (6 hectares) and Lorenzen believes it will be contained quickly. ___ 9 a.m. Authorities have more than doubled their estimates of buildings destroyed in Southern California's huge wildfire. Officials said Monday that an estimated 370 structures burned and that only 15 percent of their damage estimate has been completed. They said over the weekend that 177 buildings had burned amid predictions that the number would grow higher with new damage assessments. The size of the fire has also increased to more than 143 square miles (370 square kilometers) and was 20 percent contained Monday morning. The fire erupted last Thursday as gusty, dry Santa Ana winds and spread rapidly through communities stretching from northwest of Los Angeles to the Malibu coast. ___ 7:55 a.m. California fire officials say a blaze in Northern California that wiped out a town and killed at least 29 people grew slightly overnight and that strong winds that could fan flames are again expected in the area by Monday afternoon. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Monday the blaze that started Thursday near the town of Paradise grew 3 square miles (8 square kilometers) to 177 square miles (303 square kilometers). It remains 25 percent contained. Fire behavior specialist at Cal Fire Jonathan Pangburn says the blaze was active all night long and jumped 300-feet (90-meters) across a portion of Lake Oroville at least three times. Officials say more than 4,500 firefighters are on day four of their battle against the blaze. After a lull of strong winds that make for dangerous fire conditions, the area near Paradise will have wind gusts as high as 40 mph (64 kmph) by Monday evening. ___ 6:50 a.m. Some of the thousands of people forced from several communities by the huge Southern California wildfire are being allowed to return to their homes. Authorities have also reopened U.S. 101. It's a major freeway artery through the fire zone in western Los Angeles County and southeastern Ventura County. The positive developments come even though Monday's forecast calls for continuing critical fire danger due to gusty Santa Ana winds and extremely low humidity levels. Those conditions are expected to last through Tuesday and possibly into Wednesday. As of Sunday night, the fire had grown to more than 133 square miles (344 square kilometers) and it was 15 percent contained. During the weekend authorities reported 177 buildings had burned but said they expect that number to grow when new damage assessments are announced Monday. ___ 12 a.m. At least 31 people are dead in wildfires across California. Twenty-nine people have now been confirmed dead and another 228 are unaccounted for in a Northern California blaze alone. Ten search teams were working in the town of Paradise that was largely incinerated last week and in surrounding communities in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Authorities called in a DNA lab and teams of anthropologists to help identify victims. Statewide, 150,000 remained displaced as more than 8,000 fire crews battled wildfires that have scorched 400 square miles (1,040 square kilometers), with out-of-state crews continuing to arrive. Fire officials are warning that whipping winds and tinder-dry conditions threaten more areas through the rest of the week. Gov. Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency and said California is requesting aid from the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has blamed "poor" forest management for the fires. Brown said federal and state governments must do more forest management but that climate change is the greater source of the problem. A firefighting DC-10 makes a fire retardant drop over a wildfire in the mountains near Malibu Canyon Road in Malibu, Calif. on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Strong Santa Ana winds have returned to Southern California, fanning a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended Sunday morning and authorities warn that the gusts will continue through Tuesday. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) Fire crews clear rubble from the road near a building burned in the Camp Fire, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) A ferry boat makes its way toward Alcatraz Island as the skyline in the background is obscured by wildfire smoke and haze Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) A pair of deckhands on a commuter ferryboat talk as the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is obscured by wildfire smoke and haze Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) Fire crews clear rubble from the road near a building burned in the Camp Fire, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) A firefighting DC-10 makes a fire retardant drop over a wildfire in the mountains near Malibu Canyon Road in Malibu, Calif. on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Strong Santa Ana winds have returned to Southern California, fanning a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended Sunday morning and authorities warn that the gusts will continue through Tuesday. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) An American flag is draped over the charred remains of an old pickup truck entering Point Dume along the pacific coast highway in Malibu, Calif., on Sunday Nov. 11, 2018. Strong Santa Ana winds have returned to Southern California, fanning a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended Sunday morning and authorities warn that the gusts will continue through Tuesday. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) JERUSALEM (AP) - The latest on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (all times local): 10 p.m. The United Nations says it is working with Egypt to broker an end to the latest round of fighting in Gaza. The office of the U.N.'s Mideast envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, said Monday that efforts were underway "to ensure that Gaza steps back from the brink." It called for an end to rocket fire, and for restraint "by all." Palestinians militants fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells at southern Israel on Monday, as the Israeli military responded with a wave of airstrikes. The violence was triggered by a botched Israeli military raid in Gaza on Sunday in which seven Palestinian militants and an Israeli officer were killed. Smoke rises following Israeli strikes on Gaza City, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Palestinian militants on Monday fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, critically wounding an Israeli teen, in an intense barrage of projectiles aimed at seeking revenge for a deadly Israeli military incursion late Sunday. The Israeli military responded by dispatching fighter jets to strike throughout the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) (AP Photo/Adel Hana) ___ 9:30 p.m. An Israeli airstrike has hit Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV station in the Gaza Strip. The station went off the air after the airstrike. Minutes earlier, it had halted its programming and was broadcasting a still image of its logo after the building was hit by a warning missile. Shortly after, three loud explosions were heard and the screen turned black. Witnesses say the blast destroyed the entire building, and explosions illuminated the night sky. Workers evacuated the building after the warning shots. It was not clear whether there were any casualties. ___ 8 p.m. Israel's military says it is prepared to step up its efforts against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip if rocket fire at Israel continues. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said Monday that Israel has boosted forces near the Gaza border with additional infantry troops, defensive systems and intelligence units. Conricus told reporters that the army has so far struck more than 30 targets belonging to the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He says some 200 rockets have struck Israel in the past three hours. He says Hamas is "bringing destruction upon the Gaza Strip." ___ 6:10 p.m. Palestinian health officials say Israeli airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip have killed two people and wounded another three. It was not immediately clear if the casualties were militants or civilians. Health officials said they were all men in their 20s. Israel launched the airstrikes on Monday in response to an intense barrage of rocket fire from Gaza. The rocket attack from Gaza appeared to be an act of revenge after a botched Israeli raid the day before killed seven Palestinian militants. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was meeting with his military chief and defense minister late Monday. ___ 5:25 p.m. The Israeli military says it has dispatched fighter jets to strike "terror targets" throughout Gaza following a barrage of mortar and rocket fire that wounded six people. Palestinian militants fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel at sundown Monday, a day after an Israeli military raid in Gaza left seven militants and an Israeli officer dead. Gaza's Hamas rulers and the smaller Islamic Jihad group claimed joint responsibility for the rocket barrage. Israeli media say six people were wounded by Palestinian fire, including a 19-year-old who was critically hurt when a mortar shell hit a bus. ___ 5:15 p.m. Israeli medics say a 19-year-old man has been critically wounded in an explosion in southern Israel. The man apparently sustained the wounds in a Palestinian mortar attack from Gaza that struck a bus. Black smoke could be seen billowing into the air from the area of the mortar strike. The incoming fire comes a day after an Israeli undercover military raid in Gaza sparked fighting that left seven Palestinian militants and an Israeli officer dead. ___ 5 p.m. The Israeli military says a bus has been hit by fire from the Gaza Strip as air raid sirens sound throughout southern Israel. The incoming fire comes a day after an Israeli undercover military raid in Gaza sparked fighting that left seven Palestinian militants and an Israeli officer dead. There were no immediate details on injuries from Monday's strike on the Israeli bus. Rockets could be seen being launched out of Gaza toward Israel, and Israel's Iron Dome rocket defense system was heard deploying. ___ 7:30 a.m. The Israeli military says an officer was killed and another was moderately wounded during an operation in southeast Gaza Strip, involving an exchange of gunfire. The early Monday statement followed a rare late-night burst of violence in which seven Palestinians were also killed. The flare-up came as Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers had appeared to be making progress toward ratcheting down months of border violence. Israel's military later said the operation had ended. Earlier, Hamas' armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said Israeli undercover forces in a civilian vehicle infiltrated 3 kilometers, about 2 miles, into Gaza on Sunday and fatally shot Nour el-Deen Baraka, its local commander in Khan Younis town. It said militants discovered the car and chased it down, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed "a number of people." By Delana Isles THE PROGRESSIVE National Party (PNP) has deferred the election of a new party leader and executives to February 2019. In the meantime, Hon. Washington Misick continues to serve as the interim party leader, similarly, no changes to the executive body of the party have been made. Speaking with the Weekly News on Thursday (November 8), Misick stated that last Saturdays meeting (November 3) at Beaches resort, was held to iron out the agenda for coming National Congress meeting sometime in February 2019 and deal with other party business. "We met on the weekend to update the National General Committee of the party on the business of the party, it was mainly a business session to update the membership of the committee on the operations of the party since December 2016. "We havent had a National General Council meeting since then, and all of these were matters we have to forward to the national congress for February, the party leader said. Misick had announced in December 2016 that he wants young blood leading the party and that he will be stepping aside to facilitate the changeover to new leadership. When the announcement was made, the party leader had indicated that a new party leader could possibly be elected at a meeting in November this year, but that is no longer the case. That will now take place next year at the February meeting, where the party will be electing new executive members and Misick will officially be retiring from a leadership role within the PNP. In statement on the constitutional amendment issue that has been in the new over the past few days, he stated: "I accepted the role of the leader of the PNP on an interim basis pending the election of a leader designate under the Constitution of the Turks and Caicos Islands. "I feel obliged to defer [constitutional amendments] to whomever emerges as the next leader, or leader designate after the National Congress of the PNP now scheduled to take place before the end of February 2019. "This is necessary to give the party time under new leadership to decide whether it wishes to amend the changes proposed in the current draft document. "Similarly, I defer the appointment of a deputy leader to be made by the next leader or leader designate of the party because it is only fair, Misick stated. The new PNP will lead the party into the 2020 election. The recently remarried Misick previously revealed to the Weekly News, that he is ready to turn his interests to more personal and business matters. "I will continue to do the best that I can particularly in the period of transition and provide guidance, but at this stage I am really not able to give the kind of time to the party that is required and so I think it is in the best interest in the party that I exit and give someone else an opportunity to build on a strong foundation for the upcoming elections. Misick will continue to represent the interests of the territory in the House of Assembly up until the next elections. ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistan released two Taliban officials on Monday during U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad's latest visit to the region, in what could be part of American efforts to revive peace talks with the insurgent group, which now controls nearly half of Afghanistan. Abdul Samad Sani, a U.S.-designated terrorist who served as the Afghan Central Bank governor during the militants' rule in the late 1990s, and a lower-ranking commander named Salahuddin, were released Monday, according to two Taliban officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media. There was no immediate comment from the Pakistani government. Khalilzad is on his second regional tour since being appointed, with stops in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates as well as Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office. The insurgents say they met Khalilzad in Qatar last month. Khalilzad arrived in the region last Thursday and will return to Washington on Nov. 20. When Khalilzad was last in the region Pakistan released another Taliban leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the founders of the radical religious movement. Baradar was arrested in 2010 in a joint U.S. and Pakistani operation. At the time, it was reported Baradar was taken into custody by Pakistan after he tried to open independent peace talks with Afghanistan's then-president, Hamid Karzai. In a recent interview, Karzai told The Associated Press he had repeatedly tried to secure Baradar's release but he was thwarted by both Pakistan and the U.S., who wanted him detained because of his stature within the Taliban. Baradar's release has been a long-standing demand of the Taliban. FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2009 file photo, then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad, speaks to reporters at the United Nations headquarters. Taliban officials said Monday, Nov. 12, 2018 that Pakistan has released Abdul Samad Sani, a U.S.-designated terrorist who served as the Afghan Central Bank governor during the militants' rule, along with a lower-ranking commander named Salahuddin. It came as U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad launched a second tour of the region, with stops in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates as well as Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File) Efforts to find a peaceful end to Afghanistan's protracted war have accelerated in recent months, as a troop surge announced by President Donald Trump last August has done little to change conditions on the ground. In recent months the Taliban have carried out near-daily attacks on Afghan security forces as well as coordinated assaults on major cities. The Taliban have long demanded direct talks with the United States, referring to the Kabul government as puppets. Washington has neither confirmed nor denied a meeting between Khalilzad and the Taliban took place last month. Taliban officials present at the meeting characterized those talks as productive. They said they pressed to have their office in Qatar recognized and agreed to meet again, although no date was set. Afghanistan's fractious government, which is jointly headed by President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, has been prickly about direct talks between Washington and the Taliban. In addition to the three Taliban figures recently freed by Pakistan, five senior members of the Taliban who were freed from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2014 in exchange for captured U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl have joined the insurgent group's political office in Qatar. The induction of the five has significantly strengthened the ability of the Taliban's Qatar office to sell a peace deal to insurgents on the battlefield. Sani's release further reconstitutes the Taliban leadership. Sani was placed on the U.S. terrorist list in January, accused of supplying the Taliban with weapons as well as being a major financier travelling to the Gulf to obtain both money and supplies for the insurgent movement. SINGAPORE (AP) - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang stressed the need for free trade on Monday, as he drew similarities between his country and Singapore, a bustling regional hub. "China and Singapore have a special cooperative relationship because there are profound cultural and people-to-people exchanges between us," Li said. "We both safeguard multilateralism and free trade. We also keep the peace and stability in the South China Sea," he added. Li is on an official visit to Singapore ending Friday. He is to deliver a lecture on Singapore-China relations and regional development, and participate in a summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. China is locked in a simmering trade dispute with the U.S., which accuses it of violating its market-opening obligations, and the two countries have imposed tariffs on billions of dollars of each other's goods. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted on Monday that exactly 40 years had passed since then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited the city-state. China's Premier Li Keqiang, left, meets with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Istana or presidential building in Singapore, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. (Feline Lim/Pool Photo via AP) The countries have worked together on a string of projects since then, including the Suzhou Industrial Park and the Tianjin Eco-city, he said. Lee said China and ASEAN "share a common interest in upholding an open, rules-based multilateral order." "Singapore and China are like-minded partners in many areas even though we have different circumstances and constraints," he added. "But I believe we can continue to tap into our complementary strengths, deepen cooperation and make sure that our all-around cooperative partnership continues to progress with the times." China and Singapore signed 11 memoranda of understanding on Monday. They upgraded a free trade agreement and stepped up cooperation in urban planning and development, among others. NEW YORK (AP) - Ever been on a blind date with a rock star? How about four of them? That was Grammy-winning producer Paul Epworth's experience when he initially met up with Mumford & Sons to see if he and the four rockers could vibe, and possibly create not just music, but magic together. "It was all a bit like a series of blind dates to see how we hit it off. It took us a couple of sessions before we found out what the best method was. The chemistry felt really good all throughout the process," Epworth said. "We went on a couple of dates," said band leader Marcus Mumford. "We did sessions before Christmas, which led to pretty much the final version of the song called 'Slip Away,' which is on the record. And we just felt like he was exactly the person we needed to help steer this ship for this fourth record. And we've never enjoyed recording more." The result is the 14-track "Delta," to be released Friday. The band started writing new music after the album "Wilder Mind" was released in 2015, even though one of the "Delta" songs is six years old. Mumford said they tried to re-work the old track "about 400 times." In this Sept. 28, 2018 photo, members of Mumford & Sons, from left, Ben Lovett, Marcus Mumford, Winston Marshall and Ted Dwane pose for a portrait in New York to promote their fourth album "Delta." (Photo by Victoria Will/Invision/AP) "It's called 'Forever' - ironically," he said. "It wasn't called 'Forever' before. After the 600th time," chimed in Winston Marshall, who plays banjo and electric guitar. Epworth was part of the solution. The band says when they didn't know what to do, he did. "They were open to giving me a bit of space to run with stuff (and) try out what I had in mind," Epworth said. "It definitely made me feel like I was essentially a fifth member of the band." The London group said they were familiar with Epworth's work - the producer is best known for crafting Adele's monster hit "Rolling in the Deep" and also winning an Oscar with the British vocalist for the James Bond theme song, "Skyfall." Epworth's credits also include songs with Coldplay, Florence + the Machine, U2, and Foster the People as well as lesser known acts such as Glass Animals, Bloc Party and Plan B. Markus Dravs produced the band's 2009 debut, "Sigh No More," and its follow-up, 2012's "Babel," which won the album of the year Grammy. Both records reached multi-platinum status and launched hits on the pop and rock charts. "Wilder Mind," produced by James Ford, still had rock hits but only went gold. Epworth's fifth member status proved invaluable for "Delta," mainly recorded at Epworth's The Church Studios in London. "(Paul) would just come back one day and be like, 'That is not your upbeat rock song. That is your downbeat piano ballad. We'd be kind of just blindsided by the moments of sheer visionary," said multi-instrumentalist Ben Lovett. "Especially for a band of four collaborators - to have that person to help, decision-tie-breaker, those sort of moments (are important)," Lovett added. "If it were to be that we kind of fell out with our producer, it would be fine because we could leave the situation. If we fall out with each other, we've got a major problem. Luckily that's been something we've been able to avoid." The songwriting process for each track on "Delta" varied - each of the band members work on songs individually and then bring them to the group. Mumford said over the years he's learned how to be a better team player and let everyone's voice be heard. "In the old days there was a sliver of immediacy and I think a slight immaturity, creatively. ... If someone else had a different idea, I personally had less patience for it than I do now," he said. "Now, I trust these guys' creative instincts so much. If they've got a different idea (and) it doesn't chime with me straight away, I'm intrigued to see where it goes." One of the ideas that came from Lovett was "If I Say," a beautiful, building rock song, where the string arrangement and orchestra shine brightly. Lovett said he wrote the song "in a dream that I had whilst I was going through a bunch of stuff." "I was halfway between grappling with a divorce but also being in a new relationship," he continued. "The song questions a lot about commitment and about the power of commitment." Personal experiences are what drove the overall songwriting behind the album, bassist Ted Dwane said. "We write autobiographically. A lot has happened to us in our personal lives in the past few years and the overriding theme felt like entering the world," Dwane explained. "It felt like leaving the security of youth and innocence and manning up, basically." Mumford & Sons, who formed in 2007 and started out as a live band, will get a chance to showcase the new songs on their 60-date "Delta" Tour, which kicks off in Dublin on Friday and lands in the U.S. on Dec. 7 in Philadelphia. They said another way they were inspired to write new songs came from listening to other artists' music in the studio. "We'll constantly be introducing each other to new music like, 'Listen to this song here' and we'll turn it up loud," Mumford said. "Wins and I once had a very late, quite drunken night in London, demoing for the previous album where we listened to (Don Henley's) 'The Boys of Summer' about five times really loud and then tried to record our own. We called it 'Lads of Summer.' It's a monstrosity. We should have put it on the record though." "Maybe on the next one," Marshall said. "By the way, I (expletive) love that song." ______ Online: https://www.mumfordandsons.com/ In this Sept. 28, 2018 photo, members of Mumford & Sons, from left, Ben Lovett, Marcus Mumford, Winston Marshall and Ted Dwane pose for a portrait in New York to promote their fourth album "Delta." (Photo by Victoria Will/Invision/AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - The president of Afghanistan told a U.S. audience Monday that his country is not losing the war to the Taliban and is not at risk of collapse amid escalating attacks by the militant group and an expansion of the territory it controls. President Ashraf Ghani said his administration is intent on seeking a negotiated peace with the Taliban, which have shown no interest in direct talks with a government they see as illegitimate. "The Taliban are not in a winning position," Ghani said by video to an audience at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington as a suicide bombing in Kabul and a deadly militant assault on districts in eastern Afghanistan suggested government control was slipping further. Ghani said that more than 28,000 Afghan forces have been killed in the past four years but that the military will be able to retake territory as long as it has an air force and commando troops. He said most of the losses incurred by its security forces were in defending static positions, so the government was rethinking how it deploys its forces. Speaking on Veterans Day, the Afghan leader paid tribute to American sacrifices in Afghanistan, including the death of Brent Taylor, a Utah mayor serving as a major in the state's Army National Guard who was training Afghan commandos. Taylor, 39, was fatally shot a week ago by one of his Afghan trainees. But Ghani also offered a rare public accounting of the scale of the Afghan losses. He described how their casualties have risen sharply while U.S.-led coalition casualties have declined after Afghan forces assumed responsibility for combat operations in the country. He said that since 2015, 58 American forces have died in Afghanistan. FILE - IN this Nov. 6, 2018, photo, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, listens during a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, at the presidential palace, in Kabul, Afghanistan. Ghani is denying the Taliban is winning the war in Afghanistan despite a continuing wave of deadly militant attacks and signs the militants are expanding areas under their control. Ghani said the Afghan state is not at risk of collapse and reiterated his government's intent to seek a negotiated peace. Ghani was speaking by video to an audience in Washington. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) "In the same period, 28,529 of our security forces have lost their lives and become martyrs," he said. U.S. military officials have previously indicated that Afghan casualties have been increasing, but they have avoided giving hard figures, apparently because of political sensitivities. In its most recent report to Congress, in October, the special inspector general for Afghanistan said Afghan casualty numbers had been reported only in classified form since September 2017 because the U.S. military command in Kabul said it had stopped making them public at the request of the Afghan government. However, the report said that the average number of casualties between May and October this year was the greatest it has ever been during similar periods. On Oct. 30, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Afghan forces had more than 1,000 dead and wounded during August and September alone, "and they stayed in the field fighting." The Trump administration has marginally increased U.S. troop numbers to train Afghan forces and intensify military pressure on the Taliban in hopes of forcing the insurgents to negotiate an end to the 17-year conflict. Successes on the battlefield have been elusive. The inspector general report said the number of districts under Afghan government control and influence has declined and stands at just 55 percent - down 16 percentage points in the past three years. U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is on his second tour of the region in a month, seeking to kick-start a peace process. The diplomatic veteran is making stops in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office. The insurgents say they met Khalilzad in Qatar last month. The Taliban have so far refused direct negotiations with Kabul, which they view as a U.S. puppet. On the sensitive topic of the U.S. role in talks, Ghani said there was "total agreement" between the U.S. and Afghan governments on moving the peace process forward. "U.S. engagement is to ensure that talks with the Taliban result not in negotiations with Taliban but with talks, direct talks, between the Afghan government and the Taliban," he said. He insisted that the Afghan government was seeking a negotiated peace but would not do so "from a position of weakness." In a possible sign of America's efforts, Pakistan released two Taliban officials on Monday, members of the militant group said. Abdul Samad Sani, a U.S.-designated terrorist who served as the Afghan Central Bank governor during the militants' rule in the late 1990s, and a lower-ranking commander named Salahuddin, were freed, according to two Taliban officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media. Ghani, however, said Pakistan has yet to demonstrate a "sense of urgency" in seeking an end to the Afghan conflict and a change in its policies. Kabul has long protested that Afghan Taliban leaders and fighters enjoy sanctuary inside Pakistan, which Islamabad denies. ___ Associated Press writer Robert Burns contributed to this report. ROBBINS, Ill. (AP) - The Latest on the fatal shooting of a bar security guard by police officer (all times local): 3:15 p.m. A lawsuit has been filed by the mother of a security guard who was fatally shot by a police officer at a suburban Chicago bar. An attorney for Beatrice Roberson says the federal lawsuit was filed Monday, a day after 26-year-old Jemel Roberson was fatally shot while working at Manny's Blue Room in Robbins. Witnesses say Roberson was trying to detain a man when he was shot. Roberson was killed by an officer from nearby Midlothian who had responded to a reported shooting at the bar. The lawsuit alleges the officer shot Roberson without provocation. The lawsuit seeks $1 million from the community and the officer, whose name has yet to be released. Cook County sheriff's officials say charges are pending against a man who was shot and wounded during the incident. Three others were also shot and wounded, though none suffered life-threatening injuries. ___ 12:50 p.m. Authorities say charges are pending against a man involved in a shootout at a suburban Chicago bar that ended with a police officer fatally shooting an armed security guard. Cook County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Sophia Ansari said Monday that the man was among four people wounded in the early Sunday shooting at Manny's Blue Room in Robbins, just south of Chicago. Investigators say the security guard, 26-year-old Jemel Roberson, was fatally shot by an officer from nearby Midlothian who responded to the shooting. Adam Harris says he witnessed the shooting. He tells WGN-TV that the officer shot Roberson despite people "screaming" that he was a security guard. Rev. Marvin Hunter says Roberson played the organ at his and other area churches. Hunter says Roberson was an "upstanding" man in the process of regaining custody of his son and earning enough money for a deposit on a new apartment. Illinois State Police are investigating. ___ 5:50 a.m. Authorities say a police officer who was responding to a shooting at a suburban Chicago bar fatally shot an armed security guard who was working there. The Cook County sheriff's office says officers responded shortly after 4 a.m. Sunday to a call of shots fired at Manny's Blue Room in Robbins. Sheriff's spokeswoman Sophia Ansari says an officer from nearby Midlothian shot a man later identified as 26-year-old Jemel Roberson. Ansari says four other people had gunshot wounds, but their injuries weren't considered life-threatening. She says at least one of them was believed to have fired shots during the shooting before police arrived. Officers from Robbins and Midlothian were the first on the scene. Robbins police Chief Roy Wells told reporters Sunday the initial shooting stemmed from an argument. NEW YORK (AP) - Amnesty International has withdrawn its highest honor from Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi in light of what it said was the Nobel Peace Prize laureate's "shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for." The human rights organization announced Monday that its secretary general, Kumi Naidoo, informed Suu Kyi that it was revoking her 2009 Ambassador of Conscience Award. Amnesty has criticized the failure of Suu Kyi and her government to speak out about military atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim population. Naidoo said Amnesty expected Suu Kyi to use her "moral authority to speak out against injustice wherever" she saw it, especially in Myanmar. "Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defense of human rights," Naidoo told her. A wildfire that tore through Malibu mansions and working-class suburban homes in southern California has killed two people and more than doubled in size. Officials took advantage of temporarily calm conditions to assess damage from the blaze that has burned 109 square miles north and west of Los Angeles. Firefighters were searching burned-out neighbourhoods after two blazes that have already destroyed 150 homes. Los Angeles County sheriffs chief John Benedict said two people have been found dead but provided no details on the deaths. Wildfires burning across California have now killed 11 people, including nine found dead in a massive fire in northern California that destroyed the town of Paradise. In the south, a smoky haze still hung in blue skies, with the vicious winds that drove the flames in their first two days gone and expected to stay away until Sunday. Firefighters scrambled in the narrow window of calm to try to block the two wildfires that have blazed a path of destruction toward the sea. Araya Cipollini cries near the remains of her familys home burned in the Camp Fire, in Paradise (John Locher/AP) In less than two days, the Hill and Woolsey fires had prompted evacuation orders for more than 250,000 people, including the entire city of Malibu, which is home to some of Hollywoods biggest celebrities. The lull on Saturday could give firefighters a chance to control the edges of the blazes and to swap fire crews, replacing firefighters who had worked for two days without rest, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said. But with the winds returning, it is likely more homes would be lost, Mr Osby warned. Theres not going to be any relief in this firefight, he said. By late Friday night, the smaller Hill fires advance had halted, but the Woolsey fire kept surging. The two fires erupted on Thursday as warnings of extreme fire danger covered much of the state because of dry weather and blowing winds. A home burns in the Calabasas section of Los Angeles (Mark J Terrill/AP) In northern California, a wildfire killed some in their cars as they tried to flee the racing flames. The states most destructive fire in at least a century has burned down more than 6,700 buildings, almost all of them homes. President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration providing federal funding to help firefighters battling the wildfires across California. In the south, flames leapt and raged from Thousand Oaks south through the north-western San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles and appeared to be heading towards the Pacific Ocean. Thousand Oaks already was reeling from a shooting at a country music bar that killed a dozen people this week when it was besieged by fire. It raged on both sides of the city and shut down part of the main freeway into town. Its devastating. Its like welcome to hell,' resident Cynthia Ball said about the dual disasters outside a centre serving as a shelter for evacuees. I dont even know what to say. Its like were all walking around kind of in a trance. Three-quarters of the city of 130,000 was under evacuation orders and that probably included people affected by the shooting, Mayor Andy Fox said. The entire coastal enclave of Malibu also was ordered to flee, with Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian West and Guillermo del Toro among the celebrities forced to abandon their homes. The Woolsey blaze also destroyed the home of Dr Strange director Scott Derrickson and the historic Paramount Ranch where HBOs Westworld and many other shows have been filmed. The charred remains of a burned-out home in Malibu (Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP) The flames spread so fast that firefighters could not be everywhere at once and residents took matters into their own hands. People tried to save a mansion by hurling buckets of water from a swimming pool on to burning brush over a fence. Firefighters pleaded with people to heed mandatory evacuation orders. Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen said some firefighters were literally pulling people out of burning homes. Even though the wind has died down, stay on guard, he urged. Were in the seventh year of a drought. Our weather conditions out there, and our fuel conditions are absolutely right for fire when we ask you to leave, please leave early. Irish leader Leo Varadkar is to attend the centenary Armistice Day commemoration in Paris on Sunday. Mr Varadkar will attend the service at the Arc de Triomphe with more than 70 heads of state and government, which will commemorate 100 years since the end of the First World War. Speaking ahead of the ceremony, the Taoiseach said it was an important reminder about international cooperation. I am honoured to represent Ireland at this commemorative event which marks the end of hostilities in what was one of the greatest tragedies in world history, he said. I will stand in memory of the more than 200,000 Irishmen who fought in the conflict and the many Irishwomen who witnessed the horrors of war and worked courageously to save lives. Tens of thousands of Irishmen, many of them only in their teens, were killed. Those who did survive returned to a changed Ireland, unable to share their horrific experiences. Through the Decade of Centenaries, their stories have been shared and we have rightly honoured the enormous sacrifice made by those who went to the front. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar paid tribute to Irishmen who served in the First World War (Niall Carson/PA) In the words of Thomas Kettle, we honour those who: Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, But for a dream, born in a herdsmans shed, And for the secret Scripture of the poor. As we face new challenges in the 21st century, we need to work together to achieve peace, stability and prosperity across the world. Through our committed and active membership of the EU and the UN, Ireland will continue to play a leading role in these efforts. Silhouettes of soldiers from the First World War have been projected on to famous UK landmarks. The Tommies illuminated Marble Arch, Tate Modern, HMS Belfast, Warwick Castle, the Angel of the North, the Tyne Bridge, Titanic Belfast, Cardiff Castle and Edinburgh Castle. A First World War Tommy projected on to Marble Arch in London (There But Not There/PA) The silhouettes have appeared all over the UK since the campaign launched in February, commemorating the British and Commonwealth troops who died in the First World War whilst also raising funds for military charities. General the Lord Dannatt, patron of There But Not There and former chief of the general staff, said: As we reach 100 years since the Armistice, it is vital that we reflect on the sacrifice made by an entire generation of servicemen and women. A message commemorating the British and Commonwealth troops who died in the First World War projected on to the Angel of the North (There But Not There/PA) These wonderful landmarks coming together provide a remarkable representation of the nation doing exactly just that. We have been incredibly moved by the overwhelming public support that we have received across the country, which has led to more than 4 million raised for military and mental health charities. Titanic Belfast (There But Not There/PA) However, our journey doesnt stop here; we need the publics backing more than ever in raising funds to support our veterans in crisis. Edinburgh Castle (There But Not There/PA) Mental health remains a crucial issue and we hope people will see these poignant silhouettes and be inspired to buy their own Tommy to both remember the fallen and to help those that continue to struggle today. People in communities across Scotland are attending events on Sunday to mark 100 years since the end of the First World War. Civic ceremonies, parades and services all feature in the country-wide programme of commemorations to mark the centenary of the Armistice. People will fall silent, beacons will be lit and landmark buildings illuminated in recognition of all those who have served and lost their lives in conflict. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will begin the day by laying a wreath at the Stone of Remembrance in Edinburgh, before attending a service at the citys St Giles Cathedral. Tributes outside Liberton Kirk in Edinburgh, where 16,000 poppies have been installed to mark the centenary of the Armistice (Andrew Milligan/PA) Later in the afternoon, she will attend a special service at Glasgow Cathedral. She said: Remembrance Sunday is an opportunity for people in Scotland to join with others across the world to commemorate those who made the ultimate sacrifice in conflicts during the last century. It allows us a chance to honour the memory of those who gave their lives, while also paying tribute to our veterans and those who continue to serve today. This year of course has added poignancy as it marks 100 years since the signing of the Armistice that ended the First World War. The laying of a wreath is a small but significant tribute, and I am privileged to be able to do so on behalf of the people of Scotland. The Last Post will be played and more than 100 wreaths will be laid at the Edinburgh ceremony, where Ms Sturgeon is to be joined by members of the Armed Forces and fellow politicians. Following the service, the city will thank all those who served with a procession and service of commemoration in the Old Town. Elsewhere, a two minute silence will be observed at 11am at the cenotaph in Glasgows George Square. The names of people who were killed serving on behalf of Scotland in the First World War will be projected on to the Scottish Parliament (Andrew Milligan/PA) Lord Provost Eva Bolander, in her role as Lord Lieutenant, will lead the proceedings and a guard of honour will be provided by the 52nd Lowland, 6th Battalion of The Royal Regiment of Scotland. She will later accompany the Princess Royal at the afternoon cathedral service. At the University of Glasgow, three guns will fire a total of six blank rounds in 15-second intervals from the grounds, before falling silent just before 11am. Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness, Perth and Stirling will all witness parades, while countless smaller communities on the mainland and islands will pay their own tributes to the war dead. Musicians and artists have also come together to commemorate the milestone. Around dawn, individual pipers at locations around the world, including a number in Scotland, are performing Battles Oer, a traditional song played at the end of conflicts. Meanwhile, six Scottish beaches are taking part in filmmaker Danny Boyles UK-wide event to mark the centenary. St Ninians Isle beach in Shetland, West Sands in St Andrews, Scapa beach in Orkney, Ayr beach, Burghead Bay beach on the Moray Firth and Cula Bay beach on the isle of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides will have a large-scale portrait of a casualty from the conflict drawn in the sand before it is washed away by the incoming tide. After dark, a special light and sound projection will take place at the Scottish Parliament, with the names of all those who died serving on behalf of Scotland in the Great War to be beamed on to the building. Eilean Donan Castle was among landmarks illuminated in red ahead of Armistice Day in support of the 2016 Scottish Poppy Appeal (Poppy Scotland/PA) It will take seven hours, from 5pm until midnight, for the names of each of the 134,712 men and women to be shown. Beacons of fire will be lit at points around Scotland and the rest of the UK during Armistice Day in a National Trust project. Buildings and landmarks across the country have also been showing their support for the Scottish Poppy Appeal by lighting up red in the week running up to, and including, Remembrance Day. Scottish Conservative interim leader Jackson Carlaw said: Collectively these are genuinely affecting events which demonstrate, in their scale, the determination of the whole nation to participate in this day of remembrance. This centenary commemoration of the Armistice represents a salute from the world of today to the world as it was then. Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Willie Rennie said: 100 years on its important to take time to reflect on the sacrifice of both those who fought bravely abroad and the men and women who kept life going on the home front. Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said: As well as remembering those who endured, suffered and lost during the First World War, the 100th anniversary of the Armistice should also serve as a catalyst to renew our collective effort to fight for peace, equality and an end to the sufferings of war that continue to afflict people across the globe. THE Civil Service Association (CSA) plays a vital role in advocating for better conditions and benefits for public workers and its importance cannot be underestimated, the premier has stated. Sharlene Cartwright Robinson called for the return of the complete body which is partly disbanded, in a statement on November 1. "On coming to office I arranged and met with members of the executive within the first 100 days of my administration as promised, she wrote. "Unfortunately I have not been able to meet with this body since, as it has become un-operational and I believe it to be a huge disservice. "As an avid supporter of the CSA and former trustee, the importance of this body cannot be underestimated. "The role of the CSA to make recommendations and to advocate for better working conditions and benefits of the public service is a vital one. She stressed that what has proven fatal for bodies of this sort in the past is when people use them as a political platform. "Nonetheless it is important that this body is functioning and given the support to, the premier said. In her statement she said much attention has been paid to the long-standing issue of service charge and workers benefit for the largest worker base in the private sector. "It will be hypocritical to ignore the large public service and its many pressing issues, she wrote. She said she was pleased that the Government offered the first ever hurricane preparedness advance and the opportunity to pay back over a period of time. "We believe that many were pleased. We wish to address longer benefits and are open to hearing representations. Cartwright Robinson revealed that she recently requested a copy of the findings and recommendations of the working group appointed many years ago under the former administration looking into the implementation of a gratuity scheme, among other benefits. "I am advised that this work remains ongoing and has not yet been finalised, she said. "I urgently await those findings and recommendations and believe a vibrant CSA is necessary to take a collective approach on these matters. She also spoke about a private members motion she brought while serving as leader of the opposition on benefits inclusive of the gratuity scheme and its role in attracting and maintaining professionals. "It is important that the work of this committee concludes as we consider further the costs of recovery, she said. "There are many hardworking public servants who truly put country first and who unfortunately feel underappreciated for a myriad of reasons. "Whilst there are many ways to show appreciation, my Government and I do support a system that provides for financial incentives that is tied to performance and has supported staff increase to allow for a well-oiled performance management system. She has also sought the approval of the head of the public service to meet with civil servants around the Turks and Caicos Islands, and will be announcing dates soon. "This is in an effort to hear directly from them on issues they hold as priority and to advance my Governments views especially as we seek to move more strategically in planning. "My Government is committed to improving the lives of our public servants and by extension the services that we offer to the people of these Islands. Theresa May is battling to keep her Brexit agenda on track as she faces growing Tory tensions and reports of opposition from Brussels to a key part of withdrawal plans. With the shock resignation of pro-Europe transport minister Jo Johnson continuing to cause ructions in Tory ranks, the Prime Minister is running out of time to seal an EU exit deal. Hope of getting the Cabinet to sign off on Brexit deal proposals this week appeared to be rapidly receding as it was reported the EU had rejected UK plans for an independent arbitration clause that could allow the UK to quit a backstop deal on the Northern Ireland border. With both pro and anti-withdrawal Tories becoming more vocal in their opposition to Mrs Mays stance, arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg called on the PM to change tack. He urged Mrs May to end the deadlock by paying the EU 20 billion to secure a no deal plus arrangement with the bloc after withdrawal. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Rees-Mogg, who heads the influential European Research Group of 80 Tory MPs, suggested offering the financial deal to Brussels in order to make our departure as amicable as possible. Previously critical of the 39 billion divorce bill the UK is set to pay the EU, Mr Rees-Mogg wrote: It is time for convinced Brexiteers like me to compromise. So, at this late hour in the negotiations, we would like to make a new, generous offer to break the deadlock, to achieve a No Deal Plus. It would cost us money but it would finally dispel the crash out Project Fear nightmare scenarios. Jo Johnsons resignation shocked Westminster (Stefan Rousseau/PA) A Government source told the Press Association: The end part of negotiations were always going to be tough. There are a number of issues that need to be worked through on the Northern Ireland backstop and these are the most difficult. They include ensuring that, if it is ever needed, it is not permanent and there is a mechanism to ensure the UK could not be held in the arrangement indefinitely. Well done to @JoJohnsonUK on standing up for what he believes in. He was a fantastic Minister to work with whilst we were at the DfE. Its a sad loss for Gvt, but Brexit is above party politics. https://t.co/icoTQDF11v Justine Greening (@JustineGreening) November 9, 2018 Former Cabinet minister Justine Greening, who shares Mr Johnsons view that a fresh referendum is needed, called on Tories to oppose the PMs Chequers proposals. She told The Observer: The parliamentary deadlock has been clear for some time. Its crucial now for Parliament to vote down this plan, because it is the biggest giveaway of sovereignty in modern times. The view was echoed by Brexiteer Tory MP Andrew Bridgen who told a meeting of the Bruges Group: If we cant chuck Chequers then its time to chuck the Prime Minister. Tory Brexiteer Steve Baker and DUP Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson wrote in The Sunday Telegraph: If the Government makes the historic mistake of prioritising placating the EU over establishing an independent and whole UK, then, regrettably, we must vote against the deal. Brexiteers have insisted that the UK should not get involved with a potentially permanent backstop customs union agreement with the EU as the price of avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland. Commemorations marking 100 years since the end of the First World War and Brexit lead the Sunday papers. The Mail on Sunday, Sunday Express and Sun on Sunday dedicate their front pages to the Armistice centenary. Tomorrow's paper: We will remember them pic.twitter.com/lwnBB5FKrZ The Sun (@TheSun) November 10, 2018 Beneath a photo of a silhouette of a Tommy projected on to Warwick Castle, the Sunday Telegraph reports that the Prime Minister is being warned her Brexit plan will not be approved by MPs in the Commons. The front page of tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph "MPs 'will block May's Brexit plan'" #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/Q6xCZF3X8y The Telegraph (@Telegraph) November 10, 2018 Former education secretary Justine Greening has attacked the Prime Ministers plan, telling The Observer it would be the biggest giveaway of sovereignty in modern times. Meanwhile the Sunday Times says EU officials have rejected a proposal aimed at breaking deadlock around the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. SUNDAY TIMES: Mays Brexit deal crashes as EU turns off life support #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/AMLEYyjdUx Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) November 10, 2018 In other news, the Sunday Mirror reports that John Cannan has written a letter in prison taunting police probing the 1986 disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh. What the papers say - November 11 And the Sunday People says Government failures to hire psychologists to treat PTSD in the armed forces have been criticised. Crowds have fallen silent across Australia and New Zealand to commemorate the centenary of the Armistice. Tens of thousands of Australians and New Zealanders gave their lives in the First World War. Thousands gathered for a national service of remembrance at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, where Prime Minister Scott Morrison led a minutes silence at 11am (midnight Saturday GMT). In Sydney, crowds gathered at the Anzac Memorial, an extension of which was unveiled by the Duke of Sussex during his recent trip with Meghan, while there was also a service at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. The Commemorative Address is being delivered by The Honourable Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia. #HonourTheirSpirit #RemembranceDay pic.twitter.com/XWVOlsmevL Aust War Memorial (@AWMemorial) November 11, 2018 Some 331,000 Australians served overseas during the First World War, the vast majority of whom fought on the Western Front alongside British soldiers and their allies. Over 60,000 died in the conflict, more than two-thirds on the battlefields of Europe. Hundreds gathered at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington, New Zealand (Elias Rodriguez/PA) Earlier, large crowds attended the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington for New Zealands main remembrance ceremony, where a minutes silence was observed at 11am (10pm GMT Saturday). Nearly 100,000 served in New Zealand units overseas, with around a fifth never returning home. Officials from Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, France and Britain have listened to audio recordings related to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkeys president said. In the first public acknowledgement of the existence of tapes of the killing, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also told reporters that Saudi Arabia had to act fairly and disclose those responsible for the October 2 killing of The Washington Post journalist to rid itself of suspicion. We gave them the tapes. We gave them to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them, Mr Erdogan said before departing for Paris to attend ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. They (Saudi officials) also listened to the conversations and they know. There is no need to distort this. They know for certain who among the 15 is the killer or are the killers, he said. He was referring to an alleged 15-member assassination squad that Turkey believes was sent to kill Mr Khashoggi at the consulate where he had arrived to obtain papers to marry his Turkish fiancee. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saudi Arabia had to `act fairly (Ian Langsdon/Pool Photo via AP) CIA director Gina Haspel, who visited Turkey last month for information on the investigation, is reported to have heard the audio recordings of the killing. The existence of the recordings was leaked to the media but never openly confirmed until now. Turkey says Mr Khashoggi, who was critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was strangled and dismembered at the consulate as part of a premeditated killing. Media reports have suggested that his body could have been chemically dissolved. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 suspects who have been detained in Saudi Arabia, so they can be put on trial in Turkey. They include the 15 members of the alleged assassination squad. Saudi Arabia had insisted for weeks after Mr Khashoggi disappeared that he had walked out of the consulate, before changing its account to say he died in a brawl. Last month, Saudi Arabia acknowledged that Turkish evidence indicates that Mr Khashoggis killing was premeditated, shifting its explanation in an apparent effort to ease international outrage over the death. Saudi officials characterise the killing as a rogue operation carried out by Saudi agents who exceeded their authority. Yet some of those implicated in the killing are close to the crown prince, including a member of the princes entourage on foreign trips who was seen at the consulate before Mr Khashoggis slaying. Mr Erdogan accused Saudi Arabias chief prosecutor, who was sent to Istanbul last month as part of a joint probe, of employing delaying tactics. Saudi Arabia needs to accept that (the killer) is among the 18 and needs to get rid of the suspicion by responding to Turkeys good will and acting fairly, Mr Erdogan said. The Prince of Wales is due to lead the nations tributes to all those who have lost their lives in conflict on the centenary of the Armistice today. The event marks 100 years since the signing of the treaty which ended the battle on the Western Front of the First World War at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Charles will lay a wreath at the Cenotaph on behalf of his mother for the second year in a row while an equerry will lay a wreath on behalf of the Duke of Edinburgh. The Queen will watch the Whitehall service from the balcony of the nearby Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Prime Minister Theresa May will be among those attending the ceremony (Gareth Fuller/PA) For the first time, a German leader will lay a wreath at the Cenotaph, with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier performing the duty on behalf of his nation in an historic act of reconciliation between the two countries. Other senior royals including the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Sussex and the Princess Royal will also pay their respects at the Cenotaph. The Duchess of Cornwall, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Duchess of Sussex and other members of the Royal Family will join the Queen on the balcony. Big Ben, which has been silent since renovations to the Elizabeth Tower began in August last year, will strike 11 oclock to mark the hour the Armistice was signed. Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are also due to attend. Crowds started lining the Mall in central London early on Sunday morning ahead of a peoples march this afternoon. Wearing poppies and carrying wreaths, hundreds gathered from 9am to mark 100 years since the guns fell silent. Big screens have been erected so those waiting can view the Cenotaph service. The march will proceed around St Jamess Park before turning into Whitehall, where 10,000 people are expected to stream past the Cenotaph. Josh Marr, 18, is one of 100 National Citizen Service volunteers who will be marching. The Plymouth University student said the group are representing the young people of today, the young people of the future and the young people of 100 years ago. His great grandfather fought in Ypres in France. He said: My dad was saying he never spoke about the war, he wouldnt want to at all because it was obviously something that really affected him. Its something I have always found really interesting, how can something affect you so badly that you would never want to talk about it? Its an experience that we as young people and general citizens now do not come close to feeling. A series of events have been planned to mark the special anniversary of the end of the Great War, including a procession of 10,000 people past the Cenotaph. The day will conclude with a service of thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey. People have fallen silent across Australia, New Zealand and Commonwealth nations to commemorate the centenary of the Armistice. Services of remembrance were held from Sydney to Singapore on Sunday, as tens of thousands of people paused to reflect on the innumerable lives given to a conflict on the other side of the world a century ago. Large crowds attended the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington for New Zealands main remembrance ceremony, where a two-minute silence was observed at 11am (10pm GMT Saturday). The sound of a 100-gun salute rang out over Wellington Harbour as the moment of reflection came to an end and white poppies fell from the cenotaph. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy, the Queens representative in the country, addressed crowds that included elderly veterans proudly sporting their medals. The ceremony also featured a creative performance, He Wawa Warak: Roaring Chorus which evoked the energy, noise and complex emotion of the moment when war finally gave way to peace. This Armistice day, as we reflect on the human toll of war, we are reminded to value the living and to hold fast to hope, Ms Ardern said. In a world where conflict remains all-too-prevalent we look to how we can achieve a better future. Nearly 100,000 served in New Zealand units overseas during the First World War, with around a fifth never returning home. The Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington (Mark Tantrum/PA) Some 12,000 people, including veterans and serving soldiers, gathered for a national ceremony of remembrance at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, where Prime Minister Scott Morrison led a minutes silence at 11am (midnight Saturday GMT). It is easy from the vantage point of a century to lose sight of the sacrifices made in our name, he said in a commemorative address. Those who fought in the Great War had the same normal flaws and frailties as any other Australian of any other generation. Yet their selflessness at the darkest of times has set them apart for eternity in our nations consciousness. In Sydney, crowds gathered at the Anzac Memorial, an extension of which was unveiled by the Duke of Sussex during his recent trip with Meghan. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave an address at the Australia War Memorial (AWM/PA) There was also a service at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, albeit amid tight security following Thursdays terror attack in the city centre. Some 331,000 Australians served overseas during the First World War, the vast majority of whom fought on the Western Front alongside British soldiers and their allies. Over 60,000 died in the conflict, more than two-thirds on the battlefields of Europe. In Singapore, the British High Commission held a service at the Kranji War Cemetery, resting place for 3692 casualties from both world wars. A special bell was rung to mark the Armistice centenary, while sailors from HMS Argyll, which is currently visiting Singapore, attended the service, along with Gurkha bagpipe players. In Malaysia wreaths were laid at the cenotaph at the National Monument in Kuala Lumpur during a service organised by the British High Commission. Remembrance ceremonies were also held on a number of South Pacific Islands. In Fiji a ceremony was held at the National War Memorial in Veiuto led by President Jioji Konrote, while in Tonga the centenary was marked at the the Cenotaph in Nukualofa. There was also a service at the Coastwatchers Memorial in Honiara, the capital city of the Solomon Islands. Hardline Tory Brexiteers and the DUP have joined forces to warn they are prepared to vote down Theresa Mays EU withdrawal plans. The move comes as the Prime Minister battles to keep her Brexit agenda on track as she faces growing Tory tensions and reports of opposition from Brussels to a key part of withdrawal proposals. With the shock resignation of pro-Europe transport minister Jo Johnson continuing to cause ructions in Tory ranks, Mrs May is running out of time to seal an EU exit agreement. And in a stark warning to the PM, Tory Brexiteer Steve Baker, deputy chairman of the 80-member European Research Group (ERG) of Conservative backbenchers, and the DUPs Brexit spokesman, Sammy Wilson, said they would oppose any agreement which they thought threatened the union and could put a trade border down the Irish Sea. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, they said: We share the Prime Ministers ambition for an EU free trade agreement, but not at any price, and certainly not at the price of our union. If the Government makes the historic mistake of prioritising placating the EU over establishing an independent and whole UK, then, regrettably, we must vote against the deal. Both pro and anti-withdrawal Tories have become more vocal in their opposition to Theresa Mays Brexit talks stance stance (Henry Nicholls/PA) Hope of getting the Cabinet to sign off on Brexit deal proposals this week appeared to be rapidly receding, as it was reported the EU had rejected Londons plans for an independent arbitration clause that could allow the UK to quit a backstop deal on the Northern Ireland border. With both pro and anti-withdrawal Tories becoming more vocal in their opposition to Mrs Mays stance, arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg called on the PM to change tack. He urged Mrs May to end the deadlock by paying the EU 20 billion to secure a no deal plus arrangement with the bloc after withdrawal. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Rees-Mogg, who heads the ERG, suggested offering the financial deal to Brussels in order to make our departure as amicable as possible. Previously critical of the 39 billion divorce bill the UK is set to pay the EU, Mr Rees-Mogg wrote: It is time for convinced Brexiteers like me to compromise. So, at this late hour in the negotiations, we would like to make a new, generous offer to break the deadlock, to achieve a No Deal Plus. It would cost us money but it would finally dispel the crash out Project Fear nightmare scenarios. A Government source told the Press Association: The end part of negotiations were always going to be tough. There are a number of issues that need to be worked through on the Northern Ireland backstop and these are the most difficult. They include ensuring that, if it is ever needed, it is not permanent and there is a mechanism to ensure the UK could not be held in the arrangement indefinitely. Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer insisted Government talk of leaving the EU without a deal amounted to a political hoax. Writing in the Sunday Times, he said: There is no duty on MPs to surrender to a bad deal. To do so would be to concede to a political hoax designed to threaten rather than persuade. Former Cabinet minister Justine Greening, who shares Mr Johnsons view that a fresh referendum is needed, called on Tories to oppose the PMs Chequers proposals. Well done to @JoJohnsonUK on standing up for what he believes in. He was a fantastic Minister to work with whilst we were at the DfE. Its a sad loss for Gvt, but Brexit is above party politics. https://t.co/icoTQDF11v Justine Greening (@JustineGreening) November 9, 2018 She told The Observer: The parliamentary deadlock has been clear for some time. Its crucial now for Parliament to vote down this plan, because it is the biggest giveaway of sovereignty in modern times. The view was echoed by Brexiteer Tory MP Andrew Bridgen who told a meeting of the Bruges Group: If we cant chuck Chequers then its time to chuck the Prime Minister. In the wake of Mr Johnsons resignation there have been reports that other ministers are considering quitting over Brexit. Brexiteers have insisted that the UK should not get involved with a potentially permanent backstop customs union agreement with the EU as the price of avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland. Commemorations for the centenary of Armistice Day started in Co Fermanagh before dawn on Sunday, with the sound of a lone piper. More than 100 people gathered in the dark at Enniskillen Castle at 6am to hear the piper play When The Battles Oer, a traditional tune played after battle. The Wilfred Owen poem Anthem For Doomed Youth was read before ministers from the four main churches in the town led prayers of reflection. Viscount Brookeborough gives the oration (Liam McBurney/PA) The Last Post was played on the bugle that sounded the charge of the 36th Ulster Division at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, before a two-minute silence was observed. The Queens representative, the Lord-Lieutenant for County Fermanagh, Viscount Brookborough gave the oration. All of our communities served willingly and suffered equally throughout the long years of that war and I am delighted to see so many people here this morning, he said. A lone piper started the Armistice Day commemorations at 6am at Enniskillen Castle, Co Fermanagh #Armistace100 pic.twitter.com/LkGljGadO2 Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) November 11, 2018 The Armistice was signed a few minutes after 5am on that 11th day, and we are in Enniskillen, the western most point of this celebration this year. Enniskillen was the first town to hear of the Armistice through a radio operator scanning the airwaves and he heard, in Morse code, the message which was transmitted in Paris and he translated it. So Enniskillen was that first town, some two-and-a-half hours before anyone else heard it. Bugler Noel Trimble plays The Last Post (Liam McBurney/PA) Viscount Brookborough presented commemorative lanterns to the clergy representing the four churches. As he presented them, he said: I ask you to take these lanterns back to your congregations as a symbol of the light of peace emerging from the darkness of war, and I ask that you join us again at 6pm this evening in St Michaels Church as we conclude our Great War commemorations by looking forward together towards a brighter future. The event, which was organised by the Inniskillings Museum, concluded with an historical interpretation of the moment the message of the Armistice was received in Enniskillen in 1918. Museum curator-manager Neil Armstrong described the event as an evocative start to our community commemorations. At 10.50am, an act of remembrance will take place at the Cenotaph in Enniskillen, followed by a service at St Macartans Cathedral. Outstanding event at 6 am today at Enniskillen Castle to commemorate the Armistice. Last post played on bugle used to sound the advance by the Inniskillings on 1 July 1916. Well done @Inniskillings. #ArmisticeDay100 pic.twitter.com/GMxOfFOgiJ WW1 Research Ireland (@MNugentResearch) November 11, 2018 There is an added poignancy to Remembrance Sunday in Enniskillen, where the event in 1987 was devastated by an IRA bomb close to the Cenotaph during the annual commemorations. The atrocity killed 11 men and women. Another man died after spending 13 years in a coma from his injuries. Another service will take place in the town on Sunday evening at St Michaels Church, before the Last Post is played at St Macartans Cathedral. At 7pm, the UKs most westerly beacon of light will be lit in the grounds of St Macartans by Viscount Brookborough. Armistice Day commemorations have started in Enniskillen pic.twitter.com/wfOpbWBply Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) November 11, 2018 The news of the Armistice reportedly broke in Enniskillen before London, Edinburgh, Manchester or Dublin on November 11 1918 thanks to the local wireless operator. The message had been sent from Paris by the Armed Forces Commander in Chief, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, announcing the time for the cessation of hostilities. It read: Hostilities will cease on the whole front from November 11, at 11 oclock. The Allied troops will not, until further orders, go beyond the line reached on that day and at that hour. The local newspapers at the time reported that the news spread like wildfire, and was accompanied by the firing of guns, the launch of rockets from the military barracks and the pealing of church bells. An elderly woman has died and three other people, including a child, were taken to hospital following a two-car crash in East Lothian. The collision happened on the southbound carriageway of the A1, between Gladsmuir and Abbotsview, at about 4.30pm on Saturday. Police Scotland said an 80-year-old woman suffered serious injuries when her Toyota Yaris was involved in the collision with a Renault Megane. She was pronounced dead at the scene by ambulance crews. The 30-year-old man driving the Renault and the 31-year-old woman passenger in the car were seriously injured and have been taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for treatment. A four-year-old boy, who was also in the Renault, was taken to the citys Sick Kids Hospital as a precaution, officers said. A Police Scotland spokesman said: Road policing officers closed the road for around seven hours while they conducted inquiries at the scene. An 80-year-old woman died in the crash on Saturday afternoon (David Cheskin/PA) Anyone with information relating to this collision should contact police immediately quoting reference number 2993 of November 10. Poland is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its rebirth as an independent state with events across the country, including marches and the national hymn being sung publicly in more than 600 towns. Poland regained its independence at the end of World War I in 1918, reborn from the ashes of three defeated powers that had partitioned and ruled the Central European nation for 123 years. The ceremonies in Poland coincide with world leaders gathering in Paris to mark the armistice of what was then called the Great War. Polands regained independence fulfilled the dreams of generations of patriots who had kept the language and culture alive despite foreign rule and repression. Donald Tusk greets supporters after laying flowers by the statue of Marshal Jozef Pilsudski (Czarek Sokolowski/AP) European Council head Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, celebrated the anniversary by laying wreaths at monuments to key figures in rebuilding the countrys statehood. Mr Tusk placed flowers at the monument to the first state and armed forces leader, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, by the Belvedere Palace where Mr Pilsudski resided. Mr Tusk, an opponent of Polands right-wing government, said the political disputes about Polands future are sometime too strong, but stressed that our bond is much stronger and much more important, because it is you, Poland. He will also take part in a state ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. THE GOVERNMENT is "jumping the gun on the highly-touted proposed constitutional reform, according to Chairman of the Progressive National Party (PNP), Royal Robinson. The opposition recently pulled out of the discussion process, indicating that it would wait until its convention in November before committing to it. The partys chairman in a statement issued on Wednesday (November 7) said the convention will usher in new leadership that may have a new approach to constitutional advancement. Further explaining his partys position Robinson said: "To be clear from the outset, the PNP did break off our engagement with the Government on talks dealing with constitutional advancement, but it was for a legitimate reason, which was unambiguously communicated to Premier Cartwright Robinson. Robinson said the Government is taking credit for the proposed constitutional changes identified and lobbied for by the former administration. "In her usual manner of trying to take credit for other peoples work, the premier has again jumped the gun in an effort to make herself relevant to the time, even though we all have come to clearly realise that the Empress has on no clothes, he said. He stressed that the work on the constitution so far, as presented by the premier, had its genesis in the PNP. "The premier, in her usual backhanded sort of way had to attest to that fact, he said. "What she clearly and deliberately left out of her verbiage was the fact that we had agreed to have town hall meetings to affirm with the people of this country the new positions and get buy in from them so that when we did get an audience with the UK Government, we would be expressing the clear view of the people at this time. In a press statement on Monday (November 5), the governing Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) described the decision by the PNP opposition to pull out of this process as "reckless. It added that the PDM Government will forge ahead on behalf of the people without the PNP opposition. "The peoples business is too important and the lives of the people are too greatly impacted by not having greater authority in the hands of those they elected through constitutional change, which is a major campaign promise to our people, the statement said. It went on to say that constitutional advancement is a lengthy and time consuming process and it "cannot wait for the PNP to get their act together. The matter of constitution reform has once again become a bone of contention between Britain and most, if not all, of its Caribbean territories. This was most recently exacerbated by British threats to force the publication of beneficial ownership registers by means of unilateral orders in council. As a result, the Cayman Islands government is actively seeking constitutional reform and the British Virgin Islands accused the British government of undermining its partnership with the overseas territories. In its submissions to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee as part of a British parliamentary review of the relationship with the overseas territories currently underway, the Cayman Islands government described the constitutional relationship as insecure and outdated, and accused Britain of taking an ad hoc approach to engagement with the territories. The Cayman Islands government also criticised the UK government for continuing to treat the overseas territories as subordinates rather than as partners, and described the current constitution that supports the relationship as "no longer fit for purpose. The TCI has had an even more chequered history with Britain, direct rule from London having been re-imposed on the territory on two occasions, the most recent after a 2008-2009 commission of inquiry found evidence of systemic corruption in the then PNP Government. A new, more restrictive constitution for the TCI was subsequently negotiated, leading to a return to parliamentary democracy in December 2012. According to Chairman of the PDM Douglas Parnell, after ten years of British intervention in legal systems and governance structures in the TCI, it is past time for it to come to an end through constitutional advancement. "Its unjust to deny change or limit our people, any people for that matter, by erecting legal systems that are designed to keep decision-making power beyond their grasp. We will continue to fight for change, Parnell said. A delegation from the TCI is expected to meet with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister responsible for the Overseas Territories on December 6, to discuss these issues. (By Olivia Rose) At least one topless woman ran out towards President Donald Trumps motorcade as he travelled to the Arc de Triomphe for a ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One. She had slogans written on her chest that included the words Fake and Peace. The armoured limousine known as `The Beast carrying President Donald Trump (Ludovic Marin/AP) Police tackled the women and the motorcade continued uninterrupted. President Trump is among dozens of leaders attending the centennial anniversary ceremony. Most of the other leaders travelled together, from the Elysee Palace. President Trump arrived on his own. The feminist activist group Femen later claimed responsibility for the topless protesters. Femens protesters have repeatedly breached security around world leaders and major events. The Prince of Wales has led the Royal Familys tributes to the nations war dead on the centenary of the Armistice, as the Queen looked on from a nearby balcony. The event marks 100 years since the signing of the treaty which ended the battle on the Western Front of the First World War at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Charles laid a wreath at the Cenotaph on behalf of his mother for the second year in a row, while an equerry laid a wreath on behalf of the Duke of Edinburgh. The Queen viewed the service from the balcony of the nearby Foreign and Commonwealth Office, although Prince Philip was absent one of the few times he has missed the occasion. He was previously unable to attend in 1956, 1964, 1968 and 1999, a spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said. The Monarch was flanked by the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchess of Cambridge while the Duchess of Sussex, the Countess of Wessex and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence stood on neighbouring balconies. The President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also laid a wreath on behalf of the German people. The Queen, joined by The Duchess of Cornwall & The Duchess of Cambridge, views the #RemembranceSunday Service from the balcony of the FCO. The Service started at 11:00am with a 2 minute silence, exactly 100 years after the battlefields of the First World War fell silent. pic.twitter.com/I4UI26voRj The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) November 11, 2018 It is the first time since the Cenotaph was inaugurated in 1920 that a representative of the country has taken part in the UKs national service of remembrance. President Steinmeiers presence was a symbol of the friendship that exists between the two countries today, a representative of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said. The Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex, the Princess Royal, the Duke of Kent and Prince Michael of Kent all laid tributes to Britains veterans. Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also laid wreaths at the foot of the Whitehall memorial, along with Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow. President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier lays a wreath (Andrew Matthews/PA) The traditional two minutes silence was held at 11 oclock and was marked by the chiming of Big Ben despite the ongoing renovations to the clock tower. The 13.7 tonne bell has been silent since August 2017 since works began, except for ringing in New Year 2018. It has been fitted with a custom-built electronic mechanism built to power the 200kg striking hammer to ensure it can still sound for important national events while the clockwork undergoes vital repairs. The end of the silence was marked by cannon fire and The Last Post sounded by the Buglers of the Royal Marines before the wreaths were laid. Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright said: On the centenary of the Armistice, we will come together as a nation to stand in silence and honour the fallen of all conflicts. Over the past four years, we have told the story of the First World War and the unique generation who served so bravely and made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Prime Minister Theresa May (Andrew Matthews/PA) Today, we will also give thanks for all those that returned and the peace they fought so hard for. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said: To be at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday is a privilege and provides us with the opportunity for reflection along with millions of people in countries that continue to be strong allies. The First World War touched communities across the globe and I commend all those who have helped us remember the First World War generation. We will never forget them or the sacrifice of thousands of British and Commonwealth troops who have given their lives in other conflicts. Among the thousands paying their respects was Lieutenant Commander Sarah Bligh of the Royal Navy. She said it was her grandmothers stories of the war that inspired her to join the forces. A two-minute silence was held at 11am and wreaths were laid at the Cenotaph to commemorate the servicemen and women killed in all conflicts from the First World War onwards. #LestWeForget #ArmisticeDay100 pic.twitter.com/ZQoJElGWYU British Army (@BritishArmy) November 11, 2018 The thought of it being 100 years is really poignant. Ive got a photograph of my great grandfather taken 100 years ago to celebrate them all coming back from the war, she said. Its incredible to be here 100 years on. The ceremony will be followed by the annual Royal British Legions Veterans Parade. We are proud to be leading today's March at the #Cenotaph. Watch the March and #RemembranceSunday ceremony live @BBC from 10:00 including a #TwoMinuteSilence as we mark 100 year since the end of #WW1 pic.twitter.com/XGt2hn9LsL Royal British Legion (@PoppyLegion) November 11, 2018 Big Ben will sound again today at 12.30pm, joining bells across the country and the rest of the world an event to echo the celebrations of November 11, 1918 as news of the Armistice spread. In the afternoon, 10,000 members of the public chosen by ballot will process past the Cenotaph for A Nations Thank You The Peoples Procession. The day will conclude with a Service of Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey. Cabinet ministers appeared at odds over whether the UK could secure a unilateral exit from a Brexit backstop deal on Northern Irish border arrangements. Education Secretary Damian Hinds said such an outcome would be very, very unlikely, while Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom insisted the UK must be able to leave any customs agreement. Mr Hinds told BBC1s The Andrew Marr Show a solution to the issue needed to be negotiated. #Brexit: They need to think about what the alternatives are Education Secretary @DamianHinds urges Cabinet and MPs to back PMs Brexit plans Read more: https://t.co/H3FCPKlYHz #marr pic.twitter.com/YUjbnmk52Y BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 11, 2018 He said: If you have too hard a line about saying, well we must just have a totally unilateral exit, or theres an absolutely fixed, hard end date, that is very, very unlikely that is going to be negotiable with the other side. On the other hand, people here rightly want comfort and they should be able to have comfort and confidence that it isnt an open-ended thing. Mrs Leadsom insisted the UK cannot be held against its will in a backstop customs arrangement with the EU, and claimed MPs would not support a scenario in which Britain could not decide when to leave. She told BBC Radio 5Lives Pienaars Politics: It cannot be a decision that can be overturned by the European Union, it must be capable for the United Kingdom to decide to leave that customs arrangement and it cannot be something the European Union can hold us to. Frankly, its because that would be to then fail to fulfil on the will of the people expressed at the referendum and I very much doubt wed get it through Parliament. Mrs Leadsom told the BBC: I am working towards getting a deal that does not require the UK to be stuck, trapped in a customs arrangement. Thats what Im working towards and Im sticking in the Government to make sure thats where we get to in the end. I dont think something that trapped the UK in any arrangement against our will would be sell-able to members of parliament. In a direct message to Prime Minister Theresa May, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry told the BBC: You cannot simply come to the House of Commons with a bit of nonsense that makes no sense. You cannot expect the Labour Party to save you from your own backbenchers who are saying this deal makes no sense and everybody knows it doesnt make sense. The comments came after hardline Tory Brexiteers and the DUP joined forces to warn they are prepared to vote down Mrs Mays EU withdrawal plans. In a stark warning to the PM, Tory Brexiteer Steve Baker, deputy chairman of the 80-member European Research Group (ERG) of Conservative backbenchers, and the DUPs Brexit spokesman, Sammy Wilson, said they would oppose any agreement which they thought threatened the union and could put a trade border down the Irish Sea. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, they said: We share the Prime Ministers ambition for an EU free trade agreement, but not at any price, and certainly not at the price of our union. If the Government makes the historic mistake of prioritising placating the EU over establishing an independent and whole UK, then, regrettably, we must vote against the deal. With the shock resignation of pro-Europe transport minister Jo Johnson continuing to cause ructions in Tory ranks, Mrs May is running out of time to seal an EU exit agreement. (PA Graphics) Hope of getting the Cabinet to sign off on Brexit deal proposals this week appeared to be rapidly receding, as it was reported the EU had rejected Londons plans for an independent arbitration clause that could allow the UK to quit a backstop deal on the Northern Ireland border. In the wake of Mr Johnsons resignation, there have been reports that other ministers are considering quitting over Brexit. Brexiteers have insisted that the UK should not get involved with a potentially permanent backstop customs union agreement with the EU as the price of avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland. The Irish President-elect attended the Armistice Day centenary commemorations at Dublins Glasnevin Cemetery on Sunday. Michael D Higgins, and his wife Sabina, along with government representative Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan paid tribute to the memory of the Irish men and women who died in the First World War. Over 47 countries were represented at the service, and officials laid wreaths at the Irish military plot, before The Last Post was played and the Irish flag returned to full mast. Vice Admiral Mark Mellett (left), chief of staff of the Irish Defence Forces, with President-elect Michael D Higgins at Glasnevin Cemetery (Niall Carson/PA) Poetry from the First World War was read by the British, French and German ambassadors to Ireland, before prayer and a minute of silence. Those present included current and former Defence Forces troops, former president Mary Robinson and family members of some of those who served in both World Wars. During the ceremony, five Victoria Cross Commemorative plaques were unveiled, dedicated to five soldiers from different ranks who showed extreme bravery during the conflict between 1914 and 1918. An tUachtarain Tofa Michael D Higgins receives a salute from the Captain's Guard of Honour ahead of the Armistice Day Commemoration at Glasnevin Cemetery. #OglaighnahEireann #strengthenthenation #Armistice1918 pic.twitter.com/2PYR4seLeY Oglaigh na hEireann (@defenceforces) November 11, 2018 Mr Higgins paid tribute to those who fought in the First World War, in particular, the 200,000 Irish men who served and those who died overseas. Ours is not a celebration of militarism, nor a valorisation of martial spirit, but a simple recognition of our common humanity, as we recall the destruction of the promise and potential of a generation in the First World War, the lasting damage inflicted on the millions wounded and maimed, and the countless others who would go on to suffer mental anguish as a result of the horrors of their war experience, he said. Despite all the differences of religion, class and political aspiration, they were united by what would be a shared experience of war, with its comradeship, friendship and shared hardship whether it was on the Western Front, at Gallipoli, or in the Middle East. President-elect Michael D Higgins at the centenary commemorations (Niall Carson/PA) Mr Higgins added that the world today had the material capacity to abolish all forms of human poverty, to alleviate all unnecessary suffering, we are still devoting so much of our creativity, not to the preservation or achievement of peace, but to the prosecution of and preparation for war. Amidst great human suffering, some nations now seek to embark upon a new arms race, increasing not only their own stockpiles, but exporting weapons of death and destruction to fuel the fires of war in other lands, in Yemen, in Syria, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he said. Minister Madigan reflected on those who had perished in the conflict, and the lost potential of those who served. Honoured to be representing the Government at the Armistice Commemoration Ceremony at Glasnevin Cemetery this morning.#Armistice100 #ArmisticDay100 @glasnevinmuseum @DeptAHG pic.twitter.com/mtqUzqVsqo Josepha Madigan (@josephamadigan) November 11, 2018 Over the past four years, we have explored, with respect and compassion, the differing motivations of those from this island, of all traditions, who lost their lives we will never know how they would have contributed to this land, had they not died before their time, she said. The commemoration took place at 9am, hours before Mr Higgins was to be inaugurated for his second term as President of Ireland. This year, the date of the inauguration coincided with the centenary of the end of the First World War, and the Constitution of Ireland stipulates that the President of Ireland is inaugurated on the day following the expiry of the term of office of the preceding president. Acts of Remembrance have taken place across Northern Ireland on the centenary of Armistice Day. Democratic Unionist leader Arlene Foster and Irish Government minister Heather Humphreys laid wreaths at the cenotaph in Enniskillen. Hundreds gathered in the narrow streets to watch a musical procession including a brass band and bagpipes before representatives of the four main churches in the town led a service. Remembrance Sunday in the Co Fermanagh town has an added poignancy after a Provisional IRA bomb devastated the event in 1987. Eleven people were killed in the blast. A 12th victim, Ronnie Hill, slipped into a coma two days afterwards and died 13 years later. A number of families of the bomb victims were present in Enniskillen for the ceremony. DUP leader Arlene Foster (left) and Heather Humphreys Irish Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation at the Enniskillen Cenotaph (Liam McBurney/PA) Noel Trimble played the last post earlier at Enniskillen Castle on the bugle which sounded the charge of the 36th Ulster Division at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The bugle is kept at the Inniskillings Museum pic.twitter.com/zaYPeFHM6G Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) November 11, 2018 Armistice commemorations started before dawn in the town which is among the most westerly in the United Kingdom with a lone piper playing at an event at Enniskillen Castle ay 6am. The Last Post was played on the bugle that sounded the charge of the 36th Ulster Division at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, before a two-minute silence was observed. One of the biggest events in the region on Sunday took place at the cenotaph at Belfast City Hall. It was attended by Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley and Irelands deputy premier Simon Coveney. Representatives of all the main churches were present as well as the armed forces and Police Service of Northern Ireland Deputy Chief Constable Stephen Martin. Sinn Feins Belfast Lord Mayor Deirdre Hargey was not in attendence. DUP leader Arlene Foster and Irish Government minister Heather Humphreys have laid wreaths at the cenotaph in Enniskillen pic.twitter.com/DDBMnHyqU0 Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) November 11, 2018 A party spokesman said that its representatives will not take part in events which celebrate or attempt to legitimise British imperialism. Deputy Lord Mayor Emmet McDonough-Brown instead represented the city. Sinn Fein vice president Michelle ONeill will attend an Armistice service at St Patricks Cathedral in Dublin. A special service to mark the centenary of Armistice Day will be held at St Annes cathedral on Sunday afternoon. Mrs Bradley and Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson are set to be among guests at the service during which poet Michael Longley is set to read his work Ceasefire. Mr Coveney was not present at the service due to the inauguration of Michael D Higgins for his second term as Irish president in Dublin. In a letter published in the order of service, Mr Coveney said: For far too long remembrance of the war on the island was a source of division. There was a sense that commemoration of the young Irishmen who died in the Somme or Gallipoli was a political declaration, or a marker of community identity. In recent times, and as we have marked the centenaries of the events of that decade, we have seen something very different. We have seen leadership and scholarship and sensitivity and generosity. Enniskillen prepares for its act of Remembrance at the cenotaph on Belmore Street. pic.twitter.com/ua74QMjMh2 Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) November 11, 2018 The emphasis will see a moment of reflection rather than an act of remembrance and instead of wreaths, several volumes of Irelands Memorial Records will be laid at a field altar. The books will be borne by four people all of whom have at least one family member who was killed in the war and is named in the memorial records. At sunset, a lantern will be borne out from the cathedral as the fallen are remembered. The service in Belfast is set to take place at the same time as services in Dublin, Glasgow and Cardiff and ahead of the service at Westminster Abbey on Sunday evening. Other acts of remembrance took place across the Northern Ireland, including one on board the Royal Navy warship HMS Duncan, which is in Belfast for the weekend. The Royal Naval Association held its annual remembrance service parade on Great Victoria Street at 10.30am. Memorial events have also taken place on beaches, including Murlough Beach, Co Down, Portstewart Strand and Downhill Beach, Co Londonderry. On Sunday evening, a number of beacons will be lit including at Belfast City Hall, Guildhall Square in Londonderry and St Macartins Cathedral in Enniskillen. A 10-year-old boy has died and an eight-year-old girl has life-threatening injuries following an incident at a property in Perth and Kinross. Police were called to an address in Union Street, Coupar Angus, after being alerted by a member of the public at around 2.30am on Sunday. Officers found the two children at the property and an injured man nearby. The girl was taken to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee with serious and life-threatening injuries. The boy died at the scene. A 37-year-old man has been arrested over the incident. Chief Inspector Ian Scott, of Police Scotland said: At this time, our thoughts are very much with the family and friends of the young boy who has died in this incident and with the young girl who remains in a serious condition in hospital. A man has been arrested after a boy, 10, died at a property (Yui Mok/PA) I can confirm that a 37-year-old man has been arrested in connection with this incident. Inquiries are ongoing, however I believe this to have been an isolated and contained incident with no threat to the wider public. There will be a police presence at the scene for some time while we undertake our investigation and I would like to thank the local community for their patience whilst we carry out our work. There will be additional patrols by local community based officers in Coupar Angus to help provide some reassurance to the community. Perthshire North MSP John Swinney said: This is devastating news and my heart goes out to the children and their family and friends. The Coupar Angus community is so close to home for me and the news is literally impossible to comprehend. I urge anyone with relevant information to share that with Police Scotland. I will do all that I can to help everyone affected by this tragedy. Anyone who heard or saw anything in the Union Street area and has not yet spoken to police is urged to call them on 101. Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered seven Pharaonic Age tombs near the capital Cairo containing dozens of cat mummies along with wooden statues depicting other animals and birds. Ministry official Mostafa Waziri told reporters that the discovery at Saqqara also includes mummies of scarabs, the first ever to be found in the area. Cat statues on display (Nariman El-Mofty/AP) Of the statues found, those depicting cats were the majority, reflecting the reverence ancient Egyptians showed the felines, whose God Bastet was worshipped. Other statues depicted a lion, a cow and a falcon. Egypt has been promoting its new historical discoveries in the hopes of reviving a devastated tourism sector still recovering from the turmoil following a 2011 uprising that toppled long-time leader Hosni Mubarak. A teenager has died and two others are fighting for their lives after a road crash in Fife. Police were called to the single-vehicle smash on the A915 Standing Stane Road, near Kirkcaldy, at around 8.45am on Sunday. A 17-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. Two other young men, aged 17 and 18, are in a critical condition at Edinburghs Royal Infirmary. A fourth man, 18, has been arrested and is being treated for serious injuries at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. The road was closed following the crash. A teenager died in the A915 crash on Sunday (Andrew Milligan/PA) Police Scotland officers have urged anyone who has any information about the incident, or who saw a black Vauxhall Corsa in the area at that time, to get in touch with them. Police investigating the death of a man whose body was found on a footpath have made an arrest. The body of Darren Sinclair, 27, was discovered by a member of the public on a path near Kinfauns Drive, in the Drumchapel area of Glasgow, on the morning of November 6. A 20-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the death, officers confirmed on Sunday. Detectives, who launched a murder inquiry following the incident, said their inquiries are continuing. Police Scotlands Detective Chief Inspector Mark Bell has urged members of the public with information about the incident to contact the forces major investigation team. Maurizio Sarri extended his unbeaten start to Premier League management to a record 12 games as Chelsea were frustrated in a bad-tempered encounter with Everton. The Italian is undefeated in competitive games at Chelsea, but must have wondered how his side missed out on a ninth league win as Jordan Pickford denied Marcos Alonso, Alvaro Morata and Eden Hazard in Sundays goalless draw. Referee Kevin Friend doled out seven yellow cards in a tetchy contest, two coming following an off-the-ball incident between Bernard and Antonio Rudiger. It ends in a draw at Stamford Bridge, but we remain unbeaten.#CHEEVE pic.twitter.com/6Jd8Or6LK9 Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) November 11, 2018 The height difference of one foot and Rudigers amateur dramatics might have helped Bernard escape with a booking for motioning his head towards the defender. Jorginho and Alonso could also be considered fortunate for avoiding greater punishment for challenges which caught the ankles of Gylfi Sigurdsson and Theo Walcott, respectively. Frank Clark was unbeaten in 11 Premier League games with Nottingham Forest from August to October 1994; a month later came Evertons most recent win at Stamford Bridge. The visitors started well in their quest for a first win at Chelsea in 24 years, with Bernard shooting narrowly wide and the intensity of their press troubling the Blues. Antonio Rudiger clashed with Bernard (Steven Paston/PA) Hazard was fouled by Yerry Mina, who became the first of five first-half bookings. Alonso curled the resulting free-kick just wide. Jorginho was felled Sigurdsson in a rare loss of composure from the Italy midfielder, before NGolo Kante was booked for a heavy challenge on Richarlison. Alonso then caught Walcott in front of the visitors dugout, but there was no punishment. Andre Gomes bundled over Hazard from behind after 39 minutes, leading to the first shot on target. Jordan Pickford made some fine saves for Everton (Steven Paston/PA) Willian floated a free-kick to the left side of the area and found Alonso, who struck a sweet volley which Pickford was equal to. While some relished the physicality, Morata did not, going down meekly in the area with Lucas Digne in close attendance. Next Rudiger remonstrated with Bernard for going down too easily. With Friend running away from them to keep up with play, 5ft 3in Bernard stood up and motioned his head towards the 6ft 3in defender, who went down clutching his face and rolled around. Yerry Mina, centre, finally made his Everton debut (Steven Paston/PA) It was uncertain if the cautions which resulted were for the incident or the histrionics which followed. Eleven seconds after the restart, Pickford saved Everton again as Morata tried to turn in Hazards cross at the near post. Ross Barkley, named as a substitute against his former club, was jeered when he set off to warm up in front of the visiting supporters and labelled greedy. He applauded in response. Everton had chances. Sigurdsson had a drive saved by Kepa Arrizabalaga and the resulting corner flicked off Rudigers hand, with Evertons penalty appeals in vain. Bernard fluffed the best opportunity, failing to control a Sigurdsson cross at the back post. Chelsea countered. Hazard freed Willian with a fine pass, but the Brazilian shot wide across goal. Pickford twice saved from Hazard, the second after a deflection off Mina, before Alonso hit the outside of the far post. Morata had a strike ruled out for offside and was later booked for dissent during a break in play. Barkley came on for Mateo Kovacic with nine minutes remaining to face his boyhood club for the first time, but there was to be no dramatic conclusion. By Delana Isles THE GOVERNMENT will be meeting with representatives of the United Kingdom this December to discuss the territorys proposed constitutional changes. In an address to the nation on Monday (November 5), Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson spoke of the issues being raised and the role the new Government has now taken in the previously bipartisan Constitutional Reform Committee which was put in place by the former (PNP) administration. The PNP party has since indicated its intention to no longer be a part of any constitutional talks with the UK before a new party leader is elected. In 2015, when the PNP was in power, it along with members of the PDM opposition had held talks with the public on constitutional changes from which several recommendations were formulated and subsequently submitted to the UK. The premier noted that after her PDM Government won the elections in 2016, those recommendations were reviewed and later refreshed in April 2018 when the Government met with the PNP opposition. On Monday, the premier revealed that she has since scheduled a meeting with the UK Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the UN for December 6 at 10.20am to discuss these changes. The following was submitted to Lord Ahmad together with the revised recommendations by the PDM Government. UK submission "The Government led by former premier Rufus Ewing and the official opposition then led by myself (Cartwright Robinson), joined together and held consultations around the Islands in 2015 to hear the opinion of the people on the 2011 constitution. "The body consisted of a chairman agreed by both the then premier and myself as leader of the opposition and three members each appointed by the premier and myself as leader of the opposition. "They were: chairman Daniel Malcolm Snr, Government Appointed Members Hon. Akierra Missick and Hon. R D Gardiner, Carlos Simmons, Opposition Appointed Members, Hon. Sharlene Cartwright Robinson, Hon. Sean Astwood and Ashwood Forbes. "Whilst we contributed to the report, the terms of reference invited the chairman to produce a report. "As members we were able to make some contribution to its content. Following its presentation, the entire elected membership of the House of Assembly met to discuss its recommendations and to agree and/or disagree its contents based on applicability and experiences as elected members and members of the Cabinet. "Both Government and opposition jointly reviewed the report and offered positions. Additionally, the former Government from its own knowledge of the operation of Cabinet etc, made recommendations. "Since coming to office, I have asked the opposition to join me in pursuing the changes. "The Hon. Leader of the Opposition named Hon. Akierra Missick, Hon. Royal Robinson and Mr R D Gardiners as those representing the official opposition/PNP political party, whilst Hon. Sean Astwood, Hon. Doug Parnell and I represented the Government/PDM political party. "A meeting was held on April 24, 2018, where the changes were agreed and a further meeting was to be held with the political parties to agree the final submission. "The initial meeting followed the recommendations sent by the former premier following consultations in 2015 and the receipt of the chairman of the constitutional review bodys report New recommendations The premier noted that only points raised below are those that the joint body have added to the recommendations now before London and the points that the April 24 meeting reemphasised. These are: The removal of the CFO was agreed to be a non-issue, accept the recommendations for reinstatement of trial by jury. Reject the continued inclusion of deputy governor as full member of Cabinet and further recommend that the attorney general and the deputy governor be only ex officio members of Cabinet with no voting rights. Decisions to be made in Cabinet should follow the 2006 Constitution (emphasis on "consensus and its meaning and the Governor should be bound to follow Cabinet unless under special circumstances as set out). Cabinet secretary must revert to its role in 2006 Constitution. Both governor and premier should be able to summon public officers and should not be limited to the governor or those who act only which includes the deputy governor, the attorney general and the PS finance. "Where we agree to adopt section 61 of the Cayman Islands Constitution Order 2009 we have added to clause 1 (a) he or she is a Turks and Caicos Islander otherwise than by adoption, grant or marriage; Clause 1 (c) Be an elector; Clause 1(d) Be resident in the Turks and Caicos Islands for a period not less than 3 years preceding the date of nomination. Add (f) to Clause (3): Her Majestys Forces. "Remove the reference to The absence of ministers and notice of leave under the governor and the executive Disqualification of ministers. "Under the legislature on nominating appointed members Government two, governor one and opposition leader one as opposed to what obtains now where the governor has two appointed members and the Government and opposition, one each. "Under the judicature - Amend to include language that says "high level Office which will include Queens Counsels. This is to give a chance for local appointments as oppose to continue with High Legal Office. "Amend the Boundaries Commission to 2006 Constitution provision that allows the chair to be appointed by the governor, one member by the premier and one by the leader of the opposition as oppose to the governors ability now to appoint two members and a third to be shared by the premier and leader of the opposition. "Institutions protecting good governance There are five IPGG and we propose to amend to allow for the submission of annual reports: The Supervisor of Elections, The Director of Public Prosecutions Office, The Human Rights Commission, The National Audit Office and The Complaints Commission. "The Removal of section 132 from the Constitution and leave all detailed references to the path to TCI status in subsidiary legislation or for local legislation. "Attorney general The attorney general should be elected or appointed now that we have a director of public prosecutions that is charged with instituting prosecutions. "All references relating to the governor in consultation with and which was in accordance with the advice in 2006 Constitution should return in accordance with the 2006 Constitution. New provisions The premier said the new provisions being submitted are as follows: Allow locally elected Government to be able to have more of a strategic say over the police force through a strengthened National Security Council which is now simply an advisory body. Amend Section 49 (1) (a) to ensure that this provision speaks only to those who as an adult applies for citizenship to a foreign power or state. Return Crown land under the management of a minister and review the public service management structure with a view to having greater harmony between elected Government and public service officers. Polands president and prime minister led an Independence Day march on Sunday which included members of nationalist organisations, the first time Polish state officials have marched with the far-right groups. Some 200,000 people marched in Warsaw to mark the 100th anniversary of Polands rebirth as an independent state at the end of the First World War, according to an initial estimate by police. Over the past decade, nationalist organisations have held Independence Day marches on November 11 which have included racist slogans, flares and in some years, acts of aggression. Donald Tusk, former Polish prime minister and president of the European Council, lays flowers at a statue of Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, the Polish leader who led Poland in regaining its lost statehood (Czarek Sokolowski/AP) Officials sought to hold one government-led march for Sundays centennial ceremonies, but negotiations broke down over requests for the groups to leave banners at home. An agreement on a joint march was reached in recent days. President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the powerful leader of the conservative ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, marched in a group led by soldiers with a large flag bearing the words For You Poland. Polish Army soldiers salute during the official ceremony (Alik Keplicz/AP) Walking a small distance behind them were the nationalists, many of them burning flares, creating flashes of red light and smoke. Many in that contingent carried national flags, but a handful of other emblems were observed. Those included the flag of the National Radical Camp, a far-right group that was one of the main march organisers. The camps flag has a falanga, a far-right symbol dating to the 1930s of a stylised hand with a sword. Andrzej Duda, left, and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, in front of the monument of the late Polish president Lech Kaczynski, who died in a 2010 plane crash (Alik Keplicz/AP) There were also a few flags of Forza Nuova, an Italian group whose leader, Roberto Fiore, describes himself as fascist. As the Polish president spoke at the start of the march, he was at times obscured by the heavy smoke from the flares. Throughout the day, solemn ceremonies and Masses were held in cities and small towns to commemorate the nations regained statehood after 123 years of foreign rule. The sacrifice of soldiers from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds who died in the First World War has bequeathed a shared responsibility to heal the past, the Catholic Archbishop of Ireland has said. Eamon Martin was addressing a service at St Annes Cathedral in Belfast to mark the centenary of Armistice Day. His remarks came at a time when the Northern Ireland Assembly has been collapsed for almost two years, with multiple attempts to revive the powersharing government ending in failure. The Duke of York, Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley and Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson were among those attending the service held at the same time as similar events in Dublin, Cardiff and Glasgow. The Duke of York at St Annes Cathedral (Liam McBurney/PA) Sinn Fein vice president Michelle ONeill attended a service in Dublin. The partys Belfast Lord Mayor Deirdre Hargey did not attend the act of remembrance at Belfast City Hall or the service at St Annes. Deputy Lord Mayor Emmet McDonough-Brown of the Alliance Party deputised for her. The service in Belfast saw a moment of reflection rather than an act of remembrance and instead of wreaths, several volumes of Irelands Memorial Records were laid at a field altar. The books were borne by four people each of whom have at least one family member who was killed in the war and was named in the Memorial Records. The service was led by the Dean of Belfast, the Very Reverend Stephen Forde, with participation by Archbishop Martin and Church of Ireland Archbishop Richard Clarke. Celebrated Belfast poet Michael Longley read his work Ceasefire. Karen Bradley and Sir Jeffrey Donaldson (Liam McBurney/PA) Addressing the service, Mr Martin described feeling deeply moved earlier this year when he laid a wreath during the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres with Mr Clarke. He also described a previous visit to Ypres in 2016 when he found the final resting place of his great uncle Edward, who died in the First World War. My visits in recent years to the Somme and to Flanders, with Archbishop Richard Clarke and the other church leaders, have really opened my eyes to the grief and suffering that was shared by families of all traditions and from every part of Ireland, he said. Three granite blocks at the Peace Park in Messines remind visitors of those from across the island of Ireland who were killed, wounded or missing during the war: 32,000 from the 36th Ulster Division, 28,000 from the 16th Irish Division, 9,000 from the 10th Irish Division. Sadly, because of the cruel twists and tensions of our history of conflict, the fact that Irish Catholics and Protestants fought and died, side by side, was neglected for too long and perhaps conveniently by all sides, both north and south of the border. People preferred to cling on to a history of difference and separation, rather than recognise and embrace our shared story of common suffering. Mr Martin urged that their sacrifice be a lesson. The brave people we are remembering are calling us to recognise their shared suffering by building a better future where difference is accepted and respected, he said. Although standing at war memorials, wearing poppies, laying wreaths and the Last Post may not have been part of my tradition or upbringing, to remember the dead, to honour and pray for them especially during the month of November is important to the practice of my faith. In recent years I have grown to understand more fully that, whilst we may remember in different ways, and whilst our forebears had differing and often conflicting approaches to the war, what unites us now in their memory is so much greater than anything that is talked up to divide us. Can we learn from their shared sacrifice, a full century after the so-called war to end all wars? They have bequeathed us a shared responsibility for healing the past and building lasting trust and peace. Peace is not merely ceasefire or the absence of violence and war. Peace is an ongoing work of reconciliation, justice and hope. It means coming out of our own trenches, building bridges, not parapets. The service was organised by the Northern Ireland First World War Committee, of which Mr Donaldson is the chairman. He praised the progress made across Ireland in terms of how historical events are marked. There have been special moments that not long ago would have been unthinkable, he said. Royal princes and dukes paying respect to Irelands dead. Irish Defence Forces pipers playing at Belfast City Cenotaph, the colours of the Royal Irish Regiment paraded in Dublin alongside their comrades in Oglaigh na hEireann, with echoes of the 16th and 36th divisions fighting side by side in common cause at Messines. Far from being purely symbolic, a deeper understanding, tolerance and respect has flowed from these events. Relationships built that have already proven their worth and will last. No ones unionism or nationalism is diminished as a result. The Prince of Wales has laid a wreath at a memorial service for the Welsh Guards on the centenary of the Armistice. It was laid at the Guards Memorial in central London, which commemorates those who have died in service of their country since 1914. The service on Sunday was also attended by soldiers past and present. The Welsh Guards Regimental Adjutant, Colonel Tom Bonas, said it was a huge privilege to be joined by Charles with everything else he has got on today. He added: We remain incredibly grateful to him for the time and energy that he spends with us. We are very lucky to have him as our colonel. Charles at the Guards Memorial (John Stillwell/PA) Families of soldiers were also invited to the service, which was held in the Guards Chapel before the laying of the wreaths. The prince also met bereaved families of military personnel. Five life-sized bronze statues made out of captured cannons stand at the Guards Memorial in Horse Guards Parade, each representing different regiments. Charles arrived at the memorial by car and stepped out wearing a pinstriped suit, overcoat and bowler hat. Charles arrives for the event (John Stillwell/PA) He laid the wreath at the foot of the memorial before briefly pausing and looking up at the statues while the Welsh national anthem was played by a marching band. Hundreds of members of the public looked on as he paid his respects. Sunday marked 100 years since the First World War came to an end. Before the wreath-laying ceremony Charles was presented with a hawthorn stick as a gift from the regiment for his 70th birthday, something which is given to all officers in the Welsh Guards. He celebrates his 70th birthday on Wednesday. Charles also laid a wreath at the Cenotaph earlier on Sunday as he led the royal familys tributes to the nations war dead. World leaders solemnly marked the end of the slaughter of the First World War 100 years ago at commemorations that drove home the message never again but also exposed the globes new political fault lines. As Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and dozens of other heads of state and government listened in silence, French President Emmanuel Macron used the occasion, as its host, to sound a warning about the fragility of peace and the dangers of nationalism. The old demons are rising again, ready to complete their task of chaos and of death, Mr Macron said. Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism, he said. In saying Our interests first, whatever happens to the others, you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important its moral values. Donald Trump, ostensibly the main target of Macrons message, sat stony-faced. The US president has proudly declared himself a nationalist. But if Mr Trump felt singled out by Mr Macrons remarks, he did not show it. He later described the commemoration as very beautiful. Donald Trump, second left, watches French President Emmanuel Macron putting his hand on German Chancellor Angela Merkels knee (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool) As well as spelling out the horrific costs of conflict to those with arsenals capable of waging a third world war, the ceremony also served up a joyful reminder of the intense sweetness of peace. High school students read from letters that soldiers and civilians wrote 100 years ago when the guns finally fell silent on the Western Front. Brought alive again by people too young to have known global war themselves, the ghostly voices seemed collectively to say: Please, do not make our mistakes. I only hope the soldiers who died for this cause are looking down upon the world today, American soldier Captain Charles S. Normington wrote on November 11 1918, in one of the letters. The whole world owes this moment of real joy to the heroes who are not here to help enjoy it. Vladimir Putin talks with Angela Merkel and Donald Trump (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP) The Paris weather, grey and damp, seemed aptly fitting when remembering a war fought in mud and relentless horror. The commemorations started late, overshooting the centenary of the exact moment when, 100 years earlier at 11am, an eerie silence replaced the thunder of war on the front lines. Mr Macron recalled that one billion shells fell on France alone from 1914 to 1918 . As bells marking the armistice hour rang across Paris and in many nations ravaged by the four years of carnage, Mr Macron and other leaders were still on their way to the centennial site at the Arc de Triomphe. Il ne depend que de nous que cette image soit interpretee a lavenir comme le symbole dune paix durable entre les nations, et non comme la photographie dun dernier moment dunite avant que le monde ne sombre dans un nouveau desordre. pic.twitter.com/kQ5MKYtgf3 Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) November 11, 2018 Under a sea of black umbrellas, a line of leaders led by Mr Macron and his wife, Brigitte, marched in silence on the cobbles of the Champs-Elysees, after leaving their buses. Mr Trump arrived separately, in a motorcade that drove past three topless protesters with anti-war slogans on their chests who somehow got through the rows of security and were quickly bundled away by police. The Femen group claimed responsibility. French authorities said the three women faced charges of sexual exhibitionism. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited security protocols for the presidential motorcades solo trip down the grand flag-lined avenue, which was closed to traffic. Last to arrive was the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who shook Mr Trumps hand and flashed him a thumbs-up. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was positioned in pride of place between Mr Trump and Mr Macron, an eloquent symbol of victors and vanquished now standing together, shoulder to shoulder. Overhead, fighter jets ripped through the sky, trailing red, white and blue smoke in homage to the French flag. French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during the ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP) The geographical spread of the more than 60 heads of state and government who attended, silent and reflective, showed how the war to end all wars left few corners of the earth untouched but which, little more than two decades later, was followed so quickly and catastrophically by the Second World War. On the other side of the globe, Australia and New Zealand held ceremonies to recall how the war killed and wounded soldiers and civilians in unprecedented numbers and in gruesome new, mechanised ways. Those countries lost tens of thousands of soldiers far away in Europe and, most memorably in the 1915 battle of Gallipoli, in Turkey. The gulf between Trumps America First credo and European leaders was starkly underscored again later on Sunday, when Mr Trump went his own way. Donald Trump visited Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) He visited an American cemetery outside Paris at precisely the moment that Mr Macron, Mrs Merkel and other dignitaries were opening a peace forum where the French leader again sounded the alarm about crumbling international harmony as he ruminated about the legacy of the mornings commemorations. Will it be the shining symbol of durable peace between nations or will it be a picture of a last moment of unity before the world goes down in new disorder? Mr Macron asked. It depends only on us. While praising France for a wonderful two days, Mr Trump described his rainy stop at the American cemetery at Suresnes as the highlight of the trip. On Saturday, Mr Trump drew criticism for cancelling a separate commemorative visit to the Belleau Wood battleground northeast of Paris because of rain. With so many leaders in Paris, the commemoration also provoked a flurry of diplomacy on the sidelines, with conflict in Yemen and Syria among the hot-button issues. On Sunday, Merkel met the head of the United Nations and the president of Serbia. It was a Serb teenager, Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated the Austro-Hungarian crown prince in Sarajevo in 1914 to set off events which led to the outbreak of war. More than 1,000 people, including military personnel, dignitaries and descendants of those who served have attended a poignant service to mark 100 years since the end of the First World War. Princess Anne and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Glasgows Lord Provost Eva Bolander were among those who attended the service in Glasgow Cathedral on Sunday afternoon. The multi-generational tribute featured young people and representatives from across the Commonwealth and included First World War songs as well as traditional hymns. Princess Anne was handed a posy by Iona and Torrin Scott-Elliot, the great-great-grandchildren of Lieutenant Colonel William Herbert Anderson who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross after he died in the conflict, as did his three brothers. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: Today was a very fitting and poignant service as we leave a legacy for future generations on the history and horrors of World War One. It is hard for us to imagine exactly how people would have felt one hundred years ago. There would no doubt have been elation and relief that the war had finally ended, but the loss of so many lives and the injuries sustained had a lasting impact on families and communities an impact which current and future generations must never forget. Earlier in the day, Ms Sturgeon laid a wreath at the Stone of Remembrance outside Edinburghs city chambers, where more than 100 wreaths were laid, while large crowds gathered for wreath-laying ceremonies in Glasgow and Aberdeen. Tributes outside Liberton Kirk in Edinburgh, where 16,000 poppies were installed to mark the centenary of the Armistice (Andrew Milligan/PA) Of the 700,000 Scots who joined the forces, more than 100,000 died during the First World War. Before sunrise, individual pipers at locations around the world, including a number in Scotland, performed Battles Oer, a traditional song played at the end of conflicts, while six Scottish beaches took part in director Danny Boyles UK-wide Pages Of The Sea event, to mark the centenary. A special light and sound projection was taking place at the Scottish Parliament on Sunday evening, with the names of all 134,712 Scots who died during the conflict being beamed on to the building. Beacons of fire were being lit at points around Scotland and the rest of the UK during Armistice Day in a National Trust project. The inauguration ceremony for Irish President-elect Michael D Higgins was taking place on Sunday at Dublin Castle. Guests started arriving from around 5.30pm and included former Irish president Mary Robinson, Irish Premier Leo Varadkar, deputy premier Simon Coveney and Irish Health Minister Simon Harris. All five of the candidates who ran against the 77-year-old poet, professor and campaigner in last months election were also attending. Gavin Duffy, Sean Gallagher, Joan Freeman, Liadh Ni Riada and Peter Casey were seated together with their partners for the event. Mr Higgins was the last to arrive, his vehicle preceded by lines of outriders. The president-elect and his wife Sabina were welcomed to Dublin Castle by Mr Coveney. They turned to give the waiting media a smile and wave before entering the castle. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar arrives at Dublin Castle (Niall Carson/PA) Christian, Jewish and Islamic religious representatives opened the inauguration ceremony with a prayer. During his inaugural speech, Mr Higgins thanked those from different political parties and communities who supported his campaign. I want to thank you, the people of Ireland, for the honour you have again bestowed on me, an honour I accept with all the energy of mind and heart that is required for the trust your mandate has placed on me, he said. Former president Mary Robinson and her husband Nick Robinson were among the guests (Niall Carson/PA) I will, I have emphasised, be a president for all of the Irish people, wherever they may be and in whatever circumstances, those who supported me and those who were not among that number. We cannot afford to be complacent as to how we are living our lives and planning our future at local, national, European or global level. Inequalities are deepening and many of our people do not have the necessary securities of adequate housing, shelter, health, education, such securities and supports which would allow them to realise their rights and participate with equality. Mr Varadkar thanked the president-elects wife, and mentioned the couples beloved dogs Brod and Sioda before thanking Mr Higgins himself for a life of service to Ireland. Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern attended the inauguration (Niall Carson/PA) Throughout a lifetime of public service, President Higgins has spoken for all parts of Irish society, and all of our people, he said. As an academic, an artist, a TD, a senator, a minister and as president, he has always articulated a clear set of values and principles, and has spoken with courage, compassion and authenticity. By representing us with distinction, he has brought distinction on our country. Michael D Higgins was elected on October 26, with 822,566 votes 56% of the vote the biggest personal mandate in Irish history. Theresa May is facing renewed pressure from Tories on both sides of the Brexit divide as the Prime Minister tries to hammer out the final details of a withdrawal deal. Cabinet divisions were starkly exposed when Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom insisted Britain cannot be held against its will in a backstop customs arrangement with the EU aimed at avoiding a hard border for Northern Ireland. Mrs Leadsom suggested such an agreement would not get through the Commons. However, Education Secretary Damian Hinds said securing a unilateral exit mechanism from a backstop would be very, very unlikely. The comments came as it emerged Mrs Mays chief Brexit adviser, Olly Robbins, was in Brussels on Sunday for negotiations. (PA Graphics) With the shock resignation of pro-European Jo Johnson continuing to cause ructions in Tory ranks, and speculation that four more ministers could be set to follow his example, Mrs May is running out of time to seal an EU exit agreement. Referring to a backstop deal, Mrs Leadsom told the BBC: It cannot be a decision that can be overturned by the European Union, it must be capable for the United Kingdom to decide to leave that customs arrangement and it cannot be something the European Union can hold us to. Andrea Leadsom (Aaron Chown/PA) Frankly, its because that would be to then fail to fulfil on the will of the people expressed at the referendum, and I very much doubt wed get it through Parliament. I am working towards getting a deal that does not require the UK to be stuck, trapped in a customs arrangement. Im sticking in the Government to make sure thats where we get to in the end. I dont think something that trapped the UK in any arrangement against our will would be sell-able to members of Parliament. Mr Hinds told the BBC a solution to the issue still needed to be negotiated. Damian Hinds (Victoria Jones/PA) He said: If you have too hard a line about saying, well, we must just have a totally unilateral exit, or theres an absolutely fixed, hard end date, that is very, very unlikely that is going to be negotiable with the other side. In a stark warning to the PM, Tory Brexiteer Steve Baker, deputy chairman of the 80-member European Research Group (ERG) of Conservative backbenchers, and the DUPs Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said they would oppose any agreement which they thought threatened the union and could put a trade border down the Irish Sea. Hope of getting the Cabinet to sign off on Brexit deal proposals this Tuesday appeared to be rapidly receding, as it was reported the EU had rejected Londons plans for an independent arbitration clause that could allow the UK to quit a backstop deal on the Northern Ireland border. Brexiteers have insisted that the UK should not get involved with a potentially permanent backstop customs agreement with the EU as the price of avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland. Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba is recovering from an undisclosed illness in Saudi Arabia and still performing his duties, according to a statement released on Sunday amid mounting speculation about his health. The issue is a particularly sensitive one in the Central African nation. When Bongos father died in 2009 after more than four decades in power, Gabonese officials angrily denied French media reports of his death for almost a day, and shut down the internet in the country for several hours. The statement said that Ali Bongo was suffering dizziness at his hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on October 24 when he sought medical care at King Faisal Hospital. The information about the presidents health was extremely reassuring and the president continues to perform his duties, the presidency said. The communique came amid a swirl of rumours in Gabon about the presidents health. Rumours are swirling about the presidents health (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Some media reports suggested that Bongo had suffered a stroke, though government spokesman Ike Ngouoni cautioned people about fake news. One of the worlds largest producers of oil, Gabons wealth is far from evenly distributed. About a third of the population, estimated to be below two million people, live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. The elder Bongo, who ruled the oil-rich nation from 1967 until his 2009 death, was viewed by many as the father of the nation. His time in power, though, was dogged by allegations of corruption and the use of oil profits for personal luxuries, including properties in several European and American cities, and lavish trips abroad. Ali Bongo won a special presidential election that was held a few months after his fathers death. The opposition claimed it was rigged. In 2016, protesters took to the streets of the capital, Libreville, and the Parliament building was burned after Bongos opponent, Jean Ping, accused Bongo of vote-rigging. The EU, the United States, and France also expressed concerns about some of the results. Gabons constitutional court later upheld Bongos victory. Thierry Henry endured another miserable evening as Monaco manager after Edinson Cavanis hat-trick ushered Paris St Germain to a 4-0 victory at the Stade Louis II. On a night when the linesmen came under scrutiny, Cavani scored twice inside 12 minutes with both goals overturned on the video assistant referee system having been initially flagged for offside. Cavani used his predatory instinct to complete his treble before Neymar completed the rout from the penalty spot, putting the defending Ligue 1 champions 13 points clear at the top of the standings. Their fortunes are in stark contrast to those of Monaco, last seasons runners-up who are only being kept off the bottom spot on goal difference. Henry, meanwhile, saw his winless run as Monaco boss stretched to six games, while this was their second 4-0 hammering at their own ground in six days. As the drizzle fell in the principality, Monaco made an enterprising start only to fall behind following PSGs first sight at goal. Thierry Henry has still not won a game as Monaco manager (Claude Paris/AP) Their comical inability to clear their lines allowed Cavani to tap in at the back post from Neymars cross-cum-shot after five minutes. Cavani was initially flagged for offside but VAR overturned the decision while technology again came to the Uruguayans aid as the visitors doubled their advantage seven minutes later. Shortly after Radamel Falcao had dithered over a gilt-edged chance to level, the linesman once more had his flag up when Kylian Mbappe slid across for Cavani to slot into an empty net. However, replays showed that Cavani had been alongside play, forcing the decision to be reversed for a second time. Monacos evening worsened when Nacer Chadli limped off midway through the first half to be replaced by Jordi Mboula, who spurned a golden opportunity to score moments later when he miscued over the bar with the goal gaping. Diego Benaglio saved brilliantly from Mbappe, Christopher Nkunku and Moussa Diaby as the capital club started to turn the screw towards the end of the half. Julian Draxler looked to have further increased PSGs lead on the stroke of half-time but even though the flag stayed down this time, replays showed the German was offside. It was a rare moment of luck for Monaco, who were forced into their second change of the night shortly after the resumption when substitute Mboula had to be taken off because of injury. Henry looked on in disbelief on the touchline and his mood would have darkened in the 53rd minute as Cavani completed his hat-trick with another simple finish from Mbappes low ball across the six-yard area. Ten minutes later, it was 4-0 when Neymar sent Benaglio the wrong way from the penalty spot after Mbappe had been carelessly fouled by Djibril Sidibe in the area. Mbappe rounded Benaglio and rolled into the empty net but VAR showed the French star had been offside. It hardly mattered, though, as PSG clinched a one-sided win. Real Madrid won 4-2 at Celta Vigo to boost Santiago Solaris hopes of becoming Los Blancos manager on a full-time basis. The in-form Karim Benzema fired Real into a first-half lead and a Gustavo Cabral own goal doubled the advantage. Celta responded with a wonderful Hugo Mallo volley as the Galicians mounted a second-half revival. But Sergio Ramos cheeky penalty and a late Dani Ceballos stunner settled matters before Celta who had Cabral sent off in the closing stages had the last word through Brais Mendezs deflected drive. Reals victory trimmed the advantage of LaLiga leaders Barcelona surprisingly beaten earlier 4-3 at home by Real Betis to four points and gave Solari a fourth successive win since succeeding Julen Lopetegui last month. Spanish league rules mean caretaker managers cannot be in charge of a club for more than 14 days. After that time, the temporary boss must be made permanent if they are to continue in the role and it will be exactly two weeks on Monday since Solari was put in charge. Sergio Ramos converted a late penalty (Lalo R. Villar/AP) Real made a fast start and Benzema went close twice in the opening moments, forcing a fine stop from Sergio Alvarez and then almost profiting from a Gareth Bale long throw. Bale then failed to direct Lucas Vasquezs cross goalwards as the ball was just too high for him. Real suffered a blow when Casemiro limped off after 18 minutes, the Brazilian midfielder unable to run off an earlier ankle injury and was replaced by Ceballos. Celta struck the post within seconds of Casemiros departure when Okay Yokuslu rose superbly to meet Mendezs corner and Ramos was on hand to clear. Real made the most of that let-off by taking a 23rd-minute lead as Luka Modric spotted the run of Benzema and Celta paid the price for trying to play offside. Benzema took a delightful touch with his back to goal before turning and finishing confidently for his fourth goal under Solari. The France international posed a threat every time he was near the ball and he headed over a Sergio Reguilon cross under pressure at the far post. Benzema then set up Toni Kroos but the Germany midfielder sent his side-footed effort over a gaping goal. Hugo Mallo got Vigo back in the match (Lalo R. Villar/AP) Celta rallied before the break and Mendezs firm shot brought a fine diving save from Thibaut Courtois in the Real goal. That opportunity lifted the home side and Iago Aspas should have levelled from Maxi Gomezs cross straight after the restart but sent his header wide. Benzema was soon in the thick of the action again and he went past two Celta defenders before striking the crossbar with a curling effort. There was no reprieve for Celta, though, as sloppy defending let Benzema in after 56 minutes. His shot hit the legs of Alvarez and struck a post before going into the net off the unfortunate Cabral. Only four points separate the top six in #LaLigaSantander! pic.twitter.com/ITlOgKfplD LaLiga English (@LaLigaEN) November 11, 2018 Celta fought back undeterred and Mallo volleyed home Mendezs pass before Courtois prevented parity by pushing out a well-struck Aspas effort. But Real were given breathing space seven minutes from time when David Junca felled Alvaro Odriozola and Ramos chipped his penalty down the middle. Cabral was sent off after receiving a second yellow card three minutes from time, and Ceballos lashed home a beauty in stoppage time before Mendes came up with a Celta consolation. By Rebecca Bird HER Majestys Prison in Grand Turk is "not fit for human habitation and should be condemned, according to the TCIs human rights chief. It breaches several UN standards and inmates have been "dehumanised by poor living conditions leaving little room for rehabilitation, she told the Weekly News. Sabrina Green, Director of the TCI Human Rights Commission, released a lengthy statement exposing the appalling state of the facility on Wednesday (November 7). The document, which followed a recent inspection, said that staff members are also sentenced to spend their lives suffering if changes are not made. A modern prison should be built in its place with appropriate resources made available for rehabilitation, it read. This will ensure that when the inmates are released they have "benefited from their incarceration and are better equipped to become law abiding members of society. On October 17, members of the commission visited the prison in Grand Turk and conducted a review. It found that the penal facility appeared to be clean and tidy on the outside and conditions seemed to have improved over the past few years. However, these improvements were "on the surface with underlying and more significant issues going unaddressed by the Government. Many cells have no hygiene facilities, the report said, some have no working toilets and in cells with working toilets they have no seats. "The prison is largely open to the elements and when there is stormy weather the wind and rain enter through the bars on the windows and saturate the mattresses in the cells. "On a normal day, the various insects such as sand flies and mosquitoes enter the cells leading to the inmates hanging sheets to reduce the pests. These sheets then create a fire hazard putting the lives of both inmates and staff at risk. "There are holes in the floors in the shower areas and standing water providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Staff efforts Both senior officers and prison guards are always eager to show the commission conditions in the prison, Green said. And because of lack of support from the Government, many staff members have taken it upon themselves to improve conditions. On the commissions latest visit to the facility, officers showed off a new workshop where a recently imprisoned master carpenter is using his skills to teach woodwork. This has led to the creation of several very professionally built gaming tables, the statement read. But all the materials and tools used in this workshop have been found on prison grounds, it added. "The Government has provided little to no resources for the rehabilitation of prisoners. Greens report stressed the importance of providing rehabilitation tools to the inmates. "Rehabilitation is very important when you are dealing with people leaving custody, she said. "If there has been no work on rehabilitating the individual the root causes of their previous offending behaviour will still be the driver for their future behaviour. "But although this is well understood by the professionals that work in these areas, genuine rehabilitation does not come cheap and interested agencies can find it very difficult to encourage Government to meet the necessary financial commitments to ensure that effective programmes are put in place. The report revealed that there is no real education provided to inmates during their time in the prison. "In the computer room most of the computers do not work and the teacher employed by the facility only has the resources to teach basic math and English, Green wrote. She added the only training provided comes from programmes arranged and supplied by the inmates and prison officers. This means that when they leave the facility, they have no hope of changing their situation and are likely to return to custody, the report said. "If the Government were to supply the facility with sufficient funds there is the will amongst both prison officers and inmates to make significant improvements. Prison violence Over the past week a young man was hospitalised as the result of a stabbing at the prison, and earlier this year there were several reports of violence against prison officers. "This is what happens when people are dehumanised, when they are not treated like human beings, they cease to see others as human beings, Green said. "In the words of the Bastoy prison governor, If we treat people like animals when they are in prison, they are likely to behave like animals. According to the report, Her Majestys Prison breaches many of the UN Minimum Standards for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules). It also breaches the majority of the core UN Human Rights Conventions that these minimum standards are based upon. "Providing the funding to enable the staff at the Grand Turk facility to improve conditions and concentrate on rehabilitation would be beneficial to the prisoners, the staff and society, Green said. In April, former prison superintendent Steve Barrett called the facility "a real mess. "The prison in the TCI is so impoverished environmentally to the people that are held there and the people who work there, he said. In August last year, Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson said the Government was "committed to restructuring the programmes at the prison and even looking at the physical presence there. She added: "I am disheartened every time I go there because I do believe the United Nations would have some concerns at the way we keep our prisoners. At least six Palestinians have been killed as a fresh wave of fighting erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Sunday. The violence came as Israel and Hamas had appeared to be making progress towards ratcheting down months of border violence. It was not immediately clear what set off the sudden, late-night burst of violence. In a statement, Hamas armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said Israeli undercover forces in a civilian vehicle infiltrated two miles into Gaza and fatally shot one of its commanders. It said militants discovered the car and chased it down, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed a number of people. The clashes were still going on, it said. The Israeli military reported an exchange of fire had taken place during operational activity in Gaza and said that all IDF soldiers back in Israel. It did not elaborate. A Palestinian protester hurls stones during a protest on the beach at the border with Israel near Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip (Khalil Hamra/AP) The Palestinian Health Ministry said six people, including at least five militants, were killed and seven others wounded. In Israel, the military said it had intercepted two rockets fired from Gaza as air raid sirens continued to sound. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on an official visit to France, announced he was going back to Israel to deal with the crisis. Sundays development shattered what appeared to be a turning point after months of bloodshed along the Israel-Gaza border, with weekly Hamas-led protests drawing thousands to the perimeter fence with Israel. More than 170 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the border protests, in which Palestinians throw rocks, burning tyres and grenades towards Israeli troops. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver 15 million dollars (11.6 million) in aid to Gazas cash-strapped Hamas rulers. Hamas responded by lowering the intensity of Fridays border protest. Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu had defended his decision to allow the transfer of the Qatari money, rejecting criticism that the move had strengthened the Islamic militant group. Benjamin Netanyahu was returning from Paris to deal with the crisis (Thibault Camus/AP) Netanyahu told reporters that it was the right step at the moment and that he was committed to restoring quiet along the Israel-Gaza frontier and preventing a humanitarian crisis in the coastal Palestinian territory. Every action, without exception, has a price, he said. If you cant handle the price you cannot lead. And I can handle the price. Israeli critics, including members of Netanyahus hard-line coalition, accused him of capitulating to violence and of granting relief to the embattled Hamas group. The internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007, angrily accused the US and Israel of being involved in a conspiracy to permanently sever Gaza from the West Bank. He promised to take unspecified measures against his Hamas rivals in the coming days. Hamas leaders in Gaza have described the arrival of the 15 million dollars, delivered last week in three suitcases by a Qatari diplomat, as their first major gain of more than seven months of weekly protests along the perimeter fence. Hamas has been leading the protests since March 30 in a bid to ease a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade that was imposed in 2007 in order to weaken the militant group. The blockade has led to over 50% unemployment and chronic power cuts, and prevents most Gazans from being able to leave the tiny territory. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltrations, but its army has come under international criticism because of the large number of unarmed protesters who have been shot. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is visiting Saudi Arabia in the wake of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr Hunt is to raise the issue of the dissidents death at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month during the trip. A Turkish prosecutor said that Mr Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate, as part of a premeditated killing. The Foreign Secretary will have meetings with King Salman and the countrys controversial crown prince Mohammed bin Salman during the visit. Ahead of arriving in the Middle East on Monday, Mr Hunt said: The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago. It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is visiting Saudi Arabia and the UAE (Stefan Rousseau/PA) We encourage the Saudi authorities to co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death, so that we deliver justice for his family and the watching world. A spokesman said Mr Hunts visit, the first by a UK minister since Mr Khashoggis murder, would build on talks held this weekend between the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Sir Simon McDonald, and the Saudi King, and the countrys foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that recordings related to the killing of Mr Khashoggi had been passed on to the UK, US, Saudi Arabia and other powers. Saudi Arabia had insisted for weeks after Mr Khashoggi disappeared that he had walked out of the consulate, before changing its account to say he died in a brawl. Saudi officials describe the killing as a rogue operation carried out by Saudi agents who exceeded their authority. Mr Hunt, who will also visit the UAE, said he wants to use the trip to help end the bloodshed in war-torn Yemen. Mr Hunt said: The human cost of war in Yemen is incalculable: with millions displaced, famine and disease rife and years of bloodshed, the only solution is now a political decision to set aside arms and pursue peace. Britain has a unique position, both as pen-holder at the UN Security Council and as a key influencer in the region, so today I am travelling to the Gulf to demand that all sides commit to this process. We are witnessing a man-made humanitarian catastrophe on our watch: now is the window to make a difference, and to get behind both the UN peace process and current UK efforts in the Security Council. Mr Hunt will also hold talks with the Yemeni vice president and foreign minister during the visit. While in the UAE Mr Hunt will raise the ongoing consular case of Matthew Hedges, the Foreign Office said. Footfall in Belfast continues to plummet in the aftermath of the Primark fire. The retailers former store at Bank Buildings, a B1-listed building in the heart of the city centre, was badly damaged in a major fire in August. The area around the building has been cordoned off since the blaze for public safety, and city centre footfall has seen declines of over 60% following the blaze. Dramatic images captured by @Razorpix @PAImages @PA of the devastating fire at Belfasts historic Bank Buildings as the Primark store was completely destroyed in the inferno. pic.twitter.com/9oTRJUckU7 David Young (@DavidYoungPA) August 28, 2018 Covering the four weeks from September 30 to October 27, footfall grew by 2.7% in Northern Ireland overall, above the three-month average of -0.8% and the 12-month average of -1.2%. Footfall rose on the High Street by 4%, while it declined in shopping centres by 1%, a deeper fall than the -0.2% in September. Northern Ireland saw an improvement in vacancies from 14.4% in July to 13.3% in October, above the UK average of 9.6%. The area around the Bank Buildings has been cordoned off since the blaze (David Young/PA) Aodhan Connolly, director of Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, said the effects of the fire were still being felt in the capital. The effects of the Bank Buildings fire still weigh heavy on these latest set of footfall results, with some areas of Belfast city centre again seeing year on year drops in shoppers of over 60%, he said. This is in stark comparison with the overall growth in Northern Ireland. Some areas of Northern Ireland are doing better because of the displacement factor of the fire that has essentially cut the heart of the city centre in two but these will be worrying figures for those businesses that are around what is being dubbed the cordon quarter. With Christmas only weeks away it is imperative that shoppers come back to the city centre in their droves to ensure the survival of these traders. One bright light in this gloom is that we now have the lowest shop vacancy rate in over two years, and which is only 4% above the UK average. While this is little consolation to those businesses who have closed in recent weeks, it does show that the Northern Ireland entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well. Now that more powers have been devolved to our civil servants, we need them to immediately take action to make Northern Ireland a more competitive place to do business. Diane Wehrle, marketing and insights director at Springboard, said the Northern Ireland contrast with the UK was a marker of volatility in the region. This, together with the result of -2% for the UK as a whole, not only reflects the ongoing challenges that the retail sector is facing but illustrates that the challenges for retailers have been ongoing as we moved through the year, she said. As we head into the key trading period of the year, it suggests that Christmas could be challenging. At the same time, the improvement in Northern Irelands vacancy rate over the quarter to 13.6% in October is further evidence that the offer in bricks and mortar destinations is shifting to better accommodate continued consumer demand for experience-led visits. The catalyst was the growth in demand for hospitality and, while this is continuing despite the fact that the growth in eating out visits has slowed since the heady days of 2015, it has opened up opportunities for the introduction of more diverse experience and leisure led propositions in destinations that ultimately may well broaden the definition of retail. In a recent planning application, Primark outlined their intention to restore and reconstruct the building with a minimal loss of historic fabric as is practically possible to retain historic authenticity. A young boy who helped save his mothers life after she collapsed unconscious is calling for first aid to be taught in all state primary schools. Lyndsey Baxter, who suffers from chronic heart failure and is waiting for a new heart, says she owes her hero son her life following his actions two-and-a-half years ago. In April 2016, when her son Cayden Mcauley was just six years old, she fell unconscious while walking to the shops with him. Having learned some basic first aid from the nurses at the hospital where his mother is a regular inpatient, Cayden managed to sit her up against a wall, used his own jacket to keep her warm and, unable to unlock his mothers phone, sought the help of a passing taxi driver to call an ambulance. Cayden with his mother Lyndsey and big brother Scott (Family handout/PA) The Glasgow boy, now aged eight, is backing St Andrews First Aids public petition, which calls for basic first aid to be taught at all primary schools. Ms Baxter said: To me, St Andrews First Aids petition is both really positive and really important. It would be a great thing if younger children across Scotland had the opportunity to learn vital first aid skills, which could help save a life. I have chronic heart failure and since the day I was discharged from hospital with my diagnosis, Cayden has been hands-on in making sure I am always OK. The incident when I passed out must have been very scary for him. He says it felt like a lifetime in trying to get help. If it wasnt for his actions and calm approach in knowing what to do, it could have been a very different ending. I literally owe my life to him and he will always be my hero. Since the incident in April 2016, Cayden has gone on to learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which he undertook at a free Save a Life for Scotland partnership event at Glasgow LIVE!, and has also been shortlisted in this years St Andrews First Aid Scottish First Aid Awards. Have you signed our petition? We're asking the Scottish Government to introduce basic first aid to all primary school children in Scotland! Sign the petition here: https://t.co/aNJDUfNM6M **In 60-seconds you could help us Create a Nation of Life-savers** pic.twitter.com/fNcAeKusbC St Andrew's First Aid (@StAFirstAid) October 30, 2018 He is urging people across the country to sign the petition, which has been lodged with the Scottish Parliament and is open until December 6. Cayden said: With mums condition, it is really important to me to know what to do if something happens to her. I feel a lot more confident having the first aid skills that I have learned. It would be great if other children had the opportunity to learn first aid too, so that they could help other people or members of their family, should they ever need it. The petition is open until December 6 2018 and can be found on the Scottish Parliament website at: http://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/firstaidprimaryschools Stuart Callison, chief executive of St Andrews First Aid, said: Cayden is a shining example of how very young children have the capacity and ability to learn and deliver first aid. Whilst any incident when it happens can feel overwhelming, children who are equipped with even basic first aid knowledge have time and time again demonstrated that they can make a real difference and potentially save someones life. A fresh wave of fighting has erupted in the Gaza Strip, leaving an Israeli soldier and seven Palestinians dead. It was not immediately clear what set off the sudden, rare late-night burst of violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants. However it came just as Israel and Gazas Hamas rulers had appeared to be making progress toward ratcheting down months of border unrest. In a statement early on Monday, the Israeli military said an officer had been killed and another one was moderately injured during an operational activity in southeast Gaza Strip, during which an exchange of gunfire was evolved. The operation had ended and the families of the soldiers were notified, it added. During IDF special forces operational activity in #Gaza, an exchange of fire broke out, during which an IDF officer was killed and an additional IDF officer was moderately injured. Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 11, 2018 Earlier, Hamas armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said Israeli undercover forces in a civilian vehicle infiltrated 2 miles into Gaza and fatally shot Nour el-Deen Baraka, its local commander in Khan Younis town. It said militants discovered the car and chased it down, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed a number of people. The clashes had abated by early Monday morning. The Israeli military reported earlier that all IDF (Israel Defence Forces) soldiers (are) back in Israel but it did not elaborate. The Palestinian Health Ministry said six people, including at least five militants, were killed and seven others wounded. In the early hours of Monday a seventh body was found. In Israel, the military said it had intercepted two rockets fired from Gaza as air raid sirens continued to sound. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, second right, with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Sunday (AP/Christophe Ena) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on an official visit to France, announced he was rushing back to Israel to deal with the crisis. Sundays development shattered what appeared to be a turning point after months of bloodshed along the Israel-Gaza border, with weekly Hamas-led protests drawing thousands to the perimeter fence with Israel. Over 170 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the border protests, in which Palestinians throw rocks, burning tires and grenades toward Israeli troops. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver 15 million dollars (11.6m) in aid to Gazas cash-strapped Hamas rulers. Hamas responded by lowering the intensity of Fridays border protest. Earlier on Sunday, Mr Netanyahu had defended his decision to allow the transfer of the Qatari money, rejecting criticism that the move had strengthened the Islamic militant group. Mr Netanyahu told reporters that it was the right step at the moment and that he was committed to restoring quiet along the Israel-Gaza frontier and preventing a humanitarian crisis in the coastal Palestinian territory. Every action, without exception, has a price, he said. If you cant handle the price you cannot lead. And I can handle the price. Israeli critics, including members of Mr Netanyahus hard-line coalition, accused him of capitulating to violence and of granting relief to the embattled Hamas group. The internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007, angrily accused the US and Israel of being involved in a conspiracy to permanently sever Gaza from the West Bank. He promised to take unspecified measures against his Hamas rivals in the coming days. Hamas leaders in Gaza have described the arrival of the 15 million dollars, delivered last week in three suitcases by a Qatari diplomat, as their first major gain of more than seven months of weekly protests along the perimeter fence. Hamas has been leading the protests since March 30 in a bid to ease a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade that was imposed in 2007 in order to weaken the militant group. The blockade has led to over 50% unemployment and chronic power outages, and prevents most Gazans from being able to leave the tiny territory. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltrations, but its army has come under international criticism because of the large number of unarmed protesters who have been shot. The Prince of Wales celebrates his 70th birthday this week a milestone moment for the heir to the throne. Charles is about to begin his eighth decade from a position of confidence with his charitable work in full swing, his sons forging their own public lives and the Duchess of Cornwall by his side providing support. The future king turns 70 on Wednesday November 14 and is likely to take part in a public event to mark the day. Charles cuts a birthday cake made for him and other guests in Ghana (Joe Giddens/PA) In the evening the Queen will throw a private Buckingham Palace birthday bash for her eldest son and heir. The guest list is likely to include Charles friends from his public and private life, members of the Royal Family and others who have played an important role in the princes life. Birthday celebrations have already begun with a gala comedy and magic night staged for the prince at the London Palladium in October. The event called We Are Most Amused And Amazed was in aid of the Princes Trust and will be screened on ITV on Tuesday evening. Kylie Minogue, pictured with the Prince of Wales at a Princes Trust Invest in Futures event in 2016, performed at a gala to mark Charless birthday (Chris Jackson/PA) Among the all-star line-up for the event were Bill Bailey, Rowan Atkinson, Sandi Toksvig, Omid Djalili, Alistair McGowan and Kylie Minogue. The heir to the throne, who is facing the growing prospect he will assume the role of head of state, made headlines last week when he spoke about how he sees his future. In a BBC documentary he said his days of speaking out on issues, dubbed meddling by critics, will end when he becomes king. Speaking about being heir to the throne compared to being monarch, Charles said: But the idea somehow that Im going to go on in exactly the same way, if I have to succeed, is complete nonsense because the two the two situations are completely different. Charles watches some traditional dancing during his visit to the British Council Arts Festival in Lagos, Nigeria (Joe Giddens/PA) The Queen is 92 and she still carries out her full duties as head of state but her family, led by Charles, are increasingly supporting her public work. Charles has recently returned from a major tour of West Africa where he promoted the Commonwealth, Britains interests and helped strengthen the UKs links with Nigeria, the Gambia and Ghana. Michel Barnier will update ministers from European Union nations on the state of the Brexit negotiations as domestic pressure on Theresa May intensifies. Boris Johnson claimed Mrs May is on the brink of total surrender to the EU over Brexit as he urged the Cabinet to mutiny against the Prime Ministers withdrawal agenda. And another Brexiteer former cabinet minister, John Whittingdale, said it was difficult to see how Mrs Mays premiership could continue if MPs rejected any Brexit deal she brought back to Parliament. Pro-Brexit Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom added to Tory tensions by insisting the UK could not be trapped in a backstop agreement without the ability to leave at a time of its choosing. The fallout from Julys Chequers summit continues four months later (Joel Rouse/Crown Copyright/PA Former foreign secretary Mr Johnson suggested that if Mrs Mays plans for a backstop customs deal with the EU aimed at preventing a hard border in Northern Ireland went through, the UK could be reduced to the status of a colony. In a stinging attack on the PMs proposals ahead of a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Mr Johnson said Mrs Mays agenda would see the UK remain in captivity. Mr Johnson said plans for a backstop, which would keep the UK in a customs union with the EU if a solution to the Irish border issue could not be found, would be worse than remaining in the EU. Mrs May is under fire from both wings of the Tory party after the shock resignation from the Government of Mr Johnsons pro-European brother Jo, who also delivered a withering attack on the PMs stance. That move fired speculation that more ministers who backed Remain in the referendum campaign could also quit. Boris Johnson resigned following the Cabinet session on Brexit at Chequers in July and further details of that crunch meeting revealed Remain-leaning ministers also voiced concerns. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Chancellor Philip Hammond raised concerns about the Chequers plan, the BBC reported. Mr Javid described the proposal for a common rule book with the EU for goods and agriculture as very worrying, while Mr Hammond questioned whether the 27 other countries in the union would accept such a plan, the broadcaster said. (PA Graphics) Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson said that even if the Government got the EU to agree to giving London a unilateral exit option from the backstop, it would be meaningless. The awful truth is that even if the Cabinet mutinies as they ought it will make little difference. Even if we agree with the EU that the UK must have a unilateral break clause, so that we can go our own sweet way at a time of our own choosing, it is irrelevant because the programme and ambition of the Government is to remain in captivity, to stay in our cell, even if we are given the theoretical key to escape. Former culture secretary Mr Whittingdale said Mrs May would have to go if she could not get a Brexit deal through the Commons. He told BBC Radio 4s The Westminster Hour: I think if the Prime Ministers Brexit plan doesnt get through Parliament, I think its quite difficult to see how the Prime Minister can continue because she has staked her credibility. Remain-supporting former education secretary Justine Greening said she did not think the Chequers plan would get through a gridlocked Parliament. We should be planning as to how we can put this final say on Brexit in the hands of the British people, she told BBC Radio 4s Today. Hope of getting a deal for the Cabinet to sign off on Tuesday appeared to be rapidly receding, but talks are continuing in Brussels. The apparent impasse makes it much harder for the PM to secure a special EU conference in November to settle Brexit terms. But in a sign of Downing Street attempting to push the process forward, Mrs Mays key Brexit adviser Olly Robbins held talks with counterparts in Brussels over the weekend. Mr Barnier, the EUs chief Brexit negotiator, will address ministers from the 27 remaining EU nations at a general affairs council meeting in Brussels on Monday. A British Army Afghan battle veteran was at the heart of a neo-Nazi terrorist group which set its sights on recruiting within the armed forces. White supremacist and self-confessed racist Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen, 34, believed in a coming race war and wanted to help establish an all-white stronghold in a Welsh village. The Royal Anglian Regiment soldier was, it can now be reported, convicted after a trial in March of being a member of neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action, and was jailed for eight years. Mikko Vehvilainen was jailed for eight years (West Midlands Police/PA) Judge Melbourne Inman QC, sentencing, told Vehvilainen he had a long and deep-seated adherence to racist ideology. Prosecutors said at his trial that he was working within the Army as a recruiter for the banned organisation. It can now be revealed he was connected to three other soldiers, one of whom was thrown out of the Army. The two others are understood to have been disciplined, though one has since left. Before his conviction, Vehvilainen was considered an outstanding soldier who had risked his life for Queen and country. The fallout from his trial led to Sergeant Major Glenn Haughton posting a social media video which said: If youre a serving soldier or a would-be soldier, and you hold these intolerant and extremist views, as far as Im concerned, there is no place for you in the British Army so get out. Vehvilainens arsenal of weaponry, all of it legally held (West Midlands Police/PA) Vehvilainen appeared in the Birmingham Crown Court dock at his trial alongside fellow 2 Anglians soldier Private Mark Barrett, who was also accused of membership of the banned group. Barrett was acquitted of being a National Action member, but jurors heard that he had a cardboard swastika openly displayed on his windowsill at Alexander Barracks in Cyprus. The 25-year-old told police during interviews that his sketchbook doodles of the Nazi symbol and Second World War German tanks had been at the behest of intimidating Vehvilainen. Vehvilainen giving a Nazi-style salute next to an independence memorial in his native Finland (West Midlands Police/PA) It is understood that Vehvilainen and Barrett, formerly of Kendrew Barracks, Cottesmore, Rutland, have since been thrown out of the Army. Two other soldiers, both of whom knew Vehvilainen, faced criminal charges but were internally disciplined and remained in the Army. Vehvilainen had been a key part of National Actions strategy of attempting to grow its membership within the armed forces. Other National Action members, some who pleaded guilty and some convicted after trial, also tried repeatedly to join the Army but were rejected. Vehvilainen, a married father-of-three, lived at Sennybridge Camp, Powys, Wales, but was renovating a home he had bought in the village of Llansilin, in efforts to build a whites-only stronghold. It was in that house police found a photograph showing him giving a Nazi-style salute at a 1917 memorial to his native Finlands independence. A box of Nazi flags found at Vehvilainens home (West Midlands Police/PA) Officers also uncovered what prosecutors described as an arsenal of weapons, including a warhammer, a legally held shotgun, swastika bunting and other Nazi paraphernalia. In the garage of his house at Sennybridge, he kept a makeshift target dummy, and body armour which had been spray-painted black. He had a part-time job at an activity centre nearby, and had served with distinction since joining the Army in 2012. His sentencing hearing was told he served his country and risked his life in Afghanistan, and was considered an outstanding soldier. A makeshift target dummy made from tinfoil draped in camouflage material found in the soldiers garage (West Midlands Police/PA) Pavlos Panayi QC told the trial judge: His career in the Army is over and he leaves having brought dishonour on himself and what is more, infamy. It also emerged that on the day of his arrest in September 2017, Vehvilainens father-in-law was at home and the resulting shock caused him to suffer a stroke, and he died a month later. Mr Panayi said: The defendant will always have that on his conscience. When he was arrested, Vehvilainen told his wife: Im being arrested for being a patriot. He admitted possession of a banned pepper spray before his trial, but was cleared of having a document useful to a terrorist and two counts of stirring up racial hatred in forum posts on the website Christogenea.org. Vehvilainens wardrobe containing his Army uniform and a swastika flag stuck to the door (West Midlands Police/PA) The Press Association asked the Ministry of Defence how many members of the armed forces had been disciplined for involvement in far-right extremism in the year to December 2017. The MoD was unable to provide information on how many had faced court martial or internal disciplinary procedures, because the data was not recorded by the Royal Military Police database. It added that a manual check of the database would be cost-prohibitive. In a statement provided with its freedom of information response, the MoD said: Extremist ideology is completely at odds with the values and ethos of the armed forces. The armed forces have robust measures in place to ensure those exhibiting extremist views are neither tolerated nor permitted to serve. All allegations of unacceptable behaviour are investigated and action taken as appropriate. All Armed Forces personnel are subject to vetting during recruitment, to establish previous convictions or existing links to extremist or banned organisations. All ranks receive training on the standards expected of the forces, with annual refreshers. Following conviction, Colonel Graham Taylor, of the Army Personnel Services Group, said: Far right ideology is completely at odds with the values and standards of the Army and whilst we are only talking about a very small number of cases we take this issue very seriously. We have robust measures in place, including during the recruitment process, to ensure those exhibiting extremist views are neither tolerated nor permitted to serve. Any soldier receiving a custodial sentence will be discharged from the Army. Brexit negotiations remain deadlocked over measures to prevent a hard border between the UK and Ireland. Officials from both sides were engaged in talks which began on Sunday and lasted until 2.45am on Monday but failed to produce a decisive breakthrough. Downing Street said that there were substantial issues still to be overcome in relation to the backstop measure aimed at ensuring the frontier between Northern Ireland and Ireland remains much the same as it is now no matter what happens in the wider Brexit trade deal. The Prime Ministers official spokesman said: We have made good progress in the negotiations in relation to the withdrawal agreement but there are substantial issues still to be overcome in relation to the Northern Irish backstop. Brussels chief negotiator Michel Barnier told ministers from the 27 remaining EU nations at a meeting of the general affairs council that key issues remained unresolved. The European Council released a statement to say: Michel Barnier explained that intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet. Some key issues remain under discussion, in particular a solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. A spokesman for Mr Barnier declined to comment on a report in the Financial Times suggesting he had told the EU27 ministers that the parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined. The FT reported an unnamed witness to the meeting as saying that Mr Barnier had told the ministers: As of this moment, this agreement is still not reached. As in any negotiation, the final stretch is always the most difficult. On the basis of our common efforts, the parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined. On the British side, the Cabinet will meet tomorrow to examine these parameters. (PA Graphics) But Irelands deputy prime minister Simon Coveney told reporters in Brussels said there was still clearly work to do to reach an agreement. Clearly this is a very important week for Brexit negotiations, said Mr Coveney. And a senior Brussels source said that work was ongoing, adding: Were not there yet. Germanys Europe minister Michael Roth said: We all know the clock is ticking and we must now come to a good outcome. We dont have much time left. His French counterpart Nathalie Loiseau said: The ball is in the British court. It is a question of a British political decision. EU27 were informed by @MichelBarnier on the ongoing #Brexit negotiations. Intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet. https://t.co/wbtTkdLQSP See in the pic the representatives present at the meeting pic.twitter.com/62mzLGoZZi E.Arauzo (@EU_Arauzo) November 12, 2018 A key sticking point is Mrs Mays call for a UK-wide backstop measure rather than the Northern Ireland-only provision proposed by the EU. The lack of decisive progress in Brussels came as Mrs Mays domestic position appeared even more difficult. Further details of the crunch Chequers meeting in July revealed a series of ministers voiced concerns about her strategy before ultimately supporting it. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Chancellor Philip Hammond were among Remain-supporting ministers who raised concerns about the Chequers plan, the BBC reported. Mr Javid described the proposal for a common rule book with the EU for goods and agriculture as very worrying, while Mr Hammond questioned whether the 27 other countries in the union would accept such a plan, the broadcaster said. Good meeting with @MichelBarnier this morning - crucial week for #BREXIT - negotiating teams engaging intensively, more work still to be done. Solidarity across the EU remains very strong. @HMcEntee @dfatirl pic.twitter.com/3dPA2GwlLL Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) November 12, 2018 Meanwhile International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt, who has not given wholehearted public support to the Chequers strategy, suggested the Cabinet would act as a check on the Prime Minister. The Brexiteer told Sky News: The important thing is that there are two checks on this deal there is Cabinet and there is Parliament. Cabinets job is to put something to Parliament that is going to deliver on the referendum result. The Prime Ministers spokesman said: The Cabinet has backed the Prime Minister in moving forward with her negotiations with the EU and I expect Cabinet will continue to do so. Former transport minister Jo Johnson said he decided to quit Mrs Mays Government last week because he was concerned at reports she was planning a publicity campaign which he said amounted to a calculated deceit. Reports suggested the campaign would compare the content of any deal secured by Mrs May with the prospect of a chaotic no-deal withdrawal, rather than comparing it to the UKs current situation as an EU member. Former transport minister Jo Johnson (Stefan Rousseau/PA) I challenge the Government to come clean on the cost of Brexit, he told the Evening Standard. The reason they cant look us in the eye, its because they know this will leave us worse-off and with less control. Its a gross abuse of civil service impartiality. Mr Johnson added: There is a sea-change in mood among my Conservative colleagues who are focused by this crisis. I would not be surprised if more colleagues in senior positions speak out. His brother, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, claimed Mrs May is on the brink of total surrender to the EU over Brexit as he urged the Cabinet to mutiny against the Prime Ministers withdrawal agenda. The awful truth is that even if the Cabinet mutinies as they ought it will make little difference, he said in his Daily Telegraph column. Even if we agree with the EU that the UK must have a unilateral break clause, so that we can go our own sweet way at a time of our own choosing, it is irrelevant because the programme and ambition of the Government is to remain in captivity, to stay in our cell, even if we are given the theoretical key to escape. Former culture secretary John Whittingdale said Mrs May would have to go if she could not get a Brexit deal through the Commons. He told BBC Radio 4s The Westminster Hour: I think if the Prime Ministers Brexit plan doesnt get through Parliament, I think its quite difficult to see how the Prime Minister can continue because she has staked her credibility. It might sound more like a process you learned about in Chemistry GCSE, but salsify is actually a vegetable. Waitrose is making a bid for this to be the hot new root veg on the scene, as it is now selling salsify in 100 of its stores with the help of supplier Albert Bartlett and Michelin-starred chef Michel Roux Jr. What is Albert Bartlett Salsify? What can you do with it? @michelrouxjr explains all. Available now in selected @waitrose branches. pic.twitter.com/EMT76yk3l8 Albert Bartlett (@Albert_Bartlett) November 8, 2018 Chances are, not many of us have had the opportunity to try this unusual ingredient, but it was actually hugely popular in the Victorian era because it grows well all year round and is hugely versatile to cook with. What exactly is it? Salsify is a root veg and looks similar to a parsnip when peeled, but dont be fooled into thinking its the same thing. This plant actually comes from the dandelion family, and there are two varieties: Black and white. The black one tends to be favoured because its a bit fleshier and easier to peel. Waitrose is selling the root in both varieties, and you can also eat its delicate purple flowers. Even though it was favoured by all kinds of people in the 1800s, nowadays youre more likely to see it on fancy tasting menus. Also, FYI its pronounced sal-si-fee. You dont want to embarrass yourself at the dinner table, now do you? (Thinkstock/PA) What does it taste like? Salsify is nicknamed the oyster plant because it has an oyster-like taste. However, it doesnt quite stop there. Albert Bartlett describes it as like a mild artichoke with a trace of liquorice. This might sound strong, but dont be deterred. In fact, both varieties of salsify are pretty mild in flavour, making for the perfect side dish. Fun fact: black salsify contains as much potassium as bananas. Its also rich in protein, iron and copper, so has plenty of health benefits. How should you cook it? If youre feeling traditional, you can follow the recipe from Mrs Beetons Book of Household Management first published in 1861, this was basically a Victorian housewifes Bible. She writes: Scrape and wash the salsify, cut them into small evensized pieces, throw them into boiling water, and add a little butter, lemon juice, and salt. Boil gently until tender, and then drain well. Heat up in a little well-seasoned good white sauce. Have the pastrycases ready, fill them with the preparation, re-heat, and serve. Because it has a mild taste, salsify is extremely versatile and can be used in a variety of ways. If youre looking to update your Sunday lunch, sub out those parsnips or cauliflower for salsify, to really surprise your guests. Pair it with other root vegetables for a gratin (we like this recipe from Pham Fatale because it includes an apple alongside salsify and potatoes), use it for a creamy mash, or it can be the base for a warming autumnal soup. Top tip steam instead of boil the veg, to ensure it doesnt go mushy. Unlike many other root vegetables, salsify can actually be eaten raw we recommend adding it into your favourite coleslaw recipe to make the most of its crunch. You can buy 350g packs of salsify from selected Waitrose stores for 2.99. THE TERRITORY will commemorate allied, Commonwealth and British personnel who fought in two world wars and in subsequent conflicts on Sunday (November 11). Governor John Freeman will place a wreath at the War Memorials in Grand Turk and the Deputy Governor Anya Williams will lay a wreath at the War Memorial in Providenciales. In a statement on Monday (November 5), the governor said: "On this Remembrance Sunday, which marks exactly 100 years since the end of the First World War, we come together to remember all those who served valiantly in our armed forces or in other public services, military or civilian, in defence of our liberty. "We should be especially conscious in this anniversary year, of the line of service which stretches back over 100 years to the Great War; but we recall also those who rendered service in the Second World War and in later conflicts, including in conflicts even today. He said that everyone that now lives in peace and liberty owes a profound debt to those who came before and gave their lives in the service of others and who left behind grieving relatives and friends. "We remember also those who have experienced the horror of war and who suffered injuries in all those conflicts, many of whom have since had to live with their - often severely disabling injuries, he stated. "We are in debt to every single one of them, people who died or suffered in the cause of liberty and peace. "On this Remembrance Sunday, we have the opportunity once again to express our public thanks to all of those men and women and most importantly to thank Almighty God for the service shown by them all. The Grand Turk Remembrance Day Service will be held at St Marys Pro-Cathedral, Front Street, at 9.45am. Immediately following the service all uniformed groups will attend the Ecumenical Service at New Testament Church. The Providenciales Remembrance Day Service will be held at St Monicas Anglican Church, Leeward Highway, Providenciales, at 12.30pm. Other participating organisations that will also lay wreaths at each service include Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson, Leader of the Opposition Washington Misick, the TCI Ex-Serviceman Legion, Commissioner of Police James Smith, the TCIG Medical Department, the Scouts, Guides and Brownies, Rotary International, Soroptimists International and the Red Cross. A fresh appeal has been made to raise money for a cancer sufferer desperate to return home to Scotland for treatment after being stuck on an island in the Indian Ocean. A JustGiving page was set up for Jon Paul McAllister, 38, after his health deteriorated rapidly while on holiday with his partner, Craig Park. They had gone on holiday to South Africa, Madagascar and the Seychelles to celebrate the end of Mr McAllisters chemotherapy treatment and their January engagement. Since Mr McAllister fell unwell, he has been stuck at a medical facility on the French island Reunion as he is unable to take a commercial flight back to Scotland. The donation page has reached 22,175 after their situation was reported but the figure is still short of the 35,000 target required to pay for overseas treatment and an air ambulance flight home. The full costs of hospital treatment are not covered despite Reunion being a part of France. The condition of Jon Paul McGovern is deteriorating (PA/Jon Paul McGovern) Mr Park provided an update to say surgery on Friday indicated his partners tumours had grown considerably and that the cancer was particularly aggressive for someone of his age. In a video message, Mr McAllister said: Im in so much pain from everything I do Ive lost my voice, I can barely walk 10ft without fainting Im on morphine because of the pain but it still isnt enough to manage it. Its really, really dire. I cant sleep, I havent eaten in four weeks because every time I eat Im vomiting and bringing the food back up. I want to thank people for the outstanding and overwhelming response Ive had to my campaign. I cant believe how kind and generous people are in giving to a complete stranger. It really, really touches me so thank you very much. Its overwhelmingly emotional. Thank you for doing everything you can to get me home. Scores of Greek and Turkish Cypriots have walked through a newly-opened crossing point in the south-eastern village of Dherynia. Peace activists are hailing the move as further breaking down barriers on the ethnically-divided island. Today is good day 4 #Cyprus . We welcome opening of 1st crossing points in 8 years. These crossing pts will play an important role by increasing people-to-people contacts; contribute 2 build much-needed trust & confidence b/w communities.- Elizabeth Spehar, SRSG/Head, #UNFICYP pic.twitter.com/5QW182YPau UN Cyprus (@UN_CYPRUS) November 12, 2018 Dherynia, and another spot in the countrys north west, means there are now nine crossing points that have opened since travel restrictions across the United Nations-controlled buffer zone were relaxed in 2003. Last month, Cyprus Greek Cypriot president and the breakaway Turkish Cypriot leader designated Monday as the crossings official opening in a bid to help build momentum towards restarting stalled reunification talks. UN Chief of Mission Elizabeth Spehar said the crossing points would help foster more trust and confidence between the communities. Several demonstrators at the crossing point voiced their opposition to the openings. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has became the first Western leader to acknowledge his country had heard recordings of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share, Mr Trudeau said from Paris, where he was attending the Peace Forum following the WWI Armistice centenary. His comments come just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had given recordings to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them. The Canadian leader is the first since that announcement to officially confirm that yes his countrys intelligence had listened to the audio. He said Canadas intelligence agencies had been working very closely with Turkish intelligence on Mr Khashoggis killing. The shared audio is the latest measure by Turkey to maintain international pressure on Saudi Arabia in its aim to stop a cover up of the October 2 killing. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Jean-Francois Badias/AP) Mr Trudeau said that he himself had not heard the audio, and he would not give any details on the contents of the tapes. Mr Trudeau also said he thanked Mr Erdogan in person for his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation when the two leaders met in Paris this weekend. The European Union has been urged to remain steadfast over its guarantees to Northern Ireland by pro-Remain parties. Senior figures from Sinn Fein, the SDLP, Alliance and the Greens said Brussels must remain firm in demanding a permanent backstop arrangement which would keep Northern Ireland aligned with the EU. Theresa May is battling to secure a UK-wide backstop to prevent a hard border with Ireland, rather than a specific measure for Northern Ireland, and also faces Tory demands to make sure that it will not become an open-ended arrangement. But at a cross-party press conference in London, Sinn Fein vice president Michelle ONeill said: The backstop needs to be permanent, the backstop is the only guarantee we have in this debacle, the only insurance policy we have throughout all of the Brexit mess. Our message is very firm: there can be no backtracking from that position on the backstop that Theresa May and her Government signed up to in December last year. (left to right) Green Party of NI leader Steven Agnew, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle ONeill and the Alliance Partys Stephen Farry held a joint news conference to set out their concerns on the backstop (Nick Ansell/PA) She warned that a hard border, with infrastructure at the frontier, could become a target for dissidents. There are still anti-peace process elements in society and any erection of hard borders on the island of Ireland will bring unwanted attention, she said. While I am very cautious not to over-egg that, I think it is important that people understand thats exactly what potentially could happen. She said that was why the backstop had to be legally operable and remain in place unless and until something else comes along which could prevent a hard border. We are very much looking towards the EU to remain steadfast in the position which they have adopted, and that we hold the Irish Government to account for their role in all of that as well. The Brexit process, and the toxic alliance between the Conservatives and DUP, had contributed to progress made in the Good Friday Agreement being thrown under the bus, Ms ONeill said. In London alongside SDLP, Alliance & Greens to meet Westminster parties & make the voice of cross-community in the North majority heard. There cant be a hard border. Must protect GFA. Cant jeopardise our peace or future economic stability. Permanent Backstop is bottom line. Michelle ONeill (@moneillsf) November 12, 2018 SDLP leader Colum Eastwood told the news conference: We have spent an awful lot of time trying to build the progress that we now have, the stability that we now have. Brexit has been like bomb going off in the middle of that stability. He added: We have to ensure that the backstop is supported and protected in the withdrawal agreement. There will not be a withdrawal agreement unless there is a backstop, a permanent one. There is no point having a temporary backstop. The backstop is there as our insurance against big mistakes being made by a future British government. The pair, along with Northern Irelands Green Party leader Steven Agnew and the Alliances Stephen Farry, were using the visit to London to meet leaders of Westminsters opposition parties. But they complained that Mrs May had refused to meet them jointly. The family of a 10-year-old boy who died following an incident at a house have said he was full of energy and loved dearly by all. Police were called to an address in Perthshire after being alerted by a member of the public at around 2.30am on Sunday. Officers found two children at the property in Union Street, Coupar Angus, and an injured man nearby. Kane Morris, 10, died at the scene, while an eight-year-old girl was discovered with serious injuries. Kane Morris was aged 10 when he died (Police Scotland) She is being treated in hospital, where her condition is described as critical but stable. A 37-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the incident. Kanes family released a statement, which read: Kane was a popular young boy within the community, he was full of energy and loved dearly by all. As you can understand, this is a devastating experience for us as a family. Although we appreciate all your well wishes, we ask for privacy at this highly sensitive time. Tributes to Kane have been left near the scene of the incident, with flowers and cuddly toys among the items. The community has been strongly affected by the incident (Andrew Milligan/PA) Detective Inspector Ross Fitzgerald from the Major Investigation Team said: This is a tragic incident and our thoughts at this time remain with those involved. Our enquiries are ongoing and the community will continue to see a police presence in the area while these are progressed. We appreciate this has been a very traumatic incident for those involved and the impact this has had on the local community. The chairman of a multi-million pound infrastructure business which started up in an isolated Lake District village half a century ago has told a High Court trial how he was on the receiving end of a tirade of abuse from a former chief executive. Iain Ferguson, chairman of the Stobart Group, which began life when founder Eddie Stobart went into business as an agricultural contractor in Hesket Newmarket, Cumbria, during the 1960s, told a judge how former chief executive Andrew Tinkler shouted and swore during a meeting earlier this year. Mr Ferguson said Mr Tinkler directed his ire at him and asked not to be treated like a small boy. Stobart bosses have sued Mr Tinkler. They say Mr Tinkler conspired with other businessmen to harm the companys interests and made claims about money spent on air travel. Bosses want Judge Jonathan Russen to rule that Mr Tinkler was lawfully dismissed. Andrew Tinkler arrives at the Rolls Building in London, where his former bosses at the Stobart Group are suing him in the High Court (Victoria Jones/PA) Mr Tinkler, who was chief executive of the business between 2007 and 2017, denies wrongdoing, saying he was removed for no good reason, and has counter-claimed. Judge Russen began overseeing a trial, which is due to last more than two weeks, in London on Monday. Barrister Richard Leiper QC, who leads the Stobart Group legal team, told the judge how board members had earlier this year learned that Mr Tinkler had been talking to shareholders and briefing against the board. He said there had been a significant campaign to oust Mr Ferguson. Mr Tinkler disputes allegations against him. The judge was told that Mr Tinkler did not like the briefing against the board characterisation and had spoken of having concerns about Mr Fergusons chairmanship and being worried that Stobart was going off strategy. Mr Ferguson described events at a meeting earlier this year in a written witness statement given to the judge. Mr Tinkler stood up and directed his ire at me and told me not to treat him like a small boy, said Mr Ferguson. He said that either he or I had to resign. I was somewhat taken aback by this but responded by saying I would not resign and that was a matter for shareholders to decide. That precipitated a further tirade of abuse from Mr Tinkler. Mr Ferguson also told the judge about a telephone call in May and said Mr Tinkler had become very shouty. He again told me that he wanted me to resign as chairman, and again I refused, said Mr Ferguson in his witness statement Mr Tinkler became very shouty during this telephone call. Mr Ferguson said Mr Tinkler accused him of trying to cling to power for my own benefit. He added: I said that was not the case. Mr Leiper had told the judge how Mr Tinkler had agreed to step down as chief executive in 2017. He added: Mr Tinkler appears to have found it difficult to let go of the reins. A timeline on the Stobart Group website outlines the development of the business over the past half century. It says Eddie Stobart Ltd was created in 1970, moved into road transport and became one of Britains best-known brands. Stobart had sold its transport and distribution division as part of a strategic partial realisation in 2014. The timeline said the Stobart Group retained a share of the Eddie Stobart business, which operated privately. The website says the Stobart Group is now an infrastructure and support services business which owned and managed a range of key infrastructure sites. New Zealands deputy prime minister has said that opening an embassy in Dublin was one of the first decisions his government made after Brexit. Winston Peters, who is also the minister for foreign affairs, officially opened the first New Zealand embassy in Ireland on Monday. Speaking to the media, he said that as the UK leaves the EU, Ireland and New Zealand could enjoy a more mutually beneficial relationship. Exciting news! The #NewZealand Embassy in #Ireland is on Facebook. Like their page to keep up with the work of our colleagues in Dublin. The Embassy opens on Monday 12 November. https://t.co/fNyAIxTXeh NZ High Commission in London (@NZinUK) November 9, 2018 The moment the Brexit decision happened on the 23 June 2016, it became very clear that we would have to, with respect to Ireland, set up an embassy here, he said. It was one of the first decisions we made, and we could no longer think of carrying out the service from London, which had been going on in the past, thats why we made the decision. We can be of assistance to the Irish in the Pacific and elsewhere, and we know the Irish can be a big help to us where the European Union is concerned, so if we both put our best foot forward we can deepen our relationship and mutually get more out of it. Brexit is a slow process, which wont be over until March of next year, so in a way were getting ready early. The other reasons listed by New Zealand officials for the move to Dublin included Irelands growing economy, the influx of New Zealand immigrants into Ireland and historic ties between the nations roughly one in six New Zealanders have Irish ancestry. This will have a lot of ramifications, we need to have a close relationship with Ireland and vice versa, Mr Peters added. Ireland is stretching its reach off shore, it has always been a country that has seriously understood the importance of domestic and diplomatic relations. During the official opening ceremony, Mr Peters said: Weve been big fans of the Irish for a long time, and we have a similar sense of justified defiance, so I think well get along just fine. The opening ceremony, which saw Maori cultural group Ngati Raukawa perform a traditional blessing ritual, was attended by the New Zealand ambassador to Ireland, Brad Burgess, as well as new local and seconded staff who will work in the embassy. A traditional Maori ritual at the opening of the embassy (Conor McCabe/PA) The group, dressed in traditional Maori costume, toured the offices blessing each room and singing, before performing religious hymn How Great Thou Art in Te Reo, the native Maori language. Shortly after New Zealand announced last year that it would open the embassy, Irish President Michael D Higgins announced Ireland would likewise open an embassy in New Zealand. According to a statement released by the presidents office, the decision to establish an embassy reflects an exceptionally close partnership between Ireland and New Zealand in international affairs, including at the United Nations. The anti-immigrant hysteria is almost universal in Eastern Europe and it will bring more illiberal nationalist regimes to power before it is finished I first met Viktor Orban, the not-quite-dictator of Hungary, in 1989 in Budapest and the man who introduced us was none other than George Soros. Orban was then a firebrand student leader, anti-Communist and keen for Hungary to join the West. Soros, a Hungarian refugee who became an American billionaire, was devoting his time and money to finding and subsiding young Eastern Europeans who would lead their countries into the European Union and a liberal democratic future. But Orban is now the Prime Minister of an illiberal Hungarian Government that controls the mass media and regards the EU as the enemy. In last Aprils election, he portrayed Soros as the Jewish evil genius who, with the EUs help, was planning to flood Hungary with Muslim refugees and destroy the countrys culture and identity. Thats ridiculous, but Orban won almost half the votes and more than two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. Poland, a far bigger country, now also has a far-right, illiberal government that is ultra-nationalist and hostile to the EU (although both countries depend heavily on EU subsidies). The extremists are not yet in power in other Eastern European countries, but similar trends are visible in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. The dreams and hopes that drove the anti-Communist revolutions of 1989 are not yet dead, but they are definitely fading. What went wrong? These countries are among the most ethnically homogenous in the world (due to the Holocaust and the widespread ethnic cleansing that followed both world wars). They have admitted almost no refugees, yet their politics is dominated by the fear of being swamped by them. Its beyond bizarre, but Bulgarian political philosopher, Ivan Krastev, has a persuasive explanation for it. He points out that the question isnt so much where the nationalism has come from, but where its been hiding all these years. His answer is that it was hiding in plain sight. During the 1970s and 1980s, the nationalists who wanted independence from Soviet rule, formed a close alliance with the pro-Western activists who wanted a liberal, democratic future. From Poland to Bulgaria, the liberals and the nationalists worked together, and even after the overthrow of the Communists in 1989, they continued to believe (or at least hope) that democracy could accommodate them both. Maybe it could have, but the nationalist wars that destroyed the former Yugoslav federation in the 1990s put an end to the partnership. As Krastev says, the violence there persuaded liberals that nationalism was the very heart of darkness, and that flirting with it could only be sinful. So, the liberals broke their alliances with the nationalists, and for a while the nationalists went very quiet. Nobody, not even Polish or Hungarian nationalists, wanted to be seen in the same light as monsters like Serbias Slobodan Milosevic. But nationalism was the most powerful political force in Eastern Europe throughout the 20th century, and it wasnt going to just fade away. It re-merged in the early 21st century, shorn of its liberal associations with tolerance and diversity, as a major political force in the region and the driver behind it was what Krastev calls demographic panic. After 1989, many people in Eastern Europe not only aspired to emulate the prosperous liberal democracies of Western Europe. They actually wanted to live in them, and when their countries joined the EU they acquired the right to free movement. If Poles thought that life would be better in England, for example, they could just move there and find work and a million of them did. Since 1989, 27 percent of Latvias population has emigrated to Western Europe, and Bulgaria has lost 21 percent. Hungary is not so hard hit, but it has lost 3 percent of its population to Western Europe in the past ten years and almost all the emigrants are young, leaving behind an aging population with a low birth rate. This is the real source of the demographic panic, but it finds its political expression in a paranoid fear that the countrys dwindling population will be overrun by immigrants with a radically different culture, particularly refugees. It doesnt matter that there are virtually no immigrants in Hungary, and that its about the last place a refugee would want to go. In these matters, perception is all. The anti-immigrant hysteria is almost universal in Eastern Europe, and it will bring more illiberal nationalist regimes to power before it is finished. The remedy, if there is one, is for the liberals to acknowledge the nationalists concerns and rebuild the old alliances with them without pandering to the panic. Thats not easy to do, but its what every Western European democracy has actually been doing for generations. Although theyre not doing too well with it at the moment themselves. (The writer is an independent journalist) The East Asia Summit, an ASEAN-India informal meet, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and a bilateral meeting with US Vice President Mike Pence will be on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's agenda during his two-day visit to Singapore this week. Prime Minister Modi will reach Singapore on November 14 morning for his 36-hour visit to the city-state and his first engagement after arrival will be to deliver the keynote address at the Singapore Fintech Summit, Vijay Thakur Singh, Secretary East in the Ministry of External Affairs, said during a media briefing here. "This time we are looking to launch the platform APIX. The ASEAN countries have put together their financial institutions on one platform. The prime minister would be launching that link with the Indian financial institutions," she said. In the evening, he would attend the second Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership summit. "Leaders of the 16 negotiating countries would be there. At this summit, they would review the progress that has been made in the negotiations of the RCEP which are ongoing in Singapore," Singh said. The RCEP bloc comprises 10 ASEAN members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam), and their six FTA partners -- India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The negotiations among the countries in the bloc have been ongoing since 2012. India has a "constructive position" in the negotiations, Singh said. The prime minister will also hold a bilateral meeting with Pence on November 14, officials said. The White House had said last week that Pence and Modi would discuss the India-US defence cooperation and the bilateral relationship during their meeting in Singapore. The Modi-Pence meeting comes just days after the US re-imposed sanctions on import of crude oil from Iran but temporarily allowed India, China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Greece, Taiwan and Turkey to continue the purchase from the Gulf nation without any penalty. There would also be a dinner hosted by Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) chair Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. On November 15, the prime minister would participate in the ASEAN-India breakfast summit. Prime Minister Modi will also participate at the 13th East Asia Summit that will be held in two segments -- a lunch retreat followed by the plenary session, Singh said. At the summit, the issues that are on the table are many, including Information and Communications Technology, smart cities, maritime cooperation and cross border terrorism, she said. He would also meet the participants of India-Singapore hackathon before heading back to India, she said. The third meeting of Quad countries -- India, the US, Japan and Australia -- at the joint secretary-level will also take place on the sidelines of Modi's visit. "Agenda normally there is to look at how we look at peace and prosperity issues in the region," Singh said of the quad meeting. Talking about the informal ASEAN-India breakfast meet, Singh said it was a platform where India engages with the ASEAN countries as it has a very active Act East policy. The ASEAN region together with India is one of the most dynamic economic spaces today, Singh said. She said the principles of India's vision of the Indo-Pacific were of an open, free, progressive and prosperous region which is inclusive and respects international law. Asked if there will be a meeting between Modi and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on the sidelines of the summits, she said the details of the bilateral meetings were still being worked out. Lenovo and Motorola India successfully launched their flagship Corporate Social Responsibility Program for FY 2019 by inaugurating its fifth skill academy in Ghaziabad on 1st November 2018. The program has been launched across 7 locations Bhubaneswar, Ernakulam, Jodhpur, Mysore, Trichy, Chandigarh and Delhi NCR. With an aim to empower unemployed youth in the age group of 18-30 years, Lenovo and Motorola aim to impact 6900+ beneficiaries over a period of 3 years, where underprivileged youth with low family income will be trained on Laptop and Mobile repair services, IT/ITeS, and retail trades. For executing the program, the brand has partnered with Edubridge, an esteemed partner of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a Govt. of India organization that participates in the mission of up-skilling Indias rural and semi-urban youth. While addressing the youth, Mr. Bikas Kumar Singh, Head of Corporate Affairs- Lenovo said, To support PMOs initiative Skill India, Lenovo and Motorola have launched our flagship CSR program for FY 2019 across seven locations in India. We have partnered with EduBridge Learning Pvt Ltd, an esteemed Training Partner of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) with an aim of impacting 6900+ beneficiaries in three years, where the youth will be trained on Laptop and Mobile repair services, IT/ITes and retail trade. Honorable Counselor of Mohan Nagar Ghaziabad Mr. Bijendra Chauhan inaugurated the Lenovo Motorola Skill Academy in the Delhi NCR. Expressing his delight, he said, The academy will provide technical skill set to unskilled youth of Ghaziabad and will create greater employment opportunity that will in turn render all the support required to run this program successfully. Other dignitaries present on the occasion were Mr. Piyush Chakraborty, ESSCI Vice President, Business Development, Mr. Saleem Ahmed, ESSCI VP Projects, Mr. Anwar Shirpurwala, CEO- MAIT, Mr. Bikas Kumar Singh, Lenovo Head Corporate Affairs, Puneet Sharma Lenovo- National Manager Customer Engagement, Mr. Jitendra Nagar, Mr. Satish Sharma, Mr. Neeraj, Mr. Anand Natrajan EduBridge President Strategic Partnerships as guests of honor. @Technuter.com News Service In what is seen as a major setback to the Travancore Devaswam Board, senior Supreme Court advocate Aryama Sundaram recused himself from appearing for the former in the revision petition against the September 28 verdict by the apex court quashing the customary bar on entry of women in the child-bearing age in the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala. Sources close to the eminent advocate told The Pioneer that he may even appear for the petitioners challenging the court verdict. The Pioneer had reported on Monday that Aryama Sundaram, grandson of the late Sir CP Ramaswamy Aiyar would represent the TDB in the apex court which is hearing the revision petition challenging the September 28 verdict delivered by the Constitution Bench on Tuesday. The report had stated that Travancore Devaswom Board is a government department administering the temples in Kerala. Though no reason has been given by Sundaram for his decision to recuse from the case, sources close to the senior lawyer told The Pioneer that it could be due to two factors. He was under the impression that Travancore Devaswom Board was an autonomous entity like Thirumala Tiruppati Devasthanam at Lord Venkateswara Temple. But when he understood that the Board was a CPI-M controlled body he was shocked and hence the decision. Moreover, he was initially told by the Board to justify the ban on the entry of women to the temple but later on it made a vault face asking him to fight against the revision pleas, said the source on condition of anonymity. The source also said that Sundaram had argued for another organisation justifying the ban on the entry of women in the holy shrine on an earlier occasion. If he had appeared for the TDB, it would have been against ethics, pointed out the source. A Padmakumar, president, Travancore Devaswom Board who is also a prominent CPI-M leader told reporters at Thiruvananthapuram that the decision of Aryama Sundaram to call off from the case was a political one and smacks of politics. Kerala saw massive protests all over the State against the Supreme Court verdict allowing the entry of women of child bearing age into the sanctum of the temple on Sunday and Monday. T V Mathew, a former judge and a devote Christian inaugurated the protest rally held at Perumbavoor on Sunday which saw massive crowd participation. Mathew wanted all women representatives of the three-tier local bodies in Kerala should intimate their views to the Supreme Court while the revision petition is heard. I see big opposition and resistance from the women to the verdict delivered by the Supreme Court and now it is time for the women members of Panchayath, district panchayaths, municipal and corporation councils to come together and take a call on this issue, said Mathew. Amid raging controversy over the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale fighter jet deal with allegation of wrongdoing, the Government on Monday stated in the Supreme Court that it abided by the Defence Procurement Procedure-2013 and due approval was taken from the Defence Acquisition Council and the Cabinet Committee on Security. The Centre also placed in a sealed cover before the apex court the price details of 36 Rafale fighter jets which India is buying in fly-away condition from France through a Government to Government deal inked in October 2016. The SC will take up the case on November 14. The court on October 31 had asked the Centre to place before it within 10 days the pricing details of 36 Rafale fighter jets. In the last hearing, the Centre was reluctant to share the price details and Attorney General KK Venugopal had told a Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi that pricing details of these jets were not even shared with Parliament. The Centre made public the 16-page document titled Details of the steps in the decision making process leading to the award of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft order, which stated the process as laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure-2013 has been followed in procurement of the Rafale aircraft. The document says after the Indian negotiation team submitted its report on fully-loaded Rafale jets on August 4, 2016, it was vetted by the Finance and Law Ministries within 20 days and the CCS approved the deal on August 24, 2016. The document also said the Government had no role in the selection of the Indian offset partner. The Congress is alleging that the NDA Government nudged the French to opt for Reliance as an offset partner. Former President Francois Hollande also said he was nudged by the Indian Government to have Reliance as a partner in the offset deal with Rafale jet manufacturer Dassault. The document placed before the court said the Indian Defence Ministry negotiated with their French counterparts for a year before signing the Rafale agreement. The details of the documents were shared with the petitioners as directed by the Supreme Court. The petitioners include former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, along with activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan. They had sought registration of an FIR into the fighter jet deal alleging criminal misconduct by high public functionaries. The trio has also sought a direction to the CBI to investigate the offences mentioned in their complaint in a time-bound manner and submit periodic status reports to the apex court. A team of Indian negotiators formed to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets had got a better deal on price and maintenance of the planes as compared to the earlier offer from French firm Dassault, according to the Centres report on the purchase of the jets submitted to the Supreme Court last month. The Indian negotiating team headed by a Deputy Chief of Air Staff rank officer carried out negotiations for over a year. This team submitted its report in July 2016 and the deal was cleared by the Cabinet Committee of Security and Defence Acquisition Council. India is buying 36 jets off the shelf from France and the entire lot will be delivered within 67 months after the contract was signed. The Rafale fighter jet is a twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA). The UPA regime was negotiating for a 126-jet deal with Dassault with 18 of them to be procured off the shelf and the remaining to be manufactured by the public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) I India. However, the proposed contract could not mature due to various issues and the NDA Government scrapped the earlier process and announced to buy 36 Rafales to meet the urgent requirement of the IAF to bolster its depleting squadron strength. However, the Congress is claiming that price at which India is buying Rafale aircraft now is Rs 1,670 crore each, three times the Rs 526 crore, initial bid by the company when the UPA was trying to buy the aircraft. Union Minister dies in Bengaluru after battling lung cancer for several months Senior BJP leader and Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar, 59, died at a private hospital here in the early hours of Monday, party spokesman said. He was suffering from lung cancer and had come back from the US in October after treatment at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, New York. He is survived by wife and two daughters. The Karnataka Government has declared a three-day State mourning till November 14 as a mark of respect to Ananth Kumar. His last rites will be performed on Tuesday with all Government honour, an official release said. Ananth had built the BJP in Karnataka and was the sole Member of Parliament from the State. His political journey began from Vidhyarthi Parishat and graduated through RSS to the national politics. Known for his integrity, Kumar had friends in the Congress and other parties. As a Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister, his performance was appreciated by all. Even though he was identified as Advanis man, he succeeded in getting close to Narendra Modi later. Mourning the death of Ananth, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said, Ananths pro-people attitude and activities made him apple of the peoples eye. He always valued and had given priority to friendship. I have lost a great friend in his death, he said. Ananth, was widely regarded as an able political organiser who helped the BJP expand its reach in countrys South. His organisational skills and proficiency in Kannada, Hindi, Marathi and English caught the attention of the partys top leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, who made him a BJP national General Secretary at a young age. An urban face of the BJP, Ananth was a six-time parliamentarian from the high-profile Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency since 1996. He became a Union Minister at a young age (37) in the Vajpayees Governments of 1998-99 and 1999-2004. In the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP denied ticket to sitting MP renowned economist Professor K Venkatagiri Gowda from Bangalore South and fielded a new face, Ananth. The move raised eyebrows. Ananth Kumar was just 36 years old, a newcomer and an outsider from Hubli-Dharwad. The Congress had fielded Varalakshmi, the widow of former Chief Minister R Gundu Rao, against him. The Janata Dal, led by HD Deve Gowda, was in power in Karnataka. Most thought that Ananth had no chance against such formidable candidates from the Congress and the Janata Dal, though Bangalore South had the unique distinction of electing only the Opposition candidates for decades. Proving the sceptics wrong, Ananth Kumar, the blue-eyed boy of BS Yeddyurappa, won his maiden election, beating Varalakshmi Gundu Rao by a small margin. Born into a middle class Brahmin family in Bengaluru on July 22, 1959, Kumar went to school in the city and joined college at Hubli when his father HN Narayan Shastry, a Railway employee, was transferred to the northwest town about 400 km from here. His mother Girja was a home-maker. Kumar graduated in Arts from KS Arts College and in Law from JSS Law College at Hubli with BA and LLB degrees from Karnataka University in Dharwad. Sharing a hostile political relationship with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, BJP ally Rashtriya Lok Samata Partys (RLSP) president Upendra Kushwaha on Monday met Opposition leader Sharad Yadav, a friend-turned-foe of Nitish Kumar, with a suggestion that he is not altogether averse to switching camps. Kushwaha met Sharad at the latters residence and both the leaders were believed to have discussed the current political situation, especially in Bihar, RLSP sources said. In a tweet, Kushwaha described the meeting as a courtesy call. Seat-sharing within the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituents is not a settled matter even as BJP president Amit Shah last month announced here with Nitish by his side that his party and the JD(U) would contest equal number of Lok Sabha seats with other NDA constituents like RLSP and Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP) of Ram Vilas Paswan need to adjust with lower number of seats than they contested in 2014. The RLSP, which had fought three seats in 2014 and won all, is unlikely to be spared not more than two seats by the BJP. Kushwaha has maintained he is ready to sacrifice for the NDA and would like Prime Minister Narendra Modi to return to power at the Centre, but wondered as to why he was being kept out of the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U)-BJP coalition in Bihar. The OBC leader, who is also a Union Minister, has once famously said Nitish is capable of sinking any boat he rides on. He accused Nitish of conspiring to break the RLSP. Kushwaha had also attacked Nitish for allegedly insulting him and had targeted him again on Sunday over reports that two MLAs of his party may join the JD(U). The RLSP leader has kept the seat-sharing pot boiling by meeting rival Lalu Prasads son Tejashwi with reports that he had sought six Lok Sabha seats but was assured only four. But Kushwaha described his meeting with Lalus son at a Government guest house as a chance meeting. Sharad Yadav had snapped his ties with Kumar after the JD(U) chief joined hands with the BJP last year and currently working to rally the Opposition against the BJP-led NDA. Sharad recently also met with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu who has also been working with opposition leaders including Congress president to forge a national alliance against the NDA. RLSP and LJP leaders and State presidents have insisted that both the parties have not agreed to the reduction of their LS seat share and would contest the same number of seats which were allocated to them in 2014. An old rival of Kumar, Kushwaha had also attacked the Chief Minister for allegedly insulting him and had targeted him again on Sunday over reports that two MLAs of his party may join the JD(U). He had said he would apprise Shah of the humiliation he had suffered at the hands of Kumar and also request him to clear the confusion over seat-sharing among the NDA constituents in the State at the earliest. Kushwahas have good 10 to 12 per cent vote share and are considered the second-most dominant caste in the OBC category after Yadavs (15%) in Bihar. Both the major political parties- BJP and the Congress- are in damage-control mode to get party rebels to withdraw from the fray in Madhya Pradesh elections scheduled on November 28. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, State BJP chief Rakesh Singh, party vice president Prabhat Jha and state organisational secretary Suhas Bhagat among others were contacting party rebels to get them to opt out of the electoral race. Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar told media persons, All our senior leaders are contacting our cadre who are fighting elections against the partys nominees. Like in the past, they are going to withdraw from the race. On behalf of the opposition Congress, senior leader and former chief minister Digvijay Singh was trying to persuade rebels to withdraw their candidatures, party sources said. They said that MP Congress chief Kamal Nath, former Union minister Jyotriraditya Scindia, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Ajay Singh were also involved in ensuring that the partys official candidates dont have to fight the rebels. Digvijay Singh told rebels that the official candidates were chosen after much deliberations by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, and that the rebels should work in the interest of the party. Prominent among the BJP rebels who are in the fray this time are Ramkrishna Kusumari, five-time MP and a powerful leader from the impoverished Bundelkhand region, who has filed his nomination papers from two Assembly seats, Damoh and Patharia, as an Independent candidate. Likewise, former MP finance minister and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideologue Raghavji Bhai is contesting elections on a SAPAKS (Samanya Pichra Alpsankhyak Kalyan Samaj) ticket from Shashabad in Vidisha district. He is apparently angry over the BJP not giving a ticket to his daughter Jyoti Shah. Similarly, former Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) state chief Dhiraj Pateriya is contesting from Jabalpur North as an Independent candidate. The Congress rebel list includes senior leader and former party spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedis son Nitin who is contesting from Rajnagar seat in Bundelkhand region as a Samajwadi Party candidate after being denied a party ticket. The Vision Document for the urban local body election released by the Congress on Monday assured a priority to the development of the infrastructural facilities in the urban areas and a focus on planned development of the cities if elected. The party said in the document that it would strive to make available more resources to the ULBs aside from providing autonomy to such bodies as per the constitutional arrangement. The document was released by the state Congress president Pritam Singh in the presence of other senior leaders at the state party office on Monday. Speaking of the document, the state Congress vice- president Surya Kant Dhasmana said that it has highlighted planned development of all the ULBs spread across the state with deployment of an adequate number of sanitation workers in consideration of the population of the cities. In the document, the party has laid stress on the modern sanitation equipment being provided. Besides, it has strongly pitched for a mega project for solid waste management for the major cities. The trenching ground and the processing plants should be such that they remain useful for the next two to three decades, he said. Dhasmana further said that the party stands for more power to be given to the elected boards in line with the 74 Constitutional Amendment. The opposition party has also given importance to the plight of the slum dwellers facing the demolition drive. We reiterated our demand that the people living in the slums should be given ownership rights under the law enacted on August 10, 2016, he said. He further said that the anti- encroachment drive should immediately be suspended and the state government should formulate a policy for effectively curbing encroachments in the cities. The document has also focused on the planned development of the rural areas added into the cities, development of green belt, construction of community centres, development of Haat bazaars and vendor zones in the cities. The document has also called for a proper drainage plan for disposal of the storm and domestic waste water. Besides, it advocates a rise in income of the ULBs without additional tax load slapped on the people. The party is also for a system meant to ensure security of the senior citizens and CCTV installation at important places and roads to ensure security of the children and the women, he said. This aside, Congress in its vision document has advocated public audit of the works undertaken by the ULBs and creation of public awareness for minimising use of polythene. The party has also pitched for stricter execution of the Public Property Defacement Act. Those who meet the recruitment standards should be employed in the ULBs. We have also called for implementation of a work plan for controlling the movement of the stray animals in the document, the state Congress leader said. Commuting will get easier for people of the national Capital especially to South-West, North and North-West as the Government is planning to construct a 16.4 kilometres signal free road parallel to Najafgarh drain. The signal free stretch will provide a straight connectivity from Kakrola Mor to Punjabi Bagh. "Currently, the condition of the roads and paths on this route especially on the Najafgarh road is very poor, due to which driving on this route becomes a hurdle for the commuters. Thus, as per the proposed plan, an elevated grade separator will be constructed on the Kakrola Mor. Once the plan will be approved and passed by the concerned authorities, travel will be easier for the people going to Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, North-West Delhi and Haryana," said a senior official from the Public Works Department (PWD). As per the proposed plan, the stretch which will start from Kakrola Mor to Punjabi Bagh will be constructed on both sides of the Najafgarh drain. The width of lane will be three-three meter each side and also around 10 small size bridges will be built on the drain. Sources also said the Government is very keen to start the project early to make the road smoother and safer for the commuters. "Number of meeting has been taken by the Minister of PWD Satyender Jain to discuss on the project. Minister has also directed to resolve all the problems and modalities and start the project at the earliest." According to officials, the core working group of Delhi Government had held a meeting to discuss on the proposal in March 2015. On November 16, 2016 a meeting was held with the stakeholders for further approval. By the end of the 2016, the project plan (map of plan) was prepared and a communique seeking permission for the construction on the drain was sent to the Department of Irrigation and Flood Control in May 2017. The estimated budget for the whole project is Rs 700 crore. Hitting back at Rahul Gandhi who questioned him on demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that the Congress President and his mother Sonia Gandhi were out on bail but issuing honesty certificates to others. The mother-son duo who are out on bail are giving me a certificate and asking from me the benefits of demonetisation, he said sarcastically at a massive election meeting at Bilaspur, the second most populous city of Chhattisgarh. Those who are out on bail are distributing certificates of honesty, remarked Modi amid huge chant of Modi-Modi by thousands of BJP cadres. The Gandhis have secured bail in the National Herald case. Rahul Gandhi has been questioning Modi about the benefits of note ban and accused the Prime Minister of being silent on the issue. Slamming the Congress President and UPA Chairperson, Modi said: Due to demonetisation, over three lakh shell companies were closed. It is the result of demonetisation that your company (National Herald) was caught and you had to seek bail. Referring to the benefits of demonetisation, the Prime Minister said: People ask me how I am able to construct so many roads, electrify houses and improve the railway infrastructure. I tell them that before demonetisation the money was stacked up below the beds and stuffed inside cupboards and sacks. But after demonetisation all the money has come out and with that money all the projects of development are going on, he said. Taking Rahul Gandhi head-on, Modi said that the Congress manifesto released on Saturday in Chhattisgarh had 36 points for the state. But while releasing the manifesto, their leaders took the name of their leader over 150 times. It was noted by journalists. The whole politics of the Congress starts from a family and ends with the same family. While our (BJP) politics starts from the poor mans hut. Without changing the life of the poor, we will not sleep. For the Congress, welfare of Chhattisgarh is not a priority. Their priority is to serve one family, he alleged. Attacking the Congress over corruption, Modi said: Their third generation Prime Minister (late Rajiv Gandhi) had said that the poor in the country receive 15 paise out of one rupee sent from the centre. What kind of scheme was that which reduced the rupee to paisa? The demonetisation brought out those paisa, he thundered. Modi said that people do not have much expectations from those who are corrupt but expects development from those not corrupt. Highlighting the works of the BJP Government in the state, Modi said over 1.5 lakh people got the benefit of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana while over 42 lakh people would benefit with the Ayushman Bharat scheme. He said the number of the houses the BJP built in the State in the last four years, the Congress would have taken around 30 years to build them. The Prime Minister said the BJP Government with a proven track record of development had schemes for all sections of the society. Sir, An eco-friendly attitude was established amongst the residents of Bhubaneswar when they decided to implement the ban on use of plastic bags. In the beginning, groceries were delivered in paper bags. I felt a sense of pride when we locals were really implementing the ban of plastic bag. But I am disappointed when I notice the presence of plastic bags every now and then. Right from grocery stores to fashion stores, everyone packs the purchased items in plastic bags. I wonder where the plastic bag comes from if the country is planning for stoppage of its usage. Why cant plastic manufacturing be completely shut down? Are the citizens of India waiting for the order of ban to be announced from the Central Government? Despite all efforts, people are continuing to use plastic bags for their convenience. I really wish people take this matter seriously and stop usage of plastic bags. Every single persons contribution would save our planet. Lets say no to plastic bags and, instead, carry paper bags from home and deny the grocery store persons plastic carry bag. K Ravi, E-237, GGP Colony, Bhubaneswar-751025, Mob-943716497 Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Uttar Pradesh government faces the difficult task of satisfying the sugarcane farmers who are pitching for over 25 per cent hike in the State Advisory Price (SAP) of cane for the current 2018-19 crushing season. If their demands are acceded to by the government, the sugarcane price will be Rs 400 per quintal for the 2018-19 season. The sugar industry, which is predominantly in the private sector, on the other hand, has reiterated its inability to pay even the existing cane price of Rs 315 per quintal (common variety) fixed last year for the 2017-18 season. The farmers and their organisations raised the demand for hike in the SAP during the meeting of the cane price fixation committee headed by the Chief Secretary. The farmers leaders made a strong demand for hiking cane SAP to Rs 400 per quintal on the ground of rise in prices of agricultural inputs like diesel, fertilisers, seeds, etc. Both the Central and the state governments have repeatedly affirmed their agenda of doubling farmers income and yet there has been insignificant increase in the cane price in recent years, said representative of UP Cane Cooperative Societies, Arvind Kumar Singh, who participated in the high-level meeting. The Centre has fixed the fair and remunerative price (FRP) of cane at Rs 275 per quintal. UP traditionally announces a much higher SAP of cane to be paid by the sugar mills. The millers have cited glut in sugar market due to record sugar production in last season (2017-18) which has resulted in high sugarcane arrears of the last season. Currently, the state cane outstanding stands at about Rs 7,800 crore for the last season (2017-18). Around 75 private sugar mills have applied for collectively availing a Rs 4,000-crore soft loan sponsored by the Yogi Adityanath government to ease the cane arrears payment situation. The mills maintain that the fact that the state announced the soft loan package is proof enough that the sugar sector is facing difficulties in making payments and any further hike in price will only compound the problem. There are about 40 lakh rural households in UP directly associated with sugarcane farming with the sugar and by-products sector infusing as much as Rs 50,000 crore in rural economy annually. In run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party can ill afford to antagonise the state farmers, especially in western UP that has higher concentration of sugar mills. So far, about a dozen sugar mills have started their crushing operations in UP, out of the total 119 units in the private and Cooperative sectors. Minister of State for Sugarcane Development, Sugar Mills ((Independent Charge), Suresh Rana on Monday directed sugar mills to commence cane crushing by November 25 and clear the cane arrears by November 30. The private sugar mills, as relief for the industry, have urged the state government to allow staggered payments to farmers with the first instalment being FRP of Rs 275/quintal, to prevent the prospective build-up of arrears in the current season. They have also underlined that the domestic sugar sector has already been put in the negative list by commercial banks. This year, UP cane acreage is estimated at 26 lakh hectares, up 18 per cent from 22 lakh hectares in 2017-18 when UP had clocked sugar production of 1.2 crore metric tonnes (MT) with farmers payables touching Rs 35,400 crore. Over 27,000 people on Saturday visited the Statue of Unity in Gujarat's Narmada district, the highest since the Sardar Patel memorial was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 31 and opened to the public on November 1. The statue, built on an islet near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Kevadiya, at 182 metres is the tallest such structure in the world. With the capacity of the high-speed lift which takes tourists to the viewing gallery inside the statue being 5,000 persons per day, the state government asked people to plan their trip to the memorial keeping this aspect in mind. The viewers gallery inside the statue is at a height of 135 metres and can accommodate up to 200 persons at one time. Narmada district Collector R S Ninama, while confirming that 27,000 tourists visited Saturday, said the administration was expecting the figure to go further up Sunday. He told PTI the high number of tourists was because of Diwali vacations and the Gujarati New Year holiday. Ninama said the number of feeder buses ferrying visitors from the parking lot to the statue had been increased to 40 from 15 for Sunday. In a statement, the state government appealed to the visitors "to plan their trip keeping in mind the timing as well as the capacity of the infrastructure at the Statue of Unity." The government statement also informed visitors that the memorial remains closed every Monday for maintenance. "The two lifts at the Statue of Unity can carry up to 5,000 people in a day to the observation deck (viewing gallery). Therefore, all visitors are requested to plan their visits keeping in mind the timings as well as the capacity of the infrastructure," the statement said. "It is a request to the people of Gujarat to plan their visits in a way that there is no overcrowding and no one comes back disappointed from the Statue of Unity visit," it added. Apart from the statue, people can go to the Visitors Centre, souvenir shop, exhibition hall, viewing gallery among other attractions. Russian President Vladimir Putin says he didn't have a separate meeting with President Donald Trump at events in Paris marking the end of World War I, but says they will meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina later this month. Putin said he and Trump decided "not to interrupt the schedule" of the World War I events with a separate meeting. Putin spoke to RT's France network. Putin also praised the idea of a European army because he said it could "strengthen the multipolar nature of the world." Macron has pushed the idea of a European army. 10 minutes ago Do You Have Financial Wellness Down Pat? Here's What You Need to Know This Holiday Season What does financial wellness mean to you? Does it just sound like a fancier, more wholesome term than "personal finance"? Or does financial wellness mean something different to you altogether? You might view financial wellness as a holistic approach to our finances, from getting out of credit card debt to building an emergency fund to saving for retirement. Read Article American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at [email protected]eat.com | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. Lenovo Group Limited, an investment holding company, develops, manufactures, and markets technology products and services. It operates through Intelligent Devices Group and Data Center Group segments. The company offers commercial and consumer personal computers, as well as servers and workstations; and a family of mobile Internet devices, including tablets and smartphones. It also provides laptops, desktops, phones, accessories, monitors, data center solutions, systems, software, server and storage products, networking products, and replacement parts. In addition, the company manufactures and distributes IT products, computers, computer hardware, and peripheral equipment; and offers IT, business planning, management, supply chain, finance, administration support, procurement agency, data management, intellectual property, investment management, and computer hardware and software systems repair services. Further, it is involved in the retail and service business for consumer electronic products and related digital services; and development, ownership, licensing, and sale of communications hardware and software. The company operates in China, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Lenovo Group Limited was founded in 1984 and is based in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong. Read More Distil Plc, through its subsidiaries, markets and sells spirits. The company offers its products under various brands, including RedLeg Spiced Rum, Blackwoods Vintage Gin, Blackwoods Vodka, Blavod Original Black Vodka, TrAve Botanical Spirit, Diva Vodka, and Jago's Vanilla Cream Liqueur. It markets and sells its products in the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Spain, Australia, and Russia. The company was formerly known as Blavod Wines and Spirits plc and changed its name to Distil Plc in April 2014. Distil Plc was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Xerox: A B S Digital Limited, Acorn Business Machines (Holmfirth) Limited, Alloy Acquisitions Corp. LLC, Altodigital Networks, Altodigital Networks Limited, American Photocopy Equipment Company of Pittsburgh LLC, Amici, Arena Group, Arena Group Holdings Limited, Arena Group Limited, Arizona Office Technologies Inc., B 2 Business Systems Limited, Back2Business Limited, Bessemer Insurance Limited, Bessemer Trust Limited, Boise Office Equipment Inc., Bright Ceramic Technologies Inc., Bunch CareSolutions, Business Systems (North Wales) Limited, CPAS Systems, CREDITEX - Aluguer de Equipamentos S.A., CTX Business Solutions Inc., Capitol Office Solutions LLC, CareAR Holdings LLC, CareAR Inc., Carolina Office Systems Inc., Carr Business Systems Inc., Chicago Office Technology Group Inc., ComDoc Inc., Concept Group, Concept Group Limited, Connecticut Business Systems LLC, Consilience Software, Continua Limited, Continua Sanctum Limited, Conway Technology Group LLC, Copyrite Business Solutions (Holdings) Limited, Copyrite Business Solutions Limited, Copytrend Limited, Criterion IT Limited, Customer Value Group, Dahill Office Technology Corporation, Digitex, Digitex Canada Inc., Docucentric Holdings Limited, Document Systems, Document Systems, Eastern Managed Print Network LLC, Elan Marketing Inc., Electronic Systems Inc., Fovia (Innovation) Limited, G-Five Inc., GDP Technologies Inc., Global Imaging Systems, Global PR Corporation, Groupe CT, Gyricon LLC, Healthy Communities Institute, Heritage Business Systems Inc., ITEC Group, Image Technology Specialists Inc., ImageQuest Inc., Imagetek Office Systems, Impika, Impika SAS, Inland Business Machines Inc., Institute for Research on Learning, Integrity One Technologies Inc., Intrepid Learning, Invoco Group, Irish Business Systems, LRI LLC, LaserNetworks, LaserNetworks Inc., Lateral Data, Learn Something, Lewan & Associates Inc., Limited Liability Company Xerox (C.I.S.), M & S Reprographics Limited, MRC Smart Technology Solutions Inc., MT Business Holdings Inc., MT Business Technologies Inc., MWB Copy Products Inc., Mail A Doc Limited, Merizon Group Incorporated, Michigan Office Solutions Inc., Minnesota Office Technology Group Inc., Mitral Systems Limited, Mr. Copy Inc., Nemo (AKS) Limited, NewField IT, NewField Information Technology LLC, NewField Information Technology Limited, Northeast Office Systems LLC, Osprey Business Systems Limited, PARC China Holdings Inc., Pacific Services and Development Corporation, Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated, Platinum Digital Print Solutions Limited, Precision Copier Service Inc., Quality Business Systems Inc., Quilver Business Services Limited, R. K. Dixon Company, RRXH Limited, RRXIL Limited, RRXO Limited, RSA Medical, Rabbit Copiers Inc., Reflex Digital Solutions (UK) Limited, Reprographics Egypt Limited, Saxon Business Systems Inc., Smart Data Consulting, SoCal Office Technologies Inc., Stem Networks Limited, Stewart Business Systems LLC, Stewart of Alabama Inc., StrataCare, Talegen Holdings Inc., Tektronix - color printing, Text Comm Limited (in receivership), The Xerox (UK) Trust, The Xerox Foundation, Time Business Systems Limited, Triton Business Finance Limited, Una-Stem Limited, Veenman B.V., Veenman Financial Services B.V., WDS, WaterWare Internet Services, XC Asia LLC, XC Global Trading B.V., XC Trading Hong Kong Limited, XC Trading Japan G.K., XC Trading Korea YH, XC Trading Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., XC Trading Shenzhen Co. Ltd., XC Trading Singapore Pte Ltd., XEROX CZECH REPUBLIC s r.o., XESystems Foreign Sales Corporation, XFS Secured Borrowing 2020-1 LLC, XHC Acquisition Corp., XMPie, XMPie Inc., XMPie Ltd., XRI Limited, XRO Limited, Xerox (Europe) Limited, Xerox (Ireland) Limited, Xerox (Nederland) BV, Xerox (Romania) Echipmante Si Servici S.A., Xerox (UK) Limited, Xerox (Ukraine) Ltd LLC, Xerox A/S, Xerox AG, Xerox AS, Xerox Argentina Industrial y Comercial S.A., Xerox Austria GmbH, Xerox Bulgaria EOOD, Xerox Business Equipment Limited, Xerox Business Services Bulgaria EOOD, Xerox Business Solutions Inc., Xerox Business Solutions Southeast LLC, Xerox Buro Araclari Servis ve Ticaret Ltd. Sti, Xerox Canada Inc., Xerox Canada Ltd., Xerox Canada N.S. ULC, Xerox Capital (Europe) Limited, Xerox Capital LLC, Xerox Computer Services Limited, Xerox Comercio e Industria Ltda, Xerox Corporation, Xerox DNHC LLC, Xerox Dienstleistungsgesellschaft GmbH, Xerox Distributor Operations Limited, Xerox Egypt S.A.E., Xerox Equipment Limited, Xerox Equipment UK Limited, Xerox Espana S.A.U., Xerox Exports Limited, Xerox Finance AG, Xerox Finance Leasing S.A.E., Xerox Finance Limited, Xerox Financial Services B.V., Xerox Financial Services Belux NV, Xerox Financial Services Canada Ltd., Xerox Financial Services Danmark A/S, Xerox Financial Services Finland Oy, Xerox Financial Services LLC, Xerox Financial Services Norway AS, Xerox Financial Services SAS, Xerox Financial Services Sverige AB, Xerox Foreign Holdings LLC, Xerox Foreign Sales Corporation, Xerox GmbH, Xerox Health Care LLC, Xerox Hellas AEE, Xerox Holding Deutschland GmbH, Xerox Holdings (Ireland) Limited, Xerox Holdings Inc., Xerox Hungary Trading Limited, Xerox IBS Limited, Xerox IBS NI Limited, Xerox India Limited, Xerox International Joint Marketing Inc., Xerox Investments Europe B.V., Xerox Israel Ltd., Xerox Italia Rental Services Srl, Xerox Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Xerox Latinamerican Holdings Inc., Xerox Leasing Deutschland GmbH, Xerox Leasing GmbH, Xerox Limited, Xerox Luxembourg SA, Xerox Mailing Systems Limited, Xerox Manufacturing (Nederland) B.V., Xerox Maroc S.A., Xerox Mexicana S.A. de C.V., Xerox Middle East Investments (Bermuda) Limited, Xerox N.V., Xerox Overseas Holdings Limited, Xerox Overseas Inc., Xerox Oy, Xerox Pensions Limited, Xerox Polska Sp. z o. o, Xerox Portugal Equipamentos de Escritorio Limitada, Xerox Products Limited, Xerox Products UK Limited, Xerox Professional Services Limited, Xerox Realty Corporation, Xerox Renting S.A.U., Xerox Reprographische Services GmbH, Xerox S.A.S., Xerox S.p.A., Xerox Secured Borrowing 2020-1 LLC, Xerox Servicios Compartidos Guatemala y Compani Limitada, Xerox Servicos e Participacoes Ltda, Xerox Shared Services Romania SRL, Xerox Sverige AB, Xerox Technology Services India LLP, Xerox Technology Services SAS, Xerox Telebusiness GmbH, Xerox Trading Enterprises Limited, Xerox Trinidad Limited, Xerox UK Holdings Limited, Xerox XHB Limited, Xerox XIB Limited, Xerox Xf Holdings (Ireland) DAC, Xerox de Chile S.A., Xerox del Ecuador S.A., Xerox del Peru S.A., Zeno Office Solutions, Zeno Office Solutions Inc., Zoom Imaging Solutions Inc., and inVentiv Patient Access Solutions. The following companies are subsidiares of Select Medical: ACC Capital, AbsoluteCVO, Actra Rehabilitation Associates, Advantage Rehabilitation Clinics, Alexandria Sports, Allevant Solutions, Ambulatory Care Solutions, Ambulatory Care Solutions of Arkansas LLC, Ambulatory Care Solutions of Ohio LLC, American Current Care, American Current Care of Arizona, American Current Care of Arkansas, American Current Care of California, American Current Care of Delaware, American Current Care of Hawaii, American Current Care of Illinois, American Current Care of Kansas, American Current Care of Massachusetts, American Current Care of Michigan, American Current Care of Missouri, American Current Care of Nebraska, American Current Care of New Jersey PA, American Current Care of North Carolina, American Current Care of Ohio, American Transitional Hospitals, Archer Rehabilitation, Argosy Health, BHSM ES, Benchmark Acquisition Corp., Benchmark Medical Management Company, Benchmark O&P Holdings, Benchmark Orthotics & Prosthetics, Blue Hen Physical Therapy, CM Occupational Health, CRI ES, California Rehab Institute Medical Group, California Rehabilitation Institute, Cape Prosthetics-Orthotics, Caritas Rehab Services, Carrollton Physical Therapy Clinic, Central Iowa Physio, Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Hospitals, Coastal Virginia ES, Concentra Akron, Concentra Arkansas, Concentra Group Holdings, Concentra Group Holdings Parent, Concentra Health Services, Concentra Holdings, Concentra Inc., Concentra Integrated Services, Concentra Laboratory, Concentra Occupational Health Research Institute, Concentra Occupational Healthcare Harrisburg, Concentra Operating Corporation, Concentra Primary Care, Concentra Primary Care of New Jersey PA, Concentra Primary Care of Ohio, Concentra Solutions, Concentra South Carolina, Concentra St. Louis, Concentra-UPMC, Concentramark, Connecticut Physical Therapy, Crowley Physical Therapy Clinic, DG Physical Therapy, Dignity Select Nevada, Douglas Avery & Associates, ES LTACH, Eagle Rehab Corporation, Eden Sports, Elizabethtown Physical Therapy, FC Select, FC Select II, Frederick Orthopedic Rehabilitation, Freedom Management Services, GH General, GH General-San Antonio, GP Therapy, GR General-Scottsdale, GRSH ES, Georgia Physical Therapy, GlobalRehab, GlobalRehab Fort Worth, GlobalRehab San Antonio, Great Lakes Specialty HospitalHackley, Great Lakes Specialty HospitalOak, Gulf Breeze Physical Therapy, Hand Therapy Associates, Hospital Holdings Corporation, Hudson Physical Therapy Services, Indiana Rehabilitation Services, Indianapolis Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine, Integrity Physical Therapy, Intensiva Healthcare Corporation, Intensiva Hospital of Greater St. Louis, Jeffersontown Physical Therapy, Johnson Physical Therapy, Joyner Sportsmedicine Institute, KORT Rehabilitation at Home, Kentucky Orthopedic Rehabilitation, Kentucky Rehabilitation Services, Kessler Hudson County Rehabilitation, Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, Kessler Orthotic & Prosthetic Services, Kessler Professional Services, Kessler Rehab Centers, Kessler Rehabilitation Corporation, Kessler Rehabilitation Services, Keystone Rehabilitation Associates of Warren, Keystone Rehabilitation Systems, Keystone Rehabilitation Systems of McMurray, LTACH @ Riverside, Leesburg Sports, LifeBridge Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation, LifeSigns Management, Louisville Physical Therapy, Madison Rehabilitation Center, Matrix Healthcare Services, Matrix Rehabilitation, Matrix Rehabilitation-Delaware, Matrix Rehabilitation-Georgia, Matrix Rehabilitation-Ohio, Matrix Rehabilitation-South Carolina, Matrix Rehabilitation-Texas, Metro Rehabilitation Services, Morris Area Rehabilitation Association, National Healthcare Resources, North Dallas Physical Therapy Associates, Northstar Health Service, NovaCare Occupational Health Services, NovaCare Outpatient Rehabilitation, NovaCare Outpatient Rehabilitation East, NovaCare Rehabilitation of Ohio, OHC of Hawaii, OHR/Baystate, OHR/MMC, OHRH, OHRH ES, OMP Insurance Company, OSR Louisiana, OSR Property Ventures, Occspecialists Corp., Occupational Health + Rehabilitation LLC, Occupational Health Centers Of Kansas, Occupational Health Centers of Arkansas, Occupational Health Centers of California, Occupational Health Centers of Delaware, Occupational Health Centers of Georgia, Occupational Health Centers of Illinois, Occupational Health Centers of Louisiana, Occupational Health Centers of Michigan, Occupational Health Centers of Nebraska, Occupational Health Centers of New Jersey, Occupational Health Centers of New York, Occupational Health Centers of North Carolina, Occupational Health Centers of Ohio, Occupational Health Centers of The Southwest, OnSite OccMed, Orthopaedic Services of Paducah, PHS Physical Therapy, PR Acquisition Corporation, PSHR Physical Therapy, PTSMA, Pacific Rehabilitation & Sports Medicine, Penn State Hershey Rehabilitation, Philadelphia Occupational Health, Physio at Hammonds Centre, PhysioKids, PhysioLink Corporation, Physiotherapy Associates, Physiotherapy Associates Holdings, Physiotherapy Associates NRH Rehab, Physiotherapy Associates Union Rehab, Physiotherapy Corporation, Physiotherapy-BMHI Holdings, Physiotherapy-BMI, Pinnacle Health Select Rehabilitation, Pro Active Therapy, Pro Active Therapy of North Carolina, Pro Active Therapy of South Carolina, Pro Active Therapy of Virginia, Professional Rehab Associates, Professional Therapeutic Services, Professional Therapy Systems, Progressive Therapy, R.S. Network, RCI (Michigan), RCI (WRS), RPN of NC, RUSHWINC Properties, Rebound Oklahoma, Regency Hospital Company, Regency Hospital Company of Macon, Regency Hospital Company of Meridian, Regency Hospital Company of South Atlanta, Regency Hospital Company of South Carolina, Regency Hospital of Atlanta, Regency Hospital of Columbus, Regency Hospital of Fort Worth, Regency Hospital of Fort Worth Holdings, Regency Hospital of Greenville, Regency Hospital of Jackson, Regency Hospital of Kansas City, Regency Hospital of Minneapolis, Regency Hospital of North Central Ohio, Regency Hospital of North Dallas Holdings, Regency Hospital of North Dallas II, Regency Hospital of Northwest Arkansas, Regency Hospital of Northwest Indiana, Regency Hospital of Portland, Regency Hospital of Rhode Island, Regency Hospital of Rockford, Regency Hospital of Southern Mississippi, Regency Hospital of Toledo, Regency Hospitals, Regency Management Company, Rehab Associates, Rehab Associates of Jackson Hospital, Rehab Colorado, Rehab Missouri, Rehab Provider Network of Colorado, Rehab Provider Network of New Mexico, Rehab Provider Network of North Carolina, Rehab Provider Network of South Carolina, Rehab Provider Network of Texas, Rehab Provider Network of Virginia, Rehab Provider NetworkEast I, Rehab Provider NetworkEast II, Rehab Provider NetworkIndiana, Rehab Provider NetworkMichigan, Rehab Provider NetworkNew Jersey, Rehab Provider NetworkOhio, Rehab Provider NetworkPennsylvania, Rehab Xcel, RehabClinics, RehabClinics (PTA), RehabClinics (SPT), Rehabilitation Center of Washington, Rehabilitation Consultants, Rehabilitation Hospital of Vancouver, Rehabilitation Institute of Denton, Rehabilitation Institute of North Texas, S.T.A.R.T., SLMC Finance Corporation, SMR Banyan Tree, SSM Select Rehab St. Louis, Saco Bay Orthopedic and Sports Physical Therapy, Select Air II, Select Employment Services, Select Hospital Investors, Select LifeCare Western Michigan, Select Medical International (US), Select Medical International Limited, Select Medical Property Ventures, Select Medical Rehabilitation Clinics, Select Medical of Kentucky, Select Medical of Maryland, Select Medical of New York, Select NovaCareKOP, Select NovaCarePBG, Select NovaCarePIT, Select Physical Therapy Holdings, Select Physical Therapy Network Services, Select Physical Therapy Orthopedic Services, Select Physical Therapy Texas Limited Partnership, Select Physical Therapy of Albuquerque, Select Physical Therapy of Chicago, Select Physical Therapy of Colorado Springs Limited Partnership, Select Physical Therapy of Connecticut Limited Partnership, Select Physical Therapy of Denver, Select Physical Therapy of Illinois Limited Partnership, Select Physical Therapy of Kendall, Select Physical Therapy of Las Vegas Limited Partnership, Select Physical Therapy of Lorain Limited Partnership, Select Physical Therapy of Louisville, Select Physical Therapy of Ohio Limited Partnership, Select Physical Therapy of Portola Valley Limited Partnership, Select Physical Therapy of Scottsdale Limited Partnership, Select Physical Therapy of St. Louis Limited Partnership, Select Physical Therapy of West Denver Limited Partnership, Select Provider Networks, Select Rehabilitation HospitalHershey, Select Software Ventures, Select Specialty Hospitals, Select Specialty HospitalAkron, Select Specialty HospitalAnn Arbor, Select Specialty HospitalArizona, Select Specialty HospitalAugusta, Select Specialty HospitalBeech Grove, Select Specialty HospitalBelhaven, Select Specialty HospitalBroward, Select Specialty HospitalCentral Pennsylvania, Select Specialty HospitalCharleston, Select Specialty HospitalCincinnati, Select Specialty HospitalCleveland, Select Specialty HospitalColorado Springs, Select Specialty HospitalColumbus, Select Specialty HospitalDallas, Select Specialty HospitalDanville, Select Specialty HospitalDaytona Beach, Select Specialty HospitalDenver, Select Specialty HospitalDes Moines, Select Specialty HospitalDurham, Select Specialty HospitalErie, Select Specialty HospitalEvansville, Select Specialty HospitalFlint, Select Specialty HospitalFort Smith, Select Specialty HospitalFort Wayne, Select Specialty HospitalGainesville, Select Specialty HospitalGreensboro, Select Specialty HospitalGrosse Pointe, Select Specialty HospitalGulf Coast, Select Specialty HospitalHouston, Select Specialty HospitalJackson, Select Specialty HospitalJohnstown, Select Specialty HospitalKalamazoo, Select Specialty HospitalKansas City, Select Specialty HospitalKnoxville, Select Specialty HospitalLaurel Highlands, Select Specialty HospitalLexington, Select Specialty HospitalLincoln, Select Specialty HospitalLittle Rock, Select Specialty HospitalLongview, Select Specialty HospitalMacomb County, Select Specialty HospitalMadison, Select Specialty HospitalMcKeesport, Select Specialty HospitalMemphis, Select Specialty HospitalMilwaukee, Select Specialty HospitalNashville, Select Specialty HospitalNorth Atlanta, Select Specialty HospitalNorth Knoxville, Select Specialty HospitalNortheast New Jersey, Select Specialty HospitalNortheast Ohio, Select Specialty HospitalNorthern Indiana, Select Specialty HospitalNorthern Kentucky, Select Specialty HospitalNorthwest Detroit, Select Specialty HospitalOklahoma City, Select Specialty HospitalOmaha, Select Specialty HospitalOrlando, Select Specialty HospitalOshkosh, Select Specialty HospitalPalm Beach, Select Specialty HospitalPanama City, Select Specialty HospitalPensacola, Select Specialty HospitalPhoenix, Select Specialty HospitalPittsburgh/UPMC, Select Specialty HospitalQuad Cities, Select Specialty HospitalSaginaw, Select Specialty HospitalSan Antonio, Select Specialty HospitalSavannah, Select Specialty HospitalSioux Falls, Select Specialty HospitalSouth Dallas, Select Specialty HospitalSpringfield, Select Specialty HospitalTallahassee, Select Specialty HospitalTopeka, Select Specialty HospitalTriCities, Select Specialty HospitalTulsa, Select Specialty HospitalTulsa/Midtown, Select Specialty HospitalWestern Michigan, Select Specialty HospitalWichita, Select Specialty HospitalWilmington, Select Specialty HospitalWinston-Salem, Select Specialty HospitalYoungstown, Select Specialty HospitalZanesville, Select SpecialtyDownriver, Select Subsidiaries, Select Synergos, Select Transport, Select Unit Management, SelectMark, SemperCare, Special Care Hospital, Sports Orthopedic Rehabilitation Services, St. Marys Medical Park Pharmacy, Susquehanna Physical Therapy Associates, Swanson Orthotic and Prosthetic Center, TJ Corporation I, The Parks Physical Therapy and Work Hardening Center, The Rehab Center, The Rehab Group, The Rehab Group-Murfreesboro, TheraWorks, Theraphysics Partners of Colorado, Theraphysics Partners of Texas, Therapy Associates of Martinsville, Therapy Centers of South Carolina, Therapy Centers of The Southwest I, TriHealth Rehabilitation, Trumbull P.T. Corp., U.S. HealthWorks, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Alaska, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Arizona, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Florida, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Georgia, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Illinois, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Indiana, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Kansas City, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Kentucky, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Maine, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Minnesota, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of New Jersey, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of North Carolina, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Ohio, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Pennsylvania, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Tennessee, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Texas, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Washington, U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group of Wisconsin, U.S. HealthWorks Provider Network of Colorado, U.S. HealthWorks of Colorado, U.S. HealthWorks of Illinois, U.S. HealthWorks of Indiana, U.S. HealthWorks of Kansas City, U.S. HealthWorks of Minnesota, U.S. HealthWorks of New Jersey, U.S. HealthWorks of North Carolina, U.S. HealthWorks of Pennsylvania, U.S. HealthWorks of Tennessee, U.S. HealthWorks of Washington, U.S. HealthWorks of Wisconsin, U.S. Medgroup, U.S. Medgroup Of Kansas, U.S. Medgroup of Arkansas, U.S. Medgroup of Delaware, U.S. Medgroup of Illinois, U.S. Medgroup of Massachusetts, U.S. Medgroup of Michigan, U.S. Medgroup of New Jersey, U.S. Medgroup of North Carolina, U.S. Medgroup of Ohio, U.S. Regional Occupational Health II, U.S. Regional Occupational Health II of NJ, USHW of California, USHW of Texas, Valor Healthcare, Victoria Healthcare, WWLTACH, West Gables Rehabilitation Hospital, and Wisconsin Prosthetics & Orthotics. The following companies are subsidiares of Barnes Group: AS Monterrey S. de R.L. de C.V., Adval Tech - Foboha Mold Making Business, Associated Spring (Tianjin) Company Ltd., Associated Spring (UK) Ltd., Associated Spring Asia Pte. Ltd., Associated Spring Corporation, Associated Spring Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Associated Spring Raymond (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Associated Spring Raymond GmbH, Associated Spring do Brasil Ltda., Barnes Airmotive Malaysia SND. BHD., Barnes Financing Delaware LLC, Barnes Group (Bermuda) Limited, Barnes Group (Delaware) LLC, Barnes Group (Germany) GmbH, Barnes Group (Scotland) Limited, Barnes Group (Thailand) Ltd., Barnes Group (U.K.) 2 Limited, Barnes Group (U.K.) Limited, Barnes Group Acquisition GmbH, Barnes Group Canada Corp., Barnes Group Finance Company (Bermuda) Limited, Barnes Group Finance Company (Delaware), Barnes Group Holding LLC, Barnes Group Luxembourg (No. 1) S.a r.l., Barnes Group Luxembourg (No. 2) S.a r.l., Barnes Group Spain S.R.L., Barnes Group Suisse Industries GmbH, Barnes Group Switzerland GmbH, Barnes Industrial Group India Private Limited, Barnes Korea Ltd., Barnes Molding Solutions (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., Blitz F16-34 GmbH, Curtis Industries, Curtiss Industries (U.K.) Limited, Di-Dro Manifold System Product Line, Euro Stock Springs & Components, Foboha (Germany) GmbH, Foboha Holding GmbH, Forward Industries LLC, GF Controls GmbH, Gammaflux, Gammaflux Controls Inc., Gimatic, Gimatic Automation Engineering (Changshu) Co. Ltd., Gimatic Automation India Pvt Ltd. , Gimatic Automation Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Gimatic Balkan d.o.o. Beograd Savski Venac, Gimatic Czech Republic s.r.o., Gimatic France S.a.r.l., Gimatic Japan Limited, Gimatic Korea Limited, Gimatic Nordic A.B., Gimatic Otomasyon Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Gimatic Polska sp. z o.o, Gimatic S.r.l., Gimatic Sisteme RO SRL, Gimatic Sistemi industrijska avtomatizacija d.o.o., Gimatic Spain S.L., Gimatic Vertrieb GmbH, Gimatrade S.r.l., Heinz Haenggi Gmbh Stanztechnik, Industrial Gas Springs, Industrial Gas Springs Group Holdings Limited, Industrial Gas Springs Inc., Industrial Gas Springs Limited, Kar Products, Kratz-Wilde Machine Co, MTM S.r.l., Manner Hong Kong Limited, Manner USA Inc., Orflam - Nitropush Product Line, Otto Manner, Otto Manner GmbH, Otto Manner Immobilien GmbH, Otto Manner Innovation GmbH, Premier Farnell - KENT Division, Priamus System Technologies, Priamus System Technologies GmbH, Priamus System Technologies LLC, Raymond Distribution-Mexico S.A. de C.V., Resortes Argentina S.A., Ressorts SPEC SAS, Seeger-Orbis GmbH & Co. OHG, Service Plus Distributors, Sign Holdings Limited, Spectrum Plastics Molding Resources, Stromsholmen AB, Synventive Acquisition B.V., Synventive Acquisition GmbH, Synventive Acquisition Inc., Synventive Acquisition UK Ltd., Synventive Acquisition Unlimited, Synventive B.V., Synventive Fertigungstechnik GmbH, Synventive Holding B.V., Synventive Holding Limited, Synventive Holding SAS, Synventive Molding Solutions, Synventive Molding Solutions (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Synventive Molding Solutions B.V., Synventive Molding Solutions Canada Inc., Synventive Molding Solutions Co. Ltd., Synventive Molding Solutions GmbH, Synventive Molding Solutions Inc., Synventive Molding Solutions JBJ Private Limited, Synventive Molding Solutions K.K., Synventive Molding Solutions LDA, Synventive Molding Solutions LLC, Synventive Molding Solutions LTDA., Synventive Molding Solutions Limited, Synventive Molding Solutions Pte Ltd., Synventive Molding Solutions SAS, Synventive Molding Solutions SL, Synventive Molding Solutions s.r.o., Synventive Parent Inc., Teledyne Fluid Systems, The Wallace Barnes Company, Thermoplay, Thermoplay Brasil Sistemas de Injecao Ltda, Thermoplay Deutschland GmbH, Thermoplay France S.a.r.l., Thermoplay Hot Runner Systems (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Thermoplay India Private Limited, Thermoplay Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Thermoplay S.p.A., Thermoplay U.K. Ltd., Toolcom Supplie, Windsor Airmotive Asia Pte. Ltd., and manner Japan Co. Ltd.. Israeli Peace Offers, Palestinian Rock Throwing Are M.I.A in Post Report | Main | Small Steps: Improved NY Times Language on Target of Hamas Rockets November 09, 2018 AP Avoids Calling Farrakhan Comments "Anti-Semitic" For some mysterious reason, the Associated Press felt Louis Farrakhan's mutterings on international relations deserve close attention. "Louis Farrakhan, in Iran, warns Trump a Mideast war possible," a Associated Press headline announced, as if the firebrand anti-Semite's views on Persian Gulf tensions are any more newsworthy than David Duke's overview of China's transportation infrastructure. The subject of the news article, though, wasn't the only thing funny about it. Here's how AP's anonymous author addressed Farrakhan's long history of anti-Semitism: The 85-year-old Farrakhan, long known for provocative comments widely considered anti-Semitic, criticized the economic sanctions leveled by Trump against Iran after America's pullout from the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. His "provocative" comments are "considered" anti-Semitic. Those comments include descriptions of Jews as "termites," as a "synagogue of Satan," and as responsible for "filth and degenerate behavior," the 9/11 attacks, and evil in general. They are as straightforwardly anti-Semitic as it gets. So did AP avoid straightforwardly describing Farrakhan's anti-Semitism as "anti-Semitic" due to some journalistic constraint a disciplined refusal to editorialize or even characterize? No. A look back at the archives proves the agency's journalists are certainly willing to pass such judgment, for example about David Horowitz who an AP reporter described as "known for anti-Muslim rhetoric." Not known for provocative comments considered anti-Muslim. Just anti-Muslim. If @AP's style allows them to decide whether rhetoric is "anti-something," there's absolutely no excuse to distance themselves from forthrightly & directly characterizing Farrakhan. Also, there's no excuse to give a damn about the bigot's IR musings. https://t.co/c5PAOfRf4l Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) November 8, 2018 Farrakhan is newsworthy. Not for his prognosticating about Iran, but because he is at the center of an ongoing controversy involving appointed leaders of the Women's March and their expressions of support for Farrakhan. It's particularly important, then, that AP get it right and be forthright. Posted by at November 9, 2018 04:03 PM Guidelines for posting This is a moderated blog. We will not post comments that include racism, bigotry, threats, or factually inaccurate material. Post a comment The following companies are subsidiares of Ashland Global: 565 Corporation, ASH GP INC., ASHLAND SPECIALTY CHEMICAL (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD., ASHLAND SPECIALTY CHEMICALS (MALAYSIA) SDN.BHD, Adams Drive Totowa L.L.C., Alera Property Holdings LLC, Alera Technologies Inc., Alix Technologies LLC, Aloe Vemera S.P.R de R.L. de C.V., Ash (Gibraltar) One Limited, Ash B CIS 1 Limited, Ash B CIS 2 Limited, Ash B1 Limited, Ash B2 Limited, Ash B3 Limited, Ash B4 Limited, Ash B5 Limited, Ash CIS Canada Corp., Ash CIS Canada Holdings B.V., Ash CIS GmbH, Ash Global Holding Three GmbH, Ash Global Holdings Two B.V., Ash Junior Global Holding One LLC, Ash Junior Global Holding Two LLC, Ash Swiss Holding Two GmbH, AshLux Three S.a r.l., AshOne C. V., Ashland (Australasia) Pty. Limited, Ashland (Changzhou) Advanced Chemical Co. Ltd., Ashland (Changzhou) Specialty Chemical Co. Ltd, Ashland (China) Holdings Co. Ltd., Ashland (Gibraltar) One Holding Inc., Ashland (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Ashland Argentina S.R.L., Ashland CZ s.r.o., Ashland Canada Corp./Corporation Ashland Canada, Ashland Canada Holdings B. V., Ashland Chemco Inc., Ashland Chemical De Mexico S.A. De C.V., Ashland Chemical Hispania S. L., Ashland Chemical Trading (Shanghai) Company Limited, Ashland Chemicals (Nanjing) Company Limited, Ashland Colombia S.A.S., Ashland Comercio de Especialidades Quimicas do Brasil Ltda., Ashland Danmark ApS, Ashland Eastern Markets LLC, Ashland Ethanol Inc., Ashland Finance Limited, Ashland Finland Oy, Ashland France SAS, Ashland Global Holdings One C.V., Ashland India Private Limited, Ashland Industria de Ingredientes do Brasil Ltda., Ashland Industries Deutschland GmbH, Ashland Industries Europe GmbH, Ashland Industries France SAS, Ashland Industries Italia S.r.l., Ashland Industries Nederland B.V., Ashland Industries UK Limited, Ashland International Holdings LLC, Ashland Italia S.r.l., Ashland Japan Ltd., Ashland Korea Limited, Ashland LLC, Ashland Licensing and Intellectual Property LLC, Ashland ME Holdings Inc., Ashland Mexico Holdings One LLC, Ashland Mexico Holdings Two LLC, Ashland Nigeria Exploration Unlimited, Ashland Oil (Nigeria) Company Unlimited, Ashland Oil Inc., Ashland Pacific Pty. Ltd., Ashland Participacoes Ltda., Ashland Pharmachem International Holdings LLC, Ashland Polimeros do Brasil S.A., Ashland Services B. V., Ashland Services Mexico S.A. de C.V., Ashland Singapore Pte. Ltd., Ashland Specialties Austria GmbH, Ashland Specialties Belgium BVBA, Ashland Specialties France S.a.r.l., Ashland Specialties Hispania S.L., Ashland Specialties Holding C.V., Ashland Specialties Ireland Limited, Ashland Specialties Poland Sp. z o.o., Ashland Specialties Sverige AB, Ashland Specialties UK Limited, Ashland Specialty Chemical Korea Co. Ltd., Ashland Specialty Ingredients G.P., Ashland Technologies GmbH, Ashland-Alaskan Limited, Ashland-Plasticos De Portugal Lda., Ashmont Insurance Company Inc., Ashprop Two LLC, Avoca LLC, Avoele S.A. de C.V., Belleville Realty Corp., Bluegrass Insurance Company Limited, CLTA LLC, CVG Capital III LLC, Carol Clifton Inc., Clevedon Sp. z o.o., Curtis Bay Insurance Co. Ltd, East Bay Realty Services Inc., Ever Success Overseas Limited, FRJ Inc., Fospur, Hercofina, Hercules, Hercules Holding BV BVBA, Hercules Holding II Limited, Hercules Hydrocarbon Holdings Inc., Hercules International Limited LLC, Hercules Investment ApS, Hercules Investments Netherlands B.V., Hercules Islands Corporation, Hercules LLC, Hercules Paper Holdings Inc., Hercules Trading (Shanghai) Company Limited, ISP (Belgium) International N. V., ISP Alginates Inc., ISP Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd, ISP Biochema Schwaben GmbH, ISP Canada Corp., ISP Capital LLC, ISP Chemco LLC, ISP Chemical Products LLC, ISP Chemicals LLC, ISP Environmental Services Inc., ISP France Holding SARL, ISP France Marketing SARL, ISP Freetown Fine Chemicals Inc., ISP Freight Services N. V., ISP Global Operations (Barbados) Inc., ISP Global Technologies Deutschland Unterstutzungskasse GmbH, ISP Global Technologies Inc., ISP Global Technologies LLC, ISP HC Limited, ISP Holdings (U.K.) Ltd., ISP Hungary Holdings Limited Liability Company, ISP International Corp., ISP Investments LLC, ISP Lima LLC, ISP Luxembourg Canada S.a.r.l., ISP Management Company Inc., ISP Marl GmbH, ISP Marl Holdings GmbH, ISP Microcaps (U.K.) Limited, ISP Pharma Systems LLC, ISP Real Estate Company Inc., ISP Singapore Holding LLC, ISP Technologies Inc., ISP Technologies LLC, International Specialty Holdings LLC, International Specialty Products, International Specialty Products (India) Private Limited, International Specialty Products Funding Corporation, International Specialty Products Inc., Jiangmen Ashland Chemicals Company Limited, Nanjing Clear Environment Protection, Northwest Coatings, Oil Can Henrys, PT Ashland Asia, PT ISP Chemicals Indonesia, Pakistan Gum Industries (Private) Limited, Pharmachem Laboratories, Pharmachem Laboratories LLC, Pharmachem Laboratories Utah LLC, Prince Street Paterson LLC, Progiven S.A.S., Proprietary Nutritionals LLC, Ralop S. de R.L. de C.V., Saudi Industrial Resins Co. Ltd. (Polyester), Shanghai Ashland Industrial Trading Co. Ltd., St Croix Petrochemical Corp, Taiwan Ashland Co. Ltd., Techwax Limited, Vemera S. de R.L. de C.V., and WSP LLC. The following companies are subsidiares of Avery Dennison: ADC PHILIPPINES INC., ADESPAN S.R.L., ADHIPRESS BANGLADESH LTD., AVERY CORP., AVERY DE MEXICO SRL DE CV, AVERY DENNISON (ASIA) HOLDINGS LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (CHANGZHOU) FILMS TECHNOLOGY CO. LTD, AVERY DENNISON (CHINA) COMPANY LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (FUZHOU) CONVERTED PRODUCTS LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (GUANGZHOU) CO. LTD., AVERY DENNISON (GUANGZHOU) CONVERTED PRODUCTS LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (GUANGZHOU) INTELLIGENT LABELS CO. LTD., AVERY DENNISON (HONG KONG) LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (INDIA) PRIVATE LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (IRELAND) LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (KENYA) PRIVATE LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (KUNSHAN) COMPANY LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (MALAYSIA) SDN. BHD., AVERY DENNISON (QINGDAO) CONVERTED PRODUCTS LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (SUZHOU) CO. LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON (THAILAND) LTD., AVERY DENNISON (VIETNAM) LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON AUSTRALIA GROUP HOLDINGS PTY LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON AUSTRALIA INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS PTY LTD., AVERY DENNISON AUSTRALIA PTY LTD., AVERY DENNISON BELGIE BVBA, AVERY DENNISON BELGIUM MANAGEMENT SERVICES SPRL, AVERY DENNISON BENELUX BVBA, AVERY DENNISON BV, AVERY DENNISON C.A., AVERY DENNISON CANADA CORPORATION, AVERY DENNISON CENTRAL EUROPE GMBH, AVERY DENNISON CHILE S.A., AVERY DENNISON COLOMBIA S. A. S., AVERY DENNISON COMMERCIAL EL SALVADOR S.A. DE C.V., AVERY DENNISON CONVERTED PRODUCTS DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., AVERY DENNISON CONVERTED PRODUCTS EL SALVADOR S. A. DE C. V., AVERY DENNISON DE ARGENTINA S.R.L., AVERY DENNISON DO BRASIL LTDA., AVERY DENNISON DOMINICAN REPUBLIC S.R.L., AVERY DENNISON EGYPT LLC, AVERY DENNISON ETIKET TICARET LIMITED SIRKETI, AVERY DENNISON EUROPE HOLDING (DEUTSCHLAND) GMBH & CO KG, AVERY DENNISON FINANCE GERMANY GMBH, AVERY DENNISON G HOLDINGS I LLC, AVERY DENNISON G HOLDINGS III LLC, AVERY DENNISON G INVESTMENTS III LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON G INVESTMENTS V LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON GROUP DANMARK APS, AVERY DENNISON GROUP SINGAPORE PTE LTD, AVERY DENNISON GULF FZCO, AVERY DENNISON HOLDING & FINANCE THE NETHERLANDS BV, AVERY DENNISON HOLDING FRANCE, AVERY DENNISON HOLDING GMBH, AVERY DENNISON HOLDING LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON HOLDING LUXEMBOURG S. A. R. L., AVERY DENNISON HOLDINGS LLC, AVERY DENNISON HONG KONG B.V., AVERY DENNISON HONG KONG HOLDING I B.V., AVERY DENNISON IBERICA S.A., AVERY DENNISON INNOVATIONS LLC, AVERY DENNISON INTELLIGENT HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS LLC, AVERY DENNISON INTELLIGENT LABELS EUROPE S.R.L., AVERY DENNISON INTELLIGENT LABELS HK LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON INVESTMENT LUXEMBOURG II SARL, AVERY DENNISON INVESTMENTS LUXEMBOURG III SARL, AVERY DENNISON INVESTMENTS LUXEMBOURG IV SARL, AVERY DENNISON ISRAEL LTD., AVERY DENNISON ITALIA S.R.L., AVERY DENNISON JAPAN KK, AVERY DENNISON JAPAN MATERIALS COMPANY LTD., AVERY DENNISON KOREA LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON LABEL LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON LANKA (PRIVATE) LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON LUXEMBOURG S.A.R.L., AVERY DENNISON LUXEMBOURG SALES SARL, AVERY DENNISON MANAGEMENT GMBH, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS BELGIUM SPRL, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS EUROPE B.V., AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS EUROPE GMBH, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS FRANCE S.A.R.L., AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS GMBH, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS IRELAND LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS NEDERLAND BV, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS NEW ZEALAND LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS PTY LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS ROM SRL, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS RUSSIA LLC, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS SALES BELGIUM SPRL, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS SALES FRANCE S. A. S., AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS SALES GERMANY GMBH, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS SDN BHD, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS U.K. LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON MATERIALS UKRAINE LLC, AVERY DENNISON MAURITIUS LTD., AVERY DENNISON MEDICAL LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON MOROCCO SARL, AVERY DENNISON NETHERLANDS INVESTMENT I BV, AVERY DENNISON NETHERLANDS INVESTMENT II B. V., AVERY DENNISON NETHERLANDS INVESTMENT III BV, AVERY DENNISON NETHERLANDS INVESTMENT VII B.V., AVERY DENNISON NETHERLANDS INVESTMENT VIII BV, AVERY DENNISON NETHERLANDS INVESTMENT X BV, AVERY DENNISON NETHERLANDS INVESTMENT XI COOPERATIEF U.A., AVERY DENNISON NETHERLANDS INVESTMENT XII BV, AVERY DENNISON NORDIC APS, AVERY DENNISON NTP A. S., AVERY DENNISON OFFICE PRODUCTS COMPANY, AVERY DENNISON OFFICE PRODUCTS HOLDINGS COMPANY, AVERY DENNISON OFFICE PRODUCTS MANUFACTURING U.K. LTD., AVERY DENNISON OVERSEAS CORPORATION, AVERY DENNISON PENSION TRUSTEE LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON PERU S. R. L., AVERY DENNISON POLSKA SP. Z O.O., AVERY DENNISON PRAHA SPOL. S R. O., AVERY DENNISON R.I.S. FRANCE S. A. S., AVERY DENNISON R.I.S. IBERIA S.L., AVERY DENNISON R.I.S. ITALIA S.R.L., AVERY DENNISON RBIS (CAMBODIA) CO. LTD, AVERY DENNISON RBIS (CAMBODIA) TRADING CO. LTD, AVERY DENNISON RBIS PTY LTD, AVERY DENNISON RETAIL INFORMATION SERVICES (PTY) LTD, AVERY DENNISON RETAIL INFORMATION SERVICES COLOMBIA S. A. S., AVERY DENNISON RETAIL INFORMATION SERVICES DE MEXICO S. A. DE C.V., AVERY DENNISON RETAIL INFORMATION SERVICES EL SALVADOR LTDA. DE C. V., AVERY DENNISON RETAIL INFORMATION SERVICES GUATEMALA S. A., AVERY DENNISON RETAIL INFORMATION SERVICES HONDURAS S. DE R.L., AVERY DENNISON RETAIL INFORMATION SERVICES LLC, AVERY DENNISON RETAIL INFORMATION SERVICES PERU SAC, AVERY DENNISON RETAIL INFORMATION SERVICES UK LTD., AVERY DENNISON RFID COMPANY, AVERY DENNISON RIS KOREA LTD., AVERY DENNISON RIS TAIWAN LTD., AVERY DENNISON RIS VIETNAM CO. LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON S.A. DE C.V., AVERY DENNISON S.R.L., AVERY DENNISON SCANDINAVIA AB, AVERY DENNISON SCANDINAVIA APS, AVERY DENNISON SECURITY PRINTING EUROPE APS, AVERY DENNISON SHARED SERVICES INC., AVERY DENNISON SINGAPORE (PTE) LTD., AVERY DENNISON SOUTH AFRICA (PROPRIETARY) LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON SUPPORT SERVICES, AVERY DENNISON SYSTEMES D'ETIQUETAGE FRANCE S.A.S., AVERY DENNISON TEKSTIL URUNLERI SANAYI VE TICARET LIMITED SIRKETI, AVERY DENNISON TRADING COMPANY LTD, AVERY DENNISON TREASURY MANAGEMENT BV, AVERY DENNISON U.K. II LIMITED, AVERY DENNISON U.K. LIMITED, AVERY GRAPHIC SYSTEMS INC., AVERY LLC, AVERY OFFICE PRODUCTS PUERTO RICO L.L.C., AVERY PACIFIC LLC, AVERY PROPERTIES PTY. LIMITED, AWESOME PROFITS LTD, BEST COURAGE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED, CHOICE CLEVER PROFITS LTD, CREATERO GMBH, DENNISON INTERNATIONAL COMPANY, DENNISON MANUFACTURING COMPANY, DM Label Group, Dunsirn Industries, EUSTON FINANCIAL LIMITED, EVERGREEN HOLDING SARL, EVERGREEN HOLDINGS V LLC, Finesse Medical, HANITA COATINGS (KUNSHAN) CO. LTD, HANITA COATINGS EUROPE B.V., HANITA COATINGS USA LLC, HANITA EUROPA GMBH, HEBEI YONGLE TAPE CO. LTD., Hanita Coatings, INK MILL LLC, JAC ASIA PACIFIC SDN BHD, JAC CARIBE C.S.Z., JAC DO BRASIL - LOCACAO DE EQUIPAMENTOS INDUSTRIAIS LTDA, JACKSTADT FRANCE S.N.C., JDC Solutions, JINTEX LIMITED, Jackstadt GmbH, L&E AMERICAS SERVICIOS S. A. DE C.V., L&E Packaging, MACTAC ASIA-PACIFIC SELF-ADHESIVE PRODUCTS PTE LTD, MACtac Europe S.A., MARKSTAR INTERNATIONAL LIMITED, MODERN MARK INTERNATIONAL LIMITED, NINGBO AVERY DENNISON SHENZHOU EMBELLISHMENT CO. LTD., P. T. PACIFIC LABEL INDONESIA, P. T. PAXAR INDONESIA, PAXAR (CHINA) LTD., PAXAR B.V., PAXAR BANGLADESH LIMITED, PAXAR CANADA CORPORATION, PAXAR CORPORATION, PAXAR DE EL SALVADOR S. A. DE C. V., PAXAR DE GUATEMALA S. A., PAXAR DE MEXICO S. A. DE C. V., PAXAR DO BRASIL LTDA, PAXAR FAR EAST LIMITED, PAXAR PACKAGING (GUANGZHOU) LTD., PAXAR PAKISTAN (PRIVATE) LIMITED, PLYMOUTH YONGLE TAPE (SHANGHAI) CO. LTD, PT AVERY DENNISON INDONESIA, PT AVERY DENNISON PACKAGING INDONESIA, RVL AMERICAS S DE R.L. DE C.V., RVL CENTRAL AMERICA S. A., RVL PACKAGING FAR EAST LIMITED, RVL Packaging Inc., RVL SERVICE S. DE R. L. DE C. V., Rinke Etiketten GmbH, SECURITY PRINTING DIVISION INC., SKILLFIELD INVESTMENTS LIMITED, Stimsonite Corp, TIGER EIGHT GROUP LIMITED, WORLDWIDE RISK INSURANCE INC., YONGLE TAPE LTD, and Yongle Tape Co. CARBO Ceramics Inc., a technology company, provides products and services to the oil and gas, industrial, and environmental markets worldwide. It operates through two segments, Oilfield and Industrial Technologies and Services, and Environmental Technologies and Services. The Oilfield and Industrial Technologies and Services segment manufactures and sells oilfield ceramic technology products, base ceramic proppants, and frac sand proppants to pressure pumping companies, and oil and gas operators for use in the hydraulic fracturing of natural gas and oil wells. It also provides technology to design, build, and optimize the Frac; sells fracture stimulation software under the FracPro brand; and offers fracture design and consulting services to oil and natural gas exploration and production companies under the StrataGen brand name. The Environmental Technologies and Services segment provides spill prevention, containment, and countermeasure systems for the oil and gas industry. CARBO Ceramics Inc. was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Read More CEMEX SAB de CV engages in the production, distribution, marketing, and sale of cement, ready-mix concrete, and aggregates. It operates though the following geographical segments: Mexico; United States; Europe; South, Central America and the Caribbean (SCA&C); Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA); and Others. The Europe segment covers United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, and Czech Republic, Poland and Latvia, as well as trading activities in Scandinavia, and Finland. The SCA&C segment includes Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Caribbean TCL, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Jamaica, the Caribbean, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The EMEA segment comprises of Egypt, Israel, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates. The Others segment refers to the cement trade maritime operations, information technology solutions business, and other corporate entities as well as other minor subsidiaries with different lines of business. The company was founded by Lorenzo Zambrano Gutierrez in 1906 and is headquartered in San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico. Read More TC Energy Corporation operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America. It operates through Canadian Natural Gas Pipelines, U.S. Natural Gas Pipelines, Mexico Natural Gas Pipelines, Liquids Pipelines, and Power and Storage segments. The company builds and operates 93,400 km network of natural gas pipelines, which transports natural gas from supply basins to local distribution companies, power generation plants, industrial facilities, interconnecting pipelines, LNG export terminals, and other businesses. It also has regulated natural gas storage facilities with a total working gas capacity of 535 billion cubic feet. In addition, it has approximately 4,900 km liquids pipeline system that connects Alberta crude oil supplies to refining markets in Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, and the U.S. Gulf Coast. Further, the company owns or has interests in seven power generation facilities with a combined capacity of approximately 4,200 megawatts that are powered by natural gas and nuclear fuel sources located in Alberta, Ontario, QuAbec, and New Brunswick; and owns and operates approximately 118 billion cubic feet of non-regulated natural gas storage capacity in Alberta. The company was formerly known as TransCanada Corporation and changed its name to TC Energy Corporation in May 2019. TC Energy Corporation was incorporated in 1951 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More C&J Energy Services, Inc. provides well construction, well completion, well support, and other complementary oilfield services and technologies to oil and gas exploration and production companies throughout the continental United States. It operates through Completion Services and Well Support Services segments. The Completion Services segment provides hydraulic fracturing; cased-hole solutions comprising cased-hole wireline, pumpdown, wireline logging, perforating, pressure pumping, well site make-up and pressure testing, and other complementary services; and well construction and intervention services, which include cementing, coiled tubing, rig services, fluids management, and other completion and well support services. This segment also engages in the engineering and production of various parts and components, such as perforating guns and addressable switches, which are used in the completion process. The Well Support Services segment offers rig services, such as providing workover and well servicing rigs that are primarily used for the routine repair and maintenance of oil and gas wells, re-drilling operations, and plugging and abandonment operations; fluids management services, including storage, transportation, and disposal services for fluids used in the drilling, completion, and workover of oil and gas wells; and other special well site services, such as fishing, contract labor, and tool rental services for the completion and workover of oil and gas wells. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen Coding GmbH, Allen France SAS, Alpine Automation Limited, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Holdings Inc., Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, Arylux Hungary Elektromechanikus Alkatreszgyarto Kft, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix (Suzhou) Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Holdings Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel (Ireland) Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Brooks Instrument LLC, Buell Industries Inc., CAPMAX Logistica S.A. de C.V., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS (Australia) Pty Limited, CS (Finance) Europe S.a.r.l., CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, CSMTS LLC, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures (Australasia) S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Coeur, Coeur (Shanghai) Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Dorbyl U.K. (Holdings) Limited, Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO (Holding) AG, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elga Skandinavian AS, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, FEG Investments L.L.C., Fasver, Filtertek, Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech (Taicang) Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart (Japan) K.K., Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart Foster Belgium, Hobart International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW (China) Investment Company Limited, ITW (Deutschland) GmbH, ITW (EU) Holdings Ltd., ITW (European) Finance Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance III Co. Ltd., ITW (Ningbo) Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Alpha Sarl, ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components (Chongqing) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components (Langfang) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium, ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS (UK) Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Contamination Control (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Delta Sarl, ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EAE B.V., ITW EAE Mexico S de RL de CV, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.A., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Finance Designated Activity Company, ITW Finance Europe S.A., ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW France Finance Alpha S.A.S., ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments II Inc., ITW Global Investments Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics (Thailand) Ltd., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Italy S.R.L. in liquidazione, ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France (Luxembourg) S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings UK, ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Holdings X Limited, ITW Holdings XI Limited, ITW Hungary Finance Beta Kft, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Finance Srl, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lombard Holdings Inc., ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW M FILMS II LLC, ITW MH LLC, ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Administration BV, ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Packaging Technology (China) Co. Ltd., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Plastic (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Philippines Holdings LLC, ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Spraytec, ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK Finance Zeta Ltd., ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Ideal Molding Technologies LLC, Illinois Tool Works (Chile) Limitada, Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Norway AS, Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron (Shanghai) Ltd., Instron (Thailand) Limited, Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Holdings Limited, Instron International Limited, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, International Leasing Company LLC, International Truss Systems Proprietary Limited, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kester Components (M) Sdn. Bhd., Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft S.L., Loma Systems, Loma Systems (Canada) Inc., Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, MOA Enterprises Inc, Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, Norden Olje AB, North Star Imaging Europe, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited (Enping), Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Penta Dnepr LLC, Penta Sever OOO, Penta Volga OOO, Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., Ramset Fasteners (Hong Kong) Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco (Nederland) B.V., Simco Japan Inc., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Hong Kong) Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Taiwan) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes BVBA, Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek (China) Limited, Teknek (Japan) Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V.B.A., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta (Guangzhou) Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Vesta Global Limited, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wynn Oil (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, ZF TRW (Engineered Fasteners and Components), and Zip-Pak International B.V.. Medtronic Plc is a medical technology company, which engages in the development, manufacture, distribution, and sale of device-based medical therapies and services. It operates through the following segments: Cardiac and Vascular Group; Minimally Invasive Technologies Group; Restorative Therapies Group; and Diabetes Group. The Cardiac and Vascular Group segment consists of products for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of cardiac rhythm disorders and cardiovascular disease. The Minimally Invasive Technologies Group segment focuses on respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, renal system, lungs, pelvic region, kidneys, and obesity diseases. The Restorative Therapies Group segment comprises of neurostimulation therapies and drug delivery systems for the treatment of chronic pain, as well as areas of the spine and brain, along with pelvic health and conditions of the ear, nose, and throat. The Diabetes Group segment offers insulin pumps, coninuous glucose monitoring systems, and insulin pump consumables. The company was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of CVS Health: @Credentials Inc., ACS ACQCO CORP., ADMINCO Inc., AE Fourteen Incorporated, AHP Holdings Inc., AMC - Tennessee LLC, APS Acquisition LLC, ASCO HealthCare LLC, ASI Wings LLC, AUSHC Holdings Inc., Accendo Insurance Company, Accordant Health Services L.L.C., Active Health Management Inc., Administrative Enterprises Inc., AdvancePCS SpecialtyRx LLC, AdvanceRx.com L.L.C., Advanced Care Scripts Inc., Aetna, Aetna (Beijing) Enterprise Management Services Co. Ltd., Aetna (Shanghai) Enterprise Services Co. Ltd., Aetna ACO Holdings Inc., Aetna Asset Advisors LLC, Aetna Behavioral Health LLC, Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health of California Inc., Aetna Better Health of Florida Inc., Aetna Better Health of Kansas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Michigan Inc., Aetna Better Health of Missouri LLC, Aetna Better Health of Nevada Inc., Aetna Better Health of North Carolina Inc., Aetna Better Health of Oklahoma Inc., Aetna Better Health of Texas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Washington Inc., Aetna Capital Management LLC, Aetna Card Solutions LLC, Aetna Corporate Services LLC, Aetna Dental Inc., Aetna Dental of California Inc., Aetna Financial Holdings LLC, Aetna Florida Inc., Aetna Global Benefits (Asia Pacific) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Bahamas) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Bermuda) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Europe) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Middle East) LLC, Aetna Global Benefits (Singapore) PTE. LTD., Aetna Global Benefits (UK) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits Limited (DIFC UAE), Aetna Global Holdings Limited, Aetna Health Holdings LLC, Aetna Health Inc., Aetna Health Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Aetna Health Insurance Company, Aetna Health Insurance Company of Europe DAC, Aetna Health Management LLC, Aetna Health and Life Insurance Company, Aetna Health of California Inc., Aetna Health of Iowa Inc., Aetna Health of Michigan Inc., Aetna Health of Ohio Inc., Aetna Health of Utah Inc., Aetna HealthAssurance Pennsylvania Inc., Aetna Holdco (UK) Limited, Aetna Holdings (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Inc., Aetna Insurance (Hong Kong) Limite, Aetna Insurance (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Aetna Insurance Company Limited, Aetna Integrated Informatics Inc., Aetna International Inc., Aetna Ireland Inc., Aetna Korea Ltd., Aetna Life & Casualty (Bermuda) Ltd., Aetna Life Assignment Company, Aetna Life Insurance Company, Aetna Medicaid Administrators LLC, Aetna Multi-Strategy 1099 Fund LLC, Aetna Network Services LLC, Aetna Partners Diversified Fund LLC, Aetna Pharmacy Management Services LLC, Aetna Resources LLC, Aetna Risk Assurance Company of Connecticut Inc., Aetna Rx Home Delivery LLC, Aetna Services (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Aetna Student Health Agency Inc., Aetna Ventures LLC, Aetna Workers Comp Access LLC, Alabama CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Alaska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, American Continental Insurance Company, American Drug Stores Delaware L.L.C., American Health Holding Inc., Arbor Drugs, Arizona CVS Stores L.L.C., Arkansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Badger Acquisition LLC, Badger Acquisition of Kentucky LLC, Badger Acquisition of Minnesota LLC, Badger Acquisition of Ohio LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Company, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Plan Inc., Beauty Holdings L.L.C., Best Care LTC Acquisition Company LLC, Busse CVS L.L.C., CCI Foreign S.a R.L. (R.C.S. Luxembourg), CCRx Holdings LLC, CCRx of North Carolina LLC, CHP Acquisition LLC, CP Acquisition LLC, CVS 2948 Henderson L.L.C., CVS 3268 Gilbert L.L.C., CVS 3745 Peoria L.L.C., CVS AL Distribution L.L.C., CVS AOC Corporation, CVS AOC Services L.L.C., CVS Albany L.L.C., CVS Bellmore Avenue L.L.C., CVS Care Concierge LLC, CVS Caremark Advanced Technology Pharmacy L.L.C., CVS Caremark Indemnity Ltd., CVS Caremark Part D Services L.L.C., CVS Caremark TN SUTA LLC, CVS Foreign Inc., CVS Gilbert 3272 L.L.C., CVS Health Solutions LLC, CVS Indiana L.L.C., CVS International L.L.C., CVS Kidney Care Advanced Technologies LLC, CVS Kidney Care Health Services LLC, CVS Kidney Care Home Dialysis LLC, CVS Kidney Care LLC, CVS Manchester NH L.L.C., CVS Media Exchange LLC, CVS Michigan L.L.C., CVS Orlando FL Distribution L.L.C., CVS PA Distribution L.L.C., CVS PR Center Inc., CVS Pharmacy Inc., CVS RS Arizona L.L.C., CVS Rx Services Inc., CVS SC Distribution L.L.C., CVS State Capital L.L.C., CVS TN Distribution L.L.C., CVS Transportation L.L.C., CVS Vero FL Distribution L.L.C., Campos Medical Pharmacy LLC, Canal Place LLC, Care Pharmaceutical Services LP, CareCenter Pharmacy L.L.C., Carefree Insurance Services Inc., Caremark Arizona Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Arizona Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark California Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Florida Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Florida Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Hawaii Mail Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Hawaii Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark IPA L.L.C., Caremark Illinois Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Illinois Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Irving Resource Center LLC, Caremark Kansas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark L.L.C., Caremark Logistics LLC, Caremark Louisiana Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Maryland Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Massachusetts Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Michigan Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Minnesota Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark New Jersey Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark North Carolina Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ohio Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Pennsylvania Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark PhC L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Redlands Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Repack LLC, Caremark Rx L.L.C., Caremark Tennessee Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ulysses Holding Corp., Caremark Washington Specialty Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Alabama Mail Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Health L.L.C., CaremarkPCS L.L.C., Central Rx Services LLC, Claims Administration Corp., Cofinity Inc., Compscript LLC, Connecticut CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Continental Life Insurance Company of Brentwood Tennessee, Continuing Care Rx LLC, Coram Alternate Site Services Inc., Coram Clinical Trials Inc., Coram Healthcare Corporation of Alabama, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater D.C., Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater New York, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Indiana, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Massachusetts, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Mississippi, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Nevada, Coram Healthcare Corporation of North Texas, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Northern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Utah, Coram LLC, Coram Rx LLC, Coram Specialty Infusion, Coram Specialty Infusion Services L.L.C., Coventry Consumer Advantage Inc., Coventry Health Care National Accounts Inc., Coventry Health Care National Network Inc., Coventry Health Care Workers Compensation Inc., Coventry Health Care of Illinois Inc., Coventry Health Care of Kansas Inc., Coventry Health Care of Missouri Inc., Coventry Health Care of Nebraska Inc., Coventry Health Care of Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Care of West Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Plan of Florida Inc., Coventry Health and Life Insurance Company, Coventry HealthCare Management Corporation, Coventry Prescription Management Services Inc., Coventry Rehabilitation Services Inc., Coventry Transplant Network Inc., D & R Pharmaceutical Services LLC, D.A.W. LLC, Delaware CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Delaware Physicians Care Incorporated, Digital eHealth LLC, District of Columbia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., E.T.B. INC., Echo Merger Sub Inc., Eckerd Corporation of Florida Inc., Employee Assistance Services LLC, Enloe Drugs LLC, Enterprise Patient Safety Organization LLC, EntrustRX, Evergreen Pharmaceutical LLC, Evergreen Pharmaceutical of California Inc., Express Pharmacy Services of PA L.L.C., FOCUS HealthCare Management Inc., First Health Group Corp., First Health Life & Health Insurance Company, First Script Network Services Inc., Florida Health Plan Administrators LLC, Garfield Beach CVS L.L.C., Generation Health L.L.C., Geneva Woods Health Services LLC, Geneva Woods LTC Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Management LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Alaska LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Washington LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Wyoming LLC, Geneva Woods Retail Pharmacy LLC, Georgia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., German Dobson CVS L.L.C., Goodhealth Worldwide (Asia) Limited, Goodhealth Worldwide (Global) Limited, Goodyear CVS L.L.C., Grand St. Paul CVS L.L.C., Grandview Pharmacy LLC, Group Dental Service Inc., Group Dental Service of Maryland Inc., Health Care Management Co. Ltd., Health Data & Management Solutions Inc., Health Re Inc., Health and Human Resource Center Inc., HealthAssuance Pennsylvania Inc., Healthagen LLC, Highland Park CVS L.L.C., Holiday CVS L.L.C., Home Care Pharmacy LLC, Home Pharmacy Services LLC, Hook-SupeRx L.L.C., Horizon Behavioral Services LLC, Idaho CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., IlliniCare Health, Indian Health Organisation Private Limited, Innovation Health Holdings LLC, Innovation Health Insurance Company, Innovation Health Plan Inc., Interlock Pharmacy Systems LLC, Iowa CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., JHC Acquisition LLC, Kansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Kentucky CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., LCPS Acquisition LLC, Langsam Health Services LLC, Lo-Med Prescription Services LLC, Lobos Acquisition LLC, Longs Drug Stores, Longs Drug Stores California L.L.C., Louisiana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., MHHP Acquisition Company LLC, MHNet Life and Health Insurance Company, MHNet Specialty Services LLC, MHNet of Florida Inc., Managed Care Coordinators Inc., Managed Healthcare LLC, Martin Health Services LLC, Maryland CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Med World Acquisition Corp., Medical Arts Health Care LLC, Medical Examinations of New York P.C., Melville Realty Company Inc., MemberHealth LLC, Mental Health Associates Inc., Mental Health Network of New York IPA Inc., Meritain Health Inc., Merwin Long Term Care LLC, MetraComp Inc., Minor Health Enterprise Co Ltd., MinuteClinic, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Alabama L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Arizona LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Florida LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Georgia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Hawaii L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Illinois LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Kentucky L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Louisiana L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maine L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maryland LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Massachusetts LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Nebraska L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Hampshire L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Mexico L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Ohio LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oklahoma LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oregon LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Pennsylvania LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Rhode Island LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of South Carolina L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Texas LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Utah L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Virginia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Washington LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Wisconsin L.L.C., MinuteClinic L.L.C., MinuteClinic Online Diagnostic Services LLC, MinuteClinic Physician Practice of Texas, MinuteClinic Telehealth Services LLC, Mississippi CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Missouri CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Montana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NCS Healthcare LLC, NCS Healthcare of Illinois LLC, NCS Healthcare of Iowa LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kansas LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kentucky Inc. (Oh, NCS Healthcare of Montana LLC, NCS Healthcare of New Mexico LLC, NCS Healthcare of Ohio LLC, NCS Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, NCS Healthcare of Tennessee LLC, NCS Healthcare of Wisconsin LLC, NIV Acquisition LLC, Navarro Discount Pharmacy, Nebraska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NeighborCare Holdings Inc., NeighborCare Inc., NeighborCare Pharmacy Services Inc., NeighborCare Services Corporation, NeighborCare of Indiana LLC, NeighborCare of Virginia LLC, New Jersey CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Niagara Re Inc., North Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., North Shore Pharmacy Services LLC, NovoLogix LLC, OCR Services LLC, Ocean Acquisition Sub L.L.C., Ohio CVS Stores L.L.C., Oklahoma CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Omnicare, Omnicare Holding Company, Omnicare Inc., Omnicare Indiana Partnership Holding Company LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of Pennsylvania East LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of Pennsylvania West LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of the Great Plains Holding LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy and Supply Services LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of Tennessee LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of the Midwest LLC, Omnicare Property Management LLC, Omnicare of Nebraska LLC, Omnicare of Nevada LLC, Omnicare of New York LLC, Oregon CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., PE Holdings LLC, PHPSNE Parent Corporation, PP Acquisition Company LLC, PRN Pharmaceutical Services LP, PT Aetna Management Consulting, Pamplona Saude e Beleza LTDA, Part D Holding Company L.L.C., PayFlex Holdings Inc., PayFlex Systems USA Inc., Pennsylvania CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Performax Inc., Pharmacy Associates of Glenn Falls LLC, Pharmacy Consultants LLC, Phoenix Data Solutions LLC, Precision Benefit Services Inc., Prime Net Inc., ProCare Pharmacy Direct L.L.C., ProCare Pharmacy L.L.C., Prodigy Health Group Inc., Professional Risk Management Inc., Pt. Aetna Global Benefits Indonesia, Puerto Rico CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Red Oak Sourcing LLC, Resources for Living LLC, Rhode Island CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Roeschens Healthcare LLC, RxAmerica, Schaller Anderson Medical Administrators Incorporated, Scrip World LLC, Sheffield Avenue CVS L.L.C., Shore Pharmaceutical Providers LLC, Silverscript Insurance Company, Soma Intimates, South Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., South Wabash CVS L.L.C., Specialized Pharmacy Services LLC, Spinnaker Bidco Limited, Spinnaker Topco Limited, Stadtlander Drug Company, Stadtlander Pharmacy, Sterling Healthcare Services LLC, Superior Care Pharmacy LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Administrative Services LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, T2 Medical Inc., TCPI Acquisition LLC, TargetPharmacy, Tennessee CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Company, Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Texas Health + Aetna Health Plan Inc., The Vasquez Group Inc., Thomas Phoenix CVS L.L.C., Three Forks Apothecary LLC, U.S Healthcare Holdings LLC, U.S. Healthcare Properties Inc., UAC Holding Inc., UC Acquisition LLC, UNI-Care Health Services of Maine LLC, Universal American - Medicare Part D Business, Utah CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., VAPS Acquisition Company LLC, Value Health Care Services LLC, Vermont CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virtual Home Healthcare L.L.C., Warm Springs Road CVS L.L.C., Washington CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Washington Lamb CVS L.L.C., Weber Medical Systems LLC, Wellpartner LLC, West Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Westhaven Services Co LLC, Williamson Drug Company LLC, Wisconsin CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Woodward Detroit CVS L.L.C., Work and Family Benefits Inc., ZS Acquisition Company LLC, Zinc Health Services LLC, Zinc Health Ventures LLC, bSwift LLC, and iTriage LLC. The Undead Archives I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world. The following companies are subsidiares of Crown: Adularia Inversiones 2010 S.L., Angleboard Sweden AB, Bates Cargo-Pak ApS, Butimove, CMB Machinery and Technology (Shanghai) Co Ltd, CROWN AP (Thailand) Company Limited, CROWN Aerosols & Promotional Nederland, CROWN Aerosols Italia Srl, CROWN Aerosols Nederland BV, CROWN Aerosols UK Limited, CROWN Americas LLC, CROWN Arabia Can Company Ltd, CROWN Asia Pacific Holdings Pte. Ltd., CROWN Asia Pacific Investments (T) Limited, CROWN Bevcan Espana S.L., CROWN Bevcan France SAS, CROWN Bevcan Slovakia s.r.o., CROWN Bevcan Turkiye Ambalaj Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, CROWN Bevcan and Closures (Thailand) Company Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans (Cambodia) Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans (Dong Nai) Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Beijing Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Changchun Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Danang Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Hangzhou Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Hanoi Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Heshan Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Hong Kong Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Huizhou Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Malaysia Sdn Bhd, CROWN Beverage Cans Nanning Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Putian Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Saigon Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Shanghai Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Sihanoukville Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Singapore Pte. Ltd., CROWN Beverage Cans Ziyang Limited, CROWN Beverage Packaging LLC, CROWN Beverage Packaging Puerto Rico Inc., CROWN Cans Ghana Limited, CROWN China Holdings (Hong Kong) Limited, CROWN Commercial Belgium BVBA, CROWN Commercial France SAS, CROWN Commercial Germany GmbH & Co. KG, CROWN Commercial Hungary Kft, CROWN Commercial Netherlands B.V., CROWN Commercial Vermogensverwaltung GmbH, CROWN Cork & Seal USA Inc., CROWN Embalagens Metalicas da Amazonia S.A., CROWN Emballage France SAS, CROWN Emirates Company Limited, CROWN Envases Mexico S.A. de C.V., CROWN Famosa S.A. de C.V., CROWN Food Packaging (Thailand) Public Company Limited, CROWN Foodcan (Hat Yai) Company Limited, CROWN Foodcan (Nakhon Pathom) Company Limited, CROWN Foodcan Germany GmbH, CROWN Foodcan GmbH, CROWN Imballaggi Italia Srl, CROWN Imgallaggi Italia Srl, CROWN Italy Finance srl, CROWN Khmer Beverage Cans Limited, CROWN Maghreb Can, CROWN Magyarorszag Csomagoloipari KFT, CROWN Metal Packaging Canada Inc., CROWN Metal Packaging Canada LP, CROWN Middle East Can Co. Ltd., CROWN Packaging (Barbados) Limited, CROWN Packaging Holdings LLC, CROWN Packaging Investment (H.K.) Limited, CROWN Packaging Ireland Ltd, CROWN Packaging Jamaica Limited, CROWN Packaging Polska Sp.z.o.o., CROWN Packaging Technology Inc., CROWN Packaging Trinidad Limited, CROWN Packaging UK Limited, CROWN Promotional Packaging UK Ltd, CROWN SIEM, CROWN Senegal, CROWN Societe Malgache d'Emballages Metalliques, CROWN Speciality Packaging BV, CROWN Speciality Packaging Investment Pte. Ltd., CROWN Specialty Packaging UK Ltd, CROWN TCP Beverage Cans Company Limited, CROWN Verpakking Belgie NV, CROWN Verpakking Nederland B.V., Caretex Asia Ltd., CarnaudMetalbox Engineering Ltd, CarnaudMetalbox Food South Africa (Pty) Limited, CarnaudMetalbox Group UK Limited, CarnaudMetalbox Overeseas Limited, CarnaudMetalbox Overseas Limited, Cierres Hermeticos S.A. DE C.V., Constar International, Crown Americas Capital Corp., Crown Americas Capital Corp. II, Crown Americas Capital Corp. III, Crown Americas Capital Corp. IV, Crown Americas Capital Corp. V, Crown Americas Capital Corp. VI, Crown Brasil Holdings Ltda., Crown Canadian Holdings ULC, Crown Closures Spain S.L., Crown Colombiana S.A., Crown Comercial de Envases S.L., Crown Commercial Italy Srl, Crown Commercial Polska Sp. z.o.o., Crown Consultants Inc., Crown Cork & Seal Company (DE) LLC, Crown Cork & Seal Company Inc., Crown Cork & Seal Deutschland Holdings GmbH, Crown Cork & Seal Receivables (DE) Corporation, Crown Cork & Seal de Portugal Embalagens S.A., Crown Cork Kuban, Crown Cork and Seal Receivables II LLC, Crown Developpement SAS, Crown European Holdings, Crown Food Espana S.A.U., Crown Foodcan Turkey Ambalaj Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Crown Hellas Can Packaging SA, Crown Heshan Trading Company Limited, Crown Holdings Italia Srl, Crown Holdings Spain S.L., Crown International Holdings B.V., Crown International Holdings Inc., Crown Luxembourg Holdings, Crown Mexican Holdings S. de R.L. de C.V., Crown Overseas Investments B.V., Crown Packaging Commercial UK Limited, Crown Packaging Distribution UK Limited, Crown Packaging European Division GmbH, Crown Packaging European Division Services SAS, Crown Packaging European Holdings GmbH, Crown Packaging Lux I S.a.r.l., Crown Packaging Lux II S.a.r.l., Crown Packaging Lux III S.a.r.l., Crown Packaging Manufacturing UK Limited, Crown Packaging Maroc, Crown Receivables III, Crown Services Iberia, Crown UK Holdings Limited, Crownway Insurance Company, Dacro B.V., EMPAQUE, Fabricas Monterrey S.A. de C.V., Form Koruyucu Ambalaj Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Foshan Continental Can Co. Limited, Foshan Crown Easy-Opening End Co. Limited, Glass & Silice S.A. DE C.V., Globoplastt s.r.o., Gunther S.A.S., Haloila Bulgaria EOOD, Interstrap B.V., Josef Kihlberg AB, Kiwiplan GmbH, Kiwiplan Inc, Lachenmeier ApS, Liljendals Bruk AB, Litec France S.A.S., Mezger Heftsysteme GmbH, Mima Films S.a.r.l., Mima Films Sprl, Mima Packaging Systems S.A.S., Mivisa, Nordic S.A.S., Norsk Signode AS, Oy M. Haloila AB, PT CROWN Beverage Cans Indonesia, Package Design and Manufacturing, Prolatamex S.A. DE C.V., Quandel Verpackungs- und Foerdertechnik GmbH, SMB Schwede Maschinenbau GmbH, SMP Schwede Maschinenbau Weischlitz GmbH, SPG Denmark, SPG France Holdings SAS, SPG Germany Service Management GmbH, SPG Industrial Packaging S.a.r.l, SPG Netherlands B.V., SPG Packaging Ireland Limited, SPG Packaging Systems GmbH, SPG Packaging UK Ltd, Scybele S.A.S., Shippers Europe S.p.r.l., Signode BVBA, Signode Brasileira Ltda, Signode Hong Kong Limited, Signode Industrial Group, Signode Industrial Group AB, Signode Industrial Group Colombia S.A.S., Signode Industrial Group GmbH, Signode Industrial Group Holdings Lux S.a.r.l., Signode Industrial Group Holdings US Inc, Signode Industrial Group Lux S.A., Signode Industrial Group Mexico, Signode Industrial Group Sweden AB, Signode International Holdings LLC, Signode International IP Holdings LLC, Signode International Investment LLC, Signode Kabushiki Kaisha, Signode Korea Inc, Signode NZ Limited, Signode Netherlands B.V., Signode Packaging (Qingdao) Co., Signode Packaging (Shanghai) Co., Signode Packaging Espana S.L., Signode Packaging Group (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Signode Packaging Group Australia Pty Ltd, Signode Packaging Group Canada ULC, Signode Packaging Group NZ, Signode Packaging Systems Limited, Signode Pickling Holding LLC, Signode Polska sp. Z.o.o., Signode Singapore Pte. Ltd., Signode Sweden Holdings AB, Signode System GmbH, Signode System Packaging GmbH & Co. KG, Signode Systems (Thailand) Ltd., Signode US IP Holdings LLC, Silice De Veracruz S.A. DE C. V., Silice Del Istmo S.A. DE C.V., Silices De Veracruz, Societe Civile Immobiliere Rousseau-Ivry, Societe Civile Immobiliere des Baquets, Societe de Participations CarnaudMetalbox, Stopak India Pvt. Ltd, Strapex Austria GmbH, Strapex Embalagem L.d.a., Strapex Holdings Limited, Strapex S.A.S., Strapex Srl, Superior Investments Holdings Pte. Ltd., Superior Multi-Packaging Limited, TopFrame LLC, V.A.C. B.V., Vichisa S.A. de C.V., and Warehouse Automation Iberia S.L.. iShares MSCI EAFE ETF's stock was trading at $56.05 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EFA shares have increased by 43.3% and is now trading at $80.34. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of Sherwin-Williams: Acquire Sourcing LLC, CTS National Corporation, Comex North America Inc., Compania Sherwin-Williams S.A. de C.V., Contract Transportation Systems Co., Dongguan Lilly Paint Industries Ltd, Duron, EPS (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., EPS B.V., Geocel Holdings, Geocel Limited, Guangdong Valspar Paints Manufacturing Co Ltd., Inver East Med S.A., Inver France SAS, Inver GmbH, Inver Industrial Coating SRL, Inver Polska Spoka Z O.O, Inver Spa, Invercolor Bologna Srl, Invercolor Ltd, Invercolor Roma Srl, Invercolor Torino Srl, Invercolor Toscana Srl, Isocoat Tintas e Vernizes Ltda, Isva Vernici Srl, Leighs Paints, M.A. Bruder & Sons, Omega Specialty Products & Services LLC, Oy Sherwin-Williams Finland Ab, PT Sherwin-Williams Indonesia, PT Valspar Indonesia, Paint Sundry Brands, Pinturas Condor S.A., Pinturas Industriales S.A., Piton Paints Limited, Plasti-Kote Co. Inc., Plasti-kote Limited, Productos Quimicos y Pinturas S.A. de C.V., Quest Automotive Products UK Limited, Quetzal Pinturas S.A. de C.V., Ronseal (Ireland) Limited, SWIMC LLC, SWIPCO Sherwin Williams do Brasil Propriedade Intelectual Ltda, Sherwin Williams Colombia S.A.S., Sherwin-Williams (Australia) Pty. Ltd., Sherwin-Williams (Belize) Limited, Sherwin-Williams (Caribbean) N.V., Sherwin-Williams (Ireland) Limited, Sherwin-Williams (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Sherwin-Williams (Nantong) Coatings Technology Co. Ltd., Sherwin-Williams (Nantong) Company Limited, Sherwin-Williams (S) Pte. Ltd., Sherwin-Williams (Shanghai) Limited, Sherwin-Williams (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Sherwin-Williams (Vietnam) Limited, Sherwin-Williams (West Indies) Limited, Sherwin-Williams Argentina I.y C.S.A., Sherwin-Williams Aruba VBA, Sherwin-Williams Automotive Mexico S.de R.L.de C.V., Sherwin-Williams Balkan S.R.L., Sherwin-Williams Bel Unitary Enterprise, Sherwin-Williams Benelux NV, Sherwin-Williams Canada Inc., Sherwin-Williams Cayman Islands Limited, Sherwin-Williams Chile S.A., Sherwin-Williams Coatings India Private Limited, Sherwin-Williams Coatings S.a r.l., Sherwin-Williams Czech Republic spol. s r.o, Sherwin-Williams Denmark A/S, Sherwin-Williams Deutschland GmbH, Sherwin-Williams Diversified Brands Limited, Sherwin-Williams France Finishes SAS, Sherwin-Williams Italy S.r.l., Sherwin-Williams Norway AS, Sherwin-Williams Paints Limited Liability Company, Sherwin-Williams Peru S.R.L., Sherwin-Williams Pinturas de Venezuela S.A., Sherwin-Williams Poland Sp. z o.o, Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine Coatings, Sherwin-Williams Realty Holdings Inc., Sherwin-Williams Services (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Sherwin-Williams Spain Coatings S.L., Sherwin-Williams Sweden AB, Sherwin-Williams UK Coatings Limited, Sherwin-Williams do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., Spanyc Paints Joint Stock Company, Syntema I Vaggeryd AB, Taiwan Valspar Co. Ltd., The Sherwin-Williams Acceptance Corporation, The Sherwin-Williams Headquarters Company, The Sherwin-Williams Manufacturing Company, The Sherwin-Williams US Licensing Company, The Valspar (Asia) Corporation Limited, The Valspar (Australia) Corporation Pty. Ltd., The Valspar (Finland) Corporation Oy, The Valspar (France) Corporation S.A.S., The Valspar (France) Research Corporation SAS, The Valspar (Malaysia) Corporation Sdn Bhd, The Valspar (Nantes) Corporation S.A.S., The Valspar (Singapore) Corporation Pte. Ltd, The Valspar (South Africa) Corporation (Pty) Ltd, The Valspar (Spain) Corporation S.R.L., The Valspar (Switzerland) Corporation AG, The Valspar (Thailand) Corporation Ltd., The Valspar (UK) Corporation Limited, The Valspar (Vietnam) Corporation Ltd., The Valspar Corporation, The Valspar Corporation Limitada, UAB Sherwin-Williams Baltic, Valspar (India) Coatings Corporation Private Limited, Valspar (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Valspar (Uruguay) Corporation S.A., Valspar (WPC) Pty Ltd, Valspar Aries Coatings S. de R.L. de C.V., Valspar Automotive (UK) Corporation Limited, Valspar Automotive Australia Pty Limited, Valspar B.V., Valspar Coatings (Guangdong) Co. Ltd., Valspar Coatings (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Valspar Coatings (Tianjin) Co. Ltd, Valspar D.o.o Beograd, Valspar Industries (Ireland) Ltd., Valspar Industries (Italy) S.r.l., Valspar Industries GmbH, Valspar LLC, Valspar Mexicana S.A. de C.V., Valspar Paint (Australia) Pty Ltd, Valspar Paint (NZ) Limited, Valspar Powder Coatings Limited, Valspar Rock Company Limited (Japan), Valspar Specialty Paints LLC, and ZAO Sherwin-Williams. Rogers Communications Inc. operates as a communications and media company in Canada. It operates through three segments: Wireless, Cable, and Media. The company offers mobile Internet access, wireless voice and enhanced voice, device and accessory financing, wireless home phone, device protection, text messaging, e-mail, global voice and data roaming, bridging landline, machine-to-machine and Internet of Things solutions, and advanced wireless solutions for businesses, as well as device delivery services; and postpaid and prepaid services under the Rogers, Fido, and chatr brands to approximately 10.9 million subscribers. It also provides Internet and WiFi services; smart home monitoring services, such as monitoring, security, automation, energy efficiency, and smart control through a smartphone app. In addition, the company offers local and network TV; on-demand television; cloud-based digital video recorders; voice-activated remote controls, and integrated apps; personal video recorders; linear and time-shifted programming; digital specialty channels; 4K television programming; and televised content on smartphones, tablets, and personal computers, as well as operates Ignite TV and Ignite TV app. Further, it provides residential and small business local telephony services; calling features, such as voicemail, call waiting, and long distance; voice, data networking, Internet protocol, and Ethernet services; private networking, Internet, IP voice, and cloud solutions; optical wave and multi-protocol label switching services; IT and network technologies; and cable access network services. The company also owns Toronto Blue Jays and the Rogers Centre event venue; and operates Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet World, Citytv, OMNI, FX (Canada), FXX (Canada), and OLN television networks, as well as 55 AM and FM radio stations. Rogers Communications Inc. was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Read More iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF's stock was trading at $123.88 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, LQD shares have increased by 7.4% and is now trading at $133.08. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of Cigna: Accredo Health Group, Accredo Health Incorporated, Alegis Care, Allegiance Life & Health Insurance Company, Allegiance Re, American Retirement Life Insurance Company, Benefits Management Corp., Bravo Health Mid-Atlantic, Bravo Health Pennsylvania, Brighter, CareAllies, CareCore National LLC, Central Reserve Life Insurance Company, Ceres Sales of Ohio, Choicelinx, Cigna & CMB Life Insurance Company Limited, Cigna Apac Holdings Limited, Cigna Arbor Life Insurance Company, Cigna Beechwood Holdings, Cigna Behavioral Health, Cigna Behavioral Health of California, Cigna Behavioral Health of Texas, Cigna Bellevue Alpha, Cigna Benefits Financing, Cigna Brokerage & Marketing (Thailand) Limited, Cigna Cedar Holdings, Cigna Chestnut Holdings, Cigna Corporate Services, Cigna Data Services (Shanghai) Company Limited, Cigna Dental Health, Cigna Dental Health Plan of Arizona, Cigna Dental Health of California, Cigna Dental Health of Colorado, Cigna Dental Health of Delaware, Cigna Dental Health of Florida, Cigna Dental Health of Illinois, Cigna Dental Health of Kansas, Cigna Dental Health of Kentucky, Cigna Dental Health of Maryland, Cigna Dental Health of Missouri, Cigna Dental Health of New Jersey, Cigna Dental Health of North Carolina, Cigna Dental Health of Ohio, Cigna Dental Health of Pennsylvania, Cigna Dental Health of Texas, Cigna Dental Health of Virginia, Cigna Elmwood Holdings, Cigna Europe Insurance Company S.A.-N.V., Cigna European Services (UK) Limited, Cigna Finans Emeklilik ve Hayat A.S., Cigna Global Holdings, Cigna Global Insurance Company Limited, Cigna Global Reinsurance Company, Cigna Global Wellbeing Holdings Limited, Cigna Global Wellbeing Solutions Limited, Cigna HLA Technology Services Company Limited, Cigna Health Corporation, Cigna Health Management, Cigna Health Solutions India Pvt. Ltd., Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Cigna HealthSpring, Cigna Healthcare Holdings, Cigna Healthcare Mid-Atlantic, Cigna Healthcare of Arizona, Cigna Healthcare of California, Cigna Healthcare of Colorado, Cigna Healthcare of Connecticut, Cigna Healthcare of Florida, Cigna Healthcare of Georgia, Cigna Healthcare of Illinois, Cigna Healthcare of Indiana, Cigna Healthcare of Maine, Cigna Healthcare of Massachusetts, Cigna Healthcare of New Hampshire, Cigna Healthcare of New Jersey, Cigna Healthcare of North Carolina, Cigna Healthcare of Pennsylvania, Cigna Healthcare of South Carolina, Cigna Healthcare of St. Louis, Cigna Healthcare of Tennessee, Cigna Healthcare of Texas, Cigna Healthcare of Utah, Cigna Holding Company, Cigna Holdings, Cigna Holdings Overseas, Cigna Hong Kong Holdings Company Limited, Cigna Insurance Middle East S.A., Cigna Insurance Public Company Limited, Cigna Insurance Services (Europe) Limited, Cigna Intellectual Property, Cigna International Corporation, Cigna International Health Services, Cigna International Health Services BVBA, Cigna International Health Services Kenya Limited, Cigna International Health Services SDN BHD, Cigna International Services, Cigna International Services Australia Pty. Ltd., Cigna Investment Group, Cigna Investments, Cigna Korean Chusik Hoesa, Cigna Laurel Holdings, Cigna Legal Protection UK Ltd., Cigna Life Insurance Company of Canada, Cigna Life Insurance Company of Europe S.A.- N.V., Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York, Cigna Life Insurance New Zealand Limited, Cigna Linden Holdings, Cigna Magnolia Holdings, Cigna Myrtle Holdings, Cigna Nederland Alpha Cooperatief U.A., Cigna Nederland Beta B.V., Cigna Nederland Gamma B.V., Cigna Oak Holdings, Cigna Palmetto Holdings, Cigna Poplar Holdings, Cigna Sequoia Holdings, Cigna Spruce Holdings GmbH, Cigna Taiwan Life Assurance Company Limited, Cigna Walnut Holdings, Cigna Willow Holdings, Cigna Worldwide General Insurance Company Limited, Cigna Worldwide Insurance Company, Cigna Worldwide Life Insurance Company Limited, CignaTTK Health Insurance Company Limited, Connecticut General Corporation, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, CuraScript Inc., E-2 CIGNA CORPORATION - 2018 Form 10-K, ESI Mail Pharmacy Service Inc., ESI Partnership, ESI Resources Inc., Express Scripts Holding Company, Express Scripts Inc., Express Scripts Pharmaceutical LLC, Express Scripts Pharmacy Inc., Express Scripts Strategic Development Inc., FirstAssist Administration Limited, Firstassist Insurance Services Ltd, Great-West Healthcare of Illinois, Grown Ups New Zealand Limited, Health-Lynx LLC, HealthSource, HealthSpring, HealthSpring Life & Health Insurance Company, HealthSpring of Alabama, HealthSpring of Florida, HealthSpring of Tennessee, KDM Thailand Limited, LINA Financial Services, LINA Life Insurance Company of Korea, Life Insurance Company of North America, Loyal American Life Insurance Company, MCC Independent Practice Association of New York, Manipal Cigna Health Insurance Company Limited, Medco Containment Life Insurance Company, Medco Health Services Inc., Medco Health Solutions Inc., NewQuest, NewQuest Management Northeast, Olympic Health Management Services, Oz Parent, PT Asuransi Cigna, Provident American Life and Health Insurance Company, Qualcare, Qualcare Alliance Networks, Qualcare Captive Insurance Company Inc. PCC, Qualcare Management Resources Limited Liability Company, RHP (Thailand) Limited, Scibal Associates, Sterling Life Insurance Company, Tel-Drug, Tel-Drug of Pennsylvania, Temple Insurance Company Limited, United Benefit Life Insurance Company, Verity Solutions Group, Zurich Insurance Middle East, and eviCore 1 LLC. The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. Ltd., Abbott (UK) Finance Limited, Abbott (UK) Holdings Limited, Abbott AG, Abbott Asia Holdings Limited, Abbott Asia Investments Limited, Abbott Australasia Holdings Limited, Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd, Abbott B.V., Abbott Bahamas Overseas Businesses Corporation, Abbott Belgian Investments, Abbott Bermuda Holding Ltd., Abbott Biologicals B.V., Abbott Biologicals LLC, Abbott Bulgaria Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Capital India Limited, Abbott Cardiovascular Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc., Abbott Delaware LLC, Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott Diabetes Care Limited, Abbott Diabetes Care Sales Corporation, Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott Diagnostics International Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics Technologies AS, Abbott Doral Investments S.L., Abbott Equity Holdings Unlimited, Abbott Equity Investments LLC, Abbott Established Products Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Finance Company SA, Abbott Financial Holdings SRL, Abbott France S.A.S., Abbott Fund Tanzania Limited, Abbott Gesellschaft m.b.H., Abbott GmbH & Co. KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. Limited, Abbott Informatics Spain S.A., Abbott Informatics Technologies Ltd, Abbott International Corporation, Abbott International Enterprises Ltd., Abbott International Holdings Limited, Abbott International LLC, Abbott International Luxembourg S.ar.l., Abbott Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Ireland, Abbott Ireland Financing Designated Activity Company, Abbott Ireland Limited, Abbott Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Abbott Knoll Investments B.V., Abbott Korea Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Bangladesh) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco (Dos) SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Laboratories (Mozambique) Limitada, Abbott Laboratories (Pakistan) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Philippines), Abbott Laboratories (Puerto Rico) Incorporated, Abbott Laboratories (Singapore) Private Limited, Abbott Laboratories A/S, Abbott Laboratories Argentina Sociedad Anonima, Abbott Laboratories B.V., Abbott Laboratories C.A., Abbott Laboratories Finance B.V., Abbott Laboratories GmbH, Abbott Laboratories Inc., Abbott Laboratories International LLC, Abbott Laboratories Ireland Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited - Laboratoires Abbott Limitee, Abbott Laboratories NZ Limited, Abbott Laboratories Pacific Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Laboratories Products B.V., Abbott Laboratories Residential Development Fund Inc., Abbott Laboratories S.A., Abbott Laboratories SA, Abbott Laboratories Services Corp., Abbott Laboratories Slovakia s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trustee Company Limited, Abbott Laboratories Uruguay S.A., Abbott Laboratories Vascular Enterprises, Abbott Laboratories d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories de Chile Limitada, Abbott Laboratories de Colombia S.A., Abbott Laboratories de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Abbott Laboratories druzba za farmacijo in diagnostiko d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories(Hellas) Societe Anonyme, Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios del Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Abbott Laboratuarlari Ithalat Ihracat ve Ticaret Ltd.Sti, Abbott Laboratorios Lda, Abbott Laboratorios do Brasil Ltda., Abbott Limited Egypt LLC, Abbott Logistics B.V., Abbott Management GmbH, Abbott Management LLC, Abbott Manufacturing Singapore Private Limited, Abbott Mature Products International Unlimited Company, Abbott Mature Products Management Limited, Abbott Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Abbott Medical (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Medical (Portugal) Distribuicao de Produtos Medicos Lda, Abbott Medical (Schweiz) AG, Abbott Medical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Australia Pty. Ltd., Abbott Medical Austria Ges.m.b.H., Abbott Medical Balkan d.o.o. Beograd (Novi Beograd), Abbott Medical Belgium, Abbott Medical Canada Inc./ Medicale Abbott Canada Inc., Abbott Medical Danmark A/S, Abbott Medical Devices Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Espana S.A., Abbott Medical Estonia OU, Abbott Medical Finland Oy, Abbott Medical France SAS, Abbott Medical GmbH, Abbott Medical Hellas Limited Liability Trading Company, Abbott Medical Ireland Limited, Abbott Medical Italia S.p.A., Abbott Medical Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Korea Limited, Abbott Medical Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Medical Laboratories LTD, Abbott Medical Nederland B.V., Abbott Medical New Zealand Limited, Abbott Medical Norway AS, Abbott Medical Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Medical Sweden AB, Abbott Medical Taiwan Co., Abbott Medical U.K. Limited, Abbott Medical spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Middle East S.A.R.L., Abbott Molecular Inc., Abbott Morocco SARL, Abbott Nederland C.V., Abbott Nederland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Netherlands Investments B.V., Abbott Norge AS, Abbott Nutrition Limited, Abbott Nutrition Manufacturing Inc., Abbott Operations Singapore Pte. Ltd., Abbott Operations Uruguay S.R.L., Abbott Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Overseas Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Overseas S.A., Abbott Oy, Abbott Point of Care Canada Limited, Abbott Point of Care Inc., Abbott Poland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Procurement LLC, Abbott Products (Philippines) Inc., Abbott Products (Spain) S.L., Abbott Products Algerie EURL, Abbott Products B.V., Abbott Products Distribution SAS, Abbott Products Egypt LLC, Abbott Products Limited, Abbott Products Limited Liability Company, Abbott Products Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Products Operations AG, Abbott Products Operations LLC, Abbott Products Romania S.R.L., Abbott Products Tunisie S.A.R.L., Abbott Products Unlimited Company, Abbott Resources Inc., Abbott Resources International Inc., Abbott S.r.l., Abbott Saudi Arabia Trading Company, Abbott Scandinavia Aktiebolag, Abbott Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, Abbott South Africa Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Strategic Opportunities Limited, Abbott Trading Company Inc., Abbott Universal LLC, Abbott Vascular Devices (2) Limited, Abbott Vascular Devices Limited, Abbott Vascular Inc., Abbott Vascular Instruments Deutschland GmbH, Abbott Vascular International, Abbott Vascular Japan Co. Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. Ltd., Alere Colombia S.A., Alere Connect LLC, Alere Connected Health Limited, Alere Connected Health Ltd., Alere Diagnostics GmbH, Alere DoA Holding GmbH, Alere GmbH, Alere GmbH (Austria), Alere GmbH (Germany), Alere HK Holdings Ltd., Alere Health B.V., Alere Health BVBA, Alere Health Corp., Alere Health Sdn Bhd, Alere Health Services B.V., Alere Healthcare (Pty) Limited, Alere Healthcare Connections Limited, Alere Healthcare Inc., Alere Healthcare Nigeria Limited, Alere Healthcare S.L., Alere Holdco Inc., Alere Holding GmbH, Alere Holdings Bermuda Limited, Alere Holdings Pty Limited, Alere Home Monitoring Inc., Alere Inc., Alere Informatics Inc., Alere International Holding Corp., Alere International Limited, Alere Lda, Alere Limited, Alere Limited (New Zealand), Alere Medical BVBA, Alere Medical Co. Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. Sociedad Anonima, Lafrancol Internacional S.A.S, Lafrancol Peru S.R.L, Lake Forest Investments LLC, Lightlab Imaging Inc., Limited Liability Company Abbott Laboratories, Limited Liability Company Abbott Ukraine, Limited Liability Company VEROPHARM, Lung Fung Hong (China) Limited, Mansbridge Pharmaceuticals Limited, MediGuide LLC, MediGuide Ltd., Medscreen Holdings Limited, Metropolitana Farmaceutica S.A., Midwest Properties LLC, Murex Argentina S.A., Murex Biotech Limited, Murex Biotech South Africa, Murex Diagnostics Inc., Murex Diagnostics International Inc., Natural Supplement Association LLC, Negocios Denia Sociedad Anonima, Neosalud S.A.C., Nether Pharma N.P. C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. Abbott Products Indonesia, Pacesetter Inc., Pantech (RF) (PTY) LTD, Pembrooke Occupational Health Inc., Penagos S.A., Pharma International Sociedad Anonima, Pharmaceutical Technologies (Pharmatech) S.A., Pharmatech Boliviana S.A., Polygon Labs S.A., Quality Assured Services Inc., RF Medical Holdings LLC, RTL Holdings Inc., Ramses Business Corp., Recben Xenerics Farmaceutica Limitada, Redwood Toxicology Laboratory Inc., Rich Horizons International Limited, SC VEROPHARM, SJ Medical Mexico S de R.L. de C.V., SJM International Inc., SJM Thunder Holding Company, SPDH Inc., Saboya Enterprises Corporation, Salviac Limited, Scanax AS, Sealing Solutions Inc., Selfcare Technology Inc., Shandong Abbott Dairy Product Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Medical Devices Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc., ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics. Marie Beth Jones, a published author and freelance writer based in Angleton, is a member and former chairwoman of the Brazoria County Historical Commission. Contact her at 1mbjones@nwcable.net. The following companies are subsidiares of Prudential Financial: 210-220 E. 22nd Street SSGA Owner LLC, AIG Edison, AIG Star, AREF Cayman Co Ltd., AREF GP II Pte. Ltd., AREF GP Ltd., ASPF II - Feeder Fund GmbH, ASPF II - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, ASPF II Management GmbH, ASPF III (Scots) L.P., ASSURANCE, AST Investment Services Inc., Adlerwerke CB Investment LLC, Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones Habitat S.A., Administradora de Inversiones Previsionales SpA, Aoba Life Insurance Company, Asia Property Fund III GP S.a.r.l., Assurance IQ LLC, Assurance Intelligence LLC, BSC CP LP, Braeloch Holdings Inc., Braeloch Successor Corporation, Brazilian Capital Fund GP Limited, Broad Street Global Advisors LLC, Broome Street Holdings LLC, CB German Retail LLC, CLIS Co. Ltd., COLICO INC., Campus Drive LLC, Capital Agricultural Property Services Inc., Chadwick Boulevard Investment Holdings Co. LLC, Cibecue LLC, Coconino LLC, Colico II Inc., Columbus Drive Partners L.P., Commerce Street Holdings LLC, Commerce Street Investments LLC, Coolidge LLC, Coral Reef GP, Coral Reef L.P., Coral Reef Unit Trust, Cottage Street Investments LLC, Cottage Street Orbit Acquisition LLC, DHFL PRAMERICA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, DICKENS AVENUE HOLDINGS VI LLC, DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI (Ireland) L.P., DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI (US) L.P., Don Cesar Investor LLC, Dryden Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Dryden Finance II LLC, EVP II GP S.a r.l., EVP II Sweden Resi I GP S.a r.l., Edison Place Senior Note LLC, Essex LLC, EuroCore GP S.a r.l., European Value Partners GP S.a.r.l., Everbright PGIM Fund Management Co. Ltd., Flagstaff LLC, GA 1600 Commons LLC, GA 333 Hennepin Investor LLC, GA BV LLC, GA Bay Area GP LLC, GA Bay Area Investor LLC, GA Belden LLC, GA CLARENDON LLC, GA Cal Crossings LLC, GA Collins LLC, GA E. 22nd Street Apartments Holdings LLC, GA East 86 Street LLC, GA JHCII LLC, GA MENLO PARK INVESTOR LLC, GA Manor at Harbour Island LLC, GA Metro LLC, GA Mission LLC, GA TRITON INVESTOR LLC, GA W Paces LLC, GA/MDI 333 Hennepin Associates LLC, GIBRALTAR BSN HOLDINGS SDN BHD, GIBRALTAR INDIA SOLUTIONS LLP, Gateway Holdings II LLC, Gateway Holdings LLC, German Retail Income CP LP, Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad, Gibraltar International Insurance Services Company Inc., Gibraltar International Service LLC, Gibraltar Reinsurance Company Ltd., Gibraltar Universal Life Reinsurance Company, Glenealy International Limited, Global Portfolio Strategies Inc., Gold GP Limited, Gold II L.P., Gold L.P., Graham Resources Inc., Graham Royalty Ltd., Green Tree GP, Green Tree L.P., Greenlee LLC, Halsey Street Investments LLC, Hirakata LLC, IVP Fund GP LLC, Impact Investments Bridges UK S.a.r.l, Inter-Atlantic G Fund L.P., Inversiones Previsionales Chile SpA, Inversiones Previsionales Dos SpA, Ironbound Fund LLC, Jennison Associates LLC, Kyarra S.a r.l., Kyoei Annuity Home Co. Ltd., LINEUP LLC, Lake Street Partners IV L.P., MC GA COLLINS HOLDINGS LLC, MC GA COLLINS REALTY LLC, MC Insurance Agency Services LLC, Manor at Harbour Island LLC, Marble Canyon LLC, Maricopa LLC, Market Street Holdings IV LLC, Morenci LLC, Mulberry Street Holdings LLC, Mulberry Street Investment L.P., Mulberry Street Partners LLC, Mullin TBG Insurance Agency Services LLC, MullinTBG Insurance Agency Services, National Family Assurance Group LLC, New Savanna, Orchard Street Acres Inc., PAI Bay Farm LLC, PAI Bayrock Groves LLC, PAI Belvidere Farms LLC, PAI Big Cypress Farm LLC, PAI Corcoran 640 Ranch LLC, PAI DeKalb Farm LLC, PAI Delano 1500 Ranches LLC, PAI Flicker Orchard LLC, PAI Good Hope Farm LLC, PAI Hawk Creek Ranch LLC, PAI Hills Valley Ranches LLC, PAI Holly Hill Groves LLC, PAI Hunt Farm LLC, PAI Jackson Bayou Farm LLC, PAI Lake Placid Groves LLC, PAI Wallula Gap Vineyard LLC, PCP V Cayman AIV GP L.P., PEREF II Co-Invest 1 GP S.a r.l., PEREF II GP S.a r.l., PEREF II PV S.r.l, PFI EM-Tech Fund I LLC, PG Business Service Co. Ltd, PG Collection Service Co. Ltd., PGA Asian Retail Limited, PGA European Limited, PGI Co. Ltd, PGIM (Australia) Pty Ltd, PGIM (Hong Kong) Ltd., PGIM (Scots) Limited, PGIM (Shanghai) Company Ltd., PGIM (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., PGIM AVP IV GP S.a r.l., PGIM Advisory (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PGIM Agricultural Investments GP LLC, PGIM Agricultural Investors LP, PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Fund L.P., PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Partners LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management (Feeder) VI LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management Fund VI L.P., PGIM European Financing Limited, PGIM European Services Limited, PGIM Financial Limited, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund II L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives GP LLC, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives II GP LLC, PGIM Foreign Investments Inc., PGIM Holding Company LLC, PGIM INDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM INDIA TRUSTEES PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM Inc., PGIM International Financing Inc., PGIM Investments LLC, PGIM Japan Co. Ltd., PGIM Korea Inc., PGIM LTIF Berlin GP S.a r.l., PGIM LTIF Berlin MLP S.ar.l., PGIM LTIF GP S.a.r.l., PGIM Limited, PGIM Loan Originator Manager Limited, PGIM M Campus GP S.a r.l., PGIM Management Partner Limited, PGIM MetaProp Investor LP LLC, PGIM Netherlands B.V., PGIM Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Company Ltd, PGIM Private Capital (Ireland) Limited, PGIM Private Capital Limited, PGIM Private Placement Investors Inc., PGIM Private Placement Investors L.P., PGIM REF EUROPE SCSp, PGIM REF Europe GP S.a r.l., PGIM REF Europe Member LLC, PGIM REF Intermediary Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate (Japan) Ltd., PGIM Real Estate (UK) Limited, PGIM Real Estate CD S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Capital VII GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest L.P., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Co-Invest Holdings LLC, PGIM Real Estate Debt GmbH, PGIM Real Estate Finance Holding Company, PGIM Real Estate Finance LLC, PGIM Real Estate France SAS, PGIM Real Estate Germany AG, PGIM Real Estate Global Debt GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles S. de R.L. de C.V, PGIM Real Estate Italy S.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Loan Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate Luxembourg S.A., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Management Luxembourg S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Mexico S.C., PGIM Real Estate S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate U.S. Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management (Feeder) I LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management Fund I L.P., PGIM Strategic Financing LLC, PGIM Strategic Investments Inc., PGIM USPF VI Manager LLC, PGIM Warehouse Inc., PGLH of Delaware Inc., PIFM Holdco LLC, PIIC Limited, PIISC Holdings (UK) Limited, PIM KF Blocker Holdings LLC, PIM KF Blocker V Holdings LLC, PIM USPF V Manager LLC, PLA Administradora Industrial SRL, PLA Administradora LLC, PLA Administradora S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional II S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional S.de R.L. de C.V., PLA Co-Investor LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager I LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager II LLC, PLA Mexico Residential Manager I LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Limited Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Blue LP, PLA Retail Fund I LP, PLA Retail Fund I Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Red LP, PLA Retail Fund II Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LP, PLA Retail Fund II Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II U.S. Carry/Co-Invest LP, PLA Services Manager Mexico LLC, PLAI Limited, PMCF Holdings LLC, PMCF Properties LLC, PPPF General Partner LLP, PR GA SCP Apartments LLC, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP (SCOTS FEEDER) LLP, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP LLP, PRECO ACCOUNT III LLC, PRECO ACCOUNT PARTNERSHIP III LP, PRECO Account IV LLC, PRECO Account Partnership IV LP, PRECO III GP LLP, PREFG Hanwha Manager LLC, PREI Acquisition I Inc., PREI Acquisition II Inc., PREI Acquisition LLC, PREI HYDG LLC, PREI International Inc., PRIAC Property Acquisitions LLC, PRICOA Management Partner Limited, PRISA Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Pooled Manager LLC, PRISA III Fund GP LLC, PRISA III Fund PIM LLC, PRREF II Fund Manager LLC, PRU 3XSquare LLC, PRUCO LLC, PRUDENTIAL CAPITAL ENERGY PARTNERS MANAGEMENT (FEEDER) LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP MEMBER LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP REIT LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE 2 LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE LLC, PT PFI Mega Life Insurance, Passaic Fund LLC, Pine Tree GP, Pine Tree L.P., Platinum GP Limited, Platinum II L.P., Platinum L.P., Pramerica (Hong Kong) Holdings Limited, Pramerica (Luxembourg) CP GP S.a.r.l., Pramerica (Scots) CP GP LLP, Pramerica Business Consulting (Shanghai) Company Limited, Pramerica EVP CP LP, Pramerica Financial Asia Headquarters Pte. Ltd., Pramerica Financial Asia Limited, Pramerica Fixed Income Funds Management Limited, Pramerica Fosun Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Pramerica General Partner LLP, Pramerica Holdings Ltd, Pramerica Insurance Agency (China) Company Ltd., Pramerica PRECAP I GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP II GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP III GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP IV GP LLP, Pramerica Pan European Real Estate (Scots) LP, Pramerica Property Partners Fund (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital II (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital III (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Limited, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Netherlands) GP LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital VI (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica SGR S.p.A, Pramerica Systems Ireland Limited, Preco III (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pru 101 Wood LLC, Pru Alpha Partners I LLC, Pru Fixed Income Emerging Markets Partners I LLC, PruVen Capital Partners Fund I L.P., Pruco Assignment Corporation, Pruco Life Insurance Company, Pruco Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, Pruco Securities LLC, Prudential 900 Aviation Boulevard LLC, Prudential Affordable Mortgage Company LLC, Prudential Agricultural Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc., Prudential Annuities Holding Company Inc., Prudential Annuities Inc., Prudential Annuities Information Services & Technology Corporation, Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corporation, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Captive Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Universal Company, Prudential Bank & Trust FSB, Prudential Capital Energy Opportunity Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners Management Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Partners Management Fund IV L.P., Prudential Capital and Investment Services LLC, Prudential Chile II SpA, Prudential Chile SpA, Prudential Commercial Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Customer Solutions LLC, Prudential Equity Group LLC, Prudential Financial Securities Investment Trust Enterprise, Prudential Fixed Income Global Liquidity Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Fixed Income U.S. Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Funding LLC, Prudential General Services of Japan Y.K., Prudential Gibraltar Agency Co. Ltd., Prudential Global Funding LLC, Prudential Holdings of Japan Inc., Prudential Huntoon Paige Associates LLC, Prudential IBH Holdco Inc., Prudential Impact Investments Mortgage Loans LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Debt LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Equity LLC, Prudential Industrial Properties LLC, Prudential Insurance Agency LLC, Prudential International Insurance Holdings Ltd., Prudential International Insurance Service Company L.L.C., Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC, Prudential International Investments Company LLC, Prudential International Investments LLC, Prudential Investment Management Services LLC, Prudential Japan Holdings LLC, Prudential Legacy Insurance Company of New Jersey, Prudential Life Insurance Company of Taiwan Inc., Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 1 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 2 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Capital Asset Holding Company LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Funding LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Holdings LLC, Prudential Multifamily Mortgage LLC, Prudential Mutual Fund Services LLC, Prudential Newark Realty LLC, Prudential QOZ Investment Fund 1 LLC, Prudential Realty Securities Inc., Prudential Retirement Financial Services Holding LLC, Prudential Retirement Holdings LLC, Prudential Retirement Insurance and Annuity Company, Prudential Securities Secured Financing Corporation, Prudential Securities Structured Assets Inc., Prudential Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., Prudential Seguros S.A., Prudential Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Prudential Structured Settlement Company, Prudential Systems Japan Limited, Prudential Term Reinsurance Company, Prudential Trust Co. Ltd., Prudential Trust Company, Prudential Universal Reinsurance Company, Prudential Workplace Solutions Group Services LLC, Prudential do Brasil Seguros de Vida S.A., Prudential do Brasil Vida em Grupo S.A., Prudential/TMW Real Estate Group LLC, Pruservicos Participacoes Ltda., QMA JP EM All Cap Equity Partners LLC, QMA LLC, QMA Wadhwani LLP, Quartzsite LLC, Residential Services Corporation of America LLC, Rio CP LP, Rock European Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock Global Real Estate LLC, Rock Kensington Limited, Rock Marty GP S.a r.l., Rock Oxford S.a r.l., Rock UK Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock UK Real Estate II S.a.r.l., Rockstone Co. Ltd., Rosado Grande LLC, Ross Avenue Energy Fund Holdings LLC, Ross Avenue Minerals 2012 LLC, SCP Apartments LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERS VI GP LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP FUND VI GP LLC, SHP IV Carried Interest LP, SHP V Carried Interest L.P., SMP Holdings Inc., SVIIT Holdings Inc., Sanei Collection Service Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Kaisha Sanei Shuuno Service), Senior Housing Partners IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partners V LLC, Senior Housing Partnership Fund IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partnership Fund V LLC, Sterling Private Placement Management LLP, Stetson Street Partners L.P., Strand Investments Limited, TBG Insurance Services Corporation, TENSATOR HOLDINGS LTD, TF Proveedora S.C., TMW ASPF I Verwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, TMW ASPF Management GmbH, TMW Management LLC, TMW Real Estate Group LLC, TMW Realty Advisors LLC, TMW USPF Verwaltungs GmbH, TRGOAG Company Inc., The Gibraltar Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Keynes Dynamic Beta Strategy (US) Fund GP LLC, The Prudential Assigned Settlement Services Corp., The Prudential Brazilian Capital Fund LP, The Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Home Mortgage Company Inc., The Prudential Insurance Company of America, The Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd., The Prudential Real Estate Financial Services of America Inc., The WMF Group, Thurloe Commercial Guernsey Limited, Times Square Center Associates, USPF V - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, USPF V Carry LLC, USPF V Co-Invest LLC, USPF V Investment LP, United States Property Fund VI GP S.a r.l., Vailsburg Fund LLC, Vantage Casualty Insurance Company, Wabash Avenue Holdings V LLC, Wabash Avenue Partners V L.P., Wadhwani Capital Limited, Waveland Avenue Holdings I LLC, Waveland Avenue Partners I (Ireland) L.P., Waveland Avenue Partners I (US) L.P., Wellness Services Ecossistema De Bem Estar Ltda., Wellness Services SRL, Yamato Life, and Yavapai LLC. Genesis Healthcare, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, owns and operates skilled nursing facilities and assisted/senior living facilities in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Inpatient Services; Rehabilitation Therapy Services; and Other Services. It also provides a range of rehabilitation therapy services, including speech-language pathology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and respiratory therapy. In addition, the company offers other specialty medical services, such as physician, staffing, and other healthcare related services. As of December 31, 2020, it provided inpatient services through a network of approximately 341 skilled nursing facilities and assisted/senior living communities in 24 states; and supplied rehabilitation and respiratory therapy to approximately 1,400 healthcare locations in 42 states, the District of Columbia and China. The company was formerly known as FC-GEN Operations Investment, LLC and changed its name to Genesis HealthCare, Inc. in February 2015. Genesis HealthCare, Inc. was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Read More SPDR Portfolio S&P 1500 Composite Stock Market ETF's stock was trading at $33.67 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, SPTM shares have increased by 71.7% and is now trading at $57.80. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Keywords Studios plc provides integrated outsourced creative and technical services to the video game industry. The company offers art creation services related to the production of graphical art assets for inclusion in the video game, including concept art creation, as well as 2D and 3D art asset production and animation. It also provides audio/voice-over services, including script translation, actor selection, and talent management through pre-production, audio direction, recording, and post-production, as well as offers music licensing or music soundtracks selling services. In addition, the company offers localization services related to translation and cultural adaptation of in-game text and audio scripts in various game platforms and genres; and localization testing services consisting of testing the linguistic correctness and cultural acceptability of computer games. Further, it provides functional testing services related to quality assurance services provided to game producers to ensure game functions. Additionally, the company provides player support services related to the live operations support, such as community management, player support, and associated services to producers of games, as well as software engineering services for developing video games. It serves game companies and publishers. The company operates in Ireland, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, France, India, Germany, Singapore, Spain, Poland, Brazil, China, and Mexico. Keywords Studios plc was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Read More HDFC Bank Ltd. engages in the provision of banking and financial services, including commercial banking and treasury operations. The firm also provides financial services to upper and middle income individuals and corporations in India. It operates through the following segments: Treasury, Retail Banking, Wholesale Banking and Other Banking Operations. The Treasury segment consists of bank's investment portfolio, money market borrowing and lending, investment operations and trading in foreign exchange and derivative contracts. The Retail Banking segment provides loans and other services to customers through a branch network and other delivery channels. The Wholesale Banking segment provides loans, non-fund facilities and transaction services to large corporates, emerging corporates, public sector units, government bodies, financial institutions, and medium scale enterprises. The Other Banking Business segment includes income from para banking activities such as credit cards, debit cards, third party product distribution, primary dealership business, and the associated costs. The company was founded by Aditya Tapishwar Puri in August 1994 and is headquartered in Mumbai, India. Read More Premium Brands Holdings Corporation, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and distributes food products primarily in Canada and the United States. It operates in two segments, Specialty Foods and Premium Food Distribution. The company provides meat products and snacks, deli products, beef jerky and halal, sandwiches, pastries, specialty and gourmet products, salads and kettle products, entrees, panini, wraps, subs, hamburgers, burgers, muffins, breads, pastas, and baking and sushi products, as well as processed meat products. It is also involved in the distribution of food products, including meat, seafood, and halal food products, as well as operation of retail/convenience store and concessionary, and provision of food and seafood processing services. The company operates under the brand names of Harvest Meats, Hempler's, Grimm's Fine Foods, Piller's, Freybe, Isernio's, Expresco, SJ Fine Foods, McSweeney's, Made Rite, Fletcher's, Deli Chef, Belmont Meats, Conte Foods, SK Food Group, Oven Pride, Hygaard, Quality Fast Foods, HQ Fine Foods, Creekside Custom Foods, Stuyver's Bread, Bread Garden Express, Audrey's Patisserie, Duso's, Gourmet Chef, Island City Baking, Skilcor, Leadbetter's, Mclean Meats, Buddy's Kitchen, Raybern's, Partner's Crackers, Shaw Bakers, Oberto, Concord Meats, Country Prime Meats, The Meat Factory, and Golden Valley Farms. It serves chains and large format retailers, independent and specialty retailers, foodservice operators, foodservice distributors, and other food manufacturers and food brokers. The company was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Richmond, Canada. Read More Truist Financial Corp. operates as a financial holding company, which engages in the provision of banking services to individuals, businesses and municipalities. The firm offers a variety of loans and lease financing to individuals and entities, including insurance premium financing, permanent commercial real estate financing arrangements, loan servicing for third-party investors, direct consumer finance loans to individuals, credit card lending, automobile financing and equipment financing. It also markets a range of other services, including deposits, life insurance, property and casualty insurance, health Truist Financial Corp. operates as a financial holding company. It engages in the provision of banking services to individuals, businesses and municipalities. The company operates through the following segments: Consumer Banking and Wealth; Corporate and Commercial Banking; and Insurance Holdings. The firm offers a variety of loans and lease financing to individuals and entities, including insurance premium financing, permanent commercial real estate financing arrangements, loan servicing for third-party investors, direct consumer finance loans to individuals, credit card lending, automobile financing and equipment financing. It also markets a range of other services, including deposits, life insurance, property and casualty insurance, health insurance and commercial general liability insurance on an agency basis and through a wholesale insurance brokerage operation, merchant services, trust and retirement services, comprehensive wealth advisory services, asset management and capital markets services. The company was founded on December 6, 2019 and is headquartered in Charlotte, NC. insurance and commercial general liability insurance on an agency basis and through a wholesale insurance brokerage operation, merchant services, trust and retirement services, comprehensive wealth advisory services, asset management and capital markets services. The company was founded on December 6, 2019 and is headquartered in Charlotte, NC. Read More Square, Inc. provides payment and point-of-sale solutions in the United States and internationally. The company's commerce ecosystem includes point-of-sale software and hardware that enables sellers to turn mobile and computing devices into payment and point-of-sale solutions. It offers hardware products, including Magstripe reader, which enables swiped transactions of magnetic stripe cards; Contactless and chip reader that accepts EMV chip cards and Near Field Communication payments; Chip card reader, which accepts EMV chip cards and enables swiped transactions of magnetic stripe cards; Square Stand, which enables an iPad to be used as a payment terminal or full point of sale solution; and Square Register that combines its hardware, point-of-sale software, and payments technology, as well as managed payments solutions. The company also provides Square Point of Sale software; Cash App, which provides access to the financial system, allowing customers to electronically send, store, and spend money; Caviar, a food ordering platform for restaurants to offer food ordering, pickup and delivery, to their customers; and Square Capital that facilitates loans to sellers based on real-time payment and point-of-sale data. Square, Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Centene: APS Parent Inc., AWC of Syracuse Inc., Absolute Total Care Inc., AcariaHealth Inc., AcariaHealth Pharmacy #11 Inc., AcariaHealth Pharmacy #12 Inc., AcariaHealth Pharmacy #13 Inc., AcariaHealth Pharmacy #14 Inc., AcariaHealth Pharmacy Inc., AcariaHealth Solutions Inc., Access Medical Acquisition LLC, Access Medical Group of Florida City LLC, Access Medical Group of Hialeah LLC, Access Medical Group of Lakeland LLC, Access Medical Group of Miami LLC, Access Medical Group of North Miami Beach LLC, Access Medical Group of Opa-Locka LLC, Access Medical Group of Perrine LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa II LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa III LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa LLC, Access Medical Group of Westchester LLC, Accountable Care Coalition Direct Contracting LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Chesapeake LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Community Health Centers II LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Community Health Centers LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers II LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers III LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers IV LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers V LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers VI LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers VII LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Florida Partners LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Georgia LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Maryland LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Maryland Primary Care LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Mississippi LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of New Jersey Inc., Accountable Care Coalition of North Texas LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northeast Georgia LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northeast Partners LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northwest Florida LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Prime Health LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Quality Health II LLC, Accountable 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L., Integrated Care Network of Florida LLC, Integrated Mental Health Management LLC, Integrated Mental Health Services, Interpreta Holdings Inc., Interpreta Inc., Iowa Total Care Inc., Kentucky Spirit Health Plan Inc., LBB Industries Inc., LifeShare Management Group LLC, LiveHealthier Inc., Louisiana Healthcare Connections Inc., MH Services International Holdings (UK) Limited, MHM, MHM Correctional Services LLC, MHM Health Professionals LLC, MHM Services Inc., MHM Services of California LLC, MHM Solutions LLC, MHN Government Services LLC, MHN Services LLC, MHS Consulting International Inc., MHS Travel & Charter Inc., MR Centrum Melnick s.r.o., MR Poprad s.r.o., MR Zilina s.r.o., Magnolia Health Plan Inc., Managed Health Network, Managed Health Network LLC, Managed Health Services Insurance Corporation, Maryland Collaborative Care LLC, Maryland Collaborative Care Transformation Organization Inc., Mauli Ola Health and Wellness Inc., Medicina NZ spol s.r.o., Meridian Health Plan of Illinois Inc., Meridian Health Plan of Michigan Inc., Meridian Management Company LLC, Meridian Network Services LLC, MeridianRx IPA LLC, MeridianRx LLC, MeridianRx of Indiana LLC, Michigan Complete Health, Mid-Atlantic Collaborative Care LLC, Nebraska Total Care Inc., Network Providers LLC, New York Quality Healthcare Corporation, Next Door Neighbors Inc., Next Door Neighbors LLC., North Florida Health Services Inc., Northern Maryland Collaborative Care LLC, Novasys Health Inc., OB Care, OB Klinika, Ohana Health Plan Inc., Oklahoma Complete Health Inc., One Care by Care 1st Health Plans of Arizona Inc, Operose Health (Group) Ltd., Operose Health (Group) UK Ltd., Operose Health Ltd., OptiCare Health Systems - 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Hartford Multifactor Developed Markets (ex-US) ETF's stock was trading at $23.72 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, RODM stock has increased by 28.4% and is now trading at $30.46. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Shares of iShares Gold Trust reverse split on Monday, May 24th 2021. The 1-2 reverse split was announced on Wednesday, March 3rd 2021. The number of shares owned by shareholders was adjusted after the closing bell on Friday, May 21st 2021. An investor that had 100 shares of iShares Gold Trust stock prior to the reverse split would have 50 shares after the split. John Hancock Multifactor Technology ETF's stock was trading at $47.5912 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, JHMT shares have increased by 119.6% and is now trading at $104.50. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Jessica McGowan/Getty Images(ATLANTA) -- Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate in Georgia's still-uncalled governor's race, is hoping a count of all provisional ballots can help her close the gap with Republican Brian Kemp and force a runoff. Abrams filed a lawsuit on Sunday asking for all provisional ballots be counted, citing instances in which voters she said voters would have cast their ballots for her, but were turned away. Provisional ballots are considered a fail-safe for voters who arrive at the polls and may not have all the necessary documentation at that time, but whose ballots can be verified in the days after the election. The lawsuit, filed against Georgia's new Secretary of State Robyn A. Crittenden, seeks to address a Georgia law which puts a three-day time limit on how long provisional ballots can be verified and counted. But the midterm elections in Georgia saw a "historic number" of provisional ballots, according to the lawsuit, making it more difficult to verify and count them all in time. "Under Georgia law, it appears that any voters whose provisional ballots have not been resolved by November 9, 2018, will be disenfranchised, simply because the counties in which they respectively reside could not address their ballots in time. There is no reason it needs to be this way," the lawsuit reads. The lawsuit comes on the heels of a race in which her opponent, then-Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, was alleged to have engaged in voter suppression, beginning with reports that millions of voters were unknowingly purged from registration systems under his tenure, many of them African-American. Since Election Day, Abrams campaign has vowed to staunchly moderate the incoming vote tallies and make sure every vote is counted. Kemp has maintained that his lead is insurmountable, despite uncounted ballots, and declared himself the winner. ABC News has yet to project the race. In response to Abrams' lawsuit, his campaign said she had moved from "desperation to delusion." "On Saturday, military, overseas, and provisional ballots were reported throughout Georgia," Ryan Mahoney, communications director for Kemp, said Monday. In Georgia, the winner needs 50 percent of the vote or a runoff is automatically triggered. Kemp says there arent enough ballots left uncounted to close his lead, which stands at about 60,000 votes. As of Monday morning, Abrams had 48.78 percent of the vote compared to Kemps 50.52 percent. Counties in Georgia are continuing to count and certify their ballots, including late-arriving absentee ballots in some parts of the state. On Friday, a judge ordered Dougherty County to accept all ballots received before the end of the day. Fulton County, the state's most populated, said its results will be certified Tuesday. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. ITAI Mumbai: Shah Rukh Khan starrer Baazigar faced quite a few hurdles from delay in shoot due to communal riots, to not getting a hero to play a negative role but as the film completes 25 years, the director duo Abbas-Mustan are happy as it is regarded one of the best Bollywood thrillers till date. Released on November 12, 1993, Baazigar featured Shah Rukh as an anti-hero. The thriller, also Kajol's one of the earliest successes and Shilpa Shetty's debut, became a blockbuster thanks to its plot and chartbuster music by Anu Malik. As the film completes 25 years, Mustan, in an interview with PTI, talks about the obstacles the team faced, why Salman Khan and Anil Kapoor turned down the anti-hero role and why they shot two different climax scenes for the movie. "People still like the film and it is a big compliment to the entire team. The important thing is the maker should be convinced with his own vision as that will reflect on screen. We had a hero playing a negative role. Though it led to the hit pairing of Shah Rukh and Kajol, it was not a romantic film. But it all worked well," Mustan told PTI. He recalls the movie received overwhelming response across the globe and they witnessed it during the film's US and UK screenings. The birth of the film, however, was difficult. The mahurat of the film was done in December 1992 and the shoot was scheduled to start soon, with the aim to wrap it up by January-February. The film hit a roadblock after communal riots broke in different parts of the country post the demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6. "There was a tense moment due to riots, people were scared and were not going out. But Mumbai is a city that bounces back like never before. Once things got cleared, work began as usual. We started shooting sometime in late March and wrapped it by May-June and decided to release it on Diwali. The film was earlier set to release in June-July," he recalled. Baazigar chronicled the story of a young man with a vendetta against a business tycoon and how he plots to destroy the rest of the family. Mustan, an ardent fan of Manmohan Desai's cinema, was inspired by the filmmaking style of the renowned director to form the crux of Baazigar as a mother-son story with revenge as backdrop. Mustan adds, "In his films, the character of a mother was of utmost importance. We wanted to have that element in our film. It is all about bringing the right emotion for a film. If the mother-son relationship is explored and justified properly on screen then it definitely strikes a chord with audience. If a son is taking revenge for his mother then his every sin is forgiven. And it worked well with the audience." The makers felt veteran actor Rakhee Gulzar was the perfect choice to play a distressed mother to Shah Rukh. It was Rakhee, who had told the director duo to change the climax of the film. He said, "Rakhee ji said yes but wanted the ending to be changed as she felt audience should not be let down. A lot of distributors said the hero should not die in the end and instead the police should come and arrest him. So we had shot both the endings. We felt the ending where the police comes and takes SRK will not work as the emotional graph of the character would not be conveyed correctly." When the first copy came out, Mustan says, both, the distributors and Rakhee, eventually agreed to go with the duo's vision of the climax. The film is said to be a remake of A Kiss Before Dying but Mustan insists only one scene is inspired from this 1991 Hollywood film. "Our film is completely different from this Hollywood movie. Only one shot where a man throws a girl off the terrace, we just had that scene where Shah Rukh's character throws Shilpa off the terrace to her death. That film has no track of mother-son, it is there in our film," Mustan says. Shah Rukh, now regarded as the King of Romance, played the anti-hero effortlessly, but he was not the first choice for the film. Mustan says the producers had approached Salman, who at that point was doing Sooraj Barjatya's film and felt the negative role might not work for his good boy on screen image. While Anil Kapoor, according to Mustan, felt he may not be able to carry the negative role. Mustan recalls Shah Rukh had come to meet producers at Venus company for the narration of a film, which he did not like, but a chance encounter with the director duo, got him Baazigar. Describing SRK as a director's actor, Mustan says, "He used to shoot one scene in four-five different ways. He has a huge range as an actor." Giving example of a scene, where SRK kills Resham Tipnis (Shilpa Shetty's friend), who had photographs as evidence to unmask him, Mustan says, "We told him that he should keep the photograph in his pocket. Shah Rukh instead thought of tearing the photo and putting it in his mouth. There were things which he did spontaneously." Mustan says, it was SRK, who helped them in getting the necessary permission to shoot in Delhi, the hometown of the 53-year-old superstar. The film was shot in Delhi and Mumbai and the title track was filmed in Mauritius. The producers had told the director duo to consider casting big heroines like Sridevi or Juhi Chawla but they felt a fresh pairing was apt for the film. "We felt if an artiste or actor is bigger than the film then it will not work," Mustan adds. When we went to Kajol, she was so lively and jovial, we felt she might not be able to understand the script and her role. She showed her maturity during the shoot and remained focused. Shilpa too worked very hard," Mustan says. There have been rumours about the sequel to Baazigar but Mustan is happy that the film is relevant even today and a part two can only be made if they come across a great story. Mumbai: Kedarnath teaser released a few days back and today it was time for the world to witness the movie's trailer. Post the teaser, it was quite evident that Sushant Singh Rajput plays a Muslim in the film while his love interest Sara Ali Khan is a Hindu in it. This became a problem for a few people who objected that the movie highlights Love Jihad. These group of people demanded that the film should be banned. This news made headlines since days now. But director Abhishek Kapoor begs to differ. He mentions that he never even received any such notice of ban. At the Kedarnath trailer launch held today, the director mentioned, "We have made the film in a way that it only spreads love, not hurting sentiments. I don't know where is this coming from because I haven't received any notice from these group of people. I would request everyone to watch the film rather than judging it on the basis of a teaser or trailer." Kedarnath was also in news for changed producer. Abhishek Kapoor went the legal way with his previous producer Prernaa Arora, before Ronnie Screwvala came on board. The movie is now slated to release on December 7. Mumbai: After generating huge curiosity among the cinegoers with the teaser of the forthcoming film Kedarnath featuring Sushant Singh Rajput and debutante Sara Ali Khan, the makers have unveiled the eagerly awaited trailer today. Abhishek Kapoor-directed Kedarnath was in the news due to several controversies during its production; the film is now all set to make its way to cinemas this December. Also Read | Kedarnath row: Saif Ali Khan steps in for daughter Saras safe launch Bollywood has a well-known penchant for showcasing inter-faith lovestories in a glamorous style, and looks like Kedarnath is set to serve us the same recipe of cliched Bollywood romance but, with an added twist. Set against the backdrop of the Uttarakhand floods of 2013, the film is a love story between a Muslim boy, Mansoor and a Hindu girl, Mukku. Director Abhishek Kapoor will once again bring the audience face to face with the reality of a Hindu-Muslim union. Besides the stereotypical inter-religion love story, the trailer shows us a few disturbing shots of the Uttarakhand floods that led to massive destruction to lives of thousands of people during the tragedy. Watch 'Kedarnath' trailer here: Sushant Singh Rajput had made his Bollywood debut in director Abhishek Kapoor's Kai Po Che. While the talented actor seems to deliver yet another class act in Kedarnath, it is Sara Ali Khan, the daughter of Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh, who steals the show with her luminous screen presence in the trailer. The newcomer is already considered amongst the most promising rising talents of 2018. Sushant and Sara's chemistry together is beautiful, however let's hope it does not sink in the imminent doom of cliched Bollywood romance. Also Read | Prernaa Arora to not produce movie as Abhishek Kapoor goes solo Helmed by Abhishek Kapoor and produced by RSVP and Guy In The Sky Pictures, Kedarnath will hit the screens on December 7, 2018. When the first-look poster of the film Ormayil Oru Shishiram was released very recently, many were left amazed by the youthful looks of the lead actor Deepak Parambol. Malayalam actors, age no bar, are not shying away from going the extra mile to get into the skin of their characters. The physical transformations of some of the Turks in the industry have left many a viewer boggled. When the first-look poster of the film Ormayil Oru Shishiram was released very recently, many were left amazed by the youthful looks of the lead actor Deepak Parambol. Turns out the actor underwent the physical transformation for his role that requires him to look like a teen. Ormayil Oru Shishiram is directed by debutant Vivek Aryan and stars newbie Anaswara as the female lead. The film is reported to be a teenage love story and Deepak, no doubt, looks the role. Allu Arjun has been busy in the last few days, and not because of his film shoots. On the invitation of the Kerala Government, the actor recently attended an event in the state as the chief guest. The next day, he attended for a pre-release event in Hyderabad of the film Taxiwala that stars Vijay Deverakonda. SKN, one of the producers of the film, is Allu Arjuns manager and the other producer Bunny Vasu is his friend. At the event, Allu Arjun spoke about how the Telugu Film Industry is the only one that truly respected its actresses. I enquired about the lead actress of Taxiwala and learnt that she is a Maharastrian brought up in Anantapur. Whoever likes Telugu culture are all deemed as Telugu people, says Allu Arjun. He welcomed non-Telugu girls to give the industry a shot. I wish many more girls would venture into the Telugu film industry. Few days back, my brother and I discussed the #MeToo campaign, and let me tell you that the Telugu film industry is the cleanest one that gives the most respect to its actresses, said the actor. The actor pointed out that many actresses even from the North choose to work here because of the respect they get. If you ask any actress from the North why they work here, they say that they get more respect here than in any other industry, said Allu Arjun. The actor also praised Vijay for his sense of style. The next time you call me for an event, you can design my outfit too and in return I will dance in a song in your film, joked the actor. He asked Vijay to ignore his critics. Many other actors, like myself, come from a big family and our entry into the industry is not difficult. But without any backing, you have worked hard and now have earned a name for yourself with your work alone. People may say many negative things because you are at the top, but dont delve on this negativity. Focus on the positives, advised Allu Arjun. The actor also spoke appreciatively about the films writers, apart from the technicians. HT05 Mumbai: Amrita Raichand, the famed celebrity chef, has been appointed as the brand ambassador of Vittaazio, a leading modular kitchen company and they are very excited about having her on board. Best known for Mummy ka Magic, one of the longest running and award-winning Cooking shows on FoodFood channel, Amrita is a dedicated mum who after having a highly successful career in modelling/acting for almost 15 years, chose to become a professional chef because of her desire to feed her son the best and the healthiest home cooked meals and enable all parents out there to do the same. Vittaazio is famous for crafting unique and enduring designs for different settings such as European-finish kitchen to home modules, wardrobes and doors. Apart from an extensive collection of exquisite designs, Vittaazios products can also be customised as required. This individual centric approach in conjunction with unmatched quality and competitive pricing has placed the brand on top of the line. Chef Amrita has just renovated her entire house and was looking for a reliable and aesthetically apt new Kitchen for her home. Someone who has endorsed multiple brands throughout her career, was highly impressed by Vittaazio when they approached her and explained their ethos of work. She had them on top of her list of preferences and finally chose to appoint them with the task of creating a kitchen as per her style and requirements. She says, Vittaazios work is distinguishable from others because of the level of detailing in their work, their signature styles which is easily apparent to the trained eye. I am looking forward to this association and I intend to support the brand through exciting series of social media and advertising campaigns. Ritesh Gajjar - Director Technical, Vittaazio said, Its pleasure to be associated with Chef Amrita Raichand and have her on board in capacity of a brand ambasaador. Her experience, insights and influence will go a long way in shaping Vittaazios brand image. Apart from that her innovative and creative streak is an added credit for Vittaazio. We hope to have a long and fruitful brand partnership with Amrita. It is still unknown how large Silindile alleges her ex's penis is. (Photo: AFP) In a shocking and bizarre case, a woman is suing her ex-boyfriend after his "abnormally long" penis allegedly overstretched her vagina. According to a report published in Mirror, Silindile Mangena, 29, is planning to undergo reconstructive surgery after getting intimate with Mugove Kurima, 37. However, Mangena wants Kurima to pay the whopping 150,000 Rand (8,000) cost of this - and is reportedly taking him to court over the matter. Mirror cites a Zimbabwe Mail report where Mangena, of Harare, told the newspaper that her private parts were "tight" before she met her ex in 2016. She said she fell in love even though he was allegedly married at the time. However, she ended the relationship in May this year after Kurima is alleged to have stretched her vagina. Notably, it is still unknown how large Silindile alleges her ex's penis is. The woman will reportedly ask the court - through her lawyers, Dakarai, Masendu and Partners - to force Kurima to pay for reconstructive surgery of her vagina in South Africa. Kurima is yet to respond to the allegations. Actor Akshay Kumar's name was mentioned in Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. (Photo: File) Chandigarh: The Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing police firing incidents at Behbal Kalan on sacrilege issue, has summoned former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, his son Sukhbir Singh Badal and actor Akshay Kumar. While Parkash has been asked to appear before the SIT of Punjab Police on November 16, Sukhbir has been summoned on November 19 and Akshay has been asked to come on November 21 to the Circuit House in Amritsar. The summon orders have been issued separately for the three by SIT member and IG rank officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, according to an official release issued in Chandigarh. The SIT is probing police firing incidents at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan in Faridkot in 2015 after a series of sacrilege incidents in the state. In police firing at Behbal Kalan, two persons were killed. Notably, the actor's name was mentioned in Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. According to the report, a meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir and Dera Sacha Sauda sect head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in connection with the release of latter's movie 'MSG' was held at Akshay's flat in Mumbai. The meeting was held before the pardon given to Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a blasphemy case. However, Akshay had denied all the claims. Kunwar Singh said the summons relate to investigation of cases originating from the various incidents of sacrilege in the year 2015. The summons have been issued under Section 160 of the CrPC, requiring attendance at investigation, relating to the Bargari sacrilege case and the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura police firing incidents, the release said. The notice says the presence of the aforesaid person is necessary for the purpose of inquiry into the above-mentioned offence and the person summoned needed to give such information relating to the said alleged offence as he may possess. The SIT had earlier examined ADGP Jitendra Jain, then IG Bathinda; IGP Paramraj Singh Umaranangal; then Commissioner Ludhiana; IGP Amar Singh Chahal, then DIG Ferozepur Range; MS Jaggi, then DC Faridkot; SS Mann, then SSP Faridkot; VK Syal then SDM Faridkot, besides Mantar Singh Brar, then Kotkapura MLA. In addition, 50 private persons and more than 30 police officials of junior rank have also been examined. The five-member SIT was set up by the state government in September this year, soon after issuance of the notification to withdraw investigation of sacrilege incidents of the Guru Granth Sahib from the CBI. Srujan and Lakshmi were locked in a room that caught fire (Image DC) Bengaluru: In a fire accident, two children died due to suffocation while playing inside their house in Electronic City police station limits on Sunday morning. The deceased have been identified as Srujan, 5 and Lakshmi, 2, children of Devendra and Roopashree. The couple hailed from Nepal and had come to the city one-and-half years ago. The police said Lakshmi was working as a domestic help, while Devendra was working as a security guard in Paradise Apartments in Basapura near Hosur Road. The apartment owners had provided him a small room on the ground floor to stay. Police said at around 8 am Lakshmi left the children inside the house, locked the door and left for work. Devendra was sitting near the entrance of the apartment. The incident came to light at 11 am when Lakshmi returned home and noticed smoke coming from her house. She immediately opened the door and saw that the bed had caught on fire and the children were laying down. Hearing her scream, the neighbours rushed to her help and doused the fire. The children were rushed to a nearby hospital, where they were declared brought dead. The Electronic City police rushed to the spot and carried out preliminary investigation. The police suspect the two were playing with the matchbox and it might have led to an accidental fire that burnt down the bed. A senior officer said as the house, including windows, was locked and there was no outlet for smoke. The two might have tried to escape, but fainted due to lack of oxygen. They did not sustain any burn injuries and died due to suffocation, he added. He said as the house was located behind the apartment Devendra failed to notice the smoke or hear the cries of children. The Electronic City police have registered a case and handed over the bodies to the family after postmortem. Vijayawada: The BJP lodged a complaint against AP chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu with AP and Telangana states Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan. BJP national spokesperson and MP (Rajya Sabha) G.V.L. Narasimha Rao met Mr Narasimhan in Vijayawada on Sunday. He complained about the misuse of public money for personal and TD agenda by Mr Naidu. He announced that the BJP plans to file a petition in the court against Mr Naidu for misusing public money. He alleged that Mr Naidu was using public money for his personal interests. He alleged misuse of Central government funds to the tune of Rs 1,53,000 crores by the TD government and demanded that Mr Naidu account for the use of these funds. He asked youth of the BJP Yuva Morcha to highlight TD corruption and the failures of Mr Naidu among people during the BJPs to be launched house-to-house campaign. After meeting Mr Narasimhan, Mr Rao joined the BJP Yuva Morcha meeting at Guntur on Sunday. He claimed that the BJP led Union government had fulfilled most assurances given to the residuary AP state. He alleged that Mr Naidu had failed to provide drinking water to the people of his own Assembly constituency of Kuppam. Bengaluru: Former BJP minister and mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy was arrested by the Central Crime branch (CCB) here on Sunday in a money laundering and bribery case in which he is accused of demanding a bribe to bail out the owners of Ambidant Marketing Pvt Ltd, an investment company, facing an Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigation. Ambidant allegedly duped over 15,000 customers of over Rs 900 crore in a Ponzi scheme. Reddy was produced before the 6th Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court which remanded him to judicial custody till November 24. He is currently lodged at the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison here. Reddy, who was allegedly on the run ever since news of the scam broke out, had reached the CCB office Saturday noon where he was grilled. On Sunday morning, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Alok Kumar announced Reddy's arrest and said, "We have taken the decision to arrest him on the basis of credible evidence and statements of witnesses. We are going to recover the money and give it back to investors." Reddy has been booked under sections 204 (destruction of evidence). 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and multiple sections of Prevention of Money Laundering Act. He was accused of demanding 57 kg of gold worth Rs 18 crore from Ambidant company's owner Syed Fareed Ahmed to save him from the ED's clutches. Fareed who is on bail, reportedly revealed to the police how the deal was struck and the gold handed over to Reddy. Sources said that during the investigation, it came to light that Fareed met Reddy through his close aide, Mehfuz Ali Khan and struck a deal. Reddy allegedly demanded 57 kgs of gold as bribe through a jeweller. Ambidant allegedly paid Rs 18 crore to Ramesh Kothari of Ambika Jewellers in Bengaluru who handed over 57 kg of gold to jeweller Ramesh of Raj Mahal Fancy Jewellers in Ballari. From Ramesh, Khan collected the gold for Reddy. Khan was also summoned by the CCB for questioning. However, Reddy has denied the allegations and any involvement in the affairs of Ambidant while asserting that he was being framed. Attorney General K K Venugopal said citizens from far flung areas come to Supreme Court and the bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi was dismissing their petitions without hearing them at the admission stage. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Attorney General K K Venugopal on Monday lodged protest in the Supreme Court against dismissal of cases without hearing the lawyers. Venugopal's protest came before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. He said citizens from far flung areas of the country come to the apex court and the bench headed by the CJI was dismissing their petitions without hearing them at the admission stage. "People come to this court after travelling thousands of miles and Your Lordships do not even hear their arguments and dismiss cases saying you have read it. This is not the way, at least at admission stage they should be heard," the top law officer said. The CJI, who was presiding the bench along with Justice S K Kaul, said that he was taking note of his concerns. "Alright, Mr Venugopal. We take your statement in the right spirit. You may now argue," the CJI said. Venugopal was appearing on behalf of Rajasthan government in a tax-related matter before the bench and when he sensed that the court was not inclined to entertain the plea, he made the protest. The bench led by the CJI has been taking tough stand on urgent mentioning of cases and disposes them of quickly. The law officer said that the bench should have issued the notice as it related to the revenue of the state. "It is related to revenue of a state Why the CJI bench is hesitating to issue notice. It is about state government's revenue," Venugopal said. "Do not presume we didn't see the file...we might have misread it but we read it," the CJI said. Hyderabad: From striking down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act to lifting the ban on the entry of women in the 10-50 years age group to the Sabarimala temple, the Supreme Court has delivered several landmark judgements that have brought about changes in our lives. But some of the directions have gone up in smoke as government agencies found it difficult to execute them on the ground. As such even a day before Diwali, the Telangana police did not have a plan to tackle possible violations of the timing restriction on firing crackers. It turned out to be exactly as feared. On Diwali, crackers were burst right from dawn till past midnight. A senior police officer said, Certain judgements need acceptance. As many practices are decades old, it requires some time for alterations. Regarding the Diwali judgement, time was insufficient to deploy extra forces. The focus was to prevent cracker-related mishaps and keeping guard at highly sensitive areas like fuel depots. Also, the matter involved the sentiments of the people and it is difficult to convince them in a short span of time. Using forces to deter the public on a festival day may also lead to a tense situation. Constant persuasion in the future is likely to yield results in implementing such orders, the police officer added. However, a few experts see the directions in sharp contrast with the ground reality. The order on cracker ban cannot be implemented. It shows that the order has no sync with the grassroot reality because the truth is that nobody cared about following the SC order, said former director-general of police Swaranjit Sen The legislature should be equipped and prepared to implement such orders. In the case of Sabarimala, there are two issues to be addressed. The court streamlined equality in its wisdom. But the sentiments of the devotees are involved, which is hindering the state from executing the order, Mr Sen said. During the tenure of retired IAS officer V. Balasubramaniam, the High Court while hearing a PIL on pollution in the Hussainsagar had directed the state government to ensure that no idol was immersed in the lake. The public did not cooperate, thus the direction had to be modified, and the court then asked the state agencies to remove idols within 24 hours of immersion. The orders need public acceptance to be implemented and are a success when it is duly followed, an officer said. Many of the SC directions are deemed judicial activism. In recent times, the apex court has been issuing directors on matters such as preventing industrial pollution at teh Taj Mahal and controlling pollution in the Ganga. Not complying with orders issued in good intention cost us our lives. The SC is interpreting our constitutional right that is the right to live with dignity, in an environment free from pollution. But it requires the people to help the government to implement the order, said Prof. C. Srinivasulu, an environmentalist. A few years ago, the government after it was pulled up by the Supreme Court, banned single-use plastic but it turned out to be ineffective till date though state governments are working towards end plastic pollution. 'Perhaps, the elections fought and won in college were the foundation of my 52 years of electoral politics in Parliament and the (Maharashtra) Assembly,' Sharad Pawar said. (Photo: File | ANI) Pune: Now no election" was Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar's one-line reply on being asked whether he would consider contesting next year's Lok Sabha polls from Pune. Pawar and former Tripura governor Srinivas Patil were being interviewed by Sudhir Gadgil at a function Pune on Sunday to mark the launch of "Pune Ekekali", a coffee-table book on Maharashtra's second-largest city. The question came up after Pawar told the gathering about his long association with Pune, including having won polls for four consecutive years while studying in a local college. "Perhaps, the elections fought and won in college were the foundation of my 52 years of electoral politics in Parliament and the (Maharashtra) Assembly," the NCP chief said. It was then that Gadgil asked the former Union agriculture minister if he would consider contesting next year's general election from Pune since he had such a long association with the city. "Now no election," Pawar replied. Addressing the function, the former Maharashtra chief minister also hailed acclaimed engineer Narhar Ganpat Pawar, who is credited with designing several landmark buildings of Pune. "Narhar Ganpat Pawar built several iconic buildings, including that of the Sir Parashurambhau College (SP College at Sadashiv Peth in Pune). However, unfortunately, many Punekars do not know about his contribution," Pawar rued. Hyderabad: Compulsory fortification will be enforced from January to provide micronutrients to people. Five staple foods wheat flour, oil, milk, rice and salt will be fortified to tackle the deficiency of micronutrients. The deficiency of iron, folic acid, vitamin A and D is very high in India and fortification of essential commodities with micronutrients has been made mandatory. Nutritionist Janaki Srinath explained, There was a consensus that once the economic condition of the population improves. The deficiencies will be tackled effectively. But that has not been so. Data from several studies and from the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) continued to show deficiency in micronutrients among the population. She said the Central government wanted to carry out the fortification of five foods which were consumed by the people across states. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) along with the Institute of Preventive Medicine have insisted that manufacturers must carry out the process of fortification. The manufacturers of milk and oil products were trained on Sunday and the other sectors are to be covered later. Mr Guru Raj Patil, deputy director, Karnataka Health Promotion Trust, who is overseeing the process in eight states, explained said the fortified foods will have Plus F logo and this will have to be monitored by the state food control agencies. There are guidelines on the fortification process and these are internationally certified as safe, he said. Awareness has to be created among the people as those who have adequate micronutrients in their foods must not opt for them. Hence reading the label and checking for the logo will be very important for the consumers. At the consumer level awareness has to be carried out as to who requires fortified foods and who does not. The government officials insist that fortification is within safe limits only but those who are adequate will not require it. Manju Verma had resigned as the Social Welfare Minister of Bihar in August after her husband, Chandrashekhar Verma came under fire for allegedly having links with Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case. (Photo: File | ANI) New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday asked Bihar Director General of Police (DGP) to appear before it on November 27 and explain why former cabinet minister Manju Verma, accused in Arms Act case, has not been traced. "Fantastic! ex-cabinet minister (Manju Verma) on the run, fantastic. How could it happen that ex-cabinet minister is absconding and nobody knows where she is? You (Bihar government) realise the seriousness of the issue that ex-cabinet minister is not traceable. Its too much," observed Justice Madan B Lokur. "We are quite shocked that former cabinet minister can not be traced by the police for over a month. We would like the police to tell us that how such an important person is not traceable. Director General of Police to appear before us," the apex court said. The Supreme Court has set November 27 as the next date for hearing. On November 1, the Bihar police had issued a non-bailable warrant against Manju Verma after the Supreme Court came down heavily on the state government. Verma had resigned as the Social Welfare Minister of Bihar in August after her husband, Chandrashekhar Verma came under fire for allegedly having links with Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case. The shelter home rape case pertains to the alleged sexual harassment of 44 girls residing at the state-run shelter home. Bengaluru: Union Minister Ananth Kumar, who was battling lung cancer for several months, died at 2 am on Monday at a private hospital in Bengaluru. He was 59. President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several other political leaders, including Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, expressed their grief over Kumars death. Expressing his sadness over Kumars death, President Kovind said saying the passing of the "veteran" parliamentarian was "a tragic loss to public life in the country and particularly for the people of Karnataka." Sad to hear of the passing of Union minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H.N. Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates #PresidentKovind President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) November 12, 2018 PM Modi also expressed his grief and said Ananth Kumar was "a remarkable leader" who "went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion". Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 In another tweet, the Prime Minister said Ananth Kumar "was a great asset to the BJP organisation". Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 BJP president Amit Shah also took to Twitter and remembered Ananth Kumar as a remarkable administrator. He said Kumars death has left a void in the BJP and Indian polity that cannot be filled soon. I am grief stricken to learn about the untimely demise of our senior leader and union minister Shri Ananth Kumar ji. He served the nation and organisation with unparalleled zeal and dedication. Ananth ji worked tirelessly to strengthen the BJP in the state of Karnataka. Amit Shah (@AmitShah) November 12, 2018 Ananth ji was a remarkable administrator who served various ministerial portfolios. His passing away has left a void in the BJP and Indian polity that can not be filled soon. May God give his family & supporters strength to bear this tragic loss. My deepest condolences. Om Shanti Amit Shah (@AmitShah) November 12, 2018 Rahul Gandhi also offered condolences to Kumar's family and prayed for peace to the departed soul. Im sorry to hear about the passing of Union Minister, Shri Ananth Kumar ji, in Bengaluru, earlier this morning. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace. Om Shanti. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) November 12, 2018 External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that she was "pained" to know about Ananth Kumar's death. "His death is a personal loss for me," she tweeted. I am pained to know about the sad demise of Shri Ananth Kumar. He was like my younger brother. His death is a personal loss for me. Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) November 12, 2018 Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that he was "absolutely shocked and pained" by Ananth Kumar's death. He added that Kumars death is a big loss for the BJP and also a personal loss for him. Absolutely shocked and pained by the demise of very senior colleague and a friend Shri Anant Kumar ji. He was a seasoned parliamentarian who served the nation in several capacities. His passion and devotion for the welfare of people was commendable. My condolences to his family. (@rajnathsingh) November 12, 2018 My mind is filled with memories of working with Anant Kumar ji in the government and party organisation. These memories will stay with me. His demise is a big loss for the BJP. It is also a personal loss for me. (@rajnathsingh) November 12, 2018 Taking to Twitter, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said she felt "deep sense of grief" on hearing about Kumars death. Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss. Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) November 12, 2018 Former Karnataka chief minister and current minister in the Modi government, Sadananda Gowda, said it was "unbelievable" that his "friend, brother Ananthkumar is no more". Shocked , its unbelievable , My friend , Brother Ananthkumar is no more . pic.twitter.com/zMOYEn7gXc Sadananda Gowda (@DVSBJP) November 12, 2018 Union Minister Suresh Prabhu said that Kumar will be remembered as able administrator and a grass root leader. Saddened by the demise of Union Minister & senior @BJP4India leader #AnanthKumar Ji. His valuable contribution to the nation under various Union Ministerial positions and sound leadership will be greatly missed. My condolences to his family at this moment of grief. Om Shanti. Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) November 12, 2018 Shri Anant kumar ji is a very good friend and a valued colleague... Shocked and saddened beyond words with his untimely demise... He will be remembered as able administrator and a grass root leader. My thoughts are with his family and followers at this hour of grief. Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) November 12, 2018 Expressing his sadness, Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said that he has lost a great friend in Ananth Kumars death. He was a value based politician, who made significant contribution to country as MP and Union Minister. May his soul rest in peace and may God give strength to his family and his followers to endure this loss, Kumaraswamy added. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said Kumar had a huge contribution in Karnataka politics and will be always remembered for his good work. Union Minister Ananth Kumar Kumar passed away from complications following cancer and infections, BJP office said in a statement. (Photo: ANI) Bengaluru: Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. Kumar, 59, breathed his last around 2 am with his wife Tejaswini and two daughters by his bedside, Sankara Hospital Director Nagaraj told news agency PTI. He had come back to Bengaluru only recently after undergoing treatment in the US and Britain. He was later under treatment at the Sankara Hospital in Bengaluru. BJP sources said the body of Kumar would be kept at the National College Ground, which falls in his Bangalore South Lok Sabha constituency, for public homage. Details of funeral arrangements were being worked out, the sources said. Kumar passed away from complications following cancer and infections, his party office said in a statement. He had been on the ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit for the last few days, it said. Expressing his grief, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was extremely saddened by the passing away of his valued colleague and friend" and described him as a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work, he said in a tweet. "Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents," PM Modi said in another tweet. The Prime Minister said he spoke to Kumar's wife Dr Tejaswini and expressed condolences. "My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti," he said. As a six-time member of Parliament, Kumar had climbed the political ladder steadily from being an RSS worker to be the Union minister in his thirties. Kumar had been in the inner circle of the central leadership of the BJP -- be it during the heydays of Atal Bihari Vajpayee or L K Advani and now Narendra Modi. He joined the BJP in 1987 and never looked back, as he held posts of state secretary, state president of the Yuva Morcha, general secretary and national secretary. Along with state BJP chief Yeddyurappa, Kumar is among a few party leaders who can be credited for the growth of BJP in Karnataka, as they built the party and bringing it to power in 2008, making it the first saffron party government in the South. Kumar first got elected to Lok Sabha in 1996 from Bangalore South, the constituency, which remained his bastion till his passing away. India signed an agreement with France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of the upgrading process of the Indian Air Force equipment. The estimated cost of the deal is Rs 58,000 crore. (Photo: File) New Delhi: Delay by the UPA government in finalising the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) process led to adversaries inducting 4th and 5th generation jets and there was an urgent need to "arrest the decline" in the number of IAF fighter squadrons, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Monday. This was stated in the document which the Centre made public to justify the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. Giving the sequence of events on the Rafale deal, the document said a proposal to buy MMRCA was sent from the Indian Air Force to the government and tenders for 126 fighter jets were issued by India 2007. "During this long period of inconclusive 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) process, our adversaries inducted modern aircraft and upgraded their older versions. They acquired better capability air-to-air missiles and inducted their indigenous fighters in large numbers. Further, they modernised and inducted aircraft with advanced weapon and radar capabilities," said the document submitted to the apex court. Also Read: Rafale deal: Centre provides document on decision process to petitioners It said that as per available information, "adversaries inducted more than 400 fighters (equivalent to more than 20 Squadrons) during the period from 2010 to 2015". "They not only inducted 4th Generation Aircraft but also inducted 5th Generation Stealth Fighter Aircraft. The combined effect of our own reducing combat potential and our adversaries enhancing their combat potential made the situation asymmetrical and extremely critical. An urgent need was felt to arrest the decline in the number of fighter squadrons in IAF and enhance their combat capabilities," the Centre said. It said that an intent was brought out for acquisition of 36 Rafale jets (two squadrons) in "fly-away" condition, on terms which would be better than conveyed by Dassault Aviation in the process which was already underway. "In the case for procurement of 36 Rafale aircrafts, all the requisite steps i.e. preparation of Services Qualitative Requirements (SQR), Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) by Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), Technical Evaluation and acceptance of technically qualified platform, commercial negotiations by Contract Negotiation Committee (CNC) and approval of Competent Financial Authority (CFA) as per requirement of Defence Procurement Procedure 2013 have been followed," the document said. India signed an agreement with France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of the upgrading process of the Indian Air Force equipment. The estimated cost of the deal is Rs 58,000 crore. The injured Jawans were evacuated from the encounter site by a chopper and airlifted to Raipur for treatment. Raipur: Incidents of Maoist violence at several places in Bastar in Chhattisgarh on Monday marred first phase of Assembly polls in the state, even as the insurgency-hit region witnessed an impressive voter turnout of over 60 percent. While Maoists ambushed a search party of security personnel at Pamed in Bijapur district leaving five CRPF jawans injured, the ultras triggered two improvised explosive device (IED) blasts at Tumakpak in Dantewada district in the region to scare away voters. Official reports reaching here said the rebels stormed around a dozen villages in Dantewada district and held the local tribals hostage to deny them from exercising their franchise. Two troopers of Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA), a counterinsurgency of CRPF, and three jawans of CRPF were injured when armed guerrillas ambushed a search party of security personnel in Pamed in south Bastar district of Bijapur, sources in State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) said. The injured Jawans were evacuated from the encounter site by a chopper and airlifted to Raipur for treatment. The search party was sanitising the area for movement of polling parties when the Maoists attacked them. Similarly, Maoists triggered two IEDs at Tum-akpak under Dornapal police limits in Dante-wada district to scare away the tribal voters who poured in the local polling booth to vote. However, there were no reports of casualty or injury to anybody in the incident. Security forces recovered two IEDs weighing 10 kg and 5 kg each, planted at Kodkesa under Kanker district by Maoists to target the cops and polling parties. However, tribals thron-ged the polling booths in large numbers in their respective areas to cast vote defying Maoist diktat to boycott polls. Chhattisgarh chief electoral officer (CEO) Subrat Sahu however said barring stray incidents of Maoist violence, the first phase assembly elections in the state had remained by and large peaceful. New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to consider on Tuesday a batch of petitions seeking review of its September 28 verdict allowing entry of women of all age groups into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. On September 28, a five-judge constitution bench headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in its 4:1 verdict, had paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the temple. A batch of 48 petitions seeking review of the judgement would be taken up in-chamber by a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices R.F. Nariman, A.M. Khanwilkar, D.Y. Chandra-chud and Indu Malhotra. On September 28, a five-judge Constitution bench headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in its 4:1 verdict, had paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple saying that the ban amounted to gender discrimination. A batch of 48 petitions seeking review of the judgement would be taken up for consideration in-chamber by a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices R.F. Nari-man, A.M. Khanwilkar, D.Y. Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra. Besides these pleas, three separate petitions seeking review of the verdict are also slated to come up for hearing in the open court before a bench comprising CJI Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K.M. Joseph. The apex courts judgement has led to protests and counter-protests at the hill-top shrine in Kerala. The top court had on October 9 declined an urgent hearing on the review plea filed by an association which had contended that the five-judge Constitution benchs verdict lifting the ban was absolutely untenable and irrational. Later, the court had said that it would consider the review pleas on November 13. A plea filed by National Ayyappa Devotees Association, had said that the notion that the judgment under review is revolutionary, is unfounded. It is a judgment welcomed by hypocrites who were aspiring for media headlines. Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy has promised to introduce a sub-plan for minorities and an allocation of 12 per cent of their budget for their welfare. Addressing a meeting on national integration to mark the 130th birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad here on Sunday, Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged that TRS deceitful attitude towards Muslims and caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Raos proximity with BJP posed a big threat to the continuation of 4 per cent Muslim reservations. Listing out the failures of TRS government towards minorities, he said, Not even 50 per cent of the allocated budget was spent on minorities' welfare. Only `3,000 crore was spent in the last four-and-a-half years on minorities welfare which was not even 0.5 per cent of `6.75 lakh crore, the total budget of Telangana state all these years. The TRS, if voted to power again, might not defend the 4 per cent Muslim quota in the Supreme Court to please Prime Minister Narender Modi as it wants to go with the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections. Today he is not even talking about 12 per cent Muslim reservation. KCR apparently feels that he can easily get away after cheating the entire Muslim community and he wont be questioned by anyone. The recent instances have unmasked KCR. His hatred towards Muslims and proximity towards Sangh Parivar has been proved repeatedly. He openly supported the BJP in the elections for President and Vice-President and TRS MPs supported Modi government by not taking part in voting during the no-confidence motion moved by the TD, he said. He also slammed the TRS government for not appealing in a higher court against the verdict of the NIA court on the Macca Masjid blast case wherein all accused were acquitted. The TPCC chief said The judgement was delivered in April this year while KCR was in power. What prevented the TRS government from filing an appeal in the higher court against the verdict? Similarly, the report on Alair encounter in which five Muslim youth were shot dead while they were being brought to court in Hyderabad is yet to be prepared. Hyderabad: The BJP is ready to announce the election manifesto for the on December 7 Assembly elections. Our manifesto promises to place the history of Hyderabad in academics, which will include the activities of Razakars under the Nizam rule till the states formation, said BJP manifesto committee chairman N.V.S.S. Prabhakar. The BJP will announce waiver of tax on diesel and petrol, establishing a Sanskrit university etc. Speaking to this newspaper, Mr Prabhakar said, Sanskrit language will be introduced from the school level to the university for promoting Sanskrit. If voted to power, the BJP government will distribute one lakh cows to the persons who feed and pray to them, and this will be repeated every year. An IT welfare board will be setup in Telangana to provide job security for the employees. He added that the BJP government would pay house rent of tenants up to `5,000. If voted to power the Contributory Pension Scheme would be abolished. A welfare board will be setup for pensioners and senior citizens. Our manifesto will also deal with the issues of private school and collage managements. The buildings of schools and colleges will be transformed from commercial to residential to save them from commercial taxes. We will also issue health cards to all, and will also establish the Mini India linguistic welfare board, Mr Prabhakar said. If these votes were polled to a candidate, the result could have been different. Hyderabad: Nota (None of The Above) is changing the fate of candidates in several constituencies. It is not in the interest of political parties to advertise the fact that they are being rejected by the electorate, and so the power of Nota is being deliberately underplayed. In many elections the option on the ballot paper to not vote for any of the candidates has won more votes than some political parties that contested. For example, in the 2014 Assembly elections in Kalwakurthy assembly constituency, Congress candidate Vamshi Chand Reddy won with a majority of just 78 votes. Nota polled 1,139 votes. If these votes had been polled to any of the contesting candidates the result would have been different. Nota was introduced for the first time in India in the 2014 Rajya Sabha elections following a Supreme Court directive. Initially, Nota had no symbol but in the 2015 general election the Election Commission announced a symbol which was designed by the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. When Nota was first introduced, there was little response to it. It gradually increased in popularity as voters understood its significance and decided to give vent to their frustration with ineffective political parties. Not surprisingly, there are more Nota users in rural areas than urban areas. Where the margin of votes between the winning candidate and her/his nearest rival is slim, Nota can change the fate of the candidates. In some cases the votes polled to Nota are more than the margin by which a candidate has won. If these votes were polled to a candidate, the result could have been different. According to EC records, in the last Assembly election in Chhattisgarh, Nota polled more votes in 34 Assembly seats than the majority of wining candidates! Where there is a tight fight between two candidates Nota changes the fate of candidates. In the recent by-elections in Karnataka also, Nota polled sizeable number of votes. Where a candidate wins by a huge majority, Nota cannot change the outcome. In Mandya Lok Sabha constituency, highest votes were polled to Nota with 15,480, whereas in Ballari Lok Sabha constituency Nota got 12,413 votes. In some constituencies Nota got more votes than some of the contesting candidates. This happened in Serilimgampally, LB Nagar and Shadnagar Assembly constituencies. In Serilimgampally, 14 candidates got less than the polls voted to Nota; in LB Nagar it was 24 candidates and in Shadnagar eight candidates got less than the votes polled to Nota. Nota has no electoral value, but it does provide a measure of the anger, disgust or indifference that the electorate has for the candidates. If a large number of the electorate rejected all the candidates, it could send out a strong message that existing parties are not meeting expectations and need to pull up their socks. Ideological preferences, and even blinkers, are legitimate. But political compulsions are equally important. In 1996, when the Taliban had taken control of over 90 per cent of Afghanistan, India had supported the Northern Alliance and it had even set up a military field hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif. At that time, the Russians too were on the anti-Taliban side. At the time of the Christmas 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane by terrorists seeking the release of Masood Azhar, the aircraft was parked at Kabul airport, which was controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban did not have anything to do with the hijacking itself, but tried to show that they were playing neutral hosts. However, they were perhaps silently inimical towards India because of their linkage with Pakistan. But the Taliban did not do or say anything hostile towards India as such. When the Taliban blasted the Bamiyan Buddhas, there was condemnation of it in the Indian Parliament. Between 1996 and 2001, when the Taliban were in power, the Americans kept unofficial contacts with them, and there were also some commercial deals on the anvil. After the American invasion in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States by Osama bin Ladens Al Qaeda, the melting away of the Taliban, and the weak constitutional process that began, India became a supporter of these developments. While India was kept out the Bonn conference held in December 2001 at the insistence of Pakistan, New Delhi soon undertook economic reconstruction work in parts of Afghanistan. And India had also officially expressed the view that there cannot be a good Taliban and bad Taliban, and that the fanatical regime was unacceptable. It was an unexceptionable position. But it has so transpired that the elected governments of Afghanistan, both under Hamid Karzai and Abdul Ghani, were reaching out to the Taliban. The Americans too soon recognised that political stability in Afghanistan hinges on the Taliban joining the political system. The Taliban have adopted the apparently rigid position that there should be withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan before there could be any negotiations. It is possible that once all the foreign troops are out, the Taliban are likely to outflank the democratically-elected government. Indias apprehensions of the return of a fanatical regime still hold good. If the Taliban return to power, which is a hypothesis, they may or may not deal with India and Iran on friendly terms because of their rigid Sunni ideology. Meanwhile, the Russians who had moved out of Afghanistan in 1989, have adopted the position that the Taliban may have to be armed to fight against the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS), or Daesh, in the country. Whatever the cunning that may lie behind the Russian move, it makes strategic sense for Russia to oppose Daesh in Syria and in Afghanistan. But the right move would have been to arm the democratically-elected Kabul government rather than the Taliban. But it would be much better to prevent Taliban and Daesh joining hands. Given the complications of the situation, India perhaps should not be sticking to simplistic positions, which are fine as far as they go. What New Delhi may have to consider is to maintain the position that India is in principle not opposed to the Taliban if the Islamist group adheres to basic democratic norms. The convoluted official Indian position, as stated by the external affairs ministry spokesman, of supporting an Afghan-directed, Afghan-controlled talks for the good of the people of Afghanistan makes eminent sense, but it will require a lot of fine-tuning on the ground. New Delhi might have to put away the earlier perception that the Taliban in Afghanistan is the creation of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which is indeed a fact, and think of ways of dealing with the Taliban, even if it means that the channel of communication to the Taliban is to be facilitated by Islamabad and the ISI. Even if India and Pakistan do not see eye to eye on bilateral issues, they may have to chart a common strategy towards Afghanistan. Of course, India and Pakistan would continue to look to ways to gain an upper hand in Afghanistan, but it would be much better if India remains in touch with the Taliban. In the long run, India has to offer more to Afghanistan by way of economic aid than Pakistan can ever hope to do. Pakistan can hope to scuttle Indias strong position in Afghanistan given that a majority of Afghans love India and hate Pakistan only by making space for Afghanistan in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). India will have to learn to play a cleverer game. Therefore, the Indian move to depute unofficial representatives to the Moscow-convened Afghanistan conference on November 9 was a good one. This should be followed by a subtler strategy of reckoning with the Taliban while supporting democracy in Afghanistan. The present Kabul government is seen as an American-backed puppet regime, which could fall if the foreign troops get out of the country. India should be supporting the efforts of President Abdul Ghani in reaching out to the Taliban. The Great Game of the Big Powers of the 19th century centred around Afghanistan continues into the 21st century. India as an emergent power has a stake in Afghanistan, and it should learn lessons from the Russian and American involvement from 1978 to 2018 in that country. The biggest lesson for India is that it should not identify itself with any regime in Kabul, or with any other regime in the South Asian neighbourhood for that matter. Learning to deal with the Taliban is the first step. Afghanistan is indeed a minefield in more senses than one, and it tests Indias diplomatic finesse to the hilt. This needs greater internal deliberation, which has been sadly lacking for the past two decades. India should not be seen as a sulking spectator at the Afghanistan conferences at a time when the Americans are exploring an exit strategy from the region. The author is a Delhi-based commentator and analyst. The first red flag that Sri Lanka was spiralling into a constitutional meltdown, a free fall, came when Indias friend-turned-smiling-foe, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, arrived in New Delhi in September, followed closely by a grim Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, signalling that a shift in the balance of power was underway in the island nation. The events that followed thereafter set off alarm bells in New Delhi as the frosty acrimony between Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and Mr Wickremesinghe spilled into the open. But Delhi could do little as the India-leaning United National Party leader was sacked as Prime Minister, and Mr Rajapaksa was quickly sworn in. Parliament was suspended, and as of Friday, now stands dissolved, five days before a crucial floor test that would have embarrassingly shown up the Sri Lanka Freedom Party as short of a majority in the 225-seat House, with none of Mr Sirisenas and Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksas attempts to woo Opposition members from Rauf Hakeems Sri Lanka Muslim Congress or for that matter, the Tamil National Alliance, succeeding thus far. On Sunday, Mahinda Rajapaksa made his final move, executing a counter coup within a coup, by pulling 44 loyalists out of the SLFP, the mother party, part-founded by his father and the Bandaranaikes, as he, along with a rising star, his son Namal, joined the Sri Lanka Podujana Party, launched by his brother Basil. Mr Sirisenas hollowed-out SLFP, left with a rump that supports former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, who had forged the unlikely alliance with the UNP to cut Mr Rajapaksa to size in 2015, has now been reduced to complete irrelevance. Mr Sirisena, who set out to sack a PM who wasnt to his liking, got outmanouevred by the canny Rajapaksas. With speculation that Mr Sirisena had been deliberately cut out of the picture over his insistence that he wanted to stay on as President, this was part of the Rajapaksa grand plan to take back the leadership of the political formation he had been robbed of, and adroitly sidestep any court ruling that may or may not go against him, given that four of the judges were appointed by him in the first place. The brunt of Mr Wickremesinghes court appeal hinges on whether Mr Sirisena was within his constitutional rights to dissolve Parliament and call for elections in January 2019, a full year before these were due. The bigger danger to the UNP, if Sri Lanka does head for parliamentary elections, is the return, not just of the powerful Rajapaksa clan itself, but Mahinda Rajapaksas reinstatement as President; if, he has the numbers to revoke the two-term presidency limit. Local body polls are no real indicator on whether he can pull in the numbers nationwide. Long-term Sri Lanka watchers say Mr Rajapaksas India visit was to prepare Delhi for just such an eventuality. And yet Delhi will see a token, if long-overdue, visit to the Maldives by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to mark former President Mohammed Nasheeds protege, Ibrahim Solihs ascension to the presidency, but no special envoy sent to Colombo to reopen communication lines to a nation whose internal politics have a critical impact on Delhi as well as its southern underbelly, the state of Tamil Nadu. New Delhi, admittedly, is in an extremely awkward position. It cannot be seen as openly meddling in the polity of the island nation, although it has repeatedly done so in the past, albeit covertly. Sri Lanka, and by extension, the Maldives, form the cornerstone of Delhis Indian Ocean neighbourhood policy in the face of a rising China, which only this week added the Myanmar port of Kyaukpu to its string of pearls, an India chokehold that includes the Sri Lankan ports of Hambantota (in Mr Rajapaksas hometown), Galle Face in Colombo, and the Pakistan port of Gwadar in Balochistan. Yet, our blinkered conduct of national security in recent times has been marked by a clear distraction of the internal the CBI and the Reserve Bank and a focus on Washington, AfPak and China, and a dialling back on Colombo even when it was all too obvious that the India-leaning Mr Wickremesinghes unnatural marriage of convenience with Mr Sirisenas SLFP was rapidly fraying at the edges; the bad blood centering on Mr Wickremesinghes laidback governance not sitting well with Mr Sirisena. Did New Delhi not pick up on his signal to India that he wasnt going to go quietly when he raised the issue of being targeted by Indias spy agency Research and Analysis Wing? If that was an error in judgment, critics aver that the bigger blind spot is the required domain knowledge of the pulls and pressures that mark the complicated relationship between Sinhala nationalists, the Buddhist clergy, the stubbornly pro-India Tamil and Muslim political leadership and the liberal Western-educated Colombo elite that has seen India not react as proactively as it should have done. The language and the cadence that marks out Sri Lankas political fissures have always been easily understood by India, in the past. Were we quick enough to pick up that Mr Wickremesinghe, whose track record in governance and turning the economy around this time fell short, unlike his previous stint? That his fractious relationship with son of the soil Sirisena was unraveling? His inability to stall Mr Rajapaksas return to the political centrestage when he swept local body polls should have been the next indicator that the man that India worked closely with, to wipe out the LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran, and then foolishly abandoned as he grew closer to China in the face of Indian foot-dragging on investment, was plotting a comeback. Either way, as the West demands a return to democratic norms, India must now use this opportunity to ensure it reopens communication channels to the powerful Rajapaksa clan, particularly Gotabhaya and Basil, and second-generation UNP leaders like Sajith Premadasa, son of Ranasinghe Premadasa, who was assassinated by the Tamil Tigers, and the curiously newly-aggressive Tamil leader, the Colombo import to Jaffna, Wigneswaran, as the discredited powerbrokers of old play out their hand. Sitting on the sidelines of the Sri Lankan pond is no longer an option. In recent decades, the election manifestos of major political parties for the Lok Sabha polls, but especially for Assembly elections, have typically consisted of tall promises, and were not taken seriously by voters. Far more important were the words spoken on the campaign trail by top leaders, like the blatantly fraudulent commitment made in 2014 to deposit Rs 15 lakh in the bank account of every Indian. But the manifestos as well as the spoken word in the coming elections in five states deserve to be noted to understand the depth to which the practice of democracy in India has fallen. Top leaders resorting to rank falsehoods, and the open pandering to communal and nativist sentiments by the ruling parties and their opponents underline the organised attempt to hoodwink voters, who needs his/her socio-economic conditions to get better. This is a scale of regression not seen in a long time. In Chhattisgarh, the manifesto of the challenger Congress Party promises farm loan waivers and rice at Rs 1 per kilo. The ruling BJP speaks of pensions for farmers and a dole for the jobless. These are absurdities. The state simply doesnt have the resources for this kind of spending. Nor is this the best way to go to achieve the best economic results in the long term. Still, it is better to go this route than what we are seeing as the dominant mode of campaign discourse. In Madhya Pradesh, the challenger Congress is speaking of crude communalism in order to outdo the saffron BJP when it speaks of dotting the state with cow-shelters and commercialising cow-urine. It can come a cropper if it bats on the pitch prepared by its adversary, and departs from its own credo. This cant be the answer to the BJPs pretending that its the sole custodian of so-called Hindu values. The Congress wouldnt need to resort to these low ways if as a party it had taken up the cause of the people on a routine basis instead of showing up only at election time. But the way matters stand, the Congress in some measure at least stands indistinguishable from the BJP which, in Telanagana, promised to distribute free cows to villagers! The BJP is stoking communal sentiment on a nationwide scale, of course. Look at the Sabarimala question in Kerala and the assault being prepared on the Ayodhya issue all over again. Besides, fake news is purveyed. BJP president Amit Shah has said his partys government had made Chhattisgarh almost Naxal-free. Union home ministry data shows that in October and November 2013, Maoist guerrillas launched 76 attacks. In contrast, the last 39 days alone have seen 107 assaults. Distorting the fundamental narrative that concerns citizens rather than their breakup in line with religious or caste denominations detracts from the democracy project. The Karnataka brouhaha over celebrating the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan, the 18th century ruler of Seringapatam, may seem like the reinforcement of long-held prejudices stoked by politicians, skeetering dangerously close to stoking communal disharmony. Could there be more? The nationalist chest-thumping by the BJP is to consolidate the fracturing Hindu vote at all costs before the 2019 polls. The Congress tom-tomming of the son-of-the-soil warrior trope is the same construct, papering over Tipus campaigns that slew anyone who stood in his way, Hindu or Christian, touting him as the only one who stood up to the British. Its a bid to keep its own Muslim vote slipping out of its grasp in the crucial Old Mysuru region, where the shift of the Muslim vote away from Janata Dal(S) to Congress in the May Assembly polls cost Deve Gowdas party at least 20 seats. In the recent Ramanagara bypoll, the JD(S) couldnt have won without the Congress 35,000 Muslims. However, the JD(S) may not even ride the Tipu tiger! CM H.D. Kumaraswamys no-show, some say, was really because he was spooked by the superstition that anyone who touches Tipu gets burned! The arrest of controversial Ballari mine baron Gali Janardhan Reddy in Bengaluru on Sunday over his alleged involvement in a ponzi scheme is another nail in the BJPs coffin in Karnataka. The party has tried hard, and failed, to rid itself of the corruption tag brought on by Mr Reddy and former Karnataka CM B.S. Yeddyurappa. Mr Reddy is widely believed to have bankrolled the BJP in its early years, particularly complete outsider Sushma Swaraj who won two consecutive terms from Ballari. He also helped finance Operation Kamala that boosted the BJPs numbers and helped saffronists form their first government in South India in 2008. Mr Reddy, who has already spent nearly four years in jail over illegal mining and iron ore sale charges, has been out on bail, but is barred from entering his hometown, the so-called Republic of Ballari. For the first time in 14 years, the electorate in the recent Ballari bypoll rejected BJP candidate J. Shanta, sister of B. Sreeramulu, Mr Reddys close aide and proxy CM candidate. BJP president Amit Shah had repeatedly said Mr Reddy had nothing to do with the BJP. But with this arrest, spurred, some say, by Congress leader Siddaramaiah with his own personal axe to grind the mine barons money power allegedly reduced Siddaramaiahs margin of victory in Badami to a wafer-thin 1,500 votes Mr Reddys corruption is the BJPs biggest Achilles heel. And the Congress trump card. At the turn of the last decade of the 20th century, when the once-mighty Soviet Union had already broken into 15, there were only five countries with nuclear vessels out of 157 designated naval nations China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States with India nowhere in the reckoning. With 25 nuclear-powered strategic missile submarines (and another six building/projected/converted/life extension programmed) and 83 nuclear-powered attack submarines, the US Navy stood at the top of the list, followed by the Royal Navys eight Vanguard and Resolution class nuclear strategic missile subs and three types (Trafalgar, Swiftsure and Valiant) of 13 nuclear attack subs, usually deployed between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. The French Navy followed the Anglo-Saxon fleet with five nuclear; turbo-electric LInflexible strategic missile boats and five Rubis class nuclear attack subs (with two more building). From the developing world, the Chinese PLA Navy was the sole member of the exclusive nuclear boat club, with an inventory of one Xiang class ballistic and five Han class attack subs. In the midst of the four, what was the fifth navy of the new Russia doing in the sea? Surprisingly, though the State was broken, the spine of the submarine fleet was yet unbroken; and the West was still apprehensive, notwithstanding its visibly reduced fleet strength. Moscow had more than 175 nuclear submarines of various types in its inventory, and even though a large number of them were reported to have been demobilised due to funding problems, resulting in a logistics nightmare, the reduced half of 175 nuclear boats was still good enough to constitute a major strategic challenge to the West. However, the most interesting of all certainly was the report of Janes Fighting Ships 1992-1993 on Chinas Xian class nuclear submarine. First laid down in 1978 at Huludao Shipyard and launched April 30, 1981. Finally became operational 1987 The first firing from Xia was in 1985, and was unsuccessful and it was not until September 1988 that a satisfactory launch took place. Clearly, nuclear subs are no childs play. It troubled even the pioneers. Now fast forward from the 1990s to the 21st century. The elite club of five of the 1990s has now expanded to the exclusive six, with India being the proud new entrant. Here, one needs to recall what even the most recent almanac of world combat ships had to say in 2017 about the advancement made by India in undersea capability. Although Arihant was a notable absentee from the Indian Navys International Fleet Review at Vishakhapatnam in February 2016, this was to be expected given the likelihood that the boat is approaching a crucial period in its life. Having begun sea trials in late 2014, the boat has been subjected to exhaustive testing over the past year, as would be the case for any first of class It further reported that: Meanwhile, second of class Aridaman at an advanced stage of construction and is expected to be launched soon. Thats not bad at all! All the more after what the Indian Navy faced following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. That the West was always wary of Indias avowed independent geostrategic stand and status, can be gleaned from this entry: With commendable pragmatism, India has abandoned its search for an elusive nonaligned status between the Soviet and Western camps. The West certainly has always wanted India to abandon its dependence on Moscows military machine. However, it is the Soviet Russian nuclear-powered Charlie class submarine in the 1980s in which the Indian Navy first tested the power of the nuclear boat. The Indian fleet successfully operated it close to a decade, thereby sowing the seeds of an indigenous nuclear-powered submarine. Todays Arihant is undoubtedly the product of the collective thought process and maritime vision of the nascent India. Arihant, by itself, is not the end, but the beginning of the sea power of the Indian State. Henceforth, its likely to face a sea state which would be more challenging than ever before due to global uncertainties and the turbulence of our times. Moreover, Arihant is bound to face the stark reality of a single boat syndrome. To maintain one submarine on continuous patrol takes a minimum of three and, to be absolutely safe, an optimum number of five hulls, say experts, and this cant be wished away. Seen in this light, one understands why the other five of the club of six are constantly upgrading and enhancing both their capability and deployment. The US Navy today has 68 nuclear subs of various types, with more than 25 on order. There was a time when the Royal Navy did not have a single aircraft-carrier for more than five years, yet it never compromised with the operational deployment of nuclear submarines. Today, the UK has 11 active/reserve nuclear-powered boats with eight more building/projected. Russia is also once again banking on its underwater boats, with a fleet of 50. Like the UK, Russia too preferred submarines over aircraft-carriers, due to the formers inherent stealth capability to be operated for sea control, sea command and sea denial from deep under the sea. There was a time when the French carrier force was the connoisseur of all eyes. No longer, it seems. The sole Charles De Gaulle class carrier is 17 years old, but it is unlikely that the French will go in for a second carrier before another few years. However, France is already going ahead with the construction of six Suffren (Barracuda) class nuclear-powered submarines. And coming to China, it has 12 nuclear-powered boats with many more in the pipeline. Overall, the good news is that India has finally come of age in high-tech sea operations, and as can be gleaned from the annual SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) 2018, India continues to develop the naval component of its triad of nuclear forces in pursuit of an assured second-strike capability. Reportedly, Indias fleet of up to five nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) containing missiles of 5,000-km-plus range, does augur well for the Asian giant. However, concern remains in Indian Ocean littorals with the attempted deep penetration of the Chinese PLA Navy since Beijing continues to assertively pursue its longstanding strategic goal, through its Belt and Road Initiative, of developing and deploying a sea-based nuclear deterrent. According to the US defence departments 2017 annual report on Chinese military power, the PLA Navy (PLAN) has commissioned four Type 094 nuclear-powered ballistic missile subs (SSBNs), and a fifth, with modified hull structure, designated as Type 094A under construction. The point to note, and nullify, is that China has deployed JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which have an estimated maximum range in excess of 7,000 km and is believed to carry a single nuclear warhead. The US report suggests that the four operational Type 094 SSBNs are equipped to carry up to 12 JL-2s. Thus, for India, Arihant was more a matter of compulsion than choice. China sits right across with a 7,000-km-plus range missile. India so far has done well, no doubt; yet its long voyage has really just begun. Mike Pompeo has previously said Khashoggi's killing 'violates the norms of international law,' and that the US was reviewing possible sanctions on individuals identified as having been involved. (Photo: File | AFP) Washington: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday the US will hold accountable all those involved in the killing of a dissident Saudi journalist, in a telephone call that also took in the conflict in Yemen. The killing of Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul and the war in Yemen, which has pushed the country to the brink of famine, are two of the main sources of strain in the decades-old alliance between Washington and Riyadh. Prince Mohammed is controversially linked to both: he has played a direct role in overseeing Saudi Arabia's Yemen intervention and has also been accused of orchestrating the October 2 murder of Khashoggi, who was a US resident. "The Secretary emphasized that the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable, and that Saudi Arabia must do the same," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. The top US diplomat has previously said Khashoggi's killing "violates the norms of international law," and that the US was reviewing possible sanctions on individuals identified as having been involved. But Pompeo and US President Donald Trump have also both emphasized America's important commercial, strategic and national security relationships with the petro-state. Upping the pressure on Saudi Arabia, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that Turkey had shared recordings related to Khashoggi's murder with Riyadh, Washington and other capitals, without giving details of their specific contents. After repeated denials, Saudi Arabia finally admitted the 59-year-old journalist had been murdered at its diplomatic mission in what it termed a "rogue" operation. Reduced US role in Yemen Ankara has been demanding, to date without success, the extradition of those involved in the killing. Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, was critical of Prince Mohammed and the country's intervention in Yemen, a conflict which also came up during the call, said Nauert. Pompeo "reiterated the United States' calls for a cessation of hostilities and for all parties to come to the table to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict," she said. Pompeo has previously called for an end to the fighting in the impoverished Arab state, saying that Shiite Huthi rebels must stop missile and drone strikes from areas they control, and that the Saudi-led coalition must subsequently halt strikes in populated areas. Pompeo's latest remarks come just days after the announcement of the end of a controversial refueling arrangement between the US and the Saudi-led coalition carrying out strikes in Yemen -- a step that lessens American involvement in the war. Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said he supported Saudi Arabia's decision after the official Saudi Press Agency said the coalition asked for the "cessation of inflight refueling support" from the United States. The end of the arrangement comes amid ongoing international outcry over Saudi actions in Yemen, particularly after a string of high-profile coalition strikes that have killed scores of civilians, many of them children. The Pentagon had provided refueling capabilities for about 20 percent of coalition planes flying sorties over Yemen, supporting a highly controversial intervention led by Riyadh to bolster President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government in the face of an insurgency by the Huthis -- a conflict that has left nearly 10,000 people dead. A military official in Hodeida confirmed seven civilians had died, without giving further details. (Representational image | AP) Hodeida: At least 149 people including civilians have been killed in 24 hours of clashes between government loyalists and rebels in Yemen's flashpoint city of Hodeida, medics and military sources said Monday. A military official in Hodeida confirmed seven civilians had died, without giving further details. The Red Sea port city, controlled by Yemen's Houthi rebels since 2014, is a vital entry point for aid into the impoverished country. A source in Yemen's pro-government military coalition, which is backed by a Saudi-led military alliance, said the Houthis had pushed back a large-scale offensive aimed at moving towards Hodeida port. Medics in hospitals across the city reported 110 rebels and 32 loyalist fighters killed overnight. Sources at the Al-Alfi military hospital, seized by the rebels during their 2014 takeover, said charred body parts had been delivered there overnight. Military sources confirmed that the Saudi-led alliance had targeted the rebels with multiple air strikes. Nearly 600 people have been killed since clashes erupted on November 1 in Hodeida, one of Yemen's most densely populated cities. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the Yemeni government's fight against the Iran-backed Houthis in 2015, triggering what the UN now calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The Hodeida port is a vital lifeline for aid deliveries to Yemenis across the war-torn country, where 14 million people face imminent famine. The port has been under blockade by the Saudi-led coalition for a year. The alliance accuses Iran of smuggling arms to the Houthis through the Hodeida port. Tehran denies the charges. After the clash erupted, sirens were reported in southern Israel indicating possible rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. (Representational image | AFP) Gaza City: An exchange of fire erupted during an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing six Palestinians and an Israeli soldier, officials said, while potentially dashing hopes that a recent agreement would restore calm. As tensions rose following the clash, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he would cut short his trip to Paris, where he had been attending World War I commemorations, and return home. Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the blockaded Gaza Strip, denounced a "cowardly Israeli attack". Palestinian security sources said the clash included Israeli air strikes. After the clash erupted, sirens were reported in southern Israel indicating possible rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Ten launches from Gaza towards Israel were identified and two were intercepted by Israeli missile defences, the army said. It was not immediately clear where the others had landed. Details were still emerging of the incident that Palestinian officials said occurred east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Gaza's health ministry said six Palestinians were killed. The dead included a local commander for Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the brigades said in a statement. He was identified as Nour Baraka. Israel's army confirmed one soldier was killed and another was injured. "During an (Israeli) special forces operational activity in the Gaza Strip, an exchange of fire evolved," the army said in a statement. "At this incident, an IDF officer was killed and an additional officer was moderately injured," it added, referring to the Israel Defence Forces. It added that the operation was now over. Hamas's armed wing alleged in a statement that an Israeli special forces team infiltrated near Khan Yunis in a civilian car. Israel's military had not confirmed those details nor described what type of operation it carried out. A ground operation inside the Gaza Strip would be rare and likely significantly boost tensions. Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman held security consultations at military headquarters, his office said. 'Protection money' The clash comes after months of deadly unrest along the Gaza-Israel border had appeared to be calming. Recent weeks have seen Israeli decisions to allow Qatar to provide the Gaza Strip with millions of dollars in aid for salaries as well as fuel to help ease an electricity crisis. Netanyahu had earlier defended his decision to allow Qatar to transfer the cash to Gaza despite criticism from within his own government over the move, saying he wanted to avoid a war if it wasn't necessary. "I'm doing what I can, in coordination with the security establishment, to return quiet to the southern communities, but also to prevent a humanitarian crisis," Netanyahu said late Saturday, referring to Israeli towns near the Gaza border and deteriorating conditions in the enclave. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu's education minister and right-wing rival, compared the cash flow to "protection money" paid to criminals. Lieberman said he had opposed "transferring the money to Hamas". Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008, and recent months of unrest have raised fears of a fourth. Deadly clashes have accompanied major protests along the Gaza-Israel border that began on March 30. At least 227 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, the majority shot during protests and clashes, since the demonstrations began, while others died in tank fire or air strikes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in that time. On Friday, Palestinian civil servants began receiving payments after months of sporadic salary disbursements in cash-strapped Gaza, with $15 million delivered into the enclave through Israel in suitcases by Qatar. A total of $90 million is to be distributed in six monthly installments, Gaza authorities said, primarily to cover salaries of officials working for Hamas. Qatar has also said it would hand out USD 100 to each of 50,000 poor families, as well as larger sums to Palestinians wounded in clashes along the Gaza-Israel border. The Gulf emirate has also started buying additional fuel for Gaza's sole power station, allowing outages to be reduced to their lowest level in years. In the 20 odd years as a Parliamentarian, Union Minister Ananth Kumars contribution to Karnataka, especially Bengaluru are manifold, playing an integral part of the Indian economy. Noteworthy among them are his efforts to set the ball rolling for the internationally acclaimed Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), which today stands as the third busiest airport in India today. Follow LIVE UPDATES He oversaw the framing of policy for the countrys first real public-private partnership in civil aviation space. It was Ananth Kumar, as a Union Civil Aviation Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government who signed the MoU for KIA in the year 1998. It was due to this MoU/joint agreement between the Centre and the J H Patel government that the project came into existence. Ananth Kumar ensured that Karnataka got international funding from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), making the airport project financially viable. The detailing of this project was so thorough that it became a model for more such airports across the country -- notably in Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. When the project was envisioned, the annual passenger traffic was expected to be around 1 million. The traffic has gone beyond 26 million today. Also, as a member of National Infrastructure Task Force, he ensured that Bengaluru was included in the Golden Quadrilateral National Highways project. READ: Ananth Kumar, a man who never saw electoral defeat Namma Metro Incidentally, the Namma Metro project too was approved by the Vajpayee government. The Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the mass transit system was approved by the Centre when Ananth Kumar was the Union Urban Development Minister in the year 2003. Last year, when there were massive protests over the imposition of Hindi in Metro trains by the Central authorities, Ananth Kumar had taken a pro-Kannada stand. He had said that priority should be given to the use of Kannada language -- followed by Hindi and English. He had said that the Railways was using three languages (in signages and announcements in trains), and that first priority should be given to Kannada in Namma Metro. Stating that the use of three languages would not only benefit local passengers but also those from other states and countries, living in Bengaluru. READ: Ananth Kumar was lawyer, but I made him politician Cauvery & Bengaluru Ananth Kumar who was the torchbearer for state issues related to land, language and water, was also instrumental in getting the Vajpayee government to clear the Cauvery stage IV project, helping bring Cauvery water to the parched parts of the state capital. Ananth Kumar also strongly lobbied for Karnataka in the Cauvery and Krishna river rows, which was hailed by former prime minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda. Recalling how he had sat on a hunger strike when the Supreme Court ordered the formation of the Cauvery Management Board (CMB), Gowda said that it was Kumar who convinced the Modi government to argue against the order, stating that the decision was detrimental to Karnataka. ALSO READ Ananth Kumar passes away; funeral tomorrow at 1 pm Ananth Kumar ignored symptoms, says friend and doctor Ananth Kumar, a man who never saw electoral defeat Ananth Kumar's demise leaves huge void in Karnataka BJP Seeking a voluntary, safe and dignified return of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar, the US asserted that Dhaka must ensure that the returnees have the freedom of movement and "not be confined to camps". Dhaka and Naypyidaw have agreed last month to begin by mid-November the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled to Bangladesh to escape a Myanmar army crackdown. Under the agreement, Myanmar will take back 2,000 Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh in the first batch, which will be followed by a second batch. "We have engaged both governments at the highest levels to express our serious concerns about premature returns, and to emphasize that, consistent with international practice, returns be informed, voluntary, safe, and dignified. Further, returnees to Burma must have freedom of movement and not be confined to camps, the US State Department said in a statement on Sunday. However, the State Department also said it agrees with the assessment of the UN high commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that conditions in Myanmar are not yet conducive for returns of the Rohingyas. "This is because full access to Burma is needed to understand the conditions in areas of return and to allow refugees and internally displaced persons to make an informed choice about returning to Burma," it said. Over 720,000 of Myanmar's stateless Rohingya fled in August last year, taking shelter in crowded camps in Bangladesh and bringing with them harrowing tales of rape, murder and arson in the brutal military crackdown. Urging Myanmar to play a constructive role in resolving the Rohingya issue, the US said the country should address the root causes of the crisis in the Rakhine state and provide access to a transparent and efficient citizenship verification process, freedom of movement and access to livelihoods to the minority Muslims. In a second such incident in 24-hours, an army soldier was killed in sniper fire by Pakistani troops in Naushera sector along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday evening. An official said that a soldier, identified as Naik Gosavi Keshav Somgir, was critically injured in the firing from across the LoC and succumbed to gunshot wound injuries. Somgir (29) belonged to Sri Rampur village of Nashik district in Maharashtra and is survived by his wife. The Indian Army retaliated strongly and effectively on Pakistan Army posts. In a similar such incident, another army soldier was killed in cross-LoC sniper fire on Saturday in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri. Two Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were also wounded in a separate firing incident in Rajouri on Saturday. The ceasefire violations and sniper attacks by Pakistani troops are on the rise this year. On October 21, three soldiers of Jammu and Kashmir light infantry regiment and two heavily-armed infiltrators believed to be members of the Border Action Team (BAT) of the Pakistan army, and terrorists were killed in Sunderbani sector. On November 6, a soldier was injured when he was hit by a sniper from across the border at Kalal in Naushera sector of Rajouri, while a BSF jawan was injured in a separate incident of firing by Pakistan along the LoC in the Manjakote area of the Rajouri-Poonch sector on Friday. According to Union Home Ministry figures, the first seven months of this year saw 52 deaths and 232 people getting injured in 1,435 ceasefire violations by Pakistan army in Jammu and Kashmir. There is 198 km International Border and over 510 km of LoC with Pakistan in the state. Sources said Pakistani troops have positioned snipers at odd locations close to the forward posts to target Indian troopers proceeding on long patrols and forward locations. Pak Army relies on their team of snipers to target Indian positions and in the last one year, several Indian troopers have lost their lives in sniper shots," they revealed. Prime Minister Imran Khan-led Pakistan government must to do some soul searching on India's legitimate concerns to make way for a process of engagement on Kashmir, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah has said. The senior Kashmiri politician said that while a one-off summit-based approach is not the answer, any hopes of a proper dialogue on the issue, "insulated from forces that are inimical to a dialogue on both sides of the border", would have to wait to be realised at the end of India's general election cycle in May 2019. "While we are going through our election process, I think Pakistan needs to do a bit of soul searching in terms of addressing legitimate concerns that India has," he said. The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, who was in London to participate in an event organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) around changing the narratives within the India-Pakistan bilateral context, said the Pakistan government's decisions such as letting Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed "roam free" had proved a setback to the much-needed confidence-building measures. "The recent decision of the Imran Khan government to release 20 stamps on Kashmir does not help, when instead of confidence-building measures we have steps that break confidence," Abdullah said on the sidelines of the event in London on Friday. The release of some 20 postal stamps, glorifying Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani and others, by Pakistan was one of the reasons India cited to call off a proposed meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi in New York in September. "Pakistan is our neighbour; whatever concerns we have with Pakistan, we have accepted that war is not an option. So, the only option available to us is talking. We need to resolve our differences through dialogue. But for that, at some stage, Pakistan will also have to take India's concerns on board," he said. Abdullah also lamented the "vast gap" between the Government of India and its representative in Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik, and the youth of J&K, which needs to be narrowed urgently. He said: "The youth of Jammu and Kashmir are perhaps more alienated today than they have been since the early 1990s; when educated youngsters and people with secure jobs are joining the ranks of militancy. And that's a very worrying sign. "At the moment, it is about hoping that some smaller corrective measures can be taken now to reduce the levels of alienation, with a higher degree of engagement once we are through with this election cycle." AS Dulat, former Intelligence Bureau (IB) Special Director and former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief who was among the participants at the IISS event, also expressed hope that dialogue would be re-initiated between India and Pakistan soon. "We should talk and never stop talking. I remain optimistic on a solution in Kashmir," said Dulat, who pointed to former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's four-point formula dating back to 2006 as a "good starting point". "If that agreement had been worked out between (Gen Pervez) Musharraf and Dr Manmohan Singh, my assessment is that we would have had at least 15 years of peace in Kashmir," he said. Congress party spokesperson Manish Tewari explained that the aim of the London event was to explore the building blocks of a narrative which can correct perceptions that India and Pakistan have about each other. "There is a feeling that confidence-building measures and the creation of a positive narrative have to precede conflict resolution. It is a step by step process and every incremental step would then add up to a whole," he said. Other speakers at the event, including Pakistan-based The News daily Editor Aamir Ghauri, proposed exchange programmes for Indian and Pakistani journalists and a freer flow of people on both sides of the border to foster greater understanding.. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was harping on development at a public meeting in his Lok Sabha constituency here on Monday, barely a few kilometres away RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was holding discussions on the vexed Ram temple issue. Bhagwat was here to attend a five-day meet of the RSS in which around 250 senior Sangh activists from across the country were participating. At the meet, he also deliberated on the proposed 'dharm sabhas' (religious meets) at Ayodhya, Bengaluru and Nagpur later this month to put pressure on the NDA government to take the legislative route for Ram temple construction. According to sources, RSS workers have been instructed to extend full support to make the 'dharm sabhas' a success. ''The swayamsevaks (RSS workers) have been making appeals to the people to attend the dharm sabhas in large numbers,'' said a local BJP leader, who was privy to the deliberations at the RSS meet. He also said that the Sangh workers had also been asked to ''galvanise public opinion'' on Ram temple issue. Bhagwat, a few days back, had demanded that Parliament enact a law paving the way for Ram temple construction. Feedback sought Sources said that the RSS chief had sought feedback from the Sangh workers from different parts of the country to formulate its strategy for the next Lok Sabha polls in 2019. Contrary to speculation, there was no meeting between Modi and Bhagwat though it was for the first time both leaders were here on the same day attending different meetings barely a few kilometres apart. As ticket distribution in poll-bound Rajasthan nears finishing, state leaders in both Congress and the BJP camps are at loggerheads just before the first list of the candidates is out. Both the parties are finding ticket distribution a tricky job. While the Congress is dealing with "problem of plenty," the BJP on the other hand, is having a tough task finding replacements for incumbent MLAs. A strong anti-incumbency sentiment against many sitting MLAs and ministers is forcing the BJP to deliberate whether or not MLAs who are viewed weak in surveys be given tickets. The ticket distribution conundrum has once again erupted tensions between BJP chief Amit Shah and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. According to sources in the BJP, the rift between Raje and Shah has deepened after the latter rejected around 60 names suggested by Raje for the elections. "Rajasthan has 200 Assembly seats, and the focus of Shah has been winnability of a candidate. But Raje has been lobbying for her loyalists and Shah has twice rejected her list. First, before Diwali, and once again after Diwali." The tension between the two leaders was evident after the BJP lost one Assembly and two Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan in the bypolls held in February 2018. The situation became worse when the state BJP chief was removed and a new one appointed, after two months of critical discussions between the state and the central leadership. Moreover in the recent poll campaigns, the BJP chief was least spotted with Raje except for flagging off her Gaurav Yatra. Since then both have been conducting separate rallies. Similarly in the Congress camp, leaders continue their brainstorming in Delhi over candidate selection for the December 7 Assembly polls. According to sources in the Congress, there have been heated arguments between senior Congress leaders over the names of the candidates. Several sources said that when former chief minister Ashok Gehlot wanted a few loyalists to get tickets he was turned down by Sachin Pilot. For the last two weeks, the Congress screening committee headed by Selja Kumari has been meeting in Delhi to discuss candidates for the 200 Assembly seats. State Congress president Sachin Pilot told DH, "We are building up consensus over the names of the candidates. We will be declaring the list in a day or two after getting a nod from Rahul Gandhi." Cong, BJP keep candidates guessing The Congress and the BJP are yet to show their cards for Rajasthan. The filing of nominations for Assembly polls in the state begins on Monday (November 12), but neither the Congress nor the BJP has come up with the first list of its candidates. According to sources in both the parties, their respective high commands have agreed upon few names but are struggling to reach a consensus. The nominations will continue until November 19 with November 22 being the last date for withdrawals. On Sunday, senior leaders of both the parties were busy finalising the names. The BJP leaders including Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, state BJP president Madanlal Saini, national general secretary (organisation) Chandrashekhar, state ministers Gulab Chand Kataria and Rajendra Rathore, and MLA Ashok Parnami reached Delhi on Saturday. Meanwhile, in the Congress' camp talks were held in its war room on 15 Gurudwara Rakabganj Road. State Congress president Sachin Pilot, leader of opposition Rameshwar Dudi, and others were present for the talks. Rajasthan goes to polls on December 7 and counting will be held on December 11. Condolences from political leaders cutting across party lines, including Central and state ministers have been pouring in ever since Union Minister Ananth Kumar's demise was made public early this morning. His sudden death came as a shock, especially to the BJP leaders and workers from the state. While national joint secretary B L Sathosh was among the first to share the news of Kumar's death, Prime Minister Narendra Modi telephoned Kumar's wife, Tejaswini, to express his condolences. Modi, who later took to Twitter, hailed Kumar as a remarkable leader and an able administrator. "Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend. Kumar entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He handled many ministerial portfolios and a great asset to the BJP. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents. He will always be remembered for his good work," he said. Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy acknowledged Kumar as a "value based" politician and a great friend. "Our families had a friendship beyond politics. He always valued and had given priority to our friendship. I have lost a great friend in his death. He was a value based politician, who made significant contribution to the country as an MP and Union Minister. His pro people attitude and activities had made him apple of eyes of Bengalureans. May his soul rest in peace and may God give the strength to to his family and his followers to endure this loss," added the chief minister. Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara said Kumar represented Bangalore South consecutively, was a good Parliamentarian. "He was one most successful BJP politicians. He was efficiently managing his portfolios in Narendra Modi's cabinet," he added. JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda said that Kumar's demise was a great loss to the nation. Ananth Kumar was elected from Bangalore South for the first time in 1996, when I became the prime minister. He has been serving society since then. I have know him for the last three decades. I have lost a dear friend. His demise is a great loss to the nation. May God give strength to his family to overcome this loss," he said. Read also: Ananth Kumar ignored symptoms, says friend and doctor Ananth Kumar's demise leaves huge void in Karnataka BJP Ananth Kumar, a man who never saw electoral defeat Ananth Kumar passes away; funeral tomorrow at 1 pm Kumar's party colleague and BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa said that he was deeply shocked and pained by Kumar's untimely demise. "Kumar, as a union minister played an active role in resolving state issues. He has also played a significant role in the growth of BJP in Karnataka. We have toured the entire state together. When I was an MLA, he was practicing in High Court. He later moved to politics. He has been a dedicated politician ever since. A six-time Parliamentarian, he has served in both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi cabinets," he added. BJP MLA R Ashoka, who was one of Kumar's closest associates, was inconsolable. He expressed that Kumar's friendship was irreplaceable. "I had worked with Ananth Kumar for the three decades. We built the party together. This is the second major loss to the party after MLA B N Vijaykumar's demise. We have lost a great leader. After being diagnosed with his illness, he was positive about his recovery. But it was destined otherwise. His demise is already impacting us gravely," he said. Another party colleague Basavaraj Bommai, said that his childhood friend's demise had come as a personal loss to him. "I have known Ananth Kumar since college days. We joined the student movement together. He was sensitive by nature. He has contributed to both Karnataka and other states. He was also instrumental in raising the height Almatti dam. It's a deep personal loss to have lost a childhood friend," he added Former chief minister and senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah too said that Kumar's demise was a great loss to national politics. "He entered public life at a young age through ABVP which catapulted him to national politics eventually. He was a good administrator and had great concern for Karnataka's development. He had always been responsive to state problems as a Central minister. He was the bridge between the state and Centre. I shared good relations with him despite our political differences. May his soul rest in peace." While AICC general secretary and Karnataka in-charge K C Venugopal said that Kumar had left a deep void in national and Karnataka politics, Revenue Minister R V Deshpande hailed him as a "go-to man" for the BJP leaders. "Ive lost a dear friend. We didnt expect hed leave us so soon. He was elected to the Lok Sabha six times in a row. A diligent administrator who always had a smile on his face. For any problem in the NDA, Ananth Kumar was the go-to man. Bhaurao Deshpandes room number 504. Thats where my journey with Ananth Kumar started in the 1980s when he was practising law at the Karnataka High Court. One day I made him remove his black coat and told him, Stop your practice. Youll make a good politician. Theres a good opportunity. He listened to me and we went on to live in the same room. From there, we moved to then Deputy Speaker Mallikarjunaiahs quarters. Ananth Kumar, his wife Tejaswini and I lived there for about 4-5 years. Although he was newly-married, he never hesitated to spare time to travel the length and breadth of the state. Today, if at all the BJP is a party of repute - a party that once came to power and now has so many legislators - it is because of the big role Ananth Kumar played. Ananth Kumars contribution in building the party, and the struggle, cannot be compared at all. So firm he was that he would decide on his morning walks what he wanted to do to help build the party. That was a time when BJP had just two legislators, there was virtually no organization that existed and wed not get even 500 people at a public meeting. That was the level at which he started working. He constantly engaged himself in strengthening the party. During Emergency, we were in jail for several months. We got back to work as soon as we came out. Neither he rested nor I. We didnt know what rest was. For many years, he worked as party general secretary while I was the president. He never cribbed that he did not get a senior position at the Centre. Nothing made him deviate from his gentlemanly ways. His only goal was to make the party grow. If Karnataka has seen any development today - be it the Kempegowda International Airport or the Namma Metro - Ananth Kumars contribution was significant, especially when he was a senior member of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cabinet. Ananth Kumar got elected from the Bangalore South Lok Sabha seat six times in a row. Whoever went to Delhi to see him, including a grassroots party worker, was welcomed into his chamber. He would summon officials and make sure the visitors went back only after their problem was resolved. If it wasnt for Ananth Kumar, the BJP-JD(S) coalition wouldnt have happened. Even after the coalition fell, it was Ananth Kumar who travelled with me throughout the state to strengthen the party. LK Advani did not agree at all when the BJP and JD(S) formed a coalition in 2006. Not possible, Advani said. You should be the chief minister throughout. Otherwise, not possible. It was Ananth Kumar who took us to Vajpayee and convinced him that it was a good opportunity for the BJP to form a government under my leadership, even if it was for just 20 months. So, if it wasnt for Ananth Kumar, the coalition wouldnt have happened. Even after the coalition fell, it was Ananth Kumar who travelled with me throughout the state to strengthen the party. When I became Deputy Chief Minister, Ananth Kumar pushed me to take the Finance portfolio, assuring me that hed guide me through it. He really insisted on this. I listened to him, took the Finance portfolio and that led to good success for the party and the government. He was just 59! Who could have expected this? Just three days back, Tejaswini and I spoke to the doctor at the hospital. We were told he was recovering and that there was nothing to worry. So, I went ahead with my tour in Kalaburagi. I reached the city this morning and heard about his demise. It seems his health deteriorated in 3-4 months. There was never a day we were apart - good times, bad times, in power, without power - we took steps together to strengthen the party. All the speculation in the media that he was my competitor was baseless. I have no words, but I have hundreds of memories. When my wife died, he came to Shikaripura and consoled me, gave me strength. This is a big loss for the state and the country. It looks like nobody is in a position to fill this gap. The party has been orphaned with this loss. We wont get another Ananth Kumar. (As told to Bharath Joshi) (A previous version of this article had a factual inaccuracy that has been corrected. The error is regretted) Read more: Ananth Kumar's demise leaves huge void in Karnataka BJP Ananth Kumar, a man who never saw electoral defeat Condolences pour in after Ananth Kumar's death Ananth Kumar passes away; funeral tomorrow at 1 pm By Guest Blogger Sasha Jones As a raging fire closed in on their school, teachers and bus drivers helped dozens of students and staff from Paradise Unified School District escape to evacuation centers last week in an impromptu caravan of school buses and cars. The school staff quickly realized that they would have to evacuate the school when they heard propane tanks exploding as the fire and heat drew closer. It took some evacuees up to four hours to drive to safety from flames and smoke in what would otherwise would have been a 20-minute commute, according the the Associated Press. There were trees burning on the side of the road. The smoke was so thick you couldnt see, Marc Kessler, a science teacher at a Paradise Intermediate School, told the AP on Friday. We had very traumatized teachers who were certain they were going to die in the car with their students. A sad update from @KCRATeSelle - Paradise Elementary School has been destroyed by the Camp Fire burning in Butte County. Well have the very latest on the devastation on @kcranews on My58. -- Ty Steele (@KCRATySteele) November 9, 2018 "[A sheriffs deputy] said seat belt laws dont apply, and he said stuff as many kids as you can in the cars, Kessler said. Overall, the district was able to reunite 125 students with their families. Rise up, Paradise High! Windsor High is sending you backpacks stuffed with school supplies so when your students are ready, they can come back strong. With love from your northern Sonoma County colleagues, the Jaguars of Windsor High!#campfireparadise #paradisehighschool -- Stacy Desideri (@WindsorHSprncpl) November 11, 2018 Schools in Los Angeles and Ventura counties also closed on Friday , because of proximity to fires burning in Southern California and poor air quality because of the smoke. Officials in Butte County , where much of the town of Paradise has been burned to the ground, decided to close all schools until at least after Thanksgiving Break. Time is needed to help understand the extent of loss and disruption in our county and to develop ways to resume safely providing services to our schools and students, Butte County Superintendent Tim Taylor said in a statement. As of Monday morning, the so-called Camp Fire in Butte County has burned 113,000 acres and is 25 percent contained, according to Cal Fire . That fire has killed 29 people and destroyed over 6,400 homes. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Photos from top to bottom: The burned remains of the Paradise Elementary school is seen on Nov. 9, 2018, in Paradise, Calif. Blocks and blocks of homes and businesses in the Northern California town have been destroyed by a wildfire. Parts of the town of Paradise were still on fire on Friday. --Rich Pedroncelli/AP Evacuees from a wildfire rest on cots and blankets supplied by the Red Cross in the gymnasium at Taft Charter High School in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles on Nov. 9, 2018. --Richard Vogel/AP King Bass, 6, left, sits and watches the Holy Fire burn from on top of his parents car as his sister Princess, 5, rests her head on his shoulder on Aug. 9, 2018 in Lake Elsinore, Calif. More than a thousand firefighters battled to keep a raging Southern California forest fire from reaching foothill neighborhoods Friday before the expected return of blustery winds that drove the flames to new ferocity a day earlier. --Patrick Record/AP Hunger isnt just a small annoyance felt between meals; its the chronic daily reality for an estimated 815 million people around the globe. Giving these people the nourishment they need will require a combination of ending government corruption, combating climate trends and finding more stable food sources. Fortunately, research by two Utah State University scientists is showing immense promise in the category of stable food sources. Drawing on the success of scientists who have unlocked the so-called wheat genome sequence, Utah State University professor Jon Takemoto and his research partner, Tom Chang, have developed a new nontoxic fungicide that will more effectively treat wheat blight and other devastating crop diseases. Wheat is a high-protein, nutrient-dense food staple for more than one-third of the worlds population. Wheat production is a $19 billion industry, with more than 200 million tons produced each year. In Utahs $21 billion agriculture industry, wheat is second only to hay as the states largest cash crop. Last year, Utah farmers produced 6.2 billion bushels of wheat. Hunger isnt just a small annoyance felt between meals; its the chronic daily reality for an estimated 815 million people around the globe. Wheat blight can have devastating impacts on crop yields. Outbreaks reportedly cost the U.S. wheat and barley industry $2.7 billion between 1998 and 2000, according to the Utah Science and Technology Research initiative, or USTAR. But worse than monetary losses is the impact the disease can have on the global food supply. Directly applying fungicides is the most effective way to control wheat blight and various other diseases, but the high levels of the chemicals necessary to build crop and soil resistance can be harmful to humans and animals. This is what makes Takemoto and Changs product, called K20, so appealing. The sequencing of the wheat genome is enabling Takemotos team to study the genetic effects of the wheat protection technology on the plants life cycle. They, and their commercial partner Baicor, a manufacturer of agricultural products based in Logan, recently conducted field tests with research collaborators in Nebraska. The published results show the effectiveness of K20 as a potential stand-alone product and as a nontoxic additive to reduce the use of the more toxic chemicals now most often applied to control blight and other diseases. More work is underway to address some of the commercial aspects, such as stability in heat, humidity and UV exposure. At the same time, Takemoto and his team are working with the Environmental Protection Agency for regulatory approvals so they can get the product to market. The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food calls Takemoto and Changs work a monumental discovery that will lead to a number of solutions for farmers in Utah and across the globe. It is also another example of USUs continued leadership in agricultural research. The two scientists are to be commended for their groundbreaking work, and USTAR deserves praise for recognizing the importance of and funding the effort. Advancing research in the name of combating a problem as critical as global hunger is among the most important commitments the scientific community can make. SALT LAKE CITY The push from Hersheys to create new products is continuing with a new Hershey's Kisses flavor coming just in time for the holidays. Whats going on: Hershey has just debuted Hot Cocoa Kisses, Fortune reports. The chocolate shell candy will have a sweet marshmallow cream center. The flavor is meant to mimic a cup of hot chocolate, Refinery29 reports. The kisses officially went on sale Nov. 1. Several stores already offer the candy to the public. Why it matters: Hersheys is launching the new kisses after soft earnings throughout 2018. The company hopes to see better returns in 2019. Hershey's has already worked to improve its earnings, Business Insider reports. The company also launched Reeses Outrageous bar, which is stuffed with peanut butter, caramel and Reeses Pieces. The company released a new Reeses Pieces chocolate bar, too, which is due out in December, according to Business Insider. The bigger picture: Hersheys created its first new chocolate bar in 22 years last year with Hersheys Gold, CNN reported. Bottomline: Should you indulge, you can rest easy throughout the winter with the knowledge that you have a lot of options when it comes to hot cocoa. Whether your ideal hot chocolate comes in cup or Kiss form or, you know, both is up to you, Refinery29 reports. SALT LAKE CITY With a Friday projection from the Associated Press that Proposition 3 will have enough votes to pass, full Medicaid expansion is set to become the law in Utah, and Department of Health officials have asked the federal government to cancel the agency's request for a more limited form of expansion that state lawmakers set into motion earlier this year. Once certified as law, the ballot initiative will supersede the expansion plan the Utah Legislature had passed, said Kolbi Young, spokeswoman for the Utah Division of Medicaid and Health Care Financing at the Department of Health. "We have actually asked (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) to indefinitely hold off on consideration of that proposal as a result of Proposition 3," Young said. State health officials are also assisting the Utah Department of Workforce Services prepare for an influx of newly eligible Utahns signing up for the federal health insurance program. "We've closely reviewed the proposition, and have coordinated internally on how to best move forward to meet that April 1 deadline. We are getting systems in place so we are able to open enrollment on April 1," she said. The Department of Workforce Services is the agency that actually processes all new Medicaid enrollees' applications, Young explained. "We have been in close contact with them, so they were prepared with their staff and increasing their staffing to handle that surge of enrollment," she said. In addition to sign-ups beginning in April, Utahns will at that time see a rise in the state sales tax included in Proposition 3 to help pay for full Medicaid expansion. The tax on nonfood items will increase from 4.7 percent to 4.85 percent. The Proposition 3 campaign, Utah Decides Healthcare, has estimated the increase will add $91 million in state revenue, triggering about $800 million in guaranteed matching federal funds, to pay for a projected 150,000 new enrollees in the insurance program. Proposition 3 expands Medicaid eligibility to all Utahns in households earning 138 percent of the federal poverty level. The bill passed by the Utah Legislature this year aimed to expand eligibility to everyone at 100 percent or less of the federal poverty level, leading to 70,000 to 90,000 new Medicaid enrollees. But asking for a 90 percent-to-10 percent federal matching rate without expanding Medicaid to the full extent provided for under the Affordable Care Act would have subjected it to a lengthy and less certain waiver approval process conducted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Supporters of that measure said it had better financial safeguards for the state than the initiative and that the Trump administration had shown an openness to supporting partial expansions at a 90-10 matching rate. But critics, including several Utah health advocates, predicted it would have very little chance of approval. Because it calls for Medicaid eligibility expansion precisely as called for by the Affordable Care Act, Proposition 3 does not need to undergo a waiver approval process, and enacting the expansion it calls for is relatively painless and automatic, said RyLee Curtis, manager of the Utah Decides Healthcare campaign. "There's still a process that the state has to follow, through submitting what's called a state plan amendment," Curtis said. "But since we're playing within the boundaries of federal law, this should be very procedural and very quick." There is no cap on new enrollment included with Proposition 3. Because of that, some critics have said the state budget could be left vulnerable to higher-than-expected numbers. But the initiative campaign has argued it tried to cushion its projections to make sure it wasn't guilty of underestimation. Maura Carabello, a consultant for the Utah Decides Healthcare campaign and the president of Salt-Lake based Exoro Group, a public policy group that helped get Proposition 3 drafted, estimated to the Deseret News and KSL editorial boards in August that about 100,000 or perhaps a slightly higher number of the expected new sign-ups will come in the first year of expanded eligibility. Young said Utah organizations that specialize in helping people enroll in federal health insurance programs will play a role in helping manage the new wave of sign-ups. "For years we have worked in close contact with advocacy organizations to help individuals apply," she said. "That relationship will continue." Take Care Utah, a collaborative network of about 50 nonprofits that help Utahns sign up for Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and private coverage plans on the federal health exchange, is prepared for the large task and grateful to give more people the good news that they are eligible, said director Randal Serr. When Obamacare first rolled out, half of the calls we got were people that were in the Medicaid gap. We had to turn way too many people away," Serr said. "We are thrilled to be able to tell those people that they now qualify for health insurance. "We spent the past six years building trust with the community and we are excited to get the word out. By working with community partners and media, we are ready to hit the ground running on April 1." Young said about 15,000 enrollees in a different, state-administered health program called the Primary Care Network, which offers more limited medical benefits for certain preventive services, were previously ineligible for Medicaid and will be automatically enrolled in it as a result of Proposition 3 when it takes effect April 1. "Instead of them having a limited benefit package, they'll have a richer benefit with Medicaid," she said. Curtis said she is looking forward to the improved outcomes she believes some newly insured Utahns will see as they access the health care system with more confidence and less worry about possible financial hardships. "When you have a chronic condition, (and) you maintain it," she said, "you're not going to the emergency room (and) driving up costs for yourself and for everybody else." SALT LAKE CITY A recent study that is one of the first of its kind looked at a dozen major air pollutants and their link to visits to emergency rooms or doctors in five major cities. Not surprisingly, the study published this month in Environment International found an increased risk of adverse health outcomes given greater exposure to the array of pollution. The study led by George Mason University's Jenna R. Krall, however, did find secondary pollutants those formed by chemical reactions in the air may play a greater role in heart disease or respiratory ailments than most research emphasizes. In addition to Mason, researchers from Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Pittsburgh looked at levels of 12 pollutants in Atlanta, Dallas, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Birmingham, Alabama, over a multiple-year period. The research time frame generally began as early as 2002 and ended in 2008, and involved gaining consent from individual patients to cull through more than 1.8 million billing records. Researchers looked at air pollution data for primary pollutants and chemical constituents such as sulfate, nitrate and ammonium from ambient monitoring stations within each of the five metropolitan areas. The key question at the heart of the research asked what happened to people during short-term exposure to these pollutants and if there was an increased risk of medical treatment for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure and others. Researchers noticed that many previous studies used only a single-pollutant framework. "Most previous studies of air pollution and cardiorespiratory (emergency department) visits are single-city studies that only examine a few pollutants or a few specific outcomes," the research noted. This study developed a multicity model that treated each pollutant individually, but did not attempt to identify individual sources of pollution. They found that across the five cities, the number of days with complete pollution and emergency room visit data varied from 1,096 days in Dallas to 2,557 days in Atlanta. The study noted the complexity of the research, with its variable outcomes, statistical uncertainty in some instances and its limited, regional scope focusing on the southeast. Bryce Bird, director of the Utah Division of Air Quality, said he was unaware of any study in Utah that looked at that array of pollutants and any correlation to emergency room visits. Local research focuses primarily on Utah's chief culprit, PM2.5, as the indicator pollutant, he said. "For us that would be difficult to tease out. They (other pollutants) do increase in concentration when the lid is on, but we don't see those high concentrations unless we are seeing the PM2.5." A majority of northern Utah is out of attainment with federal Clean Air standards for PM2.5, which is fine particulate matter. Those pollution particles are 2.5 micrometers or less 3 percent the diameter of a human hair and small enough to invade even the smallest airways. Over the last several years, Utah lawmakers directed money to the state air quality division and university researchers for local studies that probe PM2.5 pollution problems along the Wasatch Front and to arrive at better answers for the ozone problem in eastern Utah. Bird said while it is difficult to separate what is happening in a Utah inversion as it relates to PM2.5 compared to other pollutants, the southeast U.S. research could be helpful in the future. "It would help us in the future to identify strategies to improve health as the result of improving air quality, and determining the exact mechanism that is causing harm," he said. SALT LAKE CITY Pushups near the witness stand, rounds of enthusiastic applause and history lessons from the bench: It's no ordinary day in court when hearings just for military veterans take place. "It's a yes-sir, no-excuses-sir court," 3rd District Judge Royal Hansen explained from the bench. "When veterans court says this is a second chance for veterans to be successful in life, we really mean it." About three dozen onetime military members have had their convictions cleared or reduced through the program, now in its third year. The servicemen and servicewomen maintain a strict regimen of check-ins with the judge, treatment and drug tests, plus appointments with case managers. In exchange, they get cleaner records and strong support. On Thursday, Cocaine Perry his given name appeared on theft charges in Hansen's courtroom. He told the judge a warrant for his arrest has been issued in Idaho. "My initial reaction in the past would be to run, but I'm not doing that," the 34-year-old Perry said. "It's critical that you reach out for help and ask for it when you need it," Hansen replied. His veterans court is one of a handful in Utah, including a Provo-based version; another in Salt Lake City's Justice Court, which handles misdemeanor cases; and one more in Utah's federal courthouse. They are among hundreds nationwide that operate on the thinking that for many vets, criminal behavior stems from post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse. About 50 participants, mostly men, are now working their way through a course set by Hansen, attorneys and others. The majority served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their mentors are largely Vietnam War veterans. "These people have been raised on that notion that when they're given an order, they follow through and somebody's life depends upon it," Hansen told the Deseret News. "Frankly, their life depends on what they do here, too." His courtroom Thursday was a display of camaraderie and compassion, erupting with applause when some veterans' names were called from the "good list" of those on their best behavior. The program is voluntary and can take up to three years to complete, depending on a person's progress. At the end, some will have felony charges dropped to misdemeanors, and for others, their cases will be dismissed entirely. On Thursday, mentor coordinator Keith Brown tapped a silver dollar-size coin on a seat four times. More than a dozen in the room reached for a keychain or pocket and raised the same token, which indicates their progress. Two men confessed they forgot their coins, and the judge commanded 20 pushups from each. One of the men, Joshua Kinn, later told the judge he spends as much time as he can with his 16-year-old son, goes to the gym every day and attends a weekly mindfulness class at Salt Lake City's Veterans Medical Center. Kinn, 43, of Milcreek, said outside the courtroom that he recently completed a substance-abuse treatment program. After two tours in Iraq, where he disarmed bombs, he is fighting insomnia, PTSD and depression. He's still nursing a back injury from an explosion. "Some of the things that you go through, some of the things that you see aren't very pleasant and you've got to come back and either put it behind you or deal with it in your life, and live a positive life," he said. Easier said than done. Kinn was jailed in an aggravated assault case last year when he opted to participate in veterans court. "There's a little bit of a brotherhood because it's all veterans," he said. "We can help each other." He plans to graduate next year, go back to school and someday open his own business. In the meantime, he has homework. Hansen disciplined Kinn and others Thursday for being noisy during a graduation ceremony a week earlier, instructing them to write an essay on respect and accountability. The judge peppered the two-hour session with short military history lessons, including one inspired by a recent trip to Maryland's Antietam National Battlefield, where Confederate soldiers lost a bloody Civil War clash. His audience listened quietly in the sun-filled room, where military ties reach into almost every square foot. Defense attorney Brenda Viera is an Army brat; bailiff Jake Fuller a former serviceman. Perry, who is hoping to have the Idaho warrant for his arrest cancelled, said he considers the program his "golden ticket." He was among those who felt called to enlist after the Sept. 11 attacks and served from 2005 to 2013, ultimately becoming an Army staff sergeant. He was shot three times in the chest and hit by an explosive during a firefight in Iraq, and later fell short when he jumped from one roof to another, landing on his head. He gets migraines most days. After emptying prescription bottles for Percocet, he said, he turned to heroin, then sold the drug to support the addiction. "It just spiraled," he said. After his return, he ran up against the law in Idaho and cycled in and out of custody in Utah before Veteran Affairs officers managed to track him down and pitch the program. Police reported he had shoplifted and they found heroin on him in February. He has called Smith, the compliance detective, in the middle of the night to vent or calm down. He once believed he didn't deserve VA services because he hadn't lost a limb, but now is being treated for PTSD and anxiety. "When you see guys graduate, you see the finished product. And it's like OK, it does work," Perry said. "It's pretty much my last chance." Cheryl Graves, program manager at the residential treatment center First Step House, said she watches firsthand as many veterans climb a figurative ladder from dishonesty to grace. "There's an internal shift," she said. After graduation, however, they can sometimes all back into old habits. Eli Archuleta, a self-described career criminal, graduated last year and credits the program with saving his life. But he relapsed into drug use afterward. "Now I'm clean. I'm back at the VA, doing what I need to do," the 58-year-old Archuleta said outside the courtroom Thursday "This court is the bomb because you feel the love. You feel that they care. They have a treatment team. They're trying to help you get back on track with your life." This court is the bomb because you feel the love. You feel that they care. Eli Archuleta He still attends the hearings on the fourth floor of the court and plans to become a mentor to other servicemen after his probation term ends, he said. The theme of substance abuse threads through every case, said Unified police detective Greg Smith, the veterans court compliance officer. Many were prescribed powerful opiates for injuries they sustained during war. "They're self-medicating. What they're doing is they're trying to get away from the things they've seen, the things they've done, the things they didn't do but wish they did," Smith said. Those who run the court understand that many graduates with addictions will likely end up using drugs or alcohol again. That's part of why Jessica Mann, with the Veterans Justice Outreach Program, pushes them to spend time with others in recovery as they prepare to graduate. "It's creating a community," she said, "and it's something that they've chosen." Utah is home to more than 150,000 veterans, a number that continues to grow as more soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan, many with combat experience. With that in mind, the program has applied for a grant that will provide a tool tailored to determine needs and risks of veterans in the criminal justice system. It is also hoping to be chosen as one of four veterans courts around the country to host a pilot program focused on combatting addiction to prescription painkillers and heroin. The investment acknowledges all Utah's veterans have sacrificed, Hansen said. "I see people that you look at on paper and say there's no way a person with this criminal history and this background could ever be successful in this program," the judge added. Then, they graduate. "It's a miracle to see things like that happen." SOUTH SALT LAKE A woman was shot three times and critically injured early Sunday when police say men who were fighting with each other fired 19 shots into a crowd of people. The shooting occurred about 1 a.m. outside Scallywags Bar, 3040 S. State. Two patrons got into a fight inside the bar and security escorted them out of the business and into the parking lot, according to South Salt Lake police. "Once outside the bar, the fight erupted again when a glass was thrown," police spokesman Gary Keller said in a statement. "Two males ran to a vehicle and retrieved a handgun and an assault rifle and began shooting into a group of people in the parking lot." A woman was hit during the gunfire and was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition, he said. Her name was not released. Police arrested Stephano Tuisila, 22, and Falefatu Fatiau, 27. After being involved in a fight, the two men left the bar with a group of friends and "obtained firearms," Salt Lake County Jail reports state. Fatiau admitted firing 11 rounds from a .223 rifle while Tuisila admitted firing one round from a handgun, the reports say. Reports indicate that a third person fired seven shots but who that person is was unclear Sunday. Tuisila was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of aggravated assault and 19 counts of felony discharge of a firearm. Fatiau, was booked for investigation of aggravated assault resulting in serious bodily injury, possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person and 19 counts of felony discharge of a firearm. Police said one man involved in the fight inside the bar was hospitalized in serious condition with injuries suffered during the fight. SALT LAKE CITY Dozens of firefighters from agencies across Utah prepared Sunday to depart for California where 25 people are confirmed dead statewide to help fight the state's worst wildfires since 1991. More than 100 Utah fire personnel will join more than 8,000 California firefighters currently covering 1,035 fire engines, 141 dozers, 166 hand crews, 80 water tenders, 42 helicopters and numerous firefighting air tankers from throughout California, according to Cal Fire. Three large wildfires have burned more than 196,806 acres and devoured thousands of structures. Over 224,000 individuals have been impacted by these fires, according to the fire information agency. About 100 people are unaccounted for, according to recent press reports. Sunday morning, Utah fire crews met at the Maverik Center for a briefing and to say goodbye to friends and family. For some of the firefighters, this will be the second year in a row they will be apart from family at Thanksgiving to help fight fires in California. The deployments are expected to last at least 14 days. The firefighting crews from Utah include firefighters from agencies large and small and from all corners of the state. For Matt Trenery, a firefighter from Uintah City, this will be his first deployment to a large-scale wildfire. "Talk about baptism by fire. I mean, we're going down there and trying to attack the beast, but the main thing is we want to take care of the people out there that are needing the help," he said. The firefighters expected to spend the night in Las Vegas and head to Chico, California on Monday. Sheree Funk, whose husband is a paramedic with the West Valley City Fire Department, said deployments stir mixed emotions. "First, I'm so proud of him and all of our servicemen and firefighters. They risk a lot and they sacrifice by going, but, (I) couldn't be more proud. You worry. You can't help but worry and just love them. It's a lot of mixed emotions, for sure," she said. According to a Unified Fire Authority, the following agencies from Utah are responding to wildfires in California: Two representatives from the state of Utah and a Unified fire mechanic From Utah Task Force 1 (northern Utah), eight personnel from Salt Lake City fire, eight from Unified fire, four from West Valley fire and four from Uintah fire. From Utah Task Force 2 (northern Utah) two task force leaders, three personnel from Lone Peak fire, four from Pleasant Grove fire, four from Murray fire, four from South Jordan fire, three from Sandy fire and two from Syracuse fire. From Utah Task Force 3 (Wasatch Back), two task force leaders, nine personnel from Wasatch County Fire District, three from Park City fire, two from North Summit fire and four personnel from Utah Forestry, Fire and State Lands. From Utah Task Force 4 (southern Utah), two task force leaders, four personnel from Cedar City fire, three from Green River fire, four from Levan fire, four from Holden fire, four from Gunnison fire, four from Washington City fire and four from Wales fire. Contributing: Sean Moody PROVO Just weeks ahead of a planned public stock offering aiming to raise $500 million in new capital, Utah-grown business survey/analytics company Qualtrics was acquired by German tech giant SAP for a whopping $8 billion. Industry watchers are calling it one of the biggest ever acquisition price tags for a venture-backed enterprise software company. The cash deal, announced Sunday, blows by estimates that pegged Qualtrics' value, post-stock offering, in the $4.5 billion to $5 billion range. Qualtrics co-founder and CEO Ryan Smith noted the size of the acquisition put it in rarefied air, even in a current realm where billion-dollar-plus deals have become passe. "Our mission is to help organizations deliver the experiences that turn their customers into fanatics, employees into ambassadors, products into obsessions and brands into religions," Smith said in a statement. "Supported by a global team of over 95,000, SAP will help us scale faster and achieve our mission on a broader stage. This will put the XM Platform everywhere overnight. "We could not be more excited to join forces with Bill and the SAP team in this once-in-a-generation opportunity to power the experience economy." Qualtrics was founded in 2002 by Ryan and Jared Smith based on technology first developed by Ryan and his father, BYU researcher and professor Scott Smith, amid the elder Smith's fight (it was successful) against throat cancer. Initially conceived of as a tool for academics, the company and its platform has since evolved into a tech behemoth that leverages survey input and a business analytics engine to let its clients now numbering over 9,000 know exactly how well, or not, their companies are performing. The deal mints a family of billionaires with the Smith brothers and their father collectively owning about 45 percent of the company, according to their IPO filings. SAP is a multinational that specializes in business and customer service software and operates in 180 countries. The company had nearly $27 billion in revenues in 2017. SAP CEO Bill McDermott underscored the significance of what Qualtrics accomplished in creating an entirely new software product category. "We continually seek out transformational opportunities today's announcement is exactly that," McDermott said in a statement. "Together, SAP and Qualtrics represent a new paradigm, similar to market-making shifts in personal operating systems, smart devices and social networks. SAP already touches 77 percent of the world's transactions. "When you combine our operational data with Qualtrics' experience data, we will accelerate the XM category with an end-to-end solution with immediate global scale." SAP also indicated its intention to maintain Qualtrics' current operational structure, with Ryan Smith remaining as CEO and the company continuing to maintain dual headquarters in Provo and Seattle. Word of the mega-deal traveled quickly through the Utah business community on Sunday. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert celebrated the news as an affirmation of the state's world-class accomplishments in the tech industry. "Qualtrics has grown from a garage in Utah County to the target of an $8 billion acquisition from one of the worlds best known software companies," Herbert said in a statement. "That is quite a journey and one heck of an acquisition. Today's news speaks volumes about the great entrepreneurial spirit found in our state." The SAP acquistion of Qualtrics marks 2018 as a breakout year for homegrown technology firms in the state. Farmington's cloud-based tech education company Pluralsight went public in May, blowing past their pricing estimates and raising $310 million in the effort while American Fork business intelligence/analytics company Domo hit the public markets in June, pulling in $193 million. Clint Betts, executive director of the Lehi-based tech industry advocacy group Silicon Slopes, called the impact of the Qualtrics deal "monumental." "Silicon Slopes is thrilled to welcome SAP to our community," Betts said in a statement. "Ryan Smith and Qualtrics just put an $8 billion exclamation point on the most consequential year in Utah tech history. With this record-shattering deal, Ryan and Qualtrics have cemented their legacy as Silicon Slopes legends. "Just as impressive, Im confident youll never find more humble or dedicated leaders. This is a monumental day for Silicon Slopes and Utah." The Governor's Office of Economic Development also weighed in on the deal, with Executive Director Val Hale calling it further evidence of the high viability of Utah-grown entrepreneurial efforts. "This is another victory for Utahs Silicon Slopes," Hale said in a statement. "Ryan Smith and his team have done a remarkable job innovating and building Qualtrics into a multibillion-dollar business. This is proof that businesses can start, grow and flourish in Utah." Fiscal details released by Qualtrics in a mid-October filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reflect a company that has continued to perform at a very high level with annual revenue growing over 50 percent from $190.6 million in 2016 to $289.9 million in 2017. The company also surged into profitability in the same time period, turning $12 million in losses in 2016 to $2.6 million in positive cash flow in 2017, according to its disclosures. In a Sunday news release, Qualtrics estimated its 2018 revenues would exceed $400 million and expects continued annual growth in excess of 40 percent. NORTH OGDEN Before daylight and into the evening, hundreds of Utahns took part in observances Sunday to honor Maj. Brent Taylor, the city's mayor, who was shot and killed Nov. 3 while deployed to Afghanistan with the Utah National Guard. Before the sun rose, a local group called Follow the Flag assembled at Weber High School to begin the preparations to fly what is billed as the worlds largest free-flying flag above Cold Water Canyon. Friends, law enforcement officials, supporters and members of Follow the Flag carried the massive flag to a spot in the canyon where it was unfurled and carefully suspended on a steel cable across the canyon. As night fell, a spotlight illuminated the flag, which is expected to remain in place a week. A smaller version of the massive flag was carried into a vigil Sunday night at North Ogden Amphitheater, which culminated with Taylor's wife addressing the audience. Jennie Taylor said her heart is "full of love," for the nation and her "home, sweet home" of North Ogden for the many kindnesses extended to her family since her husband's death. "(I'm) so full of love for the beautiful flag that flies in that beautiful canyon," she said. While Taylor and the couple's seven children, ages 13 years to 11 months, are coping with what is a time of "shock and sorrow," Taylor said her husband's devotion to God, family and country give her comfort. As she stood along the flight line at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware when her husband's remains were returned to the United States, she said she thought about his commitment to service and patriotism. "What an honor it is to be the wife of a true patriot," she said. Brent Taylor volunteered for a NATO mission to train members of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. While on a foot patrol, one of the Afghan commandos shot and killed Taylor. Other Afghan commandos immediately killed the attacker. Another U.S. service member was injured in the attack. Funeral arrangements are pending. His obituary, published Sunday, said he will be laid to rest in North Ogden, "the city he so dearly loved, near the people he so willingly served." Attendees of the evening vigil joined in prayer, reflections about Taylor and performances of patriotic and religious songs. The Utah trio Gentri offered a stirring performance of "Amazing Grace," as well as a patriotic medley. Audience members, many of them wrapped in blankets as temperatures dipped into the low 30s, also observed a moment of silence to honor Taylor and others who have died in service of their country. In an earlier interview with NBC, Taylor's mother and brother likewise remarked on Brent Taylor's capacity for compassion and his devotion to service. His mother, Tamara Taylor, and his brother, Derek Taylor, say they find comfort in reflecting on the many lives he changed. Its been so nice to hear how he helped other people and how he touched other people because thats something that we can hold onto, Tamara Taylor said. His mother said she will miss "everything about him. Its just going to be very difficult, but he was such a good man." She said her sons became interested in the military at an early age. "We found stories about military heroes in different wars, and we'd always share them with the boys because it was such a good example of doing the right thing at the right time," Tamara Taylor said. Brent Taylor and his five brothers all joined the Utah National Guard as adults. Tamara Taylor said deployments were challenging but rewarding. "I could balance my fear and say, 'It's OK, I can deal with that and I can even deal with a loss if he's making a difference and he's feeling happy serving the people of this country,'" she said. Taylor, 39, took an unprecedented one-year leave of absence from his post as North Ogden mayor for his deployment in January. He and his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan had worked to keep elections safe in Afghanistan. In his final Facebook post a few days before he was killed, he talked about how happy it made him to see Afghan people head to the polls despite the threat of violence. He also said he wanted to see unity among Americans. "'We have more that unites us than divides us,' was what he said. We need to get past Democrats and Republicans, all these groups that are splintered, and realize that we can work together," Tamara Taylor said. She said it was evident that his work meant something to the people he served with and served. He really believed in what he was doing, and he was really making a difference for those people, she said. Changing lives overseas wasn't all Derek Taylor said his brother did. He said Brent led by example closer to home. As a mayor, as a husband, as a father, as a brother, as a son, as a soldier, I think Christ was absolutely central, Derek Taylor said. His priority, they said, was family, especially his spouse. He wouldnt be who he was, by any stretch, without his beautiful wife, Jennie, who was there to support him in every avenue. They said the support for family and friends never wavered even for his last and final mission. He really felt that he was needed and he could not say no, his mother said. Contributing: Sean Moody SALT LAKE CITY In the days leading up to the midterm elections, President Donald Trump ramped up his rhetoric on immigration calling the caravan an invasion, ordering 5,000 troops to the border, and vowing to end birthright citizenship in an effort to fire up his base to get out and vote for GOP congressional and Senate candidates. Did it work? Its not clear that Trumps end-of-the-campaign rhetoric about the caravan actually had any impact, says John Sides, professor of political science at George Washington University. While peoples views about immigration have become a stronger predictor of how they vote in both presidential and congressional elections, says Sides, most of those attitudes appear to have been in place before thousands of immigrants began their march from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border. Other experts add that in states where immigration was an issue, Trump's strategy had mixed results, and with Democrats now controlling the House, nothing may get done to address the issue that exit polls indicated remains a top concern among voters. Testing the theory One study by Cornell University and the University of Chicago aimed to test whether the relationship between immigration attitudes and midterm vote intentions increased during the 2018 campaign season. To do so, they conducted a national survey in which they asked the same respondents about their immigration attitudes and their vote intentions twice once in early July, and again in late October. Jonathan Paul Schuldt, a Cornell assistant professor who worked on the study, said the timing of the last round of the study was particularly telling, as the survey went into the field on Oct. 19 just days after the migrant caravan was gathering steam and garnering media attention. If the presidents rhetoric was having an effect on the immigration attitudes of likely voters, Schuldt told the Deseret News, their survey should have picked that up. It didnt. Overall we didnt see any shift in the immigration attitudes of likely voters, he said. Certainly we could not detect the day before the election any evidence that the presidents attitude was working in terms of shifting voting intention. But Schuldt says that doesnt mean Trumps immigration rhetoric had no effect. Trump was successful in putting the immigration on the minds of voters and especially his base, says Schuldt. Where it mattered Indeed, exit polls indicated immigration was second only to health care in the minds of voters. Voter turnout was strong on election day, with more than 47 percent of the voting-eligible population casting a ballot the highest turnout for a midterm since 1966. Democrats intentionally avoided the immigration issue in the run-up to the election. A strategy memo co-authored by the Center for American Progress and Third Way two Washington-based think tanks recommended that Democrats in swing districts focus on issues that would better resonate with their voters, such as health care. Overall I think Trumps strategy was effective in that it made people fearful. Heide Castaneda, associate professor at the University of South Florida And that may have made a difference in certain races, such as Florida, where Republican Ron DeSantis is poised to beat Democrat Andrew Gillum in the Florida governors race an election so close that they were still counting ballots and considering a recount on Friday. AP VoteCast found that 8 in 10 voters who were most concerned about immigration voted for DeSantis. Heide Castaneda, associate professor at the University of South Florida, says she was surprised to see the issue of immigration have such a strong influence in her state, which is not as directly affected by border-related issues as others, such as Texas or Arizona. Overall I think Trumps strategy was effective in that it made people fearful, says Castaneda. Latinos were more engaged in the midterm elections this year and have become increasingly concerned about their place in the America during the Trump presidency, according to Pew Research Center. The immigration issue also played out in New Mexico, where voters elected the first Democratic Latina governor in the United States Rep. Michell Lujan Grisham, who made a name for herself as one of President Trumps strongest critics in Congress on immigration. Were doing everything we can to stop the president and Homeland Security from continuing to enact pain using the terminology for zero tolerance for anybody breaking the law, Grisham said in June, according to The Associated Press. Grisham will replace Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, who was initially a Trump critic but has since supported the presidents immigration agenda, sending National Guard troops to New Mexicos border this year. Long-term impact Other experts, such as Michael Cornfield, research director for the George Washington University Center for Political Management, say Trumps rhetoric on immigration may have cost him politically, in the long run. Cornfield says he was surprised that Trump spent the final days of the campaign talking about border security rather than the economy. Emphasizing the latter may have been more beneficial to Republican candidates such as (Utah Rep.) Mia Love, he said. Schuldt agrees, adding that with Democrats taking control of the House, it is not clear whether Trump and the GOP will be able to deliver in the way they have promised on immigration issues such as the border wall, the zero-tolerance policy, the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals of DACA, and the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status for 300,000 foreign nations living in the United States. It could be that this strategy ends up backfiring on the GOP, he says. But, Castaneda points out that the president is very fond of executive orders," so we could be seeing more of those in an attempt to circumvent congressional approval with the Democrats now in charge. President Barrack Obama used the same tactic in implementing the DACA policy. She says executive orders can be effective, but they are temporary and are vulnerable to being changed by subsequent administrations. For Castaneda, the temporary nature of executive orders highlights the fact that this is political rhetoric, not long term, legally supported solutions to Americas complex immigration problem. Castaneda says this way of governing has a detrimental effect on immigrants living within the United States. These temporary and surprising, out-of-nowhere proclamations create a sense of uncertainty, she says. What we're missing is the impact this has on everyday lives, the sense of anxiety they have to live with everyday, the impact it has on people who are contributors to American society. WEST VALLEY CITY A man wanted by West Valley police and the FBI for allegedly robbing a bank at gunpoint has been arrested. Reyley Dean Johnson, 27, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail Friday for investigation of two counts of aggravated robbery and forgery. On Nov. 7, Johnson allegedly entered Zions Bank, 2950 W. 3500 South, pointed a gun at two employees and demanded money from each, according to a Salt Lake County Jail report. High-quality images taken from a surveillance camera were distributed by the FBI to the media. "The suspect clearly has an identifiable skull tattoo on his right hand and a second tattoo on his neck. The suspect's photo was provided to the media and numerous anonymous tips were received," the report states. A witness who saw some of the media coverage saw Johnson at a McDonald's and called police, according to the report. When officers arrived, they found him wearing the same clothes the gunman can be seen wearing in the bank, the report states. While searching Johnson, officers found a counterfeit $100 bill in his pocket. According to the booking report, Johnson "has a violent criminal history from Wyoming including weapon offenses." SALT LAKE CITY Utah lawmakers want to find out just how much Utah's federally controlled lands are worth and deliver a bill to the U.S. government for the revenue they would generate if privately held. The Legislative Management Committee is meeting Tuesday to possibly approve issuing a request for bids for a private company to begin a real-time valuation of federal lands in Washington County. After that pilot project, the goal is to expand the assessment statewide. "The idea is that the federal government is withholding our lands and it made a promise that as long as it holds those lands, it will hold us harmless from the loss of tax revenue," said Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan. "We simply want them to treat us fairly," he said, adding that the first phase of the study will cost about $20,000. Ivory was the chief sponsor of HB357, which passed in the 2018 legislative session last winter and was co-sponsored by every single member of the House. It was approved unanimously in both chambers of the Legislature and directed the Commission on Federalism to kickstart the valuation process. Utah lawmakers want to find out the gap between Payment in Lieu of Taxes payments the federal government gives to states and the actual taxable value of the federal land. This year, the U.S. Department of Interior gave Utah $40.7 million in lieu of taxes, which Ivory says barely comes to over a dollar an acre for Utah's 33 million acres of federally controlled lands. "The 20 percent of our land that is taxable generates more property tax revenue in two months than we have received in over 20 years in (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) money," Ivory said. The federal payments to local governments are designed to offset losses in property taxes due to nontaxable federal lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service and some federal water projects. Since the program was established in 1977, $8.5 billion has been distributed to states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the U.S. Department of Interior. Ivory said Utah lawmakers don't feel the federal government is coming anywhere close to holding the state harmless for its amount of nontaxable federal land. Sen. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City, co-sponsored a concurrent resolution, HCR19, urging the federal government to pay up and said it needed to stop being a deadbeat. The resolution notes that the payments Utah receives are little more than "pennies" in lieu of taxes. "It really is exciting," Ivory said, noting he knew of no measure in his eight years in the Legislature that had such universal support. "Our school funding is last in the nation. Our children should not be the ones paying the price for the federal government withholding our land," he said. Ivory said the state wants to tap into artificial intelligence technology that is used in real-time land appraisals. "It will allow us to simulate our sovereignty," he said. "What if the lands were held here and producing income?" Ivory said the effort has nothing to do with selling the land. "We want the federal government to pay its fair share." DeepVeer Ki Shaadi - Take A Look Reception Card of Ranveer Singh And Deepika Padukone Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh are all set to tie the knot, not once but twice in Italy on 14th and 15th of November. The couple has already left for Lake Como in Italy with family members, where the wedding is supposed to take place. While the entire wedding will be a hush-hush affair that will only be attended by close friends and family, the couple has decided to throw a lavish reception party for all their friends in Bollywood. There was also a lot of anticipation about the date of their reception. It was thought that the couple will have the party on 1st December, but it was also clashing with Nick-Priyanka wedding, which is to take place in Udaipur on 2nd December. But now, we finally have a glimpse of the Mumbai reception invitation card on Deepika and Ranveer, and contrary to what had been thought earlier, the reception will take place on 28th November at Hyatt in Mumbai. Have a look at the card: African tech player Mara has announced their newest product, the Maraphone the first made-in-Africa, full-scale smartphone, soon to be manufactured in plants across Africa. China has Huawei, Xiaomi; the U.S has iPhone and finally Africa has Maraphone, Ashish Thakkar, founder of Mara Group told a press conference at the Africa Investment Forum. This project will show the potential and ability that Africa can produce high quality and affordable smartphones in Africa, by Africans, for Africans and for the rest of the world. We are extremely grateful for the African Development Banks push in this sector which greatly encouraged our progress, Thakkar said. The Maraphone phone, a first-of-its-kind in the history of Africa, will produce high quality and affordable smartphones to primarily serve the population of Africa and also with the aim to export to other continents such as Europe. This is going to be totally transformative and create thousands of direct jobs, Thakkar said. While global manufacture of phones is on the rise and expected to hit a billion in the next few years, none of them are produced on the continent, Thakkar said. The initial target market for the phones would be first-time African smart phone users, while the first manufacturing plants are to be located in Rwanda and South Africa. Thakkar commended the African Development Bank for its push to support industrialisation of Africa through its High 5s strategy under which the Maraphone had received support. Bank President Akinwunmi Adesina said: By 2020, the value of Africas mobile money industry is projected to top $14 billion. We need African-developed mobile phones to leverage this potential. Africa is bold, strong and innovative. Africa's time is now. Microsoft Windows 10 October Update was very buggy and, though, Microsoft fixed all the issues that were put before it, the release gave users a horrid time. In a latest development, the problem now seems to step after Microsofts recent cumulative update for Windows 10 in which a bug would apparently break the file association feature in the operating system. Windowslatest.com says that the File Association bug prevents certain software from handling specific formats by default. The bug was reported by several users and Microsoft has updated its support document. For example, if you want that all your MP4 files are opened in VLC media player by default, you will have to right click on the file, click Open As and choose an app from the list as well as check the textbox which says Always use this app to open .MP4 files. The action will automatically open any file with .MP4 extension in VLC Player. But the bug prevents this action and the MP4 is opened in the default Films & TV app. In the updated support document, Microsoft confirmed that Windows 10 KB4462919 (Build 17134.345) could break down file associations and users wont be able to set some apps such as Microsofts Notepad as the default programme for the files. After installing this update, some users cannot set Win32 program defaults for certain app and file type combinations using the Open with command or Settings > Apps > Default apps. In some cases, Microsoft Notepad or other Win32 programs cannot be set as the default, Microsoft explains. Microsoft notes that a solution to the issue will be addressed with Windows 10s November 2018 cumulative update. Meanwhile, another report claims that a Windows 10 bug is deactivating some users license and is downgrading itself. Guru3D reported that the issue has been reported from Japan, Korea, the US and several other countries due to a temporary issue with Microsoft's activation server. We are aware of reports that some customers Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise machines are not recognizing their licenses as activated. Users may receive the following notification: Error: you are running Windows 10 Pro, but you have valid digital license for Windows 10 Home, or one of the following error codes 0X803F8001, 0xC004C003. We are actively working to resolve this within 24 hours. You can still use your PC; however, the watermark will appear until activation is restored. Thank you for your patience. We know that using dark theme saves power on AMOLED displays and Google reiterated the same during its recently concluded Android Dev Summit 2018. However, the company had some interesting data to share on the subject, in slides showcased during the event. These slides reveal how much power is drawn from the battery when the companys Pixel smartphone is being used when YouTube is run in dark and standard mode. Needless to say, theres a huge difference and considerable battery savings when running YouTube in dark mode. Additionally, the company also showed how different colours impact the battery life on a device. As seen in the image above, at maximum brightness, Black uses up the least amount of battery, while representing White colour draws maximum current. However, this is counterproductive to Googles implementation of Material Design, which extensively uses the colour white. The company did push Black themes to its Messages and the YouTube app but there are many other apps where the company could use darker colours, along with a devices Settings. With Android Pie, there is an option to select a Dark theme that turns the quick settings and the Google Feed dark, but it is not a system-wide implementation. YouTube recently got a Dark Mode update, which was initially announced back in July this year. The new colour theme can be found in the General tab, within the app's Settings. This new theme is applied throughout the app, even in the search bar, the video descriptions and the comments section. As mentioned earlier, the same was applied to the Messages app, however, there were some hiccups along the way since the new colour scheme was rolled back and then later seeded with version 3.5 of the app. Source: Slash Gear Samsung delivered on its promise of unveiling the foldable smartphone and has now announced that it will manufacture at least one million units of the handset. DJ Koh, CEO of Samsung's Mobile Business Division also says that the company cannot announce a launch date but it will definitely launch the foldable phone in the first half of next year. He also said that he met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai two months ago and formed a team that will focus on the development of a new UX of the foldable phone. Given Samsung Electronics' product capacity, for a flagship product we produce a minimum of one million units. For the foldable phone, initial stock will be over one million units and if the market reaction is positive, we can produce more. Our demonstration of the display at Samsung Developers Conference (SDC) shows that it is ready for commercial deployment. We overcame many obstacles, ZDNet quoted the executive as saying. Koh also said that like the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series, the foldable series will be launched every year but only in selected markets such as the US and South Korea first. The foldable phone doesn't have an official name yet, he added. We do not believe that foldable phone will completely overhaul the conventional smartphone phone factor. Rollable and stretchable display products will also be disruptive and we are researching those area as well, Koh was quoted as saying. Justin Denison, Senior Vice President of Mobile Product Marketing at Samsung showcased the foldable Samsung smartphone at the SDC in San Francisco last week. The device was camouflaged in a black cover, and was showcased under dimmed lights to protect the elements of the design. Theres a device inside here and it is stunning, Denison had said. Samsung says that its foldable smartphone uses an Infinity Flex Display which measures 7.3 inches and comes with a 1536 x 2152 resolution and a 4.2:3 aspect ratio when it is in an unfolded state. When folded in half to reveal a second display, called 'cover display', it functions as a 4.58-inch phone with a resolution of 840 x 1960 pixels and an aspect ratio of 21:9. Google, meanwhile, has also announced that it is tagging along with this development through its Android software. The company has announced that it is supporting these new foldable devices with Android, and its working closely with Samsung for the launch of this phone next year. Now we see a Android device makers creating a new category: Foldables. Taking advantage of new flexible display technology, the screen can literally bend and fold, said Stephanie Cuthbertson, Director of Product Management. China-backed RCEP takes centre stage as US backs out of Pacific World leaders will push for the rapid completion of a massive, China-backed trade deal that excludes the US at a summit this week, in a rebuke to rising protectionism and Donald Trump's "America First" agenda. China, Japan, India and other Asia-Pacific countries could announce a broad agreement on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which covers half the world's population, on the sidelines of the annual gathering, AFP reports. Not only is the US absent from the deal, but Trump is skipping the summit in Singapore, highlighting how far he has pulled back from efforts to shape global trade rules and raising further questions about Washington's commitment to Asia. Meanwhile, US Vice President Mike Pence and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will discuss India-US defence cooperation and bilateral relationship during their meeting in Singapore next week, the White House said Saturday, asserting that "sky is the limit" for New Delhi's role in the Indo-Pacific region. "They would be talking about the bilateral relationship and defence cooperation in the kind of larger context. I can't really say if they'll get into trade (ties) specifically at this time," a senior administration official told foreign journalists during a conference call Saturday, according to a PTI report. Modi and Pence are scheduled to meet during the ASEAN and East Asia Summit in Singapore next week. Pence left on a four-nation Asia trip over the weekend, which will take him to Japan, Australia, Singapore and Papua New Guinea. He will be representing President Donald Trump at the ASEAN and East Asia Summit in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Papua New Guinea. China steps in Trump launched his unilateralist trade policy with a bang shortly after coming to office by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal spearheaded by predecessor Barack Obama that aimed to bind fast-growing Asian powers into an American-backed order to counter China. His approach has left the floor open for Beijing to promote a rival pact it favours, the 16-member RCEP, a free trade deal which also aims to cut tariffs and integrate markets, but gives weaker protection in areas including employment and the environment. The pact championed by Obama has been kept alive even without the US, and is due to go into force this year, but the Beijing-backed pact has now overtaken it as the world's biggest. Announcing in Singapore that talks for the deal - which formally began in 2012 - are mostly concluded would be "important as a symbol of Asia's commitment to trade at a time of rising global tensions", Deborah Elms, executive director of the Asian Trade Centre, told AFP. She said negotiations in some areas were likely to continue into next year, however, while a diplomat attending the summit, speaking anonymously, said "substantial progress" had been made but there were still sticking points. The gathering of 20 world leaders comes against a backdrop of a months-long trade dispute between China and the United States after Trump imposed tariffs on most Chinese imports this summer, and Beijing retaliated with its own levies. The standoff is having an impact far beyond the US and China, and leaders at the four days of meetings that begin Monday will be keen to voice their grievances to Vice President Mike Pence, attending in Trump's place, and Premier Li Keqiang. Trump's absence from the Singapore gathering and a subsequent meeting of world leaders in Papua New Guinea is even more notable given Obama, who launched a so-called "pivot to Asia" to direct more US economic and military resources to the region, was a regular participant. Myanmar's embattled leader Aung San Suu Kyi is attending the meetings, and will deliver a keynote address at a business forum Monday. She may face criticism over a military crackdown on the Muslim Rohingya that saw hundreds of thousands flee to Bangladesh last year, and has sparked rare criticism of Myanmar from within regional bloc the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Also on the agenda will be North Korea's nuclear programme. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a vaguely worded agreement on denuclearisation at a historic summit in June, but progress has been slow since. Pence will also keep on pressure on Beijing over its growing aggression in the South China Sea. China claims almost all the strategically vital waters, a source of friction with Southeast Asian states that have overlapping claims as well as the US, the traditionally dominant military power in the region. Other leaders attending include Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But much of the focus will be on the RCEP as leaders seek to send a message in support of free trade. The deal groups the 10 ASEAN members plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. RBI revises maturity and hedging norms for external commercial borrowings Reserve bank of India (RBI) has announced a downward revision in the minimum average maturity requirement for overseas commercial borrowings from 5 years at present to three years under the infrastructure financing scheme. RBI also reduced the average maturity requirement for exemption from mandatory hedging provision applicable to ECBs raised by such borrowers from 10 years to 5 years. Till now, eligible borrowers raising foreign currency denominated ECBs under Track I, having a minimum average maturity requirement of 5 years, were mandatorily required to hedge their ECB exposure fully, RBI stated in a release today. This is applicable to external commercial borrowings, trade credit, borrowing and lending in foreign currency by authorised dealers and persons other than authorised dealers, as amended from time to time, RBI stated RBI said it has reviewed the extant provisions and it has been decided, in consultation with the Government of India, to amend the following provisions of the ECB framework: Reduce the minimum average maturity requirement for ECBs in the infrastructure space raised by eligible borrowers from 5 years to 3 years; and Reduce the average maturity requirement from extant 10 years to 5 years for exemption from mandatory hedging provision applicable to ECBs raised by eligible borrowers. Accordingly, the ECBs with minimum average maturity period of 3 to 5 years in the infrastructure space will have to meet 100 per cent mandatory hedging requirement. Further, it is also clarified that ECBs falling under the aforesaid revised provision but raised prior to the date of this circular will not be required to mandatorily roll-over their existing hedges. All other provisions of the ECB policy remain unchanged. AD Category - I banks should bring the contents of this circular to the notice of their constituents and customers. Revenue targets look elusive as 13 of 18 income tax regions fail to achieve targets The Income Tax Department may miss the revenue collection target for the current fiscal as tax collections for the first two quarters have fallen far short of the target set in the budget. Income tax collections for the first two quarters of the current financial year are expected to fall short of the revenue collection target for the fiscal as only five out of the 18 income tax regions have managed to achieve collection targets, s per numbers released by the Income Tax Department. Only five I-T regions Delhi, Uttar Pradesh (E), Uttar Pradesh (W), Odisha and the North-East managed to achieve the revenue goals in the first two quarters of the fiscal, a mid-term review by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) showed. Mumbai, the countrys commercial capital, which contributes 32.24 per cent of the countrys total income tax revenue, has been the biggest laggard, with just 3.8 per cent growth in collections against a targeted growth of 13.3 per cent, as per data released by the CBDT. For 2018-19, the CBDT has set a collection target of Rs3,70,000 crore as the target for Mumbai, against the all-India target of Rs11,50,000 crore. However, the Delhi region, which was given a target growth rate of 15.4 per cent, managed to achieve an actual growth rate of 52.8 per cent. For the current fiscal, the total revenue target for the Delhi region is Rs1,50,000 crore. For industrially developed region such as Pune, the target was 20.1 per cent while it managed to achieve a growth of 15.4 per cent. The total revenue target for the Pune region is Rs61,931 crore, as per CBDT sources. Other laggards in revenue collection include income tax regions such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand and Nagpur. The Rajasthan region, which was given a growth target of 19 per cent, reported a negative growth of 0.3 per cent. Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh region was given a target of 17.3 per cent but achieved only 5.8 per cent growth. Nagpur, which was given a growth target of 21.8 per cent, managed a negative growth rate of 39.2 per cent. The total revenue collection target for Nagpur for the fiscal is Rs5,906 crore. Also, the CBDT has found that time-bound disposal of scrutiny assessment of assessees is still pending in 2,14,000 cases at the all-India level as only 13 per cent of pending cases were actually disposed of by I-T Commissioners. At the beginning of every fiscal, the CBDT sets the targets in the Central Action Plan for the full year. The plan document is the key roadmap for enhancing revenue collection. In an earlier release relating to direct tax collections, the CBDT had provided time-series data as updated up to FY 2017-18 and income distribution data for AY 2016-17 and AY 2017-18. There is a constant growth in direct tax-GDP ratio over last three years and the ratio of 5.98 per cent in FY 2017-18 is the best DT-GDP ratio in last 10 years; There is a growth of more than 80 per cent in the number of returns filed in the last four financial years from 3.79 crore in FY 2013-14 (base year) to 6.85 crore in FY 2017-18; and The number of persons filing income tax returns has also increased by about 65 percent during this period from 33.1 million in FY 2013-14 to 54.4 million in FY 2017-18. There has been continuous increase in the amount of income declared in the returns filed by all categories of taxpayers over the last three assessment years (AYs). For AY 2014-15, corresponding to FY 2013-14 (base year), the return filers had declared gross total income of Rs26,92,000 crore, which has increased by 67 pe5r cent to Rs44,88,000 crore for AY 2017-18, showing higher level of compliance resulting from various legislative and administrative measures taken by the government, including effective enforcement measures against tax evasion. The total number of taxpayers (including corporates, firms, HUFs, etc) showing income of above Rs1 crore also registered a sharp increase over the three-year period. While 88,649 taxpayers disclosed income above Rs1 crore in AY 2014-15, the figure was 1,40,139 for AY 2017-18 (growth of about 60 per cent). Similarly, the number of individual taxpayers disclosing income above Rs1 crore increased during the period under reference from 48,416 to 81,344, which translates into a growth of 68 per cent. The average tax paid by corporate taxpayers has increased from Rs32,28,000 in AY 2014-15 to Rs49,95,000 in AY 2017-18 (growth of 55 per cent). There is also an increase of 26 per cent in the average tax paid by individual taxpayers from Rs46,377 in AY 2014-15 to Rs58,576 in AY 2017-18. During the three-year period, the number of salaried taxpayers increased from 17 million for AY 2014-15 to 2.33 crore for AY 2017-18 (up 37 per cent). The average income declared by the salaried taxpayers has gone up by 19 per cent from Rs5,76,000 to Rs6,84,000. During the same period, there has also been a growth of 19 per cent in the number of non-salaried individual taxpayers from 19.5 million to 23.3 million and the average non-salary income declared has increased by 27 per cent from Rs4,11,000 in AY 2014-15 to Rs5,23,000 in AY 2017-18. After long grilling, Ballari baron Janardhan Reddy arrested Ballari mining baron and former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy of the Bharatiya Janata Party, after being questioned for hours in an alleged bribery case last evening, was today arrested, the police said. Ali Khan, a close aid of Janardhan Reddy, was also arrested. The former minister, who is facing multiple charges of corruption, Reddy was remanded in judicial custody till 24 November. He has already spent three years in jail. He was out on bail. "We have taken the decision to arrest him on the basis of credible evidence and witnesses statements. We are going to recover the money and give it to the investors," senior police officer of Bengaluru Alok Kumar told reporters. The 49-year-old appeared for questioning at the Crime Branch office on Saturday evening after a three-day hunt by the police. In a video message, he rubbished reports that he was on the run and was holed up in Hyderabad. The bribery case involves a private enterprise, Ambident Group, which was allegedly running a Ponzi scheme and cheated thousands of depositors. Its owner Syed Ahmed Fareed claimed after the firm came under the scanner of the authorities that he paid Rs18 crore to be let off. Janardhan Reddy, who was a minister in the government headed by BS Yeddyurappa, had asked for the money during a meeting at a hotel, he said. The money was eventually paid and routed to Janardhan Reddy's aide, Syed Ahmed Fareed said. Fareed reportedly told police that he had given Reddy 57 kg of gold worth Rs18 crore after the latter promised to help him in an investigation launched by the Enforcement Directorate. The central crime branch of the Bengaluru police had questioned Reddy from around 4 pm on Saturday, when he appeared before the police, till about 2.30 am. The questioning resumed on Sunday before Reddy was arrested, police said. Reddy was taken to a hospital for medical check-up and produced before a magistrate. He will be taken to the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison. Reddys lawyers approached the magistrate with a bail application, which has been listed for hearing today. In a series of videos released on Saturday, Reddy had rebutted all the charges and criticised the police for spreading false information. Refuting allegations by police that he was on the run, Reddy said he had been in Bengaluru the whole time. One of the three brothers who wield enormous power in Karnataka's mining district of Ballari, Janardhan Reddy was disowned by BJP chief Amit Shah during campaigning for the assembly elections held in the state in May. However his two brothers, Gali Karunakara Reddy and Gali Somashekhara Reddy, were given election ticket by the party. Janardhan Reddy had campaigned for them, as well his aide Sriramulu, who won the election from Ballari. Last week, the party lost the Ballari parliament seat to the Congress. Reddys advocate Sunil Kumar told Hindustan Times he had just been informed of the arrest. We will wait and watch what happens as it is a holiday today. We will apply for bail once the situation becomes clear, Kumar said. India to share half of Padur strategic oil storage with ADNOC: report India plans to share half of the Padur strategic oil reserve site in Karnataka with Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC), in a move that will facilitate the sale of ADNOC crude oil to local refiners in India, while also giving the government of India the first right to the oil in the case of an emergency. Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) will sign an initial lease agreement with ADNOC today in the presence of oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan, a Reuters report quoting sources close to the development said. While the agreement will allow ADNOC to store its crude at two compartments in the Padur strategic reserve site, India also will not have to pay for the imports while accessing the oil in emergencies, the report pointed out. It will be the second such deal with ADNOC after ISPRL allowed the Abu Dhabi oil company to store oil at the Mangalore strategic storage in Karnataka. We will sign a memorandum of understanding with ADNOC to fill two compartments in Padur along the same lines as the Mangalore cavern, said one source with direct knowledge of the matter, declining to be named ahead of an official statement. The Padur site is located about 5 km (3 miles) from the southwest coast and 40 km from Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltds refinery. The signing of the agreement follows the union cabinet last week approving a plan allowing foreign oil companies to store oil in Padurs strategic storage. Participation by foreign oil companies will significantly reduce budgetary support of government of India by more than 100 billion rupees based on current prices, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told a news conference last week. India, which relies on oil imports for meeting about 80 per cent of its total demand, has built emergency storages in underground caverns at three locations, with a capacity to hold 36.87 million barrels of crude, which works out to about 9.5 days of its average daily demand. Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi's ADNOC team up for gas exploration, LNG projects State-run oil companies Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) have signed a strategic framework agreement to invest in natural gas exploration and liquefied natural gas projects. The heads of Saudi Aramco Amin H Nasser and UAE minister of state and ADNOC Group CEO Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber signed the agreement at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi. The cooperation brings together two of the worlds leading energy producers from the Arabian Gulf to jointly work together in an area of strategic importance for both companies as they seek to boost revenues from the natural gas and LNG business segments, the two companies stated in a joint release. Under the agreement, Saudi Aramco and ADNOC will jointly assess investment opportunities across the natural gas and LNG value chain, exchange technical knowledge and expertise in natural gas and LNG growth markets. Our partnership with ADNOC continues to strengthen, after the recent decision to jointly develop a major refinery in India. We have shared strategic interest to expand our gas businesses, and this new agreement underlines our confidence in strong global gas demand growth. Our cooperation further supports the corporate transformation strategy of both ADNOC and Saudi Aramco to pursue opportunities that help unlock greater value for both companies, and meet the growing needs of stakeholders around the world that depend on our energy to develop and grow their economies, Nasser said. The UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have a strong relationship built on shared strategic interests. Increased cooperation between ADNOC and Saudi Aramco will ensure greater energy security and long-term economic prosperity for both nations, Al Jaber said. This agreement reinforces our strategy to undertake partnerships with forward-thinking partners who can help accelerate access to new growth centers of global demand. It will ensure that we are well positioned to secure greater returns from global natural gas and LNG demand growth by combining the technological and operational expertise of two of the worlds leading National Oil Companies. ADNOC LNG, a subsidiary of ADNOC, is a reliable LNG supplier with a proven track record over 40 years and 2 per cent of the global share of the LNG market. LNG is the fastest-growing hydrocarbon with a growth rate of 4% per annum. Global LNG demand is expected to exceed 500 million tonnes per annum by 2035, up from nearly 300 million tonnes per annum in 2017. Union minister Ananth Kumar passes away Ananth Kumar, union minister for chemicals and fertilisers and parliamentary affairs and senior BJP leader, passed away at a hospital in Bengaluru early this morning. Ananth Kumar, 59, was battling cancer and had returned from the US last month after treatment at a New York hospital. The senior BJP leader had been on a ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit of the Shankara Cancer Hospital in Bengaluru for the last few days. The minister's wife Tejaswini and two daughters were with him in his last moments. His body will be kept at National College grounds in Bengaluru for last respects. The national flag will fly at half mast across the country as a mark of respect to the union minister. Karnataka has announced three-day state mourning and all schools, colleges and offices are closed today. Prime Minister Narendra Modi described him as a remarkable leader, an able administrator and a great asset to the BJP. Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents. Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work, the prime minister said. Ananth Kumar represented Bengaluru South in Lok Sabha. Kumar helped strengthen the BJP in the southern state. He was the force behind the NDA governments low-cost medicine scheme launched nationwide, which has immensely benefitted the poor. As minister of chemicals and fertlisers, he also helped revive state-run fertiliser units. Ananth Kumar was one of the few ministers to have also served in the earlier BJP-led government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He was also the "youngest" minister. He was minister for civil aviation, tourism, sports, urban development and poverty alleviation in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet in 1998. The six-time MP from Karnataka was the first person to speak in Kannada in the United Nations. President Ram Nath Kovind also expressed his condolences. Sad to hear of the passing of Union minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H N Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates, a tweet from Rashtrapathi Bhavan stated. Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said Kumar was a "friend beyond politics" and a value-based politician. "Our families had a friendship beyond politics. He always valued and had given priority to friendship. I have lost a great friend in his death," the chief minister added. A graduate in Arts and Law, Kumar was associated with the Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student organisation affiliated to the BJP), before joining the BJP in 1987. As a student activist, he was also jailed along with other ABVP leaders during the Emergency of 1975. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996. In 1998, he became the youngest member of the Vajpayee cabinet and he returned as minister in 1999. In 2003, he became the BJP's Karnataka chief. The party won the highest number of seats in the assembly and the Lok Sabha under his stewardship. The parliamentarian from south Bengaluru constituency held charge of two ministries in the Narendra Modi government -- Chemicals and Fertilisers since May 2014 and Parliamentary Affairs since July 2016. Union Minister DV Sadananda Gowda expressed grief over his death. "Shocked, it's unbelievable. My friend, brother Ananth Kumar is no more," he wrote. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also expressed sorrow over his death. "Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri Ananth Kumar is no more with us. Served BJP all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss," she tweeted. Book Excerpt (Chapter 8: Tranforming tresses the Tanveer way!) Dear Tanveer, You are an awe inspiring, grounded person. Always filled with warmth and positivity, your optimism towards life is contagious. Given your humble beginnings, you believe in giving your 100 percent in every walk of life - personal and professional. One can never know if you are having a bad day, since you are always committed to giving the best possible service to your clients across age groups and treating each one as special. Your belief in all-round excellence rubs off on everyone you meet. Every time I meet you, I come away learning something newDo you have a magic wand, my friend? Yours affectionately Aparna ------------------------------------------------------------------ Tanveer is the chief creative director and founder of the well-known brand TAS (Tanveers hair studio and Academy) whose buzzword is Tranformation. Although his father insisted that he join the family hairdressing business, which he was not at all interested in, he decided that he would do so only after being formally trained in his art. Realizing the need for customized and systematic training in this profession, he decided to teach young, would-be professionals this creative skill. He is well known in the film (Bollywood) and fashion industry alike for creating sensational looks, skilled styling, teaching as well as the excellent service he provides to his clients. He was an integral part of the prestigious Lakme Fashion week for ten years. The miracle maker he is, he turns bad hair into great hair for life. Its gorgeous Tanveer! I never thought I could look so beautiful!" Gushes Kumud, an upcoming Bollywood actress after her hair transformation. Youre the best in the world! God bless you! Okay friends, today we learnt how to transform unruly hair into lovely locks! Any questions? I turn to address my students at TAS (Tanveers Hair Studio and Academy). That was a miracle, Sir! Will, I also be able to do this? quips wide-eyed, eighteen-year-old Rahul. I laugh. Its no miracle. What seems like a miracle is born out of sheer dedication and lots of hard work. Everybody loves the way you transform them with a simple haircut. You must be getting blessed many times over, isnt it? asks Kabir. I laugh again. Sure, I do feel I am blessed! But you would be surprised to know that the first time I cut someones hair, she cursed me, and my career is a result of that curse! They look at me bewildered and in silence. Tell us all about it. In fact, tell us everything about yourself, they say interested. Okay. I begin Beginnings in Bombay The eldest of two brothers and three sisters, I am a small-town boy from Bijnor (in the state of Uttar Pradesh). Although my grandfathers father was a teacher, my grandfather came to Mumbai (then Bombay) in search of work and opened barbers shop in Bombays Fountain area. That was the time of World War II. The shop enjoyed the patronage of the British officers and my grandfather earned handsome tips as well. Gradually, he became financially well-off. After I was born, my father who also carried on the family profession brought us to Bombay. Teething Troubles Throughout my growing years, academics and I played a game of hide-and-seek! We had just begun to attend an English-medium school when my younger brother Imran was afflicted with Polio. So, we went back to our village for his treatment. Here, I was enrolled in the Arya Samaj School where I studied till class 2. This school was quite different from the one in Bombay. We had no notebooks, so we studied on slates (a sheet of thin, hard rock in a wooden frame, used to write in schools). My parents spent all their money on Imrans treatment. However, they realized that there was n ohope for his ailment and also no opportunities for him in the village. Once more, we shifted to the land of opportunities Bombay. My parents were able to find a school for the physically challenged where they enrolled Imran. I began to attend the Municipal School (which was till class 7). This was my third school. My father rented a small shop in the Kalina area near Santa Cruz in Bombay. Our accommodation at Shastri Nagar in Kurla was far from comfortable. Water would flood our house in the rains. As compared to the huge spaces in the village, our house was cramped. Gradually, my father bought 125 sq ft of space behind the Kalina Masjid lane and we went to stay there in the year 1988. It was a lane where small entrepreneurs like barbers, washermen etc, lived and worked. I guess, this is where the seeds of entrepreneurship were sown in my mind. Honestly, I was not at all an academic person. In fact, I failed in class 3 and such was my disinterest that I often bunked school as well. Teenage Tales After class 7, I joined a private Hindi medium school called Pathak Technical High school (which was till class 10). Here, apart from studies, students could also learn useful professional skills and train to become blacksmiths, carpenters, electricians, etc. I was fond of electronics and loved to play around with appliances like radios, televisions, fans, and wished to become a technician. This was where I found something that I liked for the first time. My teachers suggested I take up carpentry and I found that I was in my element while doing engineering drawing. Drawing and its symmetry attracted me and studying it for three years almost made me half an engineer. I use the views, patterns, and symmetry I studied then, in my designs even today. Although I discovered that I was fond of and good at technical things, my father was constantly persuading me to learn hairdressing from him. He used to say, If you have art in your hands, you will never suffer! No matter what the economic situation, you will definitely be able to feed yourself. However, I was dead against this! The title of the work is an ever-increasing figure corresponding to the number of people who in the past year have migrated from one country to another, added to the number of migrant deaths recorded so far this year. The figure is provided by the Missing Migrants Project led by the International Organisation for Migration. Bruguera brought together a group of 21 people who live or work in the same postcode as Tate Modern. They were asked toexplore how the museum can learn from and adapt to its local community. The participants decided to rename the Boiler House, an area that is part of Tate Modern and adjacent to Turbine Hall, in honour of the local activist Natalie Bell. Bells name will appear in large letters at the entrance to the area for the duration of one year. A manifesto written by the same 21 people appears on your screen when you sign in to the free Wi-Fi at Tate Modern. Largely associated with the larger cities like Dublin, Cork and Galway homelessness is now a very real and looming crisis which is reaching into Irelands smaller towns and villages including Donegal,according to the North West Simon Community. On Saturday night last the Donegal Democrat/DPP joined over 40 people from McElhinneys Store in Ballybofey sleeping rough to highlight the tragedy of homelessness and raise much-needed funds for the North West Simon Community. Afterwards, Collette Ferguson, the Donegal development officer with North West Simon said the service is as busy as ever. People dont really realise the extent of the problem here in Donegal, she said. It is more associated with the larger cities. It is more of a hidden crisis, with the attitude if you dont see it, it doesnt exist prevailing. Sandra Devenney, Business Manager with McElhinney's who organised the event brings a dawn snack to Jason Quigley and his partner April McManus who spent the night on the street PICTURE: MATT BRITTON The reality is that our service alone in the county has increased by 25% in the last year which speaks volumes. We have permanent housing in Letterkenny which houses 33 people and this is full. Unless rough sleepers are seen sleeping on cardboard, the public seem unaware of the problem. There are people sleeping in B/Bs, hotels, emergency hostels, sofa surfing and overcrowded family homes. There are people who have worked hard all their lives and raised their families now finding themselves very vulnerable. Many have to decide whether they can afford the rent and just go without the heat. The option of just buying a newspaper can become a major decision. Collette added, The root cause of this is the complete lack of affordable housing, no social housing, mental and physical health issues to name but a few. This is a problem that is not going away. It simply has to be addressed. John McElhinney of McElhinneys, who slept out with his staff on Saturday night, told the Democrat/DPP, I feel very privileged to be here with my staff tonight . We have all learned a lot. It has been cold, uncomfortable and practically impossible to sleep but the big difference is that we can soon return to our own warm beds and a get good hot shower. Those affected cannot do this. Tonight has made us all just so aware of the problems that people are experiencing in an economy that is reputed to be one of the best in the world. I am a proud Ballybofey man tonight. The local people have been arriving with soup, sandwiches, teas and coffee and the younger people coming from the pubs have all stopped to chat and donate a few euro. It has been a heartwarming experience for each and every one of us. What makes me particularly proud is that every cent raised here tonight will stay in Donegal. Plans for Louth GAAs new county grounds at DkIT are set for a doomsday scenario with the proposal to go before County Council members for ratification on Monday (November 19). Having been overwhelmingly backed by the Louth County Board in September, the vote was taken off last months Council agenda as it had seemingly failed to gain the support required to be passed. However, in the most crucial stage of the deal to date, the majority of the 29 councillors must vote in accordance with the development of a 12,000 capacity stadium off the Inner Relief Road, otherwise Louth GAAs grounds attempt will be plunged back to square one - again. It is understood that some councillors are concerned about the price the land is being sold for. Over nine of the 12.14 acre plot is owned by the Council. Louth GAAs delegation panel, which consisted of Co. Board treasurer Aidan Berrill, All-Ireland winner Frank Lynch and Peter Fitzpatrick TD, have negotiated a fee of 400,000 with County Manager Joan Martin. There may also be some resistance from councillors determined to keep the countys playing base in Drogheda. With Croke Park on board and willing to fund as much as three-quarters of the potential 8 million development, rejection at this stage would be disastrous for all parties in favour. It is hoped that the stadium, if passed, will be officially opened by June 2020 and made available to both Louth and DkIT teams for use. The first part of the development will consist of a seated stand, housing 4,448, opposite an 8,000 capacity terrace. With further upgrades, the potential holding could rise to approximately 22,000. SEE TOMORROW'S DUNDALK DEMOCRAT FOR THE FULL STORY Coming to the forefront: the rising role of the investment fund sector for financial stability in the euro area Speech by Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, at the Opening Conference, 21st Euro Finance Week, Frankfurt am Main, 12 November 2018 I am honoured to speak at this Opening Conference of the 21st Euro Finance Week. People often think that central bankers by profession and perhaps even by nature are predisposed to constantly warn about risks. We therefore need to avoid being perceived as crying wolf too often. After all, persistently warning about threats that fail to materialise may be just as counterproductive as being over optimistic. Striking this delicate balance is crucial for central bankers but also for markets. And looking at how markets currently price risks across a number of asset classes and geographies, I am not so sure that they are achieving this balance. I am raising these doubts in particular in light of the economic and political developments that we are currently witnessing globally as well as in Europe. In my remarks today, I will briefly discuss what we see as the main financial stability risks for the euro area, before zooming in on the situation in the investment fund sector. Over the past decade, this sector has almost tripled in terms of total assets and has taken on more risk. So it deserves greater attention from a financial stability perspective. I would also like to emphasise today that regulation needs to adapt to the evolving financial system. In that vein, I will discuss what remains to be done in developing macroprudential and other policy tools in response to evolving risks in the investment fund sector. Financial stability risks in the euro area In the euro area, we have now seen 22 consecutive quarters of economic growth and declining unemployment a development which has also been bolstered by our accommodative monetary policy and which has supported financial stability overall. Notably, banks profitability has improved somewhat, though it is still at low levels, and they now have higher capital and liquidity ratios, making them more resilient than they were before the global financial crisis. Indeed, the results of the recent EU-wide stress test show that the banking sector has a good level of resilience overall, albeit with some pockets of vulnerability. However, while the fundamentals for solid growth rates over the next two years are still in place, some risks are building up in the financial system. We are currently paying particular attention to three major developments that could trigger financial stability concerns globally and in the euro area. First, the current expansion of the US is now significantly longer than historical norms and the second longest in US modern history. Looking ahead, a down-turn in the US macro-financial cycle could trigger a reassessment of riskier asset classes. Second, at the global level, tensions have grown in emerging market economies on the back of a stronger US dollar and increased trade frictions. These developments may undermine global growth prospects and ultimately lead to abrupt increases in risk premia. This could trigger a domino effect leading to a sharp sell-off and further price pressures in assets with stretched valuations with the potential to spill over to euro area financial markets. Third, in Europe we observe re-emerging debt sustainability concerns, both in the public and private sector. As regards public finances, Italy is the most prominent case at the moment in light of the overall debt level and the political tensions around the Italian governments budget plans. The strong market reactions to political events have triggered renewed concerns about the sovereign-bank nexus in parts of Europe. Although contagion has been limited so far, it remains a possibility. This underpins the call for fiscal discipline and for observing and applying fiscal rules in Europe. But in the non-financial private sector too, debt levels remain high by both historical and international standards. In a number of countries, debt is above thresholds that are normally associated with a debt overhang. And growing debt levels should also be seen in the context of buoyant real estate market developments in a number of countries. In light of the current global and domestic developments, a common concern is that we may see a large and abrupt surge in risk premia, triggered or amplified by uncertainty about political actions or a shift in risk perception. At the same time, we are worried about the possible amplification of stress in financial markets through deleveraging and forced asset selling in a situation where asset prices are falling. Now that the banking sector is shrinking and becoming more resilient, our radar is shifting to the non-bank financial sector, which is more lightly regulated. In particular, we need a better understanding of the role of asset managers and of the broader vulnerabilities inherent to investment funds. The asset management sector now plays a much larger role in financial markets than it did ten years ago. It may harbour leverage and liquidity risks that could amplify any potential shock from a reassessment of risks in financial markets. I will now look in more detail at some longer-term developments and potential risks in the asset management sector. Risks associated with liquidity, leverage and interconnectedness in the investment fund sector One of the most notable developments since the financial crisis has been the rapid growth of asset management in the euro area and at global level. In the euro area, investment funds have been growing steadily, with total assets expanding by roughly 170% between 2008 and 2017[1], reflecting both continued net cash inflows and rising asset valuations. As a result, the structure of the euro area financial sector is changing. In 2008, total assets held by investment funds were only 15% of banking sector assets. In 2017, euro area investment fund assets had grown to 42% of total banking sector assets, amounting to EUR 12 trillion. This major growth in relative size is likely to have far-reaching implications for the ability of the financial system to absorb shocks and for the financing of the economy more broadly. On the positive side, an increase in market-based finance through the issuance of debt and equity instruments can help diversify the funding base of the real economy. It also gives investors more choice and enables them to benefit from diversification effects offered by investment products. This holds true for retail and institutional investors alike, as an increasing share of institutional investors are using professional asset management services. The growing share of investors outside the core financial system tends to increase the systems risk-bearing capacity, as traditional end-investors, typically not leveraged, can absorb any potential losses more smoothly. One should also acknowledge that thanks to significant efforts in the last ten years, investment funds in the EU are subject to an enhanced regulatory framework. In particular, the fund specific regulation coupled with regulation covering certain activities, such as derivatives and securities financing transactions, have addressed investor protection issues and risks from a microprudential perspective.[2] At the same time, the growing fund sector is creating emerging vulnerabilities from a system-wide perspective.[3] The asset management sector is highly connected with other parts of the financial system through ownership links, common asset exposures and the provision of wholesale funding to banks. Investment funds are not only important depositors in banks; they also provide longer-term funding through the purchase of bank-issued debt securities. Euro area investment funds hold about EUR 400 billion or approximately 10% in outstanding debt securities issued by euro area banks. Banks, on the other hand, lend to funds mainly through repo transactions. So any potential shock to the investment fund sector may quickly spill over to other parts of the financial system. When identifying possible weak spots in the financial system, it is sometimes useful to look back to past crisis events. I recall some 20 years ago, when Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), a large and highly interconnected hedge fund, collapsed, in the wake of turbulence from the 1998 Russian crisis. The rapidly changing market environment effectively turned LTCMs business model into a key amplifier. LTCM was betting on longer-term developments in fixed-income markets using exceptionally high leverage. When the fund collapsed, fire-sale spillovers and counterparty exposures threatened to erode the stability of the financial system. To be clear, I am not predicting another LTCM crisis any time in the near future. But I would like to use the case of LTCM to exemplify some key vulnerabilities which played a role in the collapse acknowledging that LTCM was not an open-ended fund and did not face redemption risk, as most mutual funds do. In particular, let me focus on risks stemming from liquidity mismatches, leverage and interconnectedness across the financial system. The asset management industry keeps reminding us that vulnerabilities in funds cannot be presumed to resemble those of banks. And it is true that investment funds do not issue deposits and that potential losses in a fund are borne by end-investors. But there is a fundamental difference between the equity in banks and the equity in funds. Investors in an open-end fund can run by redeeming their units, whereas equity holders in a bank can only run by selling their shares to other market participants. A run by investment fund unitholders can therefore resemble a run by bank depositors. In both cases, the institution is, in principle, forced to sell assets in a fires sale in order to meet its short-dated liabilities. In general, asset managers are highly aware of their funds liquidity position. In the interest of investors, the fund managers have incentives to minimise any impact from their own actions on financial markets, while at the same time accommodating share creations and redemptions. So a bank-like run by unitholders in a fund may not be very likely. But a system-wide shock with a broader impact on market liquidity conditions could quickly change the situation. Liquidity at fund level may be squeezed if many investors wish to liquidate their unit shares at the same time. The resulting first-mover advantages and selling pressure could amplify stress in financial markets, especially if conditions are already fragile. One reason why the Federal Reserve Bank of New York decided to facilitate the private-sector bail-out of LTCM was precisely because it was concerned about market dislocations should the company fail on some of its obligations. Letting LTCM go into disorderly fire-sale liquidation was seen as risking a severe drying-up of market liquidity, which could have damaged financial markets and the wider U.S. economy.[4] Considering the current global and domestic uncertainties affecting financial market developments, I am seriously concerned about declining market liquidity and the role that investment funds might play in a possible stress scenario. Liquidity mismatches and leverage are structural in nature and often build up slowly over time. In the euro area, we observe that investment funds have been taking on higher credit and duration risk in the current market environment. And we have strong indications that liquidity risks are building up in the fund sector. The share of less-liquid assets in that sector has been growing constantly since the global crisis, while liquidity and cash buffers have been declining. From our market contacts we also hear that investors are increasingly using exchange-traded fund (ETF) shares to gain exposure to less-liquid markets. ETFs have been growing extremely fast thanks to their comparably low cost and high liquidity. ETFs are traded at higher frequencies and are sometimes more liquid than the underlying instruments. But can we be sure that liquidity in ETFs, in particular in bond ETFs, would remain stable if a sudden repricing in the markets occurred? This is a concern in particular for bond ETFs a small but rapidly expanding market which has not yet been tested in a larger distress event. Alongside liquidity risks, the ETF sector is also subject to counterparty risks because of connections to banks through ownership links and derivatives. Again, the fast-growing ETF segment deserves further attention from a risk and policy perspective. It goes without saying that leverage plays a critical role in any potential stress scenario as it forces companies to deleverage, generating potential spillovers to asset markets. Our analysis also shows that leverage increases the procyclical behaviour of investors and asset managers, even if they are not excessively leveraged. In any case, it is quite comforting that leverage in the European investment fund sector seems to be low, on average. Average leverage multipliers reach only up to 1.3 across different fund types. This is partly because about 60% of all investment funds fall under the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) Directive and so face tight leverage constraints. On the other hand, many alternative investment funds do not face any binding restrictions on leverage. Among those alternative funds, we find a tail of highly leveraged bond and hedge funds, which sometimes have a leverage multiplier of more than 30. I urge authorities to use the new data which is available to shed more light on this highly leveraged part of the sector.[5] This may help to better understand some of the lightly regulated and less transparent activities where risks may be building up. For instance, private loan funds may potentially erode credit standards and take on higher credit risk in the current market environment, whereas private equity funds may facilitate excessive leverage in the non-financial sector. Some of these activities may be escaping our attention, as statistics on them are scarce and they are often conducted by funds outside the euro area. Leverage may be building up, for instance, by the use of derivatives or in off-shore centres. Therefore, consistent reporting frameworks have to be developed with a view to gaining a system-wide perspective on evolving risks, also at global level. It will be important to develop comparable leverage measures in line with the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).[6] This will facilitate consistent monitoring and assessment of the build-up of risks in the investment fund sector. As the global crisis has shown, we cannot afford to be complacent and must remain vigilant to possible new risks that might emerge in the financial system. So we need to better understand the macroprudential dimension of risk in the investment fund sector. And we need to further enhance the sectors resilience to system-wide shocks. Possible macroprudential and other policy responses what needs to be done? Let me now set out a few regulatory actions which could contribute to mitigating risks arising from interconnectedness, liquidity and leverage in the investment fund sector. Let me start with interconnectedness and the links to banks in particular. The global financial crisis showed that banks sometimes have incentives to step in to support unconsolidated entities such as special purpose vehicles or investment funds with which they have a business relationship. Explicit contractual obligations are already captured by a number of post-crisis reforms, in particular by revisions to the securitisation framework and by enhancements to consolidation rules for off-balance sheet entities.[7] But the risk that a bank provides financial support to an unconsolidated entity that is facing stress, over and above any contractual obligations has not yet been addressed. Such risks may be particularly relevant in the context of close ownership links between banks and funds. For example, banks in certain circumstances may feel a need to step in to protect their brand. To tackle this issue, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) has published guidelines on step-in risk that would require banks to self-assess and report their material step-in risk exposures to supervisors, who should have the possibility for supervisory action if deemed necessary.[8] We also need to work on the different layers of interconnectedness between ETFs and their counterparties. In our view, the rapid growth of ETFs, coupled with their potential to transmit and amplify risks to financial stability, warrants further evaluation of regulatory action. [9] This may include enhanced rules to limit counterparty risk exposure of ETF investors, and measures that provide more transparency around ETF liquidity provision. The enhanced microprudential framework for the European fund sector is a key element in boosting the resilience of the financial system overall. But the sectors rising role in shaping the financial cycle, and the potentially systemic nature of its risks, require a more ambitious approach. We should aim at extending the macroprudential framework beyond banks to encompass the asset management sector.[10] In particular, we need to equip macroprudential authorities with the necessary tools to address systemic risks both ex ante and ex post. The recent ESRB recommendation to address systemic risks related to liquidity mismatches and leverage in investment funds[11] is a crucial step towards this goal. Most importantly, from a macroprudential perspective, the proposed measures would help national authorities in setting binding leverage limits for alternative investment funds to mitigate systemic risk. The recommendations foresee also a role of the authorities in suspending redemptions in a stress scenario. Going beyond the ESRB recommendation, I would argue in favour of complementing the powers that are currently envisaged for authorities with ex ante tools targeting liquidity risks at system level. Existing liquidity management tools may mitigate liquidity risk ex post, but they might not suffice to prevent the build-up of vulnerabilities in exuberant times ex ante. The toolkit available to macroprudential authorities should therefore include additional ex ante requirements such as minimum liquidity buffers and redemption notice periods.[12] Mandatory liquidity buffers require funds to hold sufficient high-quality liquid assets for the fund to be able to meet redemptions and margin calls under many foreseeable scenarios. The introduction of minimum notice periods would help align a funds liability structure with the liquidity- and risk-profile on the asset side. Overall, such tools could be used to raise the sectors resilience to potential investor runs or spikes in margin calls. Setting these requirements would greatly limit the sectors ability to build-up liquidity risk in exuberant times. Finally, given the cross-border nature of the investment fund sector, we need to strengthen the European perspective in the supervision of investment funds while also ensuring a globally consistent approach to monitoring. Arguably, the investment fund industry in the EU is highly concentrated in a few jurisdictions, but due to the diverse asset holdings and investor locations the impact of adverse developments in this sector may be felt across the EU. Hence, I call for further investigation of the case for bringing investment fund supervision and the potential activation of macroprudential tools to the European level.[13] In a related debate, the FSB announced recently that it will no longer use the term shadow banking in its future communications to avoid the pejorative connotations. Hedge funds and other asset managers will instead fall under a broader group of non-bank financial intermediaries. We very much welcome the change in terminology, as it supports a closer focus on emerging vulnerabilities in the asset management sector, regardless of whether these are considered to be bank-like or not. Concluding remarks We have come a long way since the financial crisis. We have implemented a range of regulatory reforms that have addressed many issues that the crisis brought to light both in the bank and non-bank financial sectors. Nevertheless, the ever evolving nature of our financial system and the undisputable argument that the next crisis will be different require us to remain vigilant. The tectonic shifts in the structure of the financial system brought about with the rise of asset management call strongly for further policy work in this area. We need to better understand what these shifts in the financial system imply for financial stability and the financing of the real economy. On the positive side, an increase in market-based finance can help to diversify the funding base of the real economy and investors are increasingly benefitting from diversification effects. However, as the risks arising from leverage and liquidity mismatches in investment funds are potentially systemic, we need to take a more ambitious policy approach to systemic risk. Extending the macroprudential framework to the asset management sector and developing policy tools to address emerging risks will be an important step in preparing for possible future stress scenarios. B2B Lead Generation Service Reach key decision makers with sales-ready leads that shorten your sales process. Move the needle by delivering funnel qualified leads to your sales team. Learn more. Internet marketing has become so popular that e-commerce retail sales in the United States are on pace to double between 2009 and 2018, with sales amounting to US$127.3 billion in just the second quarter of 2018, according to an August 2018 update from the U.S. Census Bureau. The transaction value of e-commerce service industry contracts reached $600 billion in 2016. Despite the rush to digital commerce, the rules for business transactions are still the same, whether they are concluded on paper or electronically. Essentially, that means legally valid sales agreements need to demonstrate clearly that both vendors and consumers are aware of -- and consent to -- the terms of the agreements. It is especially important for vendors to ward off expensive class action suits by including contract terms that prohibit such suits and instead rely on arbitration to resolve any issues with consumers. Yet recent federal court cases indicate that poorly presented Internet contracts can result in the nullification of arbitration provisions and class action prohibitions -- thus giving consumers greater leverage in legal disputes with vendors. Usually the breakdown occurs when vendors mismanage either the display or the content of their websites -- and sometimes both. Website Messages Must be Conspicuous The most recent example is a June case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued a decision. The case stemmed from complaints that Uber Technologies wrongly added the cost of local tolls in and around Boston to customers' bills. In Cullinane v. Uber, a federal district court initially ruled in favor of Uber and dismissed the complaint. However, such is the state of differing perspectives on applicable laws, that the appellate court overturned the district court and ruled against the company. Uber failed to convince the appeals court that the website sales agreement properly displayed both an arbitration clause and a prohibition against litigation, because the notice was not "conspicuous" enough to be legally valid. Absent adequate notice to the customer, there could be no agreement between the parties over terms and conditions, the court said in denying Uber's motion to compel arbitration. The case provided insight into the importance to vendors of arbitration clauses as a way to fend off class action suits. Compared to litigation, arbitration is a "speedy, fair, inexpensive, and less adversarial" process, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in an amicus brief in the Uber case. Members of the organization "have structured millions of contractual relationships -- including enormous numbers of on-line contracts -- around arbitration agreements." Similar suits dealing with the issue include a second case against Uber with a different plaintiff and over a different issue, as well as separate cases involving Amazon and Barnes & Noble. In each case, courts have gotten into the weeds of website design, finding flaws in styles, the choice of colors, the size of printing fonts, and the use of hyperlinks. For example, in Cullinane v. Uber, the appellate court noted that the website connection to the contract terms "did not have the common appearance of a hyperlink" because it was framed in a gray box in white bold text, rather than the normal blue underline style. Other screens on the site utilized similar highlight features causing the court to conclude that if "everything on the screen is written with conspicuous features, then nothing is conspicuous." Uber's petition for a rehearing of the case was denied by the appeals court in a July 23, 2018, ruling. The company had no comment on the litigation, Uber spokesperson Alix Anfang told the E-Commerce Times. Pulling the Trigger on Consent Of equal importance with presentation is the vendor's choice of using active or passive mechanisms to obtain customer consent to the terms and conditions of agreements. In Nicosia v. Amazon, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned a district court decision favoring the company, and instead ruled in favor of the consumer plaintiffs. The Second Circuit described two major types of customer consent mechanisms. The first, called a "clickwrap" procedure, involves the use of an "I accept" button, which forces customers to "expressly and unambiguously manifest assent," according to the court. A more passive alternative is a "browserwrap," which "involves terms and conditions posted via a hyperlink" and does not request an express showing of consent. "In a seeming effort to streamline customer purchases, Amazon chose not to employ a clickwrap mechanism," the court noted in the August 2016 ruling. Ultimately, the court based its decision not on the consent mechanism per se, but on Amazon's failure to display its terms adequately. The result was that "reasonable minds could disagree" on the adequacy of the company's notice to consumers. Amazon declined to comment for this story, spokesperson Cecilia Fan told the E-Commerce Times. The significant variance among federal courts on the validity of Internet contracts may be caused more by different judicial perceptions than by differing laws covering "conspicuous" or "reasonably communicated and accepted" terms. While these cases have been brought in federal courts, there is no federal standard for what constitutes adequate notice. Thus, for procedural reasons associated with the Federal Arbitration Act, federal judges have relied on applicable contracting law in different states, including California, Massachusetts, Washington and New York. "I do not yet see a majority of courts moving toward a single legal standard, especially not one that is adapted to today's technology," said Liz Kramer, a partner at Stinson, Leonard, Street. The U.S. Appeals Court for the Second Circuit reached opposite results in recent cases "despite pretty similar circumstances," she told the E-Commerce Times. One problem "is that state law applies, and the states are not consistent on what makes terms conspicuous enough to form part of the contract." "Different courts define the standard in different ways, but they all boil down to the principle that the arbitration clause -- and the links to the clause -- must be clearly presented to the consumer in order for there to be a meeting of the minds -- in other words, an acceptance -- of the arbitration clause," said Mark Levin, a partner at Ballard Spahr. "It is not so much the standard that is unsettled, but the application of the standard to the facts, since each website is unique and there are a multitude of factors, both in content and visual display, to consider in determining whether the consumer accepted the clause," he told the E-Commerce Times. "Even if there was a U. S. Supreme Court decision, or legislation that defined a single standard, there would still be a need to apply that standard to unique facts in virtually every case," Levin said. Web Designers Should Seek Legal Help While vendors strive to create ever more attractive and compelling websites, designers and marketing staffs need to address the basic nuts and bolts of contract communications, said Levin. For electronic documents, vendors should "refer to the arbitration clause near the beginning of the terms and conditions, make sure the link to the clause is obvious and clear, minimize the number of mouse clicks it takes for the reader to get to the clause, and refer to the arbitration clause again at the end, close to an electronic signature or 'I agree' button," he advised. The easiest way for e-commerce vendors to avoid trouble is to skip any indirect notification procedure, suggested Stinson's Kramer. Deliberate downplaying of key contract terms is an invitation to legal challenge. "The best way to ensure that an arbitration agreement is enforceable with customers who agree online, or through an app, is to have them actually click 'I agree' after reviewing the terms and conditions," she said. "Great care should be taken in designing and structuring a website arbitration clause, since courts scrutinize every detail, cautioned Levin. "This is definitely an area where businesses should enlist legal counsel to help with the design, substance and placement of the clause to help ensure that a court will enforce it," he said. "If adequate attention is not paid to these issues at the outset, the business could end up in a debilitating class action lawsuit." John K. Higgins has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2009. His main areas of focus are U.S. government technology issues such as IT contracting, cybersecurity, privacy, cloud technology, big data and e-commerce regulation. As a freelance journalist and career business writer, he has written for numerous publications, including The Corps Report and Business Week. Email John. California suffered a devastating weekend as wildfires raging in both the south and north of the state killed 31 and forced 250,000 to flee their homes, BBC News reported Monday. More than 200 people are still missing. The Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise Thursday, tied the 1933 Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles for the deadliest fire in California history when the death toll reached 29. It is also the most destructive in terms of the number of structures burned, with a total of more than 6,700 as of Saturday, ABC 7 News reported. So far it has burned more than 109,000 acres and is almost 25 percent contained as of the most recent reporting by BBC News. In the south, the Woolsey and Hill fires also continued to rage. The Woolsey fire killed two and damaged homes near the famous Malibu beach. As of Sunday, it had burned 83,000 acres and at least 177 buildings and was 10 percent contained. The Hill Fire nearby had burned 4,530 acres and was 75 percent contained. California Governor Jerry Brown unequivocally blamed climate change for the devastation. "This is not the new normal," he said Sunday, as reported by The Sacramento Bee. "This is the new abnormal, and this new abnormal will continue certainly in the next 10 to 15 years." The fires were also driven by hot winds from the east that further dried vegetation already parched from unusually low rainfall, as University of Nevada atmospheric scientist Neil Lareau explained in Wired. But climate change makes that worse. "All of it is embedded in the background trend of things getting warmer," Lareau explained. "The atmosphere as it gets warmer is thirstier." Tellingly, five of the 10 most destructive California fires listed by ABC 7 News occurred in the past two years. But that wasn't the line taken by President Donald Trump, who blamed poor forest management, not global warming, for the blazes. In a tweet Saturday, he even threatened to withdraw federal money if the state didn't improve management. Firefighters instantly pushed back on his rhetoric. "The President's message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines," California Professional Firefighters President Brian K. Rice said, according to CNN. He also said his tweet was plain wrong. "Wildfires are sparked and spread not only in forested areas but in populated areas and open fields fueled by parched vegetation, high winds, low humidity and geography," he said. Trump modified his tone later Saturday, praising the firefighters for their work and closing with "God Bless them all." But on Sunday, he tweeted again that the fires would stop with "proper fire management." In fact, the federal government owns 57 percent of California's forested land, while state agencies only control three percent. The rest is owned by private individuals, families, companies or Native American tribes, according to University of California data. Brown asked Trump on Sunday to declare the fires a major disaster, a move that would allow more federal resources to flow to California to help with relief and recovery. In his remarks, Brown didn't mention Trump by name, but his emphasis on climate change contained an implicit rebuke. "Managing all the forests everywhere we can does not stop climate change, and those who deny that definitely are contributing to the tragedies that we are witnessing and will continue to witness," Brown said, according to The Sacramento Bee. By Dana Drugmand Koch Industries is calling for the elimination of tax credits for electric vehicles (EVs), all while claiming that it does not oppose plug-in cars and inviting the elimination of oil and gas subsidies that the petroleum conglomerate and its industry peers receive. Outgoing Nevada Republican Senator Dean Heller introduced a bill in September that would lift the sales cap on electric vehicles eligible for a federal tax credit, and replace the cap with a deadline that would dictate when the credit would start being phased out. Under the current tax credit for EVs, once a manufacturer sells 200,000 EVs in the U.S. the amount of the credit gets slashed in half, then halved again. The full credit amount is $7,500. Tesla has already hit the 200,000 cap and GM will soon reach it, so both companies would benefit from a tax credit extension via eliminating the sales cap. Heller's bill lifts the 200,000 vehicle limit and substitutes a phase-out period starting in 2022. But the conservative senator's bill is facing opposition from the conservative billionaire Koch brothers. In a letter to senators dated Oct. 24, Koch Industries lobbyist Philip Ellender urges opposition to the expansion of EV tax credits through 2022. Ellender claims that the tax credits primarily benefit wealthy consumers and that subsidization interferes with "innovation and consumer choice." The letter cites two studies, each by a right-wing think tank. One study comes from the Pacific Research Institute, which has received fossil fuel fundingincluding more than $1.7 million from Koch-related foundations and $615,000 from ExxonMobil. The PRI study, "Costly Subsidies for the Rich: Quantifying the Subsidies Offered to Battery Electric Powered Cars," emphasizes that "the majority of the dollar benefits from energy and electric car subsidies are paid to tax filers in the higher income tax brackets." The other study is from the Manhattan Institute, another "free market think tank" that takes in money from the Koch network and Exxon. The study paints a misleading picture of EVs and their subsidies. In addition to citing biased studies by groups tied to Koch money, Ellender claims in the letter, "We do not oppose electric vehicles." This sentiment echoes the company's 2016 advertorial, in which Koch Industries claimed to be "all for electric vehicles." Ellender also claims that Koch Industries is against any and all energy subsidies, even ones that benefit the company. According to the letter: Instead of expanding this subsidy for wealthy EV owners, Congress should eliminate it along with all other energy incentivesincluding eliminating any incentives given to us and our competitors where we may participate. We are focused on long-term value creation, not short-term windfalls. In reality, while Koch Industries is claiming publicly to support ending fossil fuel subsidies (along with EV and clean energy incentives), Koch lobbyists have long worked to ensure that the petroleum industry continues to get subsidized. As Koch vs. Clean previously pointed out, "In a detailed 2011 report on Koch Industries, the Center for Public Integrity wrote: 'Oil is the core of the Koch business empire, and the company's lobbyists and officials have successfully fought to preserve the industry's tax breaks and credits.' The report documented that Koch lobbyists have worked to preserve billions of dollars in oil industry subsidies, including the Section 199 manufacturing tax deduction and the 'last-in, first out' accounting rule." In fact, according to the International Business Times, Koch Industries has itself directly secured subsidies totaling more than $195 million. The Koch network also lobbied for the Trump tax cuts that became law late last year. The corporate tax cut is not specific to energy, but it benefits giant corporations including Big Oil and Koch Industries nonetheless. Americans for Tax Fairness estimated that the Kochs would save more than $1 billion just this year from the tax cuta significant windfall for a corporate behemoth that claims, "We are focused on long-term value creation, not short-term windfalls." Reposted with permission from our media associate DeSmogBlog. By Marlene Cimons German physician Alfred Buchwald had no clue that the chronic skin inflammation he described in 1883 was the first recorded case of a serious tick-carrying disease, one that would take hold in a small Connecticut town almost a century later and go on to afflict people across the U.S. Today we know a lot more than Buchwald did about Lyme diseasethat it is caused by a bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, and it is transmitted to humans by blacklegged ticks, and that it can cause untold misery for those infected. U.S. scientists first recognized the disease in the 1970s in Old Lyme, Connecticuthence the name. The condition starts with fever, headache, fatigue and a characteristic bullseye rash. Untreated, it can spread to the joints, the heart and nervous system producing long-lasting, debilitating symptoms. Early use of antibiotics is crucial. About 300,000 Americans are diagnosed annually with Lyme, with cases concentrated in the Northeast and upper Midwest, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The incidence of the disease has doubled in the U.S. since 1991, according to the EPA. And it's about to get much worse, thanks to climate change. A blacklegged tick. Pixabay "Warmer temperatures are making cold places suitable habitats for ticks, so new places are having Lyme disease cases, and endemic areas are having more cases than the average," said Edson Severnini, assistant professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College, and co-author of a new study that predicts the incidence Lyme disease will rise around 21 percent by mid-century. Climate change already has amplified the range of invasive insects that devour crops, destroy homes and spread disease. "Tick-borne diseases are an important public health concern and the incidence of these infections is increasing in the Unites States and worldwide," said Igor Dumic, the study's lead author and a researcher at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science who has treated numerous Lyme patients. "Lyme disease is a classic example of the link between environmental factors and the occurrence and spread of disease." Ticks typically reside in wooded areas. Pixabay Ticks spend most of their lives in environments where temperature and humidity directly affect their survival. For this reason, the EPA uses Lyme disease as an indicator of climate change. Higher temperatures spur ticks to venture farther in search of hosts, such as deer, which are more plentiful after warmer winters. "The Lyme disease vector tick needs deer to complete its life cycle, so this means that more ticks will be completing their life cycle, and consequently the tick population will increase," Severnini said. "Also, as temperature rises, people may engage in more outdoor activities, increasing exposure to ticks." The research, which appears in the Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology, examined the relationship between weather conditions and Lyme disease in 15 U.S. states. These states, located primarily in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, which make up 95 percent of all U.S. reported cases. The scientists used epidemiological data from the CDC and at meteorological data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Warmer winters mean more deer, which host ticks. Pixabay Assuming the temperature will increase by 2 degrees Celsius by mid-centurythe forecast of the U.S. National Climate Assessmentthe U.S. will see 8.6 more cases of Lyme disease per 100,000 people annually. That is bad news, but governments can take steps to keep the disease in check, Severnini said. "We need to educate people about how to look for ticks after going to wooded areas where ticks are abundant," he said. "Secondly, people and clinicians should be aware that just because ticks are not present is certain areas it doesn't mean that people aren't traveling to areas where ticks are present. For example, a resident of Arizona, where Lyme disease is rare, can acquire it while camping in Wisconsin and get symptoms upon returning to [his or her] home state of Arizona." It's not just education, Severnini said. "We can also invest in the development of a Lyme vaccine, use insecticide and acaricidal to decrease the tick population," he added. "Finally, we can prevent severe global warming." Reposted with permission from our media associate Nexus Media. World War I ended 100 years ago on Sunday, but 42,000 acres in northeast France serve as a living memorial to the human and environmental costs of war. The battle of Verdun was the longest continuous conflict in the Great War, and it so devastated the land it took place on that, after the war, the government cordoned it off-limits to human habitation. What was once farmland became the Zone Rouge, or Red Zone, as National Geographic reported. An excellent Twitter thread by writer Paul Cooper, excerpted here, explains more: 100 years later, humans still don't live in the Zone Rouge, which is so thick with unexploded shells that a French government agency called the Department du Deminage is still at work clearing them. The Department handles shells from World War II as well, and from other areas, but the Zone Rouge is especially saturated. "They reckon that they have 300 years work ahead of them before they have cleared the whole battlefield," British historian and author Christina Holstein told National Geographic. "And they never will." Hugh Whitfeld produced a video for Australia's 7 News highlighting their Sisyphean task: For much of the area, the years without human presence have had a restorative impact on the land, transforming the Zone Rouge into a forested green zone. "To their surprise, they found the vegetationtrees, grasses, bushes and briarsall came back very quickly," Holstein told National Geographic. Verdun was also intentionally reforested with German pine sent from the Black Forest as part of reparations following the war, CNN reported. The area is a now a favored spot for hunters of wild boar and deer and a source of timber for France, as well as de facto memorial to the villages whose ruins remain amid the trees. "Because it has been abandoned and covered with trees, it is a microcosm of something that happened a hundred years ago," Holstein told National Geographic. "It is a bit like Sleeping Beauty. Things have just gotten frozen in time." However, one part of the Zone Rouge has not recovered. This is the La place a Gaz (the gas place), a shack in a clearing surrounded by razor wire where companies burned unused gas shells after the war. "They burned it for years, basically for the entire 1920s and we never thought about the consequences," area historian Guillaume Moizan told CNN. It is still one of the most toxic sites in France. The arsenic levels in the soil are 35,000 times higher than normal and some parts of the soil are 17.5 percent arsenic, according to a 2007 study. Little grows there, even now. Conflicts since World War I have continued to devastate the environments of the countries where they were fought, from Vietnam to Iraq. The U.S. Department of Defense is in fact the world's biggest polluter. Today, La place a Gaz serves as a chilling reminder that, when governments order their armies into battle, they are not just killing the enemythey are killing the earth we will all share long after the guns have fallen silent. Theres been increasing confusing over the legality of delta-8, a cannabis derivative that can be found in vape cartridges, tinctures and candy at smoke shops and CBD stores in Texas. While the Texas health department maintains that delta-8 is a controlled substance and is on the states list of unlawful drugs, the 2018 federal Farm Bill legalized the production of hemp, which naturally contains delta-8 and has less than 0.3% THC. In 2019, Texas also legalized hemp growing. Delta-8 retailers believed the substance was as legal to sell as hemp. Delta-8 is legal in Texas for now after a Travis County judge blocked the state from criminalizing it. Should delta-8 continue to be legal in Texas? You voted: Funding was the prime education theme in this years state midterm elections, fueling debates over teacher pay and more money for local schools, as well as testing voters appetite for tax hikes to raise that money. Now comes a reckoning for a new crop of governors who face political and structural hurdles in delivering on their promises of more school aid, as well as for teacher and other activists whose efforts to push through revenue increases fell short in several states. Brutal legislative battles are likely in store for Democrats Tony Evers in Wisconsin and Laura Kelly in Kansas, two governors-elect who scored upsets after campaigning hard on the prospect of millions more for schools. Similarly, public school activists in Arizona , Colorado , and Hawaii will have to go back to the drawing board after measures they backed to tax wealthy residents in order to shore up their financially strapped public schools were either knocked off the ballot by the courts or soundly defeated on Election Day. Michael Leachman, the senior director of state fiscal research for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, pointed out that governors in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections ranand wonon platforms to eliminate income taxes, which schools are heavily dependent on. The tenor in conversation has definitely changed, said Leachman, whose group focuses on how budget issues affect low-income populations. I think the momentum is there. We had, in several states, teacher protests that really resonated in bipartisan ways, he said. Of course, its always hard to raise taxes. ... It or may not happen, but its pretty clear [school funding will] be a big part of the conversation. Much was at stake last week for district K-12 leaders and the students they serve. States have more say over school accountability than they have in years, due to the Every Student Succeeds Act , and many candidates ran on a platform to change the status quo. Democrats picked up seven more governors seats and seven more legislative chambers in last weeks elections. In January, at least 23 states will have Democratic governors and 25 states will have a Republican governor. (The Georgia and Florida governors races hadnt been decided as of late last week.) Eighteen states legislatures will be completely controlled by Democrats, 30 state legislatures will be controlled by Republicans and only one state legislatureMinnesotaswill be split. (Nebraskas legislature is nonpartisan.) Dominant Issue While the economy is booming, and unemployment rates are at historic lows, school districts in large swaths of the country for a variety of regional and local reasons, are still strapped for cash. Public schools continue to compete with rising health care and pension costs, and property tax revenue has been slow to rebound from the Great Recession. After a series of teacher strikes this past spring in states such as Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, both Republican and Democratic candidates across the country promised to raise teacher pay and restore school funding to pre-recession levels. Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Florida, Maryland, and Oklahoma went so far as to tell voters theyd raise taxes for schools. (None of those candidates won their races.) In Wisconsin, Evers, the state school superintendent who prevailed in the race for governor , pummeled incumbent Gov. Scott Walker on the campaign trail for his school spending record. Last month, Evers, in his role as state superintendent, released a proposal to provide $1.4 billion more for the states public schools. In order for Evers to get his budget passed as governor, hell have to find a way to pay for the extra spending and convince the states Republican-dominated legislature to make changes to its state funding formula. I will be focused on solving problems, not on picking political fights, Evers said in his victory speech. In Kansas, gubernatorial candidates clashed over a state supreme court order that the state spend even more on public schoolsand the question of how to do it has yet to be answered as a Democrat takes the governors seat. The court has ordered that the state provide its public schools more than $364 million by next summer to comply with a constitutional mandate that the legislature provide public school students with an adequate education. When Democrat Laura Kelly takes the reins from the current Republican governor, she will face a legislature still controlled by Republicans. She will have the benefit of a projected $317 million surplus. But she will also have to decide whether to spend all of that on schools or split it with other departments that also suffered cuts after former Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, slashed the states taxes in 2012. Ballot Measures Wither In many states, school funding activists attempted to bypass the legislative process and get voters to approve statewide ballot initiatives on their own, with little success. Hawaiis state supreme court knocked a measure off the ballot at the last minute for being confusing. The measure would have allowed the state legislature to collect property taxes for the first time in order to pay for schools. This is the beginning, Corey Rosenlee, the president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, said at a press conference last month, according to local media. This is a problem that we must solve. ... We still have 1,000 classrooms without qualified teachers. This must be our moral imperative. At the end of the day, this is about one thing. This is about our keiki (children). And in Colorado, a ballot measure to annually bring in close to $1.6 billion for schools through raised income taxes on some households failed with only 45 percent in favor. Thats despite polls suggesting it would pass and a surge of support from the states teachers who last spring protested stagnant wages and years of budget cuts at the state capitol. Gov.-elect Jared Polis, a Democrat, who refused to take a stance on the ballot measure, has promised to find a way to provide more funding for schools and replace the decades-old school funding formula. But, because of a long-standing Taxpayers Bill of Rights law, any new taxes on Colorado residents must be approved by voters, an extraordinarily high bar. Polis may be assisted by the fact that the legislature flipped from Republican to Democratic control in last weeks election. Both the pain and the perseverence of those seeking to boost school funding were on display in Arizona. The state was the epicenter of the #RedforEd movement, which fought for more money for schools. But the states supreme court struck from the ballot a question that wouldve brought $690 million more for schools. And the favored candidate of many teacher activists, Democrat David Garcia, a professor of education at Arizona State University, lost to incumbent Gov. Doug Ducey, who initially pushed back hard on teacher pay raises and clashed with the union over the issue. The fiscal reality of the states schools has not changed. At a Democratic watch party in Phoenix on election night, educators described tattered textbooks, overcrowded classrooms, and a growing number of teachers running for better paying jobs in other states. These problems, they said, will continue to burden the state and hurt its economy. But they vowed to keep pressing their case, encouraged by the activism shown by teachers this year and the swell of public support. We will take this fight to the next election, said Courtney Kemp, an AP teacher at Chandler High School. This taught us that we have a voice. We can make a change. La Paz, Nov 12 (epa-efe).- Spain's Aecid foreign aid agency announced here Monday that it will allocate 25 million euros ($28 million) annually until 2021 for projects in Bolivia. During a meeting with reporters, Aecid's coordinator in Bolivia, Francisco Sancho, highlighted the areas that will be part of the "work plan" in the coming years. Sancho said that one of the "biggest" areas will be sanitation, which includes the construction of infrastructure for potable water systems. "Bolivia does not have treatment plants, and those it does have are operating at low capacity and with very outdated technologies," he said, advocating for the construction of a modern facility in the Altiplano region to serve as a benchmark for the entire country. Another important area will be to "address specific issues" in the field of governance and combating violence against women and children, he said. "We will continue working along the line of heritage, culture and development," Sancho said. As part of an initiative completed last year, Aecid worked on restoring and rebuilding colonial-era churches and Jesuit missions in various parts of Bolivia. In the health sector, the priority is to keep providing aid for the basic care system while at the same time training specialists in areas such as pediatrics, internal medicine, surgery and anesthesiology. "Bolivia is building hospitals, but many don't have specialized human resources. This has to change," said Sancho. Aecid allocated more than 186 million euros ($209 million) in the 2011-2017 period. Despite the rollout of the 531 New Policy, China's new grid-connected PV capacities still topped 10.2 GW in Q3, beating expectations. During a seminar on PV power development on November 2nd, an official of the National Energy Administration (NEA) assured that PV subsidies will be extended to 2022. EnergyTrend forecasts that under the premise of no change in the existing situation, the accumulated PV capacity will exceed 250 GW by the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan. According to data released by the NEA on October 30th, Chinas new grid-connected PV capacities reached 10.21 GW in Q3, including 4,890 MW of distributed generation systems and 5,320 MW of large-scale ground-mounted plants, boosting the new grid-connected installation in the first three quarters to 34.54 GW, including 17.14 GW of distributed generation systems and 17.4 GW of large-scale ground-mounted plants. In Q3, only projects under the 2017 "Top Runner Program" (of which 5 GW are for the Application Top Runner Program) and the first-batch poverty-alleviation PV projects under the 13th Five-Year Plan (around 4.2 GW) had been covered by subsidy schemes. As some projects under the "Top Runner Program" had completed grid connection in September and some of the distributed generation systems are related to the poverty-alleviation program, EnergyTrend estimates that the scale of the subsidized capacities is less than 4 GW, with at least 6 GW of capacities having been installed without any subsidy scheme, whose arrangement remains to be seen. While the 2017-year-phase "Top Runner Program" projects and poverty-alleviation PV projects will remain major sources of demands in Q4, there may be some projects with municipal government subsidies or no subsidies that breaks ground in the quarter. Given the strong demands from Japan, India, Europe, Australia, and Vietnam which may strain supply, demands on the Chinese market are forecast at around 10GW, with the whole-years demands estimated to reach around 44.5GW. Based on the conclusions of the aforementioned seminar on November 2nd, EnergyTrend believes that there are a few points and trends that are worth noting: 1. The PV power subsidies in China will still be available until 2022, but at a smaller extent, in both subsidy level and overall subsidy quota. However, PV power systems with special value (such as the poverty-alleviation or "Top Runner Program" projects or systems with energy storage systems) will have an even greater chance for subsidies. 2. The plan for the common ground-mounted PV projects under the 13th Five-Year Plan which was unveiled in 2017 has been unofficially aborted. EnergyTrend suspects that the government retains the option of releasing the quota flexibly in line with the government's financial state and actual market situation. The development of the large-scale ground-mounted plants will be majorly based on the "Top Runner Program." 3. Chinas residential and commercial distributed generation systems are expected to develop in the direction of self-use and market transactions. 4. In order to keep the rate of PV power curtailment at below 5%, the development of non-subsidy projects, which can be implemented without any subsidy scheme, will focus on areas with higher electricity consumption and higher power fees. Given the close relationship between power consumption capacities and grid regulating capability, the development of non-subsidy systems will hinge on the progress of Chinas nationwide power infrastructure reformation. 5. As there are no new subsidy quotas released, developers should be very cautious with the execution of new projects. Under the existing framework, EnergyTrend predicts that the accumulated grid-connected PV capacities by the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan will surpass 250 GW, with the new grid-connected capacities expected to exceed 35 GW in both 2019 and 2020. The new installations will be headed by projects related to the "Top Runner Program," followed by the poverty-alleviation and non-residential distributed generation systems. Most, but not all, primary care clinicians willing to provide routine care for transgender patients A new survey finds that most family medicine and general internal medicine clinicians are willing to provide routine care for transgender patients. In a survey of primary care clinicians in an integrated Midwest health system, 86 percent of respondents (n=140) were willing to provide routine care to transgender patients and 79 percent were willing to provide Pap tests to transgender men. Willingness to provide routine care decreased with age. Willingness to provide Pap tests was higher among family physicians, those who had met a transgender person, and those who measured lower on a transphobia scale. These findings, according to the authors, underscore the importance of integrating personal exposure to transgender individuals into medical education. ### Primary Care Clinicians' Willingness to Care for Transgender Patients Deirdre A. Shires, PhD, MSW, MPH, et al Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan In a new study, Tel Aviv University researchers reveal how they invented the first fully personalized tissue implant, engineered from a patient's own materials and cells. The new technology makes it possible to engineer any kind of tissue implant from one small fatty tissue biopsy. "We were able to create a personalized hydrogel from the materials of the biopsy, to differentiate fatty tissue cells into different cell types and to engineer cardiac, spinal cord, cortical and other tissue implants to treat different diseases," says Prof. Tal Dvir of TAU's Department of Biotechnology, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and the Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology, who led the research for the study. "Since both the cells and the material used derive from the patient, the implant does not provoke an immune response, ensuring proper regeneration of the defected organ," Prof. Dvir says. The research was conducted by Prof. Dvir's postdoctoral researcher Reuven Edri and doctoral students Nadav Noor and Idan Gal, in collaboration with Prof. Dan Peer and Prof. Irit Gat Viks of TAU's Department of Cell Research and Immunology and Prof. Lior Heller of Assaf HaRofeh Medical Center in Israel. It was recently published in Advanced Materials. Currently, in tissue engineering for regenerative medicine, cells are isolated from the patient and cultured in biomaterials to assemble into a functional tissue. These biomaterials are always either synthetic or natural, derived from plants or animals. After transplantation, they may induce an immune response that leads to rejection of the implanted tissue. Patients receiving engineered tissues or any other implants are treated with immuno-suppressors, which themselves endanger the health of the patient. "With our technology, we can engineer any tissue type, and after transplantation we can efficiently regenerate any diseased or injured organ -- a heart after a heart attack, a brain after trauma or with Parkinson's disease, a spinal cord after injury," says Prof. Dvir. "In addition, we can engineer adipogenic (fatty tissue) implants for reconstructive surgeries or cosmetics. These implants will not be rejected by the body." The researchers extracted a small biopsy of fatty tissue from patients, then separated its cellular and a-cellular materials. While the cells were reprogrammed to become induced pluripotent stem cells -- able to make cells from all three basic body layers, so they can potentially produce any cell or tissue the body needs to repair itself -- the extracellular material was processed to become a personalized hydrogel. After combining the resulting stem cells and the hydrogel, the scientists successfully engineered the personalized tissue samples and tested the patients' immune responses to them. The researchers are currently engaged in regenerating an injured spinal cord and an infarcted heart with spinal cord and cardiac implants. They have also begun to investigate the potential of human dopaminergic implants to treat Parkinson's disease in animal models. The researchers plan to regenerate other organs, including intestines and eyes, using the patients' own materials and cells. "We believe that the technology of engineering fully personalized tissue implants of any type will allow us to regenerate any organ with a minimal risk of immune response," Prof. Dvir concludes. ### American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's most influential, comprehensive and sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). TAU is recognized and celebrated internationally for creating an innovative, entrepreneurial culture on campus that generates inventions, startups and economic development in Israel. TAU is ranked ninth in the world, and first in Israel, for producing start-up founders of billion-dollar companies, an achievement that surpassed several Ivy League universities. To date, 2,500 US patents have been filed by Tel Aviv University researchers -- ranking TAU #1 in Israel, #10 outside of the US and #43 in the world. Boston, MA -- In the largest trial to date to assess cardiovascular outcomes for an important class of diabetes medications, researchers have found that dapagliflozin markedly reduced the risk of hospitalization for heart failure in a broad population of patients with diabetes. This benefit was seen across the study population, including in patients who did not have a history of heart attack or heart failure. Results of the Dapagliflozin Effect on CardiovascuLAR Events - Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction 58 (DECLARE-TIMI 58) trial, sponsored by AstraZeneca, were presented by Stephen Wiviott, MD, a senior investigator in the TIMI Study Group and a cardiovascular medicine specialist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, during the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2018, and published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine. "When it comes to helping our patients control and manage blood glucose, the 'how' appears to be as important than the 'how much.' When choosing a therapy, trial results like these can help us make an informed decision about what treatments are not only safe and effective for lowering blood glucose but can also reduce risk of heart and kidney complications," said Wiviott. "DECLARE-TIMI 58 builds upon two other recent trials of SGLT2 inhibitors and shows that these drugs robustly and consistently improve heart and renal outcomes in a broad population of patients with diabetes." Dapagliflozin, manufactured by the trial's sponsor AstraZeneca, is a selective sodium-glucose-co-transporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitor that blocks glucose resorption in the kidneys and promotes the elimination of excess glucose through the urine. Other SGLT-2 inhibitors have shown favorable cardiovascular effects, including a reduction in heart failure hospitalization, in patients with type 2 diabetes and established heart disease. The effectiveness of SGLT-2 inhibitors among a broader population of patients, including those not previously diagnosed with heart disease, was unclear before the current trial. To evaluate the effects of dapagliflozin in patients with established heart disease as well as those with risk factors for heart disease, the Brigham's TIMI Study Group, in collaboration with the Hadassah Medical Organization, AstraZeneca, and others, conducted a randomized, double-blind, multi-national, placebo-controlled, phase 3b trial. Eligible participants were at least 40 years old and had type 2 diabetes. Researchers studied 17,160 participants, including 6,974 with established heart disease and 10,186 with multiple risk factors for heart disease. Participants received 10 mg of dapagliflozin daily or matched placebo. The primary safety outcome was a composite of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction or stroke (MACE). While dapagliflozin did not increase these events, it did not reduce the incidence in either patients with heart disease or with risk factors for heart disease. However, the drug did lower blood glucose levels throughout the trial and the composite of cardiovascular death and hospitalization for heart failure was reduced by 17 percent, driven by a 27 percent reduction in hospitalization for heart failure. The drug also improved renal outcomes, reducing a composite of several factors including end-stage renal disease and death due to renal failure. The team saw no evidence of an increase in stroke, amputations or fracture, concerns raised from previous trials of this class of drugs. As is known for this class of medications, there was an increase in genital infection and in diabetic ketoacidosis, but the latter was a rare event and the excess was less than 1 in 1,000 individuals per year. The TIMI Study Group Investigators also performed a meta-analysis combining the data from DECLARE-TIMI 58 and 2 other large trials of SGLT2 inhibitors. Several important patterns emerged: SGLT2 inhibitors reduce the risk of MACE by about 14 percent, but only in patients with existing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. In contrast, they robustly reduce the risk of hospitalization for heart failure by 31 percent and progression of renal disease by 45 percent, and these benefits were consistent regardless of a history of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or heart failure. These results are published simultaneously in the Lancet. Marc S. Sabatine, MD, MPH, chair of the TIMI Study Group and a cardiovascular medicine specialist at the Brigham, said: "The cardiovascular outcomes trials to test the safety and efficacy of drugs for patients with diabetes have revolutionized our approach to this disease. Rather than simply focusing on changes in HbA1c, we can now use these data to select drugs that reduce the risk of important clinical events for our patients." ### The TIMI study group of Brigham and Women's Hospital received a grant from AstraZeneca for the conduct of the DECLARE - TIMI 58 Trial. In addition, Drs. Wiviott and Sabatine report receiving consulting fees from AstraZeneca for participation in scientific advisory boards. Full disclosures can be found at NEJM.org. Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a 793-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare. BWH has more than 4.2 million annual patient visits and nearly 46,000 inpatient stays, is the largest birthing center in Massachusetts and employs nearly 16,000 people. The Brigham's medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in patient care, quality improvement and patient safety initiatives, and its dedication to research, innovation, community engagement and educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Brigham Research Institute (BRI), BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, more than 3,000 researchers, including physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by nearly $666 million in funding. For the last 25 years, BWH ranked second in research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) among independent hospitals. BWH is also home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative as well as the TIMI Study Group, one of the premier cardiovascular clinical trials groups. For more information, resources and to follow us on social media, please visit BWH's online newsroom. Boston, MA -- Results released today from a major clinical trial may have direct implications for patients who remain at increased cardiovascular risk despite taking statin therapy. The trial, led by investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital, has found that a drug developed by Amarin Corporation plc, icosapent ethyl - a pure and stable form of the omega-3 acid known as EPA - reduced the risk of death due to cardiovascular causes, heart attack, and stroke in this population. The main results of the Reduction of Cardiovascular Events with Icosapent Ethyl-Intervention Trial (REDUCE-IT), sponsored by Amarin, were presented by Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, executive director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at the Brigham and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2018 and published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine. "We are reporting a remarkable degree of risk reduction," said Bhatt. "We've found that icosapent ethyl reduced the risk of important cardiovascular events by 25 percent, including a 20 percent reduction in death due to cardiovascular causes, a 31 percent reduction in heart attack, and a 28 percent reduction in stroke. The REDUCE-IT trial sets a new standard of care for patients who have elevated triglycerides and are at increased cardiovascular risk despite statin therapy. This may be the biggest development in cardiovascular prevention since statins." Icosapent ethyl is a prescription medication approved to reduce triglyceride levels in patients with very high triglycerides. Studies have suggested that icosapent ethyl may have additional attributes such as anti-inflammatory and cell membrane-stabilizing properties that may also contribute to reducing cardiovascular risk. REDUCE-IT included more than 8,000 patients with well-controlled LDL-cholesterol who were taking statins to prevent a first or subsequent cardiovascular event. Approximately 70 percent of patients in the study had established atherosclerosis and the rest had diabetes plus at least one other cardiovascular risk factor. Patients had triglyceride levels that ranged from borderline high (135 mg/dL) to near very high (499 mg/dL). Patients were randomized to receive either 2 grams icosapent ethyl twice daily or a placebo and were followed for an average of approximately five years. Hospitalization for chest pain, heart attack, procedures for coronary artery disease such as stenting, stroke, and cardiovascular death occurred in 17.2 percent of patients taking icosapent ethyl versus 22 percent of patients taking the placebo - an absolute risk reduction of 4.8 percent. The team also reported a significant 26 percent reduction in the trial's key secondary endpoint, which included cardiovascular death, nonfatal heart attack, or nonfatal stroke (11.2 percent for the icosapent ethyl group vs. 14.8 percent for the placebo group). The researchers note that cardiovascular benefits appeared similar irrespective of patients' baseline levels of triglycerides or levels achieved after one year, suggesting that the cardiovascular risk reduction was not solely tied to achieving a more normal triglyceride level. "The exact mechanisms responsible for the impressive benefits seen in the REDUCE-IT trial are not currently known," said Bhatt. "The significant effects on very different endpoints, such as cardiac arrest and stroke, suggest that this drug may have multiple biological mechanisms of action that have not been shown for any other therapy and cannot be generalized to other omega-3 products." ### REDUCE-IT was sponsored by Amarin. Brigham and Women's Hospital receives research funding from Amarin for the work Bhatt did as the trial chair and as the international principal investigator. Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of the article at NEJM.org. Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a 793-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare. BWH has more than 4.2 million annual patient visits and nearly 46,000 inpatient stays, is the largest birthing center in Massachusetts and employs nearly 16,000 people. The Brigham's medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in patient care, quality improvement and patient safety initiatives, and its dedication to research, innovation, community engagement and educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Brigham Research Institute (BRI), BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, more than 3,000 researchers, including physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by nearly $666 million in funding. For the last 25 years, BWH ranked second in research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) among independent hospitals. BWH is also home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative as well as the TIMI Study Group, one of the premier cardiovascular clinical trials groups. For more information, resources and to follow us on social media, please visit BWH's online newsroom. Aurora, Colo. (Nov. 12, 2018) - Children's Hospital Colorado (Children's Colorado) pediatric gastroenterologist, Michael Narkewicz, MD, recently shared results of the Prospective Study of Ultrasound to Predict Hepatic Cirrhosis in Cystic Fibrosis (PUSH), which sought to determine if liver ultrasounds could identify children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis who are at greater risk of developing advanced liver disease. The Cystic Fibrosis Liver Disease Network PUSH study is a multicenter prospective observational clinical trial that tested the hypothesis that a heterogeneous pattern (i.e., not totally uniform) on a liver ultrasound predicts the subsequent development of cirrhosis, late advanced stage of scarring (fibrosis) of the liver. Dr. Narkewicz presented the study results at the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference after four years of research that was funded by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Advanced liver disease is a complication that affects about seven percent of all individuals with cystic fibrosis and is the third leading cause of death in cystic fibrosis. Primarily, this is a complication that affects children and adolescents, with 10 years of age marking the average age of diagnosis. To date, there is no test that can identify children at risk for developing advanced liver disease. The team enrolled 744 children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis who did not have known advanced liver disease. All subjects underwent a research ultrasound of the liver that was scored by four independent study radiologists. Those with a heterogeneous ultrasound pattern of the liver and two matched controls with a normal pattern received follow-up ultrasounds every other year. At the end of four years of follow-up, the team found that individuals with heterogeneous ultrasound patterns had a 9.3 times increased risk of developing advanced liver disease. 25% of the individuals with a heterogeneous pattern developed advanced liver disease within four years. "This is the first study to identify a tool to classify a group of children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis who are at high risk for developing advanced liver disease," said Dr. Narkewicz. "This is an important discovery that provides an opportunity to continue testing interventions that might slow or stop that progression. This also might have relevance for screening in routine clinical care." Dr. Narkewicz and his team are further refining the prediction model using lab tests and other innovative diagnostic tests that are part of the ongoing network studies. This sets up the possibility of designing trials for interventions to try to prevent the development of advanced liver disease in more cystic fibrosis patients. ### About Children's Hospital Colorado Children's Hospital Colorado is one of the nation's leading and most expansive pediatric healthcare systems with a mission to improve the health of children through patient care, education, research and advocacy. Founded in 1908 and recognized as a top ten children's hospital by U.S. News & World Report, Children's Colorado has established itself as a pioneer in the discovery of innovative and groundbreaking treatments that are shaping the future of pediatric healthcare worldwide. Children's Colorado offers a full spectrum of family-centered care at its urgent, emergency and specialty care locations throughout Colorado, including its location on the Anschutz Medical Campus, and across the region. Scheduled to open in spring 2019, the new Children's Hospital Colorado, Colorado Springs will be the first pediatric-only hospital in southern Colorado. For more information, visit http://www.childrenscolorado.org, or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. Children's Hospital Colorado complies with applicable Federal civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex. ATENCION: si habla espanol, tiene a su disposicion servicios gratuitos de asistencia linguistica. Llame al 1-720-777-9800. CHU Y: N?u b?n noi Ti?ng Vi?t, co cac d?ch v? h? tr? ngon ng? mi?n phi danh cho b?n. G?i s? 1-720-777-9800. http://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/section-1557 An analysis of major health research prizes, including the Canada Gairdner International Award, found that few Canadian-based scientists are winning these prestigious prizes. The article is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The prestigious Gairdner award, which is often called the "pre-Nobel," has seen numbers of Canadian-based researchers decline over time since its inception in 1959 from 35 winners in the first three decades to 12 in the last 30 years. For other major prizes, only 11% were awarded to Canadian-based scientists. Authors Dr. David Naylor, University of Toronto, and Robert Redelmeier, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, suggest that the decline is due not to chance but to a "home-ice edge" in the early years of the Gairdner and a more thorough selection process in later decades. Funding patterns could also be a factor as government funding has been inconsistent. ### Podcast post-embargo link: https://soundcloud.com/cmajpodcasts/181056-ana When temperatures drop, the enzyme Rubisco that fuels plant growth and yield gets sluggish. Many crops compensate by producing more Rubisco; however, scientists speculated that some crops may lack space in their leaves to boost the production of this enzyme, making them more susceptible to cold. A new study from the University of Illinois and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology refutes this theory but found these crops are far from reaching their photosynthetic potential. Plant scientists knew soybeans, rice, and other C3 crops have room for extra Rubisco in their leaves. However, C4 crops--such as corn and sugarcane--use mesophyll cells to biochemically pump carbon dioxide into their inner cells, called the bundle sheath, where Rubisco resides amongst carbon dioxide concentrations that are ten times greater than atmospheric levels. More carbon dioxide makes Rubisco more efficient. "But by isolating the enzyme to just one part of the leaf, would there be enough space for the larger amount of Rubisco needed at lower temperatures?" said Stephen Long, Ikenberry Endowed University Chair of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois. Published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, the study measured the volume of the Rubisco-holding chloroplasts that reside in the bundle sheaths of corn, sugarcane, as well as cold-tolerant Miscanthus. The team concluded that these C4 crops' chloroplast volumes are sufficient to hold more than enough Rubisco to conduct photosynthesis at low temperatures. Curiously, Miscanthus had the smallest chloroplasts, showing there was no connection between chloroplast volume and cold tolerance. "Yet these plants are still not able to reach their maximal potential energy output," said lead author Charles Pignon, a postdoctoral researcher at Illinois, whose work was supported by the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell endowment. "Now that we've ruled out space as a limiting factor, we need to explore what other factors are impacting the cold tolerance of these important crops." By unlocking the key to cold tolerance, plant scientists can extend the growing region and season of these crops to boost food and bioenergy production across the globe. Next, the researchers plan to compare the cold tolerance of Miscanthus varieties to pinpoint important differences. ### The open-access paper "Bundle sheath chloroplast volume can house sufficient Rubisco to avoid limiting C4 photosynthesis during chilling" published by Journal of Experimental Botany (DOI: 10.1093/jxb/ery345) is available online or by request. Co-authors also include Marjorie Lundgren and Colin Osborne from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Project could help lay the groundwork for new treatments Clemson University bioengineers are launching a new research project to better understand cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes, an affliction that affects about 13 percent of South Carolina adults and cost $4.3 billion last year alone. What the bioengineers learn could help lay the groundwork for future studies aimed at finding new treatments. The Clemson research will be led by Agneta Simionescu, an associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering. She announced today that the National Institutes of Health is providing $1.38 million for her research. The impact could be huge, particularly in South Carolina, where 13 percent of adults reported that a health professional told them they have diabetes, according to a report last year by the United Health Foundation. That was 6th highest in the nation. Simionescu's project sharpens the focus on atherosclerosis, a condition that accelerates in diabetics. The condition occurs when plaques made of cholesterol, cell debris, calcium, and other substances build up on blood vessel walls, threatening blood flow. Plaque narrows arteries and has the potential to rupture and cause blockages, which could result in heart attack and stroke. Simionescu and her team are concentrating on the role of fibroblasts in atherosclerosis. When blood vessels are damaged, fibroblasts are deployed to make repairs by synthesizing collagen. But in diabetics, fibroblasts produce too much collagen. The vascular tissue becomes "fibrotic" and calcifies, researchers said. "The whole blood vessel becomes stiffer, and that's the hallmark of diabetes," Simionescu said. The Simionescu team is drawing from its experience in tissue engineering to learn more. They will use three-dimensional models to study how fibroblasts communicate with two types of cells in blood vessel walls, endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells, both factors in atherosclerosis. "Fibroblasts would not know what to do unless they get a signal from an endothelial cell or a smooth muscle cell," Simionescu said. "They need to interact with each other. That's what is hard to determine." When researchers create their models, they will start with pig arteries that have been thoroughly stripped of their cells. What's left are elastin-and-collagen scaffolds that maintain the tubular structure of blood vessels. Researchers will inject human endothelial cells into a scaffold. Within a few hours, the endothelial cells will naturally spread throughout the scaffold. Then researchers will then inject fibroblasts. Bioreactors will be used to simulate vascular biomechanics and diabetic conditions. "We will be able to tell at the end of the experiment if endothelial cells send a signal to fibroblasts," Simionescu said. Researches will also try the same experiment in different scaffolds but use smooth-muscle cells instead of endothelial cells. The models "could provide powerful toolboxes for diabetes basic research and drug screening systems," Simionescu said. "In tissue engineering, if you are able to mimic blood vessels, then you can do drug testing on them," she said. "You don't necessarily have to do those tests on animals, which would not respond the same as human cells anyway. This is the advantage of using tissue-engineering-based models." In South Carolina, 577,000 people have diabetes, and another 1.32 million have prediabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. Nationally, more than 100 million Americans have diabetes or prediabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Medical expenses for people with diabetes are about 2.3 times higher than people without diabetes, the American Diabetes Association reported. Total direct medical expenses for diagnosed diabetes in South Carolina were estimated at $4.3 billion in 2017, according to the association. Martine LaBerge, chair of the Department of Bioengineering, said Simionescu's work was made possible by a grant through the National Institutes of Health's R01 program. "Dr. Simionescu's grant is a testament to the level of scholarship and the innovative ideas she brings to bioengineering and health research at Clemson," LaBerge said. "I congratulate her on this prestigious accomplishment." Simionescu said her project takes diabetes research beyond previous studies that focused on two-dimensional monolayers of cells. The monolayer studies were limited because cells in the human body grow in three dimensions instead of two, meaning several factors including cell communication could not be studied. Anand Gramopadhye, dean of the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences said Simionescu's grant helps raise the research profile of the college. "She is pushing the boundaries of health innovation to have a real impact on diabetes, one of the greatest healthcare challenges of our time," he said. "I congratulate her on this well-deserved honor." ### More than 135 researchers and students from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) presented their latest findings at the 60th annual meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics -- a worldwide gathering focused on fundamental plasma science research and discoveries. Some 1,700 participants from more than two dozen countries joined the November 5-to-9 event in Portland, Oregon, presenting posters and talks on topics ranging from astrophysical plasmas to nanotechnology to magnetic confinement fusion experiments. Included among PPPL staffers were members of the Science Education Department who presented their work focused on workforce development and diversity, and chaired this year's Education and Public Outreach Committee that organized events ranging from a plasma science teachers day to a plasma science expo for students and the general public. Among PPPL presenters was Seth Davidovits, a 2017 graduate of the Program in Plasma Physics in the Princeton University Department of Astrophysical Sciences, who spoke as winner of the Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award for his dissertation on the theory and simulation of turbulence in suppressing fluids. Davidovits is now a post-doctoral research fellow at Princeton and PPPL. Invited talks by PPPL scientists covered topics ranging from the formation of stars and planets to the development of computer codes for predicting and avoiding disruptions of fusion plasmas. These talks included the following: Developing a path to stable tokamak operation Among the hurdles to capturing and controlling the power of fusion that drives the sun and stars is the risk of disruption of plasma, the hot, charged state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei that fuels fusion reactions. Disruptions can halt the reactions and damage the doughnut-shaped devices called tokamaks that confine the plasma in magnetic fields. Operators of tokamaks must therefore develop real-time control of plasma instabilities that can lead to disruptions while pushing plasma toward the best possible performance. Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University, headed by Egemen Kolemen of PPPL and Princeton, have conducted real-time analyses that predict approaching disruptions and reduce instabilities while maintaining high performance. Such performance, called "high beta," is the ratio of plasma pressure -- a key ingredient in fusion reactions -- to the confining magnetic field. The higher the ratio, signifying the creation of relatively high pressure with relatively low magnetic fields, the better the confinement and control of the plasma and its ability to create fusion. The real-time analyses employed both physics-based and machine learning computer programs, or algorithms, that the researchers developed. The first type uses physics first-principles while the second uses data gleaned from previous experiments. The physicists used both types to control plasma experiments on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by General Atomics in San Diego, California. The physics-based analysis detected growing instabilities prior to disruptions thousands of times faster than a statistical Monte Carlo approach. The analysis showed that plasma becomes "touchy" and produces minor variations in equilibrium before an instability called a "tearing mode" that can lead to disruptions sets in. However, the physics-based algorithms could accomplish only so much. So researchers applied data-driven machine learning techniques that utilized two-to-three years of DIII-D instabilities and disruptions. The best machine learning algorithms then predicted DIII-D disruptions more than 90 percent of the time. "Taken together, the two algorithms proved that accurate prediction of instabilities could better enable the stabilization of high-performance plasmas without leading to disruptions," Kolemen said. Support for this work comes from the DOE Office of Science. A key step toward understanding the development of heavenly bodies The cosmos is a void dotted with stars and an ever-increasing number of newly-observed planets discovered beyond our solar system. However, the formation of these stars and planets out of clouds of interstellar dust and gas remains mysterious. The study of black holes provides clues to the solution of this mystery. Illustrations of black holes typically depict them as vacuum cleaners sucking up all matter and light. In reality, clouds of dust and gas called accretion disks swirl around black holes, gradually moving closer and closer until they are trapped by the black holes and fall into them. Experiments led by researchers studying the Magnetorotational Instability (MRI) at PPPL help verify one of the proposed models for how this process works. Typical orbits, such as those that planets carve around our sun, continue for billions of years because their angular momentum -- the conservation of which causes ice skaters to spin faster when pulling in their arms -- prevents the planets from falling into the sun. In an accretion disk, forces such as friction can cause objects to lose their angular momentum but are insufficient to explain how quickly matter falls into the body that the disk orbits. MRI can provide an explanation. One of the experiments at PPPL simulates this process using a unique rotating water-filled device. Video is recorded of a water-filled red plastic ball as it moves away from the center of the device. A spring in the experiment connects the ball to a post to simulate magnetic forces. Position measurements of the ball indicate that the behavior of its angular momentum is consistent with the MRI predictions of developments in a real accretion disk. Researchers are now conducting experiments using spinning liquid metals to study what happens in accretion disks with actual magnetic fields present. The experiments confirm how strongly the magnetic field affects the metal and pave the way toward a clear understanding of the role the fields play in accretion disks. The combined results mark a significant step toward a more complete explanation of the development of heavenly bodies. Support for this research comes from sources including the DOE Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and NASA. Twist and turn: A new understanding of the rotation of fusion plasma Direct measurement of the main-ion velocity in fusion plasmas provides insight into the turbulent transport of momentum and the mechanisms that generate plasma rotation. Understanding rotation of the main ions provides a key to validating models of turbulent momentum transport. Such measurements, led recently by physicist Brian Grierson of PPPL on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility at General Atomics, are distinct from the commonly measured rotation of carbon and other impurities that swirl within the plasma. The distinction, which provides improved understanding of the ability of the plasma to generate its own "intrinsic rotation," has two principal aspects: First, the main-ion rotation in the outer regions of the plasma is twice the rate of the impurity rotation. This finding is consistent with the different pressure forces and the neoclassical flows between the bulk plasma and the low-concentration carbon impurity. Second, increasing the plasma density causes the main-ion rotation speed to evolve from a constant value across the profile, to a hollow profile, meaning that the edge of the plasma rotates faster than the center of the plasma. This difference in the shape of the rotation profile tells physicists whether the plasma is responding to a strong and large scale self-generated torque, which plays a key role in maintaining the stability of the plasma. If only the impurities were measured, physicists might incorrectly conclude that the plasma is generating a torque that causes the plasma rotation to peak, which would not be the case. It is therefore essential to measure the bulk -- or main ion --plasma rotation when studying the intrinsic rotation of fusion plasmas. "Understanding how turbulence generates rotation in fusion reactors is important, because in future larger machines the ability to drive rotation with high power neutral beam injection will be relatively small," says Wayne Solomon, deputy director of the DIII-D Program. Strong intrinsic rotation will thus be key to stable plasmas. Support for this work comes from the DOE Office of Science. No longer whistling in the dark Magnetic reconnection, the snapping apart and violent reconnection of magnetic field lines in plasma, occurs throughout the universe and can whip up space storms that disrupt cell phone service and knock out power grids. Now scientists at PPPL and other laboratories, using data from a NASA four-satellite mission that is studying reconnection, have developed a method for identifying the source of waves that help satellites determine their location in space. The team of researchers, led by PPPL physicist Jongsoo Yoo, have correlated magnetic field measurements taken by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission that is orbiting at the edge of the magnetic field that surrounds the Earth. The findings identified the source of the propagation of "whistler waves" -- waves with whistle-like sounds that drop from high to low and stem from reconnection -- whose detection orients the satellites relative to reconnection activity that can affect the Earth. The research marks development of "a new methodology for measuring how the wave propagates in reconnection," said Yoo. The source, he said, is what are called "tail electrons" -- particles with energy that is far greater than that of the bulk electrons in reconnecting field lines. "What we prove is that you couldn't have whistler waves without the active X-line" -- the central reconnection region -- "so whistler waves indicate that reconnection is near," Yoo said. The team now plans to investigate the development of whistler waves near the electron diffusion region, the narrow region in the magnetosphere and laboratory experiments where electrons separate from field lines before reconnection takes place. Results could prove relevant to the MMS mission, whose goals include uncovering the role that electrons play in facilitating reconnection. Support for this work comes from the DOE Office of Science, NASA, and the National Science Foundation. Using the right magnetic fields for the job As it does for a spinning top, rotation helps smooth out any wobbles or instabilities in the hot, charged plasma that fuels circular fusion devices known as tokamaks. One way to control this rotation is to create asymmetric perturbations, or ripples, in the plasma with external magnetic coils. Now physicist Nik Logan of PPPL and PPPL researchers have validated predictions of the optimal ripples for their desired "neoclassical toroidal viscosity torque" (NTV) -- a fancy way of saying their effect on the rotation. Validation of these predictions on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility enables optimization of external coils to control the plasma rotation, a major factor in plasma stability. The ripples themselves are "non-resonant," which means that they impact the momentum of plasma rotation but not the plasma's density and energy. The validation allows researchers to arrange and design coils to produce the most effective 3-D perturbations from an infinite array of possibilities, which could prove beneficial to both existing and future tokamak devices. Support for this work comes from the DOE Office of Science. For ITER: A new way to monitor the stability of fusion plasmas Plasma, the soup of free-floating electrons and atomic nuclei that fuels fusion reactions, exhibits many types of behavior, or modes, when perturbed by magnetic forces in doughnut-shaped tokamaks that house the reactions. New findings led by physicist Zhirui Wang of PPPL clearly distinguish between modes and offer the potential for understanding and controlling the impact of perturbations on instabilities called edge localized modes (ELMs) and for the real-time monitoring of plasma stability. "Such monitoring can serve as the key to an integrated approach for disruption prediction and avoidance in future reactors such as ITER," the international tokamak under construction in France, Wang said. Researchers first developed a model for extracting the dominant modes that stem from the response of plasma to externally applied 3-D magnetic fields. Some modes can suppress ELMs while others can lead to disruptions, so extracting the dominant type can be crucial for predicting disruptions. The physicists then validated their model with experiments on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility and on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in China. In both cases, the model provided accurate descriptions of the development of modes and correctly extracted the dominant modes. Going forward, the findings can enable researchers to quantitatively identify the stability of dominant modes, and to predict disruptions or optimize RMPs for suppressing ELMs. "We can monitor the stability of the mode and predict at what point it becomes unstable," Wang said. "The model has fit the experiments quite well." Support for this work comes from the DOE Office of Science. An effective paradigm for characterizing and forecasting tokamak disruptions High-reliability disruption prediction and avoidance are critical needs for next-step tokamaks such as ITER. PPPL scientists led by Steven Sabbagh, a senior research physicist and adjunct professor at Columbia University on long-term assignment to PPPL, have developed a unique Disruption Event Characterization and Forecasting (DECAF) code. The code provides a unified paradigm that automates the analysis of tokamak data to determine chains of events leading to disruptions and to forecast their evolution. The approach supports a range of methods ranging from first-principles physics analysis to empirical models to provide a flexible framework for evaluating the proximity of plasma states to a disruption event. An expanding data base of tokamak activity in the United States, Asia, and Europe continues to be collected for the code to successfully produce insights into the forecasting of disruptions. Support for this work comes from the DOE Office of Science. PPPL, on Princeton University's Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro, N.J., is devoted to creating new knowledge about the physics of plasmas -- ultra-hot, charged gases -- and to developing practical solutions for the creation of fusion energy. The Laboratory is managed by the University for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, which is the largest single supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov. ### An international group of physicists from Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Swinburne University of Technology (Australia) developed a technology for trapping and chemical analysis of organic and non-organic molecules at ultra low concentrations. The article was featured in the Nanoscale journal issued under the patronage of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The discovery leads to more productive solutions in microbiology, medicine, chemistry, and biochemistry by offering quick identification of dangerous and toxic substances, cancer markers, and metabolites of pathogenic microorganisms in trace concentrations. Using Teflon as a substrate the team created a special concentrator platform, which enables a millionfold increase in concentration of the molecules being identified. The technology cuts down the time required for advanced biochemical analyses from several days to just a few hours. "The key element of the concentrator is a micro- and nano-structured superhydrophilic (water attracting) trap surrounded by a superhydrophobic (water repellent) area," explains Alexey Zhizhchenko, a research associate of the Nanotechnology Research and Education Center, School of Engineering, FEFU. "In our concentrator an ordinary liquid droplet plays the role of a container for controlled transport of the target molecules to the superhydrophilic trap. This transport is made possible by controlling the size and position of the droplet in the course of vaporization, which is achieved by tailoring and optimizing the wetting properties of the substrate. Up to 97% of the target molecules are then localized on the small trap (of the size of a human hair thickness) and their concentration increases more than a million times compared to its initial value. This leads to a dramatic enhancement of the optical response of the trapped molecules. By combining this feature with highly sensitive chemical detection properties of the trap, scientists are able to detect and identify target substances even if there are just a few hundred molecules of those in the droplet. Moreover, with further optimization of the concentrator design on can potentially achieve single molecule detection. The concentrator platform is fabricated by direct laser recording on Teflon substrates with ultrashort pulses. The process does not require tight laser focusing and therefore takes only a couple of minutes to complete. The technology is versatile, relatively cheap, and can be potentially used for making new generations of biosensor platforms for highly accurate and sensitive chemical analysis. "This achievement by the team of the Nanotechnology Research and Education Center (School of Engineering, FEFU) became possible thanks to the "Materials" priority project which is currently being implemented at FEFU. We managed to gather an active international team of world-level scientists, many of whom are under 30 years old," commented Kirill Golokhvast, the Vice Rector for Research at FEFU. Earlier this year the same research team from FEFU as a part of an international workgroup of scientists developed a technology for identifying trace concentrations of substances using a black silicon substrate platform. Due to its specific morphology black silicon amplifies the Raman signal - the light scattered by the molecules being analyzed - and does not distort spectroscopic results due to its noninvasiveness, which means that it does not react with the substance in question. ### Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have now found a cause for the frequent catastrophic events in the genetic material of cancer cells that have only been known for a few years: If an important DNA repair system of the cells has failed, this promotes fragmentation and defective assembly of the genetic material. Cancer cells with such a repair defect can now possibly be treated by a specific group of drugs. Only a few years ago, scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), among others, described a new damage pattern in the genetic material of cancer cells: In a particularly aggressive type of childhood brain tumors, they discovered an unprecedented chaos in the cell nucleus: Sections of individual chromosomes were broken at innumerable points and reassembled incorrectly, so that whole parts were missing, while others were duplicated or incorporated in a wrong orientation. This chromosome catastrophe differed from all previously known genetic defects in tumors. Scientists use the term chromothripsis to describe such a genetic disaster, which occurs in about twenty to thirty percent of all cancers. The trigger for this has so far been largely unknown. Aurelie Ernst and her team at the German Cancer Research Center have now been able to show that the failure of certain genetic repair systems is one of the causes of chromosomal chaos. Many environmental influences, such as UV rays, damage the DNA. Cells have an arsenal of mechanisms in place to repair such defects. What happens if one of these repair systems fails? Aurelie Ernst's team tested this on genetically modified mice. In these animals, the tools used by the cell to repair broken DNA double strands were genetically switched off - specifically only in the neural precursor cells. These mice developed malignant brain tumors (medulloblastomas and high-grade gliomas), which exhibited chromothripsis at a high frequency. The researchers noticed that this is almost always accompanied by extra copies of the Myc oncogene, which is known to be a strong driver of cell growth. "If the DNA repair is defective and Myc nevertheless stimulates the division of these damaged cells, the risk of chaos in the genome is particularly high," explains the DKFZ researcher. Does this connection between defective genome repair and chromosome chaos also apply to human cancers? Aurelie Ernst and her team can confirm this for brain tumors, melanomas and breast cancer. The researchers also found the involvement of the cancer-promoting Myc in human tumors. "The chromosome chaos caused by repair defects is frightening at first sight," explains Aurelie Ernst. "However, there are ways to specifically combat cancer cells harboring such defects: We can use drugs to switch off additionally another important DNA repair system. This leads to so much genetic damage that the cell is unable to survive. Healthy cells, on the other hand, which have all their repair systems, don't mind these drugs." PARP inhibitors are already approved drugs that block a central DNA repair system. It may also be possible to develop other substances that attach to other DNA repair enzymes. "If the analysis of a patient's tumor genome reveals evidence of chromothripsis, treatment with PARP inhibitors could be a new therapeutic option in the future," explains the DKFZ researcher Ernst. "Of course, this has to be confirmed in preclinical and clinical tests. ### Manasi Ratnaparkhe, John KL Wong, Pei-Chi Wei, Mario Hlevnjak, Thorsten Kolb, Milena Simovic, Daniel Haag, Yashna Paul, Frauke Devens, Paul Northcott, David TW Jones, Marcel Kool, Anna Jauch, Agata Pastorczak, Wojciech Mlynarski, Andrey Korshunov, Rajiv Kumar, Susanna M Downing, Stefan M Pfister, Marc Zapatka, Peter J McKinnon, Frederick W Alt, Peter Lichter, Aurelie Ernst: Defective DNA damage repair leads to frequent catastrophic genomic events in murine and human tumors. Nature Communications 2018, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06925-4 The German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) with its more than 3,000 employees is the largest biomedical research institute in Germany. At DKFZ, more than 1,000 scientists investigate how cancer develops, identify cancer risk factors and endeavor to find new strategies to prevent people from getting cancer. They develop novel approaches to make tumor diagnosis more precise and treatment of cancer patients more successful. The staff of the Cancer Information Service (KID) offers information about the widespread disease of cancer for patients, their families, and the general public. Jointly with Heidelberg University Hospital, DKFZ has established the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg, where promising approaches from cancer research are translated into the clinic. In the German Consortium for Translational Cancer Research (DKTK), one of six German Centers for Health Research, DKFZ maintains translational centers at seven university partnering sites. Combining excellent university hospitals with high-profile research at a Helmholtz Center is an important contribution to improving the chances of cancer patients. DKFZ is a member of the Helmholtz Association of National Research Centers, with ninety percent of its funding coming from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the remaining ten percent from the State of Baden-Wurttemberg. Professor Frank Brenker, geophysicist at Goethe University has been working successfully with Professor Alexandor Kort for years. This gave Krot the impetus to temporarily take leave from his Institute for Geophyscis and Planetology (HIGP) on Hawaii, where a large number of powerful measuring instruments are at his disposal for the examination of extraterrestrial material. As recipient of the Humboldt Research Award he will be working in Frankfurt am Main for six months. At the Institute for Geosciences at Goethe University, Krot will be working both in teaching and research. He is especially interested in nanoscale analytical methods using transmission electron microscopy and synchrotron radiation, an area in which Frank Brenker specializes. Alexander Krot made a particular name for himself through his work on the formation of the first solid bodies of our solar system. Numerous fundamental insights into the childhood of the solar nebula are based on his research. With more than 160 publications, of which 14 are in "Nature" or "Science", his scientific body of work is impressive. Krot is not only one of the most influential and successful researchers in the area of cosmochemistry, the science of the formation and distribution of chemical elements and compounds in the solar system - he is also an excellent teacher. He can now pass on his knowledge directly in several bachelor and master projects at the same time. "It's a unique opportunity for our students to be able to work with such an internationally successful researcher this early in their careers," reports Brenker with pleasure. "Some of them are already familiar with Mr. Krot from his many groundbreaking publications, and it is naturally exciting for them to now be able to discuss things directly with him." ### Images to download can be found at: http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/74667310 Captions: Image1: Prof. Dr. Alexander Krot (Copyright: Krot) Image 2: Off-colour image with magnesium in red, calcium in green, and aluminum in blue. This colour selection was introduced by Alexander Krot for an optimal depiction of the early formations in the solar system. Pictured here is a calcium-aluminum-rich inclusion in the meteorite Efremovka. CAIs are the oldest solid body formation in our solar system. They are 4.567 billion years old, the same age as our solar system. (Copyright: Krot) Image 3: An artist's depiction of the solar nebula. (Copyright: NASA/JPL) Further information: Professor Frank Brenker, Institute for Geosciences, Mineralogy, Riedberg Campus, Tel.: +49(0)69 798-40134, f.brenker@em.uni-frankfurt.de">f.brenker@em.uni-frankfurt.de Current news about science, teaching, and society in GOETHE-UNI online Goethe University is a research-oriented university in the European financial centre Frankfurt The university was founded in 1914 through private funding, primarily from Jewish sponsors, and has since produced pioneering achievements in the areas of social sciences, sociology and economics, medicine, quantum physics, brain research, and labour law. It gained a unique level of autonomy on 1 January 2008 by returning to its historic roots as a "foundation university". Today, it is among the top ten in external funding and among the top three largest universities in Germany, with three clusters of excellence in medicine, life sciences and the humanities. Together with the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Mainz, it acts as a partner of the inter-state strategic Rhine-Main University Alliance. Internet: http://www.uni-frankfurt.de Publisher: The President of Goethe University Editor: Dr. Anke Sauter, Science Editor, International Communication, PR & Communication Department, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Tel: +49(0)69 798-13066, Fax +49(0)69 798-761 12531, sauter@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de">sauter@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de. Indirect reciprocity is a model that explores how humans act when their reputation is at stake, and which social norms people use to evaluate the actions of others. A key question in this area is: which social norms lead to cooperation in a society? Previous studies have always assumed that everyone in the population has all the relevant information and that everyone agrees who is good and bad--assumptions at odds with the reality we live in. In a new, more realistic model, Christian Hilbe, Laura Schmid, Josef Tkadlec, and Professor Krishnendu Chatterjee at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), together with Professor Martin Nowak of Harvard University, explore what happens when information is incomplete and people make mistakes. In their model, previously successful strategies do not lead to sustained cooperation, and in most cases do not evolve at all. Their results will be published today in the journal PNAS. In the world of game theory, indirect reciprocity is played out using two randomly selected individuals in a population: one donor, one recipient. The donor then needs to decide whether or not to help the recipient based on their social norms. The donor's decision may depend on the reputations of the two individuals, and on the social norm the donor employs (for example, they might only help recipients with a good reputation). Meanwhile, the rest of the population is watching: after the donor's decision, they update their opinions of him or her based on their own social norms. Past models were based on the assumptions that everyone agreed on the reputations of everyone else, and that everyone witnesses all interactions. These studies showed that there are eight "leading" social norms or "strategies" that lead to stable cooperation in a population. But what happens when people make mistakes, and differences of opinion develop? "We wanted to explore how the leading eight strategies fared when faced with incomplete, noisy information," explains Laura Schmid, a PhD student in the Chatterjee group. What they found surprised them: none of the strategies led to high levels of cooperation, and many were unstable or did not evolve at all. Modeling these interactions is mathematically demanding, and the previous assumptions made the analysis easier. "When you consider all the details, you need to rely on simulations, and those just take a lot of time" says postdoc Christian Hilbe. Still, even a single difference of opinion in the population could have drastic effects. If the donor thinks the recipient is bad, but the rest of the population thinks the recipient is good, the donor's decision not to give causes his or her reputation to drop, resulting in a ripple effect throughout the population. Josef Tkadlec, another PhD student working with Professor Chatterjee, described mathematically how differences of opinion spread and divide a population. "For some strategies, even a single disagreement could lead to populations that were split into two polarized subgroups," Tkadlec says. "Other strategies could recover, but it might take them a long time." The team has additional modifications already in mind: for instance, in the populations in previous simulations, everyone was connected with everyone else. What would happen when the population had a particular network structure? Moreover, individuals in populations were independent in forming their opinions. What would happen if they could communicate? The team has already found some numerical evidence that suggests that communication among individuals reduces errors and increases cooperation. "Seen from this angle," concludes postdoc Christian Hilbe, "our findings highlight the importance of communication and coordination for building and maintaining cooperation in a society." ### About IST Austria The Institute of Science and Technology (IST Austria) is a PhD-granting research institution located in Klosterneuburg, 18 km from the center of Vienna, Austria. Inaugurated in 2009, the Institute is dedicated to basic research in the natural and mathematical sciences. IST Austria employs professors on a tenure-track system, postdoctoral fellows, and doctoral students. While dedicated to the principle of curiosity-driven research, the Institute owns the rights to all scientific discoveries and is committed to promote their use. The first president of IST Austria is Thomas A. Henzinger, a leading computer scientist and former professor at the University of California in Berkeley, USA, and the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. The graduate school of IST Austria offers fully-funded PhD positions to highly qualified candidates with a bachelor's or master's degree in biology, neuroscience, mathematics, computer science, physics, and related areas. http://www.ist.ac.at By comparing genetic sequences in the eye tumors of children whose cancers spread with tumors that didn't spread, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report new evidence that a domino effect in cells is responsible for the cancer spreading. Their experiments suggest that blocking part of the chain of events -- which they successfully accomplished in zebra fish and human cells -- stops the growth and spread of the eye tumor cells. The new findings, the researcher say, offer a tempting target for treating the most common eye cancer in children -- retinoblastoma -- that originates in the retina. According to the World Health Organization, the cancer affects an estimated 7,000-8,000 children and kills up to 4,000 worldwide each year. A report on the experiments was published Nov. 6th in the journal Oncogene. "There is no effective treatment for retinoblastoma that spreads," says Laura Asnaghi, Ph.D., M.Sc., a research associate faculty member in the Department of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "However, there is a chance for us to treat this deadly cancer if caught early before the tumors spread. Therefore, we looked into the causes for the tumor invasion, which can help us develop targeted therapies to prevent invasion." To uncover the series of molecular actions involved in tumor spread, the Johns Hopkins researchers started by analyzing tissues from 10 patients -- five of the patients had invasive tumors and five had tumors that were not invasive. The researchers compared the RNA profiles of these two groups and found a twofold to threefold increase in RNA levels for the gene that codes for activin A receptor type 1C (ACVR1C) in invasive retinoblastoma cells compared to noninvasive cells. This finding stood out because the activin receptor gene is already known to have a role in other cancers, including gallbladder and breast cancer. Researchers considered that the activin receptor may be a key target for suppressing cancer spread and growth in retinoblastoma. Normally, when the activin receptor detects a growth signal, it triggers cells to grow and divide. The researchers treated cells with the drug SB505124, which blocks the activin receptor from detecting other growth signals, to see what would happen. They put the cells with the drug on a filter and measured invasion by looking at how many cells moved through the filter. Results showed that the growth, proliferation and invasion of retinoblastoma cells treated with the drug were suppressed by 60 to 80 percent. After confirming the activin receptor's role in spreading retinoblastoma in cells, the researchers wanted to see whether this worked in live animals. They next pursued experiments in embryonic zebra fish, since this convenient model hasn't quite developed its immune systems yet and won't reject other types of cells transplanted into it. The researchers injected human retinoblastoma cells into 2-day-old zebra fish eyes, and they monitored the growth and spread of the cancer cells by measuring the diameters of eye tumors over the next four to six days. Then they administered the same drug (SB505124) used to inhibit the activin in the zebra fish eyes. According to the researchers, they saw a 55 percent reduction in the diameter of eye tumors compared to zebra fish eyes not injected with the drug. Overall, Asnaghi says, the experiments show that blocking the activin receptor could be effective in suppressing the growth and spread of invasive retinoblastoma cells in people. "We hope our findings will provide new therapies for retinoblastoma, and lead to preserving vision and improving outcomes in a greater number of children affected by retinoblastoma both in the United States and worldwide," says Asnaghi. "We are cautiously optimistic though, because we need to do more research before any related therapies can be safely developed or tested for patients." ### Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in this study were David White, Nolan Key, Joshua Choi, Deepak Edward, Christopher Hurtado, Grace Lee, Jeff Mumm and Charles Eberhart. Other researchers in the study include Alka Mahale, Hind Alkatan, Sahar Elkhamary, Saleh Al-Mesfer, Azza Maktab and Leen Abu Safieh of the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital, and Angel Carcaboso of Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Deu. The study is funded by the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital -- Wilmer Eye Institute Collaborative Research Grant, the National Cancer Institute (Grant R21CA229919), the National Eye Institute (core grant EY001765) and The Jenny Fund. COI: The researchers declare no conflicts of interest. Pneumococci are the most common cause of respiratory tract infections, such as otitis and sinusitis, as well as of severe infections like pneumonia and meningitis. A new study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in Nature Microbiology shows how the bacteria can inhibit immune cell reaction and survive inside cells to give rise to pneumonia. "This is a paradigm shift that increases our understanding of how pneumococci cause disease, and might explain the long term consequences of pneumococcal infections such as for example heart disease," says Professor Birgitta Henriques-Normark at the Department of Microbiology, Tumour and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet. "This is an important discovery that will lead to new strategies for tackling pneumococcal infections." Pneumococci are found in the normal flora of healthy individuals, and up to 60 percent of pre-school children have the bacteria in their noses. Usually, these bacteria are harmless but they are also a common cause of otitis, pneumonia, septicaemia and meningitis. Globally, some two million people die from pneumococcal infections every year. To find out why the bacteria only sometimes cause disease, the researchers looked more closely at the toxin pneumolysin, which is produced by the pneumococcus. This cytolethal toxin enables pathogenic effects of the bacteria. "We made the very surprising discovery of a new property of pneumolysin," says Professor Henriques-Normark. "We found that pneumolysin is able to interact with a special receptor, MRC-1, that is found in certain immune cells, and in so doing trigger an anti-inflammatory response." Once inside the immune cells, the bacteria can hide from further attack and possibly even grow, to eventually give rise to pneumonia. "It has been thought that pneumolysin only induces a pro-inflammatory response, but we now show that it can also have an anti-inflammatory role" she continues. "This is because the bacteria can use pneumolysin as a means to survive the attacks of the immune system." The study was conducted on both mouse and human cells, and when the researchers studied mice lacking the MRC-1 receptor, they observed that lower numbers of pneumococci were found in the upper respiratory tract. The researchers believe that the findings may be of importance for development of treatment and vaccines against pneumococcal infections. ### The research was done in collaboration with a research team at the Institute of Infection and Global Health, University of Liverpool, and with the assistance of the Science for Life Laboratory Mass Spectrometry Based Proteomics Facility in Uppsala. The Swedish arm of the research funding came from the Swedish Research Council, Stockholm County Council, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. Publication: "Pneumolysin binds to the Mannose-Receptor C type 1 (MRC-1) leading to anti-inflammatory responses and enhanced pneumococcal survival". Karthik Subramanian, Daniel R Neill, Hesham Malak, Laura Spelmink, Shadia Khandaker, Giorgia Dalla Libera Marchiori, Emma Dearing, Alun Kirby, Marie Yang, Adnane Achour, Johan Nilvebrant, Per-Ake Nygren, Laura Plant, Aras Kadioglu and Birgitta Henriques-Normark. Nature Microbiology, online 12 november 2018, doi: 10.1038/s41564-018-0280-x MAYWOOD, IL - Hepatitis C drugs cure more than 90 percent of patients, but can cost more than $50,000 per patient. Findings from a new study could lead to significant cost savings. Preliminary data from the study, co-led by a theoretical modeling researcher from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and Loyola Medicine, found that in 50 percent of patients, the standard 12-week treatment regimen could be shortened to as little as six weeks without compromising efficacy. "There's a potential to save up to 20 percent of the costs of hepatitis C drugs," said Loyola researcher Harel Dahari, PhD, co-first author of the study along with Ohad Etzion, MD, of Soroka University Medical Center in Israel. Senior author is Amir Shlomai, MD, PhD, of Beilinson Hospital in Israel. The study was presented November 12 during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in San Francisco. Dr. Dahari is co-director of the Program for Experimental and Theoretical Modeling (PETM) in the division of hepatology of Loyola Medicine and Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Two other Loyola authors are Susan Uprichard, PhD, co-director of PETM and an associate professor in the department of microbiology and immunology and Scott Cotler, MD, head of Loyola Medicine's division of hepatology and a professor in the department of medicine of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Hepatitis C is an infection caused by a virus spread through contaminated blood. It can lead to liver damage, liver failure and liver cancer. An estimated 70 million people worldwide, including about three million in the United States, are chronically infected with hepatitis C. A class of oral medications called direct acting anti-virals (DAA) has revolutionized the treatment of hepatitis C. In more than 90 percent of patients, the medications eliminate the virus and cure the patient, with minimal side effects. But the high cost limits access and is a substantial financial burden on Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers. "Treatment currently is standardized to be given for a set period of time, usually 12 weeks, rather than being tailored to the individual patient," Dr. Cotler said. In the new study, researchers used a personalized medicine technique called modeling-based response-guided therapy to reduce treatment times when possible. After patients had undergone treatment for a few weeks, researchers measured how much hepatitis C virus levels had decreased. They used mathematical modeling to estimate how long it would take to completely eliminate the virus. The study has included 22 patients so far. Mathematical modeling predicted that treatment could be shortened to 10 weeks in one patient (five percent of the total patients), eight weeks in eight patients (36 percent) and six weeks in two patients (nine percent). The other 11 patients (50 percent) needed to be treated for the standard 12 weeks. Twenty-one patients remained virus-free. The only patient who relapsed had the most difficult-to-treat form of the hepatitis C virus, known as genotype 3. The proof-of-concept pilot study showed that using response-guided therapy to reduce treatment times is feasible. To validate the results, a large multicenter trial is underway in Israel. Dr. Dahari said that in addition to cutting costs, shorter treatment regimens would make it easier to treat hepatitis C patients who have limited health insurance benefits. ### The study was conducted with David Yardeni, MD, Anat Nevo-Shor, MD, Daniela Munteanu, MD, and Naim Abufreha, MD, of the Department of Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Soroka University Medical Center, Beesheba, Israel; Assaf Issachar, MD, Michal Cohen-Naftaly, MD, Orly Sneh Arbib, MD, and Marius Braun, MD, of the Liver Institute, Rabin Medical Center, Beilinson Hospital, Petah-Tikva, Israel; and Orna Mor, PhD, of the Central Virology Laboratory, Ministry of Health, Sheba Medical Center, Israel. The study is titled, "Response-Guided Therapy with DAA Shortens Treatment Durations in 50 Percent of HCV-Treated Patients." The study was supported in part by Clalit, a health service organizaton in Israel and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. By Azernews By Abdul Kerimkhanov Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline (TAPI) and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) power transmission line and railway initiated by the Turkmen side were discussed in Kabul with the participation of the Afghan leader and chief executive Abdullah Abdullah. A delegation of Turkmenistan led by Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Rashid Meredov was on a working visit to Afghanistan. The delegation was received by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, who reaffirmed Afghanistans commitment to the traditional intergovernmental dialogue. The implementation of humanitarian and economic projects were also considered in accordance with the agreements reached earlier. During the visit, Turkmen-Afghan inter-MFA consultations took place, during which the sides exchanged views on key areas of interstate cooperation. A meeting of the Joint Commission for Security Cooperation was also held, following which the relevant protocol was signed. The TAPI pipeline will run from Galkynysh the largest gas field in Turkmenistan through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar, and finally, reach the Fazilka settlement located near the India-Pakistan border. The total length of the pipeline is 1,814 kilometers, the preliminary cost of the project is $10 billion. Annual capacity of the gas pipeline will be 33 billion cubic meters. Turkmen section of TAPI, the construction of which started in December 2015, will be 205 kilometers. Then the pipeline will pass through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar (816 km), then on the territory of Pakistan, through the city of Quetta and Multan (819 km), and will reach the settlement of Fazilka in India. On February 23, 2018, hthe construction of the Afghan section of the TAPI gas pipeline, which will export gas from the Galkynysh field in Turkmenistan, was launched. The consortium, with the participation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), continues active negotiations with all interested parties. Various options of participation in the project, such as participation in the company's share, project financing, financing through international development banks and with the help of export credit agencies from around the world are being examined. As the leader of TAPI Pipeline company Limited, Turkmengas State Concern, which has a controlling stake, acts as the main financier and project manager. The consortium also includes the Afghanistan Gas Corporation, Inter State Gas Systems (Private) Limited and Indian GAIL. The foundation-laying ceremony of the TAP energy bridge was held in February with the participation of the heads of state and government of the countries involved. At this stage, issues related to the laying of transmission lines on the territory of neighboring states were agreed. In particular, the agreement defines the volume of electricity that will be supplied to Afghanistan via the new transmission line 300 megawatts to Herat and Kandahar cities each. In the future, they are planned to increase to 1,000 megawatts. PHILADELPHIA--While it's well reported that black patients are twice as likely as white patients to succumb to sudden cardiac death (SCD), the underlying factors that propel this disparity remain unknown. According to a first-of-its-kind study from Penn Medicine, published online today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers showed that even after controlling for risk factors like income, education, smoking, exercise, and bad cholesterol, among others, black patients remained at significantly higher risk for SCD. "While greater public health efforts to identify and decrease health risks in black populations will be a critical step in reducing their higher risk of SCD, our data suggest that it may not eliminate racial disparities entirely," said lead author Rajat Deo, MD, MTR, an associate professor of Cardiovascular Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Our research demonstrates other factors, perhaps genetic, are at play, and we need more exploration to better understand this disparity." Each year in the United States, there are more than 350,000 out-of-hospital SCDs--the immediate cessation of the heart's ability to function properly. SCD occurs unexpectedly, with little to no warning signs or symptoms, and it strikes most commonly among those in the general population without a history of cardiovascular disease. Past studies have consistently shown black patients have a higher incidence of SCD compared to white patients, but this study marked the first time a rigorous, prospective population-based analysis adjusting for risk factors. The researchers evaluated 22,507 participants over the age of 45 (9,416 black patients and 13,091 white patients) without a history of cardiovascular disease using data from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study, a prospective, population-based cohort of adults from across the United States. Among that group, there were nearly twice as many SCD events in among black patients over an average of six years of follow-up. To evaluate whether racial differences in SCDs were attributable to differences in the prevalence of risk factors or to an underlying susceptibility, the researchers performed analyses that adjusted for various demographics and socioeconomic factors including: lower incomes; cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure and diabetes; and behavioral measures of health, such as alcohol use, stress and depression. From the time participants enrolled in the study through about six years of follow up, researchers found the risk of SCD for black patients was still nearly double that of white patients, and it did not appear to be directly impacted by these known risk factors. "At the end of the day, we just don't have a full understanding of why patients who are black are more likely to succumb to SCD - a clear problem and knowledge gap on many levels," Deo said. "For many in the black community, their first clinical presentation of any cardiovascular issue is a sudden cardiac death event. Of course, we don't know whether they have ignored symptoms such as chest pain and opted not to seek medical attention, or if this truly is the first indication of cardiovascular disease, perhaps due to a genetic predisposition. Either way, the data are staggering, and represent a pervasive problem in the black community." The authors suggest that the pathology underlying SCD may differ in each of these groups and could be a contributor to the disparity, the authors noted. For instance, autopsy studies have revealed that coronary artery disease accounts for a lower percentage of SCDs in black patients, despite their known higher burden of hypertension, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. Other cardiac issues, such as cardiac hypertrophy--the thickening of the heart muscle--are also more commonly found in autopsies of black patients, whereas autopsies of deceased white patients are more likely to show coronary plaque rupture. "Future research is needed to understand the mechanisms underlying these racial differences," the authors wrote. In the interim, Deo emphasizes that "the current findings underscore the critical importance of community-based interventions to increase awareness about SCD, warning symptoms, and improve resuscitation rates from cardiac arrest." ### The study was supported by a cooperative agreement from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services (U01-NS041588). Additional support was provided by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01-HL080477 and K24-HL111154). It was also supported, in part, by the Winkelman Family Fund in Cardiovascular Innovation. Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $7.8 billion enterprise. The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top medical schools in the United States for more than 20 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $405 million awarded in the 2017 fiscal year. The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center -- which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report -- Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Medicine Princeton Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, a leading provider of highly skilled and compassionate behavioral healthcare. Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2017, Penn Medicine provided more than $500 million to benefit our community. Continent could lose more than half of bird and mammal species, 20-30 percent decline in the productivity of Africa's lakes foreseen The threat today to African plants, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and large mammals is unprecedented, caused by a range of both human-induced and natural causes, leading scientists warned African ministers meeting on the eve of major global biodiversity talks in Egypt. The ministers are determining Africa's joint position on the critical challenges of biodiversity loss ahead of the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 14, https://www.cbd.int/conferences/2018) of the UN Convention of Biological Diversity, convened in collaboration with the Government of Egypt in Sharm el Sheikh, 14-29 November. (Provisional agenda, African Ministerial Summit: http://bit.ly/2QzU2Vw) The expert briefing is based on two landmark Assessment Reports on the state of biodiversity in Africa, and on global land degradation and restoration, conducted under the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and released earlier this year. The Africa Assessment shows that, while there are positive examples where lessons can be learned, biodiversity and nature's capacity to contribute to people are being degraded, reduced and lost due to a number of common pressures - habitat stress; overexploitation and unsustainable use of natural resources; air, land and water pollution; increasing numbers and impact of invasive alien species and climate change, among others. "Africa's human development and well-being depend on the sustainable development and use of its rich natural resources," says Dr. Luthando Dziba, who also co-chairs the IPBES Multidisciplinary Expert Panel. "Africa is the world's last home for a wide range of large mammals. The scientific consensus reflected in the IPBES report, unfortunately, is that, under current scenarios to 2100, climate change could result in the loss of more than half of African bird and mammal species, a 20-30% decline in the productivity of Africa's lakes and significant loss of African plant species." The IPBES Africa Report shows an estimated 20 per cent of Africa's land surface (6.6 million km2) is estimated to be degraded because of soil erosion, salinization, pollution and loss of vegetation or soil fertility. Even greater pressure will be placed on the continent's biodiversity as the current African population of 1.25 billion people is set to double to 2.5 billion by 2050. "The degradation of the Earth's land surface, through human activities, is pushing the planet towards a sixth mass species extinction," says Prof. Robert Scholes, who co-chaired the IPBES Land Degradation Assessment. "Less than 25% of our planet's land surface has escaped substantial impacts of human activity - and by 2050 this is likely to be less than 10%. The combination of land degradation and climate change is predicted to reduce global crop yields by an average of 10%, and by 50% in some regions. Most future degradation will occur in Central and South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia." Prof. Scholes adds however, that we know how to successfully restore land in every ecosystem, and that avoiding or reversing degradation is possible. "Higher employment and the other benefits of land restoration often far exceed the costs involved. For regions like Asia and Africa, the cost of inaction in the face of land degradation is at least three times higher than the cost of action." By the numbers Africa Trends / data +/- 6.6 million: km2 of land is degraded due to factors such as deforestation, unsustainable agriculture, overgrazing, uncontrolled mining activities, invasive alien species and climate change, leading to soil erosion, salinization, pollution, and loss of vegetation or soil fertility +/- 62%: rural population directly dependent on wild nature and its services for survival (the most of any continent) +/- 2 million: km2 of land designated as protected (including 6% of biodiversity-rich tropical evergreen broadleaf forests and 2.5% of Africa's seas 25%: people having faced hunger and malnutrition (2011-2013) in Sub-Saharan Africa, the world's most food-deficient region Economic values of nature's contributions to people West Africa $4 billion: coastal fishery value added (per year) $40,000: water purification services (per km2, per year) $4,500: mangrove coastal protection services (per km2, per year) $2,800: coastal carbon sequestration services (average per km2, per year) Central Africa $2 billion: coastal fishery value added (per year) $0.8 billion: inland fishery value added (per year) $14,000: forest carbon sequestration services (average per km2, per year) $3,500: mangrove coastal protection services (per km2, per year) $3,000: timber value added (per km2, per year) Southern Africa $0.5 billion: coastal fishery value added (per year) $0.3 billion: inland fishery value added (per year) $9,000: recreation value (per km2, per year) North Africa $0.6 billion: inland fishery value added (per year) $0.5 billion: coastal fishery value added (per year) $300: coastal carbon sequestration services (average per km2, per year) $2,000: timber production (per km2, per year) East Africa and adjacent islands $2.5 billion: coastal fishery value added (per year) $1.2 billion: inland fishery value added (per year) $16,000: food production (per km2, per year) $12,000: forest carbon sequestration services (average per km2, per year) $11,000: erosion control (average per km2, per year) $7,800: forest bioprospecting (per km2, per year) $5,000: mangrove coastal protection services (per km2, per year) $2,200: coastal carbon sequestration services (average per km2, per year) Projections 50% of African bird and mammal species could be lost to climate change by 2100 20 - 30%: expected decline in productivity of lakes by 2100 2.5 billion: predicted population of Africa in 2050 (double the current figure) 54%: Africans expected to live in urban and peri-urban areas by 2030 (up from 39% in 2003) The IPBES reports can be accessed together with photos, 'B-roll' and other media resources here: The Africa Assessment Report: http://bit.ly/2DCxe4E The Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment Report: http://bit.ly/2z6VtEx African Ministerial declaration At the conclusion of the African Ministerial Summit in Egypt (approximately 6 pm local time / 4 pm GMT) Tuesday Nov. 13, the ministers will issue a summit declaration, (to be made available at the summit website, https://www.cbd.int/conferences/2018/cop-14-afr-hls) The following day, the full UN Biodiversity Conference 2018 begins in Egypt with a High-Level Segment (14-15 November, https://www.cbd.int/meetings/COP-14-HLS). As many as 80 ministers of Environment, Infrastructure, Energy, Industry and other sectors are expected to join in discussions on mainstreaming biodiversity into their respective fields of work. From 17-29 November, negotiations will be undertaken among 196 Parties to the CBD on the following main themes: Achieving the globally-agreed Aichi Biodiversity Targets (2010-2020); mainstreaming biodiversity issues; and the beginning of two years of negotiation of the post 2020 global framework for biodiversity, scheduled for final agreement at CBD COP15 in China in 2020. Three years in development the IPBES Assessment Reports involved the review of several thousand scientific papers, as well as extensive Government and other information sources, including indigenous and local knowledge,. Together they represent the most important expert contribution of the past decade to understanding of nature and its contributions to people, offering a roadmap for future action. ### About IPBES: Often described as the "IPCC for biodiversity" IPBES is an independent intergovernmental body comprising 130 member Governments. Established by Governments in 2012, it provides policymakers with objective scientific assessments about the state of knowledge regarding the planet's biodiversity, ecosystems and the contributions they make to people, as well as the tools and methods to protect and sustainably use these vital natural assets. For more information about IPBES and its assessments visit http://www.ipbes.net Twitter: @IPBES / http://www.facebook.com/ipbes / http://www.youtube.com/ipbeschannel / http://www.linkedin.com/company/ipbes / http://www.instagram.com/ipbes IPBES side events at CBD COP14: November 18th (Sunday): Presentations by the Co-chairs of the four IPBES Regional Assessment Reports issued in March, 2018 (one each for the Americas, Europe and Central Asia, Africa, Asia and the Pacific) and the Global Assessment Report on Land Degradation and Restoration. November 19th (Monday): Launch of a message 'primer' detailing elements of the IPBES Global Assessment of Biodiversity, expected to be released in Paris in May 2019 Follow the CBD conference on social media: https://twitter.com/unbiodiversity http://www.facebook.com/UNBiodiversity http://www.facebook.com/UNBiodiversityConvention http://www.instagram.com/unbiodiversity http://www.linkedin.com/company/unbiodiversity A series of live interviews will be broadcast on the CBD's Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/UNBiodiversity). All news conferences and briefings will be available via live webcast or video on demand via the UN Biodiversity Conference official website: http://www.cbd.int/webcast (available from 13 November 2018). Additional information for media, including press briefs and the schedule of press conferences: http://www.cbd.int/conferences/2018/information/media On-site media participation at CBD meetings is subject to accreditation by the Secretariat. Accreditation is strictly reserved for representatives of bona fide media organizations - print, photo, radio, TV, film, news agencies and online news sites. To facilitate the process, a new online media accreditation form is accessible: http://www.cbd.int/participation/2018/media Researchers at the University of Bristol, supported by the British Veterinary Association, the British Cattle Veterinary Association and the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture (RUMA) Alliance, are calling for veterinary surgeons in the UK to work together with their farmer clients to remove expired and inappropriate veterinary medicines from farms and dispose of them appropriately. In an open access paper published in Vet Record, the researchers investigated medicine storage facilities on UK dairy farms and found that most farmers are storing their medicines appropriately but there are areas that need improving. Although sales of prescription veterinary medicines are heavily regulated and monitored, very little is currently known about the way in which these medicines are stored and used once prescribed to a farm. The study sheds light on these practices to fill this knowledge gap. In the UK it is standard practice for veterinary surgeons to prescribe medicines to treat diseases in animals under their care. These medicines can then be stored on a farm to be given later by the farmer. Medicines stored on farms include antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and vaccines. Farms are required to store animal medicines according to Health and Safety Executive guidelines and, in line with the storage requirements of the individual medicines, storage and use of these medicines should be audited regularly by the farm's veterinary surgeon and during quality assurance audits such as Red Tractor Farm Assurance. The study, which examined medicines stored on 27 farms in South West England and South Wales between September 2016 and October 2017, found that while most prescription veterinary medicines were stored appropriately, there are opportunities for farmers and veterinary surgeons to work together to dispose of expired and inappropriate medicines to reduce the potential for their use in dairy cattle. Incorporating a medicine cupboard "health check" into the routine annual herd health review would be a simple and effective way to bring about improvement in this area. The most important findings from the research were: Most farms stored medicines in designated, lockable medicine cupboards; There was large variation in the quantity and types of antibiotics stored on farms; Highest priority critically important antimicrobials were found on 90 per cent of farms; Expired medicines, including antibiotics, were commonly found on farms; Medicines not licensed for use in dairy cattle were found on some farms. These may occasionally be legally prescribed by veterinary surgeons according to strict guidelines set out under the prescribing Cascade. Gwen Rees, Langford Trust PhD Scholar at the Bristol Veterinary School and lead author, said: "Our study has shown that most farmers are storing their medicines appropriately, but that there is variation between farms. This highlights just how important it is for veterinary surgeons to prescribe appropriately and help farmers ensure that the right animals are getting the right medicines. "There is a need for open conversations - as part of routine health planning - around the use of expired medicines, medicines used under Cascade and the use of critically important antimicrobials, particularly in the current climate of increasing awareness of the global threat of antibiotic resistance." This is the first study to examine storage practices of antimicrobials on UK dairy farms and builds on previous work looking at vaccine storage by Williams and Paixao (2018). The research is part of a larger study on the ways in which livestock medicines are used and recorded. Further research in this area - both nationally and internationally - is necessary to examine whether expired prescription veterinary medicines (and those not licensed for use in dairy cattle) are being used in cattle, and, if so, at what level. It is also important to conduct similar research on beef, sheep, pig and poultry farms to establish the differences between agricultural sectors. The study was funded by the Langford Trust for Animal Health and Welfare, in collaboration with the Bristol Veterinary School's leading antimicrobial resistance research group AMR Force. Antimicrobial resistance - or AMR - is a global threat, with an estimated 700,000 people dying from resistant infections every year. This week [12-18 November] is World Antibiotic Awareness Week. ### Paper: 'Storage of prescription veterinary medicines on UK dairy farms: a cross-sectional study' by Gwen M Rees, David C Barrett, Henry Buller, Harriet L Mills & Kristen K Reyher in the Veterinary Record [online first; open access] Scientists at the University of Birmingham have revealed the roles that different types of gene mutations play in causing blood cancers in a study that was the culmination of a decade's research. The findings of the team, led by Professor Constanze Bonifer and Professor Peter Cockerill of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Cancer and Genomic Studies, mean doctors are now one step closer to being able to provide tailored and targeted treatment specific to individual patients - increasing their chances of survival. The team, funded by blood cancer research charity Bloodwise, has spent the last 10 years carrying out a painstaking global analysis of the cells of patients diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), the results of which are published today (November 12th) in Nature Genetics (i). AML is an aggressive cancer of the white blood cells, called myeloid cells, which normally function to fight bacterial infections and eliminate parasites from the body. By picking apart the mutated cells in AML patients and gathering big data on each of them, the researchers were able to study the basic building blocks that control the production of these abnormal cells. This step-by-step process, carried out in collaboration with Professor Mike Griffiths and his team at the West Midlands Regional Genetics Laboratory at Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust, identified the main trigger points where critical mutations feed through to other genes that control the cells' identity and behaviour. Lead author Professor Constanze Bonifer said: "In acute myeloid leukaemia, genes are targeted by mutations that encode either master regulators controlling cell identity or factors transmitting signals through the cell, therefore the normal process of turning genes on or off is defunct. "Our research found that, when this happens, the cells step sideways from their normal developmental programme and speed out of control. "Crucially, AML cells from patients with the same types of mutations always take the same route when they head off in the wrong direction. "Our analyses of each of the pathways that the cells took when developing into cancer identified key points in the cell that could be used in the future to target and develop new drugs to treat each type of AML in a different way." Co-lead author Professor Peter Cockerill said: "Doctors in Birmingham are already testing AML patients for the many different mutations that cause AML. However, now they know which genes are the most important for each type of AML. "This means that personalised medicine will one day become a reality for blood cell cancers, which will see a different drug being given to treat each form of AML, creating personalised treatment for each cancer patient depending on the mutation that has caused their disease." Dr Alasdair Rankin, Director of Research at Bloodwise, said: "Although a handful of targeted drugs have recently become available for people with acute myeloid leukaemia, they only help a small number of people. "We need to be smarter about matching the right treatment to the right person if we want to boost survival rates for AML, especially if there are already drugs out there that can help. "These landmark research findings will act as a blueprint for how to tackle this, and could even help with the delivery of personalised medicine in mainstream healthcare in the future." This study comes after research, by the same team at the University of Birmingham in collaboration with Professor Olaf Heidenreich's team at Newcastle University, was published last month (October) in Cancer Cell (ii), which focussed on just one type of DNA mutation in AML to study a single pathway to cancer development. The researchers found that a growth-promoting gene, called CCND2, was crucial for the survival of this type of cancer cell and, significantly, it was found that an already approved breast cancer drug called palbociclib designed to inhibit CCDN2 was able to block tumour development - therefore identifying it as a drug that could be used to target and treat AML. Also in the same issue of Cancer Cell (iii) published in October the University of Birmingham team - this time in collaboration with scientists led by Professor Jan Jacob Schuringa at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands - published further research aimed at advancing tailored and targeted treatment for AML patients. Of this research, Professor Bonifer explains: "Acute myeloid leukaemia is made up of several groups of cells with different combinations of mutations, some of which are so aggressive they allow these cancer cells to survive after treatment. "Often these combinations of mutations are present before treatment, but we have never previously been able to identify them when a patient is first diagnosed with AML - meaning that the cancer can later return as a different disease which is often more aggressive. "Our research in collaboration with the University of Groningen identified how to makes it possible to identify these cells when patients are first diagnosed with AML so that they can be treated with the right combination of drugs." ### For more information please contact Emma McKinney, Communications Manager (Health Sciences), University of Birmingham, Email: e.j.mckinney@bham.ac.uk or tel: +44-0-121-414-6681, or contact the press office on +44-0-7789-921-165 or pressoffice@contacts.bham.ac.uk Notes to Editors: The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world's top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, teachers and more than 6,500 international students from over 150 countries. This research was funded by blood cancer research charity Bloodwise with additional support from Cancer Research UK, MRC/LEUKA and the Kay Kendall Keukaemia FUND. This research was carried out in collaboration with the University of Newcastle; University of Leeds; West Midlands Regional Genetics Laboratory at Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust; Laboratory NHS Blood & Transplant, Birmingham; Erasmus University Medical Center, The Netherlands; St. James's University Hospital, Leeds; Centre for Clinical Haematology, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham; and Princess Maxima Centrum for Pediatric Oncology, The Netherlands. Once the paper is published online in Nature Genetics it can be viewed online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41588-018-0270-1 REFERENCES: (i) Assi et al (2018). 'Subtype-specific regulatory network rewiring in acute myeloid leukemia'. Nature Genetics. DOI: 10.1038/s41588-018-0270-1 (ii) Martinez-Soria et al. 'The oncogenic transcription factor RUNX1/ETO corrupts cell cycle regulation to drive leukaemia transformation.' Cancer Cell. DOI: 10.1016/j.ccell.2018.08.015 10.1016/j.ccell.2018.08.015. (iii) De Boer et al., (2018). Prospective Isolation and Characterization of Genetically and Functionally Distinct AML Subclones. Cancer Cell. DOI: 10.1016/j.ccell.2018.08.014 Scientists at the University of Cambridge have completed the world's largest ever study of typical sex differences and autistic traits. They tested and confirmed two long-standing psychological theories: the Empathizing-Systemizing theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism. Working with the television production company Channel 4, they tested over half a million people, including over 36,000 autistic people. The results are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Empathizing-Systemizing theory predicts that women, on average, will score higher than men on tests of empathy, the ability to recognize what another person is thinking or feeling, and to respond to their state of mind with an appropriate emotion. Similarly, it predicts that men, on average, will score higher on tests of systemizing, the drive to analyse or build rule-based systems. The Extreme Male Brain theory predicts that autistic people, on average, will show a masculinised shift on these two dimensions: namely, that they will score lower than the typical population on tests of empathy and will score the same as if not higher than the typical population on tests of systemizing. Whereas both theories have been confirmed in previous studies of relatively modest samples, the new findings come from a massive sample of 671,606 people, which included 36,648 autistic people. They were replicated in a second sample of 14,354 people. In this new study, the scientists used very brief 10-item measures of empathy, systemizing, and autistic traits. Using these short measures, the team identified that in the typical population, women, on average, scored higher than men on empathy, and men, on average, scored higher than women on systemizing and autistic traits. These sex differences were reduced in autistic people. On all these measures, autistic people's scores, on average, were 'masculinized': that is, they had higher scores on systemizing and autistic traits and lower scores on empathy, compared to the typical population. The team also calculated the difference (or 'd-score') between each individual's score on the systemizing and empathy tests. A high d-score means a person's systemizing is higher than their empathy, and a low d-score means their empathy is higher than their systemizing. They found that in the typical population, men, on average, had a shift towards a high d-score, whereas women, on average, had a shift towards a low d-score. Autistic individuals, on average, had a shift towards an even higher d-score than typical males. Strikingly, d-scores accounted for 19 times more of the variance in autistic traits than other variables, including sex. Finally, men, on average, had higher autistic trait scores than women. Those working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), on average, had higher systemizing and autistic traits scores than those in non-STEM occupations. And conversely, those working in non-STEM occupations, on average, had had higher empathy scores than those working in STEM. In the paper, the authors discuss how it is important to bear in mind that differences observed in this study apply only to group averages, not to individuals. They underline that these data say nothing about an individual based on their gender, autism diagnosis, or occupation. To do that would constitute stereotyping and discrimination, which the authors strongly oppose. Further, the authors reiterate that the two theories are applicable to only two dimensions of typical sex differences: empathy and systemizing. They do not apply to all sex differences, such as aggression, and to extrapolate the theories beyond these two dimensions would be a misinterpretation. Finally, the authors highlight that although autistic people on average struggle with 'cognitive' empathy - recognizing other people's thoughts and feelings - they nevertheless have intact 'affective' empathy - they care about others. It is a common misunderstanding that autistic people struggle with all forms of empathy, which is untrue. Dr Varun Warrier, from the Cambridge team, said: "These sex differences in the typical population are very clear. We know from related studies that individual differences in empathy and systemizing are partly genetic, partly influenced by our prenatal hormonal exposure, and partly due to environmental experience. We need to investigate the extent to which these observed sex differences are due to each of these factors, and how these interact." Dr David Greenberg, from the Cambridge team, said: "Big data is important to draw conclusions that are replicable and robust. This is an example of how scientists can work with the media to achieve big data science." Dr Carrie Allison, from the Cambridge team, said: "We are grateful to both the general public and to the autism community for participating in this research. The next step must be to consider the relevance of these findings for education, and support where needed." Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge who proposed these two theories nearly two decades ago, said: "This research provides strong support for both theories. This study also pinpoints some of the qualities autistic people bring to neurodiversity. They are, on average, strong systemizers, meaning they have excellent pattern-recognition skills, excellent attention to detail, and an aptitude in understanding how things work. We must support their talents so they achieve their potential - and society benefits too." ### If you'd like to complete these measures and participate in studies at the Autism Research Centre please register here: http://www.cambridgepsychology.com The Autism Research Centre (ARC) at the University of Cambridge conducts research on both the causes of and interventions for autism. See http://www.autismresearchcentre.com. This study was supported by the Autism Research Trust, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and the Templeton World Charity Foundation., Inc. It was conducted in association with the NIHR CLAHRC for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. Reference Greenberg, DM et al. Testing the Empathizing-Systemizing theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism in half a million people. PNAS; 12 Nov 2018; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1811032115 Scientists at the University of Liverpool have discovered a new and important function of a toxin produced by disease-causing bacteria that could have significant implications for future vaccine design. Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) is a major cause of life-threatening invasive diseases such as pneumonia, septicaemia and meningitis, and is responsible for more than one million deaths every year. Key to its disease-causing success is the action of a potent toxin called pneumolysin, which works by creating 'holes' in the membranes of human cells, and either killing them directly or causing significant tissue damage. Until now, scientists believed that the effects of pneumolysin resulted purely from the binding of the toxin to cholesterol in host cell membranes. A new study published in Nature Microbiology, however, shows that pneumolysin can also bind directly to a host cell receptor on specialised immune cells to suppress the immune response. The study was a collaboration between the Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunity Group at the University's Institute of Infection and Global Health and the Department of Microbiology, Tumour and Cell Biology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Using specialised in vitro experiments in human cells and in vivo studies in mice, the team has shown that pneumolysin can bind directly to a host cell receptor called Mannose Receptor C type-1 (MRC-1) on immune cells, including macrophages and dendritic cells, causing them to reduce their production of molecules that promote inflammation and protective immunity. The bacteria can then survive more easily in the airways, as inflammation and immune cell activity is suppressed. Professor Aras Kadioglu, who led the study in Liverpool said: "This is really a key moment in our understanding of how the pneumococcus causes disease. First of all, because it breaks a long-standing dogma that pneumolysin can only bind to cholesterol, indeed the identification of a host receptor for pneumolysin has been the holy grail in the field for many decades, and secondly, because it changes our understanding of how the pneumococcus uses its toxin to manipulate and alter our immune response to its advantage. I am very excited by the potential of these new findings." Dr Daniel Neill who is a joint first author, added: "Understanding how bacteria are able to promote infection via toxin production will help scientists to develop new ways of combatting serious infectious diseases. Several vaccines in development contain detoxified pneumolysin and it is important that we further explore how the newly-described receptor-binding activity might influence the immune responses induced by such vaccination." ### ZURICH, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The tender for the construction of the Finland Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai has been awarded to the international project team of Expomobilia, JKMM Architects, Factor Nova, Beyond Limits and FiveCurrents. The pavilion building will focus on the themes of nature, innovation and sustainability. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/782995/Front_View.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/782996/Gorge.jpg ) Finland Pavilion: A tribute to the land of thousand lakes. "Snow Cape" is the name of the building with which Finland is going to present itself at the World Expo 2020 in Dubai. Inspired by the white blanket of snow which covers the Finnish landscape in winter, the Finland Pavilion resembles a white tent made of snow. The visual identity of Finland Pavilion is incorporating both Finnish and Arabic cultures, starting with the main entrance which gives an impression of arriving in an Arabic tent. Combination of Finnish natural design and innovation is combined with Arabic visual features. Finnish components and materials have played an important role in the design of the Snow Cape pavilion. Finland has a unique and extensive tradition of design and architecture. The pavilion may be viewed as a design object relating to the history of this heritage. Within the complex and visually noisy Expo environment, Finland Pavilion offers clarity and serenity. From outside the shape is simple but refined. In the middle of pavilion, a dynamic wooden space "Gorge" is carved into the building, offering Expo visitors a pleasantly cool and shady retreat. The "Gorge" also relates to the unique Finnish history of innovation, which often requires thinking "out of the box", element of surprise. In the pavilion, the surprise is the wooden heart and exhibitions inside. In addition, Finland pavilion is a place representing Finland's closeness to nature and personal exchange, in accordance with the motto of the EXPO 2020 Dubai: "Connecting Minds, Creating the Future". Background information: EXPO 2020 Dubai and the Finnish pavilion From 20th October 2020 to 10th April 2021, Dubai will host the next world exposition. More than 180 countries will be taking part, under the theme "Connecting Minds, Creating the Future". EXPO 2020 Dubai is the first world expo in the Arabic-speaking region. The organisers expect that about 70 percent of the visitors will come from other countries. On behalf of Business Finland, the project team called "Finland Pavilion building team" - consisting of the companies Expomobilia, JKMM Architects, Factor Nova, Beyond Limits and FiveCurrents is responsible for the planning and construction of the Finnish pavilion building at EXPO 2020 in Dubai. The concept, planning and execution of the Finnish pavilion building are being undertaken by JKMM Architects (Helsinki, Finland) and Expomobilia AG (Zurich, Switzerland). JKMM Architects with help of FiveCurrents and Factor Nova have put together the design concept for the building and Expomobilia, as global general contractor, is looking after the overall planning and project management in the implementation process. The partners Factor Nova (Finland), Beyond Limits (UAE) and FiveCurrents (USA) have an advisory and support role across all phases of the project from design to delivery. Further information about Expomobilia and EXPO 2020 Dubai can be found at: https://www.expomobilia.com/en-US/Pavillonbau/Dubai-World-Ex... -- Cross reference: Picture is available at AP Images (http://www.apimages.com) and https://www.presseportal.ch/de/nr/100017100/bild - Media contact: Expomobilia AG Im Langhag 2 CH-8307 Effretikon-Zuerich Marketing Franziska Engeli fengeli@expomobilia.com http://www.expomobilia.com Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/782995/Front_View.jpg https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/782996/Gorge.jpg Privacy Settings This site uses functional cookies and external scripts to improve your experience. Which cookies and scripts are used and how they impact your visit is specified on the left. You may change your settings at any time. Your choices will not impact your visit. NOTE: These settings will only apply to the browser and device you are currently using. By Azernews By Narmina Mammadova The promotion of an IPO (initial public offering of shares) in Azerbaijan began in 2011 with the signing of a decree on the development of the securities market in 2011-2020 by President Ilham Aliyev, the deputy director of InvestAZ investment company Orhan Bagirov told Trend. Subsequently, these points were reflected in the 2016 Strategic Financial Services Roadmap in order to give an additional impetus. In this regard, the director went on to say that, to date, measures have been taken on legal regulation and the creation of technical infrastructure. "As a result of this, today we already see a desire in the private sector to hold an IPO, and the government also plans to privatize five large state organizations in coming years by listing," he added. Those who wish to list the companies should have the correct corporate governance structure, transparent reporting and profitable activities. Listing of companies on the stock exchange is prestigious and reliable, but this can be done when professionalism and transparency are available, he said. Deputy Director of InvestAZ noted that not only readiness, but also desire is important for holding the IPO. "Conducting the IPO in Azerbaijan can be incorrectly assessed. The IPO is not the only way to raise funds. Moreover, this is a way to keep assets constantly liquid and reflect the results of the company's activities in the market, for shareholders who are afraid to fully sell their part of the shares," he said. In addition, Bagirov stressed that the tax and customs reforms initiated in Azerbaijan in 2016-2017 and continuing to this day have greatly helped to ensure transparency in the private sector. "As a result of these reforms, we hope to see successful IPOs in the coming years," the director added. To date, the IPO in Azerbaijan has not yet been carried out. However, local banks and companies spoke about such plans at various times. For example, the chief executive officer of Azersun Holding, Savash Uzan, previously reported Trend on negotiating with foreign consultants for an initial public offering of shares of the Azerbaijan Production Sugar Association, which is part of the holding. Also one of the country's largest banks, Unibank, is showing interest in IPO. The chairman of the board of the structure, Faig Huseynov, earlier told Trend that in the long term, the bank plans to hold an IPO. Public placement of shares in Azerbaijan at different times was discussed by companies such as Embawood and GoldenPay. Recently, Azersun Holding reported about such plans. An IPO is the first time that the stock of a private company is offered to the public. IPOs are often issued by smaller, younger companies seeking capital to expand, but they can also be done by large privately owned companies looking to become publicly traded. Today shares of almost 950 companies are traded at the Baku Stock Exchange (BSE). Turnover at the Baku Stock Exchange (BSE) exceeded 303.9 million manats last week (Oct. 29-Nov. 4), according to the statistics published on the exchanges website. The biggest volume accounted for the placement of bonds of Azerbaijans Finance Ministry worth a total of 298.2 million manats. Transactions on these bonds were concluded at a price of 99.4004 manats each. In the secondary market of the BSE, transactions were concluded on the bonds of Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR, Finance Ministry and Azerbaijan Mortgage and Credit Guarantee Fund totaling 5.7 million manats. Some 542,700 manats ($318,776) of this amount accounted for SOCAR US dollar bonds, slightly more than 3 million manats accounted for the mortgage bonds of the Azerbaijan Mortgage and Credit Guarantee Fund, and the remaining part accounted for the Finance Ministrys bonds. Last week, 4,886 transactions on shares worth 8,561.5 manats were concluded in the BSE secondary market. Monday, November 12, 2018 My Friend Jeff purchased an Iso Grifo from Ferrari of Los Gatos back in the 80s the salesman told him it was a show car and he took the comment with a grain of salt. Ya, sure it is. Well, it turns out the salesman was correct. Iso Grifo #336 was the first series two Grifo having the new long nose and it was the 1970 Turin show car. Today the car is under a full restoration bringing it back to its Turin Show look. You never know about a car until you do the research. Story courtesy of Mike Clarke, El Dorado Hills, California. Do you have a story about a cars history, or maybe about the one that got away? Please share it in the comment section below. By Azernews By Laman Ismayilova An exhibition "Melody of strokes" will open at the Museum of Modern Art on November 16. The event is timed the 110th anniversary of the National Artist of Azerbaijan Sattar Bahlulzade and the renovation of the museum, Azertag reported. The artists graphic artworks will be showcased at the exhibition. The exposition "Melody of strokes" will feature works from the private collection. More than 130 unique paintings of great painter will be presented to the viewers. The exhibition will last until January 16, 2019. The founder of contemporary Azerbaijani landscape painting, Sattar Bahlulzade skillfully put on the canvas his impressions about the fast-changing world. Strong passion for art since childhood gave him the drive to began his professional education at the National Art Institute in Baku (1927-1931). In 1931, he began to work in the "Kommunist" newspaper as a "graphic artist" under the direction of great national artist and cartoonist Azim Azimzade. Bahlulzade entered in 1933 the department of graphic arts of Moscow Institute of Arts named after V. Surikov, where he studied at the workshops of famous Soviet graphic artist Vladimir Favorskiy. For the rest of his life, the artist felt the enormous influence of his teacher, who inspired a love of beauty in his student. Sattar's legacy includes countless works that have been exhibited all over the world, including personal exhibitions in the U.S., Britain, Turkey and Russia. Many of his works include specific areas of Azerbaijan, for example, a series of landscapes dedicated to Guba area (in the north-east of Azerbaijan,): "The Shore of Gudiyalchai", "A Road to Gyz-Benevsha", "The Valley of Gudiyalchai", and "The Green Carpet". The first personal exhibition of Bahlulzade was held in 1966 in Prague. It was the first personal exhibition of a soviet Azerbaijani artist in Europe. In 1940, Bahlulzade worked on his final project "Revolt of Babek", dealing with a great hero of the 7th-century struggling against the Arabic invasion. He also created around 30 sketch diaries that contain his reflections on life and art. Bahlulzade died in 1947 due to the blood poisoning. Unlike other prominent art workers, he was laid to rest in his native village of Amirjan, next to his mother's grave. The 34th UNESCO General Assembly issued a resolution to mark the 100th anniversary of Sattar Bahlulzade in 2008-2009. Monday, November 12, 2018 My name is , Director of Research at Lexia Learning Systems LLC, A Rosetta Stone company. At Lexia, our mission is to improve student literacy by leveraging technology to personalize learning and simplify the use of data to drive instruction. The research team at Lexia is committed to evaluating the efficacy and validity of our products , informing product design, partnering with customers to evaluate their implementations and student progress, and disseminating research findings and best practices. A large part of my job is to develop dashboards and data visualizations to help communicate findings to evaluation stakeholders. In an effort to be more personalized in our reporting, Ive been thinking a lot about the balance between scalability and customization relying on templates vs. creating fresh content for each project or constituency. Recently, one of the largest school districts in the country requested custom reporting for Lexia RAPID TM Assessment , my companys online literacy screener. The request came through internal Lexia staff working with the district. Initially, I was told that they just need the basic info organized into networks of schools. I took our existing templates and mocked up what seemed like a small adjustment. The following week I presented samples to the district leaders, and they said that the graphs and tables didnt look like the report designs that they were used to. I shifted quickly and turned their attention to characteristics like format, levels of summaries (grade, network, district, school) and graph type (stacked columns, bar) to better understand what resonated with them. Then I asked for samples of their commonly used reporting so I could pull design elements that were familiar. A few weeks later I presented the updated reporting to the district leader. She commented that she saw her feedback in the revisions and how heard she felt by our team. Success! She provided a final round of feedback related to color choice and ordering of groups easy to adjust in time for the final report delivery. The training for all administrators is this week, and I feel confident that they will be able to use the information in the customized reporting to make instructional decisions at the network and school level the whole point of assessment! No matter what youve heard from your colleagues or others involved in a relationship, always start with a needs assessment to start from the beginning with the evaluation end-user. Get samples from clients/customers of reports created by their internal team! Using chart types and dashboard setups that stakeholders are familiar with will facilitate their understanding and support usefulness. Pay attention to details, something as small as a color choice or the order of the items in a stacked bar chart bring meaning to the information. Check assumptions about those qualities along your design journey. Note: Data in each image do not match, are not from a single district, and are not reflective of the district mentioned in the story. About AEA The American Evaluation Association is an international professional association and the largest in its field. Evaluation involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, personnel, products and organizations to improve their effectiveness. AEAs mission is to improve evaluation practices and methods worldwide, to increase evaluation use, promote evaluation as a profession and support the contribution of evaluation to the generation of theory and knowledge about effective human action. For more information about AEA, visit www.eval.org. The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Data Visualization and Reporting (DVR) Week with our colleagues in the DVR Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from DVR TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Pipelines have traditionally operated as the dull middle man of the energy sector, a business so boring that the hard-charging Enron dumped its pipeline holdings to chase sexier businesses during its rapid, but short-lived rise. Today, however, the once sleepy industry is where the action is, attracting billions of dollars in investment, launching new companies and spurring a wave of mergers, acquisitions and sales. Nowhere is the action more intense than in Texas, where companies of all sizes, public and private, are planning to spend more than $40 billion to build or expand almost 10,000 miles of pipelines long enough to stretch from West Texas to China to connect booming oil production in the Permian Basin primarily to refining and export markets along the Gulf Coast. The players buying and building pipelines include the worlds largest energy companies, such as Exxon Mobil of Irving, major Houston pipeline companies like Kinder Morgan and Plains All American, refiners such as Phillips 66 of Houston, and a growing list of startups backed by private equity investors. Over the past few years, analysts count dozens of new pipeline companies entering the market and more than 20 multibillion-dollar projects potentially getting underway. They seem to be announcing new pipelines every day, said Sandy Fielden, director of oil and products research at Morningstar, the Chicago investment research firm. On HoustonChronicle.com: Two more deals in busy pipeline sector Texas is at the center of the action, aided by its friendly regulatory climate as well as its vast energy resources. Texas accounts for about 40 percent of the nations record oil production which the Energy Department estimates at 11.6 million barrels a day with most of it coming from the Permian. Along with oil, energy companies also are producing record volumes of natural gas and natural gas liquids, such as ethane, propane and butane, which feed the petrochemical industry thats also expanding rapidly along the Gulf Coast. But the rapidly rising production has outpaced pipeline capacity, leading many companies to leave oil in the ground and burn off natural gas in a practice know as flaring until new pipelines can carry their energy products to market. Were feverishly trying to address the needs of the Permian Basin, said Jeff Welch, president of NAmerico Energy, a pipeline startup based in The Woodlands. These pipeline projects cant come soon enough. Private equity wave NAmerico is trying to to build the 460-mile Pecos Trail natural gas pipeline that would stretch from the Waha oil field in the Permian to just west of Corpus Christi in Agua Dulce, where it would connect to existing pipelines across the Gulf Coast or into Mexico to feed power plants and liquefied natural gas export facilitiess. The pipeline carries a price tag of more than $2 billion. NAmerico, backed by the Dallas private equity firm Cresta Energy Capital, is an example of the flood of private equity money coming into the pipeline. Private equity firms pool money from wealthy institutional and individual investors and seek undervalued and emerging assets that have the potential to yield bigger returns than traditional investments, such as stocks and bonds. Private equity firms snapped up Permian acreage at discounts during the oil bust and, after cashing in, moved into the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas, where drilling activity is picking up, and the Gulf of Mexico, where offshore blocks can be acquired at bargain prices. Now, private equity is moving more into pipelines, which hold the promise of big payouts through quick and steady cash flow pipelines make money even before oil and gas is sold with the potential to flip them for outsized profits. On HoustonChronicle.com: Protests pick up as environmentalists target pipelines NAmerico launched in 2014 with big goals. Rather than focus on smaller regional pipeline networks, NAmerico opted for larger, long-haul pipelines, coming up with the first proposal for a major new gas pipeline. Welch joked that he sometimes asks himself late at night why he went that route. Securing the necessary long-term contracts to finance the project is tough, especially when its a private startup versus well-known industry players such as Kinder Morgan, Targa Resources of Houston and Williams Cos. of Tulsa, which have all since progressed competing projects. Its proven somewhat challenging on our part to overcome that stigma, Welch acknowledged. We are in a pretty strong footrace. Another new private equity-backed player is EPIC Midstream, which was launched in early 2017 with the private equity firm Ares Management of Los Angeles. EPIC is building both crude oil and natural gas liquids pipelines that will traverse the state from southeastern New Mexico to Corpus Christi. Its 700-mile NGL pipeline is scheduled to go into operation in the third quarter of 2019, but will initially transport crude oil until EPICs crude system starts up in early 2020. Private equity has also driven a series of multibillion-dollar deals. Houston oil producer Occidental Petroleum recently sold its Permian pipeline network and its oil-exporting terminal near Corpus Christi for $2.6 billion to two private equity Houston startups, Lotus Midstream and Moda Midstream. Much of Medallion Pipeline of Dallas was recently sold from one private equity firm, The Energy & Minerals Group, to another, Global Infrastructure Partners, for about $2 billion. Another Houston producer, Apache Corp., is forming a partnership with the Los Angeles private equity firm Kayne Anderson to spin off its Permian pipeline into a new $3.5 billion company called Altus Midstream. Private equity is playing an outsized role here, said Ethan Bellamy, an energy analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. Raised profile Private equity firms, however, are not the only deal makers. Last year, in the biggest pipeline deal of late, Canadas Enbridge bought Houston-based Spectra Energy for $28 billion. The Woodlands exploration and production company Anadarko Petroleum on Thursday said it would sell its pipelines primarily in West Texas and Colorado to its spinoff Western Gas Partners in a $4 billion stock-and-cash deal. In the most unusual deal, the Canadian pension fund OMERS the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System recently paid $1.5 billion for a 50 percent stake in the expanded BridgeTex oil pipeline that runs from the Permian to Houston. But the quickening pace of deals is not only raising the profile of pipelines among energy companies and investors, but also environmentalists. Concerned about climate change, pipeline accidents and the impact on environmenally sensitive areas, activists have launched aggressive campaigns and protests to block pipelines in recent years, notably the Canada-to-Nebraska Keystone XL, whose construction was blocked again Thursday by a federal judge in Montana, and the Dakota Access that begins in North Dakota. In Louisiana, ongoing protests are trying to stop construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline from Port Arthur to St. James, La. The lack of pipeline capacity in Texas is adding another complication to the environmental debate particularly in the Permian. Unable to transport the natural gas that is a byproduct of pumping oil, producers are simply burning it off. On HoustonChronicle.com: Is Big Oil serious about methane emissions? Natural gas is mostly methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. The Permian is approaching 400 million cubic feet of gas flared daily, which is more than $1 million of natural gas a day, analysts said. With the climate crisis, whats happening out there is unimaginable, said Sharon Wilson, a Texas organizer for the environmental advocacy group Earthworks. Wilson said the answer isnt building more pipelines, but rather finding cleaner energy sources and reducing the use of fossil fuels. Energy companies and analysts have a different solution more pipelines but agree that flaring is a problem. Some companies are reducing oil production in Texas because theyre on the verge of surpassing the amounts of natural gas theyre legally permitted to flare in the state, said Sunil Sibal, an energy analyst with Seaport Global Securities in New York. Its really bad optics, Sibal said. Without having an outlet for the gas, it becomes more of a critical issue. Theyre flaring pretty aggressively and the situation is going to get worse. jordan.blum@chron.com twitter.com/jdblum23 PARADISE, Butte County Greg Woodcox pleaded with his friends to leave everything behind and flee. The firestorm that would become known as the Camp Fire was bearing down on their rural home. They had only seconds to get out. Despite Woodcoxs efforts to save the small group, a fast-moving wall of flames overtook their vehicles as they bunched up behind him at the end of Edgewood Lane on Thursday morning. Had they gotten out mere seconds sooner, they might have made it out, too, he said. Im in shock, Woodcox, 58, said in a tearful interview Sunday. Those poor souls. I tried to get them out, but we were trapped like rats. As it happens, the five deaths Woodcox witnessed were the first fatalities officials documented in the Camp Fire, in which the death toll had grown to 29 by Sunday. Moved to record what he saw, he captured the scene with his phone a video that would later anger many fellow survivors as it spread online. Woodcox recounted Sunday the horror of watching a close friend, the mans mother and three others die before turning and running for his own life. A fox, he said, scrambled across the road and showed him a path down a steep embankment into a stream, where he stayed submerged for 45 minutes, waiting out the relentless inferno. I dont know how I made it, he said. I got in a 3-foot deep V-cut in the stream. This thing came over me and roared like a furnace from hell. I said, Oh Lord, no, no. After surviving the intense flames, he hiked up the fire-scarred hillside. Back on Edgewood Lane, he found his Jeep Cherokee about 40 yards from the charred vehicles with the engine still running and his two Chihuahuas, Romey and Jules, alive in the back seat. I cant believe my truck and my dogs made it, he said. I cant wrap my brain around it. This is the Holy Spirit at work. His first instinct was to begin documenting what had happened, so he grabbed his phone inside his car and started recording, capturing the fires horrific aftermath, including the grisly remains of his dead friends. Now Playing: A video taken by Camp Fire survivor Greg Woodcox, 58, of Paradise, California on Sunday November, 11, 2018. After Paradise fire had been contained, Mr. Woodcox drove around Paradise and took footage of the scene along Edgewood Lane and Pearson Road while describing his experience. Video: Greg Woodcox The footage is stark, offering a rare and brutal view of a wildfires ferocity and danger. The skeletal remains of several victims are charred beyond recognition no more than an hour after the siege hit. Nobody made it, Woodcox says in the video. These people all got burned out. I was right down below them here. My friend, you can see hes dead, and his mother. Woodcoxs nephew, Matthew Strausbaugh, later posted the footage on YouTube, causing an uproar in Paradise, where many residents have been talking about it and are outraged. That was so insensitive, Tamara Houston said of the video as she and others rescued trapped horses around the community Sunday. You dont need to show peoples remains in the middle of such a horrible tragedy. Strausbaugh said he was torn on whether to post the video. He offered it to several local television stations and said he was even scolded by a local reporter because of the content. I figured the good and the bad of releasing it, he said. It shows some horrific things, but on the other hand, if one person sees that video and that saves one person, then their deaths are not in vain. Strausbaugh said hes been getting positive feedback from the video, too. Many commenters empathize with Woodcox, who is clearly traumatized by what happened. Woodcox, a self-described mountain person, lives mostly out of his green Jeep, where he keeps a metal detector to search for gold in the rural canyons around Paradise. He is thin with a thick mustache surrounded by gray stubble. He admitted to a past that included stints in state prison for drugs and other charges. He said he is bipolar and high strung, speaking in fragmented bursts. On Saturday, he said, he had a nervous breakdown after processing what hed been through. The morning of the fire, he was visiting a dog park when he spotted the flames coming toward town. Feeling the intense winds and watching the fire explode in size, he got in his sport utility vehicle and began warning people about the nearing monster. After alerting his adult son and ex-wife at their separate homes, he headed to the end of Edgewood where his paraplegic friend lived with his mom. I said, Get out! Youre going to die if you dont get out! Woodcox recalled. I did everything I could do. I dragged one of them to the car. He led the caravan of vehicles, which included more neighbors, down the small roadway, but one of the cars got stuck and the others following it were hemmed in as Woodcox continued down the road. When he turned around, it was too late. Fire had overtaken the cars, with glass shattering in loud pops, he said. He figured he was next, so he turned to the flames, said a prayer and prepared to meet the God hed recently started believing in. I saw a fox was running for his life, so I said, No Lord, were coming, too, he said. When he got to the stream at the bottom of the ravine, he began to panic as the water turned from chilly to the hottest hot tub Ive ever felt, he said. He remembered learning to steady his breathing through martial arts training and relaxed himself as the fire roared overhead like a freight train. When I got back and saw my dogs, I was crying and barely holding myself, he said. Jessica Christian / The Chronicle His Jeep still drives, but much of the plastic, including the bumpers, tail lights and other pieces on the outside of the vehicle melted. Hes been sleeping in the SUV at area rest stops, driving around during the day, thinking about his ordeal. Its just really hard Im traumatized, he said. But I have to believe what I went through was for a reason. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky I started swimming in Martinez Creek in the late 1930s. The creek water came from the San Pedro Springs via acequias and ran from the park to the downtown area. The creek ran parallel to South Laredo Street. The first time I heard the name Blue Hole was when I first dove into the creek from a bank that bordered the outlet that came from the Mission Ice House at Rivas and San Marcos streets. The Blue Hole that I remember was at that outlet. To this day, when I talk to folks who swam there, that outlet is the only Blue Hole they remember. Would you check out what Im writing about? For all we know, there may have been two Blue Holes. Frank R. Almaraz The Blue Hole thats best-known to most San Antonians is the one near the University of the Incarnate Word protected by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, but its far from the only one. I think that every county in Texas has at least one Blue Hole, said Gregg Eckhardt, who curates the Edwards Aquifer website at www.edwardsaquifer.net. Waco, Wimberley and Georgetown each boast a Blue Hole, and theres another in Jasper Countys Angelina National Forest. They may be lakes, lagoons, springs or bends in a river, but they all share the same moniker. From the late 1800s through the first decades of the 20th century, Eckhardt said, the term blue hole was used to describe any sizeable depression with a spring in it or any pool on the river suitable for swimming. Before swimming pools or even indoor plumbing were common, they were the only place to go for a cooling dip or take an immersive bath. In and around San Antonio, people have given that name to swimming spots on Salado Creek, at least two in the Olmos Basin, one on the Medina River and one at the Commerce Street crossing of the San Antonio River. Those were just generic, lower-case blue holes, a few feet deep, where on summer afternoons as many as a dozen boys could be seen in the water, having the time of their lives, according to a historical article about swimming holes in the San Antonio Express, March 25, 1934. The Blue Hole near the Lone Star Brewery the original, now the San Antonio Museum of Art at 120 Jones Ave. was famously fatal. It was a hole which was supposed to have no bottom, as reported by the Express, Aug. 6, 1911. The popular swimming place along the river in the northern part of the city was known before the brewery was built in 1885 and proved a treacherous temptation for its employees. In a story headlined Another Victim, the San Antonio Light, June 28, 1888, reported that William Grace, an English mechanic aged 40 years was bathing in the river, adjacent to the Blue Hole with two other men when he suddenly disappeared. After diving several times, his companions succeeded in recovering the body, but Grace was then dead. Less than a year later, a brewery employee drowned when his rowboat capsized; by the time would-be rescuers arrived, the missing man had sank, and it was several hours before his body could be found, reported the San Antonio Light, April 13, 1889. In old news accounts, the one near Lone Star on the river was regarded as the Blue Hole, said Eckhardt. Today we think of the one at Incarnate Word as the Blue Hole, but they used to call that one Worth's Spring. It was named for Gen. William Jenkins Worth, namesake of Fort Worth, who stopped there in 1849 with his troops as he arrived in San Antonio to take command of the Armys Department of Texas. With some of his men, he fell ill with cholera and died May 7, 1849. Worth was buried near the spring and later reinterred with a monument in New York. This source spring or headwaters of the San Antonio River was known as Worths Spring well into the 20th century. Whether it should be called a blue hole, let alone the Blue Hole is a matter of opinion. The term is a popular name for vertical caves in water features all around, said David Haynes, coauthor with Maria Watson Pfeiffer of The Historical Narrative of San Pedro Creek, a resource for the Westside Creeks Restoration Project. That's one thing that I have always found a little strange for the headwaters, because it's not anything like a hole, blue or otherwise, that I can see. The rocks and minerals in the aquifer give the Blue Hole water its namesake blue color, said Pamela Ball, associate director of the Headwaters at Incarnate Word, an independent nonprofit ministry of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word that protects and preserves the 53-acre Headwaters Sanctuary. A circular stone enclosure gives the spring the look of a hole, from which some outflow has been seen again recently after heavy rains brought up the aquifer level. As for the blue hole you ask about, the source of the water might be different from what you remember. Martinez Creek starts way up north somewhere along Callaghan Road, said Hector Cardenas, president of the Friends of San Pedro Springs. The creek, one of several tributaries of the San Antonio River, crosses Fredericksburg Road and then dumps into the Alazan (Creek). There were two acequias leading from San Pedro Springs, one in 1718 that had its outlet near whats now the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts and one dug by the city in 1875 that never worked. It was supposed to carry water from the major acequia near Marshall (street) and San Pedro (Avenue) north through the park and then south around where the Union Pacific tracks are, Cardenas said. City engineers apparently did not understand that water does not run uphill. This acequia was shut down in 1876; there are still remnants of it in San Pedro Park. Neither Eckhardt nor Haynes has heard of the Martinez Creek blue hole, but our River City has had many such natural recreation spots. Ive always thought that with some of these old postcards of fishing and swimming holes, Eckhardt said, there were probably people who would have said, That was the Blue Hole! Anyone who remembers a Blue Hole in Martinez Creek - or anywhere else in San Antonio - may contact this column. All replies will be forwarded and may be quoted in a future column. historycolumn@yahoo.com | Twitter: @sahistorycolumn | Facebook: SanAntoniohistorycolumn Vanessa Forbes fumes as she passes a massage parlor tucked away in a shopping center off Mason Road in a Katy area full of pristine homes, high quality schools and safe neighborhoods. A similarly named spa in Spring had employees arrested for prostitution earlier this year, and this shop sits next door to the constables office. As soon as I saw the sign, I called the constables office, Forbes said during a van tour for Elijah Rising, a nonprofit that aims to fight human trafficking. I was livid. I was like My kids went to martial arts right here. The serious problem of human trafficking must spill into the suburbs, Forbes remember thinking after she took a similar tour of Houston. Informational van tours, which began in the Katy area in March 2015, show volunteers and potential volunteers spots around town, like massage parlors, suspected to harbor human trafficking. Now the 37-year-old mother leads the tours around the sprawling suburb. She also serves as interventions director for Elijah Rising, a non-profit that formed in 2012 to stop trafficking by raising awareness and doing outreach across the city. When we think about women being prostituted or sold out of homes or apartments, we often think of that as being an inner-city issue, said Forbes. Thats not the case. That happens here in the suburbs too. Holy cow, in Fort Bend County? As the van winds down Mason Road, she explains to the handful of participants how to tell which shops are suspected as undercover trafficking spots. She said customers should take note if massage businesses have signs or curtains over the windows, making it hard to peek through. Businesses with the prices listed on the window could be illicit, noting that higher-end massage parlors dont do that. If you think about it, Katy is this nice wholesome family community, said Forbes. Its the majority of lunch hour when youll see the business of massage parlors going. Forbes, who has assisted with monthly interventions at the Katy area massage parlors since 2016, notes that many of the women working are from China and are usually in their late 40s. A lot of them have children. Theyre promised work. Theyre promised a better life here in the United States, said Forbes. When she started working for Elijah Rising, she said the Katy area had 22 massage parlors, 14 of which were unlicensed. Many have obtained licenses since but Forbes said trafficking still remains a problem in the area. Assistant Chief Tim Tyler, with the Katy Police Department, said he is not aware problems of human trafficking in the city of Katy but notes that parts of Katy are still considered to be in Fort Bend County or Harris. In the city of Katy, we havent noticed a problem yet, said Tyler. He acknowledge that there still could be trafficking hes unaware of, Im sure it exists out there. Trafficking isnt a new phenomenon to the suburbs. In 2015, a prostitution raid at Oasis Foot Reflexology in the affluent neighborhood Cinco Ranch made residents realize it could happen in their backyards. Holy cow, in Fort Bend County? Fort Bend County Precinct 3 Constable Rob Cook recounted reporters saying when the news broke in a previous Houston Chronicle article about trafficking. Then the following year, 36-year-old Willie Honable was found dead inside his home on Ellerbe Springs in Cinco Ranch. During the murder trial earlier this summer, women testified about living in the wealthy neighborhood and working for him as a prostitute. Non-profits like Not In Our City and Childproof America have sprung up to address the problem. Human trafficking interventions are scheduled to start in League City in November and in Atascocita next spring 2019. If they see someone who is on the outskirts, or see someone who is vulnerable, theyll befriend that person, said Forbes about traffickers. They have people in high school. They have recruiters that stand in malls. They have recruiters that stand in shopping centers. Robert Henslee, a spokesperson for the Harris County Precinct 5 Constables Office, said they have not received any reports of human trafficking or prostitution from the Katy area business that sits next to the constables office. Sheriff Troy Nehls in Fort Bend County has also said there is little evidence of human trafficking in the area. He acknowledge there have been several spas shut down in Fort Bend County over the last two years for prostitution, but said the individuals arrested have provided little evidence that theyre forced into the crime. It just seems now that the word is being pushed around and all of a sudden if you found a day spa and someones giving massages and doing some sexual favors, are they automatically now being human trafficked? said Nehls. Are they prostitutes or are they prostitutes out there being forced to behave this way? Nehls also said that the sheriffs office has good relationships with shopping center owners in the area, and he will contact them if they hear a complaint of illicit activity. He notes, that most of the times the landlord will evict the business if suspicious activity is happening. He said his office also monitors businesses before making an arrest. He notes that hes sensitive to the issue because he has three daughters of his own and commends non-profit organizations for educating the community about the issue. I truly love the children that call Fort Bend County home, said Nehls. If we had a human trafficking issue in Fort Bend County, I would be the first one out there addressing the issue. We dont have it. We have very little data. Now they own you Kathy McGibbon, program director at Kendleton Farms, a restoration program created by Elijah Rising, knows how valuable healing can be after surviving trafficking herself. She said it took seven years before she could speak openly about her experience. When she was 21, she was swept up in the world by her boyfriend an aspiring rapper in Houston. He whisked her away to Dallas while recording his album. The trip quickly turned into something different when he began posting pictures of her on websites and forcing her to perform sex acts on clients. She also was forced to work as a prostitute on the street. Her boyfriend isolated her from friends and family, which McGibbon notes is typical behavior by pimps toward the women they traffic. Its strategic, said McGibbon, now 38. They dont need any of your friends talking in your ears, anything positive influence. They need to remove you from whats normal because now they own you. McGibbons boyfriend told her the trip to Dallas would only be three months but it stretched to nine. The mother of her boyfriends child eventually fell ill and they returned to Houston. When she arrived back in Houston, McGibbon called her brother to pick her up. She managed to escape her toxic life with her ex-boyfriend, but it would be years before she experienced true healing. I shut down because the shame, No. 1, said McGibbon. I cant believe I did that. Theres a lot of self-blame. If I had a place like Kendleton, I couldve called someone and gotten help with that. Elijah Risings restoration program will be held at Kendleton Farms, a sprawling 84 acre campus in Fort Bend. It first opened in 2015 as an emergency shelter for women, but has since expanded. The 15- to 24-month program will offer women trauma-informed therapy, housing, life skills and job training, which McGibbon said are necessary to those trying to cope after the trauma of trafficking. The grooming process and the process of being trafficked is so grueling, said McGibbon. These traffickers and these predators, they specialize in breaking you down. They specialize in making you feel worthless. They specialize in dehumanizing you. At Kendleton Farms, were trying to help reverse that process. brooke.lewis@chron.com A proposed $31 billion project of levees and sea gates known as the Ike Dike is the official preferred plan to protect the Houston-Galveston region from devastating storm surge, but Rice University researchers are raising significant concerns about that plan and now offer an alternative. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Texas General Land Office released the first phase of a coastal protection study last month. Plans for the ambitious project, a complex 70-mile system running from High Island to the San Luis Pass, are still at least a decade away from completion. The corps and the land office expect to release a final study in 2021 before sending it to Congress to consider funding the project. A group of Rice professors are, however, among a handful of political, engineering and environmental experts who plan to raise significant questions about the proposed barrier during the projects public comment period. GREEN LIGHT: Army Corps of Engineers gives nod to $31 billion "Ike Dike" plan Jim Blackburn, a Rice professor and co-director of the universitys Severe Storm Prediction, Education & Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center, says the Corps initial Ike Dike study was incomplete because it did not account for the more powerful storms that have swept through the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean in recent years. The Corps coastal plan, called the Ike Dike, is named for the 2008 hurricane that caused more than $30 billion in damages to the Houston-Galveston region. Hurricanes more powerful than Ike, including Harvey, Irma and Maria all in 2017, had unique characteristics rarely seen in major storms, Blackburn said. Ike Dike timeline 2008: Hurricane Ike makes landfall in Galveston as a Category 2 storm, bringing 17-foot storm surges and causing more than $30 billion worth of damage. 2009: Bill Merrell, a professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston, develops the "Ike Dike" concept - a coastal barrier designed to protect the Houston-Galveston region from future storm surges. 2015: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Texas General Land Office begin work on a Coastal Texas Protection and Restoration Study Draft Integrated Feasibility Report and Environmental Impact Statement, expected to take 5.5 years. 2018: The Corps and the land office release the initial phase of a coastal protection study and draft environmental impact statement, selecting a modified version of the "Ike Dike" concept as the preferred coastal barrier alignment. Estimated cost: $23 billion to $31 billion. 2021: The final study of the coastal barrier is expected to be issued by the Army Corps of Engineers and General Land Office and the recommendation sent to Congress to consider funding. See More Collapse The storms that are being analyzed by the Corps are, in my opinion, too small, Blackburn said. Theyre just not making landfall at the worst locations, with the type of wind fields and characteristics were seeing. I cant remember if it was (Hurricanes) Irma or Maria, it was an Ike-like storm with Category 5 winds. Thats not supposed to happen. Larry Dunbar, a project manager at the SSPEED Center, added that the modeling system the Corps used to predict the effects of storms on its proposed barrier was outdated and that the study did not account for the worst possible storm tracts that could hit the Houston area. We said were using the updated information because thats what we do, and (the Army Corps of Engineers) said, Thats fine, were gonna use the old model because thats what the flood insurance study work was based on and we want to be consistent with that, Dunbar said. I cant argue with that, but we at least now know whats the difference between the two models, what effect it has, its effect on larger storms, you know it, I know it. Blackburn also believes the Corps proposed barrier leave parts of Harris County most notably the Port of Houston and the sprawling industrial and petrochemical facilities along Galveston Bay vulnerable. We think that there is too much remaining surge exposure, and its a valid concern, both with regard to the ship channel, to the Bayport Industrial Complex and with regard to the Clear Lake area, Blackburn said. The two protection proposals The Corps alternative proposal includes a navigation gate placed along the Houston Ship Channel and smaller gates built near Clear Creek and Dickinson Bayou, but does not go as far as the SSPEED Centers proposal for a mid-bay gate to protect Galveston Bay. The Galveston Bay Park plan, first proposed by the SSPEED Center in 2015, includes similar protection features as the Corps proposal for protecting Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston, but adds a vital component: a 25-foot, mid-bay barrier system that would protect the industrial complexes and densely populated areas in the west and northwest sections of Galveston Bay. Blackburn views the mid-bay gate as part of a bifurcated system an internal barrier and a coastal barrier that would not preclude the Ike Dike concept favored by the Corps and political leadership on the local, state and federal levels. He called the gate a highly complementary feature to the extensive barrier the Corps put forth, but one that could be built in half the time at a fraction of the cost estimated from $3 billion to $5 billion. We think this alternative needs to be permitted, Blackburn said. Were going to be urging Harris County to investigate filing a permit application. We are going to argue that to any governmental entity that is interested. I think we need options. If all of our eggs are in a $30 billion federal appropriation, that just sounds too risky to me. Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner have thrown their political weight behind the coastal barrier Turner called on all of our government partners to back the Corps proposal, while Emmett has repeatedly said the time for debate on the Ike Dike has long since passed. It remains to be seen whether Blackburn would be able to secure the political support to move the mid-bay gate forward. After serving 11 years, Republican Emmett was defeated in his re-election bid this week by Lina Hidalgo during a Democratic sweep of most countywide races. The project has also been hailed by the Gulf Coast Community Protection and Recovery District, an entity formed in the wake of Hurricane Ike to help Brazoria, Chambers, Galveston, Harris, Jefferson and Orange counties develop plans and conduct studies to alleviate damage from future storms. The districts Board of Directors is made up of the county judge of each participating county and three additional appointed members serving three-year terms. Youre talking about a region hundreds of miles from the Sabine River all the way down to the Rio Grande, said Robert Eckels, the former Harris County judge who serves as president of the recovery district. The numbers do not seem, on their surface, to be outside of what you might expect on a project of this scale. Environmental pitfalls Ironically, given the price tag assigned to the Ike Dike, the Corps of Engineers cited the SSPEED Centers mid-bay gates cost as one of the reasons it declined to back the proposal as its tentatively selected plan, as well as the impact the project would have on oyster beds in Galveston Bay. It is cutting through probably the most densely inhabited oysters in the bay and thats one of the reasons that we had to screen it out, said Kelly Burks-Copes, the project manager for the Army Corps study. But the Corps proposal is not without its own environmental pitfalls. Environmentalists are concerned that the Corps barrier would restrict the flow of water in and out of Galveston Bay, potentially reducing salinity and affecting marine life. Organizations like the Galveston Bay Foundation have also noted that not all of the bay-facing industrial facilities are adequately protected from storm surges. Its one of the reasons that the SSPEED Centers mid-bay gate has gained some traction as a viable alternative. (The Galveston Bay Park plan) is potentially more attractive because its cheaper and could potentially get done in a shorter period of time, but it also doesnt have the big gate in front of the pass in Galveston Bay, said Bob Stokes, the president of the Galveston Bay Foundation. That one would not be without impacts so Im not necessarily saying thats a preferred alternative for us, but to me its got some possibilities for sure. Helen Drummond, the executive director of the Houston Audubon Society, is also concerned that the placement of the barriers along Bolivar Peninsula the exact location of which has yet to be determined might infringe on the world-renowned migratory and shorebird sanctuaries on the peninsula that the Audubon Society owns. We had concerns from the beginning about the environmental analysis being done so that we could make an effective and informed evaluation about which (barrier alignment) we thought would be most productive, Drummond said. Drummond echoes the view of many environmentalists that armoring natural coastal areas like beaches, wetlands, coastal prairie, and the bay itself to protect them from storms is contradictory, given that reinforcing those natural barriers can assist in mitigation, and also supports looking at more affordable options that target high-risk areas of concern along the ship channel and the western edge of Galveston Bay. Even the original architect of the Ike Dike concept Dr. Bill Merrell, a Texas A&M University Galveston professor, agrees that wetlands and natural coastal barriers should be protected, but added that the farther off the coast the barriers are placed, the more likely it will impede on residential areas. The Corps study cites an estimate that more than 1,000 homes or businesses may need to be bought and replaced along the coast to make room for the barrier. Theres a couple of areas where well enter into a debate with (the Army Corps of Engineers) on that and suggest approaches where we certainly dont want to destroy any wetlands if we dont have to, Merrell said. I dont think we have to. I think theyve done that because its cheaper to put the barriers as far back as possible, but you do sacrifice all the houses in the front. Thats pretty tough. Whether Congress will have the stomach to fund a barrier that costly, proponents of the Corps barrier acknowledge will be an uphill battle, and time is a factor. The final Corps study is expected to be completed by 2021. By that time, the Houston-Galveston region could very well see another major storm of Ike or Harvey proportions or worse. Its a process. Its a process I dont like, but theres only two things thats going to trigger funding for that, said Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, and a supporter of the Corps proposal. One, is we have a disaster weve been afraid of for quite some time, and number two, wait until the studys completed. Staff writer Zach Despart contributed to this report. nick.powell@chron.com The somber faces in the crowd appeared to be in tune with the chilly, wet weather as the first of 21 bells tolled Sunday at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery and elsewhere to mark the armistice that ended World War I. The combatants of that war, and almost all the civilians, are gone. Those bundled in jackets and sheltered from a misty rain by umbrellas during the one-hour, 25-minute ceremony carried technology the likes of which doughboys of the day never imagined digital cameras, video recorders and hand-sized cell phones that captured the moment and shared it with the world instantly. When World War I ended, movies had been around for only about 20 years; talkies wouldnt become popular until the Depression. Radio, a relatively new technology, fell under government regulation in 1912 the year the Titanic sank. Typhoid vaccine became available to the public two years later, but polio would strike terror for decades to come. War, on the other hand, was quite modern. Tanks, machine guns, artillery, mustard gas, airplanes and disease filled Europes cemeteries over the four years of World War I. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, Britain lost 57,470 troops, 19,240 of them killed, according to the BBC. By wars end, 65 million would die. British author H.G. Wells called it the war to end all wars, but it was just a down payment. Another 60 million would perish in World War II, two-thirds of them civilians, and other conflicts would follow in Korea, Vietnam, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Bitter clashes would fill the history books Bastogne, Tarawa, Chosin, Hue and the second battle of Fallujah, called Operation Phantom Fury. I honor those who sacrifice, but I mourn that as a species we have not cracked the code on this, retired Army Lt. Col. Jim Tripp, 55, a veteran of the Iraq war, said after the ceremony closed with rifle volleys and taps. I wish that people smarter than me could figure out how do we avoid this. The thought echoed with other veterans at the cemetery, the traditional gathering place for Veterans Day in a city called Military City, U.S.A. because of its deep ties to the Army and Air Force. It's been home to some of the nation's best-known commanders, from Robert E. Lee and John J. Pershing to Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The city has long marked the holiday with a solemn ceremony, one featuring patriotic music, solemn rituals that include posting the colors, the world-traveled Texas Childrens Choir, and a naturalization ceremony that this year saw eight people become American citizens. Some wore military uniforms. Tripps wife, Kathryn, teared up when she saw an elderly veteran, perhaps in his 90s, clap as the choir rehearsed The Star Spangled Banner. One of the first to arrive, he stood up with the help of his son and sang The Air Force Song during the ceremonys service medley. That was the first time I got to hear his voice. He sang very excitedly, she said. Air Force veteran Tom Pike worked in a contingency hospital in Germany during Gulf War I. He did not go to the war zone. Im fortunate to be a veteran who didnt have to give his life, said Pike, who served 21 years, half as an enlistee, before retiring as a captain. The ceremony in many ways looked just as it has for years, right down to the rain that fell, but the emphasis on the 100th anniversary of World War Is end made it different. Bells not only tolled at the cemetery, where 7,331 World War I veterans are buried, but also at St. Marys University. There, and in cities across the Lone Star State that include Fredericksburg and Houston, the sound of tolling bells filled the air, as did the crack of rifles firing and, finally, haunting silence. Veterans Day began as Armistice Day, declared by the United States, Great Britain and France to mark the cease-fire that ended World War I at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Congress redesignated the day in 1954 to honor all serving in America's wars. Texans played a big role in the war, with about 200,000 troops serving from August 1917 to the end, most of them in France. The 36th and 90th Infantry Divisions were called up, and while most of those going to war were men, 450 women served as nurses, according to the Texas World War I Centennial Committee. In all, 5,170 Texans died, seven of them women from the U.S Army & Navy Nurse Corps. A third of all the deaths occurred in the U.S. due to the influenza epidemic of 1918. Four Texans were awarded the Medal of Honor, one from San Antonio. Given the medal posthumously, Pvt. David Bennes Barkley was Hispanic. As bad as the war was, it helped shape the future of veterans care at home. The changes were small at first, but a profound transformation would come with a series of conflicts far from Americas shores over the ensuing decades. In 1921, Congress combined all World War I veterans programs into one to create the Veterans Bureau. Public Health Service veterans hospitals were transferred to the bureau, and an ambitious hospital construction program for World War I veterans commenced. Soldiers exposed to mustard gas and other chemicals required special care, prompting the opening of tuberculosis and neuropsychiatric hospitals. Benefits were expanded to cover disabilities not service-related, and in 1928 admission to bureau facilities was extended to women, National Guard and militia veterans. The VA was created two years later. The Veterans Health Administration began as the first facility for Civil War veterans of the Union Army, with President Abraham Lincoln signing a law creating a national soldiers and sailors asylum in 1865. Its now the largest of three administrations in VA, which this year has a $208.8 billion budget. Roughly 19.6 million veterans were thought to be alive as of Sept. 30, according to the VA. Just 496,777 of those survivors served in World War II, a conflict involving 16 million Americans. With Japans attack on Pearl Harbor, World War II was the first of three major U.S. conflicts that ran over the next 34 years. Korea and Vietnam followed, producing 1.7 million and 3.4 million veterans in the theater of war and millions of others serving during those eras worldwide. Few who served in all three wars are still around, just 16,349, but millions of others have since fought in Grenada, Panama, Gulf War I, Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the globe, including Syria. The war on terrorism has run 17 years with no end in sight. Retired Army Staff Sgt. Steve Zavala, a veteran of Operation Just Cause, the 1989 invasion of Panama, dismissed the chilly weather Sunday, especially when compared with the privations troops endured in wars going back to Valley Forge, the home of George Washingtons Continental Army in 1777. We take a look starting with the Revolutionary War and the true hardship of Valley Forge, said Zavala, 61, of Wilson County. We move forward to trench warfare in World War I, we get to see the horrors of Bastogne, and we get to see the Chosin few of Korea, the misery of Vietnam. It continues today, so this is nothing. Sig Christenson covers the military and its impact in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | sigc@express-news.net | Twitter: @saddamscribe A former dancer and once rising star of Ballet San Antonio remains in jail accused of sexual assault after he was found not guilty recently of a different sexual assault charge. In both cases, Hugo Ihosvany Rodriguez, 27, was accused by female dancers in the ballet company. A Bexar County jury of seven men and five women deliberated for about two hours Nov. 2 before acquitting Rodriguez of sexual assault. Defense attorneys James Vincent Tocci and Kelly McGinnis had argued that the accuser regretted having consensual sex after the two slept in her bed on March 12, 2017. READ ALSO: Former Ballet San Antonio dancer found not guilty of sexual assault Prosecutors Anna Scott and Clint Malloy had told the jury that Rodriguez entered the womans bedroom while she slept and forced himself on her without consent. (The Express-News does not identify complainants in sexual assault cases.) Rodriguez was indicted Sept. 20, 2017, on the second sexual assault charge. The female dancer went to police with the allegation in July 2017 and said the assault had occurred in December 2016. Rodriguez is in the Bexar County jail, with bail set at $30,000, records show. On Friday, Tocci said Rodriguez has been unable to afford bail because he does not have family members here to support him. He said his client is innocent of the second charge, and he looked forward to a jury trial. The complainants allegations came out only after the other complainant made her allegations, he said, adding that Rodriguez and the woman were having a sexual relationship. The complainant will verify that. Tocci said he believes prosecutors already tried the strongest of the two cases. READ ALSO: Jurors hearing San Antonio rape case involving ballet dancer But he added, We are prepared to go to trial. Tocci said the case is uncertain because the second accuser no longer lives in the United States. District Attorney Nico LaHoods office issued a statement Sunday that said prosecutors are considering whether or not the office will pursue the other charge. At the recent trial, witnesses testified that Rodriguez and others, including the female dancer, had been socializing earlier in the night. She went home with her roommate. Rodriguez began texting the woman that he wanted to go over to her apartment, but the texts were never answered because she had gone to sleep. About 4 a.m., Rodriguez called the roommate to let him into the apartment. Because he had stayed there before on the couch, the roommate let him in, she testified. Once the roommate went back to sleep in her room, Rodriguez went into the dancers room, crawled into the bed and began having what he believed was consensual sex, he told police in an interview after the incident. The accuser testified at the trial that she was awakened with Rodriguez having sex with her and that she never invited him over or gave consent. If convicted in the new case, Rodriguez faces two to 20 years in prison. By Trend Better future for Armenia is closely linked to ending the occupation of the Azerbaijani territories, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys acting spokeswoman Leyla Abdullayeva said Nov. 12. She was commenting on the speech by acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan. Hopefully acting prime minister of Armenia realizes that his statement at the Paris Peace Forum deeply contradicts the foreign policy of Armenia, which violated the fundamental principles of international law, especially the principle of non-use of force and occupied the territories of Azerbaijan and deprived hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis historically living in Nagorno-Karabakh of their fundamental right - the right to live on their homeland, she said. Does the exercise of right of self-determination mean conduct of ethnic cleansing with regard to other ethnic groups living in the same area? Does the supremacy of international law mean military occupation of territories and imposing a fait-accompli solution? The same fundamental principles that Pashinyan mentions in his statement, clearly answer the above questions, its enough simply to read the UN Charter and Helsinki Final Act, she noted. For those who do not want to read or does not want to understand what is written well quote: States will respect the equal rights of peoples and their right to self-determination, acting at all times in conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and with the relevant norms of international law, including those relating to territorial integrity of states. Addressing the international forums and speaking of peace and better future is good, but the most important thing is not stating only, but acting in accordance with what have been said, Abdullayeva noted. Better future for our region and Armenia itself closely linked with ending the occupation of the Azerbaijani territories by Armed Forces of Armenia and return of all IDPs to their homeland, she said. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov participated at the Paris Peace Forum and presented a book to the Peace Library, she said. The book entitled Karabakh realities had a following note by the minister that world should not forget that there is still injustice, when people forcefully ethnically cleansed from the places of their origin like it happens in Azerbaijan as a result of aggression of the armed forces of Armenia. There is no other choice for Armenia rather than withdraw their troops from Azerbaijan's lands, respect our boarders and restore peace and stability in the region. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Bexar County officials gathered near Fort Sam Houston on Monday to celebrate the opening of its new Military and Veterans Service Center. The newly created offices goal will be to reach not only veterans but also service members who are within six months of being discharged, according to Commissioner Kevin Wolff, who spearheaded the project as the county courts veterans liaison. We start too late, Wolff said. We want to make contact with them before they transition out. Around 4,000 service members in the county leave the military every year. Wolff said the county has more than doubled its investment in veterans services by creating the office. It has spent around $350,000 in past years on its Veterans Service Office. Commissioners budgeted more than $900,000 for the expanded center, as well as $700,000 in capital investments. The VSO focused on helping veterans with disability claims, according to Wolff. The new center also will have employees called military service officers that help outgoing service members look for jobs and education opportunities in the area. Its not the militarys job to teach you how to be a civilian again, Wolff said. Thats our job. The county partnered with the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce to pair service members and their families with employers and job training for free. Employers out there, they are desperate for good employees, Wolff said. They would love to be able to tap into the experience that military veterans have. Three service officers have already been working for the countys new venture for about six months, including one inside the gates of Fort Sam, Wolff said. The county expects to hire three more by the end of the year. Brig. General Laura L. Lenderman, commander of Joint Base San Antonio, said the center will help service members adapt to a new normal. This vital support is so critical as we begin that transition to a life out of uniform, she said. Officials hope to expand the services into Randolph and Lackland within the next year-and-a-half. Wolff said the center will eventually have between 20 and 25 employees. On Friday, the court tapped Karen Rolirad, who had been deputy director of the citys Office of Military and Veteran Affairs, to lead the center. Dylan McGuinness covers local politics and the Bexar County government for the Express-News. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinness Billy Calzada/Staff Photographer The San Antonio Fire Department is sending eight firefighters from its wildland team to Southern California, where wildfires continued to rage Sunday. The San Antonio cohort will leave Monday morning, joining a larger group of about 200 firefighters and 55 engines from across Texas, according to city and state officials. Its difficult to understand how asylum-seekers from Central America are making their way to the U.S. border, thousands of them together and on foot for almost a month now, apparently without major incident or funding. Critics have raised suspicions about how such large groups are managing to stay on track. Some think theyre backed by a nefarious source. Conspiracy theorists have imagined billionaire George Soros as underwriter of the massive convoy, though no evidence of that has been uncovered. All over the world and throughout human existence, however, migrants have been in constant motion by any means necessary fueled by one driving force: desperation. Clergyman Gavin Rogers, an adventurer by nature, left San Antonio Friday and flew to Mexico City to get a first-hand look, to walk among as he put it a group of Honduran migrants he estimated at several thousand. The associate pastor of Travis Park United Methodist Church and host of the popular Pub Theology group has done this sort of thing before. Several years ago, he took in a homeless man in as a roommate. He has gone on dozens of mission trips to Central America and traveled to Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood burned down Coptic churches. On Saturday morning, Rogers left a stadium with asylum-seekers whod been resting for a few days. He shared his observances, photos and interviews with them over the weekend via phone and Facebook. By Sunday, he was atop a flatbed trailer along with hundreds of others. The thankfully slow, free ride was short, before the driver asked them to hop off so he could get to his own destination. Rogers didnt see any real financing, just cooperation and charity. Evangelical preachers offering words; nuns giving away oranges. Unlike those whove characterized Central American migrants as criminals, Rogers said, The criminals are the ones they are fleeing. The young people because only the young can making the trip sought to travel in numbers and thus in safety. The caravan has quasi-self-appointed leaders, among them members of Pueblos Sin Fronteras, an immigrant rights group that has organized caravans before to help migrants get to their destinations safely. They create spaces and movement, he said. Some are college-age activists whove volunteered to make the trip. They carry megaphones, though Rogers said he never heard them used. The caravan moves successfully from encampment to encampment because of government, too. The Mexican government has responded as it would during a natural disaster, providing shelter. It offered free subway rides out of Mexico City this weekend. U.N. aid workers can be found at encampments, too, Rogers said, noting that there is some wariness between Pueblos Sins Fronteras and U.N. representatives. He talked with them, police, too. The walk has thus far been a peaceful one, Rogers said, and he has found joy there, too. He recorded interviews with Honduras who spoke of government corruption, criminalization of entire towns and extreme poverty, lack of work and places without hope and opportunity. Rogers says some people hear asylum-seekers say theyre seeking a better life and hear, Theyre going to steal our jobs. But for refugees, a better life just means life, he said. Theyre not out to steal anything, he said. A few have died en route, he learned. One man carried an umbrella belonging to one of the dead. He told Rogers hes taking it to the U.S. border in his memory. The migrants are carrying all their belongings on their backs blankets, tents, clothes, hats, whatever money they had. Backpacks are weighed down. When they get to shelter, they charge phones, check-in with loved ones. Some walkers are offered short-term rides on buses and trucks. Theyre spontaneous, like the driver who offered a group of walkers a lift on the back of his semi-flatbed truck. Bus fares are cheap, but he didnt see any shell out money for rides. Ordinary people offer aid, like the Mexican town that passed out food. Rogers got a can of tuna, organic, straight up, he said. They walk fast, he said, even women with strollers. I can barely keep up. Theyre stick together in an act of solidarity, he said. Some of my moderate and conservative friends say, Why dont they stay in Mexico? because Mexico is offering them aid to do so, he said. Some have; others say theyre not sure Mexico can offer them opportunities. As far as he could tell, no right- or -left-wing source is funding the caravan. And amid the suffering and stories of suffering, he said, there is a crazy amount of joy and love. Elaine Ayala covers religion and minority affairs in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | eayala@express-news.net | Twitter: @ElaineAyala AUSTIN Texas never sent a Latina to Congress before, but voters opted to send two in last weeks election. Voters in Michigan and Minnesota elected the nations first Muslim women to Congress. And New York is sending a 29-year-old woman to join them, making her the youngest female elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. All those firsts are just the beginning of historic wins that will send more women to Congress than ever before, and twice as many women from Texas, with six in the states 2019 congressional delegation. Other states made their own landmarks. Iowa, which had never sent any women to Congress, voted to send two. And two states New Mexico and Kansas elected the nations first Native American women to Congress. I think the last presidential election was a gut-check, said Shelia Patrick, a project manager from Round Rock as she and thousands of women gathered Friday at the 19th Annual Texas Conference for Women in Austin. Its a widening awakening of saying, what is our worth? It was an election in which health care became a leading issue and suburban women were a prized demographic for Democrats. People in the crowd at the Conference for Women pointed to President Donald Trumps election the me too movement and the confirmation battle over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as having propelled more women into office. I think its about time, said Sharon Fisher, of Cedar Park, who works with environmental, health and safety sectors of the semiconductor industry. As time goes on, were going to see more women infiltrating Congress, Senate, more women CEOs, more women businesses because already women have surpassed men in going to college and getting educated. Women won in races all over Texas, turning around a decade-long slump. After Texans elected an all-time high of 50 women to serve in state office and Congress in 2008, female candidates lost seats in the Texas House for four elections in a row while the number of Texas women in Congress remained stuck at three. Big winners here included Democratic state Sen. Sylvia Garcia in Houston and El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar. Both Latinas easily won their bids for office in Democratic strongholds. Attorney Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, a Democrat, also won in an upset in Houston over longtime GOP congressman John Culberson. Other Texas women running for Congress came close. Gina Ortiz Jones, who has yet to concede defeat, is within 1 percentage point of unseating a Republican incumbent in a district spanning from San Antonio to El Paso, according to unofficial election results. MJ Hegar a Williamson County Democrat whose candidacy was boosted by a viral campaign ad revealing she and her mother fled from domestic violence when she was a girl lost her race north of Austin by 3 percentage points. Hegars ad highlights how Tuesdays elections are transforming the expectations of how women can campaign, said Joanne Green, a political science professor at Texas Christian University. Not only were many of the female candidates veterans this year, but they also ignored longstanding taboos for women seeking office. Women candidates historically showed no vulnerability theyre supposed to be like superwomen, Green said. That they could be mothers, but dont remind us that theyre mothers. That they could be married, but dont remind us theyre married because people will wonder if their husbands are going to be too influential or if they have their husbands permission. Thats really shifting, I think, and really allowing women to show the multiplicity of their life. For subscribers: Texas women can gain political clout in 2018, after 20-year slump Still, the Institute for Womens Policy Research predicts it will take another century for women to take half of the seats in the U.S. House and Senate. After Tuesdays election, women are claiming 23 percent. That ratio was on actress Reese Witherspoons mind as she addressed the crowd of 7,500 in her keynote speech at the Conference for Women. Now its our job to be the boundary-pushers, the first in our families and our communities, in our government. I think its amazing to see how many women came out to run for office because we are not well-represented in our government, said Witherspoon, who launched her own company to give more authentic voices to female characters. I think we need to do more and we need to step up as leaders. Voters this year elected 101 female representatives in the U.S. House, 40 of whom are women of color. No more than 85 women have ever served in the 435-member House of Representatives at one time, a record set two years ago. Its a slow ripple, said Amber Bogie, 30, who works in software marketing in Austin. Its a more and more normal conversation for women to be front and center. In the Texas Legislature, 37 women won seats, many of them newcomers bumping off incumbent Republicans. I started running and a lot of people want to make you into a mold, said Michelle Beckley, who ran for office as an underdog and won in a state House race north of Dallas. Shes a bird store owner and Democrat motivated by the 2016 election. She said her goal was to run an authentic campaign. People want real people as politicians. They want somebody they can relate to. I think thats more the mindset than anything else right now. Most of the women who claimed victory in Tuesdays election were Democrats. In Congress, Democrats gained a majority in the U.S. House and the Democrats in the Texas House gained 12 seats. Republicans maintain majorities in the U.S. Senate and both houses of the Texas Legislature, as well as controlling every executive office in state government. In a national environment where so much feels threatened, having these fresh voices talking about the issues they care about that actually improve quality of life and build stronger communities and create equal opportunities, that connected, said Kimberly Caldwell, program director of Annies List, a group that supported 37 female candidates for statewide, legislative and local offices this election cycle. Thirty-one of those candidates won. Despite the gains, women make up just 47 of the 219 Texas legislative elected offices at the state and federal level. Its this message of empowerment thats starting to really spread, said Anne Grady, an author and TEDx speaker who focuses on communication, leadership and emotional intelligence. Its been building. Its this momentum of women starting to feel more confident. I think were starting to see women who are trying to model the behavior they want their daughters to see. andrea.zelinski@chron.com Local attorney JoAnn De Hoyos has been a workhorse in Judge Wayne Christians criminal court. Between 2013 and 2017, De Hoyos earned more than $75,000 in court-appointed attorney fees for work in his court. De Hoyos, a former County Court-at-Law judge, has earned appointments in numerous other misdemeanor and felony courts. But her work in Christians court, which includes specialty work for veterans, stands out for several reasons. First, it was disproportionately large, comprising nearly half of her total court-appointed attorney fees of more than $158,000 over the five-year period. And 2017 was a particularly big year for her in Christians court. She earned more than $23,000 in fees. That same year, she also made a $1,000 political contribution to Christian, who did not respond to interview requests. It was her only judicial contribution. In an email, De Hoyos told us she supports the work Christian is doing on behalf of veterans. She acknowledged campaign contributions for judges can be a bit awkward, describing it as the worst part of the job. But she also said there was absolutely no quid pro quo. Her contribution had nothing to do with her appointments. I contributed to Judge Christians re-election campaign because I believe in the work he is doing in the Veterans Treatment court, she wrote. We are not saying anything untoward happened. This is all perfectly legal. Attorneys can contribute to judges, even though they might appear before those judges or even receive court appointments. And many judges are quick to point out how the county works on a wheel system, in which appointments are arbitrary and made from a rotating list of attorneys. But judges do have discretion about making appointments and replacing assigned attorneys. But when judges talk about how political contributions can create the appearance of impropriety, this is it. An attorney who is also a former judge does a significant amount of work in a particular judges court and then donates back to that judges political coffers. Its a dynamic that raises inherent questions of fairness in the justice system and undermines public trust. While judges and attorneys tend to say political contributions dont influence decisions or lead to bias, the academic research generally says otherwise. People are appearing before judges to whom they have donated money, and most of the evidence suggests that, on average, judges treat those people more favorably than do the ones that dont give the money, said Mark P. Jones, a political science professor with Rice University. This means it can corrode public confidence in the courts, said Vincent R. Johnson, a law professor with St. Marys University. It could influence decisions and distort the way the courts could do the job. For these reasons, and others, we view this issue as a crucial piece to our ongoing Unequal Justice series, which studies inherent inequalities and issues of fairness in the criminal justice system. The concern is that political cash is an invisible force potentially at play in the court system that can lead to varying and uneven outcomes for defendants. In a general sense, we have four main concerns: First, large contributions could influence outcomes. They could tilt a case toward the defense or prosecution. Second, contributions could also lead to different outcomes for different defendants. Imagine two defendants charged with the same crime, but one receives a court-appointed attorney who does not make contributions while the other hires an attorney who makes significant contributions. Third, that some court-appointed attorneys might receive a substantial amount of work in one particular court. And fourth, through contributions, private defense attorneys might influence judicial policy decisions. Consider some of the resistance to expanding the Bexar County Public Defenders Office, or even having that office provide basic representation at bail hearings. To achieve a better understanding of political money in our judicial system, we reviewed all campaign contributions in the misdemeanor, felony and civil courts from 2013 through the end of October, just days before the election. Far more money is donated from attorneys and law firms to judges in civil courts, but we looked particularly close at the criminal courts because they handle cases where a persons liberty is at stake. Compiling data for the countys misdemeanor courts was particularly time-consuming because campaign finance reports are often handwritten, meaning we had to manually input thousands of contributions. Some of these reports were missing names and occupations of donors. Some were so illegible they undermined the value of the public record. Still, we tallied and cross-referenced these contributions with court appointments between 2013 and 2017 using data provided by Bexar County through a records request. In broad strokes, here is what we found: Attorneys and law firms made up more than half of the political contributions to judges in Bexars felony and misdemeanor courts between 2013 and summer 2018. Of the nearly $1.3 million contributed, roughly $725,000 came from attorneys. But that number is likely low since some contributions didnt include professions, some were illegible, and we did not include contributions from office staff, paralegals and spouses. The biggest donors are attorneys who do not take court appointments. For example, the prominent law firm Ramos & Del Cueto, as well as its previous incarnation as LaHood & Del Cueto, contributed more than $30,000 to various criminal judges. Defense attorney David Christian has contributed more than $18,000. Joe Gonzales, just elected as Bexars next district attorney, contributed more than $14,000. Of these larger donors, only Gonzales responded to our interview requests. Gonzales said his only aim is to support judges he thinks embody the qualities of impartiality and fairness. He has donated to Democrats and Republicans, and he has supported judges who have ruled against him. The people I have supported in the past are the people that I think are qualified and reasonable on the bench, he said. What I am looking for is a fair shake for my client. He said any idea of quid pro quo is a misperception, and yet he also said the system was unfair to the poor client who might not be able to afford an attorney who can make large contributions. Were still trying to square that one. If the big contributors make up one end of the spectrum, the court-appointed attorneys are on the other. Most attorneys who receive appointments do not make any contributions. And when they do, these contributions tend to be significantly smaller often so small its hard to view them as carrying any influence. That said, we also found plenty of examples where attorneys made their largest donations to the judges who oversee the courts that have provided significant work. For example, attorney Charles Rubiola, who did not respond to our interview request, made a $500 contribution in 2017 to Christian, the judge who oversees County Court 6. Rubiola also made two $250 contributions to Christian in 2014. Rubiola was paid for $11,170 in appointment work in Christians court in 2017, and $13,590 in 2016. John Economidy made a $1,500 contribution to felony court Judge Melisa Skinner in January. That is far bigger than other contributions he has made over the years. Economidy told us this is because Skinner is an outstanding judge and he did not want her to lose re-election (she did). Still, Economidy did a significant amount of appointment work in Skinners court. Of the more than $314,000 in appointment fees he accrued between 2013 and 2017, about $120,000 came from Skinners court. This includes more than $18,000 in 2017 and more than $38,000 in 2016. Again, we are not saying there is anything untoward here. Just that the system invites controversy. Consider the example of Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolffs DWI case. As many readers recall, in March 2017, Wolff pleaded no contest to driving while intoxicated and was placed on probation. But what readers might not know is that in September 2017, Wolffs attorney, J. Charles Bunk, held a fundraiser for Judge Jason Garrahan who handled the case. Bunk made a $467 in-kind contribution. Later, it was revealed that Wolff had missed 24 breathalyzer tests and failed a drug test, violating his probation. Only then did Garrahan recuse himself. Bunk, who also contributed $250 to Garrahan in 2015, told us there was no conflict of interest and that Wolff did not receive favorable treatment. And Garrahan told us he recused himself once issues arose with Wolffs probation. I knew Kevin Wolff, Garrahan said. I had been around him. Hes a commissioner and I felt that at this time, I need to recuse myself. But Alfredo Ximenez,who defeated Garrahan this election, was perplexed about how Wolffs attorney could do a fundraiser for Garrahan and why Garrahan belatedly saw any conflict. If the conflict existed when the water got hot in terms of punishment, the conflict existed at the beginning, he said. Several judicial candidates this election year all challengers vowed to not take political contributions from attorneys because of these potential conflicts. It was a commendable display of principle, but its also important to note a key dynamic. Attorneys, generally, support incumbents. One of those challengers, Ashley Foster, told us its unethical and needs to be discussed. Foster unsuccessfully challenged Judge David Rodriguez, who has long held a county civil bench. Rodriguez has received nearly $142,000 in contributions through October. Attorneys gave $136,500 of that amount. Foster raised this issue during an Editorial Board meeting this summer, and Rodriguez expressed surprise about the amounts. He also said contributions dont influence his decisions. But Foster said even if thats the case, contributions affect other dynamics in court in terms of how attorneys approach judges or opposing attorneys. It goes into every single other aspect of a way a case is tried and looked at, she said. Every attorney knows who the people are who give money. The very issue Foster is raising is magnified in the criminal courts, where a persons liberty is at stake. I hate the system we have, said Judge Scott Roberts, who lost his bid for re-election, a system where we have to run at the bottom of the ticket. ... I hate raising money. I hate it. But you gotta do it. Jones, the political scientist from Rice University, didnt pull his punches. Texas has the worst possible system in the world in that we have partisan judicial elections, he said. That will change somewhat in 2020 when Texas eliminates straight-ticket voting, but Jones said he expects money will become more important to judicial races because incumbents and challengers will need to stand out on the ballot. For these reasons, we believe the ultimate solution resides in transitioning to retention elections where judges dont have to run as Democrats and Republicans or rely on contributions from the people who appear before them. But we also recognize that it would take a legislative miracle for this to occur, so we have some suggestions for county officials to bring greater transparency and independence to the local system. The county desperately needs to make campaign finance reporting more open to the public. At present, candidates for county offices simply upload PDFs of campaign finance reports. Contributions are often illegible, and key information is sometimes omitted. For example, in 2014, Judge Celeste Brown failed to include names of several donors who made contributions of $3,000 and $1,000. How does that happen? A better system would make these contributions immediately accessible in Excel files. Likewise, the county should also make appointments available to the public in Excel files. This would allow the public to easily track the nexus of appointments and contributions, or even if certain attorneys are receiving inordinate appointments in certain courts. The very fact that, at best, the Bexar County criminal justice system operates under the appearance of conflict is itself a reason for reform. Why would we settle for such a system when there are better ways? Once again, we call on Bexar County to consider switching to a managed-assigned counsel program similar to what occurs in Lubbock County. This would take the appointments out of the hands of the courts and place them with an independent office. And, once again, we call on Bexar County to track case outcomes for appointed attorneys and their counterparts at the public defenders office. The appearance of conflict might simply be just that: an appearance. But there has to be a better way. This editorial is part of the Unequal Justice series, which explores the inequities in Bexar Countys criminal justice system and how they can be fixed. NEWS FLASH Low cost carrier Volotea will launch several new seasonal summer flights to Croatia in 2019. The airline will introduce services from Lyon to Dubrovnik and Split, Marseille to Rijeka, as well as from Bordeaux to Pula. The flights from Lyon will be launched in April and those to Rijeka and Pula in June. All will operate once per week, with exception to the Lyon - Split service, which will run twice weekly. The development also marks Volotea's first route to Rijeka. Although headquartered in Barcelona, the airline boasts bases across France, Italy and Spain. Point72 Asset Management is pressing on with its overseas expansion, recently opening an office in Australia. The Stamford-based hedge fund has confirmed the launch of its operations in Sydney, with a team there focusing on macro investing. Outside the U.S., the firm also maintains offices in London, Hong Kong, Paris, Singapore and Tokyo. We are a global firm and have offices in locations that advance our mission: to be the industrys premier asset-management firm through delivering superior risk-adjusted returns, adhering to the highest ethical standards and offering the greatest opportunities to the industrys brightest talent, Point72 officials said in a statement. At the same time, the firms U.S. footprint is growing, as well. Last year, it opened an office for its Point72 Ventures venture capital group, in the Silicon Valley city of Palo Alto, Calif. In Manhattan, the firm plans to relocate next year its approximately 600 employees in the city from offices at 330 and 510 Madison Ave. to the new Hudson Yards development on the boroughs west side. At its headquarters at 72 Cummings Point Road, in Stamfords Waterside section, Point72 employs about 500. In total, about 1,400 work for the hedge fund. Point 72s global expansion is a manifestation of their investment excellence and the need by global investors to access that talent, said Bruce McGuire, president of the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association. There will always be people working out of the Connecticut office who will be tasked with servicing the international clients. For several of the executives, it will provide career-growth opportunities. This year, Point 72 has moved from a family-office structure into hedge fund management, following a two-year federal ban linked to 2013 insider-trading violations at founder and CEO Steven Cohens previous firm, SAC Capital Advisors. Point72 has raised about $4 billion in outside capital this year, bringing its total assets under management to approximately $13 billion. The balance comprises assets belonging to Cohen and his family and a select group of Point72 employees. In September, the firm announced that Cohen had taken on the president post, succeeding Doug Haynes, who resigned in March. The president focuses on executing the firms strategic plan, which is mainly developed by the CEO. Cohen, a Greenwich resident, continues to also serve as CEO and co-chief investment officer. Haynes, who had held the position since Point72s 2014 founding, left a month after he was named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed in February by Point72 Associate Director Lauren Bonner, who alleged widespread gender discrimination in the firm. Point72 officials have denied the complaints allegations and not confirmed any connection between Haynes resignation and the litigation. In late September, Bonners lawyers withdrew her lawsuit and instead submitted her complaint for third-party arbitration. Point72 officials declined to comment on the arbitration proceedings. A message left for Bonners lawyers was not returned. pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; Twitter: @paulschott Moody's Investors Service has today assigned a Ba1 rating to the proposed USD-denominated trust certificates (or sukuk) of NMC Healthcare Sukuk Limited. At the same time Moody's assigned a stable outlook to NMC Healthcare Sukuk Limited, a special purpose vehicle, which will issue the sukuk and which is owned by NMC Health. The proceeds of the proposed certificates will be used for the repayment of existing financial debt. The rating on the trust certificates is subject to review of the final documentation, the terms and conditions of which are not expected to change in any material way from the draft documents reviewed. The Ba1 rating assigned to the sukuk is in line with the Ba1 Corporate Family Rating (CFR) of NMC and will rank pari passu with all of the company's existing unsecured indebtedness. The proceeds of the certificates will be used by NMC Healthcare Sukuk Limited (in its capacity as the Issuer) to acquire a portfolio of assets comprising no less than 34 per cent of the aggregate face amount of the certificates in Ijara assets (real estate assets) and no more than 66 per cent of the aggregate face amount of the certificates in Shari'ah-compliant commodities to be sold to NMC Healthcare on a deferred payment basis pursuant to the terms of the Murabaha Agreement. NMC Healthcare Sukuk Limited will collect rental income from the Ijara assets under the Lease Agreement and instalment profit amounts as part of the deferred sale price under the Murabaha Agreement to make periodic profit distributions to holders of the certificates. Following the occurrence of a dissolution event, NMC Healthcare LLC (in its capacity as the Obligor) is required to (i) purchase from the Issuer the portfolio of Ijara assets at a predetermined exercise price irrespective of the performance of the underlying assets; and (ii) pay the Issuer the aggregate outstanding amounts of the deferred sale price. The exercise price and the aggregate outstanding amounts of the deferred sale price will then be used by the Issuer to pay the holders of the certificates. Holders of the certificates will not be exposed to the performance risk of the portfolio assets relating to the certificates and do not have any preferential claim or recourse over the relevant trust assets, or rights to cause any sale or disposition of the trust assets except as expressly provided under the transaction documents. While the Seller of the Ijara assets is His Excellency Saeed Mohammed Buti Mohammed Khalfan Al Qebaisi -- a minority shareholder in NMC - the entire proceeds of the sukuk will be made available to NMC. There will be no steps taken to perfect the legal transfer of the ownership interest in the lease assets and NMC Healthcare LLC has covenanted under the sukuk agreements to ensure it will remain the ultimate Obligor under the transaction. Moody's notes that its sukuk rating does not express an opinion on the sukuk structure's compliance with Shari'ah law. NMC Health plc's Ba1 CFR, Ba1-PD rating, and stable ratings outlook reflect its business profile, as the largest healthcare provider in the United Arab Emirates (UAE, Aa2 stable) by revenue. NMC also operates one of the largest wholesale distribution businesses in the UAE, including fast-moving consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and scientific equipment. Moody's notes that the UAE is an affluent healthcare market, with an attractive demographic profile. The ratings also take into account NMC's favourable regulatory environment to date, in particular, the company's good relationships with various regulatory bodies that adopt a constructive approach to dealing with any challenges that may arise. At the same time, the ratings consider the company's small scale of operations, as a private healthcare provider with revenues of $1.8 billion for the 12 months ended 30 June 2018 (LTM June 2018). As of 30 June 2018, NMC owned 97 and managed 78 facilities, with around 3.4 million patients seen in the first half of 2018. In terms of concentration, six facilities represent 63.2 per cent of EBITDA as of LTM June 2018. Consequently, any unforeseen challenges affecting the ability of these operations to function according to plan could have a material adverse impact on NMC's EBITDA and deleveraging trajectory. To date, NMC has not faced any closure or censure of its facilities. The company continues to strive to meet self-imposed standards that are higher when compared to what is expected of it by various regulators. This approach supports in turn its resilient business model, loyal customer base, strong brand recognition and market leading position. NMC also continues to attract highly skilled doctors to its facilities from the Middle East and further afield through enticing remuneration packages and working conditions, and because of the good quality of life offered to expatriate workers in the UAE. NMC has a strong track record of integrating its acquisitions. Specifically, in incorporating new operations into its own operations to add scale-driven synergies. NMC aims to and has shown that it will only acquire operations that are not broken, but are also not fully optimised, with the potential to breakeven soon after the acquisitions. Most of NMC's expenditure on medical equipment or supplies is predominantly in US dollars or euros. Because the company generates most of its revenues in UAE dirhams - which is pegged to the US dollar it is exposed to less volatility between revenues and costs attributed to changes in exchange rates; thereby protecting margins. The same cannot be said about other emerging market private healthcare groups, which often earn revenue in currencies that are volatile versus the US dollar or euro. Furthermore, the ratings recognize NMC's strong liquidity profile and strengthening credit metrics, with debt/EBITDA likely to trend towards 3x over the next 18 months. The company has a public commitment to keep net debt/EBITDA below 3.5x. The ratings are further supported by the quality and stability of NMC's operations, which offer world class care, notably for in vitro fertilisation and long-term care facilities through its multiple offerings. The diversification associated with NMC's business profile is enhanced through its distribution business, where it holds sole rights for a number of noteworthy brands, including Nestle, Nivea and Pear. NMC also sells 3M, Siemens and Samsung medical products and is the sole distributer for Pfizer pharmaceutical products. The stable ratings outlook assumes that NMC will deleverage towards 3x debt/EBITDA over the next 18 months. The stable ratings outlook further presumes that NMC will maintain the smooth functioning of its operations, in an environment with no material challenges to its key EBITDA generating facilities. Structural considerations The sukuk has upstream unsecured guarantees from all material operating subsidiaries to the sukuk. These are deemed equivalent to the downstream guarantee package consistent with the remainder of NMC's unsecured debt capital structure. As such there are no structural subordination considerations with regards to the sukuk and the rest of NMC's debt capital structure. Liquidity NMC's liquidity position is sufficient to meet its operational and capital expenditure needs of $344 million over the next 18 months, as forecasted by Moodys. This situation is supported by surplus cash balances, which Moodys estimates will exceed $100 million over the next 12 months, taking into account operating cash requirements of around $62 million. NMC's liquidity profile is further strengthened by a $400 million revolving liquidity facility, which is fully undrawn as of 30 June 2018. What could change the rating up/down Given the scale of its operations, level of geographic diversification and high leverage, upward pressure on NMC's CFR is limited over the next 18 months. And, its scale would need to exceed $5 billion in revenues, with debt/EBITDA trending below 3x to be considered for an upgrade to Baa3. Moody's would downgrade NMC's ratings, if the company fails to deleverage towards debt/EBITDA below 3x over the next 18 months, and its liquidity profile or key operating facilities become pressured due to unforeseen challenges. TradeArabia News Service STAMFORD Police say a city man charged last week with trespassing has been linked to a December burglary and may have been involved in other incidents. Phillip Mayo, 45, of Lipton Place, has been charged with criminal trespass and interfering with a police investigation. Police said Officer Eric Cooper investigated several reports Thursday night of suspicious activity at the Parc Grove apartments on Broad Street. A woman told Cooper she saw a suspicious man in the courtyard of the complex while she was walking her dog. Police said Mayo gave a fake name and claimed to be a resident of the building when Cooper and other officers approached him. Police said they determined Mayo did not live there and charged him with trespassing. Police said they determined Mayo was also the suspect in several other incidents in the area. Police said they were not able to identify the suspect in a December incident at the same building until Mayo was arrested last week. Mayo has been charged with second-degree burglary, third-degree criminal trespass and second-degree breach of peace for the incident in December when police say he broke into an apartment and ran off when he was confronted by two residents. Mayos bail was set at $325,000. Police said Mayo is a suspect in other Stamford crimes and is expected to face more charges. Anyone with information related to Mayo in any of these investigations can call Investigator Damien Rosa at 203-977-4421. It has become an annual tradition politicians and school officials gather to celebrate that more students in Connecticut are graduating each year from high school. This year was no different. The fact that more young people than ever before are earning high school diplomas is a testament to the hard work and commitment of so many teachers, principals, superintendents Dianna Wentzell, the states education commissioner, said during a press conference this spring at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven. But before anyone gets too excited about this jump in graduation rates - from 83 to 88 percent over the last seven years - data shows that many students are not learning what they should before they leave high school. So what does a high school diploma actually signify? Here are three things to know about those who graduate from high school in Connecticut. 1. One-in-five students did not learn what they should have before graduating high school At least 17 percent of those in the Class of 2012 had to take non-credit courses to learn reading, writing or math skills they should have acquired in high school. The rate of students showing up unprepared for college is likely higher, however. While three out of every four students who graduate high school go on to enroll in college, the state does not track where students are at academically when they enroll in a private Connecticut college, out-of-state college, or at The University of Connecticut. Many of these schools have placement exams that determine the academic proficiency of incoming students. That means Connecticut only tracks the students who enrolled in a community college or at the four regional state universities, which accounts for about one-third of the states students who go on to college. Nearly half of those from the Class of 2012 who enrolled in these public colleges needed remedial courses. The 2012 data, which is the most recent available, was presented to the State Board of Education this week. There are some very surprising outcomes, Wentzell said Wednesday to her state board. I would just love to see local boards of education making use of this report, becoming aware of it, reviewing it and then asking questions. There is a lot of power in this report. While even students from districts that are traditionally high-performing need remedial courses, much higher rates of students from chronically struggling districts require remedial education when they get to college. Students from historically underserved groups - black, Hispanic, and those from low-income families - also more often tend to show up for college in need of high school-level instruction. 2. Illiterate students are awarded diplomas The superintendents of the schools in Bridgeport and Windham testified during a school funding trial in 2016 that it is possible for students to get a diploma from their districts and be illiterate. Thats because Connecticut does not require students to meet any competency standards to earn a diploma. The judge overseeing the case found this frustrating. What it means to have a secondary education is like a sugar-cube boat. It dissolves before its half launched, Hartford Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher wrote in a scathing indictment of the education students receive in the states most impoverished districts. State graduation and advancement standards are so loose that in struggling cities the neediest are leaving schools with diplomas but without the education we promise them. The Connecticut Supreme Court ultimately decided, however, that it is not the courts role to get involved in how districts award diplomas. State lawmakers have since retreated from plans that would have required students to pass end-of-course exams and complete more credits to earn a diploma. Research is mixed on the impact of exit exams. (See here, here, here and here.) Fifteen states last school year required students to pass exit exams to earn a diploma, and five other states have passed laws requiring it in the future. However, 10 states have dropped exit exams since 2011, reports the Education Commission of the States, a nonprofit think tank that tracks state laws. 3. Remedial education rates steady, but may get better soon Instead of focusing on end-of-course exams, the state has instead pursued two different reforms. The first - aimed at ensuring students are college-ready after graduation - raises the bar on what will be included when the state rolls out new tests that are aligned with the Common Core State Standards. The rollout of Common Core testing was incredibly controversial. Hundreds of teachers, students and others opposed to testing rallied outside the state Capitol, legislators held special hearings on the issue, dozens of bills were filed to restrict implementation, and the states largest teachers union ran TV and radio ads to put pressure on lawmakers. But Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly dug in and provided $38 million over two years to transition to a new test for 2014-2015 the Smarter Balanced Assessment that is aligned with the Common Core standards. Its unclear what impact these new, higher expectations will have on the number of students showing up for college unprepared. The most recent year for which data is available is from the Class of 2012 group of students who graduated before the full potential benefits of the Common Core standards could be assessed. The second state reform was aimed at overhauling how the community college system handles the 40,000 students who show up each year academically unprepared for college-level courses. In 2012, state law changed to limit how much time - and money - students could spend in non-credit courses at college. Instead, the colleges would be required to provide struggling students with short, intense non-credit courses to catch them up before they are allowed to enroll in courses for credit with an array of supports - such as tutors - so they dont fall behind. That reform also was passed too recently for current data to reflect its impact. William Gammell, director of research and system effectiveness for the Board of Regents, which oversees the community colleges, said research on the impact of those changes will be released later this month. Last week, however, he gave a preview to the state education board. You can see improvement, he said, referring to improved college graduation rates. But, he said, I wouldnt say its a dramatic improvement. Royal Bank of Canada operates as a diversified financial service company worldwide. The company's Personal & Commercial Banking segment offers checking and savings accounts, home equity financing, personal lending, private banking, indirect lending, mutual funds and self-directed brokerage accounts, guaranteed investment certificates, credit cards, and payment products and solutions; and lending, leasing, deposit, investment, foreign exchange, cash management, auto dealer financing, trade products, and services to small and medium-sized commercial businesses. This segment offers financial products and services through branches, automated teller machines, and mobile sales network. Its Wealth Management segment provides a suite of advice-based solutions and strategies to high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals, and institutional clients. The company's Insurance segment offers life, health, home, auto, travel, wealth, annuities, and reinsurance advice and solutions; and creditor and business insurance services to individual, business, and group clients through its field sales force, advice centers, and online, as well as through independent insurance advisors and affinity relationships. Its Investor & Treasury Services segment provides asset, cash management, transaction banking, and treasury services to institutional clients; correspondent banking and trade finance services for financial institutions; and short-term funding and liquidity management services. The company's Capital Markets segment offers corporate and investment banking, as well as equity and debt origination, distribution, sale, and trading services for corporations, institutional investors, asset managers, governments, and central banks. Royal Bank of Canada has a strategic partnership with Royal College Of Physicians & Surgeons Of Canada to support the needs of Canada's medical specialists. The company was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Read More Siemens has opened a new MindSphere Application Center in Abu Dhabi to focus on developing digital solutions, applications and services for process industries, including oil and gas, water and wastewater. The centre is the second of three to be built in the UAE, using the companys open, cloud-based IoT operating system MindSphere to support the Middle Easts digital transformation, the company said. Encouraging closer collaboration with customers, the new centre will leverage technologies including IoT, Artificial Intelligence and data analytics to address specific challenges in data-rich process industries, driving optimised operations, increased productivity and flexibility, it said. The new centre is already developing digital and AI-based solutions for regional customers in the water and oil and gas industries. In oil and gas, Siemens uses AI techniques - such as Artificial Neural Networks to identify anomalies in flow-rate patterns and allow better decision-making in complex upstream, midstream and downstream operations. With embedded self-learning algorithms, existing historical data can be used to process large quantities of incoming data, detecting anomalies to minimize downtime, production losses and protect customers critical assets. We recognise the importance of the Middle Easts industrial sector, and believe the MindSphere Application Center will play a significant role in accelerating the use of digital technologies in rapidly-expanding industries such as oil and gas and petrochemicals, said Fida Khalil, head of MindSphere Application Center, Siemens Middle East. Our digital expertise in data analytics and IoT - combined with our extensive experience in process industries - are key to merging the virtual world with the real world, integrating all levels from the field level to automation and up to the Cloud. This new centre allows us to work more closely with our partners than ever before, directly addressing their specific challenges and using digital tools to co-develop tailored solutions, faster. Based at the Siemens Middle East Headquarters in Masdar City, this is the second of three MindSphere Application Centers planned for the UAE. Earlier this year Siemens opened its first regional centre in Dubai to cater for the aviation and logistics market, joining a global network of 20 centres with 900 software developers, data specialists and engineers. Economic diversification in the Middle East is being driven by significant investments in digital technologies such as AI, 3D printing and smart cities, with many countries setting targets for key industries including manufacturing and logistics. The UAE recognises the importance of employing IoT, Artificial Intelligence and data analytics to build up industry 4.0 capabilities in the oil and gas and downstream industries, in order to maximise resource use, create higher efficiencies and drive down costs. The nation also aims to increase the contribution of the manufacturing sector to overall GDP to 25 percent by 2025, and the MindSphere Application Centers will support this by driving the digital transformation, developing new business models, digital solutions and services as well as industrial applications. In Abu Dhabi, the teams will work according to agile Scrum methodology and customers are invited to co-create innovative applications with Siemens. With this approach, Siemens will develop applications according to customer requirements, providing either cloud-based or on-premise solutions. The three UAE MindSphere Application Centers are part of a $500 million investment Siemens is making over three years, to expand its digital presence in the Middle East. This also includes software grants for local universities to boost digital skills in Egypt, UAE and Saudi Arabia. - TradeArabia News Service China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited, an investment holding company, provides cellular and fixed-line voice, and related value-added services in the People's Republic of China. It also provides broadband and other Internet-related, information communications technology, and business and data communications services. In addition, the company offers communications technology training, technical, and Internet information and value-added telecommunications services; telecommunications network construction, planning, and technical consulting services; and consultancy, survey, design, and contract services relating to information and construction projects. Further, it provides customer, project design consultation and management, property management, e-payment, venture capital investment, communications technology development and promotion, auto informatisation, financial, data processing, and tourism and information services; advertising design, production, agency, and publication services; technology development, transfer, and consulting services; and technology promotion service of intelligent transportation system's products. Additionally, the company offers technology development and consultation, and other services; technology research and development, consultation, and services of TV video and mobile video; internet of things technology, and online data processing and transaction services; and big data, and cloud computation and infrastructure services. It also provides online video and reading materials; network music; financing leasing services; and data analysis and application services, as well as sells handsets and telecommunication equipment. As of December 31, 2019, it had approximately 254 million 4G subscribers, 83 million fixed-line broadband subscribers, and 54 million fixed-line local access subscribers. The company was incorporated in 2000 and is based in Central, Hong Kong. China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited is a subsidiary of China Unicom (BVI) Limited. Read More Ford, a leading automotive company, said that its new F-Max tractor truck was recently named Truck of the Year in the 67th IAA Show in Hannover, Germany. The truck, which was launched in the European market, beat out truck models by other automakers to win the prestigious award, said a statement from the company. Selected by 23 international truck experts from 23 European countries, the award affirms the all-new Ford F-Maxs leading position within the truck category internationally, it said. It follows the successful launch of different types of trucks by Al-Jazirah Vehicle Agencies (AJVA) among the commercial sector in Saudi Arabia thanks to their quality, durability and advanced on-board technologies, it added. AJVA, the authorised Ford dealer in Saudi Arabia, offers the full range and very latest models of Ford trucks. The vehicles provide businesses involved in the transportation of heavy loads, as well as construction, contracting and maintenance services firms with a wide range of fleet solutions, in addition to its very popular Ford Transit Van line, it stated. TradeArabia News Service The following companies are subsidiares of Exxon Mobil: AKG Marketing Company Limited, Aera Energy LLC, Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company, Ampolex (Cepu) Pte Ltd, Ancon Insurance Company Inc., Barnett Gathering LLC, Barzan Gas Company Limited, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Celtic Exploration Ltd., Coral FLNG S.A., Cross Timbers Energy LLC, Ellora Energy Inc., Esmeroon Oil Transporta Imperial Oil Limited, Esso (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd, Esso Deutschland GmbH, Esso Erdgas Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 17) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Angola (Overseas) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Chad Inc., Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Offshore East) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, Esso Exploration and Production UK Limited, Esso Global Investments Ltd., Esso Italiana S.r.l., Esso Nederland B.V., Esso Norge AS, Esso Petroleum Company Limited, Esso Raffinage, Esso Societe Anonyme Francaise, Exxo Holdings Inc., Exxon Azerbaijan Limited, Exxon Chemical Arabia Inc., Exxon International Finance Company, Exxon Luxembourg Holdings LLC, Exxon Mobile Bay Limited Partnership, Exxon Neftegas Limited, Exxon Overseas Corporation, Exxon Overseas Investment Corporation, ExxonMobil (China) Investment Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil (Taicang) Petroleum Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil Abu Dhabi Offshore Petroleum Company Limited, ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc., ExxonMobil Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., ExxonMobil Australia Pty Ltd, ExxonMobil B Resources Company, ExxonMobil Capital Finance Company, ExxonMobil Capital Netherlands B.V., ExxonMobil Central Europe Holding GmbH, ExxonMobil Cepu Limited, ExxonMobil Chemical France, ExxonMobil Chemical Gulf Coast Investments LLC, ExxonMobil Chemical Holland B.V., ExxonMobil Chemical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil China Petroleum & Petrochemical Company Limited, ExxonMobil Development Africa B.V., ExxonMobil Development Company, ExxonMobil Egypt (S.A.E.), ExxonMobil Exploracao Brasil Ltda., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Norway AS, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Tanzania Limited, ExxonMobil Finance Company Limited, ExxonMobil Financial Investment Company Limited, ExxonMobil France Holding SAS, ExxonMobil Gas Marketing Europe Limited, ExxonMobil General Finance Company, ExxonMobil Global Services Company, ExxonMobil Golden Pass Surety LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Company Holland LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Norway AS, ExxonMobil Hong Kong Limited, ExxonMobil International Services SARL, ExxonMobil Iraq Limited, ExxonMobil Italiana Gas S.r.l., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Inc., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc., ExxonMobil LNG Services B.V., ExxonMobil Lubricants Trading Company, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation, ExxonMobil PNG Limited, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical BVBA, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical Holdings Inc., ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, ExxonMobil Production Deutschland GmbH, ExxonMobil Production Norway Inc., ExxonMobil Qatargas (II) Limited, ExxonMobil Qatargas Inc., ExxonMobil Ras Laffan (III) Limited, ExxonMobil Rasgas Inc., ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, ExxonMobil Russia Kara Sea Holdings B.V., ExxonMobil Sales and Supply LLC, ExxonMobil Technology Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Funding Ltd., Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Golden Pass LNG Terminal Investments LLC, Golden Pass LNG Terminal LLC, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures LLC, Imperial Oil Limited, Imperial Oil Resources Limited, Imperial Oil Resources N.W.T. Limited, Imperial Oil/Petroliere Imperiale, Infineum Italia s.r.I., Infineum Singapore Pte. Ltd., InterOil Corporation, Jurong Aromatics Corporation Pte Ltd, MPM Lubricants, Marine Well Containment Company LLC, Mobil Australia Resources Company Pty Limited, Mobil California Exploration & Producing Asset Company, Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company, Mobil Chemical Products International Inc., Mobil Corporation, Mobil Equatorial Guinea Inc., Mobil Erdgas Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Mobil Exploration & Producing Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil International Petroleum Corporation, Mobil Oil Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast Inc., Mobil Oil New Zealand Limited, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, Mobil Producing Texas & New Mexico Inc., Mobil SerLimited, Mobil Venezolana De Petroleos Inc., Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Company Inc., Mobil Yanbu Refining Company Inc., Mountain Gathering LLC, Mozambique Rovuma Venture S.p.A., Palmetto Transoceanic LLC, Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas Global Company LDC, Permian Express Partners LLC, Phillips Exploration LLC, Qatar Liquefied Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited (II), SPI Limited, Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery Company Ltd., Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Co., SeaRiver Maritime Inc., South Hook LNG Terminal Company Limited, Tengizchevroil LLP, Terminale GNL Adriatico S.r.l, Trend Gathering & Treating LLC, Wolverine Pipe Line Company, XH LLC, XTO Delaware Basin LLC, XTO ENERGY, XTO Energy Canada, and XTO Holdings LLC. Valley National Bancorp is a bank holding company, which engages in the provision of retail and commercial banking services. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Lending; Commercial Lending; Investment Management; and Corporate and Other Adjustments. The Consumer Lending segment consists of residential mortgage loans, automobile loans and home equity loans, as well as wealth management and insurance services. The Commercial Lending segment includes the floating rate and adjustable rate commercial and industrial loans as well as fixed rate owner occupied and commercial real estate loans. The Investment Management segment refers to investments in various types of securities and interest-bearing deposits with other banks. The Corporate and Other Adjustments segment represents the income and expense items not directly attributable to a specific segment. The company was founded on November 12, 1982 and is headquartered in New York, NY. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of NRG Energy: 3279405 Nova Scotia Company, 3283764 Nova Scotia Company, 7549709 Canada Inc., 7644868 Canada Inc., 7711565 Canada Inc., AC Solar Holdings LLC, Ace Energy Inc., Agua Caliente Borrower 1 LLC, Agua Caliente Solar Holdings LLC, Agua Caliente Solar LLC, Allied Home Warranty GP LLC, Allied Warranty LLC, Arthur Kill Gas Turbines LLC, Arthur Kill Power LLC, Astoria Gas Turbine Power LLC, Bayou Cove Peaking Power LLC, Beheer-en Beleggingsmaatschappij Plogema B.V., Berrians I Gas Turbine Power LLC, BidURenergy Inc., Big Cajun I Peaking Power LLC, Bluewater Wind Delaware LLC, Bluewater Wind Maryland LLC, Bluewater Wind New Jersey Energy LLC, Boquillas Wind LLC, Cabrillo Power I LLC, Cabrillo Power II LLC, Camino Energy LLC, Carbon Management Solutions LLC, Carlsbad Energy Center LLC, Carlsbad Energy Holdings LLC, Chester Energy LLC, Chickahominy River Energy Corp., Cirro Energy Services Inc., Cirro Group Inc., Citizens Power Holdings One LLC, Commonwealth Atlantic Power LLC, Connecticut Jet Power LLC, Cottonwood Development LLC, Cottonwood Energy Company LP, Cottonwood Generating Partners I LLC, Cottonwood Generating Partners II LLC, Cottonwood Generating Partners III LLC, Cottonwood Technology Partners LP, Delaware Power Development LLC, Devon Power LLC, Doga Enerji Uretim Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Doga Isi Satis Hizmetleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Doga Isletme ve Bakim Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Dunkirk Gas Corporation, Dunkirk Power LLC, EHI Development Fund LLC, EME Eastern Holdings LLC, EVgo Services LLC, Eastern Sierra Energy Company LLC, Ecokap Power LLC, El Segundo Energy Center II LLC, El Segundo Power II LLC, El Segundo Power LLC, Elkhorn Ridge Wind II LLC, Energy Alternatives Wholesale LLC, Energy Choice Solutions LLC, Energy Curtailment Specialists, Energy Plus Holdings LLC, Energy Plus Natural Gas LLC, Energy Protection Insurance Company, Everything Energy LLC, Forward Home Security LLC, GCP Funding Company LLC, GenOn Energy, Geostellar Inc., Gladstone Power Station Joint Venture, Goal Zero, Goal Zero Europe GmbH, Goal Zero LLC, Granite II Holding LLC, Granite Power Partners II L.P., Green Mountain Energy, Green Mountain Energy Company, Green Mountain Energy Sun Club, Gregory Partners LLC, Gregory Power Partners LLC, Hanover Energy Company, Huntley IGCC LLC, Huntley Power LLC, Independence Energy Alliance LLC, Independence Energy Group LLC, Independence Energy Natural Gas LLC, Indian River Operations Inc., Indian River Power LLC, Intellastar LLC, Ivanpah Master Holdings LLC, Ivanpah Project I Holdings LLC, Ivanpah Project II Holdings LLC, Ivanpah Project III Holdings LLC, James River Power LLC, Kaufman Cogen LP, LSP-Nelson Energy LLC, Long Beach Generation LLC, Long Beach Peakers LLC, Long Beach Power LLC, Louisiana Generating LLC, MEC Esenyurt B.V., MEC San Pascual B.V., Maplekey UK Finance Limited, Maplekey UK Limited, Meriden Gas Turbines LLC, Middletown Power LLC, Midway-Sunset Cogeneration Company, Midwest Finance Company LLC, Midwest Generation EME LLC, Midwest Generation Holdings I LLC, Midwest Generation Holdings II LLC, Midwest Generation LLC, Midwest Generation Procurement Services LLC, Midwest Peaker Holdings LLC, Mission Bingham Lake Wind LLC, Mission Del Cielo LLC, Mission Energy Construction Services LLC, Mission Energy Holdings International LLC, Mission Energy Wales LLC, Mission Funding Zeta LLC, Mission Midway-Sunset Holdings LLC, Mission Midwest Coal LLC, Mission Minnesota Wind LLC, Mission Watson Holdings LLC, Mission Wind Boquillas LLC, Mission Wind New Mexico II LLC, Mission Wind Owaissa LLC, Mission Wind Pinnacle LLC, Mission del Sol LLC, Montville IGCC LLC, Montville Power LLC, NEO Chester-Gen LLC, NEO Corporation, NRG Acquisition Holdings Inc., NRG Advisory Services LLC, NRG Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Alexandria LLC, NRG Arroyo Nogales LLC, NRG Arthur Kill Operations Inc., NRG Asia-Pacific Ltd., NRG Astoria Gas Turbine Operations Inc., NRG Astoria Power LLC, NRG Audrain Generating LLC, NRG Audrain Holding LLC, NRG Bayou Cove LLC, NRG Berrians East Development LLC, NRG Bluewater Holdings LLC, NRG Bluewater Wind Massachusetts LLC, NRG Bourbonnais Equipment LLC, NRG Bourbonnais LLC, NRG Brazoria Energy LLC, NRG Business Services LLC, NRG CTA Holdings LLC, NRG Cabrillo Power Operations Inc., NRG Cadillac Inc., NRG Cadillac Operations Inc., NRG California Peaker Operations LLC, NRG Capital II LLC, NRG Carbon 360 LLC, NRG Cedar Bayou Development Company LLC, NRG Chalk Point CT LLC, NRG CleanTech Investments LLC, NRG Coal Development Company LLC, NRG ComLease LLC, NRG Common Stock Finance I LLC, NRG Common Stock Finance II LLC, NRG Connected Home LLC, NRG Connecticut Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Connecticut Peaking Development LLC, NRG Construction LLC, NRG Cottonwood Tenant LLC, NRG Curtailment Solutions Canada Inc., NRG Curtailment Solutions Inc., NRG DG Development LLC, NRG Development Company Inc., NRG Devon Operations Inc., NRG Dispatch Services LLC, NRG Distributed Energy Resources Holdings LLC, NRG Distributed Generation PR LLC, NRG Dunkirk Operations Inc., NRG ECOKAP Holdings LLC, NRG ESA Joint Development LLC, NRG El Segundo Operations Inc., NRG Energy Center Eagles LLC, NRG Energy Center Oxnard LLC, NRG Energy Fuel LLC, NRG Energy Fuel Services LLC, NRG Energy Gas & Wind Holdings Inc., NRG Energy Holdings II Inc., NRG Energy Holdings Inc., NRG Energy Inc., NRG Energy Labor Services LLC, NRG Energy Petroleum LLC, NRG Energy Services Group LLC, NRG Energy Services International Inc., NRG Energy Services LLC, NRG Equipment Company LLC, NRG Fuel Cell CA1 LLC, NRG Fuel Resources LLC, NRG Fuel Transportation LLC, NRG GTL Holdings LLC, NRG Gas Development Company LLC, NRG Generation Holdings Inc., NRG Gladstone Operating Services Pty Ltd, NRG Granite Acquisition LLC, NRG Greenco LLC, NRG HQ DG LLC, NRG Holding Leasing Vehicle 7 LLC, NRG Home & Business Solutions LLC, NRG Home Services LLC, NRG Home Solutions LLC, NRG Home Solutions Product LLC, NRG Homer City Services LLC, NRG Huntley Operations Inc., NRG Identity Protect LLC, NRG Ilion LP LLC, NRG Ilion Limited Partnership, NRG Independence Solar LLC, NRG International LLC, NRG Kaufman LLC, NRG Latin America Inc., NRG Lease Co LLC, NRG Lease Development LLC, NRG Limestone 3 LLC, NRG Maintenance Services LLC, NRG Mesquite LLC, NRG Mextrans Inc., NRG MidAtlantic Affiliate Services Inc., NRG MidCon Development LLC, NRG Middletown Operations Inc., NRG Middletown Repowering LLC, NRG Midwest Holdings LLC, NRG Midwest II LLC, NRG Montville Operations Inc., NRG NE Development LLC, NRG Nelson Turbines LLC, NRG New Roads Holdings LLC, NRG NewGen LLC, NRG North Central Operations Inc., NRG Northeast Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Norwalk Harbor Operations Inc., NRG Ohio Pipeline Company LLC, NRG Operating Services Inc., NRG Oswego Harbor Power Operations Inc., NRG Oxbow Holdings LLC, NRG PacGen Inc., NRG Peaker Finance Company LLC, NRG Portable Power LLC, NRG Potrero Development LLC, NRG Power Marketing LLC, NRG Procurement Company LLC, NRG Project Company LLC, NRG Reliability Solutions LLC, NRG Renter's Protection LLC, NRG Repowering Holdings LLC, NRG Residential Solar Solutions LLC, NRG Residential Solar Solutions Leasing II LLC, NRG Retail LLC, NRG Retail Northeast LLC, NRG Rockford Acquisition LLC, NRG Rockford Equipment II LLC, NRG Rockford Equipment LLC, NRG Saguaro Operations Inc., NRG Security LLC, NRG Services Corporation, NRG Sherbino LLC, NRG SimplySmart Solutions LLC, NRG Solar Arrowhead LLC, NRG Solar CVSR Holdings 2 LLC, NRG Solar Dandan LLC, NRG Solar Guam LLC, NRG Solar Ivanpah LLC, NRG Solar Ring LLC, NRG Solar SC Stadium LLC, NRG Solar Sunrise LLC, NRG South Central Affiliate Services Inc., NRG South Central Generating LLC, NRG South Central Operations Inc., NRG South Texas LP, NRG Sterlington Power LLC, NRG Storage Fabrication & Delivery LLC, NRG Storage on Demand NY LLC, NRG SunCap Leasing I LLC, NRG Telogia Power LLC, NRG Texas C&I Supply LLC, NRG Texas Gregory LLC, NRG Texas Holding Inc., NRG Texas LLC, NRG Texas Power LLC, NRG Texas Retail LLC, NRG Trading Advisors LLC, NRG Transmission Holdings LLC, NRG ULC Parent Inc., NRG Victoria I Pty Ltd, NRG Warranty Services LLC, NRG West Coast LLC, NRG Western Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Wind Development Company LLC, NRG Wind Force LLC, NRG Wind LLC, NRG dGen Advisory Services LLC, NRGenerating German Holdings GmbH, NRGenerating International B.V., NRGenerating Luxembourg (No. 1) S.a.r.l., NRGenerating Luxembourg (No. 2) S.a.r.l., New Genco GP LLC, New Jersey Power Development LLC, Norwalk Power LLC, O'Brien Cogeneration Inc. II, ONSITE Energy Inc., One Block Off The Grid Inc., Oswego Harbor Power LLC, Pacific Generation Company, Petra Nova CCS I LLC, Petra Nova Holdings LLC, Petra Nova LLC, Petra Nova Parish Holdings LLC, Petra Nova Power I LLC, Pure Energies Group, Pure Energies Group ULC, Pure Energies Installation Inc., Pure Energies Solar Services Inc., Pure Group Inc., RDI Consulting LLC, RERH Holdings LLC, Reliant Charitable Foundation, Reliant Energy, Reliant Energy Northeast LLC, Reliant Energy Power Supply LLC, Reliant Energy Retail Holdings LLC, Reliant Energy Retail Services LLC, Restoration Design LLC, Roof Diagnostics Solar Holdings LLC, Roof Diagnostics Solar and Electric LLC, Roof Diagnostics Solar and Electric of NY LLC, Saguaro Power Company a Limited Partnership, Saguaro Power LLC, San Gabriel Energy LLC, San Joaquin Energy LLC, San Juan Energy LLC, San Pascual Cogeneration Company International B.V., Sherbino I Wind Farm LLC, Solar Partners I LLC, Solar Partners II LLC, Solar Partners VIII LLC, Solar Power Partners, Solar Pure Energies ULC, Somerset Operations Inc., Somerset Power LLC, South Texas Wind LLC, Station A LLC, Sunrise Power Company LLC, Sunshine State Power (No. 2) B.V., Sunshine State Power B.V., TCV Pipeline LLC, Tacoma Energy Recovery Company, Taloga Wind II LLC, Texas Coastal Ventures LLC, Texas Genco GP LLC, Texas Genco Holdings, Texas Genco Holdings Inc., Texas Genco LP LLC, Texas Genco Services LP, US Retailers LLC, Valle Del Sol Energy LLC, Vienna Operations Inc., Vienna Power LLC, WCP (Generation) Holdings LLC, Watson Cogeneration Company, West Coast Power LLC, XOOM Alberta Holdings LLC, XOOM British Columbia Holdings LLC, XOOM Energy BC ULC, XOOM Energy California LLC, XOOM Energy Canada ULC, XOOM Energy Connecticut LLC, XOOM Energy Delaware LLC, XOOM Energy Georgia LLC, XOOM Energy Global Holdings LLC, XOOM Energy Illinois LLC, XOOM Energy Indiana LLC, XOOM Energy Kentucky LLC, XOOM Energy LLC, XOOM Energy Maine LLC, XOOM Energy Maryland LLC, XOOM Energy Massachusetts LLC, XOOM Energy Michigan LLC, XOOM Energy New Hampshire LLC, XOOM Energy New Jersey LLC, XOOM Energy New York LLC, XOOM Energy ONT ULC, XOOM Energy Ohio LLC, XOOM Energy Pennsylvania LLC, XOOM Energy Rhode Island LLC, XOOM Energy Texas LLC, XOOM Energy Virginia LLC, XOOM Energy Washington D.C. LLC, XOOM Ontario Holdings LLC, XOOM Solar LLC, and eV2g LLC. Mettler-Toledo International, Inc. is a supplier of precision instruments and services. The firm manufactures weighing instruments for use in laboratory, industrial, packaging, logistics, and food retailing applications. It also manufactures several related analytical instruments and provides automated chemistry solutions used in drug and chemical compound discovery and development; and also, metal detection and other end-of-line inspection systems used in production and packaging and provides solutions for use in certain process analytics applications. Its operations are conducted by the following segments: U. S. Operations, Swiss Operations, Western European Operations, Chinese Operations and Other. The U.S. Operations segment represents certain of the company's marketing and producing organizations located in the United States. The Swiss Operations segment includes marketing and producing organizations located in Switzerland, as well as extensive R&D operations that are responsible for the development, production, and marketing of precision instruments, including weighing, analytical, and measurement technologies for use in a variety of industrial and laboratory applications. Th Read More Following the global debut of Lexus UX earlier this year, Bahrain is preparing to welcome the latest member of the Lexus family at its dedicated showroom in Sitra in early December. Infused with a dynamic attitude, the UX is engineered to deliver quick and engaging driving with a Lexus-smooth demeanour, making it a unique entry in the luxury compact crossover segment catering to a wider, younger audience, said Ebrahim K Kanoo, the exclusive distributor of Lexus in Bahrain. Derived from Urban and X-over (Crossover), the Lexus UX is designed for the modern urban explorer seeking a fresh, contemporary and dynamic take on luxury driving, said Chika Kako, executive vice president of Lexus International and chief engineer of the UX. We designed the UX to appeal to buyers who seek not only what is new and exciting, but what is also relevant to their lifestyles. The UX is the first Lexus constructed using the new Global Architecture - Compact (GA-C) platform. A lightweight yet super-rigid structure, an extremely low centre of gravity and refined suspension tuning endow the UX with exemplary handling agility and ride comfort, along with a distinctive driving personality. I wanted to positively overturn the image of a crossover with a high body that requires careful manoeuvring, and offer a car with nimble performance and excellent manoeuvrability that makes it as easy to drive as a sedan, said Kako. The Middle East market offers great potential for the new Lexus UX, a region in which customers are increasingly looking for premium quality alternatives to conventional sedans and hatchbacks that better suit modern lifestyles, said an Ebrahim K Kanoo statement. Although this has led to a wealth of choice in the growing compact crossover / SUV segment, the UX stands apart from the competition as a more distinctive, stylish player with a strong dynamic appeal, it said. TradeArabia News Service The following companies are subsidiares of Bristol-Myers Squibb: 1096271 B.C. ULC, 345 Park LLC, A.G. Medical Services P.A., AHI Investment LLC, AbVitro LLC, Abraxis BioScience Australia Pty Ltd., Abraxis BioScience Inc., Abraxis BioScience International Holding Company Inc., Abraxis BioScience LLC, Abraxis BioScience Puerto Rico LLC, Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Adnexus, Adnexus a Bristol-Myers Squibb R&D Company, Allard Labs Acquisition G.P., Amira Pharmaceuticals, Amira Pharmaceuticals Inc., Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Apothecon LLC, B-MS Generx Unlimited Company, BMS Benelux Holdings B.V., BMS Bermuda Nominees L.L.C., BMS Data Acquisition Company LLC, BMS Forex Company, BMS Holdings Sarl, BMS Holdings Spain S.L., BMS International Insurance Designated Activity Company, BMS Investco SAS, BMS Korea Holdings L.L.C., BMS Latin American Nominees L.L.C., BMS Luxembourg Partners L.L.C., BMS Omega Bermuda Holdings Finance Ltd., BMS Pharmaceutical Korea Limited, BMS Pharmaceuticals Germany Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals International Holdings Netherlands B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Korea Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Mexico Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Netherlands Holdings B.V., BMS Real Estate LLC, BMS Spain Investments LLC, BMS Strategic Portfolio Investments Holdings Inc., Blisa Acquisition G.P., Bristol (Iran) S.A., Bristol Iran Private Company Limited, Bristol Laboratories Inc., Bristol Laboratories International S.A., Bristol Laboratories Medical Information Systems Inc., Bristol-Myers (Andes) L.L.C., Bristol-Myers (Private) Limited, Bristol-Myers Middle East S.A.L., Bristol-Myers Overseas Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Israel) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (NZ) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Proprietary) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Taiwan) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (West Indies) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb A.E., Bristol-Myers Squibb Aktiebolag, Bristol-Myers Squibb Argentina S. R. L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia Pty. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Axia Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb B.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Belgium S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Business Services Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada International Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Delta Company Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Denmark Filial of Bristol-Myers Squibb AB, Bristol-Myers Squibb EMEA Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Egypt LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Epsilon Holdings Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Ltda., Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Portuguesa S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb GesmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb GmbH & Co. KGaA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holding Germany GmbH & Co. KG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings 2002 Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Ireland Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Pharma Ltd. Liability Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Ilaclari Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb India Pvt. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Company Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Investco L.L.C., Bristol-Myers Squibb K.K., Bristol-Myers Squibb Kft., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg International S.C.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb MEA GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Manufacturing Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Marketing Services S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Middle East & Africa FZ-LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Norway Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Nutricionales de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Peru S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (HK) Ltd, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (Thailand) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Holding Company LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Ventures Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Polska Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Products SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico/Sanofi Pharmaceutical Partnership Puerto Rico, Bristol-Myers Squibb Romania S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.A.U., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Holding Partnership, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Service Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Services Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Spol. s r.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Theta Finance Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Trustees Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Colombia S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Costa Rica Sociedad Anonima, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Guatemala S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb/Astrazeneca EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Pfizer EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership, Bristol-Myers de Venezuela S.C.A., CHT I LLC, CHT II LLC, CHT III LLC, CHT IV LLC, CR Finance Company LLC, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals Inc., Celem LLC, Celem Ltd., Celgene, Celgene A.B., Celgene AS, Celgene Ab (Finland), Celgene Alpine Investment Co. II LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. III LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. LLC, Celgene ApS, Celgene B.V., Celgene BVBA, Celgene Brasil Produtos Farmaceuticos Ltda., Celgene CAR LLC, Celgene CAR Ltd., Celgene Chemicals Sarl, Celgene China Holdings LLC, Celgene Co., Celgene Corporation, Celgene Distribution B.V., Celgene EngMab GmbH, Celgene Europe B.V., Celgene Europe Limited, Celgene European Investment Company LLC, Celgene Financing Company LLC, Celgene Global Holdings Sarl, Celgene GmbH [Austria], Celgene GmbH [Germany], Celgene GmbH [Switzerland], Celgene Holdings East Corporation, Celgene Holdings II Sarl, Celgene Holdings III Sarl, Celgene Ilac Pazarlama ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Celgene Inc., Celgene International Holdings Corporation, Celgene International II Sarl, Celgene International III Sarl, Celgene International Inc., Celgene International Sarl, Celgene K.K., Celgene Kft., Celgene Limited [Hong Kong], Celgene Limited [Ireland], Celgene Limited [New Zealand], Celgene Limited [Taiwan], Celgene Limited [UK], Celgene Logistics Sarl, Celgene Ltd, Celgene Luxembourg Sarl, Celgene Management Sarl, Celgene NJ Investment Co, Celgene Netherlands B.V., Celgene Netherlands Investment B.V., Celgene Pharmaceutical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Celgene Pte. Ltd., Celgene Pty Ltd, Celgene Puerto Rico Distribution LLC, Celgene Quanticel Research Inc, Celgene R&D Sarl, Celgene RIVOT LLC, Celgene RIVOT Ltd., Celgene RIVOT SRL, Celgene Receptos Limited, Celgene Receptos Sarl, Celgene Research Incubator At Summit West LLC, Celgene Research S.L.U., Celgene Research and Development Company LLC, Celgene Research and Development I ULC, Celgene Research and Development II LLC, Celgene Research and Investment Company II LLC, Celgene S. de R.L. de C.V., Celgene S.L.U., Celgene S.R.L., Celgene SAS, Celgene Sarl AU, Celgene Sdn Bhd, Celgene Services Sarl, Celgene Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Celgene Sp. Z.o.o., Celgene Sro [Czech Republic], Celgene Summit Investment Co, Celgene Switzerland Holding Sarl, Celgene Switzerland II LLC, Celgene Switzerland Investment Sarl, Celgene Switzerland LLC, Celgene Switzerland Sarl, Celgene Tri A Holdings Ltd., Celgene Tri Sarl, Celgene UK Distribution Limited, Celgene UK Holdings Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing II Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing III Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing Limited, Celgene d.o.o., Celgene sro [Slovakia], Celmed LLC, Celmed Ltd., ConvaTec Divestiture, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals AB, Crosp Ltd., Delinia Inc., Deuteria Pharmaceuticals Inc., DuPont Pharmaceuticals, E. R. Squibb & Sons Inter-American Corporation, E. R. Squibb & Sons L.L.C., E. R. Squibb & Sons Limited, EWI Corporation, EngMab Sarl, F-star Alpha, FermaVir Pharmaceuticals L.L.C., FermaVir Research L.L.C., Flexus Biosciences, Flexus Biosciences Inc., Forbius, Galecto Biotech, GenPharm International L.L.C., Gloucester Pharmaceuticals LLC, Grove Insurance Company Ltd., Heyden Farmaceutica Portuguesa Limitada, IFM Therapeutics, Impact Biomedicines Inc., Inhibitex, Inhibitex L.L.C., Innate Tumor Immunity Inc., JuMP Holdings LLC, Juno Therapeutics GmbH, Juno Therapeutics Inc., Kosan Biosciences, Kosan Biosciences Incorporated, Linson Investments Limited, Mead Johnson (Manufacturing) Jamaica Limited, Mead Johnson Jamaica Ltd., Medarex, Morris Avenue Investment II LLC, Morris Avenue Investment LLC, MyoKardia, O.o.o. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Oy Bristol-Myers Squibb (Finland) AB, Padlock Therapeutics, Padlock Therapeutics Inc., Pharmion LLC, Princeton Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Receptos LLC, Receptos Services LLC, RedoxTherapies Inc., Route 22 Real Estate Holding Corporation, SPV A Holdings ULC, Seamair Insurance DAC, Signal Pharmaceuticals LLC, Sino-American Shanghai Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Societe Francaise de Complements Alimentaires(S.O.F.C.A.), Squibb Middle East S.A., Summit West Celgene LLC, Swords Laboratories, VentiRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Westwood-Intrafin SA, Westwood-Squibb Pharmaceuticals Inc., X-Body Inc., ZymoGenetics, ZymoGenetics Inc., ZymoGenetics LLC, ZymoGenetics Paymaster LLC, iPierian, and iPierian Inc.. Stanmore Resources Limited explores for, produces, and sells metallurgical and thermal coal in Australia. The company holds interests in the Isaac Plains, Isaac Downs, Belview, The Range, Lilyvale, Mackenzie, and Clifford projects in the Bowen and Surat basins of Queensland, as well as the Millennium and Mavis Downs mine located near Moranbah, Queensland. It also exports its products. The company was formerly known as Stanmore Coal Limited and changed its name to Stanmore Resources Limited in May 2021. Stanmore Resources Limited was incorporated in 2008 and is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia. Stanmore Resources Limited is a subsidiary of Golden Investments (Australia) Pte. Ltd. Read More by Anthony Cervino | Buccaneers Correspondent | Mon, Nov 12th 9:17am EST Buccaneers WR Mike Evans caught 3-of-6 targets for 51 yards in Sunday's Week 10 loss to Washington. Fantasy Impact: Evans has now caught four receptions for 67 yards on 16 targets combined in his past two games. Even with Ryan Fitzpatrick under center, Evans is struggling. However, things are looking up for the inconsistent wideout as the Buccaneers travel to New York for a matchup with the Giants. in Week 11. UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. A research team in Penn States College of Agricultural Sciences has received a $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A group led by David Hughes, associate professor of entomology and biology, will pursue the project, Pest and Disease Surveillance via High-Resolution Satellites. If deemed successful, the project has the opportunity to receive a second grant of up to $1 million. Diagnosing crop disease Hughes explained that satellites could be an important tool for pest and disease surveillance of multiple crops over large geographic regions in low-income countries. High-resolution satellites from commercial services image the globe daily, and publicly funded fleets of satellites maintained by governmental agencies have a suite of tools to measure crop health, soil moisture and water availability. Such coverage already is critical for documenting crop stress due to droughts. But to date, he noted, high-resolution satellite imagery has not played a role in diagnosing crop diseases and pest infestations. In smallholder settings, the significant challenge appears to stem from the mode of farming practiced it is often polyculture on irregularly shaped farms that have abundant trees, large shrubs and weeds growing within the crops. Satellites in agriculture typically measure vegetation indices, Hughes said. These give a measure of health and growth. If farms contain multiple crops, are irregularly shaped and have many other types of vegetation, then its challenging to discriminate between crop and noncrop plants. Even when the data tell us that a crop is stressed, its also difficult to determine whether the stress is due to insect pests, disease, poor nutrients or drought. From space, a sick plant is a sick plant. Work in Kenya To test the ability of satellite imagery to help diagnose insect and disease problems, Hughes team will leverage existing projects underway in Kenya, where researchers are using artificial intelligence on smartphone apps and observations from drones, scientists and cooperating farmers to identify plant pests and diseases. Researchers will utilize the groups access to high-resolution satellite data through a collaboration with Planet.com, a commercial satellite imaging service, and compare it to ground-truth data collected by experts, drones and smartphones. Our work is innovative because incorporating multiple data types across multiple scales has never been done with smallholder farmers as the focus, Hughes said. We are in the unique position of using ground-truth data from disease experts, drones and machine-learning models across 28,000 Kenyan farms to see the true extent of plant diseases and test the usefulness of satellites. Ohio State grant Hughes project is one of 34 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 21 grants announced Nov. 1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. From Ohio State Universitys College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, plant pathologist Pierluigi Bonello received a $100,000 grant to develop a surveillance system for crops using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to position sensors to help diagnose plant diseases in low-income countries. To receive funding, Grand Challenges Explorations winners demonstrated in a two-page, online application a bold idea in one of three critical global heath and development topic areas. Grand Challenges Explorations is a $100 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. More than 100 corporate CEOs and government ministers, over 2,200 exhibiting companies and thousands of delegates from across the world will gather in Abu Dhabi for the next four attending the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec). The worlds leading annual oil and gas industry event the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec) opens its doors in the UAE capital today (November 12), with strong growth in the number of companies, senior decision-makers, and expert professionals booking to attend the 2018 edition. Held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE; hosted by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc); and supported by the UAE Ministry of Energy and Industry, the Abu Dhabi Chamber, and the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, Adipec will take place at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec) till November 15. With exhibition and conference sessions running across four days, Adipec 2018 will welcome more than 2,200 exhibiting companies, an increase of 8 per cent compared with last year. This includes 42 major national oil companies (NOCs) and international oil companies (IOCs), up 23 per cent on 2017, while 29 countries are hosting businesses on national pavilions, an increase of 16 per cent. In a further demonstration of top-level support, more than 100 corporate CEOs and government ministers will speak during Adipecs strategic conference, which is an increase of 25 per cent compared with the previous edition. We have seen a very solid increase in bookings for Adipec this year, which reflects the industrys current positive outlook, and our efforts to ensure that both the exhibition and the conference are directly relevant to current industry concerns, said Jean-Philippe Cosse, vice president, dmg::events Middle East. Companies of all sizes, right across the oil and gas value chain, come to Adipec to find new opportunities many bringing their core leadership team to Abu Dhabi here to talk business and - engage in bi-lateral trade, Cosse said. As a platform for the global oil and gas industry to engage in dialogue, conduct business, and source the creative solutions and strategies that will shape the industry in the years ahead, Adipecs landmark conference programme continues to evolve in line with emerging trends and challenges. In a major new initiative, three invitation-only closed-door C-suite round tables will offer industry leaders a private forum to engage in open dialogue, with the purpose of embracing change and putting in place strategies to help them navigate critically important challenges. Hosted in strategic partnership with global consultancy groups Accenture, PwC, and AT Kearney, the round tables will lead to published outcomes after Adipec. Other new and revised conference sessions include 10 upstream and downstream business leader sessions, two CEO finance breakfast briefings, six inclusion and diversity in energy sessions, 11 C-suite dialogues, and nine downstream technical sessions. For working professionals, the technical conference programme will host 111 sessions, with a record 748 abstracts accepted for presentation during the event. These were chosen from 2,829 submissions, coming from 541 companies in 58 countries. - TradeArabia News Service A group of vets has accused Defra of telling "barefaced lies" about the progress of the badger cull in England. Prion Interest Group has written to the UK's Chief Vet, Dr Christine Middlemiss, asking her to ensure Defra retracts "insupportable claims that its badger cull policy is working". Defra Farming Minister George Eustice announced reductions in new outbreaks of bovine TB were recorded in Gloucestershire and Somerset following the completion of their licensed four-year badger culls. The data, published on 13 September, showed a decline in TB incidence in the first two cull areas with the rate of new confirmed breakdowns now at about half the level they were before culling began. In the Gloucestershire cull area, the data showed TB incidence fell from 10.4% before culling started to 5.6% in year four of the cull, while in Somerset it has reduced from 24% to 12%. But Dr Iain McGill, a veterinary surgeon and director of Prion Interest Group, told BBC News that Defra's claims that badger culling lowered bovine TB cases in cull zones amounts to "barefaced lies". "According to Defra's figures, they claim that they calculated that the incidence [of TB in cattle] has reduced," Dr McGill said. "But their calculations are unclear and deliberately opaque. And, indeed, the current situation in the cull zone says there is an increased prevalence." He added: "So, either their figures were calculated on an extremely inaccurate basis and they've got it very badly wrong, or they have actually gerrymandered those figures to make it look as if the incidence is falling when the evidence clearly shows that the prevalence has gone up. "Badger culling has not worked. They are issuing barefaced lies in this matter." However, a Defra spokesman said all statements had been "absolutely correct". It follows an open letter released in October, published in The Observer from veterinary and animal welfare figures, calling on Mr Eustice to retract the statement he made in September about the badger cull progress. The open letter requested that Defra release the data upon which their calculations for incidence and prevalence are based. England has the highest incidence of bovine TB in Europe and the disease costs taxpayers over 100m every year. In 2017 more than 33,000 cattle had to be slaughtered in England to control the disease. A Scottish farmer is using a revolutionary new marking system in a bid to tackle the growing problem of sheep theft. Drummond Estate near Comrie in Perthshire - which grazes nearly 3,000 sheep across the Glenartney Hills - uses the TecTracer theft-deterrent system. It is adapted from technology used to discourage the theft of lead from church roofs. By ingraining thousands of coded microdot markers into each sheep's fleece, the system easily identifies the animal and which farm it comes from, incriminating rustlers at random checks carried out at auction markets, abattoirs or on other farms. Farmer David Wallace, of the Drummond Estate, said that several incidents of sheep rustling on their upland grazing had proved costly. He said: "We've experienced first-hand how sneaky and resourceful these criminals can be and we're delighted to host the Scottish launch of a system which we believe can help farmers fight back. "The remote and isolated nature of much of Scotland's sheep grazing land and hill farms means thieves can operate unseen when they target flocks. By marking our animals with Tec Tracer we at least have some chance of getting them back." Mr Wallace added: "Sheep rustling is an increasing worry and this system is a valuable tool in our fight against would-be criminals intent on stealing our property and damaging our livelihoods." 'Years to establish' Jamie Smart, Legal and Technical Committee Chairman of NFU Scotland, explained that the loss of pedigree animals from a flock could have a devastating effect on a sheep farmer. He highlighted a recent case in northern Scotland where one farmer lost 60,000 worth of livestock overnight. "They not only lose valuable animals, but possibly the entire bloodline in a stock that has taken years to establish," Mr Smart explained. "We have to make thieves realise that sheep are no longer a soft option - with the TecTracer system operational, they should now be viewed as too hot to handle." TecTracer uses thousands of coded microdots, backed up by a powerful database, which provides a multi layered response that protects sheep on hills and in glens. Where traditional ear tags can be removed, the microdots stay within the fleece and this preventative step turns the tables on would be thieves, making flocks identifiable and keeping them safe. Farmers and animal health experts have called on the Welsh Government to fund a new programme which aims to stop sheep scab, a disease which has serious economic implications. The report advocates the need for a more co-ordinated effort from sheep scab infected farms, which it says could bring Wales one step closer to controlling the disease. Sheep scab is caused bites living in the fleece of sheep and feeding on the skin, and can have a highly debilitating and even deadly effect on flocks. Infected animals suffer from rapid weight loss, infections caused by persistent scratching of the skin, and if pregnant ewes get it, it can result in weaker, smaller lambs. All of this is distressing for the animal and farmer, and can have serious economic implications for the UK. The new report, created by Welsh farming unions and sheep industry representatives and veterinary experts, identified a "more holistic approach" is necessary in stopping the disease. It argues that if neighbouring infected premises worked together to implement a scab control programme it would be easier to deal with outbreaks and could even mean no more sheep scab in Wales. Measures farmers should work together on include ensuring that no sheep are left out on the hills when attempting to treat for scab, keeping sheep off infected land or out of infected housing for 17 days to prevent reinfection and practising good quarantine procedures. The collaborators have now submitted the report for consideration by the Wales Animal Health and Welfare Framework Group. They are now calling for the Welsh Government to provide the multi-million pound funding needed to kick-start its recommendations. Dr Neil Paton, Lecturer in Farm Animal Health and Production at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), said: Sheep scab is an insidious problem and has significant welfare implications for infected sheep. It is therefore highly important that sheep scab eradication is funded in Wales. Members of Welsh sheep scab group are: John Griffiths, Agriculture Resource Centre manager at Coleg Sir Gar Gelli Aur, Dr Hazel Wright, Senior Policy Officer at the Farmers Union of Wales, Dafydd Jarrett, Policy Advisor at NFU Cymru, Helen Roberts, Secretary of the National Sheep Association in Wales, and Moss Jones of Farm Assured Welsh Livestock. A new app can help farmers finish cattle to retailers specifications with greater precision, avoiding lower prices for the farmer and waste in the value chain. Changing customer tastes mean that almost half of prime beef now fails to meet ideal market specifications. The app will help farmers finish cattle to retailers specifications with greater precision, underpinned by the data to evidence this. The Field to Yield trial, launched by agri-tech company Breedr in conjunction with Rothamsted Research, sets to improve the metrics available to farmers. Breedr co-founder Ian Wheal was brought up on a mixed livestock farm in Australia, where his father was one of the first to adopt electronic tagging. The tags capture information about the performance of individual animals and enable an audit trail to be created of tests and treatments, time on grass and other animal health and welfare interventions. 'Flying blind' Mr Wheal explains that this knowledge of data-driven production has helped him to develop a decision support system for UK producers. He says: There is a big drive towards loin steaks and burgers from consumers, however the current EU-wide EUROP grading system, which is used to value beef, was originally designed when rump was the main piece of beef consumed. The result is that todays farmers are flying blind when trying to meet the specifications of retailers for meat with less fat and improved taste. Data from the AHDB suggests that if customers have a bad eating experience it can take up to 12 weeks for them to buy that specific cut of meat again. Currently, producers use their experience and expertise to visually assess conformation and estimate carcass weight as a percentage of live weight. However, Mr Wheal says it seems this no longer syncs with what retailers need for their customers. "We are looking at ways to capture this information in a more evidence-based way that will provide farmers more meaningful insights," he says. One example would be to provide better understanding of how genetics and breeding can create a desirable frame size. Also, to investigate how the use of 3D camera technology can help standardise measurement and give a much earlier predictor of value, and better align to the actual needs of a processor. Decisions on breeding Breedr aims to create a virtuous circle where consumer behaviours and buying decisions are fed back through the value chain to inform decisions on breeding, feeding and animal welfare, and livestock producers can provide data evidence that they are producing premium meat. The company is working with Professor Michael Lee, Head of Sustainable Agricultural Sciences at Rothamsted Research and Chair in Sustainable Livestock Systems at Bristol Veterinary School, on the Field to Yield project, which is funded by the Impact Labs. Prof Lee says: Our research shows that it is possible to produce livestock with the desired attributes within 18 months from pasture based finishing, to balance the needs of production efficiency, product quality and environmental impact. "But to achieve such targets requires excellent pasture management, appropriate animal genetics and visualisation tools to predict carcass and eating quality. The app aims to bring data to the supply chain that can help processors and retailers buy appropriate animals, increase usable meat for their need and reduce variance in supply. The first centre of its kind has been opened in the United Kingdom, combining commercial egg production with research and education. The Northern Poultry Campus has been established by Vencomatic near Helperby, York in North Yorkshire. It comprises four 16,000-bird free range houses, which will be operated by Wot-A-Hen, producing eggs for Noble Foods' happy egg brand, but it will also be used by leading universities for research into egg production and it will also help to educate and train egg industry professionals of the future. "It really is an exiting time. I honestly think that this is the poultry farm for the future," said Leon Furlong of Vencomatic UK during an open day held to enable people in the egg industry to look around the new facilities. Vencomatic says the Northern Poultry Campus will provide the highest standards of bird welfare in the world and also low antibiotic use. It says it offers a unique world research centre endorsed by leading academics in the field, an educational facility where Askham Bryan college will run a poultry apprenticeship scheme and - for the first time in the UK - a visitor centre, enabling members of the public to see how eggs are produced. 'Encourage young people' Gary Ford, the NFU's chief poultry adviser, who was at the open day, said he was particularly impressed by the educational connections of the new centre. "What is particularly good is that the educational centre will be working in collaboration with Askham Bryan. We have got to encourage young people into the industry," said Mr Ford. "This educational tie-up is very interesting, very exciting. We need to show young people that they can have a good career in this industry - a career with good prospects and one that is well paid, which is unlike the perception of our industry." Vencomatic says the units on the farm will feature its Veranda Gallery nest, which it says has been designed for the highest standards of welfare following four years of research with the University of Bristol. It says its ethos is to create a series of highly efficient, high welfare free range poultry units, which are located in an environmentally friendly setting of 600 acres of trees and wildflower meadows. The litter and sileage from the range will feed a local anaerobic digester. Ground source heat pumps will provide even temperatures for the birds for efficient egg production. 'Template' The farm will be a facility for the UK poultry industry, a template for modern egg production and is the future of high poultry welfare, says the company. Cor van der Ven, the owner of Vencomatic, told those attending the open day: "Vencomatic is a family company and what you see with Vencomatic is innovation." He said, "Every two years we have a new product." "Also important is that we never, never, never made a cage system. From the beginning we had a lot of discussion with the cage people." He said that when he first went to the United States in 1988 he had a video about free range birds but he was not allowed to show it. Now people accepted alternative production systems. Talking about the new centre in Yorkshire, he said: "I think the strong point of this is if we build more of these types of farms we do the research here. It's also a campus. I think that is very unique for the UK. It means that, together with the university, we can improve things." He said that small improvements made at the Northern Poultry Campus could be implemented on other farms. "I think it's a very good thing that we have the first poultry campus in the UK." He said: "It's great for the UK, it's great for Vencomatic and I see a lot of possibilities for the market in the UK." The open day was also attended by Adam Henson, who co-presents the BBC programme, Country File. He said: "What we see here today is extraordinary investment but very, very carefully placed. If you talk to an olympian about how to win a gold medal, it's about all those little tiny increments. "It's about the tiny little things they do that make them the best," he said. "That's what we have to do today in agriculture." Cage-free Vencomatic says that the new centre will prove very important in the approach to 2025, the deadline that most major retailers in the UK have set for going cage-free. Whilst the British Free Range Egg Producers Association (BFREPA) says that the industry already has enough free range units to meet the needs of 2025, Vencomatic says that an extra 1,500 free range farms may be needed over the next few years. "Approximately 18 million birds are still in cages, which produce eggs much more cheaply than free range," said the company in a briefing about the new centre. "As the UK farming base moves toward free range, there needs to be a commercial and accurate assessment of how to do this. Free range egg needs to be produced with high welfare and as economically as possible." It said: "With the shift from cage, there is a requirement for more free range farms. UK egg consumption is also rising by 4.4 per cent a year. Most poultry farms are 16,000-bird units. The UK may need another 1,500 plus poultry farms over the next eight years." It said that, with 1,500 new laying farms and 500 new rearing farms needed, there would be a need for skilled farm workers. Most agricultural colleges had excellent provision for beef, dairy and sheep but very little for poultry. Creditors of Tom Barron Independent Hatcheries have been notified of the intention to put the business into liquidation. The company, based in Lancashire, was known to have recently made redundancies after suffering significant losses. A letter to its creditors has now confirmed the intention to formally place the business into liquidation. The letter has been circulated by the financial restructuring firm, FRP Advisory. Accounts lodged with Companies House illustrate the difficulties facing Tom Barron's poultry business. The latest profit and loss account of Tom Barron Independent Hatcheries Limited showed a loss of 4.4 million for the period from the beginning of July 2016 to the end of December 2017 and followed a loss of 2.9 million in the previous 12-month period. The amount falling due to creditors within one year was 4.95 million, although 3.5 million was to group undertakings. Some 1.2 million was owed to trade creditors. Companies House records also show three outstanding debentures. The parent company, Tom Barron Limited, made a pre-tax loss of 1.39 million for the same period. In the previous 12 months the loss was 492,000. 'Trading difficulties' In the latest accounts, director Neil Leeming indicated that the poultry division was the problem. In his report attached to the company accounts, Neil Leeming said: "The group's poultry division has suffered losses as a result of trading difficulties due to trading restrictions resulting from avian influenza in the period. The meat processing plant at Rufford, which was operating at a loss, has been closed in the period. He said the group's dairy processing and farming operations had increased turnover and traded profitably throughout the period covered by the accounts. He said Tom Barron would be expanding both dairy processing and farming. He said the company was "in a position to benefit from the increased orders being achieved and new opportunities as an when they arise." Neil Leeming said in his report that the poultry market was "highly competitive" and comprised a small number of large distributors selling different breeds to customers. "The differences in breed attributes such as mortality profiles, saleable eggs per bird, liveability, feed efficiency and price affect the choice of customers when purchasing birds," he said. "The birds are highly regarded in the market place and provide a competitive advantage for the group. The Tom Barron group is the only independent layer hatchery serving the United Kingdom." New deal Tom Barron has been the UK and Ireland distributor for genetics company Novogen since 2012, when it signed a deal with the French company. The Lancashire firm struck this new deal after Hendrix Genetics decided that in future its Shaver Brown, ISA Warren and ISA Brown birds in the United Kingdom and Irish Republic would be distributed through its own subsidiary, Joice and Hill Poultry Ltd. Doug Kirkby, former national sales manager with Tom Barron until February this year, said that the failure of the Tom Barron poultry business was a "shame" because the Novogen bird had been performing well for producers in the UK. FRP Advisory is based in Preston. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike. We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve. 2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning -- 4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS. We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover. We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come. The global oil and gas will be a critical enabler of economic growth in the 4th Industrial Age and the sector must step up to enable the massive changes in global development, said Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Group CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc). Delivering the opening keynote address today at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec), one of the worlds leading oil and gas conferences and exhibitions, Dr Al Jaber said the world is on the verge of an era of unprecedented prosperity. This will be driven, he said, by rapid advances in technology and a global middle class, which will grow to five billion people by 2030, creating greater demand for energy and products derived from oil and gas. We are at the cusp of a new age of opportunity for our industry, an era in which digital innovation is delivering unprecedented levels of progress, Dr Al Jaber told the audience of government ministers, industry CEOs, policymakers and decision makers. This era, known as the 4th Industrial Age, is creating a paradigm shift in global growth and driving demand for our products. Our industry must step up to enable this massive step-change in global development. In short, Dr Al Jaber added, this mission can be given a simple name: Oil and Gas 4.0. Dr Al Jaber said Adnoc recognises that to fulfill the mission of Oil and Gas 4.0, it must leverage all its resources, its partnerships and, in particular, the latest technologies, if it is to continue to thrive and deliver on the ambitious strategic objectives of its 2030 smart growth strategy. Over the last two and half years, Dr Al Jaber said, Adnoc has: Consolidated its businesses and unified its brand identify; Entered the global capital markets for the first time; Launched the first ever IPO of an Adnoc business; Opened-up its concessions to new strategic partners; Competitively tendered new exploration blocks; Embarked on a comprehensive digital transformation; Took its first steps to expand internationally; and most recently, Closed a strategic equity partnership between Baker Hughes and Adnoc Drilling. All this is only the start of a new era at Adnoc, he said, adding that the group is continuing to put in place the building blocks that would allow it to seize the opportunities created by Oil and Gas 4.0, emphasising the strategic oil and gas announcements, made recently by Abu Dhabis Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC), which will see Adnoc increase its oil production capacity to 4 million barrels per day (mmbpd) by 2020 and to 5mmbpd by 2030 to meet growing global demand. In addition, ADNOC will develop its vast untapped gas resources. As we set out to meet these ambitious goals, we will access our undeveloped reservoirs, tap into our gas caps and further capitalize on our sour gas. Today, we are able to make this happen by thinking outside the box, leveraging technology and reframing our business model. This has finally unlocked the commercial formula that will enable the UAE to attain self-sufficiency and transition to becoming a potential net exporter of natural gas, Dr Al Jaber said. We are also taking steps, never taken before, to realise our comprehensive gas strategy. For the first time, we will jointly develop our unconventional fields in a concession partnership with Total. In addition, our strategy will ensure we remain a reliable supplier of LNG well into the future. While advances in technology are impacting every industry, it is time for us to focus our attention on how it can advance our industry, Dr Al Jaber said. At Adnoc, we believe technology can enhance our operational efficiency, drive performance, maximize profitability and empower our people. Adnoc, he said, is applying artificial intelligence and the science of predictive analytics to significantly reduce maintenance costs and building out its state-of-the-art Panorama Digital Command Center to mine for, monitor and measure terabytes of information across its operations. And yet, Adnoc is only scratching the surface of how technology can transform its potential, he declared. Our ambition is to extend technologys power across our entire value chain from drilling platforms to trading platforms, Dr Al Jaber said. By embedding innovation into every aspect of our business, we are determined to make ADNOC the destination of choice for a highly skilled, digitally native workforce and a home for the best and the brightest of our young people. He also emphasised the importance of Adnocs downstream expansion. This expansion capitalises on our high-grade feedstock, proximity to growth markets and best-in-class logistics to create an integrated plug and play ecosystem, an ecosystem where I invite partners to invest and grow alongside Adnoc as we continue on our journey to diversify the UAEs economy, enable in-country value and support GDP growth, he said. Following Dr Sultan Al Jabers speech, a special ministerial panel discussion took place entitled: Reshaping Markets: Continuing the Global Energy Discussion, with the participation of Suhail Al Mazrouie, UAEs Minister of Energy; Khalid Al Falih, Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of Saudi Arabia; and Mohammad Barkindo, secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec). Hosting more than 80 ministers, CEOs, and global oil and gas business leaders as speakers, Adipec has convened the companies, decision- and policy-makers who shape the future of oil and gas supply, for four days of focused business, dialogue and knowledge-transfer that addresses todays energy challenges and defines tomorrows hydrocarbon landscape. Adipecs international technical and strategic conference spans 200 sessions, with 980 expert speakers and over 10,400 delegates. The technical conference programme, organised in collaboration with the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), sets the international standard for the exchange of best-practice and operational excellence in the world of energy, with all technical abstract submissions put through a rigorous evaluation process by the Technical Program Committee. Sessions cover upstream, midstream and downstream sectors, including specialized program such as offshore and marine. Alongside the conference are the landmark Adipec exhibition areas, underpinning the events status as a premier showcase for suppliers and customers across the oil and gas industry. For 2018, Adipec has attracted more than 2,200 exhibiting companies, including 38 National Oil Companies and International Oil Companies, and 30 international country pavilions. TradeArabia News Service Category Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release SubCategory Select Sub-Category Fahadh Faasil and Nithya Menon are all set to team up for an upcoming Malayalam movie, which will reportedly narrate an unconventional love story. Actress Nithya Menen herself revealed about the project in a recent interview. "I'm doing a Malayalam film, which I will be starting in February or March. It's a beautiful film with Fahadh. I am really looking forward to working with Fahadh because for me, working with good actors is such a pleasure. It will be a beautiful... very unconventional love story.", the actress was quoted as saying to IANS. Further details regarding the movie including the director of the film are being awaited. It would be for the second time that Fahadh Faasil and Nithya Menen are teaming up for a movie. Earlier, they had worked together in the movie Bangalore Days, in which Nithya Menen had played a crucial cameo role. Meanwhile, Nithya Menen's next film in Malayalam is expected to be Pranaa, directed by VK Prakash. This highly awaited venture is a multi-lingual movie. The actress is also working in another Malayalam movie titled as Kolambi, which is being directed by film-maker TK Rajeev Kumar. On the other hand, Fahadh Faasil was previously seen in the movie Varathan, which was a big commercial success. His next big release in Malayalam is expected to beNjan Prakashan, directed by Sathyan Anthikkad. Rajinikanth About Akshay Kumar's Role in 2.0 While speaking in the interview, Rajinikanth with all humility mentioned that actually Akshay Kumar is the hero as well as the villain of the movie. On a lighter note, he also mentioned that Rajinikanth came in to the project because the characters Vaseegaran and Chitti were required for the movie. Praises For Akshay Kumar Meanwhile, he showered praises on Akshay Kumar's performance in the movie. He added that his patience as well as hard work is unimaginable recollecting the tough period the actor had while shooting in hot conditions in New Delhi. The Connection Between The Movies Rajinikanth opened up that only the characters from Enthiran like Vaseegaran, Chitti, 2.0 etc., have come in to the movie 2.0. He also added that apart from that Enthiran and 2.0 have no other connection. The Characters He added that the movie Enthiran revolved around 3-4 characters including the different versions of Chitti, Vaseegaran and the leading lady. At the same time, 2.0 won't be like that it would be something entirely different Important Message He added that he can't reveal much about the subkect and at the same time he also mentioned that director Shankar has delivered an excellent and timely message with 2.0, which would be applicable to all. Well, it seems like something really special is in the offing. Television actor Rehaan Roy known for his role in the show Gudaan Tumse Na Ho Payega recently suffered injuries and minor burns while shooting for a sequence. The actor was filming a Diwali special episode when the accident occurred. Rehaan was supposed to shoot the sequence with the usage of electric lamps, however, he chose clay diyas for a more authentic feel. Rehaan ended up with unexpected injuries while handling the diyas. Following the incident, in a statement Rehaan said, "As an actor one has to take the risk for a good shot. I insisted my director and the team to use a real diya to get the right kind of a shot." Rehaan is playing the antagonist constable Parv on the show. Talking about the accident, Rehaan further said, "I love to perform scenes in the most real manner, by obviously keeping the safety in mind. I did injure myself during this particular scene, but for the shot to look that good, I think a bit of pain was completely worth it." It isn't only during the shoot that Rehaan tries to achieve perfection. In real too he's particular about keeping himself always prepared for his character. The actor is a fitness freak who pays a lot of importance to the fitness factor. Previously in an interview with Times of India, he had said, "A scene required me to go shirtless, but I did not do any preparations for it. I believe in staying fit all the time and if you are fit, I don't think you need any extra preparation to flaunt your body on screen. I was very confident." MOST READ : Kubra Sait Defends Nawazuddin Siddiqui Against Niharika; 'A Relationship Gone Sour, Isn't #MeToo' Talking about his character on the show he further added, "I'm enjoying every bit of playing Parv. The show is amazing and my character is very strong. For the first time, I'm playing full on negative character and as an actor, it's a great opportunity to explore that aspect of me." {document1} There's no denying the Fact that the =dashing Allu Arjun isa one of the most talented young stars in Tollywood. He enjoys a pretty good fan following thanks to to his lively screen presence and awesome dancing skills. Now, the 'Stylish Star' is in the limelight for a surprising reason. During the recently held Taxiwala pre-release event, Allu Arjun spoke about the #MeToo movement and touched upon the safety of women in the Telugu film industry. While speaking on the subject, Bunny said people in the Telugu industry respect women a lot and have a lot of concern for their safe. The DJ star added that people should not pay attention to all the sensational comments that have been made about Tollywood in recent times. "No other Industry in Indian Cinema is as welcoming as Telugu and as respectful too. Here women are treated with respect. I hope many will start coming into Film Industry and believe in all the non-sense that is more promoted for sensationalism," he added. Interestingly, these comments are the exact opposite of what Sri Reddy had said about Tollywood a few months ago. She had called Tollywood the 'worst industry' and claimed that several producers exploit 'local girls' and show them the door. It will be worth whether the bold lady reacts to these comments or not. Bharat Ane Nenu Star Kiara Advani To Act Opposite Allu Arjun In His Film With Trivikram Srinivas? LONDON, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Top Tips for buying appliances safely online Nearly two thirds (64%) of Brits would spend more time researching a new pair of trainers, or a meal out, or a holiday compared to choosing a fridge freezer, according to YouGov research published today[1]. Over a quarter of adults (29%)[2] would be likely to purchase a fridge, freezer, cooker or washing machine from an online seller they didn't know, if they were the cheapest. While a similar percentage (29%)[3] don't often look at the instructions before switching on a new large domestic appliance for the first time. The research was commissioned by the Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances (AMDEA) as part of International Product Safety Week (12-16 November), with support from the Office for Product Safety and Standards. The Office works closely with AMDEA to encourage the public to register their appliances, so they can be quickly notified of any safety repairs or recalls. The British research highlights differences in our attitudes to buying fashion, food, or holidays, versus kitchen stalwarts like dishwashers and fridge freezers. With seven Top Tips for online buyers, AMDEA is urging consumers to research products and sellers carefully and to treat their purchases well, to ensure the maximum years of safe use. As well as following installation and user guides, buyers are encouraged to register their purchases with the manufacturers at http://www.registermyappliance.org.uk, so that they can be contacted in case a safety repair is ever needed. Douglas Herbison, AMDEA Chief Executive, said: "At least half of our major appliances are now purchased online yet, despite an expectation that they will last for many years, it's surprising that such a major investment warrants less thought than this season's shoes! "As we move into a peak buying season, our industry has looked at how our customers choose and buy their appliances online to support International Product Safety Week with sensible advice tailored to the findings among British shoppers." AMDEA's Top Tips for Buying Appliances Online are: - Check who you're buying from. Just like the high street, look for reputable sellers that you know, or check out what other buyers say. - Research ratings and reviews.Choose the best model for your household. - Check the recall listing.Know any product you should not buy at https://productrecall.campaign.gov.uk - Of course compare prices.We all love a bargain, but if it looks too good to be true it probably is. Once your new appliance is home - Register your product with the manufacturer. Be the first to know about recalls or safety repairs. Its quick and easy at http://www.registermyappliance.org.uk - Follow the installation and user instructions. For best and safest performance - Found a safety issue? Speak up! Report product safety problems to your retailer or manufacturer. The survey which asked people about buying fridges, freezers, washing machines, tumble dryers, dishwashers, ovens and cookers online, also revealed: 50% of GB adults have purchased a white goods item online. 16% were likely or very likely to consider purchasing a second-hand large appliance online, in the future. 34% would like to check if the model they propose to purchase has been recalled but don't know how or where to. NOTES TO EDITORS AMDEA is the UK trade association for manufacturers of large and small domestic appliances; representing over 85% of the domestic appliance industry and nearly 90% of white goods brands. Members' products include most of the UK's top selling brands of major white goods, other large and small kitchen appliances, heating, water heating, floor care, waste disposal and ventilation equipment. The Register My Appliance portal was designed by AMDEA to make it quicker and easier for the public to register both new and older appliances, to improve ownership data. It currently provides access to 64 leading brands. By simply clicking on the brand logo the user reaches a data entry form linked directly to the relevant manufacture. The vast majority accept registrations of products up to 12 years old. International Product Safety Week is an initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The mission of the OECD is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world and it provides a forum where governments can work together to share experiences and seek solutions to common problems. 1. All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2072 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 17th - 18th October 2018. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+). 2. 26% said they were fairly likely and 3% very likely to buy from a seller they didn't know if they were the cheapest. 3. 16% said they sometimes look at the instructions before plugging in, 10% rarely and 3% never Contacts for further details, interviews and comment: AMDEA Press Office, Dee Fernandes, Moira Whittle or Philippa Dovar Email: amdeapress@bfipr.co.uk Net Income Almost Triples Over Same Period in 2017 ISELIN, NJ / ACCESSWIRE / November 12, 2018 / Spectacular Solar, Inc., (a Nevada Corporation) (OTC PINK:SNTL) gave investors their first look at the financial strength of the company following the release of its first public fiscal report late on Friday. The financials featured two big standout figures. Over the first nine months of 2018, revenues jumped from $2.9 million to over $4.5 million and more importantly, net income rose from $725,000 to more than $2 million. ( https://backend.otcmarkets.com/otcapi/company/financial-report/206071/content ) "We are extremely pleased with the investor response to our latest set of financials," said CEO Doug Heck. "Even if you use a conservative earnings multiple, it is easy to see this company is undervalued in the market. We know this will sort itself out as investor confidence grows in a company that operates well into the black and has zero convertible debt." Spectacular Solar is in the final stages of acquiring FINRA approval for its name and ticker symbol changes. Amendments to the articles of incorporation have been filed in the State of Nevada and a business license in the name of Spectacular Solar, Inc., has been issued. The company also applied for and was issued a new CUSIP. Heck and his management team have been extremely active in seeking new solar projects but have likewise been equally aggressive on the acquisition front. With the accomplishments of the past two months, the 40-year old CEO is very excited about the short- and long-term prospects for Spectacular Solar. "These are without a doubt amazing times for everyone, employees and investors alike, to be involved with Spectacular Solar," Heck said. "We will be releasing quite a few announcements over the next few weeks. We are in the final stages of inking new solar contracts in addition to acquiring new companies that will strengthen the core business of Spectacular Solar and add tangible shareholder value." For more information: please the visit the website at http://www.spectacularsolar.com Or contact: Gregg Boehmer at laynemichaelpr@gmail.com Wyndham Hotel Project Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=74&v=BPLKjgdFaOw About Spectacular Solar Holdings, Inc.: Spectacular Solar is a diversified holding company involved in solar system installations, investment fund management and roofing contracting through its subsidiaries. DC Solar Integrators designs and installs state-of-the-art solar conversions for homeowners and business owners. Star Power Services is a bonded and licensed roofing contracting company with expertise in new roof installation, roof repairs and roof maintenance. The Solar Energy Investors Fund contributes to the upfront and ongoing insurance expenses directly associated with the installation of solar panel systems. In return, the fund receives a share of tax benefits and ongoing revenue generated from the electricity sales. Safe Harbor Statement This release contains forward-looking statements that relate to future events or performance. These statements reflect the company's current expectations and are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company doesn't undertake to update or revise these forward-looking statements, even if experience or future changes make it clear that any projected results expressed or implied in this or other company statements will not be realized. Furthermore, readers are cautioned that these statements involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to, the acceptance of our products, lack of revenue growth, failure to realize profitability, inability to raise capital and market conditions that negatively affect the market price of our common stock. The Company disclaims any responsibility to update any forward-looking statements. SOURCE: Spectacular Solar, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/527763/Spectacular-Solar-3rd-Quarter-Earnings-Report-Shines-Brightly LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / November 12, 2018 / Diageo has agreed the sale of nineteen brands in an agreement with Sazerac for an aggregate consideration of $550 million. The net proceeds of approximately 340 million, after tax and transaction costs, will be returned to shareholders through a share repurchase following completion, which will be incremental to the previously announced programme of up to 2bn. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to complete early in 2019. Ivan Menezes, Chief Executive of Diageo, said: "Diageo has a clear strategy to deliver consistent efficient growth and value creation for our shareholders. This includes a disciplined approach to allocating resources and capital to ensure we maximise returns over time. Today's announcement is another example of this strategy in action. The disposal of these brands enables us to have even greater focus on the faster growing premium and above brands in the US spirits portfolio." Further Information The brands included in the transaction are Seagram's VO, Seagram's 83, Seagram's Five Star, Myers's, Parrot Bay, Romana Sambuca, Popov, Yukon Jack, Goldschlager, Stirrings, The Club, Scoresby, Black Haus, Peligroso, Relska, Grind, Piehole, Booth's and John Begg. The transaction is approximately 1.9 pence per share dilutive to pre-exceptional eps in the first full financial year. The transaction is expected to generate an exceptional gain on disposal of approximately 110m. Diageo has also agreed to enter into long-term supply contracts with Sazerac on completion for five of the brands each for a period of ten years. Supply of all other brands will transition to Sazerac within a one year period from completion. Further details with respect to the execution of the additional share repurchase will be made available following completion of the transaction and aligned with the execution of the remaining tranches of the previously announced programme of up to 2bn. ENDS CONTACTS Investor Relations: Pier Falcione +44 (0) 20 8978 4838 investor.relations@diageo.com Media Relations: Jessica Rouleau +44 (0) 20 8978 1286 press@diageo.com About Diageo Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands across the spirits and beer categories. These brands include Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, Buchanan's and Windsor whiskies, Smirnoff, Ciroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness. Diageo is a global company, and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. The company is listed on both the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and the New York Stock Exchange (DEO). Celebrating life, every day, everywhere. About Sazerac Sazerac is one of America's oldest family owned, privately held distillers with operations in the United States in Louisiana, Kentucky, Indiana, Virginia, Tennessee, Maine, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Maryland, California, and global operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, India, Australia and Canada. For more information on Sazerac, please visit www.sazerac.com. SOURCE: Diageo PLC View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/527781/Diageo-Sells-Portfolio-of-Brands Accretive Add-on to Jtul Group is an Italian Manufacturer of Home Heating Products OpenGate Capital, a global private equity firm, announced today that it has completed the acquisition of AICO S.p.A. ("AICO"), an Italian manufacturer of residential stoves, fireplaces, boilers and cookers from Ambienta SGR, a European private equity group. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. OpenGate Capital Founder and CEO, Andrew Nikou stated, "An integral part of our full potential operational strategy is to drive value into the businesses we acquire through add-on acquisitions that have the potential of offering new products or can provide access to new markets. AICO represents these elements and we are excited with the opportunity to expand on Jtul's rising growth with this add-on." AICO offers a wide range of premium home heating products that are energy efficient and utilize pellets, a renewable energy source. The business features two well-established brands, Ravelli and Elledi, and they are exported to more than 40 countries. Headquartered in Palazzolo sull'Oglio, Italy, AICO's 150 employees oversee the design, manufacturing and in-house testing to ensure all products comply with European quality, safety, and environmental compliance standards. About OpenGate Capital OpenGate Capital is a global private equity firm specializing in the acquisition and operation of businesses to create new value through operational improvements, innovation and growth. Established in 2005, OpenGate Capital is headquartered in Los Angeles, California with a European office in Paris, France. OpenGate's professionals possess the critical skills needed to acquire, transition, operate, build and scale successful businesses. To date, OpenGate Capital, through its legacy and fund investments, has executed more than 30 acquisitions including corporate carve-outs, management buy-outs, special situations and transactions with private sellers across North America and Europe. To learn more about OpenGate, please visit www.opengatecapital.com. About Jtul Jtul is one of the world's oldest producers of stoves, inserts and fireplaces. Building on a proud Norwegian heritage, Jtul combines fine craftsmanship with the art of coping with the cold for 160 years. Jtul is headquartered in Fredrikstad, Norway and features four prominent brands Jtul, Scan, Ild and Atra and proudly sells to 45 countries around the world. To learn more about Jtul, please visit: www.jotul.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005226/en/ Contacts: OpenGate Media Contacts Alanna Chaffin +1 (310) 432-7000 achaffin@opengatecapital.com or Sitrick & Company Mike Sitrick (310) 788-2850 Mike_Sitrick@sitrick.com or OpenGate Business Development Contact Joshua Adams +1 (310) 432-7000 jadams@opengatecapital.com or Jtul Media Contact Nils Agnar Brunborg +47 (90) 60 55 78 Nils.Brunborg@jotul.no A large fruit-eating bat native to Mauritius is the subject of controversy over the announcement of a major cull to protect the Indian island's fruit crops, despite a lack of evidence as to the extent of damage directly attributed to the endangered species. An international team of researchers, including the University of Bristol, that monitored the damage directly caused by the Mauritian flying fox to commercial fruit has found the bat is responsible for only some, and could be managed effectively without the need to cull. The study is published in the journal Oryx. As a species of bat largely restricted to Mauritius, the Mauritian flying fox has an important role in helping to pollinate forest canopies and disperse the seeds of large trees in the islands declining forests. However, the bats also feed on cultivated fruit such as mango and lychee and are perceived to cause large economic losses to commercial fruit farmers (annual estimates equate to five million US dollars). Until now, information on the scale of damage directly linked to the bats and the efficacy of mitigation interventions has been lacking. An international research team, involving Ryszard Oleksy from Ecosystem Restoration Alliance Indian Ocean , the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation and researchers from the Bristol's School of Biological Sciences, monitored damage in commercial fruit farms. Their findings showed that while bats caused damage to a quarter of all monitored fruits overall, with more damage on taller trees (>6 m), significant losses were attributed to birds and by fruit fall. By experimentally covering trees with nets, the team were able to prove that fruit damage by bats could be dramatically reduced, even if nets are placed over trees without using a frame. The study recommends that farmers can reduce fruit losses by pruning trees to reduce their height, harvesting fruit before it is too ripe for selling, and using nets to reduce fruit loss by bats (the Mauritian government subsidises the costs of nets by 50-75 per cent at orchards and for backyard growers respectively), preventing the need for culling. The species was uplisted this year as 'Endangered' by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in its Red List (the barometer of life) this year. It is estimated that approximately half the total population of this species of bat may have been culled in 2015-2016, and 5,000 to 6,000 bats are killed illegally each year. Given the magnitude of the population decline, the slow reproductive rate of the bats, their vulnerability to cyclones, deforestation, current estimates show 62,500 bats remained alive in 2016. Last months announcement by the Mauritian Government of a further 20 per cent cull of the Mauritian flying fox population could prove critical to the existence of the species. Ryszard Oleksy, the study's lead researcher and a former Bristol PhD student, said: Further culling is clearly unnecessary, and hopefully the vital ecological roles played by these remarkable and endangered animals can be encouraged and enhanced in the future. Gareth Jones, Professor of Biological Sciences from Bristol's School of Biological Sciences and an expert in the ecology and behaviour of bats, added: "It seems bizarre that a species that plays crucial ecological roles that is found nowhere else in the world should be culled to such a huge extent in the absence of reliable evidence about how much damage it causes and whether culling is an effective form of control. We hope these findings help provide the evidence to show more effective interventions for safeguarding fruit crops." The research, funded by The Rufford Foundation, and the IUCN through a Save Our Species Rapid Action Grant was conducted with the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, the University of Exeter and the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation. Paper: 'The impact of the Endangered Mauritian flying fox Pteropus niger on commercial fruit farms and the efficacy of mitigation' by R Z Oleksy et al is published in the International Journal of Conservation, Oryx Saudi Aramco, a global energy and chemicals company and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) have signed a framework agreement to explore opportunities for collaboration in the natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector. The cooperation brings together two of the worlds leading energy producers from the Arabian Gulf to jointly work together in an area of strategic importance for both companies as they seek to boost revenues from the natural gas and LNG business segments. The agreement was signed by Amin H Nasser, Saudi Aramco president and CEO and Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Adnoc Group CEO on the sidelines of the ongoing Abu Dhabi International Exhibition & Conference (Adipec) 2018. Saudi Aramco and Adnoc will jointly assess investment opportunities across the natural gas and LNG value chain, exchange technical knowledge and expertise in natural gas and LNG growth markets. Nasser said: Our partnership with Adnoc continues to strengthen, after the recent decision to jointly develop a major refinery in India. We have shared strategic interest to expand our gas businesses, and this new agreement underlines our confidence in strong global gas demand growth. Our cooperation further supports the corporate transformation strategy of both Adnoc and Saudi Aramco to pursue opportunities that help unlock greater value for both companies, and meet the growing needs of stakeholders around the world that depend on our energy to develop and grow their economies. Al Jaber said: The UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have a strong relationship built on shared strategic interests. Increased cooperation between Adnoc and Saudi Aramco will ensure greater energy security and long-term economic prosperity for both nations. This agreement reinforces our strategy to undertake partnerships with forward-thinking partners who can help accelerate access to new growth centres of global demand. It will ensure that we are well positioned to secure greater returns from global natural gas and LNG demand growth by combining the technological and operational expertise of two of the worlds leading National Oil Companies, he added. Adnoc LNG, a subsidiary of Adnoc, is a reliable LNG supplier with a proven track record over 40 years and 2 per cent of the global share of the LNG market. LNG is the fastest-growing hydrocarbon with a growth rate of 4 per cent per annum. Global LNG demand is expected to exceed 500 million tonnes per annum by 2035, up from nearly 300 million tonnes per annum in 2017. Saudi Aramco aims to double natural gas production to 23 billion standard cu ft per day (scfd) over the next decade. The framework agreement follows the announcement that Abu Dhabis Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) has approved Adnocs new integrated gas strategy that will sustain LNG production to 2040 and allow Adnoc to seize incremental LNG and gas-to-chemicals growth opportunities where they arise from the UAEs dynamic demand/supply position and evolving energy mix. It will also enable the company to explore LNG investment opportunities, as well as create additional value from international LNG trading expansion, in response to the dominant role Asian markets will play in driving demand for liquefied natural gas. TradeArabia News Service New platform launched to consolidate membership and event management software market in the UK Appoints Gerry Gualtieri as CEO and Joshua Rowe as Head of M&A Stephen Wolff named Non-Executive Director ClearCourse Partnership LLP, a new partnership of innovative technology companies providing membership software and services to groups, organisations and businesses, today announced the launch of its platform and the hiring of two senior executives, Gerry Gualtieri as Chief Executive Officer and Joshua Rowe as Head of Mergers Acquisitions. The company also has appointed Stephen Wolff as Non-Executive Director. ClearCourse has received capital backing from Aquiline Capital Partners, a New York and London-based private equity firm investing in financial services and technology. ClearCourse operates as a holding company with a mission to acquire primarily UK-based group and event management software companies and drive increased growth and profitability through more efficient payments, capital investment and operational support. The platform prioritises retention of existing leadership teams and is focused on creating an environment for talented entrepreneurs and their businesses to thrive. Gerry Gualtieri, ClearCourse's Chief Executive Officer, is an accomplished C-level fintech executive, with over 25 years of experience leading and growing businesses in the sector. Mr. Gualtieri recently served as Senior Managing Director and executive management team member at Eze Software Group. Prior to joining Eze via acquisition, Mr. Gualtieri was the Chief Executive Officer of Tradar, a provider of hedge fund portfolio management software, as well as the Chief Operating Officer of Fidessa LatentZero, a provider of front office technology to asset managers. "Over the course of my career, I've had the privilege of leading and building many companies in the fintech and software space. I'm excited to have this opportunity to create a new platform focused on the UK software market that will bring together best-in-class membership management and payments solutions," said Mr. Gualtieri. Joshua Rowe, Head of Mergers Acquisitions for ClearCourse, has spent 10 years working as the head of mergers acquisitions for a variety of organisations in Europe including Callcredit Information Group (now known as TransUnion UK), IHSMarkit, KPMG UK, and Capgemini. My goal at ClearCourse is to seek out and bring together market-leading companies where we see an opportunity to further optimise their operations and drive value," said Mr. Rowe. "We look forward to bringing these companies onto our platform and helping them to grow and evolve." Stephen Wolff, currently an Executive in Residence at Aquiline Capital Partners, will join the ClearCourse board as Non-Executive Director. Mr. Wolff most recently served as the Head of Corporate Strategy and a member of the executive management team of Markit Group, a financial information and technology company. Prior to Markit, Mr. Wolff was the Head of Strategic Investments at Deutsche Bank. "ClearCourse has the right leadership team in place with Gerry and Josh, and I look forward to leveraging my experience developing and implementing growth strategies in financial technology to help them build ClearCourse and its family of companies," Mr. Wolff said. About ClearCourse Partnership LLP ClearCourse is a new partnership of innovative technology companies providing membership software and services to groups, organisations and businesses. ClearCourse is backed by Aquiline Capital Partners, a New York and London-based private equity firm investing in financial services and technology. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005205/en/ Contacts: Media Contacts: Brunswick Group Alex Yankus Harry Mayfield 212-333-3810 ayankus@brunswickgroup.com hmayfield@brunswickgroup.com GSMA Names 26-Member Board to Serve from January 2019 through December 2020 The GSMA today announced that it has elected new members of the GSMA Board for the two-year period from January 2019 through December 2020. The GSMA Board has also elected Stephane Richard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Orange Group as Chair, and Chua Sock Koong, Group Chief Executive Officer of Singtel Group as Deputy Chair. As GSMA Chair, Richard will oversee the strategic direction of the organisation, which represents more than 750 of the world's mobile operators, as well as over 350 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem. "I am honoured to be elected to serve as Chair of the GSMA and look forward to working closely with the rest of the Board, the GSMA leadership team and our entire membership to address the critical issues facing our industry and our customers," said Stephane Richard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Orange. "Mobile operators and our wider industry have a key role to play in promoting a safer and more inclusive digital world, while building the infrastructure and services that will carry us forward as we enter this new era of intelligent connectivity." GSMA Board Members for the 2019-2020 Term The GSMA Board has 26 members, including 25 operator representatives from the world's largest operator groups as well as smaller, independent operators with global representation. The GSMA's Director General Mats Granryd also serves on the GSMA Board.The GSMA Board for the 2019-2020 term comprises: Juan Carlos Archila, Executive Vice President of International Relationships, America Movil Susan Johnson, Executive Vice President, Global Connections and Supply Chain, AT&T Jamaludin bin Ibrahim, Managing Director/President and Group Chief Executive Officer, Axiata Group Berhad Gopal Vittal, Chief Executive Officer, Bharti Airtel Dr. Li Zhengmao, Executive Vice President, China Mobile Liu Guiqing, Executive Vice President, China Telecom Dr. Shao Guanglu, Executive Vice President, China Unicom Srini Gopalan, Member of the Board of Management, Deutsche Telekom Hatem Dowidar, Chief Executive Officer, International, Etisalat Group Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA Christian Salbaing, Deputy Chairman, Europe, Hutchison Rob Shuter, Group President and Chief Executive Officer, MTN Group Alexey Kornya, President and Chief Executive Officer, MTS Kazuhiro Yoshizawa, President and Chief Executive Officer, NTT DOCOMO Stephane Richard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Orange Group Mathew Oommen, President and Member of the Board of Directors, Reliance Jio Chua Sock Koong, Group Chief Executive Officer, Singtel Group Jung Ho Park, President and Chief Executive Officer, SK Telecom Marcelo Claure, Chief Operating Officer, SoftBank Group Eng. Nasser S Al Nasser, Chief Executive Officer, STC Group Julio Linares Lopez, Member of the Board of Telefonica Companies, Telefonica Sigve Brekke, President and Chief Executive Officer, Telenor Group Andrew Penn, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra Kaan Terzioglu, Chief Executive Officer, Turkcell Rima Qureshi, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Verizon Vivek Badrinath, Chief Executive for the Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific Region, Vodafone Group Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises and current GSMA Chair, will step down from the Board at the end of 2018. Mittal served as a member of the GSMA Board from 2005 through 2008 and then again as Chair from 2016 through 2018. "The mobile world has changed tremendously since I first served on the GSMA Board, but the industry remains as dynamic and exciting as ever," commented Mittal. "While our industry continues to achieve new milestones, there is still much to be done to connect the unconnected and foster the digital economy. Under Stephane's leadership, I am confident that the GSMA will continue to strongly advocate for its members, drive the adoption of new technologies and deliver initiatives to protect our planet and its citizens." -ENDS- About the GSMA The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting more than 750 operators with over 350 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and device makers, software companies, equipment providers and internet companies, as well as organisations in adjacent industry sectors. The GSMA also produces the industry-leading MWC events held annually in Barcelona, Los Angeles and Shanghai, as well as the Mobile 360 Series of regional conferences. For more information, please visit the GSMA corporate website at www.gsma.com. Follow the GSMA on Twitter: @GSMA. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005239/en/ Contacts: For the GSMA Beau Bass +44 79 7662 4962 beau.bass@webershandwick.com or GSMA Press Office pressoffice@gsma.com Next Generation Regular Expression Processor (RXP) Doubles Throughput, Rule Capacity and Rule Complexity Leading developer of hardware-accelerated security analytics, Titan IC (www.titan-ic.com) is to unveil their next generation Regular Expression Processor (RXP) at the RSA Conference and Expo. The result of significant R&D effort, this latest generation brings major new enhancements and doubles all three vectors of performance, capacity and complexity. It is ideally suited to accelerate SNORT or similar Intrusion Detection/Prevention System (IDS/IPS) architectures from 10 Gbps to over 100 Gbps. Titan IC has developed this ground-breaking RXP technology for the detection of cyber threats on high-speed networks and licenses this Intellectual Property (IP) to a number of tier-one cyber security companies in Silicon Valley and Israel for use in products such as Next Generation Firewalls. The IP is also available in FPGAs, PCIe Adapters and on the Amazon Elastic Cloud and can simultaneously scan for simple patterns or complex regular expressions. Three Vectors of Innovation Performance - RXP is now available at up to more than double the performance of previous generations 100Gbps is achievable in both an FPGA or in a sub 5 watt block for an ASIC/SoC. At the 16nm process node, 100Gbps can be incorporated in as little as 20mm2 of die space and under 10mm2 at 7nm. Rule Capacity RXP continues to lead the pack for rule capacity with support for up to 2 million rules and, in this new generation of RXP, Titan has also doubled the capacity of rule prefixes that can be pre-scanned and pre-filtered using the company's TCAM-like hardware. This greatly contributes to the overall performance of the system by obviating the need to push needless partial matches into RXP's high performance, massively threaded, search processors. The capacity of these processors has also been doubled and can now handle up to 32,000 simultaneous searches. Rule Complexity Lastly, RXP now includes two major breakthroughs to better enable the handling of even more complex rules: RXP's new "AnyPrefix" technology allows for high performance processing of a much wider variety and complexity of rules prefixes can now be selected from anywhere in the rule. RXP's new "ReverseScan" technology is now smart enough to walk the scan through its engines backwards if that will improve the overall performance and match ability, and RXP automatically selects forward or reverse scanning. Noel McKenna, Chief Executive Officer at Titan IC said, "Our latest RXP Regular Expression Processor family really does push the envelope in terms of capabilities, now customers can scale our IP to new heights and garner even more performance for really complex cybersecurity applications. 100G Live Demo A live demo of RXP's 100Gbps Network Threat Detection capabilities can be seen at the RSA Conference, 4 7th March, 2019 on Titan IC's booth 6561, North Expo, Moscone Center, San Francisco. ----ends----- About Titan IC Titan IC is a world leading supplier of hardware engines for content and network processing, for both low cost, low footprint applications, as well as high performance complex regular expression processing. A privately held fabless semiconductor company, Titan IC is delivering new benchmarks in both flexibility and performance for content inspection and network processing hardware. The unique technology capability offers customers the ability to perform regular expression processing and pattern matching acceleration at speeds of a few 100Mb/s up to 200Gb/s utilizing a fully scalable, flexible and parallel architecture. This revolutionary new technology is capable of processing multiple characters and multiple regular expressions in parallel as concurrent tasks on several processing engines. Learn more at http://titan-ic.com. Learn more at http://titan-ic.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190301005371/en/ Contacts: Media Gillian McDowell +44 (0)28 90 354512 g.mcdowell@titan-ic.com Europe and Asia Noel McKenna n.mckenna@titan-ic.com +44-7712-582199 United States John Bromhead j.bromhead@titan-ic.com +1-858-642-2501 ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS / ACCESSWIRE / November 12, 2018 / Genoil Inc. (OTC PINK: GNOLF) announces additional successful processing run of IFO 380 marine fuel oil at our feedstock processing facility at the UFA Scientific Research Institute in Bashkortostan for a second client based in the United Kingdom. This time, results were better than last time, with the Genoil Hydroconversion technology (GHU) producing commercial grade 0.34% LSFO (Low Sulfur Fuel Oil) from the marine fuel RMG-380. The feedstock originally contained a Sulfur level of 2.01% by weight and also had possessed a lot of cracked materials. The GHU had a perfect yield of 92% and the company will announce further details about this run in the near future. This test brings Genoil GHU technology one step closer to global commercialization. The data collected from this demonstration run will support the engineering and design of commercial GHU facilities around the world. Genoil is currently arranging for further processing of additional crude oil and fuel oil for target projects currently being considered. The UFA Scientific Research Institute has been working together with Genoil to market the GHU to several clients in Russia. Genoil had several meetings with Dmitry Sharonov who is the new director of the Institute. Dmitry is very positive about Genoil and supportive especially since Genoil brought a world leading internationally recognized consultancy company to the institute to witness the test and to tour the expansive state of the art facility. Dmitry is very well known in UFA and it is well known that his brother Andrei is a board of director of PAO Novatek Company and also is the Dean of the Moscow School of Management. Genoil also received a critically needed supplier and contractor Certificate of Registration and evaluation from Petroleos Mexicanos which will allow Genoil to work with the National oil company of Mexico. The timing couldn't be better as the new administration is set to take office next week. The supplier qualification system was issued by Achilles on behalf of Pemex. Pemex has contracted Achilles' services, which will act as an independent third party, ensuring the management of the provided data and documents, in compliance with the Federal Law on Protection of Personal Data Held by Private Individuals. A copy of the certificate can be found at: http://genoil.ca/pemex-registration-certificate/ Genoil received a certificate from Pemex meaning that the registration and evaluation of Genoil as supplier and contractor has been completed by Pemex. It is essential for Pemex to ensure a procurement chain that is reliable, transparent and efficient, and that will allow the purchasing areas of Pemex to have more accurate and updated information of suppliers and contractors as well as their capacity to meet the requirements of the business areas of Pemex. Registration and evaluation of suppliers and contractors uses a standardized methodology of commercial qualification and financial risk, to facilitate decision making and mitigate potential risks in the procurement chain. About: The UFA Scientific Research Institute of Petroleum Refining and Petrochemistry: The State Unitary Enterprise 'Institute of Petroleum Refining and Petrochemistry of Republic of Bashkortostan' is located in the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russian Federation. This massive state-of-the-art Institute covers more than 12 hectares of land (30 acres) and has 20 research buildings on site. The institute employs about 500 engineers and staff and has a history of more than 60-years of experience in the field of hydrocarbon processing technologies and well recognized by the Industry. UFA is the number one institute in Russia and is funded by the government of Russia. The institute specializes in refining and heavy residue processing. 03.07.2018 on the basis of the Order of the Ministry of Land and Property Relations of the Republic of Bashkortostan No. 218 of 02.03.2018 the State unitary enterprise "Institute of Petroleum Refining and Petrochemistry of the Republic of Bashkortostan" was recently converted to a Joint-stock company Institute of Petroleum Refining and Petrochemistry (JSC INKhP). About: Beijing Petrochemical Engineering Company: Genoil Partner EPC Company BPEC was founded in 1979 and is a first-class engineering company based in Beijing and its parent company is the fourth largest Chinese oil company, Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group Corp Ltd. BPEC currently has about 1200 employees and holds a class A qualification of engineering consulting and engineering design. The company has been mainly engaged in engineering consulting, engineering design, EPC, engineering technology development and other related business in the fields of refining, petrochemical, coal-chemical, natural-gas-chemical, oil and gas fields, storage and transportation, etc. About: Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group Corp. Ltd: Formerly 'Yanchang Oil Plant' founded by the Qing regime in Yan'an in 1905, Yanchang Petroleum is China's only century-old oil enterprise and the driller of the first oil well on the Chinese continent. Shaanxi Province where Yanchang Petroleum is located in an emerging key oil & gas province in China, with rapid growth of 5 million tons oil & gas equivalent on average every year since the beginning of the 'twelfth five-year' period. In 2012, Shaanxi province became China's largest oil & gas-producing province with oil & gas equivalent of over 60 million tons. They are also one of the largest producers of coal in China with 18 billion tons of coal reserves, and 300,000 bpd of oil production. About: OJS 'VNIIUS' Institute in Kazan: VNIIUS is one of the leading research institutes in Russia in the field of production and consumption of hydrocarbon feed. With 50-years of experience in practical work allows us to render assistance to oil and gas producing companies, to oil and gas processing companies and also to companies of deep oil processing and sulfur recovery. VNIIUS has cooperated with Chevron and over one hundred different companies from around the world. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: Certain information regarding Genoil, including availability of capital and other sources of funds and future plans may constitute forward-looking statements under applicable securities law. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as 'seek,' 'anticipate,' 'hope,' 'plan,' 'continue,' 'estimate,' 'expect,' 'may,' 'will,' 'intend,' 'could,' 'might,' 'should,' 'believe' and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based upon the opinions, expectations and estimates of management as at the date the statements are made and, in some cases, information received from or disseminated by third parties, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or outcomes to differ materially from those anticipated or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements contained in this release necessarily involve risks and uncertainties associated with an oil and gas technology development and engineering corporation. As a consequence, actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance upon forward-looking information contained herein. Although Genoil believes that the assumptions underlying such forward looking statements are reasonable given current market conditions, and information received or disseminated by third parties is reliable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Genoil does not assume responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of the forward-looking statements and such forward-looking statements should not be taken as guarantees of future outcomes. Subject to applicable securities laws, Genoil does not undertake any obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified, in their entirety, by this cautionary statement. Additionally, statements included in this release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Further information on potential risk factors that could affect Genoil's financial results can be found in Genoil's disclosure materials filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and with the Securities Exchange Commission available at www.sec.gov. For more information please contact: David Lifschultz Tel: 212 688 8868 Email: dklifschultz@Genoil.com SOURCE: Genoil Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/527783/Genoil-Receives-Third-Party-Pemex-Certificate-Produces-Lower-Sulfur-Commercial-Grade-Fuel-Oil Record revenue for the first nine months of 2018, up 167% from Q1-Q3/17. EBIT grew by 186% to EUR 9.5 million and lending volume grew by 161% for the same period. Revenue growing faster than lending volumes in the third quarter and strong growth expected to continue in Q4 2018, according to CEO Hickson. The first nine months of 2018 showed record growth in revenue, EBIT, lending volume and loan book as Mash continues to execute its growth plan. Strategic Highlights Mash announces launch of EUR 50 million equity issue as well as Europe's first regulated digital share issue (https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/17/1622744/0/en/MASH-ANNOUNCES-EUR-50M-EQUITY-ROUND-AND-LAUNCH-OF-EUROPE-S-FIRST-STO.html). (https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/17/1622744/0/en/MASH-ANNOUNCES-EUR-50M-EQUITY-ROUND-AND-LAUNCH-OF-EUROPE-S-FIRST-STO.html). Mash pay later services were launched in Sweden with partner Verifone. Mash develops partnership with Nets for ecommerce and point of sale, a leading payment services operator in the Nordic market. Operational Highlights The number of new customers grew by 229% Q1-Q3/18 compared to Q1-Q3/17. Registered merchants for Mash's pay later point of sale solution grew 1054% year to date. The Mash Net Promoter Score reached 82, underscoring the groups commitment to wow customers one transaction at a time. Financial Highlights Revenue grew by 167% year-on-year for Q1-Q3/18 compared to Q1-Q3/17, and 131% for Q3/18 compared to Q3/17, EBIT grew by 186% and 309%, correspondingly, to EUR 9.5 million (Q1-Q3/18) and EUR 4.0 million (Q3/18). Lending volumes for the first nine months of 2018 were 161% higher than for the corresponding period in 2017, growing 145% in Q3/18 compared to Q3/17. The Group's solidity remains strong, with equity increasing by 59% in 2018, maintaining a strong equity ratio at 26%, while the total loan portfolio increased by 88%. Total assets grew by 76% in 2018 and 93% year-on-year to EUR 232 million. Values based on pro-forma consolidated figures. For equivalent FAS values see below. James Hickson, CEO of Mash Group is pleased with the Group's performance so far in 2018: "Our strong momentum has continued thanks to the commitment of our team and partners. We saw our revenue continue to grow as planned despite seasonality, growing 131% compared to the same period in 2017. We continue to see the positive impact of our decision to move to interest-based pricing, with our revenue growing faster than our lending volumes in the third quarter", said Group CEO James Hickson. "This demonstrates the strong competitive position of our lending business model. We anticipate this strong growth to continue in Q4 2018, supported by our new customer acquisition channels and launch of our TV campaign marketing our Mash Pay Later solution." "We are also very pleased with our continued focus and investment on in-store pay-later solutions, having grown our merchant base significantly this year by over 1000%. In Finland, payment channels generated 71% of our new customer base year to date with more customers choosing to convert to credit that anticipated in our business plan, underscoring the validity of our strategic decision. We continue to make investments for the long term in this acquisition channel and explore new opportunities to enhance our capability, including partnerships with major players like our recently announced deal with Nets . We will continue to make investments for long term growth." Tommi Lindfors, Chairman of Mash Group added, "The rapid growth trajectory and financial performance year to date shows the scalability of our business model. The Group set new records not only in terms of business growth and new funding capabilities to support the high growth of our loan portfolio. The launch of our equity issue will directly support our continued growth with all proceeds going directly to the company." The Group confirmed that they will communicate audited fully year 2019 figures in April 2019. PRO FORMA CONSOLIDATED FIGURES* BALANCE SHEET (EUR '000) 30.9.2018 31.12.2017 30.9.2017 Intangible assets 43 530 28 291 25 219 Tangible assets 611 17 14 Investments 5 346 0 0 TOTAL NON-CURRENT ASSETS 49 487 28 308 25 233 Current receivables 170 351 90 495 75 772 Cash and Bank Receivables 12 650 13 179 19 312 TOTAL CURRENT ASSETS 183 001 103 674 95 084 TOTAL ASSETS 232 488 131 982 +76% 120 317 +93% Share capital and issue 93 93 93 Translation difference -359 96 -219 Reserve for invested non-restricted equity 55 366 33 179 26 458 Retained earnings 4 309 6 730 6 878 Profit for the Financial period 949 -2 092 -1 274 TOTAL EQUITY 60 358 38 006 +59% 31 936 +89% Non-current Liabilities 89 710 58 514 38 286 Current liabilities 82 420 35 462 50 095 TOTAL LIABILITIES 172 130 93 976 88 381 TOTAL EQUITY & LIABILITIES 232 488 131 982 120 317 INCOME STATEMENT (EUR '000) 9M/2018 9M/2017 TURNOVER 24 097 11 452 +167% Other operating income 9 11 Materials and services -530 -204 Personnel costs -2 495 -1 476 Depreciation -3 161 -1 647 Other business-related costs -8 399 -4 803 EBIT 9 521 3 333 +186% Financial income and expenses -8 560 -4 594 EBT 961 -1 261 Tax -12 -13 Net Profit 949 -1 274 ? INCOME STATEMENT (EUR '000) Q3/2018 Q2/2018 Q3/2017 TURNOVER 9 379 8 485 +11% 4 069 +131% Other operating income 1 4 0 Materials and services -203 -173 -103 Personnel costs -838 -802 -638 Depreciation -1 242 -1 018 -610 Other business-related costs -3 085 -3 180 -1 738 EBIT 4 012 3 316 +21% 980 +309% Financial income and expenses -3 725 -2 746 -1 685 EBT 287 570 -705 Tax 3 0 0 Net Profit 290 570 -705 * The interim pro-forma consolidated figures and comparison figures have been prepared by consolidating Mash Group figures prepared in compliance with Finnish Accounting Standards ("FAS") and Pausa Capital S.a.r.l. prepared in conformity with Luxembourg legal and regulatory requirements and according to generally accepted accounting principles applicable in Luxembourg ("Lux GAAP"). The following transactions between Mash Group and Pausa Capital S.a.r.l. have been eliminated in the pro-forma consolidated figures: Subordinated Notes issued by Pausa Capital S.a.r.l. and held by Mash Group Variable interest recognised by Mash Group related to the Subordinated Notes Servicing fees from Mash Group to Pausa Capital S.a.r.l., Mash Finance Oyj being the servicer of the funding facility. Debt Collection fees charged by Mash Group to Pausa Capital S.a.r.l., Credito Cobro Oy being one of the collection agencies of the funding facility. Pausa Capital S.a.r.l is a special purpose vehicle supporting the funding facility provided to Mash Group. According to Group Management, the pro-forma consolidated figures that include Pausa Capital S.a.r.l. provide a more comprehensive view of the financial position and performance of Mash Group, compared to FAS consolidated figures, which can be found below. These figures are unaudited. The reader is advised to refer to the 2017 annual reviewand financial statements for the latest audited figures and more information about the Group. Financial Highlights (FAS) Revenue grew by 120% year-on-year for Q1-Q3/18 compared to Q1-Q3/17, and 133% for Q3/18 compared to Q3/17, EBIT grew by 306% and 522%, correspondingly, to EUR 6.0 million (Q1-Q3/18) and EUR 2.6 million (Q3/18). Lending volumes for the first nine months of 2018 were 161% higher than for the corresponding period in 2017, growing 145% in Q3/18 compared to Q3/17. The Group's solidity remains excellent, with equity increasing by 59% in 2018, maintaining a strong equity ratio at 36%, while the total loan portfolio increased by 81%. Total assets grew by 69% in 2018 and 77% year-on-year to EUR 166 million. BALANCE SHEET (EUR '000) 30.9.2018 31.12.2017 30.9.2017 Intangible assets 43 530 28 291 25 219 Tangible assets 611 17 14 Investments 5 346 0 0 TOTAL NON-CURRENT ASSETS 49 487 28 308 25 233 Current receivables 110 261 61 015 53 017 Cash and Bank Receivables 5 981 8 556 15 176 TOTAL CURRENT ASSETS 116 242 69 571 68 193 TOTAL ASSETS 165 729 97 879 +69% 93 426 +77% Share capital and issue 80 80 80 Translation difference -359 96 -219 Reserve for invested non-restricted equity 55 366 33 179 26 458 Retained earnings 4 309 6 730 6 878 Profit for the Financial period 949 -2 092 -1 274 TOTAL EQUITY 60 345 37 993 +59% 31 923 +89% Non-current Liabilities 26 895 26 550 13 655 Current liabilities 78 489 33 336 47 848 TOTAL LIABILITIES 105 384 59 886 61 503 TOTAL EQUITY & LIABILITIES 165 729 97 879 93 426 INCOME STATEMENT (EUR '000) 9M/2018 9M/2017 TURNOVER 19 977 9 086 +120% Other operating income 9 11 Materials and services -530 -204 Personnel costs -2 495 -1 476 Depreciation -3 161 -1 647 Other business-related costs -7 788 -4 290 EBIT 6 012 1 480 +306% Financial income and expenses -5 054 -2 744 EBT 958 -1 264 Tax -9 -10 Net Profit 949 -1 274 INCOME STATEMENT (EUR '000) Q3/2018 Q2/2018 Q3/2017 TURNOVER 7 730 7 213 +7% 3 323 +133% Other operating income 1 4 0 Materials and services -203 -173 -103 Personnel costs -838 -801 -638 Depreciation -1 242 -1 018 -610 Other business-related costs -2 880 -2 936 -1 559 EBIT 2 568 2 289 +12% 413 +522% Financial income and expenses -2 280 -1 719 -1 117 EBT 288 570 -704 Tax 2 0 -1 Net Profit 290 570 -705 About Mash Mash has been at the forefront of fintech innovation since 2007. We leverage our advanced proprietary algorithms, machine learning capabilities, and automated platform to deliver superior finance and payments solutions to thousands of customers every day. We work hard for a future powered by technology, making every transaction seamless, flexible and worry-free. Today, Mash is one of Europe's leading fintech companies. Mash.com | press@mash.com | investor@mash.com | @MashComOfficial For more information please contact: Jonas Lindholm Mash Group Plc Tel +358 10 217 1003 investor@mash.com press@mash.com Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 12, 2018) - StrikePoint Gold Inc. (TSXV: SKP) (OTCQB: STKXF) is pleased to announce the discovery of a significant new vein at the Porter Project near Stewart, British Columbia. Significant Step Out from Historic Porter Resource The new vein has been observed along a 275-meter strike on surface in an area that until the last decade would have been obscured by year-round snow cover. Thirty-two samples were collected from the area which lies approximately 800-meters to the west of the historic Porter resource area, with assays ranging from trace to 43.6 ounces per tonne silver, trace to 0.54 ounces per tonne gold. Significant zinc was also found, from trace to 28.8% per tonne. StrikePoint CEO Shawn Khunkhun comments: "This is one of the most exciting discoveries following this seasons exploration work as it helps prove the existence of significant, untested mineral veins outside of the historical resource area. Our mandate was to prove upside for the deposit, and this discovery is a major step towards that goal." Map 1 To view an enhanced version of this map, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/5044/40985_SP image_full.jpg The table below shows sample highlights: Sample ID Ag (grams per tonne) Au (grams per tonne) Zinc (percent) X956153 250 16.7 (0.54 tr.oz) - X956577 1355 (43.6 tr.oz) 0.51 28.8 X956160 677 7.04 - X956164 619 0.52 0.67 X956152 555 - 0.88 X956166 245 3.75 - X956165 212 - - X956578 182 7.04 0.3 X956591 137 2.09 - X956576 132 - 1.92 X956163 126 - 0.21 X956579 120 3.83 0.26 X956151 - - 1.93 X956155 - - 0.41 X956162 - - 0.41 X956575 - - 0.43 New Geological Potential Samples were collected from a newly exposed shallow dipping quartz breccia vein along a 275-meter strike. Several other 'Flat Veins' have been observed during the summer, including high-grade samples from Silverado and the Porter areas. A preliminary interpretation connects these veins, forming one large structure that circles and cuts through Mount Rainey. The angles the veins dip at suggest that they converge and form a 'bowl' shaped fault that passes under the entire mountain, somewhat like the structures observed at Ascot Gold 'Premier Mine' located 25 kilometers to the northwest. This new 'flat vein' ranges from 30 centimeters to 1 meter in thickness, but the mineralization extends into the brecciated and altered halo around the contact sometimes for several meters. This structure contrasts with the steeply dipping veins that were historically mined at Porter and Silverado that appear to have formed within fold hinges and shear zones. The results are also highlighting a potential change in the geochemical potential of the veins, with gold becoming more significant to the west whilst silver dominates to the east. 2019 Drilling Target This new vein is a significant target for drill testing in 2019. Diamond drilling will also allow exploration of the connecting area that is currently obscured by a shallow 650-meter wide patch of ice, all of which is covered under the existing exploration permit. About the Golden Triangle The Golden Triangle is an area of northwestern British Columbia that has seen extensive historic mining and prospecting activity, and has recently been the site of modern discoveries, including the Premier Gold, Snip and Eskay Creek Mines. The area has seen a resurgence in infrastructure investment which supports exploration activities, including upgraded transmission lines supplying clean, affordable and reliable hydroelectric power. Other recent improvements include highway upgrades, new ocean port infrastructure at the ice-free port of Stewart and the commissioning of three hydroelectric facilities. StrikePoint Gold is a well-financed gold exploration and development company. The company controls a portfolio of gold and silver properties in the Yukon, British Columbia and throughout Canada. QA/QC The Company maintains a rigorous QA/QC program with respect to the preparation, shipping, analysis and checking of all samples and data from the properties. Quality control for field sampling and drill samples at the Company's projects covers the complete chain of custody of samples, including sample handling procedures and analytical-related work, plus the insertion of standard and blank materials. The QA/QC program also includes data verification procedures. ALS Laboratories in Vancouver, Canada (ISO 17025:2005 accreditation) assayed all grab samples from the current field program using fire assay and ICP Mass Spectroscopy methods. The technical information contained in this news release has been approved by Andy Randell, P. Geo., Vice President, Exploration of StrikePoint Gold. Mr. Randell is a qualified person as defined in NI 43-101. For further information please visit our website: www.strikepointgold.com ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF STRIKEPOINT GOLD INC. Shawn Khunkhun CEO and Director For more information, contact: Shawn Khunkhun 604-602-1440 sk@strikepointgold.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The Indian Army celebrated receiving its first M777A2 Ultra Lightweight Howitzers (ULH) at an official handover ceremony today, a key step toward the modernizing and strengthening of the Indian Army's artillery capabilities. The 155mm M777 systems will deploy to their first regiment in 2019. The gun systems, produced by BAE Systems, were accepted earlier this year, as part of a 145-gun agreement between the U.S. and Indian governments. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005082/en/ BAE Systems-built 155mm M777 Ultra Lightweight towed Howitzer (ULH) painted in the unique Indian Artillery camouflage design, is reporting for duty as the Indian Artillery inducts its first gun systems at a ceremony held in Maharashtra, India on 9 November 2018. (Photo: BAE Systems) "The Indian Army is receiving an extremely reliable and battle-proven artillery platform," Joe Senftle, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems' weapon systems business, said while attending the event. "The M777 brings a new level of capability to the artillery unit by offering rapid deployment and extreme accuracy. It can operate in areas that are difficult to access and is also very easy to maintain." BAE Systems is building and delivering the first 25 M777 ULHs fully assembled, with the remaining 120 to be assembled in India by Mahindra Defence Systems Ltd. (MDSL) under an arrangement designed to support defense industrial cooperation and promote local economic growth. "The M777 ULH is more than a very effective piece of artillery technology," said Nik Khanna, managing director India, BAE Systems. "With the M777 program, BAE Systems has made the first step of our substantive Make-in-India commitment, which includes our pledge to develop a network of Indian suppliers for our global supply chain and deepen our relationship with industry in India. We are committed to a strong and collaborative working relationship between BAE Systems, the Indian Armed Forces and Indian industry." "This is a landmark event with the first M777s being delivered to the Indian Army. It is a product of our long-standing business partnership with BAE Systems," said SPShukla, Group President Aerospace Defence Sector, Mahindra Group, and Chairman Mahindra Defence Systems. "In this program each of the M777 howitzers have value addition from Mahindra Defence. I believe that this is the first step towards Make-in-India with much bigger programs to follow." The U.S. government recently certified that MDSL is ready to carry out the work at a purpose-built production facility created for this program to conduct the in-country Assembly and Integration of 120 of the 145 gun systems on order. The newly-handed over M777 ULHs were instrumental in establishing the new MDSL capability in India. The Mahindra team finalized these weapons by replicating the proven manufacturing processes to the highest of quality specifications, including modifications specifically tailored for the Indian Artillery, such as a unique camouflage paint scheme. Earlier this year, BAE Systems delivered the first spares and other logistics including tooling, technical publications and training materials, to support the Indian Army as it brings these new M777 ULHs into service. The company also recently received a contract to provide 18 additional M777 systems to the U.S. Army, taking the total number of systems ordered and in service with the United States, Canada, Australia and India to more than 1,250. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005082/en/ Contacts: BAE Systems Indu Anand T: +91 (11) 4341 2320 M: +91 981177 1912 indu.anand@baesystems.com or BAE Systems, Inc. Margaret Mitchell-Jones T: +1 703-907-8469 M: +1 571-329-1054 Margaret.g.jones@baesystems.com www.baesystems.com/US @BAESystemsInc Major DataStore Update Includes New Reporting Resulting in Greater Visibility and Informed Decision Making AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 12, 2018DataStore Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution now offers advanced reporting capabilities to help financial services reduce risk and improve efficiency across the enterprise. With this new release, Mitratech customers and partners can leverage advanced reporting capabilities that include: Inventory management Workflow management Audit management Performance management "DataStore continues to expand globally. As the only ECM solution dedicated to financial services, we continue to develop our product to meet the unique needs of our clients," said Jason Cropper, Mitratech Global Head of Product Marketing - GRC. "Compliance and efficiency are pretty much top of mind across the board, and with the enhanced reporting capabilities this release provides, our clients cannot only utilize their data to work smarter, but also gain the visibility and control they require to meet international regulations on data governance and records keeping." Over 300 Financial Institutions worldwide are currently experiencing a wide range of benefits having implemented a DataStore ECM solution including: Driving business efficiency: analytics, dashboards, and reporting tools help discover issues, or how to move to the next level. Supporting smarter decisions: Utilize real-time reporting to better inform decision-making and business agility. Optimizing business processes: Identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Gaining insights and visibility: Graphical visualizations provide easy-to-interpret, data driven answers in business-critical areas such as throughput levels and general content and data awareness. Improving compliance: Reportable audit trails provide 360 views of the lifecycle of data content, critical for answering regulatory requests. Mitratech continues to expand its worldwide ecosystem of customers and partners who are leveraging the DataStore solution in businesses of all types and locations in the financial sector. From Building Societies in the United Kingdom to the largest Banks in Africa, DataStore is the leading ECM solution in financial services in over 40 countries worldwide. Union Systems Limited, a Mitratech strategic partner for Africa, is leveraging DataStore as a fundamental building block in banking digitization journeys. Union Systems implements and supports a range of leading financial services systems across Trade Finance, Lending, Treasury and Core Banking Systems for customers throughout Africa. Each of these financial applications generates high volumes of paperwork, which must be scanned and indexed for digital storage and efficient retrieval. Union Systems integrates DataStore with all business-critical systems and front line applications so that users can have easy access to all DataStore services without exiting their familiar application screens. Similarly, workflow service from within DataStore helps manage critical processes across all bank departments, while the enhanced reporting capabilities facilitate industry leading efficiencies in information management. "The Mitratech partnership enables us to work with a solution-focused international player that is committed to doing business in Africa," said Aonghus Geraghty, president and chief sales office, Union Systems. "For our customers, the Union Systems partnership with Mitratech gives banks the confidence that they are implementing the most advanced and up-to-date technology with local technical support for implementation and systems integration. The necessary banking processes are pre-defined as part of the solution, which makes it an out-of-the-box enterprise content management solution." Vernon Building Society is a UK-based Building Society in Stockport that recognized its need to evolve. After 20 years, the Vernon decided that their old content management system needed updating. The company was searching for a new solution that provided modern technology features and functions to improve business processes, increase operational efficiencies and enhance customer service and satisfaction across all of their branch locations. "The ability of DataStore to integrate with our core mortgage and banking system was the key factor in our decision-making process," said Manmohan Purewal, Director of IT, Vernon Building Society. "We needed a solution that would allow us to take paper out of many of our current processes and replace it with powerful digital management capabilities." The latest version of DataStore is available now and is being demonstrated at Compliance Week Europe, Nov. 13-14 in Amsterdam. For more information, visit https://www.mitratech.com/. ABOUT MITRATECH Mitratech is a proven global technology partner for corporate legal and risk & compliance professionals who seek out and maximize opportunities to raise productivity, control expense, and mitigate risk by deepening organizational alignment, increasing visibility, and spurring collaboration across the enterprise. Serving 1,200 organizations of all sizes across the globe, we represent almost 40% of the Fortune 500 and over 500,000 users in over 160 countries. With Mitratech's proven portfolio of end-to-end solutions, operational best practices spread throughout the enterprise, standardizing processes, enforcing policies, and accelerating time-to-value. By unlocking every opportunity to drive progress and improve outcomes, Mitratech is helping legal and compliance teams rise to the challenge of serving the evolving needs of the modern, dynamic enterprise. For more info, visit: www.mitratech.com Canvia, a leading company in digital transformation backed by Advent International, expands its portfolio with fast innovation and prototyping services. The company, founded by the entrepreneurs Pau Garcia-Mila and Anna Cejudo, will maintain its current headquarters in Barcelona and its customer base in Europe, the US and Latin America. Canvia (canvia.com), a leading company focused on digital transformation, announced today the acquisition of Ideafoster. Based in Spain, Ideafoster provides fast innovation and prototyping services to blue-chip clients across Europe, the US and Latin America. Founded in 2014, Ideafoster is led by entrepreneurs Pau Garcia-Mila and Anna Cejudo with the aim of helping companies generate prototypes and test ideas to accelerate innovation. With this acquisition, Canvia, a leading company in digital transformation with 34 years of history and a team of more than 2,500 people, goes a step further in its strategy to promote digital transformation, helping to generate new business models for customers through fast innovation. Canvia is backed by Advent International, one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors. Since its inception, Ideafoster has carried out fast innovation projects with companies in sectors such as global consumer goods, banking, retail and automotive across Europe and the Americas, including Spain, Peru, Switzerland, the US, Canada, Australia, Germany and South Korea, among others. Its business model consists of helping large companies accelerate their innovation process by prototyping new business models, products and services using start-up methodologies. Ideafoster will maintain its headquarters in Barcelona, Spain. In addition, the company will expand its presence in Lausanne, Switzerland, and will open a new office in Lima, Peru. Pau Garcia-Mila will continue to lead this new stage as CEO, in what he considers a new and exciting challenge in his career. "At Ideafoster, we are very happy to become part of Canvia. This is a great challenge as well as an opportunity to continue growing alongside a market leader. This operation is a turning point in the history of the company, opening a great platform to consolidate in Latin America," explains Garcia-Mila. According to the CEO of Canvia, Jaime Dasso, "fast innovation is a key part of Canvia's strategy to be a reference in digital transformation in the region, and this acquisition brings us closer to this strategy. With an annual growth of 20% for the next five years, incorporating capabilities and technologies as well as generating an ecosystem of strategic partnerships worldwide, we expect to reach 2023 with a turnover of over US 400 million." "We believe this makes significant progress towards CANVIA's goal of becoming a leader for digital transformation in the region. Advent seeks to support its portfolio companies in inorganic growth strategies and this is a great example of our resources aiding in significant value creation," said Adolfo Vinatea, a Director at Advent International. The sale of Ideafoster is the second in the entrepreneurial career of Pau Garcia-Mila. Born in Barcelona in 1987, he founded his first company when he was 17, which was later acquired by Telefonica. He was named Innovator of the Year in 2011 for the MIT publication TR-35 and was the winner of the Prince of Girona Enterprise FPdGI Award 2010. Today, he combines his work at Ideafoster with teaching digital business courses for the graduate program at ESADE. About Canvia Canvia is a company that promotes and supports the digital transformation of its customers with the purpose of making their lives easier on their journey towards the reinvention of their business. It has a human team of more than 2,500 people, supported by a culture of disruption, excellence and a service vocation. It is part of Advent International portfolio, the fifth largest private capital fund in the world, with a portfolio of companies valued at around US 45 billion. About Ideafoster Ideafoster is a company dedicated to the management of fast innovation and prototyping, born in Barcelona in 2014 with the aim of helping large companies to prototype new business models, products and services based on the start-up's methodologies. It has clients in 12 countries including Spain, Peru, Switzerland, the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany and South Korea, among others. About Advent International Founded in 1984, Advent International is one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors. The firm has invested in over 340 private equity transactions in 41 countries and as of June 30, 2018, it had $41 billion in assets under management. With offices on four continents, Advent has established a globally integrated team of over 190 investment professionals across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. The firm focuses on investments in five core sectors, including business and financial services; healthcare; industrial; retail, consumer and leisure; and technology, media and telecom. After more than 30 years dedicated to international investing, Advent remains committed to partnering with management teams to deliver sustained revenue and earnings growth for its portfolio companies. Advent has been investing in the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sector for 28 years, completing more than 75 investments in 24 countries, including Canvia. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005223/en/ Contacts: For Ideafoster Renzo Quispe rquispe@pacificlatam.com PNTV and the Province of Jujuy have signed an MOU to jointly develop a 14,000 Hectares (33,600 Acres) property to cultivate a variety of CBD and THC rich cannabis genetics to serve both the domestic and the international markets. LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 12, 2018 / Player's Network, Inc. (OTCQB: PNTV ), a rapidly growing company in the adult use and medical marijuana industry and the Argentine province of Jujuy jointly announce the signing of a binding Memorandum of Understanding. Under its terms the joint venture has begun developing the Argentinean cannabis market. The current laws in Argentina only allow for domestic distribution of CBD oils to hospitals for clinical studies of refractory epilepsy. The joint venture between a newly formed company, Green Leaf Farms Jujuy and Cannabis Avatara, owned by the province of Jujuy intends to supply the country with all the needed oils to conduct its clinical trials. This joint venture has obtained the permits to cultivate, extract, manufacture and export cannabis based products to other countries where such products are legal. Products to be produced under the agreement include: industrial hemp, medical and adult use marijuana for export to the US, Canada and emerging international markets. The newly formed Green Leaf Farms Jujuy division will bring its stateside expertise to launch a large scale industrial hemp and cannabis operation. These operations will be entirely funded by Green Leaf Farms Jujuy. Jujuy is the most northern province of Argentina adjacent to the Andes Mountain range. This new joint venture will be the largest legal cannabis cultivation project in the world. Crops will be cultivated on an historic farm revitalizing a 100 year old> farming estate. Granted under the extensive agreement is an ample supply of fresh water fed by 2 rivers. An adequate modern power supply is available to support the operation. International access to the facility is available only 5 miles away via a regional airport. The land that has been allocated for the Joint Venture is almost 1000 times greater than the largest legal cannabis farm in the US. Green Leaf immediately deployed to Jujuy its ground team of experts in cannabis agriculture. The team put together a cultivation rollout plan for the first outdoor crops scheduled to be planted in January 2019. The extensive project will be rolled out in phases, starting with some test parcels and expanding to both outdoor fields and large-scale greenhouse cultivation complexes as markets demands increase. Green Leaf Farms Jujuy will construct an entire support and expansion campus consisting of several buildings containing production, manufacturing and distribution businesses. These establishments will eventually employ over a thousand Argentinian citizens at full production. Mark Bradley PNTV CEO states; "This project has been one of the greatest professional undertakings of my career. I worked extensively over the last several months with an outstanding team of advisors and leaders of the Argentinian government. I am thrilled to see a collective vision become a reality with the accomplishment of this agreement. My goal is to heal the world through cannabis oils and promote prosperity through the creation of economic opportunities for both the people of Argentina, the shareholders of Players Network, and our international partners. I praise Governor Morales for his vision and courage to be the first province of Argentina to recognize the benefits of medical cannabis and look forward to working with his amazing team of visionaries including Gaston Morales and Lucas Macedo who have made this journey possible." Governor Morales asserts: "We see in the development of medical cannabis production and industrialization not only the possibility of complying with the law and allowing thousands of individuals to legally access medical cannabis products but also for the possibility of changing the productive matrix of the Jujuy province, the creation of hundreds of jobs and the transfer of know-how and technology. We are working closely with federal authorities regarding security issues, with the backing support of the Public Health federal ministry. This challenge we have undertaken with Green Leaf Farms Holdings is going to have a huge impact in Argentina and the whole region." Pictured Mark Bradley and Governor Morales Video link of Project https://playersnetwork.com/pntv-announces-development-of-largest-cannabis-farm-in-the-world About Player's Network (PNTV) Player's Network, a rapidly growing company in the marijuana industry that trades on the OTC Market - stock symbol PNTV - is the owner of Green Leaf Farms Holdings, with licensed grow operations in Nevada and California. Over the last 12 months, the Company has gone from a development stage company to a fully operational cannabis business, owner of its media network WeedTV.com, the Cannabis Network. The Company believes the trend of legalizing marijuana will continue and create tremendous growth opportunities for their shareholders as it continues its business strategy of growth by acquisitions, joint ventures, and investments in new emerging market opportunities. Twitter: https://twitter.com/playersnetwork FaceBook: https://facebook.com/PlayersNetwork For more information please visit www.PlayersNetwork.com Activate your FREE account & sign up for news/updates: https://playersnetwork.com/ir . Information about Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" that include information relating to future events. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by which, that performance or those results will be achieved. Forward-looking statements are based on information available at the time they are made and/or management's good faith belief as of that time with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in, or suggested by, the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to: inability to gain or maintain licenses, reliance on unaudited statements, the Company's need for additional funding, governmental regulation of the cannabis industry, the impact of competitive products and pricing, the demand for the Company's products, and other risks that are detailed from time-to-time in the Company's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. For a more detailed description of the risk factors and uncertainties affecting Players Network, please refer to the Company's recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings, which are available at www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Player's Network Contacts: Investor Inquiries: David Klepinger , Investor Relations Manager Email: dklepinger@playersnetwork.com Office: 702.840.3283 Interview Requests & Media Inquiries with Mark Bradley, CEO: Christine Kramar, Executive Secretary to CEO Email: CKramar@PlayersNetwork.com Phone: (702) 606-2618 Interview Requests & Media Inquiries (General): BrettH.Pojunis , Director Email: bpojunis@playersnetwork.com Office: 702.840.3272 SOURCE: Player's Network, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/527746/Green-Leaf-Farms-and-The-Argentine-Province-of-Jujuy-Announce-a-Joint-Venture-to-Develop-The-Largest-Cannabis-Farm-in-The-World Hotels in Dubai witnessed declines in occupancy and revenues in October despite a significant growth in demand (room nights sold), primarily due to the pressure from increased supply, said a report. Dubai hotels recorded a 4.3 per cent drop in occupancy levels to 75.2 per cent, with the average daily rate falling 6.1 per cent to Dh685.41, causing revenue per available room (RevPAR) to decline 10.2 per cent to Dh515.64, said STRs preliminary data for October. Demand was up 3.1 per cent in October but supply surged 7.7 per cent for the month. While the imbalance in supply and demand growth has led directly to lower occupancy levels, STR analysts attribute lower ADR in Dubai to hotels looking to drive market share through more attractive rates. Despite the negative year-over-year comparisons, occupancy was lifted during GITEX Technology Week (October 14-18). STR, which will release full October results later this month, provides clients from multiple market sectors with premium, global data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights. - TradeArabia News Service Conserving the Aldabra Tortoise through Regional Cooperation PARIS, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In a bold move to stress the pivotal role of the Aldabra tortoise in regional ecosystem restoration, as well as shed light on the plight of this particular species in the face of climate change and human interference, a collective of conservationists and philanthropists have announced the establishment of the Indian Ocean Tortoise Alliance (IOTA), on the occasion of the first edition of the Paris Peace Forum - a new annual meeting for global governance actors. IOTA is an inclusive, Seychelles-anchored non-profit initiative dedicated to the conservation of the iconic Aldabra tortoise and its "rewilding," both within the Seychelles and - as a truly innovative vehicle for regional collaboration - the broader Western Indian Ocean (WIO), where giant tortoises have been eradicated. In partnership with like-minded organizations, IOTA also promotes the Aldabra tortoise as the symbol for ecotourism and supports outreach and education activities. Beginning early 2019, IOTA will support and drive research programs on Aldabra Atoll and various other rewilding sites across the WIO. These efforts will inform the management of tortoise-mediated ecosystem functioning in rewilding sites, and help mitigate the impact of projected climate change on giant tortoises and their habitats. Conservation scientist and IOTA advisor Dr. Dennis Hansen illustrated the importance of IOTA's anticipated role: "Giant tortoises are the ecosystem restoration engineers of the future for small islands around the world. IOTA aims to be a key driver of rewilding actions with Aldabra tortoises on islands across the Western Indian Ocean." IOTA joins the Recanati-Kaplan Foundation family of leading conservation entities, including Panthera, the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University (WildCRU), and The Orianne Society. Speaking at the launch event, IOTA Founder and Chairman Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan explained the philosophy underpinning this new initiative: "Giant tortoises had managed to survive on many islands worldwide until humans finally arrived. Since then, man has been the driving force behind the extinction of these enchanting creatures. What our species has undone, however, can be fixed. In a spirit of collaboration and camaraderie, IOTA will work to bring people and organizations together across the WIO to conserve and manage the Aldabra tortoise, along with other endangered species that can be preserved within this initiative." Dr. Kaplan also stressed the potential catalytic role that this initiative could play towards sustainable and responsible economic development: "Seychelles is a Paradise, with ample opportunities for the expansion of its ecotourism. Home to 100,000 giant tortoises, the Seychelles hosts several times more tortoises than in all of the Galapagos and indeed has a population of tortoises greater in size than its human population. With over 300,000 tourists visiting the country annually, the branding of the Aldabra tortoise represents a unique opportunity to create a new 'crown jewel' for the Seychelles and the region as a whole." Imperative to the health and success of any conservation effort are the cooperation and support it receives from government. President of the Republic of Seychelles, Mr. Danny Faure, who is also the Patron of the Seychelles Islands Foundation that is looking after the magnificent Aldabra Atoll, recalls: "This experience is engraved in my memory and made me realize that conservation is not a matter of choice but survival, not only for the tortoises but us humans. We all have to take on our responsibilities and make lifestyle changes to combat species extinctions as well as climate change, by the way both being intertwined. Seychelles has long recognized this and fully supports such initiatives as IOTA to blow this wind of change." Further regional support poured in from Razan K. Al Mubarak, Managing Director of the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund: "As a Fund dedicated to the conservation of species, the MBZ Species Conservation Fund has supported over 100 projects dedicated to the preservation of turtles and tortoises. We know just how vulnerable these species are, but we also know that with the right type of partnerships, support, and dedication, their recovery potential is enormous. We are thrilled to welcome IOTA as a key player in the conservation of the Aldabra tortoise." Also participating in the high-level panel organized for IOTA's official launch, H.E. Brune Poirson, Secretary of State for Environment of France, a country whose overseas territories in the Western Indian Ocean include Reunion and Mayotte, highlighted the importance of cooperation: "France welcomes the establishment of IOTA - an inclusive and innovative initiative that has the potential to truly 'move the needle' for biodiversity in the Western Indian Ocean. We also support IOTA's emphasis on regional collaboration as a critical lever in conservation, and the organization's commitment to outreach and education." It is often forgotten that turtles and tortoises represent some of the most widely trafficked animals among the world's endangered species. IOTA's experts look forward to working closely with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to advance methods designed to combat illegal wildlife trafficking activities. Mr. Eric Alvarez, Acting Assistant Director of International Affairs, USFWS declared: "The International Affairs program at USFWS strives to conserve the world's diverse wildlife and their habitats, with a focus on species of international concern, including tortoises. These incredible creatures face many threats to survival, including the devastating illegal trade. We applaud IOTA's plans to conserve these species and work collaboratively in the region to achieve meaningful conservation outcomes." From the smallest of invertebrates to our magnificent land mammals and ocean wonders, all ultimately are facing the plight of climate change and habitat loss. The time to act is now. "With a lifespan of over 150 years, Aldabra giant tortoises remind us that we must preserve and enhance our environment over the long run," added Dr. Ross Kiester, Senior Advisor to IOTA. About IOTA The Indian Ocean Tortoise Alliance (IOTA) supports tortoise conservation and rewilding in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO). IOTA also promotes the tortoise as an icon for ecotourism and an ambassador for enhanced regional cooperation. The organization also supports outreach and education activities. Operations scheduled to begin early 2019. Please follow us then at: www.iotaseychelles.org. CONTACT Nicole Mollo +1.917.364.3831 nicolemollo@me.com The European Investment Trust Plc - Transaction in Own Shares The European Investment Trust plc ("the Company") The Company announces that on 12 November 2018 it purchased the following number of its ordinary shares of 25 pence each on the main market of the London Stock Exchange. Ordinary Shares: Date of purchase: 12 November 2018 Number of ordinary shares purchased: 20,000 Lowest price per share 824p Highest price per share 824p The Company intends to cancel the purchased shares. Following the above transaction, the Company has 41,211,269 ordinary shares in issue. Each of the Company's shares carries one vote. Accordingly, the total number of voting rights of the Company is 41,211,269. 12 November 2018 LEI: 213800QNN9EHZ4SC1R12 Enquiries: Kenneth J Greig Edinburgh Partners AIFM Limited Tel: 0131 270 3800 The Company's registered office address is: Beaufort House 51 New North Road Exeter EX4 4EP ROCKVILLE, Maryland, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ABL, Inc. (ABL), a leading global contract research and manufacturing service provider to the biopharmaceutical industry, announces the appointment of Jarlath Keating as the new President and Chief Executive Officer of ABL, succeeding Dr. Thomas VanCott. Mr. Keating recently joined ABL as Chief Commercial Officer and brings over 25 years of experience to the organization. Prior to joining ABL, Mr. Keating served as the Vice President of Global Commercial Operations for MilliporeSigma's Process Solutions Services division, leading the BioReliance biological safety testing and biomanufacturing services divisions. In this role, he oversaw the aggressive expansion of services to customers in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Mr. Keating has also held commercial leadership positions with HyClone and Life Technologies and technical roles at Lonza Biologics. His appointment is a clear reflection of ABL's commitment to a long-term global expansion strategy, capitalizing on the value that ABL's scientific and manufacturing teams bring to its worldwide customer base. "We are extremely grateful for the dedicated leadership and invaluable contributions provided by Dr. VanCott during his 10-year tenure as CEO," Mr. Keating stated. "It is a huge honor to lead a company with the pedigree of ABL, and I look forward to building on the solid foundation that has been laid in recent years." "We are very enthusiastic about Jarlath Keating taking over the leadership of ABL. This will enable us to strengthen our service to our customers and accelerate the strategic development of the company," said Hedi Ben Brahim, VP for Immunotherapy at Institut Merieux and Chairman of the Board of ABL. About ABL, Inc. ABL, Inc. is a global biomedical contract research and manufacturing organization dedicated to advancing therapeutics, vaccines and other biologic products. ABL has extensive experience working with diverse organizations including industry, government and academic entities. ABL maintains GMP facilities meeting U.S. and European regulatory standards, providing process and assay development, cGMP manufacturing of bulk drug substance, cGMP aseptic fill and finish of drug product, and QC bioanalytical testing. Our U.S. and European immunological and molecular laboratories support clients' preclinical and GCLP clinical sample processing and testing needs. ABL is a part of the Institut Merieux, a group of companies dedicated to developing translational science for better patient care globally. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 12, 2018) - Blackrock Gold Corp. (the "Company") (TSXV: BRC) today announces with great sadness the tragic and sudden death of Brian Morris, President of Blackrock Gold (US) Corp. ("Blackrock US"), the Company's wholly owned US subsidiary. Brian Morris was killed on the evening of November 10, 2018 in Reno after he had stopped to act as a Good Samaritan at the scene of a prior car accident. Two other people were also killed. "The Company's board of directors and management extend our deepest condolences to the family and many friends of Mr. Morris. Together, we mourn the loss of an exceptionally gifted person. Brian will leave an enormous void on lots of different levels and will be greatly missed." Deepak Malhotra, Chairman of Blackrock's board, said," Words do not suffice to express the heartfelt sorrow that we all feel for the passing of Mr. Morris. He brought great enthusiasm and energy to the Silver Cloud Project. We will carry his passion and work forward, making this project a success." About Blackrock Gold Blackrock Gold Corp is a discovery driven junior exploration company focused on uncovering the next big economic gold deposit. Anchored by a seasoned Board, the Company is focused on blue-sky opportunities, with an aim to acquire large-scale land packages that are in prolific gold belts within stable jurisdictions. For further information, please contact: Gregory L. Schifrin, Chief Executive Officer Blackrock Gold Corp. Email: gschifrin@blackrockgoldcorp.com Phone: 1 - 208-290-1180 Website: www.blackrockgold.ca The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of this release.Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES Industry's Broadest Selection of HPC Systems on display at SC18 including Petascale All-Flash NVMe, BigTwin, SuperBlade, and GPU Systems for AI and Deep Learning DALLAS, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI), a global leader in enterprise computing, storage, networking solutions and green computing technology, today is demonstrating the industry's broadest selection of new high-performance computing (HPC) systems at SuperComputing 2018 (SC18), in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center from November 13-15. Supermicro is also hosting several speaker sessions each day at its Booth #3006 including representatives from Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD. For a detailed schedule and more information regarding Supermicro at SC18, visit https://www.supermicro.com/SC18. "As a hardware solution company, we are investing heavily in our Resource-Saving server, GPU and storage solutions, including the development of 10-year lifecycle chassis, power supplies, fans and other subsystems, to help end-customers save both energy cost and hardware acquisition costs while reducing IT waste," said Charles Liang, President and CEO of Supermicro. "Resource Saving is measured by TCE (Total Cost to the Environment) which is the combination of delivering superior TCO for datacenter investments while at the same time minimizing the environmental impacts of these data centers. Also, continuing Supermicro's technology innovation and time-to-market leadership, our Petascale 1U NVMe solutions are shipping in volume to provide customers with significant competitive advantage today." The new Petascale line of all-flash NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) 1U storage servers feature the most power-efficient, next-generation flash technology with the highest storage density and best IOPS performance. With systems supporting U.2, Intel Ruler, Samsung NF1, and EDSFF form factor SSDs, Supermicro offers unprecedented flexibility and choice for high-capacity networked storage applications that require the best latency performance and provide a real time-to-value advantage for users with data-intensive HPC workloads. HPC applications are continuing to grow in complexity as they unlock new scientific insights. Supermicro's new NVIDIA HGX-2 based SuperServer, 9029GP-TNVRT, supports 16 NVIDIA Tesla V100 Tensor Core 32GB GPUs connected via NVIDIA NVLink and NVSwitch to leverage over 80,000 CUDA cores and delivers unmatched performance accelerating AI and HPC on premise and in the cloud. This new system can deliver up to 2 PetaFLOPS of performance and occupies just ten units of rack space. To help simplify the deployment of AI and HPC applications in the data center, SuperServer 4029GP-TVRT is NGC-Ready. Customers can now run GPU-accelerated software from the NGC container registry, including its expanded HPC and AI software library with new machine learning and analytics containers, with confidence on the 4029GP-TVRT, which is a 4U system with eight Tesla V100 GPUs with NVIDIA NVLink. Designed to handle the most demanding inference workloads, Supermicro's new SuperServer 6049GP-TRT provides the superior performance required for modern AI. This 4U system achieves maximum GPU density and performance with support for up to 20 NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs with Turing Tensor Core technology, three terabytes of memory, and 24 hot-swappable 3.5-inch drives. The system also features four 2000-watt Titanium level efficiency (2+2) redundant power supplies to deliver optimal power efficiency, uptime and serviceability. Delivering maximum performance and efficiency in a 2U 4-node design, the Supermicro BigTwin system supports the full range of Intel Xeon Scalable processors, 24 DIMMs, up to six hot-swappable all-flash NVMe or hybrid NVMe/SAS3 drive bays, and up to three PCI-E 3.0 slots including support for a flexible SIOM module enabling 100/40/25/10/1G networking options per node. For reliability and efficiency, redundant 2600W/2200W Titanium Level (96%+) digital power supplies come standard. Supermicro also offers a line of BigTwin systems that support the full range of AMD EPYC 7000-series processors including an all-flash NVMe model. Supermicro is showcasing a breadth of platforms at SC18 that feature Resource-Saving technology and address a wide range of workloads. The new disaggregated SuperBlade unlocks the interdependence between the major server subsystems enabling the independent upgrade of CPU, Memory, I/O, Enclosure, Storage, Power and Cooling. Now each component can be refreshed at the optimal time to maximize generational improvements in performance and efficiency. SuperBlade delivers maximum performance up to 495 TFLOPS per rack, high density with twenty 2-socket or ten 4-socket Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based blade servers per 8U enclosure, fast interconnects with integrated 100G EDR InfiniBand, 100G Omni-Path or 25G switches, and support for up to 14 NVMe devices per node. For optimal reliability and power-efficiency, SuperBlade supports redundant 2200-watt Titanium Level (96%+) digital power supplies, 2000-watt DC power supplies, and 1200-watt Battery Backup Power (BBP) modules. Follow Supermicro on Facebook and Twitter to receive the latest news and announcements. About Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI) Supermicro, the leading innovator in high-performance, high-efficiency server technology is a premier provider of advanced Server Building Block Solutions for Data Center, Cloud Computing, Enterprise IT, Hadoop/Big Data, HPC and Embedded Systems worldwide. Supermicro is committed to protecting the environment through its "We Keep IT Green" initiative and provides customers with the most energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly solutions available on the market. Supermicro, BigTwin, SuperBlade, Server Building Block Solutions, and We Keep IT Green are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Super Micro Computer, Inc. All other brands, names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Media Contact Michael Kalodrich Super Micro Computer, Inc. PR@supermicro.com SMCI-F Relations between the RBI and the Finance Ministry have soured in the last month after the North Block started consultations under the never-used Section 7 of the RBI Act Mumbai: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said minimising bad loans alone can ensure adequate credit flow to small businesses and the troubled non banking financial companies (NBFCs) and also help take care of the liquidity concerns in the market, signalling a thaw in its fraught ties with the Reserve Bank. Interestingly, the latest statement from the finance minister is in fact aligns with the RBI's resolve on the issue which has been doggedly pressing for action on high non-performing assets (NPAs). The apex bank has also been averse to government demand for special dispensations for small and medium enterprises (SMEs, NBFCs and the power sector to help boost growth ahead of the April-May hustings. "To maintain the strength of our banking system and to enable it to help the economy grow, we need to minimise our NPAs," Jaitley said, speaking at the 100th foundation day of the state-run Union Bank of India here on Sunday evening through a video link. "It is only a strong banking system that will be able to improve credit in those sectors which really need credit. The MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) sector needs credit, several other players in the market need credit. NBFCs today need credit because a large part of lending is done by them," he added. It can be noted that as of the March quarter, the system wide bad loans ratio had sniffed at 12 percent, while for some state-run lenders like IDBI Bank, which has been taken over by LIC, had nearly 28 percent of its loans as dud assets as of the June quarter. Following a massive spike in the bad loans, which got speeded up after the note-ban and the hasty implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the RBI had in September 2016 brought as many as 11 state-run banks under the prompt corrective action plan framework to bring down NPAs. This has led to credit crunch in the economy as these banks collectively control one-fifth of the system level credit and deposits, and the crisis was felt the most by small business units. The banking system needs to be strengthened so that it can lend to NBFCs, which will ensure that "liquidity in the markets is maintained", the minister said. NBFCs controlled more than 13 percent of system wide credit market as of March 2018. "We have to target ourselves and our policies; the whole system has to target itself to the direction where we improve the lending ability of our banks and we improve the liquidity available as far as our markets are concerned," Jaitley said. According to reports, the government-appointed non-official director on the central board of the RBI, S Gurumurthy, had been asking for forbearance for MSMEs along with increased credit flow to other critical sectors. Also, other reports said government wants the RBI to open a special refinance window for NBFCs, mutual funds and housing finance companies which have been under strain since the defaults at the infra lender IL&FS. Jaitley, however, did not touch upon other contentious points like passing of RBI's surplus capital to government or diluting the prompt corrective action (PCA) framework for some sector like power which is partly linked to NPAs or lowering banks' capital buffers. According to sources, the three letters that government sent to the RBI on 10 October, under the never-before used Section 7 of the RBI Act, the finance ministry had listed out as many as a dozen demands. Some other demands include more active board by whittling down the powers of the management committee of the central board, which is peopled by the governor and his four deputies and some EDs. Jaitley limited his remarks on the NPAs and the role it can play in ensuring credit flow. "The future of our economy and its growth depends on this lending capacity," he said, adding the "immediate target" should be to strengthen the banking system that is mired with over Rs 10.5 lakh crore in NPAs which is close to 12 percent of the overall banking assets. Jaitley said multiple options have been exercised, not many yielded results and the "experiments" being carried out now are delivering results now. "Early harvest" of the IBC is also showing positive results, he said. The minister reiterated his comments on the excessive lending between 2008 and 2014 as the reason for the high NPAs now and termed their concealment as a "fatal" error, but spared a direct mention of the RBI this time. Ahead of an FSDC meeting last month, Jaitley had blamed the RBI for "looking the other way" when banks were lending indiscriminately during 2008-14. On Sunday, Jaitley also complemented the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) for the good work being done by it and hoped that it will continue to better on it in the future. Relations between the RBI and the Finance Ministry have soured in the last month after the North Block started consultations under the never-used Section 7 of the RBI Act which provides for the government directing the central bank to undertake certain measures in public interest. According to sources, government has sent three letters to the RBI with nearly a dozen demands, which werereplied to in a week. The poll-bound government primarily wants the RBI to help the struggling non-bank lenders get some liquidity support, liberalise the PCA norms and undertake other measures which will help push growth, while the RBI is said to be taking a conservative view and avoiding any bad precedents. The RBI's perceived excess capital has also become into a contentious issue, with one report saying government is eyeing one-third of its--Rs 3.6 trillion. Economic affairs secretary S C Garg had last week denied the amount, but said there is a discussion on "appropriate economic capital framework" for RBI underway. The central bank took its reservations on various issues public in a speech by deputy governor Viral Acharya on 26 October, wherein he warned of investors' wrath if the RBI autonomy is compromised. After reports of action under Section 7 came up, the government had tried to ease tensions by stating that autonomy is "essential" and an accepted governance requirement. However, Garg had also mocked the "wrath of markets" remark by Acharya, pointing out to improvement in financial markets since the speech. The RBI board is scheduled to meet again on 19 November, in what many earlier expected to be a stormy meeting. At a time when the resilient retail segment has been a focus, the finance minister exhorted state-run lenders to look at the needs of all sections of the economy including in creating infrastructure, helping industry and the entrepreneurs. "As a public sector bank, you cannot rely on retail alone, you have an onerous responsibility," he said, adding government is now targeting to ensure a banking service outlet is available to every citizen within a 5 km radius. Outbound travel from the country is expected to hit 50 million by 2020, making it one of the world's fastest-growing outbound markets. Mumbai: Cruise tourism is expected to expand in the country and as many as 3 lakh Indians may go on an international cruise vacation by 2020, says a leading industry player. India as a source market is estimated to be around 1.70 lakh guests currently for cruise tourism, against China's 2.7 million. Quoting a World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) report, a senior official of the India representative of the Royal Caribbean Cruises, Tirun, said outbound travel from the country will hit 50 million by 2020, making it one of the world's fastest-growing outbound markets."So we are looking at almost 3 lakh Indians to take an international cruise vacation by 2020," Varun Chadha, the chief operating officer at Tirun told PTI. He further said like China, India has huge potential and it gets exciting when we open up our shores. China grew from 4 lakh to 2.7 million in just under a decade. "India has similar potential, if not more and the government is keen on the cruising sector," he said, adding it is imperative for us to catch this cycle over the next two-three years as deployment is usually planned a couple of years in advance. Tirun Travel Marketing is the India representative for Royal Caribbean Cruises with a portfolio of three of its cruise brands including, Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises. It also handles exclusive sales and marketing for the various other brands while also providing operational support across the country. Chadha expects the domestic cruising market to expand dramatically, with the government also serious on developing this sector. The government is planning to link Mumbai with other prominent locations across the country, besides South East Asia and has asked private operators to come forward and take the benefit of the booming cruise industry. "Forty-nine percent of the investment in tourism is going to create employment," Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, who handles the road transport, highways, shipping and water resource portfolios had said earlier. Meanwhile, on 12 October, Mumbai-Goa cruise service began by the Angriya, which was non-stop, 16-hour voyage from the Purple Gate of Mumbai's Indira Docks and arrived at Mormugao in South Goa ferrying 399 passengers. "India is unique in that we will cater to domestic ports along with the appeal of cruising. The government has also worked on demand by allowing leave travel concession (LTC) for cruising," Chadha added. This year Tirun will offer two special India cruises - Christmas special cruise from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai with a special Christmas celebrations on board and the New Year cruise that starts from Mumbai on 28 December with a double overnight stay in Dubai, including New Years eve with cruise ending in Abu Dhabi with an overnight stay, he said. Beginning from Mumbai, there will also be cruises to Cochin and then a journey across the Eastern African coast, including Durban and finally docking at Cape Town. It will also dock at Seychelles. The demand is so high that advance booking, especially for New Year sailing, ended two months before the sailing, he added. Patnaik urged FICCI to partner with Odisha's departments in successful implementation of the state's 'Vision 2025' for industrial development in six focus sectors. Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday asked industry captains to explore the immense opportunities that the state has to offer as it takes rapid strides to emerge as the manufacturing hub of the east. Inaugurating the state's showpiece business summit -- 'Make in Odisha - Conclave 2018', in the presence of a host of dignitaries including Japanese Ambassador to India, Kenji Hiramatsu and consul generals of several other countries, besides representatives from industry body FICCI. "Odisha is emerging as a manufacturing hub of the east and we are incessantly working towards developing it as a global hub for industries in certain focus sectors," Patnaik said, urging the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) to partner with the departments in successful implementation of the state's 'Vision 2025' for industrial development in six focus sectors. The plenary session of the second edition of Make In Odisha Conclave, scheduled to be held from Monday (today), would be attended by a battery of top industrialists including Mukesh Ambani, N Chandrasekaran, Kumar Mangalam Birla along with 800 other industry leaders. Apart from Reliance Industries, Aditya Birla Group and Tata Group, Vedanta Resources chief Anil Agarwal and industry delegation from at least six countries -- South Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE -- are expected to attend the state's mega-business meet here. Chairman of Mahindra Group Anand Mahindra, chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd Naveen Jindal and Adani Group chief Gautam Adani are also expected to be part of the conclave which will conclude on 15 November. "Mukesh Ambani will be the star speaker at the Business Leadership Summit to be organised just after plenary session of the conclave. The summit will provide leadership perspective from industry captains to inspire next generation leaders," Odisha Industries Minister Ananta Das had said earlier. In the run-up to the mega event, Patnaik had met ambassadors of different countries in New Delhi. Japan is the partner country of the conclave this year. The expo will be showcasing manufacturing prowess of the state through use of modern technologies by the companies operating here. Apart from seeking investment from the industries, the prime objective of the conclave is to showcase the potential of the state in different sectors, said industries secretary Sanjeev Chopra. The first edition of the conclave was held in 2016 where the state had received investment proposals worth Rs 2 lakh crore, he claimed. (Disclosure - Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd) FICCI and the NITI Aayog on Monday jointly organised a workshop on the 'Online Digital Payments Programme' aimed at capacity building and imparting training to the officials working in this area. New Delhi: NITI Aayog will hold a meeting with all the stakeholders in digital payments industry over customer authentication issue after the Supreme Court verdict that restricted the use of Aadhaar details for KYC in availing a host of services, including banking and telecom. "I will have a roundtable with the stakeholders. There are some issues which have come up from the industry, we will sit down and see what the issues are and find out how to move forward. The industry is saying that it may hamper the digital payments system," said Ratan Watal, Member Secretary PMEAC and Principal Advisor, NITI Aayog on the sidelines of a digital payments programme. FICCI and the NITI Aayog on Monday jointly organised a workshop on the 'Online Digital Payments Programme' aimed at capacity building and imparting training to the officials working in this area. In its ruling on 26 September, the Supreme Court had declared the government's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid but struck down some of its provisions including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions. Also, it is not mandatory for school admissions, as also for the examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Examination, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical entrance and the University Grants Commission. However, it remains mandatory for the filing of IT returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number (PAN). Watal said even as digital payments have been going up, there is a need to work further with the payments systems and see areas such as banking and financial institutions where officials need to be trained. They also need to be trained formally about what digital payment mechanism is, how it works, what are the legal frameworks, international ramifications, among others. He said a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by the NITI Aayog, Department of Telecommunications and United Nations' specialised unit -- International Telecommunication Union (ITU) -- a few months ago. "ITU has done a lot of work in this field in the emerging economies on digital payments. With their help we prepared a three-module programme aimed at how to improve digital payment space in India," he said. He also said that the NITI Aayog had requested ITU to help India in the digital payment space as well as capacity building. "If they have some programmes or training on AI or blockchain we can use that. At this stage, it is just an idea, so let's see how to go about with this," Watal said. Reed Travel Exhibitions, organiser of the annual Arabian Travel Market (ATM) showcase in Dubai, has signed a collaboration agreement with The Airport Agency to launch Connect Middle East, India & Africa 2019 a new route development forum. The two-day show will be co-located with Arabian Travel Market 2019 and will take place at the Dubai World Trade Centre on April 30 and May 1 (day three and four of ATM). Emirates will be the official airline partner - with Emirates Networking Planning team attending the show - while Emaar Hospitality Group will be the official hotel partner both of which will offer preferential rates exclusively for delegates attending the show. Nick Pilbeam, divisional director, Reed Travel Exhibitions, said: The Middle Easts aviation market is forecast to grow five per cent annually until 2036, according to the International Air Transport Association (Iata). It is predicted that the sector will witness an extra 322 million passengers a year on routes to, from and within the region with the total market size expanding to 517 million passengers over this period." The sector is expected to contribute nearly Dh200 billion to the UAEs economy by 2020, providing up to 750,000 jobs." Moreover, the aviation industry is a crucial economic pillar for Dubai, accounting for more than 27 per cent of Dubais GDP, or $26.7 billion, according to Oxford Economics. This is expected to increase to 37.5 per cent by 2020 with a total annualised impact of $53.1 billion, he said. Connect Middle East, India & Africa 2019 is expected to bring together airline specialists, aviation authorities, tourism boards, airports and tour operators, as well as other travel-related industry professionals. With up to 400 delegates, the structure of the vertical event will include unlimited one-to-one pre-scheduled appointments, a conference programme, panel discussions and airline & industry briefings as well as an exhibition area dedicated to airports and suppliers. Being the worlds largest travel event organiser, with shows on all continents, our collaboration with The Airport Agency will bring the entire tourism supply chain together, providing huge strategic commercial opportunities for aviation professionals, particularly those specialising in airport route development, networking planning and procurement, Pilbeam added. Connect has already held events around the world, the most recent being Connect in Georgia which brought together over 500 aviation decision-makers including more than 65 airlines and represented 250 airports to discuss current and future air transport links, route development plans as well as addressing topical issues and challenges and identifying and capitalising on emerging trends. Commenting on The Airport Agencys collaboration with Reed Travel Exhibitions, Karin Butot, CEO, The Airport Agency, said: Connect Middle East, India & Africa is set to deliver a unique networking platform for airports, airlines and tourism to meet and network alongside ATM, the largest international travel event in the region which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year." As more and more airports are working in synergy with their destinations to explore and secure new airline services, Connect Middle East, India & Africa will deliver exceptional opportunities in an established, highly-productive format, thus making the show the only aviation route development event in the region for both inbound and outbound travel, connecting senior aviation professionals with airlines and airports all over the world. Dubai International Airport was the busiest international airport measured by total passengers for the fourth consecutive year, as it welcomed six new carriers in 2017 and opened 12 new routes for 2018. The airport served 88.2 million passengers in 2017, an increase of 5.5 per cent from 2016, Dubai Airports said in a statement. Traffic this year was forecast to grow 2.4 per cent to 90.3 million. Propelled by a partnership between Emirates and sister low-cost carrier flydubai, growth is expected to continue in 2019 as the momentum gathers in the build up to Expo 2020, when 25 million visitors are expected. - TradeArabia News Service Now Saudi Arabia wants to act to prevent a further slide in prices and is leading discussions on cutting oil output next year, sources said. Abu Dhabi: Saudi Arabia plans to reduce oil supply to world markets by 0.5 million barrels per day in December, its energy minister said on Sunday, as the OPEC power faces uncertain prospects in its attempts to persuade other producers to agree a co-ordinated output cut. Khalid al-Falih told reporters that Saudi Aramcos customer crude oil nominations would fall by 500,000 bpd in December versus November due to seasonal lower demand. The cut represents a reduction in global oil supply of about 0.5 percent. Saudi Arabia has increased output by just about 1 million bpd this year under pressure from US President Donald Trump and other consuming countries to help balance the market to compensate for lower supplies from Iran due to US sanctions. But since Irans customers were given generous waivers to continue buying crude, concerns grew about market oversupply and oil prices fell to below $70 per barrel on Friday from $85 a barrel in October. We have been increasing production in response to demand, Falih told reporters in Abu Dhabi ahead of a joint OPEC, non-OPEC market monitoring committee meeting. Ill tell you a piece of news which is (that) December nominations are 500,000 barrels less than November. So we are seeing a tapering off part of it is year end, part of it is maintenance.... so we will be shipping less in December than we are in November. Saudi Arabia is discussing a proposal that could see OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers cut output by up to 1 million bpd, two sources told Reuters earlier on Sunday, as the worlds top oil exporter grapples with a drop in crude prices. The sources said any such deal would depend on factors including the level of Iranian exports after the United States imposed sanctions on Tehran but granted Irans top oil buyers waivers to continue buying oil. Russian participation was key to helping OPEC rebalance the market during 2017-18. But Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday he wasnt certain the market would be oversupplied next year. He said the oversupply for the next few months would be seasonally driven while by mid 2019 the market could be balanced again and demand could even exceed supply. Iran waivers surprise Riyadh was surprised by the waivers granted by Washington to Irans main customers such as China and India, a move which hit oil prices, at least three industry and OPEC sources told Reuters. Now Saudi Arabia wants to act to prevent a further slide in prices and is leading discussions on cutting oil output next year, the sources said. Under a deal set to expire at the end of the year, OPEC and non-OPEC producers agreed to curb output by around 1.8 million bpd. But producers ended up cutting more and so agreed in June to limit their reductions by more than their output targets, meaning restoring about 1 million bpd in output. OPEC and its allies will meet in Vienna on 6-7 December to decide on output policy for 2019. There is a general discussion about this (cut). But the question is how much is needed to be reduced by the market, one of the sources said in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. No one expected the waivers. Saudi Arabia wants to at least put a floor under oil prices. No one wants a free fall in prices, the source added. Kazakh deputy energy minister Magzum Mirzagaliyev told reporters in Abu Dhabi that he understood Saudi Arabia was suggesting using August-October output levels as a baseline for determining cuts. Falih did not rule out the possibility of a cut next year, but also said he would like to move into 2019 with minimum interventions. I think ideally we dont like to cut. Ideally we like to keep the market ... liberally supplied and comfortable. We will only cut if we see a persistent glut emerging and quite frankly we are seeing some signs of this coming out of the US, we have not seen the signs globally, he told reporters. Brent LCOc1 crude on Friday fell 47 cents, or 0.7 percent, to settle at $70.18 a barrel. It lost about 3.6 percent on the week and has shed more than 15 percent this quarter. Washington gave 180-day waivers to eight Iranian oil buyers - China, India, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Greece, Taiwan and Turkey. This group takes as much as three-quarters of Irans seaborne oil exports, trade data shows. The US administration has vowed to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero and Trump has put pressure on Saudi Arabia to raise output to cool the market. Irans crude exports could fall to little more than 1 million bpd in November, roughly a third of their mid-2018 peak. But traders and analysts say that figure could rise from December as importers use their waivers. Falih said last month the kingdom would pump 11 million bpd in November, up from 10.7 million bpd in October. He also said there could be a need for intervention to reduce oil stockpiles after increases in recent months. Any change in the central bank's economic capital framework can be carried out only after making amendments to the RBI Act, 1934. New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) board meeting on 19 November is expected to be a stormy affair in the backdrop of the ongoing tussle between the government and the central bank, sources said, adding that some members are likely to raise issues concerning capital framework, management of surplus and liquidity measures for MSMEs. Tensions between the RBI and the government have recently escalated, with the Finance Ministry initiating discussion under the never-used-before Section 7 of the RBI Act which empowers the government to issue directions to the RBI Governor. RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya had in a speech last month talked about the independence of the central bank, arguing that any compromise could be "potentially catastrophic" for the economy. According to sources, the board meetings are pre-decided and the agenda is also circulated much in advance. However, board members can raise off-agenda items in the meeting. Sources said the government nominee directors and a few independent directors could raise the issue of interim dividend along with the capital framework of RBI. However, any change in the central bank's economic capital framework can be carried out only after making amendments to the RBI Act, 1934. Other issues which could be raised include alignment of capital adequacy norms with those in advanced countries and some relaxation in the Prompt Corrective Action framework, sources said, adding more measures to enhance lending to MSMEs and NBFCs may also be discussed. The RBI is following conservative capital adequacy norms which are stricter than those in advanced economies, leading to banks keeping more risk capital reserve against loans. The government is of the view that if the RBI aligns it with the global average, it would free up bank capital which can be used for increased lending to productive sectors, sources said. Earlier this month, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor N S Vishwanathan dismissed calls for lowering capital adequacy norms for the lenders and matching them with global levels. The capital requirements are high for domestic lenders because of higher defaults/bad loans, Vishwanathan explained, and warned that lowering capital norms merely for aligning them with global standards will create "make believe" strong banks. With regard to capital framework, the government last Friday said it was discussing an "appropriate" size of capital reserves that the central bank must maintain as it denied seeking a massive capital transfer from the Reserve Bank. The RBI has a massive Rs 9.59 lakh crore in reserves and the government reportedly wants the central bank to part with a third of that amount. Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg had said that the government was not in any dire needs of funds and that there was no proposal to ask the RBI to transfer Rs 3.6 lakh crore. The government, he said, is on track to meet the fiscal deficit target of 3.3 percent of GDP for the financial year 2018-19. "There is no proposal to ask RBI to transfer (Rs) 3.6 or (Rs) 1 lakh crore, as speculated," he had tweeted. "Government's FD (fiscal deficit) in FY 2013-14 was 5.1%. From 2014-15 onwards, Government has succeeded in bringing it down substantially. We will end the FY 2018-19 with FD of 3.3 percent. Government has actually foregone (Rs) 70,000 crore of budgeted market borrowing this year." Garg further said the only proposal "under discussion is to fix an appropriate economic capital framework of RBI". According to experts, the 'economic capital framework' includes transfer of surplus reserves to the exchequer. Former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian had in the Economic Survey 2016-17 said the RBI was already exceptionally highly capitalised and nearly Rs 4 lakh crore of its capital transfer to the government can be used for recapitalising the banks and/or recapitalising a Public Sector Asset Rehabilitation Agency. However, this proposal never saw the light of the day. Meanwhile, former Union finance minister P Chidambaram Sunday asked the Centre what was its "tearing hurry" to "fix" the capital framework of the RBI when the ruling dispensation had just four months to complete its term. If the government does not need any more money this financial year, why is it mounting pressure on RBI in the last 4 months of its tenure? Why did it keep silent for 4 years and 6 months? P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) November 11, 2018 "The NDA government has competed 4 years and 6 months of its term. It has effectively 4 months left. What is the tearing hurry to 'fix' the capital framework of RBI?" he tweeted. Avenue Capital picking up Arcil stakes from IDFC Bank (8.37 percent), government of Singapore's Lathe Investments (9.9 percent), Ashmore Capital (1.37 percent), South African lender Firstrand Bank (4.11 percent), Karur Vyasya Bank (1.96 percent) and Barclays Bank (1.5 percent) Mumbai: The oldest asset reconstruction company Arcil is selling a 27 percent stake to the US-based distressed asset fund Avenue Capital, becoming its single largest shareholder. The US fund is picking up stakes from IDFC Bank (8.37 percent), government of Singapore's Lathe Investments (9.9 percent), Ashmore Capital (1.37 percent), South African lender Firstrand Bank (4.11 percent), Karur Vyasya Bank (1.96 percent) and Barclays Bank (1.5 percent), chief executive and managing director Vinayak Bahuguna told reporters here on Monday. In its peak, Arcil, perceived as a public institution, was the largest player in the segment that today has over a dozen players, but has lost its sheen following the entry of private players like Edelweiss ARC and JM Financial ARC, which are the largest players. Most private players have foreign equity investors. An application has been made for getting the Reserve Bank nod for the transaction, after which Avenue will become the largest shareholder of the company, Bahuguna said, declining to give the details on valuation. Even though no new money is coming to the company, as it is a secondary transaction, Avenue is committed to put more capital if needed, he said. Additionally, Avenue, which has over $10 billion assets under its management, also has a global network which can help Arcil, he said. Bahuguna said Avenue has been operating individually in its capacity as a distressed asset fund in the country since 2005. He said State Bank (about 20 percent), IDBI Bank (19.18 percent), ICICI Bank (13.26 percent), and PNB (10.01 percent) have decided to continue hold onto their stakes in the company. There was a cut-off date by which shareholders were allowed to respond to an offer by Avenue, he said, adding discussions are on with other shareholders as well through which Avenue can increase its ownership, Bahuguna said. Avenue will get one seat on the board after the completion of the transaction, which Bahuguna expects to go through by March 2019. Arcil invested Rs 2,700 crore to pick up distressed assets in fiscal 2018 and is looking to double the same this year, he said. The company has already invested Rs 600 crore so far this fiscal year, he said, adding it's eyeing opportunities in small steel, textiles, roads and power assets. This is about 12 percent of the overall Rs 20,000 crore of distressed asset play in the system, he added. Of the Rs 12 trillion of stressed, around Rs 6 trillion are up for grabs at the NCLTs but most of them are big companies owing banks tens of thousands of crores. Typically, Arcil does not invest in large corporate stressed cases which have dominated last year, Bahuguna said, adding it eyes opportunities in the mid-market segments of under Rs 5,000 crore. He said the company is looking to raise a new fund of up to Rs 1,500 crore which will be raised from long-term investors like international pension funds, endowment funds and also domestic ones like insurance companies. Bahuguna said the company has tied up with a large foreign institution to buy up to Rs 1 trillion of stressed small business advances by banks which have turned sour. He said overall stressed assets in the banking system from small businesses stand at Rs 2 trillion. Arcil had a net income of Rs 123 crore in fiscal 2018, which was up from Rs 46 crore and Rs 14 crore in the previous two fiscal years. According to Usha Martin Limited (UML), the sale of its steel business to Tata Steel will help the company significantly reduce its debt. New Delhi: Shareholders of Usha Martin have approved the sale of the company's steel business to Tata Steel as a going concern on a slump sale basis. A special resolution in this regard was passed with requisite majority at Usha Martin Limited's extraordinary general meeting, with 99.99 percent shareholders voting in its favour, the company informed the exchanges in a regulatory filing late night on Saturday. "The resolution proposed hereinabove has been passed with requisite majority," Usha Martin said. Tata Steel had earlier said it has executed definitive agreements for the acquisition of UML's steel business for Rs 4,300-4,700 crore through a slump sale on a going concern basis. According to Usha Martin Limited (UML), the sale of its steel business to Tata Steel will help the company significantly reduce its debt. UML's steel business comprises the specialised 1 million tonne per annum (MTPA) alloy-based manufacturing capacity in long products segment based in Jamshedpur, a producing iron-ore mine, a coal mine under development and captive power plants, Tata Steel had said. It is amongst the largest wire rope manufacturers in the world and a leading speciality steel producer in India. Similar resolutions were passed following demise of then union ministers Gopinath Munde and Anil Madhav Dave. Kumar died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to chair a special meeting of the Union Cabinet Monday to condole the demise of senior minister Ananth Kumar, official sources said. A resolution condoling the demise of the Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister and hailing his contribution would be passed. As per established practice, resolutions are passed by the Cabinet in the memory of ministers and senior leaders. Similar resolutions were passed following demise of then union ministers Gopinath Munde and Anil Madhav Dave. Kumar died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months. A six-time Member of Parliament, Kumar had climbed the political ladder steadily from being an RSS worker to becoming a Union minister in his thirties. Kumar had been in the inner circle of the central leadership of the BJP be it during the heydays of Atal Bihari Vajpayee or LK Advani and now Narendra Modi Narendra Modi flew in Bengaluru from Varanasi and drove straight to the residence of Ananth Kumar at Basavanagudi. Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his last respects to Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar, who passed away in the wee hours on Monday. Modi flew in Bengaluru from Varanasi and drove straight to the residence of Kumar at Basavanagudi, where the body was kept, and consoled his family members. The prime minister laid a wreath on the mortal remains of Kumar. He consoled Kumar's wife Tejaswini and his two daughters Vijeta and Aishwarya. Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala and BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa were also present. Earlier, Modi was received at the HAL Bengaluru airport in by the Governor and Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy. Tigress Avni was shot dead in Maharashtras Yavatmal district on 2 November. She was believed to have killed 13 people in the region over two years, but animal activists maintained that there was no evidence to prove the claim. The killing of tigress Avni triggered substantial outrage among not just animal lovers and activists, but the public on the whole, who believed that she could be saved. Now, there is bound to be even more outrage as an independent autopsy report suggests that the tranquiliser dart may have been inserted into her thigh after she was shot and no attempts were made to render her unconscious. Avni, officially known as T1, was shot dead in the Borati forest in Maharashtras Yavatmal district on the night of 2 November. The tigress was tagged a man-eater and believed to have killed 13 people in the region over two years. Both the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court had upheld the Maharashtra Forest Departments shoot-at-sight order for Avni, but had held that all efforts should first be made to tranquilise her. Four veterinarians conducted Avnis post-mortem examination, according to The Indian Express, and the witness report was submitted by Nagpur-based wildlife biologist Milind Pariwakam, who was the representative of the Maharashtra Forest Department. The autopsy conducted at the Gorewada Rescue Centre in Nagpur also found that the dart was secured to Avnis body with a strap, likely to hold it in place while the carcass was being transported, The Times of India reported. The autopsy found that the pink dart, visible prominently in the images of Avnis body that began to circulate after her death, did not show the kind of impact it would have had had it been fired from a syringe projector (tranquilising gun). The report says that the 5-millilitres capacity dart with a 1.5-inch collared needle was "placed subcutaneously" in Avnis left thigh. This indicates that the dart could not have been fired using a gun from a distance, as it would have then pierced the tigress skin beyond the dermis. There was no haemorrhage observed in the muscles at the darting site. A dart fired from a syringe projector always leaves a significant and obvious haematoma, which was not observed in this case, the witness report said. Explaining the findings, a wildlife expert said: "The report indicates that the dart did not even pierce through the fascia (between muscle and skin), which does not have blood supply, and just punctured the skin. Another damning finding of the provisional autopsy report is that it says the trajectory of the bullet that killed her shows that Avni was facing away from the shooter when he pulled the trigger. This contradicts the Maharashtra Forest Departments claim that they were forced to shoot the tigress dead in self-defence after she charged at the team that had fired a tranquiliser dart to immobilise her. The report adds that Avni died due to excessive internal haemorrhage and cardio-respiratory failure, and her stomach and intestines were filled with fluid and gas, indicating that she had not hunted or eaten for four to five days. With details of Avnis autopsy report out in the public, wildlife activists said they will file a petition against the Maharashtra Forest Department in the Supreme Court, according to News18 Lokmat. AK Mishra, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) of Maharashtra, who had given the shoot-at-sight order, refused to comment on the specifics of the report. The department has already ordered an inquiry into the events of the day (2 November, when Avni was killed), and any conclusion is premature at this stage, he was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. The autopsy report was submitted to Mishra on Sunday, according to The Times of India. Avnis death had fuelled calls for the resignation of Maharashtra forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, including by Union minister Maneka Gandhi, who had strongly condemned Avnis murder. "It is nothing but a straight case of crime," she had tweeted with the hashtag, #Justice4TigressAvni. She had targeted the Maharashtra government for "illegally" murdering the tigress, questioned its decision to hire sharp shooter Shafat Ali Khan, a "criminal", for the job and also written to Maharashtra chief minister Devandra Fadnavis to remove Mungantiwar from the post, accusing him of being out of bounds while issuing orders to shoot tigress Avni. In response, Khan has threatened to sue Maneka for making "utterly defamatory and baseless allegations" against him. It was Khan's son Ashgar Ali who finally shot the bullet that killed Avni. Mungantiwar, too, did not take lightly to Manekas comments, demanding her resignation in turn. According to a civic official, the civic body handed over the possession of the land to the Balasaheb Thackeray Memorial Public Trust on last Tuesday. Mumbai: Two years after the plan to build a memorial to Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray was announced, the Mumbai civic body has handed over the possession of the land earmarked for it to the trust which will construct the structure. The land selected for the proposed memorial, announced in November 2016, currently houses the bungalow of Mumbai mayor located near Shivaji Park in Dadar, central Mumbai. According to a civic official, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) handed over the possession of the land to the Balasaheb Thackeray Memorial Public Trust on last Tuesday. "Built in 1928 in an area spread over four acres, the possession of mayor's bungalow has been officially handed over to the trust," said Parag Masurkar, assistant municipal commissioner (estate department), BMC. "Now physical possession will start as and when the current mayor vacates his official residence and we get further instructions," he said. "The plot, ad measuring 11,500 sq metre, has been handed over to the trust on a nominal lease of Re 1 per annum for 30 years," he said. Another official said as Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar is expected to vacate his official residence by the end of this year, the trust may organise the ground-breaking ceremony at the site on 23 January 2019, the birth anniversary of the late Sena founder. The BMC bought the sprawling bungalow in 1962 for use as the official residence of mayor and BP Devgi was the first mayor to occupy it. The official added, "All administrative decisions have been taken to shift mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar to a bungalow built in the premises of the zoo at Byculla in South Mumbai." Shivaji Park holds an important place in the history of the Shiv Sena, founded by Thackeray in 1966. The Sena patriarch held the first rally of his party at Shivaji Park. He also addressed the party's annual Dussehra rally at the iconic ground year after year. There were other allegations against Alok Verma levelled by his deputy including charges of omitting the name of a senior railway official from the FIR filed in Lalu Yadav case. The fate of CBI director Alok Verma hangs in balance after Supreme Court adjourned the matter till Friday. Sources said the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) inquiry report examining allegations of corruption against Verma has raised some questions that require a separate and detailed probe. They also maintained that the report does not give a clean chit to Verma but prima facie found no significant evidence against the chief, who was sent on leave on 23 October. It is learnt former Supreme Court judge justice AK Patnaik, who supervised the CVC preliminary inquiry has also submitted a separate report on the entire process. The CVC was told to look into specific allegations only that was levelled against Verma during the preliminary probe. A slew of allegations was mentioned by Special Director Rakesh Asthana in his letter to Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha in August that formed the basis of the investigation, the sources said. Asthana had alleged that CBI Director Verma did not share crucial intelligence report against two industrialists with other agencies and had also opposed interrogation of Sathish Babu Sana in the Moin Qureshi case. Sana, Asthana had alleged was an accused in the case but later became a complainant in the bribery case involving Asthana, DSP Devender Kumar and middlemen. An FIR has been registered against Asthana and others for allegedly taking money to scuttle probe. Asthana in his letter in August to the cabinet secretary had said Sathish Sana was called for examination on 20 February 2018. "However, even before Sathish Sana appeared at CBI headquarters, Alok Verma called him on SIP phone and instructed that Sathish Sana shall not be examined, Verma had claimed. I immediately enquired with Sai Manohar, Joint Director, SIT, who was in my office at that time whether Sathish Sana has been called. After ascertaining from SP, SIT, he confirmed that Sathish Sana was expected today. Despite instructions (illegal to my understanding) Sathish Sana was examined in the CBI head office by the Investigating Officer and the instructions of Alok Verma, were not passed down the line, Asthana had alleged further adding that Sana claimed to have paid Rs 2 crore to manage CBI's senior officials and after examination in February, he was not coming forth, and was evading confrontation with other accused. Asthana said Sana was directed to attend CBI officer on 21.02. 2018 for confrontation with Moin Qureshi and Sukesh Gupta, however, he did not turn up. Apparently, as has been done in the past, the said accused (Sana) has managed to influence Alok Verma, Director CBI to avoid any coercive action by the CBI. The circumstances pertaining to the conduct of the accused as mentioned above indicate of wrongdoing, Asthana has alleged. There were other allegations against Verma levelled by his deputy including charges of omitting the name of a senior railway official from the FIR filed in Lalu Yadav case. Asthana had alleged that the probe was stonewalled at several stages and officers in the agency struggled to register a case despite having sufficient evidence on the record. He also alleged that Verma had directed to call off the searches at Lalus residence but reluctantly agreed at the last moment. The director of IMD, Chennai on Monday said that cyclonic storm 'Gaja' is expected to cross between Chennai and Nagapattinam during forenoon on 15 November. He advised the fishermen not to venture out to sea till 15 November as the sea would be very rough. The director of India Meteorological Department (IMD), Chennai on Monday said that cyclonic storm Gaja is expected to make landfall somewhere between Chennai and Nagapattinam before noon on Thursday. He advised the fishermen not to venture out to sea till Thursday as the sea would be very rough. The cyclone currently lies at 820 kilometres northeast of Nagapattinam. Moving at a speed of 12 kilometres per hour is likely to intensify into a 'severe cyclonic storm' within the next 24 hours, a bulletin issued at 4 pm on Sunday said. Speaking to reporters, Area Cyclone Warning Centre Director S Balachandran told PTI that coastal areas of north Tamil Nadu would experience moderate rainfall and heavy rainfall in isolated places from Wednesday night onwards. "On 15 November, many places will receive moderate rainfall and isolated places will get heavy rainfall." Fishermen have been advised not to venture into the sea from Monday and those already in deep sea have been asked to return. IMD, however, said the storm is likely to weaken gradually while crossing towards north Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coasts as a 'cyclonic storm' before noon on Thursday. Bengaluru and other places in south interior Karnataka are also expected to receive showers from Thursday, reported Times of India. Listing out measures taken to face the cyclone, Revenue Administration Commissioner K Satyagopal told reporters in Tirunelveli that medical teams were on standby in all districts. Tamil Nadu chief secretary Girija Vaidyanathan is reportedly meeting with officials from National Disaster Management Authority, National Disaster Response Force, and the state Revenue and Disaster Management Department on Monday to discuss cyclone preparedness, reported The News Minute. Gaja will be the second cyclone to hit the coastal area in a month after Cyclone Titli hit Odisha and Andhra Pradesh on 11 October, killing a total of 70 people. On Monday, Delhi recorded the Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 level at 231, while the PM 10 was recorded at 402. Delhi: The national capital, routinely suffering from the toxic air caused by coal burning and vehicular exhaust, witnessed yet another bad day on Monday. The official data maintained by the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research put the condition at severely polluted. On Monday, the Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 level was recorded at 231, while the PM 10 was recorded at 402 in Delhi. An Air Quality Index (AQI) between 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 is satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor and 401-500 is marked as severe/hazardous. If one looks closely, the majority of the areas in the capital recorded 'severe' air quality. At Ayanagar, the AQI was 339 at 10 am, while in Mathura Road area, it dipped to 381 category at 'very poor'. Furthermore, AQI near Pitampura, Airport Terminal 3 and Delhi University stood at 416, 374 and 422 respectively. As per the forecast agency, "Weather parameters are still unfavourable. The AQI is fluctuating (flip-flop) between 'severe' and 'very poor' because landlocked Delhi is not able to flush out a significant amount of local emission added on 7-8 November night. This is mainly due to adverse weather conditions. Under calm wind condition, when the mixing layer goes up during the day, AQI improves but when in the night, cooling drops mixing layer, AQI increases." The visibility is so poor that it is making it difficult for commuters to make out the colours of the traffic lights at intersections. The Delhi government led by Arvind Kejriwal is yet to take a call on the closing of schools and colleges as children have also fallen prey to the menace of toxic air. "Both of my children are suffering from breathing issue and my mother-in-law is suffering from eye irritation because of the increase in air pollution in Delhi. I believe that buying air purifiers are the only solution to get clean air but due to high prices only the wealthier people can afford, "said Tripti Bansal, a resident from Green Park, Delhi. Pushpa Sharma, another woman residing in the national capital, urged the government to shut down the schools till the time air quality improves. "The government must shut down all the schools for the next few days as the air quality outdoor is very poor. Last year also, my children were feeling suffocated," she said. The residents have been adviced to avoid all physical activity outdoors and move activities indoors. "If asthmatics, keep relief medicine handy. Sensitive Groups must stop outdoor activity at early morning and after sunset times. Avoid prolonged or heavy exertion. Go for a short walk instead of a jog and take more breaks. Stop any activity level if you experience any unusual coughing, chest discomfort, wheezing, breathing difficulty, or fatigue. If the room has windows, close them. If the air conditioner provides a fresh air intake option, keep that closed," stated the advisory published by SAFAR. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), around 3 million deaths a year are linked to exposure to outdoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution, on the other hand, can be just as deadly. In 2012, an estimated 6.5 million deaths (11.6 per cent of all global deaths) were associated with indoor and outdoor air pollution together. Nearly 90 percent of air-pollution-related deaths occurs in low and middle-income countries. "Air pollution continues to take a toll on the health of the most vulnerable populations - women, children, and older adults. For people to be healthy, they must breathe clean air from their first breath to their last," said Dr Flavia Bustreo, Assistant Director General at the WHO. Major sources of air pollution include inefficient modes of transport, household fuel and waste burning, coal-fired power plants, and industrial activities. However, not all air pollution originates from human activity. For example, air quality can also be influenced by dust storms, particularly in regions close to deserts. Allahabad and Faizabad are the latest additions to the growing list of places that have been renamed. Several proposals, including the renaming of West Bengal as 'Bangla', are pending with the central government. The process is a long-drawn one with the involvement of multiple central ministries and departments. New Delhi: The Centre has given consent to the renaming of at least 25 towns and villages across India in the past one year and among the pending proposals is one for the state of West Bengal, according to officials. Allahabad and Faizabad are the latest additions to the growing list of places that have been renamed. Several proposals, including the renaming of West Bengal as 'Bangla', are pending with the central government. The process is a long-drawn one with the involvement of multiple central ministries and departments. The Union Home Ministry has given consent to the proposals of name change in 25 villages and towns in different parts of the country in last one year, a senior ministry official told PTI. The proposals to change the names of Allahabad to Prayagraj and Faizabad to Ayodhya are yet to be received by the ministry from the Uttar Pradesh government, the official said. Some of the approved name change proposals are: Rajahmundry as Rajamahendravaram in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh; Outer Wheeler as APJ Abdul Kalam Island, situated in Bhadrak district of Odisha; Arikkod as Areekode in Malappura district of Kerala; Pindari as Pandu-Pindara in Jind district of Haryana; and Samphur as Sanphure in Kiphire district of Nagaland. Other renaming proposals approved by the ministry include Landgewadi to Narsinhagaon in Sangali district of Maharashtra; Garhi Sampla as Ch. Sir Chhotu Ram Nagar in Rohtak district of Haryana; Khatu Kalan village as Bari Khatu in Nagour district of Rajasthan; Mihgawan Chhakka and Mihgawan Tilia as Mihgawan Sarkar and Mihgawan Ghat respectively in Panna district of Madhya Pradesh and Shukratal Khadar as Sukhtirth Khadar and Shukratal Bangar as Sukhtirth Bangar in Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh. However, a proposal to change the name of Kacharigaon to Phevima in Dimapur district of Nagaland was rejected by the home ministry recently, the official said. The home ministry considers such proposals according to the existing guidelines in consultations with agencies concerned, another official said. The home ministry gives its consent to the change of name of any place after taking no-objections from the Ministry of Railways, Department of Posts and Survey of India. These organisations have to confirm that there is no such town or village in their records with a name similar to the proposed one. The renaming of a state requires amendment of the Constitution with a simple majority in Parliament. For changing the name of a village or town, an executive order is needed. The proposal to change the name of West Bengal to 'Bangla', as suggested by the state government, was recently forwarded by the home ministry to the Ministry of External Affairs for its opinion as the proposed name sounded similar to the name of neighbouring country Bangladesh, the official said. On Thursday, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said the state government was considering renaming Ahmedabad as Karnavati and the name change could be effected before next year's Lok Sabha elections. BJP leader Raja Singh said on Thursday that the party would "aim" to rename Hyderabad and other cities in the state after the names of great people if it is elected to power in Telangana after the forthcoming assembly polls. Last year, the Centre had approved the proposal to rename the iconic Mughalsarai railway station to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya (DDU) station after the Jan Sangh leader who was found dead in the railway station in 1968. Approval was also given to add the word "Maharaj" in Mumbai's iconic Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. It is now known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. The name of any state was changed last time in 2011, when Orissa became Odisha. Names of Bombay was changed to Mumbai in 1995, Madras to Chennai in 1996, Calcutta to Kolkata in 2001. The central government had approved the renaming of 11 cities of Karnataka, that included Bangalore as Bengaluru, in 2014. Beijing would again try to re-establish its clout in Maldives through the debt-trap diplomacy. The Modi government should, therefore, come out with a long-term plan for infrastructure development in Maldives. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Male to attend the swearing-in ceremony of president-elect of Maldives, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. The smooth transfer of power on 17 November will mark the restoration of democracy in Maldives as well as a major diplomatic boost for India. Maldives is a strategically located nation in the Indian Ocean, as it sits at the head of the international sea lane that moves traffic from the Suez Canal and the Straits of Hormuz to India, Southeast Asia and East Asia. Maldives northernmost Thuraakunu island is just 100 kilometres from the Indian naval station in the Lakshadweep island of Minicoy. Consisting of over nearly 1,200 islands and spread over about 90,000 square kilometres, Maldives has traditionally been a pro-India nation. But the strong ties between the two countries suffered a set back when Abdulla Yameen became the country's president in 2013. Before the remarkable regime-change in September, the Maldives was dangerously drifting away from Indias strategic orbit. Disturbing political developments remained a cause of concern for India as unfriendly gestures of former president Yameen frustrated the Modi governments neighbourhood outreach. The alleged undemocratic regime led by Yameen not only created a constitutional crisis in the country on several occasions but also allowed China to boldly pursue its strategic objectives in the Indian Ocean. In his campaign trail, Solih did not forget to make references to the Chinese debt trap while also describing Chinese development projects in the country as land grab. His election victory against an increasingly autocratic Yameen certainly represents a great triumph of democratic spirit of Maldivian people, but it would be a mistake to believe that it will automatically reverse the process of Chinas deep strategic inroads during the incumbent presidents rule. Maldives, which slid into authoritarianism under the Yameen regime, is the only South Asian country that Modi has not visited after he became prime minister in 2014. Although it was in the itinerary for his March 2015 Indian Ocean tour of three small neighboring nations, the visit had to be cancelled due to domestic political turbulence in the country. Indias ties with Maldives have been impacted by Chinas entry into the island nation. China had opened an embassy in Male, Maldivian capital, only in 2011. Many countries have non-resident embassies either in New Delhi or Colombo, and Chinese embassy in Colombo was catering to the Maldives till 2011. After Chinese resident Xi Jinpings state visit to the Maldives in 2014, military, diplomatic and economic ties have strengthened remarkably between Male and Beijing. Last year, some 306,000 Chinese tourists visited Maldives, accounting for more than 20 percent of the countrys total number of visitors. The Yameen regime had come out openly in support of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). A contract to an Indian company to upgrade the Male international airport was canceled and later given to a Beijing-based company. Since then, China has taken up several important projects in the country. In December 2016, Maldivian government leased Feydhoo Finolhu, the nearest uninhabited island to Male, to a Chinese company for 50 years. The Chinese are helping build a Joint Ocean Observation Station on Maldives northern-most atoll of Makunudhoo, which is likely to have a military application. Makunudhoo is not far from Indias Lakshadweep islands and quite close to the sea lane connecting to the Suez Canal. Maldives rushed through the much-criticised Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China in December 2017. This was Maldivess first FTA with any country, and also Chinas second such pact with a country in the South Asia region after Pakistan. On the sidelines of the FTA, Yameen reiterated support for Chinas Maritime Silk Road (MSR) which is part of the BRI. Given its security impact in Indias strategic backyard, Chinas foray into the Maldives aroused serious concerns in New Delhi. Defence ties also took a plunge. Yameen regime asked India to take back the naval choppers (ALH Dhruv) that India had gifted to the island nation as their letter of exchange (LoE) had expired in May this year. Male not only refused to renew it but also asked New Delhi to complete the process of removal of both Indian choppers at the earliest. It needs to be recalled that India had stationed six pilots and some naval ground personnel to operate the ALHs. Yameens real purpose was to get rid of the Indian naval personnel maintaining the helicopters. When Maldives imposed emergency in February this year, India strongly reacted against the move. However, Indias displeasure did not have any effect on the Yameen governments authoritarian rule. Aimed at consolidating Yameens power ahead of general elections, the supreme court justices and former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom were imprisoned in June. This prompted India to express 'deep dismay'. The expression of dismay rather than condemnation was seen as an indication of Indias cautiousness, as any strong reaction was thought to push the Yameen regime further into Chinas lap. The Indian government came under pressure, including from the Maldivian opposition, to intervene militarily. There was an occasion in which India had intervened in 1988 to foil a coup bid in that country. But there was a big difference this time as no legitimate government invited India to intervene. New Delhi preferred to exercise patience and keep a close watch on the electoral process. In order to get re-elected, Yameen projected himself as a Maldivian nationalist who focused on economic development, pointing to infrastructure projects built with the Chinese assistance during his term. His tactics gave every hint of his strong penchant to cling to power by any means, whether by getting rid of the electoral competition in politically motivated cases or by brazenly interfering in the election process. But Solih emerged from nowhere and skillfully tapped into the strong resentment against Yameen. His victory has suddenly changed the whole dynamic. When Solih was declared winner in the presidential election, there was a sigh of relief in New Delhi. Yameen had initially conceded defeat, but when he challenged the outcome, alleging vote rigging and fraud, there were apprehensions in New Delhi and other Western capitals. However, the dismissal of Yameens petition seeking annulment of the election by Maldives' supreme court finally put the lid on efforts by Yameens loyalists to put a spanner in the smooth transition of power. The supreme court of Maldives has also restored the membership of those lawmakers who were disqualified after they defected from Yameens party last year. The police and army which played a crucial role in helping Yameen tighten his grip on the power have already issued statements saying the election results would be upheld. Indian diplomats are visibly elated over the election victory of Solih. New Delhi hopes that Solih regime will either roll back some of the China-linked infrastructure projects or put them in cold storage. According to a reliable estimate, Maldives owes nearly three-fourth of its external debt to China. It remains to be seen whether Solih-led Maldives will get out of the debt trap by emulating the example set by Malaysias newly-elected prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who recently cancelled Chinese projects worth billions of dollars. However, the biggest challenge before Solih will be to keep diverse elements together who ensured his victory. India should advise Solih to take everybody along so that they can win the parliamentary elections of 2019. Solih should not waste much time in implementing judicial reforms and cracking down on corruption while confronting Islamic fundamentalism. We should not forget that Maldives has allegedly sent the highest per capita foreign fighter contingent to the Islamic State terror group. With radical jihadists trying hard to establish their presence in the country, there is a growing concern that the ground is being prepared for terrorist attacks on tourism-related targets. There is no doubt that China-India rivalry has been playing out in the Maldives, leading some observers to describe the just-concluded presidential contest between Yameen and Solih as Indo-Chinese proxy war. Solih has indicated after his landmark victory that he would work towards a fresh beginning on his countrys bilateral ties with India. The return of former exiled president Mohamed Nasheed, who is ideologically considered a pro-Indian leader, is also being seen as a step in improving ties with India. Nasheed was forced to quit his office in 2012 in what is widely regarded as a coup, and was narrowly defeated by Yameen in a presidential poll in the following year. The Solih-Nasheed duo is likely to reverse the Maldives tilt to Chinas strategic sphere. Maldives has just become the latest member of Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) after India pushed for its inclusion. Having a friendly government in Maldives is very important for Indias neighbourhood policy which will substantially boost the prospects of the Indo-Pacific region. But India will need to be more proactive this time so that what has happened in Sri Lanka is not repeated in Maldives. China may be down, but it is certainly not out, which is clearly reflected in its current maneuverings to retain its influence and leverage even after Mahinda Rajapaksa, seen as close to China, was defeated in presidential elections in early 2015 by Maithripala Sirisena, who came to power on an anti-China agenda. Sirisenas ousting of prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in favour of Rajapaksa unmistakably suggests a dramatic shift in position. Beijing would again try to re-establish its clout in Maldives through the debt-trap diplomacy. The Modi government should, therefore, come out with a long-term plan for infrastructure development in Maldives, which would substantially reduce the ill-effects of the Chinese debt. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Monday the US will hold accountable all involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in a wide-ranging telephone call that also took in the conflict in Yemen. Washington: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Monday the US will hold accountable all involved in the killing of a dissident Saudi journalist in a wide-ranging telephone call that also took in the conflict in Yemen. Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident, was murdered in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul on 2 October and the crown prince has been accused of orchestrating the killing, which has strained the decades-old alliance between Washington and Riyadh. "The Secretary emphasized that the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable, and that Saudi Arabia must do the same," spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. The top US diplomat has previously said Khashoggi's killing "violates the norms of international law," and that the US was reviewing possible sanctions on individuals identified as having been involved. But Pompeo and Trump have also both emphasized America's important commercial, strategic and national security relationships with the petro-state. Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, was critical of Prince Mohammed and the country's intervention in Yemen, a conflict which also came up during the call, said Nauert. Pompeo "reiterated the United States' calls for a cessation of hostilities and for all parties to come to the table to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict," she said. Pompeo has previously called for an end to hostilities in the rebel-infested Arab state, emphasizing the need for the Saudi-led coalition to halt strikes in populated areas. Prince Mohammed has overseen Saudi Arabia's Yemen war effort, a highly controversial intervention to bolster President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government in the face of an insurgency by Huthi rebels. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine. Modi, who inaugurated projects related to the cleaning of of River Ganga, said, 'Today's day is very historic for Kashi, Purvanchal, eastern India, and the entire India.' As he launched several development projects worth Rs 2,413 crore in his constituency Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that the development of India and its people is everything for BJP-led governments in the country. "I consider myself as fortunate as this year I celebrated Diwali in the holy city of Kedarnath. Today, I am in Baba Vishwanath's city. In Uttarakhand, I was blessed by worshiping Mother Bhagirathi, while here I paid visit to River Ganga," Modi said while addressing a gathering. Modi, who inaugurated projects related to the cleaning of River Ganga, said, "Today's day is very historic for Kashi, Purvanchal, eastern India, and entire India. Today, Varanasi and the country are witnesses to the development work that should have been decades ago. I welcomed country's first container vessel a while ago. This work took decades, but I am happy that the dream that India had, has been materialised on the land of Kashi. This container vessel means growth for eastern India." Modi earlier received India's first container vessel that sailed from Kolkata on inland waterways on 30 October, carrying cargo belonging to PEPSICO (India). Earlier in the day, Modi inaugurated the first multi-modal terminal on river Ganga. Speaking on the project, he said, "The first multi-modal project will cut travel time and help businessmen. The roads will be less crowded. Fuel costs will also be lower and there will also be relief from vehicular pollution." He also lashed out at "previous governments", claiming that they "did not do anything to develop water transport system in the nation". The inland waterway terminal is the first of the four multi modal terminals being constructed on the Ganga river as part of the World Bank-aided Jal Marg Vikas project of the Inland Waterways Authority of India. PM @narendramodi dedicates to the Nation Indias First Multi-Modal Terminal on river Ganga in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh pic.twitter.com/U2TrWOxKSK PIB India (@PIB_India) November 12, 2018 Among the projects that were inaugurated for river Ganga on Monday were a Rs 254-crore sewage treatment plant (STP), and pumping stations at Chaukaghat, Phulwaraia and Saraiya worth Rs 34 crore. Speaking before Modi, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said, "Modi ji had entrusted me to undertake the initiative of cleaning Ganga... I want to assure that 70 to 80 percent water in river Ganga will be clean by March 2019." At the event, Modi also inaugurated the Ring Road and Babatpur Airport Road. "Connectivity improves employment rates and further builds the trust people have in the authorities. For BJP governments, the development of the country and the countrymen is everything," he said. The 16.55-kilometre Varanasi Ring Road Phase I has been completed at a cost of Rs 759.36 crore, while the work of the four-laning and construction of 17.25-kilometre Babatpur-Varanasi road on NH-56 (National Highway-56) cost Rs 812.59 crore. The Babatpur Airport highway will link Varanasi to the airport and go on to Jaunpur, Sultanpur and Lucknow. The Ring Road will provide an easier and more convenient access to Sarnath, an important site for Buddhist pilgrimage. With inputs from agencies Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to announce a number of projects to clean River Ganga in his Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency on Monday, in addition to a number of infrastructure projects. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to announce a number of projects to clean River Ganga in his Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency on Monday, in addition to inaugurating a number of infrastructure projects. An official of the National Mission for Clean Ganga said eight projects had been sanctioned for Varanasi under the Namami Gange programme for Rs 913.07 crore. During his visit, Modi will also dedicate to the nation an inland waterways terminal on the Ganga river in Varanasi, which is the first of the four multi-modal terminals being constructed on NW-I (River Ganga) as part of the World Bank-aided "Jal Marg Vikas" project of the Inland Waterways Authority of India, the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement. The Jal Marg Vikas project will enable commercial navigation of vessels with a capacity of 1500-2,000 DWT (deadweight tonnage) on the Ganga. The other three terminals are under construction at Sahibganj, Haldia and Gazipur. In light of Modi likely to announce projects on cleaning up the river, here's Firstpost's coverage of the Ganga and the urgent need to save the river from further destruction. A combined team of the police from Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, army as well as the CoBRA team from the CRPF has been pressed into action in the Tengapani Reserve Forest a day after the massacre was orchestrated at Dholla. Security forces have gone into an overdrive to nab the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) militants who allegedly carried out the killings in Assams Tinsukia more than a week ago. Unconfirmed reports said that the killers might have escaped to the neighbouring Myanmar and it delayed the arrest of the accused. A combined team of the police from Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, army as well as the CoBRA team from the CRPF has been pressed into action in the Tengapani Reserve Forest a day after the massacre was orchestrated at Dholla on 1 November in which five people were killed. Tinsukia superintendent of police Mughdha Jyoti Mahanta has confirmed the development and said that the operation was still on to apprehend the militants behind the killings. The reserve forest known for its dense cover straddles Tinsukia and Namsai in the neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh. The rebels supposedly escaped through the Bogoribari-Mikirgaon route to reach Tengapani where they were reportedly received by a small squad. Subsequently, they headed to another spot deep inside the forest where they were holed up for at least two more days. Inputs received from an intelligence agency suggested that Gyan Asom, Bubul Moran, Dimbeswar Moran, Jasinta Moran and Justin Doley were in the group that executed the operation. An official said that most of them hailed from Tinsukia and were recruited by the ULFA about two years ago. He explained that the rebels wore army fatigue and spoke Hindi to confuse the residents of Bisonimukh village where the five victims were shot. This was a clever tactic to buy time as people would not suspect them to be militants. In such circumstances, a few minutes could make a lot of difference and help the rebels reach a safe location. It is also possible that they came through the same route to reach the village which was also used to escape, he said. Security agencies had received inputs about the ULFAs plans to carry out a strike weeks ahead of the incident on 1 November. So far, only one person identified as Diklai Gogoi has been arrested on the suspicion that he might have a role in the massacre. ULFA's long association with Tengapani The proscribed ULFA has an old association with Tengapani Reserve Forest that goes back to the late 1980s when training camps of the banned outfit across Assam were established. Two of the biggest camps were at Lakhipathar which housed the general headquarters and its training centre at Saraipung. Both were not very far from the reserve forest. Most of these camps were dismantled during the Operation Bajrang which was launched on 28 November, 1990. The top leaders and functionaries of the ULFA parted ways but they were on the run for several months as the army continued with its operation without the assistance of the police. The ULFA cadres managed to assemble and erect a camp at Tengapani Reserve Forest around April where its chief Paresh Baruah and publicity secretary Sunil Nath were reportedly present. This camp also came to an end three months later after it was raided by the CRPF. In the next two decades, several routes were established through Tengapani that led straight to the Indo-Myanmar border through Changlang. It became the most prolific when the dreaded 28 Battalion was created in the late 1990s which carried out several operations in Tinsukia and Diburgarh. A camp which was established around 2005 survived for two years before it was abandoned. Rebels might have escaped to Myanmar The operations failure to nab the accused so far has forced a section of army and police officials to believe that the militants might have crossed the border and reached Myanmar. However, the exercise is likely to continue for a few more days to prevent the possibility of more rebels sneaking into the jungles. An official who is part of the operation said,They (militants) are more acquainted with the jungles here than us. The group that carried out the killings is likely to have crossed over to the neighbouring Changlang district three or four days after the killings. Changlang is still a stronghold of the Khaplang faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-K) which is an ally of the ULFA. The network and support base of the Naga outfit has always been made use of by the ULFA for securing safe hideouts and for escaping to Myanmar. Meanwhile, a meeting scheduled at the armys 2 Mountain Division at Dinjan in Tinsukia on Tuesday is likely to be attended by the top brass of the police and army to take stock of the situation. Joint secretary Satyendra Garg who is in charge of the northeast at the ministry of home affairs is also expected to be present at the meeting. An official admitted the possibility of greater deployment of security forces in the vulnerable areas of upper (eastern) Assam within the next few weeks. Bhattacharyya is a senior journalist in Guwahati and author of Rendezvous With Rebels: Journey to Meet Indias Most Wanted Men & Lens and the Guerrilla: Insurgency in Indias Northeast RLSP president and BJP ally Upendra Kushwaha met Opposition leader Sharad Yadav on Monday, fuelling speculation that he may switch camps over his differences with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the proposed seat-sharing arrangement among the saffron party's Bihar allies for the Lok Sabha polls. New Delhi: RLSP president and BJP ally Upendra Kushwaha met Opposition leader Sharad Yadav on Monday, fuelling speculation that he may switch camps over his differences with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the proposed seat-sharing arrangement among the saffron party's Bihar allies for the Lok Sabha polls. Kushwaha, also a Union minister, met Yadav at the latter's residence and both the leaders were believed to discussed the current political situation, especially in Bihar, RLSP sources said. In a tweet, Kushwaha described the meeting as a courtesy call. He has often asserted that he would work to get Narendra Modi elected as prime minister for another term but his unease with Kumar and meetings with opposition leaders, including RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, have sparked speculation about his future course. Yadav had snapped ties with Kumar after the JD(U) chief joined hands with the BJP last year, and he was working to rally the opposition against the saffron party. Kushwaha has expressed reservations to the BJP president Amit Shah's proposal that both his party and Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP contest fewer number of seats in 2019 than they did in 2014 so that Kumar's JD(U) could be allotted as many seats as the saffron party fights. The RLSP, which had fought three seats in 2014 and won all, is unlikely to be spared more than two seats. An old rival of Kumar, Kushwaha had also attacked the chief minister for allegedly insulting him and had targeted him again Sunday over reports that two MLAs of his party may join the JD(U). He had said he would apprise Shah of the "humiliation" he had suffered at the hands of Kumar and also request him to clear the confusion over seat-sharing among the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituents in the state at the earliest. He also made a jibe at Kumar, saying the JD(U)president had an expertise in breaking parties but he would continue with his fight. The top court had earlier fixed the Ayodhya land dispute case for the first week of January before an 'appropriate bench', which will decide the schedule of hearing. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday declined early hearing of petitions in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case. A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice SK Kaul said it had already listed the appeals before the appropriate bench in January. "We have already passed the order. The appeals are coming up in January. Permission declined," the bench said while rejecting the request of early hearing of lawyer Barun Kumar Sinha, appearing for the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha. The top court had earlier fixed the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case for the first week of January before an "appropriate bench", which will decide the schedule of hearing. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and senior advocate CS Vaidyanathan, appearing for the UP government and deity Ramlala respectively, had sought early listing of the appeals in the case after referring to their long pendency. Earlier, a three-judge bench, by a 2:1 majority, refused to refer to a five-judge constitution bench the issue of reconsideration of the observations in its 1994 judgement of the Allahabad High Court that a mosque was not integral to Islam. The matter had arisen during the hearing of the Ayodhya land dispute. The apex court bench headed by the then Chief Justice Dipak Misra had said that the civil suit has to be decided on the basis of evidence. It had also said that the previous verdict has no relevance to this issue. As many as 14 appeals have been filed against the high court judgement, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77 acre land be partitioned equally among three parties the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. Dismissing the plea, the Supreme Court said amending rape laws to make them gender neutral is in Parliament's domain and they can't interfere. The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea seeking to amend India's law on rape under Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to make it gender neutral. The bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul dismissed the petition by NGO Criminal Justice Society of India, saying the issue is "entirely in Parliament's domain", LiveLaw reported. "We are not inclined to interfere at this stage," the chief justice said, according to ANI, "Parliament has to take a call in the issue." The NGO sought to have declared that Section 375 violates articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution of India as the way it defines rape does not take gender-neutrality into account. The petition emphasised the need to "breaking our silence" on the rape of men and transgender people and question stereotypes that "force them to mask their feelings". Section 375 of the IPC defines what would constitute a rape if "a man" has forceful sexual intercourse with a woman under specific circumstances. Plea seeking rape law as gender neutral- Supreme Court refuses to entertain the petition at this stage. CJI Ranjan Gogoi says the issue raised in the petition is subject matter of legislature's domain. Prayers made in the petition can be read below pic.twitter.com/dcyNh11gta The Leaflet (@TheLeaflet_in) November 12, 2018 "It is imperative to note that transgenders including but not limited to homosexuals and bisexuals, and men are sequestered from the point of view of victims of rape under the existing penal laws of the country, despite an impending need for the same," the plea added. "As society matures, we must develop empathy for all, and this includes male and transgender rape victims." The NGO's plea also highlighted that in 2012, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2012, was introduced in Lok Sabha, proposing to modify Section 375 of the IPC by providing a gender-neutral definition of rape for both the victim and perpetrator. The petition asserted that criminal law should recognise that both men and women can be raped and that the definition of rape should not be restricted to the "penile-vaginal" form of sexual acts. "Section 375 applies only to women as victims and men as perpetrators. It does not take into account non-consensual sexual assault inflicted on a woman by a woman, on a man by another man, on transgender by another transgender or a man or woman, on a man by a woman," it said. In February, too, the Supreme Court had dismissed a petition seeking to have declared rape, sexual assault, "outraging of modesty", voyeurism and stalking in the IPC gender-neutral, saying the law was open for change by Parliament. 'Shah is a Persian word. And it is not derived from Sanskrit. They should first change his name before renaming cities,' said professor Irfan Habib. Noted historian Professor Irfan Habib on Sunday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should change the name of its president Amit Shah as his surname is of Persian origin. Professor Habib's statement adds spice to the ongoing political controversy over the name changing spree kicked off by the BJP. "BJP should consider changing the name of its president Amit Shah, as his surname is of Persian origin," he said. Speaking to ANI, Professor Habib said that the BJP's clamour over renaming towns and cities was a part of their Hindutva ideology. "This name changing spree by the BJP is a part of their Hindutva ideology, which clearly says that there will be no Islamic names for cities. Shah is a Persian word. And it is not derived from Sanskrit. They should first change his name before renaming cities," said Professor Habib. Talking about the history behind the names of Allahabad and Ahmedabad, the noted historian said, "The city of Ahmedabad was founded by Ahmed Shah of Gujarat. Before that, there was a nearby city called Karnavati. There is no connection between these two. Similarly, when Akbar constructed a fort, it was called 'Illahabas'. In both Hindi and Urdu, it became "Illahabad". When the Britishers came (to India), it was called as Allahabad. Prayag is a different thing. It represents the confluence of rivers, which is 'Sangam'. Changing the name from Allahabad to Prayag is wrong." Continuing his tirade against the BJP, Professor Habib underlined that the name changing is an attempt to separate the culture of the minorities. "The Muslim rulers who ruled earlier belonged to different castes...did they say that we are slaves and we want independence? Such things are wrong," the historian further said. Reacting to Habib's comment, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said that those raising questions over the renaming drive lacked knowledge of history and tradition. "I don't think there is a need to react to their remarks," he was quoted by The Telegraph as saying. Om Prakash Rajbhar, the chief of SBSP, an ally of the BJP, also recently took a dig at the saffron party's changing of names, saying that the party should change the names of its Muslim leaders first. "Should we throw away the GT Road? Who built the Red Fort? Who built the Taj Mahal?," he asked. In the past few days, the BJP has been on a name-changing spree, with the Uttar Pradesh government renaming Allahabad as Prayagraj, while mulling to rename other cities and towns. Recently, state Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced the renaming of Faizabad to Ayodhya. The Gujarat government has proposed to rename Ahmedabad as Karnavati. A BJP legislator, Raja Singh, representing Goshamahal assembly constituency, had also said that if the party came to power in Telangana, then Hyderabad would be renamed as Bhagyanagar. Recently, Mughalsarai railway station in Uttar Pradesh was also renamed as Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Junction. With inputs from ANI Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing related to and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Alok Verma's removal from the bureau to Friday. Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing related to and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Alok Verma's removal from the bureau to Friday. The top court was reportedly upset at the delay of the Central Vigilance Committee (CVC) in submitting their investigation reports. According to TV reports, the CVC and the CBI were supposed to submit their reports by Saturday. The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) Monday filed its preliminary probe report relating to CBI Director Alok Kumar Verma in a sealed cover in the Supreme Court. A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul took the report on record and fixed the next hearing on November 16. During the hearing, interim CBI director M Nageswar Rao also filed his report on decisions taken by him from 23 October till date as head of the agency. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that former apex court judge A K Patnaik supervised the CVC inquiry which was completed on 10 November. The CJI observed that the Registry was open on Sunday also but no intimation was given to the Registrar regarding filing of the report. Later the SG tendered an apology and said though he was not explaining the circumstances there was delay on their part in submitting the report. Verma and his deputy and Special Director Rakesh Asthana blamed each other for corruption while defending themselves as they deposed before a panel headed by CVC KV Chowdary. In an hour-long examination before the enquiry committee comprising Chowdary, retired Supreme Court judge AK Patnaik and Vigilance Commissioners Tejendra Mohan Bhasin and Sharad Kumar, Verma denied the allegations levelled against him by Asthana, informed sources said. Verma, who appeared at the Central Vigilance Commission headquarters, told the panel that Asthana had made frivolous complaints against him because there was an FIR pending against him (Asthana) and he feared he would be arrested. Refuting allegations of corruption against him, Verma said his actions were in the interest of the probe against Asthana. Verma had on Thursday too appeared before the enquiry committee but the meeting was postponed for Friday due to the non-availability of a Vigilance Commissioner. Earlier this week, Verma responded in writing to a questionnaire sent by CVC but the panel was not satisfied with his reply and sought his physical appearance. A 1979 batch IPS officer, Verma was sent on forced leave and divested of all his powers on October 23 after his name surfaced in a corruption scandal. Three days later the Supreme Court told the CVC to complete its inquiry against Verma in two weeks. The war in the country's premier investigating agency came to the fore after an FIR was lodged against Asthana, who has also been divested of all powers, and others on the statement of Hyderabad-based businessman Sathish Babu Sana. Asthana, who reached the CVC headquarters after Verma left, reiterated the corruption allegations against Verma in his 40-minute deposition and denied involvement in any bribery case. The sources said that Asthana counted more than 12 instances alleging Verma and his deputy, then Additional Director (Policy) AK Sharma, of involvement in corruption cases and ordering to slow down investigation in some cases. He presented what he claimed were evidences against Verma. Asthana blamed Verma of not filing a FIR and chargesheet in a case involving an Enforcement Directorate official, said the sources, adding the Special Director also accused Verma of preventing raids at the house of former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad in an IRCTC case. The Commission had examined several CBI officers who were part of the team probing cases that figured in Asthana's complaint against Verma. With inputs from agencies The encounter broke out between CoBRA forces and Naxals around 12.20 pm in Bijapur's Pamed village in Chhattisgarh, where voting is on. Five soldiers of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) were injured and five Naxals were killed in an encounter between the security forces and insurgents at Pamed village in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur. All the CoBRA personnel are out danger, ANI reported. The shootout between security forces and Naxals began around 12.20 pm in Bijapur's Pamed area, where voting for the first phase of the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections is currently underway The Central Reserve Police Force had earlier confirmed that the encounter was on and said that the CoBRA jawans had sustained bullet injuries. It was earlier reported that an inspector and a head constable were injured in the attack. They were shifted from the spot by a helicopter for medical attention. #UPDATE: Three more personnel of Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) are injured and around five Naxals are dead in the encounter that broke out between security forces & Naxals in Bijapur's Pamed area today. All the CoBRA personnel are out danger. #Chhattisgarh https://t.co/TkhHF0pjpG ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 The skirmish took place at a forest in the Pamed area, located around 500 kilometres from state capital Raipur, when a team of security personnel was patrolling the area in view of the voting underway in the region, a senior police official told PTI. A group Naxalites opened fire on the CoBRA patrolling team, but they fled after the security personnel retaliated. Reinforcements were rushed to the spot, and efforts were made to evacuate the injured commandos by a helicopter. Bijapur is one of the 18 Naxal-hit constituencies where voting is underway for the first phase of the Chhattisgarh elections. Even a day before the polls, a Naxal was killed and another was arrested in an encounter between security forces and Left-Wing Extremists in Bijapur district's Bedre area on Sunday. These strikes took place just days after Naxals killed four civilians and one Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel in an IED explosion near Bacheli in Dantewada district. A cameraperson working with Doordarshan and two police officers were killed in a Naxal attack on 30 October. The attacks come in the wake of threats by the insurgents to boycott the "fake Chhattisgarh elections". They had even threatened to chop off the inked fingers of voters, but the 18 constituencies that went to the polls in the first phase of the elections have had a 49.12 percent voter turnout till 3.45 pm. With inputs from 101Reporters Follow LIVE updates on the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections here Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar died at a private hospital In Bengaluru early on Monday after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. Kumar, 59, breathed his last around 2 am with his wife Tejaswini and two daughters by his bedside, Sankara Hospital Director Nagaraj told PTI. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar died at a private hospital In Bengaluru early on Monday after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. Kumar, 59, breathed his last around 2 am with his wife Tejaswini and two daughters by his bedside, Sankara Hospital Director Nagaraj told PTI. He had come back to Bengaluru only recently after undergoing treatment in the US and Britain. He was later under treatment at the Sankara Hospital in Bengaluru. BJP sources said the body of Kumar would be kept at the National College Ground, which falls in his Bangalore South Lok Sabha constituency, for public homage. Kumar passed away from complications following cancer and infections, his party office said in a statement. He had been on the ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit for the last few days, it said. A a six-time member of Parliament, Kumar had climbed the political ladder steadily from being an RSS worker to be the Union minister in his thirties. Kumar had been in the inner circle of the central leadership of the BJP -- be it during the heydays of Atal Bihari Vajpayee or L K Advani and now Narendra Modi. He joined the BJP in 1987 and never looked back, as he held posts of state secretary, state president of the Yuva Morcha, general secretary and national secretary. Along with state BJP chief Yeddyurappa, Kumar is among a few party leaders who can be credited for the growth of BJP in Karnataka, as they built the party and bringing it to power in 2008, making it the first saffron party government in the South.. Kumar first got elected to Lok Sabha in 1996 from Bangalore South, the constituency, which remained his bastion till his passing away. President Ram Nath Kovind tweeted his condolences and said that it was a tragic loss for the people of Karnataka. Sad to hear of the passing of Union minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H.N. Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates #PresidentKovind President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) November 12, 2018 Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled his death. Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 Modi further said, "Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents." I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 Vice-president Venkaiah Naidu's office tweeted: "Shocked to learn about the sad demise of the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Anant Kumar. He has been a colleague of mine for years together, from students' movement to the Parliament. He was a dedicated statesman." Shocked to learn about the sad demise of the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Anant Kumar. He has been a colleague of mine for years together, from students' movement to the Parliament. He was a dedicated statesman. #AnanthKumar pic.twitter.com/n5XqkqIlbH VicePresidentOfIndia (@VPSecretariat) November 12, 2018 Congress chief Rahul Gandhi also tweeted his condolences, and said, "I'm sorry to hear about the passing of Union Minister, Shri Ananth Kumar ji, in Bengaluru, earlier this morning. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace. Om Shanti." Home minister Rajnath Singh said that he was "absolutely shocked and pained by the demise of very senior colleague and a friend Shri Anant Kumar ji." Absolutely shocked and pained by the demise of very senior colleague and a friend Shri Anant Kumar ji. He was a seasoned parliamentarian who served the nation in several capacities. His passion and devotion for the welfare of people was commendable. My condolences to his family. ?????? ???? (@rajnathsingh) November 12, 2018 "My mind is filled with memories of working with Anant Kumar ji in the government and party organisation. These memories will stay with me. His demise is a big loss for the BJP. It is also a personal loss for me," Rajnath further said. Absolutely shocked and pained by the demise of very senior colleague and a friend Shri Anant Kumar ji. He was a seasoned parliamentarian who served the nation in several capacities. His passion and devotion for the welfare of people was commendable. My condolences to his family. ?????? ???? (@rajnathsingh) November 12, 2018 MoS for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju tweeted his condolences and said that as a good human being and as a leader, Ananth Kumar carried an impeccable record in serving the society. I'm shocked by the passing away of my senior colleague and senior BJP leader Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. As a good human being & as a leader he carried an impeccable record in serving the society. His advise & words of wisdom will always keep motivating me. May his soul rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/PldeRWd13s Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) November 12, 2018 Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Monday expressed grief over the death of Kumar, describing him as a "value based" politician who made significant contribution to the country as a parliamentarian and an union minister. "Kumar's pro-people attitude and activities made him apple of the eye of Bengalurians," Kumaraswamy said in a condolence message. "Our families had a friendship beyond politics. He always valued and had given priority to friendship. I have lost a great friend in his death," he said. BJP national president Amit Shah said, "I am grief stricken to learn about the untimely demise of our senior leader and union minister Shri Ananth Kumar ji. He served the nation and organisation with unparalleled zeal and dedication. Ananth ji worked tirelessly to strengthen the BJP in the state of Karnataka." I am grief stricken to learn about the untimely demise of our senior leader and union minister Shri Ananth Kumar ji. He served the nation and organisation with unparalleled zeal and dedication. Ananth ji worked tirelessly to strengthen the BJP in the state of Karnataka. Amit Shah (@AmitShah) November 12, 2018 Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also expressed deep sorrow over Kumar's death. Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss. Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) November 12, 2018 Several party leaders and Cabinet ministers tweeted out their condolences: Very sad to hear of the demise of Union Minister Thiru Ananth Kumar. My sincere condolences to his family and near ones. M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) November 12, 2018 Ananth Kumar has been my friend from early Jan Sangh days. At personal level he was easy going and friendly. So I must say that I am sad he has departed Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) November 12, 2018 Tdy is a sad sad day - my brother, my friend, my mentor @AnanthKumar_BJP passes away. He was family to me - He was one of my few real friends in politics n a genuinely good human being ! I will miss him hugely #OmShanthi n Farewell my dear friend. U left too soon. Rajeev Chandrasekhar (@rajeev_mp) November 12, 2018 Shocked , its unbelievable , My friend , Brother Ananthkumar is no more . pic.twitter.com/zMOYEn7gXc Sadananda Gowda (@DVSBJP) November 12, 2018 Union minister Prakash Javadekar also tweeted. "Passing away of Ananth Kumar Ji is not only an irreparable loss for the country but a big personal loss. It is unbelievable that he is no more. His sudden death has taken away from us a true soldier of the country. My tributes to the departed soul." National spokesperson for the BJP GVL Narsimha Rao said, "It is hard to imagine that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more. He was a very friendly, lively and hard working politician who worked assiduously for his Parliamentary constituency & development of Karnataka. In his demise, the BJP has lost a Jewel of the South. May his soul RIP!" Its so very painful to know about @AnanthKumar_BJP jis sad,untimely demise!A live wire politician,he was a true soldier of org.,whom I never saw disappointed.We had worked together in the @ABVPVoice as National Secretaries.His rootedness made him six time MP from Bengaluru 1/1 pic.twitter.com/SprlJeOQ3m Vinay Sahasrabuddhe (@vinay1011) November 12, 2018 Union Minister Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP, a six term MP from Bangalore South who shaped the rise of BJP in Karnataka, member of BJPs Parliamentry board, is no more. May his aatma attain moksha. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti. Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) November 12, 2018 Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar also tweeted out his condolences. He said, "Shocked by the demise of Union Minister Ananth Kumar, Member of Parliament and civic leader. Had the good fortune to ride next to him on a long flight once. Bangalore will miss him sorely." The first phase of polling is for 18 seats in the Left-wing extremism affected districts of Chhattisgarh is underway. The ruling BJP had lost 12 of the 18 seats in the 2013 Assembly polls. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national President Amit Shah on Monday urged voters to take part in large numbers in the first phase of the polling process for 18 Assembly seats. "The first phase of voting in Chhattisgarh is today. I urge all voters to take part in the great festival of democracy with full enthusiasm and in huge numbers," Modi tweeted. The BJP President told voters to come out and exercise their franchise if they wished to maintain the momentum of development. "I appeal all the voters to vote in huge numbers to maintain the pace of development, progress and good governance," Shah tweeted in Hindi. The first phase of polling is for 18 seats in the Left-wing extremism affected districts of Chhattisgarh is underway. The ruling BJP had lost 12 of the 18 seats in the 2013 Assembly polls. The remaining 72 constituencies will vote in the second phase on November 20. The counting is scheduled on 11 December. Follow LIVE updates on Chhattisgarh polls here The farmers in Chhattisgarh's Kanker village agree that the government has failed the agrarian community, but big farmers are largely supportive of the BJP for their campaign of vikas (development). All the farmers in the Kurna village of Chhattisgarhs Kanker district agree on one statement We have managed to survive because we installed infrastructure for irrigation in our farms ourselves; we did not wait for the government to provide for us. In 2017, the state government had declared 96 tehsils of 21 districts of Chhattisgarh drought-hit. Over 1.1 million farmers were affected by the lack of rainfall in the Kharif season last year, many of whom are still awaiting the amount they were promised under the crop insurance scheme. In Kurna, one of the villages on the banks of the Mahanadi river in the districts Narharpur block, around 50 farmers have spent at least Rs 5 lakh from their own pockets to buy equipment for irrigation. This arrangement allows them to make use of their proximity to the vital resource of the river. Some of the farmers invested in a drip irrigation system nearly a decade ago. Jagguram Sahu, a 78-year-old farmer, says, I got tired of the governments excuses for the delay in providing irrigation facilities in our village. Even after putting our demands forward repeatedly, nothing happened. So a few of us decided to get it done ourselves around 10 years ago. The next generation has followed our example. Jagguram owns 14 acres and grows only paddy in both the Kharif and Rabi seasons. He is considered one of the big farmers in the village, but he vehemently denies that the irrigation system has earned him any real profit. I make no extra profit from my yield, even though I am able to grow paddy throughout the year. If we hadnt put in this system, my family would have probably suffered. So the only benefit is that we have not suffered, he says. Mahendra Nishad, 55, breaks down the expenditures involved: In 2008, I spent a total of Rs 5 lakh on the irrigation system, including a 1.5-kilometre-long pipeline and a water pump, and on its installation. I had to take a loan from the bank. Now I spend on electricity and maintenance; there are also added costs of labour, fertiliser, and manure. However, in spite of the expenses and the fact that nearly all farmers are burdened by debt, they are satisfied with their decision. Toran Maharaj, who owns five acres, says getting their own system installed helped them escape frequent, unfruitful rounds of government offices and allowed them to use good quality equipment. Even if the administration had given us equipment for irrigation, its quality would not have matched what we bought. The pipes would have been weak and broken easily, Maharaj says. Surjuram Jurree, an Adivasi farmer, is the oldest of five brothers, all of whom depend on a four-acre farm for their livelihood. If I hadnt been able to irrigate my land, I would have no choice but to work as a daily-wage labourer, he says. In Kurna, farmers have empowered themselves to help each other survive in times of drought like in 2017. The concept of sahyak kisan, or dependent farmer, is followed for those who are not able to afford irrigation systems for their land. Gopiram Sahu is helped by Jagguram, who provides water for at least two acres of Gopirams land. I cannot afford to irrigate my land, so I take help from other farmers. Its a give and take process. A big farmer provides water for a small farm through equipment used for irrigation, and small farmers work as labourers when they can, he exlains. The farming community is finding ways and means to get themselves out of debt without the governments help. Bhanbai Sahu, who is also a dependent farmer, pays a neighbor Rs 2,000 every season to be able to use water from his borewell for her farm. After our land got divided in the family, my husband and I have one and a half acres to our name. Every season, we have to pay to provide the paddy crop with adequate amount of water, she says. Another dependent farmer, Santosh Sahu has not bought equipment for irrigation because he is scared to take a loan that would add to the debt he already has pending. I have no money to get my land irrigated on my own, and Im scared to take another loan. Currently, I only take seasonal loans for fertilisers, which is usually Rs 5,000, he says. Santosh supplements the income he gets from the three-acre land that is shared by two families by working as a daily-wage labourer. That money goes towards paying for my childrens education, he adds. However, while they agree that the government has failed the agrarian community, big farmers are largely supportive of the BJP for their campaign of vikas (development). The government has provided free healthcare and rice for Re 1. So the BJP may get more votes than the Congress because the Congress is not entirely trusted, says Jagguram. However, Gopiram says farmers needed to move past the party mindset. We also need to evaluate the candidate as an individual and then vote. All parties made big promises before the elections, but who knows what theyll do once they come to power? he asks. The first phase of the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections are underway, including in the Kanker constituency, which includes the Narharpur block. Currently, the Congress partys Shankar Dhurwa is the MLA from one of three constituencies in the district. For the 2018 Assembly elections, however, the party fielded Shishupal Sori. Follow LIVE updates on the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections here: Chhattisgarh kickstarted the five-state Assembly election this year on a moderate note. Voting in first phase in 18 constituencies began at 7 am on Monday. Till 12.30 pm, voter turnout was recorded at 23 percent, a poll official said. Chhattisgarh kick-started the Assembly elections to five states this year, as 18 constituencies voted in the first phase of the polls. Voting in nine seats of the Bastar division and one seat in Rajnandgaon district began at 7 am Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur and Konta and concluded at 3 pm. The other eight seats Khairgarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Bastar, Jagdalpur and Chitrakot it started at 8 am and ended at 5 pm. Till 4.30 pm, 56.58 percent voter turnout was recorded in the first phase of the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections. This includes a constituency-wise turnout of 61.47 percent in Kondagaon; 63.51 percent in Keshkal; 62 percent in Kanker; 58 percent in Bastar; 49 percent in Dantewada; 60.5 percent in Khairagarh; 64 percent in Dongargarh; and 65.5 percent in Khujji. Till 3.45 pm, the turnout in Bhanupratappur was at 57 percent, in Jagdalpur at 54 percent, Chitrakot at 57 percent, and Mohala-Manpur at 67 percent. Voting was moderate in the morning even as Naxals attempted to disrupt the polling process by planting multiple IEDs in various parts of the Chhattisgarh. Naxals had called for a boycott of the election and executed over half a dozen attacks in the past 15 days, of which three major ones left 13 people dead, including a video journalist of national broadcaster Doordarshan, who was covering the election campaign. Naxals also threatened voters of consequences if they went out to vote. The 18 constituencies that voted in the first phase of the Chhattisgarh polls fall under the Naxal-hit areas of Bastar, Kanker, Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur, Kondagaon and Rajnandgaon districts. As a result, a thick security blanket, comprising over 1.25 lakh police and paramilitary personnel, was deployed across the region. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a rally in the state's Bilaspur district, which will vote in the second phase of the polls. Earlier in the day, he had urged voters to go out in large numbers and cast their ballots. While addressing a campaign rally in Bilaspur, Modi said that by going out to vote in huge numbers, citizens will defeat those who think "bum, bandook aur pistol" is powerful. "Around 37.61 percent polling was registered till 2 pm," the official had said, adding that polling was being held after 15 years in Sukma district's Palam Adgu village where 44 voters exercised had their franchise, so far. "Around 23 percent polling was registered till 12.30 pm. Voting is going on smoothly and peacefully." Polling began on a slow note in many constituencies and gradually picked up momentum, the official had said, adding that 31 electronic voting machines (EVMs) and 51 voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines were replaced due to technical snags. Sukma's Superintendent of Police Abhishek Meena had said voters from interior areas in the district had come out to exercise their right to franchise, defying the Naxals' call for an election boycott. At the 'Bhejji 2' and Gorkha polling booths, zero voting was recorded in the 2013 polls, but this time, 11 and 20 voters, respectively, had voted in the initial hours. At the 'Bhejji 1' polling station, where only one vote was cast in the last polls, 72 people voted this time, Meena said. Naxals disrupt polling process Five Naxals were killed and five soldiers of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) were injured in an encounter in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district on Monday, even as polling was underway for the first phase of the state elections. The skirmish took place at a forest in the Pamed area, located around 500 kilometres from state capital Raipur, when a team of security personnel was patrolling the area in view of the voting going on in the region, a senior police official told PTI. As per preliminary information, a group Naxalites opened fire on the patrolling team of CoBRA, a elite unit of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), he said. However, the ultras fled from the spot after security personnel retaliated. Reinforcement was rushed to the spot and efforts were made to evacuate the injured commandos by a helicopter. An improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated early morning in Dantewada district by Naxals, who had called for a boycott of the polls, police said. Earlier, Naxals detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) weighing 1 to 2 kilograms near the Tumakpal camp in the Katekalyan block. Narendra Modi in Bilaspur Addressing a campaign rally in Bilaspur (to go to polls in the second phase on 20 November), Modi attacked the Congress, targeting its president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia, saying the party's "politics begins and ends with one family". Addressing the rally ahead of the second phase polling in Chhattisgarh, Modi also made a strong pitch for development, saying the pace of development under the Congress regime in the state was "far slow" than the one under the BJP-led government. Singling out the Gandhis, Modi said the "mother-son duo" were out on bail and hit out at them for questioning the government's demonetisation move. "They forget it was due to demonetisation that they had to seek bail," Modi said, adding "those seeking bail are giving certificate to Modi". Modi asserted the BJP was for development and that it was due to this commitment that the opposition was unable to understand how to compete with ruling party in elections. He also targeted the Congress president, saying when Congress released its 36-point manifesto for Chhattisgarh polls, 'Naamdaar' (Rahul Gandhi) was referred to as 'Sir' 150 times which shows he is more important for them (Congress) than Chhattisgarh. Voters turn up at polling booths despite Naxal threat Phase 1 of the Chhattisgarh elections saw a much higher voter turnout than expected, even at the polling station in Naxal-affected Manpur's Pardoni village, where insurgents had put up posters and banners asking people to boycott the elections. Rajnandgaon: Huge voter turnout (pic 1) at the polling station in Naxal-affected Manpur's Pardoni village where Naxali posters & banners (pic 2 & 3) asking people to boycott elections had been seen. #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018 pic.twitter.com/Ld5SJEPnAX ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Rajnandgaon: People queued up outside the polling station in Naxal-affected Manpur's Pardoni village where Naxali posters & banners asking people to boycott elections had been seen. #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018 pic.twitter.com/dhu9oQkV2H ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 However, voters in Jagdalpur's Gandhi Nagar ward protested outside the polling centre as the names of many voters were missing from the list, "including of those who have been living here for the past 25 years", they told news agency ANI. People in Dantewada's Madenda village also cast their votes even after threats from Naxal that they would cut their fingers if found inked. Local residents were quoted as saying, "There are 263 registered voters in the village and many are voting even after the threat." In the first phase of the Chhattisgarh polls, 190 candidates were in the fray. As many as 4,336 polling booths were set up and 19,079 polling personnel were deployed. Among the prominent candidates were Chief Minister Raman Singh, state ministers Kedar Kashyap (Narayanpur) and Mahesh Gagda (Bijpaur), and the BJP's Kanker Lok Sabha MP Vikram Usendi (Antagarh). Nine sitting Congress MLAs Manoj Singh Mandavi (Bhanupratappur), Mohan Lal Markam (Kondagaon), Lakheshwar Baghel (Bastar), Deepak Kumar Baij (Chitrakot), Devati Karma (Dantewada), Kawasi Lakhma (Konta), Girwar Janghel (Khairagarh), Santram Netam (Keshkal) and Daleshwar Sahu (Dongargaon) were also contesting the first phase of the polls. This time, the coalition between Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), former chief minister Ajit Jogi's Janata Congress Chhattisgarh and the Communist Party of India (CPI) added another dimension to the electoral politics of Chhattisgarh. Of the 18 seats going to polling in the first phase, 12 were reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs) and one was for Scheduled Caste (SC) category. The second phase of polling in 72 seats, of the 90-member Assembly, will be held on 20 November, and the votes will be counted on 11 December. The Congress has embarked upon a perilous path on its way to a sort of possible way to power in Bhopal The Congress has embarked upon a perilous path on its way to a sort of possible way to power in Bhopal. Election surveys have not as yet indicated that the Congress will be able to ride anti-incumbency sentiments accumulated over 15 years to seize the reins of government in Madhya Pradesh, even though the possibility is not being counted as being remote either. To be able to do so, the Congress needed to get some simple things right. It failed. Now, unfortunately, it has plumped for some of the more complex things and it's getting them wrong. Let's begin with the main thing it failed to do right alliances. The party had intended to finalise pre-election alliances principally with Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), but also with the Samajwadi Party and the Gondwana Ganatantra Party (GGP). It failed on all fronts. After some listless negotiations, Mayawati decided to go solo, while the Samajwadi Party and GGP settled on an alliance excluding the Congress, accusing it of being too dilatory. All the Congress managed was a largely inconsequential tie-up with the Sharad Yadav wing of the Janata Dal (United) the Loktantrik Janata Dal for which it has set aside one seat. An alliance with the BSP alone would have exponentially increased the Congress' chances of unseating three-time BJP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Having failed, mostly because the party still seems sometimes to live in earlier climes when the problems of making the necessary accommodations was barely felt, the Congress seems to be trying to compensate by casting its net for votes through an overly inclusive manifesto. Thus, it has combined in what it is calling its vachan patra rather than ghoshna patra a promissory document rather than a list of announcements elements possibly expected to pander to the majority community and the more usual mix of 'secular', material 'promises'. Let's take the second constellation of promises first. The Congress has promised to cut farmers' electricity bills by half as also reduce LPG, petrol and diesel prices. It has also promised to waive agricultural loans taken from all types of state-run cooperative banks. Thus far, the Congress has kept in mind the needs of agriculturists and their widespread disenchantment with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments at the Centre and in the state. To address the issue of unemployment and the Centre's inability to create jobs anywhere near the magnitude promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2014 election campaign and thereafter, the Congress has promised an unemployment benefit of Rs 10,000 a month for one young member of every relevant family for a period of three years. It has promised, for good measure, an ex gratia payment of Rs 51,000 for women at the time of their marriage and of Rs 2,50,000 to the landless for the construction of a house on a plot of 450 square feet. It has also promised the abolition of the infamous Vyapam or Vyavasayik Pariksha Mandal, the autonomous agency set up by the Chouhan government to conduct professional examinations, which is embroiled in serious irregularities and has so far claimed, directly or indirectly, an unconsciously high number of lives. The death continues to mount and is near the half-a-century mark. Until this point, the Congress seems to have addressed very real concerns arising from the mismanagement of the economy by the Modi government and the special needs of some social groups. But then the party and its promissory document goes off script. They promise the construction of gaushalas (cow shelters), a bizarre Ram Van Gaman Path tour to trace Ramas footprints in Madhya Pradesh and, in an inescapably dangerous move, the setting up of a religious and spiritual department that will organise the production of cow urine and cow-dung cakes in gaushalas. Let's navigate our way through this set of promises. The promise that the government/state will involve itself in setting up cow shelters is from one point of view unexceptionable, though why other domesticated animals should miss out on this love for animals is an unanswerable question in terms of strictly humane motivations. Obviously, of course, this is meant not to be a concession to concerns of animal-rights activists. It is meant to harness the electoral energy of the cow-protection movement popularised by Sangh Parivar elements and sparked off by the spate of draconian legislative amendments passed by newly-minted BJP state governments since 2014. Given the dangerous overtones of this movements its descent into vigilantism that has claimed the lives of many Muslims the Congress' pandering to perceived electoral compulsions is downright dangerous. Moreover, this movement is owned by the Sangh Parivar and a volte face is unlikely to drive BJP voters into the arms of the Congress. On the contrary, the Congress could have consolidated the support of the Dalit and Muslim communities who have seen their cultural, livelihood and nutritional choices come under attack by promising a return to the more liberal pre-Modi cow-protection regime. The attempt to have the government trace the footprints of a mythological figure in an institutionalised manner is much too bizarre to contemplate. It is also unlikely to provide much electoral fodder to the party. The best that can be said of this brainwave (or brain fade) is that it might provide a spur to the tourism industry. The other initiative is fundamentally dangerous. It would be fairly innocuous if private cow shelters decided to collect (or produce, whatever that means) cow urine and make cow-dung pats to sell in the market and generate revenue. Both are useful products: One chiefly as an organic fertiliser, the other as a widely used and cheap (though polluting) fuel. But it is not clear why the government should involve itself in such enterprises. It is all the more inexplicable why the Congress government should promise to set up a government department to organise this involvement. But, most damningly, it is inconceivable that the Congress would stray into Hindutva terrain so explicitly as to set up a religious and spiritual department because it infringes fundamentally the constitutional mandate for the state to be secular. This was not a provision presented to the Congress as a fait accompli by the Constituent Assembly, rather the secular part of the definition of the Indian republic was added by amendment to the Preamble in 1976 by the Indira Gandhi government. For the Congress to now compromise so grievously on a constitutional fundamental which it has professed to hold dear for nearly half a century is unthinkable, inexplicable, egregious and wholly unacceptable, whatever the electoral compulsions it faces. This is especially true because it loses no opportunity to assail the BJP for its attacks on the constitutionally-mandated secular fabric of the nation. The promises in the Congress manifesto for Madhya Pradesh should belie the expectations of all those who had hoped that it would provide an alternative frame to the BJP's idea of Hinduism The cynicism of the Congress in framing the election manifesto for Madhya Pradesh will have stung the ideological opponents of Hindutva. They are likely to wonder whether a Congress victory in that state will decisively shift India's polity to the Right and make majoritarianism its common sense. They will even calculate whether the price to be paid for a Congress revival is worth it. The manifesto of India's Grand Old Party is indeed an eloquent testament to the abysmal depths to which it can plunge. Emulating the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress has promised to develop the Ram Path Gaman or the route Lord Ram is said to have taken during the 11 years of 14 in exile he purportedly spent in Madhya Pradesh's forests. In addition, there are sops a plenty to appeasing the Hindu clergy. The Congress has also doffed its Gandhian topi to the BJP's politics of cow. If voted to power, the Congress will begin commercial production of cow urine, build a gaushala in every panchayat, allocate a separate fund for them, establish temporary camps to treat injured bovines and perform their last rites if required. Quite alarmingly, its idea of land reform has degenerated into making additional land available for cattle to graze. These promises in the Congress manifesto for Madhya Pradesh should belie the expectations of all those who had hoped that it would provide an alternative frame to the BJP's idea of Hinduism: That it would create its own archetype Hindu to compete with the BJPs intolerant, militant version. These expectations were stoked because of Congress president Rahul Gandhi flaunting his Hinduness and visiting temples to convey that he and his party were not anti-Hindu as the BJP alleged. His emphasis on his Hindu identity was thought to herald the beginning of a concerted fight for reclaiming the philosophical and cultural heritage of Hinduism, to at least deny the BJP the sole monopoly of the Hindu religious realm. The Congress manifesto for Madhya Pradesh shows that it has neither the intellectual heft nor the energy and patience for such a task. It has, therefore, chosen the easier option of imitating Hindutva, not re-inventing or reinterpreting Hinduism. Its choice of the state to showcase its imitation Hindutva, aka soft Hindutva, is remarkable for its cynicism. With Muslims constituting just 6.57 percent of the state's population, their possible alienation has barely any electoral significance for the Congress. The Congress has also made the tacit assumption that Muslims will not vote for the BJP. After all, the Sangh Parivar has relentlessly targeted them to consolidate its Hindu vote bank. The Congress thinks Muslims will choose its soft Hindutva over the BJP's hard Hindutva because they have no third option. These are classic blackmail tactics: Pay up (read: Vote for us) or keep getting clobbered over the next five years. In case a section of Muslims stay at home or press NOTA, the consequent loss of votes can be more than offset by gaining those of Hindus who might be tempted to back the Congress for pandering to their religious sentiments. On such cold calculations is the Congress' Hindutva adventurism in Madhya Pradesh based. This adventurism has been encouraged also because the Congress is insulated from the possibility of its Madhya Pradesh manifesto marring its prospects in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan the other two states that will vote over the next 26 days. This is because Muslims comprise just 7.17 percent in Chhattisgarh; its polity, like Madhya Pradeshs, too is largely bipolar even though a Third Front in the form of an alliance between former chief minister Ajit Jogi and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati exists there. Shrewdly, the Congress made public its manifesto just 48 hours before the first round of polling in Chhattisgarh was to commence. Large-scale shifts in voting, as any psephologist will vouch for, rarely happen overnight. In Rajasthan, Muslims comprise a healthy 9.7 percent of the state's population. That could prove decisive in a close race. But Rajasthan, too, has bipolar politics and doesnt even have a third front matching in strength, on paper at least, the one in Chhattisgarh. Most media reports and opinion surveys show that the political wind is strongly blowing against Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan. Muslims cant buck the trend, can they, regardless of the Congress manifesto enraging them? Will their rage sustain until 7 December, which is when Rajasthan will vote? The answers in both cases: Very unlikely. The Congress can also play the majoritarian game because its calculation is that it does not have much to lose in the long term. Muslims have shifted their allegiance to regional outfits in states where they are numerous. Think Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Delhi, and large parts of Assam. The Hindutva challenge to the Congress is confined to the Hindi heartland, not south India, where in Karnataka, Telangana and Tamil Nadu an electoral alliance has already emerged. It will likely also emerge in Andhra Pradesh. Whatever their angst over Congress policies and the ideological shift, Muslims will not vote in these states for a regional party embedded in a BJP-led alliance. In Kerala, religious minorities have the option to side with the Left Front, which, obviously, will not support the BJP at the Centre. It is palpable that underlying the Congress manifesto for Madhya Pradesh is its strategy to deprive the BJP of Hindu votes and dramatically bring down its tally in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Some may hail the Congress for its pragmatism, but there is no denying that its Madhya Pradesh manifesto pushes India's polity farther to the Right. For one, it is predetermined that the Congress will spearhead the Opposition alliance for next year's General Election. The outlook of such an alliance will be refracted through the soft Hindutva prism of the Congress. For the other, the Congress manifesto legitimises Hindutva and the politics of cow. That should immensely worry the secular-liberal brigade rooting for the Congress. This is because India's past electoral history shows that the BJP's Hindu card acquired credibility and salience only when Indira Gandhi decided to play it from the 1970s. The split in the Congress in 1969 had deprived her of an organisational network. She sought to overcome this problem through populist policies like Garibi Hatao and abolition of the privy purse. Once the electoral benefits from these policies diminished, she turned to courting the Hindus as Hindu. About her rule, the late journalist Balraj Puri wrote: "Her frequent visit to Hindu shrines and religious personalities gave her a religious image. But what really endeared her to Hindu militants was her militant nationalism which she first introduced in Indian politics in the 1970s and which she tended to fill in the ideological vacuum to which the Indira-JP [Jayaprakash Narayan] confrontation had significantly contributed as none of the sides was ideologically based." Her problems were further compounded with the drifting away of Muslims in the post-Emergency 1977 Lok Sabha election. The rise of militancy in Punjab and Kashmir provided her the opportunity to unabashedly engage in othering the Sikhs and Kashmiri Muslims. For instance, following Operation Blue Star, Gandhi at a speech in Garhwal declared that Hindu dharma was under attack and appealed to save Hindu culture from Sikh and Muslim attack. Then again, in 1983, she wooed the Hindus in the Jammu and Kashmir election campaign by stoking the fears regarding the Resettlement Bill that allowed Kashmiris who had migrated to Pakistan between 1947 and 1954 to return and reclaim their properties. The Congress swept the Jammu province as the BJP did in December 2014 through its own brand of polarisation. The process of Hinduisation of Indian politics sped up thereafter. In a flagrant violation of the secular principle, Rajiv Gandhi overturned the Supreme Courts 1985 Shah Bano judgement through a law. He then sought to neutralise the Hindu backlash against it by getting the locks on the gates of the Babri Masjid removed in 1986. From thereon, the BJPs graph started to rise and that of the Congress began to dip. The Congress of Indira and Rajiv pursued soft Hindutva and found the BJP overtake it through its more militant version in later years. It is now the Congress that is trying to play catch-up with the BJP. It is always perilous to forecast whether people will choose imitation Hindutva over its 24-carat version. Given that the conviction of Congress changes in accordance with its electoral performance, a victory in Madhya Pradesh will decisively push India's polity to the Right. Conversely, a defeat there will have it revise its strategy of meeting the BJPs challenge through soft Hindutva. That would certainly keep alive the idea of India, about which Rahul Gandhi tires of talking. . Google. Blogger Narendra Modi also appreciated the Election Commission for its efforts on encouraging voters and the important role it plays in ensuring smooth elections. Bilaspur: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday attacked the Congress, targeting its president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia, saying the party's "politics begins and ends with one family". Addressing a poll rally here ahead of the second phase polling in the state on November 20, Modi also made a strong pitch for development, saying its pace under the Congress' watch was "far slow" than that during the BJP's rule. Singling out the Gandhis, Modi said the "mother-son duo were out on bail" and hit out at them for questioning the government's demonetisation move. Without naming the Gandhis, he said "they should not forget" that it was due to the note ban move that they "had to seek bail". Attacking the Congress on the issue of corruption, Modi also referred to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's remark in 1985 that only 15 paise of every rupee meant for the welfare of the downtrodden reached them. Which "hand" (election symbol of the Congress) had siphoned off the remaining 85 paise, Modi asked. Congress never got a leadership which worked with a resolution of "living or dying for the welfare of the nation", Modi said. Chhattisgarh may have taken 50 years to attain the present level of development had it still been ruled by the Rahul Gandhi-led party, he said. "And there is a reason for it. Their politics begins and ends with one family, while our politics begins from the huts of the poor," he told the gathering. Attacking the Gandhis for "seeking account of demonetisation", Modi said the "whether the mother-son duo who were out on bail for financial irregularities would give him certificate of honesty". "They want an account of demonetisation. It was due to the demonetisation that fake companies were identified. And because of that you had to seek bail. Why do you forget that it was due to the note ban that you had to seek bail," he said. Alluding to Rajiv Gandhi's remark, Modi said demonetisation "brought back the 85 paise which were disappearing" due to corruption. Modi said people ask him from where was he getting the money for developmental works. "It (money) is very much available," he added. "The money is yours. Earlier it was hidden under someone's bed, in cupboards. It all came out after demonetisation was announced," he said. Without naming the Congress, Modi said its leaders were "disconnected" from the aspirations of people. "Hence, they (Congress leaders) would give slogans, but they did not have policies and intentions to realise. Neither did the Congress get a leadership which worked with the resolution of living or dying for welfare of the nation," he said. He also targeted the Congress president, saying when Congress released its 36-point manifesto for Chhattisgarh polls, 'Naamdaar' (Rahul Gandhi) was referred to as 'Sir' 150 times which shows he is more important for them (Congress) than Chhattisgarh. The BJP is for development and it was due to this commitment that the opposition is unable to understand how to compete with ruling party in elections, Modi said. On Monday, Narendra Modi directed jibes at Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, and also used the occasion to respond to criticism of demonetisation. On the day that the first phase of polling in 18 Naxal-affected constituencies of Chhattisgarh took place, Narendra Modi in his trademark style addressed a number of public gatherings, in that state as well as outside. In the morning, he addressed a rally in Bilaspur seeking people's support for the BJP in the regions slated to go for polls in the second phase. He then flew to his home constituency, Varanasi, to inaugurate a series of developmental projects worth Rs 2,413 crore. These included inaugurating the four-lane Babatpur-Varanasi highway and electrification projects for the city, receiving the first ever inland waterway cargo ship on the Ganga which originated from Kolkata's newly-built port, and laying the foundation stones for more such projects. Modi projected a good mix of development and political rhetoric to connect with people. Modi's political rivals and critics have been fuming at his strategy since 24 April, 2014, when he had filed his nomination papers from Varanasi. At that time, he held a massive roadshow, making it a major media event, at a time when the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections was taking place. Despite the criticism about his strategy that he has received since then, he has remained unfazed, and has made it his characteristic style. On Monday, Modi directed jibes at Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, and also used the occasion to respond to criticism of demonetisation, which was made in the backdrop of the second anniversary of the move. Though he didnt take any names, it was clear that he was responding to a range of critical voices from Rahul to Raghuram Rajan. He launched a blistering attack on the Nehru-Gandhi family, and pointed out that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are out on bail in the National Herald case. He said, "The mother-son duo which is on bail in a financial misappropriation case is seeking a certificate of honesty from Modi. They are seeking to hold us accountable for demonetisation." Rahul has been calling Modi a "thief" at various public platforms and on social media. While Modi did not directly refer to these remarks, he lashed out at Congress' first family on corruption charges. He alleged that they were caught because shell companies were detected in the demonetisation process. The prime minister also made a reference to Rajiv Gandhi's famous statement that out of one rupee sent by the Centre, only 15 paise reach the intended beneficiaries. He asked, "Woh kaunsa panja (Congress' electoral symbol) hai jo 85 paise maar leta hai?" (Which is the hand that usurps 85 paise?)" He also took a dig at Indira Gandhi's 'garibi hatao' slogan, albeit without directly mentioning it. In an attempt to emotionally connect with people, Modi spoke about how poor mothers and fathers made sacrifices and aspired for a better future for their children. Since the BJP and Congress are pitted head-to-head in Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, Modi targetted the Nehru-Gandhi family. He said, "The Congress' manifesto for Chhattisgarh had 36 (the Hindi number chhattis) points for the state, but at the time of its release, the 'naamdaar' (a reference to Rahul Gandhi) was referred to as 'sir' 150 times." By afternoon, Modi landed in Varanasi to inaugurate projects which were considered as ambitious by many people. He inaugurated the newly-constructed "multi-modal terminal" on river Ganga as part of the governments Jal Marg Vikas project between Varanasi and Haldia for navigation of large vessels up to the weight of 1,500-2,000 tonnes. Modi received Indias first container vessel MV Rabindranath Tagore that sailed from Kolkata carrying cargo belonging to Pepsico. The vessel contained 16 containers equivalent to 16 truckloads. It will make its return journey to Kolkata with fertilisers from IFFCO. The project has environmental, economic and other developmental benefits not just for Varanasi and Haldia, but also for areas along the way. Another event related to the river Ganga was the inauguration of some sewerage projects in the city and laying the foundation stone for a project under the Namami Gange programme. When Modi had come to Varanasi in April 2014 to contest the election, he had pledged to clean the river Ganga. The famed ghats in Varanasi are now much cleaner. The formal opening of two national highway projects the Babatpur-Varanasi airport road and the Varanasi ring road were other big-ticket events. These projects will ensure a smooth travel for visitors and residents of the temple town. Modi and the BJP can now claim to have fulfilled a large part of the prime minister's pledge for the city and the river Ganga. Surendra Goyal, who represents the Jaitaran constituency, tendered separate resignations to Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and the BJP's state president, Madan Lal Saini. Jaipur: A Rajasthan minister, who was dropped by the Bharatiya Janata Party in its first list of candidates for the assembly election, resigned from his post and the party on Monday. Surendra Goyal, the public health engineering and ground water minister who represents the Jaitaran constituency, tendered separate resignations to Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and the party's state president, Madan Lal Saini. The five-time MLA has not sighted any reason for the resignation. In its first list of 131 candidates released on Sunday night, the BJP has fielded a new face, Avinash Gehlot, from Jaitaran. Saini was not available for comment as he was busy in a meeting at the chief minister's residence in Jaipur. Of the 131 candidates announced for 200 seats in Rajasthan, 25 are first timers. The BJP has given tickets to 12 women candidates. New Delhi: The BJP on Monday released its first list of 131 candidates for the 7 December Rajasthan Assembly polls. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje will contest from her traditional Jhalrapatan seat. The names were released after detailed deliberations at a meeting of the party's Central Election Committee that decided to field 85 outgoing MLAs, including some of heavyweights and Raje's Cabinet ministers. Of the 131 candidates announced for 200 seats, 25 are first timers. The party has given tickets to 12 women candidates. It has fielded Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria from Udaipur, Urban Development and Housing Minister Srichand Kripalani from Nimbaheda and Agriculture Minister Prabhulal Saini from Anta. Panchayati Raj and Rural Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rajendra Rathore will contest from Churu and Social Justice and Welfare Minister Arun Chaturvedi from Civil Lines. The BJP has fielded former state unit chief Ashok Parnami from Adarsh Nagar. Its MP from Barmer, Colonel Sonaram Patel, will contest from Barmer Assembly constituency. In what may be construed as a veiled dig at the Opposition alliance against the BJP, Rajinikanth said that if all of them coming together against the saffron party, it 'must be a dangerous party.' In a statement that raised quite a few eyebrows in political circles in Tamil Nadu, Rajinikanth said that if all Opposition parties are coming together against the saffron party, it "must be a dangerous party." Rajinikanth had announced his decision to enter electoral politics at the beginning of the year. Earlier, the DMK had hinted at an understanding between BJP and Rajinikanth, referring to the actor as the BJP's "puppet", as reported by Hindustan Times. After Rajinikanth announced his entry into politics, Tamil Nadu BJP chief Tamilisai Soundararajan had told the media that the actor's proposed party would be a part of the NDA in 2019. In 2017, Union minister Nitin Gadkari had said that the actor should "think about the BJP" and that there is an "appropriate place for him in the party." Deviating from his previous supportive stand on demonetisation, which was implemented two years ago, Rajinikanth on Monday said that it had required more research before going ahead with such a major step. Some flaws happened in it (demonetisation). An elaborate research was essential before its roll out, Rajinikanth was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. Interestingly, soon after the announcement of the shocking decision on 8 November, 2016, the Tamil superstar had tweeted, Hats off @narendramodi ji. New india is born #JaiHind. Nearly a decade has passed since the Kelo Dam was constructed in Chhattisgarh, but many displaced villagers are waiting to get full compensation from the BJP government that took over their land. Raigarh: Around 10 kilometers from Raigarh Railway Station lies the new Lakha village, which the Chhattisgarh government had carved out about a decade ago after displacing around 400 households from the low-lying area of erstwhile Lakha, around 3 kilometers from Raigarh. The BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh government had completely evacuated the old village, located near the Kelo river, and shifted the villagers to the new location in an elevated area. This, as the ambitious Kelo Dam project came up in the region where the old Lakha village was located. As many as 186 joint families lived in this village. While the residents of Lakha and Dhanot villages were completely displaced when the Kelo Dam was built in 2012, residents of three other villages were partially affected. The new Lakha village is now juxtaposed to the Raigarh-Ambikapur State Highway and is plagued by fly-ash and industrial dust from the nearby steel industries. Commuters also find it hard to travel by the poorly constructed road. After being moved from the low-lying fertile land to a new area, which lacks any agricultural properties or water resources, the villagers feel cheated by the incumbent BJP government in Chhattisgarh. As a result, many in Lakha have vowed to boycott the BJP, which, they allege, never cared for them. Sashika Gadtia, a resident of Lakha village, had lost her land when they were moved to the new location. Nearly a decade has passed, but she is still waiting to get full compensation from the Chhattisgarh government. As a result, Sashika said she is determined to boycott the BJP during the Assembly elections, as it was Chief Minister Raman Singhs party that had deprived the villagers of their rights and nearly ruined the lives of many. "I am ready to wave black flags at BJP leaders who visit our village for campaigning. It is the BJP government that ruined our lives. We were happily living in the low-lying Lakha village. It had a river nearby, fertile land, ponds and wells. The new village neither has fertile soil and farming land, nor ample water," she said. She also said she was handed a cheque of Rs 6 lakh by the chief minister himself during his Vikas Yatra ahead of the polls, but she had received only Rs 2 lakh when she converted it at the bank. She claimed it was a "fake cheque". Sashika isn't alone in opening up about her woes and firing shots against the BJP. Lalit Gupta, another aggrieved person from the Lakha village, said he has dues amounting to Rs 7.5 lakh from the BJP government in Chhattisgarh. "Besides the pending compensation, the village has suffered a lot. The new area lies near the highway, which is highly polluted with a lot of dust. The children are also facing the impact of the displacement. There are few amenities here to support our livelihood." Farmers worst hit Villagers claim that the farmers who owned land in the old Lakha village were the worst hit, as they had lost their entire means of living to the dam built on the Kelo river, a tributary of the Mahanadi river in the drought-prone Raigarh district. "Most farmers lost their lands. In our old village, we would grow vegetables among other crops. The soil was very fertile. But in the new village, the soil is not fit for agriculture. The water from borewells is used for electricity, as well," said Kanu Ram, a septuagenarian resident of the village. Others allege that the BJP government had taken over fertile lands, and compensations were handed out hurriedly at low prices. Many villagers said that during the displacement phase, authorities had promised them higher prices for the lands acquired, but that never came through. Gopal Agrawal, who is well-versed with the process of compensation and had been keeping track of all announcements, documentation and sanctions, has been going from pillar to post at government offices, seeking justice. "As per the government's own figures, around 400 households were displaced. While all of them got plots in the new area for houses, no one has been compensated for their abadi kshetra (land). I have been keeping track of this and following up, but in vain," he said, adding that the government has yet to hand over Rs 500 crore to the village. "I was entitled to Rs 11 lakh for my land. The government had been boasting that they are doing vikas (development). What kind of vikas are they doing if the people who lost their land have not been compensated yet?" Agrawal asked. Many elders also said there were anomalies in the disbursement of compensation. "When the compensation provided was examined during the displacement process, many fertile areas were shown as wastelands and were declined for compensation," another villager said. The villagers said they have been receiving subsidised rice from the Chhattisgarh government 7 kilograms per person, per month. Many questioned that while other dam-displaced villages in Chhattisgarh had been compensated, why was the BJP government subjecting Lakha and Dhanot villages to such step-motherly behaviour and then aggressively campaigning for the elections. The villagers said the name 'Lakha' was derived from two words 'La' and 'Kha', which denote the tendency and virtue of the village to be able to use and consume resources from the nearby forest. Their proximity to natural resources from all sides in the old village had made the villagers self-sufficient. Industrial waste drained into Kelo Dam Environmentalists are miffed over the Kelo Dam, which was envisaged for irrigation purposes and to support the nearby industries. They allege that the project is hardly giving importance to irrigation, even after so many years have passed since the construction of the dam was completed. Noted environmentalist from Raigarh, Ramesh Agrawal said: "When the government proposed to build the dam, it had promised to give water to the nearby villages for irrigation. But around six years have passed, and not a single canal has been constructed for irrigation. The government, however, has ensured that water from the dam goes to the industries." Activists also alleged that the nearby industries had turned the dam into a drain, dumping their waste into the water and making it increasingly polluted. Scrutiny and checks for such actions are negligent here, they claimed. The author is a Bhubaneswar-based freelance writer and member of 101Reporters.com The 119-member Telangana Legislative Assembly was dissolved on 6 September on the recommendation of the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led government, more than eight months ahead of the expiry of its term, paving the way for early elections. Hyderabad: Kicking off the formal poll process, a gazette notification for elections to the Telangana Legislative Assembly would be issued on Monday. Nominations would be accepted after the notification is issued, Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar had said. The 119-member Assembly was dissolved on 6 September on the recommendation of the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led government, more than eight months ahead of the expiry of its term, paving the way for early elections. Elections are scheduled to be held on 7 December and the counting would take place on 11 December. The Election Commission on Friday imposed a near month-long ban on holding exit polls beginning 12 November in the five poll-bound states including Telangana. A notification issued by the poll panel said that between 7 am of 12 November and 5.30 pm of 7 December, "conducting any exit poll and publishing or publicising the result of exit poll by means of print or electronic media or in any other manner shall be prohibited". Caretaker Chief Minister and TRS supremo K Chnadrasekhar Rao handed over B-Forms to party's contesting candidates on Sunday after a brainstorming session with them. He is expected to file his nomination from Gajwel constituency in Medak district on 14 November. In her tweet, TRS MP and CM's daughter Kavitha said, "honourable KCR garu giving away the B-form to the MLAs of my parliament constituency. We seek the blessings of T-people for the success of all our mlas." The TRS has already announced its candidates for 107 segments, including 105 at one go within minutes of the Assembly dissolution, giving it a jump-start to the campaign and stunning the opposition. The main opposition Congress forged an electoral pact with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) headed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, the Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) founded by retired Osmania University Political Science Professor Kodandaram and the Communist Party of India. However the "Grand Alliance" is yet to announce the list of the contesting candidates. BJP had so far announced 66 nominees in two tranches. Jammu and Kashmir is under central rule since 19 June after the BJP withdrew support from the then Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government. New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir is unlikely to have a popular government anytime soon as the Central government may recommend a spell of President's Rule at the expiry of Governor's Rule on 19 December, official sources said. Under the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, there is no provision for extension of Governor's rule. The state is under central rule since 19 June after the BJP withdrew support from the then Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government. The six-month term of Governor's Rule comes to an end on 19 December. Therefore, for the extension of the Central rule in Jammu and Kashmir, a spell of President's Rule would be necessary as there may not be an elected government, a source privy to the development said. A popular government is unlikely to be formed in Jammu and Kashmir anytime soon under the current Assembly, the source said. Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik said in October that he was in favour of holding early elections in the state as he did not think a popular government can be formed out of the present House. No party enjoys a majority in the 87-member Assembly, in which the PDP has 28 MLAs, the BJP 25 and the National Conference 15. President's Rule can be imposed after the Union Cabinet, headed by the prime minister, makes a recommendation to the President to this effect following a report of the governor. If President's Rule is imposed, it will be effectively a "fresh spell" of Central rule even though it would be like an extension of the current spell of Governor's Rule, the source said. Under such circumstances, there is no need for the central government to get parliamentary nod for extension of central rule beyond 19 December. Governor's Rule in Jammu and Kashmir is imposed under Section 92 of the state's Constitution, President's Rule is imposed under 356 of the Constitution. Therefore, practically, the Central government would not be required to get the approval from both Houses of Parliament for extension of central rule in Jammu and Kashmir if its rule is extended beyond 19 December, another source said. tech2 News Staff Samsung, who has been teasing about its foldable smartphone almost a year now, unveiled the device at its developer conference last week, and the company will apparently manufacture as many as 1 million units of the device. What was unveiled was a sneak peek into a tablet which could be folded horizontally. Samsung describes its folding phone technology as Infinity Flex Display and said that mass-production of the device should begin in a "matter of months", according to a report by The Verge. A report by the publication Yonhap revealed that Samsung's chief DJ Koh has confirmed that the company has plans to manufacture at least 1 million units of the foldable phone in its initial phase. Also, if the device does well, there will be further production. The report also reveals that DJ Koh does not believe that the foldable phone will in any way harm the sales or replace the existing smartphones soon. The display on the tablet is apparently a resolution of 1536 x 2152 which gives it a 4.2:3 aspect ratio and a screen size of 7.3-inches. When folded the device is an 840 x 1960 display with a tall aspect ratio of 21:9 and screen size of 4.58-inches. We don't even have a name for the device, although it could be called the Galaxy F. Samsung is also working on other kinds of displays rollable and stretchable, and there is a possibility that we might see devices with such displays in a few years from now. tech2 News Staff At the Samsung Developer Conference on 7 November, the company unveiled a new user interface called One UI, with an aim to redesign the user experience in a way that it puts less stress on a user's thumbs and fingers as they try to navigate large screen displays. One UI is apparently going to be released for the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8 Plus and the Note 8. According to a report by Android Authority, Samsung told the publication that its newest UI is coming to the aforementioned devices. Samsung One UI is what was previously known as Samsung Experience. Also, popular tispter Ice Universe also released a tweet on 9 November saying that the same devices will get the UI update. Galaxy S8 series and Galaxy Note8 will also get One UI. Ice universe (@UniverseIce) November 9, 2018 As of now, Samsung has announced that the beta of One UI is open for sign-ups. The beta version rolls out to to the Galaxy S9 and the Note 9 in November itself. If you want to join Samsung's Open UI beta program, here's what you can do. Download and sign in to Samsung Members app. Go to 'Notices' and once you hit 'One UI Beta Program Registration,' you will have to complete and submit your application. You'll be able to download the One UI beta when it is available if your application is approved. A stable version, however, will be released in 2019. Watch this video to take a look at the Samsung One UI. Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next. tech2 News Staff The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will be meeting up with the chiefs of telecom companies in the country next month. This meeting will be aimed at discussing the agenda for the year 2019. This meeting will reportedly be followed up by another meet with the broadcasting firm heads in India. According to a report by DNA Money, while the chiefs of telecom companies are expected to meet the telecom regulator on 4 December, the talks with the heads of broadcasting firms will be held a few days later on 7 December. Per the reports, these meeting will primarily focus on gauging the situations impacting these sectors, see what could be done further to improve ease doing of business and discuss other existing policies that need a relook. There are also rumours that this meeting with the telecom heads may be aimed at initiating the process of auction of 5G spectrum in 2019. Having said that, while Reliance Jio is apparently in favour of the 5G auction taking place next year, other telecom companies are under financial stress, and hence, aren't too keen on the same. Consequently, this meeting may suggest revision of spectrum prices that were quoted in the recent recommendation. As for the broadcasting firms, with a complete shift in framework for TV industry after the apex court upheld TRAI's tariff order and interconnect regulations for pricing and packaging of TV channels. This means, in the coming year we may see the regulatory body exercising its power and monitoring channels and pricing their content. According to a report in The Economic Times, this meet could also see the discussion of a consultation paper on the over-the-top (OTT) services and their regulation. Telcos want the OTT communication apps to also be brought under the same kind of regulatory regime as them as they offer comparable services. OTT apps makers have said that this would stifle innovation and pointed that apps are already under the regulation of the Information Technology Act. TRAI chairman RS Sharma said that TRAI would be coming out with a consultation paper on OTT apps by next week. Nandini Yadav At an event in IIT Delhi, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey held a Townhall meetup today where he addressed the students of the institute and spoke about Twitter's brand new Youth initiative called #Powerof18. The program encourages everyone to exercise their right to vote. The meetup also addressed how the platform is working towards curbing fake news ahead of the 2019 elections. Twitters VP and Managing Director, Maya Hari said at the event that they did a survey in the country and found that 94 percent of Indians who turned 18 felt that their right to vote was the primary privilege they received, and about half of those felt that they could bring change to the society by exercising that right. With #powerof18 we want to tell the #Youth of India, why exercising the voting rights in one of the world's largest democracy is important: @jack #IITDelhi #iitd pic.twitter.com/mR2i7TMZ1V Tech2 (@tech2eets) November 12, 2018 And so, todays Townhall mostly concentrated on pushing the new hashtag #Powerof18, which comes with a dedicated emoticon that shows an inked fingernail. Twitter said that it would use its India page to promote the initiative. Twitter has created a special emoji for #powerof18 pic.twitter.com/fogS3xcJ0e Tech2 (@tech2eets) November 12, 2018 Further, with the 2019 Elections just months away, Dorsey also talked about how Twitter is working on curbing the spread of Fake News on the platform. He said that Twitter is taking "multi-variable" steps, including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, to curb the spread of misleading information. Talking about #FakeNews with #Elections2019 coming up, @jack says that there is no single answer to curbing misinformation, but it's a crucial subject, and AI could be one of the solutions. pic.twitter.com/VvuRjCrmej Tech2 (@tech2eets) November 12, 2018 "Even jokes can be categorised as misinformation, but what matters is the intent with which it is said. Fake information is alarming when it leads you to take misleading action which you may otherwise not need to take, Dorsey said. As part of the Townhall, Dorsey was today also asked about the addiction that social media platforms like Twitter can encourage. The Twitter CEO gave a very interesting answer to this. He said that when he and Biz Stone (he co-founded Twitter) were working on the design of the platform, they thought that the counter that showed the number of followers was interesting, so they put it in a bolder font. However, a decade later, Dorsey says that while that part of the profile has remained bold, users need to shift their focus from that number and pay more attention to what they learnt on the platform, count the conversations they had, and to see if their curiosity was addressed. Twitter users should not focus on the number of followers they have. The real thing to focus is on the number of conversations you have had, and the number of questions you had answered: @jack on #socialmediaaddiction. pic.twitter.com/Sa2rppDoGA Tech2 (@tech2eets) November 12, 2018 Finally, the meetup ended with the most-asked question and the most-popular demand for Twitter when are we getting the edit feature? Well, in simple words, its not happening. Jack Dorsey said, sometimes we cant focus on what people are asking and we have to see the use case scenario of a feature. He said that while many people want to correct things like spelling mistakes and typos in their tweets with the feature, some people could also really misuse it. Addressing the long-standing demand for an edit button on Twitter, @jack says that sometimes we have to concentrate on the use case of a feature and not just on what people are asking for. The edit button may create confusion in conversation. @Twitter @TwitterIndia #IITDelhi pic.twitter.com/hgHTNYQUbM Tech2 (@tech2eets) November 12, 2018 As an example, he pointed out that if were to retweet a post that you agreed with, and the creator of that post changed it to the opposite of what it originally said, you could be seen as agreeing with something you never expected to agree with. The tone of the conversation changes. Side Note: If you are a fan of the book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, you should probably tweet Jack Dorsey, because he couldnt stop talking about the book today. tech2 News Staff Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey is in India and is scheduled to host a Townhall meet at IIT Delhi today. The event will kick off at 12.30 pm and you can follow it on our Twitter page, or get timely updates on our website here as well. The event is essentially aimed at the launch of a youth initiative from Twitter. At the event, there will also be a discussion being led by Dorsey where the students of IIT Delhi will talk about the role of the youth in shaping todays political and social environment. The Twitter CEO came to India on 10 November and is said to be around for a week. And during this time, according to a report by The Quint, Dorsey is also scheduled to meet with IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. With the general elections coming up in 2019, Dorsey is expected to speak on preventing misuse of the platform. Hello India jack (@jack) November 9, 2018 This is Dorseys first visit to India. And after he got here, his first stop led him straight to the Buddhist spiritual leader, Dalai Lama, whom he talked to and hailed as an amazing teacher. This was followed by his visit to Jaipur. Thank you @DalaiLama. Youre an amazing teacher. Also: thank you for not actually pulling out my nose ring, despite a lot of painful effort. pic.twitter.com/fEYtui5EY0 jack (@jack) November 10, 2018 Hello Jaipur jack (@jack) November 10, 2018 Besides the launch of a youth initiative, there isnt much that we know about Dorseys visit to the country. However, considering that despite a thriving smartphone market and cheap internet plans in India, Twitter isnt exactly as popular here as it would hope, the company may also be looking to strengthen its management team in India. tech2 News Staff Eight critically endangered white-backed vultures that were born and raised in captivity will be released for the first time from a vulture conservatory in Pinjore, Haryana in March next year. India is home to nine species of vultures: three white-backed, three long-billed and three slender-billed vultures. These vulture species have witnessed a catastrophic dip in population numbers by more than 90 percent since the 1990s, putting them on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCNs) list of critically endangered species. The Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre in Pinjore is the world's largest facility within the states Bir Shikargah Wildlife Sanctuary for the breeding and conservation of Indian vulture species. It is a joint project managed by the Haryana government and Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). The project is also supported by the British governments Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species Fund to investigate the sharp decline in numbers of these three species of Indian vulture. Since it first opened its doors in 2001, the conservatory has raised and maintained what has become the worlds largest collection of the three critically endangered Gyps species of vulture in a single place. In a project nearly seventeen years running, the conservatory will be releasing eight birds tagged with a satellite tracking device into the wild. This gives conservationists insight into where and how their populations are. Tracking tags are also extremely useful to study animal behaviour in captive animals that are returned or released into the wild. Vulture numbers, the world over, have thinned since the 1990s largely from consuming diclofenac a drug toxic to vultures but useful to treat cattle infections. On eating carcasses of cattle that were treated with diclofenac, vultures would die, with symptoms of kidney failure. While the use of diclofenac in cattle was banned in 2006, the vulture populations are in the process of recovering with the help of breeding initiatives like that in Pinjore. We are planning to introduce 100 pairs each of the three species of white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures in the wild (over) the next 10 years before that, findings from the first batch proposed to be released (next year) will be crucial to the future programmes, Dr Vibha Prakash, BNHS principal scientist. The toxicity to vultures from ingesting diclofenac appears to have come down significantly, and the numbers of Indian vultures finally recovering. If there is no toxicity-related death of these eight birds in two years, then we will go for the release of 20-25 birds each year, Dr Prakash told IANS. It is time to assess whether the provisional Vulture Safe Zone has become a true Vulture Safe Zone, but only the vultures can show us that, Toby Galligan, senior conservation scientist at RSPB Centre for Conservation Science said in a Birdlife report. We are using satellite telemetry to track vultures remotely and in the field. If any die, we can recover them, examine them for the cause of death and prevent other vultures dying from that cause. The effort in Pinjore is only the second such long-term project to conserve endangered Indian vulture species the first being a similar project by Birdlife last year for white-rumpled vultures. The tags will also be very useful in discovering whether the captive-reared birds behave normally in the wild. Since this is the first experiment of its kind, such findings will prove vital in future programs. With inputs from IANS tech2 News Staff The Indian Space Research Organisation is inching closer to the ambitious Gaganyaan mission to send three Indian astronauts to space in 2022. Just about 90 days since Prime Minister Narendra Modis announcement on the mission, ISRO has begun putting together a list of science experiments to carry out over the 7 days the astronauts will spend in low-Earth orbit. At Rs 10,000 crore, the Gaganyaan mission is Indias biggest space mission so far. The space agency is considering a minimum of 10 microgravity experiments for the mission, including space medicine, sensor development for medical devices, fluid physics, microbiology (air filters and biosensors), monitoring of toxic gases, and more. While we have indicated 10 areas that we are interested in, we will not restrict experiments to just these areas, an ISRO official told The Times of India. Many researchers might study life science in space, but doing the wet work in a microgravity laboratory in space has its own set of challenges. Equipment required to carry out experiments in space are different from those on land. It needs to be unaffected or immune to the thermal, vacuum and radiation conditions outside the spacecraft and vibrations and acoustic load during the launch and return stages, ISRO said in a statement. We will obtain specific experiments in these areas from various institutions across India, the official added. The space agency welcomes applications from any academic institutions in the country that would like to send their microgravity experiment aboard the Gaganyaan mission. The deadline to submit proposals to ISRO is 20 December 2018. Agence France-Presse Lion cubs born in South Africa have become the first two to have come into the world using artificial insemination in what was a medical first for the species. Victor and Isabel were born two months ago at the Ukutula Conservation Centre, a private reserve some 70 km northwest of Pretoria, as part of a project led by Spanish veterinarian Isabel Callealta, who is studying a doctorate at the University of Pretoria focusing on wildcat reproduction, reports Efe news. "They're not test-tube lions, as we didn't use the 'in vitro' fertilization technique," the 34-year-old vet from Madrid told Efe of the pair, whom staff at the centre have named after her and her partner. The process developed by Callealta, under the supervision of two university professors, offers a non-surgical alternative to fertilization techniques that are much more invasive because they involve growing an embryo "outside" the animal. "This means it's not necessary to subject an animal to surgery to apply this technique, though, of course we have to use sedation, seeing as we're talking about lions," Callealta said. The technique involves taking semen from a male lion and putting a female under anesthesia so that she can be impregnated using a catheter. There had only been two successful cases of artificial insemination involving lions before this, but the two South African cubs were the first lions who were actually born. "There are lots of factors that make it complicated. Generally, felines are solitary, and if you research a species at a center where the animals are in captivity, you're only going to have one or two animals of the same species and for research, you always need a high number of samples so the results are reliable," the vet said. "You need a lot of resources, a lot of money and you need a lot of people working on it," she said, adding that there were not many studies around on the subject, even less so about animals. "If it wasn't possible before it's because there wasn't the scope to be able to test it," said Callealta. Unlike other animals, like cows or humans, felines usually only ovulate when a male is nearby, or more specifically during copulation. "If we inseminate, there's no copulation, so there's no natural ovulation," Callealta pointed out. "So not only do you need to develop a process for artificial insemination, you also need to develop one to make them ovulate." "It seems simple, putting semen inside a female, but there are loads of steps we know nothing about and you've got to do it little by little," she said. The vet said her team hoped to be able to apply what it had learned to other endangered species, like tigers and leopards. "Lions are considered vulnerable, but there are other wildcats under threat that are in an even more critical situation," she said. The lion population in South Africa is slowly growing thanks to national and private nature reserves, but in the rest of the world, the iconic big cats are in decline. The global population of lions in 1800 was estimated to be 1.2 million, a number that has fallen by 98 percent over the last couple of centuries. The births of Victor and Isabel were the result of over a year-and-a-half of research and are set to open new doors for conservation. "Assisted reproduction and specifically, artificial insemination is not the only solution that is going to save every species on Earth from extinction, but it's another tool we can use to help," the vet said. Ruling party in Bangladesh, Awami League's general secretary Obaidul Quader earlier said they would have no objection if the commission deferred the election date. Dhaka: Bangladesh poll authority on Monday deferred the date for general elections by a week to 30 December, a day after the country's main Opposition alliance demanded delaying the polls by a month. Last week, Bangladesh Election Commission said that the general election will be held on 23 December. Bangladesh's main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by imprisoned ex-premier Khaleda Zia, on Sunday said it would participate in the general election in December, after it boycotted the 2014 polls that returned Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League to power due to fears of rigging. "The 11th general election will be held across Bangladesh on 30 December," Chief Election Commissioner Bangladesh Nurul Huda announced responding to the newly formed National Unity Front (NUF) with jailed former prime minister Khaleda Zia's BNP being its key partner. He said the five-member commission decided to reschedule the polls as the NUF proposal "is reassuring to the commission" about their participation in the polls, a dilemma that gripped the nation for months exposing the country's political course to a state of uncertainty. "Despite extreme adverse situation Jatiya Oikya Front has decided to take part in the election as part of our movement to restore democracy," convenor of the platform and prominent lawyer Kamal Hossain announced on Sunday. He, however, added that the Election Commission must defer the polls schedule by one month and "we will announce our decision later unless the demand is met" while BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said the decision was "part of our movement". Sheikh Hasina immediately welcomed the NUF's decision saying their "decision will strengthen the democracy...we will jointly contest in the poll to reflect the verdict of the people". Ruling Awami League's general secretary Obaidul Quader earlier said they would have no objection if the commission deferred the election date. The NUF came up with the announcement three days after the commission announced the schedule setting 23 December for the voting amid an impasse between the government and the main Opposition alliance. The BNP, whose leader 73-year-old Zia is behind bars, abstained from the 2014 polls over fears it would be rigged, allowing Hasina to walk into a second term unchallenged. But rallying supports of the NUF partners, some left leaning and right-wing groups and individuals, it still insists installation of a non-party caretaker government to oversee the polls. Experts and political analysts said the Opposition was demanding the deferment so the tenure of the current parliament was expired to pave way for a polls time interim government. The deferment of the polls, however, will not see the expiry of the Parliament tenure but the NUF or the BNP were yet to come up with any reaction after the fresh EC announcement. Hasina earlier said installation of a non-elected government could create scopes for "third party interventions", meaning a virtual military takeover like the 2007 when an army-backed interim government was installed amid a political vacuum and unrest. The BNP remained to be in a state of political disarray as Zia is now serving a 10-year prison term in two graft charges and her elder son and "fugitive" acting chief Tarique Rahman's is staying in London while a Dhaka court recently handed him down life term imprisonment for masterminding a deadly attack on a political rally in 2004. The NUF emerged two months ago as an Opposition platform and floated a seven-point demand including dissolution of parliament to pave ways for a polls time interim government for holding a credible election. By Elizabeth Piper LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May was under growing pressure on Sunday to change her plan for Britain to leave the European Union to avoid defeat in a parliamentary vote. With both Britain and the EU suggesting an agreement is close, eurosceptic lawmakers and a leading member of a small Northern Irish party that props up her Conservative government made new threats to vote against the terms of the deal she is working on with Brussels By Elizabeth Piper LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May was under growing pressure on Sunday to change her plan for Britain to leave the European Union to avoid defeat in a parliamentary vote. With both Britain and the EU suggesting an agreement is close, eurosceptic lawmakers and a leading member of a small Northern Irish party that props up her Conservative government made new threats to vote against the terms of the deal she is working on with Brussels. The vote in parliament, most likely to come later this year, is gearing up to be the biggest showdown in the lengthy negotiations to leave the EU, Britain's biggest shift in foreign and trade policy in more than 40 years. May, who was attending a ceremony to mark 100 years since the end of World War One, found some support from ministers in her cabinet, but it would be hard for her to ignore the growing calls to change tack after a minister resigned and Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party threatened to rebel. "If the government makes the historic mistake of prioritising placating the EU over establishing an independent and whole UK, then regrettably we must vote against the deal," Steve Baker, a leading eurosceptic and former minister, wrote alongside the DUP's Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. The main battleground is over a so-called backstop to prevent the return of a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland, something that would only come into force if a deal on future ties cannot guarantee the type of frictionless trade needed to keep it open. DEPTH OF ANGER Fears that proposals would mean keeping Britain inside the EU's customs union indefinitely or that Northern Ireland would have to accept different rules and regulations to the rest of the United Kingdom have focused opposition to May's deal. Eurosceptics have long criticised May's proposals, but it was the resignation of Jo Johnson, the remain-voting younger brother to Brexit campaign leader Boris Johnson, that highlighted the depth of anger over her plans. Many say May's desire to prioritise free flowing trade of goods with the rest of Europe will make Britain little more than a "rule taker", unable to break free of Brussels' decisions. Comments by Education Minister Damian Hinds will also do little to temper those concerns. He told the BBC Britain could not push for a deal giving London the sole right to say when it was ready to leave any backstop arrangement. "The prime minister has to negotiate something which is negotiable with the other side as well as working for people here," Hinds said. But May did find some support. Both he, and the eurosceptic leader of the lower house of parliament, Andrea Leadsom, said they supported the prime minister. "I mean to support the prime minister to get a Brexit that works for the United Kingdom and the EU, keeps our country together and delivers on the referendum," said Leadsom, who some media reported was considering quitting her post. She said she did not expect further resignations, adding: "I do urge colleagues to support the prime minister. We are at a very difficult stage ... but it is a negotiation, so what we have to do is to hold our nerve and keep negotiating." (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Janet Lawrence) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. World leaders will push for the rapid completion of a massive, China-backed trade deal that excludes the US at a summit this week, in a rebuke to rising protectionism and Donald Trump's 'America First' agenda. Singapore: World leaders will push for the rapid completion of a massive, China-backed trade deal that excludes the US at a summit this week, in a rebuke to rising protectionism and Donald Trump's "America First" agenda. China, Japan, India and other Asia-Pacific countries could announce a broad agreement on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which covers half the world's population, on the sidelines of the annual gathering. Not only is the US absent from the deal, but Trump is skipping the summit in Singapore, highlighting how far he has pulled back from efforts to shape global trade rules and raising further questions about Washington's commitment to Asia. Trump launched his unilateralist trade policy with a bang shortly after coming to office by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal spearheaded by predecessor Barack Obama that aimed to bind fast-growing Asian powers into an American-backed order to counter China. His approach has left the floor open for Beijing to promote a rival pact it favours, the 16-member RCEP, a free trade deal which also aims to cut tariffs and integrate markets, but gives weaker protection in areas including employment and the environment. The pact championed by Obama has been kept alive even without the US, and is due to go into force this year, but the Beijing-backed pact has now overtaken it as the world's biggest. Announcing in Singapore that talks for the deal which formally began in 2012 are mostly concluded would be "important as a symbol of Asia's commitment to trade at a time of rising global tensions", Deborah Elms, executive director of the Asian Trade Centre, told AFP. She said negotiations in some areas were likely to continue into next year, however, while a diplomat attending the summit, speaking anonymously, said "substantial progress" had been made but there were still sticking points. The gathering of 20 world leaders comes against a backdrop of a months-long trade dispute between China and the United States after Trump imposed tariffs on most Chinese imports this summer, and Beijing retaliated with its own levies. The standoff is having an impact far beyond the US and China, and leaders at the four days of meetings that begin on Monday will be keen to voice their grievances to Vice President Mike Pence, attending in Trump's place, and Premier Li Keqiang. Trump's absence from the Singapore gathering and a subsequent meeting of world leaders in Papua New Guinea is even more notable given Obama, who launched a so-called "pivot to Asia" to direct more US economic and military resources to the region, was a regular participant. Washington, however, argues that it remains committed to Asia, pointing to regular visits by top officials. We are fully engaged," insisted Patrick Murphy, one of the State Department's most senior Asia diplomats. "That is very sustained and has been enhanced under the current administration." Myanmar's embattled leader Aung San Suu Kyi is attending the meetings, and will deliver a keynote address at a business forum Monday. She may face criticism over a military crackdown on the Muslim Rohingya that saw hundreds of thousands flee to Bangladesh last year, and has sparked rare criticism of Myanmar from within regional bloc the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Also on the agenda will be North Korea's nuclear programme. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a vaguely worded agreement on denuclearisation at a historic summit in June, but progress has been slow since. Pence will also keep on pressure on Beijing over its growing aggression in the South China Sea. China claims almost all the strategically vital waters, a source of friction with Southeast Asian states that have overlapping claims as well as the US, the traditionally dominant military power in the region. Other leaders attending include Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But much of the focus will be on the RCEP as leaders seek to send a message in support of free trade. The deal groups the 10 ASEAN members plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. World leaders "should present a united front advancing trade liberalisation in (the Asia-Pacific) despite global headwinds to trade from the rising tide of global protectionism," Rajiv Biswas, chief regional economist at IHS Markit, told AFP. The Red Sea port city, controlled by Yemen's Houthi rebels since 2014, is a vital entry point for aid into the impoverished country. Hodeida, Yemen: At least 149 people including civilians have been killed in 24 hours of clashes between government loyalists and rebels in Yemen's flashpoint city of Hodeida, medics and military sources said Monday. A military official in Hodeida confirmed seven civilians had died, without giving further details. The Red Sea port city, controlled by Yemen's Houthi rebels since 2014, is a vital entry point for aid into the impoverished country. A source in Yemen's pro-government military coalition, which is backed by a Saudi-led military alliance, said the Houthis had pushed back a large-scale offensive aimed at moving towards Hodeida port. Medics in hospitals across the city reported 110 rebels and 32 loyalist fighters killed overnight. Sources at the Al-Alfi military hospital, seized by the rebels during their 2014 takeover, said charred body parts had been delivered there overnight. Military sources confirmed that the Saudi-led alliance had targeted the rebels with multiple air strikes. Nearly 600 people have been killed since clashes erupted on 1 November in Hodeida, one of Yemen's most densely populated cities. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the Yemeni government's fight against the Iran-backed Houthis in 2015, triggering what the UN now calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The Hodeida port is a vital lifeline for aid deliveries to Yemenis across the war-torn country, where 14 million people face imminent famine. The port has been under blockade by the Saudi-led coalition for a year. The alliance accuses Iran of smuggling arms to the Houthis through the Hodeida port. Tehran denies the charges. The Obama voter who flipped to Trump in 2016 did not return to the Democratic party this midterm election season, the much hyped blue wave did not happen, white males who are an overwhelming majority of Republican Congress members are a stark minority in the Democratic House and Senate and partisan divisions are hardening amidst record turnout. Not yet good enough to stop Donald Trump in 2020. New York: The Obama voter who flipped to Trump in 2016 stayed that way and did not return to the Democratic party this midterm election season, the much hyped blue wave is playing out in slow motion as votes continue to be counted, white males who are an overwhelming majority of Republican Congress members are a stark minority in the Democratic House and Senate, partisan divisions are hardening amidst record turnout and enthusiastic voters betting on Trumpism are tamping down the effect of Republicans who are turning away from Trumps rhetoric on race and immigration - these are some of the top takeaways from a clutch of exit polls after the 2018 US midterms on 6 November. Small towns stick with Trump According to AP VoteCast, urban voters went almost 2 to 1 in favor of Democrats, and small-town and rural voters bet on Republicans by a significant, but smaller margin. In suburban areas, voters skewed significantly toward Democrats by an 8-point margin; non-white voters sided with Democrats by a roughly 3-to-1 margin. Trump fared very well on border security among voters in rural areas 6 in 10 approved. This runs in parallel with white voter approval on Trump's border security - 57 percent approve. Quite typically in Trump country, white voters without a college degree were more likely to say they approved, 64 percent to 49 percent. Not (yet) good enough to stop Trump in 2020 Overall, despite women being the driving force behind the Democratic House takeover - they voted 59 percent for Dems - the final result itself does not (yet) point to a Democratic wave that could potentially deny Donald Trump a second term. Democrats have to figure a way to stop losses among voters in Republican-leaning regions, which are increasingly turning away from the Democratic party. "In a lot of places right now, it's very foreign to vote for a Democrat. Weve got to find a way to broaden the appeal,agree Democrats. Anti-Kavanaugh Senators lost All the Democrats who lost Senate seats all voted against the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. The lone Democratic senator who voted for Kavanaugh - Joe Manchin - kept his West Virginia seat. Tribalism is showing up in many ways. Even though critics balk at Trumps claims that the midterms were a tremendous success, theres data to support that theres not a single district Trump won by a huge margin (55 percent) that Democrats were able to flip. What went to Trump in 2016 stayed red. Record turnout in the high 40s, deeper and starker divisions among voters in suburban and rural areas, ~99 Democratic women in the US House and Senate versus ~19 for the Republicans and a gender gap that's being reported in a range of 15-19 percent depending on the data set used - these are that both Trump and his Opposition will be poring over as they plot their 2020 strategy. 38 percent said it was a vote against Trump Upside for Donald Trump: The optimistic view from midterm results is that he could win the electoral college in 2020 even if he lost the popular vote - exactly what happened in 2016. The downside: The largest class of freshman voters ever in Americas history leaned Democratic - that too in a midterm election which is usually low turnout. More people than in the 1990s are saying that the president was a factor in how they voted. Heres the break up this year: Twenty six per cent of those polled said they voted for Donald Trump, 38 percent said their vote was against Donald Trump and a third said Trump was not a factor. Where Hillary Clinton won, Dems did well The much hyped blue wave did not happen. To be more precise, Democrats won in suburban Whole Foods areas, they won in places where Hillary had won but if there was a distinct red colouring, the blue wave did not extend very far in those battlegrounds. While the Democrats are trying to claw back some sense of a unified blue identity, the red states are only hardening around Trumpism. If reluctant Republicans in name only (RINOs) are voting Democratic, then fired up Trump is Great (TIGRs) voters are helping shore up some of that lost territory for the US President. Greater turnout among women without college degree 1982 was the last time before 2018 that the American voters delivered a combination of a Republican president and Senate and a Democratic House. Men and women voted differently, just as they have since the 1980s. 59 percent of women voted Democratic, men voted narrowly in favour of the Republicans. In every racial and ethnic group, women were more Democratic than men. White women split evenly for both parties while white men voted 60 percent for Republican House candidates and 39 percent for Democratic. White female college grads were 16 percent of all voters. They voted 59 -39 for Democratic candidates. Females without a college degree were a larger share of voters (21 percent), they voted 41 percent Democratic and 59 percent for Republican candidates. Youth turnout, as defined by voters between 18 and 29, surged to a number not seen in a midterm election in a quarter century. Overall, 31 percent of eligible young people cast ballots, according to an analysis by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. Trump's frightful dystopias on immigration was top-of-mind for about 23 percent of voters, and they broke 78 percent to 20 percent for Republicans. Health care was named the most important issue facing the country by 26 percent of voters, and these voters broke for Democrats by similar margins (74 percent to 23 percent). Democrats who are seeking the White House in 2020 are now using lessons from the midterms as a blueprint for how to run and win in the industrial Midwest - Trump's final frontier. An exchange of fire erupted during an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing six Palestinians and an Israeli soldier, officials said, while potentially dashing hopes that a recent agreement would restore calm. Gaza City: An exchange of fire erupted during an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing six Palestinians and an Israeli soldier, officials said, while potentially dashing hopes that a recent agreement would restore calm. As tensions rose following the clash, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he would cut short his trip to Paris, where he had been attending World War I commemorations, and return home. Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the blockaded Gaza Strip, denounced a "cowardly Israeli attack". Palestinian security sources said the clash included Israeli air strikes. After the clash erupted, sirens were reported in southern Israel indicating possible rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Ten launches from Gaza towards Israel were identified and two were intercepted by Israeli missile defences, the army said. It was not immediately clear where the others had landed. Details were still emerging of the incident that Palestinian officials said occurred east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Gaza's health ministry said six Palestinians were killed. The dead included a local commander for Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the brigades said in a statement. He was identified as Nour Baraka. Israel's army confirmed one soldier was killed and another was injured. "During an (Israeli) special forces operational activity in the Gaza Strip, an exchange of fire evolved," the army said in a statement. "At this incident, an IDF officer was killed and an additional officer was moderately injured," it added, referring to the Israel Defence Forces. It added that the operation was now over. Hamas's armed wing alleged in a statement that an Israeli special forces team infiltrated near Khan Yunis in a civilian car. Israel's military had not confirmed those details nor described what type of operation it carried out. A ground operation inside the Gaza Strip would be rare and likely significantly boost tensions. Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman held security consultations at military headquarters, his office said. 'Protection money' The clash comes after months of deadly unrest along the Gaza-Israel border had appeared to be calming. Recent weeks have seen Israeli decisions to allow Qatar to provide the Gaza Strip with millions of dollars in aid for salaries as well as fuel to help ease an electricity crisis. Netanyahu had earlier defended his decision to allow Qatar to transfer the cash to Gaza despite criticism from within his own government over the move, saying he wanted to avoid a war if it wasn't necessary. "I'm doing what I can, in coordination with the security establishment, to return quiet to the southern communities, but also to prevent a humanitarian crisis," Netanyahu said late Saturday, referring to Israeli towns near the Gaza border and deteriorating conditions in the enclave. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu's education minister and right-wing rival, compared the cash flow to "protection money" paid to criminals. Lieberman said he had opposed "transferring the money to Hamas". Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008, and recent months of unrest have raised fears of a fourth. Deadly clashes have accompanied major protests along the Gaza-Israel border that began on 30 March. At least 227 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, the majority shot during protests and clashes, since the demonstrations began, while others died in tank fire or air strikes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in that time. On Friday, Palestinian civil servants began receiving payments after months of sporadic salary disbursements in cash-strapped Gaza, with $15 million delivered into the enclave through Israel in suitcases by Qatar. A total of $90 million is to be distributed in six monthly instalments, Gaza authorities said, primarily to cover salaries of officials working for Hamas. Qatar has also said it would hand out $100 to each of 50,000 poor families, as well as larger sums to Palestinians wounded in clashes along the Gaza-Israel border. The Gulf emirate has also started buying additional fuel for Gaza's sole power station, allowing outages to be reduced to their lowest level in years.e reduced to their lowest level in years. By John Irish PARIS (Reuters) - The leaders of Germany and France called for a unified approach to fostering world peace at a forum in Paris on Sunday that was attended by dozens of heads of state and government with one notable exception: U.S. President Donald Trump. By John Irish PARIS (Reuters) - The leaders of Germany and France called for a unified approach to fostering world peace at a forum in Paris on Sunday that was attended by dozens of heads of state and government with one notable exception: U.S. President Donald Trump. German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the Paris Peace Forum, which followed a ceremony in the French capital to mark the centenary of the end of World War One, with a warning that "blinkered" nationalism was gaining ground in Europe and beyond. Echoing comments made by Macron, she said there was a worrying readiness by some to promote self-interest and ignore ties that have underpinned peace since the end of World War Two. "Most of the challenges today cannot be solved by one nation alone, but together. That's why we need a common approach," Merkel told the audience. "If isolation wasn't the solution 100 years ago, how can it be today in such an interconnected world?" Macron hopes the forum can lead help avoid falling into the traps of the past by promoting multilateralism. He wants it to demonstrate the power of reconciliation a century after Europe was torn apart by one of history's bloodiest conflicts. Leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan were among those who listened as Merkel, Macron and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutteres lauded the U.N. and institutions like it that seek multilateral solutions to global problems. Trump, who champions a policy of 'America first' and has said he is proud to be a nationalist, snubbed the event. Air Force One departed Paris for Washington shortly after the peace forum opened. Macron has repeatedly called for "collective action" to tackle crises ranging from the environment, Islamist militancy and nuclear proliferation to anti-Semitism. "Will today be a symbol of lasting peace or a last moment of unity before the world falls into more disorder?" The French leader Macron asked the gathering. "It depends solely us." Earlier on Sunday, Macron led a solemn ceremony to commemorate the centenary of the armistice that brought the Great War to an end, and appeared to take aim at Trump as he warned of the perils of resurgent nationalism. Justin Vaisse, who organised the forum, told Reuters it was not intended to mediate solutions to existing conflicts, but seek ways to create strengthen multilateral organisations. It is designed to be held annually and bring together a mixture of politicians, foreign policy experts, non-governmental organisations and representatives of civil society, he said. (Reporting by John Irish; editing by Michel Rose) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. PARIS (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin at World War One commemorations on Sunday, their first meeting since the downing of a Russian plane during an Israeli air raid in Syria in September. 'The conversation with President Putin was good and businesslike. I would even describe it as very important,' Netanyahu told reporters after the ceremony in Paris, adding that he also spoke there with U.S. PARIS (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin at World War One commemorations on Sunday, their first meeting since the downing of a Russian plane during an Israeli air raid in Syria in September. "The conversation with President Putin was good and businesslike. I would even describe it as very important," Netanyahu told reporters after the ceremony in Paris, adding that he also spoke there with U.S. President Donald Trump. Moscow said last month it had delivered S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Syria, where Israel has struck Iranian targets. The missile shipment came after Russia, a main backer of the Damascus government, accused Israel of indirectly causing the downing of a Russian military jet by Syrian air defences following an Israeli air strike nearby. Netanyahu, speaking to reporters on Sunday, also said he favoured reaching an "arrangement" that would avoid an all out war with Gaza and stave off a deepening humanitarian crisis. On Friday, Israel allowed $15 million of Qatari cash to enter the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement. Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations have been trying to broker a long-term cease fire between Hamas and Israel. (Writing by Dan Williams. Editing by Jane Merriman) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. A five-member Taliban delegation led by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanakzai attended talks with several countries including India in Moscow as part of a regional initiative organised by Russia. A five-member Taliban delegation led by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanakzai attended talks with several countries including India in Moscow as part of a regional initiative organised by Russia. However, India participated in the event 'unofficially' as it sent former diplomats to the meeting. New Delhi sent former Indian envoys to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Amar Sinha and TCA Raghavan respectively, to attend the conference at the "non-official level". India's foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar had said on 8 October that "India supports all efforts at peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan that will preserve unity and plurality, and bring security, stability and prosperity to the country." It is interesting to note that India has never before participated in a talk with the Taliban. The last such meeting by Russia had to be called off at the eleventh hour because the Afghan government had refused to be present for it. Therefore this time around, Moscow had agreed to open the meeting to even non-government representatives. However, since US and Indian officials mostly kept quiet during the discussions, Moscow asked the Indian government to play a more active role next time, The Times of India reported. Meanwhile, after the meeting, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said, "Afghanistan's problems can only be settled politically, through the attainment of national accord and with the involvement of all parties to the conflict. We hope that responsible politicians will not be guided by personal or group considerations but by the interests of the people of Afghanistan," the report said. On the other hand, the Afghan government, in a post-meeting statement said that the High Peace Council was participating "in its own capacity as a national but non-government institution". At the meeting, the Taliban representatives, led by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai stuck to their demands that foreign troops should leave Afghanistan first. Moscow said it had invited representatives from the United States as well as Iran, China, Pakistan and five former Soviet republics in Central Asia. The host nation said that no one should play geopolitical games in Afghanistan and that the participation of Taliban and Afghan High Peace Council representatives was aimed at creating conditions for direct talks, Al Jazeera reported. In an address to the nation, Sirisena outlined the reasons for dissolving parliament almost two years ahead of schedule. Sirisena's decision was criticised by ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, some political parties and civil society groups as unconstitutional and illegal. Colombo: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday stoutly defended his controversial move to dissolve the parliament, saying it was taken to prevent clashes among rival lawmakers and also blamed Speaker Karu Jayasuriya for not accepting his presidential powers. In an address to the nation, Sirisena outlined the reasons for dissolving parliament almost two years ahead of schedule. Sirisena's decision was criticised by ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, some political parties and civil society groups as unconstitutional and illegal. The president said there were media reports that politicians would clash during a vote to decide between two men claiming the premiership. On 26 October, Sirisena abruptly sacked Wickremesinghe and replaced him with Mahinda Rajapaksa, after three-and-a-half years of an estranged relationship with him. The island nation plunged into a constitutional crisis following the move. Sirisena had suspended parliamentary proceedings until 16 November. Later, owing to domestic and international pressure, he issued a notice to reconvene parliament on 14 November. However, on Friday, Sirisena dissolved parliament and announced snap polls on 5 January next year. Sirisena decided to dismiss the 225-member parliament just hours after his party admitted the party did not have a sufficient number of votes to elect Rajapaksa. "If I allowed the parliament to meet on 14 November, there would have been violence in the House and it could have spread to our villagers and towns," Sirisena said. "It was sad that parliamentarians were being traded for rupees 100 to 150 million," Sirisena said, referring to statements made by some of the parliamentarians that they were offered huge money to switch sides. Sirisena also blamed parliamentary Speaker Jayasuriya for the current political situation. "The other reason for my dissolution of parliament was the behaviour of Speaker Karu Jayasuriya. He issued statements saying that he would not recognise the appointment of a new prime minister using my presidential powers." He said Jayasuriya's insistence of having a floor test on the very first day of the parliamentary session was unacceptable. Jayasuriya, earlier, accused Sirisena of "usurping" the rights of legislators. "I have watched over the last two weeks as the executive branch has seized the rights and usurped the powers of members of parliament who were elected to represent the people," Jayasuriya said. "I call upon all public servants to refuse to execute any illegal orders they may receive, no matter from whom," he said. Referring to remarks by Sirisena loyalist Sarath Amunugama, Jayasuriya said, "I lament that the purported foreign minister, a highly regarded politician, has falsely alleged that I intended to prevent the president from delivering the statement of government policy when parliament was set to reconvene on November 14. It is on this imaginary premise that the minister suggests that parliament had to be dissolved." In another political development in the country on Sunday, new prime minister Rajapaksa left his longtime political party and joined the newly-formed Sri Lanka People's Party (SLPP). The move could weaken Sirisena's Sri Lanka Freedom Party, of which Rajapaksa had been a longtime member. Samsung introduced the One UI last week along with Infinity Flex for foldable smartphones. The new skin is aimed at making the navigation much easier and designed around how we use our phones in the day-to-day. One UI will replace the current Experience UI which was originally known as TouchWiz. The message is accurate, from a senior Samsung official Ice universe (@UniverseIce) November 9, 2018 As expected, Samsungs One UI comes to the newest flagships including the Galaxy S9, S9 Plus, Galaxy Note 9. However, in the new update, the One UI will also come to last years Samsung Galaxy S8, S8 Plus, and Note 8 as well. Samsung is currently accepting sign-ups for the beta of One UI, through the Samsung Members application which can be downloaded from Galaxy Apps or the Google Play Store. After downloading, log in, go to Notices and select One UI Beta Program Registration to submit an application. The One UI to S9, S9 Plus, and Note 9 will be available sometime later this month. Samsung confirmed that One UI will roll out in its stable version early next year, most likely along with the release of Android 9 Pie for the devices. Though we dont know when the One UI would roll out to S8 series, we expect it to follow shortly. If you sign up for the beta, you must know that it would be buggy and might not suit as the daily driver. Source Alibaba Group has announced that it generated RMB 213.5 billion that is equivalent to $30.8 billion of gross merchandise volume on November 11th on the occasion of the singles day. This is an increase of 27% compared to 2017. Thats a wrap on 11.11 2018! GMV: RMB 213.5 billion, or USD 30.8 billion. pic.twitter.com/isGa7diREM Alibaba Group (@AlibabaGroup) November 11, 2018 The total GMV settled through Alipay is around RMB 213.5 billion (US$30.8 billion), an increase of 27% compared to 2017. Cainiao Network processed more than 1 billion delivery orders where more than 180,000 brands participated during the sale. Over 40% of consumers who made purchases are international. 237 brands exceeded RMB100 million in GMV, including leading international brands Apple, Dyson, Kindle, Estee Lauder, LOreal, Nestle, Gap, Nike, and Adidas. Top selling countries to China include Japan, the United States, South Korea, Australia, and Germany. Lazada participated in 11.11 as part of the Alibaba ecosystem, bringing the festival to consumers in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The 11.11 shopping festival began in 2009 with participation from just 27 merchants. Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group said: Samsung Electronics which showcased the first foldable smartphone last week is said to be planning on launching it in the market in March 2019 alongside the Galaxy S10 5G variant, according to sources. Samsung is rumored to launch the Galaxy S10 series in February at the MWC 2019 event, and this will be followed by the foldable Galaxy X/F and another edition of Galaxy S10 with 5G in March. This outlook came after Samsung Electronics President Koh Dong-jin, who heads the mobile business, said last week that the company would release a foldable smartphone within the first half of 2019. Koh said that he is expecting the shipment volume of the foldable smartphone will be at least 1 million. Furthermore, the company is also rumored to introduce the upcoming foldable smartphone at the Mobile World Congress in February, ahead of the official launch in the following month. The much-awaited foldable smartphone, however, is not expected to support the 5G network. While the price of the Galaxy foldable phone, sources point at a $1,770 price which is quite steep for limited units. Samsung foldable phone to sport 7.3-inch inner and 4.6-inch outer display. Source After recording 11 consecutive quarterly comparable sales declines, Macy's (NYSE:M) has finally gotten back on track in the past year. During the first half of fiscal 2018, comps increased 2.3%, including licensed departments. This performance helped drive a 30% surge in operating income, from $390 million to $507 million, excluding real estate gains and impairment costs. This improving sales and earnings trajectory caused Macy's stock to more than double between late 2017 and mid-2018. However, the stock plunged following the Q2 earnings report, even though the company's performance exceeded management's expectations. Macy's stock has recovered somewhat in recent weeks, but it remains 10% below its 52-week high. Investors seem to be demanding more proof that the comeback is for real before rewarding the company with a higher valuation. Let's look at how Macy's could potentially satisfy those demands with its upcoming earnings report, which is due out Wednesday morning. Can Macy's capitalize on an easy year-over-year comparison? In last year's third fiscal quarter, Macy's faced a variety of revenue headwinds. Sales to international tourists were still declining at the time. Furthermore, major hurricanes affected several key markets during the quarter, while unseasonably warm weather weighed on fall-season sales. As a result, comps declined 3.6% year over year. That means Macy's faced easy year-over-year comparisons last quarter. While the timing of back-to-school sales may have partially offset this tailwind, there's still a good chance that comps growth accelerated relative to the first half of fiscal 2018. While Macy's didn't give specific guidance for the third quarter, it projected back in August that comps would increase 2% to 2.5% in the second half of the fiscal year. A Q3 gain in comparable sales significantly above that level might give management the confidence to raise its full-year sales forecast for the third time. Macy's has stated that operating expenses will increase in the second half of fiscal 2018 because of the company's investments in improving the customer experience. As a result, operating income growth will slow compared in comparison with the first half of the year. Nevertheless, if sales surpass expectations, there's a good chance that Macy's earnings forecast will move higher, too. Any progress on the real estate front? A second potential catalyst for Macy's shares would be positive news regarding its efforts to monetize excess real estate. About two years ago, Macy's created a real estate alliance with Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE:BAM). A dedicated team at Brookfield is examining 50 Macy's properties, with the goal of identifying real estate development opportunities within that portfolio. Early this year, Macy's said it had agreed on terms with Brookfield Asset Management for nine properties. However, as of then, Brookfield expected to eventually proceed with development plans for about 36 of the 50 properties covered by the alliance. Brookfield's 24-month exclusivity window for creating "pre-development" plans ends soon. There could therefore be a flurry of real estate activity announced either in conjunction with the upcoming earnings report or sometime early in 2019. The potential windfall to Macy's from the Brookfield partnership could easily total hundreds of millions of dollars. Sales momentum is the key Real estate activities still represent a major long-term opportunity for Macy's. The company's success in monetizing part of its downtown San Francisco real estate highlights the opportunity from pursuing a similar strategy with its Manhattan flagship store. Meanwhile, by looking for development opportunities on its underutilized parking lots, Macy's can potentially realize an upfront windfall from selling the land, followed by a long-term benefit from increasing the level of foot traffic near its stores. That said, investors mainly care about sales growth right now. There's still a lot of uncertainty about the company's ability to stay relevant in a fast-changing retail landscape. The more Macy's can do to convince investors that its return to comp sales growth is sustainable, the higher its valuation is likely to be. Thus, comparable sales growth is the first thing I'm going to be looking at when the iconic retailer releases its third-quarter earnings report later this week. What a difference a few years makes. Marijuana has gone from being a strictly illegal commodity virtually everywhere to one that's legal in many U.S. states -- albeit with restrictions and regulations -- as well as across Canada as of last month. As a result, a number of public companies have sprung up to grow and wholesale the crop. But this early in a newly open market, it's unclear how profitable those businesses might be, and that's led to seriously speculative stock price movements. In this segment of Motley Fool Answers podcast, hosts Alison Southwick and Robert Brokamp ask David Kretzmann, who heads up the Motley Fool group that focuses on the cannabis business, to offer his best advice on which pot stocks he'd recommend today, whether a marijuana-focused ETF would be a solid choice, and how much of your portfolio should be devoted, at a maximum, to this space. A full transcript follows the video. This video was recorded on Nov. 6, 2018. Alison Southwick: Are there a couple of specific company names or stocks that you want to put out there for any listeners that want to start looking into the industry? David Kretzmann: Sure. Within the initial companies that we've recommended to people as buy recommendations, we have the pure plays. These are companies that generate the majority of the revenue from cannabis in some shape or form. We then have picks-and-shovels companies. Picks-and-shovels companies we have identified as companies that have a strong, underlying core business that isn't in cannabis, but then the potential opportunity with cannabis is an add-on, or a cherry on top, but it isn't the main thesis behind buying the company. Starting with a picks-and-shovels company, I think Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ) is a company that some people will be familiar with. If people have followed this space at all, you might have seen them in the headlines. This is the company behind Corona, the beer, and then a variety of other wine and spirit brands that they have in their portfolio. They've been one of the better-performing alcoholic-beverage companies in the past several years, unlike some of the other bigger players. Last year they invested a smaller amount into Canopy Growth (NASDAQ:CGC), which is one of the larger cannabis producers in Canada. Then in August, Constellation Brands reupped that investment in a huge way. They invested an additional $4 billion into Canopy Growth, taking 38% control of Canopy for the seven board seats. Essentially Canopy Growth, today, is the cannabis offshoot of Constellation Brands. To put that number in perspective, in the first half of 2018, every single cannabis company, public and private, around the world had raised $4.3 billion. That's the first half of this year, so in a single day, Canopy Growth essentially raised the same amount that every other company had raised. This just puts Constellation and Canopy Growth on a whole other level compared to other companies. So from a picks-and-shovels angle, I like Constellation Brands because this is a company that pays a dividend. They generate an increasing amount of free cash flow, so it's a healthy business. They have a strong core business, but they're also making a fairly aggressive push into cannabis. During the announcement of this investment, they said that they expect the legal cannabis market, on a global scale, to hit $200 billion by 2030, so they see this being a big opportunity, and they're making a substantial bet on it. That would be the type of company that I start with. It's a business that's easy to understand. You can see where cannabis could complement Constellation Brands, because they have a lot of experience building brands and distribution with a highly regulated product like alcoholic beverages, and it makes sense that they could transfer that knowledge over to cannabis in the coming years. And I like the fact that they're taking a long-term approach to this. They're not investing in cannabis to juice their share price in the short term. They're very much thinking of this from a decade-long perspective, and I think that's the right way, as Foolish investors, we should be thinking. With pure-play companies, these are obviously much riskier companies. Like I said earlier, a lot of these companies are burning cash, they're unprofitable, and the valuations are likely going to be very lofty no matter which way you slice it. But one company that I do like that's a pure-play cannabis producer in Canada is a company called CannTrust. This is a company that's still valued at over $1 billion. Their revenue over the past year is still pretty minimal, but they've registered among the most medical cannabis patients in Canada compared to the other bigger producers. And even though their valuation does sound lofty, like $1 billion for a company that generated about $30 million in revenue over the past year, that valuation's actually really attractive compared to Canopy Growth, or Tilray, or Aurora Cannabis, or some of these other bigger players. I'm not making a valuation argument, necessarily, but compared to some of these other bigger players, I think it is a more attractive price. They also have a partnership in place with Breakthru Beverage, with is one of the largest private companies in the U.S., and that's a company that is one of the leading beverage distributors in North America. So in the coming years, potentially, CannTrust will be able to plug its cannabis products into that distribution network of Breakthru Beverage. It's a founder-led company. They have a healthy balance sheet. Again, this is one where it would still be incredibly volatile, but I like the approach the company is taking. When I spoke to their president this summer, he said, "In 18 months or so, I hope that we're not in the business of growing cannabis." Because when you think about it, no one cares about who grows the coffee for Starbucks or the tomatoes for [Kraft Heinz]. People are really just interested in the end product. So the long-term vision for CannTrust, and also some of these other companies, is really in building brands, because at the end of the day when you're dealing with what could potentially become a commoditized crop like cannabis, the greatest value to be captured will be from the companies that can build those brands that resonate with the end consumers. So just as you see [Anheuser-Busch InBev] or Budweiser with alcohol, or Starbucks with coffee, or Heinz with tomatoes, I think you're going to see, in the coming years and decades, some pretty powerful global brands be built in a similar way around cannabis and I like the approach that CannTrust is taking to get there. It's not a slam dunk that they will, but I do like the approach that they're taking. So that's one that I look at as a promising pure play company. Southwick: What if I just want an ETF? Kretzmann: There are a few ETFs out there. Again, limited track records there, because there hasn't been much of a track record to have in this industry. The one danger with the ETFs is that they're often highly concentrated in the bigger players, and I would say that most, if not all, of the bigger players are trading at some frothy valuations at potentially unsustainable levels. So you still want to understand what you're buying. I wouldn't blindly buy an ETF. First you'd want to see what their concentration is in the top 10 holdings -- what those companies are -- and if you're comfortable with the idea of having the majority of that ETF be in some of those bigger players. For me, personally, if you are looking to get exposure to this category, start with a company like Constellation Brands, a more established multinational company that is looking to make some investments in the category. And then if nothing else, the approach that we're taking here at The Motley Fool with our cannabis-investing recommendation service is we're almost building our own ETF, so recognizing that this is a type of industry and given that it is at such an early stage where there will be plenty of losers in the coming years. You're going to see some consolidation. You'll see some companies that fail to gain traction or just won't be able to raise cash, and they'll go bust. But the thesis that we have here is that there will be eventual long-term winners in the category, and that a majority of the gains will likely come from a small number of winners. It's almost like approaching a venture capitalist where you're making a series of small bets. You recognize that probably at least half of those bets won't work out like the way you hoped, but there will be one or two big winners that more than make up for the losers. So with an ETF, you might be able to capture that, but I think over the long term if you are interested in the space, it makes a little more sense to build a diversified portfolio among a few of the players and go with that approach. But to each their own. I would just tread carefully with the ETF approach. Robert Brokamp: If someone's interested in this, how much of their portfolio do you think they should devote to these types of companies? Kretzmann: It should definitely be a small part of your overall portfolio. Obviously, each person, circumstances, and risk tolerance will be different. I've personally invested in all 10 or eventually 13 of our recommendations by the time this podcast is released, so I've invested my own money in the companies that we've recommended in this space to our members, but I just started with about 5% of my overall portfolio. I'm young. I am adding more money regularly to my investments, so that's the type of risk that I can afford to take. Even though 20%-40% swings in these stocks, especially the pure plays, isn't all that uncommon -- it's actually probably more than the norm rather than the exception -- for someone who's in or near retirement, or if they're not adding a lot of money to their investments, you just want to take a step back and really be sure anything that you put into the cannabis stocks should be money that you certainly won't need in the next five years, and shouldn't be a substantial part of your overall portfolio. I would say when in doubt, start small. There's no rush. The way that we're approaching it is this will be something that unfolds in the coming years and decades, and there will certainly be a lot of peaks and valleys along the way. We'll have a lot of hype like we had around Oct. 17 and legalization day in Canada. I'm sure if and when the U.S. federal government decriminalizes cannabis on a federal level, that will be a huge catalyst for the industry, but when in doubt, start small. For months, most oil-market watchers fretted about the impact that newly imposed U.S. sanctions on Iran would have on global supplies. Those concerns pushed the price of crude up to more than $85 a barrel, while many analysts anticipated that oil could soon reclaim the triple digits as supplies tightened further. President Trump and others called on OPEC to boost production so that oil prices didn't get out of hand. OPEC, however, refused to budge because it believed the market was worried about the wrong thing. Instead of an undersupply issue, OPEC thought the market had more oil than it needed, so it was concerned about another glut forming that could put downward pressure on prices. That's exactly what seems to be happening after the Trump administration gave waivers to key buyers of Iranian oil, allowing it to continue supplying them with crude. That shift has quickly deflated oil prices, which has at least one OPEC nation considering a production cut. Drilling down into what's going on in the oil market Oil prices had been red-hot this year. At one point, crude was up nearly 30% on the year, peaking in the mid-$80s on fears that Iranian sanctions would pull as many as 2 million barrels per day (BPD) off the oil market. That would have put an even greater strain on the market's spare capacity, which was already under pressure due to production issues in places like Libya and Venezuela, as well as pipeline problems in the U.S. and Canada that are holding back growth in both regions. However, crude prices have since tumbled nearly 20% after the U.S. surprisingly granted waivers to both China and India, Iran's two main oil-buying customers. Because of that, the tightening of supplies that many in the market expected isn't happening. Instead, the market is now likely to have too much oil, because the higher prices over the past year have started cooling off demand just as oil production in the U.S. has reached record levels. That's causing Saudi Arabia to consider slashing its output by as much as 500,000 BPD in the next month, according to a recent report by Reuters. That would reverse the Middle Eastern nation's previous decision to hike its production this past June to offset some of the anticipated impacts of the U.S. sanctions on Iran. Meanwhile, it's working with other producers in OPEC to cut supplies by 1 million BPD overall, which would reverse their previous production increase. The hope is that these steps will help stabilize the price of crude. How this impacts oil stocks The slump in crude prices over the past month has hit oil stocks hard. Leading U.S. producers Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE:APC), Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY), and ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), for example, have all tumbled more than 15% from their recent highs. That's because changes in oil prices have a significant impact on oil companies' cash flow. In ConocoPhillips' case, every $1-per-barrel change in the global oil benchmark price impacts its annual cash flow by about $100 million. The nearly $15-per-barrel plunge in crude prices over the past month will cause it to generate significantly less cash flow if the current level holds. However, ConocoPhillips, like most of its peers, was never banking on $85 oil. Instead, ConocoPhillips based its 2018 spending plan on crude averaging $50 a barrel. Thanks to that decision, it has been generating significant excess cash flow, which it used to pay down its debt and repurchase stock. Anadarko Petroleum, likewise, used $50 crude as its budget benchmark for 2018; it has also been using its excess cash to buy back stock and retire debt. Meanwhile, Occidental Petroleum recently achieved its breakeven plan, allowing the company to maintain its current production rate and dividend on the cash flow it can generate on $40 oil; it will be able to grow production when crude is above $50. Because all three set their 2018 budgets based on $50 oil, the recent plunge in crude prices is unlikely to change their 2018 spending plans. However, it could affect planning for 2019. Given the recent plunge in oil prices, oil producers might rethink big budget increases. That could cause a more moderate increase in drilling activity levels next year, which would be bad news for the oil-field services industry -- it was expecting a big year in 2019. The oil market's wild ride continues While all eyes had been on a tightening oil market, OPEC's biggest worry was that supplies wouldn't drop as much as feared -- which is what has happened in recent weeks. Now it's thinking about cutting supplies again to bring the market back into balance. While that move could boost prices, it's increasingly likely that oil will remain in a period of heightened volatility as the market digests new headlines and data in the coming weeks. That uncertainty will likely continue weighing on oil stocks -- especially those of service companies -- until there's a bit more clarity about what's ahead for the oil market. Waterpump: Was the mounting surface of your new aluminum wp MACHINED? If you recall when you last did your water pump, or if you have a spare water pump sitting on your shelf right now ready and waiting for that fateful day, or if you are an FTE sponsor who sells water pumps for the 7.3L, can you please report to this thread whether or not the mounting surface of your replacement aluminum water pump was/is as cast, or subsequently CNC surface machined on the gasket side? This isn't a thread about cast iron International water pumps. Plenty of those in the archives. Rather, THIS thread is about comparing the manufacturing processes of aftermarket aluminum water pumps, including the Motorcraft (Made in China) PW455 and aluminum pumps marketed online as being so called "Navistar" or "International" (also Made in China), even though the International T444E employed a cast iron water pump. Not everyone can utilize the cast iron water pump (eg, dual alternator applications MUST use the aluminum pump, due to fitment), so a consumer powered comparison of aluminum pump manufacturers might be useful for future reference. Here is a short and incomplete list of several different aftermarket manufacturers that produce (in China, without exception, regardless of where their corporate offices are headquartered) new aluminum water pumps for the 99 up 7.3L application: - Alliant - AirTex - ASC (ASC and AirTex are now combined as one company) - Eastern Industries (which is actually called Shanghai OEM, a joint collaboration between Springcome Industrial in Shanghai and EI) - FENCO / Fenwick - FMI Automotive - Gates (Made in China... don't be fooled by the history of the Gates brand name ) - GMB - Hytec - US Motor Works (anything but "US", manufacturers water pumps through a partnership with a yet to be identified Chinese casting plant that might already be listed above) An attempt has been made to restrict the list above to include only the actual manufacturers of the water pumps, not the distributors, retail brands, or remarketers. Also note that neither Ford nor International are considered to be manufacturers any longer of an aluminum water pump for this application. Some actual manufactures of water pumps are not listed above (like Bosch, for example), simply because they no longer manufacture a pump for the 7.3L, even though they did in the past (ie, the Bosch 99170 that is no longer available). Other manufacturing names, like Bortek, are not listed because their manufacturing operations ceased or the company was subsumed. Still other companies, like Federal Mogul, are still in the business of making automotive parts, but no longer make water pumps at all. Finally note that a great deal of effort was expended in stripping back and seeing through retailer parts brand names like NAPA and CARQUEST, as examples, to get to the bottom line of who actually manufactures the part. And that manufacturer can change over time. In the case of CARQUEST and Advanced Auto Parts, the actual manufacturer of the pumps they distribute under their own house brands used to be AirTex, but now it is GMB. Still, the manufacturer list above is not represented as complete. But at least it provides enough key words for interested readers to "see through" the smoke and mirrors of branding, to find out who is actually producing the parts, so that a comparison of the actual hardware can be made more insightfully. Which brings us back to whether or not the casting itself is machined at the mounting surface, or simply shipped off as cast. I can report from personal observation that the GMB manufactured pump (remarketed and sold under several different popular brands with lifetime guarantees) is NOT machined at the mating surface, and ships with a black colored gasket... whereas the original production water pump (cast with the 1831005C2 part number embossed) is infact machined at the mounting surface, and was fitted with a light blue colored gasket. Please report your personal observations... especially with forum popularized pumps such as the one that Riffraff sells, and the popular AirTex AW4114. Thank you! Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021. We try to make Georgia and its culture better known to the Swiss people - GeorgianJournal Mikheil Saakashvili wants to return to Georgia and clear his name - GeorgianJournal Samsung to produce 1 million units of the foldable phone initially News oi-Vishal Kawadkar Samsung wants to see the market response before mass producing its foldable smartphone. Samsung recently showcased its foldable display at SDC 2018 conference. The company demonstrated the display by obscuring the whole device in a black box to keep the design and other features private before the launch. In the coming days, the company is expected to mass produce the device. Now a new report suggests that the company will produce 1 million foldable smartphones. Samsung's mobile division boss DJ Koh has also confirmed the news. This also indicates that the company doesn't want to invest large sums before analyzing the sales results. It will help Samsung to know the situation of the market. If the company finds the market to mature enough it will ramp up the production of the device. As of now, there's no overview of the sales and even experts aren't sure to how the market will react to the latest trend foldable devices. Samsung is yet to reveal any specifications or the pricing of the new foldable smartphone. The company has tightened its grip over leaks surrounding the hardware of the device. It seems we'll have to wait for the official launch to get information about the hardware. Moreover, DJ Koh has also stated that the company is collaborating with Google to produce a customized version of the foldable phone. Google has already rolled out Android support for a foldable smartphone, which will also help Samsung for its upcoming foldable phone. Samsung is expected to launch a foldable smartphone by early 2019. Previously, DJ Koh suggested that the foldable smartphone will also double as a tablet. Earlier reports have hinted that the device will feature a book-like form factor with the display folding vertically. The in-folding design will hide the display when folded, however, there will be an external display for the users to single hand usage. It is expected to sport a 7.3-inch primary OLED display and a 4.6-inch external OLED display. "When we deliver a foldable phone, it has to be really meaningful to our customer," Koh said, "If the user experience is not up to my standard, I don't want to deliver those kinds of products." Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Samsung to unveil its foldable smartphone at MWC 2019, launch expected in March News oi-Sandeep Sarkar The upcoming foldable smartphone by Samsung the company will feature an inward folding design. Samsung has been off lately stealing the stage with the announcement of its first foldable smartphone. The South Korean tech giant has officially unveiled its Galaxy X smartphone at its 2018 Developer conference held on November 8 in San Francisco. Following the announcement of Galaxy X smartphone, the company has also officially announced the latest version of its Android-powered clamshell phone, i.e, the W2019 for the masses. Now, some new reports suggest that the company is planning to launch its first foldable smartphone for the consumers next year in March. Samsung also intends to bring along its 5G network-powered Galaxy S10 with its first foldable smartphone. According to some reports from Yonhap, a news agency, the company plans to bring its upcoming flagship offering the Galaxy S10 in February which will be followed by the launch of its foldable Galaxy F smartphone along with the 5G enabled variant of the Galaxy S10 in March. As per Samsung, the upcoming foldable smartphone by the company will feature an inward folding design and will boast a big 7.4-inch display when it is in an unfolded state and will shrink to 4.6-inches much like a standard smartphone when the device is folded Koh Dong-jin, Samsung Electronics President, who heads the mobile business, had said last week that the company is working towards bringing its first foldable smartphone within the first half of 2019. Koh further suggested that the company is betting high on the new foldable smartphone and expects that the shipment volume of the foldable smartphone will be at least 1 million. Samsung has not yet released any official statement on the pricing of its upcoming foldable smartphone, however, the sources close to the industry claims that the device might come with a price tag of $1,770 (Rs 1,29,181 approx). It is not immediately clear if the company will be releasing the smartphone globally or for a limited market. It is also being expected that the tech giant might showcase the upcoming foldable smartphone at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) which is slated for February 2019 ahead of its official launch in March. We will keep you posted with the further updates on the same, so stay tuned with us. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Xiaomi Mi A2 receives Android 9 Pie update (beta): How to download and install? News oi-Vivek Xiaomi MI A2 is the second Android One device from the company The Xiaomi Mi A2 is the latest Android One smartphone from Xiaomi with an all-metal unibody design. The smartphone was launched in India in mid-2018 with Android 8.1 Oreo, and the company promised to update the device to Android 9 Pie by the end of 2018. And now, the company has released the beta version of the Android 9 Pie to the Xiaomi Mi A2. How to install Android 9 Pie (Beta) on the Mi A2? The update is rolling out for selected users, and as of now, there is no information on how to download and install the update. If everything does well, then the company will release the stable version of the Android 9 Pie for the Xiaomi Mi A2 by the end of December 2018. However, users can download the update package and manually flash the update. Click here to update the Xiaomi Mi A2 with Android 9 Pie. With the release of the Android 9 Pie for the Xiaomi Mi A2, Xiaomi M2 will receive the following features like Android Wellbeing, gestures based navigation system, and improved battery management. Xiaomi Mi A2 specifications The Xiaomi Mi A2 comes with a 5.99-inch IPS LCD screen with an 18:9 aspect ratio, protected by 2.5D curved tempered glass. Under the hood, the smartphone runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 AIE SoC with 4/6 GB of RAM and 64/128 GB of internal storage with no micro SD card slot for additional storage expansion. Albeit, the device does offer dual SIM card slots with 4G LTE and VoLTE on both the slots. The Xiaomi Mi A2's camera setup consists of dual cameras with a 12 MP primary sensor and a 20 MP depth sensor with 4K video recording capability. The smartphone has a 3060 mAh Li-ion battery with support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ via USB type C port and misses out on a 3.5mm headphone jack. As the Xiaomi Mi A2 is an Android One smartphone, it runs on stock Android OS, instead of Xiaomi's custom MIUI skin. The Xiaomi Mi A2 is also pegged to receive Android Q by the end of 2019. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Xiaomi smartphones will get Google Camera app with MIUI 10 beta 8.11.8 update News oi-Abhinaya Prabhu Xiaomi users can install the APK of Google Camera app on their smartphone with this update. Google Pixel smartphones are acclaimed for their incredible camera performance. Due to the impressive camera capabilities of the Google Camera app, several other brands have started implementing these on their devices. But for the Xiaomi users it wasn't always possible to try these tricks without rooting their smartphones. For the Google Camera app to run on any smartphone, the device should support either HAL3 or Camera2API. And, the MIUI custom ROM doesn't come with any of these options. Eventually, the Xiaomi users were not able to use the Google Camera app without performing a root on their device. And, not all smartphone users are fans of rooting. MIUI 10 beta 8.11.8 update This situation is all set to change with the MIUI 10 Beta 8.11.8 update. As per a report by Chinese publication GizChina, it looks like the latest MIUI 10 beta 8.11.8 update will let the devices support the Google Camera app without a root. Users of the Xiaomi devices can install the APK of the Google Camera app similar to the other APKs on their smartphone and use the app. However, the notable aspect is that not all the features of this app will be available for use. Isn't for all users! The other disappointing factor, for now, is that this feature is said to be limited only to the Chinese version of the ROM. It remains to be known when this update will be rolled out globally for all the Xiaomi users to download and enjoy the features of the Google Camera app on their device. Google Camera features Google Camera app comes bundled with awesome features such as Night Sight, HDR+, Photobooth, Live Lens, Super Zoom and more. So, the Xiaomi smartphone users can enjoy these features. Notably, a few days back, a modified version of the app with the latest features mentioned above were rolled out to the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Mi 8, Poco F1 and Mi 5 among others. So, what do you think about the availability of the Google Camera app on Xiaomi smartphones? Are you interested in trying out the same on your smartphone? Do let us know via the comments section below. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Samsung planning to release new Galaxy M series: All you need to know News oi-Karan Sharma Samsung is gearing up to introduce a new Galaxy M series soon. All you need to know. A few days back a report surfaced on the web stating that Samsung is planning to stop some of its current series. It seems the company will merge the Galaxy J, Galaxy On and Galaxy C series smartphones into a new series known as Galaxy M. According to the report, the Galaxy M series will come with a double-digit nomenclature. The models which are expected to come under the M series will be something like M30, M40 and so on. The new M series will reportedly have LCD panels and the high-end model will sport an AMOLED display. The company is switching to the LCD panels just to keep the price minimal. According to sammobile's report, there are two devices with model number SM-M205F and SM-M305F, hinting that the upcoming smartphones in the M series might be Galaxy M20 and Galaxy M30. The report also suggests that the model number SM-M205F will be available in 32GB and 64GB variant. The SM-M305F is also expected to come in 64GB and 128GB variants. Both the smartphone are expected to support dual-SIM support, but it seems single SIM variants will also be released in some countries. The smartphones will be launch to target Asian, EMEA, and European market. These are the smartphone market which opts more for budget and mid-range smartphone. Let's see what Samsung is planning to bring with the introduction of the new Galaxy M series. Currently, this much information we have about the expected smartphone, we will get back to you as soon as we get some more updates. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Austria Suspects Domestic Intelligence Officer Spied for Russia - Report Sputnik News 14:50 11.11.2018 The report comes amid an ongoing espionage scandal between Moscow and Vienna. The Austrian prime minister earlier announced that a retired army colonel is suspected of spying for Russia for around 20 years. In response, Russia slammed Vienna for publicising 'unfounded accusations' instead of using diplomatic channels to clarify the situation. Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reported, without specifying its sources, that an officer from the country's Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism is under investigation over possible espionage and the passing of classified information to Russia. According to the media outlet, if the investigation, which has been underway for a year now, proves the person guilty, he or she will face up to 10 years in prison. Austrian officials have not commented on the report yet. The Russian Embassy in Austria has declined to comment on the news. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism is an arm of the Austrian police that is tasked with running domestic intelligence and protecting constitutional bodies of the state. The report comes hot on the heels of the espionage scandal that erupted between Austrian and Russia Vienna has accused one of its retired colonels of spying for Moscow since the 1990s. According to reports by various Austrian media outlets, the suspect has already been arrested and confessed tohis crimes. There has been no official confirmation of this information so far. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed Austria's approach to handling the scandal, bemoaning the use of 'megaphone diplomacy'. He said that unfounded accusations of espionage are unacceptable and announced that the Austrian ambassador to Russia had been summoned in light of the recent allegations. Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen urged not to dramatise the situation surrounding the two countries in light of ercent events, noting that a proper investigation must be concluded first. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemeni drone unit targets aggressors in western Yemen IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Nov 11, IRNA -- Yemeni drone and artillery units in a joint operation targeted Saudi aggressors and mercenaries in western Yemen, Yemeni TV Channel 'Al-Masirah' reported. According to Yemeni media, this is the second time in November that Yemeni drone and artillery units conduct operation against Saudi forces. The attacks by the Yemeni army and popular forces on aggressors' positions have so far killed hundreds of Saudis and destroyed scores of military vehicles. Saudi Arabia and its regional allies attacked Yemen in March 2015 to bring back to power the deposed president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. The aggressors have committed horrible war crimes against Yemeni civilians during the past three years. Despite deploying equipment and forces enough for occupying 10 countries, Saudi aggressors have been defeated in west coast of Yemen, Yemeni defense minister earlier announced. 9376**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen calls on UN to help halt raids on lifeline port IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Nov 11, IRNA -- The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights on Sunday said the United Nations and the Security Council are responsible for the Saudi crimes in Yemen, condemning continuation of attacks by the Riyadh-led coalition on al-Hudaydah Port. According to Yemen's al-Masirah TV Channel, the ministry said continuation of military operations is an obstacle to international efforts to bring peace to Yemen. The ministry also called on the United Nations and the Security Council to protect the international peace and security against any threat. The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights also warned the Saudi coalition about the repercussions of attacks on al-Hudaydah Port, the lifeline for millions of Yemenis. In a bid to disrupt humanitarian flows through the port city in western Yemen and to bring Yemenis to their knees, Riyadh launches horrible attacks on al-Hudaydah port, hence pushing innocent people to the brink of famine. Over the past three and a half years, a coalition of several Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia have launched assaults on the impoverished Yemen under the pretext of restoring power to the ousted Riyadh-friendly president Mansour Hadi. The incursion has claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people, displacing million others and razing the Arab nation to the ground. 9477**2044 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi aggressors defeated in western Yemen IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Nov 11, IRNA -- Despite deploying equipment and forces enough for occupying 10 countries, Saudi aggressors have been defeated in west coast of Yemen, Yemeni defense minister announced. According to Yemeni TV Channel 'Al-Masirah', Major General Mohammad Nasser Al-Atefi made the remarks Saturday night addressing a meeting with commanders of brigades in western coast. People of Tihamah proved that they are ready to sacrifice their lives in defending western coast, he said. Their solidarity and cooperation with the army and popular committee defeated aggressors, he added. Yemeni army and the popular forces cleaned Al-Jabalieh in western Yemen of Saudi aggressors on Saturday. During the operation some aggressors including some Sudanese military forces were killed, injured or arrested. Saudi Arabia and its regional allies attacked Yemen in March 2015 to bring back to power the deposed president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. The aggressors have committed horrible war crimes against Yemeni civilians during the past three years. 9376**1771 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel assassinates Hamas commanders in sting op. Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 11:13PM Israeli special forces infiltrate the Gaza Strip, assassinating a top Hamas commander, while subsequent Israeli airstrikes kill five others, including another commander with the Palestinian resistance movement. On Sunday, the group said in a statement that the forces had made their way into the coastal sliver using a civilian vehicle. The Israeli occupants assassinated Nour Baraka, a senior commander with Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, in a drive-by shooting near the city of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, it added. The group defined the exact place where the targeted killing took place as "the area of the Shahid Ismail Abu Shanab mosque, three kilometers (1.8 miles) east of Khan Yunis." Ensuing firefight A firefight erupted afterwards, with Israeli aircraft firing from above "to cover the retreat of this force, and in the process some of our people were killed." Local witnesses said the aircraft fired over 20 missiles during the strikes. "The incident continues and our forces continue to respond to this dangerous Zionist aggression," said the statement. Five more people were killed during the airstrikes, including Mohammad al-Qarra, another Hamas commander, Palestinian medical officials were quoted by AFP as saying. Various reports said an Israeli troop had been seized during the exchange, but the Israeli military denied any such incident had taken place. "No IDF (Israeli military) soldiers were abducted during the IDF's operational activity in the Gaza Strip," a spokesperson said, quoted by Israeli media network Arutz Sheva's website. This is not the first time Hamas officials come under Israeli attack. The regime has assassinated many figures with the Palestinian group. Last March, Tel Aviv assassinated Mazen Fuqaha, one of the group's senior figures, in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. The victim was shot with four bullets to his head. In 2010, Israel had itself embroiled in an international scandal when its operatives used false European and Australian passports to assassinate senior Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the United Arab Emirates. The killing and the circumstances surrounding it also raised suspicions of complicity by Emirati intelligence and other services in the assassination. Netanyahu cuts Paris trip short Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, cut short an underway trip to Paris, where he was attending World War I commemorations, flying back to Israel to address the situation. He had claimed at a press conference in the French capital earlier in the day that the situation in the enclave had "no diplomatic solution." Tel Aviv blockaded the already-impoverished sliver of land more than a decade ago after Hamas decisively won the Palestinian parliamentary elections. The embargo has rendered living conditions for Gaza's two-million-strong population insufferable. The United Nations has warned that the overall pressure could render Gaza uninhabitable by 2020. The regime regularly conducts air raids targeting Gaza, and has launched three wholesale wars against the territory, killing thousands during each. Netanyahu, however, said, "I am doing everything I can to avoid an unnecessary war." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Macron: Europe should not spend big budget on US-made weapons Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 06:28PM French President Emmanuel Macron says Europe should not spend big military budgets on US-manufactured weapons, following a defense row he had with American President Donald Trump. The French leader made the comments in an interview with CNN due to be aired on Sunday, as he hosted an international ceremony in Paris commemorating the centennial anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War l. "To be very direct with you, what I don't want to see is European countries increasing the budget in defense in order to buy American and other arms or materials coming from your industry," Macron said, stressing that "if we increase our budget, it's to build our autonomy." Last month, the French president criticized Belgium's decision to buy American F-35 fighter jets instead of European warplanes, describing the move as going "against European interests." Earlier this week, Macron said in a radio interview that the European Union needed to be less dependent on the United States, which he called as a source of "risk," following Trump's withdrawal from a Cold War-era nuclear treaty. His remarks came after Trump confirmed late last month that his administration planned to abandon the landmark Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia. One of dozens of world leaders attending the commemorations this weekend, Trump tweeted after landing in the French capital on Friday that Macron's call for a "real European army" was "very insulting." However, the French president said that he and his American counterpart had spoken about what the French presidency had portrayed as a misunderstanding in an attempt to defuse the row. "We had a regular discussion this morning and he confirmed in front of the press that he was OK," said Macron in the interview, which was aired on Sunday. The French leader also refrained from commenting on Trump's "insult" tweet. Instead, he confined himself by saying only that he always preferred having direct talks than "making my diplomacy through tweets." During face-to-face talks with Trump in Paris, Macron said that he was merely arguing that Europe needed to take greater ownership of its own security, and the American president described the pair as "very good friends." Trump insists that European members of NATO should first pay their fair share, arguing that Washington currently "subsidizes" the military alliance "greatly." France has already agreed to pay a larger share of the costs of maintaining NATO. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Taliban militants kill 25 civilians, govt. forces in Afghanistan's Ghazni Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 03:10PM Taliban militants have killed at least 25 civilians and government forces in Afghanistan's central east province of Ghazni, a week after the militant group seized control of an important security post outside the provincial capital in a deadly attack on Afghan soldiers. The attack claimed the lives of at least 15 civilians in Jaghori district on Sunday plus 10 commandos dispatched by Kabul to the flashpoint area, which is inhabited mainly by Hazaras, a mainly Shia minority. The deadly incident occurred as a days-long battle with threatening ethnic overtones is still ongoing with the central government sending special forces units to back up local militia forces fighting against Taliban, a movement dominated by Sunni ethnic Pashtuns. According to Police spokesman Ahmad Khan Sirat, at least six members of the security forces were also wounded in the attack. On Monday, Arif Noori, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said 13 soldiers were killed, and 13 more were wounded, in the attack on Ghazni city, which has a strategic significance as it sits on the main road connecting the capital Kabul to the country's south. In August, the city briefly fell to the Taliban in what was said to be one of the militant group's largest offensives in years. At least 150 Afghan soldiers and 95 civilians were killed during a five-day siege on Ghazni back then. The Sunday development took place as American special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad prepared for a new round of meetings aimed at bringing the militant group to the negotiating table in an attempt to try to find a political settlement to the decades-long war in the war-ravaged country. The administration of US President Donald Trump is now negotiating with the Taliban group, excluding the Kabul government. The US, along with a number of fellow-NATO members, invaded Afghanistan in 2001, toppling a Taliban regime in control of most of the country at the time, but it has failed to restore security in the country plagued by militancy and terrorism. Over 8,000 people lost their lives or were wounded in Afghanistan between January and September this year, with the country on track to be deadlier than Syria in 2018. Kabul blames the Taliban militant group for the bulk of the deaths. Last year, Washington added thousands of additional troops to its forces in Afghanistan. The White House claims the American troops are deployed in Afghanistan to train Afghan forces and conduct counterterrorism missions against militant groups. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump draws fire for not going to WWI cemetery due to rain Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:54AM US President Donald Trump has come under attack after he cancelled a visit to a World War I memorial cemetery in France on Saturday because of the rain. Trump, who flew to Paris to commemorate 100 years since the end of World War I, was due to visit the Aisne-Marne American cemetery in Belleau located on the site of a World War I battle. During that battle, in which Americans and French forces fought German forces in 1918, over 1,800 Americans troops were killed. However, Trump called off the visit with the White House citing "scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather" as the reason for the cancellation. Chief of Staff John Kelly and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford were instead sent to the ceremony which was attended by other world leaders. This triggered backlash from many who described the reasoning as a weak excuse to not attend the event. Former Secretary of State John Kerry said in a tweet that Trump "didn't bother to honor" the veterans. Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Winston Churchill, also called Trump "pathetic" for his decision. Ben Rhodes, a former aide to President Barack Obama, described Trump as "pathetic, disgraceful and embarrassing." In another provocative move, Trump caused anger after he used the word "celebrate" in his tweet about how he was marking the anniversary. Many people took to Twitter and criticized Trump for his choice of word, saying he should have used other words like "commemorate" or "honor." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi-led invaders face stiff resistance in push to seize Hudaydah Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 08:38AM Yemeni officials say a massive Saudi push against Hudaydah on the west coast of Yemen has been defeated, with a number of Sudanese mercenaries killed or captured. Based on reports, fighting reached residential streets on Sunday, with locals and Houthi fighters mounting fierce resistance to the invaders. Medics and military sources say more than 60 combatants have been killed on both sides over the past 24 hours. A source with the Saudi-led militants was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying that the toll included more than 40 Houthi fighters and about 20 loyalists to the former Yemeni regime. The invaders have been pushing to enter the strategic port city since 10 days ago, trying to advance on Hudaydah's docks which are the lifeline for vital humanitarian aid to the impoverished country. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have deployed thousands of additional troops after seeing their campaign launched in June to seize Hudaydah thwarted by Houthi fighters and their allies in the Yemeni army. On Saturday, reports suggested the invaders had seized the main hospital in the city. The invading forces also saw the Jabaliyah and Matineh areas in Hudaydah retaken by the city's protectors. According to AFP, Hudaydah fighters have put up fierce resistance to the Saudi push towards the city's vital docks, which are the point of entry for 80 percent of Yemen's commercial imports and nearly all UN-supervised humanitarian aid. The recapture of Jabaliyah cut supply lines to the invaders, drawing praise from Sana'a-based Yemeni Defense Minister Major General Mohamed Nasser al-Atefi. "The aggressors were defeated with all their power and equipment," he said in remarks aired on al-Masirah TV as he praised "the children of Tihamah," referring to the general area in Yemen's west coast. "The children of Tihamah proved to the Yemeni nation that they are ready to sacrifice their lives in defending the west coast. Their cooperation and solidarity with the army and the Popular Committees defeated the aggressors' advance," he said. The Popular Committees is referred to a coalition of Houthi fighters and their allies in the Yemeni army who have been resisting the Saudi invasion since 2015. Sudanese mercenaries Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam referred to the deaths of several Sudanese mercenaries in Hudaydah, saying they were the "victims of their government being on the payroll in a cruel and senseless war." "With all respect for the Sudanese nation, we hope the Sudanese regime will change its position regarding its participation in the aggression against Yemen. The Sudanese government will achieve nothing but defeat and destruction from this futile war," he added. Abdul-Salam warned on Friday that Yemen would turn into a "graveyard" for the invaders. On Saturday, fighting raged in Hudaydah's east as Saudi militants and mercenaries backed by airstrikes and helicopters sought to push deeper into the city. Militants said the battles were turning into street fighting. A Hudaydah resident, identified as Lubna, told AFP that "the noise of Apache helicopters, artillery and gunfire" was incessant. The protectors of the city, she said, were using artillery to pound the invaders. The intensified battle for Hudaydah comes despite Pentagon chief James Mattis calling last month for a ceasefire and negotiations between Yemen's warring parties within 30 days. Head of Yemen's Supreme Revolutionary Committee Mohammed Ali al-Houthi said in an op-ed published by The Washington Post on Friday that the escalating offensive in Hudaydah showed Mattis's ceasefire call was "nothing but empty talk." Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also said on Saturday that calls from the United States, Europe and the UN for a ceasefire in Yemen "were good to hear" but could also be a trick aimed at wasting time. "I say to our brothers there: Be patient, be steadfast You are closer to victory than at any previous time," he said in a televised speech in southern Beirut. The US and Saudi Arabia said they had agreed to end US refueling of Saudi aircraft bombing Yemen but several officials underlined that American training and military assistance will continue. Save the Children's field coordinator Mariam Aldogani, however, spoke of intense Saudi airstrikes in Hudaydah, with over 15 raids in the space of just 30 minutes. "This is the worst time for Hudaydah children," she said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Bahrain jails more activists ahead of elections this month Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 06:24AM Bahrain has given jail terms, ranging from three to 10 years, to six more anti-regime activists a week after sentencing opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman and two of his colleagues to life in prison. One of the convicts received a 10-year sentence, while two others were sentenced to five years each, and another to a three-year jail term, Bahrain's Lulu TV reported. The criminal court which issued the sentences on Saturday convicted them of "receiving financial aid from terrorist groups." Last Sunday, a Bahraini court sentenced three senior opposition members, including prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Ali Salman, to life imprisonment after overturning a previous acquittal. They were charged with spying for Qatar in what Amnesty International called a "travesty of justice." Salman is already serving a four-year prison term for inciting hatred and insulting the interior ministry, after his arrest in 2015. He was the secretary general of Bahrain's largest opposition party, the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society (Waad). Courts in Bahrain, where the US Navy's Fifth Fleet is based, dissolved Waad last year, accusing it of helping to foster violence and terrorism. Bahrain has barred members of dissolved opposition groups from running in parliamentary elections due to be held later this month. The Al Khalifah regime has maintained a heavy-handed crackdown on protests since the tiny Persian Gulf island was hit by an anti-regime uprising in 2011. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been helping Manama in the crackdown. So far scores of demonstrators have been killed and hundreds of others are in jails. They have used numerous tactics, ranging from serious abuse to stripping dissidents of their citizenship, including the country's most prominent Shia cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US, French president agree on defense after row over call for European army Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 02:54AM US President Donald Trump has reportedly reached consensus with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, on the need for more European military spending despite an earlier Trump tweet that had slammed Macron's recent call for a European army without reliance on the US as "very insulting." "We had a great discussion and we are aligned," France's Elysee Palace quoted Trump as saying on Saturday following a meeting there with his host Macron during which the two discussed trade, defense, Syria as well as the persisting controversy over last month's murder in Istanbul of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. "We want a strong Europe, it's very important to us, and whichever way we can do it the best and more efficient would be something we both want," Trump added after the meeting which was held a day before commemoration events in France to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. "We want to help Europe but it has to be fair. Right now the burden sharing has been largely on the United States," the US president further emphasized. This is while the French president also echoed such sentiments, insisting that he wanted Europe to bear a greater share of the defense costs within the US-led NATO military alliance, a point Macron has repeatedly made since taking office, together with his ambitions to establish Europe's own military capability. "That's why I do believe my proposals for European defense are totally consistent with that," Macron further underlined despite his recent remarks in which he appeared to regard the US as a threat. Discussing the growing dangers from cyber-hacking, alleged meddling in electoral processes as well as Washington's decision to withdraw from a key arms-control treaty with Russia, Macron emphasized during a radio interview last week that Europe needed to protect itself against China, Russia "and even the United States." Pointing to a need for a European army, he added: "Faced by Russia, which is on our borders and which has shown that it can be threatening... we need to have a Europe that can better defend itself by itself, without depending solely on the United States." Trump then slammed Macron's remarks in a tweet message just prior to landing in Paris, stating: "Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the US subsidizes greatly." However, the Elysee described the harsh exchange of remarks by Macron and Trump as a "misunderstanding" caused by what it referred to as "exaggerated" US press reports. It further underlined that the confusion was cleared up during more than an hour of "substantial" and "very constructive" talks. According to local press reports, while the talks between the two leaders covered trade and foreign policy issues, it was not clear if they also discussed European worries regarding Trump's plans to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Agreement (INF), signed with Russia in 1986. Macron insisted during his Europe 1 radio interview last week that the "main victim" of the US withdrawal from the INF treaty was Europe and its security. Moreover, the French president -- who also tried but failed to talk Trump out of withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal earlier this year -- has also raised concerns about the impact of the US-led sanctions on European companies doing business with Iran. Meanwhile, the US president may also speak briefly with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Sunday, when the two are among the 70 world leaders set to gather at the Arc de Triomphe monument in Paris. Trump and Putin are further expected to hold formal talks later this month when both attend a G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The Gas Man Cometh: In Turkmenistan, Free Energy No More By Toymyrat Bugayev, Farangis Najibullah November 11, 2018 As Turkmenistan prepares to put an end to the era of free energy, authorities in the country's capital are banging on doors to make sure citizens are prepared to pay. "They came multiple times, two people at a time. They knocked on the same doors several times over the course of two days and asked, 'Have you installed a meter?'" one Ashgabat resident told RFE/RL's Turkmen Service. With only weeks before the energy-rich but economically challenged country halts generous subsidies for natural gas, water, and electricity, it is determined to see households install devices for measuring usage. But the effort to get things calibrated by New Year, when the cuts are to go into effect, is alarming and confusing residents who are about to experience shock therapy after enjoying the benefits for 25 years. "It was like a psychological attack," said the Ashgabat resident, who declined to give his name. The cut-off, announced by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov on September 25 amid an ongoing economic crisis, is rattling more than citizens' psyches. Household budgets, too, are going to feel the hit as people are required to pay both for utilities and necessary equipment. Gas meters, for example, will cost nearly $75, including "installation service and additional materials," according to an official document from the capital city's gas department. And officials have warned that that price would go up considerably for those who wait until next year, residents told RFE/RL. Not Cheap In a country where most public-sector workers are estimated to make between $200 and $350 a month, such expenditures are unaffordable for many. People are also complaining that the process is chaotic and unclear. RFE/RL's Turkmen Service reported that some Ashgabat residents said they had to wait days for workers to arrive to install new gas meters. Others say different installers are charging different prices. "I asked them about the price and they told me it's around $60," one resident, who declined to give his name, told RFE/RL. "Several hours later, I bumped into them again in my neighborhood and asked again. This time they said the price is $74." In some cases, according to residents, technicians came to their homes offering installation services, and it was later discovered that the installer did not actually work for the gas department. RFE/RL's Turkmen Service was unable to get comments from the Ashgabat gas department. Under the subsidies introduced in 1993, every person registered in a household is currently entitled to 35 kilowatt hours of electricity and 50 cubic meters of natural gas each month. The subsidies also include 250 liters of water per day per person. Turkmenistan initially announced plans to scrap free utilities in the summer of 2017, but no date was set until Berdymukhammedov's September announcement. Turkmenistan has dealt with a financial crisis in recent years that has led to severe cash shortages and difficulties in paying state workers' wages in time, while ordinary citizens have complained about rapidly rising prices for bread and other staples. Written by Farangis Najibullah and Toymyrat Bugayev. Based on reporting in Ashgabat by RFE/RL's Turkmen Service. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/turkmen-energy-consumers -get-shock-treatment/29594173.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemeni FM, Russian ambassador discuss developments of Yemen political process Saudi Press Agency Sunday 1440/3/3 - 2018/11/11 Aden, Rabi'I 03, 1440, November 11, 2018, SPA -- Yemen's Foreign Minister Khalid Alyemany discussed with the Russian ambassador to Yemen Vladimir Didushkin the developments of the political process in Yemen. Alyemany stressed the government's commitment to support the UN peace mediator's efforts and to react positively with his call for holding peace consultations before the end of this year. He stressed that the international community should pressure the coup militia to respond to the calls for peace and show their seriousness about peace in the coming UN-sponsored consultations. On his part, the Russian ambassador confirmed his country's steadfast support for the government and for the efforts of the UN envoy to resume the political process. --SPA 22:08 LOCAL TIME 19:08 GMT 0028 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Norway, Finland Report GPS Signal Loss, Media Claim Russians May Have Done it Sputnik News 12:40 11.11.2018(updated 12:41 11.11.2018) The reports came during the wrap-up phase of NATO's largest collective defence exercise since the Cold War, called Trident Juncture, which involved 50,000 troops, 10,000 military vehicles, 140 combat aircraft and 70 ships. Pilots in Norway and Finland taking part in NATO's Trident Juncture wargames have complained of disruptions to GPS signals in their countries' northern regions earlier this month, Business Insider reported. Although the reason behind the disturbances to the GPS signals, overlapping with the finals days of the drills, remains unclear, the media outlet alleged that Russia might be responsible for it, citing its concern over the military exercise. Business Insider quoted a press officer for Widere, a Norway-based airline, who told The Barents Observer in early November that pilots had been experiencing GPS signal loss when flying into airports in the northern Norwegian region of Finnmark, near the Russian border. At the same time, the press officer told the Observer that the airline did not want to speculate on the reasons why the signals disappeared, and did not mention Russia at all. The Observer also cited Per Eirik Heimdal, technical director of the Norwegian Communication Authority, as saying that the state agency was in dialogue with aviation authorities and had purportedly measured jamming in Norway's border area to Russia in the past. Director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Norway Wenche Olsen, in turn, told the Barents Observer that her agency was aware of the disruptions: "It is difficult to say what the reasons could be, but there are reasons to believe it could be related to military exercise activities outside Norway's borders." Aviation authorities issued notices warning about potential loss of GPS signals, with Finnish air navigation officials giving a similar notice to airmen on possible jamming, but refused to identify the alleged source of interference: "For safety reasons, we issued it for an expansive enough area so that pilots could be prepared not to rely solely on a GPS," the operational director said. The Barents Observer also claimed that Russia had "invested heavily in electronic warfare equipment," and was allegedly training its forces on how to jam GPS-, radio-, and mobile phone signals. GPS disturbances purportedly related to military activity has been reported in Norway before. In October 2017, Norwegian intelligence services claimed that electronic disruptions, including GPS jamming in the northern part of the country, came from Russia, which was conducting its Zapad-2017 military exercise in September. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address When nations work together, hope prevails and collective solutions can be found - UN chief tells Peace Forum, marking World War centenary in Paris 11 November 2018 - From conflict and economic downturn to disease and climate change, global problems require "more than ever" a strengthening of international cooperation, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders at the Paris Peace Forum on Sunday, commemorating 100 years since the end of the First World War. "Over the past 100 years, the desire to settle conflicts peacefully on the basis of common rules has been converted into a universal system of institutions in the political, economic, social and environmental spheres," said the UN chief. "The horror of those great global conflicts cannot be forgotten But horror must never prevail over hope," he stated in his opening remarks for the Forum. "It was that same hope that gave rise to the development of multilateralism in the twentieth century," referring to the creation of the League of Nations in 1919, and the United Nations following the Second World War in 1945. This Paris Peace Forum, the first of its kind, is an initiative of the French Government led by President Emmanuel Macron. Held from 11 November to 13 November in the French capital, and labelled "a global forum for governance projects," it gathers dozens of world leaders and representatives of international organisations, for a series of roundtables to discuss and reaffirm common commitment to tackle the great challenges of the world today. 'Grounds for fear' Referencing an analysis of the first global conflict's causes by historian Christopher Clark, who stated in his book The Sleepwalkers that war broke out because world leaders of the time were "blind" and "locked into distorted perceptions of their enemies," the UN Secretary-General noted "many parallels" between the world in the first half of the 20th century and today. He said this is "giving us grounds to fear that an unpredictable chain of events could ensue". For example, the 2008 financial crisis, similar to the crisis of 1929 although contained and reversed thanks to "an unprecedented arsenal of budgetary and monetary instruments" - has led to a "destabilization of the middle classes," and "people's indignation at the treason of the elites". Another example of similarity cited by the UN chief was the rise of totalitarianism in the 1930s. "We are not in the same situation," he acknowledged, "but what we are seeing today is the polarization of political life and of society itself, which is leading to a dangerous erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms, democratic principles and the rule of law". "A weakening of the democratic spirit of compromise and an indifference to collective rules are twin poisons for multilateralism," he added, citing a divided UN Security Council over the Syrian conflict, increasing "trade confrontrations," and the "crisis of confidence" faced by the European Union as prime examples. 'Undeniable results' Explaining that international cooperation or "multilateralism" has become a "necessity", he stated that nations working together has "yielded undeniable results," including: a reduction in child mortality and extreme poverty over the last few decades; major battles won against public health threats such as smallpox, polio, and AIDS; and several successful conflict prevention and peacebuilding efforts. "More than a million men and women from 125 countries have served in peacekeeping missions over the last 70 years to prevent the spread of crises, protect civilians and support political processes," Mr. Guterres noted, adding that such deployments are "cost-effective". Citing figures from the US Government Accountability Office, he said that a national peacekeeping operation in the Central African Republic, for example, would have cost the United States ten times more than the UN's mission, MINUSCA. "The multilateral framework has also shown itself to be indispensable in resolving nuclear proliferation crises," the UN chief added, referring to the Security Council's unity in dealing with the Iranian and North Korean situations, which enabled negotiated solutions both in 2015 and in 2018. Great challenges ahead One key issue for which multilateral efforts are particularly crucial, the Secretary-General stressed, is climate change. As the world is gearing up for the Climate Change Conference in Poland (COP 24) this December, the UN Secretary-General warned of the urgency of taking action. "Climate change is moving faster than we are," he regretted. "Arctic sea ice is shrinking, desertification is spreading and coral bleaching is widespread," he said, referring to the latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which "exceed even the most pessimistic forecasts". Citing demography and migration as the second great challenge of our time, Mr. Guterres called world leaders to "come to [their] senses." "In a context of climate change, inequalities and conflict, migration will remain an enduring phenomenon," he stated. "Without international cooperation, and if we retreat behind our national borders, we will sacrifice our collective values, and we will perpetuate the tragedy of migrants being exploited by the worst traffickers". Finally, as "the digital transformation is turning our economies and societies upside down," the UN chief identified technology as the third big world challenge ahead. He cited artificial intelligence redefining the job market and the nature of work itself, the spread of cybercrime, and the gap between innovation and our legal frameworks. Multipolarity is not the solution "Our world at present seems chaotic, but it is moving towards multidimensional multipolarity," explained Mr. Guterres, who stressed that "it would be wrong to regard this multipolarity, in and of itself, as the solution". "Without the multilateral system and respect for international rules, we risk a return solely to power relations, reward-sanction mechanisms and a cycle of frozen conflicts," he said. "That is why I will not sit back and watch an assault on multilateralism just when it is most needed". The Secretary-General acknowledged that a multilateral commitment is difficult for political leaders to explain to their constituents, because "people often see what it dictates, not what it maintains". To tackle this, he called "for States to renew their citizens' compacts," and said "we need an inclusive multilateralism that is closely related to civil society and the business community," looking to solve inequalities through the 2030 development agenda known as the Sustainable Development Goals. "My mission is simple: to be more effective in order to better serve the people for whom we are a necessity and a hope," the UN Secretary-General explained. Towards an 'exemplary' UN system For the UN to be effective, Mr. Guterres emphasized that geographical diversity and gender equality are key. Noting that the organization achieved gender parity in leadership positions one year after he took office, the UN chief pledged to continue to "tirelessly pursue steps towards modernization," and common solutions in the three key challenges he cited. The Secretary-General ended his statement by calling on Member States to engage in the advancement of key upcoming processes, including: the imminent COP 24 and next year's Climate Change Summit; the December Marrakech meeting to realize the Global Compact for Refugees and Migrants agreed upon earlier this year; and the UNESCO Internet Governance Forum starting on Monday. "The multilateralism that is now part of our daily life is at risk of disintegrating just when it is most needed," he concluded. "Its legacy has been invaluable: an impulse by which devastation gave way to membership of a shared humanity". Among the participants of the Forum was the President of the UN General Assembly, Maria Fernanda Espinosa, who in one of the roundtables presented her vision for the UN's most democratic body, including the D.A.R.E. programme, which she presented when she took office in September. Other prominent participants on the first day of the Peace Forum included Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, India's Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki. Although the United States of America played a central role in World War I, President Donald Trump declined the invitation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Somalia: UN Security Council condemns terrorist attack in which dozens were killed or injured 11 November 2018 - The members of the United Nations Security Council, on Saturday, condemned "in the strongest possible terms" Friday's car bomb attack in Somalia, in which dozens of innocent women, children and men were killed or injured, and reiterated that any acts of terrorism are "criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed". The attack took place in the capital, Mogadishu, near the Sahafi Hotel on Friday afternoon, where three explosions were followed by gunfire, all believed to be orchestrated by the jihadist group, Al-Shabab. So far, authorities have reported that at least 20 people have been killed, and 17 wounded. In its years-long fight against the UN and internationally-backed Somali Government, the group has been targeting places where officials and security forces are likely to frequent, such as the Sahafi Hotel. The members of the Security Council commended the swift response of Somalia's security and first responders and reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes "one of the most serious threats to international peace and security". Underlying the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice, they urged all States, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard, in accordance with obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions. The members of the UN body reaffirmed the need for all States to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law including international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law threats to global peace and security caused by terrorist attacks. Paying tribute to all Somali and international actors working to bring peace and stability in Somalia, the members of the Council reiterated their determination to support peace, stability and development in Somalia, stressing that neither this nor any other terrorist attack would weaken that determination. They expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims, as well as to the people and Government of Somalia and wished a speedy recovery to those injured. On Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had also condemned the attack and reaffirmed the United Nations' solidarity with the people of Somalia. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Fighting Breaks Out in Streets of Key Yemen Port By VOA News November 11, 2018 Fighting has broken out in the streets of Yemen's key port Hodeidah between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Saudi-led coalition forces. A pro-Yemeni military official said Sunday the forces aim to "purge" the city of the rebels, who control the port, where nearly all food, medicine, and other supplies for civilians are delivered. Humanitarian workers fear a disruption of those deliveries could mean mass starvation in a country already on the brink of famine. The Saudis accuse the Houthis of using the port to take deliveries of Iran-supplied weapons - a charge Tehran denies. Reports say at least seven civilians have been killed in the street fighting. "We hear loud shelling and they are using all kinds of weapons. It is terrifying," one Hodeidah resident said Sunday. "Apache helicopters are bombing Houthi positions all day long." Some Yemenis reported seeing snipers on rooftops throughout the city. Others fear for the safety of patients in a Hodeidah hospital which is surrounded by rebel fighters. A number of top officials with the former Obama administration are calling on the Trump White House to cut off all support for the Saudi coalition in Yemen. Both Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have called for a cease-fire by the end of the month. U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement Sunday that Pompeo spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about Yemen. "The secretary reiterated the United States' calls for a cessation of hostilities and for all parties to come to the table to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict under the U.N. special envoy," the statement said. The Trump administration has also said it will no longer take part in refueling operations for Saudi-led coalition aircraft involved in the fighting. The United Nations is hoping for peace talks in Yemen by the end of the year. The Houthis seized the capital of Sana'a in 2014, forcing the Yemeni government into temporary exile in Saudi Arabia. It has since relocated to Aden. Saudi-led airstrikes on the rebels have obliterated entire civilian neighborhoods, including hospitals, and have compounded the misery in Yemen, which is also dealing with starvation and a cholera outbreak. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Netanyahu Cuts Short Paris Trip Amid Gaza Violence By VOA News November 11, 2018 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is cutting short his visit to Paris to return home after an outbreak of violence in Gaza. It is unclear what set off the fighting which left six Palestinians and an Israeli soldier dead. Hamas claims Israel launched an undercover operation into Gaza to hunt down a Hamas commander. It says Israel fired airstrikes as cover to let the Israelis get away. Israel did not provide any details on what it calls "special forces operational activity." Several rockets were also fired into Israel from Gaza. The latest fighting comes as Netanyahu defended his decision to allow Qatar to transfer $15 million in aid to Gaza as part of his effort to bring calm to the Hamas-controlled region. "I'm doing what I can, in coordination with the security establishment, to return quiet to the southern communities, but also to prevent a humanitarian crisis," Netanyahu said. "I think we're acting in a responsible and wise way." In exchange, Hamas agreed to scale back the protests along the border with Israel. Israel has accused Hamas of using the noisy protests as a cover for militants to sneak into Israel. Netanyahu's chief political rival, far-right education minister Naftali Bennett, said allowing the payments from Qatar is like giving criminals "protection money." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Democrats Vow to Protect Mueller's Russia Investigation By Ken Bredemeier November 11, 2018 Key U.S. Democratic lawmakers vowed Sunday they would try to protect the investigation of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign's links to Russia from interference by his new acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, who often attacked the probe before Trump named him to oversee it. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said he would attempt to attach legislation to a must-pass government spending bill next month to keep the government from a partial shutdown to require that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation be permitted to be completed unimpeded. "There's no reason that legislation shouldn't pass," Schumer told news network CNN. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has opposed stand-alone legislation to protect Mueller, saying he has no reason to believe Trump will fire Mueller, even though the U.S. leader has often assailed the investigation as a "witch hunt," a view echoed by Whitaker. Schumer added, "I believe there are enough Republicans who will support us" in adding the Mueller protection measure to the budget legislation. Schumer said the Mueller legislation was needed because "there is every reason to believe there will be interference" by Whitaker, whom he called an "extreme partisan." Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler, set to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when Democrats assume control of the House of Representatives in January, said the panel's first mission then would be to call Whitaker to testify at a hearing, via a subpoena if necessary, about his "expressed hostility to the investigation." Nadler called Whitaker "a complete political lackey" and said Trump appointed a "totally unqualified hatchet man to destroy the investigation." But Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway dismissed concerns about Whitaker's past comments about the Mueller probe, saying "there's no evidence to me" that he "knows anything about the ongoing Mueller investigation." Her husband, lawyer George Conway, wrote in a newspaper column last week that Whitaker had been illegally named, claiming that Whitaker needed Senate confirmation as does the head of any Cabinet agency. But Kellyanne Conway brushed off her husband's contention, saying that "spouses disagree everyday." Trump accused George Conway of trying to get "publicity for himself." The latest Democratic concerns about protecting Mueller arose last week when Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, after criticizing him for more than a year for recusing himself from oversight of the Mueller probe. Trump then named Whitaker, Sessions's chief of staff, to replace him, at least for the moment, as the country's top law enforcement official. Before joining the Justice Department last year, Whitaker said in commentary on CNN he could envision a scenario in which Trump might fire Sessions and replace him with a temporary attorney general, which is now what has happened. Whitaker, in the television remarks, suggested the replacement could then cut funding for Mueller's investigation and his "investigation grinds almost to a halt." Whitaker suggested Mueller's probe amounted to a "fishing expedition." But he has given no indication he plans to recuse himself from oversight of Mueller, saying he was "committed to leading a fair [Justice] Department with the highest ethical standards, that upholds the rule of law, and seeks justice for all Americans." Sessions had handed Mueller oversight to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, recusing himself because of his support for Trump in the 2016 election and contacts he had with Russia's then ambassador to Washington during the run-up to the voting two years ago. Mueller has secured guilty pleas or convictions of several Trump campaign officials, but there is no deadline set for his conclusion of the investigation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Deadly Ebola Outbreak Erupts in DRC By VOA News November 11, 2018 An outbreak of Ebola in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more than 200 people. Almost 300 Ebola cases have been confirmed since the outbreak began in August, authorities say. The health ministry said half of the cases were in Beni, a city of 800,000 people, in the North Kivu province. The outbreak is in a conflict zone where dozens of armed groups operate. Aid agencies have been forced to suspend or slow down their work on several occasions since the outbreak. Health Minister Oly Ilunga said his response teams "have faced threats, physical assaults, repeated destruction of their equipment and kidnapping." "Two of our colleagues in the Rapid Response Medical Unit have even lost their lives in an attack," Ilunga said. Ebola was detected in the DRC in 1976. The current outbreak is the tenth since it was first discovered. The World Health Organization has warned the virus could spread to nearby countries, including Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Medical workers have lots of experience dealing with Ebola outbreaks in the DRC. Fortunately, they have new tools to fight the deadly virus. A new vaccine has shown it can protect people who've come into contact with Ebola victims, and more people have learned techniques to keep the virus from spreading. However, old problems persist with every outbreak. Some people still refuse to believe Ebola exists and have hidden infected family members. Traditional burial practices also put people at risk. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Radical Islam Blamed for Terror Strike in Australia By Phil Mercer November 11, 2018 Australian investigators say a Somali-born man who stabbed bystanders in the center of Melbourne on Friday had been "inspired" and "radicalized" by the militant group calling itself Islamic State. Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was shot by police and died later in a hospital. The attack began when Shire Ali, 31, crashed his car, which was packed with gas bottles, in the heart of Australia's second biggest city. He then stabbed three people. One, a 74-year-old restaurant owner, died at the scene while two others are being treated in a hospital. Neither is in serious condition. Cellphone video shows the knife-wielding attacker lunging at two policemen in a busy Melbourne street. He was eventually shot by one of the officers and died later in a hospital. Known for radical views Authorities say Shire Ali's Australian passport had previously been canceled because of fears he planned to travel to Syria in 2015. Despite being known to hold radical views, he was not being actively monitored by Australian security agencies and had been assessed as not posing a threat to the community. It is thought the attacker moved to Australia from Somalia in the 1990s, and that members of his family had been known to police on terrorism-related matters. "In relation to that person, he is known to police mainly in respect to relatives that he has that are certainly persons of interest to us," said Graham Ashton, Victoria state's chief police commissioner. "For operational reasons we now have the counterterrorism command and the homicide squad dealing with this matter and there are ongoing investigations being conducted by the counterterrorism command." 'Act of evil' Victoria Premier Daniel Andrew says the community will not buckle to extremism. "We will not as a city and a state be defined by this act of evil," he said. "We simply refuse to do that. We will go about our business this weekend and every weekend because we are bigger and stronger than this." Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said extreme Islam is one of the greatest threats to his country. Officials say Australia's terror threat level would remain at "probable." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 4 Iranian banks removed from US sanctions list ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Sun / 11 November 2018 / 15:28 Tehran (ISNA) Senior manager of Middle East Bank for Compliance and Anti-Money Laundering department, Farzaneh Rajaei-Salmasi explained details of removing four Iranian banks and financial institutions from US secondary sanctions list. In an interview with ISNA news agency, Farzaneh Rajaei-Salmasi confirmed that four Iranian banks and financial institutions were removed from US secondary sanctions list, saying, "On November 5, US Treasury Department re-imposed secondary sanctions on a number of Iranian banks". Mentioning to the removing four Iranian banks and financial institutions from US secondary sanctions list, she added, "The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control released a sanctions update on Nov. 8, lifting secondary sanctions on three Iranian banks." The US removed "Middle East", "Hekmat Iranian", "Qarz Al-Hasaneh Mehr Iran" banks and "Credit Institute for Development" from the secondary sanctions list. In other words, US lifted the "subject to secondary sanctions" tag from these Iranian banks and financial institutions. Currently there are 11 to 12 Iranian banks which are not on the US secondary sanctions list and enable to connect to SWIFT, the primary system for international transactions. End Item NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address - T. S. Eliot Thoughts After Lambeth "The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide." FM Zarif says Iran will not just survive but advance ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Sun / 11 November 2018 / 10:53 Tehran (ISNA) Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo's open threat to starve the Iranian nation as a crime against humanity. "WeWontForget @SecPompeo openly threatening to starve Iraniansa crime against humanityin a desperate attempt to impose US whims on Iran. Like his predecessors, he'll also learn thatin spite of US effortsIran will not just survive but advance w/out sacrificing its sovereignty," Mr. Zarif wrote on his Twitter account. End Item NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iranian nation foils US plots again with their steadfastness, resistance ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Sun / 11 November 2018 / 10:15 Tehran (ISNA) - Speaking after the meeting of the heads of the three branches, Iranian President said, "The people of Iran foiled the plots of the United States once again with their steadfastness and resistance". President Hassan Rouhani said, "The people of Iran acted exactly the opposite way and made it clear with their steadfastness that it is the government of the United States that is thinking about putting pressure on the Iranian nation". "With their illegitimate sanctions and targeting the banking system and Iran's oil export, as well as other goods of export related to the income and resources of the country and import of basic goods, Americans want to negatively affect the life and living of people". He continued, "Therefore, saying that the US is not after putting pressure on the Iranian people is completely incorrect and they have revealed this in action". The President added, "The new round of sanctions that launched on November 5 has had no effect on the economy of our country because whatever bullets the Americans had, had been used before against the Iranian nation and they had nothing new to offer". "It was also revealed that the Americans cannot reduce Iran's oil export to zero. The officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran were saying from the first day that Americans are not able to reduce Iran's oil export to zero, but they kept repeating that they would do this and they recently admitted that the cannot reduce Iran's oil export to zero," added Rouhani. The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran also went on to say, "Their argument was that if they could reduce Iran's oil export to zero, the price of oil will rise to 150$ per barrel and this is what we kept saying from the first day that either the entire region exports oil or if Iran's oil export is stopped, others will face problems too". He continued, "Americans were under the pressure of the public opinions of the world which forced them to retreat and say that food, medicine and medical equipment are exceptions, which is also incorrect because when they impose sanctions on the banking system, they are actually affecting everything". Addressing the Iranian nation, Dr. Rouhani said, "In providing basic goods, we have no problem and our warehouses are ready more than any other time to provide people's essential needs for many months". "Thank God, our current conditions are good and export has risen in the first 7 months of the current year compared to the same period last year, and this means that production has increased and people's business is good," he continued. The President also said, "In the coming months, Americans will understand well that the path they have chosen is wrong. This does not tire the Iranian nation, but makes them ready for more production and having closer relations with neighbours". "In today's meeting with the head of the other two branches, the Speaker of the Parliament and the Head of the Judiciary, we discussed the latest status of the economy and drawing the roadmap for the coming months as the Supreme Leader has instructed". President Rouhani also said, "Today, we discussed this roadmap and closer relations with our neighbouring countries, as well as our economic relations". End Item NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Good relations with Iran in Iraq's best interests: President Salih Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 06:48PM Iraq's newly elected president says it is in his country's best interests to have "good and stable relations" with Iran, urging the United States to consider Baghdad's political and economic position in talks about imposed sanctions on Iran. "Iran is a neighboring country and our interest lies in having good and stable relations with Iran," Barham Salih said while speaking to reporters during a visit to Kuwait on Sunday. The administration of US President Donald Trump announced on November 5 the re-imposition of the "toughest" sanctions ever against Iran's banking and energy sectors with the aim of cutting off its oil sales and crucial exports. The bans had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Washington has been pushing governments to cut imports of Iranian oil to zero. However, it has finally agreed to grant waivers to eight biggest importers of Iran's oil -- China, India, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Greece, Taiwan and Turkey -- in fear of a price spike. In a video published on its official Facebook page on Thursday, the US Embassy in Iraq said Baghdad could continue to import natural gas and other energy supplies from Iran for a period of 45 days, provided that it did not pay Iran in US dollars. "The United States has given Iraq a temporary relief from the sanctions for 45 days to continue purchasing natural gas and electricity from Iran," it added. Elsewhere in his interview with reporters, Salih said, "We do not want Iraq to be burdened with the US sanctions on Iran," urging Washington to take into account Baghdad's position as the two sides negotiated Iraq's relief from US sanctions on Iran. The Iraqi president also emphasized that his country wanted to maintain "balanced" relations with all its neighbors and the international community. The special representative for Iran at the US State Department Brain Hook said on Wednesday that Iraq will continue importing electricity and natural gas from Iran under an exemption from Washington's sanctions. "We granted Iraq a waiver to allow it to continue to pay for its electricity imports from Iran. We are confident that this will help Iraq limit electricity shortages in the south," Brian Hook told reporters, adding, "Iraq is a friend and a partner, and we are committed to its stability and prosperity." Iraq has extensive trade ties with Iran and depends on Iranian natural gas imports for electricity generation. In September, the southern Iraqi city of Basra was hit by violent protests, which spread to other cities, partly because of a halt to Iranian electricity exports. Iran is currently Iraq's top trade partner, with an annual turnover standing at about $12 billion, according to Iraqi officials. Foodstuff, livestock, construction materials and plastic products constitute the bulk of Iran's exports to Iraq where Iranian vehicles and food items are a ubiquitous sight. Iran and Iraq have also been exchanging oil through a swap deal under which crude from the Kirkuk field in northern Iraq is shipped by truck to Iran, which uses it in its refineries and delivers the same amount of oil to Iraq's southern ports. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sanctions will fail to hinder Iran's progress: AEOI chief Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 03:17PM Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi says sanctions will fail to stop the country's progress in different fields. "In spite of sanctions, Iran's achievements in various fields, particularly in the defense and missile industry sectors as well as the nuclear industry have astonished the world," Salehi told IRNA on Sunday. He added that the United States has been pursuing the policy of imposing sanctions on the Iranian nation since the victory of the Islamic Revolution some 40 years ago, emphasizing that sanctions were nothing new for Iran. Iran's nuclear chief noted that the country has managed to achieve great success despite all kinds of pressures, restrictions, eight years of Iraqi-imposed war and crippling sanctions. The AEOI chief emphasized that the Iranian nation relied on its own capabilities despite all the sanctions, saying Iran's long-range missiles and nuclear gains have become famous in the world. The administration of US President Donald Trump announced on November 5 the re-imposition of the "toughest" sanctions ever against Iran's banking and energy sectors with the aim of cutting off its oil sales and crucial exports. The bans had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The first round of the anti-Iran bans -- which had been lifted under the accord -- was re-imposed in August. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Saturday dismissed his American counterpart's starvation threat, stressing that the Islamic Republic will survive and even advance despite Washington's sanctions. In a post on his official Twitter account, Zarif said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's open threat to starve the Iranian nation was "a crime against humanity" and "a desperate attempt to impose US whims on Iran." Zarif's tweeted remarks came after Pompeo said in an interview with BBC Persian that Iranian officials must listen to Washington "if they want their people to eat." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran sells 700,000 barrels in second oil auction through Energy Bourse Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 01:13PM Iran on Sunday went ahead with a second public sale of its light crude oil to international clients through its Energy Bourse in a policy meant to dodge US sanctions and sell the strategic fuel to direct buyers. The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) had put 700,000 barrels of light oil up for grabs at a proposed price of $65.22 per barrel - $5 below the first sale that was held last week. The auction started at 14:30 Tehran's local time (11:00 GMT), but finished in less than an hour according to a report by the Energy Bourse published at 15:17 local time. The oil that had been put on sale was sold out in three cargos: two at 245,000 barrels and one at 210,000 barrels. No names and details of buyers were provided as officials had earlier said the identities of bidders were kept confidential. The price at which the oil was sold was specified at $64.97 per barrel. During the first round which was held on October 28, a total of three buyers purchased a collective of eight cargoes totaling 700,000 barrels of Iranian oil. According to NIOC's arrangements, buyers would have to pay 20 percent of the total value of their purchases in Iran's national currency the Rial. The remaining payments would need to be made in foreign currencies after loading. Buyers would have to pay 10 percent of the value of their purchases in Rials two hours before the start of trading. They can either buy 35,000 barrels of oil or a multiplication of this up to a ceiling of one million barrels. The mechanism is seen as Iran's answer to the US sanctions that ban the country's oil exports, among other restrictions. The administration of US President Donald Trump launched the second wave of sanctions against Iran from November 5 in which a universal ban on the country's oil exports is a primary objective. US officials have already said the sanctions would be meant to bring down Iran's oil exports to zero. However, Iranian officials have repeatedly rejected the feasibility of this, stressing that international consumers cannot afford to lose Iranian supplies. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi Hashd Sha'abi forces foil Daesh infiltration attempt into Syria Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 06:41PM Pro-government Iraqi fighters from Popular Mobilization Units have successfully managed to thwart an attempt by members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group to sneak through the desert areas of the country's western province of Anbar into Dayr al-Zawr province in neighboring Syria. The media bureau of the voluntary forces, better known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha'abi, announced in a statement on Sunday that their fellow fighters had engaged a group of Daesh Takfiris as they were trying to infiltrate into Syria, exchanging heavy gunfire with the terrorists. The statement added that scores of the militants were killed and injured in the process. Earlier in the day, a senior advisor to Hashd al-Sha'abi forces survived an assassination attempt in the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad. An informed source, requesting not to be named, told Arabic-language al-Sumaria television network that Sami al-Masoudi came under attack near the double-decker Hassanain Bridge, but escaped the incident unscathed. The source did not provide any further details about the incident. On November 5, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi stressed that efforts were underway to find financial sources to support Hashd al-Sha'abi forces. "Maintaining Hashd al-Sha'abi is one of our most important duties, and I strongly support its presence. There are those who are trying to say that Hashd al-Sha'abi is temporary, but I emphasize that such a force is a necessity," Abdul-Mahdi said. "Even though it is not long since the government has been formed, I will do my utmost to grant Hashd al-Sha'abi full rights," the Iraqi prime minister pointed out. Earlier this month, the Iraqi government sharply criticized the position of the US embassy in Baghdad vis-a-vis Hashd al-Sha'abi forces, and reprimanded its call for the dissolution of the voluntary forces. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry called on the diplomatic mission to delete part of a statement posted on its official Twitter page, which described the Hashd al-Sha'abi as a sectarian militia force. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi MPs plan motion to seek expulsion of US troops Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 11:13AM A senior Iraqi politician says the Iraqi parliament will discuss the withdrawal of US forces from the country amid rising unease at Washington's meddling in Baghdad's internal affairs. MP Ahmad al-Assadi, the leader of the Iraqi Construction Alliance, said the lawmakers will step up their demand that the Iraqi government force US troops to leave the country, Arabic-language Arabi21 online newspaper reported. Calls for the withdrawal of US troops began during the last legislature, but lawmakers are now seeking a "clear timetable" for a pullout, he said. The US, enlisting some of its Western allies, began deploying troops to the Arab country in 2014 under the pretext of fighting Daesh terrorists who were defeated in Iraq last year. Al-Assadi said, "After the big victory against these gangs [Daesh], the Iraqi government has the right to review the need for American forces on Iraqi soil." He said the push for the withdrawal of US forces will double once the new parliament is sworn in, where lawmakers will allow the presence of foreign military advisers and trainers based on the requirements specified by state authorities. The US has maintained a military presence in Iraq since 2003 when Washington invaded the country under the pretext of destroying weapons of mass destruction which were never found. The invasion plunged Iraq into chaos and led to the rise of terrorist groups. More than one million Iraqis have been killed because of the US invasion and the subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored. In August, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets in Baghdad to condemn US meddling in the Arab country's domestic affairs amid debates over the make-up of a new government. Earlier this month, Iraq's Foreign Ministry hit out at the US for dictating how the country should deal with neighboring Iran. Iraq's former prime minister and leader of the al-Wataniya faction in parliament Ayad Allawi warned earlier this month that the new US sanctions on Iran would deeply impact the Iraqi economy. Allawi said like the Iraqi government and other political leaders, he was opposed to unilateral US sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Iraq's al-Maluma news agency reported. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Myanmar ready for Rohingya repatriation, officials say Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 06:13PM Myanmars government says it will soon start repatriating persecuted Rohingya Muslim refugees to their home country, where they fled state-sponsored brutal military violence. Speaking during a news conference in Yangon, Vice Minister of Home Affairs Major General Aung Thu said on Sunday that local security forces were prepared to verify the people coming back to Rakhine state and would "take action" against people with "likelihood of terrorist connections." Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Win Myat also announced that Bangladesh had informed Myanmar authorities that repatriation would begin on Thursday. "What they (Bangladesh) told us is mid-November, which is on the 15th day of this month. This is dependent on the other country's (Bangladesh) side whether this will happen or not. But we must be ready from our side. We have done the same." "We have assigned all local security forces to verify the likelihood of terrorist connections among the returnees and will take action if found." A Myanmar government statement said an initial group of 2,251 would be sent back from mid-November at a rate of 150 per day. Myanmar's government insisted any delays to the repatriation would be the fault of Bangladesh. UNHCR spokesman Firas Al-Khateeb confirmed this, but added that it had not yet fully resolved the issue despite the tight timeframe. "(The Bangladesh government) asked us officially to assess the voluntariness of the refugees," he said. "But we have not concluded this process yet." Abul Kalam, Bangladesh's repatriation commissioner, however, said he was unaware that a date had been set. "I have got no decision from our foreign ministry or any other higher authorities." Myanmar prepares to take some of the refugees back after agreeing with Bangladesh to start repatriation on November 15. The plan has met with widespread opposition from the Rohingya, who say they will not return without guarantees of basic rights, including citizenship and freedom of movement. Both governments have been pushing ahead with this first large-scale repatriation effort. This has prompted criticism from a group of 42 aid agencies who say that it would be dangerous for them. Last year, extremist Buddhist monks rushed to help Myanmar's military when it intensified its crackdown. The campaign against the Rohingya, which the UN described as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing, has seen mass killings, torture, and gang-rape of the Muslims as well as arson attacks against their homes and farms in Rakhine. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Su-57 Head Developer Explains Why Russian Stealth Jet is Better Than F-22, F-35 Sputnik News 20:23 11.11.2018 The fifth generation fighter will be supplied to the Russia Air Force in 2018-2019 as a replacement for the Su-27 Flanker, developed in the final decades of the Soviet Union. Mikhail Strelets, the head developer at the Sukhoi United Aircraft Corporation, explained the key strong points of the cutting edge fifth generation Su-57 jet in comparison to its Western rivals, the F-22 and F-35 in an interview with the Zverzda TV channel. According to him, the F-22 lacks the capability to strike ground targets as opposed to the Su-57. Strelets explained that the F-22 was initially designed as an air superiority jet, while the Su-57 was created as a more versatile aircraft from the beginning. As a result, internal compartments of the F-22 were unable to hold munitions with significant payloads. When comparing the F-35 and Su-57 aircraft, Sukhoi's chief developer stressed the increased manoeuvrability and acceleration of the latter. He also noted that both the F-22 and F-35 are less versatile in terms of fulfilling various combat tasks than the Russian plane. The creation of a fifth generation jet with stealth technology, the Su-57, began in early 2001 and it is planned to be commissioned in 2019, while models with advanced engines are scheduled to arrive by 2025. The Russian Air Force is planning to acquire the first batch of 12 jets in 2019. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Hopes to Restore Full-Fledged Negotiations With US on INF Treaty - Putin Sputnik News 17:01 11.11.2018(updated 04:39 12.11.2018) PARIS (Sputnik) - Russia hopes to restore a full-fledged negotiation process with the United States in order to address the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, along with other things, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview. "Anyway, we are ready for dialogue, as we are not the ones leaving the INF Treaty, while the United States is planning to do it. Both them and we are committed to restoring dialogue. And it is even more important to have an expert-level dialogue than a dialogue on the high level or on the highest level. I hope that the full-scale negotiation process will be restored," Putin said. The interview has taken place on the sidelines of a military parade and a peace forum organized by Macron marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. In October, US President Donald Trump said that Washington intended to leave the INF Treaty, accusing Russia of violating it numerous times, while the Kremlin rejected the accusations, adding that Russia would be forced to take measures to ensure its security if the treaty was terminated by the United States. The INF Treaty is an agreement that the United States and the Soviet Union signed in December 1987. It prohibited either country from possessing, producing or flight-testing ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres (311 to 3,418 miles) and their launchers. Russia Tries Not to Hold Large-Scale Military Drills Near NATO Countries' Borders Russia is trying not to carry out large-scale military drills near the borders of the NATO members and reacts calmly when the bloc conducts its military drills close to Russian borders, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday. "As for the exercises, we conduct them as well, however, we try not to hold large-scale exercises near NATO countries' borders. Our latest major exercises were in the east [of Russia], thousands of kilometres away from the borders of NATO members," Putin stated. The Russian leader also expressed hope that the two sides would address their issues regarding military drills through a dialogue. "But in general, we take it calmly [when NATO holds exercises near Russian borders], I hope that the dialogue, which has always been in demand, will play its positive role in this issue as well," Putin added. Moscow has frequently criticized NATO's buildup and exercises close to its borders, saying such actions were provocative and could lead to regional and global arms race and destabilization. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Top Saudis discussed assassinating Iran's General Soleimani in 2017, sources tell NY Times Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 08:54PM Saudi Major General Ahmed al-Assiri, who has allegedly been fired over killing of Jamal Khashoggi, took part at a meeting in Riyadh in 2017 that involved plans to assassinate the kingdom's "determined enemy," Iran's Major General Qassem Soleimani as well as sabotaging Iran's economy, The New York Times reports, citing three sources familiar with the matter. The March 2017 meeting in Riyadh, brought together businessmen that "pitched a $2 billion plan to use private intelligence operatives to sabotage the Iranian economy," read the report released Sunday. "Top Saudi intelligence officials close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked a small group of businessmen last year about using private companies to assassinate Iranian enemies of the kingdom," it said. As the meeting came at a time that bin Salman was consolidating his power in the kingdom, the report concludes that planning for assassinations, like that of dissident journalist Khashoggi, started "since the beginning of Prince Mohammed's ascent." Assiri's top aides also "inquired about killing" Iran's General Soleimani as the attendees were trying to "win Saudi funding for their plan," read the report by the US daily. Iran's foreign ministry has accused Washington of seeking to wage an extensive "psychological war" against Tehran, insisting that such US measures are not worthy of much concern. The new revelation adds to the embarrassment the US ally is facing in the wake of Khashoggi's assassination at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as well as violation of human rights in the war on Yemen. "The interest in assassinations, covert operations and military campaigns like the war in Yemen overseen by Prince Mohammed is a change for the kingdom, which historically has avoided an adventurous foreign policy that could create instability and imperil Saudi Arabia's comfortable position as one of the world's largest oil suppliers," added the report. Turkish intelligence intercepts reportedly show that Khashoggi, who was last seen entering the Saudi mission in Istanbul on October 2, was murdered on a direct order from the Saudi de facto ruler. Saudi Arabia has acknowledged the murder, yet left many questions unanswered. Khashoggi had been there to obtain a document certifying he divorced his ex-wife. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pompeo Expects Saudis to Punish Those Responsible for Khashoggi Murder Sputnik News 23:53 11.11.2018(updated 00:14 12.11.2018) WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday called on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to punish those responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, US Department of State spokesperson Heather Nauert said. "Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo spoke today with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Secretary emphasized that the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable, and that Saudi Arabia must do the same," Nauert said. Khashoggi disappeared October 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia's suggestion that the journalist had been killed in a fight inside the consulate followed two weeks of denials and growing pressure from the Western allies to provide an explanation. Turkey, conducting a separate probe into the case, claimed that Khashoggi was assassinated by a hit squad sent from Riyadh. On October 26, the Saudi prosecutor general acknowledged that the journalist's murder had been premeditated, while Istanbul prosecutors said on October 31 that Khashoggi's body had been dismembered and destroyed kin a bath of acid after the murder. Riyadh maintains that the murder was not the doing of the Saudi Royal family, and described it as a rogue operation. US President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he will have a clearer picture of who is responsible for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The White House, Trump added, is continuing to work with all parties to the incident, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The administration is seeking advice from Congress on the matter as well, the president suggested. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Jamal Khashoggi's Last Words Revealed - Reports Sputnik News 17:45 11.11.2018(updated 17:47 11.11.2018) Over the weekend, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech that Ankara had given recordings of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, the United States, France, the UK and Germany. In an interview with the Qatari-based media outlet Al Jazeera, Nazif Karaman, head of the investigation department at the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah, shared some details from an audio tape that allegedly documented the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, inside the Saudi Consulate General in Istanbul. "I'm suffocating Take this bag off my head, I'm claustrophobic" these were purportedly Khashoggi's last words, Karaman said. The senior Turkish journalist alleged that Khashoggi suffocated to death while a plastic bag was over his head, and, according to the recordings, the killing lasted for about seven minutes. Karaman then claimed that the alleged group of 15 hitmen who, as Turkish officials suggested, travelled to Istanbul one day ahead of the incident to kill the Saudi journalist, spent 15 minutes dismembering his body. The Daily Sabah journalist's claims come shortly after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Ankara had passed the recordings related to the case to Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. In late October, Istanbul's prosecutor said in a statement that Khashoggi's corpse had been dismembered and destroyed after he was strangled to death inside the Saudi consular premises in what appeared to be a premeditated murder. The Saudi journalist disappeared on 2 October after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to fetch documents he needed in order to remarry. After weeks of concerns that he could have been killed inside the building and searches of the consulate by Turkish police, the Saudi prosecutor-general confirmed his death. Riyadh had consistently denied the royal family's involvement in the case, stressing that the crown prince was not aware of the plot and branded Khashoggi's killing a "rogue operation." Saudi authorities acknowledged that Khashoggi was killed in an altercation with people who met him at the consulate; 18 suspects have already been arrested as part of the ongoing investigation. Ankara, for its part, is conducting an independent probe into the case, and alleges that Khashoggi was killed by a 15-member hit squad sent from Saudi Arabia. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address S. Arabia to cut oil exports by 500,000 bpd in December IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Nov 12, IRNA -- Saudi Arabia has said it will trim oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in December, as major producers met to consider cuts to shore up declining prices. The announcement was made by Khalid al-Falih, the kingdom's energy minister, in comments he gave to reporters at the meeting in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, has been pumping 10.7 million bpd since October, according to Falih, Al-Jazeera reported. While Riyadh has decided to lower production, the rest of the attendees did not come to a consensus on the matter, according to Falih. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which is led by Saudi Arabia, agreed in June with a bloc of 10 petroleum-producing nations led by Russia, to increase global supply by one million bpd. Since then, OPEC production has risen 820,000 bpd since May, according to the latest S&P Global Platts OPEC survey. Russia said in November it hit a 30-year high of 11.41 million bpd in October, an increase of about 440,000 from May. The US also hit a record-high of 11.6 million bpd in November, CNBC reported. The glut in production came as investors expected losses from Iranian oil production, which has come under sanctions re-instated by the US administration of President Donald Trump. Venezuela, another of the world's top oil producers and OPEC member, is mired in economic and political turmoil that has strained its production. The South American country's oil production fell almost 13 percent in 2017, according to figures released by OPEC in January. 8072**1396 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syrian Army Pounds Terrorist Pockets in Hama Province - Source Sputnik News 02:07 12.11.2018(updated 02:14 12.11.2018) Syrian Armed Forces on Sunday hit terrorist strongholds in the country's Hama province. The attack came in response to repeated ceasefire violations causing damage and casualties among Syrian civilians and servicepeople, a military source claimed to the Syrian state broadcaster. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that a total of six Syrian servicemen were killed, while five others were injured in the latest attacks in Syria's western-central province of Hama. Moreover, ceasefire violations have been registered in the Idlib de-escalation zone over the last 24 hours, according to the ministry's daily bulletin. Russia is acting as a guarantor of the ceasefire regime in Syria alongside Turkey and Iran. Moscow also provides humanitarian aid to civilians and helps Damascus welcome back Syrian refugees, who are now returning to their homes as the war draws to its end after more than seven years of hostilities between the government forces and numerous rebel and terrorist groups. Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with the government forces fighting against numerous opposition groups and militant and terrorist organizations. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Airstrikes kill over dozen Kurdish PKK terrorists in northern Iraq Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 02:51PM Turkish military aircraft have "neutralized" more than a dozen members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group when they carried out a string of airstrikes against terrorist hideouts in Iraq's northern semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. The Turkish General Staff, in a message published on its official Twitter page, said fighter jets had conducted airstrikes against Avasin region in northern Iraq on Saturday, and "neutralized" 14 PKK terrorists in the process. The Turkish military generally uses the term "neutralize" to signify that the militants were killed, captured or surrendered. Turkey's Interior Ministry said in a statement on October 4 that high-profile Kurdish PKK terrorist Mehmet Sait Surer, better known by the nom de guerre Cuma Mardin, had been neutralized during an airstrike against a militant position in the Nusaybin district of the country's southeastern province of Mardin. The statement added that the militant had a $647,360 bounty on his head, and was in the red category of the ministry's wanted terrorists. PKK militants regularly clash with Turkish forces in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of Turkey attached to northern Iraq. Turkey, along with the European Union and the United States, has declared the PKK a terrorist group and banned it. The militant group has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984. A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since. Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against PKK positions in the country as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria. More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Turkey Announces Successful Test of 'Sapan' Railgun Hypervelocity Weapon Sputnik News 02:46 12.11.2018 Ankara announced that it successfully tested an electromagnetic kinetic weapon, joining a club of developers alongside Russia, the US, China, and India. Turkey announced a successful test of its new electromagnetic weapon referred to as 'railgun' which shoots metallic projectiles at hypersonic speeds. Turkey is the fifth country in the world to develop the weapon, after Russia, the US, China and India. The weapon has been named "Tubitak Sapan," or "Tubitak Slingshot," after Turkey's Scientific and Technological Research Council (Tubitak). Weapons similar to Sapan are capable of firing a projectile as far as 100 km, at speeds of up to 3,500 meters per second (12,600 km/h). According to the Turkish Armed Forces, the Sapan has been tested at 9,300 km/h, faster than Mach 7.5. Ankara intends to boost the velocity of the round to Mach 8.5 (10.500 km/h), making it almost impossible for a target to defend itself, Business Times reports. Railgun technology has certain upsides; the hypervelocity round is very difficult to intercept, and, since it has no electronics inside, it is immune to jamming and electronic warfare. In one live fire tests, a railgun successfully pierced a one meter-thick reinforced concrete bunker. The primary downside of the weapon is its extremely high energy consumption. In order to fire at 10 rounds per minute (one shot every six seconds), a railgun requires some 20 megawatts of energy, the output of a power plant used to light and heat some 250 small homes. First tested in 2014, Turkey's Sapan is a byproduct of Tubitak's research into inertial confinement fusion technology, also known as controllable thermonuclear energy, Business Times reports. Turkey reportedly plans to build eight TF-2000 class frigates, equipping them with full-scale combat-ready versions of the Sapan railgun, according to the newspaper. Only five countries have working railgun technology: Russia, the US, China, India and Turkey. While the US considers railgun to primarily be a weapon, Russian scientists have more recently examined peaceful applications, such as delivering cargo into space, according to 2017 Zvezda report. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK military could be used in the event of a 'no-deal' Brexit Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 04:29PM Britain's armed forces are preparing for contingency plans to prevent a crisis if the country leaves the European Union in March without a deal that could guarantee a smooth withdrawal. Senior British defense officials said on Sunday that contingency plans were being made so that the military could support the country in case of a no-deal Brexit. "There are contingency plans being made, there are discussions being held behind the scenes as to what support our armed forces will do," said deputy defense minister Tobias Ellwood. "The armed forces stand ready to support Britain on a practical basis," he added. The minister admitted that a no-deal Brexit could cause chaos in Britain and many people may require the help of the armed forces to cope with emergencies in their daily lives. "With the transition from Brexit, if there is a requirement to provide assistance we're looking right across the full spectrum of requirements to make sure that we are prepared," said Ellwood. Chief of Britain's Defense Staff General Sir Nicholas Carter also confirmed that there were contingency plans for an uneasy withdrawal from the EU. "What we always do is make sensible contingency plans for all sorts of eventualities," said Carter, adding, "At this stage, I think people are confident there will be a deal, if there's not one then we stand ready to help in any way we can." With Brexit talks reportedly stalled over a disagreement between British and EU negotiators on the future situation of the Irish land border, the UK faces a real chance of leaving the EU without a deal. The scenario could have dire economic and social consequences for Britain with some even warning that there could be a civil unrest on the streets as people may face acute shortage of some basic items, including food and medicine. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement by the NATO Spokesperson on the reported elections in eastern Ukraine NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 11 Nov. 2018 Press Release (2018) 141 Issued on 11 Nov. 2018 NATO does not recognise the reported elections held on 11 November in the self-proclaimed and unrecognised "Luhansk People's Republic" and "Donetsk People's Republic." They run contrary to the letter and spirit of the Minsk Agreements and undermine efforts towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict. NATO fully supports Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders. We continue to call on Russia to withdraw its forces and cease all support to militant groups in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. We call for the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements by all sides, and support the efforts of the Normandy format and the Trilateral Contact Group. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ethnic Russians holding elections in eastern Ukraine Iran Press TV Sun Nov 11, 2018 06:54AM Ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine are holding elections to choose parliament members and a new leader, amid fresh clashes that have reportedly left two Ukrainian soldiers dead. Officials say hundreds of polling stations across the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics opened early on Sunday. Polling stations are scheduled to close at 1700 GMT, and the initial results will be announced on Monday. Donetsk and Lugansk regions home to ethnic Russians and collectively known as the Donbass have been beset by armed conflict since 2014. The conflict, between the Ukrainian military and pro-Russia forces, has so far left over 10,000 people dead and more than a million others displaced, according to the United Nations. The former leader of Donetsk was killed in a bombing attack this year. Russia maintains that the ethnic Russians should be able to establish order. "People simply need to live, get on with their lives, and ensure order in the region under a blockade and permanent threats of the use of force by Ukrainian authorities," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. While Kiev and its Western backers have refused to recognize the right of the people in the Donbass to hold elections, international observers have already arrived in the region to monitor the elections, according to the pro-Russian forces. Election organizers have said there are monitors from 22 countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Hungary, Germany, Greece, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Ireland, Yemen, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Syria, the United States, Turkey, and Finland. The Donetsk region's acting leader, Denis Pushilin, is set to officially fill the place of the slain leader Alexander Zakharchenko, who was killed in August. New violence Meanwhile, two Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the most recent fighting in the country's east, according to the Ukrainian military. "Over the past 24 hours, two soldiers received fatal wounds as a result of hostilities," military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told a briefing. He claimed the soldiers had been killed near Lugansk by large-caliber mortars. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Macron, Merkel, Join International Chorus Condemning Separatist Vote In Eastern Ukraine By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service November 11, 2018 KYIV -- France and Germany have called elections by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine "illegal and illegitimate," joining a chorus of international criticism over the vote. Kyiv and its international backers said the November 11 polls in the areas controlled by the separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions would further hamper efforts to end a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 people since April 2014. However, Moscow argued that the elections to choose the separatists heads in Donetsk and Luhansk and members of the local legislatures would not violate the Minsk agreements aimed at putting an end to the violence. With about one-third of the votes counted, 37-year-old Denis Pushilin was leading with 57.3 percent of the ballots, while Leonid Pasechnik, the acting Luhansk leader, was ahead with 70.4 percent, according to the TASS news agency. Both results are in line with expectations. "These so-called elections undermine the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine," Merkel and Macron said in a joint statement late on November 11 after meeting Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko during World War I commemorations in France. Germany, France and Ukraine are part of the so-called "Normandy format" countries seeking a resolution to the conflict. Russia is the fourth country in the format, which has not held talks in two years. Pushilin, the acting head of the separatists in the Donetsk region, has worked a series of jobs including casino croupier and pushing financial products for MMM, a successor to the infamous Russian Ponzi scheme that swindled tens of thousands of people after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The previous separatist leader in Donetsk, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, died in an explosion in August. Moscow pointed the finger at Ukraine, while Kyiv blamed internal fighting between the separatists and "their Russian sponsors." Pasechnik, 48, is a former regional chief of the Ukrainian Security Service. Both Pushilin and Pasechnik have promised to seek tighter ties with Moscow. Voting was held amid tightened security, with gun-toting, camouflage-clad soldiers deployed to ensure order. Posters around the separatist stronghold of Donetsk, the main city in the region of the same name, called on people to vote "with Russia in your heart," according to the AFP news agency. The last separatist elections were held in 2014 despite protests from Kyiv and the West, which didn't recognize their results. Condemnations Ukraine, the United States, and the European Union had already condemned the latest vote as a sham manipulated by Russia and in violation of the accords -- signed in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, in September 2014 and February 2015 -- laying out steps for settling the conflict in eastern Ukraine. WATCH: Cut-Price Food, Prizes For Voters In Ukraine's 'Illegal' Separatist Elections EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called on Russia "to make full use of its considerable influence over the separatists it backs" to ensure the speedy and complete implementation of the Minsk agreements "starting with a comprehensive cease-fire and the withdrawal of heavy weaponry." In a tweet on November 11, Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, accused Russia of "institutionalizing the status quo through sham 'elections'." "Instead of implementing Minsk and moving towards #peace4Ukraine, Russia is subsidizing corrupt leaders of Donbas, training and equipping the illegal armed formations, institutionalizing the status quo through sham "elections," and blocking diplomatic progress," Volker tweeted. NATO said in a statement that the elections "undermine efforts towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict" and reiterated its call on Russia to "withdraw its forces and cease all support to militant groups" in Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukrainian authorities had urged residents of the separatist-held territories to boycott the elections, warning that their participation would violate Ukrainian legislation. The separatists and Moscow rejected appeals to cancel the elections, with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying in October that the vote is needed "to fill the vacuum in power" following Zakharchenko's death. "Actually, the deplorable situation with the implementation of the Minsk package was provoked by Kyiv's unwillingness to fulfill the Minsk agreements," Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on November 6. Separatists seized territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions after a popular uprising ousted Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014 and Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula a month later. The United States and other Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and its backing of the separatists. However, Moscow has repeatedly denied financing and equipping the separatist forces despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, insisting that the fighting was a civil, internal conflict. Fighting in eastern Ukraine persists despite cease-fire deals reached as part of the Minsk agreements, and implementation of other measures set out in the deals has been slow. Ahead of the vote, four Ukrainian soldiers were reported killed in or near separatist-held areas, the military said on November 10. With reporting by Reuters and AFP, and Rikard Jozwiak Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-separatists-hold-polls- criticized-by-kyiv-the-west/29594226.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia, Europe Concerned About Unclear Future of INF Treaty - Kremlin Sputnik News 04:34 12.11.2018 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Sunday there were many issues on the agenda of a future meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump. "There are many issues on the agenda and the presidents will discuss what they believe to be necessary," Lavrov said, as aired on Rossiya 1 broadcaster. However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday that there were no "concrete agreements" on a potential meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump at the upcoming G20 summit in Argentina. "Circumstances keep changing for our US colleagues, we might also have some changes. So there are no concrete agreements at the moment, we cannot say anything with certainty," Peskov told Rossiya 1 broadcaster. The Kremlin spokesman added that the number of issues on bilateral agenda kept growing. Peskov stressed that "deficit of mutual trust" in the relations of the two countries was growing amid delays in preparation of the Putin-Trump summit. Meanwhile, Both Russia and the European countries are alarmed by the unclear future of the Russian-US Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Dmitry Peskov said late on Sunday. "Europeans are concerned about the situation with short-range and medium-range missiles, we are concerned. The fate of this document is unclear, and most importantly what will happen next with these missiles, it is also not clear. Therefore, it is needed to sit down and talk," Peskov told the Rossyia 1 broadcaster. In October, US President Donald Trump said that Washington intended to leave the INF Treaty, accusing Russia of violating it numerous times, while the Kremlin rejected the accusations, adding that Russia would be forced to take measures to ensure its security if the treaty was terminated by the United States. The INF Treaty is an agreement that the United States and the Soviet Union signed in December 1987. It prohibited either country from possessing, producing or flight-testing ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (311 to 3,418 miles) and their launchers. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address TORONTO, Nov. 12, 2018 - LSC Lithium Corp. (LSC or together with its subsidiaries, the Company) (TSXV:LSC) is pleased to announce that it has closed the previously announced joint venture (the Joint Venture) with Litica Resources, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pluspetrol (Litica Resources), a leading private oil and gas company. LSC and Litica Resources have entered into the 40/60 Joint Venture to explore and develop tenements on the Salar de Arizaro lithium project (Arizaro Project) in the Salta Province of Argentina. LSC is also pleased to announce that it has received Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) approval for the Joint Venture to commence advanced lithium exploration activities at the Arizaro Project. The Companys President and CEO, Ian Stalker, commented, We are very pleased to announce the closing of the Joint Venture with Pluspetrol. Pluspetrol has a track record of success in the oil and gas industry and one of the principle objectives of the Joint Venture is to lever the technical experience of Pluspetrol and apply it to the lithium industry to successfully advance the Arizaro Project. We are excited about Pluspetrols commitment to the lithium business and look forward to the long-term partnership as we commence work at Arizaro. LSC has received all the required permitting for the Joint Venture to begin advanced exploration at the Arizaro Project. The parties have agreed to a results driven three-phase exploration work program whereby Litica Resources, as operator, will commence with geological mapping, surface geophysical surveys, followed by sub-surface brine sampling and core drill holes to evaluate the brine chemistry and host rock parameters, with the intention of completing a maiden resource statement. The first stage of the exploration program is expected to commence imminently. Pursuant to the terms of the Joint Venture, Litica Resources will be the operator of the Arizaro Project and has committed a total of US$6,868,000 to LSC and the Joint Venture over the three-stage exploration program to maintain its 60% ownership. In connection with the closing of the Joint Venture, LSC has received an initial lump-sum payment of US$625,000 from Litica Resources. About Pluspetrol Pluspetrol is a private, independent, international company with over 40 years of experience in the exploration and production of oil and gas. Present in Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Netherlands, Peru, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela, Pluspetrol promotes energy development and fosters activities at an international level. Pluspetrol is a leader in the operation of high-pressure gas fields and the extraction of oil in mature fields with secondary and tertiary recovery. With a view to the future, the company is making significant investments in Argentina, and it is particularly well-positioned in the Neuquen Basin in Argentina, the location of the Vaca Muerta shale formation, one of the largest unconventional oil and gas reservoirs. Engagement of Marketing Consultant LSC has engaged Digital257 Technologies Inc. (Digital257) for a committed period of 12 months to provide digital media and capital markets communications services (inclusive of marketing fees and expenses) at a cost of USD$20,833 per month (with approximately half of the amount allocated to third party marketing fees and other third party expenses) which amount has been pre-paid by LSC for the committed period of the contract. Digital257 is a private firm specializing in investor relations and strategic and digital communications. Digital257s services include initiating and maintaining contact with the financial community, the Companys shareholders, investors and other stakeholders for the purpose of increasing awareness of the Company and its activities. To the knowledge of LSC, Digital257 does not have any interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company or its securities, or any right or intent to acquire such an interest. The appointment of Digital257 is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval. ABOUT LSC Lithium Corp.: LSC Lithium has amassed a large portfolio of prospective lithium rich salars and is focused on developing its material projects: Pozuelos and Pastos Grandes Project, Rio Grande Project and Salinas Grandes Project. All LSC tenements are located in the Lithium Triangle, an area at the intersection of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile where the worlds most abundant lithium brine deposits are found. LSC Lithium has a land package portfolio totaling approximately 300,000 hectares, which represents extensive lithium prospective salar holdings in Argentina. For further information please contact: LSC Lithium Corp. Ian Stalker President & Chief Executive Officer 40 University Avenue, Suite 605, Toronto ON Canada M5J 1T1 +416 306 8380 Email: info@lsclithium.com Web: lsclithium.com Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance, including statements regarding the timing for commencing exploration on the Arizaro Project, likelihood of future opportunities, timing and ability to complete a maiden resource statement on the Arizaro Project, ability to obtain any regulatory approvals, if applicable, ability and timing to complete the work-program, results and outcome of the work program on the Arizaro Project, ability of both LSC and Pluspetrol to fund the Joint Venture and ongoing relationship with Pluspetrol. The use of any of the words could, intend, expect, believe, will, projected, estimated and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on LSCs current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Whether actual results and developments will conform with LSCs expectations is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including factors underlying managements assumptions, including risks related to: title, permitting and regulatory risks; exploration and the establishment of any resources or reserves on the Arizaro Project or other LSC properties; volatility in lithium prices and the market for lithium; exchange rate fluctuations; volatility in LSC's share price; the requirement for significant additional funds for development that may not be available; changes in national and local government legislation, including permitting and licensing regimes and taxation policies and the enforcement thereof; regulatory, political or economic developments in Argentina or elsewhere; litigation; title, permit or license disputes related to interests on any of the properties in which the Company holds an interest; excessive cost escalation as well as development, permitting, infrastructure, operating or technical difficulties on any of the Company's properties; risks and hazards associated with the business of development and mining on any of the Company's properties, the ability to the Company to raise funds to carry on its operations, the ability of the Company to advance its projects, future demand of lithium as a critical commodity, and the outcome of the closing of the Transaction. Actual future results may differ materially. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and LSC is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein. For more information see the Companys filing statement on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. The United States on Monday re-imposed sanctions against Iran's oil exports to punish Tehran for its involvement in several Middle Eastern conflicts. Washington had been pushing governments to cut imports of Iranian oil to zero. But, fearing a price spike, it granted Iran's biggest buyers - China, India, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Greece, Taiwan and Turkey - sanctions waivers. That will allow the eight, which account for about 75 percent of all Iran's oil exports, according to trade data, to import at least some oil for another 180 days. The Economic Times reports in its article The knowns and unknowns of U.S. Iran oil that Washington and the recipients of the waivers have not disclosed how much oil they are allowed to import, or under what conditions deals can still be made. Bernstein Energy expects "Iranian exports will average 1.4-1.5 million barrels per day (bpd)" during the exemption period," down from a peak of almost 3 million bpd in mid-2018. J.P. Morgan said "the lack or difficulty in acquiring shipping insurance will help in reducing exports quickly as they did during last international sanctions." The U.S. bank also said "payments for the oil by the exempt countries must go into escrow accounts in their local currency" and that this "means the money won't directly go to Iran and it can only be used to buy certain non-sanctioned goods from its crude export customers." Once the waivers expire after 180 days, new waivers are expected to be issued, with a source in China saying his country would likely receive another six months of exemptions, though at a lower rate of around 220,00 bpd. CHINA China, the world's biggest importer of crude oil, is also the top buyer of Iranian oil, and its mostly state-owned refiners have lobbied hard for waivers. Several Chinese sources with knowledge of the matter said China would be allowed to buy 360,000 bpd of Iranian crude during the exemption period of 180 days. That would be about half the daily average China has been importing from Iran since January 2016, trade data showed. However, one source said the United States had attached strings to the waivers, including counterparty disclosures and laying open settlement methods, which were being evaluated before placing new orders with Iran. INDIA India is the world's third-biggest oil importer. India is also Iran's second-biggest oil customer and will be one of the most exposed to a forced drop in supply because of its relative proximity to Iran. One Indian source close to the country's refining sector said India would likely be allowed to import around 300,000 bpd of Iranian crude during the exemption period compared with normal volumes of around 450,000 to 550,000 bpd. SOUTH KOREA South Korea is a large buyer of Iranian condensate, a super light form of crude oil, used by its large petrochemical industry. A close U.S. ally, South Korea had stopped buying crude from Iran ahead of the sanctions while still lobbying for exemptions. This week, reports emerged that South Korea received a waiver allowing it to import around 4 million barrels a month, equal to about 130,000 bpd, of Iranian crude and condensate. South Korea has averaged over 200,000 bpd of oil imports from Iran so far this year, down from around 350,000 bpd in 2017. Banking sources said any Korean payments for Iranian oil would need to be made in its won currency. The won-denominated payments will go into escrow accounts handled by the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) and Woori Bank. Officials from both banks said, however, that won-denominated payments for Iranian oil were still being reviewed, and that no schedule a for resumption was set yet. JAPAN Japan, another key Asian U.S. ally, also ceased Iranian oil imports prior to the sanctions, but has received a waiver to import an undisclosed amount of oil from Iran in the next 180 days. Japan's trade minister, Hiroshige Seko, said on Tuesday that Japanese buyers were expected to resume imports from the Islamic Republic again soon. Refining sources in Japan, however, said they first needed to evaluated the conditions attached to the waivers, with no new orders likely before December. TAIWAN Taiwan is only an occasional importer of Iranian oil, and no details regarding its waivers have been disclosed. TURKEY, ITALY, GREECE Italy and Turkey have been importing around 200,000 bpd of oil from Iran over the past two years, with Greece importing less than 100,000 bpd. Italy and Greece have completely suspended purchases in recent weeks. The waivers for those countries took the market by surprise and trading sources have said they are now evaluating prospects for resuming some imports. Turkey has said it is also evaluating possible imports after receiving a waiver, but President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday the country would not abide by the sanctions as they were aimed at "unbalancing the world". The Japanese government intends to boost negotiations with Russia on disputed territories and signing an intergovernmental peace treaty. The Mainichi, a Japanese media which reported the sensational news, refers to its own governmental sources that remained anonymous. The fact led to skeptical comments that Tokyo sends up a trial balloon once again. Nevertheless, we have to admit that Japan has never been so close to getting the things moving if not making the biggest dream come true. At least, it is seen at the level of discussions. However, on the other hand, the processs initiative belongs to Moscow rather than Tokyo. The Mainichi reports, referring to its own governmental sources, that Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe is going to offer the mentioned initiative negotiations on disputed territories and an intergovernmental peace treaty to Russian President Vladimir Putin next week in Singapore at the ASEAN summit. According to the article, Abes plan suggests getting Shikotan and Khabomai Rocks after signing a peace treaty between Japan and the Russian Federation. The problem of two other islands Kunashir and Iturup is thought to be solved later within the framework of negotiations. Experts on Japan assuming that it is so say that the Japan Prime Minister seems to be guided by the Moscow-Tokyo joint declaration of 1956. The document stated that Russia agreed to consider the issue of placing two islands Shikotan and Khabomai Rocks under Japans control but only after signing a peace treaty. To consider doesnt mean guaranteed placing the islands under Japans control. At the same time, Kunashir and Iturup are not mentioned in the declaration, as if they dont exist at all. Japans burst on the problem is provoked by Russia. President of Russia Vladimir Putin suggested Prime Minister Shinzo Abe signing an intergovernmental peace treaty without any preconditions by the end of the year in September 2018, at the Eastern Economic Forum. At that time, the Russian leader viewed the way out of the deadlock in the following way: Lets sign a peace treaty not at the moment but by the end of the year without any preconditions. Later, we continue solving all unsettled problems on the basis of the peace treaty as friends And I think it would make solving the problems easier, as we are failing to deal with them for 70 years. Looking back, the main obstacle on the way to a peace treaty between Russia and Japan, following the results of the World War II, is ownership of the southern part of the Kuril Archipelago. After the war, the whole archipelago was integrated into the USSR. Tokyo disputes ownership of Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan, and Khabomai Rocks which are a group of small islands. In its turn, Moscow believes that the Southern Kuril Islands have been integrated into the USSR as a result of the World War II and Russias control under them is indisputable. However, Vladimir Putins offer didnt find immediate approval in Tokyo. Japanese political scientists distantly commented that accepting the offer suggested by Russian President signing a peace treaty and then starting the islands negotiations meant political suicide for Shinzo Abe. The Secretary General of the Japanese government, Yoshihide Suga, made a statement in lockstep with the expert community: Tokyo keeps up with its own position on signing a peace treaty with Russia which suggests a settlement of territorial disputes. The government doesnt change its policy on returning the islands and signing a peace treaty. At the same time, the Japanese side delicately dropped a hint of doubt that Russian Presidents offer was improvisation rather than a prepared and well-thought initiative. However, according to The Mainchi, today Shinzo Abe is ready to follow the Russian scheme: signing a peace treaty and later negotiations on the islands. Whats a reason for changing the approach if it is really changing? The answer is probably lies in the deadlock of the Russian-Japanese relations. Tokyo might think: the situation hadnt been changing for 70 years; a peace treaty hadnt been being signed for 70 years; however, there is no war and we could meet the Russians halfway and sign a peace treaty; what would they do then? In the end, a peace treaty can be signed for a certain period and Japan can withdraw from it later, if no progress in returning the islands is seen. This is only suggested logic of the Japanese government. By the way, if the approach appears to be efficient, it could be implemented in similar situations, i.e. unsettled territorial disputes. Italy stood by the main pillars of its 2019 budget on Friday, as a deadline neared for it to change what Brussels called overly optimistic economic assumptions or face penalties for breaking EU fiscal rules. Reuters reports in its article Italy stands by main pillars of budget as EU deadline nears that Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio and Economy Minister Giovanni Tria said they were committed to respecting a maximum budget deficit of 2.4 percent of economic output next year. But the European Commission, which has given Rome until Tuesday to present a new budget, has forecast a deficit of 2.9 percent and a structural fiscal gap - excluding one-offs and business cycle swings - rising to 3.0 percent. Under EU requirements, Italy should cut its structural deficit next year to 1.2 percent and continue reducing it every year until it reaches a balanced budget. Tria said the government was busy drafting an answer to the European Commission with regards to the most contentious points of the budget. But Rome would confirm its main pillars, as an economic slowdown had made fiscal expansion even more necessary, he told a parliamentary hearing. The government says it will introduce an income support program next year to tackle growing poverty, and reduce the retirement age in an effort to free up the labor market and generate more job opportunities for the young. It is also promising tax cuts and offering a partial amnesty for citizens who settle tax disputes with the authorities. The Commission rejected Italys 2019 fiscal plan last month, saying it flouted a previous commitment to lower the deficit and that it did not guarantee a reduction in the countrys debt, the second highest in the euro zone as a proportion of GDP. ITALIAN BONDS In Helsinki, Valdis Dombrovskis, the Commission Vice President responsible for the euro, on Friday reaffirmed the EU executive was considering starting an excessive deficit procedure if Italy did not change the budget. He said Brussels believed Romes fiscal calculations were overly optimistic. Basically the assumption is that if they ... increase public spending, it will stimulate the economy and thus will help to reduce the budget deficit. We see that this is actually not materializing, he said. The standoff between Rome and Brussels has spooked financial markets and, after Tria spoke, 10-year Italian bond yields climbed to 3.46 percent IT10YT=RJR, their highest in over a week. That pushed the closely-watched gap over safer German Bund yields back above 300 basis points DE10IT10=RR. Italys central bank warned that the rise in borrowing costs over recent months risked impacting the economy and cancelling out the expansionary effects of the budget. I hope for a solution that combines both Italys respect for the rules it must abide with as a member of the monetary union... and the government and parliament pursuing their political goals, Luigi Federico Signorini, the Bank of Italys deputy director general, told a parliamentary committee. Di Maio, whose anti-establishment 5-Star Movement governs in a coalition with the far-right League, said he believed market pressure would ease when investors realized the government was committed to holding the deficit inside its 2.4 percent target. But he gave no indication that the government was willing to change the 2019 budget draft. Asked if Italy would pay any fines the EU might levy, Di Maio told reporters in Rome pacts must be honored, but that he did not expect any charges to be levied and was confident an agreement with Brussels would be reached. Several great states consistently existed on the territory of Iran from the middle of the first millennium BC to the middle of the first millennium AD - the Achaemenid Empire, the Parthian Empire and the Sasanian Empire - which left a significant mark in the history of world art mainly with their gold and silver coins, carved seals of semi-precious and ornamental stones, artistic traditions. Meanwhile, ceramic art flourished in Iran since the end of the second millennium BC. Some samples of it can be seen even at the 'Art of Iran' permanent exhibition in the Moscow State Museum of the East. Among them are characteristic vessels with long curved necks, zoomorphic vessels made in the form of birds, vessels painted with images of birds and animals. This period includes a small clay figure imprinted with a stamp, one of the earliest images of the goddess of fertility, the cult of which was closely related to the beliefs of the ancient Iranians. Goddess of fertility. Susa. 2nd millennium BC The exhibition also includes later ceramic sculptures: a bird with a female head, a vessel in the form of a rooster's head. Such exhibits, by the way, refute the common misconception about Islam's ban on images of living beings. Vessel in the form of a bird with a female head. Iran, Kashan. 13th century Of course, ancient ceramic art is represented in Iran itself much wider. For example, there is a pottery museum in Tabriz - the center of East Azerbaijan province, where visitors can see the process of making pottery with their own eyes. It is located in an old house, preserved since the reign of the Qajar dynasty, which was founded by the leader of the Turkic tribe of Qajars, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, and which ruled Iran since 1795. This house has become a center for training students and pottery masters, and now it hosts exhibitions of argil goods. At the basement of the building one can see how to prepare clay for pottery, as well as the process of making ceramic dishes, and upstairs - pottery made of white clay, which is the main characteristic of Azerbaijan pottery. The Lancets Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD), first published more than 10 years ago, is the most comprehensive worldwide observational epidemiological study to date. It describes mortality and morbidity from major diseases, injuries and risk factors to health at global, national and regional levels. Since its inception, every new iteration of the GBD has reflected improvements in data quality and quantity that showed ever-increasing health worldwide. The editors of the journal now observe that GBD 2017 shatters this comforting trend of gradual improvement and instead shows plateauing mortality rates on a background of faltering and uneven progress, era-defining epidemics, and significant shortages of health workers. Instead of the progress updates we have become accustomed to, GBD 2017 comes as an urgent warning signal from a fragile and fragmented world.Lancet editorial In 2017, global adult mortality rates decreases plateaued, and, in some cases, mortality rates increased. Conflict and terrorism have become two of the fastest growing causes of death globally (increasing by 118% between 2007 and 2017). Additionally, the world faces epidemics such as opioid dependence, noncommunicable diseases, depression, and dengue fever. Opioid dependence has grown to an unprecedented scale, with 4 million new cases in 2017 and 110,000 deaths. Non-communicable diseases accounted for 73% of all global deaths in 2017, with over half of all deaths (288 million) attributable to just four risk factors: high blood pressure, smoking, high blood glucose, and high body-mass index. Obesity prevalence has risen in almost every country in the worldleading to more than a million deaths from type 2 diabetes, half a million deaths from diabetes-related chronic kidney disease, and 180,000 deaths related to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (an advanced form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease caused by buildup of fat in the liver). In 2017, depressive disorders were the third leading cause of years lived with disability after low back pain and headache disorders. Deaths from dengue fever, a disease often associated with struggling development and urbanization, increased substantially in most tropical and subtropical countries, rising from 24,500 deaths globally in 2007 to 40,500 in 2017. Estimates show that substantial differences in health for men and women that underlie the overall headline figures are still pervasive. Whereas deaths among adult men are stagnant in many parts of the world, and, in some areas, mortality has increased, women are living longer but with more years in poor health. The greatest sex differences in outcomessubstance use disorders, transport injuries, and self-harm and interpersonal violence0are socially driven, suggesting that more attention and action are needed. This edition of the GBD included estimates of health worker density for the first time. These show that the global shortage and unequal distribution of health workers requires urgent attention in order not to undermine attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The authors estimate that only half of all countries had the health-care workers required to deliver quality health care (estimated at 30 physicians, 100 nurses or midwives, and five pharmacists per 10,000 people). Although many European countries have highly resourced health workforces, countries across sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, south Asia, and some countries in Oceania were estimated to have the greatest shortfalls. Crucially, GBD 2017 estimates that no country is on track to meet all of WHOs health-related SDGs by 2030. Under-five mortality, neonatal mortality, maternal mortality, and malaria indicators had the most countries with at least 95% probability of success. However, for many other targetsincluding child malnutrition and violence reduction goalsno country in the world has attained the pace of change that is required for these goals to be met. Lancet editorial The Lancet is an independent, international weekly general medical journal founded in 1823 by Thomas Wakley, an English surgeon. He gained fame as a social reformer who campaigned against incompetence, privilege and nepotism. He was also a radical Member of Parliament and a celebrated coroner. Wife of Armenia's acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Anna Hakobyan, will arrive in Moscow today to participate in several working meetings organized by the Armenian embassy. Yesterday, Hakobyan with her husband participated in a number of events in Paris, devoted to the centenary of the armistice that was signed to end World War I, magnis.news reported. Turkeys coast guard has launched a search-and-rescue mission to locate 10 migrants who are reported missing after their boat sank in the Aegean Sea. The boat went down on Monday off the coast of Dikili, in Izmir province, close to the Greek island of Lesbos, Anadolu Agency reported, adding that the authorities launched the rescue operation after two of the migrants managed to swim to shore to seek help. There was no immediate detail on the nationalities of the migrants. More that 171 thousand migrants and refugees entered Europe by Mediterranean sea during 2017. United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said there was agreement among powerful members of the international community that the civil war in Yemen must come to an end. Speaking with France Inter radio about the ongoing efforts to mediate a ceasefire between the Saudi Arabia-backed Yemeni forces and the Houthi insurgents, he stressed that it was now a question of convincing the warring sides that no-one would claim victory in the conflict, Efe-Epa reported. GREENWICH In a Greenwich High School lecture room Tuesday night, about 100 students and community members will decide for themselves the course of the Civil Rights Movement and equal voting rights for African Americans. Greenwich High history teachers will transport attendees members of the League of Women Voters and students from area schools back to the days between the assaults on demonstrators at Selma, Alabama and Martin Luther King Jr.s march to Montgomery. These teachers will use a still-new classroom approach: the case study method, which Harvard Business School Professor David Moss developed to illustrate how American democracy operated in real time during defining moments in history. It demonstrates that history is a series of decisions, nothing is a foregone conclusion or inevitable, Greenwich High Social Studies Teacher Karen Boyea said. Greenwich High was the first school in Connecticut to adopt the method, through the efforts of Boyea, and Jess Keller and Steve Swidler, both U.S. History teachers. Swidler, Keller and Boyea have led more than 30 case studies since they traveled to Harvard to learn Moss system last September. The method is new, but the tools are old-school notes and discussions and faithful to how Moss intended. It allows students to be a part of history as its happening, Swidler said. They have to make some critical decisions, which allows them to be critical thinkers. The interactive teaching style will be new to many adults, who will have to suspend what they know and see the events as happening in real time, Swidler said. The topic commemorates the 50-year anniversary of Kings death. After five decades, the presentation of the Civil Rights Movement has changed, organizers said. You always have to be able to adapt and search for other angles, Swidler said. Thats what case studies are attempting to do. As a subject, voting rights resonates with the recent midterm elections. The intention behind teaching these cases is to help students and the community recognize the importance of being engaged, and encouraging a public discourse on these critical issues with historical knowledge as people make decisions with regard to voting, Keller said. Students and community members will think about the legacy of equality efforts in America and make connections to contemporary equality movements, Keller said. The way in which the Civil Rights Movement is taught is changing and will continue to do so, she said. jo.kroeker@hearstmediact.com Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation led by President of the World Anti-Doping Agency Craig Reedie. The head of state expressed satisfaction with the WADA Executive Committee Meeting in the Azerbaijani capital, which was attended by many guests from various countries. GREENWICH Police confiscated more than 100 small packets of heroin, more than 60 grams, and arrested two men on drug charges, authorities announced Monday. Police detectives were in the vicinity of West View Place in Riverside late last week when a person of interest arrived, according to an arrest summary. Authorities said a man from upstate New York, Adam Rivera, 28, of Fourth Avenue in Watervliet, drove to a Riverside address Thursday morning. When questioned by police, according to the report, He admitted he was delivering heroin to a local resident. OnePlus 6T was announced at the end of October at several regional events, one of them in New York, United States. The US unveiling made the headlines with the partnership between the manufacturer and T-Mobile, revealing its support for both CDMA and GSM networks. The new flagship now supports Band 13, certified for use on Verizon Wireless. These improvements in usability led to 86% increase in first-day sales of OnePlus 6T when compared to its predecessor OnePlus 6. OnePlus 6 vs OnePlus 6T The information was reported first by XDA Developers, who also clarified that OnePlus managed to sell 1 million units in the last three weeks. With the positive sales trajectory of the OnePus 6T, the new phone is on track to become the best selling product of the company. OnePlus 6T costs $549 if you go for the Mirror Black 6/128 GB edition. The price can go as high as $629 for an 8/256 GB Midnight Black phone, but T-Mobile is offering the device with a monthly payment plan for customers with an average or better credit score. Via Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump intend to hold a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina at the end of this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that among the issues they hope to discuss is the US decision to quit the INF Treaty. "[At the events in Paris on November 11] Putin had a quick word with Trump. They agreed they had a great deal to discuss, including the INF Treaty. They decided to do this at the G20 summit in Argentina," TASS cited Peskov as saying. Yesterday, Putin and Trump attended ceremonies in Paris at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Originally the Russian and U.S. leaders had agreed to use that opportunity for conducting separate bilateral negotiations only to postpone them at the request of the French side, because a Russian-U.S. summit might have distracted the world publics attention from the main theme of the events. Haiti - Social : 86 Haitian boat-people intercepted off Cuba On Saturday, the crew of the US Coast Guard Jayhawk Clearwater MH-60 helicopter reported a 13-meter sailboat overloaded with people 26 nautical miles (42 km) north of Punta Maisi, Cuba. Alerted, the Coast Guard cutter Thetis from Key West, Florida, went to the scene and the crew recovered 86 Haitians who were piling up dangerously, in a makeshift boat that was not equipped to carry as many passengers. The Jayhawk crew remained on the scene during the rescue, providing air support as the weather worsened, threatening to capsize the migrant boat. Once on board the Thetis, the Haitians received medical care, food and water and were subsequently repatriated to Haiti in the Cap-Haitien region. Since October 1, 221 Haitians have tried to illegally enter by sea to the States. Since the beginning of the year 2,488 Haitian migrants in total have been intercepted in the straits of Florida, the Caribbean and the Atlantic. S/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... J-C Moise wants to make float the red and black flag Jean-Charles Moise, the leader of the radical opposition party "Pitit Desalin" intends to make float the red and black flag to commemorate the 215 years of the Battle of Vertieres on November 18, for him "this flag represents the symbol of the struggle of the slaves and the liberation of the blacks". Remember that this flag was the one flown by the dictatorship Duvalier (1964-1986). The media should not replace the courts Gamall Jules Augustin, the Director General of the National Radio of Haiti (RNH) calls the journalists and the press owners to stick more "to the ethical rules of the trade, to the mission to educate and inform the population rejecting all sensationalism and gratuitous condemnations. The media should not replace the courts, he says, conjuring some press workers "to stop stoning people". Grants to 4 organizations for the disabled As part of strengthening of organizations for people with disabilities, the Office of the Secretary of State for the Integration of Persons with Disabilities (BSEIPH) awarded grant checks to four organizations working in the disability field : The Special Education Center (CES) working in the education of children with intellectual disabilities, the Haitian Federation of Associations and Institutions of Persons with Disabilities (FHAIPH) working for the promotion of disability, the Vision for the Disabled in North West (VIHANO) working in the professional integration of disabled people and the Association of Disabled People for the Advancement of the District of Lascahobas (ASHALAS). 95th Nursing Promotion Sunday took place the parchment presentation, during the graduation ceremony of the 95th Promotion (2014-2018) of the Faculty of Nursing Sciences of Port-au-Prince (FSIP/UEH) called "Odyse" whose Gary Bodeau, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, is the sponsor of the promotion. We can not talk enough about books "We can not talk enough about books," declared French Ambassador accredited to Haiti Jose Gomez on Friday evening at the Residence de France, during the reception given in honor of the writers of the 1st edition of "International and Digital Book Fair in Haiti : Carrefour of Authors Carrefour des auteurs" https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-26068-icihaiti-literature-international-and-digital-book-fair-in-haiti.html Promotion of human rights among students On Friday, as part of the promotion of human rights, a talk was organized by the South East Departmental Directorate of the Office of Citizen Protection (OPC), with 122 students (76 in Philo and 46 in Rheto) the final classes of Lycee Celie Lamour de Jacmel around the theme "Gender-Based Violence". HL/ HaitiLibre Havre Police Department Aaliyah Brielle Eagleman of Havre, 18, was arrested on a charge of shoplifting, after a First Street caller reported a shoplifter Friday at 11:14 a.m. -- A caller at Third Street and Fifth Avenue reported her vehicle was rear-ended Friday at 11:32 a.m. -- Friday at 12:27 p.m. a caller reported "a smell of weed" around a 10th Street house. -- Dillon Jon Cornell of Turner, 25, was issued a summons at the police station Friday at 7:50 p.m. on a criminal contempt charge related to a 24/7 Sobriety Program no-show violation. -- A 16-year-old was arrested on a partner or family member assault charge after a Saturday 732 p.m. caller on 10th Street West reported a brother and sister in a verbal fight. -- Jerome Tucker Hould of Havre, 22, was arrested on charges of driving under the influence, driving with a suspended to revoked driver's license and careless driving, during a vehicle stop on Fourth Avenue at 2:09 a.m. Sunday. -- Sunday at 2:37 a.m. at the police station, someone reported suspicious activity. -- A caller at a Third Street West residence reported Sunday at 10:49 a.m. someone had stolen $100, a phone, a pool stick and Pokeman cards. -- Shawn Michael Wright of Havre, 23, was issued a summons on a shoplifting charge after a caller at an 11th Street West business reported a pack of cigars stolen. -- Havre Animal Control was called to make an investigation Sunday at 3:02 p.m. Hill County Sheriff's Office The dispatch log for the sheriff's office was not available today because of the Veterans Day holiday. Havre Fire Department Emergency medical personnel responded go one call Friday, three calls Saturday and five calls Sunday. -- Firefighters were called to the 700 Block of First Avenue Friday at 11:10 a.m., but no one was made available to provide details. Havre Animal Shelter The Havre shelter this morning held one medium-hair cat, two short-hair cats and one short-hair kitten of unknown gender, and one long-hair female cat; five 7-week-old kittens being fostered until adoption, and another 15 cats and two kittens, all of unknown gender, were listed separately in the shelter. -- The Havre shelter this morning also held a female Australian cattle dog-blue heeler-border collie dog, a male German shepherd dog, a female mixed-breed dog, a male Labrador retriever puppy, a male Labrador retriever dog, a male mixed-breed 10-week-old puppy, a female mixed-breed 9-month-old puppy, a female mixed-breed 11-month-old puppy and a female Australian shepherd-German shepherd dog. Births A girl was born Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018, to Katie and C.J. Hanson of Box Elder. World War II U.S. Navy veteran Cranston Hawley, front, poses for a photograph with U.S. Army Veteran Rebecca Joan Bishop, back from left, her mother and Cranston Hawley's wife, Jessie James-Hawley, and her daughter Hays U.S. Postmaster Dawn Bishop-Moore. Cranston Hawley's daughters were not able to attend the event. Life takes everyone on different journeys or to different places and for a resident of Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, his time in the U.S. Navy took him further than he imagined. Cranston Hawley was born in Fort Belknap Oct. 8, 1927, and is a member of the Assiniboine Tribe. He was 14 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, during World War II Hawley's wife, Jessie James-Hawley, remembers how America changed after the attack on Pearl Harbor. "I can remember as a kid, I was 3 years old, and I was riding in the back of a pickup, " she added. "We had a radio and they announced World War II. The Japanese had bombed the Hawaiian Islands. Back then, America, the war affected everyone. You had to have rations for your sugar, your coffee, everything. Everything. Butter, rubber tires, nylon stockings, everything." The Japanese invasion kickstarted an increase in military production and James-Hawley said many people from Fort Belknap moved to the West Coast where plants were located for building military equipment. She added that her own mother, Cecilia Langford, was one of the women - famously depicted as Rosie the Riveter - who worked in the industrial plants. The war "touched everybody," she said. The number of young men enlisting for the military also increased. Men had to be at least 18 years old to join the military. "He tried at age 16 to get in to the military, but his mother wouldn't sign for him," James-Hawley said. "So he waited and - he lied - told her that he was going to join the Coast Guard, that it was safer and he would be out of danger, so she signed. So he went in to the service at age 17." Cranston Hawley said he chose the Navy because he thought he would be safer and most of the people he knew were joining the Navy. He also didn't want to have to march. "When I first saw the ocean, though," he said, "I said, 'I ain't going out there. I'm a Montana cowboy.'" Hawley was assigned to a landing ship, tank - LST - and served in the engine room. He was a seaman first class. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, LSTs were used for deploying soldiers, supplies and vehicles to beachheads. LSTs were first produced for military service in 1942 and were used in the European and South Pacific theaters. "Gen. Douglas MacArthur employed LSTs in his 'island-hopping campaigns' and in the invasion of the Philippines," Britannica states. "In the Central Pacific, Adm. Chester Nimitz used them at Iwo Jima and Okinawa." Britannica also states that 26 LSTs were lost in action and 13 more were lost in accidents and rough seas. Hawley recalled a mission he was on where they were tasked with firing at floating mines in the water. He said the explosion was so loud it permanently affected his hearing. During the war, James-Hawley said ,her mother described Fort Belknap feeling like a ghost town because the men who were old enough went to war. "She said just old men and young boys were left," Hawley added. "I think that's true of every community." "We would go in to the post office and there would be lists posted of those soldiers who were missing in action and those who had been killed," she said. "And I remember listening to people cry." Cranston Hawley said his ship was to take part in the invasion of Japan, but the war ended before they got the chance to do so. Cranston Hawley The History Channel's website, http://www.history.com, states because of "heavy casualties sustained in the campaigns at Iwo Jima and Okinawa and fears of even costlier invasion of Japan led Truman to authorize the use of a new and devastating weapon - the atomic bomb." The atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and on Sept. 2, 1945, Japan officially surrendered; ending the war. Hawley returned home and became chief judge on Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. He served as judge for almost 40 years. "People will call and they want him to come and serve as judge," James-Hawley said. "He was always very fair." Hawley, now 91, and his wife ranch on Fort Belknap. He is humble about his brief years in the service. "I didn't serve for very long," Hawley said. "I don't deserve anything." In the largest trial to date to assess cardiovascular outcomes for an important class of diabetes medications, researchers have found that dapagliflozin markedly reduced the risk of hospitalization for heart failure in a broad population of patients with diabetes. This benefit was seen across the study population, including in patients who did not have a history of heart attack or heart failure. Results of the Dapagliflozin Effect on CardiovascuLAR Events Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction 58 (DECLARETIMI 58) trial, sponsored by AstraZeneca, were presented by Stephen Wiviott, MD, a senior investigator in the TIMI Study Group and a cardiovascular medicine specialist at Brigham and Womens Hospital, during the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2018, and published simultaneously in The New England Journal of Medicine. When it comes to helping our patients control and manage blood glucose, the how appears to be as important than the how much. When choosing a therapy, trial results like these can help us make an informed decision about what treatments are not only safe and effective for lowering blood glucose but can also reduce risk of heart and kidney complications, said Wiviott. DECLARE-TIMI 58 builds upon two other recent trials of SGLT2 inhibitors and shows that these drugs robustly and consistently improve heart and renal outcomes in a broad population of patients with diabetes. Dapagliflozin, manufactured by the trials sponsor AstraZeneca, is a selective sodium-glucose-co-transporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitor that blocks glucose resorption in the kidneys and promotes the elimination of excess glucose through the urine. Other SGLT-2 inhibitors have shown favorable cardiovascular effects, including a reduction in heart failure hospitalization, in patients with type 2 diabetes and established heart disease. The effectiveness of SGLT-2 inhibitors among a broader population of patients, including those not previously diagnosed with heart disease, was unclear before the current trial. To evaluate the effects of dapagliflozin in patients with established heart disease as well as those with risk factors for heart disease, the Brighams TIMI Study Group, in collaboration with the Hadassah Medical Organization, AstraZeneca, and others, conducted a randomized, double-blind, multi-national, placebo-controlled, phase 3b trial. Eligible participants were at least 40 years old and had type 2 diabetes. Researchers studied 17,160 participants, including 6,974 with established heart disease and 10,186 with multiple risk factors for heart disease. Participants received 10 mg of dapagliflozin daily or matched placebo. The primary safety outcome was a composite of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction or stroke (MACE). While dapagliflozin did not increase these events, it did not reduce the incidence in either patients with heart disease or with risk factors for heart disease. However, the drug did lower blood glucose levels throughout the trial and the composite of cardiovascular death and hospitalization for heart failure was reduced by 17 percent, driven by a 27 percent reduction in hospitalization for heart failure. The drug also improved renal outcomes, reducing a composite of several factors including end-stage renal disease and death due to renal failure. The team saw no evidence of an increase in stroke, amputations or fracture, concerns raised from previous trials of this class of drugs. As is known for this class of medications, there was an increase in genital infection and in diabetic ketoacidosis, but the latter was a rare event and the excess was less than 1 in 1,000 individuals per year. The TIMI Study Group Investigators also performed a meta-analysis combining the data from DECLARE-TIMI 58 and 2 other large trials of SGLT2 inhibitors. Several important patterns emerged: SGLT2 inhibitors reduce the risk of MACE by about 14 percent, but only in patients with existing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. In contrast, they robustly reduce the risk of hospitalization for heart failure by 31 percent and progression of renal disease by 45 percent, and these benefits were consistent regardless of a history of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or heart failure. These results are published simultaneously in the Lancet. Marc S. Sabatine, MD, MPH, chair of the TIMI Study Group and a cardiovascular medicine specialist at the Brigham, said: The cardiovascular outcomes trials to test the safety and efficacy of drugs for patients with diabetes have revolutionized our approach to this disease. Rather than simply focusing on changes in HbA1c, we can now use these data to select drugs that reduce the risk of important clinical events for our patients. The TIMI study group of Brigham and Womens Hospital received a grant from AstraZeneca for the conduct of the DECLARE TIMI 58 Trial. In addition, Drs. Wiviott and Sabatine report receiving consulting fees from AstraZeneca for participation in scientific advisory boards. Full disclosures can be found at NEJM.org. BRIGHAM AND WOMENS HOSPITAL TWO teenagers were arrested in a crackdown on drug dealing in Henley and Thame. Officers carried out a four-day operation between October 29 and November 1 acting on intelligence from residents. Two boys, aged 15 and 17, were arrested for possession with intent to supply and 14 men were cautioned for being in possession of cannabis. The operation in Henley included stop and searches carried out in Tilebarn Close. Sgt Neil Anns, head of neighbourhood policing for the Henley area, said the operation was part of Thames Valley Polices Operation Stronghold campaign to combat serious and organised crime. He said: This operation demonstrates that we will act on information from the public nobody knows their streets, towns and villages better than the people who live and work there. At Tuesdays town council meeting, Councillor Will Hamilton said: I would like to pass my thanks on to the police, who have done some excellent work to remove drugs from our streets. MORE than 1,000 people gathered in Henley town centre on Sunday to honour fallen serviceman and mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. One of the biggest turnouts in years saw the crowd fill Falaise Square in front of the town hall with many arriving early to secure a spot for the annual remembrance parade and service. Before it began, the names of the war dead and their ages were read out over a public address system. The parade, which was marshalled by Major Paul Smyth, of 7th Battalion, The Rifles, began with five members of Henleys Royal Marine Cadets marching from the Greys Road car park into the square and forming a guard of honour outside the town hall. In front of them sat two chairs draped with Union flags and plastic silhouettes of servicemen - one wearing a Marine Cadet cap and the other a Sea Cadet cap representing those who never returned. They were followed by other sea cadets, as well as air and army cadets, veterans, members of the Henley and Peppard branch of the Royal British Legion and civic dignitaries. There were also members of the St John Ambulance, Thames Valley Police, Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, guides, brownies, scouts and cubs. They formed a semi-circle around the town hall for the ceremony with the crowd behind and at 11am two helicopters a Puma and a Chinook from RAF Benson - performed a flypast approaching from Gravel Hill, over the town hall and then onto St Marys church. Immediately afterwards, Henleys town, district and county councillors, dressed in civic attire, were led by town sergeant James Churchill-Coleman from the town hall. The procession included the Mayor of Henley Glen Lambert, the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire Cynthia Hall and Mayors cadet Charlotte Searles, a sea cadet. Rev Jeremy Tayler, the new rector of Henley, led the service for the first time. He said: My brothers and sisters, today we gather, as we do each year, to pray for peace in the world God made and peace for which so many have already laid down their lives and for which so many continue to die, day by day. And we remember them before God with both grief and pride and thanksgiving. Our Act of Remembrance today had added significance, as we mark one hundreds years since the end of the First World War. We pray for all who suffer still because of war and terrorism and we ask for Gods help and blessing for ourselves, that we may do his will and that the whole world may acknowledge him as Lord and King. Brig Malcolm Page, president of the Henley and Peppard branch of the Royal British Legion, read the Ode To Remembrance from Laurence Binyons poem For The Fallen. John Sayer, from the Woodley Concert Band, sounded the Last Post and standards carried by John Green, chairman of the Henley and Peppard branch of the Royal British Legion, and cadet first class Safia Riache, from the Henley Sea Cadets, were lowered. There was then a two-minute silence during which spectators bowed their heads to reflect before Reveille was sounded and Brig Page read the Kohima Epitaph. Rev Tayler led the Eternal Rest Prayer before the hymn God is our Strength and Refuge. Backing music was provided by the Woodley Concert Band, who were in a marquee in Falaise Square. The Mayors cadet then read verses from the Bible from the books of John and James. Rev Tayler led prayers before Councillor Lambert addressed the crowd from the town hall steps. He said: "At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 World War One reached its end. Anniversaries are usually thought of in connection with happy events, such birthdays and weddings. But this, the 100th anniversary of the First World War, is the most solemn one can imagine. Particularly so because it proved not to be the war to end all wars that those of the time believed, and hoped, it would be. Indeed, 100 years to the day from the Armistice that brought the Great War to an end, peace remains elusive in many parts of our world. We gather here today to remember all those who died, who were wounded or captured and for their dependants. It is distressing that, 100 years on, we still do not know the final death toll for World War One. Recent excavations at Hill 80, near Ypres, have exposed the remains of another 130 soldiers, North Countrymen, Australians, Canadians and Germans. Most people think of the suffering of the British and French armies during the Battles of the Somme, in 1916, but few of us give thought to the Battle of Verdun, fought by the French that same year against the attacking Germans for eight and a half months. It was the hardest fought and bloodiest battle of the war and so depleted the French Army that the British Army had to fight the Battle of Passchendaele, without French support, the following year. American troops did not see action in France & Belgium until July 1918, but the deployment of these fresh and well-equipped troops was decisive for the Allies and lead to the German emperors exile in the Netherlands. His obsessive pursuit of the war had brought the ruin of the German Army and cost a staggering 18 million lives. Just 20 years later, World War Two, the deadliest conflict in history, would claim another 70 million lives. More than the entire population of the UK today. Every year, on Remembrance Sunday, we pause our busy lives to reflect and remember the sacrifices made by the brave men and women to whom we owe so much. This year, to commemorate the 100th anniversary, a new memorial plaque has been installed next to Townlands Memorial Hospital which lists all 312 soldiers from Henley and the surrounding villages who lost their lives in the Great War, a commemorative tree has been planted at Northfield End and we have organised a flypast of three World War One aircraft - which should be with us shortly. I would like to thank the Royal British Legion for their tireless efforts raising funds, raising awareness and caring for our service people. We can all wear our poppies with pride. I would also like to thank all the parents who have brought their children and grandchildren to this service. It is so important that the baton of remembrance is passed down the generations because, as George Santayana famously said 'those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Finally, on behalf of our town, I would like to thank Mike Willoughby who has spent many years researching those from Henley and the surrounding villages who gave their lives in World War One. His book, Bringing them Home, includes background information on each of the fallen and serves as perhaps the finest memorial we have. The crowd then sang I Vow To Thee, My Country before Rev Tayler led the Act of Commitment and The Lords Prayer. The National Anthem was then sung. At about 11.20am there was a fly-past by a Sopwith triplane, a Fokker triplane and an SE5 biplane from the direction of St Marys over the town hall. Minutes later, they passed back over the square, this time with smoke trailing from the back of the aircraft and the crowd applauded. The planes are part of the Bremont Great War Display Team and were sponsored by the Royal British Legion, town councillor David Eggleton and Henley removal firm Wilkins. Rev Tayler then read the blessing before wreaths were laid on the town hall steps. This was led by Mrs Hall and Councillor Lorraine Hillier, the chairwoman of South Oxfordshire District Council. They were followed by the Mayor, who laid a wreath on behalf of the town council, Councillor Stefan Gawrysiak, who laid one behalf of Oxfordshire County Council, and Councillor Julian Brookes, who laid a wreath on behalf of Henley MP John Howell, who was attending the remembrance service in Thame. Mr Green laid a wreath for the Legion after which he saluted. Wreaths were also laid on behalf of the Dunkirk Veterans Association, the air, army and sea cadets, RNLI, the fire service, guides, brownies, Henley Lions, St John Ambulance, Henley Bowls Club, Henley Round Table, Falaise Twinning Association, the police, scouts, cubs, Henley and Henley Bridge Rotary clubs. This was followed by a march past led by the former servicemen and women. They paraded around Market Place with Mr Green holding the Legion standard at the front. As they passed the town hall, many in the parade saluted the war memorial and dignitaries before returning to Greys Road car park. The crowds applauded and cheered all the participants. After the service, a reception was held at the town hall. Putting the Metro through Ranelagh on the planned route would be hugely divisive and controversial, a TD representing the area has warned. Locals in the south Dublin village are angry the project will see the closure of the road at Dunville Avenue and the Beechwood Luas stop. It has been estimated the cost of extra tunnelling to avoid the road closure at Ranelagh will be around 77m, while houses and a local cafe might also have to be demolished. However, residents and politicians have begun campaigning to prevent the closure of the road that would be necessary under the plan to upgrade the Beechwood stop to Metro status. "There is a lot of anger. Imagine if they close the road, there won't be that pedestrian access anymore," said Green Party leader and Dublin Bay South representative Eamon Ryan. "How do you walk to the shops? How do you walk to school? It can't go ahead as is currently planned, I'm confident that it won't." He believes the tunnel boring machine should "keep running," and the line be extended underground toward Tallaght. "The Metro is a very different system to the Luas," he said, adding the plan to integrate the two systems posed difficulties in the south of the city. Concerns Metro plans won't be ready until early in the New Year, as engineers attempt to resolve a raft of issues and concerns. The problems highlighted following consultation with the public and interest groups have been the cause of the delay. Engineers are now attempting to find fair solutions to the litany of concerns, including those raised in Ranelagh. It's understood the extra time taken is to ensure there are solid answers to concerns. Among the issues on the table is the impact the project will have upon are two schools on Mobhi Road in Glasnevin - Scoil Chaitriona and Scoil Mobhi. Scoil Mobhi principal Marcella Nic Niallaigh has previously said "effective education" would be impossible with the diesel emissions, noise and vibrations that will come with the construction. The 26km Metro line will travel between Swords and Sandyford and is projected to cost in the region of 3bn to construct. The initial public consultation held by Transport Infrastructure Ireland was non-statutory and they intend on holding a second one after the revision. NTA chief executive Anne Graham said the full length of the track should be operational by 2027 if it succeeds in the planning process. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said at the meeting with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan to Belarus Latif Gandilov that Belarus has three candidates for a CSTO secretary general's position. Speaking about the candidates, Lukashenko noted that the rotation follows the alphabetical order of the names of the CSTO member states, so Belarus comes after Armenia. "Right now I have three candidates for the CSTO secretary general's position," BelTA cited the head of state as saying. The Belarusian leader did not understand why there were so many speculations and rumors about the appointment of the new secretary general because the foreign policy situation around the CSTO countries had been the main issue on the agenda. The decision on the appointment will be made at themeeting in Saint Petersburg on December 6. Gardai at the scene of the major security alert in Drogheda Associates of shot mob boss Owen Maguire are believed to have been responsible for a pipe bomb placed in the exhaust of a car belonging to a rival mobster's innocent girlfriend. Flames were seen coming from the exhaust at 2.40pm yesterday, sparking a major security alert. The device was viable and had wires protruding from it. A senior source told the Herald that gardai believed the device was detonated by a criminal using a mobile phone. "The car was parked in a very busy street in Drogheda," said the source. "The bomb could easily have led to loss of life." Bitter This latest incident, involving the innocent woman, is part of a bitter feud in the Drogheda area and followed six attacks last Thursday and Friday. These included four petrol bomb attacks and an assault on a teenager. Following yesterday's pipe bomb incident, a number of homes in the area were evacuated. Security cordons and traffic diversions were also put in place. Gardai last night deemed the area safe. They said the suspect device was recovered and made safe by army bomb disposal officers. Both the car and device were removed for technical and forensic examination. Gardai had been carrying out stop-and-search armed patrols in recent days in an attempt to curb the rising tensions. The situation has become so bad that sources are saying more gardai are needed to tackle the feud. There have been fears in recent weeks that the spate of incidents will eventually lead to a death. The feud kicked off on July 5, when Maguire was shot in an attempt on his life. He is still undergoing treatment at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire. The attempted murder is believed to have been carried out by a feared Coolock gangster who is linked to 10 other shootings. The first of last week's six incidents took place shortly after 11pm on Thursday in the Termon Abbey area. A petrol bomb was thrown at the home of an innocent relative of a man involved in the feud. It is understood no one was hurt, but the property was badly damaged. Less than 15 minutes later, there were reports of a man with a gun entering a halting site in the Cement Road area of Drogheda. Gardai attended but found no firearm. No one was injured. At 2am on Friday, part of Cement Road was damaged in a second petrol bomb incident. Minutes later, a car was set alight in the St Laurence's Park area of Drogheda. The car is currently being examined by gardai. A second car was set alight at 5.20am in St Laurence's Drive, Drogheda. Hatchet An 18-year-old man needed stitches when he was attacked with a hatchet in the Cement Road area at 5pm on Friday. Only late last month, two fire crews and gardai attended the scene of an arson attack at a property in the Moneymore estate in Drogheda. A week before, five shots were fired at the property . A shed was destroyed in the huge blaze which also led to the oil tank at an adjoining property catching fire. The incident was the second attack in four nights on the property. It is the home of an innocent woman who has no involvement in the gang dispute. Sharon Strain, Ann Doyle, Sue Ruddel and Rebecca Kelly Ruddel, from Coolock, Co. Dublin, ahead of the Remembrance Run 5K 2018 at the Phoenix Park in Dublin. Hundreds of people turned out for this year's annual Remembrance Run in the Phoenix Park yesterday. The event brought people together who walked, ran or jogged the 5k route while remembering and dedicating their participation to loved ones. The race started at Chesterfield Avenue at 11am. MESSAGES There was a special Wall of Remembrance erected at the race finish on Furze Road in the Park, which was filled to capacity with signatures and messages from the participants remembering their family and friends. Every person who managed to finish the race received a specially designed souvenir candle. It was the seventh Remembrance Run to be held. Turkey's eastern and southern borders will be sealed with cameras, sensors and walls as a precaution against terror, drug trafficking and irregular migration, the republic's interior minister Suleyman Soylu said. "All of our eastern and southern borders are being sealed with cameras, sensors, and walls in order to prevent terrorist infiltration, drug trafficking, and irregular migrants to Turkey," Anadolu Agency cited Soylu as saying. Soylu said that Turkey "will be able to have the technology to monitor the Aegean Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea in 2-3 years with cameras and radar systems." Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said he doesnt rule out that the OPEC+ deal could be extended into 2019 in its current format. "If need be, I dont rule out such an option. There have been no signs that the deal would be terminated," Novak said on the sidelines of an OPEC+ ministerial meeting. "We are living amidst effective decisions that the deal is to stay in place till the end of the year." Top OPEC member Saudi Arabia, in turn, said it will curb exports by 500,000 barrels a day. A deal between the OPEC oil exporting nations, the biggest one being Saudi Arabia, and non-OPEC oil producers (known as OPEC+) was signed in December 2016. After a number of extensions, the deal is expiring at the end of 2018. A new, open-ended, deal between the OPEC and non-OPEC nations is expected to be signed at a regular meeting in Vienna in early December. Various other parameters of the oil cut deal are now being discussed, TASS reported. The next ministerial meeting will be held in Vienna on December 5-7. Seven days of horror end with two ex-cops and two little girls dead A working breakfast, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in honour of the heads of delegations who have arrived to attend the celebrations to mark 100 years since the end of WWI, took place at the Elysee Palace in Paris yesterday. The event was held in an informal setting, without the presence of journalists, the Kremlin website reported. Representatives of over 80 countries and heads of the most international organisations were invited to attend the celebratory events in the French capital. During the lunch, U.S. President Donald Trump discussed a variety of issues with Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a lunch, including the INF nuclear treaty, Syria, trade, the situation in Saudi Arabia, sanctions, Afghanistan, China and North Korea, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. "They had very good and productive discussions during the two-hour lunch," CNN cited Sanders as saying. Earlier, the Russian president said that he has had a chance to speak with the U.S. President. The Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Putin had no opportunity to speak substantially with Trump during the working breakfast. Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov earlier said that the French side was "very insistent" that Putin and Trump not hold a summit at commemorations in Paris. First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs, a representative of the legislative body of the Jewish Autonomous Region, Vladimir Dzhabarov, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the new format of negotiations with the participation of Russia, the United States and the leading countries of Europe might be of interest to all parties. "At the same time, its not clear how it could look like; it requires a separate structure. The next meeting can be held within the framework of the G20 in Argentina, and a format of holding such meetings twice a year on the G20 sidelines, can be foreseen. In principle, such negotiations will be very useful. I think that the more often the leaders of the leading countries meet, the greater the chance for preserving peace on this planet," he said. "Even informal meetings of the Big Four leaders for solving operational problems in crisis situations would be very effective. All these countries France, Germany, and, especially, Russia and the United States determine the destiny of the world. Therefore, this is very important. It would be justified to add China to them. Most likely, such meetings will be held within the framework of the G20, its too early to outline a special format for talks between Moscow, Washington, Berlin and Paris," Vladimir Dzhabarov added. Director of the Institute of Political Studies Sergei Markov stressed that negotiations in such format, even informal, are unlikely to be held again in the near future. It was only a short and friendly conversation at breakfast, some confirmation of the readiness for dialogue. The conditions did not suggest that Putin, Trump, Merkel and Macron would look for any solutions on key international issues, because Paris was striving for completely different goals: showing to the increasingly unhappy European Union countries that the EU is saving them from the First World War catastrophe, fixing the return of the demons of nationalism, which led Europe to that catastrophe and declare the need to return the political independence of Europe from the U.S.," he pointed out. "In this regard, the meeting, especially with the participation of Russia and the United States, would work directly against this main goal of the Paris events in honor of the Armistice of Compiegne's centenary. Other such meetings in the Russia-U.S.-Germany-France format are theoretically possible, but it is very difficult to practically implement them. Although this goal could be brought up exactly by Macron's current goal - he wants to become the leader and creator of a new stage in the development of the European Union, when the EU becomes an independent political force," Sergey Markov concluded. Azerbaijan's Minister of Defense, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov sent letters of condolences to Turkey's Minister of National Defense Hulusi Akar and Chief of the General Staff, Army General Yasar Guler over the death of soldiers as a result of an explosion occurred at an ammunition depot in Hakkari province, the Azerbaijani Defense ministry said. "I am deeply shocked by the news of the death and injury of military personnel as a result of an explosion occurred at an ammunition depot in Hakkari province of the fraternal Republic of Turkey. Your grief is our grief too," the letter says. "I pray to Almighty Allah for the repose of the souls of the deceased, share the sorrow and grief of their relatives and express my deep condolences to their families. I wish speedy recovery to the wounded," the letter reads. Georgian Dream ruling party supported presidential candidate Salome Zurabishvili said she and her family are being threatened by former servicemen affiliated with the United National Movement party. Zurabishvili has already addressed the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and the civil sector to react to open threats on her life, her son and daughter. She said that her son Teimuraz Gorjestani and daughter Ketevan Gorjestani received messages and audio calls on 9,10 and 11 November. The messages and calls included verbal abuse and words like these: "Ill kill you", "Ill drink your blood" and others. The threats are real as those who left the messages have been identified - they are former soldiers connected with the United National Movement. "It is very insulting for the state that people who are threatening a female presidential candidate and her family are using the name of the Georgian Armed Forces, of forces which are associated with bravery and honour," Zurabishvili stressed. "I have already appealed to the Interior Ministry for all necessary steps to be taken to prevent destabilisation," Agenda.ge cited Zurabishvili as saying. She also called upon the civil sector to react to the violations against her and said that her previous appeal to the civil sector had been ignored. "I appealed to the civil sector on 11 October first to react to violation of my rights by my opponents. However, the organisations which must protect human rights and take actions against the language of hatred and gender discrimination showed no interest in such incidents against me," she added. "If they still fail to react timely and effectively, they will share the responsibility regarding my family or the destabilisation in the country together with the initiators of the mess, Zurabishvili said. Political scientist Gela Vasadze, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that such threats may be staged by the Georgian Dream as part of the election campaign. "I do not exclude that Salome Zurabishvili could get certain threats - but the question is from whom? There are two options: either from some psychotic, or the sick are those who have come up with such a combination to play it out in the election campaign are mentally ill. It is absolutely clear that any sane person would wonder why the UNM to threaten Zurabishvili, thereby weakening Vashadze's position? Both threatening Zurabishvili, and faking threats are equally silly," he stressed. "Most of the people I communicate with believe that this is a staged provocation of the Georgian Dream. I admit that an inadequate person could threaten her. But the fact that this opposition decided to scare Salome Zurabishvili like something from science fiction," Gela Vasadze added. The head of the Institute of Management Strategy, Petre Mamradze, also excluded that the threat was coordinated with the management of the UNM. "Its very hard to imagine that it came from the very top, because, whatever criminals Saakashvili and his accomplices are, they still understand that any threats will be made public and the investigation will bring no benefit to them. At the same time, I also exclude the option of provocation by the Georgian Dream: its hard to imagine that after all the mistakes they made to compromise Saakashvilis 'Nazis'. It's hard to assume anything rational in this situation," he noted. "I think that it could be some kind of irrational persons. Someone, for example, hates Saakashvili and did it in order to discredit him even more. It could also be someone who really hates Zurabishvili. But its difficult to imagine that these were planned actions of one of the parties," Mamradze concluded. The Diplomatic Club under the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry continued a series of meetings dedicated to various countries and regions and held a regular session at the Embassy of Armenia, which was attended by heads of diplomatic missions in Moscow, heads of major Russian and foreign companies and representatives of culture, science and art. A unique tour of the legendary historical building - the Lazarevs Mansion where the Armenian diplomatic mission is located - was held for the guests. Kolkata : At 21, Md Sazzadul Hoque seems to have been abandoned by everybody he ever cared for. His family, in Bangladeshs Chittagong, has stopped supporting him and Hoque has been expelled from his college in Dhaka. For the last one-and-a-half years, he is living near Kolkata on a tourist visa. His fault : Hoque dared to write on issues such as secularism, atheism, gender equality, sexual and human rights and protested the killings and persecution of bloggers in Bangladesh. I now fear for my life. I could also be killed in India by fundamentalists who support the goings on in Bangladesh. I protested the atrocities being committed on the minority Hindu population in my country and the obstruction of free speech. I also write on the systematic political corruption and superstition that obstructs reasonable and critical thinking. I also campaign for Be Humane First, which aims to establish civil liberty. Now, I have nowhere to go, Hoque says. He belongs to a very conservative family and received religious lessons since childhood. However, as he grew up, Hoque started questioning certain beliefs and rituals. People who were my best friends are my worst enemies now and would turn me over to the fundamentalists any time. Before coming to India, I ran from one shelter to another with imams baying for my blood. I was branded an atheist who deserves death under Islamic laws, he added. Hoque claims that his ordeals began on May 25, 2017 after he posted on Facebook that: I want to live like a human, not a Muslim things I was taught and made to believe are wrong. The post went viral and his Facebook account was suspended. Source : TOI In a high profile press conference by a Europe-based leading non Governmental Organisation (NGO), it has been revealed that Pakistan is one of the countries which give military and psychological training and state support to terrorists. Junaid Qureshi, director, European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) made the observations at Crans Montana Forum in Switzerland- news agency ANI reported. Citing Qureshi, the report said that the sleeper cells in Pakistan have enjoyed military and psychological training in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Some extremists in Europe have shown to derive inspiration from successes of other extremists elsewhere and as such establish sleeper cells which threaten the basic fundamentals of democracy in Europe and pose serious challenges to security concerns that the rest of the world has, he was quoted as saying by ANI. These sleeper cells are known to have enjoyed psychological and military training in South Asia, particularly in countries like Afghanistan and Bangladesh, which has turned them into a formidable force to reckon with, he further said. He also observed that the expansion of global terror organisations such as ISIS and Al Qaeda instigated local terror networks such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operating from Pakistan, as it continues to enjoy patronage from state actors. One cannot afford to underestimate the formidable an infrastructure of terrorism in South Asia, while highlighting that the threat of terrorism is not restricted to its region of origin anymore due to the expansion and worldwide recruitment policies of terrorist organisations, he was quoted as saying by ANI. Source : Hindupost Archaeological excavations revealed a mass cat cemetery and rare mummified scarab beetles in an ancient burial ground of Saqqara in Egypt. According to the Ministry of Antiquities-Arab Republic of Egypts official Twitter handle, a total of seven tombs were discovered at the end of the archaeological mission which was initiated in April. Out of the seven tombs, three of them contained cat mummies which were traced back to the fifth and sixth dynasties of Egypt. Among the rest, one of them belonged to Khufu-Imhat, who is considered the overseer of buildings in Egyptian mythology. On the other hand, the scarab beetles were unearthed from a section of one of the tombs called the Memphis necropolis. The insects were found to be wrapped in linen which was placed inside a rectangular limestone sarcophagus. Beetles were considered sacred in ancient Egypt. Archaeologists also unearthed an additional collection of mummies in smaller sarcophaguses. A bronze cat statue dedicated to an ancient Egyptian cat goddess Bastet, which was one of the 100 unearthed wooden cat statues. Wooden gilded statues of a lion, a cow, and a falcon, and also 1,000 other artefacts were also unearthed. The Egyptian government officials and ambassadors came in to take a look at the newly discovered tombs and artefacts. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Had Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh not announced their wedding a few hours before the Koffee with Karan season 6 premiere - due to feature Deepika and Alia Bhatt - the episode could have developed legendary status for one reason. It had what is possibly the biggest admission of the existence of their relationship thus far. When host Karan Johar mentioned that Deepika has been in a relationship for five years as compared to Alias few months, Deepika quietly corrected him and mouthed, Six. But that potentially big moment was undone by a surprise confirmation of not only their relationship, but that Deepika and Ranveer would be tying the knot over a two-day function on November 14 and 15. While fans welcomed the news warmly on social media, the wedding had been rumored for weeks if not months - their increasingly common PDA online had put all questions about them being together at rest. As Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh head off to Italy for their special day, heres a timeline of their epic romance. First meeting Deepika and Ranveer at the recent Hindustan Times Leadership Summit spoke about their first meeting and their first impressions of each other. While Deepika remembered thinking that Ranveer was not her type, he remembered thinking to himself how beautiful she is. This was after the release of Ranveers debut film, Band Baaja Baarat. Ranveer said that he remembers seeing her at a restaurant and being starstruck. Goliyon Ki Raasleela: Ram Leela - their first film It was on the sets of director Sanjay Leela Bhansalis film that Deepika and Ranveer are rumoured to have begun dating. Ranveer in a post celebrating the films fourth anniversary, wrote alongside their picture, Dont we look great together? The two would go on to star in two more Bhansali films, cementing their reputation as one of Bollywoods hottest on-screen couples. Loveria In 2013, Ranveer was admitted to hospital with a case of dengue. He said then that hed also contracted loveria. In an interview to the Times of India, the actor said that he wanted to marry the girl he was with. I have felt like this in the past also, but its a strong feeling this time. When you feel so strongly then you can say I guess I am in love. I dont know what is love, but what I am feeling is quite strong and cannot explain it. [I like] everything [about this girl]. Her kindness and her being genuine and caring, he had said. In the same year, he also said that he cant focus on anything else when Deepika appears on screen, and that hed be mortified if she called him Ranbir by accident. When she was asked about his loveria comment, she told HT, No, its amazing, the way he is. He is so unique. And I think what I admire about him is that he is so unapologetic about the way he is. Secret set visits In 2013, it was reported that Ranveer had secretly travelled to the Dubai sets of Happy New Year to spend time with Deepika. Ranveer dropped by for a few days with Deepika as her Dubai schedule is a long one. Dubai is a great place for a young couple to enjoy a romantic few days, a source had told a leading daily. He has also been spotted on the sets of Chennai Express and Piku. Years later, Deepikas xXx: The Return of Xander Cage director DJ Caruso casually revealed in an interview that Deepikas boyfriend Ranveer has come to the sets. In 2014, Deepika was spotted with Ranveer in Barcelona, where he was shooting for Zoya Akhtars Dil Dhadakne Do. Maldives vacation and IIFA Deepika and Ranveer were spotted together ringing in the new year in the Maldives. This was in 2015. Only a few months later, in March, they began appearing together at industry events. They were spotted arriving in the same car to producer Karim Moranis birthday bash. At the IIFA awards in the same year, Ranveer delighted fans by going down on one knee before Deepika on stage. He presented her with a large, red heart. Bajirao Mastani According to a Quint report, Ranveer gushed about the privilege of working with Deepika for the second time. Its my privilege that I get to work with her twice during this phase, in Ram-Leela and Bajirao Mastani. I trust her immensely, I know that shes one of the most generous actors that Ive ever worked with. I know that I can surrender to her in a scene... just connect with her, be present with her, look into her eyes and really mean what Im saying. Shes an incredible performer, he said. Ambani bash Deepika and Ranveer basically confirmed all the rumours in 2016, when they were spotted leaving an Ambani party together, holding hands. Padmaavat While promoting her third film with Ranveer, Padmaavat, Deepika told Filmfare, I am bored when people say that they love his energy. The man has so much more! He is an extremely good human being. He is kind and good to people. He is very real, emotional and sensitive. He is a man who is not afraid to cry and I love that about him. He is a man! Social media PDA Ranveer and Deepikas comment trail on each others photos was making headlines. In one example, Deepika posted a sunny picture from her flight of clouds. Ranveer commented, Hello, Sunshine! on the post, leaving everyone wondering whom he was referring to. Deepika also commented a big no on Ranveers childhood photo of him in a mohawk. Khalibali dance Just days before making their big announcement, the couple was asked at the HT Leadership Summit about their wedding. While they refused to confirm anything, they did say that theyd make an announcement if anything were to develop. But the highlight of the interview was them dancing to Ranveers Khalibali dance from Padmaavat together. Wedding announcement The couple in a joint social media announcement on October 21 wrote that they were going to get married on November 14 and 15. Heres their announcement: With the blessings of our families, gives us immense joy in sharing that our wedding is set to take place on the 14th and 15th of November, 2018. We thank you for all the love you have showered upon us over the years and seek your blessings as we embark on this incredible journey of love, loyalty, friendship and togetherness. Lots of love, Deepika and Ranveer Follow @htshowbiz for more Chhattisgarh Congress chief Bhupesh Baghel was not really excited when a friend suggested training sessions for workers of Indias oldest political party. He found a proposal for a 5-hour long session particularly unamusing. I have been a Congressman for 35 years and have never done any training session even for 2 hours. Making workers sit for that long is impossible, Baghel told an advisor. Baghel eventually agreed to the idea reluctantly. A banquet hall was booked in Raipur in June last year for the purpose and invitations were sent to 200 booth level workers for the training. The training session in Raipur covered four subjects the partys achievements and ideology, the Bharatiya Janata Partys truth, booth level management, and social media. The session went on for 7 hours, said Vinod Verma, Congresss poll consultant adding that such sessions have since been organised in 87 out of the 90 assembly segments in the state. The exercise impressed Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who flew to Bastar to attend one such session in August last year. Baghel was by then excited with the outcome and decided to take a leaf out of BJP president Amit Shahs book and to formulate a booth level plan. This has been BJPs tested exercise and a new concept for Chhattisgarh Congress, which now claims to have its units in place at 22,000 out of 23,411 polling stations. A section unit each was created to cover 100-125 households. A team comprising a woman, a youth and a senior worker was assigned to each section. This is like Shahs Panna Pramukh concept, wherein he appoints an in-charge for every page of a voter list covering 25-30 voters. The Congress also set up an executive committee of 21 workers for every booth. The BJP has a team of 10 workers for every booth committee. These activities helped us make a Congress worker vocal both on the ground and on the social media. Decency is maintained in the discourse, Verma said. Congress leaders say the exercise has helped the party overcome the fear factor. They say PM Narendra Modis popularity along with Shahs organisational skills had the Congress in Chhattisgarh, like elsewhere, awestruck. It has helped the Congress launch a more aggressive campaign. Congresss Vikas Khojo Yatra followed CM Raman Singhs Vikas Yatra to every constituency, questioning his claims about development. Journalist Lalit Surjan said the Congress is trying to infuse new blood into its organisational set-up but insisted it has a limited role to play. The Congress is not a cadre-based party like the BJP. BJP leader Pankaj Jha was dismissive. Their campaign could never take off. They struggled with infighting, he said. Senior Congress leader Ghanaram Sahu, who quit the party on the eve of the first phase of the state assembly elections, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today. Sahu, who was the vice president of the state Congress unit, joined the BJP in presence of its chief Amit Shah, reported ANI. He is the second senior Congress leader to switch over to the BJP in Chhattisgarh, after the partys state working president and tribal leader Ramdayal Uike earlier this month. In his resignation letter to state Congress chief Bhuvesh Baghel on Sunday night, Sahu accused him of mental harassment due to personal animosity Sahu, who hails from the Durg district and had thrice been an MLA from the area when it was still part of undivided Madhya Pradesh, was reportedly unhappy at not being fielded in the current polls. He unsuccessfully contested from the Gundardehi constituency in the district in the 2008 assembly election. Polling was held today in 18 seats spread across eight Maoist-affected districts of the state Monday, while the remaining seats in the 90-member assembly will vote on November 20. The BJP, headed by chief minister Raman Singh, is eyeing a fourth straight term in the tribal-dominated state as the opposition Congress seeks to return to power after 15 years. Chhattisgarh recorded 70% voter turnout in the first phase of state elections for 18 assembly seats on Monday, a figure election commission officials said will be updated once reports come from far-flung regions. In the last assembly election in 2013, the estimate on polling day was 67% for these 18 seats and it was later updated to 75.3%. The second and last phase of Chhattisgarh elections for the remaining 72 seats will be held on November 20. Of the 18 constituencies that went to polls on Monday, 12 fall in the Maoist hotbed of Bastar. The violence that hit the state in the run-up to the polls reared its head on Monday when eight Maoists were killed and five jawans of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) injured in two separate encounters. Two encounters took place on polling day in Bastar region. In the first encounter in Bijapur district six suspected Maoists were killed and five jawans belonging to the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) were injured. In the second encounter in Chitolnar in Sukma district, two Maoists were killed and two others were arrested, DM Awasthi, special director general of police ( Anti-naxal operations). The first phase of polling took place under a thick blanket of security with close to 100,000 security personnel being deployed and helicopters pressed into service to airlift polling staff to booths. Election commission officials in Delhi said voting was delayed in about one percent of the 4,336 polling booths because of glitches in electronic voting machines and in 1.9% booths because of malfunction of the paper trail machines. On Monday morning, Maoists triggered a blast through an improvised explosive device in Nayanar village when troops of the 195 Battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were approaching a polling booth. No injury to the personnel was reported. The election was peaceful at many places and Maoists were not able to attack the polling booths of sensitive areas, Awasthi added. Before Monday, at least 14 persons, including a Doordarshan cameraperson covering the elections, died in six attacks by suspected Maoists, who have asked people to boycott the elections. The violence, however, did little to slowdown parties campaign for the elections that are perceived by political observers as the semi-final before next years general elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday addressed a rally in Bilaspur, where polling will take place in the second phase and launched an attack on the Congress. The states ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, which has launched an aggressive campaign to return to power after 15 years, are hopeful of a good showing in the first phase. The first phase of polling is very important for both parties. The pattern and polling will reflect the political mood in Chhattisgarh, said Raipur-based political commentator Ashok Tomar. During his rally, Modi took a veiled dig at the Gandhi family stating that politics in Congress starts and ends with one family. Rebutting the PM, Congress spokesperson RP Singh said everyone knows the sacrifices made by the Gandhi family for the country. The PM has no real issues to raise in Chhattisgarh and is making frivolous allegations, he said. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Saturday arrested an Afghan national, travelling to Dubai, at the Delhi airport and recovered US dollars worth over Rs 3 crore concealed in a harmonium. Senior DRI officials said the man, whose name could not be revealed as the investigations are ongoing, is a resident of Parwan in north Kabul, Afghanistan. He was intercepted by a team of DRI officials at the Indira Gandhi International airports (IGIA) Terminal 3, when he allegedly attempted to smuggle $450,000 by hiding it inside the harmonium, which had a specially-built cavity. The man was intercepted following a specific input. It was during a search on him that we found the foreign currency hidden inside the harmonium. The man was arrested and the money seized. It is being probed whether there is an organised syndicate responsible for the smuggling, an officer requesting anonymity said. The DRI had, on November 1, seized foreign currency worth 2 crore at IGIA. Earlier this year, an Afghan national was arrested by customs at the Kochi airport for trying to smuggle out foreign currency worth nearly 11 crore. The officer said Indian customs had made 167 seizures of foreign currency till July this fiscal year, totalling nearly 54 crore, and leading to 73 arrests. The value of seizures till July is more than double compared to the corresponding period in previous fiscals, where currency equivalent to 25 crore was seized in 120 cases leading to 36 arrests, the officer said. During the fiscal year 2017-18, 89.7 crore worth foreign currency was seized, whereas 73 crore was seized in 2016-17. Even internationally, the movement of foreign currency in cash by couriers is used by organised crime syndicates to park illicit funds abroad. The outward smuggling of cash is a technique adopted as an alternate to hawala (informal banking), since it saves 3-5% deducted as hawala margin in a hawala transaction. Trend analyses by DRI indicates that Indian airports are being targeted by international crime syndicates for gold and narcotic drugs smuggling and the consequent smuggling of foreign currency, he added. The Delhi Police special cell arrested a 48-year-old suspected Maoist from Gadchiroli in Maharashtra Saturday on alleged charges of supplying illegally-procured ammunition to Maoists operating in the area, the police said Sunday. The accused, Ajeet Roy, is said to be a key aide of and main supplier of illegally procured ammunition to Narmada Akka, alias Alluri Usha Rani, a senior Maoist leader, Delhi Police officials said. The police recovered 45 INSAS and self-loading rifle (SLR) cartridges, used by security forces, from Roy, against whom the Delhi Police had declared a Rs 2 lakh reward. The police said Roy, a civil contractor in Gadchiroli, who joined the CPI (Maoist) in the early 90s, was allegedly involved in unlawful activities in Odisha and Maharashtra. He had allegedly been supplying illegally procured ammunition to Maoists for almost 25 years, the police claimed. Deputy commissioner of police (special cell) Pramod Singh Kushwah said Roy was also a key ammunition supplier to the CPI (Maoist)s Perimili Dalam group, led by commander Sainath alias Dolesh Madhi Atram, who was killed along with top Maoist commander Vijendra Ramlu and 38 others by the Gadchiroli Police during anti-Maoists operations in April this year. After the death of Sainath, Narmada Akka took the charge and became the military commander of Gadchiroli division of the CPI (Maoist). Roy became a key aide of hers and the main supplier of ammunition. The Delhi Police had charge-sheeted Narmada Akka in the case in which a Delhi University professor and others were arrested for links with Maoists in 2014. She was not arrested, Kushwah said. Kushwah said Roys arrest came following the interrogations of Ram Krishna Singh and Sanjay Singh, who were arrested between July and October this year, for allegedly supplying illegally procured cartridges to Maoists in Gadchiroli. Interrogations revealed that they illegally procured cartridges from contacts in Bihars Arrah and used to supply them to Maoist commanders through their contacts in Gadchiroli. Ajeet Roys name cropped up during their interrogation and further investigations, Kushwah said. Around Midland and around the world, loving and leading all people to deeper life in Jesus Christ. With Chhath Puja around the corner, political parties are, seemingly, trying hard to woo national Capitals Purvanchalis -- natives of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh -- who celebrate the festival and form a sizeable voter base in the city. The Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government said it has pressed thousands of workers to ensure celebrations go peacefully with senior members of the Cabinet overseeing the preparations. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress accused the government of politicising the festival while doing nothing on the ground. Development minister Gopal Rai, who is partys convener of Delhi unit and its main Purvanchali face in the city, took stock of preparations on the Yamuna banks on Friday. There were only 60 ghats before the AAP came to power in Delhi. This year we have 1,000, Rai said, emphasising the efforts made by the ruling dispensation to facilitate the celebrations. Last year, the government had developed 565 ghats. Meanwhile, The BJP-led municipal corporations, which are responsible for the upkeep of ghats and to provide essential facilities, have also pressed their staff in the maintenance of ghats across the city. Delhi BJP president and popular Purvanchali face, Manoj Tiwari, acused the Delhi government of false claims during his visit to the ghats earlier this week. He also called a meeting of 800 Chhath samitis (committees) to take stock of arrangements. AAP government is not at all serious towards Delhi residents, especially Purvanchalis. They claim they have set up 1,000 ghats but have not made any effort to ensure clean water flow in the river, said Tiwari, who is MP from northeast Delhi. The population of Purvanchalis stands at nearly 30-35% of the voters in the national Capital, according to Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Studies(CSDS). The festival has assumed more significance over the years. First, the proportion of people from Bihar and eastern UP in Delhi over the last decade has increased. Second, most of those who have settled here have stopped travelling back to their towns and villages during Chhath, said Kumar. The Congress, which was the first to tap into the Purvanchali votes, accused its rivals of playing dirty politics.It is unfortunate that the Chhath Puja samitis are being asked to put up the photos of AAP leaders at the ghats or else they would not be given any funds. They are playing dirty politics to lower the prestige of a sacred festival, said Ajay Maken, president, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee. At the three ITO ghats, which host the biggest congregation of devotees every year, organisers said one lakh people will assemble for the rituals before sunset on Tuesday. Even as the National Capital has been breathing foul air for days and emergency measures have been put in place, open dumping and burning of rubber and plastic waste continues in west Delhis Mundka. A group of locals and environment activists wrote a complaint about the open dumping and burning of plastic and rubber waste in at least 37 locations in the area to the SC-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) on Saturday. This is despite the fact that the EPCA had directed a temporary shutdown of industries, including a plastic factory complex in Mundka, till emergency measures are in place to curb high pollution levels in Delhi. The ban has been extended till November 12. Gram Sabha Mundka, comprising locals of the area, has sought an appointment with the area sub-divisional magistrate on Monday to discuss the matter. The area, housing a number of illegal industries, godowns and a village, was added to the list of pollution hotspots this year, as pollution levels in the area kept fluctuating between very poor and severe category for days. Mundkas Air Quality Index (AQI) reading was 422 in the severe category with PM 2.5 as the major pollutant on Sunday. PM 2.5 is usually generated due to the smoke and soot emitted from burning and vehicular emissions. These particles are harmful, as they can enter humans and animals blood and lungs, adversely affecting the respiratory system. Fumes from burning of plastic and rubber can cause cancer and cardiovascular diseases. We have attached pictures of waste dumping and burning found at 37 locations in the area on November 8, a day after Diwali, when pollution levels were already high after bursting of firecrackers. The fumes from burning plastic, rubber and surgical waste have made it difficult for residents to breathe in the area, Diwan Singh, environment activist, said. The EPCA, in a report it filed in the Supreme Court on pollution hotspots, stated the agricultural land of Mundka is being used for illegal dumping of waste, which is subsequently burnt and is a key cause of pollution in the area. The report also stated that the plastic market complex, where sale and purchase of waste material is undertaken, has in many ways become a dumping ground for heaps of plastic, rubber and electronic waste. In particular, heavy dumping of shoe soles and the practice of subsequent burning has a major potential to pollute Delhi air, the report stated. According to residents, the village is surrounded by industries, most of which are being run illegally and whose waste is dumped on roadsides. The area has the perpetual toxic smell of smoke and half-burnt plastic material. Several vacant plots along the village are used by the factories to dump their waste. A lot of times, we have to call fire brigade to douse the fire, Sanjeev Lakra, a resident, said. However, EPCA chairman Bhure Lal said, We had received a complaint regarding the issue and have asked the concerned municipal corporation to clear the plots and roadsides of dumped waste. They have started lifting the waste. A day after the ban on the entry of heavy and medium goods vehicles by the Environment Pollution (prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) was extended till November 12, the Noida-Delhi borders saw hundreds of trucks being re-routed. Close to 50 trucks were parked just before the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) Flyway toll plaza, after being denied entry into the national capital. This led to slow vehicular movement near Film City in Sector 16A, Noida, as the left exit to get on to the flyway was jammed with tailback till Dalit Prerna Sthal on Sunday afternoon. At the DND Flyway, commuters going towards Delhi had to wade through heavy traffic as long queues of trucks had left little space for vehicular movement. I was at the DND entry point around 12.30pm and it took me 15 to 20 minutes to cross the stretch because the trucks that were lined up on the carriageway towards Delhi had virtually left us no space to move, a commuter, who was stuck in the jam, said. The Noida Traffic Police asked the drivers of over 100 trucks to park their vehicles on the stretch of road connecting Okhla Bird Sanctuary Metro station to the HCL building in Sector 126, Noida, which is usually deserted on weekends. AK Jha, superintendent of police (traffic), Gautam Budh Nagar, said, Most trucks entering Delhi from Noida use the Kalindi Kunj bridge; that is why we asked the truck drivers to park their vehicles on the stretch of road near Okhla Bird Sanctuary Metro station. A Noida Traffic Police team has been stationed at the HCL trisection on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway where trucks are being re-directed to the Amity University road stretch. Moreover, another team has been stationed under the Mahamaya Flyover to stop trucks from Greater Noida from entering Delhi via the Kalindi Kunj bridge. According to Delhi Traffic Police, 609 heavy vehicles were turned away from important entry points last night, while 734 trucks carrying essential goods were allowed to enter the city. When asked, civic body officials, who have been tasked with enforcing the ban, said that heavy traffic was caused because of the checking of trucks carrying essential goods. It takes at least five to seven minutes to check whether a truck is really carrying essential goods. We not only check the vehicle thoroughly, but also verify the documents pertaining to goods being carried, an SDMC official said. There are 124 big and small entry points at border areas. The ban was enforced on November 8 as a measure to control the increasing levels of air pollution in Delhi. On Saturday, it was extended by two days because of severe air quality in the city. However, vehicles carrying essential goods such as vegetables, fruits, grains, milk, eggs, ice etc., and tankers carrying petroleum products were exempted from the ban. Developments have come at a rapid pace in Sri Lanka since President Maithripala Sirisena appointed his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa as the prime minister after sacking incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe on October 26. Mr Wickremesinghe described the move as unconstitutional and said he was determined to prove his majority in Parliament. The numbers appeared to be in favour of Mr Wickremesinghe when Mr Sirisena dissolved Parliament and called snap elections for January 5. Adding yet another twist to the developments was the decision on Sunday by Mr Rajapaksa and 44 others to quit the Sri Lanka Freedom Party led by Mr Sirisena and join the Sri Lanka Podujana Peremuna, a party established by Mr Rajapaksas brother. Sri Lanka is witnessing an intense power struggle, with long-gestating problems between Mr Sirisena and Mr Wickremesinghe coming out into the open. Three key political parties, including the one headed by Mr Wickremesinghe, that have an absolute majority in Parliament and an election commissioner have now challenged Mr Sirisenas dissolution of the legislature in the Supreme Court. Mr Sirisenas actions have been widely criticised by the international community and China is the only country so far that has recognised the appointment of Mr Rajapaksa, who relied heavily on Beijing for political and financial support during his controversial tenure as president. One of the key reasons for differences between Mr Sirisena and Mr Wickremesinghe was whether Sri Lanka should tilt towards China or India. However, when India studies these developments, it would be wise not to look at them only from the prism of China. Rather, it must take into account the consequences for India of continuing instability in the island nation. For now, India has adopted a wait and watch attitude towards the crisis in Sri Lanka though officials privately acknowledge that such political upheaval in a strategically located neighbour is a cause for concern. Indias top leadership will most certainly have begun working the phones with all channels in an attempt to resolve the crisis and uncertainty as developments in Sri Lanka will have an impact on Tamil Nadu. The lessons learnt from handling the earlier political crisis in the Maldives will be of help to the foreign policy mandarins and in the long run, New Delhi can help by working with its neighbour to strengthen democratic institutions, something for which it is infinitely more qualified than other regional powers. The pollution levels in Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida on Sunday were in the severe category once again. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data, the air quality index (AQI) values of the three cities stood at 440, 445 and 436, respectively, with Noida emerging as the most polluted city in the country after Faridabad. The CPCB data showed PM2.5 as the primary pollutant on Sunday. The prescribed standard for PM2.5 is 60 micrograms per cubic metre. It means that the PM2.5 levels are at least seven times higher than the prescribed standard in the three cities. The AQI of Faridabad was 461 on Sunday. The severe conditions have prevailed for long now. These conditions could be due to biomass burning and local pollutants, which are not getting dispersed due to very low wind speed. We have taken all the steps at our level for closing down industrial units, halting the construction activities, water sprinkling and even removal of road dust with the help of mechanised road sweeping, said AK Tiwari, regional manager of the UP Pollution Control Board. The pollution conditions in the three cities are more severe than the national capital. According to AQI values, the pollution levels in Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida have remained higher than that of Delhi post Diwali from November 8 to 11. It was only on November 10 when the AQI value in Noida remained lower than Delhi. Similar conditions will prevail year after year if there is no long-term plan which is taken up in the NCR region throughout the year and not just during the months of October and November. The green paving of roads, reduction of vehicular pollution and emphasis on public transport will help in long term, said Akash Vashishtha, a lawyer and environmentalist. To find out the violation of norms, the CPCB, along with the officials of the respective state pollution boards, have also deputed committees to carry out physical inspections in Delhi-NCR. According to the daily reports of the CPCBs Clean Air Campaign, there have been prominent complaints lodged with regard to four activities of construction/demolition, open dumping and burning of garbage, dust on roads and unpaved road in Delhi-NCR. On November 8, a total of 301 complaints were registered with 253 complaints related to the above four activities creating pollution in Delhi-NCR. Similarly, 239 complaints out of 307 on November 9 were also related to the four categories. On November 10, the four activities caused 201 complaints of a total of 263. In the wake of the present pollution scenario, the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority (EPCA) has written to UP chief secretary to extend the measures of Graded Response Action Plan till November 12. On Saturday, the Ghaziabad district magistrate also extended the closure of construction activities and industrial units using coal and biomass till November 15. The physical progress of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments ambitious Smart Cities Mission, aimed at developing 100 citizen-friendly and self-sustainable urban settlements, will be measurable only by 2021, when the first 20 of them are completed, officials aware of the projects development said. Latest data from the ministry of housing and urban development, which is overseeing the initiative, show that projects worth Rs 50,221 crore are under implementation, out of which projects worth Rs 9,981 crore are complete. Under the mission, the government aims to focus on innovative digital technologies interlinked with its Digital India, providing technology solutions such as surveillance systems to reduce crime and improve safety of residents. Projects related to e-governance, mobility, integrated traffic management and solid waste management have been envisaged. The process starts with the formation of implementing agency, a special purpose vehicle (SPV), promoted by the state/Union Territory and the urban local body, with a 50% equity shareholding each. The SPV, formed as a limited company, is governed by the Companies Act, 2013. Minimum five years is given for a city to be completed; the first 20, selected in January 2016, will be completed only in 2021. The feeling people have is why hasnt the work been completed. The point is that in all these big infrastructure projects, there are multiple steps involved, a senior official in the ministry said. Cities have to form SPVs, which takes at least three months. Then they have to appoint a project management committee, which takes another three months. After that, they prepare the detailed project reports, a senior official said. After DPRs, cities have to prepare the request for proposal, get approval of the board of directors and then tendering begins. All of this takes at least a year or so. Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Solapur, Davanagere, Indore, New Delhi Municipal Council, Coimbatore, Kakinada, Belagavi, Udaipur, Guwahati, Chennai, Ludhiana and Bhopal were the winners of the first round of the Smart City Challenge competition 2016. The selection of cities is done in two stages. In the first, 100 smart cities were distributed among the states and UTs on the basis of equitable criteria. In the second stage, each potential city had prepared its Smart City Proposals, which contained the model chosen (retrofitting or redevelopment or greenfield development or a mix thereof) and additionally include a pan-city dimension. A total investment of ~201,981 crore has been proposed by the 99 cities chosen so far. Projects focusing on revamping an identified area (area-based projects) are estimated to cost ~1,63,138 crore, the government said in a statement in May. Smart initiatives across the city (pan-city initiatives) account for the remaining ~38,841 crore of investment. Projects worth ~85,464 crore have been tendered so far, including those for which work orders have been issued and on which work is complete, the official cited above said. Projects worth ~40,000 crore are in the pipeline. Under the mission, setting up of integrated command and control centres (ICCC) for each city is a vital step. At present, 11 cities have operational ICCCs; centres in 29 cities are under construction; while tenders for 21 more have been processed, officials said. The ICCCs are designed to enable authorities to monitor the status of various amenities in real time. The centres will control and monitor online water and power supply, sanitation, traffic movement, integrated building management, city connectivity and Internet infrastructure. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday suspended for three years the flying licence of Air India operations director Arvind Kathpalia, a day after he was found to have an unacceptably high blood alcohol count shortly before he was scheduled to pilot a flight to London from New Delhi. Kathpalia, 56, was grounded by the airline on Sunday after he tested alcohol positive twice during as many breath analyser tests performed on him. In August, he had failed a similar alcohol test. In exercise of the power delegated under clause (a) of sub-rule (3) of rule 19 of the Aircraft Rules 1937... the undersigned hereby suspends in public interest the privileges of the pilots licence held by Capt A Kathpalia for a period of three years from Nov 11, 2018, DGCA joint director general JS Rawat said in an order. An airline official familiar with the matter said the London-bound AI 111, scheduled to depart at 2:45 pm, was delayed after Kathpalia failed the test. As per the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the level of blood alcohol compatible (BAC) with safe flying is zero. Kathpalia was declared unfit to fly as he had 007% BAC. The airline got the test results at 1:30 pm, a little over an hour before flights scheduled departure, and had to get another pilot for the Boeing 787. The prescribed punishment for such offences under the DGCA rules is suspension of flying licence for three months in case of first breach. For violating the norms for a second time, the licence is suspended for three years and for a third time, the licence is permanently cancelled. The civil aviation ministry, in tweet said: HMCA @sureshpprabhu has viewed this incident... and already directed earlier that there will be zero tolerance on safety thus now has asked #DGCA to take action as per rules immediately, they are awaiting report from Air India, action will be taken ASAP. On January 19 last year, Kathpalia had commandeered a Delhi-Bengaluru flight AI 174 without going through the mandatory breathalyser test. He did not take the test after landing at Bengaluru either despite being reminded about it. With PTI inputs Union minister Ananth Kumar, who died in Bengaluru on Monday, was a six-time parliamentarian who won all elections he contested since 1996 and an astute politician who is credited with crafting the BJPs rise in Karnataka. The minister for chemicals, fertilisers and parliamentary affairs, who died of cancer at 59, made his parliamentary debuted from the Bengaluru South constituency in 1996, when he defeated Varalkshmi Gundu Rao, the wife of the former chief minister R Gundu Rao. He won the constituency in all subsequent elections, including the latest in 2014 when he defeated the Congress candidate Nandan Nilekani. The clean image seemed to have helped him in his electoral battles, something his rivals also admit. Kumar was not a controversial figure and this helped him in the constituency, which was seen to have a large pool of undecided voters, a senior Congress leader of south Bengaluru said. Born in a middle class Brahmin family on July 22, 1959, in Bengaluru to Narayan Shastri, a railway employee, and Girija N Shastry, his early education began under the guidance of his mother who herself was a graduate. An Arts graduate with a Law degree, Kumar began his political journey with the Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a student organisation of the Sangh Pariwar, which he served in various capacities, including the state secretary and the national secretary. He took part in several protests during the Emergency and also courted arrest. He was eventually made the national secretary of the organisation. Kumar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1987, where he went on to take up the responsibilities of state secretary, state president of the Yuva Morcha, general secretary and national secretary. In 1998, he became the youngest minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayees cabinet. He served as the Civil Aviation minister, also minister for tourism, sports, youth affairs and culture, urban development and poverty alleviation. A 29-year-old soldier of the Indian Army was killed on Sunday when Pakistani troops fired along the Line of Control in Nowshera sector of Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri district, officials said on Monday. Pakistan Army resorted to unprovoked ceasefire violation in Nowshera sector on the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district at about 1445 hours (2.45pm) on Sunday, defence spokesperson Lt Col Devender Anand said. Naik Gosavi Keshav Somgir was injured critically and was taken to a nearby hospital, where he succumbed later, officials said. Somgir, hailing from Sri Rampur village of Nashik district of Maharashtra, is survived by his wife, Yashoda Gosavi. The Indian Army has retaliated strongly on Pakistan Army posts, Anand said. A police officer said Pakistani troops attacked the Indian Armys 24 Maratha Regiment near Raja post along the border in Nowshera sector. He said Somgir was hit by sniper fire from across the border. There has been a spike in sniper attacks on the LoC in the past one week. Gosavi was the second soldier killed in unprovoked Pakistani firing from across the LoC since Saturday. Rifleman Varun Katal from Samba was killed on Saturday in a sniper fire from across the LoC in the Sunderbani sector. Pakistani troops have been violating ceasefire continuously in the past three days along the LoC in Jammu region. The number of ceasefire violations this year by Pakistan has been the highest in the past eight years. Till July, the border region in the state saw 52 deaths and 232 people getting injured in 1,435 ceasefire violations, according to an RTI reply by the Union home ministry. Shepherding the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) election campaign in Rajasthan, where anti-incumbency and reports of factionalism pose challenges for the ruling party, Union minister Prakash Javadekar insists the delivery of social welfare schemes will ensure the BJPs return to power and the beneficiaries of these programmes will act as the state governments ambassadors. Ahead of the December 7 Rajasthan election, Javadekar spoke to Amandeep Shukla and Smriti Kak Ramachandran about what will propel the party win back the state, the threat from Opposition unity ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and the new national education policy being prepared by his human resource development ministry. Edited excerpts: You are overseeing the upcoming elections in Rajasthan, which appears to be the is the toughest of the five state polls for the BJP. Do you agree you are battling severe anti-incumbency? In Rajasthan, I feel its the other way around. The Congress has not done anything, even in Opposition. (Ashok) Gehlot ji did not even attend the assembly. The jinx that (the winner will be) the BJP once and the Congress once it has been there for the last 20 years will be broken this year. We believe that if you do good work, it reaches people. During our contact programme in the state between November 2 and 4, I went to Dalit bastis (localities with a high Scheduled Caste population). Everybody there is happy with the improved government schooling; even in small lanes, there are good roads; these people are our ambassadors. On the second day, I visited a Dalit family for lunch. They have a clean gas stove under the Ujjawala programme (free LPG for those below poverty line); they have a patta (title) for housing under the PM Awas Yojna; a toilet; an older person in the family received a monthly pension of ~1,000 and a younger woman has been given a mobile for Rs 100, which is prepaid for six months. The family was so happy. On the third day, I went to see the food served through the Annapurna Rasoi Yojana, where mobile vans offer a sumptuous breakfast for ~5 and a full meal for ~8 to the needy. Our slogan in the state is Na Baton Se, Kaamo Se, BJP Phir Se; Phir ek baar, BJP Sarkar (Not just words, through work, BJP once more; once more, a BJP government). Beneficiaries are present in every poor household, and their testimonials are our campaign. Are you saying these beneficiaries are your target vote bank? Not only targets, they are the new addition to us [our voter base]. Is that the new social engineering then, considering that social groups such as Jats and Rajputs, who supported the BJP earlier, are now upset with the party? The plank of the poor that was with the Congress during Indira Gandhis regime has now completely shifted to (Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji - first in 2014 with hope, and now with confidence. We dont treat any class as a vote bank, the Congress used to play the politics of vote banks. We believe every poor person wants respect and has aspirations for good education and health care. In Rajasthan, there is the Bhamasha scheme thorough which 2.5 million patients have benefited, they are always grateful. Because of the Mukhya Mantri Jal Swavlamban Abhiyan, the water table has gone up from five feet to 20 feet in each district; so there is water in the hand pumps, there is well irrigation, and tankers are less. These are real achievements. What we are providing through central and state government schemes is ease of life. Everybody is supporting us. Jats were given reservation through the OBC (other backward classes) quota by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. We have given Rajputs respect and honour, which is what they wanted. And at the same time, we dont do politics on the basis of caste. We consider all castes as part of society. It is the Congress that faces this problem (of caste groups being upset) because Rahul (Gandhi) wants Sachin (Pilot) to be the face but he is not able to say it openly since it has political ramifications. Congress is in a dilemma, we have made our choice very clear the BJP under PM Modi and CM Vasundhara Raje is marching ahead. But there were reports of disagreements between the state and the central leadership and differences with the Sangh. Even today, when we are discussing ticket distribution, you can see how amicably it is being done. The basic difference between the Congress and the BJP is that the former is one family party and the BJP is one family. And therefore, our relationship has never been like a sycophant to the family. You were in-charge of Karnataka as well. Were the recent bypoll results an indication of the Congress-JDS alliance posing a tough challenge to the BJP in 2019? When I went as in-charge of Karnataka, all the parties were saying its a clean sweep for the Congress. But we practically snatched power from the Congress and they are reduced; they then surrendered to the JD(S) [Janata Dal - Secular] and gave them the chief ministers post. They are not gelling well, and the Tipu Sultan jayanti showed the cracks within. Unprincipled alliances have no future. There is an expiry date for all such opportunistic alliances. The essence is that the BJP on its own is the single-largest party in Karnataka, and in the Lok Sabha bypolls we contested two seats, of which we won one. So, its not a complete rout. Has the BJPs poll plank shifted from development to the Ram temple in Ayodhya? The BJP has made it clear umpteen times that the Ram Janamabhoomi issue for us is a matter of faith and not an election issue. We say a temple at the birthplace (in Ayodhya) is already there and it only needs to be made magnificent. You have to ask the Congress, in their new role in Madhya Pradesh, they are talking of Ram and Gau Sarakshan while in Kerala they want to organise beef parties. Their member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor is opposed to a Ram temple at the birthplace. Focusing on your ministry, what is the progress on the New National Education Policy? The new education policy is practically ready now. The final draft will be ready in a few days. After the code of conduct (imposed because of state elections), it should see the light of the day because final consultations are also practically over. What will be the process? What are the expectations? The new education policy is practically ready now. The final draft will be ready in a few days. After the code of conduct (imposed because of state elections), it should see the light of the day because final consultations are also practically over. Is the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) bill expected in the upcoming session of Parliament? It is in the discussion stage. Once the Cabinet takes a decision, it can be introduced. UGC, AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) and NCTE (National Council for Teacher Education) are three education-sector regulators and these should work in the same way, follow the same processes, rules and methodology. What we are trying to do is to provide the ease of getting permissions, and at the same time, maintain the quality of higher education. The second aspect is, all these three regulators are different but as part of UGC (University Grants Commission) reform the grants function should be separated and placed under a body headed by academicians. It will not be bureaucratic, but a body of academicians. One body will deal with grants and another with regulations. That is the whole idea. But we have not finalised the draft because it is in process. When is the second list of Institutes of Eminence expected? It is the empowered committee (headed by N Gopalaswami) which gives its recommendations. I do not know the dates they have decided... The empowered committee has already seen presentations by 117 applicants. Two elderly sisters were found to be living with the dead body of the younger siblings husband in their house in Munshi Ghat area of Varanasi, police said. The man, identified as Tarun Kanti (65), had died about 10 days ago but the matter came to light on Sunday evening, they added. Station officer, Dashashwamedh Ghat, Balkrishna Shukla said, Prima facie it appears that Tarun Kanti died around 10 days ago. The exact time and cause of death will be clear once we receive the post-mortem report. He said sisters Sunanda Banerjee, 70, and Suchitra Banerjee, 65, lived in a house close to Munshi Ghat. Neighbours told the police that Sunanda, a teacher at a government school, had retired about 10 years ago. Tarun was Suchitras husband. According to police, the family did not interact with neighbours and they often used to feed monkeys. On Sunday, residents of the area informed the police about foul odour emanating from the house. The police reached the house and recovered the decomposing body. They also found biscuit wrappers near the body. The Yogi Adityanath government is most likely to prohibit the sale of meat and liquor within the geographical boundaries of the new district of Ayodhya that was known as Faizabad till recently. Similar bans may be imposed in the area around Lord Krishnas birthplace in Mathura and other holy places in the state. State government spokesman and energy minister Shrikant Sharma gave ample indications about this here on Sunday. The government is seriously considering putting a total ban on the sale of meat and liquor in the entire Ayodhya district within a legal framework, he told HT over phone. At present, a ban on the meat and liquor is confined to just Ayodhya town in the new district. He said saints from various parts of the state had been demanding a total ban on meat and liquor near various holy places in the state. For example, the sadhus and sants of Mathura have also demanded prohibiting the sale of meat and liquor in the Sri Krishna Janmasthali area, he said. The ban in Mathura districts is in force at pilgrimage spots like Vrindavan, Govardhan, Barsana falling on the Saptkosi Parikrima route. When asked if the ban would cover the entire Mathura district like the one demanded for Ayodhya or be just around the Lord Krishnas birthplace, the minister said, Some geographical demarcations will have to be made for the purpose of the ban. He also indicated the government might declare certain sacred places as pilgrimages to pave the way for the ban on meat and liquor around the intended places. The best is to declare all such places as pilgrimages, he said when asked if the government would make any law for banning meat and liquor in Ayodhya, Mathura and other cities or districts. After Faizabad was renamed as Ayodhya on November 6, many Ayodhya seers, including Satyendra Das, chief priest of the makeshift temple, are now demanding the government declare a total ban on meat and liquor in the entire Ayodhya district to purify the district that is associated with the name of Lord Ram. At present, the ban is limited to just Ayodhya town but since the Faizabad district has been renamed after Ayodhya, the ban should be extended to the entire length and breadth of the new district, the seers have argued. However, the ban on liquor, many people believe, may render hundreds of people jobless. According sources many people engaged in the liquor and meat business in Ayodhya district have already started opposing, tacitly or otherwise, the seers demand for the ban. Joyeeta Basu, the editor of Sunday Guardian, said on Monday journalist Priya Ramani posted all her tweets intentionally with a purpose to harm former Union minister MJ Akbars reputation and goodwill. Basu was one of the first witnesses to testify in the case of criminal defamation complaint filed by Akbar against Ramani, the first woman to accuse him of sexual harassment, with the additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal in the Patiala House district court. She said she has worked with Akbar for 20 years and had not heard anything untoward from the staff of the organisation where they worked together. He was a public figure who was held in high esteem, she said. I have always held Mr Akbar in high regard. He has been perfectly professional in his dealings with me. He has always been a tough taskmaster, a thorough professional and a brilliant teacher, she testified in the court. I considered him to be a brilliant journalist, a scholarly writer and a thorough gentleman with an impeccable reputation in my eyes, she said. Akbar stepped down as the minister of state for external affairs in October after Ramani and a number of other women accused him of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour at various stages of his journalistic career. The 67-year-old former editor responded by suing Ramani, who sparked off the barrage of allegations, for criminal defamation in a Delhi court. Dismissing all the allegations, the former editor of The Telegraph, Deccan Chronicle and The Asian Age newspapers, had said that these were malicious, fabricated and salacious intended to harm his reputation. Ramani has said she is ready to fight allegations of defamation laid against me, as truth and the absolute truth is my only defence. Basu said in her testimony that she was shocked, disappointed, embarrassed after she read the tweet by Ramani on October 8, 2018, and looked at the link of her article in Vogue magazine. In spite of my experience with him, his reputation, his image took a beating in my eyes on reading the tweet/article, Basu said. It was aggravated during my interaction with friends and colleagues. Whoever read and heard about the widely publicised tweet/article and asked me whether he was really like that, she said. Those people questioned his character and said that Akbars image had taken a severe beating in their eyes, she said, and his reputation had been permanently damaged. I may have overcome my doubt but the number of questions raised by people I know personally that his reputation has been hurt and damaged irrevocably, Basu said. The court summoned another witness Habibur Rehman to testify for the next date of hearing on December 7. There are six witnesses, including Basu and Rehman. Akbar has also been accused of rape by Pallavi Gogoi, the chief business editor of National Public Radio (NPR), a Washington-based American media organisation. She detailed the most painful memories of her life in an article in The Washington Post, accusing Akbar, the editor-in-chief of the Asian Age newspaper at that time, of using his position to prey on her 23 years ago. The Supreme Court has summoned Bihar DGP to explain the state polices failure to arrest former state minister Manju Verma in a case related to the recovery of ammunition from her home during a CBI raid in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuse scandal. Expressing shock over the non-arrest, justice Madan B Lokur said, Fantastic! Cabinet minister (Manju Verma) on the run, fantastic. How could it happen that cabinet minister is absconding and nobody knows where she is? You realise the seriousness of the issue that cabinet minister is not traceable. Its too much, according to news agency ANI. The Bihar government had earlier told the court that Verma, who resigned in the wake of the shelter home sexual abuse scandal, could not be traced by police. A probe had revealed that her husband had spoken to the prime accused in the case, Brajesh Thakur, 17 times between January and June. An FIR was registered against Verma and her husband under the arms act in August following the recovery of 50 cartridges from their Begusarai residence, owned by the former ministers in-laws, during a raid by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the case. Verma had filed an anticipatory bail petition in the Supreme Court, but was neither arrested nor has she surrendered. The court has also asked the state chief secretary to appear before it to explain the mismanagement of shelter homes. It fixed the next date of hearing in the case on November 27. Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar said on Monday he has never, ever met jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim after he was summoned by a special investigation team (SIT) probing the incidents of firing by police at anti-sacrilege protesters in Punjabs Faridkot district three years ago. The team is probing the firings in Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan after pages from the Guru Granth Sahib were found torn in Bargari in the state in 2015. Two people were killed in the firing in Behbal Kalan. A report by the justice Ranjit Singh Commission on the sacrilege incidents said a meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir and Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was held at Kumars flat in Mumbai in connection with the release of the Dera Sacha Sauda chiefs film MSG. The meeting was held before the pardon given to Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a blasphemy case, the report said. I learnt from social media at some point that Gurmeet Ram Rahim resided for a while at some place in my locality Juhu, in Mumbai, but we never ever crossed each others paths, the actor said in a statement. Over the years, I have dedicatedly made films promoting the Punjabi culture and the rich history and tradition of Sikhism through films like Singh is King, Kesari (based on the battle of Sarhagarhi), etc. I am proud of being a Punjabi and have the highest regard for the Sikh faith. I shall never do anything that would even remotely hurt the sentiments of my Punjabi brothers and sisters, for whom I have the utmost respect and love, he said. The team has also summoned Punjabs former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal. Badal has been asked to appear before the SIT, headed by inspector general Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, on November 16. Sukhbir has been summoned on November 19 and Kumar has been asked to come on November 21 to the Circuit House in Amritsar. The five-member team was set up by the Captain Amarinder Singh-led state government in September this year, soon after the notification to withdraw the investigation of sacrilege incidents of the Guru Granth Sahib from the Central Bureau of Investigation was issued. A team of Indian negotiators set up to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets had got a better deal on price and maintenance of the planes as compared to the earlier offer from French firm Dassault, according to the Centres report on the purchase of the jets submitted to the Supreme Court last month. On Monday, the Centre handed over a redacted version of this report to petitioners who want a court-monitored CBI probe into the controversial deal. The document details the decision-making process for buying the planes. In this 16-page document, the government says it had formed a team of negotiators led by a Deputy Chief of Air Staff rank officer that carried out negotiations for over a year. This team submitted its report in July 2016 and the deal was cleared by the Cabinet Committee of Security and Defence Acquisition Council. The report was passed on to the petitioners in compliance with the top courts order which permitted the government to redact sensitive portions that could impact on the countrys security. Details, including the steps in the decision making process for the procurement of jets, which could legitimately be brought into public domain, should be made available to the parties who have filed petitions before it in the matter, the court had said. The court, which will hear the case later this week, had also ordered the central government to provide pricing details of the planes. The NDA has not disclosed details of the price, but the UPA deal, struck in 2012, was not a viable one, former defence minister Manohar Parrikar had previously said. The NDA has said the current deal also includes customised weaponry. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments decision to enter a $8.7 billion government-to-government deal with France to buy 36 Rafale warplanes made by Dassault was announced in April 2015, with an agreement signed a little over a year later. This replaced the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). The deal has become controversial with the Opposition, led by the Congress, claiming that the price at which India is buying Rafale aircraft now is Rs 1,670 crore each, three times the Rs 526 crore, the initial bid by the company when the UPA was trying to buy the aircraft. It has also claimed the previous deal included a technology transfer agreement with HAL. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will gift infrastructure projects worth over Rs 2,412 crore, including two major national highways and an inland waterways project, to his parliamentary constituency Varanasi during his visit here on Monday. It will be the PMs 15th visit to his constituency in the last four-and-a half years. The projects to be inaugurated also include a multi-modal terminal on the Ganga near Ralhupur village as part of the Centres Jal Marg Vikas Project and a sewage treatment plant at Deenapur. The PM will also formally receive Indias first container vessel MV Rabindranath Tagore, which started from Kolkata on October 30 and arrived in Varanasi on Friday. The multi-modal terminal has come up at a cost of Rs 206 crore. Three other multi-modal terminals are under construction at Sahibganj (Jharkhand), Haldia (West Bengal) and Gazipur (Uttar Pradesh). The Inland Waterways Authority of India is the implementing agency of the project, which will enable commercial navigation of vessels with a capacity of 1500-2,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT) on the Ganga. Deadweight tonnage is a measure of how much weight a ship can carry. The foundation of the National Waterway-1 between Haldia and Prayagraj was laid in 1986. But work on the Varanasi-Haldia waterway (amended scheme) began in earnest only in 2014. It has materialised now. An official said the waterway was cheaper than road transport. National Waterway-1 (Haldia-Varanasi stretch) is being developed with technical assistance and investment support from the World Bank. The total estimated cost of the project is Rs 5,369.18 crore, which will be shared between the Central government and the World Bank on a 50:50 ratio. Thereafter, the PM will reach Wazidpur village where he will dedicate to the nation the newly four-laned Babatpur-Varanasi road (17.25 km) and Varanasi ring road Phase-I (16.55 km) built at a cost of Rs 812.59 crore and Rs 759.36 crore respectively. Together, the two national highways came up at a cost of Rs 1571.95 crore, according to an official statement. The Babatpur Airport Highway will link Varanasi to the airport and go on to link Jaunpur, Sultanpur and Lucknow. With the flyover at Harhua and a road over bridge (ROB) at Tarna, the new road plan will reduce travel time from Varanasi to the airport, providing relief to the locals and tourists coming here, the statement said. The ring road, with two ROBs and a flyover, is expected to reduce traffic, fuel usage and pollution on NH 56 (Lucknow-Varanasi), NH 233 (Azamgarh-Varanasi), NH 29 (Gorakhpur-Varanasi) and AyodhyaVaranasi highway, the statement said. Further the ring road is expected to provide smooth road access to Sarnath, a renowned Buddhist pilgrimage site. The sewage treatment plant to be inaugurated at Deenapur built at a cost of Rs 235.53 crore. The project includes a 10 years operation and maintenance agreement. Three sewage pumping stations at Chaukaghat (140 MLD), Phulwaria (7.6 MLD) and Saraiya (3.7 MLD), will also be inaugurated. The three together came up at a cost of Rs 34.01 crore. The construction of 28-km relieving trunk sewer, mains and interceptor sewers along Varuna and Assi built at a cost of Rs 155.87 crore will also be inaugurated. The PM will lay the foundation of a sewage management scheme for Ramnagar, IQRT work on Kila-Kataria Road, driver training institute and beautification of a meeting hall on the first floor of the circuit house. The sewerage management scheme will cost Rs 72.91 crore. This will include a 10 MLD (million litres per day) STP and four drains. The sewage projects being inaugurated will result in increasing the sewage treatment capacity in the city from 102 MLD to 242 MLD. The PM is likely to address a public meeting at Wazidpur village. Matinee icon Rajinikanth, who announced his political plunge last year, has often been accused by his rivals of leaning towards the BJP. On Monday, the actor-politician, however, appeared to spring a surprise with his criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modis notes ban decision. The way it was implemented was not correct. Its implementation was wrong. It needs to be discussed in detail, said Rajinikanth, who had once welcomed demonetisation and described it as a timely initiative to curb black money. The superstar, who has a huge following in Tamil Nadu and beyond, also gave a cryptic response when reporters asked him about opposition efforts to unite against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Does this show that the BJP is posing grave threat? he was asked. If everybody thinks that way, definitely it could be, he shot back. This could be the first time when Rajinikanths remarks may not be palatable to the saffron camp. In the past, he has been very vocal about his support to Prime Minister Modi as well as the BJP, leading to criticism that he remains its B Team or even its puppet. Also, he had supported many top leaders of the party as well those espousing the Hindutva cause. Moreover, his spiritual inclination and the frequent trips to the Himalayas, seeking solace, have endeared him to the saffron brigade. Political analysts are, however, not convinced that he has started resisting the saffron pull. This one-off remark cant be taken as a statement of his political stance. This does not reflect his position. He continues to live under different shades and does not reveal what he stands for. The popular perception is that he is a B-Team of the BJP, which is trying for a foothold in the Dravidian stronghold. That impression continues to remain and hasnt changed, says Ramu Manivannan, author and professor of Political Science at Madras University. BJP leaders seemed to agree, saying the actor alone could explain what he actually meant. This could not be taken as a definitive one from Rajinikanth. It was a response to a question and we are not unduly worried. He is very clear on his path and we understand that, said a BJP leader who did not want to be identified. At the media interaction, the superstar also declined to comment on the Centre rejecting the Tamil Nadu governments recommendation in 2016 to set free the seven life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. Through an RTI petition, it has emerged that the Union home ministry had rejected the recommendation. I have come only now. I am not aware of the full details, Rajinikanth said. The state government had recommended to the governor to release them but the governor is yet to decide on the matter. Save the Congress and the BJP, there is a political consensus on releasing them as they have been in prison for 27 years now. President Ram Nath Kovind led condolences for Union minister Ananth Kumar, who died early on Monday, as political leaders remembered him as an able administrator and seasoned politician. Kumar, 59, was undergoing treatment for cancer at a hospital in Karnatakas Bengaluru. Sad to hear of the passing of Union minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H.N. Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates, President Kovind tweeted. The Prime Minister said he was extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work, PM Modi posted on Twitter. Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents. I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti, he added. Union home minister Rajnath Singh said Kumars death was a personal loss for him. Absolutely shocked and pained by demise of very senior colleague and a friend Shri Anant Kumar ji. He was a seasoned parliamentarian who served nation in several capacities. His passion and devotion for welfare of people was commendable. My condolences to his family, Singh tweeted My mind is filled with memories of working with Anant Kumar ji in the government and party organisation. These memories will stay with me. His demise is a big loss for the BJP. It is also a personal loss for me, the home minister said. My mind is filled with memories of working with Anant Kumar ji in the government and party organisation. These memories will stay with me. His demise is a big loss for the BJP. It is also a personal loss for me. (@rajnathsingh) November 12, 2018 Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri Ananth Kumar is no more with us. Served BJP all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. The Bharatiya Janata Partys president Amit Shah expressed his deepest condolence and said his death has left a void in the BJP. I am grief stricken to learn about the untimely demise of our senior leader and union minister Shri Ananth Kumar ji. He served the nation and organisation with unparalleled zeal and dedication. Ananth ji worked tirelessly to strengthen the BJP in the state of Karnataka, Shah said. Ananth ji was a remarkable administrator who served various ministerial portfolios. His passing away has left a void in the BJP and Indian polity that can not be filled soon. May God give his family and supporters strength to bear this tragic loss. My deepest condolences, he added. Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy also condoled Kumars death I have lost a great friend in his death. He was a value based politician, who made a significant contribution to the country as an MP and Union minister. May his soul rest in peace and may God give strength to his family and his followers to endure this loss, Kumaraswamy said, according to news agency ANI. Kumar, a six-time member of Parliament from the Bengaluru South constituency, held various portfolios in the governments headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Modi. He is survived by his wife and two daughters. The ministers body will be kept at National College in Bengaluru for people to pay their last tributes. Upendra Kushwaha, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) chief, met Loktantrik Janata Dal leader Sharad Yadav in New Delhi on Monday as the issue of seat sharing ahead of the Lok Sabha elections next year in Bihar has become contentious among the NDAs alliance partners. The meeting between Kushwaha, a Union minister of state as a member of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and former Janata Dal (United) leader Yadav also came amid speculation that the ruling party in Bihar could poach one of his legislators. Nitish Kumar ji has been trying to poach MLAs. He has come down to destroying Upendra Kushwaha and his party but he cannot cause any damage to me. He is a part of the NDA and so are we, he should not do such things, Kushwaha said, according to ANI. Nitish Kumar ji has been trying to poach MLAs. He has come down to destroying Upendra Kushwaha and his Party but he cannot cause any damage to me. He is a part of the NDA and so are we, he should not do such things: Union Minister and RLSP Chief Upendra Kushwaha in Delhi pic.twitter.com/u9qYmzW6vk ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Kushwaha has been meeting leaders of various political parties as the seat sharing issue in the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar has heated up in the wake of the continuing war of words between the alliance partners. Kushwaha met JD(U)s Prashant Kishor on Sunday morning after the ruling partys troubleshooters meeting with the chief of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), the BJPs fourth partner in Bihar, and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan and LJP parliamentary board chairperson Chirag Paswan on Saturday evening. According to reports, JD(U) has also opened its backchannels through Kishor and Harlakhi MLA Sudhanshu Sekhar of the RLSP had also gone to 7, Circular Road, the official residence of the chief minister, from where Kishor carries out his-day-to-day activities. If Ranjan shifts to JD(U) camp on certain offer, which could be ministerial berth, it would be a big setback for Kushwaha. However, there was no official confirmation on this. RLSP has two MLAs in the Bihar assembly. The other legislator Lalan Paswan had been suspended for anti-party activities in August 2016 along with party MP from Jehanabad Arun Kumar. Lalan Paswan is already in the rebel camp. Chirag Paswan said that Kishore had talks with them, but there was no discussion on seat sharing issue. The biggest party, the BJP, is doing it and the matter will be resolved amicably at an appropriate time, he said. Kushwahas party had been demanding a larger seat share in the NDA which he says should be commensurate with the growing base of the RLSP. It has been uneasy relationship ever since the JD(U) returned to the NDA fold in July last year. Kushwaha, who has opened a front against Kumar by relentlessly attacking him, said that the LJP being an old ally of the NDA would also like the seat-sharing matter to be resolved at the earliest. He had earlier met Paswan on October 30. I met Paswanji and we had talks over seat sharing and other issues, including my insult and police lathicharge on Kushwaha demonstration. He is a senior leader and we should keep meeting, he said, before leaving for Delhi. I have told him all about the prevailing situation and how I felt hurt by CMs statement. I have also apprised him of the need for early resolution of seat sharing, he said. Kushwaha reiterated that he would also meet the Bharatiya Janata Partys president Amit Shah in Delhi to take up his insult by Kumar and take up the seat sharing issue. Kumar, who is also the JD(U) president, had said, Itne neeche star tak nahi le jaiye (do not take the debate to such a low level) when asked to respond to Kushwahas remark. Kushwaha had created a furore earlier when he said on October 31 that Nitish Kumar had confided in him that he (Kumar) did not want to continue as chief minister beyond 2020. Kushwaha, who has kept everyone guessing by keeping all his channels open, picked up the word neech from the statement and made it a big issue, which also led to protest by Kushwaha Mahasabha in Patna on Saturday and subsequent baton charge by police, which left several workers injured. A senior JD(U) leader said that Kushwaha was unnecessarily trying to vitiate the atmosphere without realising that he would land up nowhere with his overtures. The RLSP has three MPs including Kushwaha in the Lok Sabha. Paswans LJP has six. In 2014, with Nitish Kumars JD(U) out of the NDA fold, the BJP had contested 30 of Bihars 40 Lok Sabha seats, while the RLSP had contested three and the LJP seven. The BJP had won 22, and together the allies took 31 seats. (With inputs from Arun Kumar in Patna) By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 09, 2018 | 05:29 PM | PADUCAH Paducah residents are invited to attend a public meeting to provide input regarding the creation of a stormwater utility.The meeting will be Wednesday, November 14 in the City Commission chambers on the second floor of City Hall. It will be an open house format beginning at 5 p.m. A presentation about the proposed stormwater utility and associated fee structure will begin at 5:30 p.m. with time after the presentation for discussions with the project team members.At this meeting, learn about how the City of Paducah plans to fund the ten priority projects and existing infrastructure maintenance through the development of a citywide stormwater utility. The goal of the stormwater utility is to provide a dedicated funding source for the City of Paducah to solve drainage problems, maintain existing storm infrastructure, to provide flood protection and to comply with federal water quality requirements.A survey to gather community input regarding the proposed stormwater utility will be available at the meeting and on the citys website after the meeting.The first phase of the Comprehensive Stormwater Master Plan used a 2015 storm event to create a model of Paducahs natural and manmade infrastructure including storm and combined sewer systems, topography, drainage basins, and river systems. This computer model along with community input was used to determine flood-prone areas in Paducah.The Master Plans first phase identified more than $40 million in flood mitigation projects located within ten priority areas.In March 2017, the City of Paducah contracted with Strand Associates, Inc. who is being assisted by Paducah-based Bacon Farmer Workman Engineering & Testing, Inc. to complete the Comprehensive Stormwater Master Plan for Paducah. If you have questions, contact City of Paducah Stormwater & Drainage Engineer Eric Hickman at stormwateranddrainage@paducahky.gov.The presentation part of this week's meeting also will be available for viewing live on Government 11 and live streamed at the link below. Refreshments will be provided.A video preview of the meeting has been provided by the city. You may view it below. On the Net: The Supreme Court on Tuesday is expected to hear petitioners who have challenged its order allowing women of all ages to pray at Sabarimala temple in Kerala, where traditionalists have launched a strong protest in support of a centuries-old tradition banning the entry of female devotees between 10 and 50 years. Four days before the shrine opens for a three-month annual pilgrimage, the court will take up over 45 petitions and applications arguing that faith cannot be judged by scientific or rational reasoning. Protesters claim women of menstruating ages are not allowed to enter the temple nestled in the Western Ghats because the presiding deity, Lord Ayyappa, is considered celibate. The government has an open mind. We will call an all-party meet to discuss the Sabarimala issue. We will decide the date and other details after the Supreme Court decision on review pleas, Kerala temple affairs minister, Kadakampally Surendran, said on Monday. Both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) , which has intensified its Sabarimala campaign, and the Congress have criticised the Kerala governments handling of the situation and supported the protesters. The Left government, led by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, has reiterated that the administration is committed to implementing the courts September 28 order, but blamed political rivals for politicising the issue. BJP state president, PS Sreedharan Pillai, who is on a rath yatra supporting temples customs, said, We hope the highest court will take note of the mounting protests by devotees and take an appropriate decision. In Delhi, solicitor general, Tushar Mehta, on Monday refused permission to initiate contempt proceedings against Pillai and four others for allegedly speaking up against the court verdict in rallies. About a month back, two women advocates approached the office of attorney general, KK Venugopal, who recused himself on grounds that he had in the past represented Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB). In the court, TDB, which is in charge of the administration of the temple, opposed the entry of women of all ages into the temple at that time. A permission from the office of the attorney general is necessary for admitting contempt pleas. The matter raised by the women advocates was then handed over to solicitor general, Mehta, who did not grant permission. It is a welcome move. We expect a favourable outcome from the highest court. Except communists, who are atheists, the whole state is protesting the move to dilute the age-old temple tradition. Leave alone Hindus, even Christians and Muslim also support the mounting protests, said Kerala BJP leader, K Surendran. Sabarimala and its base camps have witnessed violent protests after the Supreme Court, in what has been hailed as a landmark verdict, stressed that divinity and devotion cannot be subject to the rigidity and stereotypes of gender. But protesters clashed with police, intimidated journalists and stopped the entry of at least 15 women in the past one-and-a-half months, when the temple opened its door twice on October 17 for a five day-monthly ritual and on November 5 for a one-day pooja. (With inputs from HTC in Delhi) The special investigation team (SIT), probing 2015 police firing at anti-sacrilege protesters at Behbal Kalan village in Faridkot district, has summoned former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, his son Sukhbir Singh Badal and actor Akshay Kumar. While Badal has been asked to appear before the SIT, headed by inspector general Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, on November 16, Sukhbir has been summoned on November 19. Akshay has been asked to come on November 21 to the Circuit House in Amritsar. The summon orders have been issued separately to the three by the SIT head, said an official release. The law is equal to everybody and our investigation will be totally fair, impartial and transparent, said the IG SAD spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said the party would announce action course after receiving the summons. The SIT is probing police firing incidents at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan after a series of sacrilege incidents in the state in 2015. In police firing at Behbal Kalan, two persons were killed. Notably, the actors name was mentioned in Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. According to the report, a meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir and Dera Sacha Sauda sect head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in connection with the release of latters movie MSG was held at Akshays flat in Mumbai. The meeting was held before the pardon given to Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a blasphemy case. However, Akshay had denied all these allegations. The summons have been issued under Section 160 of the CrPC, requiring attendance at investigation, relating to the Bargari sacrilege case and the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura police firing incidents, the release added. The notice says the presence of the aforesaid person is necessary for the purpose of inquiry into the above-mentioned offence and the person summoned needed to give such information relating to the said alleged offence as he may possess. The SIT had earlier examined ADGP Jitendra Jain, then IG Bathinda; IGP Paramraj Singh Umaranangal; then commissioner Ludhiana; IGP Amar Singh Chahal, then DIG Ferozepur Range; MS Jaggi, then DC Faridkot; SS Mann, then SSP Faridkot; VK Syal then SDM Faridkot, besides Mantar Singh Brar, then Kotkapura MLA. In addition, 50 private persons and more than 30 police officials of junior rank have also been examined. The five-member SIT was set up by the Captain Amaridner Singh-led state government in September this year, soon after the notification to withdraw investigation of sacrilege incidents of the Guru Granth Sahib from the CBI was issued. An army soldier was killed and another injured in a sniper attack by Pakistani forces along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. This is the second death due to sniper attack in the last 24 hours and the fourth since Saturday along the LoC south of Pir Panjal range. Mondays attack, which took place in Mendhar sector of Poonch, was confirmed by defence spokesman Lt Col Devender Anand. There has been a spike in sniper attacks on the LoC in the past one week. Pakistan troops have also violated ceasefire in the past three days along the LoC in Jammu region. Till Sunday, three Indian soldiers and an army porter had been killed by Pakistan snipers. Indian army chief General Bipin Rawat said on Monday that sniper attacks were not a new phenomenon on the border and the Army was fully alert to it. The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea filed by some Manipur police personnel seeking recusal of the judges of the bench in Manipur fake encounter cases in which the CBI special investigation team (SIT) is carrying out a probe. A bench comprising justices Madan B Lokur and UU Lalit said that there was no reason for these policemen to doubt the SIT and the probe conducted by it in these cases. The bench also said that the institutional integrity of the judiciary and the CBI must be maintained. The apex courts order came on a plea filed by some Manipur Police personnel who had sought recusal of judges of the bench, claiming they had earlier termed some accused, who were charge sheeted by the SIT in the encounter cases, as murderers. An inquiry report on ousted CBI director Alok Verma was submitted to the Supreme Court at the last minute on Monday, prompting the judges to defer the case to Friday. The top court had earlier given the Central Vigilance Commission, which was probing corruption charges against Verma, 2 weeks to submit its report. The deadline ended on Sunday. But it was only during Mondays hearing that government lawyers passed on three volumes of the report in a sealed cover. The bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi told the government that it was late. The judges said they had kept the courts registry open on Sunday and has the registrar waiting for the report to be filed till 11:30 am. This would have given the judges time to go through the inquiry report Solicitor general Tushar Mehta said that there was a delay of an hour in filing the report. Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, who was appearing for NGO Common Cause, objected to the acting CBI director Nageshwar Rao taking decisions despite the SC order against it. The spirit of our earlier order is that the acting CBI director will not take a policy decision, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said. Rao also filed details of the decisions taken by him following the shakeup in the agency in a sealed envelope. Verma, who has a running feud with the premier agencys special director Rakesh Asthana, has been appearing before the three-member panel headed by KV Chowdary and is understood to have given point-wise refusal to all the allegations levelled against him by his deputy. In an October 26 order, the court gave CVC two weeks to complete the probe against Verma, who has accused the government of interfering with CBIs independence and autonomy. It also said the inquiry will be done under the supervision of a retired SC judge in a one-time exception. The Congress partys leader in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, too has filed a petition in the matter, saying he should be heard because he is a member of the three-member committee that selects the CBI chief. The other two panel members are the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India (CJI). Kharge is part of the panel as the leader of the largest opposition party in Parliaments Lower House. Verma and Asthana were divested of their responsibilities last month after engaging in an unprecedented public feud in which they traded allegations of corruption against each other. Asthana has also moved the Supreme Court with a separate petition in the matter and has sought removal of Verma from the post of CBI director. Army chief general Bipin Rawat on Monday said there was little possibility of direct talks between the government and separatists or terrorists in Kashmir, but they could approach the interlocutor, Dineshwar Sharma, who had been appointed for the purpose. To say that the head of the state will come and talk to these terrorists, I dont think that is going to happen, Rawat told reporters at Mamun cantonment in Punjabs Pathankot after a seminar. If you look at the government policy, we have got a very clear cut policy that we will not allow terrorists to create violence in our society and therefore anybody who creates violence will be neutralised, he said. At the same time, an interlocutor has been tasked by the government to speak to various people in the Valley. I dont understand as to what they are trying to say. Sharma is moving around talking to people. He is saying that I am open to everybody and anybody who wants to speak to me can come to me. Who says talks are not going on? he asked. After India said it was sending non-officials to participate in Afghanistan peace talks that also had Taliban representatives, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah had asked why the Narendra Modi government couldnt have a non-official dialogue with non-mainstream stakeholders in the troubled state. When asked about this, the Army chief said, If separatists dont want to approach the interlocutor, then I dont know what further can be hoped. We are doing indirect talks to see we can approach the stakeholders and send a clear message to them. But to say that the head of the state will come and talk to these terrorists, I dont think that is going to happen, he said. On reports of Kashmiri politicians supporting militants and stone-pelting, Rawat said he would not like to comment, but said anybody disrupting operations of the security forces need to be dealt with sternly. If people do not behave and continue violence, the only element left is to neutralise them, he said. On Punjab, he said that the Centre has initiated action against external forces trying to revive insurgency in Punjab. CM (Amarinder Singh) is concerned and taking direct action so the violence doesnt spread again. Outsiders will attempt but the people of Punjab will not let them do it, he said, adding that India has to be very careful. Punjab saw one of the worst phases of insurgencies in 1980s during the pro-Khalistan movement, which was eventually quelled by the government. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Monday met Congress president Rahul Gandhi and discussed various steps the social network was taking to curb the spread of fake news and boost healthy conversation on its platform. Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of Twitter dropped in to chat this morning. Twitter has grown into the most dominant conversation platform globally. Jack explained some of the steps being taken to keep those conversations healthy and measures being taken to tackle the menace of fake news, Gandhi tweeted. Jack Dorsey, the Co Founder & CEO of Twitter dropped in to chat this morning. Twitter has grown into the most dominant "conversations" platform globally. Jack explained some of the steps being taken to keep those conversations healthy & to tackle the menace of fake news. @jack pic.twitter.com/TCkj6st4rl Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) November 12, 2018 The micro-blogging platform, that has 336 million users globally, is working hard to increase the collective health, openness and civility of dialogue on its platform. Dorsey, who arrived in India on his maiden visit last week, also met the Dalai Lama over the weekend, calling him an amazing teacher. Thank you for not actually pulling out my nose ring, despite a lot of painful effort, he tweeted after meeting the Dalai Lama. Dorsey was also expected to meet Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in the wake of the growing criticism over Twitters role in the spread of misinformation and fake news as India faces Assembly polls in five states ahead of the general elections next year. Ananth Kumar, senior BJP leader and Union minister, died at a private hospital in Bengaluru early on Monday after battling cancer, his office said. I am sorry to inform the sad news that our beloved Honble Minister Shri Ananth Kumar passed away today morning 2am in Bengaluru from complications following cancer and infections. He had been in the ICU and on a ventilator for the last few days, an official from his office said. The 59-year-old leader is survived by his wife and two daughters. The Union ministry of home affairs said the national flag will fly at half mast throughout the country on Monday and that a state funeral will be accorded to Kumar. The Karnataka government declared a three-day mourning in respect of the leader. New agency PTI reported quoting unnamed official sources that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to chair a special meeting of the Union cabinet later in the day to condole Kumars death. It added that a resolution condoling his demise and hailing his contribution would be passed. Able administrator, valued friend Tributes to the Union minister for chemicals, fertilisers and parliamentary affairs poured in from all spectrums of the political divide as leaders offered their condolence to his family. Sad to hear of the passing of Union minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H.N. Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates, President Ram Nath Kovind tweeted. The Prime Minister said he was extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work, Modi posted on Twitter. The Prime Minister called Kumar an able administrator and said he was a great asset to the BJP, who worked hard to strengthen the party in Karnataka, and in Bengaluru in particular. I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti, he added. Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 Union home minister Rajnath Singh said Kumars death was a personal loss for him. Absolutely shocked and pained by demise of very senior colleague and a friend Shri Anant Kumar ji. He was a seasoned parliamentarian who served nation in several capacities. His passion and devotion for welfare of people was commendable. My condolences to his family, Singh tweeted My mind is filled with memories of working with Anant Kumar ji in the government and party organisation. These memories will stay with me. His demise is a big loss for the BJP. It is also a personal loss for me, the home minister said. Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri Ananth Kumar is no more with us. Served BJP all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss. Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) November 12, 2018 The Bharatiya Janata Partys president Amit Shah expressed his deepest condolence and said his death has left a void in the BJP. I am grief stricken to learn about the untimely demise of our senior leader and union minister Shri Ananth Kumar ji. He served the nation and organisation with unparalleled zeal and dedication. Ananth ji worked tirelessly to strengthen the BJP in the state of Karnataka, Shah said. Ananth ji was a remarkable administrator who served various ministerial portfolios. His passing away has left a void in the BJP and Indian polity that can not be filled soon. May God give his family and supporters strength to bear this tragic loss. My deepest condolences, he added. Congress president Rahul Gandhi also tweeted his respects to Kumar. Im sorry to hear about the passing of Union Minister #AnanthKumar Ji, in Bengaluru, earlier this morning. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace. Om Shanti, Gandhi said. Im sorry to hear about the passing of Union Minister, Shri Ananth Kumar ji, in Bengaluru, earlier this morning. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace. Om Shanti. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) November 12, 2018 Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy also condoled Kumars death. I have lost a great friend in his death. He was a value based politician, who made a significant contribution to the country as an MP and Union minister. May his soul rest in peace and may God give strength to his family and his followers to endure this loss, Kumaraswamy said, according to news agency ANI. From ABVP to BJP Kumar was born in a middle-class family on July 22, 1959, in Bengaluru to Narayan Shastri, a railway employee, and Girija N Shastry. His early education began under the guidance of his mother, who was a graduate. A graduate in arts and law, Kumars journey into public life began due to his association with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a student organisation affiliated to the BJPs ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which he served in various capacities, including as the state secretary and national secretary. Kumar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1987 and went on to take up the responsibilities of the state secretary, state president of the Yuva Morcha, general secretary and national secretary. He began his parliamentary career when he was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 from Bangalore South, the constituency which remained his strong fort till his passing away, by winning it for six consecutive times. Kumar, a six-time member of Parliament from the Bengaluru South constituency, held various portfolios in the governments headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Modi. He was the youngest minister in Vajpayees cabinet in 1998. He served as the civil aviation minister, as well as the minister for tourism, sports, youth affairs and culture, as well as urban development and poverty alleviation. Kumar won the 15th Lok Sabha election from Bengaluru South by defeating IT Czar Nandan Nilekani. (With PTI inputs) Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his last respects to Union minister Ananth Kumar,who passed away in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday. Modi flew in to Bengaluru from Varanasi and drove straight to the residence of Kumar at Basavanagudi, where the body was kept and consoled his family members. The Prime Minister laid a wreath on the mortal remains of Kumar. He consoled Kumars wife Tejaswini and his two daughters Vijeta and Aishwarya. Kumar, 59, passed away after battling lung cancer for several months. He breathed his last around 1:55 am with his wife and daughters by his bedside. Earlier in the day, Union minister JP Nadda and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan also paid tributes to the mortal remains of the late minister at his Bengaluru residence. Kumar passed away from complications following cancer and infections, his party office said in a statement. He had been on the ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit for the last few days, it said. Read more| Ananth Kumar, a staunch RSS man, known for political adroitness (With PTI inputs) Although New Delhi has been granted exemption from US sanctions for purchase of Iranian crude, there is no word from the Trump administration for a similar waiver of the Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanction Act (CAATSA) for purchase of five units of Russian S-400 missile system worth $5.4 billion by India. Both India and Russia concluded the contract for supply of long- range surface to air missile system during Russian President Vladimir Putins visit to India last month. According to South Block officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, while India has made out a case for a waiver on grounds that the negotiations of the deal pre-dates CAATSA, fact is, any exemption granted by US will only be known when the Defence ministry makes the initial payment for the missile system. With Russia already under US sanctions, it is for both Moscow and New Delhi to decided one mode of payment. Whether CAATSA has been waived or not will only be known once the Defence Ministry negotiates the mode of payment with its Russian counterpart, said a senior government official. However, Indian officials are positive that the Presidential waiver under CAATSA will be granted for not only the S-400 missile system but also the manufacturing of AK-47 rifles by a joint venture of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) of India and Kalashnikov Concern of Russia under the Make in India rubric. According to the senior government officials, as the US has nothing similar to offer at this weapon category or price, India may be exempted from the sanctions in both the cases, provided no further purchases or arms deals are signed with Moscow. The Indian military proposes to arm its infantry and frontier forces with top-end assault rifles but has intentions to use the AK-47 rifle or its derivative in the hinterland, especially in counter-insurgency operations. India kept the Trump administration in the know as it formally concluded the contract for purchase of S-400 systems with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on September 14 reassuring Washington that the Indian Air Force has the precise technical knowhow to shield electronic signatures of its US aerial platforms from being shared with the S-400 system. The NSA visit to Washington was preceded by an IAF technical teams visit to Pentagon to discuss the same. Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman also pitched for a CAATSA waiver with her US counterpart James Mattis on October 19 on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting plus in Singapore and will reiterate the case when she goes for a bilateral visit to the Pentagon next month. By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 12, 2018 | 10:58 AM | FANCY FARM Three Graves County residents were jailed over the weekend after police allegedly found drugs inside a Fancy Farm home. The Graves County Sheriff's Office says deputies responded on Sunday to a home in the 10000 block of State Route 80 West after receiving a tip about illegal drug distribution. During a search of the home, deputies reportedly found marijuana, along with scales, baggies, and other drug paraphernalia, in a bedroom. Prescription controlled substances were also allegedly found in other rooms in the home, along with additional drug paraphernalia. Three people at the home, 46-year-old Anthony Broach, 26-year-old David Burton and 30-year-old Amber Klepfer-Burton, all of Fancy Farm, were arrested and lodged in the Graves County Jail. All three were charged with possession of controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. Burton was additionally charged with trafficking in marijuana and possession of controlled substance not in the original container. An inquiry report on ousted CBI director Alok Verma was submitted to the Supreme Court at the last minute on Monday, prompting the judges to defer the case to Friday. The top court had earlier given the Central Vigilance Commission, which was probing corruption charges against Verma, two weeks to submit its report. The deadline ended on Sunday. But it was only during Mondays hearing that government lawyers passed on three volumes of the report in a sealed cover. The bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi told the government that it was late. The judges said they had kept the courts registry open on Sunday and has the registrar waiting for the report to be filed till 11:30 am. This would have given the judges time to go through the inquiry report Solicitor general Tushar Mehta said that there was a delay of an hour in filing the report. Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, who was appearing for NGO Common Cause, objected to the acting CBI director Nageshwar Rao taking decisions despite the SC order against it. The spirit of our earlier order is that the acting CBI director will not take a policy decision, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said. Rao also filed details of the decisions taken by him following the shakeup in the agency in a sealed envelope. Verma, who has a running feud with the premier agencys special director Rakesh Asthana, has been appearing before the three-member panel headed by KV Chowdary and is understood to have given point-wise refusal to all the allegations levelled against him by his deputy. In an October 26 order, the court gave CVC two weeks to complete the probe against Verma, who has accused the government of interfering with CBIs independence and autonomy. It also said the inquiry will be done under the supervision of a retired SC judge in a one-time exception. The Congress partys leader in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, too has filed a petition in the matter, saying he should be heard because he is a member of the three-member committee that selects the CBI chief. The other two panel members are the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India (CJI). Kharge is part of the panel as the leader of the largest opposition party in Parliaments Lower House. Verma and Asthana were divested of their responsibilities last month after engaging in an unprecedented public feud in which they traded allegations of corruption against each other. Asthana has also moved the Supreme Court with a separate petition in the matter and has sought removal of Verma from the post of CBI director. Powerful women are no strangers to Indian politics. Indira Gandhi first became prime minister in 1966 and held the position for a total of 15 (non-consecutive) years, a tenure second only to her fathers 16 years in power. Today, several prominent women, from Mayawati to Mamata Banerjee, dot Indias state-level political landscape. Women from external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman occupy top positions in Prime Minister Narendra Modis Cabinet. However, the role of women in contemporary Indian politics is far more complex than these high-profile examples suggest. Seven decades after India gained independence, women are still woefully underrepresented as political candidates in state and national elections. Although they comprise nearly half of the countrys population, women make up just over one-twelfth of parliamentary candidates and one-tenth of eventual winners. Yet, despite their gross underrepresentation as politicians, women have made great strides as voters. Today, in most states, female turnout is surpassing that of men no small feat in a conservative, patriarchal society. This electoral awakening of women has important ramifications for how Indias 2019 general election battle will be waged and won. Women as candidates In 2014, just 8.1% of candidates for the Lok Sabha were women. Though abysmally low, this figure was the highest ever. Between 1962 (the first year for which gender-specific data is available) and 1996, women did not once account for more than 5% of the candidate pool. Following a sharp increase in 1998, women have enjoyed modest incremental growth as a share of total candidates. This gradual rise in female candidacy has been most pronounced in SC/ST-reserved constituencies. Between 1980 and 2014, 7% of parliamentary candidates for these seats were women. During the same period, women comprised only 4.8% of candidates seeking general seats. There could be multiple reasons why the growth in female candidacy has been concentrated in reserved constituencies. One possibility raised by political scientist Francesca Jensenius is that parties tend to view male politicians in reserved constituencies as more dispensable than other male officeholders. In a sense, parties often reproduce the hierarchical pathologies of the caste system within their own organisations. Facing heightened pressure to field more female candidates, parties seem to have chosen the path of least resistance improving womens representation by replacing their least powerful men. Another possibility is that women lack access to the resources necessary to finance increasingly expensive electoral campaigns. An analysis of affidavits submitted by candidates contesting Indias 2004 and 2009 parliamentary elections indicates that the median wealth of male candidates is three times that of their female counterparts. If the costs of campaigning are lower in reserved areas, poorer candidates would stand a greater chance of winning. Surprisingly, women are more likely to contest elections in places where the gender ratio of the electorate is less favourable toward women that is, where there is a proportionally greater male population. To explain this counter-intuitive finding, economists Mudit Kapoor and Shamika Ravi hypothesise that in states where women enjoy greater equality, such as Kerala, they may not feel compelled to throw their hats into the ring as candidates and assume the financial burdens of campaigning. Meanwhile, women in states with greater gender inequality like Uttar Pradesh view running for office as one of the only ways to make their voices heard. Women as representatives Once Indian women enter the electoral fray, they tend to perform fairly well. Since 1962, women have occupied a higher percentage of seats in the Lok Sabha than one would predict based solely on their share of candidates (See Figure 1). Nevertheless, female representation in the Lok Sabha is meagre and only surpassed 10% for the first time in 2009. Today, women make up a paltry 11.6% of directly elected members of Parliament. Where do women have the greatest odds of victory? The data suggests that, just as women are more likely to contest SC/ST-reserved seats, they are also more likely to win these seats once they run. Since 1980, 16.2% of female candidates in reserved races have emerged victorious, compared to only 11.5% of women running for general seats. Interestingly, Kapoor and Ravi find that although female candidates are more prevalent in constituencies with adverse sex ratios, women are less likely to actually win in these areas. This suggests that while a male-dominant electorate might spur women to contest elections, this same factor may work against them on election day. Women as voters While female representatives remain few and far between, ordinary female voters are playing an increasingly outsize role in Indias democracy. Amid the unprecedented overall voter turnout of the 2014 elections, fewer observers noticed that the gender gap in turnout had dramatically declined (See Figure 3). Female turnout lagged male turnout by 7 to 12 percentage points in every election between 1967 and 2004, except for the 1984 election following Indira Gandhis assassination. By 2014, the gender gap had plummeted to 1.8 percentage points, a record low. In fact, in half of all states and Union territories, female turnout actually surpassed male turnout. This does not mean that more women vote than men in absolute terms: men still outnumber women on electoral rolls and in the general population. Though the rise in female voter registration has been modest, turnout among female electors has surged. Across the country, the female turnout advantage tends to be larger in state than in national elections. For both types of polls, however, the same group of states enjoys the greatest edge in female turnout. Yet it is not clear what sets these states apart. Some of Indias poorest states, like Bihar and Odisha, exhibit a clear female advantage, while women vote less often than men in the more prosperous states of Gujarat, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. In addition, states with more female candidates in 2014 did not enjoy greater female turnout. States with more balanced sex ratios did have higher turnout but for both men and women voters. Implications for 2019 These findings have profound implications for womens changing role in Indian politics ahead of the countrys 2019 general election. For starters, as women vote in greater numbers, their policy preferences are increasingly shaping political agendas. For example, shortly after his re-election in 2015, the chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, fulfilled a campaign promise to ban alcohol in the state. Many observers perceived that Kumar enacted the ban under pressure from womens groups to curb alcohol consumption, which they associated with social ills such as gender-based violence and poverty. Now, both Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have jumped on the bandwagon, announcing their own plans to implement a phased prohibition of alcohol. Admittedly, it is not obvious that prohibition actually addresses the most pressing concerns facing women in India, but a ban on alcohol does have the virtue of being both highly visible and administratively easier than tackling deep-seated issues such as sexual violence or police reform. Still, the recent explosion of the #MeToo movement in India has the potential if public pressure is sustained to advance issues regarding the endemic harassment of women onto the front burner of political discourse. In addition, women have become a focal point of the BJPs 2019 re-election campaign. While Modis 2014 pitch revolved around job creation and economic growth, his current platform centres on building the modern foundations of the Indian welfare state. The BJP believes that this focus on social welfare will endear it to Indias voting masses, especially women. While on the campaign trail in Karnataka earlier in 2018, Modi himself declared: For us, whether it is the organisation or the government, or framing of programmes, it is women first. In the last four years, the Modi government has launched campaigns to improve sanitation (Swachh Bharat), provide universal health care (Ayushman Bharat), and furnish cooking gas cylinders for millions of poor households across the country (Ujjwala). In the past, the BJP has trailed the Indian National Congress in terms of winning womens votes; party leaders believe the governments development schemes can help reverse this historical disadvantage. The ruling party has also bet on legal changes to win over female voters such as an executive ordinance in September 2018 that bans the practice of instant triple talaq in Indias Islamic community. This electoral focus on women is not restricted to the BJP. For instance, Congress party president Rahul Gandhi has criticised Modi for promising to improve womens safety while allegedly pursuing a majoritarian agenda that incites violence. Gandhi has even gone so far as to pledge that his party will ensure that women will be chosen as chief ministers in at least half of Congress-ruled states by 2024 an easy statement to make given that the Congress only directly rules three states in India today. A second implication of changing gender dynamics in Indian politics is the clear gap that has opened between womens participation as voters and their underrepresentation in the political class. Under the 73rd Amendment to the Indian Constitution, passed in 1993, at least one-third of local village council president positions must be reserved for women. But such quotas are not operative at either the state or national levels. Or at least not yet. The representational gap experienced by Indian women may compel parties to finally pass a Womens Reservation Bill, which would reserve 33% of all seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women. The bill, first introduced in 1996, was passed in the Rajya Sabha but has remained stalled in the Lower House. Between 2004 and 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party blamed the Congress for dragging its feet on the bill. Now, Rahul Gandhi has urged Modi to pass the bill, assuring full Congress support. While some insiders speculate that Modi plans to revive the reservation bill as a pre-election concession to women, the two major parties have so far done little except blame each other for delaying the bills passage. Even if the bill does not pass, there is some cause for optimism about female representation in Indian politics. Reserved seats for women at the local level create a pipeline effect: women in reserved local positions can eventually use their political experience to launch state or national campaigns. Recent research by Stephen D OConnell finds that quotas for women have accounted for approximately half of the increase in female MPs and MLAs since the 73rd Amendment was passed. This pipeline effect should continue to increase the number of women elected to state and national office. But gender parity under even the most optimistic of scenarios remains a long way off. In the meantime, more encouraging is the unprecedented mobilisation of female voters in India, a trend that is shaping how parties campaign and increasingly govern. Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hintson are with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This article is part of the India Elects 2019 series, a collaboration between Carnegie and the Hindustan Times Amid a controversy over dropping International Workers Rights Day or May Day from the list of state government holidays, Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb has told government employees that they do not need a holiday on the day as they are not labourers or workers. Are you people in secretariat labourers? Am I a labourer? No, I am the chief minister. You view official files. Are you working in industrial sector? No, you dont. Then why do you require holiday on that day? What do you want to mourn? Deb said at a programme of Gazetted Officers Sangh in Agartala on Sunday. Last week, the BJP government in Tripura had decided to designate May 1 as a restricted holiday. Deb explained how May Day is for the workers and thats why, the BJP-IPFT government has decided to give a holiday to those in the industrial sector. He said that since it is now a restricted holiday, employees may still opt for it, but the state government will make a note of those do so. If you want to take leave, then you may. And we will also keep a watch on those who are taking holidays on that day, he warned. The opposition CPI(M) had demanded that the government withdraw its decision on the leave. The day has been a holiday in the state since the first Left Front came to power in 1978. We demand the government to withdraw their decision, said CPM leader Haripada Das. An 80-year-old Canadian tourist died during treatment after he got injured while getting off a moving train on platform number 2 of the Agra Cantt Railway Station on Sunday morning. He was taken to Railway Hospital but later shifted to SN Medical College and Hospital because of excessive bleeding. He died during treatment at 4pm. The deceased, identified as Milicevic Meril from Vancouver, was travelling alone and was supposed to travel to Chhatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus in Mumbai by Ferozpur-Mumbai Punjab Mail. He had reservation ticket from Raja Ki Mandi Station but he reached Agra Cantt Railway station instead and mistakenly boarded Garib Rath from Chennai that was heading towards Hazrat Nizamuddin. Realising his mistake, he tried to get down from the moving train and fell on the platform. Milicevic Meril was at platform number 2 of Agra Cantt railway station for catching a train to reach Mumbai. He wrongly boarded Garib Rath that was heading towards Hazrat Nizamuddin. He realised his mistake after the train started moving, said Sanchit Tyagi, public relation officer (PRO) for Agra Division of North Central Railway Station. The Canadian tourist attempted to get down from the moving train and caught hold of side bar at the entrance of the compartment but could not get down safely and was dragged on platform and got badly injured, said Tyagi while talking to HT. The injured tourist was attended by deputy station superintendent at Agra Cantt Railway Station and was shifted to Railway hospital, said the PRO. Police sources at Tourism Police Station revealed that the injured tourist was shifted to SN Medical College and Hospital but died because of excessive bleeding. The victim had sustained fractures in legs and waist and died due to excessive internal bleeding. The family members of the deceased in Canada were contacted through Canadian embassy in Delhi and are expected to reach Agra soon, said circle officer Mohsin Khan. After 83 days of protesting against faulty and inadequate infrastructure, the students of 2016 and 2017 batches at Film and television institute of India (FTII) have decided to resume classes from Monday. Around 40 students each from 2016 and 2017 batches were not attending classes for 83 days demanding additional infrastructure and extending the semester period. While the administration and dean held multiple talks with students, it bore results only on November 9 when both sides students and administration made headway. The students were on protest since August 21 this year. Following the assurance by administration that new infrastructure will be set in place in time; the students, under pressure for boycotting the classes, decided to end the protest despite admitting that their demands have not yet been met. The students have agreed to join classes from Monday after the administration was successful in holding talks with them. There were several rounds of talks between students, dean and head of departments (HoDs) before students agreed to resume classes, said Bhupendra Kainthola, director FTII. Meanwhile, protesting students said that the decision to end protest was taken as they were losing on academics. According to Kainthola, two new buildings with state-of-art infrastructure will be made available for students within the next 15 days. We have told students about the new set up and the administrations commitment to develop the new infrastructure, said Kainthola. The students wanted to rejoin classes and have been holding talks with the dean and HoDs to help us create a better schedule to accommodate our classes. They (HoDs) have been speaking on our behalf with the administration to create a new course schedule and also give us extension to accommodate shooting schedules, said Aadith V, second year cinematography student of 2017 batch. Out of 11 courses being run by FTII, students from six courses were on strike and boycotting classes since August 21. Earlier in 2015, the FTII students had held the longest protest for 139 days to oppose the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the FTII chairman. Some of our main demands were that the administration had promised us new studios which were to be built by June 2018, but has not been set up yet; promised classrooms have not come up and negligence from the administration towards safety of students. We have compromised on our demands as the negotiations are not going anywhere, said Aadith. The students demands also include calibrated monitors for production design students; direction classroom theatres which were promised by September 2018, but are still not ready; safety checks and audits which are still not in place. Sundays episode of Koffee With Karan was all about Katrina Kaif not letting anyone else speak and Varun Dhawans refusal to sit on his assigned seat. Host Karan Johar appeared to find it hard to control his two guests, specially Katrina. The episode began with an introduction from Katrina and Varun for Karan. The host arrived on stage after a rap from Varun saying that the filmmaker should focus on spending more time with his kids and let the new generation take the reins of Bollywood. Soon as he took his seat, Karan launched an awkward question at his guests. Considering Katrina is single right now since her split with actor Ranbir Kapoor, Karan asked her why she doesnt date Varun. Katrina let out an awkward noise, exclaiming how the idea was out of question. She then launched into a long anecdote about how Varun and Arjun Kapoor were a part of the two-member I Hate Katrina club when they were working on Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya. She thought they founded the club out of spite for her as she didnt give them any attention but Varun gave her the real reason that she said left her hurt and upset. Varun said that actor Salman Khan, Katrinas ex, would always take the boys on treks or swimming until Katrina arrived on set and stole all the attention from them. Katrina realised the boys were eyeing for Salmans attention and not hers. The host then asked Varun about his relationship status with his longtime rumoured girlfriend, Natasha Dalal. Varun gave Karan the permission to talk about his meetings with Natasha and also blushingly confirmed that the two were indeed in a relationship. When asked if he plans to marry her someday, Varun said he does. Karan asked Katrina about her equation with Ranbirs girlfriend Alia Bhatt and his ex Deepika Padukone. Katrina said that she has individual relationships with each of them, irrespective of what is happening with others. It isnt tough for me to keep a good equation with Alia. Everyone needs to judge for themselves whats best for them and how they want to handle their equations and their relationships. My equations with Alia is independent. My equation with Ranbir is independent and same with Deepika. I have individual relationships with all. We are not everyday phone conversation buddies, but I like who she (Alia) is. There is a certain enjoyment of each others company and a certain comfort and fun element that we have when we are together and it was a decision that I made. I respect and I value that relationship and it shouldnt change for anything, she said. Varun also gave his opinion on the matter with the mantra: With all respect to everyone, screw everyone. He said that people dont care about their exes once they find someone else so you are always on your own. Karan then showed a clip from Salman, in which he gave Varun a few tips for working with Katrina. He advised him to avoid talking to her about filmmaking, health related issues and expect to work hard and take several takes for dance numbers that she has already perfected. Another sweet video message from his parents made Varun emotional. While his mom revealed funny stories from his childhood, dad David Dhawan said he was proud of his son and he could not have asked for a better one. Varun said there are only two things that make him emotional. One is when his parents feel proud of him and another is when he watches his brother play with his daughter. Varun gave some good answers to his rapid fire questions. Varun said that he would not switch his career with either Ranveer Sing or Ranbir Kapoor as while they have had failures in their career, Varun has had none. When asked to choose between sex and giving a successful movie, Varun said A big hit is like the best orgasm. The one line that can make him fall out of love with anyone: Lets have vegetarian tonight. He said if Ranbir ever called him late at night, it would be about a party and if Alia called him too, it would again be about the same party. Katrina let out a big laugh on his reply. He couldnt decide the better actor between Alia and Anushka Sharma but chose Rajkummar Rao as the one new-age actor to watch out for. Katrina was asked about the things she loves, hate and tolerate about Salman Khan. I love his loyalty...hate some of his opinions and tolerate his tardiness, she said. When asked the same question about Alia, Katrina said she loved her free spirit, hated that she doesnt put in a lot of work into her work but still delivers good performances and she tolerates that she doesnt put in too much work at the gym either but is able to look good regardless. Katrina revealed that she can never get the airport look right and has given up on it. Karan said Why you dont wanna wear a saree with big glasses and walk out?, possibly throwing shade at Kangana Ranaut. When asked to pick between Deepika or Anushka, she chose the latter as she is her good friend. She chose Salman when asked to choose between him, Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar. She said she liked Rajkummar Rao as an actor but wants to work with Vicky Kaushal because she thinks they would look good together. Varun ended up winning the hamper for his quick and quirky answers. He also won the Koffee game that required them to weigh things and call up their friends to get them to say Hey Karan, its me. Follow @htshowbiz for more A suicide bomber blew himself up in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Monday, killing at least six people near a police checkpoint, including policemen, officials said, but no militant group has yet claimed responsibility. Six people were killed in the explosion, said Najib Danish, a spokesman for the interior ministry. Ten policemen and civilians, including women, were injured in the blast. The attacker on foot detonated his suicide vest close to the checkpoint near a school in central Kabul, which is in the same area as the finance and justice ministries and close to the presidential palace. Police spokesman Basir Mujahid said he was about 20 m (66 ft) away from the blast, near where a demonstration had broken up some 30 minutes before. I took four bodies away but there were more on the ground, he said, without giving further details. The attack came as hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Kabul to protest against the governments failure to prevent attacks by Taliban militants in two provinces. Afghan security forces suffered scores of casualties in heavy fighting at the weekend with Taliban militants in the provinces of Ghazni and Herat, officials have said. HANGZHOU, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) The worlds first artificial intelligence (AI) news anchor made his debut at the ongoing fifth World Internet Conference in east Chinas Zhejiang Province. The news anchor, based on the latest AI technology, has a male image with a voice, facial expressions and actions of a real person. He learns from live broadcasting videos by himself and can read texts as naturally as a professional news anchor. The AI news anchor was jointly developed by Xinhua News Agency, the official state-run media outlet of China, and Chinese search engine company Sogou.com. According to Xinhua, he has become a member of its reporting team and can work 24 hours a day on its official website and various social media platforms, reducing news production costs and improving efficiency. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-11/08/c_137591813.htm WtR Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu lawmaker from Hawaii in the US Congress, is considering to run for American presidency in 2020, according to sources close to her. On Friday, at a Medtronic conference in Los Angeles an eminent Indian-American Dr Sampat Shivangi introduced Gabbard, 37, and said that she could be the next president of the US in 2020. The brief statement was marked by a standing ovation, in the presence of the four-term Congresswoman from the 50th US State. Gabbard, a Democrat, who addressed the gathering, however neither confirmed or denied that she is running for president in 2020. A decision on this could be taken before Christmas, which might not necessarily result in a formal announcement as that could be delayed till the next year, people familiar with her thinking process told PTI. However, it is said that she and her team has quietly been reaching out to prospective donors, including a large number of Indian Americans, and volunteers to build an impressive campaign for her 2020 run. Given that Gabbard is highly popular among Indian-Americans, a constituency she has nurtured from the very beginning of her political carrier, it is but natural that her team has quietly started reaching out to this community, which is considered as the richest ethnic group after the Jewish Americans. And in many critical States, Indian Americans can play an important role in her electoral chances. Gabbard is not Indian. She was born in American Samoa to a Catholic father (Hawaii State Senator Mike Gabbard) and her mother, Carol Porter Gabbard, is of Caucasian descent who professes Hinduism. Gabbard moved to Hawaii when she was two and embraced Hinduism as a teenager and is well-versed in the scriptures. If Gabbard declares her presidential bid she would be the first Hindu candidate ever from a major political party to announce to enter the race for White House. And if elected in 2020, she could be the youngest ever and first woman to be elected as the US president. A Democrat, Gabbard last week was elected for the fourth term for the US House of Representatives. Notably, Dr Shivangi is a Republican and has been the partys delegate for the past several presidential conventions. However, he had held fund raisers for Gabbard when she ran for the Congress for the first time in 2012. She was the first US lawmaker to take her oath on Bhagwat Gita. A former vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Gabbard currently serves on powerful House Armed Services Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee. She is also the Democratic Co-Chair of the Congressional India Caucus. She has been a fresh voice in the Democratic Party, with her support for US-India relations, her opposition to the war in Iraq, her opposition to arms sales to Saudi Arabia and her more recent vigorous opposition to among the rebels in Syria, Shivangi said. The 2020 presidential primary cycle is scheduled to kick off from the Iowa Caucuses on February 3, 2020, followed by the New Hampshire Primary on February 11, Nevada caucus of February 15 and South Carolina on February 22. Team Tulsi has been reaching out to people in these four States. President Donald Trump is all set to seek his re-election in 2020, none of the Democratic candidates have announced their bid yet. The Democratic race is expected to be crowded by the summer of 2019. Among those Democrats speculated to run for the 2020 primaries include former vice president Joe Biden, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Kaine and Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris. Amid the clamor of Trump headlines and focus on higher-profile candidates, Gabbard has been quietly making the traditional moves of a presidential candidate. She recently visited Iowa, where locals urged her to run for president, according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen. She keynoted a progressive gathering in New Hampshire in September. And shes writing a book due out this spring titled, Is Today the Day?: Not Another Political Memoir, Politico reported last month. The repatriation of ethnic Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh, to which more than 700,000 fled since last year to escape deadly violence carried out by Myanmars security forces, will begin this week, top Myanmar officials said Sunday. Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Win Myat Aye announced at a news conference that Bangladesh had informed Myanmar authorities that repatriation, agreed upon in principle months ago, would begin on Thursday. A Myanmar government statement said an initial group of 2,251 would be sent back from mid-November at a rate of 150 per day. Noting that the actual date depended upon Bangladesh taking action, Win Myat Aye said, Whether it will happen on the day or not, we have to be ready on our side and we try our best to do that. Abul Kalam, Bangladeshs repatriation commissioner, said he was unaware that a date had been set. I have got no decision from our foreign ministry or any other higher authorities, he said. The Rohingya exodus began after Myanmar security forces launched a brutal crackdown following coordinated insurgent attacks in August 2017. The scale, organisation and ferocity of the operation led to accusations from the international community, including the United Nations, of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Myanmars government has denied this. Human rights advocates say conditions are not yet safe for the return of the Rohingya refugees, who have generally been denied citizenship and civil rights in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where prejudice against them runs high. The UNs independent investigator on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, last week urged a halt to rushed plans for the repatriation, saying a lack of guarantees that the refugees wouldnt face new persecution if they returned home was concerning. According to Sundays Myanmar government statement, the returning Rohingya would stay at repatriation camps for two days and receive food and clothing before moving on to transit camps. It said China, India and Japan were providing necessary assistance for the repatriation process, but did not give details. It isnt clear how long the returnees would have to stay in the transit camps or where they would go afterward, as many Rohingya villages have been erased by bulldozers, with the land given to local Rakhine Buddhists. Officials said Sunday that returnees can get an ID document called a National Verification Card that will allow them to travel anywhere in the Maungdaw area of Rakhine State. They can then begin to apply for citizenship. But there is widespread skepticism that any returning refugees will ever be granted citizenship. The overwhelming majority of people in Myanmar do not accept that the Rohingya are a native ethnic group, instead seeing them as illegal migrants from Bangladesh and calling them Bengalis. In remarks delivered last month at the United Nations, Yanghee Lee said the Rohingya should not go back to ... the oppressive laws, the discrimination. The minimum they need is freedom of movement, access to basic health services. Right now, its like an apartheid situation where Rohingyas still living in Myanmar ... have no freedom of movement, Lee said. The camps, the shelters, the model villages that are being built, its more of a cementing of total segregation or separation from the Rakhine ethnic community.( Dozens of Rohingya Muslim families on a list of refugees set to be repatriated to Myanmar later this week have fled from camps in Bangladesh where they were living, a Rohingya leader said on Monday, even as Myanmar prepares to begin receiving them. Most of the people on the list have fled to avoid being repatriated, said Abdus Salam, a Rohingya leader at the Jamtoli camp, some 40 km (25 miles) southeast of Coxs Bazar in Bangladesh, adding most have fled to other neighbouring camps to avoid being detected and forced to return against their will. Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed in late October to begin repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar to escape an army crackdown, even though the United Nations refugee agency and aid groups say doubts persist about their safety and conditions in Myanmar should they return. The repatriation of the first batch of 2,000 refugees is set to officially begin on Nov. 15 and officials in Myanmar said on Sunday they were ready to begin receiving refugees this week. It depends on the other country, whether this will actually happen or not, Win Myat Aye, Myanmars Minister for Social Welfare and Resettlement, told a news conference, referring to Bangladesh. But we must be ready from our side. We have done that. Last week, more than 20 individuals on the list of potential returnees submitted by Bangladesh told Reuters they would refuse to return to Myanmars western Rakhine state, from where they fled, saying that they were terrified. Bangladesh has said it would not force anyone to return and has asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to verify whether those shortlisted are willing to go back. Firas Al-Khateeb, a UNHCR representative in Bangladesh, told Reuters on Sunday that this effort had not yet begun. Avoiding prayers People are so afraid of being identified, they are avoiding Friday prayers at the mosque, said one refugee, who has fled with his family from Jamtoli to the large bangladesh to evade repatriation. The United Nations has said conditions are not yet safe for the refugees to go back, in part because Myanmar Buddhists have been protesting against the return of Rohingya. The UNHCR said late on Sunday that refugees should be allowed to go and see the conditions in Myanmar before they decide whether to return. Abul Kalam, Bangladesh Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, said he was hopeful the process could begin on Thursday. The return will be voluntary. Nobody will be forced to go back, he told Reuters. More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled the sweeping army crackdown in Myanmar last year. They say soldiers and local Buddhists massacred families, burned hundreds of villages, and carried out gang rapes. U.N-mandated investigators have accused the army of genocidal intent and ethnic cleansing. Myanmar denies almost all of the allegations, saying security forces were battling terrorists. Attacks by Rohingya insurgents calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army preceded the crackdown. Independent assessment The UNHCR called for Myanmar to allow Rohingya refugees to visit their places of origin or resettlement sites to make their own independent assessment of whether they feel they can return there in safety and dignity. Myanmar authorities should allow these refugees to undertake such go-and-see visits without prejudice to their right to return at a later date, the UNHCR said in a statement late on Sunday. Meanwhile, Myanmar minister Win Myat Aye said preparations had been made for 2,251 people to be transported to two transit centres by boat on Thursday, while a second group of 2,095 could follow later by road. Once processed, they would be sent to another centre where they would be housed, fed, and asked to build homes via cash-for-work schemes. Returnees would only be allowed to travel within Maungdaw township, one of the three areas they fled, and only if they accepted National Verification Cards, an identity document most Rohingya reject because they say it brands them as foreigners. Many Rohingya, who have been left stateless, oppose going back without guarantees of citizenship and freedom of movement. Social network Twitter has warned two Pakistani rights activists against objectionable content, they said on Monday, a move that signals a continuing push by the south Asian nation to rein in free speech online. The warnings come a week after Twitter suspended the account of an ultra-right Pakistani cleric who issued threats to the government and judiciary over the acquittal of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. Warnings sent out by Twitter are an example of how online spaces are being regulated and are shrinking for internet users voicing their opinions, said Pakistani lawyer and internet activist Nighat Dad. In recent emails, Twitter told activist Taha Siddiqui it had received complaints his account was in violation of Pakistani law, he said, and it added that further action could be taken, but did not specify what. Pakistani authorities ... are pressuring Twitter to take legal steps against me, Siddiqui, a correspondent for France 24 television, who fled Pakistan this year, told Reuters. Twitter should stop becoming a facilitator of repressive regimes. Twitters Asia-Pacific representative had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters. Pakistans information minister, Fawwad Chaudhry, told Reuters his office was trying to establish close coordination with Twitter to curb hate speech and death threats, but did not directly respond to questions on the case of Siddiqui, and another activist who received two warnings, Gul Bukhari. Bukhari, who was briefly abducted in July from a military cantonment in the eastern city of Lahore, said one of her email warnings from Twitter referred to a tweet that criticised the governments lack of action against a prominent cleric. The cleric, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, had his account blocked last week after he threatened the Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi and urged their cooks and servants to kill them. In a reply to Twitter, Bukhari said Rizvis speeches violated the law because he was inciting violence against state officials. In my tweet I am asking government to take action against him. In which world is that illegal? she wrote. Siddiqui, who left Pakistan after a failed abduction attempt he blames on the powerful military over his frequent social media criticism, now lives in France and says he believes the complaint to Twitter came from his home country. C laiming a link between the South of France and a traditional London mews house might seem far-fetched. But its a connection that French-born Elodie Besson makes about the four-storey mews home she shares with her husband Alexandre Tiers and their sons Antoine, seven, and Nicolas, four. I grew up in the South of France, so I love having lots of light, she says. Formerly a gloomy house, it has been transformed by London-based Binom Architects into a surprisingly light-filled, even sunlit family home, thanks to the addition of a large skylight on the top floor that draws light down the stairwell to the ground floor. A new, minimalist staircase and sandblasted-glass landings on the upper floors bring even more light into the house. The property also appealed to Elodie, who lived for many years in Paris, for being uniquely English: You dont find mews houses in France, she says, adding that she loves her homes central location near Hyde Park. Hyde Park Stables, which are still used, are close by. Being in a mews house also feels very private. In the summer, we sit on our bench outside. An accountant in the beauty industry, she took the unusually bold, not to say risky step of buying the house without her husband knowing. Wed lived in an apartment before, but liked the idea of having a little house instead. When I first saw the mews house I instantly wanted to buy it, even though it was dark and shabby. "Fortunately, Alex liked it. Our brief was simple. We wanted a calming space with lots of white tones, built-in storage and natural materials. A neat little nook: minimalist furniture and lighting for a midcentury modern feel / Adrian Lourie Co-founded by Spanish husband-and-wife architects Gonzalo Coello de Portugal and Marta Granda Nistal, Binom was chosen by Elodie and Alexandre, who works in finance, after the practice had renovated the London home of friends. The French couple lived in the house for a while before its redesign, which began in January 2014 and was completed in May 2015. What it cost Price paid for the original mews house in 2011: 1.35 million Cost of the works: 300,000 (basement), 250,000 (upper floors) and 75,000 (joinery and kitchen) Value of house now (estimate): 2.1 million The previous occupant lived in a poky, oppressive space with purple walls. We painted some walls white to freshen the place up, says Elodie. When Binom came on board, it was clear that structural rather than cosmetic alterations were urgently needed. The house had recently been re-roofed but poorly, so the first thing to do was replace it, says Gonzalo. The renovation was done from top down. The interior was gutted and an existing solid timber staircase, in a similar place to the new lightweight, skeletal one, was removed. Internal scaffolding and ladders provided access to the upper storeys as floors, which were badly in need of repair, were renovated. The house was rewired and replumbed. The main skylight was then installed, plus two more rooflights in a top-floor bedroom and bathroom. Windows on the first and second floors were enlarged, allowing more light to enter the house. Glass panels next to doorways leading to the ground-floor living room and bedrooms let more light still permeate the house. Over the top: Logico Suspension pendant lights seem to hover over the dining table / Adrian Lourie Despite this homes narrow footprint, the new bedrooms and bathrooms feel remarkably spacious. Binom sourced space-saving features such as a shower with doors that open inwards and injected glamour into the bathrooms by covering walls with floor-to-ceiling frosted glass panels. In one bathroom, bubble-shaped light fittings seemingly erupt from a wall. A BASEMENT FOR THE KIDS Along the way, the couple considered adding a basement. I didnt want one at first too claustrophobic, Elodie says. But she now sees it as a major asset. Its used as a playroom by the children, they have their birthday parties there. The basement also houses a bespoke wine cellar and a bathroom with an enormous bath where the broad-shouldered Alex, formerly a professional swimmer and tall to boot, can soak in comfort. Bliss below stairs: the bespoke wine cellar in the basement / Adrian Lourie The couple rented a neighbouring mews house while the work was done. It gave us a feel of what it would be like to live in one, says Elodie, who was very actively involved in the project. I created spreadsheets to keep track of the builds cost. Gonzalo laughs: Elodie was our quantity surveyor. Elodie adds: I made on-site visits at least once a week. It helped to speed up decisions. I also visited lots of showrooms to help choose materials. That said, Alexandre had some input. It was he who recognised the benefits of the new staircase design and gave it the go-ahead. Gonzalo is fond of making broad-brush statements about the project, which is helpful in terms of understanding its general structure. The houses layout, it turns out, is asymmetric. The staircase isnt in the centre of the house, he says. One third of the house is to the left of it as you go up; two thirds of it is to the right. Many of the functional spaces are to be found to the left of the staircase, for example, the utility room in the basement and the kitchen on the ground floor. The living spaces are situated to the right of the stairs. We also decided to line one party wall with built-in storage and wardrobes on every floor. This helps to soundproof the house, continues Gonzalo. The piece de resistance is the staircase a design that is more complex than it appears to be. It is supported by slender 30mm steel rods secured at the top by a central beam crossing the main skylight, and screwed into a metal plate on the basement floor. Technical feat: the slender tension rods that support the skeletal staircase remind me of tall masts on a yacht, says Elodie / Adrian Lourie These tension rods support the treads throughout the stairwell, says Gonzalo. The same rods were used to make the handrails, providing an elegant detail. The treads are made from folded steel-plating just 4mm thick, topped with timber. There were lots of technical difficulties with the stairs, he says. All the treads had to be folded at precisely the same angle, otherwise the staircase wouldnt fit exactly into the space. There is a gap between the stairs and the back wall on each storey, which lets light seep into the floor below. While Gonzalo zeroes in on the staircases technical qualities, Elodie points out a rather more romantic feature: The rods remind me of tall masts on a yacht. Another allusion, perhaps, to the South of France. Now Open 12 November 2018 Marriott Hotels, the iconic flagship of Marriott International, today opened the highly-anticipated Hong Kong Ocean Park Marriott Hotel, a 471-room landmark urban green resort just minutes from the heart of a city famous for its skyscrapers, offering a brilliant new destination experience for business travellers and families alike. Hong Kong Ocean Park Marriott Hotel is committed to a sustainable future and reducing its environmental footprint and opens with several initiatives in place. These initiatives include the hotel facade design that features energy-saving components to keep the building cooler in summer. In addition, rainwater collection areas and vertical planting systems are found throughout the hotel. Also, the hotel will launch its own green education program for guests of all ages, as well as joining hands with Ocean Park to connect people with nature. With families and staycations in mind, at the heart of the destination resort is the large lagoon pool which includes children's pools. These pools are easily accessed from the three surrounding hotel wings, four restaurants and leisure facilities. Hong Kong Ocean Park Marriott Hotel also offers the M Passport program, a pilot that encourages children and their parents to participate in various resort activities with educational and fun themes, such as seashell art, scavenger hunts and dinners that encourage parent and child bonding. Completion of each activity is linked to rewards and treats that are tracked using a specially designed passport. Designed by Aedas, Hong Kong Ocean Park Marriott Hotel is an homage to a modern urban green oasis comprising of three towers - The Pier Wing, Club Wing and Marina Wing. It offers 471 smoke-free, contemporary rooms and suites that capture the Modern Marriott ethos with streamlined interiors, expansive naturally lit spaces and ocean-inspired decor. Three types of Ocean Park-themed rooms are available at The Pier Wing and Marina Wing. The Club Wing houses the executive M Club, an exclusive space where guests can work, enjoy a bite, recharge and connect. It also offers premium services including breakfast, evening hors d'oeuvres with premium drink options. Renowned international interior designer Peter Remedios created The Club Wing's interiors with an inviting palette of natural colors and modern furnishings. The highly anticipated Club Wing is scheduled to open early next year. The hotel showcases four restaurants and bars designed for brilliant dining experiences complete with alfresco areas offering amazing views over the hotel lagoon. These include The Pier Lounge and Bar for modern dining and cocktails; and Marina Kitchen, an all-day dining and international buffet featuring live cooking stations and a kids dessert counter. Meanwhile, guests can head to the Canton Bistro for Cantonese specialities and the Prohibition Grill House & Cocktail Bar to enjoy an American steakhouse concept. All dining outlets also serve WWF-certified sustainable seafood from approved suppliers. This urban retreat features innovative spaces including the largest pillar-free ballroom at 1,200sqm on Hong Kong island and flexible meeting spaces that can be configured to suit any agenda. For inspirational and creative events, the resort offers extensive outdoor facilities and special access to Ocean Park for exclusive meeting options. After an eventful day of work or exploration, guests can refresh in the outdoor lagoon pool or rejuvenate in Hong Kong's first Harnn Heritage Spa or work out their stress in the fitness center. While the hotel's location is perfectly situated for access to the city, it also offers convenient access for to Hong Kong's breathtaking hiking and jogging trails. These trails wind through some of Hong Kong's finest coastline and country parks, including Repulse Bay, the Aberdeen Reservoir and the challenging Dragon's Back Trail. Hotel guests are also entitled to exclusive Ocean Park benefits, such as special opening and seasonal offers, when staying at the Hotel. Pipeline 12 November 2018 Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH) has signed an agreement with an affiliate of HB Capital Management LLC, to develop a Cambria Hotel in Alpharetta, Georgia. The five-story, 144-room upscale hotel is slated to open in 2020. The Cambria Hotel in Alpharetta is located at the intersection of Morris Road and Webb Bridge Road in a mixed-use development by Alpharetta-based developer Mayfair Street Partners, known as "Mayfair at Webb Bridge." Alpharetta, which is recognized as the "Technology City of the South," includes a quarter of metropolitan Atlanta's top-25 tech employers, such as the Microsoft Technology Center, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, and ADP. The hotel is also a short drive to charming Main Street in Downtown Alpharettawhere guests can enjoy local dining, arts and culture, and shoppingand just east of Avalon, a 500,000-square-foot development that features a movie theater, seasonal ice-skating rink, shopping, and dining experiences. The Cambria Hotel in Alpharetta will feature upscale amenities that appeal to modern travelers, including: External Article 12 November 2018 Fattal Group, Israel's biggest hotel chain, has apparently given up the battle against Airbnb and decided to join it. The move, which was first reported by Yediot Aharonot daily, quickly elicited an angry reaction from many in the hotel industry. Advertisements The chain has reportedly leased two buildings in the trendy Tel Aviv neighborhoods of Kerem Hateimanim and Neve Tzedek and fitted them as short-term rental apartments. They are being offered on Airbnb and other booking sites under the "Master" brand of Fattal's Leonardo Hotels unit. "For some time we have been observing the changes occurring in the hotel sector globally where the biggest chain entered the short-term apartment rentals segment," Fattal said in response to the news. "We intend to continue examining closely those changes and update the services of the chain as all the world is changing." Like their peers elsewhere, Israeli hotels have been losing business to Airbnb, which often offers lower prices and a less institutional feel even if in recent years the site has become taken over more and more by professional renters. In Tel Aviv alone, industry sources estimate that Airbnb offers about 9,000 properties. Even as Israel has been hosting record numbers of incoming tourists, the number of hotel overnight stays has been declining in recent months, most recently by 3% year on year in September. Supplier News 12 November 2018 New York, Nov. 12, 2018 Beekeeper, the leading communication and employee operations platform for connecting a hotel's non-desk workers across locations and departments, earned the top honor here yesterday during HX. Beekeeper was one of five finalists competing in the Tech Pitch innovation challenge that recognizes companies that stand out from the crowd to help reimagine the hospitality industry. This is the third top technology honor presented to company in 2018; Beekeeper was named the Most Innovative Technology of 2018 by HTNG and it was awarded the HITEC 2018 E20X " People's Choice 2018 " by HFTP. Judging the competition on Sunday, Nov. 11, was Valerie Ferguson, Regional General Manager, Walt Disney Co.; Are Morch, Hotel Blogger and Social Media Consultant; Gregory J Pesik, Managing Director, Applied Intelligence, Accenture; and Vijay Dandapani, President & CEO, HANYC. Beekeeper had five minutes to present on the HX Tech stage in the Marketplace to these thought leaders and a packed theater of interested HX attendees. Beekeeper connects colleagues across locations and departments in real time via mobile or desktop devices. The platform includes an intelligent analytics dashboard to help companies improve internal communication and streamline business processes. Secure, automated, and relevant information is readily distributed, searchable, and measurable in one central hub for an efficient digitized workflow. Beekeeper will be holding live demos today at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Booth 2839. "It's truly an honor to be recognized by these industry leaders as having the most innovative hotel technology," said Connie Rheams, Beekeeper VP of Hospitality. "Beekeeper's goal is to help hoteliers improve employee interaction, which in turn cultivates heightens guest engagement. When employees feel part of the hotel family they forge relationships, making it more difficult for them to leave. "Beekeeper is designed to engage non-desk workers in a modern way who typically do not have an email address," she added. "It gives them a voice, breaks down silos between departments, recognizes them for doing an outstanding job, creates loyalty, and drives job retention. The happier employees are at their jobs, the more guest loyalty and satisfaction scores improve. Earning this award at HX validates that the industry is in real need of a digital transformation." The Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) today announced its second hotel in Odisha with the signing of a new Vivanta hotel in Bhubaneswar through a management contract with Lifeline Multi-Ventures. The signing is in line with the company's strategic expansion plans for driving aggressive growth. The Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) today announced its second hotel in Odisha with the signing of a new Vivanta hotel in Bhubaneswar through a management contract with Lifeline Multi-Ventures. The signing is in line with the company's strategic expansion plans for driving aggressive growth. Commenting on the signing, Puneet Chhatwal, managing director and chief executive officer, IHCL, said, "The signing of Vivanta Bhubaneswar is in line with Aspiration 2022 and our domestic expansion strategy of consolidating presence in key capital cities. Bhubaneswar has emerged as one of the fast-growing, important trading and commercial hubs in Odisha and eastern India. It offers immense potential for both leisure and business travellers. We are delighted to partner with Lifeline Multi-Ventures for this hotel." Vivanta Bhubaneswar, located at Patrapada in Kalinga Nagar, is part of DN Regalia Mall, a mixed use development. The hotel will comprise 137 well-furnished guest rooms and other features, including multi-cuisine restaurants, recreation facilities, modern meeting spaces, well-equipped conference rooms and banqueting facilities. It is slated to open in early 2020. Commenting on the partnership, Jagadish Prasad Naik, managing director, Lifeline Multi Ventures, said "We are proud to partner with IHCL. We are delighted that through this association with the pioneers of the Indian hospitality industry, we are introducing the Vivanta brand to Bhubaneswar." Bhubaneswar is the administrative, political and financial capital of Odisha. It is one of modern India's first planned and fastest-developing cities. Bhubaneswar is also an emerging information technology and education hub. The city is supposed to have over 1000 temples, earning it the tag of 'Temple City of India'. With Puri and Konark it forms the Swarna Tribhuja ('Golden Triangle'), one of eastern India's most visited destinations. Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH) has signed an agreement with an affiliate of HB Capital Management LLC, to develop a Cambria Hotel in Alpharetta, Georgia. The five-story, 144-room upscale hotel is slated to open in 2020. Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH) has signed an agreement with an affiliate of HB Capital Management LLC, to develop a Cambria Hotel in Alpharetta, Georgia. The five-story, 144-room upscale hotel is slated to open in 2020. The Cambria Hotel in Alpharetta is located at the intersection of Morris Road and Webb Bridge Road in a mixed-use development by Alpharetta-based developer Mayfair Street Partners, known as "Mayfair at Webb Bridge." Alpharetta, which is recognized as the "Technology City of the South," includes a quarter of metropolitan Atlanta's top-25 tech employers, such as the Microsoft Technology Center, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, and ADP. The hotel is also a short drive to charming Main Street in Downtown Alpharettawhere guests can enjoy local dining, arts and culture, and shoppingand just east of Avalon, a 500,000-square-foot development that features a movie theater, seasonal ice-skating rink, shopping, and dining experiences. "Alpharetta is one of the top-10 fastest-growing cities in the U.S., making it an ideal location for Cambria's second location in the state of Georgia," said Mark Shalala, vice president, franchise development, upscale brands at Choice Hotels. "The Cambria Hotel in Alpharetta will join the soon-to-open Cambria Hotel Savannah Historic District in delivering the distinct, upscale experience guests have come to expect from the brand." The Cambria Hotel in Alpharetta will feature upscale amenities that appeal to modern travelers, including: Immersive, spa-style bathrooms with Bluetooth mirrors Contemporary and sophisticated guest rooms, complete with modern fixtures, abundant lighting, and plush bedding An indoor swimming pool Onsite dining featuring freshly made food, local craft beer, wine, specialty cocktails, and small bites Multi-function meeting space State-of-the-art fitness center Locally inspired design "Alpharetta's rapid growth has made it a thriving tourist destination and a hub for new and relocating technology companies," said Steven Hurowitz, managing member of HB Capital. "The Cambria Hotel in Alpharetta will introduce a new way for travelers to immerse themselves in the city's culture while catering to their needs. We look forward to teaming with Choice Hotels to add another Cambria hotel to our portfolio." Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, recently sat down with CNNs Fareed Zakaria for an interview that aired this Saturday. During the interview, the politician discussed a myriad of topics, including his thoughts on a particular tweet made by American President Donald Trump. The tweet in question was made as Trump arrived in Paris ahead of an international event commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I this Friday. President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the US, China and Russia," Trump wrote. "Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the US subsidizes greatly! Trump's words were a response to a recent appearance by Macron on French radio in which he said, We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America, Macron said on French radio. Macron is apparently not as big as a fan of debating political matters on Twitter as Donald Trump. He told CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria, I always prefer having direct discussion or answering questions than making my diplomacy through tweets." He went on to reveal that despite Trump's tweets, the two politicians actually shared a cordial exchange that day revealing, We had a very good discussion this morning and he confirmed in front of the press that he was OK." Dreams and aspirations we've all got 'em. For Atlanta rapper Lil Yachty, widely popular Netflix show Big Mouth is where it's at. The animated series humorously follows the main character Andrew as he navigates the perilous waters of puberty and unsurprisingly boasts a number of influential fans with a solid team of comedians including Nick Kroll, Maya Rudolph, John Mulaney, and Jessi Klein at the show's helm. Lil Yachty has been a long time fan of the show consistently tweeting about it to his 4.5 million followers often. It seems that Yachty's efforts have not gone unnoticed as both the Netflix and Big Mouth twitter accounts have shown the rapper some major love this past week. The aforementioned Twitter exchange first took place when Yachty tweeted about acquiring Big Mouth merch. "I need big mouth merch," he wrote. Apparently, Netflix's social media team was looking out for Yachty as they offered to make the connection, ensuring that the Big Mouth twitter account got the message. Much Yachty's excitement, the Big Mouth team appeared to have sent Yachty a direct message and went a step further by sharing an image of an animated Yacthy next to one of the show's characters. In true superfan fashion, Yachty posted the image on his Instagram account before asking, "Who wants to see me on season 3 of big mouth?" to his Twitter followers. "We need this to happen." https://twitter.com/_/status/1058443484695121920 https://twitter.com/_/status/1058483593012486145 https://twitter.com/_/status/1058489395286867973 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp-IB6sD1k4 Lingerie and sleepwear company Victoria's Secret has become one of the leading brands in its field. The annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show has become a staple event in the realms of fashion and popular culture. Naturally, aspiring and seasoned models alike dream of one day entering into a partnership with the company, or gaining a coveted spot in the runway spectacle. Brazilian supermodel, mother, and wife of Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen can boast accomplishing both feats having modeled for the brand in print campaigns, and on the runway. In a move that shocked many, Bundchen ultimately decided to part ways with the company a few years after inking a lucrative deala decision that she has addressed in her new book, Lessons: My Path To A New Life. For the first five years, I felt comfortable modeling in lingerie, but as time went on, I felt less and less at ease being photographed walking the runway wearing just a bikini or a thong, she wrote. Give me a tail, a cape, wings please, anything to cover me up a little! she added. The model's words come at a time where the company and its annual fashion show is facing a great deal of scrutiny and backlash, especially after its chief marketing officer of Ed Razek has had to apologize for remarks made against the inclusion of transgender and plus size models. [via] Most of your customers dont trust you or your company. Executives will find this hard to believe, and many will reject the data. But Americans growing mistrust of experts and institutions extends to businesspeople and corporations. And that presents a brand problem. Only 7 percent of American believe that major company CEOs have high ethical standards, and only 9 percent have a very favorable opinion of major companies, according to polling by the Public Affairs Council, a nonpartisan, nonpolitical association for public affairs professionals. On HoustonChronicle.com: Beware underpaid CEOs, your job may be in danger Small-business owners, one of the most trusted groups, scored higher, with 35 percent of Americans considering them highly ethical. In 2015, two-thirds of Americans said they trusted the business community. Just when we thought Americans views on the honesty and ethics of government and business couldnt sink any lower, our survey reveals that the trust deficit continues to widen, the groups researchers wrote. Only 42 percent of Americans trust major companies to behave ethically, down from 47 percent last year. The primary drivers of a persons opinion are, as expected, personal experience, news reports and the internet. Social media shaped the impressions of less than half of those surveyed, but 55 percent of people under 21 said it was a significant influence. More than half of Americans believe that companies do not compensate people fairly, by overpaying executives and underpaying the rank and file. People most concerned about executive compensation tend to be older, more educated and more highly compensated themselves, the report says. Americans have a wide range of opinions depending on the industry. In a fascinating contrast, a quarter of Americans said they trust food and beverage companies, while more than half said they dont trust pharmaceutical companies. The health insurance sector isnt rated much higher, with 48 percent calling it less trustworthy and 11 percent calling it more trustworthy, researchers found. Other sectors that score poorly include banks and other financial institutions. Almost half of Americans believe the pharmaceutical industry needs more oversight, while 41 percent think the health insurance industry needs more regulation. Energy companies fell near the middle in the polling, with 34 percent of Americans believing they are untrustworthy and 35 percent supporting greater government regulation. Other surveys have found similar results. The Reputation Institute, a reputation measurement and management services firm, found similar declines in trust for corporations. But it also found that consumers are placing higher importance on a companys governance. Fewer companies are perceived as embodying a sense of sincerity, being genuine and caring, the institute found in its 2018 consumer survey. Because of this only 25.5 percent of companies are deemed as sharing the same values and beliefs. Generalized perceptions of business create hazards for individual brands. If the public is already predisposed to believe that CEOs cant be trusted, then merely a whiff of scandal in the C-suite will quickly damage a brand. Watch how quickly social media lynch mobs take down celebrities and politicians for an object lesson in reputational risk. On HoustonChronicle.com: Papa John proves arrogance and overconfidence are seeds of destruction And take it from a member of the mainstream media, the public loves to pile on when the mighty fall. Sadly, though, few people take satisfaction in the guilty getting their comeuppance. The news reinforces the belief that everyone is crooked. This is especially true of the 25-44 age group, according to the Reputation Institute. They hold dim views of all institutions, whether commercial, governmental or spiritual. All reputation dimension scores are down especially for citizenship, workplace and governance, because there is a growing belief companies focus on profits over people, the institute researchers found. Businesses should not take any comfort in the fact that trust in other institutions is falling just as quickly. Trust is what holds societies together and makes community and commerce possible. Distrust dissolves societies, creates hostility and ultimately engenders violence. Leaders, business or otherwise, who are authentic, transparent and compassionate can countervail the current trends. Brands that provide quality products, top-notch service and honest transactions can break through the publics cynicism. This dynamic is why so many successful CEOs talk about leading purpose-driven companies that do well by doing good. The public is happy to reward businesses that solve their problems while maintaining integrity. Too often, though, managers are the true cynics who consider these values as naive and unprofitable. They prioritize marketing gimmicks over customer service. But then again, these are also the men and women who got us to this point in the first place. The moral is quality first and always. Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about business and economics. chris.tomlinson@chron.com twitter.com/cltomlinson Novelists dream of creating a character like O-Six. Noble, ferocious, maternal, the alpha-female heroine of Nate Blakeslees American Wolf all but vaults off the page haunches poised, teeth bared as she and her pack roam the territory around Yellowstone National Parks picturesque Lamar Valley. Admirers have likened his 2017 book (recently out in paperback) to East of Eden, Game of Thrones and, perhaps most telling, a modern-day Jack London novel. But every word here is true. Since the federal government first reintroduced wolves into the park in 1995, the fate of mankinds ancient canine rival has become one of the most heated debates west of the Rocky Mountains. In recounting O-Sixs story, American Wolf brushes against a bushel of contentious issues regarding hunting, environmental politics, wildlife conservation, even the rapidly expanding field of leisure known as ecotourism. And for Western politicians, being against wolves has become sort of like gun control, explains Blakeslee. Its a way of signaling to voters what kind of candidate you are, and what you stand for. As long as its useful in that way, it permits us from moving beyond the debate and reaching some sort of resolution that everyone can be happy with. All this from an animal whose death in December 2012, during Wyomings first official wolf-hunting season in decades, made headlines worldwide. Her obituary, as it were, ran in the New York Times, where it caught Blakeslees attention. He flashed back to his college-age summer jobs around Jackson where he first fell in love with the area and then to the week he spent wolf-watching at Yellowstone in 2007. Reading about O-Sixs demise put the hook into me, he says. Who could have anticipated that one of the very first animals killed in that first legal wolf-hunting season, (which) people had been fighting over for 10 years, that when it finally occurred it would be one of the parks favorite animals (and) arguably one of the most famous wild animals in the world? A writer at large for Texas Monthly, Blakeslee captures certain scenes in American Wolf wherein O-Six and her kin warily eyeball nearby grizzlies, or rend the flesh of a rival pack in such fine detail readers can practically smell the fear oozing from a panicking elk. This he credits to hundreds pages of notes taken by the park rangers and amateur observers who made O-Six, at the time, perhaps the worlds most-documented wolf. It really was like reading the diary of a wolf pack; there was all this amazing material, says Blakeslee of this vast trove of wolf-related data. I mean, there was a lot of really mundane material in there, too; wolves spend a lot of the day just sort of lying around sleeping. But if you were willing to read through the whole thing, there was some amazing behavior in there, too. American Wolf By Nate Blakeslee Broadway Books, 304 pp., $16 (paperback) See More Collapse Blakeslees book comes along at a time when, however precariously, the tide of public opinion seems to be turning back in the favor of wolves, sworn enemies of farmers and ranchers for centuries. Every gain that humans have made in the last thousand years in the Northern Hemisphere has come at the expense of gray wolves, he says, and thats mainly because human civilization, as it spread, became dependent on raising livestock. Wolves were perceived as the main threat that had to be overcome in order for that type of civilization to spread. Among the homo sapiens, the hero of American Wolf is unquestionably Rick McIntyre, a ranger who came to Yellowstone after years of studying wolves at Denali National Park in Alaska. Present from the beginning of the reintroduction project, McIntyre spent so much time watching Yellowstones wolves, writes Blakeslee, that whether he was wearing his uniform or not was pretty much the only way to tell if he was on or off duty. In the process, he quickly became recognized as one of the worlds leading wolf authorities, whose enthusiastic way of communicating his wealth of lupine knowledge to the parks visitors became legendary. Blakeslee chuckles when considering this otherwise retiring, enigmatic man. Im not sure I really cracked the nut that is Rick McIntyre, but I did my best, he says. He is this endless fount of wolf folklore, adds the author. He can point to almost any wolf you see in the park and tell you where that wolf was born, who its parents were, where its parents were born, these signature milestones in its life. Hes become adept at weaving these amazing stories by the side of the road, just talking to visitors about things that hes seen. A maverick from the word go, McIntyres activities such as actively helping Yellowstones visitors seek out wolves rather than simply spouting off a bunch of facts about them frequently baffled or even rankled the parks higher-ups. The parks wolves have now joined Old Faithful and Tower Falls as part of the Yellowstone must-see tour. Wolf-watching became such a rewarding and amazing thing for visitors that I think (officials) realized that it wasnt gonna go away, and gradually, they accommodated themselves to that, says Blakeslee. And now Rick is a valued member of the team, he adds. Hes someone that not only helps visitors find wolves, but he helps the biologists spot wolves when theyre doing studies. When theyre trying to count wolves (or) collar wolves, Rick is part of that team. Bonus tourism notwithstanding, the original reason for wolves reintroduction was simple enough: federal wildlife officials were looking for a more efficient way of keeping the parks elk population under control. Restoring a more natural predator-prey relationship touched off a phenomenon known as a trophic cascade, a series of chain reactions that has resulted in a more balanced ecosystem less damage to trout and beaver habitats, for example, or the sharp increase in both rodents and the birds of prey who eat them that appeared when wolves began chasing off the parks coyotes. But the regions greater wolf numbers also inevitably attracted the attention of its sizable population of big-game hunters. One such individual is the man who shot O-Six in December 2012. Blakeslee pseudonymously calls him Steven Turnbull; this man emerges as the books antihero, if not an outright villain. Hes just an experienced hunter who couldnt remember the last time he bought beef at a grocery store, Blakeslee writes. Eventually Blakeslee arranges a meeting with Turnbull (or vice versa, more accurately) at the hunters cabin outside Crandall, Wyo., not far from where he shot O-Six. Its walls are filled with impressive photos of elk, moose, antelope and bear kills, Blakeslee notes. Turnbull is polite but unremorseful, saying of O-Six, She didnt tell me she was famous before I shot her. The hunter tells Blakeslee about the pistol he carried for protection after getting word of the considerable backlash against the wolfs death and the surreal scene that played out as he watched O-Sixs pack mourn their fallen matriarch. Eventually he brings out the wolfs pelt and tells his guest, Now, thats a trophy. I reflected on it later, says Blakeslee. He and I were both standing there in that cabin, and then he was looking at this pelt and feeling very proud, and I was looking at it and feeling very dismayed. Thats also when Blakeslee realized just how ripe O-Sixs story really was. Its a bigger story than just a man shooting a wolf, he says. Its about values, its about how people think about wildlife, its about how people think about the West in general and what its for. The half-decade or so since O-Sixs death have been marked by a long string of federal court decisions and state-level challenges alternately extending and retracting rules safeguarding Americas wolves. The Yellowstone reintroduction program has been a resounding success, but only because these animals have been extended certain protections that could all too easily evaporate, Blakeslee cautions. I would say the northern Rockies population is stable, he offers. But I think thats partly due to pressure from environmentalists trying to make sure there are limits on hunting and limits to how many wolves are taken to protect livestock. Absent that pressure, Im not sure how stable that population would remain. Chris Gray is a writer in Houston. Robert Glasper will return to Houston to co-headline DocFest, the fifth annual December concert that honors alumni from the jazz program at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. The event takes its name from Robert "Doc" Morgan, who oversaw it for years and sent scores of top musicians into the industry. Glasper is among them, a Grammy-winning pianist who made his name playing jazz before crossing over successfully into a 21st century jazz/R&B/hip-hop fusion. He'll be inducted into the HSPVA Jazz Hall of Fame along with saxophonist Shelley Carroll, whose distinguished list of credits includes a stint in the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Thanksgiving is, hands down, my favorite American holiday. And Im sure many immigrants share my sentiment: Its inclusive in that we all join hands, with family and friends, in giving thanks to the land that feeds us, yet we all celebrate it a hundred different ways. From masalas to mole, every culture gives the big bird a dressing of its own. Since my first Thanksgiving in this country, when I stared in complete astonishment at the huge roasted turkey smothered with Indian spices on a platter, I have tried to like turkey. I have bought the farmers market hand-massaged cosseted variety, brined it for days, then roasted it with various masalas and more. I even made turkey biryani. Yet, honestly, after all that fuss, Id rather just have chicken. Or quail. The Harp on Richmond is no more. This past weekend the bar served its last drinks for patrons as it said goodbye to the neighborhood with a new concept set to debut at the spot at 1625 Richmond. DRINK UP!: Houston bars where you can drink like an adult It was just about a year ago that the bar's former owner Declan Plunkett announced that The Harp was closing, and he was retiring from the bar business for sunny Mexico. A few months after that announcement he reported that Ted Baker, owner of neighboring bar Revelry on Richmond, had purchased the bar and was going to continue it as The Harp after a brief break. The bar was reopened as a spiffed-up version of itself soon after Plunkett signed off and lasted as The Harp until this past weekend. Before Plunkett opened the bar back in October 1999 it was a massage school. Eclectic seating arrangements made The Harp feel more like a living room or backyard lounge. It's a place where lawyers, chefs, construction workers, and artists have all rubbed shoulders. Potlucks, watch parties, and other special events have kept Houstonians coming back for fun and fellowship. WHAT'S THAT THING?: Frequently-asked questions that tourists might have about Houston On Monday morning the new bar's incoming general manager Rachel Schlothauer told Chron.com that a new name was still being bandied about but that locals can expect many improvements at the bar including new restrooms, an improved outdoor deck, and new beer taps. The Irish theme isn't going anywhere. "We're keeping that Irish theme because we don't want to erase what Declan built there," Schlothauer said Monday. The plan is to be open in late January with an expanded craft cocktail and wine menu. They are working diligently to be open in time for that holiest of holidays at The Harp. "We will be open for St. Patrick's Day 2019," Schlothauer said. Craig Hlavaty covers Houston history and pop-culture. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | craig.hlavaty@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Students applying to Rice University are much less likely to be accepted now than they were a little more than decade ago, according to a new study by BusinessStudent.com. Admissions rate data show Rice went from accepting 27 percent of applicants in 2006 to 11 percent in 2018, a 59.8 percent decrease. It was the eighth largest drop in admissions rates among schools that were ranked among the top 51 by the U.S. World & News Report. Overall, the average admissions rate among the top schools fell from 35.9 percent in 2006 to 22.6 percent in 2018, a drop of about 37 percent. GROWING CLASS: Rice University gets record number of applications Only two of the 51 schools analyzed by the website became easier to get into over the past decade: Syracuse University and the College of William & Mary. The University of Chicago saw the biggest dip in admissions rates, falling from 38 percent to 7.2 percent. The University of Texas - Austin became slightly more difficult to get into, with admissions rates falling from about 49 percent in 2006 to 40 percent in 2018. A growing number of students applying to top colleges may be partially to blame for the lower admissions rates. Harvard University, the University of Southern California, Dartmouth set records for the number of applications they received this spring, according to press releases from those schools. More than 20,000 students applied to Rice University this spring for the first time in the school's history, an increase of 16 percent over the previous year. RELATED: Rice University announces free tuition for middle income undergraduate students Yvonne Romero Da Silva, vice president for enrollment at Rice, said the spike in applications could be the result of several changes the school has made over the past decade. The school recently made some testing requirements optional, although applicants still must submit their SAT and ACT scores. Officials also increased the school's undergrad enrollment from 3,000 to 4,000, and the prior president made it a priority to increase awareness about the private school across the country. The number of applications could increase again this coming year after the university announced it would provide full-tuition scholarships to students from low- and middle-income backgrounds beginning next fall. Romero Da Silva said her office already has seen an increase in the number of students applying for early-decision admissions. "While we had always offered need-based financial aid, it can be confusing at times. But with the Rice Investment, there's more clarity about what most families will receive at a minimum, and that has opened up the possibility in students' minds that this is a place they could go," Romero Da Silva said. "I think the word is just getting out more that we're here, we're in Houston, we're a great institution and we have a lot of things competitive students are looking for." A 1957 Oldsmobile Super 88 was one of 116 other cars sold on Saturday at the Jackson Family Auction in Humble, where Dan Jackson said goodbye to his late father's massive collection of classics. Jackson said his father started collecting cars in 2013 after a career selling oilfield equipment. The 81-year-old died this year after a car crash, and Jackson decided to sell off his father's beloved fleet of vintage Chevy and Oldsmobile models. RELATED: Houston-area man auctioning father's massive classic car collection in Humble ""It's just too much to handle," Dan Jackson told Chron.com last week. "That's what my dad wanted in the first place. He didn't want me to keep them forever." Jackson said he did keep one car: A 1957 Chevy Bel Air that he called one of the fastest hot rods in the Texas Panhandle with his father behind the wheel. The auction provided the first opportunity to bring the entire collection together. The cars previously had been scattered across three properties in two counties, and drone footage before the auction captured just how big the assemblage looked from the sky. Now Playing: Dan Jackson plans to sell his father's massive classic car collection this weekend in Humble. Video: Dan Jackson Jackson said his father collected the cars from around the United States. He purchased one car from Colombia, Jackson said. At the auction, the Oldsmobile Super 88 was the most expensive cars sold at $35,000, while a 1960 Chevy Impala became the second-most expensive with a $32,000 price tag. A 1975 Chevy Malibu Classic Coupe sold for the cheapest price at $200, but 18 cars sold for at least $10,000. See more photos of the cars in the gallery above. Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Brian Middleton sensed that Fort Bend County might be on the verge of something momentous. Running to become the countys first Democratic district attorney in 26 years and its first African-American DA ever, Middleton targeted voters who were newly registered and those with low voting history. His victory Tuesday night along with a veritable Democratic sweep of Fort Bend Countys top office holders still came as a bit of a shock. The news didnt really sink in until about 3:30 a.m. the next morning. I tried to go to sleep and woke up and I was like, Man, this really happened, he said. If Fort Bend County were a microcosm of Texas, the state would be as blue as California. Across the state, the blue wave that had long been a dream of the Democratic Party faithful failed to materialize in Tuesdays midterm elections, with Republicans sweeping every statewide office for the 20th consecutive year, albeit by closer-than-expected margins. But in Fort Bend County the rapidly growing suburb southwest of Houston often heralded as a beacon of diversity Democrats had their best election day since the political power base in Texas shifted from Democrat to Republican decades ago. Political analysts attributed the near sweep in part to the countys growing diversity, which also was reflected in the backgrounds of some of the winners: Middleton, who defeated Republican Cliff Vacek, is African-American, and Democrat KP George, who unseated longtime County Judge Robert Hebert, was born in India. Fort Bend County Democrats also reaped the benefits of a surge of grassroots excitement triggered by the campaign of U.S. Senate candidate Beto ORourke. The effect was enhanced by a backlash to President Donald Trump and state Republican leaders, said University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus. Democrats have been so unhappy with the Republican-run statehouse and White House that theyre willing to sweep every Republican out, regardless of who they are and how long theyve been there, Rottinghaus said. It shouldve been fairly apparent to all Republican incumbents that there was a target on their backs. A new dynamic In Fort Bend County elections Tuesday, Democrats ousted Republican incumbents for county judge, Precinct 4 commissioner and district clerk. Middleton won the open district attorney race, and all 22 Democrats who ran for judicial positions state district courts, appeals courts and county courts-at-law prevailed; the lone Republican victor was opposed only by a Libertarian candidate. Fort Bend County voters favored Democrats over Republicans for every statewide office on the ballot except governor. And even in that race, Gov. Greg Abbott, who won 56 percent of the statewide vote over challenger Lupe Valdez, managed only a slim plurality in Fort Bend County, besting Valdez by a mere 720 votes out of more than 250,000 cast. Only in legislative campaigns did the Democrats fall short. Sri Kulkarni, who failed in his bid to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Olson in the multi-county 22nd Congressional District, lost in his districts portion of Fort Bend County by 5 percentage points, roughly the same as the district-wide margin. Republican state Reps. Rick Miller and John Zerwas defeated Democratic challengers. ORourkes coattails were considerably longer than those of 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She carried Fort Bend County by 7 percentage points over Trump but the GOP prevailed in most local races that year. County Commissioner Richard Morrison, a Democrat, was ousted by Republican challenger Vincent Morales, and Republicans held on to the sheriff's office and two district judgeships. The broader Democratic gains this year can be explained in part by the countys diverse population growth, said Sarah Slamen, a political consultant who grew up in Fort Bend County and has worked on campaigns there. After the Hillary win in 2016, you saw strong top-of-the-ticket gains two years later that capitalized on these new voters who have moved into the district, Slamen said. Its a new dynamic. Parties have to reach out Fort Bend County, with a population of about 764,000, has grown almost 30 percent since 2010. The 19 percent growth among Anglos has been far outpaced by Asians (56 percent) and Hispanics (33 percent), according to Census figures. The African-American population has increased by 22 percent. The county also has become richer and older, trends that would normally indicate growing conservative or Republican strength. But in addition to the increasing ethnic and racial diversity, advances in educational attainment tend to favor Democrats. The share of the countys residents with bachelors degrees has grown from 38 percent to 47 percent since 2010. Ken DeMerchant, a software engineer who defeated longtime Precinct 4 Commissioner James Patterson by about 3 percentage points, said these trends indicate that the 2018 election was not an outlier fueled solely by a charismatic Senate candidate or straight-ticket voting. The demographics are changing, and I think thats going to make it more of a Democratic county, DeMerchant said. Analysts said Democrats failure to win majorities in legislative races in Fort Bend County reflected the locations of those districts within the county and the geographic distribution of Democratic and Republican voters. A Houston Chronicle analysis of precinct-level data shows that voters in western Fort Bend County heavily favored Vacek, the Republican district attorney candidate, and Hebert, the Republican county judge. An exception was Kendleton, a largely African-American town on the countys west side, where Middleton and George drew more support. Needville in the southwest, and Fulshear and Simonton in the northwest,showed strong support for the Republican district attorney and county judge candidates. Its unclear how the countys Republican party will respond to the Democratic surge. The county GOP chairman, Jacey Jetton, did not respond to requests for comment. Hebert said Republicans must improve their efforts to connect with new residents as the county continues to grow. It is a fact that urbanized areas, as they continue to urbanize, move closer to a moderate, progressive position politically, and parties have to reach out and take advantage of that if they want to sustain political power, said Hebert. The Democrats did a better job than we did. I tip my hat. Cynthia Ginyard, Fort Bend County Democratic Party chair since 2016, said she and others involved made a year-round effort to register voters. They went to carnivals, schools, festivals and the county fair. A combination of voter outreach, the political climate and demographic changes helped elect Democrats, Ginyard said. I think its a picture of the county. I believe that we are such a wonderful diverse county in many ways, said Ginyard. Our county leadership should reflect that. What happened on Tuesday was a picture of who we are. Data editor Matt Dempsey contributed to this report. brooke.lewis@chron.com mike.snyder@chron.com A Harris County court will determine whether a death row inmate from Houston is too intellectually disabled to execute. Eric Cathey, who has repeatedly professed his innocence, was convicted in a 1995 kidnapping-murder. But on Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent his back to a lower court, which has 60 days come up with findings. The 47-year-old former mechanic was sentenced to die for the killing of Christina Castillo, who was abducted by a group of men intent on robbing her boyfriend of his drugs and money. The womans body was found two weeks later, decaying by railroad tracks in the northeast part of town. Testimony indicated Cathey was the ringleader, but he claims he spent the night of the slaying at home watching TV with his girlfriend. I am not guilty of the crime, he said in a 2008 interview. I never met the woman. The year after he arrived on death row, Cathey made headlines for his role in a daring prison escape. On Thanksgiving, he and six other condemned inmates used hacksaw and dummies in prison garb to slip out of the unit and make a run for freedom. Only one of the men Martin Gurule made it through the hail of gunfire and outside the fences. He later died when he drowned in a nearby creek. On HoustonChronicle.com: Long-ago Thanksgiving prison break has lasting impact on death row Cathey never made it off the prison property. In the 20 years since that failed bid, death row moved from Huntsville to Livingston and most of the would-be escape artists have been executed. But the Houston man is still fighting his appeals. The decision last week marks the second time Catheys case has been bounced back to a lower court over intellectual disability claims stemming from his low IQ. In 2008, four hours before he was set to be executed, he won a stay from the same Texas appeals court. Ultimately, the Texas court decided he didnt qualify as disabled but a 2017 Supreme Court decided prompted the justices to reconsider. The nations highest court had already deemed it unconstitutional to execute mentally disabled prisoners in 2002 decision. But last year, while evaluating the case of another Harris County death row inmate, the high court decided that Texas had been using an outdated, nonclinical standard to evaluate intellectual disability. The groundbreaking split decision forced the Lone Star State to come up with a new standard for making that determination, and sparked a slew of new appeals from inmates who like Cathey argue that theyre not eligible for execution under the updated standard. The inmate at the center of the 2017 case, Bobby Moore, is still on death row because in his case, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to grant relief, even though prosecutors and defense lawyers agree they should. Authorities on Monday raided the law office of former Harris County Republican Party chairman Jared Woodfill. Investigators with the Harris County District Attorneys office wheeled carts of documents from Woodfills office at 3 Riverway at least an hour after they arrived. Houston Chronicle Woodfill was the chairman of the county GOP for 12 years until 2014. He frequently practiced in juvenile and divorce courts in Harris County. Now Playing: the Houston Police Department raids the office of attorney Jared Woodfill, former head of Harris County GOP. Video: Dolcefino Consulting He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Woodfill is the subject of two separate formal complaints one to the State Bar of Texas and the other to the Houston Police Department. In both complaints, Woodfill is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients trust accounts. In the criminal complaint, filed in March 2017, Richard Rodriguez accused Woodfills firm of stealing more than $300,000 from a divorce trust account. Rodriguez said Monday he believed the search was related to his complaint. A Monday hearing in Rodriguezs case was suspended shortly before the search at Woodfills office, according to court records and an interview. In a separate case also involving a divorce, a federal bankruptcy court judge found in 2016 that Woodfills firm acted in extreme bad faith by misrepresenting how much its attorneys were owed while in Harris County family court and in a subsequent bankruptcy case. Woodfills firm had taken funds from the (trust) account that have not yet been earned and, thus, several thousands of dollars have been unaccounted for, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Jeff Bohm wrote in a February 2016 finding of fact document, federal court records show. Indeed, Bohm continued, based on the information provided at trial, there is at least $140,449.36 in unaccounted funds and/or overpayments to (Woodfills firm). Woodfills firm disputed and planned to appeal Bohms finding, court records show. In November, the State Bar of Texas publicly reprimanded Woodfill in a complaint that the Chronicle found is related to the bankruptcy matter. Woodfill had direct supervisory authority over members of his firm who violated the disciplinary rules during the representation in a divorce, the State Bar of Texas wrote, and Woodfill failed to take reasonable action. He was ordered to pay $3,490 in attorneys fees and direct expenses. rob.downen@chron.com lise.olsen@chron.com This was to be a year of celebration for the Houston office of the NAACP, a prominent chapter that was launched just nine years after the civil rights organizations New York headquarters opened its doors. But instead of coming together to mark its centennial, the Houston chapter has been enmeshed in a bitter fight for control that will be decided by officer elections this week. Three challengers, all of whom are in their 30s and have been branch members for one to two years, are seeking to replace longtime members as top officers. They say the chapter has become out of touch and that they want to make it more relevant by prioritizing the black communitys economic health. Lloyd Ford, 30, who joined the group two years ago and is challenging 74-year-old James Douglas for president, said he decided to run because he felt the NAACP was becoming a figurehead of Houstons black community. He then recruited three others Ciara Suesberry, Eddison Titus and Richard Bonton to join the chapter a year ago and seek officer positions as well. I cant say theyve done anything to really affect real, sustainable change, he said. The fight has changed on civil rights, and I feel like they havent changed with it. But longtime members say the newcomers are too inexperienced to lead and want to take the organization in the wrong direction. On the day they threw their hats in the ring to become the new leaders of the NAACP, one woman shouted out, Teach them millennials to sit down. When we talk about leaders, they have to have the intellectual knowledge of social justice issues and be articulate on those issues in a school board room, court room and in a CEOs office, executive director Yolanda Smith said. Dont think because you joined by April 3, you can run for office and become president of NAACP without having the knowledge of our social justice activities. A storied history Whoever emerges victorious in voting Thursday will lead a chapter with a long record of civil rights accomplishments. The richness of the (NAACP) is that it has chapters all around the country. They reflect particular places in the community, and leadership emerges in the context of those communities, said Patricia Sullivan, a professor at the University of South Carolina. (The Houston branch) has a storied history and remarkable leaders who shaped the movement there, but also really had an impact on the national struggle. Lulu White, the branchs president from 1939 to 1943, for example, was one of the leaders who fought against the Democratic Partys whites-only primary voting, which eventually led to the landmark Supreme Court ruling Smith v. Allwright in 1944. Over the years, the 5,500-member organization has achieved other victories for black people in Houston. The group filed a lawsuit that integrated the school district, served as a founding member of the task force to establish the public defenders office and worked with former Mayor Bob Lanier to save the citys affirmative action program when it was at risk of being dismantled. The NAACP is probably the most organized of any civil rights group. The current leadership is always fair, and theyre there, said Michael Adams, director of the political science department at Texas Southern University. To get a young Turk or somebody to come say the leadership is irrelevant If I were to measure all the accomplishments, its always been a vanguard. New directions When Ford thinks about the black fight, he thinks about money and how to direct more resources into the black community. I see the NAACP to be at the forefront of (addressing) the new black economic plight, said Ford, who served on the chapters economic committee for two years. Its already got that gold star for civil rights. Now, here, the fight has changed to economic development. The only way you receive justice is to be economically sound. The challengers envision programs that would focus on the communitys economic prosperity. Titus, for example, suggested a program that would connect college students in the region with individuals working in their dream profession. Then small businesses in the community looking for services such as public relations would connect with the professional, who would provide a discounted and supervised service performed by the student. For Suesberry, the Houston NAACP is failing at connecting with its members. A lot of members are saying, We dont know what the NAACP does or has done for us because theres no information being put out there about what they actually do, if they are doing anything, she said. Despite their differences, the current officers and their challengers agree on the needs for criminal justice, bail reform, black home ownership, civic engagement and education. The division, rather, is due to the challengers focus on economics, their relative newness to the organization and their aggressive recruitment of new members to support them in the coming elections. Generational lock? At a recent NAACP meeting held in Harris County Judge Zinetta Burneys courtroom, the atmosphere grew increasingly tense. The room was so full that attendees funneled out into the hallway, standing. Some of the challengers shifted on the bench as the committee presentations dragged on, texting each other throughout the meeting that the leadership was trying to stall. They started proposing and seconding motions to move to the next agenda items, eager to get to the nominations. Other members threw glares at them with each motion, and eventually shouting matches erupted in the room over nominations, disagreements over bylaw interpretations and people talking for too long. Amid shouting, one older man closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. This aint right, he muttered. Ford, Suesberry and Titus emphasize age when discussing what they believe to be the current leaderships weaknesses, and their own strengths. They use terms like youth, trends and modernize, and say the NAACP needs to do a better job connecting with younger blacks. Some academics say this discord is a reflection of the mood in national politics. Theres this generational lock almost in many parts of our political life, Sullivan said. And when we look at the history of the civil rights struggle, younger people have been so important to keeping it vital and connected to how they see the current challenges, which is not to discount the importance of people who have been in the struggle and their wisdom. There comes a point in any community, at any level, where younger people feel its time for them to step up to the plate and lead. The more senior leadership, Adams said, should embrace and make room for the new energy and ideas. The younger candidates say they dont feel that theyre taken seriously and that some would prefer they keep silent. That sentiment intensified when the NAACP Houston filed a lawsuit against Ford just days after the contentious membership meeting. According to court documents, the lawsuit alleged that Ford who had been hired by the NAACP Houston to build its website violated the Anti-Phishing Act by linking to the NAACP Houston website on his nonprofit organizations webpage, and was trying to get business and membership providing the impression of being affiliated with the NAACP Houston branch. The branch dropped the lawsuit on Nov. 2, and their website was out of service for weeks. In addition to Douglas, other officers vying for new terms are Claude Cummings, Carroll Robinson and Belinda Everette. The current leadership and its supporters say this isnt a generational fight. Smith and Douglas point to their chapters youth committee as evidence of their support of and from youth. Rather, they said, the tense election is about the direction in which to take the NAACP a direction that Douglas claims the candidates wont be able to achieve because of strict guidelines from the national branch. On one side, these are people who have not really been in the organization, bringing in new people with the goal of taking over and not understanding the mission, Adams said. Theyre trying to monetize, and the NAACP is not about that. The conflict in the last meeting, Douglas said, is not proof of a generational divide. But he lamented, Weve never gone public with these kinds of issues. massarah.mikati@chron.com 2 1 of 2 Courtesy of Harris County Pct. 4 Constable's Office Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Title slide Show More Show Less Two people have been accused of possessing brass knuckles and leaving an unholstered, loaded revolver near a young child in the back seat of a car in the Houston area, according to a news release from the Harris County Pct. 4 Constable's Office. Kaila Stilson, 30, was charged with endangering a child, while Frank Novelli III, 24, faces a charge of possession of a prohibited weapon. Shayne Larango is a very, very good liar. How good? She recently won the Biggest Liar in Texas trophy at the 30th Annual George West Storyfest, one of the premier storytelling events in the state, held in the namesake town about an hour south of San Antonio. The festival features a host of speakers spinning yarns in the grand old style of Texas storytellers. But its the liars competition a seemingly fitting coda for the recent mid-term elections where things truly go off the rails. As a raconteur, Larango could hold her own against even the slipperiest political prevaricator. Shes the perfect fabulist for our post-truthiness era. You just take a kernel of truth and then you stretch it, said the grinning, exuberant redhead who spent some time with family in Floresville after the contest before heading home to Dallas. The corn analogy is apt, in more ways than one. Larangos ridiculous but lively tall tale involves a woman who accidentally knocks her husband unconscious with a can of shoepeg corn. (For the uninitiated, shoepeg is a white corn valued for its sweetness.) The 10-minute story follows the woman as shes wrongly arrested and held overnight in jail, where shes surprised to discover the seriousness of her crime lends her a certain vaunted status among the assorted female check-kiters and traffic-ticket scofflaws. Once her husband wakes up at the hospital and clears things with the cops, the woman is released to her unexpected disappointment. Seems the jail birds were going to teach her how to paint pictures using the dye from colored candy shells, which would have been a great craft for the next vacation Bible school. Dressed as her stage persona red hair teased to the rafters, cowboy boots, black dress, pearls Larango delivers her whopper of a fib with a delicious Texas twang and a flair for the preposterous that clearly impressed the judges. There were several stories that stood out from the rest and it was a very close contest, said judge and Storyfest founder Rob Schneider. Shayne had just an edge on believable absurdity. The liars contest, held for the 14th time on Nov. 3, is open to the first 10 people to enter. As the rules pointedly state, no politicians are allowed. Perhaps the judges feel they bring an unfair advantage, given all that practice. Larango, 50, comes by her storytelling skills, well, honestly. She grew up in Kaufman, a town 30 miles southeast of Dallas, and used to linger with her relatives at the barbecue pit and kitchen table and listen to the men spin tales. The women told stories too, but they werent near as much fun. The men told stories about tall tales and adventure, she said. The womens stories were more honest and factual. She listened to the albums of Jerry Clower, an American comedian who told tales about the rural South and was known as the The Mouth of Mississippi. About three years ago, while caring for her ill mother, Larango needed a creative outlet. She took part in a workshop based on The Artists Way, a book about fostering creativity. Having spent her professional life in the corporate and academic consulting world, shed always loved writing. The workshop prompted her to try her hand at oral storytelling. Larango created a ghost story, which she would perform at the 2016 Texas Storytelling Festival in Denton. So impressive was her performance that she was named one of a handful of Rising Stars at the festival. I was just hooked, she said. To prepare for the liars contest, Larango attended another workshop, this one put on by the Tejas Storytellers Guild in Waco and tailored to creative ways of stretching the truth. To tell a good lie you have to have specifics, she said. Add as many true details as you can. Youre creating a world that people can just slip into with their imaginations. People just want to be entertained. These days, she performs at festivals as well as weddings, bars, private events, open mic nights and just about anywhere people want to be beguiled by what she calls her 10-gallon Texas tall tales. One of the best compliments she received came from a man who approached her after a show and said her performance reminded him of Jerry Clower. I mean, who even knows about Jerry Clower? she said. Larango wasnt aware the Washington Post keeps a running tally of the false or misleading statements made by the president since he took office two years ago. The most recent count: more than 6,000. She did raise an eyebrow about it, saying its all fine and good to conflate reality with fiction on the stage. In the real world, not so much. You dont want to start believing your own BS, she said. Then were all in trouble. Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | mstoeltje@express-news.net | Twitter: @mstoeltje A nearly $61 billion state plan to rebuild Houston and the Texas coast after Hurricane Harvey includes funding for three "coastal spines" to control flooding, new reservoirs and buyouts of thousands of properties. IN THE GALLERY: Highlights of Texas' spending plan for Harvey-related improvements and repairs. About 60 percent of the funding would go to "future proof" flood-prone areas and 33 percent would pay for buy-outs and elevating buildings in low-lying regions stretching roughly from Rockport to the Beaumont area and parts of Southeast Texas where Harvey hit hardest. Now Playing: As Rockport recovers from the strongest storm to hit the area in more than 50 years, business owners there are working to open their doors. Video: Fox7 Gov. Greg Abbott and top Texas leaders briefed top Washington officials and the Texas legislative delegation Tuesday afternoon on the previously undisclosed plan. Much of the funding would go to the Houston area -- Texas' largest city and the fourth largest in the United States. The plan appears to mirror much of a longstanding plan in Harris County to buy out properties in the most flood-prone areas. For the first time, Texas leaders pushed up the official total damage estimate from Harvey to an estimated $180 billion, up from $150 billion. The state's new request for federal funding includes only part of that, covering only flood and hazard mitigation and for public infrastructure such as schools, government buildings, roads and bridges. The initial reaction from Washington officials to the request: Surprise at its size and scope. That could mean that approval of the full amount will be a tough sell with Congress and the White House, coming at a time when hurricane damages to Puerto Rico and Florida, and losses in California to wildfires, are also in line for billions more in federal disaster funding. But Rep. Randy Weber, R-Friendswood, was hopeful. "Just like the Astros, we're going to get 'er done," Weber said in a reference to the World Series. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, gave little indication of the prospects for the governor's request. As for the $61 billion figure, Cornyn said, "We're working on a number. We don't have a number." Later, Cornyn said in a statement that "it's really important for us to remember that there's a lot of work that we need to do in responding to some of the unmet disaster needs around the country, starting with Hurricane Harvey in my state." "And we look forward to continuing our work with the Administration and members of Congress to make sure that we address these unmet needs." Added Cornyn: "The reason I bring that up today is because Governor Abbott of Texas is up meeting with the entire Texas delegation to make sure that we continue to make the case and make sure that Texans are not forgotten as we get to work on these other important matters as well." Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was also circumspect about the prospects for Abbott's request, though he emphasized that the Texas delegation will remain united with the governor in getting the Gulf region all the aid it can from Washington. "Repeatedly, projections have shown that Harvey is likely to prove to be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history," he said. "The president has repeatedly made direct assurances to me that the administration will stand by the people of Texas." As to whether the government might raise or borrow the money, Cruz said, "those discussions will be ongoing." John Sharp, who heads the Governor's Commission to Rebuild Texas, said Tuesday that the list of projects was developed from a list of needs by county and local officials, plus U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects that could mitigate the potential for future storm damage. Sharp said the list is not all-inclusive, and that other key local projects in Harvey-devastated areas could be added. "This level of additional federal assistance is vital to restoring the economy of the Texas Gulf Coast and is consistent with federal aid in past disasters such as Hurricane Katrina," Sharp stated in a letter accompanying the briefing documents, a copy of which was obtained by the Houston Chronicle. Harvey made landfall near Rockport on August 26, and for nearly a week wreaked havoc on more than 300 miles of coastline and more than 100 miles inland, with winds topping 130 mph. Some areas got more than 50 inches of rainfall. More than a third of Texas' 254 counties sustained significant damage. The storm is listed as the most costly in U.S. history. For employers who are making deductions, holiday pay is more sacrosanct moreso than wages. Holiday pay is protected because its protected by the Holidays Act. So when an employee leaves an employee may be owed regular pay and holiday pay, and when an employer starts to deduct from the holiday pay they tend to get more into trouble. Radich also notes that in recent years there seems to have been an uptake in the number of labour inspector prosecutions targeting employers who make deductions illegally from their employees. Not only might the employer have to pay back the money deducted, but they may also be hit with a hefty fine. And theres been some really significant penalty awards sometimes up to $100 000 sort of thing Ive seen an increase in the last two or three years, where the labour inspectors are seeking quite significant penalties. If you cant deduct, what can you do? The Wages Protection Act also entitles the employer to recover overpayments in certain circumstances but it provides a limited time window for recovery. Notice of intention to recover the overpayment need to be promptly given and the overpayment itself must be recovered no later than two months after the notice is given. But in cases where these options dont apply, Radich advises the onus is on the employer to show the payment was made by mistake, under duress, by an illegality (such as theft) or another similar ground. Additionally, where an employee doesnt realise that the payment has been made to them in error, or realise that the overpaid funds have been received (which can happen with drip-fed overpayments made over a period of time), they may have changed their position in reliance on those funds meaning that the employer cannot then recover the overpayment. Section 94B of the Judicature Act 1908 provides that where a payment is made by mistake, if the person receiving the payment has done so in good faith and then altered his or her position in reliance on the payment, the Court can decide not to grant relief to the claimant, Radich explained. To give a couple of examples, if an employee is overpaid wages by mistake and doesnt realise this, they may have received the funds in good faith [they honestly didnt realise theyd been overpaid] and then saved up for an overseas holiday or to paint their house. In such cases, the funds have been received and spent in good faith and it will be very difficult for the employer to recover them. However, an employee who has bought a new car with the funds, may be able to sell it and return the money. These are the sorts of factors the Court will bear in mind in deciding whether to make an order against the employee. In a 2012 Employment Relations Authority (ERA) decision Air New Zealand (Foai v Air New Zealand) was unable to reclaim $42,635 it overpaid one of its workers for 16 months. While the man told both his manager and the HR manager he was concerned he was being overpaid and then asked the payroll staff about the situation, he was repeatedly assured that all was as it should be. By the time the company finally realised it had been overpaying the man, it was too late for it to recover the money under the Wages Protection Act, so it instead made a claim under the common law of restitution. However, Air New Zealand was unable to establish that it had been mistaken in its overpayment and the Court also found the man had acted in good faith by bringing the situation to the attention of his superiors. In a recent ERA decision (Stages Civil and Electrical Ltd vs Cook) the ERA ruled that the employee did have to repay the wages. Stages Civil and Electrical Ltd (SCE) overpaid an employee $7,164.96 after an additional number was entered into the gross pay line. The mistake was picked up two days after the pay run and an email along with supporting documents was sent to the employee highlighting the overpayment and requesting reimbursement. SCE received an email requesting further information, which was provided. However thereafter SCE failed to get a response from the employee. Apple Music Seeks Black Radio Listeners In Potential iHeartMedia Deal [Kori Hale] In a bid to build closer ties with black radio listeners, it appears Apple may be in the market to purchase steak in iHeartMedia a network which, despite its financial woes, carries significant influence and clout in the music business. _____________________________ Guest post by Kori Hale, CEO and Founder of CultureBanx. This article originally appeared on Forbes,com Apple could be attempting to build closer ties with black radio listeners by taking a stake in iHeartMedia, a network thats extremely valuable to the music industry and commands considerable power. The two companies have reportedly held talks ahead of the broadcast radio conglomerates reorganization bankruptcy filing plan, according to the Financial Times. The Breakdown You Need to Know Even with its mounting debt and impending bankruptcy filing, iHeartMedia has a crushing grip over the radio industry with over 850 stations. Nielsen research found black people spend more time listening to the radio than any other ethnic group averaging more than 13 hours a week, making them a prime target for Apples radio expansion dreams. If a deal were to manifest between Apple and iHeartMedia, the Financial Times noted Apple Musics Beats 1 radio station, which is only available through its apps could debut on broadcast radio. CultureBanx notes the tech giant is a savvy marketer and this is a way to connect authentically with African Americans who have a diverse multi-platform media consumption appetite. Also, increased distribution for Beats 1 and Apple Music to traditional radio may help convert older listeners, that havent quite bought in to the concept of audio streaming into customers. R&B and hip-hop music supremacy has extended to radio, with black artists dominating Billboards Top 10 Artists list holding seven positions during the first half of 2018. Black listeners are right in the sweet spot of iHeartMedias reach of more than 270 million people a month on the radio and Apple may want a piece of that market. Not to mention, Nielsen reported African Americans spend $173 each year on purchased music, exceeding the total population which averages $156 annually, meaning Apple has a chance to easily convert these radio listeners into paying music customers. Music Industry Mindfulness Apples huge cash pile has led to M&A speculation since they now have more than $237 billion at their disposal. This is more than enough money to cover the $20 billion of debt iHeartMedia has agreed to pay its creditors. Additionally, it wouldnt be the iPhone makers first foray into claiming a bigger stake in the music industry, theyve already purchased Shazam a music recognition platform. In May, Apple's said its subscription service had reached 50 million active users. For Q4, the company reported its Services business revenue was up 27% to $9.98 billion, which includes Apple Music subscriptions. iHeartMedia is the largest radio company in the U.S. and theyre exploring investment opportunities with various organizations. The discussions between these two companies remain at a preliminary stage and no deal has been agreed. Neither company, Apple or iHeartMedia has commented on the matter. Kori Hale: I am the CEO of CultureBanx covering the intersection of business, technology and innovation for minorities. I was raised in investment banking while working at UBS internationally and Goldman Sachs in the states. Im also the first black woman to anchor a daily news show from the New York Stock Exchange. Previously, I produced TV for the number one business news network on CNBCs top rated shows Squawk on the Street and Squawk Alley. Prior to joining CNBC, I was an international producer for Bloomberg TV and a financial correspondent for TheStreet.com. As a board member for Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, Im proud to be part of a generation of emerging arts supporters. Share on: Page Content The ICAO flag is flying at half-mast today to commemorate the 25 October passing of Dr. Shivinder Singh Sidhu, former Secretary General of ICAO. Dr. Sidhu served as Secretary General of ICAO from 1 August 1988 until 31 July 1991. He occupied a number of high level government posts in the federal administration of India and in the State of Uttar Pradesh. While heading the Civil Aviation Administration in India from February 1985 to October 1987, Dr. Sidhu served as Chairman of Air India and Indian Airlines as well as Secretary to the Government in the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Dr. Sidhu represented his Government at numerous bilateral and inter-governmental negotiations in various fields. He was also the Chief Delegate of the Indian delegation to a number of international conferences and was elected President of the 26th Session of the ICAO Assembly in 1986. At New York Lawyers Team, our of counsel Queens Family & Divorce Lawyers can be trusted and relied on to use their experience, knowledge and best efforts when representing our clients and are determined to attaining the best possible resolution of your ma Divorce is one of the most devastating problems in ones life and can be extremely complicated and stressful, especially when there are children involved. The issues of divorce, spousal support, child support and custody can often become extremely complicated and often require the expertise of a lawyer to successfully navigate. It is imperative to hire a knowledgeable and experienced lawyer that strives to provide excellent service and achieve the best possible outcome for their client. Jamaica, NY Divorce is a very serious matter and can be extremely complicated and stressful, especially when there are children involved in the proceeding. Considering the technicalities and legal difficulties, it is imperative to hire a knowledgeable, experienced and competent law firm that is committed to providing excellent service and strives to achieve the best possible outcome for their client. The Queens matrimonial lawyers at the Gordon Law, P.C. Queens Family and Divorce Lawyer division, service New York City residents in connection with child support cases, child custody issues and those going through a divorce. Unfortunately, divorce is one of the most stressful, traumatic and common challenges that spouses face during their marriage. The of counsel matrimonial attorneys at the Gordon Law, P.C. Queens Family and Divorce Lawyer division have represented many clients in the Queens County Family Court and Supreme Court. Their family lawyers understand the sometimes unpredictable nature of a divorce proceeding and work with the clients very closely in order to best represent the clients interests. The team of family law attorneys and professionals are adept at handling virtually all types of divorce and family law matters including child custody, child support, domestic violence, paternity, adoptions, guardianships and many others. In many cases, couples are unable to escape their marriage due to complications and lack of assistance of a trusted professional divorce attorney in New York. That is where the attorneys at Gordon Law, P.C come in. They provide full-fledged legal representation to assist with all divorce-related issues to give their clients peace of mind. Gordon Law, P.C runs and operates based on their mission of providing the best possible representation available to those in need of legal assistance. They provide legal representation for practically any and all legal matters related to divorce for their clients. The group of attorneys have been successfully representing clients and have achieved extremely favorable outcomes. At New York Lawyers Team, our experienced and knowledgeable Queens Family & Divorce Lawyers can be trusted and relied on to use their best efforts when representing their clients, explained the spokesperson for the firm. Our Queens divorce lawyers are very diligent and work extremely hard to provide our clients with the top notch representation and strive to achieve the best possible outcome available to either the husband or wife looking for zealous legal assistance and counsel. Their Queens divorce lawyers and family law attorneys provide legal counsel on matters involving child support, child custody, spousal support, adoptions, guardianships, and parental rights. Their experienced matrimonial attorneys apply exhibit drive and a high level of professionalism along with a work ethic and passion that allows them to be successful in representing either spouse in a divorce. Gordon Law, P.C. Queens Family and Divorce Lawyer is located at 161-10 Jamaica Ave #205, Jamaica, New York, 11432. Contact them via phone at (347) 670-2007, or via email at bryan@nylawyersteam.com For additional information about their law firm, you can visit the law offices website by going to https://www.nylawyersteam.com/family-law-attorney/locations/queens. Media Contact Company Name: Gordon Law, P.C. Queens Family and Divorce Lawyer Contact Person: Bryan Gordon Email: Send Email Phone: (347) 670-2007 Address:161-10 Jamaica Ave #205 City: Jamaica State: New York Country: United States Website: https://www.nylawyersteam.com/family-law-attorney/locations/queens Imperial Valley News Center President Trump at the American Commemoration Ceremony Suresnes, France - Remarks by President Trump at the American Commemoration Ceremony Hosted by the Secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission: PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much. Please. Major General Matz, I want to thank you and everyone at the American Battle Monuments Commission for doing just an absolutely fantastic job. Exactly 100 years ago today, on November 11th, 1918, World War I came to an end. Thank God. It was a brutal war. Millions of American, French, and Allied troops had fought with the extraordinary skill and valor in one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history. We are gathered together, at this hallowed resting place, to pay tribute to the brave Americans who gave their last breath in that mighty struggle. Earlier, Melania and I were deeply honored to be the guests of President Macron and Brigitte at the Centennial Commemoration of Armistice Day. It was very beautiful and so well done. To all of the French military leaders and dignitaries in attendance with us now: Thank you for joining us as we honor the American and French service members who shed their blood together in a horrible, horrible war, but a war known as the Great War. We are also joined by many distinguished American military leaders. Thank you to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford. Thank you, Joe. Thank you. Army Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley. Thank you, Mark. Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti. General, Thank you. And Air Force Commander Europe, General Tod Wolters. Thank you. Thank you, General. Thank you as well to the members of Congress who have joined us: Ralph Abraham, Anthony Brown, John Carter, Paul Cook, Henry Cuellar, Richard Hudson, Bill Huizenga, Dutch Ruppersberger, John Rutherford, and Steve Stivers. Thank you all very much for being with us. Thank you very much. I know you wanted to be here very badly. We appreciate it. In the United States, Armistice Day is now enshrined as Veterans Day. We have a number of amazing veterans with us today, including six veterans of World War II: James Blane. James? Where is James? James, thank you. Thank you, James. Frank Devita. Thank you, Frank. Thank you very much. You look so comfortable up there, under shelter (laughter) as were getting drenched. Youre very smart people. (Laughter.) Pete DuPre. Pete, thank you very much. Gregory Melikian. Thank you, Gregory. Steven Melnikoff. Thank you. Thank you, Steven. And Jay Trimmer. Thank you. Thank you, Jay. Thank you. You look like youre in really good shape, all of you. (Applause.) I hope I look like that someday. You look great. America is forever in debt, and we are forever in your debt. And we really appreciate you being here. Were also joined by another very special guest: a 13-year-old boy from the United States named Matthew Haske. Matthew is in the eighth grade, and he worked and saved all of his money for two years to make this trip to France. He wanted to be here in person to honor the American heroes of World War I. Matthew, thank you. You make us very proud. Where is Matthew? Matthew. Matthew. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Youre way ahead of your time, Matthew. Thank you. On this day, in the year 1918, church bells rang, families embraced, and celebrations, as you know, filled the streets like never before, in towns throughout Europe and the United States. But victory had come at a terrible cost. Among the Allied Forces, more than one million French soldiers and 116,000 American service members had been killed by the wars end. Millions more were wounded. Countless would come home bearing the lasting scars of trench warfare and the grisly horrors of chemical weapons. During the final battle of the war, over 26,000 Americans lost their lives and more than 95,000 were wounded. It was the single deadliest battle in United States history. Thank of that 26,000 Americans lost their lives in a battle. Here on the revered grounds of Suresnes American Cemetery lie more than 1,500 U.S. service members who made the ultimate sacrifice in the First World War. Among those buried here are legendary Marines who fought in the Battle of Belleau Wood. In that treacherous forest and the surrounding fields, American Marines, soldiers, and Allied Forces fought and they fought through hell to turn the tide of the war. And thats what they did they turned the tide of the war. It was in that battle that our Marines earned the nickname Devil Dogs, arising from the German description of their ferocious fighting spirit. John Kelly knows that name, Devil Dogs, very well, John. Right? Earlier this year, President Macron presented an oak sapling from Belleau Wood as a gift to our nation an enduring reminder of our friendship sealed in battle. We fought well together. You could not fight better than we fought together. Sergeant Eugene Wear from Hazleton, Pennsylvania was one of the Marines at Belleau Wood. Eugene raced straight into a barrage of enemy fire, like no one has ever seen before, to bandage his friends wounds and carry him back to safety. Months later, Eugene was mortally wounded. He passed away one day after Christmas. His mother would come right here to mourn by the grave of her precious son. She loved him so much. She was one of the thousands of American moms and dads whose beloved children found their final resting place on the hillside of Suresnes. Each of these marble crosses and Stars of David marks the life of an American warrior great, great warriors they are who gave everything for family, country, God, and freedom. Through rain, hail, snow, mud, poisonous gas, bullets and mortar, they held the line, and pushed onward to victory it was a great, great victory; costly victory but a great victory never knowing if they would ever again see their families or ever again hold their loved ones. Here are the words of a young soldier named Sergeant Paul Maynard from a letter he wrote only a few days before the end of the war: Dear Mother, I think of you all at home, and I know if I am spared to get back, that I shall appreciate home more than ever, [ever] before. It will seem like heaven to me to be once more where there is peace and only peace. On November 11th, 1918, Paul died in the final hours of battle, just before the end. No, sadly, he did not make it. He was among the countless young men who never returned home. But through their sacrifice, they ascended to peace in heaven. Rest in peace, Paul. The American and French patriots of World War I embody the timeless virtues of our two republics: honor and courage; strength and valor; love and loyalty; grace and glory. It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago. It is now my great honor to present Major General William Matz with an American flag, as a symbol of our nations gratitude to the American Battle Monuments. The Commission has done such an incredible job. And, General, we very much appreciate it. Today, we renew our sacred obligation to memorialize our fallen heroes on the soil where they rest for all of eternity. Thank you very much. And, General, this is a great honor. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you all. God bless you. This has been a wonderful two days we spent in France. And this is certainly the highlight of the trip. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Get AfricaFocus Bulletin by e-mail! Format for print or mobile Africa: Africa Mining Vision AfricaFocus Bulletin November 12, 2018 (181112) (Reposted from sources cited below) Editor's Note The Africa Mining Vision (AMV) was adopted by Heads of State at the February 2009 African Union summit following the October 2008 meeting of African Ministers responsible for Mineral Resources Development. An action plan was adopted in December 2011, and the African Minerals Development Centre (https://www.uneca.org/amdc) launched in December 2013. The lead role in developing the vision was taken by African professional staff at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), in consultation not only with African governments but also with civil society organizations and specialists on the mining sector. This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a concise summary of the AMV and its context, as well as links to other resources available on the web provided by the African Minerals Development Centre. The text that follows is either taken directly from these official resources or adapted from the sources with additional explanatory wording by the AfricaFocus editor. Another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today by email and available on the web at http://www.africafocus.org/docs18/tax1811.php, contains excerpts on the specific difficulties of taxing the mining sector. For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on economic and develoopment issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/econexp.php The status quo of the mining industry is well documented visually on-line. Take a look: Hugh Masekela, Stimela, (video, 7 m) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv90eZjiSrc China bets big on Guinea's bauxite (Al Jazeera, 3 m video clip), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p89OE8oJAQk Children's lives at risk in Tanzania's gold mines (Human Rights Watch, 5 m video clip) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hbwakHwKY. The human cost of South Africa's gold mining industry (BBC, 3 m video clip) http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-34696669/the-human-cost-of-south-africa-s-mining-industry Miners Shot Down (video, South Africa, Lonmin, 1 h, 25 m) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN199WpXBmU Good Copper, Bad Copper (video, Zambia, Glencore, 53 m) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uamzirLswjk The Cobalt Pipeline (Washington Post photo feature story, Democratic Republic of Congo, Huayou Cobalt) https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/ ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++ Africa Mining Vision: What is It? The Africa Mining Vision (AMV) is Africas own response to tackling the paradox of great mineral wealth existing side by side with pervasive poverty. It is intended to provide the basis for an alternative policy framework to address the reality that Africa's mineral wealth, as in the days of colonialism, still primarily benefits outside interests, impoverishing those who mine the wealth and leaving only a fraction of the profits for investment in sustainable development of African countries. The AMV was adopted by Heads of State at the February 2009 African Union summit following the October 2008 meeting of African Ministers responsible for Mineral Resources Development. An action plan was adopted in December 2011, and the African Minerals Development Centre (https://www.uneca.org/amdc) launched in December 2013. The lead role in developing the vision was taken by African professional staff at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), in consultation not only with African governments but also with civil society organizations and specialists on the mining sector. The goals of the AMV include: making sure that nations are able to negotiate contracts with mining multinationals that generate fair resource rents and stipulate local inputs for operations, making sure workers and communities see real benefits from large-scale industrial mining and that their environment is protected, harnessing the potential of artisanal and small-scale mining to stimulate local/national entrepreneurship, improve livelihoods and advance integrated rural social and economic development; and opening out minings enclave status so that Africa can move from its historic status as an exporter of cheap raw materials to manufacturer and supplier of knowledge-based services. Achieving these goals requires paying attention to all the stages of the value chain of non-renewable mineral resources, from contracts and licenses for exploration and production to integrating mining with sustainable development plans. Implementation requires above all action by national African governments. This in turn requires the wide diffusion of the vision and related knowledge to influence the policies of governments and donor agencies and counter conventional wisdom that ignores the need for transforming international mineral value chains. Most of all, implementation will only be successful if there is strong pressure on governments, both from those directly involved in the mining sector and from citizens whose future depends on redirecting resources to sustainable development. African Mineral Wealth and the Global Economy: Past to Present From the diamonds and gold in South Africa in the late 19th century to the dependence of smartphones and electric cars on cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Africa's mineral riches have contributed to streams of profit accumulated primarily in global financial capitals. The list of minerals for which African countries have been major suppliers is long, including Precious metals, such as diamonds (South Africa, Namibia, DRC, Sierra Leone, Botswana, and Zimbabwe) and gold (South Africa, Ghana); Essential metals for manufacturing for over a century, such as copper (Zambia, DRC), chrome (South Africa, Zimbabwe), manganese (South Africa, Gabon, Ghana), vanadium (South Africa), bauxite (Guinea, Ghana), and iron (South Africa, Sierra Leone, Liberia); An essential input for agriculture, namely phosphate (Morocco, occupied Western Sahara); Metals that took on strategic roles in the 20th century, such as uranium for nuclear weapons (South Africa, Namibia, and Niger), and platinum for catalytic converters ( South Africa, Zimbabwe); and Metals essential to today's battery technology, such as cobalt (DRC) and lithium (Zimbabwe). Demand for cobalt for lithium-ion batteries, less than 3,000 tons in the year 2000, reached almost 33,000 tons in 2015, and is expected to double by 2025, to over 76,000 tons. During the colonial period, the mining sector in Africa consisted almost entirely of foreign-owned enclaves. The major exception was South Africa, where local white settler controlled the state from 1910 and control of mining was shared by local as well as British and American capital. Even in South Africa, where mining wealth spurred local infrastructure and manufacturing, the economy remained dependent on mineral exports. After the first wave of African independence in the 1960s, international capital remained dominant in mining in Africa. Despite Botswana's successful effort to win joint control of diamond mining, other efforts, such as nationalization of mines in Ghana and Zambia, were unsuccessful and short-lived. Dependence on expatriate personnel and marketing meant little change in operating practices. Even in South Africa, where political apartheid was ended in 1994 and Black entrepreneurs were added as owners and managers of companies, the head offices of companies moved overseas, and there were no fundamental changes in the structure of the mining industries. At the beginning of the 21st century, the conventional wisdom of the World Bank, major donors, and international investors still dominated African government policymaking on mining and development. The principle focus of policy was on "attracting new high risk capital from foreign mining companies." This precluded a serious push to break break Africa's concentration on unpredictable primary commodity markets, despite spurts of export growth that sometimes enriched local political elites as well as foreign investors. The 21st century has been marked by profound shifts in the world economy affecting Africa, including the entry of new powers such as China, Brazil, and India as buyers and investors in African minerals, the exponential spread of smartphones and the internet, and the acceleration of "illicit financial flows" into secrecy jurisdictions (tax havens) around the world. The goal of the Africa Mining Vision is to craft strategies to take advantage of these changes to benefit Africa rather than further entrench dependence and inequality. African Mineral Wealth and the Global Economy: Present to Future If the status quo trajectory continues, Africa will not gain its fair share from the future growth of mineral extraction to meet global demand. As stated in the Africa Mining Vision: "The key element in determining whether or not a resource endowment will be a curse or blessing is the level of governance capacity and the existence of robust institutions." Africa must shift focus from simply mineral extraction to much broader developmental imperatives in which mineral policy integrates with development policy. The continents vast mineral resources can play a transformative role in Africas development only if it builds appropriate social and economic development linkages that meet national and regional developmental objectives. This requires building a comprehensive Africa-based knowledge base of Africa's mineral resources and the global mining sector, elaborating a policy framework that can guide detailed planning and implementation, ensuring the sustainability of mineral production, protecting communities and the environment, and maximizing the equitable collection and spending of public revenues from the sale of mineral products. It also requires building multiple linkages to break the pattern of a mining enclave cut off from the rest of the economy, namely: Down-stream linkages into mineral beneficiation and manufacturing; Up-stream linkages into mining capital goods, consumables & services industries; Side-stream linkages into infrastructure and skills & technology development. Primary policy arenas for implementation of the Africa Mining Vision include the following: Contracts and licenses: Currently, negotiations with transnational corporations, required for exploration as well as production and sales, are highly asymmetrical. To counterbalance this reality, African countries must build independent expertise, supplementing their own capacity with the use of independent consultants Regulation of corporate operations: Even in agreement is reached in principle, regulation and ongoing monitoring of all aspects of mineral production are needed, including impacts on communities and the environment, working conditions, and the financial arrangements for sales and taxation. Artisanal and small-scale mining: This sector requires separate and distinct policies, given the dispersion of the mining sites in rural areas, the extent of illegal and/or informal production and child labor, and the impact on the rural population. Taxation of resource rents: Even once agreement is reached on a just division of revenue between profit for transnational corporations and public revenue, it is absolutely essential for governments to be able to detect and prevent "illicit financial flows" through distorted transfer pricing or other accounting manipulations. Opportunities and Obstacles The Africa Mining Vision provides an ambitious vision to guide policy. Even more important, it also offers a systematic process designed to engage policymakers at international and national levels with civil society, trade unions, communities, academic researchers, and journalists in shaping its implementation. Its adoption was preceded by extensive consultations with international initiatives such as the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), Publish What You Pay (PWYP). The African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC), charged with implementation, was launched in December 2013. The AMDC maintains ongoing ties with civil society campaigns such as the Stop the Bleeding Campaign to stop illicit financial flows and the Alternative Mining Indaba, and through Pan-African partners such as the International Trade Union Confederation-Africa and Tax Justice Network-Africa. And there is already a strong foundation for building a knowledge base, laid out in the International Study Group report on Minerals and Africa's Development. Most important, there are specific plans for implementation at the national level through Country Mining Visions, which provide opportunities to "domesticate" the vision with the aid of consultations at national level. The Country Mining Vision Guidebook lays out clearly defined agendas to address key issues, including Fiscal regime and revenue management; Geological and mineral information systems; Building human and institutional capacity; Artisanal and small-scale mining; Mineral sector governance; Linkages, investment and diversification; Environment and social issues; and Communication and outreach strategy. Despite the positive direction, the AMV process is still dwarfed by the inertia of the status quo process, epitomized in the annual African Mining Indaba. This gathering brings together African government delegations with delegates from over 2,100 international companies and 400 sponsors. Although an Alternative Mining Indaba convenes almost 500 civil society and community delegates, and a few panels at the industry Indaba feature alternative perspectives, mining trade unions, civil society, and the Africa Mining Vision are almost invisible at the industry Indaba. And trade unions are hardly represented even at the Alternative Mining Indaba. For a new vision to be implemented, it must be strengthened by intensification of collaboration among the African Mineral Development Centre, allied national civil servants committed to delivering benefits to their citizenry, and other forces committed to transparency and transformation, including journalists, academics, civil society, and trade unions. Key resources Africa Mining Vision http://www.africaminingvision.org/amv_resources/AMV/Africa_Mining_Vision_English.pdf Minerals and African Development https://www.uneca.org/publications/minerals-and-africas-development Country Mining Vision Guidebook http://tinyurl.com/yacduny2 AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter. AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see http://www.africafocus.org Imperial Valley News Center First Lady Melania Trumps Visit to France Washington, DC - First Lady Melania Trump traveled with her husband to Paris, France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Armistice that ended World War I. Upon arrival, the President and First Lady were greeted by the United States Ambassador to the French Republic, Jamie McCourt; Prefect of Val-de-Marne Department, Laurent Prevost; Chief of Protocol of the French Republic, Ambassador Frederic Billet; Director for Protocol Airport, Francoise Pichon; and French Republic Ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud. On Saturday, Mrs. Trump traveled to the Elysee Palace, joining Mrs. Macron for a brief tour of the Palace before joining President Trump and President Macron for a private lunch. Due to inclement weather, the First Lady and President were unable to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in Belleau, France. The cemetery contains the graves of 2,289 American heroes, and inscribed on the walls of the Memorial Chapel are the names of 1,060 missing American Soldiers from the War. In the evening, the First Lady joined her husband for a dinner hosted by President Macron and Mrs. Macron at the Musee dOrsay. Additional attendees of the dinner included members of several foreign delegations and their spouses. On Sunday morning, the First Lady and the President attended Frances Centennial of the 1918 Armistice Day ceremony with President Macron and Mrs. Macron at the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees. Following the ceremony, the First Lady attended a spousal luncheon at the Palace of Versailles. Upon arrival, Mrs. Trump was welcomed by Mrs. Macron. The First Lady participated in a family photo followed by a luncheon in the Salon de Venus one of the many historic rooms of the Palace. Thank you to President Macron and Mrs. Macron for a beautiful celebration of our countries to commemorate the end of World War I, said First Lady Melania Trump. We will never forget the sacrifices made for the freedoms we enjoy today. We remember and honor the heroic efforts made not only by our brave men in uniform at that time, but of all the American people who came together in this great time of need. Imperial Valley News Center Cesar Altieri Sayoc Charged in 30-Count Indictment With Mailing Improvised Explosive Devices New York - Cesar Altieri Sayoc, aka Cesar Randazzo, aka Cesar Altieri, and aka Cesar Altieri Randazzo, 56, was charged today in a 30-count Indictment for offenses relating to his alleged execution of a domestic terrorist attack in October 2018, which involved the mailing of 16 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to 13 victims throughout the country. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman for the Southern District of New York, Assistant Director in Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. of the FBIs New York Office, and Police Commissioner James P. ONeill of the NYPD made the announcement. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff. According to court filings, Cesar Sayoc mailed 16 IEDs to more than a dozen victims throughout the country, including current and former elected leaders. Less than five days after the first IED was discovered, he was tracked down and arrested, thanks to the outstanding work of the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and other law enforcement partners, said Assistant Attorney General Demers. Cesar Sayoc allegedly targeted former high-ranking officials such as President Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and others, as well as CNN, by sending explosive packages to them through the U.S. Postal Service, said U.S. Attorney Berman. Sayocs alleged conduct put numerous lives at risk. It was also an assault on a nation that values the rule of law, a free press, and tolerance of differences without rancor or resort to violence. Thanks to the diligent and determined work of our law enforcement partners here and across the country, it took just five days to identify and apprehend Sayoc and end his reign of terror. He now faces justice from a nation of laws. As alleged, Cesar Sayoc deliberately targeted 13 individuals with 16 improvised explosive devices, attempting to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation from California to the eastern seaboard, said Assistant Director in Charge Sweeney. Thanks to the seamless integration of FBI JTTFs across the country, working side-by-side with many other law enforcement agencies and first responders, his campaign of terror was brought to a rapid conclusion just five days after the discovery of the first device. The FBI remains steadfast in our mission to protect the American public, and we will move with speed to bring justice to anyone seeking to harm our communities. I commend everyone involved in investigating and prosecuting this case, particularly the agents and detectives on the FBIs Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, which includes 56 agencies and 300 individuals 113 of them NYPD cops, said Commissioner ONeill. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the FBI, the ATF, the U.S. Marshals, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the New York State Police, and others, we said from the outset that we would identify and bring to justice the person allegedly responsible for these acts. We could make that promise because of our proven history of effective partnership. The publics vigilance also greatly assisted this investigation and helped lead to todays 30-count indictment. What is clear is that New Yorkers are always resilient in the face of threats we refuse to back down, and we will never be deterred. According to the Indictment, Complaint, other court filings, and statements made during court proceedings[1]: Between Oct. 22 and Nov. 2, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service recovered 16 padded manila envelopes containing IEDs allegedly mailed by Sayoc from Florida to addresses in New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Atlanta and California. Sayocs alleged victims, listed alphabetically, were former Vice President Joseph Biden, Senator Cory Booker, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, CNN, Robert De Niro, Senator Kamala Harris, former Attorney General Eric Holder, former President Barack Obama, George Soros, Thomas Steyer, and Representative Maxine Walters. Each of the 16 envelopes allegedly mailed by Sayoc had similar features, including the return addressee Debbie Wasserman Shultz at an address in Florids, six self-adhesive postage stamps bearing the American flag, and address labels printed on white paper with blank ink in similar typeface and font size. Each of the 16 envelopes also contained an IED. The 16 IEDs also had similar features, including approximately six inches of PVC pipe packed with explosive material, a small clock, and wiring. Some of the IEDs also contained shards of glass. Preliminary analysis by the FBI has revealed forensic evidence linking 11 of the 16 mailings to Sayoc. Specifically, latent fingerprints on two of the envelopes have been identified to Sayoc, and there are possible DNA associations between a DNA sample collected from Sayoc prior to his arrest in this case and DNA found on components from 10 of the IEDs (including one of the IEDs that was mailed in an envelope from which a latent fingerprint identified to Sayoc was recovered). The FBI arrested Sayoc in Plantation, Florida, on Oct. 26 less than five days after the Oct. 22 recovery of the first IED, which Sayoc allegedly mailed to Soros in New York. The FBI seized a laptop from Sayocs van in connection with the arrest that contained lists of physical addresses that match many of the labels on the envelopes that Sayoc allegedly mailed. The lists were saved at a file path on the laptop that includes a variant of Sayocs first name: Users/Ceasar/Documents. A document from that path, titled Debbie W.docx and bearing a creation date of July 26, contained repeated copies of an address for Debbie W. Schultz in Sunrise, Florida, that is nearly identical, except for typographical errors, to the return address that Sayoc allegedly used on the packages. Similar documents bearing file titles that include the name Debbie, and creation dates of Sept. 22, contain exact matches of the return address allegedly used by Sayoc on the 16 envelopes. Sayoc possessed a cellphone at the time of his arrest, and the FBIs ongoing forensic analysis of the device has revealed additional evidence. For example, Sayoc allegedly used the phone to conduct the following Internet searches, among others, on the dates indicated: July 15: hilary Clinton hime address July 26: address Debbie wauserman Shultz Sept. 19: address kamila harrias Sept. 26: address for barack Obama Sept. 26: michelle obama mailing address Sept. 26: joseph biden jr Oct. 1: address cory booker new jersey Oct. 20: tom steyers mailing address Oct. 23: address kamala harris Sayocs phone also contained photographs of some of the victims. * * * Sayoc, a U.S. citizen, is charged in the Indictment with 30 counts: one count of six different offenses for each of the five IEDs that he allegedly mailed to Clinton, Brennan, Clapper, Soros and De Niro in the Southern District of New York. In aggregate, the 30 counts in the Indictment carry a potential maximum penalty of life imprisonment, and a mandatory minimum penalty of life imprisonment. A chart providing more information regarding the charges and potential penalties is set forth below. The statutory penalties are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant would be determined by the judge. Counts Charge Penalties Per Count 1 5 Using a weapon of mass destruction Maximum per count: life 6 10 Interstate transportation of an explosive Maximum per count: 20 years 11 15 Conveying a threat in interstate commerce Maximum per count: 5 years 16 20 Unlawful use of mails Maximum per count: 10 years 21 25 Carrying an explosive during the commission of a felony Minimum for first conviction: 10 years Minimum for additional convictions: 20 years 26 30 Using and carrying a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence Maximum per count: life Minimum for first conviction: 30 years Minimum for additional convictions: life Mr. Demers and Mr. Berman praised the outstanding efforts of the FBIs New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which principally consists of agents from the FBI and detectives from the NYPD, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Mr. Demers and Mr. Berman also thanked the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Florida for its assistance. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sam Adelsberg, Emil J. Bove III, Jane Kim, and Jason A. Richman of the Southern District of New York are in charge of the prosecution, with assistance from Trial Attorneys David Cora and Kiersten Korczynski of the National Security Divisions Counterterrorism Section. Two Residents of Lebanon Arrested in Seattle in Connection with Scheme to Illegally Export Firearms to Lebanon Seattle, Washington - Hicham Diab, of Tripoli, Lebanon, and Nafez El Mir, a Canadian citizen residing in Lebanon, were arrested Thursday after they traveled to a Seattle warehouse and began hiding firearms in a vehicle they planned to ship to Lebanon. Diab and El Mir appeared in federal court Friday afternoon, charged with conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers and U.S. Annette L. Hayes for the Western District of Washington made the announcement. Both men were ordered detained pending additional hearings set for next week. According to a criminal complaint unsealed today, in 2016, Diab began communicating with a person in the U.S. who Diab believed was willing to locate firearms for him to smuggle to Lebanon. The person in the U.S. alerted Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) about the contact. Over the course of 2017 and 2018, undercover HSI agents posed as people able and willing to supply firearms sought by Diab in furtherance of his smuggling scheme. In October 2018, Diab made plans to come to the U.S. and successfully wired funds for the purchase of firearms and a vehicle in which to hide the firearms. Diab arrived in Seattle on Nov. 7, and was accompanied by El Mir who, according to Diab, had experience smuggling firearms hidden in automobile panels. On November 7 and 8, Diab went with the undercover agents to a warehouse containing firearms that had been secured by HSI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and inspected the firearms, which included: twenty Glock handguns, a Smith & Wesson .50 revolver, one FN Fiveseven pistol, an AR15 rifle kit and a M203 grenade launcher. Diab and El Mir, during their November 8 warehouse visit, began hiding the firearms in door panels and bumper space inside a sport-utility vehicle. El Mir also discussed ways to get the vehicle shipped to Lebanon with the hidden weapons. The men were arrested the evening of Nov. 8, as they exited the warehouse. Conspiracy to violate the Arms Control Export Act is punishable by up to five years in prison. The charges contained in the complaint are only allegations. A person is presumed innocent unless and until he or she is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes. If convicted of any offense, the sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the court based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. The case is being investigated by HSI and the ATF. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Woods, with assistance from the Department of Justices National Security Divisions Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. What is Facebook's relationship status with former executive Palmer Luckey? It's complicated. The founder of virtual reality company Oculus, Luckey left Facebook in March of 2017. While it was unclear at the time whether he had been dismissed or left on his own, Facebook now admits it terminated Luckey, the Wall Street Journal reports. Luckey recently told people his dismissal was related to his support of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. Six months before leaving Facebook, Luckey apologized in a Facebook post for donating $10,000 to NimbleAmerica, an anti-Hillary Clinton group that had reportedly spread white-supremacist messages. Emails reveal the apology came after Facebook's leadership, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, pressured Luckey to publicly back Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, the WSJ reports. A Facebook spokeswoman denied Luckey's politics had anything to do with his dismissal. "We can say unequivocally that Palmer's departure was not due to his political views," the spokeswoman wrote in an emailed statement to the WSJ. "We're grateful for Palmer's contributions to Oculus, and we're glad he continues to actively support the VR industry." Some Facebook employees say it's inaccurate to assert that Luckey's job was cut for his political opinions and claim it was his diminished role at Oculus and a "lack of candor during the episode involving the donation" that led to the decision, the WSJ reports. The 26-year-old entrepreneur hired an employment lawyer to negotiate the terms of his departure from Facebook. After the lawyer argued the company had violated California law by pressuring Luckey to voice his support for Johnson, Facebook agreed to a payout of at least $100 million, according to the report. Optimism, we're told, is at an all-time high in the world of small to midsize companies, thanks in no small measure to President Trump's tax cuts and deregulation. But his trade policies are already threatening to put a damper on the good mood. His China tariffs, especially, are jacking up the costs of the thousands of U.S. businesses with Chinese suppliers. One such business is owned by my friend, Ryan Zagata, founder and president of Brooklyn Bicycle Co. We hadn't talked in more than a year when he called me out of the blue this fall and asked if we could have lunch. I readily agreed. Brooklyn Bicycle, with slightly less than $2 million in annual sales, is known for the innovative designs and craftsmanship of its bikes, one of which was selected by the Museum of Modern Art to be sold through its gift shop. They are manufactured in China using parts from five or six countries, mostly in Asia. Over lunch, Ryan told me that, although the business was doing well, he had questions about what to do if Trump carried through on his threat to add $200 billion in new tariffs on Chinese imports, which he did in September, and which includes an additional duty of up to 25 percent on bicycles and bicycle parts. Ryan was already paying a duty of 5.5 percent. An increase to 30.5 percent would force him to make some tough decisions. One possibility would be to simply absorb the additional cost. On a typical bicycle costing him $200 to manufacture, he would have to pay an import duty of $61, as opposed to the $11 he was paying currently. That would be a $50 increase in the bicycle's cost of goods sold and an equivalent decrease in the gross profit it generated. Alternatively, he could ask his customers to cover the increase and raise the bike's price by $50. But the bicycle market is very competitive. Ryan couldn't be sure what effect the price increase would have on his sales. So maybe, I told him, he should do some combination of the two, raising prices by a smaller amount--say, $10 or $15--and absorbing the rest. Or maybe he should move production to another country, such as Vietnam? "That's not as easy as it sounds," he said. "To begin with, it's not worth doing unless the cost savings is going to be more than $50 per bicycle. Not to mention the R&D and travel costs of sourcing a new factory, and having samples made and tested. Every bike model we bring into this country from a new supplier we have to send to the Consumer Product Safety Commission for testing. So moving production to another country would be a big effort with a lot of costs we would never recover. There's also a risk if you've built your reputation, as we have, working with one or two suppliers. Will a new manufacturer understand what we're looking for and give us the same level of quality?" What about manufacturing domestically? "For us, it's the same problem," he said. "There's nobody in the United States making rims, hubs, spokes, saddles, chains, drivetrains--all the things we'd need, in the quantities we'd need them. We'd have to import the components, and they're subject to the same tariff as the bicycles themselves." Ryan could see no simple solution to the problems he'd face if the 25 percent tariff was imposed, and I couldn't either. I asked what he planned to do. "I'll watch my competitors," he said. Meanwhile, he was taking a closer look at each of the possible options, "making sure we're dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's," as he put it, so he would have all the information he would need if he did have to make a decision. American comic book writer Stan Lee has died at the age of 95, according to his daughter. The legendary comic book writer and producer was the man behind Spiderman, Black Panther, X-Men and many more iconic creations. Lee was fully on board with his material getting adapted into big-budget Hollywood films for the past two decades. Even when it seemed as if the studio system wasn't doing his work justice (we're looking at you, X-Men 3. And Spider-Man 3. And Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer), Lee was more than happy to show up for what has become trademark cameos. Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Show all 30 1 /30 Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Spider-Man: Homecoming Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Thor: Ragnarok Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Ant-Man and the Wasp Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Avengers: Infinity War Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Black Panther Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Doctor Strange Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos X-Men: Apocalypse Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Ant-Man Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Captain America: Civil War Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Deadpool Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Agent Carter Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos SHIELD Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Captain America: The Winter Soldier Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Iron Man 3 Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos The Amazing Spider-Man Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Avengers Assemble Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Thor Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Captain America: The First Avenger Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Iron Man Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Spider-Man 3 Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos X-Men Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Iron Man 2 Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos X-Men: The Last Stand Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Fantastic Four Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Daredevil Marvel Stan Lee's 30 best Marvel cameos Spider-Man Marvel With the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) now thriving, Lee enjoyed more appearances than ever in recent years. He are 25 of his greatest walk on appearances in one place for your viewing pleasure. X-Men (2000) Spider-Man (2002) Daredevil (2003) All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Show all 8 1 /8 All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Tiempo compartido - 30 November Two haunted family men join forces in a destructive crusade to rescue their families from a tropical paradise, after becoming convinced that an American timeshare conglomerate has a sinister plan to take their loved ones away. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding - 30 November A year after Amber helped Richard secure the crown, the two are set to tie the knot in a royal Christmas wedding - but their plans are jeopardized when Amber finds herself second-guessing whether or not she's cut out to be queen, and Richard is faced with a political crisis that threatens to tarnish not only the holiday season, but the future of the kingdom. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle - 7 December Acclaimed actor and director Andy Serkis reinvents Rudyard Kiplings beloved masterpiece, in which a boy torn between two worlds accepts his destiny and becomes a legend. Mowgli (Rohan Chand) has never truly belonged in either the wilds of the jungle or the civilized world of man. Now he must navigate the inherent dangers of each on a journey to discover where he truly belongs. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, Rohan Chand, Matthew Rhys and Naomie Harris lead an all-star cast in this visually spectacular and emotionally moving adventure. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Natale a 5 Stelle - 7 December Christmas is coming. An Italian political delegation, led by our Premier, is on an official visit to Hungary. In addition to his political commitments, the Premier intends to spend, secretly, a few happy hours in the company of a young member of parliament traveling with the delegation. Everything seems to proceed for the better until the two clumsy lovers find themselves with a mysterious corpse in the suite of the luxurious hotel where they stay. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Dumplin' - 7 December Dumplin (Danielle Macdonald) is the plus-size, teenage daughter of a former beauty queen (Jennifer Aniston), who signs up for her moms pageant as a protest that escalates when other contestants follow her footsteps, revolutionizing the pageant and their small Texas town. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 ROMA The most personal project to date from Academy Award-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien), ROMA follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a young domestic worker for a family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma in Mexico City. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, Cuaron draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s. Cuarons first project since the groundbreaking Gravity in 2013, ROMA will be available in theaters and on Netflix later this year. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Bird Box - 21 December When a mysterious force decimates the worlds population, only one thing is certain: if you see it, you take your life. Facing the unknown, Malorie finds love, hope and a new beginning only for it to unravel. Now she must flee with her two children down a treacherous river to the one place left that may offer sanctuary. But to survive, they'll have to undertake the perilous two-day journey blindfolded. Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock leads an all-star cast that includes Trevante Rhodes, with Sarah Paulson, and John Malkovich in Bird Box, a compelling new thriller from Academy Award winner Susanne Bier. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Girl With the support of her father, a 15-year-old transgender girl pursues her dream of becoming a professional ballerina. Winner of the Camera dOr for best first film at this years Cannes Film Festival as well as the Best Actor Prize for Un Certain Regard. Netflix Fantastic Four (2004) X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) Spider-Man 3 (2007) The Incredible Hulk (2008) Iron Man (2008) Iron Man 2 (2010) Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Thor (2011) Avengers Assemble (2012) The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) Iron Man 3 (2013) Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (2014) Agent Carter (2015) Ant-Man (2015) Deadpool (2016) Captain America: Civil War (2016) X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) Doctor Strange (2016) Jamie Lloyd's six-month season celebrating the complete corpus of Pinter's short plays got off to a scorching start last September with a clutch of pieces that show the playwright at his most overtly political, in particular his acute insights into torture. It continues now with plays that explore loneliness (the shared solitary confinement in certain marriages, say) and the way that the subjective, tactical nature of memory can undermine a sense of intimacy. Lloyd has done a dazzling job of curating. The arrangement of the material is wonderfully suggestive each mixed bill is more than the sum of its parts but the connections that surface are not forced down your throat. There's nothing remotely precious or elitist in the proceedings. The zest and warm teamwork from the brilliantly cast and tightly bonded ensemble performers that include Tamsin Greig, Lee Evans, Meera Syal and Janie Dee give these productions their generous spirit of accessibility. Pinter Three opens with Landscape, the hypnotic two-hander first staged in 1969. Greig and Keith Allen sit next to each other in a country house kitchen on Soutra Gilmour's huge rotating cube of a set with its bare bulb. Beth and Duff speak not in conversation but in overlapping monologues. Lloyd stresses the isolation. Greig delivers her lines into a microphone in a rapt, lilting Irish accent. It's an erotic reverie about a past encounter with a man on a beach (who may or may not have been Duff). She continues with these dreamy musings. Is it to punish her gruff, coarse, violently frustrated husband through this fit of passive aggression? Or it because she is so lost in her sensuous reverie that she is oblivious to him? Greig and Allen get the inadvertently discrepant rhythms of the couple's monologues perfectly. An Irish Beth makes one long to hear the actress perform Beckett, for certainly these productions would indicate that there is no limit to her talents. Terrific in Landscape, she's even more astonishing in A Kind of Alaska (1982) where she takes on the role of Deborah who wakes up from a 29-year coma to discover that the world did not stand still while was was asleep. Sitting up against the pillows in a nightie, she brilliantly captures the incongruities between the dated register of a bossy teenager and her panicky, dawning awareness of what adult consciousness might entail. There's a terrible disjointed pathos a rather childlike young teenager who increasingly does not wish to acknowledge that she in an adult body. Meera Syal gives a remarkably moving performance too as the sister who sacrificed her life for Deborah, who can't of course comprehend what degree of gratitude is due. Lee Evans has returned to the stage to honour Pinter. Which is a welcome reminder that he is comic performer of genius. Here he is on hilarious form as an oddball loner, in Monologue (1973), who fires off chirpy and intimate remarks to his empty chair as if it were the beloved old friend and sexual rival with which he is obsessed. Is this past imagined a grandiose excuse for failure? Evans stages a riotously funny insurrection with himself tinged with hints of genuine tragedy. Janie Dee and Brid Brennan are excellent in Night School (Marc Brenner) The two plays in Pinter Four aren't on the same level of inspiration. Watching Lyndsey Turner's cumbersome production of Moonlight (1993), I was once again struck by how perilously close this death-bed drama comes to self-parody in its shifts of register and in its withholding of crucial information. By contrast, Night School, written for the radio in 1979, comes across with real comic-sinister freshness it unfolds to a nagging live-drum accompaniment. The excellent Al Weaver plays a small-time forger who is released from prison only to find that his interfering aunts (Brid Brennan and Janie Dee, both delicious) have rented out his room to a female tenant. This young woman doubles as school teacher and a night-club hostess. His fascination with her double identity leads to a bleak conclusion. The jokes, though, are so good that that the atmosphere is upbeat. The script is flecked with droll comedy. For example, the young ex-con seems to have lost the art of paying effective compliments while he was inside. With amusing clumsiness, he assures the teacher that her eyes are.. Northern eyes. They're full of soot. That's about as elegantly romantic as he can get. Surprisingly joyous. I can't wait for the next batch of shows. Until 8 December 0844 8711 7622 www.pinteratthepinter.com Well, she made it. Charlie (Florence Pugh), young English actress improbably turned Mossad agent, manages to drive a car full of (concealed) Semtex across Europe without lighting a fag (inadvisable in the circumstances). She has a hairy moment on the Yugoslav-Austrian border (it is set in 1979), when a friendly guard offers her a light, but she makes it to the Austrian town where she dumps it, to be collected by a Palestinian terror gang, watched over by the Israelis. Mission accomplished. Except, of course, that it is not quite over, for any of the protagonists. For she must now perfect the part given to her by the formidably manipulative Israeli spymaster, Martin Kurtz (Michael Shannon, on superb form) as the lover of a Palestinian terrorist, Salim Al-Khadar. She is engaged in this subterfuge with a handsome Mossad man, Gadi Baecker (Alexander Skarsgard), who is impersonating the Palestinian. But now she must familiarise herself with the real Salim. She has met him once, fleetingly; now she finds him drugged and naked, having been abducted by Kurtzs team. The Israeli agents catalogue the various scars and birthmarks on Salims prone body as if it were a lump of dead meat, which it soon will be. Such details will help corroborate her cover story as she penetrates the terror group. She finds this, understandably, degrading, for everyone, but her disgust turns to distress when she works out that Salim is not going to be put on trial, but will be executed by the Israelis via extrajudicial methods. Recommended What the critics are saying about The Little Drummer Girl Now Charlie grows more conflicted. Walking through the Munich Olympic Village where, with grim symbolism, Salim is being held, she is learning at first hand the methods and mores of the State of Israel. She chides Gadi for the fate of Salim: Hes a child. Gadi, his eyes straight ahead: He killed a child. This soldier of Israel is asked, rhetorically, how he can carry the guilt. He frogmarches her to the memorial for the 11 Israeli athletes murdered in cold blood by pro-Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Games: We remember. And then the line that defines so much of the context: Your British government promised Palestine to the Arabs and to the Jews. Thats where all this started. This being the ambiguity that helped give rise to the intractable conflict but also the ambiguities that fill this intricate spy story. Thus, even this line, delivered by Gadi, echoes ones we heard earlier from Salim when he condemns the British for leaving the Palestinians to the disaster of 1948. Not moral equivalence but a dramatic mirror imaging of the two, Gadi and Salim. It is politically, yes, and for Charlie emotional. The feelings she has for Gadi, and, by proxy for Salim, are the psychological source of the hallucination she suffers after her arrival, exhausted, in Austria. When Gadi reads to her the passionate love letters that pass between them, fabricated by Mossad but drawing on their recordings of Salims actual words, she is overcome by lust. Our bodies and our bloods are mixed which applies just as well, metaphorically, to the Gadi-Salim relationship. Drunk, exhausted, stressed, bewildered, Charlie drags Gadi onto a bed, but has visions of the Mossad squad standing sentinel around her, Salim on the floor, speaking to her. Later, back in her bedsit in London, she finds herself weeping over these letters. The scene is intercut with the fake car crash the Israelis concoct to dispose of Salim. The birds-eye image of the car scraping along the side of the autobahn are overlaid on to the love letters. Is Charlie crying for Salim, who she has met, whose tragic life story she now knows, and who she has helped to murder? Or over Gadi who has played her boyfriend and she is falling in love with? Or both? Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events This latest BBC dramatisation of a John le Carre novel is brilliantly done. Beyond the obvious, there is one particular reason worth mentioning why The Little Drummer Girl works so well the music. Theyve paid proper attention to it. From the 1980-vintage Greek disco tunes Charlie hums along to in the car, to the tense title and dreamy incidental arrangements, the music never distracts. As with everything else in The Little Drummer Girl, it is judged just right. The theatre of the real as Kurtz calls it, has rarely enjoyed such a fine production. Get AfricaFocus Bulletin by e-mail! Format for print or mobile Africa: Why Mining is Hard to Tax AfricaFocus Bulletin November 12, 2018 (181112) (Reposted from sources cited below) Editor's Note "In Africa as elsewhere in the world, while energy companies might be somewhat undertaxed, mining companies typically are greatly under-taxed. Indeed, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that, with a few significant exceptions, notably Botswanas diamond mines, mining in Africa is barely taxed at all. One reliable source indicates that contemporary African governments collect about 55% of the total value of energy production in tax revenue, but only 3% of the value of mining production." - Taxing Africa Taxing Africa, published earlier this year by Zed Books in London, is being launched in Washington, DC on November 16 by a coalition of civil society organizations, including the International Centre for Tax and Development (http://www.ictd.ac/), with which the authors are affiliated. See http://tinyurl.com/ybezqa39 for more information on the launch and the ICTD web site for much additional background and resoources. Tax is a complex issue and it is easy to get lost in the detail. But the consequences are fundamental for development and human welfare around the world. This new book provides a comprehensive approach, highlighting not only the often-publicized abuses by which the rich and multinational corporations evade and avoid taxes, but also practical steps that African governments can take to ensure that their tax systems work to provide revenue for the public good. Based on both first-hand experience and extensive research, the book will be most useful to those with some background in these issues, particularly scholars, government officials, and civil society organizations. But it also warrants attention from anyone concerned about turning critiques of African development into practice, and is a significant contribution to the growing wider awareness of the centrality of tax to other policy issues. This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains an excerpt from this new book on the special issues in taxing multinational mining companies. Another AfricaFocus Bulletin released today, not sent out by email but available on the web at http://www.africafocus.org/docs18/amv1811.php, summarizes the Africa Mining Vision, by which Pan-African institutions aim to galvanize the transformation of the mining sector to serve African development. For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on taxation and related issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php For the wider range of economic development issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/econexp.php ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++ Taxing Africa : Coercion, Reform and Development By Mick Moore, Wilson Prichard, and Odd-Helge Fjeldstad London: Zed Press, 2018. Available at https://www.zedbooks.net/shop/book/taxing-africa/ or https://amzn.to/2JTJzC2 Excerpts from Chapter 5: Extractives and Extraction: Taxing Oil, Gas and Minerals [used by permission of the publisher] Let us begin with a good film: Zambia: good copper, bad copper (Public Eye 2012; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uamzirLswjk). Made in 2012, it contains some powerful campaigning material: large numbers of former mine workers who cannot find jobs in highly mechanised contemporary mining operations, yet suffer because the industry poisons their air and water; a transnational mining company (Glencore) that pays little tax on its Zambian profits; and the callous indifference of some of the people enjoying these profits the notoriously wealthy residents of Zug canton in Switzerland. You might also watch Stealing Africa Why Poverty? (Guldbrandsen 2013; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNYemuiAOfU). It tells a similar story. [Editor's note: For additional selected videos of related interest see http://www.africafocus.org/docs18/amv1811.php] In fact, online there are dozens of video clips and countless blog and news items about the exploitation of Zambia and Zambians by mining companies. Try, for example, the video in which Anil Agarwal, the boss of Vedanta, one of the worlds largest natural resources companies, is boasting to Indian business colleagues about how he obtained his original mining concession in Zambia in 1994 with little money, modest effort, petty deception, and few future tax obligations (Das 2014). The returns on his investment have been sky-high. Or look at the wealth of commentary on Chineseowned copper mines in Zambia, such as China Nonferrous Mining Corporation (CNMC), Non-Ferrous China Africa (NFCA) and Sino Metals. Mopani Copper Mine in Zambia. Credit: http://www.counter-balance.org/mopani-copper-mine-zambia/ Why, in recent years, have journalists and video-makers been so interested in Zambias copper mines, so critical of the mine owners, and so attentive to the question of how little tax they seem to be paying to the Zambian government? The answer comes in several parts. Two are specific to Zambia. First, it is one of the largest mining economies in Africa. Second, there has been a great deal of open controversy over mining between Zambians: strikes, protests, and electioneering around employment conditions in the mines, environmental pollution and the small contribution of mining companies to Zambias tax revenues. Global advocacy organisations have certainly helped stoke the controversies. But the controversies are rooted in Zambias history and politics. During the colonial era, Northern Rhodesia, as Zambia was then known, was one of the few African countries to host a large mining industry. Its Copper belt was urbanised, and its trade unions powerful. The unions were weakened, however, after the mining sector was nationalised in 1969, international copper prices declined dramatically in 1975, and most mines were mothballed in the 1980s. By the mid-1980s Zambia was one of the most indebted nations in the world, relative to its GDP. Following privatisation, the mines were reopened on a small scale in the 1990s. At that point few people expected copper prices to recover to historic levels. There were, however, sufficient residues and memories of trade union power that the new mining companies many of them Chinese or Indian faced continual political challenges. The companies paid very little for their mining rights and began to profit very handsomely when world copper prices started to increase early in this century. Partly because the new mining arrangements were subject to so much political scrutiny and criticism, the Zambian government has revised the ways in which it taxes the mining companies several times but sometimes it has been forced to retreat in the face of threats from the compa nies that they would cut back on investment and production. .... In fact, it is particularly difficult to effectively and sensibly tax foreign transnational companies operating in the extractive sector, and even more challenging to tax companies involved in mining than those extracting energy (oil and gas). The reasons are many and complex. One purpose of this chapter is to explain them. The results are that, in Africa as elsewhere in the world, while energy companies might be somewhat under-taxed, mining companies typically are greatly under-taxed. Indeed, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that, with a few significant exceptions, notably Botswanas diamond mines, mining in Africa is barely taxed at all. One reliable source indicates that contemporary African governments collect about 55% of the total value of energy production in tax revenue, but only 3% of the value of mining production. Bear in mind that, when they collect revenue from extractive activities, governments are not just taxing value added as they do when levying corporate income taxes on transport companies or shoe manufacturers. Governments are also selling national assets: oil, gas or minerals that might otherwise stay underground and remain part of a nations wealth for future use. That figure of 3% suggests that, in practice, at least some African governments are not selling national assets to mining companies. They are giving them away. The gross under-taxation of mining became especially visible to many observers as a result of the 200210 boom in global commodity prices. The index of global metal prices, expressed in constant US dollars, almost tripled between 2002 and its peak in 2006 (World Bank 2016b: 1). While prices of copper and other commodities soared, African governments revenues from mining activities increased much more slowly. While the third raw materials super cycle increased the global turnover of the mining sector by a factor of 4.6 between 2002 and 2010, the tax revenues from the non-renewable natural resource sector earned by African governments only grew by a factor of 1.15 (Laporte and Quatrebarbes 2015). There are particular reasons why the Zambian mines attract so much attention. But the underlying problems in taxing the extractive industries are common across Africa and, indeed, in lower- income countries generally. ... Mining activities in Africa are mostly intensely politicised: there is political conflict over mines, from the exploration stage, before precise locations are even identified, to the end of their useful life. These conflicts involve shifting combinations of presidents and ministers, ministries and other public agencies, exploration companies, mining companies, managers of ports and railways, individual politicians and bureaucrats, wheeler-dealer local and international businesspeople and political fixers, grassroots political activists, small-scale (artisanal) miners and their representatives, local bandits, lawyers, tax advisers, civil society organisations, and local and international media. Their tools and tactics are complex and variable mixtures of secrecy, stealth, public campaigning, bribery, principled claims, bluff, manipulation, threat, lawsuits, misinfor mation and intimidation. Anyone who combines an interest in the extractive sector with a taste for drama will relish the ongoing story of Simandou. Simandou is a mountain range in the deep interior of Guinea. It comprises so much high-grade iron ore that geologists have given its peaks names such as Iron Maiden and Metallica. Rio Tinto, the BritishAustralian mining multinational, was granted exploration rights in 1997. Two decades later, no significant engineering work has been done. Many sceptics believe that Simandou will never be exploited. The costs of building the infrastructure needed to get the ore to the point of export 650 kilometres of railway, tunnels, bridges, 128 kilometres of road and a new deep-water port are estimated to be at least twice the costs of setting up the actual mine. Yet vast amounts of money have been ventured, won and lost in the course of political manoeuvring over the rights to develop Simandou. Some advance taxes have even been paid. Rio Tinto was granted exploration rights to Simandou in 1997. In late 2008, two weeks before he died, the president of Guinea, Lansana Conte, expropriated half of Rio Tintos rights and awarded them to Beny Steinmetz, an Israeli billionaire who had made his fortune in the diamond business. Neither Steinmetz nor his business vehicle, Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR), which is controlled by family trusts, had any previous experience in iron ore mining. Contrary to the usual practice, BSGR made no upfront payment to the government of Guinea for these rights. After about a year, BSGR sold 51% of its interest in Simandou to Vale, the Brazilian mining conglomerate, for $2.5 billion of which only the first tranche was ever paid. There was a brief period of military rule after Lansana Contes death, then free elections were held in late 2010. The new president, Alpha Conde, had a reputation for honesty. His government reviewed all the mining licences that Conte had awarded for Guinea also has large reserves of bauxite and significant quantities of diamonds, gold, uranium and offshore oil. Following the review, the Simandou mining rights were returned to Rio Tinto. At that point, Rio Tinto owned 46.6% of the total rights. Chinalco, a Chinese state company, was the second largest stakeholder. Simandou iron mine in Guinea (Conakry). Credit: https://ejatlas.org/conflict/simandoun-mine That is the outline of the plot. The play itself is much more complex and colourful. Contes youngest widow testified that BSGR had offered her millions of dollars, jewellery, two Toyota Land Cruisers and a 5% stake in the project to persuade her dying husband to sign over the Simandou rights to BSGR. Among the supporting evidence was a contract she had signed with the head of BSGR operations in Guinea, in which she agreed to use her influence to get Simandou mining rights transferred to BSGR in return for these rewards. This contract for corruption was stamped with the BSGR corporate seal. Rio Tinto filed a case in the US courts against Vale and Steinmetz for racketeering, and alleged that $200 million had been paid to Conte and his ministers as bribes. The case was thrown out on a technicality in 2015. Meanwhile, Steinmetz did not give up. He variously threatened or started court proceedings for defamation against: Global Witness, the London-based advocacy organisation; Mark Malloch Brown, a former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and a former UK government minister; Theresa May, the current British Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary; the UK Serious Fraud Office; and the billion aire philanthropist George Soros. Vale launched a compensation claim against BSGR. Rio Tinto, too, was proactive in asserting its rights to Simandou. In 2011, the company made a payment of $10.5 million to a former top French banker who had been Alpha Condes classmate. When this became public in November 2016, Rio Tinto immediately dismissed two senior managers who had been involved. Alpha Conde survived an assassination attempt, and was re-elected president in 2015. But there were serious accusations of election fraud, and his rule has been marred by violence and large-scale street protests. Unsurprisingly, both government and opposition allege that their opponents are working for foreign companies seeking either to protect their mining rights or to grab a share of those currently belonging to someone else. The latest twist is that, in October 2016, Rio Tinto agreed to sell its rights in Simandou to Chinalco, leaving this Chinese company as the dominant player. The Simandou story is particularly colourful. But it is not unusual. ... The structure of the extractive industry There is no single feature of the extractives business that is not found in some other economic sector. Nevertheless, extractives exhibit such a combination of special characteristics that the political economy of the sector is quite distinctive. We list below six of these characteris tics. We then detail five characteristics of the mining subsector that distinguish it from the energy (oil and gas) subsector. Extractives projects are very dependent on the approval, cooperation and support of governments. Throughout Africa and in most of the world, sub-soil assets belong to the state. Without a licence from government, private agents can neither prospect for sub-soil assets on a large scale nor extract them. Without the approval and cooperation of government, the extensive infrastructure required roads, pipelines, railway lines, ports, offshore drilling rigs, electricity and water supplies cannot be put in place. Companies that invest in extractives projects are very vulnerable to changes of policy or attitude on the part of governments. As Rio Tinto found in Guinea, this is especially true in countries where the law does not rule and where private investment is so low that governments have few concerns about further discouraging investors by behaving arbitrarily. In such circumstances, all investors are vulnerable. Investors in extractives are especially vulnerable for two reasons. One is that the gestation periods for extractive sector projects are long. Like Rio Tinto in Guinea, companies can be exploring and planning for decades before they begin to shift any earth. There is typically an interval of several years between the initial investment and the point at which a well produces oil or a mine yields saleable coal, copper, zinc or iron ore. The second cause of vulnerability is that extractives investments are heavily front-loaded: the big investments in exploration, in purchasing exploration and extraction rights, in setting up the mine or well, and in putting the associated infrastructure in place typically are made in the early years, before the facility begins to produce and generate revenue. Governments therefore face a continual temptation to agree one set of terms with investors to encourage them to invest, and then, once they have sunk a lot of money, to offer less favourable terms, including less favourable tax arrangements. The government of Zambia has changed its mining tax regime nine times in the last 12 years (Manley 2015). This is sometimes motivated by high world copper prices and at other times by concerns that the mining companies will reduce production if taxes are not reduced. In the last resort, governments can often credibly threaten that mines will be taken over by the state or given to a different investor, leaving the original investor with huge losses and debts. Natural resource extraction projects often generate large rents for the people who control them: that is, super-profits that are higher and sometimes much higher than the combined totals of all production costs and normal profits. For example, it currently costs around $35 to produce a barrel of oil in Angola (Rystad Energy 2015). When, in 2014, oil was selling at around $100 a barrel, the government of Angola was receiving about $65 a barrel in rent. By contrast, in early 2016, when world market prices briefly fell just below production costs, there were no rents to collect. Rents are much larger when commodity market prices are high. At any moment in time, rent levels can differ greatly among mines or wells producing the same product, because extraction costs will be higher in one mine or well than in another. Natural resource rents are a major feature of the economy of sub-Saharan Africa: they account for about one-fifth of GDP. ... World market prices for oil, gas and minerals are unstable and tend to fluctuate in long super-cycles of different and unpredictable lengths. This generates major uncertainties about the likely long-term profitability of individual projects. It also tends to produce cyclical shifts in domestic public and political opinion: from anger that extractive companies are not paying more in taxes (when world market prices are high), to fears that they might close down operations entirely (when prices are low). The information needed to estimate the likely long-term yields, profits or rents from extractive projects and therefore to calculate the likely consequences of different tax arrangements is typically scarce and unequally available to the main parties involved. There are several interacting reasons for this, in addition to the market price uncertainty mentioned above. The basic geological information is sometimes generated through private surveying and not made publicly available. Even if available, it may not be very accurate in respect of either the likely quantity or quality of the product. Extractive projects are likely to intrude strongly in the lives of some groups of ordinary citizens of the host country. Some of the effects might be positive, including jobs. Historically, mining employed large numbers of manual workers. From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, South Africas mines sucked in migrant labour from throughout Southern Africa. In South Africa and Zambia, as elsewhere in the world, large mining labour forces were often at the forefront of trade union organisation. By contrast, Africas new mining projects, as well as oil and gas projects, are highly mechanised and most of the oil and gas is offshore. They employ few people. Most wage rewards go to highly skilled expatriates. These projects provide few employment opportunities to compensate local populations for the disruptions they suffer, or to assuage their concerns that their resources are being taken from them without recompense. ... These are the main distinctive features of the extractive sector. There are then five characteristics of the mining subsector, which are not generally shared with oil and gas, that help explain why mining in particular is associated with controversy, corruption and drama. 1. The risk that governments will try to renegotiate agreements in their own favour is increased because, in mining but not in the energy sector, experience and expertise in the business are not essential conditions for entry. Beny Steinmetz had no significant experience of iron ore mining when he bid for the rights to Simandou. Vedanta, which is now a major global mining company, originated in the scrap metal business in Mumbai. Because of the high level of politicisation and conflict in the sector, some operators can be very successful on the basis of an aptitude for the politics, access to large amounts of capital, and a huge appetite for risk. Its roulette, Steinmetz said; if you work hard, and take risks, you sometimes get lucky. As a small company that was comfortable with risk, BSGR made investments that the major mining companies wouldnt. His company lost money in Tanzania. It lost money in Zambia. But in Guinea it won. (Keefe 2013) Once entrepreneurs have control of mining rights, they can either sell them on for a profit to more established and experienced mining companies or buy in the expertise needed to open and operate mines. It would not be difficult for any government to find a private company willing to take over a functioning mine if the terms were right and even if more established global firms declined to participate. A former minister of mines in Guinea is quoted as saying: When a new government comes into power, especially an inexperienced one, theres one phenomenon that never fails: every crook on earth shows up. And every crook on earth has the biggest promises, has access to billions of dollars of lines of credits, of loans (Mailey 2015: 53). 2. Mining is more diverse than energy in terms of the range of products produced and the processes involved in extracting and processing them. The energy subsector produces only oil and gas, and the range of types of each product is limited. Each type can normally be identified in terms of one of a small number of standard reference types West Texas Crude, Brent Blend and Dubai Crude in the case of oil for which there are large, deep global markets and daily posted reference prices. Miners, by contrast, unearth a much wider range of products including, in sub-Saharan Africa, bauxite, chromium, coal, cobalt, coltan, copper, diamonds, gold, iron ore, lead, nickel, platinum, palladium, phosphate, soda ash, titanium, zinc and various radioactive chemicals and rare earths. Global markets are more fragmented and diverse. There is less product stand ardisation and less market information. Governments trying to regulate and tax mining have less access to reliable informa tion and reliable independent consultants than do governments dealing with energy companies. 3. Some minerals, including diamonds, gold and palladium, have a high value-toweight ratio. It is relatively easy for miners to understate production levels and smuggle product out of the country. 4. These adverse effects of the diversity of the mining subsector are exacerbated by the near absence, at least in Africa, of an organisational arrangement that is common in the energy sector: a national oil and gas corporation. These corporations employ professional staff and, in varying combinations, regulate private sector operators, own some of their equity, engage in production-sharing agreements, or undertake exploration, extraction or downstream processing in their own right. These activities give governments some insight into the logistics and economics of oil and gas extraction, and thus some capacity to regulate the activities of private companies. Some governments, including those of Botswana, Guinea, Tanzania and Zambia, own equity in companies operating mines on their territory. In principle, this is an alternative way for governments to obtain revenue from mining operations. However, there is no evidence that, by owning a minority share of the equity in a locally incorpo rated mining company, governments can prevent companies from engaging in transfer mispricing and shifting their profits offshore to their parent companies. Botswana is the exception. The government owns 50% of Debswana, the main diamond producer, and is generally believed to obtain a fair share of diamond revenues. 5. Joint ventures between two or more large transnational companies (with or without the participation of the host government) are common in the energy sector but rare in mining. The energy sector is technically the more demanding. Oil and gas transnationals enter into unincorporated joint ventures with one another to share expertise. One of them is responsible for operations and has to report in detail to the others. This ensures a degree of accounting transparency and accuracy that reduces the scope for cheating the local tax administration. There are few joint ventures in the mining sector in Africa. AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter. AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see http://www.africafocus.org Is Trump right? The president has been attacked by his opponents both for politicising a natural disaster and for refusing to engage with overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is to blame for the extent of the devastation, not mismanagement. The Pasadena Fire Association meanwhile tweeted: Mr. President, with all due respect, you are wrong. The fires in So. Cal are urban interface fires and have NOTHING to do with forest management. Come to SoCal and learn the facts & help the victims. Camp fire: Video shows 'firenado' raging during California wildfire Speaking for the emergency services personnel on the ground, the president of the California Professional Firefighters union commented: Wildfires are sparked and spread not only in forested areas but in populated areas and open fields fuelled by parched vegetation, high winds, low humidity and geography. Moreover, nearly 60 per cent of California forests are under federal management, and another two-thirds under private control. It is the federal government that has chosen to divert resources away from forest management, not California, Brian K Rice said. Mr Rice further branded Mr Trumps assertion ill-timed, ill-informed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as dangerously wrong in conversation with CNN. Among the celebrities weighing in was Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, known for his environmental activism: The reason these wildfires have worsened is because of climate change and a historic drought. Helping victims and fire relief efforts in our state should not be a partisan issue. California has recently suffered a five-year drought, meaning the dry condition of brush lining forest floors serves as an ideal fuel for wildfires. Although these occur naturally as part of the lifecycle of any woodland, their increasing prevalence in California in recent decades serves as an ever-more convincing argument for global warming. High pressure 70mph winds sweeping down from the mountains and desert-standard levels of humidity have further encouraged the spread of the current blazes, picking up embers and making new flare-ups more difficult to contain. CNN meteorologist Tom Sater points to these Santa Ana winds playing a role in the disaster, which are keeping rain from the Pacific at bay and mean the expected October rainfall has not happened this year, as suggesting the fingerprints of climate change. Wildfires spread across California in pictures Show all 32 1 /32 Wildfires spread across California in pictures Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle a blaze at the Salvation Army Camp in Malibu Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Flames from the Camp fire burn near a home atop a ridge near Big Bend AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Cathy Fallon (centre) who stayed behind to tend to her horses during the Camp Fire, embraces Shawna De Long (left) and April Smith who brought supplies for the horses Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A helicopter drops flame retardant on a wildfire in Malibu Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures An air tanker drops water on the fire along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures An abandoned car from fleeing residents of Paradise in the Pentz road area EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures A firefighter tackles the fire along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures A Jack In The Box fast food restaurant burns as the Camp fire moves through Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Yuba and Butte County Sheriff officers label a body bag AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters hose down trees on Bell Canyon Road, near Malibu AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A fire burns at the Salvation Army Camp Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A firefighting DC-10 makes a fire retardant drop over a wildfire in the mountains near Malibu Canyon Road AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Bins have melted and ballooned in the heat in Magalia, Butte County EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures Satellite image taken on 8 November shows plumes of smoke from the Camp Fire stretching across portions of Northern California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle the Camp Fire AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle the Woolsey Fire Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures Deputy Coroner Justin Sponhaltz, of the Mariposa County Sheriff's Office, recovers human remains found at a home destroyed by the Camp Fire AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures Buildings burn in Paradise, California EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures Local residents bring their horses to Zuma Beach and away from the Woolsey Fire in Malibu Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A used car dealership burns in Paradise, California Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures Yuba and Butte County Sheriff officers inspect a burned vehicle after discovering remains nearby in Concow AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle the flames in Thousand Oaks Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures Search and rescue teams work to evacuate patients from the burning Feather River Hospital in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Embers blow in the wind in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures In Butte County, the sky is filled with the smoke of the Camp Fire EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters at work in Thousand Oaks Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures The burned remains of a house and car are left after the Camp Fire in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A shop burns in Paradise, California AFP/Getty This is not the new normal, this is the new abnormal. The chickens are coming home to roost, this is real here, agrees state governor Jerry Brown. While Mr Trump might broadly be right to say more needs to be done to clear dead forest to prevent this tinder box effect from taking place, this has little bearing on the situation in the beach resort community of Malibu and enacting such a programme is difficult without the proper resources in place. Further withdrawing federal funding seems unlikely to help the situation and Mr Trumps threat has been likened to defunding the National Hurricane Centre until the hurricanes go away. His suggestion that a lack of access to water is hindering firefighters was also dismissed by Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, observing that planes seeking bodies of water to scoop up and dump over the flames have no shortage of rivers, lakes and ponds at their disposal. Chemical retardants are more commonly used for the purpose these days in any event. Nothing beats the excitement of the first flurry of snow. If youre a parent, this is often closely followed by a blind panic when you realise your children have out-grown all their cold weather gear and everything in their size is completely sold out. Get ahead this year and buy their ski jacket before the temperature plummets. Whether theyre a budding snowboarder with a trip abroad planned or just love building snowmen in the park, a ski jacket will keep them snug and dry whenever they encounter the white stuff. All are designed with clever features to maximise cosiness including serious waterproofing, roomy pockets, taped seams and detachable hoods. If youre a family of keen skiers, its worth paying particular attention to technical extras including breathability, insulation and snow skirts, while its sensible to choose a colour to suit all if an expensive jacket is likely to be passed on to siblings. However, we have also included some more affordable and wearable options that would be just as suited to the school run as the slopes. How we tested We asked junior testers between the ages of five and 15 to wear a range of ski jackets and be brutally honest with their feedback. They judged whether each jacket withstood the cold, wind and rain, whether they could move easily in them or felt restricted and most importantly for older testers whether they would be seen in public wearing them. We also looked at cost, practicality and whether there were matching ski trousers available in the same range. Read more: The best kids ski jackets for 2021 are: Best overall Isbjorn junior carving winter jacket: 145.82, Exxpozed.co.uk Isbjorn junior carving winter jacket: 145.82, Exxpozed.co.uk Best coat younger kids will love Dinoski sparkle the unicorn kids winter coat: 95, Dinoskiwear.com Dinoski sparkle the unicorn kids winter coat: 95, Dinoskiwear.com Best for serious snow Polarn O. Pyret kids padded waterproof coat: 90, Polarnopyret.co.uk Polarn O. Pyret kids padded waterproof coat: 90, Polarnopyret.co.uk Best for stand-out prints Frugi snow and ski jacket: From 70, Welovefrugi.com Frugi snow and ski jacket: From 70, Welovefrugi.com Best suits-all style Lands End kids squall waterproof insulated jacket: 37.80, Landsend.co.uk Lands End kids squall waterproof insulated jacket: 37.80, Landsend.co.uk Best British brand Tog24 savick kids insulated ski jacket: 60, Tog24.com Tog24 savick kids insulated ski jacket: 60, Tog24.com Best for growing kids Columbia Sportswear youth alpine diva ski jacket: 115, Columbiasportswear.co.uk Columbia Sportswear youth alpine diva ski jacket: 115, Columbiasportswear.co.uk Best for the slopes Dare 2b kids glee waterproof ski jacket blue zebra print: 100, Dare2b.com Dare 2b kids glee waterproof ski jacket blue zebra print: 100, Dare2b.com Best buy on a budget Wedze kids warm and waterproof ski jacket 500: 39.99, Decathlon.co.uk Isbjorn junior carving winter jacket Best: Overall Rating: 10/10 Theres not much Swedish company Isbjorn dont know about snowy days. The brand was started in 2005 by two mums looking for clothes to keep their children cosy during icy Stockholm winters and now they make some of the worlds best ski gear for children up to the age of 16. This jacket has all the technical tricks to keep any child dry, however cold or wet it gets. Breathable and windproof, it has an exceptional 15,000mm waterproof rating meaning how much pressure is needed to push water through a material and is made of Taslan, which has twice the durability of polyester. The super-soft 100g/m (a measure of thickness short for grams per square metre) PrimaLoft padding adds warmth without weight. Plus, the jacket is also brilliantly packable, folding down into a tiny space to help that stuffed ski trip suitcase. There are two waterproof chest pockets too, a ski pass pocket on the sleeve, a three-point adjustable hood and 100 per cent sealed seams. Its even machine-washable and has clever cuffs which can extend a further 3cm to squeeze out wear for an extra ski season. Its a winter win-win. Buy now 145.82 , Exxpozed.co.uk {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Dinoski sparkle the unicorn kids winter coat Best: Coat younger kids will love Rating: 8/10 Our smallest tester fell head over heels for this coat from the moment it arrived, packed in a matching lilac drawstring bag inside a leopard print box. If you have a unicorn-obsessive in your hands, they will never take it off. Made from eco-friendly recycled plastic bottles, its super-snuggly but not too bulky, so its ideal for making an entrance in the school playground. It has 10k waterproofing, aqua-seal zips and taped seams, and is tested and comfortable to a bone-chilling -20C. The buttons and zips are all really easy for little hands to tackle and we loved the detachable lined hood. Its available for ages one to eight, with the real draw for any tot being the distinctive ears, unicorn horn and wings attached to the jacket, which will have them begging to wear this even when spring comes. Theres also a beanie hat, puddle suit, snowsuit and a swimsuit in the same range, which all come in a green dinosaur version (95, Dinoskiwear.com) too. Buy now 95 , Dinoskiwear.com {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Polarn O. Pyret kids padded waterproof coat Best: For serious snow Rating: 8/10 Swedish brand Polarn O. Pyret has been making organic childrens clothes for over 45 years, and knows a thing or two about harsh winters. So, theres no chance of feeling the chill in this wonderfully warm coat. This hard-wearing, water-repellent jacket is designed to withstand even the harshest weather conditions. It is wind and snow proof with an excellent 12,000mm waterproof-rating, but its also surprisingly breathable, with lightweight PrimaLoft insulation and one of the softest fleece linings we tested. Available in navy, pink and green with reflective details, it has an adjustable bottom hem and snow skirt to stay snug, pre-shaped sleeves for freedom of movement, zippered fleece-lined pockets and a thumbhole in the cuff, which our tester loved. The detachable hood was one of the best we tested too, with a chin guard to stop rubbing on the chin and cheeks and a storm flap to keep out the cold. A great buy all-round. Buy now 90 , Polarnopyret.co.uk {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Frugi snow & ski jacket: From 70 Best: For stand-out prints Rating: 7/10 For one jacket that does it all, this one from Cornish brand Frugi is hard to beat. Suitable from ages two to 10 and available in a fantastic bright blue and pink print from 18 October the coat is made from recycled plastic bottles and is blissfully snug with a cotton-wool soft fleece lining. It also has all you need to guard against even the worst weather, with a 4.7 tog rating, a waterproof rating of 8,000HH (a unit describing the pressure needed to push a column of water through a material), fully taped seams and an internal snow skirt. Plus, there are coordinating snow and ski salopettes and mittens for top-to-toe print perfection. Best of all, its just as good if you dont plan to go anywhere near a mountain but just want to keep out the chills at the local park. It has a detachable hood, and a breathability rating of 5,000MVP (a unit which describes the breathability by testing the amount of water vapour that can pass through a square meter of fabric over 24 hours). Theres also popper and Velcro fastenings to make it perfect for everyday wear. We especially loved the fact the durable fabric finish is dirt repellent so it will keep looking good all winter. In fact, as the sleeves adjust to grow with your child, they might still manage to wear it next year too. Buy now 70 , Welovefrugi.com {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Lands End kids squall waterproof insulated jacket Best: Suits-all style Rating: 8/10 We didnt think it was possible to find a winter jacket our coat averse junior tester would agree to wearing, but this one got the thumbs-up. When we picked ourselves up off the floor, we discovered this was largely due to the fact this Lands End jacket doesnt feel bulky at all, so the wearer doesnt feel all bundled up. It also comes in passable, dont-look-at-me, black although its available in rose, teal and orange and in a range of sizes for children age two to 14. Despite its slimline profile, it still has the technical wizardry to defeat the elements, with a waterproof and windproof shell, an antistatic fleece lined hood and body and 150-gram insulated sleeves. It also has snow-guard cuffs with a thumb loop, an adjustable hood with elasticated sides and a dipped back hem. And did we mention its machine washable? Youre welcome. Buy now 37.80 , Landsend.co.uk {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Tog24 savick kids insulated ski jacket Best: British brand Rating: 9/10 Tog24 are a no-nonsense family company from Yorkshire that believes winter wear shouldnt cost the earth. Practicality is paramount and this smart jacket, available in an unusual camo print or a dark red, has bucketloads of it. Windproof, shower-proof and breathable, it has clever bands of stitching to hold thermal insulation in place, which keeps the heat in without adding bulk. It also has an adjustable hood which can be worn forward around the face or pulled back depending on the weather. But its the added extras designed strictly for the slopes that really make this jacket a great buy. Keen skiers will love the elasticated snow skirt to help them keep dry (even if they end up face planting), the ski pass pocket on the sleeve and the internal mesh pocket for goggles with an attached wipe to keep them clean. Even our teen tester looked impressed. Buy now 60 , Tog24.com {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Columbia Sportswear youth alpine diva ski jacket Best: For growing kids Rating: 8/10 If you hate the thought of forking out cash on dedicated ski-wear youll only wear for a week, this jacket from Columbia Sportswear offers an alternative. It comes with adjustable internal sleeves that can extend the length by a further 1.5 inches in case your child shoots up before you make it back to the mountains. Our tester was surprised by quite how warm this jacket felt too, as its certainly not bulky. Instead, it has a waterproof, breathable Omni-Tech exterior that offers incredible protection against wind and seems to simply repel rain. The usual fleece inside is replaced by a thermal Omni-Heat reflective layer too which reflects and retains body heat for maximum lightweight warmth. Our teen also loved the cosy lined pockets for an on-the-go warm up, as well as the fact there was a crucial pocket inside the jacket for a phone. Buy now 80.50 , Columbiasportswear.co.uk {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Dare 2b kids glee waterproof ski jacket blue zebra print Best: For the slopes Rating: 9/10 Though the vivid turquoise and patterned zebra print design on this Dare 2b jacket were a little too bright for our teen to wear to school, this coat would look brilliant on the slopes where different style rules apply. Available for ages two to 14, the jacket is exceptionally waterproof so your child wont need to head indoors once snow starts falling. Better still, its made of breathable recycled Ared 20/20 fabric (a highly waterproof polyester), which means they wont pour with sweat while all bundled up either. Taped seams, a cosy fleece back panel, fixed snowskirt and warm inner sleeve cuffs mean it will withstand a full day on the slopes, while the integrated zip pocket will keep their ski pass dry. Our testers loved the fact the label told us this jacket recycled seven 500ml plastic bottles too. And if your child prefers something a little darker, we also rated the same jacket in go-with-anything blue and grey (100, Dare2b.com). Buy now 100 , Dare2b.com {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Wedze kids warm and waterproof ski jacket 500 Best: Buy on a budget Rating: 8/10 We were delighted by just how well this jacket held up to bad weather for the fantastic price. With 150 g/m wadding, the coat kept our tester really cosy, and he especially liked the fact it was a little shorter than some of the other jackets, so didnt stop him running around. Its 100 per cent taped seams and 5,000mm-rated waterproof coating held even a bad rain shower at bay yet still didnt feel steamy inside. Theres a snow skirt that closes automatically with the jacket to keep them snug, while the rip-tab hood stays fastened securely to make this coat a fantastic all-rounder, and excellent value too. For an even more waterproof option, choose the kids warm and waterproof ski jacket 900 (64.99, Decathlon.co.uk) which has a superior 8,000 mm-rated membrane and can withstand even the worst downpour. Our teen loved the neon zip, chic colour scheme and stretch built into this coat, which made it comfortable to wear all day. Buy now 39.99 , Decathlon.co.uk {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} IndyBest product reviews are unbiased, independent advice you can trust. On some occasions, we earn revenue if you click the links and buy the products, but we never allow this to bias our coverage. The reviews are compiled through a mix of expert opinion and real-world testing. Sainsburys has found a real-life shining star to front its annual Christmas ad, with Tia Isaac wowing the nation with her stellar rendition of the New Radicals classic 90s hit, You Get What You Give. Hailing from East Ham in London, the eight-year-old prodigy has been singing, dancing and acting since she was just two years old. Her leading role in the supermarkets festive ad, she plays the star, marks her TV debut. (Sainsbury's (Sainsbury's) In the ad, which depicts a school nativity play, we see a nervous Isaac approach the microphone and scan the room for her mother. She starts singing, her voice quiet and trembly, but after spotting her mother and receiving a nod of encouragement, her confidence soars and Isaac wows the audience with her powerful vocals. Speaking about her experience of filming the ad, which she sang live for, Isaacs revealed she initially found the prospect of performing in front of so many people rather daunting, but overcame her fears by thinking about her grandmother. The hardest part was getting over my fear of lots of people but Im going to sing the song for my mums mum, she said. (Sainsbury's) (Sainsburys) The woman playing Isaacs mother in the ad is not in fact her real mother, who was unable to attend on the day of filming, a Sainsburys spokesperson told The Independent at a preview of the advert. Though the campaign marks the talented childs small screen debut, she is already set to make her first stage appearance, having recently landed a role in the national tour of the musical Annie, which starts next year. Whatever Isaac does next, one thing is certain: her stardom is just beginning. Fox News has completely stopped posting on Twitter, apparently because of a disagreement with the company. The station's usually prolific account, which has nearly 20 million followers, hasn't tweeted in days. The station has not offered a public explanation of the blackout but numerous reports suggested it was the consequence of a falling out between Fox News and Twitter. The outage came shortly after protestors went to presenter Tucker Carlson's house, after posting his address online which the network appears to believe was taken down too slowly. Now Fox News' main account hasn't posted since last week, when it posted a breaking news story about the Trump administration being overruled in court on DACA, the US immigration policy that protects children. The boycott appears to extend to all of Fox News official Twitter accounts. Its smaller accounts such as Fox Business and Fox News Politics, both of which have substantial followings of their own have also been silent in recent days. Fox News has a vast following across its many accounts, often ranking as one of the most popular social media publishers in the world. The main account has sent an average of 100 tweets since it first joined in March 2007. Recommended Fox News scolds Sean Hannity for campaigning alongside Trump in rally The station is continuing to post on Facebook, where it has continued to regularly share stories. The site responded quickly after being alerted to the fact that Mr Carlson's address had been shared online, according to Tribune Media's manager of content strategy Scott Gustin, who said he had spoken to someone inside the company. The decision to stop tweeting had come "from the highest level" of the company, wrote Mr Gustin on Twitter. It would stay silent until Twitter removed the tweets and apologised, he said. Fox News has not addressed the boycott publicly, and has not yet replied to an email from The Independent requesting further information about the blackout. Hackers sole customer data from "almost all major Pakistani banks" and placed it on the dark web, the country's cyber-crime chief has revealed. The comments from Mohammad Shoaib, director of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), follow a report from cyber security firm Group-IB that private bank data had been compromised. Group-IB discovered the details for sale in forums on the dark web a section of the internet only accessible using specialist software. "Almost all [Pakistani] banks' data has been breached. According to the reports that we have, most of the banks have been affected," Mr Shoaib told Geo News. "More than 100 cases [of cyber attacks] have been registered with the FIA and are under investigation. We have made several arrests in the case, including that of an international gang." Surfing the dark web Show all 6 1 /6 Surfing the dark web Surfing the dark web Guns on the dark web Guns for sale on a dark web market place, August 2018 Screenshot Surfing the dark web Dream Market vendor guidelines Some popular market places on the dark web still abide by a set of standards, despite selling illegal goods and services Screenshot Surfing the dark web 'Mystery box' for sale on the dark web A 'mystery box' for sale on the dark web, August 2018. Scam listings for the boxes first began appearing on the dark web after fake videos of people opening them trended on YouTube Screenshot Surfing the dark web Religious texts on the dark web Religious and banned texts can be found on the dark web, allowing people to bypass censors in countries that suppress free speech Screenshot Surfing the dark web Seeking help and advice on the dark web The Hidden Guru site on the dark web, offering 'knowledge from beyond', August 2018 Screenshot Surfing the dark web Hidden Guru Waiting for a response from the dark web's Hidden Guru, August 2018 Screenshot More than 20,000 users have been affected by the security breach, according to the FIA, with credit and debit card details from potentially 22 Pakistani banks among the data compromised. Cyber criminals have already cashed out $2.6 million from foreign ATMs, according to the Group-IB report, mirroring a similar attack earlier this year during which hackers syphoned more than 940 million rupees (10.5 million) from ATMs around the world. Recommended Fishing for mysteries on the dark web "An interesting fact is that cards from this region are very rare on the [dark web] cardshops," the Group-IB report stated. "In the past six months it is the only one big sale of Pakistan cards." In a separate interview with Dawn News TV, Mr Shoaib said it was the responsibility of the banks to protect their customers' data. "The hackers have stolen large amounts of money from people's accounts," he said. "The recent attack on banks has made it quite clear that there is a need for improvement in the security system of our banks." The State Bank of Pakistan instructed banks to increase vigilance but denied that it had been the victim of a cyber attack. It also revealed that at least six banks in the country have already suspended the use of its debit cards internationally. "It has come to our notice that few banks have even withdrawn the facility of cards being used outside Pakistan," Abid Qamar, chief spokesperson for the State Bank of Pakistan, told the Daily Jang. "Some are [however] allowing this facility upon instructions of their customers only." In recent years Britain has seen a ginaissance with more and more bottles of the juniper-based drink being sold than ever before. In fact, Mothers Ruin has become so popular that the tipple is now flavouring everything from chocolate to marshmallows and even tea. With the onset of the festive season however, theres only one way to gratify a gin lovers thirst; with a booze-filled bauble. Recommended 10 best gifting gins This year, Dingle Distillery, based in County Kerry, Ireland, has joined forces with Scottish giftware company Angels Share Glass, to produce a range of bespoke decorations filled with gin. Just 3,000 of the hand-blown baubles have been released, each featuring a removable cork allowing them to be re-filled throughout the festive season. The limited edition baubles are all filled with 50ml of Dingle Distillerys award-winning artisan craft gin thats infused with local botanicals such as rowan berries from the mountain ash trees, fuchsia, bog myrtle, heather and hawthorn. The Dingle Gin Bauble is a fun and unique gift for the gin-lover in your life, says Elliot Hughes, company director at Dingle Distillery. The gin-filled Christmas baubles are available to buy now (Dingle Distillery/Angels' Share Glass) People are drinking gin, like in a lot of European countries, more than ever and are drinking premium spirits like never before. I think people will really enjoy the gin bauble whether its received as a gift or bought for themselves!" Dingle Distillery has also launched the Limited Edition Four Seasons Dingle Gins, a stackable collection of four miniature bottles of gin, each one made to represent one of the four seasons. Pickering's Gin sell their booze-filled baubles in a rainbow of colours(Pickerings Gin) Similarly, Edinburgh distillery, Pickering's as crafted more than a million gin-filled baubles ready for the festive season. First produced as a fun offering at a Christmas fair in 2014, the first proper production run in 2015 sold out in just a few days and they're now available in a rainbow of colours form pink and blue to purple, yellow, red and green. Marcus Pickering, co-founder of Pickering's Gin says: "We are constantly bowled over by the popularity of our gin baubles. Back in 2014, we sold a hundred as a bit of fun for our local Christmas fair and now we are sending boatloads across the Pond and even to Australia and New Zealand. Recommended 10 best alcoholic advent calendars for Christmas 2018 "By putting gin into a Christmas decoration, I think we really tapped into that fun, festive side of Christmas - they make people smile when they receive them and you can even have a party when youre taking the tree down. If you prefer to deck the halls with real decorations though, fear not because there are plenty of alternative ways to get your festive gin fix. While its accepted that drinking alcohol on a daily basis is bad for your health, that hasnt stopped the surge in popularity of booze-filled advent calendars in the last few years. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events For 2018, several brands have launched their own versions including the Edinburgh Gin Advent Calendar, John Lewis & Partners Gin & Tonic Advent Calendar and Aldis 12 Gins of Christmas. The offerings arent limited to gin either. Now, you can get your hands on advent calendars filled with pretty much any type of alcohol you can think of, from wine to beer, whisky and even cocktails. The metrics from the First World War are horrific. Estimates vary, but in all, there were about 40 million military and civilian casualties 20 million dead and 21 million wounded. Never before had a conflict brought such devastation in terms of death and injury. In response, during the four years of the war, military surgeons developed new techniques on the battlefield and in supporting hospitals, which, in the wars final two years, resulted in more survivors of injuries that would have proved mortal in the first two. On the western front, 1.6 million British soldiers were successfully treated and returned to the trenches. By the end of the war, 735,487 British troops had been discharged following major injuries. The majority of the injuries were caused by shell blasts and shrapnel. Many of the injured (16 per cent) had injuries affecting the face, more than a third of which were categorised as severe. Historically, this was an area where very little had been attempted, and survivors with major facial injuries were left with major deformities that made it difficult to see, breathe easily, or eat and drink. Recommended Why Brazilian butt lifts are the deadliest type of plastic surgery A young ENT (ear, nose and throat) surgeon from New Zealand, Harold Gillies, working on the Western Front, saw attempts to repair the ravages of facial injuries and realised that there was a need for specialised work. The timing was right, because the military medical leadership was recognising the benefit of establishing specialist centres for dealing with specific injuries and wounds, such as neurosurgical and orthopaedic injuries or victims of gassing. Gillies was given the go-ahead, and by January 1916 was setting up Britains first plastic surgery unit at the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot. Gillies toured base hospitals in France to seek suitable patients to be sent to his unit. He returned expecting about 200 patients but the opening of the unit coincided with the opening of the Somme offensive in 1916, and more than 2,000 patients with facial injuries were sent to Aldershot. Treatment was also needed for sailors and airmen suffering from facial burns. A strange new art Gillies described the development of plastic surgery as a strange new art. Many techniques were developed by trial and error, although some mirrored work that had been done centuries previously in India. One of the main techniques Gillies developed was tube pedicle skin-grafting. Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery Show all 10 1 /10 Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery Vanellope was transferred to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit where she will stay for several weeks, while she recovers PA Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery Doctors recommended a termination to Vanellopes parents because her chances of survival were so low University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust/PA Wire Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery The baby was immediately wrapped in a sterile plastic bag after she was born PA Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery The infant was born with an incredibly rare condition, Ectopia cordis, in which the heart grows on the outside of the body PA Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery Surgeons said the babys hope of survival were less than 10 per cent University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust/PA Wire Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery Surgeons had to move Vanellope's heart, as well as part of her stomach, into her chest PA Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery Surgeons created a mesh which protected the heart as she did not have ribs or a sternum PA Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery As her organs fight for space inside her chest, Vanellope is still attached to a ventilation machine PA Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery Naomi Findlay and Dean Wilkins with their daughter PA Baby born with heart outside of body survives surgery Vanellope Hope Wilkins may now be the first successfully treated case of ectopia cordis in the UK PA A flap of skin was separated but not detached from a healthy part of the soldiers body, stitched into a tube, and then sutured to the injured area. A period of time was needed to allow a new blood supply to form at the site of implantation. It was then detached, the tube opened and the flat skin stitched over the area that needed cover. One of the first patients to be treated was Walter Yeo, gunnery warrant officer on HMS Warspite. Yeo sustained facial injuries during the Battle of Jutland in 1916, including the loss of his upper and lower eyelids. The tube pedicle produced a mask of skin grafted across his face and eyes, producing new eyelids. The results, although far from perfect, meant that he had a face once again. Gillies went on to repeat the same sort of procedure on thousands of others. There was need for larger facilities for surgical and postoperative treatment and also rehabilitation of the patients, together with the different specialities involved in their care. Gillies played a large part in the design of a specialist unit at Queen Marys Hospital in Sidcup, southeast London. It opened with 320 beds and by the end of the war, there were more 600 beds and 11,752 operations had been carried out. But reconstructive surgery continued long after hostilities ceased, with some 8,000 military personnel treated between 1920 and 1925. The unit finally closed in 1929. The details of the injuries, the operations to correct them and the final outcomes were all recorded in detail, both by early clinical photography and also by detailed drawings and paintings created by Henry Tonks who, although trained as a doctor, had given up medicine for painting. Tonks became a war artist on the Western Front but then joined Gillies to help not only in the recording of the new plastic procedures, but also with their planning. The only real advances The complex facial and head surgery necessitated new ways of delivering anaesthetics. Anaesthesia generally had advanced as a speciality during the war years both in the way it was administered, and also how doctors were trained (previously, anaesthetics had often been given by a junior member of the surgical team). Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The survival from operations requiring anaesthesia was improving, although techniques were still based on chloroform and ether. The Queen Marys anaesthetic team developed a method of passing a rubber tube from the nose to the trachea (windpipe), as well as working on the endotracheal tube (mouth to trachea), which was made from commercial rubber tubing. Many of their techniques remain in use today. As an Austrian doctor wrote in 1935: Nobody won the last war but the medical services. The increase in knowledge was the sole determinable gain for mankind in a devastating catastrophe. Robert Kirby is a professor of clinical education and surgery at Keele University. This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com) The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of Norman G Kirby, Major General (Retired), Director of Army Surgery 1978-82 Great British Bake Off finalist Kim-Joy Hewlett was undoubtedly one of the highlights of this years series, delighting viewers with her creative designs and cheerful demeanour. Having got almost 50,000 followers on Twitter and more than 90,000 on Instagram, the baker is now using her large online platform to open up about a topic with which she has personal experience: mental health issues. As a child, Kim-Joy experienced what she describes as severe social anxiety, refusing to speak to people outside of her home for fear of being rejected by them. This carried on until university, as she explains in an interview with The Guardian. I didnt really speak when I was at school, I was pretty much mute, she says. I would talk at home, and sometimes I whispered to people, but I was very careful about who could hear me talk; I didnt want people to know that I could. I would say it was severe social anxiety. Theres selective mutism as well, but a lot of that is in really young children, and this was at secondary school. So I dont know if I fit the criteria. Kim-Joy initially found it difficult to socialise with others when she joined university, studying sociology at the University of Bristol. However, she then started baking, which helped her make friends with more ease. If you make something, it makes people like you. Its just about making people happy, I guess, she says. After university, Kim-Joy did a masters degree in psychology before working as a psychological wellbeing practitioner, during which time she helped people who had low to moderate anxiety and depression. Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Show all 10 1 /10 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon PA Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Noel Fielding: Bake Offs unlikely style icon Channel 4 Having spent years worrying about what others thought of her, appearing on Bake Off has made Kim-Joy realise that she had nothing to fear from being her true self. I spent my time analysing everyone and living in my imagination - where I daydreamed that I had magical powers and one day I would be strong and people would admire me, she writes on Instagram. So to now having been on the Bake Off and just be the real me, and then to have people like you guys saying lovely things about me means the world. Recommended How swimming regularly can reduce symptoms of anxiety or depression I have come a long way since then but still experience moments of social anxiety most days. Kim-Joy hopes to bring the worlds of cakes and mental health together, showing others how baking can benefit them just as it did for her. Id love to combine baking with mental health, she says in the interview. Art therapy is a thing, isnt it? Why not baking therapy?" Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Approximately 10 per cent of children and young people aged between five and 16 have a mental health issue, according to mental health organisation No Panic. However, the charity also states that 70 per cent of those who've experienced a mental health problem haven't received treatment or help early enough. In May 2017, the 39-year old Emmanuel Macron was elected French president with an emphatic 62 per cent approval rating. The Guardian described the victory as a vote for hope. Celebrating Macrons pro-Europeanism, Germanys Handelsblatt newspaper wrote: There is renewed hope for the European project. The Economists cover showed Macron walking on water. Macron stirred anticipation that he would revive the moribund French economy and, from that position of domestic strength, he would bring new vigour to European integration. Instead, just 18 months later, his approval rating has fallen below 30 per cent. Polls are beginning to reflect those low personal approval ratings. Even as Macron is making grand plans to lead a new political force into the European parliament next year, his Achilles heel at home continues to undermine him. Recommended Why Italy could be facing a disastrous new recession In May, the Macron-led La Republique En Marche! (LREM)/Mouvement Democrate (MoDem), with an expected vote share of 27 per cent, was 10 points ahead of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN); now, the LREM/MoDem predicted vote share at 19 per cent is behind RNs 21 per cent. Although still lauded abroad, Macrons domestic fortunes have slid because he has followed dubious trickle-down policies, which have repeatedly failed to rekindle optimism among citizens who face economic hardship and uncertainty. Hence, somewhat opportunistically, Macron has sought to appease anxious domestic constituencies with narrow nationalistic polices. These have also put paid to any likelihood of promoting a pro-European agenda. Macron would do well to heed the lessons from Italian prime minister Matteo Renzis descent into the political abyss. Renzi was also 39 years old when he became prime minister. German chancellor Angela Merkel applauded him as a matador. He played to that hype, dressing as a cool rebel in jeans and trademark leather jacket. He bragged that a dynamic Italy would act as one of Europes leaders. The Guardian saw Renzi as the man who would save Europes soul. But Renzi also adopted failed domestic policy approaches and undermined the coalitions needed to advance his agenda. Common to both of them, and ultimately the source of their undoing, Macron and, even more so, Renzi were dealt difficult hands. They inherited poorly performing economies that bred widespread social and political discontent. French per capita incomes have remained flat since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007; the unemployment rate is just under 9 per cent and youth unemployment is endemic. For most French citizens, the education system does little to help them climb the economic ladder. In all these respects, the Italian problems run much deeper. There is little evidence that Macrons policies will promote growth. He uses a worn mantra to make a bold claim for his tax breaks for wealthy French citizens: If you want to share the cake, the first condition is to have a cake. Whether tax cuts spur growth is unclear, but they always increase the sense of unfairness. Macrons labour market reforms, which make it easier to fire workers, add precarious jobs with short contracts, ranging from a few months to a few hours. Businesses lose the incentive to invest in their employees, and productivity growth declines. The sense of social injustice and economic vulnerability deepens. And now, his proposed environmentally friendly diesel tax has raised a new storm. The conservative opposition leader, Laurent Wauquiez was quick to tap into domestic angst: You have to be completely out of touch with reality not to understand that taxing fuel is taxing those French who work. Nationwide blockades planned for Saturday are supported by 78 per cent of French citizens. Stuck with the president of the rich label, Macrons base of supporters has narrowed to successful educated professionals working and living in metropolitan cities. Despite his youth, he struggles to attract French youth. The Macron governments efforts to inject greater equity into the educational system is the best hope for growth and greater equality. Revamping the educational system is a generational task, however. The task is made harder by the political inability to cut back entrenched entitlements and reallocate government expenditure to education. Hence, the prospect that Macron would be a European saviour was always far-fetched. Despite his much-hyped speeches, Macron has approached European integration with an eye to political gains at home. That has predictably deepened European divisions. He has alienated eastern European governments by trying to restrict posted workers, typically employees of eastern European service providers. Although the numbers of such workers is trivially small, Macron has made the claim that their somewhat smaller pay package constituted social dumping, and therefore hurt French workers. On the bitterly divisive issue of migration, French police board trains arriving from Italy to search for and remove migrants, depositing them back at the Italian border. Search of arriving trains also undermines the Schengen system of passport-free travel across Europe. Macrons recent sermon against an ultra-liberal Europe is another effort to regain domestic political support. His throwaway, we need a Europe that protects, either is just a slogan or requires fundamentally rethinking Europes open borders. Making matters worse, by cynically hectoring Italian leaders for failing to fulfil their humanitarian responsibilities to migrants and by accusing eastern European leaders of promoting their national self-interest, Macron has worsened the hugely difficult problem of sharing migrants among European nations. With diminished domestic stature and few European allies, Macrons much-touted initiative to strengthen the eurozones defences during financial crises has predictably run aground. Although German chancellor Angela Merkel has agreed, in principle, to cooperate with Macron, resurgent German nationalism and opposition from within her conservative caucus severely limit what she can do. Other fiscally hawkish northern eurozone countries, notably the Netherlands, and Eastern European nations have opposed any initiative that would require them to finance other European governments. Renzis European agenda was limited but legitimate: he wanted to soften the fiscal rules that require austerity during economic recessions and, hence, make recessions worse. However, the hallowed rules remained firmly lodged on their pedestal. Creating a coalition to change Europe is nearly impossible. However, as in Macrons case, Renzis real failure was at home, where he too followed the traditional European recipe of labour reforms. He lost domestic support rapidly, especially among young Italians. Suffering high rates of unemployment from Italys brutal economic downturn, few Italians believed that the increasing number of highly insecure new jobs would be stepping-stones to stable incomes. Renzis end came quickly. In a December 2016 referendum to endorse his proposed constitutional reforms, Italian citizens humiliated Renzi, leading to his resignation. Around 80 per cent of those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four voted against him. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Macron enjoys important institutional advantages relative to Renzi. As president with a five-year term and a solid parliamentary backing, he remains in charge. But the very brashness that led to his dazzling ascent is causing even his most fervent admirers to part ways with him. Most recently, interior minister Gerard Collomb, Frances top cop, resigned after a public spat with Macron. The departing Collomb castigated Macron for hubris and lack of humility. On economic policy, Macrons well-wishers Jean Pisani-Ferry and Philippe Martin have warned that he needs to deal more directly with inequality and the widespread sense of lack of fairness. Macron needs to change both style and policy priorities. Otherwise Frances delicate social fabric will fray further, and in the manner of many predecessors since the illustrious Charles de Gaulle, Macron could abruptly lose all political effectiveness. Ominously, Macrons predecessor, Francois Hollande, was humiliated in the European parliamentary elections in 2014, a setback from which he never recovered. The looming European parliamentary elections in May 2019 on which Macron has set such great store could prove his undoing. Ashoka Mody is visiting professor of international economic policy at Princeton University and former deputy director of the International Monetary Funds European and Research Departments. His new book is Eurotragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts More than 7bn was wiped off the combined value of British American Tobacco (BAT) and rival Imperial Brands after a report claiming US regulators are planning to ban menthol cigarettes. BATs shares fell 9.5 per cent on Monday while Imperial was down 3.5 per cent after the Wall Street Journal report. FTSE 100-listed BAT, which sells Lucky Strike and Camel cigarettes, makes around a quarter of its revenue from menthol brands after buying Newport as part of a 38bn acquisition of RJ Reynolds last year. The Food and Drug Administration is said to have pencilled in a menthol ban to come into force in two years, allowing it time to finalise and implement the new rules. Menthols have faced greater scrutiny from the regulator as it looks into the case for stricter rules around flavoured vaping products. Fears have grown that e-cigarettes, some with colourful branding, appeal to children. Some studies have found that menthol cigarettes make it easier for children to start smoking as the flavour masks the harshness of cigarette smoke. They are also thought to be harder to quit than non-flavoured tobacco products. Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown said regulation and shrinking cigarette sales were two inevitable facts of the tobacco industry. The acquisition of Reynolds gave BAT a dominant position in US menthol. Thats a segment thats been in regulators sights for some time thanks to its perceived status as a gateway for new smokers. He said many menthol smokers would move over to other tobacco products but the move would still be a major blow. BAT has invested heavily in next generation products like e-vapour and heated tobacco which are believed to be less damaging to health than cigarettes. But they still deliver addictive nicotine and regulators are investigating a potential ban on flavoured capsules popular with younger customers. Have you ever commented online about a government policy, signed a petition or taken part in a peaceful demonstration? Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, isnt it? And now imagine being arrested, tortured and detained for years, simply for this. For the people of Syria, such brutality is part and parcel of the Assad regime. Over 95,000 Syrians have disappeared since March 2011 according to Syrian civil society organisations, of which more than 80,000 are estimated to have been forcibly disappeared by the Syrian regime. The overwhelming majority of these people have been regular, everyday citizens. Many of them have died as a result of torture. Climate change protesters have chained themselves together to block the doors to the governments energy department headquarters as part of a campaign of direct action. At least two activists were arrested - an 85-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman - after the demonstrators lay in front of the entrance and turnstiles at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Some glued their hands to the doors, others sang protest songs or banged drums. Members of Christian Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion said they were protesting in solidarity with the anti-fracking movement and called on ministers to do more to prevent climate disaster. It was the start of a planned fortnight of mass civil disobedience in which hundreds of protesters say they are prepared to face arrest. Were here to force the government into action about the increasing ecological disaster thats happening, Christian Climate Action tweeted. We do this not because we want to, but because our beautiful planet is at stake. When all avenues have been tried and failed, non-violent direct action is the only way. If we dont take action now, we will be the last generation who can. The government refuses to create the appropriate legislation to tackle #climatechange. Therefore, the two weeks of rebellion begin now. Lisa Murray's climate change photography Show all 12 1 /12 Lisa Murray's climate change photography Lisa Murray's climate change photography Dinka cattle herders starting their migration in South Sudan Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography A Dinka woman fetches water in South Sudan Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Veronica in South Sudan preparing tea outside her home, recently ravaged by heavy flooding Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Children playing in Vietnam. When it floods, transport to and from school is a major challenge Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Sugeng, a fish and crab farmer from Indonesia who suffers financially every time the area floods Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Tan, a vegetable farmer, learning new methods through Oxfam in Vietnam Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Maluk, a 19-year-old from Tonj South, South Sudan Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Normally this farmer in South Sudan would be harvesting sorghum, but rains are late so the hunger season continues Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Herders bringing home their cattle in Afar, Ethiopia Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Farmers harvesting chilli in Ethiopia Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography A woman in Tigray, Ethiopia, scares birds away from her crops with a slingshot Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Irula tribe woman in Tamil Nadu Lisa Murray The organisers of Extinction Rebellion said they were protesting against the governments complicity with the fracking and fossil fuel industries, spearheaded by the energy department. This planet is being killed, and the culprits have names and addresses! they tweeted. The activists hope to bring sections of London to a standstill during the coming days, culminating in a sit-in protest at Parliament Square on Saturday. One of the main reasons that the Kremlin felt confident enough to carry out the novichok attack, it has been claimed, was because of Britains failure to take strong retaliatory measures after the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Theresa May was home secretary at the time of the dissidents death through polonium poisoning 12 years ago. As prime minister she has once again vowed tough action against Moscow following the attempted assassination of former MI6 spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, pledging not to rest until the nefarious acts of Vladimir Putins government were exposed and its intelligence network dismantled. In her address at the Lord Mayors Banquet in the City of London Mrs May effectively declared mission accomplished by maintaining Russias intelligence capabilities have been degraded for years to come. She also took the opportunity to offer Mr Putin a path back to warmer relations with the UK if he mends his ways and stops carrying out attacks on the west. It is indeed the case that the expulsions of Russians working under diplomatic credentials by the UK and its allies after Salisbury had an effect. Mrs May said at the time, back in March, that Russias espionage network in the west has been dismantled and crippled, and it is the case that losing 115 personnel would be a blow to most services. A farmer who shot a dead a teenage burglar has revealed that he has no regrets over the incident and would do it again. Tony Martin sparked a national debate in 1999 after he killed 16-year-old Fred Barras on his remote Norfolk farm. While many argued that he had the right to defend his home, others branded him a dangerous vigilante. The farmer, who slept with a shotgun under his bed after his home was targeted in a string of burglaries, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison after the jury rejected his claim of self-defence. However, Mr Martin was released from prison in 2003 after his murder conviction was downgraded to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility. The story, which made headlines across the globe, is the inspiration for Channel 4 dramatisation, The Interrogation, which will air this weekend. Directed by Dave Nath, it uses the transcripts from Mr Martins police interviews following his arrest to give viewers an insight into the man as well as the crime. After years of avoiding the press attention, Mr Martin, now 74, has given his first broadcast interview about the case. At the end of the drama he is seen visiting to the boarded-up farmhouse, which he still owns, but has not lived in since the night of the shooting. He admits he chooses to live with friends because he fears he will react violently should he be burgled again. Aerial view shows police and members of the media gathering at the home of British farmer Tony Martin, "Bleak House", after his release from custody, in Norfolk, eastern England, July 28, 2003. (Reuters) I don't want to get locked up. If I'm in the house and somebody comes in the house, I'm going to look after myself, he told the programme. If you think I'm going to stand there and ask them what they're doing, I'm not that stupid. Asked if he was troubled by Freds death, he admitted that he didnt give his victim a second thought because what goes around, comes around. When I was his age I lived with my grandparents didn't go breaking into bloody houses 16 miles down the road. The Interrogation airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on Sunday 18 November. Hopes are fading for an emergency summit to agree a Brexit deal this month as Downing Street admitted "substantial issues" are still to be overcome between London and Brussels. Senior British officials were locked in talks until 2.45am with their EU counterparts but failed to produce a decisive breakthrough on the remaining problems, including the vexed issue of the Irish border. The absence of progress has plunged Theresa May's plans into chaos, as she had hoped to reach an agreement with the EU by Wednesday - the deadline for arranging an emergency EU summit in November. It also ramps up the need for the UK to make large-scale no-deal Brexit preparations and casts doubt over the ability to pass the right legislation before the official exit day in March 2019. The delay means cabinet ministers will not discuss whether to sign off the deal at the regular cabinet meeting on Tuesday, although Brexit will be on the agenda. Downing Street said that there were "substantial issues still to be overcome" in relation to the so-called backstop measure aimed at preventing a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. The prime minister's official spokesman said: "We have made good progress in the negotiations in relation to the withdrawal agreement but there are substantial issues still to be overcome in relation to the Northern Irish backstop." The spokesman added: "We want to make to progress as quickly as possible in these negotiations but we have also said that cannot be at any cost. That remains the position." Meanwhile Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, told European leaders that at a meeting of the general affairs council that key issues remained unresolved. As they gathered for the update, several EU member states claimed that any Brexit deal hinged on agreement of the cabinet, rather than difficulties with Brussels. Ireland's deputy prime minister Simon Coveney said it was "a very important week for Brexit negotiations," adding that there was "still clearly work to do" to reach an agreement. His French counterpart Nathalie Loiseau said: "The ball is in the British court. It is a question of a British political decision." Ms May is facing opposition from all sides over her call for a backstop measure that would keep all of the UK within a customs union, rather than the Northern Ireland-only provision proposed by the EU. International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt, who has failed to offer public support to Ms May's blueprint, suggested the Cabinet would act as a "check" on the prime minister. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The Brexiteer told Sky News: "The important thing is that there are two checks on this deal - there is Cabinet and there is Parliament. "Cabinet's job is to put something to parliament that is going to deliver on the referendum result." However the PM's spokesman said the cabinet had supported Ms May so far and was expected to continue to do so. Ex-transport minister Jo Johnson revealed that he chose to dramatically resign from the government last week over reports Ms May was planning a publicity campaign showing a binary choice between a no-deal exit and Ms May's deal - which he said amounted to a "calculated deceit". "I challenge the government to come clean on the cost of Brexit," he told the Evening Standard. "The reason they can't look us in the eye, it's because they know this will leave us worse-off and with less control. It's a gross abuse of civil service impartiality." A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Show all 65 1 /65 A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit An estimated 700,000 people marched through London to demand a final say on the withdrawal agreement Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Red smoke from a canister hangs in the air as around 100,000 demonstrators march through London during a People's Vote anti-brexit demonstration savings banners and placards Anti-Brexit People's Vote March for the Future in London Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Mayor of London Sadiq Khan takes part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Protesters wearing final Say shirts and holding placards Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit MP Chuka Umunna (left) and MP Vince Cable (right) as MP Anna Soubry (centre) addresses Anti-Brexit campaigners at a rally after the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A Peoples Vote march attendee calls for a Final Say Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators with banners 'We're with EU' during the People's Vote March for the Future in London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Protesters at Londons march for the future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Editor of The Independent Christian Broughton speaks to demonstrators in Parliament Sqaure after they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A poster at the March for the Future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 campaigner wrapped in EU flag Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators pass Trafalgar Square as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators wave Union and European flags and hold up placards as they pass Trafalgar Square, taking part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A demonstrator holds a message during a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators take part in the 'People's Vote March for the Future,' in central London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A protester brandishes an Independent t-shirt during the Brexit March Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Tens of thousands of people take part in People's Vote March for the Future in central London. The march organised by the People's Vote campaign is led by young people calling for a People's Vote on the Brexit deal Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA Mr Johnson added: "There is a sea-change in mood among my Conservative colleagues who are focused by this crisis. I would not be surprised if more colleagues in senior positions speak out." His brother, the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, claimed Ms May is on the brink of "total surrender" to the EU over Brexit and told ministers to "mutiny" against the plans. Spains centre-left prime minister has backed calls for a second Brexit referendum, warning that Britain has taken the path to self-absorption. Pedro Sanchez said Britain was a marvellous country that had exerted a positive influence on the EU and that it should stay in or re-join in the future. If I was Theresa May, I would call a second referendum no doubt, Mr Sanchez said in an interview with the Politico news website. Recommended Jo Johnson resigns from government in protest at Brexit plan He told the outlet that Brexit was a great loss for both the UK and the EU, adding: I hope it can be reconsidered in the future. The premier, who came to power this year after a vote of no confidence in his predecessor, said the UK was heading down the path of self-absorption which isnt going to be good either for the UK or for Europe. But Mr Sanchez was cool on the prospect of holding the vote immediately, with the clock ticking down before the UK crashes out in March, barring any extension. Id like to see the British government calling a second referendum. I dont mean now, but in the future, so that it can come back to the EU. In another way, but back into the EU, he said. If I was Theresa May, I would call a second referendum no doubt Pedro Sanchez, Spanish prime minister His intervention comes after Jo Johnson, a transport minister and brother of Boris Johnson, on Friday resigned and called for a second vote. 700,000 people took to the streets of London last month calling for a final say on Theresa Mays deal with the option of staying in the EU. Polling by YouGov suggests the public would narrowly prefer a second referendum to either Theresa Mays likely Brexit deal or a no-deal. But the UK prime minister has ruled out consulting the public further on the decision, stating at the end of October: There will be no second referendum on Brexit. She also said a general election would not be in the national interest and that the Government was not preparing for one despite the likely prospect of the current House of Commons rejecting the deal she appears set to come back with. In September Maltas prime minister Joseph Muscat said EU leaders were almost unanimous in wishing the UK would hold a second referendum, though most have held their tongue in public and said the decision is one of the UK. A previous exception is Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who he was very unhappy the UK was leaving and that it would be better maybe to make another referendum. People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Show all 30 1 /30 People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Rex People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young protestor shouts as she takes part in the People's Vote demonstration against Brexit Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A protester's pro-EU t-shirt EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Gina Miller and Caroline Lucas EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Tens of thousands of people march through London EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Demonstrators at the People's Vote March Getty People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal 'Two months too young to decide on my future' REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young girl joins in the march PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal An EU flag is draped across the statue of Winston Chruchill in Parliament Square REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Vince Cable MP, Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller, Tony Robinson and Caroline Lucas MP join with crowds PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Crowds gather on Pall Mall PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A man resembling Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, joins EU supporters Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal People gather in Trafalgar Square REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller and Tony Robinson PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EU supporters, calling on the government to give Britons a vote on the final Brexit deal, participate in the 'People's Vote' march REUTERS Labour has kept the prospect of a second referendum on the table in the event of a no-deal but has said it is committed to respecting the result of the first. The main opposition party looks increasingly likely to vote down what the PM comes back from Brussels, with the emerging deal not meeting its criteria on trade access and safeguarding workers rights. If the deal is voted down the law states that the prime minister must consult MPs on the way forward and give them a vote on what to do. EU member states have warned that a Brexit deal hinges on agreement in Theresa Mays cabinet, as they gathered in Brussels on Monday to be updated on the latest news in talks. Belgian foreign minister Didier Reynders told reporters outside the council meeting the EU was waiting for new news from London, adding: We have time, but not so much. Frances EU affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau echoed the sentiment, telling reporters on the way into the gathering: The ball is in the British court. It is a question of a British political decision. Recommended Brexit timetable in turmoil as May scraps meeting to approve deal Downing Street last week said the cabinet needed more time to come to an agreement despite a long meeting last week. But an emergency session called for today to discuss the deal has been cancelled, suggesting a common UK government position is still some way off. Asked about whether a deal would be struck, Ms Loiseau added: I have no crystal ball unfortunately. We are determined, we are committed to find a good deal. We know that it is better than a no-deal. Speaking on his way into the same meeting Germanys EU affairs minister Michael Roth warned that the clock is ticking. The room for manoeuvre is very much limited and our British friends know exactly where our discussions are, he said. The ball is in the British court. It is a question of a British political decision Nathalie Loiseau, French EU affairs minister Austrian EU affairs minister Gernot Blumel told waiting press there was a certain dynamic in the negotiations, but it is too early to say how we are going to proceed on that. Austria holds the EU councils rotating presidency and has been coordinating meetings between member states and the Europe Commission. Though member states are regularly updated on progress, they are not present at the coal-face of talks with Britain and rely on the commission for information. Member states were updated by commission chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Mondays meeting about the current state of talks, with the prognosis understood to be that there has been no breakthrough. In a statement the council presidency said: The commissions chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, informed the EU27 ministers of the situation following negotiations with the UK over the last few weeks. Michel Barnier explained that intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet. Some key issues remain under discussion, in particular a solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Both sides want a deal in November, with the original October deadline having slipped. The EU has repeatedly said December will be too late to ratify the deal before the UK is set to drop out of the bloc on 29 March 2019. Disagreements in negotiations are centred on the issue of Northern Ireland, and how to prevent a hard border from appearing with the Republic of Ireland after Brexit. Though officials are in a communications tunnel and reliable information is hard to come by, the EU appears to have agreed to British demands to keep the whole UK inside a temporary customs union to help prevent a hard border. Nathalie Loiseau, Frances EU affairs minister, on the doorstep of the meeting (EbS) This UK demand was borne of an unwillingness to see just Northern Ireland kept inside the trade agreement, an approach the Northern Irish unionists who prop up Theresa Mays government have rejected outright as a breach of sovereignty. But Brexiteers in the British cabinet are worried that such a temporary customs union might become permanent if no other solution to the border is found. The UK has therefore also asked for some kind of review mechanism or time-limit to assuage the Tory ministers a demand that is proving difficult to square with the EUs insistence that the backstop must prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland whatever the circumstances. The UK government also signed up to this commitment in writing in December and March. Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures An abandoned shop is seen in Mullan, Co Monaghan. The building was home to four families who left during the Troubles. The town was largely abandoned after the hard border was put in place during the conflict. Mullan has seen some regeneration in recent years, but faces an uncertain future with Brexit on the horizon Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A defaced Welcome to Northern Ireland sign stands on the border in Middletown, Co Armagh Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Mervyn Johnson owns a garage in the border town of Pettigo, which straddles the counties of Donegal and Fermanagh. Ive been here since 1956, it was a bit of a problem for a few years. My premises has been blown up about six or seven times, we just kept building and starting again, Johnson said laughing. We just got used to it [the hard border] really but now that its gone, we wouldn't like it back again Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Farmer Gordon Crocketts Coshquin farm straddles both Derry/Londonderry in the North and Donegal in the Republic. At the minute there is no real problem, you can cross the border as free as you want. We could cross it six or eight times a day, said Crockett. If there was any sort of obstruction it would slow down our work every day Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures John Murphy flies the European flag outside his home near the border village of Forkhill, Co Armagh Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Potter Brenda McGinn stands outside her Mullan, Co Monaghan, studio the former Jas Boylan shoe factory which was the main employer in the area until it shut down due to the Troubles. When I came back, this would have been somewhere you would have driven through and have been quite sad. It was a decrepit looking village, said McGinn, whose Busy Bee Ceramics is one of a handful of enterprises restoring life to the community. Now this is a revitalised, old hidden village Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Union Flag colours painted on kerbstones and bus-stops along the border village of Newbuildings, Co Derry/Londonderry Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Grass reflected in Lattone Lough, which is split by the border between Cavan and Fermanagh, seen from near Ballinacor, Northern Ireland Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Donegalman David McClintock sits in the Border Cafe in the village of Muff, which straddles Donegal and Derry/Londonderry Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures An old Irish phone box stands alongside a bus stop in the border town of Glaslough, Co Monaghan Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Billboards are viewed from inside a disused customs hut in Carrickcarnon, Co Down, on the border with Co Louth in the Republic Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Seamus McQuaid takes packages that locals on the Irish side of the border have delivered to his business, McQuaid Auto-Parts, to save money on postal fees, near the Co Fermanagh village of Newtownbutler. I live in the south but the business is in the North, said McQaid. "I wholesale into the Republic of Ireland so if theres duty, Ill have to set up a company 200 yards up the road to sell to my customers. Ill have to bring the same product in through Dublin instead of Belfast Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A disused Great Northern Railway line and station that was for customs and excise on the border town of Glenfarne, Co Leitrim Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Alice Mullen, from Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland, does her shopping at a former customs post on the border in Middletown, Co Armagh. Id be very worried if it was a hard border, I remember when people were divided. I would be very afraid of the threat to the peace process, it was a dreadful time to live through. Even to go to mass on a Sunday, youd have to go through checkpoints. It is terribly stressful, said Mullen. All those barricades and boundaries were pulled down. I see it as a huge big exercise of trust and I do believe everyone breathed a sigh of relief Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A bus stop and red post box stand in the border town of Jonesborough, Co Armagh Reuters EU officials also want the UK to sign up to a series of level playingfield conditions such as maintaining workers rights and environmental standards if they want to stay inside the customs union, so that EU businesses cannot be undercut by laissez faire practices. These, too, are controversial in the Cabinet, because some right-wing MPs see Brexit as an opportunity to strip out regulations. It is unclear whether the proposed UK-wide backstop would even placate Northern Irish unionists, as it would be unlikely to eliminate all regulatory checks across the Irish sea, notable on animal products. The DUP has said they would not accept such checks and vote against any deal that included them. Even if a deal is struck between negotiators it could be voted down by MPs, with the House of Commons maths currently the matter of intense speculation in both Westminster and Brussels. Close Ex-prime minister Gordon Brown believes there will be a second referendum Downing Street has dismissed reports that a Brexit deal is close, saying any suggestion of an imminent agreement should be taken with "a bucket of salt". It came after claims that Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, had told EU ministers that "the parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined". Earlier, Downing Street revealed that officials had been locked in negotiations until 2.45am on Monday morning as Theresa May scrambles to secure an agreement this week. Close California fire officials give update on Woolsey wildfire The total death toll from wildfires across California has risen to 44, after 13 more people were found dead in what is now the deadliest single fire in state history. The blaze dubbed Camp Fire in northern California has incinerated more than 7,100 homes and businesses - particularly in the town of Paradise. Its death toll exceeds that of the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, the deadliest wildfire on record in California. At least 228 people were still missing, according to Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. Speaking on CNN, Mr Honea said that while he holds out hope that many people listed as missing will turn up safe, given what weve dealt with so far with casualties as a result of this fire, I have concerns that it [the death toll] will rise. Late on Monday, President Donald Trump approved a major disaster declaration for the state, which will allow it to access more federal funds. Mr Trump said he "wanted to respond quickly", although calls for the declaration have been coming for a number of days. Hundreds of thousands of evacuation orders have been issued, while countless residents have shared images online of missing loved ones, begging people to help them find displaced relatives and friends. In southern California, the Woolsey Fire has scorched at least 91,000 acres and destroyed 370 structures. At least two people have died in that fire, and more than 57,000 buildings still at risk. You can find our latest report on the California wildfires here. For more on how the events of Monday unfolded, please see our now-closed live blog, below. Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load residents are posting large numbers of photographs of loved ones and pets online as massive wildfires rip through California - becoming the state's deadliest and most destructive blazes on record. The pictures revealed residents and animals who remained missing after thousands were displaced in wildfires that began last week in the states northern and southern regions, tearing through Malibu and Ventura County, as well as the Camp Fire that killed at least 29 people as of Monday. As the photos went viral over the weekend and into Monday, firefighters continued search and rescue operations for the more than 200 missing victims throughout the state. One Twitter user shared images of three missing family members, including a 96-year-old and his wife who lived in Paradise, California. We know it was burned to the ground, she wrote of the couples home. We have not heard from them since prior to the start of the fire. Others posted photos of grandparents, including an 82-year-old woman still missing after the fire in Paradise, as well as dogs, many of which had been sent to local shelters, where they have reportedly been held for a few days in the hopes their owners will locate them. If not, those animals will likely go up for adoption in the coming weeks. Many of the images shared came from seemingly young Twitter users who were posting photos of their older relatives, many of them grandparents who lacked mobile phones and other forms of communication. Deputies were visiting shelters to look for any missing persons who had been reported by their families, while spotty call service throughout the weekend made it a more difficult feat to locate those who were equipped with cellphones or other methods of contact, the Sacramento Bee reported. Wildfires spread across California in pictures Show all 32 1 /32 Wildfires spread across California in pictures Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle a blaze at the Salvation Army Camp in Malibu Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Flames from the Camp fire burn near a home atop a ridge near Big Bend AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Cathy Fallon (centre) who stayed behind to tend to her horses during the Camp Fire, embraces Shawna De Long (left) and April Smith who brought supplies for the horses Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A helicopter drops flame retardant on a wildfire in Malibu Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures An air tanker drops water on the fire along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures An abandoned car from fleeing residents of Paradise in the Pentz road area EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures A firefighter tackles the fire along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures A Jack In The Box fast food restaurant burns as the Camp fire moves through Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Yuba and Butte County Sheriff officers label a body bag AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters hose down trees on Bell Canyon Road, near Malibu AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A fire burns at the Salvation Army Camp Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A firefighting DC-10 makes a fire retardant drop over a wildfire in the mountains near Malibu Canyon Road AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Bins have melted and ballooned in the heat in Magalia, Butte County EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures Satellite image taken on 8 November shows plumes of smoke from the Camp Fire stretching across portions of Northern California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle the Camp Fire AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle the Woolsey Fire Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures Deputy Coroner Justin Sponhaltz, of the Mariposa County Sheriff's Office, recovers human remains found at a home destroyed by the Camp Fire AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures Buildings burn in Paradise, California EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures Local residents bring their horses to Zuma Beach and away from the Woolsey Fire in Malibu Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A used car dealership burns in Paradise, California Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures Yuba and Butte County Sheriff officers inspect a burned vehicle after discovering remains nearby in Concow AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle the flames in Thousand Oaks Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures Search and rescue teams work to evacuate patients from the burning Feather River Hospital in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Embers blow in the wind in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures In Butte County, the sky is filled with the smoke of the Camp Fire EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters at work in Thousand Oaks Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures The burned remains of a house and car are left after the Camp Fire in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A shop burns in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Many of the missing people had reportedly not been heard from since the start of the fires. Horses dislocated by the blaze were also discovered by firefighters and local residents who battled the fires and later posted photos of the rescued animals to alert their owners of their safety. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Many of the photos quickly went viral on Monday as the focus shifted from battling back the flames to paving a road to recovery. However, things may not be over yet. Reports indicate strong winds may once again pick up over the week, increasing the threat of the fires as firefighters work around the clock to maintain the size and scope of destruction. The sheer scale of destruction caused by wildfires in California has been revealed in satellite images released by Nasa. More than 200 people were still missing on Monday in Californias deadliest and most destructive blaze on record, which is one of two fires raging in the state. At least 31 people have been killed and more than a quarter of a million have been forced to evacuate. A photo of the blaze, named Camp Fire by officials, was captured by the space agencys Landsat 8 on Thursday 8 November, showing a huge plume of smoke rising from the fire hours after it first broke out. The fire is highlighted in the image, and smoke from the blaze can be seen spreading over the town of Paradise. Around 24 hours after the image was taken, the fire had torn through 70,000 acres of land. Nasa Earth Observatory satellite image captured on 9 November, 2018, shows the Camp Fire (top) burning in Paradise, California, while the Hill and Woolsey Fires (bottom) burn in nouthern California (Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory/AFP/Getty Images) Another image from Nasas Terra satellite shows wildfires raging on both sides of the state. In northern California, smoke from the Camp Fire covers the town of Paradise and reaches as far south as San Francisco before drifting over the Pacific Ocean. Smoke from the Hill Fire and Woolsey Fire can also be seen billowing into the sky in southern California before heading out to sea. Wildfires spread across California in pictures Show all 32 1 /32 Wildfires spread across California in pictures Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle a blaze at the Salvation Army Camp in Malibu Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Flames from the Camp fire burn near a home atop a ridge near Big Bend AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Cathy Fallon (centre) who stayed behind to tend to her horses during the Camp Fire, embraces Shawna De Long (left) and April Smith who brought supplies for the horses Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A helicopter drops flame retardant on a wildfire in Malibu Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures An air tanker drops water on the fire along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures An abandoned car from fleeing residents of Paradise in the Pentz road area EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures A firefighter tackles the fire along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures A Jack In The Box fast food restaurant burns as the Camp fire moves through Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Yuba and Butte County Sheriff officers label a body bag AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters hose down trees on Bell Canyon Road, near Malibu AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A fire burns at the Salvation Army Camp Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A firefighting DC-10 makes a fire retardant drop over a wildfire in the mountains near Malibu Canyon Road AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Bins have melted and ballooned in the heat in Magalia, Butte County EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures Satellite image taken on 8 November shows plumes of smoke from the Camp Fire stretching across portions of Northern California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle the Camp Fire AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle the Woolsey Fire Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures Deputy Coroner Justin Sponhaltz, of the Mariposa County Sheriff's Office, recovers human remains found at a home destroyed by the Camp Fire AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures Buildings burn in Paradise, California EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures Local residents bring their horses to Zuma Beach and away from the Woolsey Fire in Malibu Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A used car dealership burns in Paradise, California Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures Yuba and Butte County Sheriff officers inspect a burned vehicle after discovering remains nearby in Concow AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters battle the flames in Thousand Oaks Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures Search and rescue teams work to evacuate patients from the burning Feather River Hospital in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures Embers blow in the wind in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures In Butte County, the sky is filled with the smoke of the Camp Fire EPA Wildfires spread across California in pictures Firefighters at work in Thousand Oaks Reuters Wildfires spread across California in pictures A house burns in Paradise, California AP Wildfires spread across California in pictures The burned remains of a house and car are left after the Camp Fire in Paradise, California AFP/Getty Wildfires spread across California in pictures A shop burns in Paradise, California AFP/Getty The death toll from the wildfires rose to 31 on Sunday, after six more people were found dead. The Camp Fire has claimed at least 29 lives since it broke out on Thursday, while at least two people have died in the Woolsey Fire threatening the wealthy beach community of Malibu, near Los Angeles. More than 6,700 homes and businesses in Paradise have been burned down by the Camp Fire, more structures than any other California wildfire on record. The Woolsey Fire has scorched at least 83,275 acres and was only 10 per cent contained. Butte county wildfire destroys buildings in California Around 228 people are still unaccounted for, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told reporters on Sunday evening. New York City is preparing for a uniquely challenging trial for alleged Mexican drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, with security concerns necessitating a police effort unseen in decades if ever to maintain order while protecting witnesses, New Yorkers and the defendant himself. Guzmans trial is set to begin on Tuesday in Brooklyn, where he faces a 17 count indictment that covers nearly three decades of alleged criminal activities. Those charges include crimes related to the building of a multibillion-dollar narcotics empire including murder, violence and physical intimidation. Guzman, 61, has pleaded not guilty to all charges. New El Chapo video released by Mexican government shows drug kingpin getting his mugshot taken Police say the trial is perhaps the most high risk in the city since the one two decades ago of the individuals who planned and carried out the 1993 World Trade Centre bombings. Guzman, before extradition to the US last year from Mexico, had successfully escaped from two maximum security prisons. One of those escapes included crawling through an elaborate tunnel that had been built to run right up to his cell. In some ways, this case is unprecedented, US district judge Brian M Cogan wrote recently. The amount of public attention has been extraordinary. Guzman considered by some to be the most feared man in the world and called the most powerful drug trafficker in the world has been accused of trafficking more than 440,000 pounds of cocaine while maintaining power over the massive Sinaloa Cartel through any means necessary, including murders, kidnappings and torture in some cases. Inside Mexicos top drug lord El Chapos hideout Show all 4 1 /4 Inside Mexicos top drug lord El Chapos hideout Inside Mexicos top drug lord El Chapos hideout Inside El Chapo's hideout Pictures reveal how the Mexican drug lord had been living since his escape Getty Inside Mexicos top drug lord El Chapos hideout Inside El Chapo's hideout The inside of a house searched by marine special forces where Guzman was hiding Getty Inside Mexicos top drug lord El Chapos hideout Inside El Chapo's hideout Inside a house searched by marine special forces during the military operation to recapture Guzman Getty Inside Mexicos top drug lord El Chapos hideout El Chapo's attempted escape A marine stands guard next to a manhole of the sewer system through which drug kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman tried to escape Getty His trial is expected to last four months, and the 12 juror panel that will be considering the mountains of evidence the prosecution plans on presenting was cut down from nearly 1,000 potential panellists. Prospective jurors were asked whether or not they know who Guzman is, whether they have looked him up on the internet or watched the coverage of the man in television dramas. Almost all of them said they knew of Guzman but could remain impartial. The US federal government is hoping to use those hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence alongside more than 100,000 audio recordings to seize as much as $14bn in assets from the accused drug lord, while keeping the man in prison for the rest of his life. Guzmans lawyer, Eduardo Balarezo, confirmed that his client has no plans to reach a deal with the feds. "Joaquin is not interested in pleading guilty, cooperating with the government or seeking any benefit in exchange for his testimony as as have all the cooperators who will testify against him at trial," Mr Balarezo told The Independent when reached by email for comment. "The government saw fit to charge him in the United States, now they have to prove it. Its time to put up or shut up". In jail, Guzman is said to have behaved well and mostly kept to himself since he was transferred into the United States earlier this year. He had escaped prison a number of times in Mexico, the last in July 2015, before he was recaptured in 2016. Guzman is perceived by some as a hero, with many narcocorridos (drug ballads) that glorify kingpins written in his honour. Beyond New York, Guzman faces charges in 10 legal cases in Mexico, as well as federal charges in Arizona, California, Texas, Illinois, Florida and New Hampshire. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events It is unclear what defence strategy may be used in Mr Guzmans trial in New York, but it has previously been asserted that the government witnesses cannot be trusted and that Guzman was not as high up in the Sinaloa drug cartel as the government says. The case provides further complications than just security concerns in New York, and prosecutors will reportedly need to tread lightly as they make their case against Guzman in order to protect sensitive information about how American intelligence operations work with relation to the cartels. Ahead of the trial, high-tech scanners were installed in the federal courthouse in Brooklyn where Guzman will have his day in court. The defendant himself will be held in a specially designed cell within the courthouse itself, so that officials will no longer need to transport him from his current downtown holding facility in Manhattan. Bomb-sniffing dogs are also expected to patrol the area outside of the courthouse, and entire blocks will be closed off on some days during the trial. Hillary Clinton is all but certain to run for the White House again in 2020, according to a former aide. Mark Penn said the Democrat had an unfinished mission to be the first female president and a personal grievance against Donald Trump, who vowed to imprison her before emerging victorious in the 2016 vote. She will not allow this humiliating loss at the hands of an amateur to end the story of her career, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal article co-authored by former Democrat politician Andrew Stein. Mr Penn was a senior aide to Ms Clinton and her husband Bill from 1995 to 2008 and was chief strategist for her failed campaign for the Democratic nomination a decade ago. Ms Clinton has previously insisted she would not seek to run again, although last month she appeared to hint at a change of stance, admitting: Id like to be president. Mr Penn and Mr Stein said the former secretary of state has had two years to go over what she did wrong in 2016 and would come out swinging with a strategy for defeating Mr Trump. You can expect her to run for president once again, they wrote. Maybe not at first, when the legions of Senate Democrats make their announcements, but definitely by the time the primaries are in full swing. Ms Clinton would reinvent herself as a liberal firebrand to easily capture the Democratic nomination, Mr Penn and Mr Stein predicted. She will hope to emerge as an unstoppable force to undo Mr Trump, running on the #MeToo movement, universal health care and gun control, they wrote. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Long-time confidants of Ms Clinton poured hot water on the prediction she would run again in two years. Shes more likely to win Powerball, Philippe Reines, her former adviser, told The Hill. But Mr Penn and Mr Stein said: Dont pay much attention to the I wont run declarations. Mrs Clinton knows both Mr Clinton and Mr Obama declared they werent running, until they ran. Kellyanne Conway, one of Donald Trumps most senior advisers, mocked the idea of Ms Clintons comeback. Dear God, please, yes, she tweeted with a link to the story. An official recount has begun in Broward County, Florida, amid some of the Sunshine States most highly-contested races since the 2000 presidential fiasco. The Democrat-leaning county began counting about 700,000 ballots Sunday after the recount was reportedly delayed because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. The Republican Party attacked Browards supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, for incompetence and gross mismanagement following the delay, which was resolved within two hours. Recommended Florida to hold recount of US Senate and governor votes The heavily Democratic county is one of two where Republicans have made allegations of possible ballot fraud. State elections and law enforcement officials say they have seen no evidence suggesting the allegations are true. Broward officials said they mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected, mostly because the signature on the return envelope did not match the one on file. It is a problem that appears impossible to fix because the ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots. Ms Snipes said it would be unfair to throw out all the ballots. The Florida secretary of state ordered the recounts on Saturday. The count must be completed by Thursday. Unofficial results show that Republican Ron DeSantis led Democrat Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 per cent. In the Senate race, Republican Governor Rick Scotts lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 per cent. The recount in most other major population centres, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, was ongoing without incident on Sunday. Smaller counties are expected to begin their reviews on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. All counties face a Thursday afternoon deadline to complete the recount. The reviews are an unprecedented step in Florida, a state that is notorious for election results decided by the thinnest of margins. State officials said they weren't aware of any other time either a race for governor or US Senate in Florida required a recount, let alone both in the same election. US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Show all 20 1 /20 US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Democratic candidate Ilhan Omar is celebrates with her husband's mother after she won a congress place, becoming the first Muslim woman to be elected into congress alongside Rashida Tlaib Reuters US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Democratic House candidate, from Kansas, Sharice Davids (left) and her mom Crystal celebrate after she won. Davids is the first lesbian Native American Congresswoman by beating Republican incumbent Kevin Yoder. Davids is one of several first-time female candidates that helped the Democratic Party takeover in the House of Representatives EPA US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Republican Marsha Blackburn celebrates after winning the race for senate in Tennessee. In doing so she became that states first female senator AP US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Supporters of Democratic House candidate Sharice Davids cheer and cry after learning she won EPA US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Ayanna Pressley beaome Massachusetts first black congresswoman by defeating 10-term Republican Michael Capuano AFP/Getty US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Republican candidate Young Kim has become the first Korean-American woman elected to Congress AP US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Democrat Jared Polis won his seat and became the USs first ever openly gay governor AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post via AP US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Jean Kasselman (left) and Teresa Booker, supporters of Democratic candidate for Kansas' 3rd Congressional District Sharice Davids, react to election results Getty US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Republican Kristi Noem hugs a supporter after being announced as the new governor of South Dakota. Noem made history by being the first female governor of the state AP US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Gabierla Martinez and Cesar Delgado cheer on Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jared Polis REUTERS US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest women ever elected to Congress, representing New Yorks 14th congressional district AFP/Getty US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Democratic congressional candidate Rashida Tlaib celebrates with family and friends at her midterm election night party in Detroit after won and also became the nations first Muslim woman to congress alongside Ilhan Omar who was also elected Reuters US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Supporters of Democratic candidate for Kansas' 3rd Congressional District Sharice Davids react to election results Getty US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Already having become the first Native American woman to chair a state political party, Deb Haaland has now become the joint-first Native American woman to be elected to congress, alongside Sharice Davids Reuters US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Supporters of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cheer during her election night party in the Queens Borough AFP/Getty US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Young Kim hugs her son Alvin after she won a seat in congress AP US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Supporters of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cheer AFP/Getty Images US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Asma Mohammed and Ashley Fairbanks celebrate as results come in at Democratic congressional candidate Ilhan Omar's election night headquarters AP US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Democrat Deb Haaland hugs a voter REUTERS US midterm results: more diverse, more female and more progressive Supporters of Democratic House candidate from Kansas Sharice Davids cheer and cry after learning she won her race EPA State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 per cent. Once completed, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 per cent or below, a hand recount will be ordered. As the recount unfolded, Republicans urged their Democratic opponents to give up and allow the state to move on. Mr Scott said Sunday that Mr Nelson wants fraudulent ballots and those cast by non-citizens to count, pointing to a Mr Nelson lawyer objecting to Palm Beach Countys rejection of one provisional ballot because it was cast by a noncitizen. He is trying to commit fraud to win this election, Mr Scott told Fox News. Bill Nelsons a sore loser. Hes been in politics way too long. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Nelsons campaign issued a statement Sunday saying their lawyer was not authorised to object to the ballots rejection as non-citizens cannot vote in US elections". Meanwhile, Mr Gillum and Mr Nelson have argued each vote should be counted and the process allowed to take its course. Both the state elections division, which Mr Scott runs, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have said they have found no evidence of voter fraud. Reporting contributed by AP Pakistans government is attempting to counter rumours surrounding the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was acquitted of blasphemy charges after spending eight years on death row. Officials said that images which purportedly show her leaving the country are fake. Fawad Chaudhry, the countrys information minister, criticised the photos on Monday. The images have spread across social media networks in Pakistan. One of the photographs claims to show Ms Bibi meeting Pope Francis, but it is actually an image of her daughter that was taken two years ago. Ms Bibi was arrested in 2009 on charges of insulting Islams prophet, Muhammad, before she was later sentenced to death in 2010. The decision by Pakistans supreme court to free her has triggered protests throughout the South Asian nation. Supporters of an Islamist group gather during a protest against the release of Asia Bibi (AFP/Getty) Public anger over the acquittal has sparked a crisis for Pakistans government, as hardline Islamists call for Ms Bibis execution. They have also filed a petition to repeal the acquittal. Rumours about Ms Bibi leaving Pakistan have only inflamed tensions further. Ashiq Masih, the former inmates husband, earlier called on the UK to grant the family asylum, amid fears for their safety. Authorities in Pakistan said last month that they arrested two prisoners for allegedly conspiring to strangle Ms Bibi while she was still incarcerated. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Pakistans government said that Ms Bibi remains in the country at a secret location for her own protection where she will stay until the review into her acquittal is finished. Additional reporting by agencies The Chinese air force has displayed its new J-20 stealth fighter jet missiles for the first time, as US concerns grow about Beijing's ambitions to assert control over the South China Sea. Two J-20 jets flew over large crowds at the biennial Zuhai Airshow on Sunday to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) air force. During the flypast, the two jets opened their missile bay doors, revealing the four long-range missiles mounted inside. Two missiles were also mounted under the jets' wings. Chinese newspaper the Global Times reported that the demonstration displayed the J-20's "superiority" over the top US fighter jets, the F-22 and F-35, and the PLA's "growing confidence". In a post on the PLA's English language website earlier this year, Chinese military expert Song Zongping said the J-20 jet will "engage with rivals in the future who dare to provoke China in the air". The post said that the arrival of the J-20 would change the balance of air power in the Asia-Pacific region. "In the past, only the US and its allies like Japan were capable of arming stealth fighter jets," the post reads. "But now, their monopoly in this region has been broken by China's J-20." The J-20 stealth fighter jets missiles are shown for the first time at the Zhuhai Airshow (REUTERS/CHINA STRINGER NETWORK) The public display of the J-20 jet missiles comes after US officials urged China to halt their militarisation of the South China Sea during talks in Washington on Friday. In return, China demanded that the US stop sending ships and military aircraft close to islands claimed by Beijing in the disputed territory. The talks have been organised to prepare for a meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping at the end of the month in a bid to ease trade tensions between the two countries. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Washington has imposed tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods this year, with Beijing responding in kind. Most recently, Mr Trump imposed sanctions on $200bn (153bn) worth of Chinese goods, including handbags and bicycle tyres, while China retaliated by imposing levies on US goods including soybeans. Additional reporting by Reuters North Korean state media have accused the US and South Korea of violating a recent agreement to work towards peace by carrying out small-scale military drills. In the latest blow to progress in denuclearisation talks between Washington and Pyongyang, the Rodong Sinmun said the exercises were in breach of a joint statement, signed on 19 September by both North and South Korea, to halt all hostile acts. Donald Trump had declared the suspension of all joint military drills with South Korea following his warm summit with Kim Jong-un in Singapore in June. It was seen as a major coup for North Korea, which sees the exercises as a threat. But relations have since cooled, and last week 500 US and South Korean marines began a set of drills that were among those suspended after the Singapore talks. The two-week drills are directly against the inter-Korean military agreement that promised to eliminate practical threats of war and fundamental hostile relations from the Korean peninsula, an editorial in the official North Korean ruling partys newspaper said. Major war games also took place last week involving the American, Canadian and Japanese navies, the largest such exercises ever carried out in and around Japan. These were also mentioned in the Rodong Sinmun criticism, which called it an anachronistic military move to openly hold war drills aimed at others while the United States naval forces residing in Japan are also participating. A spokesman for South Koreas defence ministry dismissed the editorial, saying they were defensive exercises involving small units under the size of a battalion. But the row comes less than a week after North Korea called off a planned meeting between senior officials and the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, in New York. US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said North Korea cancelled the meeting because they werent ready. But a BBC report suggested the White House only found out the meeting wouldnt be going ahead when the North Korean officials failed to make their flights out of Pyongyang. The scrapped talks were mentioned for the first time in North Korean media on Saturday, when an editorial on the Choson Sinbo website repeated warnings that the country could reverse its paused nuclear weapons development if the US does not make more concessions. If relations between Washington and Pyongyang continued to flounder, there was better news on Monday for diplomatic efforts to advance inter-Korean cooperation. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events South Korean officials said they had begun airlifting some 200 tonnes of tangerines from the southern island of Jeju to North Korea, with the transfer expected to be completed by the end of the afternoon. The tangerines are being given to Pyongyang in return for the Norths gift of around 2 tonnes of pine mushrooms following the successful talks in September. While Jeju is famed for its tangerine orchards, the pine mushroom is considered a delicacy across both Koreas and elsewhere in Asia, and are one of the Norths most prized regional products. North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary Show all 18 1 /18 North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary Participants wave flowers AFP/Getty North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (R) waves with China's Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Li Zhanshu (L) from a balcony AFP/Getty North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary Airplanes forming the number 70 fly in formation and fire flares AP North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary North Korean performers dance EPA North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary North Korean military officers applaud near portraits of late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il AP North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary North Korean tanks roll past AP North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary AP North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary Korean People's Army (KPA) soldiers take part AFP/Getty North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary Korean People's Army (KPA) soldiers march AFP/Getty North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary Participants march during a mass rally on Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang AFP/Getty North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary A girl reacts during a parade AP North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, reacts as he chats with China's third highest ranking official, Li Zhanshu AP North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary People carry flags in front of statues of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung (L) and late leader Kim Jong Il Reuters North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary Performers take part in a concert at the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium AFP/Getty North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary North Korean artillery roll past AP North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary Students perform Reuters North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary Soldiers march during a military parade Reuters North Korea military parade celebrating nation's 70th anniversary Participants wave flowers AFP/Getty Separately, South Koreas Unification Ministry said on Monday that it had approved a visit by seven North Koreans to attend an academic forum in South Korea later this week. And Seoul announced on Saturday that the two Koreas had finished withdrawing troops and firearms from some of their front-line guard posts as part of their agreements to lower military tensions between the countries. The Koreas have halted military exercises along their border and have been clearing mines from a border area to conduct their first-ever joint search for the Korean War dead. Additional reporting by agencies A homeless man who used a shopping trolley to fend off a knife-wielding terror attacker in Australia has been hailed a hero. Michael Rogers, nicknamed Trolley Man, jumped into action as Hassan Khalif Shire Ali lunged at police in a busy shopping area in Melbourne. Footage posted to Twitter shows his valiant attempt to assist police in their capture as the attack unfolded during rush hour. Donations totalling thousands of pounds have poured in for the 46-year-old rough sleeper after grateful members of the pubic started an online fundraiser for him. "Our hero is humble as can be and had no idea about this fundraiser," the GoFundMe page reads. "He is amazing. We believe his efforts deserve a reward that can really help him out." It adds: "He risked his own life that day for nothing in return and you cant put a price on that." The fundraiser, started by registered charity Melbourne Homeless Collective, has already raised more than A$125,000 (69,000) for the brave bystander. However, Mr Rogers insisted he was no hero but simply acted on instinct. I threw the trolley straight at him, and I got him. I didn't quite get him down, though. I'm no hero," he told Channel Seven. Michael Rogers intervenes as Police attempt to capture a terror attacker in Melbourne (Twitter/@fayfayang) I did that motion quite a number of times and it just was not getting him down. The guy was out of control so I just went into action mode and tried to swipe him with the trolley." Mr Rogers also told Age newspaper he had been on the wrong side of the law and had a long history of drug use. He revealed that he had been "in and out of jail" for some 20 years, which including a five-year stint in prison for aggravated burglary. Khalif Shire Ali, 31, was shot after confronting officers on the street, authorities said. He had already stabbed three people, one fatally, in the attack. Melbourne knife attack Show all 9 1 /9 Melbourne knife attack Melbourne knife attack The body of the person stabbed to death during the attack lies underneath a white cover EPA Melbourne knife attack There was a huge police presence in Melbourne's city centre Reuters Melbourne knife attack Officers cordon off the scene AFP Melbourne knife attack Victoria Police Superintendent David Clayton speaks to members of the media REUTERS Melbourne knife attack A screenshot of a video of the man attacking police officers with a knife EPA Melbourne knife attack Police in Melbourne shoot a man who was attacking them with a knife Twitter/@fayfayang Melbourne knife attack There was a huge police presence in Melbourne's city centre Reuters Melbourne knife attack The burned out shell of the knife attacker's car AFP Melbourne knife attack Reuters The owner of Pellegrinis cafe on Bourke Street, Sisto Malaspina,74, was identified as the person who died from his stab wounds. Police believe Somali-born Khalif Shire Ali was radicalised and inspired by Isis. Although his passport was cancelled in 2015 after he made plans to travel to Syria, he was not being actively monitored before the attack. While Mr Rogers won praise from the community, Victorian Police commissioner Graham Ashton said his intervention could have had tragic consequences. I don't like to criticize people in that situation, he's acting instinctively about what he's looking at in front of him," he said. "But if a trolley had hit a police member and knocked him over and then this offender got on top of him, we could have had a tragic consequence. An Australian woman who allegedly contaminated batches of strawberries with needles has been accused in court of acting out of spite. The crime sparked panic across the country in September, causing one of Australia's biggest food scares and forcing distributors to issue devastating recalls. Prosecutors are alleging that My Ut Trinh was "motivated by spite or revenge" and retaliated over a workplace grievance by placing needles in fruit. Recommended Police charge woman over strawberries spiked with needles The 50-year-old was working as a supervisor of fruit pickers at the Berrylicious strawberry farm near Caboolture, north of Brisbane, when she allegedly inserted needles into the fruit between 2 and 5 September, the Brisbane Magistrates Court was told. Magistrate Christine Roney said that she would not consider granting Ms Trinh bail until the reasons for her actions became clearer. Cheryl Tesch, a prosecutor, said that it would be alleged in court that DNA matching Ms Trinh's was found on one of the needles discovered in a strawberry. The crime did not cause any severe injuries but was investigated by authorities in all six of Australia's states and in neighbouring New Zealand. Australia's multimillion-dollar strawberry industry suffered major losses as fruit was recalled from supermarkets and destroyed. A reward of $100,000 (56,000) was offered for information at the height of the crisis. Recommended Australia launches probe into needles hidden in strawberries Overall 230 incidents were reported across the nation, affecting 68 strawberry brands, according to Jon Wackers, the State Crime Command Superintendent. Australia's Queensland state was particularly badly hit with 77 reported incidents, out of which 15 were later reported to be hoaxes or false complaints. Michael Cridland, Ms Trinh's lawyer, withdrew a bail application but said his client was not an "unacceptable flight risk." Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events She was remanded in custody until 22 November. If convicted she could face up to 10 years in jail. A police investigation into the broader crisis continues. Additional reporting by agencies Angela Merkel took a break from global affairs at the centenary of the end of World War One to clear up a case of mistaken identity. The Germany chancellor was confused with Emmanuel Macrons wife Brigitte Macron by a 101-year-old woman after she joined the French leader at a ceremony to commemorate the 1918 armistice. The interaction, captured by French.TV.info, saw the two heads of state chatting with the French pensioner as they met members of the public following the ceremony. Mr Macron, its not possible, a little woman like me shaking hands with the President of the Republic, its fantastic, she said to Mr Macron. She then turned to Angela Merkel and addressed her as Madame Macron. Taken aback by the mix-up, Ms Merkel leaned towards the woman to properly introduce herself and set the record straight. I am Germanys chancellor, she explained, twice, in French. The centenarian did not visibly react to the new information, but continued to smile, saying its fantastic. Earlier in the day, Ms Merkel and Mr Macron unveiled a plaque to Franco-German reconciliation, laid a wreath and signed a book of remembrance in a replica railway carriage. Mr Macron, 40, is married to 65-year-old Brigitte Marie-Claude Trogneux-Macron, who met him when she was a teacher at the school where he was a student. The French army has joined the outpouring of criticism over Donald Trumps decision to cancel a visit to a First World War cemetery because of poor weather, after posting a tweet mocking the president. A post on the armys official Twitter account shows a soldier crawling on the ground in the rain, accompanied by the caption: #MondayMotivation. Theres rain but its not serious. Were staying motivated. In response to the tweet, many users added to the ridicule of Mr Trump. Our courageux president is ready for your obstacle...as soon as it stops raining! one person wrote. Spectacular shade, another added. The ridicule comes after French President Emmanuel Macron called for the creation of a true European army to defend itself against threats ranging from Vladimir Putin to the US under Mr Trump. The American president was scheduled to lay a wreath and observe a moment of silence on Saturday at Aisne-Marne American cemetery in the village of Belleau, but called off his appearance due to rain. The White House said poor visibility had grounded the presidential helicopter and Mr Trump didnt want to drive to the cemetery because it would have disrupted traffic in Paris. The US presidents decision sparked condemnation in both Europe and the US. Nicholas Soames, a grandson of Sir Winston Churchill and Conservative MP for Mid Sussex, led the criticism, branding the president a pathetic inadequate. They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldnt even defy the weather to pay his respects to The Fallen, he wrote on Twitter. David Frum, a former speech writer for President George W Bush, tweeted that Mr Trump had shirked on grounds of weather the job of honouring those who fought and died in rain and mud. Others on social media compared Mr Trump with his predecessors efforts in the rain, posting images of Mr Obama speaking during downpours. Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser under Barack Obama when he was president, said the White Houses explanation for the cancelled visit made little sense. I helped plan all of President Obamas trips for 8 years, he wrote on Twitter. There is always a rain option. Always. A handful of senior administration officials, including White House chief of staff John Kelly, attended Belleau without Mr Trump. Instead, the president appeared at a different ceremony on Sunday at Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial in Paris where more than 1,500 Americans who died in the war are buried. Deadly fighting has erupted between Israel and Gaza, sparking fears of a new war, the day after seven Palestinians and a senior ranking Israeli officer were killed in a firefight during a botched Israeli raid in the south of the Strip. Monday evening Israeli aircraft and tanks pounded over 70 targets in the besieged enclave including Hamas's Al-Aqsa television building, killing at least three Palestinians, two of whom were militants. The retaliatory strikes came as Gaza fighters pummelled southern Israel with over 300 rockets, injuring at least 10 Israelis. Earlier in the afternoon anti-tank fire from Gaza hit a bus seriously wounding a 19-year-old Israeli soldier who is in a critical condition. The sudden flare-up in violence came after Israel confirmed an Israeli soldier killed Sunday night during a special forces raid in Gaza was the highest ranking Israeli officer to die in the besieged enclave since the 2014 war. The Israelis identified the slain officer as Lieutenant-Colonel M, Israeli media said he was a 41-year-old father-of-two from North Israel. His funeral was held on Monday. Recommended Israelis kill six Palestinians including Hamas commanders during raid Officials in Hamas, the militant group that runs the besieged strip, described Israel's Sunday night mission as a botched intelligence raid and confirmed two of its commanders had been killed. On Monday the group's armed wing the Qassam Brigades vowed to respond. "The joint command of Palestinian factions announce the beginning of bombardment of the enemy's settlements with scores of rockets," the fighters said shorty before launching a volley of rockets. The Israeli army, meanwhile, promised a tough response saying Hamas will "bear the consequences for its actions". Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said that they had boosted forces near the Gaza border with additional infantry troops, defensive systems and intelligence units. He said Hamas was "bringing destruction upon the Gaza Strip." As the violence escalated the United Nations said it was working with Egypt "to ensure that Gaza steps back from the brink." The office of the UN's Middle East envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, called for an end to rocket fire, and restraint "by all." The renewed fighting threatens to scupper a tentative Egypt-brokered peace deal between Israel and Gaza that was making some headway in recent weeks. Just hours before Sunday's disastrous raid, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given a lengthy speech in Paris defending Israelis decision to allow Qatar to deliver $15 million to Hamas to pay salaries. In exchange, Hamas scaled back its weekly demonstrations along the Israeli border. Both sides had been pushed to the brink of war this summer after tens of thousands of Gaza residents have marched towards Israel every Friday since March demanding the right to return to their ancestral lands, which they were forced from or fled during the 1948 conflict which surrounded the creation of Israel. Some have launched incendiary kites and balloons tied with explosives at southern Israeli lands. The Israeli military responded with live fire, killing more than 218 Palestinians. Facing mounting criticism from aid groups and the United Nations, Israel defended its actions saying that protesters had been violent and attempted to break the border fences. However, the last two weeks of Friday protests had been fairly quiet, as Hamas had apparently kept its promise to rein in the violence. Palestinians gather around the remains of a vehicle that was destroyed in an Israeli air strike, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip (REUTERS/Suhaib Salem) Hamas officials told The Independent they believed Sunday's incident to be a botched top-level intelligence-gathering operation by the Israeli unit, which was operating two miles into Gaza in the eastern areas of Khan Younis when they encountered Hamas fighters at a checkpoint. In the ensuing firefight, six Palestinians including two regional Hamas commanders, named as Nour Baraka and his deputy Mohammad Al-Qarra, were killed alongside the Israeli officer. Residents of Khan Younis reported a wave of Israeli airstrikes shortly after the killings. Hamas sources said the sorties "destroyed evidence" of the mission and provided cover to allow the Israelis to return home. Speaking to The Independent, the Israeli army declined to elaborate on the nature of Sunday's mission or whether it had gone wrong. They did, however, deny earlier reports that the operation was intended to kill or abduct militants in Gaza and instead said it was intended to strengthen Israeli security. Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot, Chief of the General Staff called it a "very meaningful operation to Israel's security" and said Israeli forces "fought a brave battle calmly and heroically. Mourners carry the body of Palestinian Khaled Qwaider, who was killed in an Israeli air strike, during his funeral, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip (REUTERS/Suhaib Salem) Another senior Hamas official, briefed on the incident, told The Independent that the vehicle used by the Israeli forces was a civilian car, likely sourced in Gaza, that was fitted out with high-tech surveillance equipment pointing to a "top-level intelligence-gathering operation". It would not be in their interests to kidnap Nour Baraka, he is not senior enough. They also wouldnt risk the lives of high-ranking officers to assassinate him like that they could take him out with a drone strike, the Hamas source said. It was clear someone from the Palestinian side had helped them, and the Volkswagen had been prepared especially before the special forces entered Gaza. [The Israelis] bombed Khan Younis to provide cover but also to erase the leads, he claimed. Rockets fired by Palestinian militants towards Israel are seen in Gaza (REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot) The Israeli military declined to comment on these revelations. The army requested that the press and the public "refrain from publishing additional information" regarding Sunday's incident, directing them to official army statements. Many, however, have questioned the timing of the raid given that it occurred as both sides were on the cusp of signing a long-term ceasefire deal. Amos Harel, an Israeli correspondent for left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, noted that the incident came just hours after Prime Minister Netanyahu explained in a lengthy and fairly convincing speech about why he thought every effort should be expended to reach an agreement in Gaza and not go to war. Harel also speculated whether it was an intelligence-gathering operation related to Hamass military infrastructure which went wrong. It is indeed hard to believe that under these circumstances, the political echelon would approve an assassination of a medium-ranked operative in the Hamas military wing, when the gain of such an operation is unclear. Netanyahu is too invested in efforts to reach a deal with Hamas to enable such a move, he wrote. Netanyahu cut short a trip to Paris Sunday night and flew back to Israel after the incident. Two Hamas commanders were among six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during a raid in southern Gaza, sparking a dramatic uptick in violence that many fear could push the two sides to the brink of another war. Officials within Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza, told The Independent that two of its brigade commanders were shot dead after coming under fire by Israeli special forces during an alleged abduction attempt in the southern district of Khan Younis. Gaza medical officials said that in total six were killed and six were injured. An Israeli soldier also died during the operation. The Israeli army declined to comment on the details of the raid but confirmed there was an exchange of fire during operational activity in the Gaza strip. "An IDF officer was killed and an additional officer was moderately injured," they said in a statement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short his visit to Paris to return home to Israel after the flare-up. Speaking to The Independent Hamas officials named the deceased as local brigade commander Nour Baraka, and Mohammad Al-Qarra, who is believed to be his deputy. On Sunday night residents of Khan Younis reported dozens of airstrikes by Israeli fighter jets and attack helicopters in the area. Because of ceasefire operations, ground forces commanders, believing there to be calm, visited checkpoints in Khan Younis on Sunday night. They were attacked by Israelis special forces in a car inside Gaza that opened fire directly at the commander and others, the official said. Nearby checkpoints opened fire, and in the exchange of fire with the Israelis six [Palestinians] were killed. We have unconfirmed reports that two Israeli soldiers were also killed. Another Hamas official told The Independent Nour Baraka was just three kilometres away from the border when Israeli forces attempted to abduct him but killed him during the raid. The official added: The Israeli forces then tried to escape near to Khuzaa [a town in khan Younis]. There was an exchange of fire with the other checkpoints in the area, after that the Israelis launched a massive bombardment on Khan Younis to guarantee the safety of its forces. Israeli military denied earlier reports that any of its soldiers had been captured but would not confirm or deny whether any soldiers had been killed. The military also declined to elaborate any further about Sundays incident. There was an exchange of fire earlier this evening during operation activity of the IDF [Israeli army] on the Gaza Strip No IDF soldiers were abducted, an Israeli army spokeswoman said. She added that air raid sirens warning of incoming rocket fire from Gaza sounded in southern Israel near to the enclave. Sundays sudden outburst of violence was a dramatic turnaround, after a week of relative calm as Egypt-brokered negotiations for a permanent ceasefire had been making headway. The two sides have stumbled towards the brink of war this summer in part because of eight months of protests in Gaza near the fence with Israel. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have marched on the border every Friday demanding the right to return to their ancestral lands now in Israel they were forced from or fled during the 1948 creation of Israel. Some have launched incendiary kites and balloons tied with explosives at southern Israeli lands. The Israeli military responded with live fire, killing more than 218 Palestinians, a response UN General Assembly in June called "excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate. (AP (AP) Israel has defended its actions saying the protesters are violent and repeatedly tried to breach the fence. A Palestinian sniper killed Israeli soldier Staff Sergeant Aviv Levi, 21, in July. However last week, amid reports a peace deal was being tabled, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver $15m (12m) in aid to Gaza's cash-strapped rulers in order to pay their government workers and agreed to expand fishing lanes from three to nine nautical miles. Hamas responded by lowering the intensity of its Friday's border protest. For the second week in a row there were fewer burning tyres and fewer attempts to breach the border fence. But hopes of a speedy peace settlement were destroyed with Sundays killings. Residents of Khan Younis said shortly after the incident occurred over 40 missiles in the area where the incident took place. After 9pm we started hearing gunfire then explosions, and missiles from an F16 plane. We saw two apache helicopters as well firing live ammunition, Mohamed, 28, a father-of-two told The Independent. Palestinian mourners carry the bodies, draped in their national flag, of two of the three teenagers who were killed in an Israeli strike during their funeral in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip Photo: MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images) He added that earlier that evening they noticed an unusually high level of Israeli surveillance drones circling the area. We were so scared because of his intensity of the bombing me and my children have been hiding in the centre of our house. After 9pm we started hearing gunfire then explosions, and missiles from an F16 plane. We were so scared because of his intensity of the bombing Mohamed, 27, father-of-two In Israel, rocket sirens continued to sound late into the evening. A spokesman for Israel's Airport's Authority said some flight landings and departures have been changed at the country's international airport amid the violence. Canadas prime minister confirmed on Monday that officials of his government had listened to audio recordings capturing the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi agents in Istanbul last month. Speaking to reporters in Paris, Justin Trudeau said he himself had not heard any recordings but that members of Canadas intelligence services had listened to them. It was the first public confirmation of the claim by Turkeys president Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Ankara had shared audio of the killing with world governments. Canadas intelligence agencies have been working very closely on this issue with Turkish intelligence and Canada has been fully briefed on what Turkey had to share, Mr Trudeau said at a press conference in Paris. We continue to be engaged with our allies on the investigation into accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and we are in discussions with our like-minded allies as to the next steps toward Saudi Arabia. The UKs foreign minister Jeremy Hunt travelled to Riyadh on Monday, claiming he was planning to demand answers about Mr Khashoggi and to pressure for an end to the three-and-a-half year Saudi-led war in Yemen. But he refrained from disclosing when and for what reason the trip was planned, or what if any commercial matters he would also discuss with Saudi counterparts. On his arrival, Saudi Arabias official news agency said the two countries reviewed historical relations, the latest developments, and joint action in combating extremism and terrorism. Ottawa and Riyadh fell out in the summer after Canadas foreign minister tweeted support for a Saudi human rights activist. Saudi booted Canadas ambassador, downgraded trade ties, and even ordered students and patients studying in Canada back home in what some analysts consider one in a series of reckless actions by the Riyadhs Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the 33-year-old heir to the throne. Recommended Turkey hands recordings of Jamal Khashoggi murder to Saudis and UK Germany, too, on Monday confirmed intelligence sharing with Turkey over the Khashoggi matter. There was an exchange of information in the field of intelligence, government spokesman Steffen Siebert told reports, demurring on whether that included the sharing of the audio tape. Mr Erdogan said on Saturday that he had shared the audio with Saudi Arabia, the UK, the US, Germany and France, although French foreign minister Jean Yves Le Drian claimed on Monday that Paris was not in possession of the audio, and he refused to say in a radio interview whether French intelligence operatives had listened to the audio, accusing President Erdogan of playing political games. Fahrettin Altun, spokesman for the Turkish president, rejected the French comments as unacceptable and contrary to facts, specifying that a representative of the French intelligence services listened to the audio recording on 24 October and was also handed a transcript. UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt meets with Saudi King Salman in Riyadh. (SPA) Foreign minister Mr Le Drian brokered massive weapons sales to Saudi Arabia when he served as defence minister under former president Francois Hollande. A Western diplomat told The Independent that Paris has decided to stand by Prince Mohammad because of Frances extensive weapons sales to the kingdom and concerns that his removal could prompt instability. The latest revelations suggest no end soon to global outrage over the murder of the dissident journalist, who entered his own nations Istanbul consulate to obtain personal-status papers ahead of a marriage and was slaughtered by Saudi operatives with ties to Prince Mohammads court. Jamal Khashoggis sons demand return of murdered journalists body for burial in Saudi Arabia A journalist for the pro-government Turkish newspaper Sabah told Al Jazeera that Mr Khashoggi choked to death with a plastic bag covering his head over seven minutes and that his last words were, Im suffocating ... Take this bag off my head, Im claustrophobic. The report did not specify if the journalist had heard the audio, read a transcript, or received a briefing. The journalist said the newspaper would soon publish recordings of Mr Khashoggis last moments as well as images of tools used by the 18-man Saudi team to murder the journalist and dispose of his body. Mr Khashoggis body has yet to be found amid claims and rumours that it was dismembered and dissolved by the security officers, coroners, and chemists allegedly dispatched from Riyadh to Istanbul. Prime Minister Trudeau said he spoke to President Erdogan a couple of weeks ago and briefly with him in Paris during commemorations marking the 100th centennial of the end of the First World War. I thanked him for his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation, said Mr Trudeau. The mosaic art of the Growing Monument, a memorial to victims of a plane crash in an area of southeast Amsterdam known as the Bijlmer, sits among orchards and long green vistas with tidy apartments. I hired a bicycle to navigate the miles of trails around it, but that seemed unnecessary in hindsight. Around every bend, Ive hopped off at an outdoor market, pottery gallery, photogenic mural or boutique showcasing chic dresses in African fabrics. The canalside route to the monument is a hike, but an eminently strollable one. If youd been here 30 years ago well, youd have started planning your escape the minute you arrived. Back then, tenements crowded this patch of land. Rubbish mounted, tossed out windows by low-income or no-income tenants. Not from the upper floors, though those flats stayed mostly vacant, except when heroin addicts squatted in them. Things only got worse. In 1992 an El Al cargo flight, doubling back to Schiphol airport after engine failure, ploughed into two identical towers, killing all 43 residents. The Bijlmermeer estate once had distinctive honeycomb-like buildings (Marco van Middelkoop) The disaster was one of Grenfell proportions for Amsterdam. An urban housing project designed in the late 1960s around the same idealistic principles as Erno Goldfingers Brutalist utopias in west London, the Bijlmer (official name: Bijlmermeer) ultimately fell short in almost every respect. Its zigzag apartment blocks, in honeycomb-like formations, isolated residents in a confusing labyrinth devoid of public transport and amenities. Elevated roads turned life at ground level into a dangerous desert. Construction sucked up public money at the expense of landscaping. The Bijlmer became a depository for arrivals from Suriname and the Congo. And now it was a literal disaster area. So few public housing projects from the 1960s have anything to celebrate. And yet this month, after years of reconstruction, the Bijlmer is celebrating 50 years as Amsterdams most hopeful, feared and now promising neighbourhood. Theres a programme of talks and exhibitions, reaching a climax on the weekend of 24-25 November, with screenings of films from around the world, Afrodance performances and the launch of 50 Years of Bijlmer, a photo memoir by gallerist, broadcaster and Bijlmer pioneer Henno Eggenkamp. Since the 1990s, the city has seen campaigns to raze its most heinous buildings and rebuild at a more human scale. It recruited young artists to join a creative community of vibrantly painted studios, subsidised theatres and museums. New cafes such as snug Oma Ietje a de facto workplace for young freelancers have brought the area to the verge of gentrification without being consumed by it. Bijlmer is alive with markets and world food stalls (Anton de Komplein) Locals are reaping the benefits. Jenny van Dalen, a so-called Bijlmer Believer, moved into the area 33 years ago. She leads walking tours that you might once have classified as ghetto tourism, visiting monolithic highrises the likes of which rappers would use as video backdrops. But these days she fields requests from architecture students and city planners. The rappers, she says, need something new to rap about. Nicknamed Street Girl of the Southeast, Jenny takes me to the new contemporary art space OSCAM, where an exhibit features photography from a nearby youth group. We cycle on to Kleiburg, one of the last original honeycomb buildings stripped back, renovated and sold as live-work spaces. As we approach, a self-styled abbot named Johannes van den Akker calls out to Jenny from his sweeping balcony. Johannes runs a commune from Kleiburg centred around a makeshift wood-panelled chapel. And to finance it, hes begun producing small-batch ales from a cavernous microbrewery at a farm-to-table restaurant on the other side of the Bijlmer. We make plans to meet him there later. Canals run all through the city (Ellen Himelfarb) But first we wheel across the fastidiously tended Nelson Mandelapark. A year from now the motorway along the parks southern end will be rerouted underground and the surface level converted to greenbelt, linked with parkland further east. Hopes are itll lure people to the elliptical, aluminium-clad Parktheater, jutting over a pond in Mandelapark, past the outdoor sculpture that rises from the lawn like a phoenix, a symbol of the neighbourhood. The lowrise estates rippling out from here integrate all the best ideas from Dutch social housing: tall, grandstanding windows, handsomely weathered wood-slat siding, jauntily painted doors and vast terraces overlooking canals. They house pretty much every one of the 150 nationalities living in the Netherlands today. The Bijlmers actual birthday is still weeks away, and Ive missed the art and music festival 24H Zuidoost, but theres always some sort of celebration underway here. Alighting at a municipal square paved with herringbone brick, Jenny is unfazed to find a Ghanaian troupe in woven robes and kufi hats rehearsing for the perennial Dance with the Kings. Bijlmer is enlivened by creative communities (Ellen Himelfarb) One of my wishes was always to travel the world, says Jenny. I didnt have the money, but the world is right here. At World of Food, I queue for crisp, charred Surinamese chicken noodles, called tjauw minh. The Surinamese founder of the food hall, Sarriel Taus, introduces me to chefs from 26 international stalls, recruited from the immediate area. The multi-storey hall was once a derelict car park. There are no more no-go areas in this neighbourhood, says Taus. Theres a lot of entrepreneurial spirit in these flats. Its made the worst place in the Bijlmer into somewhere people want to go to sample the culinary richness. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The Saturday evening crowds are as diverse as the staff. But on weekdays, Taus tells me, the suits migrate here from over the train tracks, a symbolic frontier people once called the Iron Curtain. The offices and arenas on the other side earn more per square kilometre than anywhere else in Holland. But when it comes to lunch, says Taus, they all want to be here. Travel essentials Getting there Eurostar connects London and Amsterdam from 70 return. Easyjet flies from London Stansted to Amsterdam Schiphol from 35 return. Staying there B&B Zoh, in the Heesterveld Creative Community, offers doubles from 53, room only. British Airways parent company, International Airlines Group (IAG), is reportedly seeking support from the Spanish government ahead of a possible no-deal Brexit in an attempt to keep operations running smoothly after 29 March 2019. El Pais, the Spanish newspaper, reported that IAGs status as a European carrier may be at risk if it fails to comply with airline ownership legislation. Existing rules state that more than 50 per cent of an airline must be owned and controlled by EU nationals in order for it to be considered an European carrier, a figure that IAG may struggle to meet after Brexit. In addition to British Airways, IAG owns Spanish carrier Iberia, Vueling, Irelands Aer Lingus and low-cost long-haul carrier Level. IAG was established in 2011. While its registered offices are in Madrid, operational headquarters are based in London. Willie Walsh, IAGs chief executive, has previously refuted any suggestion that the company may struggle following a no-deal Brexit, dismissing the concept as nonsense. According to the Guardian, Walsh claimed that potential aviation complexities involving the EU had been resolved at the time of the companys creation. At the news that IAG was potentially consulting with the Spanish government, Tom Watson, deputy leader of the Labour Party and shadow culture secretary, simply tweeted: Spanish Airways. A spokesperson for IAG told The Independent: We remain confident that a comprehensive air transport agreement between the EU and the UK will be reached. Its in the UK and EUs interests to have a fully liberalised aviation agreement. Aviation liberalisation has been a great success story across Europe, benefiting one billion customers each year and creating a huge number of jobs across the continent. Even if there is no Brexit deal, both the EU and UK have said they will put an agreement in place that allows flights to continue. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events In the event of a no-deal scenario, UK passengers could experience flight disruptions and cancellations according to government papers. However, Tim Alderslade, the chief executive for Airlines UK, the trade body for UK registered airlines, said he felt confident that the UK and EU could reach an agreement on aviation. A Flybe pilot who was let go after developing a fear of flying has won an unfair dismissal claim. First officer Matthew Guest had been flying with the airline for seven years when a change in aircraft and a switch to longer routes prompted him to start having panic attacks. He should have been offered alternative roles and given the opportunity to discuss his position with Flybes COO, Luke Farajallah, an employment judge ruled. Recommended How to get over a fear of flying Guest first started experiencing problems in December 2014 when he was moved from flying Q400 aircraft to Embraer jets, which typically fly longer routes. He started feeling dizzy and nauseous, with a churning stomach, during a flight to Florence, Italy, and began experiencing a sense of impending dread in the pit of his stomach at the thought of boarding the plane when driving to the airport. He later described this as feeling like severe butterflies or stomach cramp, Judge Tom Coghlin QC said in a written ruling. Guests medical certificate permitting him to fly was temporarily suspended after his GP wrote to his superiors saying he had developed an increasing phobia and anxiety about long-distance flights and being trapped on the aeroplane. He was signed off with anxiety and only returned to work in April 2016 but CBT sessions, extra training and reduced hours all failed to cure Guest of his phobia. On 17 June 2016, things came to a head when Guest, who was scheduled to fly to Kefalonia in Greece, called in sick. He had twice raised concerns about the four-hour flight with his manager, Lee Goreham, who suggested that during the cruise phase of the journey the claimant might pass the time by reading a book or doing a crossword (as pilots frequently do), said Judge Tom Coghlin QC. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events His work schedule was cleared and Guest was officially let go in March 2017 in a letter from Luke Farajallah. We are not prepared to take the risk of returning you as a pilot on the EJet or Dash 8, so we are providing you with formal notice that we intend to terminate your employment on capability grounds, it read. Guest was offered an alternative position as a flight safety support officer based in Exeter, but was told that he would not be able to return to flying if he accepted the role. The judge ruled in his favour, saying that he should have been allowed to meet with the airlines COO as he was the key decision maker in Guests dismissal. Flybe could have allowed him to return to flying Q400 planes, or offered to let him fly accompanied by an additional pilot for a period, the judge noted. Guest now feels Flybe should reinstate him to make amends; if the airline declines, a judge will rule on the issue later this month. Irelands first National Drugs Forum is opening with the aim of promoting best practice in addiction services. Catherine Byrne, the minister for health promotion and the National Drugs Strategy, is opening the forum at Dublins Aviva Stadium. The event aims to provide an opportunity for those working in addiction services, taskforces and other organisations to exchange knowledge around what works, and to identify information gaps. More than 230 delegates representing drug and alcohol service providers in the community, voluntary and statutory sectors, as well as policymakers and representatives from Government departments, will take part in the one-day initiative. The theme of this years forum is Working better together by building communities of practice. Implementing the actions from the National Drugs Strategy requires collaboration, and communities of practice are a great example of this partnership approachCatherine Byrne Ms Byrne said the delegates at the forum had the opportunity to shape policy. Implementing the actions from the National Drugs Strategy requires collaboration, and communities of practice are a great example of this partnership approach, she said. Delegates here today will have the opportunity to share experiences and work together to shape policy going forward. I am looking forward to a very engaging forum, hearing from local and international experts, and listening to those who work on the front line in our communities. Darrin Morrissey, chief executive of the Health Research Board (HRB), who will give the opening address at the event, said: The HRB is committed to supporting the use of evidence in drug and alcohol work and promoting good practice. Todays forum will help to strengthen the capacity of existing communities of practice and generate ideas for new networks and collaborative working opportunities across statutory, community and voluntary sectors. Keynote addresses will be given by Karen Minyard and Brigitte Manteuffel, from Georgia Health Policy Centre, on communities of practice, and Professor Harry Sumnall, from Liverpool John Moores University, on evidence of effectiveness. There are presentations from community, voluntary and statutory agencies that work in the drugs and alcohol arena relating to prevention, peer support, social integration and harm reduction services. An RNLI lifeboat took part in the search for the windsurfer (Joe Giddens/PA) A windsurfer who was lost at sea for seven hours managed to make it ashore unaided after travelling from Co Kerry to Co Clare. A major multi-agency search-and-rescue operation took place on Sunday night after the alarm was raised when the windsurfer who was last seen at 4pm had not returned home. A naval vessel, RNLI, Coast Guard helicopter and Rescue 115 were all deployed to the area and battled severe winds and sea swells in the darkness to search for the man. A spokesman for the Fenit RNLI said: Fenit RNLI was requested to launch their all-weather lifeboat at 5.34pm following initial reports from the Irish Coast Guard that there was a person reported overdue off the Ballybunion coast in Co Kerry. The all-weather lifeboat under Coxswain Tony Stack launched immediately and the volunteer crew made their way to the scene. Later in the evening, the inshore lifeboat from Kilrush RNLI was subsequently requested to launch and join the search. This is such good news this morning and we are delighted that after the windsurfer was missing for so long yesterday evening, that this man is aliveRNLI crew member Charlie Glynn The search continued until about 11pm when news came that the windsurfer had managed to make it ashore and raise the alarm with a member of the public. He was subsequently transferred by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick. The windsurfer had managed to travel the 25 nautical miles from Ballybunion in Co Kerry to Kilkee in Co Clare. Speaking following the call-out, Charlie Glynn, Kilrush RNLI crew member and lifeboat press officer said: This is such good news this morning and we are delighted that after the windsurfer was missing for so long yesterday evening, that this man is alive, he said. While we dont have the details from the casualtys perspective, he had to have been an experienced windsurfer who was wearing the correct clothing and gear, and who knew what to do when he got into difficulty. He stayed with his board and managed somehow to travel the long distance to shore. All in the RNLI wish him well for a full and speedy recovery following what must have been a frightening experience for him. We would remind everyone taking to the sea to always respect the water. Always carry a means for calling for help, such as a personal locator beacon, especially if you are on your own, it could be a lifesaver. Always tell someone you are going out and when you will be back. Make sure they know where you are sailing and who to call if you are not back in time. Ireland's Attorney General travelled to Brussels last week to discuss the legal implications of a potential Brexit deal. Seamus Woulfe met with a series of senior officials, as the Brexit talks entered the "last-chance saloon", the Irish Independent understands. One source insisted the move "wouldn't be out of course", but a Cabinet minister observed that Mr Woulfe can play no role in the negotiations. "He wouldn't be going to get involved in the negotiations but he can provide advice on the implications of what is being proposed," the minister said. The move will heighten expectations that the ingredients for a legally operable 'Irish backstop', which will prevent a hard Border under any circumstances, are now in place. Sources say there are now a number of options on the table for what the final withdrawal agreement will look like. However, EU leaders remain steadfast in their view that the next move must come from London. UK Prime Minister Theresa May will once again broach the question of the Border with her divided Cabinet tomorrow. One source said this would be a "last-chance saloon" if she is to have any hope of a special EU summit of leaders being called before the end of the month. "The deal is not done, but there are options there to close this out," said one official. The view in Dublin is that Mrs May needs to give a "signal" tomorrow as to whether she wants to proceed or not. There is an expectation that if the prime minister doesn't push a deal with her own ministers in the next 48 hours then the EU may remove the option on a November summit altogether. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said progress is being made towards a definitive Brexit deal, but that it is slow. "I have the impression that we are moving slowly but surely towards a definitive Brexit deal which should be concluded in the weeks to come," Mr Juncker told France 24 in an interview yesterday. The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier will brief foreign ministers on developments this morning. Afterwards he will have a private meeting with Tanaiste Simon Coveney to discuss the blockages still linked to the so-called 'Irish backstop'. Speaking on his departure to Brussels, Mr Coveney said the negotiations were at a "very critical and sensitive stage". "Clear and focused thinking is now required if a satisfactory agreement is to be reached," he said. "We want an agreement to be reached as soon as possible but urgency is required. "The EU and Ireland's position remains clear and consistent. "The withdrawal agreement must include a legally operable backstop for avoiding a hard Border that must be in place unless and until another solution is found. Any review mechanism must be in line with this. "All sides agree that this is essential in order to protect the Good Friday Agreement and our peace process." Prime Minister Theresa May during the Lord Mayor's Banquet at the Guildhall in London Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire Theresa May has warned that she will not sign up to a Brexit "agreement at any cost" as she said "significant" issues continue to block the path to a deal with Brussels. The Prime Minister used a speech to City grandees in London to say she "will not compromise" on what people had voted for in the 2016 referendum, telling them Britons "overwhelmingly" wanted her to "get on" with leaving the EU. Her comments in an address to the annual Lord Mayor's Banquet seemed to extinguish hopes that the Cabinet might sign off a deal when it meets on Tuesday. If no deal is agreed by Wednesday, the prospects of a special Brexit summit in Brussels in November will recede sharply, further reducing Mrs May's chances of getting a vote in Parliament before Christmas. Mrs May told the audience at the Guildhall in London that while both sides wanted to achieve a viable Withdrawal Agreement, "what we are negotiating is immensely difficult". She added: "Overwhelmingly, the British people want us to get on with delivering Brexit, and I am determined to deliver for them. "I want them to know that I will not compromise on what people voted for in the referendum. Read More "This will not be an agreement at any cost." She repeated her assertion that a deal must give the UK control of "our laws, borders and money", plus the freedom to strike trade deals while protecting jobs, security and the Union. Both the EU and UK sides had earlier said issues remain to be settled despite weekend talks that went on into the early hours of Monday morning. Downing Street said that reports that Brussels' chief negotiator Michel Barnier expected the "parameters" of a deal to be presented to ministers for approval at their regular weekly meeting should be taken "with a bucket of salt". It is not thought that any deal will be on the table at the Cabinet meeting in 10 Downing Street, which will instead hear an update on negotiations and discuss preparations for a possible no-deal withdrawal from the EU. The Prime Minister's official spokesman rejected suggestions that Wednesday represents a hard deadline to arrange a summit, repeating Mrs May's position that she wants a deal "as soon as possible" but that it "can't be at any cost". Meanwhile, one Brexit-backing Cabinet minister cautioned that the Prime Minister would not have a free hand in pushing her plans through. International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt told Sky News: "The important thing is that there are two checks on this deal - there is Cabinet and there is Parliament. "Cabinet's job is to put something to Parliament that is going to deliver on the referendum result." Officials from both sides were engaged in talks in Brussels which began on Sunday and lasted until 2.45am on Monday but failed to produce a decisive breakthrough. Mr Barnier told ministers from the 27 remaining EU nations at a meeting of the general affairs council that key issues remained unresolved. "Michel Barnier explained that intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet," said an official statement. "Some key issues remain under discussion, in particular a solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland." A witness to the meeting told the Financial Times that the chief negotiator had told the EU27 ministers that "the parameters of a possible agreement are very largely defined" and that the UK Cabinet would meet to examine them on Tuesday. But ministers emerging from the meeting did little to encourage expectations of an early resolution. Tanaiste Simon Coveney told reporters in Brussels said there was "still clearly work to do" to reach an agreement. And a senior Brussels source said that work was "ongoing", adding: "We're not there yet." The lack of decisive progress in Brussels came as further details emerged of reported reservations voiced about Mrs May's strategy by senior ministers at the crunch Chequers meeting in July. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Chancellor Philip Hammond were among Remain-supporting ministers who raised concerns about the Chequers plan, the BBC reported. Mr Javid described the proposal for a common rule book with the EU for goods and agriculture as "very worrying", while Mr Hammond questioned whether the 27 other countries in the union would accept such a plan, the broadcaster said. Accounts for the last financial year show Investec Ireland notched up annual revenues of over 80m at the end of March, rising from close to 70m in 2016. Photo: Philip Toscano/PA Investec Ireland is close to agreeing a post-Brexit structure with the Central Bank here to ensure that it can continue to provide specialist financial services previously authorised via the UK through so-called 'passporting' rules. It is understood that Investec will set up entities that do not require a capital-intensive Irish banking licence but which meet the EU's markets in financial instruments (Mifid) directives. The plan will not involve the sale of any of the Irish business. However, Investec will not be able to hold customer deposits. A potential takeover by AIB collapsed earlier this year. This, combined with the looming implications of Brexit, led CEO Michael Cullen to open talks with regulators here four months ago to structure a new, Mifid-compliant and Brexit-proof regulatory structure. It is expected that the firm will begin contacting customers to tell them that it plans to wind down the deposit book as early as this week. Under the Mifid-compliant structure, the deposit book will be wound down, but Investec's corporate-finance, wealth-management, treasury, foreign-exchange and other transactional financial services activities here can continue to be provided. The new structure may provide scope for Investec here to take over management of some business that is currently done in the UK for clients from elsewhere in the EU, depending on the level of cross-border access the British arm has post-Brexit. Discussions with the Central Bank here are understood to have been going on for four months and are expected to conclude in the first quarter of next year - ahead of the March Brexit deadline. Accounts for the last financial year show Investec Ireland notched up annual revenues of over 80m at the end of March, rising from close to 70m in 2016. The firm employs around 250 staff here. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to lay a wreath at a National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in Westminster, London. Photo: Victoria Jones/ Pool via REUTERS British Prime Minister Theresa May came under growing pressure yesterday to change her plan for Britain to leave the European Union to avoid defeat in a parliamentary vote. With both Britain and the EU suggesting an agreement is close, Eurosceptic Tories and a leading member of the Democratic Unionist Party made new threats to vote against the terms of the deal she is working on with Brussels. The vote in parliament, most likely to come later this year, is gearing up to be the biggest showdown in the lengthy negotiations to leave the EU. Mrs May, who was attending a ceremony to mark 100 years since the end of World War I, found some support from ministers in her cabinet, but it would be hard for her to ignore the growing calls to change tack after a minister resigned and the DUP threatened to rebel. "If the government makes the historic mistake of prioritising placating the EU over establishing an independent and whole UK, then regrettably we must vote against the deal," Steve Baker, a leading Eurosceptic and former minister, wrote alongside the DUP's Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson in the 'Sunday Telegraph'. The main battleground is over the so-called backstop to prevent the return of a hard border, something that would only come into force if a deal on future ties cannot guarantee the type of frictionless trade needed to keep it open. Expand Close UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn riding the Saltburn Cliff Lift, a funicular railway, during his visit to Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Yorkshire on Saturday. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn riding the Saltburn Cliff Lift, a funicular railway, during his visit to Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Yorkshire on Saturday. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire Fears that proposals would mean keeping Britain inside the EU's customs union indefinitely or that Northern Ireland would have to accept different rules and regulations to the rest of the UK have focused opposition to May's deal. The resignation on Friday last of Jo Johnson, the remain-voting younger brother to Brexit campaign leader Boris Johnson, highlighted the depth of anger over her plans. Many say Mrs May's desire to prioritise free-flowing trade of goods with Europe will make Britain little more than a "rule taker", unable to break free of Brussels' decisions. But Mrs May did find some support. Leader of the Commons Andrea Leadsom said: "I urge colleagues to support the prime minister. We are at a difficult stage - we have to hold our nerve and keep negotiating." SUPPORT for Irelands position in the Brexit negotiations is stronger now than it has ever been, Tanaiste Simon Coveney has claimed. After meeting with the EUs Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels today, Mr Coveney said he remains hopeful the Withdrawal Agreement can be finalised this week. Finding a workable solution to the Irish border question remains the key sticking point ahead of a UK cabinet meeting tomorrow. UK Prime Minister Theresa May wants EU leaders to hold a special summit at the end of the month to sign-off on the pact but they say she must first give the green light that the deal is acceptable in the UK. Mr Coveney said: The issues arent new. There is still clearly work to do but between two negotiating teams. We need to give them the time and space now to finish that job. Mrs May is under pressure from within her own Conservative Party and from the DUP who prop up her minority government. The DUP has said it will vote against the backstop currently being proposed as it would effectively create a border down the Irish Sea. Mr Coveney said this is a very important week for Brexit negotiations and the sooner they conclude the better for everybody. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said the government would prefer if an EU summit on Brexit is held this month to provide certainty for the future. However, he said failing that theres still a European Council meeting planned for December if an agreement cant be reached in the coming days. EU and UK negotiators are still working to reach a deal on the fall-back plan to avoid a hard border in Ireland in the event that an overall free trade deal fails to be put in place after Brexit - the so-called backstop. Mrs May has a crucial Cabinet meeting tomorrow which will again consider the question of the border in Ireland. A deal on the backstop is seen as necessary this week if a special EU summit on a Brexit withdrawal agreement with the UK is to be called this month. Mr Varadkar said he spoke to other leaders at the Armistace Day commemorations in Paris yesterday, mentioning the UK Cabinet Office minister David Lidington and European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker. The Taoiseach said: ultimately what we would like to be in a position to do is to have the special EU Council meeting before the end of the month. If thats not possible we do already have one pencilled in for the 13 and 14 of December so its not that we absolutely have to have one by the end of November. But I think in terms of giving everyone certainty about the future and what Brexit is going to look like it would be preferable. A lot of work is being done in Brussels at the moment in The Tunnel to come to an agreement which Prime Minister May will be able to present to Cabinet, he said. The Tunnel is the description being used for the secretive talks process taking place between UK and EU negotiators in Brussels. A man who refused to comply with orders restraining him interfering with a fund-appointed receiver taking possession of his lands in Co Wexford must be jailed for contempt, the High Court has ruled. Mr Justice Senan Allen said Pat Carty has repeatedly refused to comply with orders restraining interference with David Van Dessel, a receiver appointed by Ennis Property Finance over the 52 acres and a rented house at Rathduff, Rathnure. The lands were security for loans advanced by Bank of Scotland Ireland to Mr Carty. After they were transferred by Bank of Scotand to the fund, it appointed the receiver over default on loan repayment. On March 16th 2017, the High Court granted the receiver orders restraining Mr Carty interfering with his taking possession of the lands. Those orders apply pending a full hearing of proceedings between the receiver and Mr Carty. The receiver initiated committal proceedings in late 2017 after his agents went onto the lands and were met by signs with the words: Trespassers shall be shot and No Trespass. Mr Carty and others had told the agents they were refused entry onto the lands and the receiver also believed Mr Carty was collecting rents or other payments connected with the property. Mr Carty, a father of five, had appealed to the judge not to jail him. His "life and livelihood are at stake" he said. He has various financial issues, had had his head in the sand for some time and wanted mediation as he feared the receiver would sell the property at an undervalue. His father is in poor health and walks the lands daily and he was concerned about the impact on his father, he added. Andrew Fitzpatrick SC, for the receiver, said his client was prepared to talk with Mr Carty but only if the latter agreed to comply with the orders. The attachment and committal application was heard last week. Before and after the judge gave his ruling on Monday, the judge again asked Mr Carty would he comply but Mr Carty said he could not, the lands are my whole life and my familys. The judge said he would make the committal order but he told Mr Carty he was free pending the order being executed by gardai. The jailing order applies until Mr Carty agrees to purge his contempt. In his judgment, the judge said Mr Carty, who represented himself but received assistance at various stages from others including anti eviction activist Ben Gilroy, had advanced no legal grounds or any new material to support his arguments against committal. The High Court previously rejected his claims the receivers appointment was invalid for reasons including the transfer of charges on the lands by Bank of Scotland Ireland to Bank of Scotland to Ennis, he said. Mr Carty had not sought a stay on those orders or appealed them and had shown no basis for the court to vary them, he held. Various other arguments advanced by Mr Carty in resisting committal were also dismissed. While a statement of claim should have been advanced by the receiver within 28 days of the March 16th 2017 hearing, but was not delivered until after the 28 days, the March 2017 orders were not dependent on the claim being delivered in time, he said. The law is clear and there is no dispute on the facts, he said. Mr Carty was in breach by impeding the receiver in taking possession but, while the court thought Mr Carty was probably collecting rents, the evidence did not establish that beyond reasonable doubt. Brazil's billionaire businessman Joesley Batista is pictured at the Brasilia international airport, after giving testimony in Brasilia, Brazil, September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Adriano Machado/File Photo/File Photo Police arrested a controlling shareholder of meatpacker JBS SA and two former Brazilian agriculture ministers on Friday in connection with an investigation into illegal campaign contributions. Joesley Batista, a member of the family that founded the worlds largest meat processor, was expected to be held only temporarily, his lawyer Andre Callegari said. He declined to elaborate on the arrest order or the investigation. Antonio Andrade and Neri Geller, who served consecutively as agriculture ministers under former President Dilma Rousseff, were also arrested, according to a list of arrest warrants seen by Reuters and confirmed by a federal court official. Geller, who was recently elected to Congress, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Andrade, the current deputy governor of Minas Gerais state, could not be reached for comment and his press office did not immediately respond to a request. Earlier in the day, the federal police and tax authorities said they were investigating allegations that a large meatpacking firm, which they did not identify, had provided illegal campaign funding to lawmakers and officials at the agriculture ministry. Police were serving multiple arrest and search warrants related to the investigation in five states and Brasilia, according to the federal police and the federal revenue service, which are jointly conducting the probe. Batistas arrest is the latest blow to JBSs controlling family, which last year signed plea bargain agreements with prosecutors admitting to bribing scores of politicians to advance their business interests. Joesley Batista has been strictly abiding with the terms of his agreement to cooperate with authorities, Callegari said. Batista has testified multiple times and provided evidence to authorities, he said. Ricardo Saud, a lawyer for J&F Investimentos, which controls JBS, was also arrested by police for questioning. Batista and Saud were arrested in September on charges of concealing information related to their plea agreements with federal prosecutors. They were both released in March. J&F said in a statement that it found Fridays arrests very strange because the executives had cooperated with prosecutors to the point where their information made it possible to open the investigation. Sauds detention was perplexing because he was always open to help authorities even with documents and audio recordings used as evidence, the statement added. Two large retailers based in the state of Minas Gerais were also involved in the case, which authorities say relates to events in 2014 and 2015. They did not name the retailers. The tax authority said 22 million reais ($5.85 million) in bribes may have been paid to politicians and officials. Young trained farmers face a cap in the level of farming supports they can avail of at reduced tax rates. The Minister for Finance, Pascal Donohoe has blamed EU state aid rules for a cap introduced after the Budget on certain tax reliefs. The Finance Bill introduced a cumulative 70,000 lifetime cap on the benefit any one farmer can receive under three farming related tax reliefs (the young trained farmer stamp duty relief, stock relief for young trained farmers and succession farm partnerships). Minister Donohoe said he is aware of the concerns raised by the farming bodies over the issue. However, he said the origin of the 70,000 cap lies in EU law. He said EU regulations introduced in 2014 provide for state aid rules concerning start-up aid for young farmers and the development of farms. The regulations provide that the aid amount per young farmer shall be based on the socioeconomic situation of the Member State concerned and shall be limited to 70,000. This means that the maximum aid amount allowed under the three schemes is 70,000 per each farmer who qualifies for the relief. Minister Donohoe said EU state aid regulations are legal acts that have a direct effect in all EU countries and can be enforced directly by the European Commission regardless of domestic Irish law. Ireland does not, therefore, have the power to vary the limit. Introducing the cumulative 70,000 limit in national legislation is designed to provide clarity on how the limit applies in relation to the three reliefs, the Minister said. Macra President James Healy has described the move as "very disappointing". "(It's) Very disappointing that this has been introduced with no warning. It raises a number of questions in general but in particular for young farmers who have based their business plans on availing of these reliefs. I think this will have a huge impact on the average farmer," he said. Our understanding was that the Young Farmer Stamp Duty relief and Stock relief had been renewed to 2021, and there was no mention of a cap. This now negates the benefit of the Young Farmer Stamp Duty relief as most farmers would have used most of the 70,000 relief, he said. Failte Ireland is forecasting growth in tourism of as much as 5pc in 2019, despite concerns around Brexit. Paul Kelly, CEO of Failte Ireland, said that 2018 had been an "exceptional" year for tourism, and that the body aimed to deliver another record year for 2019. "For tourism to continue to grow, it will need to be planned in a sustainable way for visitors, industry, communities and the environment," Mr Kelly said. "Our plans for the year ahead focus on how we can both meet the challenges and leverage the opportunities facing the industry to keep the current growth momentum going, by spreading visitors across the country, and growing business in the off-season months, to make sure Ireland remains a high quality destination, which provides good value for our visitors." Mr Kelly added that Failte Ireland want a lower proportion of visitors in the summer and faster growth in the off-peak season. To achieve this, the tourism body intends placing more focus on business tourism, the promotion of short breaks in the shoulder season, extending festivals, and improving Ireland's international reputation as a food island. On the subject of Brexit, the industry body estimates that a worst case scenario would cost the sector between 380m and 390m. Mr Kelly added that the tourism industry did a slightly more limited scenario, which estimated that a worst case scenario Brexit would have a 260m impact on the sector, but he said this was purely looking at the impact of UK visitors. "We think one of the important impacts will be if sterling goes down there will be a loss of visitors from overseas markets to Ireland that end up going to our nearest and closes competitor, the UK. But they are just scenarios and it really depends on the shape of the final deal." To-date this year the island of Ireland has welcomed over 9.6m overseas tourists and hosted 9.8m domestic trips this year, generating 7.8bn in revenue. The sector now employs around 260,000 people, an increase of 20,000 since 2017. On the subject of a third terminal at Dublin airport, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross said that meetings and consultations with stakeholders on the matter were taking place "as we speak", and he hoped that they will conclude in January, after which a decision will be taken by the Government. "You have to take very early decisions in terms of airport infrastructure and that decision would be taken if we have a third terminal, it is not decided at all but if it happens we would hope to have it in place by the early 2030s." Just how long will it take before those in authority in this country realise that ordinary, honest citizens have lost patience with the whiplash epidemic? There are few things more infuriating than knowing that many of the claims are a try-on, yet the claimsters get money anyway. Recently released figures from the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) show that the average award for a whiplash claim was just short of 20,000. The awards cover amounts paid out for the pain and suffering resulting from road traffic accidents, with a much smaller proportion of the total award made up of special damages, which covers medical costs and loss of earnings. It comes after the Government-appointed Personal Injuries Commission found that the average amount paid out in this country for whiplash is almost five times higher than for similar injuries in England and Wales. Some 70pc of all motor claims assessed for the first half of the year were related to whiplash, according to the PIAB assessment for the first six months of the year. PIAB was set up as the independent State body that assesses injury compensation, and it generally does not pay legal fees. But are the whiplash payouts justified? The Irish College of General Practitioners told the Personal Injuries Commission earlier this year that most compensated claims for whiplash are "frankly spurious". And a leading neurosurgeon has said whiplash is a myth and written reports of it are mainly detailing non-existent injuries. Dr Charles Marks, a UCC lecturer, says the whiplash epidemic is a multibillion-euro gravy train that produces a good living for the medical profession and for solicitors and barristers, and of course the victims. Dr Marks pointed to a study of 40 demolition derby drivers in the US. They had taken part in an average of 30 events, with an average of 52 collisions per event. Just two reported neck pain that lasted more than three months. In just one case the pain lasted more than a year. This shows that the prevalence and generosity of whiplash payouts is open to question. Former president of the High Court, and chairman of the Personal Injuries Commission Nicholas Kearns said recently there is a high risk of abuse because the risk of prosecution for fraudulent claims is "virtually zero". It is clear questionable soft-tissue claims have become an industry, with the gravy train benefiting large numbers of lawyers, medical practitioners, and claimants. The Government needs to realise that proper reform of the system cannot wait any longer. Unlike most other pension funds, AVCs can be accessed on a once-off basis in a financial emergency It might be another bewildering acronym that the pension industry is fond of coming up with to name products, but AVCs (additional voluntary contributions) make a lot of sense to the retirement saving plans of many over-50s. Additional AVCs are extra savings you can make towards your pension. Doing AVCs can enhance your final tax-free lump sum, provide you with additional retirement income and allow you to take full advantage of the pension tax relief available to you, particularly when you're older. "AVCS are a too well-kept secret in the pensions world," said John McInerney, a pensions expert at Standard Life. "Everyone saving for a pension should know about them and avail of them if they can manage it." Standard Life's most recent survey from last year shows just 4pc of people invest in AVCs. "We have checked this regularly over the last eight years and the survey results over the years is consistently between 4-5pc," said Mr McInerney. "If you're older and nearing retirement, maybe the question is how much you can invest in them to make your nest egg as big as possible?" he added. Frank Conway of Irish Financial Review said AVCs are an important means of increasing the value of a pension fund using the tax efficiency permitted, particularly in the last 15 to 20 years of your working life. For instance, once you reach the age of 50, you can contribute up to 30pc of your income tax-free to your retirement fund, a ratio that rises to 35pc when you hit 55, and 40pc from the date of your 60th birthday. Boosted benefits AVCs are 'rocket fuel' for making your pension fund grow fast, according to Mr McInerney. Using the example of a client, 36,000-worth of savings to an AVC fund (500 per month) was invested over a 72-month period between 2009 and 2015 in a mixture of Standard Life GARS funds, a UK fund that invests in small firms, corporate bonds and an Indian equity fund. This fund has grown to 55,000 - a growth of 19,000. Tax-free cash Jerry Moriarty of the Irish Association of Pension Funds says your AVCs allow you to maximise the tax-free cash you can take, and this may well work out better for you financially but much depends on your individual circumstances. "For example, in a private-sector defined benefit scheme you can take tax-free cash by giving up some pension benefit. Depending on the conversion rate of income to cash, it may be more beneficial to maximise the income from the scheme and use the AVCs as tax-free cash." Mr McInerney certainly advocates using an AVC to boost the tax-free lump sum so that you can preserve the retirement fund that will provide the annual income. For instance, if you were in a fully funded scheme with a final salary of 60,000, you can look forward to a final salary in retirement of 30,000. Revenue rules allow you to take up to 1.5 times the 60,000 as a tax-free lump sum. However, you would have to sacrifice some of your annual pension income at a rate of 1 for 9 to get that lump sum from the scheme, says Mr McInerney, which would reduce your pension income by 10,000 a year in order to secure a tax-free lump sum of 90,000. "The tax-smart way to boost your retirement fortunes is to ensure you save for this tax-free amount via AVCs and use the AVC fund to get your lump sum rather than forfeit your pension income." Mr Conway warns that how much you can take as a retirement lump sum under an AVC will depend on the company's pension plan, your personal circumstances and how long you've been working for the company. "For example, if you are allowed 150pc of your final earnings as a retirement lump sum and your company pension gives you 100pc, you can use your AVC to make up the other 50pc." Employer contributions Mr Moriarty strongly recommends talking to your company's pension scheme trustees to see what AVC arrangements they have in place as they may have negotiated a competitive charging structure."Many defined contribution schemes now offer matched contributions where the employer will pay more if you also do. Obviously this should be the first thing you should do if you are considering paying more." Financial advice As a product type, AVCs seem simple on paper, but in reality they can be quite complicated, so it makes sense to seek out independent advice. "There are lots of different possibilities and rules when it comes to paying AVCs and having benefits paid," said Mr Moriarty. "This can be further complicated as more people have bits of defined benefit pensions, defined contribution pensions and AVCs. It really makes sense to engage an independent financial adviser to ensure you get the best outcome for you." Investment growth Even after you officially retire and start drawing down a pension, there is nothing to stop you continuing to save and invest. Indeed, many retirees will continue to work part-time and many intend to stay active in the workforce after they retire, but with a better work/life balance. Mr McInerney says: "Remember, you can still invest in a pension, benefit from the income tax relief on same and you can still invest in AVCs if you haven't exceeded the annual earnings limit of 115,000." Early access to AVCs Another little-known fact about AVCs is that, unlike most other pension funds, they can be accessed on a once-off basis in a financial emergency. In its 2013 Finance Act, the Government introduced a provision for some people to access up to 30pc of their AVC funds, and only until March 2016. The move came after some lobbying by consumers who wanted more flexibility to access their pension funds in financial emergencies. The argument they made was that many self-employed people couldn't afford to run their businesses, even though they had built up substantial pension savings which if they could access, would help them get through the downturn. So the Government responded, but the sting in the tail was that anyone who did this would be taxed on the money they withdrew at their marginal rate of tax, and would also likely face a bill for the USC and PRSI. It was estimated that some 200m would be withdrawn from AVC pensions over this three-year period, but the hefty tax charge on withdrawals appears to have limited the interest in this scheme. In addition, the scheme is restrictive in that it only applies to AVCs paid into occupation pension schemes and PRSAs. It excludes employer-paid contributions, regular employee contributions and self-employed personal pension plans. Fewer than 20 local authority loans aimed at helping first-time buyers get on the property ladder were drawn down in the cities during the first half of this year. Figures from the Department of Housing show that between January and June this year, just 19 local authority-backed mortgages were drawn down in the high-demand areas of Dublin, Cork and Galway. There are major concerns the upper loan limit is not sufficient to secure a property in city areas. In nine council areas - including Cork city, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and Galway city - not one mortgage offer has been taken up. The Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan is a low-interest, Government-backed mortgage for first-time buyers, launched last February. The maximum amount which can be borrowed is 320,000 in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Louth, Meath and Wicklow, and 250,000 in the rest of the country. To date, some 1,317 loans have been approved - but figures on local authority loan draw-downs, which include the Rebuilding Ireland product, suggest uptake is low. Overall countrywide, 109 local authority loans aimed at helping first-time buyers get on the property ladder have been drawn down in the first half of year. Sinn Fein housing spokesman Eoin O Broin said the scheme needed to be radically overhauled, as just 8pc of approved loans appear to have been drawn down in the first half of the year. "If you look at the high demand areas across the four Dublin local authorities, Galway and Cork, the ratio of approvals to draw-downs is worrying," he said. As of the end of October, some 189 loans had been approved in Dublin City Council but just 13 were drawn down. In Fingal, 185 were approved but just one taken up, while in south Dublin there were 92 approvals and one draw-down. Cork County has 104 loan approvals, but just three drawn down, while Galway County had 36 approved and one drawn down. Counties with no loans taken up include Roscommon, Wicklow, Leitrim, Laois, Donegal and Cavan. "The Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan clearly is not working as intended," Mr O Broin added. "There is no point in offering a product to tackle affordability if the loan on offer comes nowhere near to covering the cost of purchasing a home. "At this stage, the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan is a tokenistic gesture that has done very little to provide affordable homes for people." But the Department of Housing said a "significant time lag" existed between being given approval in principle for a mortgage, and drawing down the funds. "All applicants have a period of six months in which to draw down a loan following receipt of their approval," it said in a statement. It also said that as of the end of October, some 3,309 applications had been made, with 619 deemed invalid and 107 in progress. A total of 1,317 applications, or 51pc of the total valid number assessed, were recommended for approval, it added. Richemont shares dropped the most in three years after the Swiss luxury-goods maker signalled that Chinese sales growth has slowed and warned that trade disputes could dent demand for Cartier necklaces and Piaget watches. The stock fell as much as 6.7pc in Zurich, erasing 2.6 billion francs (2.29bn) of market value. Richemont reported an unexpected decline in first-half operating profit as costs rose and the company sold fewer timepieces to retailers to ease a glut in the market. "Everybody's concerned about trade wars," chief financial officer Burkhart Grund told reporters on a call. The results may increase concern that luxury growth is ebbing as high net-worth individuals feel their wealth threatened in a jittery stock market. The news led to a drop of as much as 6pc in shares of both Swatch Group AG, the largest maker of Swiss watches, and Kering SA, the owner of Ulysse Nardin and Girard-Perregaux. Double-digit growth in the domestic Chinese market is over, and revenue is now rising at a high-single-digit percentage rate, which Grund described as more normal. The above-average growth phase that lasted more than a year was a reaction to a previous downturn, he said. The CFO also warned that a weakening yuan or the trade conflicts could further damp consumption. The comments from Richemont, which often gives pessimistic outlooks, contrast with a brighter assessment from some rivals. Burberry CEO Marco Gobbetti said last Thursday that the company hasn't seen any dropoff recently in that market. Grund said that even if China is coming off the boil, Richemont is happy with its new growth rate there. Bloomberg The head of the consortium bidding to land the National Broadband Tender says accusations that he is a recently-arrived financier seeking to make a quick profit from Irelands broadband crisis are wrong. David McCourt, who runs Granahan McCourt, told Science Foundation Irelands Science Summit conference that he is a dual citizen in Ireland and the US and pays tax in both countries. "Im not a private equity guy, Im a telecoms builder," he told the audience in a Dublin conference centre. "Ive owned a house in Ireland for 20 years, not recently as it says in the paper. I sold two businesses in Ireland and used that money to invest in starting two other businesses in Ireland. Ive never taken a penny out of the country or used the money to invest in other countries." Mr McCourt was speaking as the government awaits an audit report on whether the National Broadband Plans tender process was unduly influenced by meetings held between Mr McCourt and the former Communications Minister Denis Naughten. The report from consultant Peter Smyth is expected this week. The government is currently considering alternative options if the audit report concludes that the tendering process was contaminated by inappropriate contact between the lead bidder and the Communications Minister. Opposition parties have suggested that state utility firms such as the ESB, Bord an Mona or Ervia might be used as an alternative means of delivery for the rural broadband rollout, which is planned to reach 540,000 homes and businesses, affecting over 1m people. Bravery or recklessness? It was a question Marie Colvin posed in a speech given over fallen colleagues in 2010. Her work as a war reporter, which ended with her death in 2012, was infused with courage. But, in this excellent account by fellow journalist Lindsey Hilsum, it was not without ambiguity. Colvin's bravery is luminous yet during her last days, her decision to continue broadcasting from the hideout in Baba Amr, rather than just writing articles, infuriated the Syrians and put her and the others' lives at additional risk. This superb biography delicately probes the tension inherent in Colvin's choices. By gamely tackling the complexity of Colvin's professional and private life, Hilsum crafts a full and rich portrait of Colvin that never becomes hagiography. The complexity - the fact that Colvin was far from a saint - is what makes it compelling. In Extremis is an intensely human account that does justice to its subject. Colvin was a relatively rare figure in the world of foreign correspondents, a woman who climbed the rungs of the journalistic ladder in a fiercely aggressive environment. But her background was conventional. Her mother was from an Irish-American working class family, her father one of the more privileged, middle-class "lace curtain Irish". It was a comfortable, even idyllic childhood, and one she did everything she could to escape. Not only did she report from Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Syria, she forged a glittering social life in London, where her friends included Helen Fielding, author of Bridget Jones's Diary, and the fashion designer, Bella Freud. In Oyster Bay, Nassau County NY, by contrast, the conventionality was suffocating. "She feared the waves closing over her, feared being subsumed by her family, by the cloying parochialism of her home town," Hilsum writes. Lindsey Hilsum knew Colvin through her own work, and her reporting is conscientious. She draws on an array of sources, including Marie's diaries, and she speaks to Colvin's old boyfriends, friends and even the Syrian man who was with the journalist in Baba Amr when she died, a pacifist vegetarian who is now a refugee in Europe. Hilsum expertly places Colvin's life in context and touches on the contemporary issues arising from her gender - the fact that at Yale a love interest considered her "masculine" or that Colvin felt underpaid by The Sunday Times. The image of Colvin with a startling eye patch is now familiar, but her editors at The Sunday Times were responsible for cultivating her persona as an adventuring war correspondent. It was part of a newspaper culture that placed the personal experience of reporters in the story. When Marie didn't include them, her editor wrote up the anecdotes she told him over the phone. Although this form of writing played to her strengths, it placed an additional load on her shoulders, something else she had to live up to. "Her real struggle was with herself," Hilsum says. "Her public persona as a brave war correspondent was out of kilter with the insecurity she felt inside." Hilsum deftly filters the diary material she has, allowing it to inform without overwhelming the narrative. When she includes a direct quote, it's often for comic effect. As Colvin rose in stature, she felt empowered to ignore her editors' diktats writing about what she preferred. As Gaddafi fell from power, The Sunday Times' executive editor wanted a historical piece about him but Colvin felt that breaking news was more important. "Tyrer wants profile," she wrote in her diary. "I ignore." Shadowing Colvin's exciting career were her drinking and troubled relationships. Many of the book's best moments lie in how it uncovers Colvin's vulnerabilities. Her first husband, Patrick Bishop, an Englishman with Irish heritage, was already cheating when they married; they reunited temporarily later on for a second act. Her second husband, the Bolivian journalist Juan Carlos Gumucio, had drug and alcohol habits and an appetite for women; he would subsequently kill himself. Other relationships were equally tricky, leading to breakdowns. When friends visited, they might find her with a bottle of wine or vodka - "by many measures, she was an alcoholic", Hilsum says. The turmoil of war could provide an escape from her life in London-and vice versa. The book propels readers towards the final chapter, called Baba Amr after the fateful city where a rocket killed both Colvin and photographer Remi Ochlik, who was just 28. Since their deaths, reporting from Syria has become increasingly sparse, leaving the regime to continue its bloody work unchecked. There's a terrible sadness in how this biography ends, for Colvin and Ochlik and for the Syrians. Yet it epitomises the philosophy of her reporting. She understood the risk she was taking. In her own words, "Covering a war means going to places torn by destruction and death, and trying to bear witness." A garda has been given leave by the High Court to bring proceedings aimed at quashing a report by the Disclosures Tribunal. Lawyers for Garda Keith Harrison brought the application today, alleging tribunal chairman Mr Justice Peter Charleton was biased and should have recused himself due to a prior working relationship with a senior garda who gave evidence at the inquiry. Gda Harrison was severely criticised in the tribunals second interim report, published in November last year, and again in its third interim report, published last month. The judge dismissed allegations made by Gda Harrison and his partner Marisa Simms that gardai had coerced her to make a false complaint against him, and directed Tusla to visit their family home. Mr Justice Charleton described some parts of their story as "nonsense" and exonerated gardai and Tusla officials. But Gda Harrison has now alleged the judge should have recused himself from the module due to a prior working relationship with Chief Superintendent Terry McGinn, who was the most senior officer in the Donegal garda division during the relevant period. Earlier in his career, Mr Justice Charleton acted as counsel for the Morris Tribunal, which investigated Garda corruption in Donegal. Chief Supt McGinn was the Garda liaison officer to the Morris Tribunal and would later be a key witness in the Disclosures Tribunal module dealing with Gda Harrisons complaint. Mark Harty SC, for Gda Harrison, said his client recently learned of newspaper reports from 2006, which he said demonstrated the judge knew Chief Supt McGinn and had worked extensively with her. The articles related to the criticism of an RTE 'Morning Ireland' re-enactment of a Morris Tribunal hearing. They detailed how Mr Justice Charleton, then barrister for the tribunal, said the re-enactment created "a deeply unfortunate and unpleasant impression that Chief Supt McGinn was not interested when a garda came to her wanting to tell the truth. The then barrister also said Chief Supt McGinn fulfilled her post as liaison officer with distinction. Mr Harty said none of this was disclosed at the Disclosures Tribunal and that his client had no knowledge of the relationship until recently. Had this been known earlier, his client would have asked the judge to recuse himself from the module of the tribunal dealing with his allegations. A statement of grounds submitted to the court said that subsequent to the discovery of the newspaper articles, a solicitor for Gda Harrison wrote to the judge saying the prior involvement between him and Chief Supt McGinn ought to have been disclosed and that this involvement revealed at the very least an apprehension or perception of bias. The letter called upon the judge to withdraw his reports in so far as their findings relate to Gda Harrison. It also requested that he recuse himself from further dealing with Gda Harrison, such as decisions in relation to legal costs. The court heard that, in response, the tribunal stated it was a matter of public record Mr Justice Charleton was lead counsel to the Morris Tribunal from 2002 until 2006 As such, he had professional interactions with counsel, solicitors, witnesses and liaison officers from any agencies represented at the tribunal, the response said. The response said the sole basis on which Gda Harrison alleged bias appeared to be the correcting by Mr Justice Charleton of an erroneous report. It said the judge had no recollection of this, but that such applications were common. In the circumstances, your proposal that the tribunal take the steps outlined in your letter is absurd and repugnant to the tribunals duty to the Oireachtas and the people of Ireland, it said. Mr Justice Seamus Noonan said he was satisfied Gda Harrison had demonstrated arguable grounds and granted leave to seek a judicial review. The tribunal was not represented in court. The matter will return to the court in the coming weeks. A garda convicted last week of possessing images and videos of children being subjected to sexual acts will be sentenced next January. Joseph O'Connor (58) of west Dublin had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to five counts of possession of child pornography at his home on dates between January 1, 2010 and August 2, 2011. During a search of his home on August 2, gardai investigating other allegations seized a laptop. A subsequent analysis of the laptop found videos in the computer's "recycle bin" depicting boys under the age of ten being subjected to sexual acts. Two videos depicted boys under 17 being subjected to sexual acts with a male adult. There were also multiple copies of 16 different images of children sexually exposed or being subjected to sexual acts. Last week a jury of ten men and two women returned unanimous verdicts of guilty on four counts. The jury acquitted him of one count, which dealt with 56 duplicates of two images. He was found guilty of possessing the two originals of these images, which were found in a computer folder named Spanked Boys. He was also convicted of possessing 15 explicit videos of child sex around August 2011. Finally he was convicted of possessing 56 images and 42 videos of children being subjected to explicit sexual acts and 41 images of children being sexually exposed. Most of these files were found in the unallocated cluster space of the hard drive. This area is where files are placed after deletion from the recycle bin and is inaccessible to the user without the use of specialist software. Expand Close Unanimous verdict: Joseph OConnor was found guilty. Picture: Collins / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Unanimous verdict: Joseph OConnor was found guilty. Picture: Collins Paul Carroll SC, defending, told the court last week that O'Connor is a long term serving garda and has been suspended since these matters arose. He asked for time for his client to be able to gather reports for the court for the sentence hearing. This morning Judge Elma Sheahan remanded O'Connor on continuing bail to January 14 next. After his arrest O'Connor told gardai that he had never seen the material before and denied downloading it. He somebody else must have downloaded the files. He said he believed that a man, Patryk (sic) Farrell, who came to his home for sex, days before the laptop was seized, had corrupted his computer. Closing the State's case Alice Fawsitt SC told the jury there was no evidence of any virus on the laptop and no evidence of anything that might have happened to it the weekend before it was seized. Counsel for O'Connor told the jurors they must consider if it was possible that the files were put on the computer by somebody else. He said O'Connor told gardai that hundreds of men had come back to his home for sex and that any of them could freely use his laptop. Mr Carroll said that on the day after they met for sex at O'Connor's home Mr Farrell texted O'Connor and told him he was bruised and that he was going to gardai and would "destroy" him. O'Connor went to gardai to report that Mr Farrell had stolen his garda ID, handcuffs and cash from his home. Counsel asked if it was reasonable that his client knew Mr Farrell had made allegations to gardai and didn't destroy his laptop knowing there was illegal material on it. He said the prosecution had failed to prove that Mr Farrell or the "100s of men" going to O'Connor's home didn't have something to do with putting the material on the laptop. During legal argument in the absence of the jury the court heard that gardai went to OConnors home in August 2011 to investigate allegations of assault by Mr Farrell. They seized the laptop in connection with this investigation and subsequently found the illegal images on it. The jury were told that Mr Farrells allegations were also forwarded to the Garda Ombudsman but Mr Farrell did not co-operate with this investigation and it was dropped. The jury also learned that an internal investigation by Inspector Colm Fox, since deceased, concluded there was no basis for the allegations of false imprisonment, rape or sexual assault. In his report Inspector Fox said the physical injuries alleged by Mr Farrell were consequences of sexual acts. Mr Farrell is also since deceased. Gardai and the PSNI have joined forces to smash a Dublin burglary gang that has been wreaking havoc on both sides of the Border. As part of new efforts to dismantle the organised Traveller crime gang, permission is being sought for a joint secondment between the two forces. Gang members are suspects in 30 burglaries on both sides of the Border in the month of September alone, when large amounts of cash and jewellery were stolen. "This would involve a PSNI officer moving to Tallaght garda station, while a Tallaght garda would work in the North for a number of months with the PSNI," a source told the Irish Independent. "The reason for this is that it would lead to even more enhanced co-operation between the two forces in an attempt to dismantle this highly prolific burglary gang." The mob, which has close links to slain crimelord 'Fat' Andy Connors, are described as "highly forensically aware" and have been using bleach-like substances in order to clean crime scenes, destroying DNA and fingerprint evidence. Investigations have established that one car that has been used by the mob to travel from Tallaght to the Border areas and back was fitted with half-a-dozen different false registration plates in the course of just a few weeks in a bid to avoid detection. "While this gang have been involved in very violent aggravated burglaries in the past, the recent spate of crime has generally been against homeowners who were not in the property at the time and it has mostly been cash and jewellery that has been stolen," the source explained. "Gardai and their colleagues in the PSNI have completed a detailed dossier on this gang, including family trees of its members and their relationship to each other, lists of the addresses and vehicles they use, as well as the crimes they have committed. "The ultimate aim is to dismantle and destroy this criminal organisation, which has been particularly active in the last decade," the source added. FORTY-five women-only senior academic roles in third level institutions will be on offer over the next three years to accelerate gender equality under a government plan. Higher education minister Mary Mitchell OConnor has insisted that shes not concerned at potential legal challenges to offering jobs to one gender only. She said there has been rigorous legal assessment of the Gender Action Plan 2018-2020 to ensure it complies with national and European Union laws. The junior minister said that without measures to increase the number of women professors it would take 20 years to reach the government gender equality objectives for higher education. She said that the Higher Education Authority (HEA) block grant to third level institutions will be used to reward those that do well in the delivery of gender equality and tackle those that dont take it seriously. Launching the action plan with Ms Mitchell-OConnor, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that women have historically been Irelands greatest untapped reources. He said the government want girls to aim high in politics, academia and other sectors. An Estonian man has pleaded guilty at the non-jury Special Criminal Court to conspiring to murder a man in Northern Ireland last year. Imre Arakas (59), with an address in Sopruse, Tallinn, Estonia, admitted today to conspiring with others not before the court to murder James Gately in Northern Ireland between April 3rd and April 4th last year, contrary to Section 71 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006. Paul Greene SC, prosecuting, told the three-judge court this morning that Arakas could be arraigned on the single count. Dressed in a blue t-shirt and wearing his hair long to his shoulders, Arakas stood up and faced the court. When the registrar read the indictment to Arakas and asked him how he was pleading, he replied, Guilty. Mr Greene told the court that a trial date had previously been fixed for January 14 next year and that could now be vacated. Michael Bowman SC, representing Arakas, requested that a governors report be prepared on behalf of his client and this was granted by the court. Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, sitting with Judge Sinead Ni Chulachain and Judge Cormac Dunne, remanded the defendant in custody until November 30, when he will be sentenced. The High Court endorsed a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) from Lithuania in February 2018 in relation to serious charges Arakas will face there once his jail term is completed in Ireland. Fears about the potential for family feuds have delayed changes to the Fair Deal Scheme, which had been promised as a massive boost to business owners and farmers. The Government is preparing new legislation that will limit the financial burden of nursing home fees for parents who pass on the family business or farm to the next generation. However, the plan has hit a snag after a number of unforeseen 'what if' scenarios were identified by officials. A key concern is that an elderly farmer or business owner could move into a nursing home on the understanding that one child would take over the business - but ultimately it could be bequeathed to another child. Officials are concerned that such a scenario could result in a dispute over who pays the nursing home bill, with the potential to end up in court. Farmers and business owners were expecting changes to be brought before the end of this year around the Fair Deal Scheme to reduce the burden of nursing home fees. This would work by putting a cap on the amount of money the Government could demand from assets such as these. The Irish Independent previously revealed that Minister for Older People Jim Daly is to give farmland business assets the same status as the family home under the Fair Deal Scheme. Under the current regime, farming families and small business owners are required to set aside 7.5pc of the value of their property annually in order to fund a place in a nursing home. The overhaul will see this bill capped at three years. However, despite the plans for reform being mooted repeatedly over recent months, a number of previously unknown concerns have now emerged to delay the proposal. Mr Daly, who is leading the reform of the Fair Deal Scheme, confirmed that "a number of legal issues and anomalies have arisen and a number of 'what if' scenarios have been brought to our attention. "We have to get the legislation right as we do not want it challenged in the courts," he said. The minister said that he hopes the Government will approve the draft heads by the end of the year. But the Irish Independent understands that questions remain over the interpretation of any changes. "We do not want the legislation to be inequitable; we want it to be as fair as it can be. "We are working on those challenges behind the scenes, but I am hopeful the draft heads will be approved by the Government by the end of the year," the minister told the Seanad. He said as soon as the draft heads are approved and published, the Dail can proceed to legislate in 2019. Under the current Fair Deal Scheme, in effect, when somebody decides to go to a nursing home, 7.5pc of his or her farm or business can be deducted indefinitely. If someone ended up staying in a nursing home for 10 years, potentially 75pc of the assets would go back to the State. This is a situation that farm organisations say is making it unviable for farms and businesses to be kept within a family. They warned that this is acting as a deterrent to the Fair Deal Scheme as a whole for these families. Despite proposed reforms, it is understood that issues around ownership and succession could prove problematic. This is considered particularly pertinent in farms, where the land ownership has not been transferred to the active farmer. Mr Daly said there is no gain for anyone in delaying entering nursing home care as there will be a retrospective aspect to the legislation. "At whatever stage in 2019 the legislation is enacted by the Houses and signed by the President, we will apply it retrospectively to anyone who is already in a nursing home," said the minister. However, it is understood that anyone currently in a nursing home, who has paid more than three years at 7.5pc for each year, will not get a refund. "People will have to pay for three years anyway," Mr Daly said. As such, a person debating about going into a nursing home or waiting for a change, should of course go in," Mr Daly added. "We can presume with reasonable confidence that this legislation will be well wrapped up within that three years. "It will apply then to anyone who has been within the system for three years." The minister added: "While there will be no recoupment for those who have been in there for seven years and we will not be giving any money back, anyone who comes into the system or who is one, two or three years into their phase will see the recoupment stop after three years. "As such, there is no financial benefit to anyone in delaying the decision to go into a nursing home." Managers in the region with the worst trolley crisis have had leave banned during the festive period - but only for January and not December. The two-week ban for health executives and operational management teams has been imposed in the University Hospital Limerick group in the mid-west, which suffers the highest levels of overcrowding in winter and summer. A spokesman said senior management were informed leave would not be sanctioned for them between January 2 and 16 as trolley numbers traditionally spike. University Hospital Limerick had between 57 and 60 patients waiting for a bed on various days last week. It comes as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who wants full round-the-clock rosters to be maintained post-Christmas and in January, has identified good management as key to tackling overcrowding. As an example, he highlighted Dublin's Beaumont Hospital as benefiting from good management in bringing down its sky-high trolley figures. "They are the best performer every day on the TrolleyGAR (the HSE's system of recording patients on trolleys), having been the worst, and have record low overcrowding," said the Taoiseach. "I met them over the summer to hear what they were doing right. The answer is that it's the obvious good management practices. There's no mystery to it. "I just don't know why best practice is not mainstreamed." Cork University Hospital, which also suffers from regular severe overcrowding, did not respond to questions on its Christmas and new year rostering. But a spokesman for the South and South West Hospital Group said: "There is no additional leave given to medical staff other that what is planned and agreed on a yearly basis to ensure that staff can have their statutory entitlements." It comes as Health Minister Simon Harris and his officials meet the HSE to iron out details in its winter plan. The plan aims to rely on the same measures as previous winters to improve patient flow, with increased access to step-down beds and transitional beds, as well as additional homecare packages to move more patients from wards into the community. However, many of the patients who come through emergency departments after Christmas and the new year will be over 75 with several illnesses and they will need a longer hospital stay. Capacity A question mark still hangs over how soon the additional 79 beds promised to ease overcrowding will be ready. A spokeswoman for the minister said that "consideration will be given in the coming days as part of the HSE's preparations for winter". The 79 extra beds, which will mostly not be open until 2019, include a 30-bed ward in Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda and a 40-bed modular ward block in South Tipperary Hospital. She said 10m is being allocated to "enable hospitals to get patients home where appropriate before the end of the year with a focus on supporting patients in the over 75 age group". Meanwhile, the flu remains at low levels so far and is not having an impact on hospitals. Last week, there were no confirmed patients hospitalised with flu and there were no reports of flu-related deaths. President Michael D Higgins during Armistice Day commemorations at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin ahead of his inauguration. Photo: Caroline Quinn President Michael D Higgins led Ireland's 100-year Armistice commemoration -paying tribute to the 200,000 Irish soldiers who fought in World War I, and calling for renewed "solidarity" among nations. The President laid a wreath honouring Ireland's fallen soldiers - 49,000 brave souls from North and South who had fought for global liberation beyond the bounds of politics or nationalism. Irish and British dignitaries joined representatives from across the world at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, to remember the ultimate sacrifice the soldiers had made. Among the crowds were people whose relatives died in the conflict. Victoria Cross commemorative plaques were unveiled in memory of five soldiers, from Dublin, Wicklow, Sligo, Antrim and Down, who perished. Their names and valour had long since been forgotten in their nation of birth. But yesterday, finally, they were honoured on Irish soil, as they were posthumously awarded the cross - the highest British military award for gallantry. Culture Minister Josepha Madigan laid a wreath in honour of one of the soldiers, Private Martin Moffat, from the Leinster Regiment. Expand Close Peace in our time: The ceremony at Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin, to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice agreement. Photo: PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Peace in our time: The ceremony at Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin, to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice agreement. Photo: PA In his address, Mr Higgins said: "We remember, in particular, the 200,000 men from across the island of Ireland, North and south, east and west, who served in that war, and we call to mind in a special way the tens of thousands who never returned home, who remain forever in the soil of Belgium, France, Greece and Turkey." He said while some Irish soldiers returned from the front to fight in "our own battle for national independence", others had come home to "experience a lack of understanding of either their service or their wounds, and would struggle to find their place in a rapidly changing Ireland". "For many years, there was an uncertainty, even a reticence, to recognise the human reality of World War I, and those who fought and died in it," he added. "In our public history, the reticence was reflected by a form of official amnesia that left a blank space in our public memory. "That has now changed, as citizens across our island have begun to discover a greater, and perhaps too-long delayed, insight into the experience of their grandparents, great-grandparents and neighbours." Expand Close War dead: Victoria Cross plaques were unveiled for five fallen Irish heroes. Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp War dead: Victoria Cross plaques were unveiled for five fallen Irish heroes. Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images Quoting Martin Luther King, Mr Higgins noted we continue to live in "a world gone mad on war", "a world in which, more than at any other time, so many people are subject to atrocities, to famine, to starvation and to displacement and exile". He called on all nations to "rededicate ourselves to the cause of peace". "Let us recapture that rare spirit of mutual solidarity, that recognition of our common humanity, and let us once again resolve to build together a more just and equal world, free from the terrors of war." An Irish photojournalist has spent more than a year embedded with the New York Police Department to produce a candid account of the work carried out by police officers across the Atlantic. Independent.ie photographer and videographer Mark Condren had unprecedented access to capture the NYPD in action. The work has led to the creation of the book NYPD: Behind the Scenes, a one-of-a-kind release featuring an incredible collection of more than 200 images. It was launched in New York on Friday night. Mr Condren's work captures police offices in action, fighting crime, engaging with communities and carrying out less glamorous daily tasks. NYPD commissioner James O'Neill paid tribute to Mr Condren's efforts. "What I like most about these photos is that they capture such a wide array of the many functions of the New York city's police," he said. Mr Condren said producing the book helped him capture the scale of work carried out by the NYPD every day. "These images have brought me closer to an understanding of what it means to be a cop in the city that never sleeps - I am truly humbled and thankful to have witnessed the commitment of New York's finest first-hand," he said. The book is available on Mark's website A new report from online gambling operators has said the amount of money generated for good causes by the National Lottery has plummeted by 43m in the last decade. The study by economist Jim Power, which was commissioned by operators Lottoland and myLotto24, found funding for good causes plummeted 16pc from 268m in 2008 to 225m in 2017. Some politicians have demanded that online lottery-based gambling - where players bet on the outcome of the lotteries rather than buy actual tickets - be banned. However, the report said there was no evidence to suggest that online lottery betting presents "any meaningful threat" to good causes funding from the National Lottery. Last night, the National Lottery vehemently rejected the report and accused online lottery gambling operations of "cannibalising" Ireland's lottery. "The National Lottery rejects the claim that offshore, bet-on-lottery operators pose no threat to National Lottery good causes funding. "These operators are clearly cannibalising our games and denying good causes from additional funding, which is incredibly impactful on communities across the country," a spokesperson said. Over 31 years, the National Lottery has raised 5.3bn for good causes. However, Mr Power said he found no evidence that lottery betting was undermining funding for good causes. "It is factually incorrect to argue, or indeed lobby, on the premise that online lottery betting, which is fully licensed in this jurisdiction, presents any threat to the good causes funding," he said. Government leak: Jim Daly is helped from the Wild Atlantic Pool in Baltimore after falling in. Photo: Anne Minihane/Southern Star Government Minister Jim Daly took an early bath after an unexpected slip into a leisure centre pool, forcing him to make use of the new changing rooms that he had arrived to open. The Minister for Health and Older People took a dip, soaking his suit, after cutting the ribbon for the new facilities at the Wild Atlantic Pool and Leisure Centre in Baltimore, Co Cork on Friday evening. He is understood to have been testing the temperature of the water when he lost his balance and fell in. "It was great to see so many supporters at the official opening of our new changing rooms last night," read an online post from the leisure centre. "Fair play to Jim Daly TD, who got more than he bargained for with an unexpected dip in the pool, but came up smiling." The photo - from Anne Minihane for 'The Southern Star' newspaper - shows Mr Daly in a cheerful mood, despite the embarrassment of his unexpected dunking. A photo and video, which was posted on Facebook by the publication, shows the Fine Gael TD being offered a helping hand by a lifeguard at the leisure centre as he made his way from the centre of the pool. What is Fair Deal ? Fair Deal is the shorthand for the 'The Nursing Homes Support Scheme', which provides financial help for people who need long-term nursing home care. It is operated by the HSE. The scheme covers private, voluntary and public nursing homes. What sort of financial help does it provide? An assessment of all your income and assets is carried out in order to work out what your contribution to your care will be. There are two elements to your contribution. You will pay 80pc of your income (eg, a pension) and 7.5pc of the value of your assets every year towards your care. Is the family home included in my assets under Fair Deal? A person's principle residence will be counted as an asset, but only for the first three years. This is known as the 22.5pc, or 'three-year' cap. Why are changes planned for farms and small businesses? The Government has been aware for some time that the way Fair Deal is applied to family businesses is a serious impediment when it comes to passing it to the next generation. Because the three-year cap does not apply, the 7.5pc charge on assets is applied annually for as long as the person stays in a nursing home. This means that if somebody were to stay in care for 10 years, three-quarters of the business's value would be owed to the State. What changes are being proposed? Minister Jim Daly has already secured Cabinet backing to apply the three-year cap to farms and businesses if they continue to be operated by a close relative. So what's the problem? The minister's officials are in the process of drafting the relevant legislation but are concerned it may need to be more technical than previously believed. They have identified a number of 'what if' scenarios. These focus on how a succession works. The assumption that the relative working in the business or on the farm will actually be left all of the assets may not always prove accurate. As a result there are fears that disputes between family members could need to be resolved in court. What is being done to resolve the issue? The minister is looking at a number of safeguards. There may be strong succession rules put in place in order for a person to qualify for the Fair Deal Scheme. How long will the overhaul be delayed? It was expected there would be a formal announcement last month. Sources told the Irish Independent the delays mean legislation is unlikely to be debated in the Dail this year. However, they remained confident the issues can be resolved so the Heads of Bill can go to Cabinet by the end of the year. There is broad political support for some form of change. Searches are underway off the coast of Kerry for a kitesurfer who went missing this afternoon. It's understood the man went missing at around 3pm this afternoon off the coast of Ballybunion. The local coast guard at Valentia said that searches are ongoing, with the Irish naval vessel, LE Niamh, Kilrush/Valentia coastguard part of the cross-agency operation. Shannon-based Rescue 115 has also carried out two sweeps, since the alarm was raised around 5pm. Conditions in the area are understood to have been choppy. A windsurfer who spent a treacherous seven hours lost at sea "put his life in Gods hands" as he drifted 25 miles around the west coast of Ireland. Lorenzo Cubeddu (59) from Inch East, Co Kerry was reported missing off Ballybunion yesterday after he was last seen at 3.30pm by a local fisherman. Expand Close Lorenzo Cubeddu failed to return to shore / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Lorenzo Cubeddu failed to return to shore The alarm was then raised when he failed to return to shore, which initiated a major multi-agency search and rescue operation. Later that night, at 11pm, his wife Amanda received the incredible news that her husband was alive and well in Kilkee, Co Clare. However, it was his own survival skills that saved his life after Mr Cubeddu leapt from his sail onto the jagged cliffs in Kilkee. He then wandered in the dark until he came across a mobile home, whose occupier alerted the authorities of his whereabouts. The lucky watersport enthusiast, who works in Supervalu, Ballybunion, was then transported to University Hospital Limerick, where he is now being treated for dehydration. In an emotional interview, Ms Cubeddu described the details of her husbands perilous ordeal during what she described as the worst seven hours of my life. Im still shaking with relief and joy, she said. Lorenzo has been windsurfing for over 30 years and nothing like this has ever happened before. Hes always so careful, but his nightmare began once the wind around Ballybunion suddenly dropped leaving him unable to return to the shore. Hes always so careful, but his nightmare began once the wind around Ballybunion suddenly dropped leaving him unable to return to the shore. It was pitch black and there was nothing around him but water so he ditched his sail as it was no use to him any more. He then lay down and hoped the current would take him back to shore, but instead he drifted further and further away. At one stage, the rescue helicopter passed by but failed to see him. It was at this stage that Lorenzo knew his life was in Gods hands. He then said to himself God, please use your power to save me. He then felt his presence and was perfectly at peace. Hours then passed and he felt himself being pushed close to a cliff. He knew that leaping from his sail onto the jagged rocked was the only way to shore so he took a chance that could have cost him his life." Using all the strength he had left, the 59-year-old Italian national climbed to the top of the cliff in Kilkee and found himself in the middle of nowhere. He began to wander the fields and felt hypothermia kicking in. At one stage, he got an electric shock trying to climb a fence and wondered if he was better off back in the sea. But in the distance, he spotted the light of a mobile home and made his way to it in his weakened state. An old man answered and was in shock by the sight of him, but soon realised that he needed immediate help. He then alerted the authorities, who arrived at the scene in no time at all. A local fisherman, who talked to Lorenzo before he took off, grew concerned once he lost sight of him and rang his boss at Supervalu, who then alerted the coast guard. Once I received the news, it was like the entire world closed in on me. The only thing I could do was pray that he would be found. Ms Cubeddu said she never gave up hope, but when two gardai arrived at her friends home she braced herself for the worst news imaginable. When they told me that Lorenzo was found safe and well I just couldnt believe it and cried with joy - there was a huge celebration among all those that participated in the rescue. I immediately made my way to University Hospital Limerick and when I saw him lying there I embraced him and realised that we received a miracle. Hes in good condition and is undergoing a series of tests and treatments for dehydration - he should be back to his old self in no time. This experience has changed our lives forever. I dont know if Ill ever like to see him windsurf again, but Ill worry about that another day. I have so many people to thank, including those that participated in the rescue and the fisherman who alerted Lorenzos boss of his disappearance. Cormac and Elaine Cahill, who are the proprietors at SuperValu in Ballybunion were amazing to me during the search. They really helped me to comfort me and it was through their constant support and reassurance that kept me going." A man in his early twenties is recovering after being attacked and stabbed at a house in Drogheda overnight. The 22-year-old victim was set upon in the Moneymore estate on the outskirts of the county Louth town just before 11pm last night. Three men have been arrested in connection with the attack, and are being questioned at Drogheda and Dundalk garda stations. It is unclear if the attack is related to a series of violent attacks centred on a bloody feud that has increased in tension in the town over the last week, or if it is a separate and unrelated matter. Associates of shot mob boss Owen Maguire are believed to be behind a terrifying incident in which a viable explosive device was left in the exhaust pipe of a car belonging to a rival mobster's girlfriend yesterday. Expand Close Sealed off scene in Moneymore, Drogheda (Photo: Kyran O'Brien) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sealed off scene in Moneymore, Drogheda (Photo: Kyran O'Brien) A flame was observed coming from the exhaust of the car in Drogheda at 2.40pm yesterday, sparking a major security alert. The device was viable and had wires coming from it. A senior source told the Irish Independent that gardai believe the device was detonated by a criminal using a mobile phone. "This car was parked on a very busy street and the bomb placed in the vehicle's exhaust could easily have led to loss of life," the source said. Expand Close Sealed off scene in Moneymore, Drogheda (Photo: Kyran O'Brien) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sealed off scene in Moneymore, Drogheda (Photo: Kyran O'Brien) It had melted in the heat of the detonation. The suspect device is the latest instalment in a bitter feud in the area. The innocent woman was targeted by the gang after the tit-for-tat feud escalated significantly in recent days, with six separate attacks taking place between Thursday night and Friday morning. Those incidents included four petrol bomb attacks and an assault upon a teenager. The latest incident took place yesterday afternoon, when gardai were alerted to the suspicious device. Homes were evacuated in the area and gardai put a security cordon in place. Last night, gardai said the device had been made safe by an Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. Both the car and the device were removed to forensic examination by gardai. Gardai had been carrying out stop-and-search armed patrols in recent days in an attempt to curb the rising tensions, with sources saying more resources were now needed to tackle the feud. There have been fears in recent weeks that the spate of incidents will eventually lead to a death. The feud kicked off on July 5, when Maguire was shot at in an attempt on his life. He is still undergoing treatment at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dublin. The first incident of the six that took place, beginning on Thursday night, occurred shortly after 11pm in the Termon Abbey area, when a petrol bomb was thrown at the home of an innocent relative of a man involved in the feud. It is understood that no one was hurt, although there was major damage to the property. Less than 15 minutes later, gardai received reports of a man entering a halting site in the Cement Road area, carrying a firearm. However, when gardai arrived at the site, they found no firearm. At around 2am on Friday, part of Cement Road was damaged in a petrol bomb incident. Men are notorious for neglecting their health so every November, the Movember campaign aims to raise awareness for male specific conditions and encourage men to be more open about their health and seek help when needed. The campaign has been running in Ireland for ten years, but Les Reilly was ahead of the crowd as he sought help when he discovered a testicular lump in 2007 and after being diagnosed with cancer and treated early, he is enjoying good health today. "In April 2007, I noticed some swelling in the testicular area with intermittent sharp shooting pain," recalls the 38-year-old. "The pain didn't last long, but was very strong when it happened and I found that taking a bath would take swelling down. This went on for a while because due to the area it was in, I was embarrassed to see my GP over it, so being a typical man, I hoped it would disappear by itself. "But unfortunately the bouts of pain began to last longer and I would be left with a heavy dull ache after each 'attack' as I called it. It was September - five months after the pain started - before I went to a doctor and after questioning me about lifestyle, hobbies and sports, I was referred to hospital for an ultrasound which showed up something abnormal, so I was sent for further tests." Following these investigations Les, who runs a convenience store in Naul, Co Dublin, received an appointment to see a consultant where he discovered the news that he had cancer. "I went alone as I didn't expect to be told my diagnosis and was really shocked to hear the word cancer, but was also relieved to have an answer to my strange symptoms," he says. "The consultant discussed a treatment plan of radiation therapy combined with chemotherapy and I went on to have 10 sessions of radiation which was fine, apart from being very tiring. Then I had a two week break before starting chemotherapy. "I can't remember how many sessions I had, but they started in November and went on until February the following year and a lot of sickness came with it - but I have been told it is much more advanced now in terms of anti-nausea. I had it worked out that if I had chemo on a Tuesday I'd be sick on Thursday, Friday and half of Saturday. I continued to work as I'm self-employed, but had great support from my employees and on many occasions called in favours. I also ended up having an orchidectomy (removal of the testicle), which went well and have had no problems in that area since." However, two years after his testicular cancer, the Dublin man was diagnosed with colorectal cancer and would advise everyone, men and women, to be vigilant about their health and seek advice if at all worried. "The second cancer diagnosis was very devastating for me as I had to have various surgeries on the same area, rather than remove it as a whole," he says. "I was left wearing a colostomy bag while the bowel was recovering and I found that very hard to accept, but I've had it reversed since and thanks to regular checks I can now say that I'm cancer free. "Unfortunately I lost my sister last year to cancer at 39 years of age and another sister to heart issues at 36 years of age a few years previously, so I would encourage everyone to look after their health - don't be embarrassed like I was initially, do regular self-checks as they cost nothing but could make all the difference as early detection is vital. Also talk to friends and family about how you are feeling and use all the services provided by the Irish Cancer Society - each hospital has a team so reach out and use them as they will help you get through it." Joan Kelly is the cancer support manager for the Irish Cancer Society - she agrees and says men need to stay on top of their health and not let embarrassment be the reason for a late diagnosis. "Testicular cancer occurs in the testicles, which are part of the reproductive system in men," she explains. "There are approximately 176 cases diagnosed every year in Ireland and most testicular cancers are germ cell tumours - which are the special cells needed for reproduction. There are two main types of testicular cancer: seminoma and non-seminoma and the exact cause is unknown. "It can be treated well, but sometimes embarrassment can be an issue for men even though there is really no need at all to be embarrassed - it's important and helpful to remember that doctors have seen it all before. So if someone is worried about testicular cancer we would encourage them to go talk to their GP, or go to a men's health clinic if they are more comfortable with that, as soon as possible. This is a very curable cancer, but the earlier it is caught, the better." Expand Close Les Reilly is now cancer free and thanks his regular checks. Photo: Tony Gavin / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Les Reilly is now cancer free and thanks his regular checks. Photo: Tony Gavin Testicular cancer is one of the easiest cancers to treat and very often it can be cured. The treatment varies, but the first step is usually surgery and then the type of treatment depends on the size and stage of the disease, the type of testicular cancer (whether it is seminoma or non-seminoma), if the cancer has spread and the general state of the patient's health. "Even though the symptoms of testicular cancer can be caused by conditions other than cancer, get them checked by your doctor," urges Joan Kelly. "Remember most testicular cancers are curable. If they are found early, they can be treated very easily. So if you feel you might be at risk, talk to your family doctor about your concerns. He or she may advise you to visit a specialist. And all men should examine their testicles regularly, especially those who have a history of undescended testes." The cancer care professional explains who is at risk of developing testicular cancer: * Undescended testicle: Testicular cancer is more common in men with a testicle that did not descend, or which descended sometime after birth. * Previous history of testicular cancer: You are slightly more at risk if you have had testicular cancer in the past. * Family history of testicular cancer: You are more at risk if your father or brother had the disease. * Fertility problems: If you have fertility problems, you have a small risk. * Mumps: If you had a rare complication of mumps called mumps orchitis, your risk increases. * Ethnic and social group: If you are white skinned, you have a higher chance of getting testicular cancer. Testicular cancer is also more common if you are in a wealthier social group. * Klinefelters syndrome: This is a sex chromosome disorder that causes low levels of male hormones, sterility, breast enlargement and small testicles. If you have the syndrome, you have an increased risk. For more information visit cancer.ie or contact the cancer nurseline on freephone 1800 200 700, email cancernurseline@irishcancer.ie or drop into one of 13 Daffodil Centres in hospitals nationwide. Movember partners with the Irish Cancer Society and are the primary contributor to their prostate cancer programmes. Funds help provide information, support and care to those affected by prostate cancer, as well as funding vital cancer research. To get involved check out movember.com Symptom checker * The most common symptoms of testicular cancer: * A painless lump or swelling in a testicle. * Pain or discomfort in a testicle or in the scrotum. * An enlarged testicle or a change in the way it feels. * A heavy feeling in the scrotum. If the cancer has spread you may get: * A dull ache in your back. * Tenderness in the breast area. * Stomach ache. * Shortness of breath. * A painless lump in the side of the neck. * For more information cancer.ie Actress Evanna Lynch attends the premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' "The Legend of Tarzan" at Dolby Theatre on June 27, 2016 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) Evanna Lynch attends the "Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them" World Premiere at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on November 10, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images) Evanna Lynch during her Viennese Waltz on Dancing with the Stars US Evanna Lynch attends the First look at The Forbidden Forest at Warner Bros. Studio Tour London Evanna Lynch has spoken about her struggle with anorexia nervosa, admitting its something she will always have to manage. The Harry Potter actress (27) struggled with the eating disorder when she was in her teens and says she still battles with negative thoughts to this day but has learned to control them. It was a constant battle. I would say, its a lifelong battle, she said. I think the reason its so intense when youre a teenager is youre not used to those feelings. When youre depressed, bullied, rejected, youve never had such intense emotions at once and it feels like the world is ending. You do recover from an eating disorder but the negative voice in your head, thats something youre always going to have to manage. Expand Close Evanna Lynch attends the "Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them" World Premiere at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on November 10, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Evanna Lynch attends the "Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them" World Premiere at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on November 10, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images) Speaking on RTE Radio 1s The Ryan Tubridy Show, Evanna insisted its important that others struggling with the same things she did try to surround themselves with positive people. When youre a teenager, it feels like you can never find your way out of it, she said. "One really important thing I found is to surround yourself with positive people, people who make you feel good about yourself. Thats obviously harder as a teenager when youre in high school but theyre not necessarily the friends youll have for life. I sympathise because I have days where I feel self-hate, even still. Evanna, who is currently competing on the US version of Dancing With The Stars, keeps a diary and admitted she noticed she usually writes in it after going through a bad relationship or some other negative experience. A week before I got this job I was writing really negative things to myself, she said. Then something can happen and you can turn it around really quickly. I suppose its knowing youre not the only one out there. People always ask me, How do you recover from an eating disorder? You have to choose to put your energy into things you love. The Louth native has reached the semi-finals of Dancing With The Stars and admitted the offer to do the show was too good to turn down as she has always had aspirations to dance. There's that thing with actors, dont do reality TV. But I just love dancing, she said. It just worked out this year. I got a weeks notice and came over. I couldnt wait to jump in, I danced a lot as a teenager. I wanted to be a dancer, rather than an actor but I didnt have the technique. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article you can contact Bodywhys the Eating Disorder Association of Ireland Helpline on 1890 200 444 or contact their email support service on alex@bodywhys.ie Its the worlds hottest honeymoon destination, but homework is required to get the most out of the Maldives. Jillian Bolger, Pol O Conghaile and Sarah Siese have all the travel tips you need. It's a honeymoon image set to stun. Floury-white beaches. Finding Nemo reefs. Holidays that begin like James Bond movies, with guests delivered to small yet perfectly formed Indian Ocean islands via speedboats and seaplanes. Water villas, infinity pools, spectacular spas and cocktails at 11am what could possibly go wrong? Well, a thing or two. The Maldives is made up of some 1,200 coral islands flung like a necklace into the world's most ooh-inducing ocean. But choosing the right resort is only the beginning. Even paradise has its pros and cons, and anyone thinking of splashing out thousands of euro on a trip should know what they're getting into... hence our bumper collection of Maldives travel tips. Simply put, this awesome archipelago could be the holiday of a lifetime, or an ultra-expensive exercise in boredom. Expand Close Mirihi Island, Maldives. Photo: Marielle Ruiz / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mirihi Island, Maldives. Photo: Marielle Ruiz Mirihi Island... read about Sarah Siese's visit here... How so? First off, the Maldives doesn't do cities. Apart from the tiny capital of Male, tourism centres on scattered small island resorts. Shopping, nightlife and local interactions are in short supply (anyone looking for a city or cultural buzz should skip it, or add a stopover - in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, for example). Then there are the costs. The Maldives has its relatively affordable resorts, but these can feel cheap and generic. Luxury is the calling card, so my advice is to splash on a shorter stay, rather than scrimping on a longer one. Talk to travel agents about resort options. What are the restaurants like? Is there a house reef? How many guests will be there? How long are the transfers? Does it have a spa? Is it near a famous dive site or surf break? The Maldives can be heaven (I've swum with whale sharks here, and eaten some of the best tuna of my life), or just another beach holiday. Do your prep work, pack smart, and you'll make sure it's paradise. When to go Expand Close Seaplane transfers are common in the Maldives. Photo: Pol O Conghaile / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Seaplane transfers are common in the Maldives. Photo: Pol O Conghaile Arrive like James Bond with a seaplane transfer... Temperatures average out at a pretty consistent 27 to 30 degrees, but there are distinct seasons in the Maldives. December to February is peak holiday time, with the least rainfall, clouds and humidity but blue skies bring high prices. March to April is hot and clear-skied for the most part (you'll find the best deals outside of the Easter holidays). May to November is off-peak - rain is more likely during these months, but conversely, it's when you'll find the best value breaks. Our tip? Ask your travel agent for advice, particularly if you're planning a visit based on encounters with wildlife such as manta rays and whale shark. Read more: Pol O Conghaile visits the Maldives Five things to know before you go Expand Close Hawksbill Turtle in the coral reef / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Hawksbill Turtle in the coral reef A turtle swimming among the Maldives' countless reefs... 1. Flight Fatigue Getting to the Maldives from Ireland can involve three flights - typically a seven-hour trip to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, followed by a four-hour haul to Male, and a transfer to your resort. Don't underestimate the journey or the jetlag, especially after a wedding. You'll need at least a week for your visit. 2. Dive in... A week in the Indian Ocean is the ideal opportunity to learn to dive, or to dive at some of the world's great sites. If you plan on either, make sure that your resort has a dive centre, and book any courses ahead of arrival. Remember, divers are advised not to fly for circa 24 hours after their last dive (to lessen the risk of decompression sickness). Schedule accordingly! 3. Love & Money... Holidaymakers are captive on the Maldives' island resorts. Blissfully captive, but captive nonetheless. Expect high prices for everything from meals and drinks to activities, listed in US dollars (and topped up with taxes). To control costs, consider going all-inclusive or half-board. "Keep your shopping for the duty-frees in Dubai or Abu Dhabi on the way home," Pol advises. "There's a far greater selection, prices are lower, and you don't have to carry the extra load on hols." 4. Early nights... Don't expect nightclubs or party pubs in the Maldives. Resorts can fall quiet by 11pm or midnight, with just a few customers whispering sweet-nothings in the bars. Night owls need to manage expectations, or entertain themselves. 5. Living la vida local... Local experiences and immersions tend to be limited to staged shows, catch-and-cook-it-style fishing trips and the like in luxurious Maldivian resorts. If you want cultural excursions and town visits as part of your honeymoon, you may be better off going with a resort in Mauritius or the Seychelles. Visas & Vaccinations Expand Close Escape: Jumeirah Dhevanafushi / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Escape: Jumeirah Dhevanafushi Jumeirah Dhevanafushi... read Jillian Bolger's take here No visas are required for the Maldives - a 30-day free visa is issued on arrival for all nationalities, provided you possess a passport with at least six months' validity. You are also required to hold a valid departure ticket. No vaccinations or malarial measures are required at present. If you have questions about travel health, talk to your GP beforehand. Did you know? Expand Close A whale shark near Mirihi Island, The Maldives. Photo: Marielle Ruiz / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A whale shark near Mirihi Island, The Maldives. Photo: Marielle Ruiz A whale shark in the Maldives. Photo: Marielle Ruiz/Mirihi The Maldives is a 'shark sanctuary', with all types of shark fishing banned since 2010. That means some 30 species, including hammerheads and whale sharks, can roam freely in its 90,000sq km of the Indian Ocean, not only creating a paradise for divers and snorkelers, but helping to sustain local marine ecosystems. The import and export of shark fins is banned too. The Maldives: What to pack for Paradise Expand Close Conrad Maldives / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Conrad Maldives Conrad Madives Rangali Island. See more underwater hotels here... 1. Leave the heels at home Island pathways are made of powder-white sand, making high heels redundant in paradise. "By all means take some glamorous flats," Jillian recommends. 2. Smart Casual is standard Suits, ties and formal dresses have no place on the Maldives. Dressing up for dinner involves smart casual gear, so edit the evening wear. "Pack your floatiest dresses and thinnest shirts," Sarah advises. "A kaftan or loose beach dress can be thrown on over swimwear," adds Jillian. "You can also cover up before opening the door, should housekeeping or a butler drop by at the villa." 3. Wear sunscreen "The chance of sunburn is high near the equator, so pack sunnies, high SPF sunscreen, sun hats and after-sun lotion," Pol recommends. "High-end resorts will have sunscreen in their shops (at high-end prices, of course) but not all resorts offer this service, so bring your own supply." Keen snorkellers should bring rash vests for sun protection too. 4. Books & gadgets Stock up on books or load up your Kindle. "With beach loungers, a cabana and sunbeds by the pool you're likely to find yourself horizontal for much of your holiday," Jillian says. If you're diving or snorkeling, don't forget a waterproof camera, phone case or GoPro. "These should have a lanyard to attach to your wrist," Pol adds. 5. Carry cash Take out cash (US dollars or rufiyaa) at the airport in Male. You can sign for everything during your stay and even add a staff tip to your credit card bill on checkout, "but it's nice to put dollars or rufiyaa into your butler's hand on departure," Jillian advises. 6. Manage the mozzies Many higher end resorts spray the islands, but these pesky little critters love paradise as much as anyone, so bring along your bug spray and bite-relieving cream. Similar to bathroom products, these are expensive to buy on-site - not least because almost everything in the resorts is imported. Can I do the Maldives on a budget? Expand Close Paradise... Photo: Deposit / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Paradise... Photo: Deposit The short answer is no. Given the long-haul flights, transfers and exclusive nature of its island resorts, trips to the Maldives do not come cheap. That's not to say budget travel is impossible, however, just that prep-work and patience is required. Guesthouses do exist. Airbnb (airbnb.ie) has shared rooms from as little as 14pp per night, for example. These tend to be located on islands inhabited by locals, so independent travellers can get more of a feel for Maldivian life, as opposed to the luxury idylls of the island resorts. Be mindful however, that you'll also see a different side to paradise - relative poverty, coral bleaching and beaches that haven't been magically cleared of their litter, for example. The Maldives is also a Muslim country - alcohol and swimwear are fine in resorts, but you'll need to dress and behave appropriately among locals. Elsewhere, public ferries are much cheaper than seaplane and speedboat transfers (though you need these to access most luxury resorts). You can also save on snorkelling excursions by choosing islands with reefs close to shore. From Male, consider taking both US dollars and rufiyaa in cash. For more tips, Irish travel blogger Janet Newenham has a solid intro on her blog, journalistontherun.com. Did you know? Expand Close Fancy a #MagicMonday getaway? / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Fancy a #MagicMonday getaway? The Maldives is considered to be the flattest country on earth, with no point rising higher than a streetlamp. The average height of the islands is just 1.8m above sea level so you can leave the hiking boots at home. Get there The Maldives is widely available as a honeymoon (and holiday) package from Ireland. Try Travelmood (travelmood.ie), Trailfinders (trailfinders.ie), Classic Resorts (classicresorts.ie), Tropical Sky (tropicalsky.ie), Topflight (topflight.ie), Abbey Travel (abbeytravel.ie) and Sunway (sunway.ie) for starters. See also visitmaldives.com for tourist info. Read more: The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and automated processes has led to some legitimate concerns that the robots are coming for our jobs. Over a third of jobs in the UK were found to be at high risk of computerisation within the next 20 years, according to a report by Deloitte and Oxford University. From self-checkouts in supermarkets to drones assisting in everyday tasks, we can see both the threat and advantages associated with an automated world. One in four Irish adults expect robots and AI to take over their jobs within the next six to 10 years, according to a recent Red C poll. That means that younger generations will face an even more challenging employment landscape as humans are replaced by machines across a range of industries and roles. The challenge now is to equip future generations with the skillsets to embrace and thrive in this new world, and to prepare them for jobs that dont yet exist. Creativity, resilience and problem-solving have been identified as the key skills required to help children confidently embrace tasks, especially in the world of science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM). A creative mind These skills arent only necessary to help individuals to thrive - they are essential in tackling the global challenges facing humanity such as climate change. To become the innovative problem-solvers of the future, children need to be equipped not only with scientific and technical skills, but also with the freedom to create and experiment. So how can we encourage children to hone in on their creative side from an early age? Children need both the time and space for unstructured, imaginative play without disruption and guidance. A creative environment where children are encouraged to explore the world around them and take risks without the fear of failure is the ideal playground. Painting, pretend play, music and drawing can awaken the creative side of children and open their eyes to the potential of STEAM learning. Yes, it may be a noisy mess but research shows that early experience with creative arts supports cognitive development and increases self-esteem. The recently-held ESB Creative Techfest was a showcase of all that can be achieved by giving children the opportunity and environment to embrace their creative side while also learning new STEAM skills. More than 300 projects were submitted to this years festival, which celebrates the creations, inventions and inspirations of young people across the country in STEAM and digital creativity. Tomorrows problem-solvers The World Economic Forum identified complex problem-solving as the number one skill people will need to thrive in the workforce of the future. Children are born predisposed to problem-solving, with parents and the wider society playing a key role in helping them to turn their infinite capacity for wonder into strong and flexible problem-solvers. Just like engineers, we should encourage children to follow a simple thought process when encountering a problem. 1. Think about it 2. Try it 3. Fix it 4. Share it Problem-solving is learned through practice and it should be a joyful experience. Allowing children the chance to try (and fail!) at any task is encouraged. Baking, jigsaws or putting together IKEA furniture can test the mettle of many adults so why not let the kids try it? And then there are the people who solved the problems that we never knew we had. Just think of how the late Steve Jobs transformed the way we now consume music, TV and the way we use our phones. A phone used to be just a phone. Now its our organiser, our alarm clock and our newspaper. Jobs and other innovators did not solve these problems on their own. Collaboration was and still is key to any problem-solving task. That is why events such as ESB Science Blast are so important. This non-competitive programme aimed at fourth to sixth class primary school students encourages the whole class to investigate the science behind a simple question about the world around them using scientific methods of discovery. They will then display their findings at a showcase event in Limerick, Belfast or Dublin in 2019. Typical investigations include: How can we make the best slime?, Why does cake go hard but biscuits go soft?, Where do waves come from?, and Can I charge my mobile device with a fruit? The success of the programme lies in getting children to investigate questions that they come up with themselves and which are relevant to their lives. Todays generations always worry about what lies ahead for the next. But we all have the opportunity to ensure that "generation tomorrow" will be best equipped to face and embrace any challenge. Sponsored by: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend a service marking the centenary of WW1 armistice at Westminster Abbey on November 11, 2018 in London, England The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, during the annual Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in London The Duchess of Cambridge arrives for the annual Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which commemorates and honours all those who have lost their lives in conflicts The Duke of York, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip May, during the annual Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which commemorates and honours all those who have lost their lives in conflicts The Duchess of Sussex during the remembrance service at the Cenotaph memorial in Whitehall, central London, on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which marked the end of the First World War Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge attends the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance to commemorate all those who have lost their lives in conflicts and mark 100 years since the end of the First World War, at the Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain November 10, 2018. Chris Jackson/Pool via REUTERS Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, watches a National Service of Remembrance, on Remembrance Sunday, at The Cenotaph in Westminster, London, Britain, November 11, 2018. Victoria Jones/Pool via REUTERS Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, watches a National Service of Remembrance, on Remembrance Sunday, at The Cenotaph in Westminster, London, Britain, November 11, 2018. Victoria Jones/Pool via REUTERS Britain's Queen Elizabeth, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, watch a National Service of Remembrance, on Remembrance Sunday, at The Cenotaph in Westminster, London, Britain, November 11, 2018. Victoria Jones/Pool via REUTERS Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, leave after an Armistice Service at Westminster Abbey in Westminster, London, Britain, November 11, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend a service marking the centenary of WW1 armistice at Westminster Abbey on November 11, 2018 in London, England Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend a service marking the centenary of WW1 armistice at Westminster Abbey on November 11, 2018 in London, England Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan during the annual Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which commemorates and honours all those who have lost their lives in conflicts. Photo: Chris Jackson/PA Wire Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge followed by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex leave after attending a service marking the centenary of WW1 armistice at Westminster Abbey on November 11, 2018 - 11am on the 11th November 1918. This day is commemorated as Remembrance Day with special attention being paid for this years centenary. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images) Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex leave after attending a service marking the centenary of WW1 armistice at Westminster Abbey on November 11, 2018 in London, England Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend a service marking the centenary of WW1 armistice at Westminster Abbey on November 11, 2018 in London, England Britain's Queen Elizabeth, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge , watch a National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph in Westminster, London, Britain, November 11, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson While the most senior members of the British royal family stood for a moment of silence on Sunday, there was someone notably missing - Meghan Markle. While Queen Elizabeth was flanked by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, the other high profile Duchess of Sussex was adjacent to them on a different balcony, joined by German First Lady Elke Budenbender - this, a few hours after being placed several rows behind the same group at another Armistice Day event, was the cause of much speculation about Meghan's place in the family. It hasn't helped that excerpts of a new book by Robert Jobson paints a less than pretty picture of the couple behind the scenes and alleged tantrums thrown by the bride-to-be, which prompted Harry to utter the phrase, "What Meghan wants, Meghan gets." It was also reported at the weekend that three senior staff members have left after just a few months in their respective roles after the May wedding. Expand Close Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, watches a National Service of Remembrance, on Remembrance Sunday, at The Cenotaph in Westminster, London, Britain, November 11, 2018. Victoria Jones/Pool via REUTERS / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, watches a National Service of Remembrance, on Remembrance Sunday, at The Cenotaph in Westminster, London, Britain, November 11, 2018. Victoria Jones/Pool via REUTERS Kensington Palace would not comment on the departure of staff, or the allegations made in the new book, but royal experts state that her positioning at public events has little to do her personal standing and all to do with royal hierarchy. As monarch, the queen takes centre stage, while next in line Prince Charles follows, alongside British Prime Minister Theresa May and then by Prince William, whose role is changing as the family prepares for Charles to take a more centralised role over the coming years. Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, told PEOPLE that "there's a pecking order" with royal functions . "She was not as prominent perhaps as some people might have expected, but theres a pecking order," he said. "There was no slight intended, but William being the older, more senior brother would go out first with his wife. Meghan was still in a good position. She was central rather than the alternative of being in the front row and along the balcony to the left or right." Expand Close Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend a service marking the centenary of WW1 armistice at Westminster Abbey on November 11, 2018 in London, England / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend a service marking the centenary of WW1 armistice at Westminster Abbey on November 11, 2018 in London, England Read More Last week, a story was published which details a reported heated exchange between Meghan and her grandmother-in-law over her choice of wedding tiara. Video of the Day "Meghan had her heart set on this tiara with emeralds and Prince Harry hit the roof when they were told it was impossible for her to wear it," a 'well placed' source said, according to The Sun, adding that after a 'very heated exchange' with staff, the Queen stepped in and told Prince Harry: "Meghan cannot have whatever she wants. She gets what tiara she's given by me." According to the source, the tiara was out of bounds for the big day as the royals couldn't be certain of its origin - and were reportedly concerned it may have come from Russia. Expand Close The Duke of York, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip May, during the annual Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which commemorates and honours all those who have lost their lives in conflicts / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Duke of York, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip May, during the annual Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which commemorates and honours all those who have lost their lives in conflicts "The provenance of the tiara could not be established. There were concerns it could have come from Russia originally," The Sun quotes the source as saying. There have been a number of changes behind palace doors in recent months and Harry and Meghan are said to be planning on separating their court from Kate and William, especially as they are about to welcome their first child next year. As of now, all four are represented by Kensington Palace, but it's expected that Meghan and Harry will create a new court next year to focus on their specific agendas and responsibilities, as reported by the Sunday Times. Royal expert Sally Bedell Smith said that Harry's recent wedding "changed the dynamic" as he begins to forge his own path separate to that of his brother, who is second in line to the British throne and therefore has a clearer path of what's expected in comparison to his younger brother. The arrival of Meghan has changed the dynamic of the relationship in a fairly significant way, Ms Smith told People.. It is inevitable and practical because it gives Harry and Meghan some freedom to build up their own collection of interests and charities. Meghan has very strong views on what she is interested in and that may be what Harry shares, but not what William and Kate share. Last month, after the article was first published, Smith told Vanity Fair that the brothers' closeness was always as an "anomaly", especially compared to Prince Charles and his siblings. A remarkable video taken from a car driving through wildfires in northern California gives a terrifying perspective of the blaze which has seen thousands evacuated. Forrest Woodcox filmed the footage, which shows the sides of the road engulfed in flames, and posted it to Twitter with the caption: We almost died in Paradise, California. Wildfires are raging through both ends of the US state, with 31 people reported to have died statewide and 300,000 evacuated. The fire in the north of the state, known as Camp fire, has been the deadliest and it is there that Forrests footage was filmed. Forrests home is one of thousands of buildings destroyed. At 7am this morning my entire town caught on fire, Forrest wrote in a request for donations on the site Go Fund Me. My family lost our house in the matter of minutes, my grandparents have also lost their house & business as well. Forrests Go Fund Me post has so far raised 645 dollars of a 1,000 dollar goal. ABC7 News journalist Laura Anthony shared her own footage from Camp fire blaze, showing a fire devil, or fire whirl. Also known as a fire tornado, fire devils are whirlwinds induced by fires and consist of flame or ash. More than 8,000 firefighters have been battling the three large wildfires burning across nearly 400 square miles of northern and southern California, with out-of-state crews arriving to help. Overnight fire services have made progress in containing the blaze but they warned that gusty winds predicted for Monday morning could cause explosive fire behaviour. The crisis meant tonnes of strawberries were dumped or went to waste. Stock image A 50-year-old woman has been charged over an Australia-wide alert caused by fresh fruit being spiked with sharp needles. Authorities in all six of the country's states were investigating the tampering that has led to needles or pins being found in strawberries, apples and bananas. The crisis meant tonnes of strawberries were dumped or went to waste, threatening the future of the multi-million-dollar industry. It also led to harsher penalties being rushed through federal parliament for those caught tampering with food. The woman, who is understood to be from Queensland, has been charged with seven counts of contamination of goods, which has a three-year maximum jail term. Police say they will claim "aggravation", raising the maximum to 10 years. Punnets of strawberries contaminated with needles were first found in Queensland in September, and a public alert was issued. A reward of A$100,000 (64,000) was offered for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. Last month, a man was taken to hospital after swallowing fragments of a needle and experiencing "severe abdominal pain". A nine-year-old boy had a lucky escape when he spat out a needle while eating a strawberry at school. Detective Superintendent Jon Wacker, from the drug and serious crime group, described the investigation as "major and unprecedented". He said: "The Queensland Police Service has allocated a significant amount of resources to ensure those responsible are brought to justice." Government, police and intelligence agency officers were all involved. A police taskforce was established with detectives from various districts in the state of Queensland. "While the investigation is far from over, I would like to acknowledge the tireless effort of our investigators as well as members from all other agencies across Australia who played a role," said Det Supt Wacker. "I would also like to thank those within the strawberry industry for their co-operation and members of the public who assisted us with our enquiries." The accused woman is due to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court tomorrow. Social media users speculated on whether the motive was terrorism or targeting the farmer's income. Some believe the woman's actions sparked copycat attacks. Murdered: Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on his phone at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Photo: PA Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has become the first Western leader to acknowledge his country had heard recordings of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. "Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share," Mr Trudeau said from Paris, where he was attending the Peace Forum following the WWI Armistice centenary. His comments come just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had given recordings "to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them". The Canadian leader is the first since that announcement to officially confirm that "yes" his country's intelligence had listened to the audio. Expand Close CATALYST: Jamal Khashoggi / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp CATALYST: Jamal Khashoggi He said Canada's intelligence agencies had been working "very closely" with Turkish intelligence on Mr Khashoggi's killing. The shared audio is the latest measure by Turkey to maintain international pressure on Saudi Arabia in its aim to stop a cover up of the October 2 killing. Mr Trudeau said that he himself had not heard the audio, and he would not give any details on the contents of the tapes. Mr Trudeau also said he thanked Mr Erdogan in person for "his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation" when the two leaders met in Paris this weekend. French President Emmanuel Macron led tributes yesterday to the millions of soldiers killed in World War I, using an emotional ceremony in Paris attended by scores of world leaders to warn against nationalism a century on from the conflict. US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and dozens of monarchs, princes, presidents and prime ministers joined Mr Macron to mark the moment the guns fell silent across Europe 100 years earlier. Under grey skies and gently falling rain, many heads of state joined Mr Macron in walking the last stretch of the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, where the ceremony was held. Mr Trump and Mr Putin arrived slightly later in separate motorcades. In a 20-minute address delivered beside the tomb of the unknown soldier, Mr Macron described the "unimaginable hell" of those who fought in the trenches, denouncing the nationalism that fanned the flames of war and now shows signs of resurgence. He spoke bluntly of the threat from nationalism, calling it a betrayal of moral values. Mr Trump, who has proudly declared himself a nationalist, sat stony-faced, but smiled broadly as he exchanged a handshake with Mr Putin, who flashed him a thumbs-up sign. The US president's cordiality towards his Russian counterpart - despite alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election - has alarmed western European leaders who see Russia as a growing threat. "Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism," Mr Macron said. "When we say 'our interests come first, those of others don't matter', we erase the very thing that a nation holds most precious, that which gives it life and makes it great: its moral values." Expand Close Paris: Leaders partners including Princess Charlene of Monaco, French first lady Brigitte Macron and US first lady Melania Trump. Photo: REUTERS / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Paris: Leaders partners including Princess Charlene of Monaco, French first lady Brigitte Macron and US first lady Melania Trump. Photo: REUTERS The event marked the centrepiece of tributes to honour those who died during the war and to commemorate the signing of the Armistice that ended the fighting at exactly 11am on November 11, 1918. "The lesson of the Great War cannot be that of resentment between peoples, nor should the past be forgotten," he said, alluding to the millions of women widowed and children orphaned by the conflict, as well as the 10 million soldiers killed. Around him, former French soldiers stood rigidly to attention. "It is our deeply rooted obligation to think of the future, and to consider what is essential," Mr Macron said. The 90-minute commemoration included the reading by children of letters written by German, French and British soldiers during the war, a recital by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and a moving performance of Maurice Ravel's 'Bolero'. In the afternoon, Mr Trump travelled to the Suresnes American Cemetery, just west of Paris, to speak to veterans. He pulled out of a similar ceremony east of Paris on Saturday due to the weather. "It is our duty to preserve the civilisation they defended," Mr Trump said of those who fought in World War I. "We renew our sacred obligation to memorialise our fallen heroes" at the cemetery, "where they rest for all eternity," he said. Palestinian militants have bombarded Israel with dozens of rockets and mortar shells. In response, Israeli warplanes struck targets throughout the Gaza Strip in what appeared to be the most intense exchange of fire since the 2014 war. Palestinian officials said at least three people, including two militants, were killed by Israeli fire and nine were wounded. In Israel, the national rescue service said at least seven people were wounded, including a 19-year-old soldier who was in critical condition. Expand Close Israeli soldiers take cover near the Israel Gaza border (Tsafrir Abayov/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Israeli soldiers take cover near the Israel Gaza border (Tsafrir Abayov/AP) The fighting, which cast doubt over recent understandings brokered by Egypt and UN officials to reduce tensions, was triggered by a botched undercover Israeli military raid in Gaza the day before. The undercover troops, apparently on a reconnaissance mission, were discovered several miles inside Gaza, setting off a battle that left seven militants, including a Hamas commander, and an Israeli military officer dead. Around sundown on Monday, militants launched some 100 rockets in less than an hour, the most intense barrage since the 50-day war four years ago. The outgoing rockets, which continued into the evening, lit up the skies of Gaza and set off air raid sirens throughout southern Israel. The Israeli military said it was dispatching warplanes to strike terror targets across Gaza. The military said warplanes, helicopters and tanks had struck over 20 militant targets, including military compounds and observation posts. Expand Close Protesters wave their national flags near the fence of Gaza Strip border with Israel (Adel Hana/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Protesters wave their national flags near the fence of Gaza Strip border with Israel (Adel Hana/AP) It also said it targeted a squad that was launching rockets. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group, said the rocket fire was revenge for Sunday nights Israeli incursion. Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shehab said the groups wanted the occupation and its supporters know that the lives of our sons come with a price. In all, some 200 rockets were fired into Israel by mid-evening, the army said. The Israeli military said it intercepted 60 rockets. Rockets landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, setting off a large fire near a shopping centre. Another rocket landed near a factory, and a home was hit in the southern city of Ashkelon. Some landed in open areas. A bus travelling near the Gaza border was struck, critically wounding a 19-year-old man, Israels rescue service said. The strike set the bus on fire, sending a large plume of black smoke over the area. Six other people were lightly wounded by shrapnel, it said. Michael Oren, an Israeli Cabinet minister, said Israel will do whatever it takes to defend itself. We expect the world to stand with us, he said. The EUs ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, called for a halt in indiscriminate rocket fire toward civilians. Everyone must step back from the brink, he said. Expand Close Mourners carry the body of Hamas militant commander Nour el-Deen Barakas (Adel Hana/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mourners carry the body of Hamas militant commander Nour el-Deen Barakas (Adel Hana/AP) Earlier on Monday, thousands of Palestinian mourners buried the seven militants killed in Sundays incursion. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh led a funeral as masked gunmen in uniforms carried coffins and mourners chanted revenge. Hamas set up checkpoints across Gaza in a show of force. It also restricted movement through crossings with Israel, preventing foreign journalists, local businessmen and some aid workers from leaving the territory. Hamas also cancelled a weekly beach protest in northwestern Gaza along the border with Israel. The organisers cited the ongoing security situation. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. In the most recent war, over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them civilians, and tens of thousands were left homeless. Seventy-three people were killed on the Israeli side. Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas takeover. The continued fighting, along with the blockade, have devastated Gazas economy. Unemployment is over 50%, the territory suffers from chronic power outages and most residents are unable to travel abroad. An official loads a machine to automatically count votes in Broward County, Florida. Photo: Joe Skipper/Getty Images Recounts of two key US midterm elections began in Florida yesterday amid accusations of fraud by both sides in the race for governor and a Senate seat. Exhausted election office employees were told they have until Thursday to tally up votes cast in last Tuesday's election yet again. Unofficial results from Saturday showed Republican Rick Scott's lead in the Senate race had narrowed to 12,600 ahead of Bill Nelson, the Democrat incumbent. Meanwhile, Andrew Gillum, a Democrat vying to become Florida's first black governor, retracted an earlier concession after the count narrowed to put him within 33,600 votes of Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate. Both counts were hit by the slow postal vote counts that put the candidates within a margin of error that triggered a machine recount. Accusations of fraud and threats of lawsuits from both sides conjured up memories of the state's controversial recount during the 2000 presidential election. The Florida secretary of state ordered the recounts, an unprecedented step for the two flagship races in a state that took five weeks to decide the 2000 poll. Secretary of State Ken Detzner's office said it was unaware of any other time either a race for governor or US Senate in Florida required a recount, let alone both in the same election. The recount ran into early problems in Broward County yesterday, when a voting machine failed to register all ballots and Republicans asked for all machines to be tested. The count got under way after a two-hour delay. The heavily Democratic county is one of two where Republicans have made allegations of possible ballot fraud. Miami-Dade County election officials began feeding ballots into scanning machines on Saturday evening. The tedious work in that one South Florida county alone could take days, considering some 800,000 ballots were cast. Multiply that by 67 counties in the nation's third-most populous state, and the scope of the task was beginning to sink in yesterday. Mr Scott claimed yesterday that Mr Nelson wants fraudulent ballots and those cast by non-citizens to count, pointing to Mr Nelson's lawyers objecting to one provisional ballot being rejected in Palm Beach County because it was cast by a non-citizen. "He is trying to commit fraud to win this election," Mr Scott said. "Bill Nelson's a sore loser. He's been in politics way too long." Both the state elections division, which Mr Scott runs, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have said they have found no evidence of voter fraud. The recount opens against a backdrop of political tensions. US President Donald Trump on Saturday tweeted without evidence that the elections were being stolen. Angry protesters gathered at an elections office in Broward County on Saturday, waving signs and shouting with loudhailers. ( Daily Telegraph, London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021] TOPSHOT - Flames from the Camp fire burn near a home atop a ridge near Big Bend, California, on November 10, 2018. - The death toll from the most destructive fire to hit California rose to 23 on November 10 as rescue workers recovered more bodies of people killed by the devastating blaze. Ten of the bodies were found in the town of Paradise while four were discovered in the Concow area, both in Butte County. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP)JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images MALIBU, CA - NOV 11: A fire burns at the Salvation Army Camp on November 10, 2018 in Malibu, California. The Woolsey fire has burned over 70,000 acres and has reached the Pacific Coast at Malibu as it continues grow. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images) A wildfire burns at the Salvation Army Camp on November 10, 2018 in Malibu, California. The Woolsey fire has burned over 70,000 acres and has reached the Pacific Coast at Malibu as it continues grow. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images) Firefighters battle the Woolsey Fire as it continues to burn in Malibu, California, U.S., November 11, 2018. REUTERS/Eric Thayer TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY Authorities searched on Monday for more than 200 people unaccounted for in one of the wildfires rampaging through parts of California, voicing concern about a possible rising death toll, as gusty, dry winds spurred the flames. The so-called Camp Fire, California's most destructive on record, had left at least 228 people missing as of early Monday, according to Kory Honea, sheriff of northern California's Butte County, site of the fire. That fire and one in southern California have killed at least 31 people. Both fires have been whipped up by hot dry winds expected to continue through Tuesday evening, according to officials. The winds were expected to heighten the risk of fresh blazes ignited by scattered embers. More than 224,000 people have been displaced by the fires, officials said. The Camp Fire, 40 miles (60 km) north of Sacramento, burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in the town of Paradise, more structures than any other wildfire recorded in California. The blazes left behind scenes of utter ruin, with homes and businesses reduced to charred wreckage. Expand Expand Previous Next Close A woman and her child prepare for evacuation in Malibu. Photo: Eric Thayer/Reuters Vet Jesse Jellison rescues an injured goose in Paradise. Photo: Stephen Lam/Reuters / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A woman and her child prepare for evacuation in Malibu. Photo: Eric Thayer/Reuters Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next In Pictures: 15 photos show the devastation caused by California wildfire Close Tim Billow, 62, tries to save his plantings in his backyard as the Woolsey Fire burns in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. A Southern California wildfire continues to burn homes as it runs toward the sea. Winds are blamed for pushing the fire through scenic canyon communities and ridgetop homes. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) Yuba and Butte County Sheriff officers discover bone fragments inside a burned vehicle in Concow, California on November 11, 2018 after the Camp fire ripped through the area. - The death toll from the devastating California wildfire has matched that of the deadliest to hit the state, with 29 people killed, a local sheriff said on November 11. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP)JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images Yuba and Butte County Sheriff officers inspect remains near a burned out vehicle off a dirt road in Concow, California on November 11, 2018 after the Camp fire ripped through the area. - The death toll from the devastating California wildfire has matched that of the deadliest to hit the state, with 29 people killed, a local sheriff said on November 11. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP)JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images Water from a firetruck douses flames and smoke near homes in West Hills, California, on November 11, 2018, as firefighters continue their battle to control the Woolsey Fire. - Near Los Angeles, where the fire is threatening mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity redoubt of Malibu, the death toll has so far been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images Yuba and Butte County Sheriff officers write on a body bag after loading a body into a hearse in Concow, California, on November 11, 2018 after the Camp Fire ripped through the area. - The death toll from the devastating California wildfire has matched that of the deadliest to hit the state, with 29 people killed, a local sheriff said on November 11. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP)JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images The burnt out remains of a vehicle is seen at a home in the beachside community of Point Dume in Malibu, California on November 11, 2018, as the battle to control the Woolsey Fire continues. - Near Los Angeles, where the "Woolsey Fire" is threatening mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity redoubt of Malibu, the death toll has been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images Firefighters douse burning embers off Kanan Dume Road, a canyon road which cuts across the mountains to Malibu, California on November 11, 2018, as the battle to control the Woolsey Fire continues. - Near Los Angeles, where the "Woolsey Fire" is threatening mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity redoubt of Malibu, the death toll has been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images This photo shows the remains of a beachside luxury home along the Pacific Coast Highway community of Point Dume in Malibu, California, on November 11, 2018, as the battle to control the Woolsey Fire continues. - Near Los Angeles, where the "Woolsey Fire" is threatening mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity redoubt of Malibu, the death toll has been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images Burning embers remain amidst the destruction of a beachside luxury home along the Pacific Coast Highway community of Point Dume in Malibu, California, on November 11, 2018, as the battle to control the Woolsey Fire continues. - Near Los Angeles, where the "Woolsey Fire" is threatening mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity redoubt of Malibu, the death toll has been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images MALIBU, CA - NOV 11: Firefighters battle a blaze at the Salvation Army Camp on November 10, 2018 in Malibu, California. The Woolsey fire has burned over 70,000 acres and has reached the Pacific Coast at Malibu as it continues grow. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images) MALIBU, CA - NOV 11: A fire burns at the Salvation Army Camp on November 10, 2018 in Malibu, California. The Woolsey fire has burned over 70,000 acres and has reached the Pacific Coast at Malibu as it continues grow. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images) A wildfire burns at the Salvation Army Camp on November 10, 2018 in Malibu, California. The Woolsey fire has burned over 70,000 acres and has reached the Pacific Coast at Malibu as it continues grow. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images) A burnt car and a gas station remain visible after the "Camp" fire tore through the region near Pulga, east of Paradise, California on November 11, 2018. - Search teams scoured the carnage of California's most destructive ever wildfire for victims on Sunday, as the state-wide death toll rose to 26 with high winds hampering the effort to rescue property and save lives. At least 23 people have lost their lives in and around the Paradise community of 27,000, according to an official count by authorities. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP)JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images TOPSHOT - Flames from the Camp fire burn near a home atop a ridge near Big Bend, California, on November 10, 2018. - The death toll from the most destructive fire to hit California rose to 23 on November 10 as rescue workers recovered more bodies of people killed by the devastating blaze. Ten of the bodies were found in the town of Paradise while four were discovered in the Concow area, both in Butte County. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP)JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images TOPSHOT - Yuba County Sheriff officers carry a body away from a burned residence in Paradise, California, on November 10, 2018. - Firefighters in California on November 10 battled raging blazes at both ends of the state that have left at least nine people dead and thousands of homes destroyed, but there was little hope of containing the flames anytime soon. So far, all nine fatalities were reported in the town of Paradise, in Butte County, where more than 6,700 buildings, most of them residences, have been consumed by the late-season inferno, which is now California's most destructive fire on record. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP)JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Tim Billow, 62, tries to save his plantings in his backyard as the Woolsey Fire burns in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. A Southern California wildfire continues to burn homes as it runs toward the sea. Winds are blamed for pushing the fire through scenic canyon communities and ridgetop homes. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) The fire had scorched more than 113,000 acres and was 25 percent contained, officials said on Monday. Its death toll of 29 equals that of the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, the deadliest wildfire on record in California. The blaze has probably caused between $2 billion and $4 billion in insured property damage, Morgan Stanley estimated in a report on Monday. Speaking on CNN, Honea said while he holds out hope that many people listed as missing will turn up safe, "given what we've dealt with so far with casualties as a result of this fire, I have concerns that it (the death toll) will rise." In southern California, the Woolsey Fire had burned more than 91,000 acres and was 20 percent contained, officials said. The fire had forced authorities to issue evacuation orders for a quarter million people in Ventura and Los Angeles counties and beachside communities including the Malibu beach colony. By Sunday night parts of the two counties were reopened. At least two people have died in the Woolsey Fire, according to officials from the statewide agency Cal Fire, which has more than 3,200 personnel fighting the blaze. The number of people missing in the Woolsey Fire was not immediately available. Many of those allowed to return were left without power or cellphone service, even if their homes were spared by the flames. Malibu resident Tony Haynes described how strong winds brought the fire through his neighborhood during the weekend, with the sky growing dark, saying there was so much smoke he put on his scuba-diving tank to breathe. Haynes said his home survived. "It all came down to luck and a whole lot of buckets of water," he told KTLA 5. A smaller blaze in Southern California, the Hill Fire, was 75 percent contained and had burned 4,531 acres, officials said. 'IT'S ALL GONE' Wind gusts of up to 60 miles per hour (100 km) were expected in the mountains, valleys and canyons of southern California, raising the possibility of downed power lines and trees. This, in combination with low humidity, was expected to create the perfect conditions for fires to spread. Local residents were despondent over the fire damage. "It's not the house, because you can rebuild. But it's what is inside the house. It's all gone," Malibu resident Marcella Shirk, 82, told KABC-TV. "And that's what hurts, those kinds of things hurt, because you can't replace that." She and her husband lost their house of 41 years and its possessions. The house burned on his 92nd birthday. California utility stocks plummeted for a second trading day on Monday. Shares of PG&E Corp, which operates in northern California, dropped 16 percent, bringing its decline over two sessions to 29 percent, equivalent to $8 billion. Edison International, owner of Southern California Edison Company, slumped 11 percent, leaving its stock market value $5 billion lower since Thursday, when the fires broke out. Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has asked U.S. President Donald Trump to declare a major disaster to bolster the emergency response and help residents recover. Trump, a Republican who has often criticized Democrat-led California on a variety of issues including immigration enforcement, faulted the state government in Twitter comments during the weekend, blaming poor forest management by the state for the infernos. Brian Rice, president of the California Professional Firefighters, called Trump's statement "ill-timed" given the loss of life and ongoing search for missing people. "You can't just make a blanket statement," Rice told MSNBC on Monday, adding that fires and forest management were complicated and that weather also was a major factor. "Right now, what is needed is, really, support," Rice said. Japanese drugs firm Takeda will hold an investor vote on its 46 billion acquisition of Shire next month amid aims to complete the mega deal in early January. (David Davies/PA) Japanese drugs firm Takeda will hold an investor vote on its 46 billion acquisition of Shire next month amid aims to complete the mega deal in early January. Takeda has set the date for the extraordinary general meeting on December 5 and said it hopes to complete the takeover on January 8, subject to two-thirds approval from shareholders and the European Commission. Shires London-listed shares rose 2% to 47.15 each, having at one stage hit a high of 47.80 following the news. Takeda reached a deal in May to buy Irish rival Shire for 49.01 a share to create a global pharmaceutical giant. Christophe Weber, Takedas president and chief executive, said: The acquisition of Shire will accelerate our strategic transformation to create a stronger, more global and more competitive company with the financial strength to continue investing in delivering highly innovative medicines and transformative care to patients around the world. With the date of our extraordinary general meeting of shareholders now set, we are looking forward to continuing our dialogue with shareholders regarding the compelling strategic and financial benefits of this transaction. The vote comes as some Takeda shareholders worry the company is taking on too much debt to finance the deal. Takeda expects the cash flow generated from the acquisition will help reduce the companys debt following completion. The company intends to reduce its debt to two times adjusted earnings within three to five years. The deal still needs approval from the European Commission, which expects to announce its decision by November 20. Takeda said it will divest Shires pipeline compound SHP647, which is currently in Phase III clinical trials, to allay concerns over a future potential overlap between the companies inflammatory bowel disease products. The takeover has already secured clearance from regulators in the US, Japan, China and Brazil. The United Nations refugee agency has cautioned against returning ethnic Rohingya Muslims to Burma from Bangladesh, urging that officials be allowed to assess whether it is safe for them to return. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees issued the warning after the Burmese government said on Sunday that this week it would begin repatriating the more than 700,000 Rohingya who have fled from the Rakhine state in the west of the country to Bangladesh to escape deadly violence carried out by security forces. Authorities should allow these refugees to undertake such go-and-see visits without prejudice to their right to return at a later date, if indeed the refugees decide after the visits that the current conditions in Rakhine State would not allow them to return in safety and dignity, the UNHCR said in a statement. Statement by UN High Commissioner for Refugees on the repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar https://t.co/iSsAIwmE2V UNHCR News (@RefugeesMedia) November 11, 2018 The Rohingya refugees generally have been denied citizenship and civil rights in Buddhist-majority Burma, where prejudice against them runs high. The overwhelming majority of people in Burma do not accept that the Rohingya are a native ethnic group, instead seeing them as illegal migrants from Bangladesh and calling them Bengalis. Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, attending a business conference in Singapore on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian summit, did not mention the issue and did not take any questions. On Sunday, officials in Burma announced that Bangladesh had said repatriations would begin on Thursday, with an initial group of 2,251 to be sent back from mid-November at a rate of 150 per day. Expand Close Balukhali camp in Coxs Bazar, southern Bangladesh (Jemma Crew/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Balukhali camp in Coxs Bazar, southern Bangladesh (Jemma Crew/PA) Senior officials said they would do their best to be ready, but Bangladeshs repatriation commissioner said he was unaware that a date had been set. The UNHCR said it supports the voluntary and sustainable repatriation of Rohingya refugees in safety and in dignity to their places of origin or choice, and will work with all parties towards this goal. It is Burmas responsibility to improve conditions in the restive Rakhine region, it said. Sundays government statement said the returning Rohingya would stay at repatriation camps for two days and receive food and clothing before moving on to transit camps. It said China, India and Japan were providing necessary assistance for the repatriation process, but did not give details. The Rohingya exodus began after Burmese security forces launched a brutal crackdown following co-ordinated insurgent attacks in August 2017. The scale, organisation and ferocity of the operation led to accusations from the international community, including the United Nations, of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Burmas government has denied this. Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone took off for Italy (their Wedding destination) on Friday night. The couple looked more than excited to start a new chapter of their lives. However, before leaving India for their wedding, DeepVeer (that's what their fans lovingly call the duo) visited three B-town biggies, namely, their mentor, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Bollywood's Baadshah, Shah Rukh Khan and renowned filmmaker Karan Johar. Since these three personalities won't be able to attend their wedding at Lake Como, Itlay, the duo decided to meet them and personally invite them for their Wedding reception that will be held especially for their Industry friends in Mumbai. A close source has revealed to DNA, "Ranveer and Deepika wanted to meet people who they are close to before leaving for Italy as many of them won't be able to be present on their special day. They visited Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar's residences to seek their good wishes and invite them to partake in the celebrations that will be held in Mumbai later this month." Well, that's indeed one special gesture by Deepika and Ranveer! Furthermore, about their wedding reception, it is learned that both the families (the Padukones and the Bhavnanis) have decided to host two reception, one in Bengaluru (Deepika's hometown) and the other in Mumbai. The source adds, "The wedding will take place in the presence of their immediate family members and closest friends. However, the reception in Mumbai will see the who's who of B-Town in attendance. It will be nothing short of a display of power that these two yield. Deepika is the numero uno actress in Bollywood, while Ranveer is a superstar with an equally large fan following." Still too close to call: Sinema leads; counties can verify early-ballot signatures through November 14 By Taniyah WilliamsonCronkite News PHOENIX State and county officials, and Republican Party officials who sued over discrepancies in the way Arizona counties check voter signatures on early ballots, agreed Friday to a settlement that allows the verification process to continue until 5 p.m. November 14. That could have an impact on the tight Senate race between Kyrsten Sinema and Martha McSally. Sinema regained the lead earlier this week. Meanwhile, the Maricopa County Recorders Office continues to whittle away at its pile of uncounted ballots, which totaled more than 300,000 on Friday. County Recorder Adrian Fontes told the Associated Press that the count is expect to wrap up November 15. That process is independent of the settlement, which deals with the verification, or curing, of ballot signatures. The Republican parties in Apache, Maricopa, Navajo and Yuma counties filed the suit against all 15 Arizona county recorders as well as Secretary of State Michele Reagan late Wednesday. The agreement announced in Maricopa County Superior Court, allows all 15 counties in Arizona to cure the remaining early ballots until next Wednesday. The process works like this: Voters are required to sign the back of his or her early ballot envelope. That signature is compared to the one used to register to vote. If the signatures dont look similar, the voter will be contacted to confirm their ballot. The four counties named in the suit allow for longer times for verification; Republican officials claimed that disenfranchised voters in the other 11, mostly rural, counties. Its not clear how many votes across the state remain to be cured. A Maricopa County official told the AP the number in her county is about 5,600. More from Cronkite News This story originally appeared on Cronkite News and is published via a Creative Commons license . Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University Join the Conversation A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has summoned actor Akshay Kumar, former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal in the wake of 2015 Punjab Sacrilege Case. ..While former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal has been asked to appear before SIT on November 16, former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has been summoned on November 19 and Akshay Kumar has been asked to come on November 21, at the Circuit House in Amritsar...(2/2) Government of Punjab (@PunjabGovtIndia) November 11, 2018 Akshay Kumar has, however, denied involvement in the case. While Parkash has been asked to appear before the SIT of Punjab Police on November 16, Sukhbir has been summoned on November 19 and Akshay has been asked to come on November 21 to the Circuit House in Amritsar. The summon orders have been issued separately for the three by SIT member and IG rank officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, according to an official release issued here. The SIT is probing police firing incidents at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan in Faridkot in 2015 after a series of sacrilege incidents in the state. In police firing at Behbal Kalan, two persons were killed. Notably, the actor's name was mentioned in Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. According to the report, a meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir and Dera Sacha Sauda sect head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in connection with the release of latter's movie 'MSG' was held at Akshay's flat in Mumbai. The meeting was held before the pardon given to Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a blasphemy case. However, Akshay had denied all the claims. Kunwar Singh said the summons relate to investigation of cases originating from the various incidents of sacrilege in the year 2015. twitter The summons have been issued under Section 160 of the CrPC, requiring attendance at investigation, relating to the Bargari sacrilege case and the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura police firing incidents, the release said. The notice says the presence of the aforesaid person is necessary for the purpose of inquiry into the above-mentioned offence and the person summoned needed to give such information relating to the said alleged offence as he may possess. The SIT had earlier examined ADGP Jitendra Jain, then IG Bathinda; IGP Paramraj Singh Umaranangal; then Commissioner Ludhiana; IGP Amar Singh Chahal, then DIG Ferozepur Range; MS Jaggi, then DC Faridkot; SS Mann, then SSP Faridkot; VK Syal then SDM Faridkot, besides Mantar Singh Brar, then Kotkapura MLA. In addition, 50 private persons and more than 30 police officials of junior rank have also been examined. The five-member SIT was set up by the state government in September this year, soon after issuance of the notification to withdraw investigation of sacrilege incidents of the Guru Granth Sahib from the CBI. Its going to be the wedding of the year! Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone, the much in love couple of the B-Town, is all set to tie the knot in Italy on Nov 14-15. Its going to be a private ceremony of course but details about whats happening have already started to emerge. Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone left for Italy a couple of days back. Ranveer Singh was all excited quite evidently. Not only did he thank fans for wishing him Shaadi Mubarak, he was also listening to Mehendi Lagage Rakhna. Whats more? It is said that Ranveer Singh will dance on Govinda, Anil Kapoor and Akshay Kumars songs on his own wedding. Its going to be a crazy night. Considering how energetic he always is, we know he will surely drag all his friends and family members on the dance floor as well. Meanwhile, the wedding preparations in Italy have already begun. Whats more? While Deepika Padukones team has already reached Milan, Ranveer Singhs team including his stylist and manager left for Italy earlier today. With smiles on their faces and excitement in their aura, everyone looked all set for #RanveerKiShaadi. Also, this video from Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukones hotel is also doing the rounds. An Afghan national travelling to Dubai from Delhi airport was arrested with USD 450,000 (about Rs 3 crore) concealed in a harmonium. He was arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). Senior DRI officials said the man, whose name was not revealed, is a resident of Parwan near Kabul and DRI team apprehended him at IGI. The man was intercepted following a specific input. It was during a search on him that we found the foreign currency hidden inside the harmonium. The man was arrested and the money seized. It is being probed whether there is an organised syndicate responsible for the smuggling, an officer requesting anonymity said to HT. sourced The DRI had seized foreign currency worth Rs 2 crore at IGI on November 1. Earlier this Afghan was arrested at Kochi airport for trying to smuggle out foreign currency worth nearly Rs 11 crore. The officials of Indian authorities had seized 167 of foreign currency till July this fiscal year with a total amount Rs 54 crore. 73 people have also been arrested in these seizures. pti Even internationally, the movement of foreign currency in cash by couriers is used by organised crime syndicates to park illicit funds abroad. The outward smuggling of cash is a technique adopted as an alternate to hawala (informal banking), since it saves 3-5% deducted as hawala margin in a hawala transaction. Trend analyses by DRI indicates that Indian airports are being targeted by international crime syndicates for gold and narcotic drugs smuggling and the consequent smuggling of foreign currency, he added. The first phase of Chhattisgarh elections begun on November 12 as people walked to polling booths to cast their vote for 18 seats. While the voter turnout that was recorded until 4:30 pm was 56.58 according to ANI, Maoist-infested areas and grave danger didnt stop those who participated in this electoral process. Among the voters was a hundred year old woman named Viswas. Viswas was accompanied by her son and looked in a vulnerable condition but that didnt stop her from casting her vote inside the ballot box, ANI reported. Photo; ANI/The 100 year old woman accompanied by her son The woman cast her vote at a polling station in the Dornapal district. In Sukma too, a 103-year-old woman, Soni Bai exercised her voting rights at a polling booth in Gorgunda's Devarpalli. Her son carried her in his arms to the polling station. Out of the 18 seats, 12 seats have been reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. The seats that gone for voting process are in in the eight Naxal-dominated districts in south Chhattisgarh. Sukma: 103-year-old woman Soni Bai exercised her voting rights at a polling booth in Gorgunda's Devarpalli. His son carried her to the polling station in his arms. #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018 pic.twitter.com/dIJk9kXrRN ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Not only this, a differently abled person also reached Chintagupha booth in an unexpected display of enthusiasm. On the day of elections, the Naxals triggered several attacks in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district, around 175-km away from state capital Raipur. In an encounter that broke between the security forces and Naxals in Bijapur's Pamed area on Monday. IEDs were planted in the Kanker district that killed BSF sub-inspector Mahendra Singh. Dantewada: A differently-abled person reaches Chintagupha polling booth to cast his vote in the first phase of #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018 pic.twitter.com/Gcr545vs0B ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 According to ANI, around 900 polling personnel have been airdropped from helicopters so that they can reach safely. Over 16,500 polling personnel went by road. The polling for the remaining 72 seats will take place on November 20. #Chhattisgarh: People in Dantewada's Madenda village cast their votes even after threat from the Naxals to cut their fingers if the ink mark is seen on their fingers. Local says, "there are 263 registered voters in the village and many are voting even after the threat." pic.twitter.com/WPDYX9OiEs ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Meanwhile, according to local media reports Maoists from Maharashtra, Telangana and Odisha have crossed into Chhattisgarh ahead of the first phase of polling on Monday in a bid to disrupt the elections. However, the voters despite receiving threats are coming out to vote. Joining the bandwagon of unusual names that are replacing iconic cities of India, Pune which was the base of Maratha Empire might soon be known as Jijapur. As the centre approved new names of 25 places and towns in the last one year, people cant help but wonder why is India moving in the backward direction instead of forward? Why are we going back in history, tampering with names and connecting them to age-old traditional names just for the sake of reinstating our values and culture? Photo: BCCL Once Allahabad was renamed as Prayagraj, Faizabad as Ayodhya, Gujarat Chief Minister, Vijay Rupani expressed his interest in changing the name of Ahmedabad to ancient Karnavati. Hyderabad to Bhagyanagar and West Bengal to Bangla have also been proposed. It looks as if the trend is picking up with ministers from the government in power as they put forward brand new proposals to change city names in the blink of an eye. Now 'Sambhaji Brigade' has conveyed their demand to the government and want Pune to be renamed. The group also supports the proposal made by Shiv Sena for changing names of Aurangabad and Osmanabad to Sambhaji Nagar and Dharashiv. The brigade has even issued a letter describing their demands to the state government and has requested immediate action on their proposal, the Pune Mirror reported. Santosh Shinde, Pune district president of Sambhaji Brigade told Pune Mirror the reason behind the suggested nomenclature. Shinde referred to Chhatrapati Shivajis mother, Jijamata who was a great visionary, who ploughed the deserted Punawadis land in the 17th century with a golden plough, which is deemed as the beginning of Punes prosperity. Photo: Indian Express He further said that Pune was looted by Bijapur Adilshahs generals in 1630 AD due to which, not a single person was ready to stay here out of fear. In this case Jijamatas contribution cannot be forgotten as it is relevant to Punes modernisation, Shinde added. He corroborated the statement by saying that both the state government and Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis themselves claim that the government has been established with the blessings of Chhatrapati Shivaji. In order to implement this proposal, he said that they will meet Pune district collector Naval Kishore Ram on Monday to submit their official letter of request. They will explain the contribution of Shivaji and his mother to the collector for appropriate action. Photo: AP/ Diwali celebrations in Ayodhya Guess what, renaming villages and towns wasnt enough, the U.P government is now considering a demand made by saints and seers to ban the sale of liquor and meat in the sacred Ayodhya district. Read More. Here's More Top News For The Day: 1) Name Change Fever Grips The Nation, Now Maratha Group Wants Pune To Be Renamed 'Jijapur' Photo: Indian Express Joining the bandwagon of unusual names that are replacing iconic cities of India, Pune which was the base of Maratha Empire might soon be known as Jijapur.The brigade has even issued a letter describing their demands to the state government and has requested immediate action on their proposal. Read More. 2) Top AI Pilot Fails Alcohol Test While Another Skips It Altogether, Put Flyers' Lives In Danger An Air India pilot was stopped minutes before he was to fly to London from IGI Airport on Sunday afternoon after the mandatory pre-flight medical tests revealed he was too drunk to commandeer the flight. The 56-old-year Arvind Kathpalia who is a second time offender now faces a three years licence suspension. Read More. 3) Nearly 1,000 Priceless Ancient Artefacts Are Stolen And Smuggled Out Of India Every Year A Singapore based Indian origin shipping executive report has revealed an estimated 1,000 pieces of ancient artwork are stolen from Indian temples every year and shipped to the international market. Read More. 4) Amid Maoist Violence, 100 Year Olds And Disabled Arrive At Polling Booth To Cast Their Vote In Chhattisgarh Photo: ANI Among the voters was a hundred year old woman named Viswas. Viswas was accompanied by her son and looked in a vulnerable condition but that didnt stop her from casting her vote inside the ballot box. Another 103 year old woman in Sukma named Soni Bai arrived at Gorgunda's Devarpalli to cast her vote. Read More. 5) Tigress Avni Could Have Been Caught Alive Last Year But Forest Department Failed To Take Action The killing of tigress Avni has drawn a lot of criticism across the country and now it has been revealed that the post-mortem report contradicted the forest department theory that she was shot dead after the attempt to tranquillise her failed. In fact she could have been captured a year ago but the top brass failed to take the decision.Read More. Guess what, renaming villages and towns wasnt enough, the U.P government is now considering a demand made by saints and seers to ban the sale of liquor and meat in the sacred Ayodhya district. Just a day after the Press Trust of India reported that the centre had approved renaming of at least 25 places in the last one year including prominent Muslim cities of Uttar Pradesh like Allahabad and Faizabad, changing names of Hyderabad to Bhagyanagar, Ahmedabad to Karnavati are also on the cards. A spokesperson of the U.P government, Srikant Sharma said that the government was well aware of the demands made by the seers and will ban the sale of liquor and meat within the legal framework, TOI reported. The demand was a result of renaming Faizabad as Ayodhya. What needs to be noted here is the fact that the distribution and sale of liquor and meat was already banned in Ayodhya district and now that Faizabad has been made a part of it, the same rules should be implemented there also. While the apex court has pushed the hearing of the case to January, the government has come under fire for starting the construction of Ram Temple, as stones for the shrine are transported in bulk. Vishwa Hindu Parishad spokesperson in Ayodhya, Sharad Sharma welcomed the state governments plan to ban the sale of liquor and meat adding, This has been hurting the sentiments of saints in this religious town. Photo: AP/ Diwali celebrations in Ayodhya Ayodhya which is considered the birthplace of Lord Ram by Hindus has been in dispute for long. Both Hindus and Muslims are awaiting the Supreme Court verdict to a long-standing feud following the demolition of Babri Masjid. Recently, the Mughal Sarai junction was named after RSS leader, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay and is now known as the Deen Dayal Upadhyay junction. Allahabad is now known as Prayagraj. Other proposals like renaming West Bengal as Bangla is also on the cards. The government in power however, has received a lot of flak for being on a name-changing spree, specifically for changing the names of only Muslim cities. However, the opposition argued that this practice is doing nothing to benefit the common public. Modern day smartphones are all about being sleek and fashionable, but sometimes you just can't help reliving the good old days of clamshells and slide-outs. Which might be why Samsung has just announces a new high-end device that's also inexplicably a flip phone. Images courtesy: Samsung The W2019, successor to last year's W2018, has flagship-level hardware specifications, including 6GB of RAM and the recent Snapdragon 845. It actually has two displays, one which sits on the exterior of the phone, and one on the inside for when you flip it open you know? Both are 4.2-inch S-AMOLED displays with full HD. There are two cameras on the rear, both 12MP with variable aperture, and 4K video recording. The W2019 is powered by a 3070mAh battery with Android 8.1 Oreo, and sadly lacks a headphone jack. It does however also have a fingerprint scanner, mounted on the side.The device will be available in Rose Gold and Platinum colours. One important thing to remember is that Samsung, like a couple of other brands, actually provides exclusive concierge services for its W series of devices. With it, you get free software fixes, checkups, and a hotline you can reach out to for various tasks. Which is why this device is priced at a whopping $2,700 starting price, or Rs 1,97,000. Perhaps instead of that, this other folding smartphone from Samsung might be more your speed? Right now, there's only one possible way to fix a mistake in a tweet, but that involves a time machine that no one's built yet. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey finally seems to realise that's a thing people want, and decided to shed some light during a trip to India on Monday. Speaking at an IIT Delhi event, Dorsey said the company is actually looking at how to implement a way to edit tweets for typos. Particularly, he says, they have to carefully consider the use cases it might see. "You have to pay attention to what are the use cases for the edit button," he said. "A lot of people want the edit button because they want to quickly fix a mistake they made. Like a misspelling or tweeting the wrong URL. That's a lot more achievable than allowing people to edit any tweet all the way back in time." Jack Dorsey, the Co Founder & CEO of Twitter dropped in to chat this morning. Twitter has grown into the most dominant conversations platform globally. Jack explained some of the steps being taken to keep those conversations healthy & to tackle the menace of fake news. @jack pic.twitter.com/TCkj6st4rl Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) November 12, 2018 That's obviously a point contention, given the nature of Twitter. Given the ability, anyone could abuse the feature to alter a controversial or damning statement when highlighted later on. Though they could still just delete a tweet, it at least shows Twitter is rightly valuing accountability. And this is especially important in the US, where the obsessive tweets of President Trump are considered presidential record . Jack Dorsey, the Co Founder & CEO of Twitter dropped in to chat this morning. Twitter has grown into the most dominant conversations platform globally. Jack explained some of the steps being taken to keep those conversations healthy & to tackle the menace of fake news. @jack pic.twitter.com/TCkj6st4rl Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) November 12, 2018 "We have been considering this for a while and we have to do in the right way. We can't just rush it out. We can't make something which is distracting or takes anything away from the public record," the Twitter CEO said. Described as war to end to all the wars, World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in the history of the world. Several Indian soldiers also fought the war and lay down their lives in the process. To mark the end of the bloody World War I, Commonwealth of Nations member states celebrate Armistice Day on November 11, every year. A picture doing rounds on the internet on Armistice Day shows Sikh Soldiers who were a part of the Mesopotamian campaign which started in the Middle East between the World War I. Twitter They are seen carrying the Guru Granth Sahib on their head in the Sikh soldier march in Mesopotamia. It is often said that faith comes to our rescue in time of great peril. This gesture by the soldiers shows how much faith and respect they had for the Guru Granth Sahib and how it gave them the strength to keep going even in the harshest of circumstances. A picture is worth a thousand words, but these might be worth way more than that. 1. 1916 ( World War 1) :: French Woman Pins Flower On an Indian Soldier In France #IndiaInWW1 #LestWeForget pic.twitter.com/7yBWddO6xx indianhistorypics (@IndiaHistorypic) November 11, 2018 2. 1915 (World War 1) :: Indian Troops Landing at Suez Canal. Subedar Sadul Singh ( Great Grandfather of @Ra_THORe ) From Ganga Risala Regiment Fought In Battle of Suez Canal and Was Prisoner of War For 10 Years . He Was Awarded IDSM (Indian Distinguished Service Medal) #WW100 pic.twitter.com/QLOLkFXbGs indianhistorypics (@IndiaHistorypic) November 11, 2018 3. 1914 (World War 1 ) :: French Citizen Salutes Indian Soldiers as They March Down The Street In Marseille, France #IndiaInWW1 #LestWeForget #ArmisticeDay100 pic.twitter.com/17mccK0vcW indianhistorypics (@IndiaHistorypic) November 11, 2018 4. World War I :: Indian Soldiers Fought In Battle of Somme . Battle of Somme Was The Bloodiest Battle In WWI , With 30,000 Casualties In The First Hour pic.twitter.com/xytsgifaAF indianhistorypics (@IndiaHistorypic) November 10, 2018 5. 1915 ( World War 1) :: Indian Soldiers Digging a Trench In Fauquissart, France , Which Is Then Reinforced With Sandbags and Protected by Barbed Wire at The Front ( Photo - @britishlibrary ) #IndiaInWW1 #ArmisticeDay100 pic.twitter.com/DDfR6NK5Vk indianhistorypics (@IndiaHistorypic) November 11, 2018 6. World War 1 :: Indian Soldier Leans Down to Give Food to Two Starving Christian Girls During Campaign In Mesopotamia (Photo & Caption -https://t.co/t9CMGMONy2 )#ArmisticeDay100 #IndiaInWW1 #WW100 pic.twitter.com/LOGJpsjj1U indianhistorypics (@IndiaHistorypic) November 11, 2018 7. World War 1 :: Indian Troops During Gas Mask Drill On The Salonika Front In Greece ( Photo - @I_W_M ) #IndiaInWW1 pic.twitter.com/J94oNakc7E indianhistorypics (@IndiaHistorypic) November 11, 2018 Its been 100 years since World War I ended. France and UK to mark the Armistice Day, unveiled two war memorials respectively. World War I was a crucial part of our history textbooks, but most of us do not know just how many Indian soldiers had to sacrifice their lives in the battle. To commemorate and honour them martyrdom, two new memorials have been made in France. These have been erected in order to honour the role of the Indian soldiers in World War I and mark the Armistice Day, which is celebrated as it was the end of the deadly war in 1918. Today on the occasion of 100th Anniversary of #ArmisticeDay that marked the end of World War 1, I join the nation in paying homage to Indian soldiers who fought selflessly for human liberty and freedom. Their valour & sense of duty reaffirmed India's commitment to righteousness. pic.twitter.com/TZlbriJJcl VicePresidentOfIndia (@VPSecretariat) November 11, 2018 A statue, which is a seven-foot bronze statue was planned by the Inter-Faith Shaheedi Commemoration Association (IFSC). The statue will be unveiled near the cemeteries where the bodies of the Indian soldiers are buried. Another memorial was unveiled on November 10, 2018 by the Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu at Villers Guislain in France. "This marks the commencement of our project to establish 57 such statues near all cemeteries where our Indian soldiers lie buried in France," said Col. (retd) Deepak Dahiya, who served the Indian Army for past 23 years and is now in Paris for the smoother functioning of the IFSC project. Twitter There are other projects for honouring the Indian soldiers too. Over 4,700 soldiers and labourers who lost their lives in the World War I dont even have a known grave for themselves. In addition to honouring the sacrifice of brave men and women, war memorials also remind us of the horrors of war and the need to avoid them. Snakes slithering through toilets is not a new thing, these incidents are in the news almost every day. Unfortunately, this man in Bangkok, Thailand was bitten on his penis by a snake when he was doing his usual morning business. Terdsak Kaewpangpan was taking a dump in his home office and when he was about to stand up, he felt something latched on to his penis. He spontaneously held the head of the snake and removed it from his genitals. Representational Image Blood was all over the bathroom floor as the man yelled for help. When the neighbour came, he discovered four injuries from the bite - two on the genital area and two on his testicles. When the man was rushed to the hospital, he needed 15 stitches from the tip of his penis to his scrotum. Animal control volunteers took half an hour to find the snake. Earlier, the snake was found in the second bathroom but they failed to capture the python, so they used the other bathroom for their work. How scary is that?! Chinese mining company Bosai Group has acquired 51% of Shandong Qixing Groups alumina refinery for 1.2 billion yuan ($1.73 million), although the market does not expect any immediate relief to Chinese domestic alumina supply tightness, Fastmarkets understands. The Qixing refinery has capacity of 500,000 tonnes per year... BBB Doesn't Help Market Tea Leaves - 37 minutes ago Friday the Dow didn't go Higher even though the BBB bill passed the House of Representatives. What will today bring? Crude OIL and Natural Gas Elliott Wave Analysis: Look For A Bullish Continuation EW-Forecast.com - Mon Nov 22, 2:52AM CST Crude oil is making a deeper reversal in the 4-hour chart but still looks corrective, ideally as part of wave 4 a bigger ending diagonal pattern CLF22 : 75.83 (-0.14%) NGF22 : 4.885 (-5.05%) Soybean (ZS) Testing Weekly Chart Descending Wedge Resistance Tradable Patterns - Mon Nov 22, 12:40AM CST Soybean (ZS) is consolidating for a 3rd straight day to start the week, hovering just above downtrend resistance (on the daily chart). Significantly, ZS has halted the deep correction from the May/June... ZSF22 : 1264-6 (+0.12%) SOYB : 22.00 (unch) Grains Fibonacci targets updated ONE44 Analytics - Sun Nov 21, 8:02PM CST With a week's worth of closes above 820.00 you can now use it as the short term swing point. ZCH22 : 580-4 (+0.61%) ZWH22 : 852-6 (+2.22%) ZSH22 : 1276-6 (+0.14%) Bitcoin, Ethereum continue to break from our long term targets ONE44 Analytics - Sun Nov 21, 6:33PM CST The break so far from the long term target has taken out 23.6% back to the 6/22/21 low. The bigger area of support is at 53,400, Austria begins national lockdown to fight surging infections AP - Sun Nov 21, 6:24PM CST VIENNA (AP) Austria went into a nationwide lockdown early Monday to combat soaring infections, a step being closely watched by other European governments struggling with national outbreaks that are... $SPX : 4,697.96 (-0.14%) $DOWI : 35,601.98 (-0.75%) $IUXX : 16,573.34 (+0.55%) The Australian government does not pay for medical treatment or emergency flights home if something goes wrong, despite 25% of travellers wrongly believing the government will assist with medical and related costs, Kable said. More that 10,000 teens visited SE Asian destinations last year, including Bali, which is one of the top four destinations for Australian deaths overseas. Insured travellers are also at risk of losing a small fortune on medical fees by engaging in dangerous activities. They should understand they may not be covered by their insurance if they make a claim for an event caused by alcohol, drugs, use of a motorbike, or failing to declare a pre-existing medical condition, Kable said. There are hundreds of travel insurance policies on the market, so choosing a policy that covers the destinations and the activities is of utmost importance. Only a few insurers cover the high-risk activity of motorbike riding with strict conditions. Some insurers require a full Australian motorbike licence and an international or local driving permit for bikes over 125cc, while others require a temporary Indonesian driving permit for a motorcycle under 125cc. Ultimately, however, two of CBLIs major creditors did not support voluntary administration, which is their right, administrator Neal Jackson said. We will continue to focus on the issues across the remainder of the companies in administration, while watching with interest progress in CBLIs liquidation. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), meanwhile, welcomed the placement of CBL Insurance into liquidation coming without the need for a contested hearing. According to RBNZ, the High Court appointed Kare Johnstone and Andrew Grenfell of McGrathNicol, as liquidators of CBL Insurance. In February, RBNZ applied for the interim liquidation of CBL Insurance because it failed to meet solvency conditions, breached directions and due to its ongoing misreporting to the regulator. In a statement, RBNZ deputy governor and head of financial stability Geoff Bascand outlined that the interim liquidation took time because of the need for fairness to CBL Insurance, the complexity of its overseas business, and its poor quality data. Moreover, the regulator highlighted that opposition from CBL Insurances directors and shareholder caused significant delay to the full liquidation hearing. Once major creditors of CBL Insurance failed to come forward with support for an alternative restructuring proposal, then the liquidation outcome became inevitable, Bascand noted. We are pleased a contested trial was unnecessary. CBL Insurances demise is a complex multi-faceted event involving many parties both in New Zealand and offshore. There will be important lessons to be considered by all parties, he added. RBNZ said an independent review of CBL Insurances case to identify lessons for itself and the insurance regulatory regime is underway. It is being conducted by John Trowbridge and Mary Scholtens QC and will cover the period from the insurers licensing in 2013 through to the interim liquidation. Key findings from the independent review will be made public next year. Ramirez and his cohorts operated a sophisticated scheme over several years in our community, said US Attorney Andrew Byerly Birge. The well-deserved sentence imposed by the court reflects the leadership role played by Ramirez and the fact that he greatly profited from this fraud at the expense of Michigans automobile insurance system. According to STL News, the fraud ring operated from December 2011 to May 2014. The conspirators recruited and paid people to stage car accidents and obtain police reports so that claims could be made to their insurance companies. Clinic managers and others who participated in the scam told the people what symptoms to fake so they could get a prescription for physical therapy. The accident participants then received unnecessary treatment at the clinics, according to STL News. After a few sessions, the scammers would generally sign blank therapy treatment forms to make it appear that they received treatment they did not. The scammers billed auto insurers more than $1 million and obtained fraudulent payments of more than $600,000, according to the report. The sentencing of Ramirez completes a multi-year prosecution of people involved in the scam, STL News reported. Insurance Professional, Aflac Aflac is looking for ambitious, success-driven, career-minded individuals to serve as professionals marketing the companys products in several areas in Missouri. Individuals with strong consulting skills and presentation abilities are expected. You can visit the following links to apply for the positions in Harrisonville, Joplin, Sedalia, and Warrensburg. Insurance Sales Agent, BizInsure Are you interested in using an advanced technology platform to sell commercial insurance? BizInsure is looking for people like you who can fully utilize its proprietary business insurance quoting engine. All applicants must be licensed for P&C insurance in California and have experience with inside sales. You can apply here. Auto Insurance Agent, Greg Mauk Insurance Greg Mauk Insurance is a GEICO Local Office based in Oxnard, CA. The local broker is looking for a sales counselor with strong persuasion skills and a California P&C insurance license. Applicants who are bilingual Spanish speakers are encouraged to join. You can apply here. Licensed Insurance Sales and Service Professional, State Farm Mutual A State Farm office in Manhattan Beach, CA is in need of P&C-licensed sales personnel. Individuals who have previous experience working for a State Farm insurance provider are encouraged to apply. The business is offering a full-time position, salary with commissions, paid vacations, health insurance, and a view of the ocean. You can apply here. P&C Insurance Agent, Organization of Real Estate Professionals The Organization of Real Estate Professionals in San Diego, CA is a niche retail insurance brokerage. The company is on the lookout for applicants who are licensed and experienced in P&C, as well as E&O insurance. Applicants must be good team players. You can apply here. Insurance Agent, Ted Todd Insurance Allstate-affiliated agency Ted Todd Insurance is in need of insurance agents. The agency invests in its employees, promising compensation, full benefits, and even education and training as needed. You can apply here for the post in Atlanta, GA. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told American International Group Inc. to improve disclosures about its use of reinsurance to mitigate losses in its property and casualty unit, according to correspondence made public on Friday. After reviewing AIGs 2017 annual filing, SEC staff asked the insurer to add information that includes details about the amount of reinsurance it receives from a pact with Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The regulator also asked AIG to include a note about the methodology behind its reinsurance calculations as well as factors that may cause those amounts to change, according to a letter sent to AIG Chief Financial Officer Sid Sankaran on August 24. In a reply to the SEC dated Sept. 18, Associate General Counsel James Killerlane, said AIG was making the changes. AIG agreed last year to pay a reinsurance unit of Berkshire $10.2 billion to take over many long-term risks from U.S. commercial insurance policies that were losing money. Those long-tail exposures can emerge many years after policies are issued, often because of poor underwriting assumptions about customer life spans or the cost of workers compensation. Berkshires National Indemnity Co. unit agreed to absorb 80 percent of net losses in excess of the first $25 billion, with a maximum liability of $20 billion. AIG did not receive any payments last year because its claims payouts did not reach the $25 billion threshold. (Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Sandra Maler) Topics Reinsurance AIG The most destructive wildfires in Californias history have killed at least 31 people and forced tens of thousands more to evacuate as firefighters struggle to gain control amid swirling winds. The so-called Camp Fire in Northern California and the Woolsey Fire in suburban Los Angeles have destroyed more than 6,700 structures and could cost the state, insurers and homeowners at least $19 billion in damages. More winds are forecast for the afflicted areas, and there are no signs of seasonal rain ahead. It could take another five days before firefighters put out Woolsey and the rest of the month to extinguish the Camp Fire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said. Meanwhile, 149,000 people remain evacuated, Mark Ghilarducci, director of Californias Office of Emergency Services., said on Sunday. The blazes have now spread to more than 196,000 acres and threaten to destroy tens of thousands of structures, according to Cal Fire. About 228 people remain unaccounted for in the vicinity of the northern blaze. Governor Jerry Brown, meanwhile, has formally asked President Donald Trump to release new federal aid in a major disaster declaration. The request for emergency funding to support housing, crisis management and infrastructure recovery efforts came a day after Trump threatened to withhold federal payments to California. Were putting everything weve got into the fight against these fires, and this request ensures communities on the front lines get additional federal aid, Brown said in a statement. The damage north of San Francisco and near Los Angeles could be on par with the type of destruction triggered by Hurricane Michael, which left Florida in disarray earlier this year, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research. The California fires are as bad as folks think they are, Watson said, pegging possible damages of about $25 billion. Insurance for fire is already becoming an issue in California and this wont help that industry. Initially, Trump had threatened to withhold money because of what he called gross mismanagement of the forests. His later tweets were more measured, saying that our hearts are with those fighting the fires. On Sunday, Trump tweeted again to encourage proper management to stop the devastation constantly going on in California. As of Nov. 6, all of California is abnormally dry, up from nearly 85 percent the week before, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor in Lincoln, Nebraska. Almost 52 percent of Californias land met drought definitions. Statewide we are in a climate change and it is going to be here for the foreseeable future, said Daryl Osby, chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Six out of the last seven years, weve been in a drought. 8,000 Firefighters About 8,000 local, state and federal firefighters are on the scene. Authorities are investigating electrical equipment as one of several possible causes of the Camp blaze, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, Cal Fire spokesman Scott McLean said. Utility PG&E Corp. is still struggling to cope with losses from last years deadly fires that could cost it as much as $17.3 billion in liabilities, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimate. Camp Fire has now destroyed more structures than any other wildfire in state history, according to data compiled by Cal Fire. In Southern California, the Woolsey blaze had consumed 83,275 acres in Ventura and Los Angeles counties by early Sunday and was only 10 percent contained. Hot dry winds fanning flames will persist across Southern California, including Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Fontana and Santa Clarita, according to the U.S. Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. More than 20 million people live in those areas. Utilities Investigated A PG&E transmission line in the area went offline 15 minutes before the Camp blaze was first reported, the company said in a regulatory filing. The company also reported finding a damaged transmission tower near where investigators say the fire began. State investigators linked equipment owned by PG&E to 17 fires that burned in the state last year. Shares of PG&E, which provides electricity in Northern California, fell more than 16 percent on Nov. 9, and were down before the start of regular trading Monday. Edison International, which serves much of the southern part of the state, dropped 12 percent Friday. Related: Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Topics California Catastrophe Natural Disasters Wildfire A freight carrier typically issues a telex release after all original copies of the bill of lading are surrendered. A telex release allows the carrier's agent to release the cargo at one port even though the shipper surrendered the original bill of lading at a different port. Some carriers require payment of all fees before the telex release is transmitted to the receiving agent. Shippers and forwarding agents can usually obtain the necessary information by contacting the carrier who issued the original bill of lading. Key Takeaways A bill of lading is a legal document between a carrier of goods and a shipper that details the type, quantity, and destination of the goods being carried. A carrier of goods has the responsibility to obtain the original bill of lading before releasing cargo to the consignee or the recipient listed on the bill of lading. A telex release for a bill of lading allows the carrier's agent to release the cargo at one port even though the shipper surrendered the original bill of lading at a different port. Shippers can usually obtain a telex release by contacting the carrier that issued the original bill of lading, although some carriers may require fees or a letter of indemnity before issuing a telex release. Telegraphic Transfer Also known as a telegraphic transfer, a telex release is typically delivered by email and incurs additional expenses. Ideally, a telex release is quick and convenient, but issues with paperwork can cause delays and may increase costs. It is not a replacement for a bill of lading. Instead, a telex release is a convenient option for shippers who do not need original documents for their accounting or legal records. Bill of Lading A shipping company or forwarding agent can request a telex release in the original bill of lading instructions. When this occurs, the carrier can ship the freight without the original bill and minimize the risk of lost or stolen documents. A shipment that requires third-party transportation services may be delayed if the original papers are not available. The shipping company should provide confirmation of the original bill along with details of the freight contents. In some cases, a telex release may be requested because of a problem with the original bill of lading. If the documents are lost, stolen, or otherwise inaccessible, the shipper must request a telex release from the shipping company. This process is generally quite time-consuming and often results in additional charges for freight storage. The carrier sends the telex release when the original bill of lading is located or when a letter of indemnity from the shipper is provided. A letter of indemnity will ensure the carrier's agent will not suffer any losses or damages for releasing the shipment of goods to the recipient prior to obtaining the original bill of lading. Dangers of a Telex Release The carrier has the responsibility to obtain the original bill of lading before releasing the cargo to the consignee or the recipient listed on the bill of lading. To prevent asset theft, the bill of lading should accompany the cargo throughout its transit. Thus, the bill of lading acts as part of a carrier's internal controls to ensure it delivers the goods to the correct recipient. However, there are times when the shipper may surrender the original bill of lading to the carrier's agent in a port other than the discharge port. In this case, the third-country receiving agent must send the telex release to the discharge port agent confirming they have the original bill of lading. The telex release will instruct the agent at the discharge port to release the cargo to the specified consignee on the bill of lading or another party authorized by the shipper. The telex release must be worded carefully so that both parties understand the instructions and fulfill them correctly. In international trade, there have been documented instances where language barriers or careless communications have led to the release of valuable goods to unauthorized recipients. Criminals commit wire fraud by sending fake telex release emails to discharge agents authorizing them to release shipments to others participating in the crime. Many shipping lines have procedures to prevent such fraud, such as receiving written confirmation from the shipper before releasing goods without an original bill of lading. The aerospace sector, one of the largest and most powerful industries in the United States, supplies five markets: military aircraft, missiles, space, commercial airliners, and general aviation. The U.S. aerospace sector is considered the largest in the world and is the main supplier of both military and civil aerospace hardware to the rest of the world. This sector directly employs about 509,000 workers in scientific and technical jobs and supports more than 700,000 jobs in related fields. Because of the great emphasis on research and development (R&D), about 25% of those who work in aerospace are engineers, scientists, and technicians. Aviation is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States, and it has increased yearly at the rate of at least 14%. Key Takeaways The aerospace sector is one of the largest sectors in the United States, providing products and services to the military aircraft, missile, space, commercial airline, and general aviation markets. The history of the aerospace sector in the United States dates back to 1903 when Wilbur and Orville Wright built and flew the first successful powered airplane. The aerospace sector has many subsectors, including unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), commercial space, airport infrastructure, and aviation security. The Aerospace Industry The aerospace industry's product line is broad because its primary products, flight vehicles, require up to millions of individual parts. In addition, many support systems are needed to operate and maintain the vehicles. In terms of sales, military aircraft have the largest market share, followed by space systems, civil aircraft, and missiles. According to a study by the U.S. Department of Commerce, aerospace exports, directly and indirectly, support more jobs than the export of any other commodity. In 2018, the U.S. aerospace industry contributed $151 billion in export sales to the U.S. economy. As of 2019, the world's largest aerospace companies ranked in terms of total revenue were Boeing, Airbus, United Technologies (which merged in April 2020 with Raytheon to become Raytheon Technologies Corporation), Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. Aerospace Industry Subsectors The aerospace industry includes many subsectors that contribute to the industry's growth. For example, companies in the commercial space subsector design, manufacture, and launch advanced rockets and spacecraft. These companies are expected to see revenue growth as interest and spending increases in everything from space tourism, space exploration, improved satellite communications, and laboratories in space. SpaceX, Boeing, and Virgin Galactic are a few of the companies competing in the commercial space subsector. Another aerospace industry subsector is unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), commonly referred to as drones. A UAS does not have a pilot on board but is instead piloted autonomously or remotely. While drones are primarily used for military, research, and recreational uses, the main growth segment for UAS might come from drone delivery systems implemented by retail giants such as Amazon and Walmart. Airport infrastructure and aviation security is another aerospace subsector that continues to grow both in the United States and globally. Companies in this subsector focus on protecting the airline industry from terrorism threats, along with the identification and containment of cybersecurity threats. Alternative aviation fuel is an aerospace industry subsector that researches and develops alternatives fuels. Companies in this subsector look to develop alternatives that are environmentally sustainable and protect the airline industry from the price volatility of traditional jet fuel. History of the United States Aerospace Industry The aerospace sector's origin in the United States dates back to Dec. 1903, when Wilbur and Orville Wright demonstrated an airplane capable of powered, sustained flight. In 1908, the Wrights secured a contract from the U.S. Army to make a single aircraft, and also licensed their patents to allow the Astra Company to manufacture aircraft in France. Glenn Curtiss of New York began selling his own aircraft in 1909, prompting many American aircraft hobbyists to turn entrepreneurial. In 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and initiated the Mercury manned space program. In 1959, the U.S. Aircraft Industries Association, which was formed in 1919 to promote American civil aviation, changed its name to the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). U.S. aerospace industry interests are represented through the AIA, an aerospace-industry-funded organization that provides a forum for technical and policy issues, and whose membership consists of the major companies in the field. The simplified employee pension individual retirement account (SEP IRA) is a cost-effective option for small business owners who want to offer retirement benefits to their employees. The employer may also contribute to their own SEP account. As the name implies, setting up and managing a SEP IRA is streamlined compared to procedures for establishing and maintaining other qualified retirement plans used mostly by big corporations, such as the 401(k). Key Takeaways In a typical year, employers must contribute to a SEP IRA by the tax-filing deadline, which is usually April 15th. If the employer has filed an extension, then the final SEP IRA contribution date is the extension deadline, which is usually October 15. The maximum contribution to a SEP IRA is $58,000 in 2021, up from $57,000 in 2020. Notably, contributions to a SEP IRA are made entirely by the employer. Employees, however, may open their own Individual Retirement Account (IRA) and contribute up to the annual limits. SEP contributions must be made by the tax-filing deadline for the year in which they are made. Here is a closer look at SEP IRAs, how contributions work, and when they are due. Contribution Deadline for SEP IRAs Employer contributions to a SEP IRA are made in tax-deductible dollars. Business owners, including the self-employed, can also open a SEP IRA account and contribute to their own retirement savings. In either case, the deadline is the same. Contributions must be deposited into every employee's SEP IRA account by that year's tax-filing deadline, which is typically April 15 of the following year. If the employer has filed an extension, then the final SEP IRA contribution date is the extension deadline, which is usually October 15. For Example Say John earns $50,000 a year at XYZ Corp. The company wants to contribute 15% of each employee's compensation to their SEP IRA accounts in 2020. This means that John will receive a $7,500 contribution to his SEP IRA for 2020. In a normal year, XYZ Corp. would have until April 15 the following year to make the contribution to the employee SEP IRA accounts. If XYZ has filed a tax-filing extension until October 15, then the contributions must be made for John and all other employees by that date. SEP IRA Contribution Limits One of the advantages of a SEP IRA is that it has much higher contribution limits than a traditional or Roth IRA. In both 2020 and 2021, the annual contribution limit for a traditional or Roth IRA is $6,000, plus $1,000 for those aged 50 or older. With a SEP IRA, in 2021, an employer can contribute as much as 25% of an employee's gross annual salary or $58,000, whichever is less. That's up from a limit of $57,000 in 2020. To determine their annual limits, self-employed business owners must make a special computation that factors in the deductible portion of their self-employment tax. With a SEP IRA, employers may change their contribution levels from year to year based on business considerations. With a 401(k), employers may match a percentage of the employee's contribution. But in the SEP IRA, the contribution is entirely up to the employer and can change from year to year. In effect, this makes it a kind of profit-sharing plan. When business is great, the employer may make a generous contribution, as much as 25% of each employee's salary. When business is bad, the employer may reduce or eliminate the company contribution. This is not a bonus plan, though. If an employer has a SEP IRA, an identical percentage of salary must be deposited for each eligible employee. November 12, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Two teleconference media calls to discuss a major eight-figure investment by three international powerhouses in technology, marketing and venture capital. Participants will provide details on new investment goals, including improved customer service, increased research to uncover more hidden gem' investments for users, more training, an improved Platform 2.0, and dramatic growth across local markets in North and South America, Western Europe, Vietnam, Turkey, and Russia as well as all Spanish-speaking countries. Followed by Q&A with the CEO of KuCoin. Who: Michael Gan, Chief Executive Officer at KuCoin Chris Van Rossum, Head of Thailand Office at KuCoin Rita Cheung, Chief Compliance Officer at KuCoin When: 1st Conference: Wednesday, November 14, at 10:00 am EST [GMT 14:00 (UTC+8)]. To RSVP for this conference, please click here: www.regonline.com/kucoin1 2nd Conference: Thursday, November 15, at 9:00 pm EST [GMT 2:00 (UTC+8)]. To RSVP for this conference, please click here: www.regonline.com/kucoin2 Where: From the comfort of your home or office. This will be a Virtual Media Press Conference. Journalists can listen on a telephone bridge line and follow the conversation and submit questions through a web-conference interface. Login details will be provided upon RSVP. RSVP: Media wishing to join the Virtual Press Conference, please click on the appropriate links (above, under When) to register for your selected conference (and you CAN sign up for both). Upon registration you will link to additional pages for more information. Interviews: To arrange interviews with KuCoin personnel, please contact Jon-Michael Basile (jbasile@aboutsage.com, 703.533.4859) or Kerry Lynn Bohen (kbohen@aboutsage.com, 202.468.8300). ackground: KuCoin, a rapidly growing and secure Singapore-based international cryptocurrency exchange, will announce a Round A investment by three international technology marketing and venture capital powerhouse entities. The partnership will reinforce awareness while expanding blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption by millions of mainstream users worldwide. This partnership is designed to transform KuCoin into a household brand and market leader by building on its five million registered users. Where is crypto-currency headed? The truth is nobody quite knows for sure; but one thing is certain - with the dawn of blockchain protocol's integration into all forms of technology, true power appears to be returning to the place where it always belonged - with the people. As user controlled networks truly represent the future of human empowerment and the evolution of data and society, the end of centralization appears to be well within our reach. And entities such as KuCoin's cryptocurrency exchange are fully poised to take us there. About KuCoin: Widely acknowledged as "the People's Exchange," KuCoin opened for cryptocurrency trading in September 2017 and has enjoyed steady growth into 2018. The KuCoin exchange places a high priority on the quality of the coins listed, based on a well-trained research department that scours the blockchain industry for the highest-quality projects. KuCoin provides an exchange service for users to conduct digital asset transactions in a secure and efficient way. Over time, KuCoin aims to provide long-lasting, increased value to its more than five million registered users, in over 100 countries. More Info: This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp November 12, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) A BMO Capital Markets report assessed this project following a site visit. In a Nov. 7, 2018, research note, analyst Andrew Kaip reported that the overall impressions from BMO Capital Markets' site visit to Newmont Mining Corp.'s (NEM:NYSE) Tanami project in Australia's Northern Territory are that it is "a great success that keeps getting better," it is "quickly heading to tier 1 status" and it offers a "treasure trove of exploration opportunities." Kaip supported those statements with evidence. As for Tanami already being fruitful, he noted that over time there, gold production and processing rose while costs dropped, he highlighted. Between 2012 and 2018, production increased to 440515 thousand ounces (450515 Koz) from 183 Koz. Processing rates went up as well, by 80% to 2.6 million tons per annum, resulting from mine and mill optimizations along with fresh discoveries. Simultaneously, the all-in sustaining cost decreased to $705775 per ounce, per 2018 guidance, from more than $2,000 per ounce. "Tanami is able to keep costs in the second quartile given the morphology of ore zones that are amenable to low cost, long hole stoping," Kaip explained. The growth of reserves has been "impressive," noted Kaip, doubling to 4.4 million ounces at 5.7 grams per ton (5.7 g/t) gold (Au). Further, Tanami hosts another 700 Koz of Measured and Indicated resources at 5 g/t Au and 800 Koz of Inferred resources at 5.4 g/t Au. Regarding the Northern Territory mine continuing to improve and on the cusp of becoming tier 1, Newmont began shaft development and mill upgrading work for its next phase, an expansion, with the ultimate primary goal of bolstering reserves. When finished, Kaip relayed, "phase 2 is expected to lift annual production to the 600 Koz range with costs declining a further 10%, an outlook that clearly positions Tanami as a tier 1 mine." Finally, in terms of the exploration upside at Tanami, the main ore shoots are open at depth. Resources at Liberator, a new ore shoot at the project, seemingly with grades better than those of the reserves, have yet to be delineated. A third area with potential is Orac, which "could support further mine expansion," Kaip pointed out. BMO Capital maintains its Outperform rating and $42 per share price target on Newmont. The stock is trading at around $32.02 per share. Disclosure: 1) Doresa Banning compiled this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise reports as an independent contractor. She or members of her household own securities of the following companies mentioned in the article: None. She or members of her household are paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. 2) The following companies mentioned in this article are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: None. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. 3) Comments and opinions expressed are those of the specific experts and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. 4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article, until one week after the publication of the interview or article. Disclosures from BMO Capital Markets, Newmont Mining, Nov. 7, 2018 IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES Analyst's Certification I, Andrew Kaip, hereby certify that the views expressed in this report accurately reflect my personal views about the subject securities or issuers. I also certify that no part of my compensation was, is, or will be, directly or indirectly, related to the specific recommendations or views expressed in this report. Analysts who prepared this report are compensated based upon (among other factors) the overall profitability of BMO Capital Markets and their affiliates, which includes the overall profitability of investment banking services. Compensation for research is based on effectiveness in generating new ideas and in communication of ideas to clients, performance of recommendations, accuracy of earnings estimates, and service to clients. Analysts employed by BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. and/or BMO Capital Markets Limited are not registered as research analysts with FINRA. These analysts may not be associated persons of BMO Capital Markets Corp. and therefore may not be subject to the FINRA Rule 2241 restrictions on communications with a subject company, public appearances and trading securities held by a research analyst account. Company Specific Disclosures Disclosure 5: BMO Capital Markets or an affiliate received compensation for products or services other than investment banking services within the past 12 months from Newmont Mining. Disclosure 6C: Newmont Mining is a client (or was a client) of BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., BMO Capital Markets Corp., BMO Capital Markets Limited or an affiliate within the past 12 months: C) Non-Securities Related Services. Disclosure 9B: BMO Capital Markets makes a market in Newmont Mining in United States. Disclosure 16: A research analyst has extensively viewed the material operations of Newmont Mining. Disclosure 17: Goldcorp has paid or reimbursed some or all of the research analyst's travel expenses. For Important Disclosures on the stocks discussed in this report, please click here. More Info: This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp Gothenburg, Sweden - November 12, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) According to a new report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, yearly shipments of smart energy meters in Europe will reach a record level of 31.3 million units in 2018. Smart electricity meter shipments grew 16 percent compared to the previous year to 22.2 million units. At the same time smart gas meter shipments increased 9 percent to 9.1 million units. Growth in both segments will be sustained into 2019 and 2020, driven by ongoing large-scale rollouts in multiple countries. "The past year was another positive one for the adoption of smart meters in Europe", says Tobias Ryberg, Principal Analyst, Berg Insight. "Deployments of smart electricity and gas meters ramped up to volume in France. Italy continued with the installation of smart gas meters in parallel to the rollout of second-generation smart electricity meters. Spain and Norway completed their nationwide rollouts, while Lithuania became the latest country to announce one". The UK and Benelux were other regions with significant developments. While still behind the official timetable, the UK smart meter rollout continued in 2018, with the last pieces of technical framework finally coming into place at the end of the year. Belgium followed the Netherlands in adopting smart meters, with the launch of a large-scale project in Flanders. Germany however only made little progress with the partial rollout to larger customers. Adoption is still held back by the lack of certified smart meter data gateways. In the first wave, Germany is looking to equip approximately 5.5 million customers using more than 6,000 kWh per year or feeding solar power into the grid with smart meters. Download report brochure: Smart Metering in Europe About Berg Insight Berg Insight is a dedicated M2M/IoT market research firm based in Sweden. We have been specialising in all major M2M/IoT verticals such as fleet management, car telematics, smart metering, smart homes, mHealth and industrial M2M since 2004. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of intelligence for our customers. Berg Insight offers numerous market reports, detailed market forecast databases and advisory services. We provide custom research tailored to your requirements including focussed research papers, business case analysis, go-to-market strategies and bespoke market forecasting. We have provided analytical services to 900 clients in 72 countries on six continents to date. Our customers range from many of the world's largest mobile operators, IT companies and telecom vendors, to venture capitalists, technology start-ups and specialist consultants. For additional information, please contact: Johan Fagerberg, CEO E-mail: johan.fagerberg@berginsight.com Phone: +46 31 711 30 91 Twitter: www.twitter.com/berginsight TechSectorStocks.com - investing ideas in tech stocks - mobile payments, social media, AI and Robotics, Drone Stocks, GPS, Internet of Things (IoT) Like Tech Stocks? View our Tech Stocks Directory Get News Alerts on Tech Stocks More Info: This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp By John Daly Inextricably tied to home ownership, access to suburban commuter lines, and the increasing gridlock in our major cities, commuting to and from work has become one of the more persistent purgatories of modern life in Ireland. Commuting hell is one of the phrases of our time. Yet, for an increasing cohort of workers, life is no longer defined by traffic, stress and road rage but, rather, a lifestyle and mind-set based around remote-working, flexible hours, and the independence of keeping their own schedules. Ireland can become a haven for remote-networking, attracting high-value labour to all parts of the country, while easing demand on high-cost housing and rents in major cities. Such was the message delivered at the inaugural Grow Remote conference for remote- and smart-working. Comprised of co-working managers, freelancers, nomadic workers and remote-working companies, Grow Remote believes that developing a community around remote-working is key to building thriving rural communities, and that Ireland can thus utilise significant opportunities right across the country. With 220,000 remote workers operating here, the groups aim to build a full community will require an infrastructure of spaces, broadband and online connection platforms, allied to community advocates, resources and education. Given that half of the workforce is set to be remote by 2040, the requirement for a unified connection to promote opportunities is as timely as it is needed. Right now, there are 1,000 jobs in rural Ireland, but there is a disconnect between us and them, goes the Grow Remote thinking. Encouraging remote-working could strengthen Irelands sales pitch for foreign direct investment, at a time when many countries are competing aggressively for it. If we figure out a way to approach this as a service, a science and a discipline, that we are known as the remote-working country, it is another aspect of our global value proposition that we could sell, said Denis Collins, CEO of Smarter Dynamix and chair of IDA Irelands regional development committee. It is a point echoed by Adam Coleman, CEO and owner of human resources software, HRLocker. If you want to really rejuvenate environments, you have to bring knowledge jobs, because when knowledge jobs arrive, money arrives. His company has customers in 40 countries, with Mr Coleman himself working from Lahinch, on the western edge of Co Clare. Who knows, when it comes to compiling the popular parlance at the end of 2019, perhaps remote-working will be a phrase on everybodys lips. Companies cool on foreign direct investment calls, writes John Whelan. Executives around the world are cooling to the idea of investing internationally in the face of a rising trade tariff war between the US and China, and renewed US sanctions on Iran and Russia, as well as the EU uncertainty created by the looming prospect of a no deal Brexit. In its half-yearly assessment of foreign direct investment, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that foreign investment flows had plummeted by 35% in the first half of this year. According to the OECD, at the end of last month, Ireland was one of the big losers in the falloff in foreign direct investment. It reported for the first half of the year decreases to Ireland, Switzerland and the US, with each economy dropping by more than $50bn (44bn) and largely accounting for the overall decrease in investment to the OECD area. Foreign direct investment inflows to the OECD area, which accounts for over three quarters of global trade, reached their lowest levels in five years. The falloff is primarily due to the large repatriations of earnings by US parent companies from their foreign affiliates because of tax reform in the US. The 2017 US Tax Cut and Jobs Act contained several provisions that have had immediate and likely long-term impacts on direct investment. One key provision was the one-time tax on undistributed foreign earnings. This allowed US parent companies to repatriate cash held overseas in their foreign affiliates without additional taxes beginning in 2018. Estimates of the amount of overseas cash held by US multinationals vary, but all indications are that it is substantial. Many corporations have already taken advantage of the low tax return option. This repatriation by US parents caused large, negative investment flows from Ireland and led to negative overall inflows of investments. The short-term impact of these repatriations on the foreign operations of US multinationals is likely to be minimal as they involve the sale or disposal of financial, as opposed to real, assets. While these repatriations show the immediate impact of US president Donald Trumps tax policies on foreign direct investment, the longer-term effects are difficult to predict due to the complexity of the international trade and uncertainty about how other countries will respond with counter measures. Nevertheless, the US Tax Cut and Jobs Act has changed the incentives for US corporations to invest back home as opposed to in Ireland or other global destinations and the impacts could be significant and long-lasting. In the first half of 2018, China was the largest recipient of foreign direct investment inflows worldwide at 112bn, followed by the UK at 58bn. However, both of these countries could face significant declines in foreign investment over the coming years. In the case of China, the escalating trade war with the Trump administration has already seen a 10% tariff on an additional $200bn of goods exported to the US imposed in September and is now facing a further increase to 25% from January. The long-term impacts are difficult to predict. However, the strong investment flows into China recorded this year were mainly negotiated in 2016 and early last year and are unlikely to continue in the current trade climate. Global business executives will be very reluctant to commence either fresh greenfield investment or merger and acquisition negotiations while the governments keep changing the rules of international trade. Meanwhile, the publication last week of the first round of the UK governments technical notices in preparation for a potential no-deal Brexit was poorly received across Europe and in particular by the DUP in Belfast. For all their detail, these documents only serve to highlight the gaping void facing the UK, and will only add to the reticence of business to investment. IDA Ireland, which has a third of all its investment promotional offices in the US, may have to rethink its strategy. John Whelan is managing partner of The Linkage-Partnership, an international trade consultancy with offices in Ireland, Holland and Switzerland The Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross believes the time has come for the creation of one single monument in Cork to memorialise the humanity of the countys estimated 4,200 victims of the First World War. Bishop Paul Colton raised the issue during his oration at an Armistice commemoration at the Cenotaph on the South Mall yesterday. He said we live in an Ireland today where people talk about the relatives they lost in the war, where the remembering is public, as it should be. And he that that remembering takes on real significance when the victims are thought of in their own locality. He said there are 53 names on a memorial at Ashton School, including the sons of five clergy of the diocese, that there are 377 names on the diocesan memorial in St Fin Barres Cathedral to members of the Church of Ireland or to members of the Protestant church, and that there are 145 names on the Cenotaph. But he read out the names of five victims from Cork who died this day 100 years ago having almost made it to the end Gunner D Keating from 233 Blarney Road; Leading Seaman James Donovan, from Wolfe Tone St; Sergeant W Looney, from 143 Bandon Road; Sergeant William Morrissey, 8 Albert Place, Fermoy; and Private John OLeary, 111 High St, Cork. When the bells rang out to signal the end of the war there was no joy in those homes on this day. And their names are not on this memorial here, or on the memorial in St Fin Barres Cathedral, he said. I wonder are their names on any memorial here in Cork? Thomas Warren was from 72 Grand Parade he died 100 years ago last month. Thomas OMeara lived at 23 Grand Parade. He was just 19. Where are their memorials? Of the estimated 4,200 Cork people who died in this war, some are remembered nowhere in Cork. Again I ask, is it not time that we should have one memorial where the humanity of Cork, city and county, regardless of religious affiliation, or none, are memorialised together? It was all so local as we see in the names of the people and the places where they lived they all deserve a local memorial here in Cork. He also said those who fought in the war did so for reasons we cannot fully know. But for them it was the right thing to do in their time, he said. When we venture our opinions on it all, we tread on the holy ground of other peoples lives people like us, and we have to be very careful not to abuse that remembrance by harnessing what we think about them to our own contemporary ends. We must not judge them, as I say, from the comfort of our own high moral ground and the omniscience of our hindsight. We are here today simply to remember them; to remember the awfulness of it all, the deaths, the wounds, the scars, mental, emotional and physical, the gaps that stayed for ever in individual lives, in families, in communities, in societies, and in nations. Today is not a day for analysis and debate; it is a day for gazing into space in dumb-founded silence and, in our faltering way, from the vantage point of our own human vulnerability, to try to take it in. Speaking at the Cenotaph earlier, Lord Mayor Mick Finn, said the commemoration was not to honour or celebrate war but rather to honour and remember all those caught up in it, and to call to mind the all-so-brittle nature of humanity. For today at this Cork monument as we remember the ancestors of our shared past, we should also think about those around us in the present and plan for whats to come in the future, he said. Because it is only how we honour those who went before us and draw from their time a lesson that we can begin to dream of our own futures, which must mean avoiding the carnage and futility of another devastating global war. In one of the smallest ceremonies, people gathered on Bere Islands former First World War fort, Lonehort Battery, off the Cork coast, to remember a number of island men who fought in the war five of whom were killed on the frontline. And to remember the 14 war graves of Irish and British soldiers on the island, 14 roses were placed in front of the islands church altar, together with their names. Bells also rang out at St Fin Barres Cathedral and at Cobh Cathedral at 11am yesterday to mark the end of the war 100 years ago. British cabinet ministers are at odds over whether the UK could secure a unilateral exit from a Brexit backstop deal on Northern Irish border arrangements. British education secretary Damian Hinds said such an outcome would be very, very unlikely, while Commons leader Andrea Leadsom said the UK must be able to leave any customs deal. Mr Hinds told BBC1s The Andrew Marr Show that a solution to the issue needed to be negotiated. If you have too hard a line about saying well, we must just have a totally unilateral exit, or theres an absolutely fixed, hard end date, that is... very, very unlikely that is going to be negotiable with the other side, he said. On the other hand, people here rightly want comfort and they should be able to have comfort and confidence that it isnt an open-ended thing. Ms Leadsom insisted the UK cannot be held against its will in a backstop customs arrangement with the EU, and claimed MPs would not support a scenario in which Britain could not decide when to leave. She told BBC Radio 5Lives Pienaars Politics: It cannot be a decision that can be overturned by the European Union, it must be capable for the United Kingdom to decide to leave that customs arrangement and it cannot be something the European Union can hold us to. Frankly, its because that would be to then fail to fulfil on the will of the people expressed at the referendum and I very much doubt wed get it through parliament. In a direct message to British prime minister Theresa May, Labours foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, told the BBC: You cannot simply come to the House of Commons with a bit of nonsense that makes no sense. You cannot expect the Labour Party to save you from your own backbenchers who are saying this deal makes no sense and everybody knows it doesnt make sense. The comments came after hardline Tory Brexiteers and the DUP joined forces to warn they are prepared to vote down Ms Mays EU withdrawal plans. In a stark warning to the prime minister, Tory Brexiteer Steve Baker, deputy chairman of the 80-member European Research Group (ERG) of Conservative backbenchers, and the DUPs Brexit spokesman, Sammy Wilson, said they would oppose any agreement which they thought threatened the union and could put a trade border down the Irish Sea. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, they said: We share the prime ministers ambition for an EU free trade agreement, but not at any price, and certainly not at the price of our union. If the Government makes the historic mistake of prioritising placating the EU over establishing an independent and whole UK, then, regrettably, we must vote against the deal. With the shock resignation of pro-Europe transport minister Jo Johnson continuing to cause ructions in Tory ranks, Ms May is running out of time to seal an EU exit agreement. Hope of getting the cabinet to sign off on Brexit deal proposals this week appeared to be rapidly receding, as it was reported the EU had rejected Londons plans for an independent arbitration clause that could allow the UK to quit a backstop deal on the Northern Ireland border. Following Mr Johnsons resignation, there are reports that other ministers are considering quitting. By Niall Murray The 10 Dublin policemen killed in World War I will be remembered at a ceremony attended by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris tomorrow. They were among more than 70 members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) to volunteer for armed service during the war. The guns fell silent around Europe 100 years ago on Sunday, and the plaque in remembrance of the fallen DMP members is to be unveiled at the decommissioned former Garda station on Kevin Street in the capital. The event is organised by the Garda Historical Society, of which successive Garda Commissioners have been patron. Save the date! Next Tuesday 13th November starts our lecture series in the new Kevin Street #Garda Station with a tribute to Dublin Metropolitan Police #DMP officers who fought in @WW1_Series #FirstWorldWar as well as those who died on duty between 1836 > 1925. Via @PoliceHistory pic.twitter.com/R5bxbxKu1u PoliceHistory.com (@PoliceHistory) November 5, 2018 The World War I plaque has been sponsored by the Garda Representative Association. It is the first memorial in this country to policemen who volunteered for World War I. The Kevin Street station, as well as being a former DMP station, was also the training depot through which each of the men being commemorated would have passed on their journey to careers as policemen. Irish policing historian, Jim Herlihy, will speak about all Irish police killed in the war at the event. He is an officer of the Historical and Reconciliatory Police (HARP) Society, which has sponsored a second plaque being unveiled tomorrow evening. It is in memory of the DMPs 21 members killed on duty between 1836 and 1925, including 14 killed from 1916, and is the first such memorial exclusively commemorating the force's members killed during service. The DMP was renamed Poilini Atha Cliath in 1922 and operated under that name until it became a metropolitan division of An Garda Siochana in 1925. Mr Herlihy said that 74 members of the DMP volunteered for military service in World War I and 10 were killed. Most of those who lost their lives were in their late 20s, but some were as old as 38. Their service in the DMP was varied, some with more than a decade of policing behind them before volunteering. But Dubliner, John Carey, who had previously served in the Royal Field Artillery, only worked as a trained policeman for a couple of days. He was mobilised as a reservist on August 6, 1914, and would die from wounds, aged around 23, on October 19, 1917. The first DMP war casualty was another former soldier who returned to military service during the war. Thomas Flanagan joined the police force in January 1913, but also re-enlisted within days of the outbreak of the conflict. He would be killed within three months, losing his life at Ypres on November 1, 1914, aged 24. The last known DMP member to lose his life was 35-year-old James W Byrne, who had been a policeman for 11 years when, like many colleagues, he volunteered for active service in April 1915. He died on December 11, 1918 from wounds incurred before the armistice that brought peace to Europe a month earlier. The 21 DMP men killed on duty are among almost 630 policemen who lost their lives in service between 1836 and 1925, the majority being members of the Royal Irish Constabulary. An exhibition at Cork Public Museum shows how lives were transformed by the events of 1918, writes Niall Murray. War may have ended a century ago, but conflict of a political and military nature was only beginning to heat up as Ireland faced into 1919. These are the themes running through the Victory, Virus and Votes exhibition in which Cork Public Museum shows how the lives of ordinary Cork women and men were transformed by the ending of war and the imminent political and military struggle on the home front as 1918 came to a close. Among those whose stories are told is Christy Barry, who died a hero after being shot as he pulled an injured Royal Munster Fusiliers officer back into the trench in France. Christy Barry and Captain Maunsell Hawkes. On display is one of his final letters home, dated February 1915, showing his concern about whether his mother at home in Cork city was continuing to receive part of his wage. He also asked her to send cocoa and a copy of the Weekly Examiner, common requests from Corkmen in the trenches. But financial concerns must have been furthest from his mothers thoughts when she received another letter three months later with the solemn news of her son Christys death. Although wounded in two places, he succeeded in bringing back a wounded officer to safety. During the performance of this gallant act he was hit a third time and killed, another officer wrote in the letter displayed alongside Christys posthumous war medals. His splendid courage was a fine example to the whole battalion and you may be quite sure that his name will not be forgotten in the regiment, Mrs Barry was assured. Christy Barry was born on Christmas Eve, 1894, a decade after the birth of the officer he saved, Maunsell Hawkes, from outside Clonakilty in West Cork. A letter home later in 1915 from another Corkman in the Royal Munster Fusiliers described how Christys name was being put forward for the Victoria Cross medal. He was absolutely fearless, never happy unless running the most dangerous risks, stated the letter, later reproduced in the Freemans Journal newspaper. Letters to Christy Barry's mother including those which she received after his death in May 1915 More fortunate to arrive home safely was Arthur Fitzgerald, who served as a messenger from 1915 in the British Armys signal corps. He then became an airman in the Royal Flying Corps from 1916, ending his service there in 1919 after it had become part of the newly-formed Royal Air Force. A photograph of Arthur Fitzgerald, Cork born First World War pilot. His family has loaned the medals and photos of Arthur, a member of the family that set up Fitzgeralds Menswear in Cork city in the 19th century. But also on display are his binoculars, compass, and camera, one of a new type produced during the war by Kodak that allowed pilots photograph from the air while flying. They are just some of the artefacts from the museums collection or loaned with the assistance of the Cork Branch of the Western Front Association. Cork born pilot Arthur Fitzgerald's camera and compass Cork women feature strongly among an impressive wall of photos of over 150 people from the city and county to take part in the so-called Great War for Civilisation. Although there is no known photo of her, one of Corks female participants was Violet OBrien. The nurse is believed to have been born in India, and her journey to a role in the war was an unusual one. After her training in the citys North Infirmary hospital, Cork Public Museums acting curator Dan Breen believes she took up work in London. It is there that she clearly became involved in the womens suffrage movement, as one of her three medals in the exhibition is for being on hunger strike while in prison in association with a suffrage protest. Violet O'Brien's suffrage hunger strike medal, 1909. More notable, however, are the two metal bars across the ribbon, signifying that Violet was twice force-fed during her time on hunger strike, one of the occasions being in October 1909. But she moved from service to the womens movement to wartime medical support, earning medals for volunteering during the First World War in Serbia and in France, both of which are also on display in Cork Public Museum. They tell the extraordinary tale of a woman who had suffered trying to get female suffrage, but then also answered the call for volunteer nurses during the war, said Mr Breen. The editorial of The Cork Examiner on November 12, 1918, summed up the mood across Ireland as citizens came to grips with the long-awaited end to war in Europe. A 'Cork Examiner' post-war editorial quoted in the exhibition Out of the appalling tragedy that has ended in the triumph of the Allied cause, it is hoped that a new and better world will be evolved in which reason will supersede mere brute force, and justice to all nations, large and small, will be administered with an impartial hand. The lines feature on the opening panel of Cork Public Museums Victory, Virus and Votes exhibition, documenting the momentous events as 1918 reached its end. The case for the small nation of Irelands independence in the aftermath of the war was also being made in the peace conference in Paris that followed four years of war. But the message of the people of Ireland was delivered strongly in the early December 1918 general election, dominated in Ireland by Sinn Fein at the expense of the Irish Parliamentary Party, which had represented most of the country at Westminster for decades. This momentous electoral victory is also marked with posters and electoral ephemera associated with the successes of Corks first republican MPs. They adopted the Sinn Fein policy of not taking up their seats, instead becoming TDs in the first Dail Eireann that convened for the first time in January 1919. But many were not there, including Mid-Cork TD, and future Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, whose presence at the time in Lincoln Jail is recalled in the exhibition by his prison badge and cutlery. Daniel Breen, Acting Curator Cork Public Museum and Lord Mayor Cllr Mick Finn, holding a Terence MacSwiney, To The Electors of Mid Cork poster, also included is Gerry White, Chairman Cork Branch of the Western Front Association, at the Cork 1918 Victory, Virus and Votes Exhibition, Cork Public Museum, Fitzgerald Park, Mardyke, Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan. The impact on family life of MacSwiney and others imprisoned for the German Plot, a conspiracy manufactured by the British authorities, is also recalled in the visitors permit issued to his wife Muriel to visit him in Lincoln. He had been in prison since before the birth of their only daughter Maire in May 1918, and was only released shortly before he and others had their first attendance at the Dail, for its second meeting in April 1919. Lincoln jail visitor permit for Terence MacSwiney's wife Muriel, April 1918 Visitors to the museums exhibition can see material used for MacSwineys election campaign in Mid-Cork even though he ended up, like most Sinn Fein candidates in Cork, having no opponent. Sinn Fein election posters and pamphlets which held more importance in Cork city, where its candidates Liam de Roiste and Easter Rising veteran JJ Walsh had to fend off several other hopefuls are also on display. A family receiving keys to a new social development house in Ballymun in Dublin have become a target of online racial abuse because of the colour of their skin. Fine Gael TD Noel Rock says the racist comments were left under a photo he posted on his Facebook page. Removing the gender pay gap will be the next big issue that must be tackled in society, a Fianna Fail senator has claimed. The party's Seanad deputy leader Lorraine Clifford-Lee will join others in Leinster House tomorrow raising awareness of gaps in the workplace and the need for gender equality. Ms Clifford-Lee and others will promote 'Dress for Success', a campaign which promotes the economic independence of women by providing career development services and advocates equal opportunities for women in the workplace. Ahead of briefing colleagues in Leinster House, the senator called for an immediate end to the pay gap which results in Irish men on average receiving salaries 14% higher than women. She said that companies could be more supportive and transparent too, improving opportunities for women. Better supports could include improving childcare options, publishing company policies on maternity leave as well as for shared parental leave. It is about stopping discrimination and also ensuring that there are fairer and more transparent policies, said Ms Clifford-Lee. "It is about a shift in culture. The pay gap will be the next big gender issue in Irish society. 'Dress for Success' is also promoting the setting up of a pay disclosure pioneers measure. This would see the charity bringing together leading businesses that have committed to early pay disclosure before Irelands proposed new gender pay gap laws come into effect. The changes, spearheaded by Labour senator Ivana Bacik, will eventually come in under the Gender Pay Gap Information Bill. This is expected to come before the Oireachtas by the end of the year. It obliges big employers to reveal the difference in the average hourly pay of men and women in their firm. Ms Clifford-Lee added: Those who deny this issue now are burying their heads in the sand. Instead, they should look to jurisdictions like Australia and the UK to see the positive legislative measures that have been implemented there, and the way in which workplaces have proactively responded. Ms Clifford-Lee also joins Sonya Lennon, a designer, businesswoman and a founder of 'Dress for Success', to launch its work equal day of action. Ms Lennon said: This is the third year weve run our work campaign, which aims to highlight the gender pay gap, the issues that feed into it, and the measures that can be taken to achieve true workplace equality. This is ridiculous: impartial statistics agencies ranging from the CSO to Eurostat have collated and analysed the data that irrefutably shows Ireland has a gender pay gap of 14%. "Poor childcare facilities and lack of shared parental leave certainly contribute to the gender pay gap, but it is an immensely complex issue and it is not something that just impacts on working mothers it affects us all. By Ann O'Loughlin Garda Keith Harrison has launched a High Court challenge seeking to quash findings made against him in reports from the Disclosures Tribunal. The Donegal-based Garda who was strongly criticised in the Tribunal's interim reports has brought the action on the grounds of an alleged prior connection between the Tribunal chair Mr Justice Peter Charleton and a witness before the inquiry, Chief Superintendent Terry McGinn. The alleged prior connection related to when the Chief Superintendent was the Garda liaison to the Morris Tribunal, which considered allegations about Gardai in Donegal, between 2002 and 2005 when Mr Justice Charleton was that Tribunal's Senior Counsel. Solicitors for Garda Harrison say they wrote to the Tribunal seeking to have the reports about their client set aside. In a reply, the Tribunal said the steps sought on Garda Harrison's behalf "were absurd and repugnant to the duty to the Oireachtas and the people of Ireland". In his action, Garda Harrison seeks an order from the High Court quashing findings made in the Tribunal's second interim report and the findings of the third interim report in so far as it relates to Garda Harrison. He also seeks orders prohibiting the further publication of the second interim report and the parts of the third interim report that relate to him, and that the Judge be precluded from dealing with any other matters relating to Garda Harrison and the Tribunal. He further seeks a declaration that the judge has acted in breach of the Garda's rights to natural and constitutional justice and under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Permission to bring the action was granted, on an ex parte basis, by Mr Justice Seamus Noonan, at today's sitting of the High Court. The Judge said he was satisfied that arguable grounds had been raised to allow Garda Harrison bring the action. The case will return before the courts in two weeks time. Seeking permission to bring the action Mark Harty SC for Garda Harrison said the Disclosures Tribunal rejected allegations made by Garda Harrison and his partner Marissa Simms and had exonerated others they made complaints about. Garda Keith Harrison. The couple's claims included that Ms Simms was compelled by gardai to make a statement against him which led to a Tusla referral. Garda Harrison also alleged he was the victim of a five-year intimidation campaign after arresting a fellow officer for drink-driving in Athlone in 2009. In an interim report, Mr Justice Charleton said all of Garda Harrison and Marisa Simm's allegations examined by the tribunal were "entirely without any validity. Mr Justice Charleton also praised highly the conduct of the chief superintendent and her management of the Donegal Division, counsel said. This was in contrast to its comments on Garda Harrison who was criticised, counsel said. Chief Superintendent McGinn was the officer in charge of the Donegal division and was a key witness in relation to matters contained in protected disclosure made by Garda Harrison. Two former taoisigh have called for a second Brexit referendum as the British government continues to struggle to find any sort of agreement on the Irish border. Describing Brexit proposals as a mess, Bertie Ahern said he would love to see the question of the UK leaving the EU put to the people again. This was echoed by John Bruton, who claimed holding another referendum is now the only way out for British prime minister Theresa May. Given the fierce protestations of the DUP over the latest proposals around the backstop and a ministerial resignation last week, it is now unclear as to whether Ms May will be in a position to put forward proposals to her Cabinet tomorrow. Is a second brexit referendum wishful thinking? @Lawlor_Aine asks former Taoisigh Bertie Ahern and John Bruton #twip #rtepolitics pic.twitter.com/V2ELrchITs The Week in Politics (@rtetwip) November 11, 2018 It comes as Ibec today publish its latest Quarterly Economic Outlook which warns of severe disruption across almost all areas of the economy if a Brexit deal is not reached. While Ibec is forecasting growth of 4.5% in 2019, following growth of 7.8% in 2018, a no-deal Brexit would have knock-on downside risks to this growth. Already we are beginning to see company margins squeezed by the depreciation of sterling and softening confidence impacting on investment in the most Brexit exposed sectors, said the report. In the absence of a Brexit deal, the growing uncertainty will cause these trends to intensify during 2019. Mr Ahern yesterday said Brexit is a mess but he added that there is still time to hammer out an agreement before leaders meet in December. The beginning of a deal, I think, is possible, he said. Maybe not enough for a council meeting in November. We are drifting fast into the December date. Mr Ahern praised Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for remaining firm in demanding that there can be no softening of the Northern Ireland backstop. I would love to see another referendum, said Mr Ahern. You ask me is it likely? I think [Labour leader Jeremy] Corbyn and [John] McDonnell, from where I sit as an outsider now, are probably not far away from being Brexiteers anyway, so I dont think they are going to be pushing too hard for it, but I would love to see it. Are we approaching the minute to midnight situation? @Lawlor_Aine asks Bertie Ahern #twip pic.twitter.com/Uwz41u4cQe The Week in Politics (@rtetwip) November 11, 2018 Mr Bruton went further by stating the British government will have little or no other option than call another poll. I think that a second referendum is going to be the only way out for Theresa May, he told RTEs The Week in Politics. She will find that she doesnt have a majority to get the agreement through and she will then say rather than having a general election, lets have a referendum with this as option or staying in the EU. "There are many brexiteers who I think do treat this as a big macho game of chicken that Ireland and the EU will want to avoid a crash out" - @ClaireHanna pic.twitter.com/vSoA5g1I9G The Week in Politics (@rtetwip) November 11, 2018 Ms May saw pro-Remain minister Jo Johnson quit last week as he called for a new referendum on the final deal. It is thought this will not be the end of Ms Mays woes as she struggles to achieve any sort of consensus among members of her Government. Yesterday, Brexiteer minister Andrea Leadsom told the BBC the UK cannot be held against its will in a backstop customs arrangement with the EU. Meanwhile, Tanaiste Simon Coveney and Minister of state for European Affairs Helen McEntee are in Brussels today for meetings on Brexit and other matters with counterparts at the General Affairs Council. Update 1am: A kitesurfer who was reported missing earlier today has been located. The person was found off the Co Clare coast and has been taken to hospital for examination. The search has been stood down. Earlier: Major search operation for missing kitesurfer underway off Kerry coast By Patrick Flynn A major land, air and sea search is underway for a person reported missing off Co Kerry this evening. It is understood that a kitesurfer, last seen around 4pm off Ballybunnion, failed to return to shore. The alarm was raised at around 5pm and a major multi-agency operation was launched. The Shannon-based search and rescue helicopter, Rescue 115, was tasked to the scene along with the Ballybunnion unit of the Irish Coast Guard. The Fenit RNLI lifeboat was also sent to the area while the Irish Naval vessel LE Niamh, which was in the area at the time, was also requested to assist in the search. The operation is currently being concentrated in an area north of Ballybunnion. Land crews are also searching the coastline in case the windsurfer made it ashore. The search operation is being coordinated by watch officers at the Irish Coast Guards marine rescue sub centre on Valentia Island in Kerry. Two of the countrys largest developers, who are both building offices in Cork city for thousands of workers, have backed the St Patrick St car ban and said the city must change and innovate if it is to thrive. In a joint statement to the Irish Examiner about the afternoon car ban on the citys main street, Brian OCallaghan, managing director of OCallaghan Properties (OCP), and John Cleary, managing director of JCD Group, said the development of an efficient and reliable public transport system is key to the citys future economic prosperity. City councillors are expected to see figures tonight showing that footfall on St Patricks St has increased since the ban was reintroduced on August 9, and that usage of the citys publicly-run car parks is also up. Bus Eireann says there were significant improvements in trip times and average speeds for bus services operating through St Patricks St last month compared to October 2017 and that passenger journeys in Cork are up 8% compared to October 2017. The developers said prioritising buses is necessary if Cork is to attract inward investment, create employment, and fully realise its potential. We fully support the efforts of Cork City Council, Bus Eireann and the National Transport Authority to introduce bus priority corridors in the city, beginning in St Patricks St, they said. Within the next three years, in projects that are currently under construction, 5,000 new jobs will be created in the city centre. This means 5,000 potential new customers for city businesses. Within a few years, this figure will rise to 10,000 which is an unprecedented scale of economic development for the city. Clearly, the projects underway or planned can only be viable if the public transport system works efficiently to get people in and out of work and to their homes. This requires change and the switch to a variety of new transport modes. Cork is already behind where it should be in respect of these options. Their intervention comes after days of criticism from several independent traders concerned about the impact the daily 3pm-6.30pm car ban on the main street has had on trade since its reintroduction on August 9. While some claim their takings are down by up to 35%, others have said trade is up, and that those complaining must adapt. About 1,300 people are employed in OCPs Opera Lane retail precinct, just off St Patricks St, and in its office developments nearby, with tenants including Apple. The first phase of its massive Navigation Square office development on Albert Quay is due to open early next year with capacity for 1,500 workers, with another 1,500 jobs due to come on stream as the other phases are completed. JCD is behind the Capitol regeneration, the One Albert Quay office block, and a new office block on South Mall, and is now building a 250,000 sq ft office campus on Penrose Quay, which once complete will have capacity for over 2,200 employees. Both developers said those making investments in Cork rightly ask how their staff can access their workplaces comfortably and reliably. The availability of appropriate public transport is a key factor in investment decision making, they said. Both said they accept that the nature of retail, in particular, is changing radically and that there are serious challenges to be faced by city centre businesses. However, they said the city has a wonderful offering in terms of its retail, hospitality, and cultural attractions. Surely the emphasis must be on maximising what the city has to offer rather than fighting, as some are, for things to remain the same, they said. Nothing remains the same and international experience shows that it is those cities that innovate, have flexible and diverse business models, and incorporate sustainable transport options into everyday life do best. By Joe Leogue The National Lottery has rejected the findings of a report that claims that online betting on the outcome of lotto draws poses no threat to the National Lottery Good Causes funding. The report by economist Jim Power (pictured), which was commissioned by the Irish-licensed operators Lottoland and myLotto24, claims that online competition from independent companies from the European Lotto Betting Association and other rivals is healthy for the sector. It is factually incorrect to argue, or indeed lobby, on the premise that online lottery betting, which is fully licensed in this jurisdiction, presents any threat to the good causes funding generated by National Lottery sales each year, Mr Power said. In fact, based on 2017 figures provided by the three leading European Lotto Betting Association members licensed and active in Ireland, their total combined draw-based betting turnover was only 1.4m, 0.25% of the 559m draw based sales turnover achieved by Premier Lotteries Ireland in the same period. Contrary to previous media coverage, rather than damaging good causes funding, the long-term presence of these operators should actually have a beneficial impact by creating more competition, choice and innovation in what might otherwise be effectively a monopolised market. Moreover, increased competition in the digital channel is an essential aspect in achieving long-term sustainability for good causes funding. It is reasonable to expect that the holder of a national license, no matter the market, would provide product offerings in line with changing consumer trends but what is prevalent with the National Lottery license in Ireland since it was awarded nearly five years ago is an operator with a sales strategy massively at odds with such trends. A spokesperson for the National Lottery said it rejects the claim that offshore, bet-on-lottery operators pose no threat to National Lottery Good Causes funding. These operators are clearly cannibalising our games and denying good causes from additional funding, which is incredibly impactful on communities across the country. They are not playing to the same strict rules we abide by and, as evidenced in other jurisdictions, are a serious threat. It said Mr Powers demonstrates an inherent lack of understanding of the National Lottery, and the legislative and regulatory framework in which it operates. More than 5.3bn has been raised for Good Causes in Ireland since the National Lottery was set up 31 years ago, money that has transformed communities right across the country. Premier Lotteries Ireland has recorded three consecutive years of growth in funds generated for Good Causes since it won the licence - 188m in 2015; 213.3m in 2016 and 226.3m in 2017. Contrary to what the report suggests in relation to our digital channel, growth in digital is an important part of our strategy to bring the National Lottery to a new generation of adult players, said the spokesperson. Regular active online players grew from 81,000 in 2016 to almost 97,000 by the end of 2017. A smile of contentment spread across Michael D Higgins face as fiddler Caoimhin O Raghallaigh performed magic with bow and string. Presidential inaugurations come but once in seven years, and they are special occasions. Although sitting for the second time in the Irish white oak inaugural chair itself a symbol of strength, endurance, and fertility the moment was not lost on him. Just as the musician was drawing from a deeply-ingrained musical tradition as he lured his audience in, Michael D Higgins delved deep into this countrys history to outline his priorities for the coming seven years. Amhrain Aimhirghin, le Iarla O Lionaird agus Caoimhin O Raghallaigh | https://t.co/BKXTkCPFLI pic.twitter.com/00SkcN13gC RTE News (@rtenews) November 11, 2018 Quoting the principles outlined during the First Dail in January 1919, he used an academic eloquence to touch on issues that are as current now as they were almost 100 years ago. It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the children, to secure that no child shall suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing, or shelter, but that all shall be provided with the means and facilities requisite for their proper education and training, as citizens of a free and Gaelic Ireland. President Michael D Higgins delivers first speech of second term | https://t.co/ixELGKlsZk pic.twitter.com/Xbc61ZPN1O RTE News (@rtenews) November 11, 2018 The later than usual start time for the Presidential inauguration had left the Defence Forces with some extra electrical challenges in making sure the cobbles of the square outside the entrance to St Patricks Hall were illuminated. The courtyard of Dublin Castle had been lit up like a film set after President Higgins requested that the usual morning ceremony be changed to avoid a clash with events to mark Armistice Day, which he also attended yesterday morning. An assembly of kings was a line in a bilingual piece of poetry read out during the official ceremony, which seemed a perfect description of the gathering. Among those milling around the gilt and navy reception room were the five other candidates who had contested the Presidential election, including Peter Casey, who had a curious interaction with Martin McAleese, husband of former president Mary McAleese, as he entered. Senior members of the judiciary, ambassadors, members of both Houses of the Oireachtas, and other invited guests filled the room. Just before 6pm, a strange whirring noise began to break through the low murmurings of the 434 guests who were waiting for the main act to begin. The strange noise was explained when a staff member, armed with a cordless vacuum, appeared. She had been tasked with ensuring that not a speck of dust would be seen on the plush blue carpet as the President made his way up to the top of the room. Last-minute cleaning done and dusted, members of Government, Council of State, and representatives of the Religious Communities made their way in procession up to the stage. There was laughter, followed by applause when Taoiseach Leo Varadkar added some humour to the formalities. I think we should also acknowledge those who couldnt join us today, for example Brod and Sioda, who have nonetheless contributed greatly to life in Aras an Uachtarain, Mr Varadkar said, referring to the two Bernese mountain dogs who also played a blinder during the Presidential elections. Taoiseach @campaignforleo pays tribute to President Michael D Higgins | https://t.co/ixELGKlsZk pic.twitter.com/8z7ozGcWd4 RTE News (@rtenews) November 11, 2018 But the solemn nature of the occasion returned when Michael D Higgins rose to his feet. He may have given the soundbite of the election race when he deflected criticisms with his Ive been turning up since 1969 retort, but after accepting the Presidential seal, Mr Higgins returned to the lofty style of oration that the public have grown accustomed to over the past seven years. Let us celebrate the fact that we now can renew that idealism through new moments of vision-making, drawing on the power and imagination of an educated, intellectually-curious people, a people who root their ethics not merely in reason but above all in the instincts of the heart, said the President. Let us celebrate that we have this capacity in our people, and taking stock of our circumstances, let us approach the next seven years with energy and enthusiasm, bringing ar lan dhicheall to our work of building together what may come to be seen as a real and beautiful Republic of inclusivity, creativity, imagination, love, and indeed joy a joy that is shared, for that too is part of what it is to truly participate. It was a speech that could have been delivered in a university lecture hall, but amid the references to an escalation in competing military arsenals and issues of inter-generational justice there was warmth. President Michael D Higgins sworn in for second term | https://t.co/BKXTkCPFLI pic.twitter.com/Ta96kGF860 RTE News (@rtenews) November 11, 2018 Concluding, President Higgins said: Muintir na hEireann, I thank you again from my heart. This is your Presidency and I will work for you and with you towards a future of equality, participation, inclusion, imagination, creativity, and sustainability. It is together that we go forward. As lamha a cheile a mhairimid. President Michael D Higgins has paid tribute to those who fought in the First World War, in particular, the 200,000 Irish men who served and those who died overseas at the Armistice Day centenary commemorations at Glasnevin Cemetery. In a powerful speech that marked the first day of his second term in office, the President said some nations have forgotten the horrors of war and have embarked on a new arms race. Over 47 countries were represented at the service in Glasnevin, with officials laying wreaths at the military plot, before The Last Post was played and the Irish flag returned to full mast. Poetry from the First World War was read by the British, French, and German ambassadors to Ireland, before prayer and a minute of silence. Those present included current and former Defence Forces troops, former president Mary Robinson, and family members of some of those who served in both world wars. During the ceremony, five Victoria Cross commemorative plaques were unveiled, dedicated to five soldiers from different ranks who showed extreme bravery during the conflict between 1914 and 1918. Mr Higgins led tributes to those who fought in the First World War. At Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, President-elect Michael D Higgins paid tribute to the 200,000 Irish men who fought in World War I. | https://t.co/Wkux2V58JN pic.twitter.com/EvX0IbzT14 RTE News (@rtenews) November 11, 2018 Ours is not a celebration of militarism, nor a valorisation of martial spirit, but a simple recognition of our common humanity, as we recall the destruction of the promise and potential of a generation in the First World War, the lasting damage inflicted on the millions wounded and maimed, and the countless others who would go on to suffer mental anguish as a result of the horrors of their war experience, he said. Despite all the differences of religion, class, and political aspiration, they were united by what would be a shared experience of war, with its comradeship, friendship, and shared hardship whether it was on the Western Front, at Gallipoli, or in the Middle East. Mr Higgins added that the world today had the material capacity to abolish all forms of human poverty, to alleviate all unnecessary suffering, we are still devoting so much of our creativity not to the preservation or achievement of peace, but to the prosecution of and preparation for war. Amidst great human suffering, some nations now seek to embark upon a new arms race, increasing not only their own stockpiles, but exporting weapons of death and destruction to fuel the fires of war in other lands, in Yemen, in Syria, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Culture Minister Josepha Madigan reflected on those who had perished in the conflict, and the lost potential of those who served. Over the past four years, we have explored, with respect and compassion, the differing motivations of those from this island, of all traditions, who lost their lives we will never know how they would have contributed to this land, had they not died before their time, she said. In the North, Enterprise Minister Heather Humphreys and Democratic Unionist leader Arlene Foster laid wreaths at the cenotaph in Enniskillen. DUP leader Arlene Foster and Irish Government minister Heather Humphreys have laid wreaths at the cenotaph in Enniskillen pic.twitter.com/DDBMnHyqU0 Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) November 11, 2018 Hundreds gathered in the narrow streets to watch a musical procession, including a brass band and bagpipes, before representatives of the four main churches in the town led a service. Remembrance Sunday in the Co Fermanagh town has an added poignancy after a Provisional IRA bomb devastated the event in 1987. Eleven people were killed in the blast. A 12th victim, Ronnie Hill, slipped into a coma two days afterwards and died 13 years later. A number of families of the bomb victims were present in Enniskillen for the ceremony. One of the biggest events took place at the cenotaph at Belfast City Hall attended by Tanaiste Simon Coveney and Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley. In a letter published in the order of service, Mr Coveney said: For far too long remembrance of the war on the island was a source of division. There was a sense that commemoration of the young Irishmen who died in the Somme or Gallipoli was a political declaration, or a marker of community identity. In recent times, and as we have marked the centenaries of the events of that decade, we have seen something very different. We have seen leadership and scholarship and sensitivity and generosity. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar attended the centenary Armistice Day commemoration in Paris. Beautiful ceremony in Paris. In the words of Thomas Kettle, we honour those who: 'Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed, And for the secret Scripture of the poor. #ArmisticeDay100 #WW1 pic.twitter.com/qBTQM3mNuk Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) November 11, 2018 Speaking ahead of the ceremony, the Taoiseach said it was an important reminder about international co-operation. I am honoured to represent Ireland at this commemorative event which marks the end of hostilities in what was one of the greatest tragedies in world history, he said. I will stand in memory of the more than 200,000 Irishmen who fought in the conflict and the many Irishwomen who witnessed the horrors of war and worked courageously to save lives. Tens of thousands of Irishmen, many of them only in their teens, were killed. Those who did survive returned to a changed Ireland, unable to share their horrific experiences. Through the Decade of Centenaries, their stories have been shared and we have rightly honoured the enormous sacrifice made by those who went to the front, he said. In the words of Thomas Kettle, we honour those who: Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, But for a dream, born in a herdsmans shed, And for the secret Scripture of the poor. As we face new challenges in the 21st century, we need to work together to achieve peace, stability, and prosperity across the world. Through our committed and active membership of the EU and the UN, Ireland will continue to play a leading role in these efforts. A row is brewing between Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance in Dublin. Disabilities Minister Finian McGrath tweeted a newspaper column suggesting Fine Gael Senator Catherine Noone had tried to steal credit for the new cystic fibrosis unit in Beaumont Hospital. Minister McGrath has campaigned for the unit for a number of years and it was in the programme for government. Senator Noone says the allegation that she was trying to take credit for the opening is unfair and untrue, saying she just tabled a Seanad debate after a request from a constituent. The two politicians will both compete for a seat in the Dublin Bay North constituency in the next election. Digital Desk The Health Minister has sent a clear warning to TDs who intend to use tactics to delay abortion legislation when it comes back before the Dail. Simon Harris has set down an extremely tight time-frame to get the legislation through the Oireachtas before Christmas and to get doctors on board with providing termination services from the start of January. Mr Harris will today meet Peter Boylan, who has been tasked to liaise with medical colleges to ensure robust clinical guidelines are drafted to allow services begin. Mr Harris will today also meet officials from the HSE, the Medical Council, Irish Family Planning Association, the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Start Doctors, and the Well Woman Centre to get an update on the implementation of the service. The Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018 passed committee stage last week and now return to the Dail for debate. However, Mr Harris has said that some TDs will attempt to frustrate or delay the bill to roll out termination services. He said it is now incumbent on all members of the Oireachtas to ensure this bill is enacted without delay. Members have a responsibility to scrutinise the legislation but there will be attempts to frustrate or delay this legislations enactment, he said. It is important to remember women who find themselves in crisis pregnancies today have no alternative but to travel abroad to seek a termination. Nine women a day travel abroad, while three are accessing illegal abortion pills. The implementation of any new piece of legislation requires scrutiny but the Irish people gave a clear instruction in the referendum in May to remove the Eighth Amendment and to care for Irish women in their own country. We must act on that instruction without delay. Meanwhile, Mr Harris will meet with members of the Health Committee and other TDs tomorrow in a bid to find compromise on amendments which he promised to review before the bill goes to report stage. A significant number of the 180 amendments that were tabled to the bill had been withdrawn by committee members this week on the basis of further consultation with the minister. TDs had been asked to email Mr Harris with the specific concerns they have around the bill and it is expected that the minister will be able to make some changes. Mr Harris has already indicated that he will take suggestions from Opposition parties on board, including to change the positioning of the offences associated with the bill from the front to the back. It is also expected that Mr Harris will change a requirement that a woman must attend the same doctor to access abortion services after a three-day waiting period as she did for the initial consultation, which could be problematic, especially in a hospital setting. Mr Harris and his officials in the Department of Health are working on wording which would mean the same doctor would as far as is practical see the woman on both occasions. While unlikely to be added to the text of the bill, Sinn Feins Louise OReilly had asked for assurances that women from the North would be able to access abortion services here. By Sean McCarthaigh Stroke patients admitted to two Cork hospitals face the longest delays between the onset of the condition and medical treatment. On average, patients took seven hours to arrive at Bantry General Hospital after the onset of stroke last year, and six hours at the Mercy University Hospital, in Cork. An analysis of 19 acute hospitals around the country revealed that 53% of patients arrived within three hours of the onset of their stroke, the desirable time window for improved medical outcome. The 2017 National Stroke Register Report expressed concern about delays in treating stroke patients in rural areas, with arrival to eight hospitals taking over three hours, on average. They were Bantry General Hospital; Mercy University Hospital, Cork; Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe, Co Galway; Wexford General Hospital; Sligo University Hospital; University Hospital Waterford; Mayo University Hospital, Castlebar, Co Mayo, and University Hospital Galway. Three Dublin hospitals Beaumont, Tallaght, and St Vincents all had average times of less than two hours. The average for Cork University Hospital was two hours and 17 minutes. The 2017 National Stroke Register Report recorded data on 3,400 stroke patients discharged from acute public hospitals last year. There is a trend towards delayed hospital arrival in rural areas, the report said. This would support the need for increased public awareness campaigns, such as the FAST [face, arms, speech, time] campaign. The delivery of acute treatment to stroke patients once they have arrived to hospital improved considerably last year, with 69% of patients being seen by the stroke team within three hours of admission, compared to 54% in 2016. However, there was a wide variation between hospitals in the percentage of stroke patients getting either a CT or MRI brain scan within 45 minutes of arrival. No stroke patient in Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe, Co Galway, had a scan within 45 minutes of arrival, compared to 44% of patients in Beaumont Hospital, and 46% in Naas General Hospital. The national average was 25.4%. The rate in Bantry General Hospital was 13%, and 11% in the Mercy University Hospital. No figure for Cork University Hospital was available. The Mercy, with a door to needle time of 45 minutes, has the best record of all acute hospitals in giving patients timely clot-busting medication, which should be administered within 4.5 hours of the onset of ischaemic stroke (the most common form of stroke, which results from a loss of blood flow to the brain). The Taoiseach wants at least 20 female Fine Gael TDs elected after the next General Election. Speaking at the launch of an action plan to accelerate gender equality in third level education, Leo Varadkar said his party are putting special supports in place to get more women elected. The action plan will see 45 female-only senior academic positions made available over the next three years in a bid to tackle gender inequality in third level education. Minister of State for Higher Education, Mary Mitchell OConnor, said the introduction of the gender-specific post had gone through "rigorous legal assessment to ensure its consistency with the EU and national law." She has also set a target of having 40% of professorships filled by women by 2024. Asked if he would aim to have a 50/50 split in his Cabinet, Mr Varadkar said: "There are 12 women TDs who support the Government who voted for me as Taoiseach and out of those 12 seven are ministers, so if you are a female TD who votes for me as Taoiseach... it ain't bad odds. "I do lead a party, Fine Gael, which has more female TDs than any other party. "So what we need in the next Dail is more women TDs and we are working on that. I want to make sure there are at least 20 female TDs in my party. Mr Varadkar said he will ensure that at least 30% of Fine Gael candidates are female in the next General Election and has tasked Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty with heading up work around putting "special efforts behind them to help them get elected". "So that's what needs to be done, we need many more TDs who are female, many more senators who are female so we get to that point where therefore we can have many more women around the Cabinet table and that's what I want to achieve." Mr Varadkar said he had been "really encouraged" by the recent US elections where he said, "we saw so many women elected to Congress so let's have an election like that in Ireland next time it comes." The Taoiseach wants at least 20 female Fine Gael TDs elected after the next General Election. Speaking at the launch of an action plan to accelerate gender equality in third level education, Leo Varadkar said his party is putting special supports in place to get more women elected. The action plan will see 45 female-only senior academic positions made available over the next three years in a bid to tackle gender inequality in third level education. Minister of State for Higher Education Mary Mitchell OConnor said the introduction of the gender-specific post had gone through "rigorous legal assessment to ensure its consistency with the EU and national law". She has also set a target of having 40% of professorships filled by women by 2024. Ms Mitchell O'Connor sent out a clear warning to institutions that do not reach the targets stating that "a carrot and stick approach" will be adopted and up to 10% of the core funding could be cut if universities and ITs do not make progress. The initiative is responding to analysis which Ms Mitchell O'Connor said found that women face a number of serious barriers to progression that are not experienced to the same degree by their male colleagues. While 51% of university lecturers were female in 2017, only 24% of professors were female. In the Institute of Technology sector, 45% of lecturers are female, but only 36% senior lecturer positions were held by females last year. Mr Varadkar admitted that there are "mixed feelings" to the initiative to increase the number of women in third level education positions. Asked if the role-out of gender-specific posts was gender discrimination in reverse he said it is "a big change" but added that interventions are now necessary to achieve greater equality. "We are just not going to get to 40% without accelerators, roughly half of lecturers in our ITs and universities are female yet as you go up the pyramid that falls off and the way things are heading it will be 2040 or 2050 before we have 40% or more professors, occasionally you just have to have accelerators." Asked if he would aim to have a 50/50 split in his Cabinet, Mr Varadkar said: There are 12 women TDs who support the Government who voted for me as Taoiseach and out of those 12 seven are ministers, so if you are a female TD who votes for me as Taoiseach... it ain't bad odds. Mr Varadkar said that while Fine Gael has more female TDs than any other party, more women need to be elected "and we are working on that". "I want to make sure there are at least 20 female TDs in my party," he added. Mr Varadkar said he will ensure that at least 30% of Fine Gael candidates are female in the next General Election and has tasked Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty with heading up work around putting "special efforts behind them to help them get elected". By Brion Hoban and Jessica Magee A woman who stole more than 10,000 in rental deposits from eight prospective lodgers and then refused them access to her house has received a fully suspended sentence. Olga Leschen (aged 50) with an address at Ballentree Drive, Tyrrelstown, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to stealing the money over a six-week period between September and October 2015. Judge Terence OSullivan sentenced Leschen to six months imprisonment but suspended the full sentence for 12 months provided she keep the peace and be of good behaviour. Garda Tom McCarrick told Grainne ONeill BL, prosecuting, that Leschen advertised renting her house on Daft.ie and took deposits from eight different parties. The amount of money paid to Leschen ranged from 200 to 2,600. Leschen emailed each of the eight parties informing them of impending surgeries or other health issues and pushed back the date they were to move into her house. None of the parties were ever allowed to take up residence in her house and none of the deposits were returned. She was arrested on October 25, 2015. She initially denied the allegations, saying, If I take something I always give it back. Cathal McGreal BL, defending, said that Leschen pleaded guilty to the charges at her first date in the Circuit Court. He said she expressed remorse and had written letters of apology to each of the injured parties. Mr McGreal said Leschens husband had been physically abusive and that he left her and their children without any money. Leschen has medical problems which prevent her from working. Leschen has no previous convictions. The case was adjourned for sentencing for a year so that she could pay back all of the money, which she has done by taking loans from her family and friends. This money has been returned to all but one of the injured parties. This person cannot be found and Judge O'Sullivan ordered that the 1,100 be held by Leschen's solicitor. He ordered the money to be donated to the Simon Community homelessness charity if the injured party had not come forward within the next three years. Judge OSullivan said there was no sophistication to the theft. He said that while this was clearly a nasty fraud it was also doomed to only last a certain time. He said the mitigating factors in the case were her guilty plea, her co-operation with the investigation, her full repayment of the money she stole and her personal circumstances. Former soldier Tom Clonan didnt expect his involvement in a dance show to be such a transformative experience, writes Marjorie Brennan TOM Clonan has had a multi-faceted career and faced many challenges in his professional and personal life. A former army officer, he became one of Irelands most high-profile whistleblowers when his research on sexual violence in the Defence Forces led to a Government inquiry. He has written about his experiences in two books, is an in-demand security analyst and is also known for his campaigning on disability rights. But not even he could have foreseen his latest role, as a dancer and performer. Clonan is appearing on stage in Soldier Still, an acclaimed production from Dublin-based dance theatre company Junk Ensemble, which is spearheaded by American sisters Megan and Jessica Kennedy. The collaboration came about when the pair read Clonans book Blood, Sweat and Tears, about his experience as part of the Irish/UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon. Megan and Jessica contacted me over Twitter in 2016. I met them in Dublin and it turns out they had read the book. Their dad was in the US military and had fought in Vietnam. We had this immediate, amazing connection. They invited me to collaborate with them artistically, to explore trauma, grief, conflict, identity, through movement and dance. There is a lot of research that shows movement and sound can help people with trauma. Clonan was deployed to Lebanon in 1995 when tensions were running high in the region. In the spring of 1996, Hezbollah really stepped up their attacks on the Israeli military positions in the Irish area of operations. Lebanese civilians were being caught up in the crossfire between Hezbollah and the Israelis every day. The Israelis launched a punitive operation called Operation Grapes of Wrath in March and April of 1996. They declared the Irish and UN areas of operations as a free-fire zone and they saturated the area with airstrikes, and helicopter gunship attacks. It was hell. It all culminated in the Israeli massacre of more than 100 men, women and children in the village of Qana. The refugees had gone on to a UN post to escape the shelling, they thought they would be safe there but they were hit directly by Israeli fire. The aftermath of the attack was horrific, with the victims bodies literally rendered apart by the shelling. I cant even begin to describe it to you. Irish soldiers were the first on the scene, with no medical training, trying to give help where they could, comfort where they couldnt. Only a day after the attack, Clonan was told he was going back to Ireland. When I got word I was going home, I took off the combats I was wearing and I burned them in a barrel with diesel. I got all the letters from my mother, all the holy medals and prayers she sent me, and I burned them too. I was just completely sick. Twenty-four hours later, I was walking down Grafton Street holding hands with my girlfriend. I had to completely bury that experience. I went off to Lebanon with 220 other soldiers in October 1995 but I never came back somebody else did. Clonan carried on but in the years that followed, the reprisals due to his whistleblowing, along with the deaths of his mother, his sister, the loss of a baby daughter, Liadain, and his son Eoghans diagnosis with a neuro-muscular disease eventually proved too much to bear. All my connections and community support was gone and I was totally traumatised. Clonan says while writing a book about his experiences proved therapeutic, being part of Soldier Still has been even more transformative. Writing is a solitary experience, a journey into the interior but being able to do something with others, to work with Megan and Jessica, and all the other dancers, has been like an exorcism. No-one was more surprised than him when he ended up taking a central role in the piece. Megan and Jessica had first suggested we record me reading some stuff... then when they saw me interact with the dancers, they thought I might have some kind of presence on the stage. Now I am dancing and performing in it throughout. And, a sentence I never thought I would utter: I have a dance solo at the end, he laughs. Clonan says the piece also exemplifies Junk Ensembles mission to engage diverse audiences through the creation of accessible dance- theatre work that sheds light on important societal issues. A lot of my friends and neighbours came to see it in Dublin. They wouldnt have been a traditional dance audience, and this is contemporary and modern. For a lot of them, it was they first time they ever went to a dance production and they were really blown away by it. The production also had an impact closer to home, says Clonan. One of my sisters has come to see it several times now and she told me its the first time she ever really understood where I was coming from or what happened. My experience in Lebanon was out of the ordinary but losing a parent, child or sibling, these are things that everyone experiences. Anyone who has experienced any kind of trauma, this work will speak very directly to them. Soldier Still is at the Everyman, Cork, Tuesday and Wednesday Denise O'Donoghue speaks to Rebecca Collis about her blog and career. Dublin-based actress Rebecca Collis set up her blog to share her love of fashion, food and more. I post about anything and everything that tickles my fancy including fashion, food (restaurant reviews and recipes), travelling and some beauty too, Rebecca says. Rebecca spent over a decade living and working in London before returning to Ireland. I moved to London straight after my Leaving Cert as I gained a place on the BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Degree course at ArtsEd. I lived and worked in London for 11 years before returning to Dublin in September 2017 when screen opportunities became more prevalent for me in this country and I am delighted to have Dublin as my base again. She finds her blog, peppermintdolly.com, a welcome distraction from her day job and found other creative outlets through her writing. My blog has a hugely positive impact on my life as it gives me a creative outlet to enjoy between acting jobs. It has also helped me become more confident in my writing and I have recently started dabbling in creative writing because of this. Social media is a huge part of blogging today, and Rebecca says she uses it every day for both her blog and her career. I use social media daily and it is a huge part of both my life as an actor and a blogger, she says. As an actress it allows me to network with my agent in London as well as casting directors and other professionals and as a blogger it lets me connect with readers all over the world more immediately. On any given rainy day in Dublin I can send an audition tape to a director in New York and also give pointers to a woman in Australia about one of my recipes or a top I wore in a recent outfit post. 10-year-old me would be mesmerised by this interconnectivity, so I do my best to not take it for granted. One area she struggled with when she starting blogging in 2014 was comparing her blog to those of other bloggers. When I first started I would get disheartened by how well other bloggers were doing in comparison to me, but I soon realised that those bloggers were very different to me because being a full-time blogger was their life goal where as mine is being an actor. Now when I hear that one of my blogger buddies is doing amazingly, I feel nothing but happiness for them, just like I know they supported me when I was performing in the West End. When we arrived home in west Cork on this day last week, it was 3am Monday morning, writes Damien Enright. Leaving our luggage in the hall, I climbed the stairs to the first floor and, flicking on the outdoor lights, stepped onto the balcony. Below, a spectacular picture met my eyes. The entire backyard was leaved with October blood, as Dylan Thomas put it, carpeted in beech leaves, with hardly a half metre of gravel showing. The net suspended over the central pond was laden with leaves in thousands, fallen from the trees above. Under the yard lights, the scene was theatrical, other-worldly. In the fortnight wed been away, the ground of hard, grey gravel had become a carpet of soft gold. Migrating turnstones, scarcely bigger than starlings, fly 7,600km non-stop in six days. Having borrowed from Dylan Thomass Poem in October quotation, Ill borrow from Yeats Easter, 1916 and say that my humble yard had changed, changed utterly. Nature had made of it a stage, still and silent, set for a sylvan drama. At any minute a band of sprites would could come bouncing out of the west Cork undergrowth in winged boots and hats with a feather. All it needed was a hooting owl. Hail the transforming powers of nature! the actors would chorus in concert. Thanks to the gales of autumn, blowing in our absence, a terrible beauty, had been born. Having quoted two poets in four paragraphs, I feel that I should justify myself by quoting a third, TS Elliot. He said Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. I am, of course, no class of poet, which is why Im forced to revert to my schoolboy learning to help me describe the indescribable. Immediately before beholding this enchanting tableau in my own backyard, and the warm relief of being home, we had adventures. Such events seem to have always dogged my days. I told my unfortunate wife when she agreed to marry me: Youll never have a dull moment but some of them may be awful! These recent were at Cork Airport. When picking up our car, it wouldnt start. Rain bucketed from the heavens as I opened the bonnet in the windswept wastes of the Holiday Blue car park and fiddled with the electrics to no avail. Nature, indeed. Welcome home to Ireland. The car park breakdown service man started and re-started the car with jump leads but left me rather too soon. The engine petered out again as I picked up my wife with the suitcases at arrivals. By now, the airport was deserted for the night, and we were stranded. We were spotted by a friendly airport policeman at half-past midnight. The young policeman called a friendly mechanic whod been working on another car. He diagnosed the problem as a stone-dead battery (11 years old, like the car), fitted a new one, fortuitously carried in his van, and saw us on our way. By this time, had I had hair, I would have looked like a drowned rat. However, even our domestic, rat-eating heron wasnt around when we reached home at 3.10am. However, he turned up in the morning, knocking on our bedroom window, begging for breakfast as usual. So from one flying chapter to another, so to speak. Did you know that grey herons from Russia and Scandinavia migrate south in winter? Ive seen herons standing on the ice of frozen lakes in Czechia (Czech Republic) and wondered how they survived. 883119[/reamdore] Ive just read a fascinating book about migrants. Authored by Anthony McGeehan, a lifelong Belfast birdwatcher and writer of many books, To the Ends of the Earth: Irelands Place in Bird Migration is packed with intriguing facts and explanations of why and how birds fly back and forth across oceans and continents every year. Migrating turnstones, scarcely bigger than starlings, fly 7,600km non-stop in six days; bar-tailed godwits fly non-stop from one side of Earth in a 175 hour flight. A tagged female godwit winged 11,700km direct from Alaska to New Zealand in a 9 day-and-night direct flight. Both species of these generally disregarded avian miracles are common on Cork coasts. Why do birds comfortably wintering in the tropics fly thousand of miles north to breed and hatch? Theres grub galore where theyre at, but even more on the northern tundras in summer and days are 20 hours long, so theres more time to feed their progeny. The book itself is beautiful, a hardback, intelligently illustrated, text-led volume, published by Collins Press at 29.99. It has maps, bird portraits, references to the extensive source material and quotations from scientific works, poetry, literature and song. Today, as I write, the greatest individual threat to Mother Earth and every living thing upon it, Donald J Trump, at last faces controls. May the House of Representatives, our hope of salvation, exert power wisely and well. Dan McCarthy learns more about the cable car on Crow Island. The challenge of reaching islands has always tested mans ingenuity. Boat is the obvious means: Other routes can be by flight: helicopter or plane; walking or even swimming to tidal islands. Last week we saw how Goat Island, Co Waterford was used to test the breeches buoy system of rescue. The very same device was once used at Dursey Island not for rescue but to enable people to exercise their right to vote. In 1948 a breeches buoy was shot over to Dursey to allow the islanders vote in the election. This method of connecting with Dursey may have inspired Tadhg Roger OSullivan from Scrivogue, Garnish, to build Irelands first cable car to Crow Island (Inis Ealbhach) off Crow Head, adjacent to Dursey, so that his sheep would have more grazing. The intrepid farmer in turn inspired the local priest Rev M Keane to think well if a cable car works for tiny Crow Island maybe it will work for Dursey Island too. After much lobbying, the Dursey cable car was constructed in 1969 and brought much needed relief to the often stranded islanders. The cable car has since been used by tens of thousands of visitors. For years, Tadhg had to row several miles to Crow Island with the help of a few men and land his sheep, usually from November to February. However, with emigration, help became harder to find. So necessity being the mother of invention, he stepped back and considered the matter. The Dursey cable car Helped by his brother-in-law Tadhg Peats Harrington, and a neighbour Donie Shea, Tadhg drilled holes in the cliffs at Crow Head, and 65 yards across the chasm on to Crow Island itself. The men then laid two 5/8 inch steel cables across the gulf and secured them at both ends. They then attached a 4.5ft by 3ft cage with a wheel built into the cables to prevent it from toppling over. And hey presto! a readymade cable car to transport his sheep. With the contraption in place Tadhg was able to draw himself and his dog across the gap and round up the sheep. Writer Penelope Durrell takes up the story. He was ingenious. He set up a metal bucket that went across to Crow Island. He rigged up a contraption to put his sheep on to go and graze on the little island because there was good grazing there, apparently about five acres. He thought why let it go to waste? Local man Noel OSullivan was the first person to brave the cable car which dangled on its cables about 70m above the sea. He was around 14 at the time and recalls: I remember going in with a couple of sheep and pulling myself along. Was he terrified going across? Not a bit of it, young and brave. He says Tadhg had no fear. Danger meant nothing to him. Looking at it now, if you gave me the European lotto I wouldnt go in there now in that box. In 2014 the Irish Coastguard and Kerry Mountain Rescue organised a reconstruction of Tadhgs original cable car and successfully demonstrated the achievement of this engineering pioneer. A Southern Star article from 1965 mentioned a blacksmith in olden times called Goileann Gabha who lived on Crow Island with two servants. Years later, some men from Eyeries parish came in search of gold but got frightened by some happenings and made a speedy exit, the article states. Cork County Council has plans to build an interpretive centre and to construct a two-way cable car system in the near future at Dursey Sound. Castletownbere man Pat OShea is planning to set up boat tours around Dursey Island. The area has tremendous potential and it all began when one man dared to dream. How to get there: Crow Island can be seen, but not visited, from the cable car to Dursey. Other: lehanmore.com; www.durseyisland.ie; In 2003, the number of visitors to Ireland who participated in hillwalking or hiking was 168,000. Last year, the figure had risen to almost 2.35m, with domestic holidaymakers making up 1.2m. The result is that, from Lugnaquilla to Croagh Patrick and from Galtymore to Mount Errigal, the uplands are groaning under the strain of the ever-increasing footfall. Kerrys MacGillycuddys Reeks have a particularly acute problem. The attraction of being Irelands highest mountain range draws a horde of visitors year-round, with 125,000 recreation seekers entering on to the Reeks from the three main access points during 2017. Greater wear and tear on the mountains is the inevitable result, while farming activities are also negatively impacted. It will probably come as a surprise to many that, unlike other Irish mountain ranges, MacGillycuddys Reeks are not part of a national park and are instead in private ownership and are being actively farmed. Ironically, Carrauntoohil was once in State ownership but was then purchased by the ancestors of the present landholders from the Land Commission. A general consensus has emerged in recent years that something needed to be done about managing the increasing number of recreation seekers on the Reeks. The MacGillycuddy Reeks Mountain Access Forum was established in 2014 with the aim of protecting, managing and sustainably developing the MacGillycuddys Reeks Mountain Range. In recent weeks, an email was forwarded to some walking clubs in the Munster area informing them that they need to submit an event sheet to the MacGillycuddy Reeks Mountain Access Forum prior to any walks /hikes taking place. This was stated as a requirement for all groups of ten or more accessing the Reeks along with the prior submission of a copy of the clubs public liability insurance. It was further stated that the event sheets were needed to ensure that: Access points dont become congested from a car parking perspective; Events dont clash; Erosion is managed and minimised; Farming activities are not negatively impacted. The email also specified: We respectfully request that your clubs access the Reeks from one of the main access points only Breanlee, Cronins Yard, Lisliebane or Strickeen where car parking can be facilitated appropriately. On the Macgillycuddy Reeks Mountain Access project website, it is stated: You must notify us prior to the event taking place by completing the event form, failure to do so may result in access being denied. The email raised some concerns in hillwalking circles as it appeared to represent an erosion of the traditional right of open access to the Irish uplands. As was immediately pointed out, there are no similar requirements for any other mountains on these islands with the highest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales open to all comers at all times. Keep Ireland Open (KIO) is a national voluntary organisation campaigning for the right of recreational users to responsible access to the Irish countryside. In an initial reaction to the new code of practice, KIO chairman Roger Garland agreed the vast numbers of walkers accessing the Reeks poses a serious erosion problem which is common in other honeypot areas both here and abroad but stated he was unable to see how the use of these event sheets would help. Presumably if the [walking] clubs co-operate which is problematical and it is felt that there are too many clubs seeking access on the same day some clubs will be advised they cannot come on that particular day, said Mr Garland. The SKDP [South Kerry Development Partnership] have told us that such groups will be physically prevented from accessing the area. This scenario must be avoided at all costs. Mr Garland also has concerns about the practicality of informing groups from outside Ireland about the new requirements. We just dont see how it would be possible to notify a broad range of clubs from other countries, he said. When it comes to car parking problems, he believes the best way forward is to have a modest charge for car parking as this would encourage car-pooling. As regards a broader solution to the generally agreed problems which are occurring on the Reeks, Mr Garland said: It is obvious that before this draconian regime is put in place there should be a meeting of all parties to see how these problems can be solved and we are convinced that with a bit of give-and-take they can be solved. Invitees should include landowners, farm organisations, national organisations representing walkers, walking clubs and interested individuals. Patricia Deane, meanwhile, is project manager for MacGillycuddy Reeks Agri Environmental Scheme. It is immediately clear, in speaking to her, she believes passionately in the sustainable development and use of the Reeks and that responsible access to the MacGillycuddys Reeks is in the interest of all users. We are trying to minimise erosion, avoid traffic congestion and work with the landowners so as not to disrupt their farming activities, she said. These are the reasons why these small group forms are being requested, a small request, to help manage the issues. With regard to the fact that no restriction on walking groups exists on busier mountains such as Ben Nevis and Snowdon, Ms Deane pointed to the fact that those mountains are in other jurisdictions and may handle footfall better due to the climatic conditions as the west coast of Ireland is extremely wet. But, after centuries of habitual use, would she not concede that a right-of-way not been established to the summit of Irelands highest mountain? Ms Deane is emphatic no such right exists and that permissive access with the landowners is working well, so why would this be an issue? The request for organised groups of ten or more to have adequate insurance is likely to prove the most onerous of the new conditions, particularly for overseas or informally-structured groups. Ms Deane, however, believes insurance is required to ensure the landowners would be adequately indemnified, as this is a major concern for them, but also so that club organisers are covered in the event of a member having an accident, regardless of those guiding /experience or their qualifications. Mr Garland disagrees and said the purpose of present insurance is to indemnify walking clubs against claims that an accident to a participant was caused by negligence by the walk leaders/organisers. Presumably if they [clubs] have no insurance or if the policy wording is not to the liking of SKDP they will be refused access, he said. The requirement for club insurance which comes from the farm organisations makes no sense as land-owners should have their own insurance. Meanwhile, Ms Deane is happy about the success of the Reeks Access Forum and says she will be informing every walking club in the country about these basic requests for walking on the Reeks. The Access Forum is working really well and is an excellent model for sustainable management that, I believe, could be used to manage other mountains such as Lugnaquilla, Galtymore, and Errigal, she said. The future, it seems, will lie with permissive access only on many of Irelands best-known uplands. At least 40,000 Irish died in the Great War before the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918. The relief at the arrival of peace was tinged with sorrow and a sense of unfinished business, writes Gerry White. In the early hours of November 11, 1918, representatives from the warring nations of Britain, France, and Germany met in a railway carriage in the forest of Compiegne and agreed terms of an armistice that would bring the conflict then known as the Great War to an end. At 11am that same day, the guns on the Western Front fell silent and, after four and half years of misery, death and destruction, the war was finally over. The following day, people all over Ireland celebrated what the editorial in the Cork Examiner described as the end of Armageddon. The First World War was one of the most significant and catastrophic events of the 20th century. It shaped the world we live in today and led to the deaths of 18,000,000 people, the collapse of four empires, the creation of the first communist state, the rise of the US as a military superpower. It also removed the potential for civil war that existed in Ireland in the summer of 1914 over the issue of Home Rule, split the Irish Volunteers, created the conditions that led to the 1916 Rising, and resulted in the demise of the Irish Parliamentary Party. After Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, thousands of men from all parts of Ireland got caught up in the patriotic euphoria that was sweeping through Europe and rushed to enlist in the British armed forces. Others would soon follow. Their motives for doing so varied. Many listened to the advice of their political leaders who urged them to fight against the threat to civilisation and for the freedom of small nations, others did so out of a sense of adventure, while still more enlisted to escape poverty. Whatever their reasons for enlisting, the majority who joined the British Army entered one of the infantry regiments that were then based in Ireland. In the first months of the war, battalions from these regiments were grouped into three divisions: The 10th and 16th (Irish) Divisions, which consisted for the most part of Catholic and nationalist recruits, and the 36th (Ulster) Division whose members were almost all Protestant and unionist. In all, more than 200,000 Irishmen would serve in the British Army during the war. Thousands more would serve in the Royal Flying Corps, Royal Navy, and Mercantile Marine, while countless others would serve in the armed forces of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US. These men would fight and die on the muddy and bloody battlefields of France, Flanders, Gallipoli, and Salonika, in the skies above those battlefields and on the high seas. The Irishmen who fought in the war often had to endure appalling conditions and thousands would lose their lives or suffer horrendous wounds. Hundreds of crew members and civilians also perished when the ships they were travelling on fell victim to Germanys campaign of submarine warfare. Headstones in the graveyard at the Thiepval Memorial in Authuille, France. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire It is impossible to quantify the exact number of Irish deaths but it is estimated to be between 40,000 and 50,000. In terms of loss of life, this was the greatest tragedy to hit Ireland since the Famine 70 years earlier. One hundred years after the Armistice, that may seem like a mere statistic, but it is important to remember each death was an individual tragedy that affected families all over Ireland. While Irishmen were doing the fighting and dying, Irish women were also supporting the war effort in many different ways. Irish nurses served at the front with organisations such as the Voluntary Aid Detachment and the Queen Alexandras Imperial Military Nursing Service, while others cared for the hundreds of wounded servicemen that were sent to hospitals all over the Ireland. Women were also employed in shell factories, looked after groups of Belgian refugees or supported the troops at the front by sending them socks, scarves, and other luxuries. The conflict would also have serious political consequences in Ireland. Although many nationalists initially supported the war, Britains execution and arrest of republicans in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising, its refusal to keep faith with Ireland and grant Home Rule, its threat to extend conscription to Ireland, and the increasing number of Irish casualties led to a gradual erosion of that support. By the time the conflict ended, the Irish people had enough and this would be manifested in the sweeping victory of Sinn Fein in the general election held on December 14, 1918. Whether they served on the front lines or lived on the Home Front, the lives of people all over Ireland were changed in some way by the Great War. While many were happy to support it when it broke out, all were glad to see it end. In the weeks and months that followed the Armistice, thousands of demobilised veterans returned home scarred by their experience of war and to a country that had dramatically changed. Many of these veterans were proud of the contribution they made and were happy that they had fought the good fight, others were disillusioned by their experience and went on to fight for an independent Ireland, while more just focused on rebuilding their shattered lives. In time, the names of those Irish servicemen who lost their lives in the war would be inscribed on headstones in the cemeteries opened close to where they fell or on a nearby memorial if their remains were not recovered. Some next of kin and family members were fortunate enough to visit these locations after the war but the majority of those left behind simply couldnt afford to do so. They would go to their deaths without a sense of closure and all they had to sustain them in their grief was memories. The editorial in the Cork Examiner that had described the Armistice as the end of Armageddon finished by saying: Out of the appalling tragedy that has ended in the triumph of the Allied cause it is hoped that a new and better world will evolve in which reason will supersede mere brute force, and justice to all nations, large and small will be administered with an impartial hand. Sadly, it was not to be. Within one year Ireland would once again be at war, this time fighting to establish an independent republic. In Europe, dark forces would soon arise and 20 years after the Armistice the world would once again be facing Armageddon. Gerry White is a military historian Website Login Identify yourself with this website. All requests to log into this website are logged. Repeated failed login attempts will result in lock out. You are attempting to access a resource on this site which is restricted. Please login below. After re-logging in, you will be automatically directed to the page you were attempting to access. Silay City (CNN Philippines Life) Silay is a city that sings. It is the fifth of November, and the sound of rondallas can be heard through Silay Citys streets, loud and clear amid the vibrations of its living history. This year, it has much to celebrate for Al Cinco de Noviembre, which honors the 1898 Negros Revolt that freed the island from Spanish rule. In a city that reveres much of its history and heritage, music now takes centerstage, via the 5th International Rondalla/Plucked String Music Festival (Rondalla Festival): a grand celebration of the rondalla and plucked string traditions in the Philippines and the world. The rondalla, an ensemble of plucked instruments (including the bandurria, mandolin, laud, guitar, bass, sometimes accompanied by a piccolo bandurria and drums) represents a fascinating aspect of Filipino musical tradition. Its origins are foreign but adopted to local stylings, as in familiar folk tunes. If an Amorsolo painting had a musical backdrop, for example, it would probably be the music of a rondalla. But the rondalla is more than just folk tunes, as Silays celebration embodies Cuerdas Sang Paghiliusa (Strings of Unity): the shared heritage of plucked string music. The carefully selected roster of performers includes local rondallas from Metro Manila, Bogo City, Dipolog City, the municipality of Candelaria, Dumaguete City, and Silay, as well as international musicians from France, Uganda, Taiwan, Israel, Iran, India, South Korea, Portugal, and Vietnam. Cuerdas Sang Paghiliusa (Strings of Unity) embodies the shared heritage of plucked string music. Performers at the festival hail from Philippines cities like Bogo, Dipolog, Dumaguete, and foreign countries like France, India, Korea, Portugal, and more. Photo from RONDALLA FESTIVAL/FACEBOOK *** Silay is a coastal city that prides itself as the Paris of Negros, with cultural activities as one of its priorities. This elevated focus on culture is rooted in its geographical location. Silay which formerly housed Asias longest seaport is the main gateway to the rest of Negros Occidental. The city remains the home of some of Negros wealthiest sugar barons. Its moniker Paris of Negros feels well-earned. The Silay Heritage District, lined with heritage houses built by rich hacenderos, is zealously protected under local law; some are preserved for the modern era via adaptive reuse. Food is also a strong source of pride, as celebrated via regular food festivals such as Kaon Ta! and the annual Adobo Festival. Artists and owners are present in museums, ready to tell you about their works and their collections. There are physical marvels (think brutalist architecture meets Bali aesthetic) by way of hideouts like Punong Garys Place in Hacienda Tinihaban, and getaways in the mountains, such as Duyan in Lantawan. This sacred regard for the arts, for history, for culture and whatever else that nourishes the spirit is apparent in how the Rondalla Festival harmonizes with the citys cultural heritage. Silays Tourism Code places the rondalla ensemble as one of its permanent programs. It is also home to what might be the only rondalla house in the Philippines. The rondalla is an ensemble of plucked instruments (including the bandurria, mandolin, laud, guitar, bass, sometimes accompanied by a piccolo bandurria and drums) that represents a fascinating aspect of Filipino musical tradition. Photo from RONDALLA FESTIVAL/FACEBOOK The festivals weeklong performances are free to the public, evincing a strong commitment to celebrate music and its power to unite people. There is nothing better than music to bind the community, stresses Mayor Mark Golez, and to serve as a bridge between generations and countries. The vision to elevate the rondalla belongs to Ramon Santos, National Artist for Music and festival director. In a 1994 essay, he wrote* about the rondalla as a medium for light classical music, defining it as an ensemble comprising of plectrum instruments, which evolved from the Spanish murga (a band of street musicians) and estudiantina (student groups). In the American colonial period, the rondalla was also called the comprasa, distinctive for its wide repertoire which ranges from native folk tunes and ballroom music to classical pieces, including operatic overtures. We inherited the rondalla from Spain, says Santos, but we modified the rondalla to express our very own musicality and emotions. The rondalla, he adds, is present from Aparri to Jolo, making it the representative musical expression to project the Filipino identity. The shared heritage of the rondalla also allows for enrichment via foreign traditions. Eighteen-year-old Cindy Labendia (right) and 19-year-old Katrina Guce are both college undergraduates and aspiring teachers who play for the Sariaya Community Rondalla. Labendia plays the bandurria while Guce plays the octavina. Photo by ANNA BUENO While the rondalla is not indigenous to the Philippines, it is indigenized, and lends itself to a wide range of musical possibilities, from symphonies to pop. Rondalla music is included in the school curricula. There are many independent groups that recruit and hone young talent, such as the Sariaya Community Rondalla based in Quezon province. Eighteen-year-old Cindy Labendia and 19-year-old Katrina Guce are both college undergraduates and aspiring teachers who play for the Sariaya Community Rondalla. Labendia plays the bandurria while Guce plays the octavina. What Labendia and Guce get out of rondalla music is more than recognition or enjoyment. Masaya kami, naipapakita namin yung talento namin at kung ano meron yung Pilipinas, says Labendia, and adds that the practice also teaches her discipline. Kung walang disiplina, walang kwenta yung tinutugtog. The festival gathers some of the best rondalla ensembles in the Philippines and the world, giving young musicians models to aspire to. Silay itself takes pride in its homegrown Kabataang Silay Rondalla Ensemble, an award-winning group formed in 1993, which Santos himself considers as one of the best rondallas in the land. Kabataang Silay Rondalla Ensemble is Silay City's own award-winning group, which was formed in 1993. They play at the opening ceremony of the Rondalla Festival. Photo from RONDALLA FESTIVAL/FACEBOOK Elsewhere, the youthful Santa Rosalia Rondalla plays with zeal and energy (though they are not part of the festival roster). The ensemble comprises of children of farmers and workers inside Hacienda Santa Rosalia in Manapla, Negros Oriental, and they train once a week. Its the first performance I witness, right before the festival started. Inside the Gaston Mansion a protected heritage mansion-slash-museum inside the hacienda I am acquainted with Queenie, a 16-year-old whose fingers move nimbly across the strings of her bandurria. Along with 11 other companions, she plays a piece from Georges Bizets Carmen opera, titled Habanera, or LAmour Est un Oiseau Rebelle (Love is a Rebellious Bird). Its one of the worlds most beloved pieces of music, and the performance in the Gaston Mansion gives it a certain weight. The mansion was the main setting of Peque Gallagas film Oro, Plata, Mata. It is also beset with its own memories from World War II, including a miracle involving Japanese tanks and an American fighter plane. Nearby is the Cathedral of Cartwheels, a place of worship built to honor both the teachings of Christianity and the value of farmers work. In such a place, the musical performance, if raw, acquires a subtle conviction: the children play with a passion that rivals the best of their contemporaries. The Gaston Mansion, a protected heritage mansion-slash-museum inside the Hacienda Santa Rosalia, was one of many heritage houses that played host to numerous performances around Silay. Photo by ANNA BUENO A Cinco De Noviembro performance at the German Unson Heritage House. Photo from RONDALLA FESTIVAL/FACEBOOK The Hofilena House is another heritage house that served as a venue for several rondalla ensemble performances. Photo from RONDALLA FESTIVAL/FACEBOOK Many of the international festivals performances mimic such a setting: the ensembles play in many of Silays heritage houses, such as the Hofilena House, Locsin Ancestral House, and Balay Negrense, where the musical ensembles add to the layers of stories these structures have witnessed. But the festival also extends beyond Silay. There are outreach performances all over Negros, conducted in various public spaces, open for everyone. The delicate strings of the Taiwan Bamboo Orchestra and Taipei Gusheng Ensemble, for example, find an audience in the Escalante coliseum; Indias Malvica Chopra mesmerizes by playing the sitar, with tabla player Muthu Kumar, in Bacolods University of St. La Salle. The nine-day affair presents itself as a rare, one of a kind, cultural event: You will never experience this music elsewhere, says Santos. Musicians from all over the world participated in the festival, including the Taipei Guzheng Ensemble. Photo from RONDALLA FESTIVAL/FACEBOOK Hope to Hop Africa is a muiscal ensemble from Uganda. Photo from RONDALLA FESTIVAL/FACEBOOK *** The Rondalla Festival accommodated 250 musicians from 10 countries all over the world, equivalent to 21 ensembles, which played from Nov. 3 to 11. To organize and fund the event is no easy feat, but Silay had help from its neighboring cities, towns, and various sponsors. After all, Silay is but a part of the whole of Negros Sugarbowl, marked by the glory days of hacendados, their decline, a still-existing semi-feudal system, and an ongoing drive towards other industries, such as tourism. As the city attracts recognition for its laudable emphasis on cultural heritage through activities like the Rondalla Festival, it is also important to understand how this heritage helps its people, and what the city (or even the province) can learn from it. When the festival settles down the rondalla will remain, and so will the other melodies that make up Silays song. These are the slow and idyllic notes of the vast expanse of sugarcane; the lilting ballad of hacienda life; the cacophony of voices in the citys development; and the delicate but familiar rhythms of its indelible routine. They say music helps articulate emotions. As rondallas play in Silays magnificent heritage houses, I hear the proud opulence of an era gone by and the singular industry that enabled it. Where the blade slices against the sugarcane, I hear the subtle dissonance of loyal, hardworking farmers, strong and empowered but without a title to their name. And then a sound I cant quite explain. If you listen carefully to the empty spaces between the music, its the tremulous sound of a culture that may take a while to understand, reverberating a peoples triumphs, their unities and divisions, their evolving identity and place in history, and their ever-continuing search for dignity. *** *Ramon Santos essay is titled Musika: An Essay on the American Colonial and Contemporary Traditions in Philippine Music, published by the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1994. It is part of the Tuklas Sining series. After a great deal of awareness-raising and educational work on the subject of rape culture, the report of a trial perpetuating rape myths represented two steps forwards and 1,000 steps back, says Caroline Forde. WHEN I read last weeks Irish Examiner Read More: I understand the accused man was entitled to a defence. Subsequently, the 27-year-old was found not guilty by the jury of eight men and four women at the Central Criminal Court. I also acknowledge that the barrister in question is not an expert in sexual violence. However, her instruction to the jury to consider the type of underwear (in this case, a lacy g-string) worn by the complainant was irresponsible, not to mention reprehensible. When tasked with representing an accused rapist, it is incumbent on barristers to become knowledgeable about the dynamics of rape and the pervasive nature of victim-blaming in our society. In fact, even a cursory interest in this topic would furnish them with an insight into rape myths, such as the one put forward as evidence by Ms OConnell. Noeline Blackwell of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre stated in an Irish Examiner article published on November 7 that she was unsurprised by the barristers strategy. As a researcher and activist who focuses on gender-based violence, trauma and recovery, I find myself sharing Ms Blackwells sentiments. I also feel the need to discuss this case and its damaging effects for all survivors and our wider society. Determining whether consent was given or not is at the heart of all rape trials, and this can be a difficult thing for a jury to ascertain, depending on the evidence available. Unlike in Sweden, where the defendant must provide evidence that they received consent, the burden of proof lies with the complainant. Sadly, in Ireland, research documents low rates of reporting of sexual violence, in addition to high rates of attrition. The inherent difficulties involved in proving rape are compounded by the use of deeply entrenched rape myths, and it is clear that victim-blaming has not dissipated. Given this toxic environment, is it any wonder most survivors do not report sexual violence? Rape myths regarding female and male victims have a long history. Women who report sexual violence tend to be ascribed blame based on their character type or for being careless. For instance, it is commonly believed that rape is the response of a mans uncontrollable passion, which a woman invites with her provocative clothing or behaviour. By taking responsibility away from men who perpetrate sexual violence, women are thus viewed as the guardians of morality. Culminating in feelings of shame, survivors often internalise such victim-blaming attitudes. Patriarchal norms of femininity and masculinity underpin such rape myths, and gender inequality is at the root of sexual violence. Much educational and awareness-raising work has been done to challenge rape culture, particularly by rape crisis centres. This has been complemented by the wider anti-rape movement globally. With the Me Too movement, we have witnessed the outpouring of stories that, for far too long, were silenced. Many of us stood in solidarity with the woman at the centre of the Belfast rape trial. These moments represent a seminal shift in our gender-based violence landscape. Change feels possible. And then another report of a rape trial involving rape myths emerges and it feels like two steps forward, 1,000 steps back. It has been said that although rape law in Ireland is straightforward on the books, it is left open to exploitation by the legal system. This is true of the trial in Cork last week. Despite their obvious falsity, rape myths endure because of statements such as the one made by Ms OConnell. This begs the question: Do barristers believe rape myths, or do they knowingly employ them to secure their clients freedom? Either way, the life and psychological well-being of a 17-year-old girl was treated with callous disregard. Despite the numerous writings on this subject and the progress achieved in some areas, it remains important to reiterate the facts and to dispel such rape myths. A womans clothing does not determine her desire to engage in sexual activity. Women should be able to choose clothing, be it under or outer-wear, that feels good, without ever giving a second thought to men or sex. This includes not considering how they will be perceived by men. It is not a womans responsibility to base her choices on mens perceptions or behaviour. Men are responsible for their own behaviour and a woman is never asking for it. Consent is ongoing. It is an enthusiastic yes. It is freely given and received. A person who is unconscious cannot give consent. Consent can never be assumed. Consent involves clear communication. Consent does not involve pressure. Clothing of any type is not consent. With regard to establishing consent, Ms OConnell asked: Does the evidence out-rule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front. Lets look at this evidence. This was a rape trial. As such, the jury was tasked with deciding if the complainant gave consent to engage in sexual intercourse. Firstly, whether or not the woman involved was attracted to the accused is immaterial. Attraction does not equal the desire to engage in sexual intercourse or even kissing. Second, a womans openness to meet and be with someone is not proof that consensual sex took place. Finally, at the risk of repetition, a womans clothing does not constitute evidence of desire, or openness to engaging in sexual activity or consensual sex. I am not a barrister, but it seems evident to me that, instead of providing evidence, Ms OConnell simply stated what the complainant was wearing. That this statement was presented as evidence was only possible because of rape myths. Consent, the very thing that was in question, was not established. The womans motivations were substituted for her actions and these motivations were assumed, not proven. And this is what constitutes the law. Barristers have a responsibility to deal with evidence alone, instead of resorting to rape myths. Judges have a responsibility to ensure only evidence is presented at rape trials. Patriarchal myths have no place in the courtroom. Survivors of sexual violence deserve to at least live in a country where they can safely report rape and expect a fair trial. Rapists and would-be rapists need to know that there will be consequences for their crimes. This will never be a reality if we continue to propagate rape myths in our courtrooms and in our society. What does the Government think of the recent, deeply disturbing findings of the WWF that human activity is responsible for a staggering 60% global decrease in the numbers of wild animals in the last 44 years? We do not know, for they have not given the slightest indication that the news has registered with them. Nor does any element of the Opposition appear to have reacted. Official Ireland has played deaf, dumb, and blind. Life as we know it is on the cusp of changing radically, forever. At this rate, we will soon no longer be able to claim we live in an ecosystem. It is bad enough that through greed, short-sightedness, and stupidity we have walked over the edge of the cliff: It is diabolical that we are bringing most other life forms with us. We must urgently take nationally co-ordinated action to halt and reverse this catastrophe. And we must join with our European colleagues in an effort to have a global impact. There are so many steps we must take and we must begin at once. We must look for inspiration elsewhere think of New Zealands plan to plant a billion trees and aim to be an inspiration for others. The first step is our political system showing it has heard and understood this message. That means an end to the shenanigans of Minister Kevin Moran announcing dredging of the Shannon. It means Richard Bruton moving on restrictions on the use of plastic. It requires Josepha Madigan actively protecting hares, hen harriers, and hedgerows instead of facilitating their destruction with weasel words. It means Pascal Donohoe introducing progressive taxation measures and so on. And Leo Varadkar appointing environmentally aware ministers in all ministries. In the name of all that is wonderful about this planet, wake up and act! Gerald Fitzpatrick Ballyhooley Co Cork Dateline For NLD, By-Election Result a Wake-Up Call for 2020 -- Kyaw Zwa Moe: Welcome to Dateline Irrawaddy! In Saturdays by-election, the NLD (National League for Democracy) did not win as many seats as it should have and only secured seven out of 13 seats, or just over 50 percent of the total seats. Is this because the NLDs popularity with the people has declined? If this is the case, are there problems with the policies of the NLD and actions of the NLD government? How will this affect the NLDs potential [for electoral victory] in 2020? Yangon regional lawmaker Ma Kyi Pyar and political analyst Dr. Yan Myo Thein join me to discuss this. Im Kyaw Zwa Moe, English editor of The Irrawaddy. NLD leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said before the by-election that she wanted to win all 13 seats. But the party only secured seven seats. Whats worse, in three of the six constituencies where it lost, its rival Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won by a majority. So, the by-election was an unexpected failure for the NLD. It is fair to say that the result reflects the publics frustration with the party. Ma Kyi Pyar, how do you assess this [as an NLD lawmaker]? Kyi Pyar: The fact that we lost in the constituencies where we won [in 2015] is a cause for concern. We did expect that it would be hard for us to win in [Shan States] Laikha and [Rakhine States] Rathedaung. But the fact that we lost in Yangons Seikkan, [Chin States] Matupi, and [Sagaing Regions] Tamu calls for a review. In my opinion, I would guess that the lawmakers from those areas are weak at communicating with local residents. Also, it pertains to the performance of the government. People expected a lot from the government. The performance of the government may have fallen short of their expectations over the past two years. But both the government and Parliament have been working for them. But people might not be able to see the immediate impact in some cases. We have carried out many reforms over the past two years but people may feel frustrated that the results have not met their expectations. I see it as an alarm bell for us to make greater efforts in 2019 and prepare for 2020. In my opinion, there is a real need for the government, Parliament and party to work harder and make careful preparations in 2019. KZM: Ko Yan Myo Thein, Ma Kyi Pyar said that lawmakers might have weaknesses. What about the weaknesses of the NLD government, considering the country as a whole? The NLD lost in Rakhine, Shan, Kachin and Sagaing. This indicates something for 2020. Is it because the NLD has not lived up to peoples expectations over the past two years? Yan Myo Thein: Considering the overall situation, as Ma Kyi Pyar said, there is an urgent need for the government, Parliament and the ruling party to review themselves before the 2020 general elections. Here, I want to focus on the NLDs relations with ethnic parties. The USDP won the Upper House seat for Kachin State Constituency (2). The Kachin Democratic Party and the NLD were second and third. This indicates that the USDP won because votes were split between the Kachin ethnic party and the NLD. The NLD learned a good lesson from this for the 2020 election. NLD leaders should take this into serious consideration not only in Kachin but also in Shan, Chin, Mon, Karen and all the ethnic states. My suggestion is that the party should work very hard to forge alliances with ethnic parties and establish partnerships with them before the 2020 election. KZM: Speaking of ethnic issues, joint secretary U Sai Leik of the SNLD [Shan Nationalities League for Democracy] in an interview said that though the NLD has called itself a Union party, its relations toward ethnic parties have been less warm since the 1990 general elections. He said the situation would get worse if the NLD does not fix it before 2020. Ma Kyi Pyar, how do you assess the policies of the party and the government [regarding the relationship with ethnic parties]? KP: The problem is that the NLD is widely regarded as a Bamar party. But in all of the ethnic constituencies, local ethnic NLD candidates contested the election. Still, many view the NLD as a Bamar party. In fact, the NLD engages actively in ethnic issues. The government does as much as it can regarding budget sharing for ethnic regions. For example, it thinks about what additional things it can do for Rakhine State and about equitable development in other ethnic regions in terms of transportation and more. The government has done a lot. But the problem is that we are viewed as a Bamar party and our actions are judged according to that perception. In my opinion, it is necessary for the party to engage more warmly with ethnic groups. KZM: It largely depends on party leaders and the government formed by the party. The problem is mainly about policy, isnt it? YMT: Yes, it is. KZM: It lacks a policy regarding how to compromise with the SNLD, ALD [Arakan League for Democracy] and Kachin party. Perhaps it is because the NLD wanted to win all of the seats in the by-election. KP: This is also possible. We dont know much about the direction of party leaders. We have been doing many things for ethnic people. I believe there is a need to consider forging alliances with certain parties. In the 2015 election, we did have our eyes set on total victory because we wanted to form the government. Comparing state parliaments and the Union Parliament, the NLD will be able to form the government only when it is voted for by the Union Parliament. I think the NLD should negotiate with ethnic parties in ethnic regions. Given the results of the 2017 and 2018 by-elections, there is a need for party leaders to seriously consider how to improve ties with ethnic parties in the future. We have marched alongside ethnic groups in the struggle for democracy. We have fought together for democracy. I am quite sad that the vote was split and that the other party got the vote. KZM: Critics and analysts have criticized the NLD leadership and their policies on this issue. One of the prominent figures in the party, Mandalay Region Chief Minister Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, said it was a lesson for him, and it showed that the party needs rebuilding and has weaknesses. In the six constituencies the NLD didnt win, ethnic parties won three and the USDP won three. If the NLD cant fix its policy or improve the performance of individual party members, and if in the 2020 election the ethnic parties win in the ethnic constituencies and the USDP wins some other constituencies, it will be very difficult to form a government. What I am going to say might be unlikely; it needs 51 percent of the seats in Parliament to form the cabinet. But to get that percentage, a party needs to win some 70 percent of the vote in election, right? YMT: It is a weak point of the 2008 Constitution. According to the Constitution, 25 percent of seats are reserved for the military. So, to form a government, a political party needs to win over two-thirds of the votes in the election. It is 67 percent. In my opinion, the NLD still has time. Dr. Zaw Myint Maung said the party needs to learn a lesson. I think he should have said so earlier. The NLD should act promptly and take practical action in 2019. It should think about how to reform the government, Parliament and party. Those reforms should be noticeable and transparent, and publicized. It is important that reform takes place that way. We also need to think about a possible scenario beyond the 2020 election. If the NLD doesnt win enough seats to elect the president, and if the combined seats of the USDP and military representatives are not enough to elect the president, then the role of ethnic lawmakers will become important. The NLD should prepare for that scenario. If necessary, the NLD should consider not contesting in constituencies where ethnic parties are likely to win in the 2020 election, and supporting ethnic parties to win in ethnic constituencies, and solicit the support of ethnic parties to win in ethnic constituencies where the USDP has strong support. The NLD should have considered such a strategy by now. KZM: The decline in the popularity of the NLD can be attributed to the performance of individual lawmakers, individual chief ministers appointed by the NLD and the Cabinet. For example, the NLD won all three seats in Mandalay. But in Yangon, it only won one seat. It can be said that the popularity of the Yangon Region chief minister and his government has declined over the past year. People are pointing out his poor performance. There are many things [contributing to this] such as the arrest of journalists, and complaints about YBS [Yangon Bus Service]. And there may also be other things. What is your assessment of individual lawmakers and chief ministers? KP: I think the performance of individual lawmakers is very important. It is OK if some citizens dont know what the government is doing. But it is important that lawmakers should meet their constituents at least once. If a lawmaker helps his constituent with a request, even if it is just one time and just over the phone, I am sure she will vote for him next time. If people are convinced that though the NLD cant improve the overall situation, NLD lawmakers stand by them and are helping them, this will be a great advantage for the party. It is important that lawmakers work hard to the best of their capacity and stand by the people. Again, whatever we do, it cant be achieved by lawmakers alone. We can just act as mediators to fulfill the requirements of the people. So, the capacity of ministers and chief ministers and their willingness to serve the people are also very important. As Yangon is a huge region, there may be many problems. The Yangon regional government is doing what it can. But it has some disagreements with the regional parliament. Both the government and parliament are working, but there are cases when the two have no consensus. It largely depends on the partys policies for properly training ministers and lawmakers. It is very important that the government, parliament and party work together. There are many reforms we have been undertaking. KZM: The government has made some reforms. There were reports that the NLD would change ministers who performed poorly. But, more than two years into its administration, it has done nothing regarding this. The government seems to be reluctant to reform systematically. What do you think, Ko Yan Myo Thein? YMT: Yes, it seems that [the government] is facing dilemmas in certain cases. KZM: The people showed their support when President U Win Myint said after taking office that he would take a tough line on corruption. But do people have questions about other issues? YMT: People are watching how widely and effectively the presidents words and guidelines will be taken into practice on the ground, and to what extent ministers and chief ministers will follow his guidelines. The entire population is watching this. It is important that the entire Cabinet and chief ministers are aware of this and work with considerable caution. KP: There is a saying that it takes all sorts. So, lawmakers may be different. They are elected by the people; or in other words they are assigned to assume responsibilities by the people. They are elected to be public servants. They receive emoluments. I have talked to NLD lawmakers of the Union Parliament and they said that only one-third of NLD lawmakers work [hard], and two-thirds dont. This is what they say, and not the official statisticsthat two-thirds dont work hard. What is your suggestion for them, Ma Kyi Pyar? KP: Some joined the party before the election. The party accepted them out of necessity. Our leader asked the people not to judge the partys candidates but just vote for her party, and that she would monitor them. She has kept an eye on them, as she said. But in some cases, implementing ideas is harder than we think. There are lawmakers who work hard. Some want to work hard. But they are not very familiar with the policies of the party, and they are afraid of making mistakes. Some do not have experience as politicians and lawmakers and are not very clear about what to do in their first year. I dont expect much. If half [of the lawmakers] work hard, the country will change a lot. KZM: So, the number of hardworking lawmakers is less than 50 percent now? KP: We have no exact data about it. But I am frustrated [with the performance of some lawmakers] in some cases. In some cases, lawmakers work hard, but there are problems in collaborating with concerned departments. So, we need to think about various aspects. Rather than arguing about whether or not lawmakers work, I would like to urge them to work harder. It is time lawmakers bear in mind that those who are already working hard should work harder and those who have not worked hard enough should work harder. KZM: Some critics say lawmakers including those from the NLD are being haughty. Is that so? KP: Some of them need to improve their PR [public relations] skills. In my case, my countenance is solemn by nature. KZM: The 2020 election will be more exciting [than the by-election]. But that is two years away. We will wait and see. Thank you for your contributions! Asia Singapore Calls for Closer SE Asia, Says Multilateralism Under Threat Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong speaks at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in Singapore, November 12, 2018. / Reuters SINGAPORE Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called on Monday for greater integration between Southeast Asian countries at a time when multilateralism is under threat. His remarks came at a business summit on the sidelines of meetings this week between the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and external partners, including the United States and China, which are locked in a bitter trade war. ASEAN has great potential, but fully realizing it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures, Lee said at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit. Lee has previously warned that the US-China trade war could have a big, negative impact on Singapore, and the city-states central bank has warned it could soon drag on growth. Notably absent from this weeks meetings in Singapore is US President Donald Trump, who has said several existing multilateral trade deals are unfair, and has railed against China over intellectual property theft, entry barriers to US businesses and a gaping trade deficit. Vice President Mike Pence will attend instead of Trump, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are among those expected to join ASEAN. Li is expected to rally support for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) pact now being negotiated, showcased to be the free trade deal that will encompass more than a third of the worlds GDP. The pact includes 16 countries, including China, India, Japan and South Korea, but not the United States. It was not clear if Li and Pence will hold separate talks on the sidelines of the Singapore meetings, which would be a prelude to a summit scheduled between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of the month in Buenos Aires. The encounter, if it happens, would come on the heels of high-level talks in Washington where the two sides aired their main differences but appeared to attempt controlling the damage to relations that has worsened with tit-for-tat tariffs in recent months. Burma Analysis: KNU Reiterates Hiatus in Peace Talks KNLA soldiers march in a parade to mark the 67th anniversary of Karen Martyrs Day in Karen State in August 2017. / Nyein Nyein / The Irrawaddy CHIANG MAI, ThailandThe Karen National Union (KNU) is standing firm on its decision to temporarily suspend its participation in ongoing peace talks, but will seek solutions to overcome the impasses facing the peace process through informal negotiations, it said in a statement. The statement was released after an emergency meeting of the KNU Central Standing Committee on Nov. 10. The KNU leadership met last week to review its high-level talks with the government, Tatmadaw (Myanmars military) and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in mid-October, and to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the implementation of the peace process. The group announced it was suspending its participation in the peace process two weeks ago, saying it needed time to conduct internal consultations on a meaningful participation in the process, before moving on with it. The KNU said that confusion over the peace process had increased because stakeholders had different understandings of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). It said this was making it hard to solve the issues, which are developing repeating contradictions as the different groups pushed to implement the agreement according to their various, and different, understandings of it. The KNU stressed the need for solution-seeking negotiations in order to overcome obstacles to the implementation of the NCA. The KNU abides by the NCA agreements, which include the building of a Democratic Federal Union with equality and full self-determination according to the result of political dialogue, and the KNU believes there must be a single interpretation of those agreements, its statement reads. The statement said the issues of non-secession from the Union and armed forces integration had been raised by the government and Tatmadaw as negotiation preconditions which were not included in the NCA agreement. The KNU said that by bringing up such preconditions, the government and military were implying that the negotiation of topics agreed to in the NCA would only continue once the EAOs had accepted those terms. The KNU has repeatedly said the parties need to thoroughly discuss the security affairs first before continuing on to negotiate the single army issue. The KNU also insisted that it is not sufficient to limit the process of crafting democratic and federal principles to NCA signatories, saying it must involve other EAOs who are not yet allowed to participate in the political dialogue to ensure that everyone is properly represented and to realize a sustainable peace. The seeds of the current impasses now plaguing the peace process can be seen in the way the NCA text was developed back in 2014 and 2015, especially regarding the issue of all-inclusivity and the six points raised by the military, which objected to the inclusion of three armed groupsthe Arakan Army, the Taang Nationalities Liberation Army and Kokangs Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Armyin the process. The signing of the NCA in October 2015 was preceded by seven months of deadlock in the composition of its draft text, said Khuensai Jaiyen, an adviser to the Peace Process Steering Team (PPST). Thus the current situation is cause for concern, based on prior experience, the adviser said. It is a concern if we do think so [about the current situation]. Thus we need to have many more informal negotiations like in the past, because there are people on all sidesthe government, Tatmadaw and the EAOswho really want the peace process to keep moving and to achieve peace, he said. Different opinions on KNUs move Observers have differing views of the KNUs decision; some see it as a positive reaction, while others speculate that it could point to a split in the KNU leadership. This has led to concerns that fighting in its areas will return; that the peace process will weaken; and that the convening of the Union Peace Conference three more times before 2020 will be delayed. In March, clashes between the KNU and the Tatmadaw over the latters rebuilding of an old road in an area controlled by the KNUs Brigade 5 in Papun district displaced civilians and disrupted the daily lives of local people. Sources close to the government speculate on a possible split between the KNUs leaders, and have even suggested that chairman General Saw Mutu Say Poe may not be in full control. KNU vice chairman Padho Saw Kwe Htoo Win recently denied any such divisions to The Irrawaddy, while acknowledging that differing opinions exist, saying this is normal in a democratic organization. If the military stays in its own zone of control and does not cross the line, there would be no concern about fighting, and thus nothing to worry about, said Saw Matthew Aye, an ethnic Karen civilian representative on the Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committee (JMC). The JMC comprises representatives of the EAO commanders and Tatmadaw, as well as civilians. He said the KNUs decision is a positive reaction because the current peace process needs a break to allow participants to rethink and review, as the meetings so far had not resulted in any specific decisions. Due to the KNUs decision to postpone all peace talks, including both political negotiations and military monitoring, the 19th JMC Union-level meeting scheduled for November has been postponed, Saw Matthew Aye said. However, trust was still lacking between the peace negotiation partners, the KNU said, so the stakeholders must have trust-building mechanisms, common visions, shared values and national reconciliation in order to overcome the obstacles to implementing national reconciliation and building trust. The KNU joined the peace process in 2012 and signed its first bilateral ceasefire with the government in January that year. It pledged to find solutions to political issues through political means rather than arms after over six decades of fighting with the Tatmadaw. There are also rumors that the KNU is likely to replace chairman General Saw Mutu Say Poe with KNU General Secretary Padoh Saw Tadoh Moo as the leader of its delegation to the PPST. I dont think there is potential for such leadership change, said Khuensai Jaiyen, however, describing the divergent views within the KNU as differing opinions, not a leadership split. PPST meeting likely this month The PPST meeting has been temporarily postponed as the KNU and another NCA signatory, the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), are internally reviewing their positions on the peace process. The RCSS also said last week that it had decided not to take part in the discussions of the JMC at either the state or the Union level, claiming the JMC is not abiding by the NCA. Although there are uncertainties over whether the ethnic leaders of all 10 signatories will meet soon, Khuensai Jaiyen was optimistic that the meeting will happen this month. He said the leaders could not avoid such discussions, as EAOs need to negotiate for common ground and to move forward on negotiations with the government, but it will take time. Before the PPST meeting with all signatories, the KNU and the RCSS will hold separate discussions between the two on how to move forward, as they did in early October before deciding to join high-level talks in Naypyitaw. Saw Mra Yar Zar Lin, the deputy leader of the Peace Implementing Committee of the Arakan Liberation Party, another signatory to the NCA, said open and thorough negotiations are urgently needed and thus the talks must go on. There will be an impact, more or less, on the process [because of the KNUs move], she said, as the views of each and every EAO were needed to decide whether the process should move forward or not. We, the EAOs, must only raise the concerns on what type of federal principles we want to achieve, and the government should also openly say to what extent they agree with those, she added. Correction: A previous version of this story mistakenly said that KNU representatives did not participate in the most recent JMC secretariat meeting at the end of October. They did participate in the meeting. Burma By-Election Disappointment Prompts Internal Reforms at NLD NLD vice chairman Dr. Zaw Myint Maung talks to reporters on Nov. 11. / Moe Moe / The Irrawaddy NAYPYITAWThe National League for Democracy (NLD) will implement internal reforms in order to secure victory in the 2020 general election, according to Dr. Zaw Myint, vice chairman of the ruling party. Speaking to the media after a meeting of the partys Central Executive Committee (CEC) on Sunday evening, he said the party would conduct reforms on the ground. To begin with, we will reform our womens committee, along with public campaign committees at the ward and village level. We will also revive the township public campaign committees. We will reform the party first, before considering the lawmakers, Dr. Zaw Myint Maung said. The CEC meeting also agreed to form a five-member committee tasked with reviewing the results of the Nov. 3 by-election, in which the party lost control of some constituencies it won in the 2015 general election. Of 13 seats contested in the by-election, the NLD won seventhree Lower House and three regional parliament seats, and an ethnic Shan constituency in the Mandalay regional parliament. We received over 40,000 votes in Myitkyina in the previous election. But this fell to somewhere over 10,000 in the most recent one. Some say it was because of low voter turnout. The committee will review the results and determine the reason, Dr. Zaw Myint Maung said. The committee will review the by-election results independently, said ruling party spokesperson Dr. Myo Nyunt. The CEC meeting openly pointed out weaknesses of party members and discussed plans for reforming the party as well as training members in the partys rules and disciplinary procedures. Dr. Zaw Myint Maung said that while some NLD township chapters had taken steps to organize public campaign groups ahead of the Nov. 3 by-election, they only existed on paper. The party lost in some constituencies because party members there failed to listen to the voices of the people, he said, adding that the NLD would learn from the experience and take steps to avoid a repeat in 2020. It is never too late to mend, said U Ye Htun, a political analyst and former lawmaker for Hsipaw Township. The party alone should not be blamed [for the by-election results]. As it is the ruling party, it has to manage the administration mechanism, and the weakness and faults of the government should also be blamed. For example, the Yangon regional government has disregarded the regional parliament, and its actions are in violation of the [2008] Constitution and procedures. Such things have nothing to do with the party, but are the faults of the parliament and the government. There are many faults that need to be fixed, he added. Burma Explosives Kill Two in Northern Shan People attend the funeral of Lway Kham Yin at a monastery in Mandalay on Monday. / Mai Nyi Kham Mon State Two people were killed and two more were wounded by a pair of explosives in northern Shan State on Sunday, according to relatives and media. In Kyaukme Township, two ethnic Taang women, aged 20 and 26, were heading from Khon Ngan Village to the center of town by motorbike to do some shopping when they hit an explosive at about 9:30 a.m., according to relatives. They said the younger woman, Lway Kham Yin, died from her injuries at a Mandalay hospital that evening and that the other was wounded by survived. She was seriously wounded in her head, so a doctor told us they could not save her, said Nang Mya Htwe, Lway Kham Yins aunt. A funeral for Lway Kham Yin was held Monday at a Buddhist monastery, but some of her relatives stayed away for fear that there may be more explosives along local roads. Several armed groups operate in the area, including the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and periodically clash with each other or the Myanmar military. The RCSS currently has fighters posted in Khon Ngan Village while the rival TNLA has recently taken up a position on a nearby mountain. Separately, in Muse Township, a 13-year-old ethnic Mong Wong boy was killed instantly when an improvised explosive he and his friend were playing with on Sunday went off, according to Radio Free Asia. The report said the boy who survived was treated at a local hospital. Such explosions are common in northern Shan State. The military and armed groups blame each other for planting the explosives, but determining who actually set any given device is difficult. Landmines wounded seven people in the area last month. They killed three and wounded another seven in September. According to Halo Trust, a UK-based non-governmental organization, there were 119 landmine explosions in Myanmar last year, killing 52 people and injuring 124. Of the 119 explosions, 45 occurred in Shan State. This year, from January through May, there have already been 127 landmine explosions, which have killed 23 people and injured 136. Forty-nine of the explosions were in Shan. Burma Man Wrongfully Detained and Beaten by Police to File Complaints Police officers in downtown Yangon. / Reuters MANDALAYA tour company director who was mistaken for a thief was detained and beaten by police, said he will file a complaint with the EU office in Myanmar, the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission and the Lower House Committee for Rule of Law. Ko Aung Soe Htike, director of Babylon Trekking and Camping Tour, was detained on Friday night by police from Ahlone Township Police Station after being mistaken for a thief who stole a mobile phone from Ahlone Townships administration office. While on the way to pick up his daughter from a tuition class on Friday evening, the police showed up, handcuffed him and took him to the police station without giving any reason for his arrest. Ko Aung Soe Htike told The Irrawaddy that he was beaten up by police and thug-like men at the police station behind closed doors without ever being given the chance to ask questions about his detainment. I was not allowed to contact anyone or ask what is going on. About three men were there. They treated me like a criminal and beat me several times on my chest and back, and forced me to admit to theft, said Ko Aung Soe Htike. Ko Aung Soe Htikes friends began the search for him after he didnt turn up for an appointment they had with him on Friday evening. Only then was it discovered that he was detained in police custody. Police mistook Ko Aung Soe Htike for a thief who was caught on CCTV stealing a mobile phone from an officer of Ahlone Townships administration office. The CCTV footage shows a man with a similar appearance to Ko Aung Soe Htike. My friends arrived [at the police station] after a few hours and were shown the CCTV footage by the police. They confirmed the thief is not me and then the chief of the police station apologized and released me, he said. Ko Aung Soe Htike said he will file a complaint with the EU office in Myanmar, the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission and the Lower House Committee for Rule of Law, for what he suffered due to the polices officers mistake. Under an EU-led initiative, the Myanmar Police Force underwent training which involved human rights awareness from 2013 to 2015. I will send the complaint this week. There are many people like me who are arrested mistakenly, beaten up and forced to admit to a crime and they are helpless and have to spend time behind bars where their rights and dignity are abused, said Ko Aung Soe Htike. I dont know how the police station chief will deal with the men who beat me. I hope there will be no more cases like this in the future and that the human rights commission and the commission for rule of law will make sure of this, he added. News of the incident spread widely over social media over the weekend, with users condemning the actions of the police and urging the Yangon Divisional Police Chief to investigate the incident and take legal action against the police who beat the tour company director. Even if a suspect or culprit is arrested, the police must not beat them up like this. Such an action is shameful for every police officer and for the country so the responsible institution [the police force] needs to make sure there will be no such human rights abuses in the future, said Daw Nwe Nwe Win, a lawmaker of Ahlone Township. When contacted by The Irrawaddy, Ahlone Township police refused to comment on the incident. Burma President Proposes New Ministry to Promote Investment Shipping containers are stacked at a port in Yangon. / The Irrawaddy YANGON President U Win Myint has proposed the formation of a new Union-level ministry to boost local and international investment and to make that investment socially and environmentally responsible. The president submitted his proposal for a Ministry of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations to Parliament on Monday for approval. Lawmakers will discuss the request on Thursday. The plan comes at a time when Myanmars economy is slowing and many international investors are turning away because of the Rohingya crisis. Some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since a military crackdown in northern Rakhine State late last year. The government, led by Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has come under heavy international criticism for remaining largely silent on the issue. If Parliament approves the presidents proposal, Myanmar will have a total 25 ministries. In a message read out by the Parliament speaker, U Win Myint said the government needed the new ministry to make use of outside assistances from the United Nations and other international organizations in accordance with the countrys policies and to have effective collaboration with the UN and others international organizations. The message did not mention who would head the new ministry. But sources in Naypyitaw say U Thaung Tun, who chairs the governments Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA), which manages the registration of both local and foreign companies, is tipped for the post. U Thaung Tun is the currently national security advisor and government office minister. He has served as ambassador to the Philippines, Belgium, the Netherlands and the EU and was director-general for political affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the former military regime. During that time, he was widely criticized by the opposition for warning Daw Aung San Suu Kyi then under house arrest that she must not rock the boat after she said she would boycott the military regimes controversial constitution convention at a 2006 press conference in Manila. In 2016 he worked as a government relations adviser for Shell Myanmar Energy PTE. He was appointed national security adviser in January 2017 and government office minister that November. The appointments were criticized by former lawmaker U Soe Thane, who was presidents office minister under President U Thein Sein. U Soe Thane reportedly said that U Thaung Tun had failed to disclose his previous work for the George Soros Foundation and a consultant and said that making him national security adviser could hurt Myanmars relations with China. The former lawmaker also reportedly said that George Soros approached him to secure a ministerial appointment for U Thaung Tun, but U Thein Sein rejected the idea because George Soros was American. Monday, November 12th, 2018 (2:20 pm) - Score 6,000 The government has today revealed that 7,000 UK businesses and surrounding homes have taken advantage of their 67m Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), but strong demand means they now expect the funding to dry up a year sooner than expected. In response the top voucher values have been cut to 2,500. The GBVS scheme, which was officially launched in March 2018 following a successful pilot (here), forms part of the Governments wider Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme. Essentially it offered vouchers with a value going up to 3,000 for businesses (SME), or 500 for residents, to help them with the costs of connecting to full fibre (FTTP/H) broadband or leased line from an approved ISP. All of this is intended to help support the governments commitment to making Gigabit (1Gbps+) capable full fibre broadband available to at least 10 million UK homes and businesses by 2022, which will be followed by 15 million in 2025 and then theres also an as yet unfunded aspiration to achieve nationwide coverage by the end of 2033. We should point out that the GBVS is more business orientated and the only way for residents to benefit is as part of a local community group, which must include small businesses. But the good news is that theyve now made it easier for more residents to participate (up to 10 residents can now participate for every one SME). However, the GBVS may have become a victim of its own success. The 67 million scheme was initially expected to run until March 2021, but high demand (7,000 vouchers have already been issued) means that their funding is now expected to dry up a year, or possibly even sooner, than originally expected (i.e. around the end of 2019 or early 2020). Margot James MP, UK Minister for Digital, said: Our modern Industrial Strategy is clear on the importance of connectivity, as we build a full fibre Britain that is fit for the future. These vouchers provide practical and immediate help to firms struggling with slow broadband speeds.I encourage small businesses around the UK to apply now. Mike Cherry, FSB National Chairman, said: Access to good broadband is vital for small businesses across the UK, and with the clock ticking on this scheme, its important small businesses dont delay if they want to apply for funding. To date, demand for the scheme has been strongest in the South West, followed by the South East, Yorkshire and the North West of England. But in order to ensure that there are enough vouchers left, the Government has now reduced the maximum value of each from up to 3,000 to 2,500 in a move that they hope will encourage neighbouring businesses to pool their vouchers. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said they now expect more than 1,000 additional businesses and homes to benefit, although this could be problematic since the original announcement correctly noted that in some areas the value of a single voucher will not fully meet the installation costs of a gigabit capable full fibre connection (hence the pool remark above). Regional/Nations Breakdown of Vouchers Issued (30th Oct 2018 Data) Region/ Nation Vouchers Issued South West 1613 South East 927 Yorkshire and The Humber 871 North West 745 London 661 West Midlands 475 East of England 407 East Midlands 369 North East 68 Northern Ireland 418 Scotland 315 Wales 58 Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk UPDATE 4:04pm Weve been informed that 1,197 vouchers have so far been issued to homes (as opposed to businesses), which comes out of the 7,000 total. UPDATE 13th Nov 2018 @ 11:01am Weve had a new ISP comment. James Warner, Glide Business Director of Sales and Marketing, said: The Governments announcement of a decrease in the maximum value of vouchers available for businesses to claim off the install of gigabit capable services is disappointing. Whilst it is an encouraging sign that there is a high demand of vouchers, the change to the maximum value of 2,500 instead of 3,000, poses a very real risk to thousands of companies who need this incentive. Through the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme, Glide have been working tirelessly to support over 600 businesses to connect to the ultrafast broadband that is vital to their day to day operations, and competing well into the future. Whilst we echo Margot James sentiment that the vouchers give both a practical and immediate value, our fear is that this announcement will dilute the importance of full fibre and its roll out. It also puts more pressure for ISPs such as Glide to invest even more in their networks to support the ever-growing demand. Although Glide remains committed to unleashing fibre connectivity across the country, this decision perhaps will be detrimental in slowing down both ISPs pace and ability to reach the businesses which have oft been forgotten by the incumbent. UPDATE 13th Nov 2018 @ 1:58pm Weve also added a comment from Zen Internet. Southern Cross Cables Network has significantly enhanced the scale, programmability and intelligence of its network by deploying Cienas WaveLogic Ai tunable coherent optics and the 6500 T-series solutions. Southern Cross Cables deployment of Cienas GeoMesh Extreme solution is the first subsea deployment of WaveLogic Ai over compensated cable and includes the first deployment of 200Gbps wavelengths between Sydney and Auckland. According to Southern Cross, Ciena has been deployed to address skyrocketing customer demands for connectivity on its network, fuelled by cloud, HD video, internet of things (IoT) and more. Southern Cross jointly owned by telcos Spark NZ (50%), Singtel-Optus (40%) and Verizon Business (10%) says the functionality of Cienas WaveLogic Ai allows it to monitor links in real-time, so it can determine the ideal capacity for each channel across any path and also provides massive scalability by allowing an additional 6.4Tbps of wavelength expansion across its subsea and terrestrial networks. And Southern Cross existing programmable infrastructure is further enhanced with the introduction of the Ciena 6500 T-Series platform that scales to 24Tbps OTN switching capacity for efficient traffic grooming and includes Cienas advanced multi-layer control plane software to maximise network resiliency. In addition, Southern Cross utilisation of Cienas Blue Planet Manage, Control, and Plan (MCP) software for improved network visibility through real-time software control, along with big data analytics and advanced network functionality through the Ciena Network Health Predictor, Performance Portal and Blue Planet V-WAN services, underpin its position as a self-promoted one of the most flexible, and customer responsive submarine cable providers in the world. Our customers needs are changing almost daily as they move towards the cloud and larger web-scale data flows, particularly between continents, said Southern Cross Cable network director of marketing and sales, Craige Sloots. Cienas technology not only boosts the capacity of our Southern Cross undersea cable, but also adds a level of intelligence and service capability that is unmatched in submarine cable networks anywhere in the world. Southern Cross success is driven by our focus on flexibility and service, and our partnership with Ciena allows us to adapt the network as required to proactively manage and grow with changing user demands. Southern Cross says it is already using its multi-path network and Ciena upgrades to minimise the impact of network incidents and planned work on its customers by proactively switching customers to other paths or ramping capacity up or down as required, reducing disruption and keeping customers connected a capability that is simply unachievable on simpler, single path solutions. Ciena says its technology has now added a combined 39Tbps of wavelength capacity across the various segments of the network during its history of working with Southern Cross. Southern Cross Cables is setting a new industry benchmark by creating a more intelligent and programmable network that can adapt and quickly respond to dynamic customer demands, said Rick Seeto, Cienas vice-president and general manager, Asia Pacific and Japan. New Zealands competition regulator The Commerce Commission says newly published key performance measures for the countrys electricity companies allow for stronger year-on-year comparisons across the sector as a whole and for individual lines companies. The Commission has just published its third set of one-page summaries of key performance measures for each of New Zealands 29 electricity lines companies, with the latest data showing that capital expenditure across the sector has increased by 16% and operational expenditure is up 5%. Deputy chair Sue Begg said with three full sets of summaries now published, the purpose of these summaries is to shine a light on lines companies performances and with a third set of data now published there are some interesting trends emerging". Through our own analysis when comparing the data sets, we have seen that overall demand has increased over the past year in terms of total energy delivered, peak demand, network capacity and customer numbers. Across the sector, capital expenditure has increased by 16% and operational expenditure is up 5%, which is significantly higher than the three year average. In 2018, total revenue has also increased by nearly 4%; however lines companies collective return on investment has dropped 1% and regulatory profit decreased by nearly $100 million (12%). Begg says there remain differences between the performances of different lines companies, such as the health of assets including poles, lines and substation equipment, and also in the detailed knowledge the companies have of the condition of their assets. Where we identify any specific performance issues, particularly in terms of the risk posed by aging assets, we will be following up with lines companies to ensure their management plans are properly accounting for their network requirements, Begg said. Chinese Internet and ecommerce giant Alibaba Group increased sales by 27% over last year, generating total sales valued at US$30.8 billion (RMB213.5 billion) at its Global Shopping Festival on one day last weekend with sales of Australian lamb increasing 775% from 2017 in the first hour. The online shopping spree on Sunday saw Australia maintain its position in the top five countries selling to China at fourth spot, with Australian products Swisse (first) and Bio Island (fifth) ranked in the top 10 products snapped up in the shopping bonanza. In the hours leading up to the shopping event, Alibabas video streaming platform, Youku, hosted the fourth annual countdown gala to celebrate the official launch of the festival, with viewers experiencing the gala live via Youku, as well as across China on two major Chinese TV stations. Alibaba says this year, the gala featured international celebrity appearances and performances from Australian Miranda Kerr, Mariah Carey and Cirque du Soleil. Today we witnessed the strength and rise of Chinas consumption economy and consumers continued pursuit to upgrade their everyday lifestyles, said Daniel Zhang, chief executive of Alibaba Group. Participation from the entire Alibaba ecosystem enabled our brand and merchant partners to engage with consumers like never before. Looking ahead, Alibaba will continue to lead the evolution towards the future digital economy and lifestyle. Alibaba lists key highlights from the weekends Shopping Festival as: Top 10 countries/regions selling to China by GMV (Gross Sales Value): 1. Japan 2. United States 3. Korea 4. Australia 5. Germany 6. United Kingdom 7. France 8. Spain 9. New Zealand 10. Italy Top 10 imported cross border brand into China: 1. Swisse (Australian) 2. Moony 3. KAO 4. Aptamil 5. Bio Island (Australian) 6. a2 (New Zealand) 7. A.H.C 8. MartiDerm 9. Elta MD 10. Move Free Top 10 categories of imported products bought by Chinese consumers by GMV: 1. Health supplements 2. Milk powder 3. Facial masks 4. Nappies 5. Serums 6. Infant and toddler nutrition 7. Emulsion 8. Face wash 9. Make up remover 10. Toner Global highlights: Smartphone sales for the full-year 2018 are forecast to drop by 1.3% year-on-year, making it the first time that the market for these devices has contracted two years in a row. Tech analyst firm Counterpoint Research said the sector had been experiencing drops in sales since the last quarter of 2017 and this trend was expected to continue for the rest of 2018. In a statement, the firm said the market had enjoyed a compound annual growth rate of 16% in the five years from 2012 to 2016. Counterpoint attributed the dropoff to a slowdown in the global economy and fluctuation in exchange rates in emerging markets as in Latin America. The US-China tariff war had not helped either. Additionally, some markets were cooling off after years of extreme competition, but the weak demand was most likely attributable to changing consumer behaviour. Research director Tom Kang said: Many markets have already hit a saturation point for new smartphone demand and are dependent on replacement demand. However, since last year consumers have decided to trade up whenever they had the chance and are thus going for a better device, despite the price difference. "This is evident in the introduction of Apples iPhone X last year. But buying a more expensive device results in extending the length of replacement cycles, especially when your earnings are limited. While lesser new devices were being bought, the higher prices for the new models meant that revenue for the manufacturers was on the rise. Overall smartphone revenue may grow 9% compared to last year. This is even higher than the 7% revenue growth of 2017," Kang said. He said a similar trend could be expected in 2019 with the new Apple iPhone XS Max introduced at a higher price point, Samsungs foldable smartphone coming soon and 5G smartphones on the horizon. But again, the average selling prices of smartphones were likely to grow more steeply to offset the low volume growth. Analyst firm Canalys recently released figures that showed smartphone shipments were down by 7% in the third quarter, while an IDC report said shipments in the same quarter showed a year-on-year decline of 6%. Chinese smartphone brands OPPO, Xiaomi and vivo have achieved their highest quarterly shipments in the third quarter of 2018, despite the overall shipments showing a drop of 3% year-on-year, the technology analyst firm Counterpoint Research claims. A statement from Counterpoint said shipments in the third quarter reached 386.8 million units, with the top 10 players grabbing 79% of the market. This left more than 600 brands to fight for the remainder. Counterpoint associate director Tarun Pathak said: Despite the decline in its home market, Chinese brands OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi reached new highs in smartphone shipments in a quarter. "Huawei was also able to maintain its 50+ million smartphone shipments and retain its second position in 3Q 2018. This suggests that the companies are reducing their dependence on their home country. The brands will further expand outside China as they push into Asia Pacific countries and Europe. Samsung continued to lead smartphone shipments with 19% share, with its highest ever shipments to India, though overall it experienced a fourth consecutive quarter of decreased shipments. Apple revenues grew 29% even though iPhone shipments remained flat on a year-on-year basis. The average selling price for an iPhone was a record US$793. Pathak said this was the first time the global smartphone market had declined for three consecutive quarters. "It can be attributed to a weakening demand in developed markets like China, USA and Western Europe which account for almost half of smartphone sales globally. The lack of meaningful innovation and improvement in smartphone build quality is leading to lengthening replacement cycles," he said. Emerging markets like India showed double-digit growth, but this could not compensate for the decline in developed markets. Analyst Shobhit Srivastava said: "The growth in the emerging markets is led by Chinese smartphone players that are venturing out of China to capture sales. "The offerings from these OEMs have intensified competition and many features and capabilities common among flagship models are now progressively diffusing through to the lower price bands. "This is also affecting local smartphone players in the emerging economies, which are struggling to maintain a foothold. Analyst firm Canalys recently released figures that showed smartphone shipments were down by 7% in the third quarter, while an IDC report said shipments in the same quarter showed a year-on-year decline of 6%. International bandwidth provider Southern Cross Cables has deployed network strategy and technology company Ciena's WaveLogic Ai tunable coherent optics and the 6500 T-series to cope with the increased demand for connectivity. A statement from the company said the deployment of Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme solution was the first subsea deployment of WaveLogic Ai over compensated cable. It was also the first use of 200Gbps wavelengths between Sydney and Auckland. Southern Cross provides bandwidth from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Hawaii to the US. The network included two submarine communications cables which were first commissioned in November 2000 and January 2001 and provide Australasian broadband users with international connections to seven key locations on the US West coast. The statement added that Cienas WaveLogic Ai would allow Southern Cross to monitor links in real-time and also provide scalability by allowing an additional 6.4Tbps of wavelength expansion across the Southern Cross subsea and terrestrial networks. Our customers needs are changing almost daily as they move towards the cloud and larger web-scale data flows, particularly between continents, said Southern Cross Cable Network director of Marketing and Sales, Craige Sloots. Cienas technology not only boosts the capacity of our Southern Cross undersea cable, but also adds a level of intelligence and service capability that is unmatched in submarine cable networks anywhere in the world. "Southern Cross success is driven by our focus on flexibility and service, and our partnership with Ciena allows us to adapt the network as required to proactively manage and grow with changing user demands. Southern Cross Cables is setting a new industry benchmark by creating a more intelligent and programmable network that can adapt and quickly respond to dynamic customer demands, said Rick Seeto, Cienas vice-president and general manager, Asia/Pacific and Japan, Ciena. When a Belgian locksmith attacked the Pakistani Air Force, researchers at Cylance sat up and took notice. The locksmith probably never knew his website had been taken over by a nation-state hacking group as a command-and-control server, nor that exploit-laden Microsoft Word documents crafted to spear-phish Pakistani Air Force officers were hosted there for more than six months. The Belgian locksmith was just a pawn in a global game of cyberespionage fought by a new nation-state hacking group, and while the target in this operation was Pakistan both nuclear-armed and a haven for terrorists in the region the incredibly sophisticated layers of misdirection used by the malware to mislead and delay forensics analysis worries security researchers, who say these attack tools could be deployed against anyone else in the world at any time. This heralds the advent of a major new nation-state player on the cyber domain, Cylance researchers speculate, who rule out all the usual suspects Five Eyes, Israel, India, China, Russia, and North Korea. While hesitant to attribute to any particular nation, researchers told CSO the new APT is likely Middle Eastern, but whose tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) are indicative of US-trained intelligence operatives, raising the possibility that ex-US intel folks have turned mercenary and are building a new APT group for a Middle Eastern nation. The new APT group takes the cat-and-mouse game between attackers and defenders to a new level, and blue teams around the world should pay attention to the tactics used here, Cylance researchers say. Meet the White Company The new APT's malware goes to extraordinary lengths to evade detection and includes the ability to detect and hide from eight different antivirus products, including Sophos, Kaspersky, AVG and BitDefender. Additional layers of obfuscation and misdirection led Cylance researchers to dub the group the White Company. "The name is an acknowledgment of the many elaborate ways this threat actor goes to whitewash all signs of its activity, and to evade attribution," Kevin Livelli, director of threat intelligence, tells CSO. The malware didn't just evade antivirus detection, however, it let itself be discovered by different antivirus vendors on preprogrammed dates, likely as a distraction tactic. "What we've got here in this case is a threat actor who has figured out how to determine what antivirus is running on your system and deliberately trigger it in an attempt to distract you," Josh Lemos, vice president of research and intelligence at Cylance, says. "That should be concerning organizations outside of Pakistan." Kill switches in malware have been seen before, such as in Stuxnet, but Cylance researchers say they've rarely seen a campaign that deliberately surrenders itself to investigators in this manner. "The White Company...wanted the alarm to sound," their report concluded. "This diversion was likely to draw the target's (or investigator's) attention, time and resources to a different part of the network. Meanwhile, the White Company was free to move into another area of the network and create new problems." What makes the White Company especially dangerous, however, is its keen understanding of how security researchers study malware, and their sophisticated attempts to foil automated forensics analysis. Hacking security researchers' brains Malware researchers use automated analysis systems, like FireEye's, to examine potentially malicious files. The White Company's malware evades such systems by including anti-debugging code inside their shellcode an extreme measure rarely seen. "While anti-debugging code is routinely observed inside malware," the report said, "it's unique to find it inside shellcode...If a system is employed that detonates documents...and a debugger is used to detect malicious behavior, then the malware would not be available for analysis and the notion that the document is malicious would never register." The White Company also used commodity malware to confuse security researchers looking for exotic nation-state malware. "With publicly available malware, an analyst can't be sure of authorship," the report wrote, "which in turn has the effect of impeding attempts at attribution. In this context, it also undermines the assumptions of analysts who conduct taxing reviews of complex shellcode and are expecting fancy, custom malware samples." The great pains the White Company took to hinder forensic analysis of their malware seems likely to increase the cost to defenders, at least in the short term. "This is a threat actor that has a key understanding of the typical way security researchers go about attacking these things," Livelli says. "They left deliberately contradictory pieces of evidence to essentially hack the methodology, the thinking of the people that would be coming after them to investigate them." "That to me is very concerning," he adds. "It means that your way of going about responding to these incidents has to be challenged." U.S. personnel involved? The White Company is a new nation-state APT, Cylance tells CSO, likely a Middle Eastern country, and is not a U.S. or Five Eyes threat group. However, there are flags that suggest that some of the technical personnel were trained by the U.S. or previously worked for U.S. intelligence. "There are certain hallmarks of the style here that reminded us of the U.S. style of attack, all these extensive lengths they go to evade attribution reminded us of that," Livelli says. The conspicuous absence of any U.S. antivirus vendors among the eight antivirus products targeted by the malware also raises eyebrows. Is an American mercenary reluctant to attack a U.S. antivirus product? Or is it because few Pakistanis use American-made antivirus products? Cylance contacted Pakistan's CERT in an effort to find out but received no response. Regardless of provenance, a new major APT group is flexing its muscle on the world stage, and their tactics will soon be imitated by others. Defenders take note. (ANSA) - Brussels, November 12 - Italy and France must not lose EU funds for the high-speed rail (TAV) line between Lyon and Turin while Rome and Turin carry out a cost/benefit analysis of the project which has been put on hold, French Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne said after talks with Italian counterpart Danilo Toninelli Monday. "We'll let Italy carry out its evaluations, keeping well in mind the fact that we must not lose EU funding," she said. "Toninelli reiterated the Italian government's desire to conduct economic studies on this project. "Also in France we have a reflection on our infrastructure programme although we have reaffirmed the will to respect international treaties. I think that is so for Italy, too". Meanwhile Turin Mayor Chiara Appendino, who recently ordered Turin's own cost/benefit analysis, said Monday she would meet the organisers of a pro-TAV rally which brought some 30,000 people to Turin on Saturday. The Si Torino movement was recently set up to combat a No-TAV campaign that has seen years of sometimes violent protests against the line in the Val di Susa north of Turin. (ANSA) - Palermo, November 12 - Premier Giuseppe Conte said ahead of a two-day Palermo conference on Libya Monday that "a process of stabilisation has started in Libya". He said Italy was holding the conference "for the Libyan people and because we want the Libyan people to be able to decide its future in a democratic way". Various Libyan leaders are set to attend as well as a number of foreign leaders. Investing for a Lifetime of Returns This week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health and the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Rwanda are cohosting the 2018 International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in Kigali, Rwanda from November 12-15. Since 2009, the worlds largest academic conference on family planning has convened every other year. In its fifth iteration, ICFP will bring global policymakers and researchers, young people and family planning advocates from over at least 75 countries to Kigali where theyll share the latest family planning research and innovations, celebrate progress, and highlight the role of political and financial leadership in increasing family planning access and options. The official conference theme, Investing for a Lifetime of Returns, highlights the extensive and far-reaching social and economic dividends that family planning investments yield. Maintaining Momentum in Family Planning SuccessIndonesias Story of Covering Contraceptive Costs Timothee Fruhauf, MD 18, MPH 17, former Sommer Scholar and current OB-GYN resident at Johns Hopkins, is among some 30 Bloomberg School and Hopkins affiliates who will be presenting this week in Kigali. Fruhaufs research, co-authored with Professor Siswanto Wilopo, former Dean of the School of Public Health at Gadja Madah University in Indonesia, and Population, Family and Reproductive Health professor and former Gates Institute director Amy Tsui, PhD, MA, examines how provider supply of contraceptives in Indonesia has changed under new national health insurance programs. Indonesia has been lauded as one of the worlds success stories in terms of family planning initiatives. Since the 1980s, the southeast Asian countrys contraceptive prevalence rate grew exponentially from about 44 percent to top 61 percent in 2000. But rates have not changed since and in 2017, overall prevalence began to decline slightly despite the 2014 introduction of universal health coverage through a national health insurance program. To identify reasons for the recent decline, Fruhauf, Wilopo and Tsui looked at data for married women in Indonesia. They found that the majority of Indonesian women prefer injectablesa group of contraceptives including the Depo-Provera shotadministered by midwives. But care from most midwives is not covered under the countrys new insurance program. Part of the reason contraceptive prevalence got so high [in Indonesia] is because everyone was using that injectable and had ready access through midwives, Fruhauf says. [The insurance scheme] is not taking into account the current method choice that Indonesia is so well known for its one thing to have universal health coverageits another to actually be able to access family planning through that coverage. Despite its previous successes, Indonesia now faces a challenge confronting countries around the world: how to sustain momentum and increase contraception access. I think its very fitting to start talking about not only how do we increase contraceptive access, but how do we sustain momentum and success once were there? Fruhauf says. He hopes discussions at the fifth ICFP will include the challenges of assessing and maintaining success in countries that have done well so far in terms of increasing access and prevalence. For several years before starting medical school, Fruhauf was a researcher with the Gates Institute, where he worked on early implementation of a major data collection project, Performance, Monitoring and Accountability (PMA2020). The data used in this study came from that platform. A current OB-GYN resident at Hopkins, Fruhauf says access to contraception is an engaging research subject for him. I was particularly interested in Indonesia because its often promoted as a big success story, he says. This country has been really successful in granting women access to the contraception that they want. I want it to go further and become an even bigger success story. I want to know what it takes to sustain momentum for Indonesia. To learn more about the fifth annual International Conference on Family Planningincluding the Virtual Conference Programplease visit the ICFPHub. Attend the conference virtually: livestreams, video, shared content, social media and more! Read Global Health Now's #ICFP2018 Kigali blog Register with JOC.com and receive 5 free pieces of content for the first thirty days. After thirty days, you will receive 3 pieces of content and after sixty days you will receive 1 piece of content. To receive full access, Subscribe Today . You can also subscribe to our daily newsletter. Register (ANSA) - Brussels, November 12 - Italy and France must not lose EU funds for the high-speed rail (TAV) line between Lyon and Turin while Rome and Turin carry out a cost/benefit analysis of the project which has been put on hold, French Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne said after talks with Italian counterpart Danilo Toninelli Monday. "We'll let Italy carry out its evaluations, keeping well in mind the fact that we must not lose EU funding," she said. "Toninelli reiterated the Italian government's desire to conduct economic studies on this project. "Also in France we have a reflection on our infrastructure programme although we have reaffirmed the will to respect international treaties. I think that is so for Italy, too". Toninelli said that "France has Ok'd the cost/benefit analysis". He said that Borne had "duly noted the Italian government's formally taken commitment to rediscuss as a whole the Turin-Lyon high-speed train line" and "agreed on the idea that it is necessary to put off the publication of the TELT tenders for the base tunnel...until the completion of the cost/benefit analysis", which will be examined together with the EU Commission". Meanwhile Turin Mayor Chiara Appendino, who recently ordered Turin's own cost/benefit analysis, said Monday she would meet the organisers of a pro-TAV rally which brought some 30,000 people to Turin on Saturday. The Si Torino movement was recently set up to combat a No-TAV campaign that has seen years of sometimes violent protests against the line in the Val di Susa north of Turin. On Monday the Si Torino movement said their priority was to meet Italian President Sergio Mattarella. "We are willing to talk to anyone who wants and asks to listen to us but the priority is the meeting with President Sergio Mattarella," said the seven women who promoted the "Yes, Turin Goes Forward" event. M5S leader and Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio said "the doors are open to all demonstrators". (ANSA) - Rome, November 12 - Premier Giuseppe Conte had separate informal meetings on Monday with his two deputy premiers, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and Labour and Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio, sources said. There had been reports that the three government bigwigs plus Economy Minister Giovanni Tria were going to meet together on Monday. But that encounter is now expected to take place on Tuesday when Conte returns from the conference on Libya that Italy is hosting in Palermo, the sources said. On Tuesday the government is set to reply to the European Commission's demand that it change its budget plan for 2019. Salvini said that his meeting with Conte was "positive". He said he has assessed the situation "regarding Libya and the budget, in view of the sending of the letter" of reply to Brussels with the premier. Leslie Gilreath was invited to rehearse the Cobb Wind Symphony and went to spend a day with their conductor, Alfred Watkins. Pictured is Gilreath, right, with Watkins, center, and Jay Bocook who is also having a piece performed on their Midwest Clinic; Bocook is the Director of Athletic Bands at Furman University and was Gilreath's college band director. OAKVILLE, Ontario, Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Giyani Metals Corp. (TSXV:WDG, GR: A2DUU8) (Giyani or the Company) is pleased to announce the filing of a National Instrument 43-101 technical report titled Mineral Resource Estimate for the K.Hill Manganese Project, Botswana. The mineral resource estimate, prepared by the South Africa based MSA Group, was announced on September 28, 2018 and it demonstrated an inferred resource of 1.1 million tonnes grading 31.2% manganese oxide (MnO) at a cut-off grade of 18% MnO. Giyani began exploration on its 8,135 square kilometer property in May, 2017 with a mapping and sampling program which resulted in identifying the K.Hill area as a priority prospect. Since then, the Company has undertaken mineralogical and hydrometallurgical testing and carried out an exploration and resource drilling campaign in which 1,832 m was drilled. Drilling was focused on K.Hill where a total of 1,109.03 m was drilled, with 368 core samples assayed together with 57 quality control (QC) samples. Robin Birchall, CEO of Giyani Metals Corp. commented: "We are encouraged by the results of mineral resource estimate. The initial size of this inferred resource allows us to proceed with a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) to establish the base economics of this project. More importantly, the nature of the manganese mineralization at K.Hill appears to be amenable to the hydrometallurgical process that could produce electrolytic manganese metal (EMM). This bodes well with the Companys strategy to become an independent, vertically integrated, supplier of manganese metal to the battery electric vehicle market. Mineral Resource summary The manganese mineralization at K.Hill occurs primarily as a supergene enriched manganiferous shale (the Mn-Shale) occurring in the upper portion of a shale horizon within the Black Reef Quartzite Formation of the Transvaal Supergroup. The K.Hill deposit is more or less kidney shaped, with a northern and a southern portion. The manganese shale outcrops along the northerly scarp slope of the Kgwakgwe Hill and dips into the hill. The northerly portion is elongated northwest over an area of approximately 400 m by 300 m and the average thickness of the targeted mineralization (the high-grade portion of the Mn-Shale) in this area is 3.5 m. The southerly area of mineralization is elongated northeast over an area of approximately 570 m by 200 m, and has an average thickness of 2.0 m. The manganese shale outcrops along the easterly scarp slope of the hill. Figure 1 below shows a 3D blockmodel of K.Hill Figure 1 A total of eighteen vertical holes were drilled at K.Hill. Two of the drillholes were collared outside the Mineral Resource area, one was drilled for metallurgical purposes and twelve of the exploration drillholes intersected the Mn-Shale. Out of these, eleven holes intersected the high-grade mineralization in the Mn-Shale, but only ten were used for estimation due to poor recovery observed in DDKH18_0006. Drillholes not included in the grade estimate were used in defining the extent of the mineralization and for estimating the low-grade Mn-Shale and surrounding un-mineralized lithologies. A Mineral Resource for the high-grade layer of the Mn-Shale has been reported in accordance with NI 43-101 as shown in Table 1 below: Table 1 K.Hill Mineral Resource at a cut-off grade of 18% MnO, 27 September 2018 Category Tonnes (Millions) MnO % Al 2 O 3 % SiO 2 % Fe 2 O 3 % LOI % Inferred 1.1 31.2 8.9 26.3 16.9 8.8 Notes: All tabulated data have been rounded and as a result minor computational errors may occur. Mineral Resources which are not Mineral Reserves have no demonstrated economic viability. LOI = Loss on ignition Density determination was on undried samples and tonnages are reported as wet. The cut-off grade calculation was based on the following assumptions: EMM price of USD2,500/t (FOB, Port Elizabeth, South Africa), mining cost of USD35/t, processing cost of USD75/t, G&A cost of USD15/t, transport of USD50/t EMM, metallurgical recovery of 60% of the contained manganese. The Mineral Resource is reported at a cut-off grade of 18% MnO, which is the lowest grade block estimate within the mineralization model. Given reasonably assumed high-level cost and revenue assumptions, the QP considers that mineralization at this cut-off grade will satisfy the test for reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction (RPEEE). It should be noted that the cost and revenue assumptions are conceptual in nature and would not satisfy the requirements of a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) in terms of NI 43-101. The results of preliminary metallurgical test-work suggest that the manganese mineralization at K.Hill may be amenable to processing to produce manganese metal that may be suitable for the battery market. Next Steps The company will commence a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) to improve the understanding of the economic merits of the project with a focus on additional hydrometallurgical studies. Qualified Persons / NI 43-101 Statements Jeremy C. Witley, Pr Sci Nat. of MSA Group is the Companys Qualified Person (as that term is defined by National Instrument 43-101) for the K.Hill Project. Mr. Witley has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical content contained in this press release and verified the underlying technical data. Mr. Witley is independent of the Company. Drill cores were sawn in half and one half was sampled and placed in a plastic bag along with a sample tag. Bags were sealed with a single use tie. Samples were securely stored prior to shipping to SGS laboratories in Randfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa. Samples were crushed and milled prior to analysis by borate fusion and XRF. The samples were subjected to a quality assurance and quality control (QAQC) program consisting of the insertion of blank samples, certified reference materials and coarse duplicates. The primary laboratory assay values were confirmed by 40 duplicate samples assayed by a second laboratory (Intertek Genalysis, Maddington, Australia). The Qualified Person is satisfied that the assay results are of sufficient accuracy and precision for use in Mineral Resource estimation. About Giyani Giyani Metals Corp. is a Canadian based junior exploration company focused on creating shareholder value by accelerating the development of its battery-grade manganese projects in the Kanye Basin, Botswana, Africa. Additional information and corporate documents may be found on www.sedar.com and on Giyani Metals Corp. website: http://giyanimetals.com/. On behalf of the Board of Directors of Giyani Metals Corp. Robin Birchall, CEO Contact: Giyani Metals Corporation Robin Birchall CEO, Director +447711313019 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Forward-Looking Statements This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, the financial picture of the Company etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statement. This news release also contains references to estimates of Mineral Resources. The estimation of Mineral Resources is inherently uncertain and involves subjective judgments about many relevant factors. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The accuracy of any such estimates is a function of the quantity and quality of available data, and of the assumptions made and judgments used in engineering and geological interpretation, which may prove to be unreliable and depend, to a certain extent, upon the analysis of drilling results and statistical inferences that may ultimately prove to be inaccurate. Mineral Resource estimates may have to be re-estimated based on, among other things: (i) fluctuations in mineral prices; (ii) results of drilling; (iii) results of metallurgical testing and other studies;(iv) the possible failure to receive required permits, approvals and licences, or changes to any such permits, approvals or licences; and (v) changes in laws, rules or regulations. GIYANI METALS CORP. 277 LAKESHORE ROAD EAST, OAKVILLE, Ontario L6J 1H9 T:289-837-0066 F: 289-837-1166 www.GIYANIMETALS.com TSX.V-WDG Fighting for control of Yemens rebel-held city of Hodeida reached residential streets on Sunday, as the Huthi insurgents mounted fierce resistance to government forces backed by Saudi Arabia, military sources said. Fears for civilian safety have been rising since November 1, when the loyalist forces renewed an operation to take Hodeida. The Red Sea port city has been in the grip of Yemens Iran-backed Huthi rebels since 2014. Troops entered residential streets in eastern Hodeida Sunday with the aim of purging them of insurgents, according to a pro-government military official. Rebels entrenched in the streets and positioned on rooftops battled to keep loyalist fighters out of a neighbourhood located between two major landmarks in Hodeida, the citys main hospital and vegetable market, both essential to the daily lives of civilians. Yemenis across the city have reported seeing snipers stationed on rooftops and rebel-run tanks firing artillery in Hodeida, home to the impoverished countrys most important port. Residents south of the site of Sundays clashes said they could hear gunfire and shelling throughout the night. We had three people from our neighbourhood hospitalised over the weekend for shrapnel wounds, said Marwa, who asked that her name be changed. Were really tired. Its not safe. We have no money. This time no one is leaving. We cant afford it, and its too dangerous. Saudi Arabia and its allies first launched an offensive to take Hodeida in June, sparking an exodus from the densely populated city. The operation was temporarily suspended amid UN efforts to hold peace talks, which failed to materialise. The United Nations is now pushing for talks by the end of the year. Fears for port Pro-government fighters moved into the neighbourhood between the May 22 hospital the largest in Hodeida and Sanaa Road, which links the port city to inland Yemen. Fighters clashed around the Al-Waha (Oasis) Resort hotel complex, closing in on a civilian district located south of the hospital and north of Sanaa Road. Hodeidas docks, while under blockade, were not yet impacted by the fighting, according to a local official. We cannot predict what will happen in the future, but at the moment there are no problems, Yahya Sharafeddine, deputy director of Hodeida port, told AFP. Hodeida is a vital lifeline for Yemenis across the war-torn country, as the majority of imports and humanitarian aid enter through its port. Around 14 million Yemenis are at risk of famine and many more are dependent on international aid, according to the UN. Hodeida port has been blockaded by the Saudi-led alliance since November 2017 over what the coalition says is arms smuggling from Iran to the Huthis. Tehran denies the charge. Sanaa international airport, held by the rebels, is also under blockade by Saudi Arabia and its allies who control Yemens airspace and maritime borders. The first rebel defection from Sanaa, where the Huthis run a parallel government, was announced Friday with Huthi minister Abdul Salam Ali Jaber fleeing to Saudi Arabia. Hundreds dead More than 400 combatants have been killed in 10 days of clashes in Hodeida. Only one civilian death has been reported. Aid group Save the Children last week confirmed the death of a 15-year-old boy critically wounded by shrapnel. Medics on Sunday said at least 61 fighters had been killed over the course of 24 hours, with dozens of wounded taken to hospitals outside the city. Medics in Hodeida city reported 43 Huthi rebels and nine loyalists were killed in clashes over the same period. Another nine loyalist fighters were reported killed by medics at a hospital in government-held Mokha, south of Hodeida. Dozens of wounded rebels were transferred to hospitals in the provinces of Sanaa and Ibb, further inland, a source at the Hodeida military hospital said. In 2014, the Huthis overran the capital Sanaa and swept though much of the rest of the country, triggering the Saudi-led intervention the following year. The rebels have since been driven out of virtually all of the south and much of the Red Sea coast, with the exception of Hodeida. Both parties in the Yemen conflict stand accused of acts that could amount to war crimes. The Saudi-led coalition has been blacklisted by the United Nations for the maiming and killing of children, including an attack that killed at least 26 children south of Hodeida. The United States on Saturday said it halted a controversial refuelling arrangement for coalition aircraft engaged in Yemen. The World Health Organization estimates nearly 10,000 people have been killed in the war since 2015. Other rights groups believe the toll may be five times as high. The conflict has triggered what the UN calls the worlds worst humanitarian crisis and pushed the country to the brink of famine. Thomas Kwoyelos story is like that of many other combatants in the rebel Lords Resistance Army (LRA) that of a victim turned perpetrator. Born in Pabo in northern Uganda, Kwoyelo was kidnapped on his way to school in 1987 by an LRA unit that had hardly any training. The LRA, led by self-proclaimed religious leader Joseph Kony, said it wanted to free Uganda from corruption, sins and immoral thoughts. It claimed to be fighting for a system based on the Ten Commandments. But its hallmark was mainly horrendous crimes. Throughout its history, the LRA has been responsible for numerous atrocities, including massacres, summary executions, torture, rape, pillage, and forced labour, according to Human Rights Watch. The LRAs brutality against children has been particularly horrific. The group has replenished its ranks by abducting children, forcibly training and using children in combat operations, using girls as sex slaves, and compelling compliance through threats, violence, and mind control. It was in this environment that Thomas Kwoyelo grew up and climbed the ranks of the rebel LRA army. He was part of its operations in Uganda and neighbouring countries until 2009 when, already a colonel, he was injured and captured in LRA clashes with the Ugandan army in Ukwa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Kwoyelo was taken to Kampala for medical treatment and put under arrest. Selective amnesty After being charged with crimes committed in Uganda, Kwoyelo filed a request for amnesty in 2010 under a law passed in 2000 to encourage rebels giving up the armed struggle. But the head of criminal prosecutions and the amnesty commission chose to ignore Kwoyelos amnesty request. That led to the opening on July 11, 2011 of his trial before the International Crimes Division (ICD), a specialized chamber created in 2008 within the Ugandan Supreme Court. But two months later, the Constitutional Court ordered an end to the trial on grounds that the head of criminal prosecutions and the amnesty commission had not provided any explanations. At the time more than 10,000 people linked to the LRA, including people above Kwoyelo, had been granted amnesty. His defence team, along with part of the Ugandan public, think this is selective amnesty, and therefore unfair. On April 8, 2015, the Supreme Court put a final end to Kwoyelos hopes of amnesty, saying he could be tried for certain specific crimes. Victims represented And so procedures could resume before the International Crimes Division. In 2017, preliminary hearings were postponed several times because of delays in filing evidence, a judges strike and a lack of financial resources. On August 30 this year the ICD confirmed 93 charges against Thomas Kwoyelo, including murder, rape, torture, desecration, destruction of harvests and property, recruitment of child soldiers and forced slavery. These alleged crimes were all perpetrated in attacks in 1993 to 2005 in his native district of Amuru, in northern Uganda. This case of war crimes and crimes against humanity is a first for Ugandan justice, as stressed by Romain Ravet, director for Lawyers without Borders (ASF) in Kampala. The challenge for the ICD is to draw up in this trial principles that are new for it, he told JusticeInfo. The trial will be taking place at the same time as that of Dominic Ongwen, another former LRA commander, before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The two trials will certainly be compared. The biggest challenge is to respect the principle of victims participation at all stages of the procedures, as approved by the judge in the preliminary phase in 2016, says Ravet, whose organization is supporting civil parties in the Kwoyelo trial. Ten years in custody At a status conference in Gulu on September 24 Jane Kiggundu, one of the three judges in charge of this case, promised that the trial will be conducted with the full respect of the rights of the accused and due regards for the protection of victims, witnesses, children and women. But some NGOs point out that the accused has been waiting ten years for his trial. While it is important to apply international standards and best practices gleaned from other jurisdictions, this should not be done at the expense of an accused persons right to an expeditious trial and victims right to a timely remedy, said the International Center for Transitional Justice in a July 25 statement. The judiciary should take all necessary measures to prevent any further delays in the criminal proceedings against Kwoyelo. The ICD, which has not pronounced any judgment in its ten years of existence, is the target of much criticism especially in northern Uganda, where there is still resentment against the government army. Some in this part of the country think the Kwoyelo case is evidence of biased justice, since independent sources have also documented crimes committed by government forces during the conflict. Many people would therefore prefer that conflicts be resolved through traditional mechanisms, so as to promote reconciliation. Green energy: Wind energy agreement will provide savings, 50 percent of electricity needs for Kansas State University Manhattan campus Monday, Nov. 12, 2018 Kansas State University has signed an agreement with Westar Energy to provide approximately 50 percent of the energy needs for the university's main Manhattan campus from a wind farm in Nemaha County and save the university nearly $200,000 annually. | Download this photo. MANHATTAN Kansas State University is saving energy costs and becoming greener by using one of Kansas' most abundant resources: wind. A new university agreement with Westar Energy will provide approximately 50 percent of the energy needs for the university's main Manhattan campus from a wind farm in Nemaha County and save the university nearly $200,000 annually. The agreement is part of Westar Energy's new Renewables Direct program, which provides large customers access to renewable energy at set long-term prices. The program involves the 300-megawatt Soldier Creek Wind Energy Center, which is a wind farm that will be built in Nemaha County and is estimated to be on line in 2020. Kansas State University is one of 14 Kansas organizations that will receive electricity from the wind farm. "We are excited about this innovative approach to use renewable energy to help Kansas State University become more sustainable and save energy costs," said Cindy Bontrager, the university's vice president for administration and finance. "Sustainability planning is one of the key components of our K-State 2025 plan to become a top 50 public research university by 2025. As a public land-grant university, K-State has a role to address the sustainability challenges of our time and this agreement is a step in the right direction. Our facilities power plant utilities staff actively seeks ways for the university to save costs and I appreciate their initiative and hard work in getting that done." As part of a 20-year agreement, the wind farm will provide Kansas State University with 14 megawatts of power, which is approximately 50 percent of the current load of the university's Manhattan campus, said Gary Weishaar, university manager of energy and controls. The anticipated savings for the university will be approximately $180,000 to $200,000 annually. The savings will come from a reduction in the retail energy cost adjustment, also known as fuel factor costs, Weishaar said. Under the Renewables Direct program, the price of electricity provided from Soldier Creek Wind Energy Center will be fixed for 20 years at 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour and replaces the fuel factor cost, which is currently 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. The university's average annual consumption for the Manhattan campus for the last five years has been 113 million kilowatt-hours per year. The university also will receive renewable energy credits associated with the agreement. "We are constantly evaluating the potential of providing renewable energy for the university," Weishaar said. "We feel this program is a good way to not only positively affect K-State financially, but to also take advantage of one of our most abundant natural resources." Westar Energy's Renewables Direct program is designed to provide large customers a path toward their sustainability goals with Kansas' abundant, affordable renewable energy. Participating customers are able to claim a portion of the energy generated by the wind farm as their own, retain all of the renewable attributes and lock in a portion of their electricity prices for 20 years. The program is structured to add projects in the future to keep up with the demand for renewable sources. "We applaud K-State's commitment to sustainable energy solutions," said Chuck Caisley, senior vice president, public affairs and marketing and chief customer officer, Westar Energy. "Renewables Direct provides cost-effective access to Kansas' excellent wind energy resources. We appreciate K-State's role in making the introduction of Westar's new program a success." (ANSA) - Rome, November 12 - European Central Bank Luis De Guindos said Monday that contagion of instability stemming from Italy "has been limited up to now" while adding that "it remains a possibility". "Italy is the most important case at the moment, given the level of its debt and the political tension about the government's budget plan," De Guindos added. "The strong reactions of the markets to political events have sparked new concerns about the connection between banks and sovereign debt in some parts of Europe. "This is at the base of our request for fiscal discipline and respect of the (EU budget) rules". Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 11) Concerns that President Rodrigo Duterte may grant pardon to Ilocos Norte Representative Imelda Marcos First Lady Imelda Marcos, who was recently convicted of graft, are "speculative and premature," Malacanang said Sunday. In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Sal Panelo said that the anti-graft court's decision is not yet final and Marcos will pursue legal actions to counter the ruling. "The President has the constitutional authority to grant pardon to persons convicted by final judgment. It is not so in the case of Congresswoman Marcos, the decision of the anti-graft court not having attained finality," Panelo said. "Her lawyers have stated the she will avail of legal remedies available to her to reverse the decision from the same court or higher courts," he added. The Sandiganbayan on Friday ordered Marcos' arrest after it found her guilty of seven counts of graft. The 89-year-old widow of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos - known for her penchant for designer shoes and jewelry - was sentenced to imprisonment of a minimum of six years and one month to a maximum of 11 years "in each case" where she was found guilty. This means Marcos may stay in jail for a minimum of 42 years and 7 months and a maximum of 77 years. READ: LOOK: Imelda Marcos parties with Sara Duterte, officials on night of conviction Marcos, who is running for Ilocos Norte governor in the 2019 elections, was also perpetually disqualified from holding public office. Panelo assured that the President "will consider the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Parole" in granting pardon to convicts. Malacanang earlier distanced itself from the Sandiganbayan decision, saying it does not interfere with the affairs of an independent branch of government. Duterte enjoys a good relationship with the Marcos family and is even open about his admiration for the late dictator. In 2016, the President allowed Marcos' body to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani--sparking outrage from different groups, especially the victims of atrocities during the martial law. Duterte also previously said he prefers former Senator Bongbong Marcos, the couple's oldest son, to take over the presidency if he steps down. (ANSA) - Brussels, November 12 - Italy and France must not lose EU funds for the high-speed rail (TAV) line between Lyon and Turin while Rome and Turin carry out a cost/benefit analysis of the project which has been put on hold, French Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne said after talks with Italian counterpart Danilo Toninelli Monday. "We'll let Italy carry out its evaluations, keeping well in mind the fact that we must not lose EU funding," she said. "Toninelli reiterated the Italian government's desire to conduct economic studies on this project. "Also in France we have a reflection on our infrastructure programme although we have reaffirmed the will to respect international treaties. I think that is so for Italy, too". Toninelli said that "France has Ok'd the cost/benefit analysis". He said that Borne had "duly noted the Italian government's formally taken commitment to rediscuss as a whole the Turin-Lyon high-speed train line" and "agreed on the idea that it is necessary to put off the publication of the TELT tenders for the base tunnel...until the completion of the cost/benefit analysis", which will be examined together with the EU Commission". Meanwhile Turin Mayor Chiara Appendino, who recently ordered Turin's own cost/benefit analysis, said Monday she would meet the organisers of a pro-TAV rally which brought some 30,000 people to Turin on Saturday. The Si Torino movement was recently set up to combat a No-TAV campaign that has seen years of sometimes violent protests against the line in the Val di Susa north of Turin. On Monday the Si Torino movement said their priority was to meet Italian President Sergio Mattarella. "We are willing to talk to anyone who wants and asks to listen to us but the priority is the meeting with President Sergio Mattarella," said the seven women who promoted the "Yes, Turin Goes Forward" event. (ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, NOVEMBER 12 - At least two Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air raids that are still ongoing after several rockets were launched against southern Israel, medical sources in the Gaza Strip said Monday. The sources said three people were also being treated at a local hospital. According to local sources, a building in Gaza City's Sajava district was hit by Israeli artillery fire and rescue teams are rushing to the site. Several buildings were struck in southern Israel by Palestinian rockets - about 200, according to an Israeli military spokesperson, some intercepted, most of the fallen in unhabited areas - fired from Gaza. In Ashqelon, a rocket exploded on the roof of an apartment building while other buildings were hit in Sderot and in Netivor, in the Negev. Another rocket exploded at a mall near Ashqelon. At least seven people were wounded, including two who are in critical condition. At a hospital in Beer Sheba, doctors are fighting to save a 19-year-old boy who was wounded by an anti-tank rocket that struck a bus near the Strip. Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu a short while ago arrived at the defense ministry in Tel Aviv for an emergency meeting on the situation in Gaza. He was accompanied by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and army chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. ISTANBUL - At least 10 migrants were missing on Monday after a boat that had left from the Turkish coast and was headed towards the Greek islands sank in the Aegean Sea. The boat, most likely headed for Lesbos, capsized in the early morning for unknown reasons off the village of Denizkoy in the Izmir province, local media report. Of the 12 people onboard, 2 managed to swim to shore. A search and rescue operation by the Turkish coast guard is underway with 3 vessels and a helicopter. WHITE CITY, Ore.-- A non-profit organization called Disabled American Veterans (DAV) transportation serves more than 2,000 veterans every year by picking them up from around Southern Oregon and taking them to their medical appointments at the White City VA. Now it's getting a new upgrade a 2018 Ford Flex, thanks to Butler Ford. "It's a great cause because veterans are very important to us and to our country and we're very proud of our veterans and want to support them," said Butler Ford co-owner Charles Butler. The White City VA and DAV said this new car will help a lot. It is especially vital for veterans served by medical centers with large, lower population catchment areas like the White City VA. "It was greatly needed and the new Ford Flexes will enable the VA to provide transportation for a long time," said DAV Transportation Hospital Service Coordinator Jason Holland. Butler adds donating the car was an easy decision. "I'm very happy to be involved. We both are. It's a real focus of our life. We support veterans today, tomorrow and every day," Butler said. To schedule a ride on DAV transportation to a VA medical appointment please call 541-826-2111 EXT 3619. If you would like to volunteer to be a DAV driver and assist veterans with their transportation to VA medical appointments please call Jessica Majano in Voluntary services at 541-826-2111 EXT 7467. Ben Mahmoud's 'Fatwa' wins Carthage Film Festival award Hafiene gets Best Actor, well known in Italy (ANSAmed) - TUNIS, NOVEMBER 12 - The 29th edition of the Carthage Film Festival (JCC), the most important one in the country, has ended with Tunisian director Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud's film ''Fatwa'' winning the Tanit d'Or. The Tunisian Ahmed Hafiene - who lives in Italy and is best known for his role in Carlo Mazzacurati's ''La Guista Distanza'' and other Italian feature films - won Best Actor for his role in the film. ''Fatwa'' is set in 2013 in post-revolutionary Tunisia and focuses on the radicalization process of a young Tunisia. ''It is the story of a father, played by Ahmed Hafiene, who returns from Paris to Tunisia after the sudden death of his son, but it is also the story of a country that found itself having to manage a difficult co-existence between the religious and secular sectors of society after Ben Ali's ouster,'' Ben Mahmoud said. The boy's father does not believe that he died in a motorcycle accident and thus after rushing to Tunis for his funeral and having undertaken his own investigation, finds out that his son had joined a jihadist group and was killed by the extremists because his mother was secular. The film revolves entirely around the search for the truth about a young man's death by a father who, since he was living in France, knew little or nothing about his son's life. The Tanit d'Argent was given to the film "Yomeddine" by Abu Bakr Shawky (Egypt), while the Tanit de Bronze went to "Le Voyage Inacheve" by Joud Said (Syria). (ANSAmed). 348 Shares Share Shock. Horror. Did you just read the title correctly, or are you seeing things? Well, after you recover from the shock of reading a line you probably never thought you could possibly see in writing let me tell you this: Physicians and politicians are probably as opposite as you can imagine in terms of their daily work life, guiding principles, and yes, level of respect shown to them by the general public. Doctors dedicate their careers to helping people and like to pride themselves on always being models of honesty and high morality. Politicians, well, Ill let you decide. Its easy to take our freedoms today for granted, and forget how long of a journey mankind has been on to get to this point. Democracy is to be cherished. It may have its drawbacks and be imperfect, but we do need politicians and people who stand up to make tough decisions. The alternative is too dark to contemplate. Winston Churchill once said: Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Thats a very true statement. There are some bad politicians out there, and some reasonably good ones likely dependent on your own worldview. Successful ones however have succeeded in large part because of their savviness and ability to communicate. Here are three lessons that may be relevant for physicians: 1. Keep the message short and simple. Doctors, being scientists at heart, frequently communicate in over-complicated technical jargon when they talk to patients. They forget that most people out there (even otherwise highly educated folk) are not familiar with most of the everyday medical lingo we use. Ive seen highly experienced and well-recognized physicians, have some pretty shocking conversations with patients and their families! They mean well, but just forget to keep things simple. Successful politicians understand that whatever angle you are coming from, human understanding on important topics is best reinforced by very simple and straightforward messages. People also have short attention spans in general. Oh, and catchy soundbites totally do work, whether we admit it or not. 2. Use emotions in the right way. Human beings are highly emotional animals. Politicians unfortunately frequently play into this in the wrong way for the benefit of their own ambitions. But keep this in mind: Emotions can actually be harnessed for tremendously positive effect as well. Whether its reinforcing a reason why weight loss needs to occur for their own health, why they need to take their medicines on time, or the absolute necessity of following up with you in one week there is an effective and sensitive way to do this. 3. Know that you are always on stage and your words matter. Politicians know that when they step out in public or go on camera, everything about them is going to be analyzed. Every single word, their body language, and what they wear. Their language is going to reverberate across the country and perhaps all over the world too, depending on how important they are. How many doctors have this level of self-awareness too? We are actually viewed as leaders in our hospitals and clinics at all times, even if we dont have any other title beyond MD. From the housekeeping staff to the cafeteria cashier our fellow professionals know that we are the people who make the final call in clinical situations. The buck stops with us. We owe it to everyone to be aware of this and strive to be role models. I hope you have recovered from the shock of the title by now. Its a privilege to be a physician, despite all the challenges we face in health care. There are few more important jobs to society, and when we make it all about our patients, there is never a wasted moment. Rarely can we ever come home feeling like we havent done anything meaningful with our day. And going back to politics, its a privilege to live in a peaceful democracy and free country. Sadly something too much of the world still cant say in 2018. I hope no matter what your political point of view, whatever issues are driving you, you exercise your right to vote. Suneel Dhand is an internal medicine physician and author. He is the founder, DocSpeak Communications and co-founder, DocsDox. He blogs at his self-titled site, Suneel Dhand. Image credit: Shutterstock.com EUGENE-SPRINGFIELD, Ore. -- Community members in Eugene and Springfield came together Sunday morning to celebrate Veterans Day. Sunday marked 100 years since the end of World War I. To honor those who served the country, both living and dead, community members held events at Skinner Butte Park in Eugene and the Veterans Plaza at Willamalane Park in Springfield. Springfield Mayor and Navy Veteran Christine Lundberg spoke at Willamalane Park as well Colonel Connie Jenkins with the United States Air Force, and representatives from the offices of Congressman DeFazio, Senator Merkley, and Senator Wyden. The commemoration included Flag Detail provided by the Native American Honor Guard and a Wreath Ceremony led by the Emerald Empire Young Marines. Mark Barker. a 30 year veteran served in the U.S. Marine Corp said when he found out the Springfield Veteran's Day parade was cancelled, he took action. "We got a group together and tried to pull this together with Neil Laudati from the City of Springfield," he said. Eugene also celebrated with their first ever 'Veterans Day Ruck.' Organizers said a 'ruck' means traveling a long distance on foot with a backpack. Community members traveled up Skinner Butte and holding a moment of silence to honor those veterans only with us in spirit. James Miller, one of the organizers, said this event is close to his heart. "I served in the Marine Corp from 2003 to 2007 and when you get home, you may know one or two veterans but you don't know a community of 100 veterans so I thought it would be beneficial to everyone coming home if they knew some fellow veterans around town that can help out in any various kind of ways," he said. Miller said this is the first 'Veterans Day Ruck' they've held in Eugene, but he said it won't be the last. He said he plans on holding one every year on Veterans Day. TEL AVIV - A precarious calm reigned over the border between Gaza and Israel on Monday morning after 17 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip towards the Negev desert over the night. No casualties resulted. The rockets were launched after clashes in Khan Younis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip between a special Israeli army unit that had been conducting a secret operation and a Hamas military unit. Seven Palestinian fighters were killed in the fight including their commander, Nur Barake, as well as an Israeli colonel. The outbreak of violence in Gaza caught Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu by surprise, who had on Sunday defended his authorization for Qatari funds to enter Gaza despite criticism from his government. Netanyahu interrupted his visit to Paris and was expected to arrive in Israel on Monday morning. A state of alert is meanwhile in place in the Negev out of concern that more attacks will happen. Schools, major connecting roads and railway lines are closed as a precaution. The annual Sharing Fair Crafts Sale and Coffee Morning will be held in Langtons on Saturday from 10am to 1.30pm. Sharing Fair Kilkenny is made up of volunteers who support the work of Inistioge nun Sr Mary Hayden among the poor in Thailand. Sr Mary died last year and left behind a legacy of inspirational projects designed to help the poor out of poverty. Instead of being lured to the streets and brothels of Bangkok, women and men participate in meaningful work in their own area, earning earn enough money to feed their families. While Sr Mary is no longer with us, the projects continue and they depend entirely on volunteers to sell their products, co-ordinator Eileen Brennan said. In the past the crafts were sold mainly by religious sisters in the western world which is no longer available because of ageing and dwindling numbers in religious communities. People like the fact that there are no administrative costs and all the money goes back directly to the workers, Eileen said. Last year, as well as buying crafts, the people of Kilkenny donated almost 3,000 to support the work of Sr Mary. The money was sent to the religious sisters in Nongkhai where Sr Mary lived. In a letter of thanks, the sisters confirmed the money would be used for the most needy in their Outreach Programme. Families in remote rural areas can avail of a their milk programme for malnourished children. Sponsorship is given to help children who cannot afford school uniforms, books or transport and nursing care is provided to those who have no access to health care. The community also has a 16 bed care facility for those with strokes, TB and AIDS, who are often abandoned. Palliative care is provided enabling poor people to die with dignity. Children who have been sponsored in their education, who then go on to university and get jobs, return a percentage of their wages to the Sponsorship Programme ensuring others can also be helped. Sr Mary Hayden dedicated almost 70 years of her life to working among the marginalised in south-east Asia. Having worked in Sri Lanka, Macau and Vietnam, she spent the final forty years of her life in Nongkhai in the north east of Thailand. To find out more about Sr Marys community in Nongkhai, go to: www.goodshepherdnongkhai.com This year Sharing Fair celebrates ten years of craft sales in Kilkenny. We could not have achieved this without the support of our volunteers, the people of Kilkenny who buy the crafts and Langtons who have kindly hosted our events all the years. said the Co-ordinator. Oscar-nominated film director Lenny Abrahamson is urging dog lovers, who are looking to give an animal a forever home, to consider adopting a lurcher or greyhound this Christmas. The renowned screenwriter and director took time out of his busy schedule to visit Paws Animal Rescue on the Kilkenny and Tipperary border with his children, Max and Nell. "It was inspiring and emotional to see the amazing work Paws is doing with so few resources. I think the team at Paws are amazing, Gina and the staff are incredibly dedicated as are the volunteers who go out to walk the dogs at weekends. I would urge people to donate if they can and help this shelter, which is in debt. It is a great cause and it is brilliant to see your money going directly to such a worthy cause. I would also urge people to go out and see what they do and consider fostering or adopting a dog, instead of buying one. "We adopted a lurcher, Jake ten weeks ago and he is gorgeous. We have always adopted our dogs and Jake was very nervous and afraid and needed a bit of extra care and we were able to give it to him. Lurchers and greyhounds make great pets - they are very gentle and affectionate and they just need one good run a day and then they are happy to lounge around. They are perfect domestic pets," he said. The award-winning director is also highlighting the importance of choosing to adopt rather than buying from breeders. "Greyhounds and lurchers make wonderful pets - at the moment we have a major problem with the amount of abandoned dogs. Buying from breeders can encourage an industry, which has a lot of problems. We have always adopted our dogs and I found that mixed breed dogs are healthier and emotionally more stable - they make great pets. However Mr Abrahamson urged people to think carefully before decided to give a dog a forever home. "It is a really big commitment to have a dog and you need to think long and hard about it. If you can do it though it is incredibly rewarding - I always say that having an adopted dog is like having emotional central heating in your home," he added. Paws, which is located in Mullinahone currently has more than 100 dogs looking to be re-homed and is in debt. Founders of Paws Gina Hetherington said that she was 'delighted' to welcome Mr Abrahamson and his children to PAWS. "To say he was shocked to see the vast number of sighthounds in our care is an understatement. During his visit, we gave him access to our veterinary bill, which currently stands at 41k and our bank statement, the balance of which is less than 100. He was amazed at how our humble shelter has managed to stay afloat for 21 years under such pressure. Lenny is a lovely, gentle, kind person with a passion for animals of all kinds. He went out of his way to visit us and we feel that we have made a new friend and look forward to hopefully collaborating with him in the future," she said. Abrahamson was nominated as best director for his 2015 film, Room, while his latest, The Little Stranger, hits Irish screens on Friday. To find out more about Paws Animal Rescue or to donate see www.paws.ie Stylist Linda Morgan from Rustiq Salon, Loughboy, Kilkenny has won the Fantastic Hairdresser Award at the ALFAPARF MILANO FANTASTIC HAIRDRESSER AWARDS 2018. Her colleague, stylist Kerrie-Anne Ayers, of Rustiq Salon, was third place runner-up in the Fantastic Long Hair Stylist category at the ALFAPARF MILANO FANTASTIC HAIRDRESSER AWARDS 2018. Now in its ninth year, it is the most widely anticipated and attended awards ceremony in the hairdressing industry on the island of Ireland. The Awards took place in the RDS, Ballsbridge, yesterday, Sunday, 11th of November, 2018. The Awards give stylists an opportunity to showcase both their creative strengths and commercial acumen, through six creative, three business and one artistic the ALFAPARF MILANO Inixia photographic award. The 10 winners are recognised and acknowledged as representing the best in Irelands hairdressing industry. The Awards prestige guarantees a large volume of contestants with almost 400 hairdressers from all over Ireland dedicating months of hard work preparing their entries for the 10 categories. Acclaimed stylist, designer and TV presenter, Brendan Courtney, hosted the logistically massive event to which some 1,200 stylists and industry insiders attended. The theme of this years show was Go Modern, inspired by the Mod style-culture movement prevalent in 60s London, which still inspires and influences today. As explained by Paul Stafford, the ALFAPARF MILANO Global Ambassador, Artistic Director of the evening show and of ALFAPARF Milanos Nexxt Generation Style Ambassador Creative team, comprising some of the most influential hairstylists from around the country. Nexxt Generation is a very serious commitment on the part of ALFAPARF MILANO and a core part of our remit for the show was to illustrate how a specific look and style is made emblematic of a cultural and social movement . Modernism or Mod culture and style is all about moving forward and wanting to keep up with looks, thinking, attitude, music, cuts, clothes and fashion, where its all linked by a feeling of confidence and coolness. Its always been my particular fascination and its always been the popular cultural movement thats most hard to explain specifically because its all interlinked and its a feeling, a philosophy, a way of thinking, just as much as its a look, said Paul. The Awards were judged by a panel comprising five internationally renowned industry experts: Joseph Koniak, Alessandro Fratini, Sean Dawson, Vivica Davies and Alan Edwards. ALFAPARF MILANO Fantastic Hairdresser 2018 Award Winners: Fantastic Stylist Award Denise Philips from PELO HAIRDRESSING, Newbridge, Co. Kildare Fantastic Hair Colourist Award Stephanie O'Keeffe from GUAPA HAIR SALON, Cork Fantastic Fantasy Hair Stylist Award - Hannah Kavanagh from Black Amber, Gorey, Co. Wexford Fantastic Long Hair Stylist Award Chloe Nolan from VANILLA HAIR SALON, Carlow Fantastic Gents Hair Stylist Award Fergal O'Connor from ORIGIN HAIR DESIGN, Cork City Fantastic Junior Award Kelly Hogan from RUSTIQ Salon, Co. Carlow Fantastic Salon Award IKON Hair Design, Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork City Fantastic Hairdresser Award Linda Morgan from Rustiq, Loughboy, Co. Kilkenny Fantastic Marketing Award The Greene Room, Killaloe, Co. Clare ALFAPARF MILANO INIXIA Photographic Award Ciaran Dowd, Occasions Hairdressing, Naas, Co. Kildare AUSTIN, Minn. - Kirk Olsen is a Vietnam War veteran. "I went to Vietnam in 1967," he said. He spent Veterans' day helping other veterans in the area enjoy soup at Austin's American Legion Post 91. He also went to a nearby nursing home to greet veteran residents there. "Veterans Day to me means that...I like to greet veterans thank them for their service. I also think of the what I call my brothers, Vietnam brothers that didn't come home," he said. This year's holiday also marks 100 years since the end of World War I. The Historical Society of Mower County is just one organization that celebrated this anniversary. It rang a bell 21 times at noon on Sunday and member Randal Forster read a poem. "If he break faith with us, who die, we shall not sleep. Though poppies grow in Flanders Fields," the poem read in part. The the VFW in Austin, more than 100 flags were retired with a burning ceremony. Those with the VFW said this is one of the highest honors for a flag. Olsen encourages people to honor the holiday by thanking the men and women who served our country. "Walk up to them and shake their hand and thank them for their service," he said. "I do that, I'm a veteran myself andI'll go up to anybody with a cap on, you know, a veteran's cap and thank them." A veteran himself, he knows just how good the recognition feels. "It makes me feel good. That they have given me the honor to, you know, for serving," he said. ROCHESTER, Minn. An overnight fire destroyed a home in rural Rochester while three occupants were able to get out safely. The Elgin Fire Chief said the blaze began just after 1 a.m. Monday at the 8100 block of 40th Ave. NE and may have started in the utility room. The State Fire Marshals Office was expected to be on scene Monday. We will have more information on the fire as it becomes available. ROCHESTER, Minn. - Three adults are safe after a house fire early Monday morning on the 8000 block of 40th St. NE in Rochester. Elgin Fire Department, Rochester Fire Department, and Plainview Fire Department worked together to stop the flames but fire officials said the house is a total loss. The Minnesota State Fire Marshal is investigating the incident but it is believed the fire started in a utility room. In Yemen 'at least 150 dead in 24 hours' Guterres, catastrophe if Hudayda port destroyed (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, NOVEMBER 12 - Violence is intensifying in Yemen where at least 150 people have been reported dead over the past 24 hours in the loyalist offensive against Hudayda, the port on the Red Sea held by Houthi insurgents, where some 80% of humanitarian aid arrives for the millions of Yemenis at risk of famine. For this reason, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday said that it would be a ''catastrophe'' if the port of Hudayda is destroyed. Houthi insurgents, considered close to Iran, have been resisting amid harshening violence from the Arab Coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. On Monday morning, local medical sources reported that 142 Houthi and loyalist militias were killed over the last 24 hours. The report cannot be independently verified on the ground. Fighting is ongoing across Hudayda. According to pan Arab media, fighting continued today along Sanaa boulevard, in the eastern part of the city and in the northern districts on the outskirts of the city, near grain stores, another strategic area. Also on Monday the Arab coalition backed by the United States and Egypt said it targeted and destroyed radars used by insurgents on a small island off Hudayda, on the Red Sea. This report also cannot be independently verified on the ground. Insurgents have denied most reports coming from Saudi and UAE media outlets. (ANSAmed) PARIS, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday he had discussed U.S. steel and aluminium tariffs with President Donald Trump over the weekend and that he hoped to reach a resolution on the matter by the G20 summit in Argentina. "I absolutely brought up the issue of steel and aluminium tariffs," Trudeau told a news conference in Paris on Monday. Trump and Trudeau spoke to one another on the sidelines of the Paris Peace Forum. The leaders' summit takes place on Nov 30 and Dec 1. (Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Richard Lough) PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - Italy said on Monday it was confident the strongman who rules eastern Libya, Khalifa Haftar, would attend a peace summit, as Italian officials prepared to open the conference with no public sign yet whether Haftar would arrive. Libyas prime minister, who is based in the west, arrived for the conference, but Haftar, the most powerful man in the east, kept the hosts guessing about his plans. Italy hopes the conference in the Sicilian city of Palermo will resurrect U.N. efforts to stage elections in Libya after the United Nations finally abandoned plans last week to hold a vote next month. I expect him (Haftar) to be present since there is no doubt that he is one of the decisive players of the stabilization of his country, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told La Stampa newspaper. Prime Minister Fayez al-Serrajs western-based government is internationally recognized but has struggled to assert its authority in a country still mostly controlled by armed groups, eight years after NATO-backed rebels toppled long-serving dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi. A rival parliament and government are based in the east, where most towns and cities are under the control of Haftar. Officials in Haftars office were unavailable to confirm whether would attend the conference, which Italy hopes will give new impetus to peace efforts. Last week, U.N. Envoy Ghassan Salame abandoned a Western plan to hold elections in Libya on Dec. 10. Italy, the former colonial power, has vast oil and gas interests in Libya and has been trying to shut down people-smuggling from the Libyan coast. It has been eager to host a high-profile event, competing with France which staged a similar conference in May at which Serraj and Haftar verbally agreed to the U.N. plan for elections in December. That was the last time Serraj and Haftar met. Apart from European officials, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi departed on Monday for the conference, which is set to start with a dinner late on Monday. U.N. Libya envoy Ghassan Salame told Reuters he hoped another attempt to hold an election will take place by June but Libyans should first hold a national conference in early 2019 to decide on the polls format. We want to ask at the national conference what type of election do you want: parliamentary or presidential, and what kind of law, Salame said. The envoy said the national conference should preferably take place on Libyan soil. Surveys had shown that 80 percent of Libyans want elections to end the stalemate between Libyas rival administrations. He hoped the Palermo conference would put pressure on the internationally recognized parliament, the House of Representatives (HOR), which has failed to pass an election law. The HOR has been sterile, has produced no law ... I think we need wider representation of the Libyans, he said. France has been courting Haftar, who is supported by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which see his forces as a bulwark against Islamists. Italy is the main backer of Serraj and his weak Government of National Accord (GNA), and has worked with local groups in Libya to stop Europe-bound migrants from embarking by boat. MOSCOW, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Russian gold and silver producer Polymetal has begun construction at its new Nezhda gold mine in eastern Siberia, which will contribute to its dividends in 2022, it said on Monday. The London-listed firm, part-owned by businessman Alexander Nesis, is starting this new project with pre-production capital expenditures estimated at $234 million a few months after it launched its Kyzyl mine in Kazakhstan. "Nezhda is a long-life, high-grade asset with robust economics," said Vitaly Nesis, Polymetal chief executive and brother of Alexander Nesis. The first production at Nezhda is planned for the last quarter of 2021, with ramp-up by the second quarter of 2022. The mine will produce gravity gold concentrate which will then be processed at Polymetal's existing Amursk POX plant, while Nezhda's flotation concentrates will be sold to third parties. The mine's annual production is seen at 180,000 ounces during the first full three years of operation and 155,000 ounces of payable gold during the first full 15 years of operation. The plan includes 19 years of open-pit mining in 2019-2037, and 17 years of production from underground ore from 2029 to 2045. Polymetal added that the project's internal rate of return (IRR), a metric to estimate the profitability of potential investments, is estimated at 29 percent with net present value (NPV) of $302 million using a gold price of $1,200 per ounce and a currency rate of 63 roubles per $1. Total cash costs (TCC) for the open pit will be in the range of $620-670 per ounce of gold equivalent (GE), which is a mix of gold and other metals. Life of mine TCC is expected in the range of $700-750 per ounce of GE. (Reporting by Polina Devitt; editing by Louise Heavens) Messaging: polina.devitt.reuters.com@reuters.net)) * Italian yields edge higher as Banca Carige preps cash call * Italy defiant before Tuesday deadline for revised budget * German bond yields hit new lows on Italy, Brexit uncertainties * Euro zone periphery govt bond yields tmsnrt.rs/2ii2Bqr (Adds detail on Banca Carige, industrial output data) By Abhinav Ramnarayan LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Italys government bond yields inched up on Monday as a deadline to resubmit the countrys budget to the European Commission approached and fears grew about the future of Italian bank Carige. Data showing Italian industrial output fell less than expected in September helped limit a rise in yields, while uncertainty in Italy and Britain boosted demand for safe-haven German bonds. Italian industrial output fell by 0.2 percent in September from the month before, less than expected, after a 1.7 percent monthly jump in August. A Reuters survey of 10 analysts had forecast a 0.7 percent fall in September. The data was seen as an indicator of the state of the countrys economy before Tuesdays deadline for it to submit a revised budget to the European Union. Its becoming increasingly clear that whatever concession the Italian government might offer, it will fall short of the mark the Commission wants to see, said Mizuho strategist Antoine Bouvet. It also emerged on Monday that Italys Banca Carige is set to announce a share issue worth up to 400 million euros to repay a convertible bond it needs to issue to quickly raise funds, a source familiar with the matter said. Rising Italian yields have hurt the countrys lenders in recent times, as many of them have large holdings of Italian government bonds. Italian 10-year bond yields were a basis point higher at 3.41 percent on Monday and heading towards last weeks 10-day high of 3.461 percent. The closely-watched spread over German Bunds widened to 303 basis points and five-year credit default swaps on Italian government bonds rose to a two-week high . Short-dated Italian debt yields rose by about 2.5 bps, though these are still relatively small moves in the context of recent volatility. Italy has been in a showdown with Brussels over its spending plans for the coming years and last week Economy Minister Giovanni Tria said the country will stand by the main pillars of its fiscal plan despite the EUs request to revise it. Against this background, the demand for safe assets remained strong. The yield on 10-year German Bunds, seen as one of the safest and most liquid assets in the world, dropped to its lowest in almost two weeks at 0.382 percent, having on Friday slid the most in seven weeks on souring risk sentiment. The euro was also hurt by the uncertainty, falling to its lowest since June 2017 at $1.124, down 0.7 percent on the day. Uncertainty over a Brexit deal between Britain and the EU also fuelled demand for safer assets, hitting sterling. Last week, Jo Johnson, the younger brother of former Foreign Secretary Boris, resigned from Prime Minister Theresa Mays government over her delusional Brexit plans and called for another referendum on Britains EU membership. (Reporting by Abhinav Ramnarayan; Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Larry King) ANSAmed - Today's events in the Mediterranean (ANSAmed) - ROME, NOVEMBER 12 - The following are the main events scheduled for today in the Euro-Mediterranean area: PALERMO - International conference on Libya begins. ALGIERS - Visit by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who will be co-chairing the second informal EU-Algeria high-level dialogue session on regional security and the fight against terrorism. RABAT - Training course to plan for agriculture that will be resistant to climate change. The project is part of ARIMNet2 (until 15/11). VALLETTA - Meetings on the Blue Economy with a focus on technological innovations, clusters, funding opportunities and environmental challenges (until 14/11). ROME - MedFilm Festival continues (until 18/11). ROME - Press conference for the presentation of the Pitigliani Kolno'a Festival - Judaism and Israel in the Cinema at the Pitigliani Centro Ebraico Italiano at 11:30am. ZAGREB - Exhibition titled 'Magister Giotto: The Scrovegni Chapel' continues (to January 15). (ANSAmed). ANSAmed - Tomorrow's events in the Mediterranean (ANSAmed) - ROME, NOVEMBER 12 - The following are the main events scheduled for tomorrow in the Euro-Mediterranean area: PALERMO - International conference on Libya comes to and end. PARIS - Anniversary of the 2015 terrorist attacks that killed 130 people. GENOA - 'New Artic, Old Mediterranean: Together in an Unusual Destiny'. BRUSSELS - Debate on the future of Europe as part of the European Parliament plenary session with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. RABAT - Training course to plan for agriculture that will be resistant to climate change. The project is part of ARIMNet2 (until 15/11). VALLETTA - Meetings on the Blue Economy with a focus on technological innovations, clusters, funding opportunities and environmental challenges (until 14/11). ROME - MedFilm Festival continues (until 18/11). ZAGREB - Exhibition titled 'Magister Giotto: The Scrovegni Chapel' continues (to January 15). (A trailer for the movie "Beautiful Days." Courtesy of BIFF) By Jung Da-min The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) will open on Oct. 4 with "Beautiful Days," a movie about a woman defector who meets her son after 14 years, the festival's board of directors has announced. The 23rd annual festival will run through Oct. 13. Directed by Jero Yun, the film depicts the life of a North Korean woman who came to South Korea after leaving her husband and young son in China. Following her journey of suffering to survive, the film shows the difficulties facing women defectors, many of whom were "sold" to Chinese farms by human traffickers and who then fled to South Korea. Many were separated from their children born in China. Lee Na-young will return to the screen after six years to play the defector mother. Jang Dong-yoon plays the Korean-Chinese son. Director Yun is known for his films about North Korea, including "Mrs. B., a North Korean Woman (2016)," about a North Korean woman who is smuggled between the two Koreas and China, and "Looking for North Koreans (2012)," which deals with human trafficking. Scenes from the movie "Beautiful Days." Courtesy of BIFF Courtesy of BIFF NongHyup Financial Group Chairman Kim Gwang-soo, right, and Agribank Chairman Trinh Ngoc Khanh, second from left, exchange opinions in a meeting at the group's headquarters in western Seoul, Nov. 9. Courtesy of NongHyup Financial Group Haftar may not attend Palermo summit on Libya Media reports of Italian PM in Benghazi, his office denies (by Luca Mirone). (ANSAmed) - ROME, NOVEMBER 12 - Khalifa Haftar has decided to boycott the Italian-organized conference on Libya in Palermo. Rumors of a quick visit by Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte to Benghazi to convince the general to change his mind have been forcefully denied by the prime minister's office. The summit is turning out to be more action-filled than expected, but without the strong man of Cyrenaica, there is the risk of it falling through even before starting. Meanwhile, opposition groups are protesting in Rome, accusing the government of making yet another ''bad impression'' and demanding an explanation. A few hours before the works begin, circles within the self-proclaimed Liyan National Army said on Sunday morning that their leader would not be attending the summit because he does not want to sit at the same table as that of representatives from Qatar and a faction, the Libyan Fighting Group, that Haftar claims is ''linked to al-Qaeda''. The rumor could have been a sort of bluff to raise the stakes of the talks. However, later there were signs that the situation was getting worsening. Other sources near Haftar - reported by Libyan media outlet Address Journal and then, via AFP, the Egyptian site Al Ahram and the pan-Arab Al Arabiya - said that the Italian prime minister was planning on flying to Benghazi for a lightening visit to discuss the ''latest developments on the Palermo conference with Haftar. The Italian prime minister's office denied the news, with sources saying that the Italian government does not want to ''interfere between Libyan parties in a clearly domestic issue''. The stakes are too high, though, and the talks to convince the general continue. For weeks Italian diplomacy, as well as its Russian and American counterparts, have sought to convince Haftar to go to the summit. Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero met him in Benghazi and the general himself was received in Rome by Prime Minister Conte. It had seemed that he was willing to attend but then ambiguities began arising, with rumors filtering through the general's entourage about his doubts, especially as about the fact that he believes the conference is too heavily weighted towards the Islamist component inside and outside Libya, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, beginning with the Tripoli representatives. The Muslim Brotherhood component is also hated by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, Haftar's main Arab sponsor, and this element may explain why Cairo has not yet made clear at what level Egypt will be represented at the Palermo conference. Meanwhile, the first delegations have begun to arrive in Sicily, such as the one from the Tobruk-based House of Representatives led by President Aguila Saleh, and representatives of the High Council of State. Its leader, Khaled Al-Meshri, has called once again for dialogue between the various parties involved as ''the only way to get out of the crisis''. However, whether this dialogue can be held without Haftar, the de facto head of state in the eastern part of the country, is yet to be seen. Thus, negotiations to get him to Palermo will continue to the very end. (ANSAmed). Israel to vote 13/11 for Jerusalem mayor amid tension 'Satan supports secular candidate' says interior minister (ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, NOVEMBER 12 - There is an atmosphere of strong political radicalization on the eve of the second round of voting for Jerusalem mayor. On Sunday, the leader of the Jewish Orthodox party Shas Arye Deri, who is also acting interior minister, said that ''Satan is mobilizing his legions'' to support the election of the secular candidate Ofer Berkovitz against his rival, Moshe Lion, who is backed by rabbinic circles. The Orthodox daily Yeted Neeman stressed the importance of the election campaign in Jerusalem, noting on Monday that several rabbinical colleges would be observing a day of fast and pray to propitiate Lion's win. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu continues to refuse to say which candidate he backs, despite the fact that Lion was his close collaborator in past years. The vote for Jerusalem mayor is part of the second round of local elections. In the first round, Labor candidates won in Tel Aviv and Haifa. (ANSAmed). Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) An opposition senator called for a Senate investigation on policemen allegedly soliciting sexual favors from suspects in exchange for their freedom. Senator Leila de Lima on Monday filed Senate Resolution 930 which urges the Committee on Women, Children Family Relations and Gender Equality to probe the so called sex-for-freedom or palit-puri scheme. "The alarming reports of women and children having suffered in the hands of state actors must be resolved speedily, for demanding sexual favors in exchange for one's freedom is a gross manifestation of abuse of power that must not be tolerated by the government," the senator said in a statement. The measure comes in the wake of two cases of rape charges against law enforcers reported in recent days. On October 29, an officer identified as PO1 Edgar Valencia was apprehended for soliciting sexual favors from a 15-year-old, whose parents were detained on drug charges in Manila. Shortly after, two more officers were charged with rape for violation of Republic Act 8353 or the Anti-New Rape Law of 1997 after asking sexual favors from a suspect who pleaded for her release. "In a seeming culture of impunity that breeds and emboldens criminals and misfits, the authorities must remain vigilant in safeguarding the vulnerable, particularly the women and children, from those who trample upon their rights," De Lima said. Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Dir. Gen. Oscar Albayalde has denied the alleged "rape culture" in the police force. "This single act does not reflect the general behavior and discipline that we have in the Philippine National Police," Albayalde said on November 5. He said reports against police officers were isolated cases and should not be used as a sweeping accusation against the police. "There are probably sexual advancements pero doon sa sinasabi nilang rampant I think that's too harsh to say, thats unfair, sa amin," Albayalde said. [Translation: There are probably sexual advancements but on the the part where they said it is rampant, that's too harsh to say, that's unfair to us] He said the PNP will show no mercy against erring policemen. The Center for Women Resources records at least 33 cases of violence against women attributed to police officers since President Rodrigo Duterte assumed office in 2016. About 60 policemen were named respondents in the cases, more than a dozen of which involved minors as victims, the report showed. The abuses included rape, acts of lasciviousness and sexual harassment. Ian Bostridge sings the Agnus Dei movement from Benjamin Brittens War Requiem, accompanied by Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionalle di Santa Cecilia. The interpolated poem is by Wilfred Owen, who was killed in action in France on November 4, 1918, exactly one week before the signing of the armistice that ended World War I: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) New Delhi, November 12: RLSP president and BJP ally Upendra Kushwaha met opposition leader Sharad Yadav on Monday, fuelling speculation that he may switch camps over his differences with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the proposed seat-sharing arrangement among the saffron party's Bihar allies for the Lok Sabha polls. Kushwaha, also a Union minister, met Yadav at the latter's residence and both the leaders were believed to discussed the current political situation, especially in Bihar, RLSP sources said. In a tweet, Kushwaha described the meeting as a courtesy call. He has often asserted that he would work to get Narendra Modi elected as prime minister for another term but his unease with Kumar and meetings with opposition leaders, including RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, have sparked speculation about his future course. Yadav had snapped ties with Kumar after the JD(U) chief joined hands with the BJP last year, and he was working to rally the opposition against the saffron party. Poaching of MLAs: Upendra Kushwaha Attacks Nitish Kumar, Seeks Meeting With Amit Shah Following Reports. Kushwaha has expressed reservations to the BJP president Amit Shah's proposal that both his party and Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP contest fewer number of seats in 2019 than they did in 2014 so that Kumar's JD(U) could be allotted as many seats as the saffron party fights. The RLSP, which had fought three seats in 2014 and won all, is unlikely to be spared more than two seats. An old rival of Kumar, Kushwaha had also attacked the chief minister for allegedly insulting him and had targeted him again Sunday over reports that two MLAs of his party may join the JD(U). He had said he would apprise Shah of the "humiliation" he had suffered at the hands of Kumar and also request him to clear the confusion over seat-sharing among the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituents in the state at the earliest. He also made a jibe at Kumar, saying the JD(U)president had an expertise in breaking parties but he would continue with his fight. Bengaluru, November 12: Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.N. Ananth Kumar, who died on Monday, was widely regarded as an able political organiser who helped build the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka to expand the party's reach in the country's south. Along with the party's state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa, Union Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda and others, Kumar built the BJP across the southern state into a formidable alternative to the Congress and the Janata Dal. Kumar's organizational skills and proficiency in Kannada, Hindi, Marathi and English caught the attention of the party's top leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, who made him a BJP national General Secretary at a young age. "Kumar rose from the ranks to the national level in the BJP and the government, first as a student leader and later as an able party organiser," BJP Karnataka spokesman S. Shantaram told IANS. Ananth Kumar Death: Karnataka Govt Declares One-Day Holiday for Schools, Colleges & Offices, Announces Three-day Mourning. He had another ability -- winning friends across the political class. An urban face of the BJP, the 59-year-old Kumar was a six-time parliamentarian from the high-profile Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency since 1996. He became a Union Minister at a young age (37) in the Vajpayee's governments of 1998-99 and 1999-2004. Kumar again became a Union Minister in May 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave him the Chemicals and Fertilisers portfolio and, later, the Parliamentary Affairs portfolio. In 2014, he defeated Congress star candidate and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who entered the political arena after resigning as Chairman of the state-run Unique Identification Authority of India (UIADA). Kumar's tryst with politics began in college days during the 1980s when he was elected as the state and national secretary of the Akhila Bharatiya Vidhya Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Sangh Parivar. He was associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as an organiser at Hubli-Dharwad in the state's northwest region before joining the BJP in 1988. Kumar was among those who helped the BJP to take power in Karnataka on its own in 2008. Born into a middle class Brahmin family in Bengaluru on July 22, 1959, Kumar went to school in the city and joined college at Hubli when his father H.N. Narayan Shastry, a railway employee, was transferred to the northwest town about 400 km from here. His mother Girja, was a home maker. Kumar graduated in Arts from K.S. Arts College and in Law from J.S.S. Law College at Hubli with B.A. and LL.B degrees from Karnataka University in Dharwad. Kumar's siblings are younger brother Nand Kumar and younger sister Suhasini. Kumar was the state president of the Bharatiya Janata Youva Morcha and became its national secretary before the 1996 Lok Sabha elections. He was also the party's state unit president in 2003 and contributed to making the BJP a powerful opposition after the 2004 elections. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 12, 2018 04:36 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). New Delhi, November 12: In a shocking incident, a poisonous reptile was spotted inside a flyer's handbag at Cochin Airport. According to a Times of India report, the snake was detected, while the bag was being screened at Cochin Airport on Sunday. The Abu Dhabi-bound passenger was handed over to the police. Rat Fighting Off a Snake In This Video is Shocking Yet Filled With Amazing Life Lessons. On carefully checking the bag, it was found that a live snake was found inside the bag, which looked like an Indian krait. It is also among the four most venomous snakes found in India. The passenger, who is a resident of Kattakalam was not allowed to board his 4:55 pm flight. In another similar incident, a Dubai-bound passenger was carrying 29 antique idols in his bag. On being asked, why he was carrying so many antiques, he couldn't provide a proper answer, nor could he furnish the bills. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 12, 2018 11:23 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). New Delhi, November 12: South Indian superstar Rajinikanth today took a dig at the central government over the demonetisation. While addressing the media, the 67-year-old superstar said that the implementation of demonetisation was wrong and there should be more discussion about it. Rajinikanth announced his entry into politics on December 31 last year. He will announce the official name and logo of his outfit on December 12 -- when the superstar will turn 68 years old. Rajinikanth's party will make its electoral debut in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Rajinikanth Supports 'One India, One Election' Proposal Correction: The implementation of Demonetisation was wrong and there should* be more discussion about it: Actor Rajinikanth on two years of #Demonetisation (Original tweet will be deleted) pic.twitter.com/Om3wfK5f4G ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 The official launch of his party will come almost a year after fellow Tamil-actor Kamal Haasan launched his political party - Makkal Neethi Maiam - which will contest the upcoming assembly bypolls necessitated by the disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs. Rajinikanth, meanwhile, has been accused by a section of political analysts and regional parties of acting as a proxy of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Tamil Nadu. Rajinikanth Receives Threats From Fringe Groups After Remark on Tuticorin Protest Deaths, Security Stepped up at his Residence Notably, his political entry was welcomed by BJP chief Amit Shah, saying that the public life requires individuals of dedication akin to the Thalaivar. Rajinikanth was earlier charged as a BJP stooge when he opposed the anti-Sterlite protests in Tuticorin, saying such agitations could push the state into anarchy. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 13, 2018 12:27 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Posters of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi seen stuck to a police barricade in front of Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul | (Photo Credits: Getty Images) The death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has moved away from the headlines of newspapers and websites but Turkey is trying to ensure that it is not far away from the minds of people. In the latest development, a journalist with pro-government newspaper the Sabah has revealed excerpts from the audio recording that captured Khashoggis interrogation and subsequent death at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. According to a report in the AlJazeera, the head of investigations at the Turkish daily said that Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggis last words were, I'm suffocating ... Take this bag off my head, I'm claustrophobic." Nazif Karaman said the murder lasted for about seven minutes as Khashoggi was strangled with a plastic bag, according to the recordings. Turkish authorities are also ending their search for the murdered journalists body even as they have accused the Saudi hit team of dismembering Khashoggi and then burning his body in acid. Traces of acid were found at the Saudi consul general's residence in Istanbul, where the body was believed to be disposed of with the use of chemicals. Turkey has thoroughly investigated the killing of Jamal Khashoggi and has been instrumental in highlighting the journalists brutal killing by Saudi authorities. Turkish authorities have also regularly updated media organisations as the investigation has progressed. This detail comes just a few days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that audio evidence related to Khashoggi's murder was shared with Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, France and Britain. Erdogan discussed the issue in Paris with US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron as world leaders congregated to mark the centenary of the declaration of the armistice of the World War One. Erdogan has previously said that he believes the order to kill Jamal Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 12, 2018 08:57 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Washington, November 12: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Monday the US will hold accountable all involved in the killing of a dissident Saudi journalist in a wide-ranging telephone call that also took in the conflict in Yemen. Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident, was murdered in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul on October 2 and the crown prince has been accused of orchestrating the killing, which has strained the decades-old alliance between Washington and Riyadh. "The Secretary emphasized that the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable, and that Saudi Arabia must do the same," spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. The top US diplomat has previously said Khashoggi's killing "violates the norms of international law," and that the US was reviewing possible sanctions on individuals identified as having been involved. Reports Say Gruesome Audio Recordings Prove Jamal Khashoggi was Tortured, Murdered in Saudi Consulate. But Pompeo and Trump have also both emphasized America's important commercial, strategic and national security relationships with the petro-state. Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, was critical of Prince Mohammed and the country's intervention in Yemen, a conflict which also came up during the call, said Nauert. Pompeo "reiterated the United States' calls for a cessation of hostilities and for all parties to come to the table to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict," she said. Pompeo has previously called for an end to hostilities in the rebel-infested Arab state, emphasizing the need for the Saudi-led coalition to halt strikes in populated areas. Prince Mohammed has overseen Saudi Arabia's Yemen war effort, a highly controversial intervention to bolster President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government in the face of an insurgency by Huthi rebels. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Islamabad, November 12: Netherlands has temporarily halted the issuance of Visas in Pakistan. Last week, Netherlands closed its embassy in Islamabad for two days for renovation work. Reports had surfaced earlier in the day by the Pakistan media claiming that the embassy was shut down due to security threats to avoid any untoward incident after Amsterdam reportedly offered to provide a visa to Asia Bibi after her acquittal by the Supreme Court. However, the countrys foreign office (FO) denied such reports and stated that she is still in Pakistan with her family. The Embassy of the #Netherlands in #Pakistan is open. The issuance of visa has been halted temporarily. Last week, the embassy was temporarily closed for 2 days bcs of construction work. In case of questions/comments, please contact the embassy at 051 200 4444 or isl@minbuza.nl. Ardi Stoios-Braken (@AStoiosbraken) November 12, 2018 Her acquittal in the blasphemy case triggered countrywide protests from religious groups and death threats from hardliners. Protestors led by Tehreek-i-Labaik Pakistan and other groups had blocked major highways and roads in different parts of the country. The 47-year-old mother of four, was found guilty of insulting Islam during an argument with three Muslim women. She was sentenced to death in 2010. While Asia Bibis case is the second purported reason for the alleged deterioration in Pakistan-Netherlands ties, hostility was earlier suspected when the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte refused to take action against a far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders who planned to conduct a cartoon competition where the participants will draw caricatures of Muslim Prophet Muhammed. The contest, which was later cancelled, drew massive protests across Pakistan with dozens of seminaries and conservative groups calling severing all diplomatic ties with Netherlands. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 12, 2018 06:03 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Washington, November 12: US President Donald Trump discussed a host of issues -- including Syria, trade, the situation in Saudi Arabia, sanctions, Afghanistan, China and North Korea -- during his meetings with the world leaders in France, the White House said. Around 70 world leaders, including US President Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, gathered in Paris on Sunday to mark the centenary of the 1918 Armistice in the French capital. Trump returned to Washington late Sunday night. "Today (Sunday) at lunch, the President sat with (French) President (Emanuel) Macron, (German) Chancellor (Angela) Merkel, and (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin, and many other world leaders," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. Donald Trump Brags At the UNGA and Gets Laughed at By Other World Leaders. "The leaders discussed a variety of issues, including the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty), Syria, trade, the situation in Saudi Arabia, sanctions, Afghanistan, China, and North Korea. They had very good and productive discussions during the two-hour lunch," she said. Sanders also defended Trump's decision to cancel his scheduled visit to a US cemetery in France due to rain. Trump was heavily criticised for cancelling a trip to Belleau Wood battlefield in northern France on Saturday due to rain, with some critics accusing him of disrespecting America's war dead. "Because of near-zero visibility, Marine One was unable to fly, as had been planned," Sanders said. "A car ride of two-and-a-half hours, each way, would have required closures to substantial portions of the Paris roadways for the President's motorcade, on short notice. President Trump did not want to cause that kind of unexpected disruption to the city and its people," she explained. Sanders further said Trump was "honoured" to be able to attend a similar event on Sunday at the Suresnes American Cemetery and was "deeply moved by the sacrifices of so many for the cause of freedom". The Nigerian Army has revealed that the official car of the Chief of Army Staff ( COAS) Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai was involved in an accident today, Sunday, November 11, at Ojere town. The Army said the COAS was on his way to Kaduna when a lone civilian vehicle veered off its lane and rammed into the staff car. The Army disclosed this on its official Facebook. READ ALSO: Atiku is not a thief, will never steal from Nigeria - Titi Abubakar "The COAS' official staff car had an accident at Jere town on the way to Kaduna today 11 November 2018 at about 6.00 p.m. The staff car was in a convoy along with other vehicles when a lone civilian vehicle veered off its lane and rammed into the staff car. The Army said the COAS was on his way to Kaduna when a lone civilian vehicle veered off its lane and rammed into the staff car. Credit: Nigerian Army Source: Twitter "The COAS was not in the car. However, the ADC sustained minor injuries and has been evacuated to a nearby hospital for medical attention," the Army said. Army said the COAS was not in the car when the accident occurred: Credit: Nigerian Army Source: Facebook Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, urged troops in the northeast not to relent in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgents as the terrorists have been highly degraded and are expiring. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Buratai described the recent sporadic skirmishes from the Boko Haram terrorists as a desperate effort from a highly degraded and expiring adversary striving to maintain its notoriety. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We keep evolving to serve our readers better. Exclusive: Freed Dapchi Girl Recounts Her Ordeal with Boko Haram (Nigeria Breaking News) Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit.ng - A suspected burglar who raided IBB guesthouse has been arrested - The burglar, Joseph Peter, was arrested by operatives of the Niger state police command - Peter allegedly stole four mobile telephones, one power bank and N10,000 cash from a room belonging one Oluwafunke Yusuf who was in Minna for a workshop The Nigerian police on Sunday, November 11, said it arrested a suspected burglar for breaking into a room at the IBB Guesthouse, Shango, Minna, Niger state. Joseph Peter was said to have allegedly stolen four mobile telephones, one power bank and N10,000 cash. Punch reports that a lady, Oluwafunke Yusuf, who was in Minna for a workshop, had her room burgled by the suspect. Peter, a native of Kuta, Shiroro local government area of Niger state was later arrested by operatives of the state police command. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda It was gathered that the suspect, a graduate of the College of Education, Minna, said he felt stupid breaking into peoples homes and shops. Peter said: I am a disgrace to the society; I have insulted the human race and I dont have reasons for doing this; I cant even tell why Im into it, honestly. My mother was highly disappointed as well as my family members, who looked up to me as a rising star; I have dragged our family name in the mud; its unfortunate," the 26 year-old suspect said. Confirming the incident the Niger state police spokesperson, Muhammad Abubakar said detectives recovered one Fero mobile telephone, Infinix handset, Techno K7, Gionee phone, power bank and N10, 000, all valued at N157,600 from the suspect. Abubakar also said that the matter the suspect would be charged to court once investigation on the matter is concluded. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Ogun command, on Sunday, November 11, said it recovered the body of a 45-year-old man, in the middle of NNPCs Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS) pipeline at Gbaga Axis, Ogijo, Ogun. The man was suspected to be an oil thief. Also, the command made this known in Abeokuta in a statement signed by its Public Relations Officer, Dyke Ogbonnaya. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better. Police Parade Over 50 Suspected Cultists in Lagos | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - Prospective 2018 Batch C stream II corps members deployed to Borno and Yobe states will be hosted in Gombe state - The disclosure was made on Monday, November 12, by the state coordinator of the National Youth Service Corps, David Markson - Markson says prospective corps members are expected to report to the orientation camp from Thursday, November 15 The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is to host the 2018 Batch C stream II orientation course for corps members originally deployed to Borno and Yobe in Gombe state. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that David Markson, the state coordinator of NYSC, made this known on Monday, November 12, in a statement signed by Margaret Dakama, head of public relations unit in Gombe. Legit.ng gathers that Markson said that the NYSC management had approved the deployment of 1,700 corps members for the orientation exercise, comprising Gombe 900, Borno 400 and Yobe 400. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda According to him, the prospective corps members are expected to report at the NYSC temporary orientation camp, Science Technical College, Amada, Kilometre 21, Bauchi-Gombe Highway, from Thursday November 15. He said: Please note, prospective corps members are expected to report on time, as registration and verification will end at midnight of Sunday November 18." Markson further solicited for the support of transport unions and people of the state to welcome and extend their usual hospitality to the prospective corps members. The state coordinator added: All should assist in directing them to the venue of the orientation exercise." PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the director general of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brigadier General Suleiman Kazaure, has urged the corps members ahead of the 2019 general elections not stop politicians from stealing materials. Kazaure made this known on Wednesday, November 7, at the NYSC permanent orientation camp in Darkingari, Kebbi state. He also warned corps members against taking bribe. The director general said: You are not covered by any immunity; anybody caught violating the Electoral Act is going to face the full wrath of the law. He said: If politicians want to steal election materials from you, dont drag issues with them. Help them carry it to their vehicle to avoid problems. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better NYSC members doing little wonders | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - A Nigerian lady has been arrested by the police after she received N5m from a man on Facebook - The policeman in charge of her case has explained the mystery behind the lady's arrest - Nigerians have commented on the incident by saying hers is an experience worth learning from When Amaka, a 33-year-old lady and graduate from Owerri, got an alert signaling that a sum of N5,000,000 had been transferred to her by a man she had met on Facebook, she would have thought she was the luckiest person on earth. But as events unfolded before her eyes, it would not have taken her long to realise that the money she received was no blessing in disguise. Well, the story of the beautiful lady who was caught up in a police net after an act of kindness was done to her is indeed very intriguing. Her story was shared by a man identified as Ogbonnaya Nwota who professed that he was the one in charge of the N5m fraud case. According to the policeman, Amaka, who was part of many Facebook groups, was told to place her account number in a group. READ ALSO: Woman scammed by Nigerian man reveals she is still in love with him Afterwards, she was chatted up by a man who told her he was ready to spend on her. He invited her over for a meal time during which he promised to send N50,000 to her. The lady, however, received an alert of five million naira. The man had claimed it was an error on his part. He then went on to ask the lady to withdraw the entire money and give it to him. Upon doing this, the anonymous man sent Amaka a sum of N100, 000 to compensate her for her effort. After an attempt to withdraw out of the money, the full wrath of the police fell on her. PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app Ogbonnaya Nwota wrote a lengthy post detailing the experience of Amaka. See the full post below: "She went down on her knees as she was ushered into my office, weeping uncontrollably, she muttered, 'Officer, please, help me. I need your help. Yes, I acted stupidly, but I didn't do it'. Having comported herself, I demanded to know her story regarding a case of fraud of N5, 000, 000 (Five Million Naira) I was investigating. Amaka, 33, tall, elegant, hippy and ... a young graduate in Owerri, is an active netizen of social media. She belongs to many Facebook groups. On one of the groups, the Admin on a Sunday morning asked members to post their account details, as someone maybe touched to 'do Sunday' for them. Different account details flowed ceaselessly on the group's platform and few confessed how some hitherto unknown persons have credited their accounts. Amaka got a chat up from someone who promised to send money to her the following day being Monday. The duo chatted for about 15 minutes on Facebook with the man bragging how money wasn't his problem but a good lady to spend it on. They ended up booking an appointment to see each other the following day since both of them stay in same city. Both kept to the time of their appointment and in a few minutes, ordered for food in an exquisite eatery where the meeting was taken place. The guy re-emphasized how wealthy a man he is to Amaka and promised to see her more often, when he returns from his intended overseas trip. The guy was glued to his phone and ipad, pressing them interchangeably and smiling intermittently at no one in particular. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda As they were about to leave, he told Amaka to expect an alert of N50, 000 from him and while he was paying the bills for their order, Amaka got an alert of N5, 000, 000 (Five Million naira), which she didn't notice initially was N5, 000, 000 until when the guy asked her to recheck the alert she got, telling her that he mistakenly transferred 5M instead of 50k as promised. Both headed to the bank in the guy's car. He told Amaka to withdraw the entire 5M from the bank, pay whatever charges and hand over the cash to him. He as well upgraded Amaka's cash gift to 100k. Amaka who was already elated dashed into the bank, while the guy sat comfortably in his car outside the bank premises. About 30 minutes later, Amaka was back in the guy's car and handed over the cash to him, having collected her N100k. She was dropped off few minutes after and she boarded a taxi to her house with indescribable happiness written over her face. What a day she exclaimed as she opened the door to her house. No .... touch, no even a hug and she was given N100K. It was simply unbelievable to her. A week later Amaka was at her bank's ATM to withdraw some cash, but the card got trapped. She went into the bank to lodge a complaint and possibly retrieve her card, but instead of giving her the card, she was handed over to the Police and that was how she was brought to my office. Police investigations linked Amaka's bank account to a sum of Five Million naira moved from a certain company's account that was hacked into by some fraudsters. Investigation is ongoing, but until Amaka produces the guy she alleged transferred the said money to her, of course whose Facebook is no longer in existence and phone number inactive and the guy also admits to have made the said transfer to Amaka, Amaka will definitely be contesting her innocence in the court of law, where she will be charged for fraud. Times are perilous, my people. The criminals are obviously getting wiser and you must remain vigilant in order not to be tacitly involved in a crime you know nothing about. Secure your account details and report to the Police if you receive any suspicious credit alert. Learn from the mistakes of others." PAY ATTENTION: Get the hottest relationship gist on Africa Love Aid Many people have taken to commenting on this heart-breaking story and giving their own view. From the replies and comments, a lot of Nigerians are sad for the lady and they have mostly taken to seeing her experience as a lesson that should not be forgotten in a hurry. See some of the reactions below: NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better. Victor AD Interview at Star Chat: Wetin We Gain is Not For Yahoo Boys | Legit TV Source: Legit Nigeria - An aspirant on the platform of PDP in Kaduna state, Muhammad Sani-Bello, has left the party - Sani-Bello said the decision was expedient following irreconcilable differences between him and the party's candidate, Isa Ashiru - He, however, promised to reveal his next line of action after consultation with his supporters Muhammad Sani-Bello, a former gubernatorial aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna state, has formally dumped the party, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports. Legit.ng gathers that Sani-Bello, who announced the decision at a press briefing on Monday, November 12, in Kaduna, said he left because of unending mistrust between him and the state leadership of the party and its governorship candidate, Isa Ashiru. He said: Based on consultations with my supporters and other stakeholders, I have decided that from today November 12, 2018, I Muhammad Sani-Bello cease to be a member of the PDP." READ ALSO: Imo APC governorship candidate Uzodinma arrested According to him, the mistrust emanated from the refusal of the party leaders in the state to put the term of consensus which led to his stepping down for Ashiru into writing prior to the partys gubernatorial primaries. Kaduna PDP gubernatorial aspirant, Muhammad Sani-Bello left the party after irreconcilable differences with the party's candidate, Isa Ashiru Source: UGC Source: Twitter He added that he was also not comfortable working with Ashiru whose academic credentials were allegedly under question. He stressed: Based on my findings, the documentation of the candidate contains certain flaws which remained unexplained." Ashiru had dismissed claims about his academic records, saying he has nothing to fear. However, Sani-Bello added that all efforts made by him and other discerning and concerned party members to the state PDP leadership to address areas of friction were rebuffed. When asked which party he was heading to, Sani-Bello said he would announce the decision after consultation with his supporters and other stakeholders. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that former Senator Isa Yahaya Zarewa, an aspirant in the recently concluded All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election held in Kano state, had defected from the party. Zarewa, who made this known on Monday, October 22, said his decision was based on the injustice meted to many aspirants who participated in the process. PAY ATTENTION: NAIJ.com (naija.ng) upgrades to Legit.ng to serve its readers better News Nigeria Today: Who is Nigerias Smartest Politician? | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit A man alleges his sexual abuse as a child by a now-defrocked Allentown Catholic priest occurred after the Allentown diocese was aware of abuse allegations a decade earlier, and that the diocese helped cover up the abuse and predatory behavior by priests. Now the 29-year-old Schuykill County man, identified as John Doe, is suing both the priest, the diocese, and Bishops Edward Cullen and Alfred Schlert for emotional, psychological, and financial damages. "He is a broken young man," said attorney Gerald Williams, of the law firm Williams Cedar LLC, one of three attorneys representing John Doe. "It took an immense amount of courage to bring this case." The accuser's attorneys believe it is the first suit seeking monetary damages on incidents reported in the statewide grand jury report issued in August on clergy sex abuse. While other clients' incidents are beyond the statue of limitations, "we do anticipate other lawsuits," Williams said. The lawsuit, filed in Lehigh County court, was announced Monday in Philadelphia by the three attorneys representing John Doe. The suit alleges the man was sexually abused between the ages of 10 and 12 by Bruno Tucci, one of the 300 Pennsylvania priests named in a statewide grand jury report. The diocese says in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon that its records indicate Tucci was removed from ministry more than 16 years ago, on March 1, 2002. He was later dismissed from the priesthood. The statement notes that Schlert has been proactive regarding allegations of sex abuse since being installed on Aug. 31, 2017. "Abuse is abhorrent and has no place in the Church. Bishop Schlert has apologized to victims and has set a clear tone of zero tolerance, and of keeping children safe," the statement says. The dioceses recently formed a compensation and reconciliation program to assist victims and survivors of past clergy sexual abuse. "Although compensation alone cannot repair the damage caused to those who were harmed, this program will meaningfully assist in recovery and healing for victims and survivors and their families," the statement says. Williams, the attorney, said claims against Tucci were some of the worst outlined in the grand jury report, and the report is what spurred the man to come forward now. The man's allegations were not reported to law enforcement. Trauma from the abuse has followed the man his entire life, the suit says, and destroyed his faith. The Diocese of Allentown was found to have 36 predator priests, in addition to one lay leader accused of abuse, in the report. The Allentown diocese covers five counties: Northampton, Lehigh, Berks, Schuylkill and Carbon. Tucci served in active ministry from 1971 to 2002, and served as a former pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Nesquehoning from 1986 until his retirement. Tucci was defrocked in 2007 and charged in 2013 in Maryland with sexually abusing a boy in Ocean City in 1981. "This abuser was abusing children before our client was even born," said attorney Michelle Simpson Tuegel, one of the other attorneys in the suit filed Monday. The lawsuit claims he was a serial molester and sex abuser of children, and that the Allentown diocese was first notified in 1991 that Tucci molested a 14-year-old boy several years earlier. Tucci reportedly admitted to the abuse, and was sent to Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete, a facility in New Mexico that evaluated and treated priests who were known sex offenders and abusers, according to the lawsuit. The suit claims the facility would only "recycle" abusive priests back into active ministry. Tucci was treated at the facility, and then returned to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, where he had regular contact with children. "How can you let an admitted child molester around other children?" asked attorney Muhammad Aziz. The victim who reported his claims in 1991 saw Tucci serving as a priest in 1993, and reiterated his complaints and concerns to the diocese, the suit says. Tucci remained at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and John Doe alleges he was abused between 1999 and 2001. In one incident, Tucci allegedly told the boy to "put his arms out like Jesus on the cross" and then fondled the boy. The suit claims another victim came forward in 2002, claiming he was abused between 1977 and 1978. The grand jury report, the result of a two-year investigation, detailed widespread sexual abuse of children and coverups of that abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses across the state. The grand jury investigation looked into six of the eight dioceses covering the state not already investigated: Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. Among the lawsuit's claims are that the diocese failed to investigate and report complaints and provided abusive priests with "cover" for their misconduct. Following the release of the grand jury report, the Allentown diocese said it received at least 14 new allegations of priest sex abuse. Last month, the U.S. Justice Department announced it opened an investigation of child sexual abuse inside the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. Williams said under the current law, the man in Monday's suit would have lost his ability to sue when he turned 30. Before 2002, state law required victims to sue within two years of being victimized. "That seems unfair and unjust, that someone who experiences the same kind of pain and abuse doesn't get to have their day in court," Simpson Tuegel said of the Pennsylvania's current law. Simpson Tuegel said the funds in the diocese's compensation and reconciliation program seem "like a way to continue to keep things in the darkness." Williams said it's important to have Pennsylvania's statute of limitations in sex abuse cases change. A provision passed by the state House this fall, but that stalled in the Senate, would have given now-adult victims of child sexual abuse a two-year reprieve from time limits in state law that otherwise would bar them from suing perpetrators and institutions that covered it up. Asked if he had a message for Pennsylvania legislators and proposed legislation to change the statute of limitations, Williams said, "Do your job." Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A woman was taken to a hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation after a fire broke out Sunday in a second-floor kitchen of an Allentown apartment building, fire officials said. The fire broke out around 3 p.m. Sunday at the three-story apartment building at 23 1/2 N. 3rd St., Allentown Fire Department Capt. John Christopher said. A preliminary investigation found the fire began on a stovetop, Christopher said. Christopher said the apartment building is fairly large with several apartments. The building was evacuated safely, and the woman being treated at the hospital did not appear to have life-threatening injuries, he said. The flames were contained to the kitchen area and were brought under control in about 10 minutes, Christopher said. The first floor sustained water damage. The American Red Cross of the Greater Lehigh Valley was assisting an undetermined amount of displaced tenants, officials said. Christopher said residents likely would be able to return to the building Monday. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Sallins Tidy Towns is a small voluntary group dedicated to improving the town and making it a great place to live and work. This means cutting grass, weeding and planting work thats been ongoing for the past 12 years and they have increased their points in the Tidy Towns Competition year on year. They embarked on new projects, alone and in cooperation with other local groups such as Mens Shed, Waterways Ireland, Sallins Community Council, Sult na Sollain. This year they also faux windows and door on Braithwaite House, right in the centre of village. Another new venture this year was giving the canal bridge a facelift by fitting flower boxes on it and purchasing a Swift nesting box in support of Wild Kildare. Future plans depend on having much greater cooperation and collaboration with the various Residents Associations, Sallins Community Council and Sallins Business Association. They want to establish a zonal map of the town with the aim of giving responsibility for particular zones to specific individuals/groups. A number other projects are in the pipeline and these will be discussed at a public meeting on Tuesday November 13 at 8pm in Lock 13 Help is needed so please come along if you are interested in keeping Sallins tidy and are able to give a hand. The group says there are many ways to help. A call to make sure that the subject of history remains compulsory in the education system was made at a one day seminar run by the County Kildare Archaeological Society (CKAS) on November 10. Hundreds of members attended the seminar, The End of the Great War and Ireland in 1918, at the Killashee House Hotel, Naas. Among those welcomed by CKAS President, Hugh Crawford, were Professor Diarmaid Ferriter, who gave the keynote lecture on the triumph of Sinn Fein at the elections in 1918. SEE ALSO: Three new Educate Together schools confirmed for north Kildare In the panel discussion after the lectures, the panel was urged to get the Government to row back on a decision that history would not be a compulsory subject. Catriona Crowe, former head of Special Projects Ireland, who gave a lecture on the development of Irish feminism, said the British have reversed a decision to make history a non compulsory subject. She said she and Professor Ferriter had testified at the Oireachtas on the question. Ms Crowe said support was needed from parents to make sure that the subject is compulsory but that seemed to be lacking at the moment. A MOTORIST who was caught driving without insurance for a sixth time has been sentenced to four months imprisonment. Liam Hennessy, aged 28, who has an address at Black Road, Newport, County Tipperary pleaded guilty to a number of road traffic offences relating to a detection at Rosbrien Road, Limerick on November 26, 2017. Inspector Helen Costelloe told Limerick District Court, the defendant was stopped after gardai encountered him driving while on routine patrol in the area. She said he has five previous convictions for driving without insurance and that he was disqualified from driving at the time having been banned for eight years in December 2015. Insp Costelloe said Mr Hennessy received a further disqualificaton (four years) at Nenagh District Court earlier this year relating to an offence which happened in County Tipperary in 2015. Solicitor Darach McCarthy said his client accepts he has a very poor record and that he should not have been driving at the time. He has learned his lesson, he said adding that Mr Hennessy a father of two young children has not driven since the incident. No explanation was given in court as to why the defendant was driving on the day. Seeking leniency, Mr McCarthy said He has not come to the attention of gardai for road traffic matters since, and that there are no other matters before the courts. Noting the defendants guilty plea, Judge Marian OLeary commented that it was a bit late for him to have learned his lesson. She said his previous convictions were an aggravating factor as was the fact that he was disqualified from driving at the time of the most recent offence. Given his history, she said a custodial sentence was warranted in the case. She imposed a four month prison sentence and fined the defendant 500. She fined him an additional 300 for driving without a drivers licence. Mr Hennessy, who was also disqualified from driving for eight years by Judge OLeary, has lodged an appeal against the severity of the sentence. He has been released on bail pending the outcome of that appeal which is likely to come before Limerick Circuit Court early in 2019. HOT off the press and ready to hit the shelves in Dunnes Stores nationwide is The Dolls Complaints, a fantastic book written by the very talented 11-year-old Keeva Delaney. What is extra special about the book is that all proceeds from the sale of the book - which is priced at a very reasonable 8 - will go directly towards Limerick charity Clionas Foundation, which provides financial support to families of children with a life-limiting condition. Keeva - a fifth class student at Tinryland National School from from Ballycarney in Carlow - came up with the idea of the book nearly two years ago while on family holiday and in the space of an afternoon had the title and contents nearly completed. I wanted to bring toys to life and thought that dolls could have some very funny stories to tell to tell about how they feel and how they are treated, she said. The book centres on an eight-year-old girl who finds herself in hospital and her sister brings her in letters of complaint from her dolls at home, who miss her terribly. When we read the stories we thought they were hilarious, said Keevas mother Maurita and all of the family, father Eric and sisters Jane and Sarah helped Keeva fine tune it and helped with the illustrations. Even our dog Reilly gets to feature, the young author added. But bringing it the step further and putting it to good use was the next challenge and thats where Clionas Foundation came on board. I had picked up an information leaflet on Clionas Foundation two years ago while visiting Kilkenny Hospital and I was struck by the real, practical support they provide to families nationwide. I remember saying at the time that I would love to do something for them, said Maurita. So I contacted them about the book and their reaction was overwhelming and they have been so supportive, she added. Co-founder of Clionas Foundation, Brendan Ring, runs a printing Company called Cube and Brendan and his team at Cube have made what was a dream a reality. We are privileged that Keeva and her family chose Clionas Foundation and we have developed a wonderful special relationship with them in bringing this beautiful book out. Keeva is an amazing girl and it is so special for us to be the beneficiary of the proceeds, said Brendan. Clionas Foundation provides financial support to families of seriously sick children to help with the non-medical costs of caring for their child. Our family travelled that journey with our daughter Cliona for eight years while she was very sick with an inoperable brain tumour. We met many parents who were struggling with the travel, accommodation and daily food costs. In addition they are dealing with all the mounting bills at home on a reduced income as in nearly all these cases one of the parents gives up work to be with their sick child. When Cliona passed we wanted to do something to help these families. 11 years later we have supported over 500 families across 29 counties. But this would not have happened without the public's generosity as we receive no state funding and it is a struggle to generate enough funds to meet the demand, Brendan said. We currently have 34 families on our waiting list, he added. Patron of Clionas Foundation, Miriam OCallaghan, was blown away by the book when she met the Delaney family tweeted: Just had the joy of meeting the uber talented writer 11-year-old Keeva Delaney who has just written her first childrens book. Just had the joy of meeting this uber talented writer 11 yr old Keeva Delaney who has just written her first childrens book and she is donating all of the proceeds from her book to @ClionasFDN pic.twitter.com/NmSYHKKg9h Miriam O'Callaghan (@MiriamOCal) November 1, 2018 The book The Dolls Complaints will be on sale in Dunnes Stores nationwide from Thursday, November 15 for 8. We really are hoping the book will be an amazing success for Clionas Foundation and we are so thankful to Dunnes Stores who have agreed to stock the book exclusively in all their stores nationwide. This is just amazing and every cent of the 8 paid for the book will be going directly to Clionas Foundation. A very special gesture by Dunnes Stores, Maurita added. MARY Immaculate College has appointed leading sociologist and Limerick woman Dr Niamh Hourigan as the colleges incoming Vice-President of Academic Affairs. Dr Hourigan, who has published widely on a range of themes, has worked for four Irish universities during the course of her twenty year career in higher education. I am delighted to be taking up the role of Vice-President of Academic Affairs at MIC, Dr Hourigan said. The College is at a very exciting juncture in its development as its undergraduate and postgraduate programmes go from strength to strength, the excellence of its research is widely recognised and its campus continues to transform in such an impressive fashion, she added. I look forward to supporting both staff and students in MIC in contributing to the College's mission to make a unique impact on higher education and teacher education. Dr Hourigan recently completed a three-year term as head of the department of sociology at University College Cork, where she is currently senior lecturer in sociology. She will take up her new position with MIC in March 2019. Her publications include the monographs Rulebreakers and Escaping the Global Village:Media, Language and Protest. Dr Hourigan is the former chair of the Editorial Committee of Cork University Press and a former editor of the Irish Journal of Sociology. She has also served as External Examiner at the Limerick Institute of Technology and an adjudicator for the NUI postgraduate scholarship scheme. MIC President Professor Eugene Wall said: I would like to warmly congratulate Dr Hourigan on her forthcoming appointment to the post of Vice-President Academic Affairs in MIC. Together with my colleagues, I look forward to working with her in dynamically shaping the future of the College. Given her demonstrated expertise and experience, I have great confidence that she will play a pivotal role in leading the academic development of the college in the years ahead. UNIVERSITY of Limerick students are undeterred from their campaign to end the universitys connection with a direct provision service provider after it distributed leaflets on campus defending its services. A student-led campaign at the university could see boycotts of seven oncampus cafes and restaurants run by multinational service provider Aramark, which provides services to three direct provision centres, including Knockalisheen on the Limerick Clare border. Last week, leaflets were distributed on campus stating that Aramark has no say, influence or involvement in the establishment of this system or in the residency or asylum application process. But UL Student Life welfare officer Lorcan ODonnell said: It hasnt deterred students at all; in fact it's made us more determined. The flyers also state that Aramark provides a quality service which helps to make the lives of residents more comfortable. We know that we have students coming in to us who are living in direct provision that would very much testify against that, Mr ODonnell said. A recent case in Knockalisheen saw a resident denied bread and milk for her sick child, he added. The company later acknowledged responsibility for the incident and stated it will apologise to the resident in question. Student newspaper An Focal has carried an open letter from news editor Nicole Glennon urging UL president Dr Des Fitzgerald to support the students campaign. Student Life has also met with Dr Fitzgerald to outline their concerns with the universitys contract with Aramark, Mr ODonnell added. Were going to be running an awareness campaign over the next few weeks, Mr ODonnell said. It is going to be a campus wide campaign, giving people the facts and letting them come to their own conclusions. The campaign could lead to boycotts, should the student decide, he added. We at Student Life will be completely behind whatever students want to do. May 1, 2021, 6 AM A Nov. 10 postmark honors those who sacrificed their lives in World War I. By Molly Goad Soldiers Memorial Military Museum in downtown St. Louis, Mo., has issued a pictorial postmark honoring the armistice that ended World War I a century ago. The postmark is dated Nov. 10 to coincide with the museums 35th annual Veterans Day celebration. Soldiers Memorial Military Museum reopened Nov. 3 after two years of renovations. The 80-year-old art deco landmark received a much-needed face-lift to bring it up to todays standards. Many new exhibits and features also were added, including St. Louis in Service, a long-term exhibit that covers military history from the American Revolution to today. The $30-million-dollar overhaul was funded by anonymous donors. The postmark features a poppy, a flower that has been a symbol of WWI for close to a century, due in large part to the poem In Flanders Fields written in 1915 by Canadian physician Lt. Col. John McCrae. Connect with Linns Stamp News: Sign up for our newsletter Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter The poem describes a field of poppies growing in and around soldiers graves marked with crosses. The museum offered a poppy project during the first week of its reopening, where museum visitors crafted poppies and wrote the name of a fallen St. Louisan on the stem. The poppies were carried by children and adults in the Veterans Day parade 1,075 in total, one for each local service member who died in the war. To obtain the postmark, address your request to: SOLDIERS MEMORIAL MILITARY MUSEUM Station, Retail, 1720 Market, Room 2033, St. Louis, MO 63155-9998, Nov. 10. Maha govt actively supporting these infrastructure projects, which seek to improve transportation and passenger amenities. Mumbai: Up to Rs 65,000 crore has been approved for a host of rail infrastructure projects on the suburban network in Mumbai and its surrounding areas, said on Sunday. These projects, investment for which were proposed in this year's Union budget, include new works and upgradation of existing facilities on the busy network, which serves as the transport lifeline of the metropolis, he said. Goyal said the Maharashtra government has been actively supporting these infrastructure projects, which seek to improve transportation and passenger amenities. "With the blessings of our visionary Prime Minister Narendra Modi and with active support of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the decision of having an investment of a whopping Rs 60,000 to Rs 65,000 crore in the last proposed budget has been approved. "This will ensure upgradation of the suburban railway system of Mumbai and its adjacent areas," he said. "Given the pace at which the infrastructure and public amenity works are being executed by the Railways, I believe that in the next four to four-and-a-half years, the suburban rail network of Mumbai, Navi Mumbai or Mahamumbai will see a complete metamorphosis," Goyal said. He was speaking after commissioning of the new Nerul- Seawoods Darave-Belapur-Kharkopar suburban rail corridor in Navi Mumbai. This is the first phase of the 27km Nerul-Belapur -Uran corridor on the Harbour route of the Central Railway. Goyal along with Fadnavis commissioned the first phase of the corridor, that comprised 12km out of the 27km rail line, at the Kharpokar railway station. Regular services on the new corridor will start from Monday and link Ulwe node in Navi Mumbai with Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and Panvel on the Harbour route besides Thane on the Trans-Harbour corridor. Addressing the gathering, Goyal said Fadnavis has set a target of Maharashtra becoming a trillion-dollar economy by 2025. The Indian Railway will play a crucial role in achieving this target, he said. "Be it the leaders of my own party (the BJP) or from the Shiv Sena, or public and passengers representatives, they keep following rail projects regularly with me which sometimes annoys me also. "Nevertheless, it gives me pleasure, too, as they are doing their job for improving amenities," Goyal said. He also inaugurated induction of eight MEMU services between Vasai Road-Diva-Panvel-Pen and other passenger amenities. These amenities included six FOBs (foot over bridges), 41 escalators at 23 stations, 10 lifts at six stations, half a dozen toilets at as many stations, 318 new ATVMs (Automatic Ticket Vending Machines) at 77 suburban stations. Other amenities were IP-based suburban train indicators at 10 stations, 206 additional CCTV cameras at six stations, two booking offices at Bhiwandi Road and Navde Road stations, raising of platform height to 900 mm at 273 platforms of suburban stations as well as one megawatt solar power plant at EMU Carshed in Sanpada. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) President Rodrigo Duterte is flying to Singapore Monday afternoon to join regional leaders at the 30th Association of Southeast Asians (ASEAN) summit and from there will travel to Papua New Guinea for this week's 19th Asia-Pacific Economic Leaders Meeting. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Duterte is expected to touch on the maritime disputes in the West Philippine Sea at ASEAN meetings also to be attended China. However, it is not yet clear whether Duterte would bring up the issue of China's opening of weather stations in the disputed waters. READ: Philippines to take action if Chinese weather stations in South China Sea are verified - Palace The Korean peninsula, global trade and transboundary issues like terrorism and human trafficking are also expected to be tackled at the ASEAN meet. Many leaders are reportedly requesting for a bilateral meeting with President Duterte, but the DFA cannot give details on these yet. Duterte will be in Singapore until November 15 and would then head to Papua New Guinea for the 19th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting. He will be joining leaders of the 21-member Pacific Rim group's meetings scheduled November 17 -18. Focus on MSMes Department of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Ernesto Abella said Monday that Duterte would give emphasis on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the Philippines for them to tap technology to break into the international market. "The President conveys his support for mechanisms that will enable our MSMEs to take advantage of digital and online platforms to benefit their enterprises and to bring their products and services overseas," Abella said. Abella said Duterte would be joining a dialogue with prominent business leaders during the APEC Business Advisory Council meeting and with other APEC leaders at the Pacific Island Forum. He added that "there will be a lot of dialogues with other countries," but cannot give specific details on these bilateral meetings yet. However, Abella said no meetings have been set with US Vice President Mike Pence and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who are attending the summit in lieu of US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, respectively. Duterte first met with Trump during the 2017 APEC Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, while he met Putin for the second time in the same event. The three have been compared with one another, with Duterte and Putin appearing on Time Magazine's May 2018 issue on strongmen. Duterte would also be meeting with the Filipino community based in Papua New Guinea, most of whom are agricultural experts who help in rice production in the country, Abella said. "This is a new era for Filipino engagement on the world stage. The Asia-Pacific region represents the epicenter of global growth, making APEC the most important economic platforms in the world," Abella said. Home to around 40,000 Filipinos and 215 Philippine companies, Papua New Guinea would hosting the APEC summit for the first time. The Philippines last hosted the event in 2015. CNN Philippines' Ina Andolong and Xave Gregorio contributed to this report. Last year Niharika, along with actor Sunita Rajwar, called out Nawaz for "exploiting and disrespecting women". Mumbai: Kubbra Sait has come forward in support of her Sacred Games co-star Nawazuddin Siddiqui, after former Miss India Niharika Singh called him out in her #MeToo account. Niharika's story was shared on Twitter by Sandhya Menon, one of the journalists spearheading India campaign against sexual harassment. Niharika worked in 2009's Miss Lovely opposite Nawazuddin. In the post, the actor said she and Nawazuddin came close during the making of the film. Niharika said she developed a soft corner for him finding him "real, after all the superficial 'filmy' interactions I'd had in the past years". She revealed one morning she invited the Manto actor to her home for breakfast and he grabbed her. "I tried to push him away but he wouldn't let go. After a little coercion, I finally gave in. I wasn't sure what to make of this relationship," she added. The two started dating but according to Niharika she decided to split with Nawazuddin because of his frequent lies. The former model also called Nawazuddin a "sexually repressed Indian man" in the post. Kubbra said one must not confuse a relationship gone sour with a #MeToo story. "A relationship gone sour, isn't #MeToo. Someone needs to recognise the toxic difference before we go picking sides. I stand by #NawazuddinSiddiqui or #Nowaz as a man. I stand by the fact that although Niharika Singh may have had a tough time in the industry, categorising her once personal relationship as a #MeToo statement is incorrectly placed. We as humans are flawed. That isn't gender specific," Kubbra wrote on Twitter Saturday. Nawazuddin is yet to comment on Niharika's allegations. Last year, Niharika, along with actor Sunita Rajwar, had called out Nawazuddin for "exploiting and disrespecting women" to sell his autobiography, which was later withdrawn by the publishers Penguin Random House. This so-called seahorse flare shot up on the disk of the sun on Aug. 7, 1972. The radiation it produced was so powerful, it would've been harmful to astronauts if a moon mission had been in progress. We live together on the surface of a smallish rock in the immediate neighborhood of an angry plasma death-ball that gives us the energy we need to survive but could also swallow our entire home with nary a burp. So, you know, sometimes this plasma ball causes problems. Like blowing up a bunch of underwater mines during the Vietnam War, according to a paper published Oct. 25 in the journal Space Weather. "Space weather" is a collective term for the various energetic gobbets the sun periodically, unpredictably vomits in our general direction. Those gobbets are usually mild, but can be quite powerful. Scientists don't know exactly how often they occur, and the blobs of energy have the potential to do all sorts of damage, from frying the global satellite infrastructure to drastically messing things up for life on Earth. The most powerful example on record was studied in 1859, and its effects were noticed primarily by skywatchers, telegraph operators and folks who spotted the weirdly southern auroras it created. If it happened in our modern electrified era, its consequences would be much more serious. There have been major space weather incidents since, though none on the scale of the 1859 event. And researchers are still figuring out the extent of their potential for damage. In the Space Weather paper, the researchers dug up old Navy records that suggest a famous 1972 solar storm was even more serious than they had realized. [Flying Saucers to Mind Control: 22 Declassified Military & CIA Secrets] "Between 2 and 4 August 1972 [a sunspot] produced a series of brilliant flares, energetic particle enhancements and Earth-directed ejecta," they wrote. Those flares cleared the path for "the subsequent ultra-fast... shock that reached Earth in record time 14.6 hours." People all over the planet noticed that flare's effects. "Dayside radio blackouts developed within minutes. X-ray emissions from the long-duration flare remained [high] for [more than] 16 hours. For the first time, a space-based detector observed gamma-rays during this solar flare. [Experts] rated the flare at Comprehensive Flare Index level 17 the highest level, and one assigned to only the most extreme and broad-spectrum flares," they wrote, adding that "'spectacular aurora,' bright enough to cast shadows, appeared along the southern coast of the United Kingdom Within two hours commercial airline pilots reported aurora as far south as Bilboa, Spain." Researchers later found that the flare caused damage to solar panels on satellites in space; a defense communications satellite "suffered a mission-ending on orbit power failure;" and Air Force sensors switched on, suggesting falsely that a nuclear bomb had detonated somewhere on the planet. "This is one of only a handful of events in the space age that would have posed an immediate threat to astronaut safety," the researchers wrote, "had humans been in transit to the moon at the time." And somehow, amid all that drama, space weather researchers had largely ignored another consequence of the storm: "the sudden detonation of a 'large number' of US Navy sea mines [that had been] dropped into the coastal waters of North Vietnam only three months earlier." Pilots flying over the area spotted about two dozen explosions in a minefield in just a 30-second period, the researchers wrote. Naval researchers investigated, and they ultimately concluded the blasts were the result of the solar storm triggering magnetic sensors in the mines that had been primed to detect passing metal ships. According to the researchers, this event led to major changes within the Navy, which rapidly researched alternatives to the magnetic sensor mines that would be more resistant to solar effects. However, the story never really made its way over to the space weather research community. Now, the researchers said, this event illustrates the modern challenge of figuring out how storms like this (or those even more powerful) would impact modern infrastructure. And it's still unclear, they wrote, what features of the storm made it so intense. Was it the speed of the flare? The multiple flares clearing a path through space before the big one? The magnetic environment around Earth at the time? It's still unclear, they wrote, what a powerful solar storm might do to critical satellites, or how common it was. In July 2012, a major storm narrowly missed Earth, instead hitting nearby satellites. How did it compare? There are still just too many unknowns. Originally published on Live Science. True, that's a dramatic and highly unlikely situation but would you know where to start? In AMC's "The Walking Dead" (which airs Sundays at 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. CST), characters have survived years after the zombie apocalypse began and are now living in communities that demand a stable food supply. Farming is a major part of that, but with limited space and resources, the settlers have to figure out how to make the most of their efforts. [9 Reasons We Have an Undying Interest in the Undead] Live Science spoke with Dan Kemper, an organic farmer and the field foreman at the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit organic farming research and education organization in Pennsylvania, to learn a few helpful tips for farming during an apocalypse, or anytime. Focus on nutrition gold mines "If you're in a situation where you didn't have any tractor equipment and were limited on space, you want to go for the nutrient-dense crops," Kemper said. "Things like potatoes, garlic, onions and sweet potatoes." Kemper immediately rattled off those four crops for a few reasons. First, they're nutritious. "Potatoes are super-packed with nutrients," Kemper said. A medium potato contains about 42 grams of vitamin C, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). They're also loaded with minerals, like calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium. Another upside to potatoes, Kemper thought of: "You can ferment them into booze and you can trade that." Indeed, participating in trade is key to building a successful civilization, as Live Science previously reported. Sweet potatoes are also nutritious and are chock-full of vitamin A in the form of beta-carotene. Vitamin A plays a role in healthy vision, skin and bones, and works as an antioxidant, which is a chemical that fights free radicals that may damage cells. Sweet potatoes are also relatively high in potassium, an important mineral for maintaining heart and muscle health. The zombie apocalypse survivors in AMC's "The Walking Dead" built an herb garden out of filing cabinets. (Image credit: AMC Networks) Besides being flavorful and delicious, onions and garlic are two closely related veggies that have many layers of nutrition. "Onions are super-healthy," Victoria Jarzabkowski, a nutritionist with the Fitness Institute of Texas at the University of Texas at Austin, previously told Live Science. "They are excellent sources of vitamin C, sulfuric compounds, flavonoids and phytochemicals." Kemper said he chose garlic because it's rich in a sulfur-based chemical called allicin, which gets released when the garlic bulb is cut or crushed. Allicin is thought to work as an antioxidant, and there's some evidence that it supports immune system health, too. The allicin in garlic could help keep people from getting sick, Kemper said. Grow more, water less These four crops also don't need a lot of water. "I would assume all of the water would be for drinking, so the garlic, onion and potatoes don't need a ton of irrigation," Kemper said. It would also be important to consider that few things grow in the winter. Even in Georgia, where the characters in "The Walking Dead" have set up their communities, the winters are cold enough to prohibit most crops from growing, and the settlers would need to live off stored food. Fortunately, the crops Kemper suggested can be stored for a long time. "You can pretty much just throw them in a sack or bin out of the sun and out of the rain," Kemper said. These melons would be a luxury during a zombie apocalypse. (Image credit: AMC Networks) The winter would also allow time for the soil to recover between crops. In a normal setting, Kemper said, farmers let their fields rest over winter and plant what's called a cover crop. Cover crops, such as legumes or grasses, are grown primarily to maintain soil quality over the winter. "Then you could plant whatever you want in the spring," Kemper said. Whatever crops were planted would need to be rotated each season to keep the soil healthy, Kemper added. Rotating crops prevents the soil from becoming depleted of the same nutrients over and over because different crops pull different nutrients from the soil. "It's always better to rotate," Kemper said. What about pests? One of the issues farmers on "The Walking Dead" are facing this season is how to get rid of pests, particularly crows. There are many options to try, such as scarecrows or shiny ribbons. Survivors in AMC's "The Walking Dead" made a scarecrow from a zombie but it didn't keep the crows from helping themselves. (Image credit: AMC Networks) But the sure-fire way to get rid of any vertebrate pests is to kill them, Kemper said. "It's the best thing to do." It's not glamorous but it saves your crops and provides more food, he said. Roasted crow, anyone? But what about the pesky crop-eating bugs? Ideally, pesticides would be the easiest solution, but chemicals like that probably aren't available during a zombie apocalypse. So, the crops might require individual, hands-on attention. At the Rodale Institute, Kemper said that every now and then, rain washes away the organic-approved pesticides they have applied to the crops, so they have to manually clean the bugs off every plant one by one. "We get buckets that are half full of water and bleach and we hand shake the plant to get the bugs off," he said. It's a tedious but effective method for keeping crops healthy. Consider including livestock Besides growing a few key crops, the apocalypse settlers might want to consider raising animals. "Chickens are a great idea," Kemper said. "They're really quick to raise, and you can keep a few that lay eggs and keep the eggs." Larger livestock might to be too challenging, he said. "Cows and pigs and goats will be a lot of work." He suggested maybe start with one other livestock animal at a time and raise it for a season. Just one cow could provide enough food for everyone for a winter, he said. And, depending on the animal, its fat could be used to make soap an important ingredient for keeping things sanitary and people healthy. Space might also be limited, meaning not enough room for both livestock and crop fields. Kemper estimated that about three or four acres of crops would be needed to keep about a dozen people fed for a year, with a little extra to spare for emergencies. If that's the case, the hundred or so people in the communities of "The Walking Dead" can't depend solely on their small farms. "They would need concentration on hunting and gathering still," Kemper said. "So, stay well-armed." Catch "The Walking Dead," on Sundays at 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. CST on AMC. Originally published on Live Science. CHICAGO After a decade, Americans have new physical activity guidelines to aim for and officials hope the changes will get more people encouraged to get moving. That's because the new guidelines, released today (Nov. 12) by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), say that any exercise is better than none. In other words, even as little as a few minutes of exercise will count towards your daily exercise goal. That's a change from the older guidelines, which said that in order to get the full health benefits of exercise, you needed to perform an activity for at least 10 minutes at a time. But "we now know that any amount of physical activity has some health benefits," Dr. Brett Giroir, the Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS, said here today at a talk on the new guidelines at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions annual meeting. [The 4 Types of Exercise You Need to Be Healthy] Otherwise, the basic guidelines stayed largely the same: Adults need 150 to 300 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity each week which translates to around 7,000 to 9,000 steps each day. Muscle-strengthening activities, such as pushups, sit-ups or weight lifting, are recommended at least twice a week. For children and adolescents ages of 6 to 17, the guidelines also stayed the same. They recommend at least an hour of moderate to vigorous activity each day. Another change is that the new guidelines now include a new group: young children. Kids ages 3 to 5 should be getting at least 3 hours of activity a day, in order to promote growth and development, especially for their bones, Giroir said. But currently, only about 26 percent of men, 19 percent of women and 20 percent of adolescents in the U.S. meet the physical activity guidelines, Giroir said. And though trends and studies show that adults are becoming more active, activity rates among adolescents are declining. Physical activity as a 'wonder drug' Inactivity contributes to 10 percent of all early deaths in the U.S., Giroir said. So "if we can get just 25 percent of inactive people to be active and meet the recommendations, almost 75,000 deaths would be prevented in the United States," Giroir said. Physical activity is sometimes called "the wonder drug," Janet Fulton, chief of the Physical Activity and Health Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said at today's presentation. In fact, some doctors are now using prescription pads to prescribe physical activity to patients, she said. Physical activity not only decreases the risk of early death, but also has many short-term and long-term benefits, according to the new guidelines. Some of the benefits of exercise are immediate it reducesanxiety and blood pressure, improves sleep and improves insulin sensitivity (which can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes). In the long-term, physical activity has been shown to improve brain health and cognition, reduce the risk of falls for older adults (by strengthening bones or improving balance), slow the progression of hypertension and type 2 diabetes, decrease pain for those with osteoarthritis, reduces the risk of postpartum depression, and some research has shown that it may reduce the risk of developing dementia. Physical activity has also been shown to help reduce the risk of certain cancers. In the first edition of the guidelines, only two cancers were listed: breast and colon cancer. The updated edition adds that physical activity could also reduce the risk of bladder, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, stomach and lung cancer. Girior summed up the recommendations in a few words: "Move more and sit less." Originally published on Live Science. The couple will go house hunting only once back from their nuptials in Italy. One hears that Ranveer will move into the apartment Deepika currently occupies, which is spacious for the two. There were reports in some sections of the media that the soon-to-be-married Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone have already bought their dream home in suburban Mumbai. Even the location of this earthly paradise in Mumbai was revealed by some knowledgeable sources. However, the truth, as told by one of the couples close friends, is that their dream house is yet to materialise. They havent had the time to look around seriously for the house that theyll be sharing after their wedding. They did look at some property. But nothing major transpiredand no decisions were taken. They will hunt around seriously for what the media refers to as their dream house after they return from their wedding, says the couple's friend. Luckily, both Ranveer and Deepika have taken a break from work to be together after they have tied the knot. This should give them plenty of time to findtheir.ummmdream house. In the meanwhile, one hears that Ranveer will move into the apartment Deepika currently occupies, which is amply spacious to accommodate them both. Architectural Digest has ranked the 50 Most Beautiful Colleges in America, including three Texas universities. The magazine searched from coast to coast to find the most beautiful college campuses in the United States, taking into consideration architectural legacy and setting. Scroll through the photo gallery above to see some of the schools that made the list. RELATED: Texas schools rank among Forbes' top colleges in 2018 Marcy de Luna is a digital reporter specializing in social media, the famous, and food. You can follow her on Twitter @MarcydeLuna. Read her stories on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | Marcy.deLuna@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Over 100 rounds of ammunition and 18 undocumented immigrants were found in a stash house in east Laredo on Thursday, according to Border Patrol. The agency said they made the discovery with assistance from a Laredo police officer at a residence off of U.S. Highway 59. Upon entry, authorities found 16 individuals being held in the home, all of whom were determined to be in the U.S. illegally. A woman accused of stealing close to $200,000 from several people and a business is wanted by the Laredo Police Department. Authorities identified her as Sandra Rocio Garza, 41. To report her whereabouts, call police at 795-2800 or Laredo Crime Stoppers at 727-TIPS (8477). "Given the circumstances of her previous cases, we also encourage any people who think they may be victims of theft by the female to contact the Laredo Police Department," authorities said in a statement. Garza has prior encounters with LPD. READ ALSO: Laredo police release images, information on 5 wanted individuals She was served with an arrest warrant Sept. 21 and charged with felony theft. LPD said that an article published in the Laredo Morning Times alerted a complainant to a possible scam with a business account. The complainant hired a private accountant to review the account. "A review of the account by the accountant discovered that the victim was defrauded of $53,330 for payments supposed to be made to the IRS. Once the victim filed the report, the suspect was identified as Sandra Rocio Garza," states an LPD report. About a week later, on Sept. 27, another man filed a police report stating he believed he may have been "duped out" of about $23,000. He stated to LPD that he used Garza to file his taxes for several years, according to police. But he became alarmed and grew suspicious when LMT published an article about her arrest, LPD said. Authorities said the investigation showed that Garza had taken the amount reported by the man. ISACH Management and Investments In August, Garza was arrested and charged with theft for allegedly pocketing more than $90,000 from her employer. A woman from ISACH Management and Investments reported the theft to police. She stated to LPD that Garza had deprived her and her clients of $90,256 over a nine-month period, according to police. LPD said Garza would receive checks to make payments to the IRS, but she instead pocketed the money from the clients, authorities said. Conviction Garza was also arrested in May 2017. A woman reported to police that Garza had deprived her of $107,652. She told police she had contacted Garza to assist her in purchasing a home in Laredo. Court records show that Garza was indicted on a theft charge on Oct. 11, 2017. She pleaded guilty on Jan. 5, according to court documents. Records state she was sentenced to 10 years probation and was ordered to pay $107,652 in restitution. The Pakistan Army and the ISIs complicity in planning infiltration and terror attacks is evident and it continues: Lt Gen Paramjit Singh. Lieutenant General Paramjit Singh, who took over as the general officer commanding of the Nagrota-based White Knight Corps, commonly known as XVI Corps, also said that cross-border terrorism will stop only if Pakistan changes its policy and intentions. Jammu: The terror infrastructure in Pakistan remains intact and around 160 terrorists are waiting across the Line of Control (LoC) to infiltrate into Indian territory, a senior Army officer said Sunday. Lieutenant General Paramjit Singh, who took over as the general officer commanding of the Nagrota-based White Knight Corps, commonly known as XVI Corps, also said that cross-border terrorism will stop only if Pakistan changes its policy and intentions. The officer, involved in the planning of the 2016 surgical strikes on the terror infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied-Kas-hmir, told PTI in an interview that the Army was not letting up on our preparedness and the counter-infiltration grid is strong enough to deal with infiltrators. Lt. Gen. Singh, who has served in all three regions of Jammu and Kashmir, said, 140 to 160 terrorists at different locations in Pakistan are being pushed into the state. The terror infrastructure is intact, and Pakistans intentions have not changed. The Pakistan Army and the ISIs complicity in planning infiltration and terror attacks is evident and it continues, the officer, who has a vast experience in high-altitude warfare, said. To a question on the situation along the LoC, he said ceasefire violations have abated after the DGMO-level talks. For troops on the LoC, there is no ceasefire... Though periodic unprovoked firing by the Pakistan Army and attempts to cause harm to forward posts continue. We do not initiate fire, but we give it back in adequate measure. There is no let up on preparedness and our counter-infiltration grid is strong to deal with infiltrators, he said. The trial of a man accused of killing his stepfather before posting a selfie with the body on Twitter has been put on hold after a judge in Maryland ruled he is incompetent to stand trial. A Prince George's County Circuit Court judge ordered Navar Beverly, 40, committed to the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene after finding he is a danger to himself and others, according to court records. The court determined during a hearing this month that a "mental disorder" precluded Beverly from facing a trial that was scheduled to start this week in the killing of his stepfather, Ronald Francis Pinkney, 67. Details of Beverly's mental health issues were sealed in his court file. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment. Police accuse Beverly, charged with first-degree murder, of strangling Pinkney at Pinkney's home in Bowie, Maryland, in July 2017. Beverly took a photo of himself next to Pinkney's body and posted the image to social media before telling his mother, "I told you I would do it," police charging documents state. Beverly told his mother her husband was dead in the garage and led police on a short chase after he fled the scene, police said. Beverly has a history of mental health issues and an extensive criminal record that includes a prior murder conviction, online court records indicate. During his first court appearance, he interrupted the hearing with screams: "Ain't no one answer to the law but me," Beverly yelled. "Only one person got hit by a satellite and that person is me!" Beverly and Pinkney had violent clashes with each other in the months preceding Pinkney's killing, according to court records. Pinkney had requested a protective order against his stepson in February 2017, accusing Beverly of choking him and throwing him to the ground. Nearly two months later, Pinkney said his stepson apologized and asked for the protective order to be rescinded. A judge denied Pinkney's request to pull back the order. Months later, Beverly returned to the home despite the court's order to stay away, and Pinkney was killed, police said. The next hearing in Beverly's case is scheduled for February. President Donald Trump's black stretch limousine was approaching the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Sunday when a topless woman ran into the rainy street. With her long brown hair flowing down her back, she held up her arms outstretched in a gesture of victory. Though nearly impossible to make out, the words, "FAKE PEACEMAKERS," were scrawled across her torso with black paint. She writhed and struggled to break loose as three police officers dragged her away. Few were surprised when the radical feminist group Femen took credit, explaining on its website that it was protesting world leaders it considers war criminals. The Paris-based group, whose members have been described as "feminist terrorists" and "the naked shock troops of feminism" by one of its founders, has a history of pulling similar actions. Though once little-known outside of Europe, the group recently made headlines in U.S. media by protesting outside Bill Cosby's sexual-assault retrial and disrupting a jazz concert featuring Woody Allen. Femen's methods are fairly straightforward: Topless women in flower crowns, their bodies painted like protest signs, disrupt public events by yelling feminist slogans and throwing their bodies at politicians and church leaders. The protests are generally only a few seconds long, since the activists are quickly escorted out of sight or arrested. But the resulting photographs of half-naked women being dragged away by police makes for compelling imagery. On its website, Femen describes the group's members as a "modern incarnation of fearless and free Amazons," using their bodies to protest the patriarchy. Femen was founded in Kiev, Ukraine, in 2008 by young women frustrated that they seemed to have few options in life besides becoming a housewife or working as prostitutes, Inna Shevchenko, one of the group's leaders, told The Guardian. In its early years, the group was largely focused on opposing Ukraine's burgeoning sex trade. While protesting topless might seem to contradict the group's anti-exploitation stance, Femen's leaders argued that they were deploying their bodies as weapons. "We are not making sexy sounds, we are screaming as much as we can with our political demands, we're not showing a passive smiling body, we're showing an aggressive, screaming body," Shevchenko told the Guardian. "My body is always saying something. I use it as a small poster to write my political demand." Shevchenko fled Ukraine for France in 2012 after she chopped down a crucifix with a chain saw and began receiving death threats. Several other Femen members joined her, applying for political asylum in France and subsequently working to rebuild Femen as an international protest group focused on opposing sexism, oppression, and authoritarianism. All of the group's founding members were living in exile by 2013, according to the Paris Review. "Each Femen demonstration is contrived to shock, generate publicity, and come off well on camera," the Atlantic noted in 2013. "Though in theory any woman may join, almost all the activists are 20-something, fit, and attractive. In protest-spirited France, they quickly became media darlings." Calling themselves "sextremists," Femen targeted, among others, Pope Benedict XVI, the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Putin and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. They even disrupted Paris Fashion Week, jumping onto the runway at a 2013 Nina Ricci show. As the group gained fame, their feminist bona fides came under scrutiny. A 2013 documentary, "Ukraine is not a Brothel," argued that a man named Victor Svyatski, who had previously been described as a consultant to the group, had actually been integral to its founding and had masterminded many of the attention-grabbing stunts. "These girls are weak," Svyatski told the documentary producers. Shevchenko acknowledged that Svyatski had taken control of the movement, though she disputed the claim that he had founded Femen. "Having been born in a country in which feminism was unknown, in the best traditions of patriarchal society we just accepted the fact of a man taking control of us," she wrote in a 2013 Guardian op-ed. "We accepted this because we did not know how to resist and fight it." Realizing that sexism had infiltrated the organization was part of what motivated her to leave Ukraine for France and start over, she added. Femen's members consider atheism to be a fundamental tenet of the group's ideology. Along with an end to the sex industry, the list of demands on its website includes the "immediate political deposition of all dictatorial regimes creating unbearable living conditions for women," starting with "theocratic Islamic states practicing Shari'ah." Femen has protested the compulsory hijab, angering Muslim feminists who point out that many Islamic women wear the hijab voluntarily as an expression of their religious beliefs. "The idea of a Muslim feminist is oxymoronic," Shevchenko told the Atlantic in 2013. Comments like these have led to charges that Femen is anti-Muslim and that its members have a white savior complex. Amina Sboui, a Tunisian activist who faced death threats after she posted a topless photo on Facebook, quit the group in 2013, saying that she didn't want to be associated with an Islamophobic organization. Sboui had been jailed that year for painting the group's name on a cemetery wall, and Femen had held protests outside the Tunisian Embassy in France to demand her release. But after she was freed, Sboui told HuffPost that the group's efforts had been counterproductive. "I did not appreciate the action taken by the girls shouting 'Amina Akbar, Femen Akbar' in front of the Tunisian embassy in France, or when they burned the black Tawhid flag in front of a mosque in Paris," she said. "These actions offended many Muslims and many of my friends. We must respect everyone's religion." In recent years, Femen has broadened its choice of targets, aiming its guerrilla tactics at American public figures like Allen, Cosby, and Trump. Sunday's protest, the group said, was intended to call out Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as well as Trump for turning Armistice Day into "a funny performance that is only entertaining for those participating criminals." "Our activists have once again been arrested," the group said in a statement. "Yesterday, they spent 10 hours in custody, and they have been charged for sexual exhibition. But this is only reinforcing our determination. Our fight is legitimate." KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber attacked a demonstration by minority Shiites in the Afghan capital Monday, killing at least six people as the crowd protested a spate of deadly insurgent attacks on Shiite communities in Ghazni province, police and witnesses said. Hundreds of ethnic Hazara Shiites had gathered outside the presidential palace since Sunday night, angry over the government's inability to stop a string of recent attacks on predominantly Hazara areas of the province southwest of the capital. The protest disrupted daily life in Kabul, leading to the closures of major streets, government institutions and businesses. Police said the protest was the likely target of the bomber, who was on foot. Ambulances raced to the scene, and TV footage showed bodies strewn in the streets. Ghazni city, the provincial capital, was overrun by Taliban forces in August, and voting in nationwide parliamentary elections in October was postponed indefinitely throughout the insecure province. But until now, its rural Hazara districts had been largely spared. The Taliban has claimed the recent attacks, but affiliates of the Islamic State have also carried out numerous bombings and shootings in Shiite Hazara communities over the past two years. As the demonstration in Kabul continued Monday, the Afghan army chief, Lt. Gen. Mohammad Sharif Yaftali, announced that the army would intensify operations in Ghazni province and that the Afghan air force had carried out an airstrike there Sunday night against the Taliban. Ghazni officials had complained all week that the official response was too slow. Sgt. 1st Class Debra Richardson, a spokeswoman for the U.S.-led military coalition here known as Operation Resolute Support, said U.S. forces are "supporting our Afghan security force counterparts as they fight the Taliban in Jaghori and Malistan districts of Ghazni province." U.S. forces also are providing close air support, while being "cautious with our airstrikes to try to prevent noncombatant casualties," Richardson said. She said officials have received reports that Taliban forces suffered "heavy casualties." The rash of attacks began early last week in both Hazara-dominated rural districts of Ghazni, which until now have been relatively peaceful in a province long-harassed by insurgents. In Jaghori, leaders reached by phone in one village said the community awoke to gunfire late at night and that the few residents who dared venture outside were shot dead. At about 5 a.m., they said, Taliban forces announced on loudspeakers that they had seized control of the area and called elders of Dawood village to meet with them in a mosque. "We are fighting the government," one Taliban fighter said, according to an elder and teacher named Iqbal Nazari. He said the insurgents asked for their cooperation. Villagers said insurgents also overran police posts in Hotqol village, on the other side of the district. Mohammad Ali Alizada, a member of parliament from Jaghori, said 23 Afghan commandos and at least 25 local residents were killed as they fought to repel the attack. In Dawood, the attackers faced almost no resistance Tuesday because there was no security outpost. But armed residents from neighboring areas later helped villagers drive out the attackers, who they said killed four people. Taliban forces attacked adjoining Malistan district on Thursday from three directions, triggering heavy clashes with Afghan security forces and local armed residents, according to its deputy police chief, Aref Rezai. On Sunday, Rezai said, Taliban fighters attacked the district center, but more than 50 insurgents were killed. Until recently, Jaghori was known for years as a bastion of tranquility and development. Even though Taliban forces had besieged Ghazni city in August, triggering four days of fighting that left several hundred civilians and security forces dead, Jaghori residents were stunned when their peaceful district was attacked from at least two directions last week. In neighboring Uruzgan province, residents have described a separate, repeated onslaught of Taliban attacks over the past two weeks that have killed dozens ofgovernment troops, including elite forces. A recent report by a U.S. government watchdog agency said casualties among Afghan government forces have reached record levels, while the government controls just a little over half the country. The recent attacks in rural Ghazni represent a new target for the insurgents, ethnic Pashtuns who have previously left these Hazara strongholds alone. In a statement on its website Wednesday, the Taliban said the attacks were "not against any specific race, ethnicity or sect" but are "against targets associated with the Kabul administration just like the rest of the country." If anyone "is seen as a fighter with a weapon in his hand, the Mujahideen will consider them an enemy and take military actions against them," it said. Ghazni's Pashtun districts have long been insecure. In parliamentary elections in 2010, Hazaras won all 11 seats in the province because no voting could be conducted in Pashtun areas. The decision to postpone voting there in October angered Hazara leaders. On Sunday night, as reports spread of worsening Taliban attacks in the Hazara districts, hundreds of young Hazaras in Kabul took to the streets, walking miles across the capital in the rain toward the presidential palace and chanting, "Jaghori! Malistan! Security now!" - - - The Washington Post's Pamela Constable in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report. WESTTOWN (AP) An elephant that was burned by napalm during the Vietnam War has been returned to an upstate New York animal sanctuary after taking a late-night stroll. State Police say they went to the Sanctuary for Animals in Westtown on Sunday night when they got a call about a wandering elephant. While Parkash has been asked to appear before SIT on November 16, Sukhbir and Akshay have been summoned on November 19 and November 21. Actor Akshay Kumar's name was mentioned in Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. (Photo: File) Chandigarh: The Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing police firing incidents at Behbal Kalan on sacrilege issue, has summoned former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, his son Sukhbir Singh Badal and actor Akshay Kumar. While Parkash has been asked to appear before the SIT of Punjab Police on November 16, Sukhbir has been summoned on November 19 and Akshay has been asked to come on November 21 to the Circuit House in Amritsar. The summon orders have been issued separately for the three by SIT member and IG rank officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, according to an official release issued in Chandigarh. The SIT is probing police firing incidents at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan in Faridkot in 2015 after a series of sacrilege incidents in the state. In police firing at Behbal Kalan, two persons were killed. Notably, the actor's name was mentioned in Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. According to the report, a meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir and Dera Sacha Sauda sect head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in connection with the release of latter's movie 'MSG' was held at Akshay's flat in Mumbai. The meeting was held before the pardon given to Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a blasphemy case. However, Akshay had denied all the claims. Kunwar Singh said the summons relate to investigation of cases originating from the various incidents of sacrilege in the year 2015. The summons have been issued under Section 160 of the CrPC, requiring attendance at investigation, relating to the Bargari sacrilege case and the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura police firing incidents, the release said. The notice says the presence of the aforesaid person is necessary for the purpose of inquiry into the above-mentioned offence and the person summoned needed to give such information relating to the said alleged offence as he may possess. The SIT had earlier examined ADGP Jitendra Jain, then IG Bathinda; IGP Paramraj Singh Umaranangal; then Commissioner Ludhiana; IGP Amar Singh Chahal, then DIG Ferozepur Range; MS Jaggi, then DC Faridkot; SS Mann, then SSP Faridkot; VK Syal then SDM Faridkot, besides Mantar Singh Brar, then Kotkapura MLA. In addition, 50 private persons and more than 30 police officials of junior rank have also been examined. The five-member SIT was set up by the state government in September this year, soon after issuance of the notification to withdraw investigation of sacrilege incidents of the Guru Granth Sahib from the CBI. A total of 190 candidates were in fray for 18 seats in the first phase of election in Chhattisgarh. People wait to cast their votes at a polling station at Mangnar during the first phase of Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, in Naxal-affected Bastar district. (Photo: PTI) Raipur: At least 70 per cent voters exercised their franchise in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly elections on Monday. "Voting has ended, turnout is 70 per cent till now in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly election. Figures will be updated later," Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Commissioners told the media. 18 of 90 Chhattisgarh constituencies went to polls in the first phase. Voting began in 10 assembly seats of Maoist-affected districts at 7 am across seven districts in Bastar region and Rajnandgaon district. Officials have deployed 100,000 security personnel and pressed helicopters into service to airlift polling staff to booths amid a threat from Maoists who have called for a boycott of the democratic exercise. Polling began in eight more seats an hour later. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh was among the prominent candidates whose fate was sealed in EVMs during the first phase of voting. A total of 190 candidates were in fray for 18 seats in the first phase of election in Chhattisgarh. Of the 18 seats, Congress had won 12 while the BJP bagged 6 in 2013. The second phase of polling on 72 seats in Chhattisgarh will be held on November 20 and the votes will be counted on December 11 along with that of Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Rajasthan where assembly polls will be held over the coming weeks. Here are updates on the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly elections: 04:52 pm: 56.58 per cent voter turnout recorded till 4:30 pm in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly elections. 61.47 per cent in Kondagaon, 63.51 per cent in Keshkal, 62 per cent in Kanker, 58 per cent in Bastar, 49 per cent in Dantewada, 60.5 per cent in Khairagarh, 64 per cent in Dongargarh, 65.5 per cent in Khujji. 03:58 pm: Security forces defused IED detected on the road leading to Dwarapara polling booth, under PS Bairamgarh in Bijapur. 03:26 am: 47.18 per cent voter turnout recorded till 3 pm in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections. 02:50 pm: After the Nilwaya Naxal attack, the challenges have gone up. Naxals had threatened villagers against voting. We assured the villagers of a secure environment, put in place a three-level security so that people can vote without fear: CRPF official 02:44 pm: People in Dantewada's Madenda village cast their votes even after threat from the Naxals to cut their fingers if the ink mark is seen on their fingers. Local says, "There are 263 registered voters in the village and many are voting even after the threat." 01:14 pm: 25.15 per cent voter turnout recorded till 1 pm in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018. 01:12 pm: In Sukma, 103-year-old woman Soni Bai exercised her voting rights at a polling booth in Gorgunda's Devarpalli. His son carried her to the polling station in his arms. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 12:48 pm: Two Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) jawan injured in the encounter that broke out between security forces and Naxals in Bijapur's Pamed area. 12:21 pm: Encounter broke out between security forces and Naxals in Bijapur's Pamed area at around 12:20 pm today. Firing underway. 12:20 pm: Certain sources are spreading rumours that EVMs are malfunctioning repeatedly. This is to clarify that above info is false. Voting is going on smoothly. If at all, any glitches are noticed, issue is sorted out as quickly as possible: Election Commission 12:03 pm: Voters in Jagdalpur's Gandhi Nagar ward protest outside the polling centre saying, "The names of many voters are missing including those who have been living here for the past 25 years." (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 11:33 am: 16.24 per cent voter turnout recorded till now in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018 in 18 assembly constituencies. 11:31 am: In Rajnandgaon, huge voter turnout at the polling station in Naxal-affected Manpur's Pardoni village where Naxali posters and banners asking people to boycott elections had been seen. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 10:27 am: Three IEDs have been detected near a polling booth in Konta's Banda and CRPF Bomb disposal squad is in the process of defusing. Polling is underway at a makeshift booth under a tree. 10:17 am: In Dantewada, a differently-abled man reaches Chintagupha polling booth to cast his vote in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 10:15 am: 10.7 per cent voter turnout recorded till 10 am in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018 in 18 constituencies. 10:10 am: An IED was detected near a polling booth in Konta's Banda. Voting has been shifted to a makeshift polling booth established under a tree. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 09:59 am: Voting underway in interior areas of Kistaram, Palem and Bejji in the Naxal-affected Sukma district. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 09:50 am: Election Commission says 53 polling stations out of the total of 4,336 reported delayed start of polling due to technical reasons. 100 per cent polling stations have, however, reported smooth polling with long queues outside. 09:20 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves from Delhi for Chhattisgarh. He will address a public rally in Bilaspur. 09:30 am: A visually impaired person casts his vote at a polling station in Dantewada's Geedam. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 08:45 am: Voting has resumed at the Pink polling booth in Kamla College, in Rajnandgaon's Sangwari. 8:32 am: Voting has stopped due to a technical problem in the EVM at the Pink polling booth in Kamla College, in Rajnandgaon's Sangwari. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 08:24 am: Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat says, Polling is being held in 18 constituencies of Chhattisgarh today. They are Left Wing Extremism affected area. Polls are being held in two phases to provide special security in these 18 constituencies. These 18 areas are kept in first phase so that paramilitary forces remain fresh. Nearly 900 polling personnel have been air-dropped from helicopters so that they can reach safely. Over 16,500 polling personnel went by road. I think all will be in a position to deliver peaceful elections, Rawat adds. 08:17 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged voters to participate in the voting process in Chhattisgarh. 08:01 am: IED was triggered by Naxals on Tumakpal-Nayanar road at around 5:30 am to target security forces. No harm to security forces and polling party. Party safely reached to Nayanar polling booth no. 183 under PS Katekalyan: Devnath, AIG (Anti-Naxal Operations) 07:55 am: In Sukma, a 100-year-old woman reaches a polling station in Dornapal to cast her vote in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 07:49 am: Voting to start in 5 constituencies of Rajnandgaon and 3 constituencies of Bastar at 8 am in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018. Visuals from a polling station in Rajnandgaon. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 07:11 am: In Dantewada, 1 to 2 kilograms of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blasted by Naxals near Tumakpal camp in Katekalyan block. Voting is underway for 10 out of 18 seats in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018. 07:01 am: Voting begins for 10 out of 18 seats in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 06:57 am: Visuals from a polling station in Rajnandgaon's Metepar village ahead of the first phase of voting in Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) 06:50 am: As per electoral rolls, there are 31,80,014 voters, news agency PTI reported. Women voters outnumber men for the first phase of polling, with 16,22,492 female voters on the rolls against 15,57,435 men. There are 87 third gender voters as well. 06:44 am: Visuals from a polling station in Dantewada ahead of the first phase of voting in Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) After a rainy night in the Houston area, a passing cold front is bringing chilly temperatures and high wind gusts to start the week. Temperatures are expected to fall this afternoon, with lows hitting 38 degrees in Houston. And on Tuesday and Wednesday, temperatures will drop further, into the low 30s. It will feel even colder, with wind chill values in the 20s on Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service Houston/Galveston office. Meteorologists anticipate putting a freeze warning in place across southeast Texas Wednesday morning. The cold front is also causing coastal counties to be under wind advisories from 2 p.m. Monday to 6 a.m. Tuesday, the weather office reported. Sustained winds could reach 25 mph on the coast, and gusts could reach 40 mph. Meteorologists have placed a gale warning over the Gulf, citing the likelihood of difficult marine navigation. In the Houston area, winds could reach up to 20 mph Monday night, with gusts at 25 mph. Patchy rain should continue today over cloudy skies. The National Weather Service is already dispelling rumors before the onslaught of cold weather this week, striking down most possibilities of sleet, snow flurries and frozen road conditions. Just one forecast model, an outlier among other reports, shows some sleet early Tuesday afternoon, meteorologists said. If sleet occurs then, it wouldn't accumulate and roads wouldn't freeze over. Any water on the pavement should evaporate before freezing temperatures arrive late tonight, according to weather reports. Tender vegetation could be damaged by the cold weather, however. Another day, another loose spool on the freeway. This time, it was actually two large spools that blocked several main lanes of the East Freeway westbound at Wayside Drive. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, the spools fell off a truck that struck a nearby bridge. DEJA VU: Huge spool terrifies drivers as it rolls down Houston freeway Houston police officers and authorities from other agencies directed traffic, which was down to at least one lane at some points. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the spools weigh nine tons each and required a heavy-duty wrecker to help clear. TxDOT does not report any vehicles damage by the giant wheels. The roadway was back open by 8:15 p.m. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message The somber faces in the crowd appeared to be in tune with the chilly, wet weather as the first of 21 bells tolled Sunday at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery and elsewhere to mark the armistice that ended World War I. The combatants of that war, and almost all the civilians, are gone. Those bundled in jackets and sheltered from a misty rain by umbrellas during the one-hour, 25-minute ceremony carried technology the likes of which doughboys of the day never imagined digital cameras, video recorders and hand-sized cell phones that captured the moment and shared it with the world instantly. When World War I ended, movies had been around for only about 20 years; talkies wouldnt become popular until the Depression. Radio, a relatively new technology, fell under government regulation in 1912 the year the Titanic sank. Typhoid vaccine became available to the public two years later, but polio would strike terror for decades to come. War, on the other hand, was quite modern. Tanks, machine guns, artillery, mustard gas, airplanes and disease filled Europes cemeteries over the four years of World War I. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, Britain lost 57,470 troops, 19,240 of them killed, according to the BBC. By wars end, 65 million would die. British author H.G. Wells called it the war to end all wars, but it was just a down payment. Another 60 million would perish in World War II, two-thirds of them civilians, and other conflicts would follow in Korea, Vietnam, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Bitter clashes would fill the history books Bastogne, Tarawa, Chosin, Hue and the second battle of Fallujah, called Operation Phantom Fury. I honor those who sacrifice, but I mourn that as a species we have not cracked the code on this, retired Army Lt. Col. Jim Tripp, 55, a veteran of the Iraq war, said after the ceremony closed with rifle volleys and taps. I wish that people smarter than me could figure out how do we avoid this. The thought echoed with other veterans at the cemetery, the traditional gathering place for Veterans Day in a city called Military City, U.S.A. because of its deep ties to the Army and Air Force. It's been home to some of the nation's best-known commanders, from Robert E. Lee and John J. Pershing to Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The city has long marked the holiday with a solemn ceremony, one featuring patriotic music, solemn rituals that include posting the colors, the world-traveled Texas Childrens Choir, and a naturalization ceremony that this year saw eight people become American citizens. Some wore military uniforms. Tripps wife, Katherine, teared up when she saw an elderly veteran, perhaps in his 90s, clap as the choir rehearsed The Star Spangled Banner. One of the first to arrive, he stood up with the help of his son and sang The Air Force Song during the ceremonys service medley. That was the first time I got to hear his voice. He sang very excitedly, she said. Air Force veteran Tom Pike worked in a contingency hospital in Germany during Gulf War I. He did not go to the war zone. Im fortunate to be a veteran who didnt have to give his life, said Pike, who served 21 years, half as an enlistee, before retiring as a captain. The ceremony in many ways looked just as it has for years, right down to the rain that fell, but the emphasis on the 100th anniversary of World War Is end made it different. Bells not only tolled at the cemetery, where 7,331 World War I veterans are buried, but also at St. Marys University. There, and in cities across the Lone Star State that include Fredericksburg and Houston, the sound of tolling bells filled the air, as did the crack of rifles firing and, finally, haunting silence. Veterans Day began as Armistice Day, declared by the United States, Great Britain and France to mark the cease-fire that ended World War I at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Congress redesignated the day in 1954 to honor all serving in America's wars. Texans played a big role in the war, with about 200,000 troops serving from August 1917 to the end, most of them in France. The 36th and 90th Infantry Divisions were called up, and while most of those going to war were men, 450 women served as nurses, according to the Texas World War I Centennial Committee. In all, 5,170 Texans died, seven of them women from the U.S Army & Navy Nurse Corps. A third of all the deaths occurred in the U.S. due to the influenza epidemic of 1918. Four Texans were awarded the Medal of Honor, one from San Antonio. Given the medal posthumously, Pvt. David Bennes Barkley was Hispanic. As bad as the war was, it helped shape the future of veterans care at home. The changes were small at first, but a profound transformation would come with a series of conflicts far from Americas shores over the ensuing decades. In 1921, Congress combined all World War I veterans programs into one to create the Veterans Bureau. Public Health Service veterans hospitals were transferred to the bureau, and an ambitious hospital construction program for World War I veterans commenced. Soldiers exposed to mustard gas and other chemicals required special care, prompting the opening of tuberculosis and neuropsychiatric hospitals. Benefits were expanded to cover disabilities not service-related, and in 1928 admission to bureau facilities was extended to women, National Guard and militia veterans. The VA was created two years later. The Veterans Health Administration began as the first facility for Civil War veterans of the Union Army, with President Abraham Lincoln signing a law creating a national soldiers and sailors asylum in 1865. Its now the largest of three administrations in VA, which this year has a $208.8 billion budget. Roughly 19.6 million veterans were thought to be alive as of Sept. 30, according to the VA. Just 496,777 of those survivors served in World War II, a conflict involving 16 million Americans. With Japans attack on Pearl Harbor, World War II was the first of three major U.S. conflicts that ran over the next 34 years. Korea and Vietnam followed, producing 1.7 million and 3.4 million veterans in the theater of war and millions of others serving during those eras worldwide. Few who served in all three wars are still around, just 16,349, but millions of others have since fought in Grenada, Panama, Gulf War I, Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the globe, including Syria. The war on terrorism has run 17 years with no end in sight. Retired Army Staff Sgt. Steve Zavala, a veteran of Operation Just Cause, the 1989 invasion of Panama, dismissed the chilly weather Sunday, especially when compared with the privations troops endured in wars going back to Valley Forge, the home of George Washingtons Continental Army in 1777. We take a look starting with the Revolutionary War and the true hardship of Valley Forge, said Zavala, 61, of Wilson County. We move forward to trench warfare in World War I, we get to see the horrors of Bastogne, and we get to see the Chosin few of Korea, the misery of Vietnam. It continues today, so this is nothing. Sig Christenson covers the military and its impact in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | sigc@express-news.net | Twitter: @saddamscribe Mission County Park was transformed into a winter wonderland Sunday as hundreds gathered to play in real snow, take a photo with Santa and pet his two reindeer, Holly and Noelle. The event was part of a celebration for the 50th anniversary of the Elf Louise Christmas Project, a beloved San Antonio nonprofit that has delivered Christmas gifts to more than 1 million needy children in greater San Antonio since its inception. Maritza Verazzi and her two children, 6-year-old Zadkiel and 3-year-old Makayla, were among those who took part despite the cold and a near-constant drizzle. They sat for photos with Santa and were looking forward to riding a small electric train that was making its way through the park. The best part? The slide! Zadkiel exclaimed, referring to a large snow slide that allowed attendees to go sledding in an inflatable tube. Elf Louise is celebrating its 50th Christmas season. The project began in 1969 when its founder, Louise Locker, was a 19-year-old sociology student at Trinity University. It was a few days before Christmas, and Locker was listening to talk-show host Johnny Carson read childrens letters to Santa on The Tonight Show. She was inspired and wanted to find a way to make something magical happen, she recalled later. Locker visited a local post office and convinced the postmaster to let her read dozens of letters that kids had written to Santa. One letter in particular stood out: a girl asking Santa for a Christmas tree and a Bible for her mother. Locker selected a handful of letters and took them home to her mother. Together, they gathered items around the house to give to the children. They also approached strangers to solicit toy donations. That first Christmas, they gathered almost 200 presents and delivered them to 65 needy children. Since then, the Elf Louise Christmas Project has grown into a yearlong enterprise that delivers 60,000 gifts to about 20,000 children every December. The organization has roughly 5,000 volunteers and a $316,000 annual budget. Locker, 69, has maintained a large role in the organization, even as she battled breast cancer and recovered from a heart attack. She was also active in planning Sundays event. Because of everything thats happening in the world, people get caught up in that and sometimes see things through a dark lens, Locker said last year. But Ive always asked total strangers to be involved because I believe people want to help. We can all be so unconnected sometimes, and I want people to imagine a world where everyone acts on their goodness. As Sundays event came to a close, it was evident that the Elf Louise Christmas Project had been successful, yet again, in spreading some holiday cheer. Children formed snowballs and played among themselves, many of them wearing red and green Santa or Elf hats. I was a little iffy, with the cold and the rain, one mother said. But Im really glad we came. Emilie Eaton is a criminal justice reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | eeaton@express-news.net | Twitter: @emilieeaton A San Antonio police officer was arrested overnight Saturday and charged with DWI, according to Bexar County booking records. Matthew Mintz, 24, was arrested shortly before 3 a.m. and charged with driving while intoxicated. Carlos Ortiz, a spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department, said in an email that Mintz is a two-year veteran of the department. Officials have not said where the incident occurred but local media report it was in Universal City. Universal City police declined to comment. Mintz will be placed on administrative leave pending an administrative investigation, Ortiz said. Polls are scheduled to be held on December 7 and counting would be held on December 11. Nominations would be accepted from November 12 to 19 while date for scrutiny of papers has been fixed on November 20. Last date for withdrawing nominations is November 22. (Photo: File) Hyderabad: The Election Commission on Monday issued notification for the December 7 election to the Telangana Legislative Assembly. According to the notification, nominations would be accepted from November 12 to 19 while the date for scrutiny of papers has been fixed on November 20. The last date for withdrawing nominations is November 22. Polls are scheduled to be held on December 7 and counting would be held on December 11. According to an earlier communication from the Chief Electoral Officer's office, the total number of voters in Telangana have gone down by nearly nine lakh to 2.73 crore for the Assembly polls. There would be more than 32,574 polling stations in the state and few more may be set up depending on the number of voters. The 119-member Assembly was dissolved on September 6 on the recommendation of the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led government, more than eight months ahead of the expiry of its term. The Election Commission on Friday imposed a near month-long ban on holding exit polls beginning November 12 in the five poll-bound states including Telangana. Caretaker Chief Minister and TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao handed over B-Forms to party's contesting candidates Sunday after a brainstorming session with them. He is expected to file his nomination from Gajwel constituency in Medak district on November 14. "honourable KCR garu giving away the B-form to the mlas of my parliament constituency. We seek the blessings of T-people for the success of all our mlas,"TRS MP and CM's daughter Kavitha tweeted. The TRS has already announced its candidates for 107 segments, including 105 at one go within minutes of the Assembly dissolution, giving it a jump-start to the campaign and stunning the opposition. The main opposition Congress forged an electoral pact with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) headed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, the Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) founded by retired Osmania University Political Science Professor Kodandaram and the Communist Party of India. However the "Grand Alliance" is yet to announce the list of the contesting candidates. BJP had so far announced 66 nominees in two tranches. On this Veterans Day, we look back at rare color photos from World War II, that great struggle our forebearers endured to ensure the future of ours and other nations. The following photos are provided through Getty Images, as well as the Time & Life collection. 'We are quite shocked that former cabinet minister can not be traced by the police for over a month,' SC said. Manju Verma had resigned as the Social Welfare Minister of Bihar in August after her husband, Chandrashekhar Verma came under fire for allegedly having links with Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case. (Photo: File | ANI) New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday asked Bihar Director General of Police (DGP) to appear before it on November 27 and explain why former cabinet minister Manju Verma, accused in Arms Act case, has not been traced. "Fantastic! ex-cabinet minister (Manju Verma) on the run, fantastic. How could it happen that ex-cabinet minister is absconding and nobody knows where she is? You (Bihar government) realise the seriousness of the issue that ex-cabinet minister is not traceable. Its too much," observed Justice Madan B Lokur. "We are quite shocked that former cabinet minister can not be traced by the police for over a month. We would like the police to tell us that how such an important person is not traceable. Director General of Police to appear before us," the apex court said. The Supreme Court has set November 27 as the next date for hearing. On November 1, the Bihar police had issued a non-bailable warrant against Manju Verma after the Supreme Court came down heavily on the state government. Verma had resigned as the Social Welfare Minister of Bihar in August after her husband, Chandrashekhar Verma came under fire for allegedly having links with Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case. The shelter home rape case pertains to the alleged sexual harassment of 44 girls residing at the state-run shelter home. Parents in San Antonio are increasingly exercising their right to choose the best-fit school for their children. In fact, charter schools alone have experienced double-digit growth in enrollment in the last five years, and more than 141,000 Texas students are currently on charter school waitlists. These numbers are no accident. Whether it is in the form of in-district magnet schools, home-schooling, religious, private, early college high schools or charter schools, parents seek out schools that match their hopes and dreams for their children. In a recent article, the superintendents of the Northside and North East independent school districts suggested city and county governments should take action to slow or control charter school expansion. But San Antonio plainly benefits from educational competition. Not only do parents get to choose the school that best fits their students interests, but students across the city experience an education that awakens their passion for learning. As Brooke Lucero, special education teacher at Great Hearts Northern Oaks, says, I love that every Great Hearts teacher is committed to cultivating the hearts and minds of students through truth, goodness and beauty, which helps children become well-rounded and gives them confidence to change the world. At Choose to Succeed, a nonprofit working to attract the nations best public charter schools to San Antonio, we have seen how great charter schools change lives. Schools of choice offer space for future doctors, lawyers, astrophysicists, Broadway stars, authors and web developers to pursue an education that gives them the confidence and skills they need to become world-changers. Competition exists across all industries. In San Antonio, hundreds of Starbucks locations offer the same flavor coffee and a similar experience. Thousands of San Antonians start their day with a Starbucks coffee and are happy with the experience: It is satisfying in a familiar way. But our market also supports hundreds of smaller, artisan shops that serve a variety of coffee. Each shop must define and develop its own identity and must execute at the top of its game to attract and retain customers, especially with Starbucks so visible and familiar in the market. But when these smaller shops create a culture of excellence, they fill a clear market need. Their popularity proves this. Like mom-and-pop coffee shops, charter schools offer an alternative. IDEA Public Schools commits to putting every one of its students on the pathway to college, achieving 100 percent college acceptance. KIPP offers students college-preparatory academics and character development in equal measure. Great Hearts provides students with a classical education rooted in the great works of human history. BASIS schools offer a college-preparatory, AP-for-all-students model, where students take the most rigorous courses available, taught by subject experts. At Compass Rose Academy, students build entrepreneurial businesses while taking college-preparatory, liberal arts classes. The School of Science and Technology expose its students to the vast depth of study they can explore across scientific disciplines. And Promesa Academy focuses on world studies as early as kindergarten to build worldly learners and leaders. These school models add much-needed flavor to our school system, and the increasing enrollment numbers prove parents are hungry for the alternatives they provide. We believe school choice is good for San Antonio, and we welcome a productive conversation on how to work together. But the conversation must be had in good faith. Parents seek out charter schools because they are unhappy with their local district. When superintendents and other executives point to charters as the biggest problem these school systems face, they expose the real problem at ISDs a refusal to look inward to fix what is driving families away. At Choose to Succeed, we believe families should make decisions for themselves. Charter school oversight is the responsibility of the state of Texas, not the City Council. Pitting one school concept against another will only undermine our collective efforts to educate our children. Chip Haass is CEO of Choose to Succeed. Cllr Joe Flaherty has met with representatives from the Brothers of Charity in Roscommon who are spearheading a regional campaign to encourage local authorities and business owners to support the Changing Places initiative. The group visited Longford over the weekend and briefed Cllr Flaherty on the national campaign. Backed by Inclusion Ireland the Changing Places initiative seeks to secure fully accessible toilet and changing facilities for people with disabilities and who may need extra support to use these facilities. At the moment there are only seven such facilities in Ireland with six in Dublin and one in Limerick, said Cllr Flaherty as he welcomed the news that Center Parcs will be only the second centre outside of Dublin to host one of the facilities. Changing Places facilities include additional equipment which offer extra support to people with a range of disabilities so that they can avail of changing facilities with great dignity and respect. Without Changing Places, people with disabilities have to be changed on cold, wet or dirty floors or they avoid going out altogether. The Longford councillor said he was delighted to meet the group and praised them for their enthusiasm. They now plan to meet representatives from Westmeath and Roscommon Co Councils. Obviously the group has links with St Christopher's here in Longford and I do believe that the local authority needs to take the lead on this and with plans for the new library building in Edgeworthstown evolving I will be proposing that this project includes a Changing Places facility, he continued, before pointing out that the group briefed him on the challenges that people with disabilities face in their day to day activities. They also explained to me that any plans for outings or events have to take account of access to changing rooms and accessible bathrooms. We need to be reducing any impediments for the disabled when it comes to participation and I will be encouraging any developers locally to consider incorporating a Changing Places facility from the outset as it will be much cheaper than retrofitting it at a later date. That is a very exciting project and it would be a huge plus if the developers were to consider a Changing Places facility. Read Also: Social Democrats candidate announced for Longford/Westmeath Reddy, who was allegedly on the run ever since news of the scam broke out, had reached the CCB office Saturday noon where he was grilled. Bengaluru: Former Karnataka BJP minister and mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy was arrested by the Central Crime Branch police here on Sunday in a money-laundering and bribery case in which he is accused of demanding a bribe to bail out the owners of Ambidant Marketing Pvt Ltd, an investment company facing an Enforcement Directorate inquiry. Ambidant allegedly duped over 15,000 customers of over Rs 900 crores in a ponzi scam. Reddy was produced before the 6th additional chief metropolitan magistrates court, which remanded him to judicial custody till November 24. He is currently lodged at the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison here. Reddy, who was allegedly on the run ever since news of the scam broke out, had reached the CCB office Saturday noon where he was grilled. On Sunday morning, additional commissioner of police (crime) Alok Kumar announced Reddys arrest and said: We have taken the decision to arrest him on the basis of credible evidence and the statements of witnesses. We are going to recover the money and give it back to investors. Reddy has been booked under Sections 204 (destruction of evidence). 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and many sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. He was accused of demanding 57 kg of gold worth Rs 18 crores from Ambidants owner Syed Fareed Ahmed to save him from the EDs clutches. Fareed, who is on bail, revealed to the police how the deal was struck and the gold handed over to Reddy. Sources said during the investigation, it came to light that Fareed met Reddy through his close aide, Mehfuz Ali Khan, and struck a deal. Reddy allegedly demanded 57 kg of gold as a bribe through a jeweller. Ambidant allegedly paid Rs 18 crores to Ramesh Kothari of Ambika Jewellers in Bengaluru, who handed over 57 kg of gold to jeweller Ramesh of Raj Mahal Fancy Jewellers in Ballari. From Ramesh, Khan collected the gold for Reddy. Khan was also summoned by the CCB for questioning. However, Reddy has denied the allegations and any involvement in the affairs of Ambidant, while asserting he was being framed. Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases, Seasonal & Current Events By Long Island News & PR Published: November 12 2018 An emotional Vietnam Veteran and Wreaths Across America volunteer about to lay a memorial wreath upon a grave at Long Island National Cemetery in Farmingdale. Farmingdale, NY - November 12, 2018 - For the many different men and women in uniform who have given their lives in service to their country over the years, the one thing that share in common is the hope that their individual sacrifices will be remembered. And every year, For the many different men and women in uniform who have given their lives in service to their country over the years, the one thing that share in common is the hope that their individual sacrifices will be remembered. And every year, a group of dedicated national volunteers participate in Wreaths Across America to make sure that they are. Volunteers distributing memorial wreaths. Photo Credit: Wreaths Across America Rathsam notes that Wreaths Across America started approximately 26 years ago in 1992, when the Maine-based Morrill Worcester wreath company had a surplus of leftover inventory one year and decided to offer it to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The administrators of Arlington readily agreed to the donation totaling approximately 5,000 wreaths and a photo of the wreaths being laid at the military graves at Arlington at soon inspired a nationwide response, Rathsam said. Wreaths Across America has a motto: remember our fallen, honor those who served, and teach the children the value of freedom. One day every year, we visit cemeteries throughout the United States and place the wreaths that we get through donations only upon the graves of our fallen, he said. On Long Island, myself and my fellow volunteers place the wreaths on the graves at Long Island National Cemetery. Every year we try to spread the word to the people of Long Island...we want to teach everybody about this event. Wreaths Across America is entirely volunteer-driven; last year, Rathsam said, the Long Island chapter had about 850 people pitching in to help distribute over 45,000 wreaths at Long Island National Cemetery, and is still actively seeking donations in order to achieve that number this year. A volunteer dutifully depositing a memorial wreaths upon the gravess of the fallen. Photo Credit: Wreaths Across America However, Wreaths Across America is about more than just placing a wreath upon the grave of a random military man or woman; there's a high degree of honor and respect involved, with the volunteer involved invoking the name of each and every individual whose wreath they lay, Rathsam said. When they put the wreath down, they will say the name of the veteran so that they're not forgotten, he said. There's a saying: the veteran dies for the first time when he physically dies, and again the last time his name is ever mentioned. This is not some cookie-cutter project where we just throw down wreathsit's to honor and remember what are veterans have done for us. Rathsam noted that participating in Wreaths Across America has gotten him up close and personal with many families of departed veterans, both young and old, and the experience is always deeply affecting to him. There are younger veterans at Long Island National Cemetery who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in their twenties, he said. We meet their parents, numerous Gold Star mothers and fathers, and to know that their loved ones are never coming home...it's heartbreaking. Every year, the volunteers receive deliveries of wreaths purchased through donations, in addition to a list of veterans graves to place the wreaths upon. If family members of service members are not able to attend the event, specific requests can be made of volunteers to visit the graves of their loved ones in their place. Long Island National Cemetery in Farmingdale, one of the largest resting places for our dearly departed military men and women in the entire country. Photo Credit: Wreaths Across America Rathsam said that he first heard about Wreaths Across America back in 2007, and contacted the organization to see if there was any way he could get involved. Upon finding out that the program was in need of volunteers in order to expand it to Long Island National Cemetery, Rathsam offered his services, and has been a steadfast location coordinator of the event ever since. While Rathsam himself is not a veteran, he currently has a son serving as a U.S. Marine, having joined the Corps in 2017. In addition, his grandfather's brother was killed fighting in World War I - in fact, Veterans of Foreign Wars #1305 in Mineola is named in his honor - and as a result his family has always been heavily involved in the VFW and its activities throughout the years. While I was growing up, the military has always been close to my heart, so to speak, so when I had a chance to do something for our men and women in uniform, I jumped at the opportunity, he said. The annual Wreaths Across America event normally takes place on a designated Saturday in December every year; in 2018, the event will take place on December 15th nationwide , as officially decreed by an act of Congress. Last year, about 850 people pitched in to help distribute over 45,000 wreaths at Long Island National Cemetery. Photo Credit: Wreaths Across America The two things Wreaths Across America needs in order to succeed are donations and dedicated volunteers of any age who are willing to hike around the massive Long Island National Cemetery to honor our departed veterans; a scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 601 in Farmingdale, Rathsam said that his scouts are avid participants in the event every year. Rathsam noted that being able to honor the veterans who have made the ultimate sacrifice to safeguard the freedoms that we all hold so dearly has meant a great deal to him. It's so inspiring...I've met veterans from World War II, including a 92 year-old Navy sailor and a father whose son was killed the second year we were doing this, he said. And to talk with them and hear their pain and their grief directly, and to see that the veterans that are older understand that we haven't forgotten about them, even though they fought for us 40, 50, 60 years ago...it really hits home to see how much they appreciate what we do. "Remember our fallen, honor those who served, and teach the children the value of freedom." Photo Credit: Wreaths Across America Esta entrada tambien esta disponible en: Espanol I have a quick story about this Pinto Bean Soup, or, as we call it in Mexico, Sopa Tarasca. My cousin visited the State of Michoacan, Mexico, with his kids, and he introduced them to this delicious, local favorite. They loved it so much, over the next few days, the kids would order Sopa Tarasca in every restaurant they went to. In partnership with Mirum, Knorr and Unified Grocers. Later in their trip, when they continued their travels to another Mexican State, the kids wanted their daily bowl of their favorite Pinto Bean soup. As they scanned the menu of the first restaurant in the new State, they became more and more frantic when they couldnt find it. They couldnt believe their favorite soup wasnt available in every restaurant in Mexico! I hope that gives you an idea of just how delicious it is. Our family loves Sopa Tarasca, we love cutting the tortillas strips, roasting the vegetables, and everything about it. Most of all, when we prepare it together in the kitchen, we love retelling that story and laughing about it every time. A Mexican Staple You probably already know that if you look into any Mexican kitchen, there are certain staple ingredients you will likely always find there. Beans, tomatoes, chiles, limes, onions, corn tortillas, queso fresco, and Knorr Bouillon, just to name a few. In this recipe, I used the New Knorr Selects Granulated Chicken Flavor Bouillon. Im pleased to let you know its made with natural chicken stock and contains zero artificial flavors or colors, preservatives or added MSG. So you can add the rich authentic Latino flavor of Knorr to all of your dishes, now with ingredients you can feel better about. While at the market, I saw they offer Knorr Selects Beef Granulated Bouillon, Knorr Selects Vegetable Granulated Bouillon, and Knorr Selects Granulated Tomato Bouillon with Chicken Flavor as well, so you can find the exact one thats perfect for enhancing the flavor in any recipe, including chicken dishes, soups, stews, sauces, rice, mole, vegetables and pasta. I got mine at the Northgate market in Culver City, California, so I know you can find yours there, too, or at any of the other Unified Grocers stores near you like Cardenas, Superior, El Super, and Super King. If you make your own pinto bean soup, be sure to snap a photo and share it with us on social media using the #mamalatinatips hashtag. Id love to see it and have a chance to share it as well. Pinto Bean Soup Sopa Tarasca Prep time: 10 minutes Start to finish 45 minutes Makes 4 cups Ingredients For the Soup 3 Roma tomatoes 1/4 medium white onion 1 garlic clove 2 chile ancho peppers (dry black chiles, see picture), divided 4 teaspoons Knorr Selects Chicken Flavor Bouillon 3 cups water, divided 1/2 cup canola oil, divided 1 bay leaf 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 2 cups cooked pinto beans, unsalted For Garnish Queso fresco, in small cubes 8 tortillas cut into thin strips 1 avocado, cut in small cubes Sour cream to taste Roast tomatoes, onion and garlic on top of a comal, or pan. You can also roast them in the oven. Turn them as they roast. This will take approximately 15-18 minutes. With kitchen scissors, cut 1/4 of one of the chiles anchos and place it with the roasting tomatoes. Keep cutting the chiles in thin slices, set aside. Place roasted tomatoes, onion, garlic and the roasted piece of chile ancho pepper in a blender. Add Knorr Selects Chicken Flavor Bouillon and one cup of water. Mix well. In a pot or dutch oven heat up one tablespoon of the oil, strain the tomato sauce into the hot oil. Lower the temperature, cover and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Next, blend pinto beans with the remaining 2 cups of water and pour into the tomato sauce. Add bay leaf and black pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the temperature to medium high, cover and cook for 15 minutes. Taste for salt. While soup is cooking, pour the rest of the canola oil in a warm pan over high heat. Carefully add the strips of chile ancho and as soon as they hit the oil, remove them from it. (yes, its that fast, if you dont remove them quickly they will become bitter). Next, carefully place 1/3 of the tortilla strips in the hot oil and fry until crunchy, dont take your eyes off them, they can burn really easily. Repeat with the other two-thirds of the tortillas strips. Set aside. Serve the soup, garnished with cheese, tortilla strips, avocado, a piece of the fried chile ancho and sour cream to taste. Which recipes do your family love best? Let me know in the comments and be sure to try this Knorr Chicken Taco recipe for even more #KnorrSabor inspiration! Buen provecho! Print the Pinto Bean Soup Recipe Pin Recipe Pin Recipe Print Recipe 5 from 12 votes Pinto Bean Soup Sopa Tarasca This delightful, classic, Mexican pinto bean soup, Sopa Tarasca, satisfies with its silky texture. Served with queso fresco, cream, tortilla strips & chile ancho. Prep Time 10 mins Cook Time 35 mins Total Time 45 mins Servings: 4 cups Calories: 373 kcal Ingredients For the Soup 3 Roma tomatoes 1/4 medium white onion 1 garlic clove 2 chile ancho peppers dry black chiles, see picture, divided 4 teaspoons Knorr Selects Chicken Flavor Bouillon 3 cups water divided 1/2 cup canola oil divided 1 bay leaf 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 2 cups cooked pinto beans unsalted For Garnish 10 oz queso fresco in small cubes 8 tortillas cut into thin strips 1 avocado cut in small cubes Sour cream to taste Instructions Roast tomatoes, onion and garlic on top of a comal, or pan. You can also roast them in the oven. Turn them as they roast. This will take approximately 15-18 minutes. With kitchen scissors, cut 1/4 of one of the chiles anchos and place it with the roasting tomatoes. Keep cutting the chiles in thin slices, set aside. Place roasted tomatoes, onion, garlic and the roasted piece of chile ancho pepper in a blender. Add Knorr Selects Chicken Flavor Bouillon and one cup of water. Mix well. In a pot or dutch oven heat up one tablespoon of the oil, strain the tomato sauce into the hot oil. Lower the temperature, cover and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Next, blend pinto beans with the remaining 2 cups of water and pour into the tomato sauce. Add bay leaf and black pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the temperature to medium high, cover and cook for 15 minutes. Taste for salt. While soup is cooking, pour the rest of the canola oil in a warm pan over high heat. Carefully add the strips of chile ancho and as soon as they hit the oil, remove them from it. (yes, its that fast, if you dont remove them quickly they will become bitter). Next, carefully place 1/3 of the tortilla strips in the hot oil and fry until crunchy, dont take your eyes of them, they can burn really easily. Repeat with the other two thirds of the tortillas strips. Set aside. Serve the soup, garnished with cheese, tortilla strips, avocado, a piece of the fried chile ancho and sour cream to taste. Nutrition Nutrition Facts Pinto Bean Soup Sopa Tarasca Amount Per Serving Calories 373 Calories from Fat 117 % Daily Value* Fat 13g 20% Saturated Fat 2g 13% Sodium 1310mg 57% Potassium 897mg 26% Carbohydrates 56g 19% Fiber 11g 46% Sugar 5g 6% Protein 11g 22% Vitamin A 2461IU 49% Vitamin C 13mg 16% Calcium 120mg 12% Iron 4mg 22% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Author: Silvia Did you make this recipe? Tag @mamalatina on Instagram and hashtag it #mamalatinatips Enjoy! Sharing is caring! The law also enshrines Jerusalem as the capital and Hebrew as its state language, leaving Arabic with a mere special status. The consequences and controversies generated after the Jewish Nation State Bill passed in July this year are gaining momentum with every passing day. Israels recent move to demolish the Bedouins Khan al-Ahmar village by October 1 in the occupied West Bank had drawn international concern. Amid worldwide pressure from the United Nations and the European Union member states, the Benjamin Netanyahu government put a temporary hold on plans to evacuate and raze it. Despite foreign pressure, Israel has been imposing one decision after another, passing new bills on its way to becoming a full-fledged Jewish state. However, this time around, foreign pressure escalated after the International Criminal Court prosecutor termed the Khan al-Ahmar population transfers in the occupied territories as war crimes. Though it offered temporary relief for the Bedouin population, the statement by the Israeli PM that the demolition would not be delayed indefinitely remains a big challenge for international organisations. The Nation State Bill, which was passed after a stormy debate in the Knesset, officially defines Israel as the national homeland for the Jewish people and asserts that the realisation of the right to national self-determination is unique to the Jewish citizen. The law also enshrines Jerusalem as the capital and Hebrew as its state language, leaving Arabic with a mere special status. After the new law comes into effect, the state will provide special safety for Jewish people in trouble, or to protect their identity. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed this bill as historic, it has been termed apartheid by Arab lawmakers. It is true that the bill could get the support of 62 members of the Knesset, but the fact cannot be denied that the new law is tailormade for Jewish supremacy, leaving Arabs as second-class citizens. This decision has sparked outrage not only from the Arab community in Israel, but has also provoked concerns from the international community. The European Union, the Muslim world and all Arab nations collectively have opposed this bill, as it leads to discrimination against Arabs and other minorities. Condemning this development, the Turkish government termed it as disregarding to the Palestinian citizen in Israel as it gives right to self determination only to the Jewish people. Thus, ignoring the 21 per cent of Arabs in the country, the new law is also against the spirit of democratic Israel which promises to treat all its citizens with equal political and social rights. Equality and minority rights were the integral parts of Israels Declaration of Independence in 1948, stating that Israel will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture. But Mr Netanyahus new law will only protect the rights of Jews, leaving out all other communities. It is unfortunate that the democratically enforced law is being used to abuse the largest minority group. It is important to note that Israelis and Palestinians have been going at each other for almost seven decades. Hence, the new legislation would definitely complicate the ongoing conflict between these two people. It is clear that the right-wing government under Mr Netanyahu has taken a series of non-rational and non-constitutional decisions since it came into power. These decisions have adversely impacted the Arab countries. It is equally important to note that US President Donald Trump has always been supportive of Israel. In December last year, the US President announced the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Though it was rejected by a majority of world leaders and the United Nations Security Council, that motion was vetoed by the United States. In May this year, the Trump administration officially opened its embassy in Jerusalem. This decision of the US also sparked deadly protests and worldwide criticism. Getting military, financial and political support from the US, Israel has remained its favourite among all other nations. The US used its veto power 42 times of a total 83 with respect to resolutions related to Israel. Statistics say that between 1991 and 2011, out of 24 vetoes in total, 15 were used to protect Israel alone. So, the stand of the US in matters related to Palestine and Israel is very clear. After winning 24 per cent of the Jewish votes in the US election, President Trump has fulfilled his campaign pledge and is upending the status quo in West Asia. David Friedman, who supports the West Bank settlement construction, was appointed as the US ambassador to Israel. Many of the Presidents key advisers, including his son-in law Jared Kushner, are Jewish. They have been shaping policies favouring Israeli interests. The US government has already announced a funding cut for the Palestinian authorities, while it continues to pay the salaries of prisoners and the families of those killed by Israel. After the US withdrew hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, a total of 250 employees in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip are expected to lose their jobs. As the Palestine-Israel crisis is a critical and sensitive one, former US Presidents like Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama are staying neutral. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem has been promised repeatedly by all of them, but having realised its complexity, they had opted to escape from this promise. As Israelis and Palestinians have been denying each others claims in the city, it remained at the centre of controversy for decades. The Temple Mount to Jews and Haram al Sharif to Arabs are both key religious identities of the city. The Al Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest site for Islam. The areas of Jerusalem annexed by Israel in the 1967 war have been points of conflict since then. Palestinians view East Jerusalem as an occupied territory, and have been claiming it for their capital. Acts like banning Palestinian entry into the mosque, firing teargas shells and stun grenades at worshippers, and raids on the mosque by the Israeli forces have become routine. The UN Security Councils Resolution 2334, which concerns Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, states that the Israeli settlements are a violation of international law. Violating such regulations by top international organisations, Israel passed a new Settlement Bill last year, which legalises Israeli settlement homes on private Palestinian land in the West Bank. While it is true that the Palestinian movement has of late weakened, many West Asian countries seem concerned about it. But their efforts could not bring real change on the ground. Iran, Turkey and others have registered their protests on every possible occasion. Many worldwide conferences and seminars have been organised to show solidarity with the Palestinians, but the unmatched leadership of Yasser Arafat is missing. There was a time when this movement had the support of leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser, Zhou Enlai, Marshal Tito, Kwame Nkrumah and Indias Jawaharlal Nehru. It is significant to mention that India was the first non-Arab country to recognise and establish diplomatic relations with Palestine. As far as the solution to this crisis is concerned, most world leaders stand in solidarity with the Palestinians and support the two-nation agenda. It is therefore high time for the United Nations and other world forums to check the forceful and arbitrary acts of Israel, and establish peace in the region. The solution to this long-pending issue will not only bring peace in the Israeli and Palestinian lands, but also provide justice to millions of people stranded in this quagmire. The writer is a senior leader of the Janata Dal (United) Coming just one year after the mighty events of Red October in Russia, power was taken into the hands of the masses. Yet the socialist revolution ultimately failed. The consequences of that failure would be most brutally felt over a decade later with the rise of fascism in Germany and the consolidation of Stalinism in Russia. The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution, remarked Lloyd George to the French Premier Clemenceau in March 1919. The ending of the bloody conflict of the so-called Great War of 1914-18 coincided with (and was in effect brought about by) the German Revolution of November 1918. Why did the revolution occur and why did it fail? Rob Sewell, author of an important new Marxist analysis of this dramatic historical period, Germany 1918 - 1933: Socialism or Barbarism (available through Wellred books) provides an answer to these important questions as we mark the centenary of the 1918 German Revolution. The date of the German Revolution is normally given as 9th November 1918. But the real impetus had begun on 3rd November, when workers and sailors mutinied at Kiel. Jan Valtin, a member of the Spartacist League of Youth, relates what happened: That night I saw the mutinous sailors roll in to Bremen in caravans of commandeered trucks - red flags and machine guns mounted on the trucks The population was in the streets. From all sides masses of humanity, a sea of swinging, pushing bodies and distorted faces was moving toward the centre of the town. Many of the workers were armed with guns, with bayonets, with hammers. On their own initiative, the revolutionaries established a Workers and Sailors Council, which took control of the town. That night, workers and sailors carrying torches swept through the narrow streets singing the Internationale and meeting with no resistance. The following day, power was firmly in the hands of the workers in this naval stronghold. On 4th November, the flames of revolution continued to spread, characterised by red flags flying over official Imperial buildings. On 6th November, Sailors, Soldiers and Workers Councils took power in Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck. On 7th and 8th November, Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz, Magdeburg, Brunswick, Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Munich all followed suit. However, it was not until 9th November, the official date of the revolution, that Workers and Soldiers Councils were established in Berlin, the capital, at none other than the Supreme Army headquarters! Soviets spread The liberal cabinet of Prince von Baden had met in emergency session on 7th November, with the SPD ministers increasingly shocked by the spread of so-called anarchy. We have done all we can to keep the masses on the halter, stated SDP leader Scheidemann. But far more was needed to subdue the revolution and these leaders proved to be willing and obedient tools. With the collapse of the old state apparatus, power had fallen into the hands of the armed workers, sailors and soldiers. As in Russia in 1905 and 1917, the masses set up workers councils or soviets, the embryos of workers power. The councils or soviets were the most flexible and democratic system ever devised. They were elected not on the basis of geographical constituencies, but in factories, offices, farms and other places of work. Events were moving very quickly and a situation of dual power coloured everything. Not a wheel turned, not a whistle blew, without the workers say-so. The revolution was like a strike, but on a massive scale. In Berlin, new revolutionary committees were being set up. A Berlin Executive Committee of Workers and Soldiers Councils had been established which acted as a national centre for the councils that had been established throughout the country. In the absence of any elected parliament or assembly, this body was the most representative national body in existence. Kaiser flees The old order was at an end. Everywhere the imperial flags were being pulled down and replaced with red flags. Events moved quickly as the Hohenzollern dynasty followed the Romanovs into oblivion. Kaiser Wilhelm II, Emperor of all Germany, was forced to abandon his Royal palace at Potsdam and the question of his abdication was on everyones lips. Wilhelm had been reluctant to abandon his throne. But Prince Max von Baden, appointed by Wilhelm, announced the Kaisers demise without the decency of telling him. Then von Baden approached Ebert, the Social Democrat, and asked: If I should succeed in persuading the Kaiser [to abdicate], do I have you on my side in the battle against the social revolution? Ebert replied: If the Kaiser does not abdicate the social revolution is inevitable. I do not want it - in fact I hate it like sin. The armed mass demonstrations in Berlin terrified von Baden so much that he decided to tender his resignation as Chancellor with immediate effect and hand over the reins of government to the right-wing Social Democrats. But before departing, he pondered the options: The revolution is on the verge of winning. We cannot crush it but perhaps we can strangle it if Ebert is presented to me from the streets as the peoples leader, then we will have a republic; if it is Liebknecht, then Bolshevism. The power vacuum had to be filled urgently with a safe pair of reformist hands. The Social Democratic leaders were thus thrust into power. Ebert began to piece together a new government. He was astute enough to realise that he needed a left cover if he was to succeed and therefore invited the Independent Social Democratic Party to join it. An all-socialist government would be formed, hoping it would be enough to stem the tide of revolution. Eberts first act as Chancellor was an appeal for calm: Fellow Citizens! I beg of you, leave the streets. A city of law and order! But the masses did not stay away from the streets. On the contrary, after the factories had been saturated with leaflets calling for an insurrection, workers began marching to the centre of Berlin. Revolutionary tide Karl Liebknecht - Berlin 1918Scheidemann, the Majority Socialist vice-Chancellor, heard loud cries from the enormous crowds outside the Reichstag building. I saw the Russian madness before me, the replacement of the Tsarist terror by the Bolshevist one. No! Not in Germany. From the balcony, he announced the news that Ebert had now agreed to become Chancellor of a socialist government. Long live the German Republic!, he proclaimed. Karl Liebknecht then climbed onto the Reichstag balcony and made a proclamation on behalf of the Spartacist League (the main Marxist group in Germany at the time), which ended with the call for a German Socialist Republic: We now have to strain our strength to construct the workers and soldiers government and a new proletarian state, a state of peace, joy and freedom for our German brothers throughout the whole world. We stretch out our hands to them, and call on them to carry to completion the world revolution. Those of you who want to see the free German Socialist Republic and German Revolution, raise your hands! Amongst the assembled masses, a sea of hands was raised in favour of revolution. Shortly afterwards, a symbolic red flag was hoisted on the Emperors flagpole. Ebert was furious when he heard that Scheidemann had proclaimed the Republic. You have no right to proclaim the Republic!, he shouted. The revolutionary tide was sweeping aside all before it and the proletariat was on the move. In Berlin, the jails were thrown open and hundreds of prisoners were set free, including Leo Jogiches, the Spartacist organiser. Another, Rosa Luxemburg, was also released from Breslau prison. On that day, the Reichstag building surrendered without a shot being fired. If the masses had wanted to, they could have taken power peacefully at this time, but they lacked a revolutionary leadership. Workers power Berlin Soviet 1918The revolutionary fervour gripping the masses increased, despite the appeals of the Social Democratic leaders. The revolution had conquered the streets and workers and soldiers could feel the potential power in their hands. However, in the vast majority of cases, the revolutionary workers looked to the leaders of their traditional parties, the SPD and USPD, for a way forward. On 10th November, a meeting of the Berlin Workers and Soldiers Council, in the presence of 3,000 delegates, officially proclaimed itself the representative of the revolutionary people. Furthermore, it took the decision to appoint a Council of Peoples Commissars under the control of the Executive Council. However, the only problem was that Ebert had already been appointed the head of the Imperial government by Prince von Baden the previous day. In addition, the Majority Socialists vehemently rejected any suggestion that they should be accountable to the Council's Executive Committee. However, the leaders of the SPD and the USPD had come to an agreement to set up a six-member cabinet, which adopted the name Council of Peoples Representatives. This was then ratified by the Berlin Workers and Soldiers Council. For the Workers Councils, it was their socialist government, appointed by them. But rather than purge the civil service, the government chose to rely on the discredited bureaucratic apparatus of Prince Max von Baden. Given the impact of the revolution, the government tried to balance between these competing forces. It simultaneously rested on the apparatus of the old ruling class but it also had to take account of the power of the Workers Councils. This peculiar development was a direct product of the dual power situation existing in the country. Social Democrats Ebert - 1918On 12 November, the new government issued a proclamation addressed to the German people setting itself the task of putting into effect the socialist programme. The German bosses had no other choice but to make concessions - despite their previous opposition - as a result of the pressure of the revolution. This included the right of assembly, freedom of expression, abolition of censorship, amnesty for political offences, provisions to protect labour and other reforms. Above all, it stipulated that a maximum working day of eight hours will enter into force on 1 January 1919. While the socialist unity government of Ebert talked in radical terms, even promising socialisation of certain industries, its aim was not the overthrow of German landlordism and capitalism but the introduction of measures to stabilise the situation. Nobody could deny these were important gains, but militarism had not been eradicated and the power of the old regime was still in place. Despite this, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg demanded the completion of the revolution and the establishment of a German Workers Republic, but they were in a minority. The right-wing Social Democrats increasingly acted as a mouthpiece of law and order, behind which stood the capitalists and the military chiefs. They were willing collaborators with the most reactionary sections of society, irrespective of the bloodshed, to achieve this aim. However, Ebert understood very well that the government could not use these forces immediately. They had to wait. Most ordinary Social Democratic members had no trust in the General Staff and were in favour of some kind of peoples army. This was especially the case with the soldiers councils. Of course, this was anathema to the generals. As the Quartermaster General Groener later revealed: We made an alliance against Bolshevism There existed no other party which had enough influence upon the masses to enable the re-establishment of a governmental power with the help of the army. Behind Ebert stood the old order masquerading as democrats, and behind them stood the Freikorps, the reactionary dregs of society. On 16th December, the National Congress of the Workers and Soldiers Councils was held in Berlin. However, the domination of the SDP elements proved decisive. After a heated debate, the Congress came out strongly in support of the calling of a National Assembly. This was a blow to the revolutionaries. It now looked as if the revolution was slipping through their fingers. Spartacist Paul Frolich said that, compared to inside the Congress, the social reality outside the Congress doors was very different. It reflected the fact that the capital was politically more advanced than the provinces, while the provinces provided a counterweight to the feelings of Red Berlin, where the USPD had influence. It also reflected the weight of the more conservative soldier representatives, compared to those from the factories. The mass demonstration which converged on the Congress demanded, among other things, the democratic transformation of the army. As a result, the Congress supported a bill of rights for democratising the military. It demanded: (1) the abolition of the standing army and the establishment of a peoples militia, (2) that all badges of rank be removed, (3) that all soldiers be allowed to elect their officers with immediate right of recall, and furthermore (4) soldiers councils would be responsible for the maintenance of discipline throughout the armed forces. The SPD ministers, led by Ebert, were faced with an officers revolt. As expected, the Social Democrats capitulated and set out to establish even closer links with the German High Command. To further this relationship, they flagrantly defied the demands and decisions of the Congress. After the first flush of the November Revolution, the German High Command, in connivance with Ebert, made plans to occupy Berlin with a number of hand-picked divisions of loyal troops to establish a reliable and firm government. Attempted coup Christmas crisis - 1918An attempted military coup took place on 6th December, when reactionary troops marched on the Chancellery, proclaiming Ebert as President. Groeners troops - the shock troops of the counter-revolution - began to arrive in the capital and were greeted by Ebert. It was hoped he would restore order. But within a short space of time, things began to unravel. The ordinary soldiers began to fraternise with the radicalised Berlin workers. The troops had become totally unreliable, which destroyed any plans to impose a dictatorship. Following on from the failed coup of 6th December, the military leaders, in league with the Chancellor, once more decided to assert themselves. The pretext for this intervention came on 23rd and 24th December, when open clashes occurred between regular army troops and rebel sailors of the Peoples Naval Division. The Division were stationed at the Imperial Palace, in the centre of Berlin. The government clearly saw them as a threat to their authority. Following a government provocation, the angry sailors broke into the Command Headquarters, seized the Chief of Command, Otto Wels, and demanded he sign a document stating the division would not be transferred. But Wels refused and was held hostage by the marines. On the pretext of releasing Wels, Ebert ordered government troops under General Lequis to intervene using force. But many soldiers refused to obey their officers and the assault came to a chaotic end. Counter-revolution The outrage over this attack had serious political repercussions. On 29th December 1918, the left-wing USPD ministers resigned from the government in protest at this bloodbath. This represented a deep governmental crisis. The right-wing Social Democrats now took full responsibility for pursuing the course of counter-revolution. Towards the end of December, an alliance of monarchists and counter-revolutionary elements of various descriptions (together with the SPD leaders), conducted a vicious witch-hunt against the Spartacist League, the representatives of German Bolshevism. A murderous atmosphere was being deliberately fostered against Liebknecht and Luxemburg, regarded as the leaders of the revolutionary movement. It was the equivalent of the July Days in Russia. Many politically backward and reactionary layers were consciously worked up into a state of hysteria about the Spartacists, who were falsely accused of plunging the country into chaos. This was to result, with the connivance of the SDP leaders, in the tragic murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on 15 January 1919. This opened a new stage in the German Revolution. PORTLAND -- Boston Celtics big man Daniel Theis was upgraded to probable against the Portland Trail Blazers, according to the team. Theis was declared out indefinitely 15 days prior with a tear in his right plantar fascia, but both Theis and Brad Stevens told reporters the injury -- and the indefinite return -- sounded worse than the prognosis. "Everybody knows their body and when something is wrong you know it," Theis said on Oct. 30. "The night was tough, but the next day the doc called me and said partial tear, it was really lucky, not long, so I was really relieved." Theis was expected to be in a boot for two weeks, but he was out of his boot and shooting flat-footed jumpers after the Celtics practiced on Tuesday in Phoenix. On Friday, his jumper was getting a little lift as he took shots from both inside and outside the arc. "This time it's going to be way shorter than the knee," Theis, who tore his meniscus in March, said on Oct. 30. "The knee was a long process." That statement might be prophetic if he returns against the Trail Blazers. Fifty years ago, this week, parents and the Brightwood Community Council threatened a boycott of Chestnut Junior High School by the end of the month if their demands for the bussing of students were not met. Construction of Interstate 91 and a broken footbridge on Abbe Avenue made walking to school dangerous for many students in the community. From the November 15, 1968 edition of The Springfield Union Ten years later, a report that the federal government planned to spend $1 billion on evacuation plans in case of a nuclear war. Western Mass. residents were expected to drive to Vermont with three days of food and clothing. Their expected stay in Vermont was for two weeks. From the November 15, 1978 edition of The Morning Union And back in 1968, the new "Snoopy" balloon was tried out at the Goodyear factory in Akron, Ohio. The 50-foot-tall balloon was going to join eight others in that year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City. From the November 17, 1968 edition of The Springfield Union These are some of the headlines you'll see from Page 1 of The Republican and its predecessors over the past fifty years for the week of November 11 - November 17. Each week I'll put together a slideshow of Page 1 images from selected years over the course of that week. We're starting with a look back at one, five, thirty, forty and fifty years ago, with Page 1s from each day of the week for those years. The slideshow for November 11 - November 17 is embedded at the top of this article. We'll also find some humor printed out on page one over the years. In 1968 'Dennis The Menace' could be found on the bottom of page one six days a week. From the November 14, 1968 edition of The Springfield Union Back in 1978, this week, President Jimmy Carter sent a letter of commendation to the city of Springfield for its revitalization plan. The plan was presented in a news magazine format titled 'Time for Springfield.' From the November 12, 1978 edition of The Morning Union And five years ago, this week, owners of the Plantation Inn in Chicopee were selling their business along with the 30-foot-tall. Plantation Man sculpture. The sculpture, located at the exit 6 ramp of the MassPike, had been moved to the location in 1999 from a car dealership. From the November 14, 2013 edition of The Republican As you'll find with looking through the slideshow, that while many stories come and go, many of the issues and topics that affected lives in the past, continue to have an impact on our lives today. Copies of these and other stories can be found in the online archives. The Historic Archive includes stories from 1824 to 1989, and the Newsbank Archive covers 1988 through the present day. The Boston Fire Department lost two veteran members over the holiday weekend due to cancer and illness. On Saturday night, Boston Firefighter Jamie Galarza Jr., who worked on active duty with the city's Fire Investigation Unit, died at the age of 54 due to occupational cancer. Galarza served the Boston Fire Department for 31 years. He leaves behind his wife, Regina, and four children, according to the BFD. On Sunday, the department announced another sudden loss: Lieutenant Richard Steiner died after being rushed to the hospital after "becoming ill" Sunday morning, Boston Fire announced. Steiner was also an active-duty member of the department, and served the city for 32 years. He leaves behind a wife, Anne, and three children, according to the BFD. Last night we lost active duty Firefighter Jamie Galarza, Jr. of the Fire Investigation Unit to occupational cancer. Jamie was 54 years old and a 31 year member of the department. Condolences to his wife Regina and his 4 children. pic.twitter.com/XjGj71CySC Boston Fire Dept. (@BostonFire) November 11, 2018 New Bedford police are investigating the shooting death of a 23-year-old New Bedford man Sunday morning, the Boston Globe is reported. The Bristol County District Attorney's Office said Reynaldo Pena was found by officers lying in the street near the 800 block of Shawmut Street at about 2:19 a.m. He had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Pena was initially transported to St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford but was transferred to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence where he later died of his injuries. New Bedford police and State Police detectives attached to the Bristol District Attorney's Office are investigating the incident. FITCHBURG - Two Western Massachusetts residents face trafficking heroin and other charges following a traffic stop Sunday night. Robert Ortiz, 28, of Erving, and Kishania Vega-Martine, 28, of Turners Falls, were taken into custody after troopers found 48 grams of heroin, 8 grams of cocaine, two pills and a bag with green vegetable matter during the stop, according to a release by Massachusetts State Police. During the investigation, Ortiz was also found to be in possession of a loaded Smith & Wesson .40 cal. pistol. Although Ortiz is licensed to carry a firearm, it is unlawful to carry a firearm while committing a felony, which includes trafficking narcotics. Both were charged with trafficking in heroin, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and conspiracy to violate drug law. Ortiz was also charged with possession of a firearm in felony and speeding. Vega-Martinez was also charged with possession of a Class E drug. Ortiz was held in lieu of $20,000 bail and Vega-Martinez was held in lieu of $50,000 cash bail, pending their arraignments in District Court. Oli Herbert, guitarist for the Springfield rock band All That Remains, drowned in a pond near Stafford Springs, Conn., home on Oct. 17 after ingesting antidepressants and a sleep aid, his wife revealed. In a statement on Herbert's Facebook page, his wife, Beth, also revealed that a planned memorial service in Worcester on Sunday was canceled because of threats made against the family. Beth Herbert stated, in part: "Oli was apparently self-treating for manic-depression that has run in his family for several generations. Anti-depressants were found in his system, as well as a sleep aid. The psych meds found in his system were the same ones that a close relative has been prescribed for a long time, so he knew what to hunt down for the "treatment". Seeing how he was not going (and WOULDN'T GO) to a doctor to get diagnosed with the issue and was not being prescribed the medications and monitored on them, it explains his occasional erratic behavior here at home." She urged anyone with information on who provided her late husband with psychiatric medication to contact the Connecticut State Police, Troop C in Tolland, Conn. Herbert began playing guitar at 14. His first paid gig was a Battle of the Bands on his final day of his senior year at Longmeadow High School. He made a name for himself in Western Massachusetts clubs with Netherworld, a thrash metal band he formed in 1991. Herbert co-founded All That Remains with Phil Labonte in 1998. The band played Springfield clubs, like Fat Cat and Mars Nightclub, before being signed to Prosthetic Records, a division of Metal Blade, back in 2002. All That Remains released its ninth studio album, Victim of the New Disease on Friday. Labonte revealed in an interview on Friday with Loudwire that Jason Richardson of Chelsea Grin and Born of Osiris would be filling in as lead guitarist for the band's upcoming tour. Joyeeta Basu said Ramani posted her tweets intentionally with a purpose to harm Akbar's reputation and goodwill. MJ Akbar, who had resigned from the Union Council of Ministers on October 17, had earlier told the court that an "immediate damage" has been caused to him due to the "scurrilous", concocted and false allegations of sexual misconduct levelled against him. (Photo: File | PTI) New Delhi: A former woman colleague of ex-Union minister M J Akbar, who has filed a criminal defamation case against journalist Priya Ramani, told a Delhi court on Monday that his reputation has been "destroyed" and "damaged irreparably" due to allegations of sexual misconduct. Joyeeta Basu, the editor of Sunday Guardian, who appeared as a witness to support Akbar's case, told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal that Ramani posted all her tweets "intentionally with a purpose to harm" Akbar's "reputation and goodwill". "I have seen tweets by Priya Ramani dated October 10, 2018 and October 13, 2018. I have overcome by doubts but I know from the number of questions raised by people, I know personally that his reputation has been destroyed and damaged irreparably," Basu told the court. "After reading these tweets by Ramani, I believe that this vilification was conducted and the tweets were published intentionally by Ramani with a purpose to harm Akbar's good reputation and goodwill in the eyes of society," she said. After Ramanis tweet, over a dozen former women colleagues of M J Akbar accused him of sexual misconduct and harassment. Another former colleague at The Asian Age, and presently an editor with Americas National Public Radio, Pallavi Gogoi brought rape charges against the NDAs former junior minister. Nearly twenty women also signed a petition in in support of Ramani. In the statement, they said: When Ms. Ramani spoke out against him in public, she spoke not only about her personal experience but also lifted the lid on the culture of casual misogyny, entitlement and sexual predation that Mr Akbar engendered and presided over at The Asian Age. Ms Ramani is not alone in her fight. We would request the honourable court hearing the defamation case to also consider testimonies of sexual harassment of some of us at the hands of the petitioner, as also of the other signatories who bore witness to this harassment. Further, Akbar's witness Joyeeta Basu said that she has worked with Akbar for 20 years and had not heard anything "untoward" from the staff of the organisation where they worked together. He was a public figure who was held in high esteem. "I have always held Mr Akbar in high regard. He has been perfectly professional in his dealings with me. He has always been a tough taskmaster, a thorough professional and a brilliant teacher," Basu said. She said she considered him to be "a brilliant journalist, a scholarly writer and a thorough gentleman with an impeccable reputation". Basu said that she was "shocked, disappointed, embarrassed" to see Ramani's tweets against Akbar and "in spite of my experience with him, his image, his reputation took a beating in my eyes on reading these tweet/article. It was aggravated during my interaction with friends and colleagues who had read and heard about the widely publicised tweets and articles and asked me whether he was really like that? They questioned his character and said that his image has taken a severe beating and had been lowered in their eyes. They said that his reputation had been permanently damaged as far as they were concerned," she said. The court has now posted the matter for next hearing on December 7. Ramani has accused Akbar of sexual misconduct around 20 years ago. Akbar, who had resigned from the Union Council of Ministers on October 17, had earlier told the court that an "immediate damage" has been caused to him due to the "scurrilous", concocted and false allegations of sexual misconduct levelled against him. Akbar's name cropped up on the social media when he was in Nigeria, as the #MeToo campaign raged on in India. Multiple women have come out with accounts of alleged sexual harassment by him when he was a journalist. He had termed the allegations "false, fabricated and deeply distressing" and said he was taking appropriate legal action against them. Expressing her readiness to fight the defamation allegations, Ramani had said, "Rather than engage with the serious allegations that many women have made against him, he seeks to silence them through intimidation and harassment." HOLYOKE - A large portion of the Mount Tom Power Plant was imploded Sunday morning as part of the removal of the Route 5 landmark to make room for a solar farm. The steel boiler structure that is adjacent to the plant's smokestack was taken down with controlled explosive charges. ERSI, the environmental remediation company charged with dismantling the power plant, and CDI, a demolition company from Maryland, were in charge of the demolition. The project was planned with input from local and state agencies, and Holyoke police and firefighters stood by at the scene as a precaution. Fire Department spokesman Kevan Cavagnac said "The blasting operation went entirely as planned, and the building collapsed to the ground in a pile of steel." The wreckage will now be taken apart and removed using machinery. The smokestack, a Valley landmark that can be seen for miles by southbound traffic on nearby Interstate 91, remains standing. It is scheduled to be taken down in the same manner at a later date. Here's the view from the other side of the Connecticut River. SPRINGFIELD - After marching through the streets of the city, Veterans Day Parade Marshal Todd Crevier asked the crowd assembled on the City Hall steps to repeat after him. "22," he said. "Louder: 22," he repeated, receiving a more enthusiastic response. "That is a rather tragic number," he said. Crevier explained an average of 22 veterans every day - more than 8,000 a year - commit suicide because they can no longer live with the physical or psychological burdens of war. Crevier, a disabled veteran who served two combat tours with the U.S. Army, was selected as this year's marshal in part for his efforts to help his fellow veterans. He founded New England Adventures which offers all-expense paid outdoor sporting and outdoor activities to veterans who are suffering. He thanked the crowd for coming to support veterans and reminded people some need help throughout the year. This year's Veterans Parade began at Springfield Technical College, traveled down State and Main Streets and ended at City Hall. Dozens of units participated including a wide number of veterans' groups such as the Winchester Square Vietnam Era Veterans and the Disabled American veterans; Junior ROTC units from four city high schools, the Springfield Kiltie band and the Melha Shrine marching units. Multiple other communities including Chicopee, Westfield and Northampton also held events on Veterans Day. Holyoke commemorated the day on Saturday at Holyoke High School and the ceremony included a Massachusetts National Guard helicopter crew landing in the adjacent field. Springfield Police Officer Jose L. Feliciano, who served in the U.S. Army and then the Army National Guard for 27 years, was named as the 2018 Veteran of the Year. A police officer since 1995, Feliciano was praised for his service to the city, including the many volunteer hours he commits. "I want to thank all the veterans who have served, who are currently serving and especially those who are currently deployed," he said. Danielle Witherspoon and Emmanuel Owusu, employees for the city's Veteran Services Department, handed out flags to people waiting for the parade to make its way down Main Street. While the audience was thin on State Street, people crowded the sidewalks on Main Street, they said. The department this year ordered 25,000 flags to place of veterans' graves in the city. They had extras so decided to hand them out so parade-goers could show their appreciation to the veterans marching, Witherspoon said. Mayor Domenic J. Sarno thanked the many marchers and participants and told them "Springfield remembers its veterans." He and others placed a memorial wreath on a monument in Court Square. A trumpeter then played taps and the Springfield Kiltie Band played "Amazing Grace." Sarno reminded people Sunday is the 100th Veterans Day celebrated by the country and talked a little about the history of the day. It was originally called Armistice Day to honor the ceasing of hostilities for World War I. In 1954 it was changed to Veterans Day to honor all U.S. veterans. "It is because of their efforts we are able to live the lives we live and we are forever grateful," he said. Stan Lee, the creative dynamo who revolutionized the comic book and helped make billions for Hollywood by introducing human frailties in superheroes such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, died Monday. He was 95. Lee was declared dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Kirk Schenck, an attorney for Lee's daughter, J.C. Lee. As the top writer at Marvel Comics and later as its publisher, Lee was widely considered the architect of the contemporary comic book. He revived the industry in the 1960s by offering the costumes and action craved by younger readers while insisting on sophisticated plots, college-level dialogue, satire, science fiction, even philosophy. Millions responded to the unlikely mix of realistic fantasy, and many of his characters, including Spider-Man, the Hulk and X-Men went on to become stars of blockbuster films. Recent projects he helped make possible range from the films "Black Panther" and "Doctor Strange" to such TV series as "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" and "Guardians of the Galaxy." "I think everybody loves things that are bigger than life. ... I think of them as fairy tales for grown-ups," he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. "We all grew up with giants and ogres and witches. Well, you get a little bit older and you're too old to read fairy tales. But I don't think you ever outgrow your love for those kind of things, things that are bigger than life and magical and very imaginative." Lee considered the comic-book medium an art form and he was prolific: By some accounts, he came up with a new comic book every day for 10 years. "I wrote so many I don't even know. I wrote either hundreds or thousands of them," he told the AP in 2006. He hit his stride in the 1960s when he brought the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man and numerous others to life. 2017 Boston Comic Con welcomes thousands of fans 43 Gallery: 2017 Boston Comic Con welcomes thousands of fans "It was like there was something in the air. I couldn't do anything wrong," he recalled. His heroes, meanwhile, were a far cry from virtuous do-gooders such as rival DC Comics' Superman. The Fantastic Four fought with each other. Spider-Man was goaded into superhero work by his alter ego, Peter Parker, who suffered from unrequited crushes, money problems and dandruff. The Silver Surfer, an alien doomed to wander Earth's atmosphere, waxed about the woeful nature of man. The Hulk was marked by self-loathing. Daredevil was blind and Iron Man had a weak heart. "The beauty of Stan Lee's characters is that they were characters first and superheroes next," Jeff Kline, executive producer of the "Men in Black" animated television series, told The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, in 1998. Some of Lee's creations became symbols of social change -- the inner turmoil of Spider-Man represented '60s America, for example, while The Black Panther and The Savage She-Hulk mirrored the travails of minorities and women. Lee scripted most of Marvel's superhero comics himself during the '60s, including the Avengers and the X-Men, two of the most enduring. In 1972, he became Marvel's publisher and editorial director; four years later, 72 million copies of Spider-Man were sold. "He's become our Mickey Mouse," he once said of the masked, web-crawling crusader. Lee also published several books, including "The Superhero Women" in 1977 and "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" the following year, when he was named publisher of the year by the Periodical and Book Association of America. CBS turned the Hulk into a successful TV series, with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno portraying the doomed scientist from 1978-82. A Spider-Man series ran briefly in 1978. Both characters were featured in animated TV series as well. The first big-budget movie based on Lee's characters, "X-Men," was a smash in 2000, earning more than $130 million at North American theaters. "Spider-Man" did even better, taking in more than $400 million in 2002. Stanley Martin Lieber was born Dec. 28, 1922, in New York. He grew up a fan of "Hardy Boys" adventure books and Errol Flynn movies, and got a job at Timely Comics after graduating from high school. Within a few months, the editor and art director quit, leaving the 17-year-old Lee with creative control over the company, which grew and was renamed Atlas Comics and, finally, Marvel. Lieber changed his name, thinking Lee would be used for "silly little comics" and his real name would be reserved for novels. His early work largely reflected popular movies -- westerns, crime dramas, romance, whatever was the rage at the time. He worked for about 50 cents per page. After a stint in the Army during World War II, writing for training films, he was back at Marvel to begin a long and admittedly boring run of assembly line comic book production. Comics in the 1950s were the subject of Senate hearings pushed by the Comics Code Authority, which frowned on gore and characters that questioned authority. Major comic book companies adopted the code as a form of self-regulation to avoid sanctions. Lee said he was also working for a publisher who considered comics as fare only for children. "One day I said, 'This is insane,'" Lee told the Guardian in 1979. "I'm just doing the same type of stories as everybody else. I wasn't taking pride in my work and I wanted to quit. But my wife said, 'Look, why don't you do the kind of comics you want for a change?'" The result was the first issue of "The Fantastic Four," in 1960, with the characters, plot and text from Lee and the illustrations by famed Marvel artist Jack Kirby. The characters were normal people changed into reluctant superheroes through no fault of their own. Writing in "Origins of Marvel Comics," Lee described the quartet this way: "The characters would be the kind of characters I could personally relate to; they'd be flesh and blood, they'd have their faults and foibles, they'd be fallible and feisty and -- most important of all -- inside their colorful, costumed booties they'd still have feet of clay." "The Amazing Spider-Man" followed in 1962 and before long, Marvel Comics was an industry behemoth. Lee knew his work was different, proudly noting that stories were drawn out over several issues not to make money but to better develop characters, situations and themes. He didn't neglect his villains, either. One, the Moleman, went bad when he was ostracized because of his appearance, Lee wrote, adding it was "almost unheard of in a comic book" to explain why a character was what he was. Lee's direct influence faded in the 1970s as he gave up some of his editorial duties at Marvel. But with his trademark white mustache and tinted sunglasses, he was the industry's most recognizable figure. He lectured widely on popular culture. Lee moved to Los Angeles in 1981 to head Marvel Productions, an animation studio that was later purchased, along with Marvel Comics, for $50 million by New World Entertainment. As sales of comics declined, Marvel was forced into bankruptcy proceedings that meant it had to void a lifetime contract prohibiting Lee from working for anyone else. Lee later sued Marvel for $10 million, saying the company cheated him out of millions in profits from movies based on his characters. In 2000, Lee agreed to write stories for DC Comics, reinventing Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and other signature characters for Marvel's one-time rival. DC Vice President and Publisher Paul Levitz had nothing but praise when the agreement was made. "With his artistic collaborators at Marvel, Stan co-created the richest imaginary universe a single comics writer has ever built," he said. The dapper, friendly comic book genius continued to work into his 90s on numerous projects, including comics, films and DVDs. In the late 1990s, he looked to capitalize on the Internet craze, offering animated "Webisodes" of comic-like action. Stan Lee Media also sought to reach out to Web-savvy youth through deals with pop artists the Backstreet Boys and Mary J. Blige. The company went bankrupt, and three men were indicted for allegedly defrauding the business in a check kiting scam. Lee wasn't implicated. After that initial failure, Lee formed the successful Pow! Entertainment company to launch animated Internet-based projects. Lee is survived by his wife of 70 years, Joan Clayton Boocock, and a daughter, Joanie. The official Fox News Twitter account has refrained from tweeting since Thursday in what is seen as a silent protest of the social media company's responsiveness to a protest outside the home of host Tucker Carlson. Protesters associated with Antifa gathered outside the Washington, D.C., home of the conservative television personality last Wednesday night and chanted "Racist scumbag, leave town!" and warning on social media that Carlson and his family "were not safe." They tweeted videos of the protest and revealed Carlson's address. The incident is under investigation by police. Business Insider obtained a Fox News email ordering the Twitter blackout. It was sent to the news channel's entire digital team, which consists of about 140 people. Fox News was apparently concerned about the tweets that included Carlson's home address, according to The Hill. A spokesperson for the network declined to comment Monday afternoon on why its has ceased tweeting. Smash Racism D.C. claimed responsibility for the protest on social media. The group previously targeted U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, and other conservatives. The group's Twitter account shared Carlson's address, which is a violation of Twitter rules. It has since been suspended. Smash Racism D.C. continues to maintain a presence on social media via its Facebook page. It uses the Facebook handle @AntifaDC. In since deleted videos uploaded to Twitter by the group, participants were heard saying "Tucker Carlson, we will fight! We know where you sleep at night!" They called him a "racist scumbag" and hurled epithets. Fanatics, by definition, are uncompromising. And they tend to self-segregate. As a rule, you won't find many Marxists at the libertarian convention. In the olden days, way back when Congress used to get things done, at least a bit, at least from time to time, there were senators and members of the House who'd work to find common ground with those on the other side of the aisle. That's obviously not been much happening in our era. Today, gridlock is the rule, not the exception. Happily, though, there's reason for a bit of hope now that the dust is (mostly) settling in the wake of the Nov. 6 midterms. With Democrats sets to retake the majority in the House of Representatives, pre-election worries of an ascendant left are proving to have been unfounded. Thank goodness. In district after district across the land, moderation won the day. To be sure, the so-called progressives will endeavor to tout a couple of races as proof of their mettle, but they'll be blowing smoke. True, unabashed leftie Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be a member of the Democratic caucus come January, but her election was this cycle's anomaly. When there are 435 House races on the ballot every other year, there are bound to be at least a couple of genuine surprises in each cycle. Look back to 2014, when then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, was defeated in a party primary by a theretofore unknown professor named Dave Brat, a right-wing ideologue. It was impossible to overstate how shocking was Cantor's loss. People don't come out of nowhere to knock off members of the party leadership. At least they didn't in the good old days. Jump ahead just two election cycles to this year, and Democrats watched their own version of that surprising tale when Ocasio-Cortez knocked off 10-term Rep. Joe Crowley in the party primary in a New York City congressional district. Crowley, of course, wasn't just some guy who'd been around for a time; he was the Democrats' No. 4 in the party hierarchy. Only time will tell what kind of a representative Ocasio-Cortez will turn out to be. Perhaps she'll remain a true blue leftie, banging the drum for free college, Medicare for all, the whole nine yards of contemporary progressivism. Or maybe she'll modulate her tone at least a bit, recognizing that more can be accomplished by working within the system. She could learn a valuable lesson by considering what happened to Brat, whose story is in the books after just two terms in Congress, as he went down to defeat on Nov. 6. During his brief time in our nation's capital, he was like a guy who went to a party that he knew he wouldn't like. While there, rather than engaging with others, he instead stood to one side, smirking, feeling superior. He's gone now, and will be little missed. The newly elected Democrats, however, look like they could be ready to tell a very different story. While the focus on Election Day and beyond was on just how sweeping was the much-vaunted blue wave, the question in the aftermath of the vote, and going forward, is this: When did the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party lose its juice? Though one might look at particular races to see where the Berniecrats tanked, often badly, a step back to take in the bigger picture tells the tale plainly: The New Democrat Coalition, a moderate group, backed a candidate in 29 congressional races. Fully 23 of them won. Two groups that came out of Sanders' quixotic run for the nomination of a party of which he wasn't even a member -- Our Revolution and Justice Democrats -- didn't win a single race. Not one. Though there are plenty in certain regions of the country who will still argue that Democrats should adopt a full-tilt leftie agenda to win, now and in 2020, the facts blow their arguments out of the water. On Nov. 6, the moderate group had a winning percentage of 0.793; the Berniecrats went 0 for the election. Even a dyed-in-wool socialist can't refute those numbers. The moderates are on a roll, on the rise in today's Democratic Party. Here's wishing them well. EASTHAMPTON -- When At-Large City Councilor Daniel Carey heads to Beacon Hill in January, William Lynch IV will take his vacant seat on the nine-member City Council, council president Joseph McCoy announced Sunday. In September, Carey prevailed in a three-way Democratic primary for the Second Hampshire House District, and trounced GOP candidate Donald Peltier in the Nov. 6 general election. When Carey is sworn in at the State House, a vacancy will be created on the City Council. Lynch, an Easthampton native and community volunteer, is married with a young son, and manages a Stop & Shop supermarket in West Springfield. During the 2017 municipal election, Lynch touted his practical streak, upbeat attitude, and teamwork skills. "I've always been a big believer in contributing to the community," Lynch said at the time. "I have a huge passion for Easthampton, am excited about how far we've come, and want to help keep us moving in a positive direction." According to the city charter, if a council vacancy occurs during the first 18 months of a term, "the vacancy shall be filled in descending order of votes received" during the previous municipal election. In 2017, Lynch came in sixth in a hard-fought seven-way race for four at-large seats. The winners were Carey, McCoy, and newcomers Margaret "Peg" Conniff and Owen Zaret. The fifth-place finisher, Cinzia Pica-Smith, declined the vacant seat due to professional commitments, McCoy said. Lynch, as the next in line, will begin his tenure in January, with a term to expire at the end of 2019, McCoy announced. Lynch will also join precinct councilors James "JP" Kweicinski, Daniel Rist, Salem Derby, Thomas Peake, and Homar Gomez on the city's legislative body. "Please join me in welcoming Bill to Easthampton City Council," McCoy wrote. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) An opposition lawmaker on Monday called for an inquiry on alleged sexual harassment that hounded the Miss Earth pageant. Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros filed Senate Resolution 932, which called for the probe based on the public complaints of three Miss Earth 2018 candidates against a pageant sponsor. Miss Earth-Canada Jaime Yvonne Vandenberg, Miss Earth-England Abbey-Anne Gyles-Brown, and Miss Earth-Guam Emma Mae Sheedy all revealed personal experiences with the sponsor, a certain Amado Cruz, who supposedly asked sexual favors. Hontiveros said sexual harassment and violence should be given "zero tolerance." "Sexual harassment has no place anywhere, especially in a pageant that claims to uphold the value and power of women," Hontiveros said in a statement. "At a time when women and girls are battered by rape jokes, sexual violence, and sex for freedom cases, it is imperative that sexual harassment of any kind, shape or form be brought out into the open." READ: Miss Earth 2018 candidates accuse pageant sponsor of sexual harassment, lack of action from PH organizers Hontiveros said both the alleged harasser and event organizers should be held responsible. She added she was surprised the sponsor was still allowed to see the candidates in other events despite the complaints. "This shows disregard for their welfare and a flippant attitude towards the handling of this case. This cannot be allowed to pass un-addressed. This inquiry seeks to shed light on the true events of the case, and to aid in the future protection of women from sexual harassment. No woman should ever be a victim, whatever country they come from," Hontiveros said. CNN Philippines earlier learned Cruz has been unofficially sponsoring meals and dinners for the women for at least five years now since he owns a restaurant near the hotels of the contestants. Lorraine Schuck, founder and executive vice president of the production outfit that runs the pageant, said they will ban the alleged sponsor from the pageant's next events. Meanwhile, all three candidates decried the lack of support from the organization, saying concerned authorities did not act on their separate complaints. Whatever stand the government takes will be my stand as well. The government has not spoken on the matter so far, Naqvi told PTI in an interview. New Delhi: Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Sunday pitched for a resolution of the contentious Ram temple issue at the earliest and asserted that a common Muslim does not have an attitude of conflict that may harm social unity. He, however, advocated a wait and watch approach amid demands from many of his BJP colleagues for a law to construct a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, and said the Narendra Modi government has not spoken on the matter yet. Whatever stand the government takes will be my stand as well. The government has not spoken on the matter so far, Naqvi told PTI in an interview. The issue should be resolved at the earliest, he said. To a question on how Muslims view the thorny issue as, the Minority Affairs Minister said, A common Muslim wants peace, and an amicable settlement. A common Muslim does not have an attitude of conflict which may harm social unity. Asked about no adverse statement coming from Muslims on the temple issue, he said, Muslim community is a very peaceful community. They dont want to involve themselves in any destructive agenda. Some individuals, some political parties for their own interest can try to incite people. So people feel that there should be a peaceful solution and it (the matter) should be ended. Mr Naqvi also rejected the oppositions claim that the BJP and its Hindutva affiliates were deliberately bringing forth the Ram temple issue ahead of the Lok Sabha elections next year. The matter has long been in court, and organisations linked to it, he said in an apparent reference to Hindutva bodies, thought that day-to-day hearing would be conducted and a resolution would be arrived at soon. As it did not happen, they have been making their demands, he said. People have sentiments and no ban can be imposed on expressing them in a democracy. It is a coincidence that it has happened before elections. Otherwise, it is an old issue, he said. Mr Naqvi said the issue of Ram temple was part of the BJPs manifesto even in the last elections. He also claimed that there was growing support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi among Muslim voters, saying in the four and half years of his government, their mindset and approach had changed a lot and they had become very positive. They (Muslims) have seen that his (Modis) development agenda is very far from any discrimination or political exploitation, the lone Muslim minister in the government said. Asked about the Prime Ministers image among Muslims compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, he said it was very positive and constructive. Two BSF jawans were injured in another Naxal attack in the same area on November 2. Security forces recovered the body of a Naxal in Maoist uniform at the attack site after the encounter ended. (Photo: PTI/File) Bhopal: A day before Bastar in Chhattisgarh goes to Assembly polls, Maoists resorted to violence in the insurgency-hit region on Sunday by carrying out serial blasts and attacking security personnel at different places, leading to the death of a BSF officer. Naxals triggered seven improvised explosive device (IED) blasts in one go in Koyali Beda in North Bastar district of Kanker targeting a BSF patrol party, which was sanitising the area to facilitate movement of polling parties, leading to the death of sub-inspector of the Central paramilitary force Mahendra Singh. The slain BSF officer hailed from Bharatpur in Rajasthan. He was injured in the incident and later succumbed, a senior police officer posted in Bastar told this newspaper. Two BSF jawans were injured in another Naxal attack in the same area on November 2. This was the fourth IED blast in Bastar in the last two weeks. In total, five civilians including a Doordarshan cameraman and a CISF jawan were killed in the Maoist explosions at different places in South Bastar district in the last fortnight. In another incident, the Left-wing insurgents attacked a search party comprising of special task force (STF) personnel at Bedre in South Bastar district of Bijapur. This lead to a fierce gunbattle between the two groups that lasted for an hour. Security forces recovered the body of a Naxal in Maoist uniform at the attack site after the encounter ended. As many as 12 Assembly constituencies in Bastar and six in the neighbouring Rajnandgaon district are going to Assembly elections in the first phase of the polls in Chhattisgarh on November 12. The rest 72 seats in Chhattisgarh will go to Assembly polls on November 20. The segmentation of the market on product and service basis has been segmented into materials, equipment, and services. The equipment segment has been further segmented into dental 3D printers and dental 3D scanners. Additionally, the materials segment has been segmented into metal, plastic, and other materials. The basis of technology segments the market into selective laser sintering, vat Photopolymerization, polymer technology, fused deposition modeling, and other technologies. The vat Photopolymerization has been additionally segmented into digital light processing and stereolithography. By application, the segments of the market include orthodontics, implantology, and prosthodontics. On the basis of end-user, the market has been segmented into dental hospitals and clinics, dental laboratories, research institutes and dental academic. The market by region has been segmented, into Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. Dental 3D Printing Market Outlook Global Dental 3d Printing Market is expected to grow significantly over the forecast period. It is estimated that the Global Dental 3d Printing Market is expected to register a CAGR ~ 24.5 % during the forecast period of 20182023. Dental 3D printing is a form of modern dentistry and is considered to be wide-spreading in the dental industry. Dental 3D printing involves creating three dimensional solid dental models such as dentures, surgical guides, dental implants, crown, and bridges. To Get Sample Report visit https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/6260 Numerous factors are anticipated to drive the growth of this market such as high incidence of dental caries and other dental diseases, growing demand for cosmetic dentistry, increasing geriatric population, and growing adoption of dental 3D printers in dental hospitals and clinics. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for the year 20152016, the prevalence of total dental caries was 45.8%, and the prevalence of untreated caries was 13.0% among group 219 years. Industry Updates: July 2018 A well-known biotechnology company, Evo Dental which is based out of London has received as 4 million investment from the British Growth Fund (BGF) to develop its 3D printing jaw correction clinics through the UK. The new clinics will aid Evo Dental will offer its exclusive full jaw dental implant solution, which features prosthesis additive manufacturing, digital scanning, and high-precision milling machines to patients who require jaw reconstruction. Competitive Analysis The eminent players in the market are 3D Systems, Inc., Stratasys Ltd., EnvisionTEC, Inc., Renishaw Plc., Formlabs, SLM Solutions Group, Carbon, Inc., Prodways group, DWS Systems, EOS GmbH Electro Optical Systems, Concept Laser GmbH, Rapid Shape GmbH, Asiga, and Roland DG. The improved financial liquidity of the competitors in the market has enhanced thus offering new chances for the growth of the market. The market appeal and the contenders forces at work are considerably improved by the strategies that are being used by market companies. The market displays massive potential for growing at an accelerated pace. The sustainability of the market is however considerably reliant on the tactics and the strategic roadmaps that are engaged by market companies. The market is very varied in terms of segments and also about the products as well as the end users that are a portion of the market. The product offering of the market has expanded massively as compared to the past few years, thus making the market more profitable for present and different competitors. Regional Analysis for Global Dental 3D Printing Market As per the regional analysis of the market, the Americas region is estimated to lead the dental 3D printing market globally. The markets development in this region is credited to the growing demand for growing oral care expenditure, cosmetic dentistry, and the escalating popularity of digital dentistry. Furthermore, the growing occurrence of dental caries and tooth loss related to the aging population is anticipated to power the development of the market in this region. The European region is appraised to be the next largest market in the globe due to the growing number of dental problems, rise in the government expenditure for oral care, the existence of disposable income, and growing demand for cosmetic dentistry. The Asia Pacific is estimated to be the most rapidly rising market due to the increasing occurrence of dental caries and dental related problems in the emerging countries. Furthermore, the Middle East & Africa is projected to be responsible for the lowermost market portion in the dental 3D printing market owing to low development, poor medical facilities in developing economies and lack of technical knowledge in this region. Browse Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/dental-3d-printing-market-6260 About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Statistical Report, Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Tears provide lubrication, limits the risks of eye infections, washes away the foreign matter, thus, are helpful in keeping the surface of the eyes smooth and clear. Dry eye syndrome is a medical condition in which eyes lubrication is hindered by the unavailability of tears. Under normal condition, during excessive production, tears flow into the small drainage ducts of the inner corners of the eyes, followed by draining back into the nose. Sometimes when the production of tears and drainage is not balanced, it can result into dry eye syndrome. Eye redness, sensitivity to light, watery eyes, eye fatigue are some of the common symptoms of the disease. Increasing geriatric population, rising prevalence of diseases like diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and others are estimated to be the major drivers for the market growth. According to the World Health Organization in 2016, approximately 422 million adults were globally affected by diabetes in 2014, as compared to 108 million in the 1980s. Moreover, in 2014, it was estimated that the global prevalence of diabetes was estimated to be around 8.5%. Additionally, rising per capita healthcare expenditure, and changing lifestyle boosts the market. However, factors like stringent FDA drug approvals, lack of skilled ophthalmologists, and low per capita healthcare expenditure in the middle and low income countries are restraining the market. Get Sample Copy @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5588 The market for Global Dry Eye Syndrome is expected to advance with an approximate CAGR of 6.6% during the forecast period. Segmentation The global dry eye syndrome is segmented on the basis of the type, diagnosis, treatment, distribution channel and end user. On the basis of the type, the market is segmented into evaporative dry eye syndrome aqueous dry eye syndrome, and others. On the basis of the diagnosis, the market is categorized into Schirmer test, eye exam, and others. On the basis of the treatment, the market is segmented into nutritional supplements, serum eye drops, lubricant eye drops, anti-inflammatory drugs segments, surgery, and others. The lubricant eye drops segment is sub-segmented into oily tear eye drops, ointments, preservative-free drops, and others. The anti-inflammatory drugs segments segement is sub-segmented into tetracyclines, corticosteroids, and others. The surgery segment is sub-segmented into punctal occlusion, intense pulsed light therapy, and others. On the basis of distribution channel, the market is segmented into hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, online pharmacies, and others. On the basis of the end users, the market is segmented into hospitals, clinics, home care, and others. Key Players The key players for the global dry eye syndrome are Allergan (Republic of Ireland), Novartis AG (Switzerland), Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Japan), Valent Pharmaceuticals (Canada), Johnson & Johnson Vision (U.S.), Acadia Pharmaceutical (U.S.), Allostera Pharma (Canada), I-Med Pharma Inc. (Canada), Santen Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., (Japan), AFT pharmaceuticals (New Zealand), Novaliq GmBh (Germany), Auven therapeutics (U.S.), and others. Regional Analysis America dominates the global dry eye syndrome market. This can be attributed to the presence of a well-developed healthcare sector and a large patient population. Moreover, increasing healthcare expenditure boosts the growth of the American market. Additionally, the presence of the major market players like Johnson & Johnson Vision, Auven therapeutics, Acadia Pharmaceutical, and others within the region fuels the market growth. Europe is the second largest dry eye syndrome market owing to increasing availability of funds for research, a well-developed healthcare sector, huge patient pool and growing geriatric population. According to the Saga in 2017, approximately 20% of people living in the U.K suffer from dry eye syndrome. Moreover, it was estimated that one in three people who age 65 or more within the region are diagnosed with this disease. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region for the market due to the presence of economies like India, China, Australia, and others. Moreover, huge patient population, rising healthcare expenditure boosts the market growth. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the total Australian health expenditure from 2015 to 2016 was estimated to be about USD 170.4 billion. The Middle East & Africa has the least share in the global dry eye syndrome due to the presence of poor economies, low per capita healthcare expenditure, stringent government policies, especially within the African region. The Middle East holds a majority of the market due to a well-developed healthcare sector and huge healthcare expenditure by the developed economies like Dubai, Kuwait, Dubai, and others. Browse Complete 90 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with Respective Tables and Figures @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/dry-eye-syndrome-market-5588 Detailed Table of Contents: 1 Introduction 1.1 Definition 1.2 Scope Of Study 1.3 Research Objective 1.4 Assumptions & Limitations 1.5 Market Structure: 2 Research Methodology 2.1 Research Process 2.2 Primary Research 2.3 Secondary Research 3 Market Dynamics 3.1 Drivers 3.2 Restraints 3.3 Opportunities 3.4 Challenges 3.5 Macroeconomic Indicators 9 Company Landscape 9.1 Introduction 9.1.1 Mergers Acquisitions 9.1.2 Collaborations 9.1.3 Release/New Product Launches 9.1.4 Other (Expansion, Updates, Partnership) 10 Company Profile 10.1 Quintiles IMS Holdings, Inc. 10.1.1 Company Overview 10.1.2 Product/Business Segment Overview 10.1.3 Financials 10.1.4 Key Developments 10.1.5 SWOT Analysis Continued About US: Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Global Insulin Pump Market Key Players Some of the key players in this market are: Braun Melsungen AG Hoffmann-La Roche AG Medtronics Abbott Laboratories Becton, Dickinson and Company Sanofi Insulet Corporation Global Insulin Pump Market Segments For the convenience of understanding, MRFR has segmented the report into three key dynamics. By Types: Comprises Disposable insulin pump and Traditional insulin pump among others By End-Users: Hospital & Clinics, Home Care, and Laboratories, among others. By Regions: North America, Europe, APAC and Rest-of-the-World (RoW). Get Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1637 Global Insulin Pump Market Overview The Insulin Pump is a device garnering huge popularity worldwide, owing to the advancement in the physiologic programmable technique for insulin delivery which has made these pumps adaptable and lifestyle friendly. Continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) is a therapy which uses insulin pumps to deliver insulin to diabetics. Over a certain period, along with the technological advancements, these pumps have evolved significantly from constant observing glucose sensors that give exceptional access to the patients blood glucose levels to sensor-augmented and sensor-driven pumps. The prevalence of diabetes has been increasing immensely, over the past decade, accounting for one of the foremost causes of death and a risk factor to the growing number of severe health conditions such as kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, eye disorders, and stroke, etc. According to the International Diabetes Foundation (IDF) survey conducted in 2013, around 384 million people were suffering from diabetes by then, and the number can rise to nearly 592 million people are expected to suffer from diabetes by 2035. The increasing convenience of operation of insulin pumps and the prevalence of diabetes are two major driving forces substantiating the market growth, augmenting the uptake of these pumps. Resultantly, the insulin pump market is pervasively increasing on the global platform. Industry/ Innovation/ Related News: July 03, 2018 Insulet Corporation (Canada), one of the leading companies involved in tubeless insulin pump technologies including Omnipod Insulin Management System, announced that its Omnipod System had been selected as the preferred insulin pump for diabetic patients in the province, under the expanded British Columbia PharmaCare insulin pump program. June 25, 2018 Tandem Diabetes Care, a medical device company, and manufacturer of the only touch-screen insulin pumps available in the United States, announced receiving the approval from the U.S. FDA for its t: slim X2 Insulin Pump with Basal-IQ technology. Basal-IQ is predictive low glucose suspend (PLGS) feature designed to help reduce the frequency and duration of hypoglycemia. June 22, 2018 Medtronic, (Ireland) a leading global prescribed insulin pump company announced that the U.S. FDA has approved its MiniMed 670G hybrid closed-loop insulin pump system to be used for children between the age group of 7 and 13 and have Type 1 diabetes, an incurable autoimmune condition that prevents the pancreas from producing insulin. Key Findings The Global Insulin Pump Market is expected to reach USD 8520.9 million by 2023. By types, Traditional insulin pump segment holds the largest market share of Global Insulin Pump market and is expected to reach USD 4587.5 million by 2023. By End User, Home Care segment is expected to grow at a fastest CAGR of 8.9%. Global Insulin Pump Market Regional Analysis In 2016, the North America market accounted for the leading market globally, capturing the largest market share in 2016. Factors supporting the market growth include increasing technological advancements in the healthcare industry and growing diabetic population in the region. The Europe Insulin Pump market is expected to reach USD 2,784.5 million by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 8.7% during the review period. Asia Pacific Insulin Pump market emerging as one of the promising markets is expected to grow at 8.9% CAGR during the forecast period 2017-2023. Browse Complete 78 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 60+ Respective Tables and Figures @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/insulin-pump-market-1637 Major Table of Content Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope of the Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics Continued. About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members. Contact: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India +1 646 845 9312 Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com Lancet and Pen Needles Market Key Players Some of the key players in this market are B. Braun Melsungen AG, Terumo Corporation, Becton Dickinson, Sanofi, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Bayer AG, Novo Nordisk A S, Eli Lilly and Company, Owen Mumford Ltd, Medtronic, Ypsomed Holding AG, Sarstedt AG & Co, Greiner Bio One, Abbott Laboratories, HTL-STREFA S.A, Improve Medical, UltiMed, Inc., Allison Medical, Inc., Artsana S.p.a., VOGT MEDICAL, Perrigo Diabetes Care, MedExel Co., Ltd, ARKRAY Inc., Simple Diagnostics, Stat Medical, Terumo, Trividia Health, and others. Lancet and Pen Needles Market Segmentation The Global Lancet and Pen Needles Market is segmented on the basis of type, application, and end user. On the basis the type, it is segmented into lancets and pen needles. The lancet segment is further segmented into safety lancets and regular lancets. The safety lancets is further sub-segmented into push button safety lancets, pressure activated safety lancets, and side button safety lancets. The pen needles are further sub-segmented into standard pen needles and safety pen needles. On the basis of the application, it is segmented into insulin, capillary blood sampling, hormones, GLP, skin testing, and others. On the basis of the end users, it is segmented into hospitals & clinics, diagnostic centers & medical institutions, home care & home diagnostics, research & academic laboratories, and others. Lancet and Pen Needles Market Insights Lancets are one of the widely used alternative devices to obtain blood samples. Lancets are receiving global recognition and acceptance due to its several convenient characteristics which gives them an edge over the traditional methods for vein puncture. Some of the important features of the safety lancets are painless vein puncture, easy handling, and safety while using. The major applications of the safety lancets are capillary blood micro sampling, cholesterol test, hemoglobin (HBO) and HIV screening test, blood group test, coagulation tests, allergy tests, and many other blood-based tests. Get Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/555 Lancet and Pen Needles Market Competitive Landscape Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. is second largest medical device company, by holding a share of 19.1% as of 2016. F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. develops and manufactures pharmaceutical, medical and diagnostic products. The company has a huge brand image, broad product portfolio, and strong distribution network around the globe. Roche is known for their technological innovations in Lancet and pen needle market. In the recent years, Roche acquired Signature Diagnostics AG (Signature), a privately held company based in Potsdam, Germany. Furthermore, Roche also acquired Signature Diagnostics AG (Signature), a privately held company based in Potsdam, Germany Becton, Dickinson, and Company (known as BD) manufacture medical devices and instruments. The companys customers include healthcare institutions, science researchers, clinical laboratories, and the pharmaceutical industry. BD operates in more than 50 countries. For Instance, in March 2015, Becton, Dickinson, and Company announced the acquisition of CRISI Medical Systems, a medical technology company focused on providing safe delivery of IV injectable medications. The acquisition will strengthen BDs position in addressing preventable medication errors and improve the care delivery. Lancet and Pen Needles Market Key Findings The Global Lancet and Pen Needles Market was estimated to USD 3,329.94 million in 2016 Capillary blood sampling is the fastest growing segment, by application which is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10.77% during the forecast period from 2017-2027 Europe has captured the largest market globally and is expected to reach USD 3,719.58 million by 2027 Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region across the globe and expected to grow at a CAGR 10.75% during the forecast period Lancet and Pen Needles Market Regional Analysis Europe dominates the global lancet and pen needles market owing to the increasing prevalence of patients, the presence of major market players. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the healthcare expenditure in Germany was EUR 321 billion in 2014 while France recorded the second highest level of current healthcare expenditure of EUR 237 billion. The Americas hold the second position in the market owing to increasing support from the government, the presence of huge geriatric population, and high healthcare spending. Moreover, improvement in medical device regulation, the presence of a strong economic condition, and focus of research institutions on updating technology for new and advanced treatment methods for lancet and pen needles are some of the other factors contributing to the growth of this market in the region. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market owing to the presence of more number of developing nations such as India and China in this region. These countries are encouraging the growth of the lancet and pen needles market. The Middle East & Africa is expected to hold the least market share due to less availability of medical facilities, and less development in the healthcare domain. However, countries such as Qatar and Kuwait are focusing more on the healthcare sector and developing medical facilities, which will boost the market of this region. Browse Complete 152 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with Tables and Figures @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/lancet-pen-needles-market-555 Major Table of Content Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope of the Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics Continued. About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members. Contact: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India +1 646 845 9312 Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com Vacancy Announcement ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Position: Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) Ituri Site Coordinator Division: Wildlife Conservation Society Africa Program Reports to: The WCS Ituri Project Director Location:Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, with frequent field missions to Ituri, DRC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Objective The SWM Ituri Site Coordinator has the responsibility for the planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting of site-based activities for the Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM)Programme in collaboration with other concerned WCS DRC team members. S/he will also provide short-term support to the Ituri Director on the interim management of selected community-related activities in the Ituri Landscape. Project Description The overall objective of the SWM Programme is to reconcile the challenges of wildlife conservation with those of food security in a set of key socio-ecosystems, promoting sustainable and legal exploitation of resilient animal populations by indigenous rural populations, while increasing/ diversifying the protein supply. The project,financed by the European Union, is a joint initiative of several institutions and organizations, including FAO, CIFOR, CIRAD and WCS. WCS is responsible for implementing the project the Iturilanscadpe in DRC. The challenge is to maintain the ecological integrity of the unique forest ecosystem of the Okapi Faunal Reserve (OFR) and its surroundings, especially through the reduction of the risk of disappearance of protected species within and around the OFR, and the improvement of the well-being of local populations who heavily depend on natural resources for their survival. Principal Responsibilities This post first and foremost must ensure the successful implementation of the SWM project in Ituri and appropriate relationships with SWM partners, but also ensure its integration with other funding sources which may provide co-financing to achieve the objectives to reduce hunting to sustainable levels. The main tasks are as follows: 1. Development of six-month and annual work plans and budgets Preparationof the six-month and annual work plan and coordination of the budget, including the revisions following comments from different reviews (ProgrammeManagement Unit, Site Review Committee, Steering Committee), in line with the project document and in coordination with the appropriate WCS support staffand the Programme Result teams. 2. Leadership and monitoring of implementation of site-based activities according to the agreed work plan and budget Coordination with other team/activity leads who manage staff participating in the SWM workplan. Technical supervision of activity implementation on-site including staff management, collaboration between SWM partners, coordination with appropriate WCS staff whose job it is to ensure financial planning and compliance with appropriate procedures, including the management of equipment and infrastructure. Expertise mobilization, including development of ToRsto find experts within the consortium or outside, in collaboration and with the support of the Result teams. Acts as the Ituri focal point for all Result Coordinators and the Programme Management Unit (PMU), work through the national Programme to engage with the donor and the national government. Monitoring of activity implementation and adoption of corrective actions as needed to ensure adherence to work plan and budget, transparency and accountability. Regular feeding of Program impact and outcomes, monitoring & evaluation, and knowledge management systems with relevant information and data, in coordination with Result Teams (and with their support where needed). Supervision of logistical arrangements for activity implementation. Act as secretary of the Site Review Committee (SRC); be in charge of the regular organization and reporting of the SRC meetings (at least three per year) and other activities such as field visits. 3. Coordination of reporting for site level activities Coordination and submission of the six-month and annual technical and financial reports according to Programme Management Unit and donor requirements. Revision of six-month and annual reports addressing the PMU, SRC and Steering Committee comments. Preparing for the endorsement of six-month (prior to submission to the Program steering committee) and annual reports by the SRC. 4. Communications and visibility activities Coordination of all communications and visibility activities at site level, in line with the Program communication and visibility plan and in consultation with the Programme communication manager and the DRC communications officer. Regular preparation and transmission of communication contents related to site activities to the Programme communication manager to feed Programme-level communication and visibility activities. Participation in the revision and approval of all communications content relating to site activities. Regular direct communications on project progress with Result Teams, the PMU, and the members of the SRC. 5. Representation of the Ituri site in international, regional and national forums and meetings related to the Program. As necessary, participate in international, regional and national forums and meetings to represent Ituri as part of the overall Program. 6. Participate in informal and formal networking opportunities with other site Coordinators. As necessary, initiate or participate in informal and formal meetings with site coordinators from other SWM sites to discuss issues of common interest and measures to resolve obstacles encountered at the site level. 7.Provide other support to the Ituri Director as needed. Key deliverables 1. Annual evaluations of SWM Ituri staff members 2. SWM deliverables: Monthly report Six month and annual work plan and budget Six month and annual technical reports Technical reports related to specific site activities Site Review Committee meetings reports Communications materials related to site activities Period of performance The position is immediately available and a one-year contract will be issued. Possibility of extension dependent on performance Key qualifications This position requires a minimum of the following: A masters degree in natural resource management/conservation or related field Ability to work in challenging field conditions Demonstrated experience in project management At least 5 years field experience including managing field teams Fluent in French, conversant in English, knowledge of Kiswahili a competitive advantage Payment Pay will be commensurate with experience. Interested candidates, who meet the above qualifications, should apply by emailing an application letter and CV together with the names and contact information of three references to: africaapplications@wcs.org , copying to cabid@wcs.org. Please include Sustainable Wildlife ManagementSpecialist, Central Africa in the subject line of your email. Candidates must also apply online via the WCS career portal by searching job title at: https://www.wcs.org/about-us/careers. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted for interviews. by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, November 11, 2018 Artificial intelligence is making the news. More precisely, its being used in a new way to report the news, in the form of an AI news anchor just introduced in China. The worlds first known AI news anchor was created by Xinhua News Agency, the official state-run media outlet of China, and Sogou.com, a Chinese search engine company. It was shown at the World Internet Conference in Chinas Zhejiang province last week. An English version of the AI anchor, essentially a clone of a real anchor, opens with an introduction to the new news service feature. Hello everyone, Im an English artificial intelligence anchor, the anchor says in his first broadcast. This is my very first day in Xinhua News Agency. My voice and appearance are modeled on Zhang Zhao, a real anchor with Xinhua. "The development of the media industry calls for continuous innovation and deep integration with the international advanced technologies. Ill work tirelessly to keep you informed as texts will be typed into my system uninterrupted. I look forward to bringing you the brand new news experiences. In describing the looks of the AI anchor, the BBC said it appears that photo-like facial features have been applied to a body template and animated. Theres also a Chinese version, with a different face doing the speaking. The AI synthetic news anchor reportedly also can work nonstop, 24 hours a day, as long as someone -- or something -- keeps feeding it the news. by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, November 12, 2018 There is only one topic of conversation in adland this morning -- and, for once, it's not Brexit. Clearcast's decision not to allow Iceland to run an ad based on the 'Rang-Tang' animation originally commissioned and run by Greenpeace , has left many scratching their heads in disbelief. Talk of a ban exploded on social media from Friday and across the weekend with everyone's social feeds inundated with appeals to watch the film Comcast would not allow Iceland to run. The result is that Campaign reports it has already been watched 30m times. As such, it is breaking records for how man times a banned ad has been viewed online. At this rate, it could end up being watched more than any John Lewis -- which, tradition dictates, usually wins the battle of the Christmas ads on both television and social. So what's the problem? Well, the "Rang-Tang" is a moving film about an Orangutan causing havoc in a little girl's bedroom that is asked to leave. Before he does, he points out that his native lands have been ravaged. It is a Greenpeace animation which Iceland has repurposed with its vow to keep on removing palm oil from its own-brand products until it can prove its production causes no harm to Orangutans. Clearcast explains that the issue is, it contravenes the law on broadcasting. In a statement by by its managing director, the non-governmental body makes clear that it does not set the law but is duty bound to enforce it. For what is still essentially a Greenpeace film to be cleared for broadcast, it requires the environmental charity to prove that it is not a political advertiser. One can see there is a legal issue, and Clearcast feels its hands are tied. But to be honest, I don't think many people see the harm in a Greenpeace film being re-appropriated with a strong brand commitment by a leading supermarket about palm oil in its products. Is Greenpeace political? I'm not sure. It's an activist organisation, for sure, but does make it political? Legal issues aside, let's return to the main issue on the table. Iceland is shaping up to win the battle of the Christmas television ads, and it hasn't paid a penny yet in buying expensive ad slots between Coronation Street and The X Factor. A quick look at YouTube would suggest the original animation Greenpeace posted three months ago has been viewed 250,000 times. According to the aforementioned 30m views attributed to the Iceland ad, getting banned has resulted in more than one hundred times the interest from the general public. If true, that would put it just above the #ManOnTheMoon and #BusterTheBoxer John Lewis ad, which have 29m and 27m views on YouTube. It is hard to judge because the Iceland "Rang-Tang" ad on YouTube has more than 3m views, but the 30m figure is attributed to aggregated viewing and so a lot of that would have come from viewing on social platforms. Just about anyone on social media over the weekend can probably testify that this was how they saw the furore over the banned ad and they clicked to play on their social channel of choice, rather than searching for it on YouTube. It will remind many of being told they couldn't listen to the Sex Pistols "God Save The Queen" or Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax." Both were smash hits, Relax spent 5 weeks at number one and The Sex Pistols received their first and only second position in the charts. This has been a social phenomenon over the weekend. It could lead to the most unlikely circumstances in which a brand has "won" Christmas. Not a penny spent on airtime but 30m outraged Brits streaming the advert to see what all the fuss is about. by Sara Guaglione , November 12, 2018 The New York Times has redesigned its business sections in print and digital. Today, The TimesBusiness Day section is now simply Business. TheTimes says the section increased its coverage of economics, markets and finance in the past year; it also expanded its coverage of technology. On Sunday, The Times debuted a redesigned Sunday Business section, giving it a magazine feel with bigger, bolder visuals and typography. The Sunday Business section also has a number of new columns and features, anchored by Sunday Business editor Nick Summers. The changes were announced at The Times NewFront presentation in April. The "Business Day" name was created in the 1970s. advertisement advertisement The Sunday Business section's new franchises include With Interest, a weekly Sunday newsletter highlighting news on technology, companies and markets. It will also run in the print version of Sunday Business. Like A Boss is a new, biweekly interview series in the form of a workweek diary from a rising talent in a creative field, according to The Times. It will alternate with Corner Office, the interview series with CEOs, that now gets a full page treatment. Meanwhile, a new illustrated feature by graphic journalist Wendy McNaughton, focuses on overlooked objects, unknown individuals and secret trends in the economy," according to The Times. A new column called Work Friend will offer practical advice about the office, money, careers and work-life balance. The column's author will change every quarter; right now it is Choire Sicha, The Times Styles editor. Sunday Business will also pick up relevant coverage from other Times desks, such as its service journalism section Smarter Living and data-focused analysis on politics and policy from The Upshot. Its the Goldilocks principle, tech version. Is the screen on the smartphone a little too small? Or the tablet too big? For years, smartphone manufacturers have offered various sizes to help consumers find the size thats just right. Next year, Samsung will introduce the folding smartphone that offers both small and larger screens in one device. But if a report from South Koreas Yonhap News Agency is on the mark, the price may not be just right. The report says the cost of the first model will be about 2 million won, or $1,770 in U.S. dollars. Thats more folding cash than for any of Apples newest iPhones, the most expensive on the market now. The Samsung phone folds inward, with a screen measuring 7.4 inches when completely open, and with a 4.6-inch screen when folded to the size of a conventional smartphone. advertisement advertisement Either as a marketing determination or to keep expectations low, Samsung has publicly positioned the phone as a niche buy. Yonhap says Samsung expects to sell a million of them in the first year, a small drop in the bucket for Samsung, which sold 75 million phones in 2017. The news account says Samsung plans a March introduction of the Infinity Flex Display, which was more a definite timetable than Samsung committed to at its dog-and-pony show for the press in San Francisco last week. But Yonhap said Samsung was likely to hype the phone more at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona from Feb. 25-28 and then present it to the public after that. Samsung is likely to have a major marketing year in 2019, when it will probably spend most of its advertising bullets on its upcoming Galaxy S10, since it intends to use that new model as the centerpiece to mark its 10th anniversary in the mobile phone business. That newly designed S10 reportedly will have a state of the art fingerprint scanner, front-facing cameras and three cameras in the back, gradient color schemes and possibly a 5G option. In San Francisco, the promotional video for the Infinity Flex Display, meanwhile, didnt give a clear view of it. Nor did Samsung illuminate the subject much -- literally --when one of its executives showed it off in real life on stage, The auditorium lights were so dimmed it was almost impossible to see. Apparently thats because Samsung is still working on a slicker design. When (Israel) PM Benjamin Netanyahu came to India, we paid tributes at the Teen Murti-Haifa Chowk, the Prime Minister said. Modi recalled that he had the honour of paying tributes at the Neuve-Chapelle Memorial in France and at the memorial in Israels Haifa, places associated with Indias role in World War I. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday paid tribute to Indian soldiers who fought in World War I and said the country reiterates its commitment towards world peace so that the trail of death and destruction caused by wars does not occur. Today, as we mark one hundred years since the end of the horrific First World War, we reiterate our commitment towar-ds world peace and ple-dge to work to further an atmosphere of harmony and brotherhood so that the trail of death and destruction caused by wars does not occur, he said in a series of tweets. India remembers its brave soldiers who fought in WW I, he said. This was a war in which India was not directly involved yet our soldiers fought world over, just for the cause of peace, the Prime Minister said. Mr Modi recalled that he had the honour of paying tributes at the Neuve-Chapelle Memorial in France and at the memorial in Israels Haifa, places associated with Indias role in World War I. When (Israel) PM Benjamin Netanyahu came to India, we paid tributes at the Teen Murti-Haifa Chowk, the Prime Minister said. by Alex Weprin , November 12, 2018 Susan Wojcicki, YouTube CEO, wrote in an op-ed published Monday that if the European Parliament passes its controversial Article 13 copyright directive, it will create unintended consequences that will have a profound impact on the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. Article 13 wants platforms to enforce copyright infringement uploaded to their platform by users. It passed Parliament, but the final text may still be changed ahead of a final vote scheduled for January. In her op-ed, Wojcicki cites the popular song Despacito, which may contain a wide number of copyrights. Although youTube pays record labels and other rights-holders to host their songs on its platform, Wojcicki warns that other unknown copyrights may force YouTube to proactively pull it and other songs from its platform as a precautionary measure. advertisement advertisement Going further, she writes: Multiply that risk with the scale of YouTube, where more than 400 hours of video are uploaded every minute and the potential liabilities could be so large no company could take on such a financial risk. The op-ed follows an update that Wojcicki sent to YouTube creators last month, where she argued that Article 13 poses a threat to both your livelihood and your ability to share your voice with the world. She went on to ask European creators to petition the European Parliament to tweak the language of the legislation. YouTube, with its massive scale, would be at particularly high risk if the legislation passes as written. The company says that videos from 35 million EU channels would be at risk of being removed from the platform. by Larissa Faw , November 12, 2018 London-based independent creative agency Cult is opening a new office in New York, its first in the U.S. This new location will work with U.S.-based clients, including Amazon Fashion, Nike and PepsiCo. It will also serve as an extension of Cults London office, founded six years ago. Chief Strategy Officer-cofounder Bridey Lipscombe will oversee the New York office, joined by Ruben Musca as head of production. Previously at Silverback Strategies, where he was director of video, Musca will report to Cults COO Caroline Westgate and work closely with her and executive creative director Matt Watson. The agency projects building a full team of 30 to 35 people in the next 18 months. by Ray Schultz , November 12, 2018 OutboundEngine, a firm that helps small businesses with their email marketing and automation, is introducing paid social media campaigns and a mobile app. The objective is to help SMB owners focus on their business while ensuring that "current and future customers remain engaged and loyal to their brand, states Marc Pickren, new CEO of OutboundEngine. Specifically, SMBs in real estate, insurance and financial advisory firms can use the features to nurture their relationships with customers and prospects, the firm says. The social media offering is now available, and the mobile app will debut before the end of the year. In addition, two board members were recently appointed: Alan Taetle, general partner at Noro-Moseley Partners, and Charlie Plauche, partner at S3 Ventures. They join Morgan Flager, general partner at Silverton Partners; Gene Austin, former CEO of Bazaarvoice; and Mike Maples, Jr., partner at Floodgate. OutboundEngine is operating at a $25 million run rate, the firm says. It is seeking to expand its staff in Austin, Texas in the areas of sales, engineering, marketing, operations and product management. Earlier research indicated an association between zinc and autism. However, until now, understanding the connection has been challenging. Share on Pinterest A new study lifts the lid on the zinc-autism connection. A new study, published in Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, suggests that a zinc deficiency in early childhood may contribute to autism. Autism, or autism spectrum disorder, tends to cause difficulties in communication and social interaction. Although every case is different, symptoms can include repetitive actions, reduced eye contact, and trouble recognizing emotions in others. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 1 in 59 children have autism. It appears to be four times more common in boys than girls. Despite years of research, the medical community has yet to fully understand the mechanisms of autism, and theories about its origins abound. Autism tends to appear in the first 3 years of life. During this time, synapses the communication points between neurons are forming and changing at a rapid rate. Research has linked certain genes to autism, including some that code for proteins that build synapses, such as the Shank family of proteins. The link between synapse formation and autism has provided the basis for some of the most recent research into the conditions mechanisms. Two new randomized trials challenge the view that vitamin D and fish oil supplements hold any real benefit in the fight against chronic conditions, such as cancer and heart disease. Share on Pinterest Do fish oil supplements really protect the heart? The results of the first and second trial were presented at Scientific Sessions, held by the American Heart Institute (AHA) in Chicago, IL, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Vitamin D and fish oil supplements have lately been the subject of much hype in the medical research community, mass media, and among the general public, due to their alleged benefits in combatting cancer and heart disease. For example, recent studies in mice found that vitamin D benefits heart cells and suggested that the vitamin may prevent cardiovascular blockages. Other studies identified persistent links between a lack of vitamin D and the development of breast cancer and bowel cancer. Experts also believe that omega-3 fatty acids which are in seafood, some nuts, and seeds benefit the heart. The AHA, for example, recommend an intake of at least 2 servings of fish every week for optimal cardiovascular health. As a result, many Americans have turned to omega-3 fish oil supplements to stave off heart disease. A survey carried out by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that almost 19 million Americans are taking fish oil supplements. But do vitamin D and fish oil supplements really work? Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh's much-awaited wedding is just around the corner and the prep for the sangeet has already started! But while the entire world is trying to sneak a peek into what the main event beholds, which promises to be a mega event of the year, one needs to look beyond the fairytale setting, and at the mastermind who is bringing DeepVeer's wedding fantasy to life. The name is Vandana Mohan and she is the one who is pulling the threads on every minute detail related to Bollywood's mega event of the year. Here's the story about the Delhi girl who dared to dream differently, fought her own battles and came out victorious in a field that worked to weaken a woman's stronghold over it. The Backstory Today, Vandana Mohan may be known as the magician who can bring every extravagantly, fantastic wedding to life in the country, but initially, when she started out, Vandana was like any other middle-class Delhi girl. An army brat, she majored in Political Science, wished to get into JNU and work for the United Nations, before fate took a different turn, and she landed in the journalism- filmmaking industry. Her Career Trajectory Her brush with filmmaking soon spilled onto to script-writing and anchoring, which gradually turned into production. She started working as a consultant with a Chinese production company in the 1980s, where she later went on to become the production head. Soon she took the decision to do her own thing on the career front, and went on to launch her own event management company in 1989 called the Backstage Productions which handled corporate events and luxury brand launches. Changing The Course Of Business Moving from formal corporate events to intimate wedding affairs happened by fluke, when one of her clients asked Vandana to organise his daughter's wedding. After that initial success, Vandana has never looked back. Today she is the face of the Wedding Design Company which has successfully organised hundreds of wedding in India and abroad. Her list of clientele includes names like Sonam Vaswani-Navin Fabiani and Parth Jindal and Anushree Jasani, besides planning the wedding of Tanvi Jindal in Florence in 2010 and Tarini Jindal in 2011. Her company was also responsible for the glam weddings of other high profile people such as Prince Shivraj Singh and Princess Gayatri Kumari, Vikram Chatwal and Deepak Parekh's son amongst others, with the most recent being Deepika and Ranveer's. Charting Her Own Path When Vandana started out, the field of event planning hadn't gained a lot of popularity, and whatever people knew about wedding planning, it was thought to be a man's world. Thus, when she started out she was met with a lot of resistance in terms of ideologies and work as well. In an interview with Outlook Business, she said, I would lose contracts only because people didn't know how to approach a woman for business or they were simply embarrassed to do business with a woman. But she wasn't ready to give up. Not only did she bring her all-women team to the forefront and bagged international clients such as Moet Hennessy, Gucci, Ford Motor Company and Chanel, but also brought structure and finesse to the entire process. What Makes Her Special Vandana and her team are known for their professionalism that is well maintained with a personal touch. She ensured that a structure was being followed in the wedding industry, and coupled those with processes and responsibilities by introducing estimate sheets and a list of detailed service fee for her clients. Striking A Balance Regardless of her hectic field of work, she has always found support in her husband and children. Since the beginning, she has managed to strike the right balance between work and family, so that neither of them suffer. Even her work sees a healthy mix of her client's needs and her expertise. Her signature touch involves flowers that tell their own stories while paying close attention to the big dreams people hold for their wedding. Coco Chanel's individuality inspires her and she respects Anand Mahindra for his multifaceted genius. Vandana Mohan is a woman of her own league and she's rightly called the wedding belle. China is facing similar pollution problems as in India but that's not stopping them from experimenting with Air Purifiers. The country installed the world's biggest air purifier early this year and is already bringing a noticeable change in air quality. It's 328 feet high and is improving the air quality in the city of Xian in Shaanxi province. According to the operators, the air quality has seen improvement in an area of 10 square kilometres over the past few months and the tower has produced more than 10 million cubic metres of clean air. The large air purifier is able to reduce the smog to moderate level on severely polluted days. The Smog tower in Xian was launched in 2015 and completed construction last year. It was developed to find an effective and cost-effective method to artificially remove pollutants from the atmosphere. YouTube Delhi, the capital of India also faces similar pollution problems where air pollution levels have reached their worst and an India-based startup has suggested to the government to install a similar Air Purifier in the city. Kurin Systems wants to install an air purifier which is 40 feet high and has the capacity to clean 32 million cubic meters of air every day. We would love to see something of this effect present in Delhi to tackle the similar issue. Delhi's toxic air was termed as a crisis by the UN Environment chief and said that it requires government, policy-makers, scientists and civil society to come together to mitigate Presently, the sale of meat and liquor is banned in Ayodhya town but the saints want it extended to the entire district. The saints said that consumption of meat and liquor lead to pollution and violence and hence should be banned. Lucknow: After the renaming of Faizabad district as Ayodhya, the saints and seers of the holy city are now demanding a total ban on sale of meat and liquor in the entire district. Presently, the sale of meat and liquor is banned in Ayodhya town but the saints want it extended to the entire district. Mahant Satyendra Das, chief priest of the makeshift Ram temple, told reporters on Sunday that the ban on meat and liquor sale was essential to maintain the piety of any place that carries the name of Ayodhya. Some saints said that since the government had decided to rename the entire Faizabad division as Ayodhya division, the ban should be extended to the division. The saints said that consumption of meat and liquor lead to pollution and violence and hence should be banned. State government spokesperson and cabinet minister Shrikant Sharma said that the state government was aware of the demands of seers and saints in Ayodhya. The government will ban sale of liquor and meat within the legal framework, he said. Meanwhile, Muslims in Faizabad district (that has a sizeable Muslim population) have said that the decision would render most of them unemployed. My family has been running a meat shop since the past three generations and if meat sale is banded, we will be jobless. The state government should protect the interests of all sections of society, said Ashfaq who runs a meat shop in Kasai Bara locality. Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs, G. Katrougalos, participated today in the EU General Affairs Council in Brussels, where issues such as the progress of the negotiations on BREXIT, the multi-year fiscal framework -in other words the European Union's Budget for the years 2021-2027- the state of the rule of law in the EU, and more specifically in Poland and Hungary, as well as the preparation of the European Council of December, were discussed. Referring to next months European Council, Mr. Katrougalos argued for the need to strengthen the areas of competence and the image of a Europe which protects, both as regards European defence and the protection of European borders as well as the equally necessary social dimension of the single market. European Policies, stressed the Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs, do not respond, to the extent they should, to the need to have a social dimension in growth and development and to tackle inequalities within each country as well as between countries. Their social reorientation constitutes an existential challenge for the European Union. Mr Katrougalos also stressed that the consultations with citizens on the future of Europe have been concluded, indeed with the third largest participation in the electronic consultation among the Member States. He supported the view that the conclusions drawn from these consultations must be discussed at a later meeting of the Council. During the discussion on the Rule of Law, the Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs stressed that solidarity and respect of the rule of law must be reflected in all the policies of the European Union, nonetheless to the promotion of democracy and social rights. The most recent findings of the Eurobarometer demonstrate the negative views held by European citizens with regard to these critical issues. Mr Katrougalos stated that in practice, phenomena of antidemocratic liberalism, in other words protection only of economic rights, while ignoring social and democratic rights, represent a catalyst for the emergence of un-free democracies. He reiterated the need to conduct a yearly report on the protection of rights and democracy for all the Union's countries, as well as accession of the EU to the European Convention of Human Rights and the European Social Charter. With regard to implementation of Article 7 of the Agreement in the case of Hungary, in follow-up of a related decision by the European Parliament, Mr Katrougalos supported the need of the latter to be present before the Council in order for their views to be heard. With regard to BREXIT, limited discussion took place in light of the continuation of negotiations, whose main subject was ensuring the non-existence of borders between Ireland and the United Kingdom. The Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs reiterated the critical issues for Greece, such as the protection of the geographical identifications of agricultural products as well as the need to inform the states on the progress of the negotiations. Before the session of the General Affairs Council, Mr Katrougalos participated as an observer in a preparatory meeting of the European Affairs Ministers of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. Union Minister Ananth Kumar died at 2 am on Monday at a private hospital in Bengaluru. He was 59. Bengaluru: Union Minister Ananth Kumar, who was battling lung cancer for several months, died at 2 am on Monday at a private hospital in Bengaluru. He was 59. President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several other political leaders, including Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, expressed their grief over Kumars death. Expressing his sadness over Kumars death, President Kovind said saying the passing of the "veteran" parliamentarian was "a tragic loss to public life in the country and particularly for the people of Karnataka." Sad to hear of the passing of Union minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H.N. Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates #PresidentKovind President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) November 12, 2018 PM Modi also expressed his grief and said Ananth Kumar was "a remarkable leader" who "went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion". Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 In another tweet, the Prime Minister said Ananth Kumar "was a great asset to the BJP organisation". Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 BJP president Amit Shah also took to Twitter and remembered Ananth Kumar as a remarkable administrator. He said Kumars death has left a void in the BJP and Indian polity that cannot be filled soon. I am grief stricken to learn about the untimely demise of our senior leader and union minister Shri Ananth Kumar ji. He served the nation and organisation with unparalleled zeal and dedication. Ananth ji worked tirelessly to strengthen the BJP in the state of Karnataka. Amit Shah (@AmitShah) November 12, 2018 Ananth ji was a remarkable administrator who served various ministerial portfolios. His passing away has left a void in the BJP and Indian polity that can not be filled soon. May God give his family & supporters strength to bear this tragic loss. My deepest condolences. Om Shanti Amit Shah (@AmitShah) November 12, 2018 Rahul Gandhi also offered condolences to Kumar's family and prayed for peace to the departed soul. Im sorry to hear about the passing of Union Minister, Shri Ananth Kumar ji, in Bengaluru, earlier this morning. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace. Om Shanti. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) November 12, 2018 External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that she was "pained" to know about Ananth Kumar's death. "His death is a personal loss for me," she tweeted. I am pained to know about the sad demise of Shri Ananth Kumar. He was like my younger brother. His death is a personal loss for me. Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) November 12, 2018 Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that he was "absolutely shocked and pained" by Ananth Kumar's death. He added that Kumars death is a big loss for the BJP and also a personal loss for him. Absolutely shocked and pained by the demise of very senior colleague and a friend Shri Anant Kumar ji. He was a seasoned parliamentarian who served the nation in several capacities. His passion and devotion for the welfare of people was commendable. My condolences to his family. (@rajnathsingh) November 12, 2018 My mind is filled with memories of working with Anant Kumar ji in the government and party organisation. These memories will stay with me. His demise is a big loss for the BJP. It is also a personal loss for me. (@rajnathsingh) November 12, 2018 Taking to Twitter, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said she felt "deep sense of grief" on hearing about Kumars death. Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss. Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) November 12, 2018 Former Karnataka chief minister and current minister in the Modi government, Sadananda Gowda, said it was "unbelievable" that his "friend, brother Ananthkumar is no more". Shocked , its unbelievable , My friend , Brother Ananthkumar is no more . pic.twitter.com/zMOYEn7gXc Sadananda Gowda (@DVSBJP) November 12, 2018 Union Minister Suresh Prabhu said that Kumar will be remembered as able administrator and a grass root leader. Saddened by the demise of Union Minister & senior @BJP4India leader #AnanthKumar Ji. His valuable contribution to the nation under various Union Ministerial positions and sound leadership will be greatly missed. My condolences to his family at this moment of grief. Om Shanti. Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) November 12, 2018 Shri Anant kumar ji is a very good friend and a valued colleague... Shocked and saddened beyond words with his untimely demise... He will be remembered as able administrator and a grass root leader. My thoughts are with his family and followers at this hour of grief. Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) November 12, 2018 Expressing his sadness, Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said that he has lost a great friend in Ananth Kumars death. He was a value based politician, who made significant contribution to country as MP and Union Minister. May his soul rest in peace and may God give strength to his family and his followers to endure this loss, Kumaraswamy added. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said Kumar had a huge contribution in Karnataka politics and will be always remembered for his good work. Despite the boycott call given by Naxals, tribals thronged the polling booths in large numbers in their respective areas to cast vote. Raipur: Defying Maoist threats, Chhattisgarh voters notched up an impressive 70 per cent turnout in the first phase of Assembly polls in 18 constituencies on Monday, even though the day began with Naxal attacks to scare away voters. At least six Naxals were reportedly killed and five security personnel were injured in encounters in Bijapur and Sukma districts. Chhattisgarh chief electoral officer (CEO) Subrat Sahu said barring stray incidents of Maoist violence, the first phase of Assembly elections in the state was by and large peaceful. The 18 constituencies where voting took place in the first phase are spread across eight Naxal-hit districts Dantewada, Bijapur, Sukma, Bastar-Jagdalpur, Rajnandgaon, Kanker, Kondagaon and Narayanpur. In 2013, the Congress had won 12 seats and the BJP had bagged six. A total of 31.80 lakh voters were eligible to vote for 190 candidates in the first phase of election. Despite the boycott call given by Naxals, tribals thronged the polling booths in large numbers in their respective areas to cast vote. According to figures made available in the evening, the highest turnout of 72 per cent was recorded in Khuiji constituency while the lowest was 49 per cent in Dantewada. Kondagaon recorded 61.47 per cent, Keshkal 63.51 per cent, Kanker 62 per cent, Bastar 58 per cent, Khairagarh 70.14 per cent and Dongargarh and Dongargaon saw 71 per cent each. Deputy election commissioner Umesh Sinha said, Since there were queues outside several polling stations at the end of the scheduled voting time, the exact number of votes polled will be known later... It may match or surpass the 2013 figures. In the corresponding 18 constituencies, a turnout of 75.06 per cent was recorded in the 2013 elections, he said. Earlier, Maoists ambushed a search party of security personnel at Pamed in Bijapur district leaving five CRPF jawans injured and triggered two improvised explosive device (IED) blasts at Tumakpak in Dantewada district to scare away voters. Official reports said that the rebels stormed around a dozen villages in Dantewada district and held the local tribals hostage to prevent them from exercising their franchise. Two troopers of Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA), a counterinsurgency with of CRPF, and three jawans of CRPF were injured when armed guerrillas ambushed a search party in Pamed in south Bastar district of Bijapur, said sources in the state intelligence bureau (SIB). At least four Maoists were reportedly killed and some CRPF personnel suffered bullet wounds as a gun battle broke out when the troopers were on foot patrol in a forested area near Bijapurs Majiguda village. Four-five Naxals are reported to be dead but their bodies could not be collected due to continuous exchange of fire, said D.M. Awasthi, special director general of police, anti-Naxal operations. Two Maoists were killed in an encounter with District Reserve Guard (DRG) in Sukma district. The encounter took place at 5.30 pm when DRG security parties were coming back from Chitolnar after giving cover to polling parties, said Mr Awasthi. Naxals triggered two IEDs at Tumakpak under Dornapal police limits in Datnewada district to scare away the tribal voters who reached local polling booths. However, there were no reports of casualty or injury to anybody in the incident. The security forces recovered two IEDs weighing 10 kg and 5 kg from Kodkesa under Kanker district. Earlier, malfunctioning of voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines and electronic voting machines (EVMs) were reported in several polling booths. Seventy VVPAT machines and 40 EVMs were replaced. VVPAT machines were used for the first time in Chhattisgarh in the polls. As many as 190 candidates are in fray in 18 Assembly seats in the first phase of election. Prominent leaders whose fates were sealed in EVMs in the first phase of polling on Monday included chief minister Raman Singh, his ministerial colleagues Kedar Kashyap and Mahesh Gagda and former Prime Minister late Atal Behari Vajapyees niece Karuna Shukla who has been pitted against the chief minister by Congress. In the morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted and urged people to come out in large numbers to vote in the assembly polls. Its the first phase of polling in Chhattisgarh. I request all voters to participate in the great festival of democracy with enthusiasm and come out in large numbers to vote, Mr Modi tweeted. Several citizens gathered at Shivaji Park with banners against the shooting of the tigress. Mumbai: Hundreds of citizens and activists held protests in Mumbai against the killing of T1 tigress on Sunday. Through the protest, citizens have urged the state government to sack state forest minister and officials of forest department who conducted shooting operation of Avni, the tigress. Activists have also said that the committee formed by the state for the probe is inefficient alleging that the members of the committee have been accomplice in the operation. Several citizens gathered at Shivaji Park with banners against the shooting of the tigress. We have been demanding the government to sack Mr Mungantiwar and the officials that have been behind the shoot on site order against Avni. Moreover, the committee formed by the government for probing the matter is a total farce as there is no vet and expert on tigers and their behaviour, said Anand Shiva, wildlife activist. The Maharashtra government has formed a four-member committee to probe the matter around tranquillisation of Avni constituting principal chief conservator of forest S.H. Patil, Wildlife Institute of India member Habib Bilal, wildlife conservation trust chairman Anish Andheriya and additional principal chief conservator of forest Nitin Kakodkar. Not just in Mumbai, the protest against the shooting of tigress and action on the forest department also took place in Pune, Bangalore and Chennai on the same day. Its been eight days since Avni was killed. Post mortem shows she hadnt eaten for five days. That means her cubs have not eaten since 13 days. We have come together to demand the immediate rescue of the cubs, said Preeti Sharma Menon, an activist from Aam Aadmi Party. HUME TOWNSHIP A buildup of creosote was the cause of a small chimney fire at a home located at 2018 Weaver Road. According to Port Austin Fire Chief Don Zimmerman, firefighters were called to the scene around 2:08 p.m. Sunday to the home of Ray and Laurie Kettel. He said the homeowners heard a crackling sound, saw some black smoke coming from the living room wood stove and discovered the temperature way up on the stove, so they called the fire department. ESSEX Carole Lockwoods Queens of the Golden Mask, a world premiere running through Nov. 18, brings to the Ivoryton Playhouse audience a rare opportunity to experience catharsis at a time when theater can help us process the disturbing events of our time. We have Artistic Director Jacqueline Hubbard to thank, both for including the play in this remarkable Ivorytons season, and for directing it with insight, sensitivity and brilliance. Hubbard has said that she chose the script in part because of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last August. This is not a political play, she said. The main reason for doing this play is that it can be a catalyst for conversation. If we dont learn from history, then were just doomed to repeat it. The first act is set in 1961, in Celestial, Ala., a small town just south of Birmingham. As women friends bring various cakes, cookies, and pies into Idas kitchen, preparing for a social gathering, it becomes clear that Ida nicknamed Moma is very much the matriarch of the group. Expertly played by Ellen Barry, Idas motherly warmth shows flashes of flinty despotism. She describes her daughter-in-law, Martha Nell Sage (a heartbreaking Sarah Jo Provost) as having sawdust between her ears, and gives Martha Nell orders as she might a servant or a slave. Martha Nell is white, of course, but the question of color comes up early. Rose (a sincere Anna Fagan), newly-married and having just moved to Celestial from Ohio, has been invited so the friends can decide whether she will be an appropriate seventh member of the Womens Auxiliary group, which needs seven women to be official. As Faith (the stunning and chilling Gerrianne Genga) sweetly interrogates Rose about her feelings regarding darkies, Rose learns two things: the Auxiliary is a womens branch of the Ku Klux Klan; and if you dont belong, you dont belong in Celestial, Alabama. The whole of the story covers the next two years, bringing us up to 1963 (the year of the Birmingham church bombing, which Lockwood cleverly keeps in the background, trusting her audiences to make the connections themselves). To reveal more of what happens, especially to Rose and Martha Nell, would do the production, and the audience, a disservice; but know that the ending is clear-eyed, hard-hitting and honest. Lockwoods script is riveting, though it needs some revision of the plot. However, she is a master at creating sharply etched characters, all of whom (with two exceptions) remain, throughout the action, sympathetic in their self-deceit. And Hubbards casting is superb. In addition to Provost, Genga, Fagan and Barry, the other women Jes Bedwineck (the tough and playful Jean), Bonnie Black (the sweetly dithering Ophelia, older than all except Ida), and Bethany Fitzgerald (the simple-minded Kathy Two) inhabit their characters, and their deep friendship, with a remarkable level of authenticity. Using every inch of the Ivoryton stage up to its rafters, Dan Nischan has created a terrifically realistic set that focuses on Idas kitchen, but also includes the front porch and a back shed, both of which enclose crucial scenes. Marcus Abbots lighting enhances both the atmosphere and the plot, and Elizabeth A. Saylors costumes perfectly delineate each womans unique and vivid personality. Hubbard has also collaborated with Sound Designer Tate R. Burmeister to create music and sound that bring out the nuanced power in Lockwoods script. Weaving classic hymns throughout the scenes, Hubbard reminds us that these women adamantly believe they are doing Jesus work. And the final rallying cry and curtain song warn us that this storys history is all too close at hand. Ivoryton Playhouse has given us a sensationally fun, beautifully acted, and strongly directed season this year. Ending with a world premiere a serious play that speaks with tough eloquence to the moment in which we live is courageous, but the choice goes far beyond that. Queens of the Golden Mask does what the best of art does: while telling a compelling story, it challenges us to examine our preconceptions, no matter what they may be. This is not a production to be missed. For tickets and information, visit ivorytonplayhouse.org. WESTBROOK Westbrook High School students shared what they learned through National School Climate Center training during a weekend-long conference in Southbury recently. The Oct. 21 program was intended to introduce ways to promote working with students as resources rather than objects or recipients in a school setting, according to a press release. It was held at the Heritage Hotel in Southbury. The foundations of school climate training and social emotional learning are a national trend for schools to promote safe, supportive learning environments that nurture social and emotional, civic, and academic growth for students, according to a press release from the school. Westbrook High School is the first in the country to adopt the National School Climate Standards, and a pioneer in promoting engagement through the training of students, as well as faculty and staff, the release said. The workshop gave college students from eight different states an opportunity to enjoy shared experiences by way of participation in a variety of related activities, according to the school. The NEA and CEA has never before included student presentations at their conference. Westbrook High Schools Teen Leadership, School Climate Group received a $5,000 grant from The Connecticut Education Association to present these workshops to students and adults, the release said. This is an outstanding grant focusing on one of the most extreme issues in our schools throughout the country. All workshops are organized and presented by students, which is further very unique. We know of no other district in Connecticut with such a focus and offering, Westbrook High School Teen Leadership School Climate Seminar Coordinator Chet Bialicki said in a prepared statement. For information, visit schoolclimate.org. According to doctors, there is also an increase in dehydration cases coupled with acute gastroenteritis. Medical superintendent Dr Sanjay Surase said that he witnesses about 10 to 20 cases of dehydration per day. Mumbai: With fluctuating mercury levels, more Mumbaikars are complaining of cough, cold, fever and upper respiratory tract infections, said doctors. Dr Om Srivastava, infectious diseases specialist with the civic-run Kasturba Hospital, said that he sees nearly 20 to 30 people every week suffering from viral fever, bronchitis and conjunctivitis. These days, I am seeing more patients with such type of infections and the process of treating these infections is taking one or two weeks, as compared to the cases that we were witnessing a month ago, he said. According to him, till last month, there were around 10 to 15 patients every week suffering from these illnesses. A plausible explanation for this could be the antigenic shift in viruses, where the surface of the virus undergoes a minimal change. This is a natural phenomenon, he added. According to doctors, there is also an increase in cases of dehydration coupled with acute gastroenteritis, because of people consuming contaminated water. Medical superintendent Dr Sanjay Surase said that he witnesses about 10 to 20 cases of dehydration per day. Of these, at least two patients need to be hospitalised for administration of intravenous fluids while the rest are treated in the outpatients department. Usually in this season, we find a surge in patients with upper respiratory tract infections. We are seeing scores of patients with viral fever, runny nose, cough, dehydration and vomiting, Dr Surase said. However, not many have needed hospitalisation. Many patients from nearby slums come to the hospital complaining of loose motions, said Dr Surase. Doctors have advised people to maintain hygiene and avoid eating unhealthy food from roadside stalls. People must consume lots of fluids and at least three to four litres of water every day. Joyce Raezer is the executive director of the National Military Family Association. November is National Veterans and Military Families Month: a time to honor and reflect on the sacrifice and service of our military and their families. But November is more than just a month filled with discounts and freebies for those who have served -- it's the time we, as a nation, owe our military an honest look at their challenges and needs. As we enter our 18th year of war, military families are faced with new obstacles. Some are experiencing intolerable threats to their health and wellbeing due to unsafe conditions in military housing. All are facing a season of sweeping transformation in our complex health care system, even as we become more aware of the dire need for reliable health care, including access to mental and behavioral health care for military families. And all deserve better. Military Families Deserve Safe Housing After the devastating landfall of Hurricane Florence in September, military families living on Camp Lejeune pleaded with the base's private housing manager to fix the storm damage. Assessment crews found collapsing ceilings, standing water, and walls covered in mold. Astonishingly, very few homes were declared 'uninhabitable.' Families had no choice but to remain in their homes, amid mold, poor ventilation, and in some cases, no power. And it's not just families recovering from hurricanes who find themselves coping with unsafe living conditions. Military families at installations across the country report problems with mold, pests, and even lead paint in privatized base housing. While the private companies managing military housing are sometimes responsive to their complaints, too often they are not, and families have little recourse. Standard tenant protections are not available to military families living in privatized housing, and installation commanders are often unwilling to intervene. While only 30 percent of military families live in installation housing at any given time, most military families will live in base housing at some point in their career. They have a right to expect a safe, well-maintained home. The families who stand behind the uniform are the backbone of our military. When their health is not a priority, the readiness of our military suffers, too. Sweeping Changes to TRICARE Might Put Families At Risk Making military families' health a priority means ensuring they can easily access the health care benefit the service member has earned. However, changes within the military health care system are leaving military families confused and unsure what's available to them. Nearly every facet of the military health care system is changing--including military hospital and clinic administration, the TRICARE health care program, as well as dental and vision programs. Military families are left trying to decipher which changes affect their family, and which don't. The well-being of our nation's military families includes their mental health, too. Access to Quality Mental Health Care is Imperative Coping with the normal challenges of military life can lead to stress and anxiety for families. Often this stress is easily treatable, but a national lack of qualified mental health providers makes it difficult for families to find care. We must encourage innovative ways to address normal stress reactions instead of directing families into an overburdened mental health system. One example of a successful approach to this problem is Military Family Life Counselors -- mental health professionals embedded within schools and military units. And at the very worst of the mental health spectrum is suicide. The statistics are sobering. Every day, an active duty service member takes his or her own life. DoD Needs to Publish Military Family Suicide Data We know the same thing is happening within our military families. The fiscal 2015 National Defense Authorization Act required the tracking of military family suicides, but we have yet to see that data from DoD. We need to know the full scope of military family suicide to understand how we can begin to solve it. DoD has the ability to gather and publish this data. We call on them to do it. Appreciating military families means fighting for their health and safety -- something, as Americans, we must prioritize. Those who serve deserve access to top-of-the-line health care and housing that doesn't make them sick. Military children's health should not be in danger because of their parent's devotion to this country. No military family should have to worry about making a doctor's appointment because they're confused about coverage and whether they can afford care. And we should never put the mental health of our military families on the back burner. It is truly a matter of life and death. Appreciation Requires Action Uncertainty is the norm for the family members and our brave men and women in uniform. If we truly appreciate their sacrifices and want to celebrate those who make our military the finest in the world, we must do better in 2019. National Veterans and Military Families Month is now. And there's no time like the present for our country to re-enforce its commitment to our protectors and their loved ones. They protect us; let's protect them. -- The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration. Every year from mid-November to mid-December all Tricare participants will have an open season, meaning they can make changes to their Tricare coverage. Normally, you can only make changes if you have what is known as a "qualifying life event". Open Season Long a part of the civilian benefits routine, Tricare Open Season now offers the opportunity to enroll in Tricare Prime or Select, sign up for Tricare Reserve Select or enroll in Tricare for Life. And of course, this is the first year military retirees will have a chance to sign up for a FEDVIP dental plan as part of the Federal Benefits Open Season. If you are an active duty family member, you also will have a chance to sign up for a FEDVIP vision plan. To enroll in FEDVIP vision, you must be enrolled in a Tricare health plan. Barring a qualifying life event -- marriage, moving out of a service area, losing coverage, a new baby, etc. -- this is the only time until next year's open season that you can make these moves. Premium Everybody is familiar with this monthly payment. FEDVIP dental plan premiums vary from plan to plan, premiums range from as little as $20 per month for individual coverage up to around $150 per month for a family. Enrollment Types With FEDVIP dental, there are three options. In order of cost: self-only coverage; self plus one (probably, but not necessarily, your spouse); and self and family coverage. The ability to limit coverage to yourself and your spouse is slick. Standard Versus High Standard plans come with lower monthly premiums but provide a lower maximum annual benefit and require you to pay more agreed-upon costs. For example, in my area the FEP BlueDental High plan is $37 per month more than the standard for a couple. However, the standard plan caps out individuals at $1,500 in benefits for the year, while the high plan has no cap. Furthermore, while both plans cover 100 percent of in-network preventive care (check-ups, cleanings, etc.), if you need a filling or something more serious like a root canal, you'll pay 15 percent less of the negotiated costs if you've got the high plan. Health Maintenance Organization Versus Preferred Provider Organization Like health care, the FEDVIP dental plans comes in what is typically a less expensive HMO package. These options usually have lower monthly premiums and fewer ongoing, out-of-pocket expenses. However, if you don't use doctors that are part of the plan, barring an emergency, you aren't covered. In-Network Versus Out-Of-Network In a PPO-type plan, you pay less if you use doctors in the provider network. You can typically choose any licensed doctor, but go out of network, and you'll likely have to dig a little deeper into your wallet. For example, if you visited a non-network provider, you are responsible for a larger percentage of the allowed charge and any amount the non-network provider charged over the plan's allowed amount. This highlights the need to carefully select your dentist. Out-of-network annual benefit caps might also be lower. Pre-Certification Some plans require you to get approval prior to care. Procedures expected to surpass a certain cost threshold may need to be reviewed in advance of care. Certain services, such as crowns and bridges, may also need to be approved in advance. You can learn more about open season and the new FEDVIP dental options at tricare.benfeds.com. Dig into details of all the available plans using the tools and info there. If you're not eligible for the FEDVIP plans or would just like explore other options, check out USAA's dental offerings at usaa.com/dental. Ann Curry's PBS series "We'll Meet Again" returns for a second season with an episode called "Saved in Vietnam." The show premieres on Tuesday, November 13, at 8pm ET (as always with PBS, check local listings). Roger Wagner was on guard duty when he was struck above the knee by a bullet that tore apart the artery in his left leg. He was facing amputation and his prospects were grim, but a young MASH surgeon named Dr. Katz took a vein from Rogers right leg and grafted it into the split artery and saved his left leg. Roger has been thinking about that doctor for 50 years and has always wanted to thank him. Dave Johnson served three tours in Vietnam. On a helicopter reconnaissance mission over Cambodia in July 1972, Dave and five other servicemen were hit by enemy fire and forced to make an emergency landing. They survived the crash, but they were showered with gunfire once on the ground. Chinook helicopter pilot Bruce Grable received the Mayday call and put his life on the line to rescue the men. Dave believes he owes his life to Bruce. We've got a clip from the program that shows the moment when Roger learns the first name of the doctor who saved his life. ANN ARBOR, MI - Ann Arbor is facing criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan over a new city ordinance banning unauthorized displays of the city's seal and flag. The City Council approved the ordinance in July, imposing up to $10,000 in penalty fines for violations, but the ACLU argues it infringes on protected free speech rights under the First Amendment. The ordinance prohibits anyone from displaying the city seal or flag "on any written or printed materials that are not official city publications," unless they have special permission from the mayor. And special approval can be given only if the display "promotes the interests of the city and is not detrimental to the image of the city." "Such a restriction is clearly unconstitutional," the ACLU argued in a Nov. 1 letter to Mayor Christopher Taylor and City Attorney Stephen Postema, calling for immediate repeal. "We strongly urge the city to repeal the ordinance, and in the meantime the city attorney's office should disclaim any intent to enforce it," states the three-page letter signed by Dan Korobkin, ACLU of Michigan deputy legal director, and Gayle Rosen, co-chair of the Washtenaw County ACLU Lawyers Committee. City officials say they'll be taking a closer look at the ordinance in light of the concerns raised by the ACLU. "Certainly I have all the respect in the world for the outstanding work performed by the ACLU," Taylor said, explaining he still wants to ensure there aren't situations where there's false suggestion of city sponsorship or affiliation through improper use of the city's seal or flag. "After the ACLU's letter, we are going to take a very close look at what we have and make sure that we've got it right." Postema said there have been productive discussions with the ACLU and the plan is to bring ordinance changes to council in December to address concerns raised while still protecting the city's interests. Shortly after enacting the ordinance, the city sent a "cease and desist" notice to Ann Arbor resident Ed Vielmetti in early August, seeking to get the city's bur-oak tree logo taken down from LocalWiki.org, an online encyclopedia for which Vielmetti is a contributor. An image of the seal was used in a Wiki entry specifically about the city's seal and the city attorney's office deemed it "illicit." Taylor has since granted permission to use the seal in the Wiki entry, but the ACLU says that doesn't resolve the larger problems. "No one else who wishes to display the city's seal or flag should have to risk a threatening letter from a public official, or ask the mayor's permission, before engaging in speech or expression that is clearly protected by the First Amendment," the ACLU letter states. Unlike commercial products, the ACLU argues, the city seal and flag do not enjoy trademark protection. "As a content-based restriction on speech, the ordinance is subject to strict scrutiny and cannot survive that rigorous test," the ACLU letter states. "And requiring the mayor's permission to display the seal or flag is a classic unconstitutional prior restraint on speech." The ACLU cited multiple court cases that it believes support its position on the matter. Senior Assistant City Attorney Matthew Rechtien previously explained the reasons for the ordinance in a memo to council. "The city's flag and seal are symbols of, and have value to, the city," he wrote. "Vendors and potential vendors to the city, and other third-parties, however, use these symbols for things like proposals or bids to the city, usually without any city permission." Rechtien acknowledged federal trademark law does not entitle the city to any protection of "these important symbols," but the new ordinance makes them "the exclusive property of the city," limiting usage. Congress asks MNS chief to apologise to community. Mumbai: In a surprising move, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray will attend a North Indian conference in Mumbai. Mr Thackeray had shot to infamy for his tirades against the North Indian community a decade ago. Since then, he has kept his anti-North Indian stand consistent. Meanwhile, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam opposed Mr Thackerays decision and asked him to apologise to the community. The Uttar Bharatiya Mahapanchayat Sangh had invited Mr Thackeray for its annual meeting. It will be held on December 2 in suburban Kandivali, Mumbai. On Monday, MNS spokesperson Sandeep Deshpande tweeted, Rajsaheb has accepted the invitation. He will be present in December 2 meeting at Kandivali. Slamming Mr Thackeray over his decision to accept the invitation, Mr Nirupam said, He was the person who asked that North Indians be beaten in Mumbai. Now he is attending the meeting. He should apologise to the community. In 2008, the Mahara-shtra police arrested Mr Thackeray for his alleged inflammatory remarks against the North Indian community. The MNS had staged an agitation over railway exams in the state, demanding quota for the sons of soil. The violent protest spread across Mumbai and suburban regions as well as Nashik. Riding the anti-North Indian sentiments, Mr Thackerays party had won 13 seats in Assembly elections in 2009. Throwing light on Mr Thackerays newfound respect for the community, political observer Anant Dikshit said, That anti-North Indian sentiment has now increased. The Bharatiya Janata Party won a major share of the MNS votes in 2014. Now, Mr Thackeray wants it back and, for that, he want to remake his image. So, he is reaching out to different communities. Meanwhile, MNS sources are indicating that Mr Thackeray will push his Marathi agenda at the North Indian conference also, albeit in a relatively restrained tone. Of course, he will not speak in the same tone that he uses at his partys rallies. But Rajsaheb will present his stand on the issue. Just wait for his speech before forming any opinions, said a senior MNS functionary. A group of activists plan to travel from Ann Arbor to Texas in protest of a U.S. detention camp for immigrant teens who are waiting to be reunited with their families. Organized by the group Faith in Action, more than 70 faith leaders and supporters plan to join portions of the four-day trek to Tornillo, Texas, located about 30 miles from E Paso, Texas along the Mexico border. A tent-city-style encampment there is holding children between 13 and 17 who were brought from Health and Human Service facilities across the nation. Dubbed the Let our Families Go caravan, a send-off rally for the traveling protesters was held at Temple Beth Emeth, 2309 Packard in Ann Arbor at 5 p.m. Sunday with stops planned along the rout to Texas in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Tulsa, Oklahoma and "culminating in a large-scale action at the encampment in Tornillo, Texas," a release about the protest says. While the Tornillo encampment was originally designed to temporarily hold up to 450 children, it has been expanded to hold up to 3,800 and is expected to remain in operation until at least the end of the year, NBC News reports. The majority of the children in the camp were detained by immigration officials while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents. The protesters are planning a "large-scale" vigil and rally outside the detention camp Thursday, Nov. 15. ANN ARBOR, MI - Ann Arbor city council is considering ways to make it easier for homeowners to create accessory dwelling units on their property, since no one has pursued the option in the past two years. Ann Arbor passed an ordinance in 2016 that allowed homeowners to create accessory dwelling units - also known as granny flats or mother-in-law apartments - on their property and rent them to non-family members. The ordinance included restrictions intended to prevent the proliferation of ADUs across the city, and now city council thinks the restrictions may have worked too well. "Based on our regulations, they're pretty impossible to build here in Ann Arbor," said Council member Zachary Ackerman, D-3rd Ward, at a meeting on Thursday, Nov. 8. City council voted unanimously at that meeting to have the city planning commission revisit the ordinance and recommend changes that would make it easier for homeowners to create ADUs on their property. Jessica A.S. Letaw, a Downtown Development Authority board member, has pressed the issue in recent months as a way for individuals to add to Ann Arbor's housing inventory and help address the shortage of affordable housing. The resolution passed Thursday resulted from community feedback gathered at five informational sessions on ADUs that Letaw organized in August. She brought in Holly Huntley, a builder who specializes in ADUs in Portland, Oregon, to talk about how the extra units have changed the housing landscape in Portland, and to answer questions about the cost of construction. "The feedback that we heard was overwhelmingly that (ADUs) were cost prohibitive to build," Letaw told city council. "The feeling is that because they're small, they should be inexpensive. Unfortunately with housing ... price doesn't scale down." Letaw noted city staff recently dropped their previous requirement that a detached ADU have its own water and sewer hookup, separate from the main house. That reduced the cost of creating an ADU by $20,000 to $30,000, Letaw said. Her ordinance amendment recommendations, based on feedback at the ADU informational sessions, include: Remove the current maximum square footage limit for ADUs and instead require that an ADU can be no larger than 80 percent of the total square footage of the main house; Remove the current requirement that the lot must be at least 5,000 square feet to house an ADU. The lot size requirement excludes many properties in denser neighborhoods closer to the city center that otherwise would be eligible for an ADU; Permit ADUs on lots with single-family homes in any zone, rather than list specific zones where ADUs are allowed, which excludes interested homeowners in some parts of the city; Remove the stipulation that detached accessory apartments can be created only on properties that already had a detached accessory structure prior to Dec. 31, 2016; and Remove the requirement that the homeowner live on-site. City council's resolution called for the city administrator and planning commission to consider ways to promote the creation of more ADUs in Ann Arbor, including dropping the requirement that detached ADUs can only be built where accessory structures existed prior to Dec. 31, 2016. That would give more homeowners the option to build ADUs on their property. The resolution also asked city attorneys to develop a template of the deed restriction used for ADUs, which has already been completed. Council member Jane Lumm, Independent-2nd Ward, supported reviewing the ordinance, but she said she would oppose any changes that could lead to a "significant number" of ADUs in a neighborhood. She said it's important to protect neighborhood stability and character, and she sees too many ADUs as a threat to that. "In my view, there's no more important element to our quality of life than the character and stability of our neighborhoods," Lumm said. "I don't believe we should ever adopt ordinances or take actions that put that at risk. Yes, creating housing is a worthy object for us, but not at the expense of the stability and character of our neighborhoods." Mayor Christopher Taylor said he appreciated concerns about changing the character of neighborhoods, but he doesn't think more ADUs put that at risk. "ADUs will only have a large impact on a neighborhood if lots of people in the neighborhood want them," he said. BAY CITY, MI -- The case of several Bay County massage parlors raided by police on suspicion of prostitution is in prosecutors' hands. Bay County Prosecutor Nancy E. Borushko said Friday, Nov. 9, that the large file containing "a considerable amount of information" currently is in her office pending review. There is no timetable on when a decision on whether or not to issue charges is made, she added. Michigan State Police troopers on Sept. 27 executed search warrants on three area spas -- The Green Spa, 105 S. Huron Road; Kawkawlin Tan & Spa, 208 S. Huron Road; and Euclid Health Spa, 808 N. Euclid Ave. The former two are in Monitor Township, while the third is in Bangor Township. MSP Special 1st Lt. David Kaiser previously said the raids stemmed from his agency receiving a human-trafficking complaint about a year previous. The investigation indicated a possible prostitution ring was operating, he said. None of the spas has been cited for any wrongdoing as of Monday. GRAND BLANC TWP, MI - Police in Grand Blanc Township will be out watching for drivers that are disregarding flashing lights on school buses. The department announced it will begin "intensified enforcement efforts" beginning Monday, Nov. 12 and target high school, middle school, and elementary bus routes after recent deaths across the country. Unmarked vehicles will be following school buses along their routes into the foreseeable future. "The safety of our children is paramount and we are working closely with Grand Blanc Community schools on how best to address this issue," said Grand Blanc Township police Sgt. Scott Theede. Prior to coming to Grand Blanc Township, Theede worked for the Port St. Lucie Police Department in Florida and served as the lead investigator when a young girl was struck and killed at a bus stop. "I know how hard that was on everyone involved and can empathize with these most recent incidents," he commented, including the death of three siblings at a bus stop last month in Indiana and deaths of children in Pennsylvania and Mississippi. Theede noted the policy for bus drivers is all pickups and drop-offs are red light stops. Yellow light stops are allowed if the children do not cross the road. The state statute regarding stopped buses -- 257.682 -- points out a vehicle has to stop unless the roadway is "divided into two roadways by leaving an intervening space, or by a physical barrier, or clearly indicated dividing sections so constructed as to impede vehicular traffic." If the lights are not activated, Theede said it is OK to pass a school bus if it can be done safely. "Many times (bus) drivers will be courteous, allowing drivers to pass," he noted. An officer can issue a ticket based on a bus driver's statement, Theede said. Bus drivers may provide a license plate number to police and the ticket will be issued to the owner of the vehicle. Those not heeding the red light stops are subject to a fine of up to $195, three points assessed to their driving record, as well as a judge or magistrate ordering the driver to up to 100 hours of community service at a school. "We have made numerous stops for this violation, in recent months," noted Theede, with some given warnings and others written a citation. One such incident took place last week when a driver passed a bus with its red lights activated on Dort Highway. The driver's explanation? "She said she was dealing with her own child and didn't notice the stopped bus," commented Theede. "The magistrate found her responsible, assessing fines and points." He urged drivers to maintain "focus on their driving and surroundings" and "If you're not sure whether or not you have to stop, err on the side of caution and stop." The township police department promotes "Operation Safe Arrival" at the beginning of each school year that offers an overview of speed limits near school buildings and how to heed lights on buses. "We try and educate all drivers about school zones and bus stops," said Theede. "During the school year, the (Grand Blanc Community Schools) transportation office goes around to the schools to educate students on bus safety. This is an issue for all drivers, not just parents." Anyone with questions on the enforcement efforts may contact the Grand Blanc Township Police Department at 810-424-2611. Halo Burger is offering some extra cover for hunters heading out this week for the start of regular firearm deer hunting season in Michigan. The restaurant chain is providing free Mossy Oak camouflage hats when hunters present their current state of Michigan hunting license and purchase any premium burger combination on the menu amid regular firearm season -- Nov. 15-Nov 30. Halo Burger has locations in Genesee County at 800 S. Saginaw St. in Flint; 3388 S. Linden Road in Flint Township; 4451 W. Pierson Road in Mt. Morris Township; 3805 E. Court St. in Flint; 1166 N. Belsay Road in Burton; 1355 N. Leroy St. in Fenton; 3344 E. Hill Road in Grand Blanc Township; and, 9103 E. Birch Run Road in Saginaw County. Non-hunters may also purchase a hat for $9.95 at all participating Halo Burger locations. Anyone with a hat will also receive 10 percent off any purchase through the 2018 hunting season, ending Dec. 31. For additional information on the camouflage hat giveaway, visit the Halo Burger website here. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A first-of-its-kind thermal bra, developed for breast cancer survivors by a group of current and former students at Central Michigan University, is now for sale online. The bra is designed to provide warmth for women who have had reconstructive surgery - using silicone breast implants - after undergoing a double mastectomy. Implants can feel cold against a women's chest because a mastectomy removes tissue that insulates the core. "Women who have undergone this process have been through a great deal. Now you find out, 'oh my gosh, my chest is cold because of this,'" said Susanne Wroblewski, a graduate student who runs the university's Center for Merchandising and Design Technology and helped design the bra. "There are lots of side effects from these surgeries you can't do anything about. But this is something you can solve." Wroblewski - along with two former students - launched a company, Elemental, to sell the bra. They began accepting orders for the bra late last month on the website kickstarter.com for $125. They expect to begin selling it on their website in the near future for $170. The bras will be shipped out for delivery in February. "It's thrilling to put them on wearers and see them fit like a glove," Wroblewski said, adding that she has gotten interest in the bra from residents throughout the U.S., as well as Canada and the United Kingdom. "We didn't think we would have people from warmer states interested. But air conditioning is a problem, we've learned." The idea for the bra came from Jodie Faber, who retired recently after serving as director of Spectrum Health United Lifestyles, the wellness and prevention program associated with Spectrum Health United and Kelsey hospitals. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and underwent a double mastectomy with reconstructive surgery. About a decade later, she relayed her idea for some kind of warming bra to Spectrum Health Innovations, a for-profit business venture the health system created in 2007. The innovations team turned to CMU for assistance, and they provided guidance to Wroblewski and her colleagues as they worked through the design and testing phase for the bra. Spectrum gets a royalty fee for each bra sold, half of which goes to Faber, said Anthony Lazzaro, a senior product development specialist at Spectrum Health Innovations. Lazzaro helped Wroblewski and her colleagues prepare for a business contest at CMU, in which they took home the top prize of $30,000 to launch their bra business. He said it's exciting to see an idea that could have a "positive impact on women across the country" become reality. "They say it brings them back to a sense of normalcy," he said, referring to women who have tested the thermal bra. "I can't imagine how that would feel. It's pretty incredible." GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- U.S. Army veteran Bob Anderson veteran has helped provide final honors at funerals for nearly 830 fellow servicemen and women in the past four years. "It's a way to give back and honor someone that, like me and so many million other Americans, served their country in her time of need," Anderson said. "I think I have a calling to do this." The United Veterans Council of Kent County recently named Anderson as Kent County's Veteran of the Year. The Kent County Board of Commissioners honored him at their meeting Thursday, Nov. 8. "It was surreal, actually," Anderson said. "Every other nominee was as equally deserving as me. It's just a tremendous honor to have received this award from the." Four others were nominated for the title. Anderson is a veteran of the Vietnam War. He served as a first lieutenant infantryman in the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, earning, most notably, a purple heart, two bronze stars for valor and one for meritorious service. While overseas in April 1970, Anderson was wounded by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade, earning him the purple heart. Later that same day, he said, the company commander was killed, forcing him to take over and lead the troops out of danger. He and the platoon sergeant later carried his commander's body off the battlefield. He earned a bronze star for those actions. In June 2014, the 70-year-old Ada resident joined the Kent County Veterans Honor Guard, a group of just under 100 veterans who put on about 600 military funeral honors ceremonies each year in the county. Since that time Anderson has participated in roughly 830 of them, sometimes up to four a day. "You do what you can," he said. "There are a number of us that do anywhere from 160 to 180 funerals every year." Each ceremony consists of a eulogy, a prayer, a three-volley rifle salute and the playing of taps, folding of the flag and presenting the flag to next of kin. Lastly, there is the final salute. Anderson's role, most often, is funeral detail commander, the person designated to talk with the family beforehand. "The family members are always so gracious and so thankful that we're there," he said. "I can't impress probably enough how much an honor and a privilege it is for us to do this." Anderson concedes some funerals, particularly those involving suicide or a young veteran, can be tough. But, he said, just like his combat service taught him, it helps to distance emotions from service. "If our emotions get too involved then we aren't able to provide the service that the veteran is entitled to," Anderson said. "Just like in combat, you can't let your emotions show or the soldiers that you're leading are going to have some trouble." DETROIT, MI - An allegation of child sex abuse against a Detroit-area monsignor who served in many Catholic churches in Southeast Michigan before his death in 1994 has been deemed credible, according to the Archdiocese of Detroit. The complaint was leveled against Monsignor Thaddeus Ozog. No details were released about where or when the alleged assault took place. The Archdiocese said it had shared the complaint with authorities and its own review board. "When presented to the Review Board, the findings from that investigation were found to be credible, that is, having a 'semblance of truth,' " the diocese said in a statement released this past weekend. After being ordained in 1956, Ozog worked in parishes from Detroit to Birmingham. His last assignment, from 1978 to 1994, was as pastor for St. Florian in Hamtramck. Archdiocese officials are encouraging anyone who has been abused to contact authorities, and also its victim assistance coordinator at (866) 343-8055. The church provided a list of Ozog's parish assignments: 1956 - 1958: Associate Pastor, Our Lady Help of Christians, Detroit 1958: Associate Pastor, St. Columban, Birmingham 1958: Associate Pastor, Our Lady of the Lakes, Waterford 1959 - 1975: Instructor (1959); Registrar (1962); Dean (1968); Rector (1970), Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit 1975: Associate Pastor, St. Hillary, Detroit 1975: Associate Pastor, St. Mary, Wayne 1976 - 1978: Pastor, St. Roch, Flat Rock 1978 - 1994: Pastor, St. Florian, Hamtramck With a couple of Democratic flips and four new lawmakers added to Michigan's Congressional roster, the makeup of Michigan's U.S. House offices shifted significantly in the 2018 midterms. Next term, four freshmen - Democrats Rashida Tlaib, Andy Levin, Haley Stevens and Elissa Slotkin - will join the 10 incumbents who won reelection in Congress. Their election brings the partisan split of Michigan's delegation to seven Democrats and seven Republicans, a change from the current 9-5 split. The elections of Tlaib, Stevens and Slotkin also mean there will be five women in Michigan's Congressional delegation next term, up from two - incumbent Democrats Brenda Lawrence and Debbie Dingell - in the current term. The changeover is especially significant in Southeast Michigan, where former U.S. Rep. John Conyers and retiring U.S. Rep. Sandy Levin served in Congress for decades and where Michigan's 8th and 11th districts had leaned Republican. Stevens won an open seat in the 11th Congressional District that is currently held by outgoing U.S. Rep. Dave Trott, R-Birmingham, after a competitive primary and general election race against Republican Lena Epstein. In perhaps the most competitive Congressional race of the cycle, Slotkin was the only Congressional candidate to defeat an incumbent, unseating U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop of Rochester in the 8th Congressional District. Conyers' former seat in the 13th Congressional District was left vacant last year after he stepped down amid sexual harassment claims. Before Tlaib takes office next year, Brenda Jones will fill the seat for the remainder of Conyers' current term. Tlaib is also set to be one of the first Muslim women in Congress, sharing that distinction with Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Andy Levin will be replacing his father, Sandy Levin, in Michigan's 9th Congressional District. The elder Levin is retiring at the close of his 18th term in Congress. Throughout the rest of the state, constituents will see familiar names representing them, with incumbents winning reelection in 10 of Michigan's 14 Congressional districts. Some faced down spirited challenges from their opponents, however - notably in West Michigan's 6th Congressional District, where incumbent Republican Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, won reelection with 50.25 percent of the vote to Democratic challenger Matt Longjohn's 45.69 percent. See the U.S. House results from Michigan's midterm election below: HOUGHTON LAKE, MI - A Michigan man saved a woman's life when he stopped along the highway to help her escape the burning car she was trapped in. According to the Michigan State Police Houghton Lake Post, the daring rescue occurred around 9:20 a.m. on Nov. 10 near the Clare/Roscommon county line on US-127. Troopers were dispatched to the scene, but their response was slowed by the slippery road conditions. The situation worsened as additional callers reported that the driver was trapped and that the car had caught fire. However, a 51-year-old Riverdale man saved the woman when he broke one of the car's windows using a crowbar and freed the female driver before the flames could reach her. The 24-year-old St. Louis woman, who police say may have died if not for the efforts of the passerby, escaped the incident with minor injuries. She was transported via Houghton Lake Ambulance Service to the Clare County Hospital for care. The Roscommon Township Fire Department quelled the vehicle fire, according to police. "Driver's around the state have been adjusting over the past week to the onset of our winter driving season," a news release reads. "We urge all drivers to slow down, and to allow for greater stopping distance when driving on roads that have any potential for slippery conditions. Please be careful out there." Congresswoman very popular among Indian-Americans. Washington: Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu lawmaker from Hawaii in the US Congress, is considering to run for American presidency in 2020, according to sources close to her. On Friday, at a Medtronic conference in Los Angeles, an eminent Indian-American, Dr Sampat Shivangi, introduced Gabbard, 37, and said that she could be the next President of the US in 2020. The brief statement was marked by a standing ovation in the presence of the four-term Congresswoman from the 50th US state. Ms Gabbard, a Democrat, who addressed the gathering, neither confirmed nor denied that she is running for President in 2020. A decision on this could be taken before Christmas, which might not necessarily result in a formal announcement as that could be delayed till the next year. However, it is said that she and her team have quietly been reaching out to prospective donors, including a large number of Indian Americans and volunteers to build an impressive campaign for her 2020 run. Ms Gabbard is highly popular among Indian-Americans, a constituency she has nurtured from the very beginning of her political career. Indian-Americans are considered the richest ethnic group after the Jewish Americans and in many critical states they can play an important role in her electoral chances. Ms Gabbard is not Indian. She was born in American Samoa to a Catholic father (Hawaii State Senator Mike Gabbard) and her mother, Carol Porter Gabbard, is of Caucasian descent who professes Hinduism. Ms Gabbard moved to Hawaii when she was two and embraced Hinduism as a teenager and is well-versed in the scriptures. If Ms Gabbard declares her presidential bid she would be the first Hindu candidate ever from a major political party to announce to enter the race for White House. And if elected in 2020, she could be the youngest ever and first woman to be elected as the US President. A Democrat, Ms Gabbard last week was elected for the fourth term for the US House of Representatives. Notably, Dr Shivangi is a Republican and has been the partys delegate for the past several presidential conventions. However, he had held fund raisers for Ms Gabbard when she ran for the Congress for the first time in 2012. She was the first US lawmaker to take her oath on Bhagwat Gita. A former vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ms Gabbard currently serves on powerful House Armed Services Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee. She is also the Democratic Co-Chair of the Congressional India Caucus. She has been a fresh voice in the Democratic Party, with her support for US-India relations, her opposition to the war in Iraq, and her opposition to arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Dr Shivangi said. The 2020 presidential primary cycle is scheduled to kick off from the Iowa Caucuses on February 3, 2020. JACKSON, MI - The giant green awning is gone, and new businesses are preparing to move into the former Swan Creek Candle building at 133 W. Michigan Ave. Fortress Cafe will occupy the front of the 5,200-square-foot space, while a business incubator called Lean Rocket Lab will move about a dozen more companies into the rear of the building. Lean Rocket Lab is inspired by business incubators in Detroit and Ann Arbor, which offer space to businesses looking to get off the ground or collaborate with others, Lean Rocket Lab Founder and CEO Brandon Marken said. "Each one can live as its own," said Maury Page, director of marketing for Lean Rocket Lab and Fortress Cafe. "But the idea is that there's a lot of collaborating between businesses." All the office space has already been filled by various businesses, including Codifi, Peachly and Restaurant Logic and schools like Spring Arbor University and Baker College. While offices surround the perimeter of the space, the building also features conference room and co-working spaces. Anyone can rent a spot in the center co-working space - $99 per month to access the area or $199 per month to lock down a permanent spot. Page anticipates office space opening up in the near future. The goal is for businesses to grow and move on to their own spaces. "That's the whole concept of the Lean Rocket Lab - launching your business and hopefully you get to the point where you can take off and become bigger," Page said. "And then another business will move through and do the same thing." Lean Rocket Lab's lease on the building started in July, and renovations to the space are underway. The coffee shop is owned by Duncan Bone, who was approached by Marken with the opportunity. Having 12 businesses already inside within feet from the counter was a selling point, Bone said. Fortress Cafe will open to the public, with 25 to 35 seats and WiFi. Both Lean Rocket Lab and Fortress Cafe are on pace to open in early December, Marken and Bone said. Small-batch roasting allows Fortress to keep its coffee fresh, Bone said. The business has been making coffee for a few years, under the name Fortress Coffee, but the cafe concept is new. Bone, a personal trainer, said the breakfast and lunchtime cafe will also serve grab-and-go health foods - like protein shakes, smoothies, acai breakfast bowls, quiche, baked oatmeal and chicken salad. "I just really think Jackson's on the rise," Bone said. "All the changes and renovations that have been made to the downtown area in the last couple years, there's just more of a buzz downtown. I think Jackson's ready to start growing and get some cool things in the downtown area." The space has been vacant since Swan Creek Candle closed in 2014. Decades earlier, the space housed the S.S. Kresge five-and-dime store. MUSKEGON, MI - The veterinarian believed the starving horse was close to death, lingering on the brink of this world and the next, when he summoned Nancy Smith. The stallion had lost half his body weight. Barely able to stand on hooves painfully infected with thrush, the horse Smith would come to know as Chrome, had given up. At least that's what Smith believes. She's convinced that had her horse rescue group, Points North Horse Rescue, not been called that day in late August, Chrome would have been lost. "He was the one we thought was going to die," said Smith, a captain with the Muskegon County Sheriff's Mounted Unit. "He was on death's door." A second stallion named Virgil, painfully thin after an estimated three months without food, was removed on an emergency basis that day. The veterinarian gave both stallions 24 to 48 hours to live, Smith said. Two mares and a filly also removed the same day "were as bad as the first two," Smith said. They were the second group of horses to be removed from the farm in Muskegon County's Cedar Creek Township. Four days earlier, the veterinarian who had been alerted by sheriff deputies asked for Smith's help removing two mares and a stallion. On a scale of 1-9, with 1 emaciated and 9 morbidly obese, five of the eight horses were scored at a 1, she said. They were starving. Court records show the breeding farm is owned by Krystal Lynn Smith, the elected supervisor for Cedar Creek Township. Smith, 39, has been charged with animal neglect, a misdemeanor that is punishable by up to a year in jail as well as a possible order prohibiting her from owning horses in the future. Chrome, Virgil and Helga, one of the mares that were rescued in August, are owned by Krystal Smith. A jury trial is scheduled for Dec. 5. Several phone messages seeking comment that were left on both Smith's personal phone and at township hall were never returned. 'In God's hands' It was by far the largest horse rescue that Points North has conducted, Nancy Smith said. Previously, the most it had rescued at one time were three horses, she said. More than two months after their rescue, all the rescued horses have gained more than 200 pounds each. Chrome, Virgil and Helga are thriving at local farms where they have been placed while Krystal Smith's criminal case winds through the courts. Most of the other rescued horses have been returned to their owners. Most of the horses spent the first month and a half at the Muskegon County Fairgrounds, where they were quarantined and nursed back to health. Chrome, the sickest horse, was 596 pounds when he was rescued. It was tough to leave the depressed, scared and emaciated stallion that first night, said Nancy Smith's husband and horse rescue partner, Rob Smith. "(Nancy) said basically we're leaving this in God's hands," he said. The young stallion was still alive when they returned the next day. But he wasn't drinking, and in fact went 36 hours without drinking - about the limit a horse can go without water, Nancy Smith said. "He was the one we thought would die," she said. "He was on death's door." They tried bottled water and flavored water, but Chrome wouldn't drink. They later discovered that his teeth had not been filed and were cutting into his mouth so severely that blood rushed out when a dentist flushed the stallion's mouth. So it was a godsend when the rain came. A young dedicated 4-H member stood with Chrome for three hours in that rain. She stood with him as he ate soggy grass - consuming just enough water to keep him alive, Smith said. Now on the mend, Chrome's personality is starting to show. "He's very social and he loves people," Smith said. "He's actually the clown of the bunch." 'A little tear-jerker' Still not out of the woods is the young filly named Amarah. She was born at Krystal Smith's farm where her mother had been sent to be bred. But the mare, unbeknownst to her owner in Florida, already was pregnant. When Nancy Smith arrived to rescue the horses, young Amarah was in a corral with two stallions. "Deplorable" is how she described the setup. At just 18 months, Amarah was pregnant - a very dangerous situation for a filly that young, Nancy Smith said. "She's a little tear-jerker," she said. "This whole thing about her being bred is very scary." Amarah's growth has been stunted and the filly affectionately called "chocolate pudding pie" stands at about half the height she should be. And because she's pregnant, she may never catch up. "Everything about her looks like a weanling," Smith said, referring to a horse under a year old. Delivery could prove fatal for both mother and baby. If she survives, Amarah will remain with the rescue organization. Her mother's owner in Florida doesn't want her. Everybody was fooled It was a bit of a fluke that the horses were discovered, Nancy Smith said. There had been rumors something was wrong at the farm that no one could chase down, she said. Krystal Smith kept visitors away from the horses. "She had everybody fooled that everything is just lovely," Nancy Smith said. But then a visitor's child went wandering and when the visitor found the child, she discovered much more. That's when the Muskegon County Sheriff's Office was summoned. Several of the horses have since been returned to their owners. Pumpkin, a mare, is being boarded with an agent of her owner, a veterinarian from the east side of the state. Murdock, a stallion since gelded, has returned to his owner in Virginia who had arranged and paid for his rehabilitation until he was well enough to travel. And Faith, Amarah's mother, has returned to Florida. Mouse, a mare, has returned to her owner, a 14-year-old girl from Grant. The girl had bought Mouse from Krystal Smith and had sent the mare back to the farm to be trained. She had even brought feed to the farm for her horse, making it difficult for Nancy Smith to understand how the mare ended up starving. Owners who thought they were sending their horses to a safe breeding farm were shocked. Even prior owners of horses that were removed called Nancy Smith following the rescues. "They were very emotional," Smith said. "Some of the calls were an hour and a half." Six more horses left at the farm are being monitored by the sheriff's department. Stepping up The rescues took a toll on Nancy and Rob Smith's horse rescue operation. Points North Horse Rescue used up its entire $2,000 savings within the first couple of weeks on such needs as dental care, hoof trimming, de-worming, food and hay. They received big donations of feed and supplements that helped them get through initially. One young woman from Flint drove across the state to deliver 400 pounds of feed. "We actually started tearing up," Rob Smith said. "We've never asked for anything. We never asked for help." But with winter coming, they will need to buy grain at a cost of at least $1,000 per month. They also will continue to have care and vet bills, including some big expenses for Amarah as she prepares to deliver her foal. If anything good came out of the horses' suffering, it would be the groundswell of support from people willing to pitch in and help, Nancy Smith said. "This opened up a whole new group of people willing to volunteer, willing to help," she said. The Smiths already have their hands full. Their rescue sanctuary cares for 14 horses, some of which are used in therapy programs for humans with such conditions as autism. One is used by a deputy in the sheriff's mounted unit. Others are used by young 4-H members who don't have their own horses. Some 4-H members recently held a fundraiser at the Fruitport Tractor Supply Co. for the rescued horses, complete with raffles and an animal costume competition. On Dec. 1, Rob Smith's band, Stone Free, will perform a benefit concert at the Effin Bar in Twin Lake from 2-7 p.m. Anyone interested in helping support the rescued horses is encouraged to visit a gofundme page titled "Save the Neglected Horses." Checks made out to "Muskegon County Sheriff's Mounted Division" can be mailed to 1786 McIlwraith St., Muskegon MI 49442. More than two decades after the first "Toy Story" changed animated films forever, Disney Pixar will officially release "Toy Story 4" on June 21, 2019. With the announcement made to its social media channels, Disney Pixar also dropped the first official teaser trailer that is sure to elicit a wide range of emotions. Check out the trailer and official announcement image below: -- #ToyStory4 opens in theatres June 21, 2019. Watch the Toy Story 4 teaser trailer: http://di.sn/6004EBsm6 Posted by Disney Pixar on Monday, November 12, 2018 -- "Woody has always been confident about his place in the world and that his priority is taking care of his kid, whether that's Andy or Bonnie," Disney Pixar writes in the trailer's description. "But when Bonnie adds a reluctant new toy called 'Forky' to her room, a road trip adventure alongside old and new friends will show Woody how big the world can be for a toy." "Toy Story 4" is directed by Josh Cooley, and produced by Jonas Rivera and Mark Nielsen. This fourth edition follows up on previous installations from 2010, 1999 and 1995. Fan reaction to the existence of a fourth film in the Disney Pixar comments section seems to be split between the neatly-tied together ending to "Toy Story 3" and the desire for more of their favorite characters. Back in September, Michigan native Tim Allen, the voice of "Buzz Lightyear," said that "Toy Story 4" is "so emotional, it's so funny, it's so big, the idea they've come up with, I'm startled. "I couldn't even get through the last scene. I would love to be a Washington leaker. I just can't do it," Allen said while on the CBS show "The Talk" in late September. "I can't give any more away. They've got great characters but a couple of scenes toward the end were really hard to get through." Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) A former Metro Rail Transit (MRT) chief is seeking the anti-graft court's permission to challenge the prosecution's evidence against him over an alleged anomalous train maintenance deal. Former MRT General Manager Al Vitangcol has filed a motion for leave of court to file a demurrer to evidence before the Sandiganbayan's Third Division. In his motion dated October 8 and released to the media on Monday, Vitangcol said state prosecutors 'miserably failed' to establish his guilt. "Hence, herein accused earnestly prays before this Honorable Court to allow him to file his demurrer to evidence on the ground that the prosecution was not able to present evidence that he committed the crime he was charged," the motion read. A demurrer to evidence is filed when an accused wants to challenge the evidence against him and wants the court to decide on a case halfway through the trial, particularly after the prosecution rests its case. Vitangcol is facing graft charges for allegedly giving undue favor to PH Trams-CB&T Joint Venture in awarding a maintenance contract when he was MRT manager in 2012. He supposedly failed to disclose that one of PH Trams' directors is his wife's uncle. Vitangcol said the allegation he conspired with others to give unwarranted benefit to PH Trams is a mere theory since prosecutors were not able to present supporting evidence. State prosecutors, meanwhile, asked the court to deny Vitangcol's motion. In an opposition filed on November 5, state prosecutors said they presented enough documentary and testimonial evidence proving Vitangcol's guilt. They pointed out written statements, public documents from the Department of Transportation, backed by testimony of witnesses that certified these documents show how Vitangcol used his position to favor PH Trams. "As Negotiating Team Head, he intervened and took part in the processes that led to the award of the contract to PH Trams, where he as nephew-in-law stand to benefit in view of his relations to one of the major incorporators," the prosecution said. Vitangcol is facing a separate graft case for allegedly demanding $30 million from officials of Czech firm Inekon in exchange for the MRT maintenance contract. Nearly 600 people have been killed since clashes erupted on November 1 in Hodeida, one of Yemen's most densely populated cities. A military official in Hodeida confirmed seven civilians had died, without giving further details. (Representational image | AFP) Hodeida: At least 149 people including civilians have been killed in 24 hours of clashes between government loyalists and rebels in Yemen's flashpoint city of Hodeida, medics and military sources said Monday. A military official in Hodeida confirmed seven civilians had died, without giving further details. The Red Sea port city, controlled by Yemen's Houthi rebels since 2014, is a vital entry point for aid into the impoverished country. A source in Yemen's pro-government military coalition, which is backed by a Saudi-led military alliance, said the Houthis had pushed back a large-scale offensive aimed at moving towards Hodeida port. Medics in hospitals across the city reported 110 rebels and 32 loyalist fighters killed overnight. Sources at the Al-Alfi military hospital, seized by the rebels during their 2014 takeover, said charred body parts had been delivered there overnight. Military sources confirmed that the Saudi-led alliance had targeted the rebels with multiple air strikes. Nearly 600 people have been killed since clashes erupted on November 1 in Hodeida, one of Yemen's most densely populated cities. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the Yemeni government's fight against the Iran-backed Houthis in 2015, triggering what the UN now calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The Hodeida port is a vital lifeline for aid deliveries to Yemenis across the war-torn country, where 14 million people face imminent famine. The port has been under blockade by the Saudi-led coalition for a year. The alliance accuses Iran of smuggling arms to the Houthis through the Hodeida port. Tehran denies the charges. by NAT da Polis The area, in European Turkey, is part of the Diocese of Selymbria. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, it was emptied of its Christian population. The Mass was celebrated outdoors because there are no churches. An Orthodox ecumenical and interfaith diocesan centre will open soon. Istanbul (AsiaNews) After more than a century, an ecumenical patriarch celebrated Mass in Eastern Thrace (European Turkey), a first in the so-called Archdiocese of Selymbria (Silivri). Until 1922, the area was home to a large Christian community, which disappeared after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the large-scale exchange between Greece and Turkey of their respective Muslim and Christian populations. The occasion was the feast of Saint Nectarios, with the Mass celebrated on 11 November in the Orthodox calendar. The saint, who is revered among Orthodox, was born in Selymbria and died there in 1920, after considerable missionary work as a bishop in Cyrenaica. Nothing but ruins remain of the ancient Christian presence. For this reason, the celebration took place not in a church, but in the open in the place where the Acropolis of Selymbria once stood. Many believers from neighbouring Greece came for the Mass. The mayor of Silivri, Ozcan Isklar, was also present. Thanks to the behind-the-scene work of the metropolitan bishop with local authorities, the mayor succeeded in obtaining all the Turkish permits needed to set up a diocesan office, which will operate as an ecumenical and interfaith centre. In his homily, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew stressed in fact the interreligious dimension, telling those present that above religious ideologies there is a common God, for whom all sincere believers in him must contribute to the common good of the human race, without focusing on oneself or speculating. The prelate noted that true faith is not a harbinger of destruction but helps people to understand themselves so that they can live in peace. Bartholomew emphasised "the humility of the great son of the ecumenical patriarchate and of this land", describing Saint Nectarios as a trailblazer of ecumenism in the late 19th century. For example, he would rebuke Orthodox bishops who did not want to have relations with fellow bishops of other Christian confessions. Quoting the saint, the patriarch said: "The bishop who refuses to embrace his brothers from a different confession or refuses to work with them for the common good of the Church of Christ acts only for his own interests, expresses a false zeal, with no feeling of charity, the true essence of our faith in Christ. "According to Saint Nectarios where charity prevails, light and truth dominate. Hence, the masters of hatred are disciples of the devil, since sweet and bitter cannot flow from the same source. Only humility in accordance with Christ is the true source of life and virtue." At present, these words take on a certain importance following the decision of the Moscow Patriarchate not to participate any longer in the ecumenical dialogue between Rome and the Orthodox world under Constantinoples leadership. Silivri Mayor, Ozcan Isklar, called Saint Nectarios a true saint of peace. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his neo-Ottoman Turkey views itself as the heir to the tradition of ecumenical tolerance, and is no stranger to concessions to the minorities that still survive in Turkey. For his part, Bartholomew has often reminded Erdogan that all of the countrys minorities have been part of its history for hundreds of centuries. by Sumon Corraya The last two cases of sexual violence in Mymensingh and Rajshahi. Women of the religious minority often do not have the courage to report. Activist: "Christians appear weak and easy targets for persecution". Sirajganj (AsiaNews) - A Catholic woman of the Guo ethnic group residing in the diocese of Mymensingh was raped by two Muslims; a teenage Santhal from Rajshahi was harassed by her high school principal. These are the last two cases of violence against women in Bangladesh, where the perpetrators who attack the Catholic minority often going unpunished. The raped woman is the mother of three children and attends the Catholic church of St. Andrew in Diglakuna. She was attacked in her house on the night of 7 November. Two men of Muslim religion came to her house dressed as policemen, then gagged, bound, and raped her in turn. The Catholic found the courage to report the case two days later. One of the two rapists, named Efran, was tracked down by members of the Christian community and handed over to the police. The adolescent of the Santhal ethnic group was harassed by Addur Satar, principal of her school, on November 9. The 15 year old girl belongs to the Catholic church of Gulta, in the area of Sirajganj, and attends the ninth grade in the Gulta Adibashi Girls School, a local public institution. Her father tells AsiaNews that his daughter "went to the principal's house to get help with homework. At that moment Abdur Satar's wife was not at home and the man remained alone with my daughter. He touched her private parts and wanted to rape her, but luckily my daughter managed to escape. " The father complains that the principal "is an influential person in the community, so the police did not even want to register the complaint. Then some journalists and local leaders put pressure on the agents, until they decided to register the case. " Nikhil Khaka, of orao ethnicity and president of the Bangladesh Christian Association (BCA) in the district of Sirajganj, declares: "We want an exemplary punishment for Abdur Satar. We know that he has abused many girls in the past, but none have dared to report. Christians appear weak and can be easily persecuted". Palestinian sources speak of undercover operation by the Israeli army. The military penetrated 3 km inside the territory. Rockets from Gaza hit southern Israel. Air force responds with ground raid. Netanyahu interrupts the visit to Paris for the celebrations of the centenary of the end of the Great War. Gaza (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Seven Palestinians - including a local Hamas leader - and an Israeli special forces soldier are the victims of an operation launched by Israel in the Gaza Strip yesterday. The clashes took place in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the territory, and risk reigniting the tension - and nullifying a recent aim of the truce - in an area already marked by conflicts and violence. Confirming the seriousness of the situation, the decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut short his visit to Paris. He was in France together with heads of state and government, to attend the events marking the centenary of the armistice of the First World War. In southern Israel, alarm sirens repeatedly sounded to signal the launch of rockets and missiles from Gaza. According to army sources, at least 17missiles left the Strip, three of which were shot down. At the moment there are no reports of material damage. In an official note the Israeli military specifies that "a soldier was killed and a second suffered light injuries" in an exchange of gunfire during the special forces operation. Hamas responded that the operation was "a cowardly attack by Israel". One of the victims was Sheikh Nur Barakeh, a prominent official of the Islamic extremist movement that controls Gaza. According to sources in the Strip, the gunfight ensued after an undercover operation by Israeli special forces infiltrated east of Khan Younis in a civilian vehicle, penetrating more than 3 km into Palestinian territory. Some militiamen discovered the car and tried to stop it, triggering the (also aerial) response of Israel that launched attacks and caused the death of "several people". Analysts and experts point out the anomaly of the operation launched by Israel, which comes at a time of apparent "progress" on the difficult path of dialogue between the parties mediated by Egypt on the impulse of the United Nations. Last week Israel granted $ 15 million in Qatari aid to the Strip; in response, Hamas assured to reduce the intensity of Friday demonstrations along the border. Since last March, Palestinians have been holding weekly protests in the area, which in some cases lead to accidents or violence. Behind the demonstrations, promoted by Hamas leaders, support for the claims of Palestinian refugees who are asking to return to their homes, which today are in a territory annexed by Israel. Over 200 Palestinians have been killed by the army, most of them in the context of street demonstrations. by Vladimir Rozanskij The Collective Security Treaty Organization includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Ukraine left last May. No agreement on the new secretary: vote postponed to December, in St. Petersburg. The Kazakhstani space projects. Moscow (AsiaNews) - Last November 8, the Kazakh capital Astana hosted a high level summit of the member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (abbreviated by the English CSTO), the so-called "counter-NATO" established in 1992 by six former Soviet nations, among those that had formed the so-called "Commonwealth of Independent States" (CIS): Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, excluding Ukraine, which formally separated itself from CIS last May. The presidents of the six countries participated in the meeting that was to choose the new Secretary-General after the new Armenian President Nicol Pashinyan revoked the mandate of Jurij Kachaturov, ex-head of the Armenian armed forces, who had been in office since 2017. Pashinian believes that General Kachaturov is one of the chief protagonists of 2008 repressions, when the army killed 8 protesters demonstrating against the election of President Ter-Petrosyan. The surprising news is that the leaders of the CSTO have failed to elect the Secretary, postponing the decision to the next meeting on December 6, in St. Petersburg. Pashinyan himself wanted to replace Kachaturov with another Armenian candidate, without naming names, but he clashed with Vladimir Putin's sharp opposition, highlighting a strong tension between the two. And this despite the good relations apparently preserved after the Armenian "velvet revolution" that has marginalized the old ruling class linked to ex-president Serz Sargsyan, very close to Putin's Russia. President Lukashenko's Belarus attempted to propose the mediation of its own candidacy, advancing the name of General Stanislav Zas', secretary of the Belarussian Security Council, welcome to many former Soviet colleagues. Russia instead stumbled on the candidacy of Valerij Semerikov, until now deputy to Kachaturov, and historical commander of the Russian ground forces in Asia. At a certain point in the summit a sensational news broke: Kazakhstan invited none other than Elon Musk, the South African-Canadian multi-billionaire entrepreneur founder of PayPal and Tesla, and collaborator of the government of Donald Trump to take part in the summit. Musk actually collaborates with the Kazakh government on its space projects, being also the founder of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, the so-called SpaceX, which wants to change the destinies of the world and humanity by reducing global warming with the use of renewable energy , and reducing the risk of "human extinction" by establishing a colony on Mars. Kazakhstan is the historical site of former and post-Soviet space projects, with the Baikonur space base, which remains administered by the Russians with an agreement valid until 2050. The cosmic ambitions of the country led by Nursultan Nazarbaev remained in reality in the background : when Musk's presence seemed to materialize, Putin himself arrived at the summit, apparently leaving his foreign minister Lavrov to deal with the issues. And the result was stalemate. The CSTO is a Soviet legacy which seems of no interest to anyone. It could regain importance in the future geopolitical strategies, for the different relations of force within it, for the future scenarios of Asia and Eastern Europe, and perhaps even of the astral routes to which the terrestrial conflicts will move. by J.B. An Dang The Dung Lac School was located at number 29 Nha Chung Street. The archdiocese never produced any document indicating its intention to donate, transfer or cede the right to use. The administration has started the construction site without notice and the project does not have the necessary building permits. Hanoi (AsiaNews) - Without providing any explanation or the necessary documents, the Hanoi authorities have started a construction site on land belonging to the archdiocese. The Catholic community in the capital protests against the misappropriation of the lot, where once a school was built. On November 5th, the ecclesiastical authorities issued a statement. The document, signed in the name of the clergy and faithful of the capital by the Archbishop, Card. Pierre Nguyen Van Nhon (photo), and by auxiliary bishop Msgr. Laurent Chu Van Minh, was sent to the secretary of the Municipal Committee of the Party, to the president of the People's Committee and to the administration of Hanoi. The note states that the authorities of the capital have started a building site at number 29 of Nha Chung Street, land owned by the archdiocese as certified by the title of property no. 1794, volume 9, page 191. This is where the Dung Lac School was located, run by the local Church. Up to now, the archdiocese of Hanoi has never produced any document indicating the intention to donate, transfer or cede the right to use this lot. The administration has started the construction site without notice and the project does not have the necessary building permits. The officials purposely blocked all access to the land lot and brought heavy machinery to it, as if it were an uninhabited place. Signed by more than 400 students and scholars, the letter calls for a unified solution to solve the crises the country faces. It also calls for stronger multiculturalism and social reforms based on solidarity. Actors and celebrities also start an online campaign against US sanctions, which, contrary to Trumps lies, affect the weak. Tehran (AsiaNews) More than 400 intellectuals and activists, including university professors and students, have published an open letter calling for a new path of development for Iran, which is currently threatened by Western sanctions and a theocracy unable to cope with open debate. In their letter addressed to "academicians, lecturers, intellectuals and social activists", the signatories demand a thorough review of the political and intellectual attitudes that prevail in the country. The goal is to create a unified discourse to find a way out of the country's critical situation, pro-Green Movement website Kalemeh reported. For the signatories, one of the strategies to exit the current national crisis is a total review of the dominant intellectual schools of thought, aimed at reforming Iran's political, social and economic infrastructure. For them, Irans problem today is the danger of annihilation that threatens the existence of all Iranians. This calls for stronger ties in the country to engage in collective action on social issues. It also means changing the national dialogue into a reform programme based on a specific agenda. We need a revision of the dominant political thought, a sort of paradigmatic turn that requires a change from the bottom up, the letter says. Such a movement can open up the dark and narrow confines of universities to civil society and citizens. Lastly, the letter expresses hope that Iran will be "based on multiculturalism" as well as solidarity rather the repressive and disruptive mechanisms of the state. Along with the above action by intellectuals, scholars and students, other initiatives are being undertaken to counter US sanctions, which are taking their toll on ordinary Iranians. One of the them is #SanctionsTargetMe, which brings together various celebrities concerned, among other things, about the countrys alarming drug shortages. Promoted by actors Reza Kianian and Parviz Parastui, the campaign points the finger at US President Donald Trump. For the two, the US leader lies when he says that sanctions do not affect humanitarian aid and medicine. They go further, warning that sanctions prevent international financial transactions, which is putting a heavy burden on most Iranians. In May, the US pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama, had signed. In its stead, the US leader imposed the toughest sanctions in history against Iran. The decision has had a major impact on the Iranian economy, confirmed by reports published by the International Monetary Fund, leading to a drastic decline in oil sales, which was the goal of the second batch of sanctions that came into force on 5 November. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba sold a record $30.8 billion worth of products on its 24-hour Singles Day sale. The numbers were 27 percent higher as compared to the $24 billion of gross merchandise value (GMV) of sales last year. Even though China is facing major geopolitical and economic challenges, the story on Chinese middle-class consumption on November 12 was different altogether. Last month, India also had one of its biggest online shopping festivals, but reported a fraction of this number at $2.3 billion during five-day period. What got Alibaba to achieve the $30.8 billion GMV target in 24 hours is the trust placed by the Chinese consumers, the consolidation of online and offline retail, the categories of products, the income and expense of the Chinese consumers and others, according to the analysts. While we can say that both China and India have almost the same population size, it will not be appropriate to compare the size of online e-commerce market of China and India. Chinas online e-commerce market was between $900 billion to 1 trillion in 2017 whereas Indias e-commerce market was around $18-20 billion. There is a significant difference in size of the market in both countries, said Ankur Pahwa, Partner and National leader, E-commerce and Consumer Internet, EY. Income and consumption power plays an important role for a consumer. "The economies of China played an important role in the spending habits of the Chinese. The GDP per person in China is around $9000 whereas in India, it is around $2000," said Pahwa. Devangshu Dutta, Chief Executive of Third Eyesight said, "I dont think that Indian and China can be compared at par. There is a huge difference in their income and consumption profiles." But what lessons should other e-commerce platform learn from Alibaba? Trust plays a very important role in an online e-commerce market. Alibaba, with its closed ecosystem, has developed trust with its consumers. Indian e-commerce still lags behind on this factor. Quality and trust played a very important role for Alibaba in China. Also, a large part of the Chinese economy is virtual. Whereas in India, a majority of buying is still from offline, said an analyst. Alibaba said that more than 40 percent of consumers made purchased from international brands. Indian e-commerce should give a mix of categories to its consumers. Proper curation of the inventory should be there in order to target Tier 2-3 cities. Another lesson one can learn from Alibaba is the dealings with the brands, said analyst. Alipay plays an important role for Alibaba. Alibaba has integrated all ecosystems in its e-commerce business. From Alipay to its logistics. It has provided qualitative and seamless experience for its consumers, said an analyst. Online and Offline markets Dutta added, "Alibaba has consolidated its hold on both the business and the consumer side in the Chinese ecosystem. India still has a fragmented consumer market, and online retail is only a couple of percentages of the total market, though the supply side is consolidated between the two foreign-owned businesses, Flipkart Group and Amazon. In India, I think both online and offline formats need to evolve together." In the latest instalment of the Coffee Can Investing series, Saurabh Mukherjea talks to Mahesh Patil, Co-Chief Investment Officer, Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund. Patil joined the fund house in 2005, and has managed funds such as the Aditya Birla Sun Life Frontline Equity Fund, which has been amongst the top performers in its category over the last 10 years. In this conversation, Patil talks about his investing journey, and how he helped build the fund house into one of Indias largest. S: Lets begin with the start of your career. What was it that attracted you to the stock market, given that you came from a middle-class background? M: I came from a middle-class family. My father was a government servant. We used to discuss about stocks at home. My dad used to talk about his investments in companies like Castrol, Reliance Industries and Grasim. S: This was is the early 90s right? M: Yes. Most of these companies were acquired through initial public offerings (IPO). At that time, I didnt know much about stocks. Home is where I initially got to know about stocks as my father used to talk about how he made good amount of money in some of these investments. I always wanted to be an engineer and thats how after completing my 12th I got into engineering at VJTI. I worked for two years at a computer firm CMC (which was amalgamated into Tata Consultancy Services on October 1, 2015). However, I yearned to do something more and the option was to do my Masters in Science abroad or an MBA over here. Since my dad wanted me to be with him, I thought it was best to pursue an MBA with Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS). That is the time when I was exposed to the equity market. It was the year (1991-92) when big bull Harshad Mehta held sway over the market and that period saw most people having their first brush with equities. While pursuing my MBA, I invested in the market with savings that I had accumulated while working over two years. During that period, the market went up almost 250 percent. It was a thrilling experience. I was doing my own research. Also, a lot of the projects I did during the second-half of my MBA also revolved around equity research and investing. It was around then that I decided to really pursue a career in finance. I was very clear that this is an area where a lot of my analytical skills as an engineer and knowledge about finance could be put to use to really make good amount of money. Thats how I really veered towards getting into the stock market. At that time, I was not very sure what I would want to do, even though it was clear that I wanted to get into equity research. Initially, I got a job which was more into project finance in Tata Economic Consultancy Services (merged with Tata Strategic Management Group in August 2006). At that point in time, there were not many research houses. One of the research houses was Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services, which was known for its unique style of research. I joined them and thats how my journey really started in equity research. S: You are one of the few people I know who has had the privilege of working with the late great Parag Parikh and also with Raamdeo Agrawal at Motilal Oswal. What were the learnings from that phase of your career as you worked with two of the most celebrated investors our country has seen? M: At that point in time, early stage in the career, some foreign fund research houses had come in and they were like boutique firms like Parag Parikh. I started my career with Parag Parikh as a research analyst and as you know Parag Parikhs style unfortunately he is no more was value investing. S: Yes, he was famous for that. M: He was a great value investor and at the early stage of a career, we also had a good research head Amarnath. Most of the guys in research who came in that point in time had background, say in the domestic financial institution ring. So, I think (we were) really focusing on hardcore research over there and Parag Parikh used to come and give his bit of knowledge about long term investing. He didnt drive us to chase stocks just because of momentum or price action. So, it gave a lot of liberty to dwell into the companies, do proper research and take longer term view on stocks, not get carried away by the short term stock movements and during that time we used to also have interactions. There was a gentlemen called Chandrakant Sampat, I dont know whether you know about him. S: Yes, legendary investor. M: Unfortunately, he is no more. He used to come and share his wisdom with us and really give us a lot of knowledge. He was known to really buy in to stocks... great companies, quality companies, brand companies stocks like Gillette for example. So, [he would tell us] what he saw in these companies, how to really hold on to it. S: He would come and share those with Parag Parikh analysts? M: Yes, and he used to sit with us and share that knowledge with us. He used to also share with us books which he used to read. For example books like Good to Great and Built to Last by Jim Collins. Ones doing desk research for medium companies but the insights what you get from some of these legendary people in terms of the subtleties about investing and which nobody will teach you right in formal school is something which was a great learning experience. Especially with Chandrakant Sampat on how to really buy stocks which are very expensive. A lot of these quality stocks are expensive, so in a formal model, it might not look that great but when you look at cash flows they generate and the kind of brand power -- which gives them long term enduring sustainable advantage -- how to really price that in when looking at these companies is something which I learned immensely. And then the second stint was with Motilal Oswal, I was there for four-and-a-half years. Raamdeo was not the head of research but really took a lot of interest on the research side while Motilal was more on to the management side. Raamdeo again has his own style. He used to talk about his own investments which he has done in his early stage. It was more about the practical way of investing. Identifying companies and looking at the big picture, looking at whats happening at the ground level, getting insights into that. For example, Hero MotoCorp, how is the distributor doing, talking to distributors, getting feedback and then trying to really build a broader picture in terms of the outlook. So, that is something which I learned at Motilal Oswal and he was a big Warren Buffett fan. So thats where we learnt a lot about Warren Buffett -- whatever he (Agrawal) used to share with us -- Berkshire Hathaway annual report, letters to the shareholders. They used to give us a compendium. Thats how actually we got a sense about how to really simplify things about investing the way Warren Buffett did. That had a pretty lasting impression in terms of how we analysed companies besides your normal analytical research which one would do. S: Capital goods and telecom were two sectors you covered when you were an analyst. Both sectors have been under the cosh over the past few years. Since you have a keen interest in these sectors, has it affected your investment style? M: Capital goods is a cyclical sector and getting the cycle [right] is very important in order to make big returns. While tracking that sector, I realised that there you could bet on only a few companies like ABB, Siemens and BHEL. In any cycle, these were the companies, which would grab market share. So, if you are able to time the cycle and the huge operating leverage which these companies had, thats where the big delta happens not only in earnings but also in PE multiples. This learning helped me later on when I joined Birla Sunlife Mutual Fund in 2005 when it was beginning of the big capex [cycle] from 2003-2008, both in the capital goods as well as the infrastructure sector. I was quick enough to really identify some of these stocks, build the portfolio and it helped me to set my foundation there in the early stage because some of the winners were from the capital goods sector. S: You said if someone is dabbling in a balance-sheet heavy sector like capital goods, one needs to time the cycle right. Is there any specific indicator you have used to figure out the right time? M: The challenge in some of these sectors is that your near term earnings will never justify investing. So, one has to see where there is value because normally in a down cycle, these stocks get beaten down and get a pretty good value and then you have other indicators like order book, movement in order book inflows. In the early stages, we didnt have big models in terms of capturing some of these cycles but over the period of time, we built certain models looking at some of the macro indicators like how capacity utilisation levels are shaping up, how demand growth is picking up, etc. S: So, basically you wait for capacity utilisation to hit 75-80 percent? M: 80 percent. S: You know then capex will begin and at that point you press the trigger on capital goods? M: Right and then you monitor how the order inflow is starting to play out in that sector, to see which are the companies, which would start to build in, because that would really give visibility to long term sales growth. S: There are two financial plays where you were very early. You were at least four years before they became consensus buys IndusInd Bank and Bajaj Finance. And I remember broking these stocks in 2010-11 and you spotted the potential and the promise of these two lenders before anybody else did. What gave you the conviction to press the trigger quite so hard on IndusInd and Bajaj Finance? M: It was a different story for both IndusInd and Bajaj Finance. IndusInd was a company, which had gone through some kind of turmoil and there was a change in management and typically whenever there is a big change in the company it is worth having a look at it and then meeting the management. Understanding whether the change they are trying to make is something much more sustainable. So, IndusInd was about change in management. When we met the management team, they had a clear vision in terms of how they wanted to transform the bank. Coming in from a very mediocre performance, how numbers such as return ratios would change. It was a bet really on the management at that point in time, on the CEO and his vision, how they could do it. And evaluation was always in your favour when the company is kind of in the woods. It is a question about how much rerating can happen and how much growth can the company deliver. S: So, this was fundamentally a play on Romesh Sobti and his team. M: Yes. I would again give credit to the analyst who was working with me, who had done a lot of research earlier. It helped us build more conviction over there. In case of Bajaj Finance, it was a company, which already had some kind of track record. The company went through a kind of crisis, but it came out of that and we thought this company was doing something good on the technology side, which was kind of new at that point in time in terms of digital. S: This is the 2009-10? M: This was somewhere in 2011-12. So in the financial services space, it is something which we thought we had a big opportunity in. This was one company which we heard would be trying to do something more with technology and digital. Trying to use that in their framework to reduce cost, trying to reduce the cycle time for consumers, but also [improve] on risk management. So we decided to spend one full day with the management, the CEO, the other leaders down the line and it gave us a conviction that this is a company which is trying to do something different. It is trying to build some kind of moat, which is very important, which is more on the risk management side, because finance is all about how you manage risk. Your job is to lend, but how you manage risk and monitor that and at the same time, how you use technology to reduce cost, how you reduce your time to go to the consumer and that was a big transformation we saw in this company. S: Talking to Rajeev Jain and his team gave you that conviction that they would have this ability to use technology? M: Yes. That was one of the reasons and again when we looked at the stock fundamentally, once you like a company it boils down to the valuations. So, valuations were reasonable and we know what has happened over there. The way the company has grown to deliver consistently and despite now at this size, they are growing at around 30-35 percent or so. But again, the idea is to spot it early, spot the big change and then capture not only earnings growth, but also PE re-rating or the price-to-book value in the case of Bajaj Finance, which lead it to be a big multibagger over a period of time. S: So, one of the most interesting aspects of your investment style is that other than buying great franchises and holding them for long periods of time, you have also made lots of money from large opportunistic bets. Two examples which come to mind are DLF in 2015 and Vedanta in 2016... M: When you invest in the market, as you rightly said, you want to have your long-term winners, which will continue to compound and give you good returns. So, they form the base of the portfolio. You dont really tamper with them unless there is a big change in the fundamentals. But at the same time, there are a lot of opportunities because of the market, the greed and fear cycle, you see lot of stocks get beaten down at valuations which are attractive. The only challenge there is, you dont want to get into a company, which is too highly levered and is not able to bounce back. So, at times you spot those opportunities. For example, DLF was the case where the company was going through some kind of pain after the big run in the real estate cycle, we saw a big downturn in that period and the stock was quoting at significantly below book value, but there was still some challenge about debt over there. But when we met the management, we got comfort that the management was serious about deleveraging because they had good assets like rental assets, which they could have easily monetised to bring down debt. So, while the debt looks high, there is enough asset backing it. Normally, when you take those kind of bets, it is only to really play out the specific value. Once you realise the target, discipline has to be really to get out of this because they are not really long-term value creators. So, that was what triggered DLF. In Vedanta, again, it is a classic cyclical commodities [play] where commodities went through a pretty bad phase in 2015-2016 and we saw a huge crash. Some of the global stocks like Glencore went down almost 50-60 percent. During our research process, we also started tracking global macros. We also had an international fund and you get some of these cues for global commodities when you track some global stocks -- how they are behaving. And when we saw Glencore was kind of coming out of that cycle and Vedanta again as a proxy to the commodities space, we thought this was the beginning of the commodity cycle and this was a good company to play at that point in time. Though again, the leverage was higher but they were across multiple sectors. And again, it was more a macro call rather than on Vedanta. Vedanta was just a vehicle to play that. S: So, basically the metal cycle in a way. M: Yes, the metal cycle. So, we have been tracking global macros and we have tried to institutionalise that in our investment process. That helps take some of these macro calls, which, if they work in your favour, make a big difference. And it doesnt matter which company you play but if you are able to bet on the right company within that, the returns could be much bigger. S: So, lets move to the institutional processes that you built. As I said in the beginning, there is you and only one other fund manager I know who in the last 10 years who has been part of the building of a massive asset management house in India. The traditional leadership -- the big three or four AMCs in India -- were stable. M: Yeah. S: The rise to prominence of Aditya Birla Sun Life over the last 10 years has been remarkable and you are managing $3 billion in equities today. What catalysed this success? There arent too many other success stories of this ilk in the last 10 years in India and, especially given that your house doesn't have a bank bolted on to it and you cant really follow the bancassurance model of distribution, its even more impressive. What were the processes? What were the cultural improvements you sought to catalyse in the last 10 years? M: The journey with Aditya Birla Sun Life has been really great and as I said, when I joined over here there was a total transformation in the investment team. We had a whole new team, which in a way is good. You have people who can get built and can come along with you, and we had tough times during the global financial crisis but that was the time when we actually got things together and built a lot of things around processes, systems, trying to relook our whole investment process. But the most was in terms of risk management framework. We built a robust risk management framework in terms of what kind of risk we would want to take at the stock level. So, all the fundamental pieces were really put in place and during the time of the [financial] crisis. We actually took time to really build some of these things. Because normally in a bullish market, returns come easily, you dont have time to focus on the processes, systems and that really helped us in good stead when the market started to recover from 2013 onwards. So we built decent performance in terms of our funds across and we are managing different category of funds and more importantly, built the team. We had a lot of these star fund managers earlier. Institutions were based around individuals, I clearly believed that it was the team really, which contributed to the whole fund house success. And the research analysts whom we groomed internally and who were part of the journey had a significant role to play in terms of developing us as a fund house. In fact, we were the first ones who actually started research analysis-based fund at that point in time. When I had gone abroad, I had visited MFS, which is one of our parents, which is one of the oldest institutions in the US. They have global research funds managed by analysts. So, we started that concept as a trial where analysts were managing the fund, they were putting their high conviction ideas in the fund and that again became a good success, and it also gave a lot of voice to the analysts. So a lot of integration took place between the analysts and the fund managers. Lot of things which the analysts were doing were getting replicated in the fund. And that cohesiveness of working as a team really helped us to do normally you would have one or two funds, which would do really well and you want to really ramp up those funds. But fortunately for us, all of our funds, because of the strong internal process the way the analysts were contributing, and the way you are integrating that, ensured that a lot of funds were doing well. So, during the good times, we could ramp up lot of our funds and get a larger share of the pie. Also, I would say the leadership in the organization -- Bala, our CEO, he also had some kind of research background. He was the investments head, he knew about the investment strategy, he was a great support for us at that point. When the markets were not doing well, thats where you want some leaders to step in [and offer support]. So, it was the combination of good team support, good research processes, risk management framework and strong leadership support, which helped us transform. Because when I joined Birla, it was known as a debt fund house. There was always a legacy, which was there and we had to really come out of that and that was a challenge. Bala and we sat down and he said we have to really do that. We did a lot of work in terms of going out and meeting distributors, building that kind of equity name for us. We also started a unique concept called Voyage, where we got all our channel partners, distributors together on a platform. Normally, similar things are done by the sell side. You have this forum where you have the fund managers, the research analysts coming and we started this concept and to showcase to them not ourselves but our processes, the team and also giving them knowledge. Getting various eminent industry personalities and trying to really take them as our partners and evolve their knowledge. We didnt have a large bank footprint, where we could have our own channel to market [our funds]. So we needed support of distributors. We really needed them as partners, tried to enhance their knowledge and give them that kind of confidence. That's what helped us to really gain market share when the cycle was good in the last three years. S: You are a very modest and understated person despite your success and you do not want to beat the drum for that. I will highlight something about you, which I have seen consistently. You now manage $3 billion, I have seen you off and on for the last 10 years, we have judged competitions together. I have never seen you lose your cool, more interestingly I have never met anybody who has seen Mahesh Patil lose his cool. How do you manage to pull this off? Keep the personality and the temperament on an even keel, as the AUM goes through the roof, over 10 years of what is clearly lots of hard work? M: So, now currently we are managing around $15 billion as a fund house and it has been a big journey. Keeping cool is something what you see on the outside. But there are lots of ups and downs, its not easy, the pulls and pressures of the market. But one thing which I have learned is the philosophy that you do what you know best, give it you 100 percent. The outcome is something, which is not in your hands, especially in the stock market. The way the market will react would not be necessarily what you intend to do. Outcome is not in your hands, yes, but if you do the right things and if you believe in your convictions, it will pay off over a period of time. That has been my philosophy. I normally stand to not look at the day-to-day returns. Thats how you try to delink in terms of the day-to-day market movements or the market actions and focus on what you know you do best. Thats one of the philosophies, which I have tried to embed. It helps me to really keep the nerves under control. It's also important to get some kind of outside support. The support from the family is important. My wife, she has helped me lean me towards some kind of spiritual process. When I joined Birla I went through a kind of a bad phase and that drove me towards a spiritual guru. Stock market is all about nerves, how you stay really cool and calm and take the right decisions, not looking at the noise. Thats when one starts to look within oneself and get strength from inside rather than looking for support from outside. Some bit of meditation, take time out and really be with oneself is what I have also practised. That has helped me to be, probably, what you see as calm and cool. My wife would have a different impression. In the household one is different, where you are much more natural. Also, when you are not taking everything on yourself, as I mentioned earlier when you are trying to build a team and you have a support system around [it becomes easier]. When you take all the pressure on yourself, it becomes very difficult to handle. But when you have each one contributing, you have a team, which is capable, you are pretty much assured that even if you pass through some tough times, you are able to come back and thats been our real strength. We have gone through some tough times during the journey over the last 10 years. But during those tough times, we have been able to really put ourselves together and come back and stick to what we know to do best. Times change. You [will] have your own time when things come back. I believe in that. And that reflects in the approach towards life and towards investors. S: So, we discussed earlier in the show three legendary investors Chandrakant Sampat, Raamdeo Agrawal and Parag Parikh. Any other investors in India or outside you know whose style you have learnt from, whose approach to life or investing you believed is exemplary? M: So it might sound cliched but Warren Buffett is someone who had a great influence in terms of a how to make things look simple. Especially when things don't work out, I really go back and look at some of his quotes and they give a lot of confidence really on how to navigate a turbulent market. He has been one of the early investors. More importantly, there are various investors who go through different phases, but very few people have actually lasted a long period of time and sustained their performance. That is very important. People who have been able to go through various cycles, for 20-30 years, and still have been relevant. Warren Buffett is one of those who has done that and he clearly has influenced me. Apart from that, I keep on reading a lot of other stuff like Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital, his memos to his clients are again very interesting in terms of how he combines macroeconomics and investing and makes things look pretty simple. Those are the stuff, which one would like to read, but at the end of it, one has to evolve his own style. You are your own investor because thats what gives you that kind of comfort and confidence when things are not really working, the market cycles are not in your favour. You have to build your own style and stick to that conviction. I mean you can get inputs or some bit of knowledge from some of the legendary investors but you have to make your own style. On the domestic, we meet a lot of the legendary investors like Nemish Shah, we meet him once in a year. These are investors who are putting their own money to their work. So what do they take? While here we are managing other peoples money, but its a different perspective when you are putting your own money to work, the kind of things you look into, what kind of due diligence do you do. When you talk to some of these investors who have created a huge amount of wealth for themselves, it give you a different kind of insight and the way to look at long term investing, how to really hold on to your investments when things are not well, this is something which I would have learnt. So, Nemish Shah is one of the domestic investors who I really admire. He is not so outspoken, but he has been legendary again in terms of how he has been able to create wealth for himself and there is always a thing to learn from each of these people. S: The youngsters watching the show Mahesh, you have mentioned Jim Collins books Built to Last and Good to Great. Any other books you will recommend for someone who wants to emulate you, books that will help them shape their thinking, learn about investing? M: So, I would say there are many books -- books on Warren Buffett, which talk about his side of investing. As I talked to you about Jim Collins Good to Great -- what are the characteristics of good companies. He wrote the initial book which was Built to Last, which was really the characteristics of companies which have endured over many years, they are good to read. What are their characteristics because these are the books which don't talk actually in terms of picking stocks but qualitative factors about identifying companies, which is very important. Because you learn about valuations and all these models during your academia but all the other stuff, qualitative stuff and these things are there in some of these books. Also, it is important to - one is about fundamental investing but also to read about actual investors. So, there is a book called Market Wizards by Jack Schwager which I thought was very interesting in terms of learning about different investors. It is more about traders but it is important to blend fundamental investing along with some amount of trading because you also need to know when to as I mentioned earlier when is the time to really get in, when you know how to double your bets when you want to get out of market. So, these books about various investors and traders, how they made big money trading into the markets, timing various cycles, not in equity but on the commodity side also. Investing is all about investing in various asset classes. So, these are the books, which I would recommend that give you a good flavour of fundamental investing. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Aurobindo Pharma net profit declined 22 percent Rs 611.43 crore in the second quarter ended September on year-on-year (YoY) basis. The net profit drop was cushioned by depreciating rupee against dollar and euro in its key US and Europe markets, that constitute nearly three-fourths of sales. In the same quarter previous year the drug makers net profit stood at Rs 781 crore, largely benefited from the launch of low competition Sevelamer tablets in the US market. Sevelamer is used in the treatment of chronic kidney diseases. Total income rose 7.5 percent to Rs 4,777.7 crore in Q2FY19 compared to previous year's Rs 4446.2 crore. The second quarter results were above analysts' estimates. Analysts polled by Reuters saw net income of the country's second-largest drugmaker at Rs 605.4 crore and revenues at Rs 4,565.8 for the second quarter of FY19. The EBITDA margin for the quarter was 21.6 percent. Research and Development (R&D) spend was at Rs Rs 216.8 crore which is 4.6 percent of revenues. Sales of formulations or generic drugs, which contribute little over four-fifths of total revenue, grew 7.4 percent to Rs 3934.8 crore in Q2FY19, compared with Rs 3663 crore in the year-ago period. Sales of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), the key raw materials that go into the production of drugs, rose 5.8 percent to Rs 816.6 crore. The US formulation business contributed 47 percent to the total revenue and grew 6.1 percent to Rs 2226.8 crore helped rupee depreciation. On constant currency basis, sales dropped 2.6 percent YoY. The company has launched 14 products, including two injectables during the quarter The European Union formulations business contributed 24.3 percent of total revenue and grew 3.9 percent to Rs 1156.5 crore on YoY basis in Q2FY19. In Euro terms, sales declined by 3.6 percent. As on September 30, Aurobindo said it had transferred manufacturing of 97 products from Europe to India to reduce costs. Aurobindo's growth in Europe is led by inorganic expansion. In July 2018, Aurobindo Pharma has signed a definitive agreement to acquire commercial operations and supporting infrastructure in five European countries from Canadian drugmaker Apotex International. Last year, it acquired Portugals Generis Farmaceutica from Magnum Capital Partners for 135 million. In January 2014, Aurobindo bought loss-making Western European commercial operations of Irish drugmaker Actavis Plc for 30 million. Sales from rest-of-the-world market grew 26.3 percent to Rs 307.5 crore. The antiretroviral (ARV) business jumped 17.6 percent to Rs 244 crore during the quarter. ARVs used in the treatment of HIV-AIDS contributes about 5.1 percent of Aurobindos gross sales. We have delivered a healthy quarter in terms of both financial performance and developments in a differentiated portfolio," said N Govindarajan, managing director of the company. " Our revenues increased by 7 percent YoY, EBITDA margin for the quarter was at 21.6 percent and net profit after JV share and minority interest was at INR 611.4 crore, Govindarajan added. During the second quarter, the company filed 25 abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) with USFDA. The company said it as part of its differentiated portfolio it had filed two ANDAs in dermatology and one nasal segment in H1FY19. On a cumulative basis, the company received 385 approvals from the USFDA. Our focused efforts to commercialize differentiated product basket are aimed at creating sustainable profitability for the future, Govindarajan said. Acquires assets of Advent Pharmaceuticals Aurobindo said it had acquired certain R&D assets of Melbourne. Australia-based Advent Pharmaceuticals in an all-cash deal for $12.5 million. Advent is into the development of substitutable generic inhalation products for the US market. With the acquisition, Aurobindo will join the race to launch complex inhalation-based products mostly used for the treatment of asthma and other respiratory diseases. Teva, Mylan, Cipla. Lupin, among others, are engaged in developing inhalation portfolio that may require clinical trials to establish sameness with the innovator product. The results were announced after market hours. Shares of Aurobindo Pharma dropped 1.84 percent to Rs 798.30 on BSE, the benchmark Sensex declined 0.98 percent to end 34,812.99 points. NPA_NPA_Non_performing_assests Avenue Capital Group, a New York-based investment firm with $9.4 billion in assets under management, is set to pick up a stake of about 27 percent in Asset Reconstruction Company (India) or Arcil. Arcil is one of the oldest and largest asset reconstruction companies in India. "Arcil has made an application to the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) involving a transfer of shares from existing shareholders to Avenue Capital Group. After the transaction, Avenue Capital Group will be the largest shareholder of Arcil," said Vinayak Bahuguna, CEO and Managing Director, Arcil. Avenue Capital, led by billionaire CEO Marc Lasry, is best known for its bets on distressed debt. With the potential transaction, Avenue will join the list of global financial firms looking to tap the growing opportunities in the Indian distressed assets space. The stake will be bought from exiting shareholders -- IDFC Bank (8.37 percent), First Rand Bank (4.11 percent), Ashmore Capital (1.37 percent through Quiveo Enterprises), Barclays (1.4 percent), Karur Vysya Bank (1.96 percent) and Singapore sovereign fund GIC (9.9 percent). Other shareholders such as State Bank of India (SBI) (19.95 percent), IDBI Bank (19.18 percent), Punjab National Bank (10.01 percent) and ICICI Bank (13.26 percent) will maintain their current stakes in Arcil, the CEO said. Arcil also plans to raise another Rs 1,500 crore in the next six months, and could be raised from its existing shareholders, insurance and pension funds and also Avenue Capital, Bahuguna said. He added that Avenue Capital will support its growth plans and help Arcil engage to bring in more global capital. This is the first transaction of this scale and profile in the non-performing assets (NPA) sector in India, in that it creates an attractive solution for the key constituents, said Anuj Khanna, CEO, Lagoon Advisory Partners, legal advisor to the deal. Bahunguna said the company expects to close the deal in the first quarter (April to June) 2020. At a time when Arcils private peers like Edelweiss ARC have been more active in the stressed asset market in India, Arcil is focusing on retail and mid-sized distressed assets. According to Bahuguna, Arcil is selectively looking at some of the industrial assets too. In the mid-sized segment, we are looking at companies with debt up to Rs 5,000 crore. We are looking at steel, textile and road projects and also selectively some of the stressed power projects. In the SME (small and medium sector enterprises) segment, we are looking at buying entire assets in the range of Rs 5 100 crore from banks. Indian banks are sitting on more than Rs 10 lakh crore in bad loans, creating an opportunity for ARCs and domestic and foreign investors. So far, Arcil has assets under management of Rs 12,000 crore. In FY18 until March 2018, Arcil bought Rs 2,700 crore worth of assets while the industry number stood at over Rs 20,000 crore, said Pramod Gupta, Arcils Chief Financial Officer (CFO). The company plans to double the assets bought in the next fiscal year. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw | Company: Chairperson, Biocon | Net worth: $4.6 billion | She added $2.22 billion to her wealth, taking her net worth to $4.6 billion in 2020, from $2.38 billion in 2019. It marked the highest gain in percentage terms at 93.28 percent among India's 100 richest persons. (Image: Reuters) live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The US Food & Drug Administration said on Monday it has completed pre-approval inspection of Biocon's new oral solid dosage facility in Bengaluru. The drug regulator audited the plant from November 5 to November 9, 2018. "The audit concluded without any observations and Form 483 was issued." Biocon said in a statement to the stock exchanges. "The successful audit of this site reflects our strong commitment to quality and cGMP compliance," it added. The USFDA inspection was triggered after Biocon filed for an abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) or product approval in the US. The company didn't disclose details of the product. Biocon largely focuses on cholesterol lowering statins, immunosuppressants and cancer drugs as part of its oral solid formulation business. After disrupting the packaged goods industry, yoga guru-turned-businessman Baba Ramdev has set his eyes on Indias estimated $67-billion apparel market, of which more than 90 percent is unbranded. On November 5, Patanjali Ayurved entered the branded apparel segment with Paridhan and three sub-brands -- Livefit, Aastha and Sanskar -- to sell every kind of clothes with his unique swadesi twist. Ramdevs ambition is to generate Rs 1,000 crore by March 31, 2020, or within a period of less than one-and-a-half-year, which will likely be record growth for any apparel brand in India, if not the entire world. But will cheap pricing, coupled with Ramdevs unique marketing that comes with the swadesi twist, disrupt established brands in the apparel sector? In apparel, Patanjali plans to start with some 3,500 stock keeping units (SKUs) of around 1,100 different clothes from yoga wear to jeans which will be priced around 40 percent cheaper than established brands in the market. Some would even be cheaper. For instance, jeans will retail at a starting price of Rs 500. This would, ideally, initiate an immediate price war. By March 2019, Patanjali will open 100 stores spread over 500 sq ft to 2,500 sq ft, mostly franchised, and 500 outlets by March 2020. Thats very fast. Tata Groups Trent took 10 years (from 1998) to open its first 40 stores under its flagship brand Westside. Kishore Biyani-founded Pantaloons (later sold to Aditya Birla Group) opened only 86 outlets since it started operations in 1997. Denim brand Levi Strauss, which entered India in 1995, has around 1,500 stores at present. It is not clear how and where Patanjali will open 500 outlets by March 2020. Ramdev has also firmed up an arrangement with state-owned Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) which has, for the longest time, dominated the khadi segment, followed by Fabindia that primarily operates in metro cities. With the arrangements with KVIC, Patanjali will have access to some 15,000 KVIC outlets across the country, making Paridhan the most-retailed apparel brand in the country. A couple of years back, Ramdev had submitted a detailed proposal to the Centre on how Patanjali can revive KVIC and ensure growth. This, however, was not approved by the government. Besides, the company had, in October 2015, inked a pact with Kishore Biyani-led Future Group for retailing of Patanjali products across Futures Big Bazaar outlets. Biyanis company currently operates 1,123 stores across brands and formats in 339 cities, which the company wants to scale-up to around 10,000 over a period. It would not be tough for Ramdev to extend the collaboration beyond Big Bazaar to leverage Biyanis retailing strength. Thats not all. Unlike what happened in packaged goods, Patanjali has already received interests from established brands, including Raymond for collaboration. If a deal is sealed, such associations will undoubtedly boost Patanjalis presence in this business. To start with, Patanjali has arrangements with 90 sourcing vendors. Besides, as Ramdev had said in May 2015, the company had teamed up with a few hundred handloom weavers in northern India aiming to save them from distress and revive the khadi industry. If this is to be believed, apparel brands -- both multinationals and home-grown -- would have to gear up for a fight that could be tougher compared to what was faced by packaged goods firms. However, it may not be an easy ride for Patanjali. The companys first Paridhan store will open in Delhi. If Ramdev targets metro cities, Paridhan will be fighting with every big brand in markets where consumers are brand conscious and with high disposable income. Wooing them may not be very easy. But if Ramdev primarily targets non-metro urban markets, especially smaller cities and semi-rural markets where most of apparel brands do not have presence, it will have better and much faster success, especially because it can play on three different metrics: Ramdevs charisma, the swadesi trick and aspirations of consumers who are price sensitive. Logistically, the apparel business is very different from Patanjalis core packaged goods. Last, but not the least, Patanjali has entered the apparel industry at a time when e-commerce has spread wings even in rural India thanks to rapid penetration of mobile internet during the past couple of years. While the purchase rate in smaller cities and rural India is nowhere close to metro markets and large cities, it has made consumers aspirational, aware of big brands and pricing across product segments. Any brand entering these markets with physical stores will have an edge. But they will have to be fair to consumers, offer quality at a very competitive price and keep pace with latest trends and fashion. With all the above connecting well, Ramdev will undoubtedly give most established apparel brands run for their money in Paridhans initial years. But whether the success will sustain in the longer term or not, that time can only tell. Tata Steel live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The expansion of Tata Steel's Kalinganagar plant to 8 million tons per annum capacity from 3 mtpa will incur a cost of Rs 23,500 crore and take 48 months to complete, a top company official said on Monday. The groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion was held at the 'Make In Odisha' Conclave 2018 by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. The project configuration and costs include investments in raw material capacity expansion, upstream and mid-stream facilities, and infrastructure and downstream facilities. "Tata Group's association with Odisha is very deep. It has over 100 years of relationship. Tata Steel has a very large capacity state-of-the-art plant in the state. With the phase-II expansion of Tata Steel Kalinganagar, Tata Group's investment in the state will cross Rs 100,000 crore," said N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Group. The total capacity of Tata Steel India operations following the expansion will be 23.6 mtpa, which includes existing capacity of 10 mtpa at Jamshedpur, 3 mtpa at Kalinganagar and 5.6 mtpa of Tata Steel BSL. "Kalinganagar has been a remarkable story for Tata Steel. Within a year of its commissioning, we were at almost full capacity utilisation, and now we are beginning the second phase of our expansion. "The envisaged product mix will consolidate Tata Steel's presence in the automotive and high-end quality product market segments. The Kalinganagar facility is expected to be, one of the lowest-cost producers of steel in the world," said TV Narendran, CEO and MD, Tata Steel. The Kalinganagar plant, which commenced commercial production in May 2016, has generated direct and indirect employment opportunities for more than 21,955 people in the state, a company official said. About 59.6 per cent of the total employees engaged directly by Tata Steel are from Odisha, and 80.71 per cent of the total contractors' workforce working the company belong to the state, the official said. Tata Steel is also promoting employability training of local youths, he said. Skill Development training for placements and self-employment are being provided through Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS). In the last four years, 358 youths were imparted skilling across various sectors, the official added. Chandrasekaran also said the new 500-bed, multi-speciality hospital at Gopalpur in Ganjam district, being constructed by Tata Steel, will soon be operational. This will be in addition to an eye hospital in Gopalpur and a multi-speciality hospital in Kalinganagar. Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, who is on his maiden visit to India, tackled questions ranging from fake news, artificial intelligence, and social media addiction in his address to students of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi on November 12. Dorsey had landed in India on November 10 with a "Hello India" tweet. Fake news, which has been a contentious subject in India in the run up to the various state Assembly polls and Lok Sabha polls scheduled for next year, was one of the topics on which he spoke. "We have to make sure that we are scoping this problem as tightly as possible...Our job is to make sure we are identifying misinformation,....it's the context of the information, the intent behind the information. If it is intending to mislead, we need to understand and pick out the misinformation and our job is to ensure it doesn't spread," Dorsey told a packed hall. Essentially, fake or hoax news, often disguised as authentic news has been an issue the world over. The prevalence and reach of platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter has intensified the spread of such news, which often has a political or communal context. On a user question about social media addiction, Dorsey said when Twitter was built 12 years ago, there was emphasis on the number of followers people have on the platform. "That may have been right then but dont think its right today," he said, adding that instead of follower count, there should be a focus on the quality of conversation. To the young bright minds at IIT, Dorsey's advice was to "pick up a few skills and master them as much as possible". Twitter India also launched a campaign with called #Powerof18, an initiative aimed at young voters. There are a number of youth in the 18 years-age bracket, and 130 million will be first time voters in next years elections in India, said Maya Hari, Vice president, APAC, Twitter. As part of a survey carried out by Twitter, it was found that 94 per cent polled in India said they would vote in the upcoming elections, and 87 per cent felt it makes them a responsible citizen. Dorsey also spoke about artificial intelligence and how algorithms will be taking over even labour intensive jobs. Responding to a question on the "edit" button on Twitter (which does not yet let you edit tweets that have been posted), Dorsey said it has been under consideration for "quite a while", but the company will introduce it at the right time. Dorsey will be in India till November 15, and has so far made a trip to meet the Dalai Lama, and to the city of Jaipur. CNBC-TV18 According to CNBC-TV18 Consulting Editor Udayan Mukherjee, the domestic investors are more worried about the political uncertainty back home than earnings growth and macroeconomic developments. "Flows have been remarkably patient and mature this time compared to the history of mutual fund flows but there is something which worries the domestic crowd more than earnings and macro and that is politics and if something goes wrong out there, maybe the emotional balance of mutual fund flows might change around a bit and we are going to be faced with such a prospect in next couple of months. So I would be cautious despite taking comfort from the October flows," said Mukherjee on Monday. Talking about the earnings growth, Mukherjee said, "Expect only high single-digit earnings growth in FY19." "Indias fabled micro is disappointing for the sixth year on the trot and we do not have the kind of micro tailwinds which the market was banking on because I do suspect that we are going to end with high single digit earnings growth once again for the sixth year in a row," he added. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Aurobindo Pharma, which reports its results on November 12, is likely to see muted growth in its US business. Multiple brokerages expect profit to be in the range of Rs 600-780 crore. Further, high R&D cost is likely to affect financials, one brokerage house wrote in its report. Here is a gist of what multiple brokerages are forecasting for its September quarter show. Brokerage: Kotak Institutional Equities | PAT: Rs 617.7 crore The brokerage house expects the US business to grow by $15 million QoQ, reflecting ertapenem launch, valsartan benefit, as well as volume growth in the base business. We expect the RoW business to grow by 7% YoY and EU business to grow 9% YoY, and do not factor in any recovery in ARV sales, analysts at the firm wrote in their report. Kotak Institutional Equities also expects operating margin to expand 230 bps QoQ to 21% in the quarter. Brokerage: Axis Securities | PAT: Rs 620 crore Axis Securities expects US business to decline YoY on Renvela-led high Q2FY18 base; QoQ growth expected on traction in key product launches. Further, it expects a decline in margin due to higher R&D and staff costs. Brokerage: Emkay | PAT: Rs 780 crore Emkay expects US revenue to remain muted on a yoy basis at $281million, with ARV business expected to bounce back sequentially. Gross margins are expected to expand by 100 bps sequentially. Overall EBITDA margins are expected to strengthen by 53 basis points QoQ to 21%, primarily on account of the launch of high-margin products like Ertapenem and Sildenafil, analysts wrote in their report. Key developments to look for are the decline in overall debt as well as the traction in the US injectables business and commentary on the Sandoz portfolio Brokerage: ICICI Securities | PAT: Rs 602 crore ICICI Securities expects revenues to grow 5% YoY to Rs 4,639 crore mainly due to currency tailwinds. The US business is expected to grow a mere 3% YoY on a higher base. EBITDA margins are likely to decline 440 bps to 20.8% due to a higher base and higher raw material cost owing to China supply constraints. Net profit may decline 23% YoY due to a below expected operational performance and higher tax rate. Brokerage: Motilal Oswal | PAT: Rs 757.6 crore The brokerage expects US business (56% of formulation sales) to grow by 15% YoY to Rs 1,950 crore. Europe and RoW sales are expected to grow 15% YoY, while API sales are estimated to grow by 11% YoY. EBITDA margin is likely to contract moderately by 140 bps YoY (but expand 160bp QoQ) to 21.5%. Overall EBITDA is estimated to increase by ~7% to INR9b. We estimate adjusted PAT at Rs 560 crore compared to Rs 520 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Key issues to watch out for Debt reduction during the quarter Outlook for the US business (35-40 launches expected over next 12 months) Growth outlook for FY19 by Pierre Balanian Haftars presence at the Palermo Conference is crucial to a lasting political solution. Both France and Russia are pursuing their respective interests. Jumpstarting the economy is crucial. Libya is still split between east and west at the mercy of 1,500 militias and 200,000 fighters. Benghazi (AsiaNews) - The International Conference on Libya opened today in Palermo. Various officials from Libya and other governments will take part in discussions over two days to support efforts by the United Nations to achieve pacification and political reunification. At present, Libya remains divided between east and west at the mercy of some 1,500 militias and 200,000 fighters paid by the official government but under militia control. The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Fayez Al-Sirraj, was set up in February 2016 on the basis of the Skhirat agreement in Morocco, signed under the auspices of the United Nations on 17 December 2015. GNA officials were the first to arrive in Palermo. Libyan sources told AsiaNews that Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who was set to come, decided to boycott the meeting after receiving guarantees from the Russians and the British. The Italian government still hopes he may still come. A Libyan writer in Cairo, close to Haftar, contacted by AsiaNews, said that the marshal might arrive late in Palermo, but he is likely to refuse any talk with Al Sirraj, which was a remote chance to start with. With Italy as its main sponsor with US backing, the Palermo Conference comes in the wake of the mistakes of an international conference in Paris and the likely failure of scheduled Libyan elections in December. According to many Libyan analysts, Italy, seeing the weaknesses of the Paris conference, invited to the conference all interested parties, despite their divisions, including Algeria (which backs Libyan unity), Tunisia and Egypt, as well as Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. France, one of the countries that most contributed to the "Libyan Spring" has sought to reap political and economic benefits. But the Libyan crisis ended up pitting it against Italy. For the French, who recognise the Al Sirraj government in Tripoli, the winning card is the 75-year-old Field Marshal Haftar, head of the Libyan National Army (LNA) who controls Cyrenaica and is now backed by Russia. No agreement on Libya can work without the agreement of all the main figures on the ground, and Marshal Haftar is one of them, given his many local and international ties. Italy, unlike France, has preferred the role of mediator. The Conference is in fact "For and With Libya" and could be a once-in-lifetime opportunity for direct dialogue between the parties. The presence of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is a clear sign that France backs the Italian initiative. But it is too early to know whether this means the end of Italian-French rivalry, which is something the Americans would like to see. Meanwhile, Russia, the new player in the area, has plans for two military bases in eastern Libya. The head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya Ghassan Salame, from Lebanon, will also be present. Like General Haftar, he is very close to Paris, but this time he will have his deputy with him, Stephanie Williams, of the United states. People close to the UN envoy told AsiaNews that Salame, under pressure from Washington, plans to invite all the Libyan parties to a national conference early next year, focused on economic reform rather than elections, which was the main focus of the meetings in France and Morocco. Rebooting the economy would weaken the militias, the source said, whilst presidential elections in a divided and unstable country like Libya could only worsen the crisis. If Marshal Haftar is a no show, the Palermo Conference is not likely to provide any solution to the Libyan crisis but it would still leave its mark. Paris and Rome are now forced to seek a deal as a result of Russia coming into picture and the threat of a returning Islamic State group in Libyas central coastal region. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday hit out at the "critics and cynics" who blame GST for growth deceleration, saying the indirect tax reform had only a "transient" impact on growth and that too for two quarters. In remarks apparently aimed at former Reserve Bank governor Raghuram Rajan, who Friday blamed the Goods and Services Tax roll-out along with demonetisation for lower GDP growth, Jaitley said the economy recovered fast from the limited "disruptionist impact" of the tax reform. But the minister was silent on Rajan's criticism of the note-ban, which has disrupted everyone's life in general and that of small traders and small businesses in particular. Though the stated objectives of the move was to curb blackmoney and choke the channels pumping in fake notes into the economy, the RBI in July had stated that as much as 99.3 percent of the cancelled notes had come back to the system and also cash in circulation had topped the pre-note-ban days. Interestingly, the government did not celebrate the second anniversary of the controversial decision on November 8, unlike the first anniversary when it had listed out the benefits of the move as increased tax payers' base and higher digital transactions. Claiming that GST had a smooth implementation, Jaitley, without naming anyone, said, "You will always have critics and cynics who will come up and say it slowed down growth." Jaitley, who was addressing the centenary celebrations of the state-run Union Bank of India through a video message, described GST as a "monumental reform" that impacted growth for just two quarters, as GDP numbers since then climbed up to 7, 7.7 and 8.2 percent in the subsequent quarters. He was also quick to point out that these numbers are much higher compared to 5-6 percent achieved between 2012 and 2014 under the previous government. The minister said ever since the Narendra Modi government assumed office, the country has been able to retain its position as the fastest growing major economy. Delivering a lecture in the US Friday evening, Rajan, whose three-year stint at the RBI ended in September 2016 two months before demonetisation and almost a year before GST implementation in July 2017 had termed the twin moves as "hard blows" to the economy when global growth was much better, thus the country losing out from the rest of the world. "The two successive shocks of demonetisation and GST had serious impacts on growth, which has fallen off interestingly at a time when the global economy was picking up fast," Rajan had said. "The reality is that seven (7 percent growth) is not enough for the kind of people coming into the labour market and we need jobs for them. So, we need more and cannot be satisfied at this level (of growth)," Rajan had added. Jaitley said "reforms," including GST, demonetisation and the much-contested Aadhaar, have ensured greater formalisation of the economy and made available extra resources which are now being utilised for building infrastructure, rural roads and also for paying for various social sector schemes aimed at uplifting the masses. "Leaders should not be cowards, they should be decisive decision-makers who should have the capacity to take these decisive decisions, bear the criticism, and eventually in the larger interest of the nation, implement them," Jaitley said. Within the first year of GST implementation, Jaitley said the number of people who registered for GST has gone up by 74 percent and government has also been able to bring down tax rates for as many as 334 commodities than previous levels. He reiterated that the Aadhaar and the schemes working through it are alone has helped save over Rs 90,000 crore and welcomed the Supreme Court order upholding the biometric-based identity project, though with many conditions. The minister gave out a list of a slew of schemes where government has been able devote resources because of the additional resources across sectors. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 12 inaugurated the multi-modal hub at Varanasi under the Jal Marg Vikas Project. The hub is part of National Waterways-1 (NW-1) which connects Varanasi to Haldia. "This is for the first time that national waterways is being used for commercial purposes at such a large scale," PM Modi said after inaugurating the hub. JMV project, which is being jointly funded by the Indian government and World Bank, has three multi-modal hubs (at Varanasi, Sahibganj and Haldia), two inter-modal hubs, five Roll On Roll Off (Ro-Ro) terminal pairs and new navigation lock at Farakka across the entire stretch of river Ganga. The route will officially make NW-1 operational for ferrying cargo vessels. "This multi-modal terminal highlights that eastern UP, UP as a whole and northern India is now linked to West Bengal," Modi said. Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), the state-run agency tasked with reviving all the national waterways in India, signed a contract with World Bank in February this year for financial and technical assistance. According to IWAIs estimates, out of the total 800 million $375 million would be given by the World Bank, $380 million will be provided by the Centre from its own resources and the balance will be from the private sector. The Varanasi terminal has been built at an approximate cost of Rs 207 crore and has a capacity of 1.26 MPTA. It is spread over 33.34 hectares of land. The project has been completed in a little over two years and had commenced in June 2016. According to officials from shipping ministry, the NW-1 is capable of carrying cargo up to 2,000 tonnes. We will transport 80 lakh tonne cargo this year Within two-three years, we will ship 270 lakh tonne cargo over Ganga, union minister for shipping, Nitin Gadkari, said. The government has decided to operate the terminal on public-private partnership (PPP) model. Selection of the PPP operator through an International Competitive Bidding is at an advanced stage and expected to be completed by December 2018, a statement released by the ministry said. The prime minister also received the first container vessel for NW-1 which was shipped by PepsiCo. The consignment transported 16 containers equivalent to 16 truckloads of food and snacks. "The cargo has substituted 16 trucks and has saved close to Rs 70-75 crore," the prime minister said. Source: Ministry of Shipping Modi said that the transportation of container vessel is not only shipment of cargo but example of "New India". "Not only cement, but vegetables, fruits, handicrafts from Varanasi etc will soon be transported through the route," he said adding that "With time, waterways will not only be known for cargo transportation but for cruise tourism as well". Varanasi was only a holy city until now But now, we have a national waterway running... and we will see Varanasi as an economic city, Yogi Adityanath, chief minister, Uttar Pradesh said. Development of these hubs is part of JMVP, approved by the cabinet in January 2018. The entire project is expected to be completed by 2023 and will be developed at the cost of about Rs 5,369.18 crore. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More This festive season, sales of consumer electronics and white goods grew 12-15 percent over last year, indicating a return of discretionary spending two years after demonetisation, according to The Economic Times. A 10 percent cut in the Goods & Services Tax (GST) on appliances in July is believed to be one of the major reasons for the sales spike. Leading manufacturers and retailers said e-commerce discounting, penetration of consumer finance and higher sales of premium products are major contributing factors. There has been 10-15 percent growth in appliance sales this Diwali, Godrej Appliances Business Head Kamal Nandi told the paper. Premiumisation drove sales, even for entry-level products and in up-country markets, with prices 4 percent lower as compared to summer, he added. Lenders including ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank focused on financing consumer durables, replacing non-banking finance companies as the latter was reluctant to lend this season due to a liquidity crunch, bankers said. Card transactions shot up over 30 percent compared with last year and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) registered a 300 percent growth, driven by Tier II and III cities, Deepak Sharma, Chief Digital Officer at Kotak Mahindra Bank, told the paper. Sony and LG sold out their entire stock this festive season, which covers Onam, Durga Puja, Dussehra and Diwali, the report said. Sony India MD Sunil Nayyar told the paper that the 55-inch TV was out of stock even before Dhanteras and that large screen models sold 3-20 times more than Diwali last year. Sales of LG refrigerators, priced between Rs 80,000 and Rs 5 lakh, doubled while sales of 4K and OLED TV, ranging from Rs 58,990 to Rs 30 lakh, grew three times. Retail majors - Reliance Digital and Vijay Sales - saw a major increase in purchases this year, despite online discounting eating away a part of sales. Premium products including OLED and QLED TVs of Sony, Samsung and LG, headphones, DSLR cameras, gaming laptops, phones like Apples iPhone X and OnePlus 6T were in high demand, an Amazon spokesperson told the paper. He added that EMI transactions double over last year, with around 70 percent customers opting for EMIs coming from Tier II cities and beyond. Titan, a part of the Tata conglomerate, is among Indias leading jewellery, watch and eyewear companies. As on September 30, 2018, the companys 1,600 exclusive stores, located in 279 Indian cities and towns, cover approximately 2 million square feet of retail area. In the quarter gone by, Titan reported robust revenue traction across all segments. A dip in jewellery segment margin (80 percent of the quarterly turnover), inventory losses (of Rs 18 crore, which will reverse in Q3 FY19), one-time franchisee compensation (Rs 15 crore in connection with the takeover of 2 large Hyderabad-based stores) and treasury exposure to the IL&FS group (Rs 29 crore) weighed on the companys overall margins. Segment-wise review Jewellery Sales were predominantly driven by volumes because plain jewellery grew at a faster pace than studded varieties. Margins bore the brunt of high advertisement spends. Watches New products, merchandise upgradation and growth across all trade channels (especially in the modern retail formats and e-commerce) drove sales during the quarter. Keeping overheads under control aided margins. Eyewear Availability of new assortments at affordable price points and commencement of frame manufacturing-cum- distribution operations helped sales grow. Aggressive marketing campaigns led to a reduction in margins. The path ahead Jewellery The management intends to continue expanding the network of Tanishq' outlets by adding around 30-40 new stores every fiscal year. Most of these will be opened under the franchise route to limit capex. The contribution of high-value studded and diamond jewellery, which stands at about 30-35 percent of the jewellery segment's yearly sales, is likely to increase in due course. These variants play a key role in facilitating margin accretion because of higher realisations vis-a-vis the ones made of gold and silver. In gold jewellery, customer acquisitions under the Golden Harvest Scheme (GHS) and exchange programmes will be crucial in driving revenue growth. While GHS allows buyers to purchase jewellery by paying in instalments, exchange schemes enable customers to give away their old jewellery and get a new, refurbished product. Titan is likely to enter the silver jewellery space in the next 3-6 months to diversify risks associated with gold and diamond jewellery demand fluctuations. Silver will be imported from nations such as Thailand and manufacturing operations may be outsourced in the initial stages. Watches Titan plans to introduce new collections, particularly in the digital category. Most of the sales growth in this segment will be volume-focused since the company isn't planning to raise the average selling prices of most products in its portfolio. As far as luxury watches are concerned, owing to investments in brand building, profitability, in all likelihood, may be impacted for the next few years. Cost optimisation efforts, which include supply chain consolidation and store resizing, will continue in a bid to improve margins. Eyewear To gain market share, Titan will lay emphasis on introducing products in the low to mid price range. This strategy has been successful in the past and has been well received by the buyers. The target is to increase the customer base from 2.4 million in FY18 to 3.7 million by FY19-end and 10 million by FY23-end. In-house manufacturing and economies of scale should augur well on the margins front. Other products Titan is repositioning itself as a consumer lifestyle brand by foraying into retailing into new segments such as sarees and perfumes. Branded perfumes are currently sold through the 'World of Titan' channel, departmental stores and e-commerce. Going forwrad, the objective is to strengthen product distribution further and consider packaging innovations. The company has signed up with more than 300 vendors to source Taneira brand of sarees from 50 weaving clusters, and 3 brick-and-mortar stores are already functional at the moment. To enhance the visibility of such products, extensive marketing is being undertaken as well. Since the contribution of this segment to Titans consolidated annual revenue is pretty minimal as of now, it will take a few fiscals before these high-margin products make their presence felt in the financials. Risks Should the macroeconomic situation worsen (US dollars appreciation against the Indian rupee, widening current account deficit), a hike in import duties on gold may be announced. If this rate increase is sharp, smuggling by unorganised entities would help them procure gold at substantially cheaper rates, which, in turn, could force organised players to take price and margin cuts to stay competitive. Reintroduction of Prevention of Money Laundering Act provisions, wherein disclosure of PAN details becomes mandatory on the purchase of jewellery above a specified limit, could dampen jewellery demand significantly. Titans eyewear segment has been struggling to break even. It remains to be seen as to when this trend reverses. Jewellery sales are characterised by a high degree of seasonality. The second half of a fiscal year tends to be better than the first half because of the wedding and festive season. Should you invest ? Titan corrected sharply about a month or two back due to 2 key reasons market volatility, possibility of basic customs duty (BCD) on gold being raised to limit imports of the yellow metal (to manage the depreciating currency). In what appears to be a big respite to organised jewellers such as Titan, in September, BCD on gold imports was left unchanged at 10 percent. Post this, the stock, more often than not, has been on an upmove and currently trades at 42.4 times its FY20 projected earnings. We are confident about Titan's ability to leverage the strength of its brand across all segments. Strong jewellery offtake in H2 FY19, consequent normalisation of promotional expenses (as a percentage of sales) and operational efficiencies in the watches segment are expected to be the major re-rating triggers. Prima facie, most of the moats stated above seem to be factored in. This, coupled with the stock's positive price trajectory in the past 30 days, limits upside prospects from current levels, at least in the near future. Therefore, we advise investors to buy on dips. Follow @krishnakarwa152 Saudi Arabia, the second largest producer of crude oil to world, faced an attack on its oil infrastructure facilities on September 14, which caused a sharp increase in fuel prices. Do you know where petrol prices were the highest? Here's a list of the countries where petrol is the cheapest and most expensive. (Note: All price comparisons are on rupee terms only. Global rates as of September, 16 2019 - Image: Reuters) live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More India plans to lease out half of its Padur strategic oil reserve site in southern India to Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) for storing crude, sources said. Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) will sign an initial agreement with ADNOC on Monday in the presence of oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. The agreement will allow ADNOC to sell oil to local refiners but give the government of India the first right to the oil in the case of an emergency. It will be the second such deal with ADNOC, which is already storing oil at the Mangalore strategic storage in Karnataka. "We will sign a memorandum of understanding with ADNOC to fill two compartments in Padur along the same lines as the Mangalore cavern," said one source with direct knowledge of the matter, declining to be named ahead of an official statement. In return for allowing ADNOC to store its crude at a strategic reserve site, India does not have to pay for the imports, only accessing the oil in emergencies. India's oil ministry and ISPRL, a government entity that builds the caverns, did not respond to Reuters' request for comments. An ADNOC spokesman said: "We are already working with India's ISPRL in Mangalore and we hope to build on this positive working relationship in the future." India's cabinet last week approved a plan allowing foreign oil companies to store oil in Padur's strategic storage. "Participation by foreign oil companies will significantly reduce budgetary support of government of India by more than 100 billion rupees ($1.38 billion) based on current prices," Law Minister R. S. Prasad told a news conference last week. The Padur site is located about 5 km (3 miles) from the southwest coast and 40 km from Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd's refinery. India relies heavily on oil imports, which account for about 80 percent of its total demand. To protect itself from potential supply disruptions, it has built emergency storage in underground caverns at three locations, with a capacity to hold 36.87 million barrels of crude, or about 9.5 days of its average daily demand. NPA_NPA_Non_performing_assests Prashanth Krish In a recent lecture, NS Vishwanathan, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India which talked about the famous circular: The Revised Framework for Resolution of Stressed Assets RBI circular of 12th February 2018 and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016. No Need For Special Treatment of "Genuine" Defaulters There has been a demand that some corporates want to pay but can't. Should we treat such cases differently than a wilful defaulter, or simply someone who can't? Like, bankers want to not call the "want to pay but cannot" kind of defaulters as NOT NPA. That isn't right, says Vishwanathan. In the speech, Vishwanathan provided the matrix below. In the banking framework, if you're willing to pay but can't then you get some kind of ad-hoc funding or restructuring first (not in NCLT) but you still have to treat the account as an NPA. If there's no recovery, then NCLT will change ownership or liquidate. And if you're not willing to pay, no matter whether you have or don't have the ability, you lose the ownership anyhow. This means only one thing: no special treatment for anyone that genuinely wants to pay but cannot they need to be able to pay at some point, beyond which they lose their company to the bankers. How NPA Recognition Hits Banks Recognition of NPA has meant deterioration and weakening of Balance Sheets. In this regard, he touched upon BASEL norms and how losses, Expected, Un-expected and Potential Losses are met. The picture below throws more light on the same. India: Very Low Capital Compared to NPA Levels One of the most insightful and frightening charts is the one that plots multiple years of NPA's as a percentage of Capital and compares the same to other major countries. India is the only one that has been seeing a Rise in Net NPAs as a percentage of capital that are un-provided for. Banks in China and Brazil, on the other hand, have for years allocated more capital than what their official NPA requires them. Simply put: Indian banks are not provisioning enough. If you know your NPA is a 100 crore loan, Indian banks dont provision for that 100 cr. they provide a small fraction. Therefore the amount left 'unprovisioned' is quite high so as a percentage of capital, Indias not good enough. (However, in other countries, they do take provisions based on expected losses rather than based on the total loan amounts, and tend to recover collateral faster, practices that India needs to get closer to) How Much Capital Do We Have? And final chart that while shows how low Capital to Weighted Asset Ratio is. Means, for every rupee really lent out how much capital do banks have? Only two countries are below us Bangladesh and Russia. Most of the developed world had a much higher CRAR and much higher Domestic Credit as well. Our overall CRAR is low at 13 percent but so is our private credit to GDP (50 percent of GDP). And much of our "private" credit is to government-owned entities, so that changes things a little more. However, it means we are starved of capital and banks do need to raise much more. In comparison, most of the larger NBFCs are at 18 percent+ on the CRAR scale. While the speech is long, the conclusion is sharp and on the point. Provides a good framework from which one can analyse the Banking Sector as a whole. RBI releases a ton of data that can be easily accessed by the common investor. But data is just raw information, knowledge from understanding where and how to apply such data. That requires experience and wisdom that is generally beyond our capabilities. While we get economic commentary from Independent Economists whenever new data is released, the best analysis is always from those who are part of the system than being outside the system. The risk with Insider views is that they can be biased since they being policy setters wouldn't agree with views that go against that very policy. Source: Capitalmind The author is the head of Compliance at Capitalmind. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) on November 12 said it will increase investment in Odisha from Rs 45,000 crore to Rs 100,000 crore by 2030. With the additional investment, the capacity of its Angul steel plant will be ramped up from 6 mtpa to 20 mtpa, while employment generation will enhance from 50,000 to 100,000, JSPL Chairman Naveen Jindal said, addressing the plenary session of the 'Make in Odisha Conclave 2018'. JSPL is also operating a 9-mtpa pellet plant at Barbil, which is exporting the "highest amount of pellets" from the country, he said. Jindal said JSPL is setting up an industrial park at Angul. "People coming to our industrial park will not face any of these challenges we faced like land, water or electricity or anything," he asserted. He said with the encouragement from the Odisha government, JSPL started to put up India's "largest and most modern blast furnace, largest sinter plant, coke oven and steel-making shop". "When we had plenty of challenges, we also had plenty of support. Support from the people of Odisha, government of Odisha and CM Naveen Patnaik," Jindal said. On the company's commitment for social responsibility, Jindal said, along with making steel, it also takes interest in building schools, hospitals, community healthcare and drinking water facilities. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Rudra Shares & Stock Brokers As expected, market was in festive mode last week and registered low volumes in the truncated week that ended mildly in green. Nifty shed initial weekly gains in last trading session amid weakness in global peers to finally close at 10,585.5 with mild gains of 0.3 percent on weekly basis. Macro factors continued supporting the bullish sentiment as Brent crude price extended its fall and slipped below $70/barrel. Rupee, on the other hand, has remained stable throughout the week. Options data suggest a sideways movement could continue in the coming week with slightly positive bias. Put writing in 10,500 strike price was witnessed on Friday of approximately 1.25 lakh contracts, and cumulative open interest is now more than 22.88 lakhs conveying a mild optimism, while call writing has shifted towards 10,800 and 11,000 strike price suggesting rangebound movement is likely. However, the major medium-term support range is still 10,000-9,951 as 10,000 put option still holds highest cumulative open interest of 50 lakh contract approximately. Technical setup is suggesting that an ongoing pullback still has room to extend further once 10,661 traded on higher side and gap at 10,765-10,843 range is likely to fill. Bulls need to have high degree of caution once gap levels approached as 200-day moving average (10,762) will also act as a hurdle and any reversal from there could be sharp. Immediate support for the week is 10,495 and 10,410 which is 38.2 percent and 100 percent retracement level of previous week range. The technical setup and options data combined suggest that Nifty is likely to move in broad range of 10,410 and 10,843 with positive bias and buy-on-dips could be a fruitful strategy until 10,410 holds. Factoring merger synergies, we expect IndusInd Bank and IDFC Bank to outperform in the next couple of years and could be a dark horse over 3-5 years span. Even buy on dips is being suggested. IndusInd Bank Indusind Bank has delivered steady numbers for the second quarter. Management is in line with its stated planning cycle 4(2017-2020). Giving guidance of 25-30 percent loan growth, it stood at 32 percent in Q2.. With a branch network of 1466 in Q2, bank is on track to reach 2000 within the stipulated time by 2020. CASA ratio stood at 44 percent and to double customer base to more than 20Mn is also on schedule. We expect merger with Bharat Financial Inclusion- already having around 83 lakhs customers, would help grow customer base, outlets aand building a strong liability book which will thereby reduce cost of funds and increase cross-sell opportunities of various main-stream banking products to financially underserved customers in rural India. It would drive synergies across revenue opportunities & operating efficiencies- boost ROA & NIMs. As per the merger agreement both are scheduled to unite in the next three months. Although company is into providing contingent provisions regarding IL&FS exposure and the structural changes happening at its side are not to worry. We value the bank initially at 4x P/BV of FY19 for a target of Rs 1986 and could be a dark horse over 3-5 years span. IDFC Bank One of the youngest private lender, offering financial solutions is all set to seek a new standard. Merger with capital first would give a runway to build a first rated bank. The second acquisition by the bank- a non-banking financial company (capital first) in an all-stock deal, aims to create a Rs 88,000 crore combined entity. Post merger, the new entity will have a distribution network comprising 194 branches, 353 dedicated banking correspondent outlets, over 9,100 micro ATM points & serving more than 5 million customers. Substantial increase in earnings, reinvest in building appropriate branch infrastructure, building retail franchise capability, help bring three million customers to cross sell and increase distribution network are some of the merger benefits. Moreover, the proposed merger is expected to help IDFC bank get closer to its target of 60 percent share and believes to surpass that even, of retail loans by 2021. Refinancing liabilities will add further to profitability & margins expansion. The stock is currently available at a P/BV of 0.8x, we recommend to accumulate the stock at current level with a target of Rs 55 initially and also could be a dark horse over 3-5 years span. : The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. SQS Software Quality Systems AG has settled a case related to delayed compliance of takeover norms with markets regulator Sebi on payment of Rs 2 lakh towards settlement charges. Separately, Baron Emerging Markets Fund and its three related entities as well as one Sucharitha Reddy also settled delayed compliance of takeover norms with the regulator on payment of Rs 2 lakh and over Rs 2.7 lakh towards settlement charges, respectively. "The proceedings that could have been initiated for the defaults ... are settled qua the applicants," Sebi said in three separate orders dated November 9. It also noted that Sebi will not initiate any enforcement action against the applicants. The order comes after SQS Software Quality Systems AG, Germany, four entities related to Baron -- Baron Emerging Markets Fund, Baron Emerging Markets Fund Ltd, Baron Emerging Markets Collective Investment Fund and Baron International Growth Fund and Reddy -- filed applications with Sebi to settle the cases under settlement mechanism. Under the settlement mechanism, an entity is allowed to settle charges by paying a penalty without admission or denial of guilt. It was alleged that these entities had made delayed compliance provisions of SAST (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations. As per the orders, the authorised representatives of these entities had separate meetings with internal committee of Sebi for deliberation of settlement terms. Thereafter, Sebi's High Powered Advisory Committee recommended the cases for settlement on payment of Rs 2 lakh each for SQS Software and four Baron entities, besides Rs 2.7 lakh for Reddy and the same was approved by the regulator's panel of whole-time members. Following these, the entities remitted the amount. Accordingly, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has disposed of the adjudication proceedings initiated against these entities. However, the regulator said that enforcement actions, including commencing or reopening of the proceedings, could be initiated if any representation made by them is found to be untrue. Tata Mutual Fund has appointed Sailesh Jain as fund manager for four equity schemes with immediate effect, an addendum from the fund house said. Jain will handle Tata Digital India Fund, Tata Equity Savings Fund, Tata India Pharma and Healthcare Fund and Tata Resources and Energy Fund. The fund house notified that Meeta Shetty has been appointed as Assistant Fund Manager of Tata Digital India Fund and Tata India Pharma and Healthcare Fund. Satish Chandra Mishra will be Assistant Fund Manager of Tata Resources and Energy Fund. All other features of the schemes remain unchanged. The operation is completed in the Panmunjom Joint Security Area. North and South start to dismantle 20 guard posts in the Demilitarised Zone. After six months, South Korea and the United States resumed the Marine Exercise Programme, which North Korea calls anachronistic" and a threat to dialogue and peace. Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) North Korea has removed 636 land mines from Panmunjom, on the border with South Korea, South Korean Defence Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said Monday. Mr Jeong also announced that the South Korea would continue the joint marine drill under way with the United States, a violation of the inter-Korean Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) signed in September according to North Korea. The CMA calls for the two sides to take confidence-building measures, including the pull-out of front-line troops and firearms. The two sides disarmed land mines from Panmunjom's Joint Security Area (JSA) on 20 October. After removing their troops, the two Koreas also started to dismantle 20 guard posts in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). After a six-month break, South Korea and the United States resumed the Korea Marine Exercise Program (KMEP) last week. The Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of North Koreas ruling Workers' Party of Korea, slammed the exercise this morning. In an editorial, it said that South Korea and the United States should "behave reasonably" and abstain from "anachronistic" military acts that could undermine dialogue and peace on the Korean Peninsula. South Koreas Defence Ministry responded stressing that such defensive manoeuvres take place every year. A plug is seen coming from the Chevrolet Volt electric car during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan January 13, 2009. REUTERS/Mark Blinch (UNITED STATES) - RTR23CT6 The power ministry would soon bring an electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure policy, which will also allow individuals to set up charging station for commercial use to boost e-mobility, said Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister R K Singh on November 11. "We have circulated the EV Charging Policy for comments (among other department/ministries). The second line of the policy says that everybody is free to set up EV charging station," Singh told reporters at International Symposium to Promote Innovation & Research in Energy Efficiency (Inspire). When asked whether individuals would be able to use the facility on commercial basis, he replied, "Absolutely. You dont need a licence". The EV charging infrastructure is required to boost EVs in the country. India intends to have sizeable share of EVs in the vehicle strength by 2030, which is in line with it's commitment to reduce emission intensity by one third from the level of 2005. About the extension of 1,200 MW hybrid auction (wind and solar), the minister said, "The tariff ceiling has been increased to Rs 2.70 per unit. We are extending it because we have increased the ceiling price". The auction scheduled for October 26 was postponed till November 14. The successful bidder will set up hybrid solar and wind capacities of 1,200 MW together. The industry has been opposing the Rs 2.6 per unit tariff cap under the hybrid tender. Meanwhile, the last date of bid submission for 10GW solar auction is also extended till November 19. The techno-commercial bid opening will be carried out on November 20. The auction, which also includes 3GW manufacturing component, has been extended many times. The bids were to be submitted on November 12. Promotion of clean energy is important for the government. India has set up a target of having 175 GW of clean energy, including 100 GW of solar and 60 GW of wind energy, by 2022. The minister said India has 72 GW of installed renewable energy capacity, while 20 GW is under various stages of implementation and 27 GW is being bid out. Singh also informed that his ministry is working to coordinate with oil ministry to set up EV charging station at petrol pumps. To support investments in new, innovative and scalable business models, the EESL (Energy Efficiency Services Ltd) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) also signed an agreement for a Global Environment Facility (GEF) for grant of USD 13 million to establish an Energy Efficiency Revolving Fund (EERF) on this occasion. The EERF aims to expand and sustain investments in the energy efficiency market in India, build market diversification, and scale up existing technologies. During Inspire 2018 on Friday, the EESL and GAIL (India) Ltd signed MoU to develop natural gas based cogeneration and trigeneration projects in Commercial & Industrial Sectors. This agreement is set to benefit industries such as hotels, hospitals, airports, commercial malls, commercial/ government buildings, integrated residential complexes, educational institutions, data center, among others, with the advantages of combined heat & power technology. Inspire 2018 has been organised in collaboration with the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI), Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI). The event was also attended by Junaid K Ahmad, Country Director, The World Bank (WB) and Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director, Asian Development Bank (ADB). The government recently approved the sale of "enemy property" worth Rs 3,000 crore. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the proceeds from sale of enemy property will form part of the divestment receipts. Here are important questions answered on enemy property. What is an enemy property? Enemy property refers to property or assets held or managed on behalf of an enemy subject or an enemy company. It also refers to assets left behind by individuals who migrated to Pakistan or China and are no longer citizens of India. These assets include land, buildings, shares held in companies, jewellery of the citizens of enemy countries. When was the concept drawn up? Properties belonging to Pakistani and Chinese citizens when India was at war with these countries are referred to as enemy properties. The Central government took over properties of citizens of China (in 1962) and Pakistan (in 1965 and 1971) under the Defence of India Acts. Who manages these properties? The Defence of India Act ceased to function after the wars. To administer these properties, the Enemy Property Act was enacted in 1968. The law empowered the Custodian of Enemy Property of India (CEPI) to manage and preserve the enemy properties What are the recent developments around this? Last year in March, Parliament had amended the Enemy Property Act, 1968, to bar successors of those who migrated to Pakistan and China during partition from any claim over the properties left behind in India. In the amendment of 2017, the definition of enemy was substituted by "...including his legal heir or successor, whether or not citizen of India or the citizen of a country which is not an enemy or the enemy..... who has changed his nationality. What are the guidelines for sale of shares? The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, last week gave 'in-principle' approval for sale of shares which are part of 'enemy property'. The guidelines will be framed in consultation with the agencies of revenue department like the Enforcement Directorate as also officials with experience in auctioning of confiscated properties. How are shares valued? Over 6.50 crore shares in 996 companies of 20,323 shareholders are under the custody of Custodian of Enemy Property of India (CEPI), under the Home Ministry. Of these 996 companies, 588 are functional/active companies -- 139 of these are listed, while 449 companies are unlisted. At the current price, these shares are estimated at around Rs 3,000 crore What is CEPIs role? The government had vested these properties with the CEPI. As the CEPI has no expertise in selling of shares, the government has decided to rope in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) for sale of these 'enemy shares', many of which are not even listed on the stock exchanges. The DIPAM will also decide on the modalities for appointing merchant bankers and legal advisors for sale of these shares. The proceeds of the share sale will be accounted for as disinvestment proceeds What is the impact of the move? The decision will lead to monetisation of moveable enemy property lying dormant for decades. Sale proceeds from this may be used for development and social welfare programmes What are the other enemy properties? In January this year, the process of identifying 9,400 properties worth over Rs 1 lakh crore was put in motion. Among the 9,280 properties left by Pakistani nationals, the highest 4,991 properties are located in Uttar Pradesh followed by West Bengal which has 2,735 such estates. As many as 487 properties are located in Delhi. Among 126 properties left behind by Chinese nationals, 57 are located in Meghalaya and 29 are located in West Bengal. Seven are in Assam. Collated by Vandana Ramnani. Realty firm Puravankara Ltd's sales bookings rose by 27 percent to Rs 1,003 crore in the first six months of this fiscal on better volumes in affordable housing segment. According to an investors presentation, Bengaluru-based developer sold 1.7 million Square feet area during April-September period this fiscal, up 23 per cent from 1.38 million square feet in the corresponding period previous year. In value terms, sales bookings rose to Rs 1,003 crore from Rs 790 crore during the period under review. During the first six months of this fiscal, the company sold 1,753 units, out of which 1,418 units were from its mid-income and affordable housing brand 'Provident'. On the debt side, Puravankara's net debt rose to Rs 2,457 crore at the end of September quarter from Rs 2,302 crore as on June 30, 2018. Its cost of debt is 11 per cent. The company recently reported a flat net profit at Rs 21.54 crore for the quarter ended September, compared to Rs 21.14 crore in the year-ago period. Total income rose to Rs 499.28 crore during quarter from Rs 371.53 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. On quarterly performance, Ashish R Puravankara, MD, Puravankara Ltd, said: "A great quarter with a good rise in sales volume and bookings. The overall volumes sold during the quarter registered almost a 100 per cent increase from the year-ago quarter". Puravankara has completed 67 residential projects and commercial projects, spanning 37.35 million Sq ft, primarily across the gateway cities of south and west India. At present, the company has an area under development totalling 22.31 million Sq ft. It has a land bank of nearly 70 million Sq ft. Puravankara has a pan India presence- with projects in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Kochi, Goa, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Mangalore. To curtail volatility in flows, capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is planning to impose a short lock-in period for investments in liquid mutual funds managing assets of over Rs 8 lakh crore, The Economic Times reported. The development comes in the wake of the liquidity crisis finance companies have been facing after a series of defaults by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) and some of its group companies. A lock-in period will end up reducing the popularity of liquid funds among investors. They are mostly used by large companies to park cash. To comply with capital adequacy norms, banks sell the securities they hold just before the quarter ends so that they need not be provided for while calculating the adequacy. These instruments are typically bought back within a week's time. This process leads to unnecessary volatility, sources said. "In the past, there have been instances where debt MFs have seen redemption of Rs 60,000-70,000 crore even as net flows were at record high," a source was quoted as saying. Experts said this move will not sit well with the industry. "A lock-in should be finely balanced. It should be just about long enough to soften the volatility in flows but it should not be too long to kill the product," the chief executive of a mid-sized fund house told the paper. The reason institutional investors turn to liquid funds is that there are no restrictions on entry or exit. They may not get the highest returns but they still put their excess money in these funds as the focus is on liquidity. SEBI may also mandate liquid funds to mark-to-market their investments in securities with maturities of 30 days or more. It may also allow separating debt instruments of defaulting companies from those of good ones in the portfolio. Liquid funds only invest in debt securities with a maturity of 90 days or less, and most corporate debt securities are not publicly traded. Even in the ones that are, trading activity tends to be muted and quoted prices are often not at fair value. These funds calculate their net asset value (NAV) based on prices provided by rating agencies for securities that have maturities of less than 60 days, and mark-to-market their investments in others. If the 30-day rule is brought in, the proportion of securities that are marked to market will increase, thereby giving a more realistic idea about the portfolio to investors. However, this could also lead to a fall in the NAVs of certain funds due to a change in the valuation mechanism. SEBI is trying to move away from a simple accrual method to a more market-linked valuation method, one of the sources told the paper. "Liquid fund is a money market fund, hence it is good to be conservative. In India, it becomes more important because there is no liquidity in the corporate debt market," the source said. Axita Cotton | Company received order for Indian organic raw cotton valuing $19,73,117 from Olam International, Singapore. () India has paid out far more in cotton subsidies than the World Trade Organization allows, with payments "vastly in excess" of what it had officially declared, the United States said in a filing to the trade watchdog on November 12. The US assessment of India's market price support (MPS) for cotton said New Delhi was allowed to pay out up to 10 percent of the value of production, but the actual figure had ranged from 53 percent to 81 percent since 2010. "It appears that India provides MPS for cotton vastly in excess of what it has reported to the WTO," the US filing said. Indian Commerce Ministry officials declined to make an immediate comment on the US document, but India has previously dismissed US allegations that it pays higher subsidies than permitted. Along with more than 45 countries, India has demanded that MPS should be calculated by using the recent reference period instead of 1986/88 prices, which was built into the equation at the creation of the WTO, said a government official, who declined to be named. While India's calculations are based on dollar terms, the US calculations are based on local currency, said the official, who has direct knowledge of the trade negotiations. The US filing is the latest in a series of analyses of publicly available data that Washington has submitted to the WTO, each one setting out apparent breaches of WTO rules that are hiding in plain sight. Previous submissions have targeted China and Vietnam as well as India. "The United States is providing this information to other (WTO) Members in the interest of promoting transparency surrounding India's MPS policies," the filing said. "This document is for the purpose of discussion by World Trade Organization Members." India has been the second-largest cotton producer since 2006, behind China, and the second-largest exporter since 2007, the document said. The US filing said that for the 2015/16 marketing year, India had notified market price support of $18 million, which was about 1.2 billion rupees, but the United States estimated that the correct figure was 504 billion rupees. In 2016/17, India had not notified any MPS, but the United States calculated the correct level at around 557 billion rupees. "The United States looks forward to future discussion of the significance of India's MPS for cotton for both India's market and for world markets both with India and with other Members," it said. India on November 12, signed an initial pact to lease out a part of its underground strategic oil storage at Padur in Karnataka to Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) for storing crude oil, the second such deal with the UAE firm this year, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said. India has built 5.33 million tonne (MT) of emergency storage -- enough to meet its oil needs for 9.5 days, in underground rock caverns in Mangalore and Padur in Karnataka and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. It has allowed foreign oil companies to store oil in the storages on condition that the stockpile can be used by New Delhi in case of an emergency. ADNOC had in February this year signed a pact to fill half of the 1.5 MT strategic oil storage at Mangalore. On November 12 it signed a similar pact for Padur. "ISPRL (Strategic Petroleum Reserve entity of India) and ADNOC of UAE signed MoU to explore possibilities of ADNOC investment in filling up of crude oil in Padur strategic reserve in Karnataka," Pradhan, who is in Abu Dhabi for the agreement signing, tweeted. The agreement allows ADNOC to sell or trade crude oil storage in the storages to local refiners but give Indian government the first right to the oil in case of an emergency. "ADNOC signs MoU with the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL), to explore storage of crude oil at Padur underground facility in Karnataka, which has a 2.5 MT (about 17 million barrels) capacity," the UEA firm tweeted. Official sources said the pact followed the Cabinet's last week decision of approving filling up of the underground strategic oil storage at Padur by foreign oil companies. While a third of the Visakhapatnam facility has been hired by Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), ADNOC and government of India filled the storage at Mangalore. The 2.5 MT Padur facility remained empty. Allowing foreign companies to use the storage for storing crude oil helps the government save on the cost of filling the reserves. Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had after the Cabinet meeting on November 8 said that allowing foreign companies to store oil in Padur would help the government save Rs 10,000 crore. UAE Oil Minister Sultan al-Jaber said:"India is an important oil market and the agreement with ISPRL underscores the strategic energy partnership between the UAE and India that leverages the UAE and ADNOC's expertise and oil resources." ADNOC in another tweet quoted Pradhan as saying that "the MoU with ADNOC will allow ISPRL to explore opportunities related to the possible storage of ADNOC crude at Padur, which would help to significantly strengthen the country's strategic petroleum reserves." The ISPRL has constructed and commissioned underground rock caverns for storage of total 5.33 MT(around 39 million barrels) of crude oil at three locations -- Vishakhapatnam (1.33 MT), Mangalore (1.5 MT) and Padur (2.5 MT). Padur storage has four compartments of 0.625 MT each and ADNOC may use half of the storage capacity for stocking its oil. The total 5.33 MT capacity under Phase-I of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) programme is estimated to supply about 9.5 days of India's crude requirement. In Mangalore, it had agreed to stock 5.86 million barrels of 0.75 MT of oil. In Phase-II, India plans to build an additional 6.5 MT facilities at Chandikhol in Odisha and Padur, which is expected to augment the emergency cover against any supply disruption by another 11.5 days. Sources said oil firms like ADNOC could use the Padur storage to stock their oil and sell it to refineries in the region on commercial terms. India, which meets 83 percent of its oil needs through imports, will have the right of first refusal to buy the crude oil stored in the facilities in case of an emergency, they said. Indian refiners maintain 65 days of crude storage, and when added to the storage planned and achieved by ISPRL, the Indian crude storage tally goes up to about 87 days. This is very close to the storage of 90 days mandated by IEA for member countries. ADNOC had last year given up its crude storage lease in South Korea and instead agreed to store oil at Mangalore in a bid to establish a ground presence in the world's third-largest oil consuming nation. Out of the crude stored, a part would be used for commercial purposes by ADNOC, while a major part would be purely for strategic purposes. The Visakhapatnam facility can meet two-and-half days need while Mangalore can meet 2.8 days requirement. Padur can meet 4.7 days requirement. The SPR at Mangalore consists of two compartments with a total storage capacity of 1.5 MT (11 million barrels). While one compartment has been filled with crude oil through funds made available by the government, the other compartment will be filled with crude supplied by ADNOC. ADNOC hired the Mangalore storage just as it ended a contract to store 6 million barrels of crude oil at Korea National Oil Corp's Yeosu facility in the country's southwest coast. South Korea had first right over the oil in the event of a supply emergency. New Delhi: Union minister and Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) chief Upendra Kushwaha meets with expelled JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav in New Delhi, Monday, Nov 12, 2018. (PTI Photo) (PTI11_12_2018_000055B) Union minister and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) president Upendra Kushwaha said that attempts by the ruling JD(U) to poach his MLAs could "harm the NDA" in Bihar and sought intervention of the BJP in the matter. Kushwaha, who is known to have ruffled feathers in the NDA camp recently for meeting Loktantrik Janata Dal founder Sharad Yadav in New Delhi, also took a dig at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, saying his clout wasn't dependent on just one or two MLAs. "I will not suffer any political damage if Nitish Kumar's JD(U) succeeds in its plans. I am not one whose political clout depends on the support of one or two MLAs," Kushwaha said in reply to queries about reports that two legislators of his party - Lalan Paswan and Sudhanshu Shekhar - might switch over to the ruling party. The speculations were triggered following Shekhar's meeting with JD-U vice president Prashant Kishor on November 11. Kushwaha came out with a couple of angry tweets soon after, calling Kumar "adept" in poaching leaders belonging to other parties. "Such a development - which involves two constituents of the same coalition - may not augur well for the NDA. It may lead to confusion and even anger. I think the BJP should intervene in the matter," he told reporters upon his arrival here from New Delhi. The RLSP chief had left for the national capital on November 11 saying he would draw the attention of BJP national president Amit Shah towards the "humiliation" he was facing at the hands of Kumar. Maintaining that his party had an alliance with the BJP, not the JD(U), Kushwaha also sought to discuss with Shah the issue of seat-sharing among NDA constituents in Bihar. He, however, failed to get an appointment with the saffron party chief. The RLSP president has been miffed over reports that the BJP and the JD(U) might together fight 34 out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar and RLSP- which had contested and won three in 2014 - may be asked to make a "sacrifice" and settle for a lesser number. The Union minister has been expressing his disapproval over such a formula, pointing out that his party was not considered for a ministerial berth in Bihar when the NDA assumed power last year following Kumar's return to the coalition. Meanwhile, the LJP headed by Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan - whom Kushwaha had met on November 11 to share his concerns over seat-sharing among NDA partners - appeared to have thrown its weight behind the JD(U). LJP parliamentary board chairman Chirag Paswan met JD(U) chief Kumar and Prashant Kishor and disapproved of the RLSP chief's hobnobbing with those opposed to the NDA. Upon emerging from the 7, Circular Road bungalow, adjacent to the chief minister's official residence, from where Kishor has been running his affairs, Paswan said: "It was a courtesy call on the occasion of Chhath festival though we did have some cursory talks on political matters." Asked about Kushwaha's meeting with Sharad Yadav, Paswan said: "Leaders of the NDA should refrain from hobnobbing with those opposed to the coalition. Also, Kushwaha's outbursts seem to be like one-way traffic. He has been attacking the JD(U) though there has been no provocation or even retaliation from the latter." Paswan's sentiments were echoed by JD(U) national general secretary K C Tyagi who also said that it was "inappropriate and harmful" for a union minister to have met an opposition leader who is strongly against the NDA and its government. Kushwaha, in his defence, said, "I have enough sense to decide whom I should meet and when and where". Significantly, Paswan's meeting with Kumar and Kishor took place in the presence of Sumit Singh - son of former Bihar minister Narendra Singh, who hails from Jamui district, which is the LJP leader's parliamentary constituency. Paswan and Singh have been at loggerheads for quite some time and it is believed that Kishor brokered peace between the squabbling two. Devotees pay obeisance Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. Kerala has been witnessing massive protests by Ayyappa devotees opposing the entry of girls and women of menstrual age into the Sabarimala temple since the government decided to implement the apex court order. (Image: PTI) The Kerala government is likely to convene an all-party meeting to discuss various matters relating to the Sabarimala temple, which has been rocked by the issue of entry of women in the menstrual age, ahead of the annual pilgrim season commencing this week. "We are thinking of having an all-party meeting. We have not taken a final decision yet. There are plans...," Devaswom Minister Kadakkampally Surendran told reporters. The hill shrine of Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala opens on November 17 for the two-month long season in the backdrop of continuing protests against the Supreme Court order allowing women of all ages to offer prayers at the temple. A batch of review petitions against the September 28 verdict that ended the ban on entry of women in the 10-50 age group into the shrine, will be heard on November 13. Surendran said a decision on the all-party meeting would be taken based on the outcome of the court hearing. The temple and nearby areas had witnessed massive protests from devotees against the entry of young women into the shrine, when it was opened for monthly pujas on November 5 and 6 and for five days from October 17. Over a dozen women under 50 had been prevented from reaching the temple. The main opposition Congress had earlier urged Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to convene an all-party meeting before the annual Mandala-Makaravilikku pilgrimage season. Congress MLA K Muraleedharan had alleged that even basic infrastructure like toilets and drinking water for pilgrims was yet to be put in place at Sabarimala. The devastating floods in August had caused severe damage to the infrastructure facilties at Pamba following which the base camp had been shifted to Nilackal. "The facilities for the pilgrims will be completed before the start of the pilgrim season," Surendran added. Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath said the BJP was "distorting" his party manifesto's reference to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to divert public attention. His statement comes a day after BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra, party vice president Prabhat Jha and MP unit chief Rakesh Singh lashed out at the Congress for being "opposed to Lord Ram and the RSS". "The BJP is intentionally fanning the RSS issue to divert people's attention from the public welfare issues mentioned in our 'Vachan Patra' (document of pledges). In our manifesto, we have not mentioned that the RSS would be banned, nor do we have any such intention," Nath told reporters. He asserted that neither the party nor he himself have said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will be banned. The Congress manifesto, released on November 10, under a head titled 'administration reforms' reads, "The holding of RSS shakhas in government premises would be banned and the order regarding relaxation given to public servants to attend them will be revoked". The Congress government had banned RSS activities in government premises in Madhya Pradesh in 1981. The ban was revived in 2000 by then chief minister Digvijaya Singh under the Civil Services Conduct Rule, senior journalist Rakesh Dixit said. Thereafter, he said, the ban continued under BJP chief ministers Uma Bharti and Babulal Gaur, before incumbent Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan lifted the ban in September 2006, describing the RSS as a "socio-cultural organisation and not a political outfit". "BJP is trying to put words in our mouth. The RSS is free to hold its shakhas (classes) except in government premises. People will decide whether the RSS is a cultural or political organisation. We do not want to get into it," Nath clarified. The Congress leader said the BJP was intentionally trying to create confusion so that the "people-friendly" points in the (Congress) agenda go ignored. "The public is intelligent, it won't be carried away with such tactics," he remarked. The Chhindwara MP said the Congress had incorporated the point (RSS issue) in their manifesto after getting suggestions that the RSS shakhas being held in tribal hostels and other government schools were hindering studies. On the issue of the Ram temple, he said the BJP raises it when polls draw close. "Where was the BJP since last four and a half years? When elections are round the corner and six months are left for it, the BJP is remembering Ram Temple," he said, adding the saffron party was running a smear campaign claiming that the Congress was against the (building of) Ram temple. "This (RSS mention) is not an issue. I know (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and (BJP president) Amit Shah very well. They turn a non-issue into an issue," Congress spokesperson Shakti Singh Gohilhe told reporters here. On November 11, in a hurriedly convened press conference, Patra had claimed that the Congress believed in "mandir nahin banane denge, shakha nahin lagne denge (won't allow the temple, won't allow shakhas)". "These are the very people who had earlier said that Lord Ram did not exist, that he was a mythical character. That is why they were opposed to the construction of the Ram temple," he had said. Hitting out at former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh, Patra had said, "Digvijaya Singh has also said that the RSS should be banned". Likewise, BJP vice president Prabhat Jha had on November 11 told reporters in Mandsaur that former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi had banned the RSS, but their moves had boomeranged. BJP state unit chief Rakesh Singh too had lashed out at the Congress and dared it to "impose a ban on the RSS if it has the strength". The 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly will go to polls on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11. Niti Aayog Niti Aayog will hold a meeting with all the stakeholders in digital payments industry over customer authentication issue after the Supreme Court verdict that restricted the use of Aadhaar details for KYC in availing host of services, including banking and telecom. "I will have a round table with the stakeholders. There are some issues which have come up from the industry, we will sit down and see what the issues are and find out how to move forward. The industry is saying that it may hamper the digital payments system," said Ratan Watal, Member Secretary PMEAC and Principal Advisor, Niti Aayog on the sidelines of a digital payments programme. Ficci and the Niti Aayog Monday jointly organised a workshop on the 'Online Digital Payments Programme' aimed at capacity building and imparting training to the officials working in this area. In its ruling on September 26, the Supreme Court had declared the government's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid but struck down some of its provisions including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions. Also, it is not mandatory for school admissions, as also for the examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Examination, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical entrance and the University Grants Commission. However, it remains mandatory for filing of IT returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number (PAN). Watal said even as digital payments have been going up, there is a need to work further with the payments systems and see areas such as banking and financial institutions where officials need to be trained. They also need to be trained formally about what digital payment mechanism is, how it works, what are the legal frameworks, international ramifications, among others. He said a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by the Niti Aayog, Department of Telecommunications and United Nations' specialised unit -- International Telecommunication Union (ITU) -- few months ago. "ITU has done a lot of work in this field in the emerging economies on digital payments. With their help we prepared a three module programme aimed at how to improve digital payment space in India," he said. He also said that the Niti Aayog had requested ITU to help India in the digital payment space as well as capacity building. "If they have some programmes or training on AI or blockchain we can use that. At this stage, it is just an idea, so let's see how to go about with this," Watal said. by Nirmala Carvalho A meeting at Singapores Cathedral Good Shepherd brought together some 60 Christian and Taoist religious leaders, who reiterated the need to work together in the future and promote individual responsibility so as to end the crisis in human values. Mumbai (AsiaNews) Christian and Taoist leaders from Asia and Europe met in Singapore to talk about the "ethical dimension" in their respective religious beliefs. Speaking to AsiaNews, Mgr Felix Machado, chairman of the Office for Ecumenism and Interreligious Affairs of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (OEIA-FABC), stressed the need for religions to respond to the current crisis of ethics". For the Archbishop of Vasai, the meeting also provided an opportunity "to learn a lot about the rich tradition of Taoism and also the religious situation in China". Titled Christian and Taoist Ethics in Dialogue, the conference was sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, the Archdiocese of Singapore and the Taoist Federation of Singapore. Held from 5 to 7 November at the Cathedral Good Shepherd, the event brought together 60 people, 30 Christians and 30 Taoists, from mainland China, France, Switzerland, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea. Archbishop Machado said that the meeting "focused on various topics, including among others: todays crisis of ethics and hope for tomorrow, Taoist and Christian responses to the crisis of ethics, social institutions and the transformation of human persons, global ethics and the interdependency of all human beings. According to the archbishop, the work was characterised by "a cordial and friendly atmosphere that allowed participants to learn about the essence of both religious traditions." At the end, everyone agreed upon the need to work together in the future. We recognise that todays crisis of ethics requires a rediscovery of universal values based on social justice, integral ecology, as well as the dignity of human life at every stage and circumstance, the prelate said. For this reason, no one can escape the moral responsibility of transforming unjust socioeconomic, political, cultural, religious and legal structures. Congress leader Randeep Surjewala accused the BJP governments at the Centre and in Rajasthan of "betraying" the jobless youths of the country and the state. The Congress chief spokesperson also alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ordered the labour department to stop releasing employment figures to "cover its failures". "After coming to power, the BJP government at the Centre promised to generate two crore jobs annually in the country, while in Rajasthan, 15 lakh jobs were promised in five years," Surjewala said at a press conference in the poll-bound state. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments betrayed jobless youngsters. People of the country and the state are feeling deceived and cheated, Surjewala said. The Congress leader further said that in Rajasthan, which goes to polls on December 7, the unemployment rate was double that of the national average and the state ranked fourth in the unemployment index. "The prime minister asks youths to fry pakodas and sell pan, while the chief minister calls protesting jobless youths 'lafangas'. What is the future of the youth of this country?," he said. Surjewala alleged that the state government was providing bogus figure of providing over 44 lakh jobs in five years. He said of the total 1.50 lakh state government jobs, notifications for 1.10 lakh were released by the previous Congress government. Ananth Kumar: Often considered to be the man who built the BJP from the scratch in Karnataka, Kumar passed away on November 12, 2018 after battling lung cancer for months. (Image: Creative Commons) Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Minister Ananth Kumar died early on November 12 morning in Bengaluru, officials said. He was 59. Parliamentary Affairs and Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister, Kumar was not keeping well for sometime and was on a ventilator for the last few days, Ministry officials said. Kumar was a BJP Member of Parliament (MP) from South Bengaluru constituency. President Ram Nath Kovind said he was saddened to hear about the passing of Kumar. "Sad to hear of the passing of Union minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H.N. Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates," President Kovind said in a tweet. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was "extremely saddened" by the passing away of Kumar and added that "he will always be remembered for his good work". "Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work," PM Modi tweeted. "Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents," PM Modi added in another tweet. The prime minister said in another tweets, "I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti." Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted, "Deep sense of grief on hearing that Ananth Kumar is no more with us. Served BJP all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss." (With inputs from PTI) On November 6 2018, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced that Faizabad district would henceforth be known as Ayodhya. The Uttar Pradesh government is considering banning sale of liquor and meat across the newly renamed Ayodhya district, according to a report by The Times of India. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is considering the move based on demands from local seers. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had on November 6 announced renaming of Faizabad district as Ayodhya district. Following the renaming of the district, local seers raised a demand for a ban on sale of liquor and meat. According to the seers, the sale of liquor and meat, which was already banned in Ayodhya municipal board area, should be extended across the entire district, the report suggests. The government is "very much aware" of the seers demands and it will "ban sale of liquor and meat within the legal framework," UP government spokesperson Srikant Sharma told the newspaper. "Ayodhya is a symbol of our 'aan, baan aur shaan' (honour, pride and prestige)" CM Adityanath had said in the pilgrimage centre on Diwali eve. "Nobody can do injustice to Ayodhya," he said, adding that the holy city is identified by Lord Ram. The BJP on Sunday announced its candidates for 131 of the 200 seats of the Rajasthan Assembly with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje being fielded from her traditional seat of Jhalrapatan. The names were announced by senior party leader J P Nadda following a meeting of the BJP central election committee which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its president Amir Shah besides other top leaders. Raje also attended the meeting. The party has also fielded its Lok Sabha MP Sona Ram Choudhary in the assembly poll and given tickets to 12 women. Party sources said about 25 sitting MLAs have been dropped and 85 incumbent legislators have been repeated. "Party candidates for all the seats we're discussed in the meeting. Names of other nominees will be announced soon," Nadda told reporters. The BJP is facing a strong challenge from a resurgent Congress in the state with the opposition party winning a number of by-polls in the last couple of years. A number of opinion polls has also given an edge to the Congress but the BJP has insisted that it will be able to repulse the opposition's challenge. The saffron party under Raje had won a whopping 163 of the 200 assembly seats in the state in 2013, giving the Congress its worst ever drubbing at its hands. The state has for the last two decades has seen the incumbent party losing the assembly polls. Kicking off the formal poll process, a gazette notification for elections to the Telangana Legislative Assembly would be issued on November 12 Nominations would be accepted after the notification is issued, Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar had said. The 119-member Assembly was dissolved on September 6 on the recommendation of the K Chandrashekar Rao-led government, more than eight months ahead of the expiry of its term, paving the way for early elections. Elections are scheduled to be held on December 7 and the counting would take place on December 11. The Election Commission on Friday imposed a near month-long ban on holding exit polls beginning November 12 in the five poll-bound states including Telangana. A notification issued by the poll panel said that between 7 am of November 12 and 5.30 pm of December 7, "conducting any exit poll and publishing or publicising the result of exit poll by means of print or electronic media or in any other manner shall be prohibited". Caretaker Chief Minister and TRS supremo K Chnadrasekhar Rao handed over B-Forms to party's contesting candidates on Sunday after a brainstorming session with them. He is expected to file his nomination from Gajwel constituency in Medak district on November 14. In her tweet, TRS MP and CM's daughter Kavitha said, "honourable KCR garu giving away the B-form to the MLAs of my parliament constituency. We seek the blessings of T-people for the success of all our mlas." The TRS has already announced its candidates for 107 segments, including 105 at one go within minutes of the Assembly dissolution, giving it a jump-start to the campaign and stunning the opposition. The main opposition Congress forged an electoral pact with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) headed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, the Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) founded by retired Osmania University Political Science Professor Kodandaram and the Communist Party of India. However the "Grand Alliance" is yet to announce the list of the contesting candidates. BJP had so far announced 66 nominees in two tranches. image for representation Anand Kochukudy Today, 18 constituencies in the Maoist-affected Bastar division and Rajnandgaon district in Chhattisgarh go to the polls. Seventy-two seats in the 91-member Assembly are scheduled for November 20 in the two-phase polls in the state. Incumbent Chief Minister Raman Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is vying for a fourth term in a tight contest with the Congress. The Ajit Jogi-led third front -- with Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) as constituents -- is the wildcard. The BJPs chances in Chhattisgarh got a tremendous boost with the emergence of a third-front in a state that has so far witnessed a bipolar contest and wafer-thin margins of victory. Ajit Jogi floated the Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC) in 2016 after his son Amit Jogi was expelled from the Congress after being caught on tape for fixing the Antagarh by-poll in cahoots with the BJP. The first phase going to polls under the shadow of Naxal violence will mostly see a direct contest between the Congress and BJP -- apart from the Konta seat in Sukma, where the CPI has some degree of influence. In 2013, the Congress won 12 out of these 18 with the BJP winning in the remaining four. If at all the Congress hopes to remain in contention for the second and decisive phase, it will have to hold on to these seats if not wrest a few more from the BJP in this tribal-dominated area. On the other hand, the BJP will look to wrest some of the seats it lost to the Congress in 2013. In this phase, the third front is contesting from all 18 seats. While the BSP and the JCC are contesting from eight seats each, the CPI has two seats -- Dantewada is one of the two. The CPI won from Dantewada way back in 1993, when the constituency came under undivided Madhya Pradesh. The Congress has retained nine of its 12 MLAs from the previous assembly while the BJP has retained five out of their six MLAs in these seats. The most high-profile contest in this phase is in the Rajnandgaon seat between Chief Minister Raman Singh and Karuna Shukla of the Congress. Shukla, late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayees niece, was with the BJP till 2013 before she switched over. Despite corruption allegations against many ministers and his own sons name appearing in the Panama Papers, Singh largely remains a popular figure in his home state. Watch | All you need to know as Chhattisgarh goes to polls Chawal Baba (as Singh is popularly known here) was once known for his rice and pulses scheme but has now graduated to more sophisticated freebies such as smartphones. Singh sprang a major surprise in the election year when he announced that the government would hand out mobile phones to every rural household and college-going student. More than five million -- out of an estimated 25 million people in the state -- benefitted from the scheme. It was justified on account of the low mobile phone penetration in the state (29 percent) citing an ICRIER study linking increased mobile penetration to growth. Singh has also been giving away land pattas to woo other vote-banks in an attempt to buck anti-incumbency. As for the Congress, agriculture distress is among its major planks and it has promised to waive off farm loans if it was to come to power. Unemployment, corruption, poor healthcare and infrastructure are the other prominent issues. With Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Bhupesh Baghel losing the confidence of Congress President Rahul Gandhi following the leak of an audio where he allegedly offered tickets for money, the leadership race is also wide open in the party in case it springs a surprise. Leader of Opposition and erstwhile royal TS Singh Deo, Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Tamradhwaj Sahu, chief whip Satyanarayan Sharma, former Union ministers Charan Das Mahant and tribal leader Arvind Netam are likely to be among the contenders. The BJP managed to poach Congress working president Ram Dayal Uike on the eve of the polls but according to one Congress insider, he was a Jogi acolyte. Jogis nuisance value in the polls notwithstanding, he had become a liability for the Congress during its prolonged spell out of power in Chhattisgarh. Congress leaders have been accusing Ajit Jogi and his third front of being propped up by the BJP to cut into the Congress votes. The third front could cut both ways even affecting the BJPs prospects in some seats as it holds nine out of the 10 SC reserved constituencies in the state where the BSP is expected to be a decisive factor. It will be a fascinating election as the third axis in the traditionally bipolar state may end up determining the winning horse. (Anand Kochukudy is a Delhi-based academic and political commentator. Views are personal) Devendra Fadnavis The Shiv Sena "secretly" loves the BJP while the latter shows its affection openly, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said. He was speaking to reporters at an informal gathering Saturday in Ramgiri Bungalow in Nagpur. On the Sena's demand that the names of Aurangabad and Osmanabad be changed to Sambhaji Nagar and Dharashiv respectively, Fadnavis said the state government had cleared the proposal but there were litigations pending in this connection. The Maharashtra chief minister said an expansion of the state cabinet was likely before the winter session of the Maharashtra legislature. Fadnavis' government has 38 ministers and as per norms, its strength can go up to 42. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Bajaj Auto, Indias third largest two-wheeler maker, has revised the launch plan of its iconic Husqvarna bike in India. The Pune-based maker of Pulsar and Avenger range of motorcycles will now introduce fully imported models of Husqvarna in India as part of its intensive brand building measure even as smaller, locally-developed products get readied to hit the market over the next six months. KTM and Bajaj had earlier planned to launch Husqvarna bikes in the Indian market with two locally produced models. Both the Husqvarna models are designed on the design language of modern retro. The maker of street bikes and dirt bikes, Husqvarna is more than 100-year old Swedish brand and enjoys an iconic status in Europe. The company is owned by Pierer Industrie AG and led by Stefan Pierer, the Chief Promoter of Austria-headquartered KTM. Bajaj Auto owns 48 percent equity stake in KTM. Husqvarna will be an important addition to Bajaj's KTM portfolio. Last year, there was a 21 percent jump in sales - to 197,612 units - of KTM models made by Bajaj. KTM bikes are also manufactured in Austria. Speaking to analysts, Rakesh Sharma, Chief Commercial Officer, Bajaj Auto said, We will begin with models sourced out of Austria but the teams are working in extending the partnership for design and development in India for the Husqvarna brand. I cannot talk about the timeline for launching the new line of products from Husqvarna. Chakan, the Bajaj factory based near Pune that produces Pulsars, will accommodate Husqvarna models also. The plant also exclusively makes KTM range of bikes for India and overseas markets. Likewise, for Husqvarna, its parent company has decided to shift production of two models Vitpilen 401 and Svartpilen 401 to Chakan with production slated to begin in late 2018 or early 2019. Both the Husqvarna bikes due to start production in Pune are powered by the same 373cc, 44bhp, single cylinder engine that powers the KTM Duke 390 and the KTM RC 390. Both these KTM bikes are among the six produced by Bajaj Auto from India. Triumph partnership Further, Bajajs non-equity partnership with UKs Triumph Motorcycles is yet to be finalised despite the two companies holding talks over products and manufacturing plans for the past 15 months. Our talks with Triumph has moved ahead extremely well. Manufacturing teams are already talking in detail. As soon as we lay down the protocols of the exact nature of work we should be able to announce the whole thing formally in few a months time, added Sharma. Triumph is banking on Bajaj Auto for development of small displacement bikes which are very popular in emerging markets such as India. Triumphs smallest bike has 800cc engine while the biggest engine from Bajaj has a capacity of 400cc only. Riding on Bajaj Auto the British brand is hoping to take on Royal Enfield, which has remained unchallenged for several years. Eicher Motors -owned Royal Enfield has voiced its plans of becoming the global leader in the mid-capacity engine segment of 500-800cc. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Maruti Suzuki India will undertake a 'service campaign' to inspect and replace the speedometer assembly and owner's manual in the Zeta and Alpha variants of the Ciaz's diesel models. The Delhi-based company has declined to term the campaign as a recall 'as there is no safety concern involved', it clarified. Service campaigns are undertaken by automobile companies across the globe to rectify faults that may cause inconvenience to customers. At least 880 units of the Ciaz diesel (only Zeta and Alpha variants) manufactured between August 1, 2018 and September 21, 2018 will be covered in this campaign. An intimation about this was sent to car owners late last month. The inspection and replacement will be done free of cost. The Ciaz service campaign was preceded by a recall of the companys mini truck Super Carry for inspecting a possible defect in fuel pump assembly. The company had then announced a recall of 640 units of the Super Carry, manufactured between January 20 and July 14. Haryana Chief Secretary DS Dhesi said on November 11 it was unfair to blame the state for Delhi's poor air quality, saying that crop residue was burnt only on one percent of the total sown area of paddy. Dhesi alleged that the role of Haryana was being adversely publicised regarding the pollution in the National Capital Region. "But, actually, crop residue was burned on only two per cent area of total sown area of paddy in Haryana during (the) last year whereas this year, the crop residue was burned on only one per cent area," he said in Hisar, according to an official release. Dhesi said the role of Haryana and its farmers was negligible, but rumours were being spread in this regard. "It is being projected that farmers of Haryana are burning crop residue in each and every agricultural field." The chief secretary said in Haryana, paddy crop was mainly sown on 13 lakh hectares area in 10 districts. "As per the data received from HARSAC (Haryana Space Applications Centre, Hisar) the crop residue burning cases were reported on 12,473 places in the state in 2017. "Similarly, this year such cases were reported on 7,273 places which is only one per cent of the total area," he said. Dhesi added that crop residue-based compressed bio gas plants would be established Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Jind. Apart from this, an MoU has been signed between the Indian Oil Corporation and Renewable Energy Department, under which crop residue would be purchased from farmers for these plants and energy would be generated out of it. Later, presiding over a meeting of administrative officers of Fatehabad, Sirsa and Jind districts, Dhesi said the seriousness of administrative officers and representatives of panchayati raj institutions would be evaluated on the basis of their contribution in curbing burning of crop residue. Dhesi said the period between October 15 and November 25 was very crucial as this is the period when maximum cases of crop-residue burning are reported. In view of this, the chief secretary constituted two committees -- a committee comprising of members of the revenue, agriculture and district development and panchayat departments would monitor the sensitive villages; whereas the committee of sub-divisional officer and tehsildar would visit different villages of the district from time to time. The chief secretary directed the deputy commissioners of Sirsa and Jind district to adopt the decision taken by the Fatehabad deputy commissioner of not issuing arms licences or renew old licences of those persons who are found guilty of burning crop residue. He said apart from issuing challans to people indulging in burning crop residue, FIRs should also be registered against such guilty persons. The Haryana State Pollution Control Board would send cases of farmers burning crop residue to the courts for trials. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) No arrest warrant was issued against former First Lady Imelda Marcos Monday. The Sandiganbayan Fifth Division said the warrant is for her non-appearance during the promulgation last Friday that found her guilty of seven counts of graft. According to the office of the Clerk of Court, Marcos should explain why she was absent during the promulgation of the decision on her cases or she would lose all available legal remedies. The Marcos' camp filed also today a motion for leave of court to avail of post conviction remedies. This motion means that she is asking the court to allow her to avail of all legal remedies available for her. The court will hear this on Friday, November 16, and decide whether or not to accept her explanation. Should the court decide to accept the explanation, only then can Marcos' camp file a motion for reconsideration, one of the legal remedies available to her. If her reason is not accepted, the court may cancel her bail or order her arrest. Former Presidential Commission on Good Government Commissioner Ruben Carranza said he does not think the Sandiganbayan would reverse its decision. "I've read the decision, it's a very substantively argued decision. It relies on evidence that's already been previously recognized by the Supreme Court itself in 2003. So I would think that her only hope of getting an acquittal, if at all, is on appeal," Carranza told CNN Philippines News Night Monday. "If she can run for office, why can't she serve a sentence?" Carranza added. Marcos is also expected to be physically present on the hearing for her motion on Friday unless there is a valid reason stating otherwise. Meanwhile, MM Lazaro and Associates filed an entry of appearance for Marcos' new counsel, Manuel M. Lazaro, also today. The 89-year-old widow of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos was sentenced to imprisonment of a minimum of six years and a month to a maximum of 11 years "in each case" where she was found guilty. Her total jail time is a minimum of 42 years and seven months and a maximum of 77 years. She was also perpetually disqualified from holding public office. But, Ombudsman Prosecutor Rey Quilala said she can still run until the Sandiganbayan's decision becomes final and executory. Marcos is currently the representative of the second district of Ilocos Norte. By Ariadna Matamoros-Fernandez, Lecturer in Digital Media at the School of Communication, Queensland University of Technology Andre Hunter/Unsplash, CC BY-SA In the aftermath of the fatal stabbing in Melbournes Bourke Street on Friday, Facebook and other social media platforms were flooded with hateful messages towards Muslims and Islam. Over the weekend, I browsed several Islamophobic Facebook pages, such as No sharia law Never ever give up Australia and Reclaim Australia. These groups were using the incident to dehumanise Muslims by sharing mocking memes, GIFs, decontextualised information, and blatantly racist comments. I noted the angry reaction button being widely used in response to posts, while comments on posts were often accompanied by other emoji that emphasised states of rage towards Muslims: angry face, pouting face, swearing face. Screengrabbed by author, November 2018 This kind of emoji use involves overt racist language and practices, but emoji can also be used to cloak everyday microaggressions in humour and play. For example, previous research has found how online harassers often use cues such as smiley emoticons to mitigate their abuse. Racism on social media is structural too. A larger body of evidence shows that it can be built into, and normalised by, social media platforms, which also have the power to curb it by instituting responsible policies and processes. Using emoji to amplify Islamophobia Facebook introduced reactions in early 2016. Beyond just a simple like, this function allowed users to interact with posts and comments by clicking on emoji-like buttons to signify emotions: love, laughter, surprise, sadness and anger. Since then, hate groups and other users have appropriated this technical feature to spread anger towards specific targets. One way of doing this involves overlaying a question on an image or video and encouraging users to respond by choosing between two reactions, with the angry reaction typically being one of the options. In the below example, taken from a Belgian far-right political partys Facebook page, users are asked to respond to the question of whether the school year should be adapted to accommodate Islamic traditions. Screengrabbed by author, September 2017 In this way, reactions facilitate the performance of rage and antagonism towards other groups by allowing users to click on an angry-faced emoji. The way Facebook uses this information can have problematic consequences. According to a 2016 blog post, Facebooks algorithms interpret the clicking of the angry reaction on a post as an indication that users want to see more content related to those posts. Islamophobic content that attracts high numbers of angry reactions therefore has the potential to become even more visible and shareable. Facebook also uses these emotional responses to posts to create user profiles to sell to advertisers. The creation of automated categories based on user behaviour has involved Facebook in several public scandals. For example, in the past, Facebook has reportedly allowed advertisers to target jew haters and people interested in white genocide conspiracy theory a useful tool for people who wish to spread hate. How emoji can reproduce cultural stereotypes In general, emoji are benign and funny digital images. But their design and use can reproduce long-running racist stereotypes. The US body responsible for the emoji set, the Unicode Consortium, decides what ends up being represented as emoji. At times, these decisions have caused controversies around cultural diversity and race. For example, Apples family emojis originally excluded depictions of same-sex couples. Screengrabbed by author, September 2017 Racist stereotypes can be further entrenched by the way emoji are used. In my study of the use of Facebook reactions by Belgian far-right political party, Vlaams Belang, I examined how emoji were used to spread anger. I found that users often responded to posts by posting more emoji and Meep stickers. The vomit sticker surfaced as a popular and recurrent choice to express disgust towards Muslims. Screengrabbed by author, May 2017 This aligns with other exploitations of the act of vomiting as a cultural trope to convey xenophobia. For example, the British television series Little Britain used hyperbolic humour to ridicule the racism of Maggie Blackamoor, one of its characters, by having her vomit every time she ate food made by a non-white person, or met people from different ethnicities. People also used pig emoji, and various stickers, to show opposition to Muslims. According to Islamic law, eating pork is forbidden, and, historically, Western Islamophobia has used pork to attack Muslims. The practice of posting pig emoji on the comments of Islamophobic posts draws on this long tradition, contributing to the weaponising of pork to antagonise Muslims. The challenge of moderating social media content The fact that racist discourse proliferates through emoji and stickers on Facebook suggests a need for new ways to moderate content. It is not currently possible to switch off the use of emoji and stickers in comments. That means that people can flood Facebook public pages with problematic emoji, without the platform having an easy solution to it. While Facebook has automated filters to moderate certain words and textual expressions, there isnt yet a filter to ban emoji, even though they are standardised characters. Reporting emoji and other stickers as hate speech can be difficult, if not impossible. Whether a cute pig emoji signifies Islamophobia depends on the context in which it was posted, and Facebooks flagging mechanism doesnt allow users to explain why certain content might be hateful. As a result, the practice of weaponising emoji to spread racist discourse is likely to continue. Failing to provide options to report or minimise certain uses of emoji reflects an assumption that emoji and stickers cant be used for hateful purposes. But its clear that user practices on social media, and the way platforms mediate that use, can contribute to structural racism and other forms of oppression, and make them appear normal, mundane and acceptable. We all have an interest in ensuring that social media companies take proper responsibility to prevent the content that appears on their platforms from being used to spread hate. Ariadna Matamoros-Fernandez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Originally published in The Conversation. World War I or the Great War, was a global war that originated in Europe and later engulfed major countries around the world. The "war of all wars" was fought for more than four years between 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918, and mobilised more than 70 million military personnel across the world. Triggered by the assassination of the Archduke, Franz Ferdinand and his wife by Bosnian revolutionary, Gavrilo Princip, the war not only reformed the global balance of power but also left behind rivers of blood, killing more than 15 million people and injuring another 21 million. A hundred years have passed since WWI, but the scars left behind by the blood and gore still haunts the human race. Here is a look back at the first World War: (Image: Reuters) Pictured: American soldiers react to a gas attack, likely used for training purposes. (Image: Reuters) Pictured: An American troupe from Regimental Headquarters Company, 23rd Infantry, shoots a 37mm gun, advancing against German entrenched positions. (Image: Reuters) Pictured: A doctor from the American Expeditionary Force tends to an injured soldier. (Image: Reuters) Pictured: From left to right- American, British, French, and German gas masks are seen in the picture from World War I. (Image: Reuters) Pictured: Two American soldiers, James H. White and Corporal Howard Thompson, who were part of a group that killed and captured several Germans in no man's land. Thompson holds a pistol taken from a German soldier killed by White. (Image: Reuters) Pictured: The first World War pioneered many inventions in technology and science. Chief among them were tanks, which were invented to break the trench warfare stalemate. (Image: Reuters) Pictured: Canadian soldiers carrying war trophies, return victorious from Courcelette during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. (Image: Reuters) Pictured: The erstwhile US president Woodrow Wilson in Europe for the Paris peace conference. (Image: Reuters) Pictured: US Marines in France. (Image: Reuters) Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) will from 2019 reduce its exports of a type of fuel oil prized by the market as a refining feedstock, adding to tightening global supplies of the oil product, said three trade sources on Monday. Exports of straight-run fuel oil (SRFO), the residue oil left after initial crude refining, will stop next year as ADNOC has nearly finished repairs to the 127,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) residue fluid catalytic cracker (RFCC) at its Ruwais refinery that processed the SRFO into higher-value products such as gasoline and diesel fuel. ADNOC shut the RFCC after a fire at a petrochemical plant linked to the unit in January 2017. Ruwais can process 800,000 bpd of crude. The unexpected RFCC outage prompted ADNOC to export excess supplies of SRFO. ADNOC in October said it expected restoration work at the unit to be completed by the end of this year. In 2017, ADNOC exported about four to five cargoes of 90,000 tonnes of SRFO from Ruwais on a monthly basis but in 2018 it sold the cargoes through long-term supply agreements from January through to December, the trade sources said. ADNOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The restart of the RFCC will take as much as 450,000 tonnes of feedstocks out of the market each month. The loss of the SRFO from the supply pool will impact global balances but its near-term market impact would be difficult to gauge, said two of the sources. "(The feedstock market) will tighten for sure," said one of a sources, a Singapore-based fuel oil trader "SRFO demand is not looking great because of the strong fuel crack," said the trader, who declined to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to the media. The margin between 180-centistoke high-sulphur fuel oil and Dubai crude, known as the crack spread, climbed to record highs in November boosted by falling crude oil prices and signs of tightening global supplies of fuel oil. The stronger fuel oil cracks are relative to crude oil, the less attractive it becomes for refiners to process fuel oil into higher-value fuels. Exports of ADNOC's medium-sulphur fuel oil, typically two or three cargoes of 45,000 tonnes per month, may also decline, one of the sources said, following ADNOC's commissioning of a specialized coker unit at Ruwais in September. A coker breaks down fuel oil into gasoline and diesel. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday Beijing will further open up its economy in the face of rising protectionism, as he headed for meetings with Asia-Pacific leaders in Singapore that are expected to focus on trade tensions. Li's remarks in an article in Singapore's Straits Times newspaper, ahead of his arrival in the city-state later in the day, came as Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for more regional integration, saying multilateralism was under threat from political pressures. "China has opened its door to the world; we will never close it but open it even wider," Li said in the article, in which he called for an "open world economy" in the face of "rising protectionism and unilateralism". He did not directly refer to China's bruising trade war with the United States. Notably absent from this week's meetings is U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said several existing multilateral trade deals are unfair, and has railed against China over intellectual property theft, entry barriers to U.S. businesses and a gaping trade deficit. Vice President Mike Pence will attend instead of Trump, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are among those also expected to join Li and the ten-member member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It was not clear if Li and Pence will hold separate talks on the sidelines of the meetings, which would be a prelude to a summit scheduled between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of the month in Buenos Aires. The encounter, if it happens, would come on the heels of high-level talks in Washington where the two sides aired their main differences but appeared to attempt controlling the damage to relations that has worsened with tit-for-tat tariffs in recent months. Meanwhile, in remarks at a business summit on Monday ahead of this week's meetings, Singapore PM Lee said: "ASEAN has great potential, but fully realising it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures". Lee has previously warned that the U.S.-China trade war could have a "big, negative impact" on Singapore, and the city-state's central bank has warned it could soon drag on the economy. Both Singapore and China are expected to rally support for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) pact now being negotiated, showcased to be the free trade deal that will encompass more than a third of the world's GDP. The pact includes 16 countries, including China, India, Japan and South Korea, but not the United States. Li said China would work to "expedite" RCEP negotiations this week. Also on Monday, the ten-member ASEAN group reached their first ever deal on e-commerce aimed at helping boost cross-border transactions in the region. China has shown the missiles in its advanced J-20 stealth fighter jet to the public for the first time at its largest airshow, the Global Times newspaper reported on Monday. The newspaper said two J-20 fighter jets opened their missile bay doors during a flypast on Monday, revealing that each jet had four missiles in its fuselage and one on either side of the aircraft. Citing Chinese experts, the newspaper said the demonstration, which came on the 69th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Air Force, displayed the J-20's superiority to the top US fighter jets, the F-22 and F-35, as well as the PLA's growing confidence. It also quoted military expert Song Zhongping as saying the four missiles in the J-20's fuselage were long-range air-to-air missiles, while the two on the sides were short-range combat missiles meant for aerial combat. Devotees take bath in Ganga river during Kharna Puja of Chhath festival in Patna. (Image source: PTI) Army chief General Bipin Rawat felicitates a disabled ex-serviceman during celebration of 'Undying Spirit of The Disabled Soldiers' at Mamun Cantt, Pathankot. (Image source: PTI) Former finance minister and Congress Party leader P Chidambaram at the Supreme Court. (Image source: PTI) Karnataka BJP President B S Yeduyurappa pays his last respects to Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar in Bengaluru. (Image source: PTI) Congress President Rahul Gandhi with Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey during their meeting in New Delhi. (Image source: PTI) Children skate with a person dressed in a Snoopy costume on the rink at Somerset House during a photocall to announce it's opening. (Image source: Reuters) French teachers hold a banner which reads "Priority to education" as they attend a demonstration against the French government's reform plan in Marseille. (Image source: Reuters) Saxony Interior Minister Roland Woeller (L) and German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer visit tracing and competence center of the Federal Police department in Bautzen, Germany. (Image source: Reuters) French President Emmanuel Macron attends a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the Elysee Palace in Paris. (Image source: Reuters) Coming down heavily for failing to trace or arrest former minister Manju Verma, the Supreme Court on Monday asked director general of Bihar police to appear personally before the bench. Fantastic! Cabinet minister (Manju Verma) on the run, fantastic. How could it happen that cabinet minister is absconding and nobody knows where she is? You realise the seriousness of the issue that cabinet minister is not traceable. Its too much, Justice Madan B Lokur observed. Ms Verma, the former minister is wanted in a case related to Muzaffarpur shelter home case. During a raid, in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had recovered ammunition from her home. We are quite shocked that former cabinet minister cannot be traced by the police for over a month. We would like the police to tell us that how such an important person is not traceable. Director General of Police to appear before us, the Bench of Justice Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta said. Earlier in August, Bihar police had registered a first information report (FIR) against Ms Verma, former minister for social justice in Bihar, and her husband, after recovering arms from their home. The main case, according to Bar & Bench, pertains to the rape and sexual abuse of inmates of a shelter home in Muzaffarpur, which was brought to the notice of the police in May this year. The matter eventually reached the courts, with the Patna High Court passing a gag order on reporting of the case. On an appeal against this order, the Supreme Court lifted the blanket ban on media coverage, urging the press to tread cautiously instead. In September this year, the Supreme Court had also directed the CBI to investigate the matter. More specifically, the influence and power wielded by Brajesh Thakur the person in charge of the NGOs that were managing the shelter homes in Muzaffarpur was ordered to be probed, the report from Bar & Bench says Next hearing in this case is scheduled on 27 November 2018. On 10th November, Usha Martin, one of the largest wire rope manufacturers in the world and a leading speciality steel producer in India, got its shareholders approval for the sale of its steel division on a slump sale basis to Tata Steel. In one of the largest debt resolution plan outside of national company law tribunal (NCLT), Usha Martin, which has debt of over Rs3,500 crore, plans to reduce its debt significantly. However, one faction of the promoters, Prashant Jhawar, son of the company founder Basant Jhawar, has now shot of a letter to the stock exchanges with a copy to Moneylife, raising concerns about press releases issued by Rajeev Jhawar, managing director, (who is in opposition to Prashant Jhawar) and GN Bajpai, chairman, about the relief of the companys debt burden after the sale of the steel business. Prashant Jhawar is seeking information on the expected net proceeds from the sale of the steel division along with details such as expected taxes and direct transaction cost. He also wants details of any other expenses, beyond a total of Rs5 crore to be paid from the proposed escrow account and the remaining debt level of the residual business. Further, he wants to know the likeliness that the funds will be used for repayment of debt and whether any independent supervision will be carried out on the operation of the escrow account. Mr Jhawar further seeks clarity regarding payment of various contingent liabilities relating to the present and underdevelopment coal mines of the company, which are a part of sale, which amounts to Rs376 crore as on 31st March 2018. Both the father and son have been apprehensive from the beginning about this transaction due to non-clarity on end use of sales proceeds. But they had stated that they would support the resolution because they have confidence that Tatas will run the assets in the way they deserved to be administered. Mr Jhawar, the MD, recently has said Tata Steel has filed an application before the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Once the approval comes, we will go ahead. Coal mine will not take more than one and half months because it was taken on auction. And transfer of iron ore mines is also simplified after the new MMDR Act. Prashant Jhawar, however, asks whether the Jharkhand government would allow transfer of operating iron ore mines and coal mines, which are under development, without settlement of government dues? And whether the MD has any evidence to support that no additional debt will be loaded on the residual business for the settlement of governments dues? Prashant Jhawar also points out that only selective and incomplete information has been disclosed to the investors and no clarity has been provided on the amount of liabilities, relating to the steel business, which will not be transferred as a part of sale. He further states that, The comments made by Mr Bajpai are disappointing as he has allowed Mr Jhawar, the MD, to make statements, which can be potentially misleading for investors. In the end he states that, the alleged conflict of interest of Mr Bajpai, during his association with another public listed company, is already in the public domain and his recent resignation citing personal reasons after having been appointed by government on the board of another public entity raises further concern. November 12, 2018 False Reports In U.S. Media Suggest A Great Deception The New York Times is lying to its readers about the commitments of an adversarial state. It did not learn a single lesson from its fake reporting that led the Iraq War. It again furthers hostile aggression. bigger In a piece published today, In North Korea, Missile Bases Suggest a Great Deception, the paper lies about North Korea's commitments: North Korea is moving ahead with its ballistic missile program at 16 hidden bases that have been identified in new commercial satellite images, a network long known to American intelligence agencies but left undiscussed as President Trump claims to have neutralized the Norths nuclear threat. The satellite images suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception: It has offered to dismantle a major launching site a step it began, then halted while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads. There is no North Korean deception. It agreed to dismantle a missile test site, not an operative "launching site", and it agreed to a moratorium of nuclear and missile testing. Nowhere has it made any commitment to stop productions or deployments of missiles. The Singapore Declaration Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump signed says nothing about ballistic missiles. It agrees on four step to be taken in sequence: 1. establish new US-DPRK relations, 2. build a lasting and stable peace regime in all of Korea, 3. support of the Panmunjom Declaration between North and South Korea, 4. North Korea commits "to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula". There is no public or secret commitment by North Korea to stop its production of ballistic missiles just as there is not commitment by the United States to stop its continuing arms buildup. There is in fact the opposite. North Korea openly said multiple times that it would increase its ballistic missile capacity. In May 2017 Chairman Kim Jong-un ordered to start mass production of the medium range Pukguksong-2 (Poseidon-2) missile: [The KCNA state news agency] quoted Kim as saying the Pukguksong-2 met all the required technical specifications so should now be mass-produced and deployed to the Korean People's Army strategic battle unit. In August 2017 he ordered to increase the production of solid fuel missiles. Kim visited the North Korean Chemical Material Institute of the Academy of Defence Science recently, according to a statement from the government-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). He instructed the institute to produce more solid-fuel rocket engines and rocket warhead tips by further expanding engine production process and the production capacity of rocket warhead tips and engine jets by carbon/carbon compound material, the statement read. At the beginning of 2018 Kim Jong-un again publicly ordered to expand ballistic missile production. Those were not empty words. By July 2018 the expansion of a known missile factory was visible in publicly available satellite pictures. Foreign Affairs noted that these were legitimate steps, not deceptions: This activity does not suggest Kim is being duplicitous or is cheating. He never promised to stop producing nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles. In fact, quite the opposite. In his 2018 New Years Day address, Kim directed North Koreas nuclear weapons research sector and the rocket industry to mass-produce nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles. It is clear now that Kim is following through on what he said he would do. The NY Times piece peddles a lame analysis of some satellite pictures by the Center for Strategic and International Security (CSIS, funded by oil, weapons and banks). The analysis only describes one old missile site that was developed over decades and saw no recent changes: First phase construction of the Sakkanmol base began sometime between 1991 and 1993 using specialized engineering troops from KPA Unit No. 583 [...] The first phase was likely partially completed by September 1999 when it was reported that 27 (Scud missiles) were deployed to the Togol area (Sakkanmol) of North Hwanghae to form a missile regiment. [...] Beginning about 2004, the construction of an unidentified military facility with administration, barrack, housing, and support facilities began along the valley leading to the Sakkanmol base. [...] Sometime in 2010 to 2011, a second phase of construction activity began at Sakkanmol that included the addition of barracks, vehicle maintenance and storage facilities, greenhouses, and a number of small structures throughout the base. The CSIS report is about a well established and well known base for short range missiles. The base saw no recent changes. Why is the New York Times making "deception" nonsense out of it if not to sabotage the efforts by the U.S. president to come to peace with North Korea? There is another deception in the Sanger/Broad piece. It quotes a State Department statement without pointing out that it is an obvious lie: A State Department spokesman responded to the findings with a written statement suggesting that the government believed the sites must be dismantled: President Trump has made clear that should Chairman Kim follow through on his commitments, including complete denuclearization and the elimination of ballistic missile programs, a much brighter future lies ahead for North Korea and its people. Nowhere has North Korea made such commitments. Is it the task of the "free press" to repeat the lies offered by the State Department? Is its task to offer its own lies on top of those false statements? In 2002 the New York Times published dozens of false reports about alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. No such weapons exited. That reporting led to the catastrophic war on Iraq. The Times scapegoated its reporter Judith Miller to exculpate itself. But as today's report shows it has learned absolutely nothing from it. It is now trying to sabotage the one and only Trump initiative that might lead to a less dangerous world. Achieving peace in Korea is complicate enough. Additional hurdles thrown up through misleading reporting make it more difficult. Currently the talks between the United States and North Korea are again on hold as the U.S. demands to proceed with point 4 of the Singapore Declaration, denuclearization, before delivering on point 1, 2 and 3 by lifting the current sanctions against North Korea and by signing a peace agreement. The government of South Korea is working to bring the talks back on track. Peddling satellite pictures of old North Korean bases and deceiving ones readers about its commitments make war on the Korean peninsula more likely. It is not only deceptive but nefarious. Posted by b on November 12, 2018 at 18:42 UTC | Permalink Comments We walked away from Procter & Gamble's (PG) investor event, held in Cincinnati on Nov. 8, with renewed conviction that the firms efforts to reignite its sales and profit trajectory are gaining traction. However, we dont believe management is content with the status quo. The firm announced intentions to shake up its organizational structure by focusing on six sector business units that will have direct control over strategy, product and package innovation, and supply chain in its largest markets, including North America, China, Japan, as well as developed European markets, which in aggregate make up about 80% of sales and 90% of aftertax profit. The remaining regions will fall under the purview of CFO Jon Moeller, who will add the title of COO. This shift aligns with CEO David Taylors goal over the past three years to enhance accountability across the organization and better align the firms resources and decision-making closer to the consumer, which we view as wise. While we think this structure will help P&G to be more responsive and agile, we dont expect it to jeopardize the company's ability to harness the benefits of its scale and negotiating leverage. Even though P&G is not immune to intense competitive and inflationary pressures, we think its productivity initiatives, vast scale, leading brand portfolio, and entrenched relationships with retailers support its solid competitive edge and ultimately stand to bolster its performance. As such, we dont foresee any change to our $97 fair value estimate or our long-term outlook for 3%-4% annual sales growth and around 300 basis points of operating margin expansion to more than 24% at the end of our 10-year explicit forecast. Despite the recent uptick in price, we still view the stock as a bit undervalued, trading about 5% below our fair value estimate, and we would suggest investors keep this wide-moat name on their radar. Susan Dziubinski: We've seen an increase in market volatility this year. As a result, some investors may be thinking about how to maintain exposure to equities yet perhaps take a little risk off the table at the same time. For some, low-volatility ETFs and funds could fit the bill. Joining me today to share three of his favorite low-volatility funds is Alex Bryan. Alex is director of passive strategies research for Morningstar North America. Alex, thank you for joining me today. Paul Finbeiner, president at Great-West Lifeco Realty Advisors (GWLRA), was recently appointed executive vice-president, global head of real estate of Great-West Lifeco. Ralf Dost will replace Finbeiner as president of GWLRA. With over 30 years of real estate experience under his belt, Finkbeiner grew GWLRA from $800 million in assets under management to $17 billion assets under management, managing more than 230 office, industrial, retail, and multi-residential properties located across the country. "Under Paul's strong leadership, GWLRA has become one of Canada's leading real estate organizations," said Raman Srivastava, executive vice-president and global chief investment officer at Great-West Lifeco. The Justice Department is suing UBS and several of its US affiliates for allegedly scamming investors in connection with the banks sale of residential mortgage-backed securities during the run-up to the financial crisis. Investors who bought RMBS from UBS suffered catastrophic losses, which not only caused direct harm to those investors, but also contributed to the financial crisis of 2008, said US Attorney Richard P. Donoghue. The filing of this complaint makes clear that we will continue to hold financial institutions fully accountable for their conduct and will aggressively pursue financial fraud. The lawsuit alleges that UBS misled investors and withheld crucial information about the loans in its mortgage securities, according to US Attorney Byung J. Pak. Ratliff, Terry DOB: 7-08-2000 Height & weight: 6 foot, 150 pounds --Wanted for: Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child Violation of Probation --Wanted as of 11/8/18 --$500 Cash Reward to the first person who calls Midland Crime Stoppers this week with information that leads to this fugitives arrest. --Call 694-TIPS or 1-800-7-LOCKUP --Online at www.midlandcrimestoppers.com --Mobile App P3 TIPS or go to www.p3tips.com --As always you will remain anonymous --NEVER attempt to apprehend this subject yourself. Subject may be armed or dangerous. Midland ISDs preliminary snapshot membership number is 26,219, according to information provided to the Reporter-Telegram. That student enrollment (or membership) figure submitted to the state as part of the districts profile shows another year of growth for Midland ISD. The figure shows an increase of 503 students compared to the snapshot from the 2017-18 school year (25,706). Midland ISD turned in snapshots of 24,692 in 2016-17 and 24,555 in 2015-16. Snapshot is taken during a particular day for all school districts around the state. RELATED: MISD leaders could vote on renaming Memorial Stadium While the student membership count this year shows 1.9 percent growth compared to last year, it also shows an increase from the first month of school. On Aug. 29, MISDs enrollment was at 26,054 at its 39 campuses, according to a previous the Reporter-Telegram article, so snapshot shows growth of 165 in a couple of months. The district is reporting a student membership of 26,402 on Oct. 26 and annual growth of 2.93 percent, according to Board Facility Committee, an agenda item for tonights board of trustees meeting. Board President Rick Davis is recommending that he, Bryan Murry and James Fuller be named to the committee, which will be tasked with keeping the board informed of actions and activity concerning district facilities. Midland ISD earlier this year reported in a 10-year membership growth forecast that student population could increase by 10,000 over the next decade. That forecast shows a student enrollment of 32,859 in 10 years if there is an annual average increase of 2.5 percent. That number could increase to as high as 35,855. The districts Facility Master Planning Committee in October cites student enrollment growth as a reason for a plan that calls for s $545.8 million bond election in as soon as May and more than $910 million in total projects over the next decade. New facilities to accommodate the expected growth are part of a proposed 2019 bond, which calls for at least five campuses: --a new high school ($187.5 million), --a replacement for Midland High ($187.5 million), --a new middle school ($64.5 million), --a partner/public school (Midland ISD allocation $20 million) and --a young womens academy ($31.5 million). Snapshot enrollment 2018-19: 26,219 2017-18: 25,706 2016-17: 24,692 2015-16: 24,555 Source: MISD Accountability & Student Data Photo provided Several Bluffs FFA members traveled Oct. 23 to Indianapolis to take part in the 91st National FFA Convention and Expo. During the convention they took part in opening sessions, a hypnotist show and a career fair. They also enjoyed a Garth Brooks concert and visited the Indianapolis Childrens Museum. Among those attending were Sydney Whicker (front row, from left), Alyssa Bartels, Kaydence Gregory and sponsor Liz Alloway; Madison Hopkins (back row, from left), Jonathan Shaw, Morgan Hoots, Ericka Huseman and Ethan Buhlig. ROLLING MEADOWS (AP) An electrical engineer working for the fledgling NASA space program, Bob Davidson was three months into his job in 1962 when he was told that his project had been scrapped. Instead, he would be given the chance to work on a new venture with a division of Playtex. Playtex? The bra and girdle company? a dubious Davidson asked. And they said, Yes. And thats how Davidson, 76, now retired and living in Rolling Meadows, got to pal around with Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as he helped design the revolutionary spacesuits those men wore for mans first steps on the moon on July 20, 1969. Those werent upgraded flight suits. They were more like one-of-a-kind, single-occupancy spacecraft. We had to build them to withstand 220 degrees below zero, and 280 degrees above zero, Davidson says, as he sits in his living room and thumbs through the 17 layers of a piece of the material used in the outer covering of those suits made to withstand everything the moon might throw at them. While some materials were similar to those found in the fire-retardant outfits worn by race car drivers and the coats worn by mountain climbers, the spacesuits also featured new materials such as aluminized mylar and Beta cloth-Teflon-coated silica fibers. Engineered to protect against the micrometeoroid bombardment from specks zipping through space that could puncture most materials, the suits layers included ripstop tape and patterns with holes that would prevent a tiny puncture from becoming a major tear. Not only did the suits have to keep the astronauts alive, they had to enable the men to move while under the pressure of 14 pounds of air per square inch. Each suit had to be a perfect fit, so they took 180 measurements on the astronauts bodies and constructed bevels and swivels for each joint. The hardest thing to do was the fingers in gloves, Davidson says, noting how the astronauts needed to pick up items and adjust controls. The gloves were incredibly complex. Davidson and a team of 20 engineers also outfitted the spacesuits with a communications system that enabled Armstrong and Aldrin to chat with each other, communicate with fellow astronaut Michael Collins, who was orbiting the moon, and talk with communication centers back on earth, where 500 million people watched and heard their broadcast from the surface of the moon. And we have trouble getting a good signal on our cellphones here, quips Davidsons wife, Barbara, a former flight attendant for Pan-Am World Airways. Married for 51 years, the Davidsons have two grown children, Tim and Chrysteen, and a granddaughter. On the historic day, while hosting another engineer and his wife in their apartment in Ogletown, Delaware, Bob Davidson watched the moon landing with confidence. We knew if we could do it here it would be great on the moon, which has one-sixth the gravity, he says. The spacesuits matched the performance of Armstrong and Aldrin, who were the perfect team for that mission, says Davidson, who got to know both astronauts. The engineers could spend 10 straight days working directly with the astronauts and then not see them for a month. They went to restaurants together and socialized. They were as different as night and day, Davidson says of the enigmatic Armstrong and the outgoing Aldrin. Buzz was on Dancing with the Stars, and you couldnt even get Neil in the audience. Aldrin was a fighter pilot during the Korean War who was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross before earning a Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Armstrong, whose aerospace engineering studies at Purdue University were interrupted by the Korean War, flew 78 combat missions before returning to finish his degree and go on to receive a masters degree at the University of Southern California. Armstrong was a gifted pilot who pioneered high-speed aircraft, such as the X-15, which reached 4,000 mph. We used to drink together, Davidson says of Aldrin. Neil liked a cocktail, too. The reserved Armstrong was a man of few words. No is an argument with Neil, Davidson says. Id say, Yeah, but and hed say, No. His hot button, if you wanted to have a good conversation, was the stock market, remembers Davidson, who says Armstrong liked sharing his investment strategy. I couldnt shut him up for three hours. Armstrong generally let his actions speak for him. He was the go-to guy. He was cool under fire and smart as a whip, Davidson says, adding that even on the moon landing, Armstrong had to shut off the computer and land the module manually with his fuel nearly gone. The spacesuits were tested in a 32-story water tower, in the desert and in a plane known as the vomit comet that soared and dipped to provide moments of weightlessness. With so many materials and tests, Davidson traveled to facilities in Texas, California, New York, Alabama, Florida, Arizona and Dover, Delaware, and also took the suit on public relations visits to schools and civic organizations around the nation. Traveling with a big blue box that read Critical Space Flight Item, Davidson flew first-class and was the last passenger on the plane and the first one off. I was making $17,000 a year and I figured out I was making 22 cents an hour, Davidson says. He left NASA in 1972 to work in technical sales with several companies before founding his own control systems company called Enternet in Naperville. While at NASA, Davidson also worked on Apollo 9 and the memorable Apollo 13, which featured an explosion and a miraculous return to earth that was made into a movie starring Tom Hanks. The new movie about Armstrong, First Man, does a good job of capturing Armstrongs courage, bravery, smarts and coolness under pressure and shows the sacrifices many made to make good on the promise to put a man on the moon, Davidson says. Were human and we knew the odds were against us, but we also knew it was doable, Davidson says, proud of his contribution. The only two things that made it back from the moon are the man and the spacesuit on his back. On Saturday, a flock of pigeons gathered inside of the Community Park Center, not just because it was the coo thing to do, but because it was part of the Jacksonville Area Pigeon Clubs 45th Annual All-Breed Pigeon Show. For the uninitiated, a pigeon show is quite the sight. Rows and rows of cages contain beautiful pigeons of all shapes, colors, breeds, all being observed by judges and participants who, for one reason or another, fell in love with these feathered fellows. Cooper Lorton, 13, posed for a photo with his large green trophy he received for his Voorburg Shield Cropper, a beautiful white bird with a large globed neck. Lorton was with his dad, Aaron, both of Williamsville, who got his son into pigeon breeding just as he had done when he was a kid. I was into it when I was a little kid, younger than (Cooper) is, and my mom had some birds and I just took a liking to them and then my kids followed in my footsteps, Aaron Lorton said. Theyre really interesting. They have a lot of different genetic color patterns. They can come out all different colors so its a surprise when you get babies out of them. Its a fun and unique hobby that not a lot of people do. The Jacksonville Area Pigeon Club, or JAPC, was founded in 1973 to foster greater interest in the hobby of pigeon breeding and care. Its goal, explained Sarah Brown with the JAPC, is to get more people into the hobby, especially younger kids that might be interested in 4-H activities. This show, in particular, featured 27 different breeds of birds with over 200 entries into the competition. Not only was there the competition, but there were raffles, auctions, and meals to add to the excitement of a room packed with pigeons. I came on as secretary and found out that there were more people into pigeons than I thought, Brown said. They just didnt know we were having the show so were kind of branching out. The show attracted people from all around the area with interest in pigeons. David Averbeck, a judge at the show that came all the way from St. Louis, said he has gone all the way to California for pigeon shows. Theres quite the interest, he said, but what the hobby needs more than anything is more young people getting interested in what is certainly a unique and interesting hobby. Itd be good to see younger people get into the hobby, Averbeck said. Its a hobby that a lot of older people are in but itd be great to see younger people get involved. Come to junior shows like this. Go to 4-H clubs, have the older people give a presentation out to 4-H clubs. Get the word out there. Nick Draper can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1223, or on Twitter @nick_draper. The incoming administration inherits a fiscal mess that some experts have said is beyond repair. One metaphor that comes to mind is some people have the best seats on the Titanic, said Bill Bergman, research director at Truth in Accounting. Bergman said the state is saddled with more than $200 billion of unfunded state employee retirement liabilities and more than $7 billion in backlogged bills. After a 15-point victory over incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner, Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday that he wants responsible budgets. Bergman said that could be code for tax increases. Pritzker said during the campaign that he wanted to lower taxes for the middle class, but repeatedly refused to say who would have to pay more to straighten out the states financial problems and fund his plans for new spending. One of the challenges facing any quote responsible budget unquote looking ahead is the possibility that raising taxes and raising tax rates is like squeezing blood from a stone if people are leaving because theyre concerned about future tax increases, Bergman said. Bergman said Illinois has led the nation in outbound migration because taxpayers arent stupid. Illinois had a temporary tax increase that kicked in in 2011. It scaled back in 2015, the year Rauner took office. Lawmakers then passed a budget that was billions in the red, which Rauner vetoed. That began a historic two-and-a-half year budget impasse. Only after lawmakers gathered enough votes to override Rauners budget veto and pass a permanent tax increase in 2017 did the impasse end. Rauner then enacted a budget in 2018 that used all of the revenue from the $5 billion income tax increase he had vetoed. That budget still was unbalanced, despite the additional revenue. On the campaign trail, Pritzker blamed Rauner for the budget impasse, even though Democrats were responsible for holding things up for part of that time. Pritzker also campaigned on ushering in a progressive income tax, also known as a graduated income tax, where the rates differ on how much the taxpayer makes a year. Pritzker called it a fair tax, saying it should increase taxes on the wealthy and cut taxes for the middle class. He refused to provide details about what the rate structure would look like despite repeated questions. The state is constitutionally required to tax income at a flat tax rate, right now 4.95 percent, that is set by the legislature. To make the rates tiered, 60 percent of voters would need to approve a constitutional amendment. Financial analysis website Wirepoints crunched numbers on Pritzkers proposed initiatives and estimated the extra cost to the state would be $10.7 billion annually, on top of the backlogged bills and pension debt. To pay for that with a tiered income tax rate structure, Wirepoints estimated that only increasing taxes on income over $1 million would require a rate of 24.3 percent. Even when including higher taxes for those making $150,000 or more a year, Wirepoints found the rate would need to be 13.6 percent, higher than the tax rate in California for income over $1 million. Wirepoints Founder Mark Glennon said the outcome of Illinois election which also gave Democrats, who have mostly backed the idea of a progressive income tax, strong one-party control over the legislature likely means the issues of the states horrible finances wont be addressed. It will be a question of how much further do we need to get to look like Detroit or Puerto Rico before people start demanding real reforms, Glennon said. Bergman said there is one silver lining in having one-party rule: Accountability. As opposed to blaming gridlock and the lack of a budget, now we have accountability more clearly identified and that may be a positive, Bergman said. Bergman said tax increases could repel residents to other states. I cant be the only one who spent the night of the midterms tossing and turning. Though I managed to shut off the coverage and try to sleep, spasms of anxiety woke me repeatedly throughout the dreary hours. Ultimately, Republicans picked off several red-state Senate seats while Democrats won back the House and at least seven governships. A Democratic House will serve as a badly needed check after two years of aggressive Republican monopoly, but I cant help feeling uneasy. For one thing, I cant shake the last days of the campaign. For a while, Republicans merely lied about their policy agenda. Rather than campaigning on the $2 trillion tax cut for rich people they actually passed, they promised a middle class tax cut they never even had a bill for. And after spending all last year trying to throw 20 to 30 million Americans off their health care, they (unbelievably!) promised to defend Americans pre-existing condition coverage even as they actively sought to undermine it. But the lies took a much darker turn as the White House took hold of the narrative. Led by the president, GOP propagandists turned a few thousand refugees over a thousand miles away in southern Mexico into an invading army. The White House put out an ad about it so shockingly racist and false that even Fox News stopped airing it. Unashamed, President Trump kept repeating the obvious lie that the homeless refugees were funded by Jewish philanthropist George Soros even after a refugee-hating extremist murdered 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Such vile hatred may have been key to red-state Republican gains in the Senate. But where that wasnt enough, it was backstopped by voter suppression and gerrymandering. Suppression may have helped the GOP governor candidates fend off strong challenges in Florida and especially Georgia, where tens of thousands of voters were scrubbed from the rolls and lines in Democratic precincts ran up to five hours long. And thanks to gerrymandering, it took an extraordinary effort for Democrats to win even a slim House majority. Theyre up only a few seats despite decisively winning the popular vote by at least 9 points. Had it been only a 4- or 5-point win, Voxs Matthew Yglesias estimates, the GOP might have retained its majority. Also worth noting: Democratic Senate candidates actually racked up over 10 million more votes than Republicans, even as Republicans picked up Senate seats on a GOP-tilting map, To me these results show that Republicans cant win with their actual policy agenda not even in many red states, judging by some ballot initiative results. For instance, red-state voters in Missouri and Arkansas raised their minimum wages against the wishes of state Republicans. Missouri also legalized medicinal marijuana, along with deeply conservative Utah, and purple-state Michigan voters brought legal recreational marijuana to the Midwest. Along with Utah, ruby red Idaho and Nebraska expanded Medicaid under Obamacare, a big win for health care. These progressive policies are far more popular than their right-wing alternatives. So Republicans rely on a potent combination of lies, fear-mongering, and rule-rigging to win. If Democrats ever hope to really come in from the wilderness, they need to support a host of radical pro-democracy reforms. In that they can take inspiration from a stunning movement in Florida, where voters re-enfranchised over 1 million of their neighbors with felony convictions. And from Michigan, Colorado, Utah, and Missouri, which all passed initiatives to support citizen-led redistricting. And from Maryland, Michigan, and Nevada, which all made voter registration easier. Uneasiness is part and parcel of drawing breath in 2018. But if I sleep a little better tonight, itll be thanks to movements like those. Peter Certo is the editorial manager of the Institute for Policy Studies and the editor of OtherWords.org. We will not support the electronic ... President Donald Trump View Photos President Trump attended Frances Centennial of the 1918 Armistice Day ceremony with President Macron and Mrs. Macron at the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees. Trump was Mondays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are his words: Exactly 100 years ago today, on November 11th, 1918, World War I came to an end. Thank God. It was a brutal war. Millions of American, French, and Allied troops had fought with the extraordinary skill and valor in one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history. We are gathered together, at this hallowed resting place, to pay tribute to the brave Americans who gave their last breath in that mighty struggle. Earlier, Melania and I were deeply honored to be the guests of President Macron and Brigitte at the Centennial Commemoration of Armistice Day. It was very beautiful and so well done. To all of the French military leaders and dignitaries in attendance with us now: Thank you for joining us as we honor the American and French service members who shed their blood together in a horrible, horrible war, but a war known as the Great War. We are also joined by many distinguished American military leaders. Thank you to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford. Thank you, Joe. Thank you. Army Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley. Thank you, Mark. Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti. General, Thank you. And Air Force Commander Europe, General Tod Wolters. Thank you. Thank you, General. Thank you as well to the members of Congress who have joined us: Ralph Abraham, Anthony Brown, John Carter, Paul Cook, Henry Cuellar, Richard Hudson, Bill Huizenga, Dutch Ruppersberger, John Rutherford, and Steve Stivers. Thank you all very much for being with us. Thank you very much. I know you wanted to be here very badly. We appreciate it. In the United States, Armistice Day is now enshrined as Veterans Day. We have a number of amazing veterans with us today, including six veterans of World War II: James Blane. James? Where is James? James, thank you. Thank you, James. Frank Devita. Thank you, Frank. Thank you very much. You look so comfortable up there, under shelter (laughter) as were getting drenched. Youre very smart people. (Laughter.) Pete DuPre. Pete, thank you very much. Gregory Melikian. Thank you, Gregory. Steven Melnikoff. Thank you. Thank you, Steven. And Jay Trimmer. Thank you. Thank you, Jay. Thank you. You look like youre in really good shape, all of you. (Applause.) I hope I look like that someday. You look great. America is forever in debt, and we are forever in your debt. And we really appreciate you being here. Were also joined by another very special guest: a 13-year-old boy from the United States named Matthew Haske. Matthew is in the eighth grade, and he worked and saved all of his money for two years to make this trip to France. He wanted to be here in person to honor the American heroes of World War I. Matthew, thank you. You make us very proud. Where is Matthew? Matthew. Matthew. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Youre way ahead of your time, Matthew. Thank you. On this day, in the year 1918, church bells rang, families embraced, and celebrations, as you know, filled the streets like never before, in towns throughout Europe and the United States. But victory had come at a terrible cost. Among the Allied Forces, more than one million French soldiers and 116,000 American service members had been killed by the wars end. Millions more were wounded. Countless would come home bearing the lasting scars of trench warfare and the grisly horrors of chemical weapons. During the final battle of the war, over 26,000 Americans lost their lives and more than 95,000 were wounded. It was the single deadliest battle in United States history. Thank of that 26,000 Americans lost their lives in a battle. Here on the revered grounds of Suresnes American Cemetery lie more than 1,500 U.S. service members who made the ultimate sacrifice in the First World War. Among those buried here are legendary Marines who fought in the Battle of Belleau Wood. In that treacherous forest and the surrounding fields, American Marines, soldiers, and Allied Forces fought and they fought through hell to turn the tide of the war. And thats what they did they turned the tide of the war. It was in that battle that our Marines earned the nickname Devil Dogs, arising from the German description of their ferocious fighting spirit. John Kelly knows that name, Devil Dogs, very well, John. Right? Earlier this year, President Macron presented an oak sapling from Belleau Wood as a gift to our nation an enduring reminder of our friendship sealed in battle. We fought well together. You could not fight better than we fought together. Sergeant Eugene Wear from Hazleton, Pennsylvania was one of the Marines at Belleau Wood. Eugene raced straight into a barrage of enemy fire, like no one has ever seen before, to bandage his friends wounds and carry him back to safety. Months later, Eugene was mortally wounded. He passed away one day after Christmas. His mother would come right here to mourn by the grave of her precious son. She loved him so much. She was one of the thousands of American moms and dads whose beloved children found their final resting place on the hillside of Suresnes. Each of these marble crosses and Stars of David marks the life of an American warrior great, great warriors they are who gave everything for family, country, God, and freedom. Through rain, hail, snow, mud, poisonous gas, bullets and mortar, they held the line, and pushed onward to victory it was a great, great victory; costly victory but a great victory never knowing if they would ever again see their families or ever again hold their loved ones. Here are the words of a young soldier named Sergeant Paul Maynard from a letter he wrote only a few days before the end of the war: Dear Mother, I think of you all at home, and I know if I am spared to get back, that I shall appreciate home more than ever, [ever] before. It will seem like heaven to me to be once more where there is peace and only peace. On November 11th, 1918, Paul died in the final hours of battle, just before the end. No, sadly, he did not make it. He was among the countless young men who never returned home. But through their sacrifice, they ascended to peace in heaven. Rest in peace, Paul. The American and French patriots of World War I embody the timeless virtues of our two republics: honor and courage; strength and valor; love and loyalty; grace and glory. It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago. It is now my great honor to present Major General William Matz with an American flag, as a symbol of our nations gratitude to the American Battle Monuments. The Commission has done such an incredible job. And, General, we very much appreciate it. Today, we renew our sacred obligation to memorialize our fallen heroes on the soil where they rest for all of eternity. Thank you very much. And, General, this is a great honor. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you all. God bless you. This has been a wonderful two days we spent in France. And this is certainly the highlight of the trip. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 FM. Several years ago, Anadarko Petroleum decided to simplify its onshore U.S. business, high-grading its portfolio. The acreage it retained in the Delaware Basin has been transformative for the company, Chad McAllaster, the company's vice president, Delaware Basin Development, told attendees at the Executive Oil Conference last week. "There are numerous foundational components," he said, listing among them local workforce and the ability to trade acreage to allow for longer laterals. OIL REPORT: Permian loses some momentum Anadarko has 600,000 gross acres containing 8,000 feet of stacked pay in the Delaware, and that acreage contains an estimated 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent of resources, he said. The company estimates its break even cost at $20 to $30 per barrel. In addition to the $1.35 billion it's spending in 2018 on Delaware development, Anadarko expects to spend about $600 million on oil, gas and water infrastructure in the Delaware Basin in 2018, McAllaster said. The company has shifted its rig fleet to pad drilling and has conducted a number of flow tests across its position as it works to delineate its core Wolfcamp A position. The company has been testing targeting practices and completion designs in its wells, which have resulted in improved output, he said. "We're testing development recipes, optimizing spacing, target landing lines and completion design in varied geologic settings," he said. He detailed as an example spacing tests in the company's Silvertip "A" lease, where 12 extended lateral wells were drilled. One was in the Bone Spring, and the remaining 11 were in the Wolfcamp A. Five wells have been placed online and the others are expected to be put online by the end of the year. Anadarko has also joined an industry-joint project, the Hydraulic Fracturing Test Site No. 2 project to test hydraulic fracturing techniques. OIL REPORT: Shell manager: iShale is vision of future shale fields Alongside another spacing test in its Outrigger prospect, McAllaster said the three projects will give Anadarko's team critical data to improve its operations moving forward. This year has also been transformative for Anadarko as it completes its infrastructure buildout, a project that has seen nearly 5,000 contractors in the field. That includes the addition of 120,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day oil treating, 400 million cubic feet of additional gas processing capacity, 700,000 barrels a day of water disposal and 800 miles of oil, gas and water pipeline infrastructure. A regional oil treating facility helps reduce storage tanks, reduces truck traffic, improves Anadarko's environmental footprint and lowers operating expenses, he said. The activity surrounding the Hale County Wind project is further deteriorating the roads in its vicinity and nearby Hale County citizens want the commissioners to do something about it. During a Friday morning work session, Hale County Commissioners heard complaints from a few individuals who say they're having lots of trouble getting down their dirt roads. Dan Houchin, who lives in the area, claimed countless roads across precinct 2 are damaged and the heavy machinery associated with carrying the windmills are making some of them worse. He also complained of the crews pouring caliche on some of the roads and questioned the commissioners about who would continue road maintenance once the windmills are in place. Houchin took photos of the roads and shared them with the court. County Commissioner Mario Martinez, precinct 2, said part of the damage is due to a mix of rainy weather and the heavy machinery. Right now is not a good time to fix it without making the situation worse, he said when the citizens accompanying Houchin questioned him. "We've had a lot of rain," Martinez said. "Before that, we had no rain. Dan's right." The roads have been driven on so much but there just has not been the right time to work on them, he said. "We need it to stop raining so we can go and fix them," Martinez said. But Alesha Walker, who is scheduled to speak on the same subject to the commissioners at their meeting Tuesday, said she finds that difficult to believe because she's allegedly asked for the commissioners to look into the same problem repeatedly. Monday's Commissioners Court agenda shows Walker is scheduled to show emails and photos of the complaints to the court. The road conditions existed before the construction on the wind farm began, Walker said. She claims the roads are not crowned - or sloped to allow water to drain off - and had collapsed culverts before windmill traffic started. "We've been told for three years that we can't build the roads up because there's no moisture," Walker said. "We now have a compact problem that we have terrible roads to start with." Houchin said he, his son, individuals they work with and Walker struggle to get to and from work and school each day as a result of the roads they described as flooded and deeply rutted. "We need to crown those roads," Houchin said. "You need to get down there and supervise those guys doing that." Hale County Judge Bill Coleman said the county, Xcel Energy and the Texas Department of Transportation have an agreement that TXDOT will fix whatever road damage is created as a result of construction on the wind farm. Messy roads are a factor the county has to contend with in exchange for the "benefits of wind energy," he said. Martinez said: "We wanted the windmills. They're bringing revenue to the county. We have to weigh one or the other. When you get something, something else has to come with it. I understand Dan's perspective. I wish we could do something with it but we can't. It's too wet." Walker later told the commissioners she understands the potential conditions associated with living on a dirt road but she wants help. "We're looking for a resolution," she said. The court also heard a quick overview of activities the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service has had going on. Officials with the Extension Service told the court about several kid-friendly activities they've had. The court took no actions during the work session but reviewed much of what will be discussed during Tuesday's 9 a.m. meeting. In addition to the road conditions, the court is scheduled to review and consider approval of the following: "A service agreement for forensic pathology services with the new Lubbock County Medical Examiner's Office "Amend the cost of repairs to the front of the tax office from $3,000 to $3,400 "Sign and ratify the County Child Welfare Services Non-financial agreement The American Legion Auxiliary Unit 260 will host a breakfast for veterans from 7-9 a.m. Monday at the Elks Lodge, located off the Interstate 27 access road behind Reagor Dykes. The menu will include breakfast casseroles, sausage, biscuits, gravy and coffee. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) If the anti-drug chief would have his way, he would rather not issue a list of politicians supposedly involved in the illegal drugs trade ahead of the May 2019 elections in contrast to what President Rodrigo Duterte has done. "Personally ako, ayoko. Sana wala na magbigay sa akin ng utos na ilabas. I want to work silently to just file charges against these politicians, narcopoliticians and meron na kaming adjudication process right now," Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Aaron Aquino told CNN Philippines' The Source on Monday. [Translation: Personally, I do not want to release one. I hope no one directs me to release it. I want to work silently to just file charges against these politicians, narcopoliticians and we have an adjudication process right now.] Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano had said the list released will help voters avoid shun candidates linked to drugs. The Interior Department also hopes to use the list as a basis to disqualify politicians running in the midterm elections, though election experts said this is unconstitutional. Aquino said he is confident voters know who among their local officials are involved in drugs, which is enough for them to decide against these people. "Alam naman ng taumbayan e, sa totoo lang. Kung ikaw ay nakatira sa isang munisipyo, alam na alam mo kung 'yung mayor mo involved sa drugs. Alam ng barangay, alam ng lahat kung bakit yumaman iyan, kung bakit ganito. Bakit nyo pa iboboto? " he said. [Translation: The people know, to be honest. If you live in a municipality, you would know if your mayor is involved in drugs. The barangay knows, everyone knows why he became rich, why he is like that. Why would you vote for him?] "Kung 'yung mayor niyo isang kriminal, isang katutak ring kurap tapos involved sa illegal drugs, sino pa naman ang boboto sa mayor na 'yun?" he said. [Translation: If your mayor is a criminal, with a corrupt mind and is involved in illegal drugs, who would vote for that mayor?] In April, Aquino told CNN Philippines that Duterte ordered the release of the so-called narco-list containing names of 211 barangay officials ahead of the barangay polls in May. The President then was concerned that drug money funded local campaigns. Upon release of the list, the PDEA admitted that while it has been "validated," there is not enough evidence for those included to be charged in court. READ: PDEA still gathering evidence on 200 'validated' drug-linked barangay officials Rights groups such as the Human Rights Watch have criticized the release of the drug list. They warned it will put the lives of those in the list at risk. Lawmakers like Senator Ping Lacson called it "dumb and cruel." Aquino had brushed these remarks off. He said in May that the drug list "will not serve as a hit list." He also said he could not do anything but follow Duterte's directive to release it before the filing of charges. The PDEA chief echoes previous criticisms against the narco-list, adding that its release would lead to further chaos. "May experience ako nung barangay election e. Maraming nagsasabi it will become a death list 'pag ipinalabas ko iyan. Another one is lalo lang magkakagulo," Aquino said. [Translation: I had an experience during the barangay elections. A lot of people were saying that it will become a death list if I released it. Another thing is things would only get more chaotic.] CNN Philippines Multi-platform Writers Xave Gregorio and Regine Cabato contributed to this report. Dear Carolyn: My daughter was recently injured in a skydiving accident and had surgery on a vertebra in her back; she skydives for fun and has over 200 jumps and loves it. How do I tell her the risks are too high -- she has children -- and she shouldn't continue skydiving? She's determined to go again as soon as she is recovered. -- Scared Mom You don't get to tell other adults how to live their lives. You don't even get to tell other adults how not to throw their lives out of an airplane. Not even adults who have children, and not even if you're the parent of the adult in question. It is simply not your business. The showiness of the risk involved with your daughter's hobby of choice does not change this fundamental truth. You have no more say in her choices than if her idea of fun were quilting or Scrabble or cheese. You don't have to like this, either, or think it's smart, or responsible, or even moral. All that's required is to recognize adult autonomy is a complete answer unto itself. Unless you want your daughter up in your business and bills and health choices and hobby selections, you must accept there's no place for you in hers. You can, however, tell her you're scared, because that's about you. (But she knew that 200 jumps ago, I assume.) You can tell her you're disappointed in her decision to keep adding this risk to her life knowing it could traumatize her kids, since that's your opinion and therefore about you. I would caution against this, though, as a poor use of your emotional capital: Given that she's (presumably) going to ignore you and skydive anyway, voicing your opinion would strain your relationship with her for zero practical gain. You can also tell her you would like to talk about any arrangements she has made for the children in the event of her death -- specifically whether these plans involve you in any way. That is your business, perhaps (over)due to be discussed. Dear Carolyn: Is it morally justified, on principle, for those who invite adults to weddings to exclude children, unbeknownst to their solid character and responsible actions? My child is an angel and would be a great part of any wedding procession. -- Anonymous Good thing your question was short, because I've now read it six times in one of my worst instances of thematic rubbernecking, and the last thing I need is a three-hour backup of letters behind me. Not inviting your child to a wedding is immoral. You basically just said that. To answer the question you asked, yes, it is morally justified for hosts to throw a party just for adults. To answer the question you didn't ask, no, your angel will not remain angelic if you transfer to her any of the sense of entitlement you just put on display. It's fine to be besotted with your child. Truly. It is not fine to believe you can hold the rest of the world accountable for not being as besotted with your child as you think it should be. Please, please. Just stop. Dear Carolyn: My family wants us to travel to Europe with our 18-month-old. We have only ever flown with the kid during the daytime out of consideration, and that has worked out fine, but unfortunately the only flights that exist this time are red-eyes. (I've looked. A lot.) Are they crazy? Are we crazy to even be considering it? -- Crazy? People who are deployed, have family or other strong ties overseas, relocate internationally, or just enjoy travel do this all the time. That you're concerned enough for your fellow passengers even to consider skipping this trip is what makes you an outlier. Prepare well, go, enjoy. Dear Carolyn: I've been dating someone for a few months and thought things were moving in the right direction. He's just informed me that he recently ran into an ex, and now he is confused and needs time to figure things out. I don't really know what that means -- do I wait and see what he figures out and, if so, how do we get back on track? We're both in our 40s and I've been looking for someone like him for a long time. I was starting to have real feelings, and thought this relationship had serious potential. -- Taking a Break I'm sorry. It's surprisingly painful when the simple pleasure of someone's company becomes complicated. Your best chance of moving on from this, and of rekindling it should he have the proper epiphany, is to uncomplicate it again: Treat it as a breakup. Do what you would if he had ended things with you definitively instead of confusedly. If he decides he's over the ex and misses you, and if you still care, then date him as you did before -- as an open question you're hoping to answer with time. Officials with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office arrested 25 people for felony Driving While Intoxicated charges throughout the month of October, according to records from a public information request from the Chronicle. In Texas, a person is charged with DWI if their blood or breath alcohol concentration (BAC) is .08 or higher, according to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT.) Many of the 25 arrested are facing a third DWI charge. The fast-growing electronic scooter company Lime has decided to immediately remove one of the company's brands from every city across the globe after determining the scooters could break apart while in use. The decision to suddenly pull the scooters off the streets arrived several weeks after the company said the same model occasionally breaks apart "when subjected to repeated abuse." But on Friday - in response to questions from The Washington Post about the scooters breaking apart under the strains of normal riding conditions - Lime said it was "looking into reports that scooters manufactured by Okai may break and are working cooperatively with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the relevant authorities internationally to get to the bottom of this." Okai is a Chinese manufacturer that makes scooters and other products. Nobody could be reached at an email address or a telephone number listed on its website - or at a telephone number provided by Lime. Lime said it would decommission all Okai scooters in use across its fleets, but company officials said it was difficult to determine the precise number of scooters affected by the recall and declined to provide an estimate. They also declined to reveal how many U.S. cities possess the devices. Riders in cities around the country regularly report on social media that they've seen Lime scooters broken in half, often where the baseboard meets the stem. "Safety is Lime's highest priority," the company said in a statement. "The vast majority of Lime's fleet is manufactured by other companies and decommissioned Okai scooters are being replaced with newer, more advanced scooters considered best in class for safety. We don't anticipate any real service disruptions." The mass removal arrives several weeks after Lime - one of the nation's largest scooter companies - acknowledged it pulled thousands of its scooters off the streets this summer after discovering a small number of them may have been carrying batteries with the potential to catch fire. Those scooters were made by the mobility company Segway, which pushed back against Lime's claims that a manufacturing defect made the scooters vulnerable to catching fire. Some Lime employees, riders and other affiliated individuals say they worry the company may not have moved fast enough to address concerns about the scooters breaking apart. A Lime independent contractor who charges the scooters overnight, known as a juicer, provided copies of emails showing he'd warned the company about the problem of scooters breaking as early as September. The juicer, a man in his 40s named "Ted," asked that his last name not be used for fear of retribution. He said a few weeks after he began working for Lime in July, he began noticing cracks in the baseboards and broken Limes on the street. He estimated he found baseboard cracks in about 20 percent of the scooters he picked up to charge. Eventually, he highlighted the issue in a lengthy Reddit post that included multiple photos of broken scooters. In an email dated Sept. 8 addressed to Lime support, Ted warned Lime about four scooters with "cracks on the underside of the deck," which he labeled "a systematic issue." He included photos and identification codes for each device. Ted also asked about his payments for recharging the devices. A Lime employee responded to his email, but did not address the defective scooters. "Thanks for your email and our apologies for the challenge," the employee wrote, referencing a separate question about payment. "I have submitted your payment to Finance; please allow four to seven days for it to post. The payment will show as a 'bonus'. We appreciate your patience and understanding." The message prompted Ted to respond with another plea for safety. "I hope the Lime team takes the issue of the cracking scooter decks seriously," he wrote. "I have dropped off 3 scooters now at the warehouse that were cracked completely in half, and 4 more that had started to crack. All of them have cracked in the same location." "I believe this is a design flaw that is beginning to surface," he added. Ted said Lime never responded. Lime declined to comment on his account. A Lime mechanic in California, who is responsible for helping service the devices, said employees at his warehouse performing day-to-day maintenance on the company's scooters have identified scooters at risk of cracking over the past several months. This employee said managers did not aggressively follow up on those concerns. The mechanic spoke on the condition of anonymity and did not want to identify the city where he works in fear of revealing his identity. The mechanic - who said employees monitored how long scooters remained functional after being deployed on city streets - said cracks could develop in the baseboard within days of the devices being placed on the streets. The mechanic provided video that shows employees performing tests in which Lime scooters break after a few small hops. Later recounting the tests on the company's Slack messaging system, another mechanic noted to a manager that the device can snap even when the rider weighs as little as 145 pounds, according to images of the discussions provided to The Post. "I would suggest that these are unsafe for public use," the other mechanic wrote. "It's only a matter of time before someone is severely injured . . . if not here, somewhere else." Responding to a message on Slack, a manager said she had "raised concerns" about the breaking scooters and been told that mechanics should continue testing the problematic scooters and "work on re-enforcement techniques." The manager wrote that she will forward photos of similar techniques that she has "gathered from other markets." Lime declined to comment on the mechanic's statements or the Slack exchange. A Consumer Products Safety Commission spokesman said the agency does not preapprove products before they reach the marketplace. If a "substantial product hazard" is reported by consumers and verified, the spokesman said, the agency could work with a company to put a recall in place. "The pattern we are seeing is not indicative of the products not meeting the safety standards for them," the spokesman said, referring to electric scooters. "It's more that consumers are having mishaps due to limited familiarity of their use and a lack of protective equipment and operating them in congested and distracted environments." Since Lime launched its scooters this spring, two people have died while riding the devices and others have been badly injured, according to authorities. When police located a scooter Jacoby Stoneking had been riding before he sustained blunt force head injuries in the early morning hours of Sept. 1, the device was snapped in half, though few other details about the accident are known, according to police and Lime officials. The 24-year-old east Dallas man died in a hospital the next day. Stoneking's death resonated with Stephen Williams, 29, a Dallas man who said he was injured after the scooter he was riding snapped in half on busy a city street on Oct. 10, throwing him on the ground chest-first. A week later, Williams said, his ankle, knee, back and neck were still in pain. Contemplating his accident, Williams - who works as an data analyst at a technology company - remembered the details surrounding Stoneking's accident and began to wonder if there was a pattern. He began searching for examples of broken Lime scooters, eventually logging more than 40 instances on social media, in news reports and on Reddit, including six that he personally encountered. Williams included those numbers in a wide-ranging review of e-scooters that he provided to the Texas Department of Transportation in Dallas, as well as Lime officials. His verdict: In a city heavily reliant upon cars for personal mobility, scooters have great potential to "stitch" the city "back together," allowing people to travel to nearby neighborhoods without creating more traffic. But, he said, he considers the Lime Okai model too unsafe for him to ride. "I feel extremely disappointed, perhaps betrayed, by these devices," said Williams, who refuses to ride another Lime until the company improves scooter safety. "That's disappointing to me because the utility of these devices is so profound." Like a scene from a wintry Bob Ross painting, photos coming out from the Texas panhandle Monday show a small blanket of snow coating bison and much of the landscape as cold weather pushes through the state. The photos were taken deep inside Caprock Canyons State Park, just shy of a two-hour drive south of Amarillo. A cold front blowing wintry weather through the state left the photographer, Annie Hepp, in awe. "I've always wanted to see the canyons in the snow and today I got my wish," she posted to Facebook. "Photos cannot even begin to do justice to the incredible beauty of a fresh blanket of white snow on the red rock." HOUSTON FORECAST: Cold front bringing wind tonight, chilly temperatures Hepp, who's from Waco, works with Texas Parks and Wildlife and was attended a conference near Caprock Canyons State Park when the storm blew through. "Watching the bison grazing comfortably while a biting wind froze my fingers was so amazing," Hepp said. "Even the little calves didn't seem to mind the cold. So grateful for this opportunity." While the Houston area will likely be spared by frozen precipitation this week, the area can expect frigid temperatures down to at least 32 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. On Tuesday and Wednesday, temperatures will drop further, into the low 30s. It will feel even colder, with wind chill values in the 20s on Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service Houston/Galveston office. Meteorologists anticipate putting a freeze warning in place across southeast It will feel even colder, with wind chill values in the 20s on Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service Houston/Galveston office. Meteorologists anticipate putting a freeze warning in place across southeast Texas Wednesday morning. The cold front is also causing coastal counties to be under wind advisories from 2 p.m. Monday to 6 a.m. Tuesday, the weather office reported. Sustained winds could reach 25 mph on the coast, and gusts could reach 40 mph. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) Actor-comedian George Lopez reportedly is facing a misdemeanor count of battery after a scuffle with a man last month at a New Mexico restaurant. The Las Cruces Sun-News reports Lopez will be receiving a criminal summons to the city's municipal court. The first freeze of the season is coming this week, ahead of schedule. A cold front is expected to arrive in South Central Texas on Monday, bringing rain, strong wind gusts and very cold temperatures, according to the National Weather Service. San Antonio should get storms overnight into Monday morning, according to agency meteorologist Orlando Bermudez, with the strong winds and cold temperatures following right behind. READ ALSO: Eight San Antonio firefighters heading to California with cohort of about 200 from Texas Were going to have showers and storms in San Antonio Monday, Bermudez said. After that, the temperatures continue to go downhill. Late Monday afternoon, sustained winds are expected to reach 20 miles per hour in San Antonio, with gusts of 30 to 35 miles per hour. The freeze will begin overnight into Tuesday morning, mostly affecting the Hill Country and Edwards Plateau. Bermudez said its expected to be 32 degrees in San Antonio. Tuesday night, though, will bring the coldest temperatures. Thats when the freeze is expected to affect all of South Central Texas. San Antonians can expect a temperature of about 27 degrees Wednesday morning. Temperatures will rise to the high 40s and low 50s later on those days. One thing thats not expected here: snow. Bermudez said more northern areas could get some wintry precipitation, like San Angelo and Dallas-Fort Worth, but not San Antonio. No frozen precipitation is expected behind this front as the moisture is not deep enough, forecasters wrote. The unseasonably chilly weather is expected to continue throughout the week, though it should accompany mostly clear skies after Monday. A respite isnt expected until later in the week, when temperatures will climb back into the 60s Friday. The agency says the first freeze this year is two weeks earlier than average. We do get these cold snaps once in awhile, Bermudez said. Dylan McGuinness covers local politics and the Bexar County government for the Express-News. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinness General Tzo, an 8-year-old cat, is popular with guests of his owner's San Antonio Airbnb. Many play with him during their stays. Others have complimented him in positive Airbnb reviews. Last month, one of them took him. At first, the cat's owner, Max Woodward, simply thought the cat, which splits time between his apartment and outside, had gotten lost. He took to social media and posted missing pet posters around the neighborhood in the hopes of finding the feline. It wasn't until last week, while watching surveillance videos, that Woodward realized one of his former guests had walked the squirming cat out of the apartment complex. "I really didn't expect to find what I found on the footage," Woodward said. "It's a crazy thing to expect." But the next day after being bombarded by phone calls and messages from Woodward and friends the Airbnb guest texted Woodward. He explained he'd mistaken the cat for a stray and said he'd be happy to arrange for General Tzo's return. Both men drove several hours to meet in Lubbock, where General Tzo was returned to his owner in a happily-ever-after ending. General Tzo will likely be getting collared and microchipped soon, Woodward said. RELATED: San Antonio neighbors mistake stray goat for each other's pet Woodward has been hosting guests at his four-room apartment complex near Beacon Hill through short-term housing rental company Airbnb for several years. He warns guests that his cat and his two dogs run the property, and said he's never received a complaint about any of them. General Tzo in particular is popular among guests, beloved for his outgoing and friendly personality, according to Woodward. The guest who took the cat also had good reviews on Airbnb as a quiet, courteous visitor. He caused no problems during his short stay in San Antonio, Woodward said, and he left his reservation a few weeks early. To respect the guest's privacy, Woodward waited until the reservation was over to enter the room for cleaning. That's when he noticed cat treats sprinkled on the floor, which he assumed had been used to lure General Tzo into the room. The discovery prompted him to dig through surveillance footage, where he saw the guest walking down the stairs and out the door with the cat on Oct. 11. RELATED: San Antonio-area man looking for person who shot and killed his missing dog He called the guest, who initially did not respond. He filed a report with the police, who told him there was little they could do about a small case of stolen property that had likely crossed state lines. He also informed Airbnb, who said they would attempt to reach the guest. The company told him they'd seen their fair share of odd incidents, but this was the first catnapping, Woodward said. In a statement to mySA.com, Airbnb did not comment on whether this type of incident had occurred before. "Keeping our community and their loved ones safe is the most important thing we do," the company said. "We're thrilled that General Tzo is back home and can continue welcoming San Antonio guests for years to come. We take what happened here very seriously and we are investigating this incident." The next day, the guest woke up to multiple phone calls from Woodward and others about General Tzo. He responded to Woodward via text that afternoon. "Hey I'm sorry about the situation," the guest texted. "I honestly thought I was doing the right thing I thought that cat was a stray. I only saw it outside...I feed it, tried to give it food, I'll find a way to get it back to you." He thought it was one of the nicer stray cats and said he honestly believed he'd done the cat a favor by rescuing it. "It never was in the house," the guest, who requested anonymity, told mySA.com. "The only time was when it rained and I fed it. That's the only time I saw it inside." He recommended some sort of identification so the cat wouldn't get confused again in the future. He was out of state at the time and offered to drive back to San Antonio to return General Tzo. Eager to expedite the process, Woodward offered to fly to the nearest airport or to meet halfway. They settled on an animal shelter in Lubbock. RELATED: 176 cats and dogs seized from Hays County home were cruelly treated, judge rules Woodward said the long drive didn't taint his excitement about seeing his missing cat again. "I was just so happy to get (General Tzo back), so I didn't really think about it," he said. General Tzo has been living with Woodward for six years. Woodward's father had rescued him in Abilene as a kitten and cared for him until his death in 2012, when Woodward took possession of the cat. "He's gorgeous," Woodward said. "He was always a healthy cat. We never went to the vet because we didn't have to, so he wasn't chipped ... He knows how to get around. He's run my alley for the past six years." General Tzo was rattled and shaky at first, Woodward said, but he's now happy to be back at his stomping grounds. S. M. Chavey is a breaking news and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | sarah.chavey@express-news.com | @smchavey Three teens were arrested Saturday night and charged in a string of armed robberies in San Antonio, including one in which a Dollar General clerk was shot, police said. The men were arrested by Somerset police after San Antonio sent out an advisory. They are: Nathaniel Pavini, 19; Hector Aguilar, 18, and a 17-year-old. Each were charged with two counts of aggravated robbery. Police expect them to face two counts of aggravated assault for the shooting as well. San Antonio police suspect that four people committed the robberies Friday and Saturday. They covered their faces and wielded guns, including a long rifle, police said. The department is reportedly still looking for the fourth suspect. The first target was a Circle K on West Sides Potranco Road on Friday, police said. Police didnt say what time the robbery occurred. Shortly after, police said there was a shooting at a Dollar General store on the Southwest Side. Police suspect that the three men and another person entered the store on Southwest Military Drive, and the cashier was shot after he struggled with one of them. The employee is in critical condition, spokesman Carlos Roberto Ortiz said Sunday. Police think the same four people of approached a man in his driveway and stole his Toyota Tacoma at gunpoint Saturday. Police didnt specify where the carjacking occurred. The men fled in the truck and a gray Dodge Neon, police said. Thats when the department sent out an advisory about the suspects and the two vehicles. Just after 10 p.m., Somerset police said they were detaining several men and a woman who were found with the car and stolen Tacoma. Several guns were recovered, including the long rifle. Dylan McGuinness covers local politics and the Bexar County government for the Express-News. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinness Re: U.S. is not at war with immigrants, Editorial, Nov. 5: One of the definitions of war is hostility or struggle. This is not happening right now but could occur if one of the caravans decides it will invade the U.S. southern border en masse and try to overwhelm the Border Patrol and any military group at that point of entry, then disperse throughout the countryside. And if they are successful, future caravans will take the same approach, and then it would be a war to defend our borders and this countrys sovereignty from these migrants. We would be at war with the migrants because they want what we have and they dont want to go through the legal immigration process to get it. We understand their struggles in their country of origin. But why dont they use the same amount of effort they are taking at our southern borders and use it to overthrow their countrys current government? Why arent they seeking asylum in the first country available to them, Mexico? No, they seem to want all or nothing in the United States, and that is not acceptable to this country. If the U.S. cannot take care of its own poor and its war veterans then it has no right to care for these illegal aliens who are invading our borders. Robert M. Louie, Houston Unequal justice I am a natural-born U.S. citizen, and I defended this country with 24 years of service in the Navy. If I commit an illegal act I cant expect to receive benefits from our government for my lawless action. But if I hail from a foreign country and I manage to illegally cross the border, what might I expect from our government for this lawless action? Under our current immigration system, if I simply claim that I am fearful of returning to my home country, I will most likely be released into the U.S. to wait many years for a hearing to determine if I deserve asylum. I can begin to enjoy many of the benefits of being on American soil. If I choose to disappear into the fabric of this country and never report for my asylum hearing, I can likely live out my life in this country as an illegal alien. If I choose to return for my asylum hearing, I have the prospect of legally enjoying all the benefits this great country provides for the rest of my life. This is the way our current legal system works, but this is surely not equal justice under the law. Billie W. Wieland, Spring Branch Greatest for whom? Donald Trump likes to say this is the greatest economy in history. Trumps words only add to his 4,230 lies per Washington Post fact-checkers. Is it really great when 80 percent of U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck (according to The Guardian)? Its very difficult for most American families to stay afloat even with two or three paychecks. At the same time, we have 18 million living in extreme poverty, according to the United Nations, with 1 of 4 of those children deprived of basic human needs food, clean water, health care, shelter and education. Yet, Trump and his 1 percent of the wealthiest people in the U.S. will get 82 percent of last years Republican tax cuts (by 2027). How will that get paid for? If this is the greatest, then greatest economy for whom? Only the 1 percent. The rest of us will be fighting Republican attempts to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Thats how they want to pay for their tax cuts. Adam Castillo Err on side of PC What is political correctness? Where does one draw the line? A Saturday Night Live comedian mocks an injured war veteran; if the comedian is chastised, is that being politically correct? Megyn Kelly makes a stupid and insensitive comment about blackface she is roundly criticized by some in the media, then the same for NBC for political correctness. Some say she was fired for her comment, and thats viewed as a travesty. Kelly was fired because her ratings were tanking. She will walk away with a healthy settlement and live to host another show. One persons accusation of political correctness is anothers racial and gender slur. What happened to common decency, human respect and consideration? What have we gained if that is lost? I would rather err on the side of political correctness. Pamela Wessel, Bulverde Sad cemeteries My sister, visiting from Vermont, expressed an interest in seeing the cemeteries all decked out for Dia de los Muertos. As we drove though San Fernando No. 2 and No. 3, we were appalled at the condition of the cemeteries. I wonder if the person responsible for the overall condition of cemeteries has gone to inspect them. The grounds are in need of major work. Headstones are covered with grass and weeds. The grass is in need of mowing, trimming and edging. Trash cans were upturned. The veterans section of San Fernando No. 3 is an insult to those buried there. If I understand their website, the Archdiocese of San Antonio is responsible for these cemeteries. The archbishop should take a stroll through them. Folks who have loved ones buried there should be raising holy hell. Chuck Wiatrowski DST useless Re: Clock has run out on senseless daylight saving time, by state Rep. Lyle Larson, Another View, Nov. 5: Larson is right on the money about daylight savings time. DST is an anachronistic nuisance that long ago outlasted any benefit it may have ever had. DST is nothing more than a useless and absurd ritual. Texas should lead the way in abolishing it. Millions of laying hens and dairy cattle will thank us. Jon Kindred, Army colonel, retired, Bandera Donald Trump is running wild and running scared. Hes such a menace that its tempting to cheer any vituperative critic and grab any handy truncheon. But villainizing Trump should not entail sanitizing other malefactors. And we should acknowledge that the president is right on one point: For neocons, journalists, authors, political hacks and pundits, there is a financial incentive to demonize the president, not to mention an instant halo effect. Only Trump could get the pussy-hat crowd to fill Times Square to protest Jeff Sessions firing. We make the president the devil spawn and he makes us the enemy of the people and everybody wins. Or do they? To what extent is lucrative Trump hysteria warping our discourse? Trump may not be sweaty and swarthy, but he makes a good bad guy. As with Nixon and Watergate, the correct moral response and the lavish remunerative rewards neatly dovetail. Even for Washington, the capital of do-overs and the soulless swamp where horrendous mistakes never prevent you from cashing in and getting another security clearance, this is a repellent spectacle. War criminals-turned-liberal heroes are festooned with book and TV contracts, podcasts and op-ed perches. Those who sold us the cakewalk Iraq War and the outrageously unprepared Sarah Palin and torture as enhanced interrogation, those who left the Middle East shattered with a cascading refugee crisis and a rising ISIS, and those who midwifed the birth of the Tea Party are washing away their sins in a basin of Trump hate. The very same Republicans who eroded Americas moral authority in the 2000s are, staggeringly, being treated as the new guardians of Americas moral authority. They bellow that Trump is a blight on democracy. But where were these patriots when the Bush administration was deceiving us with a cooked-up war in Iraq? Michelle Obama has written in her memoir that she will never forgive Trump for pushing the birther movement. Yet the Pygmalions of Palin, who backed Trump on the birther filth, are now among the most celebrated voices in Michelles party. The architects and enablers of the Iraq War and Abu Ghraib are still being listened to on foreign policy, both inside the administration (John Bolton and Gina Haspel) and out. NeverTrumper Eliot Cohen wrote the Washington Post op-ed after the election telling conservatives not to work for Trump; Max Boot, who urged an invasion of Iraq whether or not Saddam was involved in 9/11, is now a CNN analyst, Post columnist and the author of a new book bashing Trump; John Yoo, who wrote the unconstitutional torture memo, is suddenly concerned that Trumps appointment of his ghastly acting attorney general is unconstitutional. MSNBC is awash in nostalgia for Ronald Reagan and W. So its a good moment for Adam McKay, the inventive director of The Big Short, to enter the debate with a movie that raises the question: Is insidious destruction of our democracy by a bureaucratic samurai with the soothing voice of a boys school headmaster even more dangerous than a self-destructive buffoon ripping up our values in plain sight? How do you like your norms broken? Over Twitter or in a torture memo? By a tinpot demagogue stomping on checks and balances he cant even fathom or a shadowy authoritarian expertly and quietly dismantling checks and balances he knows are sacred? McKay grappled with the W.-Cheney debacle in 2009, when he co-wrote a black comedy with Will Ferrell called Youre Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush. In the Broadway hit, Ferrells W. dismissed waterboarding as a Bliss spa treatment and confided that he had once discovered Cheney locked in an embrace with a giant goat devil in a room full of pentagrams. When McKay was home with the flu three years ago, he grabbed a book and began reading up on Cheney. He ended up writing and directing Vice, a film that uses real-life imagery, witty cinematic asides and cultural touchstones to explore the irreparable damage Cheney did to the planet, and how his blunders and plunders led to many of our current crises. With an echo of his Batman growl, Christian Bale brilliantly shape-shifts into another American psycho, the lumbering, scheming vice president who easily manipulates the naive and insecure W., deliciously played by Sam Rockwell. While W. strives to impress his father, Cheney strives to impress his wife, Lynne, commandingly portrayed by Amy Adams. Before we had Trumps swarm of bloodsucking lobbyists gutting government regulations from within, we had Cheneys. Before Trump brazenly used the White House to boost his brand, we had Cheney wallowing in emoluments: He let his energy industry pals shape energy policy; he pushed to invade Iraq, giving no-bid contracts to his former employer, Halliburton, and helping his Big Oil cronies reap the spoils in Iraq. The movie opens at Christmas, but its no sugary Hallmark fable. Its a harrowing cautionary tale showing that democracy can be sabotaged even more diabolically by a trusted insider, respected by most of the press, than by a clownish outsider, disdained by most of the press. After a screening of Vice Thursday, I asked McKay which of our two right-wing Dementors was worse, Cheney or Trump. Heres the question, he said. Would you rather have a professional assassin after you or a frothing maniac with a meat cleaver? Id rather have a maniac with a meat cleaver after me, so I think Cheney is way worse. And also, if you look at the body count, more than 600,000 people died in Iraq. Its not even close, right? Maureen Dowd is a columnist for the New York Times THE Government has dismissed as false and mischievous, allegations of attempted abduction of MDC leader Mr Nelson Chamisa on his way from addressing a rally in Marondera on Saturday. A video has been circulating on social media capturing skirmishes between Mr Chamisas security team and occupants of a Toyota Harrier which his party claims were State security agents trying to abduct their leader. In a statement yesterday, the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Monica Mutsvangwa, said reports filed with police indicate that the incident could be a case of road rage as Mr Chamisas security details were involved in an altercation with private citizens. Reports filed with the police indicate that some people were coming from Marondera, driving behind what they later learnt to be Mr Chamisas convoy. Suddenly the convoy stopped and blocked them from overtaking, they were aggressively confronted and manhandled by Mr Chamisas entourage including Mr Chamisa who lobbed himself in the back seat of their vehicle punching and scratching, she said. The victims (just ordinary citizens going about their own business until the attack) have reported the matter to the police who are carrying out further investigations, this would appear to be a road rage incident. Minister Mutsvangwa said neither the Intelligence services nor any security services or any arm of Government owns the Toyota Harrier in the captured video. She said a quick check at the Central Vehicle Registry (CVR) would show the media or any interested parties the true owners of the vehicle reiterating that the police are seized with the matter. For the avoidance of any doubt, the CIO was not involved in this reported incident which is now under investigation. Let us all give the police the support, co-operation and space they need to execute their constitutional mandate, said Minister Mutsvangwa. She said the Presidents Department is awake to the call by the New Dispensation to operate within the confines of the Constitution particularly Section 224(2). Minister Mutsvangwa said the Department is also alert to the vision held by his Excellency the President of Zimbabwe to establish the institution of Opposition by having an Official Leader of the Opposition in Parliament whose office is funded by the State. The Department subjects itself to the authority of the Constitution, the President and the aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe and would not act contrary to that ethos, she said. Minister Mutsvangwa said the Government acknowledges and supports the legal existence of opposition parties. The Government has been made aware of the video that has been circulating on social media purporting to depict an attempted abduction of opposition leader Mr Nelson Chamisa. Government would like to assure the public, all opposition parties and their leadership that it acknowledges and supports the legal existence of the opposition Parties as enshrined in our Constitution, she said. Minister Mutsvangwa however, said it was improper to abuse the support. Government is dismayed at the imputation that State agents would attempt to abduct opposition leaders. That notion is not only false but also mischievous moreso taken in light of the efforts by Government to harmonise and practice with the Constitution. Chronicle Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News FORMER President Robert Mugabe was forewarned about the coup that would topple him from power, but distrusted those who warned him and believed his then deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa and former Defence Forces commander Constantino Chiwenga would never betray him, a former Cabinet minister has said. In a wide-ranging interview with the Big Saturday Read published at the weekend by Alex Magaisa, former Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo said Mugabe considers what his two former lieutenants did a great betrayal and the utmost treachery. although he got various reports from different sources about the planning of the coup, President Mugabe did not believe those reports because he trusted Mnangagwa and Chiwenga more than he trusted those who gave him the reports, he said of the November 2017 coup that toppled Mugabe. It is my considered judgment that President Mugabe genuinely and truly believed that Mnangagwa and Chiwenga would never countenance toppling him from power. Moyo said he would give a detailed account of the events in the two books he was writing why Mugabe did not believe Chiwenga and Mnangagwa would be associated with the military action to topple him from power. Moyo said if Mugabe had heeded the warnings, the November 2017 coup would have been stopped, adding that the coup plotters took a risk and were even surprised that it had paid off. He said Mugabe did not believe his ouster from power would go ahead after his engagement with Chiwenga, who seemed more concerned about his security of tenure and Zanu PF succession, which he wanted settled at the December 2017 special congress. In fact, Chiwenga wanted President Mugabe to remain in office to serve out his term, but to hand over leadership of the party at a special Zanu PF congress. Moyo, who was forced to flee from his house and seek shelter at Mugabes Blue Roof mansion, said if the soldiers had found him at home in the wee hours of November 15, 2017, they would have killed him. There was no question of arresting me. Chiwengas soldiers were on a mission to kill me, he said. He said while he could not use the information he had to pre-empt the coup, he used it to whisk his family to safety because his house had been earmarked as a death trap for me with unknown risks to my family, in light of how it was intruded by soldiers. He said while specific actions by the army many of which were ad hoc or spontaneous and unknown plans of the coup itself were known. Moyo said when he spoke about the coup plot in the politburo in July 2017, during which he presented a video on the plot, Mnangagwa threatened to kill him. He said he would detail the fatalities recorded during the course of the coup in his forthcoming books. What I can say for now is that President Mugabe was told of fatalities by security organs the day he officiated his last State university graduation ceremony as Chancellor at Zimbabwe Open University during the coup on November 17, 2018. Otherwise, yes, there were fatalities and the truth will soon or later come out as it always does, he said. On the June 30 elections that sought to sanitise Mnangagwas presidency, Moyo said all the three conflicting results declared by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and endorsed by the Constitutional Court showed that half of the electorate did not support Mnangagwa. This point should be emphasised. Mnangagwa does not have the majority support of the electorate and that is why he has a legitimacy crisis. He is a divisive leader with divided support, in power only because of the military that installed him in the first place, he said. The July 30 elections bestowed on Mnangagwa only a veneer of legality, not in terms of the rule of law, but in terms of rule by law. The legal rules that were used to organise and run the July 30 elections were superintended by a coup government that came into power via the gun. Moyo said Mnangagwa and Chiwenga were baying for his blood and had been pursuing him under false Zimdef [Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund] allegations. Turning to former First Lady Grace Mugabe, Moyo dismissed claims he was behind her campaign against Mnangagwa. But the presumption that anyone, especially a person like me, could become the brains behind Mrs Mugabe is preposterous Becoming the brains behind Mrs Mugabe would have meant coming between the President and his spouse. That would have been reckless and suicidal, he said. The proposition that the coup was done to stop Mrs Mugabe from succeeding her husband is uncivilised and undemocratic. But on whether I understood peoples concerns that Mrs Mugabe could have ended up on the wheel, the answer is yes, of course, I did. How could I not? I, however, think that people should have been equally concerned about Mnangagwa ending up on the wheel. Moyo also said the United Kingdom and China supported the coup that swept Mnangagwa to power, and described former British ambassador Catriona Laing as a coup busybody. I would not be surprised to learn that her CV now lists toppling Mugabe, who appeared invincible, as her most outstanding diplomatic feat in her career, Moyo said. NewsDay Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News It was an extraordinary week at the Harare Magistrates Courts that saw four high-profile figures appearing in court on the same day, facing various charges. It was therefore a hive of activity as journalists from various media houses convened outside the courts to capture this rare moment when four of Zimbabwes well-heeled citizens were forced to abandon the comforts of their homes to answer to an assortment of charges. Former Cabinet minister Supa Mandiwanzira was appearing at the courts for the first time, facing criminal abuse of office charges. The ex-television personality, who was immaculately dressed, pitched up at the courts on the same day another former Cabinet minister Saviour Kasukuwere was also appearing in court. Kasukuwere is facing four counts of criminal abuse of office. But these ex-ministers were not the only notably heavyweight that set tongues wagging at the Harare Magistrates Courts. Bubbly businessman Wicknell Chivayo and former president Robert Mugabes son-in-law Simba Chikore also turned heads when they appeared in court that same Wednesday. Some of the courtroom galleries were over-spilling and Bona Chikore, Simbas wife, was forced to follow proceedings while standing at the back of the courtroom. Chivayo is facing two counts of fraud and two charges of contravening the Exchange Control Act while Chikore is facing allegations of detaining an employee unlawfully. Chivayos allegations relate to the $5 million Gwanda solar project. In the case of Mandiwanzira, Kasukuwere and Chivayo, they are being prosecuted by a Special Anti-Corruption Unit set up by President Emmerson Mnangagwa in May this year. Mnangagwa formed the special graft team, comprising of lawyers and prosecutors as part of his pledge to deal with corruption. Kasukuwere is accused of fraudulently parcelling out vast pieces of land to former first lady Grace Mugabes sister Shuvai Junior Gumbochuma among others. His trial, which was supposed to commence on Wednesday, failed to kick off after his lawyers Thembinkosi Magwaliba and Charles Chinyama demanded further particulars from the State to adequately prepare for his defence. Kasukuwere demanded a police entry diary, a due diligence report relating to Gumbochumas land applications and approvals as well as minutes of Cabinet meetings. Magwaliba argued that these documents were crucial to his clients defence and that trial cannot proceed until they have been furnished with the said documents. However, prosecutor Zivanai Macharaga said he has done everything in his power to ensure that the defence is provided with all the necessary paperwork needed to prepare for trial but the requested documents do not exist. Macharaga argued that the defence was attempting to delay trial commencement for the second time. As the mistrust between the State and defence became increasingly evident, Harare magistrate Hosea Mujaya resolved to subpoena the permanent secretary in the ministry of Local Government, George Magosvongwe, to compel him to release documents relating to Kasukuweres trial. In Chivayos case, the State led by Veneranda Munyoro of the anti-graft team finally put the charges to the accused. In the last appearance, Munyoro refused to put the charges to Chivayo fearing that he would plead not guilty and subsequently file an application for the exception of charges. Chivayos lawyer advocate Lewis Uriri had argued that the State had already amended his clients charges three times, making it impossible for him to plead to the allegations. As the charges were being put to Chivayo, it was revealed that former Finance minister Patrick Chinamasas daughter, Kangai benefited from the $5 million which was advanced to Chivayo for the Gwanda solar project. Chivayo also loaded part of the money into his Visa card, Intratrek Zimbabwe, one Tinashe Shavi and Kangais bank accounts. Chivayo allegedly used some on the funds to purchase air tickets for women who were stranded in Kuwait in 2016, school fees, civil suits settlements and to purchase vehicles. Media reports at the time revealed that Chivayo had bought air tickets worth $58 900 for the stranded women who were lured to Kuwait to work as housemaids but ended up being abused as sex slaves. Magistrate Lazini Ncube rolled the matter over November 15 for ruling after Chivayos filed an application for exception of the charges. Mandiwanzira, a former Information Communication Technology minister, was also arraigned on the same day over two charges of criminal abuse of office relating to his alleged engagement of a South African company Megawatt to do consultancy work for NetOne and, for appointing his personal assistant to the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Potraz) board. Chief magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe granted Mandiwanzira $2 000 bail, accompanied with stringent conditions, including providing surety in the form of title deeds amounting to $100 000. Guvamombe remanded Mandiwanzira to November 30, with the trial set to commence on December 10. Mugabes son-in-law, Chikore appeared before magistrate Elisha Singano who resolved that he be charged with his co-accused Simbarashe Mutimbe on allegations of unlawfully detaining Zimbabwe Airways employee Bertha Zakeyo. Prosecutor Linda Gadzikwa successfully applied that the two be jointly charged because they connived to commit the offence and that the circumstances surrounding the matter were the same. Through his lawyer, Chris Venturas, Chikore opposed the marrying of the dockets, arguing that he will suffer prejudice if he is jointly charged with Mutimbe on the same charge and on the same facts. Trial has been set for December 14. DailyNews Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News By Lambert Strether of Corrente. Last week, there were three (major) California wildfires in the news: The Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise in Northern California, and the Hill and Woolsey fires in Southern California, which are still burning, not entirely contained. Here is a map: And here is a shot of the Camp Fire from space: Impressive. (To add to the stress for Southern Californians, the fires are a only a few miles from the bar where the Thousand Oaks shooting took place.) Wildfires not all of which are forest fires are compound events, a combination of interacting physical processes that occur across multiple spatial and temporal scales. The mother of all compound events is, of course, science fiction author William Gibsons notional Jackpot, with which readers will be familiar. See here for the full quote, which I have shortened. Here Wilf (from the future) speaks with Flynn (from the past): [The Jackpot] was androgenic, [Wilf] said, and [Flynn] knew that meant because of people. Not that theyd known what they were doing, had meant to make problems, but theyd caused it anyway. And in fact the actual climate, the weather, caused by there being too much carbon, had been the driver for a lot of other things. So now, in her day, he said, they were headed into androgenic, systemic, multiplex, seriously bad sh*t, like she sort of already knew, figured everybody did No comets crashing, nothing you could really call a nuclear war. Just everything else, tangled in the changing climate: droughts, water shortages, crop failures and wildfires, of course. In this post, Im going to look at the tangle of news flow for this years California wildfires at several scales, starting with the individual, then zooming out from the infrastructural to the regional, and finally outward to climate. Ill add a salute to the working class people fighting the fires, and conclude. At every scale, Ill try to use a little imagination, and speculate how the seriously bad sh*t might get worse; Ill label those sections: Stressors, on the assumption that if you have enough stressors at enough scales, your interacting physical processes will get even more dynamic than they already are. (Ill write other posts on how it all might get better, I promise.) The Individual Scale One thing you, as an individual, might find useful in preparing for a wlldfire is a go bag (one of those phrases, like fry pan or no-fly zone that makes me ashamed to be a speaker of American English. It seems to have arisen no later than 2004; Wikipedia redirects go bag to bug-out bag). From KQED, Heres What You Should Have in Your Emergency Bag: Medication An extra set of keys Eyeglasses or contact lenses Hearing aids A change of clothes Some water and snack bars Cash in small bills A first-aid kit Flashlight A portable radio Charging cables for your cellphone and a portable cellphone battery pack A copy of your ID respirator face mask Obviously, a go bag is not a survival kit; the assumption is that outside the area from which you were evacuated, all systems are still Go. Stressor: How many simultaneous fires in the same locale would it take for you to require an evacuation kit, instead of a go bag? (The respirator face mask is, I think, peculiar to the California area; I cant find the link, but I believe that masks make it hard for cellphone facial recognition systems to work; it would be a grim irony if more advanced technology makes it difficult to communicate with the outside world without removing your mask and breathing harmful particles from wildfire smoke.) Another thing you, as an individual, might wish to do is escape from the fire in your car (assuming you have one). That was a big problem in Paradise. One example: Jolly was driving just behind Davis, when she was rear-ended and her car pushed into a ravine. The car was stuck and filling with dense, black smoke. A second example: I looked around and it just kept surrounding me growing bigger; I saw cars stuck in gridlock trying to leave, fire surrounding both sides of them. (This is an entire genre of short videos of people driving through hellish flames, praying, or singing to their children.) Stressor: As above. Paradise is a small town about 26,000 people. What happens if multiple simultaneous fires gridlock an entire region? Apparently, the worlds worst traffic jam was on Chinas Beijing-Zhangjiakou highway. It was 62 miles long and lasted for 11 days. Now throw a fire into the mix The Infrastructural Scale First, it looks like Pacific Gas & Electric was up to its old tricks again. (See Naked Capitalism here and here for how PG&E skimping on maintenance caused 2017s wine country fires.) Downed wires are said to have sparked the Camp Fire. Sacramento CBS: We have eyes on the vegetation fire, said one firefighter in a call to dispatch. Its going to be very difficult to access Camp Creek Road, its nearly inaccessible. Thursday morning at 6:43 a.m., Butte County firefighters called dispatch after seeing flames across the Feather River from Poe Dam. It is on the west side of the river, underneath the transmission lines, the firefighter went on to say. Probably about 35 mph sustained wind on it. Stressor: California just bailed out PG&E shareholders for liaibilities from the Wine Country fire. So theres little incentive for PG&E to change. Second, I dont mean to be alarmist here, but what if the bridges melt? Bridge made of steel and asphalt burns in Malibu, California #WoolseyFire pic.twitter.com/3svJGGEVDu Breaking911 (@Breaking9ll) November 10, 2018 Third, the complicity of the real estate industry (and the local governments that regulate land use). The Guardian: Of the tens of thousands of homes burned by wildfires in California in recent decades, nearly all were located in this suburban-rural borderland. With housing shortages and high prices plaguing cities throughout the state, it is unsurprising that residents build on the fringes, places often replete with natural beauty. Yet residents are often unaware of the risks inherent in living there, and the need to mitigate those risks accordingly their lives may depend upon it. (This speaks to the idea that natural disaster is generally a misnomer; if you choose to build your house on the side of a volcano and its destroyed by a lava flow, then proximate cause is your choice, not nature). The Regional Scale Just because the Camp Fire didnt reach the Bay Area doesnt mean that the Bay area wasnt affected. From the San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area residents woke to a strong, sickening smell of smoke inside their homes Friday morning as thick, sooty air from the Camp Fire near Chico poured into the region The Camp Fire ignited and quickly exploded out of control Thursday morning, and by afternoon the Bay Area was bathed in an eerie brownish-orangish glow. Many residents reported the smoke was stinging their eyes and hurting their throats. Parents kept their children indoors. Its not unusual for smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles away to reach the Bay Area, but with this one, the pollution reached the region in only six hours. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has issued an air quality advisory for Friday and suggests people stay indoors and close windows if they smell smoke. Elderly persons, children and individuals with respiratory illnesses should take extra precautions to avoid exposure. And wildfire smoke is a genuine health hazard. Wired: The air quality today is very bad, on par with something you might encounter in Beijing , says Ralph Borrmann, a public information officer with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. In the US, that might seem like an anomalybut its more a portent of the countrys new, char-coated normal. As climate-change fuels increasingly large and frequent wildfires that hit closer and closer to densely populated urban centers, the smoke they produce is becoming a public health crisis. Over the years, researchers have tried unsuccessfully to measure the full health effects of wildfire smoke. The general consensus, based on hospital records, is that more smoke means more trips to the doctor for things like asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, COPD, and heart failure. Children, the elderly, women, African Americans, and those with underlying chronic diseases appear to be most susceptible. But its been tricky to prove causation, because air pollution comes from so many placeswildfires, yes, but also tailpipes and factories. Well, its a complex event, or a complex of complex events. Causation is hard. Stressor: Because of causation issues, its not possible to pursue legal remedies for harms due to forest fire smoke. San Francisco cant sue PG&E for putting X number of asthmatics into hospital wards, for example. Climate: Less Moisture Here is a terrific tweet storm from climate scientist Daniel Swain that I recommend you read in full: If Northern California had received anywhere near the typical amount of autumn precipitation this year (around 4-5 in. of rain near #CampFire point of origin), explosive fire behavior & stunning tragedy in #Paradise would almost certainly not have occurred. (1/n) #CAfire #CAwx pic.twitter.com/2LBKjSVBMF Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) November 10, 2018 On dryness: But whats causing that trend? Is it just bad luck? While the exact level of dryness in a particular year is somewhat random, less precipitation in autumn & springCalifornias shoulder seasonshas long been a projected outcome of climate change. Based on the responses to Swains tweet storm, this stressor: People wedded to their particular spatio-temporal process find it hard to see the compound event in its totality; this goes beyond denial. Its not just climate, as Swain agrees. But its not just brush control, either. No matter what you see on the ground (Fascinating true fact: The air can get so dry that moisture is actually sucked out of plants, making them even dryer and more suspectible to fire.) Climate: The Role of Wind The fires this year have been extremely fast-moving. Heres why. Wired: The driving force has been extreme windgusts of up to 60 miles per hour, perhaps even 70 in the hills of Southern Californiablowing through the state. Wind further desiccates already dry vegetation and pushes the fires along with incredible speed. The fire-fanning winds originate in the jet stream, a band of strong winds in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. The jet stream strengthens at this time of year, amplifying its natural meandering nature and creating troughs that move south through California, which you can see in the tweet below. Thats why all these fires popped up on either end of the state nearly simultaneously : They share a common origin in the jet stream. stressor: More simultaneous fires, to the extent that Californias firefighting capacity is overwhelmed. (Recall that weve already refused to disincentivize PG&Es shoddy maintenance practices by bailing them out; and high winds take down wires.) Shout-out to the Firefighters There are a lot of stories, but Ill just pick out one: Hours later their engines were caught in the same traffic jam [see above] as cars ignited and trapped firefighters and fleeing residents alike. They all might have burned right there were it not for a Cal Fire bulldozer operator who saved our bacon, Peck said. The bulldozer plowed flaming vehicles out of the roadway to clear a lane for the fire engines and several dozen vehicles to move to a grassy area that the bulldozer had scraped down to fireproof mineral soil. They all stayed in the makeshift refuge until the worst of the fire passed. Kudos to the anonymous bulldozer operator! And not all those who fight fires are firefighters. Nurses, for example: After working to ward off the fire, Fergusons makeshift crew was instructed to return back to the hospital. Once there, volunteers, staff, and even strangers rushed to set up IVs, water, gurneys, snacks, and blankets to help anyone they could. Ferguson and Chrissy stayed with their C-section patient, who couldnt even walk yet, in a car and helped her breastfeed her son and gave her pain medication. I did get fearful but not enough to stop what I was doing, she added. I should add that there is one really nasty aspect to who gets to be a firefighter, and it speaks Californias essence as a high Gini co-efficient state. Russia Today: Somewhere between 30 to 40 percent of the states forest firefighters, or nearly 4,000 people, are low-level felons from state prisoners Working in Conservation Camps set up by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the inmates are trained to clear brush that can potentially trigger a fire and also battle the flames when a blaze does occur. For California taxpayers, the cheap labor amounts to more than $80 million in savings per year. Worse, they cant get jobs as firefighters on release: Its not easy for inmate firefighters to make the transition into professional firefighting. Wildland firefighter jobs are so competitive that 200 or 300 applications might come in for one opening, and Cal Fire is reluctant to promote the fact that they might hire well-trained felons over people with no criminal record, even for seasonal jobs. The Los Angeles County Fire Department wont hire felons at all. Still, an estimated 3 to 5% of inmates do make the jump, often by working with the U.S. Forest Service. That seems dumb. It doesnt sound to me like California has a surplus of firefighters, and if its got capacity now, it soon wont. Its also unjust. Conclusion Ill close with an image thats the quintessence of Jackpot; a firenado: Yikes! Expect more, if current trends persist: I also created an animated version which helps to emphasize how weather conditions during California's fire season have evolved over time. #CaliforniaFires #ClimateChange pic.twitter.com/gkuRrdn2ZG Robert Rohde (@RARohde) November 12, 2018 Stressor: At some point, events compound: Nine fires in Southern California instead of three, drier brush, the flames moving faster than ever, high winds taking down power lines in too many places to count, traffic jams everywhere, firefighters doing triage because there are too few of them, too few trucks, too few air tankers, chemical retardants that fail because some MBA jiggered the formula, smoke that settles in over the Los Angeles basin and doesnt dissipate A shortage of masks. Comments from California readers, and readers in fire-prone areas, most welcome. Led by Tribal Scientists, Montanas Trumpeter Swan Revival Is a Triumph Audobon Society Floridas monarch butterfly population takes a tumble Science News Amazons Endangered Species: World Culture Popula How the Farm Bureaus Climate Agenda Is Failing Its Farmers Inside Climate News Permian Drillers Prepare To Go Into Overdrive In 2019 Oilprice.com In race to fill LNG supply gap, project goalposts have changed Reuters Wells Fargo says its promises to restore consumer trust were just puffery. But they look more like lies Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times After Protest, Booksellers Are Victorious Against Amazon Subsidiary NYT Jury delivers $25.5 million statement to Aetna to change its ways CNN Brexit Europe Takes a Deep Breath as Action Against Italy Approaches Bloomberg Macron wants Europe to buy its own military hardware Politico Training kids to kill at Ukrainian nationalist camp AP. Strange for Ukrainian nationalists to be suddenly getting bad press, after all the support we gave them. Syraqistan India North Korea Unique Thai pottery tradition under threat Nikkei Asian Review. The owners of some water-jar factories have noted a drop in demand as Thai tastes shift from earthenware to plastic tubs. China? Trump Transition Georgia Democrats, Abrams campaign files lawsuit to challenge rejection of votes CNN The right to vote is under siege in 2018 Vox Democrats Should Remember Al Gore Won Florida in 2000 The Intercept. No, he didnt. He lost it through a combination of fecklessness and cowardice as the article shows. And 18 years later, here we are. Class Warfare Weve started to uncover the true purpose of dreams New Scientist Do gut bacteria make a second home in our brains? Science Plot 6, Row C, Grave 15 LRB War Is A Racket Smedley Butler, Internet Archive. For those who came in late Antidote du jour (via): Bonus antidote: See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here. Lambert here: Makes our own Civil War look like a blip. However, at least some of the conclusions seem to be borne out for our Civil War, too: Increase in state capacity, for example. By Lixin Colin Xu, Lead Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank, and Li Yang, Postdoc, Paris School of Economics. Originally published at VoxEU. The Taiping Rebellion, from 1851 to 1864, was the deadliest civil war in history. This column provides evidence that this cataclysmic event significantly shaped Chinas Malthusian transition and long-term development that followed, especially in areas where the experiences that stemmed from the rebellion led to better property rights, stronger local fiscal capacity, and rule by leaders with longer-term governance horizons. How do civil wars shape a countrys development? And what are the underlying mechanisms? The past decades have witnessed a surge of this literature (e.g. Blattman and Miguel 2010), most of which deals withthe economic legacies of war and conflicts. Still, the long-term impacts of war, as well as the key mechanisms that underlie these impacts, remain poorly understood. As Blattman and Miguel (2010, p. 42) point out, [u]nfortunately, we have little systematic quantitative data with which to rigorously judge claims about the evolution of institutions during and after civil wars the social and institutional legacies of conflict are arguably the most important but least understood of all war impacts. In a recent paper (Xu and Yang 2018), we add to this literature of civil wars by examining the long-term consequences of the Taiping Rebellion. The Taiping Rebellion, from 1851 to 1864, was a millenarian movement led by Hong Xiuquan, a school teacher who failed the Qing Scholar examinations and then became a Christian. He established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with its capital at Nanjing. During its reign, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom controlled much of southern China, including Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang provinces. Its control over these areas were not complete some were jointly controlled by both Qing and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, or their control changed hands frequently. Figure 1 Map of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Notes: HB:Hubei Province; JX: Jiangxi Province; AH: Anhui Province; JS: Jiangsu Province; ZJ: Zhejiang Province. The legends are Tianjin (Jiangning); Yangzi River; Ourline of the Taiping Regime; Early Taiping Regime; Later Taiping Reime; Taiping Occupied: Province Boundary. Unfolding in the mid-19th century amid what Galor (2005) calls the Malthusian regime, the Taiping Rebellion was the deadliest civil war in human history, and a critical juncture for Chinas turn to modernity (Ho 1959, Fairbank 1992, Pinker 2011). Recent estimates from Cao (2001) suggest that the casualties amounted to 70 million. Indeed, the devastation left behind after the Taiping Rebellion gave those densely populated regions a new lease of life during the years of restoration that followed. However, the attention of historians has been drawn again and again to the revolt largely because the Taiping Rebellion was a watershed moment in Chinese history. The modern history of China has been drastically changed by those tumultuous years to fight the rebellion, the Qing government was forced to decentralise, putting regional armies and public finance under the control of local leaders and fundamentally altering Chinas evolution (Fairbank 1992). Strong provincial leaders emerged warlords began to segment China, and to experiment with various forms of governance in these regions. Against this backdrop, we investigate the rebellions long-term impacts and the underlying mechanisms responsible for them. To proceed, we draw from the institutional background and the literature to derive hypotheses. We focus on several aspects of the rebellion and Qings responses. First, the land policies in the early and late stages of the rebellion differed markedly. The protection of land property rights was better in the late stages than in the early ones. We hypothesise faster post-war population recovery and better long-term development for the late Taiping areas than the early Taiping areas. Second, since the areas near the rebellions capital city, Nanjing, were more likely to be viewed as stationary bases for the rebellion, we hypothesise that their governance and policies were likely better than those of other Taiping areas, as Olsons theory of stationary banditry implies (Olson 1993). Third, the rebellion occurred in years of solid technological progress. We examine whether the unprecedented amount of losses of life associated with the rebellion ultimately led to the subsequent Malthusian transition, characterised by income growth along with lower population growth (Galor and Weil 2000, Voigtlander and Voth 2013b). Fourth, we note that the Qing government instituted fiscal decentralisation to finance local militias against the rebel army thus, we examine whether this fiscal decentralisation acted as taxation that hindered trade, or state capacity that facilitated development (Besley and Persson 2009). We analyse a dataset of prefectures in China Proper that were and were not affected by the rebellion from 1820 to the present day. We focus on population levels and cross-sectional development outcomes between 2000 to 2010. Population growth is a common measure of long-term development (e.g. Acemoglu et al.2002, Jia 2014), and it serves as an indicator of the Malthusian transition. We also examine other complementary aspects such as income levels, fiscal capacity, industrialisation, and human capital, which shed light on the mechanisms of the Malthusian transition. When looking at the population impact, we use a difference-in-difference (DID) approach, and we estimate the differences of the population growth rates (from the base period) between the control group (i.e. the prefectures that were unaffected by the rebellion) and the treatment group (i.e. the prefectures in which the rebellion took place). To address potential omitted-variables biases and measurement errors when examining the impact of the rebellion, we also apply the instrumental variable (IV) approach. We find that the rebellion permanently shifted the rebellion areas development trajectories.In areas that experienced the rebellion, the post-warpopulation increases (compared to the baseline year 1820) remain 38% to 67% lower than in areas that were unaffected by the war, even after the passage of one-and-a-half centuries(see Figure 2). The long-term impact on the population by the rebellion is illustrated in Figure 3, which depicts the evolution over time of the total population and the share of the rebellion areas in the total population of the sample prefectures. The rebellion prefectures population share has dropped from 34.2% in 1820 to 22.7% in 2000. Figure 2 Population growth over time for Taiping Regime areas Figure 3 Population growth and population share of Taiping versus all sample Chinese prefectures Moreover, the rebellions long-term effects on development are similar to those that emerged in Europe following its devastating experience of the Black Death (Voigtlander and Voth 2013). When augmented with favourable changes in institutions and fiscal capacity, the Rebellion facilitated Chinas ensuing Malthusian transition that is, from the Malthusian regime of high population growth and no real-income growth to the modern growth regime of sustained income growth with limited population growth (Galor and Weil 2000). This conclusion is supported by several pieces of evidence. First, the rebellion areas went on to have greater long-run fiscal capacity and faster growth of modern sectors. Based on the OLS and 2SLS estimates, in 2010, one-and-a-half centuries after the Taiping Rebellion, fiscal revenue per capita in the Taiping areas are at least 50% (0.6 standard deviations) higher than in other areas a huge effect. This supports the war-induced state-capacity hypothesis. Furthermore, based on the OLS, Taiping areas have a significantly higher share of modern sectors these areas share of manufacturing in GDP is higher by 4.6% (0.4 standard deviations). Based on the 2SLS, the Taiping areas average schooling level is 13% higher again a large effect. These results support the Malthusian transition hypothesis. Second, Taiping-governed areas with both big population losses and good protection of land property rights (i.e. the Late Taiping areas) experienced faster post-war population recovery they also witness better long-term fiscal capacity, more extensive modern-sector development, and higher income levels. Compared to the control group, the Early Taiping areas experienced an immediate drop in population growth (compared to population in 1820) of 36% (or 45 log points) after the war, and a further drop of 11 log points until the Communist takeover in the mid-20thcentury. This is consistent with the finding that poor land property rights in the Early Taiping areas led to more wasteland and slower population recovery. In contrast, the Late Taiping areas experienced faster population recovery than the Early Taiping areas, with a large drop in population growth by 40% (or 50 log points) in 1880, and relative population growth was greater than the control group by 19 log points between 1880 and 1953. This partial recovery in population could be explained by two forces. First, convergence toward the mean occurred when factors such as labour flowed to the region with a higher land/labour ratio, and second, good land property rights in the Late Taiping areas led to faster re-utilisation of wasteland, which facilitated population growth. Furthermore, the Early and the Late Taiping areas have vastly different long-term development. Compared to the control groups, the Early Taiping areas are now similar except that they have lower GDP per capita by 22 log points. In sharp contrast, the Late Taiping areas have advanced much further in the Malthusian transition than the control group GDP per capita is 60% higher, fiscal capacity is 160 higher, the manufacturing share in GDP is 17% (1.2 standard deviation) higher. These results support the Malthusian hypothesis. The strong positive effects in the context of good property rights (i.e., Late Taiping areas), and the negative effects in the roving-bandit Early Taiping areas support the idea that the large population losses associated with large wars exert positive long-term impact only when institutions are better. Third, the effects of big population losses in areas close to the rebellions capital city are similar to those of the rebel areas that featured good land property rights. There is one interesting exception to those observed in the rebel areas with good land property rights. Areas near the rebel capital exhibit higher levels of schooling than elsewhere. We hypothesise that in areas close to Nanjing, capitalist elites likely had more power than landed elites, and that their influence, coupled with rising fiscal capacity, led to increased schooling. Our reasoning is that human capital and physical capital are complements, and that the capitalist elites would have pushed for the provision of public schooling for the their own benefit (Galor et al. 2009). Indeed, we find that areas near Nanjing currently have significantly higher schooling levels than elsewhere. Fourth, fiscal decentralisation and the strengthening of fiscal capacity led to a faster Malthusian transition, including lower population levels, and stronger long-term development. We measure the strengthening of fiscal capacity using the intensity of Likin, an internal tariff introduced by the Qing Empire during the Rebellion for war financing, which was abolished in 1930s. Increasing the intensity of Likin by one standard deviation in 1910 (1.28) is associated with a drop in the population level by 7%. Furthermore, higher initial fiscal capacity developed in the Taiping area (say, its one SD increase, i.e. 3) is associated with higher GDP per capita (0.2 standard deviations), higher shares of manufacturing (0.15 standard deviations), and higher human capital (i.e. and increase in schooling, 0.5 standard deviations, and reduction in mortality rate, 0.6 standard deviations). These coherent results offer support to the Likin as state capacity hypothesis, and to the viewpoint of the importance of developing a strong fiscal system for long-term development (Besley and Persson 2009, 2011). The positive and widespread association with all key aspects of long-term development are especially impressive in light of the contrast between the contexts in the literature and our own the literature emphasises the positive impact of external wars, but not civil wars, and here we observe similar effects from a large civil war. The literature emphasises the positive effects of fiscal centralisation (Dincecco 2015 Hoffman 2015), and here we obtain the novel finding of positive long-term effect of fiscal decentralisation (in the presence of strong agency costs in a very large country). Finally, we find evidence of complementarity between fiscal strengthening and land property rights, consistent with the conjecture of the complementarity between state and institutional capacities (Besley and Persson 2009). We interact the post-war Likin intensity with our three institutional variables: Early Taiping areas, Late Taiping areas, and the distance to Nanjing. When compared with the control sample, the coefficients of Likin on GDP per capita and fiscal capacity today in the Early Taiping areas are positive and significantly more pronounced. When compared with the control sample and the Early Taiping areas, the Likin coefficients in Late Taiping areas on all key outcomes (income, fiscal capacity, the modern sector, and human capital) are all positive and much more pronounced. In this research, we offer evidence that the Taiping Rebellion, and the institutional and fiscal changes that were an outgrowth of it, affected the evolution of population levels, current incomes, fiscal capacity, shares of modern economic sectors, and human capital and continue to do so to this day. The rebellion facilitated Chinas demographic transition from a Malthusian regime to a modern growth regime. Our findings support some of the prominent hypotheses in the literatures that examine long-term development and/or war and state capacity. Among these are that wars facilitate state capacity, big population shocks at times of significant technological changes facilitate favourable demographic transitions. Also, fiscal capacity and institutional quality are complementary, and a Malthusian transition and significant technological changes facilitate schooling in situations in which capitalists interest are well represented. Finally, human capital has key long-term development impact (see Table 1 for a summary of the match between our findings and the hypotheses). Table 1 Summary of the match between our findings and the hypotheses (As delivered) So president Schmidt, congratulations with the strong election result and I was never able to obtain anything like that when I did election campaigns in Norway. Ladies and gentlemen, it is really a great pleasure to see you all and to be here in Berlin today and to be able to participate in this very important forum. And I really feel that Im among friends of NATO. Twenty-nine years ago almost to the day a peaceful revolution brought down the Berlin Wall. And the Brandenburger Tor ceased to be a Cold War symbol of division. It returned to what it was intended to be: An opening. A passage. Truly a gate, not a barrier. Soon the Brandenburger Tor became a symbol of unity and freedom that helped to usher in the end of the Cold War. And the spread of freedom across what was then a divided continent. Yesterday, I was in Paris to mark another historic moment. The day the guns of World War I fell silent. One hundred years ago. And the carnage and devastation of that terrible conflict came to an end. Both these anniversaries remind us of what Europe had suffered in the twentieth century. War. Chaos. Destruction. And oppression. The anniversaries also remind us of the importance of the transatlantic bond. And how Europe, together with the United States overcame two world wars. And the Cold War. And how the US security guarantees underpinned the integration of Europe. So that we entered the twenty first century with peace and freedom. But today, some doubt the strength of the transatlantic partnership. And we have to be honest and admit that we see differences and disagreements. Over issues such as trade, the Iran nuclear deal and other issues. But we should remember that we have had our differences before. The Suez Crisis in 1956. The French withdrawal from the NATO command structure a decade later. And of course the Iraq war in 2003. So difference of opinion is nothing new. We are 29 democracies. With different history, different geography and different culture. Disagreements are natural. But the lesson of history is that we have been able to overcome our differences. We unite around our common goal. We stand together. We protect each other. We must ensure that we continue to do so in the future. Because we have a shared strategic interest and shared values. And because we face a more uncertain security environment together. That is the reason why we are now making the security ties between Europe and North America even stronger. The US is increasing its military presence in Europe for the first time since the end of the Cold War, with more troops, more equipment, and more exercises. Including here in Germany. In recent years, the US has increased the funding for its military presence in Europe by 40 percent. And for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Canadian troops are back in Europe. Leading a battlegroup in Latvia, Europeans are also stepping up. Raising the readiness of their forces. Improving equipment. And spending billions more on defence. And just last week we saw the end of NATOs biggest exercise since the end of the Cold War. With more than 50,000 troops. Almost half came from North America. And 8,000 from Germany. A demonstration of the real defence cooperation between our two continents. This transatlantic partnership is about deterrence and defence. But also about dialogue and disarmament. Over decades, arms control agreements built up trust and cut down nuclear weapons. One of these agreements was the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the INF Treaty. A Treaty born out of transatlantic efforts. And a cornerstone of arms control in Europe. In the 1970s and 80s, and I see that some of you lived at that time, as did I, a whole generation of political leaders was shaped by the debate on intermediate nuclear forces in Europe. And I am part of that generation. The deployment of Soviet SS20s missiles was of profound concern. And Germany was at the center of that debate. Thanks to courageous politicians, such as Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, NATO decided on a dual track, the double track decision. Combining firmness with dialogue. Therefore, in 1979 NATO defense ministers decided to deploy new nuclear missiles in Europe in response to the Soviet Union. While at the same time reaching out for dialogue with the Soviet Union. That was not an easy decision. But in doing so they laid the ground for the INF treaty. Signed by the US and the Soviet Union in 1987. This didnt just reduce the overall number of nuclear weapons. It banned a whole category of weapons that were specifically designed to target Europe. So it was a real achievement in the work for nuclear disarmament. The deployment of new Russian missiles is putting this historic treaty in jeopardy. For years, Russia has developed, produced, tested and fielded a new missile system. The SSC-8. These missiles are mobile. They are hard to detect.They can be nuclear-armed. They reduce warning time to minutes. They lower the threshold for nuclear conflict. And they can reach European cities like Berlin. For years, Allies, including Germany, have raised their concerns. Time and again. The US has raised the matter formally at senior levels more than 30 times. Starting under the Obama administration. Allies have repeatedly pressed Russia. To ensure full, verifiable and transparent compliance. And, after years of denials, Russia now acknowledges the existence of a new missile system. The United States is in full compliance with its obligations under the INF Treaty. So while there are no new US missiles in Europe. There are new Russian missiles. The new Russian missile system poses a serious risk to the strategic stability of the Euro-Atlantic area. NATO has no intention to deploy new nuclear missiles in Europe. But as an Alliance we are committed to the safety and the security of all Allies. We must not allow arms control treaties to be violated with impunity. Because that undermines the trust in arms control in general. So we call on Russia to ensure compliance, and to return to constructive dialogue with the United States. The threats to the INF Treaty are serious but they are not the only ones we are facing. Our security environment is challenging. And requires us all to stand strong. Therefore, increased EU efforts on defence are important for the security of Europe. And it can make NATO stronger. So I welcome these efforts. But only if they are anchored within the transatlantic partnership. Which has been the foundation for European peace and security for the past 70 years. As we move forward on defence in Europe, we should do so in order to strengthen the transatlantic relationship. Because non-EU Allies play a central role in European security. It is impossible to envisage the defences of Europe without countries like Turkey in the South, being key in the fight against terrorism, and all the violence and instability we have seen in Iraq and in Syria. Norway in the North. And without Canada, the United States and the UK in the west. Because after Brexit, 80 percent of NATO defence spending will come from non EU NATO allies. So European unity can never be a substitute for transatlantic unity. Ladies and gentlemen. A section of the Berlin Wall stands vigil at the entrance to NATOs new headquarters in Brussels. It is a solemn reminder of the cruel division and the real dangers of the Cold War. Today, I am proud to stand with you in Berlin. To celebrate the Brandenburger Tor as a symbol of openness, freedom and peace. And to honor the foresight and fortitude of Allied nations. That built an enduring, transatlantic partnership after the devastation of the two World Wars. Let us continue to stand united. In support of our shared values. And our shared security. We owe that to ourselves. To future generations. And to those who fought and sacrificed to secure a more peaceful world. Thank you. Moderator: Okay, Mr Secretary General, many thanks for this important keynote speech. I am absolutely sure what you have just said will have a great impact for the discussions in the two panels later in this conference. So again, many thanks for this. Ladies and Gentlemen, we now have about 30 minutes for questions and answers. But before opening the floor for your comments and your questions, please allow me to raise two questions from the Chair. Question number one: my first question, Mr Secretary General, is about next year. NATO will celebrate its 70th anniversary. Do you personally think this could be a good idea to start the process of developing a new strategic concept for the Alliance, taking into account that the security policy situation has changed dramatically since the 2010 current Lisbon Strategic Concept was approved? Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: I think we have to understand the following and that is that NATO is now in the midst of our biggest strategic adaptation since the end of the Cold War. We have implemented the biggest reinforcement to our collective defence, we have stepped up in the fight against terrorism, and we have increased the readiness of our forces and, for the first time in our history, we have actually combat ready battlegroups deployed in the eastern part of the Alliance. We are changing, adapting the command structure and we are significantly stepping up what we do, for instance in cyber and addressing hybrid. So yes, strategic concept is always important, but even more important is strategic action. And NATO has really implemented big strategic decisions over the last couple of years, especially since 2014. So, I think that what has actually impressed me is NATO's ability to change when the world is changing and to have a strategic ability to adapt when the strategic environment is changing, as we have seen, especially since 2014, both with Crimea, the illegal annexation of Crimea, Russia destabilising Eastern Ukraine, but also with the rise of ISIS/Daesh in Iraq/Syria, and then increased threats within the cyber and hybrid domain. So, there is a discussion about strategic concept, but for me it is even more important that we have strategic actions, and thats exactly what NATO has been able to deliver. Moderator: Okay, thank you very much. My second question is about NATO's strategic approach vis-a-vis Russia. You have mentioned Russia in your speech in the context of INF, but there is a more fundamental issue of the relations between NATO and Russia. The NATO Summit in July has again confirmed the double track approach of deterrence on the one hand and dialogue on the other hand. What is your experience, Mr Secretary General, from the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels? Is Moscow really interested and, maybe more important, willing to enter into a substantial dialogue with NATO? And would could be areas of common interest? Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: I strongly believe in the NATO strategy, the NATO approach to Russia, which is as you said, a combination of deterrence, defence and political dialogue. And for me there is no contradiction between being firm, strong and engaged in political dialogue. Actually, I believe the opposite; as long as we are strong, as long as we are united, as long as we deliver credible deterrence and defence, we can also engage in political dialogue. Because dialogue is not a sign of weakness, dialogue is a sign of strength. And I say that also very much based on my own experience as a politician in Norway for many years. I remember when I became State Secretary in the Ministry of Environment in 1990; one of the first things I was responsible for was actually a joint environmental commission between Norway and Russia. And as Secretary of Energy, Prime Minister for ten years, I have been working with Russia up north for many years. And that has been possible for a small country like Norway to develop a practical cooperation with Russia up north on border issues, delimitation line in the Barents Sea, defence, search and rescue, environment, energy, many other areas, not despite NATO, but because of NATO. Because NATO provided the platform, the strength, the predictability, that enabled the dialogue. And then, on some areas we were able to make progress, on others we have not been able to make progress. But the reality is that we have to continue to work for a dialogue with Russia, because Russia is our neighbour, Russia is there to stay, Russia is not going to go away. So, partly we need political dialogue with Russia to try to improve the relationship, to reduce tensions, and to also make the conditions possible for a better relationship. But even without an improved relationship, we need to work for dialogue with Russia, to manage a difficult relationship. So, I meet some people telling me that we will never be able to improve the relationship with Russia, well thats some of the same people that were not able to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall. So, people do predict things. I'm very sceptical about them. I used to tell audiences like this, when I finished my exams at the University of Warsaw, I started to work in the Central Bureau of Statistics and I was responsible for collecting and analysing forecasts for oil prices. I can just tell you we were wrong all the time. We were not able to predict the level and not when it was turning up and down. And when I meet people in the security environment, you are not better than economic than in the economists who predict the future. Because most people were not able to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall or 9/11 or the Arab Spring or the annexation of Crimea. So, the point is not to predict too much, but the point is to be able to handle the unforeseen, to manage uncertainty. And therefore, regardless of whether we believe that Russia will change in the near future or the distant future, we need to work with Russia and to also manage a difficult relationship with Russia. Therefore, one of the things we discuss in the NATO-Russia Council is exactly how to manage a difficult relationship, meaning making sure that despite the fact that we now have more weapons, more military, more activity, military activity close to our borders, we need to make sure that we avoid incidents and accidents, and if they happen make sure that they dont spiral out of control and create really dangerous situations. So therefore, one of the most one of the important things we have addressed in the NATO-Russia Council is briefings on exercises, military posture, risk reduction, that kind of things, military lines of communications. So, let me end this answer by saying that defence and dialogue is nothing new in NATO, that was actually developed in the last 60s as part of something called the Harmel Report and, as I mentioned in my speech, the dual, the double track decision, or the double [inaudible] 22:43 or whatever you call it. Moderator: Double [inaudible] Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Yeah, double [inaudible], in 79, thats actually defence and dialogue. It's a very strong message on defence. We start to deploy new missiles, but we also sit down and start negotiations on reductions. And actually it was a great success because we ended up with zero intermediate range forces. So, thats defence and dialogue really providing some real results. Moderator: Okay, thank you very much, Mr Sec Gen. As every year, the Youth Atlantic Association Germany, YATA, is organising a side event to our conference here, where we invite young people from various countries to discuss about transatlantic issues in the seminar. This seminar, Ladies and Gentlemen, has taken place during the weekend with the topic "NATO's Future". 36 participants, from 19 NATO and partner countries, have discussed two days, with security policy experts, about the challenges for our Alliance. They are joining us today here in the conference. We are very thankful that NATO Headquarters has supported the seminar, with experts from the international staff and the international military staff. I have asked two participants of the seminar to start our discussion with their question. So, I would like to invite Mrs Helly Tuguy from the United States and Mrs Letitia Benetis Fetis from Spain, to start the question and answer period with their question. So, Helly, the floor is yours. Question: Hello? Oh, yes. Moderator: Yeah, it's okay. Question: Great. Thank you very much. Hello, Mr Secretary General. I am here, I am from the United States and I'm here representing YATA Denmark as well. And my question is, if you have a sudden windfall in NATO spending, what would be on your personal shopping list of NATO capabilities? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: No, I will go to defence planners because they have long lists. And thats one of the good things with NATO is that we actually are doing a lot of defence planning and I see in the audience a man called Heiner Brauss and he is an expert in doing exactly that. So actually, it is we have a very we have, for years, developed systems of how to make sure that Allies work together when it comes to developing different capabilities. Very few Allies can have the whole spectrum of capabilities and therefore one of the important aspects of the NATO cooperation is that we bring Allies together and then we decide on different capabilities. So, I would just start on top on that list and then work my way downwards. But to do so I need more defence spending, including from Germany. Moderator: Okay. Well understood. [laughter] Now, Letitia, your question, please? Question: Hello, thank you for having us here. We would like to know how is NATO going to approach and address its strategy actions to the ongoing shifting environment of the 21st century, especially with the political friction that has emerged due to the rise of populist movements. Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: So first of all, I think we have to be not too nervous about disagreements. I'm not saying that disagreements is fine and I welcome them, but it's a reality that when you have 29 Allies, from both sides of the Atlantic, then there will be disagreements and there will be different political parties. Again, I can use my own country as an example; there have always been some parties there against NATO for instance, and thats part of a political discourse. And I think people have been nervous before about not perhaps populist movements, but strong political movements that were very critical towards the transatlantic relationship or NATO membership, and we have also seen, as I mentioned before, disagreements, serious disagreements between Allies, like the Suez Crisis in '56 or the French withdrawal from the command structure or the the Iraq war in 2003 was a serious disagreement between Allies. I mean some Allies were heavily in favour of that war, some Allies were heavily against. And we see serious disagreement today also, on climate change and trade and many other issues. But my message is that the lesson we can learn from history is that NATO Allies have been able to deal, to handle and to overcome disagreements. Because, when it comes to the core responsibility of NATO, that we stand together and protect each other, that we are stronger together than alone, that is actually something we have been able to unite around, regardless of the disagreements. So, I'm not saying that disagreements on climate change or on the populist agenda or on migration or trade is not important, but I'm saying that what we have seen historically is that that hasnt undermined the core security cooperation between North America and Europe. And to some extent, thats exactly what we see today, because yes there are disagreements between Europe and North America, but North America are increasing their military presence in Europe now, as we speak. More troops, more equipment, more spending. In the two years that President Trump has been President, they have increased spending for the European Deterrence Initiative, for US presence in Europe, by 40%. I visited the Trident Juncture exercise in Norway, the biggest NATO exercise in a generation, half of the troops, almost half of the troops came from North America. So, thats not a sign of NATO weakness, even though I admit that there are differences between North America and Europe, and between other Allies. So, I dont exactly whether I answer your question, but if the question was how we deal with these differences and including populist movements, I think that we need to focus on that, regardless of differences on different issues, we have to protect each other, stand together when it comes to security and defence, because in a more dangerous world it is important that we maintain the strength of NATO, and that makes us all safe regardless of what we think about trade tariffs or climate change, which are important issues but which we should not allow undermining the security cooperation. Moderator: Thank you very much. Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me open the floor for the audience. Please raise your hands, stand up and wait for the microphone, and raise your question as short, as precise as possible, preferably of course in the English language. [Spoken in German] Question: Mr Secretary General, thank you very much for your impressive statement. I'm a former German Permanent Representative of to the EU, and so I even, in that capacity, former capacity, I agree with you, the EU will never be able to substitute NATO defence, with what you said. But wouldnt it be advisable for the EU to supplement NATO, in particular in view of the possibility that we might require European missions without necessarily be able to count on American leadership or strong involvement, in a given case? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Yes, also I welcome stronger EU efforts on defence, because I think that can actually help to strengthen NATO, because it's a good thing if European Allies develop more capabilities; that they work closer together, addressing the fragmentation of the European defence industry. I used to say that, you know, I think in the United States they have one main battle tank, in Europe we have something like eight different kinds of main battle tanks, which makes our sort of industry, our capability development much more expensive. So, as long as the EU efforts takes place in a way that strengthen the European pillar within NATO, thats something we should welcome. There are what we should not welcome is if EU starts to develop duplicating structures; two command structures for instance. The reality is that we need one strong and capable command structure, we cannot divide those resources on two. Because I remember, I think it was Ursula von der Leyen that said in one of the discussions we had about this, was that it will be totally meaningless for a country like Germany to allow NATO and EU to compete, because Germany, as most other NATO and EU members, they are members of both NATO and EU, so that will be like Germany competing with Germany. And therefore, we should not allow it will be not a wise decision by all those nations who are members of both NATO and the European Union to start to have two sets of command structures, or duplicate what NATO is doing. Then this is partly about yeah, and then of course, sometimes European Allies should be able to do things without United States, but actually they can also do that using the NATO command structures. I mean we havent said that all operations in NATO has to be with United States. It's very often with United States because they are so big, and actually the reality is that we are very often dependent on them. I know this is a bit sensitive issue, but I remember very well the Libya operation, because I was then the Prime Minister of Norway, and Norway participated. You have to remember that the Libya operation was not a NATO operation in the beginning, it was a European initiated operation, not so much by Germany, but by France and the UK. Yeah. And I was there in Paris, as the Norwegian Prime Minister and they asked who will join this coalition of the willing, and Norway said yes, and we joined. And the whole idea with that was to do something without NATO and without United States being in the lead. But the reality is that we soon discovered that we needed NATO and the US to help us. Question: [inaudible] Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Yeah, but it started as an EU not an EU, no, no, not an EU, but a European initiated operation. I know very well because I was part of all those preparations. When we met in Paris and made the final decision, NATO was not at the table, NATO was not there. It was after some time that we discovered that we needed the command structure, the capabilities of NATO and United States. And then we brought them on board [inaudible] So, I say this because so, just to say that yes, more European efforts on defence is great, but it should never undermine the strength of the transatlantic bond. And which and that this is partly about substance, but also partly about perception, because perception matters. So, if we speak too much about, you know for instance, this phrase "Strategic Autonomy", it's not totally clear what that means, but it sounds a bit like they're going to do these big strategic things alone, and I dont think thats wise, because actually the two world wars and the Cold War taught us the importance of doing things together. Yeah. So, I yeah. Moderator: Thank you. Henning Riecke? [applause] Question: Henning Riecke, German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. Thank you, Secretary General, for your speech and your lecture. I would like to hear a bit more what NATO does for the southern partners. I'm concerned that NATO does a lot to meet the Russian threats and the challenges there, but with the Black Sea strategy stalled, the Iraq training mission running, but a bit moderate, without German support, crisis reaction stability missions out of fashion, what could NATO offer to the southern partners and Allies? And what could Germany do to strengthen that? Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: So, when we speak about the challenges in the South, we speak about many different challenges, and it's also sometimes a bit unclear where is the South. I mean if we are in United States and speak about the South, we speak about Mexico. So, of course, we dont speak about that South. But what we usually mean by the South is North Africa, Middle East, and also actually all the way to Afghanistan. And again, the challenges vary a bit, but what is what shall I say a kind of common challenge is instability, sometimes weak governments, and different kind of terrorist organisations. NATO and NATO Allies have, either as NATO or outside NATO, engaged in big combat operations to defeat these terrorist organisations, as we did in Afghanistan after 9/11/2001 or as all NATO Allies, including Germany, but did in the coalition to defeat Daesh in Iraq and Syria. So, one part of that strategy is that NATO Allies have to be ready and capable of engaging in big combat operations to defeat state like terrorist organisations, as Daesh. So, part of the strategy is to have those capabilities. And, as we have seen since 2014, you have to remember that Daesh/ISIL controlled a territory as big as the United Kingdom in Iraq and Syria. They was actually able to threaten Baghdad and they controlled around eight million people. So, that was a serious threat and we needed real military capabilities to defeat Daesh. But having said that, I think that the long term strategy of NATO and NATO Allies in addressing the instability, the terrorism we see emanating from the South, should not be mainly combat operations. Because I think that the lesson learned, both from Afghanistan, from Iraq, yeah, from Libya, is that in the long term we need to build local capacity, so people in the region can stabilise their own country. And therefore I more and more believe that what we should try to do is to train local forces, build local security and defence institutions and help them stabilise their own country. And that is exactly what we now do in Afghanistan. There are many problems in Afghanistan, but at least we have been able to go from a NATO combat operation with more than 100,000 troops doing combat operations, to now have a more limited NATO presence, 16,000 troops training the Afghans. So, when the Taliban is attacked now, it's not the German or Norwegian or UK soldiers who are responding, but actually the Afghan forces themselves. We train them, we advise them, but they are on the frontline. The same in Iraq; I strongly believe that to prevent Daesh from coming back in some version or another, we need to train and build local capacity in Iraq to prevent us being forced to come back in a combat operation. So, the main message when it comes to the South is the more we can do, from training soldiers to building Ministry of Defence, intelligence, command structure, enabling them partly countries like Iraq or Afghanistan, but also working with partners like Tunisia and Jordan, prevention is better than intervention. If we can help them now, so we are not forced into intervening in a military operation, thats much better. So, prevention is better. The last thing about Germany, I welcome Germany is very present in Afghanistan, I was there a few days ago, I met the soldiers, extremely professional committed soldiers in Afghanistan, in the north, they are also present in Iraq, I welcome that. For me, it's a bit hard to understand why Germany can be present in Iraq in the US led coalition, but not in the NATO framework. I strongly believe in institutions and I strongly also believe that in terms of uncertainty, and also in times where we see someone questioning the strength of the transatlantic bond, we need institutions, because they overcome the different personalities and the political differences, as long as you have the strong institutions. So, I one thing is to discuss whether we should do training in Iraq, but given that we all agree that we should do training in Iraq, then I can't understand why we shouldn't do that also in the NATO framework, where we have all Allies sitting round a table, in Brussels, and all have the same say than I am not against the US led coalition, NATO is part of we support that, but it's hard to understand why the US coalition is so much better than me, or than NATO. So, thats my challenge. Question: Very good. [applause] Moderator: Okay, I have a request from the lady in the back, please? Question [Reuters]: Secretary General, Andrea Shalal with Reuters. Just in the last couple of hours, the Finnish Prime Minister has said that the GPS system in Finland was disrupted during Trident Juncture and he suspects Russia could have been behind it. Do you have any further information and any insight into what that would mean, if that is in fact proven to be true? Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: We have seen there have been similar reports from Norway and I cannot share more precise information with you, but what I can say is that we see that cyber, electronic warfare, electronic means are used more and more frequent in different operations, and therefore we take all these issues very seriously, partly to be able to deal with electronic warfare and to develop our capabilities to handle that, but also of course cyber. I will not pinpoint at any specific nation now, but I will just say that we have increased our abilities to deal with these kind of challenges and threats, including during military operations. Moderator: Thank you. I have much more requests for the floor than we have time, so I think we have another one or two questions and then we have to close the discussion because of your former schedule, Mr Secretary General. So, I have a question over there, please, in the last row. And then the final one, Mr Wittmann. Question: Thank you. My name is Michael Day from the Weekly Targus Post. Mr Secretary General, my question is concerning China. China is not a part of the INF Treaty. What's the role of the but China has a lot of intermediate range missiles, they are a threat to Taiwan too, they are a threat to the US Navy in the Pacific too. How important is the role of this Chinese armament, concerning the INF Treaty negotiations for United States and perhaps for Russia too? Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: So, you're pointing at something which is extremely important and that is that when we agreed the INF Treaty back in 1987, the US and the Soviet Union, then this was merely an issue for or this was actually an issue that only was about the Soviet Union and United States. Then, since then, the world has changed and China, but also other countries, have developed missile capabilities which, if they had been part of the INF Treaty, would have violated the INF Treaty. So, this is something that is of concern for all of us. Partly China, but you know, also North Korean, Iran and other countries have their missile programmes, which would have violated the INF Treaty if they had been part of the INF Treaty. So, we believe that internationalisation of these kind of agreements would be beneficial. At the same time, I strongly believe that we should now do whatever we can to make sure that Russia is in compliance with the existing INF Treaty and we continue to call on Russia to ensure full and transparent compliance with the INF Treaty as it is. Some years ago, there was a proposal in Geneva, in the UN framework there, to globalise or to internationalise the INF Treaty to also include China. There has been no progress in those efforts. In general, I will say that NATO has a very strong track record on nuclear disarmament. We have been advocating working for that for decades. We have reduced the importance of nuclear weapons in our strategy, our for years, and the number of warheads has been reduced by 90%, nuclear warheads on the NATO side, since the end of the Cold War. But we are concerned about the new Russian missiles and of course, we are also concerned about the fact that more and more countries, outside the INF Treaty, are developing systems which would have violated the Treaty if these countries were part of the Treaty. Moderator: Thank you. Whitman, please? Question: Thank you. Former General, Klaus Wittmann, Aspen Institute and Potsdam University. I would pursue for a moment, if I may, what was said about Russia earlier. I fully endorse NATO's stance and the reconfirmation of the Harmel philosophy, and at recent Summits the dialogue offers was reiterated. However, I would like to see NATO spell out with much more creativity the content of such dialogue. Of course, we are all aware of the intransigence of the present Russian leadership and also of the fact that, in NATO, different member states have different views about the dialogue with Russia. Now, if I may ask you directly, if you could personally set the agenda, what should the content of such dialogue be? Perhaps more long term than discussions in the NATO-Russia Council about present concerns, and with the long term view of cooperation as opposed to confrontational security. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Well, I think that one obvious issue should be the INF Treaty, which we have discussed today. Just to make sure that thats really a great example of what we can achieve through dialogue; it's arms control, and the INF Treaty is a cornerstone of the arms control regime in Europe. So, if you ask me about substance, I think that the most urgent and the most important question now, in the NATO-Russia relations, is to ensure that Russia is in full compliance with the INF Treaty. Then I also strongly believe that, with the tensions and with the difficult relationship we see now, it is also important that we develop, strengthen, all mechanisms to have predictability and transparency, when it comes to military activity, and this is something called the Vienna Document, which is for instance regulating the notification and observation of military exercises. There are some loopholes, some problems in that document, which has led to that Russia has not invited any NATO Ally to observe any Russian exercise since the end of the Cold War. And they claim that they are not violating the Vienna Document, because they interpret and they use all the loopholes, but by doing so they are at least undermining the intentions of the Vienna Document, which is an important tool to make sure that we have transparency. Every nation, also Russia, has the right to exercise their forces, but we need transparency, we need predictability, and we need the mechanisms for military lines of communications, and this is undermined by the fact that Russia is not very constructive in modernising the Vienna Document. So, these are at least two areas where we could work more together. I think that fundamentally this is about that Russia needs to give up the idea of spheres of influence, because Russia has, in a way, the understanding that big powers have a kind of right to decide what small neighbours should do. And to be honest with you, there are some and sometimes I meet the same arguments in also in Europe, that we should understand that. I dont understand it and I dont accept it. [applause] Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Because just think, if you accept that, then you accept a world order where big powers decide what small neighbours can do. And we dont want that world order. Therefore, when I hear that it's a provocation against Russia that we have accepted Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia as members, it's totally meaningless. They are three independent sovereign nations who have decided that they want to join NATO. It was not NATO going, in a way, East and grabbing them. It was them, through democratic decisions, wanted to join NATO. And one of the cornerstone of the what should I say the NATO-Soviet era was this Helsinki Final Act, with clearly it's stated that every nation has the right to decide its own path, including what kind of security arrangements they want to be part of. So, when Sweden decides not to be a member of NATO, I totally respect that. As a Norwegian, I will never try to convince [laughter] Sweden to join anything. [laughter] Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: But I also accept when Latvia or Lithuania says that we want to join. And sometimes I use my own country as an example again, because I am absolutely certain that Joseph Stalin didnt like that Norway joined NATO in 1949. But I'm very glad that London, Paris, and so on said we it's for Norway to decide. Not for Moscow. Or not for Washington. It's for Oslo to decide whether Oslo would like to be a member of NATO or not. And thats of course still the case. So, I think the fundamental problem now is that Russia wants to move back to world order, where they had the kind of say over neighbours. Thats very, very dangerous. So, thats my last world. Moderator: Thank you very much. [applause] Moderator: Looking at the watch, I believe we have to come to an end to this session. Sorry for those who have raised their hands and werent able to present their questions. So, I take the conclusion from this, Mr Secretary General, you have to come back, because there are still some open questions. Let me take the opportunity to thank you on behalf of the whole audience for joining us here in Berlin, at the NATO Talk Conference 2018. It was a great honour and a great pleasure to have you here in Berlin. Thank you very much. Goodbye. And all the best for your work in Brussels. [applause] Moderator: Thank you. And behalf of us all, [Spoken in German] [applause] In a speech hosted by the German Atlantic Society and the Federal Academy for Security Policy in Berlin on Monday (12 November 2018), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg underscored the importance of the transatlantic bond at a time of unprecedented security challenges. In particular, Mr Stoltenberg warned that the deployment of new Russian SSC-8 missiles puts the historic INF treaty at jeopardy, calling on Russia to ensure full compliance with the treaty. Read the full speech here (Natural News) As smart meters make their way across the United States, a growing number of people are vocalizing concerns about the devices and consumer privacy rights. The Fourth Amendment was designed to protect Americans from government surveillance and other forms of government overreach. Now, a federal court in Illinois has ruled that right is negotiable provided it is in the governments best interest. Even after officials ruled that smart meters are a form of government search and seizure, federal courts say that the information gathered by smart meters (and consequently, city-run utilities companies) is reasonable, and therefore not in violation of the Fourth Amendment. As the Fourth Amendment declares: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Smart meters and the right to privacy Naperville Smart Meter Awareness (NSMA) has been fighting against the forced implementation of smart meters in their city for one simple cause: There is no reason for the government to be collecting information from its citizens every 15 minutes. Even if that information is simple electric usage, data collection at 15-minute intervals is unnecessary for the purpose of billing customers. As NSMA explains, citizens of Naperville have no choice when it comes to smart meters: The only way to opt-out is by opting out of public electricity entirely. NSMA stated in their appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit: The ever-accelerating pace of technological development carries serious privacy implications. Smart meters are no exception. Their data, even when collected at fifteen-minute intervals, reveals details about the home that would be otherwise unavailable to government officials. . Naperville therefore searches its residents homes when it collects this data. The group contended further: Naperville argues that its citizens sacrifice their expectation of privacy in smart-meter data by entering into a voluntary relationship to purchase electricity from the city. This argument is unpersuasive. a choice to share data imposed by fiat is no choice at all. a home occupant does not assume the risk of near constant monitoring by choosing to have electricity in her home. NSMA has been fighting against the City of Naperville and their intrusions since 2011. In 2016, the District Court ruled in favor of the City, prompting NSMA to file their appeal. In 2018, the Court of Appeals again ruled in favor of the city. Even though the court concluded that smart meters are a form of search and seizure due to data collection, officials ultimately ruled that this data collection was reasonable. The court reportedly states that the governments interest in smart meters is significant. Smart meters allow utilities to reduce costs, provide cheaper power to consumers, encourage energy efficiency, and increase grid stability. We hold that these interests render the citys search reasonable, where the search is unrelated to law enforcement, is minimally invasive, and presents little risk of corollary criminal consequences. Funnily enough, studies show smart meters are wildly inaccurate and end up costing users more money. And as K.T. Weaver contends, this decision has essentially named smart meter data collection and privacy invasion as an official government search. Moreover, it appears that these officials have given preference to corporate interests over the rights of citizens. And again, it is entirely possible to achieve a modernized power grid without infringing on the peoples right to privacy. Learn more about smart meters and all their shortcomings at SmartMeters.news. Sources for this article include: GreenMedInfo.com SmartGridAwareness.org The left-wing media is all fake news, all the time, even when the video evidence of their fakery is crystal clear. See MediaFactWatch.com for more coverage. Jim Acosta, Jimmy Kimmel an the entire lying left-wing media are now claiming Jim Acosta never touched the White House intern. This video grab, they say, is a complete fake and didnt happen: Whats especially ironic in all this is how the very people claiming the video was fake news are themselves pushing blatantly fake news about the video which wasnt doctored at all. But left-wing viewers are so indoctrinated and brainwashed into an alternate reality, they actually believe the absurdly fake explanation thats been force-fed to them by left-wing comedians and media outlets. This is what the delusional left-wing media has come to: Telling their readers and viewers that what they are seeing with their own eyes didnt really happen . The media has now gone full Orwellian. After being exposed for pushing completely fake news, Jimmy Kimmel, the Washington Post, Stephen Colbert and all the other propaganda pushers of utterly fake news have yet to apologize to PJW or the White House . They continue to insist that a real video is a fake. Thats right: CNN, the king of selectively edited videos, green screen fakery and media hoaxes, now claims a Paul Joseph Watson video that was merely zoomed in was somehow doctored. Jimmy Kimmel repeated the lie on front of his live audience, falsely claiming the video was sped up when it clearly wasnt. ( Natural News ) The entire liberal media complex including despicable late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel has fabricated and pushed the most outrageous hoax weve ever seen. They claim a video that was zoomed in to show Jim Acosta grappling with a White House intern was a doctored video. About the author: Mike Adams (aka the Health Ranger) is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com called Food Forensics), an environmental scientist, a patent holder for a cesium radioactive isotope elimination invention, a multiple award winner for outstanding journalism, a science news publisher and influential commentator on topics ranging from science and medicine to culture and politics. Follow his videos, podcasts, websites and science projects at the links below. Mike Adams serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation. He has also achieved numerous laboratory breakthroughs in the programming of automated liquid handling robots for sample preparation and external standards prep. The U.S. patent office has awarded Mike Adams patent NO. US 9526751 B2 for the invention of Cesium Eliminator, a lifesaving invention that removes up to 95% of radioactive cesium from the human digestive tract. Adams has pledged to donate full patent licensing rights to any state or national government that needs to manufacture the product to save human lives in the aftermath of a nuclear accident, disaster, act of war or act of terrorism. He has also stockpiled 10,000 kg of raw material to manufacture Cesium Eliminator in a Texas warehouse, and plans to donate the finished product to help save lives in Texas when the next nuclear event occurs. No independent scientist in the world has done more research on the removal of radioactive elements from the human digestive tract. Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and American Indians. He is of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his Health Ranger passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution. Adams is the author of the worlds first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books. In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products. In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories. With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies. Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed strange fibers found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health gurus, dangerous detox products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics. Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness. In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over fifteen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics. Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com. Find more science, news, commentary and inventions from the Health Ranger at: Brighteon.com: Brighteon.com/channel/hrreport Diaspora: (uncensored social network) Share.NaturalNews.com GAB: GAB.com/healthranger Podcasts: HealthRangerReport.com Online store: HealthRangerStore.com #1 Bestselling Science Book Food Forensics: FoodForensics.com iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-health-ranger-report/id1063165791 SoundCloud: Soundcloud.com/healthranger Health Rangers science lab CWClabs.com Health Ranger bio HealthRanger.com TruthWiki.org Search engine: Webseed.com (Natural News) When psychotic political figures run the show, psychotic things happen to American citizens. Do we even need to speak the insidious names again of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney in order to make this point? Lets take a moment to review the extreme fallout thats still destroying Americans on our home turf, all while we fight a futile war started on false pretenses in a land where no invading forces have ever won, and where the most dangerous drug on earth is being harvested (and exported to the USA) at exponentially higher rates than before we invaded. As of this past July, there have been over 2,300 U.S. military deaths in the War in Afghanistan, and over 20,000 American service members have been wounded in action. Yet, according to federal statistics, here at home, opioid prescription drugs (yes, medications made from heroin) have killed over 33,000 Americans every year since 2015. That means more American civilians are dying every year from taking prescription drugs than all military deaths combined during the 17-year war thats still raging. Are we really fighting to defeat terrorism, or is it all smoke and mirrors while Big Pharma imports cheap heroin to enslave more Americans using smack for painkillers? The U.S. has spent over a trillion dollars to create, not destroy, the worlds premiere narco-state Sure, heroin (and cocaine) are imported to the United States from parts of the world other than Afghanistan, including China and South America, but since we invaded Afghanistan, the poppy fields are flourishing, and the drug trade has taken off like a rocket ship, and unsuspecting Americans are getting higher and higher, only to find themselves addicted to the most lethal drug on the planet. Is there any end in sight to this insanity? Were fighting a war FOR drugs, not a war against drugs. Did you know the War in Afghanistan is the longest war in U.S. history? We now stand at the brink of defeat. Make no mistake, we are not nation-building or installing democracy there. We are stealing resources, while the coward terrorists hide in elusive caves while brandishing laptop computers, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and shoulder rockets. It is clearly not a winnable war, and every politician knows it, but the problem is still the same most politicians are knee-deep invested in Pharma while they make millions (if not billions like chief war-makers Cheney and Rumfeld did) off the Military-Industrial-War-Complex. Those little pink flowers (opium poppy) are now the nemesis of America saving the rest of the world, because theyre killing us off by the tens of thousands every year, while we take our lethal medications just as the doctor prescribed. Heroin drug trafficking by the thousands of tonnes, all under the guise of a War on Terror The terror were fighting is actually highly addictive painkillers, not some rogue freaks blowing themselves up in public places in the name of their religion. Big Pharma is the bad religion here folks. Theres your fight. Theres your insurgency. After the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October of 2001, the opium production there surged from 180 tonnes to more than 3,000 tonnes the next year. Five years after that it had skyrocketed to 8,000 tonnes a year. Still think were doing any good over there? How do you think the Taliban continually funds their own war against us? Every spring, their opium harvest funds their guerrilla fighters and pays for more weapons to kill our military, all while they export heroin. Drug dealing dominates the economy there, and our politicians continue to vote for more war, more war. What were really funding, indirectly, are the heroin laboratories that manufacture painkillers for Americans who consume junk food and GMOs daily, wondering why their bodies ache continuously, their arthritis flairs up, their cancerous tumors come back, and the chemotherapy fails miserably. Heroin is on the upswing. Opioid addiction survived the U.S. government crackdown on OxyContin. Fatal overdoses have quadrupled over the past 5 years, with the help of drugs like Fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin itself. Go figure. Folks, if youre experiencing chronic pain, first try cleaning up your food and medicine by switching over to organic, then visit a Naturopathic Physician and a Chiropractor. Youll be blown away by the amazing transformation your body will make, with no side effects or accidental overdoses. Tune into Opioids.news for updates on the real War on drugs. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com Statista.com TheGuardian.com Opioids.news (Natural News) Democratic candidates are managing to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in a number of states following the 2018 midterms as new ballots giving them leads in races they lost on Tuesday continue to be found. In Arizona, Republican Rep. Martha McSally was ahead of crackpot Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema Tuesday evening and into Wednesday morning, but now, thanks to ballots that continue to trickle in, shes ahead by tens of thousands of votes, with a wider margin now expected as state officials continue to pad her total, according to AZ Central. Republicans smell Democratic rats, and in particular, they believe Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes has been using his position to cook the books for Kyrsten Sinema. State GOP officials in Arizona said that the party filed a public-records request Saturday regarding Fontes while alleging questionable and possibly illegal decisions made by Adrian Fontes, including opening voter centers for non-emergencies the weekend before the election, and curing ballots in the general, but not the primary election. State Republicans want all communications between Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes Office and the Sinema campaign and her allies, AZ Central reported. In Florida, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, the incumbent, lost on Election Night to GOP Gov. Rick Scott, while Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum lost the gubernatorial race to former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis. Now, nearly a week later and thanks to shenanigans in Broward and Palm Beach counties, new ballots have been just showing up in those two Democratic strongholds, eroding strong victory margins by Scott and DeSantis. On Sunday, following a court ruling last week saying that Broward and Palm Beach election officials had violated state laws and the Florida constitution regarding the handling of ballots, Scott declared victory and proclaimed Nelson a sore loser. Bill Nelsons a sore loser. Weve won, Scott said on Fox News Sunday. Ive had to win this election twice now. I will be going to Washington as the next U.S. senator from Florida, and Im going to work hard to change the direction of this country like we did in Florida. On election night Scott led Nelson by about 60,000 votes, but after new ballots were found that lead has been cut to about 12,500, or .015 percent, The National Sentinel reported. The judges have already said, they clearly violated the law, said Scott. Dems waging full assault against our election system In California, even long-serving Republicans who were considered to be in safe districts are coming up on the losing end. One of them is Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who has held his congressional seat for 30 years again, after Democratic operatives found several thousand ballots well after election day. Breitbart News reported: Several California Republicans who appeared to have held onto their congressional seats on Election Day saw their leads narrowed or reversed as late ballots continued to be counted, almost uniformly helping Democrats. In the 10th congressional district, Democrat Josh Harder had taken a lead of over 3,000 votes over Republican incumbent Jeff Denham by Saturday evening. Denham led by a slim margin on Election Day. In the 48th district, incumbent Republican Dana Rohrabacher saw a small Election Day lead reversed decisively, and the race was called for Democrat challenger Harley Rouda. In Georgia, meanwhile, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams, who lost by a 64,000-vote margin last week, is now clamoring for a recount after the state Democratic Party said a handful of counties have suddenly found thousands of ballots they now want counted. Of course, of the 5,569 votes found, 4,804 went for Abrams. There is a concerned effort by the lawless Democratic Party to steal elections all over the country because they cant win them outright with an agenda of open borders, violence, and hate. Read more about Democratic vote fraud at VoteFraud.news. Sources include: TheGatewayPundit.com TheNationalSentinel.com Breitbart.com (Natural News) The authoritarianism and tyranny of the Left, along with its disdain for Western religion, is on display again, this time in Minnesota where a pair of Christian filmmakers are being threatened by state officials with incarceration if they refuse to make films featuring gays and lesbians. As reported by CBN News, Carl and Angel Larson, owners of Telescope Media Group, appeared before the federal 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minn., last week to challenge a state law they say unconstitutionally forces them to produce content that contradicts their core religious beliefs. The couple, which is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom legal group, said they have already been threatened by state officials with large fines and up to three months in jail if they refuse to comply. As CBN News notes further: The Larsens want to enter the wedding industry. However, the states Human Rights Act stipulates that if the couple creates films celebrating their Christian beliefs about marriage that marriage is between one man and one woman they must also create films about marriage that violate their beliefs, including films promoting same-sex marriages. The government shouldnt threaten filmmakers with fines and jail time to force them to create films that violate their beliefs, ADF Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco said in a press release from the legal organization. Carl and Angel are storytellers they script, stage, conduct interviews, capture footage, select music, edit and more all to tell compelling stories through film that promote their religious beliefs. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of religious rights. In the case, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the high court ruled that the Colorado commission violated a Christian bakers First Amendments free exercise clause when it sanctioned him for refusing to create a cake for a gay couples wedding (the fake news New York Times called this a narrow decision). The neutral and respectful consideration to which (baker-shop owner Jack) Phillips was entitled was compromised here, now-retired Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote. The Civil Rights Commissions treatment of his case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection. (Related: Despite SCOTUS gay wedding cake ruling, Colorado Leftists are going after Christian baker Jack Phillips AGAIN.) This is why the GOP must keep control of the Senate The Times claimed that the decision was narrow because it appeared to apply specifically to Phillips case. The paper noted that Kennedy authored a ruling in 2015 that recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. But in regards to the Larsens case, theyre not trying to argue against the right to same-sex marriage. They, like Phillips, are trying to defend their religious expression rights under the First Amendment. And they simply do not believe that two men or two women should be married because their faith does not ascribe to it. The Supreme Courts Masterpiece decision found that the government must respect the belief held by countless Americans from all walks of life that marriage is between one man and one woman, Tedesco said. The 8th Circuit should reinstate the Larsens lawsuit and order the state to stop forcing the Larsens to speak messages about marriage that violate their beliefs. As a decision is pending, whats troublesome is that American citizens are increasingly being forced to defend their constitutional rights by tyrannical Left-wing state governments that are passing laws designed to strip them of those rights under the guise of conveying rights on others. The First Amendment, in particular, has been abused by the Left, and almost always in an attempt to attack Christianity to force believers into violating the tenets of their faith. This is why it is vitally important that Republicans keep their majority in the Senate and why Democrats are currently trying to steal GOP Senate victories: POTUS Donald Trumps record of appointing constitutionalists, not activists, to the federal bench and the Supreme Court, are going a long way towards reinstating and defending our founding principles. For everyone. Sources include: CBNNews.com NewsTarget.com (Natural News) Turmeric and curcumin are two substances most known for their wide array of health benefits. One of these is their positive impact on the heart; though the lipid-lowering effects of either substance is unknown. To answer this quandary, a team of researchers from The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University conducted a meta-analysis of numerous studies to assess this possible benefit. The researchers began by looking for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in various online databases using keywords like turmeric, cholesterol, triglycerides, and other compatible phrases. A total of 1,566 studies were identified. This number was trimmed down even further to seven after these studies were screened and examined by two independent investigators. Of the seven RCTs, the researchers chose to focus on those that included participants with Type 2 diabetes mellitus or metabolic syndrome, a collection of symptoms that increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes. Meta-analysis of these studies revealed that turmeric and curcumin had positive effects worth taking note of. For instance, the two substances were shown to impact the serum triglyceride and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels of patients at risk of cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, patients who had metabolic syndrome were also shown to benefit from reduced serum total cholesterol levels after being administered turmeric and curcumin. The researchers believe that these results were due to a number of molecular mechanisms. Curcumin can bind with and activate peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma. This nuclear receptor suppresses low-density lipoprotein cholesterol gene expression, which in turn can reduce concentrations of plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Another probable explanation was that curcumin was capable of interacting with peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha, cholesteryl ester transfer protein, and lipoprotein lipase, resulting in abated triglyceride levels. (Related: Two more reasons to take turmeric: It protects your heart, fights autoimmune disease.) Although beneficial in several aspects, the researchers stated that turmeric and curcumin had no noticeable effects in many others. The serum total cholesterol levels of hyperglycemic patients remained the same, as did the serum high-density lipoprotein levels of patients at risk of cardiovascular disease. However, since the majority of these studies utilized unformulated curcumin, the researchers added that a different form of curcumin would be better for future clinical trials. As is, curcumin has very poor bioavailability because the human body is unable to fully absorb it before expelling it. Subjects who received turmeric and curcumin experienced a natural cardioprotective effect, with lowering of serum [low-density lipoprotein cholesterol] and [triglyceride] levels, as compared to subjects who did not, wrote the researchers in their study, published in Nutrition Journal. They added that the effects of turmeric and curcumin on total cholesterol is still inconclusive, although it can reduce the total cholesterol levels of those who have a higher likelihood of cardiovascular disease. All in all, more studies would be necessary to confirm this, preferably with a form of curcumin with enhanced bioavailability. What else can turmeric do for the heart? According to Healthline.com, curcumin can improve the function of the endothelium or blood vessel lining. Through this, curcumin can greatly minimize the chances of endothelial dysfunction, which is a factor and major driver behind cardiovascular disease. In fact, several studies have confirmed this beneficial effect, with one study even stating that curcumin is as effective as exercise in this respect. Moreover, curcumin has been shown to cut back on inflammation and oxidation, both of which can impact an individuals chances of developing cardiovascular disease. The efficacy of curcumin is such that coronary artery bypass surgery patients who received a small dosage of curcumin over the course of their hospital stay were 65 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack. If youd like to go over the heart-healthy advantages of turmeric and other natural remedies, read ReverseHeartDisease.news. Sources include: Science.news Link.Springer.com Healthline.com The Camp Fire roaring in Northern California's Sierra Nevada foothills has destroyed thousands of homes and left dozens of people dead in a matter of days, making it the most destructive and deadliest wildfire in recorded state history. SIZE To get a sense of the scale of the wildfires burning in California, use the map below to compare each blaze to any of the 1,000 most-populous cities or towns in the U.S. #embed-20181112-woolsey-fire-cities iframe {width: 1px;min-width: 100%} var pymParent = new pym.Parent('embed-20181112-woolsey-fire-cities', 'https://dataviz.nbcnews.com/projects/20181112-woolsey-fire-cities/index.html', {}); THE PERIMETER SMOKE FORECAST DAMAGE MAP AIR QUALITY PHOTOS AND VIDEOS One week after the deadly Camp Fire ignited in Northern California's Butte County, drones were allowed to fly above the burn zone to capture a glimpse of the devastation. The blaze is California's deadliest and most destructive wildfire. Drone video shows the destruction and devastation in Paradise after the Camp Fire ripped through the Butte County town. Drone video shows what is left of Paradise after the Camp Fire ripped through the town in Butte County. [NATL-BAY]PHOTOS: Wildfire Ravages Butte County, Leaving Dozens Dead The first-quarter woes continued for the 49ers. And things did not get much better for the team in the second, third and most of the fourth quarters, either. Paradise Destroyed: Camp Fire Leaves Small California Town in Ashes There may be one more Clinton on the campaign trail this fall. This terrifying video of the Camp Fire was posted by a Butte County resident on Thursday as he and his family tried to escape the fast-moving blaze that has already burned at least 70,000 acres Friday morning. One survivor from Paradise who managed to escape the flames in his neighborhood did not flee empty-handed, taking with him five neighbors and six pets as flames surrounded them. Marianne Favro reports. Video from Action News Now shows the black smoke from the fast-spreading Camp Fire covering the sky in Chico. [NATL-LA GALLERY UPDATED 10/28] Smoke and Fire From Space: Wildfire Images From NASA Satellites Dozens of people have died and tens of thousands of Californians have been forced from their homes as massive wildfires continue to rage in the northern and southern ends of the state. The Camp Fire in Northern California's Butte County has become the most destructive and deadliest wildfire in recorded state history. The Woolsey Fire north of Los Angeles, meanwhile, has killed at least two killed and wiped out hundreds of structures. Here are some ways to help those impacted by the wildfires: DONATIONS Anyone who wants to help can text "CAWILDFIRES" to 90999 to make a $10 donation to support RedCross disaster efforts. GoFundMe has also set up a page with fundraising campaigns for victims of the fires in both northern and southern California. Donations can also be made through the Salvation Army. North Valley Community Foundation is accepting monetary donations as well as supplies. Caring Choice, a nonprofit in Chico, is accepting donations to help offer relief to those affected by recent Northern California Fires. You can make a note in the memo whether you prefer your donation be used for, food, clothing, housing or other things. Among supplies needed are paper products (toilet paper, forks, spoons, paper plates, tissues, paper towels), and women's undergarments, as well as warm clothes, including shoe and socks, Butte County officials said. The North Valley Animal Disaster Group is taking care of animals and is accepting donations. Call 530-899-3873 or visit this site for more information. United Way of Greater Los Angeles has started a disaster relief fund for victims of the Hill and Woolsey fires. Similarly, United Way of Northern California has set up an option on its donation for page for people to put money toward Camp fire relief. The Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation has also put out a call for donations to raise money to purchase hydration backpacks for firefighters. Donations can be made online at the organization's website. AirBnb was looking for host homes to open their spaces for evacuees of the Woolsey and Hill Fires through Nov. 29. More than 850 homes throughout the SoCal region, including dozens in San Diego County, were available. Those wishing to volunteer should fill out an application and wait for instructions. Notarized applications are required. Contact Caring Choices by calling 530-899-3873 or visiting them at 1398 Ridgewood in Chico. AT&T was waiving charges for those affected by the fires. See more information here. T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon are offering a similar deal, with more information available on their websites. T-Mobile support trucks were also to be in the greater Ventura area Monday and Tuesday to help those affected by the Woolsey fire. They would provide connectivity, USB cables, chargers, battery packs, masks and toiletries. See more information here. Additionally, NBC Los Angeles has a Southern California wildfires Facebook group with local information on ways to help. The United States imposed new sanctions Thursday on Venezuela and Cuba and promised additional penalties against Nicaragua as the Trump administration laid out a hard-line policy toward countries the White House branded a "troika of tyranny." National security adviser John Bolton condemned what he called the "destructive forces of oppression, socialism and totalitarianism" that he said the three countries represent. In a speech in Miami, home to thousands of exiles from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, Bolton said the U.S. "will no longer appease dictators and despots near our shores in this hemisphere." He spoke at the Freedom Tower, an important local landmark to the Cuban community in South Florida. The administration will prohibit U.S. citizens from involvement in the gold export trade from Venezuela. American officials have said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro illegally exported at least 21 metric tons of gold to Turkey to avoid U.S. sanctions and to try to help rescue a collapsing economy once bolstered by vast oil reserves. The U.S. government has sanctioned dozens of top Venezuelan officials, including Maduro, as part of economic measures designed at pressuring the South American country's return to democracy. Bolton blamed Cuba for enabling Maduro's government and he urged the nations of the region to "let the Cuban regime know that it will be held responsible for continued oppression in Venezuela." In a clear contrast to the Cuban policy of the Obama administration, Bolton said the State Department added over two dozen entities owned or controlled by the Cuban military and intelligence services to a restricted list of entities with which financial transactions by U.S. persons are prohibited. Bolton said the goal is to prevent dollars from reaching the Cuban military, security and intelligence services. South Florida has long been home to a large community of Cubans emigres, many of whom will welcome a tougher line on the Havana government. In recent years, tens of thousands of Venezuelans have settled in the area as Venezuela's economy has collapsed. Bolton's speech may energize voters in both groups heading into Tuesday's elections. Bolton also sent a strong warning to President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, where more than 300 people have been killed since protests erupted in April calling for Ortega's resignation. "Free, fair, and early elections must be held in Nicaragua, and democracy must be restored to the Nicaraguan people," he said. "Until then, the Nicaraguan regime, like Venezuela and Cuba, will feel the full weight of America's robust sanctions regime." In grouping the three countries together, Bolton said "this troika of tyranny, this triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua, is the cause of immense human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere." Bolton mocked the leaders as stooges of socialism. "These tyrants fancy themselves strongmen and revolutionaries, icons and luminaries," he said. "In reality, they are clownish, pitiful figures more akin to Larry, Curly, and Moe." On the other hand, Bolton called Brazil's president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, a "likeminded leader" and said his election last weekend demonstrates "a growing regional commitment to free-market principles, and open, transparent, and accountable governance." Bolsonaro whose victory moved Brazil sharply to the right, built his popularity on a mixture of often outrageous comments and hard-line positions, but he consolidated his lead by promising to enact market-friendly reforms. The utility behind the natural gas explosions in Massachusetts in September is planning to provide 20,000 hot Thanksgiving dinners to customers and their families and friends to show appreciation for their continued patience throughout the recovery effort. "This meal is a small token of our gratitude to them," Joe Hamrock, President and CEO of NiSource, the parent company of Columbia Gas, said. "I'll be celebrating the holiday here in the Merrimack Valley, and I'm going to ensure we do everything we can to help this community have a happy and healthy start to the holiday season." Pablo Vegas, who is the chief restoration officer for Columbia Gas, echoed Hamrock. "By providing Thanksgiving meals we hope we can relieve a little bit more of the burden during this holiday season," Vegas said. Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera says meals provided by Columbia Gas will be served at the temporary trailer parks where some residents are being housed as well as at a hall in Lawrence. There will also be several takeout locations. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker says more than 2,000 families, or about 7,500 people, are currently in temporary housing. The disaster killed one person and injured dozens of others in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover, and destroyed or damaged more than 100 homes. Thousands of homes and businesses lost gas service. Columbia says it hopes to have gas fully restored by mid-December. Customers who would like to receive meals will need to reserve them, either for pick-up or at a sit-down meal, at ColumbiaGasMA.com/Thanksgiving or by calling 877-399-0506. Reservations can be made until Nov. 16. Sit-down meals in a community style setting will be offered at Lawrence Elks Lodge, South Common Park (heated tent), Pemberton Park (heated tent) and Andover Senior Center. For those who would like to pick up their meal, they can reserve a scheduled pick up time. The pick up locations will be Andover Town Hall, First and Main Marketplace in North Andover and Elks Lodge in Lawrence. Nicole Ricci was just minutes away from her home before she was killed when the driver of the car she was in slammed it into a Holbrook, Massachusetts home on Sunday. The 20-year-old Stoughton resident would have celebrated her birthday next month but rather than setting up candles for a cake, Ricci's family are using them for her vigil. Police responded to a motor vehicle crash on Route 139 shortly before 5 a.m. At the scene, they learned the vehicle Ricci was in was traveling west on Route 139 when it crossed over the lane and struck a telephone pole. The incident caused the vehicle to go airborne before it crash-landed on the roof of a home on Kingsley Street. "I heard a loud bang. I thought somebody smashed into my truck, so I came outside and I hear a kid moaning, crying in a lot of pain," Patrick Touhey, who lives across the street, said. He says he found a male victim laying outside of the car, by the roof. He pulled the victim out after calling 911. The two male occupants of the car, a 21-year-old man from Holbrook and a 19-year-old man from Holbrook, were transported to a nearby hospital with serious injuries. A person who knew Ricci told NBC10 Boston that she was well-liked by everyone. "She was that type of person. Everybody liked her," someone who knew the victim told NBC10 Boston. "There's no hatred towards her." According to officials, the house sustained serious structural damage. The people who live in the home were not there at the time of the crash and they are now looking for another place to stay. The family dog was at the home during the time of the crash but was uninjured. "I'm just kind of I would say maybe still a little bit in shock," Michelle Carter, the homeowner, said. "It looks like a tornado almost like ripped through the house. Just debris everywhere." Carter, who lives in the home with her sister and daughter, said she left her home to meet up with friends just before the crash occurred. "I really think like my parents, my guardian angels, were looking out for me. They're like, 'Go out. Have a night out,'" Carter said. Authorities extricated Ricci and rushed her to an area hospital, where she died. According to Ricci's uncle, the victim was in the car with her boyfriend, Hector. It's unclear if he was the one driving the car. A vigil for Ricci will be held at Holbrook Lake at 5:30 p.m. Monday. The crash remains under investigation, but police believe speed played a factor. No charges have been filed at this time. A 24-year-old man is dead and at least seven others have been wounded in shootings across the city of Chicago on Sunday. The fatal shooting took place in the 4600 block of South Lamon just after 7 p.m., according to police. The victim was standing on a sidewalk when a person walked up to him and opened fire, striking him in the chest and abdomen. The victim later succumbed to his injuries, and police are still searching for a suspect. Earlier Sunday, a 17-year-old boy was standing on a sidewalk in the 7700 block of South Normal at approximately 3:45 p.m. when a person walked up to him and opened fire, striking him in the head. The victim was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, and police are still searching for a suspect. In the city's most recent shooting, two men were inside of a fast food restaurant in the 7100 block of South State Street when another men walked inside and fired shots at them. A 29-year-old man was taken to the University of Chicago in critical condition after he was shot in the face, and a 20-year-old man was taken to the same hospital in critical condition with a gunshot wound to his chest. No one is in custody, and police are still investigating. Here are the rest of Sundays shootings: Authorities say a police officer who was responding to a shooting at a suburban Chicago bar fatally shot an armed security guard who was working there. The Cook County sheriff's office says officers responded shortly after 4 a.m. Sunday to a call of shots fired at Manny's Blue Room in Robbins. Sheriff's spokeswoman Sophia Ansari says an officer from nearby Midlothian shot a man later identified as 26-year-old Jemel Roberson. Ansari says four other people had gunshot wounds, but their injuries weren't considered life-threatening. She says at least one of them was believed to have fired shots during the shooting before police arrived. Officers from Robbins and Midlothian were the first on the scene. Robbins police Chief Roy Wells told reporters Sunday the initial shooting stemmed from an argument. Police were investigating an fatal officer-involved shooting at a south suburban bar that left one security guard dead and four others wounded. Just after 4 a.m. on Sunday, officers responded to a call of shots fired at Mannys Blue Room Bar at 2911 S. Claire Blvd. in Robbins, and a Midlothian officer who entered the bar discharged their weapon at an armed man, who later died at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to Sophia Ansari, a spokeswoman for the Cook County sheriffs office. The man had been working security at the bar and was identified 26-year-old Jemel Roberson, according to Ansari and the Cook County medical examiners office. Roberson lived in the Homan Square neighborhood on the West Side. Heavy police presence surrounded a Robbins bar early Sunday morning where a shooting occurred around 4 a.m., officials said. NBC 5s Lexi Sutter reports. Authorities released few details about the shooting, but said the incident began as an argument inside the bar, according to Robbins Police Chief Roy Wells, who spoke at a press conference Sunday morning. Four other people in the bar suffered gunshots and were taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and Metro South Hospital in Blue Island, Ansari said. Their injuries were not considered life-threatening. At least one of the wounded was considered to be a shooter, Ansari said. They were in custody, but it was not immediately clear if other people inside the bar had fired shots. Robbins police initially responded to the shooting and requested help from two Midlothian officers, according to a statement from Midlothian police. One of those Midlothian officers encountered a subject with a gun and was involved in an officer involved shooting, according to their statement. The bar shooting was being investigated by the Cook County sheriffs office. The shooting involving the Midlothian officer was being handled by Illinois State Police. It is the policy of the Midlothian Police Department to utilize the Illinois State Police Public Integrity Task Force for any officer-involved shootings so we can ensure transparency and maintain public trust, Midlothian police said. [NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More Residents and community leaders are not giving up on trying to discourage Target from closing two stores on Chicago's South Side. A rally was scheduled for Monday outside the Target in the city's South Loop - a store that isn't slated to close, but that Rep. Bobby Rush said is important to its community in the same ways the two slated for closure are to theirs. "Whoever made the decision didnt understand, dont know this community," Rush said at a community meeting last week, where residents of the Morgan Park and Chatham neighborhoods expressed concerns about the closures of the stores in Marshfield Plaza and on West 86th Street and Cottage Grove. The Minneapolis-based retailer announced plans to shutter the stores the week before, calling it a "difficult decision," but one that had to be made based on performance. "The decision to close a store is always difficult," a store spokeswoman said in a statement, "and follows a rigorous annual process to evaluate the performance of every store in the portfolio and maintain the overall health of the business." The company said it also considers the proximity of other Target stores before deciding to close a location. "Target remains committed to Chicago and will continue to serve guests at nearby stores, the spokeswoman said. "Despite investing millions od follars in the shopping experience during the past six years, we saw multiple years of decline and underperformance." But Rep. Bobby Rush said he is hoping Target will reconsider, sending the company a letter and hosting the community meeting to hear from residents of the predominantly African-American communities. "What are the seniors going to do? What are the kids going to do? Where are the jobs gonna go?" asked Michael LaFargue, of the West Chesterfield Community Council. The company said it wants to ensure no job losses and planned on helping employees relocate to other locations. While the decision stands as is, Rush said he was expected to meet with Target executives Thursday in an effort to change their minds. Catholic bishops are entering their final week of debate over hot-button issues facing young Catholics, including how the church should welcome gays and respond to the clerical sex abuse scandal that has discredited many in the church hierarchy. The monthlong synod of bishops ends next Saturday with the adoption by the 260-plus cardinals, bishops and priests of a final document and approval of a separate, shorter letter to the world's Catholic youth. Some of the youth delegates to the meeting have insisted that the final document express an inclusive message to make LGBT Catholics feel welcome in a church that has often shunned them. The Vatican took a step in that direction by making a reference to "LGBT" for the first time in its preparatory document heading into the meeting. But some bishops have balked at the notion, including Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, who insisted in his speech that "there is no such thing as an 'LGBTQ Catholic' or a 'transgender Catholic' or a 'heterosexual Catholic,' as if our sexual appetites defined who we are." But other bishops have expressed a willingness to use the language, though it remains to be seen if the final document or the letter will. Each paragraph will be voted on one by one and must obtain a two-thirds majority. "The youth are talking about it freely and in the language they use, and they are encouraging us 'Call us, address us this because this is who we are,'" Papua New Guinea Cardinal John Ribat told a press conference Saturday. One of those young people, Yadira Vieyra, who works with migrant families in Chicago, said gays often feel attacked and shunned by the church. "We know that's not true, any Catholic knows that's not true," she said. But she added bishops need to communicate that "the church is here for them." Catholic church teaching holds that gays should be loved and respected but that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered." The Oct. 3-28 synod has unfolded against the backdrop of the clergy sex abuse scandal exploding anew in the U.S., Germany, Poland and other nations. Some conservatives have charged that a gay subculture in the priesthood is to blame, even though studies have shown that gays are not more likely than heterosexuals to abuse. Many of the young delegates have insisted that the final document address the abuse scandal straight on, and Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli hinted that it would. "One of the key things that will be important going forward is not just that there might be a word of apology, of recognition and of aiming for better practices, but that there is action associated with that," he said. Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich said young people are also demanding accountability and transparency from the church's leadership, which has been excoriated for having covered-up the abuses of predator priests for decades. He repeated his call, first made in an interview last week with National Catholic Reporter, for bishops to cede their own authority and allow an external process involving lay experts to investigate them when an accusation against them has been made. "Lay people want us to succeed. People want us to get this right," Cupich said. "Yes, there's a lot of anger out there. But beneath that anger there's a sadness. There's a sadness that the church is better than this, and that we should get this right." The following content is created in partnership with Hartford HealthCare. It does not reflect the work or opinions of NBC Owned Television Stations Group editorial staff. Click here to learn more about Hartford HealthCare. A Team Approach to Treating Prostate Cancer Prostate cancer is the abnormal growth of cells in a man's prostate gland. The prostate sits just below the bladder. It makes part of the fluid for semen. In young men, the prostate is about the size of a walnut. As men age, the prostate usually grows larger. Prostate cancer is common in men older than 65. It usually grows slowly and can take years to grow large enough to cause any problems. As with other cancers, treatment for prostate cancer works best when the cancer is found early. Often, prostate cancer that has spread responds to treatment. Older men who have prostate cancer usually die from other causes. Experts don't know what causes prostate cancer, but they believe that your age, family history (genetics), and race affect your chances of getting it. What are the symptoms? Prostate cancer usually doesn't cause symptoms in its early stages. Most men don't know they have it until it is found during a regular medical exam. When problems are noticed, they are most often problems with urinating. But these same symptoms can also be caused by an enlarged prostate (benign prostatic hyperplasia). An enlarged prostate is common in older men. See your doctor for a checkup if: You have urinary problems, such as: Not being able to urinate at all. Having a hard time starting or stopping the flow of urine. Having to urinate often, especially at night. Having pain or burning during urination. You have difficulty having an erection. You have blood in your urine or semen. You have deep and frequent pain in your lower back, belly, hip, or pelvis. How is prostate cancer diagnosed? The most common way to check for prostate cancer is to have a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test. A higher level of PSA may mean that you have prostate cancer. But it could also mean that you have an enlargement or infection of the prostate. If your PSA is high, you may need a prostate biopsy to figure out the cause. A biopsy means that your doctor takes tissue samples from your prostate gland and sends them to a lab for testing. How is prostate cancer treated? Your treatment will depend on what kind of cancer cells you have, how far they have spread, your age and general health, and your preferences. You and your doctor may decide to manage your cancer with active surveillance or to treat it with surgery or radiation. If you are over age 80 or have other serious health problems, like heart disease, you may choose not to have treatments to cure your cancer. Instead, you can just have treatments to manage your symptoms. This is called watchful waiting. Choosing treatment for prostate cancer can be confusing. Talk with your doctor to choose the treatment that's best for you. For more information log on to https://hartfordhealthcare.org/services/cancer-care/conditions/prostate-cancer or call 855.255.6181. People from our state are stepping up to help those affected by the raging fires in California. About a half dozen American Red Cross volunteers from our state including at least one who recently responded for hurricane recovery are now supporting those dealing with the deadly fires. Red Cross volunteer Joe Apicelli is on the ground in California in a region devastated by the Camp Fire. In the city of Chico, the Groton-native is helping to serve meals to some of the tens of thousands who left their homes because of the destructive flames. Some of the local teenagers are numb from this. They cant believe that their school is burned down and theyre not sure when theyre going back to class. Theyre cautioned to be upbeat. But you can just see it in their eyes. Theyre not sure, said Apicelli. So far, dozens have died during the most destructive fire in Californias history. It has torched about 6,500 homes. For those who head to safety, there are several shelters and they will find hard-working volunteers including Apicelli. Hes ready to serve them a warm meal and provide a bit of comfort in the chaos. People are just flocking to us for advice. Theyre flocking to us for information and hope," said Apicelli. Apicelli expects to help out in California for at least three weeks before returning to Connecticut. Several schools have are closed in observance of Veterans Day, but for the Plainville school district, its a holiday worth celebrating together. The students of the middle school in Plainville hosted a Veterans Day presentation this morning to learn about the heroes whove protected this country. Suzanne Schweitzer, the schools psychologist and a U.S. Army veteran, spearheaded the event to give students a deeper understanding of the commitment and sacrifice that all of our veterans have made to keep this country free, Schweitzer said. Higganum native Arthur Wiknik was drafted into the Vietnam War at 20 years old and shared a message of gratitude with the students. I want the kids to know that its a very honorable thing to be in the military, and very maturing, Wiknik said. We know what its like to be in other places where theres not running water, where theres an oppressive government. Weve got it pretty good here. Fast forward to today, with Warrant Officer Tasha Dow serving in the Connecticut National Guard with 143rd RSG in Middletown. She spoke to students about the sacrifice shes making away from her two children to serve her country. My kids, theyve had to deal with me being gone a few times, Dow said, and its a hard thing to reconcile with other kids who dont understand what thats like. Students honored veterans with awards, a color guard, and music. Veterans honored students with a chorus of sincere Thank yous and encouragement if they choose to pursue the same career. Its something that they could do too, Dow said, and theres a lot of pride. Its a job. Its something really important. A man from Maine who was heading to Connecticut, but never arrived has been found safe on Wednesday. Police said 76-year-old Robert Wetherbee left his home in Maine to come to North Windham, but never arrived. He had been missing since Thursday. A Silver Alert was issued, but was canceled after he was found safe on Wednesday. According to State Police, Wetherbee was found in Norwich by Norwich Police officers. He will be transported to Backus Hospital for an evaluation. Hamden police are trying to identify a suspect accused of attacking another person at a local gas station. Police said the suspect, described as a man in his 50s, became very upset when the victim backed up a vehicle near the gas pumps at the Gulf Gas Station at 1624 Dixwell Avenue on Friday. The two men began arguing, and the suspect then took an ax handle from his car and hit the victim several times, according to police. The suspect fled in a silver minivan. He is described as 5-foot-5 with a medium build and black curly hair. Emergency crews responded to treat the victim. Anyone with information or who recognizes the suspect pictured above is asked to contact the Hamden Police Department at 203-230-4030. What to Know The Camp Fire in Butte County has resulted in at least 29 deaths, making it the third-deadliest wildfire on record in the state The blaze has burned 173 square miles (111,000 acres) and is 25 percent contained as of Sunday It has destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, nearly all of them homes As relatives desperately searched shelters for missing loved ones, crews stepped up the search for bodies in the smoking ruins of Paradise on Sunday, loading the remains of at least one victim into a hearse. Wildfires continued to rage on both ends of the state. The statewide death toll stood at 31, including 29 in Butte County, and appeared certain to rise. In Southern California, the badly burned bodies of two people were found inside a burned vehicle in a long driveway in Malibu. More than 220 people were reported missing after the so-called Camp Fire ravaged a swath of Northern California. At least five search teams were working in Paradise a town of 27,000 that was largely incinerated on Thursday and in surrounding communities. Authorities called in a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify victims of the most destructive wildfire in California history. One victim's identity was confirmed by family late Sunday as 63-year-old former San Francisco resident Ernest Foss Jr. Foss, a musician who moved to Paradise about eight years ago. He was found outside his home. His 36-year-old stepson, who was his caretaker, was among the missing. By early afternoon, one of the two black hearses stationed in Paradise had picked up another set of remains. People looking for friends or relatives called evacuation centers, hospitals, police and the coroner's office. Sol Bechtold drove from shelter to shelter looking for his mother, Joanne Caddy, a 75-year-old widow whose house burned down along with the rest of her neighborhood in Magalia, just north of Paradise. She lived alone and did not drive. Bechtold posted a flyer on social media, pinned it to bulletin boards at shelters and showed her picture around to evacuees, asking if anyone recognized her. He ran across a few of Caddy's neighbors, but they hadn't seen her. As he drove through the smoke and haze to yet another shelter, he said, "I'm also under a dark emotional cloud. Your mother's somewhere and you don't know where she's at. You don't know if she's safe." He added: "I've got to stay positive. She's a strong, smart woman." Officials and relatives held out hope that many of those unaccounted for were safe and simply had no cellphones or other ways to contact loved ones. The sheriff's office in the stricken northern county set up a missing-persons call center to help connect people. Gov. Jerry Brown said California is requesting aid from the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has blamed "poor" forest management for the fires. Brown told a press briefing that federal and state governments must do more forest management but said that's not the source of the problem. "Managing all the forests in everywhere we can does not stop climate change," Brown said. "And those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies that we're now witnessing, and will continue to witness in the coming years." More than 8,000 firefighters in all battled three large wildfires burning across nearly 400 square miles (1,040 square kilometers) in Northern and Southern California, with out-of-state crews continuing to arrive and gusty, blowtorch winds starting up again. The worst of the blazes was in Northern California, where the number of people killed in that fire alone, at least 29, made it the third-deadliest on record in the state. Two people were also found dead in a wildfire in Southern California, where flames tore through Malibu mansions and working-class Los Angeles suburbs alike. The two severely burned bodies were discovered in a driveway in celebrity-studded Malibu, where residents forced from their homes included Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian West and Martin Sheen. Actor Gerard Butler said on Instagram that his Malibu home was "half-gone," and a publicist for Camille Grammer Meyer said the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star lost her home in the seaside enclave. Flames also besieged Thousand Oaks, the Southern California city in mourning over the massacre of 12 people in a shooting rampage at a country music bar Wednesday night. In Northern California, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the county consulted anthropologists from California State University at Chico because, in some cases, investigators have been able to recover only bones and bone fragments. The devastation was so complete in some neighborhoods that "it's very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there," Honea said. Authorities were also bringing in a DNA lab and encouraged people with missing relatives to submit samples to aid in identifying the dead after the blaze destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, nearly all of them homes. Firefighters gained modest ground overnight against the blaze, which grew slightly to 173 square miles (111,000 acres) from the day before but was 25 percent contained, up from 20 percent, according to the state fire agency, Cal Fire. But Cal Fire spokesman Bill Murphy warned that gusty winds predicted into Monday morning could spark "explosive fire behavior." About 300,000 people statewide were under evacuation orders, most of them in Southern California. Fire officials said Sunday morning that the larger of that region's two fires, the one that hit Malibu, grew to 130 square miles (337 square kilometers) and was 10 percent contained. But the strong, dry Santa Ana winds that blow from the interior toward the coast returned after a one-day lull, fanning the flames. The count of lost structures in both Southern California fires climbed to nearly 180, authorities said. The large mobile home community of Seminole Springs, in the rugged Santa Monica Mountains north of Malibu, appeared devastated. Brown's request for a major-disaster declaration from Trump would make victims eligible for crisis counseling, housing and unemployment help, and legal aid. Drought, warmer weather attributed to climate change, and the building of homes deeper into forests have led to longer and more destructive wildfire seasons in California. While California officially emerged from a five-year drought last year, much of the northern two-thirds of the state is abnormally dry. "Things are not the way they were 10 years ago. ... The rate of spread is exponentially more than it used to be," said Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen, urging residents to evacuate rather than stay behind to try to defend their homes. One of the Northern California fire's victims was an ailing woman whose body was found in bed in a burned-out house in Concow, near Paradise. Ellen Walker, who was in her early 70s, was home alone when the fire struck on Thursday, according to Nancy Breeding, a family friend. Breeding said Walker's husband was at work and called a neighbor to tell his wife to evacuate, but she was on medication and might not have been alert. Authorities confirmed her death late Friday. "A fireman took him to the house to confirm," Breeding said. "This is a devastating thing, and it's happening to so many people." Associated Press writers Janie Har, Daisy Nguyen, Don Thompson, Martha Mendoza, Christopher Webber, Andrew Dalton and John Antczak contributed to this story. The most destructive wildfire in state history continued to burn Sunday night in Northern California, while other blazes burned in other parts of the state. There are now 31 confirmed deaths and more than 200 people unaccounted for in the Camp and Woolsey fires. More than 4,000 firefighters are currently on the ground and more are on the way, including teams from across the state of Texas. RIGHT NOW: Dozens of firefighters from here in North Texas including this team from @FortWorthFire are getting ready to roll out and head to California, where theyll help crews battle the wildfires that are raging there. #NBCDFWNow #CaliforniaWildfires pic.twitter.com/dpU7a8WIuR Tim Ciesco (@TimCiescoNBC5) November 12, 2018 Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said more than 200 firefighters will be deployed to aid in the firefighting efforts. In Southern California, where the Woolsey Fire burned, firefighters continued to work around the clock in an effort to protect homes and lives. "We're tired, but this is what we do," said one firefighter on the front lines. Help is on the way from the Lone Star State. A nice stretch of weather is in store this week with some much needed time to dry out. With a good amount of sun, we will be back up to seasonal levels in the lower 80s this afternoon.The warming trend continues for the rest of the week ahead. Highs will climb through the 80s the rest of the week. There... "Guys are eager," said Dallas Fire-Rescue special operations deputy chief Charlie Salazar. "We try to send our most experienced people on the team." DFR is sending 17 firefighters to battle the flames in Ventura County. The Wildland Strike Team also includes three firefighters from the Lewisville Fire Department and a fleet of fire engines built for rough terrain. The mission for the Dallas team will be to protect structures and wildlife as well as to provide relief for colleagues on the front lines, according to Salazar. "By the time we get there [firefighters there] are really tired," Salazar said. "They've seen all the devastation, all the loss, all the fatalities so we come in and support them." Fire departments in Frisco and Fort Worth announced Sunday that they will also answer the call for resources in California. Each department will send five firefighters and a brush truck, leaving Monday for California. Salazar said he expected his team would see much devastation, much like he remembered seeing in past wildfires. But he also knows crews will encounter immense gratitude on the part of fellow firefighters and residents. "When they see us and see that we're from out of state, they're always really thankful and it just makes me feel good that we're able to provide that service for them in their time of need," Salazar said. The Dallas Wildland Strike Team is expected to depart from Dallas at about 12 p.m. Monday. Other North Texas firefighting teams are heading out on Monday as well. Services have been held for Texas newlyweds who died when the helicopter transporting them to an airport to start their honeymoon crashed into a rugged hill. The crash happened just hours after William Troy Byler and Bailee Raye Ackerman Byler, both 24, exchanged vows Nov. 3 at the Byler family ranch near Uvalde. The newlyweds were bound San Antonio International Airport when the chopper crashed about 15 miles from the departure site. The pilot also died. A service was held Thursday in Vidor, 15 miles from Orangefield, where the bride was from. A second service was Friday in Bellville, where the groom has family. Plans also included a graveside service at the Byler family cemetery at the ranch. Investigators are trying to determine what caused the crash. What to Know Freeze Warning in effect through Tuesday morning Wind chill dropped into the teens overnight Ground is too warm to allow for any icing or accumulation Forecast | School Closings | Weather Alerts | Maps & Radar | Send Us a Photo/Video | Skycams Unusually cold weather will continue for the next few days. Tuesday temperatures will fall into the mid to upper 20s. In addition, a blustery wind will help produce wind chill values in the teens. While sunshine will return Tuesday, it will remain cold with highs only in the low 40s. Another freeze is expected Wednesday morning with lows in the mid 20s. High temperatures will return to the low 60s by Friday and Saturday. Even before the real cold hit, MedStar rescuers took four people to the hospital for cold exposure Saturday and Sunday. "We try to get the message out so people are more aware and take it seriously," said Roland Hernandez with MedStar. Ambulances are stocked with hot packs and blankets to care for patients suffering from exposure. Hernandez said the old, young and chronically ill are most at risk when the temperatures dip. "They don't have the capacity to maintain heat," Hernandez said. "It dissipates with the cold. Children as well." The latest video forecast from NBC DFW's team of Weather Experts will appear in the player above. Keep up with the latest changes to the weather by downloading the NBC DFW smartphone App for iOS and Android! Cold weather also puts an extra strain on the heart. People with heart disease or high blood pressure should seek a doctor's advice when working in the cold. Dress in layers, be aware of the wind chill factor, remove any wet clothing as soon as possible and limit time outdoors. MedStar said don't ignore shivering. Persistent shivering is a signal to return indoors. Get the latest forecast information from NBC 5's team of Weather Experts here. Residents across Southern California are opening up their doors to the tens of thousands of people impacted by two devastating wildfires that together scorched nearly 100,000 acres in Ventura County. More than 850 homes throughout the region, including dozens in San Diego County, have been listed for free from Nov 8 to 29 through the short-term rental service Airbnb for people displaced by the Hill and Woolsey fires. The Hill Fire north of Malibu was nearly contained Monday morning while the nearly 92,000-acre Woolsey Fire continued to burn from eastern Ventura County to the Malibu coast. The fires combined have destroyed nearly 400 structures and continue to threaten about 57,000 homes. The free stays were being offered through Airbnb's Open Homes Program, which connects evacuees, emergency workers an volunteers with a place to stay, courtesy of homeowners who already list their property through the service. Evacuees and others in need of a place to stay must have an Airbnb account and can then browse listing through the "find shelter" button on the disaster-response page. The program started in 2012 when hosts asked Airbnb to create a way that they could be seen as a resource to those in need, like those impacted by natural disasters, medical concerns and refugees. When there is an emergency, Airbnb automatically contacts hosts in the area to see if they have space to house those impacted. When hosts respond yes, their place is listed with all fees waived. Hosts who wish to join the Open House Program can visit here. The NBC4 I-Team first learned that two well known Jewish camps in the Malibu hillswhere over 40,000 children have spent summers--have been destroyed by the Woolsey Fire. Now, NBC4 has learned that a third camp, also in the Malibu hills, has been destroyed. Eighty-seven out of 97 buildings at Camp Hess Kramer and its sister camp --Camp Hilltop were leveled by the fire. Now, a third nearby camp, JCA Shalom, posted on its Facebook page damage is indeed significant and devastatingmany structures are partly or completely gone. Camp JCA Shalom is both a summer camp and is used year round by schools and community groups for retreats. At Camp Hess Kramer, there were 200 LAUSD school children about to go to sleep Thursday night when they were suddenly evacuated, just hours before fire tore through the area. They were attending a science retreat. LAUSD uses the camp every week for science school. "There is massive destruction here," Camp Security Director Cory Wenter told NBC4. "This is a place where kids have gathered and had fun for over 60 years, and now its gone," Wenter added. Flames from the Woolsey fire ruined nearly two dozen cabins, dining halls, dance halls, recreation areas, at both camps. Camp Hess Kramers outdoor chapel where daily prayer services were held is also in ashes. The camp "evacuated" three holy Torah scrolls from the chapel along with the 200 children Thursday night. The destruction is a huge loss for southern Californias Jewish community and the thousands of families who sent generations of kids here. "Those were places were I made some of the best memories of my life," said 13-year old Ava Maxwell, who spends her summers at Camp Hess Kramer. The camps are owned by Wilshire Boulevard Temple, one of LA's largest synagogues. Camp Director Doug Lynn told NBC4 the camps were insured and they will eventually be rebuilt. "The thing that makes Hess Kramer and Hilltop so special is still there," said Linda Benjamin, who sends her two kids to the summer camps. "It's the people, it's the organization, it's the community and those remain." Water-dropping aircrafts were used to attack a brush fire that climbed a hillside to the edge of the 118 Freeway Monday in the Simi Valley area, but by the afternoon, crews got a handle on the blaze freeway lanes reopened. The Peak Fire was reported at about 10:30 a.m. near the Rocky Peak Road exit. Aerial video showed flames burned up a hillside to the edge of the freeway. At least two water-dropping helicopters and a firefighting airplane were at the scene as confused commuters attempted to turn around on lanes and drive the wrong way on the 118 Freeway. It scorched 105 acres in all. Areas of Box Canyon and Lake Manor were ordered to evacuate. The freeway was closed due to fire and smoke, which was drifting across the road. By 2 p.m., the California Highway Patrol said all westbound lanes were open, while two lanes on the eastbound side were open. Other eastbound lanes were to remain blocked as crews mopped up what was left of the fire, nearly all contained by the afternoon. The fire is not considered part of the 91,500-acre Woolsey Fire, which began last week in Ventura County. That fire, which burned into the Malibu area, is 20-percent contained. It has destroyed an estimated 370 structures. What to Know The Woolsey fire began Thursday and burned from eastern Ventura County south into Malibu Full containment is not expected until Nov. 17 Some residents were allowed to return home, but new evacuation orders were in effect for Calabasas Firefighters in Southern California were able to hold containment lines over the weekend in a firefight that extends from eastern Ventura County to the Malibu coast as they prepared for the unwelcome return of the dangerous Santa Ana winds. A red flag warning, denoting high fire danger, is in effect Monday for area affected by the Woolsey Fire. The 93,662-acre blaze that has destroyed at least 435 structures and damaged at least 24 more, was 30-percent contained as of Monday evening at 7:45 p.m. after a one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended at midmorning Sunday. A long red line of fire retardant can be seen on a ridge between Hidden Valley and Malibu Springs early Monday Nov. 12, 2018. Authorities warned that the gusts will pick up Monday and continue through Tuesday. Winds are forecast to peak at up to 50 miles per hour. "That is going to be the factor driving these fires," said NBC4 forecaster Shanna Mendiola. "We're going to see the Santa Ana winds, but not as strong as last week." Santa Ana winds, produced by surface high pressure over the Great Basin squeezing air down through canyons and passes in Southern California's mountain ranges, are common in the fall and have a long history of fanning destructive wildfires in the region. A November 1993 wildfire in Malibu destroyed more than 270 homes. As the Woolsey Fire continues to scorch areas of Southern California, one resident describes trying to flee as a monstrous wave of fire roared through Malibu. Rick Montanez reports for NBC4 News Nov. 11, 2018. The fire -- which began Thursday afternoon -- has forced the evacuation of at least 75,000 homes and an estimated 265,000 people in both counties as it consumed multimillion-dollar mansions and mobile homes. The cause remained under investigation, Cal Fire said. Cal Fire also projected full containment won't come until Nov. 17. The total number of structures threatened was still at about 57,000, with the number of structures destroyed increasing from 177 to 435, with more considered likely as damage assessment was only 15 percent complete. [LA GALLERY] Woolsey Fire Burns in Ventura, Los Angeles Counties Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said there were flare-ups in several canyons as winds kicked up Sunday, but none outside the footprint of where the fire already had burned. Osby credited the Los Angeles Fire Department with keeping areas to the south, especially in Bell Canyon, "buttoned up" employing some 50 engines on the fire's flank to keep it from spreading south of Mulholland Highway into Pacific Palisades and Topanga Canyon. Several evacuation orders -- including West Hills in the city of LA -- were lifted, but several areas, including Calabasas and Malibu remained evacuated. Some returned to find relief, even as their neighbors were met with heartache and total devastation. The badly burned bodies of two people were found inside a burned vehicle in a long driveway in the 33000 block of Mulholland Highway. "It's the feeling of homicide detectives that the driver became disoriented and the vehicle was overwhelmed by the fire," Benedict said. Meanwhile, firefighters were reporting progress on the much smaller Hill Fire north of Malibu and south of Simi Valley. That wildfire, which has consumed about 4,500 acres and destroyed two structures was 70 percent contained. No civilians or firefighters were killed or injured and full containment was expected Wednesday. Gov. Jerry Brown, responding to the Southern California fires and the Camp Fire in Northern California that has burned more than 100,000 acres and killed at least 42 people to become the deadliest fire in the state's history, announced Sunday he is requesting a "major disaster declaration" from President Donald Trump, in addition to an earlier emergency declaration signed by Trump that will provide federal funds to aid firefighters. On Monday evening, Trump announced that he "approved an expedited request for Major Disaster Declaration" for the state in an attempt to "alleviate some of the incredible suffering going on." The Commander-in-Chief added, "I am with you all the way." I just approved an expedited request for a Major Disaster Declaration for the State of California. Wanted to respond quickly in order to alleviate some of the incredible suffering going on. I am with you all the way. God Bless all of the victims and families affected. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2018 A few days earlier, the President drew sharp criticism from various groups, including the International Association of Fire Fighter, for comments he made on social media in relation to the fires. Trump, on Saturday, said via Twitter that "there is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly fires in California." The President added that "billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!" The threat of taking away federal funding at a time when homes were burning, the death toll was rising and hundreds of thousands of people were under evacuation orders was not well received in the Golden State. Fall is historically one of the most dangerous times of the year for wildfires in California, due primarily to strong Santa Ana winds. Seven of the state's 10-most destructive wildfires occurred in October -- many fueled by monster winds, including Santa Ana gusts. Through Nov. 4, Cal Fire has reported about 5,600 fires that burned more than 621,700 acres. During that same period last year, the agency reported 5,800 fire that burned 316,600 acres. Over the last five years, California has averaged 5,293 fires that burned 231,400 acres during that interval. Since 1970, California is not only seeing more fires, but larger fires. Seven of the top 10 largest have all occurred since 2000. They are the 2017 Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties; The October 2003 Cedar fire in San Diego County; the August 2012 Rush fire in Lassen County; the Rim fire in Tuolumne County in August 2013; the July 2007 Zaca fire in Santa Barbara County; the October 2007 Witch fire in San Diego County; and the Klamath Theater Complex fires that burned in June 2008 in Siskiyou County. Shahan Ahmed contributed to this story. What to Know Rev. Jerome Coyle revealed to the diocese bishop in 1986 that he has a "history of sexual attraction to and contact with boys" He was stripped of his ability to lead Mass and other responsibilities and never got another parish assignment Coyle never faced further punishment, and a review board later found the bishop had a history of abusing students as well A Roman Catholic diocese acknowledged Wednesday that it concealed for decades a priest's admission that he sexually abused dozens of Iowa boys a silence that may have put other children in danger. The Rev. Jerome Coyle, now 85, was stripped of his parish assignments in the 1980s but never defrocked. And it was not until this week, after The Associated Press inquired about him, that he was publicly identified by the church as an admitted pedophile, even though the Diocese of Sioux City had been aware of his conduct for 32 years. The diocese recently helped Coyle move into a retirement home in Fort Dodge, Iowa, without informing administrators at the Catholic school across the street. In 1986, Coyle reported his "history of sexual attraction to and contact with boys" to Sioux City's bishop, revealing that he had victimized approximately 50 youngsters over a 20-year period while serving in several Iowa parishes , according to a private letter written in February by the diocese vicar general and obtained by the AP. The diocese told the AP on Wednesday that it never contacted police or informed the public after Coyle's admission. "The diocese admits it could have been handled better," diocese spokeswoman Susan O'Brien said. But she said the policies in place at the time did not call for notifying police or the public. Instead, the diocese at the time announced without explanation that Coyle was taking a six-month medical leave of absence. Church officials transferred him to a treatment center in New Mexico, the Servants of the Paraclete, where other accused priests nationwide were once commonly sent. Coyle was stripped of his ability to lead Mass and otherwise function as a priest. But he never faced further punishment and lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, until recently, retaining the title "father" and collecting financial assistance from the diocese. In 1986, the diocese was aware of one complaint against Coyle from a college student but did not have that man's name, O'Brien said. That individual and another now-adult victim have come forward in recent weeks, and their allegations against Coyle will be reported to police, she said. His total number of victims could be higher than 50 because the diocese remains "uncertain of an accurate number," O'Brien said. Coyle is unlikely to be prosecuted for any of his long-ago offenses because the statute of limitation has run out. He has not been named in any civil suits, and O'Brien said the diocese has never paid a settlement related to him. He has not been publicly accused of molesting any minors in the past three decades, but lawyers and detectives are looking into what he has been up to since 1986. Fort Dodge police interviewed Coyle and searched his apartment last month after being tipped off that he was living near a school. Coyle declined to comment Friday after answering the door at his apartment. The bishop to whom Coyle reported his abuse, Lawrence Soens, retired in 1998. A review board later found that Soens himself had abused students when he was a priest and parochial school principal. As a member of the clergy, Soens was not a mandatory reporter someone obligated to tell police about child abuse allegations under Iowa law. But critics said he still should have called authorities, sought to have Coyle defrocked, alerted the public and asked victims to come forward. Soen's whereabouts are unknown. Unlike other dioceses, Sioux City has never released a list of priests who have been credibly accused, despite calls from victims to do so. "The Sioux City diocese covers everything up," said attorney Scott Rhinehart, who has represented dozens of victims and calls the diocese a "haven for pedophile priests." The case has come to light amid a push by prosecutors around the country to hold the church accountable, not just for the sexual abuse of youngsters but for efforts to shield accused priests. In recent months, authorities in at least a dozen states have opened investigations, and federal prosecutors have launched an unprecedented statewide probe in Pennsylvania. The diocese privately revealed Coyle's past in a letter to a Catholic couple who had been allowing Coyle to live at their Albuquerque home after he was injured in a 2017 car accident. The letter warned the couple, Reuben and Tania Ortiz, that the diocese "cannot condone the risk you take" in allowing Coyle to live with their three teenage children. "The letter was very scary for us as parents," said Reuben Ortiz, who had been friends with Coyle for years and was unaware of the extent of his abuse. He said that he confronted Coyle and that the priest could not guarantee that he would be able to refrain from fondling his son. But Coyle had nowhere to go and continued living there until June, when deacons from Sioux City moved him back to Iowa. "I was up day and night for days sometimes, patrolling my own house," Reuben Ortiz said. In the letter to Ortiz, and a similar one to Coyle, Vicar General Bradley Pelzel tried to discourage the priest from moving back to Iowa. He said the boys Coyle molested would now be men between the ages of 45 and 70, and they "could potentially encounter him and be retraumatized by the memories that would surface." The diocese offered to increase Coyle's monthly retirement assistance by $575 so that he could afford an assisted living home in New Mexico. But that idea didn't work out, and the church instead helped him move to Fort Dodge, into a care facility adjacent to Saint Edmonds Catholic School, whose students routinely visit. Lawyers for the Ortiz family said the case illustrates how the church's secrecy poses a continuing risk to children. They urged Coyle's victims to share their stories, saying they have been "suffering in silence." "This is the time for Father Coyle's victims to seek justice, and the time for the church to account for its cover-up," said attorney Levi Monagle. Experts called the Sioux City letter extraordinary for its written acknowledgment of abuse and continuing concealment. "The letter shows in black and white that the system of covering up continues to this day, even after everything that's occurred," said attorney Craig Levien, who has represented dozens of abuse victims. What to Know The FDLE communicated with the State Department that they have no allegations of fraud at this time according to a spokesperson. Scotts lead of .14 of a percent in the race falls in the threshold for a hand recount according to state law. With a Thursday deadline before the first recount of votes in the race for Florida Governor, Agriculture Secretary and a seat in the U.S. Senate are due, the states Attorney General is lashing out at two state agencies for not opening investigations into claims of voter fraud in two South Florida counties. In letters sent Sunday to both the commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Secretary of State Ken Detzner, Pam Bondi said she was deeply troubled after calls from Gov. Rick Scott who holds a slight lead in the Senate race over incumbent Bill Nelson for an investigation were not followed. Your duty to investigate this matter is clear, Bondi wrote to FDLE commissioner Rick Swearingen. I am directing you to take the necessary steps to promote public safety and to assure that our state will guarantee integrity in our election process. The FDLE, which communicated with the State Department that they have no allegations of fraud at this time according to a spokesperson to NBC affiliate WFLA-TV, is an independent agency and is not required by law to follow any directives from Bondi or her office. Scotts lead of .14 of a percent in the race falls in the threshold for a hand recount according to state law. Mishaps, protests and litigation are overshadowing the vote recount in Florida's pivotal races for governor and Senate, reviving memories of the 2000 presidential fiasco in the premier political battleground state. All 67 counties are facing a state-ordered deadline of Thursday to complete their recounts and half already have begun. Many other counties were expected to begin the work Monday after a weekend of recount drama in Broward and Palm Beach counties, home to large concentrations of Democratic voters. But on Monday, recounting had yet to begin in Broward as ballots were still being sorted and ballot pages separated, elections officials said. There was no word as of Monday night when the recount would begin. The developments added up to a tumultuous political day in Florida. More than half of Florida's 67 counties began a recount process that's unprecedented even in a state notorious for settling elections by razor-thin margins. State officials said they weren't aware of any other time a race for governor or U.S. Senate required a recount, let alone both in the same election. In Broward County, the recount was delayed for hours Sunday because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. The recount continued to be delayed on Monday. The delays prompted the Republican Party to slam Broward's supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, for "incompetence and gross mismanagement." Snipes said the recount was expected to begin Monday night, and said they would still make Thursday's recount deadline. "I think the lawsuits as they are written certainly cast aspersions on my character and usually we build character over a period of time and character is always on display and I've worked here for about 15 years and I have to say this is the first time that this office or I have been under such attacks," Snipes told reporters Monday. "If we make mistakes, we own mistakes. If there's something that the public needs to know then we provide that information." Broward officials faced further headaches after acknowledging the county mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected. The problem seemed impossible to fix because dismissed ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots and Snipes said it would be unfair to throw out all the votes. Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Senate, filed suit against Snipes. He was seeking a court order for law enforcement agents to impound all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots "when not in use until such time as any recounts." The suit accused Snipes of repeatedly failing to account for the number of ballots left to be counted and failing to report results regularly as required by law. An emergency hearing was being held Monday morning over Scott's suit before Circuit Chief Judge Jack Tuter. Tuter said he wouldn't issue an injunction as he's seen no evidence of wrongdoing in the vote-counting in Broward and urged all sides to "ramp down the rhetoric," adding that there is a need to reassure citizens that the integrity of the Florida recount is being protected. To that point, he urged lawyers for Scott and others representing the Republican and Democratic parties and their candidates as well as the Broward County elections office to agree on some minor additions in security, including the addition of three more law enforcement officers to keep an eye on things. And the judge says that if anyone any evidence of voter fraud or irregularities, they should report it to law enforcement. Also on Monday, Sen. Bill Nelson, the Democratic incumbent, sued the Florida Department of State in an effort to count vote-by-mail ballots that were postmarked before Election Day but not delivered before polls closed. Scott campaign spokesman Chris Hartline called the lawsuit "nothing short of a legal white flag of surrender." The outcry from Democrats over's Scott's suit was immediate. Juan Penalosa, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, accused Scott of "using his position to consolidate power by cutting at the very core of our democracy." "An honest vote count is no longer possible" in Florida, President Donald Trump declared Monday, without elaborating. He demanded that the election night results which showed the Republicans leading based upon incomplete ballot counts be used to determine the winner. Trump went on to allege that "new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged" and that "ballots (are) massively infected." It was unclear what he was referring to. Meanwhile, in Palm Beach County, the supervisor of elections said she didn't think her department could meet Thursday's deadline to complete that recount, throwing into question what would happen to votes there. The recount in other major population centers, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, has been continuing without incident. Smaller counties were expected to begin reviews between Monday and Wednesday. State officials said they weren't aware of any other time a race for governor or U.S. Senate required a recount, let alone both in the same election. The recount process in the two nationally watched midterm races is unprecedented even in a state notorious for settling elections by razor-thin margins. Unofficial results showed Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in the governor's contest. In the Senate race, Scott's lead over Nelson was 0.14 percentage points. State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. Once completed, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or below, a hand recount will be ordered. As the recount unfolded, Republicans urged their Democratic opponents to give up and let the state to move on. Scott said Sunday that Nelson wants fraudulent ballots and those cast by noncitizens to count, pointing to a Nelson lawyer objecting to Palm Beach County's rejection of one provisional ballot because it was cast by a noncitizen. "He is trying to commit fraud to win this election," Scott told Fox News. "Bill Nelson's a sore loser. He's been in politics way too long." Nelson's campaign issued a statement later saying their lawyer wasn't authorized to object to the ballot's rejection as "Non-citizens cannot vote in US elections." In Fort Lauderdale, Gillum appeared at a predominantly African-American church Sunday evening, warning against vote suppression and declaring voter disenfranchisement isn't just about being blocked from the polling booth. He said it also includes absentee ballots not being counted and ballots with mismatched signatures that "a volunteer may have the option of ... deciding that vote is null and void." Gillum and Nelson have argued each vote should be counted and the process should take its course. Both the state elections division, which Scott runs, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have said they have found no evidence of voter fraud. That didn't stop protests outside Snipes' office, where a crowd of mostly Republicans gathered, holding signs, listening to country music and occasionally chanting "lock her up," referring to Snipes. A massive Trump 2020 flag flew over the parking lot and many members of a Bikers For Trump group wore matching shirts, mingling among a crowd that included a protester wearing a Hillary Clinton mask. Registered independent Russell Liddick, a 38-year-old Pompano Beach retail worker, carried a sign reading, "I'm not here for Trump! I'm here for fair elections! Fire Snipes!" He said the office's problems "don't make me feel very much like my vote counted." Florida is also conducting a recount in a third statewide race. Democrat Nikki Fried had a 0.07 percentage point lead over Republican state Rep. Matt Caldwell for agriculture commissioner, one of Florida's three Cabinet seats. For some, the recounts bring back memories of the 2000 presidential recount, when it took more than five weeks for Florida to declare George W. Bush the victor over Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes, thus giving Bush the presidency. Much has changed since then. In 2000, each county had its own voting system. Many used punch cards voters poked out chads, leaving tiny holes in their ballots representing their candidates. Some voters, however, didn't fully punch out the presidential chad or gave it just a little push. Those hanging and dimpled chads had to be examined by the canvassing boards, a lengthy, tiresome and often subjective process that became fodder for late-night comedians. Now the state requires all Florida counties to use ballots where voters use a pen to mark their candidate's name, much like a student taking a multiple-choice test. And how counts proceed is now clearly spelled out. AP writers Tamara Lush and Brendan Farrington contributed to this report. Halloween may be over but someone may have forgotten to tell a Florida man who was stopped for speeding in a Fred Flintstone car. A Pasco County deputy pulled over Don Swartz in Wesley Chapel back on Nov. 4 and issued him a citation for speeding. Swartz was dressed up as the beloved cartoon character and had fitted his car to look like the foot-powered vehicle. "A very special thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Don and Trina Swartz for being such great sports... Yabba Dabba Doo!" the sheriff's office said in a Facebook post. Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is suing the Florida Department of State in an effort to count vote-by-mail ballots that were postmarked before Election Day but not delivered before polls closed. Nelson's attorney, Marc Elias, filed the lawsuit Monday, saying voters should not be disenfranchised because of mail delivery delays that aren't their fault. Unofficial election results show Nelson trailing Republican Gov. Rick Scott by 0.14 percentage points. As an example, he cited the Miami-Dade County postal facility that was evacuated because explosive devices sent to prominent Democrats were processed there. "Florida's 7 p.m. Election Day receipt deadline for vote by mail ballots burdens the right to vote of eligible voters," the suit said. Elias wants all ballots postmarked before Nov. 6 to be counted if they are received within 10 days of the election. In response, Scott's Senate campaign said the lawyer for Nelson "seems to be content filing frivolous and laughable lawsuits." Scott campaign spokesman Chris Hartline called the lawsuit "nothing short of a legal white flag of surrender." Also Monday, a South Florida judge presiding over an emergency hearing brought by the Scott campaign regarding ballot security during the recount urged lawyers on both sides to "ramp down the rhetoric." A man who was trapped for days at the bottom of an old abandoned mine shaft in Arizona was rescued Wednesday after a friend hadn't heard from him. Maricopa County sheriff's officials say the man fell into the 100-foot shaft in Aguila sometime Monday. He was found Wednesday by his friend Terry Shrader, who knew the man was at the abandoned gold mine and hadn't heard from him, according to NBC affiliate KPNX. "I was afraid of what I was going to find," Shrader said, but he heard shouting when he arrived at the scene and went to get help. A medic was lowered in to treat the man, identified by KPNX as John Waddell, before a metal gurney lifted him out of the shaft, authorities said. He was taken to a hospital for a medical evaluation. Aguila is located west of Wickenburg and about 90 miles (144 kilometers) northwest of Phoenix. Waddell told Shrader that he killed three rattlesnakes while in the shaft, KPNX reported. What to Know A childs birthday gift out on Long Island has turned into a court fight for his dad John Lepper built a treehouse for his son as a birthday gift; He says he filed all the appropriate paperwork However, Babylon officials sent letters to Lepper saying the structure is violating building codes; Lepper is taking his fight to court A childs birthday gift out on Long Island has turned into a court fight for his dad. John Lepper is a New York City firefighter who went to contractor and drafting school. It was there that he picked up the skills that ultimately helped him create a treehouse as a gift for his sons birthday. However, Lepper found himself in hot water. The Village of Babylon sent letters to Lepper stating that he doesnt have the right permit and is in violation of the local building code. Lepper disagrees, saying he did file the necessary paperwork and the treehouse was built within the law. He is now taking the fight to court in hopes that his sons treehouse wont have to be dismantled and brought down. The whole neighborhood is in support of the treehouse, he said. According to Lepper, there is another reason why he hopes the treehouse stays pirched, overlooking his backyard. Lepper says he recently found a needle in the bushes next to his home. He thinks the lights installed on the treehouse could deter crime on an otherwise dark street. This is what they want to waste taxpayer dollars on: treehouses. Not heroin needles. But, treehouses, he says. Lepper is set to take his fight to the state appeals court in the coming days. Babylon officials couldnt be reached Monday due to the Veterans Day holiday. What to Know Multiple homes were evacuated in Lakewood, New Jersey, Monday morning after a fire and possible gas explosion Chopper 4 showed intense orange flames leaping from what appeared to be a backyard; trees and other homes were nearby No injuries were reported Dozens of homes were evacuated in an Ocean County, New Jersey, community Monday as crews investigated a report of a fire and gas explosion, officials say. A call about a two-alarm fire near Second Street and Forest Avenue in Lakewood Township came in around 8 a.m. Monday. NJ Natural Gas says a contractor installing a sewer line struck a natural gas main in the area. Its crews were on scene within 15 minutes and able to turn off the valve, rendering the area safe. Earlier, Chopper 4 over the scene showed raging flames leaping from what appeared to be someone's backyard. That backyard was sandwiched between large trees and other homes. The broken gas main is an unmarked gas line, Lakewood Police Captain Steve Allaire said, adding that it was deeper than most gas lines. The gas has been secured. The primary structure impacted by the fire and gas explosion has been deemed unsafe until a building inspector rules otherwise. Emergency radio showed a frenzy of activity and concern. "It looks pretty bad," one firefighter says at one point. Another asks if a particular building had been evacuated. "I'm just trying to hold back the fire at this point," the first firefighter says. Minutes later, "Still trying to hold back this fire ... I hope we got this building evacuated." No injuries were immediately reported. According to Allaire, the flames reached a height of more than 20 feet. Local site The Lakewood Scoop reported smoke could be seen for miles. What to Know Kurt Salzinger, an 89-year-old psychology professor, and his wife were in NY Penn Oct. 27 when a harried commuter bumped them Salzinger, who fled the Nazis during WWII, was knocked to the ground; the fall eventually led to his death 12 days later, the NYPD said His wife and police say it all appears to be an accident, but the grieving widow wants that commuter to come forward A grieving widow who said goodbye to her husband of 31 years on Sunday is asking the hurried commuter who pushed the couple in a subway station to come forward. Deanna Chitayat, 85, spoke to NBC 4 New York after attending the funeral for her husband, 89-year-old Kurt Salzinger, a psychology professor who fled the Nazis with his family when his native Austria was invaded during World War II. The couple was in the 34th Street-Penn Station on Oct. 27 when a rushing commuter bumped into them and knocked Salzinger to the ground, she said. Kurt went down like that," Chitayat said, "on the floor. Like a dead person. The fall eventually led to Salzinger's death 12 days later, the NYPD confirmed. He had bleeding in the brain, then developed pneumonia. The guy came by, bent down took a look at him and jumped into the car," Chitayat said. "And that was the end of him we never saw him again. Other straphangers helped Salzinger, but he would not survive. Salzinger was a professor emeritus at Hofstra University who was the former senior scholar in residence in the school's psychology department, the school said in a statement. According to The New York Times, Salzinger escaped Vienna in 1938 with his father, mother and brother with the help of an underground Jewish network. It took two-and-a-half years, including a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Japan and a boat to Seattle, before they reached New York, the paper reported. Police said they are investigating the incident as an accident. They looked through surveillance footage but didn't find him. But the family says he needs to come forward and is asking anyone who saw the push to help identify him. I dont want to put him in jail because I dont think he deliberately did it. I want him to feel guilt," Chitayat said, "that he killed a wonderful wonderful man. Police asked anyone with information to call the Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS. What to Know A woman was punched and stabbed in a Brooklyn subway station in a possible hate crime The man, who was white, was yelling "black b----" during the attack, police and advocates say Police said they would have their Hate Crimes Taskforce investigate as new information came forward UPDATE: Cops Release Sketch of White Suspect in Subway Attack on Black Mother of Two A woman was punched and stabbed when she got off the subway in Brooklyn by a man yelling racially charged words, her family and police said. The victim, 57-year-old Ann Marie Washington, was hospitalized Sunday after having surgery for a collapsed lung due to the stabbing, her family told NBC 4 New York. Washington, a mother of two, was on her way home from work Friday evening and had just stepped off the subway at the Church Avenue stop in Brooklyn when she was attacked, advocates said. The man, who was white, punched her in the mouth and stabbed her in the chest while calling her a "black b----," advocates said. Washington, who is black, is a native of Trinidad. The attacker fled on a Q train, police said. The victim said he appeared to be in his early 30s, about 5-feet, 3-inches tall, and wearing grey and black sweatpants and a black hooded sweatshirt. Police didn't initially call the attack a hate crime, leading to outrage from neighborhood advocates who held a news conference Sunday. "If this was a white resident, a new gentrifier to this neighborhood, there would be swarms of cops here," said Imani Henry of Equality for Flatbush. "But when it is a black person who is attacked by a white racist, there isn't anything." Afterward, the NYPD said its Hate Crimes Taskforce would look into it. Police said they didn't have all the details at the time the crime was reported. Washington didn't realize she had been stabbed until she got home, advocates said. Even then, she thought she had been scratched in the chest until she woke up the next morning, said Kenzia Bernard Nau, a witness and a neighborhood advocate. Advocates said witnesses shot video and there should be surveillance video of the suspect, but police haven't released it. "The fact that the video isn't out right now, this is completely insane," Bernard Nau said. "This is going to keep happening." Palestinian militants bombarded Israel with dozens of rockets and mortar shells Monday, while Israeli warplanes struck targets throughout the Gaza Strip in what appeared to be the most intense exchange of fire since a 2014 war. Palestinian officials said at least three people, including two militants, were killed by Israeli fire and nine were wounded, and an Israeli airstrike destroyed the ruling Hamas group's TV station. In Israel, the national rescue service said at least 20 people were wounded, including a 19-year-old soldier and a 60-year-old woman who were in critical condition. The fighting cast doubt over recent understandings brokered by Egypt and U.N. officials to reduce tensions. Just a day earlier, Israel's prime minister had defended those understandings, saying he was doing everything possible to avoid another war. The United Nations said it was working with Egypt to broker a halt in the violence. "Rockets must STOP, restraint must be shown by all!" the U.N. Mideast envoy's office tweeted. The rocket fire was triggered by a botched Israeli military raid in Gaza on Sunday. Undercover troops, apparently on a reconnaissance mission, were discovered inside Gaza on Sunday, setting off a battle that left seven militants, including a Hamas commander, and an Israeli military officer dead. Around sundown on Monday, militants launched some 100 rockets in less than an hour, the most intense barrage since the 50-day war four years ago. The outgoing rockets, which continued into the evening, lit up the skies of Gaza and set off air raid sirens throughout southern Israel. The military said warplanes, helicopters and tanks had struck over 70 militant targets, including military compounds, observation posts and weapons facilities. It also said it targeted a squad that was launching rockets. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said the army had sent additional infantry troops, rocket defense systems and intelligence units to the Gaza frontier. "We continue to strike and retaliate against the military targets belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, and as for our intentions we will enhance these efforts as needed," he told reporters. Late Monday, an airstrike destroyed the Gaza City headquarters of Hamas' Al Aqsa TV station. Israel had fired warning shots ahead of the airstrike, prompting the station to halt programming and replace it with a logo. Minutes later, the airstrike flattened the three-story building and the station went black. Workers had evacuated the building after the warning shots, and there were no immediate reports of casualties. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum condemned the bombing as "a barbaric, brazen aggression." Ten minutes later, the station resumed broadcasts, airing prerecorded national songs. Israel said the station "broadcasts violent propaganda" and provides "operational messaging" to militants. A five-story office building that housed Hamas media offices and another building used by Hamas' internal security service were also destroyed. No casualties were reported. Hamas and the smaller militant group Islamic Jihad said the rocket fire was revenge for Sunday night's Israeli incursion. Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shehab said the groups wanted "the occupation and its supporters know that the lives of our sons come with a price." In all, well over 300 rockets were fired into Israel by midnight, the army said. The Israeli military said it intercepted 70 rockets, and most of the others fell in open spaces. But rockets landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, setting off a large fire near a shopping center. Several homes were hit in southern towns, including one that was destroyed in Ashkelon. Around midnight, a rocket struck another building in Ashkelon, wounding at least 10 people, including one woman in critical condition, according to police and rescue workers. Earlier, a bus was struck by an anti-tank missile, critically wounding a 19-year-old soldier. The strike set the bus on fire, sending a large plume of black smoke over the area. Gaza militants released a video of what they said was the attack, showing a bus pulling up to an open area before going up in flames. The video, with ominous music playing, showed Israeli soldiers milling about the area. Michael Oren, an Israeli Cabinet minister, said Israel "will do whatever it takes" to defend itself. "We expect the world to stand with us," he said. The EU's ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, called for a halt in "indiscriminate" rocket fire toward civilians. "Everyone must step back from the brink," he said. Earlier Monday, thousands of Palestinian mourners buried the seven militants killed in Sunday's incursion. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh led a funeral as masked gunmen in uniforms carried coffins and mourners chanted "revenge." Hamas set up checkpoints across Gaza in a show of force. It also restricted movement through crossings with Israel, preventing foreign journalists, local businessmen and some aid workers from leaving the territory. Hamas also canceled a weekly beach protest in northwestern Gaza along the border with Israel. The organizers cited "the ongoing security situation." Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. In the most recent war, over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them civilians, and tens of thousands were left homeless. Seventy-three people were killed on the Israeli side. Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas takeover. The blockade has devastated Gaza's economy. For over seven months, Hamas has been leading protests along the Israeli border aimed in large part at breaking the blockade. More than 170 Palestinians, most unarmed, have been killed by Israeli fire during the protests. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltration attempts. In recent weeks, Egyptian and U.N. mediators had appeared to make progress in brokering informal understandings aimed at quieting the situation. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver $15 million to Gaza to allow cash-strapped Hamas to pay the salaries of thousands of government workers. At the same time, Hamas has lowered the intensity of the border protests in recent weeks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a visit to Paris because of the flare-up and returned to Israel on Monday for consultations with top security officials. The Hamas military wing said that in Sunday's incursion, Israeli undercover forces drove about 3 kilometers (2 miles) into southeastern Gaza and shot and killed a mid-level commander in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Hamas militants discovered the car and chased it, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed several people, the group said. The military provided few details about Sunday's raid. The Israeli military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, said a "special force" carried out "a very meaningful operation to Israel's security," without elaborating. In a tweet after his arrival back home, Netanyahu praised the slain officer, whose identity was kept confidential for security reasons, and said: "our forces acted courageously." The officer's funeral was held Monday. On Sunday, Netanyahu defended his decision to allow through the Qatari cash to Gaza as a way to avert an "unnecessary war," maintain quiet for residents of southern Israel and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the impoverished Gaza Strip. AP writer Isabel DeBre contributed to this report. Flooding a massive desert with desalinated ocean water to grow enough algae to consume Earth's climate-changing carbon dioxide is one of four "moonshot" scenarios revealed by a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, NBC News reported. The desert flooding project would cost upwards of $50 trillion, according to Y Combinator, which unveiled the plan last month in hopes of inspiring other innovators to explore remedies for global warming. But experts caution that such plans could create as many problems as they solve, even if they do stand a chance of reducing greenhouse gasses. Y Combinator President Sam Altman predicted that the firm, which helped finance Airbnb and Dropbnox, will fund three companies to pursue the "Plan B" climate solutions in 2019. What to Know A plaintiff, named as John Doe, is suing the Allentown diocese and the priest he says abused him when he was 10 to 12 years old. Bruno Tucci is named as the former priest who allegedly abused the victim. He was named in a state grand jury report. The Allentown diocese says "abuse is abhorrent and has no place in the Church." They are forming a compensation fund for victims. A 29-year-old man is suing a former priest and the Diocese of Allentown, alleging the priest abused him as a child, according to a Philadelphia law firm that filed the lawsuit. The alleged victim, who is not named, claims Bruno Tucci, a former priest, sexually assaulted him when he was an altar boy at Mount Carmel Church in Nesquehoning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to the lawsuit, a copy of which was provided to NBC10. The law firm, Williams Cedar, said the suit has been filed with Lehigh County Common Pleas Court. It comes in the wake of a scathing grand jury report detailing sex abuse by hundreds of Catholic clergy over many decades. The Pennsylvania Attorney General's office released the grand jury findings after a ruling by the state Supreme Court. In addition to the diocese, the suit names past and current bishops, including Bishop Alfred Schlert, the order of the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete and Tucci as defendants. Tucci, now 76, is a former priest in Lehigh and Berks counties, whose alleged abuses are detailed in the grand jury report. Tucci was removed from the priesthood in 2002. The grand jury report says that the diocese became aware of sex abuse allegations against Tucci years before the plaintiff in the new suit was allegedly abused by Tucci. But, the suit claims, Tucci was allowed to continue serving as a priest at Mount Carmel. The plaintiff is seeking financial payment for the "emotional, psychological, and financial damages arising from the abuse," Williams Cedar said in a news release. Tucci was charged with child sex abuse in Ocean City, Maryland, in 2012. The charges were eventually dropped, according to online court records. His attorney from that case didn't return NBC10's request for comment. The Pennsylvania grand jury report released in August showed systemic abuse by the Catholic church. The suit alleges negligence on behalf of Church leaders. "This is a case thats not just about a child abuser," attorney Gerard Williams of Williams Cedar said. "Its about an organization that for its own purposes, as weve alleged in the complaint, kept the abuser in an active ministry and kept him in close contact with children, including our client." The Allentown diocese told NBC10 it only became aware of the pending suit on Monday. In a statement, they said abuse has "no place in the Church." Here is the diocesan statement: "Since becoming Bishop on August 31, 2017, Bishop Alfred Schlert has acted immediately on any allegations, removing the priest from ministry and notifying law enforcement. Abuse is abhorrent and has no place in the Church. Bishop Schlert has apologized to victims and has set a clear tone of zero tolerance, and of keeping children safe. The Diocese recently announced the formation of a compensation and reconciliation program to assist victims and survivors of past clergy sexual abuse. Although compensation alone cannot repair the damage caused to those who were harmed, this program will meaningfully assist in recovery and healing for victims and survivors and their families." What to Know Thomas Kolding, 15, has been missing since he took a train to NYC the day before Halloween, his family says Kolding took a train to New York's Penn Station, and was spotted at a train station in New Jersey on Nov. 3, prosecutors say Anyone with information is asked to call the Mountain Lakes Police Department at 973-334-1413 A teen from New Jersey who has been missing since he took a train to New York City on Oct. 30 may be in Ohio, police said. Police in Miami Township in Ohio have received several reports from people who believe they may have spotted Thomas Kolding, 15, in the area, the department said on Facebook. Kolding left his Mountain Lakes home at the end of last month. Prosecutors say he traveled to Newark before heading to Penn Station. He was last spotted at the Walter Rand Train Station in Camden, New Jersey on Nov. 3. Kolding left home with around $1,000 after "an argument with his father about his grades," according to NorthJersey.com. Anyone with information about is asked to call the Mountain Lakes Police Department at 973-334-1413 or Miami Township police at 937-225-4357. What to Know U.S. Catholic bishops are gathering for their national assembly this week in Baltimore, Maryland. A Pennsylvania grand jury report detailed decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses, alleging abuse by hundreds of priests. The Vatican asked that the U.S. bishops wait until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February to act on new proposals. In an abrupt change of plans, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opened the group's national meeting Monday by announcing it will delay for at least several months any votes on proposed new steps to address the clergy sex abuse crisis that is rocking the church. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, of Galveston-Houston, said the delay was requested by the Vatican, which asked that the U.S. bishops wait until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February. DiNardo expressed disappointment but told the U.S. bishops, "I remain hopeful that this additional consultation will ultimately improve our response to the crisis we face." The bishops are meeting through Wednesday in Baltimore and had been expected to consider several steps to combat abuse, including a new code of conduct for themselves and the creation of a special commission to review complaints against the bishops. At their meeting, which continues through Wednesday, the bishops may proceed with discussions of these proposals, which were drafted in September by the bishops' Administrative Committee. But there will be no immediate vote. Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, of Chicago, suggested that the bishops hold a special assembly in March to vote on the measures after considering the results of the global meeting in February. Abuse scandals have roiled the Roman Catholic Church worldwide for decades, but there have been major developments this year in the U.S. In July, Pope Francis removed U.S. church leader Theodore McCarrick as a cardinal after church investigators said an allegation that he groped a teenage altar boy in the 1970s was credible. Subsequently, several former seminarians and priests reported that they too had been abused or harassed by McCarrick as adults, triggering debate over who might have known and covered up McCarrick's misconduct. In August, a grand jury report in Pennsylvania detailed decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses, alleging that more than 1,000 children had been abused over the years by about 300 priests. Since then, a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia has begun working on a federal criminal case centered on child exploitation, and attorneys general in several other states have launched investigations. DiNardo, in his address opening the bishops' assembly, told survivors of clergy abuse that he was "deeply sorry." The church, he said, should not revictimize survivors "by demanding they heal on our timeline." Announcement of a delay in the voting drew skeptical reactions. "We had this agenda, we were moving forward on these documents, this was our goal," said Bishop Christopher Coyne, of the Vermont diocese of Burlington, and the communications chair for the three-day conference. "And now ... it will look like we don't have to come up with much." Coyne said he believed there were "no machinations" leading to the delay, but he had concerns about how it would be perceived outside the assembly hall. "The Vatican just made a big mistake in asking US bishops to delay their votes on clergy abuse protocols," tweeted John Gehring, the Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life, a Washington-based clergy network. "The optics are terrible, and it sends a message, intended or not, that Rome doesn't recognize the urgency of the moment." A former strawberry farm supervisor was accused in court Monday of retaliating over a workplace grievance by putting needles into the fruit, sparking recalls that devastated the Australian industry. Magistrate Christine Roney said while prosecutors were alleging My Ut Trinh was "motivated by spite or revenge" she would not consider granting bail for the woman until the reasons for her actions became clearer. While no injuries were reported from the needles, the crisis escalated to six states and neighboring New Zealand. Australia's multimillion-dollar strawberry industry suffered major financial losses, with fruit recalled from supermarket shelves and destroyed. Major food distributors in New Zealand removed Australian strawberries from stores. State Crime Command Superintendent Jon Wacker told reporters before the court hearing that 230 incidents were reported nationwide, impacting 68 strawberry brands. The scare was concentrated in Queensland state, where 77 incidents were reported, with 15 of them believed to be hoaxes or false complaints. Trinh, 50, was the first person arrested and has been charged with seven counts of contamination of goods with intent to cause economic loss, and would face up to 10 years in jail if convicted. A Vietnamese refugee who arrived by boat two decades ago and became an Australian citizen, Trinh was working as a supervisor of fruit pickers at the Berrylicious strawberry farm near Caboolture, north of Brisbane, when she allegedly inserted needles into the fruit between Sept. 2 and 5, the court was told. Prosecutor Cheryl Tesch said it would be alleged in court that DNA matching Trinh's was found on one of the needles discovered in a strawberry. Trinh's lawyer Michael Cridland withdrew a bail application, but said his client was not an unacceptable flight risk. She was remanded in custody until Nov. 22. Walker said the police investigation into the broader crisis was continuing. The International Association of Fire Fighters is calling President Donald Trump's comment about massive wildfires burning throughout California "irresponsible, reckless and insulting." Trump said Saturday via Twitter that "there is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly fires in California." He added that "billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!" On Sunday morning, Trump tweeted again about the fire, saying "with proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart!" The firefighters union responded to what were Trump's first words about the wildfires, including a blaze that incinerated most of the Northern California town of Paradise and killed at least nine people, saying that his "crass" suggestion in cutting off federal payments to the state "shows a troubling lack of real comprehension about the disaster at hand." "The early moments of fires such as these are a critical time, when lives are lost, entire communities are wiped off the map and our members are injured trying to stop these monstrous wildfires," Harold Schaitberger, General President of the IAFF, said in a statement. Brian Rice, president of the California Professional Firefighters Association, called President Trump's statements about forest management "dangerously wrong." "The presidents assertion that Californias forest management policies are to blame for catastrophic wildfire is dangerously wrong," Rice, head of the 30,000-member organization, said. "Wildfires are sparked and spread not only in forested areas but in populated areas and open fields fueled by parched vegetation, high winds, low humidity and geography. Moreover, nearly 60 percent of California forests are under federal management, and another two-thirds under private control. It is the federal government that has chosen to divert resources away from forest management, not California." California Governor-elect Gavin Newsom responded to the president's tweet saying that right now is not a time for partisanship. "Lives have been lost. Entire towns have been burned to the ground. Cars abandoned on the side of the road. People are being forced to flee their homes," Newsom tweeted. "This is a time for coordinating relief and response and lifting those in need up." California Rep. Henry Stern (D-27th district) addressed Trump's tweet Friday afternoon during a press conference in Southern California, saying "Fires don't respect politics or jurisdiction." Stern requested that the president "pursue a major disaster declaration and not make this a political incident. We have many parties, many views out here, and this is not about politics. It's about people." Trump took a more empathetic tone later in the day, tweeting sympathies for firefighters, people who have fled their homes and the families of those killed by the flames. Wildfires also raged in Southern California, including the town of Thousand Oaks, where a gunman days earlier killed a dozen people at a local bar. Trump earlier issued an emergency declaration providing federal funds to help firefighters. Thousands of IAFF members have assisted in rescuing and evacuation people in direct path of the flames, according to the organization. Several children and two adults were hurt when two vehicles on a Rancho Bernardo roadway crashed head-on early Monday and alcohol is believed to be a factor, officials said. A mother was driving a black SUV westbound in eastbound lanes of Camino Del Norte, near the on-ramp to Interstate 15, when she crashed head-on into an oncoming vehicle, according to San Diego police. The mother was suspected of driving under the influence with a two-year-old in a car seat and an eight-year-old, who was holding an unrestrained infant, SDPD said. The CHP said the force from the crash threw the infant into the windshield and When San Diego Fire-Rescue crews responded to the crash at about 4:30 a.m. witnesses had already pulled the nine-month-old baby from the crash but the child was not responsive. The children were transported to area hospitals. The infant was receiving a CT Scan at Rady Children's Hospital at about 6 a.m. but the condition of all children was not available. The mother was transported to the hospital with major injuries and the driver of the other vehicle was also hurt. All lanes of Camino Del Norte were shut down and a Sig Alert was issued for I-15 to westbound Camino Del Norte as SDPD launched an investigation into the crash. At the scene, a vehicle appeared to be embedded into the SUV and debris covered the roadway. Eastbound lanes of Camino Del Norte have since reopened but the closures in westbound lanes and the I-15 offramp were expected to last at least four hours, SDPD said. No other information was available. Please refresh this page for updates on this story. Details may change as more information becomes available. Editor's Note: This story is no longer being updated. For the latest updates on the Woolsey Fire visit this page. A destructive 83,275-acre brush fire, pushed by strong Santa Ana winds, marched through Los Angeles and Ventura counties Friday and Saturday toward the sea, destroying at least 177 structures, forcing the evacuation of more than 250,000 people and leaving at least two people dead. Firefighters are looking ahead to a narrow window of calm wind Saturday as they battle to gain ground on the Woolsey Fire, which forced closures Friday and Saturday on the 101 Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway. After a brief respite from the strong winds, firefighters achieved at least some level of containment on Saturday before the fire a red flag warning goes into effect early Sunday and isn't set to expire until Tuesday evening. "Mother Nature has given us a little reprieve today," Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen said on Saturday. "The winds have stopped. It gives us some opportunities. But please don't let your guard down." CAL Fire announced that the fire had grown from 70,000 acres on Saturday morning to 83,275 acres by Saturday night, with 5 percent containment. However, numerous hot visible hot spots in the affected areas warned of potential future danger. The fire indiscriminately consumed multi-million dollar mansions and mobile homes alike Friday night into Saturday morning, turning what it touched to ash as it forced a citywide Malibu evacuation and sent residents scrambling to find a way out of the burn area. The fire, which erupted Thursday afternoon in Ventura County but raced into Los Angeles County, chewed its way through brush and into neighborhoods of Westlake Village and Malibu. The fire was zero percent contained as of Friday evening and reportedly jumped Pacific Coast Highway about 10 p.m., moving toward Malibu Colony. Two people were found severely burned inside a car on a long residential driveway in Malibu, Los Angeles County sheriff's Chief John Benedict said. The home is on a winding stretch of Mulholland Highway with steep panoramic views, where on Saturday the roadway was littered with rocks, a few large boulders and fallen power lines, some of them still on fire. Most of the surrounding structures were leveled. As three large fires burned in California Saturday morning, President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal payments to California, claiming its forest management is "so poor." He said on Twitter that "there is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly fires in California." An estimated 75,000 homes were under evacuation orders in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, with over 250,000 people displaced due to the conflagration. The entire city of Malibu was placed under an evacuation order late Friday morning and remained under that order throughout Saturday and into Sunday, with residents directed to southbound Pacific Coast Highway, creating miles of stand-still traffic along the scenic route. Authorities wound up closing the road to all northbound traffic up PCH out of Santa Monica, allowing southbound motorists to use all four lanes under the famous California Incline in Santa Monica. Authorities later ordered mandatory evacuations for the West Hills area of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley, not far from the fire's origin. Driven by 50- to 60-mph winds, the flames jumped south across the 101 Freeway in the Liberty Canyon area early Friday, sending it on a course through Malibu and its exclusive celebrity enclaves -- Caitlyn Jenner's home was reportedly among those destroyed. It was unclear how many homes were lost as the fire relentlessly advanced, but on-scene crews reported dozens of structures burning in various canyons. There also were reports of flames ripping through an apartment building and a mobile home park, along with people calling authorities to say they were trapped in burning structures. National Park Service officials reported that the famed Western Town at Paramount Ranch, a filming location for hundreds of TV and movie productions, including HBO's "Westworld," had burned to an unknown extent. The devastation has been swift since the fire broke out about 2:25 p.m. Thursday in Ventura County south of Simi Valley, pushed by strong Santa Ana winds. Early Friday, the whipping winds prevented fire commanders from ordering aerial assaults in the early morning hours. Some flights began at 5:30 a.m. as the wind died down, but winds quickly began picking up again as dawn broke. "We have fuels that are in a critical drought state," said LA County Fire Chief Daryl Osby. "Our firefighters have been facing some extreme, tough fire conditions that they said they've never seen in their life." Heavy smoke and strong winds hampered visibility for crews on the fire lines and residents trying to evacuate fire zones on Friday, but Saturday brought in a flurry of fire retardant attacks from the air. Three large wildfires burned early Saturday in California, including the 100,000-acre Camp Fire -- the most destructive on record in the state. With the two deaths in the Woolsey Fire, the death toll grew to 25 for the state's current burning fires, with over 100 people considered missing in the record-setting Northern California fire. So far this year, Cal Fire has reported more than 5,600 wildfires that have burned 621,700 acres. Last year during the same period, the agency reported 5,800 fires that burned about half that acreage. The new full-time director of the troubled Washington DC VA Medical Center promises fixes and improvements in performance. Michael Heimall, a former administrator at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who was named the new head of the DC VA Medical Center on Irving Street in October, is the fifth person to lead the medical center since April 2017 and inherits an aging facility, 2,000 employees and a growing list of projects to improve the facility. VAs internal ratings system lists the DC VA Medical Center as among the worst performing in the nation, officially labelling it high risk, low performing. I want veterans to know that we are absolutely committed to providing them the best health care that we possibly can, Heimall said. Heimall said he is hiring additional staff to improve the medical centers sterilization program and supply management. A series of I-Team investigations in 2017 and 2018 revealed a growing series of procedures postponed because of problems with sterilization or supply shortages. In one incident reported by the I-Team, the medical center delayed a patients procedure due to supply problems, even though the patient had already been placed under full anesthesia. We should never have a patient in an operating room under general anesthesia and have to cancel a case because we didnt have a piece of equipment available, Heimall said. A summer 2018 report by the I-Team revealed shortages of parking spaces and long walks for patients with severe mobility challenges. Heimall said construction of a new parking garage is expected to be completed by March. It better be ready in March, he said. I will be very upset if its not. Its on track right now. Heimall succeeds a series of temporary directors, who have filled the role previously held by longtime director Brian Hawkins. Hawkins was fired by the VA in 2017, shortly after the release of a scathing internal audit, which detailed mismanagement, some unsterile conditions and understaffing. Hawkins later filed a lawsuit against the agency. The suit is still pending in D.C. federal court. Physical upgrades and expansions are needed inside the aging medical center, Heimall said. The building is more than 50 years old and suffering from recurring problems with air conditioning systems, roof leaks and equipment breakdowns. I-Team investigations in 2018 revealed HVAC problems triggered a flood on several floors of the medical center complex and created hot conditions inside some patient rooms. I've had the opportunity over my military career to lead a couple of hospitals that were very, very old, Heimall said. I'm very impressed with what the staff has done. Reported by Scott MacFarlane, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones. Police shot and wounded a man who had a gun in a Germantown, Maryland, neighborhood Sunday, authorities say. Montgomery County Police Capt. C. Thomas Jordan told reporters that police received a call about a man waving a gun about 2:40 p.m. on Cross Laurel Court. Jordan said that officers shot the man but wouldn't elaborate on why they felt threatened enough to shoot, or how many officers fired their weapons. The man was taken to a local hospital in serious condition but is expected to recover. No officers were injured. Jordan said a weapon was recovered from the scene in a residential cul-de-sac. He wouldn't say what kind of gun it was. Video from a News4 viewer who wanted to remain anonymous shows a group of five or six officers dressed in uniform running on the street. One officer can be seen carrying a shield. "They literally shot at the police!" a woman says while capturing the video from inside a house. It's not clear if the suspect fired the gun. Jordan said there is police body camera footage of what happened. He said more details would be released as they are available. Residents said the suspect was one of their neighbors, who has lived on their block for many years. "I just feel really bad," said resident Tracey Katoski. "It's really sad, because this is a nice, quiet neighborhood." Police cordoned off the street for several hours after the shooting. Three cars with heavy damage from gunfire were seen being removed from the area. Update: Virginia State Police say the girl has been found safe. A 5-year-old girl was taken by her father in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and could be in danger, police say. Gonzalo "Danny" Ira Lago took his daughter, Scarlett Kathleen Belle Lago Sunday evening, Virginia State Police said. The pair may be traveling in a GMC flatbed truck with a tool box/push-bumper lift kit, police said. Scarlett Lago has blue eyes, blond hair and a scab on the tip of her nose. Police said she is 3 feet 4 inches and weighs 44 pounds. She was last seen wearing a pink dress with no shoes. Danny Largo has black hair and hazel eyes and is 5 feet 6 inches and 170 pounds. He was wearing a red shirt with writing on it, blue jeans and slip-on shoes, police said. Police are asking anyone with information about where they are to call 911. Two Kansas water park workers were acquitted Thursday of impeding an investigation into the 2016 death of a 10-year-old boy who was decapitated while on a ride that had been billed as the world's tallest waterslide. David Hughes and John Zalsman were found not guilty of obstruction of justice in connection to the death of Caleb Schwab, the son of a Kansas legislator. The boy was killed while on the 17-story Verruckt waterslide at the Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City. Zalsman's attorney called the prosecution "sloppy" and accused the attorney general of overreaching in an attempt to push innocent men to turn on employees higher up in the company. The attorney general's office did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Hughes and Zalsman, both maintenance workers, were the first employees to stand trial in the death. Others have also been charged, including one of Schlitterbahn's owners and the designer of the slide, who have both pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. The since-closed waterslide used rafts that made the 17-story drop at speeds of up to 70 mph (110 kilometers per hour), followed by a surge over the hump and a 50-foot (15-meter) descent to a finishing pool. Caleb was in a raft that went airborne and slammed him into a metal pole that supported a net meant to keep riders from flying off the slide. Two women on the raft also were injured. Prosecutors alleged that Hughes and Zalsman failed to replace a brake mat that fell off the slide two weeks earlier but told investigators that the mat had only been on the slide during testing phases. Video evidence showed that the mat was used after the ride opened to customers in 2014, prosecutors said. "This was not a mistake, this was intentional calculated conduct," said Adam Zentner, assistant Kansas Attorney General. The defense said prosecutors didn't understand how the slide functioned and questioned the testimony of Jason Diaz, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent who interviewed the defendants. The defense also noted that another Schlitterbahn employee who made false statements to investigators wasn't charged. "These are just two good old boys, they're hard working guys and because they're the only two adults in the room they get singled out and have to get charged ," said Scott Toth, defense attorney for Hughes, as he addressed jurors. Diaz said he didn't believe the other employee had intentionally misled him. Schlitterbahn has said the company had no reason to believe any employee obstructed justice. "We have maintained our belief in the integrity of our staff and respect the process and decision by the jury," Winter Prosapio, spokeswoman for Texas-based Schlitterbahn, said in an email after the verdict. The most serious charges in Caleb's death have been filed against one of Schlitterbahn's owners, Jeff Henry, Verruckt designer John Schooley and general contractor Henry & Sons Constructions. Each is charged with second-degree murder, which carries up to 41 years in prison; aggravated battery; and aggravated endangerment of a child. Another employee is charged with involuntary manslaughter. They have all pleaded not guilty. Their trials have not yet been scheduled. The slide was shut down after Caleb was killed. The boy's father, state Rep. Scott Schwab, a Republican from the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, had no immediate comment after being informed of the verdict Thursday. His son's death prompted Kansas legislators to strengthen the state's relatively lax oversight of amusement park rides. Their 2017 law required amusement park rides to be inspected every year by qualified inspector after previously allowing the parks to do their own. The law also mandated that parks report injuries to the state. But lawmakers quickly delayed criminal penalties for violations and then this year loosened rules further for county fairs and other short-term, one-location events run by nonprofit groups. They also exempted attractions such as hay-rack rides. The Schwab family will receive nearly $20 million in payments from legal settlements from companies associated with Schlitterbahn, the general contractor, the raft manufacturer and a company that consulted on the waterslide. The elder Schwab is the Republican nominee for Kansas secretary of state. A U.S. combat jet from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan crashed into the sea northeast of the Philippines on Monday, but its two pilots were rescued safely. The U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet said the F/A-18 Hornet had a mechanical problem during routine operations in the Philippine Sea. A rescue aircraft quickly plucked the pilots from the water and brought them back to the ship, the Navy said in a statement. They were in good condition and the aircraft carrier has since returned to normal operations, the Navy said. The cause of the crash is under investigation. The crash was the second involving aircraft belonging to the USS Ronald Reagan in less than a month. In mid-October, a MH-60 Seahawk crashed shortly after takeoff, causing non-fatal injuries to a dozen sailors. The aircraft carrier participated in a joint exercise known as "Keen Sword" with Japan and Canada from Oct. 29 to Nov. 8 in waters around Japan and near Guam in the Pacific. The F/A-18 was part of Carrier Air Wing 5 onboard the Ronald Reagan, the Navy said. The Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf is looking for turkey donations to provide Thanksgiving meals for low-income families. The food shelf hopes to give out 3,500 turkeys this year. Donations can be dropped off at the food shelf in Burlington. Organizers say community members may also donate turkey breasts and roasts as well as Thanksgiving fixings like mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, corn and green beans. The donations can be dropped off Nov. 14-16 and on the 19th between 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.; on Nov. 17 and 18 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and on Nov. 21 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. The food shelf is the largest direct service emergency food provider in the state, serving about 11,000 people each year. A delivery truck driver was injured Monday morning when he was struck by a pickup truck in Woburn, Massachusetts. Shortly after 7:45 a.m., police responded to the area of Van Norden Road and School Street for a report of a crash. There, they found the victim with serious injuries and rushed him to a nearby hospital. Authorities determined the man was struck by the pickup truck after it rear-ended the victim's delivery truck. The victim was making a delivery when he was hit, according to the Woburn Police Department. The pickup truck driver remained at the scene and is cooperative, officials said. Woburn police are continuing their investigation on the crash with assistance from the Middlesex District Attorney's Office and Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section. As election workers continue to process ballots in Augusta, the Maine GOP is raising the red flag about ballot security. The Republican Party posted images to its Facebook page showing ballot boxes without padlocks. A courier service picked up ballot boxes from every municipality in Maines Second Congressional District and transported them to a central location in Augusta where the Secretary of States office is using ranked choice tabulation. It is the first time RCV will be used to determine a federal race. We want to feel like we can trust the results, Jason Savage, Executive Director of the Maine GOP, said. On Monday, Secretary of State Matt Dunlap said the absence of padlocks does not mean there was any potential for tampering. He said every box containing ballots had a serialized seal still intact. Each seal has a code that corresponds to its municipality. The device cannot be opened without wire cutters. If we had a ballot box show up here that was neither locked nor sealed, I would freak out, Dunlap said. This facility is badge protected, we have cameras, so the prospect of something going wrong that no one would find out about is pretty darn narrow. The Maine GOP has raised a second concern about election integrity. One of the workers assigned to handling ballots has liked tweets supporting the Democratic candidate and tweets opposing the Republican incumbent. Savage said they would like to see that worker re-assigned. Dunlap is dismissing the idea that his workers are compromised, and called the Republican Partys allegations unfounded, irresponsible and a distraction. I dont ask peoples political affiliations when we hire them. We have Republicans and Democrats working for us. Im shocked that anyone working in public policy would have an opinion about anything, he said sarcastically. The race between Republican Bruce Poliquin and Democrat Jared Golden is extremely close, separated by about 2,000 votes. Because both candidates received 46 percent of the vote, ranked choice voting will come into play. Every voter was able to rank Golden, Poliquin and the two independent candidates by preference. Votes cast for the independents will now be reallocated, based on who the voter put down as second choice. Whoever receives a 50 percent majority or more after RCV is calculated will become the winner. The Maine Democrats issued a statement Monday critical of the Republican complaints. "The Secretary of State's office is carrying out the Ranked Choice Voting process in a non-partisan manner and in accordance with the law that was twice-approved by Mainers at the ballot box...Not only are Maine Republicans' 'concerns' unfounded, it's clearly part of a national effort by Republicans to delegitimize the voting count in races they fear they could lose." The Secretary of States office hopes to have the ballot processing completed by the end of the week. Stores inside the shopping center where New Hampshire police are searching for an armed and dangerous suspect in the woods have been evacuated. "There were snipers that were going to be put on the roof," a witness said. "We've seen SWAT. We've pretty much seen everything." Stacy Clement says her daughter is a cashier at the Walmart and was told to shelter in place for several hours. "Yes, she's very safe," Clement said. Out of an abundance of caution, police cruisers are blocking the entrances to the Ridge Marketplace Shopping Center, which is now closed. "This could be a long night," police said. Authorities have identified the suspect as Christopher L. Thomas, 27. Police say he is homeless. A Walmart worker spotted him holding a rifle in the store's parking lot Sunday. According to police, they received a report that a man, armed with a rifle, was seen in the rear parking lot of Walmart before disappearing into the woods. The man was later identified as Thomas, who is known to police and has three warrants for criminal threatening along with four warrants for theft. Authorities believe he is in the woods behind Walmart and Market Basket along The Ridge development. "I guess there's no harm inside, it's on the outside," Clement said. No shots have been fired and no injuries have been reported, police said. Thomas is described as a white male in his 20s with a beard. He is approximately 5'8" and 160 pounds. The search for the suspect has prompted lockdowns of businesses along Farmington Road (Route 11), according to police. A Walmart employee told NBC10 Boston that the store was locked down due to an incident outside. Workers and shoppers are safe inside the building, according to the Walmart employee. Police stressed there was not an active shooter. Residents are asked to avoid the area as police respond to the scene. Stay with us as this story develops. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) will revive its controversial proposal for Grade 4 students and up to go through mandatory drug test. PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino made the announcement on Monday, after a public poll showed 51 percent of respondents agreed to the proposal. "We'll propose [it] again sa [Department of Education], and also with [the Commission on Higher Education]," Aquino told CNN Philippines' The Source. "Dati kasi, nobody believes in us. Nobody understands what we are proposing. DepEd, sinara kaagad ang pinto so talagang nalungkot kami. But now... because of developments, medyo natuwa ulit kami, hoping na maging positive." (Translation: Before, nobody [believed] in us. Nobody [understood] what we [were] proposing. DepEd closed the door, so we were sad. But now... because of developments, we're pleased and hoping [their reception] will be positive.) Malacanang had voiced its support for the idea after the Social Weather Stations survey results. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo last Thursday said there was no need to amend Republic Act 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, which only allows random drug testing for secondary and tertiary level students. The PDEA first floated the idea of mandatory drug tests in June, but the Department of Education (DepEd) disagreed. Critics said the children were too young, and the policy is not backed by law. Aquino said he forwarded the proposal because minors arrested by PDEA during anti-illegal drug operations were getting younger and younger. He said PDEA had apprehended and rescued around 1,820 children since President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs was launched in 2016. He did not give figures for how many of the minors were users, couriers, or pushers. The Commission on Human Rights (CHR), in a statement, cautioned that the policy, if approved, should "not, in any way, affect the children's access to their right to education." "There should be sufficient guidelines... which prohibits the school or agencies from imposing sanctions-administrative or criminal-to those found to be a user or dependent," CHR spokesperson Jacqueline Ann de Guia said in a statement. Aquino assured the public that if the policy is implemented, test results would remain confidential and there would be "no penalty" for students who were drug positive. "They will not be kicked out of school. Hindi alam ng mga classmates na nagpositive siya. Magcoconduct kami ng counseling," said Aquino. "Hindi puwedeng ikulong, kasuhan. Tutulungan namin sila," he added. "We will save them." (Translation: Their classmates won't know they tested positive. We will conduct counseling... They can't be jailed, charged. We will help them.) Aquino also said that the surprise test would cover not only students, but faculty and staff. He maintained that there were also teachers who peddled and used drugs, but did not give a number. "May mga teachers na mga kilo ang binebenta, babaeng teacher pa naman iyon sa public school. So meron ding private school kaming nahuli," said Aquino, without detailing the case. "The more na dapat tuunan ang private school," he added. "They have the money to buy drugs." (Translation: There are teachers who sell by the kilo, and that was a female teacher in a public school. We also caught someone from a private school... Private schools should be given more focus.) However, despite Malacanang support, the DepEd maintained an amendment to the law was necessary. Aquino admitted the provision in the Dangerous Drugs Act would be a hurdle. He said, "That's the reason why we'd like to amend the law, or crop up policies with DepEd requiring Grade 4 and up to be drug tested." How Congress would receive the proposal remains to be seen. Local authority needs to find 7.7m of savings next year SOME of the district's most vulnerable residents - including the elderly, the disabled and those with mental health issues and addiction - could be among the hardest hit by the latest round of council cuts. Due to an increase in demand for services particularly adult social care - and a further reduction in money from central government, West Berkshire Council is anticipating a shortfall of 7.7m next year. The majority - just over 7.4m - will come from "becoming a more efficient council", but approximately 295,000 will have to be found via cuts to public services. Here is a breakdown of the proposals, announced this afternoon: . To reduce the annual funding to Swanswell substance misuse service from 585,940 to 540,940 (a proposed saving of 45,000 or 8 per cent) . To cease the annual funding to the Age UK's Handyperson Service - which carries out a range of small household repairs and minor adaptations for older people (a saving of (19,125 or 100 per cent) - when the contract ends on March 31, 2019 . To cease the annual funding to the Alcohol Screening and Brief Advice Service, which provides people with an opportunity to reduce the harm that excessive drinking causes to their health and wellbeing (a saving of 21,300 or 100 per cent) . To cease the annual funding to the cancer rehabilitation programme (the council currently subsidises a programme of exercise classes for individuals living with and beyond cancer, at a cost of 8,290 per year . To reduce the annual funding to Eat4Health - a 12 week, group based, weight management course that is available free of charge to individuals in West Berkshire who are over 16 years of age, and have a body mass index (BMI) of over 25 - from 56,575 to 40,000 (a saving of 16,575 or 29 per cent) . To reduce the annual funding to Get Berkshire Active (Community Based Leisure and Recreational Activities programme) from 90,641 to 50,641 (a saving of 40,000 or 44 per cent) when the current contract ends on 31 March 2019. . To reduce the annual funding to the Mencap Family Advisor Service, which works with people with learning disabilities and their parents, carers and families to help them access the services and support available to them, from 15,750 to 12,750 (a proposed saving of 3,000 or 19 per cent) . To cease subsidising the current Mental Health First Aid training programme, which helps people to learn how to assist someone with mental health issues at an annual cost of 8,500, and to deliver the training through a 'West Berkshire Wellbeing' traded service . To reduce the annual funding to Relate, a charity providing relationship support throughout the UK, from 6,468 to 4,968 (a saving of 1,500 or 23 per cent) . To reduce the annual funding to Smokefreelife, which provides a range of support, including one-to-one or group sessions over 12 weeks and a free weekly supply of Nicotine Replacement Therapy from 201,100 to 101,100 (a proposed saving of 100,000 or 50 per cent) . To reduce the annual funding to the Special Needs Advice and Counselling Support Services (SNACS) from 10,000 to 8,000 (a saving of 2,000 or 20 per cent) . To reduce the annual funding to the Supported Employment Scheme for People with Disabilities from 60,000 to 45,000 (a proposed saving of 15,000 or 25 per cent) . To reduce the annual funding to the Volunteer Centre West Berkshire from 20,028 to 15,028 (a saving of 5,000 or 25 per cent) . The introduction of charges for advice on planning and transport policy Residents are invited to read West Berkshire Councils proposals and explain any impact on them before decisions are made in the coming months. Details of the proposals can be found online at www.westberks.gov.uk/budgetproposals The six week public consultation is open until Sunday, December 23. The funding the local authority has received from the Government has fallen from 24m in 2012 to zero next year and next year West Berkshire Council will have 128m to spend on services supporting communities across the district. The council says is addressing this challenge by generating new income where it can, by becoming a more efficient council and in some cases changing the way services are delivered. Speaking ahead of the consultation, council leader Graham Jones said:Every year our communities are asking more from the services we provide but we are receiving less money to deliver those services. "To give some context to this, a grant worth 24m from the Government to us six years ago has been phased out while we have seen a significant increase in demand for adult social care. "Im proud of our track record supporting vulnerable residents not only when they are elderly but throughout their lives. Its the right thing to do and makes a real difference to them and their families. However, changes to funding and demand mean we are continually having to look at what we do and how we do it. Next year we will again have to find ways to save money or generate income if the council is to live within its means. "Most of this will come from within the organisation but inevitably some will affect frontline services. I hope residents will look at our proposals for the year ahead and have their say before we sit down and make our decisions in the New Year. Responses to the consultation and the decision made by West Berkshire Council will be published at www.westberks.gov.uk/budgetproposals in due course. The budget for 2019/20 is due to be considered by the executive committee at 5pm on Thursday February 14 and by full council at 6.30pm on Tuesday, March 5. Both meetings are due to be held at the council offices in Market Street, Newbury and are open to the public. Japanese researchers have last week transplanted stem cells into a patients brain as part of an experimental therapy for Parkinsons disease. The team at Kyoto University used induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells for their procedure. These iPS cells have the capacity to turn into any cell in the body. Stem cells - 3d illustration. Image Credit: Giovanni Cancemi / Shutterstock For the study they found a male patient of Parkinsons disease in his fifties who agreed for this experiment. After the operation where the cells were injected last month, the man was stable. He will now be followed up for two years before conclusive information regarding the safety and efficacy of the procedure can be ascertained say the researchers. At the first round the team injected 2.4 million iPS cells onto his left side of the brain in a three hour long operation. Over the next six months, he would be monitored closely and if no harm is noted another 2.4 million iPS cells would be implanted onto the right side of the brain. These iPS cells come from healthy donors and are expected to develop into dopamine-producing brain cells that have been damaged in the patients own brain. A total of seven patients between ages 50 and 69 have been included for this study. Kyoto University professor Jun Takahashi thanked the participants for volunteering to participante in this study. This human study follows earlier successful trials on monkeys explain the researchers. By also cooperating with companies, we want to develop a mass production system that enables us to deliver nerve cells derived from iPS cells to all over the world, said Jun Takahashi, a professor at the universitys Center for iPS Cell Research and Application who led the research team, at a news conference. He elaborated on the process of the three-hour operation he performed, "we made a hole in the frontal part of the left side of the head and transplanted some 2.4 million cells, adding that the patient smiled with relief after the operation." If successful this could revolutionize Parkinsons disease treatment say experts. This disease of the brain and nerves affects around 10 million people worldwide and at present it is incurable with treatment available to just curb the symptoms for a period of time. A new study has found that Kawasaki disease (KD) is not caused by one single factor but has multiple environmental triggers that are influenced by temperature, wind patterns and precipitation. Kateryna Kon | Shutterstock The finding comes from a study of weather patterns and geographical distributions of patients in San Diego by scientists at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and international collaborators. KD is the most common acquired heart disease in children. If left untreated, around 25% of children go on to develop coronary artery aneurysms, which increases their risk of heart attack, heart failure or sudden death. The incidence rate of this disease is rising in San Diego, for example. During the 1990s, the rate was approximately 10 per 100,000 children under 5 years of age, but between 2006 and 2015 this figure rose to 25.5 per 100,000. The overall Incidence in the U.S. is approximately 19 to 25 cases per 100,000 children under 5 years of age, but by 2030, it is estimated that 1 in every 1,600 adults in the U.S. will have been affected. The prevalence of KD is also increasing in Asia, with the highest incident rate seen in Japan. Now, the current study provides first-hand evidence that recent low-pressure systems in San Diego were associated with two distinct clusters of the disease. Up until now, scientists have been looking for one 'thing' that triggers KD. Now we see that there are distinct clusters of the disease with different patterns suggesting varying causes. Dr. Jane Burns, Study Author As recently described in the journal Scientific Reports, Burns and colleagues assessed 1,164 cases of KD treated at Rady childrens hospital over a 15-year period. They found that cases of KD occurred in clusters associated with atmospheric patterns that are thought to transport or concentrate particles that trigger KD. Features of these patterns include above average atmospheric pressure, warmer conditions in South Carolina and high atmospheric pressure south of the Aleutian Islands. Gene analysis of patients with KD revealed distinct groups of patients based on their gene expression patterns, with the different groups being associated with particular clinical characteristics. Burns and team propose that characterization of the environmental triggers of KD in genetically susceptible children should focus on aerosols inhaled by children sharing common disease characteristics. Sources: Kawasaki disease: One disease, multiple triggers. Clustering and climate associations of Kawasaki Disease in San Diego County suggest environmental triggers. insights from industry Kevin D. Costa, PhD CSO & Scientific Co-founder Novoheart An interview with Dr. Kevin Costa, discussing the miniaturized heart-in-a-jar model developed by Novoheart, and its applications in personalized medicine. What is the mini heart-in-a-jar? The mini-heart is a 3D engineered, living miniature human heart chamber designed to mimic the pumping function of the human heart. It's a single-chamber organoid model thats about a centimeter in diameter, representing the ventricle which is the key chamber in the heart for pumping blood through the body, and also the one thats most susceptible to arrhythmias and diseases that adversely affect heart function. We start with human pluripotent stem cells and differentiate these into ventricular-specific cardiomyocytes, which are characteristic of the ventricles. We then embed these cells into a hydrogel matrix made of collagen and other supporting factors that are poured into a custom developed mold. The cells attach to the matrix over a couple of days and grow into a hollow, spherical shape, following the mold. With time in culture, the cells compact the collagen around the mold and become organized into a three-dimensional tissue. Part of the mold is similar to a rubber balloon we deflate this to leave a hollow organoid chamber that pumps and beats like a miniature human heart. We can control the heart rate using an electrical pacemaker, meaning we can simulate the heart under different conditions such as exercise, stress or sleep, and monitor the mini-heart using sensors to measure things like pressure and volume. This allows us to make measurements that cardiologists are interested in, such as stroke volume, ejection fraction, and cardiac output. By combining the pressure and volume measurements, we can generate pressure/volume (PV) loops, which describe the pumping efficiency of the heart. This capability is rather unique for an in vitro model of the heart. How easy is it to keep these mini-hearts alive? One of the other aspects that were focused on is developing the technology to support the biologics. It's not just about engineering and innovating tissues but also the development of bioreactors. These are machines which are used to grow and monitor the mini-heart. We designed these bioreactors so that there is minimal user manipulation of the mini-heart, with the idea being that it will grow on its own. Theres a little bit of intervention needed to withdraw the balloon, but the measurements are pretty hands-off. This helps to maximize throughput and minimize variability between users. Weve also developed software and analytics that help cardiologists and scientists discover the full capabilities of the mini-heart. Theyre pretty sophisticated models and can be used to generate very complicated datasets. It would be a shame to just analyze the amplitude of the pressure wave, for example. If you start integrating pressure measurements with volume and flow, you can start to build up a more complex picture of the organoid function, which contains important information about how the system responds to drugs, or how it reproduces aspects of a particular heart disease. To fully utilize the valuable datasets we get from studying these mini-hearts, weve now started to integrate machine learning technologies to help analyze all of this data in an unbiased way. For example, the machine can assess whether a drug is having a positive or a negative effect based on how the chamber is working, in a highly efficient and effective manner. This is only the basics of what machine learning can do, in reality, there are a lot more subtleties. Just one of the many possibilities would be to develop algorithms that can be trained to automatically classify new compounds into pre-existing drug categories based on how they work. They can identify whether a drug is a sodium channel blocker or calcium channel blocker, for example. How long does it take to create one mini-heart? Once we have the stem cells, it takes a minimum of two weeks to turn those into beating cardiomyocytes. We then make the organoid chamber by placing the cells into the custom mold. The next day, we add some additional media to help culture the cells, and after 24 hours, we remove the outside of the mold, giving the cells full access to the culture media. Within a couple of days, the cells will start automatically beating and after 7-10 days, we remove the silicone balloon from inside the structure and are left with a hollow, autonomous beating human mini-heart chamber. An exciting thing about this technology is that it uses induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. This means that if you're interested in looking at how a drug might have toxic effects on the heart, you can test it on human cells immediately, with limited ethical implications. We can also test a drug that is expected to cure heart disease on a model thats been made with stem cells from a patient with the disease of interest. This offers a powerful tool in drug discovery, as it can give you information about both drug efficacy using diseased mini-hearts and cardiotoxicity using healthy mini-hearts. What makes the heart-in-a-jar so revolutionary compared to previous tools in drug development? Traditional tools used in drug development are single-cell cultures and small animal models, which have been tested for decades. Unfortunately, history tells us that those models are not especially predictive of how a drug will ultimately behave when it's delivered to human patients. We're exceptionally good at curing heart disease and cancer in mice and rats, but a lot of those same therapies are not effective or even toxic when delivered to patients. Novohearts mini-heart technology offers a human-based system using human heart cells. Its all part of the stem cell revolution that occurred when iPS cells were developed. We now have access to human tissues that we just didnt have access to in the past. Human hearts are almost impossible to come by as there are so many critically ill patients in need of a transplant. It would be unethical to ship needed organs off to a company for drug testing. When we present this to researchers, they recognize that it is really quite unique and potentially disruptive, in the sense that for the first time, you can actually have a miniature human heart in your laboratory for several weeks. It's not something that's going to die after a couple of hours, and it gives you human-specific measures that should better predict how therapies will behave in actual patients. Ultimately this will make therapies safer and more effective for patients, while also reducing the wasted investment of resources required to develop a drug that is destined to fail in the clinic. Could the model be used routinely in drug development? Yes, that's what we are striving for. A key question we are working to answer right now is the most appropriate time in the development pipeline to implement the mini-hearts. Of course, one idea is the earlier, the better. If something's not going to work, why bother spending time developing it? On the other hand, pharmaceutical companies have libraries containing thousands of compounds that they're interested in screening, so developing a mini-heart for each one isnt very practical with such a system. For early stage screening, you need an assay with much higher throughput. We imagine the right time point for using Novoheart technology is mid-stage in the drug development pipeline, when you've already identified a few lead compounds, maybe a couple of dozen or so, that you are starting to seriously invest in and think about moving to animal studies. Before doing this, you would use the organoid chambers as a screen to inform how to move forward. For Novoheart, mini-hearts are a first step. We're heart specialists so it made sense for us to start there. Moreover, cardiotoxicity is one of the key reasons drugs fail in clinical trials. Ultimately we want to integrate heart organoids with liver organoids and lung organoids etc., to build up a whole system. The bioreactor technology development has been designed with that plan in mind. We expect that at some stage well have several organoids all interacting and being monitored by the same bioreactor, and hope that this might eventually be able to replace animal models altogether. Whats next for Novoheart? More immediately than a mini human-in-a-jar, I think validation is still key and one of our biggest priorities is to continue to generate data that showcase where these organoids shine and where they give us clear advantages compared to other systems. We also want to discover and overcome any limitations as well. One of the challenges with using stem cells as the starting material is that the heart cells you derive from those tend to be immature. You can imagine that if you're studying embryonic cells, the first differentiation that you get is embryonic heart and then it becomes more like a newborn heart muscle and then eventually turns into an adult heart muscle. In life, that takes a couple of decades. We think that in a laboratory setting, we can accelerate that process and drive maturation much more quickly, enabling us to study the effects of a drug at each stage of development. Recently, we discovered that if we compare the maturation signatures of cardiomyocytes in a 2D tissue culture versus a cardiac organoid chamber, they mature faster in the organoid chamber in response to a more heart-like system. They're more predictive of how an adult heart would respond to some different drugs that we've been testing. One of the other things that we're continuing to do is push the limits on the organoids and understand how they behave under more varied systems. We're starting to increase the kinds of disease models that we can represent to include more acquired heart diseases, which are much more prevalent in the human population. Were also increasing the throughput of our systems so that larger populations of these organoids can be tested at the same time, which should make them more useful in selecting drugs for clinical trials. We are also constantly continuing to improve our data analysis and machine learning aspects. Altogether, I think that's what ultimately distinguishes the kind of data we obtain and what we can do with that data versus a number of other competitors, by maximizing the information and the predictive ability of Novohearts MyHeartTM Platform of human cardiac-specific assays. Where can readers find more information? About Dr. Kevin Costa Dr. Kevin Costa is one of the scientific co-founders of Novoheart and has served as the CSO since 2017. He is currently the Director of Cardiovascular Cell and Tissue Engineering at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Kevin helped develop one of the first engineered cardiac tissue systems as well as several cardiac tissue engineering technologies. Since 2009, he has been working with Professor Ronald Li to translate such systems into human cells. The work has received research funding from the Whitaker Foundation, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH; NHLBI, NIBIB, and NIGMS). Kevin was also a recipient of the prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the NSF. About Novoheart Novoheart is a global stem cell biotechnology company pioneering an array of next-generation human heart tissue prototypes. It is the first company in the world to have engineered miniature living human heart pumps that can revolutionize drug discovery, helping to save time and money for developing new therapeutics. A possible danger from the Maoists had prompted Election Commission to begin voting at different timings in the Red belt. Polling in 10 constituencies Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur and Konta is being held from 7 am till 3 pm, while in the other eight seats Khairgarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Bastar, Jagdalpur and Chitrakot the polling time is 8 am to 5 pm. Read More Chhattisgarh Assembly Election LIVE | Around 47% voter turnout was recorded till 3 pm in 18 Assembly constituencies in the first phase of Chhattisgarh elections on Monday. Polling in 10 constituencies ended at 3 pm, while 8 seats will continue voting till 5 pm.A possible danger from the Maoists had prompted Election Commission to begin voting at different timings in the Red belt. Polling in 10 constituencies Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur and Konta is being held from 7 am till 3 pm, while in the other eight seats Khairgarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Bastar, Jagdalpur and Chitrakot the polling time is 8 am to 5 pm. People queued up at polling station in Naxal-affected Manpur's Pardoni village amid posters and banners by Naxals, asking people to boycott polls. Around 23% voter turnout was recorded till 12.30 pm in 18 Assembly constituencies in the first phase of Chhattisgarh elections. Around 12 pm, two soldiers of Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) were injured after an encounter that broke out between security forces and Naxals in Bijapur's Pamed area. Ahead of polling for first phase of Chhattisgarh elections, nearly two kilograms of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was detonated by Naxals near Tumakpal camp in Dantewada's Katekalyan block around 5:30 am. An official said that no personnel or polling party was injured in the incident. Tight security blanket is in place in 18 Assembly constituencies with over 1.25 lakh police and paramilitary personnel on vigil. Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat said that over 900 polling personnel have been arrived in helicopters due to threat from Naxals. Earlier on Monday morning, voting was halted at a women's polling station, known as 'pink booth', in CM Raman Singh's Rajnandgaon district due to EVM malfunction. However, the polling was resumed shortly. In the first phase, 190 candidates are in the fray and as per electoral rolls, there are 31,80,014 voters. Women voters outnumber men for the first phase of polling, with 16,22,492 female voters on the rolls against 15,57,435 men. There are 87 third gender voters as well. Nearly one lakh security personnel have been deployed in the Naxal-affected districts amid the threat from Maoists who have called for a boycott of the elections. Naxal outfits have given calls for boycott of the election and executed over half-a-dozen attacks in the last 15 days, three of them major ones which left 13 people dead including a cameraman of national broadcaster Doordarshan who was covering the election campaign. Security men have been asked to avoid patrolling on foot as Naxals are known to place iron spikes to inflict injuries. They have also been asked to maintain extra caution and sanitise polling booths and other premises in sensitive areas. As many as 4,336 polling booths have been set up for the first phase and 19,079 polling personnel have been deployed. According to police, escorting polling parties to their destinations and bringing them back after the polls pose challenges to them in the Naxal hotbed. "Around one lakh security personnel, including central paramilitary force, have been deployed to ensure peaceful polling in the first phase," Chhattisgarh's Special Director General (anti-Naxal operations) D M Awasthi said. All counter measures have been taken to thwart attempts by Maoists to disrupt the poll process, he said. A total of 650 companies (roughly around 65,000 security personnel), including of paramilitary forces like the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Border Security Force (BSF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and other state forces, have been sent by the Centre for poll duty, he said. These units are apart from the paramilitary personnel and 200 companies of state forces already engaged in the anti- Maoist operations in Chhattisgarh, Awasthi said. He said around 650 polling booth parties were airlifted by helicopters to remote areas while other teams were sent by road on Sunday. Choppers of the Indian Air Force and the BSF were pressed into service for the purpose, he said. "The challenge is to escort all polling parties safely to their destination in Naxal-affected areas and later to conduct polls and bring back them safely," Awasthi said. He said there are inputs of Naxals planning to plant IEDs to target security men. "Therefore, a hawk eye was being kept on roads in such areas," the official said. In the first phase, the prestige of nine sitting Congress MLAs -Manoj Singh Mandavi (Bhanupratappur), Mohan Lal Markam (Kondagaon), Lakheshwar Baghel (Bastar), Deepak Kumar Baij (Chitrakot), Devati Karma (Dantewada), Kawasi Lakhma (Konta), Girwar Janghel (Khairagarh), Santram Netam (Keshkal) and Daleshwar Sahu (Dongargaon) is at stake. Of the 18 seats going to polling in the first phase, 12 are reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) while one is for Scheduled Caste (SC) category. The second phase of polls will see voting in 72 seats on November 20. Inside the best The Flash story of all time with Mark Waid, Greg Larocque, and Brian Augustyn Looking back at the greatest Flash story of all time Sorry! This content is not available in your region New Delhi: Upping his ante against Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the mother-son duo were out on bail, yet they question the governments demonetisation move. Modis apparent reference was the National Herald case. Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi are out on bail the case. Both the Congress leaders have been questioning the benefits of demonetisation in the run-up to the assembly elections in five states. On occasion of the second anniversary of demonetisation on November 8, Rahul Gandhi had called notes ban a "monumental blunder". "The mother-son duo who are out on bail are giving me a certificate and asking from me the benefits of demonetisation... Those who are out on bail are distributing certificates of honesty... They forget that it was due demonetisation that they had to seek bail," Modi said at an election rally in Chhattisgarh Bilaspur, where assembly polls are scheduled on November 20. Congresss politics is centred on one family. Which poor doesnt want gas connection or bank balance? But the family in Congress is disconnected from people. They neither have the will nor the leadership to bring changes, NDTV quoted Modi as saying. Modi say the Congress leaders forget that it was due to demonetisation that they had to seek bail, adding that those seeking bail are giving certificate to Modi. Some people want to create differences between people between rich and poor, between urban and rural. BJP believes if India has to grow, differences among people should be done away with. Only development can do that, and BJP is committed to that, he said. For all the Latest Assembly Elections News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi : Voting for the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018 on Monday took place in eight Naxal-affected districts spread across 18 constituencies amid massive security. As many as 190 candidates, including state Chief Minister Raman Singh, are in the fray for 18 of the 90 Assembly seats. Off the total 31,80,014 people eligible for voting, 16,22,492 are women, while 15,57,435 are men. Massive security arrangements have been made for the elections in Chhattisgarh's red belt in the wake of Naxal threat to disrupt polling. Around one lakh security personnel, including central paramilitary forces, have been deployed to ensure peaceful elections across the eight districts, which are prone to Naxal attacks. The 18 Assembly seats where voting is being held today are - Dantewada, Bijapur, Konta, Khairagarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Bastar, Jagdalpur, Keshkal and Chitrakoot. Also Read | Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018: Naxals trigger IED blast in Dantewada, target security forces on polling day Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018 | Highlights 20:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Polling was peaceful. In comparison to earlier elections, these elections have been singular achievement of the people working in fields. Attempts were made to create fear among people but enthusiasm in voters was appreciable: OP Rawat, Chief Election Commissioner Polling was peaceful. In comparison to earlier elections, this elections have been singular achievement of the people working in fields. Attempts were made to create fear among people but enthusiasm in voters was appreciable: OP Rawat, Chief Election Commissioner #Chhattisgarh pic.twitter.com/eUXaT3iD7c ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 19:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Two Maoists killed in an encounter with security forces in Sukma. Two rifles also recovered Two Maoists killed in an encounter with security forces in Sukma. Two rifles also recovered. #Chhattisgarh pic.twitter.com/Y5EVrBW6su ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 18:33 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Total 70 per cent voter turnout recorded in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections on Monday. Voting has ended, turnout is 70% till now in the first phase of #ChhattisgarhElections2018. Figures will be updated later: Umesh Sinha, Election Commission pic.twitter.com/I26aNS7qB7 ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 18:28 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In 56.58% voter turnout recorded till 4.30 pm in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018 56.58% voter turnout recorded till 4.30 pm in the first phase of #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018 including 61.47% in Kondagaon; 63.51% in Keshkal; 62% in Kanker; 58% in Bastar; 49% in Dantewada; 60.5% in Khairagarh; 64% in Dongargarh; 65.5% in Khujji. pic.twitter.com/NFm2aIAEcR ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 16:13 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Three more personnel of Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) are injured and around five Naxals are dead in the encounter that broke out between security forces and Naxals in Bijapur's Pamed area. All the CoBRA personnel are out of danger. 16:12 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Security forces defused IED detected on the road leading to Dwarapara polling booth, under PS Bairamgarh in Bijapur #Chhattisgarh: Security forces defused IED detected on the road leading to Dwarapara polling booth, under PS Bairamgarh in Bijapur. ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 14:01 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In BREAKING: 25.15% voter turnout recorded till 1 pm in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018. 13:52 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Around 23 per cent voter turnout was recorded till 12.30 pm in 18 Assembly constituencies 12:58 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Chhattisgarh: Encounter broke out between security forces & Naxals in Bijapur's Pamed area at around 12:20 pm today. Firing underway. 11:57 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections2018: 16.24% voter turnout recorded in first four hours. 16.24% voter turnout recorded till now in the first phase of #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018 in 18 assembly constituencies; Visuals of polling centers in Jagdalpur and Geedam pic.twitter.com/3kySeF4nfe ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 11:55 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Rajnandgaon: People queued up outside the polling station in Naxal-affected Manpur's Pardoni village where Naxali posters & banners asking people to boycott elections had been seen Rajnandgaon: People queued up outside the polling station in Naxal-affected Manpur's Pardoni village where Naxali posters & banners asking people to boycott elections had been seen. #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018 pic.twitter.com/dhu9oQkV2H ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 10:54 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Dantewada: A differently-abled person reaches Chintagupha polling booth to cast his vote in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018 Dantewada: A differently-abled person reaches Chintagupha polling booth to cast his vote in the first phase of #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018 pic.twitter.com/Gcr545vs0B ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 10:14 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Sukma: An IED was detected near a polling booth in Konta's Banda. Pictures of voters queued outside a makeshift polling booth established under a tree, away from the actual polling booth. Sukma: An IED was detected near a polling booth in Konta's Banda. Pictures of voters queued outside a makeshift polling booth established under a tree, away from the actual polling booth. #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018 pic.twitter.com/kIK498ZRG2 ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 10:00 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Chhattisgarh Elections 2018: A visually impaired person casts his vote at a polling station in Dantewada's Geedam #ChhattisgarhElections2018: A visually impaired person casts his vote at a polling station in Dantewada's Geedam pic.twitter.com/1ZtBqolhiM ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 10:00 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In BREAKING: 53 polling stations out of the total of 4336 reported delayed start of polling due to technical reasons, however, 100% polling stations have reported smooth polling with long queues outside: Election Commission 08:46 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Update: After a brief halt, toting has resumed at the Pink polling booth in Kamla College, in Rajnandgaon's Sangwari. 08:44 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Chhattisgarh Elections 2018: Voting has stopped due to a technical problem in the EVM at the Pink polling booth in Kamla College, in Rajnandgaon's Sangwari. #ChhattisgarhElections2018: Voting has stopped due to technical problem in the EVM at the Pink polling booth in Kamla College, in Rajnandgaon's Sangwari pic.twitter.com/cgrjUCQcga ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 08:31 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Polling is being held in 18 constituencies of Chhattisgarh today, they are Left Wing Extremism affected area. Polls being held in 2 phases to provide special security in these 18 constituencies. These 18 areas are kept in 1st phase so that paramilitary forces remain fresh: CEC Rawat Polling is being held in 18 constituencies of Chhattisgarh today, they are Left Wing Extremism affected area. Polls being held in 2 phases to provide special security in these 18 constituencies.These 18 areas are kept in 1st phase so that paramilitary forces remain fresh:OP Rawat pic.twitter.com/oVdPfzrh6X ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 08:30 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Nearly 900 polling personnel have been air-dropped from helicopters so that they can reach safely. Over 16,500 polling personnel went by-road. I think all will be in a position to deliver peaceful elections: Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat 08:10 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Sukma: A 100-year-old woman reaches a polling station in Dornapal to cast her vote in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018 Sukma: A 100-year-old woman reaches a polling station in Dornapal to cast her vote in the first phase of #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018 pic.twitter.com/A8W8zxpcxf ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 07:53 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In In the remaining eight constituencies -- Khairgarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Bastar, Jagdalpur and Chitrakot -- voting will be held between 8 am and 5 pm. Voting to start in 5 constituencies of Rajnandgaon & 3 constituencies of Bastar at 8 am in the first phase of #ChhattisgarhAssemblyElections2018; #Visuals from a polling station in Rajnandgaon pic.twitter.com/Tk2vmlQrL5 ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 07:27 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Dantewada: 1-2 kilograms of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blasted by Naxals near Tumakpal camp in Katekalyan block. Voting is underway for 10 out of 18 seats in the first phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly Election 2018. New Delhi: The first phase of Chhattisgarh Elections at 18 assembly segments across the eight Naxal-hit districts took place on Monday, November 12, 2018. According to Election Commission of India, a voter turnout of between 60-70 per cent was recorded at Bastar division and Rajnandgaon district under the shadow of the Maoist threat. Despite heavy security cover, there were reports of three encounters between security forces and Naxals, and IED blasts at several places, including Dantewada, Bijapur and Sukma. Five personnel of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), an elite unit of the Central Reserve Police Force, were injured in two separate encounters with ultras in Pamed police station area of Bijapur district. While two Naxals were gunned down in Sukma encounter, other three were eliminated in Bijapur. Read | Chhattisgarh Elections 2018: From Raman Singh to Ajit Jogi to Karuna Shukla - a look at key candidates Addressing a press conference post assembly polls, the Election Commission said 70 per cent turnout was recorded in phase one of Chhattisgarh polls. However, Chhattisgarh chief electoral officer Subrat Sahoo, told reporters that 60.49 per cent turnout was recorded, adding the figure may go up. The final turnout will be declared once final reports are received from all constituencies. As many as 4,341 polling booths were set up and 19,079 polling personnel deployed for the first phase of Chhattisgarh Elections. During the polling, 53 ballot units, 47 control units and 84 VVPATs of EVMs were replaced due to a technical snag. Read | On Chhattisgarh Election day, five Naxals gunned down in Bijapur encounter; two in Sukma Besides the ruling BJP and the main Opposition Congress, the other parties in the fray include Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), former chief minister Ajit Jogi's JCC(J) and the Communist Party of India (CPI). The second phase of polling for remaining 72 constituencies, out of the 90-member Assembly, will take place on November 20. The counting of the votes will be taken up on December 11, 2018. New Delhi: In the midst of Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections in 18 constituencies of eight Maoist-hit districts, a gunfight ensued at Bijapur, leaving five Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) personnel injured this morning. The security forces, however, retaliated and gunned down at least five Naxals in the exchange of fire at a forest in Pamed area, located around 500 km from the state capital Raipur. "Around five Naxals are dead in the encounter that broke out between security forces and Naxals in Bijapur's Pamed area today. All the CoBRA personnel are out danger," the news agency ANI reported. #UPDATE: Three more personnel of Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) are injured and around five Naxals are dead in the encounter that broke out between security forces & Naxals in Bijapur's Pamed area today. All the CoBRA personnel are out danger. #Chhattisgarh https://t.co/TkhHF0pjpG ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Read | Chhattisgarh Elections LIVE: Polling for all 18 Assembly seats ends; 56.58% voter turnout recorded The skirmish took place when a team of security personnel was patrolling in view of growing Naxal attacks ahead of Assembly polls in the region. According to preliminary information, a group of Naxalites opened fire on the patrolling team and fled the spot. Soon after the incident, reinforcement was rushed to the spot and efforts were on to evacuate the injured commandos by a helicopter. Later in the day, two Maoists were killed in a separate encounter with security forces in Sukma. The forces have recovered two rifles from the party. Two Maoists killed in an encounter with security forces in Sukma. Two rifles also recovered. #Chhattisgarh pic.twitter.com/Y5EVrBW6su ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Besides, the Naxals triggered IED blasts at several other places, including Dantewada and Kanker to disturb the assembly elections in the state. Earlier, they threatened people of chopping their fingers if they cast their votes in the state. However, no harm to the polling party has been reported in the incident. The first phase of voting in 18 constituencies of eight Naxal-affected districts, including Bijapur started at 7 am and is scheduled to end at 5 pm this evening. Around 1.25 lakh security personnel were deployed in the sensitive region to ensure peaceful polling. Read | Narendra Modi at Varanasi LIVE: PM inaugurates first multi-modal terminal on River Ganga The second phase of the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections for the remaining 72 constituencies will be held on November 20 and the counting of votes will be taken up on December 11, 2018. New Delhi : A day after the BJP released its first list of 131 of the 200 candidates for the forthcoming Rajasthan Assembly elections, squabbling has starting in the party with former general secretary Kuldeep Dhankhar quitting the saffron party. In his resignation letter to state BJP chief Madan Lal Saini, Dhankhar expressed his unhappiness over the ticket distribution. He was expecting ticket from Viratnagar constituency in Jaipur district. The BJP, however, overlooked Dhankhar and fielded sitting MLA Phoolchand Bhinda from Viratnagar. The former Rajasthan general secretary of the saffron party accused Bhinda of misbehaviour and corruption and termed the decision to give him the ticket an insult of people of Viratnagar. Suggested Read | BJP's first list of candidates for Rajasthan Assembly Elections The decision to give ticket to Phoolchand Bhinda from Viratnagar constituency is against the wishes of common people and party workers. The decision to field Bhinda, who has misbehaved with common people and encouraged corruption, is an insult of people of Viratnagar, Dhankhar wrote in his resignation letter, a copy of which was also sent to BJP president Amit Shah and Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje. Dhanakhar will now file his nomination from Viratnagar constituency as an independent candidate on November 16. Late on Sunday night, the BJP had announced its first list of candidates for the upcoming Rajasthan Assembly elections. The names of 131 candidates were announced by Union Minister JP Nadda following BJPs central election committee (CEC) meeting. The meeting was attended by top BJP leaders and members of the saffron partys central election committee, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, president Amit Shah, JP Nadda, Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje. Also Read | Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018: Naxals trigger IED blast in Dantewada, target security forces on polling day The election for the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly is scheduled to be held on December 7 in a single phase. The BJP is facing a stiff challenge from the Opposition Congress with most Opinion polls predicting a one-sided victory for the Grand Old Party. New Delhi: Surendra Goyal, Rajasthan Minister, resigned from the primary membership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), less than a month before the assembly elections in the state. This came hours after BJP's former general secretary in Rajasthan Kuldeep Dhankhar quit the party. Rajasthan Minister and #BJP MLA Surendra Goyal resigns from primary membership of BJP pic.twitter.com/FhShpojctx a ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Goyal, Rajasthan Water Resources Minister, could not make it to theA BJPas first list of 131 out of the total 200 candidates for the December 7 Assembly polls. Earlier in the day, Dhankhar expressed his unhappiness over the ticket distribution in his resignation letter to state BJP chief Madan Lal Saini. He was expecting ticket from Viratnagar constituency in Jaipur district. The BJP, however, overlooked Dhankhar and fielded sitting MLA Phoolchand Bhinda from Viratnagar. New Delhi: Shares of oil marketing and aviation companies tumbled up to 6.3 per cent on Monday after the international benchmark Brent crude again breached the $71-mark. The scrip of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd tanked 6.23 per cent, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd 4.59 per cent and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd 1.87 per cent on BSE. Also Read | Rafale Deal: CCS approval was taken, due process followed, government tells petitioners Among aviation companies, shares of Jet Airways (India) Ltd tumbled 5.96 per cent, InterGlobe Aviation Ltd 4.32 per cent and SpiceJet 3.53 per cent. The benchmark Brent crude snapped its four-day losing streak and rose 2.09 per cent to 71.62 per barrel after Saudi Arabia, the worlds top crude exporter, said Sunday it will cut oil output from next month, as major producers held a key meeting to discuss shoring up sliding prices. For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Well well well, it indeed is a wedding season for the B-town celebrities. After the extravagant marriages of Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh in Italy on November 14 and 15, followed by Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas later in December, another Bollywood actor is getting ready to paint the town red. It is none other than Varun Dhawan, who confirmed his relationship with long-time girlfriend Natasha Dalal. The actor revealed that he will be marrying his childhood sweetheart soon. Also Read | Thugs Of Hindostan Box-Office collection: Despite poor reviews Aamir-starrer crosses Rs 100-crore mark over weekend Varun in a conversation with Karan, on the fourth episode of Koffee With Karan season 6, opened up about his companionship with Natasha. The actor wasnt a bit hesitant to confirm that he looks forward to marrying her soon, even when KJo tried to layer the topic. The Judwa 2 actor, sipping from the hot cup of brewing Koffee, shared the couch with Katrina Kaif. The conversation began from Varun initiating the I hate Katrina club to dating Katrina to his own relationship talks. The biggie filmmaker probed Varun about his ins and outs with Natasha, to which the actor pointed out that Karan too had a dinner with her. This left KJo flabbergasted and asked if he officially accepts dating Natasha. Soon after Varun revealed that he will be soon tieing the knot with Natasha, the director confessed that his marriage will be very emotional for him. I will feel like I am giving my son away, expressed the filmmaker. The duo even finalised on playing Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham song Meri Saanson Mai Tu Hai Samaya in the background, while the actor gets married. Also Read | Inside pictures from Deepika Padukone-Ranveer Singh wedding venue in Italy Katrina also gave away relationship advice and said it is not necessary for every woman to have a man. She exclaimed that people tend to put the burden of making them happy on the other person, and that is the reason why relationships turn into sufferings. With a brewing hot cup of coffee, Karan brings some brewing hot content from celebrity life every Sunday on the sixth season of his talk show Koffee With Karan. Till now, Ali Bhatt, Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan, Varun Dhawan, and Katrina Kaif have graced the couch in this season. Apart from them, Saif Ali Khan, Sara Ali Khan, Janhvi Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Badshah, and Diljit Dosanjh will mark their presence on the show. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: A day after the Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing police firing incidents at Behbal Kalan on sacrilege issue, summoned former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, his son Sukhbir Singh Badal and Akshay Kumar, the Bollywood actor on Monday said has never, ever met jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim. Issuing a statement on Twitter, Akshay Kumar said: I learnt from social media at some point that Gurmeet Ram Rahim resided for a while at some place in my locality Juhu, in Mumbai, but we never ever crossed each others paths. Over the years, I have dedicatedly made films promoting the Punjabi culture and the rich history and tradition of Sikhism through films like Singh is King, Kesari (based on the battle of Sarhagarhi), etc. I am proud of being a Punjabi and have the highest regard for the Sikh faith. I shall never do anything that would even remotely hurt the sentiments of my Punjabi brothers and sisters, for whom I have the utmost respect and love, he said. Also Read | Chhattisgarh Elections LIVE: Polling for all 18 Assembly seats ends; 56.58% voter turnout recorded The SIT of Punjab Police has asked Parkash to appear before it on November 16, Sukhbir on November 19 and Akshay on November 21 at the Circuit House in Amritsar. The summon orders have been issued separately for the three by SIT member and IG rank officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, according to an official release issued. Two people were killed in police firing at Behbal Kalan after a series of sacrilege incidents in Punjab in 2015. The SIT is probing police the firing incidents at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan in Faridkot. Also Read | MJ Akbar's reputation 'destroyed', 'damaged irreparably': Ex-Union Minister's former colleague The actor's name was mentioned in Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. According to the report, a meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir and Dera Sacha Sauda sect head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in connection with the release of latter's movie 'MSG' was held at Akshay's flat in Mumbai. The meeting was held before the pardon given to Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a blasphemy case. However, Akshay had denied all the claims. The summons have been issued under Section 160 of the CrPC, requiring attendance at investigation, relating to the Bargari sacrilege case and the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura police firing incidents, the release said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an urgent hearing of the Ayodhya temple land dispute case and said it would be taken up in the first week January as was decided by it. The Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha had petitioned the apex court to take up the Ayodhya case earlier than January. "We have already passed the order. The appeals are coming up in January. Permission declined," Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said. Read More | Chhattisgarh Elections LIVE: IED detected near polling booth in Sukma, voting being held under a tree On October 29, the Supreme Court had said that the case would be heard in January. "We have our own priorities," Chief Justice Gogoi had said, rejecting the Uttar Pradesh government's argument that it was a 100-year-old dispute that should be taken up on priority. Disappointed with the order, leaders of the BJP and various Sangh Parivar outfits asked the Centre bring an Ordinance or legislation in the Winter session of Parliament for early construction of the Ram temple at the site, where the Babri Masjid once stood and was destroyed on December 6, 1994, in Ayodhya ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls without waiting for the Supreme Court verdict. "The Sangh believes that a Ram Temple should be constructed early at the birthplace of (Lord Ram) and should get land for temple construction at the birthplace. With the construction of the temple, an atmosphere of unity and harmony will be created," RSS chief spokesperson Arun Kumar had said in a statement. Also Read | Varun Dhawan next in line to get married? Find out here "The Supreme Court should take an early decision and if there is any difficulty, the government should make a law to remove hurdles in the construction of the Ram temple to grant land at the Ram Janmabhoomi site," Kumar had added. The Shiv Sena had also stressed that the Ram temple is an issue of faith and demanded that the government come out with an Ordinance soon. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said a lot people in the country want the case to be heard quickly. Union Minister and senior BJP leader Giriraj Singh had said Hindus are "running out of patience" on the Ram temple issue, while his party colleague Vinay Katiyar alleged that the issue was being delayed "under pressure" from the Congress, which denied the charge. "The decision is being delayed under pressure from the Congress. People like Kapil Sibal and Prashant Bhushan are pressing for delaying the issue. Till when will Ram bhakts (devotees) wait In 2019, the Congress will come to know," he had said. However, Congress and Muslim groups wanted all stakeholders to wait for the verdict. Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, however, observed that it was a familiar story every five years before the elections when the BJP tries to polarise the issue. Opposing any ordinance, All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaddudin Owaisi dared the government to take this route, saying the BJP refers to the Ram Temple again and again. Some 14 petitions have challenged the Allahabad High Court's 2010 verdict partitioning the land into three, between the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla (infant Lord Ram, a party to the case). For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Cyclonic storm Gaja will cross North Tamil Nadu and South Andhra Pradesh coast between Cuddalore and Sriharikota on November 15, the Met office said on Monday, while it advised fishermen not to venture into sea whose condition will be rough to very rough from Tuesday morning as the wind speed is expected to up further touching 110 kmph. Gales reaching 80-90 kms per hour was likely over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh. Revenue Minister RB Udaya Kumar said 30,500 rescue personnel were on standby while arrangements had been made for food and shelter at relief centres for those in low lying areas. According to the latest IMD bulletin, the cyclone lay about 720 km east northeast of Chennai over the Bay on Monday and it is very likely to move west southwestwards and intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm by Tuesday. On Monday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami chaired a high-level meeting at the Secretariat of Ministers and top officials to review the preparedness. Across the state, a total of 4,399 locations have been identified as vulnerable and teams have been deployed for rescue, he told reporters. Teams of the National and State Disaster Response Forces will be also be deployed. Udaya Kumar said Coastal and vulnerable districts, including Cuddalore and Nagapattinam, have been advised high alert. The IMD said the system was likely to weaken gradually and cross Tamil Nadu coast between Cuddalore and Pamban as a cyclonic storm on November 15 forenoon. The IMD added that on November 14, there will be rainfall at most places in Tamil Nadu on and extremely heavy (over 20 cm) in isolated places in norther parts of the state the next day. Damages to thatched huts and houses likely # The IMD also warned of major damage to thatched huts and houses. "Roof tops may blow off ...damage to power and communication lines," it said adding standing crops could also be hit and cautioned sea water intrusion in low lying areas. # The Central Water Commission asked Tamil Nadu and Kerala authorities to maintain strict vigil at various dams which come under the "cyclone field" and are already 80 per cent to 91 per cent full. Puducherry also likely to be hit # Neighbouring union territory of Puducherry, which is also covered by the cyclone alert, said it is on high alert as well and precautionary steps are being taken to meet the situation. # Puducherry Revenue and Industries Minister MOHF Shah Jahan said the union territory has been put on high alert. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In yet another sniper attack by Pakistan, an Indian Army jawan, identified as Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM, was killed along the Line of Control (LoC) in Krishna Ghati Sector in Poonch on Monday. This is the fourth fatal casualty due to sniping from across the border in the last four days. On Sunday, Army soldier Naik Gosavi Keshav Somgir, 29, died in a sniper attack by Pakistan. Maharashtra: Wreath laying ceremony of Naik Gosavi Keshav Somgir underway at his village in Nashik. Somgir lost his life in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Nowshera Sector yesterday. pic.twitter.com/fKygPFn2FX ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 According to local reports, in the latest incident, two soldiers suffered critical bullet wounds and were taken to a nearby army hospital. While Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM succumbed to his injuries, wounded Havaldar Mary Muthu was later airlifted to armys command hospital in Udhampur. Both the soldiers belong to 70 Field Regiment and were attached with 4 MLI, an army official said. Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM, 34, belonged to Manakunnam village in Kerala and is survived by his wife. "The Indian Army has retaliated strongly and effectively on Pakistan Army posts. The martyrdom of the Indian Army soldier will not go in vain," the Army spokesperson said. Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM, an Army jawan lost his life in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC) in Krishna Ghati Sector, earlier today. #JammuandKashmir pic.twitter.com/4S5NcMkPR8 ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 In a similar attack on Saturday, rifleman Varun Kattal, 21, was killed after he was hit by a sniper in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri district. Kattal was a resident of Mawa-Rajpura area of Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir. The incident triggered an exchange of fire between the two sides which also left two BSF personnel injured. A day earlier, an Army portar lost his life in a similar attack in Akhnoor sector. On October 21, three soldiers of Jammu and Kashmir light infantry regiment and two heavily-armed infiltrators, believed to be members of the Border Action Team (BAT) of the Pakistani army, and terrorists, were killed in Sunderbani sector. On November 6, a soldier was injured when he was hit by a sniper from across the border at Kalal in Noushera sector of Rajouri, while a BSF jawan was injured in a separate incident of firing by Pakistan along the LoC in the Manjakote area of the Rajouri-Poonch sector on Friday. Also Read | Ananth Kumar: Here's a look at the life and times of the staunch RSS ideologue The number of ceasefire violations this year by Pakistan has been the highest in the past eight years. The first seven months of this year saw 52 deaths and 232 people getting injured in 1,435 ceasefire violations in the state, according to an RTI reply by the Home Ministry. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Food and beverages major PepsiCo India on Monday said it has become the first company to use the countrys inland waterways for container movement by transporting products from its plant in Kolkata to Varanasi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday inaugurated Indias first multi-modal terminal on the Ganga river in his parliamentary constituency at Varanasi and received the countrys first container cargo transported on inland waterways from Kolkata. Commenting on the development, PepsiCo India President and CEO Ahmed El-Sheikh, who was present on the occasion, said: This is a significant milestone in the development of the inland waterways and we believe this can be a huge enabler for the consumer goods industry. Also Read | Rajasthan Elections: State Water Resources Minister Surendra Goyal resigns from BJP The consignment had set sail from Kolkata in the last week of October. PepsiCo India had shipped 16 containers, equivalent to 16 truckloads of products, as part of the pilot project on National Waterway 1. These products, made at PepsiCo Indias snacks plant in Kolkata, would be further distributed to various markets from Varanasi, the company added. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday reached Bengaluru where he paid his last tribute to senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ananth Kumar, who breathed his last this morning. Kumar left for his heavenly abode after battling lung cancer for several months. Apart from Modi, Union Minister JP Nadda and Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan paid their last respects to Kumar at his Bengaluru residence. Kumar, the 59-year-old Bengaluru South MP passed away around 2 am at the Sri Shankara Cancer Hospital and Research Centre where he had been on the ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for the last few days. However, there was no official bulletin from the hospital. The BJP leader is survived by his wife Tejaswini and two daughters - Aishwarya and Vijetha. Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaches at the residence of #AnanthKumar in Bengaluru, to pay tribute to the late Union Minister. pic.twitter.com/fBAqbFAxHw ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Read | Ananth Kumar: Here's a look at the life and times of the staunch RSS ideologue The mortal remains of Kumar were kept at his residence Monday and the last rites will be performed Tuesday. The body will be taken to the state BJP office and the National College ground, which falls in his constituency, before the funeral at Chamarajapete crematorium in the afternoon. The national flag is flown at half-mast throughout the country on Monday as a mark of respect to Kumar. Karnataka: Union Minister JP Nadda and Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan arrive at the residence of #AnanthKumar in Bengaluru, to pay tribute. pic.twitter.com/Tn5OGUe84G ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Read | Union Minister Ananth Kumar passes away; lost a valuable colleague, says PM Modi Besides, the Karnataka government has declared three-day state mourning and a holiday on Monday as a mark of respect to the leader, who was groomed in the RSS stable before the stupendous rise in his political career graph. (With inputs from agencies) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi : Following the Supreme Court direction, the Narendra Modi government on Monday handed over all the documents related to the decision-making procedure on procurement deal of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft from France to petitioners. In the documents, the government claimed that the process laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure-2013 was followed in the procurement of the Rafale aircraft. The documents, handed over to the petitioners by the government, claimed that the negotiations for the controversial Rafale aircraft deal with French government went for about one year and the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) was taken before signing the agreement. Also Read | Modi governments boat of corruption will no longer sail: Congress on Rafale row A bunch of petitions had sought details of the decision taken by the government to procure the Rafael deal. Hearing the pleas, the Supreme Court had directed the central government to provide all the details related to the decision making on 36 Rafale fighter aircraft to the petitioners. Earlier, there were reports that Prime Minister Modi had signed the Rafale fighter aircraft deal with France with taking the CCS in confidence. Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has been single handily raising the alleged irregularities in the Rafale deal, had also made similar claims. The government document also said that it had no role to play in choosing Anil Ambani's Reliance defence as Indian offset partner of Dassault Aviation - the French company responsible for the manufacturing of Rafale aircraft. "As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner. This (the agreement between Reliance and Dassault) is a purely commercial arrangement between two companies," the government document read. Also Read | Kolar Gold Fields AKA 'KGF' trailer clocks 25 Million views in 2 days Opposition parties led by the Congress chief had been alleging that the prime minister overlooked experienced state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and favoured his "businessman friend" Anil Ambani's company in getting the Rafel deal contract. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday consider a batch 48 petitions seeking review of its September 28 verdict allowing entry of women of all age groups into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. On September 28, a five-judge constitution bench headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in its 4:1 verdict, had paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple saying that the ban amounted to gender discrimination. On Monday, the petitions will be taken up for consideration in-chamber by a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices RF Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra. Three separate petitions seeking review of the verdict are also slated to come up for hearing in the open court before a bench comprising CJI Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph. Amid protests after the verdict, the Supreme Court on October 9 declined an urgent hearing on the review plea filed by an association which had contended that the five-judge Constitution bench's verdict lifting the ban was "absolutely untenable and irrational". Later, the apex court had said it would consider the review petitions on November 13. A plea filed by National Ayyappa Devotees Association (NADA), which has sought review of the verdict, had said "the notion that the judgment under review is revolutionary, one which removes the stigma or the concept of dirt or pollution associated with menstruation, is unfounded. It is a judgment welcomed by hypocrites who were aspiring for media headlines. On the merits of the case, as well, the said judgment is absolutely untenable and irrational, if not perverse". Kerala has witnessed widespread protests by devotees after the state government made it clear that it was bound to implement the top courts verdict on the entry of women of all ages into the temple. The shrine had witnessed a high drama after around a dozen women in the 10-50 age group were prevented by protesting devotees from entering it after the temple doors were opened for monthly pujas between October 17 and 22. The temple will again be opened on November 17 the three-month-long Mandalam-Makaravilakku festival, when VN Vasudevan Namboothiri, a native of Palakkad district, who was elected as the new melshanthi (chief priest) of the Lord Ayyappa Temple in Sabarimala for the next one year, will take charge. Namboothiri is currently serving as the priest of an Ayyappa temple in Bengaluru. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ananth Kumar died early Monday morning in Bengaluru, officials said. Parliamentary Affairs and Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister, Kumar was not keeping well for some time and was on ventilator for the past few days, ministry officials said. He was 59. He was a BJP MP from the South Bengaluru constituency. Union Minister Ananth Kumar passed away in the wee hours of Monday in Bengaluru Read @ANI Story | https://t.co/i2XalM44YW pic.twitter.com/tooXqrxMUW ANI Digital (@ani_digital) November 12, 2018 ALSO READ | Chhattisgarh Elections 2018: State goes to polls today under shadow of Maoist threat Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Kumar a remarkable leader. "Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work," he tweeted. Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 Describing Kumar as an able administrator, the Prime Minister said he was and was a great asset to the BJP. He worked hard to strengthen the party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents, Modi said. I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti, he said. A graduate in law, Kumar was suffering from cancer and had come back from the US in October after treatment at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, New York. ALSO READ | Chhattisgarh Elections 2018: On eve of poll, state Congress vice president Ghanaram Sahu resigns Kumar is survived by his wife Tejaswini and two daughters Aishwarya and Vijeta. the mortal remains of the Union Minister were taken to his residence early in the morning. Bengaluru: #Visuals from the residence of Union Minister Ananth Kumar who passed away at the age of 59, last night. #Karnataka pic.twitter.com/M5iDx1iXQD ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Bengaluru: National flag draped over casket carrying mortal remains of Union Minister #AnanthKumar, who passed away in the early hours today. pic.twitter.com/DURLjS99L3 ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. BROOKFIELD The Zoning Commission could change rules on drive-thrus to allow Dunkin Donuts to move to the old Hearth Restaurant property. There are already drive-thrus in the Town Center District, but the town does not have regulations on these establishments in that zone. Neil Marcus, the attorney for Ed Batista, who owns the Dunkin Donuts in Brookfield and surrounding towns, said allowing drive-thrus would further develop downtown. Anything you can do as a community to make it more attractive to have retail uses in the [Town Center District] zone is the right thing to do, Marcus said at the Zoning Commissions recent meeting. The town added sidewalks and other amenities last year at the area known as the Four Corners in an effort to encourage development and make the downtown more pedestrian friendly. But some are worried encouraging drive-thrus could hinder these efforts. In a letter to the commission, residents Maureen and Matthew Farrell said they opposed the change. We feel this would detract from the walkability of the newly designed Town Center, making it more dangerous for pedestrians to shop and meander as intended for the downtown area, they wrote. This proposed change also detracts from the historic style design of the newly designed downtown. Greg Dembowski, who manages the streetscape project, said he had no concerns with the proposal. Putting in a driveway for this application is not going to impact pedestrian safety or vehicle safety, he said at the meeting. But Marcus said he is not aware of any accidents with pedestrians at Batistas drive-thrus. My client operates an enormous number of drive-thrus in the Danbury area, he said. We have no real record of pedestrian issues in the drive-thru. Still, the Western Connecticut Council of Governments was also concerned. Generally, drive-through developments do not foster an active downtown as people are encouraged to stay inside their motor vehicle and not walk around, WestCOG said in an email to the Land Use department. WestCOG also noted drive-thrus are often single-use developments, but Brookfield is aiming to attract mixed-use developments. But Marcus said it is difficult to attract retailers in general, so the town would benefit from permitting drive-thrus. It will make the economic development of the zone more attractive, he said. Batista wants to move his existing store down the road to the Hearth property. The Hearth, a popular family-style restaurant that had been around since the 1960s, closed at the beginning of the year. It was just an institution, Marcus said. The fact that that type of use couldnt survive is indicative to the fact that weve got to rethink what type of people we can attract. Anything you can do to make it more attractive is positive for the town. Marcus had applied to the commission for a zone change, but the town attorney recommended the commission consider allowing drive-thrus via a special permit. Marcus said he was O.K. with that, too. The commission will continue a public hearing on the proposal Nov. 29. Existing regulations only define drive-thru restaurants, but do not consider drive-thru pharmacies or banks, for example. These types of drive-thrus are both common and convenient, especially for the elderly or those with physical disabilities, Marcus said. Its enormous for people who are challenged in their movements, he said. We are an aging population and to the extent we can serve our aging population, why not do it? JERUSALEM - A new round of hostilities triggered by a botched Israeli covert operation in the Gaza Strip pushed the territory's fragile security situation to the brink on Monday, as Palestinian militants launched hundreds of rockets toward Israel and Israeli jets carried out bombing raids. Israel's military said it had rushed extra infantry troops and air defenses to the border with Gaza as at least 300 projectiles were launched toward Israeli territory on Monday. Several rockets hit residential buildings, while an antitank missile struck a bus transporting soldiers, the military said, critically injuring a 19-year-old. Although violence in Gaza has flared sporadically in recent months, Monday's exchange reached a new pitch. The Israeli military struck 70 targets in Gaza, signaling a campaign with wider scope than other recent bombing raids. The headquarters of al-Aqsa TV, run by the Islamist militant group Hamas, was among the targets, with the Israeli military describing it as a "strategic terror target." Hamas, which controls Gaza, said its main internal security building in central Gaza City also was struck. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said three people were killed and at least two injured in the air raids. Islamic Jihad, another militant group in Gaza, said two of those killed were its fighters. As international mediators worked to broker a cease-fire, neither side showed any sign of backing down. After the strike on the television station, Palestinian factions said they would extend the range of their rockets. Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukun, coordinator of Israeli government activities in the Palestinian territories, said that Hamas had crossed a "red line" and that the military would "dial up" its response. He told residents of Gaza to "look carefully" at the pictures from the 2014 war in the territory. "A picture is worth a thousand words," he said. Militant factions in Gaza vowed to retaliate for Israel's "aggressive crime" after seven Palestinian extremists, including a Hamas commander, were killed Sunday night as a group of Israeli special forces carried out an operation inside Gaza. One senior Israeli officer also was killed. Armed factions in Gaza began firing rockets in response at communities across the border, which they vowed would "remain unlivable" as long as Israel persists with such actions. The violence threatened to derail stuttering efforts in recent months to forge a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, a process that has been brokered by Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars in 10 years, with flare-ups becoming increasingly frequent in recent months as Hamas has urged residents to protest at the fence along the border with Israel. The prospects for progress appeared to brighten this weekend after Israel permitted $15 million in cash from Qatar to be transported to Gaza in suitcases to pay long-delayed salaries of the civil servants in the Hamas government and ease the suffering of the territory's 2 million residents as a way to reduce tension. But by Monday, thick plumes of smoke were rising above Gaza and southern Israel. Warning sirens blared in communities on the Israeli side, with residents told to stay in bomb shelters. Israeli television showed images of a supermarket on fire, with media reporting that at least 12 people were injured in Monday's rocket fire. Residents near the television offices in central Gaza said they had evacuated when a warning missile struck the building. The Israeli military justified the attack by saying that the channel broadcasts "violent propaganda" against Israel and provides instructions on how to carry out attacks. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum described it as a "blatant aggression against journalism" and called on international bodies to denounce the strike. Earlier, the Foreign Press Association expressed concern that Hamas security had prevented two German journalists and a photojournalist from leaving Gaza, citing the "security situation." Militant factions in Gaza described the targeting of the bus near the border as a "heroic operation" in response to the "treacherous Zionist crime" a day earlier. The Israeli military remained tight-lipped about the incident but said a covert operation had been underway at least 2 miles inside the Gaza Strip when the unit's presence was somehow exposed. An exchange of fire between the troops and Palestinian fighters ensued, turning deadly and leading to the Israeli unit's call for backup from the air. Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, chief of the general staff of the Israel Defense Forces, said the team was involved in a "very meaningful operation for Israel's security." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short his trip to Paris on Sunday night when news broke that the operation had gone awry. A statement from the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, said the Israeli team was two miles inside Gaza in a civilian car when the fight broke out. Residents in the area, east of the town of Khan Younis, said a group of Hamas fighters stopped the vehicle carrying the Israelis to check their identities. It was then that the Israeli unit shot Nour Baraka, a local Hamas leader, and another militant dead, they said. The Hamas statement said Baraka was "assassinated." It said the unit was "dealt with by our fighters." Residents said the Israeli vehicle sped off with two Hamas cars in pursuit. Israeli airstrikes killed the five other militants, they said Conricus said the operation, "like many others similar to it," was part of an ongoing effort against "different terrorist organizations." He said that its mission was not to kill or kidnap. The Israeli army did not release the identity of the dead soldier. Speaking on Israeli Army Radio, military spokesman Ronen Manelis said the soldier, despite being injured, had been instrumental in ensuring the safe return of the undercover unit. One other soldier was moderately injured, officials said. Just a day earlier, things had seemed more hopeful. On Sunday, tens of thousands of public servants lined up at post offices across the Gaza Strip to finally receive their salaries. "I don't care about the source of this money," said Mohammed Sultan, 42, a teacher who has not received a full salary for many years. Basem Naim, a Hamas official, had said that the understanding was that Israel would allow Qatari funds into the Gaza Strip, humanitarian projects by international institutions and an extension of Gaza's permitted fishing area to 12 nautical miles. The precarious security situation along the border has pushed Israel to attempt to find a solution for Gaza's growing humanitarian crisis. Since March, thousands of Gaza residents have staged weekly demonstrations at the fence to protest increasingly difficult conditions in the territory. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed, mostly by Israeli sniper fire. Hamas has thrown its weight behind the protests, but they are also fueled by growing desperation in Gaza, where Israel has imposed tight restrictions on trade and travel for more than a decade. Recent U.S. cuts to aid for Palestinians have been exacerbating woes. Israel says the protests are a cover for Hamas to break into Israel, while Gaza militants have also taken to floating incendiary kites and balloons across the border, igniting fires. Netanyahu told reporters in Paris on Sunday that there were limits to cease-fire talks. "You can't have a political resolution with people who are committed to your destruction," he said. The Democratic Republic of Congo's main opposition leaders chose Martin Fayulu as their candidate for next month's presidential election. The opposition had been expected to select from two better-known politicians: Felix Tshisekedi, head of the biggest opposition party, or Vital Kamerhe, who finished third in the last vote in 2011. Fayulu will face President Joseph Kabila's anointed successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, in the Dec. 23 race to lead the world's largest cobalt producer. Fayulu, who spent almost two decades at Exxon Mobil Corp., was chosen because he's the least-polarizing of all the opposition candidates, said Mvemba Dizolele, a lecturer at the Washington-based John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He was nominated Sunday by a majority vote at talks between seven opposition heads who last month agreed to field a single candidate to maximize their chances of defeating Shadary. "He's a consensus choice to be sure," Dizolele said. Fayulu has "a solid track record of fighting for democratic change" dating back to the days of Mobutu Sese Seko's three-decade dictatorship that ended in 1997, Dizolele said. Fayulu, 61, has earned a reputation for being at the front line of anti-government rallies that in recent years have often been violently dispersed. He was injured when a teargas canister hit him on the head in September 2016 during protests in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, in which the United Nations said security forces killed more than 50 people. Tshisekedi and Kamerhe will need to win over disappointed followers after some supporters and party officials rejected Fayulu's elevation and staged angry protests Monday outside the offices of their Union for Democracy and Social Progress and Union for the Congolese Nation in the capital, Kinshasa. "The bases of the UNC and UDPS have given 48 hours to Vital Kamerhe and Felix Tshisekedi asking them to get together, without any third person, to give us the joint candidate that the people expect," UNC deputy spokesman Sele Yemba said by phone. An opinion poll published last month by New York University's Congo Research Group placed Fayulu fourth with 8 percent support. Tshisekedi topped the survey with 36 percent, while Kamerhe and Shadary were second and third respectively with 17 percent and 16 percent. Fayulu held various managerial positions at Exxon, including in the U.S., Congo, France and Nigeria, according to a biography published on his personal website. He's the leader of the Engagement for Citizenship and Development party, which won just three of the National Assembly's 500 seats seven years ago. Kabila has ruled Congo for 17 years and won previous elections in 2006 and 2011. The constitution barred him from seeking a third term, so he hand-picked former interior minister Shadary to represent the ruling coalition. The central African nation, one of the world's poorest and most corrupt despite abundant natural resources including copper, gold and oil, hasn't had a peaceful transition of power since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960. "The people need leaders who will bring them development, who will bring them prosperity," Fayulu said at a briefing Sunday in Geneva, where his candidacy was announced. "We are committed to achieving this work so that Congo ceases being the laughing stock of the world." In addition to Fayulu, Tshisekedi, Kamerhe and fellow opposition party boss Freddy Matungulu -- who all successfully registered in August to run for the presidency -- three other leaders participated in three days of talks in Switzerland to discuss a joint candidate. Among them were opposition heavyweights Jean-Pierre Bemba, who was disqualified by the electoral commission, and Moise Katumbi, who is in exile and was prevented from returning home to file his candidacy. The leaders created a coalition named Lamuka in order "to assure the victory" of the opposition in the election, according to a statement they signed on Sunday. Top Obama administration officials have drafted a letter acknowledging their responsibility for initiating U.S. involvement in Yemen's destructive civil war and calling for the Trump administration to halt America's role in the conflict. Thirty former senior officials, including former national security adviser Susan Rice and former CIA director John Brennan, said the Obama administration decided in 2015 to provide limited support to a Saudi-led military coalition in an attempt to ensure a prudent operation against Houthi rebels in Yemen and to steer the conflict toward a diplomatic resolution. "We did not intend U.S. support to the coalition to become a blank check. But today, as civilian casualties have continued to rise and there is no end to the conflict in sight, it is clear that is precisely what happened," the former officials wrote. "However, rather than learning from that failure, the Trump administration has doubled down on support for the Saudi leadership's prosecution of the war, while removing restrictions we had put in place," they said. "It is past time for America's role in this disastrous war in Yemen to end." The letter, which has not been made public previously, comes two days after the Pentagon said it would end one of the principal elements of U.S. support for the Gulf-led coalition: aerial refueling of flights over Yemen. Coalition airstrikes have repeatedly struck civilian targets, while Saudi Arabia and its allies are also blamed for contributing to a massive humanitarian crisis by making it more difficult for goods to enter the country. The United States provides intelligence support to the coalition, which includes the United Arab Emirates and other nations. The decision to end refueling, which the Saudi government said resulted from improvements in its own refueling capacity, appeared to be an attempt to get ahead of expected moves by Congress to force the Trump administration out of the conflict. Lawmakers from both parties have expressed mounting frustration with Saudi Arabia over its conduct of the war and, more recently, its role in the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Pressure to curtail U.S. involvement in the war is expected to increase in the wake of last week's midterm elections, which handed control of the House to Democrats critical of President Trump's Yemen policy. Since taking office, President Donald Trump has elevated Saudi Arabia as a premier Middle East ally, choosing it as his first foreign destination as president, touting massive arms sales to the kingdom and articulating a shared concern about Iran's support for armed groups across the region. He also reversed steps to restrict arms sales imposed at the end of the Obama administration over concerns about civilian casualties. U.S. officials say Iran has provided military support to the Houthis, including advanced technology they have used to attack Saudi Arabia. The letter, whose signatories also included Wendy Sherman, who served as under secretary of state, and Lisa Monaco, who was a senior White House official for counterterrorism, cited Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's decision in September to formally back Saudi Arabia's efforts to protect civilians. That decision, the result of a new congressional requirement, added fuel to criticism at a moment when disease and deprivation have spiraled in Yemen. Defenders of the policy say that Washington must help Saudi Arabia defend itself from Houthi missiles and ensure the group does not threaten commerce in waters off Yemen. In recent weeks the Trump administration has intensified its call for a peace process to end the fighting, but critics say Washington must do more to pressure Gulf allies to make concessions. The letter, coordinated by the advocacy group National Security Action, urged the administration to call for an immediate cease-fire, energize its diplomatic efforts to end the war and suspend U.S. aid. "We unsuccessfully tried conditional support to the coalition. This administration has demonstrated the folly of unconditional support," the former officials said. "Now, we must cease support altogether." --- The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung contributed to this report. PARIS - In the shadow of a grand war memorial here, French President Emmanuel Macron marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I by delivering a forceful rebuke against rising nationalism, calling it a "betrayal of patriotism" and warning against "old demons coming back to wreak chaos and death." His words during a solemn Armistice Day ceremony under overcast skies at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe in the heart of the French capital were intended for a global audience. But they also represented a pointed rebuke to President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and others among the more than 60 world leaders in attendance. Speaking in French, Macron emphasized that a global order based on liberal values is worth defending against those who have sought to disrupt that system. The millions of soldiers who died in the Great War fought to defend the "universal values" of France, he said, and to reject the "selfishness of nations only looking after their own interests. Because patriotism is exactly the opposite of nationalism." Macron has attempted to stand as a vocal counterweight to Trump, who recently called himself a "nationalist" and has moved to set the United States apart from global treaties, including the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate accord ad a U.N. program for refugees. Amid growing divisions in Europe that have strained the European Union, Macron defended that institution and the United Nations, declaring that the "spirit of cooperation" has "defended the common good of the world." "By putting our own interests first, with no regard to others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds dearest, and the thing that keeps it alive: its moral values," Macron said. He denounced fringe ideologies that have become more mainstream, warping religious beliefs and setting loose extremist forces on a "sinister course once again that could undermine the legacy of peace we thought we had forever sealed." The powerful remarks came as the world leaders gathered here have sought to mark the 100 years since the war by honoring those who served and died. Among those who participated were German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. British Prime Minister Theresa May did not attend, remaining in London to preside over a war remembrance there, though she had visited France last week to lay wreaths at military cemeteries and meet with Macron. Chinese President Xi Jinping also was not present. Putin told Russia's RT network after the ceremony that he and Trump spoke during a leaders' luncheon, but a formal meeting would wait until they cross paths at the G-20 Summit in Buenos Aries later this month. Putin said the two leaders agreed to a request from French officials not to overshadow the war remembrance ceremony. "We are ready for dialogue," said Putin, adding a dig at the Trump administration for announcing the United States would exit a landmark Cold War arms treaty. "We're not the ones exiting the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty." Ahead of the ceremony, dozens of world leaders dressed in black strode shoulder-to-shoulder along the Champs Elysees toward the Arc. Military jets streaked overhead, emitting red, white and blue smoke, the colors of France. Trump and Putin did not participate in the processions. The group, which had first gathered at the Elysee Palace, had come to the Arc on tour buses along the 230-foot wide boulevard. Bells at Notre Dame cathedral tolled at 11 a.m., marking the signing of the armistice of a war in which 10 million military troops perished. Trump and Putin took their own motorcades to the event and made separate entrances a few minutes after the main group. A White House spokeswoman said Trump arrived separately due to "security protocols," though she did not elaborate. Trump and Putin shook hands with leaders, assembled on risers at the foot of the monument, and took their own positions. Trump and first lady Melania Trump took spots next to Merkel, while Putin stood next to Macron. The ceremony could begin. To the sound of a military brass band, Macron inspected French troops standing at attention and a choir sang the national anthem. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed a solo piece. For Trump, dressed in a dark blue suit and red tie, the ceremony marked the beginning of a day in which he also attended in a luncheon with the world leaders and then delivered a speech at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial - a day after he skipped a visit to a different cemetery. At Suresnes, Trump ditched an umbrella and spoke in the rain for 10 minutes, at one point joking that the crowd was "getting drenched." "It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended," Trump said of the 1,541 buried there. "We renew our sacred obligation to memorialize our fallen heroes." He did not address Macron's speech. The relationship between Trump and Macron has soured as the U.S. president has promoted an "America First" foreign policy that has unsettled allies on trade and defense. Macron has sought to counter some of Trump's agenda and he has organized a three-day Peace Forum that began Sunday afternoon, just as Trump headed home to Washington on Air Force One. For European observers, the commemoration was a somber event - and not exclusively because of the dead it honored. In a climate of resurgent nationalism - which has seen upheavals in Rome, Budapest, Warsaw and even London - Macron was alone on the dais, preaching the virtues of multilateralism. Merkel, his most loyal partner in this endeavor, has announced she will soon leave public life. "Franco-German reconciliation was at the very heart of what we've been seeing together," said Dominique Moisi, a French foreign policy expert at the Paris-based Institute Montaigne and an informal adviser to the Macron campaign. "But she's out," he said of Merkel, who announced she will step down in 2021. "The spirit in which we are commemorating the events is no longer fully present." Macron's speech was full of literary allusions, including to the French poets Guillaume Apollinaire and Charles Peguy, both of whom served in World War I. (Peguy was killed in combat in 1914.) Sunday's address also contained a number of historic rebukes. He made a subtle reference to a well-known 1927 French book that decried the elites at the time, who embraced reactionary, nationalistic ideologies at the expense of a rational consensus. Taking the stage to applause at the Paris Peace Forum later Sunday, Macron avoided presenting the weekend's event as a success. Instead, he said history would remember the image of multiple world leaders whose countries were once at war gathered in peace under the Arc. The question, Macron said, was how that image would be interpreted. "Will it be the symbol of a durable peace among nations?" he asked. "Or, on the contrary, a photograph of a final moment of unity before the world descends into a new disorder?" --- The Washington Post's Anton Troianovski in Moscow contributed to this report. An Upstate New York deer hunting couple had the unique experience late last month of each shooting a buck simultaneously with rifles from an elevated deer blind. Hunting in the Northern Zone where the regular firearms season is underway, the husband shot a 7-pointer; the wife, a 5-pointer. It happened Oct. 26 when Steve Side and his wife, Jean, who live just outside of Theresa in Jefferson County, decided to hunt on a friend's property just up the road from their house. "I had told him (my husband) that I wanted to hunt with him because I was sure he and I would both kill a deer," said Jean Side, who provide the facts for this story. "He just laughed at me and said, 'Do you know how rare that would be?' " "I texted my neighbor so at least someone would know where we where should something happen and I told her that this would be the one and only one time I would hunt this year. We got to the tower and both climbed in," she said. The "tower" she said, was an elevated deer blind about 4-feet off the ground in the middle of a field. Jean Side said her husband "was almost dozing when three doe came out." "He told me to keep watch towards the woods fi the does looked in that direction. So I did." She had a pair of binoculars and spotted the 5-point buck. "It walked out into the field and Steve checked it out with his scope," the wife said. "He told me he wanted me to shoot it if it got within range. I kept watching the woods and saw movement and another buck stepped out.. a 7 point, just a bit smaller than the first. "I said, 'Here we go!" His response was "You've got to be (kidding) me." The couple watched the deer about 25 minutes as they wandered about with the does. "He was so nervous I wouldn't be able to hit it and kept asking me if I was alright," she said. "I said, 'Just shut up and let me shoot the damn thing!" The couple focused in their deer and agreed they would shoot at the same time. The bucks stopped, gave them a broadside and the husband said, "Ok? Ready? Shoot!" And they did. Both shots were a little over 200 yards. The husband was using a 30.06 rifle; the wife, a .243. Jean said her husband was more excited than she was. "I can't friggin' believe this," he said. The wife said she reminded him again after they had retrieved the deer that she had predicted something like this would happen. "It was a once in a lifetime experience shooting bucks at the same time. Will never happen again. It was amazing," she said. Syracuse, N.Y. -- Snow is expected to fall from New Mexico to Maine over the next two days, but almost nowhere as heavily as in Upstate New York. Thanks to lake effect snow from the Great Lakes, Upstate New York and Michigan's Upper Peninsula could see close to a foot of snow in isolated areas through 7 p.m. Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. Most areas over the 2,300-mile swath of snowfall will get an inch or two. That long stretch of snow is caused by cold polar air dipping as far south as Texas and bumping into a warmer air mass that's pulling in moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. "What you're looking at here is the boundary zone of warm air moving north from the Gulf and cold air moving south from Canada," said Mark Wysocki, New York state climatologist. "You can see how that boundary stretches from the southern plains to the Great Lakes." Another system, a coastal storm that is moving along the East Coast today, will interact with that boundary of cold and warm air. As that coastal storm moves off Cape Cod Tuesday night, it will pull cold air across the Great Lakes, generating lake effect snow in Michigan and New York. Where the heaviest snow ends up depends upon the wind direction, Wysocki said. The National Weather Service is predicting winds from the northwest, so the heaviest snow in Upstate New York would be in Central New York. But even slight changes in wind direction could push that snow to the north or south, Wysocki said. "It could be from Tully up to Fulton and Oswego," he said. "It's what we call a forecaster's nightmare." The coastal storm will bring rain tonight and tomorrow, and as the cold air moves in Tuesday night much of that will change to snow. Slight changes in temperature, and elevation, will also determine how much snow falls versus rain, Wysocki said. Northern Maine is likely to get heavy snow, too, but not because of lake effect. "The storm will slow down as the colder air piles into Maine," Wysocki said, "They should get higher amounts of snowfall rather than rain." Another coastal storm is likely to reach the Northeast this weekend, Wysocki said. "It could dump a lot of snow over the weekend," he said. Contact Glenn Coin: Email | Twitter | Google + | (315) 470-3251 This summer, protesters converged four times outside the blue-gray glass tower at 201 Tresser Blvd., in downtown Stamford. Their target each time was the buildings largest tenant, drugmaker Purdue Pharma. On a mid-August morning, hundreds marched with placards of family members and friends who had died of opioid overdoses, which they largely blamed on the maker of the OxyContin painkiller. Several weeks earlier, a local art gallery owner and a friend installed in the driveway a massive spoon stained to represent burnt heroin. A few weeks before, a pair of brothers slide-projected messages on the building condemning the company. The protestors know the firm is not about to face a reckoning in the streets. If it happens, it would likely take place in the judicial system. Over the past five years, local and state governments across the country have filed hundreds of complaints alleging that Purdue, with chronic and deliberate misrepresentations of its drugs, has helped cause thousands of deaths from prescription and illicit opioids. Resolving the torrent of litigation, which also involves many other opioid makers and distributors, entails protracted and complex negotiations that could lead to a colossal settlement. All the while, plaintiffs face an uncertain timeline for resolving their claims and no assurance they would receive enough funding to help tackle the epidemic. The opioid crisis crosses all the lines party lines, religious lines, cultural lines, Paul Hanly, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs in a consolidated group of hundreds of lawsuits involving the company, said in an interview at his law firms offices in midtown Manhattan. People of all political and cultural persuasions are united in that there is something terrible happening in our country and that drastic steps need to get taken to deal with it. Purdue officials have denied the lawsuits allegations. We share the state and local officials concern about the opioid crisis, the company said, in part of a statement. Purdue believes the accusations against the company are without merit, and we look forward to the opportunity to present our substantial defenses. The company did not make CEO and President Craig Landau or other executives available for an interview for this article. Long history of litigation Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1995, OxyContin consists of a controlled-release, semi-synthetic opioid painkiller to treat moderate to severe pain lasting more than a few days. Its creator went to great expense to market the drug. Purdues annual spending for OxyContin advertising jumped from about $700,000 in 1996 to approximately $4.6 million in 2001, according to a 2003 federal Government Accountability Office report. Spurred by its marketing, OxyContins annual sales surpassed $1 billion by 2001, making it the most-prescribed brand-name narcotic of its kind in the U.S., according to the GAO. Litigation soon followed. Starting in 2003, Hanlys firm took on about 5,000 patients who had become addicted to OxyContin after being prescribed the drug. From that group, about 1,400 civil lawsuits would be filed against Purdue. That round of litigation was settled for $75 million in 2006, according to news reports at the time. Based on those complaints, federal prosecutors built a criminal case against Purdue. In its largest punishment to date for marketing violations, Purdue pleaded guilty in 2007 in federal court to misbranding OxyContin to mislead and defraud physicians and patients. The company agreed to pay some $600 million in criminal and civil penalties. At the same time, three former and then-executives pleaded guilty, as individuals, to misbranding charges and incurred close to $35 million in fines. But the worsening of the opioid crisis meant the 2007 payouts were not the end of litigation. In 2017, about 49,000 people in the U.S. died of opioid overdoses, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The toll represented a four-fold increase over the number of opioid deaths in 2002. As local and state governments struggled with the billions of dollars needed to pay for health care, law enforcement and social services to respond to the epidemic, they increasingly sought financial accountability from the pharmaceutical industry. Opioid prescriptions in the U.S. peaked in 2010 and then dropped each year through 2015, according to the CDC, though the 2015 rate ran at about three times the 1999 level. In addition to Purdue, the likes of Allergan, Endo, Insys, Janssen, Mallinckrodt and Teva are frequently targeted in lawsuits and investigations. The opioid crisis has gotten into the fabric of our society and grabbed our attention, Angela Mattie, a professor in the schools of business and medicine at Quinnipiac University, said in an interview. That is reflected in the backlash and repulsion widely felt toward Purdue at this point. Dangers in focus Litigation filed in the past five years largely consists of civil, not criminal, complaints. The suits fit into a framework that has allowed local prosecutors and state attorneys general to invoke a range of consumer-protection and anti-fraud laws to prosecute Purdue. The lawsuits generally share the same allegations, accusing Purdue of years of false or fraudulent marketing that misrepresents the benefits and risks of treating chronic, non-cancer pain with its opioids, namely OxyContin. That (marketing) campaign caused a sea change in medical and scientific thought that had previously deemed these drugs too dangerous to use for chronic pain in most circumstances, Mississippis attorney general, Democrat Jim Hood, wrote in a July letter to attorneys of Purdue and several other opioid producers that he sued in December 2015. It put billions of doses of high-powered drugs into the hands of patients who were unaware of the risks of addiction and death. Mississippis complaint led a wave of state lawsuits against the company. In 2017, 13 states sued, with 18 more following in 2018. The lawsuits have come from Republicans in deep-red states such as Alabama, Oklahoma and South Carolina and Democrats in blue strongholds like Massachusetts and New York and Washington state. Over the same span, hundreds of cities and counties have sued. They range from rural communities to the countrys largest cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. In total, the company faces more than 1,000 active complaints from cities, counties and states. These lawsuits are gaining traction and gathering momentum, Robert Bird, a professor of business law at the University of Connecticut, said in an interview. The litigation generates its own publicity, which, in turn, encourages other states to file suits. To help manage the proliferation of lawsuits, a Cleveland-based federal judge, Dan Polster, is overseeing hundreds of complaints filed by municipal and county governments in a process known as Multidistrict Litigation. Hanly a partner in the Simmons Hanly Conroy firm, which also specializes in asbestos and mesothelioma cases is co-lead counsel for the MDL plaintiffs. Three MDL cases are scheduled to be heard in a trial starting next September. More than 20 cities and towns in southwestern Connecticut have sued. The list includes Bridgeport, Danbury, New Haven and Norwalk. Opioid addiction has had a profound impact on our community in terms of medical care costs, hospital costs and, of course, the tragedies that you see, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said in an interview. We want to be reimbursed, and we want dollars there for education and dollars for enforcement of people who are abusing the system. The companys home city, however, has not taken legal action. Stamford Mayor David Martin was not available for an interview for this article, but Martins chief of staff, Michael Pollard, did not rule out the city pursuing litigation. We are continuing to assess all drug companies and other illegal opioid sources involved in the epidemic, Pollard said in a statement. We will be determining the extent and cost of the epidemic to Stamford and focus our legal actions on the companies and others who are most responsible. Connecticuts role At the state level, Connecticut does not have an active lawsuit against Purdue. But the states outgoing attorney general, Democrat George Jepsen, said his office has confronted the opioid crisis as part of a 42-state coalition investigating Purdue and six other pharmaceutical firms. In 2017, 1,038 people in Connecticut died of drug overdoses, more than double the 2012 total, according to state data. Nearly half of last years deaths involved heroin. In an interview, Jepsen said his team has held extensive talks with Purdue officials. In addition, the state can gather evidence to support potential claims against Purdue and other companies and does not have a statute of limitations on opioid litigation, according to his office. We absolutely have their attention, which is what we need and want, Jepsen said. We could make a show of filing a lawsuit and devote very significant staff resources to bringing a lawsuit. Were very comfortable with the position were in right now, (but) always keeping, if settlement talks fail, the option of filing a suit. Jepsens involvement in the multistate alliance will soon end, as he is not running for a third term. Still, the major-party nominees vying to succeed Jepsen, Democrat William Tong and Republican Sue Hatfield, pledged in interviews to maintain Connecticuts involvement in the interstate initiative. Because of how it has affected people in our state and its a crisis in every community here in Connecticut and because we have Purdue Pharma in Connecticut, we have an obligation to have a very critical eye on this whole crisis, said Tong, state representative from a district that includes parts of Stamford and Darien. Hatfield and Tong said they would keep litigation against Purdue on the table, but they both said they would focus on continuing settlement talks. If we have settlement discussions that are currently active and ongoing, I, as the next attorney general, wouldnt want to disrupt that, said Hatfield, a state prosecutor with the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice. I would want to see that through, first and foremost, and continue on with Attorney General Jepsens work. I have a lot of respect for the work that he has done. Connecticuts involvement in litigation involving Purdue predates Jepsens tenure. In 2007, when U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal was attorney general, the state received about $700,000 as part of a nearly $20 million settlement that 26 states reached with Purdue tied to allegations that the company encouraged physicians to overprescribe OxyContin. The settlement restricted certain opioid marketing practices and helped support the launch of Connecticuts prescription-drug monitoring program. It was a significant and positive first step, Blumenthal said in an interview. We continue to pursue our efforts to stop overuse of these powerful painkillers. ... If there has been law breaking, I support the effort in court to hold these companies accountable. There are other avenues of redress and remedies that can be pursued through negotiation, as well. Purdue also faces an investigation by the U.S. Attorneys Office in Connecticut, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice. A DOJ spokesman declined to comment on the inquirys status. Company pushback Across the country, the lawsuits have slogged through the courts. The litigation has collectively cost the plaintiffs and defendants many millions of dollars in legal services. Purdue did not answer a question from Hearst Connecticut Media inquiring about how many of the lawsuits it had tried to dismiss or how many cases it had settled. A $24 million payout to the state of Kentucky in December 2015 marked its most prominent settlement in recent years. In court, Purdues lawyers have argued the companys accusers have not proved that it misled prescribers about its drugs. The state seeks to recover costs stemming from the misuse and abuse of prescription and illicit opioids by downstream actors who are far outside the manufacturers control and who in, many instances, engaged in criminal conduct, attorneys for Purdue and the other defendants in Floridas lawsuit wrote in a September filing supporting their motion to dismiss the case. They have also cited FDA oversight of use and marketing of prescription opioids, challenging state liability for actions they said the FDA has specifically authorized. Company officials have also contested claims that the firm flooded the market with OxyContin. In statements, they said that their opioids comprise less than 2 percent of such prescriptions. Outside the courtrooms, Purdue said it is is working hard to help tackle the opioid crisis. The company has allocated $2 million to support prescription-drug education for several thousand high school students around the country between 2017 and 2020. The total includes $500,000 for the programs expansion in Connecticut during the next two years. In September, Purdue announced a $3.4 million grant to support a nonprofit pharmaceutical companys development of an over-the-counter form of naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of opioid overdoses. Purdue has also partnered with the National Sheriffs Association on a program that gives naloxone kits and training to officers across the country. In the past year, the company has run full-page ads outlining such efforts in a number of national publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. The efforts have done little to assuage critics. They can put as many ads as they want to out there, but thats not dealing with the problem, Ohios attorney general, Republican Mike DeWine, who is his partys gubernatorial nominee in Tuesdays election, said in an interview earlier this year. Why dont we take this opportunity to start talking and try to reach an agreement, so that Purdue Pharma can be part of the solution instead of just being the creator of the problem? Envisioning a settlement Despite the widespread anger felt toward opioid producers, the litigants strategy is not to bankrupt the companies. We dont want any of these companies to go out of business; this is not an act of vengeance, Hanly said. This is litigation to recover money that these government entities have spent and lost as a consequence of the defendants. Some critics have suggested Purdue and the other pharmaceutical companies that have been sued pay into a massive fund comparable to one financed by tobacco companies as part of a nationwide settlement in 1998 that was worth nearly $250 billion. To cover the costs of the opioid crisis, such a pool could amount to several times that of the tobacco settlement. In 2015, the opioid crisis cost the country $504 billion, equivalent to 2.8 percent of gross domestic product that year, according to an estimate last year by the Council of Economic Advisers. A comprehensive settlement which would probably be reached through the MDL proceedings, according to Hanly does not appear imminent. Such a pact could take several more months, even years, to hammer out. Before entering into any major agreements, Purdue and the other defendants are expected to demand they would not be liable again for any actions predating a settlement. These defendants need eternal peace, Hanly said. Thats why this settlement is incredibly complex because it has to be completely buttoned up. Otherwise, if theres an escape hatch, the companies are presumably paying all this money to get sued, maybe not tomorrow, but perhaps a year from now, or three years from now. The extent to which Purdue and its owners, members of the Sackler family, could contribute to a settlement is debatable as the company does not publicly disclose its finances. Third-party estimates suggest OxyContin is still lucrative, but less so than at its peak. The drugs sales last year totaled $1.8 billion, down from $2.8 billion five years earlier, according to data from health care analytics company Symphony Health Solutions. Competition from generic drugs has contributed to the decline. One of the issues that we face is not all these companies are financially that cash-flushed, Jepsen said. If you force them into bankruptcy, it might feel good, but it means youre cutting off your nose to spite your face about getting some kind of future income stream, on a pay-as-you-go basis. But theres just not the money in the industry that makes it like tobacco. After collecting their settlement shares, hundreds of the plaintiffs would allot a to-be-determined portion of their proceeds to cover expenses and fees for private-sector law firms. They would then grapple with complicated decisions about the funds distribution. The reality is these lawsuits take years, and years is not something we have. We need to deal with the problem in the here and now, which were doing, Dr. Jeff Gordon, a former president of the Connecticut State Medical Society, said in an interview. But if there are settlements in the future, we should be very clear that the money is protected to support prevention and treatment programs. In the meantime, Purdues dwindling headcount suggests it may be feeling fiscal strain. In June, it announced approximately 350 layoffs, about half of which were linked to the elimination of its already-downsized sales force. That followed earlier job cuts stemming from the companys announcement in February that it would stop marketing OxyContin and other opioids to prescribers. About 550 remain with the company, including some 250 at its Stamford headquarters. Earlier this year, the firm reported employing about 1,100. Purdue has also shaken up its leadership. In July, the company announced a new board chairman and a new general counsel. At the same time, the company is increasingly moving away from opioids. Last month, it announced an exclusive option to acquire a Minnesota company developing an injectable steroid treatment for back pain. Those changes may eventually help repair the companys battered reputation, but they will not end the litigation. Only money flowing out of 201 Tresser that makes its way to the plaintiffs would likely bring the company relief from its opponents. If some company has stolen from the state of Mississippi or injured its citizens or violated its laws, Ive got a duty to collect whats owed to the state, Hood said in an interview. Thats my job. pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; Twitter: @paulschott From the front lines of the Camp Fire, photojournalist Josh Edelson captured images of towering walls of flames that devoured Paradise, Calif., in a day. A hospital, a Safeway, a Grocery Outlet, schools, gas stations, a hospital, a KFC, a Taco Bell, a Burger King and McDonald's are among the structures Edelson saw burn in the town east of Chico. "This thing went crazy," he said. "It exploded super fast. Yesterday, pretty much the entire town of Paradise was on fire. The firefighters for the most part were just kind of letting it happen because the wind was blowing flames everywhere and it was unstoppable. They did structure protection where they could." Edelson has photographed California wildfires for more than 10 years and says the fast-pace of the Camp Fire resembled the Carr Fire that blackened 229,651 acres near Redding in the summer. "I've been doing this a long time, and they wildfires have gotten a lot crazier," he says. "It used to be relatively predictable. Now, you don't know what to expect. Every year, a new fire breaks out that defies all the rules and behavior of fires. Every year is the new normal, the new extreme. More deaths. More destruction." ALSO: Suffocating smoke blankets Bay Area, not expected to clear until Saturday The Camp Fire is becoming known for its fast-moving pace, blackening more than 70,000 acres in less than 24 hours. The fire started Thursday morning at 6:30 a.m. and within three hours had spread across 5,000 acres. By Friday morning, the raging inferno had torn through most of the town of Paradise, burning hundreds of buildings. The Butte County Sheriff's Department has confirmed nine deaths and says there will be more. More than 52,000 people have evacuated and Thursday night parts of east Chico were ordered to evacuate. Reports on the scanner Thursday said people were evacuating on foot as the traffic grew to a halt and Edelson saw those abandoned cars around the Paradise area. "There were abandoned cars littered all over the place...in ditches, just parked in the middle of roads, burned," he says. MORE: Strange thing fell from the sky when Chico resident went to look at smoke from Camp Fire When SFGATE checked in with Edelson Friday morning he was trying to get a little sleep in the back of his Toyota 4Runner parked in an open field in Chico, planning to return to the fire today to capture more of the devastation. "The thing that's scariest is the power lines coming down," he says. "Often you'll be driving and then there's a power line suddenly right at eye level and you just can't see it until its in your face and then you have to slam on your brakes." The president of the California firefighters union excoriated Donald Trump after the president posted a tweet Saturday about the state's raging wildfires. "The president's message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is Ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines," California Professional Firefighters President Brian Rice wrote in an official statement. "At a time when our every effort should be focused on vanquishing the destructive fires and helping the victims, the president has chosen instead to issue an uninformed political threat aimed squarely at the innocent victims of these cataclysmic fires." In his first comment on the massive wildfires, Trump tweeted Saturday from Paris: "There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!" More than half of California's forests are on federal land, essentially putting them under Trump's jurisdiction. At least 25 people are dead in two major wildfires still burning in both halves of the state. The Camp Fire, which began Thursday in Butte County, has scorched over 105,000 acres and consumed nearly 7,000 homes and buildings. It is the most destructive wildfire in state history. MORE: Death toll in Camp Fire rises as coroner's teams search for remains In the Malibu area, the Woolsey Fire has burned 109 square miles. It is five-percent contained. ALSO: Paradise lost: Before-and-after photos show a town devoured by a raging wildfire You can read the rest of Rice's statement below: "At this moment, thousands of our brother and sister firefighters are putting their lives on the line to protect the lives and property of thousands. Some of them are doing so even as their own homes lay in ruins. In my view, this shameful attack on California is an attack on all our courageous men and women on the front lines. "The president's assertion that California's forest management policies are to blame for catastrophic wildfire is dangerously wrong. Wildfires are sparked and spread not only in forested areas but in populated areas and open fields fueled by parched vegetation, high winds, low humidity and geography. Moreover, nearly 60 percent of California forests are under federal management, and another one-third under private control. It is the federal government that has chosen to divert resources away from forest management, not California. "Natural disasters are not "red" or "blue" they destroy regardless of party. Right now, families are in mourning, thousands have lost homes, and a quarter-million Americans have been forced to flee. At this desperate time, we would encourage the president to offer support in word and deed, instead of recrimination and blame." The West Haven Veterans Museum commemorated Korean War veterans in a ceremony Sunday. A common message was the need to share untold stories from what is often called the forgotten war. Approximately 34 veterans were honored and given gifts. Carole McElrath, head of fundraising for the group, sent out around 300 invitations through email, newspaper and town lists, in an attempt to reach the community and engage with veterans families. This is a group thats only five years behind the second world war. It was tricky trying to find them, McElrath said. She said the Korean War was chosen because the generation is aging and other war veterans, such as those in World War II, were previously commemorated. The podium was set in front of the Korean War display, and the room was full of veterans, family members and state and local officials. Paul Sullivan received recognition, sitting with his wife, Annette, two of his sons and several of his grandchildren. Sullivan served with the 58th Field Artillery Battalion. He said the group shipped from Seattle and traveled to Busan, Japan. From there, he said, the group moved south by train. Upon arrival, someone there half-jokingly asked which side they were joining, due to the confusing nature of the conflict itself. In addition to the combat, Sullivan had to wait for 13 months once the conflict was over before coming home. The conflict, he said, was also called a policing action by then-President Truman. The conflicts place between World War II and the Vietnam War silenced many of the stories. Sullivans granddaughter, Melissa Carney, listened intently as her grandfather spoke. She said her grandfather is the kind of person who has a way of spinning a conversation away from himself toward listening to others, and she has not yet heard many of the stories. Ruth Torres represented West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi. Also in the house were state Sen. George Logan, state Reps. Charles Ferraro and Michael DiMassa and City Council members Sean Ronan and Mitchell Gallignano. Col. Daniel Murphy spoke on behalf of Major Gen. Francis Evon. Major Stephen McSweeney also spoke on the Connecticut National Guards involvement in such wars. McSweeney said he did not hear the stories from his grandfather about the Korean War until he was in the hospital, late in life. He said there are treasures, stories and artifacts to be found. Unlike World War I, many artifacts (not to mention the remains of some of the fallen) have yet to be removed from Korea, because there is active military still serving at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Surviving veterans and families enjoyed the recognition Sunday. Ive taken good care of him, havent I? said Barbara Kiczyiniski, about husband, Edward. He will be 90 soon, and the two met following the conflict, in which they both served. NEW HAVEN Local experts believe a recent grant award from the Centers for Disease Control to a New Haven health organization could have a positive impact on the health outcomes of underserved people in the Elm City. The Community Alliance for Research and Engagement, which is co-housed at Southern Connecticut State University and the Yale School of Public Health, received a five-year federal grant for up to $3.68 million to fund community-based solutions to improving health care for low-income residents of New Haven. This grant really builds on a lot of work that has been taking place and weve been building toward over several years in the community, said Alycia Santilli, director of CARE. Its allowing us to take some of our current work and take it to the next level. Santilli said CARE takes triannual assessments of six low-income neighborhoods in the city where there are higher rates of poor health outcomes, like a doubled rate of diabetes compared to the rest of the city. Those communities also have 33 percent food insecurity meaning a lack of reliable access to nutritious food while the city of New Haven has a rate of 22 percent food insecurity, Santilli said. The grant is limited to improving health outcomes in three categories: nutrition, physical activity and community health workers. Santilli said a community-based approach to health, where people who live in their communities become advocates for and identify their communitys health needs, rather than professionals who do not, is seen as a best practice. Under the grant, CARE is able to pay members of the community to receive training to become health advocates. They understand the community in a way someone like myself might not, said Darcey Cobbs-Lomax, executive director of Project Access-New Haven, a nonprofit with the mission to increase access to health care for underserved individuals. Community health workers are not currently funded through any insurance reimbursement, so grants like this are really important to communities like New Haven. Theyre all funded by grants and philanthropy, which is not a sustainable model. It is the Project Access community-based care model that CARE will follow as it carries out the grant. Cobbs-Lomax said many health challenges are also exacerbated by race or class. She said issues like unreliable transportation and hunger are more prominent issues in low-income and underserved neighborhoods. Insurance doesnt necessarily mean equal access; just because someone is insured, it doesnt mean youll get the same access to care, she said. If you are a Medicaid recipient, sometimes your options are a bit limited, especially for speciality care. Santilli said the community health advocate model is based on giving communities a direct voice in how programs and projects are developed in their communities. A key piece of this is working directly with residents to shift the culture of health, she said. Sandra Bulmer, dean of SCSUs School of Health, said the hope is if the program maintains a high quality of service for all five years of the grant, it may lead to future grants. We hope over a period of time we can move the dial in improving some of these health measures, she said. Right now, they are hiring community members; several job announcements are out and theyre interviewing health leaders, people are training in the community and they hired a community coordinator full-time to work with all of the community-based programs. Bulmer said that, although the scope of the grant was narrowed to nutrition, physical activity and community-clinical linkages, there are still many other areas of health to be addressed outside of that lens, such as smoking cessation and gun violence. brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) The country's top cop addressed criticisms against the police for supposedly favoring former First Lady Imelda Marcos following an order for her arrest, compared to their constant vigilance of Senator Antonio Trillanes during the wait for his arrest warrant. Dir. Gen. Oscar Albayalde, Chief of the Philippine National Police, defended the lack of police presence around the former First Lady, explaining that they do not see her as a threat due to her age and gender. "Ito kasi wala tayong nakikitang magiging problema sa kanya dahil unang-una may edad na, babae," Albayalde told the press Monday. [Translation: In this case, we don't see any threats with her because first and foremost, because of her old age and because she is a woman.] Albayalde maintained that giving consideration to persons of old age is a standard practice in their book. "We have to take into consideration the age, in any arrest or anybody for that matter, that has to be taken into consideration, the health, the age," he said. No arrests have been made yet in the wake of the Sandiganbayan's decision that found Marcos guilty of seven counts of graft for profiting from the operation of foundations in Switzerland while she was in government. She was sentenced to imprisonment of a minimum of six years and one month to a maximum of 11 years "in each case." Her total jail time is a minimum of 42 years and 7 months and a maximum of 77 years pending final order. Although the Sandiganbayan's 5th Division Chairman, Associate Justice Rafael Lagos, gave an open court order for the issuance of an arrest warrant, the warrant is not yet out. Albayalde explained that they have not sent police guards to her door to avoid preempting the final decision on the order. Once the decision is out, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of the PNP will lead the arrest, he added. "As of this time wala pa, even advanced coordination, wala pa. It's because we don't want to be in advance or parang magspeculate kami na ilalabas na yung decision sa kanya pero we heard the decision will be coming out and kung ilalabas yung warrant of arrestit will be the CIDG who will lead the arrest," he said. [Translation: As of this time, none yet, even advanced coordination, none. Its because we don't want to move in advance or speculate the announcement of the decision for her but we heard that the decision will be coming out and if they release it, it will be the CIDG who will lead the arrest.] This is in contrary to the police's alleged constant vigilance and increased presence outside of the Senate when Trillanes refused to leaving its premises following an arrest order from the President in September. In Trillanes' case, Albayalde admitted that they enforced preemptive measures awaiting the arrest warrant but said that not all police stationed at the Senate were necessarily tasked to guard the senator. "Yung kay Trillanes it's not meant na parang to harassActually the Senate is being guarded by policemen talaga eh, meron talaga tayong naka-duty doon na pulis doon sa Senate not necessarily for Senator Trillanes. It was just a preemptive measure 'yung sa kanya just in case talagang lumabas (warrant)," he said. [Translation: In Trillanes' case, it was not meant to harrass him supposedlyactually the Senate is really being guarded by policemen, we have policemen on duty there not necessarily for Trillanes. It was just a preemptive measure just in case the warrants comes out.] Albayalde said they will still regard both officials with the "same respect" in serving arrests once Marcos' arrest order is finalized. "We will accord the same respect just like what we accorded to Senator Trillanes and the former First Lady just in case na talagang ilabas 'yan (warrant) [they really issue the warrant]," the chief added. Age and imprisonment Vice President Leni Robredo also argued against allegations saying that Marcos has the opportunity to escape imprisonment due to her old age. She said the law does not exempt criminals aged 70 years and above from imprisonment, but only allows certain considerations. "Medyo mahaba pa iyong proseso: may appeal pa, saka dahil sa age, mayroon nang ibang considerations. Pero mali iyong sinasabi nila na dahil lampas na ng 70 years old, hindi na makukulong," Robredo argued Sunday. [Translation: The process may be long: You have an appeal, and because of age, there are other considerations but it is wrong to say that because you are 70 years old and above, you will not be incarcerated. ] The Vice President cited Chapter three of the Revised Penal Code which states that should the offender be under 18 or above 70 years of age, then it is a mitigating circumstance. Mitigating Circumstances refer to details that should be taken into consideration to diminish the penalty against the offender. For Marcos' case in particular, Robredo argued that she shouldn't be exempted from imprisonment given that she considers herself strong enough to serve as Congresswoman. "Kung ganiyan, nakakapunta pa nga sa Congress, nakaka-kandidato pa bilang gobernador, hindi siguro dahilan para hindi dapat ikulong," Robredo asserted. [Translation: In this case - she can attend Congress, she can run for governor, then (age) shouldn't be the reason why she won't be jailed.] Marcos currently holds the position of Ilocos Norte 2nd District Representative. She also filed a certificate of candidacy for Ilocos Governor in the 2019 elections. Apart from decades of imprisonment, Marcos' sentence includes prohibition from running for a position in the government. However, the Commission on Elections clarified that Marcos can still run until the sentence is ruled final and executory. Q. I have been giving monthly to my church and other organizations. Is there a minimum I need to donate within a calendar year to get a tax deduction from New Jersey? -- Giver A. Charitable deductions aren't as attractive as they used to be from a tax perspective. Under the New Jersey gross income tax rules, charitable contributions such as those that you describe are not allowable deductions, said Neil Becourtney, a certified public accountant and tax partner with CohnReznick in Eatontown. He said only a qualified conservation contribution involving the donation of a qualified real property interest is deductible. "Prior to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted in late 2017, the only deductions permitted for New Jersey purposes were medical expenses exceeding 2 percent of gross income, alimony, and the first $10,000 of real estate taxes paid on a principal residence located in New Jersey," he said. "Under the budget agreement reached in early July, the real estate tax deduction increased to a maximum of $15,000 effective for 2018." Donations to religious institutions, charities pursuing cures for diseases, local town organizations such as volunteer ambulance corps, college alumni funds and thrift shops such as Goodwill Industries and the Salvation Army have never been deductible for New Jersey gross income tax purposes, Becourtney said. Those rules remain today. Email your questions to Ask@NJMoneyHelp.com. Karin Price Mueller writes the Bamboozled column for NJ Advance Media and is the founder of NJMoneyHelp.com. Follow NJMoneyHelp on Twitter @NJMoneyHelp. Find NJMoneyHelp on Facebook. Sign up for NJMoneyHelp.com's weekly e-newsletter. Joe Giudice has filed an appeal after a judge last month ordered that he be deported to Italy after serving his prison sentence. Giudice, 46, whose wife, Teresa Giudice, is a main cast member on "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," is expected to be released from prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania in March. On Oct. 10, a judge ordered that Giudice be deported upon release. He had 30 days to file an appeal. "The appeal has been filed and we remain optimistic that Joe will soon be home with his family where he belongs," Giudice's attorney, James Leonard, said in a statement, E! reports. "We are extremely grateful for Joe's immigration attorneys Jerry Gonzales and Tom Moseley and are very confident in them." In 2014, the Giudices, who live in Towaco, pleaded guilty to fraud charges in federal court. Teresa served just shy of a year in prison in 2015. Joe was sentenced to 41 months in prison and started his sentence in 2016. Joe Giudice, who has also appeared on the Bravo reality show, was born Giuseppe Giudice in Saronno, Italy, outside Milan. He moved to the United States when he was 1. The permanent resident never became a citizen. Permanent residents who commit crimes of moral turpitude are eligible for deportation. At a public appearance last month, Teresa Giudice reportedly asked people to pray for her husband and family, including her four daughters. She also posted a photo of a weeping Statue of Liberty to Instagram. Milania and Gia Giudice have also posted messages to social media about their father's deportation order. "My dad, who is the best dad in the world, needs to come home," Milania, 12, posted on Instagram alongside old photos with her father. "We aren't done fighting dad. I can't believe this is happening. I can't imagine another day without you. We are gonna do everything we can to fight this daddy!! I love you with all my heart buddy." Gia, 17, the Giudices' eldest daughter, also asked for her father to come home and came to his defense. "My father did his time and learned from his mistakes," she posted. "Isn't being in there supposed to make you realize your mistakes so you can become a better person? And that's exactly what my father did. He hasn't felt or looked this good since he was in his 30's. We have so many plans to do as a family when he gets out. I need my father to be here. My father belongs with us and his entire family. My father came into this country when he was one years old, the United States is the only country he knows, spread the word #bringjoehome." On a recent episode of "Watch What Happens Live," Teresa also told Andy Cohen she would love to speak to President Donald Trump about pardoning Joe (if he wants to speak to her). The "RHONJ" star previously appeared on Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice." Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook. A Superior Court judge is expected to decide Tuesday whether a Montclair lawyer accused of killing the mother of his child should stay jailed pending trial. James Ray III. (Essex County jail) James Ray III, 55, is scheduled to appear at the Essex County Veterans Courthouse in Newark for a hearing on prosecutors' motion to detain him before trial, authorities told reporters last week. Ray, who was handed over to FBI and Homeland Security Investigations agents last week by authorities in Cuba, has been charged with murder in Bledsoe's Oct. 22 fatal shooting. Under statewide criminal justice reforms that took effect last year, Ray is likely to remain behind bars for the duration of his case unless his attorney can convince the judge he's neither a public safety threat nor a flight risk. Court documents obtained by NJ Advance Media and other outlets say Ray -- in a note found by a family member -- confessed to killing Bledsoe and expressed a fear of prison time. Affidavit: Lawyer admitted killing girlfriend The note, a detective wrote, led Ray's sibling to call police, who discovered Bledsoe in the couple's North Mountain Avenue home suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. She died of her injuries not long after. The Essex County Prosecutor's Office last week told reporters Ray had been detained by Cuban authorities when he arrived in the country on Oct. 28, after Interpol issued a worldwide "red notice" alerting member countries of his wanted status. Ray, who maintained a law practice in Manhattan, previously drew media scrutiny in 2013 when a paralegal he formerly employed sued him for sexual harassment. The paralegal, who later settled the case out of court, claimed Ray had subjected her to unwanted conversations about polygamy and pornography, and pressured her to become his "third wife." Ray remained jailed at the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark as of Monday afternoon. If convicted of murder, he faces a minimum sentence of 30 years in state prison and a maximum of life. Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook. BAYONNE -- Two city men have been charged with an apparent unprovoked attack on an 18-year-old in the area of Oak Street on Nov. 1, police said. Keith Collins, 21, of West Second Street, and Dennis Boehm, 22, of North Street, have been charged with aggravated assault, Bayonne Lt. Eric Amato said. Collins was arrested on Nov. 8, two days after Boehm was charged. The victim -- who was hospitalized after the attack -- told police he was walking with friends and Boehm at 4 p.m. on Nov. 1 when he was struck in the back of the head and knocked to the ground, Amato said. The 18-year-old was then punched, kicked in struck with a skateboard in the face, police were told. The victim believed it was Boehm that struck him in the back of the head, but police investigating the assault found it was Collins who first struck the 18-year-old and it was Boehm who smashed him with the skateboard, Amato said. Boehm was additionally charged with possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. Both Collins and Boehm were taken to Hudson County jail. Jersey City's Division of Veterans Affairs on Wednesday honored and celebrated military veterans during a flag-raising ceremony followed by an art exhibition and reception at City Hall. Mayor Steve Fulop presented proclamations to veterans Richard Hamilton, Fred Jackson, Leon Tucker Jr. and grand marshals of the Veterans Day Parade on Saturday, Councilmen Rich Boggiano and Daniel Rivera. Honored posthumously was Army Spc. Rafael Nieves, a Jersey City native who was killed in Afghanistan in 2011. U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr., D-N.J. 10th District, acknowledged the WWI centennial and its veterans. He also presented Fulop, who served in the Marine Corps, with a flag that was flown above the U.S. Capitol. Broadway actress Gaelen Gilliland gave two performances. She sang "The Spirit of America" during the flag-raising ceremony and "One Heart, One Voice" during the art exhibit reception. Gilliland has appeared in "Wicked," and "SpongeBob: The Musical." Following the ceremony, the POW/MIA flag, which represents prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action, was raised over City Hall. Stephen De Luca, a veteran commissioned Naval officer who served on board the USS Midway out of Yokosuka, Japan from 1985-1987, played Taps during the flag-raising and gave a special performance during the art exhibit reception. The "Great War" came to an end on Nov. 11, 1918, and yesterday -- 100 years later -- dozens gathered where Hudson County played a vital role for its troops. "One hundred years ago, they walked right here," said Hudson County American Legion Commander Jack Dunne. "They ate, they drank, they had dreams just like everybody else." Dunne was one of the few who spoke at the county's World War I Centennial event at Pershing Field, which was named after WWI General John J. Pershing. It was a military training ground for troops during the brutal war. Germany and the Allies - Britain, France, Russia, Italy and the United States - signed an armistice, agreeing for peace, on the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. "The Great War was supposed to be the war that ended all wars," Dunne said. "Unfortunately, that did not happen, but America will always produce generations of veterans that are willing to step up and protect our great nation." Hudson County Executive Thomas A. DeGise recognized the veterans who sacrificed their lives in battle, but he also emphasized the importance of taking care of veterans who do return. DeGise said it's vital to get veterans psychological care and referenced the Marine Corps veteran who is accused of killing 12 people in Thousand Oaks, Calif., on Thursday. "It isn't always just the names of the people that died and were killed in battle who have suffered," DeGise said. "I think it's also important that we take care of the veterans that did come home." While preaching honor and care-taking of war heroes, Dunne reminded the crowd that the American dream isn't a white-picket fence, a nice car or big house - it's freedom. "That's why we all went into the military," Dunne said. "To protect our country so that we remain free. I want you to remember that." Dozens of veterans were recognized and honored at the fourth annual Jersey City Veterans Day Parade. The parade started at William L. Dickinson High School and ended at City Hall. A 43-year-old Neptune man who was shot to death Saturday night was not a random target, authorities said Monday. Randolph "King" Goodman was killed near his apartment on Old Corlies Avenue, the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office said in a statement on Facebook. Randolph "King" Goodman, 43, of Neptune. Goodman was fatally shot on Nov. 10, 2018. The apartment is part of a building that also houses a barbershop and a deli on a busy corner where Old Corlies Avenue intersects with Route 33. It appears Goodman was possibly the target in a hit case, according to two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the investigation. The sources requested anonymity because they did not want to discuss sensitive details of the investigation publicly. One law enforcement source said he was shot at the door of his apartment. Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni declined to comment on that information but said, "We don't believe this is a product of a home invasion." One of Goodman's friends, Ronald Mason, previously told NJ Advance Media that the mother of Goodman's child told him it appeared Goodman was the victim of a home invasion. Goodman, Mason said, was originally from Asbury Park but had lived at the Neptune apartment for a long time. "He was a good guy," Mason, 36, said. "He wasn't no angel, but he wasn't the (kind of) guy going out looking for trouble." Goodman was once Mason's camp counselor at the Asbury Park's West Side Community Center, Mason said. Goodman worked as a truck driver, according to Mason. Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips It is said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. As we mark 100 years since the end of World War I, and today's legal holiday for Veterans Day -- previously called "Armistice Day"-- it seems only fitting to glance back at the "war to end all wars" for a lesson we can use today. The first thing to note is the carnage. For the United States, which entered World War I toward its end, the first battle casualty was Joseph William Guyton, who was killed on May 24, 1918. The last U.S. soldier killed during the declared war was Henry Nicholas John Gunther. He died at 10:59 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, one minute before the armistice was to take effect at 11 a.m. In between, America lost about 116,500 of its sons. Statistical sources vary, but worldwide overall war-related deaths between 1914 and 1918 are estimated at 15 million to 19 million. Roughly 21 million soldiers were wounded. What is striking is that no one really professed to want war at the time. Historian A.J.P Taylor noted that none of the statesmen wanted war on a grand scale, but they wanted to threaten and they wanted to win. Maybe that's the main lesson to take away from that period of history: Don't issue idle threats, because each threat demands a response, then a counter-response -- and things escalate accordingly. In 1914, word of threats and responses moved at a much slower pace than today, given the limits of telegraph technology. Worldwide communication was point to point, from one sender to one receiver. This allowed time for the parties to consider and reflect before anything became public knowledge. While this slower pace didn't prevent the slide into war, things are different in 2018. International communication is instant and broadly disseminated. Instead of one-on-one communication, a tweet can have an audience of hundreds of millions. This changes the calculus greatly. Today, there's no time to think and, in addition, a global press is waiting to know how a world leader is going to respond. There's instant analysis with judgements about who is up and who is down; who is winning and who is losing. No one, especially a leader, wants to be seen as backing down, whether in the halls of a middle school, out on the street, or in geopolitics. I'm not at all certain that, 100 years removed from World War I, we've learned our lesson about issuing threats. Regarding war and conflict, there's always that one spark we like to point at as setting things ablaze. In 1914, it was the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand by a guy named Gavrilo Princip during the archduke's visit to Bosnia. But things are never that simple. It wasn't just one lone nut who set the course for World War I, but an atmosphere and a mindset that dominated nations. In 1914, that mindset had the look and feel of patriotism, but much of it was simple prejudice and bigotry, both ethnic and religious. Prior to World War I, the populace also had a simple-minded view of war. This is understandable because previous wars were fought on horseback. There were no planes, tanks, bombs, mustard gas or machine guns that can kill dozens in a matter of seconds. The generation that fought World War I had no frame of reference for the carnage and destruction that would follow, and it was easy to believe that a war could be won quickly. Today, we know better, and Americans have a century's worth of perspective from two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and Afghanistan to remind us of the cost. Yet, we might be wholly unprepared for a cyber-war that knocks out our electrical grid, or our financial, communications and transportation systems. Again, this is because our frame of reference is the last war -- not the next one. Who knows? I could be wrong about all of this, but we owe our veterans not only our appreciation, but a promise that we won't blunder into a war or lose another generation of our sons and daughters because we failed to heed the lessons of the past. Albert B. Kelly is mayor of Bridgeton. Contact him by phone at 856-455-3230 Ext. 200. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. Did you ever see the movie "Beckett"? It's one of my favorites. It's old -- released in 1964 -- but available on Netflix and other video apps. Starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, the acting is magnificent. You feel like you're living the story right along with them. It's the history of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and it is relevant today even though it happened in the 12th century. But it's far from a religious saga. It's very much a political one. Thomas Beckett, son of a London merchant, was one of the earliest and strongest supporters of England's King Henry II. He'd been best buddies with the young prince, carousing and generally raising hell wherever they went. Then Henry ascended to the throne and he wanted to keep Thomas close for his advice, as well as his companionship. Henry was an undisciplined monarch, cruel to his enemies but generous to his friends. He gave Thomas ever more prestigious titles until finally he anointed him to the highest and richest position in the land. Archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas didn't want that. He knew it would change things. But it was hard to say no to Henry so eventually Thomas gave in. To Henry's surprise, Thomas took his new assignment seriously. And of course, there came a time when the volatile young king asked too much of him. Henry demanded the Archbishop take his side against a church critical of his actions. He expected allegiance and obedience from his best friend. Thomas agonized over his decision. He consulted with others. He prayed. Finally, in pain, he told the king his first obligation now was to the church, not the crown. Henry and Thomas parted ways in anger with no resolution to their dilemma, but the king could not stand to be a loser. Furious and frustrated, one day he shouted to a group of his courtiers, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" And sure enough, a few days later a group of four strivers pleased the king by stabbing Thomas to death behind the altar. Many years later the Catholic Church declared Thomas a martyr and a saint. Right up till that last part, the whole story seemed so much like what's in the news today. In my opinion, Jeff Sessions is no saint. But the rest of his story is much like Beckett's. He was the first prominent supporter of Donald Trump, one of the strongest and loudest, a loyal comrade throughout the 2016 campaign. And a joyful celebrant of Trump's victory. Then Trump rewarded him with highest unelected post in the country, the powerful first seat in the Cabinet, the position of Attorney General. And Sessions took the job seriously. Although few of us in New Jersey supported his every move as AG, we did have to admit he had the guts to stand up to Trump about the Mueller investigation. Like Beckett, he sealed his doom at that moment. Sessions chose justice over loyalty. And, like Henry, the president can't stand to be a loser in any battle, big or small. So he grumbled and carped and complained, and when he felt the time was right, he got someone else to carry out his wishes. General Kelly, I suppose. And as Kelly delivered the news to Sessions that the president wanted his resignation, I wonder if he wondered whether Trump was already asking around who might rid him of this troublesome chief of staff. Some things haven't changed much in 900 years. A former assemblywoman from Jersey City, Joan Quigley is the president and CEO of North Hudson Community Action Corp. Submit letters to the editor and guest columns at jjletters@jjournal.com Even as he was kicked to the curb Thursday, Jeff Sessions maintained his remarkable two-year winning streak for being wrong about virtually everything. The man who once referred to the ACLU and NAACP as "un-American" for "trying to force civil rights down people's throats," has been wrong about immigration enforcement, about the war on drugs, about mandatory minimum sentences, and about the need to protect whistleblowers and phase out private prisons. He was consistently wrong about everything, except for that time he recused himself in the Mueller investigation, which actually cost him his job. But on his way to the unemployment line, Donald Trump's former chief lawman took a final spin through the antebellum backwater of his mind, and tried one last time to make America a more dangerous place to live. In his last act as Attorney General, Sessions signed a directive that sharply inhibits the Justice Department's ability to clean up local police departments accused of civil rights violations through the use of consent decrees, which are court-approved deals that provide reform guidelines. It's hardly surprising? Sessions has been the tip of the spear for Trump's obsession to unleash cops - allowing them to be more aggressive and test the limits of constitutional behavior, with an ancillary goal of cracking down on crime. So he neutered three of the requirements for new consent decrees, which can only lead to more police abuse: Political appointees (not Justice Department lawyers) must sign off on deals with local police forces; all cases must have an expiration date instead of ending with verifiable improvement; and defendants have to produce evidence of violations that go beyond unconstitutional behavior. That last one induces a brain cramp. Constitutional violations no longer warrant the attention of the US Attorney General? Give Sessions credit for consistency. Since Feb. 2017, he has doubted federal oversight of local cops can "advance the safety and protection of the public." That's Trumpian agitprop, and New Jersey knows it well. A three-year investigation of the Newark police by the Obama Justice Department exposed widespread civil and human rights abuses over many years. A federal monitor was appointed to oversee reforms that included training, community engagement, protocols for searches and arrests and force guidelines, and the establishment of a civilian complaint review board. Result? Newark Police Director Anthony Ambrose, a 33-year veteran, recites a torrent of positive statistical trends and concludes, "It didn't get this way overnight and won't end overnight. But I'd have to say that oversight and the consent decree of the feds helped this police division get back on track." He added that Newark will continue to follow the consent decree, which is probably the case with 11 other departments that agreed to reform during the Obama presidency. "Consent decrees help protect the public against constitutional violations by some police officers," said former state Attorney General Peter Harvey, the monitor in Newark. "They also help police departments get needed resources for new policy writing, for training, for data systems. Without these consent decrees, it is unlikely local governments will have these resources." The only alternative, as former attorney general John Farmer Jr. sees it, are "protracted and wasteful litigation. The resources that would otherwise be consumed by litigation costs can be redirected to achieving reforms." Gurbir Grewal, our current Attorney General, said New Jersey will carry on, and this isn't the first time he has had to compensate for an injudicious federal government. In particularly, we hope he will be especially vigilant in his oversight of police-related shootings, which inspired this system in the first place. Because the official policy of the federal Department of Justice, as of Thursday, is that constitutional violations by your local cops are no longer intolerable. Deeply disappointing that, on his way out the door and apparently over the objection of DOJ career attorneys, former AG Sessions imposed new rules that undermine consent decrees. In NJ, we will continue to work collaboratively with our local police to build community trust. https://t.co/BplgpSD6eY Gurbir S. Grewal (@GurbirGrewalNJ) November 9, 2018 Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. By Jeff Plaut There is an old proverb that "Revenge is a dish that is best served cold." By the time it got to Tony Soprano in his Montclair psychiatrist's office, it had become, "Revenge is like serving cold cuts." If that's the case (and who would tell Tony that it isn't), then the 2018 election in New Jersey was like a heaping Hobby's Deli corned beef sandwich bursting off the plate. In 2010, when the Affordable Care Act passed, it was opposed by every Republican in the House. The Republican sentiment at the time was characterized by Rep. Scott Garrett, who represented the northwestern portion of the state, when he said, "America is going to be destroyed by Obamacare." Rep. John Boehner, then the Republican House leader from Ohio, said his party's plan for the president's agenda going into the 2010 midterms was to "kill it, stop it, slow it down." Republican leaders in the House and Senate saw opposition to Obamacare in 2010 as their ticket to political relevance. And they were right. Republicans swept the 2010 midterm elections, elected a new majority in the House and significantly increased their Senate numbers. Throughout 2010 and 2011, Real Clear Politics' analysis of polling data showed that a majority of Americans consistently opposed Obamacare, though its component parts such as protections for pre-existing conditions were more popular. In politics, a day can be an eternity. And, eight years can be a heaping mound of revenge-filled health care cold cuts. In October 2018, a Monmouth University poll found that health care was the top issue in the Senate race. And U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., was trusted more than his Republican opponent, pharmaceutical CEO Bob Hugin, when it came to keeping health care affordable -- 40 percent to 28 percent. A Democratic man from Gloucester Township told us in our polling, "(Hugin) is not for health care and he's behind Trump." In New Jersey's 5th Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer worked across the aisle to fix problems with the Affordable Care Act and put forward the only bipartisan health care proposal in Congress last year. He's back. Watch for him in the new Congress. In the 11th District, likely voters gave Democrat Mikie Sherrill a 16-point advantage over Republican Jay Webber when asked which candidate had the "right ideas on health care affordability." A Morris Township man said Webber will "repeal protections of those with pre-existing conditions." Webber went all in on efforts to repeal Obamacare; now he's all gone. In the 7th District, Democrat Tom Malinowski supported protecting and improving Obamacare while Republican U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance was, shall we say, multiple choice: supporting the health care repeal bill in a committee vote, only to vote against it when it came up for a vote in the full House. Malinowski criticized Lance for being a "weather vane." To badly paraphrase a Bob Dylan song, "You don't need a weather vane to know which way the wind blows." And in the 2nd District, a strong plurality of voters opposed the president's moves to weaken Obamacare. Two of the best messages for Democratic state Sen. Jeff Van Drew were protecting Medicare and standing up to the Republican health care plan. Now, there is a dentist in the House. It all seems so clear now. Why would congressional Republicans in New Jersey choose to die on a hill of Obamacare repeal in 2017 and 2018? They didn't have to. Really. Then-Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, made a courageous decision to expand Medicaid in New Jersey under Obamacare. Former Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, also a Republican, said Trump's call to let "Obamacare fail and the hint that he might help to make that happen is unconscionable." New Jersey is a different kind of place. "Revenge is like serving cold cuts." Let's go to the deli. Jeff Plaut, a Montclair resident, is a founding partner of the Democratic polling firm Global Strategy Group LLC. Global Strategy Group polled for Democrats or Democratic-allied groups in every competitive federal race in New Jersey in 2018. Read more on the recent election: - These 3 maps show how a Democratic 'blue wave' washed over N.J. - Election 2018 is over: Here's where Cory Booker stands in the newest 2020 presidential rankings - There are still 6,400 votes to count. MacArthur's chances of beating Kim are slim - N.J. Election 2018: Results of state, county and local elections Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. A New Jersey lawmaker wants tougher penalties for people who haze others - especially in cases where someone is seriously injured. The bill (S3150) is named after Timothy Piazza, a 19-year-old New Jersey native who died in 2017 after a night of drinking and hazing at a Penn State University fraternity. "I'm hoping that this will send a message to college students, particularly to fraternities," state Sen. Christopher "Kip" Bateman, R-Somerset, said. The measure would make it a third degree crime if someone is found guilty of hazing somebody that results in bodily injury. Third degree crimes come with the possibility of time behind bars. Anybody who engages in hazing could be found guilty of a fourth degree crime under the proposed bill. The legislation is called the "Timothy J. Piazza Law." Pennsylvania lawmakers passed similar legislation last month that was promptly signed into law. Piazza lived in Bateman's district. "Basically it's to put some teeth into statute," Bateman, R-Somerset, said. "We want to prevent this from happening again." Piazza's parents plan to meet with him as soon as next week to talk about the legislation, Bateman said. Piazza was injured by falling down a set of basement steps, after which fraternity members made inept and even counterproductive efforts to help him. The house's security video captured his excruciating night on a first-floor couch, including him stumbling in the darkness and falling. He was discovered unconscious in the basement the next morning, and it took fraternity members 40 minutes to summon an ambulance. Authorities say he had severe head and abdominal injuries, and a blood-alcohol content several times the state's legal limit for driving. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook. A 35-year-old motorcyclist was killed in a crash late Saturday night in Franklin Township, police said. The 1995 Harley Davidson crashed on Blackwells Mills Road near Van Cleef Road shortly before midnight, according to the township police department. The motorcycle's rider, George Garrett, of Plainfield, was pronounced dead at the scene. Officers found the motorcycle had traveled off the roadway and into a ditch, police said. Police said the crash remains under investigation. Authorities have asked anyone with information about the crash to call 732-873-5533, ext. 3194. Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips The diocese of Baton Rouge hopes to release the names of Roman Catholic clergy members under its auspices who have been credibly accused of abusing minors before the end of January, Bishop Michael G. Duca said. In a letter Duca asked priests to read at weekend Masses, the bishop said last week researchers began an independent review of personnel files of priests and deacons who have served the diocese since it was carved out of the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1961. The Baton Rouge law firm Hebert, Spencer & Fry has been hired to perform the review. The lawyers have employed the accounting and consulting firm Postlethwaite & Netterville to assist. It will take a minimum of four to six weeks to complete the review, after which a comprehensive report will be turned over to the diocese, the letter said. Neither I nor any of my staff is involved in this review, and the auditors will have full access to clergy personnel files while they are on site, Duca said in the letter. From this information, I will compile a list of credibly and substantially accused clergy to be publish hopefully before the end of January. The Archdiocese of New Orleans on Nov. 2 released the names of 57 clergy members credibly accused of abusing minors over many decades. Archbishop Gregory Aymond said all of the clerics are either deceased or have been removed from the ministry. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Archdiocese of New Orleans releases names of clergy credibly accused of abuse More than 50 dioceses across the U.S. have published lists of accused priests in the wake of an explosive Pennsylvania grand jury report in August that named more than 300 priests credibly accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 child victims over several decades in that state. The report drew calls for transparency in the clergy abuse scandal that has angered the faithful and shaken the worlds largest Christian church. The five other dioceses in Louisiana are expected to eventually join those in New Orleans and Baton Rouge in releasing names of clergy member credibly accused of abusing minors. Duca was appointed by Pope Francis as the sixth bishop of Baton Rouge to succeed retiring Bishop Robert Muench. Ducas installation was Aug. 24. You may think that my arrival in the diocese just two months ago is the principal reason the diocese appears to have delayed publishing such a list, Duca said in the letter. On the contrary, we have been working carefully and intestinally on this list since I arrived so that we can publish a list that will be complete, accurate, credible and transparent. A 44-year-old jailed man was stabbed with a shank Nov. 4 afternoon at the Orleans Justice Center jail, according to an arrest warrant for the man accused of stabbing him. The wounded man had more than one laceration, which appeared to be consistent with being stabbed, said the warrant. Orleans Parish Sheriffs Deputies later recovered a sharpened piece of metal, called a shank. The sheriffs office did not immediately respond to questions on Monday (Nov. 12) about the wounded mans condition. Mattrick Dunbar, 23, was booked on new charges of aggravated second-degree battery in connection to the stabbing. He had been in jail for about a month, on a $125,000 bond, following an Oct. 5 arrest on charges of simple robbery and on a warrant out of Mississippi for burglary and a parole violation, court records show. Both men were housed on the same unit in the jail, which continues to be monitored by lawyers and experts as part of a federal consent decree related to conditions at the facility. The Orleans Justice Center opened in September 2015 after the old facility, Orleans Parish Prison, was shuttered. 'Unacceptable' violence persists at Orleans jail, fed monitors say Dunbars warrant, sworn by an Orleans Parish Sheriffs Office investigator, states Dunbar admitted to being involved in an altercation but said he used only his hands, not a weapon. The investigators reviewed surveillance video of the altercation. The warrant says footage showed Dunbar pass another inmate something, which was later recovered and identified as a shank, the document states. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Two days after the stabbing occurred, deputies investigated a beating in a different part of the jail during which one man struck another with a chair. A different arrest warrant states Dequan Ayers, 22, was seen on video swinging a brown plastic chair, hitting an inmate. Investigators said the beating occurred about 9 a.m. Nov. 6. Ayers was booked on an additional charge of aggravated battery in connection to the beating. He had also been in jail for about a month, on a $20,000 bond, after his Oct. 1 arrest on charges of second-degree battery and simple robbery. The earlier arrest stems from a robbery in the French Quarter on Oct. 10. The warrant for the alleged jail beating states Ayers admitted to being involved in the altercation but refused to a sign a form acknowledging he was waiving his rights. Management of the jail, which is run by the sheriffs office, has been under a consent decree since 2013. An outside contractor, Darnley Hodge, is currently serving as the leader of jail operations through his role as compliance director. Hodge answers only to the federal judge, U.S. District Judge Lance Africk, who oversees the consent decree. Hodges position was created after a lawsuit prompted the consent decree and the U.S. Department of Justice argued the sheriffs office was not making adequate progress complying with their mandates. Jail monitors reported to Africk in their most recent report, in August, that unacceptable violence persisted at the jail. At an Oct. 9 community meeting, Hodge said he felt progress had been made at the jail, but acknowledged, We have a long way to go. A Slidell High School student was arrested after making a threat in an attempt to get out of school Monday, according to the Slidell Police Department in a Facebook post Sunday evening (Nov. 11). After an investigation, police said that there was no danger to any students attending the school, according to the post. In the Facebook post, the Slidell Police Department said they maintain our zero-tolerance policy for threats made against the school. Dominic Carmon, who served as Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans for 13 years, died Sunday (Nov. 11), the Archdiocese of New Orleans said. He was 87. Carmon, a native of Opelousas, entered the St. Augstine Seminary of the Divine Word Missionaries in 1946 and was ordained in 1960. He served as a parish priest in Chicago and Opelousas. He served as Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans from 1993 until his retirement in 2006, according to a release from the Archdiocese. Carmon was named auxiliary bishop at Archbishop Francis Schultes request; Schulte asked Pope John Paul II to appoint Carmon soon after the death of Bishop Harold Perry in 1991, who was the 20th centurys first black bishop in the United States, according to The Times-Picayune records. In recent years there have not been that many auxiliary bishops named throughout the world and the United States, Schulte said at the time. The appointment of a second African-American auxiliary for New Orleans is a clear recognition by the Holy Father of historic importance of African-Americans in the history of this archdiocese. There were then 11 active African-American bishops in the American church. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up First of all, my role is to serve the entire community, and I hope to be a worthy representative of the African-American community by my dedication, my fidelity to the work of the church, Carmon said in a Times-Picayune report of the appointment. I am here to serve everyone. Carmon also once served as the national chaplain of the Knights of Peter Claver and its ladies auxiliary, according to The Times-Picayune archives. The organization is a Catholic service organizations of African-American Catholics. He also served as a missionary in New Guinea for seven years. Carmon was the eldest of seven children born to Edna and Aristile Carmon. The Reception of the Body and a prayer service will be held at noon Friday, Nov. 16, with a visitation following until 7 p.m. at the Notre Dame Seminary. A funeral Mass will be held Saturday, Nov. 17, at 10 a.m. at the St. Louis Cathedral. The U.S. Coast Guard suspended two separate searches for a missing person in the Mississippi River and a possible missing person in Lake Pontchartrain on Sunday (Nov. 11), authorities said. Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector New Orleans suspended its search for a 27-year-old man in the water near Fort Jackson after a vessel with three people aboard capsized near mile marker 20 around 5:40 a.m. Saturday, according to a news release. Two of the three people aboard the vessel swam to shore after the vessel sank, the Coast Guard said. The missing man was last seen wearing a camouflage jacket. After a helicopter crew and a medium-sized boat crew combed 167 square-nautical miles for about 22 hours, rescue teams were unable to locate the individual, said Cmdr. Michael Wolfe, a search and rescue mission coordinator at Coast Guard Sector New Orleans, in the release. Plaquemines Parish Sheriffs Office, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and Coast Guard Cutter Sailfish also helped in the search, according to the release. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Authorities also suspended the search for a possible missing person in Lake Pontchartrain after a helicopter crew and small boat crew saw no signs of distress, Travis Magee, U.S. Coast Guard public affairs specialist said. That search launched after a camouflage Ocean Kayak was spotted around 12:30 p.m. Saturday about a half-mile north of the Southern Yacht Club, authorities said. There were also no correlating reports of a missing person made to the empty kayak, Magee said. Anyone with information regarding the kayak is requested to contact the Coast Guard Sector New Orleans command center at (504) 365-2544. Norwegian Breakaway, the largest cruise ship to home port in New Orleans, arrived Sunday (Nov. 11), kicking off multi-day sailings to the Caribbean. The ship will home port in New Orleans through April 2019. Norwegian Cruise Line, which announced last year it would move Breakaway from New York to New Orleans, will offer five, seven, 10 and 11-day cruises from New Orleans to the western Caribbean. Stops include Mexicos Costa Maya, Roatan in Honduras, and Harvest Caye, a resort island in Belize that is owned and developed by Norwegian Cruise Line. Norwegian invited reporters on board Sunday for a first look at the ship, which has room for up to 3,963 passengers and features a range of amenities, including 25 dining options, 22 bars and lounges, and a water park and ropes course on its deck. The ship underwent a two-week renovation in May 2018. Changes included upgrades to the ships state rooms and public areas as well as the addition of Syd Normans Pour House, a new bar and lounge concept. Norwegian Breakaway measures 1,068 feet and 145,666 tons, the largest ship so far to make its home in the Port of New Orleans. Built in 2013, it is also the youngest ship currently sailing from the city. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up In addition to Breakaway, New Orleans will welcome Royal Caribbeans Vision of the Seas in December. The ship will be the first Royal Caribbean cruise ship to sail from New Orleans since June 2014, when the cruise line ended sailings from the city. Vision of the Seas will sail seven-night itineraries to The Bahamas and the Yucatan Peninsula. The ship arrives Dec. 15. Roughly 1.15 million people boarded cruises from New Orleans in 2017, an historic high for the city. Jennifer Larino covers residential real estate, retail and consumer news, travel and cruises, weather and other aspects of life in New Orleans for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Reach her at jlarino@nola.com or 504-239-1424. Follow her on Twitter @jenlarino. Entergy Louisiana owes up to $4.4 billion for getting the lights back on after a string of storms and needs a $1 billion loan to meet those costs in the short-term, says the head of the utility that provides electricity to about half the states c Today Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. High 66F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph. Tonight Clear skies. Low 48F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph. Tomorrow Sunny skies. High 63F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Xem them ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load Thank you for reading The Cascadia Advocate, the Northwest Progressive Institutes journal of world, national, and local politics. Founded in March of 2004, The Cascadia Advocate has been helping people throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond make sense of current events with rigorous analysis and thought-provoking commentary for more than fifteen years. The Cascadia Advocate is funded by readers like you and trusted sponsors. We dont run ads or publish content in exchange for money. Help us keep The Cascadia Advocate editorially independent and freely available to all by becoming a member of the Northwest Progressive Institute today. Or make a donation to sustain our essential research and advocacy journalism. Your contribution will allow us to continue bringing you features like Last Week In Congress, live coverage of events like Netroots Nation or the Democratic National Convention, and reviews of books and documentary films. Become an NPI member Make a one-time donation The CNN chief Jeff Zucker gave his troops unexpected orders the day after President Trump snatched the press credential away from Jim Acosta, one of the networks White House correspondents. The temptation to play it big was strong. Here was a CNN star in the middle of the action, and television news is nothing if not self-promotional. But at the regular morning meeting on Thursday, Mr. Zucker told his producers to stand down. This time, CNN would not be led by the nose into giving significant airtime to another Trump attack on the news media, especially when Democrats were preparing to take over the House and Jeff Sessions was being forced out of the attorney generals office. It was a first step toward a revised approach in dealing with the presidents anti-media antics, which reached a new level last week when Mr. Trump went beyond mere rhetoric by taking away Mr. Acostas White House press pass and threatening to do the same for anyone else who failed to show respect. On Friday evening, inside Our Lady of Refuge church in the Bronx, a man tapped on his phone and then raised it high, so each of the approximately 250 people in attendance could see the screen. Rushing toward the man with the phone, the crowd shouted out the name of John Jenik, an auxiliary bishop who was barred from the church on Oct. 29, following a recent allegation that he had an inappropriate relationship with a teenage boy in the 1980s. Bishop Jenik has denied the accusation, but after an investigation by the Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan called the allegation credible and substantiated. An independent commission affiliated with the archdiocese is considering the claim for a cash settlement, and the case has moved to the Vatican for a review process that could take years. Since his banishment, Bishop Jenik, 74, has been living at a rehabilitation center without access to his parish. Numerous rivals, allies and underlings, along with cartel experts and law enforcement officers, are expected to recount how Mr. Guzman rose from a poor teenage laborer who got his start in crime by farming marijuana in rural Sinaloa to become the Al Capone of the international drug trade who Forbes magazine once placed on its annual list of billionaires. It is a testament to the scope of Mr. Guzmans operation that before his extradition he was already under indictment in six separate federal judicial districts, among them San Diego, Miami, Chicago and El Paso. This trial will be held in Brooklyn on the orders of Loretta Lynch, the former United States attorney general who also once served as Brooklyns top federal prosecutor. The Brooklyn indictment, originally filed in 2009, stems from a series of obscure contract killings that occurred in New York in the early 1990s, according to three current and former law enforcement officials. Federal agents investigating the contract killings tied them to a Colombian trafficker from the Norte Valle drug cartel: Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, known as Chupeta, Spanish slang for Lollipop. Despite altering his face with plastic surgery, Mr. Ramirez was arrested in Brazil in 2007 (in the company of his bodybuilder lover) and was sent to Brooklyn where his case was handled by some of the same prosecutors who will be trying Mr. Guzman. Mr. Ramirez later became a government informant, helping the authorities prosecute Alfredo Beltran-Leyva, one of Mr. Guzmans closest allies. Mr. Ramirez may also appear as a witness at the Guzman trial. Indeed, as part of their case, prosecutors are expected to present a thumbnail history of the Latin American drug trade and will show how Mr. Guzman worked hand in hand with the Colombian cartels throughout the 1990s. But within a decade, the government has said, the Colombians abandoned their American distribution routes as the country passed new extradition laws that put traffickers at risk for prosecution in the United States. For Chris Lotspeich, Veterans Day is a family affair. Its a chance to honor his grandfather who served as a naval officer during World War II, and his cousin who still serves as a colonel. But, for the first time, that family celebration took place on Fifth Avenue, where Mr. Lotspeich, 52, and his family were among the thousands of spectators who gathered Sunday for New Yorks annual Veterans Day Parade. Its important for people to appreciate the sacrifices of our veterans, said Mr. Lotspeich, who was dressed in traditional Scottish garb to honor his familys heritage. Among the thousands of commuters traveling through Pennsylvania Station late last month was Kurt Salzinger, a native of Austria who fled the country as the Nazis marched in. He distinguished himself years later in the United States as a scholar in the field of behavioral psychology. Dr. Salzinger, 89, and his wife were on their way to Macys Herald Square on Oct. 27, when a hurried straphanger rushed past them on a subway platform in Penn Station, the police said. The man shoved the couple out of his path with an arm that knocked them both to the ground, Mr. Salzingers family and the police said, before disappearing on a southbound 3 train headed to Brooklyn. Strangers rushed to help Dr. Salzinger, who was lying helpless on the platform. He was hospitalized with bleeding of the brain from the fall, and later contracted pneumonia, his relatives said. He died on Thursday. The police and Mr. Salzingers family believe his death was an accident, but they are awaiting an official determination from the medical examiner. The encounter was not captured on video, and the police have not yet located the straphanger to interview. The United States finally has the pro-democracy movement that it needs. Last week, ballot initiatives to improve the functioning of democracy fared very well. In Florida a state divided nearly equally between right and left more than 64 percent of voters approved restoring the franchise to 1.4 million people with felony convictions. In Colorado, Michigan and Missouri, measures to reduce gerrymandering passed. In Maryland, Michigan and Nevada, measures to simplify voter registration passed. In red states as well as blue states, Chiraag Bains of the think tank Demos says, voters overwhelmingly sent the message: Were taking our democracy back. Of course, there is still an enormous amount of work to do. Voting remains more difficult here than in almost any other affluent country. On Election Day, I had to wait in line for 45 minutes, even though I have a job that gives me the luxury of voting in the middle of the day. And this country also suffers, unfortunately, from an anti-democracy movement: Leaders of the Republican Party out of a fear of the popular will keep trying to make voting harder. They have closed polling places, reduced voting hours and introduced bureaucratic hurdles. [Listen to The Argument podcast every Thursday morning with Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt.] NASHVILLE Leaf blowers are like giant whining insects that have moved into your skull. They are swarming just behind your eyes, drilling deep inside your teeth. Leaf blowers have ruined autumn with their insistent whine and their noxious fumes, and they are everywhere. You may believe it is futile to resist them, but you still can. In almost every situation where something is loud, obnoxious and seemingly ubiquitous, resistance is an option. Head to the weathered shed in your backyard and fiddle with the rusty padlock until it finally yields. Reach into the corner where you keep the shovel and the posthole digger and the pruning shears. From that jumble of wonderful tools requiring no gasoline, pull out a rake. Quite some time has elapsed since you last used the rake, and its tines may be a bit crooked now, bent here and there along the row. Never mind, the rake will do. Making do is part of the point. Think of how the rake reminds you of the comb your mother tugged gently through your clean hair after a bath. Think of the way your mother smelled as she leaned close to untangle the snarls. Remember how your damp hair held the rows the comb left behind, like new-planted peanuts in your grandfathers fields. Thats what the grass will look like after youve cleared it of leaves. Take care to lift the rake a little when you arrive at the raised roots of the maple trees and the margins of the yard where the lawn mower cant reach beneath the tangle of honeysuckle. Dont push too far into those hidden spaces beneath woody shrubs or the hollows between tree roots. This is where small crawling things are hiding, sheltering under the damp leaves. When the birds finally return in springtime, these little stirring creatures will be a feast for their nestlings. Whatever it might feel like on this damp November day, remind yourself that springtime is coming. Despite Mr. Trump's beating in last weeks midterm elections, President Xi Xinping may not want to breathe a sigh of relief just yet, as the sanctions against China are seen by many as having broad support, perhaps even among the soon-to-be bluer U.S. House of Representatives. If Mike Birbiglia were a piece of furniture, he would surely be a well-worn, deeply stained, slightly squishy couch, much like the one he describes at the beginning of The New One, his winning Broadway debut at the Cort Theater. That may not sound like a flattering comparison. But Mr. Birbiglia has great respect and affection for this kind of sofa, and so should you. As he explains in this one-man show, which opened on Sunday night under the seamless direction of Seth Barrish, a couch is a deceptively simple piece of technology. It is, to be precise, a bed that hugs you. And in delivering that deceptively simple classification, Mr. Birbiglias voice becomes a low, wraparound, pleasure-drenched caress. This somnolent sound makes you feel both relaxed and attentive, drowsy and giddy. And somehow an expensive night with a lone comedian starts to feel like a better bargain than bingeing and chilling at home. Palm Beach Countys elections supervisor, Susan Bucher, said that her countys machines are too old to conduct three full recounts as quickly as required, and the county would be unable to meet the deadline on Thursday. Floridas protracted 2018 midterm election has revealed the warts of an imperfect voting system that normally go unnoticed. This time, the world is watching, and South Florida election officials are being exposed for sloppy processes that in some cases, a judge found this week, violated both state law and the Constitution. Yet those very procedures are common during elections, political analysts in Florida say; they just dont get much attention most of the time because most elections end with wide enough margins of victory that few people scrutinize them. Repeated claims of mismanagement and worse by Mr. Scott and Mr. Rubio have drawn a backlash from Democrats, who said the governors order to law enforcement to impound voting machines was inappropriate. In suing to seize ballots and impound voting machines, Rick Scott is doing his best to impersonate Latin American dictators who have overthrown Democracies in Venezuela and Cuba, Juan Penalosa, the state Democratic Party director, said in a statement. The governor is using his position to consolidate power by cutting at the very core of our democracy. But some number of irregularities do appear to have occurred. On Sunday, one candidate filed an affidavit in court from a fired poll worker who claimed to have witnessed elections employees filling out ballots days before the 2016 election. It was unclear whether what the worker witnessed was wrongdoing, or a routine process in which staffers fill out fresh blank ballots to replace those that come in too bent, torn or otherwise defective to be read by machine. The affidavit was intended to prove that similar problems could be at work in the current election. In Broward County, 22 rejected ballots were mixed in with about 180 valid ones and were counted. In Palm Beach County, damaged ballots that were duplicated by hand, as required under state law, were handled without independent observers having a good vantage point to witness the process. Staff members had made rulings themselves on questionable ballots that were supposed to be judged by a three-person panel. SYDNEY, Australia The Queensland police have arrested a former strawberry industry worker for spiking strawberries with needles, a crime that fueled a nationwide scare that crippled Australias strawberry industry. The woman, a former supervisor at a strawberry farm in Queensland, was arrested Sunday and has been charged with seven counts of contamination of goods. The police say there was a circumstance of aggravation, meaning that if convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison. The local news media identified her as My Ut Trinh, 50. This has probably been one of the most trying investigations that Ive been a part of, Jon Wacker, a detective superintendent of the Drug and Serious Crime Group, said in a news conference on Monday. News that fruit was being tampered with first broke in September, after several people reported discovering needles in strawberries they had purchased. One 7-year-old girl bit into a contaminated strawberry but was not harmed. Another man from Queensland was less lucky: he was hospitalized after he swallowed half a needle while eating the fruit. THORNBURY, Ontario Parents and grandparents jammed the small hall of Thornbury, a sleepy ski town north of Toronto, to glean tips on how to talk to their teenagers about the potential harms of marijuana. Held less than a week before Canada was set to legalize cannabis, the public health session had a message for parents: Marijuana would be legal for adults, but it was not safe for young people. And parents needed to instill in their children the idea that pot could be dangerous. Its been proven the brain doesnt stop growing until you are 25, and yet were legally selling it to people at 19, Jenny Hanley, an addictions counselor, said as she left the meeting. What the hell is our government thinking? Canada last month became the second country to make it legal for adults to buy, grow and consume small amounts of marijuana. But it also made it a crime to give it to anyone younger than 19 or 18, depending on the province, and set a penalty of up to 14 years in prison for doing so. JERUSALEM A covert Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip apparently went bad on Sunday, leaving at least seven Palestinians dead, including one senior Hamas military commander, and puncturing a nascent cease-fire with a flurry of airstrikes and rocket fire. An Israeli lieutenant colonel was killed and another officer was wounded in the action near Khan Younis, the first known Israeli ground incursion into Gaza since Operation Protective Edge, in July 2014, set off a seven-week war. The impetus for the Israeli operation and its nature were unclear. Reports in the Israeli news media generally described it as an intelligence mission that went awry. Palestinian militants responded with waves of rockets aimed at Israeli communities near Gaza, and Israeli aircraft pounded targets in Gaza for a time. With sirens going off repeatedly in the Gaza periphery, Israel ordered its citizens there to remain close to air-raid shelters and schools were closed on Monday. Swarovski introduced a 550-pound star in 2004, and outfitted it even more in 2009. This years Libeskind-Swarovski creation may be the most architecturally advanced piece to top the Rockefeller Center tree, which appeared as part of a formalized annual tradition starting in 1933. This years lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center will be on Nov. 28, and the tree will be on view through Jan. 7. The tree, a 72-foot-tall Norway spruce from Wallkill, N.Y., was hoisted into place on Saturday in its spot overlooking the skating rink, and will be clad in 50,000 lights and, of course, the star. Its a renaissance of the star, Mr. Libeskind said, referring to his design of a decoration that has a tradition as a symbol of hope. Inspired by the abstract concept of starlight and Leonardo da Vincis studies of geometric forms, Mr. Libeskind said he started out with sketches, which he then had to translate into the three-dimensional form. He also created a model of the star, which will sit in the plaza next to a holiday retail kiosk, so that observers can look at the design up close. Pound and Yeats are inventing 20th-century theater in the process of total cultural misunderstanding, he said in an interview. Strangely, their getting it wrong is the way to some kind of new right. Both he and Ms. Saariaho emphasize that their touchstone is as much Pound as Noh, if not more so. Were not in any way imitating Japanese Noh performance, Mr. Sellars said. Were recontextualizing it in the modern sense that Pounds translation is, to use his beautiful phrase, a film of a dream. Absent the masks, gestures and other resources of traditional Noh, however, the piece poses a challenge for performers and audiences. If you think about the classic Noh plays, Ms. Saariaho said, there is not so much going on onstage. This is ideal for Ms. Saariahos translucent music, said Susan McClary, the musicologist and author of the coming book The Passions of Peter Sellars: Staging the Music. The motions on the stage are very slow and dont really shape up into plot, Ms. McClary said. So youre thrown back on the music. If you can give yourself over to that music, it is a magical experience of the kind that the mortals are having in the opera. After its premiere in Amsterdam, in 2016, Mr. Sellars revised and reshaped his production. The piece finally settled, he said, during a run in Paris. The ghosts of the Palais Garnier were with us, he recalled of the citys ornate opera house. You could feel Stravinsky and Massine and Benois and Picasso and all those people in the room with us. To perform this music in that place on a bare stage with the ghosts was overwhelming. Writing the black N.R.A. chapter, in which I was seeking out other African-Americans who had picked up a firearm with the intent of safety or training or self-defense or a hobby, I came to understand that I dont agree with them either. The idea that I need a gun to protect myself just doesnt wash with me. My friend told me my book would always be relevant because theyre not going to stop shooting young black men. If I was a young black man lets say Im 21 and have a handgun license me having a gun isnt exactly going to make that situation better. A police officer, if anything, is going to be more inclined to shoot me because I have a dangerous weapon, a lethal weapon, on me. Im not inclined to make anyone think Im dangerous. Some folks are just going to believe that Im either a problem or a criminal. I came to think that if thats the case, I shouldnt be armed. I should want to talk. If I can talk to that person, if I can give them a little of myself, and if I can get something of them, that fear can dissipate. There will always be tension, but I dont want to live in a world where I think I have to go through life defending myself with a firearm. I learned that during the course of the writing. I keep my firearms for historical precedents and reasons, but I dont shoot them. In what way is the book you wrote different from the book you set out to write? I left out a lot of what I came to find out about the history of guns, like how intuitive a Glock is; I chose it because I was going to get good with it the quickest. There was a pocket history of mass shootings that got cut, too. The book is a memoir. Theres maybe three chapters of straight-up journalism, and journalism is my background. The through line is how I made myself very vulnerable. I walked into my fears repeatedly because I wanted to get to know someone who thought and believed differently than I did. Who is a creative person (not a writer) who has influenced you and your work? T.I., the rapper. Hes also an actor and hes a business owner. I listened to his music since I was a kid. T.I. has grown up as I have, by which I mean his music is very Atlanta, making repeated reference to drugs and firearms. Hes grown into being so socially aware and socially conscious, and has worked that into his music in a way that isnt off-putting, in songs like I Believe. Or even folks like Jason Isbell, to go in an entire different direction. Their ability to tell a story that speaks to the times I live in while also giving me that hammer bass line is so important. I draw a lot of inspiration from what T.I. has done and the way hes done it. The authors have done a remarkable amount of research. The hardcover includes over 100 pages of notes; the list of source materials runs 14 pages. Listening to the audiobook, mostly (and commandingly) read by Courtney B. Vance, one is freed from any responsibility to flip back and forth between primary text and notes, creating a wonderful immersion in that extraordinary research. Vance whose impressive acting career includes multiple military roles, most famously in The Hunt for Red October signals the transitions to lengthy direct quotes with helpful changes of tone, and most of the book is strongly and engagingly acted. The only rough spots are when Vances inflections or pauses suggest he may be unsure of the meaning of some of the books more technical passages. The book is clearly organized by scientifically minded authors. While varied and associative enough to be interesting, the writing is always directed toward illuminating the research. But there is literary flair to the language as well. Emanuel Leutzes famous painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, one of many that illustrate the historical cooperation between astronomy and war, is described with Washington standing at the front, his right leg planted on the bow as the multiethnic crew of revolutionaries struggles with poles and oars in the ice-choked river and light begins to flood the morning sky. At the commanders left side hangs a saber; in his right hand is a telescope. The language moves between the literary and analytical, evenhanded yet passionate. This is not to say the authors dont have a point of view, about which they are transparent from the onset, but the book lets the facts, and the many first-person quotes, speak for themselves. To be an informed citizen is a daunting task. We cannot all read reams of military white papers to track the evolving thinking about space dominance or dig up Galileos first treatise from 1610. Accessory to War condenses multiple bodies of work into one important, comprehensive and coherent story of the symbiotic developments of astrophysics and war. The authors are clear and convincing that war from the high ground of space is exponentially more dangerous than any warfare the human race has engaged in thus far, capable of efficiently delivering nuclear bombs, with their power to annihilate the entire planet. They are equally convincing that scientific space endeavors arent separable from military ones, and they never were. The lesson is not merely a wake-up call for astrophysicists, but for all of us, for anyone with the misapprehension that science somehow marches on separate from the rest of culture. When a gunman slaughtered 11 worshipers in a Pittsburgh synagogue on a Shabbat morning last month, American Jews were left with a jumble of intense emotions: horror and fear, certainly, but also an old embattled feeling, centuries in the making. They were victims, in America, a country that has never seen even a hint of a pogrom. In their pain and worry, individual Jews had a rare chance to feel themselves part of a larger community one that mourns together, gets angry together, imbued with a separate and unique identity, threatened yet resilient. And in this, victimhood offered an illusion. For one thing, the violence of Pittsburgh is far from the everyday reality of American Jews. They live in a country that has offered them a great deal more love than it ever has hate. Were beyond mere tolerance. A recent Pew poll found that Americans felt warmer about Jews than any other religious group. There is an accumulated sense of comfort and acceptance that has persisted even with a president whose winks have emboldened thousands of internet trolls and hundreds of white men bearing tiki torches. The positive side of the ledger remains plentiful. A shared sorrow may have provided the briefest taste of unity after Pittsburgh, but anti-Semitism is not what defines the experience of Jews in America today; assimilation is. To hear the professional worriers in the Jewish community, its love, not hate, that poses the bigger existential challenge. A vast majority of Jews 72 percent among the non-Orthodox now marry outside the tribe. The infrastructure of Judaism, from the synagogue to the long-established liberal denominations, is being steadily abandoned. Almost a third of millennial Jews are so unidentified with Judaism they say they have no religion at all. And Israel, which once inspired, now alienates many, especially the young. Even the massacre in Pittsburgh, for those who knew where to look, offered hints of this demise. The average age of the victims, those mainstays who turned on the lights and made sure the grape juice and cookies were set up for the kiddush, was 74. Three congregations gathered in one synagogue that morning because of dwindling numbers. Once the candlelight vigils are over, where is the solid ground for the future of American Jewish identity? It wont come from being victims it shouldnt and cultural and ethnic identity, the bagels and lox version, is disappearing fast. From where then? As a handful of new books make abundantly clear, there really is only one source left: the religion Judaism itself, and its unique capacity for adaptation. Top Saudi intelligence officials close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed hiring companies last year to kill Iranian enemies of the kingdom, according to people familiar with the discussions. Their discussions, more than a year before the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, indicate that top Saudi officials have considered assassinations since the beginning of Prince Mohammeds ascent. Mr. Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last month. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said audio recordings of Mr. Khashoggis killing had been given to the United States and other Western countries. His disclosure intensifies the pressure on President Trump, who has refused to assign blame for the crime, to take stronger punitive measures against his allies in Saudi Arabia. Above, a person wearing a mask of the dead journalist. Customers can sign up for the curbside delivery through the Avis app or with an employee when they pick up their cars. The service is offered at more than 35 cities domestically, including at most major airports like Newark Liberty International Airport, OHare International Airport in Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Ms. Gibson said that the service had been frequently booked since it debuted in late September and that the companys net promoter score a tool that the car rental industry uses to measure customer satisfaction had increased. Silvercar by Audi had curbside drop-off at some of its airport locations when it started in 2012, but it expanded the service this summer to all 25 airports where it has rental centers, including Denver International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. Unlike Avis and Budget, which also charges $25 for a terminal drop-off, Silvercar doesnt tack on an extra cost for the perk. But rentals with Silvercar start at $59 a day, making it one of the costlier options in the industry. Mr. Abrams, the industry consultant, said the travelers most likely to use curbside drop-offs probably werent price sensitive. At some airports, like San Francisco International Airport, Silvercar customers do not have to go the companys rental center at all: They can leave their vehicle in the airports short-term parking lot and lock it using Silvercars app. They text Silvercar the location, and an employee picks up the car within an hour. Chaz Brewer, a publicist from Los Angeles, said he appreciated that option on a late September work trip to Phoenix when he got lost on his way back to Silvercars airport lot. Running out of time before his flight, he called the rental center in a panic and explained his situation. An employee told me that it was no problem to leave the car in short-term parking, which turned out to be a lifesaver, he said. I just about made my flight. Hertz and Fox Rent a Car do not have official drop-off programs at their airport locations. But spokesmen for both brands said time-crunched customers could request a ride to their terminal for no extra charge, although they emphasized that it was not a service that renters should expect. On dependability, officials in White Plains give the buses, which were made by Lion Electric, a Quebec-based company, a passing grade. So far, so good, said Sergio Alfonso, the districts director of transportation. We always expect issues with new technology, but we havent seen anything out of the ordinary yet. In 2016, in contrast, three school districts in Massachusetts bought three buses from Lion Electric under a state-funded pilot project. The buses had repeated battery and software failures, and parts often had to be shipped to Canada for repairs, putting the vehicles out of commission for lengthy spells. Lion Electric says it has learned from those early missteps and is training mechanics in White Plains, as well as helping to establish a service center nearby in New Jersey for more serious problems. White Plains was only able to afford its five buses with outside help. National Express received a state grant that offset $120,000 of the cost of each vehicle. The company then set up a partnership with Consolidated Edison, the local electric utility, which agreed to chip in another $100,000 per bus. In return, Con Ed gets the right to use the buses to help power the grid in the summer, when school is out and the vehicles sit idle. Their batteries would store electricity when demand is low and discharge it during peak hours. The grid project is one of the first of its kind, and, in theory, could be a way for utilities to help finance electric school buses elsewhere in the state. As New York builds more solar and wind power, it will need lots of new energy storage. The utility plans to test the buses batteries next summer to see how they hold up under heavy use and to check whether the economics work. HARTFORD Mark Twain was a well-traveled literary superstar, so famous that his editor once journeyed to Washington to ask President Theodore Roosevelt if he would move Thanksgiving because it coincided with Twains birthday plans. (Twain moved his party.) But in 1879, on a book tour through Europe, he craved the simplest foods from home, with agonizing specificity. Twain wanted Early Rose potatoes, a Vermont-bred heirloom, roasted in the ashes of a fire. Mussels from the waters around San Francisco. And hot broiled Virginia bacon. He compiled a list, an extensive fantasy of a meal, which he imagined sitting down to enjoy right off the steamship when he got home. That list is now a snapshot of some of the most cherished regional American foods of his time. But for a vast array of political, cultural and ecological reasons, few of Twains picks terrapin, prairie chicken and raccoon among them would be considered an integral part of our national identity today. This month, the audiobook company Audible released an eight-episode series , hosted by the actor Nick Offerman, that explores the reasons. [What you need to know to start your day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] Until recently, the most important thing to know about Amazon for residents of the Queensbridge Houses, the countrys largest public housing project, was that any packages left in a lobby would likely be stolen. But Amazon will soon be a far larger presence in their New York City neighborhood. The company owned by Jeff Bezos, the worlds richest man, will announce on Tuesday that it will establish a major headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, where Queensbridges 26 aging buildings are home to a mostly black and Hispanic population with a median household income of $15,843, well below the federal poverty line for a family of four. Here, where livings are eked out on meager paychecks, or social service assistance, with nearly 60 percent of its households relying on food stamps, the new neighbor will be one of the worlds most profitable high-tech companies, bringing what could be a work force of 25,000 people making salaries upward of $100,000. The stark contrast amplifies some of the social and economic tensions coursing through American society a widening income gap, a lack of access to high-paying jobs for many minorities and a technology sector struggling to diversify. When she was 13, Nazi bombs dropped on Yana Gilchenoks house in the Gorodok ghetto of Belarus, driving her, along with her mother, sister and niece, to seek shelter with other families in a nearby forest. Of course, I was scared. I was starving and scared. Oh, I assure you, it was pitiful, Mrs. Gilchenok, now 90, said in Russian while sitting on a couch in her one-bedroom apartment in Washington Heights. In the middle of it all, my mother told me, A person is far stronger than steel. After surviving for many weeks in the forest, her family boarded a train and eventually found their way to an older sister and her non-Jewish husband, who shared a communal apartment in Kazan, a city east of Moscow. Mrs. Gilchenok slept on their bedroom floor for a year. After the war, Mrs. Gilchenok went to high school, studied medicine and became a cardiologist and pulmonologist. She married a cousin twice removed named Alexander. They moved into their own apartment in Leningrad and had two sons. Youll also notice that were giving New York Today a redesign, in hopes of making our newsletter even more helpful as you begin your day. Consider New York Today a running conversation about what is, and is not, working in New York. Here are some of the big themes Im going to explore in this space: Politics: Democrats have taken complete control of New York State government for the first time in a while. That is going to affect a wide array of issues, from charter schools to rent regulation to the legalization of recreational marijuana. Well be following along closely. Transportation: How people move by car or bus, on trains, scooters, over bridges and all across our city is obviously of vital importance. The subways (and mass transit in general) are the veins and arteries of New York. If theyre clogged, were in trouble. Information: How we get news, the shrinking of local journalism, and the vast expansion of Google, Facebook and Twitter are changing how we relate to those around us. Im hoping that New York Today can help you to navigate this landscape. I have a lot of opinions about not wasting your time and the value of local journalism, which you can read about in my article for The Columbia Journalism Review. Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams, progressive African-American Democratic candidates, may not have won their races for governor in Florida and Georgia (both are still too close to call). But the strategy they followed is still the best strategy for Democrats to win: inspiring, mobilizing and turning out voters of color and progressive whites. Ive argued for this strategy for years. In my 2016 book, I analyzed Barack Obamas victories in the context of the countrys changing demographics. The implications of the Gillum and Abrams races are profound (to be clear, I did fund-raising for the efforts to elect both Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum, just as I did for Mr. Obama in 2008), and learning the right lessons from 2018 is key for Democrats as they look ahead to the 2020 elections. Over the past 20 years, the best-performing Democratic candidates in statewide elections in Florida and Georgia have been Mr. Obama, Mr. Gillum and Ms. Abrams. (Hillary Clinton in 2016 was actually Floridas highest Democratic vote-getter ever.) This year, Ms. Abrams dramatically increased Democratic turnout, garnering more votes 1.9 million than any other Democrat running for any office in the history of Georgia (and that includes Jimmy Carter, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton). Conventional wisdom dictated that both Mr. Gillum and Ms. Abrams did not give Democrats their best chance; more traditional, moderate white candidates were seen as the most competitive. In this view, moderate candidates can better appeal to and win over swing white voters. Today, Protect Democracy filed a lawsuit on behalf of the League of Women Voters and Common Cause of Florida against Mr. Scott to bar him from having any further official role in overseeing the Florida election in which he is a candidate. Our organization filed a similar lawsuit last week against Mr. Kemp. It argued that his position as a judge in his own case was a violation of the Constitutions due process clause. Just as an emergency hearing in that case was about to begin this past Thursday morning, Mr. Kemps lawyers informed the judge that Mr. Kemp was submitting his resignation as secretary of state. He claimed it was to turn his attention to planning a transition, but it certainly looked as though he realized his dual role was untenable and was trying to avoid losing in court. In addition to these cases, this year Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach used his office to advise county election officials on how to count ballots in a primary for governor in which he was a candidate. It was only after the election and after he had a razor-thin advantage of less than 200 votes that he agreed under pressure to recuse himself from further involvement as secretary of state. Mr. Kobach went on to win that primary. The problem these cases have exposed extends far beyond Georgia, Florida and Kansas, and these emergency lawsuits should not be the ultimate solution to this problem. President Trump is watching whats happening in these cases. He has no official authority over any of these races, but he has shown a clear preference for the path of Mr. Scott and Mr. Kemp rather than that of Ms. Reagan and Mr. Ducey. Over the weekend he tweeted about the Arizona race: Electoral corruption call for a new election? It is an unsettling coincidence that mass shootings bookended the 2018 election, from a Pittsburgh synagogue on Oct. 27 to a bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., on Nov. 7. The election that took place in between, though, demonstrated that Democrats and even some Republicans found gun-safety advocacy a boon to their campaigns in a way not seen in a long time. In comparison with previous elections, the gun-rights forces customary blaring megaphone seemed nowhere near as loud as usual or as effective. This is borne out by an examination of public attitudes, candidate positions, money and exposure. Consider first the public environment. According to Pew Research Center analysis, more Americans now favor gun regulation (52 percent) over gun rights (44 percent), a reversal from 2016. And 57 percent say gun laws should be stricter, compared with 52 percent in 2017. A recent Kaiser Foundation poll found gun policy to be the third most important concern of voters, behind health care and the economy. Similarly, Election Day exit polling found the same rank order, except that gun policy was bumped to fourth by immigration a position it probably would not have lost but for President Trumps strenuous efforts to exploit immigration anxiety. An NBC News exit poll reported that 60 percent of voters favored stronger gun laws, including 42 percent of gun owners. Candidates embraced the gun-safety agenda this cycle to a degree not seen since at least the 2000 elections, when Al Gore, the Democratic presidential candidate, made it key to his campaign messaging. According to Mark Kelly, who founded the gun-safety organization Americans for Responsible Solutions with his wife, the former House member Gabrielle Giffords, only four of 36 candidates listed on the Democratic Partys red to blue list in 2016 included the gun issue in their platforms. (The red to blue list refers to Republican-held seats Democrats hope to gain.) This year, 38 of 59 candidates on the list included the issue. Candidates for Congress and other offices around the country aggressively touted their support for stronger gun measures, in races in Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia and elsewhere. Consider it no coincidence that many of these states suffered recent mass shootings. Opinion Debate Will the Democrats face a midterm wipeout? Mark Penn and Andrew Stein write that "only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022" and beyond. write that "only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022" and beyond. Tory Gavito and Adam Jentleson write that the Virgina loss should "shock Democrats into confronting the powerful role that racially coded attacks play in American politics." write that the Virgina loss should "shock Democrats into confronting the powerful role that racially coded attacks play in American politics." Ezra Klein speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging. speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging. Ross Douthat writes that the outcome of the Virginia gubernatorial race shows Democrats need a new way to talk about progressive ideology and education. Members of Congress, including ambitious ones like Tim Ryan, the Ohio Democrat who ran against Nancy Pelosi to be party leader in 2016, and Brian Mast, a Florida Republican, both had A ratings from the National Rifle Association. But both reversed course, trading their A for an N.R.A. F after recent mass shootings. In Pennsylvanias First Congressional District, representing Bucks and Montgomery Counties, both the Democratic and Republican candidates for Congress advertised their support for stronger gun laws, leading gun-safety forces to split their endorsements between the two (Brian Fitzpatrick, the incumbent Republican, won narrowly). Saudi clerics had never weaponized the podium of the prophet at the Grand Mosque so brazenly to serve the monarchy. No imam of the Grand Mosque had ever anointed a Saudi ruler as the mujaddid of the age or dared to imply as much. The sermons in Mecca and Medina are read from a script, which is approved beforehand by Saudi security forces. While the king appoints a leading imam for the Grand Mosque and the Prophets Mosque in Medina, each imam has a number of officially appointed deputies who rotate in leading prayers and delivering sermons. For decades, the sermons delivered in Mecca and Medina have been pietistic, dogmatic and predictable. They have always concluded with a prayer for the Saudi royals, but the imams would not attribute sacred qualities to the monarchy and insisted that the rulers should be obeyed only to the extent that they obey God. A lot has changed since Prince Mohammeds rise to power. The crown prince has imprisoned hundreds of prominent Saudi imams who have shown even a modicum of resistance including very prominent and influential jurists such as Sheikh Saleh al-Talib and Sheikh Bandar Bin Aziz Bilila, former imams of the Grand Mosque. Saudi prosecutors have sought the death penalty for Salman al-Awdah, a prominent, reformist cleric who was arrested last September. Some reports claim that another prominent cleric, Sheikh Suleiman Daweesh, who was arrested in April 2016, has died in a Saudi prison after being tortured. The only imams who seem to be allowed to lead prayers and give sermons at the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophets Mosque in Medina are those who have agreed to go along with whatever the crown prince wants. Some influential Saudi scholars such as Sheikh Abd al-Aziz Al Rayes went as far as saying in a lecture that even if the Saudi ruler fornicates in public on television for half an hour each day, you are still required to bring people together around the ruler, not to aggravate people against him. Imam Sudaiss recent sermon put Muslims at an axial turning point: Accept the crown prince as the divinely inspired reformer of Islam and believe and accept his words and deeds or you are an enemy of Islam. Muslim scholars reacted to the sermon primarily on social media with disdain and outrage. Numerous Arabic language comedy shows and talk shows on YouTube reacted with mockery and condemnation. These ideas are popular with liberals, centrists and a good number of conservatives too. And progressive activists have come to understand that this issue needs to be one of their top priorities. If the quality of our democracy doesnt improve, many other policy priorities could be impossible to achieve. I think the United States finally has the pro-democracy movement that it needs a movement not only to fight back against efforts by Republican leaders to make voting harder but also to go on the offensive. My column today is about that pro-democracy movement and what should come next for it. A couple of my own priorities are universal voting by mail and a voting age younger than 18. What democratic changes do you think are most important? Drop me an email with your thoughts, at leonhardt@nytimes.com. On the same topic: Although the election is still too close to be called, Utah may join the list of states that have restricted gerrymandering through last weeks ballot initiative. The initiative holds a narrow lead in the latest vote count, writes Ben Lockhart of The Deseret News. Two other important outcomes would be losses of anti-voter officials in Arizona and North Carolina. And both may happen, Daniel Nichanian notes (here and here). Nichanian, a political scientist, wrote a voting-rights manifesto for Vox in 2016 that remains relevant. Q. I saw on the news that two rare Scottish wildcat kittens were rescued. How could the rescuers tell they were really wildcats? A. The biggest threat to the Scottish wildcat, Felis silvestris, is widespread interbreeding with feral domestic cats. The wildcats are endangered; just 45 to 100 purebred specimens remain, mostly roaming remote parts of Scotlands western Highlands. The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland has developed a genetic test to distinguish wildcats from domestic cats and hybrids. But the elusive and fierce animals are seldom available for testing. Research organizations like Wildcat Haven and Scottish Wildcat Action have developed what might be called a breed standard to identify wildcats, which may even help estimate the degree of hybridization in doubtful cases. [Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.] The male wildcat is bigger than the average house cat, although the females are about the same size. The wildcats fur is much thicker, and its stripes are all solid black and brown; spots, broken stripes or white fur are indications of hybridization. ST. PETERSBURG, Russia Standing alone, a few minutes before the doors were to open at the Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexei Tikhonov gazed at Masha, a 30,000-year-old baby mammoth that he brought here from a Siberian riverbank thirty years ago. Masha, one of the museums star attractions, rests with hundreds of other encased exhibits in one of the largest public collections of zoological specimens in the world. The cabinets, conceived in Frankfurt at the end of the 19th century, and the Czarist hunting trophies here exude an old-fashioned, even romantic air. But Dr. Tikhonov, director of the museum, is not too concerned. Sometimes he yearns for plasma panels and the modern gadgetry that many other museums use to inform visitors. But he has limited funds to modernize the museum, and prefers to spend that money buying new collections and supporting scientific fieldwork. Andrew Barth Feldman has been keeping a list of people hell need to call when the news comes out: that he, a 16-year-old high school junior, will be making his Broadway debut this winter as the title character in Dear Evan Hansen. Its been so hard, Mr. Feldman, who won the best actor award at the National High School Musical Theater Awards this year, said in a phone interview last week. Because people are aware that I have something coming up. But he hasnt been able to let the cat out of the bag. I have a list of all the people that Ive lied to over the past few months, he said. I have to text or call or email them. On Jan. 30, Mr. Feldman will be taking over the role of Evan Hansen a high school senior with social anxiety in the Broadway musical, which won six Tony Awards in 2017, including the award for best musical and best performance by a leading actor in a musical for Ben Platt. The show currently stars Taylor Trensch. Mr. Feldman will be the first teenager to lead the Broadway cast. His audition for Dear Evan Hansen in July was his first for a Broadway show. Other countries decline to pay for a drug when the price is too high, said Rachel Sachs, who studies drug pricing and regulation as an associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. The United States has been unwilling to do this. For example, except in rare cases, Britain will pay for new drugs only when their effectiveness is high relative to their prices. German regulators may decline to reimburse a new drug at rates higher than those paid for older therapies, if they find that it offers no additional benefit. Some other nations base their prices on those charged in Britain, Germany or other countries, Ms. Sachs added. That, by and large, explains why we spend so much more on drugs in the United States than elsewhere. But what drove the change in the 1990s? One part of the explanation is that a record number of new drugs emerged in that decade. Huge sales for new and expensive drugs In particular, sales of costly new hypertension and cancer drugs took off in the 1990s. The number of drugs with sales that topped $1 billion increased to 52 in 2006 from six in 1997. The combination of few price controls and rapid growth of brand-name drugs increased American per capita pharmaceutical spending. The scientific explosion of the 1970s and 1980s that allowed us to isolate the genetic basis of certain diseases opened a lot of therapeutic areas for new drugs, said Aaron Kesselheim, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He pointed to other factors promoting the growth of drug spending in the 1990s, including increased advertising to physicians and consumers. Regulations on drug ads on TV were relaxed, which led to more advertising. More rapid F.D.A. approvals, fueled by new fees collected from pharmaceutical manufactures that began in 1992, also helped push new drugs to market. In March 1990, L. Ling-chi Wang got on a plane to Washington, where he felt that his words were being twisted. Mr. Wang, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, had recently scored a victory when the school acknowledged it disproportionately hurt Asian-American applicants in its admissions, amid a wave of similar allegations of discrimination sweeping more than a dozen other universities. But in Washington, Mr. Wang lobbied against a resolution introduced by a representative from California, Dana Rohrabacher, that called for the federal government to ramp up investigations into reports of such discrimination. What troubled Mr. Wang, a strong supporter of affirmative action, was that Mr. Rohrabacher was claiming that universities policies helped underrepresented black and Hispanic students get in while, as the congressman put it, squeezing Asian-Americans out. LAUDERHILL, Fla. For nearly a week, the parking lot behind the Broward County elections office has been the scene of an unfolding postelection drama, with protesters demanding the arrest of the local elections supervisor and politicians claiming fraud in the ballot-counting process. Gov. Rick Scott has fueled the fury, sending his lawyers to court in a bid to call in the police to prevent any possible tampering with ballot-counting machines. So fraught has Floridas election recount become that on Monday, the chief circuit judge in the county, Jack Tuter, issued a warning to the powerful political lawyers standing before him in court. Words matter, the judge said. People are listening. Watch what you say. I am urging, because of the highly public nature of this case, to ramp down the rhetoric, the judge said. Everything the lawyers are saying out in front of the elections office is beamed all over the country. We need to be careful what we say. These words mean things these days, as everybody in the room knows. The judges words of caution came nearly a week after the 2018 midterm election, which left behind prolonged ballot counts in three states, including recounts in three close statewide races in Florida. One of the most striking features of the new class is its litany of firsts. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan are the first Muslim-American women ever elected to Congress; Ms. Omar, a state legislator, will also become the first Somali-American in the House. Like her predecessor, Keith Ellison, she has said she would likely be sworn in using a Quran. In the suburbs of Kansas City, Sharice Davids, an openly gay woman and member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, toppled a Republican incumbent, Representative Kevin Yoder, to become one of the first Native American women to serve in Congress. The other is Deb Haaland of New Mexico, who will replace Michelle Lujan Grisham, just elected governor. We have a record-breaking number of women of color going to Congress who will be sworn in in January, Ms. Haaland said in an interview. Considering the fact that Native women have never had a voice in Congress for 240 years, its significant that we have an opportunity to bring that voice to the table. Among those women of color is Ayanna Pressley, who in 2009 became the first black woman elected to the Boston City Council. Then she stunned the Massachusetts political establishment when she beat Representative Michael Capuano in a primary earlier this year. Known for her fiery speaking style, she is, like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a darling of the progressive left, and she said in an interview that she is eager to bring her voice and her passion for issues like overhauling the criminal justice system to a Capitol that is still an overwhelmingly white male world. Washington is only a microcosm of society at large, and navigating these waters and terrain is not completely alien to me, she said. The corridors of power and most decision-making tables are dominated by white men. That was true when I was elected to the Boston City Council, and they enthusiastically embraced my agenda. Though no one is keeping records, Antonio Delgado of New York, a former Rhodes Scholar and Harvard-educated lawyer, is almost certainly the first rapper ever elected to Congress. His rap career was brief, but it did provide fodder for attacks from Republicans. There are at least four people who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual in the new Democratic class; they include Angie Craig, a health care human resources official who ousted a Republican incumbent in the suburbs of St. Paul, Minn. She said she takes pride in being another first: the first lesbian mother in Congress. She and her wife have four sons. Mainly Jem's Birding & Ringing Exploits in the Eastern Province & Ringing Trips to Bahrain Police and school officials in a small town in Wisconsin are investigating a photograph taken last spring of about 60 male high school students, many of them making what appears to be a Nazi salute. The photograph, taken on the steps of a local courthouse before the Baraboo High School junior prom, was available for purchase on the photographer Peter Gusts website, Wheel Memories, until Monday morning, when it apparently was deleted. The image went viral after it was posted on Twitter Sunday night. In a letter sent to parents on Monday, the school district superintendent, Lori Mueller, said that administrators were extremely troubled by the image. Clearly, we have a lot of work to do to ensure that our schools remain positive and safe environments for all students, staff and community, Ms. Mueller wrote. If the gesture is what it appears to be, the district will pursue any and all available and appropriate actions, including legal, to address the issue. Good Monday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ Now in control of the House, triumphant Democrats have quickly turned to how to put forward their own agenda even as they deal with the provocations of President Trump. Read the story. Top congressional Democrats demanded that Mr. Trumps acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, recuse himself from overseeing the special counsel investigation, and vowed to block him from interfering with it. Read about their demands. Key priorities for House Democrats: protect people with pre-existing health conditions, control drug prices and investigate Trump administration actions that undercut the Affordable Care Act. Read about the partys mandate on health care. These fires arent even in forests, said Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Rather, the Camp and Woolsey fires, which are ripping through Northern and Southern California, began in areas known as the wildland-urban interface: places where communities are close to undeveloped areas , making it easier for fire to move from forests or grasslands into neighborhoods. [Why does California have so many wildfires? There are four key ingredients.] A 2015 report by the United States Department of Agriculture found that between 2000 and 2010 (the last year for which data was available), the number of people moving into the wildland-urban interface had increased by 5 percent . According to the report, 44 million houses, equivalent to one in every three houses in the country, are in the wildland-urban interface. The highest concentrations are in Florida, Texas and, yes, California. It is true that California wildfires are getting larger and that most of the states largest wildfires have happened this century. The Mendocino Complex Fire, earlier this year, was the biggest California fire on record, as measured by acres burned. The Camp Fire is already the most destructive in state history, having razed more than 6,000 homes. We need to be careful what we say, said the judge, Jack Tuter, rejecting a request by Mr. Scott to impound unused voting machines and ballots. These words mean things these days, as everybody in the room knows. It was a busy weekend for undecided elections in Florida and elsewhere. Heres a recap of where things stand today: The first full, statewide vote recount in Florida history started on Saturday for races for governor, Senate and agriculture secretary. The deadline for the recount, which is being performed by machines, is Thursday at 3 p.m. But if the machine recount comes back with a margin of .25 percentage points or less, the state will begin a manual recount. Most of the attention is focused on the Senate race, where unofficial election results show Mr. Scott leading Mr. Nelson by just .14 percentage points. A big question is why the Democratic bastion of Broward County saw about 25,000 fewer votes counted for Senate than governor, a number way out of whack with other counties. Poor ballot design may be a reason. There are also overseas and provisional ballots still to be counted. In Arizonas Senate race, Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrat, was declared the winner late on Monday. The race was close, but the tallying was also slow by design a majority of voters in the state cast early ballots and vote by mail, and counting all their votes can take time. In Georgia, Democrats are trying to push Brian Kemp, the Republican nominee for governor, below 50 percent of the vote, triggering a runoff election later this year. The campaign of Stacey Abrams, the Democrat, says an additional 25,632 votes would push the race into a runoff; Mr. Kemps office says there are only about 25,000 votes outstanding. His share dropped slightly over the weekend, to 50.28 from 50.33 . Ms. Abramss lawyers filed a lawsuit on Sunday to force the counting of more provisional ballots and to push back the states certification of election results until at least Wednesday. In the House, Democrats keep expanding their margin as results roll in. Currently, the party has claimed at least 32 seats up from 26 on election night. Results in 10 races are outstanding. [Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox every evening.] ____________________ Behind Trumps wildfire tweet Republicans have won every Senate race in Mississippi for the last three decades. Voters in Mississippi will head back to the polls Nov. 27 for a runoff. But this years special election has some in the G.O.P. worried, after this controversial comment made by Republican candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith was caught on video. The remark was particularly tone deaf in Mississippi, where more than 600 people were killed in lynchings from 1877 to 1950 more than any other state. Hyde-Smith, the states former agricultural and commerce commissioner, is in a runoff with Democrat Mike Espy after no one received more than 50 percent of the vote on Election Day. Espy was the agriculture secretary in the Clinton administration. And, if elected, would be the first black senator from the state since Reconstruction. He was running an underdog campaign in conservative Mississippi. But Hyde-Smiths comments put the trajectory of the race in doubt. Facing an uproar over her remarks, she retreated from the campaign and dodged reporters questions. We put out a statement yesterday and we stand by that statement. We put out the statement yesterday and its available. And we stand by that statement. I put out a statement yesterday. I put out a statement yesterday. We did address it yesterday. And thats all Im going to say about it. But after her poll numbers dropped and companies began withdrawing contributions, she was forced to address them at a debate. For anyone that was offended for my by my comments, I certainly apologize. There was no ill will, no intent whatsoever in my statements. I also recognize that this comment was twisted and it was turned into a weapon to be used against me. Espy responded this way: Well, no one twisted your comments because your comments were live, you know, it came out of your mouth. And I dont know whats in your heart, but we all know what came out of your mouth. The controversy appears to have emboldened Democrats. Espy picked up an endorsement from former Vide President Joe Biden, and Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris have stumped for him in Mississippi. I think that people are fed up with and really just tired of supposed leaders who lead by trying to sow hate and division among us. But Hyde-Smith still has some big advantages over her opponent. Shes been endorsed by President Trump, who won Mississippi by nearly 18 points in 2016. And a vote for Cindy is a vote for me. Trumps support could help Hyde-Smith shore up conservative white voters, which may be enough to secure victory in solidly red Mississippi. On Nov. 30, the Supreme Court will consider whether to hear the case. On the same day, the justices will consider whether to hear two related cases, on whether Title VII bars discrimination based on sexual orientation. If the court agrees to hear any of the three cases, a relatively sleepy term will have gained its first blockbuster case. The Trump administration filed a curious brief in Ms. Stephenss case, one that said two seemingly contradictory things. The appeals court had gotten things badly wrong on legal issues that were recurring and important, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco told the justices. The ruling, he added, was inconsistent with decisions of other circuits. Those are precisely the things you say when you want to persuade the Supreme Court to hear a case. But Mr. Francisco went on to urge the court to deny review in the funeral homes appeal and instead hear one of the cases on whether Title VII bars discrimination based on what he called another non-biological-sex attribute an individuals sexual orientation. It is true that the appeals courts are more deeply divided on the question of whether Title VII covers discrimination against gay men and lesbians, with recent decisions from the Second Circuit, in New York, and the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, ruling that it does. It could make sense to decide that question first, and to defer a decision in Ms. Stephenss case in the meantime. But Mr. Francisco went further, urging the Supreme Court to turn down the funeral homes appeal even if the court declined to hear the two sexual-orientation cases. That has court watchers puzzled. Mr. Franciscos brief was nominally on behalf of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which had charged the funeral home with employment discrimination and had prevailed in the lower courts. But his legal arguments were at odds with the views the commission had taken in the case. Mr. Franciscos brief abandoned the position that had been pressed by the commission in the Sixth Circuit and instead lent support to the funeral home. But in urging the Supreme Court to deny review, the commission remained formally aligned with Ms. Stephens, and the case is still known as R. G. & G. R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, No. 18-107. The European pharmaceutical industry is pushing for the United States to recognize clinical trials of new drugs conducted in Europe and vice versa. That would cut the cost of testing a new drug by millions of dollars and help hold down prices for prescription medicines. Brussels trade negotiators hope that as long as there is constructive work toward a stronger future trade relationship, the United States will withhold the urge to impose further tariffs, said Koen Berden, a trade expert at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations. They to want to show to Trump that we are serious and we want this to work, Mr. Berden said in an interview Monday. But the proposals under discussion fall well short of the new phase in the relationship between the United States and the European Union that Mr. Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, described after a meeting at the White House in July. The meeting in Washington on Wednesday will be the second between Mr. Lighthizer and Ms. Malmstrom since July, and her first trip to Washington. Members of their staffs have met more frequently. They have focused on regulations, which are often a more serious impediment to trade than tariffs. As for the trade deficits, most economists do not see any gap as money lost to other countries and do not agree with the presidents view that the trade imbalance shows Americas weakness on trade policy. On Sunday, President Emmanuel Macron of France criticized Mr. Trumps nationalistic posture in his remarks at the commemorative event at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. That reflects the way voting issues combine both deeply political impulses and largely practical ones. There are voting reforms which trigger partisan sensibilities, and then there are those that respond to peoples desire to have a modern, efficient and nonbureaucratic process, said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford University law professor and elections scholar. People want options. They dont want to be forced to go to a polling place; they want to be able to vote from home. Right now, when people can conduct their entire lives on their phone, they wonder why they have to go to a 19th century polling place to cast a ballot. Several of the measures sparked partisan battles, like Michigans Proposal 2, which created a commission to draw district lines, and Issue 2 in Arkansas, which requires voters to have photo identification and was opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The A.C.L.U. also targeted Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and candidate for governor who became a villain among liberals after repeatedly making spurious claims about widespread voter fraud. While the A.C.L.U. does not officially endorse or oppose specific candidates, it made its feelings clear in Mr. Kobachs race, with a $400,000 TV ad buy, 150,000 mailers, 70,000 phone calls and by knocking on more than 5,000 doors. Mr. Kobach lost. When voters actual people get an opportunity to shape their election system, its unequivocal where they are, but when its politicians who are rendering judgment of the system, they are protecting the status quo and engineering outcomes to their advantage, Faiz Shakir, national political director of the A.C.L.U., said. The main lesson here is that we should go big and bold on voting rights. In September, Judge Randy Crane of the Federal District Court in McAllen, Tex., dismissed claims of negligent hiring and supervision of Mr. Manzanares filed by the two women who were the victims of his initial attack. The judge concluded that supervisors had not been alerted to any problem in the agents background and had no reason to know that anything was amiss. But he allowed claims filed by the 14-year-old girl, now 18, whose ordeal had gone on well into the night and might have been prevented if Mr. Manzanaress actions had been detected earlier to proceed. The case will drag out for months, however. Judge Crane suggested recently that he was prepared to allow appeals of some of his previous rulings to proceed before the case goes to trial. Lawyers for the three women presented evidence that Mr. Manzanaress supervisors failed to notice or intervene when the agent ignored his duties for hours, and failed to thoroughly inspect his truck when he returned at the end of his shift. If they had, the evidence showed, they would have seen it contained used duct tape, blood and discarded restraints. Mr. Manzanares, a father of two, had no major disciplinary infractions during his six years with the agency, which he joined in 2008 after serving with the United States Army in Afghanistan and working as a jailer for the Hidalgo County Sheriffs Department. But according to court documents, he appeared to have become a pedophile, and one of the issues in the lawsuit has been whether the Border Patrol should have conducted the kind of employee reviews that would have brought that to light. In late 2013 and early 2014, he was in the midst of a divorce, living in an apartment in the border city of Mission with his two dogs. Even among his neighbors more than two dozen of his Border Patrol colleagues lived in the same gated complex Mr. Manzanares largely kept to himself. His rampage that day might never have been discovered had the older woman left for dead after the initial attack not come across a Customs and Border Protection officer as she emerged from the brush. She was still bleeding, and clearly terrified. The man who did this to her and her daughter, she told the officer, was dressed just like you. BALTIMORE Facing a reignited crisis of credibility over child sexual abuse, the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States came to a meeting in Baltimore on Monday prepared to show that they could hold themselves accountable. But in a last-minute surprise, the Vatican instructed the bishops to delay voting on a package of corrective measures until next year, when Pope Francis plans to hold a summit in Rome on the sexual abuse crisis for bishops from around the world. Many of the more than 350 American bishops gathered in Baltimore appeared stunned when they learned of the change of plans in the first few minutes of the meeting. They had come to Baltimore wanting to prove that they had heard their parishioners cries of despair and calls for change. Suddenly, the Vatican appeared to be standing in the way, dealing the bishops another public relations nightmare. Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The former Infowars Washington bureau chief, who recently testified before a federal grand jury in special counsel Robert Muellers probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, tells ABC News that after two months of closed-door talks with investigators, the special counsel has now indicated he will be charged within a matter of days. I dont know what theyre going to charge me with, said Jerome Corsi, who until recently served as the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for the controversial far-right media outlet Infowars, in an interview with ABC News on Monday. I think my only crime was that I support Donald Trump. That's my crime, and now I'm going to go to prison for the rest of my life for cooperating with them, he later added. Corsi is one of more than a dozen individuals associated with political operative Roger Stone -- a longtime and close ally of President Donald Trump -- who have been contacted by the special counsel. The witnesses, many of whom have appeared before the grand jury impaneled by Muellers team, have told ABC News they were asked about Stones dealings during the 2016 election and what if any contact he may have had with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange through an intermediary, which Stone denies. Much remains unknown about Muellers interest in Stone. But Corsi has emerged as a central figure of interest to Mueller as he builds his case, sources confirm to ABC News. Corsi, who Stone told ABC News he has known for years, has frequently appeared with Stone on-air for Infowars, where Stone currently serves as a contributor. Corsi described his experience with the investigation as a horror show and a nightmare, telling ABC News the special counsels probe, Is an inquisition worthy of the KGB or the Gestapo. I feel like I've been through an interrogation session in North Korea in the Korean war. In recent weeks, ABC News reported that Corsi returned to Washington, D.C., again for more closed-door meetings with special counsel investigators, and was scheduled to make a second appearance before the federal grand jury in the probe. However, Corsis second grand jury testimony was ultimately canceled, and Corsi says prosecutors with the special counsels office told his attorney to expect forthcoming charges. Reached by ABC News on Monday, Corsi's lawyer, David Gray, declined to comment on the matter. Shortly after his interview with ABC News, Corsi hosted a live stream on his YouTube page in which he reiterated his expectation to be indicted, telling supporters; I fully anticipate in the next few days to be indicted by Mueller. This is a breaking news story, check back for updates. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 11) The feud between two groups of companies vying to become the country's third major telecommunications player continues. SEAR Telecoms a business venture of Mindanao-based TierOne Communications, the Luis Chavit Singson Group of Companies, and a few foreign businesses insisted that one of its members, TierOne, has existing ties with Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company (Mislatel), which is part of the consortium declared as the provisional winner. "Not content in misleading the [National Telecommunications Commission] and the general public in its submissions to the former during the bid opening on November 7, [Mislatel] now scurrilously seeks to further deceive the Filipino people on the real scope and status of its agreement with Digiphil," SEAR said in a statement. The group said the contractual obligation of Digiphil, a subsidiary of TierOne, "is not limited to small projects like VSAT," contrary to Mislatel's contention. "The agreement itself does not limit the scope of business ventures that the parties may engage; it includes those providing broadband, value added services, telecommunications, cellular mobile telephony, international gateway, voice-band data, other ICT related services, including other services 'within the scope of Mislatel's legislative franchise," it said. With Digiphil and Mislatel's agreement, SEAR said, the two companies are required to coordinate in filing applications for operational concerns such as "frequency allocations, permits, and authorization for the establishment, operation, and maintenance of foregoing services." "Clearly, the applications referred in the agreement include submission of a bid with NTC, such as one held last November 7. Notably, before the bidding, Mislatel applied for broadband services under the 'regular' NTC procedure," it said. "Mislatel, therefore, cannot escape the otherwise clear terms of its agreement with Digiphil by trying to limit its scope," it added. SEAR also contested Mislatel's statement saying that the agreement has been terminated, saying the company "has no right to unilaterally terminate and rescind" the deal and that there is no legal and valid basis for termination. SEAR described as "absurd" Mislatel's claim of "fraudulent misrepresentation." "Mislatel, after voluntarily signing the Agreement, cannot later on claim that it was misled to do so. The Agreement states that the parties fully participated in the review and revision of the agreement, and therefore, it must be given fair and plain," it said. "What is more, Mislatel continues to hold on to Digiphil's P10 million payment for the agreement it executed, plus all the amount it paid to NTC to secure Mislatel's 'No Obligation Certificate' that it used for the selection process," it added. SEAR said the NTC should not be swayed by Mislatel's "unilateral disavowal" of its contract obligations with Digiphil. "There is no doubt that Mislatel, now enriched by Digiphil's payments, unjustifiably and unilaterally terminated the agreement without legal basis, because of offers from its new consortium partners," it said. Hetzner is a proud supporter of the WordPress monthly Meet-Ups and annual WordCamp events that have taken place over the past few years. WordCamp 2018 was no exception. WordCamp 2018 Hetzner staff with high schoolers who attended Apparently the attendees loved the coffee :) Apparently the attendees loved the coffee :) It's always a pleasure meeting our customers face-to-face. The annual event provides an ideal platform to listen and to learn, as the attendees talk, engage and debate on all things WordPress and the changing landscape of website design and development. The WordPress CMS offers everyone the opportunity to give functionality, style and navigation to their dreams. Entrepreneurs have a space to showcase their business endeavours; and inspires creative expression for budding and seasoned designers and developers. These are all qualities that resonate with Hetzner. We're proudly South African and love the fact that WooCommerce, a South African brand, is the leading shopping cart plugin for WordPress. It's also an opportunity to get out the office where we are surrounded by the people who have chosen us to be partners in making their online dreams a reality. There's no better reason than that! WordCamp is an opportunity for WordPress designers, developers and business owners to come together to share learnings and establish connections with like-minded people. For Hetzner, it's an opportunity to meet our customers and to spend time with this vibrant, growing WordPress community.With over 45,000 WordPress websites on our hosting platform, we understand that people pour their passion, vision, creativity and business goals into their websites. We understand the trust placed in us and work continuously to offer a hosting experience that enables our customers to thrive online. People, not technology, are at the centre of our hosting. Any time you crowd children or adolescents, or young adults together, theres an opportunity for some of the more contagious childhood diseases to take advantage of those who are susceptible. That was true in the First World War, where barrack life and troop ship transports contributed to the virulent spread of the 1918 influenza, which unlike most strains of flu, was more deadly to the healthy young than to the elderly. Many colleges require a specific list of immunizations before students move into dormitories, including meningococcal vaccine to prevent bacterial meningitis. But measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is always at the top of the list. Thats because measles is so contagious that if the herd immunity when a high percentage of a population is protected by immunization drops even a few percentage points, the measles virus can take full advantage. The first things you see, the cracks in your public health system, Dr. Ratner said, will be infections like this, measles, infectious through the respiratory route and good at moving from susceptible people to susceptible people. When my own daughter went off to college, someone looked carefully at her immunization records, always accepted without question at her school, and discovered that her very first MMR had been given a couple of months before her first birthday, and therefore didnt count; she had to go get one more dose before she took up residency in her dorm room. I had asked for that early MMR, because we were going to take her traveling in a country where there was still, at that time, a danger of measles exposure (no, not Brooklyn). You can give the MMR as early as 6 months if a child is at increased risk of measles exposure, and it provides some protection, but you have to repeat the shot after the child turns 1. I had forgotten to do that, and no one had ever noticed. As the pediatrician mother of the child with the incomplete vaccine record, I was a little embarrassed, but mostly impressed. Dr. Stimson went on to note that those World War I soldiers who had grown up in more isolated, usually rural circumstances, were less likely to be immune to the childhood diseases, and when thousands of these rural young men are first massed together in army camps, contagious diseases are apt to be very common, he said. This had also been noted in the American Civil War, when measles was a particularly devastating disease, and the recruits coming off the farm were especially vulnerable. The young men of 1918 were going into terrible danger (Dr. Stimson himself was wounded in action in Flanders, serving with the British troops) but they were also in danger because they were exposed to one anothers viruses and bacteria. Mohammadi Bashi had been promised that a helicopter was on the way to evacuate all 32 surviving members of his family; as relatives of General Bashi, they were especially at risk if the Taliban captured the whole district. As the soldiers bodies arrived two and three at a time, officials with the presidential delegation warned that they should be kept out of sight so as not to create panic. The head of the delegation, the presidential adviser Asadullah Falah, left the meetings to grant an interview, in which he sought to play down the crisis. We have some casualties, but were still not definite about how many, he said. Told that the bodies of 20 commandos were plainly visible just outside the window of that room, he said that many must have been police officers and militiamen. They were all in uniforms with commando shoulder patches. Mr. Falah answered a phone call about the helicopters; four were on their way, so his 15-member delegation could also leave, he was told. Tell one of them to land in the governors compound, so people dont see the bodies, he told the caller, within earshot of a Times reporter. It will weaken morale here. But by the time it grew dark, the helicopters had not arrived. The Taliban mostly fight at night, and were expected to renew their offensive, especially in Hotqol, where the commandos were killed on Sunday. Escape from Jaghori Commander Hussein squeezed into a car with a half-dozen other fighters and left. If Hotqol falls, the whole of Jaghori will fall, he said. BEIJING The Chinese government, bowing to pressure from environmental groups, said on Monday that it would temporarily reinstate a ban on the use of rhinoceros horns and tiger bones in medicine. Making a rare concession, the State Council, Chinas cabinet, said that it had decided to postpone an order made last month to undo a 25-year ban on the trade. The Chinese government has not changed its stance on wildlife protection and will not ease the crackdown on illegal trafficking and trade of rhinos, tigers and their byproducts, Ding Xuedong, a top official with the council, said in remarks published in the state-run news media on Monday. Environmentalists celebrated the change, though some warned that it might be temporary. Keeping these products banned is the only way we stand a chance of protecting the future survival of these incredible animals that are already in decline, said Gilbert M. Sape, a campaigner with World Animal Protection, an advocacy group based in London. PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea The Maseratis and Bentleys have been delivered. Laborers from China have repaired roads and installed bus stop shelters with signs saying China Aid. Three cruise ships will serve as temporary hotels. The Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea is in the global spotlight as some of the worlds most powerful leaders gather here this week for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting. Some say hosting the annual Asia-Pacific leaders forum will be Papua New Guineas biggest event since it gained independence in 1975. For the countrys scandal-ridden government, it is an opportunity to spend aid money on favored projects in the capital and import luxury vehicles that can be sold later to wealthy cronies. Government leaders, most of them heads of state, will be arriving this weekend from 20 fellow member economies that ring the Pacific Ocean. NAPLES, Italy Italys desperate need for a financial shot in the arm is palpable at all levels of the economy, from the entrepreneurs in the industrial north who are hungry for tax breaks and a streamlined bureaucracy to the welfare seekers in the poverty-stricken south, with its dizzying levels of youth unemployment. But how best to invigorate the Italian economy has reanimated a wrenching debate for Europe over whether to spend or cut in the face of financial peril. On Tuesday, Italy is expected to resubmit a largely unchanged and high-spending budget to the European Union, which is expected to reject it, for a second time, and begin the rare process of punishing a founding-member nation with penalties in the billions of euros. The argument has haunted Europe since the financial crisis of 2008, of which the consequences, including uneven recoveries and persistent economic inequality, continue to ripple through southern Europe. Italys populists came to power in part by blaming Brussels for stifling their economy with strict budget rules. The budget from Rome is the first real, and not just rhetorical, assault on the establishment order of the bloc. The question is whether the budget is a serious stimulus plan or a bank-breaking populist giveaway larded with tax cuts, pension benefits and welfare programs that neither Italy nor the European Union can afford. A crash of the Italian economy, one of the largest in the bloc, could sink everyone. Doubts among investors have already caused an increase in the yields of 10-year government bonds an indication that markets view Italy as a riskier country to lend to. BERLIN Horst Seehofer, the defiant German interior minister whose provocations have undermined Chancellor Angela Merkels government and eroded support for his own conservative party, said Monday that he would step down as head of the Christian Social Union, a key part of Ms. Merkels governing coalition. Mr. Seehofers announcement that he plans to retire from party leadership, although he said he would remain in his more powerful government post, comes two weeks after Ms. Merkel shocked the country by announcing that she would do much the same thing. The Christian Social Union, which exists only in Bavaria, is the sister party to Ms. Merkels Christian Democrats, who operate across the rest of the country. Im the federal interior minister and will continue to exercise my duties, Mr. Seehofer said. His government job, he told reporters, is in no way affected by his decision. Mr. Seehofer, 69, has recently faced calls to step down from his government post, and he has been under pressure within his own party since it suffered severe losses in a state election last month. He had hoped to rally conservatives around him, but instead earned a reputation for reckless political moves. There were 15 of them. Most arrived in the dead of night, laid their trap and waited for the target to arrive. That target was Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi critic of his countrys government and its young crown prince. Since his killing in Istanbul, Turkish media has released a steady drip feed of evidence implicating Saudi officials. Weeks of investigation by The Times builds on that evidence and reconstructs what unfolded, hour-by-hour. Our timeline shows the ruthless efficiency of a hit team of experts that seemed specially chosen from Saudi government ministries. Some had links to the crown prince himself. After a series of shifting explanations, Saudi Arabia now denies that this brazen hit job was premeditated. But this reconstruction of the killing, and the botched cover-up, calls their story into serious question. Its Friday morning, Sept. 28. Khashoggi and his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, are at the local marriage office in Istanbul. In order to marry, hes told that he needs Saudi paperwork and goes straight to the consulate to arrange it. They tell him to return in a week. It all seems routine, but its not. Inside theres a Saudi spy, Ahmed al-Muzaini, whos working under diplomatic cover. That very day, he flies off to Riyadh and helps concoct a plan to intercept Khashoggi when he returns to the consulate. Fast-forward to Monday night into Tuesday morning. Saudi agents converge in Istanbul aboard separate flights. Muzaini, the spy, flies back from Riyadh. A commercial flight carries a three-man team that we believe flew from Cairo. Two of the men are security officers and theyve previously traveled with the crown prince. A private jet flying from Riyadh lands around 3:30 a.m. That plane is often used by the Saudi government, and its carrying nine Saudi officials, some who played key roles in Khashoggis death. Well get to Team 3 later on, and for now focus on these men from Team 2. This is Salah al-Tubaigy, a high-ranking forensics and autopsy expert in the Saudi interior ministry. Turkish officials will later say his role was to dismember Khashoggis body. Another is Mustafa al-Madani, a 57-year-old engineer. As well see, its no accident that he looks like Khashoggi. And this is Maher Mutreb, the leader of the operation. Our investigation into his past reveals a direct link between Mutreb and the Saudi crown prince. When bin Salman toured a Houston neighborhood earlier this year, we discovered that Mutreb was with him, a glowering figure in the background. We found him again in Boston, at a U.N. meeting in New York, in Madrid and Paris, too. This global tour was all part of a charm offensive by the prince to paint himself as a moderate reformer. Back then, Mutreb was in the royal guard. Now, he would orchestrate Khashoggis killing. And his close ties to the crown prince beg the question, just how high up the Saudi chain of command did the plot to kill go? Early Tuesday morning, Khashoggi flies back from a weekend trip to London. He and the Saudis nearly cross paths at the airport. The Saudi teams check into two hotels, which give quick access to the consulate. Khashoggi heads home with his fiancee. Hed just bought an apartment for their new life together. By mid-morning, the Saudis are on the move. Mutreb leaves his hotel three hours before Khashoggi is due at the consulate. The rest of the team isnt far behind. The building is only a few minutes away on foot, and soon, theyre spotted at this entrance. Mutreb arrives first. Next, we see al-Tubaigy, the autopsy expert. And now al-Madani, the lookalike. The stage is almost set. A diplomatic car pulls out of the consulate driveway and switches places with a van, which backs in. Turkish officials say this van would eventually carry away Khashoggis remains. From above, we can see the driveway is covered, hiding any activity around the van from public view. Meanwhile, Khashoggi and his fiancee set out for the consulate, walking hand-in-hand. In their final hour together, they chat about dinner plans and new furniture for their home. At 1:13 p.m., they arrive at the consulate. Khashoggi gives her his cellphones before he enters. He walks into the consulate. Its the last time we see him. Inside, Khashoggi is brought to the consul generals office on the second floor. The hit team is waiting in a nearby room. Sources briefed on the evidence, told us Khashoggi quickly comes under attack. Hes dragged to another room and is killed within minutes. Then al-Tubaigy, the autopsy expert, dismembers his body while listening to music. Maher Mutreb makes a phone call to a superior. He says, Tell your boss, and The deed was done. Outside, the van reportedly carrying Khashoggis body pulls out of the side entrance and drives away. At the same time, the Saudis begin trying to cover their tracks. While Khashoggis fiancee waits here where she left him, two figures leave from the opposite side. One of them is wearing his clothes. Later, the Saudis would claim that this was Khashoggi. But its al-Madani, the engineer, now a body double pretending that the missing journalist left the consulate alive. Yet theres one glaring flaw: The clothes are the same, but hes wearing his own sneakers, the ones he walked in with. Meanwhile, the van thats allegedly carrying Khashoggis body makes the two-minute drive from the consulate to the Saudi consuls residence. Theres several minutes of deliberations but the van eventually pulls into the buildings driveway. Again, its hidden from public view. Its now three hours since Khashoggi was last seen. The body double hails this taxi and continues weaving a false trail through the city. He heads to a popular tourist area and then changes back into his own clothes. Later, we see him joking around in surveillance footage. Over at the airport, more Saudi officials arrive on another flight from Riyadh. They spend just five hours in Istanbul, but were not sure where they go. Now we pick up Maher Mutreb again, exiting from the consuls house. Its time for them to go. Mutreb and others check out of their hotel and move through airport security. Al-Muzaini, the spy, heads to the airport too. But as theyre leaving Istanbul, Khashoggis fiancee is still outside the consulate, pacing in circles. Shell soon raise the alarm that Khashoggi is missing and shell wait for him until midnight. The alarm spreads around the world. Nine days later, the Saudis send another team to Istanbul. They say its to investigate what happened. But among them are a toxicologist and a chemist, who also has ties to the hit team. He and Tubaigy attended a forensics graduation days before Khashoggi was killed. Turkish officials later say that this teams mission was not to investigate, but to cover up the killing. Now the Saudi story has changed, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for several suspects in Khashoggis killing. But that doesnt include Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who many Western government officials are convinced authorized the killing. Khashoggis remains still havent been found. #EntrepreneurMonth: Easy access to criminal records, identity verifications MyImprint, a tech startup that provides easy access to criminal record and identity verifications, is the first of its kind to innovate a digital consent verification system in South Africa, making it a completely paperless system from start to finish. Daniel Shefer, co-founder of MyImprint Businesses and individuals across South Africa will now have the ability to run criminal and identity verifications via MyImprint, a user-friendly online portal - using only an ID number as reference. We chat to Daniel Shefer, co-founder of MyImprint, to find out about starting up the online portal, the challenges the company faced, learning to fail and the traits an entrepreneur needs in order to succeed. When, how and why did you get started? When, how and why did you get started? Businesses and individuals across South Africa will now have the ability to run criminal and identity verifications via MyImprint, a user-friendly online portal - using only an ID number as reference.We chat to Daniel Shefer, co-founder of MyImprint, to find out about starting up the online portal, the challenges the company faced, learning to fail and the traits an entrepreneur needs in order to succeed. What are some of the obstacles you've had to overcome since starting out? What are some of the obstacles you've had to overcome since starting out? What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs? What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs? By nature, entrepreneurs are emotional and passionate about what they are doing and often find it hard when things dont go according to plan. When you fail, you need to take it as a lesson and be able to move on to the next opportunity without judging yourself to the extent that you lose your conviction in yourself. What has been your proudest achievements thus far? What has been your proudest achievements thus far? What does the future of entrepreneurship look like to you? What does the future of entrepreneurship look like to you? What is the importance of start-up accelerator/incubator programmes? What is the importance of start-up accelerator/incubator programmes? I think incubators should focus on ideas rather than capacity, technical ability and business models, and give people the tools to turn those ideas into a business, regardless of their experience. As the saying goes, you can teach anybody anything, as long as they are willing to learn. What would you like to see changed in the South African startup landscape? What would you like to see changed in the South African startup landscape? We need to have access to more as well as riskier money. Venture capital is not accessible enough. We need to be able to expand our reach north of the Limpopo. What do you believe are the traits an entrepreneur needs in order to succeed? What do you believe are the traits an entrepreneur needs in order to succeed? Identify your weaknesses and focus on your strengths . So many people spend their time getting better at what they are not good at that they never reach their potential in what they are good at. Do what you are good at perfectly and source other people around you who are perfect at what they are good at (and what you lack). . So many people spend their time getting better at what they are not good at that they never reach their potential in what they are good at. Do what you are good at perfectly and source other people around you who are perfect at what they are good at (and what you lack). Be willing to take one step back in order to take two steps forward . Often people get caught in the world of material things and overwhelming obligations. You have to be willing to cut your lifestyle back today to make more money tomorrow. Sell your car and buy a scooter if you need to (I actually did this...more than once). No one cares what car you drive. . Often people get caught in the world of material things and overwhelming obligations. You have to be willing to cut your lifestyle back today to make more money tomorrow. Sell your car and buy a scooter if you need to (I actually did this...more than once). No one cares what car you drive. Start early . The older you get the harder it is to cut back. So, take the leap sooner rather than later. Do it before the bills get too big and you get too comfortable. . The older you get the harder it is to cut back. So, take the leap sooner rather than later. Do it before the bills get too big and you get too comfortable. Dont be afraid of money . If you are afraid of money you will put it on a pedestal and treat it like its something that cannot be lost and then found. Treat money as a tool; a means to an end. Success is not always (or only) measured in money. If you measure success by achieving your goals, then the money will come anyway. . If you are afraid of money you will put it on a pedestal and treat it like its something that cannot be lost and then found. Treat money as a tool; a means to an end. Success is not always (or only) measured in money. If you measure success by achieving your goals, then the money will come anyway. Dont be greedy. Find an excellent team of co-founders and share with them. You are better off having a smaller percentage of something big than a big percentage of nothing. No one can do everything on their own, so find people you like, trust and have qualities that you lack, and then share the pie fairly. Tell us about your biggest struggle as an entrepreneur, as well as some major highlights Tell us about your biggest struggle as an entrepreneur, as well as some major highlights Why would you encourage someone to become an entrepreneur? Why would you encourage someone to become an entrepreneur? You have to be adaptable, resistant, diligent and able to handle high-stress levels and get through the tough times to find the light at the end of the tunnel. What is the importance of entrepreneurship - especially in a country such as South Africa? What is the importance of entrepreneurship - especially in a country such as South Africa? Where would you like to see MyImprint in the next five years? Where would you like to see MyImprint in the next five years? Evan-Lee Courie's articles About Evan-Lee Courie Editor: Marketing & Media; Head of Content for Entrepreneurship Editor: Marketing & Media; Head of Content for Entrepreneurship I spent the first eight or nine years of my working life in a very different space. I worked for a company that did big mining and infrastructure projects in Africa. This gave me really great access and knowledge into business - I had fantastic exposure to great minds, big business, dealing with high-level politicians and large corporates.After a couple of years of this, I noticed that my ambition was leaning more towards building new things, not just building bigger things. This is when I decided to go out on my own and see what the world had in store for me. And that was the beginning of my journey as an entrepreneur.I think the biggest challenge that any entrepreneur faces is the fear of failure. Due to the nature of entrepreneurship, failure becomes a very personal thing and is hard to accept.The key to this for me was accepting failure as the best way to learn. We never know beforehand what will work, especially when it comes to building new things, but if we can learn what doesnt work, we have a much better chance of making the things that do work, work well.I think the biggest piece of advice I can offer other young entrepreneurs is to learn how to fail. Failure is probably the most consistent part of being an entrepreneur. You need to be able to give something your absolute all but also be prepared that it may not work or work out the way you thought it would. Even when things do work out, the chances that they are exactly what you had planned in the beginning are very slim. Being able to adjust and mould your business without being emotionally attached, is really hard.I think my proudest achievement so far has strangely enough not been the most profitable one. Starting my first successful business completely on my own with nothing but a lot of ambition (and a credit card) was very rewarding. It is one thing to be able to do business when you have all the resources you need at your disposal. It is quite another thing to be able to do it all on your own from scratch and turn it into a success.I think one of the exciting things about being an entrepreneur is that you dont really know what the future will hold. You throw yourself into whatever it is you are doing at the time. Make it your life. And back yourself with no real backup plan. Principally speaking, I guess my ultimate goal is to be able to create some kind of organisation that enables other entrepreneurs much like myself in the early days, that takes ideas and turns them into business.There is no question about it, incubators and accelerators play a very significant and critical role in the world of start-ups, particularly in South Africa, but the biggest problem with them is that they require excellence. Money is so risk-averse here in SA that unless you are a model of excellence at the very least, youre unlikely to get any seed money.Although I see the value in incubators, the timing has never been right for me to apply. I was lucky enough to have great partners and mentors around me every day, so we managed to raise money without needing an incubator. There are so many smart, young people in this country with great ideas but no capability of turning those ideas into businesses, simply because of lack of experience.Technical ability can be taught or found, but young visionary people with great ideas are few and far between.I think there are two major things that need to happen in South Africa in this regard.It is no secret, our market of users with disposable income is just not big enough for any real tech company to make the big-ticket businesses.However, Africa has over 1 billion people in it. If you travel around Africa (which I have extensively) you will see Americans, French, Chinese and many other people penetrating the African market. But few South Africans. This is true for all types of business, not just tech business.The reason for this is debatable, but it doesnt change the fact that this is true. South Africans need to make use of the advantage that Africa is on our doorstep and ready and open for business. Instead of our entrepreneurs being successful locally and then going to the USA or EU, we should rather look to push our products and ideas on our own continent. We also have a unique advantage in that Africa, in general, has in many ways skipped the analogue age and is either well on their way into the digital age, or on the cusp of it. Communication is a good example of this.Africa largely skipped the land line era and jumped straight into the mobile age. Connectivity is still an issue, but I think we would be hard pressed to find someone in Africa who doesnt have at least one mobile device, if not two.Having this dynamic makes this market much easier to adapt and shift to new technology and so we should take advantage of this and focus on our doorstep and develop our own continent.I think there is no perfect recipe for what makes a successful entrepreneur, but I do think there are a few things that form the core on which one can build.Getting MyImprint off the ground is definitely one of the major highlights for me. It took an enormous amount of effort and strategy to get it to a place where we could take it to market and once we had all the elements lined up, we rolled out in record time.No small feat, I assure you of that. It was amazing to see an idea (not mine, by the way, one of the other co-founders) turned into a business from the ground up. This was only possible because of the amazing team we have and investors who believe in us.I guess the biggest challenge we have as entrepreneurs is that we never have enough money.By nature, businesses develop so fast and in directions that were never intended and so in order to keep up with the ever-growing new opportunities, there is always a need for more money to facilitate growth. This speaks directly to one of the other points below in that capital is not as easy to find as it should be.It takes a very specific type of person to be an entrepreneur and not everyone is built for it.Having said that, the benefits of being an entrepreneur are tremendous. The most exhilarating part of it all is the sense of achievement when you do finally come out the other end. Being able to look back on the journey and know that you were an integral part of its success is more rewarding than any corporate job can ever give you.Being an entrepreneur, especially in the tech space, means you are actively participating in building things for the future. Whats better than knowing you are part of a solution that will change the way people do things?Entrepreneurship, especially in South Africa, is probably the second most important thing next to education.Small and medium-size businesses are, without a doubt, the only way to build our economy and create jobs. We have a fantastic opportunity in South Africa to nurture and incentivise new business and even more so, to take those businesses, products and services and offer them not only to our own people but to at least a billion more of our African neighbours.So what we have, is a lot of smart and capable people and a giant market. Surely this is a recipe for success not only for our people but also for our country and our economy.The technology, and more importantly the team, is a first of its kind in many ways and has an amazing ability to execute new plans and ideas on the fly.I think MyImprint has the unique advantage to become the biggest database of quality biometric data allowing it to be the number one trusted verification platform. I would like to see the database grow, be an industry leader in making businesses and homes safer, and making jobs more attainable and accessible through our technology.Biometrics are only getting started in South Africa and as early adopters, we think there are huge opportunities to grow the business and expand the offering in new directions as the industry in general develops. We are really excited to be in this space and cant wait to see what the future in biometrics hold for all of us.For more about MyImprint, go to http://myimprint.co.za Wed like to see some more concrete wording which is more precise than simply doing the right thing, Shanks told NZ Adviser. The wording is currently quite ambiguous, and it is essentially down to each individual to decide what it means. Wed hope to see wording that is more streamlined and meaningful, as opposed to something thats quite generic and wide. One of the other key issues for us is Continued Professional Development (CPD), which does not currently have a minimum requirement, she continued. An adviser needs to have knowledge, competence and skill, and competency is ensured with ongoing professional development. Not having a minimum for that allows people to get away with doing very little of it, whilst still claiming the status of being a professional within the industry. Shanks also drew attention to the different requirements for financial advisers and nominated representatives, saying that there should be one consistent standard across all branches of the industry. FINANZs submission states that it is impossible for capability to be measured purely by outcomes, and concrete processes should be put in place for everyone offering financial advice. The code currently states that a financial adviser needs to have a minimum Level 5 qualification, however a nominated representative only needs to have the outcome associated with a qualification, Shanks explained. The second part of that is around procedures, systems and expertise, which they say need to be equivalent to those of an individual who has achieved the qualifications. The wording is quite circular, and frankly, I dont know where else this kind of methodology occurs. Overall, were hoping that standards 9, 10 and 11 will be given another good look. This is a very powerful submission from a group of associations, and it sends a clear message from the industry around what wed like to see fixed. The Committee to Protect Journalists has called for Cameroon to drop all charges against Mimi Mefo, head of English news and a presenter for the privately owned Equinoxe television and radio station. Mimi Mefo, television journalist and blogger, Cameroon. Mefo was detained for three days last week on a charge of disseminating fake news and released on Saturday, according to CameroonOnline.org : Equinoxe TV is pleased to announce that Mimi Mefo has been set free. She is now with her family, the statement from her employer said. According to her lawyer, barrister Richard Tamfu, Mefo will appear before the military tribunal on Monday, CameroonOnline reportedMefo, who also runs Mimi Mefo Info , her own news website, was arrested and taken to the central New Bell prison in Douala, where she remains after having been summoned to appear before the national gendarmerie, Mefo's lawyer Tamfu Richard told CPJ.Mefo was questioned for several hours, charged with "publishing and propagating information that infringes on the territorial integrity of the Republic of Cameroon," and scheduled to appear before a military tribunal on November 12, according to Richard. Prior to her arrest, Mefo told CPJ that the summons was "no surprise", as she had received several threats for her reporting on unrest in the western, Anglophone regions of Cameroon."Cameroon cannot be allowed to suppress coverage of unrest in its western, Anglophone regions by detaining journalists like Mimi Mefo. She must be released immediately," said CPJ deputy executive director Robert Mahoney. "The charge of publishing information that infringes on territorial integrity is a laughable smokescreen for censorship, plain and simple."Late last month, Cameroonian authorities arrested Michel Biem Tong, editor of the privately owned Hurinews website. He has yet to be freed or charged, according to CPJ research. Wars start in different ways. Spears and shields, gun powder, bullets, and now through media: printed and electronic ( eg trade wars by a super power President ), and then Social media!! Well, the SA Editors must be Editors!! If needs be, we will be forced into the fight, WAR! Tito Mboweni (@tito_mboweni) November 8, 2018 The problem is that there will be COLLATERAL DAMAGE!! Tito Mboweni (@tito_mboweni) November 8, 2018 The South African National Editors' Forum (Sanef) has condemned finance minister Tito Mboweni's social media posts that threatened war against editors.Check out the posts below:Sanef hopes to meet Mboweni to discuss the unfortunate tweets. A 95-year-old man from rural Rajasthan , in India, recently stunned his family when he woke up during his pre-funeral bath after a doctor had pronounced him dead. Budh Ram, a resident of Bhaktanwalan Ki Dhani, had fainted on Saturday afternoon, after complaining of chest pain. When his family found him, they called a private doctor, who, after inspecting the 95-year-olds body, declared him dead. The mans family then notified his relatives and contacted a priest to perform his last rites. The men of the family shaved their heads as per tradition, and prepared to give Budhs body a customary last bath. But when they started poring cold water over him, something unexpected happened the dead man miraculously came back to life. The priest had started the rituals and a barber had shaved the heads of the men in the family. We were about to bathe the body as a customary practice before the funeral procession, Balu Ram, Budhs eldest son, told The Times of India. He added that when relatives started pouring water over his fathers body, he started shivering. Everyone was shocked, but they took him to a bed and he soon stood up to talk to them. He started breathing and sat on the bed soon after, Balu said. When questioned by relatives, he said he had suffered chest pain and decided to sleep it off. It is nothing but a miracle. I think the only miracle here is that the doctor who pronounced Budh dead got his medical license. The 95-year-olds family said that the upcoming Diwali festival will truly be a special one for them, as they wouldnt even had been able to celebrate had he truly died. Chinas state news agency Xinhua unveiled two very realistic looking AI news anchors that can tirelessly report the news 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, from anywhere in the world. Weve known that robots and artificial intelligence were coming for our jobs, but somehow I never thought news anchors would be among the first to be replaced. However, if the two AI broadcasters who made their debut last week during Chinas annual World Internet Conference are anything to go by, the future of human news anchors looks very bleak. The newest additions to Xinhuas team of broadcasters not only look disturbingly realistic, but they can also move their mouths to match the audio, blink, nod their head in emphasis, or raise their eyebrows. But their most important quality is that they can work 24/7, both on the agencys website and on social media platforms, greatly reducing news production costs and improving efficiency. AI anchors have officially become members of the Xinhua News Agency reporting team, Xinhua told the South China Morning Post. They will work with other anchors to bring you authoritative, timely, and accurate news information in both Chinese and English. The two digital news anchors were developed by Xinhua and the Chinese search engine, Sogou, and reportedly rely on machine learning to simulate the voice, facial expressions, and many gestures of human broadcasters. Both are modelled after real-life news anchors, but their voices are the biggest tell that the ones recently showcased are digital copies. Although better than most text-to-voice softwares, they still sound stiff and their pauses are often unnatural. As an AI news anchor under development, I know that there is a lot for me to improve, the English-speaking AI broadcaster said at the end of its program. I will work tirelessly to keep you informed as texts will be typed into my system uninterrupted. So far, the response to what Xinhua called the worlds first AI news anchors has been split. While some declared themselves impressed with the two anchors, others have said that they fall into the uncanny valley, where avatars or objects that closely resemble humans make viewers feel more uncomfortable than those who look obviously artificial. Noel Sharkey, emeritus professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield told the BBC that Xinhuas achievement was a good first effort and that we will see it improve over time. Michael Wooldridge, a professor at the University of Oxford, said the anchors struggled to appear real. Its quite difficult to watch for more than a few minutes. Its very flat, very single-paced, its not got rhythm, pace or emphasis, he said. November 11, Veterans Day is set aside to honor those of us who served in the armed forces. There may be parades, flag waving, speeches, ceremonies dedicated to American military people and therell even be free pizza and coffee at chain restaurants. As well as the occasional: Thank you for your service, from fellow Americans. In additiion to the niceties, I can't think of a better way to honor and thank our veterans, than to make sure they come home to a job that recognizes the skills they acquired in the military. Things have changed for the better. When Vietnam veterans returned, we met resistance from potential employers who wrongly claimed military people are too regimented, unfamiliar with latest civilian technology, and cant think for themselves. Sometimes, opposition to the war resulted in opposition to veterans. Michael Morris (l.) and Dick Pirozzolo, co-authors of "Escape from Saigona Novel There were also creative ways of calling vets losers back then. In one case, a reporter for the Boston Herald wrote that she went to the Pine Street Inna Boston homeless shelterto get the veterans point of view. Never mind that John Kerry and the CEO of State Street Bank were veterans, who were hardly residing at the Pine Street Inn. During a job interview, a potential employer discounted my entire military experience by asking: Dont you feel your career doesn't really start until after the service? It was as though my four years in the U.S. Air Force didnt exist. Fortunately, I learned my craft, public relations and journalism, in the Air Force through formal schooling, at the Defense Information School (DINFOS), and on-the-job training. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette recognized my capability and hired me right away. A year later the late Jack Star, a former McGraw Hill foreign correspondent, who headed up PR at Boston University, hired me for the international media relations skills I had acquired as an Air Force press officer in Saigon. Though specific job skills are important, veterans come home with general leadership and management skills, and other qualities that are a huge benefit to civilian employers. Leadership. Whether officer or enlisted, the military does not hold back when it comes to putting you in charge and, often in situations that are way above the job description. To be sure, I made plenty of mistakes when I was a second lieutenant, but the most valuable lesson I learned was to listen and learn from the enlisted folks who had years of experience and technical skills far superior to mine. Military people take an oath. Most folks dont go around thinking about the oath they took when they signed up, but it underscores commitment. In a nutshell, once a soldier signs up, he or she cant say, I quit and walk out on the boss or colleagues. Diversity and equal rights. The armed forces are not without problems when it comes to gender and race and, in most cases, commanders deal with sexual misconduct and discrimination quickly and definitively. Despite the occasional scandals, which are not to be minimized, the military has been out in front on race relations that began with the full integration of our armed forces after World War II and ongoing efforts since then that include the integration of the LGBT community into the military. Simply put, rank matters. Race and sex do not. No one tells the female lieutenant to make coffee or the African-American captain to make photocopies! The ability to improvise. When a four-man squad goes on patrol, there may be command and control from headquarters, but the squad leader, probably a young 20ish soldier, will make hundreds of life-and-death decisions to complete the mission and return everyone safely. Completed staff work Hey boss what do you want me to do now? Putting the monkey on the bosss back is a no-no in the military as the armed forces adhere to the doctrine of completed staff work with all projects and challenges. When a team has a job to do, the job is completed totally before presenting the results to the manager who delegated the responsibility. Of course, not every project goes according to plan and obstacles come up. In those cases, the presentation has to be sufficiently complete so that, if more information is needed, all a supervisor has to do is sign a request. One of the hard-and-fast rules team members learn is they cannot go directly to their supervisor to get partial approval, or to lobby for their own solution to a problem independently. This cuts down on a lot of office politicking and backbiting. Chain of command. This might be anathema to a lot of current management thinking, but the principle avoids a lot of ill will. In the military trying to curry favor with ones bosss boss usually ends badly. Likewise, the military insists that when you give an order it comes from you no matter where it originated. Military folks dont give whiny orders like: I wouldnt make you do this, because Im nice, and I want you to like me, but the big boss insists soooo . Empathy. The military is often a matter of life and death and people can be together 24/7 where the division between work and off-duty life does not exist. I was always in awe of leaders who could navigate the murky waters of their peoples personal and family issues, while staying focused on the mission. Its a complex skill that is well taught in the military and applicable to civilian employment. The Marines often teach leadership through what are called sea stories that underscore the risky decisions and dilemmas one must face in combat such as: do you risk two Marines' lives to bring back a few cases of cold Coke to improve everyone's morale or do you not take the chance? The outcome is not nearly as important as opening debate on the leaders' decision-making process. Honesty. I will not lie cheat or steal or tolerate anyone among us who does. Weve all heard the mantra, but what it means is that military people learn to both delegate and trust the people who work for them without reservation. If someone says, I counted all the M-16s and there are 46 of them, you can, without checking up, sign a document confidently endorsing the count. Learning in public. From basic to advanced training fellow students may compete for class rank, but they pull everyone up with them. Then the whole team wins. Can-do spirit. Military folks believe they can achieve anything. After returning from Vietnam, I served with the 253 Combat Communication Group in the Massachusetts Air National Guard. We could install all the navigation, air traffic control and communication needed for a temporary airfield, while the Navy Seabees, built the runway and erected tents for the whole lot of us. Done quickly and as a matter of routine. And consider going the extra mile. Im still in awe of Mike Cotton, who created the China Beach Surf Club in the midst of the Vietnam war so that airmen and soldiers could get a taste of home when they were off duty. *** Dick Pirozzolo is Managing Director of Pirozzolo Company Public Relations in Boston. With fellow Vietnam vet Michael Morris he coauthored "Escape from Saigon - a Novel (Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2017). Once read by America's business elite, Fortune magazine, which covered the 1929 stock market crash and developed the Fortune 500 corporate rankings, will soon be owned by Chatchaval Jiaravanon, executive chairman of Thailands largest conglomerate. Meredith Corp., which acquired the 88-year-old business magazine with its acquisition of Time Inc., sold Fortune for $150M. The all-cash deal is to be completed by the end of the year. Fortune editor-in-chief Clifton Leaf is remaining in his post, as will president Alan Murray, who will also become CEO. Most of the magazines staff will continue to work in New York City, and Murray told the Wall Street Journal that a search for new office space is underway. The magazine saw a 26 percent drop in ad pages for the first nine months of 2018 vs. 2017, with conferences and digital now accounting for 62 percent of its total revenue. Jiaravanon said that he plans to up Fortunes investment in digital capabilities, geographic expansion and editorial talent. Jiaravanon is executive chairman of Charoen Pokphand Group, Thailands largest conglomerate, with holdings in telecommunications, food, retail, automotive, finance and pharmaceuticals. Our vision is to establish Fortune as the worlds leading business media brand, Chatchaval said in a statement from Meredith. With further committed investment in technology and brilliant journalism, we believe the outlook for further profitable growth is excellent both for the publication and the events business. Limerick woman Louise Crowley has been crowned the 54th Annual Clarke Machinery Group Queen of the Land 2018 at a glittering gala ball in Tullamore. Louise came out on top of 30 Queens by impressing the judges with her personality, her passion for her farming work and connecting with her local community. In 2nd place was Aisling ODriscoll from Muskerry Cork (Terelton) while Roisin Lynch from Ramor, Cavan was announced in third place. The weekend saw 30 Queens descend on the Bridge House Hotel, Tullamore early Friday morning. They headed off on a tour around the faithful county, calling to Clonmacnoise and the Tullamore Dew Heritage Centre. After the official opening that evening, the Queens took part in an open forum discussion with a panel of well-known women and men in the farming industry before heading to the Palace Nightclub for a night of dancing with country music sensation Marty Mone. On Saturday morning, the girls were up early for interviews with an esteemed judging panel of Gerard Clarke, Managing Director of Clarke Machinery Group; Emma Birchall, reigning 2017 Queen of the Land; Anna Marie McHugh, assistant managing director of the National Ploughing Association; and Joe Healy, president of The Irish Farmers Association. Each queen was then greeted by their escorts in Hugh Lynch's, with the lads then put through their paces in an interview with Rock on Paddy, one of Offalys well-known entertainers. On Saturday night, after the Queens onstage interviews, the crowd was entertained by Transmitter, the Groomsmen and Joe Wynne until late. PICTURED: 2018 Queen of the Land Louise Crowley with Escort of the Year, Andrew Corrigan Sunday saw the hosting of the Gala Banquet where the dancing was interrupted at midnight on Sunday night when the winner was announced. Louise Crowley was then presented with the Queen of the Land Linda OBrien tiara, the Clarke Machinery Group sponsored perpetual trophy, the Clarke Machinery Group sponsored 1,000 prize, a specially commissioned piece of Galway Crystal from Cahill Jewellers, a two-night break in the Bridge House Hotel and a 200 clothing voucher from Kode Clothing. Both runners-up received a 200 cash prize and a specially commissioned piece of Galway Crystal. The Escort of the Year was announced as Andrew Corrigan. The Escort of the year was chosen by the Queens. Andrew received a Tony ODonoghue sponsored perpetual trophy, a weekend stay for two in the Bridge House Hotel, 300 clothing voucher from Guy Clothing and a prized Gold Card for Copper Face Jacks, Dublin. Chairman, Ger Mahon, commented after the glittering event. We, the committee, are delighted to see Louise crowned the 2018 Clarke Machinery Group Queen of the Land. We are sure she will do a great job of representing our Festival all over the country for the next year." "We would have been happy, honestly, to see any of the contestants win as they have all proven to be charming, intelligent girls. We hope they will return to the Festival in the future. Of course, we are also sad to see our 2017 reigning Queen, Emma Birchall, leave her role as well as she has done a superb job throughout her reign," he added. "With another Festival closing, I am most grateful to all the hard working committee, all our generous sponsors and most of all to our supporters, who came from all over the country and further afield to enjoy the Clarke Machinery Group Queen of the Land Festival 2018," Ger concluded. Figures released to the Offaly Express from the HSE reveal that two-thirds of staff within Midlands Regional Hospital, Tullamore, did not avail of the flu jab in the last year. Across the Dublin Midland Hospital Group last year, of which Tullamore Hospital is a member, there were 5,330 members of staff who received the flu vaccine across the Group last year. The average uptake rate across all hospitals within the HSE was 43.3%. Tullamore Hospital's figure falls below that with the report showing just 33% of staff, or 405 staff members, availed of the vaccine. Tullamore Hospital has the lowest uptake rate across the Dublin Midland Hospital Group. 52.9% of Tallaght Hospital staff availed of the vaccine, the highest of any DMHG hospital, while Portlaoise Hospital was second from last to Tullamore with a 33.8% uptake rate. Coombe Women's Hospital saw 51.8% of staff avail of the vaccine, St. Luke's Hospital, Rathgar, Dublin has a 49.1% uptake rate, Naas General Hospital 43.8% and St. James's Hospital 39.9%. Responding to the figures, Tullamore Hospital told the Offaly Express, "the 2018 flu vaccination uptake target this year is 60% and a number of significant measures have been taken to improve uptake rates including training more peer to peer vaccinators to make the vaccine more accessible and further promotion and availability of the staff education and awareness video." The HSE last week released a campaign to raise awareness of the risks of flu to staff and the general public, including a video interview with former All-Star hurler Sean Treacy who ended up in a coma as a result of a serious strain of flu in 2013. This new video devised from the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group aims to address these concerns expressed by staff in an effort to promote awareness of the benefits of being vaccinated for the protection of themselves and their families. The 2017/2018 flu season was very drawn out and the number of outbreaks, confirmed hospitalised cases, ICU cases, and associated deaths exceeded all previous records in Ireland, including the 2009 pandemic. All age groups were affected with a particularly severe impact on older cohorts. There were nearly 5,000 confirmed influenza cases hospitalized last year when compared to nearly 1,500 in the 2016/2017 season. Healthcare workers are up to 10 times more likely to get the flu than the general population. In an impassioned plea to health care workers and the wider public, Sean Treacy said: I was very healthy, I had no health issues and suddenly I contracted the flu virus and my health and lifestyle changed from that day on. I nearly died, I was very lucky." Ms Eileen Whelan, Chief Director of Nursing & Midwifery & Quality at the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group commented: Flu is responsible for between 200 and 500 deaths each year in Ireland and in a severe season it can cause up to 1,000 deaths. The best way to prevent flu is to get the flu vaccine." "Flu vaccine is a safe, effective way to help prevent flu infection, avoid hospitalisation and flu-related deaths and illnesses. The flu vaccine is the only defence against the flu, yet many healthcare workers fail to get vaccinated and put themselves and patients at risk of serious illness." On Wednesday, Nov. 14 from 10-11 a.m., the Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum will host their monthly Coffee with Friends. New and current volunteers and community members are encouraged to come in, reconnect and learn about opportunities available at the museum. There is no charge for this event. For more information, visit www.chittenangolanding.com. . On Thursday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m., the Rome Historical Society will host a special presentation by Don Cazentre entitled Spirits and Cocktails of Upstate New York: A History. Food and beverage writer Don Cazentre will share his research from his popular book of the same name. Following the program Cazentre will sign copies of his book. For more information, visit www.romehistoricalsociety.org or call 315-336-5870. . On Thursday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m., the Fort Plain Museum & Historical Park will continue its 2018 fall lecture series, this week featuring the presentation The American Way of War from the Revolution to World War I by Dr. Edward G. Lengel. Lengel will look at the unique idea of the American Way of War from George Washington to General John J. Pershing and how it influenced US history. Lengel directed the Washington Papers Project at the University of Virginia for many years. He served as the Chief Historian of the White House Historical Association from 2016-2018 and has authored several books. Light refreshments will be served. A $5 donation is suggested. For more information, visit www.fortplainmuseum.com. . On Saturday, Nov. 17 from 7-10 p.m., the Town of Madison Historical Society will host a country music dance at the societys building at 3606 South St. in Madison featuring live music from Double Chase! Come and enjoy a night out featuring country line and square dancing. Refreshments will be available for purchase. Suggested donation is $8, all proceeds benefit the Town of Madison Historical Society. For more information, contact Susan Anderson by phone at 315-893-7226 or by email at sgrandmanderson@yahoo.com. . On Monday, Nov. 19, the New Woodstock Regional Historical Society will host a their monthly meeting. More information to come. For more information, contact Roger cook by phone 315-447-0476 or email codeman@gmail.com. . On Friday, Nov. 30 from 6-9 p.m., the Friends of Lorenzo will host their Christmas Preview Party at the Lorenzo State Historic Site. More information to come. . On Saturday, Dec. 1 at 6 p.m., the Oneida Community Mansion House will host Breadcrumbs Productions Marie and the Nutcracker Prince. Come and experience this immersive theatrical journey inspired by the dark and intriguing origins of E.T.A Hoffmans original tale. Tickets are $16 and can be purchased here. For more information, call Pauline Caputi, Abigail Lawton or Ben Adams at 315-363-0745. . On Thursday, Dec. 6 and Friday, Dec. 7, from 7-9 p.m., the Lorenzo State Historic Site will host their annual Christmas Celebration. Tune into Christmas as the Friends of Lorenzo adorn the Mansion with Musical Merriment. This annual holiday celebration will feature refreshments, live music, and sleigh rides (weather permitting). For more information, visit www.friendsoflorenzo.org or call 315-655-3200. . On Saturday, Dec. 8 and Sunday, Dec. 9 from 1-4 p.m., the Lorenzo State Historic Site will host their annual Christmas Celebration. Tune into Christmas as the Friends of Lorenzo adorn the Mansion with Musical Merriment. This annual holiday celebration will feature refreshments, live music, and sleigh rides (weather permitting). On Sunday, ornamental crafts and holiday treats will be featured at the Rippleton School House. For more information, visit www.friendsoflorenzo.org or call 315-655-3200. . On Sunday, Dec. 9, the New Woodstock Regional Historical Society will host a special ceremony lighting the Christmas tree at Heritage Park (corner of School Street and Route 13 in New Woodstock). More information to come. For more information please contact Roger cook by phone 315-447-0476 or email codeman@gmail.com. . On Wednesday, Dec. 12 from 10-11 a.m., the Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum will host their monthly Coffee with Friends. New and current volunteers and community members are encouraged to come in, reconnect and learn about opportunities available at the museum. There is no charge for this event. For more information, visit www.chittenangolanding.com. . Starting on Wednesday, Dec. 12 through Saturday, Dec. 15, from 1-4 p.m., the Lorenzo State Historic Site will host guided Christmas Tours. Traditional tours of the mansion and decorations available. Group tours of 8 or larger may be scheduled prior to arrival. For more information, visit www.friendsoflorenzo.org or call 315-655-3200. . On Thursday, Dec. 20 at 7 p.m., the Rome Historical Society will host a special presentation by Rich Massucci on Vintage and retro toys. Massucci is passionate about vintage toys and has a garage full of them. He now has a podcast that focuses on the vintage toy market and what collectors are looking for. For more information, visit www.romehistoricalsociety.org or call 315-336-5870. . Watch Night will be held Dec. 31. More information to come. Zakir Naik tried to cross over to Maldives but was not allowed A poison called Zakir Naik and his role in radicalising Kerala detailed by an ISIS recruit India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Nov 12: The heat is back on Dr. Zakir Naik, the controversial Islamic preacher, who is hiding in Malaysia. His name has emerged right on the top of the investigations being conducted by the National Investigation Agency, which is probing the case of the missing persons from Kerala, who have joined the Islamic State in Afghanistan. Nashidul Hamzafar, the 26 year old management student from Kerala's Wayanad was in September arrested by the NIA after he became one of the first ISIS recruits to be deported from Afghanistan. During his interrogation, he details the role played by Islamic preachers such as Naik and what sort of an influence they had on him, which ultimately prompted him to join the ISIS. Hamzafar says that he was not attracted to the ISIS ideology for long. I found them to be too brutal and the outfit only scared me, he says. My ambition was to pursue my education and find a good job in Dubai. A lot changed when one of his friends, Shihas sent him an audio clip regarding the Islamic State. My perception towards the outfit changed. Then I began listening to audios of Zakir Naik, Noman Alikhan among others. Their speeches inspired me and my approach towards life changed. Also Read | How Zakir Naik's IRF and Kerala youth furthered ISIS propaganda in India I began telling my family members to become stringent followers of Islam. I told them not to watch television or even lend money for interest. These were anti-Islam, I would tell them, Hamzafar told the NIA. Going by his statements, it becomes clear that the likes of Zakir Naik through his Islamic Research Foundation and the Kerala based Peace Educational Foundation have played a huge role in the radicalisation of youth in Kerala. He said that in May 2017, he had left for Bahrain for a job. He however maintained contact with Shihas and others who had joined the ISIS in Afghanistan. Shihas who was working in the media department for the ISIS advised me to reach Iran after I expressed interest in Hijra. I came back to Kerala and then left for Oman in October 2017. From there I reached Tehran. From there I left for Isfahan, where I was picked up by a man and left off at a safe house. A poison called Naik: Recently a Mumbai court had framed charges against Arshi Qureshi. The case relates to the indoctrination of Ashfak Majid and his associates into extreme jihadi ideology by a group of like-minded youths from Kasaragod district of Kerala. It was also stated that some members of the Zakir Naik run NGO, Islamic Research Foundation too were involved in the radicalisation process. It was further alleged that these persons had motivated the youth to join the Islamic state. Also Read | Help NIA make India safer: Call this number Investigations also revealed that Qureshi was involved in unlawful activities and also spread hatred against India. The National Investigation Agency had recently said that members of the Popular Front of India had conspired to kill Sasi Kumar, a spokesperson of the Hindu Munani. The murder of the leader from Coimbatore was carried out to create terror among the people, the NIA has also said in its supplementary chargesheet. During investigation, NIA conducted searches at the houses of 4 accused persons on March 18 and recovered PFI donation receipts, PFI literature, PFI Unity March CDs, mobile phones, Compact Disks and pen drives, DVD of Zakir Naik of Islamic Research Foundation and other incriminating documents relating to PFI. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 9:06 [IST] Ananth Kumar, a great friend is no more: A tribute from a friend India oi-Madhuri Adnal By Mohan Katarki Anant Kumar - A great friend is no more I was woken up in the morning by an old friend to inform the sad news that my classmate, benchmark and more than that a great friend passed away. I and Anant Kumar stayed in the neighbourhood in Hubli. I remember, he used to walk to School and back with his younger brother and sister. The trio represented a united family. Anant Kumar though represented Bangalore, he was quint essentially a man from Hubli in north Karnataka as he grew up there till completion of his college education. Also Read | Union Minister, Ananth Kumar passes away at 59, lost a valuable colleague says Modi As a student of the Lamington Boys High School, Hubli, Anant Kumar was a bright and clear headed. He was clear that he has to become a lawyer and then enter politics. During emergency in 1975-76, I vividly remember, Anant Kumar leading a group of protesters against the emergency. The moment he saw me in college corridor, he called me "ye ... come ... join us". I did join (I knew nothing about politics then) and we were all arrested, but the police Van didn't have the space to accommodate all of us for ferrying to the jail. I and some were let go to home. Anant Kumar became an MP and Minister at the Centre in 1997. He actively defended the interests of Karnataka State in Inter State Water Disputes. Despite the Govt in the State being a Govt of a different party, he would always take active interest in espousing the cause of Karnataka, but cautiously and strictly, he remained within the federal bounds. He would often call me and say - I am troubling as a friend to guide me. His contribution in the formation of Cauvery River Authority by consensus in 1998 etc was undoubtedly significant. At a personal level, Anant Kumar was extremely cordial and hospitable. In the dozens of All Party Meetings on Inter State Water Dispute issues held in last two decades at Bangalore, he would always look for me and sometimes, he would come and chat in our usual north Karnataka diction. He often invited me for lunch or dinner to lazy gossip. Also Read | Ananth Kumar's journey from state to national politics Ideologically Anant Kumar was in Advani mould. He often quoted Mahatma Gandhi. I would often joke about him with friends as Congressman in BJP. Once, while flying sitting next to each other, he asked me - how do you see my chances as CM. He sought my personal guidance. I had to tell him - if you eye for CM post, you will not grow. My advise to him was to remain as a neutral person in State politics and grow at national level. He felt satisfied and held my hand to tell - you are right. Anant Kumar left the world at a time he was blooming in politics. My deepest sympathies to the family. (Mohan Katarki is an advocate, Supreme Court and represents various States including Karnataka in the Inter State Waters Disputes) Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of OneIndia and OneIndia does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. Invincible politician Kumar had become invincible as a politician, and it was difficult to defeat him. In his first electoral fight, he won against Congress nominee Varalakshmi Gundu Rao, wife of former CM R Gundu Rao. He had a cakewalk in most elections as the Congress and JD(S) struggled. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he defeated Infosys co-founder and then UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani by a margin of about 2.3 lakh votes. Tech Savvy politician In January 1998, ahead of the General Election that year, Kumar became the first Indian politician to host an independent website when he launched www.dataindia.com and www.ananth.org - a feat which earned him the tag of a tech-savvy leader. Yougest minister in Vajpayee's cabinet He was re-elected and was inducted into the Union Cabinet headed by then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the Minister for Civil Aviation and was also the youngest cabinet minister in that government. Besides Parliamentary Affairs, Ananth Kumar handled the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers. Ananth Kumar rose through the ranks in the BJP, having joined the party after earning a reputation as an adroit political activist with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students' wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Relationship with BSY Along with state BJP chief Yeddyurappa, Kumar is among a few party leaders who can be credited for the growth of BJP in Karnataka, as they built the party from the scratch, which paved the way for the installation of the first ever saffron party government in the South. Ananth Kumar and Yeddyurappa have had a love hate relationship. It is a fact that both are protege of Yeddyurappa and the Lingayat strongman was initially depending on Ananth Kumar as he was his points person in New Delhi. After Ananth Kumar came out of Yeddyurappa's shadow they started drifting apart. Yeddyurappa even held him responsible for all his troubles during his chief ministership.The rivalry is said to be one of the reasons for Yeddyurappa to quit the BJP to form the KJP in 2013. However, when Yeddyurappa returned to the BJP, ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Kumar warmly welcomed him back. Hindu Sena demands changing name of Tipu Express, wants it to be named after Ananth Kumar Who fills the void in Bangalore South? BJP says Tejaswini Ananth Kumar is best choice Ananth Kumar: First person to speak in Kannada in the United Nations India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Nov 12: Bengaluru's most loved 'MP' Ananth Kumar died in the wee hours of Monday in Bengaluru, leaving a big void in the party which will be hard to fill in the days to come. The name Ananth Kumar was synonymous with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP's) national leaders. A distinct achievement, Kumar a strong believer in nationalism was the first person to have addressed the United Nations in Kannada. He represented India in the United Nations in 2012 and spoke about the topics of global warming and on empowerment of women. He was the first person to greet the assembly in his mother tongue Kannada. The words read "Honourable President and brothers and sisters from all over the world good morning to all of you." Ananth Kumar's demise Updates: Narayan Murthy, Puneeth Rajkumar among those who paid homage "I had the privilege of speaking at the United Nations headquarters in New York. My experience was made sweeter by the fact that I got to address the UN General Assembly in my beloved Kannada," he wrote in his website in 2013. "Before I began my speech, I made it a point to extend my greetings to all those present in my mother tongue, Kannada!! I said "Honorable President and brothers and sisters from all over the world, good morning to all of you". I then continued on how India is very closely committed to global peace and upholding human rights and how it is steadfast in its support for counter-terrorism," he had noted. Also Read | Ananth Kumar's journey from state to national politics Amongst the languages of India that are held in high esteem by the people of India, Kannada has a special significance. It is as old as 2000 years and is spoken by a population of 38 million. "My love for Kannada, my mother-tongue, has always been an integral part of my identity. I keep encouraging more citizens to learn the beautiful language that is Kannada. I have always made it a point to sign in Kannada be it international MoUs or internal party documents, he added. The language indeed occupies a special place in the world; it is the first Indian language for which a German writer, Rev. Ferdinand Kittel wrote the first ever dictionary.Rev. Kittel produced the first-ever Kannada-English dictionary in the year 1894. Also Read | Ananth Kumar: A void that would be impossible for the BJP to fill Born in a middle class Brahmin family on July 22, 1959, in Bengaluru to Narayan Shastri, a railway employee, and Girija N Shastry, his early education began under the guidance of his mother who herself was a graduate. Known for his political adroitness, Kumar, a six-time member of Parliament, gregarious with strong political instincts, had managed to be in the inner circle of the central leadership of the BJP -- be it during the heyday of Atal Bihari Vajpayee or L K Advani and now Narendra Modi. Along with state BJP chief Yeddyurappa, Kumar is among a few party leaders who can be credited for the growth of BJP in Karnataka, as they built the party from the scratch, which paved the way for the installation of the first ever saffron party government in the South. Ananth Kumar: Bengaluru's 'most loved MP' and a BJP veteran He enjoyed the credit of being the "youngest" minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet in 1998. Andhra village bans wearing of nighties during day following elderly womens pressure India oi-Shubham Ghosh Hyderabad, Nov 12: We might be far away from the land of the Taliban but yet some of our social traits reflect a similar mentality harboured by the Afghanistani conservatives. Recently, the social media saw a stir over the elderly men and women of a village in Andhra Pradesh's West Godavari district announcing a ban on women wearing 'nighties' during the day time. The issue has taken such a serious form now that the local authorities were forced to make a physical visit to the village and begin a probe. Opposition parties to meet on Nov 22, want to create 'anti-BJP' platform: Chandrababu Naidu According to a report in The News Minute, the elderly females and some males in the district's Thokalapalle village found it "inconvenient" to see young women and girls going to public places wearing nighties and took an initiative to stop the practice. Six months ago, the village's elderly people arranged for announcements that any woman found wearing nighties while out on the streets between 7 am and 7 pm would be slapped a fine of Rs 2,000. It was also announced that anybody who reported about such violation will be given an incentive of Rs 1,000. Only those having an ill health were barred from the ban, the report added. There were no complaints and neither any instance of levying fines over the last few months. During the Diwali celebrations recently, some local residents informed the local media about the restrictions and it went viral online. Opposition parties to meet on Nov 22, want to create 'anti-BJP' platform: Chandrababu Naidu When the local authorities made an enquiry in the village which they visited last week, the elders said they made the announcement after facing pressure from none other than the women. They also said that it was only meant to instil a "little fear" into the minds of the young women and girls. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 10:12 [IST] As Chhattisgarh votes, naxals move in huge brigade to cause devastation India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Bastar, Nov 12: As Chhattisgarh votes in the first phase of the assembly elections, a massive movement of naxalites has been noticed. Intelligence Bureau reports state that at least 70 naxalites from other states have moved into Chhattisgarh in a bid to disrupt the polling process. IB sources tell OneIndia that under the new leadership of Nambala Keshav Rao, the naxalites have adopted an extremely aggressive strategy. It may be recalled that he had taken over the outfit from the 70 year old Ganapathy recently. Chhattisgarh elections: Hours before voting, Congress state VP resigns, to join BJP The intelligence says that in the run up to the elections there had been massive movement of naxalites into the state from Telangana, Odisha and Maharashtra. They were called in to the state in batches to disrupt the polling process, security officials say. A high alert has been declared in the state and all police stations have been asked to up their guard. It may be recalled that the naxalites had triggered seven explosions and even battled security forces in Kanker district, which is 175 kilometres away from the state's capital Raipur. The naxalites it may be recalled that have warned of violence if the polls are not boycotted. Security officials say that in Sukma alone there are around 150 naxalites who are active. It may be recalled that the IB had said recently that a top leader of the naxalites, Hidma is active in this area. This is a great cause of concern for the security officials. Meanwhile there is heavy combing operation. Naxalites could have set up booby traps in jungles to target security forces. Chhattisgarh elections: Stage set for high-stakes poll battle in Maoist-hit As many as 650 companies of paramilitary forces and over 65,000 police personnel are on poll duty in the state. This is in addition to the 200 companies of the Chhattisgarh state police. IAF and BSF choppers are on duty to airlift polling parties to remote areas in the tribal region. The Kontha constituency which is the worst affected region has 40 booths which have been classified as hyper-sensitive. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 7:19 [IST] BJP may take some more time to announce tickets for Jaipur, Alwar and Shekhawati regions India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Nov 12: It has become a big challenge for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to decides name for Assembly constituencies falling in Jaipur, Alwar, Hanumangarh, Sri Ganganagar and Shekhawati districts of Rajasthan. Actually the party does not want to give ticket in majority constituencies to sitting MLAs in these districts and to such leaders who had lost last elections. However, consensus has not been reached upon on alternative names. Sources said that names on some of the seats could not be decided due to caste equations and moreover the party wants to decide name only after the Congress announces names of its candidates. The BJP is finding a the most difficult to take any call in the Shekhawati region where the party does not want to declare names of its candidates before the Congress at any cost. Actually sources said that the BJP is finding really very difficult to manage Jat, Rajput and Brahmin communities in the state. Also Read | 25 new faces in BJP's first list for Rajasthan polls; Raje to contest from Jhalrapatan Tickets for Dudu, Bagru, Sanganer, Chaksu, Jamwa Ramgarh, Kotputli, Bassi, Malviya Nagar and Jhotwara constituencies in Jaipur have not been declared. State health minister Kalicharan Saraf is MLA from Malviya Nagar, industry minister Rajpal Singh Shekhawat from Jhotwara, parliamentary secretary Kailash Verma is MLA from Bagru while Bassi and Kotputli seats were not with the Bharatiya Janata Party. On the other hand BJP has fielded relatives of former MLAs to brave anti-incumbency. In the first list of 131 candidates son, daughter-in-law, nephew and grandchildren have been made candidates. Hemant Meena, son on minister Nand Lal Meena has been made candidate, Kailash Meghwal son of Sunder Lal Kaka has been made candidate and son of Dharmapal Choudhary Manjit Singh has also been given ticket. BJP's varied data about providing employment in Rajasthan being mocked MP Kirori Lal Meena's wife, who had merged his party with the BJP a few month back, Golma Devi has been made BJP candidate in the election, Gurbeer Singh, grandson of Gurjant Siingh, late minister Digambar Singh's son Shailesh Singh has been given BJP ticket while former MP Sanwarlal's son Ram Swaroop and Poonam Kanwar daughter-in-law of Devi Singh Bhati have been nominated to contest Assembly elections. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 18:29 [IST] UP BJP chief to workers: Have tea with Dalits, make them understand votes are cast on nationalism, not caste BJP to organise region-wise conferences for OBC intellectuals on November 23 and 25 India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Nov 12: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is planning to organise region-wise conferences for intellectuals belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Uttar Pradesh from November last week. The party actually plans to organise conference of doctors, engineers, professors, litterateur and social workers. The BJP also plans to organise a big conference of representatives belonging to the OBC communities in December in which MPs, MLAs, mayors, councilors, Block Pramukhs and members of Jila Panchayats will be participating. The BJP has plans to organise these conferances in the regions as per BJP's demarcation like Gorakhpur, Kashi, Awadh, Kanpur-Bundelkhand, Braj and Western UP to reach out to OBC communities before 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Actually the BJP wants to prepare its ground among OBC communities with these programmes. State BJP general secretary and in-charge of OBC Morcha Vijay Bahadur Patahk said that the BJP had prepared organisational programme at every front. Region-wise conference for the OBC intellectuals is part of that initiative. Ananth Kumar, a man who never lost an election in 22 years Sources said that the programme is proposed for November 23 and 25 in which deputy chief minister Keshav Prashad Maurya, Union minister and Fatehpur Lok Sabha MP Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and party general secretary Bhupendra Yadav is expected to participate. The programme will start with 'Strong BJP, Strong India' slogan to discuss policies and achievements of the government. The BJP alliance in Uttar Pradesh has been able to win 73 out of 80 seats. The BJP projected Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the biggest OBC leader during 2014 Lok Sabha elections and reaped its benefit as well. In 2017, the BJP contested elections with Keshav Prashad Maurya as state party president. Maurya made a better rapport with OBCs and the alliance managed to win 325 seats in the state. Ananth Kumar's journey from state to national politics Sources said that Maurya has already had 21 meetings of the OBCs under the guidance of the deputy chief minister and now the initiative is taken to strengthen its grip among intellectuals of OBCs. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 13:12 [IST] CBI war: SC hearing today, CVC to submit report on Verma India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Nov 12: The Central Vigilance Commission will submit its report on CBI director, Alok Verma in the Supreme Court today. The CVC was probing allegations of bribery against Verma on the directions of the Supreme Court which had in October sought for a report in two weeks time. The hearing in the SC is important as Verma, who has a running feud with Special CBI Director Rakesh Asthana, has been appearing before the three-member CVC headed by KV Chowdary and is understood to have given point-wise refusal to all the allegations levelled against him by his deputy. CVC report on CBI director: Nothing substantial say sources Verma's plea, which had been heard by a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi on previous occasions, is now listed for hearing on November 12 before a two-judge bench comprising the CJI and Justice SK Kaul. The decision that a smaller bench would hear the case has come after the CJI, in his recent informal interaction with journalists, said that on Mondays and Fridays, when the court hears miscellaneous cases, only two-judge benches would sit. The report narrates the scrutiny of documents against Verma, which were submitted by the CBI's special director, Rakesh Asthana. Sources say that nothing very substantial has been found in the allegations made against the CBI director, who was last month sent on leave following a public spat with Asthana. It may be recalled that Verma had deposed before the CVC on Thursday and Friday. He denied all allegations of wrong doing and even justified the FIR filed against Asthana, who was accused by one Satish Babu Sana, an accused in the Moin Qureshi case of paying bribe. During the deposition, Verma made a point-by-point rebuttal of the allegations levelled against him by Asthana, who was also sent on leave following a public spat with the director. During the course of the inquiry, the CVC sent a detailed questionnaire to Verma seeking his responses to the allegations. Verma in his reply denied the allegations and also explained why the FIR registered against CBI special director, Rakesh Asthana was not uploaded on the website. He said that the CBI took time to upload the copy as the search operations were being conducted on the basis of the FIR and a report of the same was to be given to the court. He however said that the mandatory provision of sending a copy of the FIR to the court was done within 24 hours. Verma vs Asthana: How the CBI officers countered the allegations levelled against each other On being asked why Satish Babu Sana, the alleged bribe giver was not booked, Verma, while referring to the amended provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act said that it gives protection to someone who is forced to give bribe, but reports the matter within seven days. He said that though Babu had started paying bribe in December last year as per his complaint, giving bribe became an offence only this July under the amended PC act. After the amendment, he had paid another bribe through Hawala, but the matter was reported within seven days, Verma contended. He said that this is the reason why he was not treated as an accused despite paying bribes since December 2017. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 6:04 [IST] Chhattisgarh elections: Why the results of the first phase would be crucial India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Raipur, Nov 12: Voting has begun for the first phase of the Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018.The voting is being held in 18 seats of which 10 fall under districts that are naxal affected. There is heavy security in place in the wake of the naxalites calling for a boycott of the elections. As polling began naxals triggered an IED blast at the Tumapkpal camp at Dantewada. The blast took place when the troops of the 195 Battalion of the CRPF was approaching a polling booth. No casualties or injures have been reported. The first phase of the polling is very important for both the ruling BJP and Congress. Five years back the Congress had won 12 out the 18 seats, following a major attack by the naxalites that killed at least 25 people including senior leaders of the party at Bastar. Also Read | Chhattisgarh assembly poll 2018 LIVE: Voting begins amidst tight security While the BJP and the Congress are the key players, one would also need to watch others such as the BSP and the Ajit Jogi led, Janta Congress Chhattisgarh. These parties would play a crucial role and it would be interesting to see if they would eat into the vote shares of the major players. In 2013, the battle in the state for the 90 constituencies was a close one. The BJP won 49 seats while the Congress ended up with 39. The BSP had secured one seat. However there was a difference one per cent in the vote share between the BJP and Congress. In the first phase there are over 30 lakh voters who will decide the fate of 190 candidates including Chief Minister, Raman Singh, who is contesting from Rajnandgaon. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 8:48 [IST] With 2 more arrests NIA steps up heat on terrorists targeting civilians in J&K Cleaning up the inside rot: The importance of gunning down Kashmirs white collared terrorists Hyderpora encounter: Bodies of two civilians exhumed, to be handed over to families Councillor, several social activists join BJP in Jammu India pti-PTI Jammu, Nov 12: Several persons, including a recently elected independent councillor, joined the BJP Monday and pledged to work for strengthening the party at the grass-roots level, a party spokesman said. Independent councillor from Ward number nine of Bishnah Municipal Committee, Rajan Sharma was welcomed into the party fold by BJP MP Jugal Kishore, he said. Missing Sharda university student case handed over to J&K cops Prominent social activist Rita Chalotra, retired government officer Madan Choudhary from Raipur Domana, Tarsem Singh, Manmohan Lal, Yashpal, Amit Choudhary, Vikram Chanotra, Naveen Singh, Khajan Devi and Rajkumar also joined the party. J&K: 3 councillors join BJP Sharma, the Lok Sabha MP, said the strong and decisive policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had succeeded in winning the hearts of the people and many were joining the party in good numbers. PTI Cyclone Gaja heading towards coastal Tamil Nadu, expected to make landfall on Nov 15 India oi-Vikas SV Cyclone Gaja is heading towards coastal Tamil Nadu and is at present around 820 km east northeast of Nagapattinam. The cyclone is expected to make landfall on Thursday (November 15) between Chennai and Nagapattinam. "Cyclonic storm 'Gaja' now lies at about 820 km east northeast of Nagapattinam. It is expected to cross between Chennai and Nagapattinam during forenoon on 15th Nov. Sea will be very rough, fishermen are advised not to venture in the sea till 15th Nov," Director of IMD Chennai told the media today. Cyclonic storm 'Gaja' likely to intensify in 24 hours, says IMD The cyclone is very likely to move west south-westwards and intensify further into a Severe Cyclonic Storm in the next 24 hours and maintain the intensity during subsequent 24 hours. The fishermen in Tamil Nadu has been advised not to venture into the sea. Areas near Chennai and Nagapattinam may experience heavy rainfall on November 14 and 15. heavy rainfall is also expected in north coastal Tamil Nadu and adjoining south coastal Andhra Pradesh from evening of 14th November. The India Meteorological Department has also issued a red alert for areas in coastal Tamil Nadu The IMD also said squalls, with wind speeds touching 65 kmph, would commence along north Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coasts from Wednesday morning. Cyclone Titli: Toll in Odisha rises to 26; flood situation improves marginally "It is very likely to increase gradually, becoming a gale, with wind speeds clocking 100 kmph," the IMD statement said. Gaja will be the second cyclone to hit the coastal area in a month after Cyclone Titli wreaked havoc in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh on October 11. "Fantastic. Ex-minister not traceable": Supreme Court pulls up Bihar police India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Nov 11: The Supreme Court on Monday rapped the two top most officials of Bihar asking why a former minister linked to the probe has not been traced. The top court also summoned the Director General of Bihar Police to appear before it on November 27 if the police failed to arrest the former minister by then. "Fantastic! cabinet minister (Manju Verma) on the run, fantastic. How could it happen that cabinet minister is absconding and nobody knows where she is. You realise the seriousness of the issue that cabinet minister is not traceable. It's too much," observed Justice Madan B Lokur. "We are quite shocked that former cabinet minister can not be traced by the police for over a month. We would like the police to tell us that how such an important person is not traceable. Director General of Police to appear before us," said the court. On November 1, the Bihar police had issued a non-bailable warrant against ex-minister Manju Verma after the pulled up the Bihar government and said, "It's very strange. The government doesn't know where its former minister is. Has she gone into hiding?" The government counsel admitted in court that the minister wasn't traceable. Muzaffarpur shelter home case: Bihar Minister Manju Verma resigns Verma resigned as the Social Welfare Minister of Bihar in August after her husband came under fire for allegedly having links with Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case. The shelter home rape case pertains to the alleged sexual harassment of 44 girls residing at the state-run shelter home. Chhattisgarh polls: Only 4 winners won with more than 30% of margin of victory Former Chhattisgarh Congress VP Ghanaram Sahu joins BJP India oi-Deepika S Raipur, Nov 12: Ghanaram Sahu, former Chhattisgarh Congress vice president, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in presence of chief Amit Shah on Monday. Sahu resigned from the membership of the Congress party on Sunday, just a day ahead polling. He was, reportedly, upset for not getting ticket from Gundardehi. He is the second senior Congress leader to switch over to the BJP in Chhattisgarh, after the party's state working president and tribal leader Ramdayal Uike earlier this month. In his resignation letter, Sahu alleged that he was being "mentally harassed" by state party president Bhupesh Baghel over personal differences. "Although I am a Congress officebearer, I was not given a role to play in various activities organised before the election... I have always been a dedicated member of the party, but everything has a limit. As the state Congress chief has been trying to drive me out of the party for some time now, I have decided to resign as state vice-president and give up its primary membership," the note read, listing out his contributions to the party. Chhattisgarh assembly poll 2018 LIVE: Polling for all 18 seats in first phase ends The 90-member Chhattisgarh Assembly is scheduled to go to polls in two phases - on November 12 and November 20 while the results will be announced on December 11. The first phase of polls on Monday covered 18 constituencies of eight Naxal-affected districts that include Bastar, Kanker, Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur, Kondagaon and Rajnandgaon. Of these, 12 are Scheduled Tribe seats while one is a Scheduled Caste-reserved seat. Hindu Sena president Vishnu Gupta On November 10, the Congress-JD (S) coalition government in Karnataka had celebrated Tipu Jayanti to honour Tipu Sultan. Tipu Sultan, a 17th century ruler of Mysore region, is a controversial figure as some see him as a freedom fighter while other, especially the BJP and right wing groups, consider him as a mass murdered who tortured Hindus. Union Minister, Ananth Kumar passes away at 59, lost a valuable colleague says Modi Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal "I got completely shocked, on the one hand the BJP is protesting the move of the Karnataka government organising Tipu Sultan Jayanti and on the other hand BJP ruled central government under the Indian Railway has allowed a train to named after Tipu Sultan. Nationalist citizens of Bharat is not going to tolerate such hypocrisy (sic)," Gupta's letter to Goyal said. "I do not need to remind you who Tipu Sultan was, and how he had killed thousands of Hindus and raped Hindu women (sic)," the letter further said. Union Minister Ananth Kumar who passed away this morning Gupta further requested that the Tipu Express be renamed after Union Minister Ananth Kumar, who passed away today in Bengaluru. Ananth Kumar's journey from state to national politics "On behalf of nationalist citizens of our country, Hindu Sena is requesting you to rename Tipu Express in the name of Sh. Ananth Kumar who unfortunately died today (sic)," the letter further said. "Sh Ananth Kumar was true son of Karnataka and he was born in Bengaluru so renaming Tipu express in his name would be a great tribute to him," the letter said. Tipu Express is a daily train that runs between Bengaluru and Mysuru Tipu Express is a daily train that runs between Bengaluru and Mysuru. After Shatabdi Express, Tipu Express is the fastest train between the two cities. Ananth Kumar, one of the tallest BJP leaders from Karnataka, passed away this morning. The six-time member of Parliament from the Bengaluru South constituency was suffering from cancer. Upendra Kushwaha denied audience of Amit Shah; meets Sharad Yadav to explore other options India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Nov 12: This is the second time when Rashtriya Lok Samata Party president and Union minister of state for human resource development Upendra Kushwaha has been denied audience of Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah. ['Nitish Kumar trying to poach RLSP MLAs', says Upendra Kushwaha; Meets Sharad Yadav] Last time he had to get contended by meeting party general secretary Bhupendra Yadav but this time round he has been asked that he would be informed. Actually Kushwaha wants to complain about Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar but the actual issue is seat sharing for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. So Kushwaha has met with former Janata Dal (U) president Sharad Yadav. The RLSP leader is insisting for three Lok Sabha seats in Bihar as it had contested in the last Lok Sabha elections and also wants one more seat from Chatra in Jharkhand while the party has been clearly told that they would be given just two seats in Bihar nothing more. So Kushwaha wants to give this message to people that he tried every attempt before splitting from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and meanwhile he is exploring all possible options. This seems to be becoming a battle of nerves being fought in Bihar among the NDA partners. Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had jointly announced contesting the similar number of seats in the state and as per sources indicated LJP will be given six seats while the RLSP two seats. There is also a possibility that the BJP and JD (U) jointly send LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan to the Rajya Sabha. Sources said that both the bigger partners in the state are not ready to concede anything beyond this to either to the LJP or to the RLSP. But war of words between friends turned foes Nitish Kumar and Upendra Kushwaha is continuing and Kushwaha wanted to complain about Nitish with Amit Shah. Kushwaha does not have any problem with the BJP leadership but he does not to see Nitish Kumar eye to eye. So both the leaders are looking for an opportunity to part ways. Sources said that the BJP-JD (U) are not ready to linger this issue on for any more and Shah denying audience is a clear indication that Kushwaha must take a call on option given to him. So if he makes up his mind for two seats he is here to stay in NDA if he doesn't then he is already exploring options suitable for him. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 19:36 [IST] No protection, no hearing until we know where you are, SC tells Param Bir Singh Manipur encounters: Plea for recusal of judges rejected by Supreme Court India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Nov 12: The Supreme Court has rejected a plea filed by 300 Army officials, who sought that the Bench recuse itself from hearing the Manipur extra judicial killings case. A Bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Justice U U Lalit are hearing the case. A plea was filed seeking the Bench to recuse itself from hearing the case. The petitioner said that it was prejudicial to the probe involving them. CBI war: SC hearing today, CVC to submit report on Verma The Centre had supported the plea and said that the Armed Forces face a difficult situation in areas such as Manipur. They have to adopt various methods to deal with the situation at hand, the Centre represented by Attorney General, K K Venugopal had said. He also said that the remarks by the Bench that these security personnel were murderers had completely shaken the morale of both the police and the Armed Forces. The court has been hearing the main case which was a PIL seeking a probe into as many as 1,528 cases of extra-judicial killings in Manipur. On July 14 2017, the SC had set up a Special Investigation Team comprising CBI officers and ordered the registration of FIRs. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 10:50 [IST] Name-changing wave hits Bengal too; VHP changes Islampur to Iswarpur in school board India oi-Shubham Ghosh Kolkata, Nov 12: At a time when Uttar Pradesh is seeing a name-changing spree and the saffron camp is also vowing to change names of geographical entities in other states as well, Trinamool Congress (TMC)-ruled West Bengal also could not escape the wave. In Islampur in Bengal's North Dinajpur district, the location of a school run by the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has been re-identified as 'Iswarpur' in place of Islampur. The incident has created a controversy as questions are being asked whether a school affiliated to the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education can change the name of its location, according to a report in Bengali daily Ananda Bazaar Patrika. State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, a frontline leader of the ruling party, has assured of looking into the matter. He even said that whether the school is at all affiliated to state education board will be investigated. Local VHP sources said the word 'Islam' was forced upon by the Muslim rulers in the past and Iswarpur is the actual historical name of the place and hence they decided to change it. VHP to organise a rally on December 9 in Delhi; a week-long public awakening from December 18 Historians have slammed the move, with some calling it "ridiculous" and others even "saffron terrorism". They have all agreed over the point that the VHP's claims to history have no valid base. Eminent local residents also said that they have no confirmation whether Islampur was indeed known as 'Iswarpur' earlier. The Yogi Adityanath government of UP has been carrying out a name-changing project at the moment. While Allahabad has been renamed as Prayagraj, Faizabad has been changed into Ayodhya. Mughal Sarai was also renamed into Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar and talks are on to change Agra's name into Agravan or Agrawal. Noted historian Irfan Habib recently said BJP national president Amit Shah's surname should also be changed since it has a Persian origin. No protection, no hearing until we know where you are, SC tells Param Bir Singh No early hearing in Ram Temple matter, permission declined says SC India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Nov 12: The Supreme Court has rejected a plea that sought an early hearing into the Ayodhya title suit. The court said that it had in its recent order posted the matter for January. Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha for early hearing of the petitions in Ram-Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case. "We have already passed the order. The appeals are coming up in January. Permission declined," the bench said. The plea was filed after the SC had recently said that the matter would be posted to January 2019. The court however made it clear that in January, a new Bench would be set up, which in turn would decide on whether the appeals would be heard. Manipur encounters: Plea for recusal of judges rejected by Supreme Court In a one line observation, the Bench headed by Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi said, 'list in the month of January, first week before an appropriate Bench for fixing the date of hearing.' The CJI clarified that this does not mean that the appeals will be heard in January. It will be listed for fixing another date of hearing, the CJI also said. We have our own priorities. Whether it comes in January, February or March will be the call of the appropriate Bench, the CJI also said. On September 27, the Supreme Court had declined to refer to a five-judge constitution bench the issue of reconsideration of the observations in its 1994 judgment that a mosque was not integral to Islam which had arisen during the hearing of the Ayodhya land dispute. In a majority verdict of 2:1, a three-judge bench headed by then chief justice Dipak Misra had said the civil suit has to be decided on the basis of evidence and the previous verdict has no relevance to this issue. CBI war: SC hearing today, CVC to submit report on Verma Justice Ashok Bhushan, who had penned the judgment for himself and the Chief Justice of India, had said it has to find out the context in which the five-judge bench had delivered the 1994 verdict. However, Justice S Abdul Nazeer had disagreed with the two judges and had said whether a mosque is integral to Islam has to be decided considering religious belief which requires detailed consideration. The court had on September 27 said the civil suit on land dispute would be heard by a three-judge bench on October 29. The issue whether a mosque is integral to Islam had cropped up when the three-judge bench was hearing the appeals filed against the Allahabad High Court's verdict. The three-judge high court bench, in a 2:1 majority ruling, had ordered that the 2.77 acres of land be partitioned equally among three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. No protection, no hearing until we know where you are, SC tells Param Bir Singh Not our domain says SC, while rejecting plea to make gender neutral India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Nov 12: The Supreme Court has rejected a petition that sought to make the rape law gender neutral. The petitioner sought that Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code should be made gender neutral. The petitioner, Criminal Justice Society of India sought that the law be made gender neutral and to punish those sexually assaulting a transgender. The Bench headed by Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi asked why should women also be not made liable for raping man or man raping another man. No early hearing in Ram Temple matter as SC rejects plea The Bench however said that just because Section 377 was decriminalised, the court would not step in to make rape gender neutral, which is entirely the Parliament's domain. The court said that it was for the Parliament to take into account the Law Commission's report on the issue and enact a suitable legislation to make rape gender neutral. We are not inclined to interfere at this stage, the Bench also said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 11:21 [IST] Jal Marg Vikas Project The multi-modal terminals are being built as part of the central government's Jal Marg Vikas Project that aims to develop the stretch of the river Ganga between Varanasi and Haldia for navigation of large vessels weighing up to 1,500-2,000 tonnes. Promotes inland waterways The objective is to promote inland waterways as a cheaper and more environment-friendly means of transport, especially for cargo movement. The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) is the project implementing agency. The Jal Marg Vikas Project (JMVP) is being implemented on the Haldia-Varanasi stretch of National Waterway-1 (NW-1) with the technical assistance and investment support of the World Bank. It is being built at an estimated cost of Rs. 5,369.18 crore, on a 50:50 sharing basis between the Government of India and the World Bank. Three multi-modal terminals to come up The project entails construction of three multi-modal terminals (Varanasi, Sahibganj and Haldia); two intermodal terminals; five roll on-roll off (Ro-Ro) terminal pairs; new navigation lock at Farakka; assured depth dredging; integrated vessel repair and maintenance facility, differential global positioning system (DGPS), river information system (RIS), river training and river conservancy works, the release said. Operation, management and further development of the terminal is proposed to be entrusted to an operator on public-private partnership model and selection of the operator through an international competitive bidding is at an advanced stage and is expected to be completed by December. Employment generation The project of multi-modal terminal and proposed freight village in Varanasi are expected to generate 500 direct employment and more than 2,000 indirect employment opportunities. The prime minister will also receive India's first container vessel that sailed from Kolkata on October 30, carrying cargo belonging to PEPSICO (India) from Kolkata to Varanasi. Container movement on an inland waterway in India is being done for the first time post-Independence, the release said. PMs schedule for Bilaspur and Varanasi to remain unchanged India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Nov 12: Though most of the programmes of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been cancelled or postponed due to death of senior leader Anant Kumar but scheduled of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will remain the same. The PM will to visit Bilaspur to address election rally while after the rally, he will reach his parliamentary constituency Varanasi to inaugurate sevral infrastructure project. It is learned that the PM was expected to address a rally in Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh) in the morning which might get a bit delayed. After this rally, the PM will reach Varanasi to inaugurate two major national highways and an inland waterways project. The two roads have a combined length of 34 km and have been laid at a cost of Rs 1,571.95 crore. The 16.55-km Varanasi Ring Road Phase-I has been completed at a cost of Rs 759.36 crore, while the four-laning and construction of 17.25-km-long Babatpur-Varanasi Road on NH-56 has cost Rs 812.59 crore. Also Read | Union Minister, Ananth Kumar passes away at 59, lost a valuable colleague says Modi The Babatpur Airport Highway will link Varanasi city to airport and go on to link Jaunpur, Sultanpur and Lucknow districts. With the flyover at Harhua and a road over bridge (ROB) at Tarna, the new road plan will reduce travel time from Varanasi to the airport, providing relief to the locals and tourists coming here, the statement said. The Ring Road, with two ROBs and a flyover, is expected to reduce traffic, fuel usage and pollution on NH 56 (Lucknow-Varanasi), NH 233 (Azamgarh-Varanasi), NH 29 (Gorakhpur-Varanasi) and Ayodhya-Varanasi highway. Further the ring road is expected to provide smooth road access to Sarnath, a renowned Buddhist pilgrimage site. Also Read | 'Urban Naxals remote control naxals', says Modi in Jagdalpur rally The PM will inaugurate the first multi-modal waterways terminal on the Ganga river as part of the Centre's Jal Marg Vikas Project which aims to develop the stretch of the river between Varanasi and Haldia for navigation of large vessels weighing up to 1,500 to 2,000 tonnes. The objective of the project is to promote inland waterways as a cheap and environment-friendly means of transportation, especially for cargo movement. The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) is the project implementing agency. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 12:04 [IST] AP EAPCET Round 1 seat allotment delayed again: New date to be announced soon Rahul, Twitter CEO discuss ways to tackle fake news India pti-PTI New Delhi, Nov 12: Congress president Rahul Gandhi Monday met Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and said the website co-founder explained to him the steps being taken to tackle fake news. Gandhi, taking to Twitter, said Dorsey "dropped in" to chat Monday morning. "Twitter has grown into the most dominant 'conversations' platform globally. Jack explained some of the steps being taken to keep those conversations healthy and to tackle the menace of fake news," he tweeted. Congress to release manifesto by early 2019, says Rajeev Gowda The Congress chief also put out his pictures with the Twitter chief on his account on the microblogging site. PTI Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah comes out after paying his last respects to Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar in Bengaluru, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Kumar, 59, passed away in Bengaluru early Monday morning after battling lung cancer for several months. (PTI Photo People pays their last respects People pays their last respects to Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar in Bengaluru, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Kumar, 59, passed away in Bengaluru early Monday morning after battling lung cancer for several months. (PTI Photo Sudha Murthy Infosys Foundation Chairperson Sudha Murthy consoles Tejaswini Ananth Kumar, wife of Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar, after paying her last respects to him, in Bengaluru, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Senior, well-wisher recall Ananth Kumar's Hubli-Dharwad days Ananth Kumar's residence People pays their last respects to Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar in Bengaluru, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Kumar, 59, passed away in Bengaluru early Monday morning after battling lung cancer for several months. (PTI Photo BS Yeduyurappa Karnataka BJP President B S Yeduyurappa pays his last respects to Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar in Bengaluru, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. PTI photo Amit Shah pays his last BJP President Amit Shah pays his last respects to Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar at the party office in New Delhi, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. PTI photo On pollution bureaucrats have adopted a dont take any steps attitude says SC No protection, no hearing until we know where you are, SC tells Param Bir Singh SC to hear 42 review petitions on Sabarimala verdict today India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Nov 13: Ahead of the annual pilgrim season commencing this week, the Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear 42 petitions seeking a review of the earlier verdict that allowed women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala temple. [Kerala govt mulling all-party meet on Sabarimala] The petitions would be taken up for consideration in-chamber by a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra at 3 PM today. The Supreme Court verdict on Sabarimala has triggered massive protests by Hindu organisations and devotees across Kerala. On September 28, in a historic judgement, a five-judge constitution bench headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra had lifted the centuries-old ban on the entry of women of menstrual age into Lord Ayyappa shrine. [Kerala: Police considering choppers to airlift women devotees to Sabarimala] Though the apex court allowed entry of all women into the Hindu shrine, so far no woman of menstruating age have been able to enter the temple as devotees and Sangh Parivar members have prevented them midway. Meanwhile, Pinarayi Vijayan-led Kerala government is likely to convene an all-party meeting today to discuss various matters relating to the temple. "We are thinking of having an all-party meeting. We have not taken a final decision yet. There are plans," Devaswom Minister Kadakkampally Surendran told reporters. No protection, no hearing until we know where you are, SC tells Param Bir Singh Stop or we will ban you, SC tells BJP leader Upadhyay while rejecting PIL India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Nov 12: The Supreme Court had some harsh words for Delhi BJP leader, Ashwini Upadhyay, while dismissing a petition filed by him. No early hearing in Ram Temple matter as SC rejects plea Upadhyay had sought a direction from the SC to limit the donations to political parties. A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul, visibly furious with the number of PILs being filed by Upadhyay said, if he does not stop, they would consider banning him. The Bench expressed its displeasure while stating that he was being mindlessly prolific in filing PILs. The Bench warned that it may consider banning him from filing PILs if he did not stop. The court while making these observations rejected his petition. Manipur encounters: Plea for recusal of judges rejected by Supreme Court Upadhyay has filed several PILs in the SC. Some of his PILs include a challenge to Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. He had also filed a petition that sought a ban on lawmakers from practising as lawyers. This petition was rejected last month by the Supreme Court. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 11:16 [IST] Pakistan hit my mysterious viral fever: All you need to know Terror infrastructure in Pak remains intact as over 100 terrorists wait to infiltrate India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Jammu, Nov 12: The terror infrastructure in Pakistan remains intact and around 160 terrorists are waiting across the Line of Control (LoC) to infiltrate into Indian territory, a senior Army officer said. Lieutenant General Paramjit Singh, who took over as the general officer commanding of the Nagrota-based White Knight Corps, commonly known as XVI Corps, also said that cross-border terrorism will stop only if Pakistan changes its policy and intentions. BAT attack, infiltrations keeps Indian Army on its toes The officer, involved in the planning of the 2016 surgical strikes on the terror infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, told PTI in an interview that the Army was not letting up on "our preparedness and the counter-infiltration grid is strong enough to deal with infiltrators". Lt. Gen. Singh, who has served in all three regions of Jammu and Kashmir, said, "140 to 160 terrorists at different locations in Pakistan are being pushed into the state." "The terror infrastructure is intact, and Pakistan's intentions have not changed. The Pakistan Army and the ISI's complicity in planning infiltration and terror attacks is evident and it continues," the officer, who has a vast experience in high-altitude warfare, said. To a question on the situation along the LoC, he said ceasefire violations have abated after the DGMO-level talks. "For troops on the LoC, there is no ceasefire... though periodic unprovoked firing by the Pakistan Army and attempts to cause harm to forward posts continue. We do not initiate fire, but we give it back in adequate measure. There is no let up on preparedness and our counter-infiltration grid is strong to deal with infiltrators," he said. Talking about challenges during winter, Lt Gen Singh, who is part of the elite Parachute Regiment (Special Forces), said the Army anticipates that Pakistani troops will make an attempt to push infiltrators through heavy snow-bound areas and non-traditional routes. "We have all contingency plans ready. We have coordinated with all security agencies, and plans are being implemented smoothly," said Lt Gen Singh, who commanded a special forces' battalion that participated in the surgical strikes after the attack on an Army brigade in Uri in 2016. Referring to the recent incident of firing of 107-mm rocket on the Poonch brigade, he said, "Despite Director General of Military Operations-level talks in May during which the two countries agreed to abide by the 2003 ceasefire agreement, Pakistani troops targeted these locations." J&K: 3 terrorists arrested while infiltrating border in Kupwara "In response, we conveyed that Pakistan must exercise caution before indulging in any misadventure," Lt Gen Singh said. Replying to another question about causalities suffered by Pakistani troops in retaliatory fire by the Indian Army, the officer said, "Pakistan has never been open about its causalities unless the soldier is from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir". As Major General General Staff at the Northern Command headquarters, Lt. Gen. Singh played a pivotal role in strategising military response to agitations that erupted in 2016 after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 6:34 [IST] Union Minister, Ananth Kumar passes away at 59, lost a valuable colleague says Modi India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Nov 12: Union Minister Ananth Kumar passed away on Monday at 2 am, following complications due to cancer. He had been in the intensive care unit and was on ventilator support for the past few days. The 59-year-old BJP leader had arrived in Bengaluru on October 20 after undergoing extensive treatment in London and New York. The body will be taken to the National College grounds at 9 am for people to pay their last respects. The funeral will be held today itself. Kumar who has represented the Bengaluru South parliamentary constituency six times since 1996, was admitted later to the Sri Shankara Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in Basavanagudi. Ananth Kumar: Bengaluru's 'most loved MP' and a BJP veteran "Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents," Modi said. "I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti," Modi also tweeted. Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2018 President of India, Ram Nath Kovind said, "sad to hear of the passing of Union Minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H.N. Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country&particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates." Ananth Kumar's journey from state to national politics Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri Ananth Kumar is no more with us. Served BJP all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss," Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss. Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) November 12, 2018 Ananth Kumar' s wife Tejaswini had earlier said that he was under artificial breather. She had also said that the minister was being given the best treatment for cancer but severe infection was causing concen. He was responding well to the treatment, she had said. Union Home minister Rajnath Singh and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had recently visited Ananth Kumar in the hospital. Shocked , its unbelievable , My friend , Brother Ananthkumar is no more . pic.twitter.com/zMOYEn7gXc Sadananda Gowda (@DVSBJP) November 12, 2018 Kumar was born on 22 July 1959 in Bangalore, Karnataka to H N Narayan Sastry and Girija Shastry. He graduated in faculty of Arts (B.A) from K S Arts College, Hubli affiliated to the Karnataka University and later, completed his bachelors in law (L.L.B) from J.S.S. Law College affiliated to the Karnataka University. He was married to Dr. Tejaswini and the couple have 2 daughters - Aishwarya and Vijeta. Bengaluru: #Visuals from the residence of Union Minister Ananth Kumar who passed away at the age of 59, last night. #Karnataka pic.twitter.com/M5iDx1iXQD ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2018 Since 1996 he has represented Bengaluru South constituency in the Lok Sabha. Kumar held charge of two key ministries - Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers since May 2014 and as Minister of Parliamentary Affairs since July 2016 in the Narendra Modi government. Speculations are that in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, his wife Tejaswini may contest from the constituency. The funeral is expected to be held today. {document1} Victories in state polls to lay foundation for BJP's win in 2019: Amit Shah India pti-PTI New Delhi, Nov 12: BJP president Amit Shah on Monday said the ongoing Assembly elections were not ordinary polls, but "very important" for the country, as his party's win would lay a strong foundation for the Narendra Modi government's return to power in 2019 and making it "invincible" for a long time. In a video-address to party workers in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Shah said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should have a long and uninterrupted rule from panchayat to Parliament like the Congress had for over 30 years to realise its goal of making India great and a "vishwaguru" (world leader). The Modi government had done a lot but five years were not enough to pull the country out of the "mess" left behind by the decades-long Congress rule and make it an economic and military superpower, he added. Assembly polls are being held in five states and the stakes are especially high for the BJP in three of those -- Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan -- where it is in power. The saffron party is in power in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh since 2003 and its rivals believe that any serious slide in its performance in the three states would energise the opposition ahead of next year's Lok Sabha polls. Telangana and Mizoram are the two other poll-bound states. Shah asked the party workers in Madhya Pradesh to work not merely for a win but for such a massive victory that it would send a chill down the spines of the BJP's rivals on the day of counting of votes. "The elections in 2018 should not be seen as ordinary polls. These are very important elections for the country as these will be followed by the (Lok Sabha) election in 2019," he said. Noting that the BJP had been in power at the Centre twice -- first under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and now under Modi -- Shah said the country would march ahead by re-electing the current dispensation. The Vajpayee government was voted out in 2004. "Like the Congress got to rule from panchayat to Parliament for 30-35 years after independence, the BJP should have a similar reign in the country to realise its aim of making India a great nation and Mother India a vishwaguru," Shah said. "Winning the 2019 election will make the BJP invincible from panchayat to Parliament for a long time. An invincible BJP, we have strong confidence, will pave the way for a prosperous, secure and culturally rich India," he added. Referring to a number of poll victories the party had notched up since it came to power at the Centre in 2014, Shah said it was a result of Modi's leadership, the way he had worked to win over people's confidence, and the hardwork of the party workers. He accused the Congress of taking the side of infiltrators and Naxals, asking its president, Rahul Gandhi, to make his party's stand clear on these issues. If elected to power in 2019, the BJP government will launch a nationwide exercise to identify and expel infiltrators, Shah said. While his party's governments had taken tough measures against Maoists, the Congress was soft on them and saw revolutionaries in them, the BJP chief added. "We should take our stands on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Naxalism to every household to show our commitment to national security," he said. The NRC exercise was underway in Assam to identify the infiltrators in the north-eastern state and prima facie, over 40 lakh of them were identified, Shah noted. He heaped praise on Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, saying he had presented an ideal example of how a state should be run. Chouhan turned a "bimaru" (sick) Madhya Pradesh into a developed state and his government's aim was to make it one of the most prosperous states in the country in its next term, Shah said. He accused the Congress of trying to divert people's attention from the BJP's development agenda and asked the party workers to take the details of the state government's works, Modi's message and the party's ideology to every household. Governments were not for creating political controversies but for lifting the living standards of the poor, the BJP chief said, citing a host of development figures of the party's governments at the Centre and in Madhya Pradesh. Over two crore poor families had got houses, more than one crore homes were electrified, seven crore toilets were constructed, 5.5 crore families were given LPG connection, 13 crore people had benefitted from the "Mudra" loan and 11 crore farmers had received soil health cards across the country, he said. Referring to the progress Madhya Pradesh had made under Chouhan, Shah said the budget for the state had risen five times from Rs 21,647 crore under the last Congress regime in 2003 and the per capita income had shot up from Rs 14,000 to Rs 72,499. He also referred to growth in the agriculture sector in the state and accused the Congress of misleading farmers. Without naming Digvijay Singh, Shah asked the BJP workers to inform the masses about the state's poor conditions under "shriman bantadhaar". BJP sources said Shah addressed over 2.5 lakh party workers, drawn from close to 65,200 polling booths of the 230 Assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh. The state will go to the polls on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11. PTI You are not labourer, why do you need holiday on May Day, Tripura CM asks govt employees India oi-Deepika S Agartala, Nov 12: Amid a controversy over dropping May Day from the list of state government holidays, Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb on Monday justified the move saying they do not need a holiday on the day as they are not "labourers or workers". "You are not a labourer (mazdoor)? No. Am I a labourer? No. I am Chief Minister. So, what for do you need holiday? What will you mourn for (Kya matam manayenge aap)?" he asked a host of senior bureaucratic officers present in the audience at an event of Tripura Gazetted Officers' Sangh. Deb explained how May Day is for the workers and that's why, the BJP-IPFT government has decided to give a holiday to those in the industrial sector. Deb reasoned that May Day is meant for workers and labourers and no one else. He claimed his government has done justice by granting holiday for workers in the industrial sector on May Day. "There is holiday on May Day in the industrial sector. That holiday is still valid. But are you workers and labourers in the secretariat?" the CM asked. Despite the controversies, BJP ropes in Tripura CM Biplab Deb for Mizoram poll campaign Last week, The BJP-led Tripura government has dropped May Day or International Labour Day from its list of state's 'regular holidays' and scheduled it under 'restricted holidays', sparking criticism by the opposition CPI(M) in the state. A notification issued by Under-Secretary S K Debbarma on Saturday said the government employees would be allowed to avail four holidays in a year from the list of 12 'restricted holidays', including the May Day. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 17:56 [IST] Afghan foreign minister in Pak, likely to meet special reps attending Troika Plus meet In our better interest: Taliban on NSA level meet on Afghanistan convened by India US Congress report says Pakistan playing active and disruptive role in Afghanistan Explosion in Afghanistans Kabul, casualties feared International oi-Deepika S Kabul, Nov 12: Casualties are feared after a huge explosion rocked Kabul on Monday close to where scores of Afghans had been protesting against Taliban attacks on the minority Hazara ethnic group. The explosion took place close to the busy circle, which is in the same area as the ministries of finance and justice and close to the Presidential Palace, reports TOLO news. AFP reporters heard the blast, which the interior ministry said happened in front of a high school in the downtown area of the Afghan capital. Hundreds of protesters have been gathered in the area throughout the day after marching to the Presidential Palace early Monday in protest over the lack of security and ongoing Taliban threats in Ghazni and Uruzgan provinces. No militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. Collapse of Kabul will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history: Donald Trump US President Donald Trump set to miss a series of summits in Asia International oi-Shubham Ghosh Washington, Nov 12: US President Donald Trump is set to miss a series of summits that are lined up in Asia and will send his deputy Vice President Mike Pence to attend them instead. For observers, this could see China gaining an opportunity to gain a more prominent headline instead of the 'retreating' US. The first of the summits that Trump, who will complete two years in office in January 2019, will be held in Singapore on November 13-15. The meetings, hosted annually by the 10-member Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) cover a wide range of issues - from territorial disputes to wildlife conservation. Topless woman protester 'welcomes' Donald Trump in Paris The focus next shifts to Papua New Guinea (PNG) where the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) will meet. This is more of a summit on economic and trade affairs. While other world leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in will be attending the Asean meetings in Singapore, Chinese President Xi Jinping will only attend the APEC summit in PNG. Pence lashed out at China recently On Pence's presence, the US vice-president was recently in the headlines for blasting China which according to many flagged off a new Cold War. It is unlikely that he would have any meaningful meeting with Chinese officials at those Asian summits and make way for a positive meeting between Trump and Xi on G20 platform in Argentina a little later. In a statement announcing Pence's trip, the White House said the vice president would "deliver the message that authoritarianism, aggression, and the disregard for other nations' sovereignty by any nation in the Indo-Pacific will not be tolerated by the United States." US mid-term elections & Karnataka by-polls: Some similar lessons for Trump & Modi Though the American president skipping the events is not something unprecedented, Trump's absence from them certainly adds more the uncertainty over his regime's policy vis-a-vis areas where China's rise has been alarming and whether the US is interested to maintain its commitments, even to its allies. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, November 12, 2018, 10:35 [IST] (CNN) Powerful winds are expected to sweep through California on Sunday, exacerbating three major fires that have ravaged both ends of the state for several days. At least 25 people have died in two of the fires. The Camp Fire in Northern California the most destructive fire in state history and the third-deadliest has killed at least 23, left 110 missing and destroyed thousands of homes and structures. At least two have died in Southern California's Woolsey fire, and hundreds of thousands of residents have been displaced. At least six firefighters have been injured in both blazes, according to CalFire. Saturday saw a brief reprieve in the fierce winds fueling the fires, and firefighters hoped to use the break to their advantage. But on Sunday a Cal Fire unit chief warned that "it's not over yet." The toll Here's the latest on the fires: Camp Fire: The largest of the trio, the Camp Fire has burned 109,000 acres across Northern California and is 25% contained as of Sunday morning, according to Cal Fire. It's destroyed an estimated 6,700 buildings, most of which were homes. Woolsey and Hill fires: In Southern California, the Woolsey fire has spread to 83,275 acres and was 10% contained, up from 5% the night before. The smaller Hill Fire covered 4,531 acres and was 70% contained. Together, responsible for the destruction of 179 structures, but another 57,000 are threatened, according to fire officials. Massive evacuations: More than 300,000 people have been forced from their homes statewide. The majority of those residents are in Los Angeles County, where 170,000 were evacuated. Winds, climate change provoking fires While firefighters made headway on containing the fires Saturday, the return of powerful winds a day later threatened that progress, particularly for the Woolsey Fire in Southern California. "Sadly, with these winds, it's not over yet," Scott Jalbert, chief of Cal Fire's San Luis Obispo Unit, told reporters at a news conference. He said the gusts have officials "very concerned." Officials previously warned gusts would peak at around 40 mph, which could affect the viability of using aircraft to combat the fires. Authorities are worried that embers from the Woolsey Fire could reach unburnt buildings, spark new fires or add to the blaze, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said. They also told people in mandatory evacuation zones that if they hadn't left yet, they needed to. Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen warned the rate by which the fire is spreading is "exponentially more" than has been seen in fires in years past. Echoing a comment Gov. Jerry Brown made during last year's Thomas Fire, Lorenzen said extreme fire conditions were "kind of the new normal," thanks to climate change. Osby said the challenges presented by climate change are clear across California. Authorities in the southern part of the state used to be able to rely on help from their counterparts up north around this time of the year, Osby said, when the threat of fire was much less prevalent in those communities. But that's no longer the case. "And as evident by the Camp Fire in Northern California which is larger than this, more structures have been lost than this, more lives have been lost it's evident from that situation statewide that we're in climate change and it's going to be here for the foreseeable future," Osby said. Though the state's drought has eased slightly, it's still abnormally dry, according to CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward. That leaves a lot of dry vegetation to feed fires. Crews searching for the dead Crews are combing through blackened ruins of homes. The number of dead more than doubled late Saturday with the news that officials discovered 14 more sets of remains. Ten victims were found in or near Paradise, California, a town of about 26,000 that's been all but leveled by the Camp Fire. On Sunday, officials confirmed that two deaths in Malibu were related to the Woolsey Fire, bringing the death toll to 25. Sheriff deputies walk through a neighborhood destroyed by the Camp Fire on November 10, 2018 near Paradise, California The painstaking process of finding the missing and identifying the dead is challenging, with some of the bodies recovered burned beyond recognition. "In some cases, the only remains we are able to recover are bones or bone fragments," Butte County Sheriff and Coroner Kory Honea told reporters. "I know that members of the community who are missing loved ones are anxious, and I know that the news of us recovering bodies has to be disconcerting." Many bodies recovered from the Camp Fire were found inside or near homes or in vehicles, officials said. Authorities said they have reports of 110 people still missing in the area affected by the blaze. Yuba County Sheriff officers carry a body away from a burned residence in Paradise, California, on November 10, 2018. Hours after the fire broke out, residents fleeing Paradise became trapped in gridlock traffic as the fire closed in. Some drivers abandoned their vehicles in the chaos and attempted to escape on foot. Woolsey Fire: Some return home after 'firestorm' Craig Clunies-Ross and his wife had seen wildfires before and they were prepared when it was time to evacuate their Malibu home. But what they saw when they stepped outside shocked them. "It was a 100-foot wall of flames. It was like a firestorm, it was roaring," he told CNN affiliate KABC, referring to the Woolsey Fire. The family quickly took photos, a few clothes and other essentials hoping they could come back to their home. On Saturday, they were among several families who drove through scorched hills and discovered their homes were leveled. This story was first published on CNN.com "'It's not over yet.' High winds threaten progress made fighting California fires" Race to Olympus with Rich Casino Published November 12, 2018 by Mike P Rich Casino is giving away $25,000 as the top prize in the Race to Olympus get all of the key details you need right here. Rich Casino is an amazing place if you want to race and play games for major prize money. The very latest event is entitled Race to Olympus and is running from now until 30 November 2018. You can use the coming days to stake your claim on the $25,000 first-prize haul that is up for grabs. 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The project aims to contribute to a sustainable, inclusive reconciliation process in Colombia, after Peace Accords ended the long-running armed conflict between the FARC-EP guerrilla group and the Colombia state in 2016. The UK-side of the project will be led by the School of Education's, Dr Julia Paulson, and School of Modern Languages, Professor Matthew Brown. He said: This is a big, international project which aims to co-produce new knowledge about Colombias difficult past. By working directly with some of the people who have been most affected by the armed conflict, but whose histories are not widely known, we hope that the project will have a significant effect in producing an inclusive reconciliation process. We are delighted to be working in collaboration with the National University of Colombia, and our colleagues Fabio Lopez de la Roche and Maria-Teresa Pinto Ocampo, and to building upon the trusting working relationship between Colombia and Bristol. Read the University of Bristol press release here. UB hosting week of events to reveal dangers of antibiotic overuse Mind Your Microbiome and Be Antibiotics Aware Week is held simultaneously with the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) U.S. Antibiotic Awareness Week. Photo: Douglas Levere Jennifer Surtees, , GEM co-director and associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB So many [microbes] are important for our own well-being and are at risk when antibiotics are used inappropriately. BUFFALO, N.Y. The human body is home to five pounds of microorganisms; most are helpful and others can make us ill. The University at Buffalo aims to teach you about them all during Mind Your Microbiome and Be Antibiotics Aware Week. Held during the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) U.S. Antibiotic Awareness Week Nov. 12-18 the program, now in its third year, promotes awareness of the microbiome and educates the public about the lasting effects of antibiotic overuse. The events are held in partnership between the UB Community of Excellence in Genome, Environment and Microbiome (GEM), CDC and Erie County Department of Health. The GEM community is committed to spreading awareness of the microbes that live in, on and around us. So many are important for our own well-being and are at risk when antibiotics are used inappropriately, said Jennifer Surtees, PhD, GEM co-director and associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB. At the same time, there are some very harmful microbes that we need to be able to control with antibiotics. This delicate balance is important for everyone to understand. Antibiotic overuse both in our food and those prescribed to treat infection has led to the increasing prevalence of resistant strains of bacteria that are difficult to treat. According to CDC research, nearly 80 percent of Americans are prescribed at least one antibiotic each year, but half of those prescriptions are either unnecessary or ineffective. By educating the public on these issues, Mind Your Microbiome and Be Antibiotics Aware Week can empower people to make better choices for their health. GEM will partner with the Buffalo Museum of Science and Erie County Department of Health to host Pushing Back: Antimicrobial Resistance, an evening focused on the harms of antibiotic overuse and the state of microbiome research. The event is scheduled on Wednesday, Nov. 14, from 7-9 p.m. at the Buffalo Museum of Science, 1020 Humboldt Parkway, Buffalo. Guest speakers include Erie County Health Commissioner Gale R. Burstein, MD, and Robert J. Genco, DDS, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and director of the UB Microbiome Center. Attendance is free with museum admission. For more information visit, sciencebuff.org. As part of our ever-expanding programming, the Buffalo Museum of Science is pleased to host this dialogue with health professionals and medical researchers on the current science of antibiotics use and public health, said Marisa Wigglesworth, president and CEO of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. GEM is also collaborating with the Erie County Department of Health, UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences student groups, and the UB Clinical and Translational Science Institutes Community Engagement Core to offer English- and Spanish-language outreach materials at local public libraries, pharmacies, medical clinics and Department of Motor Vehicles offices. UB students will visit local middle and high schools to hold interactive activities that show how antibiotics target bacterial infections, are ineffective against viruses and can harm the microbiome by removing good bacteria. To learn more about GEM or Mind Your Microbiome and Be Antibiotics Aware Week, visit https://bit.ly/2onxQPI. Since Georgian nationals were granted visa-free travel to the EU in March 2017, there has been a significant increase in the number of Georgian asylum applications. While the European Commission has been mildly optimistic so far in its assessment of the visa free travel regime, analysis shows that the trend in asylum applications is much more volatile than acknowledged by Georgia and the EU and could threaten visa free travel. Suspension of visa free travel is unlikely in the short term, but countries with high numbers of Georgian immigrants such as Germany and Italy face a mounting populist tide that could force both countries to trigger the visa suspension mechanism. BACKGROUND: On March 28, 2017, Georgian citizens received the right to travel to the EUs Schengen Area without a visa. As a safeguard the EU put a suspension mechanism in place that allowed for visas to be reinstated under certain circumstances. The European Commission (EC), tasked to monitor the new visa free regime, wrote in its first report in December 2017 that Georgia in general was meeting the visa liberalization benchmarks. However, it also noted that further improvement of the implementation is expected, in particular in relation to the number of unfounded asylum applications submitted by Georgian nationals and the disproportionally high involvement of Georgian nationals in organized crime groups (OCGs) in the EU. The ECs criticism has led to a debate in Georgia on the gravity of the situation outlined in the report and the possible risk of the EU revoking the visa waiver. First Deputy Minister of Corrections Tamar Khulordava, on behalf of the ruling Georgian Dream party, responded that Georgias achievements and the Georgian governments action have been assessed positively and there is no reason to fear that any of the provisions of the suspension mechanism will be invoked. The issue is critical in Georgia as it aspires to become a member of the EU. In June 2014, the EU and Georgia signed an Association Agreement, which entered into force on July 1, 2016. A suspension of the visa free travel regime would be a serious setback for a country that is keen to determine new perspectives on further EU integration now that the immediate benefits of the Eastern Partnership have been exhausted. This could ultimately undermine domestic reforms in Georgia and support for the EU in a country that is a crucial EU partner in the region. IMPLICATIONS: Member states can trigger the visa suspension mechanism when faced with a substantial increase (more than 50 percent) in asylum applications with low recognition rate (around 3- 4 percent) over a two-month period. An analysis of such two-month periods shows that the trend in asylum applications is much more volatile than the Commissions assessment, which is based on an annual, EU-wide comparison of asylum applications by Georgian nationals. Figure 1. Fluctuations in number of asylum applications made by Georgia citizens in EU member states (a) % change in number of asylum applications made by Georgian citizens over two-month period compared to the same period in the previous year (b) % change in number of asylum applications made by Georgian citizens over two-month period compared to the first two months of 2017 Out of the nine EU member states with the largest number of asylum applications from Georgian nationals in 2017, only the Netherlands did not register two-month periodic increases of over 50 percent at least once since the start of visa free travel. At the same time, the number of 50+ percent increases appears to be rising all nine states except Sweden and the Netherlands are now seeing an average periodic increase of over 50 percent since the start of visa free travel. Finally, recognition rates of Georgian asylum applications in all EU member states remain low. While member states such as Germany have expressed serious concerns about the increased number of Georgian asylum seekers, it is unlikely that the EU will revoke visa-free travel for Georgians in the short-term. The European Commission has stated that decisions to suspend visa-free travel will certainly not be taken lightly and any steps leading towards the triggering of the suspension mechanism would be subject to careful assessment and analysis, while working in close co-operation with that third-country to find alternative long-term solutions. In any case, the Georgian government should carefully monitor the mood in European capitals like Berlin, as well as Athens and Rome. Both Italy and Greece have high numbers of Georgian migrants and are among the most popular destinations for visa free travel, while Georgian organized crime groups in Greece and Italy are among the most active in Europe, according to experts. The increasing number of Georgian asylum applications come at a time when governments in Italy, Germany and Greece are under mounting pressure to deal with the effects of the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. In Italy, a newly formed government between the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the far-right Northern League has taken a tough stance against migration. Under the leadership of the new Interior Minister Matteo Salvini the country has been on a collision course with other EU member states over the issue. All their European Parliament members (MEPs) voted against the visa liberalization agreement, and it appears that the new government is willing to take action unilaterally if necessary. Earlier this summer, Germanys three-party coalition reached an agreement on a key migration policy. While all the coalitions European Parliament members voted in favor of the visa liberalization agreement in February 2017, the political mood remains fickle with the far-right, anti-immigration party (Alternative fur Deutschland) on the rise, and public opinion on immigration remains divided. CONCLUSIONS: Georgias figures are by no means unique. All Western Balkan countries experienced an increase in asylum seekers and entry denials post-visa liberalization. However, while the Georgian government can anticipate the mood in European capitals, it can certainly not dictate it. Thus, it is important that Georgia makes sure that all visa free travel regulations are strictly followed. It should also continue and further strengthen law enforcement and judicial co-operation with the EU and its member states and demonstrate that newly updated national strategies and action plans are implemented and appropriately funded. This is necessary in order not to lose the hard-won gains that Georgia has made. AUTHORS BIO: Casper Wuite is a political analyst located in Georgia. Previously, he worked on EU foreign and security policy for the European Union, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Lowy Institute, an international think tank. He holds an MSc degree in Politics and Government from the London School of Economics. Image source: By: Public Domain via Wikimedia accessed on 11.12.2018 Sales Tax Software Market Outlook to 2023 CFS Tax Software, Exactor, Wolters Kluwer, Service Objects, Thomson Reuters, Sales Tax DataLINK, Sovos Compliance, TaxJar, LegalRaasta.com, Vertex et al. 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Often laws provide for the exemption of certain goods or services from sales and use tax.Get 20% Assured Discount on Report:The companies include: CFS Tax Software, Exactor, Wolters Kluwer, Service Objects, Thomson Reuters, Sales Tax DataLINK, Sovos Compliance, TaxJar, LegalRaasta.com, Vertex et al.The key countries in each region are taken into consideration as well, such as United States, China, Japan, India, Korea, ASEAN, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, CIS, and Brazil etc.Direct Purchase Corporate Report:We also can offer customized report to fulfill special requirements of our clients.Research objectives:To study and analyze the global Sales Tax Software consumption (value & volume) by key regions/countries, product type and application, history data from 2013 to 2017, and forecast to 2023.To understand the structure of Sales Tax Software market by identifying its various subsegments.Focuses on the key global Sales Tax Software manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans in next few years.To analyze the Sales Tax Software with respect to individual growth trends, future prospects, and their contribution to the total market.To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks).To project the consumption of Sales Tax Software submarkets, with respect to key regions (along with their respective key countries).To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.TABLE OF CONTENTS:Chapter 1 Executive SummaryChapter 2 Abbreviation and AcronymsChapter 3 Preface3.1 Research Scope3.2 Research Methodology3.2.1 Data Collection3.2.2 Data Analysis3.2.3 Data Validation3.3 Research Sources3.3.1 Primary Sources3.3.2 Secondary Sources3.3.3 AssumptionsChapter 4 Market Landscape4.1 Market Overview4.2 Classification/Types4.3 Application/End UsersChapter 5 Market Trend Analysis5.1 Introduction5.2 Drivers5.3 Restraints5.4 Opportunities5.5 ThreatsChapter 6 Industry Chain Analysis6.1 Upstream/Suppliers Analysis6.2 Sales Tax Software Analysis6.2.1 Technology Analysis6.2.2 Cost Analysis6.2.3 Market Channel Analysis6.3 Downstream Buyers/End UsersChapter 7 Latest Market Dynamics7.1 Latest News7.2 Merger and Acquisition7.3 Planned/Future Project7.4 Policy DynamicsChapter 8 Trading Analysis8.1 Export of Sales Tax Software by Region8.2 Import of Sales Tax Software by Region8.3 Balance of TradeChapter 9 Historical and Current Sales Tax Software Market in North America (2013-2018)9.1 Sales Tax Software Supply9.2 Sales Tax Software Demand by End Use9.3 Competition by Players/Suppliers9.4 Type Segmentation and Price9.5 Key Countries AnalysisAnd T.O.C contains more Information.About us:Research Reports Inc. is one of the leading destinations for market research reports across all industries, companies, and technologies. Our repository features an exhaustive list of market research reports from thousands of publishers worldwide.Contact Us:DavidSales Manager,US / Canada Toll Free: +18554192424UK: +4403308087757Email: sales@researchreportsinc.com Global Pimozide Market Size, Trends, Insights, Growth and Forecast 2018 to 2025 http://www.amecoresearch.com/sample/9078 http://www.amecoresearch.com/market-report/global-pimozide-market-insights-forecast-to-2025-9078 http://www.amecoresearch.com/buy/9078 The Global Pimozide Market is an in depth study analyzing the current state and forecast 2018-2025. It provides brief overview of the market focusing on definitions, market segmentation, end-use applications and industry chain analysis. The study on Global Pimozide Market provides analysis of market covering the industry trends, recent developments in the market and competitive landscape. Competitive analysis includes competitive information of leading players in market, their company profiles, product portfolio, capacity, production, and company financials. In addition, report also provides upstream raw material analysis and downstream demand analysis along with the key development trends and sales channel analysis. Research study on Global Pimozide Market discusses the opportunity areas for investors.The report provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Download Sample Copy Of This Report From Here:This research report categorizes the global Pimozide market by players/brands, region, type and application. This report also studies the global market status, competition landscape, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis.Pimozide (sold under the brand name Orap) is an antipsychotic drug of the diphenylbutylpiperidine class. It was discovered at Janssen Pharmaceutica in 1963. It has a high potency compared to chlorpromazine (ratio 50-70:1). On a weight basis it is even more potent than haloperidol. It also has special neurologic indications for Tourette syndrome and resistant tics. The side effects include akathisia, tardive dyskinesia, and, more rarely, neuroleptic malignant syndrome and prolongation of the QT interval.The global average price of Pimozide is in the increasing trend, from 1.13 USD/Unit in 2013 to 1.19 USD/Unit in 2017. With the situation of global economy, prices will be in increasing trend in the following five years.The classification of Pimozide includes 1Mg, 2Mg, 4Mg, and the proportion of 2Mg in 2017 is about 53%.Pimozide is widely used in hospitals, drugstores and other places. The most proportion of Pimozide is used for hospitals in 2017 is 54%.In 2017, the global Pimozide market size was 12 million US$ and is forecast to 11 million US in 2025, growing at a CAGR of -0.9% from 2018. The objectives of this study are to define, segment, and project the size of the Pimozide market based on company, product type, application and key regions.The various contributors involved in the value chain of Pimozide include manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, intermediaries, and customers. The key manufacturers in the Pimozide includeTevaPar PharmaceuticalJohnson & JohnsonEumedicaPharmascienceDomina PharmaceuticalsAa PharmaView Detail Report With Complete Table of Content@Market Size Split by Type1Mg2Mg4MgMarket Size Split by ApplicationHospitalsDrugstoresOthersMarket size split by RegionNorth AmericaUnited StatesCanadaMexicoAsia-PacificChinaIndiaJapanSouth KoreaAustraliaIndonesiaSingaporeMalaysiaPhilippinesThailandVietnamEuropeGermanyFranceUKItalySpainRussiaCentral & South AmericaBrazilRest of Central & South AmericaMiddle East & AfricaGCC CountriesTurkeyEgyptSouth AfricaTable of ContentsGlobal Pimozide Market Insights, Forecast to 20251 Study Coverage1.1 Pimozide Product1.2 Key Market Segments1.3 Key Manufacturers Covered1.4 Market by Type1.4.1 Global Pimozide Market Size Growth Rate by Type1.4.2 1Mg1.4.3 2Mg1.4.4 4Mg1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Pimozide Market Size Growth Rate by Application1.5.2 Hospitals1.5.3 Drugstores1.5.4 Others1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Executive Summary2.1 Global Pimozide Market Size2.1.1 Global Pimozide Revenue 2016-20252.1.2 Global Pimozide Sales 2016-20252.2 Pimozide Growth Rate by Regions2.2.1 Global Pimozide Sales by Regions2.2.2 Global Pimozide Revenue by Regions3 Breakdown Data by Manufacturers3.1 Pimozide Sales by Manufacturers3.1.1 Pimozide Sales by Manufacturers3.1.2 Pimozide Sales Market Share by Manufacturers3.1.3 Global Pimozide Market Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI)3.2 Pimozide Revenue by Manufacturers3.2.1 Pimozide Revenue by Manufacturers (2016-2018)3.2.2 Pimozide Revenue Share by Manufacturers (2016-2018)3.3 Pimozide Price by Manufacturers3.4 Pimozide Manufacturing Base Distribution, Product Types3.4.1 Pimozide Manufacturers Manufacturing Base Distribution, Headquarters3.4.2 Manufacturers Pimozide Product Category3.4.3 Date of International Manufacturers Enter into Pimozide Market3.5 Manufacturers Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion Plans4 Breakdown Data by Type4.1 Global Pimozide Sales by Type4.2 Global Pimozide Revenue by Type4.3 Pimozide Price by Type5 Breakdown Data by Application5.1 Overview5.2 Global Pimozide Breakdown Data by Application6 North America6.1 North America Pimozide by Countries6.1.1 North America Pimozide Sales by Countries6.1.2 North America Pimozide Revenue by Countries6.1.3 United States6.1.4 Canada6.1.5 Mexico6.2 North America Pimozide by Type6.3 North America Pimozide by Application6.4 North America Pimozide by Company7 Europe7.1 Europe Pimozide by Countries7.1.1 Europe Pimozide Sales by Countries7.1.2 Europe Pimozide Revenue by Countries7.1.3 Germany7.1.4 France7.1.5 UK7.1.6 Italy7.1.7 Russia7.2 Europe Pimozide by Type7.3 Europe Pimozide by Application7.4 Europe Pimozide by Company8 Asia Pacific8.1 Asia Pacific Pimozide by Countries8.1.1 Asia Pacific Pimozide Sales by Countries8.1.2 Asia Pacific Pimozide Revenue by Countries8.1.3 China8.1.4 Japan8.1.5 Korea8.1.6 India8.1.7 Australia8.1.8 Indonesia8.1.9 Malaysia8.1.10 Philippines8.1.11 Thailand8.1.12 Vietnam8.1.13 Singapore8.2 Asia Pacific Pimozide by Type8.3 Asia Pacific Pimozide by Application8.4 Asia Pacific Pimozide by Company9 Central & South America9.1 Central & South America Pimozide by Countries9.1.1 Central & South America Pimozide Sales by Countries9.1.2 Central & South America Pimozide Revenue by Countries9.1.3 Brazil9.2 Central & South America Pimozide by Type9.3 Central & South America Pimozide by Application9.4 Central & South America Pimozide by Company10 Middle East and Africa10.1 Middle East and Africa Pimozide by Countries10.1.1 Middle East and Africa Pimozide Sales by Countries10.1.2 Middle East and Africa Pimozide Revenue by Countries10.1.3 GCC Countries10.1.4 Turkey10.1.5 Egypt10.1.6 South Africa10.2 Middle East and Africa Pimozide by Type10.3 Middle East and Africa Pimozide by Application10.4 Middle East and Africa Pimozide by Company11 Company Profiles11.1 Teva11.1.1 Teva Company Details11.1.2 Company Description11.1.3 Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin of Pimozide11.1.4 Pimozide Product Description11.1.5 Recent Development11.2 Par Pharmaceutical11.2.1 Par Pharmaceutical Company Details11.2.2 Company Description11.2.3 Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin of Pimozide11.2.4 Pimozide Product Description11.2.5 Recent Development11.3 Johnson & Johnson11.3.1 Johnson & Johnson Company Details11.3.2 Company Description11.3.3 Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin of Pimozide11.3.4 Pimozide Product Description11.3.5 Recent Development11.4 Eumedica11.4.1 Eumedica Company Details11.4.2 Company Description11.4.3 Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin of Pimozide11.4.4 Pimozide Product Description11.4.5 Recent Development11.5 Pharmascience11.5.1 Pharmascience Company Details11.5.2 Company Description11.5.3 Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin of Pimozide11.5.4 Pimozide Product Description11.5.5 Recent Development11.6 Domina Pharmaceuticals11.6.1 Domina Pharmaceuticals Company Details11.6.2 Company Description11.6.3 Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin of Pimozide11.6.4 Pimozide Product Description11.6.5 Recent Development11.7 Aa Pharma11.7.1 Aa Pharma Company Details11.7.2 Company Description11.7.3 Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin of Pimozide11.7.4 Pimozide Product Description11.7.5 Recent Development12 Market Opportunities, Challenges, Risks and Influences Factors Analysis12.1 Market Opportunities and Drivers12.2 Market Challenges12.3 Market Risks/Restraints12.4 Key World Economic Indicators13 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis13.1 Value Chain Analysis13.1.1 Typical Suppliers of Key Pimozide Raw Material13.1.2 Pimozide Customers13.2 Sales Channels Analysis13.2.1 Sales Channels Analysis13.2.2 Distributors14 Research Findings and Conclusion15 Appendix15.1 Research Methodology15.1.1 Methodology/Research Approach15.1.1.1 Research Programs/Design15.1.1.2 Market Size Estimation15.1.1.3 Market Breakdown and Data Triangulation15.1.2 Data Source15.1.2.1 Secondary Sources15.1.2.2 Primary Sources15.2 Author Details15.3 DisclaimerQuick Buy This Premium 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All our personal lubricant products are made from the highest quality materials and undergo clinical testing before going to market.Babystart is one of the world's leading providers of fertility In Vitro Diagnostic (IVD) products and fertility food supplements for men and women.Research And Innovation Centre4 Finch CloseNottinghamNG7 2NN Global Digital Patient Monitoring Devices Market Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2022 Grand View Research, Inc. - Market Research And Consulting. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/digital-patient-monitoring-devices-market?utm_source=pressrelease&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Snehali_Nov12&utm_content=Content San Francisco, Nov 12 Global digital patient monitoring devices market is expected to reach USD 115.0 billion by 2022, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Increasing demand for remote patient monitoring and home healthcare is the key driver for market growth.With rising prevalence of chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, the demand for real time patient monitoring for management of these disorders is increasing. Digital monitoring is the only platform, which helps in continuous patient monitoring, along with providing remote access to patient data and further reducing the clinical decision time.Rising consumer awareness levels along with acceptance amongst caregivers about digital patient monitoring utilities are helping this market to grow substantially.The industry is projected to witness technological advancements and resulting products are expected to be more durable, aesthetically attractive, and encompass guidance from experts such as nutritionist and gym instructors. Smart watches, smart bands, and clips are anticipated to be the focal areas of developments.Browse full research report on Digital Patient Monitoring Devices Market: (Further key findings from the study suggest: Wearable technology held a lucrative share of around 25.0% in technology segment, which was followed by mHealth technology in 2015. Increasing cell phone penetration along with data connectivity assisted the growth of mHealth. Diagnostic devices dominated product segment with over 60.0% share in 2015. Rising focus on monitoring through digital monitoring platforms governed its growth Vital sign monitoring devices are anticipated to exhibit lucrative growth over the forecast period, while neuromonitoring devices are anticipated to be the largest segment over the forecast period. Therapeutic products are expected to witness substantial growth over the forecast period with a rate of over 30.0%. Insulin monitors are expected to witness lucrative growth owing to increasing prevalence of diabetes. As per the market estimates up to 2022, North America held a commanding share of around 35.0% in 2015. The Asia Pacific on the other hand would witness significant growth over the forecast period. Economic developments coupled with untapped demand of huge population are expected to govern the growth of digital patient monitoring devices in the Asia Pacific. Key players operating in this market include Omron Corporation, AT&T, Inc., Philips Healthcare, Airstrip Technologies, Athenahealth, Inc., St. Jude Medical, Welch Allyn, Medtronic Plc, GE Healthcare, Fitbit, Inc., Garmin, Jawbone, Vital Connect, ResMed, and Zephyr Technology Corporation. These players are undertaking various strategic initiatives to sustain the competition. These initiatives include collaborations, mergers, acquisitions, and new product launches. For instance, in November 2015, Vital Connect signed an agreement with Omron Healthcare Co. to distribute HealthPatch MD in Japan. This agreement helped the company to increase its geographical presence as well as market penetration.Grand View Research has segmented the global digital patient monitoring devices market on the basis of type, products, and region:Global digital patient monitoring devices market by type , 2012 - 2022 (USD Billion) Wireless Sensor Technology mHealth Telehealth Wearable Devices Remote Patient Monitoringo Hospital Inpatient Monitoringo Ambulatory Patient Monitoringo Smart Home HealthcareGlobal digital patient monitoring devices market by product , 2012 - 2022 (USD Billion) Diagnostic Monitoring Deviceso Vital Sign Monitorso Sleep Monitorso Fetal Monitorso Neuromonitorso Other Monitors Therapeutic Monitoring Deviceso Insulin Monitoring Deviceso Respiratory Monitorso Other Therapeutic DevicesDigital patient monitoring devices market by region , 2012 - 2022 (USD Billion) North Americao U.S.o Canada Europeo UKo Germany Asia Pacifico Japano China Latin Americao Brazilo Mexico MEAo South Africao Saudi ArabiaGrand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare.201 Spear Street 1100,San Francisco, CA 94105 Global Automotive Led Lightning Market- Hella, Koito Manufacturing, Osram, Magneti Marelli, Valeo, Varroc Group, request free sample to get a complete list of companies https://www.kdmarketinsights.com/sample/344 https://www.kdmarketinsights.com/product/automotive-led-lighting-market-outlook-2018-2023 Automotive Led lightning is a modern lightning method that is a direct replacement for incandescent bulbs and is also resistant to extreme heat and high vibrations. It includes LED Bulbs, LED light bars, daytime running lights, Halo rings, LED grills and many more.According to KD Market insights, Automotive led lightning market is predicted to achieve CAGR of 20.64% during the predicted span of 6 years i.e. 2018-2023. Also, the total valuation of the market in 2017 is calculated as USD 1.8 Billion and thus expected to increase at notable revenue by 2023. The factors that are going to affect the automotive led lightning market is growing production and sales of automobile across the globe. Also, optical innovation can also bolster the growth in this market.Automotive led lightning market research helps in analyzing the market and the reasons behind the demand of the product in the market. The report has been divided on the basis of position, by vehicle type, by sales channel, and by geography. This research provides continuous evaluation of key stakeholders and their strategies that help them to grow in the market. Automotive led lightning market is expected to grow during the period of 6 years due to various benefits this technology provides to its customers. The report the report also provides the assessment of the key stakeholders and their strategies the current market trends, competitors, and challenges faced by the automotive led lightning market.Request for Sample @Automotive led lightning market has been segmented by position, vehicle type, by sales channel and geography. On the basis of position, the market is sub-segmented as front, rear, side, and interior. By vehicle type, the market is sub-segmented as a passenger car, light commercial vehicle, and heavy commercial vehicle. The sales channel is further sub-segmented as OEM. The report gives a detailed overview of every segment of the market in terms of the size, requirements, and trends of the automotive led lightning market across different regions. This section also provides a deep analysis of the market so that plans, policies, and strategies adopted in the market.Research includes a market overview of 2018-2023 and gives a future forecast of the context of the automotive led lightning market. This also covers the innovative technologies and its direct result on the automotive led lightning market. The report provides the leading trends that contribute to overall market growth as well as analyze the factors that are responsible for the effect in every region. The geography covered in this report includes North America (U.S. & Canada), Europe (Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Russia and Rest of Europe), Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and Rest of Asia Pacific), Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Rest of Latin America) and Middle East & Africa (GCC, North Africa, South Africa and Rest of Middle East & Africa).The report reflects the current scenario of the market objective to be taken into consideration in the market for various regions in the world. For this consideration, 2017 is considered as the base year, 2018 as an estimated year and 2019-2023 as a forecasted year. The data has been provided by keeping this consideration in mind. The segments have been further divided with a purpose to examine the market properly and every factor is examined concisely.The last section of the report deals with key factors such as SWOT analysis, risk analysis, key facts, Business strategy, and recent news related to acquisition, expansion, innovative technology adopted, expenses on R&D and expansion in the market have been discussed to provide an overall overview of the product in the market. The study also provides companys positioning and market share in Knife Gate Valve market. Some of the key competitors covered in the report include Magneti Marelli S.p.A., Osram, HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA, STANLEY ELECTRIC CO., LTD, Valeo, ZKW Group, KOITO MANUFACTURING CO , LTD., TOYOTA BOSHOKU CORPORATION, Koninklijke Philips N.V., SG Automotive, Other Major & Niche Players. The company aims to fulfill the desires of its target customers and work according to the market conditions.Browse Full Report with TOC @KD Market Insights has come with the idea of helping business by intelligent decision making and thorough understanding of the industry. We offer a comprehensive database of syndicated research, customized reports as well as consulting services to help a business grow in their respective domain. At KD Market Insights, we offer our client a deep market research reports accompanied by business consulting services that can help them to reach on top of the corporate world. Our customized reports are built by keeping all factors of the industry in mind.Contact Us150 State street, 3rd Floor,Albany, New YorkUnited states (12207)Telephone: +1-518-300-1215Email: - sales@kdmarketinsights.com Booming Growth in Biodefense Market and Global Forecast to 2023 by Top Key Vendors Alnylam Pharma, Bavarian Nordic, Cleveland BioLabs, DynPort Vaccine, Elusys Therapeutics, Ology Bioscience Biodefense Market https://marketprognosis.com/sample-request/17127 https://marketprognosis.com/buyReport/17127 https://marketprognosis.com/enquiry/17127 https://www.marketprognosis.com Marketprognosis.com Publish a New Market Research Report On Global Biodefense Market 2018 - 2023 which contains global key players survey information and forecast to 2023.Overview of the Global Biodefense Market:The Global Biodefense Market is expected to register a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period, 2018 to 2023.Bioterrorism is the use of biological agents that are harmful for mankind. Biodefense includes medical measures to protect from biological agents. Key factors driving the market growth are rise in technological advancement, such as nanotechnology, database management systems, advanced detector hardware, and gene chips for pathogen detection in the forensic department. Also, the rise in the production of vaccines, enhanced forensics, and quick diagnostic procedures and detection techniques are the factors expected to drive the market growth. Additionally, due to the recent outbreak of Nipah, Ebola, and Zika viruses governments are increasing R&D funding. Increasing investments by regional governments of developed countries for biodefense are also expected to enhance the market growth over the forecast period.Get a Sample Copy of this Report @Governments spend huge sums of money every year for the R&D of vaccines in order stay prepared for any bioterrorism attacks. Pharmaceutical companies operating in the biodefense sector have huge opportunities to expand due to governments drive to be prepared for any kind of bioterrorism. For instance, in 2004, the US congress passed the Project Bioshield act, calling for USD 5 billion investment for purchasing vaccines which can be used in the event of a bioterrorist attack. This act was designed to acquire medical countermeasures to biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear agents for civilian use. Such government initiatives are expected to propel the growth of the biodefense market.The growth of biodefense market may be hampered by the low market penetration in the developing and underdeveloped countries. Limited government interventions and funding for biodefense materials are some of the major reasons restraining the growth of the market. Developed countries have more resources to be prepared for a bio war when compared to developing countries.Purchase this report online with 107 Pages, Top Key Players Analysis and List of Tables & Figure @North America dominated the global biodefense market in 2017, which can be attributed to the increase in government funding to generate and stockpile sufficient vaccines to be used against anthrax through various initiatives, such as BioShield act, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical & Biological Defense. For instance, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced it plans to spend more than USD 25 million on an anthrax antitoxin, as a part of an emergency preparedness plan in 2018. In May 2018, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announced that USD 25 million was granted to advance the development and manufacture of a vaccine against the Nipah virus (NiV) to major market players, like Profectus BioSciences Inc. and Emergent BioSolutions Inc. The above mentioned initiatives by government are expected to boost the growth of the market in the region.Major Key Players:1 Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc.2 Bavarian Nordic3 Cleveland BioLabs4 DynPort Vaccine Company LLC5 Elusys Therapeutics Inc.6 Emergent BioSolutions Inc.7 Ichor Medical Systems8 Ology Bioscience and More.Any Query? Ask to our Expert @This study answers to the below key questions:1 What will the market size be in 2023 and what will the growth rate be?2 What are the key market trends?3 What are the challenges to market growth?4 Who are the key players in this market?5 What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key players?In the end, this report covers data and information on capacity and production overview, production, market share analysis, sales overview, supply, sales, and shortage, import, export and consumption as well as cost, price, revenue and gross margin of Biodefense Market.Table of Contents:1 Introduction2 Research Methodology3 Executive Summary4 Key Inferences5 Market Overview6 Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities and Challenges Analysis (Droc)7 Market Segmentation8 Competitive Landscape9 Key Players10 Future Outlook of the MarketAbout us:We at Market Prognosis believe in giving a crystal clear view of market dynamics for achieving success in todays complex and competitive marketplace through our quantitative & qualitative research methods.We help our clients identify the best market insights and analysis required for their business thus enabling them to take strategic and intelligent decision.We believe in delivering actionable insights for your business growth and success.Contact us:ProgMark Pvt. Ltd.Thane 421501India.sales@marketprognosis.com+1 973 241 5193 Global Skin Protectant Products Market 2018 by Top Manufacturers TRI-K Industries, 3M, Canvas Tec, Medline Industries, Pharmaceutical Specialties, Johnson and Johnson, Warner-Lambert, Unilever https://www.researchreportsinc.com/sample-request?id=235203 https://www.researchreportsinc.com/check-discount?id=235203 https://researchreportsinc.com/checkout/?add-to-cart=235203&&attribute_pa_choose-license=single-user&&quantity=1 The skin protectant product is antibacterial and biological fluid barriers.The skin protectant products market is expected to grow gradually owing to its wide applications in cosmetics and medical industries.Download Sample Copy Of Skin Protectant Products Market Report @Leaders Of The Industry: - TRI-K Industries, 3M, ConvaTec, Medline Industries, Pharmaceutical Specialties, Johnson and Johnson, Warner-Lambert, Unilever and so on.Furthermore, years considered for the study are as follows:The historical year 2013, 2016The base year 2017Forecast period 2018 to 2023Target Audience of the Global Skin Protectant Products Market in Market Study: Skin Protectant Products Key Consulting Companies & Advisors Skin Protectant Products Large, medium-sized, and small enterprises Skin Protectant Products Venture capitalists Skin Protectant Products Value-Added Resellers (VARs) Skin Protectant Products Third-party knowledge providers Skin Protectant Products Investment bankers Skin Protectant Products InvestorsGrab Guaranteed Discount:By Category: Skin Protectant Products Video Content Skin Protectant Products Digital Text Content Skin Protectant Products Digital Games Content Skin Protectant Products Digital Audio ContentBy Device: Skin Protectant Products Mobile Content Skin Protectant Products Non-Mobile ContentBy Regions: Skin Protectant Products North America The U.S. Canada Skin Protectant Products Europe UK Germany Skin Protectant Products Asia Pacific China India Japan Skin Protectant Products Latin America Brazil MexicoWe Also Can Offer Customized Report To Fulfill Special Requirements Of Our Clients.Purchase this Premium Report (Flat 20% off Apply Coupon Code DISC20):-Table of Contents2018-2023 Global Skin Protectant Products Consumption Market Report1 The scope of the Report1.1 Market Introduction1.2 Research Objectives1.3 Years Considered1.4 Market Research Methodology1.5 Economic Indicators1.6 Currency Considered2 Executive Summary2.1 World Market Overview2.1.1 Global Skin Protectant Products Consumption 2013-20232.1.2 Skin Protectant Products Consumption CAGR by Region2.2 Skin Protectant Products Segment by Type2.2.1 Electrical Polisher2.2.2 Pneumatic Polisher2.3 Skin Protectant Products Consumption by Type2.3.1 Global Skin Protectant Products Consumption Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3.2 Global Skin Protectant Products Revenue and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3.3 Global Skin Protectant Products Sale Price by Type (2013-2018)2.4 Skin Protectant Products Segment by Application2.4.1 Automotive Repair Shop2.4.2 Automotive Care Shop2.4.3 Others2.5 Skin Protectant Products Consumption by Application2.5.1 Global Skin Protectant Products Consumption Market Share by Application (2013-2018)2.5.2 Global Skin Protectant Products Value and Market Share by Application (2013-2018)2.5.3 Global Skin Protectant Products Sale Price by Application (2013-2018)3 Global Skin Protectant Products by Players3.1 Global Skin Protectant Products Sales Market Share by Players3.1.1 Global Skin Protectant Products Sales by Players (2016-2018)3.1.2 Global Skin Protectant Products Sales Market Share by Players (2016-2018)3.2 Global Skin Protectant Products Revenue Market Share by Players3.2.1 Global Skin Protectant Products Revenue by Players (2016-2018)3.2.2 Global Skin Protectant Products Revenue Market Share by Players (2016-2018)3.3 Global Skin Protectant Products Sale Price by Players3.4 Global Skin Protectant Products Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area, Product Types by Players3.4.1 Global Skin Protectant Products Manufacturing Base Distribution and Sales Area by Players3.4.2 Players Skin Protectant Products Products Offered3.5 Market Concentration Rate Analysis3.5.1 Competition Landscape Analysis3.5.2 Concentration Ratio (CR3, CR5, and CR10) (2016-2018)3.6 New Products and Potential Entrants3.7 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion4 Skin Protectant Products by Regions4.1 Skin Protectant Products by Regions4.1.1 Global Skin Protectant Products Consumption by Regions4.1.2 Global Skin Protectant Products Value by Regions4.2 Americas Skin Protectant Products Consumption Growth4.3 APAC Skin Protectant Products Consumption Growth4.4 Europe Skin Protectant Products Consumption Growth4.5 the Middle East & Africa Skin Protectant Products Consumption Growth5 Americas5.1 Americas Skin Protectant Products Consumption by Countries5.1.1 Americas Skin Protectant Products Consumption by Countries (2013-2018)5.1.2 Americas Skin Protectant Products Value by Countries (2013-2018)5.2 Americas Skin Protectant Products Consumption by Type5.3 Americas Skin Protectant Products Consumption by Application5.4 United States5.5 Canada5.6 Mexico5.7 Key Economic Indicators of Few Americas CountriesAbout Us:Research Reports Inc. is one of the leading destinations for market research reports across all industries, companies, and technologies. Our repository features an exhaustive list of market research reports from thousands of publishers worldwideWith our expertise and research offerings, we ensure we deliver on all your requirements, whether youre looking for the industry analysis or market trends or anything else, first time and every time!Email us sales@researchreportsinc.comCall: US / Canada Toll Free: +18554192424, UK : +4403308087757 | BY Ricki Green | The Better Big Bank campaign from AJF Partnership presents Bendigo Bank as a better alternative to the big four banks. As Australias fifth biggest retail bank, Australias most trusted bank and among Australias top ten most trusted brands, Bendigo Bank is snapping at the heels of the big four. Building on the Banks existing strengths around banking solutions, innovation and price competitiveness, The Better Big Bank campaign encourages customers of the big four banks to seek a better banking alternative by highlighting Bendigo Banks superior trust and customer satisfaction ratings and track record of putting the interests of customers first. Says Andrew Twaits, executive, customer and partner engagement, Bendigo Bank: The big four banks dominate the market for financial services and this is largely because 70 percent of their customers think that no other bank can meet their needs. This is plainly wrong at least as far as Bendigo Bank is concerned so were running a campaign to set the record straight. The better big bank campaign has two aims: to educate people about the strength of Bendigo Banks product offering and price competitiveness; and to remind people that we beat the big four on trust, customer service and putting the interests of customers first. Says Andrew Foote, founding partner and executive creative director, AJF Partnership: Bendigo Bank is known and loved for the support it provides to customers and communities all over Australia. Its position as a real contender to the big four based on its core banking capabilities is arguably one of bankings best-kept secrets. The Better Big Bank campaign gives prospective customers compelling reasons to consider banking with Australias most trusted bank. The Better Big Bank campaign includes a number of phases, launching with a focus on repositioning Bendigo Banks brand around capability, scale and trust, followed by a focus on key banking products. The multi-channel campaign will run across all channels and will be supported by a strong customer- facing staff commitment to the Banks customer value proposition. Client: Bendigo Bank Agency: AJF Partnership, a GrowthOps business Executive Creative Director: Andrew Foote Creative Director: Glenn Dalton Senior Art Director: Dillon McKenna Senior Copywriter: Sandra Galiazzo General Manager: Jayne Brady Senior Account Director: Sarah Dalli Account Manager: Emily Howat TV Production: Liesel Haug Strategy: Jacqueline Witts, Christine OKeefe Animation: XYZ Studios LOZOVA MACHINERY joined the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club (UCAB) and became the only domestic producer of the agricultural implements among the association members. To be the first and the best is that LOZOVA MACHINERY is seeking to and what unites our company and UCAB, Roman Girshfeld, Vice President Sales and Marketing, points out. The own unique developments and patented solutions, implemented in LOZOVA MACHINERY tools, allowed the company to be the first, By APRIL RYAN Special to The Washington Post Wednesday, when PBS's Yamiche Alcindor asked President Donald Trump if his campaign rhetoric was "emboldening white nationalists," the president (who has, in recent weeks, railed against "power-hungry globalists," a distant immigrant "caravan," and called African-American Tallahassee mayor and Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum a "stone-cold thief") tried to turn the tables by saying: "That's such a racist question." Friday, when CNN's Abby Phillip asked Trump if he wanted newly-designated acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to "rein in" special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump tried to dismiss her by saying: "What a stupid question that is. What a stupid question. But I watch you a lot, you ask a lot of stupid questions." Wednesday at the White House, he told me to "sit down." In Friday's press gaggle, he called me "nasty" and a "loser," never mind my 21 years, covering four presidents as a reporter for American Urban Radio Networks. It's not hard to find the common denominator: Though there's hardly anyone - from his predecessors to senators in his own party - he won't try to shout down with ad hominem insults, Trump relishes, and injects venom into, verbal attacks against women of color. He leaves little doubt about what he really thinks of us. In rally after rally, when Trump says Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., has a "low I.Q." he's showing contempt for the idea that a black woman, who has sworn an oath to uphold the same Constitution as he, should be able to speak her mind if she in any way challenges his authority. When he feuded with Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., over his response to the death of her constituent, LaDavid Johnson, an African-American Army sergeant killed in action, he failed to live up to his role as commander in chief. When he says Stacey Abrams, a Yale Law School graduate and former Democratic leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, is "not qualified" to be her state's governor, he's applying a double standard. When he feuded, via Twitter, with Jemele Hill, the National Association of Black Journalists' 2018 journalist of the year (an award I was honored with in 2017) Trump telegraphed that there's something about being questioned by a black woman that he can't abide. One or two of these instances might only leave you scratching your head. But we've reached the point where it's an unmistakable pattern. The journalists covering Trump's presidency are professionals, and I'm confident that all of us, including the African-American women covering this White House, will continue to do our jobs no matter how we're treated by President Trump. But we shouldn't have to put up with the kind of treatment we received this week: Not only has the president given cover to people who want to harass us, he's left the American people with a twisted understanding of how press freedoms work. He seems not to appreciate that journalists' role is to hold power to account, and, at times, seems unwilling to face tough questions. At the end of my exchange with him at the most recent White House news conference - the type of exchange that I've had, completely respectfully, with other presidents - he implied that my White House hard pass, the credential that allows me White House access daily, might be pulled. That's not how things are supposed to work in a democracy. And the taunting, schoolyard-bully atmosphere winds up putting a stain on the highest office in the land. The White House is where decisions about war and peace, taxes and spending, and fundamental human rights are made - a place where life or death can be determined by the stroke of a pen. The presidency is the one office that's supposed to represent everyone, no matter their faith, race, gender or orientation. Correspondents don't go to the White House every day to make friends. We do our jobs courteously, but also thoroughly and assertively, to get answers for our viewers, listeners and readers about the statements and actions that affect all Americans' lives. Sometimes that means having a quiet sidebar with a member of the White House communications staff. Sometimes that means meeting with first son-in-law and presidential adviser Jared Kushner to discuss the administration's approach to criminal justice reform. Sometimes that means shouting a question at the president as he crosses the White House lawn on the way to boarding Marine One. You can tell, though, by the way Trump has responded in recent days to more than one black woman journalist that he sees our presence there as illegitimate. If he didn't, he'd either answer our questions or simply ignore them, not berate us. But when Trump denigrates black women, he's sending the message that he doesn't see us equally. Every morning that I walk through the White House gates, I thank God for the privilege of doing the job that I do, and for the trust and faith that my listeners put in me to ask for, and bring home, the truth. Every day, I try to remember that, to the best of my knowledge of my family's history, I am only five generations removed from the last known member of my family to be enslaved, Joseph Dollar Brown, who was sold on the auction block in North Carolina. And I carry that knowledge with me, because I owe it to him to cover the presidency the best way I know how, no matter how much pushback I get. The White House has had issues with me ever since January, when I asked, "Mr. President, are you a racist?" After his response to Charlottesville, after "s---hole countries," after "get that son of a b---- off the field" and "What the hell do you have to lose?" it's more than a fair question, it's necessary. As a black woman journalist, I'm going to keep asking it and continue seeking answers. That's my job and I am up for it. - - - Ryan is White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks. She is the author, most recently, of "Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House." By Travis Williams Willamette Falls is a defining feature along the Willamette River with great significance to the Native American Tribes who historically fished at the site, and still fish there today. Long before the first white visitors arrived in Oregon, generations of people fished Willamette Falls. They used platforms built on the rocks above the flow to regularly catch salmon, steelhead and sturgeon during key times of the year. As Oregon City and West Linn developed in the 1800s, industry sought to harness the falls. In doing so, the cities displaced the traditional practices of the people who had been using the area for more than 8,000 years. Today, a shuttered pulp plant dominates the Oregon City side of the falls, while West Linn Paper recently closed on the other side. In between these closed facilities sits another, the Portland General Electric Hydropower plant. The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde has worked in earnest over the past few years to restore their long-held fishing rights at the Falls. They aim to erect a new traditional fishing platform like those historically used for fishing at Willamette Falls. Working with the Oregon Department of State Lands and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Grand Ronde leaders received the proper approvals to construct their platform on state-owned land at the center of the falls. State officials respected their sovereign rights by allowing them to build the platform and harvest a small number of fish. Tribal leaders completed a temporary fishing platform that is well-situated and safe. They reached an agreement with PGE that allowed access from the west side, enabling tribal members to walk a path across the rock to reach the platform. But late in the process, PGE changed course and denied tribal members access to the platform citing safety concerns. PGE's move was wrong on many levels. PGE is one of the entities that has vastly changed the nature of the falls over the years. The utility erected a small dam, manipulated river flows and built over what is, in essence, sacred tribal grounds. Now, PGE has denied Grand Ronde tribal members safe access to their ancestral grounds. Instead of an easy walk, tribal members must cross a turbulent flow that is approximate to Class 3 whitewater rapids. They must pull their way on ropes across the tumult wearing dry suits. Once they reach the west side, they must scale slippery rock along the river's edge to reach the platform. PGE's refusal to let tribal members walk to the platform needlessly puts the community at risk, and limits access to only the hardiest of people. As an Oregonian and a long-time river advocate, I'm appalled at PGE's role in this situation. The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde deserve better from PGE. PGE leaders should rethink their decision for the next fishing season, and do what is right for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Travis Williams is riverkeeper and executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper, which is based in Portland. Share your opinion Submit your essay of 800 words or less on a highly topical issue or a theme of particular relevance to the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and the Portland area to commentary@oregonian.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification. This election results are sad for Democrats and Republicans. Our federal government will now be another four years of gridlock by a house controlled by Democrats and Senate controlled by Republicans. We, Oregonians, will also receive the effect of another four years of Gov. Kate Brown and Oregon unions. There now will be little or no effort to control public employee pension costs. Schools, cities and counties will suffer financially and possibly go bankrupt. No one has really won anything except four more years of nothing. -- Ben McClurg, Lake Oswego Share your opinion Fired up? ! Submit 250 words or less and please include your first and last name, hometown and a phone number for verification. The resolutions adopted in eight Oregon counties regarding enforcement of state gun laws have been wrongly compared to Oregon's sanctuary and marijuana laws ("Militia groups help gun rights measure pass in 8 Oregon counties," Nov. 6) These nutty resolutions are more like an Oregon declaration of war against Canada. The resolutions display a shocking ignorance of government and constitutional law principles. The political source for such thinking is the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association which, allied with extremist right-wing militia groups, advances a bizarre theory that sheriffs are the highest legal authority in the land. Many affected counties have CSPOA sheriffs, and in the rest, sheriffs are under pressure to fall in line. State officials have looked the other way as this movement has grown, not wanting to exacerbate the urban - rural divide. It is normal for local law enforcement officials to set priorities based on their resources, public safety needs, and community values. Done properly, the result is more public support and better public safety. But done wrongly, the result is rogues like Joe Arpaio or Bull Connor -- partisan sheriffs who consider themselves above the law and who victimize people they should protect. It was bad enough when elected officials started demanding their own "alternate facts." We now have elected Oregon sheriffs demanding an alternate Constitution. It is time for state authorities to respond to the extremist fringe undermining law enforcement and public safety in rural areas. -- Kathleen Pool, Portland Gov. Rick Snyder recently appointed Lindsay Eggers of Linwood to the Saginaw Valley State University Board of Control. She replaces Luis Canales, who resigned from the board over the summer, due to relocating out of state. "We welcome Lindsay Eggers to our board and we thank her for her willingness to serve our university and our community in this vital volunteer capacity," said Donald Bachand, SVSU president. "Lindsay is actively involved in the Great Lakes Bay Region, and she has demonstrated an outstanding business acumen in her professional career. We look forward to working with her to provide more and better opportunities for our students." Frigid temperatures did not dissuade the crowd that gathered Sunday morning at the Veterans Memorial outside the Midland County Courthouse. Several generations attended a Veterans Day ceremony hosted by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Chemical City Post No. 3651. In addition to honoring all veterans, the ceremony acknowledged this as the 100th year of the end of World War I, known as the war to end all wars. After starting the event with the pledge to the flag, Wayne DeVerney, master of ceremonies, pointed out that 20 million people were wounded during WWI. Of the estimated 9 million or more soldiers, from multiple countries, killed in action eight were from Midland County: Chester Berryhill, Edward Burow, Jesse Burch, Joseph Demske, Alva Hackett, Edward Pomranky, Lyman Shanger and William Smith. To put that in perspective, Michigan has 9.5 million people, said DeVerney, commander of VFW Post 3651. Following an invocation, wreaths were presented from numerous organizations including the American Legion and Blue Star Mothers. Many stopped and acknowledged the flag, saluting or placing a hand on their heart, before presenting a wreath. Vietnam War veteran, Specialist Gary Purcell, then addressed the crowd. A decorated Army serviceman, Purcell served with Charlie Company in the 199th Infantry. He has continued to serve the community as well as other veterans. Purcell celebrated our 243 years of independence, from the Battle of Bunker Hill to Baghdad; reminding that we are all beneficiaries of the blessing of those servicemen who sacrificed to uphold our beliefs and our freedoms. We have become a beacon of hope and freedom to others around the world, Purcell said. Next, Sen. Jim Stamas, who served in the U.S. Army as well as the Michigan National Guard, presented an award to Dick Stevens for serving our community and nation for more than four decades. Stevens, a Korean War veteran and Purple Heart recipient, led the Midland County Veterans Honor Guard as commander for more than 35 years. He has served at more than 3,000 funerals and other events. Stevens was part of the Armys 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, surviving two combat jumps behind enemy lines. After the award was presented the Color Guard from VFW Post 3651 presented arms for a salute to all veterans. Following a benediction, a luncheon took place at the local VFW. Paul Girardin, who served in the U.S .Navy as an engineman for four years, attended the ceremony outside the courthouse. He also served in the Army National Guard. Ive been coming for the last 40 years, he said. He has helped out at ceremonies such as this in the past. Now he enjoys simply attending, despite the cold. Members of an 11th-grade history class from H.H. Dow High also attended. We are from Ms. Grocholskis class, junior Sentthur SKV said. While they could get extra credit for attending, another student pointed out that they were also there to support veterans. Were talking about this in class, SKV said. Were here to learn. Basically, a lot of people lost their lives. It is especially important to remember. They gave their lives to protect us. They were giving their lives for the lives of others. Junior Irshad Reza Husain also attended. Its important to remember things that happened a long time ago, Reza Husain said. Because history is past, present and future we can still learn from it. Tom Mapes, a veteran of the Vietnam War, attended for another reason. Its personal, Mapes said. A distant cousin from Midland County, Alva Hackett, who died in WWI, is listed on the Veterans Memorial. He was killed in action; a casualty of war, Mapes said. He was buried in France. I still have a picture of the cross. Mapes served in the U.S. Army with the 101st Airborne Division. He worked with Cobra Armament Systems. His father, Clifford Mapes, who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a pilot and four of his uncles are listed on the WWII wall. My dad lived to 99; he was only 2 when WWI ended. Exactly 100 years ago. Beaverton City Council voted recently to reprimand two city Department of Public Works employees. Beaverton City Manager Heath Kaplan said the workers caused about $5,000 in damage to a city truck. The city hasn't received a bill, yet, for the recent damage. Kaplan said per contracts, city officials can't release the employees' names or speak of the reprimands. Mayor Ray Nau said it's not that officials are deliberately withholding information, it is that they must per law. The council voted unanimously to follow the personnel committee's recommendation to reprimand the two workers. In other recent business, the council addressed the recently finished Porter Street Bridge. There is a dip in the bridge, which city officials and the city engineer deem a "bird bath." Beaverton Police Chief Brad Davis said it needs to be fixed. "Once it starts icing up, people will be bouncing off that guard rail," the chief said of the bridge. The bridge that connects the east and west closed in mid-July and reopened in early September after a $260,000 overhaul. The Michigan Department of Transportation paid all but 5 percent of the cost. The city paid the remainder. Beaverton City Engineer Mike Faeth said the contractors that constructed the bridge were bonded. Yet, the contractors claim they followed specifications. Faeth said he along with MDOT will take a look at the bridge. "I'm not saying there won't still be a claim," Faeth said. However, Faeth feels confident the city won't be charged for the inadequacy at the bridge. | BY Ricki Green | Today, creative agency, VIRTUE, introduced a number of key hires, innovative campaigns, and an expanding roster of clients within its newly established Sydney office. VIRTUE is the creative agency born from global youth media brand VICE, and will service the whole of Asia-Pacific from three offices in Sydney, Singapore and Seoul. The agency aims to bring the VICE ethos to the creative business through a deep understanding of the youth audience, and ideas that are culturally relevant. Leading VIRTUE in Australia will be Alex Light, an industry stalwart whose long tenure at VICE brings experience on campaigns and clients including Unilever, Pernod Ricard, Google, CUB, Air New Zealand and Intel. Says Light: We believe that brands can and should shape culture, and VIRTUE is uniquely positioned to do just that. As a publisher-born agency, weve got access to audience data and culture that enable the creation of meaningful ideas. Our roots in the VICE media business, and presence across Asia, allow us to tap into talent and trends for both leading Australian brands and multinational clients. Joining VIRTUE Sydney in the role of senior account director is Matty Graham, with experience from Clemenger BBDO and DDB, on accounts including Visa, CUB, Mars and Westpac. He will work alongside client services director, Damien Miller. The creative department will be helmed by Royce Akers who has been leading VICEs creative output for 10 years. Also joining the local team in the role of senior creative is Edwin Hughan, working alongside creative Hannah McElhinney. Hughan comes with agency pedigree from Host, Clemenger BBDO and Colenso BBDO, before most recently working in the creative team within BuzzFeed. Says Akers: Weve gotten bigger over the years but our approach to making things has stayed the same. Were nimble, we dont follow the pack, and we create in-step with the people driving culture forward. VIRTUE is no different. When we create with brands, its additive to the conversations and experience of young people, and delivered with style. Moving into the role of senior strategist will be Melanie Mahony. Mahony has been with VICE for two years, leading the strategic output for Sydneys brand partnerships team, with experience on blue-chip brands including Intel, Unilever and Westpac. Says Mahony: Having worked for news and culture publications for 10 years, I believe brands need to think like publishers if they want to create content and experiences people care about. Im looking forward to bringing cultural insights to the forefront of our clients minds and creating work that adds to instead of taking away from culture. VIRTUEs Australian office has already worked with a number of multinational clients, creating a range of culture-first campaigns, including: The creation of a new ATL campaign for Pernod Ricard brand Brancott Estate, to launch new sub-brand Identity in the New Zealand and Australian markets. A powerful video with Closeup on their #freetolove campaign, exploring barriers to love across inter-caste, class, race and LGBTQI+ relationships in India, Brazil and the Philippines, working alongside Lowe and local agency partners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9z0b4GhhOs eBays Hump Shopping Network Facebook live stream, running across four weeks and delivering over 16 hrs of hilarious content: https://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/hump-month-infomercial?utm_term=.yvMaK74lGp#.ubaOoYwRlA Multiple projects for CUB brands including Carlton Dry, Yak Ales, and VB. Says Aaron Pearce, managing director, VIRTUE APAC: There is no doubt the standard of agency work coming out of Australia is impressive and world-class; as we continue to build the local team they will be pivotal in ensuring VIRTUE delivers world-class campaigns both domestically and across Asia. We have already seen great success in this model with projects across both North and Southeast Asia, with the likes of ABInBev and Unilever; and this momentum is not stopping as we travel into 2019. Sunday, November 11, 2018 at 8:53PM If you still have a Nintendo Wii lying around and youre using it to watch Netflix, we have some bad news for you. Unfortunately, Netflix will be ending the support for the console after January 30, 2019. After the date, Nintendo announced all video streaming services will be suspended for the console. The Wii Shop Channel will also be shut down. So now might be the best time to upgrade your console, give the new ones a try, okay? Source: Polygon This is a Facebook exchange I had with Neil Shenvi , a chemist who is a Calvinist. His words will be in * * * * * Weve discussed how in Galatians 1:8-9 Paul tells the Galatians to reject his own teaching if it departs from the words of God that he had preached to them. And precisely the same argument applies even if he was speaking only to the judaizers; he was telling clearly telling someone to reject his teaching if it strayed from Gods word. Paul wrote: Galatians 1:8-9 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under Gods curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under Gods curse! We could also consider how Paul rebukes Peter in Antioch because he stood condemned for not acting in line with the truth of the gospel. Here Paul rebukes a fellow apostle for not conforming his practice to Gods word. Again, Gods word has authority over even the apostles: Galatians 2:11-16 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. When rebuking his people for following pagan religious practices, God told his people through Isaiah: To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Is. 8:20 Finally, Jesus condemned the religious leaders of his day: Mark 7:8, 13 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that. The real question then seems to be whether Paul received his apostleship from Jesus himself directly or from the other apostles. Here, I again think Galatians is crucial. Paul writes: Paul, an apostlesent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead Gal. 1:1 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. Gal. 1:11-12 Or consider: It is incorrect to regard St. Paul as some kind of spiritual lone ranger, on his own with no particular ecclesiastical allegiance, since he was commissioned by Jesus Himself as an Apostle. In his very conversion experience, Jesus informed Paul that he would be told what to do (Acts 9:6; cf. 9:17). He went to see St. Peter in Jerusalem for fifteen days in order to be confirmed in his calling (Galatians 1:18), and fourteen years later was commissioned by Peter, James, and John (Galatians 2:1-2, 9). He was also sent out by the Church at Antioch (Acts 13:1-4), which was in contact with the Church at Jerusalem (Acts 11:19-27). Later on, Paul reported back to Antioch (Acts 14:26-28). Acts 15:2 states: . . . Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. The next verse refers to Paul and Barnabas being sent on their way by the church. Paul did what he was told to do by the Jerusalem Council (where he played no huge role), and Paul and Barnabas were sent off, or commissioned by the council (15:22-27), and shared its binding teachings in their missionary journeys: . . . delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem (Acts 16:4). * The attempt to pretend that St. Paul was somehow on his own, disconnected to the institutional Church, has always failed, as unbiblical. Protestant frown upon institutions, but we Catholics rather like the Church that Jesus Christ set up, initially led by St. Peter. * * * * The Bible repeatedly teaches that the Church is indefectible; therefore, the hypothetical of rejecting the (one true, historic) Church, as supposedly going against the Bible, is impossible according to the Bible. It is not a situation that would ever come up, because of Gods promised protection. What the Bible says is to reject those who cause divisions, which is the very essence of the onset of Protestantism: schism, sectarianism, and division. It is Protestantism that departed from the historic Church, which is indefectible and infallible (see also 1 Tim 3:15). 1. Do you agree that Paul told the Galatians that his own apostolic authority was derived from preaching Gods words and was to be rejected if he departed from Gods words (1:8-9)? How would you answer these questions? * * Therefore, heresies and Protestantism either had to play games with history in order to pretend that it fits with their views, or ignore it altogether. No doubt you arent even aware that you are doing it. To do this is automatic in Protestantism; its like breathing. Its like the fish that doesnt know its in water. It all comes from the rejection of the infallibility of the Church (which is one thing that sola Scriptura always entails). Anyway, as I said, Im more interested in those three questions, and Im curious how youd answer them. Protestants dont have enough faith to believe that God could preserve an infallible Church, even though they can muster up even more faith than that, which is required to believe in an infallible Bible written by a bunch of sinners and hypocrites. We simply have more faith than you guys do. Its a supernatural gift. We believe that the authoritative Church is also a key part of Gods plan to save the souls of men. We follow the model of the Jerusalem Council, whereas you guys reject that or ignore it, because it doesnt fit in with the man-made tradition of Protestantism and a supposedly non-infallible Church. Dave, this is the key issue. I asked: Is the church under the authority of Gods words or not? Your answer was: yes. But then just one sentence later, you wrote: Its not a matter of one thing being under the other. u are not really saying yes. You are trying to say both. But that is not what Paul is saying in Gal. 1:8-9. He says that he -even as an apostle- is to be rejected if he strays from Gods word. If he strays from Gods words then he is accursed and he commands the Galatians to reject him. Why would he issue such a command unless his own authority -apostle though he was- is derivative from Gods words? Exactly. Yo * Its a matter of definition and meaning. I know what you are driving at, because I used to believe the same thing myself. But I also have to show where your thinking is unbiblical, and must dispute the premises that underlie your questions. The whole thing is a far more complex matter than Protestants usually comprehend, because they have been taught only one way of looking at things: sola Scriptura and anti-institutionalism, and anti-Catholicism (either subtle or more pernicious opposition). Dave, are you claiming that Pauls statement in Gal. 1:8-9 is purely hypothetical? In other words, is he not actually telling the Galatians that they should test his words against the words of God because his words and the words of God will never conflict? If so, you should consider that Paul writes if we or an angel from heaven If anyone is preaching a gospel other than what you accepted. Note that Paul is putting himself in the same class as an angel from heaven or anyone in terms of his condemnation if he strays from Gods word. As Alan rightly noted, Galatians is written specifically to convince the Galatians to reject the false gospel of the judaizers which was under Gods curse. Paul is calling for a real rejection of real false teachers and then includes himself in the list. He says that all teachers and all people claiming authority are subject to Gods words. So the command here cannot possible be purely hypothetical. It is real and it is a command to all Christians. There is such a thing as a false church and false gospel, that must be rejected, and there is also the one true Church that cannot fail doctrinally, based on Gods protection. You assert the first thing but reject the second, which is your difficulty (accepting one part of the Bible but not another). We accept both things and have no difficulty. If you want to cry Bible, Bible then at least give us more of it than one passage! If all you can do is repeat your mantra, and you refuse to interact with opposing arguments, then the dialogue will soon be over. We believe that the Church preserves this true gospel in perpetuity, because it is infallible and indefectible. Even disciples can fall away (Judas is described as elect yet fell away). But the one true Church cannot. False claimants of supposed true Church status can fall away if they are not the Church established by Jesus Christ, with St. Peter as the first pope. Now the question is: what happens if a church turns around and starts preaching a gospel different than the one that was given by God? Then we reject it. But indefectibility prevents that from happening in the case of the one true Church, as I have now stated some 7-8 times or so. Maybe if I repeat things enough, like you do, they will eventually sink in, since what I say is true: directly based on Holy Scripture. Does the Catholic church have the same derivative authority as Paul? Yes, from God. It was started by our Lord, Jesus Christ (Matt 16:18-19). Are they also to be held to the standard that Paul held out for his own authority? Yes. But this also requires accepting in faith what God says about the one Church, as recorded in inspired Scripture. If you dont care about those passages, then you wont have a scriptural conception of what the Church is. Or do they have a greater authority than Paul did? Yes; the Jerusalem Council was a greater authority than Paul since it sent him off (Acts 15:22-25), and he proclaimed for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem (Acts 16:4). Thus the Council, representing the infallible and binding authority of the Church (binding and loosing), had greater authority than he did. Calvinists have the bizarre position of holding that a person who was truly a follower of Jesus Christ couldnt possibly fall away (perseverance of the saints; irresistible grace); therefore Paul couldnt possibly do so, and all this is a moot point, from that perspective. Yet the Church that God set up could fall away from the true gospel. Classic individualist and unbiblical nonsense . . . If you are a Calvinist, you believe it isnt possible for Paul to do so; therefore, all this is much ado about nothing. Does the Catholic church say the same thing? [Is] it also willing to command Christians to test their teaching against Gods words and to reject it if they stray from Gods words? Or is it infallible in a way that Paul the apostle was not? Yes, it is. It is infallible and indefectible; therefore it is different in essence from one apostle. Ive said this, now, maybe 15 times? Does it take 50 times to sink in for you? I can cut and paste it 50 times if you like. :-) One hundred years ago, on Nov. 13, 1918, Milton S. Hershey placed his shares of equity stock in the Hershey Chocolate Company into a trust fund for the Milton Hershey School. The 5,000 shares ensured the well-being and future of Milton Hershey School in perpetuity. Hershey Industrial School was established Nov. 15, 1909, on the farm where Milton Hershey was born. In 1910, the first 10 students came to the school. In 1918, according to the school, Milton Hershey gifted his fortune to the school. According to the school, Hershey was interviewed for several publications expressing his reasons and plans for the future of the school. He told Liberty magazine in 1923, It was natural for me to think of education and of orphans and boys whose mothers had hard times and wanted them to have the chance other boys had I wanted to get away from the idea of institutions and charity and compulsion, and to give as many boys as possible real homes, real comforts, education, and training, so they would be useful and happy citizens. Milton Hershey School has more than 2,000 students boys and girls in pre-kindergarten to 12th grade. To celebrate the anniversary the school held special events including a meal at Hershey Lodge and an assembly at Hershey Theatre. South Central Pennsylvania just endured - or celebrated, depending upon your perspective - its most spirited Congressional race in a generation, thanks in no small part to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In the end, the Republican Partys effort to build a Red Wall here against that Blue Wave rolling in from the East worked: incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Perry was sent back to Congress from the new 10th Congressional District, defeating Democratic challenger George Scott. Heres a look at some of the major reasons the GOPs defenses held, if only just barely. 1. Financial lifelines from Washington. This race drew more than $3 million in spending from outside political action committees like the business-oriented Club For Growth, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or the Trump-supporting America First super-PAC. This meant there were so many ads showing Perry and his Democrat Scott in black-and-white this fall that voters may be surprised to learn thats not their real skin tone. Scotts campaign manager Jason OMalley contends that the interest groups literally kept Perry afloat in the closing weeks of a race in which Scotts campaign committee out-raised the incumbents by more than $400,000 through the last set of campaign finance reports. He has a point... If a regular viewer of the evening news saw the Club For Growths talking $100 bill once, they probably saw it 50 times. And the outsiders were making no apologies. "America First Action was proud to play a significant role in helping Representative Perry cross the finish line in one of the most competitive House races in the country, spokesman Alex Titus said Friday. The group spent $722,000 on ads that attempted to portray Scott as too liberal for us. Were excited to see Perry back in Washington where hell continue to be a stalwart supporter of President Trumps America first agenda, Titus said. Scotts team was firing away too, with ample messaging from the DCCC. But the point is, Perrys campaign came dangerously close to being financially outgunned, and the outside spending - about 3:2 in Perrys favor - may have tilted the air war in his favor by the end of the race. 2. Perrys home cooking. Much was said during this campaign about how Perry had essentially lost the incumbents edge because of the court-ordered redistricting that took away more than 40 percent of his old constituents. But in the end, Perrys favorite son status in York County proved huge, and seemed to catch the Scott campaign by surprise. Consider, in the 92nd state House District, the battlefield that Perry has lived in since his boyhood and has represented in either Harrisburg (as a state legislator) or Washington (as Congressman) since 2006, the incumbent racked up an 8,612-vote victory. Perrys margin in the entire race was 7,834. Whats even more notable about Perry 2:1 margin in the 92nd is that thats the same legislative district Scott lives in. The difference? Scott did not grow up there, hes only lived here for several years, hes never held elective office in the region and his work-a-day existence is in East Berlin, Adams County. Perry is a native son, and hes run for office from there seven times now. His people turned out (73.6 percent) and stood by their guy. Perry, for his part, felt he earned their support. The people that know me best know that I stick up for the things that I believe in - the things that they believe in - and that Im a man of my word, Perry said after claiming his win this week. I suspect over time the people in the new part of the district will learn the same thing about me. 3. Poor turnout in the urban centers. If theres one area where Scotts upstart campaign fell short, it was in making this race a must-vote event for enough residents in the cities of York and Harrisburg. Where Dauphin Countys turnout on Tuesday was 58.9 percent, voters in heavily-Democratic Harrisburgs 28 precincts voted at only a 40.2 percent clip. Same story in York. County turnout rates there were 55.8 percent; the citys was only 40.1 percent. That mattered a lot in this race, because while Scott was fighting, mostly successfully. to stay within striking distance of Perry in the vote-rich suburbs of Harrisburgs East and West shores, it was in the cities where the Democratic candidate really had the potential to rack up his winning votes. The Democratic nominee outpolled Perry in Harrisburg by a Jesus-vs.-the Devil-like 87-13 margin. In York, it 77-23. The problem was, there were too many votes left on the street. If Harrisburgs electorate had simply turned out at the county-wide average, for example, Scotts margin of victory there would have been about 4,500 votes greater. York could have added another 2,000 votes to Scotts lead there. To a lesser degree, the same is true in Carlisle, another larger town that Scott won. If the boroughs turnout had matched Cumberland Countys average of 61.1 percent, the Democrat could have closed on Perry by about another 500 votes. In fairness, the city voters did respond somewhat: turnouts in both Harrisburg and York shattered the cities' respective 2014 mid-term rates. But in a race that was eventually going to boil down to a battle of enthused voter bases, theres no doubt which side won. The upshot. Those factors combined to make the difference in the tightest Congressional race in the Harrisburg area since 2002, when Democrat Tim Holden upset longtime incumbent Rep. George Gekas in another post-redistricting battle. In fact, the Perry / Scott battle wound up just a little closer than Holden / Gekas, with the final unofficial margin coming in at 148,790 for Perry (51.4 percent) to 140,956 (48.65 percent) for Scott. It was second-closest U.S. House race in the state this year and, OMalley hopes, one that will put the new 10th on the map as a potential Democratic target for as long as it lasts (Pennsylvania will be forced to draw new district lines against in 2021, after the next federal census). At the end of the day, certain Republicans just came home and decided they were going to vote, OMalley said this week. But he took some solace in the fact that Perrys margin of victory, 2.7 percentage points, was more than seven percentage points closer than the 10-point margin claimed here by President Donald Trump in 2016. Perrys campaign manager, Brian Nutt, countered that as pleased as Scotts team may be with their candidates showing, the real people that put this race on the (political) map was the Democrats on the state Supreme Court when they changed the lines in response to a political gerrymandering lawsuit. Be that as it may, Scott, in his concession speech Tuesday noted there is now a significant, loyal opposition out there, and he called on his supporters to hold Perry to account in his new term on his promises to preserve accessible health insurance for people with pre-existing medical conditions, and to work with people of all political persuasions. If thats the outcome of this race, that Scott Perry becomes a better member of Congress for the people of the 10th District, then thats good, OMalley said Friday. But, he added, the Democrats arent going away. The new chief recovery officer for the Harrisburg School District plans to meet with residents at a public forum Tuesday night. The 6 p.m. meeting at PA Careerlink, 100 N. Cameron Street was arranged by two community groups: CATCH (Concerned About the Children of Harrisburg,) and the Harrisburg chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. The state education secretary appointed Janet Samuels, 60, of Wayne, Pa., to the post of chief recovery officer in late September to succeed Audrey Utley, who stepped down from the position. Samuels retired earlier this year after ten years as superintendent of the Norristown School District in Montgomery County. The CRO transition comes after a series of scandals and costly management mistakes by district officials that exposed the lack of systems, policies and adherence to policies. Teacher turnover also reached an all-time high during the 2017-18 school year when 137 resigned, according to The Burg. Student academic test scores also declined during the latest round of statewide testing. Some people have called for the state to take over the district through receivership, but the state education department instead tapped Samuels to take over as chief recovery officer to continue with the same level of state oversight that has existed since late 2012. Kia Hansard, a founding member of CATCH, said the purpose of the meeting is to hear from Samuels about her vision for the district. Its also an opportunity for residents and staff members to share their ideas and concerns to try to improve the quality of education children in the city receive, Hansard said. Samuel's career spans more than 35 years in public education, where she served as a classroom teacher, principal, and regional superintendent for the School District of Philadelphia. In Norristown, Samuels was responsible for the overall operation of the school district, and was the architect of the districts academic and long range strategic plan, according to a statement from Education Secretary Pedro Rivera. Two multi-vehicle crashes Interstate 83 have cleared, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. The crash in the northbound lanes was just before Exit 46B - US 322 East - Hershey, and cleared around 4:10 p.m., according to PennDOT. The crash in the southbound lane affected a shoulder near Exit 47 US 322 East Derry Street, and has cleared but PennDOT did not list a specific time. The crashes were the second crashes of the day to close lanes near Exit 46 of I-83, with a crash occurring in the northbound lanes around 7 a.m. George Scott may not know whether or when hell try electoral politics again, but he does know that on Sunday, Dec. 2, hell be back in the pulpit at Trinity Lutheran Church in East Berlin. Thats when Scott, 56, is scheduled to come off his leave as called pastor of the Adams County congregation - a job he retained even as he went on unpaid leave this February to pursue, and ultimately win, the Democratic nomination for the new 10th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ill be preaching on Sundays, starting in December, Scott told PennLive in a brief telephone interview Friday evening. Thats a solid landing spot for the one-time master parachutist who served for 20 years in the U.S. Army before pursuing the ministry in 2009. But the question remains, would Scott consider running for office again? Its the obvious question for any candidate who, in a first run, drew former Vice President Joe Biden into town to campaign for him, received national notice for one of his early television ads, and finished within three percentage points of a three-term incumbent. U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Carroll Township, survived the closest general election race of his career in this battle of two northern York County residents. But Scott said Friday there are no obvious answers for him yet. I have not made any decisions. I think its too early to make any decisions, the soldier / pastor / candidate said Friday. I have not ruled anything out. Scott said the one thing he knows he wants to do is to continue to serve people, and hes going to enjoy, in the short term, getting back to serving those hes come to know at Trinity Lutheran. Thats the short-term plan and, really, the only plan at this point, he said. On a day meant to honor the nations veterans, one Pennsylvania community got some somber news. Master Sgt. Nicholas Vollweiler, 35, was identified Sunday as the U.S. Air Force member who was stabbed with a knife at his home near Yokota Air Base, Japan, Stars and Stripes reports. Vollweiler was from the Saylorsburg area in Monroe County, WFMZ reports. At the American Legion Post in Gilbert, near Vollweilers home, members expressed their shock and their concerns for the family, according to reports. Its crazy, the man served, he did what he had to do, and then he gets killed. For what reason? veteran Joe Hess told WFMZ. It gets to you. It really gets to you. It was quite a shock yesterday for that story to come out, and our hearts from the legion here truly go out to the family, American Legion member Gary Spears told the station. Vollweiler was assigned to the 374th Security Forces Squadron. According to Stars and Stripes, 27-year-old Aria Saito was arrested on the scene and charged with attempted murder, which authorities expect to upgraded to murder, according to reports. Col. Otis Jones, the 374th Airlift Wing commander, called Vollweiler a truly valued airman who will be "dearly missed by our community, Stars and Stripes reports. His family, friends, fellow defenders, and all of the Yokota community are in our prayers during this heartbreaking time. Nine months after they deployed to Kuwait, about 500 members of the Pennsylvania National Guard have begun the process of heading home. Most of them should be back with their families around Thanksgiving, the Guard announced Monday. The troops, members of the 28th Infantry Divisions headquarters and headquarters battalion, were in the Middle East serving as the HQ for Task Force Spartan. During that stint they participated in regional exercises with the militaries of partner nations. The journey home began when the 28th handed over the headquarters duty to the Iowans and Minnesotans of the 34th Division during a ceremony Monday. The Pennsylvania troops will be processed out of active service through Fort Hood in Texas. Susquehanna Township police are trying to identify a man and a woman accused of assaulting a convenience store clerk. Police said Monday that the incident occurred Thursday when the two arrived at the Unimart on North Front Street to get gas. The woman complained to the clerk repeatedly that the pump wasnt working properly, police said, then the man came into the store, walked around the counter and punched the employee in the face three times. The woman yelled at the clerk during the assault, police said. They said the man trashed a coffee station, a nacho station and a rack of keychains as he left the store. The woman was wearing a blue Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt and stretch pants. The man wore a long sleeve grey Under Armour shirt, blue jeans, and black with white sneakers. The two appeared to be driving a dark colored minivan, police said. Anyone with information on the identity of the suspects can call Detective Lee Tarasi at 717-909-9259. Its hard to see how Deborah Dailey expected to win this argument. Dailey is a former chief deputy prothonotary and clerk of courts for Philadelphia. In May 2014 she was fired for stealing more than $70,000 by misusing her offices credit cards. Nine months later, Dailey pleaded guilty to theft, repaid the $70,000 and was sentenced to 2 years of probation. Then she filed for and received a $6,500-a-month pension from the city. That lasted only three months before the city pension board turned off the tap because of her criminal conviction. A Commonwealth Court panel has seconded the boards decision, rejecting Dailey claim that she is legally entitled to that lucrative retirement benefit. In the state courts opinion, Judge Michael H. Wojcik discounted Daileys claim on appeal that the denial of her pension is unconstitutional because it violates the prohibition against the imposition of excessive fines. The pension denial isnt a fine, the judge found. It occurred, he concluded, because Dailey, now 57, breached her contractual obligation to the city to be honest. Daileys assertion that she didnt realize her guilty plea to the theft charge would imperil her pension is irrelevant, Wojcik found. We conclude that the (pension) boards determination did not result in an unconstitutional forfeiture of Daileys retirement benefits, he wrote. Rather, Daileys malfeasance in office...rendered her ineligible to receive those retirement benefits. Monday, November 12, 2018 at 6:34AM By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla New York City - Trendy SoHo is teeming with stores and boutiques, quaint eateries and most recently, Google's ambitious new pop-up store. Called the Google Hardware Store, referencing the software giant's various #MadeByGoogle Pixel smartphones, Chromebooks, Google Home smart speakers as well as its Nest smart home accessories and related devices. The store itself is like Google's product webppages for these products have been made real. We see the devices in their natural or intended environment. Set against tastefully muted interior spaces with subtle dashes of colour. There are experiential spaces with Google products and solutions highlighted in special areas. Every corner of this SoHo store, every detail has been carefully thought of and executed. If this is the world Google imagines for us to live in, it is very tastefully appointed. It is all very pleasing to the eye, and being able to get hands on time with Google products is well worth the visit. In my case, I was able to see Google's new Pixel Slate and accessories as well as its new Smart Display which still aren't sold in Canada. There's a neat 'Grab and Go' section in the store for accessories like smartphone cases, chargers, Chromecasts and smaller items. Sadly the disinterested sales staff tend to take their time serving customers, so 'grabbing and going' are, like this store, more a concept than a reality. This is where an Apple Retail Store or even a Microsoft Store has the advantage. In Apple's case, you really can Grab and Go thanks to a Store app that allows you to Apple Pay and Go. Or you can approach any sales specialist on the floor and they have a handheld till to be able to quickly take payment, You know, before you change your mind when that pang of buyer's remorse sets in. This isn't going to happen for Google overnight. It took Apple and Microsoft years to refine their in store shopping experience and identity. Samsung is just getting up to that point, too. Google's Hardware Store is still lacking these basic retail expereince elements. Like customer engagement. "Welcome to Google!" or "Are you being helped?" For a company that's built a successful business anticipating what people need, or more specifically, what they may be searching for online, Google seems to lack that character in its store IRL. I also had a chance to visit other stores in SoHo, even rival Apple's teeming Retail Store around the corner on Prince St. The experience was smoother and more consumer friendly. A greeter stands at the door with a big smile. He's approachable and can assist you if you're in a hurry. There are dozens more sales associates on hand and they're super engaged. I got to see the new iPad Pros and Apple Pencils for the first time, very cool. I remember a decade ago when Apple Retail Stores were new. There were fewer products then as Apple only focused on four product segments and iPods (yes, that was a long time ago). There was a buzz in those early stores, for Apple fans, it was like coming to the HQ and getting up and close with products and experts and far better than what big box stores could offer. The Google Hardware Store is that now and there is a buzz, I think it can get better. I personally hope the SoHo pop-up, which runs until the end of the year, will continue. Google should bring this experience to other cities. For Google, it completes their aspirations as hardware manufacturers and a lifestyle brand. For their users, it gives them a great physical location to drink in the Google ethos and find what they are searching for. Amid a growing number of state investigations into clergy sex abuse across the country, the governing body of Catholic bishops in this country on Monday received signals from the Vatican to delay votes on measures that would have addressed bishop accountability. Catholic news agencies on Monday were reporting that Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. bishops conference, had informed American bishops that no vote will be taken on two key proposals expected to have been at the center of the Churchs response to the sexual abuse crisis. The startling news was delivered at the onset of the annual fall gathering of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is meeting this week in Baltimore. The order to delay the considerations came directly from the Vatican. Media reports out of Baltimore describe the audience of bishops being visibly surprised by the instructions. The U.S. Catholic community had largely expected the conference to consider measures addressing accountability - chiefly a new code of conduct for bishops and the creation of a panel that would investigate bishops accused of misconduct. Although I am disappointed that we will not be taking these actions tomorrow, I remain hopeful this additional consultation will ultimately improve our response to the crisis we face, said Cardinal DiNardo, the head of the conference, according to a report in America Magazine, a Catholic news outlet. DiNardo said that the Holy See was instructing bishops to delay consideration of the new measures until a special meeting called by Pope Francis for February. Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer, who is recovering from knee surgery, is not attending the gathering. He is being represented by Vicar General David Danneker. Already embroiled in a protracted and global clergy sex abuse crisis, the Catholic Church this summer came under even more intense scrutiny in the wake of the release of a scathing grand jury report into the crisis by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. On the heels of the Pennsylvania report, which documented the crisis across six dioceses, a growing number of states have launched their own investigation into clergy sex abuse. Shapiro in August released the findings of the 18-month-long investigation, which unearthed the now common pattern of widespread child sex crimes by priests and the concealment of those crimes by bishops and church officials. Since the release of the report, more than half a dozen states have launched their own investigations, and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well, as launched an investigation into clergy sex abuse in Pennsylvania. Victims and victims advocates here in Pennsylvania and elsewhere had largely looked to the Baltimore gathering to take up measures that would have addressed bishop accountability. SNAP - the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, expressed disappointment at the Vaticans decision to postpone the vote on measures. SNAP urged Catholic officials to address the lingering concerns after the February meeting in Rome. It is clear that a real response is needed in order to prevent future abuse, deter more cover-ups, and ensure accountability for bishops who fail to protect children and vulnerable adults, SNAP said in a written statement. Todays action by the Vatican makes us wary that such a real response will be taken. Terence McKiernan and Anne Barrett Doyle, co-directors of BishopAccountability.org, which has been documenting the priest sex abuse crisis since 2003, on Monday called for U.S. bishops to resign. The two were part of protest rallies being held outside the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, where the bishops' annual meeting is being held. McKiernan and Doyle were demanding that bishops take up three critical decisions: tender their resignations en masse to Pope Francis; name accused clergy and end statutes of limitations. In a written statement, McKiernan and Doyle said: You should offer your resignations, as the Chilean bishops did, and invite an investigation by Archbishop (Charles) Scicluna, and provide him everything he needs. You are not credible as an organization with men like Archbishop (John) Nienstedt and Cardinal (Theodore) McCarrick in your ranks. Scicluna was appointed by Pope Francis to investigate the spiraling crisis in the church in Chile. The pontiff has to date accepted the resignation of seven bishops from the South American country. Nienstedt stepped down as archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2015 after he was accused of handling allegations of clergy sex abuse. McCarrick, a cardinal and former archbishop of Washington, D.C., resigned in July amid credible allegations that he sexually molested seminarians. Both Nienstedt and McCarrick retain their status and title of archbishop. McCarricks successor in Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, a former bishop of Pittsburgh, stepped down in October after being implicated by the latest grand jury investigation. Investigators found that Wuerl had mishandled allegations of clergy sexual abuse cases. The 900-plus page report mentions Wuerl more than 200 times and rebukes the once sterling reputation enjoyed by Wuerl as a church leader who stood with victims. Investigators found that during his time as bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006, Wuerl protected accused priests -- in one case allowing an accused abuser to remain in ministry and in another presiding over a settlement agreement that banned the victims from speaking. According to a report in America Magazine, the key proposals that were scrapped on Monday concerned a draft Standards of Conduct for bishops and a proposal to create a new special investigative commission to handle accusations made against bishops. The proposals were widely seen as bishops best substantive overtures from the church amid the worsening clergy sex abuse crisis. Here in Pennsylvania, the most recent effort to reform the statute of limitations this fall failed in the Legislature, amid the demands from victims for a retroactive window and Senate lawmakers narrowly defining any such retroactive window as being applicable only to individual priests and not the church as a whole. The states eight dioceses have indicated plans to establish victims compensation funds. Victims of child sex abuse widely are not in favor of such a measure by itself, without the legal recourse in courts. As Ive said many times...the Catholic Church can not be trusted to police itself. Theyve failed for decades to protect children from predator priests and the bishops who enable the abuse. Proper oversight requires law enforcement and outside agencies. https://t.co/cnOAKWjsGv Josh Shapiro (@JoshShapiroPA) November 12, 2018 Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney who helped expose the clergy sex abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002, excoriated the assembly of bishops. The delay in voting by the bishops indicates how little the Catholic Church cares about protecting children and helping victims try to heal, he said in a written statement. The U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is just a continuation of the cover up. This is just another example of how the Catholic Church is incapable of policing itself and why statutes of limitations must be amended in courts of law for the sake of society. History museum to host 'market at the museum' for holiday shopping The Harbor Springs Area Historical Society will soon be hosting two holiday markets to help shop local this holiday season. In some ways, the death of her father in August prepared Mary for the onslaught that would hit her in September. Watching her father battle cancer, watching him wither away to 81 pounds and then struggling with the heartbreak of his death strengthened the resolve that would carry this young mother of three through the [] Vittorio Messini and Simon Gietl on the summit of Prijakt after the first ascent of Sintflut on 08/11/2018 Photo by Vittorio Messini Vittorio Messini making the first ascent of Sintflut up Mt Prijakt in Austria with Simon Gietl Photo by Simon Gietl Simon Gietl and Vittorio Messini forge new mixed climb up Mt Prijakt in Austria Simon Gietl and Vittorio Messini have made the first ascent of Sintflut, Deluge, a new ice and mixed climb up the north face of Mount Prijakt in Austria. Messini reports. A somewhat unknown mountain, which with its imposing shape dominates the valley below, towers above the western part of the Schober massif in East Tyrol. Mt. Prijakt. A peak with two individual summits, separated by a characteristic gully, that has always fascinated hikers. So far though this mountain has attracted relatively little attention of mountaineers. With the exception of the normal route, the most popular outing is definitely the West Ridge, which has some pleasant sections up solid rock. In recent years the North gully has become increasingly popular as the lack of snow at the start of winter makes this an ideal destination for beginners. In the early 2000s, Isidor Poppeller managed to climb a new route solo up the North Face of Lower Prijaktes which, even today, has remained unrepeated. Ive summited the mountain several times while guiding clients up the classic routes, always wondering if one could climb a more direct line... maybe in summer. After a brief inspection from the west ridge however I quickly abandoned this project, the rock was too moss-covered to have fun in the summer. What would be needed here were decent winter conditions. For the past three winters Ive always made my way up to the Hochschober Hut at least once in order to observe the face, but the snow was always too poor or there was too little ice. Last week, while talking to Simon Gietl about nothing very much, we agreed to climb something up a north face. Where wed go didnt really matter. Maybe conditions up there were good I thought to myself, and gave myself 50-50 odds since none of us had been in the mountains after last weeks torrential rains. When we started our approach and saw the wall from afar things seemed very promising: either fresh powder or perfectly consolidated snow. During the approach on compact snow we realised that things might indeed be perfect, and they were. About ten demanding pitches up snow, ice, across snowfields and past mixed led to easier-angled terrain, where after tiresome trail breaking we summited at 18:00, in the light of our head torches! Wed just had a completely unexpected adventure, up a fantastic face, in conditions that probably dont occur more than once every ten years! by Vittorio Messini Sintflut - Deluge (M6/WI5, R, 500m) Niederer Prijakt, 3056m 08/11/2018 Simon Gietl, Vittorio Messini Link: FB Simon Gietl, FB Vittorio Messini, www.simongietl.it, Grivel, Salewa Adam Ondra pointing to the East Face of Monkey Face at Smith Rock, USA, and the route Just Do It Photo by Bernardo Gimenez Adam Ondra onsights Just Do It at Smith Rock, Americas first 8c+ 12.11.2018 by by Planetmountain Czech climber Adam Ondra has made an onsight ascent of Just Do It, the first 5.14c (8c+) in the USA located at Smith Rock, freed by French climber Jean-Baptiste Tribout in 1992. Adam Ondra has onsighted Just Do It at Smith Rock in the USA. This isnt yet another 8c+ climbed in the purest style possible by the 25-year-old, but one of America's most iconic sport climbs. The route is an endless stamina test up the East Face of Monkey Face, envisioned and bolted back in 1989 by Alan Watts and freed in April 1992 by an on fire Jean-Baptiste Tribout who had travelled specifically from France to establish the hardest route in the country and, at the time, one of the most difficult sport climbs in the world. Six years earlier, in 1986 therefore, the Parisian had made the first ascent of another project bolted not without criticism by Watts, the famous To Bolt Or Not To be; the name a defiant provocation towards those who were against bolting climbs on rappel, as Watts was endeavouring to do. To Bolt Or Not To be was the first 5.14a (8b+) in the US and this degree of difficulty caught the American climbers off guard, but with his Just Do It, 31-year-old Jibe took things one stage further still, creating a monstrous test of stamina and technique that was later defined as "one of the most influential routes in the history of American free climbing." Paige Claassen checked in with the coveted first female ascent in 2014. Ondra reached the park in Oregon the other day, after having unsuccessfully attempted the main objective of his US road trip, namely to onsight the Salathe Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite. The Czech climbed revved his engines by repeating Assassin, the 9a established by Drew Ruana in 2016, and onsighting the classics Chain Reaction, Dark Side of the Moon, Scarface (8b+) and White Wedding (8b +). Only To Bolt Or Not To be required a second attempt. Yesterday Ondra pulled off his incredible onsight of Just Do It, despite the intense cold on the east face. For the record, this is Ondra's 20th 8c+ onsight. Add to this his other three 9a onsights and the worlds only 9a+ flash. Now thats food for thought. INTERVIEW: Alan Watts, the climber who played a leading role during the 1980's in developing Smith Rock into one of the most famous crags in the USA and the world. Info: www.adamondra.com, Instagram Adam Ondra, www.lasportiva.com Adam Ondra flashing Midnight Ligthtning, Yosemite 96.1k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is projected to have defeated Martha McSally in the Arizona Senate election. Dave Wasserman of The Cook Political Report tweeted: Projection: Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) has defeated Rep. Martha McSally (R) in #AZSEN. This thing has been over for a while. Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 12, 2018 The blue wave continues to crash ashore. This means that Democrats have flipped Senate seats in Arizona and Nevada, which kills the myth that the election was a split decision. Democrats had a very good election. With the result in Florida still pending, Democrats have done the impossible. They took on a Senate map where Trump won by double digits in ten states where they held seats, and won six elections outright, and flipped two Republican-held Senate seats, with the result in Florida still pending. The Arizona Senate race has been trending toward Sinema for a while. The Democratic candidate has consistently gained ground since Election Day, and after her massive vote pick up over the weekend, it was less a matter of if she would win, but when she would be declared the winner. There is still business to be taken care of in Florida and possibly Georgia, but Republicans were delivered an electoral butt kicking the voters, as, after years of work, Democratic efforts are finally paying dividends in the Southwest. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 433 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard (Reuters) Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott, whose lead has narrowed in the states U.S. Senate race, filed more lawsuits against local election officials on Sunday, asking a judge to order police to impound voting machines and ballots when they are not in use. On Saturday, a machine recount began in the race between Scott and incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson in one of the most closely watched swing-state contests in last Tuesdays congressional elections. By the time the recount was ordered, Scotts lead had shrunk to 12,500 votes, or 0.15 percent, below the threshold under which a machine recount is automatically triggered under state law. Each side has accused the other of trying to subvert democracy in an echo of the drama in the 2000 presidential vote recount that unfolded for weeks in Florida. Another recount was also triggered in the gubernatorial race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum as DeSantis lead shrank to 33,700 votes, or 0.41 percent, as of Saturday. Susan Bucher, the Palm Beach County elections supervisor, told CNN on Sunday that it would be impossible for the county to meet the Thursday deadline set for the race recounts. Scotts lawsuit on Sunday targeted the election supervisors in Democratic-leaning Broward and Palm Beach counties. It asked a judge to issue an emergency injunction for the county sheriffs and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to seize all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots when they are not being used until the end the end of the recount and any related litigation is over. Scott filed a separate lawsuit late on Saturday against Broward County officials, asking the judge to order that any ballots counted after noon on Saturday be disregarded, saying that to include them would break state law. The Broward and Palm Beach County Supervisors of Elections has already demonstrated a blatant disregard for Floridas elections laws, making it more important than ever that we continue to do everything possible to prevent fraud and ensure this recount is operated responsibly, Chris Hartline, a spokesman for Scotts campaign, said in a statement. Nelson said Scott was panicking in a statement on Saturday. If Rick Scott wanted to make sure every legal ballot is counted, he would not be suing to try and stop voters from having their legal ballot counted as intended, Nelson said in the statement. Hes doing this for the same reason hes been making false and panicked claims about voter fraud hes worried that when all the votes are counted hell lose this election. Nelson has also filed a federal lawsuit asking that provisional and absentee ballots not be rejected because election officials deem that the signatures do not match voterssignatures on file. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Peter Cooney) 947 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The Associated Press is reporting this morning that 31 people have died in California wildfires, and another 228 people are missing. In northern California 29 bodies have been recovered while two more were found in the aftermath of fires in the southern part of the state. BREAKING: Northern California sheriff reports 6 more fatalities, matching deadliest wildfire in state history; 31 dead statewide. The Associated Press (@AP) November 12, 2018 As the fires continue to rage in both parts of the Golden State the death toll continues to increase. It has now matched the highest number of people ever killed in a fire in California. With the verified total of 228 people still unaccounted for the heroic firefighting crews have increased their efforts in the search for the missing people as well as additional bodies. Most of the efforts were centered in and around Paradise, a town of 27,000 people that was nearly burned to the ground last week. Firefighters also were searching for people in surrounding communities which are located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. California authorities have brought a DNA lab along with teams of anthropologists who will be working to identify bodies found in the aftermath of the deadly fires. Across the state, at least 150,000 people are still homeless as more than 8,000 fire crews battled the out of control fires that have decimated over 400 square miles. Firefighting crews from other states continue to arrive each day. High velocity winds and extremely dry conditions have put even more areas at risk, California fire officials warned. This is truly a tragedy that all Californians can understand and respond to, Gov. Jerry Brown said at a press briefing. Its a time to pull together and work through these tragedies. Brown has declared a statewide emergency. He also announced that California has requested disaster relief aid from the Trump administration. President Donald Trump several days ago blamed poor forest management for the fires. His ill-timed and insensitive remarks were widely criticized throughout the country. Governor Brown has agreed that federal and state governments must do more forest management. However, he also said that climate change is the primary source of the wildfire problem. Those who deny climate change are definitely contributing to the tragedies that were now witnessing, and will continue to witness in the coming years, Brown said. Scientists agree that drought and unusually warm weather attributed to climate change have increased the number and intensity of California wildfires. In addition, the building of homes deeper into forests has contributed to the longer and more destructive wildfire seasons that California has seen in recent years. Supposedly California officially emerged from a five-year drought last year, yet a large part of the northern two-thirds of the state is still abnormally dry, increasing the risks of more destructive fires. 561 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard PARIS (Reuters) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday he had discussed U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs with President Donald Trump over the weekend and that he hoped to reach a resolution on the matter by the G20 summit in Argentina. I absolutely brought up the issue of steel and aluminum tariffs, Trudeau told a news conference in Paris on Monday. Trump and Trudeau spoke to one another on the sidelines of the Paris Peace Forum. The leaders summit takes place on Nov 30 and Dec 1. (Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Richard Lough) 19.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard A group of Florida voters is suing Gov. Rick Scott for abusing his power and illegally interfering in the Florida Senate election where he is also a candidate. Read the complaint: The lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters Florida and Common Cause Florida, who are representing voters, states: Being tasked with certifying the results of an election in which one is running for office poses a risk of bias under the best of circumstances. But Defendant Scotts efforts to use the authority of his office to advance his campaign and his political party have been extreme. His race is already close enough to be subject to a mandatory recount, and he has repeatedly threatened law enforcement intervention in the vote-counting process. As Plaintiffs League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause Florida explained in a demand letter on Friday, Defendant Scott has intentionally politicized governance of the elections by publicly threatening a show of force . . . . These actions can easily be seen as intimidation of election officials who need to remain unencumbered while they engage in their very demanding work. . Defendant Scott has already misused his authority to influence and frustrate the high stakes vote-counting process, and the powers of his office give him opportunity to continue to misuse his authority. The plaintiffs want Scott to be recused and barred from using his authority to interfere in the election. Rick Scott has pulled a page out of the Trump playbook. He is accusing Democrats of fraud and trying to steal the election while he is using every ounce of his political power and position to try to prevent votes from being counted in Florida. The Senate election is close, and Republicans are terrified that if all of the votes are counted, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is going to win. The only person who is trying to steal an election in Florida is Rick Scott, and the voters are fighting back to stop him. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 4.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Everyone knows that when Democrats take control of the House in January they will have a massive backlog of Trump scandals to investigate. But until now nobody had come up with the exact number of scandals that are out there waiting to be investigated. In a new report this morning, however, Axios actually discloses that the exact number of Trump scandals, compiled by them, is 85. There are at least 85 topics that Democrats have said theyd target or are expected to target in the forthcoming torrent of investigations and subpoenas to be directed at the Trump White House, the report says. Then it adds, Incoming House Intel Committee Chair Adam Schiff told Axios that each committee plans to prioritize what they view as the most pressing topics, which he says range from Trumps potential business dealings with Russia to where things currently stand with North Korea. Democrats of course cant issue 85 subpoenas all at once. But its encouraging that very intelligent people like Schiff and Nancy Pelosi have a master plan and know which topics theyd like to target first. The goal of the Democrats is to make Trump look so bad that more and more Americans turn on him. It is smarter for them to hold hearings and bring Trump crimes and corruption into the public eye instead of starting with impeachment proceedings. According to Axios, Democratic committee chairs will start investigations into the following areas, which are included in the list of 85: Trumps tax returns, which he has refused to release for years despite promising to do so; Whether Trumps businesses got special favors from the Chinese government, including Ivanka Trump getting awarded trademarks during trade negotiations; Other emoluments clause violations; The Trump administrations policy of separating immigrant parents from their children at the border; The administrations response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico; The hush money payments by Trump, through Michael Cohen, to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal; The firing of James Comey as FBI Director; Trumps firing of U.S. attorneys; Cabinet secretary travel, office expenses, and other misused perks by cabinet members; Discussion of classified information at Mar-a-Lago in front of guests without security clearances; Jared Kushners ethics law compliance violations; Election security and hacking attempts. Axios also found that House Democrats previously made 64 different subpoena requests that were blocked by House Republican committee chairmen over the past two years. When ranking committee Democrats become chairs of the committee they will revisit these rejected subpoenas. The biggest challenge for Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats will be to pick and choose and make sure they take the most important items to investigate first. If this is done correctly it will expose so much corruption and criminal behavior that it will probably bring down the Trump presidency. 33.6k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The press responded to Trump banning CNNs Jim Acosta from the White House by ignoring his attention seeking device while fact-checking the White House. The New York Times reported on how CNN reacted to Trumps efforts to provoke a war with the press: The temptation to play it big was strong. Here was a CNN star in the middle of the action, and television news is nothing if not self-promotional. But at the regular morning meeting on Thursday, Mr. Zucker told his producers to stand down. This time, CNN would not be led by the nose into giving significant airtime to another Trump attack on the news media, especially when Democrats were preparing to take over the House and Jeff Sessions was being forced out of the attorney generals office. . Other news organizations appeared to follow Mr. Zuckers lead, resisting the urge, for once, to allow the president to turn them into hapless characters in his never-ending national melodrama. Report On Trump, But Ignore The Drama Drama and conflict are oxygen for the Trump presidency. The president has no interest in governing, and until Democrats take over the House, there will be no one in Congress focused on policy. The Trump administration is one endless dramatic conflict with the drama queen in the Oval Office always needing to be the center of attention. Those who say that the press should ignore Trump are wrong. Ignoring Trump would play into the hands of the most corrupt administration in decades. The press has a valuable role to serve as a check on power. The press doesnt need to be caught up in Trumps made up conflicts. Trumps Attacks On The Press Are A Political Strategy When the national focus is on Donald Trump, he and Republicans lose. Trump needs to be at political war at all needs. He needs someone or something to shift attention and blame toward. Trump has been trying to make the press his enemy he won the election. The president is trying to intimidate the press into compliance, and use a war with journalists to play on the right-wing mythology of liberal bias. The press isnt buying it. Trump will be covered and reported on, but no one is going to be slumming it in the Trump tabloid sewer. Trump is being covered like a president, not a reality TV star, and the press is going to ignore his efforts to provoke fights and create drama. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 486 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard President Donald Trump declared that an honest vote count is no longer possible in the controversial Florida midterm elections for the states governor and U.S. Senate positions. The president is now claiming (with no evidence) that many of the ballots are missing or forged. Trump tweeted: The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night! The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018 Both races Florida Governor Rick Scott Scott versus Democratic Senator Bill Nelson for the Senate seat and former Rep. Ron DeSantis verses Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum for governor are now headed for recounts after they appeared to be going for Republicans on election night. In the days after the election, when more ballots were found and counted in Democratic-leaning areas, like Broward County and Palm Beach County, more votes started going to Democrats. This greatly reduced the leads of the Republican candidates, triggering automatic recounts. In typical fashion Trump made outlandish charges with no evidence to back up his claims of voter fraud. Florida offers military and overseas voters a 10-day extension which may be what Trump is talking about in his comment about new ballots showing up out of nowhere. Floridas election information website says: The overseas voters vote-by-mail ballot must be postmarked or dated by Election Day and received within 10 days of the election in order to be counted, provided the ballot is otherwise proper. Despite claims by the governor and the president, Florida election officials have continuously maintained that they have not seen ANY evidence of voter fraud taking place in Broward or Palm Beach counties or anywhere else in Florida. Scott went on national television on Sunday and accused his opponent Nelson of trying to commit fraud to try to win this election. Scotts campaign said it has filed lawsuits against Brenda Snipes and Susan Bucher, the election supervisors in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Both of these counties are considered Democratic strongholds in Florida. In response to Scotts lawsuits Democrats said his moves show desperation by a vulnerable candidate sitting on a precarious vote lead. Nelsons campaign continued to assert that he would be proclaimed the victor once all votes are counted. MSNBC host Joy Reid tweeted Nelsons response to the lawsuits. Senator Bill Nelsons response to Rick Scotts legal maneuvers in Florida. Senator Bill Nelsons response to Rick Scotts legal maneuvers in Florida. pic.twitter.com/dwTtEJtiMC Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) November 11, 2018 Clearly Scott and his mentor Trump are growing desperate as signs continue to show that the result of Tuesdays elections was a massive Blue Wave throughout the United States. 1.1k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard President Trump has told Republican leaders in charge of appropriations that he does not want to provide more disaster relief funds to Puerto Rico. He is claiming that the money is being misused and mismanaged, although he has no evidence to back up his claims. Hurricane Maria was the worst natural disaster ever to hit Puerto Rico, and one of the worst ever to hit the United States. The fact that Trump wants to end federal relief money for the island territory and stop helping its recovery efforts shows that he lacks any human compassion. He is also completely misguided because he reached a decision without obtaining any relevant facts. Trump also said he would like to take away some of the funding Congress has already appropriated for Puerto Ricos Hurricane Maria relief efforts. He is not legally authorized to do this, however. A new study commissioned by the Puerto Rican government last summer estimated that Hurricane Maria killed 2,975 people on the island. The report also found that the risk of death was 45 percent higher for populations living in low socioeconomic development municipalities and men 65 years or older. After these figures were reported Trump cast doubt on the numbers. He said that the official death toll was nowhere near 3,000, but just a few dozen. The researchers who compiled the report have stood by their conclusion, however, despite Trumps denials. The presidents desire to take away funding apparently came from information contained in a news article last month. He was led to believe that the Puerto Rican government has been using disaster relief money for unauthorized purposes, such as to pay off its debt. This is not actually true, but Trump believes it is (with no evidence) and thus is making moves to cut off disaster relief money that is desperately needed. Trump first mentioned his frustrations with the relief funds in October when he claimed that inept politicians were attempting to use the ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations. He tweeted: The people of Puerto Rico are wonderful but the inept politicians are trying to use the massive and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations. The U.S. will NOT bail out long outstanding & unpaid obligations with hurricane relief money! The people of Puerto Rico are wonderful but the inept politicians are trying to use the massive and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations. The U.S. will NOT bail out long outstanding & unpaid obligations with hurricane relief money! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2018 More than $6 billion has been allocated to help Puerto Rico storm recovery, but hundreds of thousands of people are still waiting for help. Puerto Ricos government is saying that it still needs billions more to rebuild, and in February said that it would cost at least $17 billion just to fix its antiquated and broken electrical power grid. When Democrats take control of the House of Representatives they will look into the issue of Hurricane Maria response and relief funding and hopefully come up with a fair and reasonable plan for the devastated island. A judge has handed down a life sentence to 20-year-old Joseph Lamar Brown Jr., who killed a Lincolnville man in his home during what authorities described as a botched robbery. Brown, who most recently lived on Third Street in Summerville, was found guilty Friday of murder and other charges. Brown was sentenced to life in prison on the murder count in addition to 50 years for first-degree burglary, 10 years for attempted armed robbery and five years for possession of a firearm in a violent crime, according to the 9th Circuit Solicitors Office. Charleston County deputies arrested Brown in January 2017 after he was implicated in the slaying of 46-year-old John Pritchard. Brown shot Pritchard in the neck Dec. 23, 2016, after Pritchard tried to defend himself when Brown entered his East Thomas Street home and demanded cash, authorities said. Pritchard had recently received a significant cash settlement following a car crash, so Brown and his co-defendant, Trey Lorenzo Coleman, 25, conspired to rob Pritchard, prosecutors argued during the five-day trial. Coleman had been with Pritchard in his home and, meanwhile, was coordinating with Brown on the robbery, according to the Solicitors Office. Brown entered the residence a short while later with a pistol. After Pritchard refused to cooperate, Brown shot the man and fled the house, authorities said. During the escape, however, Brown dropped his cellphone containing messages between him and Coleman as they planned the robbery. As Brown fled the residence, prosecutors said he also dropped large sums of cash that also helped them to tie Brown to the crime. Coleman was parked in a nearby vehicle, authorities said, and dropped Brown off at his own residence following the shooting. Brown was initially tried this summer, but a judge declared a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict. Coleman pleaded guilty in June to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Two people are dead after Berkeley County authorities say a man shot and killed his wife at the couple's home Saturday and then himself. Berkeley County Coroner Bill Salisbury identified the deceased as Rashad Patton, 37, and her husband, Oslen Patton, 44, who lived on Samantha Way near Goose Creek. Around 5 p.m. Saturday, authorities received a report of a domestic disturbance involving a gun at the couple's home. When deputies arrived, both Pattons were found lying in the yard suffering gunshot wounds, said Berkeley County Sheriff's Office spokesman Maj. Jeremy Baker. Oslen Patton was pronounced dead at the scene, and Rashad Patton was transported to a hospital where she later died, authorities said. On Sunday, Salisbury said Rashad Patton's death was a homicide and Oslen Patton had killed himself. No further information about what may have preceded the shooting was immediately available. The incident was the fourth homicide in the Berkeley County sheriff's jurisdiction and the 47th in the tri-county area so far this year. Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations. The Post and Courier provides a forum for our readers to share their opinions, and to hold up a mirror to our community. Publication does not imply endorsement by the newspaper; the editorial staff attempts to select a representative sample of letters because we believe its important to let our readers see the range of opinions their neighbors submit for publication. Young Kim, a Republican candidate poised to become the first Korean-American woman to gain a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing California's 39th Congressional District, has a Guam connection. While the outcome of the U.S. midterm election has yet to become official, as of Monday, Guam time, election reports indicate that Kim leads in a tight race against Democrat Gil Cisneros. Her district includes the Southern California counties of Los Angeles and San Bernardino. In her campaign website, the Korean-American was described as a U.S. immigrant with a "unique perspective on the American Dream, one that has led her to devote almost her entire adult life to community service." Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. Kim's background Kim immigrated with her family from South Korea to Guam in 1975, according to several media reports. Her family would later move to California, where she earned a bachelor's degree in business administration at the University of Southern California in 1985. According to her campaign profile, Kim's career in public service began more than two decades ago when she worked for U.S. Rep. Ed Royce. She served as his director of community operations. In 2014, Kim was elected to the 65th District of the California State Assembly the first Korean-American woman to serve in that capacity. Once the midterm results are confirmed, she would add another to her list of achievements as the first Korean-American woman elected to Congress. The first Korean-American to win a seat in Congress was Jay Kim, in 1992. Photo: CTV Vancouver More than 200 people rallied Saturday, demanding a provincial court judge be stripped of his duties in North Vancouver after he sentenced a teenage boy to just two weeks in prison for a violent sexual assault. The teen, who was 16 at the time of the attack, was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault and forcible confinement for an attack that occurred in a bathroom stall of Encore Dance Club during an all-ages party in February 2016. The victim was found in the bathroom with such severe injuries she was admitted to hospital in critical condition. The attacker was also convicted of sexually assaulting a different girl a few months prior. Judge Paul Meyers sentenced the attacker to two weeks in prison and allowed him to serve the rest of his three-year sentence in the community. "I've been grounded for longer than two weeks for things that don't break the law," protestor Hannah Dixon told CTV Vancouver. For somebody that violates somebodys civil rights and takes away their sense of personal safety and gets two weeks in prison for that, thats absolutely ridiculous. We refuse to have our own Brock Turner. We as a community will not protect rapists; we will not defend them and we will believe survivors, said Yalda Kazemi, the rallys organizer. According to the North Shore News, Judge Meyers found the teen already faced social ramifications for the crime being shunned by the community and not being able to graduate with his peers. I was disappointed in those remarks when you consider the impact on the survivor and what she has to live with for the rest of her life, said Jane Thornwhwaite, MLA for North Vancouver-Seymour. It is unclear if prosecutors plan to appeal the decision. with files from CTV Vancouver Two airmen from the Guam Air National Guard's 254th Security Forces Squadron departed Saturday morning in support of Operation Freedom Sentinel in Southwest Asia. Staff Sgt. Bobbie Jean Camacho and Staff Sgt. Joshua Naputi are part of two squads tasked with protecting federal property from sabotage, espionage, fire, and other potential hazards, according to a Guam Air National Guard press release. They will provide support to peacekeeping and security within the U.S. Central Command Theater of Operations, according to the release. Camacho and Naputi will be deployed for approximately six months, joining airmen from the 254th Security Forces Squadron, 254th Red Horse Squadron and 254th Comptroller Flight who are already deployed around the world. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. More than a dozen airmen from the Guard's Security Forces Squadron have been deployed to Southwest Asia since last month. Saipan deployment The Guam National Guard is serving multiple deployments to various locations. More recently, about 100 Guam Guard soldiers deployed to Saipan and about 100 Guam Guard airmen also deployed or are being deployed to help the Northern Marianas recover from the devastation caused by Supertyphoon Yutu. Dozens of motorcycles filled Marine Corps Drive on Sunday morning, American flags waving behind them as they made their way to Governor Joseph Flores Memorial Park, where they honored the thousands of veterans who have served their country. Nearly 300 people and as many as 200 bikes were part of the 9th annual Wounded Warrior Ride, held on Veterans Day and winding from Guam Premier Outlets to Ypao Beach before ending with a party and rodeo at the VFW Post 1509 in Yigo. "Veterans Day is when all the Guam motorcycle clubs come together as a united front and ride in strong as one to show our support for all veterans," said veteran Tim Stepp, who served in the U.S. Navy for 10 years. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. Lonnie Clark, who serves as commander of the VFW post and chairman of the Wounded Warrior Ride committee, said the community must continue thanking and looking out for local veterans. "If there's anybody I should be willing to help," he said, "it'd be a veteran or a child in need. That's the two things you always need to look out for." 'Love and support for veterans' Stepp, who has worked on the Wounded Warrior Ride for three years and is a member of Guam Hawgs Motorcycle Club, said the island community has been incredibly supportive of veterans. "The love and support for veterans is one of the strongest I have seen here in Guam," he said in an email. "The people of Guam have shown they have a special place in their heart for every veteran." Clark served in the U.S. Navy as an enlisted aviation metalsmith from 1986 until 1992, working as a helicopter mechanic. He said the pride that comes from serving alongside others was foundational in his life, and that's why he continues to serve veterans today. "You work alongside people who have the same intentions you have," he recalled of his time in the Navy. "It's stronger than family. ... When you serve, everybody there has the same goal and you look out for each other and you protect them, just like they would for you." Clark said he appreciates Veterans Day as a reminder of something that should be done daily: thanking those who have served. "It's an opportunity to thank people who were willing to put their lives on the line and take that risk so everyone else can be free," he said. "You should do it every day but at least there's that one day where you can stop and that's what that day's about." Across two spending packages being offered by the federal government, Guam could stand to receive anywhere from $1.5 billion to nearly $2 billion. Read more NORRISTOWN With the dedication of a banner honoring the military service and sacrifice of Marine Capt. Samuel Schultz, his relatives, friends and fellow veterans ensured the Abington native will not be forgotten. We must never forget, Schultzs father, Mitchell, said Monday as a Hometown Hero banner honoring his son was unveiled during a somber ceremony outside the Montgomery County Courthouse on the Veterans Day holiday. Captain Schultz, 28, who grew up in the Huntingdon Valley area and graduated from Abington Senior High School, was one of four Marines killed in a military helicopter crash during a training exercise on April 3 in southern California. He died doing what he wanted to do. He wanted to serve the country and he also wanted to fly and thats what he was doing, Mitchell Schultz, also a veteran, said about his son. Mitchell Schultz described the banner dedication ceremony as heartwarming and at the same time gut-wrenching. Its an honor to have everybody come out here and honor our son. But, these things also are reminders of the tragedy of what happened, Mitchell Schultz said. The elder Schultz described his son as funny, articulate and a go-getter. As I said many, many times, he lived more in his short time than many of us will ever live in a full lifetime. Were surprised constantly by the outpouring of people that he touched that we never knew he did. So, we find out more about our son every day even though hes not here, Mitchell Schultz, flanked by his wife, Julie, said proudly. We just appreciate all of the support that weve gotten from all over the world. We still get letters from people who we dont know and they tell us stories about Sam and you know that they knew Sam by the stories that they told. And we appreciate all of it, Julie Schultz added. Captain Schultz, officials said, enrolled in the Navy ROTC program at Penn State and joined the Marine Corps after graduation. Captain Schultz has deep roots in Montgomery County. He was a six-year veteran of the Marines and the third-generation of the Schultz family to become a pilot, county Commissioner Chairwoman Valerie A. Arkoosh told those who gathered under a gray sky on the courthouse plaza for the ceremony. We are so grateful for the service that he chose to give to our country. Schultz is the 18th U.S. service member from Montgomery County, who lost their lives during service to the country since Sept. 11, 2001, to be honored with a Hometown Hero banner. The colorful banners, each embossed with a photo of the service member, flutter in the breeze from the light poles at the courthouse entrance off Main Street. Its a vibrant symbol of his service. This banner will fly here at our county courthouse so that we can all continue to remember the sacrifice that he made for our nation. This will be a visual representation of our promise to never forget, Arkoosh said. Several local members of the American Gold Star Mothers took part in unveiling the banner and placing a wreath nearby. Family members of the fallen hero and other spectators appeared somber as a lone bugler, standing in a nearby courtyard, played Taps, channeling the mournful tune into the chilly, morning air. The dedication ceremony also included a rifle salute. Two CH-53 Marine Corps helicopters also completed a flyover of the courthouse to honor Schultz. I am tremendously proud of your son and his heroic actions and his service to this nation. I admire it and he is by far, the full definition of a hometown hero, county Commissioner Joseph C. Gale addressed Schultzs family. All veterans make sacrifices. Its a big sacrifice and its men and women that are willing to do it to protect our freedoms and we cant thank them enough. County Commissioner Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr. said the Hometown Hero banners are vivid symbols of service members taken from us too soon. These men and women served in all branches of the armed services and they were from all corners of the county, Lawrence said. The other 17 Hometown Heroes honored with banners are: John Bubeck of Collegeville, age 25; Paul Karpowich of Bridgeport, age 30; Kurt Krout of Spinnerstown, age 43; John Kulick of Harleysville, age 35; Nathan Raudenbush of Douglassville, age 25; Anthony Sherman of Pottstown, age 43; Marc J. Small of Collegeville, age 29; Tristen Smith of Bryn Athyn, age 23; Jeffrey Toczylowski of Upper Moreland, age 30; Travis Zimmerman of New Berlinville, age 19; Mark P. Phelan of Green Lane, age 44; Joseph Basil Maglione III of Lansdale, age 22; Travis M. Stottlemyer of Hatfield, age 20; John Todd III of Bridgeport, age 24; Brandon J. VanParys of Schwenksville, age 20; Jake S. Moletzsky of Norristown, age 26; and Eric F. Shellenberger of Pennsburg, age 36. The Washington Post keeps coming up with ways to broadcast anti-Trump screeds in a form that misleadingly suggests its reporting the news honestly. Weve become familiar with variations of the following locution: This report is based on interviews with 38 individuals with knowledge of the situation, including senior White House officials. It allows the Post to pick and choose among the people it talked to and report pretty much whatever it likes even if most of these people, including all the ones at the White House with first-hand knowledge, said something different. Now, the Post is attacking Trump in headlines attributing the attack to critics. Today, for example, the lead headline on the front page (paper edition) blared Trumps absence rankles critics (a reference to Trump missing a ceremony in France honoring the World War I dead, due to bad weather). The Post has also used this approach to headline writing accuse Trump of racism, among other things. Critics said lots of unpleasant things about President Obama. I dont think the Post ever wrote headlines that parroted these attacks and then attributed them to critics. Obama too anxious to cut deal with Iran, critics say was never a Post headline, Im pretty sure. The great thing about the Posts new approach to headline writing is that critics will say almost anything about Trump. In todays story about France, the critics are Ben Rhodes and David Frum. Rhodes is a partisan operative. Trump is reversing key national security policies he helped Obama implement. Of course, hes a Trump critic. Frum, if anything, is even more an more vituperative and indiscriminate critic of Trump than Rhodes. Regarding the ceremony in France, Frum tweeted: Its incredible that a president would travel to France for this significant anniversary and then remain in his hotel room watching TV rather than pay in person his respects to the Americans who gave their lives in France for the victory gained 100 years ago tomorrow. Frum didnt get his facts right. Trump wasnt in a hotel; he was staying at the U.S. ambassadors residence. Rhodes made the same mistake. In addition, its not incredible that Trump missed the ceremony. As Bloombergs Jennifer Jacobs reported: Weather canceled the trip. The presidential helicopter cant fly in poor conditions. And Belleau Wood is about 55 miles from downtown Paris; driving there would have been logistically challenging for the large presidential motorcade. Jacobs added: Reporters can check with Secret Service sources on security reasons one of Trumps 2 visits to U.S. graves was canceled, but world will still go nuts calling it international embarrassment. So will critics. The Post quotes Rhodes saying: There is always a rain option. Apparently, there was one here, too a motorcade. But if Jacobs reporting is correct, it too was ruled out for logistical reasons under the circumstances. I doubt that Trump ruled it out. Hes not an expert on Paris traffic patterns. In any event, the Post seems to have made no effort to consider the practicality of other options (although two of the Posts reporters on the story in question, David Nakamura and Seung Min Kim, complained bitterly about traffic in Paris and environs, with Nakamuara saying it took him 90 minutes for the 16 mile drive from the airport to the city). It simply relied on a critic, who happens to be Trumps bitter enemy a critic who has no idea whether a motorcade was a practical option under the circumstances. But thats the great thing about serving as a mouthpiece for Trumps critics. The Post can peddle any anti-Trump theme it wishes. And if that doesnt yield enough Trump-bashing stories, the Post can always run the same one twice in one edition. Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post blasts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not taking a hard line on Saudi Arabias crown prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Diehls op-ed comes as no surprise. The Post hates Netanyahu and Khashoggi wrote op-eds for for the paper. Diehl is normally a pretty sensible guy. But in this instance his rage has steered him off course. Virtually every paragraph of Diehls op-ed is wrong or misguided. Diehl describes Mohammed as a latter day version of Saddam Hussein. Thats ridiculous. Mohammad may have had Khashoggi killed (I assume he did), but hes no mass murderer. It would be more accurate to describe Mohammad as a later day version of the oppressive Saudi leaders Khashoggi supported and, indeed, worked for. The biggest differences are that Mohammed is a reformer and has been friendlier towards Israel and the U.S. In the next paragraph, Diehl rips Netanyahu for saying what happened in the Istanbul consulate is horrendous, and should be duly dealt with [but] its very important for the stability of the world. . .that Saudi Arabia remain stable. Both prongs of this statement are true. Or does Diehl think its not important that Saudi Arabia remain stable? In the next paragraph, Diehl rips Ron Dermer, Israels ambassador to the U.S., for saying we should not throw out the prince with the bathwater (not a fortunate turn of phrase because in this affair, at least, the prince appears to be the bathwater). In response, Diehl admits that the Mohammed is at the core of a U.S. strategy for the Middle East that was going smoothly until Khashoggis murder. The benefits of that strategy are substantial. Foremost among them, as Diehl acknowledges, is that the U.S. has been able to forge an alliance between Israel and the new generation of Saudi leaders backed by American muscle against Iran. So why abandon this strategy over one killing? Diehl never quite answers this question. If Mohammed were to lose power over the killing, it would make sense to abandon him. But Diehl admits this isnt likely to happen. Instead, he says, Mohammed will likely be weakened and wont be able to help Trump settle the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Considering the very long odds against such a settlement under the best of circumstances, I think we can live with that consequence. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute will be resolved when these two parties are ready to resolve it. The Saudis have nothing to do with it, whatever Jared Kushner, boy diplomat, might think. Diehl predicts that a weakened Mohammed will be able to contribute nothing to the anti-Iran coalition except pumping gas. Gas plus a stable Saudi Arabia is enough. However, theres no reason why the Saudis cant contribute more once the matter of Khashoggis murder blows over. Diehl attacks Netanyahu not just for throwing a lifeline to Mohammed, but also for being too close to Trump. Netanyahu even called out CNN for fake news,' Diehl complains. Given CNNs decades of biased anti-Israel coverage, Netanyahus use of that label is more than just an effort to cozy up to Trump. Not that theres anything wrong with a conservative leader of Israel trying to have a strong relationship with a conservative American leader. Netanyahu wanted good relations with the previous American leader, a left-liberal, but Obama demanded too many concessions to the Palestinians and treated him with contempt. Diehl attacks one of Netanyahus cabinet members for defending Trump against charges that his support for white nationalism has encouraged U.S. anti-semites. Thats because Trump does not support white nationalism, he supports American nationalism. The charges against Trump are rubbish. Why shouldnt Israels leaders dispute them? Diehl concludes by warning Israel that aligning itself with Trump will destroy bipartisan support for Israel in America. He notes that, although the older generation of Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, are staunchly pro-Israel, many of their new rank and file will not be. In his last paragraph, Diehl has finally hit upon a truth. Not only are the new rank and file Democrats not staunchly pro-Israel, they are not pro-Israel at all. The American left, which will likely dominate the Democratic party going forward, is pro-Palestinian. Israelis are the oppressor; Palestinians are oppressed other. This thinking has little to do with Netanyahu; it stems from leftist ideology. Obama shared it to a fair degree. That was an important source of the tension between Netanyahu and the former president. In any event, none of this has anything to do with Khashoggi or the crown prince who had him murdered. Netanyahu could call for Mohammeds head. Doing so might earn him one positive op-ed piece in the Post before normal Netanyahu-bashing service resumed. It would count for nothing with the new rank and file of anti-Israel Democrats. Photo: The Canadian Press Crowd of protestors gather outside the Broward County of Supervisor of Elections Office as the statewide election recount is underway while ballots for governor, Senate, Agricultural Commission were run through scanning machines in Broward for a second time under the watchful eye of representatives of both parties and the campaigns on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP) Mishaps, protests and litigation dominated Florida's first day of recounting the vote for pivotal races for governor and Senate, bringing back memories of the 2000 presidential fiasco. Much of the drama on Sunday centred on Broward and Palm Beach counties, home to large concentrations of Democratic voters. In Broward County, the recount was delayed for several hours Sunday morning because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. That prompted the Republican Party to slam Broward's supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, for "incompetence and gross mismanagement." Broward officials faced further headaches after they acknowledged the county mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected. The problem seemed impossible to fix because the dismissed ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots and Snipes said it would be unfair to throw out all of those votes. By the end of the day, Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Senate, filed suit against Snipes in a circuit court. He sought a judge's order that law enforcement agents impound and secure all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots "when not in use until such time as any recounts." The lawsuit accused Snipes of repeatedly failing to account for the number of ballots left to be counted and failing to report results regularly as required by law. Juan Penalosa, the executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, accused Scott of "using his position to consolidate power by cutting at the very core of our democracy." Meanwhile, in Palm Beach County, the supervisor of elections said she doesn't believe her department will be able to meet the state's Thursday deadline to complete the recount, throwing into question what would happen to votes there. The developments added up to a tumultuous day in America's premier political battleground state. More than half of Florida's 67 counties began a recount process that's unprecedented even in a state notorious for settling elections by razor-thin margins. State officials said they weren't aware of any other time a race for governor or U.S. Senate required a recount, let alone both in the same election. The recount in other major population centres, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, was ongoing without incident on Sunday. Smaller counties are expected to begin their reviews Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Unofficial results showed Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in the election for governor. In the Senate race, Scott's lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson was 0.14 percentage points. State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. Once completed, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or below, a hand recount will be ordered. As the recount unfolded, Republicans urged their Democratic opponents to give up and let the state to move on. Scott said Sunday that Nelson wants fraudulent ballots and those cast by noncitizens to count, pointing to a Nelson lawyer objecting to Palm Beach County's rejection of one provisional ballot because it was cast by a noncitizen. "He is trying to commit fraud to win this election," Scott told Fox News. "Bill Nelson's a sore loser. He's been in politics way too long." Nelson's campaign issued a statement Sunday saying their lawyer wasn't authorized to object to the ballot's rejection as "Non-citizens cannot vote in US elections." Gillum and Nelson have argued each vote should be counted and the process should take its course. Both the state elections division, which Scott runs, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have said they have found no evidence of voter fraud. That didn't stop protests outside Snipes' office, where a crowd of mostly Republicans gathered Sunday, holding signs, listening to country music and occasionally chanting "lock her up," referring to Snipes. A massive Trump 2020 flag flew over the parking lot and many members of a Bikers For Trump group wore matching shirts and carried flags, mingling among a crowd that included a protester wearing a Hillary Clinton mask. Team leniency the folks who favor shorter sentences for federal drug felon and favor letting these felons out of jail before their sentences have been fully served promised it would push for such legislation as soon as the elections were over. They werent going to push for it before the elections because leniency legislation is massively unpopular. Now that the elections are safely behind them, leniency supporters have started their push in earnest. We can expect that some form of their pet bill the FIRST STEP Act will be voted on by both chambers of Congress before the end of the year. Whether leniency legislation is enacted ultimately depends, I think, on whether President Trump wants it. Trump has made at least one public statement suggesting that he does, but he has also privately expressed opposition. And, of course, toughness on drug crime and drug criminals has been a staple of his rhetoric. Indeed, he has suggested that fentanyl dealers should get the death penalty in some cases. Id like to believe that Trump wont sign or support legislation that shortens sentences for federal drug felons and puts them back on the street before they have served their sentences. And Id be surprised if he signs and supports such legislation against the wishes of the law enforcement community. Until now, the law enforcement community has solidly opposed to leniency legislation. But now, one major law enforcement organization, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), has expressed support for FIRST STEP. You can read its statement of support here. Fortunately, the other major organizations continue forcefully to oppose First Step. However, the FOP is, without a doubt, an important player. Heres the thing, though. The FOP has been sold a bill of goods. A reliable source on Capitol Hill says that, based on the most recent draft (as of November 10) of the First Step legislation, it appears that the bills authors have not followed through on the promises they made to induce FOPs support promises the FOP relies on its statement of support. In some cases, yes, there is legislative language included that is relevant to the promises outlined in the FOPs statement of support. However, the bills authors have also slipped in significant carve-outs and loopholes that render the touted language ineffectual. In other words, the bills authors have paid lip service to the promises made to the FOP, but havent actually delivered. I expect to discuss these promises, and the failure to deliver on them, in a series of posts. Tonight, I will focus on one of them the crucial promise that, to quote the FOP statement, [T]ruly dangerous offenders, like those who commit crimes while armed and those who traffic in deadly narcotics like fentanyl, are ineligible to participate in the First Step program. Im told that this promise is false. First, as to those who commit crimes while armed, the bill does contain an exclusion from the time credit system for offenders convicted of using or carrying a gun during a violent crime or drug trafficking offense. But the exclusion applies only if (1) the criminal has already been convicted of the same section (or an equivalent crime at the state level); and (2) the criminal has been able to meaningfully participate (whatever that means) in recidivism reduction programming during each of his prior gun convictions. Thus, armed criminals are not precluded from benefiting from leniency legislation if they havent previously been convicted of the same crime (even if they have significant criminal histories). And repeat gun criminals are not excluded if they have ever served time for a previous gun conviction without meaningfully have gone through the recidivism reduction programming. (Assuming these programs are worthwhile, the premise of FIRST STEP, one can argue that if they had gone through such a program meaningfully, they wouldnt have committed more offenses). Thus, for example, if an offender had five previous gun convictions at the state and federal level, but only went through recidivism reduction programming four times, he would still get early release under the time credit program. How ridiculous is that? Fentanyl dealers arent excluded either. The exclusion for them applies only if the trafficker is also found by the sentencing court to be an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor in the drug trafficking operation. The majority of fentanyl traffickers arent organizers or leaders of their drug trafficking organization. But they are still major contributors to the epidemic that is killing so many Americans. They are key accomplices to these killings. As noted, President Trump has talked about tougher sentences for those who deal fentanyl. He wasnt talking about just organizers and leaders of trafficking organizations. Keep in mind, as well, that organizers and leaders of fentanyl dealing organizations can benefit from the leniency legislation by plea agreements under which they are not labeled as such. Indeed, according to my source, 93 percent of all drug traffickers (and 91 percent of all heroin traffickersa close proxy for fentanyl traffickers, given that the Sentencing Commission doesnt track the role adjustments for fentanyl traffickers specifically) did not receive an organizer or leader enhancement in 2017. Thus, more than 90 percent of fentanyl traffickers would not be excluded from the time credit system based on the language of the latest draft bill. Note too that this language does not exclude fentanyl traffickers from leniency if they traffic in multiple drugs (as virtually all fentanyl traffickers do) and are either convicted of or plead to trafficking in one of the other drugs (often because it is easier to prove heroin or cocaine trafficking than to prove which analogue of fentanyl was involved in the offense). Again, President Trump didnt advocate tougher sentences for 10 percent of fentanyl dealers, he advocated tougher sentences for all of them. By contrast, and perversely, FIRST STEP delivers lighter sentences for up to 90 percent of fentanyl dealers and tougher sentences for none, not even those whose dealing directly causes death the group Trump said should receive the death penalty. The Fraternal Order of Police has been sold a bill of goods. President Trump shouldnt buy it. Agriculture Drones Market PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-12 20:09:47 Press Information Polaris Market Research Polaris Market Research 30 Wall Street 8th Floor, New York City, NY 10005, United States Mr.Neel Corporate Sales Manager 1-646-568-9980 email https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/ # 569 Words Polaris Market Research30 Wall Street8th Floor, New York City,NY 10005, United StatesCorporate Sales Manager1-646-568-9980 According to a new report published by Polaris Market Research, the worldwide Agriculture Drones market is anticipated to reach around USD 8,019.8 million by 2026. In 2017, the field mapping segment dominated the global market, in terms of revenue. North America is expected to be the leading contributor to the global market in 2017.There has been an increasing adoption of agricultural drones across the world owing to growing agricultural industry, and high-demand for high quality food crops. The growing use of drones for crop health monitoring, weed detection, variable rate application, crop scouting, and livestock management supports the agriculture drones market growth. The growing population and increasing automation of farm operations further supports agriculture drones market growth. The global agricultural drones market is driven by the increasing need to improve the quality of crops produced, maximize crop production, and enhance productivity. Other factors driving the growth of this market include growth in the global agricultural industry, reducing availability of labors, and increasing labor costs. However, safety, security, and privacy concerns restrict the growth of the agricultural drones market. Growing demand from emerging economies, and technological advancements are factors expected to provide numerous growth opportunities in the coming years.Download PDF Sample: https://bit.ly/2B0xCHK According to the United States Department of Agriculture, National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) utilizes drones with camera and sensor payloads to develop digital orthophotographs. These images are available to the government agencies and general public for estimation of land usage, crop plantings and yields, and others. In March 2016, Agribotix LLC partnered with Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) to introduce agriculture drone and data analytics for crop health management and improvement of agriculture production.North America generated the highest revenue in the market in 2017. The increasing population, and growing demand for high quality crops drives the growth of this market. Growing cost of labor and increasing automation in agricultural practices further support global agriculture drones market growth. Increasing investments and subsidies in the agriculture sector by governments are expected to boost the adoption of drones for increased productivity in farms.The different components used in Agriculture Drones include hardware, software, and services. In 2017, the hardware segment accounted for the largest share in the global market. The hardware used in agricultural drones include technologically advanced cameras, navigation systems, frames, controllers, propulsion systems, and others. The hardware components are required for capturing information and monitoring of fields and crops.The well-known companies profiled in the report include Trimble Navigation Limited, DJI Technology Co., Ltd, Parrot SA, Drone Deploy, Agribotix LLC, Honeycomb Corporation, Aerovironment, Inc., Eagle UAV Services LLC, 3D Robotics Inc., AgEagle Aerial Systems, Inc., Autocopter Corp, and Ursula Agriculture. These companies launch new products and collaborate with other market leaders to innovate and launch new products to meet the increasing needs and requirements of consumers.For More Information and TOC: https://bit.ly/2RPXNGS About Polaris Market Research:Polaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We strive to provide our customers with updated information on innovative technologies, high growth markets, emerging business environments and latest business-centric applications, thereby helping them always to make informed decisions and leverage new opportunities. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises.Contact us:Mr. NeelCorporate Sales, USAPolaris Market ResearchPhone: 1-646-568-9980Email: neel@ polarismarketresearch.com Web: https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/ PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-12 14:26:02 Brunel Pension Partnership, the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in the UK managing investment of the pension assets for the funds of Avon, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Environment Agency, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, and Wiltshire Funds, has confirmed a major investment of almost 1bn in the LGIM (Legal & General Investment Management Ltd) Diversified Multi-Factor Equity Fund backed by Scientific Beta indices. In April, Brunel announced the appointment of LGIM as its passive equity fund manager and has since been transitioning assets to the manager. The LGIM Diversified Multi-Factor Equity Fund, launched in July 2017 as a commingled life fund for UK institutional clients, allocates between Scientific Beta indices according to regional weights determined by LGIM. The Scientific Beta High-Factor-Intensity Multi-Beta Multi-Strategy EW indices are custom indices that provide strong exposure to the rewarded risk factors (Low Volatility, Value, Low Investment and High Profitability) and a good level of diversification using an equal-weighted combination of the Maximum Deconcentration and Diversified Risk Weighted approaches. "We looked at a range of approaches to multi factor smart beta investing and believe that the LGIM Diversified Multi-factor Equity fund product which incorporates factor data and research by Scientific-Beta has several distinct advantages, including relatively simple construction, purity of approach and excellent track record, says Mark Mansley, CIO at Brunel Pension Partnership. These are combined in a sensible way which avoids many of the issues of some multi-factor approaches. We regard it as a positive that LGIM has been actively involved in developing this product with Scientific-Beta." "Brunel Pension Partnership's investment in the LGIM Diversified Multi-factor Equity fund is a major vote of confidence in our approach of offering exposure to long-term rewarded risk factors, ensuring a good reward for these factors through good diversification of unrewarded risk, and guaranteeing sound risk management of the investment by implementing risk allocation between well-diversified factor indices, says Noel Amenc, CEO at ERI Scientific Beta. We are delighted to see that this philosophy is appealing to one of the major institutional investors in the UK." As part of its policy of transferring know-how to the industry, EDHEC-Risk Institute has set up ERI Scientific Beta. ERI Scientific Beta is an original initiative which aims to favour the adoption of the latest advances in smart beta design and implementation by the whole investment industry. Its academic origin provides the foundation for its strategy: offer, in the best economic conditions possible, the smart beta solutions that are most proven scientifically with full transparency of both the methods and the associated risks. ERI Scientific Beta, 1 George Street, #15-02, Singapore 049145. For further information, please contact: contact@scientificbeta.com, Web: www.scientificbeta.com. Attachment PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-12 12:37:22 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 464 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / November 12, 2018 / Diageo has agreed the sale of nineteen brands in an agreement with Sazerac for an aggregate consideration of $550 million. The net proceeds of approximately 340 million, after tax and transaction costs, will be returned to shareholders through a share repurchase following completion, which will be incremental to the previously announced programme of up to 2bn. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to complete early in 2019.Ivan Menezes, Chief Executive of Diageo, said: "Diageo has a clear strategy to deliver consistent efficient growth and value creation for our shareholders. This includes a disciplined approach to allocating resources and capital to ensure we maximise returns over time. Today's announcement is another example of this strategy in action. The disposal of these brands enables us to have even greater focus on the faster growing premium and above brands in the US spirits portfolio." Further InformationThe brands included in the transaction are Seagram's VO, Seagram's 83, Seagram's Five Star, Myers's, Parrot Bay, Romana Sambuca, Popov, Yukon Jack, Goldschlager, Stirrings, The Club, Scoresby, Black Haus, Peligroso, Relska, Grind, Piehole, Booth's and John Begg.The transaction is approximately 1.9 pence per share dilutive to pre-exceptional eps in the first full financial year.The transaction is expected to generate an exceptional gain on disposal of approximately 110m.Diageo has also agreed to enter into long-term supply contracts with Sazerac on completion for five of the brands each for a period of ten years. Supply of all other brands will transition to Sazerac within a one year period from completion.Further details with respect to the execution of the additional share repurchase will be made available following completion of the transaction and aligned with the execution of the remaining tranches of the previously announced programme of up to 2bn.ENDSCONTACTSInvestor Relations: Pier Falcione +44 (0) 20 8978 4838Media Relations: Jessica Rouleau +44 (0) 20 8978 1286press@ diageo.com About DiageoDiageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands across the spirits and beer categories. These brands include Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, JB, Buchanan's and Windsor whiskies, Smirnoff, Ciroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.Diageo is a global company, and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. The company is listed on both the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and the New York Stock Exchange (DEO).Celebrating life, every day, everywhere.About SazeracSazerac is one of America's oldest family owned, privately held distillers with operations in the United States in Louisiana, Kentucky, Indiana, Virginia, Tennessee, Maine, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Maryland, California, and global operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, India, Australia and Canada. For more information on Sazerac, please visit www.sazerac.com SOURCE: Diageo PLC Iberia Consulting B2B Meeting PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-12 15:01:19 Press Information Iberia Consulting Calle Hermosilla 48 Grace Marketing +34677056557 email http://www.iberiaconsulting.com Published by Grace Burkett +34677056557 e-mail https://www.iberiaconsulting.com # 328 Words Calle Hermosilla 48Marketing+34677056557Grace Burkett+34677056557 The annual Eurasia Packaging Fair is a 4-day event that started on the 31st of October until the 3rd of November 2018 at the Tuyap Convention Fair in Istanbul, Turkey. The fair consists of Packaging products, packaging designs, logistics, warehouse, machineries, raw materials, printing technologies, meat product technologies, food and beverage storage and food safety.Majority of the exhibitors came from Turkey as well as the Middle East and some parts of East Asia and Europe.Iberia Consulting was contracted by Qatar Development Bank who manages 17 Qatari companies in the plastic sector who will be attending the Eurasia Packaging Fair. Iberia Consulting provided the leads and conducted the matchmaking of business entities to initiate a B2B meeting inside the fair.Prior to the fair, the team contacted a number of target industries which are the buyers, distributors and agents. It was not an easy task due to the specific product needs, but the team was able to provide leads who match their business needs and in the end, there were a total of 269 meetings to the 17 clients during the span of just three days!As a result, the Qatari companies expressed their satisfaction with the meetings and as some of them were able to close the deals just right inside the fair!Iberia Consulting is a trade consulting agency based in Spain. They specialize in conducting B2B meetings, trade missions, lead generations in trade fairs as well as creating partnerships from around the globe. They analyse the companies and conduct business matchmaking of various corporate entities to make sure they fit their needs.On December 11-17th, Iberia Consulting will be providing leads for the B2B Meetings in the Intra African Trade Fair which will be held in Cairo, Egypt.For further information please contact Iberia Consulting at info@ iberiaconsulting.com to check out their upcoming events on their website at www.iberiaconsulting.com or if you need international trade consultants to expand your businessmarket. PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-12 13:51:23 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 560 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 BANGKOK / ACCESSWIRE / November 12, 2018 / Vulcano ($VULC), a newly relaunched cryptocurrency is defying the odds and custom as they work to redefine the relationship between cryptocurrencies and academic research. Resurrected by Jason "BitBender" Brink and his team of cryptocurrency enthusiasts, Vulcano has begun to make an impact in the world of seismic research with their signing of an MOU with Rajamangala University, based in Nonthaburi, Thailand, a district on the outskirts of Bangkok. With this contribution amounting to over 1% of its total market cap in this single project, Vulcano is ensuring that the leave their mark on geothermal and seismic research around the world.After finding the project abandoned and with a community badly in need of help, Mr. Brink enlisted the help of outside developers to fix the problems with the software controlling the Vulcano network. Once this problem was fixed, they turned their attention to giving the project a real use case. Operating without ever having conducted an Initial Coin Offering, Vulcano stands apart from most cryptocurrencies focused on the sustainable energy space. This focus on sustainability and transparency recently earned Vulcano an invitation to present at the 2018 Social Enterprise Conference, hosted at UNESCO Thailand.At this conference, Mr. Brink explained how blockchain can be used by social enterprises to increase transparency, by NGOs work to solve problems faced by displaced persons, and in climate change and sustainability efforts to an audience of United Nations officials and business leaders from Thailand. Through helping give clarity to the sometimes confusing concepts surround blockchain technology, its benefits, and its limitations, Mr. Brink helped them understand the technologies underlying most cryptocurrencies, with a special focus on the funding implications made possible through the Vulcano ecosystem.Mr. Brink has a long history in cryptocurrency. As the writer of the winning paper for the 2014 Global Development Network competition, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he established himself as a thinker in the blockchain space. While his knowledge and connection to the community has deepened over time, his commitment to using blockchain technology to enhance the future of mankind and fight for a more sustainable future.While Vulcano is at the beginning of its journey and intends to reveal a tripartite business structure with branches based around the world, it could not have come this far without the strong support of its community. With several thousand passionate supporters, Vulcano is readying itself for the next phase of growth through securing additional university partnerships, establishing business relationships with other cryptocurrency projects, and continuing its tradition of transparency and community expansion.The team at Vulcano believes that the world is what its inhabitants make of it. Over the next years, they plan on investing heavily into renewable energy, building an Intellectual Property portfolio, and using it to help developing nations move in a direction of energy independence and sustainability in a way which is not currently being attempted by any other blockchain project. While it may currently be a small project, it will have an impact many of orders of magnitude larger.To learn more about Vulcano ($VULC)Visit the official website: https://vulcano.io/ Read the Whitepaper: https://github.com/VulcanoCrypto/Vulcano-Whitepaper Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/vulcanocoin Subscribe on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/VulcanoCrypto Chat on Discord: http://discord.me/vulcanocrypto Chat on Telegram: https://t.me/vulcanocoinSOURCE: Vulcano PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-12 10:04:01 Chinsay expands their offering into trade finance and fintech ecosystems by supporting NR Capital and their counterparties in digitising fundamental supply chain processes NR Capital and Chinsay Partner to Digitise Commodity Trade Contracts NR Capital enquiry@nr.capital or Chinsay Tony Faneco Chief Commercial Officer tony@chinsay.com NR Capital, a leading and innovative digital trade finance company, has selected Chinsay, the market leader in contract and document management software, to implement Chinsays Contract Management Platform a single cloud-based SaaS solution for end-to-end contract management and counter-party collaboration to enhance their client offering. NR Capital identified Chinsays Contract Management Platform as the leading solution to digitalise the process of drafting, issuing and validating commodity contracts. NR Capitals technology framework digitises fundamental supply chain processes including sales and purchase contracts, electronic bills of lading and letters of credit. Tom James, CEO and CIO of NR Capital, stated, Chinsays technology is aligned with our focus on the digitisation of all operational processes in our ecosystem. This partnership enhances our offering to our customer counterparts, enabling them to more effectively communicate their transaction information with us and approve the format of the legal agreements prior to our approval and legal sign off. We look forward to using Chinsay to provide our clients even more transaction security, operational efficiency and cost reductions for users. We are delighted to partner with NR Capital in their mission to bring efficiency to commodity and finance markets through the application of technology, said Colin Hayward, CEO of Chinsay. He continued, NR Capital represents a unique customer segment for Chinsay outside of our traditional freight and bulk commodity markets. This partnership validates our extension into the Fintech and Trade Finance ecosystems. We will support NR Capital and our clients as an important enabler for further digitalisation of trade processes within our traditional markets and beyond. About NR Capital NR Capital, headquartered in Singapore, is an innovative Digital Trade Finance (Fin+Tech) company, which offers an alternative to traditional balance sheet lending to SMEs in the bulk commodity market sector. The company specialises in supporting firms whose transactions are typically between US$1m to US$10m. NR Capital leverages market leading technology to provide a scalable solution that enhances transaction security, increases operational efficiency, and reduces costs for users. NR Capital uses a technology framework, which digitises fundamental supply chain processes including sales & purchase contracts, electronic Bills of Lading and Letters of Credit. The company operates the NR Capital Trade Flow Fund SP a regulated fund for investors, which gives them access to the diversification benefits and strong risk adjusted returns of the emerging Trade Finance Asset Class. For more information, visit http://www.nr.capital About Chinsay Chinsays platforms for freight and commodities enable global businesses to collaboratively create, review and manage their trade contracts. Chinsays digital workflow unlocks efficiencies and mitigates the risk of contractual errors while ensuring that internal and external compliance is automatically enforced. By using digital contracts on Chinsay, contractual data is easily visualised and analysed which enables faster and better decision making. Chinsay is fully independent and has a +10 year track record of supporting multinational corporations, brokers, and commodity traders in over 40 countries. For more information, visit http://www.chinsay.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005 PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-12 15:02:52 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 815 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / November 12, 2018 / Pelangio Exploration Inc. (TSX-V: PX) (OTC PINK: PGXPF) ("Pelangio" or the "Company") announces a non-brokered private placement of up to 4,500,000 units of the Company at a price of $0.15 per unit for gross proceeds of up to $675,000 (the "Private Placement"). Each unit consists of one common share of the Company (a "Common Share") and one Common Share purchase warrant ("Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one Common Share at a price of $0.20 for a period of two years from the initial closing date of the Private Placement.The closing of the Private Placement may occur in one or more tranches, with the initial closing date of the Private Placement expected to occur on or before November 30, 2018, and is not subject to receipt of a minimum amount of gross proceeds. The Company may pay finder's fees of 8% cash and 8% warrants to purchase Common Shares to certain introducing parties in respect of the Private Placement, subject to compliance with applicable securities legislation and TSX Venture Exchange policies. Closing is subject to receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. The securities issued pursuant to the Private Placement, will be subject to a four-month and one day hold period in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws and TSX Venture Exchange policies.Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.About PelangioPelangio acquires and explores large land packages in world-class gold belts in Canada and Ghana, West Africa. In Canada, the company is focusing on the 25 km2 Birch Lake Property located in the Red Lake Mining District and the Dalton Property located 1.5 km from the Hollinger mine in Timmins. In Ghana, the Company is focusing on two 100%- owned camp-sized properties: the 100 km2 Manfo Property, the site of seven recent near-surface gold discoveries, and the 264 km2 Obuasi Property, located 4 km on strike and adjacent to AngloGold Ashanti's prolific high-grade Obuasi Mine. Ghana is an English-speaking, common law jurisdiction that is consistently ranked amongst the most favourable mining jurisdictions in Africa.For additional information, please visit our website at www.pelangio.com , or contact:Ingrid Hibbard, President and CEOTel: 905-336-3828 / Toll-free: 1-877-746-1632 / Email: info@ pelangio.com Forward Looking StatementsCertain statements herein may contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements or information appear in a number of places and can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate" or "believes" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will", the proposed use of proceeds and the Company's exploration plans and drill program. With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, we have made numerous assumptions, including assumptions about our ability to obtain the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange and close the Private Placement in a timely manner, the anticipated closing thereof, the state of the equity markets, and our ability to conduct our exploration programs as planned. Such forward-looking statements and information are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement or information. Such risks include the ability of the Company to meet the conditions of closing, changes in equity markets, share price volatility, volatility of global and local economic climate, gold price volatility, political developments in Ghana, increases in costs, exchange rate fluctuations, unforeseen circumstances that would cause delays in executing our planned exploration program, labour shortages, speculative nature of gold exploration and other risks involved in the gold exploration industry. See the Company's annual and quarterly financial statements and management's discussion and analysis for additional information on risks and uncertainties relating to the forward-looking statement and information. There can be no assurance that a forward- looking statement or information referenced herein will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Also, many of the factors are beyond the control of the Company. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. We undertake no obligation to reissue or update any forward-looking statements or information except as required by law. All forward-looking statements and information herein are qualified by this cautionary statement.SOURCE: Pelangio Exploration Inc. PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-12 14:00:52 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 844 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / November 12, 2018 / Rockcliff Metals Corporation ("Rockcliff" or the "Company") ( TSX.V: RCLF) (FRANKFURT: RO0, WKN: A2H60G) is pleased to announce that a first phase drill program has commenced on the Company's high-grade Laguna Gold Property located in Snow Lake, Manitoba. The Laguna Gold Property hosts the past producing Rex-Laguna Mine that was Manitoba's first and highest-grade gold mine. The 2,500 metre drill program marks the first drill program on the property in over 70 years.Rockcliff's President & CEO, Ken Lapierre, stated: "A first phase drill program has started on the property. Multiple gold bearing quartz zones south of the former high-grade Laguna gold mine will be the initial focus of attention as well as testing below the old mine workings. We look forward to working with Kinross on this drill program at Laguna to determine the property's gold potential." See Figure 1 on the following page highlighting Rockcliff's 5 district sized Snow Lake gold properties including the Laguna Gold Property.Laguna Gold PropertyThe Laguna Gold Property hosts the Laguna gold mine, Manitoba's first and highest-grade former gold mine located within the Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt, a belt known originally for its high-grade gold mines then its high-grade base metals mines. Historical, intermittent gold mining at Laguna, between 1916 and 1939 produced over 60,000 ounces of gold grading 18.7 g/t. The Laguna Gold Property includes 28 contiguous mining claims totalling 3,501 hectares covering a minimum 6.0 kilometres of prospective strike length of the Laguna Gold Mine Trend.The gold mineralization on the Laguna Gold Property is controlled by thrust faults attributed to the major regional Crowduck Bay Fault which crosses the entire length of the Laguna Gold Property. The gold-rich quartz veining and stockwork systems along the northwest limb of the Herb Lake Syncline typically occur where the faults intersect quartz-feldspar and biotite porphyry stocks that intrude Missi Group sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Quartz, iron carbonate-albite-sericite alteration commonly overprint peak regional metamorphic assemblages within gold-bearing vein margins. Mineralization in quartz and surrounding quartz stockwork wall rock consists of pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, galena, pyrrhotite and native gold.Rockcliff's initial reconnaissance exploration programs in 2016-18 identified 12 surface gold-rich quartz zones with multiple areas of visible gold and surface grab sample assays from trace to over 600 g/t gold. Geophysical programs covering the 6.0-kilometre-long Laguna Gold Mine Trend identified significant potential depth extensions of the known surface gold-rich quartz zones below a thin veneer of overburden cover, to depths of up to 250 metres, the maximum penetration of the IP geophysical survey.Figure 1 - Rockcliff's 5 district sized gold properties in the Snow Lake area,including the Laguna Gold Property.Definitive Option Agreement (DOA) for Laguna and Lucky Jack Gold PropertiesThe main terms of the DOA, dated July 19, 2018, provide Kinross with the right to earn a 70% interest in both properties by spending a minimum of C$5.5M in exploration expenditures over six years. Kinross is committed in the first and second year to aggregate minimum expenditures totalling $1,250,000. Rockcliff will act as operator.QPKen Lapierre P.Geo., President and CEO of Rockcliff, a Qualified Person in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements as set out in NI 43-101, has read and approved the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for the disclosure contained in this press release.About Rockcliff Metals CorporationRockcliff is a well-funded Canadian resource exploration company focused on base metals, gold and royalties in the Snow Lake area of Manitoba. Rockcliff is the largest junior explorer in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt and its extensive portfolio of properties totals over 2,000 square kilometres. It includes 8 of the highest-grade undeveloped base metal deposits and 5 lode-gold properties including the Laguna gold mine, Manitoba's first and highest-grade historic gold mine.Please access the Company's website at www.rockcliffmetals.com for additional information on Rockcliff's sizeable base metal and gold property portfolio in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt.Please visit http://rockcliffmetals.com . for additional information on Rockcliff Metals Corporation.For further information, please contact:Rockcliff Metals CorporationKen Lapierre, P. GeoPresident & CEOCell: (647) 678-3879Off: (416) 644-1752ken@ rockcliffmetals.com CHF Capital MarketsCathy Hume, CEOOff: (416) 868-1079 ext. 231cathy@ chfir.com Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward-looking. Although Rockcliff believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not a guarantee of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements.Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.SOURCE: Rockcliff Metals Corporation Smart Fleet Management Market PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-12 20:09:58 Press Information Polaris Market Research Polaris Market Research 30 Wall Street 8th Floor, New York City, NY 10005, United States Mr.Neel Corporate Sales Manager 1-646-568-9980 email https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/ # 490 Words Polaris Market Research30 Wall Street8th Floor, New York City,NY 10005, United StatesCorporate Sales Manager1-646-568-9980 According to a new research published by Polaris Market Research the worldwide Smart Fleet market is anticipated to reach around USD 629.5 billion by 2026. In 2017, the automotive segment dominated the global market, in terms of revenue. In 2017, North America accounted for the majority share in the global Smart Fleet market.Download PDF Sample: https://bit.ly/2OGuvsa The increasing need to track and monitor fleets to increase operational efficiency, and reduce costs drives the Smart Fleet Market growth. Organizations are increasingly adopting smart fleet systems to increase efficiency, and manage high volume of fleets. The growing need for high speed networks further accelerates the adoption of smart fleet systems. Other factors driving the market growth include growing need to reduce operational costs, increase profitability, and avoid road congestions and accidents. New emerging markets, increasing need to monitor driver behavior, and growing safety concerns are factors expected to influence the market in the coming years.North America is expected to lead the global Smart Fleet market during the forecast period. Significant investment by organizations to improve the fleet operations coupled with favorable regulations regarding transportation safety drive the growth of smart fleet in this region. Technological advancement and introduction of advanced smart fleet systems by the market players has increased the acceptance of smart fleet systems in the region. Asia-Pacific Smart Fleet Market is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This is due to economic growth in countries such as China and India, and increasing investments in increasing fleet efficiency. Expansion of global players into these countries to tap market potential boosts the market growth.The various mode of transportation covered in the report include automotive, rolling stock, and marine. Use of smart fleet solutions in automotive sector offers remote monitoring, fuel management, remote diagnostics, and route optimization among other functionalities. Increasing safety concerns, and government regulations regarding vehicular emissions support the growth of this segment.The well-known companies profiled in the report include Cisco Systems, Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, Denso Corporation, Sierra Wireless, Inc., Orbcomm, Inc., Siemens AG, Zonar Systems, Inc., IBM Corporation, Continental AG, OTTO Marine Limited, Harman International Industries, Inc., Globecomm Systems, Inc., and Globecomm Systems, Inc. These companies launch new products and collaborate with other market leaders to innovate and launch new products to meet the increasing needs and requirements of consumers.For More Information and TOC: https://bit.ly/2PSVKo5 About Polaris Market Research:Polaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We strive to provide our customers with updated information on innovative technologies, high growth markets, emerging business environments and latest business-centric applications, thereby helping them always to make informed decisions and leverage new opportunities. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises.Contact us:Mr. NeelCorporate Sales, USAPolaris Market ResearchPhone: 1-646-568-9980Email: neel@ polarismarketresearch.com Web: https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/ Photo: The Canadian Press A flowering cannabis plant is seen at Blissco Cannabis Corp. in Langley, B.C., on October 9, 2018. Arnold Meyer spent 40 years working at the Tolko Industries Ltd. mill in Merritt, B.C., but then he faced the reality of being laid off. The 62-year-old was one of about 200 employees who lost their jobs in 2016, crippling the economy of the small town in British Columbia's southern Interior and prompting politicians to promise to restore the ailing forestry sector. Two years later, the province's lumber industry is still facing challenges, but a new sector is revving up. A cannabis company hopes to build a grow facility in Merritt, replacing jobs, including Meyer's that were lost in the mill closure. "It sounds good to me. They said they want me to be one of the first hires for when the plant opens up," said Meyer, who held various positions at Tolko, where he mostly drove machinery. Emerald Plants Health Source Inc., or EPHS, purchased a massive chunk of land in the city and plans to build an initial 3,700-square-metre facility before building up to potentially more than 100,000 square metres. The facility would eventually employ more than 200 people in a range of jobs, from low-skill trimmer roles to higher-paid management jobs. Members of the company first learned about Meyer in a Canadian Press story on whether marijuana had the potential to revitalize small towns hit hard by resource job losses. In the 2017 article, Meyer said he hoped a cannabis company would create jobs in the community. "It just resonated with us as a group as we read that article, that this could really change people's lives in Merritt," said Jeff Hancock, executive vice-president of Emerald. "I think that's really what Arnold Meyer symbolizes to us as a company." Emerald also hopes to contact others formerly employed by Tolko. There are many transferable skills from mill work to cannabis and other skills can be learned, Hancock said, adding the company had good conversations with city staff and plans to put in its formal application soon. It aims to break ground in the second quarter of 2019 and plans to start production in the second or third quarter of the following year, he said. Newly elected Merritt Mayor Linda Brown said some younger Tolko employees left town to work at other mills run by the company or seek other employment, while some older employees found themselves retiring earlier than planned. Brown said she still has questions for Emerald, including whether the jobs will pay well, but she expects to support an application when it's put forward. "We need industry. We need developments in there. That's what I got elected on, was that kind of a platform, developing the city," she said. The mill closure devastated the community and any company that wants to bring in jobs is welcome, said former mayor Neil Menard. "It's a whole different industry for us. I don't know much about it. I hope it would pay good wages and good benefits," he said. "It can't be anything but good." Tolko did not return a request for comment but said in 2016 a lack of timber supply forced it to close the mill. The union that represented the employees declined comment. Emerald is a Health Canada-licensed producer that already has a facility in Montreal. Hancock and others with the company have energy industry backgrounds and have developed ways to reduce the energy costs associated with cannabis, he said. PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-12 20:10:32 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 451 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / November 12, 2018 / Leading UK-based brokerage service provider Steigen Makler Limited announced on Friday, November 9 that a definitive agreement had been entered with Sentinel Growth Portfolio, another popular investment broker also incorporated in London. "We expect that this merger will result in greater operations efficiency and a significant increase in our participation as leaders in the Financial Derivatives market," said a representative from Steigen Makler. "We are excited to have the opportunity to extend our high quality of service to the Sentinel's impressive client base." The integration of both companies will become effective on November 12, 2018. The agreement was reached as a result of Sentinel Growth's desire to expand the offerings of its investment portfolio services to all of its clients in Latin America, and the merger will result in the opening of new branches in Sao Paulo, Mexico, Santiago de Chile, and Colombia. "We are confident that joining forces with Steigen Makler Limited will allow us to achieve many of our strategic and financial objectives for expansion and growth," commented a representative from Sentinel Growth Portfolio. "Steigen has been a recognized financial leader not just in the UK, but across the world, for some time now, and we are highly looking forward to the opportunity to learn from their expertise." Steigen Makler is widely known for their effective management of Contracts for Difference (CFDs), with brokerage services also extended to products including shares, commodities, indices and cryptocurrencies. Steigen Makler's exclusive Trading Desk platform has become a favorite among the financial industry. By implementing advanced strategies that maximize each trade and reduce intraday margins, Steigen Makler has been able to cultivate a reputation for providing the highest quality of service without hampering their clients with exorbitant commissions.Businesses that partner with Steigen Makler - a UK-based brokerage service company with commercial offices in 14 countries and plans to permanently expand into four more - are granted access to the technology, expertise, and support necessary to expand into new markets. Specialized teams and individualized consultants are dedicated to each project, with the responsibility of advising the client in the successful development of their portfolio. With their 24/7 high-level support via phone, email, fax, or live chat in a multitude of languages, Steigen Makler's clients have the ability to confidently make financial decisions and further develop their investment strategies.STEIGEN MAKLER LIMITED: https://steigenmakler.com Steigen Makler on Latin America's Transformation into a Trading Activity Hub: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/steigen-makler-latin-americas-transformation-173800827.html Steigen Makler Discusses Buy-and-Hold Strategy for FAANG Stocks: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/steigen-makler-discusses-buy-hold-214500412.html Contact Information:Steigen Makler33 St. James's Square,SW1Y4JS, London, England, UKinfo@ steigenmakler.com SOURCE: Steigen Makler The management and directors of the defunct Skye Bank Plc are under investigation by both the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC). The managing director of NDIC, Umaru Ibrahim, in Abuja on Monday said the two financial sector regulatory authorities were monitoring closely the investigations by law enforcement agencies against the bank officials to determine their culpability in the failure of the bank. On September 21, the CBN and NDIC announced the revocation of the operating license of the bank and the establishment of a bridge bank, Polaris Bank, to take over its asset and liabilities. CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, said in consultation with the NDIC MD, Mr Ibrahim, the apex bank decided the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) would capitalise the bridge bank and begin the process of sourcing investors to buy out AMCON. However, Mr Emefiele had said members of the board and management of the defunct bank would be retained given their good performance, while all its employees would be absorbed by Polaris Bank under a new contracts. But the NDIC MD said at the opening of the Corporations 2018 Sensitisation seminar for Federal High Court Judges in Abuja, the officials of the defunct bank are currently under investigation by the relevant security agencies. NDICs Risk Assessment and Forensic Investigation Reports revealed the erstwhile management of the failed Skye Bank Plc. contributed to its failure by engaging in insider abuse, poor corporate governance and banking malpractices, Mr Ibrahim said. He said the reports identified various malpractices perpetrated by the directors, including fraudulent false accounting, manipulation of accounting records to present false profits and ratios, unlawful loan and credit facilities, non-disclosure of directors interests and lending beyond the single obligor limit. The NDIC boss said the decision to adopt the bridge bank resolution option by establishing Polaris Bank Limited to take over the asset and liabilities of the defunct Skye Bank Plc resulted in depositors unhindered access to their funds. Besides, he said, the option hepled the continuity of the operations of about 300 branches of the bank and the preservation of over 6,000 jobs. In 2016, Skye Bank came under the radar of the CBN after it discovered some unacceptable corporate governance lapses. The banks persistent failure to meet minimum thresholds in critical prudential and adequacy ratios culminated in its permanent presence at the CBN Lending Window. On July 4, 2016, the CBN took a regulatory action on the bank, leading to the resignation of its chairman, all non-executive directors on the board as well as the managing director, deputy managing director, and the two longest-serving executive directors on the management team. On other activities of the corporation, Mr Ibrahim informed participants the NDIC has commenced payment of insured deposits to depositors of the 153 microfinance and six primary mortgage banks whose licenses were recently revoked by the CBN. The corporation, he said, performed this statutory mandate by its appointment as liquidator through a winding up order granted by the Federal High Court. He described the collaboration between NDIC and the judiciary as a valuable engagement towards the development of the countrys financial system and the effective implementation of the corporations mandate. The seminar for Federal High Court judges with the theme Challenges to Deposit Insurance Law and Practice in Nigeria was to address topical issues in bank supervision. These issues include the regulatory framework of systematically important banks, the robustness of the legal system to facilitate criminal prosecution of bank directors and debt recovery under the Failed Banks Act. The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Abdul Kafarati, commended the NDIC for its continued interactions with the Federal High Court through the sensitisation seminars. Mr Kafarati said the impact of the seminars has deepened their understanding of the implications of the mandate and activities of the corporation, leading to more proactive and accurate adjudication of cases brought before the courts. He expressed optimism that the broadening of the scope to include topical issues would further deepen the impact of the seminar towards addressing current regulatory issues in the financial system and the dispensation of more informed judgments. Telecoms firm, Teleology Nigeria Limited, on Monday announced the constitution of a new Board of Directors for Nigerian telecommunication company, 9mobile. A statement by the company said the decision followed a successful completion of the tenure of the former Board appointed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and in fulfillment of the consequential transfer of final ownership to the new investors, Teleology Nigeria Limited. We thank all out-going members of the Board for helping to shepherd 9mobile through the critical transition phase it has passed through since July 2017 and wish them the very best in their future assignments, the statement, signed by Mohammed Edewor, said. For us, the composition of the new Board of Directors is another significant milestone, and this follows the issuance of final approval of no objection by the Board of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to the effect that the technical and financial bids Teleology submitted for 9mobile met and satisfied all the regulatory requirements.This is indeed the dawn of a new era in the evolution of the 9mobile brand in the Nigerian market. The statement listed the new Board of Directors to include Nasiru Ado Bayero (Chairman); Asega Aliga (Non Executive Director); Adrian Wood (Non Executive Director); and Mohammed Edewor (Non Executive Director). Others are Winston Ndubueze Udeh (Non Executive Director); Abdulrahman Ado (Executive Director) and Stephane Beuvelet (Acting Managing Director). Stephane Beuvelet Ag. MD 9mobile. The statement said the new Chairman of the Board, Mr Bayero, welcomed the members. As we begin this new epochal phase, we wish to thank all the employees who built this viable business, Mr Bayero was quoted to have said. Our debt of gratitude also goes to our subscribers even as we assure them to get ready for real best-in-class additional value for their relationship with the 9mobile brand. Without you, there could not have been a 9mobile business for us to invest in today. We will justify your confidence in our brand by making significant investments that will improve the value you get for using 9mobile. The CBN in collaboration with the Nigeria Communications Commission had in July 2017 appointed a Board of Directors chaired by Joseph Nnanna, the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, to oversee the affairs of the company. The appointment was made pending the completion of regulatory due diligence of the bid documents submitted by Teleology and sixteen others for its acquisition. The bid process, which has been marred in confusion, was superintended by Barclays Africa. In August, confusion hit the bid after several months of negotiations as the NCC said it had ordered fresh due diligence on the preferred bidder selected for the telecom firm. The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Umar Danbatta, said the fresh due diligence ordered by the commission would help determine whether Teleology Holdings has the requisite technical competence and financial capacity to successfully operate the troubled telecommunications firm. There are issues (yet to be resolved), he said. We are almost done with sorting out those issues. We are presently conducting another round of due diligence on Teleology to examine and consequently determine whether they really have the technical wherewithal and financial capability to run the company effectively. Teleology in its statement Monday claimed that with the emergence of the board, the long process for the acquisition of 9mobile has reached a definitive end marking the beginning of a new era for the telecommunication company. At least 37 local policemen were killed by the Taliban as fighting rage in Afghanistans Western Farah Province, local officials said on Monday. Khost, the sole village controlled by the government in Khak-e Safid district, was attacked by Taliban militants while the fight was ongoing, Humaira Ayubi, a member of parliament from the province, told dpa. Over 150 others are missing from the village, provincial council member, Abdul Samad Salehi, told dpa. Mr Salehi added that there was a contingent of 200 local policemen stationed in the village. He said militants had set fire to houses in the village. Ms Ayubi also said that the Taliban had attacked two to three police checkpoints on the outskirts of the city and had ransacked everything. She claimed that despite years of discussions with the government about the deteriorating security situation of the province, authorities have yet to listen and increase the number of troops. Ms Ayubi said that Farahs security situation is very fragile and save for the provincial capital Farah city, every other district is currently controlled by the Taliban. In mid-May, Taliban militants overrun parts of Farah city, battling Afghan forces for control, for days. Earlier, at least 25 Afghan security personnel were killed in a Taliban attack on a military base in the province on November 6. (dpa/NAN) The leader of the German Social Democrats youth wing on Monday said Chancellor Angela Merkels coalition with the SPD will not survive the 2019. The awkward alliance has been marred by disputes about immigration and the fate of the domestic spy chief since it took office in March, coming close to collapse twice. Voters punished both Merkels conservatives and the SPD in two recent regional elections. SPD youth wing leader Kevin Kuehnert, who campaigned against the conservative-SPD tie-up from the outset, said the SPD would be closely watching what happens when Merkel steps down as leader of her Christian Democrats (CDU) in December. Next year is full of regional elections and political developments that will have a big impact. I can hardly imagine us sticking together for the year. We have to use our time to prepare for the D-Day of snap elections, Mr Kuehnert told Deutschlandfunk radio. Mr Kuehnert said he hardly knew anyone who believed the coalition would survive to the end of this parliament in 2021. SPD leader Andrea Nahles has said that the SPD leadership, under pressure from a restive membership over flagging polls and disastrous regional election showings, did not discuss quitting the coalition at a meeting recently. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the leader of Ms Merkels Bavarian allies and a critic of her liberal asylum policies, told members of his Christian Social Union (CSU) that he wants to resign as party chief. Mr Seehofer has been a thorn in Ms Merkels side for much of the past three years, taking a hard line on immigration. Meanwhile, Senior CSU member Manfred Weber said that Mr Seehofer had said on Sunday that 2019 would be a year of renewal and the CSU leader would announce further details this week. (Reuters/NAN) A minister in Indias federal cabinet and a senior leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) HN Ananth Kumar, died on Monday, party leaders said. The six-term parliamentarian from Bangalore died at a cancer hospital in New Delhi, BJP spokesperson, S Shantaram, said. The 59-year-old had been minister for chemicals and fertilisers and for parliamentary affairs in Prime Minister Narendra Modis government, since 2014. Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation, Mr Modi said in a Twitter post. He will always be remembered for his good work, he said. Mr Kumar was the youngest minister when he held the civil aviation portfolio in the BJP-led coalition government headed by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He joined the Hindu nationalist BJP in 1987 and steadily rose in the ranks to become a member of the national leadership of the party which claims to be the largest in the world with a membership of over 100 million. He was credited with playing a key role in the partys growth from scratch in southern India and in its coming to power in Karnataka state for the first time in 2008. The Karnataka government declared a public holiday on Monday and three days of state mourning. (dpa/NAN) Canadian intelligence officers have listened to Turkish recordings of what happened to Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday. He said he was discussing with allies what next steps should be taken. Mr Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed at the kingdoms Istanbul consulate by a team sent from Riyadh. Saudi authorities have acknowledged that the killing was premeditated, but his body has not been found. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said over the weekend that audio recordings of the killing had been given to the U.S., French, German and British governments. When asked on a visit to Paris, whether Canadian intelligence had heard the Turkish recordings, Mr Trudeau said: Yes. Although he added that he had not heard them personally. Canadas intelligence agencies have been working very closely on this issue with Turkish intelligence and Canada has been fully briefed on what Turkey had to share, Mr Trudeau told a news conference. He added that he had also spoken to Mr Erdogan about the issue in Paris over the weekend. Canada is part of the so-called five eyes intelligence network, which shares information along with the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Mr Trudeau faces a dilemma as an election approaches over how to clamp down credibly on Riyadh over its human rights record while sparing a $13 billion arms deal with the kingdom. He is under pressure to freeze the contract for armoured vehicles built in Canada by U.S.-based General Dynamics (GD,N), although the deal underpins 3,000 jobs in the small city of London, Ontario. He avoided answering a question on whether the recordings could change Ottawas relationship with Riyadh. Mr Trudeau said he was continuing to talk with allies about the investigation and accountability for those behind the murder. We are in discussions with our like-minded allies as to the next steps with regard to Saudi Arabia, Trudeau said. Earlier on Monday, French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said Paris was not in possession of recordings related to Mr Khashoggis killings, apparently contradicting Mr Erdogans remarks. The truth isnt out yet. We want to know the truth, the circumstances of his death and the identity of the culprits. Then we will take the necessary actions, Mr Le Drian told France 2 television. If the Turkish President has information to give us, he must give it to us. For now, I dont know about it. (Reuters/NAN) Many may have received this message on Whatsapp: ASAPpls (SIC) dont ignore send to your family & friends immediately because the drink is already in Nigeria, send to everybody to save lives. These drinks are poison. Pls dont buy them. They are called EVOLUTION!!! The claim is that the drink contains lethal poison that will lead to death, although no one has been reported to have died from taking the drink neither has anyone named a place where this killer-drink can be bought. Despite the widespread distribution of this message, no one has bothered to find out if it is true. Is Message True? Research by DUBAWA shows that the Evolution drink actually does exist. Jimmy Rosenberg the founder and Chief Juice Officer of Evolution Fresh began fresh fruit juice processing in 1980 and the companys website has information about the company, its management and its products. The viral message that appears to be discrediting the brand did not originate in Nigeria however. Its existence was traced to a Facebook post from the United States in January of 2017 which was dismissed as a fake claim by snopes.com a fact-checking outfit operating from the USA. According to Snopes, the message might have started when a woman named Ramineh Behbehanian was accused of placing rubbing alcohol into two bottles of evolution fresh drink, then switching the tainted bottles with others in a refrigerator at a San Jose Starbucks store. Behbehanian, a chemist, was initially charged with attempted murder and poisoning. However, subsequent lab tests ordered by the Santa Clara County District Attorneys Office found that the orange juice bottles allegedly dropped off by Behbehanian contained vinegar (a non-harmful substance), so the district attorneys office declined to file charges against her. This appears to have been an isolated case of an experiment gone wrong and the company was not accused of any wrongdoing either at the time of the investigation or during the court case. Interestingly, the company does not produce or market its products in Nigeria. A statement on the companys website reads the distribution or sale of Evolution Fresh juices outside the United States and Canada is unauthorized. Any product sold outside the U.S. and Canada is either counterfeit or has been purchased, shipped and resold. Firm Responds The company responded to an enquiry regarding the production and distribution of their products thus:Thanks for reaching out. We can confirm that Evolution Fresh is only sold in the U.S. and Canada. These rumours, however, are malicious, unfounded and completely false. No Sign Of Drink Despite the clarification by the manufacturers, the possibility exists that perhaps the product is being smuggled into Nigeria or cloned in the country. However, research done in three major metropolitan cities Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt shows this product is not being sold anywhere in these cities. The food and drug regulatory body in Nigeria, NAFDAC, also does not list Evolution Fresh products on its product recall list as might have been the case had the drinks been found to be in the country and poisonous. A perusal of its archives also shows that the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), an organisation charged with the responsibility of ensuring imported products are up to required standards and safe for consumption, does not have Evolution Fresh registered as a product imported into Nigeria. This Whatsapp message is therefore one of misinformation. Until the veracity of this Whatsapp message is otherwise confirmed, it is perhaps wise not to help spread the misinformation. As the world marks the World Pneumonia Day, Nigeria and other countries have been urged to step up fight against a disease experts described as the most infectious killer of infants all over the world. The World Pneumonia Day is observed every November 12 to raise awareness about one of the most infectious killer of infants worldwide. Pneumonia is essentially a lung infection which can be serious and life-threatening. The infection can be viral, bacterial or fungal. It causes inflammation in lungs, wherein alveoli or tiny air sacs inside lungs get filled with liquid. To mark the day, Save the Children International and the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health launched the Pnuemonia Global Report at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja on Monday. Save the Children International is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and has been operating in Nigeria since 2001. The report titled Fighting for Breath, A Call to Action in Childhood Pneumonia, noted that the disease killed about 920,000 children in 2015. It said about 5.3million lives could be saved from pneumonia over the next 15 years but about 735,000 children could die in 2030 alone if the current trend of treatment and prevention remains. Speaking at the event, Save the Children Internationals Country Director, Ben Foot, said although lots of lives would be saved by immunising children against the disease, about 170 million children globally are yet to receive the vaccine. Mr Foot said said one million lives could be saved in the next five years from Pneumonia prevention and treatment, noting that two children under five die from the infection every minute. He urged governments, NGOs, CSOs and the private sector to come together to tackle the killer disease. The President of the National Medical Association (NMA), Francis Faduyile, said the silent killer places a huge burden on families and the health system in Nigeria. He said Nigeria is one of the 15 countries responsible for 70 per cent of global deaths attributable to pneumonia and diarrhea among under five. Mr Faduyile, who was represented at the event by Mustapha Yahaya, urge a review of the National Health Insurance Act to make health insurance mandatory for all Nigerians. This, he said, is the surest way to achieve Universal Health Coverage. The Country Representative, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Paulin Basinga, said pneumonia should be considered number one problem in Nigeria. Represented by Yusuf Yusufari, Mr Basinga said his organisation is committed to helping children in Nigeria and will support the fight against pneumonia. He noted that the coverage of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) in Nigeria is still very low, warning that no progress can be made under that situation. He urged the federal government and other partners to ensure every child in Nigeria is immunised. In his remarks, the Country Representative, UNICEF, Mohammed Fall, said everyday should be considered world pneumonia day because the disease is the leading cause of death of children all over the world. Represented by Sanjana Bhardwaj, chief of Health, UNICEF, Mr Fall said a combined effort from all partners will lead to zero pneumonia in Nigeria and even in the world. Photo: The Canadian Press Hatice Cengiz, Turkish fiance of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, listens during an event organized to mark the 40th day of the death of the Saudi writer, in Istanbul, late Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday became the first Western leader to acknowledge his country had heard recordings of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. "Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share," Trudeau said from Paris, where he was attending the Peace Forum following the WWI Armistice centenary. His comments come just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had given recordings "to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them." The Canadian leader is the first since that announcement to officially confirm that "yes" his country's intelligence had listened to the audio. He said Canada's intelligence agencies had been working "very closely" with Turkish intelligence on Khashoggi's killing. The shared audio is the latest measure by Turkey to maintain international pressure on Saudi Arabia in its aim to stop a cover up of the Oct. 2 killing. Trudeau said that he himself had not heard the audio, and he wouldn't give any details on the contents of the tapes. Trudeau also said he thanked Erdogan in person for "his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation" when the two leaders met in Paris this weekend. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia has changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing, first saying that he walked out of the embassy the day he disappeared before eventually acknowledging Khashoggi died inside the consulate. Saudi Arabia has also recently acknowledged Turkish evidence that showed the slaying was premeditated. Turkey says a 15-member Saudi assassination squad strangled and dismembered Khashoggi at the consulate. Media reports have suggested that his body could have been chemically dissolved as it has not yet been found. Saudi officials characterize the killing as a rogue operation carried out by Saudi agents who exceeded their authority. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said the federal government is yet to begin any dialogue with the union over the ongoing strike. The national president of the union, Biodun Ogunyemi, said this in a phone interview with PREMIUM TIMES Sunday evening. The union embarked on strike one week ago over the poor funding of Nigerian universities and an alleged plan by the federal government to increase students fees and introduce an education bank. The union also accuses the federal government of not implementing a 2017 agreement. Mr Ogunyemi on Sunday said the union has placed a memorandum before the government on how universities can be funded, but nothing has been done on it. For the minister, we have memorandum placed before them, but nobody is talking about the items there except to say that they cannot meet the unions demand because of the oil prices. We have submitted the report of a joint committee to the minister; on how to generate funds to address the outstanding balance of N1.3 trillion. It is like the minister is not addressing issues raised and the recommendation in the report, Mr Ogunyemi said. The union leader said ASUU has not seen any invitation from government to discuss the strike. They know how to reach us. Thats not how weve been communicating, Mr Ogunyemi said of an appeal by the education minister last week that the strike be suspended to allow for negotiations. The chairman of the negotiating committee came yesterday, Wale Babalakin, begging ASUU to come back to negotiating table. He has not addressed the issue we raised and he has been dancing around the issues. There are two issues that weve raised. But by his own attitude and actions, it was obvious to that he didnt want that. That was why we said we have seen enough. Our members remain resolute and report we are getting from branches indicate that our members are determined. Government cannot continue to handle education with levity which is the focus for the development of any country. We cannot continue to pretend that we have education when our universities are in terrible condition, he said. Mr Ogunyemi said the strike has so far been successful across campuses but for few vice chancellors. We have report of one or two crisis where the vice chancellors are trying to give us problems. Like Adekunle Ajasin University, the VC threatened to sack our members and we tried to tell him to go ask from history, he said. Efforts to get the education and labour ministries to speak on why no negotiation has started since the strike begun were unsuccessful. The spokesperson of the education ministry, Willie Bassey, said he has been out of Abuja and could not comment on the matter. Also, the spokesperson of the labour ministry, Samuel Olowookere, did not respond to phone calls and text messages put across to him. However, earlier last week, the education minister, Adamu Adamu, urged the union to exercise restraint in its demands. The minister said the demands of the union dated back to 2009 during the administration of late President Umaru YarAdua, when Nigeria had not yet entered into a recession. Mr Adamu noted that the government would improve the funding of education when oil price rises and the economy improves. Wale Babalakin team Inaugurated to Negotiate with ASUU Also on Saturday, Wale Babalakin, who is the chairman of the Federal Government/Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) 2009 Agreement Renegotiation Committee debunked allegations that his team suggested a fee hike in universities. He however agreed that his team disagrees with ASUU on how to fund public universities but called for the suspension of the strike. Civic Groups React When contacted, the senior legal adviser of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), Bamisope Adeyanju, urged the authorities to move swiftly to reach an agreement with ASUU to end the ongoing strike by lecturers. Education is a fundamental human right enshrined in numerous international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, all of which Nigeria has ratified, Mr Adeyanju said. According to him, these human rights instruments obligate the Nigerian government to take measures to progressively realise the right to quality education within its maximum available resources. He said the federal governments failure to use its maximum available resources to fund education is a retrogressive measure, and therefore amounts to a violation of Nigerias international human rights obligations. The authorities must take concrete and meaningful measures to eliminate all barriers to education, especially corruption and mismanagement, improve conditions for lecturers and teachers, and take steps to address underlying social conditions that impede educational access, particularly for children from socially and economically vulnerable populations, he said. Similarly, the national coordinator of Education Rights Campaign (ERC), Hassan Soweto, called for improved funding of education. Since 2009, this thing has been on and it is a question of funding of public universities. The Buhari Government cannot say it is not aware of those issues. If four years after, government is still finding it impossible to do the right thing so much that ASUU can go on long strike, then the Buhari government is a government that does not have interest in education of the people, he said. A Nigerian senator and governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress has been arrested at the Abuja airport over allegations of contract fraud to the tune of $12.5 million. Hope Uzodinma was taken into custody on Sunday shortly after arriving at the nations capital aboard an Air Peace flight, according to the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property. We have arrested him and he is in our custody in Asokoro, the panels lead Okoi Obono-Obla told PREMIUM TIMES Monday morning. He has been evading our arrest since last year. Mr Obono-Obla said his committee launched a manhunt for Mr Uzodinma shortly after PREMIUM TIMES exposed how the senator landed a contract of about N26 billion from the Goodluck Jonathan administration. He received $12.5 million of the contract sum for the dredging of Calabar channel from the Nigerian Ports Authority, but failed to execute the contract. PREMIUM TIMES also found that Mr Jonathans government did not comply with extant contracting regulations, and ignored administrative warnings about the potential consequences of the illegality. We have been looking for him since we saw the wonderful investigation that PREMIUM TIMES carried out on the matter, and then we were also helped by a petition which a citizen took time to forward to our panel, Mr Obono-Obla said. The petition went to the presidency, and then it was forwarded to us for action, Mr Obno-Obla said. We have made all efforts to get him, including writing to him and the Senate on several occasions, but he ignored our invitation and evaded our attempts to get him to come and explain what he did. Mr Obono-Obla described Mr Uzodinmas action as economic sabotage and said it was an actionable intelligence that led to his arrest at the airport last night. He got a contract to dredge Calabar Ports, which we all know can help this countrys economy significantly, but refused to do it, he said. Mr Obono-Obla said his committee does not hold suspects for extended period, and Mr Uzodinma would be released after writing a statement. We would then charge him to court after that, he added. PREMIUM TIMES could not immediately confirm whether the senator has contacted his lawyers as of Monday morning. A judge of the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court Monday revoked the bail granted to the former governor of Abia State, Orji Kalu, after Mr Kalu flouted the order of the court. Mohammed Idris, the judge, said part of the bail conditions given to the former governor after his first arraignment in 2007 was that he deposit his international passport with the court. I have perused the proceedings from court records and I discovered that one of the conditions for granting bail to the first defendant who happens to be Orji Uzor Kalu is that he should deposit his international passport with the court and the permission must be granted before he can travel outside the country for whatever reason, the judge said. Its clear that the first defendant has flouted this order, no one high or low, rich or poor can disobey a valid order of the court and expect such court to show mercy. Mr Kalu, who was the governor of Abia State between 1999 and 2007, is facing a 39-count amended charge bordering on conspiracy and money laundering. Last week, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the prosecution in the trial, informed the court that Mr Kalu had traveled to Germany without the permission of the court. Rotimi Jacobs, counsel to the EFCC, said the travel was a ploy to frustrate the trial and implored the judge to treat the former governor as someone who had jumped bail. But Mr Kalus lawyer, Awa Kalu, opposed the EFCCs claims insisting his client travelled for a surgical operation and had been advised by the doctor to remain abroad to recuperate. In his decision, the judge largely agreed with the EFCC but noted that he would respect Mr Kalus neurosurgeons advice that the former governor be allowed to get a bed rest. The bail granted to the first defendant is hereby revoked, Mr Idris said. It is hereby ordered that the first defendant upon his returning to Nigeria must submit himself to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with all his travelling documents. EFCC should effect his arrest if he fails to submit himself. The trial was adjourned till January 23, 2019, for a day-to-day trial. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has restated that he is an advocate of fiscal federalism, stronger state governments and state police. Mr Osinbajo made this submission while delivering the 40th Anniversary Lecture of the Association of Friends on Monday in Lagos. The theme of the lecture is Restructuring and the Nigerian Federation. He reiterated his stance that good governance was what Nigeria needed rather than geographical restructuring. I have been an advocate, both in court and outside, of fiscal federalism and stronger state governments. I have argued in favour of state police, for the simple reason that policing is a local function. You simply cannot effectively police Nigeria from Abuja. Only recently, I made a point that stronger, more autonomous states would effectively eradicate poverty. Mr Osinbajos stance on stronger states and state police is at variance with that of President Muhammadu Buhari who has publicly opposed state police. President Buharis non-commitment to state police and stronger states, components of a restructuring of the federation demanded by many Nigerians, is believed to have influenced the lack of action by the ruling party, APC, on the matter. Although a committee set up by the APC, following public outcry, submitted its report, the ruling party has failed to act on it. Despite the inaction of the presidency and the ruling party on restructuring Nigeria, Mr Osinbajo has, however, continued to restate his support for major aspects of restructuring. He recently engaged in a public debate with former vice president Atiku Abubakar on the latters commitment to restructuring. Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar. On Monday, Mr Osinbajo, however, clarified that his commitment to restructuring did not include geographical restructuring which could cause a change to the current geographic structure or components of Nigeria. So, I do not believe that geographical restructuring is an answer to Nigerias socio-economic circumstances. That would only result in greater administrative costs; but there can be no doubt that we need deeper fiscal federalism and good governance, he said. He argued that state governments had enormous constitutional powers which they should harness to better their fortunes. The vice president said that the Supreme Court held that states had a constitutional right to create local governments, pursuant to Section 8 of the Constitution. He said that the creation remained incomplete until the National Assembly, by resolution, amended the existing list of local governments to capture the newly created councils. Mr Osinbajo said further that the apex court ruled also that with respect to federal land, the state had exclusive authority to grant authority to for building or developmental control permits. He said further that the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Lagos State Government as it struck down many provisions of the law that sought to give the federal government control over local government funding. Mr Osinbajo said that pursuant to the Supreme Court ruling, Lagos State Government created, by State Law, Local Government Council Development Areas (LCDAs) to activate the newly created local government councils, until such a time the National Assembly would complete the process. He said that the Lagos State Government took the challenge which resulted in the state earning more Internally Generated Revenue(IGR) than 30 Nigerian states put together. Mr Osinbajo said it was wrong to mix up all the issues of good governance and diversification of the economy with the argument on corruption. Good governance involves inter alia, transparency and prudence in public finance. It involves social justice, investing in the poor, jobs for young people, which explains our School Feeding Programme, providing a meal per day to over nine million pupils in 25 states today. Our N-Power is now employing 500,000 graduates; our TraderMoni that will be giving microcredit to two million petty traders; our Conditional Cash Transfers giving monthly grants to over 400,000 of the poorest in Nigeria. The plan is to cover over a million households. He said that in arguing for good governance, Nigerias greatest problem was grand corruption. The vice president described corruption as the unbelievable looting of the treasury by simply making huge cash withdrawals in local and foreign currenciesa travesty which President Muhammadu Buhari stopped. According to him, the restructuring Nigeria needs is the restructuring of governance in such manner as to eliminate corruption and create an enabling environment for growth and investments in infrastructure, education, nutrition and better sanitation. Earlier in his address, Oluropo Owolabi said the topic of the lecture could not have come at a better time. He said that in recent times, restructuring had dominated the nations political discourse; hence the choice of the vice president, a professor of law for the lecture. Mr Owolabi said that the association was borne out of a vision of some young men, eight of them who decided in 1978 to concretise their fledging relationship and dominance of social space into a sustainable institution. A Federal High Court in Lagos, on Monday, fixed November 15, to take arguments on an amended charge filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against a former aide to President Goodluck Jonathan. Waripamo-Owei Dudafa is charged alongside one Iwejuo Nna, on charges bordering on N1.6 billion fraud. EFCC arraigned the accused on June 11, 2013, before Justice Mohammed Idris on 23-counts of conspiracy to conceal proceeds of crime amounting. They had pleaded not guilty to the charges and were granted bail. The prosecution closed its case on March 16, but the accused opted to make a no-case submission in its defence and urged the court to dismiss the case, on the grounds that the prosecution failed to establish any case against them. Mr Idris in a ruling delivered in August, dismissed the no case submission of the accused, and ordered them to open their defence. Defence had since opened its case, after which the court adjourned for adoption of final written addresses. Meanwhile, on Monday, the prosecutor, Rotimi Oyedepo, informed the court of an amended charge against the accused, and told the court that same had been served on defence counsel. He told the court that the amendment was not prejudicial, and urged the court to accept same and cause the respective pleas of the accused to be taken. In response, defence counsel, Gboyega Oyewole (SAN) and Ige Asemudara, respectively, resisted the move by prosecution, on the grounds that they had not studied the amended charge. Mr Asemudara, specifically, told the court that he had just seen the amended charge since he was away when prosecution informed him of same. He told the court that he required time to study same. Mr Oyewole on the other hand, told the court that he also needed time to go through the amended charge, as the amendment may be over reaching, adding that defence counsel was mindful of its effect on the accused. He prayed the court for an adjournment After listening to counsel, Mr Idris adjourned the case until Nov.15, to hear arguments on the charge. The court held that the outcome of the courts ruling, will then determine whether the adoption of final addresses will proceed thereafter. The offences for which the accused are being tried, contravenes the provisions of Sections 17(a), 18 (c), and 27 (3) (c) of the EFCC Establishment Act 2004. (NAN) Residents of Ikorodu in Lagos were on Sunday thrown into mourning when the corpses of two children and a dog were found in a freezer. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the incident was said to have occurred at 2, Christian Onoja Street, Igbogbo in Igbogbo-Baiyeku Local Government Development Area at 4.30pm. A neighbour who preferred anonymity told NAN that the children, Emmanuel Edeh, male, seven years, and Darasimi Edeh, female, four years and their father, Michael Edeh, were at home on the day of the incident. On Sunday afternoon, we were alerted by their father who emerged from within the house asking about the whereabouts of his children. We were surprised because their father is always at home with the kids when their mother goes about her trading. So, when their father came asking us (neighbours) about where his children were, we all began to search the neighborhood for them, but could not find them, the source, said. The source added that when initial efforts to locate the children proved abortive, a call was put through to the mother of the kids, who came running down to their residence. Their mother was visibly disturbed upon arrival and immediately began to search for them, this time, in the house. After a while she came wailing that she discovered the lifeless body (bodies) of the children and their dog inside the freezer, the source added. NAN gathered that the children were taken to a hospital within the community, but were declared dead which prompted the incident being reported at the Igbogbo Police Division Sunday evening. When correspondent of NAN visited the Briggston Hospital in Selewu, Igbogbo, where the children were taken, he was told that the children were dead on arrival. It is true that I received a case involving two children, but upon assessment I discovered that they had passed on and there was no resuscitation effort that could be performed on them. So, I advise the parents to go and conduct an autopsy to ascertain the real cause of death, a doctor, Briggs Umezurike, told NAN. When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer, Chike Oti, told NAN that the Commissioner of Police had been informed about the incident. I have confirmed the matter and the CP directed that the father of the deceased be brought to notice to know his ulterior motive or whether it is an act of negligence, he said. (NAN) A couple who named their child after Adolf Hitler were convicted in Britain on Monday for being members of a banned far-right group, National Action. Hitler is one of the most well-knownand perhaps reviled political figures in history. As the leader of Nazi Germany, he orchestrated World War II and the Holocaust, events that led to the deaths of at least 40,000,000 people. Adam Thomas, 22, and Claudia Patatas, 38, were convicted along with Daniel Bogunovic, 27, of being members of the banned organisation. They also shared messages praising Hitler as well as images of them dressed as members of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and giving Nazi salutes. Three others had already pleaded guilty to membership of National Action, which was banned by the government after members of the group praised the murder of lawmaker Jo Cox by a Nazi-obsessed loner in 2016. After National Action was banned it went underground and changed its name but it did not disappear, said Deb Walsh of the Crown Prosecution Service. These members continued to believe in its racist neo-Nazi world view, remained in contact on encrypted messaging apps, and organized meetings to keep the group going. National Action is the first far-right group to be banned in Britain for decades. Far right parties have grown in much of Europe in the last few years; but in Britain they remain on the fringes of political life. The court in Birmingham heard that Thomas and Patatas had given their baby the middle name Adolf to express their admiration for the leader of the Third Reich. West Midlands Police posted pictures of the pair posing while holding their baby and a swastika flag. Thomas also posed in KKK robes with his son, and with a crossbow. Local police chief Matt Ward said that the group had gathered weapons and researched how to make explosives. These individuals were not simply racist fantasists; we now know they were a dangerous, well-structured organization. Their aim was to spread neo-Nazi ideology by provoking a race war in the UK and they had spent years acquiring the skills to carry this out, he said. (NAN) The presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Oby Ezekwesili, on Monday said she would work to build and deliver a prosperous Nigeria if elected. Mrs Ezekwesili, a former Vice-President of World Bank, made the pledge while speaking with journalists in Lagos. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the presidential candidate spoke on her blueprint to lift 80 million Nigerians out of poverty. She said the country was blessed with great people, and a country with great potential like Nigeria should not be associated with high poverty rate. Mrs Ezekwesili explained that the poverty narrative had been predominant owing to the consistent dearth of the leadership to build the right capacities to empower the people. The candidate identified inequality, infrastructural deficit, high rate of illiteracy and poor economic focus as some of the causes of high poverty rate. She said Nigeria needs a leader who would tackle all these to build a prosperous nation. Mrs Ezekwesili said her promise to lift 80million Nigerians out of poverty if elected was not an empty one, as she had a well thought-out plan to achieve it. Giving details of her blueprint, Mrs Ezekwesili said she would massively invest in human capital development of more educated citizens who would be economically empowered. She also said she would pursue a robust housing programme to deliver affording homes to most Nigerians in order to increase access. Education and skills development of healthy Nigerian people shall be my number one priority. No matter what we do, we would never win the war on poverty without investing massively in human capital development. That is why in our ACPN government, education will be the new oil. Education will be the new economy. My vision for education is one that will nourish the mind and create a progressive society that competes globally. If our current and future human capital are not educated, they will most likely end up in poverty and our economy will lose the productivity that they would have added. We shall launch a root and branch reform of all the levels and phases of education. Early Childcare Education, Basic Education, Secondary Education. Special Needs Education and Adult/Informal Education will all be systemically reformed to achieve universal access to quality and relevant education by all Nigerians. Education, training and skills development remain the most potent tools of economic and social mobility in all progressive societies. Breaking the vicious circle of poor education is crucial for promoting inclusive economic growth and decent jobs for all, she said. Mrs Ezekwesili promised a national housing programme to reduce the cost of a starter home for families. In partnership with the private sector, we will reduce cost of these homes by 50% while increasing quality. Within my first 100 days, I would launch a Naija Home Competition that will call for the design of a standard, affordable Nigerian home design which will include two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom and toilet, and a kitchen. At least 80 percent of the homes we will build will be low-cost housing whereby allocation is based on income. The recipients will be selected from a pool of qualified applicants through lottery, she said. Mrs Ezekwesili said she would drive prosperity in the country by giving the necessary support to start-ups and small-scale enterprises for massive job creation. The candidate also said she would embark on total oil industry and power reforms to stimulate efficiency in both sectors for economic development. Also we will pursue a Produce More, Earn More vision that will result in higher productivity, greater competitiveness, higher income, more diversified export earnings from wider sources of economic growth in the economy, she said. The ex-minister said she would invest massively in agriculture to diversify the economy and provide more jobs, while health care would receive the needed attention. Mrs Ezekwesili urged Nigerians to trust in her capacity to deliver, saying she had the track record and experience to make the country an economic giant. (NAN) The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) on Monday said it had promoted 4,797 officers and service men as part of comprehensive campaign to boost the morale of its personnel. The Comptroller General, Muhammad Babandede, disclosed this at the inauguration of the 2018 Comptroller General Annual Conference in Maiduguri. Mr Babandede disclosed that 3,405 officers and men, who suffered unnecessary stagnation, were promoted to the next ranks while 1,392 others were promoted through conversion and upgrade. He revealed that comptrollers and other senior officers were exposed to leadership skills and junior officers were trained on administrative skills while retiring officers were also trained in the past one year. Mr Babandede added that a new curriculum had been introduced in its training schools to build the capacity of its personnel to enable them to discharge their duties effectively, adding that the service accorded priority to the training of personnel. He said: We have continued to make steady progress in the discharge of our statutory mandates over the years and it resulted in some formidable reforms that placed NIS very predominantly in the nations security and economic development indices. Mr Babandede said the service had also adopted proactive visa reforms in line with global best practices, to deal with cumbersome processes and ease difficulties encounter in visa processing. The CG revealed that 24,840 approvals for Visa on Arrival (VoA) and 7,114 temporary work permit were issued since January. He added that biometric visa had commenced in 17 missions and would be deployed to airports. According to him, the federal government has approved a new polycarbonate e-passport with a 10-year validity, which would be unveiled in December. Mr Babandede explained that about 25 features were added to the new booklet for enhanced security with the support of its partners ISTIL. It is not enough to launch a new document if the process to acquire it is deficient. In this regards, we are tackling the problem of lost passports seriously, he said. He called on the people to desist from fraudulent acts while applying for issuance of passport, warning that erring applicants and officers would be prosecuted. On infrastructure development, Mr Babandede disclosed that the service had initiated various projects to create an enabling operational environment for its personnel and transform its services. The CG disclosed that modern office accommodation were inaugurated in Kano and Jigawa, while similar projects were ongoing in Plateau, Imo, Nasarawa, Gombe, Enugu and Ekiti States. Mr Babandede said office and barrack space facilities at Seme, Idi-Iroko, Mazanya-Jibiya, Imeko and Illela as well as Maigatari, Shaki and Seme would soon be commissioned. He said the essence of the Forward Border Patrol Base was to enhance surveillance and check dangerous movement in the Sahara Desert and Mediterranean Sea. The service, he added, also implemented Information and Data Analysis Platform (MIDAS) at Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Enugu International Airports, to enhance security and processing of migrants data. The federal government last week approved N7 billion for construction of and furnishing of Technology Building. The building will revolutionise our jobs, all data in one house interfacing with each other. We have taken delivery of 114 patrol vehicles; 93 flag cars, 14 buses four ambulances, 9 trucks and 12 SUVs for passport operations and distributed officers and operational units, he added. (NAN) Nigerias Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Monday said the Nigerian government has delivered visible results and recorded progress across different sectors of the nation, including housing, road construction and electricity provision. Mr Fashola made this known while delivering the third year progress report speech at the Conference Room of the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, in Abuja. Details of his speech were contained in a statement sent by the ministers office to PREMIUM TIMES. The minister said shortly after his inauguration as minister of the tripartite ministries of works, housing and power in 2015, he explained what he and his team inherited, what he planned to do, and what members of the public should expect from him. Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of my colleagues, Hon. Mustapha Baba Shehuri and Surveyor Suleiman Hassan Zarma, the Honourable Ministers of State who manage this ministry with me, the Permanent Secretaries; Mohammed Bukar for Works and Housing; Louis Edozien, for Power, the Directors and all the staff of the ministry, the heads of our various parastatals and their staff, I am proud and happy to report that we have walked our talk, and we have delivered visible results and recorded qualitative progress, he said. With regard to power, the minister said his team has improved on what they met on ground by increasing generation from 4000 MW to 7000 MW, transmission from 5000 MW to 7000 MW and distribution from 2690 MW to 5,222 MW. Mr Fashola said: Although there are still people we have not reached, although there are still disruptions from time to time, and although there are still people who also need meters, and we are working to reach them, it is indisputable that we have delivered on incremental power. The evidence of our progress is not only captured in the last quarter of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Report for Q2 of 2018 which shows a growth of 7.5% in the electricity sector, previous quarterly reports from 2017, have consistently recorded growth, a clear departure from 2014-2015 and proof of change. As I promised you in my inaugural address, it will not just be electricity by numbers, it will be borne out by personal experiences. The report of our survey and feedback mechanism confirm that many of you now have public power for longer hours compared to 2015, and you now run generators for shorter periods compared to 2015 and you now spend less money on diesel to power your generators. As some Citizens recently reported, they no longer have to iron all their clothes one week in advance as they previously used to do, because the supply is proving reliable and predictable even if not yet fully Stable and uninterrupted. This is progress that we must move forward by consolidating on our mandate of change. We cannot go back. As our policies on Mini Grids, Meter Asset Provider, Eligible Customer, and liquidity sustenance and improved governance deepens, your experience with power supply can only get better. On public works relating to roads and bridges, the former Lagos governor said reports confirm that the he and his team have fulfilled their promise. We have recovered the thousands of jobs that were lost to public works, he said, adding that the recovery is the result of an expansive infrastructure spending that saw works budget grow from N18.132b in 2015 to N394b in 2018. The outcome is that there is not one state in Nigeria today where the Federal Government is not executing at least one road project and construction workers are engaged on these sites, the minister claimed. Difficult or abandoned projects like the 2nd Niger Bridge, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Bodo-Bonny Bridge have been brought back to life. He added that sections of Ilorin-Jebba, Sokoto to Jega, Sokoto-Ilela have been completed, while progress of works continues nationwide from Jada to Mayo Belwa, Enugu to Port Harcourt, Lagos to Otta, Ikorodu to Shagamu, Benin to Okene, Lokoja to Abuja, Kano to Maiduguri, Abuja Kaduna, Kano, among others. He cited instances of positive feedbacks received from users of the roads. We acknowledge that the work is not finished, but as long as we remain able to finance the projects, I have no doubt that it will get better, he said. The governments intervention on roads does not stop on interstate highways, Mr Fashola explained, adding that it has also entered 14 higher institutions of learning. He listed the schools to include University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Federal University Oye, Ekiti; University of Benin; Federal University, Lafia; and Fed. University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State. Others are Bayero University Kano; Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO); University of Maiduguri; Federal University, Lokoja; Federal Polytechnic Bauchi; Federal University, Gashua; Kaduna Polytechnic; Federal College of Education Katsina; University College Ibadan. It is important to highlight this intervention and the 9 (Nine) Indepedent Power projects in Federal Universities as an investment in Education for the benefit of those who seek more funding for education, he said. As we build roads, we are also attending to old or damaged bridges and restoring the value of maintenance. So, while the Loko -Oweto Bridge is nearing completion, the damaged Tatabu Bridge linking Ilorin and Jebba has been reconstructed and the Tamburawa Bridge in Kano, the Isaac Boro Bridge in Rivers, Eko Bridge in Lagos and the Old Niger Bridge that links Anambra and Delta are receiving regular maintenance attention. In housing, the minister said the government has worked on public buildings like Federal Secretariats in Zamfara, Bayelsa, Nasarawa and Ekiti where public works are being undertaken, and the Zik Mausoleum in Onitsha which has now been completed. He added that he ministrys pilot National Housing Programme has led to a nationwide Housing Construction being undertaken in the 34 states where it received land. No less than 1,000 people are employed on each site apart from the staff of the successful contractors, he said. These sites are an ecosystem of human enterprise, where artisans, vendors, suppliers and craftsmen converge to partake of opportunities and contribute to nation building. These are some of the most vulnerable people for whom President Buhari has delivered. The minister explained that while policies like the reduction of equity contribution from 5 to 0 percent for those seeking mortgage loans of up to N5million and reduction from 15 to 10 percent for those seeking loans over N5 million are helping to ease access to housing, the ministry is also tackling the backlog of issuance of consent and Certificates of Occupancy to Federal Government land. He also listed other measures put in place by the ministry to make life easier for Nigerians during the festive period. Ladies and gentlemen, we came to this job in November 2015 with a mountain to climb, Mr Fashola said. With careful thinking, planning, and a dedicated team of public officers, we have a firm foothold on our way to the top. Our policies have shown what is possible with critical sectors recording growth. What remains is time that it takes for the full harvest of the fruits of our policies in plenitude and prosperity of our people. We cannot go back to the bottom of the mountain when the plateau is now within reach. Photo: aLibrary and Archives of Canada One hundred years after 368 people perished in a ship sinking en route to Victoria, a stone was laid over the weekend to honour them. The Princess Sophia sank during a storm off Alaskas Vanderbilt Reef on Oct. 25, 1918, two days after it left Skagway. The shipwreck is the worst maritime disaster on the Pacific coast. All the news of the day was about the war ending, and not about the sinking of the Princess Sophia and the tragic loss of 368 souls lost that night, says Don Prittie of the Maritime Museum of BC. Seven members of the OBrien family died in the sinking, including five children. They're buried in Vancouver's Mountain View Cemetery, along with 66 other victims. "Gone, but not forgotten," the marker reads. with files from CTV Vancouver A Federal High Court in Lagos on Monday reserved ruling until December 3, on a motion seeking final forfeiture to the federal government of the sum of N2.2 billion recovered from a former Chief of Air Staff, Adesola Amosu. Justice Mojisola Olatoregun reserved the date for ruling, after listening to arguments from counsel to parties in the motion on notice The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the court had issued an interim order of forfeiture of the sum, on June 14, following an exparte motion filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Joined as respondents in the suit are Mr Amosu, and a company, Solomon Enterprises Ltd. The Commission had argued that the sums were reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities. Justice Olatoregun had also issued an interim order for a temporary forfeiture of N190 million recovered from a former Air Force Director of Finance and Budget, Air Commodore Olugbenga Gbadebo. The court had further ordered a temporary forfeiture of N101 million recovered from Solomon Enterprises, a company linked to Amosu. The judge had then directed the EFCC to publish the interim orders in two national dailies, for the respondents or any interested party, to show cause why a final order of forfeiture should not be made. On Monday, Rotimi Oyedepo appeared for the EFCC, while Norrison Quakers (SAN) announced appearance for an interested party in the suit (Jacob Adigun). Bolaji Ayorinde announced appearance for the first and second respondent. Moving his motion for final order, EFCC counsel, Mr Oyedepo, informed the court that his motion was dated October 24, seeking a courts order for final forfeiture of the sum. He said that his application was supported by an affidavit deposed to by one Tosin Owobo, and adopted same, urging the court to order a final forfeiture of the sum. Arguing his motion further, Mr Oyedepo told the court that intelligence reports revealed that the respondent stacked crime proceeds in his account, and had directed his aide to remove the sum $10.5 million. He said that the respondents had not been able to show how they legitimately earned these sums of money, which the EFCC is seeking to be permanently forfeited to the Government. He argued that the law empowers the EFCC to bring an application for forfeiture of funds, where it reasonably suspects same to be proceeds of crime or an unlawful act, adding that its present motion was brought on that premise. Besides, Mr Oyedepo argued that the interested party has not been able to show how the funds sought to be forfeited, affects him or will affect, adding that having failed to show this cause, the court should discountenance his averment. He urged the court to grant the final orders as sought. On his part, Mr Quakers, counsel to the interested party, moved his application before the court, seeking to set aside the interim orders, on grounds of suppression of material facts He told the court that the case before it, was one in which the same respondents had already been charged and undergoing trial before a brother judge, and in which there also exist a courts order, preserving the subject matter of the suit, pending conclusion of trial. He said that sufficient facts had already been deposed to in his affidavit, to show sufficient interest of the interested party in the suit, as it is clear that he Incorporated the company known as Delfina. Citingn Article 54 of the UN Convention on Corruption, counsel argued that where a person whose property is sought to be forfeited, is unavailable to show cause, then the court is free to make an order. He argued that this was not the case in the matter before the court, as material facts has been placed before the court to show cause on the part of the interested party. Mr Quakers urged the court to decline the order for final forfeiture, as the grounds stated in his affidavit to show cause, were quite weighty, and same had not been controverted. Meanwhile, Mr Ayorinde, also urged the court to refuse a grant of final forfeiture as moved by the EFCC. He argued that the proceedings for final forfeiture, does not envisage a situation where the property sought to be forfeited, is a subject matter before another court. According to him, it will be over- reaching, where for instance, the trial court, discharges same respondents of the criminal charges before it. He argued that having subjected the respondents to the charges pending before the trial court, the application for final forfeiture ought to fail and be dismissed. Mr Ayorinde also informed the court that the prosecution had no application for extension of time, concerning the 14 days period after the interim orders were made. The motion for final forfeiture is coming late in the day, and ought not to be granted, he said Besides, the counsel argued, the EFCC was not without remedy; since even if they fail in the instant suit, they can still continue with the charge at the trial court. He, urged the court to refuse the order for final forfeiture. Justice Olatoregun has reserved ruling until December 3. In a counter affidavit deposed to by an EFCC operative, Danladi, the commission alleged that while in office, the respondents diverted huge sums of money from the Nigerian Air force accounts, to purchase properties both within and outside the country. He said that Mr Amosu who was appointed Chief of Air Staff on January 16, 2014, had in the course of his service, received budgetary provisions in the sum of N4.5 billion, from Patrick Akpobolokemi, a former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA). The sum was said to be for Maritime Security Support, pursuant to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Nigerian Air force and NIMASA. The Commission averred that part of the sums were utilised by the respondent for personal gains. (NAN) UNS/SH A former president, Goodluck Jonathan; Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed; and Secretary to Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha were among the dignitaries who extolled the virtues of the late justice, Ijeoma Uche, in Abuja on Sunday. Ms Uche, who died at the age of 83, was the first female judge in the old Imo State and a pioneer judge of Abia State judiciary. Others present at the Night of Tributes at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, were a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Aloma Mariam Mukhtar; a former governor of Rivers, Peter Odili; and Idris Wada, a former governor of Kogi. Also in attendance were former Imo governor, Achike Udenwa; as well as Bala Mohammed, Emeka Wogu, Ihechukwu Madubuike, former ministers of FCT, Labour and Education, respectively, among others. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that prominent personalities in the legal profession also graced the Nights of Tribute. Mr Jonathan in his tribute said that Ms Uche was worthy to be celebrated as she lived an exemplary life. The former president also said that she was a humble person and inculcated the quality in her children by bringing them up in a good family way. Mr Mustapha said that in some cultures death was regarded as a transition with individuals having conquered the other side of life. He said that the late jurist played her roles as a mother and legal luminary very well. Mr Mustapha urged her family to take solace in the fact that their mother lived a good life. In the same vein, Mr Mohammed said that late Ms Uche s father should be commended for giving her daughter equal education opportunities with the males in the family. The minister said that the late judge was a woman of integrity and focus, who did not see her husband as a competitor and performed her domestic duties effectively. Ms Mukhtar in her tribute said she met the late judge in 1991 during the maiden meeting of women judges. She said Ms Uche was a wonderful person, had good knowledge of the law and was a courageous judge. Ms Mukhtar said that the late judges children, including Chris Uche and Gordy Uche, both senior advocates, were very humble and respectful, qualities their mother bequeathed to them. Paul Usoro, the President, Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), described the late judge as a trail blazer and a role model. Represented by Joe Gadzama, Mr Usoro said that the late judge was an exceptional person, who had passion for education, adding: no wonder all her children are accomplished. He said that as a wife, Uche had undiluted loyalty to her husband, was very focused, resilient and determined. Mr Usoro noted that she had four children before venturing into legal education. The late judge was born on December 29,1934, in Okoko Item in Bende Local Government Area of Abia. She graduated from University of Nigeria in 1971 and was called to the Nigerian bar in 1974. She was appointed a chief magistrate in 1985 and was elevated to a judge in 1990. (NAN) Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says any state government working against the Local Government Autonomy Bill is an enemy of the people. Mr Obasanjo said this on Monday when he hosted a group, Friends of Democracy, at his private residence in the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State. The former president lamented that only nine out of the 36 states have so far supported the bill passed by the National Assembly, despite its importance to grassroots development. He said the reforms proposed in the bill are aimed at making local councils autonomous like the state government. Mr Obasanjo recalled that his military administration introduced local government reforms in 1976 but lamented the objectives have been scuttled. When in 1976 we brought in local government reforms, it was meant to be third tier of the government and not meant to be subjected to whims and caprices of any other government, just the same way that the state governments are autonomous from the federal government, he said. Mr Obasanjo said he was unhappy that 42 years after, the aim of the reforms was yet to be achieved. Rather, most of the state governments are virtually stealing local governments funds that the federal government appropriates to them monthly. Local government is meant to be autonomous from the state government. But from what we know, by design, most states have incapacitated the local governments. They have virtually stolen the local governments money in what they called Joint Account. They are to contribute 10 percent but they never contribute anything. So, what we have across the country are local government areas that have functions but cannot perform the functions. They have staff but most of them cannot pay the staff and we keep getting excuses upon excuses. The Bill passed by the National Assembly which requires 24 State Houses of Assembly and like I am told, only nine states have signed it. I am proud of those states because they are what you will call progressive states that really believe in democracy. My own state (Ogun) is one of them. I will say kudos to Ogun State Government. In the South-South, only Bayelsa and Cross River states have signed it. Kudos to those two states. In the North-East, its only Bauchi. In the North-West, its only Sokoto. In the North-Central, we have four states, Kwara, Niger, Plateau and Benue. I will say kudos to the executives and the legislature of those states. But we must say those state executives and the legislatures that have prevented the bill from being passed, they must be taken as the enemies of the people and they should be treated as such. Because if you enjoy autonomy from the federal government, why dont you want local governments to enjoy autonomy? Again, I will say leadership of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) who have always fought for the interest of the people should know that the interest of the people at the local government will be best served if the LG has autonomy which is meant that they should have. The leader of the visiting team, Jerry Ugokwe, said the struggle to ensure local government autonomy in the country began two years ago, vowing they would not rest until they achieve the aim. Mr Ugokwe said the visit was to call on Mr Obasanjo, who he described as father of modern Nigeria, to appeal to him to add his voice to theirs. Amnesty International announced Monday that it has withdrawn its highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, from Aung San Suu Kyi, in light of the Myanmar leaders shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for. On 11 November, Amnesty Internationals Secretary General, Kumi Naidoo, wrote to Aung San Suu Kyi to inform her the organisation is revoking the 2009 award. Half way through her term in office, and eight years after her release from house arrest, Naidoo expressed the organisations disappointment that she had not used her political and moral authority to safeguard human rights, justice or equality in Myanmar, citing her apparent indifference to atrocities committed by the Myanmar military and increasing intolerance of freedom of expression. As an Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience, our expectation was that you would continue to use your moral authority to speak out against injustice wherever you saw it, not least within Myanmar itself, wrote Kumi Naidoo. Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defence of human rights. Amnesty International cannot justify your continued status as a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience award and so with great sadness we are hereby withdrawing it from you. Perpetuating human rights violations Since Aung San Suu Kyi became the de facto leader of Myanmars civilian-led government in April 2016, her administration has been actively involved in the commission or perpetuation of multiple human rights violations. Amnesty International has repeatedly criticised the failure of Aung San Suu Kyi and her government to speak out about military atrocities against the Rohingya population in Rakhine State, who have lived for years under a system of segregation and discrimination amounting to apartheid. During the campaign of violence unleashed against the Rohingya last year the Myanmar security forces killed thousands, raped women and girls, detained and tortured men and boys, and burned hundreds of homes and villages to the ground. More than 720,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh. A UN report has called for senior military officials to be investigated and prosecuted for the crime of genocide. Although the civilian government does not have control over the military, Aung San Suu Kyi and her office have shielded the security forces from accountability by dismissing, downplaying or denying allegations of human rights violations and by obstructing international investigations into abuses. Her administration has actively stirred up hostility against the Rohingya, labelling them as terrorists, accusing them of burning their own homes and decrying faking rape. Meanwhile state media has published inflammatory and dehumanising articles alluding to the Rohingya as detestable human fleas and thorns which must be pulled out. Aung San Suu Kyis failure to speak out for the Rohingya is one reason why we can no longer justify her status as an Ambassador of Conscience, said Kumi Naidoo. Her denial of the gravity and scale of the atrocities means there is little prospect of the situation improving for the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya living in limbo in Bangladesh or for the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who remain in Rakhine State. Without acknowledgement of the horrific crimes against the community, it is hard to see how the government can take steps to protect them from future atrocities. Amnesty International also highlighted the situation in Kachin and northern Shan States, where Aung San Suu Kyi has failed to use her influence and moral authority to condemn military abuses, to push for accountability for war crimes or to speak out for ethnic minority civilians who bear the brunt of the conflicts. To make matters worse, her civilian-led administration has imposed harsh restrictions on humanitarian access, exacerbating the suffering of more than 100,000 people displaced by the fighting. Attacks on freedom of speech Despite the power wielded by the military, there are areas where the civilian-led government has considerable authority to enact reforms to better protect human rights, especially those relating to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. But in the two years since Aung San Suu Kyis administration assumed power, human rights defenders, peaceful activists and journalists have been arrested and imprisoned while others face threats, harassment and intimidation for their work. Aung San Suu Kyis administration has failed to repeal repressive laws including some of the same laws which were used to detain her and others campaigning for democracy and human rights. Instead, she has actively defended the use of such laws, in particular the decision to prosecute and imprison two Reuters journalists for their work documenting a Myanmar military massacre. Aung San Suu Kyi was named as Amnesty Internationals Ambassador of Conscience in 2009, in recognition of her peaceful and non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights. At the time she was held under house arrest, which she was eventually released from exactly eight years ago today. When she was finally able to accept the award in 2013, Aung San Suu Kyi asked Amnesty International to not take either your eyes or your mind off us and help us to be the country where hope and history merges. Amnesty International took Aung San Suu Kyis request that day very seriously, which is why we will never look away from human rights violations in Myanmar, said Kumi Naidoo. We will continue to fight for justice and human rights in Myanmar with or without her support. Ibrahim Magu, Acting Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Monday reaffirmed the determination of the commission to extradite former Petroleum Minister, Deziani Alison-Madueke. Mr Magu said at a news conference in Abuja that the commission could not wait endlessly to prosecute the former minister on several allegations of impropriety against her while in office. Mrs Alison-Madueke has been in the United Kingdom since the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration ended in 2015. Acting Spokesman of EFCC, Tony Orilade, had told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday that the process for the extradition of Mrs Alison-Madueke from UK had commenced. He said Operations Department of the commission briefed the Legal Department to commence the process through office of the Attorney-General of the Federation. It is ongoing; within the next few weeks, the extent to which we have gone will be made known to the public. It is not a fresh case; it is not a fresh petition that is just being looked into; the whole process is a total package. This extradition is just an aspect of Dezianis investigation and commencement of trial, he said. Mr Magu said, We know she is not being tried there; we are tired of waiting, that is why if they cannot prosecute her, we can prosecute her here. There is no prosecution going on there. We are involved in the investigation in this country and outside the country. We have worked together; we had started together. We cannot wait endlessly; in three years and above, it is sufficient, and that is why I said, lets initiate the extradition so that she faces the law. On why he is still functioning in acting capacity, Mr Magu said: I think if people are in a hurry to get confirmed, it means you are not working; you are not doing what is required. If you are busy lobbying for confirmation, you will not be fair and balance in the discharge of your duties. I am not worried that I am still not confirmed since three years as substantive chairman of the commission. Everybody is aware that I am working here. Just get the work done. The Senate had twice, rejected the confirmation of Mr Magu as substantive chairman of the anti-graft agency. (NAN) A Kano High Court on Monday upheld its earlier order halting the state House of Assembly Investigative Committee from investigating the bribery allegation against Governor Abdullahi Ganduje. The court also ordered all other parties involved in the investigation of the bribery allegation to maintain status quo ante, pending the determination of the originating summon. NAN reports that the originating summon was filed by Mohammed Zubair, the National Coordinator of Lawyers for Sustainable Democracy in Nigeria. When the case came up for hearing, counsel to the plaintiff, Kalid Abdullatif, said that going by Order 29, Rule 1 and Order 28, Rule 1 and 4 of the Rules of the Court, 2014, the application filed on behalf of the plaintiff on November 5, restraining the defendants, Kano state House of Assembly, Baffa Babba Danagundi and the state Attorney-General from further investigation of the bribery allegation, still subsist. The application still remains an Order of interlocutory injunction, restraining the defendants, either by themselves, agents, privies, or officials, or other persons, whosoever, from further inviting anybody, questioning, examining, making any further Press Releases, releasing or playing any further video tapes, investigation or further proceedings, with the, or any bribery allegation against Gov. Ganduje, or anybody, whatsoever, therewith, pending the determination of the substantive suit before this Honourable Court, he said. He further argued that the act of the defendants to have constituted a Committee to investigate the bribery allegation against Governor Ganduje remains, unconstitutional. However, counsel to the Kano state House of Assembly (first defendant) and Investigative Committee Chairman, Baffa Babba Dan Agundi (second defendant), Mohammed Waziri, described his clients as law-abiding citizens who would not breach the law in any way. I wish to state that the First and Second defendants are law-makers and law-abiding citizens. The Order came a day to the date slated to listen to witnesses at the Investigative Panel. Since then, no step has been taken by the state House of Assembly or the Investigative Committee to breach the law. This is to tell you that Kano state House of Assembly is law-abiding. The Assembly has no intention whatsoever to take any further steps until the subsisting matter is decided upon because constitutional issues are being raised. The Third Defendant who is also the state Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice, aIbrahim Muktar did not object to the prayers of counsel to the plaintiff. In his ruling, the presiding Judge, Justice Ahmed Badamasi, ordered all the parties involved in the case to maintain the status quo ante, pending the determination of the Originating summon. Mr Badamasi commended counsel to the defendants for advising his clients wisely and adjourned the case to November 21, for hearing of the originating motion on summon. (NAN) The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Muhammed Imam, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to wade into the recent face off between retired workers and the Borno State Government over unpaid pensions. Mr Imam specifically wants the president to question the Borno government on why retired workers would still go unpaid after the state received two tranches of the Paris Club refund. Last Thursday, a group of pensioners staged a protest at the state secretariat over non-payment of their pensions for over two years. They blamed their situation on the state governments ongoing verification and biometric data capturing of workers and retirees on the payroll of the state government. Governor Kashim Shettima on that day convened a meeting with the leaders of the demonstrating pensioners during which he set up a committee to look into their claims. He also directed that all issues relating to their being owed should be resolved in two weeks. In a statement personally signed by Mr. Imam, the governorship candidate said the development was distasteful, giving the untold hardships the non-payment of their entitlements may have caused the poor retirees. It is unfortunate that some of the retiree were said to have died without receiving their benefits, he said. He said such situation should not have arisen, in the first place, in a state like Borno, which he said had received the Paris Club refund twice from the federal government, amounting to millions of dollars. The fund was meant for the payment of all salary arrears, leave grants, pensions gratuity, he said. The Borno State Government was quoted as saying that about N500 million was saved (monthly) from the biometric exercise, and yet government did not find it necessary to pay the retirees. Calling on the Borno government to as a matter of urgency pay all the pension and gratuity of the owed retired workers without further delay, the PDP gubernatorial candidate also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate how the state government spent the Paris Club refunds. I urge the Borno state government to, as a matter of urgency, pay the pension and gratuity of these retirees without resorting to delay tactics of establishing a Committee or to flimsy excuse of conducting biometric exercise which had been poorly handled by those who neither have the expertise nor the ability to efficiently handle such task I also appeal to President MUhammadu Buhari to urgently intervene in this serious matter and investigate the whereabout of the Paris Club funds released to the Borno state government. Mr. Imam, was a former state chairman of the defunct All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) which later merged with other parties in 2014 to form the current ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC). He chaired the incumbent governor Shettimas first election campaign in 2011. He left APC ahead 2015 to contest the governorship of Borno against Mr Shettima in 2015. But weeks to the election, Mr. Imam lost his ticket to one of his adversaries in the PDP, Gambo Lawan, who was eventually defeated by Mr Shettima. Mr. Lawan is now a card carrying member of the ruling APC. He aspired for the governorship ticket during the last APC primaries in October but lost to Babagana Umara, who has Mr Shettimas backing and who Mr Imam is set to challenge in the coming general elections. The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Sokoto State has announced the expulsion of the partys national vice chairman, North West, Inuwa Abdulkadir, for alleged anti-party activities. Trouble began for Mr Abdulkadir after a member of the party from his Magajin Gari Award, Naibi Abubakar, wrote a complaint letter to the ward chairman of the party accusing Mr Abdulkadir of continuous absence from party activities and meetings. Mr Abubakar who identified himself as a bonafide member of the APC with registration number SOK/SON/04006510 said since his election as the national vice chairman of the party, Mr Abdulkadir did not convene any zonal meeting of the APC in order to assess the fortunes of the party following defections to PDP of many party chieftains and members from the zone. The Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, left the APC for the Peoples Democratic Party alongside many party members in the state, including top government officials. Mr Abubakar, in his complaint letter, also said Mr Abdulkadir failed to attend or participate in any of the meetings held to discuss the mode of primary to be adopted by the state chapter of the APC during the just concluded primaries to elect candidates of the party. He also said despite being an automatic delegate, the national vice chairman failed to participate in the direct primary conducted in the state to nominate President Muhammadu Buhari as the APC presidential candidate. He said Mr Abdulkadir was also absent when primaries were held for the governorship and other elective offices for the APC in Sokoto. Inuwa Abdulkadir ridiculed the Sokoto state chapter of the APC by not sitting among other delegates from Sokoto State at the special convention of the APC where President Muhammadu Buhari was affirmed as the candidate of the APC for 2019 Presidential election, he said. The petitioner also alleged that Mr Abdulkadir had openly told a gathering of members of APC in Sokoto that the current deputy governor, Ahmad Aliyu, is not the leader of the party in the state. He said the assertion was made despite Mr Aliyu being a member of all the top organs of the party in the state and the North-west zone. He said Mr Abdulkadir also told party members that former governor and serving senator, Aliyu Wamakko, is not one of the leaders of the party in the state. Mr Abubakar also said since the defection of Governor Tambuwal to the PDP, Mr Abdulkadir has not made any public statement to renounce his allegiance to the governor. He said Mr Abdulkadir had in fact told APC members and supporters that Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal is the only political leader in Sokoto state. The petitioner said Mr Abdulkadir is still maintaining his allegiance to Mr Tambuwal and by extension the PDP, because he has failed to resign as the chairman Governing Council of Sokoto State University, a position given to him by Mr Tambuwal. I therefore call on the ward executive to consider my complaint and take appropriate action against Inuwa Abdulkadir, Mr Abubakar said. Investigation of allegations Following the receipt of the complaint from Mr Abubakar, the Magajin Gari A ward appointed a disciplinary committee made up of five members on October 19 to investigate the allegations against Mr Abdulkadir. The letter announcing the committee signed by the ward chairman, Shamsu Bello, and Secretary, Bello Ibrahim, asked the committee to invite the person complained against to defend himself on the allegations made against him within the stipulated period accordingly. The disciplinary committee, headed by the ward chairman, Mr Bello, subsequently submitted a report to the Sokoto North Local Government chapter of the party, recommending the expulsion of Mr Abdulkadir after it found him guilty of all the allegations raised against him. In the same vein, the Sokoto North executive committee in a resolution signed by all the 18 officials of the local government chapter ratified the report of the Magajin Gari A ward and forwarded a report to the state chapter of the party recommending the expulsion of Mr Abdulkadir. The local government chapter particularly noted a content of the report submitted by the ward executives in paragraphs 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5 which shows that Inuwa Abdulkadir has ridiculed the party and made derogatory comments against leaders of the party in Sokoto state. Expulsion Formalised Sokoto North APC forwarded its recommendation to the state chapter of the party agreeing with the recommendation to expel Mr Abdulkadir from the party. The state executive council met over the matter and also resolved to upheld the decision of Magajin Gari A ward to expel the national vice chairman for anti-party activities. The state executive in a letter signed by the chairman, Isah Acida, dated November 2, to the National Chairman of APC, Adams Oshiomhole, forwarded the resolution of the executive committee on the matter. The resolution was signed by all the 40 members of Sokoto State Executive Committee of the APC. The letter read in part: The Executive Committee noted the refusal of Inuwa Abdulkadir to honour the invitation of the disciplinary committee personally or by representation. The committee also noted the refusal of Inuwa Abdulkadir to send a written defense to the allegations against him. The state executive committee informed the national chairman that it has therefore, accepted the recommendation of the disciplinary committee and hereby ratifies the expulsion of Inuwa Abdulkadir as a member of All Progressives Congress. State Has No Power To Sack National Official In its reaction, the national headquarters of the APC said lower chapters have no power to expel a national official of the party. The spokesperson of the party, Lanre Issa-Onilu, who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES Monday said although he was yet to read the letter purporting to announce the expulsion of Mr Abdulkadir, based on our constitution, they dont have the power to do that. He is an elected national official and anything like that can only be handled at the national level. Abdulkadir Responds Also, Mr Abdulkadir took time to respond to all the allegations raised against him. He also said the chairman and secretary of the disciplinary committee used fake names in their report. Mr Abdulkadir said the Magajin Gari Award was being sponsored to do a hatchet job. He also argued that the state of ward chapter has no power to expel a national official of the APC. He forwarded an email of his response to the allegations to PREMIUM TIMES. His full response is reproduced below. RE: COMPLAINT OF ANTI-PARTY ACTIVITIES, DISHONEST PRACTICES AND CONTINUOUS ABSENCE FROM PARTY ACTIVITIES AND MEETING AGAINST INUWA ABDULKADIR THE NATIONAL VICE CHAIRMAN NORTH-WEST OF ALL PROGRESSIVE CONGRESS. I write to acknowledge receipt of a letter dated 22nd October, 2018 titled Invitation. In Re: Petition Against the Conduct of Inuwa Abdulkadir for Anti Party activities and Continued Absence from Meetings forwarding a complaint against me as in the terms of the title of this letter. The letter of invitation though dated 22nd October 2018 and its accompaniments was served or reached me only on 31/10/2018, due to the fact that it was delivered to zonal administrative secretary in Kaduna who in turn, communicated to me that one Sabiu sent by Dr Yakubu Maccido brought a message (complaint letter) against me but could not deliver the complaint letter to me on time due to the curfew imposed on Kaduna state. A cursory examination of the complaint letter reveals that, it is an invitation to appear before the Disciplinary Committee of the All Progressives Congress (hereinafter referred to simply as the Party) of Magajin Gari A Ward on 30th October, 2018 to answer to sundry allegations against my person. The letter was signed by nameless persons who purported to be Chairman and Secretary of the said Disciplinary Committee. To this end, I have chosen to route this rejoinder to the letter of invitation and the complaint accompanying same through your office for two reasons thus: The first reason is that the letter of invitation has a very doubtful origin as its authors are deliberately nameless and without any identity whatsoever. This stems from either a false presumption that the holders of the office of Chairman and Secretary of the Partys Magajin Gari A Ward Disciplinary Committee are so popular or notorious that they need no introduction, or an unholy motive to do mischief while at the same time avoiding responsibility. However, whatever may have caused the authors of the letter of invitation to hide their identities, the point which must be made and appreciated is that official Party business is never to be conducted under a veil of anonymity! The second reason for routing this response through your office is to fix your good office with notice of said complaint and on-going actions/activities of all persons/stakeholders connected to the said complaint so that your office may be in a vantage position to closely monitor and manage the situation and its possible fallouts in the best interest of the Party. I like to sound a note of caution here, that if this matter is not properly managed from the onset by your office, I, shall NOT be held responsible for whatever crisis that may follow the present course of conduct initiated by this purported complaint against me. Generally, for the education of all, let me quickly remind that at all material times to this complaint I am by the grace of Almighty Allah the National Vice Chairman North West of our great Party having been elected to that office at a National Convention of the Party which transcends Wards, local Government and State membership of the Party. My duties as such transcend day to day issues that should concern Wards, Local Government and State Chapters of the Party unless they are brought to my attention by responsible officers/organs of the party at those levels. As National Vice Chairman I am daily involved in attending meetings and discharging several assignments both within and beyond the borders of the States comprised in the North-west Zone outside the view of Wards, Local Government and State officers of the Party. Having said that, I will now address the complaint for whatever it is worth. I shall address complaint no. 1 first, followed by complaint nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 together, complaint no. 8 separately, complaint nos. 9,10 and 11 together and finally complaint nos. 12 and 13 together. Complaint No. 1: Even as at today, my office is yet to receive any memo or report from any Ward, Local Government or State official of the Party (Sokoto State Chapter) to the effect that any number of party member/chieftain by whatever description has defected from APC to any other party. Similarly, my office is yet to receive any report from any of the aforementioned officers that such alleged defections have created vacancies/vacuum in the party and adversely affected the Partys popularity or rating in the State making it imperative for my office to call for a Zonal meeting as is being suggested in complaint no. 1. I most humbly stand to be contradicted. Complaint nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7: Party meetings are not every day events. Rather they are events that are scheduled by responsible officers at various levels of the Party. Attendance at such meetings by members/officers is secured by Notices detailing the business to be conducted at such meetings dispatched/served on all entitled to attend such meetings as provided for by the constitution of our great party. Notice of such meetings and their business cannot be presumed for even a local member without responsibilities outside his immediate environment, unless served with notice. This is even more so for a National Vice Chairman responsible for coordinating the affairs of the Party in 7 States within the Northwest Zone. Now, the question your anxious Complainant would need to answer is when did he serve or cause notices of the meetings etc., he listed under complaint nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 to be served on me? I therefore ask for particulars from the complainant respecting the dates of such meetings/primaries which I allegedly did not attend, the dates notices of such meetings/primaries were served on me and the place of such service. When this is done I may then revert to the Committee on these complaints. Complaint no. 8: This complaint is that I did not sit among the Sokoto delegates to the Special Convention for the affirmation of the nomination of President Muhammadu Buhari, [GCFR]. This is perhaps the most absurd and baseless of the complaints laid. The question is whether the convention was meant to take a population census of the delegates of state chapters of the Party? Or, whether it was to affirm the nomination of the single candidacy of Mr. President? If the business of the convention was to take census of state Chapters of the Party and indeed I was not sitting fixedly and counted amongst the Sokoto members then indeed I would be guilty with misconduct as alleged. But if the business of the convention was to affirm the nomination of Mr. President and I was confirmed by the complainant to be in attendance then it would be the case of making a heavy storm in a tea cup! I am to add here that as a National Vice Chairman I, like other National Officers of the Party, had various duties/responsibilities to discharge/attend before, during and after the convention and did not need to be fixed or glued to a chair at the venue of the convention. In any event, may the complainant demonstrate how my absence from the canopy of Sokoto State delegates prejudices the Party? Complaint nos. 9, 10 and 11: These complaints unfortunately do not condescend to providing adequate particulars as to the dates, time and occasions that I made the statements complained of. It would be most helpful if the complainant could provide these details. However, I do recall one occasion shortly after my re-election as National Vice Chairman, upon my triumphant return home [Sokoto] to a warm welcome by members of our great Party. On that occasion, I stated, inter alia thus; we the people of Sokoto are loyal and obedient to our leaders; we recognize the Sultan as our spiritual leader and any incumbent Governor of Sokoto state as our political leader In other words, we had two leaders to look up to in Sokoto State i.e. His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Matawallen Sokoto being the Governor of Sokoto State elected under the platform of our great Party and His Eminence, Alhaji Saad Abubakar , the Sultan of Sokoto. At that time, Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Matawallen Sokoto was a bona fide member of the party and undoubtedly the Leader of the Party, a position or privilege he shared with no other at all material times. Let me state here that that statement was true and I have no regret or apologies to offer to any one. Upon the defection of Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Matawallen Sokoto from our party, the leadership position in the party automatically devolved upon His Excellency, Alh Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto, being the Deputy Governor of Sokoto State under the Party. His Excellency, Alh. Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto is therefore no doubt the State leader of the Party and must be so recognized. I am not aware if His Excellency, Alh. Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto has ceded that leadership position to any other person! Now, it is necessary to throw more light on the nomenclature of leader, in the party politics as well. This privilege is normally associated and attributed to the highest elected government functionary and or, in the absence of such, highest appointed government functionary in the State. The nomenclature has nothing to do with membership of organs/bodies of the Party such as those catalogued under complaint nos. 8, 10 and 11. So, while Distinguished Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wammako and His Excellency, Alh. Chiso Abdullahi Datijo are without a doubt holding and enjoying pre-eminent positions with great followership and have been very helpful in achievements for the Party at various times, they are in the real context and sense of the word not leaders of the Party. Complaint nos. 12 and 13: These two complaints charge me with allegiance to His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Matawallen Sokoto. The grounds given for these complaints are that I have not made a public statement denouncing His Excellency and I have not resigned my appointment as the Chairman of the Governing Council of the Sokoto State University. First, I am not aware that any person or member or officer of the Party at any level is required either by law or the Party Constitution to make a so-called public declaration or denunciation of allegiance to any State Governor. Can someone help me with such provision if it exists? I am also not aware that the complainant and/or any other member/officer of the Sokoto State Chapter of the Party made any public statement denouncing so-called allegiance to His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Aminnu waziri Tambuwal, Matawallen Sokoto. Having said that, I wish to state that I have no occasion to make any so-called public denunciation of allegiance to His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Aminu waziri Tambuwal, Matawallen Sokoto and have no intention to do so anytime in the foreseeable future. The reason is simple: I have never sworn allegiance to any Governor past or present. The law and Constitution of our Party does not place that obligation on me or any other party member to do so as well. The few occasions that I have had cause to swear allegiance in the course of offices that it has pleased Almighty Allah to have me hold to in the course of my life, I have sworn allegiance to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and to our great party, the All Progressives Congress, APC. Both of these are ideals, not individuals! On the complaint of my retention of my appointment as the Chairman Governing Council of the Sokoto State University, I quickly state that the University is neither owned by His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Aminu waziri Tambuwal, Matawallen Sokoto, nor owned Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to which he has defected. The University is property of the government and People of Sokoto State whose interest our Party has declared an intention to serve. If anything, it should be the Governor Tambuwal and/or his new Party members, rather than APC members, who should be apprehensive that I, being an APC member, would not properly serve the interests of their party in my capacity as Chairman Governing Council of the University. This is a typical case of one crying more than the bereaved! Finally on this complaint of failure to resign as Chairman Governing Council, I state that no law, Party Constitution or Rule obliges me to resign the said appointment upon the defection of the appointing Governor. I further stand to be contradicted. I hope I have adequately, addressed all the complaints. I am yet available upon reasonable notice to shed more light on any grey areas that the disciplinary committee may identify. Permit me, to state here that I am aware that the these complaint was instigated as part of a grand design of a campaign of calumny against my person by a particular person who finds my principled position on matters concerning the Party in the Sokoto State personally uncomfortable to him. The same person worked to scuttle my re-election as National Vice Chairman Northwest Zone by sponsoring rival candidates against me. But I like to sound a note of warning here and now, that I shall henceforth not condone any blackmail or slandering of my name or reputation by any member no matter how well or highly placed he assumed to be. If any person in the Party has an axe to grind with me let him come out openly and draw the line and stop using faceless proxies to smear me. Those in glass houses must, of necessity, avoid throwing stones. Please accept the assurances of my highest regards and good will. Thank you and may almighty Allah bless us all. Yours Sincerely, INUWA ABDUL-KADIR,ESQ., MCIArb, FICMC [Magatakarda Babba] National Vice Chairman, North-West All Progressives Congress [APC]. The Delta Commissioner for Health, Ononye Mordi, says the ministry is proposing the sum of N8.6 billion expenditure for the 2019 fiscal year. Mr Mordi disclosed this on Monday in Asaba, the state capital during the 2019 budget defence meeting with the state House of Assembly Committee on Health. The commissioner, who appeared before the committee with the heads of parastatals under the ministry, said the proposed budget would enable government to provide more quality and affordable healthcare to the people. He said the state government was working tirelessly to provide solid health infrastructure across the state. Mr Mordi said infrastructure was key to providing quality healthcare to the people, hence government proposed N363 million for the renovation and completion of healthcare centres. The commissioner noted that N1.7 billion was set aside for the renovation and expansion of existing hospitals across the state, as well as remodeling and rehabilitation of the Eku Baptist Hospital. The sum of N45 million is also proposed for the maternal and child care centre at Warri and Ekpan. The sum of N232 million is proposed for the upgrading of four central hospitals to specialists hospitals at Warri, Ughelli, Agbor and Sapele, he said. Mr Mordi said the construction of the Asaba Central Hospital would gulp N840.7 million, while N10 million was proposed for the renovation of Government Hospital, Ojobo, Burutu Local Government Area. We are also proposing N50 million for equipping the state Specialists Hospital, Oghara, and N50 million for the Specialist Hospital library, Oghara, Ethiope West Local Government Area of the state, he said. He further said efforts were on to strengthen the State Agency for the Control of Aids (SACA) with N37 million in 2019. The commissioner added that N1.2 billion would be for contributory health insurance scheme, while N124 million would go into disease control and management of infectious disease outbreak. Mr Mordi noted that the state secretariat clinic would receive a boost in 2019 as N5 million has been proposed for its construction and equipping. Responding, the Chairman, House Committee on Health, Alphonsus Ojo, stressed the need for the people to have access to quality and affordable healthcare in all government health institutions in the state. Mr Ojo said, Health is wealth, hence all hands must be on deck to implement the lofty programmes of Okowa administration in the health sector. The lawmaker urged all parastatals under the ministry to live up to expectation and gave the assurance that the committee would look into the proposed estimates of the ministry in order to achieve their targets. (NAN) Workers in Ondo State have threatened to embark on strike if the governor fails to deploy the N20 billion Paris Club funds it received recently to settle all outstanding salaries and emoluments of members. The labour unions gave the governor on or before Tuesday, November 13 accede to its demands. In a letter addressed to the governor by the leadership of the workers in the state, the workers alleged that the state governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, had not been sincere in the administration of the refunds. In the letter which was jointly signed by the State Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress, Tayo Ogunleye; the Chairman of the Trade Union Congress, Soladoye Ekundayo, and the Chairman, Joint Negotiating Council, JNC, Abel Oloniyo, the workers enjoined the governor to expend the cash for the agreed purpose of paying the backlog of workers salary. The workers gave the governor up till 12 noon on Tuesday to clear the arrears. They also accused Mr Akeredolu of reneging on his earlier agreement with the labour unions to further consult them as regards the Paris Club refund. They threatened to reactivate the warning strike that was suspended in June 2016 if the government failed to pay the outstanding salaries. We believe that negotiation and agreement with labour was the key criteria of how the fund was released despite that the fund has been released to the state without consulting labour, the letter read in part. We humbly refer your Excellency to the agreement between labour and the state government before the suspension of our industrial action of 30th June 2016. Furthermore, we want to draw the attention of His Excellency to the recommendations of a committee on payment of six-month arrears of salary to Ondo State workers set up by the state government that was submitted to your Excellency in May 2017. We also hold that the said agreement subsists between labour and the government of Ondo State irrespective of who mounts the mantle of leadership particular when the State Head of Service remain the signatory to both the agreement and the committee report. In view of the above, we call on the government to please pay in line with our agreement as analysed in our letter under reference on or before 12 noon Tuesday 13th of November, 2018. Failure on the part of government to accede to our request, we may not be able to guarantee industrial peace by resuming our suspended strike of 30th June, 2016. The commissioner for Information, Yemi Olowolabi, told PREMIUM TIMES on Sunday that the funds were only received last week and the government was open to negotiations. He said the workers had always applauded the governor for his good policies that had improved the welfare of workers in the state. I can assure you that the governor will not do anything that will create any misunderstanding with labour, he said. We will always meet at the negotiation table and all these issues will be ironed out. Photo: The Canadian Press For kids growing up in today's cashless society, the piggy bank is going virtual. Father of two Roland Hall turned to a British startup's digital pocket money app because his kids were still too young to get bank cards from traditional banks. With prepaid debit cards linked to the app, Hall's kids, aged 8 and 10, can spend their allowance and chore money by shopping online or by tapping at contactless payment terminals in stores. Sound like a recipe for splurging? Not so, he said. "When kids have cash they want to spend it quickly. They want to go to the shops and spend it on rubbish," said Hall, an IT project manager. But an app lets them check their balances online, "which actually makes them start thinking about saving rather than getting rid of the money," said Hall, who also prefers giving digital allowances because he never carries cash. The app, which is called gohenry and expanded to the U.S. in April, is part of a wave of digital money apps combined with prepaid cards for kids as young as six that parents have access to. They are powerful new money management and savings tools that replace old-fashioned piggy banks and account passbooks. Some say they can help enhance financial literacy even as the growth of cashless payments upends traditional notions of money. Globally, the number of non-cash transactions rose 11.2 per cent to 433 billion in 2015 from the year before and is forecast to nearly double by 2020, according to the World Payments Report by financial services firms Capgemini and BNP Paribas. Britain, Canada and Sweden are among the world's most cashless countries, according to a 2017 ranking by currency website ForexBonuses, with widespread use of "contactless" bank cards that let shoppers merely tap on payment terminals for small transactions. In China, where mobile payments rule, Alipay and WeChat Pay allow teens to hold accounts. Hong Kong offers a kids' version of its stored value Octopus card, based on older technology. In the U.S., the fragmented banking sector means most cards still need to be swiped and, sometimes, require a pin number. Merchants in big U.S. cities are increasingly going cashless because they can gather more customer data, which makes it harder for teens without bank cards, said Stuart Sopp, CEO of Current, a two-year-old U.S. fintech startup. "Parents are willing to pay to solve a problem that banks are not solving" - helping youngsters deal with digital money, said Sopp. The national headquarters of the Court of Appeal has stated some reasons that necessitated the relocation of the Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal from Osogbo, the states capital, to Abuja. The reshuffled three-man panel was moved to FCT High Court at No 24, Apo, Abuja on Saturday following the directives of president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa. In an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, the spokesperson of the Court of Appeal, Saadatu Musa, said the action of the president was in line with the Constitution. It is constitutional. The president has the power to constitute a panel and to use that same discretion if she feels so, (for safety and for peace). In response to the question why the panel was moved, she said; If theres a flash point or there would be trouble or insecurity of the judges, will you want to expose your judges, if you are the one?. Because of this, once in a while (the president exercises this power) and for peace to reign. (To ensure that there will) be no interference and so as to maintain peace and order, amidst tensed politics. Citing previous cases, the spokesperson added that it happened in Imo state. You could remember in 2016 when she (The president) relocated some tribunals back to Abuja. (In) Port Harcourt for example, during the Wike and Amaechi issue, she moved them back to Abuja so that they can stay in a peaceful environment. You could remember in Ekiti, where a judge was slapped, she told PREMIUM TIMES. When asked if the sudden relocation will not be seen as a political move by the opposition party, Mrs Musa stated that this will not be the first time the court will be accused of an attempt to tamper with justice. They have always thought otherwise. During the PDP time, APC were accusing her Lordship that (she) is PDP. Now it is APC time and PDP members are accusing that she (the President) is a member of APC. Human beings cannot please human beings, but for the sake of democracy, she is a very humane leader and a thoughtful person. She thinks beyond where we do. She supports democracy and for democracy to thrive, it has to be in a peaceful atmosphere. We cant endanger the lives of our judges. Everything is done in an open court. It is just that we are politically impatient and not seeing reasons why she took that step. She swore to an oath, between herself and her God. So, what will she gain at this time to cause chaos? She asked. PDP calls for probe of tribunal relocation However, the Peoples Democratic Party, in a press statement signed by the state chairman, Soji Adagunodo, on Sunday, asked the National Judicial Council to probe the sudden relocation of the sitting of the tribunal to the Federal Capital, Abuja. According to the party chieftain, the party described the relocation of the sitting of the Osun Governorship Election Tribunal to Abuja as another sign that there is a desperate and evil plan by some forces to implement a pre-written script on the proceedings and outcome of its petition before the tribunal. The party said though it was not shocked by the relocation of the sitting of the tribunal away from Osogbo, the state capital, in view of the several boastings of prominent APC leaders to that effect in the last few weeks, it is very disappointed that a very important institution like the Judiciary would allow itself to be cheaply manipulated by unscrupulous elements in the political space. We believe that the decision to relocate the Tribunal sitting to Abuja was also without any justifiable reason because there had been no reports on any security breach neither had there been any other cogent factor that could have necessitated the action. The party said it was very probable that those who took the decision without consultation with counsels of the petitioners did so partly to prevent the good people of Osun State from observing the proceedings of the tribunal and also to make it easier for the federal authorities to influence its outcome. We want to remind Honourable members of the tribunal of the dictum of the eminent jurist, Niki Tobi, that the true test of a fair hearing is the impression of a reasonable person who was present at the trial, whether from his observation, justice has been done. Mr Soji further reiterated that apart from the Court of public opinion which the conduct of the tribunal will be subjected to, there is also a burden on the tribunal members to justify the expectations of God from those who hold such sacred offices and who are called upon to do justice without fear or favour. On our part as a party, we will continue to invite the attention of the National Judicial Council, Leaders of thought and the international community to the happenings in Osun State and state what these portend for the 2019 general elections in Nigeria and the stability of the country as a whole. We are hopeful that the concerned persons and authorities will act speedily on this matter and restore the hope of the common man in Osun State in the judicial process as an aftermath of the last governorship election. APC says movement of tribunal is legal Meanwhile, the APC publicity secretary, Osun State, Kunle Oyatomi, in his reaction to the latest development, made it known that his party has no objection to the relocation of the states Gubernatorial Election Petition Tribunal to Abuja. It is a legal process permitted by the law of Nigeria. We support the movement, so long it dispenses justice fairly and without favour, he stated in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES on Sunday. We like to point out to the PDP and its candidate, Sen. Ademola Adeleke that by the fact on the ground of the two elections, and the official and legitimate pronouncement of the results of those elections by INEC, the mandate of the people of Osun remains that of Alhaji Isiaka Adegboyega Oyetola and not for Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke; not as the PDP is claiming, he defended. It should be recalled that this newspaper reported that the PDP candidate in the September 22 and 27 elections, Ademola Adeleke, filed a petition at the Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Osogbo to challenge the victory of the governor-elect, Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Mr Adeleke, who claimed he polled the highest number of votes in the election, has asked the tribunal to cancel the victory of Mr Oyetola and declare him the winner of the election. The police on Monday re-arraigned Semasa James, the prince of Kweme Land of Badagry, Lagos in an Ikeja Special Offences Court for allegedly defrauding the estate of his late father, Afolabi James. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Semasa was initially arraigned on April 10 on a two-count charge of of stealing and forgery. He had denied the charges and trial had commenced with two witnesses testifying for the prosecution. However, during the days proceedings, Mr Semasa was re-arraigned alongside Afolabi Kazeem, whom the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) of the Nigerian Police Force alleges is an accomplice to the crimes. In the fresh charge, Mr Semasa is charged with stealing, forging of company resolution, fraudulent disposing of trust property and forgery. Mr Kazeem and the prince are jointly charged with conspiracy to defraud and cheating. The duo, however, plead not guilty to the seven-count charge. According to O.O. Olabisi, the prosecutor for the SFU, the prince fraudulently converted N500million property belonging to the late king between 2000 and 2017 in Lagos. The defendant had 2011, forged the resolution of a company called CAJ Industrial Enterprises dated Nov. 28, 2011. He had purported that the resolution was signed by his father, who was one of the directors of the company meanwhile his father had died nine years earlier on Jan. 30, 2002. The defendant had forged the resolution with the intent that it will be acted upon as genuine to the prejudice of any person, he said. The prosecutor noted that Semasa had fraudulently sold a property belonging to his late fathers estate to a private individual and illegally leased another property to Ecobank Plc. On about November 2004, with intent to defraud, Semasa converted the property located at Plot 1440, Ilesanmi St., Itire Road, Surulere belonging to the estate of his late father by selling the property to Mrs Saidat Taiwo without approval. On about July 2005 in Lagos, he fraudulently converted the property at Plot 282 Ajose Adeogun St., Victoria Island, Lagos by leasing it to the defunct Oceanic Bank Plc now Ecobank Plc, the prosecutor said. Mr Olabisi also revealed Kazeems alleged role as an accomplice in defrauding the late kings estate. Sometime in 2017 in Lagos, Semasa and Kazeem fraudulently tricked and cheated the beneficiaries of the late king of N150 million which was part of the proceeds of sale of a property located at Dideolu Estate, Victoria Island, Lagos, he said. The prosecutor noted that Mr Semasa had also forged a purchase receipt dated November 15, 2004 and an undated deed of assignment between himself, Bolarinwa James, Mrs Alakija (nee James), Hon. Justice Adebayo Adeniji and Mrs Saidat Taiwo. Mr Semasa according to the prosecution, had purported that the receipt of payment and deed of assignment were signed by Bolarinwa James, Mrs Alakija (nee James) and Hon. Justice Adebayo Adeniji with the intent that it will be acted upon as genuine to the prejudice of other persons. The offences contravene Sections 383(1), 383(2)(f), 390(9), 421,434, 465 and 467 of the Criminal Code, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004. Following their plea, Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo ordered that Mr Semasa continues his previous administrative bail. She however ordered that Mr Kazeem be released to the custody of Martin Oyigbo, his defence counsel who must ensure that he attends his trial. I release him to your custody and you must write an undertaking to the effect that he will attend court proceedings. The second defendant will not be allowed to leave the court premises today until the undertaking is written, she ordered. Justice Taiwo adjourned the case until November 19 for trial. (NAN) A Federal High Court in Lagos on Monday dismissed a no-case submission by former Governor Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo State in a case of alleged N4.7 billion fraud. Mr Ladoja was charged with converting N4.7 billion from Oyo State treasury to his personal use. He is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He was re-arraigned along with Waheed Akanbi, a former Commissioner for Finance in the state. They are standing trial on an 11-count charge of money laundering and unlawful conversion of public funds. The duo, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge. After the close of prosecutions case, the accused file a no-case submission, contending that the prosecution failed to establish a case against them. The court then adjourned until Monday, ruling on the submission. In his ruling on Monday, Justice Mohammed Idris held that based on evidence by the prosecution, the accused had some explanations to make. In the light of all the evidence tendered by the prosecution, and in my opinion, the defendants might have to explain the contents of some of those exhibits, court held. The court, therefore, dismissed the no-case submission and ordered the accused to begin defence. Consequently, defence counsel, Bolaji Onilenla, prayed for an adjournment to enable the accused to start defence. Mr Idris adjourned the case until November 20 for defence to begin. In the charge, the accused were alleged to have conspired to siphon and launder N4.7 billion from the coffers of Oyo State Government. The EFCC also accused them of converting the states N1.9 billion to their personal use through the account of a company known as Heritage Apartments Ltd. The anti-graft agency claimed that the accused retained the money sometime in 2007 in spite of their knowledge that it was from a criminal activity. Mr Ladoja was accused of removing 600,000 pounds from the state coffers in 2007 and sent to his daughter, Bimpe, in London. In addition, the ex-governor was accused of converting N42 million belonging to the state to his personal use and subsequently used same to purchase an armoured Land Cruiser. The EFCC added that Mr Ladoja converted N728 million and N77 million at different times in 2007 to his personal use and transferred same to Bistrum Investments for the purchase of a property in Ibadan. The offences contravene the provisions of Sections 14, 16, 17 (a) and 18 (1) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2004, according to the EFCC. (NAN) Nine members of the Ondo State House of Assembly led by sacked speaker of the house, Bamidele Oleyelogun, on Monday convened a sitting of the assembly, saying the removal initiated by the Olamide George faction of the house on Friday was illegal. Presiding over the eight other lawmakers on Monday, Mr Oleyelogun said the impeachment did not satisfy the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority for the removal of a speaker of the house. About 18 members reportedly signed the notice of impeachment, out of the 26 members, initially showing that the house perhaps mustered the necessary two-thirds majority of the members. But at the sitting on Monday, two of the house members whose names appeared on the impeachment notice, denied that they were part of the move for leadership change. If this is true, then the required number of members needed (at least 17) to spearhead the process may not have been reached The lawmakers, Sunday Olajide and Olusola Oluyede, claimed that their signatures were forged by the faction in the bid to remove Mr Oleyelogun and his deputy. Mr Olajide said he was neither informed nor briefed on the impeachment, saying he got wind of the removal from a friend via the telephone. He said it was criminal for anyone to forge his signature without his consent, noting that he was not part of any meeting and did not participate in the impeachment. Mr Oluyede also said he was not part of the attempted impeachment, adding that he was shocked to find his name and signature on the notice. They claimed to have formed two-third as a condition to impeach the speaker and the deputy speaker, whereas they were less in number as Hon. Sunday Olajide and Hon. Olusola Oluyede were not part of the attempted impeachment, he said. Mr Oleyelogun however, called on the security operatives in the state to investigate and prosecute Mr Georges faction for forgery. Addressing journalists after the plenary, the embattled deputy speaker, Ogundeji Iroju, argued that to impeach any principal officer, speaker and deputy speaker, the constitution must be followed. We are 26 honourable members and for any principal of the house of Assembly to be impeached, the two-thirds must be complete and (they must) sign the impeachment paper before such impeachment would be carried out, he said. So out of that 18 members that signed the impeachment paper, two of them have said now that their signatures were forged. That means the two-thirds have not been fulfilled in that regard. In view of this, the house led by the Rt. Hon Oleyelogun has taken the decision to call on the security agents to probe that (those) purported signatures and names so that those involved in that forgery will quickly be brought to book and questioning. Also the house today sat on the 2018 appropriation bill which was sent to the house by the state governor, Rotimi Akeredolu for amendment. It has passed through the first and second reading and it has been sent to the appropriate committee for scrutiny, this is what we have done today at the plenary. This is to tell the whole world that the Oleyelogun still remains the speaker and I, Ogundeji Iroju, still remain as the deputy speaker of the house, the purported impeachment was not in line with the constitution. The names of members at the Monday plenary are: Bamidele Oleyelogun, Ogundeji Iroju, Felemu Bankole, Sunday Olajide, Abayomi Akinruntan, Jamiu Maito, Oluyede Olusola, Kuti Tuwase and Kazeem Suleiman. Estranged Group Flees Meanwhile, the other faction, who are apparently still in the majority, have relocated to Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, citing threats to their lives. Mr George, who was elected speaker, after Mr Oleyelogun was removed on Friday, addressed the media in Ibadan on Saturday, claiming that their lives were no longer safe after they were attacked by thugs masterminded by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress in the state under the supervision of the Commissioner of Police, Gbenga Adeyanju. They also claimed to have received death threats, as well as their families and called on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene and save them from being killed. Besides accusing the police commissioner, they also called on the Inspector General of Police to redeploy him from the state. Meanwhile, the commissioner for information, Yemi Olowolabi has said the executive would not meddle in the affairs of the legislature. He said the government was informed that the removal process did not sail through as the faction led by Mr George could not muster the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority. Olamide George, who insists he remains the new Speaker of the Ondo State House of Assembly, says the removal exercise carried out by 18 members of the assembly on Friday is irreversible. Mr George, in the company of 15 other members, spoke with reporters on Monday at the Nigeria Union of Journalists(NUJ) Press Centre in Iyaganku, Ibadan. PREMIUM TIMES earlier published how nine members of the assembly led by sacked speaker of the house, Bamidele Oleyelogun, on Monday convened a sitting of the assembly, saying the removal initiated by the George faction of the house on Friday was illegal. It also reported how the faction had fled the state citing security concerns. However, Mr George insists the removal of Mr Oloyelogun and Ogundeji Iroju, the deputy speaker, was in order. Mr George also said that the removal was an in-house exercise which has a constitutional backing and was not targeted at anyone. He denied reports that the removal was sponsored by Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun, Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State and APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole. Mr George insisted that Messrs Oloyelogun and Iroju were not only sacked by 18 out of the 26 members of the assembly but also suspended. The embattled speaker disputed the claim that two of those that signed the impeachment notice had their signatures forged. Meanwhile, Mr George has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to wade into the matter by restoring law and order. (NAN) Photo: CTV A Vancouver church was vandalized on Remembrance Day. The day also marks the 100th anniversary of independence in Poland, making the graffiti at Polish church St. Casimir's all the more hurtful. "Antifa," meaning "anti-facist," was sprayed on the side of the church daycare, along with the words "Nazi raus" or "Nazis out" in German. "Refugees welcome" was also written on the wall, and a symbol used by far-right groups was also found on the East Vancouver building. This year's independence march in Warsaw was marred by far-right parties and flares. Anti-immigrant attitudes have been rising, with banners depicting slogans such as "White Europe of brotherly nations," and "Pure Poland, white Poland" at last year's march. with files from CTV Vancouver Photo: The Canadian Press A mail box is seen outside a Canada Post office in Halifax. Union negotiators say there was little progress in the two-and-a-half weeks that a special mediator was assigned to the Canada Post labour dispute. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says rotating strikes will continue across the country, even as contract talks continue a day after mediator Morton Mitchnick's mandate expired. CUPW national president Mike Palecek says the union is frustrated by what he describes as the unwillingness of Canada Post to address key concerns raised at the bargaining table. Those concerns include health and safety, workload, permanent employment and equality for rural and suburban mail carriers. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week warned that his government might soon act if there is no solid progress in the talks, which have been ongoing for nearly a year. Trudeau did not elaborate on what the Liberals would do to end the dispute, but suggested time is running out to put an end to rotating walkouts that have caused postal-service delays as the busy holiday shopping season ramps up. Canada Post has maintained it has made significant offers to its 50,000 unionized employees that include increased wages and improved benefits and job security. For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME. Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire. Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever. Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation. View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union. Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history. Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words. The Thermo Scientific Food Authenticity NGS Workflow enables an untargeted screening approach comprised of five steps to suit the varying needs of food and beverage analysis. The workflow is designed to work seamlessly with the Ion Chef Food Protection Instrument for automated template preparation and the Ion GeneStudio S5 Food Protection Sequencing System for fast run times and minimal handling steps. Two chip formats and universal SGS Analyser kits also enable multiple library pools across meat, plant, and fish species to be sequenced in a single run, which helps to reduce the time and cost of sequencing experiments. Automated data analysis with the SGS All Species ID Software and curated database results are displayed as a list of any specific meat, plant and fish species present in the sample in less than 24 hours. "The growing need to access untargeted genetic information from complex and fragmented DNA samples spurred the development of the Thermo Scientific Food Authenticity NGS System," said Bernd Hoffman, vice president of marketing for the microbiology business at Thermo Fisher Scientific. "This complete workflow makes NGS analysis more accessible for the routine food testing laboratory and can help businesses combat food fraud more effectively. It truly aligns with our mission to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer." The Thermo Scientific NGS Food Authenticity workflow is: Simple: Ready-to-use kits provide all necessary reagents Rapid: Sample to results in under 24 hours for quick decisions Flexible: Analyze multiple food or ingredient samples together Supported: Our experienced technical team is ready to assist through evaluation, training and day-to-day testing Additional information on the complete Food Authenticity NGS workflow can be found here or by visiting thermofisher.com/food-authenticity-ngs. The Thermo Scientific Food Authenticity NGS Workflow is for research, food or environmental use only; not for use in human diagnostic procedures. About Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with revenues of more than $20 billion and approximately 70,000 employees globally. Our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We help our customers accelerate life sciences research, solve complex analytical challenges, improve patient diagnostics, deliver medicines to market and increase laboratory productivity. Through our premier brands Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific and Unity Lab Services we offer an unmatched combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and comprehensive services. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com. Media Contact Information: Cheryl Mooney Basingstoke, UK +44 (0)1256 694226 cheryl.mooney@thermofisher.com Logo- https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/490330/Thermo_Fisher_Scientific.jpg Related Links http://www.thermofisher.com SOURCE Thermo Fisher Scientific HONG KONG, SHANGHAI, and UNIONDALE, N.Y., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Angion Biomedica and Sinovant Sciences today announced a collaboration and license agreement for BB3, Angion's investigational small molecule mimetic of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan (Greater China). Angion is currently developing BB3 in a Phase 3 trial for the treatment of delayed graft function (DGF) following kidney transplantation and in a Phase 2 trial for the treatment of acute kidney injury (AKI) following open-heart surgery requiring cardiopulmonary bypass. "We are very pleased to partner with Sinovant to develop and commercialize BB3 in Greater China," said Jay Venkatesan, M.D., CEO of Angion. "Our collaboration will help to address the morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs associated with DGF and AKI in the rapidly growing patient markets in Greater China. Sinovant's deep knowledge of China, experienced management team, and demonstrated commitment to innovation make them the ideal partner for Angion in the region." "DGF and AKI are each associated with high morbidity and mortality and there are no approved therapies globally," said Dr. Rae Yuan, President of Sinovant. "There is a pressing need in Greater China for new medicines that can reduce the burden associated with kidney diseases, and we are excited to work with Angion to accelerate the availability of this promising new therapy." Under the terms of the agreement, Angion has granted Sinovant an exclusive license for the development, commercialization, and manufacture of BB3 in Greater China. Angion will receive significant upfront, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments as well as royalties on sales in Greater China. Sinovant and Angion will cooperate to jointly develop BB3 in DGF and AKI, with Sinovant taking the lead on development activities in Greater China. Sinovant expects to initiate clinical trials with BB3 in Greater China immediately upon receipt of the necessary regulatory approvals. About DGF and AKI Delayed graft function (DGF) is a form of acute kidney injury (AKI) that manifests postoperatively in 20-30% of renal transplantation patients globally and is associated with a 40% decrease in long-term graft survival.1 In Greater China, persistent organ shortages have led to greater use of deceased donor kidneys, which is expected to drive increases in observed rates of DGF. AKI is characterized by an abrupt loss of kidney function and may be caused by a variety of factors. In the surgical setting, AKI is a common complication of open-heart surgery requiring cardiopulmonary bypass. Up to 30% of patients recovering from open-heart surgery experience an AKI-associated complication, resulting in a five-fold increased risk of death during hospitalization2. Risk factors for AKI in the post-surgical setting include existing kidney disease, compromised heart function, exposure to nephrotoxic drugs, advanced age, and diabetes. Advisors T.R. Winston & Company, LLC, served as financial advisor to Angion, and assisted in the negotiations with Sinovant. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP served as legal advisor to Angion. About BB3 BB3 is a potent, small molecule mimetic of HGF which activates the c-Met receptor. Activation of the HGF/c-Met pathway stimulates blood vessel formation, tissue repair, and regeneration, and reduces deposition of extracellular matrix, a non-cellular collection of macromolecules produced in excess by injured tissue leading to organ dysfunction and fibrosis. In a prior Phase 2 study with BB3 in patients with poor kidney function post-transplant, treated patients were shown to have improved renal function, decreased serum creatinine, and reduced need for dialysis relative to patients who received placebo. Angion is currently conducting a Phase 3 study with BB3 in patients presenting with early signs of DGF and a Phase 2 study with BB3 in patients at increased risk for AKI following cardiovascular surgery. About Angion Angion Biomedica Corp. is a biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing novel therapeutic agents for acute and chronic organ diseases and disorders. Angion's programs are currently focused on renal transplantation, AKI, and chronic kidney disease, with a pipeline of additional indications and product candidates. For further information, please visit www.angion.com. About Sinovant Sinovant is a Chinese biopharmaceutical company dedicated to conducting globally innovative biomedical R&D in China to meet the needs of patients in Greater China and around the world. Sinovant's mission is to develop and commercialize new medicines that address the most pressing public health challenges in China while simultaneously advancing Chinese biopharmaceutical research abroad. For further information, please visit www.sinovant.com. Contact for Angion Biomedica: Elisha Goldberg Director, Business Development [email protected] Contact for Sinovant Sciences: Xinan Chen Executive Director [email protected] 1 Siedlecki et al. (2011) 2 O'Neal et al. (2016) SOURCE Sinovant Sciences PETALUMA, Calif., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sonoma Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ("Sonoma") and Collidion Inc. ("Collidion") have today announced agreement to settle Sonoma's claims of trade secret misappropriation and breaches of fiduciary duty against Collidion and certain of Collidion's employees. In 2017, Sonoma filed a lawsuit against Collidion, Hojabr Alimi, Sameer Harish, and Monica Shaffer in federal district court, alleging the misappropriation of its trade secrets and confidential and proprietary information relating to hypochlorous acid products. As part of the settlement, Sonoma will dismiss this legal action without any admission of wrongdoing by any Defendant. There has been no finding of wrongdoing against any defendant. The agreement is to the satisfaction of all parties, but the terms of the settlement are otherwise being kept confidential. About Collidion Collidion, Inc. was founded in 2015 to improve the future of global healthcare through the delivery of innovative solutions that address significant unmet medical needs facing patient care. Collidion operates through subsidiaries, which we support through the infusion of capital, operational guidance, intellectual property and portfolio management, and commercial & business development expertise. Spectrum Antimicrobials, Inc. is focused on the development of several disruptive antimicrobial formulations for use in healthcare markets. These formulations are derived from novel and proprietary platform technologies intended to target antibiotic-resistant pathogens for the treatment and prevention of infections, sterilization of medical devices, disinfection of surfaces, and improvement of the food supply chain. The company is also developing the first novel blood filtration system for effective removal of bacterial proteins, endotoxins and pathogens responsible for causing sepsis in patients. Plex Pharmaceuticals has developed a number of proprietary, drug candidates to treat complex degenerative diseases caused by protein misfolding. Plex's targeted molecules are intended for the following indications: non-surgical cataracts & presbyopia, glioblastoma, and Parkinson's disease. Plex has also developed a novel drug candidate, which does not become neutralized in presence of blood or serum, intended to treat bacterial and viral conjunctivitis. Plex has a rich pipeline of drug discovery programs and a dedicated scientific team. Founded in 2009, Plex's drug discovery lab and operations are located in San Diego, California. Awayk Health, LLC., provides a platform of services for patients with sleep apnea, from screening, testing, to treatment and compliance. Under distribution agreements with Philips Respironics and other manufacturers, Awayk provides CPAP machines directly to patients. Awayk has plans to commercialize Spectrum's proprietary products for the daily cleansing and disinfection of CPAP machines. http://www.collidion.com. SOURCE Collidion, Inc. Related Links http://www.collidion.com ALBANY, New York, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the reports stated by TMR, the global culture media market is estimated to reach a value of US$10.1 bn by the end of the forecast period which is from 2017 to 2025. The market is anticipated to grow with a CAGR of 7.7% by the end of 2025. As per the end user segment is concerned, the market is seen to be led by hospital segment with an expectation to reach 44.1% by the end of the forecast period. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/664869/Transparency_Market_Research_Logo.jpg ) Increasing Geriatric Population to Boost Market Growth Culture media is used for controlling and growing microbes with the help of a variety of nutrients that makes it necessary for the growth of the microbes. Culture Media Market is seen to be on the growing scale in the coming years due to a number of factors. One of them being the rise in geriatric or age old population. Because of this reason, infectious diseases are also prevailing by the day. In order to meet the demand of the prevailing infectious diseases, there is increase in demand for antibiotics. However, some bacteria kinds have made themselves resistant to antibiotics and thus, there is the need for far more advanced and improved medications. Thus, the rise in demand for antibiotics is a crucial factor in propelling the market globally. Get PDF Brochure for Research Insights at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=26273 Players are putting more effort into research and development programs in order to invent new pharmaceutical products for diagnosis of disease, thus, benefitting the market growth in the future. Factors like the increase in age old population is opening up new growth opportunities for the culture media market. Apart from that, factors like highly prevailing infectious diseases in almost all parts of the world is adding fuel to the growth of the global culture media market. Adding to that, the increasing number of research and development activities in terms of introducing new pharmaceuticals into the market is also contributing to the rising popularity of the market in the long run. Request a Sample Report at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=26273 On a geographical basis, North America regional market is envisaged to rise at a robust 96.7% between 2016 and 2025, mainly because of large contributions from the U.S. market. This is because of the rise in advancing medical technology along with equally accelerating increase in cultural media application all around the region. It is expected that in the coming years, Asia Pacific region is to dominate the culture media market due to the surge in economic growth of the developing regions of India and China and the increasing popularity of the culture media market in the region. Request for Discount on This Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=D&rep_id=26273 Strict Process Controls to Hamper Market Growth Although the market for culture media is seen to be growing at a substantial rate, there may be a few factors that may pull down the market growth rate and create hurdles for its development like the high-end expenditure related to preparing different types of media culture since it requires advanced capabilities for manufacturing. Adding to that, strict rules and regulations imposed in order to control culture media processes may also hamper the future growth of the market. The global market for culture media is to face high competition owing to the consistency of new discoveries and breakthroughs for culture media, as per the report stated by Transparency Market Research (TMR). The global competitive landscape for culture media market is projected to be fairly consolidated as top five players are seen to hold almost about 60% of the entire market. Request For Custom Research - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=CR&rep_id=26273 Some of the important players of the global culture media market are Dickinson and Company, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., HI Media Laboratories Pvt Ltd., Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., and Scharlab S.L. There is more focus on merger and acquisition strategies in order to expand the business geographically. Apart from that, the complimentary strength gained by strategic alliances in terms of business is seen to be accelerating the overall culture media market in the long run. The above review is based on a TMR report, titled, "Culture Media Market: (Media Type - Dehydrated Culture Media, Prepared Culture Media, and Chromogenic Culture Media; End User - Hospitals, Diagnostic Centers and Academic, and Research Institutes) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Volume, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025". Browse More Healthcare Market Research Reports Popular Research Reports by TMR: Bioprocess Technology Market (Product - Instruments (Bioprocess Analyzers, Blood Gas Analyzers, Osmometers, Cell Counter Systems, Bioreactors, Incubators), Consumables & Accessories (Culture Media, Reagents); Application - Antibiotics, Recombinant Proteins, Monoclonal Antibodies & Biosimilars, Antibiotics; End use - Biopharmaceutical Companies, Contract Manufacturing Organizations, Academic Research Institutes, Food and Feed Industry, Contract Research Organization) : https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/bioprocess-technology-market.html https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/bioprocess-technology-market.html Life Science Reagents Market (Product - Chromatography Reagents, Molecular Diagnostic Reagents, Immunoassay Reagents, Clinical Chemistry Reagents, Flow Cytometry Reagents, Cell and Tissue Culture Reagents, Hematology and Hemostasis Reagents, Microbiology Reagents; End use - Hospitals and Diagnostics Laboratories, Commercial and Contract Research Manufacturers, Academic and Research Institutes) : https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/life-sciences-reagents-analytical-reagents.html https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/life-sciences-reagents-analytical-reagents.html Cell Culture Market (Product - Instruments (Cell Culture Vessels (Bioreactors), Carbon Dioxide Incubators, Biosafety Cabinets, Cryogenic Tanks), Mediums (Chemically Defined Mediums, Classical Mediums, Lysogeny Broths, Serum-free Mediums, Protein-free Mediums, Specialty Mediums), Sera, Reagents (Growth Factors & Cytokines, Albumin, Protease Inhibitors, Thrombin, Attachment Factors, Amino Acids); End use - Biotechnology Companies, Pharmaceutical Companies, Academic Institutes, and Research Institutes): https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/cell-culture-market.html About Us Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The company's exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information. TMR's data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports. Contact Mr. Rohit Bhisey Transparency Market Research State Tower, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany NY - 12207 United States Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Research Blog: https://theglobalhealthnews.com/ SOURCE Transparency Market Research Dispensary Features Orlando's First Medical Marijuana Drive-Thru ORLANDO, Fla., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (CSE: CURA) ("Curaleaf" or the "Company"), a leading vertically integrated cannabis operator in the United States, announced today that the Company has opened its 15th medical marijuana dispensary in Florida. Located in the East Orlando area, the dispensary includes the community's first medical marijuana drive-thru. Curaleaf now has 30 dispensaries in operation across the United States. Curaleaf, a leader in providing patients with access to medical marijuana in Florida, was the first in the state to introduce and pilot the drive-thru concept at its Palm Harbor dispensary this past summer. The drive-thru has proven to deliver Gulf coast patients an added benefit convenience. "Since the time Florida's voters approved medical marijuana in the state, our team at Curaleaf has been dedicated to ensuring patients have access to this life-changing treatment," said Curaleaf Florida President, Lindsay Jones. "Understanding many of our patients live with debilitating conditions that sometimes may impact mobility, we are proud today to offer East Orlando area patients our safe premium quality medical marijuana products through online orders that may be fulfilled via our drive-thru or free delivery service." In addition to the Company's unwavering commitment to accessibility, Curaleaf also continues to provide patients with best-in-class customer service and educational resources. The East Orlando dispensary will launch a series of monthly educational events beginning this December for local patients, physicians and community members in the dispensary's community meeting room. In appreciation of all the men and women who have served this country, all Veteran patients will receive 30% off of their in-store, online and phone orders today at all Curaleaf locations nationwide. Throughout the year, discounts are offered to senior citizens, military veterans, pediatric patients and recipients of government financial assistance. Patients may call 877-303-0741 for more information. Curaleaf's newest dispensary, located at 775 N. Semoran Boulevard, will celebrate its grand opening on Thursday, November 15th from 3pm until 7pm. Dispensary operating hours are Monday through Friday, 10am 7pm; Saturday, 10am 5pm; and Sunday, Noon 5pm. The State of Florida's Office of Medical Marijuana Use Registry requires an order from a qualified Florida ordering physician and a State of Florida medical marijuana card to obtain medical marijuana products. All dispensary visitors must show a State of Florida medical marijuana card. First-time drive-thru patients are required to visit the dispensary for a private consultation and encouraged to take advantage of educational resources available within the dispensary. About Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. The Company is the parent of Curaleaf, Inc., a leading vertically integrated cannabis operator in the United States. Headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts, Curaleaf, Inc. has a presence in 12 states. Curaleaf, Inc. operates 30 dispensaries, 12 cultivation sites and 9 processing sites with a focus on highly populated, limited license states, including Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. Curaleaf, Inc. leverages its extensive research and development capabilities to distribute cannabis products in multiple formats with the highest standard for safety, effectiveness, consistent quality and customer care. Curaleaf is committed to being the industry's leading resource in education and advancement through research and advocacy. Curaleaf Inc.'s Florida operations were the first in the cannabis industry to receive the Safe Quality Food certification under the Global Food Safety Initiative, setting a new standard of excellence. For more information please visit www.curaleaf.com. Media Contact: Lauren Garcia-Velez [email protected] 305.443.3500 Investor Contact: KCSA Strategic Communications Valter Pinto, Managing Director PH: (212) 896-1260 [email protected] SOURCE Curaleaf, Inc. Related Links https://www.curaleaf.com GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Stephane Le Roy has been appointed President Business Area Surgical Workflows and member of the Getinge Executive Team. Stephane most recently held the position of Regional President of South West Europe, in Getinge. In his new role, Stephane will be a member of the Getinge Executive Team and report to Mattias Perjos, President & CEO. He takes up the position on November 15, 2018. Stephane succeeds Paul Marcun who has decided to leave Getinge to pursue another career opportunity. Stephane brings a valuable experience in the field of medical technology equipment, services and software. He joined Getinge in 2012 as country manager for Infection Control in France, and before that, he had held several positions within sales, product and marketing management of medical imaging systems, for GE Healthcare and Siemens. Stephane holds a Masters degree in Industrial Engineering from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees in France, for which he also studied one year at the University of Texas in Austin, USA. Contact Jeanette Heden Carlsson, Executive Vice President Communications & Brand Management Phone: +46-734-244-797 Email: [email protected] Anna Appelqvist, Vice President Corporate Communications Phone: +46-734-244-527 E-mail: [email protected] This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com http://news.cision.com/getinge/r/getinge-appoints-stephane-le-roy-as-president-business-area-surgical-workflows-and-member-of-getinge,c2669836 The following files are available for download: http://mb.cision.com/Main/942/2669836/943213.pdf PDF http://news.cision.com/getinge/i/stephane-le-roy-president-surgical-workflows,c2526133 Stephane Le Roy President Surgical Workflows SOURCE Getinge DUBLIN, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global and China Automotive Wheel Industry Report, 2018-2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global automobile output edged up 2.4% year on year to 97.3 million units in 2017 and it is expected to grow at around 2.0% in the next five years. China, as the largest producer of automobiles in the world, garnered the output of 29.05 million units in 2017, with a year-on-year increase of 3.2% and a 29.8% share of global total. The automotive wheel industry grows steadily in pace with the automobile industry. In 2017, China's output of automotive wheel rose 7.1% year on year to about 270 million units, with the CAGR of 14.2% between 2009 and 2017. Favored by policies, the automotive wheel industry will see a CAGR of 4.0% or so during 2018-2023. As its automotive wheel industry is developing apace, China has become the global production center for automotive wheels, with at least 70% of the world's wheels produced in China. Automotive wheels can be divided into aluminum wheel and steel wheel, of which the former is primarily used in light vehicles with a higher market share. The aluminum wheel output seized 69.6% of the total in 2017, and it is expected to reach 250 million units in 2023. The demand for wheels in China are primarily from OEMs, AM and export. In 2017, 48.4% and 41.4% of the market demand for Chinese aluminum wheels stemmed from OEMs and export respectively; over 70% of the demand for steel wheels was driven by OEMs. Major automotive wheel manufacturers in China include CITIC Dicastal, Zhejiang Jinfei Kaida Wheel, Zhejiang Wanfeng Auto, Zhengxing Wheel, Zhejiang Jingu, etc., featuring relatively high market concentration. In 2017, the CR5 of China's aluminum wheel industry was 54.0%, of which CITIC Dicastal ranked first with a market share of 26.9%; China's steel wheel industry fetched the CR5 of 63.3%, in which Zhengxing Wheel and Zhejiang Jingu held the market share of over 15.0% each. At present, the gap between the cost price and the selling price of wheels is huge, meaning the use cost is high. Shared wheel is growing a trend to reduce the cost. In July 2018, the first Chinese shared wheel brand made its debut in China. Global and China Automotive Wheel Industry Report, 2018-2023 focuses on the following: Definition, industry chain, development trends, industrial policies, etc. of automotive wheels Output, sales volume, major automakers, etc. in the global automobile industry; Market size, competitive landscape, sales volume of major automakers, etc. in China's automobile industry; automobile industry; Wheel market size, market structure, main suppliers, import and export, etc. in the world; Wheel (aluminum wheel, steel wheel) market size, competition pattern, import and export, etc. in China ; ; Operation, wheel output & sales, etc. of 8 foreign and 14 Chinese automotive wheel manufacturers. Key Topics Covered: 1 Overview of Automotive Wheel 1.1 Definition and Classification 1.2 Industry Chain 1.3 Development Trend 1.4 Industry Policy 2 Global Automobile Market 2.1 Global Automotive Market 2.1.1 Output 2.1.2 Sales Volume 2.2 Global Automakers 2.2.1 Volkswagen 2.2.2 Toyota 2.2.3 GM 2.2.4 Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi 2.2.5 Hyundai-Kia 3 Chinese Automobile Market 3.1 Overview of Chinese Automotive Market 3.1.1 Market Size 3.1.2 Pattern 3.2 Sales of Typical Chinese Automakers 4 Global Wheel Market 4.1 Global Aluminum Wheel Market 4.2 Geographical Pattern of Aluminum Wheel 4.3 Supply Relation between Aluminum Wheel Makers and Automakers 4.4 Global Automotive Wheel Import & Export 5 Chinese Wheel Market 5.1 Overall 5.2 Aluminum Wheel Industry in China 5.2.1 Market Size 5.2.2 Competitive Landscape 5.3 Steel Wheel Industry in China 5.3.1 Market Size 5.3.2 Competitive Landscape 5.4 China's Wheel Import & Export 5.4.1 Overall 5.4.2 Ranking by Export 5.4.3 Export by Nation 5.4.4 Export by Province 6 Foreign Wheel Manufacturers 6.1 Iochpe-Maxion 6.2 ENKEI 6.3 CHUO SEIKI 6.4 SII 6.5 Borbet 6.6 RONAL 6.7 YHI 6.8 TOPY 7 Aluminum Wheel Manufacturers 7.1 CITIC Dicastal 7.2 Lizhong Wheel 7.3 Zhejiang Jinfei Kaida Wheel 7.4 Zhejiang Wanfeng Auto Wheel 7.5 Zhejiang Yueling 7.6 Shanghai MingQi Aluminium Industry 7.7 Lioho Group 7.8 Donlinks Group 7.9 Sheng Wang Auto Parts 8 Steel Wheel Manufacturers 8.1 Dongfeng Motor Wheel 8.2 Zhengxing Wheel 8.3 Changchun Faway Automobile Components 8.4 Xingmin Intelligent Transportation Systems (Group) 8.5 Zhejiang Jingu For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/3vrvjl/global_and_china?w=5 Did you know that we also offer Custom Research? Visit our Custom Research page to learn more and schedule a meeting with our Custom Research Manager. Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com "The Government of India supports this innovation challenge, which aims to develop sustainable and efficient technology to provide thermal comfort to all, and invites applicants from around the world to apply for The Global Cooling Prize," said Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Science & Technology, Earth Sciences, Environment, Forest and Climate Change at the Global Cooling Innovation Summit in New Delhi. The prize is supported by Government of India, Mission Innovation and will be administered by Rocky Mountain Institute, Conservation X Labs, Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy, and CEPT University. The Prize coalition will help identify the innovative cooling technology and support incubation, commercialization, and ultimately mass adoption around the world. "A technology developed through the Global Cooling Prize has the opportunity to capture a US$20 billion market and transform the global market for the better," said Iain Campbell, Senior Fellow, Rocky Mountain Institute. Warming global temperatures, population growth, rising incomes, and urbanization will lead to an astounding five-fold increase in energy demand for air conditioners in non-OECD countries, according to a new report by Rocky Mountain Institute released today. The report, 'Solving the Global Cooling Challenge' finds that business-as-usual measures whilst important are insufficient to overcome the energy and emissions impact of projected room air conditioner growth and calls for a five times less climate impact solution. "If we don't do something about the growing global impact of air conditioning on our climate today, it will derail our best attempts to meet the Paris Agreement goal on emissions," said Sir Richard Branson, Prize Ambassador. A winning technology could prevent up to 100 gigatons of carbon emissions by 2050, and put the world on a pathway to mitigate up to 0.5C of global warming by 2100, according to the report. Media contact Nick Steel [email protected] +1 347 574 0887 About Rocky Mountain Institute Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)an independent nonprofit founded in 1982transforms global energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future. SOURCE Rocky Mountain Institute Related Links http://www.rmi.org SANTA CLARA, Calif. and HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, Nov. 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Kambria ( https://www.kambria.io ), the "first-ever" open innovation blockchain project that enables and incentivizes collaboration in R&D, manufacturing, and commercialization of advanced technology, is excited to announce their Innovation, Community, and Impact: Protocol for the Future event that will take place Wednesday, November 14, 2018 from 5:30 P.M. to 8:30 P.M. in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The event organized in partnership with Lixibox ( https://www.lixibox.com ) supports both companies initiatives of building a strong technology ecosystem in Vietnam. "This event is about changing the tide of technology development by connecting high-impact communities and integrating people and networks around the world for global good," said Dr. Thuc Vu, Kambria's CEO and co-founder. "Our mission at Kambria is to share the spirit of open innovation and help develop communities globally that cultivate open environments so that anyone who is passionate about designing our future can contribute." The by-invitation-only event will bring together technology pioneers and prominent startup CEOs who are interested in leveraging the power of social connections and fostering long-term partnerships from Silicon Valley to Vietnam. Attendees of the event will have the opportunity to collaborate and engage with dedicated leaders in the industry that share a common goal of making a meaningful impact for the future. "Vietnam is growing in prominence as a 'Silicon Valley' outside of the US. We're excited to partner with Kambria and Lixibox to showcase exciting and successful efforts in this increasingly important emerging technology ecosystem, and to share ideas on how Vietnam can continue its rapid advancement," said Joe Lonsdale, General Partner at 8VC ( https://8vc.com/ ). " We're looking forward to fruitful discussions and to finding more ways to work with the top talent in Vietnam." The event, which will be held at the Dreamplex Coworking Space in Ho Chi Minh City, kicks off with a media briefing followed by a networking opportunity with some of the most successful blockchain investors. Opening remarks will be delivered by Kambria's leadership team followed by a fireside chat with Thuc Vu, Kambria's CEO and Co-founder and Joe Lonsdale, General Partner at 8VC. A panel discussion on "Innovation, Community and Impact: Protocol for the Future" with guests from Silicon Valley will include: Joe Lonsdale (8VC), Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (Gemini), Jack Abraham (Atomic), Jeff Lonsdale (Founders Fund), Michael Milstein (Milstein Properties & NY Private Bank & Trust), Andrew Rubin (illumio) and Elad Gil (Color Genomics). The night will conclude with an open networking session with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the Vietnamese tech community. For more information on the event or to inquire about an invitation, please visit https://events.kambria.io/impact2018. About Kambria Founded in 2017 by the team at OhmniLabs ( https://ohmnilabs.com ), Kambria is an open innovation platform to enable and incentivize collaborations in R&D, manufacturing and commercialization of advanced technology. Kambria's mission is to enable faster, cheaper, and easier development and adoption of technologies. The founders named the platform Kambria after the Cambrian Explosion 500 million years ago, when an accelerated evolutionary rate gave rise to biodiversity and abundance. They believe the Kambria platform will be the catalyst for a similar explosion in the adoption of frontier technology. For more information, please visit https://www.kambria.io/ . About Lixibox Lixibox is the leading cosmetics shopping in Vietnam, a place that will bring you new shopping experience and professional customer service. Lixibox always been a pioneer in choosing and quality analysis of products because we love your skin as you do. We also have exclusive luxury international brands such as: Halio, OKAME, Lustre makeup. Media Contact [email protected] SOURCE Kambria Related Links https://www.kambria.io NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Meredith Corporation (NYSE: MDP; www.meredith.com ), the leading media and marketing company that serves 175 million unduplicated American women and 80 percent of U.S. millennial women, announced today that Jacqueline Gifford has been promoted to Editor in Chief of Travel + Leisure, effective immediately. Gifford, most recently Travel + Leisure's Travel Director, has held various senior editorial positions since she joined the leading travel media brand in 2013. She reports to Stephen Orr, VP, Group Editorial Director of Meredith, and she succeeds Nathan Lump who left Travel + Leisure last month. "Jacqui's proven record, immense talent and deep understanding of the brand make her perfectly suited to lead Travel + Leisure," said Orr. "Beloved in the travel community, Jacqui has a unique background and passion for travel that will now inform the rich content and sophisticated perspective of this illustrious brand." Travel + Leisure reaches a global audience of more than 16 million. The only American travel magazine published monthly, Travel + Leisure commands a 55% advertising market share in its category. "The strong support and close relationships that Jacqui has developed with our travel partners over the years have had an overwhelmingly positive impact on our audience and on our business," said Jay Meyer, SVP/Publisher of Travel + Leisure. "I'm excited to continue to build and tap into the potential growth and opportunity of this extraordinary brand with Jacqui at the editorial helm." Said Gifford, "Travel changes and shapes people in immeasurable ways, and it is a topic that is taking center stage right now in our culture. We are dedicated to delivering rich, immersive storytelling on compelling destinations to our audience. I am thrilled to be leading this extraordinary team at Travel + Leisure and Meredith, as we continue to grow our audience across numerous platforms." Prior to joining the team at Travel + Leisure in 2013, Gifford worked at Brides as travel editor; OK! as features and travel editor; and Vanity Fair as editorial associate. Born in Japan, and raised in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Philadelphia, Gifford has traveled the world extensively. She graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. in English. ABOUT TRAVEL + LEISURE Travel + Leisure is the preeminent voice for the sophisticated traveler, serving up expert intelligence and the most immersive, inspiring travel lifestyle content anywhere. Travel + Leisure captures the joy of discovering the pleasures the world has to offerfrom art and design to shopping and style to food and drinkand offers compelling reasons to get up and go. With a total global audience of more than 16 million, the Travel + Leisure portfolio includes the U.S. flagship and four international editions in China, India, Mexico, and Southeast Asia. The U.S. edition of T+L, which launched in 1971, is the only monthly consumer travel magazine in print in the U.S.; it has an authoritative website, TravelandLeisure.com , and an extensive social media following of more than 13 million. Travel + Leisure also encompasses newsletters and media collaborations. Travel + Leisure is produced by Meredith Corporation. SOURCE Meredith Corporation Related Links http://www.meredith.com LAS VEGAS, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Thanks to ONE Cannabis, it's now possible to own a franchise in the cannabis industry as the industry goes more mainstream. ONE Cannabis will be exhibiting at the largest cannabis industry conference in the world, MJBizCon, November 14-16 in Las Vegas to meet with dispensary owners/operators, franchise brokers and potential franchisees about its franchise opportunities. Interested parties can visit ONE Cannabis at Booth No. 1039, or contact Justin at [email protected] to set up an introductory meeting. ONE CANNABIS STEMS FROM DENVER'S AWARD-WINNING GREEN MAN CANNABIS Christian Hageseth, the marijuana mogul behind Denver's Green Man Cannabis, a vertically integrated cannabis company well known for its connoisseur grade craft cannabis and numerous Cannabis Cup wins, has replicated its proven business model and partnered with franchise veterans to ease the industry's barrier to entry making cannabis entrepreneurship more feasible to a broader group through ONE Cannabis franchise opportunities. ONE Cannabis offers both dispensary and cultivation franchise opportunities. The vertically integrated cannabis franchisor sets itself apart as a market leader in cultivating the highest-quality products and controlling all aspects of the supply chain to its retail & franchise locations, ensuring a best-in-class experience for consumers and franchise partners. FRANCHISING ADDS STABILITY TO THE NASCENT INDUSTRY ONE Cannabis is helping the emerging North American cannabis industry grow by offering both existing industry business owners and newcomers a proven formula for long-term success in a franchise model. As the legalization trend continues, franchising is a growth vehicle that will help the industry flourish. "Increasingly, entrepreneurs are entering the cannabis industry, trying to navigate the new regulated market, and it can be extremely challenging," said Christian Hageseth, the CEO and co-founder of ONE Cannabis and founder of Green Man Cannabis. "By franchising the business model and systems we've perfected over nine years with Green Man, we're bringing together two worlds that have never successfully been merged before and offering some stability and continuity to an industry that has been a bit Wild West." Hageseth continued, "Much of the cannabis industry is made up of independent shops that have limited resources and are trying to figure everything out on their own. We're offering these owners the opportunity to learn from a trusted industry source that has been in their shoes and can provide them the direction and tools they need to achieve their goals." ONE CANNABIS ANTICIPATES GROWING TO 50 LOCATIONS IN THE NEXT 30 MONTHS ONE Cannabis expects to add a dozen corporate and franchise locations in 2019 across multiple states. In the next three years, the franchisor anticipates quadrupling its number of locations in both high growth and established legal cannabis states. It currently has five franchise agreements signed for Colorado development, as well as several deals in the works in other states and in Canada with different entrepreneurial teams. Ideal franchise partners include existing dispensary and cultivation operators, prospective entrepreneurs across the nation who are interested in breaking into the industry, and people who have already obtained a dispensary license but could benefit from additional expertise in operating a cannabis business. "We have accumulated substantial experience in the cannabis business from cultivation to retail sales and marketing. We've managed constant changes in regulations, managed a cash business for multiple years and worked with numerous banks all while maintaining perfect regulatory compliance records," Hageseth said. "Having worked through all of this, we are passing on substantial institutional knowledge on how to deal with the unique challenges of the cannabis space." ONE Cannabis works with new franchisee investors as well as partnering with multi-unit franchisees, who are looking to diversify their franchise portfolio. New franchise partner investment costs range from $750,000 to $2.5 million, including a $100,000 franchise fee for a single unit. Those interested in becoming a ONE Cannabis franchisee should have access to $750,000 in liquid capital. Franchisees may be owner-operators or passive owners with a designated, experienced manager running operations. ABOUT ONE CANNABIS: ONE Cannabis is a vertically integrated cannabis franchise that is founded on the proven business model perfected by nine-year industry veteran and founder of Green Man Cannabis, Christian Hageseth. With countless industry awards under the Green Man name, the marijuana mogul is now focused on building the world's most powerful cannabis business franchise system with ONE Cannabis. By tapping into the expertise of its award-winning team and their best practices, prospective dispensary and cultivation owners can be on the forefront of the nascent cannabis industry with complete confidence. The multi-state franchise is based out of Denver and co-founded by Hageseth as well as other cannabis & franchise industry veterans. Named an "Industry Trailblazer" by High Times magazine, Hageseth's entrepreneurial journey in the cannabis industry is chronicled in his book: Big Weed: An Entrepreneur's High-Stakes Adventures in the Budding Legal Marijuana Business. For more information about the ONE Cannabis franchise opportunity, visit http://ocginc.com. MEDIA CONTACT: Jayne Levy, Pink Tree Creative at [email protected] FRANCHISE CONTACT: Justin at [email protected] Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link. Christian Hageseth http://www.profnetconnect.com/christianhageseth SOURCE ONE Cannabis Related Links http://www.one-cannabis.com DUBLIN, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Rare Disease Diagnostics Market: Focus on Genetic Diseases, Service Providers, Competitive Landscape, and Country - Analysis and Forecast, 2018-2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global rare disease diagnostics market was valued $45.18 billion in 2017 and is anticipated to reach $86.15 billion by 2025 Factors such as high incidence of rare diseases, presence of large numbers of research and development facilities for rare diseases, significant number of rare disease registries, high diagnosis rare of rare diseases in countries of North America, and extensive investments in different therapeutic areas are driving the growth of the North America rare disease diagnostics market. However, the Asia Pacific region is expected to register the highest CAGR of 9.22% during the forecast period 2018-2025. The purpose of the study is to gain a holistic view of the global rare disease diagnostics market in terms of various factors influencing it such as key market trends, competitive and regulatory aspects of the market, and scientific innovations with respect to gene sequencing. The scope of the report is centered upon conducting a detailed study of the diagnostic devices/services, assays used to diagnose rare diseases. Rare disease diagnosis involves wide range of diagnostic tests such as genetic tests, lab tests, imaging, physical examinations performed in diagnostic laboratories, hospitals, cancer research institutes and others. The rare disease diagnostics market is divided into six different segments: diseases, test type, trait, age, end user, and region. The report offers the reader with an opportunity to unlock comprehensive insights with respect to the market and helps in forming well-informed strategic decisions. The research uncovers some of the substantial parameters that must be taken into consideration before entering the market. The global rare disease diagnostics market (by disease type) is currently dominated by hematology and oncology segment. The contribution of hematology and oncology segment was valued $10.0 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $20.5 billion by 2025, witnessing a CAGR of 9.35% during the forecast period. Based on test type, the market is segmented into genetic tests, general lab tests, imaging, and other physical tests for rare diseases. Rare diseases are difficult to diagnose and according to NIH, as many as 80 % of rare diseases are genetic in origin, thus often requiring genetic test for diagnosis Based on the trait type, the market is segmented into inherited and acquired. Based on the age group, the market is segmented into children and adults. About 80% of rare diseases are not acquired, they are inherited or has predisposition of faulty gene. The average time to diagnosis is approximately 5-6 years and 40% of rare diseases are misdiagnosed. Children account for 50 % of rare disease patients. According to the Canadian Organization of Rare Diseases, two-third of Canadians suffering from rare disease are children. Another extremely unfortunate fact is that thirty percent of children with rare diseases are not likely to reach their fifth birthday. Geographically, the market is segmented into five distinct regions including North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East Africa (MEA). North America, followed by Europe, is the leading contributor of the market. Within North America, the U.S. contributed for almost 91.12% of the total share, and the rest was occupied by Canada in 2017. Within Europe, the U.K dominated the market in 2017. However, the market for the Asia-pacific region is expected to demonstrate high growth rate during the forecast period from 2018 to 2025, as compared to other regions, and the region holds a strong potential for market expansion in the future. The rare disease diagnostics market (by genetic tests) has a promising potential for growth in the coming years. The report provides an in-depth SWOT analysis of different key players of the market, supported by extensive financial summary of each company. The key players of the market include Retrophin, Inc., QIAGEN N.V., Illumina Inc., PerkinElmer, Inc., BGI, Partek, Inc., Centogene A.G., Strand Life Sciences Pvt Ltd., Eurofins Scientific, Laboratory Corporation of America, and Laboratory Corporation of America, among others. Key Topics Covered: Executive Summary 1 Market Overview 1.1 Rare Disease Introduction 1.2 Tests Performed during Diagnosis 1.3 Rare Disease Challenges and Recommendations 1.4 List of Genetic Tests 1.5 Rare Disease Policies 1.6 A Path to Success: Partnerships and Coordinated Efforts of the Rare Diseases Community 1.7 Global Market Overview 1.8 Assumptions and Limitations 2 Market Dynamics 2.1 Market Dynamics: Drivers, Restraints, and Opportunities, and Trends 2.2 Rare Disease Diagnostics Market: Drivers 2.3 Rare Disease Diagnostics Market: Challenges 2.4 Rare Disease Diagnostics Market: Opportunity 2.5 Rare Disease Diagnostics Market: Trends 3 Competitive Landscape 3.1 Product Launches 3.2 Joint Venture, Collaborations, and Partnerships 3.3 IRDiRC Perspective: Progress in Rare Diseases Research, 2010-2016 3.4 Service Providers 4 Industry Insights 4.1 Funding Scenario 4.2 Legal Requirements and Regulations 4.3 List of Regulatory Bodies 5 Global Rare Disease Diagnostics Market (by Disease Type) 5.1 Key Takeaways 5.2 Rare Disease Market Attractiveness (by Disease Type) 5.3 Overview: Disease Type 5.4 Market Overview: Disease Type 5.5 Market Value (by Gastroenterology Disease Type), 2017-2025 5.6 Market Value ((by Endocrine and Metabolism Disorders Disease Type)), 2017-2025 5.7 Market Value (by Cardiovascular Disorders), 2017-2025 5.8 Market Value (by Neurology Disease Type), 2017-2025 5.9 Market Value (by Hematology and Oncology Disease Type), 2017-2025 5.10 Market Value (by Dermatology Disease Type), 2017-2025 5.11 Market Value (by Other Therapeutic Areas), 2017-2025 6 Global Rare Disease Diagnostics Market (by Test Type) 6.1 Key Takeaways 6.2 Rare Disease Market Attractiveness (by Test Type) 6.3 Overview: Test Type 6.4 Market Overview: Disease Type 6.5 Market Value (by Genetic Test Type), 2017-2025 6.6 Market Value (by General Lab Tests), 2017-2025 6.7 Market Value (by Imaging Test Type), 2017-2025 6.8 Market Value (by Other Tests), 2017-2025 7 Global Rare Disease Diagnostics Market (by Trait) 7.1 Key Takeaways 7.2 Rare Disease Market Attractiveness (by Trait Type) 7.3 Overview: Trait Type 7.4 Market Overview: Trait Type 7.5 Market Value (by Inherited Trait Type), 2017-2025 7.6 Market Value (by Acquired Trait Type), 2017-2025 8 Global Rare Disease Diagnostics Market (by Age Group) 8.1 Key Takeaways 8.2 Rare Disease Market Attractiveness (by Age Group) 8.3 Overview: Age Group 8.4 Market Overview: Age Group 8.5 Market Value (by Children Age Group), 2017-2025 8.6 Market Value (by Adult Age Group), 2017-2025 9 Global Rare Disease Diagnostics Market (by End User) 9.1 Key Takeaways 9.2 Rare Disease Market Attractiveness (by End User) 9.3 Market Overview: End User 9.4 Market Value (by Hospital Laboratories), 2017-2025 9.5 Market Value (by Diagnostic laboratories), 2017-2025 9.6 Market Value (by Genetic Testing Laboratories), 2017-2025 9.7 Market Value (by Cancer Research Laboratories), 2017-2025 9.8 Market Value (by Other End User), 2017-2025 10 Global Rare Disease Diagnostics Market (by Region) 10.1 Market Overview (by Region) 10.2 Global Rare Disease Diagnostics Market (by Region) 10.3 Market Value (by Region) 11 North America Rare Disease Diagnostics Market 12 Europe Rare Disease Diagnostics Market 13 Latin America Rare Disease Diagnostics Market 14 Asia Pacific Rare Disease Diagnostics Market 15 MEA Rare Disease Diagnostics Market 16 Company Profiles 23andMe, Inc. 3billion, Inc. BGI Centogene A.G. Eurofins Scientific GENEWIZ Illumina Inc. InDepth Genomics Laboratory Corporation of America Partek, Inc. PerkinElmer, Inc. Personal Genome Diagnostics, Inc. QIAGEN N.V. Retrophin, Inc. Strand Life Sciences Pvt Ltd. For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/pp73bp/rare_disease?w=5 About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Did you know that we also offer Custom Research? Visit our Custom Research page to learn more and schedule a meeting with our Custom Research Manager. Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com GERMANTOWN, Md., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- SERAXIS Inc., a rapidly growing regenerative medicine company today announced the publication of important trial considerations for SR-01, its pluripotent stem cell-derived islet therapy for insulin-dependent diabetes. An analysis of islet transplant trials registered on clinicaltrials.gov was conducted with the goal of extracting insights to apply in the study design of SERAXIS lead candidate, SR-01 for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. The results of this analysis were published this week in Stem Cells Translational Medicine (doi:10.1002/sctm.18-0156). SR-01 is a combination therapy of insulin-producing cells encapsulated in the retrievable biocompatible SeraGraftTM device, designed to prevent immune system access to the cells after implantation. The SeraGraft TM device has been shown to protect encapsulated cells in immune-competent diabetic models, to facilitate rapid vascularization of the graft without inducing a fibrotic response. If successful, SR-01 cell replacement therapy has the potential to provide a novel therapeutic modality to insulin-dependent type 1 diabetes patients, and SERAXIS is establishing a strategic relationship with a major clinical transplant program toward that end. The SERAXIS therapy could overcome some of the challenges associated with current pancreatic islet transplant protocols, providing a theoretically unlimited supply of insulin-producing cells and reducing or eliminating the need for post-transplant pharmacologic immunosuppression. About SERAXIS INC. SERAXIS is a privately held biotechnology company, incorporated in Singapore and the United States. SERAXIS used proprietary technologies to develop: (1) a cell therapy that functions shortly after transplantation in diabetic animals and; (2) a device, SeraGraft TM that safely protects these human pancreas cells from the immune system of animal hosts without need for pharmacologic immunosuppression. Further information can be found at www.seraxis.com SOURCE SERAXIS Inc. Related Links http://www.seraxis.com COLUMBUS, Ga., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Aflac, the leader in voluntary insurance sales at the worksite in the United States, announced today the initial launch of its latest lump sum critical illness insurance policy, which has been redesigned to include new riders and a wider range of benefits to offer a holistic approach to recovery and care. With the latest lump sum critical illness insurance policy, Aflac is expanding its direct-to-consumer portfolio, further opening up the voluntary insurance market to millions of Americans by expanding the way consumers can access benefits. Other Aflac plans available directly for consumers to apply for include cancer, accident, life, dental and specified health event, with more planned for 2019. As more American workers build careers outside of the traditional workplace as freelancers, contractors, self-employed solopreneurs and in startups, Aflac is making more and more plans available to everyone, no matter where or how they work. "At Aflac, we believe everyone deserves care and coverage," said Wendy Herndon, second vice president of Product Development and Implementation at Aflac. "As the market evolves, we remain committed to finding new ways to meet the needs of our current customers while also reaching consumers across the nation. We're thrilled to offer Aflac agents a competitive critical illness policy that enables them to sell where potential customers may be." Aflac's latest lump sum critical illness plan offers competitive coverage, with benefits for up to nine conditions when paired with Aflac's cancer protection assurance policy. Highlights of the plan include: Lump sum payment upon diagnosis, allowing policyholders to focus on recuperation; upon diagnosis, allowing policyholders to focus on recuperation; Building benefit , which means the policy increases every year for up to 10 years, to be paid out when policyholders need it most; , which means the policy increases every year for up to 10 years, to be paid out when policyholders need it most; Hospitalization Rider , providing additional benefits to help policyholders with everything from ambulance costs to physical therapy, easing the financial stress often associated with an unexpected illness; , providing additional benefits to help policyholders with everything from ambulance costs to physical therapy, easing the financial stress often associated with an unexpected illness; New Event Recovery Rider, paying a lump sum benefit for up to three months to help cover expenses from being out of work. The newest critical illness policy is currently available in the following states: Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and Wisconsin. Additional states and territories are scheduled to have the policy available by the end of the year, including: Alaska, D.C., Guam, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia. Remaining states will follow in 2019. To learn more, visit Aflac.com. Coverage is underwritten by American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus. WWHQ | 1932 Wynnton Road | Columbus, GA 31999 About Aflac When a policyholder gets sick or hurt, Aflac pays cash benefits fast. For more than six decades, Aflac insurance policies have given policyholders the opportunity to focus on recovery, not financial stress. In the United States, Aflac is the leader in voluntary insurance sales at the worksite. Through its trailblazing One Day PaySM initiative, for eligible claims, Aflac U.S. can process, approve and electronically send funds to claimants for quick access to cash in just one business day. In Japan, Aflac is the leading provider of medical and cancer insurance and insures 1 in 4 households. Aflac insurance products help provide protection to more than 50 million people worldwide. For 12 consecutive years, Aflac has been recognized by Ethisphere as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies. In 2018, Fortune magazine recognized Aflac as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work for in America for the 20th consecutive year and included Aflac on its list of World's Most Admired Companies for the 17th time. Aflac Incorporated is a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AFL. To find out more about Aflac and One Day PaySM, visit aflac.com or aflac.com/espanol. Media contact Kristen Fraser, 706.580.3813 or [email protected] Analyst and investor contact David A. Young, 706.596.3264 or 800.235.2667, FAX 706.324.6330, or [email protected] SOURCE Aflac Related Links http://www.aflac.com MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- AliveCor , the leader in artificial intelligence and FDA-cleared personal electrocardiogram (ECG) technology, today announced new medical research suggesting the use of AliveCor's AI technology as a potential alternative to surgically implanted heart monitors. In a study presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, researchers from Northwestern Medicine demonstrated that the performance of AliveCor's KardiaBand with an experimental version of SmartRhythm artificial intelligence (AI) in detecting atrial fibrillation (AFib) compares favorably to an implantable loop recorder (ILR), the current industry standard. Traditionally, ILRs have been viewed as the industry gold standard, allowing for long-term surveillance of AFib. ILRs, however, are invasive as they require surgery; expensive, as they can cost over $20,000 to be implanted and monitored; and opaque, as they provide no real-time feedback to the patient. In contrast, KardiaBand allows patients to record and see a lead I ECG from the wrist, with instant analysis for AFib. With the SmartRhythm AI, which continuously evaluates the smartwatch-provided heart rate and activity level, users are prompted to record an ECG when discordance between the two is detected. Investigators sought to determine whether KardiaBand with an experimental version of SmartRhythm could accurately detect episodes of AFib compared to an ILR. The study announced today found that KardiaBand ECG prompted by the experimental SmartRhythm detected 74 of 76 episodes of AFib of at least 1 hour in duration, with a sensitivity of 97.4%. The correlation for AF episode duration between KardiaBand and ILR was high, at 0.997. The investigators concluded that KardiaBand with the experimental SmartRhythm holds promise as an inexpensive and non-invasive approach to long term AFib surveillance and management. The studied method used to detect AFib is investigational and pending FDA review. "As atrial fibrillation is increasingly recognized as a major cause of stroke, an inexpensive and accurate wearable device will be an important tool for detecting and managing heart arrhythmias in millions of individuals who either already have the disease or are at risk of developing atrial fibrillation," said senior author Rod S. Passman, MD, MSCE. "Our study is a proof-of-concept that you can use a wearable device to not only show whether or not you have atrial fibrillation, but how much atrial fibrillation you are having. We are excited for the impact that wearable technologies will have on the future of care." "The introduction of KardiaBand represents a huge shift in the way heart health can be monitored," said Vic Gundotra, CEO, AliveCor. "This new research validates KardiaBand performance with our experimental AI algorithms against legacy solutions and gives patients an inexpensive and immensely more comfortable way to allow long term heart monitoring. With cost-savings in the tens of thousands of dollars, we're confident that future versions will have the ability to lead the next generation of monitoring technology." Northwestern began this study in May of 2017. In this cohort, over 31,000 hours of the experimental SmartRhythm and ILR rhythm monitoring were collected over a four-month period and were analyzed to determine comparative efficacy. Patients with a previously implanted ILR device and a history of paroxysmal AF were eligible for enrollment. AliveCor also announced the results of two additional studies at the conference. In the first, researchers from the University of Arizona gave 50 urgent care patients with palpitations a KardiaMobile to use for 1 month, alongside a 1-day Holter monitor. KardiaMobile, AliveCor's FDA-cleared mobile ECG device, was found to be diagnostically superior to or concordant with Holter monitoring in 82 percent of patients. Researchers concluded that KardiaMobile is a cost-effective device that can be used to screen urgent care patients experiencing palpitations to determine whether further cardiac investigation is required. The study is ongoing. In the second, researchers from the University of Buffalo screened 211 high-risk nursing home residents (mean age 88 years; 83% female) for AFib using KardiaMobile on 4 different occasions, and found that 15 (7.1%) had a diagnostic tracing of AFib. 14 of the 15 residents had AFib on the first recording. Intermittent ECG screening with KardiaMobile resulted a higher diagnostic yield than observed in past AFib screening studies. AFib is the most common heart arrhythmia, and is widely recognized as a leading cause of stroke. The condition affects more than 30 million people worldwide, and one in four people over the age of 40 are at risk for developing it. While millions of people around the world are unknowingly living with AFib, two out of three strokes are preventable when AFib is detected and treated appropriately. About AliveCor AliveCor, Inc. is pioneering the creation of FDA-cleared machine learning techniques to enable proactive heart care and is recognized around the world for transforming cardiac care. The FDA-cleared KardiaMobile is the most clinically validated mobile ECG solution on the market. It is recommended by leading cardiologists and used by people worldwide for accurate ECG recordings. KardiaMobile and KardiaBand, when paired with the Kardia app, provide instant analysis for detecting atrial fibrillation (AFib) and normal sinus rhythm in an ECG. Kardia is the first A.I. enabled platform to help clinicians manage patients for the early detection of atrial fibrillation, the most common cardiac arrhythmia and one that leads to a five times greater risk of stroke. KardiaBand is the first FDA-cleared medical device accessory for Apple Watch. AliveCor was named the No.1 artificial intelligence company on Fast Company's Top 50 Most Innovative Companies , in addition to ranking 20th overall in an evaluation of thousands of companies worldwide. AliveCor owns pending patent applications and issued patents covering ideas presented in this press release including issued U.S. Patent Numbers 9,839,363; 9,572,499; 9,986,925; 9,833,158; 9,351,654; 9,220,430; and 9,579,062. AliveCor is a privately-held company headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. For more information, visit alivecor.com . SOURCE AliveCor BOSTON, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Analysis Group, one of the largest international economics consulting firms, is pleased to announce the promotions of Noam Kirson to Managing Principal and Jimmy Royer to Principal. "It is a pleasure to announce the promotions of Noam and Jimmy, who represent both the intellectual rigor and collaborative culture our firm is built on," said Martha S. Samuelson, CEO and Chairman of Analysis Group. "Noam is valued by numerous health care industry participants for his contributions to health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) and strategy projects; including the design of outcomes-based contracts, analyses of clinical and real-world evidence, and development of advanced health economic models. Jimmy applies his expertise in data science and predictive modeling to help solve complex client challenges in a broad range of areas, including health care, finance, intellectual property, and antitrust. We look forward to their continued contributions to our clients' successes." New Managing Principal Noam Kirson is an applied health economist with extensive experience in HEOR, strategy and market access, and complex litigation matters. He has worked closely with many different participants in the health care industry, including biopharmaceutical and device manufacturers, payers, government agencies, leading law firms, and academic experts. Dr. Kirson has managed numerous HEOR and strategy projects, including the design of outcomes-based contracts, analyses of pharmaceutical pricing issues, burden-of-illness studies, comparative-effectiveness research, cost-effectiveness evaluations, and budget impact assessments. He has presented this work at numerous academic conferences. Dr. Kirson also has experience presenting to health care industry regulators. For example, he supported a successful 510(k) pre-market submission to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on behalf of a medical device manufacturer, including presentation of statistical analyses to an FDA advisory panel. His litigation case work has included evaluating antitrust matters in the health care sector, as well as assessing issues pertaining to the False Claims Act. Dr. Kirson is a member of the editorial board of Pharmacoeconomics Open and a member of the board of the ISPOR Boston Regional Chapter. He has published in peer-reviewed journals, including Health Affairs, Alzheimer's & Dementia, Diabetes Care, Critical Care Medicine, The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, and various pharmacoeconomic journals; and in legal and industry publications, such as Health Affairs Blog, STAT, and Law360. New Principal Jimmy Royer applies a broad range of quantitative tools to address client needs in data science, statistics, HEOR, finance, intellectual property, competition policy, and antitrust cases in the United States, Canada, and the EU. His recent work includes predicting the potential future onset of rare or undiagnosed conditions with machine learning models; predicting whether patents would be considered essential to technological standards if challenged in courts; valuing patents in the communications industry; evaluating damages related to product defects; analyzing investment guidelines in securities lending suits; addressing allegations of monopolization in major antitrust cases involving high technology firms; and supporting many academic experts on mutual fund market timing and excess fee cases. In addition, Dr. Royer has conducted extensive academic research and coauthored books and papers on topics such as using new AI advances in HEOR; predicting treatment resistance in tuberculosis, using machine learning algorithms in propensity score models; measuring the impact of ESO backdating on shareholders' wealth; analyzing mutual fund pricing; analyzing antitrust limit pricing; valuing private investments for hospitals in Canada; determining the impact of hypertension therapies on mortality; and comparing unemployment compensation in different countries. To learn more about Analysis Group's capabilities, visit www.analysisgroup.com About Analysis Group Analysis Group is one of the largest economics consulting firms, with more than 900 professionals across 14 offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. Since 1981, we have provided expertise in economics, finance, health care analytics, and strategy to top law firms, Fortune Global 500 companies, and government agencies worldwide. Our internal experts, together with our network of affiliated experts from academia, industry, and government, offer our clients exceptional breadth and depth of expertise. Contact: Analysis Group Eric Seymour, 617-425-8103 [email protected] SOURCE Analysis Group NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Social media played a key role in redefining human behavior in the last years. Today, more than 8 of 10 Americans have a social media profile, with the average person spending an average of two hours/day on these platforms. Mainstream social media come with quite few shortcomings making its adoption difficult for corporations. For example, their standardized environments offer no room to showcase brand identities and integrate proprietary tools and features. Furthermore, companies have no visibility and control throughout the platform with privacy and security put at risk when internal information is hosted on centralized third-party's servers. Today, companies can overcome these obstacles and use the features that make social media so successful to cultivate employee buy-in and engagement thanks to Groops by Highlanders that combines gamification, socialization and a rewards system to increase communication, knowledge sharing and engagement. An inspired workforce results in increased employee morale, productivity and customer satisfaction, driving better results. Specially when demonstrating from the top-down how joining the digital conversation is critical to communicate and collaborate, efficiency goes up and emails down. Gamification tools turned out to be key for boosting employee performance, motivation and engagement. The more often companies celebrate their employees, the more engaged they are on the job. Socialization through a proprietary platform like Groops helps all those companies experiencing little collaboration between employees without the risk of data and security breaches. Finally, recognition is a critical building block in any strong company culture. Usually management overlooks recognition as they tend to oversee more employees and initiatives than they can effectively handle. Recognition is easy to give and great to receive. The hardest part about giving recognition is remembering to do it in real time and today Groops' rewards system helps companies to effortlessly prioritize recognition. In the always-connected world we live in today, recognizing employees shouldn't be left to HR it's crucial to your company's success. Selecting an employee engagement platform used to be a complicated decision involving high budgets and uncertain results. Today, Groops allows companies to improve employee's communication, collaboration, incentives, rewards and receive plenty of user analytics with a no-brainer monthly price tag and no commitment required thanks to its fully customizable platform that white labels to clients with the option to host it on client-owned servers. Questions? Drop us a line at [email protected] SOURCE Highlanders, LLC Related Links highlande.rs JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- AtWork Group, a rapidly growing national staffing franchise, announced today the opening of its new office in Jacksonville, Florida, extending the company's national reach into Northeastern Florida. The franchise location is owned and operated by United States Army veteran Mike Wynn and will offer staffing solutions to the greater Jacksonville metro area. "With our expansion into Jacksonville we're looking forward to continuing to develop our presence across the state of Florida," said Jason Leverant, president and COO of AtWork Group. "By coupling a strong, local franchise owner with the experience, tools, and resources of AtWork's national franchise network, clients and associates alike will be able to realize why AtWork has been named a Best of Staffing award winner for 5+ years!" "I feel like this is a perfect opportunity for the First Coast market," said Mike Wynn. "I intend on bringing my hard work, dedication, and passion to this business to serve the Jacksonville community!" The new office is located at 8640 Phillips Highway, Suite 5, Jacksonville, Florida and will provide staffing services to clients in the light industrial and clerical industries, facilitating temporary, temp-to-hire, and direct hire placements. The business may be reached at 904-379-6159 or by visiting AtWork.com/Jacksonville. AtWork was recently ranked No. 88 in Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500 ranking and No. 106 in their Fastest Growing Franchises ranking. The company was also ranked No. 18 in the Franchise Times Fast & Serious list, in addition to receiving a Franchise Times Top 200+ ranking five years in a row. Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) recognized AtWork as being one of the largest staffing companies based on revenues, as well as one of the fastest-growing staffing firms in the U.S. in 2018, and Inc. Magazine ranked AtWork on its Inc. 5000 annual list for the fifth consecutive year, placing the company at No. 3,643. SOURCE AtWork Group Related Links http://www.atwork.com PASADENA, Calif., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Bluebeam, Inc., leading developer of innovative technology solutions for the global architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industries and part of the Nemetschek Group, today announced the formation of a German subsidiary to better serve customers and strategically advance its overall investment and presence across the region. Bluebeam GmbH launched officially in September, with Georg Reindl appointed as managing director. The new Bluebeam subsidiary, with its headquarters in Munich, provides sales and support to customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Before joining Bluebeam, Reindl held leadership positions at a diverse range of technology companies, including Microsoft, Oracle, Siemens, WSCAD Electronic and Mensch und Maschine. "The DACH region is one of the largest and most important AEC industry segments, and we are proud to announce the launch of a regional sales, marketing and services organisation in Germany as part of our continuing international expansion," says Bluebeam CEO Jon Elliott. "Georg has a wealth of experience in the German market, and his expertise in the engineering industry, alongside his deep proficiency in market development, account management and customer support, make him the ideal person to lead Bluebeam's growing customer base and dealer network." Bluebeam, Inc., with its headquarters in Pasadena, California, develops innovative technology solutions that set the standard for project efficiency and collaboration for more than 1.3 million design and construction professionals worldwide. Bluebeam GmbH joins Bluebeam UK Ltd in London and Bluebeam AB in Stockholm as a provider of localised services and digital workflow solutions to a rapidly evolving global construction industry. "The construction industry in Germany is being transformed as companies turn to digital solutions to increase productivity and efficiency," says Reindl. "Bluebeam's solutions are a foundational component of a modern, digital construction workflow and deliver enormous benefits that can be immediately measured in both time and cost savings. I am proud to be leading Bluebeam's new German subsidiary, as I truly believe our technology has a revolutionary impact on projects and organisations and will propel our industry to new levels of profit and efficiency." Bluebeam, Inc. Bluebeam's smart, intuitive solutions advance the way technical professionals work, manage and collaborate on projects digitally. Founded in Pasadena, California, Bluebeam has grown to include additional offices in the US, and subsidiaries in Germany, the UK, Denmark and Sweden. Bluebeam is part of the Nemetschek Group. Download a 30-day trial of Bluebeam Revu on our website. SOURCE Bluebeam, Inc. LONDON, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Boswellia Market (Product Type - Resins, Essential Oils, Extracts; Source - Boswellia Papyrifera, Boswellia Sacra, Boswellia Serrata, Boswellia Cartetii, Others; Application - Joint Health, Stress/Anxiety Relief, Anti-inflammation, Asthma, Digestive Disorders, Incense, Others; End Use - Food Supplements, Herbal Medicinal Products, Aromatherapy, Personal Care Products, Others) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2018 - 2026 Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5611693 Report Description for the Boswellia Market This report provides forecast and analysis of the global boswellia market.The report provides the estimated data for 2018, and forecast data up to 2026 in terms of revenue (US$ Mn) and volume (kgs). The report also includes macroeconomic indicators, along with an outlook on boswellia for the global market.It includes the drivers and restraints of the global boswellia market, and their impact on each region during the forecast period. The report also comprises the study of current industry trends and opportunities for boswellia.The boswellia market also covers an analysis on value chain analysis which covers margins at each node. In order to provide the users of this report with a comprehensive view of the market, we have included detailed competitiveness analysis, market key players, and strategic overview. The dashboard provides a detailed comparison of boswellia manufacturers on parameters such as government certifications, product offerings, key strategies & focus areas of the company. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis by source, product type, application, end use, and region. Through a detailed study of the market, our analysts have observed that, there is a tendency amongst the end users of boswellia to shift from resin type boswellia to extract type boswellia, which is likely to result in an increase in market demand over the forecast period.Also, the high prices of products sourced through boswellia papyrifera, boswellia sacra, boswellia serrate, and boswellia cartetii are deemed to cause a concern in raw material procurement. The report further states that, the use of boswellia in the food industry as a supplement is likely to result in a lucrative market opportunity for the producers of boswellia targeting this segment.On the basis of region, the European boswellia market is expected to hold the highest market share throughout the forecast period, owing to more consumption of boswellia as food supplements in the region. Following Europe, the North American boswellia market is expected to hold the second-largest market share throughout the forecast period. The report includes the company profiles of key producers of boswellia, and the revenue generated from companies across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), and the Middle East & Africa (MEA).For the estimation of revenue, regional average prices were obtained through quotes from numerous boswellia producers, exporters, and distributors. All the key application segments of boswellia have been considered, and potential applications have been estimated on the basis of secondary sources and feedback from primary respondents.Some of the key data points collected for the modeling approach include the food and beverage sector overview, regional food and beverage outlook, average usage of supplements, including boswellia in food products, and others. The market has been forecasted based on constant currency rates. A number of primary and secondary sources were consulted during the course of the study.Secondary sources include Factiva, and Hoovers, and company annual reports and publications. This report covers market dynamics related to boswellia that include the drivers, restraints, and trends driving each segment and opportunities in boswellia market.The report also includes analysis and insights into the potential of the boswellia market in specific regions. Detailed profiles of the providers are also included in the scope of the report to evaluate their long-term and short-term strategies, product portfolio of boswellia producers, and recent developments in the boswellia market space. Some of the key players analyzed are Sabinsa Corporation, Arjuna Natural Extracts Ltd., PLT Health Solutions, Inc., Alchem International Private Limited, Nutra Green Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Gurjar Phytochem Pvt. Ltd., S.A. Herbal Bioactives LLP, and Alpspure Lifesciences Private Limited, among other boswellia producers. Global Boswellia Market By Product Type Resins Essential Oils Extracts Global Boswellia Market By Source Boswellia papyrifera Boswellia sacra Boswellia serrata Boswellia cartetii Others Global Boswellia Market By Application Joint Health Stress/Anxiety Relief Anti-inflammation Asthma Digestive Disorders Incense Others Global Boswellia Market By End Use Food Supplements Herbal Medicinal Products Aromatherapy Personal Care Products Others Global Boswellia Market By Region North America Europe Latin America Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5611693 About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +1 (718) 213 4904 Website: www.reportbuyer.com SOURCE ReportBuyer Related Links http://www.reportbuyer.com LITTLE FALLS, N.J., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cantel Medical Corp. (NYSE: CMD), announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Omnia S.p.A. ("Omnia"), an Italian-based market leader in dental surgical consumables solutions. Omnia's business consists of a wide-ranging portfolio of sutures, irrigation tubing and customized dental surgical procedure kits, with a focus on procedure room set-up and cross-contamination prevention. Its products are used across multiple dental surgical procedures, including maxillofacial surgery, periodontics and prosthodontics, and general practices. The total purchase price is $31.9 million in cash and stock consideration, consisting of $26.1 million in upfront payment and $5.8 million of consideration in the form of an earnout based on the achievement of certain performance-based targets.1 For the last twelve months period ending July 31, 2018, Omnia generated revenues of $18.9 million.2 Cantel anticipates the acquisition to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings per share in the fiscal year ending July 31, 2019 and beyond, and accretive to GAAP earnings per share in the fiscal year ending July 31, 2020 and beyond. "Expanding our leadership in international markets remains a key priority for Cantel. This transaction in particular represents a milestone as it enables us to significantly expand Cantel Dental's presence in the European infection prevention market," said Jorgen Hansen, President and CEO. "Combining Omnia's high-quality product portfolio and commercial infrastructure with Cantel's existing dental solutions in Europe will enable us to provide more comprehensive offerings to our customers. It also will create the scale and infrastructure needed to position us well for future growth of our Dental business globally." "Omnia's comprehensive product lines of high-quality, innovative infection prevention and surgical solutions will be a strong addition to our growing dental portfolio," said Gary Steinberg, President of Cantel's Dental division. "We believe Omnia's existing sales channels and focus on specialty dentistry will better equip us to service an additional segment of the dental market where maintaining aseptic procedures is critical." Subject to customary closing conditions, Cantel expects the transaction to close in the beginning of February 2019. About Cantel Cantel Medical is a leading global company dedicated to delivering innovative infection prevention products and services for patients, caregivers, and other healthcare providers which improve outcomes, enhance safety and help save lives. Our products include specialized medical device reprocessing systems for endoscopy and renal dialysis, advanced water purification equipment, sterilants, disinfectants and cleaners, sterility assurance monitoring products for hospitals and dental clinics, disposable infection control products primarily for dental and GI endoscopy markets, dialysate concentrates, hollow fiber membrane filtration and separation products. Additionally, we provide technical service for our products. For further information, visit the Cantel website at www.cantelmedical.com. About Omnia S.p.A. Omnia is a leading manufacturer and distributor of custom procedure kits, sutures and irrigation line systems, with a special focus on the set-up of the operating room and the prevention of cross-contamination. Omnia has a solid history of developing, manufacturing and selling innovative sterile and disposable surgical products. These products are specifically designed to meet the demanding requirements of dental surgery. For further information, visit the Omnia website at www.omniaspa.eu. This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, the risks detailed in Cantel's filings and reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such forward-looking statements are only predictions, and actual events or results may differ materially from those projected or anticipated. 1 Assumes USD/EUR Fx rate of 1.13 as of 10/30/18. 2 Assumes average historical USD/EUR Fx rate of 1.19 for last twelve months period ending 7/31/18. SOURCE Cantel Medical Corp. Related Links http://www.cantelmedical.com CHARLOTTE, N.C., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Carolina Wholesale Group ('CWG'), the parent company of Arlington Industries, Carolina Wholesale Office Machines, and Digitek announced today that effective January 1, 2019 they will be combining all three distribution brands to form ARLINGTON. The combination of sales & marketing forces, distribution network, and programs will provide resellers of these three strong brands more focused resources and programs to succeed. Carolina Wholesale Group purchased Arlington Industries in 2004 and Digitek Computer Products (now Digitek) in 2016. CWG previously retained separate branding and independent sales teams in place to support each company's strengths. While doing this over the past fifteen years, CWG has combined product selection, distribution centers, and most internal operations to strengthen each brands offering to their partners. Now the new ARLINGTON will combine the strengths of each brand into one super-distributor that can provide enhanced offering of solutions, services, and programs to their resellers in focused single-brand partnership with their resellers. "We are excited to bring a more-focused approach to our channel and address the needs of our reseller partners in more unified manner as ARLINGTON," states Larry Huneycutt, Owner/President of Carolina Wholesale Group. "While our new combined brands will provide more robust, focused offering of services to our resellers, we will continue to uphold the high standards of service and integrity our customers and vendors have come to expect from us." The current employees of Arlington Industries, Carolina Wholesale, and Digitek will comprise the workforce behind the new ARLINGTON. "Our top priority is making the new Arlington brand a smooth transition for our current employees, resellers and partners. We believe our customers will benefit immediately from combination of our talented employees and the new programs we'll be introducing in 2019," added Mr. Huneycutt. To learn more about the new ARLINGTON visit www.arli.com/arlington, www.cwholesale.com/arli, or www.digitek.com/arli. About Carolina Wholesale Group Carolina Wholesale Group, the parent company of Arlington Industries, Carolina Wholesale, and Digitek, has been providing office products, imaging supplies, and services to resellers since 1972. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Carolina Wholesale Group was recently ranked in the top 50 of the Top 100 Private Companies in North Carolina by Grant Thornton and Business North Carolina. They have sales offices and distribution centers in six locations across North America. You can learn more at www.cwholesalegroup.com or contact them at (800) 521-4600. Follow Arlington Industries on: Website, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Follow Carolina Wholesale on: Website, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube. Follow Digitek on: Website, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Media Contact Brent Martin Carolina Wholesale Group (704) 598-8101 [email protected] SOURCE Carolina Wholesale Group Related Links http://www.cwholesale.com DALLAS, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Beginning January 1, 2019, Cherokee County Board of Commissioners (the "County") will provide its employees and their covered family members with access to Employer Direct Healthcare's SurgeryPlus, a supplemental benefit for non-emergent surgeries that provides high quality care, a better experience and lower costs. As one of the fastest growing counties in the Atlanta metro area, the County is focused on providing its employees with new benefits to enhance their access to quality healthcare services. The County's economic development growth, and parks and recreation facilities, is in large part driven by the County's dedicated public servants who serve their community every day. The County is thrilled to provide these employees and their family member's access to the highest quality of care, while also identifying opportunities to drive cost savings for employees and taxpayers. Through SurgeryPlus, employees and their dependents will have access to an elite, high-performance Surgeons of Excellence network that includes top quality, 100 percent board-certified providers. Providers in the SurgeryPlus network have been rigorously screened, significantly reducing the risk of surgical complications. Plan participants will receive access to a full surgical concierge service with personal Care Advocates who handle every aspect of their surgical experience, including travel coordination, if needed. Under this benefit, members have no financial obligation; all plan deductibles and co-insurance obligations are waived as all surgical costs are covered by the County, reducing the out-of-pocket expenses that often times lead to financial debt, and even medical bankruptcy. John Zutter, CEO of Employer Direct Healthcare said, "We are thrilled to partner with Cherokee County. The County faces similar experiences to other municipalities, States and corporations across the country limited controls on quality and cost containment from traditional insurance solutions we are happy to help the County provide clear access to differentiated care at fair prices." SurgeryPlus will create savings, for both the County and their employees, through the benefit's pre-negotiated and discounted bundled rates with providers. By packaging surgical expenses into one simple bundled rate, SurgeryPlus reduces members' financial stress and burden from unexpected medical bills. Under this benefit, members have no financial obligation; all surgical costs are covered, potentially saving members thousands of dollars. About Employer Direct Healthcare and SurgeryPlus Employer Direct Healthcare is an innovative healthcare service business providing a high-quality and cost-efficient solution for large, self-funded employers and their members. The company's core product, SurgeryPlus, is a supplemental, surgical benefit that includes a national network of 100% board-certified Surgeons of Excellence and high-quality facilities. SurgeryPlus covers hundreds of non-emergent procedures with pre-negotiated bundled rates, resulting in consolidated costs for each episode of care. Dedicated Care Coordinators provide full-concierge service to covered members, managing the entire procedure process on their behalf. Employer Direct Healthcare is majority owned by Dundon Capital Partners LLC, a Dallas-based private investment firm founded by Tom Dundon. Learn more at www.edhc.com or by calling (855) 200-9511. SOURCE Employer Direct Healthcare Related Links http://www.edhc.com FORT MYERS, Fla., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Women's specialty retailer Chico's FAS, Inc. (NYSE: CHS) (the "Company") will host a conference call with security analysts on Wednesday, November 28, 2018 beginning at 8:30 a.m. EST to review the operating results for the third quarter ended November 3, 2018. The conference call is being webcast live over the Internet, which you may access in the Investors section of the Company's corporate website, www.chicosfas.com. A replay of the webcast will remain available online for one year at http://chicosfas.com/investors/events-and-presentations. The phone number for the call is 1-877-883-0383. International callers should use 1-412-902-6506. The Elite Entry number, 4706952, is required to join the conference call. Interested participants should call 10-15 minutes prior to the 8:30 a.m. start to be placed in queue. ABOUT CHICO'S FAS, INC. The Company, through its brands Chico's, White House Black Market and Soma is a leading omni-channel specialty retailer of women's private branded, sophisticated, casual-to-dressy clothing, intimates and complementary accessories. As of August 4, 2018, the Company operated 1,440 stores in the US and Canada and sold merchandise through 77 franchise locations in Mexico. The Company's merchandise is also available at www.chicos.com, www.chicosofftherack.com, www.whbm.com and www.soma.com as well as through third party channels. For more detailed information on the Company, please go to our corporate website at www.chicosfas.com. The information on our corporate website is not, and shall not be deemed to be, a part of this press release or incorporated into our federal securities law filings. Executive Contact: Julie Lorigan Vice President Investor Relations, Public Relations & Corporate Communications Chico's FAS, Inc. (239) 346-4199 Chico's FAS, Inc. 11215 Metro Parkway Fort Myers, Florida 33966 (239) 277-6200 SOURCE Chico's FAS, Inc. Related Links http://www.chicos.com Company invites individual and institutional investors, as well as advisors, to attend interactive, real-time virtual event BEJING, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- China Distance Education Holdings Limited (NYSE:DL) based in Beijing, China, and focused on providing online education and value-added services for professionals and corporate clients in China, today announced that China Distance Education Holdings Limited Co-CFO Mark Marostica will present at the dbVIC - Deutsche Bank American Depositary Receipt (ADR) Virtual Investor Conference on November 14, 2018. This virtual investor conference is aimed exclusively at introducing global companies with ADR programs to investors. DATE: November 14th, 2018 TIME: 10:30 AM ET LINK: https://tinyurl.com/111415dbVICprepr If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an on-demand archive will be available for 90 days. Participation is free of charge. It is recommended that investors pre-register to save time and receive event updates. About China Distance Education Holdings Limited China Distance Education Holdings Limited is a leading provider of online education and value-added services for professionals and corporate clients in China. The courses offered by the Company through its websites are designed to help professionals seeking to obtain and maintain professional licenses and to enhance their job skills through our professional development courses in China in the areas of accounting, healthcare, engineering & construction and other industries. The Company also offers professional education courses for participants in the national judicial examination, online test preparation courses for self-taught learners pursuing higher education diplomas or degrees, test preparation courses for university students intending to take the nationwide graduate school entrance exam, practical accounting training courses for college students and working professionals, as well as online language courses and third-party developed online courses. In addition, the Company provides business services to corporate clients, including but not limited to tax advisory and accounting outsourcing services. For further information, please visit http://ir.cdeledu.com. SOURCE China Distance Education Holdings Limited Related Links http://ir.cdeledu.com Four strategic partners of BCOS, namely cloud service provider Tencent Cloud, global consulting firm EY, IT service provider Forms Syntron, and internet service provider Anne.Inc, will share their latest business applications and development in blockchain at one of the world's largest FinTech event in Singapore from Nov 12 th to 13 th . Tencent Cloud presented how to build TBaaS (Tencent Blockchain as a Service) with BCOS, through which it has pioneered a number of applications in the public sector in China. Shenzhen-listed Forms Syntron leverages the blockchain platform to deliver several production systems for financial institutions. During the event Forms Syntron demonstrated the robustness of BCOS by showcasing its many applications in intermediary-free loyalty program, mortgage, supply chain finance and bank assurance. Anne.Inc shared its blockchain solution that prevents copyright infringement in China. With technical advances of BCOS, the company managed to offer its copyright depository trading services to a number of internet giants including Google, Baidu, WeChat, Toutiao.com, and Sina Weibo. EY is one of the leading consulting firms in blockchain research. It shared insights of technology trends, technical know-how, and business applications in the blockchain field. The Shenzhen-based Consortium also announced today that, as part of the efforts to go global, it has opened up its observatory membership to foreign companies. The move was largely welcomed by participants who have particular interests in leveraging blockchain technology to offer innovative business solutions in their respective fields and markets. About FISCO BCOSThe Building Block of Open Consortium Chain FISCO BCOS is built by Financial Blockchain Shenzhen Consortium (FISCO) Taskforce Team (prominent team members include WeBank, Tencent and Shenzhen Securities Communication among others). The Open Consortium Chain is a concept first introduced by WeBank. It is a not a single blockchain, but rather a new type of blockchain application ecosystem - a set of blockchain applications aimed to serve the general public. FISCO BCOS is the first blockchain platform built specifically to meet the service demands of the financial industry through extensive upgrades in platform design, security, and regulatory support. For more information on BCOS and actual use cases, click here. To track BCOS during their Singapore FinTech festival debut, follow their official Twitter account @FiscoBcos. SOURCE FISCO BCOS Related Links http://www.fisco-bcos.org/ ROCKVILLE, Md., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Travelers looking to score holiday deals are in for a treat as Choice Privileges, the award-winning loyalty program from Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH), begins its second annual "Members Only Madness" promotion today. Now through November 16, 2018, Choice Privileges members will receive daily emails with exclusive deals, including discounts on stays and options to earn bonus points and gift cards. "Bringing back the popular 'Members Only Madness' promotion is our way of thanking Choice's more than 39 million loyalty members with a full week of surprise rewards. We invite members to make their travel this season even more rewarding and encourage them to reap the many other benefits that come with membership year-round," said Jamie Russo, vice president, loyalty programs and customer engagement, Choice Hotels. Choice Privileges has been named a top hotel loyalty program in USA Today's 10Best Readers' Choice Awards and by U.S. News & World Report for three consecutive years. The free membership offers fast rewards and relevant perks, including bonus points, airline miles, premium coffee gift cards, and shared ride credits through the Your Extras programin addition to exclusive member rates when booking direct through the Choice Hotels website. For more information and the complete terms about the Your Extras program and the Choice Privileges rewards program, visit https://www.choicehotels.com/choice-privileges/your-extras and www.choicehotels.com/choice-privileges. About Choice Hotels Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH) is one of the largest and most successful lodging franchisors in the world. With more than 6,900 hotels, representing more than 560,000 rooms in over 40 countries and territories as of September 30, 2018, the Choice family of hotel brands provide business and leisure travelers with a range of high-quality lodging options from limited service to full-service hotels in the upscale, midscale, extended-stay and economy segments. The award-winning Choice Privileges loyalty program offers members benefits ranging from everyday rewards to exceptional experiences. For more information, visit www.choicehotels.com. 2018 Choice Hotels International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. SOURCE Choice Hotels International, Inc. Related Links http://www.choicehotels.com WESTPORT, Conn., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ciner Resources Corporation ("Ciner Resources") provided notification on November 9, 2018, that it has exercised its right to withdraw from American Natural Soda Ash Corp. ("ANSAC"). Ciner Resources will exit effective December 31, 2021, with an option to exit effective December 31, 2020, if it is able to complete certain operational initiatives and provides notice to that effect by the end of 2018. Until the exit date, Ciner Resources will continue to fulfill all of its ANSAC membership supply commitments and meet all membership obligations, including the requirement that Ciner Resources and all of its worldwide affiliated entities must utilize ANSAC as the exclusive export sales outlet, and sole marketing and logistics provider, for all of Ciner Resources' U.S.-produced soda ash sold to all territories serviced by ANSAC. Following its exit from ANSAC, Ciner will assume direct responsibility for its U.S. export sales, marketing and logistics requirements, as it will no longer have access to ANSAC's load port capabilities, operational infrastructure or logistics provider relationships. However, Ciner Resources will continue to have responsibility for certain ongoing contractual sales and supply commitments made during its ANSAC membership. Since its 1984 inception as a joint venture export cooperative, ANSAC's mission has been to provide its customers with the highest quality natural soda ash, delivered to their worldwide facilities with the most reliable service. The employees of ANSAC, its member companies, global supply chain partners and logistics providers are dedicated to ensuring product purity, logistics efficiency, supply chain optimization and continuous improvement. "Throughout its 34 years, ANSAC's customers and its member companies, including Ciner, have directly benefited from the significant economies of scale and accretive efficiency gains of the ANSAC business model, allowing ANSAC to achieve record sales in each of its past five years, with 2018 sales projected to be the highest in ANSAC's history," said Chris Douville, President of ANSAC. ANSAC's other members, Genesis Alkali Wyoming L.P. and Tata Chemicals (Soda Ash) Partners, have indicated their ongoing commitment to ANSAC's business model. "ANSAC's members remain fully committed to ANSAC and its business model, as ANSAC enables us to provide overseas customers with the highest quality product through the most reliable and efficient global supply chain," said Edward Flynn, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ANSAC and President of Genesis Alkali. About ANSAC Established in 1984, ANSAC operates as the sales, marketing and logistics arm for leading producers of natural soda ash in the United States. In 2018, ANSAC will export approximately 4.4 million metric tons of high quality, environmentally friendlier natural soda ash, making ANSAC the largest soda ash exporter in the world. This provides ANSAC's customers with the ability to reliably produce superior products in end use industries such as glass, detergent, chemicals, water treatment and lithium batteries. For more information on ANSAC, visit http://www.ansac.com/ SOURCE ANSAC Related Links http://www.ansac.com SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Clearbanc, a company that funds marketing for fast-growing ecommerce brands, at Techonomy today announced it has closed a $70M USD investment from a group of investors including Emergence Capital, Social Capital, CoVenture, Founders Fund, 8VC, iNovia Capital, Real Ventures, Portag3, Precursor, WTI, Berggruen, and FJ Labs. Emergence Capital Partner Santi Subotovsky will join the company's board of directors. The company was founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneurs and angel investors Andrew D'Souza and Michele Romanow, who is also a Dragon on Canada's hit television show, Dragons' Den (Canada's Shark Tank). Clearbanc's technology gives entrepreneurs access to capital without personal guarantees, warrants, equity, or credit checks. Its online automated system scans data from a business' existing platforms like Stripe and Facebook, to gauge their financial health and revenue trajectory. Qualified businesses receive ongoing capital in as little as one day as a capped revenue share deal. Businesses only repay the capital as they make revenue with no set repayment date and no compounding interest, ownership or control terms. Clearbanc provides companies with $5k to $10 million or more in marketing capital. Founded by well-known entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, Clearbanc provides funding without equity ownership "I saw hundreds of entrepreneurs on Dragons' Den every year, who had great businesses but needed a better funding model," said Romanow. "Whether an entrepreneur needs $10 thousand or $10 million, we started Clearbanc to serve them efficiently and scale in a manner other investors cannot." "This is a landmark year for us. We've funded over $100M in marketing capital for over 500 ecommerce brands already in 2018," said co-founder and CEO Andrew D'Souza. "Clearbanc not only puts the power back in the hands of entrepreneurs -- rather than investors and banks -- but also plans to fund millions of small businesses globally instead of the small handful that most investors typically fund in a year." Ecommerce businesses booming with easier access to marketing funds The unique finance model is clearly a win-win for Clearbanc and its customers. Its average portfolio company is growing at over 100 percent per year, with the majority using their Clearbanc funding to finance high-growth digital marketing campaigns. "After completing the Y Combinator accelerator program, I used to spend so much time talking to investors who didn't understand my business model," said VINEBOX co-founder and CEO Matt Dukes. "Pitching was always a struggle, even though my business was growing rapidly. With Clearbanc, I accessed marketing capital easily and within a matter of days. This allowed me to double down on marketing, grow the business over 500 percent, and successfully raise a better venture capital round." With U.S. ecommerce sales netting $400B last year alone, and YOY (2017 to 2018) internet advertising spend growing 22 percent, Dukes is far from alone. Millions of entrepreneurs are looking for alternatives to venture capital or traditional bank loans to help fuel their growth. "Almost 40% of venture capital dollars invested in startups goes directly to Google and Facebook for advertising. Equity is a very expensive way to fund this growth while loans add more risk. We've developed a much better alternative for these businesses - this is a huge opportunity for us and an exciting time for the entrepreneurs we support," D'Souza added. Watch the announcement live at 4pm PT at techonomy.com About Clearbanc Clearbanc was founded in 2015 with the mission of providing growth capital for online-enabled businesses, using actual business data instead of a personal credit score. Co-founders Andrew D'Souza and Michele Romanow are successful serial entrepreneurs and angel investors. Clearbanc was part of the first group of entrepreneurs participating in the Y Combinator Fellowship program. For more information on Clearbanc, visit https://clearbanc.com/ SOURCE Clearbanc Related Links http://clearbanc.com PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Janrain, the company that pioneered the Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) category, today announced the results of its Brand Trust Survey, which shows U.S. consumers generally trust online retailers with their personal data. This should come as welcome news to the many online retailers around the world that are preparing for their ecommerce sites to meet peak demand on Cyber Monday, conceived by marketing companies and online retailers in 2005 as a means to encourage people to kick off their online Christmas shopping on the Monday after Thanksgiving. According to Adobe Insights, last year's Cyber Monday transactions hit a record $6.59 billion. With this year's Cyber Monday just around the corner, Janrain surveyed over 1,000 U.S. consumers and found 48% will try to only buy from companies they believe will protect their personal data, though they don't fully trust all of the brands they conduct business with. A third of consumers said they will only buy from companies they can trust will protect their data. 14% said trust won't factor into their purchases, because they don't believe any company can protect their personal data. Ranking America's Least Trusted Businesses When Janrain asked consumers to name the types of businesses they trusted least, online retailers appeared near the bottom of the list among other more trusted organizations. The full list of businesses consumers consider the least trustworthy in terms of data protection are ranked as follows: Internet companies such as Google or Facebook (31%) Hospitality--hotels, restaurants, etc. (15%) Internet/cable/phone service providers such as AT&T or Verizon (10%) Retail outlets such as Gap or Home Depot (7%) News outlets (6%) Financial services (6%) Online stores such as Amazon (4%) Manufacturers of tech gadgets such as Apple or Samsung (3%) Travel companies--airlines, etc. (3%) Healthcare--pharmaceuticals, healthcare providers, etc. (2%) When asked to name the brands that are most and least trusted when it comes to protecting their personal data (without any prompts from Janrain), consumers ranked them as follows: Most Trusted: Amazon Google Apple Chase PayPal Least Trusted: Facebook Google Wells Fargo Equifax Target "Our survey supports the notion that trust is the central ingredient in maintaining strong brand value," said Janrain VP Marketing, Bryta Schulz. "The good news is trust in brands in general is holding strong despite the criticism some companies have opened themselves up to by not managing their customer data in a secure and responsible manner. But brands that want to maintain their customer loyalty will need to learn from the mistakes made by other businesses to keep that trust intact." 1,079 US-based residents 18 years-old and over participated in Janrain's Brand Trust Survey, conducted online in August of 2018. About Janrain Janrain pioneered Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) and continues to lead the market with industry-first innovations and global reach. The Janrain Identity Cloud enables transformational experiences, delivers insights, ensures privacy and security. Janrain clients focus on Identity First, engaging customers with highly personalized, consent-driven experiences that scale to the largest use cases while meeting regulatory and consumer expectations for privacy, security and control. The company manages 1.75 billion digital identities, enabling digital transformation and consumer trust for the world's most recognized brands, including Pfizer, Samsung, Philips, McDonald's and Dr Pepper Snapple Group. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Portland, Oregon with additional hubs throughout the US, UK, Latin America, India and China. Twitter: @janrain. For more information and industry best practices downloads, visit www.janrain.com. Media Contact: Chris Blake MSR Communications Phone: 1-415-989-9000 E-mail: [email protected] SOURCE Janrain Related Links http://www.janrain.com CHARLOTTE, N.C., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Deloitte Corporate Finance LLC (Deloitte) acted as the exclusive financial advisor to AirBorn, Inc., a Georgetown, Texas-based employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) manufacturing firm that specializes in the creation of mission-critical electronic components, in its recapitalization with LBC Credit Partners and Wells Fargo Capital Finance. The transaction closed Sept. 17, 2018. "We could not be more pleased with the outcomes for AirBorn and our employee shareholder-base," said Cindy Lewis, CEO of AirBorn, Inc. "Deloitte has been a trusted advisor for many years and they were instrumental in guiding us through this transaction. Their knowledge of our industry and the intricacies of ESOP corporate structures and relationships in the lending community were critical factors leading to this recapitalization. They positioned our leadership team for success in all steps of the process and worked tirelessly to enable AirBorn achieved a great result." "Combining AirBorn's reputation for providing high quality, mission-critical electronic components and strong track record of growth with our capital advisory experience contributed to AirBorn achieving its financing objectives," said John Deering, managing director, Deloitte Corporate Finance LLC and head of DCF's private capital solutions practice. About AirBorn, Inc. AirBorn is a 100% employee owned company whose core business is engineering and manufacturing connectors for OEMs worldwide. AirBorn offers extensive expertise in cable assemblies, flexible circuits, and comprehensive value-added services including design and engineering services, PCB assembly, box builds, power supply manufacturing, and full testing and lab services. The Company services a wide variety of industries such as aerospace and defense, medical, industrial automation, and energy. It currently operates several manufacturing facilities in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom and Canada. For more information, visit https://www.airborn.com/. About LBC Credit Partners LBC Credit Partners is a leading provider of financing solutions including senior term, unitranche, second lien, junior secured, mezzanine debt and equity co-investments to companies throughout North America supporting buyouts, acquisitions, growth strategies, recapitalizations, refinancings, and restructurings for sponsored and non-sponsored transactions. The firm has over $3 billion of capital commitments, and has invested over $5 billion in over 200 issuers across a wide range of industries. LBC's Middle Market fund normally invests $15 million to $150 million per transaction in companies with EBITDA greater than $5 million. For more information, visit http://www.lbccredit.com/. Wells Fargo Capital Finance Wells Fargo Capital Finance offers traditional asset-based lending, specialized junior and senior secured financing, and factoring (accounts receivable financing) for domestic and international companies. The firm works across a variety of industries and has developed specialty teams with focused expertise serving healthcare providers, retailers, software and technology companies, specialty finance companies, staffing companies, government contractors, and transportation companies. For more information, visit https://wellsfargocapitalfinance.com/. About Deloitte Corporate Finance LLC Deloitte Corporate Finance LLC provides strategic advisory services and M&A advice that help corporate, entrepreneurial and private equity clients create and act upon opportunities for liquidity, growth and long-term advantage. With an in-depth understanding of the marketplace and access to a global network of investment bankers, we help clients confidently pursue strategic transactions in both domestic and global markets. Deloitte Corporate Finance, together with the Corporate Finance Advisory practices within the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited network of member firms, include in excess of 1,900 professionals, who work collaboratively across 150 international locations. With our significant experience providing investment banking services across key industries, we are able to offer our clients solutions that help them to achieve their strategic objectives. For more information, visit www.investmentbanking.deloitte.com. Prior engagement performance is no guarantee of future performance and may not be representative of the experience of other clients. This communication is for informational purposes only and is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of a security. Deloitte Corporate Finance LLC, an SEC registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC, is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP and affiliate of Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP. Investment banking products and services within the United States are offered exclusively through Deloitte Corporate Finance LLC. For more information, visit www.investmentbanking.deloitte.com. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. For media inquiries, please contact: Shelley Pfaendler Public Relations Deloitte Services LP +1 212 492 4484 [email protected] SOURCE Deloitte Related Links http://www.deloitte.com/us LOMPOC, Calif., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- DenMat Holdings, LLC ("DenMat") was named a 2018 EconAlliance Award Winner on November 8, 2018, at an annual forum hosted by the Economic Alliance of Northern Santa Barbara County ("EconAlliance"). A nonprofit organization in Central California, EconAlliance comprises economic and community leaders interested in increasing family-wage jobs driven by innovation and support of key growth industry sectors in the region. This mission is accomplished through collaboration and utilization of regional assets that cumulatively enhance economic development efforts within Santa Barbara County. The EconAlliance Award is presented to persons and/or organizations that have demonstrated the ability to create value in Santa Barbara County through innovative product and service offerings. "We are thrilled to receive the EconAlliance award and honored to be recognized as a leading innovator in Santa Barbara County," shares David Casper, Chief Executive Officer, DenMat. DenMat, through its innovative Additive-Reductive Template ("A.R.T.") protocol, provides its dentist customers the ability to perform dentistry using a template that eliminates guesswork and increases quality. Dentists purchasing Lumineers minimal-prep veneers for their patients seeking a smile makeover most commonly prescribe A.R.T. This state-of-the-art template may be placed over the patient's existing smile and provides dentists a step-by-step guide for tooth preparation, as well as other notable benefits. "Our A.R.T. product has revolutionized the way dentists treat cosmetic and esthetic cases, and is driving incredible growth for our company right here in Lompoc," adds Casper. A.R.T. relies on custom templates for contouring and adjusting dentition to ensure a minimally invasive approach, along with a custom "Trial Smile" provisional to gain patient acceptance. The A.R.T. templates provide a "guided" approach to tooth reduction, as well as a communication tool between the practice and the laboratory technician. The patient leaves the prep appointment with a beautiful provisional restoration that allows him or her to visualize the final restoration and communicate any changes desired prior to delivery of the final case. EconAlliance, during the award presentation, called DenMat's A.R.T. innovation a testament to the forward-thinking approach of DenMat's leadership and management teams. Furthermore, it was noted that such services demonstrate a commitment to improving business processes for customer retention. Such strategies have helped DenMat secure itself as a global industry leader, and EconAlliance shared that its pleased to have the company call Santa Barbara County its home. About DenMat: Since 1974, DenMat has been a leader in high-quality dental products for dental professionals in more than 72 countries around the world. DenMat makes and assembles most of its products at its world headquarters on the Central Coast of California. DenMat offers three main product categories: Consumables, Small Equipment, and a full-service Dental Laboratory. DenMat's consumables include brands that are known and trusted, including Geristore, Core Paste, Tenure, Ultra-Bond, Infinity, SplashMax, Precision, Perfectemp, Atridox and LumiSmile White. DenMat's small equipment offering includes a broad range of products, including NVPRO3 and SOL soft-tissue diode lasers, the Rotadent power toothbrush, PeriOptix magnification loupes and lights, Flashlitecuring lights, Vizilite and Vizilite Pro for oral lesion screening, and a full line of high-quality Hartzell hand instruments. DenMat is also home to Lumineers, the world's #1 patient-requested thin veneer, and Snap-On Smile, the life-changing removable appliance. SOURCE DenMat Holdings, LLC Related Links http://www.denmat.com HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Densitas, Inc., a breast imaging analytics innovator based in Halifax, Novia Scotia, today announced the signing of a new Alliance Partner Agreement with Blackford. This agreement gives Blackford the right to promote, market, sell, distribute, and license densitasdensity directly via integration with the Blackford Platform. Work will now commence to integrate densitasdensity with the Blackford Platform. "The platform approach will help us bring new products to market more quickly, support our scaling activities, and simplify integration for our customers" says Mohamed Abdolell, CEO of Densitas. "We expect the Blackford Platform to reduce our time to market and shorten our sales cycle as we will be incorporated as an extension of the Blackford Platform infrastructure." The densitasdensity software provides an automated mechanism for quantifying and recording percent breast tissue density, and making it readily available to the radiologist. Beyond speeding and simplifying the process of quantifying breast density, densitasdensity standardizes the density measurement which enables uniform application of risk-based stratification of screen eligible women aimed at ensuring those who need more aggressive follow-up receive it, while those who do not need aggressive follow-up do not receive unnecessary imaging. Densitas software is unique in that it assesses breast density using the routinely archived processed DICOM images that radiologists normally review, and therefore supports prospective and retrospective breast density measurement for clinical care and for research. Blackford CEO, Ben Panter said this of the alliance: "We are delighted to add densitasdensity to the curated marketplace of applications available through Blackford Platform. We look forward to working with Densitas to provide our customers and channel partners multiple imaging applications that can be easily deployed and maintained." densitasdensity will be demonstrated at the upcoming Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2018 annual meeting in Chicago. Densitas personnel will be available to discuss the benefits and capabilities of density in Booth #3274 South Hall at RSNA and in the machine learning pavilion, Kiosk #7367W North Hall. To learn more about Blackford Platform applications including densitasdensity, book a demo at RSNA or visit Blackford at Booth #7364. About Densitas: Densitas' vision is to move the needle in breast cancer screening through tailored patient management for sustainable healthcare service delivery and improved outcomes. Densitas develops advanced breast imaging analytics technologies powered by machine learning with the goal to deliver on-demand actionable insights that improve the quality of breast health management. Our products tackle the key challenges facing women's imaging today, including mammography quality, workflow efficiencies, compliance with national guidelines, and delivery of appropriate care at sustainable costs. Learn more at www.densitas.health and in our virtual press kit. About Blackford Blackford provide a single platform to quickly access and manage a curated marketplace of regulatory approved medical image analysis applications and AI algorithms that add clinical value. Easily integrated into existing workflows, the platform provides actionable information that allows healthcare providers to use imaging information smartly and reduce the cost of care, while improving diagnostic confidence and patient outcomes. Founded in 2010, and with operations in the United Kingdom and the United States, Blackford Analysis is backed by TRI Cap, Old College Capital, and Archangel Investors, one of the UK's leading business angel syndicates. For more information, visit www.blackfordanalysis.com SOURCE Densitas, Inc. BOYNTON BEACH, Fla., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Dipnarine Maharaj was honored to be invited to present the keynote presentation at this year's SEMAL Congress. His presentation focused on the progress he has been making in the area of healthy aging and longevity. His research was well received by the attendees of more than 350, from 39 countries. Dr. Maharaj's talk, "Young Blood Plasma For Aging Rejuvenation" focused on understanding the immunosenescence of aging. Dr. Maharaj described interventions, including using young blood plasma to ameliorate the immune dysfunction of our aging population. The objective of this is the meaningful and systemic reversal of pathological aging processes and restoration of youthful immune status. Dr. Dipnarine Maharaj, M.D. (Hematologist/Oncologist/Transplant Physician) is a world renowned expert, the Medical Director of Maharaj Institute of Immune Regenerative Medicine (MIIRM), Boynton Beach, Florida and a leader in the clinical field of Stem Cell Transplantation, Immunotherapy and Regenerative medicine. He was part of the team in Scotland which developed the standard of care for leukemia patients back in the 1980s. Dr. Maharaj has developed several innovative protocols involving Immunotherapy and sees this as the future in the treatment of chronic disease. He has also created a protocol to collect and store an adult's healthy immune system, in case of future need. About The Maharaj Institute of Immune Regenerative Medicine The Maharaj Institute is a Joint Commission (JCAHO), AABB (Advanced Transfusion and Cellular Therapies Worldwide) accredited facility. It is an ambulatory outpatient center registered with the FDA for HCT/PS and a global leader in Regenerative Medicine. Building on years of clinical excellence focused on the effective treatment of complex, life-threatening diseases, Maharaj Institute is at the forefront of advancing Immune Regenerative Medicine; the effective use of stem cell treatment and preservation with the goal of restoring health and optimizing the effectiveness of the human immune system (the body's natural defense system). To learn more about the "Three R's" of Aging Rejuvenation: Replacing/Restoring/Reprogramming, please visit the Maharaj Institute or e-mail [email protected]. The Advanced stem cell education program is also available through the Maharaj Institute. SOURCE MIIRM Related Links https://www.stemcellimmuneregenerative.com NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Steven Victor U.S. board-certified regenerative medicine specialist was interviewed on DubaiTV by Diala Makki on Nov. 9 discussing his stem therapy in Dubai. Stromal vascular fraction cellular (SVFC) therapy, better known as stem cell therapy, is a rapidly expanding set of innovative medical technologies that restore cellular function by enabling the body to repair, replace and regenerate damaged, aging or diseased cells, tissues and organs. The minimally invasive, proprietary procedure utilizes a patient's own stromal vascular fraction cells (stem cells) from the blood vessels in adipose or fat tissue to significantly boost success rates for patient outcomes in a wide variety of conditions. In addition, there is a vast population interested in stem cell cosmetic procedures, as well as generalized anti-aging rejuvenation. Presently, Dr. Victor is practicing regenerative medicine at the Emirates Hospital, which is certified for the medical tourism market and will operate under U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) standards. ReGen will boast an international staff of physicians who are board-certified or board-eligible and experienced in administering the leading cellular therapies available to treat a variety of conditions. The staff will be led by board-certified physicians and ReGen Medical PC founder Dr. Steven Victor, who has treated numerous patients for rejuvenation, anti-aging and diseases with unmet clinical needs. Steven Victor MD, Regen Medical PC, said, "I am honored to be interviewed by the beautiful, talented and smart DubaiTV host Diala Makki. We discussed why patients should go to physicians trained in cosmetic procedures and how I brought stem cell therapy to Dubai for anti-aging, aesthetics and diseases of unmet clinical needs." Go to link - goo.gl/38Kb4L - to view the show. Media Contact: Anna Rhodes Phone: 212-249-3050 Email: [email protected] Related Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FdGYi0bgJI SOURCE ReGen Medical Management BEND, Ore., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Root Engineers is the newly branded division of experienced cannabis industry engineers from Oregon's ColeBreit Engineering firm. Reflecting the firm's depth of experience in the space, with more than 80 cannabis projects already completed, Root Engineers addresses the critical need for quality engineering services in the industry. Their team brings a wealth of professional engineering, design, and consultancy services expertise for cannabis cultivation and processing. Root Engineers will officially launch their new brand at MJBizCon Las Vegas in booth #2465, where a series of seminars will be held on Wednesday. Laura Breit, PE, Founder, Root Engineers "After several years working in this industry, we've learned about its unique needs and the vision that individuals working in this space share," said Laura Breit, founder of Root Engineers. "Our new brand reflects an understanding that cannabis businesses thrive on quality, and professional engineering can provide the foundation - or roots - needed to succeed." Formerly branded as "Cannabis by Design", the new name and brand better reflect the range of services offered by the company to cannabis investors and business owners nationwide. The team of licensed Professional Mechanical and Electrical Engineers at Root Engineers has more than 100 years of combined engineering experience, and is well versed in the unique issues surrounding infrastructure and regulatory issues in the growing cannabis industry. Specific services that the firm offers for cannabis clients include system selection and design for HVAC, electrical and plumbing, as well as expert guidance through the regulatory issues surrounding kitchen design, extraction systems and more. Root Engineers provides quality, integrity, and expertise, with a focus on the following: Mechanical Engineering : efficient, effective system design and appropriate equipment recommendations, as well as code compliance, budgeting and scalability. : efficient, effective system design and appropriate equipment recommendations, as well as code compliance, budgeting and scalability. Electrical Engineering: solid, knowledgeable expertise ranging from lighting design and layout, power management, Class 1 Division I & II electrical design and nontraditional engineering arrangements. solid, knowledgeable expertise ranging from lighting design and layout, power management, Class 1 Division I & II electrical design and nontraditional engineering arrangements. Plumbing Engineering : design of sustainable, efficient plumbing systems including water quality and treatment, waste treatment, condensation recovery, code compliance and functional design. : design of sustainable, efficient plumbing systems including water quality and treatment, waste treatment, condensation recovery, code compliance and functional design. Process Engineering: apply a holistic understanding of system requirements and client goals to develop a robust, cost efficient and highly performing system that fully complies with local code requirements. At MJBizCon Las Vegas , in booth #2465, Root Engineers will be hosting a series of seminars with top equipment manufacturers, including Data Aire , FabricAir and Desert Aire . Experienced representatives from these leading companies, coupled with Root's expert engineering team, will offer attendees the opportunity to access multiple experts in a single setting. The seminar series will take place on Wednesday, November 14th from 2:00 - 5:00 p.m. The company's new website can be found at www.rootengineers.com . About Root Engineers Root Engineers, a division of established firm ColeBreit Engineering, is a team of licensed professional engineers providing engineering, design, and consulting services for cannabis cultivation across the country. Root Engineers began building partnerships in its home state of Oregon in 2014 with growers, architects, contractors, and investors. With more than 100 years of combined engineering experience and more than 80 cannabis engineering projects in their portfolio, Root Engineers is a market leader in engineering services including mechanical, electrical, plumbing and process engineering. www.rootengineers.com @rootengineers Media Contact: Morgan Whitehouse, 802.373.4686, [email protected] SOURCE Root Engineers LONDON, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Global marketing and communications firm, Finn Partners, sponsors of this year's International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT) Awards, was on hand to present one of three distinguished honorees, CEO of the US Travel Association, Roger Dow with his award. The IIPT Champions in Challenge Awards, recognize industry leaders who have stood forward in exceptional times of challenge and have made a real difference through their words and their actions. Above: Gail L. Moaney, APR, Founding Managing Partner and Director of the Global Travel & Lifestyle Division at Finn Partners (Middle Left) awarding the IIPT Champions in Challenge Award to Nan Marchand Beauvois, Senior Vice President, Membership and Industry Relations from U.S. Travel (Middle Right) during the International Travel Crisis Management Summit (ITCMS) in London on November 8. Ms. Beauvois accepted the award on behalf of Roger Dow, President & CEO of the U.S. Travel Association. Also joining in the photo are Dr. Taleb Rifai, Former Secretary General of the UNWTO and Chairman of the ITCMS (Left) and Anita Mendiratta, Lead Consultant of CNN Internationals T.A.S.K and the MC for the event (Right). Gail L. Moaney, APR, Founding Managing Partner of Finn Partners in presenting the award to Mr. Dow, who was unavoidably absent, said the company is pleased to be a supporting partner of IIPT. She lauded the work of industry leaders like Mr. Dow who continue to champion the cause of tourism and its global impact on peace and sustainable development. Other recipients of the IIPT Champions in Challenge Awards included the CEO of Nepal Tourist Board, Deepak Joshi who received his award from Ajay Prakash, President IIPT India and Jamaica's Minister of Tourism, Honorable Edmund Bartlett, who was presented with his award by Dr. Taleb Rifai, former Secretary General of the UNWTO. Founded by Dr. Louis D'Amore in 1986, the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism is a non-profit which works globally to raise awareness of the vital role that tourism can play to foster peace by treating every traveler as a potential Ambassador for Peace. Contact: Finn Partners: Renee Martin, Partner [email protected] 646-307-6334 SOURCE Finn Partners Related Links http://www.finnpartners.com Deborah Lee James brings 30 years of knowledge and national security experience from both the federal government and private sectors. James served as Secretary of the Air Force from 2013-2017. Prior to that she was President of the Technical and Engineering Sector for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs. James has also held Director/Advisor roles in many prominent organizations such as Bain & Co, LeanIn.Org, Unisys, Textron, and MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Ms. James joins current Advisory Board members Jeff Bingham, Robert M. Lightfoot, Jr., George Nield, and William F. Readdy. Upon joining the board, she said, "I am excited to have the opportunity to serve on such a distinguished board alongside individuals who have dedicated their careers to ensuring American leadership in space. I look forward to helping Firefly revolutionize small launch as we enter a historic era of space commercialization." Firefly CEO Dr. Tom Markusic said, "We are honored to have Deborah join the Firefly Advisory Board. She provides a wealth of national security experience that will help us better serve our future defense customers. Deborah's recent tenure as the Secretary of the Air Force provides her with a unique insight into the needs of the United States military and her guidance will further enable Firefly to provide our defense community with the space-based capabilities required to ensure the security of our country." ABOUT FIREFLY AEROSPACE Firefly is developing a family of launch vehicles to provide industry-leading affordability, convenience and reliability for dedicated light to medium lift launches. Firefly's Alpha and Beta vehicles utilize common technologies, manufacturing infrastructure and launch capabilities, providing LEO launch solutions for up to one and four metric tons of payload respectively. Alpha and Beta will provide the space industry with access to frequent launches at the lowest cost/kg, enabling ambitious commercial and exploration missions from LEO to the Moon. Headquartered in Cedar Park, TX, Firefly has additional presence in Washington, D.C., Dnipro, Ukraine, and Tokyo, Japan. Firefly is financed by Noosphere Ventures of Menlo Park, CA. Contact Eric Salwan 512-277-6959 [email protected] SOURCE Firefly Aerospace, Inc. Related Links http://fireflyspace.com/ SANTA FE, N.M., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Over fourteen tons of food will nourish the bodies and minds of hungry New Mexicans this fall. That's the goal set by Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino during their annual Coins for Cans food drive benefiting The Food Depot, according to Christine Gabaldon, Director of Marketing. And that's the equivalent of providing 35,000 meals for those in need. Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino has a long history with The Food Depot in support of its mission to end hunger in Northern New Mexico. The Food Depot "We recognize the need in our own community," Gabaldon said. "And as a company, we're in a unique position to do something about it. We ask that our own guests and gamers get involved by bringing in cans of food, and in doing so, they earn slot play here at Buffalo Thunder." The Coins for Cans food drive has been in full swing for some time, and several truckloads -- an estimated 20,000 pounds -- of food has already been picked up by The Food Depot. But what does hunger look like in New Mexico? And why is the need so prevalent? Those are questions many people ask, and Jill Dixon, Development Director for The Food Depot provides insight. "Hunger is often hidden, but it affects one in every five people in our state. One in four of those are children," Dixon said. "It's a growing concern." A typical scenario of hunger in New Mexico is a household of six, added Dixon. The father works a seasonal construction job and the mother can't afford to work outside the home, since she's caring for four kids. Then comes an economic downturn and the construction work they relied on dries up. Every month the budget gets tighter, and no work means no income. No income means no food. This can and does happen in communities all around us, she said. In fact, Dixon said, 52% of those served by The Food Depot are working adults. Of the remaining 48% served, approximately 80% are caregivers to family members or loved ones who cannot care for themselves. "That's why we count on the support of Buffalo Thunder to help us make a difference," Dixon adds. "They are one of the most engaged, present and proactive donors that we have had the privilege to partner with. They feel very rooted in the community, and recognize how our community suffers. This is an organization that is utterly philanthropic and have a strong commitment to making life better." A simple food drive, Dixon said, has grown into an extensive partnership over the years, offering food, financial support and countless volunteers. "We feel so fortunate, and we see every day how the community benefits because of their involvement," Dixon said. It's no coincidence that the Coins for Cans food drive takes place every autumn, said Gabaldon. "The fall season is typically one of abundance," she said. "By raising awareness of hunger in our community at this time of year, we make a lasting impact in hearts and minds. We remind people that hunger is present every single day of the year." The community is invited to help end hunger in the area by dropping off canned goods at Buffalo Thunder now through November 14. About Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino: Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino is located and operated by the Pueblo of Pojoaque just north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Opened in 2008, Buffalo Thunder joined the ranks of the casino elite of New Mexico, included its sister casino, Cities of Gold. Art from Native contributors statewide, and from many different Pueblos, are displayed proudly throughout the casino. About The Food Depot: The Food Depot is committed to ending hunger in Northern New Mexico. As the food bank for nine Northern New Mexico counties, The Food Depot provides food to 145 nonprofit agencies including emergency food pantries, hot meal programs, shelters, youth programs, senior centers, homes for the mentally disabled and shelters. Contact: Betsy Donnelly Phone: 913 208 5400 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino Related Links https://buffalothunderresort.com DENVER, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cryo-preserved embryos donated from one family to another can be the most viable route to parenthood for those whom current reproductive techniques have failed. Deb Roberts, Founder and CEO of Embryo Connections, has created a service that empowers "complete" in-vitro fertilization families to donate their embryos and the incredible possibility of children - to these struggling families. Deb Roberts and Sam, loving life after embryo donation So much happiness, thanks to embryo donation. Deb Roberts and Sam. Embryo Connections was founded as a result of Deb's own harrowing journey to parenthood. Five years ago, reproductive endocrinologists advised that Deb had little chance at conception. After unsuccessful in-vitro fertilization and adoption attempts, Deb went public about her private struggle, and asked her social media network to help. Several empathic IVF families offered their own embryos to help Deb start her family. She quickly became a happy recipient of directed embryo donation, a little-known fertility option that involves a private contract whereby one family donates remaining embryos to another who can't create their own. Her little miracle is now 15 months old. "I couldn't think of anything more important than to help others experience the kind of love that I have for my child," Deb said, thinking about her choice to start her donation agency. According to the CDC, 12% of women 15 44 years old suffer infertility. "I felt broken, damaged, like there was something wrong with me, and I couldn't fix it," says one such mom. Among fortunate families for whom IVF succeeds, the intensive treatment can create more high-quality embryos than the family needs. Unacceptable embryo disposition options, wrought with restrictions, discrimination, and burdensome requirements, lead many to store indefinitely at high annual fees. As a result, 800,000 inactive embryos are stored frozen in the U.S. Embryo donation accounted for ~1,700 embryo transfers in 2016 (1% of transfers), but it's one of the fastest growing reproductive medicine treatments because it can increase success rates so dramatically. Embryo Connections provides choices so that families feel comfortable donating their remaining frozen embryos, and receiving families can find embryos that fit their family. 21 days after opening the doors, a first perfect match: a mixed-race couple who's been trying to conceive for nine years will be able to transfer their first "em-baby"! Families with remaining embryos or seeking embryos can visit www.embryoconnections.org to learn more about donation options. About Embryo Connections Embryo Connections is a concierge embryo donation agency dedicated to transforming the journey to parenthood by making embryo donation accessible to all who want a child to love. Through the concierge donation model, donors and recipients can own their destiny, and Embryo Connections takes on the burden of the process, so that they can devote their energy towards enjoying life and loved ones. Please visit www.embryoconnections.org to learn about the process and adorable faces of embryo donation. Contact: Deb Roberts Title: Founder & CEO Phone: 303-903-0433 Email: [email protected] URL: www.embryoconnections.org SOURCE Embryo Connections Related Links http://www.embryoconnections.org JUPITER, Fla., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- G4S, the United States' leading integrated security provider, was recognized by the U.S. Army's Private Public Partnership Office (P3O) and the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) during the company's annual Veterans Day ceremony. The ESGR presented Brian McCabe, President of G4S Retail Cash Solutions, with the Patriot Award, reflecting the efforts made by McCabe to support members of the Guard and Reserve. McCabe was nominated by David Wetzel, Senior Software Architect for G4S Retail Cash Solutions, and a member of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army Reserves. McCabe joins a list of G4S employees in Los Angeles, North Carolina and Puerto Rico who have received the Patriot Award in 2018. "We are proud of the many veterans of the armed forces working for G4S," said Drew Levine, President of G4S Secure Solutions (USA). "With 25% of our workforce comprised of veterans, we are committed to supporting their dedication to our country and providing them with the resources to excel as members of the armed forces and as employees of G4S." At the ceremony, G4S signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Army Reserve's P3O. The MOU will facilitate a relationship between G4S and the P3O that encourages the hiring initiatives for Army Reserve Soldiers, family members and veterans. The ESGR also presented G4S Secure Solutions (USA) with the Seven Seals Award, the fourth time G4S has been recognized. The award honors individuals and organizations that support the ESGR mission. For the fifth straight year, G4S was awarded the Pro Patria Award from ESGR in Florida, the highest award that may be bestowed by an ESGR State Committee. G4S was also named a Military Friendly Employer and a Military Friendly Spouse Employer. G4S has received numerous awards across the country for the company's commitment to members of the armed forces. In August, G4S Seattle was named the Veteran Friendly Employer of the Year by American Veterans (AMVETS) for the office's commitment to hiring veterans in King County. About G4S G4S is the world's leading, global, integrated security company specializing in the provision of security and related services across six continents. The group is active in around 90 countries, and is the largest employer quoted on the London Stock Exchange with over 570,000 employees and has a secondary stock exchange listing in Copenhagen. For more information about G4S, visit G4S.us. SOURCE G4S Related Links http://www.g4s.us DALLAS, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Generational Group, a leading mergers and acquisitions advisor for privately held businesses, is pleased to announce the continued expansion of the firm with the opening of an office in New York, New York. The New York City offices are located in Manhattan at 125 Park Avenue at 42nd Street (25th floor). David Fergusson, Generational Senior Managing Director and Group Leader, M&A, will lead the region from the New York office. Managing Director Musa Jagne will be located in the New York office, along with other Generational associates. "As one of the highest volume middle market M&A advisory firms in the U.S., Generational will expand both the sell-side clients we are able to represent and increase the service we provide to the leading private equity and family office firms with establishment of an office in New York," said Mr. Fergusson. "With international demand for Generational's sell-side and buy-side service growing, our New York office will be able to better support our cross-border partners as well." Mr. Fergusson has more than 30 years of business experience, including the creation of new companies, the acceleration of corporate growth, and global mergers and acquisitions. He frequently speaks on the subjects of financial services and corporate innovation at prominent institutions such as Cambridge and Columbia, major media outlets such as CNBC and Bloomberg, and events such as the World Economic Forum at Davos. "While Generational has been represented in the tri-state market since its inception, the establishment of this Manhattan office represents an important milestone in the company's history. New York is the global epicenter of M&A activity and adding this to the Generational footprint is a natural move as we continue our strategic growth plan," said Brenen Hofstadter, Chief M&A Officer with Generational. "From New York City, our team will better serve buyers and our clients in the Northeast region, as well as a rapidly growing cadre of international investors." Generational Group is one of the leading M&A advisory firms in North America, having won multiple industry awards, including Investment Banking Firm of the Year three years in a row, most recently in 2018. Other awards include the Valuation Firm of the Year in 2015 and 2014, as well as M&A Consulting Firm of the Year in 2013 and 2011. The firm has solidified its leadership position by providing world-class client service and unmatched deal-making capabilities. According to Thomson Reuters, no M&A advisor has closed more deals in the lower middle market than Generational over the past several years. About Generational Group Generational Equity, DealForce, Generational Talis Wealth Advisory and Generational Capital Markets, member FINRA/SIPC, are part of the Generational Group, which is headquartered in Dallas and is one of the leading M&A advisory firms in North America. With over 250 professionals located throughout North America, the companies help business owners release the wealth of their business by providing merger, acquisition and strategic growth advisory services. Their four-step approach features exit planning education, business valuation, value enhancement strategies, and M&A transactional services. For more, visit the https://www.genequityco.com/ or the Generational Equity press room. For more information: David Fergusson 914-374-7396 [email protected] Carl Doerksen 972-232-1125 [email protected] SOURCE Generational Group Related Links https://www.genequityco.com Company invites individual and institutional investors, as well as advisors, to attend interactive, real-time virtual event LONDON, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Legal & General (UK: LGEN, OTC Pink: LGGNY). Legal & General today announces that its Group Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Davies, will present at the dbVIC - Deutsche Bank American Depositary Receipt (ADR) Virtual Investor Conference on November 15th, 2018. This virtual investor conference is aimed exclusively at introducing global companies with ADR programs to investors. DATE: November 15th, 2018 TIME: 9:30 AM ET LINK: https://tinyurl.com/111415dbVICprepr This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask international companies their questions in real-time and to download a company's information in their "virtual trade booth" in the Exhibits section. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an on-demand archive will be available for 90 days. Participation is free of charge. It is recommended that investors pre-register to save time and receive event updates. Recent Announcements 8/10/2018: Completed a 2.4 billion buyout for the Nortel Networks UK Pension Plan covering around 15,500 pensioner members and around 7,200 deferred members. Global Pensions Risk business now over 8.4 billion for the year to date, a new record for Legal & General. covering around 15,500 pensioner members and around 7,200 deferred members. Global Pensions Risk business now over 8.4 billion for the year to date, a new record for Legal & General. 5/10/18: Bruntwood and Legal & General Capital form UK's largest science and technology property partnership. The deal will see the two partners invest 360m of capital, property and intellectual assets into a new company, Bruntwood SciTech, with a business plan supporting the creation of 20,000 high value jobs. The deal will see the two partners invest 360m of capital, property and intellectual assets into a new company, Bruntwood SciTech, with a business plan supporting the creation of 20,000 high value jobs. 13/09/2018: Completed the largest ever UK bulk annuity deal with the British Airways Pension Scheme. Legal & General Group completed a 4.4 billion buy-in for British Airways PLC's pension scheme, Airways Pension Scheme ("APS"), covering nearly 22,000 pensioners. Established in 1836, Legal & General is one of the UK's leading financial services groups and a major global investor, with a number of growing businesses in the US and in other countries. At 30th June 2018, we had over 984 billion ($1.3 trillion) in total assets under management. Over ten million people rely on us to help them save for the future and to protect their families and their homes. We work with companies and pension trustees to help people build security in retirement, being the UK's largest investment manager for UK corporate pension schemes and a market leader in pensions de-risking. We have over 2.9 million people on our workplace pensions platform. We have also invested over 16.3 billion in direct investments such as homes, urban regeneration, clean energy and small business finance, driving economic growth and making a positive difference to the UK's built environment. Financial details Legal & General has a market capitalisation of 15.6 billion as at 9th November 2018 and is responsible for investing 985 billion worldwide (as at 30 June 2018) on behalf of investors, policyholders and shareholders. SOURCE Legal & General The study financially supported by Anthem Foundation compared CPR performance skills of people who used the kiosk and facilitator-led methods as well as a one-minute training video to learn Hands-Only CPR, a simpler CPR technique that does not require a combination of chest compressions with mouth-to-mouth breaths. The study is the first to evaluate the effectiveness of kiosk-based training for Hands-Only CPR compared to other Hands-Only CPR training methods. Each year, more than 350,000 cardiac arrests occur outside of the hospital. Almost 90 percent of people who experience a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital die. Survival rates can triple when bystanders perform CPR. "Less than half of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest victims receive CPR from a bystander, which is a grim statistic that we need to improve," said John Meiners, the Association's Chief of Mission Aligned Businesses and Healthcare Solutions. "The study provides insights on Hands-Only CPR education methods that deepen our understanding of how people can continue to be trained more efficiently and effectively, so they'll feel empowered and confident to take action." The study published in Annals of Emergency Medicine examined three methods of teaching Hands-Only CPR: facilitator-led classroom training, which typically lasts 30 minutes and enables participants to practice CPR with the assistance of an instructor; kiosk-based learning, a five-minute, one-on-one training program that uses high-fidelity manikins that provide feedback on the quality of compressions; and a one-minute, public service announcement video. The researchers found that people who watched the one-minute training video scored lower than the classroom group in total score, but there were no significant differences in total score between classroom and kiosk participants. The video-only group performed lower on compression depth than the classroom group, while the kiosk group outperformed the classroom group on hand position score but scored lower on compression depth. Participants in the kiosk session performed as well as those in the classroom session in total score and compression rate. The kiosk users had poorer performance on compression depth, which suggests that this could be an area for improvement in the kiosk's instruction and feedback. Because CPR is a psychomotor skill, one that combines mental processes with physical action, the more a person practices, the more they improve, said study co-author Lana M. Gent, Ph.D., Director of Product and Research Innovation at the Association. Based on the study results, kiosk-based CPR training, which is free for participants and located in high-traffic areas such as airports and shopping malls, is a good option for anyone who wishes to learn or reinforce Hands-Only CPR skills, she said. "We have heard stories from people who have saved a person's life after learning Hands-Only CPR at a kiosk, as well as stories from healthcare providers who use a kiosk to refresh their skills between flights at an airport," Gent said. "Based on the findings from this study, we hope to have more kiosks placed in high-traffic locations." "Anthem Foundation is working to provide communities across our country with greater access to education, tools and resources that can help them live healthier lives. We're proud to support the American Heart Association's innovative use of the Hands-Only CPR kiosks that are helping to remove barriers to learning CPR," said Stephen Friedhoff, MD, chief clinical officer at Anthem. "Our investment in this education helps people acquire a level of comfort and confidence to perform CPR in an emergency, and the study findings further demonstrate the potential that the kiosks can have on increasing both bystander CPR rates and survival rates from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest." With founding support from Anthem Foundation, the Association rolled out the kiosk program in spring 2016. In addition to the Foundation's continued financial support, the program has expanded with kiosks sponsored by local organizations installed in various cities. To date, the Association has placed 30 Hands-Only CPR training kiosks across the U.S. primarily in airports. About the American Heart Association The American Heart Association is a leading force for a world of longer, healthier lives. With nearly a century of lifesaving work, the Dallas-based association is dedicated to ensuring equitable health for all. We are a trustworthy source empowering people to improve their heart health, brain health and well-being. We collaborate with numerous organizations and millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, advocate for stronger public health policies, and share lifesaving resources and information. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, Twitter or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1. About Anthem Foundation The Anthem Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Anthem, Inc. and through charitable contributions and programs, the Foundation promotes the inherent commitment of Anthem, Inc. to enhance the health and well-being of individuals and families in communities that Anthem, Inc. and its affiliated health plans serve. The Foundation focuses its funding on strategic initiatives that address and provide innovative solutions to health care challenges, as well as promoting the Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative that targets specific disease states and medical conditions. These disease states and medical conditions include: prenatal care in the first trimester, low birth weight babies, cardiac morbidity rates, long term activities that decrease obesity and increase physical activity, diabetes prevalence in adult populations, adult pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations and smoking cessation. The Foundation also coordinates the company's year-round Associate Giving program which provides a 50 percent match of associates' pledges, as well as its Volunteer Time Off and Dollars for Doers community service programs. To learn more about the Anthem Foundation, please visit http://www.anthem.foundation and its blog at http://anthemfoundation.tumblr.com. For Public Inquiries: (800) AHA-USA1 (242-8721) heart.org and strokeassociation.org SOURCE American Heart Association Related Links http://www.americanheart.org Attending the Award Presentation Ceremony were Mr Cheng Yan-kee, Chairman of the Council and the Court of HKBU; Professor Roland Chin, President and Vice-Chancellor of HKBU; Professor Huang Yu, Dean of the School of Communication; Professor Eva Man Kit-wah, Director of the AF; Mr Antonio Chan, Vice Chairman of King Wai Group, and Ms Chloe Suen, Chair of Simon Suen Foundation; Ms Clare Stewart, former Director of the BFI London Film Festival, and Ms Shi Nan-sun, a film producer. In his remarks, Mr Cheng Yan-kee, Chairman of the Council and Court of HKBU, said that HKBU is delighted to play host to hundreds of budding filmmakers and seminal talents from around the world. That they have come to this world city to showcase their creative talents, generate new ideas, and forge new networks is also a great honour. He added that HKBU is well-known for being the cradle of creativity, and that many of its graduates have had great success in the film industry over the years. Building on the achievements of the Global Chinese Universities Student Film and Television Festival, which was established in 2002, this year HKBU launched GUFA to further expand its mission of advancing the development of the film industry. These Awards are not just about recognising the global excellence of film production by university students around the world, but they are also about building connections and fostering creative exchanges. A number of influential figures from the film and social community were invited to present the Awards on the Award Ceremony, including Mr Tim Yip, Winner of Academy Award for Best Production Design; Mr Jonnie To Kei-fung, a renowned film director; Ms Angie Chan On-kei, a documentary filmmaker; Mr Raman Hui Shing-ngai; an animation filmmaker; Mr Jonathan Wong Chee-hynn and Ms Fala Chen Fat-lai, Hong Kong artists; Ms Shi Nan-sun, a film producer; Mr Patrick Tam Kar-ming and Mr Steve Chan Chi-fat, film directors and Dr Allan Zeman, Chairman of Lan Kwai Fong Group. Professor Eva Man, Director of the AF, said that she is amazed and grateful for the huge support and recognition the first GUFA had received which help advance AF's education in the film industry. She hopes that the next GUFA will continue this year's success and provide a broader platform for young filmmakers with more opportunities to showcase their talents and foster creative exchanges among themselves. Ms Jue Yao, renowned violinist, Mr Tam Po Shek, bamboo flutist, Ms Hou Shih-chieh, erhu player, Mr Wu Lap-shan, zheng player, Mr Jonathan Wong Chee-hynn, Hong Kong artist, and members of the AF conducted artistic performance on the Award Ceremony. The first GUFA is organised by the Academy of Film of the School of Communication of Hong Kong Baptist University, proudly presented by King Wai Group, and Simon Suen Foundation being the Gold Sponsor. While this is the first GUFA, the Academy has received overwhelming recognition and participation from distinguished film professionals, scholars, judges and participants. Over 1,800 submissions from nearly 100 countries and regions were received, including the United States, Europe, Iceland, Belarus, Cuba, Tanzania, and Morocco. For event details, please refer to the GUFA website: http://af.hkbu.edu.hk/gusff/. Appendix: Awards and Award Presenters Award Winner / University Award Presenter Best Script Traveler (Helwan University) Cheng Yan-kee, Chairman of the Council and the Court of HKBU Jonnie To, film director Best Documentary Glow Worm in a Jungle (Film and Television Institute of India) Paul Stekler, professor of film studies and award-winning documentary filmmaker Angie Chan, documentary filmmaker Best Animated Short Film Him&Her (Filmakademie Baden-Wurttemberg) Raman Hui, animation filmmaker Max Howard, animation filmmaker Best Experimental Short Film Ve! (Loyola Marymount University) Clare Stewart, former Director of the BFI London Film Festival Hanspeter Ammann, film director Jury's choice (Experimental) Worm (Uzbekistan State Institute of Arts and Culture) Clare Stewart, former Director of the BFI London Film Festival Hanspeter Ammann, film director The Most Promising Actor Rafael Haider from The Victory of Charity (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna) Chloe Suen, Chair of Simon Suen Foundation Jonathan Wong, artist The Most Promising Actress Kim Yeongseon from My Little Brother, Seung-hyuk (Korea National University of Arts) Antonio Chan, Vice Chairman of King Wai Group Fala Chen, actress Best Director Albert Meisl from The Victory of Charity (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna) Shi Nan-sun, film producer Patrick Tam, film director Best Chinese-language Film We Outlaws (Zhejiang University of Media and Communications) Professor Zhu Ying, AF of HKBU Chris Berry, Professor of Film Studies of King's College London Best Narrative My Little Brother, Seung-hyuk (Korea National University of Arts) Tim Yip, Winner of Academy Award for Best Production Design Tony Rayns, London-based filmmaker, critic and festival programmer HKBU Academy of Film's Choice Adulting (Hong Kong Baptist University) Professor Eva Man, Director of the AF Steve Chan, film director Gold Award The Victory of Charity (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna) Professor Roland Chin, President of HKBU Dr Allan Zeman, Chairman of Lan Kwai Fong Group Media enquiries: Mavis Wong of the Communication & Public Relations Office at +851-3411-7964 / [email protected] SOURCE Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- HomeAid Austin, the newest chapter of HomeAid America, a non-profit provider of housing for homeless families and individuals for more than 20 years, announces plans to team up with Lennar, the nation's leading homebuilder, to host the inaugural 'Building Homes: Rebuilding Lives' fundraising luncheon to raise funds that will directly impact HomeAid's mission to provide housing for homeless families and individuals. The public is invited to attend the November 16 event at the JW Marriott located at 110 East 2nd Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. "This important event will have a ripple effect, supporting the various homeless care providers we partner with in the Greater Austin area," said Melissa Nicewarner Daly, Executive Director of HomeAid Austin. "Together, we will build new lives for Austin's homeless." "Since launching HomeAid's Austin chapter in April, the organization has made tremendous strides in offering support to the city's homeless population," said Charlie Coleman, Austin Division President for Lennar and HomeAid Austin Board President. "We are delighted to host this event to support HomeAid and increase awareness of HomeAid's important mission." More information can be found at https://e.givesmart.com/events/boC/. About HomeAid HomeAid is a leading national non-profit provider of housing for homeless families and individuals. Through the generosity of builders, their trades and their suppliers, HomeAid has completed over 325 housing projects nationwide at a value of over than $200 million, of which nearly fifty percent has been donated by the building industry. Nearly 170,000 people have been sheltered by these housing projects over the past 24 years. HomeAid currently has over 30 additional projects in development across the country through HomeAid's network of 15 chapters in 10 states. For more information about HomeAid, call 18883HOMEAID or visit www.homeaid.org. SOURCE Lennar Corporation Related Links http://www.lennar.com BOYNTON BEACH, Fla., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As the oldest daughter of Times Square's "King of Porn," Romola Hodas' childhood was over-the-top chaotic. After all, how many children of the 1960s grew up in an atmosphere where it was normal to hang out in their father's 42nd Street porn shops interacting with both the women performing live sex acts on stage and their clients? But that's only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Romola Hodas In The Princes of 42nd Street, Romola Hodas discusses what it was like to grow up amid the mob, porn stars and an abusive dad who is currently depicted on the HBO series The Deuce. Romola's father was Martin Hodas, a name that is no doubt familiar to anyone watching the HBO series The Deuce about the birth of the Times Square porn industry. In the show, her father is played by actor Saul Stein. In a new book published by Riverdale Avenue Books, Romola offers a no-holds-barred look at her family, its mob connections and the struggles she overcame to create a stable existence. Co-written with Elizabeth Ridley, The Princess of 42nd Street: Surviving My Childhood as the Daughter of Times Square's King of Porn is ultimately a tale of survival. "My story has its darker moments," Romola says, "but it is also infused with humor and hope. Hope always burned brightly inside me, even during the darkest times." And those times included Romola having to step in for her bipolar mother when she could not care for her three younger siblings. In an interview, Romola can talk about: Her little brother's kidnapping and an attempt by the mob to kidnap her at fat camp Spying on her parents' sex orgies and all-night swinger parties Enduring verbal, physical and emotional abuse Spending a year in reform school. How she managed to turn the negatives of her life into positives Praise for The Princess of 42nd Street "Anyone who remembers the raging sex-for-sale Times Square of the 1960s and '70s may have wondered, at least in passing, who was getting all that money. Well, we now know a big part of that answer. His name was Marty Hodas and the story of how he turned quarters into millions is as gripping as it is horrifying. The man behind the live sex acts and slimy peep show booths was a child abuser of epic proportion, and yet still engendered the love and devotion of his most heavily tortured victim -- his daughter Romola. Her tale of surviving her childhood is woven through growth of New York's porn industry with her father on the throne. It will leave you disgusted, stunned and inspired." Adam Somers, New York Daily News "A testament to the awakening and reclamation of self. Romola Hodas gives companionship to all those caretakers, people pleasers, Mr. and Mrs. Fix-Its suffering under the pathology of identities forced upon them other than their own. We are fortunate to hear such a courageous voice and blessed to be given the opportunity to listen and learn." Actor Saul Stein, who plays Martin Hodas on The Deuce. About the Author For more than 20 years, Romola owned and operated Harmony Marketing, selling products to, and helping to grow, the natural food industry. She was one of the industry's first women to build her own business as a broker. Today, she divides her time between Long Island, N.Y., and Boynton Beach, Fla., where she works as a consultant, healer and public speaker. Contact: Romola Hodas, (917) 863-1533; [email protected]; www.romola.com SOURCE Romola Hodas Related Links http://www.romola.com Working with illy's iconic coffee cup designed by Matteo Thun in 1991 as the medium, Quinn takes inspiration from his series called Iris, the collection of paintings on circular canvas that reproduce the eye's iris, the thin, circular structure that defines eye colour and is responsible for controlling the diameter and size of the eye. Quinn creates six variations on the theme. A genuine play of gazes, exchanged between the observer and the colourful patterns impressed on the plate, that are, in turn, mirrored on the reflective surface of the coffee cup. "With Marc Quinn we have placed our coffee at the centre of a brightly colored iris, in essence, it is a pupil that curiously observes the surrounding world to get to know it and to be observed by it," said Massimiliano Pogliani, CEO of illycaffe. "At the same time, the glossy surface of the cup becomes a mirror of infinite reflections that stimulate the eye, symbolic of our unique illy blend, which stimulates both mind and palate." The Marc Quinn illy Art Collection is available beginning today, November 12, in a set of six cappuccino cups ($170), set of six espresso cups ($140), set of two mugs ($55), set of two cappuccino cups ($55), set of two espresso cups ($50), and a single espresso cup ($40). This new collection is sold in North America at illy caffe bars and shops, specialty retailers, and online at www.illy.com. illycaffe is an Italian family business, founded in Trieste in 1933 and committed to offering the greatest coffee to the world. illy is the world's most global coffee brand, producing the unique illy 100% Arabica blend made of 9 of the world 's best selections of Arabica; each day more than 7 million cups are served in over 140 countries in the finest cafes, restaurants, hotels and in offices and homes. illy has become the standard forerunner of espresso, and thanks to three critical innovations, is considered the leader in the science and technology of coffee. With the bestowing of the first "Ernesto Illy Award for quality espresso coffee" in 1991 in Brazil, illy also pioneered direct sourcing, sharing know-how and paying a premium price for the best quality, based on partnerships underwritten by the principles of sustainable development. The company also founded the University of Coffee with the aim of fostering and spreading its culture, providing comprehensive academic and hands-on training for coffee growers, baristas and coffee lovers in order to cover every aspect of the product. Everything 'made in illy' is enhanced by beauty & art, which represent founding values of the brand, starting from its logo designed by an artist, James Rosenquist and including the renowned illy Art Collection, comprised of over 100 cups designed by international artists. In 2017 the company was employing 1,290 people, and posted consolidated revenues of 467 million. There are approximately 244 stores and mono-brand illy shops in 43 countries. Media Contact Annie Worthington and Erika Berg Alison Brod Marketing & Communications [email protected] 212-230-1800 SOURCE illycaffe Related Links http://www.illy.com LONGMONT, Colo., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- IntelliProp, Inc. , a leader in innovative Intellectual Property (IP) Cores and semiconductors for Data Storage and Memory applications, announced today that they are exhibiting and demonstrating key technology at SC18, The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis which is being held at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, TX, November 12-15, 2018. IntelliProp is exhibiting in booth #4145. IntelliProp will be demonstrating a PCIe-to-Gen-Z Bridge showing the ability to enable Gen-Z fabric attachment utilizing PCIe on existing servers. The demo will showcase IntelliProp's Gen-Z IP that is compliant with the Gen-Z Core Specification Rev 1.0a as well as the IntelliProp Gen-Z DRAM Memory Controller. The IntelliProp IPA-GZ194-CT "Mamba" DRAM Memory Controller will be shown on a Gen-Z Memory Module utilizing the SFF-8201 form factor, which will be receiving data across the PCIe-to-Gen-Z Bridge. The ZMM Memory Module, built by SMART Modular is an industry first Gen-Z SFF-8201 Form Factor module utilizing the SFF-TA2002 4C Connector for 16 lanes of Gen-Z connectivity. "IntelliProp is excited to be showing increasing functionality and connectivity with today's existing server platforms," said Larry Cleland, Director, Sales & Marketing at IntelliProp. "This demonstrates a step forward in bringing the promise of Gen-Z to reality," continued Mr. Cleland. IntelliProp is also demonstrating the IPC-NV163-DT NVMe Target IP Core in a NVMe RAM drive example design. The NVMe Target IP Core provides a hardware accelerated queue management interface for NVMe commands and completions as well as providing the NVMe controller register interface for host communication and controller management. "We manage the command and completion queues in hardware to accelerate performance by off-loading the processor from needing to handle numerous interrupts," said Hiren Patel, VP of Business Development at IntelliProp. The NVMe Target IP Core is being demonstrated on the Intel Arria 10 FPGA platform. About IntelliProp - IntelliProp, Inc. develops ASSP Products, licensable IP cores and highly integrated IP Products for the Data Storage industry. Areas of significant expertise include SATA, SAS, PCIe/NVMe, Gen-Z, NVDIMM and RAID technologies. Headquarters, sales office, and design center are located in Longmont, CO. Please see our internet site: http://www.intelliprop.com or contact IntelliProp at (303) 774-0535. Editorial Contacts: Larry Cleland IntelliProp, Inc. Phone: +1-303-358-8359 Email: [email protected] SOURCE IntelliProp, Inc. Related Links http://www.intelliprop.com Based in Geneva, the ICRC is part of the largest humanitarian network in the world the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. With over 18,000 employees, the ICRC operates in more than 80 countries worldwide. The organization recently added Jive's collaboration solution to its digital workplace ecosystem in order to better connect both internal and external stakeholders across regions, hierarchies and programs such as initiatives to help missing people, address urban violence and promote international humanitarian law. By transforming the way its employees exchange and capture organizational knowledge, the ICRC is minimizing inefficient email threads, fostering collaboration and making people more productive. "Being able to tap into our vast network of collective intelligence via easy-to-join, searchable digital brainstorms, discussions, Q&As and blogs is key to driving ICRC's mission," said Izquierdo. "With Jive, we can extend conversations so they continue long after face-to-face project meetings and turn ideas into practical, achievable objectives. This improves the effectiveness of our work and ultimately increases our capacity to help people caught up in armed conflict and violence." Currently rolled out to 50 expert communities, Jive also supports key pillars of ICRC's new four-year institutional strategy by tapping into valuable perspectives from the field to foster an inclusive and diverse work environment, for example. Using Jive's mobile application, remote employees can effortlessly participate in strategic projects with the ICRC headquarters. Based on this initial success, the organization is taking an organic approach to continued adoption across its complex structure. "World-class organizations like the ICRC have teams located in so many different countries and regions around the world that communication and corporate memory can easily be lost without the right digital workplace solutions in place," said Christian Stadlmann, senior vice president and general manager of Europe at Aurea Software. "We're honored to welcome ICRC to our community of digital thought leaders and to support its important work through a collaborative network. We are thrilled Ernesto is sharing his advice on taking Jive to the next level at Aurea Experience 18." About Aurea Experience 18 Aurea Experience 18 spans two free events in Europe and North America, where Aurea's customers and partners enjoy three informative tracks with breakout sessions on employee engagement , the new digital workplace and customer intelligence . Speakers include more than a dozen experts from organizations such as American Airlines, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Citi, Commvault, International Committee of the Red Cross, Lloyds Banking Group, Morgan Stanley, Pearson, Schaeffler, Vodafone Ukraine and more. In addition, the conference offers a " boot camp " track, where Jive community managers can learn key skills, strategies and best practices for building strategic plans, increasing adoption and driving advanced community use cases. For more information, follow @AureaSoftware and #AureaExperience on Twitter. About Aurea Aurea Software, Inc. is the technology behind some of the world's greatest customer and employee experiences, for the largest and most successful brands. Aurea's platform, engagement and vertical solutions help companies create exceptional, end-to-end experiences for their customers driving both retention and growth. Aurea's family of companies deliver process management, messaging, customer relationship management, email marketing, project and portfolio management, and collaboration software, as well as industry solutions for retail, insurance, energy and life sciences. Aurea is an affiliate of ESW Capital. For more information, visit www.aurea.com or follow @AureaSoftware on Twitter . Aurea and the Aurea logo are trademarks of Aurea Software, Inc. All other trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners. SOURCE Jive Software Related Links https://www.jivesoftware.com SHANGHAI, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Global law firm Ropes & Gray today announced that Eric Y. Wu will rejoin its Shanghai office as partner in the firm's industry-leading life sciences practice. He will be permanently based in the Shanghai office upon completion of his registration in the market, and will expand the firm's life sciences service offerings throughout the Asia Pacific region. Mr. Wu returns to Ropes & Gray from Johnson & Johnson, where he served as Asia Pacific M&A Regional Counsel and head of legal for the company's Asia Pacific Innovation Center. He was a senior associate at Ropes & Gray prior to joining Johnson & Johnson. Clients will benefit from his unique background, which includes experience at one of the world's leading health care companies, representing clients at a premier global law firm, and working on the ground in both China and the United States. Mr. Wu is bilingual in Mandarin and English. In his role at Johnson & Johnson, Mr. Wu managed and collaborated with the company's global team on all deal-related legal activities in Asia for the company's pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer health care businesses. Mr. Wu also worked closely with senior leaders across the company's sectors to design and implement innovation strategies for the business. His experience encompasses early- and late-stage research and development, strategic collaborations, licensing, product development, M&A, and equity transactions with industry, government, and non-government organizations and universities. Mr. Wu has advised on mid-market and large-cap transactions with regional and global biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer health care companies engaged in the medical optics, allergy, dermatology and surgical robotics sectors, among others. He joins a China life sciences practice recognized for excellence in transactions, intellectual property, regulatory counsel, anti-corruption and government enforcement. "One of the firm's strategic imperatives has been to deliver a best-in-class life sciences practice to our clients in Asia. Eric immediately enhances our offering, which is already providing outstanding counsel and client service to market-leading clients," said Geoffrey Lin, managing partner of Ropes & Gray's Shanghai office. "Eric's broad corporate transactional skillset, deep insight into the Asia Pacific life sciences and health care industry, and multilingual skills will be valuable to clients across Asia," said Arthur Mok, Ropes & Gray's Asia regional managing partner. "Eric joins a market-leading, cross-practice team that is equipped to handle a range of complex issues that span corporate M&A, intellectual property, regulatory and compliance disciplines," said Michael Beauvais, co-chair of Ropes & Gray's global life sciences practice. "It's an honor to be able to offer Ropes & Gray's clients my perspective on an array of life sciences issues, having now served in-house at a leading company and been responsible for covering its business development and innovation activities across the Asia Pacific region," Mr. Wu said. "I'm very excited to rejoin the Ropes & Gray life sciences practice, given that clients hold the firm's life sciences practitioners around the globe in such high regard. It's a great opportunity." Mr. Wu received his J.D. from Boston University School of Law, where he served as professional articles editor of the Annual Review of Banking and Financial Law, and his B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University. He has been recognized for his excellence with the J&J Leadership Award and Encore Award (2015-2018) and the 2017 Global Counsel Awards for "Global Rising Star" and "Asia Pacific Rising Star." About Ropes & Gray Ropes & Gray's internationally recognized China life sciences practice offers integrated and comprehensive counsel to leading investment funds and global pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology companies on doing business in one of the world's fastest-growing and most challenging markets. The Financial Times ranked Ropes & Gray as a top firm for innovation in its "Asia Pacific Innovative Lawyers Awards 2018" and named China life sciences partner Katherine Wang one of "ten pioneers of new legal thinking." Ropes & Gray is a preeminent global law firm with approximately 1,300 lawyers and legal professionals serving clients in major centers of business, finance, technology and government. The firm has offices in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul, and has consistently been recognized for its leading practices in many areas, including private equity, M&A, finance, investment management, hedge funds, real estate, tax, antitrust, life sciences, health care, intellectual property, litigation & enforcement, privacy & cybersecurity, and business restructuring. www.ropesgray.com Our privacy policy can be viewed here. Eric S. Goldman Senior Public Relations Specialist ROPES & GRAY LLP T +1 212 596 9089 1211 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10036-8704 [email protected] www.ropesgray.com SOURCE Ropes & Gray Related Links http://www.ropesgray.com Landsea Homes and Leyton Properties recently gathered at the site along with Congregation Shaare Zedek to celebrate this important milestone. The developers purchased the site,on West 93 rd Street between Broadway and Amsterdam avenues, from the congregation to develop a boutique residential building atop a new 9,350-square-foot synagogue. Once completed, the congregation will operate in the lower level and ground and second floors of the new building. "Today marks an important milestone as we bring to fruition this once-in-a-lifetime development at 212 West 93rd Street," said Thomas Graham, President of the New York Metro Division at Landsea Homes. "We look forward to creating a new home for Congregation Shaare Zedek and introducing 20 thoughtfully designed residences to this vibrant neighborhood." "We are thrilled to break ground at 212 West 93rd Street with our partner Landsea Homes, a company that shares our values and commitment to excellence in development and design," said Scott Leyton, Principal at Leyton Properties. "It is incredibly exciting to be building a best-in-class residential property that will also help the Shaare Zedek congregation stay in the neighborhood where they have had roots for nearly 100 years." Landsea Homes and Leyton Properties are building a modern 14-story condominium designed by Eran Chen of ODA New York. Drawing inspiration from the neighborhood's historic pre-war architecture and with interiors by Grade, that celebrate refined, inviting and modern appointments throughout. "As the third oldest Jewish congregation in the city, we are very excited to be in partnership with Landsea Homes and Leyton Properties," said Michael Firestone, President of Congregation Shaare Zedek. "We have built an excellent relationship with these two organizations, and our community looks forward to moving into the beautiful new building that they will construct. " 212 West 93rd Street is Landsea Homes' first ground-up development in Manhattan as the company continues its expansion into key gateway cities across the country. Landsea Homes also recently announced the acquisition of a prime development site at 540 6th Avenue, located at the nexus of three thriving downtown submarkets, Flatiron, Chelsea and Greenwich Village, which they are developing along with DNA Development. Landsea Homes' other notable projects include the award-winning Avora at Port Imperial, a 183-waterfront condominium building on the Weehawken, New Jersey waterfront that was named "National Community of the Year" in 2018 by the National Association of Homebuilders. The firm also recently completed the Pierce Boston, a 30-story tower in Boston's storied Fenway neighborhood, and several communities in Arizona, Northern and Southern California. For more information about Landsea Homes, please visit www.landseahomes.com . ABOUT LANDSEA HOMES Landsea Homes designs and builds best-in-class, high-performance homes and sustainable master-planned communities in some of the most desirable markets in the United States. The company has developed homes and communities in New York, Boston, New Jersey, Arizona and throughout California in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Orange County. Creating inspired places that reflect modern living, Landsea Homes builds suburban, single-family detached and attached homes, mid- and high-rise properties, and master-planned communities to meet the diverse and ever-changing expectations and lifestyles of our homebuyers today and tomorrow. Led by a veteran team of industry professionals who boast years of worldwide experience and deep local expertise, Landsea Homes is committed to positively enhancing the lives of our homebuyers, employees and stakeholders by creating an unparalleled lifestyle experience that is unmatched everywhere we build. Landsea Homes is a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Landsea Green Group, an international homebuilder that thinks globally but operates locally. Operating on three continents including Europe, Asia and North America, Landsea's deep knowledge and experience of building and living in different environments all over the world deliver homes that embrace the local lifestyle in which they are built. ABOUT LEYTON PROPERTIES Scott Leyton has been developing homes in the New York metro area since 1991 and has built in excess of 1,000 homes and townhomes in 20 communities throughout the metro area. Scott's keen interest in bringing a high level of design sense to all aspects of his projects has been a key to his success. Scott is developing several senior townhome projects in Long Island utilizing "The Vineyards" brand as its identity. Look for more quality developments from Leyton Properties. SOURCE Landsea Homes Related Links https://landseahomes.com PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Lannett Company, Inc. (NYSE: LCI) today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Amneal) with regard to Levothyroxine Sodium Tablets USP. Under the agreement, Amneal will be Lannett's sole customer for Levothyroxine Sodium beginning December 1, 2018 through March 23, 2019, and will re-sell the products to its customers. Lannett will receive an upfront payment of $50 million, other terms of the transaction were not disclosed. As previously announced, Lannett's distribution agreement with Jerome Stevens Pharmaceuticals (JSP), which includes Levothyroxine Sodium Tablets USP, expires on March 23, 2019 and will not be renewed. "This agreement benefits all parties, including and importantly patients and customers who can be assured of a definitive transition and supply plan for this important medication," said Tim Crew, chief executive officer of Lannett. "For Lannett, this transaction guarantees $50 million of gross profit, which exceeded our previous projections for the 16 week period." Crew said that the agreement allows Lannett to continue to recognize revenue and EBITDA for the remainder of the JSP contract term. Lannett will continue to distribute the two other products in its distribution agreement with JSP, Butalbital, Aspirin, Caffeine with Codeine Phosphate Capsules USP and Digoxin Tablets USP, through March 23, 2019. About Lannett Company, Inc.: Lannett Company, founded in 1942, develops, manufactures, packages, markets and distributes generic pharmaceutical products for a wide range of medical indications. For more information, visit the company's website at www.lannett.com. This news release contains certain statements of a forward-looking nature relating to future events or future business performance. Any such statement, including, but not limited to, the company receiving an upfront payment of $50 million, whether expressed or implied, is subject to market and other conditions, and subject to risks and uncertainties which can cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors which include, but are not limited to, the risk factors discussed in the Company's Form 10-K and other documents filed with the SEC from time to time, including the prospectus supplement related to the proposed offering to be filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements represent the Company's judgment as of the date of this news release. The Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Contact: Robert Jaffe Robert Jaffe Co., LLC (424) 288-4098 SOURCE Lannett Company, Inc. Related Links www.lannett.com RESTON, Va., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader, today announced the addition of six new companies to its Leidos Alliance Partner Network, a program leveraging the Leidos supplier base to drive innovation, enhance program performance and build efficiency. The company has added IBM and Red Hat as Technology Integration Partners and Confluent, Databricks, Docker and Elastic as Emerging Technology Partners. Technology Integration Partners are close company allies with recognized experience and expertise, while Emerging Technology Partners are known associates with significant interest from the organization. "We're thrilled to be working with Leidos and look forward to seeing the value this alliance delivers to federal government customers embarking on AI initiatives," said Kevin Davis, Vice President of Public Sector at Databricks. "Our partnership with Leidos will extend the power of Databricks' Unified Analytics Platform and ultimately help federal agencies deliver better programs for their constituents." As a leading services integrator, Leidos focuses on connecting the right companies to help cultivate the right technological solutions for customers. Some of the key attributes the company considers when adding new suppliers includes: innovative products; joint independent research & development opportunities; technical roadmap awareness; and extensive training opportunities. "We continually seek to develop mutually beneficial relationships with both large and smaller technology providers that enable Leidos to provide truly innovative solutions for our customers," said Bob Gemmill, Leidos Vice President of Strategic Sourcing. "In 2019, we intend to host exclusive events for our partners, co-develop new technologies, and develop risk reduction strategies for deployment of new technologies in the public sector." About Leidos Leidos is a Fortune 500 information technology, engineering, and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil, and health markets. The company's 32,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $10.17 billion for the fiscal year ended December 29, 2017. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com. Statements in this announcement, other than historical data and information, constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause our actual results, performance, achievements, or industry results to be very different from the results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some of these factors include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 29, 2017, and other such filings that Leidos makes with the SEC from time to time. Due to such uncertainties and risks, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. SOURCE Leidos Related Links http://www.leidos.com MIAMI, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A Little Hope Foundation founder Louis Hernandez Jr. announced today the inaugural Semper Fi "Honor" Scholarship is available to benefit eligible Navy and Marine veterans and their families who are seeking higher education at accredited universities. Students who receive the Semper Fi "Honor" Scholarship will be chosen for their achievements, ambition and drive to pursue a degree in selected fields that will equip them to tackle complex social and economic issues affecting their communities. "Coming from a family where many have served in the armed forces, including my father and my wife, I understand the incredible sacrifice and loyalty to our country that comes with military service. I also have witnessed the difficult transition to civilian life, especially for those who were in combat," Hernandez said. "I believe the core attributes that the military teaches combined with a higher education can help military families adjust to civilian life and reward them for their commitment to our freedoms, while allowing them to become constructive leaders in the community." The Semper Fi "Honor" Scholarship selection committee is co-chaired by Hernandez's wife, Sarah M. Hernandez, a business professional who served with Marine One, the Marine Presidential Helicopter Squadron, for President George W. Bush, and his father, Luis Hernandez Sr., a Navy veteran and retired computer science instructor. "It's a privilege and an honor to provide support to military veterans and their families to improve their lives by overcoming the financial challenges of a higher education. The Marine Corps will always have a special place in my heart, as I worked with incredibly dedicated and hard-working people committed to protecting our freedoms and willing to sacrifice their lives to make sure that we all have a chance to choose our own path in life. Through sacrifice, training and discipline, we forged life-long friendships. I'm so excited to be able to give back to this incredible community. I encourage people to visit the A Little Hope Foundation website to learn more," said Sarah Hernandez, who rose to the rank of sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, Marine One Helicopter Squadron, Quantico, Va., and is the investor relations manager and manager of operations for Black Dragon Capital. "As a Navy veteran and retired college instructor, I have seen the difficult and lasting impact that combat and service to our country can have on our veterans. Many of my friends and family continue to suffer. I've also seen the incredible benefits of a higher education in providing the tools for everyone to become constructive members of society. I believe the Semper Fi "Honor" Scholarship program will give needed support to veterans who are students with a desire to do wonderful things in the community," Luis Hernandez Sr. said. A Little Hope Foundation's Scholarship Program, established to help underrepresented students, provides up to $10,000 in scholarships annually. Students have the opportunity to receive one $2,500 scholarship a year. The scholarships are granted based upon assessment of need and university selection. A Little Hope Foundation is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting the needs of underrepresented and underprivileged children through education, healthcare, the arts, and youth leadership development. Our initiatives provide equal opportunity for all children to have the tools and opportunities to fulfill their life goals and become constructive members of our global community. To learn more, please visit www.alittlehopefoundation.org. Media Contact: Melissa Lichtenheld, 305-372-1234 Wragg & Casas Strategic Communications [email protected] SOURCE A Little Hope Foundation Related Links http://www.alittlehopefoundation.org CHICAGO, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading medical supplier, Medical Shipment LLC, is making moves to expand internationally with its first partnership with Serbia. Last month CEO and founder of Medical Shipment LLC, Dan Micic, took several meetings and interviews in Europe to begin foreign collaborations. "We already do business with Canada and Mexico but I think it is time to start working with European countries as well," Micic said. "My family is from Serbia and I spend a lot of time over there, so it felt like the right place to start this global expansion." During his last visit to Serbia, Micic sat down with Prince Alexander and Princess Katherine to discuss the various ways a medical supply company such as Medical Shipment could work with Serbian institutions. The goal is to supply European institutions with the medical equipment they need to properly train medical students. In some areas, it is difficult to have access to premium medical supplies and Medical Shipments wants to help solve that problem. "It has always been about providing medical professionals and teaching facilities with the equipment they need to train and provide help," Micic said. "Medical Shipment has the resources to expand our reach and be sure other countries have access to proper medical supplies." The streamlined online ordering process makes it seamless for international businesses to work with the US-based supply company. There is still some red tape to go through before Medical Shipment can officially work with Serbian companies. However, the process has begun and the opportunities that this collaboration presents are exciting. Medical Shipment plans to be meeting Serbian medical supply needs in 2019. Medical Shipment LLC has been operating in the United States for over 10 years. Although the company began with the purpose of supplying nursing and medical schools it has since grown to work with hospitals, healthcare agencies, and individual consumers. Regaled to be the fastest and most competitively-priced company for quality medical supplies, Medical Shipment continues to raise the bar in terms of customer satisfaction. The user-friendly website allows customers to easily create a quote online and connect directly with a supply expert for assistance. About CEO and Founder: Dan Micic started Medical Shipment in 2007 while still attending Harper College. His first sale was 90 cases of medical gloves for privately held manufacture company Medline. With no office, he had to have the order shipped to his parents' house and worked from there. That was just the start to what has grown to be one of the largest providers of medical supplies to Universities in the country. Today, Medical Shipment is a multimillion-dollar business and was named in the Inc 5000 list 3 years in a row. CONTACT: Kaitlin Dilworth, [email protected] SOURCE Medical Shipment LLC The PepsiCo mentors will collaborate with the startups on areas ranging from marketing, distribution, manufacturing, supply chain, packaging, label claims, and fundraising, in addition to addressing other challenges related to growing their business. At the end of the program, one company will receive an additional $100,000 in funding based on the company's progress, the level of collaboration and partnership with the PepsiCo mentors, and the effective use of the initial $20,000 grant. That company will also have the opportunity to continue partnering with PepsiCo. The ten startups* are: Bohana ( Boston, Massachusetts ) - Reinvented an ancient high-protein snack with popped water lily seed.www.bohanalife.com ( ) - Reinvented an ancient high-protein snack with popped water lily seed.www.bohanalife.com Hapi Drinks ( Austin, Texas ) Sugar-free kids drink founded with the mission to fight childhood obesity and type II diabetes. www.hapidrinks.com ( ) Sugar-free kids drink founded with the mission to fight childhood obesity and type II diabetes. www.hapidrinks.com IQ BAR ( Boston, Massachusetts ) A nutrition bar formulated for cognitive energy, function, and health. www.eatiqbar.com ( ) A nutrition bar formulated for cognitive energy, function, and health. www.eatiqbar.com Remedy Organics ( Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey ) Delicious plant-based functional beverages made with potent superfoods, ayurvedic herbs and botanicals as well as protein and probiotics. www.remedyorganics.com ( ) Delicious plant-based functional beverages made with potent superfoods, ayurvedic herbs and botanicals as well as protein and probiotics. www.remedyorganics.com Rule Breaker Snacks ( Brooklyn, New York ) - Innovative bean-based treats that are packed with protein and fiber, gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO, free from the top eight allergens and defiantly delicious. www.rulebreakersnacks.com ( ) - Innovative bean-based treats that are packed with protein and fiber, gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO, free from the top eight allergens and defiantly delicious. www.rulebreakersnacks.com Sophie's Kitchen ( Sebastopol, California ) - The first company to make plant-based seafood alternatives which are 100% gluten free, 100% soy free, Non-GMO Project Verified , and Kosher. www.sophieskitchen.com ( ) - The first company to make plant-based seafood alternatives which are 100% gluten free, 100% soy free, Non-GMO Project , and Kosher. www.sophieskitchen.com Too FIT ( Fort Worth, Texas ) - A lifestyle brand dedicated to crafting and delivering the highest quality nutritional supplements to inspire, educate, and fuel the passions and journeys of adventurers, athletes, and weekend warriors. www.toofit.com ( ) - A lifestyle brand dedicated to crafting and delivering the highest quality nutritional supplements to inspire, educate, and fuel the passions and journeys of adventurers, athletes, and weekend warriors. www.toofit.com Torii Labs ( Calabasas, California ) - A health product company creating powerful plant-based functional beverages that balance, build and brighten your body and mind. www.toriilabs.com ( ) - A health product company creating powerful plant-based functional beverages that balance, build and brighten your body and mind. www.toriilabs.com Wildway ( San Antonio, Texas ) - A better-for-you breakfast and snack food company that inspires others with products that provide real nutrition from real food to fuel life's wild adventures. www.wildwayoflife.com ( ) - A better-for-you breakfast and snack food company that inspires others with products that provide real nutrition from real food to fuel life's wild adventures. www.wildwayoflife.com YoFiit ( Toronto, Canada ) - A plant-based company focusing on functional, clean and innovative meal solutions, one of which is a patent-pending high protein, high omega-3 and gum-free chickpea milk alternative with flax offering 40 grams of protein per container. www.yofiit.com The finalists were selected by an external and internal committee of PepsiCo leaders, and were chosen based on their product and brand qualities, focus on consumer nutrition, scalability of their business model and uniqueness in the market. "Nutrition Greenhouse was created with the intent of supporting change-making startups of the future," said Daniel Grubbs, Managing Director, PepsiCo Ventures Group. "We are very excited to collaborate with, help grow, and learn from these incredible companies. Each finalist is unique in their own way, but one thing they all share is they're mission-driven and purposeful, which is very much aligned with our own Performance with Purpose agenda." For additional information and updates on the program, visit www.nutritiongreenhouse.com/NorthAmerica. *The descriptions of each startup are based on the respective company's own words. PepsiCo has not verified the accuracy of the product claims of the companies, does not endorse, and is not responsible for the content, actions, or omissions of the companies. Quotes from Nutrition Greenhouse North America Finalists: Nadine Habayeb , Co-Founder and CEO, Bohana : "The company was founded in 2017 to introduce popped water lily seeds to the US market, on the promise to always create food that is natural, nutritious, sustainable and delicious. As first-time entrepreneurs, the guidance from industry veterans who have decades of experience and access to cutting-edge innovation is invaluable. We believe Bohana has huge potential and under the mentorship of the PepsiCo team we can scale and build an impactful and successful company." : Karsten Idsal, President and Co-Founder, Hapi Drinks : "Hapi Drinks has the opportunity to be the leading zero-sugar food and beverage brand. By participating in PepsiCo's Nutrition Greenhouse program we would have a great opportunity to realize that goal and help establish Hapi Drinks as the leading sugar-free company. I am eager to work with our mentor and the Nutrition Greenhouse team to accelerate the growth of Hapi Drinks in its current format and develop new ideas that we may bring to market in the future." : Will Nitze , CEO, IQ Bar : " We are the only bar built for the brain, the only bar that hits the Keto + Paleo + Vegan trifecta, and the only bar that contains the brain-boosting Lion's Mane Extract. While we have made strides in the past year, we stand to gain a great deal of knowhow from our PepsiCo mentor, especially in the fields of supply chain and operations." : " Cindy Kasindorf , Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Remedy Organics: ""We are focused on disrupting the food and beverage industry by bringing delicious Functional Nutrition to mainstream channels in a manner that has never been done before. We applied to the PepsiCo Nutrition Greenhouse because we believe the knowledge and mentorship that we can receive from the brightest minds in the beverage industry will be pivotal for our brand and allow us to accelerate our growth." Nancy Kalish , Founder and CEO, Rule Breaker: "Rule Breaker Snacks harness the power of beans along with other wholesome ingredients to create truly delicious, indulgent and guilt-free goodies that anyone can feel good about eating or feeding to their children. Over the past three years we have expanded dramatically both within the broad marketplace as a disruptor in the better-for-you treat space as well as within key niche segments. As we continue to look to the future and the inherent challenges in scaling up, we are thrilled and honored to have this opportunity to learn and collaborate with industry leaders and innovators." Eugene Wang , Founder and CEO, Sophie's Kitchen : "We believe there are tremendous opportunities for plant-based foods. Coming from a family where Buddhism and vegetarian food manufacturing are deeply rooted in our DNA, I knew the time was right for the world to have access to healthier and more sustainable alternatives to real seafood. We're looking forward to collaborating with world class PepsiCo mentors to learn strategies for growing our business and making it more successful in North America , as well as globally. : Joshua Uptmore , CEO and Co-Founder, Too Fit: "We craft the highest quality nutritional supplements for adventurers, athletes, and anyone seeking to optimally fuel their body. When I discovered the program and read the criteria and mission of the program, I immediately knew it was a perfect fit. We are in a prime position to substantially grow and I believe the program will be an incredible opportunity to learn and gain skills that we can apply to our business." Giles Hayward , CEO and Founder, Torii Labs : " Torii Labs was founded in 2016 to provide natural alternatives to the over stimulating, unhealthy products that can erode our health over the long-term. I am committed to building the leading fortified beverage/liquid supplement company in the US and I need the right mentors and support system to help me grow efficiently and quickly." : Kyle Koehler , Co-founder, Wildway: "Four years ago we set out to create a company that fuels and inspires life's great adventures. We hope to learn from the experience and knowledge of those involved in the program on how we can effectively grow and shape Wildway for continued growth and expansion in order to further spread our health and wellness focused mission to as many people as possible." Marie Amazan , President and CEO, YoFiit: "YoFiit was created with the mission to design plant based products that would rival their animal-derived counterparts in terms of their functionality and application. Our company is at this tipping point where we are getting traction with our initial launch and we are ready to start scaling up, but only in an optimal fashion. So having access to PepsiCo's leadership is a golden opportunity because such unparalleled expertise is like money to a bootstrapped company like ours, looking to stretch every dollar further." Media Contact: Allyanna Anglim [email protected] SOURCE PepsiCo, Inc. Related Links http://www.pepsico.com RICHMOND, Va., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- More Americans are traveling for Thanksgiving than ever, according to Allianz Global Assistance's Top 10 Thanksgiving Destination Index, which saw an eight percent increase in travelers from 2017. For the fourth year running, New York City and Cancun are Americans' preferred domestic and international Thanksgiving destinations, respectively. Allianz Global Assistance reviewed Americans' travel plans* around Thanksgiving, with travel scheduled between November 17 and 27, 2018. After the Big Apple, the top U.S. destinations in order of popularity include Atlanta, Los Angeles, Orlando, Boston, Dallas, Seattle, Detroit, Phoenix and Minneapolis. Detroit, Phoenix and Minneapolis are new to the list this year, knocking out Chicago, San Francisco and D.C. who were featured in the 2017 rankings. While travel to Cancun is down from last year (8.7 percent), it still tops the international destinations list, and Mexico as a country claims four spots total: San Jose Del Cabo at number five, Puerto Vallarta at nine and Mexico City at ten. The other Top 10 destinations in order of popularity are: London, Paris, San Juan, Montego Bay, Nassau and Punta Cana. Punta Cana and Mexico City both make their debut in the international Top 10 index this year, and San Juan reclaimed its spot after holding third place in 2015 and 2016 but falling off in 2017 following Hurricane Maria. More distant destinations like Tokyo, which made the top 10 the past three years, and Italian cities Rome and Nassau did not make this year's list after inclusion in the Top 10 in 2017. The day before Thanksgiving (Wednesday, November 21) is the busiest departure day according to Allianz's index, and Sunday, November 25 is the busiest return date. "Our annual index finds that Thanksgiving travel is up eight percent from 2017," said Daniel Durazo, director of communications and marketing at Allianz Global Assistance USA. "And despite a tough year for Mexico, Americans are still visiting the destination in droves. Whether heading to Mexico for a beach getaway or visiting family in the states, the right travel insurance policy can provide the peace of mind needed to make this busy travel period as stress-free as possible." Allianz Global Assistance offers travel insurance** through most major U.S. airlines, leading travel agents, online travel agencies and directly to consumers. For more information on Allianz Global Assistance and the policies offered for travelers, please visit: http://www.allianztravelinsurance.com or like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/AllianzTravelInsuranceUS. *Methodology: The data of U.S. travelers' 2018 Thanksgiving plans was gathered by analyzing the number of customers that went through the online booking process of airfare and package paths for partners offering Allianz Global Assistance travel insurance to generate itineraries for roundtrip flights departing from U.S. airports from 11/17/2018 11/22/2018, returning 11/22/2018 11/27/2018. Thanksgiving Travel Data For Americans Rank Domestic International 2018 2017 2016 2015 2018 2017 2016 2015 1 New York New York New York New York Cancun Cancun Cancun Cancun 2 Atlanta Atlanta Los Angeles Los Angeles London London London London 3 Los Angeles Los Angeles Orlando Orlando Paris Paris San Juan San Juan 4 Orlando Orlando San Francisco Chicago San Juan Puerto Vallarta Tokyo Paris 5 Boston Boston Boston San Francisco San Jose Del Cabo Tokyo Paris San Jose Del Cabo 6 Dallas Chicago Atlanta Atlanta Montego Bay San Jose Del Cabo Puerto Vallarta Puerto Vallarta 7 Seattle San Francisco Chicago Boston Nassau Montego Bay San Jose Del Cabo Tokyo 8 Detroit Dallas Newark Fort Lauderdale Punta Cana Rome Hong Kong Aruba 9 Phoenix Washington, D.C. Las Vegas Newark Puerto Vallarta Nassau Aruba Bangkok 10 Minneapolis Seattle Fort Lauderdale Las Vegas Mexico City Aruba Sydney Hong Kong Allianz Global Assistance USA Allianz Global Assistance USA is a leading consumer specialty insurance and assistance company with operation centers in 35 countries. In the United States, Allianz Global Assistance USA (AGA Service Company) serves 35 million customers annually and is best known for its Allianz Travel Insurance plans. In addition to travel insurance, Allianz Global Assistance USA offers tuition insurance, event ticket protection, registration protection for endurance events and unique travel assistance services such as international medical assistance and concierge services. The company also serves as an outsource provider for in-bound call center services and claims administration for property and casualty insurers and credit card companies. To learn more about Allianz Travel Insurance, please visit allianztravelinsurance.com or Like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/AllianzTravelInsuranceUS. **Terms, conditions, and exclusions apply to all plans. Plans are available only to U.S. residents. Not all plans are available in all jurisdictions. For a complete description of the coverage and benefit limits offered under your plan, carefully review your plan's Letter of Confirmation/Declarations and Certificate of Insurance/Policy. Insurance coverage is underwritten by BCS Insurance Company (OH, Administrative Office: Oakbrook Terrace, IL), rated "A" (Excellent) by A.M. Best Co., under BCS Form No. 52.201 series or 52.401 series, or Jefferson Insurance Company (NY, Administrative Office: Richmond, VA), rated "A+" (Superior) by A.M. Best Co., under Jefferson Form No. 101C series or 101P series, depending on state of residence. Allianz Travel Insurance products are distributed by Allianz Global Assistance, a brand of AGA Service Company. AGA Service Company is the licensed producer and administrator of these plans and an affiliate of Jefferson Insurance Company. The insured shall not receive any special benefit or advantage due to the affiliation between AGA Service Company and Jefferson Insurance Company. Noninsurance benefits/products are provided and serviced by AGA Service Company. SOURCE Allianz Global Assistance USA Related Links http://www.allianztravelinsurance.com "Dr. Lee's discoveries have marked milestones in our understanding of how Parkinson's originates and progresses and paved the way for new treatment strategies," said MJFF CEO Todd Sherer, PhD. "She is a leader in the study of neurodegenerative diseases and has helped mentor the next generation of neuroscientists. Her research could ultimately lead to breakthroughs for the millions who live with Parkinson's disease." Sherer and Michael J. Fox presented the prize to Lee at a Foundation event in New York City on November 10, 2018. Lee, a biochemist, began investigating misfolded proteins that accumulate in the brains of people with neurodegenerative disease in the 1990s. In 1997, she and her colleagues identified alpha-synuclein protein as the key component of Lewy bodies, the hallmark protein clumps found in people with Parkinson's disease. Her laboratory later provided the first proof that misfolded alpha-synuclein molecules act as seeds, triggering proteins to clump together. Later, using a new preclinical model of Parkinson's, she showed that these seeds travel from cell to cell propagating pathological alpha-synuclein, leading to disease progression, loss of dopamine and movement difficulties. This finding added weight to a leading hypothesis that misfolded proteins are transmitted through the nervous system, contributing to Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative disorders. Lee continues to study subtypes of alpha-synuclein; this research is aimed at explaining the diversity of clinical symptoms of Parkinson's and the relationship of Parkinson's to diseases such as multiple system atrophy and Alzheimer's. She also is a partner in MJFF's flagship Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative, helping to develop and test ways to measure biomarkers in people with Parkinson's. The Robert A. Pritzker Prize for Leadership in Parkinson's Research, awarded annually by MJFF since 2011, was established by Karen Pritzker, daughter of Robert A. Pritzker, and her late husband, investor Michael Vlock. Their gift provides a $100,000 research grant to the Pritzker Prize winner each year, and Pritzker and Vlock have been generous donors to MJFF. "I'm very proud to be the recipient of the 2018 Robert A. Pritzker Prize. And even prouder to be the first female to receive this honor," says Lee. "Some of the most distinguished people in Parkinson's research have received this prize, so I am honored to be among them." Lee says the grant will allow her "to think out of the box, and do some creative science. Hopefully that will make a difference for Parkinson's disease patients." About the Robert A. Pritzker Prize for Leadership in Parkinson's Research The Robert A. Pritzker Prize for Leadership in Parkinson's Research is named in honor of the late Robert A. Pritzker, a renowned industrialist, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Pritzker was founder of The Marmon Group and president of Colson Associates, Inc., holding companies for a variety of manufacturing and medical businesses. Additionally, he was an early promoter of the field of medical engineering at his alma mater, the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago, where he also played a key role in expanding the biomedical research community through his support of The Pritzker Institute for Biomedical Science and Engineering at IIT. The MJFF Scientific Advisory Board serves as the jury panel. Selection criteria include the nominee's complete body of work in the PD field with an emphasis on its impact on accelerating drug development; field-wide impact of the nominee's work; dedication to patient-relevant science; and influence on and encouragement of the next generation of PD investigators. The award itself is designed by renowned artist and Parkinson's patient Tom Shannon. About The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research As the world's largest nonprofit funder of Parkinson's research, The Michael J. Fox Foundation is dedicated to accelerating a cure for Parkinson's disease and improved therapies for those living with the condition today. The Foundation pursues its goals through an aggressively funded, highly targeted research program coupled with active global engagement of scientists, Parkinson's patients, business leaders, clinical trial participants, donors and volunteers. In addition to funding more than $800 million in research to date, the Foundation has fundamentally altered the trajectory of progress toward a cure. Operating at the hub of worldwide Parkinson's research, the Foundation forges groundbreaking collaborations with industry leaders, academic scientists and government research funders; increases the flow of participants into Parkinson's disease clinical trials with its online tool, Fox Trial Finder; promotes Parkinson's awareness through high-profile advocacy, events and outreach; and coordinates the grassroots involvement of thousands of Team Fox members around the world. For more information, visit us at michaeljfox.org, on Facebook or Twitter. SOURCE The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research Related Links https://www.michaeljfox.org/ The scope for the ECFM project includes design upgrades to the facility's electrical, mechanical and structural capabilities, altering approximately 50,000 square feet of the data center floor space. This includes adding 15,100 tons of cooling capacity and an additional 40 megawatts of power through parallel 115 kV transmission lines. An accelerated schedule will prepare the facility for the first exascale machine in 2022 and the second in 2028. "At a quintillion (a billion billion) calculations each second, exascale computing has potential to drive discoveries across the spectrum of scientific fields and have a profound impact on everyday life," says Anna Maria Bailey, high performance computing chief engineer, LLNL. "The exascale supercomputers will surpass the fastest computers in today's world, analyze massive volumes of data and simulate complex processes and relationships." Burns & McDonnell is teaming with members of the original Terascale Computing Facility design team for the facility, including RMW Architecture, Forell/Elsesser Engineers and BKF Engineers. The team also includes RHAA Landscape Architects and Leland Saylor Associates. "Exascale is the next era of computing and our team is ready and committed to successfully deliver the project to help make it possible," says Dave Barr, vice president and Federal practice leader, Burns & McDonnell. "The team will use our extensive experience with the NNSA and Department of Energy, in-depth knowledge of the regional transmission and LLNL electrical distribution system, critical HVAC requirements and existing computing facility to help the client solve complex issues for this mission-critical project." Project completion is expected in 2022. Burns & McDonnell works on diverse projects and provides services for federal and military clients worldwide. Learn more about comprehensive services available for military and federal projects. For photos and support materials, please visit our MEDIA KIT. About Burns & McDonnell Burns & McDonnell is a family of companies made up of more than 6,000 engineers, architects, construction professionals, scientists, consultants and entrepreneurs with offices across the country and throughout the world. We strive to create amazing success for our clients and amazing careers for our employee-owners. Burns & McDonnell is 100 percent employee-owned and is proud to be on Fortune's 2018 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. For more information, visit burnsmcd.com . Contact: Mary Young, Burns & McDonnell 816-822-4369 [email protected] SOURCE Burns & McDonnell Related Links http://www.burnsmcd.com JOHNSTOWN, Colo., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Northstar Liquor Superstore, a 25,000-square-foot liquor store in Johnstown, is celebrating its grand opening from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018, at their new location, 4919 Thompson Parkway, Johnstown, Colorado, 80534, just south of the Promenade Shops at Centerra. Northstar Liquor Superstore is the largest independent liquor store between Denver and Cheyenne. "We know there are a lot of mom and pop type options already out there," said Jerry Kasten, Northstar Liquor Superstore's Marketing Director. "We really felt the customer-facing relationship was something that was lacking in other liquor stores in the area. We have people on the floor all day, every day, who really know their stuff. We think we're going to be able to provide a great customer experience to a region that has a very dynamic and diverse population." Formed by a coalition of Colorado-based owners, Northstar Liquor Superstore will provide Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming residents with a wide variety of 1,600 domestic and imported craft beers, 3,700 domestic and international brands of wine, and a broad selection of high-end and limited allocation liquor and spirits. The store will also have a large, walk-in humidor for cigar enthusiasts. "Our broad line of wine, beer and spirits have brought a unique enthusiasm to our management team together with our diverse suppliers to help us build a relationship that will not only meet our customer's expectations but expand their enjoyment with each purchase made when shopping at Northstar Liquor Superstore," Kasten said. "We're proud of the selection that we have available, and we think our customers are going to be excited by it." The grand opening event will include free tastings of select wine, beer, and liquors, as well as food, giveaways, and an opportunity to win a 55-inch flat screen television. For directions or questions, please contact Northstar Liquor Superstore directly at (970) 660-8921. Contact: Ravyn Garbardi 970-660-8921 [email protected] SOURCE Northstar Liquor Superstore Related Links https://www.northstarliquorsuperstore.com SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nurx , a consumer health company offering easy online access to physicians and seamless delivery of medications, today announced Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA will join the telemedicine company's board of directors. With Dr. Benjamin's strong commitment to prevention she will advise the company on public health and population health issues. "As a practicing physician in rural Alabama to the United States Surgeon General, Dr. Benjamin has consistently demonstrated her commitment to community health and pushing for innovative healthcare solutions," said Nurx CEO Hans Gangeskar. "We are thrilled that Dr. Benjamin will bring these same insights to Nurx." Dr. Benjamin joins Nurx as it continues to build a new type of telemedicine service, with a special focus on those who often lack access to affordable healthcare services and prescription medications. Initially starting with birth control, Nurx has since added PrEP, a prevention medication aimed at HIV negative patients. Nurx is currently the only company that offers an at-home test kit and PrEP medication, removing a crucial barrier for treatment. "I have always been committed to ensuring everyone has access to quality affordable healthcare, regardless of their income or where they live," said Dr. Benjamin. "I look forward to working with the Nurx team as they break down barriers to care, increase access, and ultimately help improve the health of the nation." In addition to an MBA degree, Dr. Benjamin's career in medicine and public health makes her exceptionally qualified to advise Nurx. She was the first physician under the age of 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees and was Chair of its Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. She has received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights and the 2000 National Caring Award, which was inspired by Mother Teresa. She became the first female African-American president of a state medical society in the United States when she assumed leadership of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama. She is Founder and CEO of BayouClinic, Inc and of the Gulf States Health Policy Center. Dr. Benjamin serves on several boards, including two large health systems, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan, Inc. and Ascension, Inc. Founded in 2015 by Hans Gangeskar and Dr. Edvard Engesth, Nurx is addressing critical public health issues through its telemedicine platform, which integrates an owned-and-operated pharmacy, a network of partner physicians, and a mobile telehealth app to create a seamless, end-to-end digital health experience for customers. Through Nurx, people can safely and securely consult with licensed medical providers, have their medications delivered to their home, obtain ongoing information about their medication, and ask questions at any time. Nurx also works with most forms of insurance, enabling the majority of insurance customers to receive affordable medication. Nurx is currently available in 21 states and the District of Columbia. In addition to Dr. Benjamin's appointment, Nurx also recently welcomed public health leader Chelsea Clinton to its board of directors and raised $36 million in Series B funding. About Nurx Nurx is a telemedicine platform offering easy online access to medical providers and seamless delivery of medications. No more time-consuming trips to the clinic and no more frantic pharmacy runs. We put you in control of your own health, empowering you to get the care you need, when you need it. Starting with birth control and PrEP for HIV prevention, Nurx is available in 20 states and counting. From diagnosis to delivery of prescriptions, we make every part of getting healthy and staying healthy, better. For more information and to signup, visit www.nurx.com and follow us @nurxapp on Twitter and Instagram . Media Contact Allison Berry Communications Lead [email protected] (650) 799 2676 SOURCE Nurx Related Links http://www.nurx.com "The Ocean Spray Community Fund is directly tied to our purpose: connecting our farms to families for a better life," said Kellyanne Dignan, Director, Global Corporate Affairs for Ocean Spray. "Each of these grants is an investment in organizations and people in our communities who join us in living this purpose and improving the places that we call home." Ocean Spray established its Community Fund in 2016 to directly support nonprofit organizations in communities where it operates. Since then, the Cooperative has distributed grants up to $5,000 each year, helping more than 200 nonprofits to date. Completed 2017 projects include building a community park and playground in Wisconsin, providing produce for a kitchen that serves New Jersey's homeless, repairing old homes for those in need in Philadelphia, and purchasing a computer for job searches at a men's home in Massachusetts. "As cranberry growers, we are deeply rooted in our communities, so we understand the value of building safer, healthier places to farm, work and live," shared Ocean Spray Farmer-Owner Heidi Slinkman of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. "The Ocean Spray Community Fund is the perfect extension of our commitment to community well-being." Heidi referred one local nonprofit that is close to her heart United Way of South Wood & Adams Counties Women United to apply for a grant to fund its program promoting literacy among children ages 0-5. Ocean Spray provided a grant to the program to build personal libraries for children to encourage a love of reading at a young age. "We are honored to receive an Ocean Spray Community Fund grant as we partner with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to deliver literacy opportunities to local children before they enter school," shared Tari Jahns, Chief Executive Officer of United Way of South Wood & Adams Counties. "As part of a cranberry-growing community, we are grateful for the Cooperative's support through the Community Fund, as well as Farmer-Owners' and their employees' time and energy towards our initiatives." In addition to its Community Fund, Ocean Spray fosters employees' donations to charities of their choice through its Employee Matching Gift Program and offers Employee Volunteer Days to take time out of work to contribute to causes that are important to them. The Cooperative is also involved in community events throughout its regions and supports organizations that aid families and communities in times of critical need through blood drives, disaster relief and other forms of assistance. Nonprofits with a 503c designation that operate in one of Ocean Spray's regions Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Nevada as well as British Columbia and Eastern Canada (defined as Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) can apply to the 2019 Community Fund in the spring of next year. Please visit www.oceanspray.com/communityfund for more information about the fund and the application process. About Ocean Spray Ocean Spray is a vibrant agricultural cooperative owned by more than 700 cranberry farmers in the United States, Canada and Chile who have helped preserve the family farming way of life for generations. Formed in 1930, Ocean Spray is now the world's leading producer of cranberry juices, juice drinks and dried cranberries and is the best-selling brand in the North American bottled juice category. The Cooperative's cranberries are currently featured in more than a thousand great-tasting, good-for-you products in over 100 countries worldwide. With more than 2,000 employees and nearly 20 cranberry receiving and processing facilities, Ocean Spray is committed to managing our business in a way that respects our communities, employees and the environment. For more information visit: www.oceanspray.com. SOURCE Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. Related Links http://www.oceanspray.com BEIJING, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the next generation smart contract platform GoChain announces its listing on CoinAll (coinall.com), the first Partner Exchange of OKEx. The GO token will be available for deposits on 17:00 Nov 12th (Hong Kong Time, UTC +8). GoChain is a scalable, Ethereum based blockchain that supports smart contracts and distributed applications with high performance at a low cost. It solves the Ethereum scaling problem with immediacy and enables DApp and smart contract developers to lift and shift from Ethereum to GoChain for 100x increased performance. ETH has 13 transactions per second (tps) while NEO has 33, and GO has 1300 tps, while consuming a considerably less amount of energy. GoChain's CTO Travis Reeder was formerly the founder of Iron.io. He has been building infrastructure and applications for over 20 years. While at Iron, his team pioneered Serverless Cloud Computing to over 1 million tps. Travis says, "CoinAll is new, but we believe in their vision, their team and we look forward to a long term partnership with them. We have chosen CoinAll, not only because it leads us towards the turnover to OKEx, but also we believe in the power of the ecosystem and the future we can create together. GoChain has a bunch of new ICO projects coming out very soon, and we are looking forward to having a deeper collaboration with CoinAll. " According to CoinAll's official website, the GO token will begin trading on CoinAll Exchange on 17:00 Nov 13th (Hong Kong Time, UTC +8) . CoinAll Exchange will also hold airdrop events until Nov 20th for eligible traders, who will be able to win a share of 850,000 GO rewarded for depositing, 6 BTC for buying. As the world's first community-based autonomous exchange, CoinAll adopts the advanced and secure technology of OKEx, including the world-class order matching system, digital asset wallet, and funds settlement system. CoinAll shares OKEx's massive user base of more than 20M users. All OKEx accounts can be used to log into CoinAll and trade without further registration. SOURCE CoinAll SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- PAX Labs, Inc., a leading consumer technology brand in cannabis, today announced a pledge supporting our nation's heroes, through a sponsorship commitment of $100,000 to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). Throughout the month of November, PAX will spotlight cannabis as a force for good, partnering with veteran-owned companies LEVEL Blends and Gold Seal SF, as well as the Cannabition Museum in Las Vegas, to support the veterans' community. PAX is helping shape the conversation about cannabis as a positive resource for veterans -- showcasing the importance of programs that educate and provide resources for veterans and veteran-owned businesses. Advocating for greater accessibility to cannabis, creating jobs within the industry and supporting veteran-owned businesses are amongst the company's top priorities. "We have tremendous respect for those who serve their country, and we acknowledge the responsibility we have to promote the happiness, economic success and overall well-being of our veterans," said Bharat Vasan, CEO, PAX. "We especially want to thank our partners, LEVEL Blends and Gold Seal SF, both veteran-owned businesses, for joining us and caring so deeply about this cause." "Veterans have consistently and passionately communicated that cannabis helps them address a variety of issues," commented Paul Rieckhoff, Founder and Executive Director of IAVA. "Bringing the conversation about cannabis out of the shadows and getting veterans the access they deserve is vital. PAX has shown strong support for our mission, and we are thankful for their efforts. We look forward to continuing our work with PAX and to improving the dialogue with state and federal governments and get veterans the access they need to cannabis." Pay It Forward PAX, alongside partners LEVEL Blends and Gold Seal SF, is making a donation to IAVA through a limited-edition "Pay it Forward" pod release. These two veteran-owned-and-operated companies share in PAX's belief that veterans deserve better access to cannabis than is currently available to them. Paring LEVEL Blends' development of unique and rare cannabinoids to create custom cannabis experiences, Gold Leaf SF's boutique and locally-driven cultivator understanding, and PAX's advanced technology with temperature controls for the perfect vaporization experience and flavor profiles, the "Pay it Forward" pod will offer a 1:1 CBD/THC ratio formulated with the needs of the veterans' community in mind. The "Pay it Forward" pod retails at $40.00, with all proceeds benefiting IAVA, and is available wherever LEVEL Blends pods are sold. PAX Labs Giving Tree at Cannabition Museum in Las Vegas Consumers can also join PAX in supporting IAVA by pledging their donation via The Giving Tree at the Cannabition Museum in Las Vegas, which gives consumers an immersive experience into the world of cannabis through art and culture. To engage the cannabis community in a way that directly supports veterans, PAX is matching all Giving Tree donations during November. November 8 IAVA Heroes Gala in New York City Rounding out the program, PAX joined IAVA at the 12th Annual IAVA Heroes Gala, an event where cannabis and veteran issues were front and center. This kick-off event commenced a partnership that will drive awareness for cannabis and veteran education by developing resource programs, aiding in research surrounding cannabis as a viable source of relief for veterans, and advocating for policy change surrounding the availability of cannabis for veterans. About PAX Labs, Inc. Founded in 2007 and spun off into an independent company from JUUL Labs in 2017, the company is a leader in the design and development of premium cannabis vaporization technologies and devices. Headquartered in San Francisco, PAX has revolutionized the industry through innovation and product design. PAX has sold over one million PAX devices in the flower vaporizer category and introduced PAX Era, a connected, app-driven pod system for concentrates, in September 2016. For more information, please visit pax.com. About IAVA Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is a leading global organization for veterans' advocacy and support. Founded by Iraq veteran Paul Rieckhoff in 2004, IAVA fights for veterans. Hard. IAVA is the tip-of-the-spear, not-for-profit engine of impact that connects, unites and empowers over 400,000 veterans and allies nationwide. IAVA organizes locally and drives historic impacts nationally. About LEVEL Blends Level Blends is a cannabinoid company that facilitates custom cannabis experiences for patients and consumers. Developed and manufactured in San Francisco, LEVEL's products are founded in unique and rare cannabinoids. This approach allows individuals to discover the untapped potential of cannabis. LEVEL's mission is to create the toolkits needed to embark on an individual cannabis journey. About Gold Seal SF Gold Seal SF provides a variety of boutique, exotic strains of flower for the cannabis connoisseur. Gold Seal believes that exceptional flowers come from the healthiest plants. ABOUT Cannabition Museum Cannabition Museum, the world's only immersive, cannabis-themed attraction of its kind, is located in downtown Las Vegas. Its exhibits comprise elaborate, cannabis-inspired installations built by leading experiential exhibit and event designers. Cannabition offers audiences an entertaining, educational and photogenic journey through 12 "Instagrammable" exhibits, providing unique opportunities to interact with cannabis history, science, wellness and culture. SOURCE PAX Labs, Inc. During its annual company conference in Orlando, Florida, Pet Supermarket and Pet Valu presented a joint check of $892,689 to Ron Aiello, president of the United States War Dogs Association, Inc. in support of active-duty military dogs and their handlers, as well as retiring military and police canines. In addition, following Pet Valu's $186,000 donation to America's VetDogs in March of 2018, the nonprofit announced Pet Valu's sponsorship of a third veteran and guide dog team. "The work these organizations are doing for our veterans and service canines is honorable and important to Pet Valu," said Joe Dent, chief store operations officer for Pet Valu. "We've made it our mission each year to raise enough money to provide these dogs with equipment they need; fund transportation back to the U.S. after service; memorialize fallen canine soldiers; and find forever homes for the veteran dogs after service. It's an honor to support heroes at both ends of the leash, and we're proud to have such a generous customer base that supports this important mission." Together, Pet Valu and Pet Supermarket have raised more than $600,000 for America's VetDogs since 2014, and over $2 million for the United States War Dogs Association, Inc. since 2010. About Pet Valu Pet Valu is a specialty retailer of premium pet food, treats, toys and accessories. Their pet-friendly stores offer over 7,000 products including holistic and premium brands of pet foods and treats as well as a wide selection of essential and innovative pet supplies to suit every budget. Chain-wide, Pet Valu is dedicated to helping local pets in need and by partnering with local shelters, rescues and charities through national donation drives and fundraising campaigns. Pet Valu employees are Pet Experts and pet lovers, too. About Pet Supermarket Pet Supermarket is a one-stop pet shop for customers, offering a broad selection of premium pet food, supplies and services sold by trained professional staff who provide knowledgeable and friendly advice, enhancing the overall customer experience. Their stores provide pet parents with the convenience to shop locally in a community-oriented and caring environment, delivered by employees who develop lasting connections with their customers. To learn more about Pet Supermarket, please visit https://www.petsupermarket.com. About America's VetDogs Since 2003, America's VetDogs has trained and placed guide and service dogs to provide independence, enhanced mobility, and companionship to veterans with disabilities from all eras. In 2015, VetDogs opened its programs to first responders, including fire, police, and emergency medical personnel. America's VetDogs is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization founded by the Guide Dog Foundation. VetDogs relies on contributions from generous individuals, corporations, service clubs, and foundations to fund its mission to help those who have served our country live with dignity and independence. It costs over $50,000 to breed, raise, train, and place one assistance dog, but America's VetDogs provides its services completely free of charge to the individual. It is only the second assistance dog school in the United States to be certified by the International Guide Dog Federation and Assistance Dogs International. For more information, visit www.VetDogs.org and be sure to catch Charlie, the VetDogs "Puppy with a Purpose," daily on NBC's TODAY. About The United States War Dogs Association The United States War Dogs Association, Inc. is a nonprofit organization of former and current U.S. Military Dog Handlers and supporting members committed to promoting the long history of the Military Service Dogs, establishing permanent War Dog Memorials and educating the public about the invaluable service of these canines to the United States. Find out more information about War Dogs online at https://www.uswardogs.org/. MEDIA CONTACT: Bridget Forney, PROFILES 410-243-3790, [email protected] SOURCE Pet Supermarket / Pet Valu VALLEY COTTAGE, New York, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the latest research by the company, the global pharma-grade synthetic camphor market size is anticipated to be valued at US$ 532.0 Mn, by 2028 end. The report on pharma-grade synthetic camphor market further projects significant growth potential with average year-on-year growth rate pegged at 4.1% through 2028. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/677274/Future_Market_Insights_Logo.jpg ) Growing demand for topical pain management products is expected to propel the growth of pharma-grade synthetic camphor market. Pharma-grade synthetic camphor is used in many topical analgesic products such as oils, ointments, chest rubs, and gel. These pharma-grade synthetic camphor pain management products are experiencing significant growth due to lesser side effect compare to oral analgesic and expanded retail channel access. Increasing self-medication rate and availability of cost-effective camphor contained OTC analgesic favors the growth of pharma-grade synthetic camphor market growth. Growing incidence of infectious diseases such as cold, flu augmented the use of cold sore remedies, nasal decongestants, topical expectorants etc. which in turn would drive the growth of pharma-grade synthetic camphor market. Increasing use of private labeled topical products containing camphor push the demand for pharma-grade synthetic camphor. Private label analgesic is gaining popularity in the U.S. market as they do not require FDA approval and strong promotion activities by retailers. Walgreens Ultra Strength Muscle Rub (4% camphor), Salonpas pain relieving patch (1.2% camphor) are the examples of private label analgesic which contain camphor. Surge in commodity export, economic growth and production capacity are expected to boost the growth of pharma-grade synthetic camphor market. A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7564 However, regulatory restrictions on the use of camphor in the medicine of pharmaceutical products would considerably impact the growth of pharma-grade synthetic camphor market. Moreover, increasing raw material prices are expected to hamper the growth of pharma-grade synthetic camphor market. Thus, growing prices of raw materials i.e. alpha pinene or turpentine oil is a major challenge for the manufacturers of pharma-grade synthetic camphor. Company has segmented the global pharma-grade synthetic camphor market into formulation, application, distribution, and regions. Based on the formulation, pharma-grade synthetic camphor market is segmented into topical and inhalation. The topical segment is expected to represent a highest revenue share in pharma-grade synthetic camphor market as high number of marketed products and vast applications. Applications of pharma-grade synthetic camphor included in the report are respiratory disorders applications, muscular rheumatism, counterirritant & antipruritic and others (topical analgesic, cold sores, minor burns, antifungal, hemorrhoids, topical antitussive & expectorant, astringent, rubefacient, etc.). Others segment expected to contributes highest market value in global pharma-grade synthetic camphor market. Based on the distribution channel, pharma-grade synthetic camphor market is segmented into conventional B2B and online B2B channel. In terms of revenue, conventional B2B segment would hold significant revenue share in pharma-grade synthetic camphor market over the forecast period. Preview Analysis On Pharma-grade Synthetic Camphor Market Segmentation By Formulation - topical and inhalation; Application - respiratory disorders, muscular rheumatism, counterirritant & antipruritic; Distribution Channel - conventional B2B and online B2B channel: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/pharma-grade-synthetic-camphor-market On the basis of region, the global pharma-grade synthetic camphor market has been segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Asia Pacific excluding China & Japan, China, Japan, and the Middle East & Africa. North America is expected to contribute highest revenue share in global pharma-grade synthetic camphor market. The demand of pharma-grade synthetic camphor has increased in North America, as increasing production of camphor contained private label and OTC products. China is expected to witness the highest growth rate in pharma-grade synthetic camphor market due to presence of the larger number of pharma-grade synthetic camphor manufactures. Pharma-grade synthetic camphor manufactures are mainly concentrated in China and India and they export their chemicals to the U.S. and Europe. Moreover, due to its growing contribution to the global industry, Asia Pacific is emerging as a focused destination for global manufacturers of camphor and related chemicals. Report tracks some of the key companies operating in the global pharma-grade synthetic camphor market. Representative players included in the global pharma-grade synthetic camphor market report are Merck KGaA, Oriental Aromatics Limited, Saptagir Camphor Limited, Mangalam Organics Limited, Nippon Fine Chemical Co., Ltd., Rochem International, Inc., Spectrum Chemical Mfg. Corp., Aldon Corporation, Prinova Group LLC. and Fengchen Group Co., Ltd. Manufactures are focusing on improvement of the supply chain which expected to provide huge opportunities to them over the forecast period. Request Report TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-7564 More from Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Medical devices: Cable Flange Market Segmentation By coupling mechanism: Switch, NIC, Bulkhead coupler, Clip, Bayonet; connectivity mechanism: C, MHV, BNC, UHF, SHV; construction: Metal, Plastic; utility: Disposable, Reusable; applications: Equipment Interfaces, Therapeutic, Communications Interfaces, Tubing Interfaces: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/cable-flange-market Segmentation By coupling mechanism: Switch, NIC, Bulkhead coupler, Clip, Bayonet; connectivity mechanism: C, MHV, BNC, UHF, SHV; construction: Metal, Plastic; utility: Disposable, Reusable; applications: Equipment Interfaces, Therapeutic, Communications Interfaces, Tubing Interfaces: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/cable-flange-market Rare Inflammatory Disease Treatment Market Segmentation By Indication Type - Ulcerative Colitis,Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis,Psoriatic Arthritis,Other Indications; By Drug Class Type - Biologics,Organic Compounds; By Mode of Administration Type - Injectables,Oral,Others; By Distribution Channel Type - Hospital Pharmacies,Retail Pharmacies,Online Pharmacies: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/rare-inflammatory-disease-treatment-market Segmentation By Indication Type - Ulcerative Colitis,Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis,Psoriatic Arthritis,Other Indications; By Drug Class Type - Biologics,Organic Compounds; By Mode of Administration Type - Injectables,Oral,Others; By Distribution Channel Type - Hospital Pharmacies,Retail Pharmacies,Online Pharmacies: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/rare-inflammatory-disease-treatment-market Ophthalmic Knives Market Segmentation By Aplications: Cataract Surgery, Keratitis Surgery, Glaucoma Surgery; material: Metal Ophthalmic Knives, Diamond Ophthalmic Knives; utility: Reusable Ophthalmic Knives, Disposable Ophthalmic Knives: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/ophthalmic-knives-market About Us Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights and an aerial view of the competitive framework and future market trends. Browse More Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Medical devices Contact Us 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 T (UK): + 44-(0)-20-7692-8790 Sales: [email protected] Press Office: [email protected] FMI Blog: http://www.fmiblog.com/ Website: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com SOURCE Future Market Insights "Several studies have shown the safety and durability benefits of the Stellarex balloon," said Mahmood K. Razavi, MD, FSIR, FSVM, St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange, CA and principal investigator of the ILLUMENATE BTK study. "This study will look at findings that continue to demonstrate the benefits of the Stellarex 0.014 Drug-Coated Balloon for BTK peripheral artery disease (PAD) and its safety and durability for patients. Given the challenging chronic nature of BTK PAD, we are hoping to find that through sustained patency using Stellarex, we can improve healing, and reduce target lesion revascularization and major amputation." "Peripheral artery disease below the knee is challenging and Philips is committed to providing proven clinical solutions that positively impact patient outcomes," said Christopher Barys, Image Guided Therapy Devices Business Leader for Philips. "With Stellarex BTK, we have the potential to improve patient outcomes and decrease re-admission costs for those suffering from this complex disease state, while providing clinicians with the necessary tools to confirm the right therapies for their patients." PAD is prevalent in the U.S. and affects around 250 million people worldwide [1]. If left untreated, the condition can lead to chronic limb ischemia (CLI). CLI associated with infrapopliteal arteries behind the knee often involves long calcified segments [2]. The prognosis is worse in elderly patients with severe comorbidities and limited life expectancy [3]. Therefore, the endovascular treatment of CLI remains a challenge for physicians. In the U.S., 160,000 180,000 amputations are performed annually, with more than 50 percent of cases having no diagnostic or therapeutic endovascular intervention performed in the year before an amputation [4]. Philips' image-guided therapy solutions comprise interventional imaging systems, smart devices, software and services that enable clinicians to decide, guide, treat and confirm the appropriate cardiac and peripheral vascular treatment. By designing intelligent technologies and services that help clinicians to deliver a consistent standard of care, optimize care pathways and integrate workflows, Philips is enabling better patient and population outcomes. The Stellarex 0.014" OTW Drug-Coated Balloon is designed to restore and maintain blood flow to arteries in patients with peripheral arterial disease. The Stellarex 0.014 Drug-Coated Balloon is CE Marked and available in Europe. To find out more about Philips' image-guided therapy solutions visit us at VEITHsymposium in the Philips pavilion (Nassau Suites), taking place in New York, November 13-16. [1] Shu J, Santulli G. Update on peripheral artery disease: Epidemiology and evidence-based facts. Atherosclerosis. 2018;275:379-381. [2] Mustapha JA, Diaz-Sandoval LJ, Saab F. Infrapopliteal calcification patterns in critical limb ischemia: diagnostic, pathologic and therapeutic implications in the search for the endovascular holy grail. J Cardiovasc Surg 2017;58:383-401. DOI: 10.23736/S0021-9509.17.09878-0. [3] Cardiovasc Intervent Radiol. 2018 Jan;41(1):1-20. doi: 10.1007/s00270-017-1796-9. Epub 2017 Sep 18. Predictive Parameters for Clinical Outcome in Patients with Critical Limb Ischemia Who Underwent Percutaneous Transluminal Angioplasty (PTA): A Systematic Review. Schreuder SM1, Hendrix YMGA2, Reekers JA2, Bipat S2. [4] Sanguily III, J., Martinsen, B. J., Igyarto, Z., Pham,M.T. Reducing Amputation Rates in Critical Limb Ischemia Patients Via a Limb Salvage Program: A Retrospective Analysis. Vascular Disease Management. 2016;13(5):E112-E119. For further information, please contact: Mark Groves Philips Group Press Office Tel: +31 631 639 916 E-mail: [email protected] Fabienne van der Feer Philips Image Guided Therapy Tel: + 31 622 698 001 E-mail : [email protected] About Royal Philips Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips generated 2017 sales of EUR 17.8 billion and employs approximately 77,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter. SOURCE Royal Philips Related Links http://www.philips.com SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Platform9 (https://platform9.com/), the leader in SaaS-managed hybrid cloud, today announced it will participate in three industry events in November and December: KubeCon | CloudNativeCon China and North America, and the European Symposium on Serverless Computing and Applications. 1) Erwin van Eyk Shares Cost-Optimization Techniques for Serverless at KubeCon | CloudNativeCon China KubeCon | CloudNativeCon China is a two-day event hosted by Cloud Native Computing Foundation featuring global leaders in cloud native and open source sharing the latest best practices, tools and strategies. Platform9 Software Engineer, Erwin van Eyk, presents "Serverless Performance on a Budget." During the presentation, van Eyk reviews optimization techniques used in popular FaaS platforms and research findings that help optimize the trade-off between cost and performance. He discusses best practices for function reuse, autoscaling, resource pooling, function locality, predictive scheduling, autoscaling, and more. Plus, he shares the opportunities and challenges to make FaaS even faster. Serverless Performance on a Budget November 15, 2018 at 11:30 a.m. CST at KubeCon, Shanghai, China 2) Platform9 Sponsors KubeCon | CloudNativeCon North America Platform9 is proud to support KubeCon | CloudNativeCon North America, taking place December 10-13 in Seattle, WA. Stop by booth G1 for a demo of the industry's only SaaS-managed enterprise Kubernetes solution to see how you can easily manage VMs, Kubernetes or Serverless Functions on any infrastructure - on-premises or in the public cloud. December 10 - 13, 2018 KubeCon North America, Seattle, Washington 3) Erwin van Eyk Presents at European Symposium on Serverless Computing and Applications The European Symposium on Serverless Computing and Applications (ESSCA) is a single-day technical conference that focuses on the future of serverless development practices and application architectures. van Eyk presents "Going FaaSter: Cost-Performance Optimizations of Serverless on Kubernetes." He reviews optimizations used in popular FaaS platforms, and recent research findings that aim to optimize the trade-off between cost and performance. December 21, 2018 ESSCA, Zurich , Germany Share This: Join @erwinvaneyk at @KubeCon_ in Shanghai on November 15 where he presents "#Serverless Performance on a Budget" https://sched.co/FuKT #FaaS @CloudNativeFdn #kubernetes At @KubeCon_ North America, @Platform9Sys shows #Kubernetes that just works! Easily manage VMs, K8s or #Serverless on any infrastructure - on-prem or in the public #cloud, with the industry's only SaaS-managed #hybridcloud platform https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon-cloudnativecon-north-america-2018/ [email protected] takes the stage at the European Symposium on Serverless Computing and Applications December 21 http://essca2018.servicelaboratory.ch/ #serverless #FaaS #kubernetes #cloud About Platform9 Platform9 (platform9.com) delivers a SaaS-managed hybrid cloud solution. We help large enterprises drive digital transformation by taking advantage of a self-service, simple and unified experience for managing their infrastructure across complex hybrid environments and technologies on premises, in the private/public cloud, containers, serverless applications, and more. Customers such as Cadence, Autodesk, Splunk, EBSCO, Bitly, LogMeIn and Aruba see upwards of 300 percent improvement in IT efficiency, 33 percent faster time to market, and 50-80 percent improvement in data center utilization and cost reduction. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, and is backed by Redpoint Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Canvas Ventures and HPE. Media Contact: Olivia Heel Catapult PR-IR 303-581-7760 [email protected] SOURCE Platform9 Related Links http://platform9.com SIOUX FALLS, S.D., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Augustana University and the Center for Western Studies today announced Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as keynote speakers for the 23rd Boe Forum on Public Affairs keynote speakers to be held Tuesday, March 19, 2019. In the early 1970s, Woodward and Bernstein broke the Watergate story for The Washington Post , leading to the resignation of President Richard Nixon and setting the standard for modern investigative reporting, for which they and The Post were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Throughout their respective award-winning careers, both journalists have authored numerous books, and have provided commentary and reporting on government and politics. The 2019 Boe Forum will address "Power, the Press and the Presidency." The First Amendment to the Constitution states that no one may restrict the freedom of speech or of the press. In the era of news, fake news and the role of journalism in democracy, the topic of objective news reporting in American society has been at the forefront of many academic and political discussions. "Together and separately in their professional lives, Woodward and Bernstein have subjected every administration since the 1970s to rigorous analysis for the benefit of the American people," said Dr. Harry Thompson, executive director of the Center for Western Studies at Augustana University. Thompson added that all presidential and political administrations experience an oppositional relationship with the press. "This tension is an indication of a healthy democracy and the community-university Board of Directors for the Center for Western Studies acknowledges this and have chosen to invite iconic and non-partisan investigative journalists Woodward and Bernstein." Augustana University President Stephanie Herseth Sandlin echoed Thompson's remarks. "During their careers, Woodward and Bernstein have demonstrated unprecedented civic responsibility through investigative journalism," Herseth Sandlin said. "Both reporters have shaped the landscape of journalism - from uncovering Watergate, for which they earned a Pulitzer Prize, to their ongoing reporting of politics, presidential administrations, and government. Their insight and perspective on journalism and democracy in the world today will no doubt be both highly engaging and thought-provoking." Since its inception in 1995, the Boe Forum on Public Affairs has sought to provide access to individuals who can address events, issues or problems of worldwide or national concern and of broad public interest. Further details regarding the event, as well as information on free tickets, will be announced in early 2019. About Bob Woodward Former CIA director and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wished he'd recruited Woodward into the CIA, "He has an extraordinary ability to get otherwise responsible adults to spill [their] guts to him . . . his ability to get people to talk about stuff they shouldn't be talking about is just extraordinary and may be unique." Therein lays the genius of Bob Woodward - a journalistic icon who gained international attention when he and Carl Bernstein broke the deeply disturbing news of the Watergate scandal. The book they wrote - All the President's Men - won a Pulitzer Prize. Watergate's theme of secret government is a common thread throughout Woodward's career that has spawned 19 books - all national bestsellers - 13 of them #1 - more than any other contemporary nonfiction author. His 19th book, FEAR: Trump in the White House , sold more than 1.1 million copies in its first week in September 2018 - breaking the 94-year first-week sales record of its publisher Simon & Schuster. No one else in political investigative journalism has the clout, respect, and reputation of Woodward. He has a way of getting insiders to open up in ways that reveal an intimate yet sweeping portrayal of Washington and the political infighting, how we fight wars, the price of politics, how presidents lead, the homeland security efforts, and so much more. His work is meticulous and draws on internal memos, classified documents, meeting notes and hundreds of hours of interviews with most of the key players, including the president. As a speaker, Woodward pulls the curtain back on Washington and its leaders to captivate audiences with stories that are sometimes surprising, at times shocking, and always fascinating. He blends stories that are both up to the minute and from the past (to provide historical context). Woodward speaks as he writes - crisp and concise - and helps people get behind the spin to understand what's really going on in the halls of power in an age of 24-hour news, social media, and snarky politics. Professionally, Bob Woodward is currently associate editor for The Washington Post where he's worked since 1971. He has won nearly every American journalism award, and the Post won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for his work with Carl Bernstein on the Watergate scandal. In addition, Woodward was the main reporter for the Post's articles on the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks that won the National Affairs Pulitzer Prize in 2002. Bob Schieffer of CBS News said "Woodward has established himself as the best reporter of our time. He may be the best reporter of all time." Jill Abramson, the former editor of The New York Times, wrote in her review of Fear for The Washington Post, "Woodward is truth's gold standard." The Weekly Standard called Woodward "the best pure reporter of his generation, perhaps ever." In 2003, Al Hunt of The Wall Street Journal called Woodward "the most celebrated journalist of our age." In listing the all-time 100 best non-fiction books, Time magazine has called All the President's Men, by Bernstein and Woodward, "Perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history." Woodward has co-authored or authored 13 #1 national best-selling non-fiction books. They are: All the President's Men (1974) and The Final Days (1976), both Watergate books, co-authored with Bernstein. The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (1979) co-authored with Scott Armstrong, Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi (1984), Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-87 (1987), The Commanders (1991), The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House (1994), Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate (1999), Bush at War (2002), Plan of Attack (2004), State of Denial: Bush at War Part III (2006), Obama's Wars (2010), and Fear: Trump in the White House (2018). Woodward's other national bestselling books: The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat (2005), The Choice (1996), Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom (2000), The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 (2008), The Price of Politics (2012), and The Last of the President's Men (2015). Newsweek magazine has excerpted six of Woodward's books in headline-making cover stories; "60 Minutes" has done pieces on seven of his books; three of his books have been made into feature films. In November 2017, the online learning portal MasterClass released " Bob Woodward Teaches Investigative Journalism ." In it Woodward reveals the lessons he's learned during his 45-year career, teaching students what truth means, how to uncover it, and how to build a story with it. Woodward was born March 26, 1943 in Illinois. He graduated from Yale University in 1965 and served five years as a communications officer in the U.S. Navy before beginning his journalism career at the Montgomery County Sentinel (Maryland), where he was a reporter for one year before joining the Post. About Carl Bernstein Few journalists in America's history have had the impact on their era and their craft as Carl Bernstein. For forty years, from All the President's Men to A Woman-In-Charge: The Life of Hillary Clinton , Bernstein's books, reporting, and commentary have revealed the inner-workings of government, politics, and the hidden stories of Washington and its leaders. In the early 1970s, Bernstein and Bob Woodward broke the Watergate story for The Washington Post , leading to the resignation of President Richard Nixon and setting the standard for modern investigative reporting, for which they and The Post were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Since then, Bernstein has continued to build on the theme he and Woodward first explored in the Nixon years - the use and abuse of power: political, media, financial, cultural and spiritual power. Renowned as a prose stylist, he has also written a classic biography of Pope John Paul II, served as the founding editor of the first major political website, and been a rock critic. The author of five best-selling books, Bernstein is currently also at work on several multimedia projects, including a memoir about growing up at a Washington newspaper, The Evening Star, during the Kennedy era; and a dramatic TV series about the United States Congress for HBO. He is also an on-air contributor for CNN and a contributing editor of Vanity Fair magazine. His most recent book was the national bestseller A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, acclaimed as the definitive biography of its subject, published by Knopf. With Woodward, Bernstein wrote All the President's Men (also a movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman), about their coverage of the Watergate story; and The Final Days , about the denouement of the Nixon presidency. His next book, a masterful memoir of his family's experience in the McCarthy era, is titled Loyalties: A Son's Memoir . He is also the co-author of the definitive papal biography, His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time , which detailed the Pope's pivotal and often clandestine role in the fall of communism. In 1977-78, Bernstein spent a year investigating the CIA's secret relationship with the American press during the Cold War. The resulting 25,000-word article for Rolling Stone, entitled " The CIA and the Media ," was the first to examine a subject long suppressed by both American newspapers and the intelligence community. Since his famous essay, " The Triumph of Idiot Culture ," a 1992 cover story for The New Republic about increasing sensationalism, gossip and manufactured controversy as staples of the American press, he has proved a prescient critic of his own profession. A lesser-known part of Bernstein's journalistic career is his tenure as a rock-critic at The Washington Post while a metro reporter before Watergate; he continues to write (very) occasionally about rock and classical music. Bernstein was born and raised in Washington, DC and began his journalism career at age 16 as a copyboy for The Washington Evening Star, becoming a reporter at 19. He lives in New York with his wife and is the father of two sons, one a journalist and the other a rock musician. About the Boe Forum Through the Boe Forum on Public Affairs, the Center for Western Studies has hosted many of the world's most influential leaders. Past Boe Forum speakers are: 66 th S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (2018) Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (2018) Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (2017) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (2016, in memoriam) (2016, in memoriam) Microsoft Executive Robbie Bach (2014) (2014) Governor of Utah and U.S. Ambassador to China and Singapore Jon Huntsman (2013) and U.S. Ambassador to and Singapore Jon Huntsman (2013) Director of Google Ideas Jared Cohen (2012) (2012) N. Human Rights High Commissioner Mary Robinson (2011) (2011) S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (2010) Secretary of State (2010) President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf (2009) (2009) Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Sandra Day O'Connor (2008) President and First Lady of Mexico Vicente Fox and Marta Fox (2007) (2007) Vice President Al Gore (2007) (2007) Presidential Envoy to Iraq L. Paul Bremer (2006) (2006) Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani (2004) Susan Dentzer together with Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich (2003) together with Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (2003) Jordan's Queen Noor (2001) (2001) Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1999) First Lady of the United States Barbara Bush (1998) Prime Minister of Great Britain John Major (1998) (1998) President of the former Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev (1996) President George H. W. Bush (1995) (1995) Colin Powell (1995) About Augustana University Founded in 1860, Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is a selective, comprehensive university affiliated with the Lutheran Church. With more than 100 majors, minors and pre-professional programs for undergraduates, along with graduate degree and continuing education programs, Augustana is committed to enriching lives and fostering development by combining a foundation in the liberal arts with professional skill and advanced study. Nationally recognized for academic excellence, graduate outcomes and affordability by U.S. News & World Report, Forbes and the Princeton Review, Augustana serves more than 2,100 students from 29 states and 36 countries. Most are part of our residential community and call our 100-acre campus home. Our graduate and continuing education programs serve students online and during times that are convenient for adult learners. This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise. For more information, visit http://www.newswise.com. SOURCE Augustana University, South Dakota Related Links http://www.augie.edu LONDON, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- This November, the Real Play Coalition founded by IKEA, The LEGO Foundation, Unilever's Persil and OMO and National Geographic, is announcing its commitment to help combat the erosion of play by introducing the Global Month of Play, and reinforcing its commitment to better understand where play is at greatest risk by launching the first-ever Play Gap Report in partnership with University College London. As both individual and collective champions of play, the four iconic organisations behind the Real Play Coalition have come together to develop and support play-based activities that give children opportunities to grow and learn through play. Touching homes, schools and communities, the Global Month of Play will provide a programme of activities throughout November that will engage and excite children in each aspect of their lives. With a proven track record of success, together, the Real Play Coalition will reach over 3 million children in more than 116 countries and activities will take place in across 26,000 classrooms. Additionally, the Real Play Coalition is announcing its development of the world's first-ever Play Gap Report, created in partnership with University College London (UCL). The Play Gap Report will be a global study which will help pinpoint the gaps in access to quality play between genders and different socio-economic groups among more than 40 countries. Preliminary results are already showing that children from disadvantaged backgrounds in some countries are more than 20 percentage points less likely[i] to regularly play with building blocks with demonstrated links to language, motor and early maths skills - than children from socio-economically advantaged homes*. The key results will be announced in early 2019, which will fuel future Real Play Coalition programmes. Jesper Brodin, CEO of Ingka Group[ii]; Kees Kruythoff, President, Home Care, Unilever; John Goodwin, CEO of The LEGO Foundation; and Gary Knell, Chairman of National Geographic Partners said in a joint statement: "Play is the 'rocket fuel' of human development. It is nature's way of helping children make sense of the world and their place in it. Driven by natural curiosity, play helps children master their bodies and minds, activates their imaginations and develops the cognitive, emotional and pro-social skills that define them as adults. "Yet despite its central importance in every child's developmental journey, play is under threat. Globalisation, rapid urbanisation and advances in machine learning are reshaping the way we think, live, workand play. While these changes have significant benefits, they also bring disruption, anxiety and uncertainty about the kinds of futures we will face." Globally, 64% of parents believe their children have fewer opportunities to play than they did as a child themselves[iii]. Whether for reasons of safety (51% of parents agree they would like their children to play outside but are too worried about their safety[iv]) or growing pressures on children (one in five say they are "too busy" to play[v]), it is clear that play is under threat in the home, in schools and in the community across the world. Here's a snapshot of how the Global Month of Play will be brought to life. IKEA: Let's Play For Change campaign With the Let's Play for Change campaign, the Swedish home furnishing retailer IKEA wants to encourage more play for a better everyday life. As we launch the campaign worldwide, we're touching all four corners of the world with our knowledge on play, and the important message that it is vital for all of us, everywhere, every day. During November and December everyone is invited to join extra playful activities in more than 400 IKEA stores around the world. In the annual drawing competition to develop next year's soft toy collection SAGOSKATT, IKEA welcomes all IKEA FAMILY members aged 0 to 12 from all over the world to draw the soft toy of their dreams. The six most unique drawings are turned into real soft toys in next year's collection. The full purchase price of each SAGOSKATT toy is donated to local organisations supporting every child's right to play and develop. Since the start five years ago the drawing competition has engaged over 157,000 kids from every corner of the earth. During the Global Month of Play, the message is also played out across social media through the exploits of one of our FABLER BJORN teddies, known as Bjorn, as he makes a bold leap and leaves the store to head out on a play journey. Follow the IKEA activities on #letsplayforchange and #FablerBjorn The LEGO Foundation: World Children's Day UNICEF's Universal Children's Day on November 20th marks the day when the most widely ratified human right treaty in history, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, was adopted. It is a global day of action for children, by children, where leaders are held to account on their promises to children. Throughout November, the LEGO Foundation and the LEGO Group will support this celebration through Build the Change events, where children in select places in Mexico, the UK, China, South Africa and Denmark have been invited to use LEGO bricks to build their dream school where learning through play and creativity are part of everything they do. As an outcome, the LEGO Foundation will collate and document a selection of insights, ideas and learnings from the activation and hand them to world leaders at the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 2019. Follow activities during the Global Month of Play through #worldchildrensday Dirt is Good (Persil and OMO): Outdoor Classroom Day Outdoor Classroom Day is a global campaign to inspire and celebrate outdoor learning and play, led by NGO Project Dirt globally, working with local NGOs, and supported by Unilever's Persil and OMO. On November 1st, thousands of schools around the world will take lessons outside and prioritise playtime, sending a message of how learning outside of the classroom engages and excites children in spectacular ways. In 2018 alone, over 3 million children across 26,000 classrooms will have joined this movement. Parents and teachers from around the world can sign up at www.outdoorclassroomdaycom National Geographic: Play Made Me This Way To celebrate the invaluable marks play leave on our lives, the Real Play Coalition will be launching a fascinating series of videos called Play Made Me This Way, featuring the stories of a number of extraordinary individuals. Produced by National Geographic, through testimonies and revisiting memories, the videos will reveal how play during the formative years have had a life-changing impact on who they grew up to be, which has made them ensure their children have the same quality play that they did. The first video of the series will feature National Geographic Explorer Aaron Huey and his 8-year-old son, the youngest published photographer in National Geographic magazine at the age of 4. The video can be watched on National Geographic and Real Play Coalition social media channels. #PlayMadeMeThisWay. Real Play Coalition website To inspire parents, guardians, teachers and children alike to play, the Real Play Coalition are launching a brand-new website and mobile app, which on launch will contain 150 games and activities. www.RealPlayCoalition.com will be live on November 1st. Play today! The Global Month of Play will enable more play opportunities for children across the world. It will form a platform to discuss just how critical play is in forming the well-rounded, creative, empathetic and lateral-thinking adults that tomorrow's society needs. To learn more and to find activities in each area, search 'Real Play Coalition'. While a month is not enough, it is an important first step on a road to more playful childhoods. Follow the Real Play Coalition on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Notes to editors About the Real Play Coalition In January 2018, four of the world's most iconic organisations came together to champion play. IKEA, the LEGO Foundation, Unilever's Persil and OMO and National Geographic share a belief in the power of play to transform lives. They work together to develop and support play-based activities to give children opportunities to grow and learn through play. [i] J. Jerrim, The Play Gap Report (forthcoming 2019) [ii] Ingka Group, formerly IKEA Group, is the largest IKEA franchisee with 367 IKEA stores in 30 markets, and 158,500 co-workers. The name Ingka is based on its founder's name, Ingvar Kamprad. [iii] Dirt is Good 'Play in Balance Report', 2016 [iv] IKEA 'Play Report', 2015 [v] LEGO 'Play Well Report', 2018 SOURCE Real Play Coalition Company invites individual and institutional investors, as well as advisors, to attend interactive, real-time virtual event NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that John Duncan, Investor Relations will present at the dbVIC - Deutsche Bank American Depositary Receipt (ADR) Virtual Investor Conference on November 15th, 2018. This virtual investor conference is aimed exclusively at introducing global companies with ADR programs to investors. DATE: November 15th, 2018 TIME: 12.00 noon ET LINK: https://tinyurl.com/111415dbVICprepr This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask international companies their questions in real-time and to download a company's information in their "virtual trade booth" in the Exhibits section. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an on-demand archive will be available for 90 days. Participation is free of charge. It is recommended that investors pre-register to save time and receive event updates. About SAP As the cloud company powered by SAP HANA, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world's transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers' businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 413,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people's lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com. Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. 2018 SAP SE. All rights reserved. SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices. SOURCE SAP SE Related Links http://www.sap.com WATERTOWN, Conn., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Siemon, a leading global network infrastructure specialist, today announced the launch of its end-to-end TERA Category 8.2 copper cabling system, delivering transmission performance up to 2 GHz to support emerging high-speed 25 and 40 Gigabit (25/40GBASE-T) applications in data center switch-to-server applications. Siemon's TERA Category 8.2 System includes cable, patch cords, connectors and pre-terminated cable assemblies. The system is founded on Siemon's TERA connector that was originally chosen as the ISO/IEC 11801 interface for category 7 A /Class F A and that also now meets Category 8.2 compliance. Combining the TERA connector with category 8.2 S/FTP 2000 MHz cable and patch cords delivers a complete end-to-end system that exceeds ISO/IEC category 8.2/Class II specifications for 2-connector, 30-meter Class II channels in the data center. "Siemon's fully shielded TERA connector has long been the highest-performing copper connector available, so it was no surprise that it easily achieved Category 8.2 compliance with plenty of margin, and we are now excited to introduce our complete end-to-end TERA Category 8.2 system," said Mike Boisseau, Siemon's business unit leader for copper systems. "Not only is the TERA connector far more robust than other twisted-pair copper connectors, but the Category 8.2 system provides enhanced insertion loss and crosstalk performance over RJ45-based Category 8 systems while offering the reach to support a broad range of switch-to-server architectures, preserving copper's place in the data center for years to come." Siemon's end-to-end TERA Category 8.2 system can be easily certified using new TERA adapters recently released by Fluke Networks for their Versiv DSX-8000 CableAnalyzer, which demonstrates high levels of accuracy when compared to laboratory measurements. "We are pleased to support TERA Category 8.2 testing with the release of our new TERA adapter," said Harley Lang, RCDD, Fluke Networks' Director of Worldwide Marketing. "This is the latest example of the Versiv Cabling Certification System's continuing evolution to meet the needs of the cabling industry." Siemon's TERA-to-RJ45 patch cords are ideal for 2-connector switch-to-server connections in middle-of-row (MoR) and end-of-row (EoR) configurations, while available Category 8-compatible RJ45-to-RJ45 patch cords enable direct attach switch-to-server connections in top-of-rack (ToR) configurations. The TERA outlet and plug are backwards compatible with Category 7A/Class FA cabling systems which allows for both flexibility and future-proof performance, making TERA ideal for data centers, healthcare imaging and financial applications. For access to more visit: www.siemon.com/tera8.2 About Siemon Established in 1903, Siemon is an industry leader specializing in the design and manufacture of high quality, high performance IT infrastructure solutions and services for Data Centers, LANs and Intelligent Buildings. Headquartered in Connecticut, USA, with global sales, technical and logistics expertise spanning 100 countries, Siemon offers the most comprehensive suites of copper and optical fiber cabling systems, cabinets, racks, cable management, data center power and cooling systems and Intelligent Infrastructure Management solutions. With more than 400 patents specific to structured cabling, Siemon Labs invests heavily in R&D and the development of Industry Standards, underlining the company's long-standing commitment to its customers and the industry. Through an ongoing commitment to waste and energy reduction, Siemon's environmental sustainability benchmarks are unparalleled in the industry, including 179% global carbon negativity and zero-landfill status. Siemon Interconnect Solutions (SIS) is a Siemon business unit comprised of a team of dedicated technical sales professionals supported by Siemon Labs, mechanical, electrical and signal integrity engineers committed to solving industry and customer driven interconnect challenges. We provide custom network infrastructure solutions to: OEM's, Leading Manufacturers, Value-Added Resellers and System Integrators. SOURCE The Siemon Company Related Links www.siemon.com CHICAGO, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The solar industry in Illinois is encouraging job seekers to attend the Solar Job Fair, set for Thursday, Nov. 15, at McCormick Place in Chicago. Organized by the Illinois Solar Energy Association (ISEA) and featuring more than 15 solar companies, the event will connect applicants with job opportunities and present information on careers in the solar industry. Illinois solar businesses have immediate openings for sales, installation and other positions. The industry plans to hire hundreds of new workers in the next few months. Solar already employs thousands across the state and the industry is quickly expanding. Illinois is on track to install thousands of new solar systems by 2021. That opportunity has attracted dozens of new companies to Illinois, creating well-paying jobs and economic activity in communities stretching from Chicago to Carbondale. Local and national solar energy firms, along with experienced solar industry professionals, will be on-hand at the Solar Job Fair to answer questions and educate job seekers on the various career paths available in the industry. "Solar companies are hiring here in Illinois and this job fair is part of our work to connect applicants with the companies who need to staff up," said Lesley McCain, ISEA's executive director. "Jobs in solar are well-paying and rewarding, and the growth in our industry means workers with the right skills will be in demand for a long time." For more information on the event and online registration, visit bit.ly/SolarJobFair Solar Job Fair When: 1-4 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 15 Where: McCormick Place, West Building, Room 192AB 2301 S King Drive, Chicago, IL 60616 RSVP: bit.ly/SolarJobFair (Registrants will be entered in a drawing to win a solar-powered cell phone charger) Participating companies include: Ailey Solar Certasun Earth Wind & Solar Energy Eco-Solar Solutions EFS Energy Inc Fosler Construction GRNE Solar IBEW Local 134 Rethink Electric LLC Simpleray StraightUp Solar Sunrun Vivint Solar WCP Windfree Solar Co The Illinois Solar Energy Association (ISEA) is a non-profit organization that promotes the widespread application of solar and other forms of renewable energy through our mission of education and advocacy. ISEA is the state resource for renewable energy related policy developments, educational classes, events and access to local renewable energy businesses. www.illinoissolar.org Contact: Peter Gray 312-629-9400 [email protected] SOURCE Illinois Solar Energy Association Related Links https://www.illinoissolar.org CHICAGO, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- SPINS, the industry-leading wellness-focused analytics firm, announces the arrival of Bill Razzino. As Chief Financial Officer, Razzino will lead all of SPINS' financial planning and analysis, accounting, tax, treasury and mergers & acquisitions functions. Prior to joining SPINS, Razzino was most recently the Chief Financial Officer of Cheetah Digital, a provider of cross-channel marketing solutions. Previously, Razzino has also held a variety of senior finance leadership roles at companies such as CareerBuilder, Tribune Company, Leo Burnett and PricewaterhouseCoopers. "As CFO, my role will help develop and align strategies across SPINS' business units to best support our clients and partners with industry-leading products and services," said Razzino. "Personally, it's exciting for me to join a company with such a positive mission that is so closely aligned with my own values and to support the organization's profitable growth." "Bill has a proven track record of helping global firms grow, integrating acquisitions, informing investment decisions, and activating key enhancements to improve the overall customer experience," said SPINS' CEO Tony Olson. "Bill's forward-thinking leadership will be a critical accelerator for our growth and will drive exceptional value for SPINS' clients and partners." About SPINS SPINS is a passionate advocate of brands and retailers that promote healthy living. As the leading provider of retail consumer insights, analytics reporting, and consulting services for the Natural and Specialty Products Industries, its business offerings are helping retailers in this high-growth area to connect people with the brands they need and love. SOURCE SPINS Related Links http://www.spins.com BEIJING, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sunlands Online Education Group (NYSE: STG) ("Sunlands" or the "Company"), a leader in China's online post-secondary and professional education, today announced that it will report its third quarter 2018 unaudited financial results on Friday, November 23, 2018, before U.S. market hours. Sunlands' management team will host a conference call at 7:30am U.S. Eastern Time, (8:30pm Beijing/Hong Kong time) on November 23, 2018, following the quarterly results announcement. The dial-in details for the live conference call are: International: +1-412-902-4272 US toll free: +1-888-346-8982 Canada toll free: 18556699657 Mainland China toll free: 4001-201203 Hong Kong toll free: 800-905945 Hong Kong: +852-301-84992 Please dial in 10 minutes before the call is scheduled to begin. When prompted, ask to be connected to the Sunlands Online Education Group call. Participants will be required to state their name and company upon entering the call. A live webcast and archive of the conference call will be available on the Investor Relations section of Sunlands' website at http://www.sunlands.investorroom.com/. A replay of the conference call will be available 1 hour after the end of the conference call until November 30, 2018. International: +1-412-317-0088 US toll free: +1-877-344-7529 Canada toll free: 855-669-9658 Replay access code: 10126312 About Sunlands Sunlands Online Education Group (NYSE: STG) ("Sunlands" or the "Company") is the leader in China's online post-secondary and professional education in terms of gross billings in 2017, according to iResearch. With a one to many, live streaming platform, Sunlands offers various degree and diploma-oriented post-secondary courses as well as online professional courses and educational content, to help students prepare for professional certification exams and attain professional skills. Students can access its services either through PC or mobile applications. The Company's online platform cultivates a personalized, interactive learning environment by featuring a virtual learning community and a vast library of educational content offerings that adapt to the learning habits of its students. Sunlands offers a unique approach to education research and development that organizes subject content into Learning Outcome Trees, the Company's proprietary knowledge management system. Sunlands has a deep understanding of the educational needs of its prospective students and offers solutions that help them achieve their goals. For investor enquiries, please contact: Yingying Liu IR Director Tel: +86 182 5691 2232 Email: [email protected] For media enquiries, please contact: Brunswick Group Anqi Yang Tel: +86 10 5960 8639 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Sunlands Online Education Group Related Links http://www.sunlands.investorroom.com CHICAGO, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Surgical Snare Market by Usability (Singel Use, Reusable), Application (GI Endoscopy, Laparoscopy, Urology Endoscopy, Gynecology Endoscopy, Arthroscopy, Bronchoscopy, Mediastinoscopy, Laryngoscopy), End User (Hospital, ASC) - Global Forecast to 2023", published by MarketsandMarkets, the Surgical Snare Market is expected to grow from USD 992 million in 2018 to USD 1,255 million by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4.8% during the forecast period. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660509/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg ) Don't miss out on business opportunities in Surgical Snare Market. Speak to our analyst and gain crucial industry insights that will help your business grow: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalystNew.asp?id=109649493 The major driving factors in the Surgical Snare Market are increasing number for colon polypectomy procedures, growth of the endoscopic ambulatory surgical centers, and a rising preference for minimally invasive surgeries are the key factors. The Gastrointestinal Endoscopy segment is expected to grow at the higher CAGR in the global Surgical Snare Market during the forecast period. On the basis of application, the Surgical Snare Market is segmented into GI endoscopy, laparoscopy, gynecology/obstetrics endoscopy, arthroscopy, urology endoscopy, bronchoscopy, mediastinoscopy, otoscopy, laryngoscopy, retinal endoscopy, neuroendoscopy, and other applications. GI endoscopy, by application segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR in 2018. This is primarily due to rapidly increasing aging population, the need to improve the quality of life for patients, and the need for proficient hospital management. The GI endoscopy segment will, therefore, witness sustained growth, driven by a significant increase in the number of colonoscopy procedures performed in the US, which is a major market for endoscopy products. Browse and in-depth TOC on "Surgical Snare Market" 67 - Tables 22 - Figures 108 - Pages View more detailed TOC @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/surgical-snare-market-109649493.html The hospital segment, by end user, is projected to occupy the majority of the market share and grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. Based on end user, the Surgical Snare Market is segmented into hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and other end users. The hospitals segment is expected to dominate the market in 2018. The large share and high growth rate of the hospitals segment can be attributed to increasing government and private funding, availability of highly skilled healthcare professionals, and technologically advanced facilities. Asia-Pacific is projected to account for the fastest growth in the Surgical Snare Market during the forecast period. Asia-Pacific is estimated to grow at a highest CAGR during the forecast period. Support for endoscopy-related research in Japan and the expansion of global players (operating in the Surgical Snare Market) in China are the major factors driving the growth of the Asia Pacific market. Japan is expected to witness growth in the demand for endoscopes due to the rapidly growing geriatric population in the country. Currently, Japan has the highest proportion of people aged 65 years and above, globally. China, a major market in the Asia Pacific region, is expected to offer potential growth opportunities to market players in the coming years. This can be attributed to the increasing demand for endoscopy equipment in the country as a result of the rising geriatric population and the increasing incidence of cancer. Request for Free Sample Report @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=109649493 The major surgical snares providers include Olympus (Japan), Boston Scientific (US), Cook Medical (US), CONMED Corporation (US), Medline Industries (US), Medtronic (Ireland), Steris (US), Merit Medical Systems (US), and Avalign Technologies (US). Browse Adjacent Markets @ Medical Devices Market Research Reports & Consulting About MarketsandMarkets: MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact: Mr. Shelly Singh MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA : +1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/surgical-snare-market.asp Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com SOURCE MarketsandMarkets LONDON, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- System1, the emotional measurement agency has today launched its new System1 Ad Ratings service for brands and advertisers as a way for brands to understand the potential of their campaigns to drive long-term growth. The service is launching with two years of data covering over 27,000 TV ads from the USA and UK. Once an ad has aired on TV it is typically available on the platform the very next day. System1 Ad Ratings analyses ads in over 100 categories providing advertisers and brand managers a platform to benchmark the performance of their ads and predict potential long term brand growth. Gabriel Aleixo, Managing Director Ad Ratings at System1 commented: "50% of advertising spend is wasted, which equates to billions of dollars every year. System1 Ad Ratings is a tool that lets advertisers and marketers understand which TV campaigns are underperforming, and how their marketing stacks up against competitors. It's a quick and easy way for marketers to analyse their advertising almost immediately through a subscription service. Brands don't need to wait three months anymore understand how their campaigns are performing, it now takes just a matter of hours with Ad Ratings." Ad Ratings works by measuring the emotions the ad generates in the consumer and the intensity of that emotional resonance. This produces a Star Rating from 1-5 stars. The Star Rating predicts Long-term brand growth potential: 1-Star equals 0% brand growth, whereas 5-Stars equates to 3%+ long term brand growth potential. The prediction side of the tool has been independently validated in conjunction with the IPA. Using submissions to the IPA Effectiveness Awards, one of the most robust submission procedures in the industry, System1 cross-referenced emotional resonance real-world brand growth in various categories, and the system was modelled on those results. "For any brand, achieving long term brand growth is paramount," Gabriel Aleixo commented. "Ad Ratings provides an efficient and cost effective way for brands to see whether their advertising strategies are developing the growth that brands require." Ad Ratings was created earlier this year as a new business arm of the System1 Group. The US and UK Ad Ratings subscription service that releases today is its first major product. Further market and sector releases are planned. Marketers can subscribe to the Ad Ratings service here: www.system1adratings.com About System1 System1 Group PLC [LON: SYS1], formerly BrainJuicer, has pioneered the use of behavioural science to produce and predict marketing guaranteed to drive profitable growth. System1 Group was founded in 2000 by CEO John Kearon, and is publicly traded on London's AiM (Alternative Investment Market). System1 has pioneered the use of behavioural science to better predict marketing that guarantees profitable growth. It's been named 'Most Innovative Company' by GreenBook (6 years in a row), Best Research Agency by Marketing Magazine and twice received ESOMAR's Best Methodology award. System1 Group is headquartered in London with offices across Europe, in North America, Brazil, Singapore, and Australia. For more information go to www.system1group.com. SOURCE System1 CHICAGO, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Most people don't know that lung cancer is the #1 cancer killer of women. The rate of women dying from the disease has increased 79 percent in the last 40 years, and since the mid-1970s, lung cancer diagnoses among women have been on the rise. Despite this, only 3 percent of women cite lung cancer as a top-of-mind health concern. If a serial killer were as prolific as lung cancer at taking the lives of women, it would be Public Enemy #1. LUNG FORCE Hero Colette shares her story to Lock Up Lung Cancer LUNG FORCE Hero Ashley shares her story to Lock Up Lung Cancer LUNG FORCE Hero Nancy shares her story to Lock Up Lung Cancer LUNG FORCE Hero Colette LUNG FORCE Hero Ashley LUNG FORCE Hero Nancy Experience the interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8445351-lung-force-american-lung-association-lock-up-lung-cancer/ That's why the American Lung Association's LUNG FORCE initiative, nationally presented by CVS Health, is launching a new campaign called "Lock Up Lung Cancer." The premise is powerfully simple: expose lung cancer as the leading cancer killer of women by tapping into the widely popular "true crime" genre. By meeting fans of the genre in a space where they are already hooked, LUNG FORCE will energize them to take action and arm themselves against one of the most prolific hidden killers. Officially launching during "Hidden Killer Week," starting on November 12, Lock Up Lung Cancer will include a video series featuring lung cancer survivors on LUNGFORCE.org, and within true crime programming on online streaming networks like Lifetime, TNT, A&E and ID. To reach fans of the true crime genre, LUNG FORCE is also partnering with Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff during the November 15 "My Favorite Murder" podcast, as well as "Criminal" podcast host Phoebe Judge and "Crime Junkie" podcast host Ashley Flowers. This provocative approach is designed to inform and energize people to join LUNG FORCE to stay aware, stay vigilant and stay informed. Many have met it, but few know its face the #1 cancer killer of women is shrouded in silence and mystery. But this is the reality: Every five minutes, a woman in the U.S. is told that she has lung cancer. Only 18 percent of lung cancer cases among women are diagnosed early, when the disease is most curable. It's estimated that more than 70,000 American women will lose their lives to lung cancer this year. "Since 2014, LUNG FORCE has been working to raise awareness of lung cancer, new treatment options and better methods of early detection, but we need everyone's help to stop this leading cancer killer," said American Lung Association National President and CEO Harold P. Wimmer. "Lung cancer is an issue that has been in the shadows for too long. We hope that by exposing the dangers of this disease, Americans will feel empowered to join LUNG FORCE and help us to defeat lung cancer. Because the truth is, anyone can get lung cancer." The American Lung Association's LUNG FORCE initiative is showing up for women like never before with an innovative campaign that's fierce and designed to make people think about lung cancer in a new way. No one is safe from lung cancer. Find out how to protect yourself, and those you love, from this hidden killer. Visit: LockUpLungCancer.org to learn more. About the American Lung Association The American Lung Association is the leading organization working to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease, through research, education and advocacy. The work of the American Lung Association is focused on four strategic imperatives: to defeat lung cancer; to improve the air we breathe; to reduce the burden of lung disease on individuals and their families; and to eliminate tobacco use and tobacco-related diseases. For more information about the American Lung Association, a holder of the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Guide Seal, or to support the work it does, call 1-800-LUNGUSA (1-800-586-4872) or visit: Lung.org . About LUNG FORCE LUNG FORCE is a national initiative led by the American Lung Association to unite women against lung cancer, the #1 cancer killer of women. LUNG FORCE has three priorities: 1) Make lung cancer a cause that people care about and act on; 2) Educate and empower patients and healthcare providers and 3) Raise critical funds for lung cancer research. The American Lung Association's LUNG FORCE is nationally presented by CVS Health. Find out more at LUNGFORCE.org. Media Contacts: Allison MacMunn American Lung Association 312-801-7628 [email protected] Jessica Moschella Edelman 212-277-3762 [email protected] SOURCE American Lung Association The Frank Awards acknowledge excellence in the business technology and imaging industry and are determined by a survey of the independent dealer community sponsored by TIAA Bank. The Franks are given in 9 categories: Best-in-Class Manufacturer: Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America Best A3 MFP Manufacturer: Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America Best A4 MFP Manufacturer: Kyocera Document Solutions America Best Production Print Manufacturer: Canon U.S.A. , Inc. , Inc. Best Marketing Strategy: Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. , Inc. , Inc. Best Leasing Company: GreatAmerica Financial Services Best Software & Services Provider: ACDI Best Male Executive: Doug Albregts , Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America , Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America Best Female Executive, Laura Blackmer , Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America The Cannata Report's Annual Dealer Survey was conducted in 2018 and its findings reflect performances for calendar year 2017. Ms. Blackmer, who is the only recipient to have won Best Female Executive since the award category was introduced four years ago, joined Konica Minolta earlier this year. Mr. Albregts was named executive vice president and group CEO of Scientific Games earlier this year. This is the fourth time The Cannata Report has partnered with Hackensack University Medical Center Foundation and to date it has collectively raised close to $750,000 for the foundation. The Cannata Dinner has raised close to $2.5 million since its inception. "Our event celebrates the vibrancy and the vitality of the business technology and imaging industry and the innovative companies and executives who are leading the way. This year we celebrated the past by honoring Tom Johnson and his extraordinary accomplishments that paved the way for the future of the independent dealer channel. We honored the present by acknowledging the leaders who are driving the industry in new and exciting directions. And, we look to the many possibilities that the future holds for an industry that is Alive & Kicking, as our theme so aptly describes," said Frank G. Cannata, president and CEO, and CJ Cannata, EVP/publisher. "Frank Cannata's passion for his profession is only surpassed by his commitment to helping others. Tackle Kids Cancer is overwhelmed by the generosity of The Cannata Report. Our team of talented researchers, compassionate physicians and nurses and courageous kids, extend our heartfelt gratitude to Frank, his wife Carol and son CJ and all of the dinner participants, for partnering with us to Tackle Kids Cancer," said Joseph Burt, vice president, development, Hackensack University Medical Center Foundation. Robert C. Goldberg, general counsel of the Business Technology Association, served as the event's emcee. Immediately following the Awards & Charities Dinner, an official after party sponsored by All Covered, the IT Services of Konica Minolta, completed the evening's festivities. The next day, The Cannata Report hosted a Women Influencers Brunch, sponsored by AMETEK ESP to honor leading female industry executives and showcase its recently published Women Influencers issue. Since its launch in 1982, The Cannata Report has been the leading intelligence resource for imaging reseller principals and senior executives within the business technology, managed services, and imaging industry. Forward-thinking analysis and thought leadership complements in-depth coverage of a wide range of topics including professional services, workflow solutions, IT management, office products, production and industrial print, supplies, vendor finance, mergers and acquisitions, breaking news, market trends, and more. The Cannata Report also hosts an Annual Awards & Charities Dinner honoring industry excellence and raising funds for charitable organizations nationwide. SOURCE The Cannata Report Related Links http://thecannatareport.com Named for the famed early 20th century actress and model, Evelyn Nesbit, whose influence can be discovered throughout the hotel, The Evelyn's new look pays homage to the Art Deco influences of the surrounding neighborhood and reflects the style of the Jazz Age with nods to the nearby historic "Tin Pan Alley." The new experience is anchored by three distinct dining venues by acclaimed Chef Jonathan Benno, including Leonelli Taberna , a casual Roman-inspired trattoria with an accompanying cocktail bar and lobby lounge; Leonelli Focacceria e Pasticceria , a bakery and cafe inspired by the great bakeries of Rome; and Benno , a fine-dining restaurant featuring Mediterranean cuisine. Designed by award-winning firm Parts and Labor Design , the restaurant spaces feature a mix of materials including dark woods, green and white marble, brass, and richly-toned stained glass, which are reflected in geometric lines and patterns throughout each space. Leonelli Focacceria e Pasticceria was designed with a mezzanine-level library overlooking the bakery where guests can enjoy their bites and coffee among a selection of cultural books. Parts and Labor Design carried the Art Deco theme into the lobby, which has been transformed into an all-day lounge space with soft velvet seating and dimly lit nooks. An eye-catching 40-foot monolithic stained-glass wall sculpture anchors the lounge area. The hotel's 159 guestrooms have been carefully refreshed by designer Silvia Zofio to reference the Art Nouveau style of the early 1900's. Interspersed with upgraded Frette linens, new lighting, and refreshed bathrooms with Five Wits bath amenities by Blackstones, are nods to the hotel's musical past. Guests will find touches like gramophones that connect to smartphones and chandeliers mimicking the shape of a trombone. To celebrate the relaunch, Triumph Hotels is unveiling a special opening offer of 30% off stays and two complimentary welcome drinks, plus activations available throughout the relaunch week, starting on Monday, November 12, 2018, including sketching by Laura Kay, Evelyn inspired floral designs by Empress Fiore, and more. For more information, visit www.theevelyn.com and www.triumphhotels.com or call 212.545.8000. SOURCE Triumph Hotels Related Links http://www.triumphhotels.com More than 10 types of Shandong local opera dramas, such as Lu Opera, Shandong Bangzi, Maoqiang and Liuqiang, are performed. In areas where these dramas are widespread, the repertoires are pursued with enthusiasm by local audiences. The performers of these dramas are all from local farmers. Although amateur, they are all excited to be in the middle of the stage to realize their dreams. Heling Gao, the head of the Shandong Bangzi Troupe in Tai'an (a city in the middle of Shandong), when taking about the enthusiasm of locals during the performance of a traditional repertoire called "the Story of the Wall", said that, "Although only six actors were needed in the drama, more than 30 people in the group on the spot." "Our team has grown up in the field and the local farmers who love drama have been the important force of the troupe," Gao said. The lyrics are completely colloquial, the vocals are easy to learn and the accompaniment instruments are simple. These are the reasons why it is easy to be accepted by the locals. "The roads in some villages are rugged and difficult to go. Every time there is a performance, the village committee always arranges people to bring those who crippled but are eager to go, with motorcycles and try to make everyone 'not off the team," one of the local governors said. He believes that as long as the audiences are always in, the inheritance of the local dramas will not be broken. "Folk positions are of great significance to the development of the local drama." Xinji Xie, the executive vice chairman of the Shandong Drama Association, said that, in conjunction with the "New Era Civilization Practice Literary and Volunteer Service Activities," their association organized artists to go to the countryside to perform. "We will further promote the registration of folk drama groups across the province and make more efforts to maintain the benign ecology of Shandong opera development," he said. SOURCE Information Office of the People's Government of Shandong Province BOSTON, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Infatuation, the restaurant discovery platform, marked its arrival in Boston today, offering its one-of-a-kind editorial style to the city. Through entertaining and always honest reviews and guides, The Infatuation will help Bostonians find the best possible restaurants and bars for any situation. For years, The Infatuation has heard from Boston-based fans across its platforms requesting guides and recommendations for the Greater Boston-area. The Infatuation differentiates itself as the definitive authority on dining in the cities it serves by using its transparent approach to restaurant discovery and exploration. The company's editorial team dines anonymously, pays for its own meals, and provides readers with unbiased recommendations. In Boston, readers can expect The Infatuation's signature "Hit List" covering the city's best new restaurants, extensive individual restaurant reviews, helpful neighborhood guides, and original lists that tap into specific needs like planning a big group dinner or a date. "We've heard requests for years to have The Infatuation come to Boston, so this is an exciting moment," said Hillary Reinsberg, Editor-in-Chief, The Infatuation. "Boston's restaurant scene is fantastic right now, and we've assembled a great local team to help the city sort through to discover the best of it. We can't wait to build our local community over the coming months and years." In partnership with MINI USA and embracing their "More of What Matters" philosophy, The Infatuation will celebrate its local launch with giveaways to iconic Boston-centric experiences. Details about prizes and how to enter to win are available via its website, The Infatuation Boston Instagram and through its email newsletter. Special for launch, The Infatuation will create special dining guides available at MINI dealerships throughout the Greater Boston area offering local tips such as "Restaurants in Boston with Easy Parking" and "Places Worth the Drive." Each local MINI dealership will offer the first 10 guests at each area location beginning November 12th a $50 gift card to dine at select Infatuation-approved Boston restaurants. Additionally, MINI will be placing vertical indoor farming units from Farmshelf at local dealership locations. Produce grown in the units will be donated to Feeding America for support of food needs for the Boston community. Users can find Boston-specific content by visiting the designated Boston section of The Infatuation's website, following The Infatuation Boston via Instagram , or signing up for its newsletter for updates, reviews, guides, events and more. About The Infatuation Founded in 2009 in New York City by longtime music industry executives Chris Stang and Andrew Steinthal, The Infatuation has developed into one of the most innovative restaurant discovery platforms in the world. The company now covers more than two dozen global cities with a new unique approach to creating and delivering restaurant reviews and guides via its prolific web and social media presence, useful mobile apps, large and influential email newsletter, and its popular SMS-based recommendation platform, Text Rex. The company also hosts and produces more than 50 community events annually, including its large-scale food festival, EEEEEATSCON. In March of 2018, The Infatuation acquired legendary restaurant review brand, Zagat. About MINI in the US MINI is an independent brand of the BMW Group. In the United States, MINI USA operates as a business unit of BMW of North America, LLC, located in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey and includes the marketing and sales organizations for the MINI brand. The MINI USA sales organization is represented in the U.S. through a network of 128 MINI passenger car dealers in 39 states. MINI USA began selling vehicles in the U.S. in 2002 with the introduction of the MINI Cooper and MINI Cooper S Hardtops. Since then, the MINI Brand in the U.S. has grown to encompass a model range of four unique vehicles. Journalist note: Media information about MINI and its products is available to journalists on-line at www.miniusanews.com. Press Contact: Michael Sinatra [email protected] 551.574.8031 SOURCE The Infatuation Related Links www.theinfatuation.com BERLIN, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CEPH DAY BERLIN -- The Linux Foundation , the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announces over 30 global technology leaders are forming a new foundation to support the Ceph open source project community. The Ceph project develops a unified distributed storage system providing applications with object, block, and file system interfaces. Founding Premier members of Ceph Foundation include Amihan, Canonical, China Mobile, DigitalOcean, Intel, OVH, ProphetStor Data Services, Red Hat, SoftIron, SUSE, Western Digital, XSKY Data Technology, and ZTE. The Ceph Foundation will organize and distribute financial contributions in a coordinated, vendor-neutral fashion for immediate community benefit. This will help galvanize rapid adoption, training and in-person collaboration across the Ceph ecosystem. "Ceph has a long track record of success when it comes to helping organizations with effectively managing high growth and expanding data storage demands," said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation. "Under the Linux Foundation, the Ceph Foundation will be able to harness investments from a much broader group to help support the infrastructure needed to continue the success and stability of the Ceph ecosystem." Ceph is used by cloud providers and enterprises around the world, including financial institutions (Bloomberg, Fidelity), cloud service providers (Rackspace, Linode), academic and government institutions (Massachusetts Open Cloud), telecommunications infrastructure providers (Deutsche Telekom), auto manufacturers (BMW), software solution providers (SAP, Salesforce), and many more. Ceph is also used by Rook , a Cloud Native Computing Foundation project that brings seamless provisioning of file, block and object storage services into the Kubernetes environment, running the Ceph storage infrastructure in containers alongside applications that are consuming that storage. Efficient, agile, and massively scalable, Ceph significantly lowers the cost of storing enterprise information in the private cloud and provides high availability to any object, file, and block data. Unstructured data makes up 80% and more of enterprise data, is growing at the rate of 55% to 65% per year, and is common with rich-media, predictive analytics, sensors, social networks, and satellite imagery.1 Block and file storage are critical to any IT infrastructure organization and are important components of infrastructure platforms like OpenStack and Kubernetes. According to recent user surveys , roughly two-thirds of OpenStack clouds use Ceph block storage. The growth of new cloud, container and artificial intelligence/machine learning applications are driving increased use of Ceph. For example, Ceph combined with analytics and machine learning enables enterprises to comb through mass amounts of unstructured data to quickly spot patterns with customer behavior, online customer conversations and potential noncompliance scenarios. The Ceph Foundation is the successor framework to the Ceph Advisory Board, which was formed in 2015. Get involved in the Ceph community at https://ceph.com/get-involved/ or learn more about membership at https://ceph.com/foundation . Project Creator and Leadership Quotes "A guiding vision for Ceph is to be the state of the art for reliable, scale-out storage, and to do so with 100% open source," said Sage Weil, Ceph co-creator, project leader, and chief architect at Red Hat for Ceph. "While early public cloud providers popularized self-service storage infrastructure, Ceph brings the same set of capabilities to service providers, enterprises, and individuals alike, with the power of a robust development and user community to drive future innovation in the storage space. Today's launch of the Ceph Foundation is a testament to the strength of a diverse open source community coming together to address the explosive growth in data storage and services." "Ceph was designed and built for scalability, initially with supercomputers and later with cloud infrastructure in mind. A key design premise was that the storage system needs to provide a highly reliable and available service in a dynamic and increasingly heterogeneous hardware environment where everything can potentially fail," said Carlos Maltzahn of University of California, Santa Cruz, a co-founder of the research project that first created Ceph over a decade ago. Cephalocon and KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2019 The Ceph Foundation plans to host the second Cephalocon conference in Barcelona, Spain from May 19 - 20, 2019, co-located with KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2019 , May 20-23. The first Cephalocon took place in March 2018 in Beijing, China, bringing together 1000 attendees consisting of Ceph vendors, users, and developers from all over the world. For updates, subscribe to the Ceph project's announcement mailing list and follow Ceph on Twitter @Ceph . Founding Members Founding members of the Ceph Foundation at the Premier level include Amihan, Canonical, China Mobile, DigitalOcean, Intel, OVH, ProphetStor Data Services, Red Hat, SoftIron, SUSE, Western Digital, XSKY Data Technology, and ZTE. Ceph Foundation General members include Ambedded Technology, Arm, Catalyst Cloud, Croit GmbH, EasyStack, Intelligent Systems Services, Pingan Technology, QCT, Sinorail, and Xiaoju Science Technology. Associate members include Boston University Information Services and Technology, CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), FAS Research Computing - Harvard, Greek Research and Technology Network (GRNET), Monash University, South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and University of California Santa Cruz's Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS). Supporting Quotes "As a founding member of the Ceph Foundation, Amihan is committed to contributing its knowledge and expertise in cloud-native infrastructure to the advancement of the Ceph project. Building on Ceph has allowed us to provide our enterprise clients with the most reliable foundation for digital transformation." - Winston Damarillo, executive chairman, Amihan "Ceph delivers enterprise-grade storage with best-in-class economics. Given the exponential growth we are witnessing in our customers' data requirements, we recognize it to be a fundamental part of the open source private cloud stack. Our participation in the launch of the Ceph Foundation underlines our commitment to accelerating its adoption, technology base and developer community." - Christian Reis, VP, Data Centre Field Engineering at Canonical "China Mobile always embraces Open Source and gives back to Open Source. Ceph is the best implementation of Open Source Software Define Storage, and it has been widely used in China Mobile's data center. We are very happy to join Ceph Foundation and make Ceph more closer to enterprise storage level." - Junwei Liu, vice general manager of cloud computing department, China Mobile (Suzhou) software technology Co., Ltd. "Open source has been a key part of our business from the start. Ceph is a core component of our fast-growing storage infrastructure and one of the many open source projects we use at DigitalOcean to accelerate innovation and deliver great products for our customers. We are proud to be a founding member of the Ceph Foundation. As a leading cloud provider we believe it is our responsibility to give back to the open source community and support the projects that help developers build amazing apps." - Shiven Ramji, VP of Product, DigitalOcean "The incredible growth of data generated by connected devices, services, and modern software requires an advanced, adaptable storage platform to help gain the greatest value from all this information. Ceph's open innovation is key for the industry to address these demands. Intel is proud to join the Ceph Foundation and support the redefinition of data storage." - Imad Sousou, Corporate vice president and general manager Open Source Technology Center, Intel Corporation "OVH is thrilled to join the newly created Ceph Foundation as a Premier member. Its Open Source values fit in very well with our own DNA, which is marked by openness, innovation and freedom of choice. With Ceph being the de-facto standard Software Defined Storage solution for OpenStack, it was only logical for us to adopt Ceph as part of our Public Cloud block storage. "We have been using Ceph for many years and have since contributed numerous patches that went upstream in Ceph, co-hosted the Ceph Day in Warsaw and shared our experience with Ceph at various events. As one of the founding sponsors of the Ceph Foundation, we are now excited to make an even stronger contribution to the Ceph community and help take it to the next level." - Alain Fiocco, EVP Chief Technology Officer, OVH "Ceph is the future of storage. We at ProphetStor are proud to have contributed our machine learning technology to its community to help bring it to the forefront of the storage industry." - Jeremy Wei, VP of Corporate Business Development, ProphetStor "Red Hat is honored to be deeply involved as a leader in open source communities as modern enterprises pivot toward an open hybrid cloud model. The creation of the Ceph Foundation brings to bear collaboration across the industry to enable rapid adoption of advanced data services and cloud-native technologies." - Sarangan Rangachari, Vice President and General Manager, Red Hat Storage "Ceph is quickly becoming the de facto standard for storage at scale. We are proud to be a part of that success and support the new Ceph Foundation. Ceph is a shining example of how open source software can squeeze out inefficiencies in very large markets." - Tim Massey, CEO, SoftIron "The formation of the Ceph Foundation under the Linux Foundation umbrella reflects the professional growth of the Open Source community and increasing industry participation. The new framework will lead to more community collaboration, outreach, inclusion and market awareness. SUSE is pleased and committed to be a top tier contributor to both the technical community and the foundation to help facilitate innovation in software-defined storage and represent the interests of our customers and partners." - Lars Marowsky-Bree, Distinguished Engineer, SUSE "As a technology leader enabling cutting-edge technologies with data infrastructure, we understand and believe in open standards, open software, and open ecosystems. The establishment of the Ceph Foundation is an important milestone that we are proud to support." - Allen Samuels, Engineering Fellow at Western Digital, Inc "With the establishment of Ceph Foundation, Ceph is opening a new era in global development. Together with other members, XSKY will spare no effort to push forward the construction of a broader Ceph ecosystem and explore commercial models for open-source software. We aim to achieve a landing storage approach of high-availability and high-reliability for users in mass data era." - Haomai Wang, CTO, XSKY "It has been my pleasure to see the growth in popularity of Ceph in China over the last several years, and the power of Ceph of transforming numerous organizations' IT infrastructure. Open source is a huge opportunity for organizations to work cooperatively to improve software and to benefit from each others' hard work, and the establishment of Ceph Foundation will definitely accelerate its development and bring us a real future of storage." - Xinyu Chen, General Manager of Telecom Cloud & CoreNet Product, ZTE Corporation About the Ceph Foundation The Ceph Foundation is a directed fund under the Linux Foundation. It provides a neutral home for the Ceph community to collaborate and grow, and is supported by members across multiple industries. Ceph is a unified distributed storage system providing applications object, block, and file system interfaces in a single unified storage clustermaking Ceph flexible, reliable and easy for you to manage. Ceph is built on the Reliable Autonomic Distributed Object Store (RADOS), which provides a highly available and scalable fabric that can either be consumed directly or via higher-level object, block and file services that are built on top. About the Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world's top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and industry adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org . The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage . Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Media Contact Emily Olin The Linux Foundation [email protected] 1 Source: https://www.datamation.com/big-data/structured-vs-unstructured-data.html SOURCE The Linux Foundation Related Links http://www.linuxfoundation.org SAN FRANCISCO, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Important collaboration will ensure affordable hepatitis C treatment options in low- and middle-income countries. The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) has today announced a new, royalty-free licence agreement with AbbVie for glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (G/P) - a World Health Organization (WHO)-recommended treatment for people living with chronic hepatitis C (HCV). The licence will enable quality-assured manufacturers to develop and sell generic medicines containing G/P in 99 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and territories at affordable prices, enabling access to and treatment scale-up with the most effective pan-genotypic regimens. The agreement was launched at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) The Liver Meeting 2018 in San Francisco. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/492480/MPP_Logo.jpg ) "G/P is a priority therapy for licensing for the MPP, so this agreement with AbbVie is very good news for public health," said Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, Chair of the MPP Governance Board. "It is a really important new option for a significant proportion of HCV patients throughout the world. As with previous MPP licences, we look forward to facilitating access to generic versions of this product as quickly as possible in as many territories as possible." Globally, 71 million people are currently living with chronic HCV, many of them in LMICs. By the end of 2015, only 20 percent had been diagnosed and a mere seven percent of them had received treatment. In February 2017, the MPP issued its annual report on priority medicines for in-licensing. Given its favourable clinical profile and high potential in LMICs, G/P was listed as a key priority treatment. G/P is an all-oral, once-daily, pan-genotypic combination regimen and was originally approved in 2017. It has achieved high cure (SVR12) rates of 98 per cent in treatment-naive non-cirrhotic patients across all six genotypes of the virus. It is recommended by the WHO as a first-line treatment for eight weeks in treatment- naive non-cirrhotic patients. Treatment-naive patients with compensated liver cirrhosis require a 12-week treatment course. Further, the regimen is also indicated for use in HCV patients with any degree of renal impairment, including patients on dialysis. Globally between five and ten percent of all people living with chronic HCV infection are estimated to be living with kidney disease and this treatment will be very helpful for them. There are 95 countries and four territories included in the MPP/AbbVie licence for G/P at this point. More details: www.medicinespatentpool.org What the MPP's partners are saying: "Central to our vision at AbbVie is developing therapies, such as our pan-genotypic HCV treatment, for the most serious diseases and providing access to those treatments. We are pleased to have reached today's agreement with the MPP." Laura Schumacher, Executive Vice President, External Affairs, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, AbbVie "The new agreement is an important step towards achieving elimination of hepatitis C worldwide. We urge national governments to take action now to make such curative treatments available for the millions of people in need." Dr Gottfried Hirnschall, Director of Department of HIV and Global Hepatitis Programme, World Health Organization "Unitaid aims to maximise the public health response by enabling equitable access to better health for all. We welcome this agreement between the MPP - a Unitaid grantee - and AbbVie that will accelerate a more effective HCV response worldwide." Lelio Marmora, Executive Director, Unitaid "Claiming over one million lives each year, viral hepatitis is one of the world's major public health challenges and disproportionately affects people living in LMICs. Therefore access to safe, quality-assured treatments, affordable for all, has to be the fundamental aim of the public health community. This is a big step in that direction. The next step is to see more territories included in the agreement. Each step makes the dream of hepatitis C elimination more real." Raquel Peck, CEO, World Hepatitis Alliance "The Government of Pakistan warmly welcomes the agreement between the Medicines Patent Pool and AbbVie to expand access to glecaprevir/pibrentasvir - a very important therapy for the treatment of HCV - into territories including Pakistan. The HCV burden in Pakistan is endemic, affecting over eight million of our country's population and the prevention and treatment of HCV is a national priority. This agreement will considerably aid our efforts and, ultimately, accelerate the permanent elimination of the HCV virus." Mr Aamer Mehmood Kianai, Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, Government of Pakistan The MPP has an existing collaboration with AbbVie and has two agreements in place in the field of HIV. These are: Licence on paediatric formulations of lopinavir/ritonavir, signed in November 2014 , which is facilitating the development of improved paediatric formulations for at least 102 LMICs , which is facilitating the development of improved paediatric formulations for at least 102 LMICs Licence on adult formulations of lopinavir/ritonavir for use in Africa , signed in December 2015 . In HCV, the MPP has agreements with Bristol-Myers Squibb on daclatasvir and Pharco on ravidasvir. About the Medicines Patent Pool The Medicines Patent Pool is a United Nations-backed public health organisation working to increase access to, and facilitate the development of, life-saving medicines for low- and middle-income countries. Through its innovative business model, the MPP partners with civil society, governments, international organisations, industry, patient groups and other stakeholders, to prioritise and license needed medicines and pool intellectual property to encourage genetic manufacture and the development of new formulations. To date, the MPP has signed agreements with nine patent holders for thirteen HIV antiretrovirals, one HIV technology platform, three hepatitis C direct-acting antivirals and a tuberculosis treatment. The MPP was founded and is funded by Unitaid. www.medicinespatentpool.org Abbvie ' s MAVIRET (glecaprevir/pibrentasvir) EU Indication MAVIRET is indicated for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in adults. Important EU Safety Information Contraindications: MAVIRET is contraindicated in patients with severe hepatic impairment (Child-Pugh C). Concomitant use with atazanavir containing products, atorvastatin, simvastatin, dabigatran etexilate, ethinyl oestradiol-containing products, strong P-gp and CYP3A inducers, such as rifampicin, carbamazepine, St. John's wort, phenobarbital, phenytoin, and primidone. Special warnings and precautions for use: Hepatitis B virus reactivation Cases of hepatitis B virus (HBV) reactivation, some of them fatal, have been reported during or after treatment with direct-acting antiviral agents. HBV screening should be performed in all patients before initiation of treatment. Hepatic impairment MAVIRET is not recommended in patients with moderate hepatic impairment (Child-Pugh B). Patients who failed a prior regimen containing an NS5A- and/or an NS3/4A-inhibitor MAVIRET is not recommended for the re-treatment of patients with prior exposure to NS3A/4A and/or NS5A-inhibitors. Adverse Reactions Most common (10%) adverse reactions for MAVIRET were headache and fatigue. Globally, prescribing information varies; refer to the individual country product label for complete information. SOURCE Medicines Patent Pool MISGAV, Israel, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Trendlines Group Ltd. (the "Company" and together with its subsidiaries, "Trendlines" or the "Group"), a leading Israeli-based investment and innovation commercialization company focused on early-stage, high growth medical and agricultural technologies, announced its financial results for the third quarter ended 30 September 2018 ("Q3 2018"). Third Quarter 2018 Highlights Group Financials Fair Value of Portfolio: US$102.5 million as at 30.09.2018 (31.12.2017: US$96.8 million ) as at (31.12.2017: ) Total Income: US$6.6 million (Q3 2017: US$6.8 million ) (Q3 2017: ) Total Expenses : US$2.3 million (Q3 2017: US$2.7 million ) (Q3 2017: ) Net Income : US$3.1 million (Q3 2017: US$3.0 million ) (Q3 2017: ) Total Current Assets: US$13.9 million as at 30.09.18 (31.12.17: US$20.4 million ) as at (31.12.17: ) Book Value: US$92.8 million as at 30.09.18 (31.12.17: US$92.9 million ) Corporate/Business Developments ApiFix Ltd. performed over 250 surgeries. Leviticus Cardio Ltd. successfully completed third chronic animal study. The SIAS 19th INVESTORS' CHOICE AWARDS named Trendlines "Winner of Singapore Corporate Governance Award, Most Improved" for a company trading on the SGX. New medical portfolio company, Hyblate Medical Ltd., established in Israel . . Trendlines' cost-reduction program is on track with Q3 2018 expenses being 14% lower than Q3 2017. Total number of portfolio companies are 51 of which 17 are in commercialization. Post Q3 2018 Developments FruitSpec Ltd. announced the completion of successful field studies and received a patent in the United States for its fruit yield estimate technology. for its fruit yield estimate technology. liberDi Ltd. completed successful pre-clinical trials for their portable, home dialysis system. Escala Medical Ltd. launched a fund-raising campaign on Exit Valley Ltd. Saturas Ltd. completed successful field trials in California (May- October 2018 ) and presented the company's technology to China's Vice President Wang Qishan at the Israel Innovation Summit October 2018 . Q3 2018 Financial Results Chairman and CEO Steve Rhodes commented on Trendlines' third quarter financial results, "For the first time, the value of Trendlines' portfolio has crossed the US$100 million mark and stands at US$102.5 million (~SGD141 million). Additionally, Q3 2018 was our most profitable quarter since the Company's listing in November 2015. Trendlines continues to successfully execute on its value-building business plan. Total net portfolio value was up US$6.3 million compared to 30 June 2018. The increase in portfolio value for the quarter was mainly due to the completion of fund-raising exercises at better terms as well as commercial and technological progress of portfolio companies." Total income in Q3 2018 was US$6.6 million (similar to Q3 2017). Total expenses decreased by approximately US$0.4 million in Q3 2018 as compared to Q3 2017; Net income in Q3 2018 was US$3.1 million, compared to US$3 million in Q3 2017. So far, Trendlines has met its goals as set out in the cost reduction plan announced in October 2017." Commenting on portfolio and business developments during the third quarter, Chairman and CEO Todd Dollinger said, "It is encouraging to observe the important developments of a number of our portfolio companies. ApiFix Ltd. completed over 250 surgeries and Gordian Surgical Ltd. surpassed the 500 count for surgeries with their integrated port closure system. The Stimatix GI Ltd. product launch remains on schedule for worldwide rollout. Our '10 Companies to Watch' report, published quarterly, continues to update our investors on the most significant developments and milestones that these select companies reach. This quarter, we updated the report to include a number of new companies not previously included." We were honored to receive the SIAS Corporate Governance Award for 'Most Improved Company' trading on the SGX. This award confirms our commitment to providing our investors with timely and transparent information on our company." For full financial information, please see our announcement to the SGX: Unaudited Financial Statements for the three months ended 30 September 2018. About The Trendlines Group Ltd. Trendlines is an innovation commercialization company that invents, discovers, invests in, and incubates innovation-based medical and agricultural technologies to fulfill its mission to improve the human condition. As intensely hands-on investors, Trendlines is involved in all aspects of its portfolio companies from technology development to business building. Trendlines' shares are traded on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX: 42T) and in the United States as an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) on the OTCQX International (OTCQX: TRNLY). Forward-Looking Statement Statements in this press release that are not statements of historical or current fact constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other unknown factors that could cause the Company's actual operating results to be materially different from any historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In addition to statements that explicitly describe these risks and uncertainties, readers are urged to consider statements that contain terms such as "believes," "belief," "expects," "expect," "intends," "intend," "anticipate," "anticipates," "plans," "plan," to be uncertain and forward looking. The forward-looking statements contained herein are also subject generally to other risks and uncertainties that are described from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investor Contact Information Israel Shira Zimmerman, The Trendlines Group [email protected] Tel: +972-72-260-7000 Singapore Reyna MEI, Financial PR [email protected] Tel: +65-6438-2990 SOURCE The Trendlines Group Ltd. ROME, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Thomas Jefferson University, in collaboration with prestigious institutions in Italy, signed an agreement yesterday to launch the world's first-ever dual-medical degree program, enabling a cohort of physicians to practice medicine in both the United States and the European Union. Under the terms of the partnership, medical students at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome could earn a Bachelor of Science degree from Jefferson and Doctor of Medicine degrees from the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University and from The School of Medicine and Surgery at Catholic University in Rome all within just six years. "These students will experience two unique academic environments and will study, train and treat patients alongside their U.S. medical peers giving both groups a broad understanding and appreciation for very distinct healthcare ecosystems," said Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, President of Thomas Jefferson University and CEO of Jefferson Health. "Health care is global. This dual degree helps us create the global physician of the future." Medical education requirements in Europe and the United States are currently very different. In the U.S., students must earn a four-year undergraduate degree and then a four-year medical degree to practice medicine. In Europe, students interested in a medical degree matriculate directly from high school to medical school, completing all requirements to practice medicine within six years; there is no undergraduate degree requirement. Catholic University medical students who select the English track will have the opportunity to travel to Thomas Jefferson University to meet the United States' undergraduate requirements needed to pursue a medical degree. This option would not be possible had Jefferson not merged with Philadelphia University more than a year ago, according to Mark Tykocinski, MD, Provost, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Thomas Jefferson University and Dean of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College; Jefferson did not offer undergraduate degrees before then. "For many years, Thomas Jefferson University has developed, nurtured and even expanded the very strong relationships we have with universities in Israel, Italy, India and Japan, to name a few," said Tykocinski. "Our students across all disciplines already work collaboratively with their counterparts across the world. Our partnership with Catholic University will allow European and U.S. medical students to work-side-by side while expanding their physician-peer network across Europe." Leadership from Thomas Jefferson University, Catholic University and Gemelli University Hospital, where medical school rotations occur, gathered here Sunday to sign a definitive agreement to formalize the program. They also signed a clinical research agreement that will create collaborative research opportunities in both countries with an initial clinical trial to expand testing of a technique shown to be effective in treating difficult-to-heal wounds. The ratified agreement was signed by the Rector of the Catholic University, Franco Anelli, the President of Gemelli Hospital, Giaovanni Raimondi, as well as Drs. Tykocinski and Klasko. Thomas Jefferson University is a leader in interdisciplinary, professional education. Jefferson, home of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College and the Kanbar College of Design, Engineering and Commerce, delivers high-impact education in 160 undergraduate and graduate programs to 7,800 students in architecture, business, design, engineering, fashion and textiles, health, medicine, science and social sciences. The new Jefferson is redefining the higher education value proposition with an approach that is collaborative and active; increasingly global; integrated with industry; focused on research across disciplines to foster innovation and discovery; and technology-enhanced. Student-athletes compete as the Jefferson Rams in the NCAA Division II Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference. SOURCE Thomas Jefferson University BARCELONA, Spain, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ISPOR Europe -- TriNetX, the global health research network that revolutionizes clinical research and enables discoveries through the creation of real-world evidence, today announced new functionality that simplifies the way researchers conduct propensity score matching. The new capability, part of the TriNetX Research product line released earlier this year, eliminates the need for tedious and time-consuming programming to develop propensity score matching models. "This new capability is another important step toward our goal of making TriNetX the one stop shop for clinical data access and analysis," said Steve Kundrot, Chief Technology Officer at TriNetX. "The ability to develop propensity score models and balanced cohorts within the TriNetX platform and across our federated, global network provides a seamless way for researchers to continue their analytical journey in a single, secure, and governed platform." Propensity score matching is a method to balance cohorts to address confounders that could bias analysis efforts and result in misleading conclusions. Traditionally, performing comparative effective analysis with propensity score matching requires extensive data wrangling, research and analysis to identify potential confounders, and technical coding skills. This analysis can take a team of clinical experts and data scientists weeks, if not months, to conduct. TriNetX allows a clinical analyst to define cohorts, identify potential confounders, apply propensity score matching to balance cohorts, and analyze outcomes of interest with just a few clicks, without wrangling data or writing code. "This new capability dramatically simplifies and expedites the process of conducting rigorous comparative effectiveness analysis," said Alex Eastman, Vice President, Product Management at TriNetX. "Users can easily compare baseline cohort characteristics, balance cohorts, and analyze clinical effectiveness and safety. TriNetX's combination of rich clinical data and intuitive analytics in a single platform means that users can conduct this analysis in minutes instead of weeks." TriNetX's propensity score matching capability provides users yet another way to balance cohorts, in addition to stratification, which can also be easily accomplished within the TriNetX platform. TriNetX's cloud-based platform, TNX, provides on-demand access to longitudinal clinical data and a set of highly intuitive analytics capabilities, enabling researchers to explore and compare cohorts, including reviewing cohort characteristics prior to an event and comparing outcomes of interest after the event. TriNetX has partnered with over 90 healthcare organizations and health data partners, spanning 16 countries, to deploy a continually updated global health research network representing over 138 million patients. TriNetX will be demonstrating this capability this week at ISPOR Europe, November 10-14 in Barcelona, Spain. About TriNetX TriNetX is the global health research network that revolutionizes clinical research and enables discoveries through the creation of real-world evidence. TriNetX combines real time access to longitudinal clinical data with state-of-the-are analytics to answer complex research questions at the speed of thought. For more information, visit TriNetX at http://www.trinetx.com or follow @TriNetX on Twitter. Media Contact TriNetX Jennifer Haas +1 (857) 285-6052 [email protected] SOURCE TriNetX Related Links http://www.trinetx.com FELTON, California, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. nitric acid market is estimated to be valued at USD 7.60 billion by 2025, propelled by its prevalent use in chemical and fertilizer industries. The need for high crop yield to meet the growing demand for food in tandem with the increasing population has elicited the use of synthetic fertilizers over the past few years and the trend is likely to continue. Thus, market is anticipated to grow at a revenue CAGR of 8% over the projected period. Fertilizers dominated the U.S. nitric acid market contributing to USD 3.3 billion in 2016. The rising need for organic fertilizers is expected to adversely impact the demand for chemical fertilizers which in turn is expected to hamper the growth of the market. Moreover, presence of stringent regulations regarding the use of nitrate fertilizers is expected to further impact the penetration of nitric acid in these products over the projected period. Keeping these trends in mind, companies are focusing on R&D to expand the utilization of nitric acid in various mainstream applications such as in agriculture & chemical industry. Manufacturers including Agrium, The Chemours Company, Dyno Nobel, and Johnson Matthey are some of the key players within the U.S. nitric acid market. The growth of the U.S. nitric acid industry is driven primarily by consumer demand for high yield in agriculture sector. It is also likely to be favored by the expansion and technological innovations in automotive, chemicals and electronics industry. These factors are likely to result in a tremendous growth of the U.S. market. Browse full research report with TOC on "U.S. Nitric Acid Market Size And Forecast, By Application (Fertilizers, Adipic Acid, Nitrobenzene, Toluene di-isocyanate, Nitrochlorobenzene) And Trend Analysis, 2014 To 2025" at: https://www.hexaresearch.com/research-report/us-nitric-acid-market Growth of the automotive, chemical and electronics industries are other key factors driving the growth of the market. Toluene di-isocyanate is anticipated to be one of the fastest growing segment of the U.S nitric industry expected to witness a revenue growth at a CAGR of 10.1% over the forecast period. The demand for the chemical in nitrobenzene stood at 199.6 kilo tons in 2016. Nitrobenzene is used as a precursor to aniline and its derivatives. Main applications for aniline comprise manufacturing of polyurethane foams, aramid fiber, and pharmaceuticals. The growing demand for these products is likely to drive the market growth over the projected period. Thus, the market is expected to witness substantial growth over the projected period on account of recovery of the manufacturing sector in the country over the past two years and a positive outlook towards the sector is expected to play a vital role in driving the demand for nitric acid over the next few years. Browse related reports by Hexa Research: Dyes Market - Dyes are hued substances connected as a watery arrangement on different substrates. These are utilized as colorants as a part of various mechanical applications, for example, nourishment handling, printing inks, wood stain, material preparing, and others. Dyes are hued substances connected as a watery arrangement on different substrates. These are utilized as colorants as a part of various mechanical applications, for example, nourishment handling, printing inks, wood stain, material preparing, and others. Organic Cosmetic Ingredients Market - The global Organic Cosmetic Ingredients Market size is expected to increase significantly over the next seven years on account of lifestyle changes, growing consumer income and demand for eco-friendly cosmetics. Increasing consumer awareness regarding personal health care and safety is expected to promote the industry growth. The global Organic Cosmetic Ingredients Market size is expected to increase significantly over the next seven years on account of lifestyle changes, growing consumer income and demand for eco-friendly cosmetics. Increasing consumer awareness regarding personal health care and safety is expected to promote the industry growth. Methanol Market - The global methanol market was estimated at USD 21.4 billion in 2016 and is expected to witness significant growth on account of the rising demand for petrochemical derived products such as olefins, adhesives, detergents, solvents, plastics, lubricants and fibers. It is extensively utilized in the automotive industry. The global methanol market was estimated at in 2016 and is expected to witness significant growth on account of the rising demand for petrochemical derived products such as olefins, adhesives, detergents, solvents, plastics, lubricants and fibers. It is extensively utilized in the automotive industry. Citric Acid Market - The global citric acid market size was estimated at USD 2.89 billion in 2016 and is expected to witness significant growth on account of its extensive use in numerous applications right from food & beverages to metal finishing. Hexa Research has segmented the U.S. nitric acid market based on application: Segmentation by application, 2014 - 2025 (Kilo Tons) (USD Million) Fertilizers Adipic acid Nitrobenzene Toluene di-isocyanate Nitrochloro benzene Others Key players analyzed: INVISTA DuPont Terra Industries LyondellBasell Hercules CF Industries Solutia Agrium Dyno Nobel Orica Limited About Hexa Research Hexa Research is a market research and consulting organization, offering industry reports, custom research and consulting services to a host of key industries across the globe. We offer comprehensive business intelligence in the form of industry reports which help our clients obtain clarity about their business environment and enable them to undertake strategic growth initiatives. Contact: Michelle T. Corporate Sales Specialist Hexa Research Phone: +1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-800-489-3075 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.hexaresearch.com/ SOURCE Hexa Research ATLANTA, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, UL Chemical Safety and the Georgia Institute of Technology, also known as Georgia Tech, announced a body of research that explored the impact of 3D printing on indoor air quality. Following an in-depth, two-year research period with Georgia Tech, UL Chemical Safety found that many desktop 3D printers generate ultrafine particles (UFPs) while in operation. UFPs may pose a health concern since they are the size of nanoparticles and may be inhaled and penetrate deep into the human pulmonary system. The research also revealed that more than 200 different volatile organic compounds (VOCs), many of which are known or suspected irritants and carcinogens, are also released while 3D printers are in operation. "Following our series of studies the most extensive to date on 3D printer emissions we are recommending additional investments in scientific research and product advancement to minimize emissions, and increased user awareness so safety measures can be taken," Marilyn Black, vice president and senior technical adviser at UL, said. To fully understand the impact of the chemical and particle emissions on health, Black advocates for a complete risk assessment that factors in dose and personal sensitivity considerations. Many factors, including nozzle temperature, filament type, filament and printer brand, and filament color, affect emissions while extrusion temperature, filament material and filament brand were found to have the greatest impact on emission levels. However, there is currently little marketplace information available to help users choose safer options. "Studies have shown that fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printers designed for general public use emit high levels of ultrafine and fine particles," Rodney Weber, Georgia Tech's primary investigator of the research, said. "Preliminary tests with in vivo, in vitro and acellular methods for particles generated by a limited number of filaments showed adverse responses." The findings come at a time when this low-cost, compact and user-friendly emerging technology is increasingly gaining momentum in consumer, commercial, medical and educational settings. As the use of 3D printers in schools has become prolific, special care should be taken to minimize exposure of emissions to children who are the most sensitive among populations to environmental contaminant impact. The potential risks can be lessened by: Operating 3D printers only in well-ventilated areas Setting the nozzle temperature at the lower end of the suggested temperature range for filament materials Standing away from operating machines Using machines and filaments that have been tested and verified to have low emissions. Based on the scientific research conducted with Georgia Tech and further collaboration with third-party stakeholders, a UL/American National Standards Institute (ANSI) consensus standard for testing and evaluating 3D printer emissions has been developed. UL/ANSI 2904 is now in the final stages of completion, and the final standard is expected to be ready in December 2018. Two scientific research papers, "Characterization of particle emissions from consumer fused deposition modeling 3D printers" and "Investigating particle emissions and aerosol dynamics from a consumer fused deposition modeling 3D printer with a lognormal moment aerosol model," have been published in Aerosol Science and Technology. Two additional papers are currently under review on the toxicity of 3D printer particles and plethora of chemical emissions. To find out more about UL Chemical Safety and its 3D printing initiative, visit www.ulchemicalsafety.org. About UL Chemical Safety UL Chemical Safety is a science-directed research group that is a part of Underwriters Laboratories Inc., a not-for-profit organization that advances knowledge to address the important and emerging safety challenges of today's world. We conduct independent research on health and well-being, analyze data, convene experts worldwide to address risks, share knowledge, and support standards development for safe commercialization and use of evolving technologies. To learn more about us, visit www.ulchemicalsafety.org. About UL UL fosters safe living and working conditions for people everywhere through the application of science to solve safety, security and sustainability challenges. The UL Mark engenders trust enabling the safe adoption of innovative new products and technologies. Everyone at UL shares a passion to make the world a safer place. We test, inspect, audit, certify, validate, verify, advise and train, and we support these efforts with software solutions for safety and sustainability. To learn more about us, visit UL.com. About Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, also known as Georgia Tech, is a top-ranked public college and widely regarded as one of the world's top technological research universities. Georgia Tech provides a technologically focused education to more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students in fields ranging from engineering, computing and sciences, to business, design and liberal arts. CONTACT: Gillan Ritchie Research Communications Specialist UL Chemical Safety T: 678-444-4035 SOURCE Underwriters Laboratories PARIS and BLUE BELL, Pa., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Unisys Corporation (NYSE: UIS) today announced its support of the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace in line with its commitment to global cybersecurity and the promotion of best practice across international governments and businesses. Unisys is an early supporter of this global initiative, which aims to make the Internet safer around the world. President Macron will formally launch the new government initiative during his speech at the Internet Governance Forum today, which is part of the Paris Digital Week, encompassing the Paris Peace Forum, the Internet Governance Forum and the GovTech Summit. As a global security provider to critical infrastructure around the world, Unisys is committed to making cyberspace more secure. Unisys Chairman and CEO Peter Altabef has co-chaired the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee's (NSTAC) Cybersecurity Moonshot initiative, the report for which is being presented to the White House on Wednesday. "As the world becomes increasingly more digitally interconnected, where risk knows no borders, Unisys believes that we must work together to better prevent and recover from malicious cyber activities and protect the availability and integrity of the Internet at large," said Tom Patterson, Unisys Chief Trust Officer. "Unisys already supports critical infrastructure protection efforts for many countries, and we look forward to working with the other founding signatories of the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace to support global cyber peace for the benefit of all." Unisys Security Solutions implement a Zero Trust architecture that grows with an organization's business. Leveraging identity-driven microsegmentation to isolate critical data, Unisys identifies, validates and secures trusted users, devices and data flows. For more information on Unisys Security Solutions, go to https://www.unisys.com/offerings/security-solutions. About Unisys Unisys is a global information technology company that builds high-performance, security-centric solutions for the most demanding businesses and governments on Earth. Unisys offerings include security software and services; digital transformation and workplace services; industry applications and services; and innovative software operating environments for high-intensity enterprise computing. For more information on how Unisys builds better outcomes securely for its clients across the Government, Financial Services and Commercial markets, visit www.unisys.com. Follow Unisys on Twitter and LinkedIn. RELEASE NO.: 1112/9627 Unisys and other Unisys products and services mentioned herein, as well as their respective logos, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Unisys Corporation. Any other brand or product referenced herein is acknowledged to be a trademark or registered trademark of its respective holder. UIS-C SOURCE Unisys Corporation Related Links http://www.unisys.com WEST HAVEN, Conn., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of New Haven and the Saint John XXIII Parish Corporation have reached an agreement on the University's purchase of the St. Paul church buildings at 41 Alling Street in West Haven. The purchase is expected to close in January. The buildings are located steps from the University's main campus. "The St. Paul parish has long been part of the University's extended family," said President Steven H. Kaplan. "When this opportunity became available, it was important for the University to ensure that this property is used in a way that serves our campus and the community. The University believes that its success, the success of West Haven, and the success of the surrounding neighborhoods are interrelated." The St. Paul Church was closed on June 29, 2017 as part of the reconfiguration of parishes in the Archdiocese of Hartford. The University has long used the church's parking lot as a satellite parking area and has used some of the church's facilities for special University projects. This will continue while the University examines how it will develop the facilities to benefit the campus and the community. "It is important for us to continue to invest in the neighborhood surrounding our main campus," said Kaplan. "We look forward to working with the community to determine how to best use these buildings. Ultimately, acquiring these facilities so close to our campus is part of our ongoing commitment to creating more cutting-edge space to enhance our signature programs and enrich the educational experience of our students." About the University of New Haven The University of New Haven, founded on the Yale campus in 1920, is a private, coeducational university situated on the coast of southern New England. It's a diverse and vibrant community of more than 7,000 students with campuses around the country and around the world. Within its colleges and schools, students immerse themselves in a transformative, career-focused education across the liberal arts and sciences, fine arts, business, engineering, public safety, and public service. More than 100 academic programs are offered, all grounded in a long-standing commitment to collaborative, interdisciplinary, project-based learning. For more information, please visit www.newhaven.edu. SOURCE University of New Haven Related Links http://www.newhaven.edu Pinjore (Haryana), Nov 11 : Eight captive-reared critically endangered white-backed vultures are set to take wings early next year for the first time in India since the vulture conservation centre near here was set up in September 2001. The Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre on the edge of the Bir Shikargaha Wildlife Sanctuary is a joint project of Haryana and the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) with the British government's Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species Fund to investigate the massive decline of three critically endangered Gyps species of vultures in India. Six captive-bred vultures and two rescued from the wild will be tagged with a 30-gram device for satellite telemetry each with a battery backup of three-four years and this will help understanding their behaviour and survival instincts in the wild, BNHS Principal Scientist Vibha Prakash told IANS here. He said the vultures would be released most probably by March-April next year in the Bir Shikargaha sanctuary where the BNHS is working to declare it as vulture safe zone, which extends transboundary into Himachal Pradesh where the wildlife awareness among the villagers is quite high. "If any of the released vulture die or get injured, we can recover them. Satellite telemetry will help us to know the cause of death and prevent other vultures dying from that cause." The satellite tags will also be useful in discovering whether the captive-bred birds behave normally in the wild with other closely-related species. In the first event of its kind in South Asia, the government of Nepal and national and international conservation organisations released critically endangered white-backed vultures in the wild on November 9, 2017. India is home to nine species of vultures. Three of these species, the white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures, underwent catastrophic population declines of greater than 90 per cent in the mid-1990s. The birds are now listed as critically endangered. The vulture, a nature's scavenger, cleans the environment of animal carcasses. Villagers rely on them to dispose of cattle carcasses. The reason, say biologists, for bringing the vultures to the brink of extinction in South Asia mainly to the extensive use of diclofenac in treating cattle.Vultures that consumed the carcass of animals treated with diclofenac died with symptoms of kidney failure. The Indian government banned its veterinary use in 2006. BNHS scientist Prakash said "if there is no toxicity-related death of these eight birds in two years, then we will go for release of 20-25 birds each year". "We are planning to introduce 100 pairs each of the three species of white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed in the wild in the next 10 years. Before that, findings from the first proposed release batch will be crucial in the future programmes." The long-billed and slender-billed vultures will be released in Madhya Pradesh and Assam, respectively. Officials admit the flight to freedom of these endangered vultures is still caught in red-tapism in the Haryana Forest Department, which has been authorised to procure 10 platform terminal transmitters or satellite telemetries through global bidding. "These birds have been shifted to the pre-release aviary for over a year and a half. Twice their release was postponed last year. The only hurdle is the procurement of satellite telemetries and that too is bogged down by bureaucratic delays," an official, requesting anonymity, told IANS. "The birds are now two to four years old and this is the best age group for their release. The delay in their release will definitely delay the vulture reintroduction programme," he added. Prior to this release, two captive Himalayan griffon vultures were released in the wild in June 2016 from the Pinjore centre on an experimental basis. Both birds were wing-tagged and leg-ringed for identification, but not tagged with satellite transmitters. It was part of Asia's first Gyps Vulture Reintroduction Programme under which the captive-bred birds were to be introduced in the wild. The team managed to monitor one released bird for a day before it disappeared, while the second bird was tracked for almost a month and never sighted again. The Pinjore centre, Asia's first centre of its kind, houses 289 Gyps species vultures; 198 of them bred at the facility that is funded by the central government. Two such conservation and breeding centres are in Rani in Assam and Rajabhatkhawa in West Bengal. (Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in ) Cairo, Nov 12 : An Egyptian top court upheld on Sunday a previous death sentence against seven defendants convicted of killing a policeman in 2013, official MENA news agency reported. The Court of Cassation upheld a previous execution order issued by Ismailia Criminal Court, northeast of the capital Cairo, for murdering policeman Ahmed Radwan Abu-Doma and seizing his gun during an armed attack against a security patrol in late 2013, Xinhua reported. The verdict is final and unappealable as the top court rejected the defendant's appeals. The investigation back then showed that the gunmen rode a motorbike and a private car when they attacked the security men and exchanged fire with them. Two other defendants in the same case were sentenced to two and three years in jail for covering involved fugitives. Egypt has been suffering terrorist activities that killed hundreds of policemen, soldiers and civilians following the popular-backed military ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in early July 2013. Most of the terror attacks in Egypt were claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the Islamic State (IS) regional terrorist group. Last week, an Egyptian military court sentenced eight fugitive IS suspect terrorists to death over involvement in deadly attacks against the Egyptian armed forces. On the other hand, the Egyptian security forces have killed hundreds of terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's anti-terror war declared by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the army chief then, following Morsi's ouster. Bengaluru, Nov 12 : President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday mourned the death of Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar in Bengaluru. "Sad to hear of the passing of Union Minister and veteran parliamentarian Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates," the President tweeted. Kumar passed away on the wee hours of Monday at a private hospital in the city where he was being treated for cancer. "Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Ananth Kumar. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work," Modi said in a tweet. He was an asset to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Modi said. "He was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents," the Prime Minister said in another tweet. "I spoke to his wife, Dr Tejaswini and expressed condolences... My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness," he added. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also condoled Kumar's death. "Absolutely shocked and pained by the demise of very senior colleague and a friend. He (Kumar) was a seasoned parliamentarian who served the nation in several capacities. His passion and devotion for the welfare of people was commendable. My condolences to his family," Singh tweeted. London, Nov 12 : As popular sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" is about to end next year with its 12th season, actor Johnny Galecki, who plays Leonard Hoffstader in the show, says, finale episode will leave the cast and audience teary eyed. While silencing rumours that there would a spin-off serious without the character Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parson), Johny admitted that the cast is prepared to get very emotional while filming their final scenes, reports metro.co.uk. Speaking to News.com.au, he said: "..The last episode is something that we've talked about for many, many years and there's many variations and options. "I just hope whatever we're doing in that last episode it justifies the characters all crying because I know the cast will be." Also featuring stars Jim Parsons, Kunal Nayyar, Simon Helberg, Melissa Rauch, Mayim Bialik and Kaley Cuoco, " the 12th and final season of the show will debut in the US in September. New Delhi, Nov 10 : If you think coding or writing software is something reserved for men, you are wrong; women coders have lately come of age, breaking the glass ceiling across tech fields the world over. India is no different, and sensing the need, leading enterprise software provider VMware, in partnership with the global non-profit Women Who Code, has announced it will train 15,000 women in India over the next two years in diverse technology areas -- for free. The idea is novel because the programme is aimed at helping women with previous experience in IT -- who had to quit as they found it difficult to maintain a work-family balance -- upskill themselves in emerging digital technologies around Cloud and return to work. Set to launch from December 1, the programme, titled "VMware VMinclusion Taara: Women Return to Work", has received support from several key enterprises like Bharti Airtel and Cognizant who will consider women certified in VMware solutions for relevant IT openings at their workplace. "We are in a good position to help skilled women, who are currently home, come back, gain the right skill-sets and join the professional stream once again. We can make a difference. This is a journey and we feel learning never stops. This programme is a first such step," Duncan Hewett, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific and Japan, told IANS. The VMware project will educate 15,000 women in the cutting-edge Cloud technologies like networking, virtualisation, data centre, storage and security. The programme is designed to equip women with foundation-level training courses on digital business transformation; professional-level courses on virtualisation software for Hybrid Cloud and multi-Cloud platforms and infrastructure; and an advanced course on network virtualisation, data centre virtualisation, Cloud management and automation and digital workspace technologies. Once completed, the women will get VMware certification. "I am happy to see that in India, 42 per cent of women are part of the IT workforce as compared to the US where it is merely 30 per cent. "Many women in India have an IT engineering diploma or background. But those who have left the workforce tend to have concerns that their knowledge and skills are outdated and have reservations about returning," said Regina Wallace-Jones who is on the Board of Directors at Women Who Code. With a presence in 20 countries, including India, Women Who Code has executed more than 7,000 free events around the world and has a membership exceeding 137,000. "The training under 'Project Taara' will refresh their understanding of the latest technologies and help qualify women for new jobs in India's data centre and Cloud-computing industries," she told IANS. Wallace-Jones has earlier worked as Senior Director of Technology and Operations at Yahoo! and Head of Security Operations at Facebook. According to Devaraj PR, Senior Vice President and Global IT Head, Cognizant, diversity and inclusion are seen as a crucial competitive advantage at the company. "We are pleased to support this initiative and look forward to welcoming these highly skilled women into our workforce," Devaraj said. Harmeen Mehta, Global CIO and Head of Digital, Airtel echoed his views: "As a woman technology leader, I can confirm that in today's dynamic environment, constant upskilling on new technologies is critical for the growth of our careers. "This is a great initiative, as apart from bringing more women to the workforce, this programme also brings in new skills and talent for companies to build a digital foundation for innovation," she emphasised. As part of "Project Taara," the women will have virtual meetings with industry experts on various aspacts of the New-Age technologies and get their queries answered as they attend online sessions. According to Hewett, "by upskilling women who left their career, we are empowering them to prepare a foundation for a rapidly evolving technology industry". (Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in) Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 10 : The Kerala Police on Saturday arrested two arsonists for a blaze at a plastic factory here 10 days back that caused a loss of nearly Rs 500 crore to the company. The two arrested -- Vimal, 19, and Binuat, 39, were helpers at the factory and have confessed to their crime, Assistant Commissioner of Police R. Anilkumar told IANS. On October 31, the fire that broke out at around 7.30 p.m. at the Family Plastics burnt it down to the ground. On November 1, when the blaze was finally extinguished by a 25-fire truck brigade, the popular plastic bucket producing company was completely gutted. There was, however, no casualty. "The two employees who worked at the company as helpers were angry after the employers cut professional tax from their salary. They were detained on Friday," said Anilkumar. The officer said the arson was well-planned. Two days ahead of the major blaze, there was a minor fire incident. It was identified as a short circuit. The arrested worked in the day shift on October 31 and left the factory around 7 p.m. "They expected the blaze on October 31, might be taken as another short circuit. However, CCTV visuals helped us to zero in on the two. "During the questioning they confessed they were the ones who left a plastic material burning inside the store that caused the blaze," added Anilkumar. Raipur, Nov 10 : It is probably the 'resource curse' that best explains the present condition of one of India's most mineral-rich states, Chhattisgarh. The state goes to polls later this month and Chief Minister Raman Singh, who is seeking a fourth consecutive term, knows that his government has failed to match the expectations of the people on the social development front while aggressively pursuing activities like mining. Singh plans to focus on social development if he wins this time. But this promise probably means little for the people of the state, who continue to wait for the basic necessities of life. Mongabay-India travelled for nearly 2,400 kilometres across Chhattisgarh and found that at many places, even basic facilities like drinking water, electricity, education, health facilities and roads are still a luxury. Five states are going to polls in November and December this year - Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Mizoram. Voting for the 90 seats in the Chhattisgarh assembly will be held in two phases -- on November 12 (18 seats) and November 20 (72 seats). After Chhattisgarh was formed as a separate state, policymakers hoped that this would lead to the higher economic growth in the region. It did, and the growth was even faster than the national average, but the growth was driven largely by industries and its fruits hardly reached the poor. For instance, good roads are generally considered the first sign of development. In southern Chhattisgarh, the Maoist-affected Bastar and Dantewada region have smooth roads but in Korba, the northern part of the state, which has large scale mining activity taking place, the roads are in very bad shape. Over 30 per cent of the Chhattisgarh population of 25.54 million is tribals. Last week, Raman Singh kicked off his election campaign from the tribal-dominated Bastar region. During one of his public meetings at Geedam, Dantewada falling in Bastar, Singh stressed that Dantewada known as a backward region is now famous for its education infrastructure. The chief minister emphasised on the development carried out in the region, including roads, and exhorted the people to vote for his party while reminding them that the region had not voted for the BJP during the 2013 elections. After the election meeting, Singh said if he wins the fourth term, his focus will be on improving social indicators such as infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate and malnutrition. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Chhattisgarh on Nov 9 and BJP President Amit Shah was in the state earlier in the week. In his latest 'Mann ki Baat' radio programme, Modi reached out to the tribal communities -- on how the tribes and their traditions and rituals are the best examples of coexistence with nature. Modi in his programme discussed the issue of environment protection and a balanced lifestyle. "Our country is also facing this problem. But, for its solution we only have to look inwards, to look into our glorious past and our rich traditions and have especially to understand the lifestyle of our tribal communities," the Prime Minister said. Farmers in the region, though are unhappy with the chief minister. Sudesh Tikam, who leads the 'Zila Kisan Sangh' in Rajnandgaon area, said that the state government had failed to address concerns of farmers in the 15 years of its rule. "Government is only focused on mining and power. Farmer issues are systematically ignored. In the last elections, Raman Singh promised a minimum support price of Rs 2,100 for the rice crop and a bonus of Rs 300. But after winning, they never fulfilled their promise. The government, after a lot of protests from farmers, gave MSP of Rs 1,750 and Rs 300 bonus only in 2017. We will not be fooled this time," Tikam told Mongabay-India. Tikam, whose group has about 20,000 farmers as members in Rajnandgaon, said the government also failed in ensuring the welfare of farmers who faced drought in 2015 and 2017. "The other main issues for us are loan waiver and landless agricultural labour. The small and marginal farmers are also ignored by this government," he added. Tikam is also coordinating with farmer groups across the state to put pressure on political parties. They have already organised a series of protests and a Kisan Darbar in the constituency. They have already announced that they will support any political party or independent candidates who listen to farmers' problems. But it is not just in Rajnandgaon that farmers are angry with the state government for not fulfilling its promise. A farmer from Barsur, Keshav Prasad, travelled for about 25 kilometres to listen to Raman Singh at his public meeting in Geedam, Dantewada. "This government has forgotten its promises. I was not brought here by party workers but I came myself to only see what the CM has to say about his promises," said Prasad. The Congress, which is the primary opposition party in the state, also seems to be fully geared up to bridge the narrow margin in the number of votes that have kept them away from power The Congress has fielded Karuna Shukla, the niece of late BJP leader and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, against Raman Singh. According to party sources, the extra push is required due to the narrow margins of the BJP's victories. In 2013, the BJP won 49 seats with 41.04 per cent of the votes polled while Congress won 39 seats with 40.29 per cent of the votes. With such narrow margins and an anti-incumbency factor, the Chhattisgarh elections are turning into a good fight. (In arrangement with Mongabay.com, a source for environmental news reporting and analysis. The views expressed in the article are those of Mongabay.com. Feedback: gopi@mongabay.com) When trying to make a Selfie, is brought down a German tourist in Sri Lanka of a rock edge to their death. The 35-Year-old was on Sunday with a further woman in the Horton Plains national Park in the island nation in the Indian ocean. According to reports, the two women had tried to shoot a photo of yourself in front of a abyss, a police spokesman said. A report by the "Daily Mirror" that the woman fell from the cliff of World's End. The cliff has a Betcup slope of 1200 meters and is one of the most visited places in the Nuwara Eliya District. The police sought, with the support of the army, air force and local population for six hours in the vicinity of the town of Balangoda in the centre of Sri Lanka after the woman. From the air her body was eventually discovered, he was able to be salvaged. lie/dpa Updated Date: 12 November 2018, 08:00 Shanghai, Nov 11 : The first China International Import Expo (CIIE) that concluded here on Saturday can be called a success if only for its signal to the world that the second-largest economy will open up further in the face of protectionist, anti-globalising trends ruling in the developed world. The material indicators of CIIE's success also abounded, where over 400,000 local buyers had the opportunity to interact with more than 3,500 businesses from 172 countries. The gigantic exhibition complex was a beehive of activity with businesses signing thousands of deals and purchase agreements. At the same time, the declaration of China's further opening, on the 40th anniversary of its Deng Xiaoping-led 1978 liberalisation, appeared to find an echo in the results of the Congressional elections in the US, which has launched a trade war on the Asian nation by imposing tariffs on around half the Chinese imports into America. President Donald Trump has threatened to deepen the conflict and target all imports from China. In his opening address at the Shanghai trade expo -- whether under American pressure or otherwise -- Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to lower import tariffs and make it easier for foreign companies to access China's market. This holds promise for trading partners like India and the US which have massive trade deficits with China. Declaring that "openness had become a trademark of China", Xi said that his country "would continue to broaden market access". In an indirect reference to US protectionism, he said: "In a world of deepening economic globalisation, practices of the law of the jungle and winner takes all only represent a dead end. An inclusive growth for all is surely the right way forward." Xi also said that China would hasten negotiation process for both a China-European Union investment agreement and a regional China-Japan-South Korea free trade deal. He announced that China's import of goods and services were estimated to exceed $30 trillion and $10 trillion, respectively, in the next 15 years. The showcasing of the Chinese market through an expo organised around the theme "New Era, Shared Future", comes at a time when the country is striving to boost consumption in an attempt to transit away from years of manufacturing-led growth. According to an official statement, companies that signed deals at the CIIE include multinationals like Volkswagen, Westinghouse Electric, ABB, Carnival, Rolls-Royce and Standard Chartered. American majors like General Motors and Google took part in the expo. At the expo, Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com announced plans to import $200 billion and $14.4 billion of merchandise, respectively. Beyond the billions of dollars of purchase agreements signed at the week-long CIIE, foreign businesses and observers spoke of the need for clarity on concrete steps that would facilitate longer-term market access in China. Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre for East Asian Studies, Srikanth Kondapalli, an invitee to the CIIE Media and Think Tank Forum, told IANS here that countries which took part in the Shanghai expo now await the concretising of promises made to open up the economy. "The world is now looking to see how the policy measures articulated by President Xi will be implemented in the near future," he said. Indian companies participated in the CIIE with the country pavilion focusing on key sectors such as food, agro products, pharmaceuticals, IT and ITES, tourism and services. China is India's largest trading partner and bilateral trade last year touched nearly $90 billion, while the trade deficit stood at over $63 billion. India reiterated its concerns at the CIIE over the increasing trade deficit with China and asked Beijing to give Indian products more access to the Chinese market in the areas of pharmacy, agriculture and information technology. An Indian embassy statement said that Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan, who attended the CIIIE and met here with China's Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen, told the Chinese minister that "areas such as agriculture products, pharmaceuticals, information technology services and tourism, in which India has proven strengths and significant global presence but a minuscule presence in China, need to be encouraged in bilateral trade." The statement also said that Wadhawan acknowledged the Chinese government's efforts in clearing some of the market access issues for products such as rice and rapeseed meal, and expressed satisfaction over progress on soybean meal and pomegranate, among other commodities. Foreign speakers at the media and think tank forum lauded China's initiative on opening up and globalisation at a time when the revival in world economic growth is still at its beginnings. "The spirit of cooperation has been put at risk by a vicious cycle of protectionism and economic setbacks. Global imbalances are challenging stability and economic growth," former French Prime Minister Dominique Villepin said in his address. Noting that the economic momentum had shifted away from the Western economies towards more "multi-polar growth", Villepin called for urgent reform of multilateral institutions like the IMF and the WTO by granting more voting rights to countries like India and Russia. Poland's former Finance Minister Grzegorz Kolodko said the world is now witnessing the "crisis of neo-liberal capitalism...a crisis of the system, of views and policies. The contribution to new thinking is now coming from countries like China and others," he said. "Globalisation has not been inclusive in recent times but has been going towards neo-liberalsm, enriching the few, including the middle class. So what has emerged, in reaction, is neo-nationalism," he added. With the success of the first edition of CIIE, China is already planning a second edtion of the Shanghai expo to be held next year. (Biswajit Choudhury visited the CIIE at the invitation of China's State Council Information Office. He can be reached at biswajit.c@ians.in ) New Delhi, Nov 8 : Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday expressed thanks to the Delhi MLAs for their contribution to the state's Disaster Relief Fund in the wake of floods. In a letter to Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, Vijayan thanked the MLAs for showing empathy towards the flood victims. "I would like to express my gratitude on behalf of the people of Kerala for the contribution of Rs 32,28,000 made by the Members of Delhi Assembly towards the Chief Minister's Disaster Relief Fund. "The extent of compassion and care shown by the government and the people of Delhi in the hour of crisis and calamity is heartening," Vijayan wrote. In August, Kerala witnessed the worst floods in a century. Aam Aadmi Party MLAs had decided to donate a month's salary to the flood-hit state. The Delhi government had also donated Rs 10 crore to flood-ravaged Kerala. Islamabad, Nov 8 : Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi can leave the country only if the Supreme Court rejects an appeal challenging her acquittal in a blasphemy case, the government said on Thursday. Bibi, a mother of five, was released on Wednesday night from a prison in Multan, where she spent eight years on death row. She was accused of insulting Prophet Muhammad in 2009 and a court sentenced her to death in 2010. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Faisal denied rumours that Bibi had left the country after the furore caused by her release. "There is no truth in reports of her leaving the country -- it is fake news," Faisal told Dawn NewsTV. Her acquittal by the apex court on October 31 triggered widespread protests led by the hardline Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). "Asia (Bibi) is at a safe place in Pakistan. She is a free citizen now. A writ is undergoing (in the court)," Faisal said. He said Bibi was free to "travel to wherever she wants" after the court's decision on the review petition. "No one will object to it. A free national can go wherever he or she wants to. She is pretty much with Pakistani authorities. The state of Pakistan is there to protect her." Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry called out the "irresponsible" behaviour of certain media outlets for running the news of Bibi leaving the country without "confirmation". "It has become a norm to publish fake news for sake of headlines," Chaudhry said on Twitter. "#AsiaBibi case is sensitive issue. It was extremely irresponsible to publish news of her leaving the country without confirmation. I strongly urge section of media to act responsible." The TLP wants the Supreme Court to review the verdict. The radical group last week forced the government to agree that Bibi would not be allowed to leave Pakistan and that it would not block a review petition. TLP spokesperson Ijaz Ashrafi tweeted that no government department confirmed that Bibi had gone abroad and added that government had assured the party that she would remain in the country until the verdict on the review petition was announced. Bibi's family had asked for help and asylum for security reasons from the UK, Canada, the US and Italy. On Wednesday, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini announced that his country would help Bibi leave Pakistan. Last weekend, Bibi's lawyer Saif Mulook left Pakistan, fearing for his life after protests against the acquittal paralyzed the country. Pakistan's harsh anti-blasphemy law was established during British colonial rule to avoid religious clashes. But several changes to the law in the 1980s promoted by the then military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, led to its abuse. Brussels, Nov 8 : A week-long photo exhibition on the life of Mahamata Gandhi has been inaugurated in the European Parliament here. The exhibition kicked off on Wednesday and has been organised by British Member of the European Parliament Geoffrey Van Orden, who is President of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with India, in collaboration with the Indian Embassy in Brussels. Van Orden described Mahamata Gandhi as "the most influential figures in international history". "He is a man who turned the politically unimaginable into the politically inevitable," Van Orden said. "To remind the world of the Gandhian ideals of truth and non-violence, the Indian government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a worldwide two-year celebration of Gandhiji's l5Oth birth anniversary," said Indian Ambassador to the EU, Gaitri Issar Kumar. She said that the year 2018 has been an eventful year in the India-EU calendar. "India and the EU have worked together... to make the world a better place. And what better occasion than an exhibition on Mahatma Gandhi to remind ourselves of the potential of our joint efforts," Kumar said. Christian Leffler, Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service -- the external affairs arm of the European Union -- praised Mahamata Gandhi's leadership and said "he stands out as one of the giants among the leaders of mankind". The event witnessed a musical presentation by famous Belgian composer Hans Vermeersh who delighted the gathering with special Indian compositions. New Delhi, Nov 8 : Ridiculing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "knowledge of economics", the Congress on Thursday ripped into him for the "reckless" decision of demonetisation that it said wrecked the economy and consumed many lives. On the second anniversary of the Modi's 2016 decision to ban Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, the Congress launched a campaign "Destruction by Demonetisation" highlighting the havoc caused by the move and how it was a complete failure. The party will also hold a nationwide protest on Friday. A host of party leaders including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came out in stringent criticism of demonetisation. Calling it an "ill-fated" and "ill-thought" exercise, Singh said the scars and wounds of the decision were only getting more visible with time and its deeper ramifications were still unravelling. He asked the government not to indulge in any further unorthodox, short-term economic measures that could cause more uncertainty in the economy and financial markets. Singh said November 8 was a day to remember how economic misadventures can roil the nation for a long time and asked the government to restore certainty and visibility in economic policies. "Today marks the second anniversary of the ill-fated and ill-thought demonetisation... The havoc that it unleashed on the Indian economy and society is now evident to everyone. "It is often said that time is a great healer. But unfortunately, in the case of demonetisation, the scars and wounds of demonetisation are only getting more visible with time," he said in a statement. Singh said that beyond the steep drop in headline GDP growth numbers after demonetisation, the deeper ramifications of note ban were still unravelling. "Small and medium businesses that are the cornerstone of India's economy are yet to recover from the demonetisation shock," he added. "Notebandi (note ban) impacted every single person, regardless of age, gender, religion, occupation or creed." Addressing the media, former union minister and Congress leader Anand Sharma held Modi solely responsible for the note ban and called it a money laundering scheme that helped the BJP and its industrialist cronies. "It was an arbitrary and reckless decision that led to economic disaster and misery, deaths of large number of citizens, loss of millions of jobs and wiping out of small traders and businesses," said Sharma. "The PM will never oblige with answer either to the media or Parliament. He is less than literate in economics and less knowledgeable in history. So he makes his own history and his own economics. He thinks he is wiser then (John Maynard) Keynes when it comes to economics because no PM in the world would do what he has done," he said. Sharma also said that Modi's claims that the Indian economy was running on black money tarnished the country's image globally. The Congress leader also ridiculed Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who on the day sought to justify demonetisation saying it was aimed at "formalising the economy". "The Finance Minister should stay away from defending the decision as he was never consulted before when it was taken. His defences are an insult to the people of the nation who suffered countless miseries. Never before a finance minister has been reduced to an apologist of an arrogant Prime Minister," said Sharma dismissing Jaitley's arguments in support of demonetisation. Raipur, Nov 9 : In a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the Goods and Service Tax (GST) and demonetisation caused a huge loss to the economy. Speaking at election rallies in Kanker and Rajnandgaon in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, Gandhi also accused the government of using the Maoist issue to divert attention from corruption and unemployment. "Modiji is talking about Naxalites in his Bastar rally. But he is silent over corruption and unemployment," Gandhi said. Taking a jibe at Modi, Rahul said: "Before the Lok Sabha election, he (Modi) had promised Rs 15 lakh to every citizen and employment to 2 crore youth. But after the election, he asked the people to pick up the broom and start cleaning." Gandhi said that through demonetisation, the Modi government had tried to snatch money from the poor. "As much as the damage Narendra Modi has done with (demonetisation) and Gabbar Singh Tax (GST), no one else has caused such a huge loss in the history of India," Gandhi said. "All of you were standing in long queues during demonetisation. Have you seen Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya in the queue? Did you see any rich people in the queue? Have you seen (Chief Minister) Raman Singh in the queue?" Gandhi asked. He also attacked Modi for destroying policies related to protecting tribal land and not implementing the Land Acquisition Act properly. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and Modi promised jobs. But today nearly 60,000 posts of teachers and 13,000 of lecturers are vacant and 3,000 tribal schools had been shut down in the state, Gandhi said. The Congress President promised that if his party was voted to power in Chhattisgarh, the party will ensure that the government vacancies were filled up. He promised that Chhattisgarh farmers would get the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs 2,500 for paddy and bonus would be given to the farmers -- something the BJP had not done over the last two years. And a Congress government would cancel farmers' loans "within 10 days". New Delhi, Nov 10 : The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on Monday its order on a plea by Manipur police personnel seeking the recusal of the judges of the bench for describing as "murderers" some of the personnel chargesheeted in alleged fake encounter cases. A bench of Justice Madan B.Lokur and Justice U.U. Lalit was asked by the petitioner Manipur Police personnel to recuse from hearing the case as remarks passed by the bench during a hearing were prejudicial to the probe involving them. The Centre represented by the Attorney General K.K. Venugopal had supported the plea by the petitioners saying that the armed forces face difficult situations in areas like Manipur and have to adopt various methods to deal with the situation at hand. Venugopal had said the reported remarks of the bench that these security personnel were "murderers" had "completely shaken" the morale of the police and armed forces. Besides the personnel of Manipur police, the court has also been moved by over 300 serving Army officers and personnel against the dilution of AFSPA that gives immunity to military personnel from prosecution for their actions in disturbed and insurgency-hit areas. The plea by Army officers and other men in uniform is still pending. The court has been hearing the main case which was a PIL seeking a probe into as many as 1,528 cases of extra-judicial killings in Manipur. On July 14, 2017, the apex court set up a Special Investigation Team comprising CBI officers and ordered registration of FIRs and investigation into the alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur. The court had ordered the registration of FIRs in 81 cases, including 32 probed by a commission of inquiry, 32 investigated by judicial authorities, 11 in which compensation was awarded and six probed by a commission headed by former Supreme Court judge Santosh Hegde. Washington, Nov 9 : A former Marine has been identified as the gunman of a mass shooting on November 7 in the city of Thousand Oaks in Southern California in the US which left at least 13 people dead. A total of 25 people were injured in the shooting, according to authorities, Xinhua news agency reported. Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean on Thursday said the gunman was Ian David Long, 28, a Marine Corps veteran, who was described as "acting a little irrationally" when police were called to his home earlier this year to investigate a disturbance. He lived in Newbury Park, near Thousand Oaks. Dean said the gunman was armed with a Glock 21 -- a brand of .45-caliber handgun. "The weapon was designed in California to hold a magazine of 10 rounds and one in the chamber, but he had an extended magazine on it," Dean said. Sheriff's officials said the shooter fatally shot himself after the massacre. He was found inside an office near the entrance of the venue. In the neighbourhood where Long lived, residents said they were well aware of his problems. Richard Berge, 77, was quoted by the US media as saying the former Marine had PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and was known to kick in the walls of the home. Long lived with his mother, Berge said. A total of 25 other people were injured in the shooting, including 23 who self-transported themselves to hospitals, and two who were taken by ambulance, according to the Ventura County Fire Department. A procession was held Thursday morning for Deputy Sgt. Ron Helus killed while responding to the mass shooting. Helus' body was transported via motorcade from Los Robles Hospital to the Ventura County Medical Examiner's Office. People stood along the route with grief, paying salute to the officer. Helus was a 29-year veteran who was set to retire next year. He is survived by his wife and son. The motive of the shooter remains unknown. Authorities said hundreds of people were inside the bar when the gunfire rang out. No other victims have been identified by officials. New Delhi : Sunday, November 11, happens to be Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's birth anniversary, forgotten this year as it has been in the past. The Maulana is an inconvenient name to remember at a time when Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel towers above every national leader. When former Vice President Hamid Ansari released the Hindi, Urdu and Malayalam translations of my book "Being the Other: The Muslim in India", he quoted from a speech Patel had made on August 11, 1947, four days before Partition. Some TV channels went ballistic. The quote is actually quite well known: "To be United, India would have to be divided." Patel was tracing how the consensus to "divide" India came about. No, but Ansari should not upturn conventional wisdom that "Jinnah was the culprit". If it were the evil Jinnah who created Pakistan, it follows that the CWC, the Iron man included, were busting their guts to keep a United India and Jinnah outfoxed them. Mountbatten's June 3, 1947, plan sought a division of India largely along religious lines. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) swallowed the plan hook, line and sinker. Of the two Muslim leaders present at the CWC, Frontier Gandhi Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan wailed: "You have thrown us to the wolves." Maulana Azad smoked a box of cigarettes and said nothing. Supposing the two, vehemently opposed to Partition, had walked out of the meeting in protest, what interpretation would future historians have placed on the remaining CWC composition? Jawaharlal Nehru valued Azad for his intellect. Some of Nehru's admiration for Azad comes across even in his intimate letters from Ahmednagar jail to his daughter Indira. "Maulana is an extraordinarily interesting person. The more I know him, and I have known him now for over 21 years, the more I find in him. He has an astonishing memory and his information on a variety of subjects is encyclopedic. He is soaked in the lore of the middle ages... he has Plato and Aristotle on his fingertips and is perfectly at home at Cordoba of Arab Spain... It seems such a pity that with such vast learning and a very unusually keen mind and a powerful style, he should have written so little." At one point Nehru reveals he is keen to learn Sanskrit from Acharya Narendra Dev and Persian from Azad. Nehru then gives vent to his afterthought: "But Azad is too erudite." The paradox is that despite such admiration for Azad, Nehru still found time to let him down repeatedly. It was a delicate package, that Azad, as Congress President, had negotiated with the Cabinet Mission and Viceroy Lord Wavell to keep India united. Nehru torpedoed it by raising contentious issues at a press conference in Bombay (Mumbai). Azad was shocked when the entire CWC accepted the Mountbatten plan without fuss. "Partition over my body" kind of sham was instantly abandoned. In fact, Rajendra Prasad came down strongly on a suggestion Mountbatten and Azad had made: That a United Armed Forces for a short period would obviate the massacres which eventually followed. "Not for a day" after August 15, 1947, would the Congress government tolerate a United Army, Prasad thundered. He wanted Partition to be sealed irreversibly. It was no concern of the CWC that an Army, abruptly separated along sectarian lines, would be sucked into the horrendous violence that followed as a partisan force on both sides. Mahatma Gandhi's Secretary Mahadev Desai wrote about Azad: "There was no other in the Congress to match Maulana's insights and wise counsel." Stalwarts like C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru deferred to him on many issues. On his wisdom and erudition, Sarojini Naidu was at her wittiest, "Maulana was 50 years old when he was born." It was this vast reservoir of wisdom that Nehru relied on when Home Minister Kailash Nath Katju decided to bar foreign missionaries in India, "if evangelism is their purpose". The statement created a furore among Christian missionaries. Nehru singled out Maulana to handle the situation. The letter that Azad wrote to Cardinal Valerian Gracias is reproduced on page 79 of my book, "Being the Other". It is a masterpiece of reasoning and logic on the question of conversion. Azad had settled the issue over 60 years ago. He made a distinction between religious conversion, which requires deep reflection on issues of theology and what the constitution calls "mass conversions". The latter is a response to a social and political provocation. It is possible that Maulana was not suited to the rough and tumble of politics which demands fickleness generally dressed up as flexibility. Maulana was incapable of deviating from his core principles -- Hindu-Muslim unity as the bedrock of Indian nationalism. Dr. Rajesh Kumar Pruthi, Director General of the National Archives, published a rare collection of the Maulana's letters in Urdu. The preface by Dr. Pruthi is by itself quite masterly. As evidence of Maulana's consistency he cites a passage from the Maulana's address as President of the Congress at a session held in Delhi on 15 December, 1923: "If an angel came down from heaven and, from the height of the Qutub Minar, announced that if the Congress abandons its platform of Hindu-Muslim Unity, Swaraj or independence would be granted in 24 hours, I would turn my back on that Swaraj. Shunning it for the cost being demanded may delay Swaraj and harm India's interest for a short period but abandoning our unity for good as a price for freedom will be a blot on all humanity." He maintained a decent silence on colleagues who had "blotted humanity". But he did not cheat history. He kept away in the National Archives 30 pages which expose the men with feet of clay who faltered in the last lap towards freedom. Partition, he wrote in a press note, "would be unadulterated Hindu Raj". These pages were made public in 1988 when he and all his colleagues had died. He may have had grievances with Nehru but that did not prevent him from dedicating "India Wins Freedom" to "Jawaharlal, Friend and Comrade". (A senior commentator on political and diplomatic affairs, Saeed Naqvi can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com. The views expressed are personal.) San Francisco, Nov 9 : A raging wildfire forced thousands of residents of a California town to flee from their homes, with dozens still trapped inside the fire zone, the authorities said. The northern California town, called Paradise, is about 150 km north of Sacramento, the state capital, reports Xinhua news agency. "The whole town's on fire," Scott Lotter, a town councilman who evacuated with his family, told the media on Thursday, adding, "It's pretty grim." Video posted online showed that the blaze devoured trees and houses along the highway. A thick, dark plume of smoke filled the sky in the video. Fueled by steady winds and dry grass, the blaze, dubbed Camp Fire, was first reported at about 6.30 a.m. on Thursday and it rapidly exploded to an estimated 18,000 acres by 2.30 p.m. Cal Fire said the fire had zero containment so far. Bengaluru, Nov 10 : Karnataka's mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy on Saturday appeared before the state's Central Crime Branch (CCB) for interrogation in a Ponzi-related case, police said. "Reddy appeared before our investigation officers with his lawyer in our office for questioning his alleged role in the multi-crore Ponzi scheme case," a CCB official told reporters here. Reddy's appearance at the CCB office came a day after a city court on Friday declined to grant him anticipatory bail. The CCB has alleged that Reddy had shielded the accused in the Ponzi scheme from being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Reddy, a former BJP Minister in the state, is on bail in the multi-crore mining scam that rocked the southern state for a decade from 2002 to 2012. In a video clip released to local news channels hours before he drove to the CCB office in the city's southwest suburb, Reddy denied speculation that he was absconding or hiding in Hyderabad. "Though I have been in Bengaluru only, I learnt through news channels that I am in Hyderabad. I am going to the CCB office on the advice of my lawyer Chandrashekar in response to its notice," Reddy said in the video clip. New Delhi, Nov 8 : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday called the note ban a "cruel conspiracy" and a "criminal financial scam". "November 8th will forever go down in the history of India, as a day of infamy," said Gandhi, adding that "note ban was a planned and cruel conspiracy. This scam was a scheme to launder black money of the Prime Minister's cronies," he said. The Congress chief said Modi's unilateral announcement two years ago brought the economy to a grinding halt and it didn't even have the "support of his own economic advisors". "Demonetisation was a tragedy. It is unique in the history of our tragedies because it was a self-inflicted, suicidal attack that destroyed millions of lives and ruined thousands of India's small businesses. The worst hit by demonetisation were the poorest of the poor, people who were forced to queue up for days for their meagre savings," he said in a statement. Gandhi reminded that over 120 people "died" in queues, and millions of small and medium businesses were smashed and the entire informal sector "devastated". "From a war against counterfeit currency and terrorism, to permanently removing the scourge of black money; from increasing savings to forcing a shift to digital transactions; not a single stated objective of the government's has been met," he said, adding "all that was accomplished was a disaster". He said demonetisation cost India over one-and-a-half million jobs and wiped out at least 1 per cent from the GDP. "On the second anniversary of the Prime Minister's monumental blunder, the government's spin-doctors, including our incompetent Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley), have the unenviable task of defending an indefensible -- the criminal policy. "India will discover, no matter how the government tries to hide it, that demonetisation wasn't just an ill-conceived and poorly executed economic policy, but a carefully planned, criminal financial scam," he added. New Delhi, Nov 9 : Microsoft India on Friday said the fourth edition of its annual global learning event Skype-a-Thon will start on November 13. The two-day event will connect an estimated half a million students from over 100 countries, the company said. The event will allow students go on virtual field trips, experience new cultures, hear from guest speakers and learn from other students, educators and experts from around the world by travelling virtual miles over Skype over a 48-hour period. Skype-a-Thon will dwell on diverse topics including conservation, history and computer science in addition to sharing cultural experiences through song and dance, games, reading, stories and virtual field trips, exchanging ideas and learning from each other. In India, the discussions will also focus on AI in education, cyber security, empathy and inclusiveness, Microsoft India said. "We invite schools from across the country to join this movement. Skype-a-thon will also encourage students to engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behaviour when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices," said Manish Prakash, Country General Manager -- Public Sector, Health and Education, Microsoft India. Schools located anywhere in India can join Skype-a-thon through an online registration process. Microsoft also announced that for every 400 virtual miles travelled by Skype-a-Thon participants, the company will donate to WE, a non-profit organisation that helps students internationally. New York, Nov 12 : Top Saudi intelligence officials close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked a small group of businessmen last year about using private companies to assassinate enemies of the Kingdom, The New York Times reported. The Saudis inquired at a time when Prince Mohammed, then the deputy crown prince and defence minister, was consolidating power and directing his advisers to escalate military and intelligence operations outside the Kingdom, informed sources told The Times on Sunday. Their discussions, more than a year before the killing of The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, indicate that top Saudi officials have considered assassinations since the beginning of Prince Mohammed's ascent. Saudi officials have portrayed Khashoggi's death as a rogue killing ordered by an official who has since been fired. But that official, Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, was present for a meeting in March 2017 in Riyadh where the businessmen pitched a $2 billion plan to use private intelligence operatives to try to sabotage the Iranian economy, the sources said. During the discussion, part of a series of meetings where the men tried to win Saudi funding for their plan, General Assiri's top aides inquired about killing Qassim Suleimani, the leader of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps and a man considered a determined enemy of Saudi Arabia. George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman, arranged the meeting. He had met previously with Prince Mohammed, and had pitched the Iran plan to Trump White House officials. Another participant in the meetings was Joel Zamel, an Israeli with deep ties to his country's intelligence and security agencies. Both Nader and Zamel are witnesses in the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and prosecutors have asked them about their discussions with American and Saudi officials about the Iran proposal, The New York Times reported. General Assiri was dismissed last month when the Saudi government acknowledged Khashoggi's killing and said he had organised the operation. On Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government had handed over a recording of Khashoggi's killing to the US, Saudi Arabia, Britain and France, pressuring President Donald Trump to more harshly punish the Saudis over the murder. Seoul, Nov 12 : Samsung Electronics Co plans to launch its first foldable smartphone in March, along with a fifth-generation (5G) network-powered Galaxy S10, industry sources said on Monday. According to the sources, the South Korean tech giant plans to unveil the flagship Galaxy S10 smartphone in February, followed by the presumed foldable Galaxy F and another edition of the Galaxy S10 that runs on the 5G network in March, Yonhap news agency reported. The outlook came after Samsung Electronics President Koh Dong-jin, who heads the mobile business, said last week that the company will release a foldable smartphone within the first half of 2019. Koh said the shipment volume of the foldable smartphone will be at least 1 million. Industry watchers said Samsung is expected to showcase the upcoming foldable smartphone in the Mobile World Congress in February, ahead of the official launch in the following month. The much-awaited foldable smartphone, however, is not expected to support the 5G network. While the price of the foldable smartphone has not been decided, industry watchers said it may cost around 2 million won ($1,770). The steep price is expected to limit sales. Samsung said the upcoming foldable smartphone will fold inward and will sport a 7.4-inch screen when unfolded and have a 4.6-inch display like a regular smartphone when folded. Singapore, Nov 12 : Finance Ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on Monday signed the bloc's first agreement to facilitate e-commerce transactions in the region. Asean, the third largest trading bloc in the world, is holding meetings on Monday and Tuesday prior to its official summit scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in Singapore, reports Efe news. The newly signed agreement will foster speed and cooperation between businesses and governments, generating more efficient transactions, said Singaporean Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing. At a parallel business summit, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for greater integration among Southeast Asian nations at a time when multilateralism was under threat from protectionist measures by the US and China. The US-China trade war is expected to be a major topic on the ASEAN Summit agenda with participation of member countries Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. The summit will also have the presence of the US, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. US President Donald Trump will be represented by Vice President Mike Pence, who will also participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Papua New Guinea later. It is not known so far whether Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Pence will hold a bilateral meeting to address the trade war between the two countries that has undermined world markets in recent months. Colombo, Nov 12 : Sri Lanka's main political parties filed petitions in the Supreme Court on Monday challenging President Maithripala Sirisena's dissolution of Parliament and Speaker Karu Jayasuriya called on public servants to refuse to execute any "illegal" orders they may receive in the midst of an ongoing political crisis. The political turmoil escalated in the island nation when Sirisena dissolved Parliament on Friday and called for a snap parliamentary election on January 5, over two weeks after sacking Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replacing him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa. The parties which filed Fundamental Rights petitions on Monday included the United National Party led by sacked Wickremesinghe, the main opposition Tamil National Alliance, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the Tamil Progressive Alliance and the All Ceylon Makkal Congress, the Daily Mirror reported. The petitioners said Sirisena had no powers to dissolve the Parliament under the 19th amendment of the Constitution and requested the apex court to issue an order voiding the gazette issued by Sirisena and to suspend the upcoming parliamentary election until a verdict was announced. The petition filed will be considered later in the day by a three-judge Supreme Court bench including Chief Justice Nalin Perera, according to Xinhua news agency. Speaker Jayasuriya said in a statement that every citizen who was entrusted with responsibilities under the Constitution, should think first of the country and not of party politics or personal affiliations. "Under these dire circumstances, I urge all public servants who have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution to revisit that oath. "I call upon all public servants to refuse to execute any illegal orders they may receive, no matter from whom," he added. Jayasuriya also had requested Sirisena to convene the Parliament immediately to see which party held a majority. Sirisena's sudden move to dissolve the Parliament came one and a half years ahead of the scheduled parliamentary polls. Meanwhile, a member of the country's Election Commission, S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole, joined the political parties in challenging the Parliament's dissolution. Hoole along with two other members of the poll body called the President's move "illegal". On Saturday, when the Election Commission met for the first time after Sirisena's illegal sacking, Hoole refused to sign the order directing Commissioner General of Elections to begin preliminary administrative work on holding the polls. New Delhi, Nov 12 : India and Morocco on Monday signed an agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, a move to strengthen bilateral cooperation and provide strong legal base for extradition of fugitive offenders, a Home Ministry statement said. The pact was signed by India's Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and Morocco's Minister of Justice Mohamed Aujjar here. "The agreement will strengthen bilateral cooperation with Morocco and enhance effectiveness and provide a broad legal framework for prevention, investigation and prosecution of crimes; as well as in tracing, restraint and confiscation of funds meant to finance terrorist acts," the statement said. The Ministers reiterated their resolve to jointly counter the threats posed by organised crime and terrorism. The agreement will provide a strong legal base for the extradition of fugitive offenders who are accused of economic offences, terrorism and other serious offences in one contracting state and found in another contracting state. This agreement will enhance co-operation in the service of summons, judicial documents, letters of request and the execution of judgments decrees and arbitral awards. On November 8, the union Cabinet gave its approval for the agreement. India and Morocco have enjoyed cordial and friendly relations and over the years bilateral relations have witnessed significant depth and growth. Both nations are part of the Non-Aligned Movement. Dhaka, Nov 12 : The Bangladesh Election Commission on Monday postponed the polling date for the country's general election from December 23 to December 30 amid calls for a deferral from the new opposition alliance Jatiya Oikya Front and other parties. Chief Election Commissioner K.M. Nurul Huda made the announcement in capital Dhaka, a day after the opposition alliance, including former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), decided to contest the polls, bdnews24.com reported. The alliance also called for the election to be deferred by a month. Huda said the poll body welcomed the opposition alliance's decision to contest the polls. BNP Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir had earlier urged the government to ensure a level playing field for holding a free, fair and neutral election. The Election Commission will now accept nominations till November 28, said Huda. "They (BNP and Oikya Front) said they are interested in participating in the polls... The election commissioners discussed the matter and came to this decision." The ruling Awami League (AL) of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the parliamentary opposition Jatiya Party said they had no objection to the revised schedule. The AL was founded by the late Sheikh Mujibur Rehman who led the country's struggle for liberation from Pakistan in 1971. It has been in and out of power sunce 1973, when it first formed the government. It stormed back to power with a landslide election victory in early 2009 and won a second second term in 2014. It is now facing challenges from Khaleda's BNP and its allies, which boycotted the 2014 elections. New Delhi, Nov 12 : Twitter is taking "multi-variable" steps, including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, to curb the spread of misleading information on its platform ahead of 2019 general election in India, Co-Founder and CEO Jack Dorsey said here on Monday. Addressing a Town Hall-style meeting at the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D), Dorsey said fake news is a way too big category. "The real problem is not misinformation per se as jokes can also be categorised as misinfomation. But misinformation that is spread with the intent to mislead people is a real problem," stressed the Twitter CEO who is in India on a week-long maiden visit. Dorsey, who got a rousing reception at IIT-D with the students wildly cheering the young entrepreneur, likened solving the problem of misleading information to that of addressing a security issue, or building a lock. "No one can build a perfect lock, but we need to stay ahead of our attackers. AI could probably help," Dorsey told the audience. Earlier in the day, the Twitter CEO met Congress President Rahul Gandhi and discussed various steps the social network was taking to curb the spread of fake news and boost healthy conversation on its platform. Dorsey also met Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama over the weekend. He was also expected to meet Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in the wake of the growing criticism over Twitter's role in the spread of misinformation and fake news as India faces Assembly polls in five states in November-December ahead of next year's general elections. Twitter, along with other social media platforms, including Facebook, came under intense scrutiny of policymakers in the US for their failure to stop the spread of misinformation by Russia-linked accounts on their platforms during the 2016 Presidential election. The micro-blogging site since then has stepped up its efforts to curb the spread of divisive messages and fake news on its platform. To further protect the integrity of elections, Twitter recently announced that it would now delete fake accounts engaged in a variety of emergent, malicious behaviour. As part of the new rules, accounts that deliberately mimic or are intended to replace accounts that were previously suspended for violating rules may be identified as fake accounts, Twitter said recently. However, according to a Knight Foundation study released in October, more than 80 per cent of the Twitter accounts linked to spread of disinformation during the 2016 US election are still active. Los Angeles, Nov 12 : Canadian rock legend Neil Young has criticised US President Donald Trump for his "gross mismanagement" comment regarding the California wildfire. The wildfire is currently raging in northern and southern California and has claimed Young's home, reports hollywoodreporter.com. He broke the news with a post on the Neil Young Archives, in which he blasted Trump's reluctance to act on climate change and for the president's steadfast denial of scientific evidence. Young wrote: "We are vulnerable because of climate change; the extreme weather events and our extended drought is part of it." Los Angeles County firefighters attack flames approaching the Salvation Army camps in Malibu Creek State Park during the Woolsey Fire on November 10 near Malibu. Local residents "are up against something bigger than we have ever seen," he continued. "It's too big for some to see at all. Firefighters have never seen anything like this in their lives. I have heard that said countless times in the past two days, and I have lost my home before to a California fire, now another." Young, a Canadian citizen can't vote in US elections, but he remains a tireless campaigner on environmental issues. He has maintained the years-long rift with Trump. The rocker's post references Trump's controversial tweet which blamed "gross mismanagement" for the devastating wildfire, which have displaced hundreds of thousands of Californians. Trump's comment has been condemned by a wave of professionals from the music community, including Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, John Legend and entrepreneur Scooter Braun. Young concluded his open letter by saying: "Imagine a leader who defies science, saying these solutions shouldn't be part of his decision-making on our behalf. Imagine a leader who cares more for his own, convenient option than he does for the people he leads. Imagine an unfit leader. Now imagine a fit one." Jerusalem, Nov 12 : The Israeli authorities on Monday tightened security measures around the Gaza Strip following clashes that killed an Army official and wounded another, according to the Israeli military. The Gaza Health Ministry said an exchange of fire erupted on Sunday night when Israeli forces claimed they were carrying out a military operation near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, which resulted in the deaths of seven Palestinians aged between 19-37 and left seven others injured, Efe news reported. "During IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) special forces' operational activity in Gaza, an exchange of fire broke out, during which an IDF officer was killed and an additional IDF officer was moderately injured," the Israeli Army tweeted. A Hamas military commander was also killed in Israeli forces operation, reports say. Hamas identified the deceased military commander as 37-year-old Nour Baraka of the Qassam Brigades, according to CNN. The IDF said that after the gunfire, 17 missiles were fired from Gaza at the Israeli territory, three of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome. The Israeli authorities, in response, shut down the Israeli railway line from Ashkelon to Sderot as well as schools in the Israeli communities adjacent to Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in Paris along with other world leaders to commemorate the centenary of the end of World War I, cut short his visit to return to Israel to assess the situation. Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman held an assessment meeting with intelligence and military police officials in Tel Aviv's IDF headquarters early Monday. Sunday's escalation came just days after Qatar sent $15 million into Gaza in an attempt to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the coastal enclave and reduce tensions along the Gaza border, which has seen often violent clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters. Mumbai, Nov 12 : Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar, who has been summoned by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing police firing on protesters in Punjab against religious sacrilege, on Monday denied meeting Dera Sacha Sauda sect head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. In a statement put out on social media, Akshay denied "rumours and false statements" about his involvement with Ram Rahim Singh following reports that he arranged a meeting between the godman and then Punjab's Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. "I have never ever met Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in my life, anywhere. I learnt from social media at some point that Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh resided for a while at some place in my locality Juhu in Mumbai but we never ever crossed each other's paths," Akshay said in a statement. Ram Rahim Singh's movie "MSG" ran into opposition from the Sikh community. "Over the years, I have dedicatedly made films promoting the Punjabi culture and the rich history and tradition of Sikhism through films like 'Singh is Kinng' and 'Kesari' (based on the Battle of Saragarhi). I'm proud of being a Punjabi and have the highest regard for the Sikh faith. "I shall never do anything that would even remotely hurt the sentiments of my Punjabi brothers and sisters, for whom I have utmost respect and love," Akshay added. New Delhi, Nov 12 : Miffed at being "ignored" for the seat-sharing talks in the NDA in Bihar, Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) chief and Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha on Monday gave signals that he may part ways with the BJP-led alliance. According to Kushwaha's partymen, BJP President Amit Shah had called him for a meeting, but did not give him any appointment. The RLSP leader met Loktantrik Janata Dal President Sharad Yadav here on Monday. The meeting comes amid war of words between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Kushwaha which took an ugly turn on Sunday when the RLSP chief accused the JD-U President of poaching his MLAs. The development in Bihar politics, after the BJP and the JD-U announced a fortnight ago that the two parties will contest an equal number of Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, has given rife to speculation that the RLSP may part ways with the NDA. Kushwaha, who tweeted that his meeting with Yadav was a "courtesy call", is understood to have discussed with him the current political situation in Bihar. Kushwaha had earlier met RJD leader and former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav. Amid reports that two of the RLSP's MLAs are set to join the JD-U, Kushwaha alleged on Sunday that Kumar has an "expertise" in breaking away MLAs. Media reports claimed that RLSP MLAs Sudhanshu Shekhar (Harlakhi in Madhubani district) and Lalan Paswan (Chenari in Rohtas district) were offered a ministerial berth in the state government. Sources in the RLSP told IANS that Kushwaha is not happy the way he is being treated by the BJP despite supporting the candidature of Narendra Modi even before he was declared party's prime ministerial candidate in 2014. They reminded that it was Nitish Kumar, whom the BJP is giving so much of importance today, had left the NDA after Modi was announced BJP's prime ministerial candidate. RLSP sources claimed that BJP chief Amit Shah had called Kushwaha to meet him in Delhi on Sunday but he did not meet despite both leaders being in Delhi and Kushwaha waiting for his call. The day seat-sharing formula was announced by Shah and Kumar in Delhi, the BJP chief had said that when a new friend (JD-U) has joined the alliance, the number of seats for each will come down. To this, Kushwaha had asked why the RLSP was ignored in power sharing when the JD-U came into the NDA fold and formed the government in Bihar last year. Since the announcement of ticket distribution, Kushwaha has been attacking Kumar. Addressing a rally in Bihar, he had attacked Kumar asking him to share his DNA report that was questioned by Modi during an election rally in Bihar. On this Kumar had reportedly refused to reply, saying "Itna neeche baat ko nahi le jaiye (do not take the debate to such a low level)". The RLSP said that the "neech" remark of Kumar was targeted at Kushwaha to insult him and the party workers held a protest march in Patna on Saturday against it. The BJP has offered two seats to the RLSP which had made it clear that it would not compromise on its demand for not less than four seats. Of the 40 Lok Sabha seats, the BJP had won 22 out of the 30 it contested while the Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP won 6 out of the seven it contested and the RLSP all the 3 it contested as part of the NDA alliance. The JD-U contested separately and had bagged only two seats. Bengaluru, Nov 12 : Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.N. Ananth Kumar, who died on Monday, was widely regarded as an able political organiser who helped build the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka to expand the party's reach in the country's south. Along with the party's state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa, Union Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda and others, Kumar built the BJP across the southern state into a formidable alternative to the Congress and the Janata Dal. Kumar's organizational skills and proficiency in Kannada, Hindi, Marathi and English caught the attention of the party's top leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, who made him a BJP national General Secretary at a young age. "Kumar rose from the ranks to the national level in the BJP and the government, first as a student leader and later as an able party organiser," BJP Karnataka spokesman S. Shantaram told IANS. He had another ability -- winning friends across the political class. An urban face of the BJP, the 59-year-old Kumar was a six-time parliamentarian from the high-profile Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency since 1996. He became a Union Minister at a young age (37) in the Vajpayee's governments of 1998-99 and 1999-2004. Kumar again became a Union Minister in May 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave him the Chemicals and Fertilisers portfolio and, later, the Parliamentary Affairs portfolio. In 2014, he defeated Congress star candidate and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who entered the political arena after resigning as Chairman of the state-run Unique Identification Authority of India (UIADA). Kumar's tryst with politics began in college days during the 1980s when he was elected as the state and national secretary of the Akhila Bharatiya Vidhya Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Sangh Parivar. He was associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as an organiser at Hubli-Dharwad in the state's northwest region before joining the BJP in 1988. Kumar was among those who helped the BJP to take power in Karnataka on its own in 2008. Born into a middle class Brahmin family in Bengaluru on July 22, 1959, Kumar went to school in the city and joined college at Hubli when his father H.N. Narayan Shastry, a railway employee, was transferred to the northwest town about 400 km from here. His mother Girja, was a home maker. Kumar graduated in Arts from K.S. Arts College and in Law from J.S.S. Law College at Hubli with B.A. and LL.B degrees from Karnataka University in Dharwad. Kumar's siblings are younger brother Nand Kumar and younger sister Suhasini. Kumar was the state president of the Bharatiya Janata Youva Morcha and became its national secretary before the 1996 Lok Sabha elections. He was also the party's state unit president in 2003 and contributed to making the BJP a powerful opposition after the 2004 elections. New Delhi : Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 12 (IndiaSpend/IANS) The devastating flood in Kerala left 2.56 million homes without electricity. How the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) restored power in under a fortnight by mobilising every human resource at hand -- including retired staff and volunteers -- and doing away with red tape and questions of hierarchy, could be a model for every disaster-stricken state. The KSEB called its plan Mission Reconnect. "The situation was unprecedented," N.S. Pillai, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of KSEB, told IndiaSpend. "We had to ensure that requests for materials and personnel on ground were provided without the usual delays of following government procedure." The flood waters damaged nearly 16,158 distribution transformers, 50 sub-stations, 15 large and small hydel stations, according to the KSEB data. The KSEB set up a state-level task force (SLTF) at its headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram with a 24x7 control room. "Our primary role was to ensure communication to and from district-level officials was seamless," said Suresh Kumar C., Deputy Chief Engineer leading the SLTF. The challenge was to make human resource and material available at all levels of its functioning -- from the control room in the state capital to section offices -- and also ensure coordination between different wings of the board and between the board and external agencies. But what ensured the mission's success was the doggedness with which workers and volunteers made sure they reached distressed homes and submerged villages. "I am set to retire soon, and have never seen anything like this," said Manikuttan, a sub-engineer with KSEB office in Chengannur, the worst-affected division in the state. It was his day off but he walked into his office in a white mundu (sarong) and brown shirt. In the three days following August 15, he travelled to work in a milkman's boat from his home around five km away. "Although my house wasn't affected, I had to wade or swim till I could access transport," he said. "For a few days we stayed in office to restore power in different parts of the sub-division." Shyam Kumar, an assistant executive engineer, is a part of the project management unit (PMU) in Haripad circle. With senior officers stranded at home or in relief camps, he and his colleagues had to coordinate the restoration of infrastructure and supply to 120,000 consumers. "We assumed charge under the circumstances," he said. Teams of line staff, supervisors would patrol the 11-KV high transmission lines and inform nodal officers about their status and repair requirements. The officers would then communicate the information to the circle and the control room. Volunteers from engineering colleges, retired KSEB staff and wiremen visited individual homes to check meters and wiring. "We ensured that electrical supplies, line materials, transformers and so on were moved here from other circles," said Kumar. Laila N.G., Assistant Executive Engineer at Chengannur, could only join work by August 22. Her home was a shelter to more than 20 neighbours hit by floods. "When I joined I realised it was a matter of managing resources, both human and material," said Laila. Just before the floods, 11 line staff had been transferred to new locations. This meant that the new people who had joined had little knowledge of the area and the distribution network. "We requested that overseers and line staff be temporarily moved back so that they could help complete the restoration works quickly," she said. The orders were passed immediately by the board. In Alangand too, a flood-hit section of Ernakulam, line staff and supervisors were transferred back to ensure that their familiarity with the region would hasten restoration work. In some areas of Chengannur and Alangad, electric poles and lines had fallen into water-logged fields and wires were sagging. A team of eight KSEB staff with experience in working in water-logged areas helped resurrect the installations and pulled up the wires. Transformers which were not damaged were charged, their oil replaced, and fuse removed to restore transmission. Nearly 99 per cent of the 16,158 affected transformers had been restored as of September 3, as per KSEB data. "It was the effort of our own staff, volunteers that helped us restore power within few days despite our 33 KV substation tripping due to the flood," said Anil Kumar, Assistant Engineer in Alangand. In homes where it was not possible to supply power immediately due to structural damage, simple connections were provided which included a safety device to prevent shock, a power socket to use motors for cleaning or other purposes, and a bulb holder. The Kerala Electrical Wiremen and Supervisors Association, a private association of electrical workers, was vital in ensuring that homes were safe for power restoration. "A group of 3-4 people would check the wiring of close to 150 homes a day, ideally in the presence of the homeowner," said Jose Daniel, a member of the association in Chengannur. These men were among the first to wade through the slush and mud to damaged homes, often working late into the night. Volunteers helped identify unsafe homes with damaged installation like meters or wiring. Wherever possible, they marked meters using stickers -- red for damaged and green for undamaged -- and created a checklist for reference. The entire 58-km stretch of 11 KV lines in Kuttanad, 86 per cent of which is on paddy fields located a few metres below mean sea level, was restored in five days. Single point connections were provided to homes where wiring was damaged or those with issues of structural stability. "While the staff did an exemplary job, we received a lot of support from volunteers, wiremen and electricity staff from other state governments in the south," said Pillai. Nearly 120 state electricity board board staff from Andhra Pradesh arrived with their own equipment to join Mission Reconnect. KSEB received more than 20,000 electricity meters and transformers from Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Since the board was implementing central schemes to improve power distribution and supply it had a stock of electrical poles, meters and transformers it could put to use in restoration work. "We received around 125 transformers from Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation," Santosh K., Executive Engineer in Pathanamthitta, told IndiaSpend. "More than 220 transformers were submerged here, but we were able to either replace or fix them within five days thanks to the availability of replacements." The KSEB has decided to not collect electricity dues till January 31, 2019, to give people time to tide over the financial distress caused by the floods. (In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Paliath is an analyst. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org) Malappuram (Kerala) : Malappuram (Kerala) Nov 12 (IANS) A close relative of a Kerala Minister quit on Monday as the demand for Higher Education Minister K.T. Jaleel's resignation gathered momentum following allegations of nepotism in the appointment. K.T. Adeeb's appointment as general manager in a state-owned corporation in September had sparked protests by the youth wing of the Indian Union Muslim League -- the second biggest ally of the Congress-led-UDF. Adeeb, who joined the Kerala Minorities Development Finance Corporation, under Jaleel's ministry, finally submitted his papers earlier in the day. However, Youth League chief P.K. Firos said: "We will not stop our protest till Jaleel quits and faces a probe into the entire episode as it is a clear case of nepotism." Despite Jaleel, an Independent MLA, receiving support of the ruling CPI-M, Firos came out with incriminating documents to negate Jaleel's claims, leading to Adeeb's resignation. The developments have taken place a day after Jubilee Navaprabha, wife of Public Works Minister G. Sudhakaran, quit her post in the University of Kerala following criticism that her husband played a role in getting her the job. Industries Minister E.P. Jayarajan, who quit in 2016 following similar charges, was reinstated earlier in 2018 after a court gave him a clean chit. New Delhi, Nov 12 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet US Vice President Mike Pence during a visit to Singapore on November 14-15 for India-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit and the 13th East Asia Summit (EAS), a senior official said on Monday. "Let me confirm that there will be a meeting between the Prime Minister and US Vice President Mike Pence," Vijay Thakur Singh, Secretary (East) in the External Affairs Ministry, said at a media briefing here. More details will be shared after the meeting between Modi and Pence on November 14, Singh said. The meeting assumes significance as US President Donald Trump has turned down an invitation to attend India's 2019 Republic Day celebrations as chief guest ostensibly due to scheduling reasons. Singh said other bilateral meetings were also being arranged between Modi and other visiting leaders in Singapore. There have been much speculations about the India-US ties over New Delhi's oil imports from Iran and signing of a missile deal with Russia after Washington imposed fresh sanctions on Tehran and Moscow for different reasons. India and Russia signed the S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile deal during the course of the 19th India-Russia Annual Bilateral Summit between Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin here last month. The US pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that Tehran had signed with the five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council, Germany and the EU and imposed the new sanctions on the West Asian nation over its nuclear programme. Under the sanctions, the US urged all countries in the world to stop importing oil from Iran. Singh said that high on Modi's agenda will be a summit meeting on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on November 14. The RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement between the 10 Asean member states and the six countries with which this regional bloc has existing free trade agreements -- Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. The RCEP is expected to be concluded by the end of the year as New Delhi continues to increase its engagement with southeast Asia under its Act East Policy. Modi will attend the 13th EAS and his fifth India-Asean Summit during his 36-hour visit to the Southeast Asian city state. The EAS member states comprise 10 Asean nations and Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the US and Russia. On November 14, Modi will also deliver the keynote address at the Singapore Fintech Summit. India will be the largest participant at the event with 400 exhibitors. Modi will also confer awards on winners of a hackathon between Indian and Singaporean students. On November 15, he will have a breakfast meeting with leaders of the Asean countries. The Prime Minister will also attend a meeting of the leaders of the quad -- comprising India, the US, Japan and Australia -- that was revived last year and which seeks to work for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. New Delhi, Nov 12 : The Congress on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government of planning a 'demonetisation part-2' by forcing the central bank to part with a large chunk of its reserves. "Modi-made disaster of demonetisation shaved off 1.5 per cent of India's GDP and severely denigrated the institutional autonomy of the RBI. Now, the Modi government is planning demonetisation part-2 by coercing the RBI to pay a special dividend of Rs 3.6 lakh crore," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters here. Singhvi rejected as "bunkum" the government's argument that it was planning to fix the capital framework of the Reserve Bank of India, and not dip into its reserves, and accused the Centre of hatching a "nefarious ploy" to trample upon the institutional integrity of the central bank. "Staring at an imminent defeat in the 5 state elections and the ensuing Lok Sabha elections, a desperate Modi government wants to grab the family silver of the RBI in order to indulge in pre-elections sop-splash," he charged. Dismissing reports that the government had sought Rs 3.6 lakh crore from the RBI reserves as "misinformed speculation", Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg on November 9 said there was no such proposal and that the country's fiscal deficit target was on track. He, however, said that the proposal under discussion between the government and the Reserve Bank of India was to fix "appropriate" economic capital framework of the RBI. Singhvi questioned the need to fix the RBI's capital framework. "The Modi government has come forth with a bunkum and bogus argument that it wants to fix the economic capital framework of the RBI. "What is the meaning of 'fix appropriate economic capital framework of RBI' which is being discussed by the government? What is the need of this quick-fix solution, which will further deteriorate the contingency stability," asked Singhvi. He said that the move will shave 2 per cent off India's GDP. "A cobweb of fraudulent narrative, which smacks of despotism and complete disregard for institutional integrity towards the RBI, is being carefully weaved by the Modi government so that it snatches away the family silver in an election season in order to hide its malgovernance and failures," he added. Guwahati, Nov 12 : The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a BJP ally, on Monday said it will contest the coming panchayat polls in Assam on its own. The AGP and Bodoland People's Front (BPF) are partners in the BJP-led alliance government in Assam. Senior AGP leader Ramendra Narayan Kalita told IANS that the party's General House had decided to contest the panchayat polls alone. "We have intimated the decision to the BJP leadership." Kalita refused to give any reason for the decision. Panchayat polls are due in Assam next month. BJP leader and Assam Health Minister Himata Biswa Sarma was present at a meeting held with the AGP on Monday. "The BJP is ready to accept whatever decisions are taken by AGP regarding panchayat polls. The AGP and BPF are our partners. However if the regional party wants to contest the panchayat polls alone, we are ready to accept that," Sarma said earlier. Difference between the AGP and BJP are rising over the Citizenship (Amendments) Bill 2016. While the Modi government has been trying to pass the bill in Parliament, the AGP and several political parties as well as civil society organisations have been opposing it. The constitutional amendment seeks to grant citizenship to "persecuted minorities" from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The AGP and others say the bill will threaten the existence of indigenous communities of Assam. Brussels, Nov 12 : EU's chief negotiator for the UK's withdrawal from the bloc on Monday said there was still no agreement on a Brexit deal. Michel Barnier addressed EU foreign ministers gathered in Brussels. "Barnier explained that intense negotiating efforts continue but an agreement has not been reached yet," an EU statement cited by Efe news said. "Some key issues remain under discussion, in particular, a solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland." Brexit negotiations between Brussels and London faltered over disagreements on exactly how to maintain a soft Irish border once the UK leaves the bloc, which is scheduled to officially take place in March 2019. The EU has asked the UK government of Prime Minister Theresa May to include a so-called Irish backstop in its Brexit plans, which would act as a kind of insurance policy to ensure the border remains open even in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Brussels also proposed that Northern Ireland remain in regulatory alignment with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, after Brexit. But May said such a deal could, in effect, place a customs border down the Irish Sea. The Democratic Unionist Party, a hardline Northern Irish party that props up May's minority conservative government, is staunchly against such a policy saying it would leave Northern Ireland effectively carved off from the rest of the UK. Ministers gathered in Brussels expressed their support for Barnier in the discussions. "In these final stages of the negotiations, ministers showed again today that we are determined to keep the unity of the EU27," said Austria's Arts and Culture Minister Gernot Blumel. "We have reconfirmed our trust in the negotiator. And we support his efforts to continue working towards a deal," he added. Some 52 per cent of the British electorate voted in favour of leaving the EU in a referendum held on June 23, 2016. Singapore, Nov 12 : Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday appealed to members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to invest in her country. Suu Kyi, who called Myanmar the "last frontier of Southeast Asia", was delivering the keynote speech to the Asean Business and Investment Summit being held in Singapore. "Reform measures have been undertaken to create a more attractive, investor-friendly environment in Myanmar," Suu Kyi said, describing her country as a "very new player in the market economy scene", Efe news reported. "We are very concerned with responsible business, because as a country that was under an authoritarian system for more than half a century, responsibility was something that many people were unaware of, because everything was taken care of by the authorities," she added. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate highlighted the host nation Singapore's rapid development as an example for her country to follow and aspire to, but cautioned that it would take decades before Myanmar would start to see similar results to the city state's or other countries in the region. Her appeal for foreign investment came amid widespread international criticism over her handling of the Rohingya refugee crisis, which has seen over 700,000 members of the mostly Muslim minority flee a military crackdown in western Rakhine state to neighbouring Bangladesh. The two countries agreed to begin the repatriation process later this week, but international groups, including the UN, warned that conditions for their safe return were not met. Suu Kyi, who was detained by the military dictatorship in Myanmar for over two decades, led her National League for Democracy party to power in 2015 to bring the dictatorship to an end. Once seen as an icon for democracy, she has been widely criticized for her government's handling of the Rohingya crisis, which the UN has called "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing". Kolkata, Nov 12 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused the BJP of misleading people in the name of religion before elections and said nobody needs a lesson on Hinduism from the saffron outfit. Taking a swipe at the BJP for trying to consolidate the Hindi-speaking vote bank in the state, Banerjee said the ruling party at the Centre had done nothing for them except making fake pre-electoral promises. "They (BJP) only talk about religion when election comes. Those who celebrate Diwali, tell me, did BJP start the Diwali or are we celebrating it for many years? These festivals are thousands of years old. BJP is misleading people in the name of religion," Banerjee said at the inauguration of a Jagadhatri Puja here. "We also celebrate all the Hindu festivals. We did not learn to celebrate them from the BJP, The BJP tries to divide people and when the election comes they ask the Hindi speaking people to vote for them. But what have they done for them?" she asked the people of central Kolkata's Posta area, a predominantly Hindi-speaking belt. Referring to the National Register of Citizens in Assam, the Trinamool supremo claimed the BJP was trying to drive away Bengalis from Assam while doing the same with the people of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in Gujarat. "I want to ask the BJP why did they drive away the people of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from Gujarat? At this rate, they would drive people away the people of other states even from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan or Delhi one day." Raipur, Nov 12 : Defying Maoist threats, over 70 per cent voted on Monday in 18 Maoist-affected Assembly constituencies of Chhattisgarh in the first phase, marking the start of five-state elections dubbed the 'semi-final' before the Lok Sabha battle next year. The Election Commission said the final figure would be higher as data was still being collated. "Over 70 per cent voters cast their vote... The final figure may touch the last election's figure of 75 per cent as data is still being obtained," Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha told the media here. The Maoists, who had warned citizens against taking part in the poll process, detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Katekalyan in Dantewada district, minutes before the voting began, narrowly missing a foot patrol of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). In a later gun battle with the rebels, two CRPF personnel were injured in Pamed in Bijapur district. Security personnel also found IEDs near a polling station in Bijapur and in Sukma district. The militants have carried out multiple attacks in the last few weeks, killing several people including a BSF officer and a journalist. The constituencies which went to the polls on Monday were Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur, Konta, Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal, Kondagaon, Khairagarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Bastar, Jagdalpur and Chitrakot. The BJP had lost 12 of these 18 seats in 2013. The prominent faces in the first phase include Chief Minister Raman Singh, pitted against Congress' Karuna Shukla in his home turf Rajnandgaon. Shukla, a niece of late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee switched to Congress from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014. Polling in 10 constituencies -- Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur, Konta, Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal and Kondagaon -- started at 7 a.m. and ended at 3 p.m. Voting at Khairagarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Bastar, Jagdalpur and Chitrakot started an hour later and ended at 5 p.m. Amid the polling, Prime Minister Narendra Modi kickstarted the campaign for the second phase of voting in Chhattisgarh by addressing an election rally in Bilaspur. The Congress has promised farm loan waiver, minimum support price for crops as per the Swaminathan Commission recommendations and special women police stations. Hoping to retain the state for a fourth straight term, the BJP has promised to give Rs 2 lakh interest-free loans to women to start business; distribute free books and uniforms to students till Class 12; form a journalist welfare board and to build a Film City in the state. Also contesting is Mayawati's BSP, which has aligned with the Chhattisgarh Janata Congress of former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi and the Communist Party of India. Twelve of the 18 seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs) and one is reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) category. The second and final phase of polling in Chhattisgarh will be held on November 20. The vote count will take place on December 11. In 2013, the Congress won 39 seats garnering 40.3 per cent of the vote share while the BJP won 49 seats with a 41.04 per cent vote share. New Delhi, Nov 12 : The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) on Monday submitted to the Supreme Court its report on a preliminary inquiry into allegations raised against CBI Director Alok Verma by his deputy and Special Director, Rakesh Asthana. Another report was also submitted before the bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul on the decisions taken by the officiating CBI Director M. Nageswara Rao since he took Verma's place. The top court by its October 26 order had barred acting CBI Director Nageshwar Rao from taking any policy decision except relating to routine task. The court had sought the list of all the decisions taken by Nageshwar Rao between October 23, 2018 and up to the time of the passing of the court's order "including decisions with regard to transfer of investigations and change of investigating officer(s)." Taking on record the CVC reports of the preliminary inquiry into the allegations against Verma and also the report on the decisions taken by Acting CBI Director Nageshwar Rao, the court said such matters will be considered on November 16, the next hearing. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that the CVC report has been shown to Justice A.K. Patnaik who was supervising the inquiry involving Verma on the allegation by Special Director Rakesh Asthana in his note to the Cabinet Secretary. The top court by its October 26 order had directed that the CVC inquiry would be carried out under the supervision of former top court judge Justice Patnaik. At the outset of the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said on Sunday (November 11), they were behind the schedule by an hour and could come with the CVC report only at 12.30p.m. "We waited for you till 11.30 a.m. But you could not come on time. You could have informed us if you were being late." Chief Justice Gogoi told Solicitor General. Nashik : Nashik Nov 12 (IANS) An Army soldier from Maharashtra, Keshav S. Gosavi, who was killed in Jammu & Kashmir on Sunday, was cremated with full military honours at his native village Srirampur, on Monday evening, an official said. Gosavi, 29, was critically wounded after the Pakistan Army violated the ceasefire and opened fire in Noshera Sector on the Line Of Control on Sunday afternoon. The soldier succumbed to his injuries. He is survived by his wife Yashoda. The Indian Army retaliated strongly and effectively on the Pakistan Army post following the incident, said the official. A large number of relatives, friends, villagers, state civil and military officials besides an Army contingent bade a tearful adieu to Gosavi as his mortal remains were consigned to the flames. Gosavi served the Army for 10 years. The Gosavi couple was expecting their first child soon, about which the soldier was very excited, their relatives said. New Delhi, Nov 12 : Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday discussed data sovereignty and privacy along with other issues with Nisha Biswal, President of US-India Business Council (USIBC), a government official said. The minister also noted that "democratic countries including the US and India" need to work together on both the opportunities and challenges emerging in the digital space, he said. "The issues of net neutrality and the need for recognising the rising urge for data sovereignty of the people were taken up and she (Biswal) agreed for discussion on these issues," the official said. The meeting also had a discussion on the H1B visa issue and the minister was of the opinion that there must be a change of narrative and emphasis must be on the value addition that Indian IT professionals and companies have made to the US. Further, regarding the ongoing US-Sino trade tension, the USIBC President was of the view that it may open up opportunities for India as American companies may be forced to relocate from China to other countries. Kolkata, Nov 12 : The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday accused the West Bengal government of deliberately delaying permission to the party's proposed rath yatras in the state, threatening to move the court if the sanction did not come by. BJP President Amit Shah is set to kick off three rath yatras in Bengal on December 5, 7 and 9, which will cover all the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state before converging in Kolkata in the second week of January. "We have roughly chalked out the route of the rath yatras and given to the administrative officials in writing. However, they have not yet responded to our request for permission. We feel that if the process is further delayed, there won't be any time left to make any adjustments. So, we will move the court if the permission is not given," West Bengal BJP President Dilip Ghosh told reporters here. "For the last few years, we have had to seek permission from the court for conducting BJP functions in the state. Be it Amit Shah's meeting in the Victoria House or RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's rally, the state government did not give permission for any major event. So we are mentally prepared for that (going to court)," he said. He termed the rath yatras in Bengal as "rallies to save and reinstate democracy in the state". "The Trinamool Congress government is scared of the BJP. When CPI-M takes out a rally, the Bengal government grants permission, but when the BJP plans a programme, they try to stop it by any means," Ghosh alleged. "It is the government's responsibility to ensure that political programmes are conducted properly. It is not the job of the police to try and impede it. If they try to stop us, we will exercise our right to conduct the programme. The yatras will take place on scheduled dates through scheduled routes," he added. The first rath yatra is scheduled to commence from Bengal's temple town Tarapith on December 5. The other two would start from north Bengal's Cooch Behar and south Bengal's Namkhana on December 7 and 9. Jammu, Nov 12 : An Indian Army soldier was killed and another injured on Monday on the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan, forcing strong Indian retaliation. Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Devender Anand said that on Monday around 5.15 p.m. Pakistan Army resorted to ceasefire violation in Krishna Ghati Sector (Mendhar) on the LoC, resulting in a soldier getting martyred and another critically injured. "In the incident, Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM was critically injured and succumbed to gunshot injuries. Havildar Mari Muthu D also sustained gunshot wounds and was critically injured in the firing," said the spokesman. "Immediate resuscitation and medical aid was provided to the injured soldier and he has been evacuated to Military Hospital, Poonch. Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM, 34, belonged to Kerala and is survived by his wife, Anna Dayana Joseph, the spokesman said. "Lance Naik Antony Sebastian KM was a brave and sincere soldier. The nation will always remain indebted to him for his supreme sacrifice and devotion to duty," he said. "Indian Army has retaliated strongly and effectively on Pakistan Army posts. The martyrdom of the Indian Army soldier will not go in vain," he said New Delhi, Nov 12 : "Shocked" that the state police could not trace former Bihar Minister Manju Verma, one of the accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, the Supreme Court on Monday asked the state Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police to appear before it on November 27. The court summoned the DGP to explain the delay in Verma's arrest, who has been "untraceable" for over a month, according to the police. However, if Verma is arrested, the DGP will not have to appear before the court. The court also summoned the Bihar Chief Secretary over the mismanagement of shelter homes in the state. The orders came after the Bihar Police told a bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta on Monday that Verma was not traceable. "Fantastic! cabinet minister on the run, fantastic! How could it happen that cabinet minister is absconding and nobody knows where she is. You realise the seriousness of the issue that cabinet minister is not traceable? It's too much," Justice Madan B. Lokur observed. "We are quite shocked that a former cabinet minister cannot be traced by the police for over a month. We would like the police to tell us that how such an important person is not traceable. Director General of Police to appear before us," the court said as it posted the matter for November 27. The court had rejected Verma's bail plea on October 9 and has been asking the police to arrest her ever since. During a hearing on October 31, the court had observed: "Why have you not arrested her...because she was a cabinet minister? Nobody could trace her. Why was she not arrested?" The court has already shifted the main accused, Brijesh Thakur, to Patiala prison from Bihar's Bhagalpur jail. As many as 34 of the 41 minors housed in the women shelter home in Muzaffarpur were confirmed to have been raped. The girls were injected with drugs and were incarcerated in a four-storey building without windows. New Delhi, Nov 12 : Following the deferment of hearing of Ankiv Baisoya fake-degree case in the High Court here on Monday, the Congress-affiliated National Students' Union of India (NSUI) slammed the Delhi University for engaging in "dilatory tactics" in the way it is conducting the probe. The Delhi High Court on Monday posted the hearing on November 20 in the Ankiv Baisoya case. RSS-affiliated ABVP's Baisoya is the President of the Delhi University Students' Union and is under scanner for allegedly using a fake marksheet for getting admission into Delhi University. The varsity-appointed committee was asked by the court to submit its findings by November 12, Monday, which it failed to do. "The DUSU election and its aftermath underscore the complete institutional capture of Delhi University by the BJP and its affiliates. "After disregarding blatant on-record violence by ABVP Vice President candidate, Shakti Singh, mysteriously malfunctioning EVMs, the DU administration is trying to procrastinate and deliberately delay the verification/inquiry of Ankiv Baisoya's fake certificates," the student group said in a statement. It accused the university authorities of delaying the probe to prevent a re-election for the post, which is necessitated as per the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines, in situations of a major post in the union falling vacant within two months of the election. After the threshold of two months, the next ranked office-bearer takes the charge of the vacant post, who in this case happens to be the Vice President. The union was elected on September 13. "The Delhi University administrative authorities have shown themselves to be in service of a common fraud... exposing themselves to be servile to the interests of thugs and cheats," the NSUI said. It must be noted that Baisoya, as also the Vice President of the union, belong to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Another student group, All India Students' Association (AISA), affiliated to the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist, also railed against the university, accusing it of being in collusion with the BJP. "We believe that Ankiv Baisoya was not just a case of fake degree but the bowing down of India's top university in front of the BJP," it said. Baisoya came under the scanner for allegedly using fake educational certificates when Thiruvalluvar University of Vellore, Tamil Nadu, issued a letter stating that he was never enrolled with it. He is accused of faking documents from Thiruvalluvar University to take admission in the Delhi University's department of Buddhist Studies, whose Dean K.T.S. Sarao is heading the inquiry against him. New Delhi, Nov 12 : As many as 26 of the 32 countries that constitute the membership of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) are participating in the 10th edition of the event that would commence at Kochi on Tuesday. The two-day seminar aims to discuss maritime issues pertaining to cooperative capacity-building to deal with common security concerns in the region. "The IONS initiative endeavours to generate a flow of information among naval professionals so as to enable a common understanding of regional maritime issues and in turn facilitate generation of mutually-beneficial maritime security outcomes," the Indian Navy said in a release on Monday. The theme for this year's seminar is "IONS as a Catalyst for SAGAR". SAGAR stands for Security and Growth for All in the Region. It is in consonance with India's 'Act East' policy and the nation's diplomatic, economic and military outreach in the region. Chennai, Nov 12 : The five accused persons in the Rs 5.78 crore train heist case were sent to Central Prison here on Monday after their police custody came to an end, police said. According to police, the alleged robbers were not able to spend the looted cash as within three months of the robbery, demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes happened. In a statement issued here the Crime Branch Crime Investigation Department (CBCID) said the five accused -- H. Mohar Singh, Rusi Pardi, Mahesh Pardi, Kaliya alias Krishna alias Kabu and Biltya -- were arrested in Madhya Pradesh in connection with stealing Rs 5.78 crore from Salem-Chennai Egmore Express in 2016. According to police, Singh and his gang members came to Tamil Nadu in 2016 and stayed in various places but near railway stations/train tracks, under the over bridges and other places. During his stay, Singh came to know about the movement of cash in Salem-Chennai train route through one of his gang members who was staying in Salem. Singh, along with few of his associates including Kaliya, Rusy, Biltiya conducted reconnaissance on this train route by travelling between Ayothiapattinam and Virudhachalam Railway Stations repeatedly for more than a week, police said. According to the statement, the gang decided to operate between Chinnasalem and Virudhachalam railway stations since the train was running for more than 45 minutes without any halt in between in this stretch. As per the plan, Singh and four other associates got on to the train in Chinnasalem when it was about to move taking advantage of the darkness. The police said the gang climbed on to the parcel van's roof and cut a hole using battery operated and manual cutters. "Two of them entered inside the parcel van through the hole, broke open the wooden boxes, took cash bundles, wrapped them in six lungis and tied them," the statement said. As per the plan, the other members of the gang including Mahesh Pardi were waiting at the trackside at Vayalur overbridge near Virudhachalam Railway station. The members of the gang atop of the moving train threw the cash packed in lungis towards those waiting on the ground and jumped down and escaped. According to police, the looted cash was shared among the gang members but much of the cash became useless owing to demonetisation of 500/1,000 rupee notes in 2016, within three months of the robbery. Bengaluru, Nov 12 : Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar died on Monday at a private hospital here due to multiple organ failure, a BJP spokesman said. He was 59. "A state funeral with 21-gun salute and guard of honour will be accorded to the mortal remains of Kumar at a crematorium in the city's southwest suburb on Tuesday afternoon in accordance with Hindu rites," an official told IANS. The veteran BJP lawmaker from this tech city died around 3 a.m. at Shankara Cancer Hospital due to multi-organ failure three weeks after he was admitted on return from the US on October 21. Prime Minster Narendra Modi flew into the city on Monday night from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and paid last respects to Kumar at his residence in the city's southern suburb by laying a wreath on the tricolour-draped glass casket in which his body lay in waiting for public homage. Modi has also consoled Kumar's widow Tejaswani, their two daughters Aishwarya and Vijeta and expressed grief to Kumar's siblings -- brother Nand Kumar and sister Suhasini. Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala and BJP's state unit president B.S. Yeddyruappa accompanied Modi to Kumar's residence for homage. "The body will be taken to the party's state unit office in the city's northwest region on Tuesday at 8 a.m. for tributes by state leaders and cadres and kept at the National College grounds in Basavangudi in the southern suburb from 10 a.m to 1 p.m for public homage," said the party in a statement later. Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, party's national president Amit Shah, several Union Ministers and party leaders will visit the city on Tuesday to pay homage to Kumar and attend his last rites. Earlier in the day, the Karnataka government declared a three-day mourning across the state and one-day public holiday for Monday as a mark of respect to Kumar. The departed leader was also Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers in the NDA-led government since May 2014. A six-time parliamentarian from the Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency since 1996, Kumar was undergoing treatment for cancer in the UK and US since late August. "He first went to London after the monsoon session of Parliament in July-August and was later shifted to a New York hospital. "The cancer had spread to other parts of his body that resulted in his multi-organ failure and death," said Shantaram. As news of Kumar's demise spread across the city, hundreds of people, including party's state unit leaders rushed to his residence to pay their last respects. President Ram Nath Kovind, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Arun Jaitely, Nirmala Sitharaman and Nitin Gadkari mourned Kumar's death and expressed condolences to his bereaved family. Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, cabinet ministers of the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Congress coalition government joined BJP's state unit leaders and cadres in condoling Kumar's death. "The national flag will fly half-mast on public buildings across the state and all official engagements are cancelled till Wednesday," the Congress-JD-S government announced. Rabat, Nov 13 : India and Morocco signed on Monday an agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance to fight crimes and terrorism, the Moroccan official MAP news agency reported. According to the report, the agreement was inked in New Delhi by Morocco's Minister of Justice Mohamed Aujjar and Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju. The agreement aims to cement bilateral cooperation, enhance effectiveness and provide a broad legal framework for prevention, investigation and prosecution of crimes as well as in tracing, restraint and confiscation of funds meant to finance terrorist acts, the same source said. DomaCom have been selected by developers CWP Renewables and Partners Group as their partner to implement the community co-investment initiative of Sapphire Wind Farm in rural New South Wales. The Sapphire Wind Farm, in Kingsland New England in Northern New South Wales, will be an Australian first for its community co-investment. DomaCom's fractional property platform will allow local community members to invest alongside institutional investors. The platform allows multiple investors to aggregate their investments into an asset, typically a real estate asset, but now also renewable energy projects. Andrew Dickson at CWP Renewables, the company behind developing and constructing the wind farm, said DomaCom is a great fir for the community co-investment initiative. "Their online platform makes it very easy for people to establish and manage their investment," Dickson said, adding that after testing the community's interest late last year, he was surprised with the level of interest. With over $7.3m of pledges received so far from the local community, we are pleased to now be delivering on our promise to the community, to open up the project for co-investment. Ross Laidlaw from DomaCom said the company are excited about the partnership. We are very excited to be partnering with CWP Renewables and Partners Group in the Community Co-Investment Sapphire Wind Farm. DomaCom has been a pioneer in fractional investment in Australia now in its 5th year of operation. "The Sapphire Wind Farm Community Fund is a clear demonstration of the vision of DomaCom taking large institutional assets and breaking them down into fractional components to allow retail investors to obtain exposure to an asset class not previously available. Construction of the wind farm began in January, and the final turbine was installed in October. Ben Haan from Partners Group, the investment fund manager that co-owns the project, said community investment is integral to the business. "What we are pioneering at Sapphire will be applied to future Grassroots projects, allowing our communities to share the benefits and to invest in Australias renewable energy future," Haan said. For more information on DomaCom click here. A five bedroom two bathroom Moora, WA house has been sold by its mortgagee. Located at 2 Padbury Street, Moora, the home has 76 metres of frontage to Drummond Street. Set on 2,491 sqm the corner block home contains an open plan kitchen and dining area. The home features parking for 5 cars with a large shed in the rear suitable for caravans, campers, trailers and boats. Featuring a pool as well as a holding for chickens the home is within walking distance of amenities and stores. The home sold for $205,000. This is a decrease of $125,000 from it's 2007 sale price of $330,000. The median price for Moora, WA is $167,500 according to CoreLogic data. Australia has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world, however only one in 20 rental properties in New South Wales are currently being advertised as pet friendly, according to research from Rent.com.au. Their survey of 70,000 rental properties and 100,000 pet resumes has found only five percent in NSW explicitly allow pets, despite over 60 percent of Australian households having pets. Rent.com.au chief executive Greg Bader says it's a disappointing result. As a general rule, rental properties are not pet friendly, which is interesting as research consistently shows that the value of having pets is huge. With so many of us generally owning pets, its a real equity issue. Investors renting out their properties have long been on the cautious side when advertising the property as pet friendly, however aren't necessarily against pet ownership in their home. The survey found that while only five percent of rental homes in NSW were advertised as pet-friendly, and 53 per cent banned pets, 43 per cent make no mention of pets. A renting couple in Redfern secured the lease for a house without a pet, however noticed a dog flap leading from the kitchen into the outdoor courtyard. They wrote to their property manager about enquiring whether they could get a pet dog, who passed it on to the property owner. They said no problem within minutes of the e-mail being sent, despite the listing specifically stating no pets. The Redfern/Chippendale and Potts Point/Woolloomooloo areas are dominated by renters, each with 65 percent of the population renting there, according to the Committee for Sydney. One Potts Point renter who lives in a pet-friendly apartment with his two cavoodles says its appalling that so few are allowed to keep animals. Im a renter with pets and a real estate agent as well, and its interesting as I feel that children do more damage to rental properties than pets do, says James Garwood, 32, one of the directors of Garwoods Estate Agents. We see so many pictures drawn on walls and scuffed and worn-out finishes. But the behaviour of pets come down to their owners, and we recommend that property owners do allow pets where possible, particularly as theyll get a higher rent of 5 to 10 per cent more. We had one renter with a dog spending $1200 a week on a pet-friendly, two-bedroom unit when he could have easily spent $760 on a unit just for himself. Rent.com.au's Greg Bader says that there is the chance of discussing the lease terms as the heat comes out of the market and the level of competition for properties fall. Pet-owning tenants in NSW arent quite as hard done by as those in Victoria, however, where only two percent of properties were advertised as pet friendly, but are eclipsed by the national average figure of 10 per cent indicating pets are allowed. The Victorian government recently introduced changes to tenancy laws that are expected to allow pets automatically in rentals except in exceptional circumstances. Vet Mark Perissinotto, managing director of VetShopAustralia, says landlords should think about how their property could be suitable for different types, breeds and sizes of pets. Wed advise them to consider providing guidance to would-be tenants on what the property can and cannot support, Dr Perissinotto says. Its about understanding the size of the property, its locality to parks and other areas a pet can run free. From a real estate perspective, Mr Garwood, who lives with Poppi and Chelsea in his apartment, believes NSW property owners should be allowed to levy a pet bond as operates in some other states to reassure themselves about any damage that could be caused. But a lot of pets come these days with great references and their past history recorded, and their owners often have very strong rental applications, he says. They can make excellent tenants. AFL Sydney Swans champion Lance Buddy Franklin secured the weekend sale of his Donvale investment. It sold under the hammer for $1.415 million having been the home of his father, Lance Sr, who have moved from Melbourne back to Perth. The Herald Sun reported it was bought by a recent Chinese migrant. Franklin bought the house for $863,500 in 2008, the same year as his first premiership with Hawthorn. The Palladian-inspired executive home had been listed through Jellis Craig with expectations of between $1.4 million and $1.5 million. Franklin and his model wife Jesinta recently bought a home in Perth for Lance Sr. The socialite mortgage broking director Lizzie Buttrose - who sold her ranch-style Vaucluse abode last last year - has settled on a Port Douglas district home. She bought well, paying $902,000 for an acreage with a four bedroom contemporary Queenslander that sold at $1.1 million in 2009 and at $900,500 back in 2004. It was a mortgagee sale. It comes with horse paddocks and is close to the coast, just off the Captain Cook Highway to Oak Beach. She pocketed $4.03 million for her four-bedroom Hopetoun Mews house on an 873 square metre battle-axe Burrabirra Ave block which was marketed as the perfect opportunity for reinvention. This article was first published in The Sunday Telegraph. A tightly held property that fronts Sydney Harbour is on the market for the first time in 80 years. It is being marketed by Ray White Crows Nest and Lower North Shore sales agent Chris Keane as the most secluded property on Sydney Harbour. The heritage listed three bedroom house at 233 and 233a Edinburgh Road, Castlecrag was built in 1912 out of Canadian redwood. The north-east facing, 6500 square metre property is predominantly bushland on the edge of the harbour in Sugarloaf Bay. Vendors Terry Hey of Carlingford and his sister have decided to sell the family property. It would have to be the most photographed property in Middle Harbour as every boat that comes past here stops to take a photo. Its such a great location and its a once in a lifetime opportunity for a lucky buyer, Hey said. Our father (Alfred) bought the property at age 24 years old in 1938 and he moved back into it in the 1970s and lived there for many years before he passed away at the of age 99 years. The tidal pool is adjacent with the heritage listed house and while you cannot own the tidal pool the rates with Maritime are very reasonable. There is nothing like this in Sydney Harbour for its bushland and isolation. The property has been in the family since the 1930s and in the last 40 years I have been looking after the place but its time for us to move on. Keane said it was a unique opportunity for buyers. This property and land with both lots, totals more than 6500 square metres (approx) which is a rare commodity in Sydney and Australia for that matter with the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimating an average Aussie block size of 474 square metres, Keane said. It has been in the same family for over 80 years and is one of only three homes that were positioned down on the water overlooking Sugerloaf Bay. This is the only one of the three that remains privately owned. The other two properties are owned and rented out by council. This is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity said. EXPERT OBSERVATION Reforms to Stamp Duty announced by the NSW Government are an insult to those people trying to purchase a home in NSW. The Treasurers statement on November 5 provides no genuine relief to home buyers, its nothing more than hype and bluster in the lead up to the election, according to Real Estate Institute of NSW. The State Governments intention to index Stamp Duty by reference to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) starting from 1 July 2019 without adjusting the tax brackets is a real sleight of hand. NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet has acknowledged that the stamp duty rates have not been amended since they were introduced in 1986 and then says that he is going to apply indexation (CPI) to the set of tax brackets that are 32 years out of date! In 1986 the Sydney median house price was $93,576 and the median unit price was $86,109. At that time the overwhelming amount of property transactions did not attract the higher rates of tax. Now with the Sydney median house price at $956,000 and the median unit price at $730,000 the overwhelming amount of transactions do attract the higher rates of tax. By sitting on their hands for 32 years successive Governments have unconscionably profited at the expense of the home buyers including the most vulnerable - first home buyers. The first tax bracket tops out at, $14,000. I ask rhetorically when was the last time you heard of someone buying a house for $14,000? Yes, indexing is good, and the Treasury says had it been introduced 15 years ago then it would be better now - I agree. In fact if it had of been done 32 years ago it would be even better and deliver a far more equitable outcome for the property consumer (see table below). If the Government is serious about Stamp Duty reform it must adjust the brackets to reflect todays median house price and then index it from there To do anything other than that is delivering reform without substance and is just disingenuous political grandstanding. The Governments own published data sets out clearly the continuing decline in property transactions and consequential Stamp Duty revenue. The irony? There is empirical evidence demonstrating that a reduction in the rate of tax will drive more additional transactions and consequently more revenue for Government. Stamp Duty brackets - what they are and what they should be Tim McKibbin is the REINSW CEO VBP Forward will host its inaugural conference February 20-21, 2019 in Buffalo, NY at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo. The conference will bring together over 200 professionals who service Medicaid and Medicare special needs or complex populations or have interest in that value chain for a two-day conference. Participants will gain insight into the next generation of value based payment and will be provided with a roadmap for their path towards effective value payment for for special needs populations. The conference will feature three nationally recognized leaders in healthcare who will deliver keynote addresses throughout the conference. Jason Helgerson, Founder & Chief Solutions Officer of Helgerson Solutions Group and former Medicaid Director of New York, will kick off the conference on Wednesday, February 20 with a keynote framing the overall theme of the conference. Helgersons address will focus on why companies and organizations involved in the care of complex populations need to ready themselves for a more active role in moving the value based payment model forward. Francois de Brantes, SVP of Commercial at Remedy Partners, will provide an update on the fundamentals around building value based payment programs. Alisahah Cole, MD, Chief Community Impact Officer at Atrium Health, will deliver a keynote discussing the social determinants of health for vulnerable populations. The conference will also include a series of breakout sessions geared toward both companies in the early stages of business development and established organizations looking for growth opportunities. VBP Forward was founded by five partners who set out to define the next generation of value based payment. As healthcare payment shifts to value, there are growing complexities to healthcare delivery and sustainability. VBP Forwards founders include: Jason Helgerson, Helgerson Solutions Group; F. Duane Conners, RPRT; David Kulick, MPH, The Focus Consulting Group, LLC; Don Lee, The #HCBiz Show!; and Mark Smith, RPRT. If there is a faster way to accelerate ed tech growth opportunities, I have yet to see it. The Education Technology Industry Network (ETIN) of SIIA and StartEd Inc, New Yorks hub for ed tech innovation, announced today six honorees of the Ed Tech Innovation Showcase. ETIN and StartEd will co-host the showcase on Tuesday, November 28th, at the 2018 Education Business Forum in New York. The Ed Tech Innovation Showcase honors the important and relevant work that ed tech startups do within education and the role they play in driving technology and education innovation forward. Selected companies receive an opportunity to demonstrate their new, innovative products, solutions and/or services directly to industry leaders, decision-makers, and funding sources. With the Innovation Showcase, ETIN and StartEd commit to ensuring that the next generation of ed tech entrepreneurs have access to peers, mentors and the larger industry to help accelerate their success. The 2018 Ed Tech Innovation Showcase companies are: The Ed Tech Showcase is a rare opportunity for early-stage companies to demonstrate their innovative products in front of hundreds of ed tech leaders, said SIIA President Ken Wasch. If there is a faster way to accelerate ed tech growth opportunities, I have yet to see it. The 2018 Education Business Forum will take place on November 27th and 28th at the Ravel Hotel. For more information about the event, go to SIIA.net/EBF. About StartEd StartEd exists to attract and develop an army of education innovators to solve the worlds largest problems. We also aim to galvanize New York and the US East coast into the hub for global education innovation. StartEd does so by creating incubators, accelerators, innovation festivals, courses, and apprenticeships for organizations aiming to be the catalyst for their education innovation ecosystem. About ETIN ETIN (the Education Technology Industry Network of SIIA) is the leading voice for companies that provide software applications, digital content, online learning services and related technologies across the PK-20 sector. ETIN drives growth and innovation within the industry by providing leadership, advocacy, business development opportunities, government relations, and critical ed tech market information. SIIA is an umbrella association representing 800+ technology, data, and media companies globally. For more information, visit SIIA.net/ETIN. SIIA Communications Contact: Benjamin Price, bprice@siia.net, (202) 789-4450 Panaya, the leader in SaaS-based testing and continuous delivery, announced it has been named a finalist in the European Software Testing Awards 2018 in the Best Agile Project category for its work with Lapeyre (SAINT GOBAIN group). Now in its sixth year, the awards celebrate companies who have accomplished significant achievements in the software testing and quality assurance market. The Best Agile Project award highlights organizations that demonstrate a clear understanding of software testing and QA challenges in an agile environment and show how these can be overcome. Additionally, finalists exemplify the following: Concrete evidence of excellent communication between all stakeholders A commitment to working and learning rapidly and delivering high quality software frequently Verification of project goals, importance, achievements and successful results Illustration of how the principles of the agile manifesto have been used, i.e., responding to change over following a plan and individuals and interactions over processes and tools When Lapeyre (SAINT GOBAIN group) launched its global, multi-year IT transformation program, they knew that testing processes could either be an enabler or a major bottleneck. Using Panaya Test Dynamix as the central testing solution of their Testing Factory, the Lapeyre (SAINT GOBAIN group) team was able to take a release-oriented testing strategy on any given scope. Panaya Test Dynamix also helped to improve quality of dev code while fostering innovation, reduce overall IT testing costs and secure IT projects and application maintenance deliveries by limiting regression risks. In addition, Test Dynamix reduced delivery time from 10 to 20 percent while the scope of test coverage was significantly higher. Our team is honored to be selected as a finalist for this award, and for the validation it gives to our objective to be a true enabler in fostering innovation and ensuring the delivery of quality products for our end-users, said Frederic Legranche, head of IT Architecture & Delivery at Lapeyre (SAINT GOBAIN group). When it comes to digital transformation and ecommerce in the retail industry, delivery cycles need to be short and of high quality. Using Panaya Test Dynamix, we successfully reduced overall testing efforts while increasing scope, all within shorter timelines and with higher quality. By taking an agile approach, we can deliver functional releases into production on a monthly basis through a development cycle that includes Unit Testing, Regression Testing, Integration Testing and User Acceptance Tests. Were thrilled to be selected as a finalist together with Lapeyre, enabling their testing team to foster innovation throughout their organization, said Rafi Kretchmer, chief marketing officer at Panaya. We understand the challenges enterprise IT teams face in delivering innovation at speed and with quality. With Panaya Test Dynamix, were enabling teams to be more Agile so they can accelerate the delivery of new software at reduced costs, and with a noticeable improvement in the quality of projects delivered. Winners of the European Software Testing Awards will be announced on Wednesday, November 21, 2018 at Old Billingsgate, London. Since 2008, over 2,000 companies in 62 countries, including a third of the Fortune 500, have used Panaya to deliver quick quality change to enterprise applications. Customers are from a variety of sectors including automotive, pharmaceutical, retail, manufacturing and more. For more information on how Panaya Test Dynamix can help your organization speed testing processes for all stakeholders while reducing overall testing efforts, visit: https://www.panaya.com/product/test-dynamix. About Lapeyre Group Lapeyre Group is a Saint-Gobain company. Manufacturer and distributor, it proposes a comprehensive offer and customized services. Lapeyre, main brand of the Lapeyre Group, is the home improvement specialist (kitchens, bathrooms, joinery) on the renovation market for individuals and professionals, with 130 sales outlets in France and Switzerland. KparK is the specialist in customized renovation of windows, shutters and doors. Most of the distributed products are manufactured or assembled in its 11 plants based in France. It is also present in Brazil, with Telhanorte and Tumelero, the distribution brand selling home improvement products and services. http://www.linkedin.com/company/lapeyre About Panaya Panaya, an Infosys company, enables organizations to accelerate application change and continuously deliver innovation with its Enterprise Agile Delivery Platform. Panaya provides cloud-based application delivery, and testing solutions that ensure collaboration between Business and IT. Enabling enterprise agility with faster release velocity and uncompromising quality, Panaya delivers an optimized user experience with end-to-end visibility of the application lifecycle. Since 2008, 2,000 companies in 62 countries, including a third of the Fortune 500, have been using Panaya to deliver quick quality change to enterprise applications. Press Contact Brian Blank OneChocolate for Panaya panaya@onechocolatecomms.com "As our society changes and terrorism and active shooter incidents increase, we can take a clear lesson from our military and the boot camp concept" In thinking about our Veterans, perhaps we can take away some valuable lessons on the ways our soldiers are trained and deployed to protect our country. Our businesses can learn from the practices of the military to better deal with the growing safety and security threats we are seeing in the workplace. How do you train employees to respond to situations that are risky to a business? If we think about an active shooter incident in a workplace, most businesses have no plan and there has been no training. Without training and preparation, the result will be chaos and complete disorder and confusion. Eight Ways Businesses Can Improve Security: 1. Provide basic boot camp type training to all employees on the biggest risk to the business. 2. Insure that the training is ongoing and adapts to the current risk to the organization and employees. 3. Think about ways to change employee behavior to encourage them to think about security as part of their daily common practice. 4. Think about ways to overcome normal human behavior and train employees on the safest way to handle incidents. 5. Give employees the proper tools to make smarter decisions on the risk facing the business. 6. Conduct drills that train and educate employees on the biggest risk. 7. Work as a team with your employees to ensure that everyone knows the risk and their role in the process. Train as a team and stress teamwork as part of your normal business practices. 8. Physical and cyber security risk go hand in hand. Employees are frequently on social media sites as friends. Employees need to understand the importance of reporting suspicious post by co-workers that may identify that a workplace violence attack is pending. About the Center for Information Security Awareness (CFISA) The Center for Information Security Awareness was formed in 2007 by a group of leading academics, security experts, and fraud experts to explore ways to increase security awareness among consumers, employees, businesses, and law enforcement. CFISA provides online and on-site cyber security awareness training throughout the year via its Security Awareness Training Made Simple program. CFISA was founded by Michael Levin who spent over twenty-two years in the U.S. Secret Service protecting Presidents and Heads of State. Michael retired from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - as the Deputy Director of the National Cyber Security Division in Washington DC. CFISA currently has a diverse blend of customers using their valuable training. These include: Federal, state and local government agencies Colleges and universities Small, medium and large enterprises Financial institutions Those who are interested in learning more can call today at (561) 325-6050 or visit the website at https://www.cfisa.com/. The mailing address is PO Box 810961, Boca Raton, FL 33481. The NHP Foundation (NHPF), a national leader in providing quality affordable housing to Americas working poor, seniors and families, today announced that its 2nd Symposium fundraising event, Housing & Health: The Backbone of Strong Communities held October 16th at Union Station in Washington, D.C. exceeded fundraising and attendance goals. The event, which combines education and celebration, featured a range of participants and honorees including former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. The Symposium kicked off with an Afternoon of Learning, featuring a presentation of NHPFs Trailblazer Awards to four lawmakers leading national affordable housing policy- Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Representatives Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), Suzan DelBene (D-WA) and Jim Himes (D-CT). Following the awards presentation, the afternoon featured a report calling for an affordable housing reboot. Ryan Moser, CSH (The Corporation for Supportive Housing) discussed the involvement of the healthcare system in delivering increased affordable housing options. An expert panel discussion moderated by Dr. Tiffany Manuel, VP Knowledge, Impact & Strategy, Enterprise Community Partners and featuring the panelists below, followed the housing and healthcare report. Dr. Joshua Bamberger, Associate Clinical Professor, Family and Community Medicine, UCSF Stephen Brown, Director of Preventive Emergency Medicine, University of Illinois Hospital Daniel Field, ED, Community Health & External Affairs, Kaiser Permanente Jason Helgerson, Medicaid Director State of New York (January 2011April 2018), consultant Jonathan F. P. Rose, Real estate developer, urban planner, author, founder Jonathan Rose Companies Maria Torres-Springer, Commissioner, NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development Kamillah Wood, MD, MPH, FAAP, SVP, Health and Housing, SAHF, (Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future) An Evening of Recognition cocktail reception and awards dinner followed the afternoon sessions and honored special guests including Henry Cisneros, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) (19931997). Additional awardees included Thom Amdur, EVP & ED, National Housing & Rehabilitation Association; Michael Bodaken, President, National Housing Trust (19932018); Monica Mitchell, VP Community Development, Wells Fargo; Michael Novogradac, Managing Partner, Novogradac & Company and Maria Torres-Springer, Commissioner, NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development. Our 2nd Symposium and Dinner called for a paradigm shift in the affordable housing industry , said NHPF President and CEO Dick Burns. The event encouraged insurers, hospitals, financial institutions, traditional funders, and units of government to work with housing developers to implement new strategies including the idea of a collaborative funding model of privatized housing vouchers. Over 300 developers and builders, policy-makers, affordable housing advocates, healthcare leaders, and many in the media, law, finance and philanthropic sectors attended the event. Proceeds will benefit The NHP Foundations Fund for New Development, which supports the acquisition, pre-development, development and service-enriched affordable housing properties in communities around the country. About The NHP Foundation Headquartered in New York City with offices in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, I.L., The NHP Foundation (NHPF) was launched on January 30, 1989, as a publicly supported 501(c)(3) not-for-profit real estate corporation. NHPF is dedicated to preserving and creating sustainable, service-enriched multifamily housing that is both affordable to low and moderate income families and seniors, and beneficial to their communities. NHPF also provides a robust resident services program to nearly 18,000 community residents. Through partnerships with major financial institutions, the public sector, faith-based initiatives, and other not-for-profit organizations, NHPF has 49 properties, including more than 8,000 units, in 15 states and the District of Columbia. For more information, visit http://www.nhpfoundation.org. In a feature story published by the Tribune last week, employees praised the open-door policy of senior management and their responsiveness to employee needs. Staff turnover is low, with 30 percent of all team members on the job at least five years and another 20 percent with 10 or more years of service. Truman Pope, head of ALithos binding, finishing and lettershop operations, cited the partnership of company founders Mike Fontana and Chris Joyaux in improving operations. Its easy to talk to them. They listen and ask: What do we need? How do we make it better? Fontana and Joyaux started American Litho in 1994 in a 10,000-foot space in Addison, Illinois. The companys earliest projects were direct-mail letters and simple brochures. We took on the small jobs in hopes of proving we could do much more for our clients, Fontana recalls. Its a simple strategy, but it worked. Ellie Valadez recalls that when the company was just getting off the ground, The owners parents would come in with lunch. We would shut down the machines and eat together. I realized this was something different. I decided I would never leave. Today, Valadez is a supervisor developing team talent in ALithos warehouse operations. She mentors newer members of the company's workforce, which now totals 350. Services have expanded from simple offset printing and folding to the full range of support that major organizations need, from data analysis, list management, graphic design consulting and campaign planning to high-speed, 6-color inline printing, personalization, inserting and finishing, postal optimization and much more. Employees credit open, efficient meetings and the freedom to bring their best ideas to the table as reasons for their personal success and the success of the company as a whole. Ann Porster, who came to American Litho after the company acquired her Detroit printing firm six years ago, serves as a national sales director. In team meetings, she and her colleagues talk about a challenge, a victory or a loss, so everyone can learn, she said. Mutual support helps the entire team grow stronger, she says. In a blog post celebrating the award, Mike Fontana shared his personal thoughts on the companys expansion. We invested steadily in our people and our technology, adding more and more services as clients educated us about their needs, he wrote. Giving credit to employees, clients and industry partners for ALithos success, Fontana wrote, None of what were doing today would be possible without the contributions of skilled, dedicated people who have made American Litho such an exceptional place to work, learn and grow. Looking ahead, company leaders see opportunities in all areas of direct and omnichannel marketing, citing web and mobile strategies that lift the response rates companies are currently seeing with traditional print-based campaigns. With annual sales at $125 million and growing, the company anticipates a strong year in 2019. Free ideas for improving campaign results in the year ahead, including a free analysis of any direct marketing package, can be found in the Brand Energy blog: http://www.alitho.com/blog. Read Mike Fontanas personal thanks in the Brand Energy blog: https://www.alitho.com/blog/american-litho-number-one-mid-sized-employer-in-chicagoland/ Tribune story: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/careers/topworkplaces2018/ct-biz-top-workplaces-2018-midsize-american-litho-20180820-story.html The EuroMinnies will recognize excellence in European radiology. "We are pleased that the EuroMinnies will enable us to acknowledge and publicize major achievements in radiology." Radiology portal AuntMinnieEurope.com today launched the EuroMinnies, a new annual awards event designed to recognize excellence in European radiology. The website has also improved its ability to serve European advertising partners with the hiring of Guido Gebhardt as Account Manager, Europe. With the EuroMinnies, AuntMinnieEurope.com now has a new platform to recognize the significant achievements being made in European radiology, according to Editor-in-Chief Philip Ward. "From Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of x-ray in 1895 to today's pioneering research in technologies like artificial intelligence, Europe has been the scene of some of the most important milestones in medical imaging," Ward said. "We are pleased that the EuroMinnies will enable us to acknowledge and publicize major achievements in radiology." EuroMinnies awards will be made in eight categories: Most Influential Radiology Researcher Most Effective Radiology Educator Radiology Rising Star Most Significant News Event in European Radiology Scientific Paper of the Year Best New Radiology Device Best New Radiology Software Best New Radiology Vendor AuntMinnieEurope.com has begun accepting nominations for the EuroMinnies from members of the radiology community; nominations can be submitted by clicking here. Winners will be selected by an expert panel of radiology luminaries, with winners announced prior to the 2019 European Congress of Radiology. With the hiring of Guido Gebhardt, AuntMinnieEurope.com adds a seasoned account executive with deep contacts in the European radiology industry. Gebhardt, proprietor of the German-language radiology website RadiologieMagazin.de, adds a Europe-based sales presence and will immediately begin working with AuntMinnieEurope.com clients at major industry trade shows such as Medica and RSNA. "I'm pleased to be joining forces with AuntMinnieEurope.com," Gebhardt said. "The site's rapid growth in both membership and traffic is a sign of its success in engaging with the European radiology community." About AuntMinnieEurope.com AuntMinnieEurope.com and AuntMinnie.com are the premier online information, transaction, and education sites for all individuals affiliated with the medical imaging market. Rich in timely, original content and customer-centered products and services, the sites are designed to enhance the professional lives of their members through interaction, participation, exchange, and commerce. AuntMinnieEurope.com and AuntMinnie.com are owned by BioInformatics Inc. Additional information on AuntMinnieEurope.com is available at http://www.auntminnieeurope.com; Twitter users can follow the site at @AuntMinnieEuro, while Facebook members can follow it at http://www.facebook.com/auntminnieeurope. This allows AVDS to provide a powerful and easy-to-use business intelligence dashboard solution that meets the needs of all business verticals and organizations of any size Automated Voice & Data Solutions (AVDS), a leader in contact center and customer experience communications solutions, announced today its partnership with eMite, a leading provider of cost-effective, advanced real-time reporting and analytics dashboard solutions. The combination of AVDSs expertise in delivering superior customer experience solutions, and eMites market-leading data aggregation dashboard solutions, will make contact centers more transparent, agile and efficientresulting in better and faster decisions. With this solution, everyone in the organization can begin to understand how business decisions and environmental factors impact customer experience, sales and other outcomes, and take advantage of new opportunities as they arise. North America is a key strategic market for eMite. Expanding the companys presence in the region through the partnership with AVDS will better enable both partners to provide their customers with the best agnostic business intelligence solution that doesnt break the budget. AVDS is an innovative Genesys Gold Partner and were looking forward to teaming with them to deliver CX solutions to both new and existing Genesys users, as well as many other platform users, are going to love. said Brad Thomas, CEO of eMite. Its very exciting to be teaming up with eMite. This allows AVDS to provide a powerful and easy-to-use business intelligence dashboard solution that meets the needs of all business verticals and organizations of any size, said Brian Barnett, Director of Sales and Marketing at AVDS. Banana Moon Clothing, the leading personalised clothing retailer, based in West Yorkshire, has utilised SAPs Business One ERP system for a number of years. Now, the addition of FastClose an accounting intelligence system has enabled both management and accounting teams to produce month-end, and other dynamic reports, in real-time without the need for developer-driven SQL scripts. Alex Grace, CEO of Banana Moon Clothing, explained why they bought FastClose, SAP is a great ERP system but without good database knowledge its difficult to get management reports from. We needed something to generate formatted financial accounts, but SAP has no finance specific report generator. We have had to rely heavily on Excel and SQL queries, which were not ideal. Ochiba, our SAP business partner, introduced us to FastClose and we took it on trial to put it through its paces. FastClose was installed easily, and it unlocked all the GL data as soon as it started up. There are predefined templates that shortcut the process of report building, and we were getting management reports at a balance level, with full drill-down to transactions, very quickly. Jill Banks, Banana Moon Clothings management accountant, expanded further, What I liked were all the online videos that were available. With their help, I quickly built our main P&L which used to take us ages to do, and which now runs in minutes. Whats more, once built, it is multi-dimensional which means we can run it for any dimension, or range of dimensions like year, period, accounts, business partner, and so on. You can save the reports to user folders and share them with other users who can run them in real-time to get up-to-the-second information. We also now want to upload budgeting data, so we can carry out variance analysis just by clicking on a filter. FastClose is so easy to use, and the key to us is that theres no need to have any technical skills. From the high-level balances, you can then drill-down to the detail to get at the transactions for analysis and audit purposes. Nick Gomersall, FastCloses CEO, clarified the design of SAP Business One. SAP is unusual as it is a transactional ERP system with no balance tables. This meant that we, at FastClose, had to build consolidated starting positions which we call templates that accounts departments can then build their reports from. FastClose has an in-memory database so rolling up transactions in real-time is not an issue for us. Technically, SAP has a great data model but, needs a tool like FastClose to take advantage of its great design. FastClose is an Accounting Intelligence solution which means that we have done all the heavy lifting and have worked out all the key tables and joins; we deliver these as standard templates. All the accountant needs to do, is click and select the relevant filters to retrieve the data they need. Alex Grace continued, After the initial success with our management accounts, we asked FastClose if they could help with our sales analysis. Before FastClose, we had to take our web development team off the front office to build SQL reports as the management team here is not technical; it took everyones eye off the ball. FastClose built templates for Sales Order Processing, and all our user-defined fields were there to use as we are a size, colour, style business so we had to have several additional columns added to the database. I can now build all the reports that I need to analyse sales, and our techies can focus back on building our web presence. Ochiba Business Solutions is one of the UKs leading SAP business consultancies. Nick Gomersall explained how FastClose and Ochiba became partners. FastClose has built an impressive user base in the Epicor market, and we wanted to get into the Business One arena, but drew a blank when looking for partners. One, in particular, seemed to be making vast amounts of money building the same reports for all of their customers they were not right for us! We were not right for them either; they could see that FastClose puts the power back into the hands of the customer. When we came across Ochiba, it was perfect because Ochiba took a different approach. Dave Worsman, CEO of Ochiba, explained, We want to help our customers be self-sufficient as quickly as possible and to concentrate on helping them to get their business processes correct; not billing them every time they need a new report. We were introduced to FastClose by SAP and could see this was the product that not only our customers needed, but one which we needed to build all of our management reports internally. Nick Gomersall continued, It was great to see a company like Ochiba take this approach, and we are really pleased to have them as a business partner for SAP. Too many partners are just trying to milk their user base and make them totally dependent on them. Ochiba is a breath of fresh air. They have been really helpful in telling us what tables we need for each module, and introducing us to their user base. Alex Grace of Banana Moon Clothing picked up on this module development, FastClose is expanding their modules with AP, AR and Purchasing next, which we intend to take as soon as they have built the templates. We use Excel a lot, although we know that Excel can produce issues with data integrity. As well as FastCloses own GUI, they also have a plugin so we can run live FastClose reports, in real-time, within Excel. This gives us the best of both worlds. FastClose is a must for companies running SAP Business One, and I would encourage anyone that runs SAP to take FastClose up on their offer of a free trial to see how effective it is for themselves. FastClose. FastClose Ltd is a specialist reporting company offering a tool that links directly to the SAP Business One database and gives unprecedented access to data. Designed to be super easy-to-use, accounts departments will be using the product in a few hours leading to a rapid ROI. FastClose bridges the gap between complex and costly BI tools and uncontrolled spreadsheets. For more information visit http://www.FastClose.uk or contact Nick Gomersall on 07515544321 or email Nick.Gomersall@FastClose.uk To view an online demo click on http://www.sap.FastClose.uk BenePro The acquisition of BBG Benefits fits exceptionally well in our organization, enhances our portfolio and expands our offerings to better serve our clients. BenePro, a Royal Oak based, privately held, growing benefit consulting firm, recently named the 3rd coolest place to work in Michigan by Crains Detroit, today announced the acquisition of BBG Employee Benefits, a benefits brokerage firm headquartered in St. Clair Shores, MI. BBG Employee Benefits will bring their expertise on small business and individual health insurance to BenePro, who currently specializes in providing top level service to employee benefit plans. BenePros sister company HRPro handles human resource and benefit administration along with HR professional services, allowing the two companies to offer a total People Solution. John Cook, previous owner of BBG Employee Benefits, will assume the role of Executive Vice President of BenePro where he will help lead a growing team of benefit advisors, account managers and consultants on the benefits side, as well as HR advisory services for HRPro. The acquisition of BBG Benefits fits exceptionally well in our organization, enhances our portfolio and expands our offerings to better serve our clients, said Kristopher Powell, President and CEO of BenePro/HRPro. We are excited to have John join the BenePro/HRPro team. This is a great opportunity not only for us, but for our clients as well. Johns experience and tenure in the industry will strengthen our ability to provide our clients with a fully integrated HR and benefit solution. BBGs John Cook stated, We are excited to be joining Kris Powell and his team at BenePro/HRPro. We look forward to the opportunity to increase our support for our existing clients, as well as expand our footprint in the Southeast Michigan area. I have personally known Kris for years; he and his team are highly respected in the industry and we are looking forward to being a part of it. About BenePro/HRPro BenePro/HRPro together are one of Michigan's top HR and benefit advisory and administration firms, offering a total People Solution for small to large-sized companies. BenePro/HRPro strives to create a fun, collaborative culture that puts an emphasis on customer relationships and personalized service. With over 29 years experience, they are constantly working to stay ahead of latest trends and needs in the industry. Their mission is to work closely with organizations to understand and help them achieve their human capital goals. For more information visit the companys website at hrbenepro.com. A new study released today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine demonstrates how a biodegradable hydrogel sponge seeded with olfactory stem cells (OSCs) greatly accelerated recovery from facial palsy in mice. The technique, developed by a team of researchers at Nagoya City University, Japan, shows potential for treating humans suffering from this condition a frequent result of temporal bone fractures as well as from other similar trauma or diseases such as Bells palsy or Ramsay Hunt syndrome, a painful byproduct of shingles. In many ways facial nerve damage is similar to nerve damage in other areas of the body, which suggests that successful treatments developed for other neural environments could be applied to peripheral facial nerve paralysis, too. This includes OSCs. OSCs contain neural stem cells, plus they secrete growth factors and various cytokines that promote nerve regeneration. Clinical tests have already shown their promise in treating spinal cord injuries and other neural disorders. And because human OSCs are located in the olfactory epithelium, they can be easily harvested from the nasal cavity with limited risk, which makes them an especially attractive therapeutic candidate. In this study, we investigated the effect of OSC transplantation in a mouse model of facial nerve injury. The OSCs were transplanted with and without biodegradable hydrogel, said Shinichi Esaki, M.D., Ph.D., the studys lead investigator. Past studies demonstrate that when stem cells are transplanted directly on an injury site, the hostile local environment can reduce their viability and functionality. To overcome that, the research team used MedGel SP19, a biodegradable sponge composed of gelatin hydrogel, as a scaffold for the OSCs. One technique used to avoid immediate host rejection of the transplanted cells is to inject the cells in a gelatin mixture, explained Yuki Hamajima, M.D. Gelatin is a biodegradable polymer that has been extensively utilized for pharmaceutical and medical purposes without any adverse effect. Various types of gelatin hydrogels have been transformed into sheets and used to accelerate tissue regeneration by holding and releasing various types of growth factors. In fact, gelatin hydrogel has also been shown to act as a scaffold for mesenchymal stem cells, allowing their homogeneous growth. However, the use of gelatin hydrogels to mediate OSC transplantation has not been previously evaluated, particularly for treatment of facial nerve palsy, Dr. Hamajima added. To our knowledge, this is the first time that transplantation of this particular OSC-gelatin hydrogel combination has been evaluated as a treatment for facial nerve palsy. The mice used in the study were randomly assigned to four groups of 10 each: one received the OSC/MedGel combination; one group received OSCs alone; one group received MedGel alone; and the mock group received no cells or MedGel. The mice were then monitored daily for two weeks following the procedure, looking for clinical signs of facial nerve paralysis. Facial movements were absent until day 3 and then increased gradually until full recovery at day 14, consistent with a previous study we had done using OSCs alone, Yoshihisa Nakamura, M.D., Ph.D., reported. During this time, we saw that OSCs impregnated in Medgel accelerated recovery on days 4 through 12, whereas OSCs alone only accelerated recovery on days 4 through 7. When used alone, Medgel did not accelerate recovery at all, he added. OSCs in Medgel also increased peripheral nerve function and the number of regenerated nerve fibers, the study revealed. The recovery curves based on this data indicate that while OSCs accelerate recovery from facial nerve injury, the effect was observed for only a week. In contrast, the effect of OSCs was prolonged throughout the length of the study when combined with Medgel. We speculate that the Medgel helped retain the OSCs around the injury site and increased their survival and function, thus allowing them to secrete the cytokines and various factors necessary to mediate an enhanced and accelerated recovery response. Based on these results, we believe that clinical studies are now in order to determine the effects of this treatment, Dr. Esaki concluded. "These early pre-clinical results demonstrate a promising line of research that could someday accelerate facial nerve regeneration following injury and it will be fascinating to see how it progresses," said Anthony Atala, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. -- END -- The full article, Transplantation of olfactory stem cells with biodegradable hydrogel accelerates facial nerve regeneration after crush injury, can be accessed at https://stemcellsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sctm.15-0399. About STEM CELLS Translational Medicine: STEM CELLS Translational Medicine (SCTM), published by AlphaMed Press, is a monthly peer-reviewed publication dedicated to significantly advancing the clinical utilization of stem cell molecular and cellular biology. By bridging stem cell research and clinical trials, SCTM will help move applications of these critical investigations closer to accepted best practices. SCTM is the official journal partner of Regenerative Medicine Foundation. About AlphaMed Press: Established in 1983, AlphaMed Press with offices in Durham, NC, San Francisco, CA, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, publishes two other internationally renowned peer-reviewed journals: STEM CELLS (http://www.StemCells.com), celebrating its 36th year, is the world's first journal devoted to this fast paced field of research. The Oncologist (http://www.TheOncologist.com), also a monthly peer-reviewed publication, entering its 23rd year, is devoted to community and hospital-based oncologists and physicians entrusted with cancer patient care. All three journals are premier periodicals with globally recognized editorial boards dedicated to advancing knowledge and education in their focused disciplines. About Wiley: Wiley, a global company, helps people and organizations develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Our online scientific, technical, medical and scholarly journals, combined with our digital learning, assessment and certification solutions, help universities, learned societies, businesses, governments and individuals increase the academic and professional impact of their work. For more than 200 years, we have delivered consistent performance to our stakeholders. The company's website can be accessed at http://www.wiley.com. About Regenerative Medicine Foundation (RMF): The non-profit Regenerative Medicine Foundation fosters strategic collaborations to accelerate the development of regenerative medicine to improve health and deliver cures. RMF pursues its mission by producing its flagship World Stem Cell Summit, honouring leaders through the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Action Awards, and promoting educational initiatives. CCA Global employees enjoy the creative, innovative atmosphere while working together on a project. The spirit at CCA is described as fostering creativity, innovation and hard work as well as having a culture that makes everyone feel like family. Stay Work Play, an organization dedicated to encouraging students and younger adults to return to or stay in New Hampshire, named CCA Global Partners (CCA) the Coolest Company to Work For at the 2018 Rising Stars Awards on Thursday, October 11. CCA Global Partners is a values-based business, owned by and operated for the benefit of the store owners at the heart of the organization. Founded in 1984 as a small carpet co-op, CCA has grown to 15 divisions in four countries spanning the flooring, bike retail, childcare, nonprofit and lighting industries. Through the co-op model, the company enables small, family-owned businesses and entrepreneurs the purchasing power to compete with larger chains. We pride ourselves on putting our people before profit and fostering a culture of collaboration and resourcefulness, said Howard Brodsky, chairman and CEO of CCA Global Partners. Our open-door policy and dedication to the wellbeing of our employees are just two of the ways we try to take care of our own. Its really terrific to see the corporate culture we have worked hard to create and maintain is worthy of recognition through Stay Work Plays Coolest Company to Work for award. CCA was recognized before a crowd of several hundred people at the Rising Stars Award event at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester. The Rising Stars Awards celebrates and recognizes New Hampshires remarkable young people and the businesses that go the extra mile to recruit and retain them. Through employee testimonials, the spirit at CCA is described as fostering creativity, innovation and hard work as well as having a culture that makes everyone feel like family. The company offers employees growth and development opportunities, a commitment to helping employees find and maintain work-life balance and a dedication to the greater community. CCA Global Partners has one of the first and most successful workplace mentoring programs for New Hampshire youth through Big Brothers Big Sisters of New Hampshire. This mentoring program brings 24 local youth to the Manchester office every other week to receive mentoring from their Big and participate in other fun activities. Our relationships with the community, our business owners and our employees, as well as our dedication to four principles keep an open mind, energize the team, show respect and take responsibility have enabled us to be truly collaborative, said Brodsky. We are proud of our businesses, company and employees, and we strive to communicate this daily. CCA Global Partners has won Business NH Magazines Best Companies to Work For in New Hampshire award five years in a row, and is now in its Hall of Fame. The company is located amidst 30 technology companies such as Texas Instruments and Autodesk, in the revitalized mill district in the heart of Manchester. For more information about CCA Global Partners, visit ccaglobalpartners.com. About CCA Global Partners CCA Global Partners, Inc. is a privately held cooperative based in the United States with member businesses in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. For a quarter of a century, CCA Global has partnered with entrepreneurial businesspeople to create a cooperative powerhouse unmatched in the marketplace. With 15 independent business brands and more than 3,500 locations, CCA Global Partners is well positioned to positively impact the success of independent businesses. For more information on CCA Global Partners, go to http://www.ccaglobal.com. We believe social responsibility is an important part of culture and element of our corporate success. We would like to think our sponsorship of SVIC can inspire other organizations to view social responsibility the same way. Cirtronics, a socially responsible contract manufacturer located in Southern New Hampshire, will be a sponsor of the annual New Hampshire Social Venture Innovation Challenge (SVIC), culminating in the finals on November 29th, 2018. The inaugural NH SVIC was created by the University of New Hampshire in 2013 in partnership with Nobel Peace Prize winner, social business and microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus. Hosted by UNHs Center for Social Innovation and Enterprise, this competition aims at fostering a culture of creative problem solving for pressing social and environmental issues. Gerardine Ferlins, Cirtronics President/CEO, We are honored to support this competition as a sponsor because it is a natural fit for us and our values. Ferlins continues, The UNH Center for Social Innovation and Enterprise, and the SVIC are taking creativity and pragmatism and applying them to the realm of solving social issues. Why is Cirtronics a sponsor? When asked why Cirtronics decided to sponsor SVIC, Leader of People and Culture, Linda Langsten said, Several things motivate us to sponsor the SVIC. First and foremost is the belief that our community and the environment are stakeholders in our organization. That means we have a share in the responsibility for finding solutions to important challenges. Supporting SVIC is one of the ways we embrace that responsibility. Another motivation for our support of SVIC is the desire to help students see their own potential to create positive change. Team members at Cirtronics are encouraged to participate in problem solving, collaborate extensively and continuously create positive change. We believe that students, as future members of the workforce, can only benefit from the opportunity SVIC provides to develop that mindset. Linda added. We believe social responsibility is an important part of culture and element of our corporate success. We would like to think our sponsorship of SVIC can inspire other organizations to view social responsibility the same way. Putting Values to Work Again, Ferlins, Working with UNH to sponsor this challenge will allow us to participate in supporting innovative thinking and positive social change. Students and community members who enter or attend the finals will be able to see many ways that social responsibility and technology can coexist. We look forward to connecting with more students and experienced professionals who share that view. About Cirtronics Cirtronics, located in Southern New Hampshire, offers expertise and experience manufacturing complex and quality-sensitive products for markets such as robotics, medical technology, security, defense, and other industrial applications. Cirtronics fully integrated and responsive manufacturing and logistics services are tailored to the needs of each customer. This is Precision Engagement. For more information, call Cirtronics or visit http://www.cirtronics.com. Cirtronics is ISO certified, FDA registered and a Woman-Owned Small Business. Cape, the leading cloud platform for drone telepresence and data management, today announced a partnership with ConnexiCore to provide end-to-end aerial telepresence and intelligence solutions for companies across industries, including public safety, oil and gas, construction, infrastructure, and insurance. As part of the Cape reseller program, ConnexiCore customers can now fully leverage the Cape Aerial Telepresence platform. With access to real-time video streaming, customers gain accelerated turnaround time for video collection, as well as enhanced safety capabilities including the ability to define custom geofences, no-fly zones, minimum and maximum altitudes, and maximum speeds. Through the partnership, Cape customers gain access to ConnexiCores turnkey drone services and solutions, including image and video analysis, surveying and mapping services to enable faster, more informed decisions. In business today, the ability to make informed decisions quickly is paramount to success, said Cape CEO, Chris Rittler. We are excited to be partnering with ConnexiCore to help companies more quickly and safely capture the aerial intelligence needed to drive action and improvements, and ultimately maximize their drone investment. As part of the partnership, Cape and ConnexiCore will have joint booths at the ISC East Unmanned Security Expo, the worlds largest security trade show, November 14-15 in New York City. Located at booths 84 and 86, the companies will offer attending security and law enforcement professionals the opportunity to remotely pilot a drone located thousands of miles away using the Cape Aerial Telepresence platform. Across nearly every industry, drones unlock some of the most impactful data for driving critical efficiencies and improvements, said Frank Segarra, CEO, ConnexiCore. We look forward to partnering with Cape to extend the impact of our services, and provide companies with one of the most comprehensive drone integration and intelligence offerings available today. Capes leadership in telecommunications was recently recognized when the company was selected to the GSMA 100, a global innovation discovery initiative developed by GSMA to identify and advance the next generation of connectivity and digital services. Today, Cape technology is relied upon by enterprises and government organizations in markets around the world, including the U.S., Australia, Middle East, and Mexico. One of the longest-tenured companies in the commercial drone software space, Cape is one of the first and only companies in the U.S. to be awarded precedent-setting waivers under both Section 333 and Part 107 regulations, and has performed more than 100,000 flights. About Cape Cape unlocks the full potential of commercial drones, giving companies all of the benefits with none of the traditional hassle. Every day, Cape users log in to the Cape Aerial Telepresence platform, connect to physical drones around the world, and safely conduct flights with remote visibility to capture live, high-resolution video. The only cloud-based system for drone telepresence and data management, Cape provides secure, real-time visualization that increases productivity and operational efficiency and improves safety. Since its founding in 2014, Cape has been a leader in software for drone usability, and the trusted drone software solution for a wide range of use cases, from construction and public safety to oil & gas and agriculture. To date, more than 100,000 Cape-enabled drone flights have been completed with zero incidents. For more information about Cape, please visit http://www.cape.com. About ConnexiCore ConnexiCore is an on-demand nationwide UAV Drone Solutions Provider specializing in drone data collection, image and video analysis, surveying, and mapping services. ConnexiCore creates value by delivering data efficiently and effectively through our secure cloud-based content management platform called ConnexiCore Cloud, making our clients mission data capture, analysis, and actionable tasks extremely simple. Representatives with Drane Ranger (http://www.draneranger.com/) announced today that it is now offering quarterly maintenance plans for grease trap cleaning in Houston. Traps within Houston city limits must be emptied quarterly to comply with local regulations, said Jeb Woods, spokesperson for Drane Ranger. We offer numerous services for all of your trap needs, whether thats quarterly maintenance plans or regular disposal and cleaning. Woods went on to explain that due to the nature of grease traps, they require comprehensive and regular cleaning and maintenance. Leaving them uncleaned leads to many issues. We make sure to have clear documentation and compliance validation, Woods said, before adding, We offer complete grease trap cleaning and maintenance, including grease trap odor control to ensure that your traps remain effective and do not interfere with the safe and sanitary running of your business. Woods noted that common in car washes, grit is rarely more than dirt and sand, especially in the Houston area. That said, grit needs to be disposed of in a safe and proper manner, said Woods. Drane Ranger has the equipment and certified staff necessary to properly collect and dispose of grit in your traps, and will ensure your grit traps are properly maintained. Woods went on to point out that if you own a laundry services business or see a lot of laundry run through your company, then you know that lint can cause major issues with your heating and plumbing systems. That is why large-scale lint traps are necessary for smooth, safe operations, Woods said. Drane Ranger will ensure your lint traps are properly emptied and maintained to protect your plumbing, which can shut down your business for days, and protect your business. For more information, please visit: http://draneranger.com/services/ and http://draneranger.com/about-us/ About Drane Ranger Since 1985, Drane Ranger has been focused on two major components of a successful business: customer service and outstanding work. We ensure that your needs are met, whether thats helping with that grease trap or handling your liquid waste that needs fast and proper disposal. We are always courteous and mindful of your customers and business. Contact Details: Jeb Woods 13911 India St Houston, TX 77047 United States Phone: 281-489-1765 Source: Drane Ranger Everything we do affects our environment, so were committed to developing and marketing solutions that not only improve our everyday lives through high-performance materials, but also reduce environmental impacts. In another step toward promoting sustainability and the bio-economy, DuPont Biomaterials has elevated its partnership with The Ellen MacArthur Foundation by joining the organizations Circular Economy 100 (CE100) initiative. The pre-competitive innovation program brings together corporates, governments and cities, academic institutions, emerging innovators and affiliates in a unique multi-stakeholder platform to learn and collaborate for a circular economy. As a member of CE100, DuPont Biomaterials will participate in collaborative projects with other members; attend the Ellen MacArthur Foundations Annual Summit and bi-annual workshops; and join an ongoing discussion around promoting a circular economy across businesses and industries. DuPont Biomaterials joins a leading group of global companies participating in CE100. In addition to CE100, DuPont Biomaterials has also joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundations Make Fashion Circular initiative. Launched at the 2017 Copenhagen Fashion Summit, the initiative brings together leaders from across the fashion industry, including brands, cities and NGOs to drive collaboration among key stakeholders to radically redesign their operating models and create a new textiles economy in line with the principles of the circular economy. The overarching goal is to ensure clothes are developed with safe and renewable materials, new business models increase their use, and old clothes are transformed into new. Everything we do affects our environment, so were committed to developing and marketing solutions that not only improve our everyday lives through high-performance materials, but also reduce environmental impacts, said Renee Henze, Global Marketing Director, DuPont Industrial Biosciences. Our ultimate goal is to be a part of a circular economy, and by partnering with The Ellen MacArthur Foundations important initiatives, we can collaborate with forward-thinking leaders around the world to progress a more sustainable marketplace. DuPont Biomaterials has a rich heritage of leadership in sustainable materials innovation, bringing world-class science and engineering to the global marketplace. Its suite of bio-based, high-performance technologies including DuPont Sorona polymer have applications across diverse industries. Made from 37 percent renewable plant-based ingredients, Sorona polymer offers a high-performing, more sustainably sourced material option for the apparel and carpet industries, with key attributes such as softness, stain resistance and durability, among others. DuPont also is developing a family of engineered polysaccharides, which are renewably sourced, and feature a broad range of performance properties for applications throughout various industries. Collectively, these solutions are supporting progress toward a more circular economy and sustainable future for the world. The CE100 is designed to explore, develop and act on new ways to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. With a fine balance between collaboration, innovation, and education, the network stimulates organizations like DuPont to achieve faster, greater successes than could be achieved alone. With DuPont joining the CE100, the network gains a wealth of experience in material science, and engineering rigour, said James George, Business Engagement Lead, Ellen Macarthur Foundation. DuPont Biomaterials is committed to the ongoing conversation about the need for renewable, performance-based materials and continued collaboration within the fashion industry to contribute to circularity. In addition to its participation in Ellen MacArthur Foundation initiatives, DuPont Biomaterials recently announced that the Sorona brand is a new bluesign system partner, and that they have expanded their Kinston, North Carolina, facility for increased production of Sorona polymer. About DuPont Industrial Biosciences DuPont Industrial Biosciences, a DowDuPont Specialty Products business, works with customers across a wide range of industries to make products and industrial processes more efficient and sustainable. Through a unique combination of agriculture, biotechnology, chemistry and material science capabilities, we advance market-driven, biobased solutions to meet the needs of a growing population, while protecting our environment for future generations. For updates about how DuPont Industrial Biosciences is helping customers deliver cost-effective products with superior performance and sustainability, follow @DuPontBiobased on Twitter or visit our website at http://biosciences.dupont.com. About DowDuPont Specialty Products DowDuPont Specialty Products, a division of DowDuPont (NYSE: DWDP), is a global innovation leader with technology-based materials, ingredients and solutions that help transform industries and everyday life. Our employees apply diverse science and expertise to help customers advance their best ideas and deliver essential innovations in key markets including electronics, transportation, building and construction, health and wellness, food and worker safety. DowDuPont intends to separate the Specialty Products division into an independent, publicly traded company. More information can be found at http://www.dow-dupont.com. # # # 11/12/18 The DuPont Oval logo, DuPont and all products, unless otherwise noted, denoted with , or are trademarks or registered trademarks of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company or its affiliates. Having seen 352 become a leader in the innovation space in Atlanta, I was attracted to join a team that brings unique expertise to varied clients in a meaningful way. Atlantas digital innovation leader, 352 Inc., is proud to announce and welcome Kevin Lewis as the organizations Vice President of Innovation. Lewis joins 352 with nearly 15 years of experience in the fintech corporate innovation sector as well as his storied career in product and business development across multiple industries. He joins the 352 team from First Data, a top payment processing company headquartered in Atlanta, GA, where he was the Vice President of Client Innovation and led the organizations Innovation Lab. Through his 14-year tenure at First Data, he honed his innovation skills by creating new solutions to help organizations deliver creative solutions for end-users. At 352, Lewis guides clients through an immersive workshop format to discover and define problems, and then test, learn and iterate on solutions in order to identify a strategic path forward. Kevin (Lewis) has proven himself as a highly successful corporate innovator, and he's already helping our clients strengthen their innovation strategy and execution," said Geoff Wilson, President and Founder of 352. "His deep knowledge of the financial and payments industry offers unique insights and benefits to our company and our clients. Lewis joins 352 as VP of Innovation to continue 352s recent success and growth in providing corporate innovation services for industry-leading organizations. Having seen 352 become a leader in the innovation space in Atlanta, I was attracted to join a team that brings unique expertise to varied clients in a meaningful way, Lewis said. My experience leading innovation teams within an enterprise adds a new layer of value to what 352 already delivers. About 352 Inc. 352 Inc. is an innovation and growth company focused on delivering business value through the lens of the consumer. Backed by a 20-year legacy of sophisticated web and software delivery, user-centered design and ROI-driven marketing, 352 brings a unique perspective to innovation. The companys design sprint process, lean and agile development process, traction marketing process and singularly-focused client teams allow 352 to rapidly deliver actionable strategies, insights, prototypes, product builds and growth campaigns to its clients. 352 is headquartered in Tech Square in Atlanta, Georgia, with additional offices in Tampa and Gainesville, Florida. Generis Generis ranked high in both innovation and dependability and was one of only two vendors who did not receive any on the decline rating. Steve Gens says "While many other content management providers are trending down, Generis is trending up." Generis has achieved a strong ranking for innovation, customer satisfaction and dependability in the latest Gens & Associates World Class Regulatory Information Management (RIM) Survey. A total of 69 Life Sciences companies participated in the early 2018 study that analysed key regulatory trends, the RIM provider landscape as well as the priority and deployment of emerging technologies. Of the 33 software vendors being ranked, Generis ranked high in both innovation and dependability and was one of only two vendors who did not receive any on the decline rating. The Gens and Associates Innovation Index is based on the industrys perception of the vendors innovation capability from the benchmark survey and their ability to deliver on their product roadmaps. Steve Gens, Managing Partner at Gens & Associates, commented: Many traditional regulatory solution providers struggle to meet increased customer requirements, especially around usability and connectivity to other enterprise capabilities. For such a long-established organization to consistently have strong innovation and customer satisfaction ratings over time is impressive and demonstrates their commitment to supply innovative and flexible solutions to the market. While many other content management providers are trending down, Generis is trending up. Demand for a more innovative approach to RIM is emerging throughout the Life Sciences industry, with inter-functional connectivity and information throughput a clear driver for about 70% of the industry says Gens. By improving information flows through centralizing the management of regulated and non-regulated content, RIM providers like Generis can set the stage for better information flow and support automation goals with the application of artificial intelligence. Generiss CARA content services platform is unique whereas traditional ECM systems typically compromise on usability to deliver one centralized content management solution, CARA enables users to work across whichever applications they choose to through one centralized user interface, creating a single source of truth without impacting productivity. By unifying data and content from external applications such as Documentum and Box, both regulated and non-regulated content are managed seamlessly, freeing up Life Sciences organizations to pursue tasks related to RIM and beyond. We are delighted to receive recognition from the Gens & Associates Survey for our content management capabilities, said James Kelleher, Generis CEO. We invest extensively in our R&D resources in-house to ensure we deliver innovative and seamless content services to our Life Sciences clients through our CARA platform that goes beyond compliance to meet their productivity and usability needs. Generis currently works with 8 out of the 10 largest Life Sciences companies worldwide. In terms of future innovation, Generis plans to build further intelligence into its platform, leveraging AI and Deep Learning to provide more visibility and insight for its customers. About Generis Generis has been providing leading-edge software for content management systems since 1997. With over 400,000 users, CARA is the content services solution of choice for companies worldwide, from Federal Government, through Life Sciences and Engineering to Media, Publishing and Finance. For more information visit: http://generiscorp.com Gilbane Building Company Celebrates Grand Opening of Moose International Lodgic Everyday Community Project Gilbane Building Company and Moose International recently celebrated the grand opening of the nations first Lodgic Everyday Community project in Champaign, Illinois. Gilbane provided preconstruction and construction management services for the Lodgic Everyday Community project, which consisted of tenant redevelopment of approximately 28,000 SF of interior space. The project included a new restaurant with outdoor seating, coffee cafe, retail, co-work office space for lease, childcare, outdoor play area and fitness center. It is one of the organizations most significant expansion ventures since the turn of the 20th century. Our project team has enjoyed the partnership weve developed with Moose International on this significant redevelopment. Gilbane is proud of the entire project team on a successful project. said Lynn Rogien, Gilbane Building Company Senior Project Executive About Gilbane Building Company Gilbane provides a full slate of construction and facilities-related services from pre-construction planning and integrated consulting capabilities to comprehensive construction management, general contracting, design-build and facility management services for clients across various markets. Founded in 1873 and still a privately held, family-owned company, Gilbane has 46 office locations worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.gilbaneco.com. Gilbane has two permanent offices located in Chicago, as well as an extensive knowledge of the Chicagoland market including construction processes, area subcontractors/suppliers, local M/WBE contractors, and familiarity with Chicago jurisdictional authorities. With 40 years of success in the highly competitive Chicagoland market, Gilbane is committed to continuing the strong tradition of excellence in the Chicago construction industry. Kenyan Private Sector Silicon Valley based software development company, HashCash Consultants, is in talks with a new crop of entrepreneurs in Kenya for collaborations on tech-heavy projects. The operations are expected to hit the floor in the first quarter of 2019. The objective of the project is to strengthen the infrastructure of the agricultural sector with optimized logistics. According to its contribution to the East African countrys GDP, this sector is the backbone of the Kenyan economy. It accounts for 25% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 65% of total exports, and more than 18% of formal employment. However, this sector has its share of challenges, and the primary cause behind dwindling food reserves has been identified to be post-harvest wastage. The loss is close to a daunting 50% of the produce. The implementation of blockchain will provide a decentralized distributed ledger to record data that represent the quantity and quality of crops harvested, transported, and sold. The difference in statistics updated at every stage of the supply chain will facilitate a more accurate calculation of post-harvest loss and narrow down the problem areas in the infrastructure. This record will be a highly reliable one because the encryption with which the data are protected is near impossible to hack. Therefore, the blockchain ledger will cancel out all possibility of manipulated reports and corruption. The Kenyan private sector is steadily looking to incorporate technological innovations to provide more efficient products that are easy to implement across industries. Blockchain has emerged as a favorite, largely due to the efforts by the Kenyan government to utilize it for transparency in votes during their recent elections. This has clearly fortified trust in the technology. HashCash Consultants, besides customizing blockchain solutions to meet the specific needs of their clients, also bring an option for better funding for these projects. The process of raising adequate funds to power ideas focused on agriculture is a difficult one, as the industry does not excite traditional venture capitalists. The route of ICOs provided by the blockchain company is a quick and easy alternative to accrue capital for the entrepreneurs without having to divest any part of the ownership rights of their company. About HashCash Consultants HashCash Consultants started as a Blockchain Consulting Company in California. Today, HashCash products enable enterprises to move assets and settle payments across borders in real-time using HashCash Blockchain network, HC NET. Financial Institutions use HC NET for Retail Remittances, Corporate Payments, Trade Finance, and Payment Processing. HashCash also runs the US based cryptocurrency exchange, PayBito and the leading Cryptocurrency payment processor, BillBitcoins. HashCash offers cryptocurrency exchange and payment processor white label solutions, comprehensive ICO services and customized use case design and development. HashCash propels advancement in the field of blockchain through the Blockchain1o1 program and its investment arm Satoshi Angels. While innovation and leadership know no gender, it is important to highlight the achievements of women blazing trails in the often male-dominated technology space Hospitality Technology (HT) magazine is pleased to announce that it is accepting nominations for the third annual Top Women in Restaurant Technology Awards. The program, sponsored by 7SHIFTS, will recognize and honor a diverse array of females in the restaurant technology industry, including restaurant companies and technology providers. While innovation and leadership know no gender, it is important to highlight the achievements of women blazing trails in the often male-dominated technology space, Dorothy Creamer, editor of Hospitality Technology magazine says. Here at Hospitality Technology, our team is largely comprised of women, so we are thrilled to have the chance to recognize powerful, smart women achieving great things. From those early in their careers to those who have already made and continue to make their mark in the restaurant industry, we look forward to hearing and sharing their stories. Honors will go to those accomplished women who are reimagining how things are done in restaurants while demonstrating excellence in leadership, inventiveness and skill. In order to face new challenges and opportunities, the restaurant industry needs diversity of thought, now more than ever. For that reason we are proud to sponsor the Top Women in Restaurant Technology Awards and recognize all the brilliant women achieving great things. Diversity, empowerment and equality are at the heart of what we value at 7shifts, so we are elated to sponsor this years awards and celebrate all the trailblazing women that are leading the restaurant industry forward," said Jordan Boesch, 7shifts CEO. The 2019 Honorees will be recognized in three categories including: Rising Star Presented to women from any level of an organization, with less than five years of experience in the industry, who have demonstrated leadership and are already making a mark in restaurant technology at an early stage in their careers. From an up-and-coming social media guru at a restaurant brand to a stellar sales rep for IT providers, we want to recognize rising star rockstars! Innovator Presented to women who are forward thinkers and who have executed on tools and strategies to transform the restaurant technology space in a positive manner by creating or deploying emerging technologies that reimagine how things are done while paving the way for future technologies. Influencer The Lifetime Achievement Award: This award is presented in recognition of a lifetime (no less than 15 years) of service and accomplishments in the restaurant technology industry. We seek to honor women who have had an impact on the restaurant technology industry as well as their colleagues and industry peers through enthusiasm, mentorship and commitment, while also showing how technologies can provide new ways of doing things. Winners will be chosen by Hospitality Technology magazine and members of its Research Advisory Board. Winners will be profiled in the April 2019 issue of Hospitality Technology. An awards program will also honor the winners at the 24th annual MURTEC (Multi-Unit Restaurant Technology Conference), being held March 11-13, 2019, at The Paris in Las Vegas. Nominations can be submitted through https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TopWomeninRestTech19 The deadline for nominations is January 11, 2019. Previous Winners Include: Karen Bird, VP of IT, Buffalo Wild Wings Pat Darling, VP of Operations, Ctuit Tamy Duplantis, Vice President of IT, Le Duff America Anne Fischer, Vice President of Produce Management, Papa John's International Mary Hamill, Vice President of Sales Engineering, HotSchedules Kristen House, Project Management Team Lead, Paytronix Mukta Joglekar, Senior Engineer, BlueCart Sherril Kaplan, VP of Digital Marketing & Innovation, Dunkin Brands Anita Klopfenstein, VP, eCommerce & Consumer Systems, Panera Lauren LaFortune, Restaurant Systems Analyst, Sage Hospitality Susan Lintonsmith, President & CEO, Quiznos Veronica Luna, Digital Innovation Manager, Taco Bell Stefania Mallett, Co-founder & CEO, ezCater Michelle Matthews, Vice President of Direct Sales, Dickeys Capital Group NaAma Moran, Co-founder & CEO, Sourcery Stephanie Nardini, Sr. Director of IT, Jersey Mikes Franchise Systems Joy Ugi, Director of Marketing, Orderly Caroline Wise, Product Manager, Tripleseat Software Kathy Yeoman, Vice President of IT, Darden Restaurants About Hospitality Technology Hospitality Technology (HT) is the only publication dedicated to covering the role of information technology in improving business performance for both hotel and restaurant operators. The Hospitality Technology editorial portfolio includes: a print publication that publishes nine times annually and reaches more than 16,000 hospitality industry executives, three networking and educational events (MURTEC, HT-NEXT and MURTEC Executive Summit), a comprehensive website, e-newsletters, web seminars, and several exclusive annual reports and studies. Visit Hospitality Technology online at http://www.hospitalitytech.com. Hospitality Technology is published by EnsembleIQ, headquartered in Chicago. About 7SHIFTS 7shifts is an employee scheduling and workforce management platform designed specifically for restaurants and QSRs. We help managers, operators, and chains automate staff scheduling and team communication to standardize & streamline operations, dramatically reduce labor costs and provide the actionable business insights that helps hospitality professionals thrive. https://www.7shifts.com. As technology continues to disrupt the healthcare industry, the need for our services will grow and we will expand our service offerings as the market shifts. Impact Advisors, a leading provider of clinical, revenue cycle and information technology services to the healthcare industry, announced today it has been ranked by Consulting Magazine on its list of Fastest Growing Firms for 2018. This exclusive list recognizes the fastest growing consulting firms in the world, of any size and from any sector. We are honored to make the list of Fastest Growing Firms for the second year in a row, said Maria Smith, Chief Financial Officer at Impact Advisors. As technology continues to disrupt the healthcare industry, the need for our services will grow and we will expand our service offerings as the market shifts. We dedicate this award to our team who provides world-class service to our clients and remains committed to helping them solve some of their toughest challenges with integrity and honesty. Every year, Consulting Magazine releases its ranking of the consulting industry's Fastest Growing Firms. These firms demonstrate exemplary revenue growth over a three-year period. Firms are ranked by their rate of revenue growth between 2014 and 2017. Impact Advisors was founded in 2007 on the premise of building the nations premier healthcare technology consulting firm whose sole focus is to deliver unwavering quality service to clients by putting their interests first. The firm is a trusted partner among the industrys leading health organizations with a solid reputation that continues to propel its consistent annual growth, tempered by hiring only the best employees in the industry. Impact Advisors understands the value of its Associates and is committed to creating and maintaining a culture where they want to do this important work. For more information, including the full rankings and editorial coverage, visit http://www.consultingmag.com/the-magazine for the publications November issue. About Impact Advisors Impact Advisors is a nationally recognized healthcare consulting firm and trusted partner of industry leaders focused on delivering clinical, revenue cycle, and information technology services to solve some of healthcares toughest challenges. Our comprehensive suite of patient access, clinical and revenue cycle services span the lifecycle of our clients needs. Our experienced team has a powerful combination of clinical, revenue, operations, consulting and IT experience. The firm has earned a number of prestigious industry and workplace awards: Best in KLAS for 10 consecutive years (including, in 2018, Leader in Revenue Cycle Optimization and Clinical Optimization Categories and Best in KLAS HIT Enterprise Implementation Leadership), CRN Solution Provider and CRN Fast Growth 150, Modern Healthcares Largest Revenue Cycle Management Firms, Healthcare Informatics HCI 100, as well as best place to work awards from: Modern Healthcare, Consulting Magazine, Beckers Hospital Review and Achievers. For more information about Impact Advisors, visit http://www.impact-advisors.com. Dr. Howard Abarahams Treats TMD in Miami Beach, FL When left untreated, TMD can cause significant discomfort and jaw pain as well as numerous dental issues. Highly innovative prosthodontist Dr. Howard Abrahams and dentist Dr. Stan Frohlinger, are encouraging those across Miami Beach, FL, with TMD-related symptoms like frequent jaw pain to schedule an appointment at their practice. The foundation of the smile is the bite, or how the teeth fit together. If this is not properly aligned, painful symptoms can affect daily life as well as cause additional damage to the teeth, diminish oral function and eventually affect the aesthetics of the smile. Using advanced techniques, the dental team can effectively help patients manage TMD for the long-term and prevent further damage. TMD stands for temporomandibular joint disorder, whereas TMJ refers to the temporomandibular joint. The condition is presumed to affect between five and 12 percent of the population, according to figures from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Many factors come into play to contribute to TMD, including improperly fitting jaws and emotional stressors. When left untreated, TMD can cause significant discomfort and jaw pain as well as numerous dental issues. When the bite is uneven, pressure follows suit. With some teeth receiving more than necessary pressure when biting down, they can begin to wear down and in some cases chip or crack. In other cases, teeth grinding or bruxism, may be the cause of TMD which can wear down the enamel and lead to cavities if left untreated. Many with TMD in Miami Beach, FL, ignore the warning signs. Early and advanced indicators of potential TMD include teeth grinding, jaw pain upon waking up or during the day, worn away molar tops, chewing problems, sensitive teeth, gum recession, jaw clicking, jaw sticking when the mouth is open, frequent cavities from worn-down enamel, and generalized ear pain. After performing an examination and consultation, dental professionals like Drs. Abrahams and Frohlinger frequently offer treatment suggestions based on leading-edge dental practices. For example, some patients respond well to occlusal adjustments. Malocclusions occur when the jaw does not fit precisely in place. By performing a bite analysis and reshaping the teeth to ensure a proper fit, the doctors can improve the patients bite and relieve tension at the jaw joint. Another treatment for those with TMD in Miami Beach, FL, can be a minimally invasive nighttime oral appliance or mouthguard. This device sits comfortably in the mouth and keeps the jaw in a neutral position, cushioning the teeth from damage. Those interested in learning more about their symptoms of TMD in Miami Beach, FL, are invited to contact the office at 305-921-0082. About the Doctors Dr. Howard Abrahams and Dr. Stan Frohlinger serve advanced general and cosmetic dentistry to patients in the Miami Beach, FL area. Dr. Abrahams is an esteemed prosthodontist who specializes in a wide variety of dental concerns, from simple to the most complex. He has completed a three-year specialty program in advanced prosthodontics with a focus on dental implant and cosmetic rehabilitation. He then went on to complete an additional one-year residency in Maxillofacial Prosthetics and Dental Oncology at New York's prestigious Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Abrahams is a member of the American College of Prosthodontists, The Academy of Osseointegration, American Academy of Maxillofacial Prosthetics, South Florida District Dental Association and American Dental Association (ADA). Dr. Frohlinger has been practicing as a cosmetic dentist for over 30 years. An active member of the Florida Dental Association and Academy of General Dentistry, he also serves as a clinical evaluator for the ADA. To learn more about Dr. Abrahams, Dr. Frohliger or the services they offer, please visit http://www.dentalimplantsmiamibeach.com or call 305-921-0082 to schedule an appointment. John Gibson, a military veteran from Seattle, Washington, has completed his new book The Art of Leadership and Command: A Study of McClellan and Lee and Their Contemporaries (1861-1865): a potent narrative that tells the qualities of one Civil War general that ensured the success and victory of his troops against his adversaries. Author Gibson shares a unique side to history that magnifies his legacy to the states: History has not treated General George McClellan kindly, but there is another side to the storythe soldiers side. No US general of the Civil War was adored more by his troops than McClellan, and with good reason. He gave them confidence and success. He was more respected by his celebrated opponent Robert E. Lee than any other Union general. Rarely do we hear the soldiers view of the McClellan story because he was such a politically polarizing figure even before he was relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac in 1862. McClellans difficult personality and his political disagreements with the Unions power structure have dimmed the military reputation he deserves. Mr. Gibsons book examines how McClellan stacks up militarily; as he fought one of the great captains of warfare, Robert E. Lee, in one of the most important battles in American history, Antietam, the true birth of American freedom! Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, John Gibsons edifying account glorifies the mind of a leader and tactician and his steadfast resolve to ensure the birth of the longstanding privilege of liberty for the American society. Readers who wish to experience this astounding work can purchase The Art of Leadership and Command: A Study of McClellan and Lee and Their Contemporaries (1861-1865) at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708. About Page Publishing: Page Publishing is a traditional New York based full-service publishing house that handles all of the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not bogged down with complicated business issues like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes and the like. Its roster of authors can leave behind these tedious, complex and time-consuming issues, and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com. Were honored to be named a 2018 Detroit Free Press Top Workplace, said Lake Trust Credit Union President and CEO David Snodgrass. This is especially significant because it represents employers across Michigan. It starts with how we make a difference in peoples lives." On Friday, November 9, 2018, Lake Trust Credit Union was named a 2018 Detroit Free Press Top Workplace in the Midsize Business category in the 11th annual awarding of the designation. Were honored to be named a 2018 Detroit Free Press Top Workplace, said Lake Trust Credit Union President and CEO David Snodgrass. This is especially significant because it represents employers across Michigan. It starts with how we make a difference in peoples lives, not just our team members and members but also our neighbors. We act in the 35 counties we serve and through our Moved By Good Day, our dedicated initiative to help local non-profit organizations. I thank every Team Lake Trust member because they build and strengthen our unique culture of making that difference. A feature of Lake Trusts workplace experience is that its branches feature an open, modern look, as does its 100,000-square-foot headquarters, which won a 2018 American Institute of Architects Detroit Architectural Honor Award, in Brighton. Lake Trust has also announced plans for a new branch in Detroit in 2019. The open look and feel truly represents our distinctive philosophy. It promotes thinking differently and encourages collaborative conversation and team interaction, said Brandalynn Winchester-Middlebrook, Lake Trust Senior Vice President of Culture and Community Engagement. It is part of our DNA, which our team members appreciate. Lake Trust Credit Union and the Lake Trust Foundation do donate funds to worthy causes but what also makes us a Top Workplace is our ongoing emphasis on doing good. Our team members give of themselves. That active community connection energizes us and makes Lake Trust the place we look forward to working at every day. Lake Trust Credit Union, Michigans largest Community Development Financial Institution, has more than 180,000 members and over $1.7 billion in assets. Insured by the NCUA, Lake Trust Credit Union has branches located from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron. Committed to creating stronger communities, Lake Trust team members continuously find ways to give back and work to make a difference as part of their Moved By Good focus. Credit Union membership is open to anyone living, working, worshipping or attending school in their 35-county service area. Lake Trust Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization that exists to enhance Lake Trust Credit Unions core value of Making a Difference. Through community partnerships, outreach programs, grants, financial assistance and support for underserved people, the Foundation helps build and sustain stronger communities. Believing strong neighborhoods can have a global impact, the Credit Union continuously looks to support projects that solve problems throughout Michigan and help make the world a better place. For more information about Lake Trust Credit Union and the Lake Trust Foundation, please visit laketrust.org. Mark T Sadaka speaks at Mass Torts Made Perfect I look forward to working with our talented team of attorneys on the Zostavax litigation until justice is done. Mark T. Sadaka was appointed by Judge Harvey Bartle of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania as co-lead counsel of the Zostavax Multi District Litigation (MDL). As co-lead counsel, Mr. Sadaka will help lead a team of attorneys who are highly skilled at litigating these complex cases. The Zostavax Multi-District Litigation (MDL) will ultimately consist of thousands of lawsuits alleging that Mercks Zostavax vaccine resulted in significant injuries for thousands of people including blindness, stroke, and heart attacks. Merck requested that all the cases be heard in front of one court for pre-trial proceedings due to the large number of injury cases. Mark T. Sadaka has been investigating severe Zostavax injury claims for over seven years and has numerous cases currently pending all over the country. Mr. Sadaka has participated in dozens of depositions and reviewed millions of pages of Merck documents, providing him the foundation for this entire litigation. Sadaka Associates, LLC is currently filing claims alleging that Zostavax caused injuries such as, Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP), brain inflammation (encephalitis), stroke, vasculitis, blindness, eye infections, retinal damage, and acute retinal necrosis. Mr. Sadaka has also spoken on the Zostavax litigation to other counsel at numerous conferences around the county. He co-petitioned for the creation of a Zostavax litigation group for the American Association of Justice. He was appointed co-chair of that group, which has the sole purpose of fostering cooperation amongst plaintiffs counsel. About Zostavax Vaccine Zostavax is a live virus vaccine made by pharmaceutical giant Merck, and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2006. It was the only approved shingles vaccine in the United States until late 2017, which allowed the company to earn a reported $749 million in sales. Zostavax is designed to reduce the risk of getting herpes zoster a painful and debilitating condition commonly known as shingles in individuals ages 50 years and older, who are at increased risk of developing the virus. The vaccine is typically recommended for people aged 60 years and older by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and doctors commonly give the vaccine in a one-dose shot. Zostavax contains a live, but weakened form of the herpes zoster virus. About Mark T. Sadaka and Sadaka Associates, LLC Mark T. Sadaka is the principal of Sadaka Associates, LLC, in Englewood, New Jersey with offices in New York and Maryland. He is an accomplished trial lawyer with a specialized medical background that has made him leader and invaluable resource in the realm of medically complicated cases. Mr. Sadaka represents people hurt by defective drugs, medical devices, vaccines, exposure to hazardous chemicals, and other dangerous products. He also represents victims of corporate fraud. He has successfully prosecuted a number of first-of-its-kind pharmaceutical related lawsuits, including brain damage caused by Zostavax and aggressive prostate cancer caused by Avodart. Through nine years of persistence and innovation, Mr. Sadaka was the first ever to successfully prove that the Gardasil vaccine killed a 21-year old woman in Tarsell v. DHHS, 10-cv-251 (US Court of Federal Claims). Sadaka Associates has represented or currently represents clients in litigation involving transvaginal mesh, hernia mesh, diabetes drugs, anti-psychotics, oral contraceptives, spinal cord stimulators, and vaccines. "As the market leader in Computational Storage products, NGD Systems is excited to support the TWG as it enables the Computational Storage ecosystem." - Scott Shadley, co-chair of the SNIA Computational Storage TWG and Vice-President of Marketing at NGD Systems Today NGD Systems announced that they have joined a newly formed SNIA Technical Work Group (TWG) that will focus on Computational Storage. The purpose of the Computational Storage TWG will be to create standards to promote the interoperability of computational storage devices, as well as to define interface standards for system deployment, provisioning, management, and security. As a leading vendor in the Computational Storage market, NGD Systems will actively drive the efforts of this group. Healthy ecosystems are critical for new technologies, and the creation of the SNIA Computational Storage TWG will provide a forum to build the standards necessary to ensure the success of these new markets, said Mark Carlson, Co-chair Technical Council at the Storage Networking Industry Association. SNIAs history in producing successful standards and specifications, the extensive SNIA development ecosystem and established infrastructure supporting broad member participation and collaboration, are all conducive elements to rapid standards development. The creation of this TWG will strengthen the ecosystem by promoting industry education and interoperability between computational storage devices. The issues with most new technologies is that that they disrupt the existing ecosystem of solutions, and at the same time require significant effort to build up a new ecosystem to support the products. This is difficult because most (if not all) of the companies developing the new technologies are startups. This disruption cycle is also risky for potential customers, who are concerned about vendor lock-in and the ability of startups to stay in business. Standards groups like the SNIA Computational Storage TWG help by addressing areas such as interoperability and standardization of management for new technologies. NGD Systems welcomes the creation of the SNIA TWG for Computational Storage, said Scott Shadley, co-chair of the SNIA Computational Storage TWG and Vice-President of Marketing at NGD Systems. Computational Storage will revolutionize the analysis of petabyte-scale datasets by minimizing data movement between servers and storage, which has been proven to significantly increase application performance. As the market leader in Computational Storage products, NGD Systems is excited to support the TWG as it enables the Computational Storage ecosystem . About NGD Systems Founded in 2013 with its headquarters in Irvine, California, NGD Systems is a venture-funded company focused on creation of new category of storage devices that brings computation to data. NGD has designed its advanced proprietary NVMe controller technology which deploys patented Elastic FTL algorithm and Advanced LDPC Engines to provide industry leading capacity and scalability. The platform also deploys the patented In-Situ Processing technology to enable Computational Storage capability. The company is led by an executive team that helped drive and shape the flash storage industry, with decades in leadership positions with storage companies such as Western Digital, STEC, Memtech, and Micron. For more information, please visit https://www.ngdsystems.com. --end-- Paradise Grills Direct & Edgewood Ranch Paradise Grills Direct is a proud supporter of a number of organizations dedicated to helping and improving the community in which we live. Paradise Grills is pleased to announce their support of Edgewood Childrens Ranch of Orlando at their annual charity auction. Paradise Grills will be donating one of their signature premier grilling systems which will be auctioned off at this years County Round-Up Dinner and Auction event to raise money in support of this great organization. Edgewood Ranchs 36th Annual Country Round-Up Dinner and Auction will be held at The Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida on November 14th at 6:00 PM in the Osceola Ballroom. There will be a reception, silent auction, and dinner, followed by a live auction. Western attire is encouraged (and fun to wear). There will be many exciting items up for auction and waiting for your winning bid, including a new GX4 grilling system from Paradise Grills. The GX4 is just one of the many top-of-the-line outdoor kitchens and grills that Paradise Grills offers. All of Paradise Grills outdoor kitchens are fabricated and manufactured by Paradise Grilling Systems in Orlando, Florida. Paradise Grilling Systems is presently America's largest outdoor kitchen manufacturer with a state-of-the-art 110,000 square-foot factory. A leader in the manufacture of grills, fire pits, fireplaces, tiki huts and outdoor kitchens nationwide, Paradise Grills has become the place to turn when youre looking for the ultimate outdoor entertaining setup. Rugged welded steel frames, LED lighting kits, a unique plug-n-play electrical system, and a fun and sturdy tiki hut option have made Paradise Americas choice for outdoor entertaining. Known for their quality craftsmanship, Paradise Grills specializes in creating a fun outdoor living space for entertaining friends and family. Whether youre looking for a quality standalone grill or an entire outdoor kitchen set-up with a sink, fridge, sound system, grill, or bar system, Paradise has the styles that will make your backyard the coolest on the block. Paradise Grills also has many accessories to further customize your outdoor kitchen including side burners, rotisseries, infrared sear stations, and wood-chip/charcoal smoker boxes for the most delicious meals your guests will ever have. Paradise Grills stands behind every unit, offering the best warranties in the industry. They manufacture thousands of grills and kitchens every year for customers all over the country, giving them the ability to provide the highest quality outdoor kitchen and grilling systems at the fairest price possible. Paradise Grills feels a deep sense of gratitude and wants to help such an inspirational cause. Edgewood Childrens Ranch was created in 1966 as a way to help boys who were having problems in life due to a difficult home life to get their lives on track. The facility eventually invited girls to participate and now provides a safe home and learning environment for up to 71 boys and girls ages 7-17 at any given time. It is a residential program that not only helps children improve their lives but it also asks that the families of the children participate in a program that helps them grow as parents and understand how to help their children thrive. Edgewood is a faith-based program that uses love and prayer to lift children up to a better outlook on life. It is not a lock-up program; children attend the program voluntarily and quickly become part of the Edgewood family. The wonderful work done at Edgewood Childrens Ranch is made possible by the generosity of others. Applicants to the program are accepted on the basis of need, not the ability to pay. Families pay what they are able and the rest is made up of donations and fundraisers like the yearly auction. Paradise Grills encourages you to support the Edgewood Childrens Ranch by getting involved. Reserve a table or a seat or simply donate and help Edgewood continue the inspirational work it does making a positive difference in the lives of children who need their help. Call (407)578-0506, email events(at)edgewoodranch(dot)com or go to http://www.edgewoodranch.com to find out how you can also be a part of the success of this organization. Finding the right parts and accessories for your Toyota is easier than ever before. Parts.hamertoyota.com is the source for genuine Toyota OEM parts in Mission Hills, CA, and beyond. Hamer Toyota has reaffirmed its commitment to the online automotive parts and accessories market with its updated e-commerce website parts.hamertoyota.com. The updated website will better help consumers shopping for genuine Toyota accessories and Toyota parts online. This new site also provides Hamer Toyota an outlet to more fully compete in the Mission Hills, CA area and beyond. Finding the right parts and accessories for your Toyota is easier than ever before. Parts.hamertoyota.com is the source for genuine Toyota OEM parts in Mission Hills, CA, and beyond. We have been in business for over 50 years, and we are thrilled about making Toyota and Scion original parts and genuine accessories more accessible to the owners who need them. We are also excited about our partnership with SimplePart, said Mario Moreira, parts director at Hamer Toyota. It has always been a privilege to work with Hamer Toyota on their online presence," said Dan DuPree, vice president of client services at SimplePart. "Now, Toyota customers are better able to browse a comprehensive and updated catalog of genuine parts and accessories Toyota and Scion cars, with interactive part diagrams." About Hamer Toyota: Hamer Toyota is located in Mission Hills, CA, and proudly serves the greater Los Angeles area. Hamer Toyota also has a Genuine Toyota Parts counter and a certified Toyota Service Center to assist drivers with the upkeep of all their Toyota and Scion vehicles. Located at 11041 Sepulveda Boulevard, Mission Hills, CA 91345, the Hamer Toyota parts and accessories department can be reached at (855) 592-7003. About SimplePart: With a client base of automotive, motorcycle, truck, and powersport dealerships across every major brand, SimplePart connects OE dealers with owners buying retail parts and accessories online. SimplePart provides turnkey parts catalog solutions, user-friendly websites and digital marketing services. SimplePart currently has official programs with Subaru, Volkswagen, Audi, BMW Motorrad, Volvo, Toyota and more. The company was founded in 2008 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information, visit http://www.simplepart.com. We hope that you will consider honoring Laylas legacy and help us say thank you and give back for the incredible care our family received by making a donation to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. - Matt and Larissa Sonnen PFI Advisors (Pure Financial Independence) announced today that the firm will participate in #GivingTuesday in a very meaningful way. Any RIA that raises and donates $10,000 or more to the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles donation page of Layla Paige Sonnen will receive a free Operational Diagnostic*. Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving. Since its inception, PFI Advisors has always highlighted charities close to its team members hearts. The Sonnen family became especially close with Childrens Hospital Los Angeles when their daughter Layla Paige suffered a seizure at 6 months old and spent the next 22 months battling a brain disorder under the care of CHLA. Layla ultimately succumbed to her condition on July 8, 2017, but the Sonnen and PFI family continue to look for ways to give back to the organization that holds such a special place in our hearts. With PFI Advisors #GivingTuesday campaign, the firm pledges to provide a free Operational Diagnostic engagement to any RIA that donates $10,000 or more to Layla Paige Sonnens CHLA donation page. These Operational Diagnostic engagements include a full analysis of an RIAs back office technology suite; integrations between systems; how employees and end clients interact with the various technology pieces; and a proposed future infrastructure that the firm could leverage in a more efficient manner. All Operational Diagnostic engagements will be performed and completed before the end of 2018. To learn more about PFI Advisors, visit http://www.pfiadvisors.com. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, or visit our blog at https://pfiadvisors.com/blog/. *Operational Diagnostic(s) will be conducted solely via phone and screen sharing sessions ### About PFI Advisors PFI Advisors (Pure Financial Independence) was founded in 2015 with the following mission in mind: To further evolve the RIA industry from a collection of practices to businesses, and to be a continued voice in validating the industry as a legitimate landing spot for billion-dollar teams and their clients. PFI Advisors is an operational consulting firm that supports the unique back office, technology, and operational needs of RIAs in growth mode. PFI Advisors conducts Technology Assessments, manages Technology Conversions, and provides M&A Preparation and Integration Services to RIAs seeking growth support. The firm announced the launch of COO Resource in January 2018, an ongoing retainer-based service in which RIAs and their Chief Operating Officers can leverage the knowledge and expertise of PFI. For breakaway advisors, PFI Advisors manages full RIA set up and transition to Independence, including office build out, RIA infrastructure development, client transition, and billing services all for a simple consulting fee. There is no complicated long-term AUM fee structure or equity stake required to build the firms future and provide advisors Pure Financial Independence. About Childrens Hospital Los Angeles Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit institution that provides pediatric health care and helps their patients more than 528,000 times each year in a setting designed just for their needs. Their history began in 1901 in a small house on the corner of Alpine and Castelar Streets (now Hill St. in Chinatown) and today their medical experts offer more than 350 pediatric specialty programs and services to meet the needs of their patients. CHLA is a provider of more than $232.6 million in community benefits annually to children and families. As the first and largest pediatric hospital in Southern California, CHLA relies on the generosity of philanthropists in the community to support compassionate patient care, leading-edge education of the caregivers of tomorrow and innovative research efforts that impact children at their hospital and around the world. Pond Lehocky Stern Giordano Attorney Nick Liermann has been named a 2018 Veteran of Influence by the Philadelphia Business Journal. The award recognizes 25 veterans who have served their country honorably and are now making a difference in their business community. In evaluation individuals military career, business accomplishments and community service, which was why Nick Liermann, Esq. received this award. Mr. Liermann served four years on active duty with the U.S. Army as a Platoon Leader in a Patriot Missile Battalion, including a deployment as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Six years ago, following a break in service, he joined the U.S. Army Reserve as a JAG officer. His assignments have taken him across the globe including Germany, Israel, Hungary, the Middle East, and South Korea. At Pond Lehocky, Mr. Liermann heads The Traumatic Servicemembers Group Life Insurance (TSGLI) practice groupthe only such practice for veterans in the region. TSGLI provides benefits for injuries suffered by service members, whether sustained on or off duty. Mr. Liermann also founded Team Foster in honor of his friend Captain Erick Foster, who was killed in action. Team Foster is a 501(c)(3) non-profit raising money to provide service dogs for injured veterans in our area. The recognition is particularly timely with Veterans Day approaching and carries special meaning for Mr. Liermann, who comes from a military family. For me, its personal. I have served, but so have my mother, father, brother, uncle, and grandfather, Mr. Liermann said. I have seen up close and personal the sacrifices all of our service members make. He also stressed the need to care for and support veterans once they return form duty. Every veteran has taken time away from their family, career, and personal life to serve our country. Many have been put in harms way. Some have suffered life-altering injuries or worse, he said. It is important that we thank these men and women but it is more important that we do something to give back. Liermann said. I am grateful that PLSG is so supportive of our veterans and allows me to put my time, energy and motivation into taking care of our veterans. Pond Lehocky Stern Giordano opened its doors in July 2010 with six attorneys and only 22 total staff members. Today, it is the largest workers compensation and Social Security disability law firm in the region, boasting 12 office locations and over 200 staff members. The Firm has also recently launched new practices areas for workers, including employment law and long-term disability. The new location in Philadelphia offers a variety of mental health treatment services for adults, adolescents and children. Our team of highly trained psychologists and social workers will work collaboratively to provide residents of Philadelphia with personalized and effective care, said Dr. Dawn Raffa, Inner Balance Psychology Centers Founder and Director. Past News Releases RSS The Inner Balance Psychology Center, LLC with locations in Marlton and Pennington, New Jersey, has opened a new office in Philadelphia at 1628 JFK Boulevard, Suite 1003. The new location offers a variety of mental health treatment services for adults, adolescents and children. Professionally trained and licensed solution-focused psychologists and social workers will provide the following services: individual therapy for adults family therapy child and adolescent therapy mindfulness-based stress reduction for adults and adolescents anxiety and stress treatment marriage and couples therapy psychological testing At the helm of Inner Balance Psychology Center is its Founder and Director, Licensed Clinical Psychologist Dawn Raffa, PhD. She has more than 18 years of professional experience and her expertise includes treating depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, adjustment disorders, ADHD, personal injuries and pain management, as well as children and adolescents with behavioral, learning and academic problems. Our team of highly trained psychologists and social workers will work collaboratively to provide residents of Philadelphia with personalized and effective care, said Dr. Dawn Raffa, Inner Balance Psychology Centers Founder and Director. Were pleased to bring an array of treatment approaches to Philadelphia which include evidence based cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, client centered therapy and family systems. The Philadelphia location is staffed with two licensed clinical psychologists, one post-doctoral resident and a licensed social worker. Dr. Dawn Raffa offers hours in the Philadelphia location and is accepting new patients. She specializes with children, adolescents and adults who are suffering from anxiety disorders including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Panic Disorder. She also specializes with mood disorders including major depressive disorders and bipolar disorder, ADHD and womens health. Dr. Raffa works with couples struggling with relationship difficulties using Gottman and Imago techniques and works with families from a systems orientation. Also seeing patients in the new Philadelphia office are Tara Calafiore, Psy.D, Ashley Matz, Psy.D and Katie Bartolucci, LSW. Visit https://www.innerbalancepsychology.com for more information or call 267-534-3533 to contact the Philadelphia office. About Inner Balance Psychology Center, LLC Inner Balance Psychology Center encompasses three locations - Marlton and Pennington, New Jersey and its newest location in Philadelphia. Founded in 2014 by Dr. Dawn Raffa, the Centers team of licensed clinical psychologists and social workers provide a safe and supportive environment in which adults, adolescents and children can receive the highest quality mental health services available. Dr. Raffa served as a collaborating investigator on one of the task forces for the DSM-V and is a certified cognitive therapist and diplomat from the internationally distinguished Academy of Cognitive Therapy. Media Contact: Ria Romano, Partner RPR Public Relations, Inc. Tel. 786-290-6413 Every child deserves to feel the excitement of opening their own gift during the holidays. We at PROSHRED Security are very privileged to be working with both KID Inc. and Jack & Jill Childrens Center to bring holiday cheer to children who need it most. PROSHRED Fort Lauderdale will be collecting new unwrapped toys for children in need at their shred events Saturday, December 8th and Saturday December 15th, in partnership with Kids in Distress (KID) and Jack & Jill Childrens Center. Toy donations for both charities will also be accepted at the PROSHRED Ft. Lauderdale office from November 12th to December 17th. For more information on the shred events please visit: https://www.proshred.com/fort-lauderdale/events/ For more information on dropping off a donation please visit: https://www.proshred.com/fort-lauderdale/events/toy-drive-2018/ In addition to donating toys for children, individuals may bring up to two standard size boxes of paper documents to the shred events. PROSHREDs on-site shredding truck will safely and securely shred and dispose of the unwanted personal information. The events are free to attend and documents will be shred in exchange for a new unwrapped toy donation that will go directly to both charities for the holidays. Jeffrey Hasham, Chief Executive Officer of PROSHRED Security, commented, Every child deserves to feel the excitement of opening their own gift during the holidays. We at PROSHRED Security are very privileged to be working with both KID Inc. and Jack & Jill Childrens Center to bring holiday cheer to children who need it most. Together lets make this a holiday every child will look back at fondly. About PROSHRED Security PROSHRED Security is an industry leader providing mobile shredding services and document destruction. We are the only locally owned and nationally operated shredding company with both ISO 9001 and NAID AAA certifications. PROSHRED Security operates in 40 major metropolitan markets in the United States with a fleet of over 136 trucks. For more information, please visit: https://www.proshred.com/ About Kids In Distress (KID, Inc.) Kids in Distress of Broward and Palm Beach counties (KID) is a licensed, nationally accredited agency working for prevention of child abuse, preservation of the family, and care and treatment of abused and neglected children. KID services helped more than 11,000 children and families last year through programs that focus on foster care, family strengthening, prevention, intervention, education, and family counseling. KID partners with corporations, organizations, municipalities, schools, and individuals to support its mission and expand services throughout South Florida. For more information about Kids In Distress, please visit http://www.kidinc.org or facebook.com/KidsInDistress. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @kidsindistress. About Jack & Jill Childrens Center Founded in 1942 by the Junior League of Greater Fort Lauderdale, Jack & Jill Childrens Center started as a day-care for women whose husbands went to war and now needed to enter the workforce. We proudly serve as the Junior Leagues oldest and longest running Legacy Project.Jack & Jill Childrens Center is the oldest non-profit provider of early childhood education in Broward County. For more information about Jack & Jill Childrens Center, please visit https://jackandjillcenter.org/ "The future of the auto industry requires anticipating what car buyers want and optimizing every experience along the buyer journey." PureCars, the premier digital technology company for the automotive industry, today launched Signal Pro, the automotive marketers single source for transparent sales attribution. The first-to-market solution takes attribution a step further, delivering real-time insights on stocking, merchandising and advertising. Signal Pro enables dealers to understand the true impact of digital media on shopper behavior and vehicle sales. Signal Pro is a cloud-based platform that delivers auto-specific attribution modeling, sales data and inventory data. The platform shows which channels are driving revenue, and identifies areas for improvement based on offline and online sources. The platform also tracks shopper engagement, drilling down to individual interactions and touchpoints along the path to purchase. "Signal Pro is different from other attribution solutions for two reasons," PureCars' Chief Product and Strategy Officer Adam Phillips said. "First, we use a unique multi-touch data driven attribution model that is specifically designed for automotive and understands inventory. Secondly, we apply that model to measure intent-based signals from shopper interactions to give dealers a true view of each channel's engagement with inventory and contribution to sales." Signal Pros valuable insights help dealerships: -- Optimize digital merchandising on VDPs. -- Accurately attribute sales to digital media channels. -- Eliminate wasted budget by focusing spend on the most profitable channels. -- Understand the shopper's journey, and vehicles that are likely to sell soon, using features like Path to the Sale and Engagement Score. The future of the auto industry requires anticipating what car buyers want and optimizing every experience along the buyer journey, said Phillips. PureCars continues to offer solutions that help automotive dealers anticipate needs, improve customer interactions and quickly move their inventory. Using tools like Signal Pro, dealers can quickly view actionable insights on the complex relationship between ad spend, customer behavior and vehicle sales." To learn more about Signal Pro and PureCars, visit https://www.purecars.com/solutions/signal-pro/. About PureCars: Since 2007, PureCars has provided dealers with the tools and resources needed to thrive in a digital-first world. Its suite of solutions combine innovative technology with data-driven strategies to optimize digital campaigns and maximize growth through sales. More than 3,000 dealers partner with PureCars on their digital strategies between the U.S. and Canada. To learn more about the company and its solutions, visit http://www.purecars.com. Winward Academy has pledged 20% of its November sales to support life-saving cancer research and raise awareness for the unique challenges faced by teens who battle cancer. "I wasnt even afraid of dying. I was afraid of not doing well on the ACT and not being able to go to college."-Bradley C., teen cancer survivor As part of the Padres Pedal the Cause on November 17, 2018, Winward Academy has formed a team to raise funds for cancer research and to honor Bradley Couch, a San Diego native who was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in his junior year of high school. They ride together with a shared mission: to raise awareness for the unique struggles for teens with cancer. A cancer diagnosis in high school presents an additional layer of challenges for adolescents; specifically, the impact on their education can be paramount. In addition to the isolation and loneliness of being confined to a hospital bed or missing school during chemotherapy treatments, teens who believe in their recovery are concerned about their ability to go to college. Couch, a La Jolla Country Day graduate in the class of 2016, reflects on his diagnosis and shares, I wasnt even afraid of dying. I was afraid of not doing well on the ACT and not being able to go to college. The thought that teens battling acute or terminal illness would face yet another burden with a fear of not doing well on standardized tests for college admission moved Dr. Jennifer Winward, the founder and lead instructor of Winward Academy. Dr. Winward has pledged two ways to support teens like Bradley battling illness during high school. First, Winward Academy has partnered with Rady Childrens to support all teens receiving treatment for cancer or blood disorders, two conditions that keep students out of school. Second, Winward Academy has pledged 20% of its November sales to the Padres Pedal the Cause fundraiser. I couldnt be more proud to ride with Bradley or to support this cause, shared Dr. Winward. Rady Childrens saved his life and gave him a shot at being the successful, conscientious University of Arizona Wildcat that he is today. Winward Academy is wholeheartedly committed to supporting teens who battle cancer and to helping fund essential research that saves lives every day. 100% of the proceeds raised by Padres Pedal the Cause stay in San Diego to fund collaborative research projects conducted by four beneficiaries: Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and Rady Childrens Hospital-San Diego. ### About Winward Academy. Winward Academy a nationally recognized tutoring platform providing personalized ACT prep, SAT prep, math courses, and college application help combines an interactive teaching approach with on-demand video lessons to create tailored learning programs for students and for life-long learners. Winward Academy founder Dr. Jennifer Winward brings significant experience in learning as a Ph.D., Neuroscience and Developmental Neuropsychology, University of California, San Diego; distinguished teaching professor at University of California, San Diego; and renowned 18-year veteran of high school tutoring. For more information on Winward Academy, see winwardacademy.com or follow the company on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. To sign up for educational packages and support Padres Pedal, go to learn.winwardacademy.com/signup/padres-pedal. At Overleaf Lodge & Spa, every room has an oceanfront view for guests to experience the drama of the stormy sea first-hand. Once you come to the Overleaf Lodge & Spa and immerse yourself in this unique and spiritual stretch of the Oregon Coast, youll instantly understand its magical sense of place, the charm and appeal. Situated in the coastal hamlet of Yachats, The Overleaf Lodge & Spa is a luxury retreat on an enchanting stretch of the Oregon Coast. Recently named one of Oregons loveliest seaside towns along one of the most stunning stretches of Pacific Northwest coastlineand one of the 16 best places to live in the U.S. (Outside Magazine in 2016)this quaint village may be small in size but it scores big on natural beauty, incredible recreational adventure, and a unique and magical place for relaxation and renewal. Teaming with exquisite natural beauty, outdoor adventure and sanctuary for selfcare and wellness, the Overleaf Lodge & Spa surprises guests with unsurpassed ocean views, a rugged shoreline for hiking and rustic exploration and a world class oceanfront spa. A cozy lobby with a wood burning fire and pockets of comfy overstuffed armchairs greet happy travelers. Every room offers an oceanfront escape from the ordinary. And there are even snug cottages available for family gatherings or girlfriend weekends. At the Overleaf Lodge & Spa, there's a feeling of being part of a unique community. And there is perhaps no better example of this extraordinary place than its location right on the historic 804 Trailaccessible just outside the doors of the lodge. This winding oceanfront footpath has been part of the ebb and flow of visitors' lives for thousands of years. As far back as 600 BC, natives known as the Alsi people used this trail to set up their summer camps and gather shellfishplentiful along this particular stretch of coastline. Connected to their physical environment in a deeply spiritual way, the Alsi people worshipped their surroundings as they communed with nature. Later, the 804 Trail helped create the community of Yachats by becoming the link between it and the outside world. Today, Overleaf Lodge & Spa visitors come to renew and ground themselves by just being thereor partaking in its exquisite spa services, yoga retreats and meditative walks. Once you come to the Overleaf Lodge & Spa and immerse yourself in this unique and spiritual stretch of the Oregon Coast, youll instantly understand its magical sense of place, the charm and appeallike walking into a warm hug, says owner Kristin Roslund. And thats exactly what we want our guests to feellike they are family and at ease to relax and regenerate and enjoy the beauty of this extraordinary retreat. Rooms with a view At Overleaf Lodge & Spa, every room has an oceanfront view for guests to experience the drama of the stormy sea first-hand. Take in the spectacular coastline from a private hot tub or breath in the salty air from your balcony. Cozy up by the fireplace to watch the waves roll in. And then, take some time to unwind at the state-of-the-art spa complete with unique massage services, soaking tubs, sauna and natural local products. A room at the Lodge provides the quintessential place for vacationers to relax and unwind after a day of enjoying the beauty of the Oregon Coast. Time to renew In keeping with its place on an ancient shoreline once inhabited by the Alsi ancestors, the Overleaf Spa spirit and theme were derived from the image of a dragonfly, which is represented in the form of a totem. Overleaf Lodge & Spa founders believe that the Dragonfly totem embodies the essence of change, renewal, wisdom and enlightenment. Dragonflies represent transformationthey begin life in the water as nymphs and then take to the air in colorful flight. The Dragonfly urges one to consciously express their hopes, dreams and needs and to seek areas in which to affect positive change. That spirit is spun through the resorts spa services and culture. The Overleaf Spa offers a friendly, casual and unassuming environment for our guests to explore different means to relax and unwind, says Roslund. We bring many local, natural resources and products into our treatmentslike fresh sea salt, smooth local stones and natural seaweed treatments. And our soaking tubs offer the most remarkable views for contemplating high above the dramatic sea below. The Overleaf Spa is the supreme spa vacation destination on the Oregon Coast offering a complete menu of treatments designed to help restore, refresh, and rejuvenate your mind and body so that you can feel like your best self. Its cozy ambiance and friendly therapists and staff add an element of homespun comfort to each visit. Just some spa services include: Sea Escape Facial and Hot Stone Effleurage Vichy Hydrotherapy Sea Mud Wrap Honey Body Polish Vita Cure Seaweed Facial Sea Stone Massage Explore Yachats Miles of trails wind along the Yachats shoreline, through spruce forests and crisscross nearby Cape Perpetua, making the Overleaf Lodge & Spa a perfect getaway for those who love to explore the outdoors. And Yachats has been named home to the best trail system on the Oregon Coast by The Oregonian in 2016. Whether a hike skirting the shoreline or a trek into mossy rainforest, the extensive trail systems around Yachats rival other Oregon coastal towns for number of connected miles and mixed difficulty, not to mention some of the coasts most breathtaking views. Theres a Bike Bonus: though most trails in the area are reserved for hiking, options exist for the biking-inclined. Cummins Creek Trail, a 2.5-mile out and back open to mountain bikers cuts through Siuslaw National Forest, while fat bikers venture south to Florence to surf sand areas of Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. After a day filled with adventure, refuel with fresh seafood from any one of the best local places in town. Baskets of fish and chips, buckets of steamer clams, fish tacos and some of the best wood-fired pizza around. Wet your whistle at one of locals favorite hangouts, Yachats Brewing. Small batch beers feature nontraditional ingredients and focus on local flavors such as Oregon peaches, coffee, and salal berries, to name a few. Did you knock out most of your itinerary? Ready to unwind? Put your feet up and enjoy a bottle of wine from the Overleaf Lodge & Spa Wine Cove featuring regional Oregon wines. Whether rich red or a sparkling white, wine is an essential part of the Oregon experienceas much a part of the states DNA as a winter rain shower or an ocean sunset. In fact, a good bottle of Oregon wine goes great with both. The Overleaf Lodge & Spa supports local wineries year-round and offers a cellar to purchase wine from some favorite Oregon winemakers. The Lodge is replete with so many unique amenitiesfrom fresh local seafood at the front desk and hosted happy hour receptions with wine and local cheeses, to piping hot complimentary breakfast fare and a quiet library for reading and jigsaw puzzles, the Overleaf Lodge & Spa is the seaside oasis any age group can enjoy. When it comes to experiencing the Central Oregon Coast, a stay at the Overleaf Lodge & Spa is just the beginning. Its a home base for exploring all that Yachats has to offergo beachcombing, wander the tidepools, walk the 804 Trail, visit local art galleries or take a yoga class, all just steps from your room. Enjoy historical and cultural activities and marvel at the areas natural wonders, including the Heceta Head Lighthouse, Sea Lion Caves, Cape Perpetua, and Carl G. Washburne State Park. The Overleaf Lodge & Spa welcomes wintertime guests with a cozy atmosphere, enchanting oceanfront location and all of the luxuries a body and soul need to restore and renew. Please be our guest! About the Overleaf Lodge & Spa The Overleaf Lodge & Spa is a family owned business whose mission is to make each guest, employee and community member feel at home and relaxed. The Lodge opened in 1997, after being designed and built by founders and owners, Jerry and Georgia Roslund. Since its opening the Lodge has provided a premier Central Oregon Coast experience to visitors. For three generations the Roslund family has worked and lived in the Yachats community and the Overleaf Lodge & Spa is representative of the spirit of this remarkable place. The name Overleaf was chosen through a happy accident. During the initial construction of the property, Jerry was thumbing through an architectural catalogue when he found a photo of a building he liked and mistakenly thought the architectural style was called Overleaf. As it turns out, the term was instructing him to turn the page or overleaf for more information. Nonetheless, they loved the name and what it came to symbolize for the Lodge: turning over a new leaf in life. This is how the Overleaf Lodge & Spa was born. Tiffs Treats, the original warm cookie concept, is excited to expand their footprint to Garland, TX with the debut of their Firewheel store. Located at 4280 Lavon Drive #236, the new store is number 43 for the cookie company and is the twelfth in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. A grand opening celebration will take place on Saturday, November 17th with a charitable kick off from 9am to 1pm to benefit Susan G. Komen Dallas County. To celebrate opening day, the first 40 people in line at 9am will be given a $100 Tiffs Treats gift card. All others in line at 9am will get a $10 gift card (must be 18 or older). As an opening day perk, customers will be able to purchase a dozen cookies for only $5 (no call ahead orders) and up to as many as six one-dozen boxes per person filled with one of Tiffs Treats most irresistible flavors: chocolate chip, snickerdoodle or oatmeal raisin. Everyone who attends the opening day celebration will also have a chance to win free cookies for a year! As we have grown into more markets this year, we are thrilled to continue our expansion in the Dallas/Fort Worth area to Garland, says Tiffany Chen, co founder of Tiffs Treats. Tiffs Treats opened in Nashville, TN earlier this year as well as other Texas and Georgia markets. All sales from opening day (up to $5,000) will go directly to Susan G. Komen Dallas County, the local source for funding breast cancer education, screening and treatment in Dallas County. Tiffs Treats stores are now cashless. Only debit and credit cards will be accepted at this event. More About Tiffs Treats Tiffs Treats created the warm cookie delivery concept. Tiffs Treats makes and delivers classic, baked-to-order cookies and brownies straight from the oven to the home or office, WARM, in about an hour. Founded in 1999, what started as two friends baking cookies at University of Texas at Austin to help fellow students get through exams has now grown to 43 stores in Texas, Georgia and Tennessee, with more than 800 employees, baking more than 100 million cookies since its inception. And the company is consistently focused on giving back: with grand opening fundraisers that fill needs for charities (and hungry bellies for Tiff's Treats fans!), Tiffs Treats has donated $150,000 to worthy causes. For more information, please visit http://www.cookiedelivery.com. TimelinePI Logo The insights necessary for healthcare providers to improve clinical effectiveness, maintain quality and safety standards and achieve improved patient satisfaction while managing the financial pressures impacting all providers demands a new approach to operational intelligence. TimelinePI, Inc., the leading process intelligence platform, today announced the availability of the latest release of its software with a variety of features designed for healthcare providers. With this release healthcare providers are able to achieve real-time visibility into how processes are actually working across all systems, confirming whether processes are being executed as prescribed, and, most importantly, predicting potential critical compliance and risk factors. The latest release, Version 3.7, extends the platforms proven process mining, analytics and operational monitoring features to include a new machine-learning based predictive analytics. Using this new capability health systems will not only be able to understand and analyze how processes have historically been performed but also be able to predict future outcomes of a broad range of clinical, procurement, revenue cycle and other processes. With the advantage of prediction providers will be able to better prepare and possible improve outcomes before they are set. Understanding how clinical processes are performing is critical to improving quality of care goals as health systems work to achieve greater operational efficiencies, said Javier Favela, president & CEO, Topaz Information Systems. TimelinePI delivers unprecedented process visibility across the organization making it obvious where things arent working as they should and exposing why its happening to empower us with the insights necessary to allow us to meet and exceed our clients goals. TimelinePIs platform and its latest innovations build on its patent-pending Timeline Analysis methodology which was developed to specifically address the challenges of analyzing case management processes prevalent in healthcare. By using the wealth of knowledge that can be harvested from healthcare process flows the new machine learning predictive capabilities based on mined process flows TimelinePI is able to deliver cutting-edge insights without requiring teams of data scientists or AI experts. "The insights necessary for healthcare providers to improve clinical effectiveness, maintain quality and safety standards and achieve improved patient satisfaction while managing the financial pressures impacting all providers demands a new approach to operational intelligence, said Scott Opitz, president & CEO, TimelinePI. The TimelinePI platform was designed based on years of healthcare experience to allow providers to quickly understand their current operations and provide the power tools to drive innovation only possible with process intelligence. Release 3.7 is available for immediate release. About TimelinePI, Inc. TimelinePI provides the most comprehensive process intelligence platform designed to empower users to understand, optimize and monitor any business process. TimelinePIs patent-pending Timeline Analysis approach is designed to allow healthcare providers, banks, insurance companies, government agencies, etc. take control of their data and Raise their Process IQ. To learn more, we invite you to visit https://timelinepi.com or email us at info@timelinepi.com. "The AseptiScope DiskCover System will provide clinicians a visible, rapid and affordable solution that applies a clean barrier directly to the stethoscope in a few seconds, permitting a timely, clean and effective examination with patients. Scott Mader, CEO of AseptiScope, Inc. AseptiScope(TM), Inc. announces it is advancing its innovative medical device to reduce stethoscope contamination that two large U.S. studies, published last week, confirm pose a significant health risk. The two large clinical studies appearing in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) conclude that stethoscopes are often improperly or rarely disinfected. In the AJIC November 6 issue, investigators observed hand and stethoscope hygiene habits of 400 interactions between clinicians and patients in a large urban hospital in Houston, Texas. While disinfection stations and gloves were routinely used in hand hygiene, fewer than 1 in 5 stethoscopes were disinfected, with less than 4% of interactions conforming to CDC guidelines. As published in Fridays AJIC, investigators observed 426 emergency room patient encounters at a San Diego, California based healthcare system and found stethoscope hygiene occurring in no more than 13% of patient interactions, though not necessarily in compliance with CDC guidelines. According to investigators, with existing technology limitations, stethoscope hygiene is frequently neglected. We know that stethoscopes and hands carry similar pathogen contamination levels, and stethoscopes can transfer these pathogens between patients, said David Boulee, lead investigator in the AJIC study out of Texas. However, an effective solution for this clinical dilemma, such as safe-to-touch wipes or a no-touch dispenser system for an audiologically transparent single-use barrier, is not readily available. In the fast-paced and highly intense emergency setting, investigators from the November 9 San Diego study suggest stethoscope hygiene is about more than just a quick wipe with alcohol. At each patient encounter, clinicians should be reminded of stethoscope hygiene for hands and stethoscopes, and have access to a rapid, effective method to reduce transference of bacteria and other contaminants during the exam, said Dr. Punam Chowdhury. In our study, we observed some clinicians wrapping a glove over the stethoscope in an effort to reduce cross-contamination. This is a clear indication of a problem that needs a solution. Scott Mader, CEO of AseptiScope, Inc., a California based medical device company, believes they will soon have a solution to address this problem. We are preparing to introduce the first touch-free, single use stethoscope barrier dispensing system. The AseptiScope DiskCover(TM) System will provide clinicians a visible, rapid and affordable solution that applies a clean barrier directly to the stethoscope in a few seconds, permitting a timely, clean and effective examination with patients. The AseptiScope(TM) DiskCover(TM) System is planned for release in 2019. About AseptiScope, Inc. AseptiScope is a privately funded San Diego, California based, clinical innovation company, formed in early 2016. The organization is founded and led by clinical innovation experts, leading medical researchers and practicing physicians. The AseptiScope mission is to design, develop, manufacture and commercialize novel solutions that ensure Infection Protection for Clinician & Patient. The company will introduce the first true and practical solution for the longstanding challenge of stethoscope contamination in 2019: The AseptiScope DiskCover(TM) System. Aseptiscope and DiskCover are trademarks of Aseptiscope Inc. According to the mirror.co.uk, Imelda Cortez has been in custody since April 2017 when doctors suspected that she had tried to terminate the pregnancy. Reports say the then teenager was rushed to the hospital by her mother following a severe pain and bleeding subsequent to giving birth in the toilet. It was suspected that Cortez had visited the toilet to allegedly complete the abortion process, but the baby ended up alive and healthy. While prosecution insists that the alleged attempted abortion is criminal in El Salvador irrespective of whether the pregnancy was as a result of rape, Bertha Maria Deleon, one of her defence lawyers, told the Guardian: This is the most extreme, scandalous injustice against a woman Ive ever seen. She added that: The state has repeatedly violated Imeldas rights as a victim. Shes deeply affected but denied psychological attention. ece-auto-gen Officials disbelieved Cortezs claim that she was raped by her abusive stepfather, claiming she had concocted the story to make an excuse for the attempted abortion crime. However, a nurse reportedly overhead the abuser when he visited the victim in the hospital, threatening to kill her, her siblings and her mother if she reported the abuse. Meanwhile, DNA examination results have reportedly confirmed the baby girls paternity, but the abuser is yet to be charged for the alleged offence. Mr Awal said that this will ensure that the country develops as expected. He was speaking at the 2018 CSR awards organized by the Center for CSR. He encouraged businesses to employ more graduates so they are trained in their organisations as part of their CSR projects. He explained that this will support the governments focus on human capital development and also help reduce unemployment in the country. I want to urge businesses to consider job placement for our graduates as a key component of CSR. We need to encourage our young people to have a feel of work, and real job experience will be important to them. The minister also urged the business community to communicate effectively their CSR policies to inspire other companies. READ ALSO: Mortuary workers threaten to strike over poor working conditionsMortuary workers threaten to strike over poor working conditions I think it is important that companies communicate their CSR policies effectively. When you communicate well your CSR philosophies, you are appreciated by stakeholders, and then other companies will also follow. He also challenged businesses to absorb student for internships beginning next year. In his petition, he said the conduct of the sitting Chief Justiceclearly shows her incompetence in managing the highest office of the judiciary which has a constitutional mandate to be fair, just and equitable in the application of the laws of Ghana. The Executive Director of the Alliance For Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) further said the African Court for Human and Peoples Rights (AfCHPR) last year issued a provisional measure to have all proceedings halted on the Woyome V Republic of Ghana case. Mr. President, last year when the interim measure was issued on the state, there were several pronouncements by the deputy Attorney General Godfred Dame indicating that Ghana was not bound by the measure, he stated in his petition to President Akufo-Addo on Monday. It was a bit worrying to see the deputy attorney general espouse a position that was clearly in contravention with Article 40 under which the treaty derives its powers locally. More worrying was the Supreme Court also came out with a position that it does not share its powers with any other body." Under Article 146 (6) of the 1992 Constitution, if the president is petitioned for the removal of the Chief Justice, he shall in consultation with the Council of State appoint a committee consisting of two justices of the Supreme Court. The committee appointed under clause (6) of this article shall inquire into the petition and recommend to the President whether the Chief Justice ought to be removed from office. Lawyers for the former chairperson of the Electoral Commission last week filed a motion to discontinue and withdraw the suit being heard at the High Court without citing reasons. Opoku-Aggyemang was the lawyer for the staff of the EC who petitioned president Nana AKufo-Addo for her removal. In her original suit, the deposed EC boss argued that the the false and malicious publications by defendant has injured the image of Charlotte Osei and brought her hard won reputation into hatred, ridicule, odium, discredit, contempt, opprobrium and reproach. She also asked the court to declare that the statements by the petitioners are managerially and administratively inept. --Background-- Some staff of the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana on July 19 filed a petition against the Chairperson calling for a full-scale investigation into alleged misconduct and abuse of office on her part. The concerned staff in a petition claim her decision to cancel a contract awarded to Superlock Technologies Limited (STL), a company contracted to supply and manage Biometric Voter Registration machines (BVRs) and the Biometric Voter Devices (BVDs), as well as her directive for the payment of $76,000 to IT firm, Dream Oval, were fraudulent and hence she should be removed from office. READ ALSO: Charlotte Osei faces Parliament Charlotte Osei following the petition, ordered her legal team to consider suing the petitioners for defamation and also demanded their names are made known to her. The suit was filed at the High Court on Tuesday, July 25.Mrs Osei had declared her intention to sue the faceless staff for defamation and requested the lawyer produce their names. She said: "As a point of order with regard to the recent unfounded accusations leveled at Mrs Charlotte Osei in her capacity as Chairperson of the EC Ghana, Mr Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang is not a staff member of the Commission. "Whilst he claims to act on behalf of Concerned Staff of the Commission, he has not made clear who those staff indeed are." In a statement issued by his campaign team, it said: "He is expected to continue his campaign in the Ashanti Region after the congress". ece-auto-gen He is expected to touch on reducing the high cost of living in the country as well as working hard to provide jobs for Ghanaians. In an article, the former Attorney General said his office has so far had woefully inadequate infrastructure and has been under-resourced since its establishment a year ago. READ ALSO: Six contractors grab Adentan-Madina highway footbridge contractSix contractors grab Adentan-Madina highway footbridge contract The Office of the Special Prosecutor was established in November 2017 with a specific mandate to oversee cases of corruption, involving public officers and individuals in the private sector. Many Ghanaians were upbeat following the appointment of Mr. Amidu as the countrys first-ever Special Prosecutor, however the Citizen Vigilante has so far failed to make an effective impact at his new role. ece-auto-gen Mr. Amidu has compared his situation to that of that of Acting Attorney General of the US Mathew Whitaker, insisting a lack of resources has left the Special Prosecutors Office in an almost hopeless situation to fight corruption. The Whitakers scenario which I have just read reinforces my own conviction that the effective way to stifle the fight against corruption is to apply Whitakers scenario. It also reminds me of the almost utter hopelessness in which the newly established Office of the Special Prosecutor finds itself almost one year after the President caused its establishment as his flagship and vision to fight corruption in Ghana with an overwhelming national consensus and support, Mr. Amidu lamented. One year down the line it has only a small three bed room house as an Office woefully inadequate for lack of shear physical space to accommodate any reasonable number of employees, lack of subsidiary legislation, and consequently also financially crippled without any ability to acquire the requisite expensive operational anti-corruption and other equipment for the Office let alone to function efficiently. He said despite President Akufo-Addos sincere commitment to fighting corruption, government has done very little to support the Special Prosecutors Office. According to him, the office has so far lacked the resources to adequately deliver on its mandate. According to the Nation, the vocational tertiary institutions were challenged at an international conference by experts who attended the event. Speaking at the event, the Director-General of the National Office for Technological Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Mallam Adamu, who was represented by a Director in the Ministry, I.O. Folorunso praised Nigerian polytechnics for maintaining a high standard in offering technology-based education. He, however, insisted that Nigerian polytechnics have to convert their inventions and patents for commercial use. ece-auto-gen Another speaker, Professor Mbarika of the Information and Communication Technology University, Louisiana, USA, while speaking at the event urged Africans to shift attention to the good things the continent could boast of the Nation reports. He said, ''we must cease to focus on Africa as the content of corruption, debt, dictatorship, terrible diseases, poverty and illiteracy. Yes, we do have these things here and there in Africa. But I have lived in the United States for decades and travelled across all continents. They also have these problems in large dimensions but they focus on their positives. So let us focus on things like our efficacious traditional medicine, natural resources, huge population (markets), agricultural potential and skilled manpower''. An investigation recently conducted by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) showed that the email culture in Nigerian tertiary institution is still very poor. According to ICIR, an enquiry was sent to a total of 186 e-mail addresses belonging to 117 institutions on Tuesday, October 9, 2018; and a week later, on October 16, a reminder was sent to the addresses, but only 10 responded, acknowledged mail. The 186 email addresses were reportedly extracted from the various schools official websites. The Redeemers University of Nigeria (RUN), Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Baze University, University of Ilorin, American University of Nigeria (AUN), Ekiti State University (EKSU) and Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, (LAUTECH) were the eight institutions that responded to the enquiry. 40 minutes after the email was sent, Redeemers Universitys Principal Assistant Registrar, Ipenko Ademola responded asking about the purpose of the enquiry and directing the reporter to the Registrar. ece-auto-gen While it took the Federal University of Petroleum Resources 30 minutes to reply the email, it took the University of Ilorin a whole day to respond. However, while others respond to the email asking the reporter to direct his enquiry to their school Registrar or Vice Chancellor, the America University of Nigeria, replied the email 'giving answers to all enquiries'. Apart from the delayed responses, the mail delivery subsystem declared 33 addresses which constitute 17.7 per cent of the addresses as not found. The 33 addresses belong to 22 universities. ALSO READ: 7 things you should no longer have in your resume According to ICIR, these schools include; University of Ibadan (mediaresources@mail.ui.edu.ng), Lagos State University (webservices@lasu.edu.ng), Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (unaabamrec@yahoo.com), Kogi State University (info@kogistateuniversity.edu.ng), Ebonyi State University (infoi@ebsu.edu.ng), Abia State University (registry@abiastateuniversity.edu.ng), and Imo State University (portal@imsu.edu.ng). ece-auto-gen Others are Kaduna State University (contact@kasu.edu.ng), Madonna University (registrar@madonnauniversity.edu.ng, info@madonnauniversity.edu.ng), Yobe State University (info@ysu.edu.ng), Well Spring University (info@wellspringuniversity.edu.ng), Gombe State University (contact@gsu.edu.ng), and Plateau State University (info@plasu.edu.ng). There are some without email addresses, they are; The actor took to his Instagram page on Sunday, November 11, 2018, where he shared a video blasting the government and the airport authorities. He went on to caption the video with his experience at the airport and the poor treatment he witnessed being melted on a young Nigerian. So frustrated today by the situation of this country, the people working at different parastatals actually think they are some kind of god. Ethiopian airline staffs are so inefficient. They refused to carry a passenger for no reason. The girl in question is not a citizen of Nigeria, she went with her France passport and other documents issued by the France consulate , all they needed to do was to verify the passport but no the manager said he is not comfortable with the passport so she cant fly with them, he actually dropped the passport and took to his heels . Imagine the immigration saying she should get a Nigerian visa, for what?I dont know. How will you ask her to get a Nigerian visa to go to France, I dont understand this and I need some explanation, after that, they said she should get a Nigerian passport, for what please??? this is wrong and I am so angry at that. The same manager has agreed to carry the girl with additional cost and all. Which way Nigeria, why are treated like uneducated animals and why are these people acting like important fools, all you need to do is do your job and do it right. When will this stop? The security at the departure are not helping matters, how can you ask me to pay to let my family see me off to the check-in point, this is wrong very wrong. Even the immigration officers wants to collect money for anything they do ....why why-why . And I know the mayor @akinwunmiambode of this and every other state can find a lasting solution to this , the president @muhammadubuhari himself can override things to set them right but I bet they dont even know people are traveling out of the country, check the airport all you see are Nigerians running away from the country. I have never seen an EMIRATI or an AMERICAN that will run away from their country. Until you have no one to governor be a president over before you know. LONG LIVE SCARED NIGERIANS, he concluded. ece-auto-gen This is not the first time we will be seeing a celebrity actually drag the government over issues in the country. Recall earlier in the year, rapper, Eedris Abdulkarem took shots at the Inspector General of Police over the arrest of a journalist. ALSO READ:Celebrities who have called out President Buhari Eedris Abdulkareem slams Inspector General of Police over detained journalist ece-auto-gen Eedris Abdulkareem has slammed the Inspector General of Police, Idris Ibrahim over the continuous detaining of journalist, Samuel Ogundipe. The veteran rapper took to his Instagram page on Friday, August 17, 2018, where he took slammed the Inspector General of Police for detaining the journalist. According to him, the IGP will have countless sleepless nights over the arrest of Segun Ogundipe. "A Journalist would rather be tortured, jailed or in the extreme, killed rather than disclose his source. To the Journalist, it is sacrosanct, it is cardinal, it is the peak of his ethical responsibility to never disclose his source. Many have gone to jail and it is considered a badge of honour in the profession. Mr IGP, the young man, Samuel Ogundipe will give you hundreds of sleepless nights and super high blood pressure if you are waiting for him to expose his source. "He would rather go to jail and when out, will be held in honour, promoted, sponsored by international organisations, remembered and used as reference by students of journalism and journalists world over. Mr IGP sir, what will you be remembered for beyond your transmission gaffe, will you even still be in the police force after this dispensation? What will you be remembered for? Putting a Journalist in jail? Disobeying the president? Oppression and suppression of truth? It sure doesn't end here, Sir. Conscience is an open wound, Sir," he wrote. Mr Eazi made significant ripples with the release of his debut project, ''Accra To Lagos'' early in 2017 and he has enjoyed an interesting career since then. While back home, things have not exactly gone as smoothly as he would have wanted following several comments that generated heavy backlash on social media, outside our shore, Eazi has risen to become one of the continents most essential talents bagging several record deals and performing at some of the biggest stages worldwide. This year, Oluwatosin Ajibade a.k.a Mr Eazi, Nigerian by birth, Ghanaian by calling and Londoner by his base returns with his equally anticipated sophomore effort and these cultural inspirations all form a potent mix in the music that he puts out on his second studio project, ''Lagos to London.'' The idea behind the project, which he again refuses to call an album is to detail his journey from the busy streets of Lagos to the cold corners of London a place where he now calls home and the album is littered with a number of interesting guest collaborations across the two divides in fast-rising talent, Lady Donli, Burna Boy, 2baba, Simi, Maleek Berry and Ghana's King Promise while the international cast includes the likes of Giggs, Sneakbo, Chronixx and Lotto Boyz. The mixtape can best be described as a project of two halves with the first set of songs covering for the Lagos audience while he dedicates the final joints to his London crowd. ''Lagos To London'' opens with the intro, 'Lagos Gyration', where Lady Donli who has been burning up the 'Alte' scene makes her presence felt. Starting with heavy and engrossing African drums, this is a call to the dance floor and the only thing missing is palm wine in the system. Over chants and mumbled words, this is a catchy jam that it's 00.47seconds lifespan perhaps denied him of a potential truly Nigerian hit tune, one that has been missing in his catalogue for a while now. Explaining the idea behind the intro, Eazi shared on his Instagram page, ''I had been exploring this idea of a vintage Lagos vibe & Donli brought this to life alongside and her band. We had to cut it short cos it sounded like a full track & we wanted people to get that it was an intro.'' On 'Surrender' with Simi, Eazi is singing about surrendering to love, while Simi responds positively as she invites him into her heart. 'Dabebi' with King Promise and Maleek Berry is that contemporary hiplife record that Eazi used to good effect on his debut project as he infuses local languages in his verses. He continues his love theme with 'Suffer Head' alongside 2baba, which is a light piece of music that will lodge itself in your memory will constant listen. Previously released singles, 'Property', 'Pour Me Water' and 'Keys To The City' line up alternately to provide another of the tapes nicer moments. The first half of the mixtape closes with the Diplo assisted 'Open and Close' and a favourite in 'Miss You Bad' where Burna Boy again displays his innate abilities as they talk about 'cheating' and mistakes in a relationship, the production on this is top notch. Then the mood switches to a meaty piece of grime and European sound with the Lotto Boyz assisted 'Attention'. Another standout record is 'She Loves Me' featuring Chronixx, where the Jamaican's raspy voice deliver a spellbinding moment, with the project's final moments seeing the up-tempo records 'Chicken Curry' with Sneakbo and 'London Town' with Giggs. In less than two years, Mr Eazi has grown into the matured, well-travelled and more experimental artist, showing a strong level of consistency as he attempts to produce something special after the explosive nature of his debut effort. ''Lagos To London'' isn't bulging with trending sounds, even though he taps into them momentarily, but what it parades are memorable songs, well structured and produced with polish. Producers like his frequent collaborators in GuiltyBeatz and Julz, Diplo, Speroach, Pheelz and EKelly all put in a significant showing. Overall, his plain lyrical themes do not stray too far what he offered on his debut project, the mixtape is not constructed to blow you off as listeners may struggle in parts to understand the interpolations at play and the strong influence of European production on a number of the records, but it gives a very smooth listen in its 37mins journey. There is something about creating projects to appeal convincingly to two divides. While the idea seems right, executing it to perfection usually creates a stumble with the major problem of blurring one's musical identity, and with this in mind, it's easy to appreciate what Mr Eazi set out to achieve and even in its shortcomings, there are enough solid records here to reinforce his position as one of the leading forces of African music globally. Rating: 3.5/5 Ratings Sector Commander of the corps in the state, Mr Rotimi Adeleye, made this known at the 2018 African Road Safety Day and World Day of Remembrance of Road Traffic Victims, in Akure. The United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) adopted third Sunday in November every year as World Day for the remembrance for road traffic victims. Theme for this years edition is Roads Have Stories. Adeleye said that FRSC was organising a week-long activities to commemorate the event and to sensitise the living to the need to stem the tide of road traffic crashes. He said that there were some black spots on some roads, including Oka-Akoko axis in North Senatorial District, Akure-Owo axis, Ore-Lagos Expressway and Onyeragbulem Junction in Akure, where accidents often occurred in the state. On May 29, 16 lives were lost to road crashes in Oka-Akoko, with 13 of the victims burnt to ashes without identification. On Jan. 21, along Akure-Owo road, near Celestial Church by Agbogbo Junction, eight people died on-the-spot in an accident. In the same vein, on July 15, at Ogbese in Akure North Local Government Area, eight people also died. Also, the most recent that claimed lives of a family at Onyeragbulem junction in Akure occurred on Oct. 3 when a mother with her two children and elderly woman died, he said. Adeleye said that the crashes were caused by commercial drivers, but stated that the command had introduced enforcement to the section on any erring driver of speeding. We have put enforcement in place, if you traverse the state and you are speeding and you are apprehended, we are ready to delay you for two hours. With this enforcement, it will put some senses into theirs head so that when you get to Ondo state you will reduce your speed and put some senses in your driving culture, he said. The commander said that the effects of the crashes were felt not only within the immediate families but in the extended and nation because it depletes it virile workforce. He, therefore, called on major stakeholders and road users to join hand with the command to make the roads safer, especially during the yuletide. Road safety is everybodys business; therefore, everybody should be involved in one way or the other in making our highways safe. We are all aware that government alone cannot effectively fund road safety programmes, neither can a government agency like FRSC single-handedly deal effectively with road safety issues, Adeleye said. Investigations immediately commenced into the death of the business mogul and Ondo State indigene by the members of the Lagos State Police Command to ascertain the perpetrators status and it looks like that quest is finally over. ece-auto-gen According to Punch Metro, the prime suspect in the matter was his Togolese cook, 22-year-old Sunday Adefonou Anani who had only arrived in the moguls home on October 28, 2018 three days before he perpetrated the act. He has reportedly confessed the Police that he took advantage of the moguls wife, Mrs. Ebunola Bademosis brief absence to conduct a transaction at Polaris Bank. In a statement to journalists, CSP Chike Oti, Police Public Relations Person for the Lagos State Police Command said Anani had singlehandedly perpetrated the crime of stabbing his boss multiple times with a kitchen knife while attempting to rob him. He says, The journey that eventually ended the life of Opeyemi Bademosi, an Ondo State indigene, began in the deceaseds hometown, Ondo town. On Thursday, October 25, 2018, when one , 27, returned from Togo to Nigeria and called his compatriots, including the murder suspect, Sunday Anani, 22, to his house at the Yaba area of Ondo town, where he told Anani that he had through the assistance of a friend, , helped him secure a job as a cook in a rich mans house in the Ikoyi area of Lagos State. The suspect was subsequently taken to the deceaseds house in Ondo State on Friday, October 26, 2018. It is important to mention that the deceased usually went home every last weekend of the month; so, on Sunday, October 28, 2018, he brought the suspect, Sunday Anani, to Lagos to start working as his cook. On Wednesday, October 31, 2018, the suspect, who had the intention of robbing Bademosi, had observed that the late businessmans wife, , had left home for a transaction at Polaris Bank, before he made his way into his room through the kitchen to the lobby, and then to the room, which was the scene of the crime. According to the suspect, when he got to the deceaseds room and met him on the bed, he said, Chief, I am not here to kill you; the deceased asked him, What do you want? and he replied, Money. When the deceased said he had no money in the house, the suspect said he tied him up with a cloth and put him on the floor. He went further to say that the deceased, while still on the floor, kicked him, causing the knife he tucked inside his pants to fall off. He added that Bademosi crawled to pick the knife, but he (Anani) was faster; that he struggled with him and the knife accidentally pierced the deceased. He said that while exiting the room, Bademosi took the knife to stab him, so, he (Anani) kicked him and he (Bademosi) fell down. He then took the knife and stabbed him twice in the chest. ALSO READ: Deadbeat dad publicly beats his breadwinner wife and child in Ibadan (Video) When Anani finished committing the offence, he fled to Ondo State, Nigeria by assisting one Dangote truck driver to load his truck with cement. CSP Oti has also confirmed that Anani will be charged on one count each for armed robbery and murder, Investigation into the case revealed the following facts: that the incident occurred on Wednesday, October 31, 2018, around 08.10am; that the suspect committed the offence when the deceaseds wife, Mrs. Ebunola Bademosi, went to Polaris Bank, Falomo branch, Lagos, for a transaction. That the suspect fled the crime scene, when he heard knocks on the kitchen door, and went to Ondo State for refuge; that the deceaseds wife entered the crime scene through the sitting room after knocking several times on the kitchen door without any response from the suspect. That the deceaseds wife, Ebunola Bademosi, reported the incident to the police after she found her husband in a pool of blood on October 31, 2018; that the deceased, some minutes before his death, called his wife, Ebunola Bademosi, on the phone, complaining that the suspect, Sunday Anani, barged into his bedroom uninvited. That the suspect, Sunday Anani, stabbed the deceased several times in the thoracic region; that the scene of the crime, which is the deceaseds bedroom, was scattered and stained with blood; and that after killing the deceased, the suspect stole his Samsung phone and fled to Ondo State, where he was later arrested on Friday, November 2, 2018. That the stolen Samsung phone was recovered from the suspect upon his arrest in Ondo State; that the kitchen knife used in killing the deceased was found inside the deceaseds toilet; that the suspects apron found at the scene of crime was soaked in blood; that the suspect broke down in tears and confessed to the act after he was confronted with the CCTV footage. That the suspect led the investigation team to the crime scene, demonstrating/reconstructing how he carried out the crime; that, samples recovered from the scene of the incident have been handed over to the Forensic and DNA Department of the Ministry of Justice for examination and analysis. That the autopsy report attributed the cause of death to (a) Bilateral haemothorax (b) Laceration of the lung and intercostal vessels, and Multiple sharp force trauma to the chest; that the other suspects, Kofi Friday, Agbeko Ayenahin, Salisu Hussein and Nura Mamudu, are not linked to the crime. It is evident that the suspect single-handedly committed the crime by stabbing Opeyemi Bademosi to death with a kitchen knife, with intent to steal from him. To this end, the suspect (Anani) will be arraigned in court, while the other suspects, who are not linked to the crime, will be released to reliable sureties. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that beans traders in the popular Ketu Produce Market in Lagos and Magboro, Ogun State are already counting their losses as they lamented that consumers now shun one of Nigerias popular table food. However, the traders in the popular markets were already feeling the heat as they continued to make heavy losses on the account of boycott by the consumers. A beans dealer in Ketu market, simply known as Donatus, said he had yet to make any sale since Saturday when he made the last sale of the food item. I am surprised by the news, I only noticed that the sale dropped on Saturday but I came to know about the Snipers beans when I asked on Sunday what is going on. I was told by a friend in the market that the decline in purchase is due to the news going round that some dealers are using Snipers to preserve the beans. If not for other food items, I would have been left with nothing to sell because today, I am yet to make sale, he said. For Margaret Uche, another beans retailer in Ketu, government should find a way of controlling the situation as it had affected her income. Before the news came around I used to sell at least a bag of beans because many of those selling the cooked beans are not coming again because their consumers are not buying. The news about the Snipper beans is a bad one, and I want the government to act fast to arrest the culprits because they are destroying our business. Many like beans because it is one of the food that we can use in many ways, either eating it when cooked, or making it as paste for the popular Moin Moin or even soup, she said. Also, another retailer known as Audu, however, feigned ignorance about the Snipper beans. He said he was unaware of the news going round. I dont know what it is all about, I have been selling my product, I use to hawk from one place to the other and nobody has yet to ask me not to sell, Audu said. In a related development, the beans boycott had also affected restaurant owners that were selling cooked beans in Magboro, as consumption of the food is now on sharp decline. A restaurant owner, Adijat Salako, said that many of her customers now refused to eat beans to avoid eating the ones allegedly preserved with Snipper. Most of my customers now avoid eating beans and I have stop buying it in large quantities. I first knew about the product when one of them asked for Snipper beans. When I was about to serve him, he rejected it and told me if I have yet to hear about the news about beans preserved with Snipper. He fully understood the political, moral, social and spiritual responsibilities resting on his shoulders. He was doing what the occasion demanded, all right. But he was also making a solemn pledge to his creator that he would deliver on what he had promised to do for the people of the state if they gave him their mandate. They had fulfilled their part of by giving him their mandate and so the time had come for him to begin the process of fulfilling his promises to them. The governor has shown these past three and half years that he is not the conventional politician who would discard the oath of office the moment he leaves the inauguration grounds, as many are wont to do. He has, in words and deeds, remained guided by that oath. And this is perhaps the reason he soon found himself on a collision course with those who expected him to be the normal politician those who sold him to the people of the state as the best material to govern them, but who would, along the line, realize they made a mistake in their choice, completely ignoring Gods prerogative in installing leaders as it pleases Him. Akwa Ibom is a state that occupies a special place in Gods heart. The full name of the state (Akwa Abasi Ibom, meaning Almighty God), did not come by happenstance. Those who gave the state that name knew that they were invoking God into its affairs, and that He would always have a hand in what transpires in the state at all times. And what better choice as governor at a time like this than a man with deep religious convictions and obeisance to God in all his actions! Udom has remained committed to God and the people of the state since assuming the reins of government. To God, he has not wavered in his religious obligations by allowing his political position to take the better part of him and wearing a toga that is different from a man of faith and a church elder that he was before he became governor. Surely, the former cannot get subsumed by the latter. If outward commitment to carrying out religious obligations are a measure of ones religiosity, then Udom hasnt been found wanting, as he is said not to miss his regular Sunday services, except when the demands of office do not permit him the time to do so. Recall that about one and half years after assuming office, the governor escaped death right inside a place of worship, when a new church building he went to inaugurate collapsed, killing quite a good number of worshipers. His plan to build a 10, 000 capacity church building is in line with his effort to keep the state on the religious path that has enabled it to triumph in the face of numerous challenges, some of which have been created by its leaders. In 1983, while speaking at his valedictory church service at Qua Iboe Church, Edgerly Road, in Calabar, the late Dr. Clement Isong, who was about to bow out as governor of the then Cross River State, had said the greatest lesson he learnt during his four-year tenure as governor was that to be a successful politician in Nigeria, one must be able to call black white, and call white black. He vowed never to advise any of his children to go into politics in Nigeria. Isong was too decent, polished and refined a man to have dabbled into politics in the first place. Udom has not been a successful Nigerian politician, in the late Dr. Isongs understanding. This is because he does not know how to call black white, or call white black. It is even more so because his quiet, calm and warm disposition is at variance with what the average Nigerian politician is known to be all noise but little action. His has been little noise but more action. The governors commitment to the people of the state has seen him execute projects that have direct impact on their lives. Perhaps the reason not much seems to be heard about his achievements outside the state is that they havent been accompanied by the propaganda that has become the hallmark of performance, especially at state and federal levels. But the people of the state know the truth. They know that Udom is working. They also know that, in contrast, some of the so-called legacy projects that were supposed to have been executed with much fanfare and propaganda, which have left the state mired in huge debts, were nothing but a scam that put the states money in the pocket of an individual, as it has emerged. Udoms tenure has been a test of his commitment to the two constituencies that really matter God and the people of the state. In another six months or so, these two constituencies will decide whether or not he has remained true to the oath he took in his first coming. They are the ones that will judge him based on his performance so far. Thankfully, the governor knows this quite well, the reason he has remained focused on delivering on his promises. Let nobody imagine that they hold the key to the governors second term in office. Akwa Ibom is not a state where an individual assumes the position of an emperor because he had the good fortune of holding office, which allowed him unfettered access to the resources of the state a state where people hold public office at the pleasure of one individual. We have seen it happen in other states, where somebody plays God, turning a deaf ear to pleas to allow a governor go for a second time as if he has the power of life and death. Akwa Ibom is not that state. ByBernard Etim, a retired public servant, lives in Lagos. In the report, sources familiar with the matter said the deal is a complete acquisition and not merger. According to the report, the deal is expected to be completed in the first quarter 2019. The newspaper gathered that both financial institutions have reached an agreement in broad terms on the acquisition. How did the acquisition deal begin? Sources told The Nation that the development leading to the acquisition talks was triggered by Diamond Bank directors in a move against possible regulatory intervention. The discussion was said to have been premise on its huge Non Performing Loans (NPLs) portfolio put at over N150billion. Its a complete acquisition and not a merger, the Nation quoted an anonymous source who is familiar with the transaction. The source also disclosed that Access Bank directors have examined the proposal and accepted to acquire the entity. Diamond Bank chairman, 3 directors quit Oluseyi Bickersteth, the bank's chairman and three non-executive directors of Diamond Bank Plc resigned their positions. Uzoma Uja, the company secretary, in a corporate filing said the resignation varied for personal reasons. The development, analysts and banking sources, said is to pave way for new capital injections for the new investors to have more feel about the banking operations. Diamond Bank had denied capital injection talks with new investors. The bank said it will notify the authorities when it is taking in any capital injection. While we recognise the need to expand our options in the short term, we have no concrete new development to report and will notify The Exchange once there is any, Diamond Bank had said in a regulatory filing. Analyst says Diamond Bank needs more capital to survive A banking source confided in Business Insider SSA that Diamond Bank is looking for ways to settle its huge. They need more equity for the business to survive and move forward, the source told BISSA on Monday. According to a statement by Brig.-Gen Texas Chukwu, the army spokesman, on Saturday, the exercise was also carried out to actualise the vision of the Chief of Army Staff: to have a professionally responsive Nigerian Army in the discharge of its constitutional roles. The Chief of Army Staff on Friday, sent goodwill message to the troops, congratulating them for their bravery, alertness and doggedness in the ongoing fight against the Boko Haram terrorists. With the redeployment, Maj. General Benson Akinroluyo is now the Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole Until the new appointment, he was the GOC 3 Division, Jos. Akinroluyo takes over from Maj.-Gen Abba Dikko, who has been moved to the Department of Civil Military Affairs, as the Chief of Civil Military Affairs. Maj.-Gen. Nuhu Angbazo, former Chief of Military/Civil Affairs is now the GOC 3 Division, while Maj.-Gen. Jamil Sarham remains in Headquarters, 6 Division, Port Harcourt, as the General Officer Commanding. Maj.-Gen. Victor Ezugwu from Depot Nigerian Army has been moved to Nigerian Army Vehicle Manufacturing Company as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO). Maj.Gen. Adeyemi Adetayo, from Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON) moves to Department of Army Standard and Evaluation as Director Procurement and Projects. Brig.-Gen. Ifiok Obot is redeployed from Headquarters, Operation DELTA SAFE to Nigerian Army University Biu as Deputy Vice Chancellor (Military). Also affected in the redeployment are Brig.-Gen. Olufemi Dada from Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON) to Headquarters Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) as Director Combat Development. Brig.-Gen. Solomon Udounwa has been redeployed to Defence Headquarters as Deputy Director Campaign planning, while Brig.-Gen. Adekunle Adesope from Department of Army Standard and Evaluation has been moved to the Office of the Chief of Army Staff as Acting Director in the Directorate of Audit and Financial Management. Brig.-Gen. Caleb Dalhatu moves from Headquarters Infantry Corps Centre to Headquarters 81 Division Garrison as Commander. Brig.-Gen. Abdu Hassan has been redeployed from Headquarters 2 Brigade to Headquarters Infantry Corps Centre as Chief of Staff (COS). Brig.-Gen. Kabir Mukhtar moved from Headquarters 81 Division Garrison to Headquarters Department of Army Administration as Acting Director Manpower. Brig.-Gen.- Nasiru Jega is now Commander 2 Brigade at the headquarters, while Brig.-Gen. Sani Mohammed was moved from Department of Administration to Depot Nigerian Army as Acting Commandant. Brig.-Gen. Kevin Aligbe is to remain in Headquarters 16 Brigade as Commander, while Col. Adamu Nura will move from Headquarters 21 Special Armour Brigade to Nigerian Army Armour School as Chief Instructor. Col. Louis Lepdung has been redeployed from Headquarters 25 Task Force Brigade to Headquarters Infantry Corps Centre as Deputy Director Research and Development. Col. Kingsley Umoh is moving from Administration Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON) to Defence Headquarters as Assistant Director Defence Information. Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! The president made this known while addressing the Nigerian community in Paris, France on Monday, November 12, 2018. He's currently in the European nation with other world leaders for the first edition of the Paris Peace Forum. "I am doing my best now to utilize our resources to develop the country. We are already getting results on road, rail and power. My frustration is that some people still have plenty stolen money stashed in Europe, US and other countries," he said. According to a statement signed by the president's media aide, Femi Adesina, he assured Nigerians on Monday that allocations to the educational sector will be improved as revenue increases, describing the sector as a major engine for the development of any country. He said, "We are currently reviewing investments in the entire infrastructure of the country like road, rail and power, including investing more in education. We will certainly need to do more in education." He further called on Nigerian elites to do more in contributing to the educational sector of the country. He expressed surprise that elites tolerated the fall in standards and structures of educational institutions despite oil windfalls in the past that would have made all the difference. The president added that the return of stolen assets to the country will boost his administration's efforts in investing more in critical infrastructure. Buhari wants more than jail terms for looters ece-auto-gen While addressing world leaders at the first edition of the Paris Peace Forum in France on Sunday, November 11, 2018, President Buhari advocated for more than jail terms for looters. He called for a harder crackdown on perpetrators of illicit financial flows to discourage more public officials from mismanaging their nation's resources to the detriment of poor and vulnerable populace. He said a more effective punishment would be to fully recover the profits and assets generated from illicit financial flows and corruption. He said, "Our experience in Nigeria is that financial crimes, such as corruption and fraudulent activities, generate enormous unlawful profits which often prove so lucrative that the threat of a jail term is not sufficient to deter perpetrators. "A more powerful deterrent is to ensure that profits and assets generated from illicit financial flows and corruption are recovered and returned to countries of origin. "This is not to under-estimate the value of strong institutions. It only indicates that asset recovery represents significant deterrence compared to the traditional focus on obtaining conviction by the law enforcement agencies of the countries of origin." The president also advocated for a crackdown on safe havens for corrupt assets as well as sanctions on lawyers, bankers, brokers, public officials and others whom he called 'transactional middlemen' who facilitate illicit financial flows. The president said this while addressing world leaders at the first edition of the Paris Peace Forum in France on Sunday, November 11, 2018. He called for a harder crackdown on perpetrators of illicit financial flows to discourage more public officials from mismanaging their nation's resources to the detriment of poor and vulnerable populace. During his statement on "Illicit Financial Flows (Iffs) and Corruption: The Challenge of Global Governance", he said the threat of jail terms is not strong enough to deter perpetrators. He said a more effective punishment would be to fully recover the profits and assets generated from illicit financial flows and corruption. He said, "Our experience in Nigeria is that financial crimes, such as corruption and fraudulent activities, generate enormous unlawful profits which often prove so lucrative that the threat of a jail term is not sufficient to deter perpetrators. "A more powerful deterrent is to ensure that profits and assets generated from illicit financial flows and corruption are recovered and returned to countries of origin. "This is not to under-estimate the value of strong institutions. It only indicates that asset recovery represents significant deterrence compared to the traditional focus on obtaining conviction by the law enforcement agencies of the countries of origin." Buhari demands sanctions on lawyers, bankers, others ece-auto-gen The president also advocated for a crackdown on safe havens for corrupt assets as well as sanctions on lawyers, bankers, brokers, public officials and others whom he called 'transactional middlemen' who facilitate illicit financial flows. "I would like to reiterate that the Government of Nigeria remains open and is ever willing to continue to identify and share experiences and strategies to give life to the ideas that will lead to winning the fight against corruption," he said. The FOU Comptroller, Mr Sarkin-Kebbi Mustapha, who disclosed this at a news conference in Katsina on Monday, said that the seized items have Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N120.6 million. He listed the items to include 1,534 bags of foreign rice, 3,013 cartons of spaghetti, 86 bags of foreign sugar, 145 jerry cans of vegetable oil and 50 bales of second hand clothes. He said that the officers were able to arrest three persons in connection with the smuggling activities during the period under review. The comptroller, who expressed dismay over smuggling activities in the state, said that those arrested would be prosecuted to serve as deterrent to others. There is the need for serious sensitisation on the dangers of smuggling activities, because some of these people think what they are doing is legitimate. They think they are using their money to bring in these goods to sell and make profits, forgetting that there are rules governing international trade. We are making seizures every day, but these people are still adamant. So, agencies like NOA should continue to sensitise border communities on the dangers associated with smuggling on the economy and on the health of the people, he said. According to a statement by the Army on its official Twitter account the accident happened around 6 pm on Sunday. The car was travelling in a convoy in Jere town, on the way to Kaduna, when the driver veered off his lane and rammed Buratai's car. The Chief of Army Staff was not in the car when the accident happened, but his unidentified aide-de-camp was injured. "The COAS was not in the car. However, the ADC sustained minor injuries and has been evacuated to a nearby hospital for medical attention," the statement read. The Army later revealed on Monday that initial findings revealed that the driver was under the influence of alcohol when the accident happened and is receiving medical attention at a military medical facility. According to a statement by the chairman of the Panel, Chief Okoi Obono-Obla, Senator Uzodinma was arrested for the failure of his company to execute a contract of $12m for the dredging of Calabar channel. He added that the lawmaker representing Imo West Senatorial district has been evading arrest for about a year. The statement read, "This evening, at about 8:20pm, operatives of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel For Recovery of Public Property at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport arrested the APC governorship candidate in Imo State, Hope Uzodinma, after disembarking from an Air Peace P47324 flight from Lagos. "The panel is investigating economic sabotage against Senator Uzodinma arising out of the failure of his company to execute a contract of $12m for the dredging of Calabar channel awarded by the NPA." INEC confirms Uzodinma as APC Candidate Senator Uzodinma's arrest comes days after his name was published by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the governorship candidate for the APC in Imo state. INEC published Uzodinma's name following a decision by a court to strike out a suit filed by the faction of Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha. He said this while speaking at a public lecture organised by the Council of Chief of Imams, Ikeja Division in Lagos State on Saturday, November 10, 2018. During the leacture, titled "The role of Muslim leaders in the South-West towards achieving peaceful and successful 2019 elections", the vice president said corruption is a major challenge that's perpetrated by people of all religions. "I want to say to you that it's a battle between good and evil. What we are fighting in this country is a battle between good and evil; it is not a battle between religions. "Corruption is our major challenge. The people that steal Nigeria's resources are both Christians and Muslims." Osinbajo urged religious leaders to impress on their followers the importance of allowing peace and unity to reign in the country. He also commended the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari for carefully managing Nigeria's resources and investing in infrastructure and development than previous administrations despite earning less in revenue than previous administrations when the price of crude oil was high. He said the administration has been able to help Nigeria's populace through Government Enterprise Empowerment Programmes like N-Power, TraderMoni Scheme, the Conditional Cash Transfer, and the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme. Buhari wants more than jail terms for looters While addressing world leaders at the first edition of the Paris Peace Forum in France on Sunday, November 11, 2018, President Buhari advocated for more than jail terms for looters. He called for a harder crackdown on perpetrators of illicit financial flows to discourage more public officials from mismanaging their nation's resources to the detriment of poor and vulnerable populace. He said a more effective punishment would be to fully recover the profits and assets generated from illicit financial flows and corruption. He said, "Our experience in Nigeria is that financial crimes, such as corruption and fraudulent activities, generate enormous unlawful profits which often prove so lucrative that the threat of a jail term is not sufficient to deter perpetrators. "A more powerful deterrent is to ensure that profits and assets generated from illicit financial flows and corruption are recovered and returned to countries of origin. "This is not to under-estimate the value of strong institutions. It only indicates that asset recovery represents significant deterrence compared to the traditional focus on obtaining conviction by the law enforcement agencies of the countries of origin." The president also advocated for a crackdown on safe havens for corrupt assets as well as sanctions on lawyers, bankers, brokers, public officials and others whom he called 'transactional middlemen' who facilitate illicit financial flows. Atiku, on Sunday, November 11, 2018, alleged that he was subjected to a search by security agents which he said aimed at intimidating him. He said "I arrived to Abuja this morning to a search by agents of the state, aimed at intimidating me and my staff. I am committed to building a Nigeria where no citizen is intimidated by agents of state who are paid to protect them. Together, #LetsGetNigeriaWorkingAgain. The former Vice-President returned to Nigeria from Dubai, where he held series of meetings with leaders of the PDP. Atikus sin Vanguard reports that the former Anambra Governor also called on politicians to embrace peace, adding that Nigeria will be a better place if people show love to one another. He said His only offence is that he is the presidential candidate of an opposition party. It is not as if you are not allowed to do a routine check. What I am saying is that we have a country and what we need now is to be showing each other love and show the example to the younger ones that we are not divided, that we are together, that we want the country to work. Its about the country. ALSO READ:PDP accuses Buhari of ordering security agents to harass Atiku All these divisions are not necessary for our future. But what we do is that we are dividing the country. But you see people coming to a programme chanting war songs. It shouldnt be. FG dismisses Atikus claim In its reaction, the Minister of State, Aviation, Sen. Hadi Sirikasaid that Atiku was subjected to the normal screening exercise at the airport. Sirika also described the PDP presidential candidates claim as a mischievous attempt aimed at attracting media attention. Once outside in the dark, the gang leader cocked his pistol and pointed same at Mr. Echems head. "I recall saying my last prayers that night", Echem tells Pulse, misty eyed. As a lawyer, I was working on a case that involved the cultists from the Lagos State University (LASU). That night, they came to ask me to back off the case or they will be left with no other option but to end my life. It was a warning appearance from them, Echem says. A week after the cultists warned him against continuing with the case, Mr. Echem fled Lagos for his home State of Cross River by scaling a fence. He was disguised as a woman as he fled Nigeria's commercial capital. He has been in no hurry to return. Id retire in this village of Ofodua on my farm, he says, eyes welling up with tears. Ten years later, Echem is still psychologically traumatized from his encounter with the cultists on the night. The cult neighborhoods of Lagos Cultism in Lagos, like elsewhere in Nigeria, often spills from the university campuses to the suburban neighborhoods and vice versa. However, in recent times, street urchins (otherwise called Area Boys) have blurred the lines between university cultists and the dare-devil gangs of the neighborhood. Cultism in Lagos has been hijacked by the 'agberos' or motor park louts. While they are cultists in every Lagos neighborhood these days, you are likely to find more cultists in Ijanikin, Iyano-Sashi, Ajegunle, Somolu, Bariga, Fadeyi, Ikorodu, Mushin, Isale Eko, Ijesha-Tedo, Ojuelegba and surrounding clusters on the Lagos mainland. Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, disclosed during a function in June of 2018 that six out of 10 youths in the city are cultists. I asked one of my officers to do in-depth research or investigation on the reasons for increase in cultism among the young ones and it was revealed that six out of 10 children are into cultism, Edgal said. "This is not good for the growth of our country. What are their reasons? Investigation revealed that they join for supremacy over others. They join to avoid intimidation by their peers. They join so that they have an edge over girls in their communities." Cult initiation ceremonies happen everywhere, every day If you look close enough in the wee hours or on your drive home from work very late into the night, you are likely to see young men headed for a cult initiation ritual. Except that no one knows who they are until they arrive their covens. Edgal says his men have been rounding up cultists at initiation ceremonies in Lagos, every other day. We arrested some children between 1am and 2am during initiation into cult groups. These children were between the ages of 15 and 20! Edgal exclaimed. Eiye and Aiye confraternities often clash in Somolu, Small Jaypron is boss The Somolu and Fadeyi areas have been home to some of the most intense gang rivalries in Lagos in recent times. Its been crazy living here, says Mr. Abimbola (not real name)who has lived in Somolu his entire adult life. Sometimes, as you are returning home from work, you run into a cult or gang war and have to run back. There are months in this place where we sleep with both eyes open. You can hear gunshots sounding off on the streets every other day. Its sheer madness. Two rival gangs, Eiye and Aiye confraternities have been terrorizing most of Somolu since forever. Self-confessed leader of the Eiye Confraternity, Ibrahim Balogun, aka Small Jaypron has been taking the war to the Aiye confraternity led by Solo, since 2010. In 2016, the police finally arrested then 29-year-old Small Jaypron who later confessed to killing at least five rival gang members in the neighbourhood. Jaypron was like the Al-Capone around here. Everyone dreaded him, says Abimbola. He probably killed more than 30 rival gang members and innocent persons while his reign lasted. And 30 is a conservative estimate here. How Small Jaypron killed for fun Paraded in handcuffs at the Ikeja Police Command headquarters in August of 2016, Jaypron shared the story of how he took the lives of rival gang lords and why he became a bloodthirsty cultist. I am an Eiye cult leader. I joined the cult in 2009. The reason for my joining was to avenge the death of a close friend, Sunday Folorunsho, aka Small Biscuits", he said. It was the Aiye cult members who killed him. So, the Eiye faction approached me and said I should join them and they would help me fish out the people who killed my friend. I had a lot of boys working for me. I have killed three persons among whom were and I cut them with knives. I shot some other victims. They were killed in the Somolu and Bariga areas. It was in the evening that Femi Wiper was killed. We were going out for a carnival during the Easter period on Alade Street in the Somolu area when a fight broke out. He was the one who first pointed a gun at me and my boys hacked him to death. Before his 2016 parade, the police had declared Jaypron a wanted man for a slew of murders and criminal activities. He is a known criminal in the Somolu area, then Lagos Police Commissioner, Fatai Owoseni, said of Jaypron at the time. He has multiple cases of murder and armed robbery which he has confessed to. Through him, we will look for other members of the gang who turned Pedro and Somolu areas into theatres of war. The death of Small Jaypron At about 5pm on Wednesday, October 17, 2018, residents of Somolu who were returning home after the days hustle, heard the familiar sounds of gunshots tearing through the humid evening air. I was making my way home from work when gunshots rented the air, narrates Mr. Abimbola All the guys involved are political thugs and they all clashed at a political meeting at Larex bus stop, close to Palmgrove, he adds. As gunshots rang and rival cult members bayed for blood on the streets, residents scampered for safety, shops were shuttered and the ensuing panic would lead to snarling traffic and bedlam all across Lagos. Before long, Small Jaypron of Eiye and Solo of Aiye had been shot dead by rival gang members and were lying lifelessly in pools of their own blood. Gang wars happen all the time in Isale Eko, Lagos Island, says Idowu Makanjuola, who resides in that neighborhood. There is always heavy security presence at night, but the cultists still find a way to beat it. The advice is to always retire early if you reside around here, he adds. Is poor parenting to blame for Lagos cultism? Commissioner of Police Edgal, blames poor parenting for the proliferation of cult groups in Lagos. Some of the children were between the ages of 15 and 20. Tell me how a child of 15 will leave the parent's house at unholy hours without their parents' knowledge. "Shame on you, if you are such a father. Go back home and take charge of your children as we are losing them to drugs, crime and cultism. "I want to appeal to parents to understand that our children are the future hope of our country; if we allow them to miss it, we will have no hope and no future leaders to take over from us. What legacy are we leaving behind for our children?", Edgal asked rhetorically. The Lagos State Police Command has paraded over 500 suspected cultists in 2018 alone, according to various news reports. Suspected cultists Nasiru Bashiru, Kenneth Dike and Power Michael, of the Black Axe confraternity (also known as Aiye) were rounded up by the police after they hacked a middle-aged man, identified as Walter, to death at the entrance of a popular hotel at Iyano-Sashi on July 21, 2018. The suspects confessed to killing 11 persons and injuring scores in the Ajegunle, Magbon and Ijanikin areas of Lagos. The man was suspected to be an oil thief. The command made this known in Abeokuta in a statement signed by its Public Relations Officer, Dyke Ogbonnaya. Ogbonnaya stated that the the command has reported the incident to the NNPC and further briefed it on the exploits of die-hard vandals, euphemism for oil thieves, in the state. He said that the commands Anti-Vandal team has pledged to work harder to combat vandalism. Earlier this Sunday morning around 5:55am during our regular routine patrol along the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPCs) Right of Way/ Pipeline at Gbaga axis of Ogijo. A lone deceased vandal, by name Musa Oladipupo, 45 , was found in the middle of Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS) deep down in the pipeline. The Anti-Vandal team on regular routine patrol recovered an empty 30 litre keg and a funnel from the deceased vandal. The State Commandant, Everestus Obiyo, who earlier this week had read riot act on vandalism, warned that youths should desist from all acts capable of bringing their lives at stake and all forms of crime. He also charged parents to be more responsible in their core duty of proper parenting to avoid acts that tarnish ones family name, he said. His call is coming on the heels of a House of Reps report that faulted the Vice-Presidents disbursement of N5.8b as emergency food intervention for the North-East in June 2017, when he was acting President. According to Vanguard, Frank also called on the National Assembly to commence impeachment proceedings against Osinbajo. The former APC spokesman, in a statement which he issued to newsmen in Abuja, said that the House of Reps report shows that President Buharis administration is deep in corruption. He said As a learned gentleman, Osinbajo cannot say he did not know that it is illegal for any government official to spend funds not appropriated by the National Assembly. He should have known that it is intrinsically illegal for anybody to divert funds raised through the issuance of Euro Bond approved by the National Assembly for specific capital projects to fund his emergency intervention. What is most telling is that it now appears that the VP used his brief stay as Acting President to open up the nations coffers for fleecing in this manner with the approval of the N5.8billion to be disbursed from the Euro Bond account and another N17billion he caused to be released from the Ecological Fund. These acts of financial recklessness are most unbecoming of a person of the Vice Presidents standing. He has a lot of explanations to render to his Principal who was on medical vacation at the time and to Nigerians whose trust has been rudely shaken by this stinking corruption affair. Being a man who enjoys immunity by reason of his office, I call on him to immediately resign his position to enable him appear before the anti-corruption agencies to state his involvement or otherwise in the scam. To hide under the toga of Vice President and not face prosecution alongside other NEMA officials indicted by the House of Representatives report on the investigation would amount to a travesty of justice and the selectiveness that has unduly characterised the war against corruption since the inception of the present administration. I give the VP seven (7) days to resign his position to enable him face the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission like ex-Governor Ayodele Fayose did recently to clear his name. Should he fail to heed my humble appeal, I shall have no choice but to commence the process of making available to the public other corruption related information concerning the Vice President that will most certainly shock Nigerians. This was part of her policy speech, which she read out to the media, on Monday in Lagos. Ezekwesili, who was Nigerias former Minister of Education as well as Solid Minerals, also reiterated her call on Nigerians to reject the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party in 2019. She said, "There are seven monstrous challenges that I see holding us down. To solve each of them would need bold, visionary leadership and hardwork from an intelligent government: "Too little productivity and competitiveness of the Nigerian economy: For a nation of our size and our potentials, our low real Gross Domestic Product of $375.77bb after 58 years of independence is terribly underwhelming. Unlike China which grew in double digits over almost three decades to become a $14tn GDP economy, Nigerias growth has been trapped in cycles of boom and bust in the classic evidence of oil price volatility and effects of Dutch disease. We need a bold economic vision to define a pathway of double digit inclusive economic growth over the next decade. That is exactly what an ACPN administration will ensure. "Too much poverty and inequality: Extreme poverty in Nigeria is increasing by nearly 6 people every minute. In the time it will take me to deliver my speech today, about 250 Nigerians would have become extremely poor. Think about that for a second. But that is not even the worst part. According to the World Poverty Clock, if the current trends continue - or to put it another way, if we continue to elect this poverty-bringing APC / PDP leadership, the number of people living in extreme poverty in Nigeria would increase from about 88 million today to 120 million in 2030. That means that in the next 12 years, over 30 million more Nigerians will join the infamous number of extremely poor people who live on less than N700 per day. When a country has a GINI coefficient above 35 percent, it means the income inequality in that country is very high. Nigerias GINI coefficient is between 46 and 60 percent. Such levels of extreme inequality has all sorts of destabilizing implications for the country. Tackling the inequality and lifting 80 million Nigerians out of poverty will be the mission of my presidency. We need to start the deliberate hard work of pulling ourselves, our friends and our families and our communities from this destructive poverty tsunami sweeping through our nation. Time is not on our side. ece-auto-gen Insecurity and conflicts "Too much insecurity and conflicts: Nigeria is now the 14th most fragile nation in the world on the Fragile States Index, and the 16th most dangerous country to live in the world, according to the Global Peace Index. The country faces at least 14 major security threats across different regions, from terrorism to herders-farmers clashes, from kidnappings to organized crime and trafficking. Our young girls go to school in the morning to pursue dreams of a better life, but end up at night in terrorists dens, raped and traumatised. Entire communities and even local government areas in this country have been driven into hunger and poverty, as their sources of livelihoods are completely wiped out due to insecurity. The value of a Nigerian life has been devalued and cheapened." Illiteracy "Too much illiteracy: 13.5 million children and counting are out-of-school. That is more than the entire population of Benin Republic. Even those who have the privilege of attending our schools these days receive an education that is unfit for purpose and unfit for the competitive and productive country we intend to build. Education will be the number one priority of my government. As Bill Gates, the founder of one of the most innovative companies in the world, said, Education is like a master switch that opens up all sorts of opportunities for individuals and societies. I intend to fully turn up that switch if elected your president. Health challenges Citing the recent World Health Organization (WHO) ranking of Nigeria's healthcare system, Ezekwesili said her government will give the health sector attention. "Too much health and wellbeing challenges: The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks the Nigerian healthcare system as 187th out of 190 healthcare systems in the world. Just last month, the World Bank released its first ever Human Capital Index, and Nigeria was in the bottom six out of 157 countries ranked. My position on health is that it is a fundamental human right. Nigeria loses too much when its human capital do not live healthy lives. Health is central to lifting our people out of poverty; it is central to ensuring that we have a competitive and productive economy. And in my government, it will occupy a central place," she said. Infrastructural deficit According to the former minister, "Our country has become notorious for its horrible infrastructure - roads that are simply death traps, epileptic electricity supply, insufficient broadband connectivity, underwhelming rail and ports development. There is little physical links and connectivity for development due to infrastructure deficit in both urban and rural centres. We must heed the Chinese lesson from their well known mantra that if you want to improve the lives of your people, connect them to markets by giving them roads. Federal structure does not work "Too much structural faults: Our current federal structure simply does not work. The structure of a federation is its skeleton. A functional structure gives shape, support, and aids the movement of the federation. No wonder Nigeria is handicapped under this dysfunctional structure. There was a time when the APC agreed on the need to restructure the federation and devolve more powers to the regions and states. ALSO READ:Oby Ezekwesili criticizes Buhari over poor World Bank rating "The party campaigned in 2015 on a manifesto that propagated the doctrine of restructuring. President Buhari went along with it every step of the way because it is all about getting into power for him. He won and then began to renege on his promises, including on restructuring. He suddenly remembered all the reasons why 'structure is not the problem' with Nigeria," she added, Atiku and his campaign team were in Dubai to draw up detailed strategies for the upcoming 2019 election. What happened when Atiku arrived Nigeria? Atikus private jet reportedly touched down on Nigerian soil at about 1:30am. ece-auto-gen Afterwards, according to the politician, he was subjected to the most dehumanizing airport search of his life--for political reasons. I arrived to (sic) Abuja this morning to a search by agents of the state, aimed at intimidating me and my staff, Atiku shares in a tweet. Atiku adds that: I am committed to building a Nigeria where no citizen is intimidated by agents of state who are paid to protect them. Together, #LetsGetNigeriaWorkingAgain. Comrade Timi Frank, former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the APC who is now an Atiku groupie, says the special squad of security men who carried out the search on Atiku confessed that they were directed by the presidency to embarrass the PDP presidential candidate. The squad, Frank disclosed, were armed with recording gadgets in and out of Atiku's aircraft "to see if he returned to the country with foreign currencies or any other implicating materials." Frank says security men and the presidency were disappointed when nothing implicating could be found on Atiku or his aircraft. ece-auto-gen In Franks words, "due to information at our disposal, I have been saying it that the PDP presidential candidate is not safe under this administration because the Buhari administration is deploying all manners of devilish strategies to nail all the opposition leaders especially Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. "We are using this medium to inform the international community to also take note of how the Buhari administration is intimidating the opposition presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who has served Nigeria as Vice President for eight years." What did the PDP say about the alleged intimidation of its presidential candidate? The opposition party says the security personnel who frisked Atiku attempted to physically manhandle him. The deadly squad, in a Gestapo style attack, and acting on orders from above rushed our candidate immediately he landed and attempted to physically manhandle him before invading his aircraft with dangerous weapons to conduct a violent search. While they did not find anything incriminating on our presidential candidate, this deadly squad violently tampered with certain personal documents and gadgets belonging to him, including some of his campaign documents. We completely reject such violent attack against the person of our presidential candidate Atiku by the Buhari presidency, which we know has been jittery over Atiku Abubakars soaring popularity since his emergence as our candidate", the PDP wrote in a statement. Has the federal government reacted to claims that it intimidated and embarrassed Atiku? Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, says Atiku is only being mischievous with his claim. This is a mischievous attempt to grab the headlines. Nigerians need to know that one of the resolutions of the Atiku team at their recently-concluded, opulently-held Dubai retreat was to embark on scaremongering. This is one of such, Sirika says. The minister adds that what Atiku went through was just a routine airport search. For the records, all incoming passengers on international flights go through customs, immigration, health and security screening. Where the aircraft is using the private, charter wing, as the PDP candidate did, such arrivals are met by a team of the immigration, customs and other security agencies. They go to the arriving aircraft as a team", Sirika says. Only presidents are exempt from these airport checks, says Sirika. ece-auto-gen The airport authorities confirm that this is a routine process, applying to all international arrivals, including the minister; unless the passenger is the President of Nigeria. The President, the Vice President and passengers aboard planes on the presidential air fleet use the presidential wing of the airport. It is also important to state that even in the presidential wing of the airport, which the president of Nigeria uses, there is the presence of immigration and other security officials who must stamp his or her passport on arrival. According to Sirika, no one should consider themselves above the laws of the land In Sirika's words: While it is true that the Task Force on currency at the airport did the routine action of checking the former vice presidents travel bag, he was accorded full respect as a senior citizen. These checks are mandatory, conventional, internationally applied and routine. No one is excused from them under our laws. These checks are carried out on all international arrivals and President Buhari does not get involved in them. Law-abiding citizens are encouraged to respect the laws of the country and our VIPs should not seek to be treated over and above the citizens they wish to serve. A Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder [FASD] expert says the estimate that 3 to 5 percent of live births in New Zealand having the disorder isnt pulled out of thin air. Speaking on RadioLIVEs Morning Talk, Paediatric Neuropsycholologist Dr Valerie McGinn says the figures used in New Zealand are based upon the amount of alcohol consumed here. This is around three times the amount consumed in a country like Canada. Dr McGinn says what isnt known is the number of New Zealanders living with FASD. Its not a notifiable condition, and also we dont have the diagnostic capacity in New Zealand either, to work it out." "Nevertheless, we dont need to know how many children have FASD to know that we need to do something about it," Dr McGinn says. "The reason we don't know is because the government's not facing this issue." Babies born with FASD often have irreversible intellectual and physical disabilities, behavioural problems and distinct facial features. A study in 2015 found almost third of Kiwi women continue to drink alcohol during their first trimester, and 11 percent right up until birth. Researchers looked at data collected in the long-running Growing Up in New Zealand study. They found while 71 percent of women drank alcohol before becoming pregnant, 23 percent continued through the first trimester and 13 percent through the entire pregnancy. The Ministry of Health says there is no known safe level of drinking, and recommends women abstain from alcohol from the time they decide to have a baby through conception and the entire pregnancy. Listen to the full interview with Dr Valerie McGinn above. Morning Talk with Sean Plunkett in for Mark Sainsbury, 9am - 12pm Weekdays and streaming live on 'rova' channel 9 - available on Android and iPhone. RadioLIVE. Night Talk: Mitch Harris opening comments, Monday 12th November 2018. Tonight: How old is the oldest you've heard of a kid being breastfed? Is it crazy to still breastfeed a child who is nine years of age? A woman in the UK has revealed how she was labelled a pedophile for breastfeeding her daughter until the age of nine. Mother-of-four Sharon Spink received harsh backlash on social media after news sources revealed she breastfed her daughter for so long. "I've been called every name under the sun," she told The Sun. "I've been told it's child abuse, I've been called a pedophile, and told it's utterly wrong and that I'm a freak." Ms Spink stopped feeding in public when Charlotte was five due to negative comments, but previously breastfed almost everywhere - from salons to church Ms Spink said she feels it's "completely normal" to breastfeed for several years, and claims it strengthened her bond with her. The former jewellery maker said she feels proud of what her body achieved. Initially, Ms Spink's goal was to get past six months - but it soon evolved into two years, and after that she wanted to see how far she could go with it. She claims her daughter Charlotte is healthy and rarely falls sick, crediting the beneficial properties of breast milk. Ms Spink is now a breastfeeding counsellor, saying she wants to break stereotypes around 'being on the boob' for older children. According to Ministry of Health NZ, exclusive breastfeeding is recommended until babies reach six months. Night Talk with Mitch Harris, 8pm - 12am Monday to Thursday nights on RadioLIVE, and streaming live to the rova app on Android and iPhone. RadioLIVE. Physicist and hugely popular TV presenter and documentary maker, Brian Cox on serious science and having the piss taken in spectacular fashion here. Brian is touring NZ next year. Venues, dates and tickets here. SWITZERLAND: Swiss Federal Railways expects to launch trials of a next-generation signalling system within three years. Reporting details of progress with the ambitious SmartRail 4.0 programme at the Alpine Rail Optimisation conference in Wien on November 8, SBBs head of Co-operation & Research for the project Bernhard Rytz said the ... London-based UK-China media group The Media Pioneers (TMP) has signed a number of deals in China for its kids properties The Moe Show and Pop Up and drama series Taboo. TMP specialises in co-producing, financing and distributing scripted, non-scripted and childrens programming for the international marketplace, has distributed over 10,000 minutes into the Chinese market. It offers content across a range of genres such as TV drama series, animation, children's programmes and feature films.The Moe Show (104 x 11 and 27 x 23) and Pop Up (42 x 3) are both produced by New Zealand-based Pop Up Workshop, a production company specialising in communication with children. It uses puppetry as a way of creating characters that children can relate to. Produced by Scott Free London and Hardy Son & Baker, and starring Tom Hardy, Taboo aired on BBC One in the UK and FX in the US in 2017.Chinese multinational Alibaba will air the three TMP shows on its digital platform, as well as promoting the brands across China. For its part Youku, one of Chinas top video and, with over 500 million monthly active users and 800 million daily views, has picked up the rights to all three series for broadcast this year, Taboo in early November and The Moe Show and Pop Up at the end of the year.We are thrilled to be working with Alibaba and Youku on The Moe Show and Pop Up they are both great children's programmes, commented TMP managing director and executive producer Maggie Liang. "Equally entertaining and educational, we believe they will perform well in China amongst little ones. As for Taboo, it was a hugely successful series in the UK which we are excited to bring to Chinese audiences, and look forward to it having the same reception there. No evidence has surfaced indicating that President Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. Still, two years later, the presidents opponents insist the truth is out there and they know where in the memory banks and computer files of Trumps former associates who have struck deals to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Robert Mueller: Has guilty pleas, but not for collusion. Top photo: Michael Flynn. But people with direct knowledge of the situation say the premise of that speculation is false: It's highly unlikely that these associates possess proof of collusion and are singing about it to Mueller. Its wishful thinking by Trump haters, said a former Trump campaign official who has been the subject of investigation. Mueller has obtained guilty pleas from four ex-Trump advisers Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates for crimes unrelated to election espionage. Facing the prospect of a lengthy prison sentence, each had strong incentives to turn on the president. So, too, do other Trump associates reportedly caught in Muellers crosshairs Carter Page, Roger Stone and the presidents former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to crimes referred by Muellers office to federal attorneys in Manhattan for prosecution. Mueller has clamped down on leaks from his office, so it is hard to determine exactly what he has extracted from the witnesses. Nevertheless, substantial information gleaned from various sources by RealClearInvestigations and other news outlets suggests that Trumps former associates have not provided the smoking gun of collusion. As emboldened Democrats promise to step up their own Russia investigations when they take over the House in January, here is what we know so far about each case. Michael Flynn Former national security adviser Flynn, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying about a post-election conversation he had with the Russian ambassador, is not providing evidence against Trump, insisted a family insider close to the matter: Thats all bullshit, media created and driven." Michael Flynn: Not implicating President, relative says. I find it funny how the left thinks hes been cooperating with Mueller this whole time, yet hes spent the majority of time in Rhode Island since the plea deal in 2017, said the source, adding that Flynn has traveled infrequently to Washington, where the Special Counsels office is based, since negotiating the legal agreement last December. Flynn and his family are from Middletown, R.I. The relative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also reported that Flynn has met with his own representatives infrequently. He has met his lawyers every other month this year, the source said, "and only for a few hours at a time." Flynns sentencing is now set for Dec. 18 Mueller had previously delayed it several times, signaling that he was not getting the information he had hoped for. The sentencing will effectively mark an end to Flynns cooperation. A retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, Flynn publicly stated last December his decision to cop a plea to the single-count process crime was made in the best interests of my family. He did not elaborate, but the family insider explained that fighting the charge would have bankrupted us. The justice system, especially in Washington, is all about who has more money and resources, the family member said. Clearly, our military family had no chance against the weight of the federal government. "It makes me sick every day thinking about it, Flynns relative added, while suggesting Flynn was railroaded. In fact, former FBI Director James Comey has said Flynn provided truthful answers and wasnt intentionally misleading investigators on Jan. 24, 2017, when he was questioned about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition. In a March 15, 2017, closed-door briefing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the then-bureau director swore the two FBI agents who originally interviewed Flynn saw nothing that led them to believe [he was] lying, according to committee documents. This assessment suddenly changed after Comey was fired by Trump and Mueller took over the Russia probe two months later. George Papadopoulos Another witness who struck a plea deal with Mueller George Papadopoulos has not flipped on Trump, either. George Papadopoulos with his wife, Simona Mangiante: He now thinks he was set up. The former Trump adviser was arrested in July 2017 and pleaded guilty that October to making false statements to the FBI. The case revolved around whether Papadopoulos suspected a Russian connection to Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic who allegedly knew as early as March 2016 that Russians possessed dirt on then-candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Initially he told the FBI he did not; in his guilty plea he said he did. He also told agents he met Mifsud before joining the Trump camp, when in fact he met him after working on the campaign. Washington pundits said that Papadopoulos, a campaign volunteer with no title or portfolio, would most certainly turn on Trump to avoid a stiff sentence. Famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein even suggested his revelations could outline a scandal worse than Watergate. Papadopoulos said he handed over all his emails, text messages and other communications with the Trump campaign to Muellers investigators. In the end, he didnt provide any information of value, according to documents Mueller filed in court, and Mueller cut him loose in September. He received a 14-day sentence. At the sentencing hearing, Mueller prosecutor Andrew Goldstein said information Papadopoulos provided didnt amount to much. "It was at best begrudging efforts to cooperate and we don't think they were substantial or significant in any regard," he said. Papadopoulos now says he was set up by FBI informants and that his interactions with Russian-tied individuals were innocent, and certainly not the sinister dealings portrayed by the media. He explained he lied about a meeting with one of the contacts because he wanted to get a job in the administration, and that he was not to trying to hide any illicit collusion with Russia. Paul Manafort Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been called Muellers "most significant cooperating witness" to date. But this too may be overstated. Paul Manafort, with this wife, Kathleen: Some doubt his usefulness. Manafort struck his own cooperation deal with Mueller in September, after being convicted on charges of bank and tax fraud unrelated to the campaign. The plea agreement let him avoid a second trial in Washington on related charges. Its still unclear if Manafort, who reportedly has been meeting regularly with Muellers prosecutors while incarcerated, is providing information about the Trump campaign and Russia or about other matters. ABC News reported Friday that discussions have broken down as Manafort has offered prosecutors few leads on the Russia front and is not providing the level of cooperation promised under his plea agreement. Manaforts sentencing hearing is set for Dec. 12. Still, pundits surmise he may be providing damaging information on the president and Donald Trump Jr., who hosted a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower after being solicited by a group of Russians who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. Congressional committees have found no evidence of collusion in the meeting, which they concluded was perfectly legal and resulted in no information provided on Clinton. They also noted that the solicitation itself suggests that there had been no previous contact between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, and that the absence of a communications channel, if anything, shows a lack of collusion. Nevertheless, Fordham Law School professor Jed Shugerman is among those speculating that Manafort has been providing big leads to Mueller about Russia collusion. So is Seth Waxman, a former Clinton appointed-Justice Department official, who has claimed Mueller must believe he has very valuable information." Duke University Law School professor Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor, has argued that Mueller wouldnt offer Manafort such leniency unless he provided substantial assistance" in the prosecution of others higher up. Hes not going to get that deal unless he can help Mueller make a case against one or more people, he said recently. The White House has said its not concerned with Manaforts plea deal, arguing that he, like all the others, cannot offer evidence of collusion because it doesnt exist. Some former federal prosecutors question Manaforts usefulness to Mueller for a different reason: His former right-hand man, who had made his own deal with Mueller seven months before Manafort, would have already given any damning information to the special counsel. Rick Gates Manaforts longtime business partner Rick Gates pleaded guilty last February to conspiracy and false statements unrelated to the Trump campaign. Rick Gates: Israeli, not Russian, overtures. Gates served as Trumps deputy campaign chairman under Manafort. And though Manafort left the campaign in August 2016, Gates stayed on through the election and subsequently had a key role in the presidential transition and inauguration. Gates has actively cooperated with Mueller; his recent testimony helped prosecutors secure the guilty verdicts against Manafort. Despite his thorough cooperation, Gates did not provide information that would have allowed Mueller to bring conspiracy charges against Manafort in the Russia case. Gates reportedly told Mueller the only serious overtures he heard from foreign nationals to help the campaign came from Israeli, not Russian, sources. I find it hard to believe Mueller sees Manafort as the key to making a case on Trump when Mueller has had Gates Manaforts partner as a cooperator for months, said former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy. You have to figure Gates knows whatever Manafort knows about collusion. Yet since Gates began cooperating with Muellers office, the special counsel has filed no charges implicating Trump or even Manafort in any Russian conspiracy. He has even filed charges against Russian nationals without implicating Trump or his campaign. Still, Gates is not done cooperating. He has not yet been sentenced and faces up to 10 years in prison if he doesnt fully satisfy the terms of his plea agreement. Its also possible Mueller has cultivated other cooperators unknown to the public whose plea deals are still under seal. Muellers office declined comment. Michael Cohen Michael Cohen: "No cooperation agreement." Muellers prosecutors also have met with Michael Cohen, Trumps former personal lawyer, but Mueller handed over the case to others in the Justice Department, suggesting Cohen offered little of value in the Russia investigation. Cohen pleaded guilty in New York in August to tax evasion, bank fraud and violations of campaign finance laws. That separate investigation, unrelated to the Trump campaign or Trumps real estate empire, is headed by the U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan. Cohens lawyer, Lanny Davis, said his client has no cooperation agreement with Mueller, which indicates the special counsel doubts Cohen has anything productive to say about Russian collusion. Materials seized from or provided by Cohen played a large role in the Wall Street Journals recent story about Trumps use of third parties to buy the silence of at least two women he had slept with. It is not clear if the presidents actions violated campaign finance laws. Roger Stone Roger Stone: They're trying to "frame me." Then there is longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, who is currently under active investigation by Muellers office. Investigators want to know if he had any insider information about the release of stolen Democratic emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign. Stone insists Mueller is trying to frame me for some extraneous crime. The FBI tried to question my cleaning lady and FBI agents have been seen sifting through my garbage, Stone said at a recent appearance in West Palm Beach, Fla. Heres what I can tell you: They will find no evidence of Russian collusion. They will find no evidence of WikiLeaks collaboration. Stone vowed he would not cooperate with Muellers team against Trump. Though Trump aides have, one by one, cut plea deals with Mueller, none of their guilty pleas has had anything to do with Russian hacking or interference in the 2016 election, which is what Mueller is supposed to be investigating. Flynn, Papadopoulos, Manafort and Gates all pleaded guilty to other crimes. Carter Page: Unindicted. But Mueller is still investigating the Russia "collusion theory, while spending about $1 million a month to make sure no stone is left unturned. And with all these Trump associates talking, it would appear the noose is growing tighter around Trump -- or so goes the conventional wisdom inside the Beltway. Its an assumption unsupported by facts, however. The evidence so far indicates that their cooperation has not been anywhere near as devastating to Trump as his detractors have portrayed it. One irony is that the one person who was put under FBI surveillance the longest for alleged illicit Russian ties former Trump adviser Carter Page -- has not been indicted. Page, who also has been subjected to multiple interviews with FBI agents and appearances before Muellers grand jury, has denied any role in Russian interference in the campaign. He called the investigation a witch hunt in a recent RealClearInvestigations interview, while adding that Mueller has not told him to expect an indictment. If public statements recently made in and about Belarus were to be ranked in descending order of significance, the October 31 remarks by A. Wess Mitchell, US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, would arguably come out on top. We understand the deep and historically close relations between your country and the Russian Federation. We also understand the successes you have achieved in ensuring stability and territorial integrity and, first of all, political stability in Belarus, Mitchell said during his meeting with President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Minsk (President.gov.by, October 31). Mitchell was the highest-level US government official to have paid a visit to the Belarusian capital in over 20 years. But just as importantly, his aforementioned statement contains unequivocal recognition of Belaruss success as well as a realistic view of objective geopolitical realities. On the same day, Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei confirmed Belarus and the US will continue to work to reinstate ambassadors (Belta, October 31). For his part, Lukashenka assured Mitchell that Belarus can become the most reliable, honest, and sincere partner of the USA. He also acknowledged that while there has been a serious change for the better in Belarusian-US relations lately, it still falls short of a cardinal change that would be timely for the region. Media coverage of the Lukashenka-Mitchell meeting tended to generate two kinds of commentaries. Both say more about their authors state of mind than about the meeting per se. The first category conveys anxiety and effectively claims the meeting was a forerunner of something ominous. Thus, Alexander Nosovich, a Russian political commentator with Belarusian roots, refers to the aforementioned statement by Mitchell as containing either irony or refined compliment and veiled respect to Belarusian statehood that turned out to be a tougher nut to crack as compared with Libya and Iraq (RuBaltic, November 2). One may or may not agree with Nosovichs exact paralleli.e., Iraq/Libya versus Belarusbut it is in fact true that several preceding US administrations vigorously pursued democracy promotion in Belarus. Suffice it to recall the Belarus Democracy Act of 2004. Nosovich, however, goes beyond that, suggesting that no US policy can transcend a zero-sum game approach in principle: The goal of American policy with regard to Belarus remains the same. It is to wrest Belarus from Russias sphere of influence. Thus, Mitchells words about understandably close ties between Belarus and Russia are perceived as purely ceremonial and/or obfuscating the true designs of a purportedly rapacious predator. The second reaction suggests Mitchells words were nothing more than a courtesy call. As for Lukashenkas message conveyed to Mitchell, the Belarusian president supposedly merely pretends he is a strong and independent politician, but few European and American politicians would buy that as long as Belarus is an ally of Russia, joint military exercises are conducted and the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church meets in Belarus. This is the opinion of Pavel Usov, a Warsaw-based representative of the intransigent arm of the Belarusian opposition, who appeared on the November 3 episode of Prague Accent, a talk show airing on the Belarusian Service of Radio Liberty(Svaboda.org, November 3). Clearly, Usov is tapping into his own wishful thinking as Lukashenka is definitely taken seriously in Europe and in the US, despite advice to the contrary dispensed tirelessly and obtrusively by Usov and his many comrades-in-arms since the day of Lukashenkas first election back in 1994. Two observations to this effect appear appropriate. First, one of the guests on Prague Accent, Valeria Kostyugova, the editor of Nashe Mnenie, suggested that she would disagree with the low-level appraisal of Western politicians cognitive abilities effectively insinuated by Usov and another of that days guests. In other words, Western politicians would normally think before saying things, she argued (Svaboda.org, November 3). Second, during Mitchells visit to Minsk, the US Assistant Secretary pointedly chose to meet with Andrei Dmitriev and Tatyana Korotkevich instead of any of the other members of the Belarusian opposition (Facebook.com/tania.karatkevich, October 31). Dmitriev and Korotkevich co-chair the Speak the Truth civic campaign, and the intransigent wing of the opposition labels them collaborators with the regime. Indeed, these two Belarusian politicians are fully engaged in the tedious work of promoting democratic values in regional and local communities and they try to convince local authorities to pay closer attention to peoples needs. Incomparably less, if at all do they complain about Lukashenka and/or solicit foreign aid to try to oust him. Moreover, while in Belarus, Mitchell laid a wreath at the monument of Yanka Kupala (Tut.by, October 30), Belaruss foremost poet whose idea that Belarusian identity was insufficiently strong is immortalized in his classic 1922 tragicomedy Tuteishiya (Locals). On November 2, Gyde Jensen, who chairs the Human Rights Committee of the German Bundestag, also met with Dmitriev and Korotkevich (Dmitriev, November 2). It seems like not only Lukashenkabut the Belarusian opposition, toois being thoroughly reevaluated by the West. On October 31 and November 1, Minsk hosted the Core Group Meeting of the Munich Security Conference, yet another hallmark event boosting the geopolitical importance of Belarus. At that meeting, Lukashenka made several suggestions regarding conflict resolution in Ukraine and Belaruss role in that. He also criticized the European Unions Belarus policies. When you demand that we do all sorts of things from politics to the economy [] and even demand that we let goods into Belarus that are banned in Russia [] and at the same time you do not even let us cross your threshold, how does one call such behavior? OK, do not allow me [in], I will be fine; but you do not want our goods either. So what kind of cooperation can there be? Belarus does a lot for the EU in the area of security. We have created an effective migration barrier; even a mouse would not crawl across our border. But if you treated us decently, then even a fly would not And we do that at our expense, underscored Belaruss president. Furthermore, Lukashenka reminded the audience that Belarus does not want membership in the EU and is not crawling to Brussels on its knees. Belarus does not scrounge; rather, it has something to offer, he argued (Sputnik.by, October 31). Clearly, Lukashenka is committed to prodding along the Wests reassessment of his country. This reassessment is certainly overdue. Reprinted with permission from The Jamestown Foundation. American citizen Abdulrahman Ahmad Alsheikh was apprehended in Syria and turned over to U.S. authorities on suspicions that he was a member of the Islamic State militant group. Alsheikh was held for more than a year but he was never charged, nor did he face a trial before his release in October. The U.S. government obviously felt insecure about the wartime legal authorities it uses, without congressional authorization, against ISIS members. By releasing Alsheikh, the government avoids a possible court ruling against such authority. After 9/11, George W. Bush began jailing terrorism suspects. These included U.S. citizens, as in the famed case of Jose Padilla. The government defined these suspects as enemy combatants and held them indefinitely without trial instead of prosecuting them in civilian courts. The extent of the governments power to detain such suspects has never been adequately adjudicated by the courts. There are several reasons to believe the U.S. Constitution bars a government from detaining U.S. citizens indefinitely without letting them challenge their detention (filing a writ of habeas corpus). The Bush administration purposefully used the term enemy combatants to create a juridical gray zone in which terrorism suspects were denied rights under the Geneva Conventions and were denied the rights of habeas corpus and a civilian jury trial under the U.S. Constitution. Of course, the Geneva Conventions are called into cause during a war. The U.S. is involvement in Syria is backed by no declaration of war and by no other congressional vote of approval, making its definition as a war legally questionable. In fact, the only Islamist militant groups the U.S. military has been authorized by Congress to fight are the main al Qaeda group in Afghanistan and Pakistan, whose members attacked the United States on 9/11, and the Afghan Taliban, who harbored the members of that al Qaeda group. No congressional authorization exists to use the U.S. military to attack other al Qaeda affiliates or former affiliates, including ISIS, around the world. Many members of Congress know that the military actions spanning the globe from Syria and Libya to Niger and Yemen stand on shaky legal ground. Alsheikhs release shows that the Trump administration implicitly may be admitting the same. Because no war technically exists in Syria, a U.S. citizen such as Alsheikh should have been brought to the United States to face charges and a jury trial. And because the U.S. Constitution implies that only Congress, and not the president, can suspend habeas corpus in times of invasion or insurrection, Alsheikh should have been able to challenge his detention in a civilian court. Yet U.S. prosecutors were scared that if they brought him to the United States for trial and the judge found their evidence of his material support to ISIS to be inadmissible, they would be required to release him on U.S. soil. The evidence on record suggests that Alsheikhs involvement with ISIS may have been limited to administrative work and menial tasks -- he probably was not a fighter. Although the Trump administration recoiled in fear at this possibility, Alsheikhs threat to the United States in that eventuality seems to have been exaggerated -- after all, he had been in the United States before and not attacked anyone or anything. Releasing Alsheikh was the right thing to do, even if done for the wrong reason. However, holding a U.S. citizen in jail for more than a year without charges and a jury trial is unconstitutional during peacetime. On Nov.1, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton gave a speech calling Venezuela part of a Troika of Tyranny. This followed previous reports that U.S. President Donald Trump was considering a military intervention to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. However, Venezuela is a humanitarian disaster, not a security threat. Sending in the Marines would be unnecessary, unproductive, and costly. Instead, Trump ought to focus on solutions that actually work, including direct humanitarian aid, coordinating international assistance, and helping to set up refugee camps in neighboring countries. Two to four million people -- between 7 percent and 12.5 percent of the country's population -- have fled Maduro's socialist dictatorship. If America wants to alleviate the situation, it should first provide direct humanitarian aid in the form of medicine, food, doctors, and social workers. Offering assistance would put diplomatic pressure on Maduro and highlight his government-made disaster. If he accepts help, then many Venezuelans will see their situation improve, but if he rejects Washington's offer, then the world has further proof of how little Maduro cares about his people. Regardless, Trump should also increase assistance to regional governments. This can come through grants from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to trusted international nonprofits, but also by working with allies and the World Bank to disburse aid. Deploying aid from well-regarded international organization and institutions would be better than funneling money directly from USAID to local governments. Moreover, assistance is needed as refugees increase demand on local resources from everything to healthcare and disease prevention , to basic food and shelter. Funding could also be made available to help refugees move to other countries that arent as saturated. By coordinating these efforts, America would lead a global commitment to help those impacted by Maduros regime. Historically massive migrations of displaced peoples result in social tensions and even political instability. The right thing to do is to help Venezuelas displaced and the neighborsthat are generously hosting them. This is especially true for Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, and Uruguay -- all of whom are now feeling the strain. Furthermore, in August violence broke out in Brazil against refugees and Columbia and Chile are backtracking on their visa policies. Already, Colombia asked the International Monetary Fund to ease the burden on countries accepting Venezuelans. To back its proposal, Bogota completed a survey that found over 870,000 Venezuelans had fled to Columbia. Of those, only 382,000 are registered while another 442,000 are undergoing the process -- the remaining 46,000 have not begun the process. Trump should back such proposals for aid from host countries and listen to what is needed. Finally, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there are 72,722 Venezuelans seeking asylum in the United States. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and international humanitarian law, there are different procedures for asylees and refugees, but their status is similar. Those seeking asylum must request it in-person at a port of entry or after physically arriving in the United States. Refugees can only request admission from abroad by contacting the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services or UNHCR. Either way, asylees and refugees must meet the definition of a refugee to be allowed entrance to the United States. That definition is a person outside his or her country of nationality who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of nationality because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. However, most displaced Venezuelans do not want to live elsewhere. They want to return home when conditions allow. This means America should let in those they can, but should also help local governments integrate Venezuelans who claim refugee status or asylum. These common-sense policies would contribute to solutions on the ground and cost less than a military intervention. One lesson that America's leaders have struggled to learn from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan is that forever war is a losing strategy. Venezuela is a jungle country bigger than Iraq or Afghanistan. Taking out Maduro is one thing, yet preventing anarchy and installing or assisting a new government is another. And that's not even considering pro-Maduro guerillas, thousands of Venezuelan soldiers, or the status of the starving, sick, and displaced Venezuelan people. About 90 percent of Venezuelans now live in poverty. Is the United States prepared and able to stabilize Venezuelas economy? Will U.S. forces be properly trained and equipped to help repatriate a flood of returning refugees in an orderly fashion? Can America heal the wounds of a foreign land ripped apart by tyranny? Washington must not get involved in another war and reconstruction effort that it cannot handle. Instead, America should offer direct aid, coordination an international humanitarian response, and assist Venezuela's neighbors in housing and caring for those who have fled. Washington should also continue to put financial and diplomatic pressure on Maduro. But nothing more. John Dale Grover is a fellow with Defense Priorities and a writer for Young Voices. He is also the Assistant Managing Editor at The National Interest. His articles have appeared in The American Conservative, Fox News, and Real Clear Defense. The views expressed are the authors own. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate , We're sorry, this article is not currently available With Veterans Day comes an onslaught of discount codes from retailers, social media posts thanking vets, and many proud parents and vets changing their profile pictures. It's only celebrated for one day and then quickly forgotten about, but there's so much that should be talked about for more than just one day. The Lionhearted Project and Safariland have done just that by spotlighting veterans in a genuine way. They produced a powerful 24-minute short film that gives you a raw glimpse into the realities many vets have faced and are still facing. The film is definitely worth the watch, as are the individual stories. The Lionhearted Project explains: Every day, an average of 22 veterans take their own life, yet this disquieting statistic is rarely noted by the media or our elected leaders. The Lionhearted project visits 22 veterans from the Army, Air Force, Marines and Navy while veteran artist, Shawn Ganther expresses their untold story through art. A 24-minute short film, and each individual art piece featuring a veterans combat story provides a digital channel for all Americans to celebrate these heroes. This storytelling spotlights each warriors experiences of courage, combat and comradery while in Afghanistan, Iraq and other active war zones. The video features interviews conducted veteran-to-veteran, as well as footage of both combat and their present-day home and work life. These individual art pieces depicting the personal war-time experiences of our surviving warriors will be created in the colors, Red, White and Blue. The final artwork creates a 6-foot long, 350-pound mosaic of the American flag. This tribute to veterans stories will live forever enshrined at the National Veterans Art Museum so that their loyal self-sacrifice may become, and remain, a source of our national pride. Watch the full film here: To learn more about The Lionhearted Project, go to https://lionheartedfilm.com/ Check out the individual stories from the veterans featured in The Lionhearted Project: Long gone are the days of the inexpensive Kalashnikovso why not just embrace reality and make a truly high end one? Located just outside of Fort Campbell, The Tactical Edge has spent the last months doing exactly this with their latest pet project: The COMRADE. These 7.6239 AK rifles feature 4150 nitrided barrels, titanium nitrided bolt carriers, enhanced controls, Russian left-hand folding mechanisms, and several other upgrades as standard. There will be two versions: a 14.5-inch rifle with a permanently attached muzzle device, and a 12.5-inch pistol with a threaded muzzle and folding brace. We note that the pistols are actually threaded in 1/2x28mm instead of the traditional 14.5x1LH so that's something to keep in mind (and it means these will be far, far easier to find suppressor adapters for the appropriate caliber). The official release date will be November 24th, 2018, but they are available for pre-order from their webpage here. Full boat MSRP is $2,099but you can expect street price to be lower. We'll have our hot little hands on one shortly and break it down for you. Here's what The Tactical Edge tells us: Due to the popularity of high end AKs and increasing demands from both Industry partners and consumers, The Tactical Edge has launched their AK variant, the COMRADE. The same Tactical Edge manufacturing that revolutionized the AR-15, AR-10 and Sub-Gun platforms with its strict tolerances, accuracy and indestructible reliability now comes in an AK platform. The COMRADE is designed and manufactured with the highest standards that are expected with any Tactical Edge product. Previously, most Competitors AK variations featured cast trunnions, loose tolerances and parts kits from various importers which cause significant failures under extreme use. After doing significant research, The Tactical Edge eliminated these reliability issues by using a new, forged front and rear trunnion, new parts kits and nitrided barrel. The Tactical Edge COMRADE has an exceptional smooth feel, sleek design and has a very minimal recoil impulse. Additional specifications include: [Rifle] Stamped steel receiver Forged front trunnion Forged, side folding rear trunnion Nitride 4150 14.5 barrel chambered in 7.6239 TiN bolt carrier and piston SLR 11.5 ION MLOK rail ALG trigger Magpul AK K2 grip East German Combo block (JMAC GBC-13) Lantac Drakon muzzle brake Enhanced magazine release and safety [Pistol] Stamped steel receiver Forged front trunnion Forged, side folding rear trunnion Nitride 4150 12.5 barrel chambered in 7.6239 TiN bolt carrier and pistol SLR 9 ION MLOK rail ALG trigger Magpul AK K2 grip East German Combo block (JMAC GBC-13) Surefire WARCOMP muzzle brake Enhanced magazine release and safety Athens, GA (30605) Today Chance of a morning shower. Morning clouds will give way to afternoon sunshine. High around 65F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Scattered frost possible. Low 31F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Providing Shelter, Food, and Help Finding Loved Ones Washington, D.C., November 12, 2018 The American Red Cross is on the ground throughout the State of California, providing shelter, food and comfort for thousands of people forced to leave their homes due to the deadly wildfires burning in both the northern and southern parts of the state. Red Cross volunteers are providing help and support at evacuation centers to offer safe refuge for people impacted by these devastating fires. Overnight, more than 2,100 people sought refuge from the wildfires in 18 Red Cross and community evacuation centers across the state. People are welcome to come to shelters for help even if they dont stay overnight. The Red Cross has deployed enough supplies to shelter as many as 7,000 people, including special equipment to support people with access and functional needs. The Red Cross is also mobilizing relief supplies to serve as many as 15,000 households. Supplies include sifters, personal protective equipment, respiratory masks, rakes, shovels, work gloves, tarps, and other resources. FINDING LOVED ONES People continue to search for missing loved ones and Red Cross reunification services are helping reconnect them as quickly as possible. These services include helping people communicate through the Red Cross Safe and Well website, as well as helping with urgent requests involving unaccompanied minors and separated children, reestablishing contact with family members who have been separated within the disaster area and working with partners to resolve reunification-related inquiries. As of Sunday, nearly 3,900 people have registered on Safe and Well, with more than 41,000 total searches and 539 actual matches. If someone is looking for loved ones they can visit the Red Cross Safe and Well website at http://www.redcross.org/safeandwell . The site allows individuals and organizations to register and post messages to indicate that they are safe, or to search for loved ones. The site is always available, open to the public and available in Spanish. Registrations and searches can be done directly on the website. People can also use the Im Safe feature of the Red Cross Emergency App to let loved ones know their status. The Emergency App is available in app stores by searching for the American Red Cross or going to redcross.org/apps. HOW YOU CAN HELP Entire communities and families have been left reeling from these deadly wildfires. Help people affected by the California wildfires by visiting redcross.org, calling 1- 800-RED CROSS or texting the word CAWILDFIRES to 90999 to make a $10 donation. Donations enable the Red Cross to prepare for, respond to and help people recover from these disasters. Actress Sandra Bullock, a long-time supporter of the Red Cross, has donated $400,000 to help with the California wildfires relief effort. The untold destruction from these fires is heartbreaking, especially following the tragedy at Borderline in Thousand Oaks, Bullock said. Im glad to be able to help. Were all family in this, whether it be human, furry or feathered. CORPORATIONS HELP The generous donations from members of the Red Cross Annual Disaster Giving Program (ADGP) and the Disaster Responder Program enable the American Red Cross to prepare communities for disasters big and small, respond whenever and wherever disasters occur and help families during the recovery process. ADGP $1 Million members are: Adelson Family Foundation; American Airlines; Anheuser-Busch Foundation; Anthem Foundation; Bank of America; Brown & Brown Insurance; Caterpillar Foundation; The Clorox Company; Costco Wholesale; Delta Air Lines; Enterprise Rent-A-Car Foundation; FedEx; Grainger; The Home Depot Foundation; LDS Charities; Lowe's Companies, Inc.; Mazda North American Operations; Microsoft Corp.; Nationwide Foundation; PepsiCo Foundation; State Farm; Verizon; VSP Global; Walmart and the Walmart Foundation; and The Walt Disney Company. ADGP $500,000 members are: 21st Century Fox; Altria Group; AmazonSmile; American Express; Aon; BMW of North America; Capital One; CBS Corporation; Cisco Foundation; Citi Foundation; Darden Restaurants, Inc. Foundation; Discover; Edison International; Energy Transfer/Sunoco Foundation; Ford Motor Company; General Motors; Humble Bundle; IBM Corporation; International Paper; John Deere Foundation; Johnson Controls; LabCorp; Medtronic Foundation; Meijer; Merck Foundation; Mondelez International Foundation; New Balance Foundation; Nissan; Procter & Gamble Company; PwC Charitable Foundation; Southwest Airlines; Target; Tata Consultancy Services; TD Ameritrade; The TJX Companies, Inc.; United Airlines; UPS; The USAA Foundation; The Wawa Foundation; and Wells Fargo. Disaster Responder Program members are: 7-Eleven Cares Foundation; Adobe; AdvoCare International L.P.; Alliance Data; Assurant; AT&T; AvalonBay Communities, Inc.; Avangrid Foundation; AXA Equitable Life; The Ball Foundation; Barclays; Boise Paper; CarMax; Choice Hotels International; Cox Automotive; DICKS Sporting Goods; Duke Energy; Entergy Corporation; Farmers Insurance; Harbor Freight Tools Foundation, LLC; Hewlett Packard Enterprise Foundation; HP Foundation; HSBC Bank; Ingersoll Rand Foundation; The J.M. Smucker Company; Land OLakes, Inc.; Mastercard; Morgan Stanley; Neiman Marcus Group; Northrop Grumman Corporation; Northwestern Mutual and the Northwestern Mutual Foundation; Prudential Financial; Raytheon Company; Rodan + Fields Prescription for Change Foundation; Ryder; SC Johnson; Security Finances Lending Hand Foundation; Southeastern Grocers Home of BI-LO Harveys Winn Dixie; Standard Textile; The Starbucks Foundation; Stearns Bank; Toyota; U-Haul International; United Technologies Corporation; U.S. Bank; and Visa WASHINGTON, DC Rainforest Trust recently kicked off a public auction of newly discovered species naming rights, according to a press release. Holiday shoppers will be able to buy the ultimate gift of naming one of 12 species recently discovered in protected areas created by Rainforest Trust and its partners across the tropics. Pre-bidding starts today with the final auction taking place at an invitation only event in Washington, DC, Dec. 8. All other pre-registered bidders can participate by phone and online. We have discovered new, amazing plants and creatures, and need to protect them and their habitats. Our auction will enable the public to help us do that. Imagine having a spectacular new species named after a loved one or an organization and knowing that their legacy is tied to saving a species, said Dr. Paul Salaman, CEO, Rainforest Trust in a statement. The auction showcases 12 new-to-science species. Among the finds are an Ecuadorean blue-eyed yellow frog; a Colombian frog with leopard-like coloring; speckled red and bright green frogs; an orchid from a Colombian cloud forest that has flame-like orange and rose-colored petals; an orchid with a center resembling peach slices; a deadly trap jaw ant with a mandible that opens to 180 degrees; a grey forest mouse with soft fur and rounded ears; a legless amphibian that looks like a worm; and a giant-eyed red salamander. All proceeds will be matched and directly protects the habitat of the specific plant or animal, helping save them from extinction. The auction takes place primarily online and by phone. Pre-bidding began online on Nov. 8. The live auction takes place during a private event at Clydes Restaurant at Gallery Place in Washington, DC on December 8. In person, online and phone bidding starts at 8pm ET that evening for pre-registered bidders. The Freemans Auction House will be conducting the auction with support from Invaluable, an auction aggregator. Both are donating their services. Dr. Salaman has discovered a number of species and was the first person to organize a species naming auction in 1994 to raise funds for conservation work. Today, Rainforest Trust has brought together a record number of spectacular species to be named all at once through an auction. Rainforest Trust hopes to raise in excess of $150,000 to save these 12 unique species. Naming a species is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for people, companies and nonprofits that are: interested in conservation and abating climate change; in search of a truly unique gift with direct impact; or wanting to leave a legacy. Interested shoppers should visit https://auctions.freemansauction.com/auction-catalog/1618B to learn more and to pre-register for the auction. For more information, visit www.RainforestTrust.org. Gift shop announces hours The Grotto Gift Shop at the Shrine of Lourdes in Litchfield, until Dec. 23, will be open from 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday & Sunday; 11:30 a.m. (after Mass) until 4 p.m. The Shrine is located on 50 Montfort Rd., Rte. 118, Litchfield. There is a varied selection of Advent wreaths and candles along with many new Christmas ornaments, cards & Fontanini Nativity sets. Also, unique gifts and books are available for all occasions, particularly baby & children's items. Learn more at www.shrinect.org Author to discuss Horses Change History Horses Change Historyand Change Lives with Ann Jamieson, author of the series For the Love of the Horse, Tuesday, November 13, at 6:30 pm, at the Morris Public Library Join Ann Jamieson, author of the popular series For the Love of the Horse (volumes I - IV), for a presentation and book signing on Tuesday, November 13, at 6:30 pm, at the Morris Public Library. According to Jamieson, no animal has shaped the history of man more than the horse. From providing us with transportation to delivering milk, coal, groceries and the doctor, to pulling our fire engines, building our roads and plowing our fields, horses have allowed us to expand beyond human limits. Horses have changed history in countless ways. Jamieson is a United States Equestrian Federation judge licensed in hunters, jumpers, and hunt seat equitation, and she has shown her own horse, Fred Astaire, in hunters and First Level dressage. Ann has also written numerous articles for magazines and newspapers including a column for The Litchfield County Times. She currently writes for Today's Equestrian magazine, a regional publication focused on the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area. Ann Jamieson lives in Kent. To register for this event, call 860-567-7440 Bank holding annual Fill-the-Basket drive LAKEVILLE Salisbury Bank has kicked off its 11th annual Fill-the-Basket food drive to help local food pantries feed those in need. Salisbury Banks 14 branches, located in Berkshire, Litchfield, Dutchess, Orange, and Ulster counties will collect donations of non-perishable food items and household supplies. Cash donations will also be accepted. All donated items as well as the monetary contributions collected will be donated directly to local food pantries serving each area. Local pantries are in need of a variety of donations including: canned goods, cereals, macaroni and cheese, cake mix, peanut butter, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, and tomato sauce. Household necessities such as paper towels, diapers, shampoo, and soap are also appreciated. Fill-the-Basket runs through Dec. 22 in all Salisbury Bank branches. Friendly Hands needs food donations TORRINGTON Friendly Hands Food Bank is asking groups, organizations and individuals to help with its annualThanksgiving giveaway. Donations of turkeys, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, potatoes, vegetables, olives, pies and cake/brownie mixes, as well as turkey gift cards or certificates. The food bank is also in need of food donations to serve people in need on a daily basis including soups, grape jelly, peanut butter, canned fruits, canned carrots, canned ravioli and Spaghetti Os, and canned tuna. The Thanksgiving giveaway will be held Saturday, Nov. 17 ; donations will be accepted through Thursday, Nov. 15 at Friendly Hands Food Bank, 50 King St., Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For information, call 860-482-3338. WASHINGTON - There's a nuclear engineer and a former flight attendant, a nurse and a former agent with the CIA. Many are mothers who work full time, including a former health-care executive from suburban Minnesota who is openly gay. A record number of women were elected to Congress this week, powering the Democratic takeover of the House. But more than the number, the lasting significance of 2018 may be that so many women did not climb conventional ladders to get to Capitol Hill. While some did hold stepping-stone political offices, many others took nontraditional paths to power, suggesting the need for female candidates to pay their dues in party politics may have gone the way of pantsuits and pearls. "It's a sea change," said Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY's List, the Democratic-leaning group that supports women in politics. The varied backstories and biographies of the Class of 2018 will encourage even more women to run for office, she said, an impact that will reverberate "in the next decade or decades." Jody Rushton, president of the National Federation of Republican Women, agreed. "It's a much wider pipeline now," she said. Some races have yet to be called. But as of Friday, more than 100 women had been declared winners in the 435 House races - nearly three dozen more than are serving in the current Congress. Nearly all the newcomers are Democrats. The number of Republican women will decline when the new Congress is seated in January, potentially dropping to as few as 13. Though the makeup of the House will remain overwhelmingly male, the three dozen women newly elected Tuesday easily surpass the 24 female newcomers elected in 1992, the last "Year of the Woman," at the end of the George H.W. Bush administration. But while only about 10 percent of the House was female after the 1992 election, the Congress seated in January will be nearly a quarter female. When C-SPAN cameras pan the chamber during the next State of the Union address, the sea of men in dark suits and ties will be broken up by more female lawmakers, including Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee elected Tuesday from central Minneapolis who will be the first member of Congress to wear a hijab. There also will be many more women of color, including Jahana Hayes, the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, who on Tuesday became Connecticut's first black representative. The political environment in the wake of the #MeToo movement has "opened up opportunities for different kinds of women to excel," said Joel Benenson, a Democratic strategist who worked for President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Also among the newcomers will be Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA agent who defeated Rep. David Brat, R-Va., a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Spanberger is a mother who started a Girl Scout troop as well as an intelligence officer who speaks four languages and once recruited spies. She said voters in her central-Virginia district appreciate candidates who don't fit the standard mold of a politician. "We are breaking up the typical," Spanberger said. "You can tell a child they can be anything they want, but until they see a broad spectrum of the country - someone who looks like them - they feel one step apart." Spanberger said she would work to make health care more affordable and to heal the nation's political divisions. "What motivated me to run was how divisive the political rhetoric had become," she said. It was a common message among other Democratic women who knocked off Republican incumbents, including another CIA veteran, former Middle East analyst Elissa Slotkin. Slotkin unseated Rep. Mike Bishop in a central-Michigan district Donald Trump won easily in 2016. "People can disagree and still respect each other," Slotkin said. In addition to driving the Democratic takeover of the House, female candidates also claimed four governorships for Democrats, flipping the top office in Michigan, Kansas, Maine and New Mexico. Republican women won gubernatorial races in Alabama, Iowa and South Dakota and posted a few other milestones. Rep. Marsha Blackburn will move from the House to the Senate, becoming the first female senator from Tennessee. And Young Kim, who had served in the California statehouse, appeared headed for a win in a close House contest and on the threshold of becoming the first Korean American woman in Congress. Rushton said Republicans are actively recruiting and training women for office. There is value, she said, in "step by step" advancement. She said droves of Democratic women with zero political experience failed in their bids for a variety of offices this year because they didn't win the trust of voters who want experienced policymakers looking after things such as the tax code. But many Democratic women won, buoyed by anger and frustration among female voters over the country's direction under President Trump. In California, Katie Hill, who ran a nonprofit that provides services for the homeless, defeated a Republican incumbent, Rep. Steve Knight, in the San Fernando Valley. In Georgia, former flight attendant Lucy McBath also beat an incumbent, Rep. Karen Handel, R. McBath, whose 17-year-old son was fatally shot by a white man who complained he was playing music too loudly, ran as a gun-control advocate. And in Massachusetts, Ayanna Pressley became the first black woman elected to Congress from that state, beating Rep. Michael E. Capuano (R), a 10-term incumbent. "None of us ran to make history. We ran to make change . . . and change is on the way," Pressley told her supporters on election night. "Can a congresswoman wear her hair in braids? Rock a black leather jacket?" Pressley asked. And the crowd roared. --- Video Embed Code Video: A record number of women were elected to the House of Representatives in 2018. The Washington Post spent time with some of them on the campaign trail.(Alice Li,Sarah Hashemi,Kayla Epstein/The Washington Post) Embed code: Merck signed an agreement with the Guangzhou Development District on innovation development in Southern China. Pursuant to this agreement, Merck will establish an innovation hub in Guangzhou scheduled to open September 2019. China is a major innovation hotspot and one of our most important growth markets. We are now creating a strong platform for Merck and our partners to drive innovation in Southern China. At the same time, we are strengthening our footprint in this vibrant ecosystem of innovation, said Kai Beckmann, Member of the Executive Board of Merck and CEO Performance Materials, at the signing ceremony in Guangzhou. We are very glad that Merck has chosen Guangzhou Development District, said Hong Qian, Deputy Director of Huangpu District Government of the Guangzhou City. With the extensive facilities and innovation ecosystem in Guangdong, we believe that the Merck Guangdong Innovation Hub will be successful. Designed to take advantage of the innovation ecosystem consisting of numerous technology companies, startups, universities, research institutes, and related facilities in Guangdong, the Merck Guangdong Innovation Hub will be located at the International Biotech Island of Guangzhou Development District, Huangpu District, Guangzhou City. The 700 sqm hub will be equipped with a showroom to demonstrate Mercks latest technologies, innovation projects and future research direction of the three business sectors of Merck, Healthcare, Life Science and Performance Materials. This innovation hub will integrate the advanced technologies and expertise of Merck and its partners such as startups, academic institutions, business partners, and local government. Together they will develop innovative technologies and promote business growth in the strategic markets of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, while fostering innovative thinking among Merck employees. The innovation hub will seize new opportunities in Healthcare, Life Science and Performance Materials and cross-sectors, with the goal of bringing new technologies and solutions to the Chinese market and to the world. Merck has continuously invested in the development of innovation of China. Merck Accelerator for example has programs in Darmstadt and started a recent one in China . Selected startups will have the chance to join the innovation hub in China first and then move to the Innovation Center at Merck headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, to develop their projects further and explore the European market. Merck aims to identify and support promising startups with a focus on those operating in the fields of healthcare, life science, performance materials, biotech and other emerging technology fields in their seed to series A funding phase. The three-month China Accelerator Program will start in 2019 and will host five to eight startups each time. The application period is already open and runs until January 25, 2019. Eight out of Canadas most expensive neighbourhoods are in the Vancouver metropolitan area, according to a survey from Century 21. Housing in the downtown and west side of Vancouver command an average of $1147 and $903 per square foot respectively. Century 21 asked its franchisees to track the average price per square foot in their local markets from January 1 to June 30 of each year. This information was then compared with past data to gather insights on pricing trends. This years annual survey of prices per square foot underline that many Canadian markets are seeing fluctuating prices, said Brian Rushton, executive vice-president at Century 21 Canada. In several urban areas we saw prices decline in one suburb but increase in the neighbouring one. That trend has very likely only increased further since our cut-off for data earlier this summer. Now more than ever it is important to have good information when making real estate buying and selling decisions. Downtown Toronto and Montreal are the only neighbourhoods in the top ten that are outside of British Columbia. In downtown Toronto, the average price per square foot is $903, while in downtown Montreal it is $603. On the other end of the spectrum, Montcon, NB is Canadas least expensive city with an average price per square foot of $101. The LNG tanker 'Asia Integrity' is seen at a liquefied natural gas import terminal owned by China's ENN Group in Zhoushan, eastern China's Zhejiang province, Oct. 19, 2018. Despite all-out efforts to avoid shortages, China will depend on the volatile spot market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) to keep its homes heated for the second winter in a row. On Oct. 24, China's top planning agency said it has a "contingency plan in case of emergencies such as extreme weather, in order to guarantee sufficient supplies of gas for residential use during the winter," the official English- language China Daily reported. The guarantee by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is the government's strongest assurance to date that homes will not be left in the cold as a result of anti-smog bans on coal-fired heating, as was the case last December. Details of the contingency plan announced by NDRC spokeswoman Meng Wei were not reported, but it is believed to include a combination of industrial cutbacks during the winter season and increased supplies from the international spot market for LNG. More than 120 billion cubic meters (4.2 trillion cubic feet; one bcm = 35.3 billion cubic feet) of gas will be made available for the winter heating season, or more than half of all the gas that China consumed last year. Forty percent of the winter supplies will be reserved for residential service, Meng said. With limited supplies from domestic production and cross-border pipelines, the government's guarantee will have to rely on major increases of imported LNG from both long-term contracts linked to oil prices and the spot market. In the first nine months of the year, tanker shipments of super-cooled LNG from abroad accounted for 57 percent of China's total gas imports, outpacing pipeline deliveries, according to customs figures. LNG's share of total gas imports stood at 55.5 percent last year, exceeding pipeline deliveries for the first time. In 2017, China relied on pipeline and LNG imports for 38.7 percent of gas consumption. Through September, LNG imports have climbed 44.7 percent so far this year. The NDRC believes it is better prepared to avert shortages this winter as a result of a crash program to open new LNG import terminals and gas storage facilities. China's storage capacity as a share of consumption has been only a fraction of the international average for major importers, leaving the country unprepared for rising demand. The NDRC said that China has now addressed the problem with about 100 newly-opened storage facilities, including tanks and depleted oil wells, accounting for 16 billion cubic meters (bcm) of capacity. Still not enough But with consumption of 237.3 bcm in 2017, China's 3.5-bcm increase in storage this year will still be inadequate to meet consumption growth, if it sticks to its anti-smog campaign. Domestic gas production is running only 6.2 percent ahead year-earlier output, while China's Central Asia Gas Pipeline (CAGP) system is nearing capacity. The limitations appear to make LNG imports the only avenue for the double-digit growth in demand. Total gas imports have jumped 33.1 percent in the first 10 months of this year, Platts Commodity News reported citing customs data. But the government's calculations may be complicated by the unexpected and unpredictable vacillations of the Asian LNG market. On Oct. 25, Reuters reported that half a dozen tankers with LNG cargoes were "stranded" for up to two weeks in waters off Singapore and Malaysia due to adverse trading conditions and weaker-than-expected demand in the larger Asian market. The sudden turnaround in the Asian market is said to be the result of multiple factors, including official weather forecasts in Japan and Australia of a milder-than-usual winter in the region this year. The predictions have led to a market condition known as "contango," when future gas prices rise above those for the nearer term, causing traders to delay deliveries. In this case, the situation has been muddied by several factors, including the high cost of delay. Due to the flood of LNG shipments in preparation for winter, tanker rates have soared to nearly U.S. $150,000 (1 million yuan) per day, according to petroleum industry consultants Gaffney, Cline & Associates. But in addition to the weather forecast, changes in demand are taking place in Japan, which has been the world's largest LNG importer. The country's nuclear reactors have started to come back on line sooner than expected following the Fukushima disaster of 2011, further reducing Asian LNG demand, Reuters said. In an added complication, Japan's Inpex Corp. has started shipping LNG from its U.S. $40-billion (278-billion yuan) Ichthys project in the offshore of Western Australia, easing the Asian supply picture even further, The Wall Street Journal reported. "It is heartening news for China, which sees sudden rises in demand for LNG during the winter months," the paper said. The liquefied natural gas tanker 'Vladimir Rusanov' is seen following its arrival from Russia's Arctic Yamal peninsula at an LNG terminal in Nantong, eastern China's Jiangsu province , July 19, 2018. Credit: AFP Will gas prices rise? For the time being at least, the eased pressure on prices seems to have outweighed concerns over China's 10-percent tariff on LNG imports from the United States, imposed as part of the ongoing trade war. But China's lack of available storage is likely to determine its ability to take advantage of more favorable conditions, leaving it susceptible to paying spot market prices whenever winter demand spikes. In a separate report, Platts quoted Citigroup analysts as saying that "as of September, LNG storage fields, with already limited capacity, might be nearly full due to more aggressive injections to avoid a repeat of last winter's gas supply shortage." Despite the NDRC's guarantee and easing market conditions, the government has signaled its concern that gas costs will rise. On Oct. 26, Reuters reported that the government has warned China's three big state-owned oil companies "not to manipulate gas prices or exceed the ceiling of government guided prices as the winter heating season approaches." Mikkal Herberg, energy security research director for the Seattle-based National Bureau of Asian Research, said that China's infrastructure problems have not been solved, despite the crash capacity-boosting program since the crisis last winter. "Their storage and pipeline capacity is very limited. It's not something they're going to fix in 12 months. It's going to take a number of years," Herberg said. China will get some relief from the infrastructure pinch with the opening of Russia's 4,000-kilometer (2,485-mile) Power of Siberia pipeline. But deliveries are not expected until December 2019, gradually rising to peak volumes of 38 bcm annually after several years. In the meantime, China may have no way of avoiding reliance on high-priced LNG imports this winter, even if prices are slightly lower than last year's record levels. "They really have no choice but to be dependent on the short-term spot market for the incremental demand beyond what's been contracted," Herberg said. Herberg compared China's gas supply problems with the just-in-time production process in manufacturing that depends on incoming supplies of parts instead of warehouses full of inventory. "That will make them, chronically for the next number of years, just-in-time buyers. I don't see a way out of that," he said. "The imports are likely to weigh on the profits of China's state-owned petroleum giants. The recent windfall in earnings from higher oil prices in the third quarter has been "covering up" the gas costs, Reuters said in another report. The impact on the PetroChina subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) has been particularly heavy, according to Reuters. "It is on the hook to fix China's perennial gas shortages and must import from abroad to do so," it said. The company reportedly spent about 20 billion yuan (U.S. $2.9 billion) on gas imports in the first nine months of the year, suffering losses on most sales due to domestic price controls. The warmer-than-usual weather may also make smog more persistent this winter, since weaker cold fronts will allow air to stagnate, China's National Climate Center said at a press conference last week. A global coalition of grassroots groups of small food producers and food sovereignty advocates has called on a United Nations expert to probe allegations of state-perpetrated land grabs in Cambodia ahead of an upcoming review of the human rights situation in the country. In a statement issued over the weekend, the Peoples Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS) urged the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia Rhona Smith to investigate after more than 1,000 people from around the country gathered to submit their land dispute claims to various government agencies in the capital Phnom Penh on Nov. 6, but were blocked by authorities. We are enraged that people were denied their rights to freely express, assemble, and raise their grievances to the government, PCFS global chairperson Sylvia Mallari said of the gatherings organizers, who were led by PCFS member group Coalition of Cambodian Farmers Community (CCFC). The reasons cited by the Cambodian authorities are unacceptable such as the claim that the demonstration would have been a disruption of public order. In fact, we actually find it ironic that the excuse used by the authorities to deny the communities of their freedom was the ceremonial procession practice for the countrys National Independence Day. Mallari noted that the gathering took place while Smith was still in Cambodia during her sixth visit to investigate the status of human rights in the country, saying it was unfortunate that Smith missed what happened. Following her 11-day visit, which concluded on Nov. 8, Smith called for more transparency, fairness and a holistic approach in addressing land disputes, and called for the dropping of charges against land rights activist Tep Vanny. Mallari welcomed the Special Rapporteurs comments and called on her to investigate the revival of charges against community leaders and development workers in Preah Vihear provinces Prame commune following a fact-finding mission PCFS co-organized with local group Ponlok Khmer (PKH) there last September. The fact-finding mission found that Chinas Guangdong Hengfu Group Sugar Industry Co. has grabbed more than 13,000 hectares (32,125 acres) of land in Preah Vihear, in addition to the 36,000 hectares (89,000 acres) it was awarded as part of a 2011 government concession. A dispute over land lost to Hengfu has dragged on for years without resolution, and villagers claim they have lost their rights to rice fields, communal forests, water resources, and resin trees. Representatives of the community were among those who tried to join the Nov. 6 gathering in Phnom Penh. 'Act of intimidation' This is clearly an act of intimidation to pacify the resistance of the affected communities, which is consistent with the missions findings that local and national authorities are facilitating Hengfus land grabbing, Mallari said of the revived charges. Such repressive actions only affirm the legitimacy of the rural peoples struggles against land grabbing, among the many other violations of their human rights in Cambodia. The government has chosen to listen to its foreign and corporate backers, at the great expense of the rural communities and indigenous peoplesas well as the environment. Mallari called for the inclusion of cases of repression associated with land disputes in the Universal Periodic Review of Cambodia by the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in January 2019. Speaking to RFAs Khmer Service on Monday, Theng Savoeun, CCFCs secretary general, applauded the statement from PCFS in support of the villagers from Prame commune. These people came to Phnom Penh because they have been abused by the Chinese company and powerful people, he said. They have lost faith in the authorities, who have failed to provide them with a resolution for many years. Attempts to reach government spokesperson Phay Siphan by phone for comment on the Prame commune land dispute went unanswered Monday, but he has previously stated that the issue is already resolved, and that those who have demanded further action are either anti-Chinese or anti-government. PKH executive director Ang Cheat Lom dismissed Phay Siphans previous statement on Monday, saying his group isnt against the Chinese company or government development. However, we are against corruption, illegal activities, and destruction of natural resources, he added. Summons issued Ang Cheat Lom also slammed Preah Vihears investigating judge Chien Sros for issuing a summons requiring two of his organizations staff members to appear for questioning on Wednesday over the confiscation of two of Hengfus bulldozers during a protest in December 2014. This case is a form of pressure against a civil society organization working to assist destitute villagers, especially members of an ethnic minority group affected by major development projects and land grabbing activities, he said, adding that the action will further restrict the freedom of civil society and villagers seeking a resolution. He said his staffers, Pick Sophorn and Lut Sang, will not honor the summons because the family name of one was misspelled and the other had yet to receive it, but added that the judge had no grounds on which to call the men for questioning. We sent out officials to observe the protesting activities of the people, he said. Our goal was to help prevent violence from happening. I can tell you that if our activists were not present out there, the two bulldozers would have been destroyed. So, I question why the company or the court is accusing us of such [a crime]. When contacted by RFA, Chien Sros said he had no comment on the summons, which was also issued to 10 members of the local community who took part in the 2014 protest. Tep Tem, a representative of ethnic minority villagers in Preah Vihear, told RFA that hundreds of villagers plan to gather at the provincial court on Wednesday to show their support for residents and the PKH staffers. She noted that while villagers have filed complaints to various ministries over several years concerning the land dispute, they have yet to receive any resolution, while whenever Hengfu has filed a complaint against the villagers, court authorities take speedy action. Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Sok Ry Sum and Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. Authorities in China have detained more than a dozen student labor activists in a fresh crackdown on Marxist and Maoist groups over the weekend. The students were detained by police from the southern province of Guangdong, where dozens of student activists had supported a workers' campaign to form an independent trade union at a factory belonging to Jasic Technology in Shenzhen. "At 9:00 p.m. on Nov. 9, 2018, Guangdong police violently broke into the dormitories of members of the Jasic Workers' Solidarity Group in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, and took away our comrades," the group said in a statement posted to Github. "Among them, Peking University graduate Zhang Shengye was kidnapped right there on the campus of Peking University," the statement said. "The missing people include ... Peking University graduates Sun Min and Zong Yang, Liang Xiaogang from Shanghai, and Wang Guixia from Guangzhou." It said Shenzhen-based labor activist He Pengchao was also incommunicado, and labor leader Wang Xiangyi had also been "violently kidnapped" by Guangdong police. The group hit out at Peking University's "collusion with kidnapping," accusing vested interests in Guangdong of "sinister intentions." It said the students could have gone on to enter the elite levels of society, but instead chose to work alongside migrant workers based on their socialist ideals, "for the liberation of the working class." A source close to the movement told RFA that the social media accounts of dozens of activists have been deleted in recent weeks, as the crackdown on Maoist and Marxist student activists continues. "I heard they were detained, but not by authorities in Beijing," the source, who gave only his surname Chen, said. "I heard that Tang Xiangwei, who was a Jasic worker, was detained, released on bail and then re-detained by authorities in Wuhan." "The people they are detaining this time around are all linked to the Jasic campaign," he said. "The crackdown is only going to get harsher, and will expand to include anyone who took part in, or supported through any channels." A Peking University alumni organization also issued a statement saying that plainclothes police had entered the university campus on Friday, sparking widespread concern. It called on the school to protect its students. The university confirmed in a statement on Sunday that police had entered the campus on Friday night, but had been in pursuit of an individual not connected to the university, on a matter unconnected to staff or students there. Campaign backfire Political commentator Xiao Xiao said a recent campaign to instill Marxism in students in a bid to combat liberal tendencies on campus appeared to have backfired against the ruling Chinese Communist Party. "There has been a huge emphasis on Marxism when recruiting for higher education places in recent years," Xiao said. "They have basically erased liberals from colleges and universities ... and they have pointed to Marxism as a guide to fill the vacuum they left behind." "So there was no competing ideology for the Marxist dogma they were force-feeding the students with," he said. The ruling Chinese Communist Party has been quick to clamp down on student support for workers' rights in recent months, detaining, assaulting or harassing some 70 workers, activists and students since July, according to the text of a petition on the overseas site Action Network. Marxist and Maoist activists, many of them students, had flocked to Shenzhen to support the Jasic workers' cause, with some of them taking jobs in the factory. However, dozens of members of the Jasic Workers' Solidarity Group (JWSG) were themselves detained in a mass raid on their temporary accommodation on Aug. 27. According to Hong Kong labor groups, many were subsequently released, but 11 remain under some form of house arrest. The authorities responded with a clampdown on student activism on campus, banning Marxist study groups, and punishing students at Peking University, Renmin University and Nanjing University. Last week, a rare protest on the campus of Nanjing University in the eastern province of Jiangsu over the authorities' banning of a Marxist study group sparked beatings by the authorities. A similar fate has befallen the Marxism-Leninism Society at Peking University, while Cornell University recently withdrew from a partnership with Renmin University, citing the punishment of students who had supported the Shenzhen labor movement. Reported by Wong Siu-san and Lau Siu-fung for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Wu Jing for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Authorities in the Chinese capital have revoked the business license of a liberal economics think-tank, saying it had carried out "illegal online education activities." The move comes after a police raid sealed off the premises of the Unirule Institute of Economics in July, and after its executive director Sheng Hong was prevented from leaving the country last week on grounds of "national security." "The relevant parties organized and carried out six online classes between and via the institute's website, unirule.cloud," a notice issued by the Beijing municipal bureau of industry and commerce said. "We also found, according to the Haidian district education bureau, that these activities were carried out without official approval," it said, adding that Sheng had been sent a notification of an administrative punishment hearing on Oct. 10. Sheng told RFA on that the institute had criticized the move on, saying it went against recent assurances by President Xi Jinping that the ruling Chinese Communist Party would support and protect the private sector. "The Haidian bureau of industry and commerce issued us with a notification that it is suspending our business license and subjecting us to legal proceedings," Sheng said. "I think that they are aiming at the wrong target with misguided evidence." "We were engaged in the promotion of ideology and political theory, but their reasons are pretty sketchy," he said. "I don't know what their motivations are for canceling our license, but I think it's ridiculous in the extreme." Sheng said the institute would be suspending activities for the time being, until it could enjoy the protection of the law. "We don't feel that this is a good environment right now; the current system isn't favorable, so we will only be carrying out further activities when we have the usual protections of the law and the constitution," he said. "It's pretty clear that they are targeting the private sector," Sheng said. "But the industry and commerce bureaus should be working for the private sector, to ensure the smooth functioning of the market." Veteran Beijing rights activist Hu Jia said Unirule was widely respected as a politically moderate and independent think-tank. "The Communist Party under Xi Jinping don't want to hear any different voices or ideas coming from elsewhere in society, especially not from the private sector organizations that register as businesses," Hu said. "A lot of private-sector non-government groups that register as businesses can very easily have their licenses revoked, if they diverge from the central leadership's line," he said. "Unirule were still a fairly independent voice; independent thinkers who carried out independent research," Hu said. "Under Xi Jinping's version of socialism, there can be only one set of core values." Constitutional scholar and independent historian Zhang Lifan said agreed. "They were in no sense a political organization, just a non-government research organization," Zhang said. "They registered as a business because the government was going after NGOs." Zhang said Unirule's research had influenced Chinese policymakers at the highest level. "Academic opinions from the Unirule Institute were accepted at the highest levels of leadership," he said. "But the authorities have suppressed the institute ... probably for ideological reasons." Last week, police in Beijing imposed a travel ban on Sheng, who had been invited to take part in a Harvard symposium this month examining Chinas 40 years of economic reforms. Sheng was barred from boarding a flight to Chicago last week by police at Beijing's Capital International Airport, who said his departure would "harm national security." He said his recent articles had offered nothing but constructive economic suggestions, and fall within the freedom of speech that is enshrined in China's constitution. In July, the authorities welded shut Unirule's front door, trapping five members of staff, a move commentators said is part of a long-term strategy by the ruling Chinese Communist Party to limit the freedom of expression of Chinese intellectuals. The staff members were illegally detained for more than an hour, and had to call the police to be able to exit the premises. Nobody has been able to gain access to the offices since. The institute was founded in 1993 by liberal economist Mao Yushi, who has repeatedly challenged the government on its economic policy and was awarded the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty in 2012. Since taking power in 2012, President Xi has launched an unprecedented set of ideological controls and boosted the institutions needed to enforce them. Xi has repeatedly warned members of the political class not to go off message in public, and set up a nationwide monitoring agency to supervise and detain anyone remotely connected with the government, including civil servants, teachers and academics, journalists, and contractors. The closure of Unirule came after the closure of the liberal political magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu and the outspoken analysis website ConsensusNet, both of which had specialized in wide-ranging political and economic analysis. Unirule's website was also shuttered in , and the social media accounts of some of its prominent members deleted. Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Lau Siu-fung for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Phyo Wai Win, a reporter at Myanmar's Eleven Media Group, arrives at Insein Prison after appearing at a courthouse in Yangon's Tamwe township, Oct. 10, 2018. The government of Myanmars biggest city Yangon dropped its incitement case against three journalists from Eleven Media Group on Friday, two weeks after it set them free on bail. Chief reporter Phyo Wai Win and managing editors Kyaw Zaw Lin and Nari Min were arrested on October 10, after the media outlet published an article with a critical focus on Yangon government spending. Citing officials said their reporting incited public alarm against the government, but the three men stood by the story. The three are not necessarily in the clear as of yet; authorities will attempt to deal with the dispute through negotiations with the Myanmar Press Council (MPC). Chief Minister Phyo Min Thien of Yangons regional government said he would continue with the legal case if after the negotiations the journalists still refuse to satisfy his demand for an apology. They were charged under Section 505(b) of the Penal Code, a vaguely-worded section that prohibits the publication or circulation of any statement, rumor or report with intent to cause fear or alarm to the public or to any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offense against the state or against the public tranquility. Kyi Myint, the lawyer for the three said that they welcome the decision of the court. Speaking of their ordeal, Phyo Wai Win told RFAs Myanmar Service, We choose to go to jail because we dont want to apologize. He added, I wrote this article according to what MPs said because the issue is related to peoples interest. Editor Kyaw Zaw Lin echoed his chief reporters sentiments, telling Reuters There is nothing that went wrong and we have no reason to apologize. Meanwhile, the Myanmar Press Councils mediation filed a request to drop another case, against RFA reporter Myint Zaw Oo, but the police have rejected it. The Magway region-based reporter was charged on Nov. 3 under Article 68(a) of the Telecommunications Act for posting a question about a possible bomb explosion on Facebook. He was released on 10 million kyats ($6,300) bail from the Kamayut Township Police Station on Friday after testifying. The Press Council sent a letter to the station in an attempt to negotiate, only to be rebuffed by the police who said they would follow law enforcement procedures and refer the case to a regional court. The court could, however, decide to throw the case out. I have been working according to journalistic ethics and feel safe because I live ethically as a journalist, the reporter told RFA. He said that he now felt unsafe, but maintained his innocence. All journalists are unsafe; [we] are under close watch. We have to work more carefully not to make any mistakes, Myint Zaw Oo said, adding I just posted an honest question, but police told me that they have to file [charges] against me because they were asked to do so [by higher level officials] because my post was scary fake news. Speaking about the Press Councils involvement, the founding director of Yangon Journalism School, Ye Naing Moe told RFA, Min Zaw Oos case should be negotiated through the Press Council and it can be done easily by talking face to face at the MPC. It is sad to see that government departments and ministries dont accept the MPC even though it was formed according to law. More than two years after a transition to civilian rule under national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar has drawn criticism from both domestic and international press freedom watchdogs for its heavy-handed treatment of journalists. Reported by Aung Theinkha for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Nur Alam, a Rohingya refugee, says he is not ready to go back to Myanmar in a Nov. 12, 2018 photo. Bangladesh will not repatriate Rohingya to Myanmar unless the U.N.s refugee agency confirms they are willing to leave voluntarily, a Bangladeshi government official told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, on Monday. In late October, Dhaka and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reached a memorandum of understanding in which UNHCR was to gauge whether more than 2,000 Rohingya, whose names were on a repatriation list agreed to by Bangladesh and Myanmar, were ready to go back to Rakhine state, a Bangladeshi foreign ministry official said. Our policy is we will not send any Rohingya back by force. It is the decision of the individual Rohingya whether they want to get back, Delwar Hossain, the ministrys director general in charge of the Southeast Asia desk, told BenarNews. The Bangladesh government is relying on UNHCR to make that determination, he said. According to our MoU with the UNHCR, the UNHCR will assess whether the returnees are going voluntarily, Hossain added. On Oct. 28, we handed over the list of the 2,260 Rohingya, whom the Myanmar government verified for repatriation, to ascertain their status, but we have yet to get any response from the UNHCR. Also on Monday, Lwin Oo, Myanmars ambassador to Bangladesh told reporters that the first 150 refugees from that list were to be sent back to Rakhine on Thursday. A similar number were to be returned daily through the end of the month, Myanmar officials said. The repatriation will start on Nov. 15, the ambassador said. Meanwhile, a UNHCR spokesman said this was not the right time to send Rohingya back to Rakhine, from where more than 700,000 had fled to camps in southeastern Bangladesh since August 2017 to escape violent attacks by Myanmar police and border guards. The attacks began in retaliation for a Rohingya rebel attack on guards that month. Our position is clear we dont believe that conditions are conducive for return at this moment, Firas Al-Khateeb, a UNHCR spokesman in Coxs Bazar district, told BenarNews in an email. Therefore at this stage, we cant support any repatriation process, but we have been asked by the government of Bangladesh to assess the voluntariness of the refugees according to our MOU signed earlier this year, he said. Therefore we will perform this assessment, he said. It is better you slaughter me here Meanwhile, some Rohingya whose names are on the list of 2,260 refugees slated for repatriation said they were not ready to pack up and leave the refugee camps in Coxs Bazar. Nur Alam, 30, who lives at a refugee camp in Teknaf, a sub-district of Coxs Bazar, told BenarNews he did not plan to return until Myanmar gave him and the other Rohingya citizenship status. Myanmar officials have balked at granting Rohingya citizenship, offering them instead a national verification card that, officials say, is the first step for persons interested in obtaining citizenship. Three days ago, an official came and informed me that I was on the repatriation list. He told me to prepare to go back on Nov. 15, Alam said without identifying the official. They need not build houses for us. We all will go if they [give us] our citizenship, ensure our safety and a guarantee to return to our original houses, he said. The current situation is not favorable for return, said Alam, adding, It is better you slaughter me here than to send me there. He said he knew of at least nine Rohingya families on the list. All of them have been hiding in fear of repatriation, Alam said. Abul Kalam, a 28-year-old refugee sheltering at the Unchiprang camp, said he was on the list as well. An official came and wrote my name and names of my family members in a yellow card. Later, I came to know that I would be sent back but I will not go now, Kalam said. US: Premature returns Elsewhere on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that China had applauded the repatriation efforts while the United States called the move to begin sending Rohingya back to Rakhine, starting this week, premature. We have engaged both governments [Myanmar and Bangladesh] at the highest levels to express our serious concerns about premature returns, and to emphasize that, consistent with international practice, returns must be informed, voluntary, safe, dignified, a State Department spokeswoman told the Journal. And as leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) prepared to meet in Singapore for their regional summit starting on Tuesday, Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo was expected to raise the Rohingya crisis during those talks, an official with the foreign ministry in Jakarta said late last week. Indonesia, as family with Myanmar within ASEAN, expects there to be steps taken in resolving the humanitarian crisis. The involvement of ASEAN will be far better than that of other parties, Benny Siahaan, the ministrys director of ASEAN External Cooperation, said in a statement, according to Detik.com, an Indonesian language news website. Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. Residents of a Tibetan township in Chinas Gansu province gathered on Sunday to protest a government plan to divert fresh drinking water from a local source to a neighboring area, drawing several vehicles of police who threatened them with arrest, Tibetan sources said. No information was immediately available regarding detentions or beatings by police in the Nov. 11 protest in Chone (in Chinese, Zhouni) countys Se Tsang township, which was launched after Chinese authorities arrived in the township to announce the plan, a local source told RFAs Tibetan Service. As soon as the Tibetans began to gather, large numbers of police arrived and issued a warning to the crowd to abide by the governments decision, and said that anyone opposing the plan would be arrested, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. There have been no confirmed reports of [police] assaults on the protest so far, the source said. The proposed diversion scheme, which will send water from a local river from Se Tsang to the Hrin Tsang township in nearby Batse (Lintan) county, has now prompted residents to launch an online petition questioning the reasons for the move, RFAs source said. Have the authorities considered what will happen to those living in our township and to our cattle if our water is diverted to another township and county? RFAs source said, quoting from the petition. What is the reason for the diversion? Have they finished all the drinking water in their own township and county? Why cant we have the right to protect the water that belongs to our area? the petition asks. What secrets lie behind this decision that cannot be disclosed? Directives by authorities have recently sparked other protests in Chone, with dozens of Tibetans gathering in front of government offices in October to demand compensation promised for livestock culled three years ago under government order, Tibetan sources said in an earlier report. The protest in Chones Nyipa county was launched on Oct. 13, and called on authorities to provide subsidies and other benefits for about 100 families who had reduced their herds to required numbers. Government efforts to limit the numbers of herd animals kept by Tibetan families have been driven by concerns about the overgrazing of vulnerable grasslands, but the curb on livestock numbers has had an adverse impact on local livelihoods, local sources say. Reported by Lobe Socktsang for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Dhondup Gonsar. Written in English by Richard Finney. Neutron capture by boron nuclei produces a dense shower of helium and lithium ions, which have the same effect within the nanocrystals as the ions produced in an accelerator: the controlled creation of crystal defects. Under the leadership of Petr Cigler from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB Prague) and Martin Hruby from the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry (IMC), both of which are part of the Czech Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers has developed a revolutionary method for the easy and inexpensive production of irradiated nanodiamonds and other nanomaterials suitable for use in highly sensitive diagnostics of diseases, including various types of cancer. Diagnosing diseases and understanding the processes that take place within cells at the molecular level require sensitive and selective diagnostic instruments. Today, scientists can monitor magnetic and electric fields in cells at a resolution of several dozen nanometers and with remarkable sensitivity thanks to crystal defects in the particles of certain inorganic materials. A nearly ideal material for these purposes is diamond. Compared with the diamonds used in jewelry, the ones intended for applications in diagnostics and nanomedicine - nanodiamonds - are approximately a million times smaller and are produced synthetically from graphite at high pressure and temperatures. A pure nanodiamond, though, doesn't reveal much about its environment. First, its crystal lattice must be damaged under controlled conditions to create special defects, so-called nitrogen-vacancy centers, which enable optical imaging. The damage is most commonly created by irradiating nanodiamonds with fast ions in particle accelerators. These accelerated ions are capable of knocking carbon atoms out of the crystal lattice of a nanodiamond, leaving behind holes known as vacancies, which at high temperatures then pair with nitrogen atoms present in the crystal as contaminants. The newly formed nitrogen-vacancy centers are a source of fluorescence, which can then be observed. It's precisely this fluorescence that gives nanodiamonds immense potential for applications in medicine and technology. A fundamental restriction to the use of these materials on a broader scale, however, is the great cost and poor efficiency of irradiating ions in an accelerator, which prevents the generation of this exceptionally valuable material in larger quantities. The team of scientists from several research centers headed by Petr Cigler and Martin Hruby has recently described an entirely new method of irradiating nanocrystals. In place of costly and time-consuming irradiation in an accelerator, the scientists exploited irradiation in a nuclear reactor, which is much faster and far less expensive. But it wasn't quite that simple. The scientists had to employ a trick - in the reactor, neutron irradiation splits boron atoms into very light and fast ions of helium and lithium. The nanocrystals must first be dispersed in molten boron oxide and then subjected to neutron irradiation in a nuclear reactor. Neutron capture by boron nuclei produces a dense shower of helium and lithium ions, which have the same effect within the nanocrystals as the ions produced in an accelerator: the controlled creation of crystal defects. The high density of this particle shower and the use of a reactor to irradiate a much larger quantity of material mean that it is easier and far more affordable to produce dozens of grams of rare nanomaterial at once, which is approximately one thousand times more than scientists have thus far been able to obtain through comparable irradiation in accelerators. The method has proven successful not only in the creation of defects in the lattice of nanodiamonds but of another nanomaterial as well - silicon carbide. For this reason, scientists hypothesize that the method could find universal application in the large-scale production of nanoparticles with defined defects. The new method utilizes the principle applied in boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT), in which patients are administered a boron compound. Once the compound has collected in the tumor, the patient receives radiation therapy with neutrons, which split the boron nuclei into ions of helium and lithium. These then destroy the tumor cells that the boron has collected in. This principle taken from experimental cancer treatment thus has opened the door to the efficient production of nanomaterials with exceptional potential for applications in, among other areas, cancer diagnostics. Authorities in northwest Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have arrested the current deputy editor-in-chief and two former head editors of a Uyghur-run publishing house that released books deemed problematic because of improper political content, official sources said. At least 14 staff members of the Kashgar Publishing House in the XUARs Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) city have been arrested since last year, a source with ties to the region recently told RFAs Uyghur Service, speaking on condition of anonymity. Those arrested included Ablajan Siyit, the publishers current deputy editor-in-chief, Osman Zunun, a former editor-in-chief who retired 10 years ago, and Abliz Omer, another former editor-in-chief who retired 20 years earlier, the source said, adding that they were detained on Oct. 15, in the beginning of the year, and last year, respectively. The arrests are part of a sweeping campaign in the XUAR since the beginning of 2017 to censor literature based on political content, the source said, with sensitive books being categorized as dangerous or problematic, and anyone deemed responsible for publishing them targeted for detention. A staff member at the local office of the judiciary in Kashgar confirmed Siyits arrest to RFA during a phone interview, saying that hundreds of books issued by Kashgar Publishing House had been listed as problematic, resulting in the arrests of their authors, editors, and those who greenlit their publication. The deputy editor-in-chief, Ablajan Siyit, was also taken away on Oct. 15, said the staffer, who declined to be named. Since last year, the government has been carrying out an investigation into illegal published works, he added. More than 600 books published by the Kashgar Publishing House, and more than 1,000 books published by the Xinjiang Peoples Publishing House, were found to be problematic. But the Kashgar Publishing House is in more serious trouble as some of the books are considered dangerous. The investigation into problematic books began two years ago, he said, adding that books can be blacklisted even if they contain only one sentence that is now restricted in use, regardless of whether it was at the time of publishing. According to the staffer, anyone whose hands have touched these books has been taken into custody, and that as deputy editor-in-chief of Kashgar Publishing House, Siyit would have read every book after it was edited. The retired former editor-in-chief of the publisher, Osman Zunan, was also taken into custody, he confirmed, but said he had been arrested on the same day as Siyit. Abliz Omer, who was the editor-in-chief before Osman Zunun, was also taken away, the staffer said, adding that the septuagenarians health is very poor. After his arrest, he became very ill. He was released, but two or three days later he was taken back once more. He has been in and out. When he becomes very ill, they send him home, and once his health has improved, they take him back. All three men are members of Chinas ruling Communist Party, and Siyit is also a member of the partys local Standing Committee, the staffer said. It was not immediately clear whether the three had been jailed or sent to a political re-education camp, where authorities have detained Uyghurs accused of harboring strong religious views and politically incorrect ideas since April 2017. Several prominent Uyghur intellectuals have gone missing from the XUAR in recent months and are believed detained in re-education camps, and sources in the exile community have said the trend shows that Chinese authorities are committing cultural genocide by attempting to eliminate the best and brightest Uyghur minds. RFA has confirmed the arrests of Qurban Mahmut, the editor-in-chief of the Xinjiang Cultural Journal; Abdurahman Ebey, the head of the Xinjiang Peoples Publication House; and the deputy editor-in-chief and three Uyghur directors of the Xinjiang Daily newspaper. Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFAs Uyghur Service. Translated by RFAs Uyghur Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Dozens of people have gathered at a cemetery in Kazakhstan's commercial capital, Almaty, to honor the memory of Zamanbek Nurqadilov, an opposition politician who was shot dead 13 years ago. Civic activists and relatives attended the November 12 commemoration ceremony at Nurqadilov's grave in Kensai cemetery to mark the day in 2005 that the body of the influential politician was found in his home in Almaty with two bullets in his chest and one bullet in his head. The death of Nurqadilov -- a former government minister and Almaty mayor who joined the opposition in 2004 and accused President Nursultan Nazarbaev of corruption -- was officially declared a suicide. However, Kazakh opposition leaders, activists, and relatives have insisted that Nurqadilov was killed. Dozens of people have been killed in violence across Afghanistan, including in a suicide bombing in Kabul targeting a protest by members of the mainly Shiite Hazara minority, officials say. The Islamic State (IS) militant group claimed responsibility for the suicide blast on November 12 that killed at least six people and wounded 20 others in the center of the capital, where hundreds of people were protesting the governments failure to protect the Hazara community from Taliban attacks. The explosion rocked the city as fighting raged in the central province of Ghazni, where Afghan forces and pro-government militias have been battling the Taliban for the past week. Officials said on November 12 that 25 Afghan security personnel were killed in Ghazni's predominately Hazara districts of Malistan and Jaghori. The Taliban also attacked a third district, Khas Oruzgan, in neighboring Oruzgan Province two weeks ago. The Taliban offensive in the three predominately Hazara districts has left dozens of government troops, pro-government Hazara militia men, and Taliban militants dead and forced hundreds of civilians to flee their homes. In the western province of Farah, at least 37 local police were killed when Taliban fighters overran several security checkpoints, regional officials said on November 12. In a statement, the IS militant group said it targeted a gathering of Shi'ites. The extremist Sunni group considers Shi'ites as heretics and has frequently targeted them in recent years. Afghanistan's main intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said in a statement that the bomber was on foot and detonated his suicide vest before reaching the protesters. Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danesh told RFE/RL that civilians and security personnel deployed to secure the city during the protest were among the dead. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, although the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS) militant groups have been blamed for similar attacks in the past. The blast occurred near a security checkpoint near the Istiqlal high school in central Kabul, close to the area where ministry buildings and the Presidential Palace are located. The Afghan president's office said protesters ended their demonstration after President Ashraf Ghani addressed the crowd and promised to send reinforcements to the besieged districts. Hazara Demand Protection Hundreds of people had rallied for a second day in front of the Presidential Palace to protest against the government's inaction in sending reinforcements to the three districts under siege in the provinces of Ghazni and Oruzgan. The situation in the districts of Jahjori, Malistan, and Khas Oruzgan is critical, an unnamed protester told RFE/RL. These areas need urgent air support and reinforcements. We want the government and the world to know whats happening there, another protester told RFE/RL. How long can this cruelty and death go on? Officials said that the Taliban killed 15 civilians and 10 members of the special forces in Ghazni on November 11, after the government said it had sent special forces backed by air strikes to the districts under attack. There have been fears that the violence could be rooted in ethnic or sectarian differences, pitting the Hazara against the Taliban, a predominately Sunni, ethnic Pashtun group. The Taliban was accused of committing human rights violations against Hazara during their 1996-2001 rule. In the western province of Farah, at least 37 members of the Afghan security forces were killed in overnight attacks by Taliban fighters on checkpoints that triggered hours of fighting, local officials said on November 12. The spike in violence comes as visiting U.S. special envoy Zakmay Khalilzad held talks with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on November 11 in his latest round of meetings aimed at convincing the Taliban to take part in peace talks with Kabul to end the decades-long war in Afghanistan. Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Kabul, is also scheduled to visit Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, where the Taliban has a political office. A recent U.S. government watchdog report said Kabul's control of Afghanistan had slipped in recent months as local forces made little or no progress against the Taliban. The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, citing NATO's Resolute Support mission, said this summer's casualty toll for Afghan forces had been worse than ever. However, Ghani denied on November 12 that the Taliban is winning. Speaking by video link from Kabul to an audience at the School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University in Washington, Ghani said the Afghan state is not at risk of collapse and reiterated his government's intent to seek a negotiated peace. "The Taliban are not in a winning position," Ghani said. With reporting by AFP, Reuters, and dpa MINSK -- At least one person was injured after the ceiling of a shopping mall collapsed in the center of Belarus's capital, Minsk, on November 12. The Belarusian Emergency Situations Ministry said a young woman who worked at a flower shop was hospitalized with head and abdomen injuries. The ministry said the ceiling collapsed on an area of 150 square meters. An RFE/RL correspondent reported from the site that the rescue teams and police had cordoned off the area. BRUSSELS -- A report drafted by a European lawmaker has called for the creation of a new portfolio in the European Commission dedicated to the fight against propaganda and for more resources to be dedicated to the EU unit set up to address Russia's disinformation campaigns. The draft report seen by RFE/RL on November 12 says the bloc should provide its antipropaganda taskforce with adequate financial and personnel resources in order to significantly increase its potential, effectiveness, and quality of work. The report, authored by Polish lawmaker Anna Fotyga, is set to be discussed in the European Parliaments foreign affairs committee later this month. Earlier this year, the parliament granted the East StratCom taskforce with 1.1 million euros ($1.3 million) a year from the EU budget, stepping up the blocs campaign to counter disinformation and fake news from Russia. The reports calls on EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini and the European Commission to become more closely involved in this area. It also urges EU member states that continue to deny the existence of strategic propaganda to recognize it and take proactive measures in order to counteract and debunk it. A larger part of the document is dedicated to social media, which it describes as the most common tool for spreading disinformation and hostile propaganda. The text proposes to regulate, together with EU member states, the actions of social media companies and ensure their full transparency and accountability. But it also insists that such actions should be carried out transparently, in cooperation with the competent authorities and civil society, saying that the banning of suspicious accounts or deletion of inappropriate content may be seen as censorship. The issue of disinformation from Russia is due to be on the agenda of the EU summit in Brussels on December 13-14. Finland says it is investigating whether Russia has recently interfered with global positioning system (GPS) signals in the northern Finish region of Lapland during NATO war games, endangering civilian air traffic. Prime Minister Juha Sipila made the announcement on November 11, days after Finland's air-navigation services issued a warning for air traffic due to a large-scale GPS interruption in the north of the country. Neighboring Norway issued a similar warning about loss of GPS signals for pilots in its own airspace at the end of the October, when NATO's massive Trident Juncture military exercise kicked off. Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman on November 12 said the Kremlin knows "nothing" about the disruption of the GPS signal. "There is a trend to blame all mortal sins on Russia," Dmitry Peskov said. "As a rule, these allegations are unfounded." The U.S.-based GPS system works by sending signals from satellites above the Earth back down to receivers. Russia has developed its own global navigation satellite system, Glonass. "It's possible Russia was behind the interference," Sipila said in an interview on YLE Radio Suomi. "We're now investigating it and will react accordingly." The goal of the alleged Russian interference was "to demonstrate the capabilities for such actions," the prime minister also said. "It's no small matter, since civilian flights have been put in danger," Sipila also said, adding that the incident should be taken as seriously as "airspace violations." Trident Juncture -- NATO's largest since the end of the Cold War -- involved all 29 members of the Western alliance, plus partners Finland and Sweden. The two-week war games took place close to Russia, in an area stretching from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Baltic Sea, amid persistent tension between the West and Moscow. NATO said the drills mustered 50,000 troops, 250 aircraft, and around 65 ships in what Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called a "strong display" of its capability, unity, and resolve at a time of growing danger in Europe. The exercise drew criticism from Moscow, which seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and backs separatists in an ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine but accuses the alliance of provocative behavior near its borders. Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer-long border with Russia, has recently developed closer ties with NATO but stopped short of full membership. With reporting by Bloomberg, Reuters, DW, the BBC, TASS, and Interfax Kosovar President Hasim Thaci says he agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump on the need to reach a final and comprehensive peace agreement between Kosovo and Serbia. Thaci, who met with Trump while in Paris on November 11 during commemorations of the end of World War I, said that Trump supported a legally binding agreement between Kosovo and Serbia after the two agreed "on the need to extend peace and reconciliation" in the Western Balkans. "I am grateful for his and U.S. support," Thaci wrote in a tweet giving details of the meeting of the two presidents. The Kosovar leader said he also discussed Pristina's normalization talks with Belgrade during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris. "On this topic, President Putin was clear: 'If you (Kosovo & Serbia) achieve a peaceful agreement, Russia will support it," he wrote on Twitter. The two Balkan countries are both pursuing normalization in hopes of furthering their bids to join the European Union. EU diplomats have said they must reach a binding agreement on sensitive issues such as their common border and whether Serbia will recognize Kosovo's independence, which it declared 10 years ago. This summer, Thaci and his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, both raised the possibility of redrawing their border in comments that alarmed some observers who feared it might revive the ethnic divisions that fed the 1990s Balkans war. Thaci said in a November 9 interview with the AFP news agency that any revised border with Serbia that comes out of the two neighbors' normalization talks will not be drawn along ethnic lines. The interview came a day after a short, tense meeting with Vucic in Brussels that was hosted by EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini. Serbia has never recognized the independence of its former province although more than 110 other countries have done so. Serbian ally Russia has for years blocked Kosovo's recognition at the United Nations. Kosovo's recent decision to create its own army has provoked anger from its own ethnic Serb minority as well as from Serbia. NATO, which currently leads the KFOR military force that ensures Kosovo's security, has also expressed reservations over the idea. Macedonian police have issued an arrest warrant for former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who has been convicted and sentenced to a two-year prison term on corruption-related charges. Interior Ministry spokesman Toni Angelovski said the warrant for Gruevski's arrest was issued November 12 following court instructions. Judges on November 9 rejected Gruevski's final appeal against his serving the sentence. The former leader of the conservative main opposition party VMRO-DPMNE was sentenced in May to two years in prison for unlawfully influencing Interior Ministry officials over the purchase of a luxury vehicle at an estimated cost of 600,000 euros ($674,500). Court clerks have tried in vain to locate Gruevski and personally serve him the order to present himself at the prison. Gruevski, 48, was prime minister from 2006-2016. He is the former leader of the main opposition conservative VMRO-DPMNE party, which claims he is being politically persecuted. He is still facing three other corruption trials, including over a major wiretapping scandal, and could be handed longer sentences than the one already given to him. With reporting by AP NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has cautioned the alliance's European members not to endanger the transatlantic defense bond, following an exchange between U.S. President Donald Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron. Trump had tweeted on November 9 that Macron's call for a "real European army" was "insulting" after the French leader spoke about the need for a European army and listed the United States along with Russia and China as a threat to European security. Without referring specifically to Macron's call for a European army, Stoltenberg said he welcomed stronger EU efforts on defense that could make NATO stronger. But he warned European members against duplicating NATO's activity and undermining the alliance's relationship with the United States. "More European efforts on defense is great but it should never undermine the strength of the transatlantic bond," Stoltenberg told a forum in Berlin. With reporting by AFP Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was displeased by the way he was treated during World War I centenary commemorations in France, Serbian media reported on November 12. At the November 11 Armistice ceremony in Paris, which brought together leaders from numerous countries, Kosovar President Hashim Thaci was behind the leaders of France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, while Vucic was placed in a separate stand on the opposite side. Serbian media quoted Vucic as saying , "You can imagine how I felt," and adding that he had "a lump in the throat." "I couldn't believe what I was seeing before me, knowing the sacrifice that the Serbian people made in World War I," he said. Historians say that Serbia suffered more losses as a proportion of its population in World War I than any other country embroiled in the conflict. French President Emmanuel Macron hosted his U.S. and Russian counterparts, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, among other leaders, at the ceremony marking 100 years since the end of the war. Tensions remain high between Serbia and Kosovo, two decades after a war between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian fighters. Kosovo's independence from Belgrade, unilaterally declared in 2008, is recognized by leading Western powers but not by Serbia. Macron visits Serbia next month, and Vucic promised a "grand" welcome for the French leader. With reporting by AFP President Klaus Iohannis has said Romania isn't ready to take over the European Union's rotating presidency in January and called for the country's prime minister to step down. "In my opinion, we are not prepared for that," Iohannis said in Bucharest on November 12. Viorica Dancila, a little-known politician from the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD), was appointed prime minister in January, and has since been criticized for being just a figurehead in a government that is actually run by PSD chief Liviu Dragnea, who can't become prime minister because of a conviction for vote-rigging. "Now it is necessary to replace this accident, the government of Dragnea-Dancila," Iohannis said. "There's no chance of a good government...or proper involvement in European affairs." Iohannis, who won the presidency on an opposition ticket, made the comments after EU Affairs Minister Victor Negrescu resigned last week amid turmoil in the government over preparations for the six-month EU presidency. Last month, EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova voiced concern about Romania potentially being incapable of managing the presidency. The PSD took power in early 2017 and began decriminalizing several corruption offenses in what some say is a campaign to save Dragnea from going to jail after he was condemned in a separate abuse-of-office case. Several large anticorruption protests have taken place in Romania, culminating with an August 10 demonstration in Bucharest, which resulted in some 450 protesters being injured by riot police. The EU on November 13 will issue its latest report on the judicial systems of Romania and Bulgaria. Romania joined the EU alongside Bulgaria in 2007. Both countries remain under Brussels' monitoring due to concerns over corruption and the rule of law. With reporting by AP and dpa DUSHANBE -- Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has criticized the country's security forces for their "failure" to prevent" the killing of four foreign cyclists in late July. The attack on a southern mountain road in late July had been prepared for "half a year" and the suspects had been on the police's list of potential terrorists, Rahmon said in Dushanbe on November 10. Despite that, nothing was done to prevent the attack, the Tajik president said during an event devoted to the Day of Police. "It was possible to prevent that horrific crime -- look how many gatherings they have held before the attack [and] how many illegal things they did before it -- but we have been negligent," Rahmon said. The four cyclists -- an American man and woman, a Dutchman, and a Swiss man -- were killed on July 29 when attackers plowed into their group on a road and then stabbed some of them. Two other foreign cyclists survived the attack, which occurred about 150 kilometers south of the Central Asian country's capital. Days later, Tajik police arrested the alleged ringleader of the group, Hussein Abdusamadov. The four other men suspected in the attack were killed during a police operation. Abdusamadov and 14 other Tajiks are currently on trial on suspicion of involvement in the attack. The extremist group Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack shortly after it occurred and released a video showing five men -- at least some of whom appeared to resemble those identified by Tajik officials as suspects killed in a confrontation with security forces -- pledging allegiance to the IS leader. The Tajik government, however, rejected the claim and instead blamed followers of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), a political party that was banned by Rahmon's government in 2015. The leadership of the IRPT -- which served for several years in the Tajik government -- has denied involvement and called the authorities' claims "shameless and illogical slander." ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Commuters in Russia's northern capital saw an unusual sight earlier this month when many subway cars were briefly decorated with posters depicting selected officials as part of a "Shameful Regiment." President Vladimir Putin, for instance, was featured in the protest -- which mimics the government propaganda campaign, Immortal Regiment, in which Russians are urged to march with photos of people who died in World War II -- with the caption "a liar who supported raising the retirement age" over his visage. Another poster featured St. Petersburg police General Sergei Umnov with the caption: "Gave the order for the brutal dispersal of Petersburg protesters on September 9, including women and children." It was a reference to the forcible dispersal of one of dozens of demonstrations across the country against a plan to raise the retirement age, resulting in at least 452 detentions in St. Petersburg alone. The posters, which quickly made the rounds on social media, were the handiwork of Agit Rossii, a relatively new political protest movement that aims to find new methods of political expression in the face of the authorities' stepped-up efforts to crack down on open opposition. "Our actions are a pretty natural reaction to the political environment created by the authorities," one Agit Rossii activist, who asked to be identified by the name Daniil, told RFE/RL. Over the last two years, Russia has been rocked by waves of protests against Putin's continued rule, generally, and, more specifically, against the government's decision to raise retirement ages. Thousands of people have been detained at such protests, often after being manhandled by police or government supporters, such as members of the SERB nationalist group or pseudo-Cossack formations. At the same time, state domination of the media means that ordinary Russians hear next to nothing about such events. 'Street Agitation' As a result, Agit Rossii founders have pledged to find new ways to take opposition political messages to new audiences and to contradict the image of national unity that the Putin government attempts to project. It uses the Soviet-era term "agitatsiya," meaning making efforts to increase political awareness and activity. "We think street agitation is very useful because it is targeted at people who don't normally attend opposition events or read their media," Daniil said, "but who basically get their information from the television. Through street agitation, these people can learn something new and can form doubts about the picture of the world that they usually see on television." It is an approach that Agit Rossii and like-minded activists have dubbed "actionism." Sympathetic members of the public are invited to amplify their protests by sharing photos on social media. On Agit Rossii's page on the VK social-media site, people are invited to print out the Shameful Regiment posters to carry out their own under-the-radar protests, such as stuffing them into mailboxes. In October, Agit Rossii marked Putin's birthday by unfurling a giant banner reading "Petersburg Against Putin" on a bridge across the Neva River. The group also protested earlier this month against a visit to the city by the staunchly pro-Kremlin television moderator Vladimir Solovyov. Agit Rossii member Pavel Ivankin was sentenced to 10 days in jail for purportedly refusing to obey a police officer in connection with that protest, during which the activists plastered Shameful Regiment posters of Solovyov all over the venue where he was scheduled to speak. "We are positioning ourselves as the distributors of opposition ideas and campaigning," Daniil explained. Another Agit Rossii activist, Grigory, told RFE/RL he has been encouraged by the generally positive reactions of people exposed to Agit Rossii's messages. "At such moments, it is nice to realize that our protest activity is not useless and that the opinions we express about certain individuals, officials, and the government generally coincide with the public's views," Grigory said. 'Cynicism And Fakery' Other, more established opposition groups have welcomed Agit Rossii's innovations. "If there are activities that attract the attention of the relatively apolitical parts of society, then that is very good," said Maria Lakhina, of the Vesna democratic movement. "People begin thinking. They start discussing the action itself and then move on to recognize the underlying problems. Actionism is very good and is needed to reach a mass audience." Andrei Pivovarov, chairman of the Open Russia movement, also praised actionism as a way for young people to be heard. "I think the appearance of such structures and large groups of young people who don't think of themselves as politicians is pretty natural," Pivovarov said. "It is the reaction of thinking people to what is happening in this country. Everyone wants to express themselves. Some arrange performances. Some organize roundtables. Some carry out direct-action protests. We can see that young people are revolting. They understand that we can't continue in this way and are turning to various forms of protest." Official efforts to dissuade public dissent in recent years have included the jailing of opposition leaders like Aleksei Navalny, tighter laws to restrict public gatherings, and prosecutions for disseminating or even "liking" social-media posts that stray from the government line. "It is youth's response to the cynicism and fakery that we see from the government," Pivovarov said of a possible actionism groundswell. "And I am sure that such actions of civil protest will become more and more common." In fact, the Shameful Regiment idea was not born in St. Petersburg, but rather thousands of kilometers away in the Far Eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. In August, local activists there marched with photographs of politicians who supported the reviled pension reform. In Perm on November 11, an effigy with Putin's face on it appeared on a central square with the word "liar" across its forehead and a sign calling him a "war criminal" on its chest. The happening was noted in a social-media post by the group Overheard In Perm that has been "liked" almost 2,500 times and shared 176 times. One person commented on the post, "I am afraid for those who did this." Another wrote, "The people are waking up." Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson based on reporting by Tatyana Voltskaya With Thanksgiving just around the corner, you may already feel the stress of having family over and planning a feast. You might not dodge that testy political conversation with your uncle, but you can relieve some anxiety by eating out instead of tackling a meal for many hungry mouths. Here are 15 restaurants around Chicago and the suburbs that are offering Thanksgiving meals sure to make you thankful. Jesus Perez Abarca sworn in as Cancuns Municipal Secretary of Traffic and Public Safety Cancun, Q.R. After an intense week in the municipal police department, Jesus Perez Abarca has officially been sworn in as the Secretary of Public Saftey for the municipality of Benito Juarez. With only one vote against Jesus Perez Abarca, members of city council along with the Secretary of State Public Security Alberta Capella and head of the federal police, Juan Manuel Ayala Guarro, voted in favor of the swearing in of Perez Abarca for the position. Perez Abarca said that he will be in charge of the municipal police under the coordination of the single command. The swearing in came after an intense week in the municipal police department in Cancun when officers forcefully removed Perez Abarca from the building after reacting to new internal adjustments inside the organization. Since then, a total of 19 municipal police officers have been handed restraining orders by the Public Prosecutors Office to prevent them from approaching the ratification of the Municipal Secretary of Traffic and Public Safety. The order is set to last for a period of 60 days while they are investigated for their alleged participation in the aggression against the commander after he was forcefully pushed out of his office. Man arrested in stabbing death in Playa del Carmen park Playa del Carmen, Q.R. New Information: Police have arrested a man for his alleged participation in the stabbing death of a foreigner from November 9. Armed with an arrest warrant, ministerial police have taken 28-year-old Hilario N into custody, accused of a murder that occurred in a park in Colosio. According to information from the Vice-Office of Riviera Maya, Hilario N, who goes by the street name El Chemo, is from the city of Chiapa of Corzo in the state of Chiapas. Through a statement, they said that agents detained Hilario N in the Villamar 1 subdivision with an arrest warrant issued by the State Attorney Generals Office. An unidentified source told Riviera Maya News that the deceased was not Canadian, but was 27-year-old Taylor Kristopher Meyer from Hermosa Beach, Los Angeles who was out celebrating a friends 30th birthday when the stabbing took place. Police have not confirmed this information. They have only said The consulate of the United States are conducting the corresponding procedures for the identification and transfer of the victim to his place of origin, who died as a result of knife injuries on November 9. During the early morning hours of November 9, an altercation in a park in the area of Colosio was reported with police responding. When they arrived, they found one deceased male with a stab wound to the chest. It was initially reported that the deceased male was of Canadian decent, however, officials reported that after locating his passport, his identity and nationality were corroborated that he was from California. Very little information has been released about the crime. Two cars burst into flames after Cancun driver tries to avoid check stop Cancun, Q.R. UPDATED: After attempting to evade a breathalyzer check stop on a Cancun street, the driver of a car ended up colliding with another which resulted in both bursting into flames. The accident was recorded by Emergency 911 at 2:20 a.m. at the junction of Luis Donaldo Colosio Boulevard and Kabah in Cancun. According to preliminary information, the driver of an Audi was traveling at excessive speed when he came upon the check stop. In an attempt to evade the stop, he collided with another vehicle. Both burst into flames. Four people were injured in the incident including a transit officer who was hit by the Audi. Emergency personnel arrived on scene to transfer the wounded to hospital. Photo: El Heroico Cuerpo de Bomberos de Cancun Members of the Cancun Fire Department arrived to put out the flames. In their report, the Directorate of Traffic said that the accident was recorded around 2:20 a.m. when the driver of an Audi, Mauricio G.R., 22, originally from Tamaulipas, did not keep his distance and collided with the rear of the other vehicle in an attempt to avoid the breathalyzer stop. The 22-year-old male driver was arrested and placed at the disposal of the Public Ministry. UPDATE: One of the injured in the accident has died from his injuries. Police say Javier Alberto V.P. suffered serious injuries and died Sunday afternoon in a private hospital. Two other people traveling in the same vehicle, his brother and a female friend, remain under medical care. UPDATE: A second person has died from injuries sustained in the fiery crash. Police report that on Tuesday, the 22-year-old passenger in the hit vehicle died. She has been identified only as R.N.M.N. Worlds largest cruise ship, Symphony of the Seas, docks Cozumel Cozumel, Q.R. The largest cruise ship in the world made its premier landing at Cozumel over the weekend where the ship and its passengers were welcomed by officials. Municipal President Pedro Joaquin welcomed passengers on Symphony of the Seas, the worlds largest cruise ship which is owned by Royal Caribbean International, after the massive vessel docked for the first time in the International Terminal SSA Mexico. On hand for the welcoming ceremony was director of the Tourist Promotion Council of Quintana Roo Dario Flota Ocampo and Alicia Ricalde Magana, general director of the Port Administration of Quintana Roo. During the ceremony, Cozumel mayor, Pedro Joaquin said that Cozumel endorses its leadership at the national and international level as a destination for cruises with infrastructure to receive thousands of passengers and crew members. We know of the tourist potential of Cozumel, to place it as one of the main destinations for cruises worldwide, therefore, we work in a coordinated manner with the federal and state governments in order to strengthen our port infrastructure, said the municipal president. He also affirmed that they maintain a close relationship with the executives of the main cruise companies that visit the island such as Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line, so that they continue to consider Cozumel in their itineraries. Photo: Ayuntamiento de Cozumel After a tour of the ship, Pedro Joaquin delivered a plaque to the Captain of Symphony of the Seas, Robert Hampstead, who thanked the municipal president for his hospitality. According to information from the Port Administration of Quintana Roo, between January to October, Cozumel has received nearly 3.5 million cruise ship passengers. After a day on the island, Symphony of the Seas moved on and set sail for the port of Nassau, Bahamas. The ship is 362 meters long with a maximum passenger capacity of 6,680 and crew of 2,200. Edgerton: Funnily enough, yes. The reason I opened the book in the first place was my childhood fear of institutions, of being locked up, of being taken away from my family. I remember kneeling by my bed as a child and praying that I would never ever have to go to prison. If I misbehaved, my father would sometimes joke that he could always exchange me with another kid, and that made me so upset. As for gay conversion, I had this morbid curiosity about it as this very different sort of prison. Imagine that the people who sent you to prison - the ones who are telling you that you're broken - are your own family. Now, he will take those same intentions to a larger room with a group show titled Last Night a DJ Saved My Soul. Part of Red Bulls month-long music festival in Chicago, the show is fully dedicated to the gospel house song. Although created by Red Bull, Farley was the true curator of the show, inviting a mix of friends and colleagues operating in the genre, including Ann Nesby from the Sounds of Blackness, DJ Pierre, and Bryon Stingily. And unlike a regular nightclub, this show begins during the day, ensuring folks of a variety of different ages and curfews can make an appearance and feel the spirit. I was ecstatic being a Christian, he said. I want to see more events like this happen where we show people its ok to party if youre a Christian. Elena Titova is the Director of the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum. The museum, which she heads, was founded fairly recently (less than 40 years ago), but it is one of the most popular and stylish museums of Moscow, famous, among other things, for its collection of jewelry: Rostov enamel, Baltic amber, silver and bronze articles and much more in the same strain. In her interview with Rough&Polished, Elena Titova talks about the museums jewelry collection, the history of its emergence and plans for the future, also sharing her thoughts on the jewelry art, its features and trends. How did the jewelry collection of your museum come to being? The jewelry collection of the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum has a remarkable fate. It is directly connected with the fate of the country, because the idea to establish a museum arose in the last quarter of the 20th century. Before that, there were several separate collections of Russian traditional art, art crafts, Russian style, including the collections belonging to such remarkable devotees as the Abramtsevo Coterie or Tenishev Project, as well as art objects made of wood, ceramics, glass and fabric... But they all existed separately. And when these collections started to be brought together, art experts discovered that this process was turning into an interesting work. And in the process, there emerged some lacunes, one of which was the Russian modern jewelry art. And I must say that it was gaining momentum by that time - in the form of authors or designers (as we can say it now) art. Yes, there were wonderful gold art works, there were good stones, but there was practically no artistic approach as such. That is, everything was made like batch-work at that time it was mass production of jewelry made of very high-quality gold or silver and high-quality stones. However, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, in fact, in the 1980s, the Russian Museum of Decorative Art began to form a collection of designer jewelry. These were art works made specially for contests held at all-USSR exhibitions. This field of jewelry making attracted a certain pool of artists, who were engaged in these activities only. Moreover, the notion of jewelry in that period meant not only adornments, but also art objects. That is, everything was in line with that plan, which modern jewelry art could follow to develop if there had been no such megalomania, production of everything in huge series, and so on. But this does not negate the merits of the jewelry industry in the Soviet period, right? That's quite right, because the fact that there was produced such a quantity of jewelry of such quality is also a very interesting phenomenon, by the way. A contemporary artist could, perhaps, embody this idea in the form of some kind of installation. And it would be easily qualified as a pieces of designer jewelry art. How many items are there in the museum collection - approximately? At present, the collection has its own value and is so to say closed in time covering the period between the 1970s and the 1990s. It contains about one hundred and fifty most different unique items. In some cases, these are not precious metals or stones. These are articles of small plastic arts, prototypes, designer techniques. And by function, these are objects of jewelry art, mainly from metal, ceramics, and silk (silk threads). This also comprises fine work with optical glass, which, incidentally, has the same refraction of light as diamond. And the artists in this area can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Today it is the older, outgoing generation, and at that time they were amazing talents, innovators pursuing the eternal search for the new while working with these materials... The galaxy of artists in the Soviet period was amazing, wasnt it? Yes, it was amazing. Well, I can say that the collection of jewelry art formed in the museum is unique in its capacity and the number of primary ideas contained in it. Already working in the museum, I was interested in what was happening, for example, in Germanys jewelry art market - I knew quite well about what was going on in Britains jewelry market even before that. And I was surprised to find that very many ideas and trends in the modern jewelry were manifested in our jewelry collection of the 1970-80s. Probably, it is not only such a phenomenon with the jewelry collection even in the absence of artistic contacts and connections between the Soviet Union and the Western world, artistic ideas nevertheless existed, originating simultaneously or penetrating by some mysterious ways so to say, lingering in the air. And from this point of view and from the point of view of making mastery, it was interesting to know the way it all had been done. In our collection of Russian style - the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries - there are wonderful items, which overlap different types of art using precious metals and raw stones. Very often this can be said about the Tenishev experiments. Are they in open access? Yes, you can see them, but as you know the major part of our museums collection stays always in the vaults, waiting for its time. Nevertheless, we managed to update the collection of Russian style since last November... The exhibition is outstanding, it is a high-level event. I am very pleased with your assessment. As for modern things, modern experiences and trends, I am simply dreaming about bringing this topic to the museum making it a venue for jewelry art reviews, conferences and presentations. I think this is very beautiful and important. There were reports in the media about your plans to turn the museum into a design center, making it more actual... Do you follow the latest design achievements of leading jewelry brands, such as Tiffany, Chopard or De Grisogono...? I cannot say that I systematically monitor them, but in any case, all that you are talking about including both Tiffany and Chopard means that we are struck with absolute surprise every year, amazing by its accuracy and novelty. As the head of an art museum and as a woman, what do you think about the current state of jewelry craft and art - in their mass or elite versions? Can you point out some areas that you are personally interested in? On a personal level, I single out Cartier for myself and really understand almost everything they do. That is, their trend is completely clear to me - why it is so, why twenty years ago Cartiers watches were like this, produced in line with the period, and why they are different now. I am pleased to observe the development of the Cartier brand, I think that they are very quietly keeping up with the times, simply following some very subtle inclinations, moods and trends. Do you visit domestic jewelry exhibitions - Russian Style or JUNWEX? I was at a very interesting presentation recently - this was the Sasonko Ballet Collection. And, of course, I am always pleased with the thematic play, be it the Shemyakin images or theatrical, ballet versions. But this, I think, is a separate trend in the jewelry art pertaining to art works and history. In Cartier, for example, there are no stories to read - there is just the elegance of shapes and lines. From time to time, the Kremlin Museums hold jewelry exhibitions of prominent brands - there were Tiffany and Cartier, including thematic collections of animals and insects - in general, it is classics... And have you spotted any new, completely avant-garde things in the jewelry field? If we talk about what I see at exhibitions telling about development trends, in my opinion, there is some kind of return to the past things. And everything that used to cause sheer amazement I mean things that were made, for example, for Asian consumers - today has become almost an aesthetic norm in jewelry reflecting pomp, variety in making and somewhat challenging beauty. Do you mean Indian things? Yes. Well, you mentioned the exhibitions in the Kremlin - there were treasures of the Maharajas and things of the leading European brands. That is, of course, not all that glitters is gold. There are phenomenal materials and imitations of materials that, nevertheless, follow the laws of jewelry art. And this taste of pomp, elegance, in my opinion, now prevails and attracts interest. Moreover, in this general mix of styles there can be a combination with any other style in clothes. And in my opinion, this is a sign of time. Currently, there are quite heated discussions going on about the development of synthetics, that is synthetic or lab-grown diamonds. There are the Swarovski crystals, there are the cubic zirconias ... And there is much talk around that these bright new stones, created not by nature, but by high technologies and human mind, are to edge out natural diamonds. Previously, De Beers used to control prices in the diamond market for many years and advertised the final product, although it was not engaged in jewelry. What do you think of this new threat? Well, since there are, nevertheless, identification methods and special equipment is being developed, I do not see a particular threat of replacing real stones with artificial ones. In my opinion, they should just go to two different markets. It is clear, that someone needs the authenticity of stones and someone needs their decorativeness. I traveled a lot and I believe that Cambodia and the South-East Asia are just those places where the presence of gems is logical, which is why a huge amount of artificial stones are coming to this market. They are pell-mell there, and there you can figure out what is what, but there are apparently groups of tourists or consumers who do not understand this. And sometimes it was very funny to hear them say that as recently as two months ago diamond mines had been discovered beyond a near mountain, and now here you are, you see these diamonds, literally fresh from the mines. And you know, people believe these tales. What is more important to you, the authenticity of stones or their beauty and design? To me, their authenticity is important. I belong to those to whom it matters, although I know people to whom it does not matter. It should be either artificial jewelry, also made by designers, wonderful, beautiful, but still better if it is real stones. Do you think real stones have their own magic? Yes, that's why I stand for them. For me, if real gems are replaced by artificial stones, its not the difference in value that sellers may cheat you out, but the very idea that you are to obtain along with a jewelry piece made from a genuine stone. Or just a gem, which, of course, has its own sacred meaning totally absent in artificial stones. Is there a gem that you consider your own special stone? Yes, my favorite stone is jade. This is a milky, green-blue exceptionally beautiful stone, which I love very much and wear almost all the time. And I feel its magic. Nowadays, people often remember and talk about Faberge saying that it is necessary to restore the former glory of Russian jewelry art. Do you think it is possible to restore it - and how? Do Russian jewelry designers have a chance to reach the level of, say, Faberge? You know, the school, of course, let's say, disappeared, as perhaps there has been a too long break in the teaching of this profession - skills, techniques and so on... But the modern time opens up other possibilities, other tools, some technological methods. And then, in my opinion, we have not fewer talented people, but only more ... Where did the tradition vanish? I believe the tradition has of course been severed. But in this case, I do not mean the artistic tradition, but the transfer of craftsmanship and craft skills. That is why, if we talk about the general style and ideas, then this style is not the only one of Faberge. And the companies that worked in parallel with him displayed amazing things, but unfortunately turned out to be too sensitive to all sorts of social troubles and our historical turmoil. At first, this fine art and jewelry craftsmanship simply physically suffered, then a little bit morally, because they became a sign of bourgeois way of life, and still later the remains of jewelry craftsmanship dissolved along with its owners and authors during the ups and downs and other military and dramatic events... Well, of course, the gap is wide enough. But once again, if we talk about a continuous tradition, it does not exist. Well, there was social status leveling ... In order for this art to develop, we need at least a middle class, a consumer, if not a high society. Because, after all, this is an expensive fine art and these craftmanship skill heights require their consumers, who are few. Well, the formation of middle-class is a special topic. In any case, for our family, for my husband [Boris Titov, a Russian politician and businessman, who is also the Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs Rights. - Ed.]. Of course, having a middle class solves all sorts of problems, both for industry and for art. Since it is the middle class, when it is developing, that stimulates and acquires objects of art. And in fact, both talents and skilled craftsmen are born in its environment bringing up excellent artists-entrepreneurs. The example of Faberge is very good an entrepreneur with a talent who not only found application but reached its peak. Therefore, yes to make all this simply be and demanded by people not as super-elite things, but as craftsmanship and craft, we need, besides aesthetic education, to explain that this is art, that these are not just signs of bourgeois way of life and so on ... This is a long educational process, which includes the emergence of interested creative youth. But here, of course, there are its own traps, because there were always signs of bourgeois way of life in jewelry and there is also the eternal question of how to treat them. In this country, the word "bourgeois" acquired such an accusatory connotation... However, the notion of middle class has an implication of respectability and stability, if not respect - in a good sense of these words. There is also a notion of upper middle class - these are people who have achieved a certain success in life, and all this - in other countries - connected with traditions. This is true. Traditions are maintained in peoples homes and art works there are kept with reverence. The emergence of a public class, which is the creator and simultaneously connoisseur of beauty, is a matter of time, of course, but not only... I lived in London for several years, and what is called the upper middle class is the environment in which many people become close friends. There, as far as I have noticed, they do not have this theme of owning any super-items of jewelry art. There is a theme of hereditary family jewelry, however not stored in some bank, but namely, those that can be worn as totems or family relics. I also know that a generation absolutely belligerent to the bourgeois way of life emerged in France in the 1980s, when wearing a simple ring or earrings was considered a manifestation of backwardness and inveterate bourgeois attitude. At the same time, this did not prevent the development of high jewelry brands in the same France or Britain. That is, there is something else. Here, of course, it is the recognition that jewelry is a high art, that it should be approached with a yardstick used for great paintings or sculptures. But the peculiarity of this high art lies in the fact that replication is allowed it is allowed a priori and even suggested. And this replication is not like what was produced by Soviet jewelry factories. This, again, is a product in the form of valuable limited editions. And the recognition that this is precisely such a product of art. That is, an artistic idea, artistic embodiment, author's editions or limited editions of jewelry art are perceived in complex as a product of jewelry art. Within the framework of festivals and exhibitions, this kind of art will always require its own space, its laws. That is, it seems to be very powerful in itself both ideologically and technologically... It possesses features that are very powerful. And this is not to mention the power of stones, which is certainly present. But not everyone feels it. Since we have a diamond theme, do you have any special, personal attitude towards diamonds as stones? I always admire diamonds. Beautiful diamonds give me a kind of "champagne" feeling inside. At the same time, I cannot say that I have a strong desire to possess them: it really gives me pleasure to look at beautiful stones at exhibitions - certainly, looking only at live stones (their pictures do not work in this regard). That is, its not about design or about how beautiful it is visually in a picture - its about the stones. But, for the sake of justice, I can say that some other stones also have a tremendous effect on me: sometimes I come across topazes (especially having a gold hue) and aquamarines that are so strange, bearing completely different shades. I once spoke with opera singer Elena Obraztsova, and she told me how one of her rich female fans in New York dragged her to a jewelry auction and asked if she liked this and that, and then bought everything and gave her a jar of jewels. And the fan was terribly offended when Elena Obraztsova tried to refuse. She had to take that jar and then she used to give all this to the pupils and young singers participating in singing contests. Its a beautiful story, isnt it? And Algis Zhuraitis gave her a stunning Faberge brooch... Do you have any story related to jewelry? You know, I spent my childhood with my parents in India - they worked there, - so for me the abundance of stones, both semi-precious and precious, is a memorable picture from childhood. My mother was always interested in jewelry - and before this opportunity emerged, she herself made jewelry, always loved large things, big stones. She still, may God bless her, wears some things with success, generously passing something to me and to her granddaughter. And the older these jewelry pieces are, the more significant they become. And they are all interesting in their diversity and connection with Eastern history, Indian bazaars... This does not prevent me from admiring the clean lines of Chopard or Cartier, but my childhood impressions, of course, leave an imprint. In general, jewelry is after all something that really forms and frames the old age and ennobles any signs of time. Galina Semyonova for Rough&Polished No more details have been released about the case. The last recorded rabies case in Britain was in 2012, when a British grandmother was bitten by her sons pet dog in India. Rabies does not circulate in either wild or domestic animals in the UK, but between 2000 and 2017 five UK residents became infected with rabies after animal exposures abroad. Public Health England (PHE) issued a warning to travelers. Rabies is a very serious viral infection that affects the brain and central nervous system. The incubation period between being infected and showing symptoms is between 3 and 12 weeks. Initial symptoms can include anxiety, headaches and fever. As the disease progresses, there may be hallucinations and respiratory failure. Spasms of the muscles used for swallowing make it difficult for the patient to drink. Once symptoms have developed, rabies is almost always fatal. Immunisation is a precaution people should take when travelling to countries where rabies is present. Health officials have insisted there is no risk to the wider public in relation to this case but, as a precautionary measure, health workers and close contacts are being assessed and offered vaccination when necessary. It's hard to know how Ailes, who was ousted in 2016 in a sexual harassment scandal and who died in 2017, would have handled Trump and Hannity's bond. When he was alive, Ailes gave Trump a platform as a birther conspirator on "Fox & Friends" but didn't like Trump as a political candidate, former associates say. Ailes did not want a single individual in the GOP to dictate Fox News' coverage; he wanted to run the GOP. Some former Fox News executives see the network's alignment with Trump, as well as its inability to control Hannity, as a sign of how Ailes managed to keep major stars in line. A new monitoring project involving UCLA researchers and partners aims to take "fake sushi" off Los Angeles diners' plates. The Los Angeles Seafood Monitoring Project team -- which includes university researchers, students, sushi restaurants and government regulators -- is working to reduce sushi fraud and the mislabeling of fish. Since April, scientists along with 80 UCLA students and several others at Loyola Marymount University and Cal State University, Los Angeles, have been purchasing small pieces of sushi -- each about the size of a kernel of corn -- monthly from 10 restaurants. Back in the laboratory, they extract DNA and analyze the fish. Each species of fish has a unique genetic sequence. The researchers and the students, who are enrolled in an introduction to marine biology course taught by lecturer Timery DeBoer, study the DNA to distinguish one fish species from another using a tool called DNA barcoding. The team's conclusion: "Sushi mislabeling is pervasive; intentional fraud is much less common," said Paul Barber, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior author of an article on the project published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. "If we can solve the mislabeling issues, then we can focus on the intentional fraud." Why is the sushi on your plate mislabeled? A primary factor is a discrepancy between federal Food and Drug Administration regulations and biological reality, said Barber, who cited this example: "Yellowtail has six species. The FDA says one can be called yellowtail and the five others have to be called amberjack," Barber said. "In Japan, each of these six species of yellowtail prepared by sushi chefs is sold under a different name. These fishes vary in taste and cost. In the U.S., the FDA says five of these have to be sold under just one name. This is the equivalent of saying we know there are Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans, Rolls-Royces, Jaguars and BMWs, but you can call those only Toyotas or BMWs. advertisement "It's actually impossible for sushi restaurants to correctly identify the fish they are serving for a number of species of fish using the limited FDA-recognized names," Barber said. Another example is red snapper. Often, what is sold is a fish called red sea bream, said lead author Demian Willette, who earned his doctorate from UCLA and is now an assistant professor of biology at Loyola Marymount University. The researchers are working with the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in Los Angeles, which manages the FDA's seafood guidelines that restaurants follow. They have already drafted recommendations for the labeling of yellowtail. Most fish eaten in the United States are not caught in this country and often are not processed here, either, making it difficult to trace their identities, said co-author Samantha Cheng, an Arizona State University assistant research professor in the life sciences, who earned her doctorate at UCLA under Barber. What's a seafood-loving diner to do? advertisement When Cheng orders sushi at restaurants, she asks which fish was used and where it originated. "I want restaurants to be aware that people care and I want them to make an effort to determine where it was fished," she said. "I take a lot of time at the sushi counter and grocery store and look up information about fish on my phone." "The best thing consumers can do is care and ask questions," Barber said. "That will trickle down the entire supply chain. If enough people start asking where the fish is from, the restaurants will ask that of their distributors, and the distributors will ask this of the fishermen. This will work only if the people who pay the bills demand accountability." The monitoring project began as part of a UCLA marine science course Barber taught in which Cheng and Willette were teaching assistants. "As scientists, we generate data and can share what we know, but we need the restaurant industry and regulators, and we learn from them," Willette said. "We can't solve this as scientists alone." The researchers are not identifying the restaurants, but some have chosen to identify themselves. One such restaurant is Sugarfish, which is now implementing suggestions from the project and whose menu identifies fish species' names based on DNA sequencing. The restaurant is co-owned by Jerry Greenberg, who is a co-author of the journal article. "Seafood mislabeling is a global issue, but by banding together, we can do something about it," Cheng said. "I'm excited to see how this partnership develops." Willette, Cheng, Barber and colleagues reported in a January 2017 study of the DNA of fish ordered at 26 Los Angeles sushi restaurants from 2012 through 2015 that 47 percent of sushi was mislabeled. Out of 43 orders of halibut and 32 orders of red snapper, DNA tests showed the researchers were served a different kind of fish 100 percent of the time. Previous studies detected similar problems nationally and internationally, Willette said. However, halibut bought at grocery stores and tested showed nearly 100 percent accuracy of the labeling, Willette said. "I believe this seafood monitoring project will work in reducing these mislabeling numbers and that when we're sampling a year from now, we'll see improvement," Willette said. He encourages more sushi restaurants to join the project. "Mom, I think this is you," Garcia says after some debate. She points to "The Kangaroo," the type of person who does everything to protect the patient, often taking over all aspects of his or her life. But Wanda says she identifies more with "The Dolphin," who "is helping someone with an eating disorder by gently nudging them along." Latest global estimates for the state of the world's health from the Global Burden of Disease study (GBD) estimate that: Improvements in global mortality rates were less pronounced overall, and rates stagnated or got worse in some countries in 2017. Globally, fertility rates have declined since 1950. In 91 nations, fertility rates are not high enough to maintain current population, and in 104 nations high fertility rates are driving population increases. Half of countries estimated to face shortfall in healthcare workforce -- with 47% of having fewer than 10 doctors to serve 10,000 people and 46% having fewer than 30 nurses or midwives to serve 10,000 people. Emerging adverse trends (such as conflict and terrorism, and the opioid crisis) could lead to negative shifts over time if action is not taken. Half of all global deaths were caused by just four risk factors in 2017 -- high blood pressure, smoking, high blood glucose, and high body mass index (BMI). Low back pain, headache disorders, and depressive disorders were the three leading causes of disability globally in 2017, and have prevailed as leading causes for nearly three decades. The latest global estimates for the state of the world's health from the Global Burden of Disease study (GBD), published in a special issue of The Lancet, highlight that global progress in health is not inevitable. This year's GBD study estimates that improvements in mortality rates for adults were less pronounced overall and stagnated or got worse in some countries in 2017. In addition, no countries are on-target to meet the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals to improve health by 2030. Total fertility rates, which represent the average number of children a woman delivers over her lifetime, have declined since 1950. In 2017, 91 countries (including Singapore, Spain, Portugal, Norway, South Korea, and Cyprus) had rates lower than two and were not maintaining their current population size, while 104 nations were seeing population increases due to their high fertility rates (total fertility rates above two). The lowest rate was in Cyprus, where, on average, a woman would give birth to one child throughout her life, as opposed to the highest, in Niger, with a total fertility rate of seven children. "These statistics represent both a 'baby boom' for some nations and a 'baby bust' for others," says Dr Christopher Murray, Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, USA. "The lower rates of women's fertility clearly reflect not only access to and availability of reproductive health services, but also many women choosing to delay or forgo giving birth, as well as having more opportunities for education and employment." Emerging adverse trends could lead to negative shifts over time if action is not taken -- for example, conflict and terrorism is an increasing threat to global health (with numbers of related deaths increasing by 118% between 2007-2017), and an era-defining epidemic of opioid dependence continues -- with more than 4 million new cases and around 110,000 deaths in 2017. In addition, half of all global deaths (51.5%, 28.8 million of 55.9 million deaths) were caused by just four preventable risk factors in 2017 (high blood pressure [10.4 million deaths], smoking [7.1 million deaths], high blood glucose [6.5 million deaths], and high body mass index [4.7 million deaths]), presenting a public health challenge and an opportunity for action. advertisement The GBD is the only annual, comprehensive, peer-reviewed assessment of global trends in health, providing global and national estimates for around 280 causes of death, 359 diseases and injuries, and 84 risk factors in 195 countries and territories worldwide. The study is coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, Seattle (USA), and involves more than 3,500 collaborators from across more than 140 countries and territories. The study is presented in 7 new papers in The Lancet, ranging from estimates of population and fertility, causes of death and disability, and measuring progress against the Sustainable Development Goals. Global disparities in number of health workers For the first time, the estimates include a global analysis of health worker density using surveys and census data on people's occupations. The authors note that the figures cannot estimate the quality of care, only the number of health workers available. Historically, in 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that there should be a minimum of 23 physicians, nurses, or midwives per 10,000 population. However, this estimate has not since been updated and the study authors expect that larger, more varied health workforces are needed to provide a broader range of services and achieve universal health care. Although no target was set, the United Nations pledged to increase the health workforce in developing countries in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.c.1. advertisement The authors estimate that having more than 30 physicians, 100 nurses or midwives, and 5 pharmacists for every 10,000 people in the population has diminishing returns for healthcare access and quality. Overall in 2017, the estimates suggest that only 41 out of 195 countries had more than 30 physicians per 10,000 population, while only 28 countries had more than 100 nurses or midwives. Almost half (47.2% -- 92 of 195 countries) of the countries included had fewer than 10 physicians per 10,000 people, while 46.2% (90/195 countries) had fewer than 30 nurses or midwives for every 10,000 people. Scoring countries on how well-resourced their health systems were from 0 (lowest) to 100 (highest), the authors scored 15 countries as 100 and one as 0. "The balance of physicians, nurses, midwives and pharmacists in a country's workforce underpins the types of care that are available to the population. While increasing the overall number of health workers will be important for many countries, it's vital that this growth ensures a varied workforce composition," says lead author Professor Rafael Lozano, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, USA. The authors note that the study does not include physicians and nurses by speciality, which may be important for understanding the workforce shortfalls for each country's varying burden of disease. In future, the GBD study will refine health worker estimates by using more recent occupational data. Global Burden of Disease 2017 -- other key findings Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) comprised the greatest fraction of deaths globally in 2017 (contributing 73.4% of total deaths, equivalent to approximately 41.1 million deaths). The total numbers of deaths from NCDs increased from 2007 to 2017 by 22.7% (from 33.5 million in 2007 to 41.1 million in 2017), representing an additional 7.6 million deaths in 2017. While the age-standardized death rate from NCDs decreased globally between 2007-2017 by 7.9%, this change was smaller in the most recent period -- slowing from a decrease of 7.8% between 2003-07 to a decrease of 2.1% for 2013-17. The largest numbers of deaths from NCDs were from cardiovascular diseases (17.8 million deaths), neoplasms (9.6 million deaths) and chronic respiratory diseases (3.9 million deaths). The prevalence of obesity continues to rise in almost every country in the world, with more than one million deaths estimated as being due to type 2 diabetes, almost half a million (426,300 deaths) deaths due to diabetes-related chronic kidney disease, and more than 180,000 deaths due to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)-related liver cancer and cirrhosis in 2017. Low back pain, headache disorders, and depressive disorders were the three leading causes of disability globally in 2017, and have prevailed as leading causes for nearly three decades, while diabetes has emerged as the fourth leading cause of disability globally. In 2017, there were 245.9 million new cases of low back pain, 995.4 million new cases of headache disorders, 258.2 million new cases of depressive disorders, and 22.9 million new cases of diabetes. "The world has seen several health success stories," Murray says. "Investments made in poor countries addressing prenatal care and water and sanitation problems clearly have made a significant difference in people's lives. Conversely, the combination of increasing metabolic risks and population ageing will continue driving problematic trends in non-communicable diseases. This represents both a challenge and opportunity, and highlights the value of the GBD study to inform good policy decisions and strategic health planning." Half of all global deaths (51.5%, 28.8 million of 55.9 million deaths) were caused by just four risk factors in 2017 -- high blood pressure, smoking, high blood glucose, and high body mass index (BMI). High blood pressure was the leading risk factor, accounting for 10.4 million deaths, followed by smoking (7.1 million deaths), high fasting plasma glucose (6.5 million deaths), and high body-mass index (4.7 million deaths). The burden of dengue fever has increased over time in most tropical and subtropical countries, with the number of deaths globally increasing by 65.5% between 2007 and 2017 (from 24,500 to 40,500 deaths) and the age-standardized mortality rate increasing by 40.7% (from 0.4 to 0.5 deaths per 100,000). In addition, there were an estimated 104.8 million new cases of dengue in 2017. The disease is a notable exception in the estimated improvements for communicable diseases and might reflect changes in the range of its primary vector, Aedes aegypti. Women have longer lives but live more years in poor health. At the global level, between 1950 and 2017, life expectancy increased from 48.1 years to 70.5 years for men, and from 52.9 years to 75.6 years for women. In 180 of 195 countries, women were expected to live longer than men in 2017, with extra years lived varying from 1.4 years in Algeria to 11.9 years in Ukraine. Of the extra years gained, the proportion spent in poor health varied considerably across countries. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, and Slovakia, less than 20% of additional years were spent in poor health, whereas in Bahrain all the extra years were spent in poor health. An accompanying editorial from The Lancet says: "GBD 2017 is disturbing. Not only do the amalgamated global figures show a worrying slowdown in progress but the more granular data unearths exactly how patchy progress has been. GBD 2017 is a reminder that, without vigilance and constant effort, progress can easily be reversed. But the GBD is also an encouragement to think differently in this time of crisis. By cataloguing inequalities in health-care delivery and patterns of disease geography, this iteration of the GBD presents an opportunity to move away from the generic application of UHC and towards a more tailored precision approach to UHC. GBD 2017 should be an electric shock, galvanising national governments and international agencies not only to redouble their efforts to avoid the imminent loss of hard-won gains but also to adopt a fresh approach to growing threats." Drawing from almost 200 scientific studies on workplace meetings, a team of psychological scientists provides recommendations for making the most out of meetings before they start, as they're happening, and after they've concluded. Their report is published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Meetings are a near-ubiquitous aspect of today's professional workplace and there is abundant trade wisdom and written guidance about how meetings should be run. But, as researchers Joseph Mroz and Joseph Allen (University of Nebraska Omaha) and Dana Verhoeven and Marissa Shuffler (Clemson University) point out, very little of this guidance is informed by the available science. "Meetings are generally bad, but meeting science shows us there are concrete ways we can improve them," says Allen. "Leaders can be more organized, start on time, and encourage a safe sharing environment. Attendees can come prepared, be on time, and participate." Science shows that, under the right circumstances, meetings can provide a place for creative thinking, problem solving, discussion, and idea generation. And yet, a large body of employee research suggests that most meetings are inefficient despite the organizational resources devoted to them, including time, wages, mental resources, and technology. Improving meetings isn't a trivial matter. According to the researchers' findings, employees average 6 hours per week in meetings, and managers spend an average of 23 hours in them. Studies suggest that employees' attitudes toward meetings can influence their overall attitudes toward work and their well-being. In their report, Mroz, Allen, Verhoeven, and Shuffler highlight the ingredients of good meetings, including how people can prepare for meeting success, how certain aspects of meetings can make or break them, and how what happens after a meeting can improve team outcomes. Before the Meeting Assess current needs : Meetings should involve problem solving, decision making, or substantive discussion. They should not be held to share routine or non-urgent information. : Meetings should involve problem solving, decision making, or substantive discussion. They should not be held to share routine or non-urgent information. Circulate an agenda: Having an agenda makes the meeting priorities clear to all stakeholders and allows attendees to prepare beforehand. Having an agenda makes the meeting priorities clear to all stakeholders and allows attendees to prepare beforehand. Invite the right people: Leaders should ask what the goal of the meeting is and whose expertise can help the team get there. During the Meeting Encourage contribution : Findings suggest that high-level performers use meetings to set goals, facilitate group understanding of work problems, and seek feedback. : Findings suggest that high-level performers use meetings to set goals, facilitate group understanding of work problems, and seek feedback. Make space for humor : Humor and laughter can stimulate positive meeting behaviors, encouraging participation and creative problem solving, research shows. These positive meeting behaviors predict team performance concurrently and two years later. : Humor and laughter can stimulate positive meeting behaviors, encouraging participation and creative problem solving, research shows. These positive meeting behaviors predict team performance concurrently and two years later. Redirect complaining : Attendees should be aware that complaining can quickly lead to feelings of futility and hopelessness, and leaders should quell complaining as quickly as they can. : Attendees should be aware that complaining can quickly lead to feelings of futility and hopelessness, and leaders should quell complaining as quickly as they can. Keep discussions focused: Leaders also make sure the purpose of the meeting and the agenda are followed. Leaders should be ready to identify dysfunctional behaviors and intervene to refocus the meeting. After the Meeting Share minutes : Sending meeting minutes serves as a record of the decisions that were made, a plan of action for next steps, and an outline of designated roles and responsibilities. This step also loops in people who weren't able to attend the meeting but need the information. : Sending meeting minutes serves as a record of the decisions that were made, a plan of action for next steps, and an outline of designated roles and responsibilities. This step also loops in people who weren't able to attend the meeting but need the information. Seek feedback : Feedback can inform the structure and content of future meetings. In particular, leaders can identify meeting problems to increase attendee satisfaction. : Feedback can inform the structure and content of future meetings. In particular, leaders can identify meeting problems to increase attendee satisfaction. Look ahead: To build on progress made during the meeting, stakeholders should think about future actions, follow-through, and immediate and long-term outcomes of the meeting. Mroz, Allen, Verhoeven, and Shuffler note that video, audio, and motion-tracking technology is allowing for better video and audio analysis of meetings. These improvements could help researchers analyze behaviors rather than attitudes and self-reports after the fact. They point out that "tele-meetings" and video conferences need more study, as they may present their own dynamics, advantages, or challenges. This material is based in part on work supported by Greenville Health System and the National Science Foundation (NSF; CAREER Award No. 165054 to M. L. Shuffler, principal investigator). A team of scientists has created the world's most powerful electromagnetic pulses in the terahertz range to control in fine detail how a data-storage material switches physical form. This discovery could help find a way to scale down memory devices, eventually revolutionizing how computers handle information. Compact discs might be falling out of fashion, but they may have inspired the next generation of computer nanotechnology. A glass layer in CDs consists of a phase-change material that can be encoded with information when light pulses cause crystals in small regions of the layer to either grow or melt. Phase-change materials triggered by electrical impulses -- rather than light -- would offer new memory technologies with more stable and faster operation than that possible in many current types of memory devices. In addition, downscaling memory sites in phase-change materials could increase memory density. But this remains challenging because of the difficulty of controlling the crystal growth -- crystallization -- and melting -- amorphization -- processes. Addressing this issue in an article in Physical Review Letters, a team of scientists led by Kyoto University observed nanometer-scale growth of individual crystals in a phase-change material composed of germanium, antimony and tellurium -- or GST -- after applying high-powered terahertz pulses as a trigger. "One reason crystallization and amorphization of GST under an electric field are difficult to control is the heat diffusion effects in the micrometer scale associated with electrical inputs, which also contribute to the crystallization," explains group leader Hideki Hirori. "Fortunately, terahertz technologies have matured to the point where we can use short pulses to generate strong electric fields while suppressing heating effects." Hirori and his coworkers developed a terahertz pulse generator that delivered ultra-short and highly intense terahertz pulses across a pair of gold antennas. These pulses created an electric field in the GST sample comparable to that of an electrically switched device. Importantly, this approach greatly reduced the heat diffusion because of the extremely short duration of terahertz pulses -- around 1 picosecond, or 10?12 s -- enabling fine control over the rate and direction of GST crystallization. A region of crystallization grew in a straight line between the gold antennas in the direction of the field, at a few nanometers per pulse. When the team tracked stepwise changes in crystallization while increasing the number of terahertz pulses, they were surprised to find that after a certain point, crystal conductivity rapidly sped up instead of rising in line with the increase in terahertz strength. The researchers hypothesize that electrons jumping between states in the crystal added an unexpected source of heat to the system, boosting crystallization. Hirori explains: "Our experiment reveals how nanoscale and direction-controlled growth of crystals in GST can be achieved. We also identified a phenomenon which should assist in the design of new devices and ultimately realize the fast and stable digital information handling potential that this material promises." Artificial intelligence (AI) tools trained to detect pneumonia on chest X-rays suffered significant decreases in performance when tested on data from outside health systems, according to a study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount and published in a special issue of PLOS Medicine on machine learning and health care. These findings suggest that artificial intelligence in the medical space must be carefully tested for performance across a wide range of populations; otherwise, the deep learning models may not perform as accurately as expected. As interest in the use of computer system frameworks called convolutional neural networks (CNN) to analyze medical imaging and provide a computer-aided diagnosis grows, recent studies have suggested that AI image classification may not generalize to new data as well as commonly portrayed. Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai assessed how AI models identified pneumonia in 158,000 chest X-rays across three medical institutions: the National Institutes of Health; The Mount Sinai Hospital; and Indiana University Hospital. Researchers chose to study the diagnosis of pneumonia on chest X-rays for its common occurrence, clinical significance, and prevalence in the research community. In three out of five comparisons, CNNs' performance in diagnosing diseases on X-rays from hospitals outside of its own network was significantly lower than on X-rays from the original health system. However, CNNs were able to detect the hospital system where an X-ray was acquired with a high-degree of accuracy, and cheated at their predictive task based on the prevalence of pneumonia at the training institution. Researchers found that the difficulty of using deep learning models in medicine is that they use a massive number of parameters, making it challenging to identify specific variables driving predictions, such as the types of CT scanners used at a hospital and the resolution quality of imaging. "Our findings should give pause to those considering rapid deployment of artificial intelligence platforms without rigorously assessing their performance in real-world clinical settings reflective of where they are being deployed," says senior author Eric Oermann, MD, Instructor in Neurosurgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "Deep learning models trained to perform medical diagnosis can generalize well, but this cannot be taken for granted since patient populations and imaging techniques differ significantly across institutions." "If CNN systems are to be used for medical diagnosis, they must be tailored to carefully consider clinical questions, tested for a variety of real-world scenarios, and carefully assessed to determine how they impact accurate diagnosis," says first author John Zech, a medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. This research builds on papers published earlier this year in the journals Radiology and Nature Medicine, which laid the framework for applying computer vision and deep learning techniques, including natural language processing algorithms, for identifying clinical concepts in radiology reports for CT scans. Metabarcoding, a technique of mass DNA sequencing, allows for tracing migratory routes of insects, an understudied subject due to technical limitations. A small DNA fragment of the pollen that insects transport is used as a barcode to identify the plant species they visited previously. This British Ecological Society-funded study shows that transcontinental pollination mediated by migrating insects is possible and, therefore, various plants located very far apart can mix. The migration of insects is a natural phenomenon as important as it is unknown. In fact, it has only been studied in depth in some emblematic species, such as the migratory locust and the monarch butterfly. The reasons, in short, are the technical limitations to study this behaviour. Now, in a study published in the journal Molecular Ecology Resources, researchers from Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (IBE: CSIC -- Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), have developed a technique that eludes these limitations and therefore allows to easily study the migratory movements of insects: the DNA metabarcoding analysis of the pollen transported by insects. By means of this technique, a small DNA fragment can identify the plant species to which the pollen belongs to, analogously to a barcode. By knowing the geographic distribution of the plant species detected, we can infer the place where the insect was feeding and, therefore, its migratory route. Previously, long-distance migrations were studied either by capture-mark-recapture experiments, or through telemetry using radio trackers. These two methods, however, have great disadvantages: the recapture rate of marked individuals is extremely low; as for telemetry, it is only feasible to track the largest insects over short distances, given the weight of the transmitters and their short battery life. advertisement Another method to study long-distance migrations involves analysing hydrogen or carbon isotopes present in organic tissues, because they provide information about where the insects were born. However, the resolution of isotope analyses is low and this method is only useful for insects that migrate on very large distances. Tell me what flowers you have visited, and I'll tell you where you are from When insects feed on the flowers, pollen is deposited on their bodies and can be transported over long distances. Taxonomical classification of the pollen grains using optical and electron microscopy, however, is often impossible at species level. In addition, it requires a great investment of time and having specialized knowledge in taxonomy, which is why this is an unsuitable tool for large-scale studies. However, as explained by Roger Vila, one of the authors of the study and principal investigator at IBE, "the development of next-generation sequencing technologies has made it possible to massively sequence the genetic material present in a sample of pollen from various individuals." This is the metabarcoding technique, in which the species are identified from a small region of the DNA that performs a function analogous to that of a barcode. advertisement The researchers used the metabarcoding technique to study the pollen from 47 specimens of migrating painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui), which have been captured on the Spanish Mediterranean coast during spring. The objective was to test if the sequences obtained were from endemic African plant species and to shed light on the migratory circuits of these butterflies. The analysis revealed pollen of 157 species of plants of 23 different orders; the vast majority were, indeed, African and not present in Europe. The painted lady has recently been shown to be the butterfly species that performs the longest migrations in the world, traveling every year between tropical Africa and Europe (back and forth, crossing the Sahara desert) in successive generations, although the precise routes are still unknown. Transcontinental pollination The results of this study represent an important discovery from the point of view of the plants, because it demonstrates, for the first time that the transcontinental pollination by migratory insects is possible. It is a phenomenon to be taken into account both in wild and in cultivated plants because it enables plants from very distant locations to mix. "We hope that the technique opens a new line of research that helps to clarify which insects migrate, which routes they follow and when, as we still do not know much about the impact of insect migration for ecosystems and the transmission of diseases," says Gerard Talavera, co-author of the article, researcher at IBE and National Geographic Explorer. The project was funded by the National Geographic Society, the British Ecological Society, the European Community and the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades. Editor's Note: The above text is based on a Spanish Research Council (CSIC) press release. The appearance of dunes and beaches might soon be changing due to the increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, already a significant factor in the ongoing phenomena of climate change. The findings are the result of a study coordinated by the Institute for the Study of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environments of the National Research Council (CNR-IAS) of Oristano, carried out in collaboration with Ca' Foscari University of Venice. The research, published in the journal Climatic Change, analyzed the chain reaction of effects on the marine environment triggered by the rise in CO2, estimating that from now to 2100 the accumulation of sediment at the base of the Mediterranean dune systems could fall by 31%, with erosion of beaches and an increased risk of flooding. The case study analyzed by the researchers was the Bay of San Giovanni, along the Sinis peninsula in Sardinia. "Far from the mouths of rivers, dune-beach systems can be formed, either wholly or partially, by carbonate sediment produced by marine ecosystems, for example the underwater grasslands of Posidonia oceanica," explains Simone Simeone, CNR-las researcher and coordinator of the study. "These sediments may be dissolved by the increasing acidity of the seas; according to recent studies, by the end of the century the marine pH may have fallen by 0.4 units. What is causing the acidification of the oceans, as is widely known, the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere." The research has revealed that the effects of this phenomenon can distort the sedimentary balance of a beach-dune system. "We have found that a significant quantity of the sediment forming the beach-dune system is made up of the remains of organisms which are vulnerable to the effects of acidification. A decrease in pH could significantly affect the prevalence of these organisms in marine ecosystems and consequently reduce carbonate sediment," adds Simeone. However, even submerged sediments would be at risk. "We are dealing with the 'foundations' of the beach-dune system, the sedimentary balance of which might be disrupted. Some beaches that are progressively growing or stable environments might turn into eroding environments. Furthermore, this research demonstrates that the effect of acidification on the beach-dune system, combined with the expected rise in sea level, will result in further withdrawal of the shore line as well as an increase in the adverse effects of floods," concludes Emanuela Molinaroli, professor of geomorphology and sedimentology for the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics of Ca ' Foscari. The tools -- mainly blades and backed knives from the Howiesons Poort -- were found in various layers in the Klipdrift Shelter, in the southern Cape in South Africa. They were examined by a group of lithic experts, who found distinct similarities to tools from sites in South Africa's Western Cape, over 300km away, in particular with the Diepkloof Rock Shelter site. "While regional specificities in the tools from the various sites exist, the similarities of Klipdrift Shelter with the site of Diepkloof Rock Shelter are astonishing," says Dr Katja Douze, the corresponding author of the study that was published in PLOS ONE on November 7. Douze is a researcher at the laboratory of Archaeology and Populations in Africa at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Douze was a post-doctoral fellow at the Center of Excellence in Palaeosciences at the Evolutionary Studies Institute, at University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), at the time of the study. She led the analysis together with Dr Anne Delagnes, Research Director at the French National Center for Research (CNRS) and director of the laboratory PACEA, at the University of Bordeaux, and with Dr Sarah Wurz, Associate professor at the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand and also associated with the DST/NRF SARChI Chair in The Origins of Modern Human Behaviour and the SapienCE -- Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SFF CoE). The team, under the leadership of Professor Christopher Henshilwood from Wits University and the University of Bergen's SapienCE Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour, examined thousands of stone tools that were excavated from seven layers that represent a time period of between 66,000 years ago and 59,000 years ago, to establish the differences in stone tool design over time. They then also compared the stone tools to various other sites in Howiesons Poort. "The site of Klipdfrift Shelter is one of the few containing a long archaeological sequence that provides data on cultural changes over time during the Howiesons Poort," says Douze. "This makes it perfect to study the change in culture over time." However, what was even more exciting for the researchers was the fact that for the first time they could show closely networked interaction between distant communities through the way they designed stone tools. "There was an almost perfect match between the tools from the Klipdrift and Diepkloof shelters," says Douze. "This shows us that there was regular interaction between these two communities." "This is the first time that we can draw such a parallel between different sites based on robust sets of data, and show that there was mobility between the two sites. This is unique for the Middle Stone Age," says Douze. advertisement The Middle Stone Age in Africa stretches from 350,000 years ago to 25,000 years ago and is a key period for understanding the development of the first Homo sapiens, their behavioral changes through time and their movements in-and-out of Africa. Named after Howieson's Poort Shelter archeological site near Grahamstown in South Africa, the Howiesons Poort is a specific techno-culture within the Middle Stone Age that evolves in southern Africa after 100,000 years ago at the Diepkloof Shelter, but between 66,000 -- 59,000 years at most other Howiesons Poort sites. The characteristics of the Howiesons Poort are strongly distinctive from other Middle Stone Age industries as it is characterised by the production of small blades and backed tools, used as hunting armatures as much as for cutting flesh, while other MSA industries show flake, large blade and point productions. The tools found in the deeper layers of the Klipdrift Shelter that represent the earlier phases of the Howiesons Poort were found to be made from heat-treated silcrete, while those from later phases were made from less homogeneous rocks such as quartz and quartzite. This change happens together with changes in tool production strategies. "The changes over time seems to reflect cultural changes, rather than immediate alterations forced on the designers by changes in climate," says Douze. "Our preconceived idea of prehistoric groups is that they just struggled to survive, but in fact they were very adaptable to environmental circumstances. There seem to be no synchrony between modification in design choices and environmental changes. However, the aridification of the area over time might have led to a very gradual change that led to the end of the Howiesons Poort." The team also attempted to establish why and how the Howiesons Poort ended, and to see whether it came to a sudden, or gradual end. "The decline of the Howiesons Poort at Klipdrift Shelter shows a gradual and complex pattern of changes, from which the first "symptoms" can be observed much earlier than the final abandonment of typical Howiesons Poort technology and toolkits," says Douze. "This does not support a catastrophic scenario involving alarming demographic drops or massive population replacements. The fact that a similar pattern of gradual change has been described for at least three other southern African Howiesons Poort sites (Rose Cottage Cave, Diepkloof Rock Shelter and Klasies River main site), further ascertains convergent evolutions in cultural trajectories rather than isolated groups promptly reacting to locally determined pressures." A high-tech form of brain surgery that replaces scalpels with sound waves improved quality of life for people with Parkinson's disease that has resisted other forms of treatment, a new study has found. Further, the University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers conclude their study offers "comprehensive evidence of safety" in terms of the approach's effect on mood, behavior and cognitive ability, areas largely neglected in previous research. "In our initial study that looked at the outcomes of focused ultrasound surgery in Parkinson's disease, we primarily described post-operative improvements in motor symptoms, specifically tremor," said Scott Sperling, PsyD, a clinical neuropsychologist at UVA. "In this study, we extended these initial results and showed that focused ultrasound thalamotomy is not only safe from a cognitive and mood perspective, but that patients who underwent surgery realized significant and sustained benefits in terms of functional disability and overall quality of life." Focused Ultrasound and Parkinson's Disease Focused ultrasound, as the procedure is known, has already been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of essential tremor, the most common movement disorder. That approval came after a pioneering international study led by UVA neurosurgeon Jeff Elias, MD. He and his colleagues have since demonstrated the technology's potential in reducing tremor in people with drug-resistant Parkinson's disease. The goal is to use focused sound waves to interrupt the faulty brain circuits responsible for the uncontrollable shaking associated with the disease. The new study looked at the effects on 27 adults, all with severe Parkinson's tremor that had not responded to previous treatment. The study participants were initially divided into two groups. Twenty received the procedure, while seven received a fake procedure, to serve as a control group. (The seven in the control group were later offered the opportunity to receive the real procedure, and all but one did.) After receiving the procedure, study participants reported improved quality of life at both three months and 12 months. "After surgery, patients experienced significant improvements in multiple aspects of quality of life, including their ability to perform simple daily tasks, emotional well-being and the sense of stigma they experienced due to their tremor," Sperling said. "Our results suggest that post-operative improvements in tremor lead to very meaningful improvements in day-to-day functioning and, subsequently, to better overall quality of life." advertisement The Effects on Mood and Memory The study was notable for its in-depth examination of the psychological and cognitive effects of the procedure, areas that have received relatively little attention in previous research. The researchers found that mood and cognition, and the ability to go about daily life, ultimately had more effect on participants' assessment of their overall quality of life than did their tremor severity or the amount of tremor improvement seen after the procedure. "A person's perception of their quality of life is shaped in many different ways," Sperling said. "Mood and behavioral symptoms, such as depression, anxiety and apathy, often have a greater impact on quality of life than the measurable severity of one's tremor." The only cognitive declines seen in participants followed through the study were in how quickly they were able to name colors and think of and speak words. The cause of this was unclear, though the researchers suggested this could be a result of the natural progression of Parkinson's. (Focused ultrasound is being tested to address the tremor associated with the disease, not its other symptoms.) The researchers noted that their study was limited by its small size and the fact that participants' medication dosing varied, among other factors. To become available as a treatment for medication-resistant Parkinson's, the approach would need approval from the FDA. UVA's new research is an important step in that process. A new study has established that excessive use of social media, in particular the posting of images and selfies, is associated with a subsequent increase in narcissism. Published in The Open Psychology Journal, researchers from Swansea University and Milan University studied personality changes of 74 individuals aged 18 to 34 over a four-month period. They also assessed the participants' usage of social media -- including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat -- during that same period. Narcissism is a personality characteristic that can involve grandiose exhibitionism, beliefs relating to entitlement, and exploiting others. Those who used social media excessively, through visual postings, displayed an average 25% increase in such narcissistic traits over the four months of the study. This increase took many of these participants above the clinical cut-off for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, according to the measurement scale used. advertisement The study also found that those who primarily used social media for verbal postings, such as Twitter, did not show these effects. However, for this group of people, their initial levels of narcissism predicted a growth in this form of social media usage over time. The more narcissistic they were to begin with, the more verbal postings they made later. All but one of the people in the study used social media, and their average use was about three hours a day, excluding usage for work, but some reported using social media for as much as eight hours a day for non-work related purposes. Facebook was used by 60% of the sample, 25% used Instagram, and 13% used Twitter and Snapchat each. Over two thirds of the participants primarily used social media for posting images. Professor Phil Reed from the Department of Psychology at Swansea University and who led the study, said: "There have been suggestions of links between narcissism and the use of visual postings on social media, such as Facebook, but, until this study, it was not known if narcissists use this form of social media more, or whether using such platforms is associated with the subsequent growth in narcissism. advertisement "The results of this study suggest that both occur, but show that posting selfies can increase narcissism. "Taking our sample as representative of the population, which there is no reason to doubt, this means that about 20% of people may be at risk of developing such narcissistic traits associated with their excessive visual social media use. "That the predominant usage of social media for the participants was visual, mainly through Facebook, suggests the growth of this personality problem could be seen increasingly more often, unless we recognise the dangers in this form of communication." Professor Roberto Truzoli from Milan University added: "The use of visual social media may emphasise the perception of narcissistic individuals that they are the main focus of attention. "The lack of immediate 'direct' social censure, may offer them the opportunity to inflict aspects of their narcissistic personality, present themselves in a grandiose manner, and realise fantasies of omnipotence." A new study from The Australian National University (ANU) has revealed new insights into ancient fishing throughout history, including what type of fish people were regularly eating as part of their diet. The study looked at fish bones unearthed in an archaeological dig on the Indonesian island of Alor -- home to the world's oldest fish-hooks ever found in a human burial site, dating back to about 12,000 years. Lead archaeologist Dr Sofia Samper Carro of the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology said on the study identified a shift in fishing behaviours about 7,000 years ago. "People on Alor people were fishing for open water species about 20,000 years ago, then about 7,000 years ago they started to fish exclusively for reef dwelling species," she said. Dr Samper Carro said a similar pattern was identified on the nearby island of Timor, indicating that the change in behaviour was due to environmental circumstances. "It seems to be due to changes in sea levels and environmental conditions, although human-induced changes cannot be ruled out," she said. advertisement The results were made possible through the use of an analysis method traditionally used in biology to identify fish habitat in archaeological material. Dr Samper Carro said she was forced to experiment with a new approach due to the difficulty in determining the difference between the very similar looking bones of the area's 2,000 known species of fish. "This study is the first time researchers have been able to reliably determine fish habitat using vertebra through this method, and represents a significant step forward in being able to track human behaviour throughout history," Dr Samper Carro said. "Most of the bones you find in archaeological sites are vertebra, which are very complicated to identify to species and all look very similar. "If we don't know the species, we don't know their habitat. "In Indonesia you have more than 2,000 species of fish, so to be able to know which bones belong to which species you would need 2,000 species of fish in your comparative collection. "I spent probably five months trying to match each fish vertebra to a species and I think I got through 100 out of 9,000 bones, so I needed to find another method." Dr Samper Carro instead turned to geometric morphometrics, a process that looks at slight differences in size and shape of physical objects. Using more than 20,000 digital images and plotting 31 points on each bone, she was able to digitally identify the likely habitat from each vertebra. These so-called PCSK9 inhibitors known commercially as Praluent (alirocumab) and Repatha (evolocumab) were approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2015 and 2017, respectively. They have proved highly effective in driving LDL cholesterol numbers down in several groups of patients at high risk of having first or repeat heart attacks or strokes. And they worked to reduce the risk of such events in difficult-to-treat patients: those with familial high cholesterol (about 600,000 Americans), those for whom statins caused intolerable side effects such as extreme muscle aches or rises in blood sugar (between 5% and 20% of those who take them), and those for whom statins have had a marginal effect. Many high-altitude seekers rely on Diamox, a popular prescription drug that "stimulates breathing and raises your oxygen level," says Peter Hackett of Telluride, Colo., an emergency medicine physician, altitude sickness expert and experienced mountaineer. Yes, you'll urinate more often, carbonated drinks may taste odd and your toes and fingers will tingle, he explains, but those are temporary and harmless side effects. While the body usually needs two to four days to adjust to high altitudes, "Diamox does the same thing in about eight hours, speeding the natural process," says Hackett, noting that the drug works for 85 to 90 percent of people. We must never forget his attack on sanctuary cities such as Chicago that try to shield immigrants from unfair deportation. We cannot ignore the brutal lengths he went to make sure that Trumps cruel policies were carried out. We must remember that he tried to pull federal funding from cities that refused to help federal authorities round up immigrants, ban transgender people from the military and make it harder for people to exercise their legal rights. Millennials might be buying cars but sharing them more often, or they may have cars they use on weekends only and therefore invest less in it, because theyre going to use ride-share during the week, said Jillson. The place the vehicle is in the mindset of younger consumers is shifting because they are being offered more opportunities and more options. City Attorney Dennis Herrera said he sent an unprecedented letter to the Department of Justice Monday questioning the legality of President Trumps appointment of Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. Whitaker served as the chief of staff to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who resigned last week at President Trumps request. At issue is that Whitaker was never confirmed by the Senate, and his appointment may not be in line with the Constitution, Herrera said. The appointment could also impact the four San Francisco court cases pending against Sessions, Herrera said. Ive been in office for 17 years. There hasnt been the need to do this until now, Herrera said in a statement. The office is seeking legal justification for the appointment, otherwise San Francisco may be forced to move the court to obtain additional guidance, the letter said. The cases pending against Sessions: One questioning the legality of Trumps executive order targeting sanctuary cities; two about conditions on public safety grants that the Trump administration tried to use to deny law enforcement funding to sanctuary jurisdictions like San Francisco; and a fourth about the rescission of six significant civil rights documents that outlined certain protections for populations such as people of color and those with disabilities. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment Monday. The American people need to have faith that the head of their Justice Department lawfully holds the job, Herrera said in a statement. No Cabinet position demands more scrupulous fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law than the Attorney General. Trisha Thadani Little change in vote totals: The leaders in the five San Francisco Board of Supervisors races remained the same Monday as the Department of Elections made its way through 23,000 more ballots during the holiday. The results are based on Mondays tally under San Franciscos ranked-choice system, which allows voters to designate their second and third choices. The department still has 56,000 ballots left to count. Here is where each district election stood as of Monday evening: District Two: Current Supervisor Catherine Stefani leads with 53 percent of the vote to BART Director Nick Josefowitzs 47 percent. There were 1,697 votes between them. District Four: Longtime labor activist Gordon Mar held a wide lead over Jessica Ho, who conceded Thursday. Mar received 57 percent of the vote to Hos 43 percent. They were separated by 2,758 votes. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. District Six: Matt Haney, a school board member, had 5,474 votes more than his opponent, Christine Johnson, a former planning commissioner. Haney captured 64 percent of the vote, compared with Johnson, who received 36 percent. District Eight: Current Supervisor Rafael Mandelman had 92 percent of the vote. District 10: Shamann Walton, former school board president, held 63 percent of the vote over Tony Kellys 37 percent. There were 4,509 votes separating them. The Department of Elections is unsure when it will finish counting the ballots. But by law, it must complete the count by Dec. 6, which is 30 days after the election. Trisha Thadani Email: cityinsider@sfchronicle.com, tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SFCityInsider @TrishaThadani Gavin Newsoms election as governor has set off a gold rush among his political friends, allies and advisers in the lobbying world. San Francisco-based Lighthouse Public Affairs is already beefing up its Sacramento lobbying office. One of Lighthouses founding partners is Rich Peterson, a longtime Newsom supporter who chaired the finance committee for both of Newsoms mayoral campaigns. Word is Jason Kinney, a longtime member of Newsoms inner circle and a Sacramento lobbyist at the the prominent California Strategies firm founded by Gov. Pete Wilsons chief of staff, Bob White will soon strike out on his own. Nothing has been decided, Kinney said, adding he planned to do whatever I can to be helpful to Newsom. And I dont know what it is going to require at this point. Former Newsom mayoral press secretary Nathan Ballard, who operates a public relations firm in San Francisco, said he expects to have an expanded footprint in Sacramento, as well. Everyone is smart to get in there if you have some connection, Ballard said. Tony Winnicker another former Newsom press secretary and adviser to tech titan Ron Conway, could also land in the mix of conduits to the new governor. Meanwhile, SCN Strategies, the political consulting firm that ran both Newsoms races for lieutenant governor and governor as well as the races of Gov. Jerry Brown and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris is about to undergo some big changes. Partners Ace Smith and Sean Clegg are becoming increasingly busy as Harris ascends the national stage for a possible presidential run. Meanwhile, partner Dan Newman plans to go his own way, though were told he will likely have some role in Newsoms political orbit. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. But Chris Gruwell, a longtime San Francisco lobbyist formerly affiliated with Darius Andersons Platinum Partners, urged caution to anyone thinking they can waltz into Sacramento and start selling their access to the new governor. Any friends who think they can sell influence over Gavin dont know him very well, he said. San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross Mass transit may be good for the environment and traffic relief, but every single Golden Gate Bridge district bus ride between the North Bay and San Francisco requires a nearly $20 public subsidy. And the bridge districts buses arent the only ones running on the public dime. In fact, $1.85 billion in toll and taxpayer dollars were spent to keep the regions top bus, rail and ferry systems operating last year, according to number crunchers at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The Bay Area voter has certainly been generous over many years and has passed tax measures to fund public transit, said MTC spokesman Randy Rentschler. The highest subsidy per ride is the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation Districts bus service, in which passengers pay $5.20 for a ride from Sausalito to downtown San Francisco that actually costs the district $24.68. To keep the buses running, the district pumps $59 million a year in sales taxes and bridge tolls into the operation. Thats an annual subsidy of $5,632 for each of the transit agencys 10,491 weekday riders. On the Peninsula, SamTrans bus service gets a $12.85-per-ride subsidy, which works out to $2,536 a year for every weekday rider. Riders on the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authoritys light-rail system pay less than $1 for what is really a $12.26 ride. Other subsidies range from the Contra Costa County Connection, at $7.26 a ride, to AC Transit, at $6.87 per ride. San Franciscos Munis tax subsidy works out to $2.86 per ride. BART, Caltrain and bay ferries get subsides as well, but riders still pay most of the costs. For example, Golden Gate Ferry riders pay, on average, $8.82 for what is really a $13.07 ride across the Bay. BART riders pay $4.26 for a $5.55 ride from suburban Lafayette to Powell Street in downtown San Francisco. In general, dense urban mass transit where ridership is higher is much more cost-efficient than in the suburbs, where buses often roll near empty outside the morning and evening commute hours. Its plain and simple, Rentschler said. The Bay Areas postwar suburbs were built for cars not public transit. One factor contributing to the high cost of light rail in the South Bay is the cost of maintaining the tracks and trains, Valley Transportation Authority spokeswoma Brandi Childress said. Childress said VTA has one of the highest pay structures for bus and light-rail operators in the Bay Area. Our operators are the third-highest paid out of 234 agencies in the country, she said. Mechanics are the second-highest paid out of 207 agencies. There is some good news in all this. Golden Gate district spokeswoman Priya Clemens estimated the subsidized bus and ferry service cut down vehicle traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge by 20 percent during rush hour. Thats a big intentional benefit to commuters, Clemens said. Janie Har / Associated Press Cashing in: Gavin Newsoms election as governor has set off a gold rush among his political friends, allies and advisers in the lobbying world. Lighthouse Public Affairs of San Francisco is already beefing up its Sacramento lobbying office. One of Lighthouses founding partners is Rich Peterson, a longtime Newsom supporter who chaired the finance committee for both of Newsoms mayoral campaigns. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Word is Jason Kinney, a longtime member of Newsoms inner circle and a Sacramento lobbyist at the the prominent California Strategies firm founded by Gov. Pete Wilsons chief of staff, Bob White will soon strike out on his own. Nothing has been decided, Kinney said, adding he plans to do whatever I can to be helpful to Newsom. And I dont know what it is going to require at this point. Former Newsom mayoral press secretary Nathan Ballard, who operates a public relations firm in San Francisco, said he expects to have an expanded footprint in Sacramento, as well. Everyone is smart to get in there if you have some connection, Ballard said. Tony Winnicker, another former Newsom press secretary and adviser to tech titan Ron Conway, could also land in the mix of conduits to the new governor. Meanwhile, SCN Strategies, the political consulting firm that ran Newsoms races for both governor and lieutenant governor as well as the races of Gov. Jerry Brown and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris is about to undergo some big changes. Partners Ace Smith and Sean Clegg are becoming increasingly busy as Harris ascends the national stage for a possible presidential run. Meanwhile, partner Dan Newman plans to go his own way, though were told he will partner have some role in Newsoms political orbit. But Chris Gruwell, a longtime San Francisco lobbyist formerly affiliated with Darius Andersons Platinum Partners, urged caution to anyone thinking he or she can waltz into Sacramento and start selling access to the new governor. Any friends who think they can sell influence over Gavin dont know him very well, he said. San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross Buffy Wicks hit the ground running. Instead of paying the $1,000 fee to put her name on the ballot for Junes primary election, Wicks formally announced her campaign for Assembly District 15, which extends from north of Richmond into Oakland, by choosing the other option available to candidates: submitting 1,000 signatures. Wicks, a first-time candidate for public office, submitted 1,300. Gathering the signatures was her way of testing the waters to see if the organization skills she honed while working on presidential campaigns would translate to a local race. Wicks ground game, which included door-to-door canvassing and recruiting volunteers and donors through house parties, wasnt as visible as the onslaught of daily campaign mailers stuffed into mailboxes or as raucous as the heated posts and comments on social media apps such as Nextdoor. But it was the key to winning the race she entered with less name recognition than the early favorites: Oakland City Councilman Dan Kalb and Richmond City Councilwoman Jovanka Beckles. She brought a really sophisticated experience running campaigns, Ted Lempert, a lecturer on California politics at UC Berkeley, said of Wicks. Wicks defeated Beckles, a fellow Democrat, 56 percent to 44 percent. Wicks, the field director for President Barack Obamas successful 2008 campaign to become the first black president in the country, beat Beckles, a member of the Richmond Progressive Alliance, at the alliances own game: grassroots organizing. Ive been doing this for other people my whole career, Wicks told me Friday afternoon. I just basically applied a lot of the things that I know from organizing. You have to start early, and you have to be consistent every single day. I followed Wicks on a Sunday afternoon in early October. She started with a speech in front of a house on McKinley Avenue in Berkeley, her hands clasped in front of her as she spoke. Its a pose she does so often that her daughter, 1-year-old Josephine, mimicked her as she stood beside her mother. That weekend Wicks and her volunteers knocked on more than 4,000 doors in the district. Wicks said volunteers knocked on a total of 114,000 during the campaign. It actually is you, one woman said after opening the door to see Wicks. One man told her he was voting for Beckles. Mind if I give you my pitch as well? Wicks responded. When nobody answered her knocks, she left flyers that had handwritten Post-it Notes with her phone number stuck on them. She said a few hundred people had called. If you give your number out, you gotta return their calls, she said. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. After the door knocking, Wicks went to a house party in Montclair. It was the 209th of the campaign but hardly the last. The total was 239. There were less than a dozen people at the Montclair one. One woman arrived late wearing a Beto hat, a reference to Beto ORourke, a rising national Democrat who lost his U.S. Senate bid in Texas. Wicks gave her typical stump speech. She lived in a trailer as she grew up in the foothills of California before attending community college. After college, she moved to the Bay Area to organize rallies against the Iraq War. Her opposition to the war led to politics and to work on Howard Deans campaign in 2004. She later worked for Obama, and she was on the White House team that got the Affordable Care Act passed. In 2015, she returned to California to manage Hillary Clintons campaign in the state. Supporters of Beckles, a committed progressive, argued that Wicks was an interloper who was too moderate to be an effective representative of the left-leaning district. When I brought the argument up to Lempert, a former assemblyman who represented San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, he laughed. Only in that district is Buffy Wicks considered not progressive, he said. Theres no question she was viewed as the more moderate candidate in the race, but in the scheme of things her records pretty progressive. When asked what Wicks should do once she takes office, Lempert said she should go door-to-door in the Capitol just like you go door-to-door in the district. Wicks has already hit the ground running. On Thursday, she attended a lunchtime caucus meeting in Sacramento, and on Friday she was back in the states Capitol for new member training. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr Elevated smoke levels as a result of the 111,000-acre Camp Fire pushed air quality to dangerous levels in some parts of Butte County, officials said. Conditions ranged from unhealthy for sensitive groups those with heart and lung conditions to very unhealthy across the area. James Wagoner, an air pollution control officer with the Butte County Air Quality Management District, said even those levels were an improvement over the past few days because the high winds had pushed some of the smoke out of the area. Its kind of a double-edged sword, he said. The winds developed from the north improve air quality but increase fire danger substantially. The agency released an advisory Sunday noting that children, the elderly, pregnant women, smokers and those with respiratory conditions could experience more severe symptoms from exposure to the air. The Camp Fire, which ignited Thursday morning, swelled in size in part because of heavy north-northeast winds that caused the blaze to expand in a southern direction. If the winds settle down, Wagoner said, that can cause smoke to hang over the valley areas in the county, worsening air quality. Residents in Paradise and surrounding communities hoping for a reprieve could be seen donning N95 respiratory masks to filter out the harmful pollution in air as ash blanketed the streets. The Butte County Department of Public Health distributed thousands of masks to evacuees filling the jam-packed shelters as well as a homeless shelter at the Jesus Center in Chico. Lisa Almaguer, a spokeswoman for the public health department, said other communities had offered resources to help as well. The Mariposa County Health Department offered industrial-grade air-scrubbers to nursing homes and facilities in Butte County, which can clarify the air in indoor spaces, and the Lions Club of Redding donated thousands of masks to the Salvation Army to distribute. Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California Almaguer stressed that residents should stay inside, keep windows and doors closed, and refrain from activities that can stir up air pollution in the home, such as vacuuming. For those opting for a mask, it must be the right size and seal completely around the nose and mouth to be effective. Wagoner said it would be difficult to predict how air quality could change or improve during the week, but the fire impacts more than just the county. This is a very dynamic situation affecting air quality across the whole north state, not just Butte County. Ashley McBride is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ashley.mcbride@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ashleynmcb It happened again. The Camp Fire in Butte County surged to the top of the Californian record books as the deadliest and most destructive blaze in state history this past weekend, following a recent trend of record-setting infernos in just the last two years. As of the latest count, the Camp Fire is responsible for 29 deaths and incinerating more than 6,700 buildings and homes. Those totals are expected to climb. Fires in California are getting larger and deadlier, experts said, as human-caused global warming and years of drought have dried out the states vegetation. Notable infernos like the Tubbs, Carr and Mendocino Complex fires repeatedly appear on the states Department of Fire and Forestry Protection lists for largest disasters. Suppression costs have steadily increased as well over the last two decades, and Cal Fire officials project that the agency spent a staggering $773 million fighting fires during the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Below are the top 10 fires in California history based on fatalities, structures destroyed and acres burned: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle Most Deadly Wildfires 1. Camp Fire (2018) - 29 as of Nov. 11, 2018 2. Griffith Park Fire (1933) - 29 3. Tunnel Fire (1991) - 25 4. Tubbs Fire (2017) - 22 5. Cedar Fire (2003) - 15 6. Rattlesnake Fire (1953) - 15 7. Loop Fire (1966) - 12 8. Hauser Creek (1943) - 11 9. Inaja (1956) - 11 10. Iron Alps Complex (2008) - 10 Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Most Destructive Wildfires by Structures Burned 1. Camp Fire (2018) - 6,713 2. Tubbs Fire (2017) - 5,636 3. Tunnel Fire (1991) - 2,900 4. Cedar Fire (2003) - 2,820 5. Valley Fire (2015) - 1,955 6. Witch Fire (2007) - 1,650 7. Carr Fire (2018) - 1,604 8. Nuns Fire (2017) - 1,355 9. Thomas Fire (2017) - 1,063 10. Old Fire (2003) - 1,003 NOAH BERGER / AFP/Getty Images Largest Wildfires by Acres 1. Mendocino Complex Fire (2018) - 459,123 2. Thomas Fire (2017) - 281,893 3. Cedar Fire (2003) - 273,246 4. Rush Fire (2012) - 271.911 in California, 43,666 in Nevada 5. Rim Fire (2013) - 257,314 6. Zaca Fire (2007) - 240,207 7. Carr Fire (2018) - 229,651 8. Matilija (1932) - 220,000 9. Witch Creek Fire (2007) - 197,990 10. Klamath Theater Complex (2008) - 192,038 Below are more details on 10 of the worst fires in California history: Noah Berger / Associated Press Camp Fire, 2018 (Butte County) As of Monday morning, the California Department of Fire and Forestry Protection, or Cal Fire, reported 29 people killed, 113,000 acres burned and 6,713 structures destroyed in the now-deadliest fire in state history. On Monday, 4,555 fire personnel were battling the conflagration near Chico, and the blaze is expected to be fully contained by Nov. 30. Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Tubbs Fire, 2017 (Napa and Sonoma counties) The deadly Tubbs Fire was the most destructive in state history until the Camp Fire roared to life on Thursday, killing 22 and burning 26,807 acres in North Bay. It began Oct. 8, 2017 in Calistoga and leveled entire neighborhoods in Santa Rosa, destroying 5,636 structures. BRANT WARD / SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Tunnel Fire, 1991 (Alameda County) Flames spread over five square miles in the Oakland Hills after embers reignited from an almost-extinguished brush fire the day prior. The Tunnel Fire burned approximately 2,900 structures and killed 25 people, according to Cal Fire. Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California Paul H. Nilson / Imperial Valley Press / Associated Press Cedar Fire, 2003 (San Diego County) A lost deer hunter started one of the largest and deadliest conflagrations in state history, which killed 15 people and burned down 2,820 buildings. It held the state record for largest wildfire at 273,246 acres until the Thomas Fire a decade later. Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Valley Fire, 2015 (Lake County) In 2015, the Valley Fire became one of the most damaging fires on state record, burning 1,955 structures and 197,990 acres. Four people died as the blaze ravaged the towns of Cobb and Middletown in Lake County, according to Cal Fire. Noah Berger / Associated Press Carr Fire, 2018 (Trinity and Shasta counties) Firefighters spent almost six weeks in July and August trying to put out the Carr Fire, which was sparked by a broken-down trailor near Redding. The blaze went on to burn 1,604 buildings and 229,651 acres. The fires bizarre behavior, including the most intense fire tornado in state history, killed seven, including a firefighter. Noah Berger / Associated Press Thomas Fire, 2017 (Ventura and Santa Barbara counties) The 281,893-acre Thomas Fire ended 2017 as the largest wildfire in Californian history, but it topped half a year later by the Mendocino Complex fires. One fleeing civilian and a firefighter died during the blaze, which also destroyed 1,063 structures in the coastal communities. Noah Berger / Associated Press Mendocino Complex, 2018 (Colusa, Glenn, Lake and Mendocino counties) While the Mendocino Complex made up the Ranch and River fires doesnt land on the states top 20 list for most destructive wildfires, it still stands as the largest fire in state history at 459,123 acres burned. Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images Witch Creek Fire, 2007 (San Diego County) A decade ago, two people died in the 197,990-acre blaze in Southern California, which started with sparks from a San Diego Gas & Electric power line. Approximately 1,650 structures burned down. Peter DaSilva / Special to The Chronicle Nuns Fire, 2017 (Sonoma County) Gusts up to 45 mph spurred on the Nuns Fire in Sonoma County to kill three and raze 1,355 structures. A fallen tree combusted after coming into contact with an energized power line, Cal Fire investigators said. Solis was described by his family as a hard worker, the breadwinner and a family man with an infectious smile. He enjoyed taking his sons Omar, 19, and Brian, 16, on outings to the batting cages. He would sometimes overcook dinner on the grill and then order pizza instead something his family liked to tease him about. Brian Solis had a birthday since his father died, and started the day with a visit to his gravesite. WASHINGTON President Trump, who toured Southern states after deadly hurricanes in recent months, has not scheduled a visit to California as the state battles deadly fires. But he did issue a declaration late Monday clearing the way for federal aid to flow to fire victims. The White House announced that Trump had approved a declaration of a major disaster for Butte County, devastated by the Camp Fire, and for Ventura and Los Angeles counties. The declaration makes fire victims eligible for grants for home repairs and temporary housing, and for low-cost loans to pay for property losses that insurance doesnt cover. It also clears the way for state and local governments to get federal emergency assistance. The White House did not respond to a question about whether Trump would come to California as the state endured a fifth day of wildfires, other than saying it had no scheduling announcements to make. Trump provoked a sharp reaction in California over the weekend when he tweeted that poor forest management was to blame for wildfires such as the Camp Fire in Butte County, which has claimed 42 lives, and the Woolsey Fire in Malibu that has killed two people. He also repeated a vague threat he has made in the past to withhold unspecified federal funding without changes. A spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown labeled the tweet inane, and the head of the states largest firefighters association called it an uninformed political threat aimed squarely at the innocent victims of these cataclysmic fires. The federal government owns 57 percent of forestland in California, while the state and local agencies own just 3 percent. Experts also pointed out that forest management is just one of many factors that can play a role in disastrous wildfires. Trumps follow-up tweets later Saturday and Monday were more traditional in tone for a president responding to disasters. The California Fire Fighters, FEMA and First Responders are amazing and very brave. Thank you and God Bless you all! Trump tweeted Monday. Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California Trump has visited California once as president, in March, to view prototypes of his still-unfunded border wall. He did not come to the state after the 2017 North Bay fires killed 41 people. The president has been quick to visit the locations of other disasters and tragedies. Last month, he went to Pittsburgh to pay his respects to victims of an anti-Semitic shooting at a synagogue, and he traveled to Florida and Georgia after they were hard hit by Hurricane Michael. In September, Trump visited the Carolinas in the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Florence. He also visited Puerto Rico, Florida, Louisiana and Texas after deadly hurricanes last year. Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicle Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter @talkopan At 1 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 11, 1918, San Francisco held one of the greatest celebrations in its history. Shouting and singing, an army of men and women flowed up and down Market Street, waving flags and banging on drums. Tens of thousands massed in public places to attend religious services and hear dignitaries give patriotic speeches. Exuberant drivers careened through the streets, honking their horns and dragging tin cans. The bash didnt run out of steam until well into the next night. The event that prompted this vast celebration and brought the city to a standstill: the armistice that ended World War I. The Great War, as it was called, was the most brutal conflict in human history to that point. In four-plus years, an estimated 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians were killed. It was optimistically labeled the war to end all wars, perhaps an attempt at justifying the appalling slaughter. Yet in just 21 years, a rabble-rousing nationalist vowing to make Germany great again would hurl the world into an even bloodier conflict. San Francisco, like other American cities, was deeply affected by the Great War. The U.S. was in the conflict for just a year and a half, and didnt actually fight in major battles until early 1918. But in that short time, 116,000 U.S. soldiers died twice as many as in the Vietnam War and 200,000 were wounded. Hundreds of San Franciscans were among the casualties. As word of the impending armistice spread, crowds gathered near City Hall. At 1 a.m., it was 11 a.m. in France the hour and place set for the armistice signing. What followed was no ordinary civic celebration. At 2 a.m., with the Civic Auditorium filled as it was never filled before, a womans voice was heard, asking for a prayer for the dead. Off came hats and ten thousand heads were bowed in the instant, The Chronicle reported. Silence cut clean across pandemonium a silence without a voice for human ears. Then the city of 500,000 people let loose. Crowds filled Market Street all day long and into the next night. Stores and shops were closed. The great purpose to join in the joy of it all swept away all other purposes. Men and women walked the streets, signing, shouting, waving flags and ringing bells, The Chronicle reported. Employees crowded onto company trucks and took their part in the never-ending joy of victory over the unspeakable Hun. Union members paraded up and down Market, including 1,000 members of the Piledrivers and Warehousemens union and their band. There was never a moment when there was not some parade on Market as confetti rained down. Included in the throngs were people of varied national origin Italians, Serbs, Britons and French all marching under the flags of their native lands. The downtown hotels were filled with people singing patriotic songs. The one that drew the wildest cheers was Over There, with its chorus, We won't come back til its over, Over there. Trivia time The previous trivia question: Where was the first indoor swimming pool in San Francisco? Answer: The Lurline Baths at Bush and Larkin. Saltwater was piped there from Ocean Beach. This week's trivia question: What loud nighttime noises assaulted dwellers on eastern side of Telegraph Hill until 1993? Editor's note Every corner in San Francisco has an astonishing story to tell. Gary Kamiya's Portals of the Past tells those lost stories, using a specific location to illuminate San Francisco's extraordinary history - from the days when giant mammoths wandered through what is now North Beach to the Gold Rush delirium, the dot-com madness and beyond. His column appears every other Saturday, alternating with Peter Hartlaub's OurSF. See More Collapse After 2 a.m., the throng left Civic Center and headed down Market to the Ferry Building. Mayor James Rolph, with a soldier on one arm and a sailor on the other, was supposed to be at the head of the procession but was swept up into the center. The municipal band was also supposed to be at the front, but in the frenzy marched off with the North Beach contingent. Unlike the World War II peace riots that resulted in death and destruction, these celebrations were overwhelmingly peaceful. The police had virtually nothing to do. One or two infractions of the peace were noted in the din. The belligerent in one received, modestly, the earned congratulations of the policemen, read a less-than-objective piece in The Chronicle. It happened in the alley skirting the Tivoli. Thither repaired two persons, one of which, with that incapacity of the German to understand psychology, had made a remark casting no credit upon American arms. The argument of persuasion was brief and to the point of the chin. They took the skeptical one to the Emergency Hospital to ponder on the consequences of Teutonic maladresse. More from the Archive The Vault Home of the San Francisco Chronicle's archive and more than 150 years of journalism covering the Bay Area and beyond. After the celebration ended, news of San Franciscans who had been killed in the war continued to trickle in. There was Mike Sutter, a hotel cook who had shipped out to Europe in July. There was Cpl. Chauncey Frank, who had gone to Lick Wilmerding and Lowell High and was on the first train of San Francisco contingents who were sent to basic training in September 1917. He was killed in France, as was Cpl. Harry Dawson, who worked for the Municipal Railway. For San Francisco, fall 1918 was a fraught time. The city had to deal not only with the death of its boys over there, but with a devastating epidemic that was killing even more of its citizens at home. The great Spanish flu epidemic had just struck the city. On Oct. 9, 169 cases were reported; one week later there were 2,000. Before the epidemic ran its course, 45,000 San Franciscans would fall ill and 3,000 would die. By happy coincidence, just as the fighting ceased, the epidemic eased. On Tuesday, Nov. 12, The Chronicle reported that only 15 new cases had been reported Monday, compared with 81 on Sunday. On Nov. 21, the city declared the epidemic over. It was premature the disease flared up again in January with 600 new cases but the worst of the crisis had passed. Six months after the armistice, on Memorial Day in 1919, a 15-acre plot in Golden Gate Park hidden away near 10th Avenue and Fulton, called Heroes Grove, was dedicated to the memory of the American troops who were killed in the Great War. Thirteen years later, an 18-ton granite boulder, purchased by the San Francisco Chapter 1 of the Gold Star Mothers of America, was unveiled there. One of the lesser-known monuments in the city, it is inscribed with the names of the 761 San Franciscans 748 men and 13 women who gave their lives in the war that was supposed to end all wars, but didnt. Gary Kamiya is the author of the best-selling book Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco, awarded the Northern California Book Award in creative nonfiction. All the material in Portals of the Past is original for The San Francisco Chronicle. To read earlier Portals of the Past, go to sfchronicle.com/portals. For more features from 150 years of The Chronicles archives, go to sfchronicle.com/vault. Email: metro@sfchronicle.com Palo Alto Police Department Palo Alto firefighters rescued an arson suspect from a fire he is thought to have started Saturday evening, and officers say the 37-year-old is responsible for setting two fires within 50 minutes of one another. Menlo Park resident Osvaldo Madrigal was arrested on suspicion of two counts of felony arson, misdemeanor trespassing and a felony probation violation, according to Palo Alto police. He was being held without bond at the Santa Clara County main jail in San Jose. Having altered or attacked Americas protections for refugees and undocumented immigrants, President Trump found a new target: asylum seekers. On Friday, Trump signed a proclamation denying asylum to immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally through the southern border with Mexico. Under federal law, immigrants are allowed to request asylum whether they enter the country illegally or present themselves at ports of entry. The Trump administrations rule changes would prevent those who enter the country illegally from making an asylum claim, placing them in expedited deportation proceedings instead. It first began considering the move before the midterm elections. Our asylum system is overwhelmed with too many meritless asylum claims from aliens who place a tremendous burden on our resources, preventing us from being able to expeditiously grant asylum to those who truly deserve it, said acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in a joint statement. These claims are cruel and baseless. The way for our government to learn if an asylum claim has merit is for the asylum seeker to ... go through the onerous process of seeking asylum. And though the rule change was aimed at the caravan of families from Central America moving slowly toward the U.S. border, it has enormous implications for asylum seekers of all kinds. The United States rules for asylum seekers were developed in cooperation with the United Nations and are protected by federal law. If Trumps administration is allowed to change the rules for one group of asylum-seekers, it may try to do that for all of them. As often happens with Trumps reckless executive decisions, this one was almost immediately met with a legal challenge. Hours after Trump signed the proclamation, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit arguing that the new rules are against the law. Consistent with its international obligations, Congress was specific and clear: Entering without inspection is not a basis to categorically deny asylum to refugees, the ACLU said in its legal filing. The court needs to act quickly and remind the Trump administration that it must follow existing national law. Denying an entire category of people their rights under asylum also has enormous implications for the U.S.s fast-eroding position as the worlds champion of tolerance and human rights. Once a beacon for people seeking to escape crushing poverty and repressive governments, the Trump administration is now saying the country wont help those in need. Its a pathetic and petty statement from a nation that once understood the value of human rights and generosity. This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters. After the cheer, they sat down and began a deeper conversation about how they are sometimes doubted and discouraged because of their gender and ethnicities; how they feel forced to educate their peers and adults about Eurocentric views of history; and how they worry about leaving the warm and diverse confines of their high school and entering more homogenous, less welcoming college environments. They spoke one by one, without hesitation. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors tilted a bit more to the left after Tuesdays election. How much that shift will impact its approach to issues such as homelessness and the housing crisis will reveal itself as the dynamics of the new group take shape. On top of that, dealing with a board with a progressive majority could be dicey for Mayor London Breed, as she tries to carry out key parts of her agenda before her run for re-election in 2019, political observers say. Three candidates likely to join the board after last weeks final results are tallied Gordon Mar in District Four, Matt Haney in District Six and Shamann Walton in District 10 are all largely considered to be progressives. During the campaign, each said he would push for high levels of affordable housing and supported Proposition C, which set taxes on big businesses to raise money for homeless services. It received overwhelming support from voters but probably faces legal challenges. Mar, who has long worked as a neighborhood and labor activist, helped lead a group that pushed for free tuition at City College and worked to raise the citys minimum wage to $15. His campaign also received staunch support from labor unions. Walton is the executive director of the Young Community Developers, a nonprofit that provides job training and develops affordable housing. On the school board, Haney led initiatives to build future affordable housing for teachers and helped plan a school to be built in Mission Bay. But political analysts and some of the current supervisors are having a hard time neatly defining Walton for his wide range of endorsements spanning the political spectrum from Sen. Scott Wiener to various labor groups to the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council. The same fingerprinting problem goes for Haney for some of his campaign platforms, including his desire to increase pressure on police officers to arrest more drug dealers in the Tenderloin. Add them to current Supervisor Rafael Mandelman who is considered progressive on some issues, but is also is spearheading legislation with Breed to expand the citys conservatorship laws and the board will have a mash-up of members who could act as swing votes. While having so many swing votes could lead to a sense of unpredictability, Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University, said it could also lead to a more cooperative board thats willing to compromise with one another. It will be up to them (the board) on an issue-by-issue basis to decide where they want to govern, McDaniel said. It becomes more about alliances and coalition building. ... If you think of it in terms of left versus right, it gets very, very confusing. The blurry political lines are different from earlier iterations of the board, when Chris Daly, John Avalos, Tom Ammiano and David Campos wore their progressive labels proudly. But now, ask nearly any current supervisor what they consider themselves progressive or moderate? and theyll likely as not duck the answer. Walton and Haney did the same during the campaign, too. I feel like its overblown, Mandelman said. I havent really felt that divide, said Supervisor Ahsha Safai, considered a moderate, but who said he doesnt embrace political labels. At the end of the night, my job is to work with all of my colleagues, said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, a progressive. Not everyone fits into convenient buckets. Both District Five Supervisor Vallie Brown and District Twos Catherine Stefani who will probably win the seat for a full term are also considered part of the moderate faction because of their backgrounds and policy stances. On the progressive side are Supervisors Sandra Lee Fewer, Norman Yee and Hillary Ronen. David Latterman, a political consultant, doesnt buy the idea that the progressive and moderate labels have been diluted. He said the divides will really show during the budget season, a time when the supervisors sometimes quarrel over where exactly the money should go. Its not exactly what it was in the early 2000s when you had self-defined progressives and a movement and a cause, and they all ran together, he said. But the fact remains that you have six to eight progressive-leaning board members, maybe a few swing voters who will be there sometimes, and sometimes not. There are certain issues, however, where the progressive-majority board will use its weight. Up first is electing a new president, the person with the power to fast-track legislation and make committee assignments. Given the new board, that person will probably be someone who leans left. Supervisor Hillary Ronen, vividly progressive, said she is gunning for the job. Based on their campaign rhetoric, Haney and Walton will probably demand the highest rate of affordable housing possible in new development projects in SoMa and Bayview-Hunters-Point. Another issue will be the Twitter tax break, which lured tech companies to the city with a payroll tax break in 2011 and has been cited by some as a reason for the San Franciscos soaring housing prices and traffic problems. Its set to expire next year, but the board could renew it. With a progressive-majority board, there is a less than zero chance that that would go anywhere, political analyst Jim Stearns said. That thing is deader than dead. It remains to be seen how a progressive-majority board will work with Breed. The outcome of the races put into question how many allies Breed will have on the 11-member board when it comes to fulfilling key parts of her agenda, such as building more Navigation Centers and adding homeless services in parts of the city aside from the Tenderloin, the Mission and Bayview-Hunters Point. But the fact that the candidates who are likely to win didnt run on an anti-Breed platform is perhaps a sign that she will be able to forge connections on the board, McDaniel said. Itll be harder for Breed to govern on the agenda she campaigned on, McDaniel said. But there is space for Mayor Breed to find areas of governance. ... Itll be up to the mayor to see if she can forge allies. Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani Red paper poppies dotted the sidewalks at Sundays Veterans Day Parade at Fishermans Wharf, tucked into the ponytails of young girls and handed to anybody who wanted one. The flowers, which gained popularity as a symbol of honor for fallen soldiers after the first World War, are traditionally worn on Memorial Day. They took on a special meaning for this years parade, which coincided with the centennial of the end of the Great War. They used to be on Market Street all the time, said San Francisco native Pat Murphy, who attended the parade with her children and grandchildren. When I was a young woman working downtown, you always bought one. More for you Veterans Day events listings The festivities have become a tradition for Murphy and many others who marched or came to show support. This years parade came with a mini history lesson for some families and hazardous air for all. Some parade attendees even a marcher or two wore masks to protect them from the Camp Fire smoke that coated the Bay Area this weekend. The tradition is personal for Murphy, whose family includes a long line of military service members. Her husband was in the Air Force and Navy, her sons were in the Air Force and Navy, and her father was in the Army a World War II veteran. This was her second year bringing her grandchildren to the parade. We should honor the veterans, she said, holding a poppy. After all, thats why were here. Marie Schutzendorf and her three children outfitted themselves for the occasion, with Schutzendorf in an American flag sweater. They waved red, white and blue pom-poms and held signs for the veterans that marched past: Home of the free because of the brave and thank you veterans. Theres no military in her family, but Schutzendorf makes it a point to come every year to show gratitude. Its just important for them to know, Schutzendorf said, motioning to her kids. There was some World War I history coming their way that evening, she said. Veterans in the parade marched alongside bands and color guards from local high schools and San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who waved from a vintage Lincoln. The procession began at the Embarcadero at North Point Street, and snaked northwest on the Embarcadero and then west on Jefferson Street. John Zullo, a Navy veteran who served on the U.S. destroyer Dixie from 1971 to 1977, marched with his English Springer Spaniel, Molly, as part of the American Legion. After the Vietnam War, we didnt really get a lot of recognition, so parades are kind of the recognition that were getting, he said. Its something to get together with fellow veterans. ... Its a little recognition for all of us. Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy In a matter of hours, a sprawling inferno swept across Southern California, incinerating hundreds of homes and leaving more than 200,000 temporarily without shelter. Some residents who rushed to flee the Los Angeles area's Woolsey Fire, which began on Thursday, were permitted to return home on Monday, but many of them remained under strict evacuation orders. Authorities say they expect the number of destroyed burns to grow significantly. The fire destroyed nearly everything in its path as it raced through northwestern Los Angeles into the suburbs of the San Fernando Valley all the way through the Santa Monica Mountains and down to the rocky coast of Malibu. Images in the gallery show the range of destruction. The areas around Malibu were hit particularly hard. The fires devoured palatial Malibu mansions, leaving scorched shells of expensive cars and pools of ash. The fires also torched several Jewish camps in the San Fernando Valley. Homes, restaurants, historic production sets and state parks were burned. CalFire estimates the fire has burned more than 91,000 acres and is 20 percent contained, as of Monday morning. The death toll remains at two. The deceased were a par of adults, found last week in a burned car. They have not yet been identified. A swath of celebrities have either lost homes or are currently evacuated. Neil Young, Miley Cyrus and Gerard Butler reported they had lost their homes to the fires. Caitlyn Jenner, who had evacuated from her home last week, reported her house had been saved. Alyssa Milano and Will Smith were among the other celebrities who reported they had evacuated their homes. The Camp Fire in Butte County has torn across more than 113,000 acres and is 25 percent contained, as of Monday morning. It is the most destructive fire in the state's history. The death toll is 29 but 228 people are still unaccounted for. See shots from before and after the flames in the gallery above. Read our complete fire coverage here. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Read Annie Vainshtein's latest stories here. Email her at avainshtein@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @annievain The massive Camp Fire that exploded near Chico in Butte County has killed 42 people, more than any other wildfire in Californias recorded history. At least 228 people remain unaccounted for in Butte County. The Camp Fire is also the states most destructive. Officials said the blaze, which continues to burn, has destroyed 7,177 structures, most of them single-family homes. The blaze reached 117,000 acres by Monday evening and was 30 percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. Heres what we know right now: Damage and response The Camp Fire, given the name because it started along Camp Creek Road near Highway 70 in the Feather River Canyon, started at about 6:30 a.m. Thursday. A total of 7,177 structures have been destroyed: 6,453 were single family homes. Another 15,500 structures remain threatened by the flames. The cause of the fire is under investigation and Cal Fire said its looking into the possibility that electrical equipment sparked the fire. At least 4,555 fire personnel were battling the blaze, with 571 fire engines, 91 fire crews, 21 helicopters, 88 dozers and 59 water tenders, according to Cal Fire. Additional resources were en route from neighboring states, including Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Montana and Texas. The blaze is expected to be fully contained by Nov. 30, Cal Fire said. Evacuations A total of 52,000 people were evacuated. Most are from Paradise, which is 15 miles east of Chico and 80 miles north of Sacramento, but they also have been evacuated from Chico, Pulga, Concow, Magalia, Butte Creek Canyon, Butte Valley, Stirling City and Inskip. Deaths Forty-two people have been confirmed dead and authorities said Monday night that theyre expanding the search and recovery efforts and bringing in cadaver dogs. They will also add military-type portable mortuary units. Only one of the people found has been positively identified, a Paradise woman in her 70s, according to the Butte County Sheriffs Office, which said that 10 coroners recovery crews were searching for bodies and it was very early in the process. A DNA truck will be brought in to collect DNA from people with missing relatives. The American Red Cross issued an alert for residents to register as safe and well on their website. Donations Butte County officials ask that anyone wishing to make a monetary donation go to the North Valley Community Foundation website. Monetary donations may also be made to the American Red Cross. Visit redcross.org, call 1-800-RED CROSS or text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. County officials also said anyone with supplies to donate can deliver them to the Hope Center in Oroville (1950 Kitrick Ave., Ste. A). Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. all week, and the countys list of needs include pillows, blankets, non-perishable food, water and gift cards. Volunteers Butte County officials said anyone who is interested in volunteering can contact Caring Choices at 530-899-3873 or visit the organization at 1398 Ridgewood in Chico. Weather conditions Strong northeastern winds on Monday morning may hamper firefighters ability to control the perimeter of the blaze, and warm and dry conditions persist in the area. A red-flag warning issued from Saturday to 7 a.m. Monday morning has expired. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued a red alert and rated air quality in the unhealthy range, warning residents to limit time outdoors, keep windows closed and stay hydrated. According to police the man was shot multiple times by his girlfriend inside a residential building on the 4800 block of West Gladys Avenue. He was transported to Stroger Hospital in stable condition, police said. Devouring thousands of homes in the town of Paradise, the Camp Fire is the state's most destructive wildfire ever in terms of property loss. Its towering walls of flames destroyed 6,453 homes and 260 commercial buildings, numbers that are expected to increase significantly after a final count. Drivers should avoid several roads and highways in Butte County as the Camp Fire continues to devastate the region. Since Thursday, the Camp Fire has spread to 113,000 acres, destroyed 6,453 residential homes and another 260 commercial buildings in Butte County. Fifteen thousand structures are still threatened. In the latest hotel news, Marriott opens a spate of properties including a Moxy in San Diego, an AC Hotel in Manhattan and a dual-branded Courtyard/Residence Inn in the nation's capital; one of Atlanta's top hotels changes brands; Kimpton Hotels comes to London; and Singapore's Shangri-La finishes a major makeover. An opening is anticipated within the next few weeks for the newest member of Marriott's Millennial-oriented Moxy brand, the 126-room Moxy San Diego in the city's Gaslamp Quarter at 831 6th Avenue, not far from the convention center. The company describes the new property as a "bold yet funky boutique hotel with plenty of playful touches throughout," like a social gathering space in the lobby area that offers shuffleboard, 80s arcade games, Giant Jenga and Twister to entice young business travelers. There's also a video wall and a 24-hour bar. The Moxy should be easy to spot, thanks to a giant mural on its exterior painted by a graffiti artist. Guest rooms have fast, free Wi-Fi and 42-inch TVs, and the hotel offers a fitness room and meeting space. Prepaid Marriott Rewards member rates in January start at $220. Marriott has cut the ribbon on the second New York City location for AC Hotels, its "European-inspired lifestyle brand." The first one is near Times Square, and the new one is downtown in the burgeoning lodging/dining district near the South Street Seaport. The 33-story, 274-room AC Hotel New York Downtown, managed by Concord Hospitality, is at 151 Maiden Lane, not far from the Brooklyn Bridge and the Financial District. Guest rooms feature a "minimalistic" design with floor-to-ceiling windows and works by local artists. The hotel's AC Kitchen specializes in tapas and the AC Lounge is known for its gin & tonics. Other amenities include a fitness room, free high-speed Wi-Fi, meeting rooms and parking. Rates during December range from $129 to $449 a night. Mandarin Oreintal Hotels In the nation's capital, Marriott has opened a dual-branded Courtyard by Marriott/Residence Inn at 901 L Street NW, next to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The Courtyard has 357 rooms equipped with 55-inch TVs and big bathrooms with backlit mirrors, while the Residence Inn's 147 units, targeting longer-stay and family guests, come with a living area and a full kitchen with a microwave, refrigerator, cooktop and dishwasher. The hotels are connected, sharing a rooftop that has an exercise facility, terrace, and tented event space. Off the hotels' main lobby is The Delegate, a signature restaurant open for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and a full bar). The properties also have free Wi-Fi, a business center, on-site laundry and a grab-and-go market. December rates at the Courtyard range from $93 to $323 a night, and at the Residence Inn from $131 to $395. Atlanta's 10-year-old Mandarin Oriental Hotel has been sold and is expected to be rebranded in early December as a member of Hilton's upscale Waldorf Astoria brand, according to local media reports. The Buckhead property originally opened in 2008 as Rosewood Hotels' Mansion on Peachtree before it joined Mandarin Oriental in 2012. The 42-story hotel has 127 guest rooms, 45 private condo units and three villas. (Just three months ago, the Mandarin in Las Vegas went through a similar rebranding to make it a Waldorf Astoria.) Although Hilton has some other brands in the Buckhead area, they are lower-priced hotels including Hampton Inns, Homewood Suites and Embassy Suites. The Mandarin takeover will give Hilton's Honors members a luxury venue in the neighborhood. Rates at the Mandarin start at $395. Shangri La After opening its first European property last year in Amsterdam, InterContinental Hotel Group's (IHG) boutique Kimpton brand has now expanded into the U.K. with a newly opened London location. The 334-room Kimpton Fitzroy London is on Russell Square in the city's Bloomsbury neighborhood, a makeover of an historic structure that was built in 1898 and now "combines late-Victorian heritage with a quirky, modern vibe," Kimpton said. Guests will get in-room yoga mats and free use of bicycles, and the hotel will host a free champagne hour every day. Food and beverage venues include Neptune, a seafood restaurant open for three meals a day; Fitz's, a 1920s-inspired bar; and the Burr & Co. coffee house. The hotel also has a 24-hour fitness center, a large ballroom, and various smaller meeting rooms. December rates start at $230. IHG says it plans additional Kimpton openings in the months to come in Edinburgh. Manchester and Glasgow. Headed to Singapore? The iconic Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore has finished a months-long overhaul of its 503-room Tower Wing. All guest rooms and suites have been refurbished, and the wing also got a new lobby, new dining venues and a refreshed Horizon Club Lounge on the 24th level, open 24 hours for guests in upscale Horizon Club rooms. The wing's Lobby Lounge serves up Singaporean specialties, and the ShopHouse next door offers grab-and-go food from sandwiches to salads and snacks. Newly opened on the 24th level is NAMI restaurant and bar, specializing in Japanese cuisine. December rates start at $227 for a Tower room and $271 for a Horizon Club room. Read all recent TravelSkills posts here Get twice-per-week updates from TravelSkills via email! Sign up here Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis. United's once high-flying, heavily promoted and flashy Polaris business class seat broke out in 2016 as a bold upgrade in business class flying. But since then, the carrier has implemented several changes and cutbacks. For those flying United on upgrades or points, the nice new seat is the big attraction. But for business travelers forking over $5,000 round trip, these little cuts add up, especially when compared to business class offerings on other airlines. A United spokesperson characterizes these as "changes" versus cuts in its service. "Changes and adjustments are an expected part of any big product rollout," he said, "and that's what we are seeing here. There is no impact on the customer experience. As a matter of fact these changes come as a result of customer feedback." Here are five changes or cuts that United has made since the airline introduced the service in December 2016. - #1: Expectations. Two years after the flashy new seat was rolled out, it is still only on a fraction (about 20 percent) of the aircraft in United's long haul fleet. As of this week, only 37 United jets are flying with the new Polaris business class seat: 17 B777-300ERs and 14 B767-300s and 6 B777-200ERs. (That's 37 out of about 230 planes in United's long-haul fleet.) So if you book a "Polaris business class" ticket on United, it's still much more likely that you'll get the old forward/rear facing seats than the new ones. United says that it's "adding at least one aircraft with United Polaris seating every 10 days from now through 2020," but for some reason that does not seem fast enough. You can track the Polaris seat rollout here. - #2: Beverages. One of the most unique, most talked about and highly promoted elements of United's Polaris service were mimosa and bloody Mary carts and "wine flights" that flight attendants rolled down the aisles on morning flights. The concept was great in theory, and worked from a promotional standpoint, but it was not practical. Apparently it slowed down meal service and was noisy for travelers who just wanted to get onboard and sleep. Also insiders say that passengers were drinking too much and running up a higher booze tab than the airline expected. United pulled the show last May but says passengers can still get a bloody or glass of wine by asking for it. United also cut out the salted caramel chocolate served with Champagne during boarding, but replaced that with more desserts. United says that the chocolate came off because customers were too busy settling into seats to enjoy it. (See slideshow at the top for a look at both new and old Polaris business class.) - #3: Staffing. Last week United informed flight attendants that it would be cutting one business class flight attendant per plane starting in February 2019. To help take the strain off the remaining flight attendants, United will board business class meals "pre-plated" instead of having a flight attendant take the time to do so. (For plated meals, the food elements are stored and heated in small foil ramekins, then placed on the plate with a garnish in the galley, which makes the meal appear to be fresher and restaurant style.) It remains to be seen what the new pre-plated meals will look or taste like, but anything that's assembled in an industrial kitchen won't look as pretty or fresh. - #4: Bedding. When United first rolled out Polaris business class, passengers were greeted with a big pile of Saks Fifth Avenue branded soft goods on each seat including 2 pillows, blankets, duvets, amenity kits, etc. While it was visually pleasing, fliers complained that there was not enough storage space in the seat area for all the stuff (and the plastic bags it came in). So United pulled the pile and made most of the cushy comfort items available on request only. Based on customer feedback, United recently made the popular and unique gel pillow available to all Polaris passengers. - #5: Snacks. When Polaris launched, flight attendants rolled a formal snack presentation on a cart down the aisle. Now, passengers can read about snack offerings via a hang tag on water bottles and make requests to flight attendants or pick something up from a display in the galley area. Here's the original video of United's Polaris rollout in 2016 that includes many of these elements. What's especially unnerving to frequent flyers is that the changes to this showy flagship product-- which has helped improve United's front-of-the-plane reputation-- are coming at a time of record profits for United (and all other airlines). Related: United provides details around new Polaris meal service (2016) One bright spot in the Polaris rollout has been the spectacular new Polaris Lounges that have opened over the last two years in Chicago, San Francisco, Newark and Houston. A new lounge was promised at LAX "in the third quarter of 2018" but it has yet to open. United no longer talks much about Polaris lounges slated for London, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Washington Dulles-- all of which are now "in planning." Have you flown in United's new Polaris business class? What did you think? How to these adjustments affect your perception of Polaris business class? Please leave your thoughts in the comments. Read all recent TravelSkills posts here Get twice-per-week updates from TravelSkills via email! Sign up here Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis. ATLANTA His election still undecided, Republican Brian Kemp is proceeding as a victorious candidate and promising to be a governor for all Georgians. That might not be so easy. Should his narrow lead hold over Democrat Stacey Abrams and send him to the governors mansion, Kemp would face lingering questions about how and why he oversaw his own election as secretary of state. His victory would be fueled by an even starker than usual urban-rural divide, with Abrams drawing most of her votes in metro Atlanta and smaller cities, and Kemp running up massive margins in rural and small-town Georgia, eclipsing 85 percent in some counties. Then theres his embrace of President Trumps coarse rhetoric, from Kemp warning about illegal votes to promising to round up criminal illegals in his pickup truck. That plays into what civil rights leaders and observers from both parties describe as a bitter, race-laden contest that pitted Abrams bid to become the nations first black female governor against Kemps fierce effort to preserve his overwhelmingly white partys hold on a diversifying Deep South state. The after-effects, they say, wont easily dissipate. In the hypothetical scenario that Brian Kemp becomes governor, said NAACP activist and former congressional candidate Francys Johnson, then he and Donald Trump will have both won because they were able to stoke the deepest darkest fears among their base. Some Republicans acknowledge the atmosphere even as they defend Kemp from charges he ran a racially and culturally divisive campaign. Some of this is beyond Brian Kemps control, said Brian Robinson, a former adviser for outgoing Gov. Nathan Deal and for Kemps vanquished GOP primary rival. Brian Kemp cannot extricate himself from the national political environment that now drives every election down to the county level. You run for coroner, you have to say whether you want to make America great again. For his part, Kemp notes a very polarizing climate that weve been in. But he defends his pledge to put Georgians first a rhetorical cousin to Trumps America First and he rejects any notion that he could take office under a cloud that would make his job harder. Undeterred, Abrams campaign filed a federal lawsuit Sunday asking a judge to delay the vote certification until Wednesday and make officials count any votes that were wrongly rejected, which could restore at least 1,095 votes. The campaign said thousands more ballots could be affected. Kemp spokesman Ryan Mahoney said Monday the lawsuit shows Abrams has moved from desperation to delusion. Stacey Abrams lost, he said, and her concession is long overdue. Meanwhile, two Democratic senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Brian Schatz of Hawaii sent a letter asking the Justice Department for a thorough investigation into the potential voting rights abuses in Georgia. Unofficial returns show Kemp leading by about 60,000 votes out of more than 3.9 million votes cast. Thats enough for a narrow majority, but Abrams says enough uncounted absentee, early and provisional ballots remain to bring Kemp below a majority. That would trigger a Dec. 4 runoff. Bill Barrow is an Associated Press writer. Now-imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's failure to live in the mansion rankled taxpayers who expected their governor to live in the house they pay around $500,000 a year to keep open. He was criticized for racking up thousands of dollars in one-day trips between Chicago and the state capital. His successor, Pat Quinn, who like Blagojevich called Chicago home, vowed to live in the mansion, but a year into his first term records showed he stayed there only sporadically, the Tribune reported. BALTIMORE In an abrupt change of plans, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opened the groups national meeting Monday by announcing it will delay for at least several months any votes on proposed new steps to address the clergy sex-abuse crisis that is rocking the church. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, of Galveston-Houston, said the delay was requested by the Vatican, which asked that the U.S. bishops wait until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February. WASHINGTON Stepping up Democratic efforts to shield the Russia investigation, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday he will seek to tie a measure protecting Special Counsel Robert Mueller to must-pass legislation if acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker does not recuse himself from oversight of the probe. Schumer pointed to Whitakers history of hostile statements toward the Mueller investigation. If he stays there, he will create a constitutional crisis by inhibiting Mueller or firing Mueller. So Congress has to act, Schumer told CNN. We Democrats, House and Senate, will attempt to add to must-pass legislation, in this case the spending bill, legislation that would prevent Mr. Whitaker from interfering with the Mueller investigation. Schumer sent a letter to the Justice Department on Sunday along with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats that calls for Lee Lofthus, an assistant attorney general and the departments chief ethics officer, to disclose whether he had advised Whitaker to recuse himself from oversight of the probe. The Democrats cited Whitakers past public statements, which have included an opinion piece in which he said Mueller would be straying outside his mandate if he investigated President Trumps family finances and a talk radio interview in which he maintained there was no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. The letter asked Lofthus to explain his reasoning for any recommendation he made to Whitaker regarding recusal and to provide all ethics guidance provided to the acting attorney general. Whitaker, a Republican Party loyalist and chief of staff to just-ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions, was elevated Wednesday after Trump forced Sessions out. Whitaker has faced pressure from Democrats to recuse himself from overseeing Mueller based on the comments, which were made before he joined the Justice Department last year. He has also tweeted an ex-prosecutors opinion piece that described a Mueller lynch mob, which he said was worth a read. The Mueller protection bill would give any special counsel a 10-day window to seek review of a firing and ensure that the person was fired for good cause. Its unclear whether Republicans would agree to add the bill to the spending legislation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said there is no need for it, but other Republicans, such as Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, have called for the bill since Whitaker was appointed. Schumer declined to say whether Democrats would be willing to force a government shutdown if Congress did not pass a measure protecting Mueller. Hope Yen and Mary Clare Jalonick are Associated Press writers. LOS ANGELES Stan Lee, the creative dynamo who revolutionized the comic book and helped make billions for Hollywood by introducing human frailties in Marvel superheroes such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, died Monday. He was 95. Lee was declared dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Kirk Schenck, an attorney for Lees daughter, J.C. Lee. As the top writer at Marvel Comics and later as its publisher, Lee was widely considered the architect of the contemporary comic book. He revived the industry in the 1960s by offering the costumes and action craved by younger readers while insisting on sophisticated plots, college-level dialogue, satire, science fiction, even philosophy. Millions responded to the unlikely mix of realistic fantasy, and many of his characters, including Spider-Man, the Hulk and X-Men went on to become stars of blockbuster films. Recent projects Lee helped make possible range from the films Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy to such TV series as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Daredevil. Lee was recognizable to his fans, having had cameos in many Marvel films and TV projects his hair gray, his glasses slightly tinted and often delivering his trademark motto, Excelsior! Lee considered the comic-book medium an art form and he was prolific: By some accounts, he came up with a new comic book every day for 10 years. I wrote so many I dont even know, he told the Associated Press in 2006. He hit his stride in the 1960s when he brought the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man and numerous others to life. It was like there was something in the air. I couldnt do anything wrong, he said. His heroes, meanwhile, were a far cry from virtuous do-gooders such as rival DC Comics Superman. The Fantastic Four fought with each other. Spider-Man was goaded into superhero work by his alter ego, Peter Parker, who suffered from unrequited crushes, money problems and dandruff. The Silver Surfer, an alien doomed to wander Earths atmosphere, waxed about the woeful nature of man. The Hulk was marked by self-loathing. Daredevil was blind. The beauty of Stan Lees characters is that they were characters first and superheroes next, Jeff Kline, executive producer of the Men in Black animated television series, told the Blade of Toledo, Ohio, in 1998. Stanley Martin Lieber was born Dec. 28, 1922, in New York. He grew up a fan of Hardy Boys adventure books and Errol Flynn movies, and got a job at Timely Comics after graduating from high school. The dapper, friendly comic book genius continued to work into his 90s on numerous projects, including comics, films and DVDs. Lees wife and partner in nearly everything, Joan Lee, died on July 6, 2017. Lee is survived by his daughter, Joanie, and a younger brother who also worked in comics, Larry Lieber. Andrew Dalton and Dave Zelio are Associated Press writers. MALIBU Strong Santa Ana winds returned to Southern California on Sunday, causing flareups of a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities west of Los Angeles, but no additional structures were believed to have been lost, authorities said. Huge plumes of smoke rose in the fire area, which stretches miles from the northwest corner of Los Angeles San Fernando Valley to the Malibu coast. Airplanes and helicopters swooped low over hills and canyons to drop loads of fire retardant and water. A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended at midmorning and authorities warned that the gusts would continue through Tuesday. The lull allowed firefighters to gain 10 percent control of the Woolsey Fire, which has burned more than 130 square miles in western Los Angeles County and southeastern Ventura County since Thursday. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby stressed there were numerous hot spots and plenty of fuel that had not yet burned, but at sunset he said there had been huge successes despite a very challenging day. The count of destroyed homes remained at 177 but it was expected to increase when an update is reported Monday. Osby noted that a November 1993 wildfire in Malibu destroyed more than 270 homes and said he would not be surprised if the total from the current fire would be higher. The fires cause remained under investigation but Southern California Edison reported to the California Public Utilities Commission that there was an outage on an electrical circuit near where it started as Santa Ana winds blew through the region. SoCal Edison said the report was submitted out of an abundance of caution, although there was no indication from fire officials that its equipment may have been involved. The report said the fire was reported around 2:24 p.m. Thursday, two minutes after the blackout. Venture County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen hadnt heard about the Edison report. It wouldnt surprise me if it turns out that winds caused equipment failure that sparked a fire, he said. The death toll stood at two. The severely burned bodies were discovered in a car on a long residential driveway on a stretch of Mulholland Highway in Malibu, where most of the surrounding structures had burned. Progress was made on the lines of smaller fire to the west in Ventura County, which was 70 percent contained at about 7 square miles and evacuations were greatly reduced. But thousands remained under evacuation orders because of the Woolsey Fire. Christopher Weber is an Associated Press writer. Albany Episcopal Diocese Bishop Rev. William H. Love issued an edict Saturday banning the marriage of same-sex couples in the diocese's churches, writing in a statement that the church has been "hijacked by the 'Gay Rights Agenda,'" and that "Satan is having a heyday bringing division into the Church." Love's eight-page statement that accompanied his new pastoral directive comes three weeks before a resolution goes into effect that will allow same-sex marriages to be performed in Episcopal churches nationwide. That day, Dec. 2, is also the first day of Advent, a time observed in many Christian churches in the weeks before Christmas. Love in his statement recognized that relationships between those of the same sex have existed since before the time of Jesus Christ. But he cited portions of the Old and New Testaments to argue that God specifically designed marriage to be between a man and a woman, and said scripture directs that sexual relationships between same sex couples are "sinful and forbidden." He went on to write that while he believes those who support gay and lesbian members of the church are well intentioned, "they have been deceived into believing a lie that has been planted in the Church by the 'great deceiver' - Satan." The bishop wrote that the Episcopal Church's resolution "brings God's judgement and condemnation against The Episcopal Church." "Recent statistics show that The Episcopal Church is spiraling downward," Love wrote. "I can't help but believe that God has removed His blessing from this Church. Unless something changes, The Episcopal Church is going to die." Some local Episcopalians strongly disagreed with the Bishop's letter. While the letter was being read at St. Andrew's in Albany Sunday, some parishioners gathered on the church steps to ceremonially burn the letter, according to pictures and information provided about the event from a St. Andrew's parishioner. Richard Fay, an artist who lives in Brunswick and was raised Catholic, said he was initially drawn to the Episcopal Church because it kept the tradition of Mass but had more modern social views. He said the Bishop's views don't fit his own. "It's the 21st century. We have different views and different values than in Biblical times. Yes, scripture is important, but you have to interpret it based on what's going on," Fay said. "I think it's also a social issue. I think it's an issue of equality. I also think that the main core of Christianity should be love: love thy neighbor as thyself." Fay, who doesn't regularly attend a parish now, said he's seen this issue splitting the church in recent years - and it's making him rethink his involvement. "It's not making me completely reject the Episcopal church but making me second-guess going to an Episcopal Church in the Albany Diocese," he said. Rev. J. Nixon McMillan at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Albany declined to comment. Other local clergy could not be reached Sunday. In July, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church issued Resolution B012, a directive that does not make same-sex marriage part of the official theology of the church, but allows clergy to conduct same-sex marriage even if a local bishop disapproves by inviting another bishop to oversee the service so congregants can marry in their parish home. Love's pastoral directive Saturday says the trial rites authorized by Resolution B012 "shall not be used anywhere in the Diocese of Albany by diocesan clergy (canonically resident or licensed)." "The fact that some in today's sexually confused society (to include 5 of the 9 U.S. Supreme Court Justices in 2015) may have broadened their understanding of marriage to be more inclusive, allowing for same-sex marriages, doesn't mean that God, 'the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth' (BCP 96) has changed His mind," Love wrote. At the national meeting this past summer, Love voted against Resolution B012. Episcopalian leadership had already passed the resolution on a trial basis in 2015. But out of 101 dioceses, only eight did not comply -- the dioceses of Albany, Dallas, Florida, central Florida, North Dakota, Tennessee, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Springfield, Ill. Since then, five bishops from the original eight dioceses ultimately accepted the compromise of the B012 resolution. In September, more than 130 clergy members from the Albany Episcopal Diocese met in Greenwich to discuss their feelings about the resolution and what would happen next in the diocese. "It is not out of mean-spiritedness, hatred, bigotry, judgmentalism, or homophobia that I say this but rather out of love love for God and His Word; love for The Episcopal Church and wider Anglican Communion; love for each of you my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, especially love for those who are struggling with same-sex attractions," Love wrote. He also recognized that his stance has the potential to s0w division. "There is no doubt The Episcopal Church and now the Diocese of Albany are in the midst of a huge storm that can rip us apart if we are not careful," Love wrote. "That is exactly what Satan wants. We don't have to play his game. If we focus on what divides us, we will be destroyed. If we focus on what unites us our Lord Jesus Christ He will get us through to the other side. I pray the Lord will help us to see one another as He sees us; to love one another as He loves us; to forgive one another as He forgives us." This has nothing to do with quitting, nothing by the name, the marketing and how they channel and make sure, whether its online or in the retail space, he said. And that is all the fog of war to get you confused so you dont actually realize what theyre doing. I have seen this, you have seen this, youve seen it from Joe Camel, youve seen it through the Marlboro Man. They actually know exactly what theyre doing. If it was a First Amendment issue, they would have raised it long ago. They were trying to tell you this was about quitting. Its about addiction. Ive been a journalist at several outlets here, and am marking nearly five years with the Tribune family after a decade at the Chicago Sun-Times. In my reporting and editing roles, Ive tackled stories about the devastation of crime in this city to mismanagement at the local morgue to elected leaders using your tax money to hire family and friends. Once I wrote about what a popular foodie hot dog vendor would do with his foie gras supply when the City Council temporarily banned the sale of the delicacy. I tell you that because politics touches on so many aspects of our life. "Whenever anyone proposes anything beyond riding in your car and sitting belted-in - whether it's sex or getting a massage or getting your haircut - all of those suffer from the same reality check," Cummings said. "You're still a body that can die in a moving vehicle. " Palestinians stand next to the remains of a car, that was destroyed following an Israeli air strike, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on November 12, 2018. (Said Khatib / AFP/Getty Images) "Only his helmet was found nearby with a bullet hole through it," an Army report stated. "A blood-stained piece of his skull bone was also found, but his weapons and equipment were missing. ... A path was found which indicated that his body was dragged to the river. ... It can be presumed that ... Cummings was killed by the enemy and his body thrown into the Rhine River." In Chicago, she has spoken about the disparities and inequities that affect mainly black and Latino children here. Too many kids in this city are living just a few L stops, sometimes even just a few blocks, from shiny skyscrapers and leafy parks and world-class museums and universities, yet all of that might as well be in a different state, even in a different continent, she said at a lunch meeting in 2013. Lew always had a kind word for both the litigants and the lawyers (who) came through his courtroom, Roberts said. He was best known for demanding that opposing parties treat each other with respect. Long before the topic of civility became the catchphrase that it is today, Lew would interrupt attorneys (who) were arguing too aggressively and say, OK, boys, thats enough of that. I want to see the lawyers in chambers. Courts in recess. A few minutes in chambers would result in a fair compromise for both parties, avoid escalating the hostilities and move his cases toward timely resolution. FAIRFIELD (BCN) The Solano County coroner's office has identified the three victims of a fatal solo-vehicle crash in Fairfield on Friday as Katie Good, an 18-year-old woman from Sacramento, Diamond Day, a 20-year-old man from Elk Grove, and Mary Grosvenor, a 19-year-old woman from Stockton. Day was driving a Hyundai Elantra sedan at a very high rate of speed east on Interstate Highway 80 when the car clipped a guardrail, overturned and struck a large support pillar of the state Highway 12 overcrossing, California Highway Patrol Officer David Harvey said. The crash happened before 5:50 a.m., Harvey said. Anyone with information about the crash is asked to call (800) TELL-CHP or the Solano County CHP office at (707) 428-2100. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. In an area destroyed by fire, the need for money, clothes, food and other necessities in and around Butte County as the result of the devastating Camp Fire is acute. The strong emphasis, though, is on "money." "Yes, money is the greatest need," said Logan Todd, director of communications and grant programs for the Chico-based North Valley Community Foundation, which is collecting money to help fire evacuees and the organizations sheltering them. Money can cover a multitude of needs, he said. "A tremendous amount of clothing and material donations have come in, and some of the evacuation centers are overwhelmed with materials," Todd said. Other charitable organizations are taking the same approach, asking for money rather than things to help fire victims. A number of nonprofits are collecting money to help, including: -North Valley Community Foundation, http://www.nvcf.org/fund/camp-fire-evacuation-relief-fund/ -California State Firefighters Association, collecting money for firefighters who have lost their homes in the Camp Fire https://csfa.net/CSFA/CalFF/articles/Donation_Funds_for_Firefighters_Who_Have_Lost_Their_Homes_During_the_Recent_and_Tragic_NorCal_Fires.aspx -The Enloe Foundation, a branch of the Enloe Medical Center in Chico. The money will help hospital patients, and their families and caregivers, who have lost their homes or been displaced due to the fire. https://app.mobilecause.com/f/23ds/n -The Salvation Army is taking money donations to support shelters and other services for fire evacuees https://deloro.salvationarmy.org/del_oro/camp-fire-response -The Los Angeles-based California Community Foundation, through its Wildfire Relief Fund, which helps various fire victims, including those of the Camp Fire: https://www.calfund.org/wildfire-relief-fund/ Other forms of help being sought and/or offered include: -Airbnb, the company that operates an online exchange for people renting out residences and rooms, is working to connect people who need places to stay with people who have such spaces to offer. https://www.airbnb.com/welcome/evacuees/buttecounty -The Chico-based nonprofit Caring Choices is working to organize volunteers to help those affected by the Camp Fire http://www.caring-choices.org/home.html -The American Red Cross is opening service centers in Santa Rosa and Napa to help victims of the Camp Fire. Click here for more information. The Red Cross also is providing blood, as needed, in the fire zone. Red Cross blood donation centers are in Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, Newark, San Francisco, Pleasant Hill and other cities. For more information, people can visit https://www.redcrossblood.org. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Many firefighters from the Bay Area and elsewhere have responded to the destructive Camp Fire that continues to burn in Butte County. "Every county along the coast from Monterey north to Del Norte has sent firefighters," said Mike Marcucci, assistant chief of operations for the East Bay Division of Cal Fire. From Cal OES Region II, which covers those 10 coastal counties, 645 firefighters were deployed beginning Thursday to the Camp Fire and to the Woolsey Fire in Southern California. Those firefighters were part of 25 strike teams, three task forces, three water tender crews and 21 overhead crews. Strike teams made up of firefighters from cities and counties all over California have been sent to the fires, Marcucci said. Aisha Knowles, a spokeswoman for the Alameda County Fire Department, said that since Thursday, five county fire engines are part of strike teams sent to the Camp Fire, and two others to the Woolsey Fire. Two battalion chiefs, a division chief and a captain were among the personnel sent to the two fire zones, Knowles said. Among the other departments in Alameda County sending firefighters to the Camp Fire are those in Oakland, Hayward, Berkeley, Fremont, Livermore-Pleasanton, Alameda, Piedmont and Albany, as well as the East Bay Regional Park District Fire Department, Knowles said. They've also come from beyond California borders; there's even a group of 200 firefighters leaving from Texas today for firefighting duty in Butte County. Also, more than 2,000 volunteer inmate firefighters, including 58 youth offenders, are battling wildfires throughout the state, according to the state Department of Corrections. As of Sunday night, the Camp Fire death toll is 29. About 111,000 acres have burned and 6,713 buildings have been destroyed. Sending all those firefighters hundreds of miles from home can't leave the home stations undermanned, Marcucci said. "It's a constant chess game, a huge chess game, for moving resources around and keeping all our bases covered," he said. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. DUBLIN (BCN) Flooding has forced the Dublin San Ramon Services District to close its office in Dublin for up to three months, district officials said today. A water leak caused by a break in the underground line that provides water for fire protection at the building at 7051 Dublin Blvd. flooded the building with an inch of water and mud, according to the district. A passerby alerted the district at 2 p.m. Sunday that water was coming out of the office building. Staff members surveyed the damage and by 4 p.m., crews with the Restoration Management Company arrived and began cleaning out the water and mud. The building is unsafe at this time because the line that provides water for fire protection remains unusable, district spokeswoman Lea Blevins said. In addition, there is water and electrical damage to carpets and other parts of the building, Blevins said. District officials said they are temporarily relocating 52 staff members to the Field Operations and Regional Wastewater Treatment Facilities in Pleasanton. "We're packing up to move today," Blevins said. The district's Board of Directors meeting that's scheduled for 6 p.m. on Nov. 20 will occur at another location within the district's service area. The location hasn't yet been determined. "Thank you to all our staff for working creativity and innovatively during this incident to keep the district operating at a fully functional level," General Manager Dan McIntyre said in a statement. "Restoration staff are working hard to get the building cleaned up so we can move back in as soon as possible," McIntyre said. District officials said customers can pay their bills online or by placing their payments in the drop box in the west parking lot outside of the district office in Dublin. Customer service representatives are already working and able to answer calls about billing and construction meters at (925) 828-8524. The water district was founded in 1953 and serves 186,000 people. It provides potable and recycled water service to Dublin and the Dougherty Valley area of San Ramon, wastewater collection and treatment to Dublin and south San Ramon, and wastewater treatment to Pleasanton by contract. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. A 53-year-old man was found dead in the middle of a Petaluma street Saturday night, near a car that was still running, police said. When officers arrived at 11:40 p.m., a passing motorist was trying to revive the man. The victim, whose name was not released, was lying on his back in the middle of northbound lanes of McDowell Boulevard, north of Scott Street, according to Petaluma police. The victim's car, a 2014 Mazda Miata, was still running and the door was open. It appears another car may have hit the man and kept going, police said. Parts of the other car were found in the roadway. Traffic investigators are trying to determine its make and model. Anyone who witnessed the collision or knows of a vehicle that recently sustained front-end and front underbody damage under suspicious circumstances is urged to contact Petaluma police at (707) 778-4372. Washington Hospital in Fremont will open the doors today to a new $340 million emergency and critical care facility. The Morris Hyman Critical Care Pavilion, located at 2000 Mowry Ave. next to the hospital's helipad, will house an expanded emergency department and critical-care floor, hospital officials said Sunday. The 224,800-square-foot, three-story pavilion has 68 private/medical surgical rooms and 116 beds. All rooms are single-occupancy with a daybed that allows family members to stay overnight. Washington Hospital opened in 1958, serving a community of 15,000. The facility now serves more than 350,000 residents, hospital officials said. A 49-year-old man was fatally hit on southbound state Highway 17 in Los Gatos Sunday morning after he got out his car following a crash, the California Highway Patrol. The collision was triggered about 5:30 a.m. when a blue truck lost control and crashed into the center median of the freeway near state Highway 9, said CHP Officer Ross Lee. That crash left debris in the roadway, which was hit by a Honda Accord. The Honda's driver left his car, presumably to check on the collision, and was fatally hit by another Honda Accord, Lee said. A fourth vehicle, a van, was also involved in the incident when it hit the truck. A passenger in the van was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries, the CHP said. The driver of the crashed truck left the scene and has not been located, Lee said. Caltrans will completely close Interstate Highway 880, both the northbound and southbound lanes at various times, in Oakland starting this morning and through at least Wednesday night, to demolish the old 23rd Avenue overcrossing. The closure schedule is: *** Southbound lanes of I-880, 11:59 p.m. Sunday through 5 a.m. today; *** Northbound lanes from 11:59 p.m. Tuesday through 5 a.m. Wednesday; *** Northbound lanes, tentatively, 11:59 p.m. Wednesday through 5 a.m. Thursday. The above days and times will depend on the weather; the work will be rescheduled, if necessary. The new 23rd Avenue overcrossing opened Saturday. There will be detours around the work; follow the signs and Caltrans flagging crews, and allow extra time during the very-early-morning commute. A 37-year-old Menlo Park man was arrested in connection with two suspicious fires that burned within 50 minutes of each other on Saturday, Palo Alto police said. Osvaldo Madrigal, who suffered minor smoke-related injuries in one of the fires and was hospitalized, was booked into Santa Clara County Main Jail after being treated, police said in a news release. The first fire was reported about 4:18 p.m. Saturday, when a 2016 Jeep Wrangler was set ablaze in the 400 bock of Curtner Avenue, police said. Employees were able to extinguish the fire before police and fire crews arrived. While officers were investigating that blaze, they spotted a man walking toward a nearby vacant building, the former Compadres Restaurant in the 3800 block of El Camino Real. At 5:08 p.m., an officer noticed smoke coming from the former restaurant and firefighters responded to find a blaze burning through the roof. They rescued the man, who turned out to be Madrigal, previously seen walking toward the building. No one else was in the building and the blaze was contained about 8:30 p.m. Police said Madrigal, on probation for assault with a deadly weapon, may have been illegally squatting at the former restaurant. He was arrested on suspicion of two counts of felony arson, misdemeanor trespassing and a felony probation violation. Santa Clara County, Oakland and 27 other cities, counties and governmental officials from around California filed legal documents Friday supporting the California Values Act, the state's sanctuary law, from attack by the Trump administration. The "friend of the court" brief was filed in the Ninth District Court of Appeals in San Francisco. "Federal courts all across the country are rejecting the Trump administration's efforts to dictate how state and local governments can use their own resources," said James R. Williams, Santa Clara County Counsel, in a statement. The Trump administration in March sued California over its "sanctuary" law, SB54, which limits local law enforcement with federal immigration officials. In July, a United States District Court judge rejected most of the lawsuit. The Trump administration later appealed the July decision to the Ninth District Court of Appeals, where the case currently remains. Supporters of SB54 say residents, regardless of their legal status, must feel free to speak with law enforcement officers to solve local crimes. Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese said in a statement, "We won't stand in the way of federal agents doing their jobs, but we need to support our local officers focusing on local issues." Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Santa Clara County, Oakland and 27 other cities, counties and governmental officials from around California filed legal documents Friday supporting the California Values Act - the state's sanctuary law - from attack by the Trump administration. The "friend of the court" brief was filed in the Ninth District Court of Appeals in San Francisco. "Federal courts all across the country are rejecting the Trump administration's efforts to dictate how state and local governments can use their own resources," said James R. Williams, Santa Clara County Counsel, in a statement. The Trump administration in March sued California over its "sanctuary" law, SB54, which limits local law enforcement with federal immigration officials. In July, a United States District Court judge rejected most of the lawsuit. The Trump administration later appealed the July decision to the Ninth District Court of Appeals, where the case currently remains. Supporters of SB54 say residents, regardless of their legal status, must feel free to speak with law enforcement officers to solve local crimes. Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese said in a statement, "We won't stand in the way of federal agents doing their jobs, but we need to support our local officers focusing on local issues." Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. I think doctors are held to higher standards because of the level of responsibility we take on and the trust most people have traditionally placed in us. We are, after all, often dealing with life and death, encountering the widest range of human frailty and people at their most vulnerable. We even help those who would do us harm. At times, doctors and police officers do their jobs in highly stressful situations, and it can feel crushing to be criticized or sued when a bad outcome occurs despite our best efforts. Were expected to keep our cool when someones life is in danger, or in the case of officers, their own. We take symbolic oaths at the beginning of our careers to uphold the ideals of our respective professions. We train for this. Its our choice. Born and raised on the South Side, educated at Princeton before Harvard, Michelle Obama went on an extraordinary journey just not the one she envisioned for herself in 1989 when she was Barack Obamas mentor at Chicago law firm Sidley Austin. Behind one door to the future, Michelle Robinson might have spurned his advances and gone on to become a partner at Sidley or taken some other path to becoming a mover or shaker. Things worked out differently because she chose a different door. The NRA takes issue with the evidence the group offered in support of these ideas. That sounds like a useful and constructive response. No one in favor of tighter gun laws, after all, is afraid to examine the research data. But theres not as much as there should be, thanks to a 1996 measure that effectively stopped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from funding research on gun violence a law passed at the instigation of the NRA. Up until then, Veterans Day didn't hold much attraction for me, but since then, I've seen far more recognition for those of us who served during that war. You have no doubt heard the expression freedom isn't free. It applies not only to those who were killed but to all who served and their families. Some people sit in the comfort of their lounge chair, smoking a joint, trolling the internet and complaining about the military, while others, thankfully, step up and assume the responsibility of protecting our nation. Sunday meant a lot to me, as I'm sure it did for all the veterans who attended. We were hoping to be moving in soon, but they need to check if this accident affected the integrity of the buildings structure and assess the timeline needed for repairs, Hayes said, adding, If we had already moved in, there could have been people in that lobby, so it truly could have been a lot worse. How does a team coming off its bye week look this flat yet again? How did the Chicago Bears offense fail to find any rhythm in the five drives rookie Justin Fields led before suffering injured ribs in the second half? Why is there always such inexcusable sloppiness for Matt Nagy's team? YANGON, Myanmar The repatriation of ethnic Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh, to which more than 700,000 fled since last year to escape deadly violence carried out by Myanmars security forces, will begin this week, top Myanmar officials said Sunday. Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Win Myat Aye announced that Bangladesh had informed Myanmar authorities that repatriation, agreed upon in principle months ago, would begin on Thursday. A Myanmar government statement said an initial group of about 2,250 would be sent back at a rate of 150 per day. Noting that the actual date depended upon Bangladesh taking action, Win Myat Aye said, Whether it will happen on the day or not, we have to be ready on our side and we try our best to do that. But Abul Kalam, Bangladeshs repatriation commissioner, said he was unaware that a date had been set. I have got no decision from our foreign ministry or any other higher authorities, he said. The Rohingya exodus began after Myanmar security forces launched a brutal crackdown following insurgent attacks in August 2017. The scale, organization and ferocity of the operation led to accusations from the international community, including the United Nations, of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Myanmars government has denied abuses. Human rights advocates say conditions are not yet safe for the return of the Rohingya refugees, who have generally been denied citizenship and civil rights in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where prejudice against them runs strong. The U.N.s independent investigator on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, last week urged a halt to rushed plans for the repatriation, saying a lack of guarantees that the refugees wouldnt face new persecution if they returned home was concerning. According to Sundays Myanmar government statement, the returning Rohingya would stay at repatriation camps for two days and receive food and clothing before moving on to transit camps. It said China, India and Japan were providing necessary assistance for the repatriation process, but did not give details. It isn't clear how long the returnees would have to stay in the transit camps or where they would go afterward, as many Rohingya villages have been erased by bulldozers, with the land given to local Rakhine Buddhists. Officials said Sunday that returnees can then begin to apply for citizenship. But there is widespread skepticism that any returning refugees will ever be granted citizenship. PARIS President Trumps brand of America First nationalism was repudiated Sunday as leaders from around the globe gathered to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I and reaffirm the international bonds that have once again come under strain. Stone-faced and unmoved, the U.S. leader listened as President Emmanuel Macron of France used the ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe to denounce self-interested nationalism and extol the sort of globalism and international institutions that Trump has spent the last two years pulling the United States away from. Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism, Macron said. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying, Our interest first, who cares about the others? Remembering the forces that led to World War I, Macron warned that the old demons have been resurfacing and declared that giving into the fascination for withdrawal, isolationism, violence and domination would be a grave error that future generations would very rightly make us responsible for. Trump, who recently declared himself a nationalist, appeared grim as he listened to a translation of the speech through an earpiece and clapped only tepidly afterward. He had no speaking role at the ceremony and made no mention of the issues Macron raised during an address later in the day at a cemetery for U.S. soldiers killed in the war. The anniversary ceremony encapsulated the tension in the international arena as Trump seeks to rewrite the rules that have governed the world in recent decades. Trump has argued other nations have taken advantage of the United States, whether in economics or security, and that it was time to look after American interests first. He has abandoned a number of international agreements on trade, nuclear proliferation and climate change, and disparaged alliances like NATO and the European Union. He has denounced virtually every trade pact that the United States has ever agreed to and recently forced Canada and Mexico to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement in a way that he says will benefit the United States more. At the Arc de Triomphe, bells tolled exactly one century after the guns fell silent at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Peter Baker and Alissa J. Rubin are New York Times writers. CCTV captured the moment an oil tanker lost control and ploughed into the side of another vessel. Taiwanese vessel Kinshing first collided with a Japanese cargo ship named Setsu Maru then moments later struck the side of chemical tanker Der Yun, which is seen in the video. Security cameras show it smash into the side of the vessel which was birthed at the Port of Kaohsiung in Taiwan on November 3. It suffered bow damages. The Setsu Maru sustained minimal damage and was allowed to embark on its voyage to the Japanese island of Okinawa. CPC Corporation, the Taiwanese company that owns the Der Yun tanker, confirmed the collision. It also said there no casualties or oil spill as a result. ''But there was a water tank rupture on the left side of the hull,'' a maritime official stated. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Congressman-elect Max Rose told the Advance that his top legislative priority in Congress is combating corruption. Rose responded to several Advance questions on Monday about how the newly minted lawmaker hopes to govern in a divided Congress. Rose doubled down on passing a series of bills aimed at increasing transparency, keeping special interests out of elections, and removing barriers to participate in elections. If we do not pass a serious anti-corruption bill in Congress and get the corrosive and toxic money out of our politics, we wont be able to get anything else done," Rose said shortly after his win. "We have to change politics in this country. That is what we ran on and we have a mandate to do so. TRANSPARENCY, SPECIAL INTERESTS, AND VOTER PARTICIPATION One series of bills -- which focuses on curbing special interests -- would ban former members of Congress from lobbying their former colleagues and increase restrictions on former staffers; prohibit members of Congress from soliciting contributions from lobbyists during the legislative session and strengthen the definition of who has to register as a lobbyist. The bills focused on transparency would require organizations that spend money on U.S. elections to disclose their donors; force online political advertising to adhere to the same rules as televised ads, and establish a nonpartisan independent agency to monitor members of Congress. Rose has also said that hell voluntarily publish his congressional office meeting calendar. The bills focused on increasing voter participation would make Election Day a national holiday, expand early voting, and make it easier to vote via mail-in ballots. In a response to questions from the Advance, Rose said that he also supports passing an infrastructure bill to end our commuting nightmare and securing additional resources to combat the opioid epidemic. Rose also left the door open to forming coalitions and working with Republican House members to get House bills passed. I think there are a lot of new members who dont care about the party and are concerned only with results, said Rose. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, TRUMP Throughout his campaign, Rose repeatedly stated that he will not vote for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House Minority Leader, to be speaker of the House. Rose told the Advance in an October interview that he wants to vote for an individual that the entire country can rally around. We need to earn peoples trust. We need someone whos ready to envision highly innovative, transformative and dynamic solutions for the 21st century, said Rose at a Port Richmond senior center. Someone who says here is a clear message that the Democrats could unite around, that the American people can unite around. The congressman-elect, who campaigned largely on solving local issues, still sees little use in using his position to focus on President Trump. People are tired of the vitriol. Theyre tired of the divisiveness," said Rose. Donald Trump is the president right now. Well litigate that in 2020. But until then we have to get to work. We have to get to work on infrastructure, on the opioid epidemic, on gun violence, [and] on the affordability crisis. Rose joined a wave of Democrats who took back the House of Representatives when he won New Yorks 11th congressional district on Nov. 6. The district voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016. Rose beat Rep. Dan Donovan, a three-year incumbent, by 6 percentage points. Rose has yet to sit down with his former opponent, but the two plan to meet in the near future to discuss projects such as the East Shore seawall. His staff has already reached out and we are in the process of setting all of that up, Rose said. The congressman has been incredibly gracious, and I cant thank him enough for that. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. The boroughs zombie homes werent always unsightly blights in the neighborhood. Once pristine homes, they became unkept after the homeowner died, leaving the home empty and without somebody to care for it day-to-day. Others fall into disrepair after a foreclosure or negligence of a property owner who does not live on-site. The Advance was contacted by several West Brighton residents about a home that has sat idle and become a zombie since the homeowner died seven years ago. A red notice from Carrington Home Solutions is posted to the front door: This property has been deemed to be vacant and/or abandoned. This will be reported to the mortgage servicer. The mortgage servicer will take action to protect the property from waste and/or deterioration. Carrington Home Solutions did not respond to a request for comment. Grass is overgrown around the perimeter of the corner property, the front door is not secured, the windows are boarded, black mold can be seen growing in and around the home, and neighbors say squatters have regularly been in the home. Neighbors say theyve reached out to city and state agencies, as well as local elected officials and multiple banks, but nothing has been done. The city can issue vacate orders to remove squatters, but only if there are dangerous or illegal conditions like improper gas hookups; squatters can otherwise stay put, a city source said. "We as a city do not know necessarily know the relationship of the occupants to the owner, so we cant ask the police department to remove them. Only the owner can, said Vito Mustaciuolo, deputy commissioner for enforcement and neighborhood services at the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). WHO OWNS THE PROPERTY WHEN THE HOMEOWNER DIES? The property is left to the homeowners estate when they die -- but that doesnt mean the property will be taken over by the next-of-kin or relative, regardless if it was left to them in a will or not. First, the bank has to track down the next of kin. Richard Corash, of Corash & Hollender, P.C., said the process can be extremely time consuming. I have been contacted several times by the banks that have foreclosed on a property trying to find next of kin to file for administration of the estate but this becomes complicated, said Mary Soyka, Esq., at the Law Offices of Soyka & Soyka PLLC. The difficulties are compounded when things like debts, broken windows and doors, mold, rodents, tax liens and violations against the property outweigh the assets of the estate. IS THERE LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY? When the next of kin see there is no benefit to them, it is uncommon for them to go through the hassle of the court process for administration or probate of an estate to help the bank foreclose on a property where there will not be any assets left over to distribute to any beneficiaries, she explained. The West Brighton neighbors did their own investigation and tracked down the owners next of kin in Flordia; he said he wasnt interested in acquiring the home. Next of kin and people named in the decedents will are not legally required to take responsibility of the property, multiple sources told the Advance. The estate is responsible but not the estates administrator, said Corash. The estate may have a responsibility but if theres no executor of the estate then nobody can take over it. He said its not uncommon for a distant relative to want to take over the property. Theyll get somebody to come in and do the work [to fix the home] but only if theyll get something in return [for the property], he said. Meanwhile, zombie homes sit idle while banks, lawyers, the city and state work to legally obtain the homes. Soyka explained that unclaimed bank accounts end up with Unclaimed Funds with the state Comptrollers office; unclaimed property is eventually taken over by the Public Administrator and sold if the bank doesnt move forward with foreclosure proceedings. According to the Public Administrators office, it takes over estates when a homeowner dies without a will or if nobody is willing or eligible to take over. OVER 500 ZOMBIE HOMES ON STATEN ISLAND According to the state Department of Financial Services (DFS), there are 522 Staten Island zombie homes on the state's database. In 2016, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Zombie Property and Foreclosure Prevention Act to help reduce the zombie property epidemic across New York state and to enforce stricter laws on mortgagees, servicing agents, homeowners and city and state agencies. The law also established a database for the properties through HPD. Since the launch of HPDs Zombie Homes Initiative last year, the team has worked diligently to identify zombie homes across the city that cause blight in our communities and to conduct outreach to homeowners at risk of foreclosing on their properties, said an HPD spokesman. An HPD spokesman said the West Brighton home has not been surveyed and it has not been involved with the West Brighton property. During the past year and even the past week as Democrats have won the Governor's Office and super-majorities in both state houses, it has become more apparent that the state will take up a capital bill for the first time since 2009, Yorkville City Administrator Bart Olson said in a memo to aldermen. In order to have any chance at funds for the local match of the Metra BNSF project, both communities will need representatives in Springfield as the discussion progresses. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Just a few days after the announcement of the very first official Wu-Tang Clan Day, Alamo Drafthouse -- which is being built in The Boulevard shopping center in New Dorp -- unveiled plans for The Flying Guillotine, a kung fu-inspired bar concept with Wu-Tangs kung-fu disciple RZA. Its an extreme pleasure to be partnering with Alamo Drafthouse on their Staten Island location, said RZA. When I first visited Alamo Drafthouse in 2004, I was blown away by the food, drink, and service that accompanied a slew of cool, genre and time-crossing films. The kung fu film selection was my favorite, and the opportunity to see these classics once again on a large screen returned me back to my youth. According to Alamo Drafthouse the venue will include: An extensive menu of themed cocktails, spirits, and collaboration beers between RZA and Alamo Drafthouse beverage director Bill Norris. A video store offering free rentals from a collection of titles, including martial arts classics. An archive of memorabilia and posters that cover the vast span of kung fu film history. Monthly screenings of martial arts classics with after-parties at The Flying Guillotine. Like Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyns House of Wax, The Flying Guillotine is both a bar and a museum, says Tim League, founder and CEO of Alamo Drafthouse. Kung fu movies elevated the action genre in terms of choreography, production design, and story-telling. Without this influence, there is no Matrix and there is no Mission: Impossible as we know them today. We love this legacy and want to celebrate and share its rich history." Alamo Drafthouse Staten Island will feature nine auditoriums with approximately 930 luxury recliners. The theater will open in in fall 2019 when the shopping center is expected to be complete. WU-TANG CLAN IN THE NEWS The rap collective who hails from the Park Hill Houses in Clifton have been making news since recently signing on for its own Hulu series and launching a new lipstick line. And, now, they even have their very own day. The borough of Staten Island -- which the group affectionately refers to as Shaolin" -- formally recognized Nov. 9 as Wu-Tang Clan Day to mark the groups ground-breaking debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). To celebrate the occasion, the Clan performed its iconic Protect Ya Neck on Good Morning America to talk about the lasting impact of the single. The soon-to-be released Wu-Tang: An American Saga -- based on RZAs books The Wu-Tang Manual and Tao of Wu, as well the Clans biographical stories -- will let viewers get to know the men behind the famous rappers. Set in early 90s New York at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, the show tracks the Clans formation, a vision of Bobby Diggs aka The RZA, who strives to unite a dozen young, black men that are torn between music and crime but eventually rise to become the unlikeliest of American success stories, says a press release issued about the new series. The series will be written by RZA with Alex Tse (SuperFly), say published reports. FOLLOW TRACEY PORPORA ON FACEBOOK and TWITTER To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! "For 242 years, from the American Revolution to the current War on Terror, every generation of veterans has selflessly answered our nation's call. Consider what they have sacrificed in the past, and what they need to sacrifice so that we may all enjoy the freedom we have today," Pettyjohn said. Welcome to the post-royal commission era of borrowing. Heightened scrutiny by banks of the financial position of borrowers will be the new order and responsible lending will get a whole lot more responsible. ANZ was the latest of the banks to really dip its toe in the water. This week it told staff and mortgage brokers, who are responsible for selling its mortgage products, that enhanced verification will be introduced later in the month. ANZ is getting tough with home loan borrowers. Credit:Wayne Taylor Those applying for a mortgage will need to outline what they spend on everything from Netflix to nannies and from cigarettes to chardonnay. With the rate of mortgage growth already easing across the board and investors looking for finance dropping precipitously, bank shareholders felt a cold shiver at the prospect of additional internal controls on lending contributing to a further slowdown in home loan growth. Healthscope has offered exclusive due diligence to Brookfield Capital Partners after the Canadian group returned to the table over the weekend with a takeover offer worth up to $4.5 billion. It is the first breakthrough for either of Healthscopes two suitors, which were refused a chance to look at the private hospital operator's books in May. Healthscope chairman Paul Dwyer said the new bid offered more options for Healthscope shareholders. Credit:Attila Csaszar Healthscope still won't provide due diligence to the rival BGH-AustralianSuper consortium - which is also its largest shareholder - on the grounds its proposal is significantly less attractive than the Brookfield proposal. We consider the Brookfield proposal to be attractive for shareholders, Healthscope chairman Paula Dwyer said in a statement to the ASX. Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech last week that the country was "steadily widening the opening up" of its financial industry. For China watchers, steadily was the key word. Almost exactly a year after the country announced historic plans to ease local ownership rules and entry barriers to what's now a $US45 trillion ($62.3 trillion) industry, e While Xi signalled that China's opening remains on track despite the country's trade war with America, he also made it clear that policy makers will move deliberately. Wall Street is taking a cautious approach to investing in China. Credit:APee The world's biggest financial firms have adopted much the same stance. Even as they applaud China's opening, many are taking a cautious approach as they weigh the country's enormous long-term potential against its growing number of short-term challenges - everything from the trade war to sinking stock prices and rising defaults. A China expert says Australia has to "push back against China" as Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted the decision to knock back Hong Kong-based CKI's bid for the country's major gas pipelines was not aimed at stopping Chinese Communist Party control. In June, CKI made a $13 billion offer for APA. The government rejected the deal last week on the grounds it would have given a single foreign company monopoly control of most of the country's pipelines. CKI's bid for APA would hand control over the majority of Australia's gas pipelines to the Hong Kong utility company. Credit:James Davies Despite the preliminary rejection by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the government gave CKI two weeks to reapply with a renewed proposal. According to Kora Organics, founded by Miranda Kerr, the Clear Quartz Luminizer will pass vibrations of harmony, calmness and clarity onto you. Girl Undiscovereds Stars Aligning Crystals promise to both brighten skin and help to emanate a balanced, relaxed energy. Gemstone Organics Organic Jade face creme purports to balance emotions and bring harmony into your life. While crystals in products could help skin to look better (for example, gold has been used to successfully treat inflammatory conditions like arthritis) is there any scientific evidence to prove that theyll make you feel better, too? Not really, according to associate professor and dermatologist at Central Sydney Dermatology, Dr Stephen Shumack. Theres no evidence at all that I could find theres no harm in giving these products a try if youve got the budget but Id suggest using them with a degree of scepticism, explains the former President of the Australasian College of Dermatologists. The healing and mood-boosting benefits of crystals in skincare are hard to grasp, but the glowing results and rave reviews from consumers are much clearer cut. Journalist Augusta Statz wrote for Bustle that while it didnt change her life, crystal skincare had a calming effect for both for my skin, which lost some of its redness, and for myself in that I slept like a baby the whole week. There are hundreds of five-star reviews and testimonials sprinkled across the internet that concur these products are the beauty equivalent of feng shui and can bring about life changing results. So how can we explain this huge chasm between the rather sceptical science and the glowing anecdotal evidence? A 2001 study carried out by academics from Goldsmiths College at the University of London may give an insight into this discord. Researchers gave 80 volunteers either a real quartz crystal or a fake crystal made of glass and asked them to meditate with it for five minutes. Afterwards, the group was questioned and the results were puzzling. We found that lots of people claimed that they could feel odd sensations while holding the crystals, such as tingling, heat and vibrations, if wed told them in advance that this is what might happen "In other words, the effects reported were a result of the power of suggestion, not the power of the crystals, said Christopher French, a professor of psychology who carried out the experiment. Its true, this power of suggestion or placebo effect, as its more commonly known can work. In fact, up to one in three people who take placebo medication experience an improvement of their symptoms. So why couldnt this positive outcome extend to crystal beauty products and our moods, too? If theres a claim mentioned on these products, people are going to read that claim and a percentage of them are going to feel these benefits simply because its been stated by the company, explains Dr Shumack. "I'm sure she'll grow out of it." My teacher, a kind but reserved woman in her thirties, was referring to one of my classmates. The one who spread the rumour that was going around about me. The one where I was a lesbian. In a school where I could be expelled for my sexual orientation, my biggest problem was not staff, but students. Credit:Shutterstock I was 14 years old, two years into my high school career at one of the Lower North Shore's exclusive Christian private girls schools, and the rumour was true. She spoke to me with respect and treated me with dignity, the way our school taught us to interact with everyone. With Christian values. Celebrity eastern suburbs cosmetic surgeon Dr William Mooney has had his medical registration suspended. The ear, nose and throat surgeon who boasts the highest number of nose jobs in Australia is listed as suspended on the website of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). Cosmetic surgeon Dr William Mooney. In March the Herald reported that two of Dr Mooneys patients had died and their deaths had been referred to the coroner. At the time, medical sources confirmed to the Herald that Dr Mooney had been subject to drug testing as part of the conditions placed on his medical registration. We want to see information about what will be done to the property, the experience of the project team, and whether the city will be receiving any proceeds from the buyer for sale of the building, Olson said in the memo. A new player has entered Sydney's controversial bike-sharing market despite the failure of two of its predecessors, Ofo and Reddy Go. Lime launched on Friday with about 300 power-assisted bicycles and it plans to drop about 100 more on Sydney streets every night. Green machines: Bright green Lime bicycles have appeared on Sydney streets, but scooters may soon follow. Credit:Lime While the new bike weighs 35 kilograms - which Lime suggests makes it hard for one to find itself halfway up a tree - users can ride at speeds of up to 23.8km/h with the assistance of a Lithium battery pack. The San Francisco based company - backed by tech heavyweights Uber and Google's parent company Alphabet - has plans for only about 2000 bikes, although it is most keen to introduce electric scooters, for which it is far better known overseas. Parents were heading with their four-legged friends into puppy preschool at Earlwood Animal Hospital on Tuesday night when they noticed another animal looking in on the class. A red-bellied black snake - commonly found near swamps and dams - was spotted slithering towards the clinic from Bexley Road near Homer Street, before trying to enter the Greek Orthodox Church next door. A red-bellied black snake. Credit:Stuart Walmsley Practice Principal Dr Peter Nicholl said it was the second time within a week that he had spotted this type of snake in the inner southwest Sydney suburb, having found one flattened on Bexley Road a few days earlier. Dr Nicholl said that while he hadnt seen a snake near the practice before, it wasnt surprising given their proximity to Wolli Creek. Barangaroo engenders mixed feelings when it comes to aesthetics, so its sad to learn that a major piece of public art will no longer be strung up over the harbourside precinct. We can reveal a multi-million dollar work has been cancelled in the midst of a spectacularly stupid and very private two-year stoush between arts patron Simon Mordant (backed by Lendlease) and James Packers Crown Resorts (backed by a phalanx of dowdy bureaucrats). Illustration: John Shakespeare. Credit:Fairfax Media After four years in the works, Lendlease and Mordant, the chair of its public art advisory panel, have been told in no uncertain terms to give up on artist Tomas Saraceno's (yet to be announced) $16 million Sundial work they planned to suspend over Waterman's Cove. Saraceno, who imagines alternative possible scenarios for futures, has his work strewn across Europe from Paris to Munich. But not in Sydney. And in the House? In the 153 years since the US Civil War, the president's party has lost an average of 35 House seats in midterm elections. On the current count, Trump's party has lost 32. This result is "so very normal", writes sociologist Musa al-Gharbi of Columbia University in The Washington Post , that Democrats need to adjust their frame of reference. The midterm results for Trump are eerily similar to those for Ronald Reagan, he points out. Reagan went on to win a second term in a landslide. He's accomplished most of his topline pledges. Among them, stopping immigration from terror-prone countries (the so-called Muslim ban), income tax cuts, company tax cuts, tearing up trade deals, putting taxes on China, pulling out of the Paris accord, impaling the Iran one. He has delivered a majority of the US Supreme Court to conservatives. And the midterm elections last week his party increased its dominance of the Senate. After an ineffectual first year in the presidency, he has worked out how to exert power. He now has a solid record of getting his way. At the end of two full terms, Barack Obama had kept 48 per cent of his election promises, according to the non-partisan Politifact. After just half of one term, Trump has either delivered or is working towards 53 per cent of his. He's broken just 8 per cent. Donald Trump is not a bad dream. The world has to accept that he's a waking reality. Remember all the talk of impeachment? It's been two years now. Far from being impeached, he's entrenched himself. But Trump is hated, isn't he? Depends who you ask. He remains unpopular with most of his people, yes. But his grip on the Republican Party is extraordinary. His approval rating among Republicans remains around 90 per cent. The American left talks of waging "resistance". But America is becoming more like Trump, not less. The Democrats have fallen in behind Trump on trade. They aren't proposing bigger immigration intakes, either. "Most Americans in both parties also agree with Mr Trump that America's old allies need to look out for themselves and stop relying on the US to protect them," writes US foreign affairs analyst Robert Kagan in The New York Times. As time goes on, Trump looks less like an aberration, more like a culmination. The foreign governments who prefer to think that he's just a passing squall need to realise that Trump's America is "not a spasm but a new direction in American foreign policy, or rather a return to older traditions," says Kagan, traditions of "the kind that kept us on the sidelines while fascism and militarism almost conquered the world". The headline on his analysis: "'America First' Has Won." Loading What can a country like Australia do at a juncture like this? The executive director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Michael Fullilove, agrees that "we can now say with some confidence that the US will not snap back to normality". In a speech to be delivered today, he sets out eight principles that he wants Australia to use to protect its interests in a Trumpian world. He rejects the idea that Australia should mimic Trump and adopt an "Australia First" philosophy. Australia depends on the system of global rules and trade and security. To reject it would be to inflict immense self-harm. Fullilove also rejects the notion that Australia should define itself by opposing Trump, by becoming "never-Trumpers", perhaps edging closer to China. The US remains the cornerstone of the global system, and Australia should salvage what it can. He proposes a third approach: "I agree with the Australian governments stated commitment to the rule-based order but I think we should do more to support that order." It even smelled the same; of rich, dark coffee and of Bolognaise sauce. My smell-memory of the skinny restaurant at the top of Bourke Street was imprinted very early for I suspect I was first taken there in a bib. My favourite time of the day to go to Pellegrinis is after the dinner hour when most of the push has gone, leaving the staff table in the kitchen at the back, fairly free. Then, you might hear a snatch of Italian opera or a proper argument carried out in the lingo and life in Melbourne takes on a more passionate shade. When I got to Rome and heard street noises and the songs, I couldnt believe how like Pellegrinis it was. It was just the same then as is now, which is why I like it so much and why, each time I go away from Melbourne and come back again, I invariably gravitate to Pelles for reassurance that though Mr Grollo is changing everything around here, some things stay the same. My white-haired father tells me he used to dine there as a young man keeping odd hours. He says that the Pellegrini brothers would let him prop for his midnight minestrone on the fridge in the kitchen. Inside Pellegrini's, 1989. Credit:Andrew De La Rue When he started taking us there, those same smiling Pellegrinis excused us the appalling gaffe of eating spaghetti white with butter rather than the rich red sauces. Thank God that phase passed; and thank God we grew out of the passion for strawberry granitas which are still so sweet and thick with ice that a straw stands straight up in the glass. Imagine the kilojoule count! The menu gives me as much the spirit of place as the decor and the familial faces of the staff do. Emma has been making the pasta for 24 years and Im sure that not one new dish has been added to the menu in all that time. Any lack of invention is forgiven, however, for the lasagne is the best in town and I still dream about the Russian salad, really potato salad cunningly disguised by the Imperial pink of beetroot pieces. Also, you get what you want so fast almost instantly. "Amoro Sisto," read another. Inside the espresso bar on Tuesday morning, the white-shirted waiters had red-rimmed eyes. There wasn't a dry eye in the place. I sat on one of the cracked leather stools near the empty cake fridge and ordered a long black from a waiter. We communicated through nods. My coffee came almost instantly, a thick crema hiding inky bitterness. Loading Next to me, John Cuni ordered the same. "This was the heart and soul of the city. I can't understand the people who go elsewhere for a coffee," he said. Mr Cuni has been coming here for years. His parents dated here. "I'm just lost for words. I can understand it because it was the sort of thing [Mr Malaspina] would do. He would always step in to help." Daniel Porceddu also sat at the battered wooden bar and greeted the waitstaff with a firm grip. "Condolences" he said as he ordered a coffee. He's been coming here almost every Friday for the past 20 years. Mr Malaspina called him the "avvocato" the lawyer. "Whoever came here, he always made you feel special," Mr Pordeccu said. Pellegrini's is important to Melbourne, he said, but it's also important to Italians who migrated here, sometimes with nothing. "Places like this, they were vital," Mr Porceddu said. "Pellegrini's was often their first port of call, the place to connect to the local Italian community." Inside Pellegrini's, 1989. Credit:Andrew De La Rue Customers said grazie, as long blacks were passed across the counter. Outside, a sea of flowers stretched along Bourke and Crossley streets. Rob Cecchini , an elderly Italian man with dark hair, Mr Malaspina's nephew, took a seat. He was one of the first inside. He used a big paw to wipe his eyes. "This is a beautiful celebration of his life. I'm sure he would have wanted it to be like this. You can only cry so much." With a shaking hand he poured from a bottle of mineral water. The woman next to him placed her arm around his shoulders. Loading The Red Cross has deployed volunteers at the espresso bar, trained in psychological first aid. In the neighbouring laneway, Crossley Street, Shona McNeill laid a bouquet, one of hundreds. "I'm so glad he's getting a state funeral. Because it shows being a good person always wins." Flowers outside Pellegrini's on Monday Credit:Joe Armao Outside the cafe, Simela Gigis carried a thick wad of bills in her wallet. After her coffee, she was hoping to find the 'Trolley Man", the hero of the hour, and give him the money. Mr Malaspina would always greet her with a call of "ciao bella" hello, beautiful. "I'm not a bella," she would reply, "I'm a grandmother!" She remembers his smile. "He was a very happy person. As soon as customers stepped inside he would smile. This shouldn't happen to a person like that. It has broken my heart." Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy soon arrived, laying flowers. Mr Morrison ran his fingers across a note pinned to Pellegrini's glass. "We loved you Sisto, always in our thoughts," it read. He greeted Ms Gigis as the cameras watched, grasping her small hands. "We've all got to find our Sisto smiles," he told her. Premier Daniel Andrews said he had spoken with Mr Malaspina's family and was pleased they had taken up his offer of a state funeral. "I'm sure that the crowds will be enormous," he told Channel Nine. Mr Malaspina had co-owned Pellegrini's since 1974. A trial of the SMART drumlines system will not be extended to include the Mandurah coast after a shark attack closed a popular beach on Sunday morning. Albany bodyboarder Noah Symmans was out near the Wedge break off Pyramids Beach when he was bitten on the leg by an unknown species of shark. Paramedics attended to Mr Symmans when he was removed from the water. Credit:Caitlyn Rintoul, Mandurah Mail He was airlifted to Royal Perth Hospital where he is being treated for his injuries. Pyramids Beach is the site of the three shark attacks over the course of three years, and Mandurah locals have campaigned for safer beaches since the death of Ben Gerring in Falcon in 2016. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has defended funding cuts for a charity that feeds 710,000 Australians a month, but says he is open to a review of the decision. Foodbank's Key Staples program, which makes sure essential supplies such as rice, bread and vegetables get to hungry people, has had its annual funding reduced from $750,000 to $427,000 - with news of the cut coming just weeks before Christmas. Prime Minister Scott Morrison will review the government's decision to slash Foodbank funding. Credit:Ben Rushton Speaking on Channel 10 program Studio 10 on Monday morning, Mr Morrison said the government had maintained the level of funding for food support services, but that it was now being distributed among three charities. "It means that the overall level of service that's being provided for food support is exactly the same. It hasn't changed," the Prime Minister said. Mr Morrison added: These other issues are relevant, dont get me wrong, but he was radicalised, and thats why he took a knife to people. The exchange reprises the debate about whether attacks are motivated by Islamist preaching or mental illness, an argument that took place in the wake of the Lindt Cafe siege in Sydney in 2014. "He was a terrorist": Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday's attacker on Bourke Street, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali'. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Forensic psychologist and radicalisation expert Kate Barrelle told the inquest into the siege that gunman Man Haron Monis was "undoubtedly a terrorist" and that the attack "was an act of radicalisation by a disturbed man". Mr Morrison said the Bourke Street attack showed that Muslim community leaders needed to make sure they intervened to stop radicalisation. What is happening in these communities is we have people coming in to them and spreading this vile evil and taking advantage of vulnerable people in their community," he said. Now, imams and others who are the leaders in their religious communities need to be looking carefully at who is coming in to their community, whos talking to their kids, whos at the back of the mosque and walking out with some young person who seems a bit disenfranchised. Do they go up and talk to these young people? I know in many cases they do. There is, I think, a very positive level of cooperation, but there needs to be a heightened sense, because you cant watch everybody. What you need to do is ensure that the community is working constructively together with authorities, to see who is influencing who and how. Asked about claims that his criticisms were racist dog-whistling, Mr Morrison said this was the same old, tired excuse that was always made. Loading I dont believe that is where the majority of decent, hard-working, respectable Australian Muslims are at. They want their community to be safer and there are people coming in to their community and they are infecting their young people and others with hatred and false teaching, which is taking them on the wrong path. Now, that has to be called out and it has to be stopped. This happened because of an Australian citizen who was radicalised in Australia he didnt bring it from somewhere else, he learnt it all here. On the question of whether remarks like his were racist, Mr Morrison said critics could throw that claim at him if they liked but that he had worked closely with Muslim community leaders over many years. He named Dr Jamal Rifi, an Australian Lebanese Muslim GP and community leader, as brave man who had stood up in his community against radicalisation. Former prime minister Tony Abbott, who oversaw a major strengthening of Australias counter-terrorism laws, on Monday said Mr Morrison was quite right to say on the weekend that there is a problem within Islam. Mr Abbott said the vast majority of Muslims in Australia were decent people who have joined our team and have embraced the Australian way of life. But there is this small minority that have this death to the infidel mindset and the sooner Islam can rid itself of that, the better for everyone, he told 2GB radio. The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative is breathtaking in its vision. Chinese co-funded projects extending from Kazakhstan to Africa, through south-east Asia and into the Pacific. China's Belt and Road Initiative plans to connect south-east Asian countries with the south-west region of Yunnan province through a series of high-speed railways. Credit:Bloomberg Two wise people sitting at the same table might disagree as to whether it's all about friendship and co-operation or about spreading Chinas already significant influence. I think its both. The simple fact is it is the biggest initiative in Chinas foreign policy. So in your wildest dreams can you imagine NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian heading off and doing a Belt and Road deal without telling Scott Morrison or Marise Payne? Of course not, because she understands that the Commonwealth has responsibility for foreign affairs and national security. She understands the federation we live in. No doubt she also understands why our Parliament recently significantly strengthened our national security legislation. Its a changing world and we need to keep up to date in all fields, not least foreign espionage incursions. For that reason alone it would have occurred to Berejiklian to just check things out with her federal counterparts. Belt and Road brings opportunities for collaboration that in some areas invites questions of national security. He also shared some of his thoughts in a Facebook post on the first anniversary of the Vegas shooting mostly, he said, because it was therapeutic. But he also feels a strong need to pass along lessons he learned since that day, including the revelation its OK to stay behind to help the injured, especially if you are a health care provider who has to deal with the psychological consequences of running past people to save your life. A Liberal member will run as an independent in the marginal Richmond electorate despite the partys leadership making the strategic decision to withdraw from the seat in a bid to hurt Labor. Fitzroy resident Kevin Quoc Tran is among four independents who have nominated to contest Richmond, where Labor Planning Minister Richard Wynne is facing a major challenge from the Greens. Independent candidate for Richmond Kevin Quoc Tran. The Liberal Party withdrew from Richmond after failing to strike a deal with Labor over preferences. But the move has inflamed tensions inside the party, with internal critics arguing that Liberal voters in Richmond had been abandoned. You cant neglect those voters, Mr Tran said. The funeral was being held at the Queant Road Cemetery near the village of Buissy in northern France, where Private MacBeth and Lance Corporal Rolls will be among 2377 other soldiers buried beneath neat rows of white headstones. Rolls and MacBeth, at least, will have their names chiselled into stone: 1441 of those buried there remain unidentified. Rolls, of the Melbourne suburb of Prahran, was aged 24 when last seen by his mates. He had a wife, Emily, and they had a daughter, Laura, aged two. He described his "trade or calling" on his enlistment papers as "draper". Joan Connor, a grand-niece of Lance Corporal Rolls, said that although the army had investigated her ancestors disappearance at the time and concluded he had died at Bullecourt on May 3, 1917, his family never gave up hope. "James lived on in their hearts and in their stories," she said. The DNA of her sister, Irene Darby helped identify the ancestor the Canberra women had never met. "It was a great comfort to the Rolls descendants to hear from the armys Unrecovered War Casualties team that James had been found after all this time," she said. Robert MacBeth is the great-grandson of World War I soldier Private Hedley MacBeth. Credit:Justin McManus "And we have been amazed at the amount of information the team has been able to provide about James war service. It is as though he has been gifted back to us those who never knew him personally, but who knew all about the pain and heartache his disappearance caused to those who knew and loved him." Robert MacBeth, of Ballan, between Melbourne and Ballarat, also submitted his DNA to help the army unit finally identify his long-missing ancestor. He is among the family members who flew to France for Monday's funeral. "The whole thing has been amazing," Mr MacBeth told Fairfax Media. Hedley MacBeth, born in Launceston, was 31, and married to Bessie. They had a daughter, Mary, aged 9, and a son, Robert, 5, and the family lived in North Melbourne when the First World War took him away. He described his trade as "rubber worker". Barbara Reid, a grand-niece of Private MacBeth whose DNA was used to help identify his remains, said that like many others, her family had paid a great price both during and after the First World War. "Four of Hedleys first cousins died at Gallipoli or in France," she said. "Hedleys brother Tasman was wounded at Gallipoli on 29 May, 1915, and returned to Australia in January 1916. His brother-in-law, Joseph Quincey, returned home with injuries. They had all left behind wives and children when they left for the front." Rolls and MacBeth were members of the 24th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force. On May 3, 1917, the men and their mates were trying to get back to a safe area after taking part in the furious fighting that would become known as the Second Battle of Bullecourt. The first, almost a month before, had been a disaster - in a single day, the Australian 4th Brigade lost 2229 soldiers out of 3000, 1170 of whom were taken prisoner. Rolls and MacBeth and their comrades in the 24th Battalion belonged to the 6th Brigade of Australias Second Division, chosen with the 5th Brigade for the second attack on the massively defended German Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt. The 5th Brigade troops first thrown at the line were cut to pieces, though some managed to get through the first line of the barbed wire, stepping over the bodies of their countrymen who had died there a month before. The survivors of the 6th Brigade captured about 400 metres of the German front and pressed on to the second line of wire. When the action was finally called off on May 15, 7000 Australians were dead, wounded or taken prisoner. On the first day of this chaos, Rolls and MacBeth took shelter in a trench on the southern side of a railway embankment, the "jumping off" point for the attack. London: The Tory's up-and-coming star, hedge fund manager, arch-conservative and backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg, has compared himself to Donald Trump, whom he describes as an "authentic" politician. While denying that he is making a tilt for the Tory leadership, the wildly popular Brexiteer said that, following on from Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, leaders under whom he says "the age of spin reached its high point", voters like seeing authentic politicians. Man on a mission: Conservate Party MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. Credit:Bloomberg "The electorate wants politicians who are what they say they are." When asked about similarities between himself and the US President, he said: "There's not a lot of pretence about Donald Trump. I mean, it is the real Donald, it's not some carefully crafted media approach. And likewise, I am as a I am." Gaza/Jerusalem: Palestinians in Gaza fired dozens of rockets at southern Israel on Monday and Israel launched retaliatory air strikes, a day after an Israeli incursion prompted deadly fighting in the enclave. At least two Palestinian gunmen were killed in the air attacks, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said. On the Israeli side of the border, Palestinian fire destroyed a bus, critically wounding one person, health officials said. Israeli soldiers take cover near the Gaza border on Monday as fighter jets were dispatched to strike in Gaza. Credit:AP The flareup cast a new cloud over efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations to broker a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the dominant armed group in Gaza. The two enemies have fought three wars in the past decade. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped to reach an "arrangement" that would avoid another conflict and ease Israeli-blockaded Gaza's economic hardships. PHILIPSBURG:--- St. Martin needs homebred psychologists and social workers. This was the consensus that resounded from the third edition of the USM Seminar Seminar series last Thursday, 8 November. Entitled Mental Health and Psychology on St. Maarten, the event drew a crowd of 60, which interacted with six local organizations and three speakers to lead the public dialogue on the countrys post-hurricane situation, focussing especially on the themes of child psychology, parenting, violence, and addictions. Panelists included School Counselor Jina Mahbubani, USM lecturer Fernando Richardson, and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Judith Arndell. All three had something to say about the wave of violence and incidences of drug and gambling addiction which the island St. Martin is currently experiencing, especially among the youth. During intermissions and in a community fair-like atmosphere, the public had the opportunity to meet representatives of the Mental Health Foundation, Alzheimers Foundation, Dr. J Enterprises, Turning Point and Ujima, the Red Cross, the Association of Psychologists and Allied Professionals, and the Court of Guardianship. Co-sponsored by the Department of Interior and Kingdom Relations (BAK) and UNESCO St. Maarten, the evening began with some introductory words by Ms. Rose Pooram Fleming, who recalled the importance of using the framework of the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals and particularly SDG 3, which promotes health and well-being. USM Alumnus and Youth Social Worker Lenworth Wilson Jr. moderated the seminar with much enthusiasm. Following the presentations, Wilson asked the public whether or not there was a need for USM to offer degree programmes in Psychology and Social Work. The audience responded with a strong round of applause. The need has been squarely qualified, please take note Mr. President, Wilson suggested to USM Rector Magnificus Dr. Antonio Carmona Baez. Members of the audience raised questions about the need for more awareness, research, training in parenting and statistics. Qualitative research is also an area where the university can contribute to the solution of the many mental health issues our community is facing, said USM General Liberal Arts Division Head Leona Nestor-Hubert. Since their appointments in May this year, both Dr. Carmona and USM Dean of Academics Dr. Rolinda Carter have expressed their desire to expand the Universitys course offerings and degree programmes. We hope to continue receiving government support to build these programmes which will be of great value to the community, said Carmona last Thursday evening, thanking also the backing of private initiatives. The USM Seminar Series was broadcasted live by CaniTV. As this recount went to press, over 400 people have seen (parts) of the public seminar from the comfort of their home via Facebook. HID Global hails the renewed promise of mobile access Its been almost exactly a decade since HID Global launched the world's first university pilot of smartphones carrying secure mobile IDs. A lot has changed in the following 10 years. Todays technology has matured, advanced, and proliferated across a variety of high-value use cases. To catch up on the latest developments in mobile access, we contacted Luc Merredew, Product Marketing Director, Physical Access Control, at HID Global. Q: What has changed since the first pilot implementation of smartphones used for secure mobile identification? Merredew: One of the biggest milestones several years ago was when mobile access solutions achieved certification to the ISO 27001:2013 Information Security Management System (ISMS) standard. With increasing awareness of cloud-based security threats and resulting high expectations from a solution, todays system owners, operators, and users insist on companies being able to demonstrate that they have had their services vetted by independent laboratories and/or agencies. When adopting mobile access solutions that maximise convenience and efficiency, and deliver dramatically improved user experiences, it is neither necessary nor acceptable to compromise security in either the physical or digital domains. Q: Do universities continue to be the biggest users? Mobile IDs on devices eliminate person-to-person credentials when accessing secured areas Merredew: The use cases have grown dramatically, spread evenly across all types of organisations in locations ranging from high-rise buildings to multi-campus global enterprises. But yes, universities continue to be big adopters, and they were among those most eager to leverage the technology so they could bring people back to campus in person during the pandemic. In this environment, mobile IDs on smartphones and other devices eliminate person-to-person credential (e.g., badge or ID card) issuance or revocation, as well as the need to physically touch cards, readers, or keypads when accessing secured areas. Q: How were mobile IDs employed by your customers as they brought people back to physical locations after the pandemic shutdown? Merredew: One example is Vanderbilt University, where the challenges of COVID-19 brought renewed attention to the importance of a modern system for identity management and access control that was compatible with Near Field Communication (NFC) and Bluetooth technologies. Members of the campus community could more conveniently access buildings and services with their mobile devices, and the university could efficiently provision and de-provision credentials remotely without person-to-person contact. More recently, Vanderbilt leveraged HID Mobile Access to deploy campus IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch through Apple Wallet. Q: Is there another example outside the university vertical? Merredew: Another example is the iconic tower Arcos Bosques Torre 1 in Mexico City, where the owners and tenants enjoy the simplicity of using their trusted mobile devices to seamlessly access their spaces. As with the Vanderbilt deployment, the drive for operational efficiency and convenience in the tower was combined with a desire to minimise the need for users to come in physical contact with the system. Having a solution like HID Mobile Access that delivers touchless entry and increased safety and security is important. Q: What have been the biggest mobile access advancements? The mobile credential provides contactless, seamless access to a wide range of devices and services Merredew: One of the most important advancements was simplifying upgrade paths to mobile access. In the Vanderbilt example, our HID Reader Manager was used to upgrade the firmware on the universitys physical access control readers and extend support for NFC-based credentials in Apple Wallet. The university uses the HID Origo Mobile Identities API integrated with CS Gold, a higher education transaction system from CBORD, for credential lifecycle management. Another significant enhancement has been the expanded range of uses cases for the mobile credential, going beyond simply opening doors to include providing contactless, seamless access to a wide range of devices and services such as time-and-attendance terminals, cashless vending machines, printers, computers, workstations, and many other applications. Q: Wearables are also having an impact. Merredew: Contactless mobile experiences are also delivered through wearable wristbands. One example is the Nymi band which, once authenticated, continuously authenticates the identity of the user until its removed from the wrist. This delivers zero-trust security principles and access control using convenient fingerprint and heartbeat biometrics to users seeking touchless authentication. Q: What is the impact of the cloud? Merredew: The move to a cloud-based system to issue and manage mobile identity credentials has unified, automated, and simplified identity issuance at a single facility or across any number of distributed office or remote work locations. Q: What should end users look for in a mobile access solution? Look for solutions that use a secure element in the reader as well as cloud certificates, to ensure security and data privacy Merredew: Solutions should support the largest possible number of popular mobile devices in HIDs case, this includes more than 250. Look for solutions that use a secure element in the reader, and a secure key management process, as well as cloud certificates, to ensure both security and data privacy. Make sure the solution supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Near Field Communication (NFC), and both iOS and Android operating systems. Solutions that provide Application Programming Interface (API) and Software Development Kit (SDK) support offer direct access to the solutions access control hardware, speeding deployment while enabling integration partners to continue innovating products that deliver even better user experiences. Q: Wonder what this market will look like in 10 more years. Whats next for mobile access? Merredew: Future innovations are on the horizon with technologies such as Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless connectivity, which HID expects will become ubiquitous on mobile devices. It provides unprecedented accuracy and security when measuring the distance or determining the relative position of a target. It is not HIDs expectation that UWB will replace Near Field Communication (NFC) or Bluetooth, but rather supplement Bluetooth and other technologies to provide the assurance, reliability, and granularity of device position that enables truly seamless experiences. Its important for kids to get a sense of patriotism early, said Helms, who served as an Army staff sergeant in Afghanistan in 2003-04. This is an opportunity for them to encounter vets, and it teaches them respect. NASA astronaut Russell Schweickart's career-defining moment came thanks to a camera problem. During a spacewalk on the Apollo 9 mission, his colleague's movie camera jammed, and Schweickart was given an order to sit tight for 5 minutes while the team troubleshot it. He was left to look out at the vastness of space, and Earth within it. When he came back home, he set about trying to inspire others with that experience. He even joined with then-Soviet cosmonauts to do so. "We're the only people who have seen the Earth with our own eyes as a single place of all life," Schweickart told Space.com of space travelers. "Sure enough, I found that my fellow cosmonauts felt the same way." [Apollo 9 in Photos: NASA Tests the Spidery Lunar Module] NASA astronaut Russell L. Schweickart during a spacewalk in March 1969, as seen from inside the lunar module. (Image credit: NASA) Much of Schweickart's energy has been directed toward planetary defense from asteroid impacts through the nonprofit he founded, called the B612 Foundation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Space.com: What do you think is missing from current conversations about space and space exploration? Russell Schweickart: While the pragmatic elements of space exploration, or space utilization actually, are talked about most frequently, the implications of humanity moving outward from the planet to me are the most important long-term things. But they get to be a little airy-fairy, so people generally don't talk about those kinds of things. It's not religious but is sort of philosophical, and those [implications] are less pragmatic, less immediate, they're not as much fun to most people as the competition or the technology per se. But to me it is the longer-term implications of humanity moving outward from the planet, looking back, realizing the preciousness of the Earth as a home of life, taking care of the planet while moving out. It's not the cowboy mentality of, 'we've trashed this place, let's move on to the other one.' Being born from your mother is when you start loving your mother, it's not when you end loving your mother, [even if] you may have partially trashed her in the process of being born. Space development utilizes a lot of resources water, fuel, energy, etc., etc. and the pace of space development is going to depend in the long run upon the economics of developing consumables in space and not continuing to dig up the Earth. There's resources galore out in space, for example, in the asteroids, and people have talked about asteroid mining but the economics of that has not really been studied well. Space.com: It's interesting that you mention asteroids as a potential resource, but are also involved in talking about those asteroids as threats with the B612 Foundation. Schweickart: Asteroids are multi-dimensional. In order to protect the Earth, you've got to know where the asteroids are and where they're headed, and we realized at one point several years ago that when we really think about that in the larger context, we have to develop a dynamic map of the inner solar system. But as soon as you think about that, that map is necessary for all of the other aspects, whether it's exploring the asteroids for science or as exploration venues or goals for human exploration, or for that matter for the exploitation ultimately of space resources. That idea of creating a dynamic map is an essential first step for all of the different dimensions that asteroids are involved with. We can learn from asteroids about how life came to be in the solar system. There's a lot of information there that it is waiting to be harvested in terms of the nature of life from the asteroids. Scientifically they're every bit as interesting as protecting the Earth from the occasional impact. I would say probably aside from more and more clever telescopes, actually visiting asteroids is probably going to be the way in which we're going to learn most about that big question of, did life predate the solar system or was it actually invented here? [Building Apollo: Photos from Moonshot History] Space.com: What have you learned from your experience working with government? Schweickart: The international geopolitical environment is frankly more important than any of the technological challenges of protecting the Earth from asteroid impacts. All of the issue of finding asteroids out there, getting them into a database, knowing their orbits, being able to predict an impact years ahead of time, being able to have the technology ready to deflect an asteroid all of those things frankly pale in comparison, ironically, with the geopolitical decision to act. You're going to have to make a decision to act to protect the Earth decades ahead of when the impact would occur. Half of your population that elected you to be the head of their nation don't believe there's such a thing as an asteroid, let alone one that's going to hit them and wipe them out. And you're going to be going for re-election in five years and you've got to be part of spending $500 million or $1 billion. We will probably be hit a couple times needlessly before we finally get around to the point of using the technology to protect the Earth from the next impact. Geopolitics, whether it's at the national level or the international level, is ultimately tied in very, very directly with the ultimate survival of life on Earth. The technology generally speaking will come along and is simple in comparison it's more fun to design it. Designing geopolitical systems is a pain in the butt and it's a mess. Antarctica is in my mind the best model that we have so far of responsible governance in non-sovereign territory. Space is a non-sovereign territory and it ought to remain non-sovereign, and I think we need to seriously look at how that governance should occur. Russell L. Schweickart's official astronaut portrait. (Image credit: NASA) Space.com: That's an interesting contrast; geopolitics is really what pushed us to Apollo and here we're seeing a very different incarnation of geopolitics. Schweickart: When we were in the middle of Apollo, on the one hand we were in this race to the death, almost, with the Soviet Union to be the first to get to the moon and regain our self-confidence or our self-image. At the same time, when the Soviets would do something we would all cheer because we knew it would stimulate the politicians to make faster decisions and we could accelerate the program. It was a frenemy situation. Space.com: The U.S. is building new crewed spaceships for the first time since the shuttle what's it like to test a new vehicle like you did with the lunar module? Schweickart: Being part of the development of a vehicle and flying it is quite distinct from learning how to fly a vehicle that's flown 50 times. It is a different experience and I think you have a different kind of opportunity. It forces you to, as a design person, as an engineer, to be thinking about how something is built in order to make it more usable even by you, who's going to fly it. That gets not only into the actual design of physical stuff, but it gets into the nature of the software coding and things of that kind, especially today much more so than in our day. The software in Apollo was really pioneering work, but today software does all kinds of things. [Moonshots and Snapshots of Project Apollo] Space.com: We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 9. What stands out to you about that experience as you look back? Schweickart: We were the first guys who got the chance to fly and test the lunar module, which gave all of my buddies a chance to run around the moon later. Unfortunately I didn't get to do that. But being able to be the first to test that vehicle and have it be such an enjoyable experience, and of course for me personally, the failure of that camera that Dave [TK] was using and me being outside and having five minutes to just be a human being there was really a high point in the mission for me. It made it a much more personal experience than if that camera hadn't failed. There would be a few more pictures of me outside, but you know that's a different issue. I'm very happy, in a way, that that accident occurred. Space.com: Have your feelings and emotions around the mission at all changed over the course of the decades of looking back on that experience? Schweickart: The reality is that it gets harder and harder to get back to that experience. I never know when I'm talking in any level of detail whether what I'm doing is remembering something I said 20 years ago about it as opposed to what happened 50 years ago. Memory fades. If you ask me a technical question about the lunar module or what a gauge reading was, I have no clue. Probably 50 percent of the people attending [The Economist Space Summit] know more about my flight than I remember. But I had the experience and what I remember is the profound impact that having had that experience has made on my life. It has in many ways given me the opportunity to initiate things, whether that was forming the Association of Space Explorers or starting the B612 Foundation, protecting the Earth. I've been able to do a lot of things because I flew in space that have implications for the future that weren't part of Apollo 9 per se. This drives my wife crazy, but in many ways I'm more proud of what I've been able to do since my flight than I am of having actually flown on Apollo 9. I'm not the kind of guy who relives something I did 50 years ago. Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com. This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. An extraordinary account of the impact space weather had on military operations in Vietnam in 1972 was found buried in the U.S. Navy archives, according to a newly published article in Space Weather. On August 4, 1972, the crew of a U.S. Task Force 77 aircraft flying near a naval minefield in the waters off Hon La observed 20 to 25 explosions over about 30 seconds. They also witnessed an additional 25 to 30 mud spots in the waters nearby. Read more: It's never been more important to keep an eye on space weather Destructor sea mines had been deployed here during Operation Pocket Money, a mining campaign launched in 1972 against principal North Vietnamese ports. There was no obvious reason why the mines should have detonated. But it has now emerged the U.S. Navy soon turned its attention to extreme solar activity at the time as a probable cause. The more we can understand the impact of such space weather on technology then the better we can be prepared for any future extreme solar activity. A solar theory As detailed in a now declassified U.S. Navy report, the event sparked an immediate investigation about the potential cause(s) of the random detonations of so many sea mines. The sea mines deployed had a self-destruct feature. But the minimum self-destruct time on these mines was not for another 30 days, so something else was to blame. On August 15, 1972, the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Bernard Clarey, asked about a hypothesis that solar activity could have caused the mine detonations. Many of the mines deployed were magnetic influence sea mines that were designed to detonate when they detected changes in the magnetic field. Solar activity was then well known to cause magnetic field changes, but it wasn't clear whether or not the Sun could cause these unintentional detonations. Solar flares Early August in 1972 saw some of the most intense solar activity ever recorded. A sunspot region, denoted MR 11976, set off a series of intense solar flares (energetic explosions of electromagnetic radiation), coronal mass ejections (eruptions of solar plasma material that typically accompany flares) and clouds of charged particles travelling close to the speed of light. Those conducting the investigation into the mine incident visited the Space Environment Laboratory at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) near Boulder, Colorado, to speak to space scientists. One of the scientists at NOAA at the time was the now Emeritus Professor Brian Fraser, from Australia's Newcastle University, and it's an event he told me he remembers well: I was on my first sabbatical leave at NOAA working with Wallace (Wally) Campbell's group, and one day in Wally's office I noticed a group of U.S. Navy brass hat gentlemen and a couple of dark suits. Brian said he had later quizzed Wally on what was going on, and Wally explained they were concerned about geomagnetic field changes triggering sea mines laid in Hai Phong, North Vietnam. There was no mention whether or not they had exploded but maybe Wally was being coy. And of course it was all probably top secret then. The outcome of this investigation, as stated in the declassified U.S. Navy report, detailed "a high degree of probability" that the Destructor mines had been detonated by the August solar storm activity. Solar interference Solar storms cause strong magnetic field fluctuations, which impact large power grid infrastructure, particularly in the high-latitude regions beneath the northern and southern auroras. Solar flares captured by NASA and ESA. The storms of early August 1972 were no different. There were numerous reports across North America of power disruptions and telegraph line outages. Now that light has been shone on the impact of these events on sea mine operations in 1972, the scientific community has another clear example of space weather impacts on technologies. The intensity of the early August activity peaked when an X-class solar flare at 0621 UT August 4, 1972, launched an ultra-fast coronal mass ejection that reached Earth in the record time of 14.6 hours. The solar wind normally takes two to three days to reach Earth. Scientists think that the previous slower ejections from earlier flares had cleared the path for this fast disturbance, similar to what was observed by the STEREO spacecraft in July 2012. It's the impact of this fast disturbance in the solar wind on the Earth's magnetosphere that probably caused the detonation of the Destructor mines. Using the past to predict the future The Dst index, measured in nano-Tesla (nT), is a typical measure of the disturbance level in the Earth's magnetic field the more negative, the more intense the storm. Some recent extreme solar storms, according to this scale, include the 2015 St Patrick's Day storm (-222 nT) and the 2003 Halloween storm (-383 nT). Read more: What the 'weather' is like on a star can help in the search for life Interestingly, the extreme activity in August 1972 was far less intense on this scale, only weighing in at -125 nT. Exactly why this storm reached extreme level on some measures, such as its high speed from the Sun, but not on the typical Dst scale is a topic of significant discussion within the scientific literature. Given the complexities of this event, this new paper lays out a grand challenge to the space weather community to use our modern modelling techniques to reexamine this solar event. Hopefully, understanding these strange events will better prepare us for future solar eruptions. Brett Carter, Senior lecturer, RMIT University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates and become part of the discussion on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com. This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The closest place in the universe where extraterrestrial life might exist is Mars, and human beings are poised to attempt to colonize this planetary neighbor within the next decade. Before that happens, we need to recognize that a very real possibility exists that the first human steps on the Martian surface will lead to a collision between terrestrial life and biota native to Mars. If the red planet is sterile, a human presence there would create no moral or ethical dilemmas on this front. But if life does exist on Mars, human explorers could easily lead to the extinction of Martian life. As an astronomer who explores these questions in my book "Life on Mars: What to Know Before We Go," I contend that we Earthlings need to understand this scenario and debate the possible outcomes of colonizing our neighboring planet in advance. Maybe missions that would carry humans to Mars need a timeout. Where life could be Life, scientists suggest, has some basic requirements. It could exist anywhere in the universe that has liquid water, a source of heat and energy, and copious amounts of a few essential elements, such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and potassium. Mars qualifies, as do at least two other places in our solar system. Both Europa, one of Jupiter's large moons, and Enceladus, one of Saturn's large moons, appear to possess these prerequisites for hosting native biology. I suggest that how scientists planned the exploratory missions to these two moons provides valuable background when considering how to explore Mars without risk of contamination. Cassini shot this false-color image of jets erupting from the southern hemisphere of Enceladus on Nov. 27, 2005. (Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute, CC BY) Below their thick layers of surface ice, both Europa and Enceladus have global oceans in which 4.5 billion years of churning of the primordial soup may have enabled life to develop and take root. NASA spacecraft have even imaged spectacular geysers ejecting plumes of water out into space from these subsurface oceans. To find out if either moon has life, planetary scientists are actively developing the Europa Clipper mission for a 2020s launch. They also hope to plan future missions that will target Enceladus. Taking care to not contaminate Since the start of the space age, scientists have taken the threat of biological contamination of other worlds seriously. As early as 1959, NASA held meetings to debate the necessity of sterilizing spacecraft that might be sent to other worlds. Since then, all planetary exploration missions have adhered to sterilization standards that balance their scientific goals with limitations of not damaging sensitive equipment, which could potentially lead to mission failures. Today, NASA protocols exist for the protection of all solar system bodies, including Mars. Since avoiding the biological contamination of Europa and Enceladus is an extremely well-understood, high-priority requirement of all missions to the Jovian and Saturnian environments, their moons remain uncontaminated. NASA's Galileo mission explored Jupiter and its moons from 1995 until 2003. Given Galileo's orbit, the possibility existed that the spacecraft, once out of rocket propellant and subject to the whims of gravitational tugs from Jupiter and its many moons, could someday crash into and thereby contaminate Europa. Such a collision might not occur until many millions of years from now. Nevertheless, though the risk was small, it was also real. NASA paid close attention to guidance from the National Academies' Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration, which noted serious national and international objections to the possible accidental disposal of the Galileo spacecraft on Europa. To completely eliminate any such risk, on Sept. 21, 2003, NASA used the last bit of fuel on the spacecraft to send it plunging into Jupiter's atmosphere. At a speed of 30 miles per second, Galileo vaporized within seconds. Cassini's 'Grand Finale' ended with the spacecraft burning up in Saturn's atmosphere. Fourteen years later, NASA repeated this protect-the-moon scenario. The Cassini mission orbited and studied Saturn and its moons from 2004 until 2017. On Sept. 15, 2017, when fuel had run low, on instructions from NASA Cassini's operators deliberately plunged the spacecraft into Saturn's atmosphere, where it disintegrated. But what about Mars? Mars is the target of seven active missions, including two rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity. In addition, on Nov. 26 NASA's InSight mission is scheduled to land on Mars, where it will make measurements of Mars' interior structure. Next, with planned 2020 launches, both ESA's ExoMars rover and NASA's Mars 2020 rover are designed to search for evidence of life on Mars. The Curiosity rover was tested under clean conditions on Earth before launch to prevent microbial stowaways. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY) The good news is that robotic rovers pose little risk of contamination to Mars, since all spacecraft designed to land on Mars are subject to strict sterilization procedures before launch. This has been the case since NASA imposed "rigorous sterilization procedures" for the Viking Lander Capsules in the 1970s, since they would directly contact the Martian surface. These rovers likely have an extremely low number of microbial stowaways. Any terrestrial biota that do manage to hitch rides on the outside of those rovers would have a very hard time surviving the half-year journey from Earth to Mars. The vacuum of space combined with exposure to harsh X-rays, ultraviolet light and cosmic rays would almost certainly sterilize the outsides of any spacecraft sent to Mars. Any bacteria that sneaked rides inside one of the rovers might arrive at Mars alive. But if any escaped, the thin Martian atmosphere would offer virtually no protection from high energy, sterilizing radiation from space. Those bacteria would likely be killed immediately. Because of this harsh environment, life on Mars, if it currently exists, almost certainly must be hiding beneath the planet's surface. Since no rovers have explored caves or dug deep holes, we have not yet had the opportunity to come face-to-drill-bit with any possible Martian microbes. Given that the exploration of Mars has so far been limited to unmanned vehicles, the planet likely remains free from terrestrial contamination. But when Earth sends astronauts to Mars, they'll travel with life support and energy supply systems, habitats, 3D printers, food and tools. None of these materials can be sterilized in the same ways systems associated with robotic spacecraft can. Human colonists will produce waste, try to grow food and use machines to extract water from the ground and atmosphere. Simply by living on Mars, human colonists will contaminate Mars. Can't turn back the clock after contamination Space researchers have developed a careful approach to robotic exploration of Mars and a hands-off attitude toward Europa and Enceladus. Why, then, are we collectively willing to overlook the risk to Martian life of human exploration and colonization of the red planet? Contaminating Mars isn't an unforeseen consequence. A quarter century ago, a National Research Council report entitled "Biological Contamination of Mars: Issues and Recommendations" asserted that missions carrying humans to Mars will inevitably contaminate the planet. I believe it's critical that every attempt be made to obtain evidence of any past or present life on Mars well in advance of future missions to Mars that include humans. What we discover could influence our collective decision whether to send colonists there at all. Even if we ignore or don't care about the risks a human presence would pose to Martian life, the issue of bringing Martian life back to Earth has serious societal, legal and international implications that deserve discussion before it's too late. What risks might Martian life pose to our environment or our health? And does any one country or group have the right to risk back contamination if those Martian lifeforms could attack the DNA molecule and thereby put all of life on Earth at risk? But players both public NASA, United Arab Emirates' Mars 2117 project and private SpaceX, Mars One, Blue Origin already plan to transport colonists to build cities on Mars. And these missions will contaminate Mars. Scientists hypothesize that dark narrow streaks were formed by briny liquid water necessary for life flowing down the walls of a crater on Mars. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona, CC BY) Some scientists believe they have already uncovered strong evidence for life on Mars, both past and present. If life already exists on Mars, then Mars, for now at least, belongs to the Martians. Mars is their planet, and Martian life would be threatened by a human presence there. Does humanity have an inalienable right to colonize Mars simply because we will soon be able to do so? We have the technology to use robots to determine whether Mars is inhabited. Do ethics demand that we use those tools to answer definitively whether Mars is inhabited or sterile before we put human footprints on the Martian surface? David Weintraub, Professor of Astronomy, Vanderbilt University Cadiz (Spain), November 11, 2018 (SPS) - Prime Minister Mohamed Alwali Akeik, has praised the Spanish solidarity movement for accompanying the march of the struggle of the Sahrawi people for self-determination and independence, in a statement to Sahara Press Service (SPS). He added that the lectures and interventions presented at the conference of the Spanish municipalities revealed an important working ground in which the municipalities and local elected officials play a pivotal role in creating a political pressure force to push for the decolonization of Western Sahara. The Prime Minister also pointed out the importance of the recommendations made by legal experts and researchers in various aspects related to the Sahrawi issue, highlighting that they constitute an important addition to illuminate the path of solidarity movement with the Sahrawi people. He called on heads of Spanish municipalities, parliamentarians and political forces for exerting pressure in order to enable the Sahrawi people to exercise their right to self-determination. The Prime Minister took part in the conference of the Spanish municipalities, which was hosted by the Municipality of Cadiz, Andalusia, and witnessed presentations of lectures on international law, human rights and natural resources, it should be recalled. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA Drawing cheers from a gaggle of supporters, the line appeared to be a throwaway one. "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row," Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., is heard saying in a video posted to Twitter on Sunday morning. The full context of her comment was not immediately clear, but she faced swift backlash. Lamar White, a journalist and blogger who tweeted the video, said in his tweet that Hyde-Smith made the remark while campaigning with a cattle rancher in Tupelo, Mississippi. Hyde-Smith became the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress after she was appointed in April to replace Thad Cochran, a Republican senator who was forced to step down because of health problems. She faces Democrat Mike Espy in a Nov. 27 runoff to determine who will serve the remaining two years of Cochran's term, as neither candidate was able to win more than 50 percent of the vote in the Nov. 6 special election, according to the Clarion Ledger. Espy and Hyde-Smith, who received President Donald Trump's endorsement, were the two highest vote-getters, each receiving about 41 percent of the vote. If Espy were to win, he would be become the first black senator to represent the state since the reconstruction era. In a statement Sunday, Espy called Hyde-Smith's comments "reprehensible." He added, "They have no place in our political discourse, in Mississippi, or our country. We need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgment to represent the people of our state." In her own statement Sunday, Hyde-Smith asserted that her remark was an "exaggerated expression of regard." "In a comment on Nov. 2, I referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement. In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous." Many critics of Hyde-Smith's comment noted the history of racism and hangings in the state. Statistics from the NAACP show that nearly one-eighth of the 4,743 lynchings between 1882 and 1968 that occurred in the United States took place in Mississippi. "Hyde-Smith's decision to joke about "hanging," when the history of African-Americans is marred by countless incidents of this barbarous act, is sick," said NAACP President Derrick Johnson in a statement Sunday. "Any politician seeking to serve as a national voice of the people of Mississippi should know better." Cristen Hemmins, chair of the Lafayette County Democrats in Mississippi, said the video was "absolutely stunning." "With the history of lynching of Mississippi, you just don't say something like that," Hemmins said in an interview Sunday. "I can't even imagine the kind of mind that would come up with a throwaway phrase like that. I'm a Mississippian. Nobody I know talks like that. It's absolutely unacceptable." Hyde-Smith, of Brookhaven, Mississippi, is a former Mississippi Democratic state senator and agriculture commissioner. In 2010, she switched to the Republican Party, according to the Clarion Ledger. Last week, she vowed to keep pushing Trump's agenda, asserting that "Republicans are going to keep this seat" and that she would "fight like nobody's business the next three weeks." Trump has been vocal in his support for Hyde-Smith, tweeting in August that she is "strong" on issues such as job creation and his proposed southern border wall, helping him to "put America First!" He added, "Cindy has voted for our Agenda in the Senate 100% of the time and has my complete and total Endorsement. We need Cindy to win in Mississippi!" At an Oct. 2 rally in Southaven, Miss., Trump continued to stump for Hyde-Smith. "She's always had my back," he said. "She's always had your back. And a vote for Cindy is a vote for me." Republicans are expected to gain seats in the Senate. The majority they held before the election, 51 seats, will end up higher - between 52 and 54 depending on races in Florida and Arizona. --- Tweet link https://twitter.com/LamarWhiteJr/status/1061649185110417408 Lameness prevention: it's all in the head An understanding of how cows think, how they see the world and how they move is essential for lameness prevention. D efence outsourcer Babcock was boosted on Monday after the UK government took the unusual step of backing the group after a short-selling report alleged relations between the two sides had soured. Babcock, the second-largest supplier to the Ministry of Defence and one of 34 top strategic suppliers to the government, rallied the support of ministers to quash the claims. The company issued a statement of support from officials, which pledged to carry on working with the firm on a wide range of contracts. Babcock has 128 contracts for the UK government. A government spokesman said: We monitor the health of all of our strategic suppliers, including Babcock, and remain committed to working with them on a wide range of programmes. The move was prompted by a 23-page report from a critic, Boatman Capital, published last month which alleged that relations with the government had deteriorated. The government has been under scrutiny since the collapse of Carillion, which put the focus on its relationship with outsourcers, and which may have led to the statement of support. Babcock said: We meet with the MoD on a regular basis and our relationship remains as strong as ever. It added that many of the claims in the Boatman report were false and malicious. Babcock, led by Archie Bethel and chaired by Mike Turner, is trying to discover who was behind the Boatman report. It has reportedly hired investigators from Kroll to find out who wrote the report, which was published on a website based overseas. Shares in the company are down 20% over the last six months. T o the committed smoker, few trials in life surpass the dilemma posed by a heavy cold. Your dedication to the habit requires you to light up, yet your sore throat makes the standard ciggie too harsh to contemplate. What to do? Prove your dedication with a painful Marlboro Red or go cold turkey and spend the day growling at your colleagues? But theres an alternative: the menthol cigarette. Despite being jammed full of tar and the 70 other known carcinogens in normal fags, menthol smoke goes down cool and smooth, even on a raw throat. For Americans, it seems, no longer. Regulators there are set to ban menthols for the same reason I recall from my old smoking days: they take the challenge out of smoking. The authorities have decided menthols make it easier for children to pick up the habit. As if that werent bad enough, theres a nasty racial element to minty fags, too; theyre particularly popular among African Americans, arguably because of years of deliberate marketing. Now, in the wake of bans in Canada and California, and planned curbs in the European Union, the US Food and Drug Administration is set to kill the minty weed. For BAT, thats a choker. Morgan Stanley analysts reckon 25% of its profits come from US menthols. BATs Newport is the biggest selling menthol in the US, and its Camel brand comes in mint too. Imperial Brands will also be hit; Kool and Salem are big menthol sellers. All the more galling for Big Tobacco is that previous administrations had considered and rejected a ban, but the FDAs present commissioner, Dr Scott Gottlieb, says that was a mistake. Gottlieb is also set to clamp down on flavoured e-cigarettes; another big market for BAT, which has pushed into vaping to compensate for falling cigarette sales. The thinking is that vaping particularly fun-sounding flavours such as chicken-and-waffles encourage kids to get into e-cigs, which in turn serve as a gateway for real cigs. Profit-wise, that clampdown will affect the vaping specialists such as Juul Labs more than BAT, which focuses on mainstream flavours. But just look at the direction of travel. Decades on from slaying the multi-billion dollar dragon of litigation over smoking-related diseases, Big Tobacco once again finds itself subject to shock decisions by the authorities. And that despite BAT-Reynolds spending $1.8 million and $5.5 million a year on lobbying. Since the cancer litigation settlements of the late Nineties, Big Tobacco shares have been considered defensive stocks for investors; large, reliable cashcows paying large, reliable dividends. No more. BAT shares crashed 11% at one stage today, Imperial Brands nearly 5%. We havent seen the sector fall like that for nearly 20 years. T he Wallace & Gromit characters are said to have done more to improve the image of the English abroad than any of our officially appointed ambassadors. Now the creative geniuses behind the eccentric, cheese-loving inventor and his loyal dog may have done more to promote good capitalism than Adam Smith and Margaret Thatcher combined. Peter Lord and David Sproxton, the duo who drew their first animated characters while at school more than 40 years ago, are transferring ownership of Aardman Holdings to their 140 employees. They are to sell 75% of the shares in Aardman, now the UKs biggest animation production studio, to staff by setting up an Employee Ownership Trust, a structure similar to the one used by the John Lewis Partnership. Funding for the share ownership scheme which is de facto a sale to the employees is coming out of Aardmans 18 million cash reserves. Along with staff, 180 freelancers will also receive a share of profit. Under HMRC rules, employees can receive up to 3600 in tax dividends. Lord and Sproxtons handover is both inspiring and generous. They could so easily have made themselves even richer by selling Aardman to one of the US blockbuster studios they once turned down an offer from Steven Spielbergs DreamWorks. Or they could have floated on the public markets, or opted for a management buy-out to maximise value: Aardman will make sales this year of 30 million with profits of 2.5 million. Having won four Oscars and 14 Baftas, Aardman is a prime catch for a studio giant such as Netflix. Yet Lord and Sproxton chose employee share ownership instead. Why so? Because it protects independence, and keeps Aardman locally based in Bristol. As Sproxton commented on the deal: If we sold Aardman [to a big studio] it would just become an asset on the balance sheet to be traded. They could say, lets turn it all over to CGI and shoot it in Singapore. More pertinently, this structure gives staff not only a direct stake in the profits but also a say in the future. Lord and Sproxton will move into consultancy roles and Nick Park, the star creator of Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run will take on a top role on the new board. Giving staff a stronger voice along with a profit incentive is the magic formula. Its one which all business owners, whether starting or selling, should consider. Astonishingly, a recent ComRes survey found that young British adults now believe capitalism is more dangerous than communism. The reality is that for many across the West, who are experiencing flat wages yet see soaring corporate profits, there is a sense that the fruits of capitalism are skewed. If in doubt, think of Jeff Fairburns 75 million bonus at Persimmon. The brains behind Wallace & Gromit are showing there is another clever way to spread capital. Share and share alike. The race is to the swift in age of tech The average age of a company listed on the S&P 500 fell from almost 60 years in the Fifties, to about 25 in the Eighties and now stands at less than 20 years. If you compare the companies in the Fortune 500 in 1955, and those in 2016, only 60 of the same businesses are left. Of the original FTSE 100 index, started in 1984, 28 firms remain. And the fall-out is accelerating, according to a new report from PA Consulting entitled The Evolution of the Agile Organisation: Old Dogs. Ingenious New Tricks, because of disruptive technology. To put the rate of change in context, the telephone took 75 years to reach 50 million users, the TV took 13 years, the internet four years, and Pokemon Go a mere 19 days. The report also found that a majority of 500 business leaders surveyed predict one in six companies in their sector will fail over the next five years because they are not moving fast enough. Look at Zara, or Amazon or Tesla, says PAs Sam Bunting, to see how agility works. Zara makes 6500 garments a year, and has new ones in the stores every two weeks. Most rivals take months to produce garments. Amazon aims to have deliveries at your door within two hours. Tesla can update its cars within hours. P rofessional investors can devise algorithms, create Excel spreadsheets, follow price-earnings ratios and dividend yields but sometimes stockpicking is just pure luck, like backing the right horse. For those looking for some divine inspiration then Israeli precious stones miner Shefa Yamim might do the trick. Shefa Yamim was started in 1999 after its founder Avi Taub watched a video of a meeting 29 years ago between the then-mayor of Haifa, Aryeh Gurel, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in Brooklyn. In it Schneerson told Gurel of hidden stones in the valley near Haifa, in northern Israel the countrys third-largest city. Intrigued by the video Taub, who was a diamond dealer, did some digging and sure enough he found what he was looking for. More extensive exploration revealed precious stones including rubies, diamonds and sapphires in the area around the Kishon River and Carmel mountain range outside Haifa. Looking to ramp up its efforts and raise money, it listed in December 2017, becoming the first Israeli mining company quoted on the London Stock Exchange. The aim is to start trial mining early next year after being granted its first prospect licence by officials in August. Two weeks ago the company raised 250,000 from investors. Like De Beers, Shefa wants to be a mine-to-market player and plans to make jewellery from the stones instead of selling them on to brokers. It has signed a deal with renowned Israeli jewellery designer Yossi Harari, whose necklaces and earrings have been worn by the likes of Jane Fonda, Oprah Winfrey and Jessica Alba. Harari will use the gemstones to create handcrafted pieces of jewellery which will be sold online and in stores like Harvey Nichols. But as with all miners there are risks. Shefa has chosen a site near a built-up residential area, meaning it could struggle to gain further licences. Oliver ODonnell of broker VSA says: There is the potential for delays to the licensing and construction. N ovalpina, the private equity firm started by ex dealmakers at US buyout firm TPG, has agreed to more than double the size of its London headquarters. The company, advised by property agent Crossland Otter Hunt, will move from Mayfair to 4300 square feet at the new Buckingham Green offices development between Victoria and St Jamess. It gets a private roof terrace and is understood to currently be in around 1500 square feet. It has signed a 10-year lease with landlord and developer London & Oriental for the new space. The building launches later this week and Novalpina has agreed the first letting there. Expansion comes after Novalpina was launched in 2017 by Stephen Peel, who previously ran TPG's London office, and his former colleagues Stefan Kowski and Bastian Lueken. Property experts think a number of West End-based businesses are concerned about high-end space running low, and want to secure new headquarters now. Agent JLL says there is currently 204,000 square feet of requirements for new space in London from private equity firms. L ondon-listed tobacco shares plunged on Monday as investors took fright at a potential crackdown on menthol cigarettes in the US. The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) is reportedly readying a ban on the products following other countries who have already imposed bans. The news sent British American Tobacco (BAT) shares down as much as 11%, before recovering to trade down 8.6%, at 3029p. The decline was the first time shares had fallen over 10% in nearly two decades, when the Department of Justice launched a major lawsuit against the tobacco giants. Rival Imperial dropped as much as 5% to 2613p as it and BAT sank to the foot of the FTSE 100. American-listed rivals Altria and Philip Morris were also set for hefty falls. It comes as the US today brought in its ban on fruit and sweet-flavoured electronic cigarettes, to discourage teenagers from using e-cigarettes. Analysts said it could take at least two years to finalise a ban on menthols and then enforce it, but nonetheless it would be a big blow to BAT. Its recently-acquired American business Reynolds bought Newport, the leading US menthol brand, as part of a $25 billion (19.4 billion) deal in 2015. BAT makes around 25% of its profits from selling menthol cigarettes in America and Imperial around 5%. The FDA said in 2013 that menthols are harder to quit and likely to be more harmful than regular cigarettes, but it fell short of banning them. It added that menthol made it more appealing for young adults to take up smoking as it reduced throat irritation usually caused by smoke. Before the shares fall, Jefferies analyst Owen Bennett said of the ban: While we dont rule this out, we think its unlikely, as unless supported by the appropriate scientific evidence, there is little chance it would get through the courts. Tobacco giants have been muscling in on e-cigarettes and vapes as traditional cigarette smoking has become less popular. While some agree that it will help some smokers switch to less harmful nicotine products, others fear that it will make young people addicted to them, hence the US restrictions on most flavoured e-cigarettes. T aking back control of our laws and borders means that a sovereign UK Parliament must be able to determine our future as a self-governing, trading nation. Our destiny must not be in the EUs hands, the former Brexit Secretary David Davis declared in response to news that Brussels will insist that the European Court of Justice should arbitrate on post-Brexit customs arrangements. This makes a mockery of the referendum result. Cabinet ministers need to recognise this and London needs to face down Brussels, he added. Where, I wondered, had I heard that tone of voice before? And at once it came to me: Satan. Paradise Lost Book One. Specifically, Satans celebrated line that it is better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven. As youll remember, at this point old pointy-tail had launched a spirited but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to renegotiate his rebate with the Almighty, and was now smouldering with his badly bruised associates in the general vicinity of a lake of freezing fire. How, he was wondering indignantly, could anyone have known beforehand what a weak bargaining position the rebel angels were in: Till then [ie: till God utterly kicked our arses] who knew/The force of those dire Arms? Licking his wounds, he was keen to argue that they were all in this together: Mutual league/United thoughts and counsels, equal hope/And hazard in the Glorious Enterprise. And he was determined to double down this was a setback, not a defeat, and God could make their eternal lives unpleasant but he could never break their spirits: To bow and sue for grace/With suppliant knee [] were low indeed. Contemplating his unappealing new digs, he declared: Here at least/We shall be free. These words could have been uttered by many Brexiteers. This was supposed to be easy; its the Will of the People, and even if we end up in the Bad Place, weve won a victory in principle if we refuse to bend the knee. This is now the Brexiteers default position. Like Satan with his rebel angels, they started out promising to reign in Heaven and are now trying to make reigning in Hell sound like the ideal consolation prize. It points to how this is much more about psychology than statecraft. The abstract goods of freedom and control are, at every point, put above the concrete goods of people having jobs, food on supermarket shelves, peace in Ireland, people not dying for lack of medicine etc. And instead of admitting they goofed, theyre backfire effect! doubling down. "Like Satan with his rebel angels, they are now trying to make reigning in Hell sound like an ideal consolation prize" I know, I know. The analogy is not exact. Miltons Satan is more charismatic and more articulate than David Davis. And the EU is not like Heaven. Miltons Heaven was a tyranny and the EU really isnt the rebel angels didnt get a vote, let alone all the carve-outs and exemptions that Britain has negotiated with Brussels over the years. As Im not the first to point out, you could sort of see Satans point. David Daviss, not so much. Michelle Keegans smear campaign is a bold new step Actor Michelle Keegan has taken a bold step live-streaming her cervical smear test on Instagram. She did so to encourage others to have the procedure, noting one in four women fails to turn up to her appointment and that screening rates are at a 20-year low. My advice to you, she wrote, was STOP making excuses, book, and go for your bl**dy smear! A smear tests last five minutes, the impact of cervical cancer lasts a lifetime! Michelle Keegan / Dave Benett/Getty Images Those of us not of the Instagram generation may have found a cocktail onion go down the wrong way when we considered a close-up of her bare knees pointed skywards, over which in loopy writing was inscribed: Here we go ... Perhaps shell start a trend. Im not sure how Id feel, though, about seeing Ant and Dec rummaging in their pants to promote testicular cancer awareness, or Jeremy Clarkson doing his bit for prostate examinations. Fish and chips are off the menu in Syria East Londoner Reema Iqbal, who travelled to Syria with her jihadi husband and sister to join Islamic States murderous caliphate, complains to an interviewer that its actually quite horrid in the North Syrian detention camp where she now lives, and that she misses the comforts of home. So what does she miss most? Fish and chips, any day. First choice fish and chips. Food and friends, the whole lot. Your whole life. Its sad that it goes, just like that. That your whole life can change just like that. L ondon is a truly global city. Throughout history, we have always looked outwards, welcoming people from around the world. This open attitude has shaped and defined us as a city. From music and fashion, to food, and to the businesses that power our economy, London would not be London without the migrant communities that contribute so much. This week, Im in Paris and Berlin to bang the drum for London, and to get the message out that in spite of Brexit London remains open for business, and to trade and talent. And, with intolerance and fascism on the rise on a scale we have not seen since the 1930s, Im also pushing progressive leaders across Europe to redouble efforts to make the positive case for immigration and tolerance. Despite all the evidence, too many politicians have been scared of saying what they really feel about immigration. Too many have been unwilling to go against the grain simply to win hearts and minds. And too many have pandered to divisive voices, rather than doing and saying what is right. We have seen politicians rushing to embrace the politics of the lowest common denominator, trying to look tough on immigration despite knowing this approach pollutes public debate and holds our country back. As a result, we have failed to explain why immigration and the freedom of movement have only been good things not just economically, but culturally and socially. We must stand up and make the positive case for immigration and the benefits it brings before its too late. Worryingly, the Government is expected to restrict Tier 2 visas to skilled jobs paying more than 30,000 a year after Brexit. This would mean businesses could struggle to fill thousands of key posts. In London, approximately 46,000 construction jobs are held by EU citizens earning less than 30,000 a year. The accommodation and food sector could suffer even more, with a quarter of the workforce being EU workers earning less than the 30,000 threshold. Of course, we need to train Londoners to have relevant skills. And, of course, we need a well-managed and fair immigration system and secure borders. However, we also need a system that makes it easier not harder to bring in the people from around the world who can help grow our economy. When people feel left behind by changes in their community, some will always look to blame the others, so, rather than preying on peoples fears, we must tackle the root causes of these problems, so no one gets left behind. L ast Friday my son celebrated his 12th birthday with a trip to the cinema, followed by a bunch of boys piling back to ours to sleep over (I discovered them trying to do The 24-hour Challenge at 3am). In general, boys are several grades more innocent than girls at the same age, so I was horrified to discover one of them with a vape. I performed that parental cliche: standing palm outstretched, demanding that he hand it over. There was the inevitable pause, blink, attempted denial, then the poor child put his hand into his pocket and retrieved the contraption which, incidentally, had its own expensive leather pouch and surrendered it with a whispered Sorry. He assured me the e-cigarette wasnt charged, had no pods (capsules that deliver nicotine) and actually belonged to his 13-year-old sister. Quite possibly: Ive confiscated these devices twice before, both times from teens. One of those was from a 14-year-old who told me it was just a strawberry-flavoured vape with zero milligrams of nicotine and showed me the contents in a bottle on which there was a not for sale to under-18s stamp. Anyway, this new one was a Juul, a slim electronic device, the sort of cool thing that would appeal to smartphone-obsessed generation Z. The capsules contain 1.7 per cent nicotine and come in mango and apple flavours (with obvious parallels to alcopops). This week the Food and Drug Administration in the US is banning the sale of fruit and candy-flavoured e-cigarettes in convenience stores and petrol stations. Federal data showed teen use surged more than 75 per cent since last year following a vaping epidemic among teens. Sales of Juul devices jumped from 2.2 million in 2016 to 16.2 million last year in the US. On its UK website, Juul Labs cites its mission statement to eliminate cigarettes. But its not just ex-smokers who are getting hooked. Beware pitfalls of the comeback trail David Milibands rumoured return to British politics was heralded in this weekends newspapers, conjuring images of the exiled New Labour prince riding back into town to save the party from the dithering clutches of Jeremy Corbyn. Such political returns are risky. For instance, Ayatollah Khomeini was greeted with fanfare when he returned to Tehran from Paris in 1979 (and sadly, his legacy still persists), whereas Ahmed Chalabis triumphant return to Iraq in 2003 after 20 years in the US was a damp squib met by much muttering of where the hell were you when it mattered? Yes, James was made of the right stuff LBC host James OBrien has written a book called How To Be Right. I like to think that he learned everything about debating from the two years we sat next to each other at the Express, most of which we spent squabbling like overtired siblings. We bickered about whose stories were better, who had more contacts, who was more senior in the desk hierarchy (we were the same). We were both initiated in a baptism by fire lunch with a senior editor (five bottles between three), which OBrien slept off wrapped around an enormous plant in the office foyer. We attended celebrity events, once flanking Dame Barbara Cartland, who retrieved a false eyelash from her salad and stuck it back on, only to discover it was an insect. We were both ambitious terrified of missing the metaphorical bus, as he put it. Once summoned to appraise ourselves by HR, we were separately asked how much we thought we should earn and where we saw ourselves in five years time. While I showed pathetic gratitude just to have a wage, OBrien tripled his salary expectation and declared hed be running his own department before the time was up. Four years later he did his first LBC shift. Yup, that boy was right all right. Gwynnies surprise vagina monologue Gwyneth Paltrow / Getty Images for Jennifer Meyer I have to admit something. When I used to work in Westminster in Downing Street, Parliament and the Treasury I never once had a sleepless night. Since I started my own business almost five years ago, I regularly wake up worrying about things. Its nothing like as bad now as it used to be, but a few years back, I was getting up at 3am almost every night. And theres so much running through your mind as you try to get back to sleep. You agonise over whether the company will make it, and about all the people who will lose their jobs if you ever went under. You fret that if your enterprise folds, everyone will think youre a failure and youll have let your loved ones down. And you brood about why your business isnt growing more quickly although of course, youll never be truly satisfied on that front. But perhaps above all, you feel extremely alone. Because when you start a company, theres massive pressure to tell everyone that youre doing brilliantly well. Thats partly about bravado, but its also to do with the fact so much about entrepreneurial success is about communicating confidence. After all, no investor will put money into a venture that the founders arent ultra optimistic about. Given all this, its no surprise that in east Londons Tech City, theres a special positive lingo that people use when asked how their enterprise is going. Were crushing it, were killing it, and were smashing it. Rohan Silva The truth, of course, is often very different. As Tesla founder Elon Musk once said: Running a start-up is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. After a while, you stop staring, but the glass chewing never ends. Surveys show Musk isnt the only one who has felt this way. A recent British study found 58 per cent of business owners have experienced depression and anxiety. The truth is, being an entrepreneur is just difficult its incredibly tough to build a sustainable and scalable business thats creating new products or services that customers want. However, its equally true there are many ways politicians and the media can make life for growing companies more difficult than it needs to be. Thats certainly the case in the UK. For starters, we have a Government thats actively hostile to small businesses in all sorts of ways. Trade Secretary Liam Fox described British business as fat and lazy, and the former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson reportedly said the political establishment should say f**k business over Brexit. This attitude is reflected across the Governments policy agenda. Take business rates, for example the tax you pay for having physical premises such as a shop, pub or office. This year the Chancellor Philip Hammond doubled this tax for all companies in the capital meaning the average small business in London now has to find 17,000 simply to cover business rates, which you must pay even if you have zero revenues or arent making a profit. This huge tax increase has piled even more pressure on entrepreneurs in London and sadly, many small businesses simply cant take the additional burden. Across our city, restaurants are now closing at the fastest rate for decades, while London has seen the largest number of shop closures of any UK region in the past six months. Its heartbreaking, but until we have a new Chancellor or perhaps a new Government altogether theres no real prospect of change. "This year the Chancellor Philip Hammond doubled business rates for all companies in the capital" Another example of how life is more difficult than it should be for British entrepreneurs is the shortage of good advice and support as you grow your business. This is very different to the US, where theres a much deeper culture of business education and one of the most prestigious qualifications is the MBA Master of Business Administration. Whats more, in the US theres a proliferation of informative business magazines such as Fast Company and Inc, as well as brilliant podcasts such as How I Built This and Masters of Scale that feature experienced entrepreneurs sharing their wisdom and experiences. Here in the UK, there is next to nothing like this, which is a real shame. Fortunately, things are starting to change beginning at the BBC. The Beebs top brass is now really engaged with this agenda and business programming is fast becoming part of the public service broadcasters important commitment to educate, inform and entertain. In the past few months, Ive been lucky enough to be involved with one of the new programmes that reflects this agenda. Its a podcast called The Disrupters, which Im hosting alongside the BBCs editorial director Kamal Ahmed and it tells the stories of inspiring founders such as Demis Hassabis of artificial intelligence company Deepmind and Julie Deane of The Cambridge Satchel Company. The idea is that by sharing the ups and downs of starting a new venture, it will help others going through the same thing. Hopefully it will mean fewer people suffer in silence, if theyre finding it tough going. In Californias Silicon Valley, starting and growing a business is known as The Struggle. As the tech investor and entrepreneur Ben Horowitz puts it: The Struggle is when food loses its taste. The Struggle is when you want the pain to stop. The Government and the media can do an awful lot to make life easier for British businesses and they should. However, nothing will ever make the pain and hardship of building a company go away completely and thats probably for the best. After all, as Horowitz also says: The Struggle is where greatness comes from. G EORGE Osbornes observation that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, the chaos and killing that followed, did set the course of international politics for a generation is telling [Seeing Iraqs suffering reminds me why there is no excuse for inaction, November 5]. If the Iraq invasion of 2003 had not happened, would we have had Brexit, Donald Trump and the war in Syria and much more, I wonder? While we had tragedies and wars before that time, including 9/11, might the consequences of this poorly conceived invasion with the consequent destablising of the area and increase in migrants fleeing the region mean that the immigration problems we have now might be more contained? Gavin Robinson EDITOR'S REPLY Dear Gavin YOU raise a good question, to which we will never know the answer. I think its pretty hard to link directly the Iraq War to Donald Trump; after all, Americans have managed to re-elect George W Bush and then Barack Obama twice before the current President turned up. Equally, it was the other leading EU members, France and Germany, who opposed the invasion of Iraq. Theres a much stronger case that the fall of Saddam Hussein was connected to the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Tunisia. But at the time most people welcomed them, and called them the Arab Spring. It was the civil war that followed in Syria that led to the big flows of refugees that have so destabilised our continent and its politics. But it was the memories of the invasion in Iraq that prevented the West intervening to stop it. George Osborne, Editor Kiplings message still rings so true Some Conservatives seem to have forgotten their Rudyard Kipling. He was acutely aware of this islands dependence on shipping, and even with air traffic and the Channel Tunnel it remains as true today. Just one example is this verse: Such as in Ships and brittle Barks/ Into the Seas descend/Shall learn how wholly on those Arks/ Our Victuals do depend. Elsewhere, in a taunting mood, Kipling predicts that prolonged isolation would lead to outbreaks of cannibalism. Andrew Colvin Indian PM Modi is not divisive IT SEEMS Dr Vadgama has an issue with Narendra Modi, as she refers to him as BJP man, Modi [Tallest statue does hero no honour, November 6]. Does she not know that Mr Modi is Prime Minister of India? The supporters of Sardar Patel should be delighted that while his own party, ie: Congress, failed to do anything during all its years in power, the BJP has honoured Patel with a statue within five years of getting elected. It is wholly inaccurate, too, to say that Modi is creating religious divisions between Hindus and Muslims in India. Sunil Kumar Pal Night culture is lost on much of London The annual People's Choice Awards, which marks the best in popular culture as voted for by the public, took place in Santa Monica on Sunday evening. The red carpet event, as always, bought out A-listers in their most glamorous ensembles. However, there was a noticeable difference in dress code, with half going for understated classic silhouettes and the others showing off their kooky personal style. From never-failing black dresses to evening ensembles that pulled out all the stops, here are the two ways celebs aced the red carpet. Classic All-black ensembles ruled the red carpet with Mila Kunis leading the way in a timeless black spaghetti strap dress by Alex Perry, which she paired with sparkly Louboutin shoes. Mila Kunis kept things classic / Getty Images Amber Valletta also chose a similarly simple silhouette. The draped detail dress by Victoria Beckham still managing to turn heads thanks to its striking red hue. Amber Valletta wears Victoria Beckham on the red carpet / Getty Images Victoria Beckham, who was honoured on the night with the ceremony's inaugural Fashion Icon Award, unsurprisingly wore one of her own creations. The designer was the perfect embodiment of her brand in a sleek white suit paired with a lace-detail top from her eponymous label. Victoria Beckham was the recipient of the Fashion Icon Award / Getty Images The majority of the Kardashians also went for downplayed black tie looks, sticking to a monochrome colour scheme. New mum Khloe stunned in a white ballgown, Kendall showed off her supermodel stature in an intricate top and trouser combination, Kourtney went for a blazer dress with lace underlay and Kris Jenner, ever the momager, wore a suit and sunglasses. Kooky The Kardashian-Jenners / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Unsurprisingly, Kim Kardashian wore the most eye-catching ensemble of the evening. In contrast to her family, the reality TV star donned a sheer dress detailed with an optical illusion by Jean Paul Gaultier which accentuated her famous curves. Scarlett Johansson / Getty Images Versace was a popular designer on the night. Scarlett Johansson ditched a frock in favour of a Versace jumpsuit, while Rita Ora managed to pull off a gold leaf-adorned gown and boot combo by the Italian brand. Rita Ora / AFP/Getty Images By now you probably know that the Spice Girls (minus Posh Spice) are back. Whilst the majority of millennials set their alarms bright and early on Saturday morning in order to get their hands on tickets to the Spice Girls reunion tour set to start in 2019. Whether you were successful or not, Geri, Emma, Mel B, Mel C have just revealed a new way in which everyone can feel like a Spice Girl. The iconic '90s girl band has teamed up with Comic Relief to create a range of apparel, each item emblazoned with the hashtag #IwannabeaSpiceGirl. #IWANNABEASPICEGIRL Limited Edition Charity Tee (Represent ) / Represent From a 19.45 t-shirt to cosy hoodies and sweaters, the limited edition garments are available for three weeks only and are sure to add an extra dose of girl power to your wardrobe. More importantly, 100 per cent of the proceeds go towards Comic Relief's Gender Justice, an initiative that helps champion equality for women. Spice Girls - In pictures 1 /48 Spice Girls - In pictures Spice Girls at Wembley in 2019 Andrew Timms Best looks Sporty, Baby, Scary, Ginger and Posh sing as The Spice Girls PA The Spice Girls reunite for tour rehearsals Spice Girls Instagram Spice Up Your Life The Spice Girls officially launch Channel Five at Marble Arch in 1997 Rex Viva Forever The Spice Girls - Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton and Victoria Beckham AT 'Viva Forever!' Spice Girls musical launch in 2012 The Spice Girls reunite for the first time since 2012 Victoria Beckham/Instagram Prince Harry meets The Spice Girls PA Reuniting Victoria Beckham, Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton and Melanie Brown pose for a photocall at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich ahead of their news conference on June 28, 2007 in London Getty Images Doppelgangers The Spice Girls with their wax doubles at The Rock Circus In The West End, London in 1999 Jeremy Selwyn Book launch The Spice Girls launch their book 'Forever Spice' PA Summer ball The Spice Girls at Capital Radio Summer Jam, Clapham Common in 1996 Rex Patriotic Geri Halliwell at The Brit Awards in 1997 wearing her famous Union Jack dress Rex Features Movie stars Spice Girls 'Spice World' Los Angeles Premiere in 1998 Rex Going for gold The Spice Girls performing at The 2012 London Olympic Games, Closing Ceremony Rex Charitable Spice Girls pose for Comic Relief Red Nose Day Launch in 1997 Alex Lentati Iconic Auction of outfits owned by Geri Halliwell. Her Spice Girls memorabilia auctioned at Sotheby's. All proceed's for The Sargent Cancer Care For Children in 1998 David Crump/Daily Mail Onset The girls filming Spice Girls: Spice World Spice Productions Undercover Ginger and Baby Spice star in Spice Girls: Spice World Spice Productions On tour British pop band, The Spice Girls, perform the first concert of the UK leg of their world tour at the O2 Arena, 15 December 2007 Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images Flying high The Spice Girls pose after naming a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 plane "Spice One" in their honor at Los Angeles International Airport, 12 December 2007 AFP/Getty Images Jet setters The Spice Girls unveiling the new name, Spice One, of a Virgin Atlantic Jet at the Flight Path Museum at Los Angeles Airport PA Model looks The Spice Girls, Emma Burton, Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Geri Halliwell and Victoria Beckham (L to R) perform during the Victoria's Secret fashion show at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California, 15 November 2007 AFP/Getty Images West End debut Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Melanie Brown attend the press night of 'Viva Forever', a musical based on the music of The Spice Girls at Piccadilly Theatre on December 11, 2012 in London Stuart Wilson/Getty Images Selfie stick The Spice Girls: Victoria Bekcham, Melanie Chisholm, Emman Bunton, Melanie Brown and Geri Halliwell Stage stars Spice Girls - Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton and Victoria Beckham during 'Viva Forever!' musical press night at The Piccadilly Theatre, London, Britain MTV Europe Music Awards Spice Girls at the Globe Arena in Stockholm. PA Throwback The Spice Girls: Melanie Chisholm (Sporty Spice), Emma Bunton (Baby Spice) Victoria Adams (Posh Spice) Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) and Melanie Brown (Scary Spice) Girl power The Spice Girls in Spice World (1997) London calling Geri Halliwell of the Spice Girls performs during the first date of their 17-date residency, part of their reunion world tour Getty Images Raising money The Spice Girls raise money for Children in Need First reunion The Spice Girls reunited in 2007 Jeremy Selwyn Fashionable flare The Spice Girls at 12th Annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, Kodak Theatre, Los Angeles in 2007 Spice and Vinegar Gary Lineker with the Spice Girls promote Walkers Crisps with limited edition Spice Girls range Mini me's The Spice Girls Dolls hit the market in 1997 Rex Risque Victoria Beckham (Adams) and Geri Halliwell perform with The Spice Girls in Dublin in 1999 Rex One down British pop band The Spice Girls. Posh Spice (Victoria Beckham), Sporty Spice (Melanie Chisholm), Baby Spice (Emma Bunton) and Scary Spice (Melanie Brown) Virgin Records BRIT Awards The Spice Girls perform at The Brit Awards in 2000 and win an award for thier outstanding contribution to British music Back stage snaps The Spice Girls take a twitter snap at Olympic Games London 2012 Closing Ceremony. Charming the royals Geri Halliwell of the Spice Girls greets Prince Charles at the Prince's Trust Charity Concert Gala at the Manchester Opera House Rex The Spice Girls meet Prince Charles Prince of Wales with the Spice Girls at the Royal Gala celebrating the Princes Trust 21st Anniversary PA The Spice Girls World Tour Melanie Chisholm, Victoria Beckham, Geri Halliwell, Melanie Brown perform The Spice Girls World Tour in 2008 Rex The Spice Girls at The MTV Europe Awards The Spice Girls at The MTV Europe Awards in Sweden IN 2000 Rex Award winners The Spice Girls at The Brit Awards in 1998 Rex Collecting gongs The Spice Girls at The Brit Awards in 1997 Rex With her majesty Queen Elizabeth II meeting Emma Bunton, Victoria Adams, Mel C, Geri Halliwell, Mel B of The Spice Girls at The Royal Variety Performance in 1997 Rex Film debut The Spice Girls take center stage in their feature film debut, the Columbia Pictures Presentation of 'Spice World' in 1997 Getty Images Meeting Mandela Spice Girls Mel B and Geri Halliwell meet Nelson Mandela in 1997 as part of the British Royal tour in 1997 Rex Pepsi promotions The Spice Girls promote Pepsi in 1997 Rex "Equality and the movement of people power has always been at the heart of the band," the Spice Girls said. "It is about equality for all, every boy and every girl." "We recently found out that charities focused on issues faced by women dont get the funding that they desperately need, so launching a campaign to raise funds for these issues is incredibly important to us and an area we want to support." The girl band has a history of being involved with Comic Relief, the first campaign taking place at the height of their fame in 1997. Victoria Beckham also launched her very own Spice Girls-adorned charity tee back in April to help Comic Relief's Red Nose Day. The tee was a hit on the celeb circuit with everyone from Lily James to Ed Sheeran supporting the cause through the stylish tee. The Supremes Any number of girl groups on the Motown label in the 60s could have made the list, not least Martha and the Vandellas and The Marvelettes, but The Supremes are certainly one of the most influential groups of all time and thoroughly deserve to be recognised as such. The group enjoyed 12 number ones between and 1964 and 1969, becoming the most popular Motowns most successful act of the decade. Songs like Baby Love, Stop! In the Name In Love and You keep Me Hanging On are pop at its purest, and while Diana Ross went on to leave the group and become a huge star in her own right, theres a timeless nature to the music of The Supremes that will endure for decades to come. A t 10am last Thursday, the Southbank Centre experienced a transatlantic blast of the Michelle Effect. Tickets to Michelle Obamas book tour talk sold out in minutes, as more than 60,000 people clamoured for just over 2,700 seats at the event at Royal Festival Hall on 3 December (minutes later, some appeared for as much as 72,000 on the Viagogo site). 300 tickets are being given away for free to schoolchildren. Her memoir, Becoming, is released tomorrow. A Love Letters to Michelle Obama event at Waterstones in Gower Street to celebrate it has completely sold out, too. Shes here for a whirlwind three-day tour, taking in a VIP power couples dinner with George and Amal Clooney, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Anticipation has been drummed up by a viral marketing campaign, including a 30-foot mural of her in Brixton and pop-up bookshop in Bloomsbury. Drephs new mural of her in Brixton I just want to breathe the same air as her, explains Nichole Edmund, a south London secondary school teacher, and 33,809th in Thursdays line to see Obama, 54, in conversation with the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Its not just Michelle, its Chimamanda theyre heavyweights. While I was in the queue I slid into her DMs on Instagram and said, Hey, big Miche, youre going to need a bigger venue. Apologies to Spice Girls and Harry Potter fans, who have other big releases to enjoy but its a lawyer from the south side of Chicago who is currently the hottest ticket in town. Michelle Obama mural put up in Brixton London is calling, again The former FLOTUS has friends here. After her Southbank talk, shell reportedly be whisked off to a dinner hosted by George and Amal Clooney at their 10 million home on an island in Berkshire, on the Thames, which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are set to attend (the Obamas are friends with the British Royal Family). Her visit is set to leave a lasting mark on the city in Brixton, artist Neequaye Dreph Dsane (known as Dreph), has been putting the final touches to a 30-foot mural of Michelle Obama in Brixton, commissioned by Becomings publisher Penguin Random House. Michelle Obama is the ultimate embodiment of You Are Enough, says Dreph. Regardless of where it comes from, young people need someone visible, progressive, and relatable. REUTERS Class(room) Act During Barack Obamas two White House terms, aides spoke wonderingly of the Michelle Effect. The New York Times noted J Crew enjoyed sales spikes every time the First Lady wore the brand; politicos observed that Fox, CNN and MSNBC news anchors all adopted FLOTUSs signature sleeveless look. There were scientific papers published on the effect; in New Haven, a behavioural economics professor found that on Halloween, children who were randomly assigned to the side of his porch with a photo of Michelle Obama were 19 per cent more likely to choose fruit over sweets when trick-or-treating. London has also embraced the effect, and been embraced. In 2009, Michelle Obama visited the pupils of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School while in London with her husband for a G20 summit, then asked students to meet her in Oxford two years later. She finally invited a dozen pupils to visit her in the White House in 2012. Simon Burgess, a professor of economics at the University of Bristol, noted GCSE grades at the all-girls inner-city school improved comparatively by an average of two grade points per student. We had a bounce, too ... I think all the girls grades improved, says Nusrath Hassan, 21, a law student at SOAS University, who was 17 when she escorted the former First Lady during a visit to her schoolyard at Mulberry School for Girls in Tower Hamlets, back in 2015. She hugged me so close, and that made me feel like I could do anything. I still watch YouTube videos of the speech she gave to us before I go into exams. AFP/Getty Images Special relationships Although Donald and Melania Trumps recent visit to the UK largely skipped the capital, Michelle Obama will be on familiar territory during her trip next month. Michelle showed her daughters the city in 2009. She, Malia and Sasha took in Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey, then stopped in at The Audley, a pub in Mayfair, which boasted the best fish and chips in W1. They also dropped in at The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre, and visited Pinewood Studios to meet the stars of Harry Potter and author J.K. Rowling. A birthday party for Sasha Obama was held on the Hogwarts Great Hall set. Indeed, she has a large book of London contacts. Marcus Samuelsson, the Harlem chef who has cooked with Michelle on the White House lawn, has his Red Rooster restaurant in Shoreditch, too. Shes also remained good friends with Sarah Brown, the campaigner for women and childrens health and wife of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, taking tea with her in London after the pair first met at the White House in 2009. (At last, a normal-sized person, were her first words to Sarah). Michelle is of a mind with me about keeping our childrens lives as ordinary as possible, while letting them share in the special moments, Brown wrote in her book, Behind the Black Door. When I leave, I get the big Michelle hug before I jump back in the car. And Obama stays in touch. My phone started blowing up just a few months after I met her, says Hassan. The student won the Young Star award at 2016s Women of the Future Awards for her work on the Let Girls Learn campaign, founded by Michelle. Shed tweeted to say congratulations, and it basically shut my whole phone down. Getty Images for Turner The peoples FLOTUS She means so much to so many of us especially to young black women who live in the UK, says Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, 25, deputy editor of the magazine gal-dem, which is collaborating with Becoming publisher Penguin Random House and Waterstones on a pop-up Bloomsbury bookshop from 23 November. It will champion authors of colour. Growing up, shes one of the first public figures we saw in an authority position who was actually doing good things with that authority, constantly talking about issues that resonated with us, such as supporting girls and education. Ive only had two people say anything negative anything at all in the four days weve been painting here, says the Brixton mural creator Dreph. Thats unusual for something like this. One old lady thought we were defacing the wall, but gave us 10 to buy ourselves coffees when I told her what we were doing. Another didnt like Mrs Obamas husbands politics. I said, whats her husband got to do with who she is? Certainly, Michelle Obama is an independent phenomenon; a mother superior figure in Converse trainers, and a true north on a moral compass spinning ever more wildly in 2018. She still generates headlines, for good reasons. Last week she spoke of feeling lost and alone after suffering a miscarriage, and told of undergoing IVF to conceive daughters Malia, now 20, and Sasha, 17. She said: I felt like I failed as I didnt know how common miscarriages were, as we dont talk about them. NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images In the era of the shock jockey, Michelles re-emergence is closer to an equestrian showjumper. Michelle and Barack have signed a deal with Netflix to produce films and documentaries for the streaming giant. Although shes ruled out running for the White House, Baracks own Presidential run followed a memoir, Dreams From My Father, published in 1995. Edmund adds: People talk about role models like Beyonce and Cardi B, but I cant rap, dance and sing like they can. But Michelle I can be her, I can identify with her. T here are three types of magic in Benin. Theres the invisible kind, Vodun (voodoo), which the West African country invented. Then theres the thinking that hovers over its history one myth involves the union of a princess and a panther and then the attractions hiding in plain sight: alluring culture and prime Atlantic coast beaches. Bookended by Nigeria and Togo, with Burkina Faso and Niger to the north, almost all accounts of the tiny Francophone nation focus on voodoo, culminating in an annual festival. But I wanted to explore Benins unofficial golden triangle: de-facto capital Cotonou; coastal Ouidah, key in the 17th- to 19th-century transatlantic slave trade; and Abomey, once a regional power known as the Dahomey Kingdom. To get around I took rickety taxis brousses (bush taxis), amazed and amused as endless passengers piled in. In Cotonou, the zemidjan moto taxi rules, and I was soon clinging on as my drivers bumped through alleys, enjoying free street theatre as they paused for petrol. In Fon, Benins main language, Cotonou means mouth of the river of death. The city lacks obvious tourist sites but it felt anything but moribund. A power cut spawned a torchlit tour of contemporary African arts centre Fondation Zinsou. And at bar Le Consulat, in the neighbourhood of Fifadji, I was the sole foreigner but no one batted an eyelid they were too busy necking La Beninoise beer. Half an hour away, Unesco stilt village Ganvie is Benins main tourist attraction, built in the 17th century on a lake by the Tofinu tribe. Gliding along in a motorised dugout, I felt voyeuristic watching residents getting haircuts or going to church but I was also mesmerised, the water mirroring Turner-esque clouds in a cerulean sky. Ouidah houses one of Benins finest hotels. Tucked down a beach road, La Casa del Papas oceanfront bungalows provided welcome relaxation. The only issue was whether to linger on the empty palm-fringed sands, rocked by Atlantic rollers or plunge into the pool. The restaurant served sublime fish and Beninese staples such as amiwo, a firmer mashed potato made of tomato and corn maize spiked with habanero chilli. One afternoon I grappled with Benins dark past and the Python Temples resident reptiles. People go to pray in the Catholic church, explained my guide, Hyppolite. Then they come to worship the pythons. On the lake at Ganvie / Alamy Stock Photo This freewheeling spiritualism is one of Benins triumphs yet it has an unhappy past; it was West Africas main slave trade hub from the 17th to the 19th centuries, when the kings of Dahomey Abomey, in modern-day Benin sold captured rivals to European slavers. After touring the history museum in the old Portuguese Fort, we traced the Route des Esclaves (Slave Route), finishing in the beachfront Gate of No Return, beyond which slaves were shipped to the Americas. But not before looping the Tree of Forgetfulness, which was meant to erase memories of their old lives. In Abomey, the dusty royal palaces still whisper of the towns chill-inducing heyday, with walls of human blood and a throne of skulls. From 1625 to 1900, protected by Amazon warriors, 12 kings ruled the Dahomey Kingdom; a highlight is meeting their descendants in exchange for gin and a token donation. Benin is a republic these days, and its kings are largely ceremonial but they guard some of their forebears powers. I pressed for details on their voodoo duties. The question went unanswered. Some magic cant be explained. The Python Temple Details La Casa del Papa (casadelpapa.com), doubles from 70 B&B. In Abomey, chambres dhotes Chez Sabine costs from 22. Ouidah guide Hyppolite (+229 67 05 13 49) works with the local tourist office (office-tourismeouidah.org). V irgin Holidays has opened a new travel shop in Milton Keynes which features a prosecco-stocked bar, in-house spa and virtual reality rollercoaster. The new v-room resembles an airport lounge and is kitted out with upper class and premium economy seats that customers are encouraged to "try before they fly" - the idea is to create an immersive shopping environment. There's a complimentary bar stocked with soft drinks, snacks and prosecco, as well a spa area similar to those found at many Virgin Atlantic Clubhouses where customers can enjoy a hand massage or manicure while they browse. Here's a look at the new store, which is located at centre:mk in Milton Keynes. PA/Fabio De Paola Store manager Mark Morton said: "The entire store concept is relaxed and informal; we want people to feel as if theyre for Milton Keynes residents chatting to a friend over a glass of Prosecco." PA/Fabio De Paola Customers can choose from a hand massage or manicure at the Clubhouse spa. PA/Fabio De Paola There's also a virtual reality rollercoaster experience which can take customers to Las Vegas and back via space. PA/Fabio De Paola The chief said he could not comment further on the incident, which is under investigation by the Illinois State Polices Public Integrity Task Force, but that he intended to release an additional statement in the coming days after the agency concluded its inquiry and all of the facts are known. N otorious prisoner Charles Bronson whistled the theme to The Great Escape film moments before launching himself at a prison governor, a court has heard. Jurors at Leeds Crown Court were told on Monday how the 65-year-old had wanted to attack Mark Docherty for months, and blamed him for guests not being able to take pictures during his wedding. Prosecutor Carl Fitch said Bronson, a serving prisoner at Frankland Prison in County Durham, had to be restrained by police officers during the attack in Wakefield Prison on January 25. In his opening speech, Mr Fitch explained how the defendant, who is appearing in court under the name Charles Salvador, was meeting with Mr Docherty in order to discuss his "welfare and engagement" within the prison system. Jurors were told how, moments before entering the meeting at around 2pm, Bronson had stood outside the adjudication room and started "dancing with his toes and began whistling the theme to The Great Escape". Once the door to the room opened, the prisoner launched himself at the governor, using his arm to knock him off his chair before jumping on top of him, the prosecutor said. The court heard how, once Mr Docherty was on the floor, Bronson shouted: "You can f*** with me but you can never f*** with my mother." Mr Fitch added Bronson had said: "I will bite your f****** nose off and I will gouge your eyes out." The prosecutor said that, once the prisoner had been restrained, he told officers he had wanted to attack the governor since November 2017 after he "disrespected his wife". Jurors were told how Bronson had married the actress Paula Williamson during a ceremony at Wakefield Prison in November last year, with guests being told they were not allowed to bring in electronic devices or attempt to take pictures. But prison staff were allowed to take photos which were to be distributed to Bronson and his new wife, the court heard. Mr Fitch said: "The prison would never allow these photographs to be taken outside the prison, as they feared that Ms Williamson would give them to the media if they did. "The Crown says that it is for that reason, among others, that Mr Salvador had a grudge against Mr Docherty, who he held responsible for the withholding of these photographs." Prior to hearing the prosecution opening, jurors were told how Bronson, who was wearing yellow and green prison attire and round sunglasses, had asked to be allowed wear a suit, but was not able to change into one. The court session on Monday afternoon was briefly halted as members of the press were brought into the court room, at which point the prisoner said: "Shall we have a sing-song while we wait?" Telling jurors of the defendant's intention to represent himself in the trial, Judge Tom Bayliss asked them to bear in mind and forgive his "blunt manner of speaking". During the jury selection process, Bronson, who jurors were told has served over 40 years in jail, jokingly said "there's some decent prison officers", when asked if prison staff should be allowed to sit. He denies attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent and the trial, which is expected to conclude later this week, continues. P olice have launched a murder probe after a 35-year-old woman died in Ilford on Monday. Officers were called at about 7.40am to reports of a disturbance in Applegarth Drive, a residential street. They found the woman suffering an abdominal injury. Police said it was unclear how she sustained this. She was taken to hospital but died about three hours later. A 50-year-old man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder. He was taken to a police station and subsequently arrested on suspicion of murder. He remained in custody on Monday evening. Police said the pair were known to each other, and that no one else was being sought for the investigation. DCI Gary Holmes, of the Mets homicide and major crime command, said: "This is a tragic incident and our sympathies are with the loved ones and friends of the victim. "I am appealing for any witnesses who were in the area of Applegarth Drive from the evening of November 11 to the morning of November 12 to please contact us with any information they might have, however small. It could prove vital to our ongoing enquiry." A thief stole personal items including two iPads and a bag from paramedics while they were dealing with a "critical" emergency in north London. Police were called to North Middlesex Hospital early on Sunday after receiving reports of theft from an ambulance. The Enfield and Haringey crew was attending to a patient at Devonshire Hill at around 4.40am when a person entered the ambulance and stole the iPads and a bag containing personal items including house and car keys. A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said enquiries are ongoing and no arrests have been made. LAS North London tweeted: "At approximately 4am this morning, with a time critical emergency near The Roundway, Tottenham, N17 an #Enfield and #Haringey #Ambulance crew had personal items & two service Ipads stolen from their ambulance. If you have any information please contact @MPSHaringey on 101." Scotland Yard said in a statement: "Police were called to North Middlesex Hospital on the morning of on Sunday November 11 after receiving reports of theft from an ambulance. "Ambulance staff were attending to a patient at Devonshire Hill at approximately 4.40am. "Whilst there, an unknown person entered the ambulance and two iPads and a bag containing personal items including house and car keys were taken. "Enquiries are ongoing, no arrests have been made." F our men have been arrested by detectives investigating the fatal stabbing of a teenage boy in south London. John Ogunjobi, 16, was found collapsed in the street with stab injuries in Tulse Hill on November 5, and was pronounced dead at the scene. On Monday, four men aged 22, 20, 21 and 23 were arrested on suspicion of murder and taken to a south London police station to be questioned. The young victim was one of five killed in a weekend of bloodshed in the capital. The first was father Rocky Djelal, 38, who stabbed in Rotherhithe. The next day, Jay Hughes, 15, died of knife wounds in Bellingham, then Malcolm Mide-Madariola, 17, was knifed outside Clapham South Tube station. M Ps were today warned not to knowingly inflict harm on patients with a bungled Brexit that damages the NHS and social care. Dr Sarah Wollaston, chairwoman of the Commons health committee, stressed that the public needed to know, on the basis of two years of evidence from experts, that Brexit is bad for your health. She described Britain as like a patient being wheeled into the operating theatre after signing a consent form two years ago without knowing what the surgery involved. She starkly warned all MPs, including ministers and Theresa May, that they must now think how they would look constituents in the eye after Brexit and explain healthcare shortages. Jeremy Corbyn should also back a new referendum on the deal which the Prime Minister agrees with Brussels, she urged, or he will also be held responsible for Brexit-related blows to the health service. The GP-turned-MP is particularly alarmed at the threat of the UK leaving with no deal, which she thinks will likely lead to medicines being in short supply. In an interview with the Standard, she said: That is the point that we need to get across here ... why would you want to knowingly inflict harm? My colleagues know particularly that no deal is desperately harmful. Protesters at an anti-Brexit demo in London / Alamy Stock Photo She added that other risks include poorer care due to a lack of staff if it is more difficult or costly to employ EU workers, longer waiting lists for treatment and diagnostic tests, for example for cancer sufferers, cancelled operations and reduced medical research. The Government has pledged 20 billion more for the NHS to try to keep up with growing demand. But Mrs Wollaston strongly believes all versions of Brexit will have a negative impact on health and social care, to varying degrees, given the widely expected economic hit to Britain and tighter rules on immigration from the Continent. This could be limited by maintaining close regulatory alignment with the EU and easy access for EU healthcare workers, she said. But she stressed: Every MP needs to think about how they are going to speak to people in months to come if there are harms and answer Did you know that these harms were there? Did you do everything you could to explain them? And did you give the public a chance to give an informed consent on the actual deal as opposed to the fantasy Brexit that people were presented with. Mrs Wollaston, Tory MP for Totnes, and three other doctors in the Commons are planning to table an amendment to the meaningful vote on Mrs Mays Brexit deal, which would make accepting it dependent on there being a second referendum, or a Peoples Vote. This is major constitutional, economic and social surgery, this is the biggest decision for generations with profound implications for decades to come, she said. If you dont know the surgery that is being delivered, and someone asks you two years ago for consent without telling you what the operation was, whether you are going to remove a few toes or a whole leg, you cant consent to something without knowing what the nature of it is. We are being wheeled into the operating theatre based on a consent form signed two years ago or for young people a consent form that their parents signed two years ago without even knowing what surgery is involved. That to me is fundamentally wrong. She said the Prime Minister obviously profoundly believes that this is delivering the will of the people, but warned: If the surgery goes wrong, Im afraid all the harms that might result, and there are going to be unintended consequences undoubtedly for whatever version of Brexit that we have, all of those problems will be laid at the Governments door. She criticised Mr Corbyn for refusing to back another public vote, with Labour instead keeping it as an option if there is not another General Election. Jeremy Corbyn will absolutely scupper this if he doesnt support it, she said, urging him to at least give Labour MPs a free vote. Currently, there are not enough MPs supporting a second vote to get it through the Commons. A social housing commissioner should be appointed to fight for the rights of tenants in the capital, according to a report launched in response to the Grenfell Tower disaster. A new survey of tenants by the London Assembly found that many social housing residents feel neglected by their landlords and believe consultations are box-ticking exercises. Assembly members are now calling on Mayor Sadiq Khan to create a social housing commissioner for London to sit on his housing board and promote the views of residents. The assembly launched its inquiry after the Grenfell fire in June last year, which killed 72 people, raised serious questions about residents involvement in decision-making. It emerged after the disaster that tower residents had been warning the buildings managers, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), about fire safety concerns for years. The Mayor has already appointed Claire Waxman as victims commissioner to ensure that Grenfell survivors play a part in shaping policies and policing. He has previously proposed a national social housing commissioner. Smoke billows from the fire that engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower / Rick Findler/PA The report also says landlords should have their performance assessed to increase transparency and landlords of affordable homes should be under the same rules as public sector bodies. It said residents find engagement with landlords frustrating and problematic, adding: Residents from across London spoke of their unhappiness with the large number of parties involved in the management of their social housing estates, which complicates oversight of housing services and leads to a lack of transparency and accountability and hence a loss of trust. Almost a quarter of homes in London more than 800,000 are social housing. The Government published a green paper in the summer and a consultation aiming to rebalance the relationship between residents and landlords. The assemblys report will form part of its response to the consultation. The head of its housing committee, Sian Berry, said: The Grenfell disaster is a tragic reminder that residents in social housing have a right to have their voices heard, especially when it comes to concerns they have about where they live. "Its imperative we avoid a breakdown between social housing landlords and their tenants. James Murray, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development, said Mr Khan has long been clear that the voice of residents in social housing must be heard. O ver twenty people have been arrested after anti-fracking protesters glued themselves to the entrance of the government's Energy department offices. Extinction Rebellion campaigners blockaded the Business Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) headquarters in Westminster today in protest at the government's perceived complicity in today's "ecological crisis". Some 22 protesters have so far been arrested, according to the group, with more expected after they blocked the public highway and prevented department staff from accessing the building. Some demonstrators glued their hands to the doors of the building in Victoria Street, near Parliament Square, in a deliberate attempt to be arrested, according to some reports. Activists from Extinction Rebellion staged an anti-fracking protest outside the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in Westminster. The Met said 15 people were arrested over an obstruction of public access. / PA At its latest update the Met said six people were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and two for obstructing the highway - but officers are yet to provide an updated number. One protester climbed the revolving doors to the building and wrote the words "frack off", while others displayed campaign umbrellas reading "rebel for life" and "tell the truth". The group said one of its members, Simon Bramwell, an outdoors-man and bush-craft instructor, was one of those arrested for spraying the windows with nonpermanent paint, including their symbol of ah hour-glass.. Mr Bramwell gave a video interview as he prepared for the protest, knowing he would be arrested, but the thought of "what we're heading for" scared him more. He said: "We're at a bit of impasse at the moment that it's really really all or bust at the moment. "My primary fear is that my mum might die while I'm inside. I don't like having my freedom taken away from me. Ruth Jarman of the Christian Climate Action group was said to be the first to be arrested, and another was Father Martin Newell, 50, a long-time Catholic activist who has taken part in civil disobedience actions around the globe. "But in regards to where we're going, I'm way more terrified of that than going to jail." Anti-fracking groups have been spurred to act as Britain saw the first live fracking site come back online last month. Quadrilla's shale gas test drilling recommenced at Preston New Road in Lancashire after a 10-year moratorium was in place over earthquakes. Since work started again in October, the site has paused operations a handful of time as further tremors tipped over legal limits. But in addition to concerns over the unconventional gas extraction industry, protesters said they were "rebelling against extinction", after an international climate change report give world leaders less than 20 years to get greenhouse gas emissions under control. Protester Bell Selkie, 48, a farmer from Wales, reportedly said: "I live on a farm and the harvests are failing and it's very obvious to me that climate change is hitting now." She told the Guardian: The IPCC report in October gave us six to 12 years, and this is known to be a conservative report. "If we dont respond with a war-style effort now we are all f*****, all of us. My heart is breaking and Ive got to do something and Im putting my life on hold. Extinction Rebellion said in a statement that "multiple teams" of protesters flocked to the building "to highlight the havoc being wrought across the UK by fracking, which the Government is undemocratically supporting." The action was the first of several planned this week, building up to a major "civil disobedience" on Saturday, which the group has called "Rebellion Day". / AFP/Getty Images "We are facing an unprecedented global emergency," the group added. "The Government must enact legally binding policy measures to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025 and to reduce consumption levels. The UK government, specifically BEIS, is promoting fracking meeting with fracking companies more than 30 times in the last three years, compared to zero times with anti-fracking groups despite massive local opposition. From Preston New Road (665 days now and counting) in Lancashire, to Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire, to Horse Hill in Surrey, communities are coming together to fight against fracking. An Anti-fracking protester spray=painted the words "frack off" on the windows of the government's Business Energy and Industrial Strategy department. / EPA Today's protest is said to be the first in a series running this week, culminating with a mass civil disobedience action on Saturday, which the group has dubbed rebellion day. "The planet is in ecological crisis," they added. "We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event this planet has experienced. "Children alive today in the UK will face unimaginable horrors as a result of floods, wildfires, extreme weather, crop failures and the inevitable breakdown of society, when the pressures are so great." A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said: "There have been 15 arrests over the obstruction of the highway." The force said no charges had yet been made. A Government spokesperson said: The UK is a world leader in the fight against climate change. Natural gas can continue to play a role as we deliver our emissions reduction targets, so it is only right that we utilise our domestic gas resources as we transition to a low-carbon economy. Eighteen of the 20 people on board were taken to hospital after the route 198 service hit a car and another bus then mounted the pavement and smashed into a shelter at the West Croydon depot. A 15-year-old passenger remains in hospital in a critical condition today. Witness Ashlyn Jones, 15, told how passengers waiting in the shelter dived for cover as the bus hurtled towards them. The bus ploughed into a stop at West Croydon bus garage / Sky News She said: I saw the bus coming towards us and I just thought run. I ran so fast into the middle of the road... I couldnt stop shaking. She said the vehicle crashed into a grey car before swerving into another single-decker bus and ricocheting towards queuing passengers. Witnesses have described how passengers were left fleeing for their lives The bus just started coming really fast towards me and I just got up and ran in the other direction Everyone around me was running away. Then I heard another massive crash. It went into the shelter where I was sitting. Bricks were everywhere. The glass just smashed, the top deck smashed and a bit of the shelter went in through the top deck. She described how Transport for London staff prised open the door of the bus to free trapped passengers. The air ambulance lands in West Croydon / @TomBowell Twenty people were on board the bus, and 18 needed hospital treatment for varying degrees of injury. The London Air Ambulance and eight ambulance crews attended the scene shortly after midday. Police said the driver, in his 60s, was arrested on suspicion of failing a roadside drug screening test. He has since been released under investigation. A worker at a shop nearby added: We heard the helicopter and we could see loads of people coming down the road. Someone told me they saw people on the floor. I hope everyone is okay and the little girl isnt too hurt. The incident came two years after seven people died and 62 people were injured when a tram derailed about a mile away. A spokesman for the Met said officers were called at about 12.20pm yesterday. He added: A man - the driver of the bus, aged in his 60s - was arrested on suspicion of failing a roadside drug screening test. Enquiries into the circumstances remain ongoing by officers from the Serious Collision Investigation Unit. Tube Stations Collections will take place at six London Underground stations from November 12 14 (7am -11am). Canary Wharf At the bottom of the main escalators into the station (opposite Reuters) in front of a pillar. Kings Cross At the north entrance to the tube station off Pancras Road, in the Northern Ticket Hall. Liverpool Street Inside the London Underground entrance next to Costa Coffee and behind the NatWest ATMs. (Closest entrance on Liverpool Street) London Bridge By the main pillar in the middle of the tube station foyer. We are opposite the Jubilee Line gates. Victoria At the bottom of the stairs by the underground entrance (use one of the original entrances just outside the main station) Waterloo At the entrance to the Jubilee line off Waterloo Road or down the escalator opposite platform 5 in the main station. By Lola's Cupcakes. Broadgate Centre, Broadgate Volunteers will be at Broadgate Centre November 12 14 (9am 5:30pm). Queen Elizabeth II Centre, Westminster Volunteers will be at the QEII Centre November 13 16, 19 23 (9am 5pm). Safestore Locations Volunteers will be at Safestore locations around London November 13 23. Chiswick Nearest stations: Gunnersbury tube, Chiswick national rail station Clapham Nearest stations: Clapham North tube, Clapham Highstreet national rail station Notting Hill Nearest stations: Ladbroke Grove tube, Holland Park tube Kings Cross Nearest stations: Angel tube, Kings Cross/St Pancras tube and national rail station Collect Plus Send coats in the post to Chiswick Safestore by November 23. Chiswick Safestore 22 Sutton Lane North, Great West Road, Chiswick, W4 4LD A rail passenger told today how she helped a fellow commuter give birth on a train despite having no medical training herself. Mariyana Andreeva, 52, was on board a Southeastern train from Rainham to Stratford on Thursday evening when the woman went into labour. Ms Andreeva, who is originally from Bulgaria but lives in Ilford, told the Standard: I helped the mother get undressed when I realised that the baby was coming. I shouted out to the other passengers to help me and we put the mother on the floor. I was really scared and stressed so was the mother. With the help of other passengers and Southeastern staff, Ms Andreeva placed a coat beneath the mother before telling her to push. Within minutes, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Luckily I was in the right place on the right time...With my two hands I helped her to deliver the baby boy safely, she said. The baby was born on a Southeastern train / Rex After the train pulled into Stratford International, paramedics took the mother and her new son to Newham University Hospital. Both are said to be doing well. Ms Andreeva, who works as a cleaner, said she had an idea of what to do after giving birth to three children - Kristiyan, Petya and Denica - herself. She added that she now wants to meet the mother of newborn baby. All I know about the mother is her age and that her baby is a boy, Ms Andreeva said. I want to meet her as I was with her during the most important moment of her life, I want to make sure shes ok and I want to meet him. A Southeastern spokesman said: We were pleased to welcome a new arrival at Stratford International station on Thursday evening, with a baby boy born on board one of our trains. At around 9pm, we held the train at station to wait for an ambulance, after the mother went into labour and passengers and Southeastern colleagues helped to deliver the baby. Mum and baby were taken to hospital and we send them both our warmest congratulations. As for Kosteczko, he said he felt honored to have his name engraved on the marble tablets, but also said it was not something he would have done on his own. It was his nephews, he said, who took the lead in putting together the documentation to get Orland Park officials to add his name to the tribute. A n air ambulance landed in Trafalgar Square after an unmarked police car was involved in a crash in central London. The police car collided with another vehicle on The Mall on Monday afternoon. Paramedics and firefighters also rushed to the scene at about 2pm. Video footage and photos posted on social media showed the air ambulance land in the busy square in the heart of the capital. Scotland Yard said the driver of the police car was rushed to hospital. His injuries are not believed to be life threatening. The driver of the police car was rushed to hospital after the crash / Stuart Turner The other three occupants of the car were treated at the scene but were not taken to hospital. The air ambulance landed in Trafalgar Square on Monday afternoon / Michael Howie A ctor Sadie Frost is in talks with a young, up-and-coming actor to star in her next film. And who is the lucky leading man in the making? Her son, Rafferty. Frost, who starred in Shopping, The Krays and Bram Stokers Dracula, started a career in film production in 2013, launching Blonde to Black Pictures with friend Emma Comley. Their companys latest film, Two For Joy, stars Samantha Morton and Billie Piper and received critical acclaim. Now Frost is planning her next steps. It felt empowering to let the whole thing go and to figure out whats next, she says of the film. I am thinking about featuring him [Rafferty] in one of the films Im working on, Frost tells The Londoner. Were currently having talks with him about it. Rafferty, 22, is Frosts son with actor and ex-husband Jude Law. He has no professional acting experience. He has, however, worked as a model, taking to the catwalk for a DKNY show and appearing in high-profile campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana and Timberland. He also sings: he debuted a single, State Your Name, at the start of this month with his new band, London-based indie group Outer Stella Overdrive and previously released a solo single, Support Network, under the name Raff Law. His 18-year-old sister, Iris Law, is pursuing modelling and has starred in campaigns for Burberry. Rafferty, though, may need some guidance from his famous parents, having once described his talent in the acting department as slightly lacking. I did feel a bit of pressure when I joined my first boarding school [Bedales in Hampshire]. In my drama lesson, I think everyone thought: Oh God, hes going to be so brilliant. he recalls. Then they realised that I wasnt that good, so they just let me get on with it. Risk management Jacob Rees-Mogg has told an Australian media company that there is a risk of an accidental departure from the European Union without any agreement having been made. The comments were published yesterday, on the same day that the Conservative MP for North East Somerset was writing in The Mail on Sunday, arguing for a No Deal Plus. This plan will cost money, he wrote, but finally dispel the crash out Project Fear nightmare scenarios. Nightmare scenarios such as accidentally departing from the EU without an agreement, for example? -- Reporters Without Borders brought its press freedom awards to London for the first time last week. Channel 4s Lindsey Hilsum, hosting, introduced the BBCs Lyse Doucet as her journalism twin. Fact check, Doucet responded drily. Lindsey is, in fact, four months older than me. -- Chiwetel Ejiofor lives between London and the US, so has been keeping an eye on the mid-term elections. Its sad times in America but the mid-term elections were exciting, the Twelve Years a Slave star tells us. It was great to see the numbers go up so high, and it really broke the mould with the electing of more black women and a Muslim woman. The tide is changing. Rupert's past in another country Rupert Everett has been enjoying a new round of success of late, starring in and directing Oscar Wilde biopic The Happy Prince. But the film world hasnt always been so kind. While making Spanish film Finding Altamira in 2016, the only way to get him out to the set in Santander was the daily Ryanair flight. Darling, he told apologetic producers. I know I once counted for something in the world. But spending ones morning in the Stansted Wetherspoons has convinced me otherwise. Actor Haley Bennett and British director Joe Wright, whose divorce from sitar player Anoushka Shankar was finalised in May, celebrated their forthcoming bundle of joy this weekend. Bennett shared a photo of their celebration of divine creation and the wonder-filled flow into motherhood. AKA: a baby shower. Dita dresses up for a dual celebration at the Connaught The Connaught Hotel in Mayfair made for an old-school Hollywood-themed backdrop last night for a dual celebration. Fashion designer Jenny Packham was marking her lines 30th anniversary while partygoers were also welcoming the arrival of burlesque star Dita Von Teeses Art of the Teese revue in London as part of its European tour. The show, which is coming to the London Palladium this week, displays Von Teese in various states of elegant undress but last night she wore a plunging blue gown, specially made by Packham. The designer is a hit with the aristocracy, both real and imagined. Packham, whose clothes are a particular favourite of the Duchess of Cambridge, was joined at the dinner by Michelle Dockery. The Downton Abbey actor has just finished filming for the feature film of the period drama. Also in attendance at last nights dinner was the designers brother, Autumnwatch presenter Chris Packham, as well as actor Olivia Grant and comedian Harry Hill. SW1A Jeremy Corbyn has come under fire from a Nicaraguan citizens group for being deafeningly silent on the anti-government crisis that has engulfed the Central American country since April SOSNicaragua has written an open letter pointing out that the Labour leader has mentioned the country in Parliament 210 times but has failed to take a position. -- Corbyn was also criticised for wearing a casual raincoat at the Cenotaph yesterday. He once turned up to a GQ shoot similarly attired. Sighed editor Dylan Jones: (His people) didnt really seem to understand that he couldnt just turn up in his anorak. -- You should never be without a plectrum, Education Secretary Damian Hinds tells Nick Robinson. Hinds once saw a rock star decline to play a song for a fan because no one had a guitar pick. Which one? Either the guy from Green Day or Noel Gallagher. Quote of the Day Labour will tomorrow seek to force the government to release its own legal advice on the Irish border backstop. Jeremy Corbyn's party will use an arcane procedure known as a "humble address" during an opposition day debate. It's an attempt to make guidance by Attorney General Geoffrey Cox available to MPs once a Brexit deal is ready to be put before the Commons. The procedure was used last year to force the publication of Brexit impact assessments. Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said: "It's simply untenable for the government to put forward any Brexit deal to Parliament without providing the legal advice on what's been agreed. "At this critical stage, MPs can't be kept in the dark nor can we risk Parliament being bounced into a decision without having all of the facts available." J eremy Hunt flew to Saudi Arabia today as bombing of the rebel-held port city of Hodeidah in Yemen ceased at least temporarily. The Foreign Secretary was set to deliver tough messages to Riyadh over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the Yemen war. In a sign of the sensitivities of the talks, Britain sent the Foreign Offices top mandarin, Sir Simon McDonald, to lay the ground for the Foreign Secretarys visit. The unusual move highlights the complexities of the relationship between the UK and the desert kingdom which has been strained by the brutal murder of Mr Khashoggi by a 15-man hit squad at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Jamal Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 / PA Britain has a multi-billion-pound arms trade with Saudi Arabia. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman yesterday and reiterated Washingtons call for a cessation of hostilities in Yemen and for all parties to negotiate a peaceful solution. Street battles raged yesterday in residential areas of Yemens main port of Hodeidah as Houthi insurgents tried to repel forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition. Residents said they saw bodies of seven civilians killed in clashes in southern suburbs, with both sides using mortar shells, anti-aircraft guns and assault rifles in the fight for the city which is key to delivering aid for millions of Yemenis. Hatice Cengiz, Turkish finance of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, listens during an event organized to mark the 40th day of the death of the Saudi writer, in Istanbul / AP But this morning the fighting died down. Lise Grande, the United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator, told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: In the last few hours, it seems that the shelling, the strafing and the bombing has stopped. Were not sure about the implications of this but its very welcome. Mr Hunt stressed that the human cost of the Yemen conflict was incalculable with thousands killed, millions displaced and the threat of famine. We are witnessing a man-made humanitarian catastrophe on our watch, he said, calling for a ceasefire and a negotiated solution. After the killing of Mr Khashoggi on October 2, America and Britain have increased pressure on Riyadh to bring the Yemen war to an end, with Mr Hunt also stressing the need for the Saudi authorities to deliver justice for his family and the watching world. Mr Hunt is the first British minister to visit Saudi Arabia since the murder. He said: The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago. It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear. We encourage the Saudi authorities to co-operate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death. Riyadh has denied that the crown prince ordered the killing. The murder is seen in Whitehall as an opportunity to correct some of the more impulsive behaviour by the kingdoms authoritarian rulers rather pushing for action that could destabilise it and the wider region. J o Johnson is nervous. His hands tremble slightly as we pull out chairs to sit down under the awning of a street cafe in Orpington. This Johnson rarely thrusts himself into the spotlight so given hes dominated the weekend news the nervousness is understandable. This is the shy, considered brother, the brainy one youll hear described in Westminster as diligent, honest and decent. But the ripple effect of his resignation as Transport Minister on Friday over what he describes today as the con of Theresa Mays Brexit deal a fake Brexit, a rout, a calculated deceit of the British people could mean its this quiet Johnson that halts the march out of Europe with an emperor has no clothes deal. He has called for another referendum, a Peoples Vote. And because Jo Johnson couldnt look less like a pig in shit with the heat of the media gaze upon him, there is no sense that any of this is for personal political gain. It feels to be what he says it is: the moment at which he could no longer go on in government as if this was normal, because this is not normal, what we are being asked to agree, he says. I reached my limit. Whether other colleagues have a higher pain threshold, we will find out. Indeed we will. Perhaps even this week: Theresa May is expected to take her deal to her Cabinet in the next couple of days. Johnson urges colleagues to look deep in their consciences and ask whether in five years time they will want to be associated with this decision. Jo Johnson resigns from government over Brexit Of course its impossible to ignore the symmetry between Jo Johnsons stand and that of his brother Boris, the former Foreign Secretary. Of the many things that set them apart (they are, opposites in every conceivable way some argue) is their stance on Brexit. While Boris was an ardent Brexiter, spearheading the Leave campaign, Jo was fervently Remain. Did he talk to Boris before resigning? Of course. We talk, as any brothers, or as most brothers do, particularly when you are involved in politics. Did he show his brother the letter he wrote to the Prime Minister in advance? No. Absolutely not. Boris Johnson (Photo: Anthony Devlin/ Getty Images) / Getty Images He makes clear the fraternal relationship is a distraction. The Miliband comparison has occurred to him and the notion that his stand today would be seen as part of a Johnson family psychodrama is very frustrating. I wish it werent that way. What is striking is that this issue has united us in the sense that we are both in strong agreement that this [deal] is an appalling basis for us to leave the EU. We are being presented with a ridiculous choice: my way or the highway vassalage with the Prime Ministers deal, or the chaos of no deal. Does he sense any other ministers will follow his example this week? You cant predict MPs behaviour, he says. With him today is Tony Owen, chairman of his constituency Conservative Association. Theyve just returned from a Remembrance service and Johnson wears a long black coat with poppy made from pottery. Owen says proudly that in 2010 they selected Johnson, over Sajid Javid. Johnson looks momentarily confused. Jo has done the right thing, Owen continues. I read his write up on the BBC website and I agreed with everything right up until the bit about the second referendum. This is significant because Orpington is Leave, even voting Ukip in the last European elections. And now, Jo has reunited the Tory party, Owen says. Whether you are an arch Remainer or arch Brexiteer, everyone is agreed: the deal is rubbish. As if on cue a pretty young constituent rushes over to Johnson, just to thank you for your integrity. Support from across the party including Cabinet has been overwhelming, Johnson says. Hes been flooded by texts and Twitter messages. Nearly two million watched his resignation video. That sounds like politician speak for just trying to find external endorsement, he acknowledges. But really its been mind-blowing. The mood is shifting. Theres barely a hostile email or communication. So who sent the hostile few? Well, they are few and far between, he stammers. Are they from Number Ten? He ignores the question. What about like-minded anti-Brexit Labour MPs? Has he been talking to them? Not directly, no. Certainly, though, he has tapped into the feeling of madness within Westminster, where a sense of entrenched paralysis has persisted for months. Johnson wont identify the exact moment he snapped; just that hed initially got behind the referendum result and wanted to give Theresa May the maximum space to negotiate the best possible deal. But by the summer, when the Chequers proposals were published, I was concerned. But I didnt want to speak out too soon so I couldnt be accused of tying her hands or limiting her room for manoeuvre. Finally he went to see the chief whip last Friday. I had a long conversation with Julian Smith, who I respect highly, he says. But why not wait until the deal was on the table before resigning? Johnson says draft agreements are already circulating and they are broadly as weve all understood them to be. We are now at the stage of dotting the Is and crossing the Ts: this is the deal. He felt if didnt speak up now, my ability to make my voice heard once the cacophony of the Governments spin machine starts wouldve been very much reduced. He cites the memo leaked last week that revealed the extent of Theresa Mays plans to sell her deal at all costs. What angers Johnson most is that it bears no resemblance to anything promised by the word Brexit: Its clearly not Brexit, he says. The Government has boxed itself in by trying to codge together this weird fake Brexit in the hope of committing people to somehow delivering on the referendum result. It keeps repeating that [phrase] and its obviously a nonsense. Its misleading to present it as delivering on the referendum result. Brexit was meant to be about taking back control, we are ceding control; it was meant to be about trade deals, we are not going to have any meaningful trade deals; it was meant to be about having a turbo-charged tiger economy on the edge of Europe, we are going to be bound by the common rule book that we wont have a hand in shaping. More than that he is furious that the Prime Minister seeks to compare her deal with no deal to make it look favourable, rather than comparing it with remaining in the EU. This, he says, is a gross abuse of civil service impartiality. The reason they cant look us in the eye is because they know this [deal] will leave us worse off and with less control. I press him on whether he would like the Prime Minister to be replaced. This isnt for me about leadership change. OK. But has he written a letter to the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, saying he has lost confidence in Theresa May as leader of the Tory party? He laughs. I ask again. He laughs again. But have you written a letter? I persist. For me this is not about leadership, he repeats. OK, youre not going to answer that, I say. He laughs again. Johnson was the youngest of the four Johnson children including Rachel, a writer and columnist, and Leo, a filmmaker Boris, the eldest. Much of their childhood was in Somerset family photographs show bucolic scenes, the Johnsons all ruddy-faced with that white hair. Academic attainment and wit was prized and all four attended Oxbridge. Their ever-present father, Stanley often found by Boriss side, but pictured accompanying Jo to the Today programme on Saturday was a Conservative MEP. Their mother, Charlotte Johnson Wahl, an artist, is far less conspicuous. Jo grew up in Brussels, while his father worked for the European Commission. When he was very young, his mother devastated by Stanleys philandering spent eight months in the Maudsley. It was a very difficult period, says Jo. But shes well now. And hes proud of her telling me about an exhibition of her work at the ICA called Minding Too Much, which really shows how she responded to her mental health issues through he painting. It was brilliant. They are really powerful pictures. He adds: Im hugely privileged. Theres no sob story, dont worry. He followed his brothers to Eton, which was, mostly enjoyable. By the last year Id already got into university. I remember the headmaster calling me in and saying, the salt seems to have somewhat lost its savour for you. That phrase has stuck with me. After Balliol he went to university in Brussels and then to Insead Business school outside Paris, and later he was posted to Paris (and then India) for the Financial Times. J eremy Corbyns claim that Brexit is unstoppable was flatly rejected by a leading member of his shadow Cabinet team today. Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer stepped in to clear up Labours policy on quitting the EU after the party leader told a German magazine: We cant stop Brexit. Sir Keir told Sky News: Brexit can be stopped. He stressed that Labour had agreed at its annual rally in September to judge any deal that Theresa May succeeds in striking with Brussels on the basis of six tests, which appear highly unlikely to be met. If it fails to meet them, then Labour would push for a General Election and if that was rejected all options had to be on the table including campaigning for a second referendum, or a Peoples Vote. Countdown to Brexit: 137 days until Britain leaves the EU That is the clear position. Jeremy is signed up to it. Im signed up to that, added Sir Keir, MP for Holborn and St Pancras. Mr Corbyn also angered some Labour MPs over the weekend when he was asked whether there should be another referendum and replied: Not really, no, as the referendum took place. Sir Keir acknowledged there were some slightly different voices within the party on Brexit, but insisted - despite the clear rift between Mr Corbyn and many of his shadow Cabinet and MPs - that everybody has coalesced around a common position. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn last week said Labour could not stop Brexit (Reuters ) / Reuters He added: The Labour Party has a healthy discussion. But did we reach an agreement? Yes we did. Are we sticking to it? Yes we are. Some Labour MPs in Leave constituencies are wary of backing a second referendum. But Tottenham MP David Lammy said: Labour now must begin to actively campaign for a Peoples Vote, otherwise we will forever be complicit in this disastrous Tory policy that will permanently damage our economy, workers rights and Britains place in the world. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged Britain to hold a second referendum and come back into the EU in the years ahead. If I was Theresa May, I would call a second referendum no doubt, he said. L ondon MPs today warned that more young lives risk being lost because of an unacceptable parliamentary delay in introducing flagship new powers to curb the sale of knives and acid. The Offensive Weapons Bill which includes measures to ban online knife sales to juveniles and a ban on carrying acid in public was highlighted by the Home Office only last week as one of its key measures for tackling violent crime. But its final Commons stage, the third reading, has now been postponed twice amid a rebellion by some Tory backbenchers and the Democratic Unionist Party over a clause banning high-powered rifles. Ministers insist they remain committed to implementing the legislation as soon as possible. But MPs in the capital hit out angrily today with a warning that the hold-up could cost lives by allowing dangerous weapons to remain in circulation for longer. Hampstead and Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq said a teenage boy in her constituency had been left fighting for his life after a recent stabbing and added: The Governments deliberate delays to the Bill are a disgrace. The delays enable the continued possession of, and access to, weapons that cause unimaginable pain to our communities including corrosive substances and Rambo knives. MPs from all parties want to see this legislation debated, and it is high time the Government stopped putting internal politics before our constituents lives. Croydon Central MP Sarah Jones, who chairs the parliamentary anti-knife crime group, added: After Londons murder rate overtook New York earlier this year the Government promised this legislation as a priority. Seven months later and progress has stalled because this government is in such disarray. I can go online now and major retailers are selling knives disguised as pens or which fit into wallets. With knife crime at epidemic levels even a few weeks delay is putting young peoples lives at risk. There have been claims that the decision of many leading Brexiteers to join the shooting lobby in opposing the rifle ban is part of a power play designed to show their strength over the EU negotiations. The legislation would ban online retailers selling knives to juveniles and extend the definition of a flick knife and prohibit their possession. The possession of knuckledusters, death stars and other weapons will also be outlawed. Carrying acid in public without good reason will be an offence. L ondons economy and public services will suffer hugely if a 30,000 minimum salary cap is imposed on foreign workers after Brexit, Sadiq Khan warned today. The Mayor said that construction, hotels and restaurants would suffer scary staff shortages, while already dire vacancy levels in nursing and social care would worsen. Mr Khan spoke out on a three-day visit to Berlin and Paris to spread the message that London remains open to trade and investment after Brexit. The Government is expected to decide by the end of the year whether to adopt the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) on changing the UKs immigration policy after the Brexit transition period ends in 2021. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan meets with German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz / PA In September, the MAC proposed scrapping the freedom of movement that currently gives preferential treatment to workers from the European Economic Area (EEA), and replacing it with one rule for all foreign workers, both from the EU and worldwide. There would be no limit on the number of foreigners given general work visas, also known as Tier 2 visas but a 30,000 minimum salary required for those from outside the EEA would be extended to all migrants. The MAC wants to retain the 30,000 rule to prevent cheap foreign labour driving down wages in the UK. Mr Khan believes this would deprive the capital, where about half of all jobs are for under 30,000, of essential workers. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, during a three-day visit to European capitals where he will meet business leaders and politicians / PA He says it ignores the reality of Londons dependence on EU citizens. S ajid Javid has admitted that a fresh look at police resources nationwide is needed. The Home Secretary made the comments after admitting that officer numbers is an important part of the solution of reducing crime figures. Mr Javid told Good Morning Britain: "Police numbers have to be an important part of the solution. Let's not pretend that it's not. There has been a big increase in police funding in the last three years. "There was a big increase last year. That said, I'm the first to admit, we need to take a fresh look at that and make sure that police - not just in London, but across the country - have the resources that they need." Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick during a visit to Brixton, south London / PA He made the comments after being pressed on cuts since 2010 with presenter Susanna Reid saying the reduction in police numbers has surely led to increasing crime rates. Police funding has fallen by 19 per cent in real terms since 2010. Officer numbers have decreased by more than 20,000 over the same period. The questions were put to Mr Javid following a recent spate of stabbings in London, with the politician describing violent crime as a disease He said he wants relevant bodies to "to look at it as a disease and say, 'how do we eradicate this disease? He wants the "disease" of violent crime to be eradicated / PA There were five people stabbed to death in London in separate killings in the week from October 31. In London alone there have been 119 violent deaths in 2018, including two cases that are being treated as self-defence. Around a third involved victims aged 16 to 24 while 20 were teenagers. Amid the violence, police chiefs have proposed an expansion of officers stop and search powers. They have suggested dropping the reasonable grounds condition required for carrying out the checks. Advisors to Mr Javid have been conducting talks with senior officers to discuss the plans. Additionally to this, there has been much scrutiny of police performance and funding of late. The number of arrests in England and Wales has halved in a decade and recorded crime has risen across a number of categories including homicide and knife-related offences. One of the country's most senior officers called for a refocus on "core policing" earlier in November. Sara Thornton, National Police Chiefs' Council chairwoman, warned forces are too stretched to take on all "deserving" issues, including logging misogyny reports when no offence has been committed. P olice chiefs have proposed an expansion of officers stop and search powers by dropping the reasonable grounds condition required for carrying out the checks. Officers want to lower the level of suspicion a police officer needs in order to carry out a stop and search, as concern continues to rise over increased knife attacks. Advisors to home secretary Sajid Javid have been conducting talks with senior officers in the last two weeks to discuss the plans, which would apply to England and Wales. Last week, Mr Javid urged Scotland Yard to make full use of police powers, including stop and search, as its officers seek to end the bloodshed. Adrian Hanstock, the deputy chief constable of the British Transport Police and national lead on stop and search for the National Police Chiefs Council, confirmed the stop and search expansion plans to the Guardian. There are a lot of calls for officers to do more stop and search. But the current individual threshold that officers have to meet is very tight and precise, Mr Hanstock told the newspaper. So is there any appetite to reduce that threshold where [an] officer has a genuine fear that the person is at risk, or there is a safeguarding threat, or is a risk to others? If that officer does not have sufficient grounds or X-ray vision to see they are carrying a weapon, and they are concerned they may have something to cause harm, that should trigger a search. They will still have to record what has concerned them. The plans would make it more likely that those found with a knife during a search would be required to undertake an education programme rather than face the courts. However, there are fears the plans could reignite debate surrounding police discrimination against ethnic communities, civil liberties and the role of stop and search in tackling crime. According to the Guardian, stop and search is one of the most controversial powers used by police as black people are around nine times more likely to be targeted for its use than white people. The majority of people who are searched turn out to be innocent and Prime Minister Theresa May has previously voiced concerns that it diminished the trust of ethnic minorities in the police. Accepting the plans would trigger controversy, Mr Hancock told the paper: I think it would raise concerns with civil liberties groups that we could be using this as an excuse to search more people. Another significant change in warfare was the use of airplanes, he said. The planes were made of wood and canvas, with pilots using handguns to fire at the enemy, he said. The airplane was a new invention at the beginning of the war, but was widely used by the end of WWI, he said. A leading cancer surgeon accused of insurance fraud over a 4,000 claim for lost jewellery has been cleared after a jury was told she is scatty but not dishonest. Dr Gisella Salerno, 45, made a claim when her diamond-encrusted wedding and engagement rings went missing on a new year trip to the Canary Islands. The mother-of-three believed the rings could have slipped off her finger in the night and then been swept up in the bedsheets and lost in the washing machine. She found herself accused of altering her policy after the rings had been lost in an attempt to deceive the insurers Hastings Direct into paying out. Dr Salerno, a bowel cancer specialist at Wexham Park Hospital in Berkshire, insisted Im not trying to pull a fast one on anyone but was put on trial. A jury at Inner London crown court found her not guilty of fraud on Friday at the end of a week-long trial. During the case, the surgeons eminent friends rallied to her defence and gave glowing character references. Robert Evans, a criminal barrister, said: She is not very good with detail sometimes, but she is a trustworthy person. In her personal affairs she is a bit scatty. Anil Desai, a fellow surgeon at Wexham Park, told the court: When a mistake was made, I could trust Gisella to put her hands up and say yes, I made a mistake. Defence barrister Tim Starkey QC told jurors: Shes just been a bit scatty, its being a bit careless and having a lot on her mind at the time. Dr Salerno altered her policy during the trip in December 2015, after realising her possessions were not covered since her familys recent house move. She said she noticed the rings were missing on December 29 and confirmed they were lost two days later after extensive searches with staff at the hotel in Puerto de Mogan, in Gran Canaria. She did not formally report the loss to the insurance company until February 2016. In evidence the surgeon said: It is silly to think I would risk my job, family, and liberty to try and steal 4,000 I would not and I did not. Hotel management and Dr Salernos holiday rep confirmed that a thorough search had been made for the rings. When questioned by police, Dr Salerno said she did not get around to reporting the loss officially until more than a month after the trip as she was juggling looking after her young children and her work while her husband was away with his job in the Army. A group of white, male, straight, British executives have claimed they were victims of discrimination after being made redundant by one of Londons top advertising agencies. They reportedly lost their jobs at J Walter Thompson (JWT) agency in the summer following a speech by creative director Jo Wallace saying she wanted to obliterate its reputation as a Knightsbridge boys club. Shortly after the conference in May the men went to JWTs HR department to express concerns about the implications for their career prospects, according to the advertising industry magazine Campaign. The executives are understood to have engaged lawyers about bringing a possible discrimination case on grounds of gender, race, nationality and sexuality. If a legal case goes ahead it is likely to be seen as a major test case at a time when many employers are trying to boost female representation at senior levels to close the gender gap. Earlier this year JWT was exposed for having the widest gender pay gap in the sector with a mean of 38.3 per cent and a median of 44.7 per cent, compared with an industry average of 16.2 per cent. Ms Wallace, who was appointed in October last year, has been one of the most high-profile champions of diversity in the notoriously male dominated advertising industry. At the Creative Equals conference she introduced herself as a gay woman and promised to obliterate JWTs Mad Men reputation as an agency full of white, privileged straight men creating traditional advertising, adding: I love a challenge. She also said the gender pay gap was a rocket in the arse needed to address the lack of diversity among senior staff. In an article last December Ms Wallace also wrote that a hell of a lot of people are literally sleeping on the job when it comes to diversifying their creative department beyond white, pale, stale males. Despite so much talk and agreement on the importance of diversity for the creative industry there are still far too many creative departments with zero female or BAME creatives. Ms Wallace is the founder of a series of networking events, Good Girls Eat Dinner, described as providing inspirational, kick ass female role models across the creative industries (where they are sadly lacking). Since the publication of the pay gap figures JWT has introduced a major employment plan to boost diversity including unconscious bias training for all staff and a blind recruitment policy that remove details such as gender from job applications. C elebrities have shared their anger at a Malibu winery which pledged to get its animals out of harms way during the wildfire but failed to do so, according to a comedian. The devastating Californian wildfires caused Whitney Cummings to criticise Malibu Wines after hundreds voiced concerns about the welfare of their animals which include Stanley the giraffe. Responding to the concerns, Malibu Wines released a statement on Saturday which said most of its animals were accounted for after staff began evacuation preparations late on Friday night. The statement said Malibu Wines had lost a considerable portion of barns and facilities and had a small number of animals unaccounted for, but said the search for them was ongoing. Stanley the giraffe at the ranch owned by Malibu Wines / Instagram However, posting on Sunday, comedian Whitney Cummings said that staff on the property did not evacuate their animals and still wont, suggesting they have still been left at risk of dying. After visiting the site, she wrote: I wanted to be understanding and gracious, but once you treat your animals like this (when you have plenty of money) we simply arent on the same page. Celebrities have claimed Malibu Wines did not evacuate its animals, including Stanley the giraffe The pastures were still burning in areas when I got there, an injured pig was found by us that nobody was looking for. "The owners of boarded horses were told they were evacuated which is a lie. The comedian also posted a picture of Stanley the giraffe, who featured in The Hangover Part III, behind a charred gate inside a paddock, with burnt posts seen on the ground. Claiming the animals had just been moved to a paddock nearby at the Saddlerock Ranch, she added: Shame on you Malibu Wines for not evacuating this animal or any of your animals. I tried to reason with you, tried to help you, and I brought you food for the animals. I am trying to help you do the right thing and take better care of the animals (you use to make money.) I know moving a giraffe is incredibly dangerous but not having an evacuation plan at all isnt acceptable. "They keep saying they 'evacuated' but that means into a pasture thats still smokey and burning on their premises. Another celebrity voicing concerns about the giraffe was actress Ariel Winter, who shared a tweet which showed the animal surrounded by smoke from the wildfire. Khloe Kardashian also posted about the giraffe, writing: No way [the owners] would do this?!?! She added: I have to find out if Stanley the giraffe is ok and if I can help in any way. Oh I feel terrible for him. Hes probably so scared and confused! Horse spooked as the Woolsey Fire moves through the property near Paramount Ranch / Getty Images The statement from Malibu Wines said: Our amazing animal care and facilities team began preparing for evacuations late last night and because of their efforts we have survived the fire. Our management team and animal trainers are on site right now feeding, providing water, repairing enclosures, and caring for our animal family (including Stanley). While we have lost a considerable portion of our barns and facilities, our primary concern is the lives our animal and human families. "We have a small number of animals unaccounted for but the search is continuing through the night. Your offers of support are deeply appreciated and as we begin the reconstruction process we will reach out to neighbors to help with this process! Malibu Wines has been approached for further comment. Equine veterinarian Jesse Jellison carries an injured goose in California / REUTERS On Saturday, animals also affected by the fire in the area - including geese, goats, dogs, horses and llamas - were being cared for by kind-hearted animal lovers. One evacuated horse had a contact number written on her hooves as she waited in a shelter at the Pierce College Equine Centre, where evacuees were bringing animals to safety. Llamas in California were tied to a lifeguard stand on the beach in Malibu as the fire came down the hill. A pony was also among the rescued animals who were tied up on Zuma beach. Butte County Sheriff Search and Rescue crews rescue an abandoned goat / EPA Some 29 people have died in the Camp Fire in Northern California, matching the state's record for deaths in a single fire. T errifying footage has emerged of police officers driving towards huge California wildfires as rescue attempts continue with more than 200 people still missing. LA County Sheriffs Department tweeted the clip, which was filmed in the Woolsey Fire in southern California, on Tuesday afternoon. The post was captioned: A view from many of our radio cars on Friday. We are fortunate there have been no reported injuries of LASD Personnel in the Woolsey Fire. Footage shows police vehicles drive towards the huge fires in California / LA County Sheriff's Office LASD has 100s of deputies, reserves & volunteers from the entire department working together to protect property & lives! Two people have been killed in the Woolsey Fire and 29 confirmed dead in the separate Camp Fire in northern California, matching the state's record for deaths in a single fire. Another 228 remain unaccounted for in the Camp Fire, with crews stepping up the search for bodies and missing people. California wildfires 1 /8 California wildfires A fire fighting aircraft releases water as firefighters battle the thousand-acre plus 'Fish' wildland fire that erupted near the Angeles National Forest, Duarte, Califonia EPA Smoke from wildfires burning in Angeles National Forest fills the sky behind the Los Angeles skyline Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP Jimmy Romo, 73, leads the horses leaving his ranch as a wildfire is burning in Azusa, Calif., Monday, June 20, 2016. New wildfires erupted Monday near Los Angeles and chased people from their suburban homes as an intense heatwave stretching from the West Coast to New Mexico blistered the region Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP A television cameraman shoots a thermometer sign which reads 126 degrees in Palm Springs, California Sam Mircovich/Reuters A wildfire burns around homes built near a hilltop in Azusa, California Nick Ut/AP A water bomber makes a drop on a wildfire as it attacks the flames near Campo, California Mike Blake/Reuters A column of smoke is seen rising, viewed through a windshield, from one of two wildfires in the Angeles National Forest above Azusa, California Gene Blevins/Reuters Flames flare up from a wildfire behind a house along a hillside in Duarte, California Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP Both fires have been whipped up by hot dry winds which are expected to continue through Tuesday, officials said. The winds were expected to heighten the risk of fresh blazes ignited by scattered embers. More than 224,000 people have already been forced to flee by the fires, with the Malibu homes of celebrities including Miley Cyrus, Gerard Butler and Robin Thicke destroyed. California wildfires - where are the worst affected areas? The Camp Fire, 40 miles north of Sacramento, burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in the town of Paradise, more structures than any other wildfire recorded in California. The blaze has probably caused between $2billion and $4billion in insured property damage, Morgan Stanley estimated in a report on Monday. It has scorched more than 113,000 acres and on Monday was 25 per cent contained, officials said. Footage from inside car shows devastation of California wildfires Its death toll of 29 equals that of the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, the deadliest wildfire on record in California. Speaking on CNN, Kory Honea, sheriff of northern California's Butte County, said he holds out hope that many people listed as missing will turn up safe but "given what we've dealt with so far with casualties as a result of this fire, I have concerns that it (the death toll) will rise." In southern California, the Woolsey Fire has burned more than 91,000 acres and was 20 per cent contained. The fire had forced authorities to issue evacuation orders for a quarter of a million people in Ventura and Los Angeles counties and beachside communities including the Malibu beach colony. The number of people missing was not immediately available. Many of those who have been allowed to return have been left without power or cellphone service, even if their homes were spared by the flames. D onald Trump today changed his excuse for snubbing a World War I commemorative ceremony from bad weather to not wanting to disrupt traffic. The US President had been expected to pay tribute to more than 1,000 Marines killed in the 1918 Battle of Belleau Wood, some 50 miles north east of Paris. But a less than an hour before Saturdays ceremony at the Aisne-Marine American cemetery was due to start, he pulled out, opting instead to stay at his Ambassadors Residence in the French capital. The excuse was said to be bad weather, which allegedly prevented the presidential helicopter, Marine 1, travelling to Belleau. Mr Trump did visit the Suresnes American Cemetery as part of the Paris commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day on Sunday / REUTERS This excuse was widely criticised, with Conservative MP Nicholas Soames, who is Winston Churchills grandson, writing on Twitter: They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate Donald Trump couldnt even defy the weather to pay his respects to the Fallen. Donald Trump complains about rain on Armistice Day Following the attacks, Mr Trumps press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, issued a fresh excuse, saying the use of the presidential Cadillac to get to Belleau would have disrupted traffic around Paris. President Trump did not want to cause that kind of unexpected disruption to the city and its people, she said. Mrs Huckabee Sanders also claimed that the journey from Paris to Belleau was two-and-a-half hours each way by car a claim that has also caused widespread astonishment. In the end, the ceremony at Belleau was attended by the White House chief of staff, retired Marine General John Kelly, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joe Dunford. Yesterday Mr Trump did make it to Suresnes, another cemetery close to Paris, where he paid tribute to Americas war dead. A fundraising campaign for a heroic homeless man who rammed a trolley into a knife attacker lunging a blade at police has raised nearly 70,000. The GoFundMe for Michael Rogers had a target of $45,000, in Australian dollars, and has since raised $123,570 at time of writing. Mr Rogers, who became known as Trolleyman before his identity was discovered, used a shopping trolley to try and disarm Hassan Khalif Shire Ali on Friday in Melbourne, Australia. The attacker stabbed three people, killing one, and wielded his blade at police before being shot by authorities in Bourke Street. Melbourne Stabbing - In pictures 1 /9 Melbourne Stabbing - In pictures A screenshot taken from a supplied video made available to AAP shows an incident n which a man armed with a knife attacked several people on Bourke Street in Melbourne, Australia EPA A screenshot taken from a supplied video made available to AAP shows an incident n which a man armed with a knife attacked several people on Bourke Street in Melbourne, Australia EPA A screenshot taken from a supplied video made available to AAP shows an incident n which a man armed with a knife attacked several people on Bourke Street in Melbourne, Australia EPA Emergency workers are seen on Bourke street in Melbourne EPA Police respond to an incident at the intersection of Bourke Street and Swanston Street in Melbourne EPA Policemen block members of the public from walking towards the Bourke Street mall in central Melbourne Reuters Policemen stop members of the public from walking towards the Bourke Street mall in central Melbourne Reuters A burning car is seen near the Bourke Street mall, in Melbourne Reuters A burning car is seen near the Bourke Street mall, in Melbourne Reuters Mr Rogers, explaining his actions to Australias Channel Seven, said: "I have seen the trolley to the side, so I've picked it up and I ran and threw the trolley straight at him. Got him but didn't get him down. "And I did that motion about - quite a number of times, but it just wasn't getting him down. After the attack, 46-year-old Mr Rogers has been inundated with offers of support, requests for selfies and honoured with tributes at the site of the violence. In an interview with The Age, he explained his troubled past and how he wished his grandmother had been alive to see his actions. Michael Rogers with the trolley as he assisted officers / EPA She would have been exceptionally proud, he said, stating that she died in 2013. God bless her, she lived to 92. He reflected on his drug use and being regularly sent to jail over the last two decades. The founder of the fundraising page, Donna Stolzenberg said her organisation would also help him to find housing and organise trauma support for him to process the events of Friday afternoon. Floral tributes have been left by the scene / REUTERS In a previous update, when the fundraiser first surpassed its goal, she said: "As a person he just deserves it. "This funding is growing and may grow further. An update on the GoFundMe page said: Were absolutely blown away by everyones generosity and spirit in helping our hero Trolleyman get back on his feet. There was a large police presence and cordon when the attack unfolded / AP Those making donations have praised Mr Rogers for his actions, championing his bravery and stating he deserves the help. Mr Rogers actions came as the attacker set fire to a truck laden with gas cylinders just outside Pellegrinis cafe on Bourke street before stabbing three people. The victim was named locally as 74-year-old Sisto Malaspina, 74. He was co-owner of Pellegrinis cafe. Police shot Shire Ali after he lunged at officers. He died of his gunshot injuries in hospital. Later, authorities confirmed his attack was terror related and the culprit was known to officers. Police said Shire Alis Australian passport was cancelled in 2015. This was after an intelligence report that he planned to travel to Syria. A loyal dog has been waiting for more than 80 days in a busy road in China after its owner died there. The faithful canine is capturing the hearts of people across the world as it braves the traffic day after day in the city of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. Heartbreaking video footage filmed on November 10 has already been viewed almost 1.5million times on the popular Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo. The dog is seen sitting and walking on the side of the road, "standing guard" as it mourns its owner. The dog's owner died on August 21, and it has not moved since / PEAR VIDEO It has been there every day since she died on August 21, according to Chinas Pear Video website. A taxi driver said the dog simply runs away when people approach to try and help, the BBC reported. "Drivers often give the little dog bits of food, but when we get out, he goes away," he said. "This owner's relationship with her dog was very deep. After she was killed, this little dog has just stayed standing guard. "Every day it's in the road, I always see it. The relationship between man and dog is so true." Many people have commented on the loyalty of the animal on social media, while others have expressed concerns for its safety. M ichelle Obama today revealed how the Queen burst out laughing as they compared sore feet in a room full of world leaders. The former First Lady of the United States also told of her faux pas when she put her arm across Her Majestys shoulder at a Buckingham Palace reception. The Queen responded warmly, by moving closer and putting a hand in the small of Mrs Obamas back. Barack Obamas wife reveals details of the intimate encounter in her new book Becoming. Michelle Obama speaks of her "faux pas" when she put her arm across Her Majestys shoulder / BBC News/PA She said she felt paralysed as she came face-to-face with Her Majesty who she described as an honest-to-goodness icon. But the diminutive and graceful Queen broke the ice by remarking on the First Ladys height and joking about their aching feet. Youre so tall, she remarked, cocking her head, writes Mrs Obama. Well, I said, chuckling, the shoes give me a couple of inches. But yes, Im tall. Barack and Michelle Obama are greeted by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip in Windsor / Getty Images The Queen then glanced down at the pair of black Jimmy Choos I was wearing. She shook her head. These shoes are unpleasant, are they not? she said. She gestured with some frustration at her own black pumps. I confessed then to the Queen that my feet were hurting. She confessed that hers hurt, too. We looked at each other then with identical expressions, like, When is all this standing around with world leaders going to finally wrap up? And with this, she busted out with a fully charming laugh. Mrs Obama adds: Forget that sometimes she wore a diamond crown and that Id flown to London on the presidential jet; we were just two tired ladies oppressed by our shoes. The Queen, the Obamas and Prince Philip in the Music Room of Buckingham Palace / AFP/Getty Images The intimate exchange happened as the pair mingled with world leaders at a Buckingham Palace reception during the 2009 G20 summit. Guests at the reception included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Saudi Arabias then-ruler, King Abdullah. Mrs Obama said she liked Her Majesty immediately, adding: The Queen was a living symbol and well-practiced at managing it, but she was as human as the rest of us. The former lawyer, 54, writes: I then did whats instinctive to me anytime I feel connected to a new person, which is to express my feelings outwardly. I laid a hand affectionately across her shoulder. Barack Obama sees off the Queen as Prince Philip and Michelle Obama follow after a dinner at the Winfield House in London / AFP/Getty Images I couldnt have known it in the moment, but I was committing what was deemed an epic faux pas. Id touched the Queen of England, which Id soon learn was apparently not done. She said the media uproar caused by the gesture revived speculation that she is uncouth and lacking the standard elegance of a First Lady. But Mrs Obama said: If I hadnt done the proper thing at Buckingham Palace, I had at least done the human thing. I daresay that the Queen was okay with it, too, because when I touched her, she only pulled closer, resting a gloved hand lightly on the small of my back. The pair had met just hours earlier when the Obamas were invited to the Palace for a ceremonial hello and a private audience which she said left her stunned at the opulence of the Queens London residence. Barack Obama and Michelle are accompanied by The Queen and Prince Philip as they visit an exhibition at the Portrait Gallery in Buckingham Palace / AFP/Getty Images It turns out that Buckingham Palace is big so big that it almost defies description. It has 775 rooms, and is fifteen times the size of the White House, Mrs Obama writes. In the years to come, Barack and I would be lucky enough to return there a few times as invited guests. On our later trips, wed sleep in a sumptuous bedroom suite on the ground floor of the palace, looked after by liveried footmen and ladies-in-waiting. Wed attend a formal banquet in the hall, eating with forks and knives coated in gold. At one point, as we were given a tour, we were told things like This is our Blue Room, our guide gesturing into a vast hall that was five times the size of our Blue Room back home. M ichelle Obama stopped even trying to smile during President Trumps inauguration and wondered why so many women voted for a misogynist. In her highly anticipated memoir, the former first lady discusses her time in the White House, difficulties in her marriage and asks why Donald Trump was chosen as president over Hillary Clinton. In an extract read from the book on ABC, the 54-year-old wrote: I will always wonder about what led so many, women in particular, to reject an exceptionally qualified female candidate and instead choose a misogynist as their president. In the book, entitled Becoming, Mrs Obama says the vibrant diversity from her husbands two inaugurations disappeared when Trump was sworn into office. The former first lady's memoir is due out on Tuesday / Charles Sykes/Invision/AP She: Someone from Baracks administration might have said that the optics there were bad, that what the public saw didnt reflect the presidents reality or ideals. But in this case, maybe it did. Realising it, I made my own optic adjustment. I stopped even trying to smile. Obama also wrote that she would never forgive Trump for spreading the birther conspiracy theory that her husband was a secret Muslim born in Kenya - where his father is from - and not really a US citizen. She wrote: The whole thing was crazy and mean-spirited... its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks. What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls? Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my familys safety at risk. And for this Id never forgive him. During an interview with ABCs Good Morning America, ahead of the release of her book tomorrow [TUESDAY], Obama also revealed that she did not think her husband could win the 2008 Presidential election because she didnt think the country was ready. She said: We were afraid to hope because its hard to believe that the country that oppressed you could one day be led by you. My grandparents lived through segregation. My grandfather, his grandfather was a slave. These memories were real. And they didnt think the country was ready. And so my attitude was a reflection of that skepticism. She added: Being the first black anything is gonna be hard. There were people who didnt know what a black woman was and sounded like. And, so I knew that was gonna be a challenge, that Id have to earn my grace. In the 426-page memoir, Obama also discusses suffering a miscarriage 20 years ago and using vitro fertilisation to conceive their two daughters, Malia and Sasha. L egendary Marvel comic book writer Stan Lee, who created characters including Spider-Man, the X-Men and Hulk, has died aged 95. Lee's daughter JC confirmed he died after being taken to hospital on Monday. "He felt an obligation to his fans to keep creating," she said in a statement. "He loved his life and he loved what he did for a living. Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee dies aged 95 "His family loved him and his fans loved him. He was irreplaceable." Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr and Stan Lee / Getty Images for Disney She did not mention Lee's cause of death but the TMZ celebrity news website said an ambulance was called to his Hollywood Hills home early on Monday and that he died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre. Lee at the premiere of Spider-Man 2 in 2004 at the Mann Village Theatre in California / Getty Images Lee, who was known for making numerous cameo appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was a writer, editor and publisher at Marvel. Stan Lee and actor Chris Hemsworth at the Thor premiere / Getty Images He also created or co-created Iron Man, Thor, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil and Ant-Man, as well as numerous other characters. Stan Lee with Avengers actress Scarlett Johansson / Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock Among those to pay tribute have been Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr, Captain America actor Chris Evans and the DC Comics official Twitter account. As a writer and editor, Lee was key to the ascension of Marvel into a comic book titan in the 1960s when, in collaboration with artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he created superheroes who would enthral generations of young readers. Lee with Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman / AFP/Getty Images Lee created the modern superhero with the invention of the Fantastic Four with Kirby in 1961. He went on to create characters including Spider-Man, Hulk, the X-Men and the Avengers with Kirby and Ditko. Stan Lee at The Avengers premiere in 2012 / Getty Images His comic book heroes conquered the mainstream with Marvel properties from Iron Man and Thor becoming huge Hollywood blockbusters. Well into his 90s, Lee had cameos in many of the films and made regular appearances on the red carpet and at comic book conventions. The last 18 months had been turbulent for Lee and he lost his wife Joan in July last year after 69 years of marriage. A series of health scares followed. The comic book legend had been rushed to hospital with a heart scare in February of this year. After an overnight stay, he was released from hospital and told fans he was on the mend and feeling great. In August this year, he was the subject of a protective order that prevented his onetime business manager from coming within 100 yards of him for three years. Keya Morgan, a New York based memorabilia collector, had taken charge of Lees affairs after his wife died. Morgan was accused of isolating Lee from his relatives in his old age but denied the allegations. A university student who allegedly wrote n***** on a restaurant receipt has been kicked out of his fraternity. On Sunday, an image of the offensive note with the racist slur in the signature was shared to Twitter by a woman in Norman, Oklahoma. The man accused of writing it is said to attend Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, around 65 miles from Norman. The college has stated its senior staff have been made aware of the "hurtful and insensitive" incident. Writing on Twitter, the woman who said she received the receipt said: After working a 16 hour shift yesterday I was delighted to see that one of Stillwaters very own decided to leave a heart warming note at the bottom of his receipt... Below this there was an image of the paper, with the time as 9.56pm on November 11, and the offensive term handwritten with what looks to have been a black ballpoint pen. The post continued: Next time you can stay in Stillwater because we dont need your racist kind around here. Following this, an account for the school addressed the incident on Twitter. It said: OSU has been made aware of this incredibly hurtful and insensitive action. This does not represent the universitys values or its diverse community and OSU leadership have been alerted. Meanwhile the schools Delta Tau Delta group said it had held an emergency meeting and decided to eject the accused member. A statement from the Oklahoma State Delts said: It has come to our attention that one of our members wrote a racial slur on a restaurant receipt in normal this past weekend. We have expelled him per a unanimous vote in an emergency chapter. We have absolutely no tolerance for bigotry or racial intolerance. This members actions are not a representation of our thoughts or opinions. Members of the group also stated that they had informed university officials and thanked Oklahoma States vice president for working with them on dealing with the situation. What action is being taken by the university has not been detailed. The Standard has contacted Oklahoma State as well as the woman who shared the receipt for further comment. M ichelle Keegan has been praised for vlogging her smear test in a bid to encourage young women to undergo the procedure. Keegan, 31, said she has been putting it off for quite a long time, using the excuse of being too busy. The former Coronation Street star posted a series of videos to her Instagram account as she documented her journey to the doctors surgery and how she felt after undergoing the really quick test. Keegan said she knows it can be daunting and bloody embarrassing but reassured fans that it was pain free and over in a matter of minutes. Speaking out: Michelle Keegan has encouraged young fans to get a smear test (Instagram/ Michelle Keegan ) / Instagram/ Michelle Keegan She posted a picture of herself covered with a towel on the doctors bed alongside the caption: Here we go She said: I was in the room for five minutes on the bed for two it was really quick, really easy and wasnt painful at all, just a bit uncomfortable. Ladies Im urging you to book in your smear and tell all your family and friends to do the same because its so important and its so easy. Keegan admitted to pushing aside letters and said she has also ignored my mums tiresome pleas telling me to book an appointment with my local GP. In a plea to those who may feel the same, she said: My advice to you... STOP making excuses, book, and go for your bloody smear! A smear test lasts 5 minutes the impact of cervical cancer lasts a life time! Support: Michelle Keegan with her husband Mark Wright / Getty Images Keegan was praised for inspiring young women with one user writing: Amazing post that should be shared far and wide. Thank you. Another wrote: Amazing that you are using your profile to raise awareness of such an important issue for women. A third posted: It is a must that has to be done girls, one of the best posts Ive seen for a while @michkeegan (sic). Robert Music, Chief Executive of Jos Cervical Cancer Trust, said: "It was fantastic to see Michelle being so open and honest in talking about her recent smear test and encouraging other women to attend. Over one in four women don't go for this potentially life-saving test and that number is sadly rising year on year. "There are many reasons which can make going for a smear test difficult and we want women to know they're not alone if they feel embarrassed or anxious about taking up their invitation." There are around 3,200 new cervical cancer cases in the UK every year, according to Cancer Research UK. Around 95 per cent of women with cervical cancer will survive their disease for five years or more if diagnosed in the early stages, compared with 5 in 100 of women when diagnosed at the latest stage. M arvel comic book writer Stan Lee, who created legendary characters including Spider-Man, the X-Men and Hulk died after being taken to hospital on Monday, at the age of 95. He loved his life and he loved what he did for a living. His family loved him and his fans loved him. He was irreplaceable. In memory of the prolific writer and producer, here are just a handful of Lees most iconic films, where became known for dropping in with a cameo appearance. The 2002 staple film centres around lovable-nerd Peter Parker, played by Tobey Maguire, who after being bitten by a genetically-altered spider gains superhuman spider-like abilities. Spider-Man marked the first instalment in a three-part saga, with a number of rebirths of the character to follow in the coming years, including The Amazing Spider-Man and Spiderman Homecoming. The film takes the top spot on the list for its effortless charm, delving into Lees consistent theme of family throughout. It is after all a cult classic. Fantasy flick Black Panther marked a momentous occasion in the Marvel universe with a black hero, Chadwick Boseman, taking the lead. The award-winning film sees TChalla return home to the African nation of Wakanda in the wake of his fathers death to take his place as king. When a powerful enemy reappears, TChallas mettle as king and Black Panther is put to the test with the fate of the world on his shoulders. The gripping film swept up at the Peoples Choice Awards this year, giving the film a boost ahead of the Oscars. Everyones favourite angry green experiment, Hulk, takes his well-deserved place on the list. The 2008 film sees scientist Bruce Banner, portrayed by Edward Norton, battle his inner demons in the wake of a catastrophic experiment, which results in Banners uncontrollable ability to unleash the Hulk, when emotionally triggered. Whilst the kind-at-heart green-skinned monster is perused by the US Military, Banner is forced to battle his biological father who attempts to take advantage of his son. Proving theres humanity even in the scariest of times, the second reprisal of the green-monster is by far one of Lees finest works. 2002 hit film X-Men depicts a universe in which a small number of people are mutants, a breed of humanity that possess superhuman powers, are outcast from society. The film focuses on much-loved heroes Wolverine and Rogue as they are brought into battle over drastically different approaches to bringing about the acceptance of mutant-kind. The flick featured A-list cast Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Halle Berry and saw mass success leading to a number of sequels, prequels and spin-offs in the decades to follow. Deadpool marked the birth of the ultimate anti-hero, with Ryan Reynolds oozing effortless charm and charisma as Wade Wilson. Wilson is a former special forces operative who movies on to work as a mercenary. His world is turned upside-down when evil scientist Ajax tortures and disfigures him after promising to cure his cancer. The rogue experiment results in the birth of Deadpool, who has accelerated healing powers and a dry, twisted sense of humour that leads him on a revenge-plot to hunt down the man who nearly ruined his life. Whilst Lee has over 60 films in his portfolio, others worth mentioning must include the Thor franchise which has catapulted to success over the years with Chris Hemsworth in the lead role and Benedict Cumberbatchs Doctor Strange. Lees death is a true loss for global cinema and a huge-span of superhero universes alike. P ippa Middleton and husband James Matthews have reportedly named their new-born son Arthur Michael William Matthews. The Duchess of Cambridges sister welcomed her baby boy last month, weighing 8lbs and 9oz, at the Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital, Paddington. According to the Mail on Sunday, the name Michael is believed to be a touching tribute to Middletons brother-in-law who died while climbing Mount Everest in 1999. He is believed to have been on a mission to become the youngest Briton to climb the worlds highest peak Touching: The name is believed to have a special meaning / EPA Michael is also the name of Middletons father. Standard Online has contacted representatives of Middleton and Matthews for comment. Hurry: James Matthews was seen running in the Lindo wing hospital in london as Pippa middleton gave birth / Neil Warner / SplashNews.com The couple brought also their two dogs, a Labrador and a Cocker Spaniel, on the family outing in Chelsea, according to the publication. Pippa Middleton gives birth to baby boy At the time, a spokesman for Middleton said: James and Pippa have had a baby boy. He was born Monday 15th October at 1.58pm, weighing 8lb and 9oz. Everyone is delighted and mother and baby are doing well." Stunning: The couple wed in May last year / Getty Images The new parents married in May 2017 and announced that they were expecting in June 2018. The 35-year-old is the younger sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate, who married Prince William in 2011. H ollywood stars and celebrities have paid tribute to Stan Lee, the creator of Marvel comics and the brain behind the Avengers, Captain America, Spiderman and Iron Man. Elon Musk, Ryan Reynolds and British film director Edgar Wright were among those who admired and worked with him to share their memories. Avengers and Captain America actor Chris Evans said he was one of a kind, adding the writer's catchphrase, "Excelsior!" while Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman said he was "a pioneering force in the superhero universe. Im proud to have been a small part of his legacy." Lee was behind countless comic characters which have "inspired generations", said his fans. Stan Lee - In pictures 1 /40 Stan Lee - In pictures Stan Lee (L) poses with Spider-Man during the Spider-Man 40th Birthday celebration at Universal Studios on August 13, 2002 Getty Writer Stan Lee (L) and actor Chris Hemsworth arrive at the premiere of Paramount Pictures' and Marvel's "Thor" Getty Images Stan Lee with Avengers actress Scarlett Johansson Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock Writer/producer Stan Lee arrives at the premiere of Marvel Studios' "The Avengers" at the El Capitan Theatre on April 11, 2012 in Hollywood, California. Getty Images Writer Stan Lee arrives at the premiere of Walt Disney Pictures' "Iron Man 3" at the El Capitan Theatre on April 24, 2013 in Hollywood, California Getty Images Writer Stan Lee (L) and actor Chris Hemsworth arrive at the premiere of Paramount Pictures' and Marvel's "Thor" Getty Images Author Stan Lee (L) and actress Jaimie Alexander arrive at the premiere of Paramount Pictures' and Marvel's "Thor" held at the El Capitan Theatre on May 2, 2011 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images Actor Tom Hiddleston (L) and author Stan Lee arrive at the premiere of Paramount Pictures' and Marvel's "Thor" held at the El Capitan Theatre on May 2, 2011 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images Stan Lee, comic-book writer, editor, film executive producer, and publisher. Getty Images Comic book writer Stan Lee (L) and actor Chadwick Boseman attend the world premiere of Marvel Studios Black Panther AFP/Getty Images Stan Lee cameo appearance in The Trial of The Incredible Hulk (1989) Stan Lee cameo appearance in X Men (2000) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Spider-Man (2002) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Daredevil (2003) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Hulk (2003) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Spider-Man (2004) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Fantastic Four (2005) Stan Lee cameo appearance in X Men: The Last Stand (2006) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Spider-Man 3 (2007) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Iron Man (2008) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Hulk (2008) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Iron Man 2 (2010) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Thor (2011) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Stan Lee cameo appearance in The Avengers (2012) Stan Lee cameo appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Iron Man 3 (2013) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Thor: The Dark World (2013) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) Stan Lee cameo appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) Stan Lee cameo appearance in The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Ant-Man (2015) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Deadpool (2016) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Captain America: Civil War (2016) Stan Lee cameo appearance in X Men: Apocalypse (2016) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Dr. Strange (2016) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) Spider-Man creator Stan Lee at the premiere of the Sony film 'Spider-Man 2' on June 22, 2004 at the Mann Village Theater, in Westwood, California Getty Images He died today aged 95. His death was announced by his daughter JC. Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr said he "owed it all" to Lee. "There will never be another Stan Lee," said Evans. "For decades he provided both young and old with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence, inspiration, strength, friendship and joy. He exuded love and kindness and will leave an indelible mark on so, so, so many lives. Excelsior!! "Stan Lee was a pioneering force in the superhero universe. Im proud to have been a small part of his legacy and .... to have helped bring one of his characters to life," said actor Jackman, who played Wolverine in the Marvel X-men series. Lee's daughter JC Lee confirmed he died after being taken to hospital on Monday, aged 95. "He felt an obligation to his fans to keep creating," she said in a statement. "He loved his life and he loved what he did for a living. His family loved him and his fans loved him. He was irreplaceable." His trademark slogan "Excelsior!" started in the '60s when Lee wrote a monthly column called Stan's Soapbox, in Marvel's Bullpen Bulletins. He ended every column with the heroic motif, and said it had since just become a catchphrase. Actress Jamie Chung posted on Twitter that it was "an honour" to work with the comic book superstar. Lee, who was known for making numerous cameo appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was a writer, editor and publisher at Marvel. He also created or co-created Iron Man, Thor, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil and Ant-Man, as well as numerous other characters which shot to mainstream stardom as Marvel series' were rebooted for numerous movie franchises in recent years. Representatives from Marvel's long-time rival in the comics world, DC, which created Batman and Superman, also paid their respects to the writer who "changed the way we look at heroes." As a writer and editor, he was key to the ascension of Marvel into a comic book titan in the 1960s when, in collaboration with artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he created superheroes who would enthral generations of young readers. Working with Kirby in 1961, Lee created the modern superhero with the invention of the Fantastic Four. He went on to create characters including Spider-Man, Hulk, the X-Men and the Avengers with Kirby and Ditko. Fellow comic book giants also paid their respects to their "hero", including Neil Gaiman and Sin City creator Frank Miller. "I was first interviewed for Stan Lee's obituary about 20 years ago," said Gaiman, who wrote the Sandman series and various issues for DC and Marvel. "I was happy he defied the reaper and carried on. With Stan gone, an era really does come to an end." The last 18 months had been turbulent for Lee and he lost his wife Joan in July last year after 69 years of marriage. A series of health scares followed. V ictoria Beckham has spoken out about not joining the Spice Girls reunion, saying her sole focus is empowering women through fashion. But Beckham, a.k.a Posh Spice, will not be joining in the reunion after moving on from music to focus on family and her fashion career. Addressing her decision at the Peoples Choice Awards, Beckham told E!: It's always about empowering women, making women feel the best, most beautiful and strong version of herself. Winner: Victoria Beckham was honoured for her fashion brand at the awards / Jen Lowery / SplashNews.com "With the Spice Girls it started as girl power. And now it's about empowering women through fashion. Beckham later hinted that she wont even be making a guest appearance on stage at any of the dates despite Mel Bs hopefulness. Clutching speech notes, the star joked: I hung up my microphone some time ago and I get scared when I get up on stage and see a mic. Beckham, who has four children with former England and Manchester United ace David, started her own fashion label in 2008 and was honoured at the ceremony for her decades work. Spice Girls: Victoria Beckham will not be joining her former bandmates on tour next year / PA She said: "I feel so honoured to be receiving the first ever fashion icon award at the E! People's Choice Awards. "This year I am celebrating 10 years of my brand, and this is a wonderful way to mark that decade. "I am so grateful to be the inaugural recipient. I love what I do, and love that I have been given the opportunity to empower women through my collections. Among the stars honoured at the lavish bash, held in California, were actress Melissa McCarthy who was named Peoples Icon of 2018 and Nicki Minaj for her album Queen. Spice Girls - In pictures 1 /48 Spice Girls - In pictures Spice Girls at Wembley in 2019 Andrew Timms Best looks Sporty, Baby, Scary, Ginger and Posh sing as The Spice Girls PA The Spice Girls reunite for tour rehearsals Spice Girls Instagram Spice Up Your Life The Spice Girls officially launch Channel Five at Marble Arch in 1997 Rex Viva Forever The Spice Girls - Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton and Victoria Beckham AT 'Viva Forever!' Spice Girls musical launch in 2012 The Spice Girls reunite for the first time since 2012 Victoria Beckham/Instagram Prince Harry meets The Spice Girls PA Reuniting Victoria Beckham, Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton and Melanie Brown pose for a photocall at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich ahead of their news conference on June 28, 2007 in London Getty Images Doppelgangers The Spice Girls with their wax doubles at The Rock Circus In The West End, London in 1999 Jeremy Selwyn Book launch The Spice Girls launch their book 'Forever Spice' PA Summer ball The Spice Girls at Capital Radio Summer Jam, Clapham Common in 1996 Rex Patriotic Geri Halliwell at The Brit Awards in 1997 wearing her famous Union Jack dress Rex Features Movie stars Spice Girls 'Spice World' Los Angeles Premiere in 1998 Rex Going for gold The Spice Girls performing at The 2012 London Olympic Games, Closing Ceremony Rex Charitable Spice Girls pose for Comic Relief Red Nose Day Launch in 1997 Alex Lentati Iconic Auction of outfits owned by Geri Halliwell. Her Spice Girls memorabilia auctioned at Sotheby's. All proceed's for The Sargent Cancer Care For Children in 1998 David Crump/Daily Mail Onset The girls filming Spice Girls: Spice World Spice Productions Undercover Ginger and Baby Spice star in Spice Girls: Spice World Spice Productions On tour British pop band, The Spice Girls, perform the first concert of the UK leg of their world tour at the O2 Arena, 15 December 2007 Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images Flying high The Spice Girls pose after naming a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 plane "Spice One" in their honor at Los Angeles International Airport, 12 December 2007 AFP/Getty Images Jet setters The Spice Girls unveiling the new name, Spice One, of a Virgin Atlantic Jet at the Flight Path Museum at Los Angeles Airport PA Model looks The Spice Girls, Emma Burton, Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Geri Halliwell and Victoria Beckham (L to R) perform during the Victoria's Secret fashion show at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California, 15 November 2007 AFP/Getty Images West End debut Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Melanie Brown attend the press night of 'Viva Forever', a musical based on the music of The Spice Girls at Piccadilly Theatre on December 11, 2012 in London Stuart Wilson/Getty Images Selfie stick The Spice Girls: Victoria Bekcham, Melanie Chisholm, Emman Bunton, Melanie Brown and Geri Halliwell Stage stars Spice Girls - Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton and Victoria Beckham during 'Viva Forever!' musical press night at The Piccadilly Theatre, London, Britain MTV Europe Music Awards Spice Girls at the Globe Arena in Stockholm. PA Throwback The Spice Girls: Melanie Chisholm (Sporty Spice), Emma Bunton (Baby Spice) Victoria Adams (Posh Spice) Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) and Melanie Brown (Scary Spice) Girl power The Spice Girls in Spice World (1997) London calling Geri Halliwell of the Spice Girls performs during the first date of their 17-date residency, part of their reunion world tour Getty Images Raising money The Spice Girls raise money for Children in Need First reunion The Spice Girls reunited in 2007 Jeremy Selwyn Fashionable flare The Spice Girls at 12th Annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, Kodak Theatre, Los Angeles in 2007 Spice and Vinegar Gary Lineker with the Spice Girls promote Walkers Crisps with limited edition Spice Girls range Mini me's The Spice Girls Dolls hit the market in 1997 Rex Risque Victoria Beckham (Adams) and Geri Halliwell perform with The Spice Girls in Dublin in 1999 Rex One down British pop band The Spice Girls. Posh Spice (Victoria Beckham), Sporty Spice (Melanie Chisholm), Baby Spice (Emma Bunton) and Scary Spice (Melanie Brown) Virgin Records BRIT Awards The Spice Girls perform at The Brit Awards in 2000 and win an award for thier outstanding contribution to British music Back stage snaps The Spice Girls take a twitter snap at Olympic Games London 2012 Closing Ceremony. Charming the royals Geri Halliwell of the Spice Girls greets Prince Charles at the Prince's Trust Charity Concert Gala at the Manchester Opera House Rex The Spice Girls meet Prince Charles Prince of Wales with the Spice Girls at the Royal Gala celebrating the Princes Trust 21st Anniversary PA The Spice Girls World Tour Melanie Chisholm, Victoria Beckham, Geri Halliwell, Melanie Brown perform The Spice Girls World Tour in 2008 Rex The Spice Girls at The MTV Europe Awards The Spice Girls at The MTV Europe Awards in Sweden IN 2000 Rex Award winners The Spice Girls at The Brit Awards in 1998 Rex Collecting gongs The Spice Girls at The Brit Awards in 1997 Rex With her majesty Queen Elizabeth II meeting Emma Bunton, Victoria Adams, Mel C, Geri Halliwell, Mel B of The Spice Girls at The Royal Variety Performance in 1997 Rex Film debut The Spice Girls take center stage in their feature film debut, the Columbia Pictures Presentation of 'Spice World' in 1997 Getty Images Meeting Mandela Spice Girls Mel B and Geri Halliwell meet Nelson Mandela in 1997 as part of the British Royal tour in 1997 Rex Pepsi promotions The Spice Girls promote Pepsi in 1997 Rex Select list of winners: People Champions Award Bryan Stevenson Fashion Icon Award Victoria Beckham Peoples Icon 2018 Melissa McCarthy Movie of 2018 Avengers: Infinity War Comedy Movie of 2018 The Spy Who Dumped Me Action Movie of 2018 Avengers: Infinity War Male Movie Star of 2018 Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther Female Movie Star of 2018 Scarlett Johansson, Avengers: Infinity War Late night chat show The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Reality TV star of 2018 Khloe Kardashian, Keeping Up With the Kardashians Female Artist Nicki Minaj P iers Morgan has joked he would tune in to see Kate Garraway in the Im A Celebrity shower after she denied she was joining the jungle show. Garraway surprised Morgan when she appeared on Good Morning Britain, taking the place of Charlotte Hawkins who has flown out to Australia. The trip abroad sparked a debate between the two co-hosts and Susanna Reid that Hawkins was heading into camp, before Morgan quizzed Garraway on whether she was taking part. Previous reports had suggested that the presenter would be packing up for Down Under but it all fell through at the last minute. Wishlist: Piers Morgan joked with Kate Garraway about I'm A Celebrity shower scenes / ITV When asked by Morgan, Garraway said: Thats what everyone says, that I was supposed to go in the jungle! Thought we were in talks Piers, but nobody actually offered me anything. I dont know, would anyone want to see me in the jungle? Morgan joked: Those shower scenes? Yeah, Id want to tune in! Seeing the big pants, get a nice little junglething. Rumoured: Kate Garraway was tipped for the I'm A Celebrity jungle / ITV Later on in the show, Morgan raged against sporting hero Harry Redknapp for reportedly signing up for the show, having touched down in Australia. He said: "I just dont get it, eating kangaroo testicles? I dont get why people do it! Thank god they do, because its a ratings blockbuster for ITV. "But I dont get it. Harry, youre one of my sporting heroes, youre going to munch kangaroo testicles, really? Really Harry? I thought managing Tottenham was humiliating enough, but this? Piers Morgan - In pictures 1 /41 Piers Morgan - In pictures REUTERS Good Morning Britian Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily Mirror newspaper holds a copy of his newspaper for the young readers 'First News' in 2006 Getty Images Piers Morgan with Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell on Britain''s Got Talent in 2009 Piers Morgan interviews President Donald Trump in 2018 Prince of Wales and Piers Morgan at a Buckingham Palace reception to mark the Prince's 50th birthday in 1998 PA Archive/PA Images Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on stage during the National Television Awards at The O2 Arena in 2017 Getty Images Piers Morgan in 1986 The Queen Elizabeth meets Rebekah Wade, Ben Preston, Piers Morgan and Martin Townsend during a reception for the media at Windsor Castle in 2002 PA Piers Morgan, editor of The Mirror, at the High Court in London, where supermodel Naomi Campbell sued the newspaper for breach of confidence and/or unlawful invasion of privacy in2002 PA Piers Morgan receives the Newspaper Editor of the Year award at GQ Men of the Year Awards in 2002 PA Piers Morgan attends the Book Launch Party for his memoirs, entitled "The Insider" in 2005 Getty Images Fearne Cotton and Piers Morgan launch a search to find green teenagers across the UK to take part in NPower's Climate Cops programme in Regents Park in 2008 Getty Images Don Trump Jr., Piers Morgan, Donald Trump, and Ivanka Trump pose at the "Celebrity Apprentice" finale at Rock Center Cafe in 2008 Getty Images Kim Kardashian and Piers Morgan celebrate Kim Kardashian's appearance on "The Apprentice" at Provacateur in 2010 Getty Images Piers Morgan with Amanda Holden attending the National Television Awards 2010 PA Naomi Campbell and Piers Morgan during Fashion for Relief Haiti' fashion show at Somerset House in 2010 AFP/Getty Images TV personality Piers Morgan and actor Colin Firth attend the luncheon to honor The Weinstein Company's "The King's Speech" at a Private Club in 2011 Getty Images Jerry Springer, Jackie Collins and Piers Morgan arrive to BritWeek 2012's "Evening with Piers Morgan" in 2012 Getty Images Jackie Collins on Piers Morgan's Life Stories in 2012 Getty Images Goldie Hawn with Piers Morgan arrive at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in 2012 AFP/Getty Images Mike Tyson (L) and CNN host Piers Morgan arrive at the grand opening of Tyson's one-man show "Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth - Live on Stage" at the Hollywood Theatre in 2012 Getty Images Paris Hilton and Piers Morgan attend the 3rd annual Sean Penn & Friends HELP HAITI HOME Gala benefiting J/P HRO presented by Giorgio Armani at Montage Beverly Hills in 2014 Getty Images Alesha Dixon on Piers Morgan's Life Stories in 2014 Piers Morgan (R) and Vinnie Jones attend the BAFTA LA Celebrity Golf Classic at Oakmont Country Club in 2014 Getty Images Raquel Welch on Piers Morgan's Life Stories in 2015 Piers Morgan and Lorraine Kelly in 2015 Rex Features Susanna Reid and Piers Morgan attend the 21st National Television Awards at The O2 Arena in 2016 Dave Benett Piers Morgan with the Dalai Lama in 2016 Nigel Farage on Piers Morgan's Life Stories in 2016 ITV / Shiver Kim Cattrall on Piers Morgan's Life Stories in 2016 ITV Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain in 2017 Rex Features Holly Willoughby and Piers Morgan in 2017 Piers Morgan with Jeremy Corbyn Piers Morgan with Jeremy Corbyn Declan Donnelly and wife Lisa in the GMTV box at for day 2 of Royal Ascot in 2018, with Piers Morgan, Judge Rinder and Jeremy Kyle Daily Mail Charlotte Hawkins, Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on GMB in 2018 Piers Morgan arrives at the TRIC Awards 2020 Dave Benett Piers Morgan (Kirsty OConnor/PA) Dale Winton funeral PA Archive goodmorningbritainitvv1 ITV goodmorningbritainitvv1 ITV I f you found yourself in John Lewiss flagship store on Oxford Street this weekend, you might have noticed a new robotic staff member in the form of the Google Assistant. The high-street retailer has opened an interactive 827 sq ft Google-powered smart home so customers can try out some of the tech giants products first hand. The space has been established to demonstrate how people can use Google Assistant products in their home, whether its in the living room, kitchen or bedroom. The new Google Home Hub makes an appearance, which is essentially the Google Home smart speaker but with a screen, as well as the Google Home Max speaker, the Chromecast Ultra and Nest security products including the Nest Hello doorbell. There are also some accompanying smart products from other companies that work alongside the Google Home range, including Philips Hue smart lightbulbs and the LightWave smart sockets. John Lewiss smart home buyer, Katrina Mills, said the space is about helping people realise all the ways these smart products can fit into their homes. Sales of smart home products double every year but the rapid development in this technology has meant that they do a lot more than any of us realise. This smart home gives people the chance to have fun testing the products and decide if they would benefit from them, said Mills. The company will also be adding smart home sections to other stores across the country, including Leeds, Oxford, Edinburgh and Southampton. Around 23 per cent of people in the UK now owns one or more smart home devices, with Argos revealing that more UK households own a smart speaker than a pet rabbit. According to YouGov, the barriers to the rest of the population owning smart devices is that they dont really know much about them. Thats why a real home setting like the Google space in John Lewis could help people learn more about the devices and experience their real-life usage, in order to make a decision on whether or not they need one. Having said that, around 56 per cent of people who do own smart devices told YouGov that they dont know much about it either, which is pretty high considering they already own the actual device. Verest said speech-language pathologist Sarah Jones helps Enger students with the CARE Cart; all Enger School students receive special education instruction. Verest noticed "how appropriate they are at interacting with people," and hears positive responses from parents who are following the CARE Cart online via the classrooms webpage and Instagram. "There are many moments throughout the ceremony which are very empowering to the students, and these are among my favorite memories," Miller said. "It is in those moments when the kids see the bigger picture and realize their power to reach people when they use their time and talents for meaningful causes." Countries & Areas Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia Zimbabwe Diana Paun, state counselor with the Presidential Administration - the Public Health Department, believes that the taking over on January 1, 2019, of the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union by Romania represents an opportunity, but without a rigorous planning and collaboration between the responsible actors, this moment could also turn into a threat. "Taking over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union represents a challenge for Romania, but also an opportunity. Unless we'll have a rigorous planning and especially a collaboration and communication between all the responsible actors, but I believe this moment could also become a threat, which we do not want. That's why, I believe that the common effort and synergy of the actors in the system are the single modalities by which we can ensure the success of such endeavor," stated Diana Paun on Monday at the debate "Healthcare in Romania during the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union - Preparation and perspectives. Crisis gone in 2019." In her opinion, Romania's mission will not be at all easy at the helm of the Council of the European Union."Romania's mandate comes at a time when important things are happening - elections to the European Parliament and setting up new directions, the making of the budget, which will definitely imply economies, including in the medical field, and all these aspects are related including to the responsibility and professionalism with which Romania will know to conduct all these activities," said the state counselor.Diana Paun also mentioned the existence of a general trend of demographic decline and aging of the population at the European level and that this is a problem facing Romania, too.The state counselor also added that there should be a possibility of accessing the agenda of events dedicated to the healthcare field during the time when Romania will be holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. French Ambassador Michele Ramis, German Ambassador Cord Meier-Klodt, and Bulgarian Ambassador Todor Churov, on Sunday, participated in a joint ceremony where they paid tribute to the heroes of the First World War, on the occasion of the November 11 Truce Centennial. The ceremony, during which they paid a tribute to the French, German and Bulgarian soldiers who died on the battlefield, as well as to all the civilians who were victims of the Great War violence, started with a ceremony where they laid wreaths at the square of the French Heroes at the Bellu Cemetery and continue with similar ceremonies for the German and Bulgarian soldiers at the Pro Patria Cemetery. Participating in the event were, among others, Deputy PM Ana Birchall, presidential adviser Sergiu Nistor, representatives of the Ministry of National Defence and Princess Maria. Also in attendance were ambassadors of several countries in Bucharest, among which the Ambassador of the Russian Federation, as well as representatives of several religious cults.The French Ambassador, Michele Ramis, showed in her speech that this year's ceremony has a special signification."Today's ceremony, organised by three countries that were once enemies is the best symbol of reconciliation. Europe, after learning its lesson from this bloody battles, knew how to build a space of peace, thanks to a strong political project that strengthened the collective security system created by UN and then NATO. As the European Union is struggling now with a profound crisis and wonders about its future, with so many external threats existing against its interests and values, the celebration of the Centennial should be one of hope. Thus, the first half of 2019 will be crucial, especially as the European citizens will be asked to designate new representatives to the European Parliament and, through their vote, to shape the future of Europe. And also for Romania, which in 1918 became a country that united different territories and communities, will take over the presidency of the Council of the European Union and will be able to prove the role that it wishes to play in Europe," stated Michele Ramis.The French Ambassador also mentioned that the friendship between Romania and France, "built in suffering" in the years 1916-1918, must today serve the European project and the common NATO membership."The same as their German and Bulgarian comrades, the Romanian and French soldiers are deployed today in many theatres of operations, where they risk their lives to defend our values and help the countries in crisis. (...). The purpose of this ceremony is to remind us the past and help us build the future, a more prosperous and more peaceful future for the next generations. It is important that the pupils, especially the ones in the German and French schools participating in this ceremony, know that peace is not a natural state, that it needs to be built, and that the European Union has protected us from major conflicts for almost 70 years, which means that it is our turn now to maintain the European Union," said Ramis.In his speech, the German Ambassador, Cord Meier-Klodt, underscored that, starting with the year 2015, Germany, France and Bulgaria commemorate together, in Romania, the victims of war and violence."This is unique in the world. We are commemorating together the victims of the 20th century's catastrophes, the victims of war and civil war, racial hate, persecution, exile, expulsion and terror. A commemoration that reminds us, before anything else, of our common responsibility to do everything to prevent such events from happening again in Europe. This year we commemorate the end of the First World War and we celebrate the creation of modern Romania, which is why this ceremony (...) is a very symbolic one. We worryingly discover today that this project of peace, which is unique in the world, our common Europe, is no longer a project that speaks for itself. Populist, nationalist and anti-European movements in our countries, and I say this in plural, are reminiscent of the years before the catastrophe in the 20th century, which caused Europe to enter, like in a state of trance, in a terrible war. History does not repeat itself, this is true, but, unfortunately, the patterns of behaviour are similar sometimes and they can trigger once again such catastrophes that no one wants. We need to be aware of these things in order to be able to fight them together, today. We owe it to the young generation and we must also transfer this responsibility to it," said Cord Meier-Klodt.In his turn, the Bulgarian Ambassador, Todor Churov, specified that the commemoration wouldn't have been possible without the historic reconciliation of France and Germany and without the project of the European Union."We have gathered here today to pay tribute together to the Bulgarian, German and French soldiers, buried in the Pro Patria and Bellu cemeteries. This wouldn't have been possible without the historical reconciliation of France and Germany, which took place and the Reims Cathedral on July 8, 1962. This wouldn't have been possible without the integration process that is called European Union, thanks to which our continent has developed peacefully. (...) Our firm belief is that we must remain tolerant with each other and show respect to the history that we share, regardless of the differences in interpretation," Todor Churov said.The three ambassadors laid wreaths to the French heroes square at the Bellu military cemetery and at the monuments built to commemorate the German and Bulgarian soldiers at the Pro Patria cemetery.Moreover, they laid wreaths on behalf of the President, Government and the Royal Family, the National Defence Ministry, the Bucharest City hall, the embassies of the US, Canada, Russian Federation, Italian Republic, Austria, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Madagascar. The governments'reservation is frustrating for the local authorities, and also for the Romanians, and promises were made to the mayors that were not kept, on Monday said President Klaus Iohannis, attending the General Assembly of the Romanian Municipalities' Association. "Romania is changing, and you must be the part that is inducing the changes the citizen is feeling immediately and directly. I am aware of the achievements you've got in the municipalities you represent and they are impressive. Things are moving very fast and very well. (...) Sometimes, from within, one cannot realise how things are moving or the progress that has been made, but from the outside one can better see and it is obvious that you are moving. (...) Sadly, things are not moving equally well for everybody. Regardless of how good a mayor could be, they are not alone in the Romanian political space and they must relate and interact with other mayors, with other communities, with the local counselors, with the county counselors, and usually with the ones from the central authorities. And here, at least this is what it used to be back in time and things have never changed, the biggest discontents occur. The mayors wish to move, the governments are usually more reserved. This reservation is frustrating most of the times and I assure you that it is not only for you, but it is frustrating for me, too, and worst of all, for the Romanians," the president said. He recalled "just a few of the promises that remained on paper", decentralisation being among them."Everybody knows that certain things have to be managed locally so that they can work better. (...) This is something that cannot go on anymore. The politics towards the local communities must be transparent, predictable and sustainable," Klaus Iohannis concluded. The legal powers of the minister-delegate for European affairs regarding the representation and management of the General Affairs Council files will be taken over and fulfilled a by another government official, according to an order of the prime minister. "According to the Prime Minister's Order of November 9, 2018, the legal powers of the minister-delegate for European affairs regarding the representation and management of General Affairs Council files will be carried out and secured by another government official from now on. In accordance with the instructions received at the ministerial level, all the documentation prepared for the good representation of Romania's interests has already been forwarded to those nominated to participate," reads a Facebook post of the Romanian Foreign Ministry's European Affairs Department. National media reported on Saturday that Minister-delegate for European Affairs Victor Negrescu would have resigned office.Asked on a television channel if she can confirm this information, Minister of European Funds Rovana Plumb said: "As far as I know, this resignation of Mr Negrescu has occurred."On Sunday, Negrescu posted a series of statements on Facebook about the preparation for Romania's assuming the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2019."The most important thing is that the entire preparation process of the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council is going on as planned, both its political dimension and on its logistics. Everything is already prepared to the extent that no major changes emerge to the plans approved by the Romanian government or by the inter-ministerial council on the presidency of the EU Council chaired by the prime minister," he said."It is interesting that two days ago our activity was considered to be excellent, yielding results. It remains to be seen whether the aggressive media attack just minutes after a rumour surged miraculously on sources, by a colleague in the government and the party, is normal and real proof of collegiality and support. I have said it since I left my MEP seat for this office: I have no personal stakes; it is an honour to me to represent Romania!," Negrescu wrote.He added that the European course of Romania must continue. "When I left the office on Friday, I left everything up to date and prepared for the next working week. My wish is for the project to have continuity. (...) I would even volunteer to work for Romania under such an important project if it is so desired," added Negrescu. He added, I am hopeful that Democrats can reach across the aisle and find Republicans to work with us on some of the issues that the nation is calling on us to focus on, whether that is making the economy work for everybody, improving health care for everybody or trying to address gun safety. Permanent Representative of Romania to the European Union Luminita Odobescu will represent Romania in the General Affairs Council (GAC) meetings on Monday, a release of the Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) sent to AGERPRES informs. The the legal powers of the minister-delegate for European affairs regarding the representation and management of General Affairs Council files will be carried out and secured by another government official, according to a decision of the Prime Minister. "According to the Prime Minister's Order of November 9, 2018, the legal powers of the minister-delegate for European affairs regarding the representation and management of General Affairs Council files will be carried out and secured by another government official from now on. In accordance with the instructions received at the ministerial level, all the documentation prepared for the good representation of Romania's interests has already been forwarded to those nominated to participate," reads a Facebook post of the Romanian Foreign Ministry's European Affairs Department.National media reported on Saturday that Minister-delegate for European Affairs Victor Negrescu would have resigned office.Asked on a television channel if she can confirm this information, Minister of European Funds Rovana Plumb said: "As far as I know, this resignation of Mr Negrescu has occurred."On Sunday, Negrescu posted a series of statements on Facebook about the preparation for Romania's assuming the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2019."The most important thing is that the entire preparation process of the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council is going on as planned, both its political dimension and on its logistics. Everything is already prepared to the extent that no major changes emerge to the plans approved by the Romanian government or by the inter-ministerial council on the presidency of the EU Council chaired by the prime minister," he said."It is interesting that two days ago our activity was considered to be excellent, yielding results. It remains to be seen whether the aggressive media attack just minutes after a rumour surged miraculously on sources, by a colleague in the government and the party, is normal and real proof of collegiality and support. I have said it since I left my MEP seat for this office: I have no personal stakes; it is an honour for me to represent Romania!," Negrescu wrote.He added that the European journey of Romania must continue. "When I left the office on Friday, I left everything up to date and prepared for the next working week. My wish is for the project to have continuity. (...) I would even volunteer to work for Romania under such an important project if it is so desired," added Negrescu. Senate President Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, national leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), claims that the effects of him being accused by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) of bribery are aimed at "shaking up public trust," given that in recent polls he has surpassed incumbent President Klaus Iohannis by two percent, and the vote intention for ALDE should have doubled since 2016. Tariceanu argues that the accusations levelled against him are a "political ploy" that attempts to "get him out of the race." "It is again a political ploy, as it is seen lately, meaning for years: actions by which a number of political leaders want to be taken out of contention. I was charged with false testimony two years ago and I was being called and recalled to the prosecutor's office, then to courts, only to get acquitted. They saw that they did not go away with that, then they said well, we try something else, and that is the second ploy that fits the previous line," Tariceanu told Romania TV private broadcaster.He also said that the move was taking place ahead of next year's elections to the European Parliament and the presidential election."When such accusations go public, I am wondering what happens to that citizens who are looking at these things, who have this information. So the technique they use is the one they have tested: accusations are being levelled in the public space; such allegations are terrible things, like in the present case: you cannot defend yourself because you do not know what's in the court file and people will think, ?well, if they say so on TV, probably there is something about it.' What is the effect? Well, the effect is obvious at the moment, when the latest polls - and I saw [pollster] Marius Pieleanu this week talking about his latest poll in which I am ahead of the incumbent president by two percentage points, which means popularity, support; I do not know exactly what it measured, surely such action can be said that it does affect you because the people's trust is shaken, it is affected. I am surprised, however, that they are trying so valiantly, but for what? The elections to the European Parliament in May next year and the presidential election next year nearing in - keep in mind that the vote intention for the party I run alongside my colleagues has doubled since the 2016 elections; these things cannot be ignored," added Tariceanu.The ALDE leader also said that "prosecutors are the ones who decide who is taken out of the race.""There are some vested interests somewhere, there are people; does not what has been seen, what has emerged lately, make us think? That is, we are talking of independent justice ... (...) I said it is the republic of prosecutors, the prosecutors are those who decide, in the end they decide who wins the election, who is taken out of contention, because they do not have to decide at the ballot box, it is enough for them to remove the opponents and solve the problem, the winner is the one who is supposed to be. Therefore, this is justice at this moment," said Tariceanu.Asked if he will run for president, Tariceanu answered "we shall see," but he said he did not rule out such a candidacy."Let's see, we talk until then. (...) Why should I exclude that, I'm not afraid of that," concluded Tariceanu.The National Anti-Corruption Directorate claims that Tariceanu indirectly received, during the period 2007-2008, when he was a prime minister, material benefits of about 800,000 US dollars from an Austrian company. I feel District 113 is once again moving in a positive direction of our students, staff and community, said Culver, of her reasons for seeking a second term. I would like to contribute in any way I can during this unique time of rebuilding through productive collaborative efforts. 1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war. 2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war. 3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength. 4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war. 5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites. 6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination. 7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N. 8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N. 9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress. 10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N. 11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.) 12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party. 13. Do away with all loyalty oaths. 14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office. 15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States. 16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights. 17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks. 18. Gain control of all student newspapers. 19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack. 20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions. 21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures. 22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms." 23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art." 24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press. 25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV. 26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy." 27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch." 28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state." 29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis. 30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man." 31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over. 32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc. 33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus. 34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities. 35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI. 36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions. 37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business. 38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand. 39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals. 40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce. 41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents. 42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems. 43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government. 44. Internationalize the Panama Canal. 45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike. The second floor of the building houses Post 250s offices, where tables held black-and-white photos of the American Legions Drum and Bugle Corps, and plays the legion staged at the Hinsdale Theater and the old Hinsdale Club across the street from the theater, such as The Shannons of Broadway in 1933, post member Joe Craig said. One would think that the report of a few days ago about the gruesome discovery of mass graves in Iraq and many thousands of apparent civilians buried in them would cause at least a genuine stir, if not a semblance of moral outrage in the Western world, known to be hugely sensitive to the unjustified loss of innocent human life. As even the BBC could not marginalize or ignore in its 6 November 2018 news report, about 200 mass graves containing the remains of an estimated 12,000 victims have been unearthed in western Iraq, where until recently ISIS forces held sway. It might be noted in passing that ISIS killing fields in Iraq (never mind the controversy under whose auspices ISIS had been set up and for what purposes, here and here) dwarf both quantitatively and qualitatively the globally famous Srebrenica massacre of July 1995. The alleged toll of Srebrenica consisted not of civilians but of 8,000 military personnel, prisoners of war captured by Serbian forces after three years of intense and bitter conflict. One would assume, therefore, at least two things. First, that an alarmed and indignant Security Council of the United Nations would have met by now and voted unanimously (no US, UK, or French vetoes) to set up an international tribunal, similar to those at the Hague and in Rwanda, to sort out what happened and to unsparingly employ the international communitys resources, including NATO personnel conveniently located next-door in Syria, to hunt down the suspected perpetrators and bring them swiftly to justice. Secondly, one would logically expect the principal Srebrenica investigative mechanism of the Hague Tribunal, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), instead of being quietly dismantled to be swiftly reactivated to help the envisioned Iraqi war crimes tribunal gather the evidence of ISIS misdeeds and place it at the disposal of rigorous international justice. But nothing of the sort is likely to happen. One must not forget the crucial distinction, presciently formulated by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky decades before Srebrenica and Iraq, between worthy and unworthy victims. As David William Pear recently explained it in relation to a related topic, the worthy victims are the victims (real and alleged) of leaders on the US enemies list, such as Bashar al-Assad. The unworthy victims are those of the US and its client states. It follows that the US-led alliance calling itself the international community is outraged when there are worthy victims. For example, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley holds up pictures in the Security Council of dead Syrian babies for the world to see. Worthy victims are granted human rights, and Assad deserves our outrage. Unworthy victims, for example, are the 50,000 Yemeni children who have died of starvation because of Saudi Arabias blockade of Yemen, including food, water and medicine. A further insidious consequence follows: Unworthy victims are blamed for being victims and ignored by the international community and the mainstream media. Unworthy victims have no human rights. It is therefore with a high degree of certainty that the prediction can be made that no international political or judicial body will be convened to consider the fate of these apparently unworthy Iraqi victims or to contemplate punishing their executioners. To put it in the cynical terms of Richard Holbrooke, referring to another judicial travesty posing as a tribunal of justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague: When it was established by the United Nations Security Council in 1993, the tribunal was widely viewed as little more than a public relations device. It got off to a slow start () During our negotiations, the tribunal emerged as a valuable instrument of policy that allowed us, for example, to bar Karadzic and all other indicted war criminals from public office. (R. Holbrooke, To End a War [1998], pp. 189-190) By definition, an international tribunal set up to investigate and punish ISIS crimes in Iraq, inflicted upon manifestly unworthy victims and committed in the context of advancing the Western imperial agenda in the Middle East, could never emerge as a valuable instrument of policy. Therefore, it will never be allowed to emerge at all, no matter the grisly outrages perpetrated by Western proxies on the ground that even the BBC was compelled to cursorily acknowledge. Nor will a fortiori those crimes be investigated in the dramatic and theatrical style (or any manner whatsoever) that for decades attended the supposed search for evidence in the Srebrenica affair. The international community was careful then to make sure that it would control not only the agency it was setting up to judge the facts, but also the agency charged with manufacturing them, ICMP. ICMP was thus conceived and formed at the Western leaders G-7 summit in Lyon, France, in 1996. To eliminate any possibility of things going wrong, it was provided that its chairman, whose headquarters was in Sarajevo, would by appointed by the US State Department. That inflexible rule, making ICMP as well a valuable instrument of policy in falsifying the results of forensic investigations of the Srebrenica massacre, has been followed ever since. Every single ICMP chairman to this day was an American citizen, including the present one, retired US ambassador Thomas Miller. So, the prospects of unworthy Iraqi victims in the provinces of Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salahuddin and Anbar for securing the benevolent attention of Western justice are bleak. Like the poor Yemeni girl who, in the blithe New York Times headline turned worlds eyes to famine, the focus on Iraqs killing fields (since they cannot easily be linked to Assad or General Mladic) will also be mostly misleading and ephemeral. In the New York Times (the paper of record, after all) the whitewash began literally with the headline itself, which easily suggests to the casual reader that the wretched creature succumbed to famine, yes, but that it could have been due to natural causes, act of God, as they impiously put it in the West, and nothing more sinister than that. Ditto for BBCs account of the Srebrenica-dwarfing Iraqi, call it massacre or genocide, as you prefer: IS [Islamic State, ISIS] seized parts of Iraq in 2014 and imposed brutal rule, commonly killing anyone of whom it disapproved. It was eventually vanquished by a US-led air campaign backed by Iraqi government forces and allied militias on the ground, although pockets of IS activity remain in some areas. If not the victims, at least the surviving Iraqis are lucky that the US-led air campaign came to the rescue and managed eventually to vanquish their tormentors. Just like in neighboring Syria, where the Russians, of course, had nothing to do with bringing those savages to heel. On November 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Commission for Military Technology Cooperation with Foreign States. He noted that Our capabilities in the military technical sphere must be used to modernize and upgrade all our industries, to support our science and to create a powerful technological potential for the countrys dynamic development. The president called for renewed efforts, not only, in preserving, but also, in strengthening Russias leading position on the global arms market, primarily in the high-tech sector, amid tough competition. The US efforts to press other countries into suspending military cooperation with Russia are inefficient. The number of customers, especially in the Middle East and Africa, is growing. The demand for Russias military production is especially high in the Asia-Pacific Region, accounting for almost 70% of all arms sales, including India (35%), China (12%) and Vietnam (10%).Today, Russias overall military exports are equal to around $15 billion, with the global order book of $55 billion. According to Alexander Mikheev, the head of Rosoboronexport, the sole state intermediary agency for Russia's defense exports / imports, Russia has already exported arms to over 40 countries, signing 1,100 contracts worth about $19 billion in 2018 a 25% increase compared to the last year. The presidents speech coincided with the opening ceremony of Airshow China 2018 (Nov. 6-11), one of the five largest aerospace exhibitions in the world, Russian manufacturers scored a big success. 14 defense producers displayed over 200 units of hardware. China has defied US threats to go through with the large deal to buy S-400 air defense systems and Su-35 multifunctional fighters (ten jets already delivered). The joint programs, such as the development of a heavy AHL helicopter and a long-range powerful aircraft, are in force. The order book of Chinas imports exceeds $7 billion, growing from 5% to 14-15%. The two nations are involved in a joint project to produce diesel-electric submarines Amur-1650 (export version of Lada Project 677). This is a $2 billion deal. China confirmed the plan to purchase six Mi-171A2Y Ansat helicopters, which will make a 5,000 km long demonstration tour across Southeast Asia, including stops at Hanoi (Vietnam), Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Bangkok (Thailand) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). VKO concern "Almaz-Antey" used the Airshow China 2018 event to introduce the Viking the export version of the Buk-M3 anti-aircraft missile system. Viking boasts the range of 65 km. 36 targets can be tracked and engaged simultaneously. It has the capability of striking tactical ballistic and cruise missiles as well as sea and ground targets. The Radioelectronic Technologies Company (KRET) presented over 40 exhibits, including the multipurpose airborne multipurpose radar with AFAR "Beetle-AME" designed to detect and track aerial, surface and ground targets at the same time. The Russian-Chinese long-overhaul CR929 jet attracted public attention at the air show. Its basic version will carry 280 passengers over a distance of 12,000 km. India has also defied the US pressure and will start receiving receive S-400s in the fall of 2020. The $5 billion deal was signed in October during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to New Delhi. Russia and Vietnam have signed a $4.5 billion package of deals, including the $1 billion purchase of a batch of Russian Su-30 MK2 fighters and a $2 billion agreement on the sale of six Russian diesel-electric Project 636.1 Varshavyanka (Kilo) submarines. A Mi-35M attack helicopters deal with to Bangladesh is expected to be inked soon. In February, Russia signed a $ 1.14 deal with Indonesia to supply 11 Su-35 4++ generation fighters. 2018 is rich in international defense shows. As of November 12, Russia has taken part in about 20 international exhibitions and forums, such as the Eurasian Air Show in Turkeys Antalya, International Far Eastern Maritime Show in Vladivostok and ADAS-2018 defense exhibition in the Philippines (for the first time). It intends to attend some more large ones till the end of the year. Russia has also taken part in the Indo Defense 2018 show (Nov.7-10) to display over 200 systems and equipment units. There were two weapons presented for the first time ever in Jakarta: the 122 mm projectile for Tornado-G MLRS and 140 mm projectile for ship-based Ogon flame throwing launcher. There will be the IDEAS-2018 exhibition in Pakistan in late November, EDEX-2018 will be held in Egypt in mid-December, and Chile will host the EXPONAVAL 2018 naval exhibition in early December. Russia will take an active part in all of them though its presence at Le Bourget Paris air show in June was very limited and it decided to take no part in Farnborough 2018 air show in July. Moscow prefers the shows where it has more potential customers. This year, some new systems were offered to potential buyers, such the Viking and Tor-E2 anti-aircraft missile systems, Sprut-SDM1 light floating tank, Karakut and Sarsar vessels, Il-78MK-90A aerial tanker and Il-76MD-90A (E) military cargo aircraft. The Sprut-SDM1 light tank is a special case. The airborne light amphibious tank with firepower of MBT has no rivals in the world. The US-imposed sanctions have failed to reduce the demand for Russian weapons. China, India as well as many other countries refuse to bow. New ways to pay for the deals without dollars are sought. For instance, India will pay for S-400s in Russian rubles. The talks to get around dollars are underway with China. Some deals may be temporarily postponed, some talks frozen, but all in all, the US policy of using sanctions to reduce Russia arms exports and thus weaken the competitor has failed. The most important agreements, including the S400 deal with Turkey, a NATO country, have not been affected. This agreement will also skirt dollar payments. The Russian arms sales are on the rise. World leaders gathered in Paris on Sunday under the Arc de Triomphe to mark the centennial anniversary ending World War I. In an absurd way, the Napoleon-era arc was a fitting venue because the ceremony and the rhetoric from President Emmanuel Macron was a triumph of lies and platitudes. Among the estimated 70 international leaders were US President Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, each sitting on either side of Macron and his wife. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also given pride of place beside the French president. Macrons address to the dignitaries was supposed to be a call for international multilateralism. He urged a brotherhood for the cause of world peace. He also made a pointed rebuke of nationalism as posing a danger to peace a remark which seemed aimed at Donald Trump who recently boasted of his politics with that very word. But, ironically, everything about the ceremony and Macrons speech resonated with jingoistic French nationalism, not his avowed multinationalism. As the politicians sat under the Arc de Triomphe, Macron walked around its circular esplanade in a salute to assembled French military forces bearing assault rifles and bayonets. The French anthem The Marseillaise was played twice, once by an army brass band, the second time sung by an army choir. There was also a military plane flyover displaying the blue, red and white tricolor of the French national flag. In his speech, Macron talked about soldiers coming from all over the world to die for France during the 1914-18 Great War. He even said at one point that the war was fought for the vision of France and its universal values. This was fluent drivel, French-style. No wonder Russias Putin momentarily gave a look of boredom as Macron waxed lyrical. The speechifying and commemoration was completely detached from current realities of conflict and international tensions. Among the brotherhood whom Macron was appealing to were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose military forces continue to bomb and slaughter Palestinian civilians in illegally occupied territory. Also present was Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko whose armed militias continue to terrorize the people of eastern Ukraine with the blatant objective of instigating a war between the US-led NATO alliance and Russia. Listening to Macron one would think that World War I erupted mysteriously from no specific cause and that an estimated 10 million soldiers were all killed in heroic battles for noble principles. There was, of course, no mention by Macron of imperialist warmongering and the barbaric sacrifice of humans as slaves in the service of national capitalist power interests. Grotesquely, as the world leaders donned solemn faces and mouthed pious platitudes for peace, the whole occasion was a triumph in burying reality and the ongoing causes of wars, as well as whitewashing the very culprits responsible for wars. Among the war criminals wearing a mournful black suit was former French President Nicolas Sarkozy who launched the NATO blitzkrieg on Libya in 2011. While the empty, self-indulgent rhetoric was ringing out, one couldnt help but recall some of the most glaring contemporary contradictions that were blocked out with awesome Orwellian efficiency. Just this week, reports emerged of the horrific civilian death toll from the American air force bombing the Syrian city of Raqqa. The city was razed to the ground by US air strikes last year supposedly to defeat the ISIS terror group. Some 8,000 bodies of civilians, mainly women and children, have now been recovered by Syrian government forces. And thats only from clearing away a tiny area of rubble for the whole city. What the Americans did in Raqqa was a monumental war crime, all the more criminal because US forces, along with their NATO partners Britain and France, are illegally present in and assaulting sovereign Syrian territory. As Macron was telling world leaders about the vision of France, hundreds were being killed in Yemen in a battle to strangle the entire population by taking the port city of Hodeida. The genocidal war on that country which is putting up to 16 million people at risk from starvation has been fully backed by France, the US and Britain, from their supply of warplanes and bombs to the Saudi and Emirati aggressive forces. We could mention other specific conflicts where the culprits are clearly identified. For example, the multi-million-dollar support from Washington for the Azov Battalion and other Neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine, which openly emulate the genocidal conduct of Hitlers Third Reich to exterminate ethnic Russians. We could mention how US-led NATO forces continue to expand towards Russian territory with outrageous provocation. The mounting earlier this month of the biggest-ever NATO war drills since the Cold War in the Arctic region adjacent to Russias northern border was a brazen threat of rehearsing invasion. The announced tearing up of yet another nuclear arms control treaty unilaterally by Washington is a reckless undermining of global security. Washington threatens China with naval forces marauding near Beijings maritime territory in the South China Sea. Washington blockades Iran with illegal economic warfare and openly agitates for regime change. Washington declares Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba a troika of tyranny and reserves the right to threaten each of these countries with military invasion at any time. Meanwhile, this weekend, Russia hosted peace talks in Moscow between the warring parties of Afghanistan. It was seen as a major breakthrough in trying to bring peace to the Central Asia country which has been wracked by 17 years of violence since US forces began their ongoing military occupation allegedly to defeat terrorism. Elsewhere, Russia has engaged with Turkey, Germany and France to convene a summit for peaceful reconstruction of Syria. The latest summit held in Ankara at the end of last month follows several other such meetings in Astana and Sochi, largely at the behest of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, to find a political settlement to the nearly eight-year war in Syria a war that was fomented covertly by Washington and its allies for regime change. Frances Macron talks about multilateralism for world peace, yet the two countries which have arguably supported and implemented multilateralism in practice are Russia and China in their calls and policies for global partnership and economic development. And yet it is Russia and China that are being harassed with American and European sanctions, and US military provocations. The unilateral, lawless imperialism that engendered World War I and 20 years later World War II is still alive and dangerously vigorous. We only have to look around the present world to realize that. But when the culprits indulge in a triumph of bullshit then we also know that the world is once again in very grave danger. In September Russian naval infantry (marines) conducted an amphibious operation in the Baltic Sea. The exercise was conducted in the Kaliningrad enclave. This area used to be part of the ancient German province of East Prussia, which disappeared after World War II. Most of it went to Poland, but Russia retained the city of Konigsberg and its environs (15,100 square kilometers, about the size of Northern Ireland.) Russia renamed the city Kaliningrad and made it a major naval base. The coastline there is similar to what is found in Poland and the Baltic States. So an amphibious operation in Kaliningrad also sends a political message to other Baltic nations as well as providing some training for the 336th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade that is stationed in the Baltic as part of the Baltic Fleet. The September exercise involved 25 ships and 30 aircraft as well as 1,500 naval infantry. The Russian marines landed with 30 armored vehicles, using half a dozen of their elderly (Cold War era) amphibious warfare ships. These amphibious exercises are becoming larger and more frequent. The September one landed a battalion of naval infantry as did the ones in 2015 and 2017. But each of these three exercises grew more complex (more ships and aircraft) as the years went by. Before 2015 these exercises were smaller (landing a company of troops) and much less complex. The naval infantry have recently replaced their older light tanks with upgraded T-72s or T-80s. The naval infantry is also receiving new IFV (infantry fighting vehicles) and light weapons along with modern equipment. The naval infantry (sometimes referred to as naval Spetsnaz) are the last of the special operations troops to receive new equipment. The airborne forces have received several new armored vehicles and the commandos (including the few hundred naval commandos) were the first to get their gear upgraded, often with Western-made stuff. Russia currently has about 9,000 naval infantry, organized into brigades assigned to the regional fleets (Northern, Pacific, Baltic Sea, Black Sea and Caspian Sea). The brigades now have 30 or so tanks and even more amphibious infantry vehicles. While considered an elite force, they are in need of new amphibious shipping to be effective. All the current amphibious ships entered service before the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Since then only one new class of amphibious ship was built and it was not a success. That is not a good sign for the Russian marines. As has happened the Russian naval infantry can be used as high-quality infantry but Russia would prefer to use them for the job they train to do. How that one new amphibious ship got built and accepted by the navy Russian reveals much. Fourteen years after construction began the first of a new Russian class of amphibious ships that Gren class ships finally entered service in early 2018. There were many delays but the final one had to do with design flaws discovered when Gren began its sea trials in mid-2016. The main flaws where hull stability and engine reliability. It took 18 months to deal with that and sea trials resumed in late 2017. Finally, the Russian Navy declared the Gren fit for service in May 2018. However, only two of this class will be built. The second one began construction in 2014 and has had the flaws of the first one fixed before it was launched in May 2018. The second ship should be in service by 2019. Gren was launched in 2012 and was supposed to be fitted out and delivered by 2014, a decade after construction began. But there were more delays. Called the Ivan Gren class, after its lead ship, these 120 meter (384 foot) long vessels each displace 6,500 tons, have a crew of 110, and can carry 13 tanks or 36 infantry fighting vehicles and 300 infantry. Top speed is 33 kilometers per hour and max range is 6,500 kilometers (cruising at 30 kilometers an hour) with max endurance of 30 days. Armament consists of three AK630 30mm automatic cannon for missile defense as well as against aircraft and small naval targets. The range of these weapons is 5,000 meters. One of the AK630s is the dual version (two six barrel 30mm autocannon in one turret) while the other two are single six barrel versions (similar to the American Phalanx). There are also two 14.5mm machine-guns and a helicopter pad and hanger for two KA-27/29 helicopters. Four more Grens were to be built if the first one performed well. It didnt. The first one cost about $200 million (including all the extra expense of fixing the flaws). The Grens appear to be updates of the Ropucha class LSTs, 28 of which were built in the 1960s and 70s. A few of these 4,100 ton Ropuchas are still in service but just barely. The Russian government has been unhappy with the performance of Russian shipyards and sought to buy amphibious ships from France, in part to get some French shipbuilding technology and an opportunity to show Russian shipbuilders how it should be done. These Mistral class ships were completed by 2014 but never delivered because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent (and still existing) sanctions. France refunded Russia the billion dollars already paid and eventually sold the Russian Mistrals (complete with winterization features to deal with arctic conditions) to Egypt. President Buhari took power in 2015 and a year later proclaimed Boko Haram defeated. Buhari, a former general and reformer did shake things up in the army, which has long been corrupt and ineffective. But two years later two things are certain; Boko Haram was defeated but not destroyed and the same can be said for the corruption and incompetence of too many army officers. Boko Haram is still a problem in the northeast, mainly as bandits that raid for loot so that they can survive. The continued raiding is made possible by poor leadership and morale among the soldiers providing protection for civilians. The raids have gotten worse during 2018. In mid-2018 the army morale problem became very public when several hundred soldiers demonstrated at the Maiduguri (the Borno State capital) airport. In northeastern Nigeria, Borno State is where Boko Haram was formed in 2002 and became a major Islamic terrorist threat in 2009 followed by eight years of violence that devastated most of Borno State and left nearly 30,000 dead. The airport demonstration was about how many of the soldiers had been stationed in a battle zone (Borno) for several years and away from their home base (and families) down south. Units are supposed to be rotated at least once a year to give the troops some rest and opportunity to train and integrate new recruits. Despite repeated promises that this would be the policy it hasnt been and the troops believe corruption among their officers is the reason. Getting rids of incompetent officers has also been promised but it is an effort that is far from complete. The government, led by a reformist former general, is aware of the problem but the military has a hard time carrying out basic reforms or enforcing policies (like the rotation of troops) they are ordered to carry out. President Buhari has held officers in charge of operations in the north responsible for their failures. As a result, there have been five commanders in the northeast during the last two years, replaced in turn when they failed to make needed changes. The latest new commander took over in the last few days. The military has been notoriously corrupt and inept for decades and change has not come easily or quickly. The corrupt officers are winning. Not only are troops not being rotated but many that are killed are still carried on rosters as alive their commanders are taking the pay for the dead soldiers. Parents who complain that they have not heard from their soldier son for months are not told he is dead but are often told nothing. More families are investigating on their own and discovering their son is dead. The army then dismisses it as an administrative error and ignores the problem. How Boko Haram Survives In addition to continued corruption in the army, Boko Haram also has plenty of places to hide on both sides of the borders with Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Then there is the Sambisa forest which still harbors many Boko Haram even though it is regularly patrolled by soldiers, local defense volunteers and surveillance aircraft. This 60,000 square kilometers of hilly, sparsely populated woodland straddles the borders of Borno, Yobe and Adamwa states and until 2016 was largely inaccessible to the security forces and served as a base area for Boko Haram. No longer safe enough for major Boko Haram bases it still shelters hundreds of the Islamic terrorists operating in smaller groups. Boko Haram has adapted to these new conditions and is now able to mass over a hundred gunmen for major attacks or raids (for supplies). Boko Haram takes advantage of poor army morale by carrying out their attacks in such a way that the defending soldiers have an open escape route and many soldiers and officers take advantage of that and flee. Boko Haram persists in the northeast in large part because one of the two rival factions has adopted more effective tactics. The Barnawi (or Albarnawi) faction follows the current ISIL doctrine of concentrating attacks on security forces and government officials (preferably the corrupt ones). That makes it easier to extort (raise taxes) cash and other goods from the local population. The Barnawi faction has several thousand active gunmen and operates mainly in the far north of Borno state near Lake Chad and the borders of Niger and Chad. The smaller Shekau faction has about half as many armed men and operates further south near the Borno State capital of Maiduguri and the Sambisa Forest. November 10, 2018: In the northeast (Borno State), Boko Haram raiders in trucks successfully looted a village five kilometers outside the state capital (Maiduguri). One villager was killed but hundreds were able to flee as Boko Haram looted then burned 65 buildings and made off with over 500 farm animals (including 200 cattle). November 9, 2018: Oil production for October fell for the second month in a row, to 2.09 million BPD (barrels per day). September was 2.16 million BPD. In April-June production was 1.84 million BPD, which was down from two million BPD during the first three months of the year. By the end of 2017 Nigerian oil production had hit 2.03 million BPD and so far 2018 looks like it will average 1.8 million BDP because of long-delayed maintenance and refurbishment of the oil production facilities in the Niger River Delta (where most of the production is). At the end of 2016 Nigerian oil production was rising to levels not seen for years. That has been the trend for most of 2017 because the new government had negotiated a peace deal with the local rebels (who opposed corruption and bad treatment of locals in general). Production rose and is on the way to the goal of 2.5 million BPD by 2020 but achieving that level of production depends on keeping the peace in the Delta. Continued corruption and rampant oil theft make it difficult to increase production and sustain those higher production level goals. The oil theft gangs continue to flourish with the help of corrupt government officials (civil and military.) November 4, 2018: In the northeast (Borno State), attackers from the Boko Haram Shekau faction attacked the Kumshe army base southeast of the state capital. Boko Haram released a ten minute video of the attack, which appears to have captured some army equipment. November 3, 2018: In the northeast (Borno State), attackers from the Boko Haram ISIL faction attacked an army base near Lake Chad and killed or captured about thirty soldiers and stole much army equipment. November 2, 2018: Casualties due to Islamic terrorism and tribal conflict were up about 20 percent in October (to over 600 dead), mainly because of more Boko Haram attacks. Tribal violence in central Nigeria continues to be a major problem and in some months this year accounted for more casualties than the Boko Haram violence. October 31, 2018: In the northeast (Borno State), about fifty Boko Haram raiders successfully looted several villages and a refugee camp on the outskirts of the state capital (Maiduguri) killing fifteen civilians and causing hundreds of others to flee in the process. Boko Haram got away before soldiers sent to stop them could get there. There were more than 30 soldiers and police guarding some of these places but they fled along with the civilians. October 29, 2018: In central Nigeria ( the capital Abuja), police killed at least twenty Shia demonstrators and arrested more than 400 over the weekend. The violence began when police tried to halt a Shia procession from marching into the city. The Shia were celebrating a major religious event as well as protesting the continued attacks on Shia. There is a Shia minority in Nigeria which, with Iranian help, tried to organize a militant faction. That did not go well and by 2018 Nigerian police managed to eliminate most armed members of the Shia IMN (Islamic Movement in Nigeria). Yet IMN was visibly involved in organizing this unarmed (although police claimed there were some fire bombs) demonstration. There has not been much violent activity from the Shia since 2016 when the security forces cracked down hard. There are about seven million Shia in Nigeria and since the 1980s a growing number of them have joined IMN, a group founded and quietly supported by IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps). While relations between Shia and Sunni Moslems have generally been good in Nigeria, local Sunni radical groups like Boko Haram practice the anti-Shia attitudes so common in Sunni terror groups like al Qaeda and the Taliban. IMN always proclaimed itself a peaceful group that welcomed all Moslems but over the years it has become all Shia and a lot more militant. Most Shia are not interested in supporting a Shia Boko Haram but given the Iranian influence on some IMN leaders, there may develop another radical and violent IMN faction. October 27, 2018: In the northeast (Borno State) Boko Haram raiders in ten or more vehicles attacked the army base at Gashigar but were repulsed and fled into the darkness with their casualties. The soldiers lost one dead and one wounded during several hours of shooting. October 23, 2018: In the northeast (Borno State) Boko Haram raiders attacked a village near the Sambisa Forest and killed two civilians and looted the place. October 21, 2018: In the northeast (Kaduna State) Christian and Moslem men fought in a marketplace after a labor dispute escalated. Over fifty died before police could intervene and arrest at least 22. Most of the violence in Kaduna and adjacent states in central Nigeria are between Moslems (usually Fulani) and farmers (most of them Christians but Moslem farms are attacked by Fulani as well). October 20, 2018: In the northeast (Borno State, 17 kilometers from the state capital Maiduguri) at least ten Boko Haram raiders came upon twelve farmers working in their fields. There being nothing to steal Boko Haram killed the farmers using machetes and then moved on. October 16, 2018: The ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) faction of Boko Haram announced it would not kill its third hostage but would instead enslave the 15 year old school girl. Boko Haram had been demanding that the government free some of their leaders as well as pay a large cash ransom to prevent the murder of two Red Cross employees and the 15 year old female student. The three captives included two Red Cross staff (a nurse and midwife) and a 15 year old female student who is Christian (so her death will not offend many Moslems). The Boko Haram ISIL faction is also known as ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) and has publicized the situation of these three individuals thus putting a lot of pressure on the government to do something by today if they want to prevent another murder. The government does not like being played like this and so far has refused to negotiate. One reason for that is the current factionalism and instability within Boko Haram. In this case, Boko Haram backed down and now there are calls from Christians worldwide to rescue the 15 year old Christian girl from Boko Haram and slavery. TICKERS: DNI; DMNKF Source: Maurice Jackson for Streetwise Reports (11/12/18) Dan Weir, executive chairman of DNI Metals, speaks with Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable about the personnel changes the company has made and its plans to obtain the environmental permits for the company's graphite projects in Madagascar. Maurice Jackson: Joining us for a conversation is Dan Weir, the executive chairman of DNI Metals Inc. (DNI:CSE; DMNKF:OTC), which is establishing itself to become one of the world's leading graphite producers. Dan, glad to have you back on the show. Before we delve into today's interview, for first time listeners, who is DNI Metals and what is the thesis you're attempting to prove? Dan Weir: DNI is a public company, listed in Toronto and the U.S. on the OTCQB. We are developing graphite projects in Madagascar, and we're very excited to be involved in the graphite industry because, as you know, and I think a lot of your listeners will know that the demand picture for the future of graphite looks very good. If you just take a Tesla and look at the batteries that go into a Tesla, in every Tesla car there's going to be somewhere between 100 and 200 kilograms of graphite. Multiply that by how many thousands and millions of electric cars that we're going to have, let alone the batteries in your cellphones and the batteries in our computers. The demand in the world is going to be huge. So we're very excited about the future and the future for graphite. Maurice Jackson: Dan, you referenced DNI's projects are located in Madagascar. I understand that elections are coming up soon. I have a multilayered question, should the current administration remain in place, what type of impact will that have on DNI and what if a new administration takes place, what type of impact could this have on DNI? Dan Weir: Well, I'm going to take you through how the elections work here in Madagascar. There's a presidential election that happens every four to five years. I think it's mandated that it has to happen every five years. In order to become president, you have to have 50% of the votes. Now, the first round of the elections took place on November 7, so just a couple days ago. There were 36 people running for the president, including four of the people running were ex-presidents of the country. So the incumbent is one of the four. We had the election on the 7th. And it takes approximately 20 days to do all the counting of the votes. Therefore, we won't know the outcome for approximately three weeks. Legally, all voting has be recorded and published within the next 21 days. So by November 28, legally they have to announce all the different figures or the numbers or percentages that all the different candidates received. Then what happens is if no candidate gets over 50%, they have a next round of elections. The two top candidates from the first round will compete in a second round. So the second round will happen on December 19 should this situation come to fruition. Again, then you're going to have probably another 20 days before you get the results. So you're really looking into mid-January by the time they announce who the president is and who wins the election. Now, in the government they have a president, then they have a prime minister, then they have different ministers for different areas, minister of mines, minister of the environment, etc. The president doesn't actually pick the prime minister, but what he does is he goes to parliament and gives them about four or five different names of who he would like to be the prime minister. So he doesn't technically put the prime minister in place, but he's the one that provides the names to parliament and then parliament picks who that prime minister is. But the president does pick who all the different ministers are. So until mid-January, the current prime minister and all the current ministers stay in place and it's business as usual until mid-January. Does that answer all your questions that you had on that topic, Maurice? Maurice Jackson: It certainly does. Let's switch gears here. Since our last interview, there have been a number of personnel changes at DNI Metals. As a shareholder, how concerned should I be, and equally important, why were these changes made? Dan Weir: So I want to be careful what I say here. You can refer to our press releases that we've put out over the last couple weeks. We have decided to make changes here. I think I'm going to make it as polite as I can, Maurice. We have decided to make changes here in Madagascar. The team that we had in place we felt was not doing their jobs properly. So we terminated their contracts. Every single one of them was a contractor to the company. We terminated their contracts and we have brought new people in. I have decided to spend more time in Madagascar and take over as the country manager here in Madagascar to make sure that things are moving forward in the right direction. As we stated in our previous press releases that we had been promised from our previous team the environmental permits would be done in January of 2018. We're now in November of 2018. This was not fair to our shareholders, and therefore, we needed to make changes. I am here now taking control of that process and taking control of all the personnel here in Madagascar. I will be spending a lot of time in Madagascar to make sure that everything goes through and goes through smoothly here in Madagascar. So new team will be myself, we will have a bookkeeper/accountant here in Madagascar as well, and I decided to bring in a lawyer on a contract basis, basically she will work part-time for us here in the company. I brought in a government relations person, again a contractor that will work part-time. And I brought in a community relations person, a CSR expert. He is also a chemical engineer. He will look after all of the local people and probably in the new year, I'll probably bring him on more as a full-time person. As we get our environmental permits and we're building our pilot plant initially and then the full on commercial plant, we'll need somebody like him when you're dealing with all the locals and all the relationships within the locals; and, again, him being a process engineer, chemical engineer, he's a great person that can talk to all the locals and help us put processes in place to deal with the locals and deal with all our workers. Maurice Jackson: You've also had some changes on the board. Can you speak to that? Dan Weir: Yes. On our boards, we had five people. Myself, John Carter, who is an engineer. He's built multiple processes plants. I think somewhere around 300 different mining processes plants around the world, including four graphite processing plants. We have Keith Minty. He's a mine engineer. He's operated graphite mines in Ontario and in Sri Lanka. He has worked all around the world, including Madagascar at one point and time. So these are great guys to have on the board. The other two people that we had on the board were two accountants, Paul Hart and Brian Howlett. They have decided to step down. As we are moving closer and closer to getting the pilot plant built and commercial production, we will bring in people that have more expertise in graphite sales as well as have technical expertise in building graphite mines. The other people that we might consider for the board as we move forward would maybe be some of the big shareholders who have had a lot of expertise in developing companies and building companies. So we'll look at that. That will be in the new year. Right now the main focus is making sure that we get all of our environmental licenses and that we're moving forward. Maurice Jackson: Before we get to the environmental licenses, talk to us about some good news that you have for U.S. investors. Dan Weir: We decided to upgrade our listing in the United States on the OTC. We're going to move it up to a QB listing in the United States. What that does is I've had complaints from different people in the U.S. and from around the world where a lot of the discount brokers found it difficult to trade on the CSE, one of the stock exchanges in Canada. So we are getting an upgraded listing in the United States, and we had been fully approved for that listing; that should happen over the next couple months. We will also get what we call DTC settlements set up where it, again, makes it easier for discount brokers in settling the trades in the back office. DTC basically is an electronic transfer system. Again, just makes it much easier for trading and settling of your trades. Maurice Jackson: All right. The multi-million dollar question everyone wants to know about. What is the next unanswered question for DNI Metals? When should we expect results, and what determines success? Dan Weir: So results, if you're referring to getting the environmental licenses and moving the project forward, again, that's been our biggest delay over the last year is getting these environmental licenses. I've been promising and promising and promising that they're coming, they're coming. It'll happen soon. Most of that was from our team here in Madagascar that kept promising me that it was going to happen tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. A number of documents and stuff that they gave us to show that it was going to happen tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ended up not being really truthful documents or proper documents. I'm rectifying all that. I've taken charge here. We have found out, and you can refer to one of our press releases that some of our documents had not even been filed, even though we had been told that they had been filed. For the Vohitsara property, some of the documents been filed, they had not been filed properly. When you're working here and you're filing environmental permits, this is the document. It's about 500 pages long that you file for an environmental license in Madagascar. This had not been filed for the Marofody property. You file that and you also file a document that looks like this, which is called the Cahier des Charges. The Cahier des Charges is about 88 pages. It's stamped by the director general of the mines ministry. This document had not been filed either for Marofody. So we've gotten the copies. We will be filing those with the ONE. Again, the ONE is the ministry of the environment and be moving this project forward. So, as we said in the press release that I put out in the last couple days here, once you have filed the documents with the ONE, it's a 60-day process that they must evaluate and grant you the environmental license within those 60 days. They also have a requirement where they need to go to the property twice. We will take them to both Vohitsara and Marofody properties at the same time. As part of that, I've requested and I have a meeting next week with the ONE again to try to speed this up. I will be requesting if we can we do those visits within the 60 day-process. I think that my initial meeting with them, they indicated that that was possible, and hopefully I can confirm that up next week. So when is the exact timing? I can only give you what the laws state in Madagascar, which I have put in the most recent press release. People, again, have been concerned about the elections. If we can work within this 60 day window here, we will have this all completed while the current ministers are still in place. So we should be able to get all the documents completed and get our environmental licenses within those days. Again, that's kind of a worst case scenario. The ONE knows that there were some people that have not really done their jobs properly here in Madagascar, and that they will work with us to speed up this process as fast as they can, which is fantastic. Maurice Jackson: It truly is exciting to hear that. Last question for you, what did I forget to ask? Dan Weir: I'm not sure. I know the two biggest questions for people out there have been: How do the elections effect DNI, and what the heck is going on with the permits? So hopefully we have addressed those today, and with some of the press releases that I have put out recently, I will try to get the market as much as I can update information as we move forward, and I look forward to finally getting the permits and actually getting this thing, the pilot plant, built and get into production. I've been trying to do this for a long time, but I'm finally excited that now I am taking control, I will remain in control of this process, and we know exactly what has to be done to complete this process, and I'm pushing forward to make sure that that happens. Maurice Jackson: Mr. Weir, for someone listening and that wants to get more information on DNI Metals, please share the contact details. Dan Weir: Best thing to do right now because I'm going to be in Madagascar quite a bit. It gets very expensive to call me on the phone. I'd prefer if you can email me at [email protected]. I will respond to that. It's about an eight hour time difference between Madagascar and New York or Toronto. So please bear with me, if you don't hear from me for a couple days, I will get back to you. Maurice Jackson: And please share the website address. Dan Weir: The website is www.DNIMetals.com. Maurice Jackson: And as a reminder, DNI Metals trades on the CSE, symbol DNI, and on the OTC QB, symbol DMNKF. DNI Metals is a sponsor of Proven and Probable, and we are proud shareholders for the virtues conveyed in today's interview. And last but not least, please visit our website www.provenandprobable.com where we interview the most respected names in the natural resource space. You may reach us at [email protected]. Dan Weir of DNI Metals, thank you for joining us today on Proven and Probable. Dan Weir: Thank you, Maurice, and bye to everybody from Madagascar. Maurice Jackson is the founder of Proven and Probable, a site that aims to enrich its subscribers through education in precious metals and junior mining companies that will enrich the world. [NLINSERT] Disclosure: 1) Dan Weir: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: DNI Metals. I personally am, or members of my immediate household or family are, paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: DNI Metals. 2) Maurice Jackson: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: DNI Metals. I personally am, or members of my immediate household or family are, paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. My company has a financial relationship with the following companies mentioned in this article: DNI Metals is a sponsor of Proven and Probable. 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Sanchez, who has been in the district for five years, said he works with between 800 to 900 students every year. The students may be new to high school and need help learning how to study and do homewor, and he may work with families who are unfamiliar with college and who need help getting their child ready for higher education. I have an idea. Why not remove all speed-limit signs, take away any lane dividers, forget any left-turn lanes and how about removing right-turn lanes as well. Mayor Cunningham, what the heck is going on with you and the Police Department? Fix your differences as we as a town are paying for the consequences. The driving in this town is out of hand, and most everyone is aware no one will be stopped. It is dangerous out here, and its a shame. People from out of town are amazed how reckless the driving is in Waukegan and dont care to come here anymore. I have seen just about every law broken on our roads. Shame on you. Auckland Do you consider yourself as someone who is great at Training people? Are you Health and Safety conscious? Well, I have the... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz Calls have been made to boycott next year's Auckland Pride Parade over a ban on police wearing their uniforms while taking part. The ban is splitting the LGBTI community, with a member of the Auckland Pride Board stepping down from his role in protest. The annual Pride Festival attracts thousands of people, but this year the Auckland Pride Board has banned police uniforms. The Auckland Pride Board said the police do not meet the safety needs of rainbow communities after Community Hui series and public feedback sessions. However, board member, Matty Jackson, didn't support the ban and has stepped down. Sarah Peele has marched with her father, a former police officer of 40 years, in a past parade. She will be boycotting next February's parade if the ban stays in place. Police not being able to show they're part or support the LGBTI community at Pride while wearing uniform is ridiculous, Sarah said. "It's discrimination against the police even though, yes, there has been things in the past that may warrant it, but those things are in the past. "And you can't change the past, you can only make it better for the future." However, Emilie Rakete, Press Spokesperson for People Against Prisons Aotearoa, said the ban has been a long time coming. "It's a really positive step that the Pride Parade has acknowledged that New Zealand's Police Force has a lot - a lot - of work to do before they should be celebrated in a parade of this kind. "Some of us would like to use the Pride festival to commemorate the fact that Queer and Trans people have fought and died for the right to be Queer and Trans in this country. And the people that we fought against, overwhelmingly, were the police." Members of the police are being invited to march in plain or fancy clothes instead. An inquiry into the government's appointment of the deputy police commissioner has found the process was "adequate and fit for purpose''. The report released today also revealed survivors' advocate Louise Nicholas, who raised concerns in the wake of Wally Haumaha's appointment, subsequently met with him and was clear her intention wasn't to end his appointment and she was open to a working relationship with him. Mr Haumaha was appointed in the role in May by the Governor-General on the recommendations of both the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Police Minister Stuart Nash. His rise to the top ranks has been under a cloud ever since Ms Nicholas went public with her reservations about Mr Haumaha's appointment given comments he had made defending police officers accused of rape in 2004. In the middle of the government inquiry police confirmed they had received an allegation of bullying on a joint project with the Justice Ministry headed by Mr Haumaha in 2016. Mary Scholtens QC, who headed the inquiry, said the process was sound and no relevant information was omitted given there was no official complaint made to police about Mr Haumaha's conduct as part of the project. "Without a complaint there was nothing to take into account,'' Ms Scholtens wrote. The police commissioner has welcomed the report into the appointment of Deputy Commissioner Wally Haumaha, saying it's good to have the inquiry completed. In a statement, Commissioner Mike Bush said public trust and confidence were extremely important to the New Zealand Police. "It is entirely appropriate that these matters have been assessed and examined by an independent Inquiry," he says. "It is good to have the Inquiry completed. I have said all along that I welcomed the Inquiry and that I looked forward to the clarification of matters raised regarding the appointment of Deputy Commissioner Haumaha. "I acknowledge the findings of the report that the process followed to appoint the Deputy Commissioner was sound and that there was no available and relevant information omitted from the process", the statement said. There was still an Independent Police Conduct Authority inquiry underway into allegations of bullying involving Deputy Commissioner Haumaha. Commissioner Bush said that meant he was limited in what he could say about the Sholtens report, until the other inquiry was complete. In the case of Ms Nicholas' concerns, which she raised some weeks after Mr Haumaha's appointment, Ms Scholtens said "allegations and rumours relating to Mr Haumaha's time working in Rotorua some 30 years ago and his relationship with police officers subsequently prosecuted for sexual assault were carefully investigated''. "Unsubstantiated concerns and innuendo should not impede an appointment,'' she wrote. An email from Ms Nicholas to Police Commissioner Mike Bush on 1 June, after Mr Haumaha's appointment, was included as part of the report and detailed a meeting between the pair along with Deputy Commissioner Mike Clement and Mr Haumaha. The email from Ms Nicholas said the "conversation was never about having any expectations of NZ Police to end the appointment, but it is about putting the NZ Police on notice to say I am concerned, I have doubts and I wish this not to be hidden from people who have the power to intervene or protect the most vulnerable''. Ms Nicholas also said in the email it was her intention to "move forward and be open to developing a working relationship" with Mr Haumaha. The bullying allegations and Ms Nicholas' concerns relating to Mr Haumaha weren't available to the SSC as part of their appointmennt process and Ms Scholtens said they're best described as "unknown unknowns''. "I do not know how the process could be improved to ensure such facts are known,'' she wrote. State Services Minister Chris Hipkins said the inquiry concluded Mr Haumaha's appointment was justified. "The appointment process was a sound and robust one, no information was witheld from that process that should have been considered in the process. "So from a government perspective we have full confidence in the appointment process," he said. Mr Hipkins said the SSC can take "some heart" that the process they followed with Mr Haumaha's appointment was the right one. Despite the finding, Police Minister Stuart Nash wouldn't confirm whether he had full confidence in Mr Haumaha while the Independent Police Conduct Authority continues with its investigation into the deputy commissioner. However, Mr Nash reiterated Mr Hipkins' view. "I have full confidence that the process undertaken to appoint DC Haumaha was done in a way that was fair and had all the information." Inquiry hits an early snag The inquiry, which was set up to look at whether the appointment process was carried out properly, hit a speed bump early on when the original inquiry head Pauline Kingi stood aside after questions were raised by the National Party about whether she had a personal conflict of interest. Ms Kingi was found to have endorsed Mr Haumaha's skills on the professional networking platform LinkedIn. Ms Scholtens took over the role from Ms Kingi and after asking for an extension of five weeks, delivered her report this morning. She said the State Services Commission's (SSC) role was to identify candidates for the deputy commissioner vacancy and carry out the necessary character checks before providing two candidates to Ms Ardern and Mr Nash to choose from. Ms Scholtens said all the necessary checks were carried out and nothing arose that raised concerns about Mr Haumaha's suitability for the job. The only exception was the SSC didn't identify what Ms Scholtens describes as "perception risks", which she acknowledges are "only relevant because of the impact publicity might have on the appointment''. Ms Scholtens has made recommendations, which she said are offered more as "suggestions to the SSC with the objective of increasing the likelihood of identifying these unknown risks''. The recommendations are as follows: The SSC be explicit when seeking information from candidates and referees that they should think widely, pointing out the risk of matters that might get traction if the candidate were appointed. The SSC ensure references are sought from a significant number and diverse mix of referees. The SSC approach people other than nominated referees where appropriate to seek anonymous, confidential views. A focus on identifying and managing the risks around unexpected publicity when the commissioner undertakes a review of international best practice. NZ First connections NZ First's role in the inquiry was also called into question after National MP Chris Bishop used Parliamentary privilege to reveal the party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters called Mr Haumaha after the inquiry was launched to reassure him. Mr Peters said there was no basis for the claim and denied calling Mr Haumaha. Mr Bishop said today's report still does not answer the question of whether Mr Haumaha is the right person for the job. He criticised Mr Hipkins, Mr Nash and the Prime Minister for not saying whether they still have confidence in the deputy police commissioner. "This report was only ever into the process behind the appointment of Mr Haumaha, as ministers themselves have stressed at various points. "The real question is whether it is appropriate Mr Haumaha continues to be the deputy commissioner. Police Minister Stuart Nash has already said comments made by Mr Haumaha were 'deeply disappointing','' Mr Bishop said. "Over the past 10 years the New Zealand Police have made huge strides to repair their reputation in light of Operation Austin, and the prime minister needs to answer whether she thinks the appointment of Wally Haumaha will keep that progress going. "Frontline and also senior police officers have expressed concern to me that public confidence in the police will be eroded by the appointment,'' he said. The National Party continues to call for Mr Haumaha to resign or be stood down. The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the report proves the government can have confidence in the process that was followed but she wouldn't say whether she backed Mr Haumaha while the IPCA investigation was still underway. Mr Bishop had previously questioned NZ First deputy leader Fletcher Tabuteau's family connections with Mr Haumaha and whether Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin, a NZ First MP, should have been put in charge of the inquiry into the appointment process. -RNZ Bay of Plenty If you love working out doors and in a small team then we have the role for you. We are needing someone who has either maintenance... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz Teachers in the Bay of Plenty region will be going on strike again today. The strike action comes after NZEI primary teachers, principals and some speech language therapists rejected the Ministry of Educations offer in September. There will be four meetings taking place in the Bay of Plenty, happening around 10am. Te Puke and some Papamoa schools will be meeting at Orchard Church in Te Puke, and Mount Maunganui and Papamoa schools will be meeting at Curate in the Mount. Tauranga Peninsula Community of Learning, alongside Otumoetai Schools through to Katikati will meet at the Bethlehem Baptist church with National Secretary of NZEI Te Riu Roa will be speaking at this meeting. Kura kaupapa, Northen Health, BLENNZ and others will be meeting at Curate, Christopher Street in Tauranga. At the meeting, members will be discussing the offer most received on Friday afternoon, and talking about where to from here, says NZEI representative for Bay of Plenty schools Andrea Andresen. After the meeting each gathering will be in a follow up activity. Te Puke schools staff are carrying out assorted community activities. The group meeting at the Bethlehem Baptist church are picketing near Moffat Road roundabout, the group meeting at Curate on Christopher Street are conducting a community clean up and will be picking up rubbish on the Waikareo walkways along Takitimu Drive. The group meeting at Curate in the Mount will be picketing near Mount New World. Some members will also be filling out and taking communications to the offices of Clayton Mitchell and the Labour MPs. Andrea says the main purpose of this strike was a protest at the insufficient action from the Minister of Education to meet the teacher shortage New Zealand is facing. It has been a campaign built mainly around three key claims: One: A pay jolt to attract more teachers into the profession, as training numbers have been in decline, and retain teachers who could be paid more in different jobs. Two: Time to teach and lead. Over the last few years the assessment and paperwork requirements for the teachers have increased exponentially. Many very good and experienced teachers are leaving because of the workload. Suggestions include additional release time for teachers or additional in class teacher time to enable teachers to carry out assessments with less impact on the learning of other students in the class. Three: More support for students with learning needs, including a separately funded learning support teacher role. The Prime Minister announced 600 of these would be established as a beginning and this is a good start, although there are over 2000 schools. We acknowledge that some of the difficulty in implementing this is the teacher shortage itself. Schools effected by the teacher strike in the Bay of Plenty will be mainly primary and intermediate schools. Secondary and Area schools will be open as they are covered by different agreements. This is important for our school because we value our veterans and we are grateful for the personal sacrifices that our veterans have made for us. We really wanted to make sure we were honoring them in a respectful manner in a way that speaks to the collective experience as well as a shared experience between the high school and the American Legion, she said. Students really appreciate the opportunity to attend and to hear the different experiences and to engage with all of the veterans that are here and the other community members that come out. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A Syracuse man critically injured in a high-rise apartment fire last week has been released from the hospital, city officials said Sunday night. Syracuse firefighters rescued 39-year-old Robert Smith from a 13th floor apartment at Royce Residence after a fire alarm alerted them of the fire at 11:14 p.m. Wednesday. Smith was unconscious and not breathing when firefighters found him, Syracuse Fire Lt. Eric Yetman said in a news release. "While firefighters searched for additional victims and extinguished the fire, additional personnel on scene treated Mr. Smith before he was transported to (a hospital)," Yetman said in the release. An American Medical Response (AMR) ambulance took Smith to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, where he was in critical condition after the fire. Three other people also suffered smoke inhalation. AMR crews treated two people at the scene and took one other to a hospital, officials said at the time. Firefighters believe unattended cooking caused the fire. The 23-story apartment building, Royce Residence, was formerly known as Clinton Plaza Apartments, a subsidized apartment building. It was purchased in 2015 by an Upstate company and renovated. Nearly 50 firefighters responded to the fire. Smith's apartment sustained heavy smoke and fire damage, Yetman said, "but the fire was contained to the one apartment." SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse police say a 16-year-old girl stole a gun from someone's home Saturday, then used it Sunday morning to shoot at an 18-year-old man on Midland Avenue. The girl is accused of firing several shots at the man, but missed each time, police said. Both the girl and the man she's accused shooting at had left the 3500 block of Midland Ave. by the time officers arrived to the shots fired call at 11:04 a.m. Sunday. But police tracked them down a short time later after a witness provided officers with descriptions of both the suspect and victim, city police spokeswoman Sgt. Julie Shulsky said in a news release. Police found the uninjured 18-year-old victim at the intersection of West Florence Avenue and South Salina Street, but he refused to cooperate with the investigation, Shulsky said. Officer Damon Lockett found the suspect, a 16-year-old girl, in the 3600 block of Midland Ave. Lockett also recovered the gun police believe the girl used -- a loaded Jimenez Arms .380 caliber handgun, Shulsky said in the release. During the investigation, police "determined the suspect had stolen the handgun during a residential burglary" Saturday in the city of Syracuse, the release said. Police did not identify the girl, who was arrested and charged with first-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, second-degree burglary and fourth-degree grand larceny. The girl was sent to the Hillbrook Juvenile Detention Facility. Don't Edit 'Detective Pikachu' trailer: Ryan Reynolds voices Pokemon in live-action movie Gotta catch 'em all: The first trailer for "Pokemon Detective Pikachu" has arrived, featuring the voice of Ryan Reynolds as the iconic Pokemon character. The live-action movie stars the "Deadpool" actor as the pocket monster investigating a missing person who used to be his partner, Harry Goodman, with help from Harry's son Tim (played by Justice Smith). The cast includes Suki Waterhouse, Bill Nighy, Ken Watanabe and Rita Ora. According to CBR, the film will show humans and Pokemon living together, including characters like Bulbasaur and Charizard. Tim will be the only human who can communicate with Detective Pikachu, while everyone else hears his trademark "Pika pika! "In a world where people collect pocket-size monsters (pokemon) to do battle, a boy comes across an intelligent monster who seeks to be a detective," the logline says. Nintendo is aiming to expand on the popular card game and video game franchise, building on the success of the mobile craze "Pokemon Go." The gaming giant is also planning a new "Super Mario" film with Illumination and there's rumors of a new "Legends of Zelda" series in the style of "Castlevania." "Pokemon Detective Pikachu" hits theaters May 10, 2019. Scroll through to see the trailer and reactions. Don't Edit Don't Edit Me: the Detective Pikachu movie sounds like it's gonna be kind of wack Detective Pikachu trailer: is good Me: pic.twitter.com/weaQShxcUV maiden CEOtaku (@maidendere) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit *the criminal fires his gun at detective pikachu. detective pikachu hits the ground. the criminal walks over. he nudges detective pikachu with his foot. from the ground, a gentle whisper* "It wasn't very effective." *10,000 volts suddenly course through the criminal* Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit Don't Edit Detective Pikachu is coming out the week after Avengers 4 pic.twitter.com/YXKYWbacJa Jeremy Conrad (@ManaByte) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit how can you all hate detective pikachu so much when he's just a pre-midnight gremlin with a hat on rachel syme (@rachsyme) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit honestly a travesty that we got DETECTIVE PIKACHU before the Squirtle Squad pic.twitter.com/XJhY6XpDbf Hoai-Tran Bui (@htranbui) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit I love that the trailer for Detective Pikachu uses Happy Together, the same song they used in the Super Smash Bros. commercial. pic.twitter.com/LQJWgLkJzb Crimson Mayhem (@mayhem_crimson) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit MFW first hearing about the Detective Pikachu movie vs after watching the trailer pic.twitter.com/VI3NRorP6n Shinobi TwitchCon (@ShinobiHaruka) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit Don't Edit Someone was talking to me about Detective Pikachu a few months ago. I was expecting something worse than what was shown - they talked about some Pokemon looking nightmarish but tbf, that's a pretty good descriptor for Mr. Mime. pic.twitter.com/0apR0l2J5E milkshake goose (@ManveerSKahlon) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit When I go see Detective Pikachu by myself pic.twitter.com/dRBByXTNId Amber (@lolAmbie) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit TPC: We're gonna cast Ryan Renolds as Detective Pikachu Internet: haha there's no way TPC: *actually casts Ryan Reynolds as Detective Pikachu* Internet: pic.twitter.com/gEpwMnOuVd Akfamilyhome (@AkfamilyhomeAK) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit Why do the hairy Detective Pikachu models gross me out so much??? pic.twitter.com/kowt5KBIKH JWittzTwitchCon (@TheJWittz) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit will I be able to follow DETECTIVE PIKACHU if I havent seen DETECTIVE PICHU Sam Adams (@SamuelAAdams) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit Don't Edit Detective Pikachu can have my money now. pic.twitter.com/74dcAWd5yd Sermon (@SermonsDomain) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit I just wanna know who called it Detective Pikachu when they could've called it P.I. Kachu. Adam P. Knave (@adampknave) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit My friends and I going to see Detective Pikachu pic.twitter.com/tpbi63Wd1U Gene Park TWITCHCON (@GenePark) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit I can't be the only one who's reminded of this when I see the realistic CG Pokemon in the Detective Pikachu movie. pic.twitter.com/uOdpbzPyFV Masahiro Sakurai (@Nin_SmashBros) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit Friends, as a general note, we are aware of the Pikachu movie starring Ryan Reynolds. Thoroughly aware. RiffTrax (@RiffTrax) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit Don't Edit This is WEIRD. But looks kind of amazing?? I loved the game on 3DS and though I dont like Ryan Reynolds, Im not appalled by this lol. The furry design is growing on me https://t.co/95OMvTMB8i Brittany (@Dandy1ionGamer) November 12, 2018 Don't Edit I think we all knew I'd wind up as a miniature detective repeatedly saying the same two words. Just didn't think it'd be this soon. #PikaPika #DetectivePikachu pic.twitter.com/L4iB760fJO Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) November 12, 2018 Illustration by Marie Pascual A student group at Syracuse University is hoping to improve sexual health on campus with a unique vending machine. This strategically-placed vending machine wouldn't sell snacks or Gatorade -- instead, it would stock wellness products like condoms, pads and tampons, tissues, Advil, Midol, and pregnancy tests, some of which would be free to students. The machine would sell an emergency contraceptive similar to Plan B at a discounted rate. Crystal Letona, president of Students Advocating Sexual Safety and Empowerment, and Nicole Aramboles, deputy manager of SASSE and proposal coordinator, are spearheading the campaign to bring a health and wellness vending machine to SU. "SASSE, in short, strives to create a safer space for all students on campus, including faculty and staff," Letona said. "We do that through different efforts, dialogue, education. [We] promote positive sexuality, healthy relationships, and self-care/self-love." When they saw that other universities like The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and Brandeis University have the machines, Letona, Aramboles and other members of SASSE began looking into the possibility of bringing one to SU. They contacted representatives at UC Davis and Brandeis to learn how they funded and acquired their health and wellness vending machines. While SASSE doesn't know exactly how much it would cost, they estimate a price between $1,000 and $3,000 for the physical machine not including the price of products given or sold. They're currently researching and contacting companies that sell wellness products at wholesale prices. If approved, this money would come from the school's student association. SASSE is a Planned Parenthood Generation Action chapter, one of more than 350 campus groups in the U.S. that raises awareness of and advocates for reproductive freedom and sexual health. The SU chapter acts as a liaison for the local Planned Parenthood but will not receive funding from them for the proposed health and wellness vending machines as did Brandeis. While SASSE continues to research and meet with student association representatives, SU students can sign their online petition to show support for the proposal. Currently at SU, students can get the products that the machine would sell at the university's health services on Waverly Avenue, in residence halls and at nearby drug stores or pharmacies. But according to Letona, hours and access are limited. With the prevalence of college hookup culture, the limited business hours of student health services doesn't meet the needs of students who often engage in sexual activity in the evening and on weekends, explained Letona. The price of emergency contraceptives and distance from dorms to stores or health services also deter students from obtaining health and wellness products. SASSE hopes to put the vending machine in a gender-neutral bathroom that students have access to 24/7. The groups is currently collecting data to find a location that is private, easily accessible, large enough for the machine, and open on evenings and weekends, Aramboles said. "Safer sex on demand and the stigma-free access to contraception," Letona said. "Those are the two things we're really advocating for." Syracuse, NY -- The bishop who oversees the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York reaffirmed her support of gay marriage today after her fellow bishop in Albany voiced his opposition. The local diocese, since 2015, has had a policy to be "open and affirm all marriages between adults, regardless of gender identity or orientation," Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard on Monday. "We are called by God to love one another with honor, dignity and integrity, seeking the best of the other person." Her Albany counterpart, Bishop William Love, issued an edict Saturday banning the marriage of same-sex couples in the Albany diocese's churches. He cited portions of the Old and New Testament to argue that same-sex marriage is not biblical. Love said church leaders had been "hijacked by the Gay Rights Agenda" and suggested it was part of Satan's plan to divide the church. "Satan is having a heyday bringing division into the Church over these issues," Love wrote in an 8-page letter, and "is deceiving the leadership of the Church into creating ways for our gay and lesbians brothers and sisters to embrace their sexual desires rather than to repent and seek God's love and healing grace." The disagreement arises over a resolution adopted in July by the national Episcopalian church that will allow same-sex marriages nationwide. The resolution takes effect in December. Perhaps most controversial is the provision that would allow an outside bishop to preside over a same-sex marriage, even if the local bishop refuses to allow same-sex marriage ceremonies. Gay marriage is an issue that has divided many American churches. That includes Episcopalians, who are also called Anglicans. Some conservative Anglican churches have split from the national church over gay marriage and other issues. Duncan-Probe, the Central New York bishop, said it was too early to know if Syracuse clergy would preside over same-sex marriages within Albany churches. She referred to a letter from the national church's presiding bishop, Michael Curry, who said he was still determining how the national church would proceed. "We are committed to the principle of full and equal access to, and inclusion in, the sacraments for all of the baptized children of God, including our LGBTQ siblings," Curry wrote in a letter Monday afternoon. But Curry noted that any clergy could decline to officiate a marriage for reasons of conscience. He did not say whether he would order the Albany diocese to allow outside clergy in to perform same-sex marriages. Duncan-Probe said she was not bishop when the Syracuse diocese began affirming same-sex marriages. But she said her support was something discussed when she became bishop two years ago. She highlighted Episcopalian participation in Pride parades, marches and festivals across the diocese, which stretches from the St. Lawrence to the Pennsylvania border. "Bishop Love's statement yesterday may have wounded people," Duncan-Probe said. "My concern, and what's on my heart, is to say that God loves them. The Episcopal Church in Central New York is here to help people draw nearer to the loving, liberating, life-giving message of Jesus." Duncan-Probe also released a public letter today echoing her support. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- If a "community grid" is chosen to replace Interstate 81 in downtown Syracuse, what will happen to the land that's now under the aging viaduct's shadow? Whether it will be turned into green space or developed commercially is still an open question, according to city and state officials. A group of local architects is hoping to force the issue. The local chapter of the American Institute of Architects estimated in a recent paper that 18.6 acres of land will be made available if the 1.4-mile elevated highway is taken down. Taking the viaduct down and beefing up the existing street grid is one of several options state engineers are considering for the highway. Other options include rebuilding and widening the existing elevated highway or replacing the viaduct with a tunnel. State officials have said they will decide which option will be selected early in 2019. Syracuse officials, including Mayor Ben Walsh, hope the DOT will choose the street-level option, called the "community grid." As one major selling point, the mayor's office has touted the potential property value increase for property owners and tax revenues for the city that could be generated by developing land made available due to the viaduct's demise. But the state has never estimated the amount of property value or tax revenue that could be produced under the "grid" or any other option, and it won't do so as part of its environmental review of the best options for the city. That's where the Central New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects stepped in. Architect Bob Haley led the analysis of existing properties along the I-81 corridor to make an educated guess of the economic impact, which city spokesman Greg Loh said was reasonable. Here are the findings of that analysis: There are 18.6 acres of land that could be returned to the city tax base if a "community grid" replaces the viaduct. The potential developed property would be worth more than $1.5 billion. The land is worth $14.5 million. If all 18.6 acres are developed into about 500,000 square feet of new property, roughly $48 million a year in city and county property taxes could be generated. (A scenario that all 18.6 acres is fully developed is unlikely, Haley said.) Of that $48 million, $33 million would go to the city, roughly doubling the amount of the current property tax levy that funds city services. One block of newly developed property would generate about $2.5 million in tax revenues for the city, meaning the city's current operating deficit could be eliminated in three years with one block of development. More than 30,000 jobs could be created from construction. And more than 11,000 jobs could be sustained to staff the new buildings, assuming they are divided for use between residential, retail, parking, office and hotels. That's all for land currently in I-81's footprint. Land and property alongside the viaduct -- in the viaduct's "wake," as Loh put it -- will also see increased property values if the "grid" option is chosen. But what will come of the 18.6 acres is still an open question. "We are still very early in the process and a preferred alternative has yet to be chosen," DOT spokesman Joseph Morrissey said. "As such, we have not identified surplus properties as part of the I-81 project, nor have we identified to whom or how any surplus properties would be returned." Too soon to say In renderings of the "community grid" option that the DOT released in 2015, the highway is replaced with a boulevard, lined with broad sidewalks and trees with a median. The DOT's rendering of what a "community grid" could look like. That's roughly what the city center would look like if the land is not developed for commercial use, Haley, the architect, has said. But that could change as the process moves forward, especially as the city weighs in on what it would prefer, Loh said in an interview Friday. As long as the new city core is well planned, the city wants to develop as much as possible, he said. "We obviously would welcome a model of planning that maximized the potential revenue generation from those properties," Loh said. That said, the city would still prefer the grid regardless of what the state does with the land made available under the viaduct's footprint, Loh said. "In a well-planned environment, a potential private use that isn't dictated by the city ... is still a good outcome," he said. Loh said the effects on adjacent properties still make the grid worth it to the city. The city envisions "smart" light technology that keeps traffic moving efficiently on the street grid while knitting the city back together over what was once the hulking viaduct. Morrissey, the DOT spokesman, said it's too early to say what will happen with the land. But he outlined the steps for the state takes generally to deal with "surplus land": Once a project is completed, the DOT determines whether it's appropriate to transfer property that is "not needed for future transportation purposes." That determination requires the approval of the state Attorney General and the state Comptroller's Office. If the land is donated to a municipality like Syracuse, it would have to stay in public use, like for transportation or a public park. But surplus land can also be sold or auctioned by the state for market value or more, Morrissey said. Land that is sold for private interests would be taxed for the benefit of city, school and county coffers. Boosting city property tax revenues is needed in Syracuse, where more than half of all properties are tax exempt, including those belonging to hospitals or Syracuse University. Downtown Syracuse has seen a flurry of development in recent years, as old buildings are converted into luxury apartments and retail spaces. But investors are often lured downtown with lucrative property tax breaks. The city generated about $34.5 million in property taxes for city services in the fiscal year ending in 2018, plus another $65 million in school property taxes. This year's entire city budget is $286 million with an $11 million deficit. Loh said the AIA estimate demonstrates the untapped potential of land under and around the existing highway, which was built in the 1950s and displaced many residents, some of whom moved to the city's South Side. A swath of land on the west side of the raised highway is owned by the Syracuse Housing Authority, whose administrators also prefer the "community grid" option because it could spur development for the creation of a mixed-income housing development that benefits housing residents. But the grid option also faces opposition from some business owners and officials from outlying towns, who say taking the viaduct down will increase traffic through their towns and drive customers away. The "grid" would cost $1.3 billion; rebuilding the viaduct would cost $1.7 billion; and a tunnel would cost $3.6 billion, officials said. In estimates so far, the DOT has considered only how much land or property would be removed through each of the options, not how much could be restored for open space or private use. If the state were to rebuild the viaduct, it would need to be widened to comply with existing standards, requiring the demolition of 24 buildings, according to the DOT. The state has not yet estimated how many buildings would be demolished under a tunnel option, though an independent study estimated that 12 buildings would need to be taken down to allow for a 1.6-mile tunnel to run under where I-81 now runs. There are two sides in every fight, she said. Our opposition is the corporate gun lobby. Their goal is to normalize the possession of guns in American life. They want them to be as ubiquitous as cell phones. If everyone thinks everyone else in America has a gun, they are more likely to go out and buy a gun. Its all about money. That is all it has ever been about. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A Syracuse priest has been named by the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo as a clergyman with substantiated allegations of child sex abuse against him. The Rev. James Smyka, 74, was in residence at Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary Church on Syracuse's North Side until recently. He was listed on the Diocese of Syracuse website as a member of the clergy until today. He was also listed as a chaplain at St. Joseph's Hospital. A spokesman for St. Joe's said Smyka had not worked at the hospital since Oct. 8. The Buffalo diocese identified Smyka one week ago as a priest with "substantiated claims of sexual abuse of a minor." The Buffalo diocese has not released any more information about Smyka. It is not known when Smyka's abuse is alleged to have occurred or how many victims he allegedly abused. A spokeswoman for the Buffalo diocese did not respond to requests for comment. A woman who answered the door at the friary at Assumption Church on North Salina Street in Syracuse said Smyka was no longer living there. Another woman at the church declined to answer questions from a reporter. She said she had "no info" and referred questions to an administrator for the Order of Friars based in Maryland. As a Franciscan friar, Smyka was not directly employed by the Syracuse diocese. The Franciscan order is responsible for Assumption church. As a Catholic priest working in Syracuse, Smyka was "granted faculties," or given authority to perform certain duties by the diocese. Danielle Cummings, chancellor for the Syracuse diocese, said Smyka is no longer at Assumption Church. She said the diocese has not received any allegations of abuse by Smyka during his time in Syracuse. Smyka was authorized to work by the diocese from November 2014 to October 2018, Cummings said. The diocese was not aware of any allegations at the time, she said. The diocese was informed Smyka was leaving Assumption in October, but no mention of abuse allegations were made, she said. "There was no indication that he would be leaving due to any allegations of abuse," Cummings said. Cummings said the diocese was removing Smyka from its website after a reporter brought the Buffalo list to her attention. She also referred questions about the abuse to the Franciscan order. A secretary for the order refused to comment. Smyka taught at St. Francis High School in Hamburg, outside of Buffalo, according to a report by WKBW-TV in Buffalo. He is among 110 priests with substantiated allegations of child sex abuse against them named by the Buffalo diocese this year. The diocese released an updated list Nov. 5 after a report by "60 Minutes" aired on the whistleblower who had leaked thousands of documents detailing how the diocese had handled sex abuse cases. Syracuse Bishop Robert Cunningham held high-level positions with the Buffalo diocese for 30 years. Smyka taught at St. Francis High School outside Buffalo for 11 years after he completed his studies in theology, according to a biography on the St. Joe's website. He since spent 11 years in Johnstown, Penn., four years in Chicopee, Mass., and 14 years in Bridgeport, Conn. before coming to Syracuse, according to the St. Joe's biography. The St. Joe's spokesman said he worked as an independent contractor at the hospital from Oct. 26, 2014 until this year. Jamie Arnold, the St. Joe's spokesman, said in a statement that Smyka was not an employee of the hospital, but he performed Mass and presented the sacraments, such as anointing of the sick, "until his recent retirement." "We have a zero tolerance policy for abusive behavior of any kind, and are deeply saddened at the continuing news of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and the devastation it has brought so many lives," the statement said. Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard is looking into handling of priest sex abuse cases in Central New York. If you have a story, contact reporter Julie McMahon: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1992 Karim M. Tiro is professor of history at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of "The People of the Standing Stone: The Oneida Nation from the Revolution through the Era of Removal." By Karim M. Tiro | Special to Syracuse.com Every year on Nov. 11, the Six Nations Iroquois and their supporters gather to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Canandaigua in 1794 with speeches and a parade. Nov. 11 is also Veterans Day, an appropriate coincidence considering the disproportionate number of Six Nations people who have enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces since that treaty of "peace and friendship" was signed. Although these are both yearly occurrences, their meanings seem greater in some years than in others. 2018 is one of those years. In 1794, a war was raging between the United States and Native Americans in the Ohio country. President George Washington fretted that the abuse and dispossession of the Six Nations would increase the Ohio Indians' motivation to fight, attract disgruntled Six Nations warriors to their cause, or both. The Canandaigua treaty was a test of his administration's diplomatic abilities. It was also a test of the new nation's character. Washington thought his administration should articulate first principles for the nation, and the area of Indian policy was no exception. His Secretary of War, Henry Knox, wrote that "a nation solicitous of establishing its character on the broad basis of justice, would not only hesitate at, but reject every proposition to benefit itself, by the injury of any neighboring community, however contemptible and weak it might be." In other words, might did not make right, and one's willingness to do justice to those who had less power was the measure of one's honor. Washington sent Timothy Pickering to negotiate the treaty. A former Continental Army officer, Pickering had been so incensed by wartime Iroquois frontier raiding that in 1778 he hoped "those barbarians are exterminated from the earth." But, after spending time in Iroquoia, Pickering saw things differently. Rather than nurture his sense of grievance and victimhood, he concluded, "A man must be destitute of sensibility if he did not sympathize with them on their recital of the injuries they have experienced from white men." Washington remained more hostile to Native Americans, but Pickering was nevertheless instructed to find a path to peace through justice. Thus, Canandaigua was the rare treaty in which the Indians actually got back land. Washington did not see his role as president as being merely to screw concessions out of people who were not United States citizens. Rather than simply helping settlers and land speculators, he sought to moderate their effects on the Iroquois, and to reconcile the Iroquois to their presence. Pickering was to be an honest, if not entirely impartial, broker. Teddy Roosevelt might have called the Canandaigua treaty a "square deal." Donald Trump would call it a "disaster" or "the worst deal ever made." But Washington thought highly enough of it that he promptly nominated Pickering to be his Secretary of War. Before heading home to Philadelphia to face his new responsibilities, Pickering attended to some unfinished business. He rode his horse to Oneida Castle, where he spent several days tabulating the wartime losses of Native Americans who had fought with the Patriots during the Revolutionary War. On Dec. 2, he signed a treaty granting Oneida, Tuscarora and Stockbridge Indians reparations for Revolutionary War losses. Pickering had taken it upon himself to see to it that the United States' debt to its Native allies did not go entirely unpaid. In personally acknowledging "individual losses and services," Pickering certainly embodied the spirit that we honor on Veterans Day. Nov. 11, 2018, should not pass without mention of another American president, Woodrow Wilson. His big Nov. 11 took place exactly one hundred years ago Sunday, when the armistice ending World War I was signed. In Wilson's statement proclaiming Nov. 11 a federal holiday, he expressed his hope that Americans "will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service, and with gratitude for the victory ... because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of nations." A principal architect of the world order now under siege, Wilson identified the essence of American greatness as the sacrifice its citizens made to serve the higher ends of justice, which were sealed through diplomacy. Wilson did not have the Oneida Veterans Treaty or the Treaty of Canandaigua in mind. However, his sentiment drew directly upon the ideals of our first president, ideals which are passing through some of their darkest hours since Wilson wrote those words. Macron warns against nationalism as Trump, other leaders commemorate end of WWI Albany, N.Y. - Albany Episcopal Diocese Bishop Rev. William H. Love issued an edict Saturday banning the marriage of same-sex couples in the diocese's churches, writing in a statement that the church has been "hijacked by the 'Gay Rights Agenda,'" and that "Satan is having a heyday bringing division into the Church." Love's eight-page statement that accompanied his new pastoral directive comes three weeks before a resolution goes into effect that will allow same-sex marriages to be performed in Episcopal churches nationwide. That day, Dec. 2, is also the first day of Advent, a time observed in many Christian churches in the weeks before Christmas. Love in his statement recognized that relationships between those of the same sex have existed since before the time of Jesus Christ. But he cited portions of the Old and New Testaments to argue that God specifically designed marriage to be between a man and a woman, and said scripture directs that sexual relationships between same sex couples are "sinful and forbidden." He went on to write that while he believes those who support gay and lesbian members of the church are well intentioned, "they have been deceived into believing a lie that has been planted in the Church by the 'great deceiver' - Satan." The bishop wrote that the Episcopal Church's resolution "brings God's judgement and condemnation against The Episcopal Church." "Recent statistics show that The Episcopal Church is spiraling downward," Love wrote. "I can't help but believe that God has removed His blessing from this Church. Unless something changes, The Episcopal Church is going to die." Some local Episcopalians strongly disagreed with the Bishop's letter. While the letter was being read at St. Andrew's in Albany Sunday, some parishioners gathered on the church steps to ceremonially burn the letter, according to pictures and information provided about the event from a St. Andrew's parishioner. Richard Fay, an artist who lives in Brunswick and was raised Catholic, said he was initially drawn to the Episcopal Church because it kept the tradition of Mass but had more modern social views. He said the Bishop's views don't fit his own. "It's the 21st century. We have different views and different values than in Biblical times. Yes, scripture is important, but you have to interpret it based on what's going on," Fay said. "I think it's also a social issue. I think it's an issue of equality. I also think that the main core of Christianity should be love: love thy neighbor as thyself." Fay, who doesn't regularly attend a parish now, said he's seen this issue splitting the church in recent years - and it's making him rethink his involvement. "It's not making me completely reject the Episcopal church but making me second-guess going to an Episcopal Church in the Albany Diocese," he said. Rev. J. Nixon McMillan at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Albany declined to comment. Other local clergy could not be reached Sunday. In July, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church issued Resolution B012, a directive that does not make same-sex marriage part of the official theology of the church, but allows clergy to conduct same-sex marriage even if a local bishop disapproves by inviting another bishop to oversee the service so congregants can marry in their parish home. Love's pastoral directive Saturday says the trial rites authorized by Resolution B012 "shall not be used anywhere in the Diocese of Albany by diocesan clergy (canonically resident or licensed)." "The fact that some in today's sexually confused society (to include 5 of the 9 U.S. Supreme Court Justices in 2015) may have broadened their understanding of marriage to be more inclusive, allowing for same-sex marriages, doesn't mean that God, 'the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth' (BCP 96) has changed His mind," Love wrote. At the national meeting this past summer, Love voted against Resolution B012. Episcopalian leadership had already passed the resolution on a trial basis in 2015. But out of 101 dioceses, only eight did not comply -- the dioceses of Albany, Dallas, Florida, central Florida, North Dakota, Tennessee, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Springfield, Ill. Since then, five bishops from the original eight dioceses ultimately accepted the compromise of the B012 resolution. In September, more than 130 clergy members from the Albany Episcopal Diocese met in Greenwich to discuss their feelings about the resolution and what would happen next in the diocese. "It is not out of mean-spiritedness, hatred, bigotry, judgmentalism, or homophobia that I say this - but rather out of love - love for God and His Word; love for The Episcopal Church and wider Anglican Communion; love for each of you my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, especially love for those who are struggling with same-sex attractions," Love wrote. He also recognized that his stance has the potential to sew division. "There is no doubt The Episcopal Church and now the Diocese of Albany are in the midst of a huge storm that can rip us apart if we are not careful," Love wrote. "That is exactly what Satan wants. We don't have to play his game. If we focus on what divides us, we will be destroyed. If we focus on what unites us - our Lord Jesus Christ -- He will get us through to the other side. I pray the Lord will help us to see one another as He sees us; to love one another as He loves us; to forgive one another as He forgives us." -- By Lauren Stanforth and Mallory Moench, Times Union, Albany, N.Y. Officials are investigating a viral photo of Wisconsin high school students raising their arms in a Nazi salute. The controversial picture shows dozens of boys in formal wear, recently attending a junior prom for Baraboo High School. At least one boy flashed a "white power" symbol, resembling "OK," while most waved their hands in the "Sieg Heil" salute favored by Nazis, white nationalists, and white supremacists. "We even got the black kid to throw it up #barabooproud," the caption read. If anybody from Baraboo High School in Wisconsin can clue me in on why it appears the entire male class of 2018 is throwing up a Sig Heil during their prom photos - that would be great. h/t @CarlySidey pic.twitter.com/BL8lDVLMA4 Jules Suzdaltsev (@jules_su) November 12, 2018 NBC15 News reports the Baraboo School District has confirmed the boys in the photo are students from the Class of 2019 in the rural district, located about 115 miles west of Milwaukee. The district says it's investigating the incident, with assistance from the Baraboo Police Department. According to the Baraboo News-Republic, the image was first shared over the weekend on Twitter and Facebook accounts that are now private. Outrage ensued as the photo quickly went viral Sunday and Monday. "The photo of students posted to #BarabooProud is not reflective of the educational values and beliefs of the School District of Baraboo. The District will pursue any and all available and appropriate actions, including legal, to address," Baraboo School District Administrator Lori Mueller wrote on Twitter. Jordan Blue, one of the students pictured who didn't raise his arms, reportedly said in a statement that the photographer told them to do the Nazi salute. "I am the boy captured in the photo to the far right. I am clearly uncomfortable with what was happening," Blue said. "I couldn't leave the photo as it was taken within five seconds... I knew what my morals were and it was not to salute something I firmly didn't believe in." A reporter for The Young Turks series says other students and Baraboo alumni have come forward saying there's a history of hate speech at the school, using racial slurs like the N-word and praise for "white power." The Baraboo Police Department confirmed in a statement that officers are "aware of a controversial photo of a group of high school students that has been posted to social media" and are assisting the school with its investigation. It's unclear if any charges are expected. The photo of students posted to #BarabooProud is not reflective of the educational values and beliefs of the School District of Baraboo. We are investigating and will pursue any and all available and appropriate actions, including legal, to address. Baraboo Schools (@barabooSD) November 12, 2018 It is so hard to find words... This is why every single day we work hard to educate. We need to explain what is the danger of hateful ideology rising. Auschwitz with its gas chambers was at the very end of the long process of normalizing and accommodating hatred. https://t.co/13AzZaMGJR Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) November 12, 2018 The Rt. Honourable Emily Thornberrys resolute determination to conduct our interview while having a fag in an alley both surprised and amused me. Perhaps she wanted me to know she is down with the kids. Perhaps she was hoping I would write about how down-to-earth she is. Or maybe she was just gagging for a smoke. Either way, it certainly made our interview more memorable. I began by asking her about her views on Britains so-called special relationship with the US the subject of the Union debate in which Mrs Thornberry spoke after our interview, arguing in opposition to the motion The Special Relationship is Over. She told me in no uncertain terms: my view is that you stand up to bullies. Trump, of course, is the bully. And bully, without a doubt, is an apt description. As Mrs Thornberry stressed in the debate, Trump has humiliated May, who has tried in vain to forge a healthy, working relationship with the American president. He has no interest in seeking to establish a mutually beneficial trade deal with the UK. Instead, he is exploiting Britains post-Brexit desperation by trying to bully May into a trade deal which suits American interests at the expense of ours. Mrs Thornberry told the chamber during the debate that Trump is treating the presidency as some kind of act of arson and hes doing it willfully. I thought the imagery was fitting. Trump is destructive; his policies, his opinions, his tweets, his public orations serve only to aggravate, polarise and stoke tensions. As Mrs Thornberry put it, he doesnt care what the rest of the world thinks. But she did not suggest the answer is severing ties with America. Because then, she argued, Donald Trump will be able to embody America and we mustnt let him. She contended that as tempting as it is to cut ourselves off from the US, we should not give America the isolation which Trump wants his country to have. Yet, although she warns against cutting ties with America, she poured scorn over the notion that we will be able to forge a profitable, beneficial trade deal with the US or any other non-EU country after Brexit. She said, were fooling ourselves if we think we can go sailing off into the mid-Atlantic and rollick around the world making trade deals. Perhaps her cynicism is defensible. The Japanese Prime Minister has said that after Brexit, a deal with the EU will be more of a priority than one with the UK. India, similarly, has expressed little enthusiasm for a post-Brexit bilateral trade agreement with Britain. Meanwhile, Trump, with his usual eloquence and articulacy, claimed to be looking forward to a big and exciting trade deal with us but in whose interests and at what cost? Mrs Thornberry certainly doesnt think the answer is sucking it up and accepting whatever trade deal we can get. She argued we have done enough bowing and fawning to Trump. She is an advocate of remaining in the EU customs union, by which member nations adopt a common tariff regime. She asserted with conviction that we need to look after the economy and jobs and remember that nearly half our trade is with the EU. Mrs Thornberry makes it clear that in an ideal world with cooperative EU officials and a PM with a spine we would certainly remain in the customs union. This would please many, as we would no longer be under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, we would have more control over our borders, we would enjoy true sovereignty, and we would all live happily ever after. Unfortunately, this is the real world, and the EU hardly wants to make the process of Brexit as easy as possible, so that no other member state is led into temptation. When I asked Mrs Thornberry about Labours Brexit policy, she told me we leave, but we dont go far. But can we really cherry-pick? Based on evidence (i.e. the fact that negotiations have pretty much stalled), Im going to go with no. When asked for some reflections on the Brexit negotiations, she said, weve seen two years of a psychodrama where weve seen the Tories just fighting amongst themselves. True indeed. But I was sceptical when she told me, on the whole the Labour Party is pretty united over Brexit. Just last month, Corbyn faced an outcry from senior Labour figures after the leadership thwarted an attempt by activists to bring about a second referendum. Meanwhile, on foreign policy, Mrs Thornberry believes the biggest challenge Britain faces today is the decline of multilateralism. She argued that Britain is falling off the world stage as a result of Brexit and we will soon be forced to succumb to insularity and isolationism. Will Britain be able to maintain its status as a world power after Brexit? Will we be cut off from global trade once we leave the EU? Or will we succeed in sustaining the vitality of our economy by making profitable, dynamic trade deals with the rest of the world? Only time will tell. dailydriver Senior - BHPian Join Date: Feb 2017 Location: KA - IND Posts: 1,123 Thanked: 4,128 Times re: Davanagere (Karnataka): An offbeat & overlooked Heritage destination The erstwhile textile town often referred to as the Manchester of Karnataka. A place that is almost at the centre of the state and hence, according to many, the place fit to replace Bengaluru as the capital of the state. Well connected by road and rail; the abundant and economical travel options making the city a purchaser's paradise. Even today, there are villagers who join hands, hire a mini goods carrier and visit the markets to purchase a year's supply of grocery. The trip is of course not complete without a mandatory visit to one of the BSC textile outlets spread across the city. It would be a travesty not to mention food and Davanagere in the same breath and line. Although non vegetarians might find the city a little lacking in its offerings, it is indeed a paradise for vegetarians. Let's forget about the Benne Dosa offered by various Sagars and hotels; they are no longer what they used to be and therefore clearly overrated. Even the famous Kottureshwara hotel has a new clone just next to its outlet, with the taste of dosas and alu palya not much different. The food scene of Davanagere is perhaps a direct result as well as beneficiary of the numerous educational institutes that dot the town. This, combined with a large, daily floating population acts as a lifeline for the eateries. And as srishiva reminds us (at 10.30pm, with no means of procuring any of them!) Khara Mandakki, Masale Mandakki and Mirchi are the real energy boosters for tired bodies. Eating out is a major activity here; the presence of the fairer sex unaccompanied by the not so fairer ones at the hotels and snackeries being a singular character specific to this town. Davanagere is also famous for its semolina vermicelli and of course innumerable Khanavalis serving unlimited vegetarian meals. Sadly, even with crores of rupees being poured in to make it smart, the town is still trying hard to hold on to its past. Posh buildings housing branded shops are located on dusty roads; monstrous pigs lay claim to the same piece of pavement that you would be trying to walk on. For an auto enthusiast, Davanagere is remarkable for its affinity towards TATA cars and for the opportunity to experience the thrills of F1, Dakar Rally and Extreme Off Road Challenge - all while sitting inside an autorikshaw holding the roof rods in one hand and your dear life in the other. Such, dear friends, is the beauty of the land. On a serious note, if you are ever put up in Davanagere, wake up at 5AM and take a stroll through the private bus stand and reach the railway station. The flower market spread over the area is a photographer's wet dream. While there, don't miss that steamy hot plate of idli-vada sold in a bylane, so early in the morning. But if you are from the south and prefer to keep your tongue and its associates from the department of digestion happy, do remember to drink a tender coconut/day. It will keep you cool, while giving you the liberty to bite into that atrociously hot but extremely addictive Mirchi. In conclusion, it wouldn't be too far fetched to borrow the tagline of a FM radio station and say - in all its connotations - of Davanagere: Sakhath Hot Maga @smartcat, thank you for rekindling my memory with your report. Quote: smartcat Originally Posted by Just did a Google Image Search - this Mandakki looks like Churmuri ! Churmuri is Johnny English. Mandakki is, well, THE BOND . Ah, Davanagere!The erstwhile textile town often referred to as the Manchester of Karnataka.A place that is almost at the centre of the state and hence, according to many, the place fit to replace Bengaluru as the capital of the state.Well connected by road and rail; the abundant and economical travel options making the city a purchaser's paradise. Even today, there are villagers who join hands, hire a mini goods carrier and visit the markets to purchase a year's supply of grocery. The trip is of course not complete without a mandatory visit to one of the BSC textile outlets spread across the city.It would be a travesty not to mention food and Davanagere in the same breath and line. Although non vegetarians might find the city a little lacking in its offerings, it is indeed a paradise for vegetarians. Let's forget about theoffered by variousand hotels; they are no longer what they used to be and therefore clearly overrated. Even the famous Kottureshwara hotel has a new clone just next to its outlet, with the taste of dosas and alu palya not much different.The food scene of Davanagere is perhaps a direct result as well as beneficiary of the numerous educational institutes that dot the town. This, combined with a large, daily floating population acts as a lifeline for the eateries. And asreminds us (at 10.30pm, with no means of procuring any of them!) Khara Mandakki, Masale Mandakki and Mirchi are the real energy boosters for tired bodies.Eating out is a major activity here; the presence of the fairer sex unaccompanied by the not so fairer ones at the hotels and snackeries being a singular character specific to this town. Davanagere is also famous for its semolina vermicelli and of course innumerableserving unlimited vegetarian meals.Sadly, even with crores of rupees being poured in to make it smart, the town is still trying hard to hold on to its past. Posh buildings housing branded shops are located on dusty roads; monstrous pigs lay claim to the same piece of pavement that you would be trying to walk on.For an auto enthusiast, Davanagere is remarkable for its affinity towards TATA cars and for the opportunity to experience the thrills of F1, Dakar Rally and Extreme Off Road Challenge - all while sitting inside an autorikshaw holding the roof rods in one hand and your dear life in the other. Such, dear friends, is the beauty of the land.On a serious note, if you are ever put up in Davanagere, wake up at 5AM and take a stroll through the private bus stand and reach the railway station. The flower market spread over the area is a photographer's wet dream. While there, don't miss that steamy hot plate of idli-vada sold in a bylane, so early in the morning.But if you are from the south and prefer to keep your tongue and its associates from the department of digestion happy, do remember to drink a tender coconut/day. It will keep you cool, while giving you the liberty to bite into that atrociously hot but extremely addictiveIn conclusion, it wouldn't be too far fetched to borrow the tagline of a FM radio station and say - in all its connotations - of Davanagere:, thank you for rekindling my memory with your report.How wrong google is! It is like saying a cat is the same as a tiger because they both belong to the feline family.is Johnny English. Mandakki is, well, THE BOND Last edited by dailydriver : 11th November 2018 at 22:54 . The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports the first death in regard to an ongoing salmonella outbreak. The outbreak has been linked to contact with raw turkey. Outbreak Death On Thursday, the CDC announced a death in the state of California that is linked to the ongoing salmonella outbreak, which has already affected 35 states. The illnesses from the outbreak began in Nov. 20, 2017, and 74 more illnesses were reported from the previous update last July. That brings the total number of illnesses to 164, with 63 of the affected being hospitalized. Laboratory evidence shows that it is Salmonella Reading-contaminated raw turkey products from various sources that are making people ill, though so far no single supplier has been identified. Some possibly contaminated products include turkey patties, ground turkey, raw turkey pet food, and even in live turkeys, suggesting that the outbreak may be widespread in the industry. So far, the investigation on the outbreak is still ongoing. Consumer Advice In the United States, food handling errors and inadequate cooking are the most common causes of poultry-associated foodborne outbreaks. No recall has been made in relation to the current outbreak so far, but authorities are reminding consumers to be very careful when handling raw turkey products. When thawing, its important to either use the microwave or to do so in the refrigerator rather than on the kitchen counter, as leaving it at room temperature for over two hours may bring it to temperatures wherein bacteria can rapidly grow. When stuffing turkey, its important to stuff it just before cooking and to ensure that both the meat and the stuffing reaches a temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. As always, proper handwashing is very important when it comes to preventing the spread of disease. When it comes to leftovers, it is important to keep them at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or even colder so as to prevent bacteria such as Clostridium perfringens from growing in it. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A: Ive noticed before when I shadowed actual medical doctors, its very quick and more like an in-and-out kind of thing. With the audiologist she sat down and really took the time to get to know the history of what was going on and the patients background, and got to know him before reaching any conclusion. I noticed the same thing when shadowing other audiologists. A division of a Pennsylvania marijuana company has bought out the majority interest in Advanced Biomedics, Southern Universitys medical marijuana partner, with school officials heralding the deal as a way to right the ship after months of delays and infighting at the company. Ilera Holistic Healthcare on Monday paid Southern University a long-awaited $2.15 million the first of more than $6 million in payments the school is set to receive from Advanced Biomedics and promised to revive a company that made little progress toward beginning operations as one of Louisianas two licensed marijuana growers. Southern University gives ultimatum to marijuana growing partner, warning it could pick another vendor Southern University has given Advanced Biomedics until next Thursday to pay $2.15 million to the university and make progress on its medical m Now Advanced Biomedics must essentially start over in its effort to build a marijuana program, more than a year after Southern initially selected it. Southern attorney Winston Decuir Jr. said the few steps Advanced Biomedics had taken preliminary plans and designs will not be useful to the new owners. Officials with Ilera said they would purchase a 40-acre tract of land at 14200 Scenic Highway in north Baton Rouge, next to an existing Southern AgCenter facility, in the next two months. The firm said it will begin building a temporary facility shortly thereafter in an effort to have marijuana on the shelves in the early second quarter of 2019. Meanwhile, the firm plans to gain approval from state agriculture regulators to build a permanent facility at the site, a process that will likely take at least a year. Southern University President and Chancellor Ray Belton said he was disappointed with the progress that has been made so far under Advanced Biomedics previous majority owner, Carencro businessman Carrol Castille. Castille owned 68 percent of Advanced Biomedics. Despite months of lawsuits, threats of lawsuits and delays at Advanced Biomedics, Belton said the school decided not to seek out one of the other bidders that went through a competitive bid process last year because the process would have been mired in litigation. Advanced Biomedics, while not ranked first by a selection committee that evaluated applicants, offered the school the most money of any bidder. We would have literally had to start all over again, Belton said. Our best interest was to make this work. Southern University had issued Advanced Biomedics an ultimatum in October, threatening to pick another vendor unless the company paid it $2.15 million and made progress toward beginning operations. That came as another effort to buy Castilles ownership, by Lafayette investor Hunter Perret, fell apart. The company never closed on the property it identified as its growing site in Baker, and the new owners have selected a different piece of land. Before Ilera outlined its plans to get marijuana on the shelves at the Southern's board meeting, Iam Tucker, a representative of Southern Roots Therapeutics, one of the losing bidders a year ago, chastised the deal, as well as the lack of progress made so far. (Ilera) has basically circumvented the entire process that has occurred here, that every applicant had to go through, Tucker said. Jacob Irving, who was formerly involved with Southern Roots and who is now involved with the marijuana pharmacy industry, called the ordeal unethical and disappointing. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Board member Tony Clayton called Advanced Biomedics a train wreck until now, but insisted the Southern board stood up and protected the school as best it could. Its hard to fight against folks who dont have good intentions from the onset, Clayton said. A spokesman for Castille did not return a message seeking comment late Monday. The Southern University board of supervisors did not have the ability to approve or reject the sale of ownership, but did vote to amend the agreement it had in place with Advanced Biomedics to allow for the change in location and to require board approval for future changes in ownership of more than 50 percent. The board also voted in favor of a resolution recognizing Ilera Holistic Healthcare as Advanced Biomedics new majority owner. The vote on all three items was 11-0 with one abstention and four absent. The new company was formed several months ago when Pennsylvania-based marijuana grower and dispensary Ilera Healthcare merged with Washington, D.C., marijuana dispensary National Holistic Healing Center. The owners include Chanda Macias, owner of National Holistic Healing Center; her husband Michael Bobo; Ilera Healthcare CEO Gregory Rochlin; and several others Rochlin declined to identify. Macias previously tried to bid to be Southerns marijuana partner, but missed the deadline, she said. She has served as an informal adviser to the school on the program since. Rochlin said the merger is aimed at landing several marijuana licenses in other states, which he said the company is actively pursuing. The Southern operation will be the companys first. Ilera Healthcare holds one of Pennsylvanias five marijuana licenses, he said, allowing it to grow and dispense the product. Rochlin declined to specify how much the firm paid for Castilles ownership stake, citing a nondisclosure agreement. It is also unclear how much Advanced Biomedics new owners plan to invest in the project here, with Macias saying it is too early to benchmark that amount. Chad Bodin, a roughly 25 percent owner and former CEO of Advanced Biomedics, who previously feuded in court with Castille over the ownership of the firm, will remain an owner but not CEO, Rochlin said. Other minority owners will retain ownership interest, he said. While Advanced Biomedics has not made much progress, LSUs marijuana-growing partner, GB Sciences, has begun growing plants in a temporary pod in south Baton Rouge, and said it will have product on the shelves as early as the first quarter of next year. Southern board member Dr. Rani Whitfield, who said he is working to get his marijuana license from state medical regulators, said he was definitely upset with the way the partnership has progressed so far. It felt like we were kind of sold a dream at one time, he said following the vote. Now we have a team locked in place . Hopefully they can move forward and Ilera will live up to what they say theyre going to do. A one-minute ad touting the need for a new bridge over the Mississippi River started airing on local TV stations last week. State Sen. Rick Ward III, a Port Allen Republican who stars in the commercial, says he's trying to build awareness and public support ahead of plans from a five-parish transportation authority tasked with developing a construction plan and funding mechanism for a new bridge and supporting infrastructure. The ad, paid for through Ward's campaign fund, is getting praises from leaders in the parishes that have been directly impacted by the recent closure of the Sunshine Bridge, which sits on a sliver of St. James Parish land that bisects Ascension Parish. The leaders say the bridge's closure has exacerbated the region's traffic issues, making it all the more important to find a way to build a new bridge in the area. +2 Sunshine Bridge repairs on pace for January finish; special jacks expected to arrive next week A jacking system to realign the damaged Sunshine Bridge and facilitate its repair is under construction and expected to arrive at the St. Jame "Since everything that has happened with the Sunshine bridge, everyone's radar is up more than ever before," Ward said. "I wanted to take that and on election night bring awareness and capture everyone's attention to get as many people on board to realize what potential we have to do it." The ad is a precursor to the work that will be done by the Capital Region Infrastructure Authority, which was created this spring through legislation Ward sponsored. The authority is composed of appointees from East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Livingston and Ascension parishes, and the secretary of the state's Department of Transportation and Development. East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome attended the authority's first meeting a few months ago and says she plans to be an active participant in the conversation about a new bridge, a project she says would fall in line with her MoveBR 30-year, half-cent sales tax proposal. Broome intends to use revenue generated by the sales tax, up for voter consideration on Dec. 8, to pay for upgrades and improvements to roadways throughout the city-parish. A solution to Baton Rouge traffic woes? Regional leaders hope to come together for fix A bill gaining traction in the state Legislature aims to tackle the Baton Rouge metro areas traffic quandary by getting officials from the re "There's no denying a new bridge will be beneficial," she said. Some of the projects in MoveBR would end up helping the bridge if the structure is built closer to the southwest part of the parish, she added. In addition to devising how and where a new bridge could be built, Ward's bill also gives the authority the power to propose fees and/or taxes that would fund whatever traffic solutions the body proposes. Just a new bridge alone has a estimated price tag of at least $1 billion. That's where the ad comes in. Any funding measures would have to win voter approval. A few preliminary ideas include a public/private partnership that would allow the authority to build the bridge and pay for it through tolls at the structure or sales taxes across the five-parish region. "The PAC was set up for two reasons," Ward said. "To let people know if they vote on something, it's not another study to determine how to build a bridge. They're voting on how to finance its construction." Ward added, "And I wanted to do some outreach; educate people to say, 'Look, this is coming. And we want you to be prepared to vote on it.'" Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Can't see video below? Click here. The authority will start meeting on a more regular basis next year. Ward would like to see a proposal in front of voters by late 2019. Ward is listed as the CEO of the "New Bridge PAC" in contracts with two local TV stations on which the ad aired last week. According to copies of those contracts, Ward spent $8,000 to air the commercial four times on WBRZ-TV on election day, and another $10,000 for two ad spots on WAFB-TV last week. In the ad, Ward says the region's traffic gridlock is hurting the local economy, characterizing the daily congestion as a "grinding standstill." He then says: "There's another grinding standstill. The failure of government to address our largest, single problem," which he says is traffic. Besides getting the money to build a bridge, the other potential setback could be getting voters and the authority members to agree on where to put the bridge. Most agree it should be located somewhere south of the existing Mississippi River bridge along Interstate 10. But debate continues over whether it should be in West Baton Rouge or Iberville Parish. There have been several proposed locations made public in both parishes. "I don't want to hear nothing about a bridge in West Baton Rouge Parish," said J. Mitchell Ourso, Iberville's parish president. "Iberville deserves this bridge. We have all the industry and is producing the traffic that's causing this congestion." See where Iberville chief envisions new Mississippi River bridge, and why others object If Iberville Parish President J. Mitchell Ourso has a white whale, its in the form of a new Mississippi River bridge connecting his divided parish. West Baton Rouge Parish President Riley "Pee Wee" Berthelot is hoping the data from traffic flow studies will be the overarching factor in the bridge's location. That way, the region can avoid building a bridge that fails to solve the traffic problems. "Too far south, it's not going to do any good for the I-10 bridge," he said. Berthelot and Ourso both think Ward's plan to get out early with the campaign through the TV ad was a good move. But Ourso said he's heard from parish leaders in Livingston there could be some reluctance to get voter support there given the recent failure of a sales tax proposal from the Sheriff's Office to fund school resource officers and department operations. Livingston Parish President Layton Ricks did not return calls seeking comment. Ourso also has concerns any future tax proposal could have an uphill battle in East Baton Rouge Parish as well should voters approve Broome's MoveBR plan. "How could they pass another tax to support a new bridge?" Ourso said. Whether public school teachers walk off the job in the current school year depends on actions by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards and the Republican-controlled Legislature, the president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers said Monday. Larry Carter, who leads the group, said the LFT will ask the Legislature for an as yet unspecified teacher pay raise in 2019 and an increase of at least 2.75 percent in basic state aid for public schools. Carter told the Press Club of Baton Rouge how big a pay increase the organization will get behind depends on Louisiana's financial outlook. Earlier this year a survey by the LFT said 61 percent of teachers who responded said they would support a teacher walkout if they conclude state and local officials are not doing enough to address education shortcomings. 'Fed up': Louisiana teacher questionnaire finds support for mass protests, walkout; see full survey About 60 percent of teachers surveyed said they favor a statewide walkout or strike to land a "significant" pay raise, leaders of the Louisian Carter said that, in his visits around the state, some teachers and other school employees are ready to walk off the job today. "They are also fed up with a lack of resources, poor student discipline and a lack of parental involvement," he said of teachers. Carter said LFT members want to see if there are "true discussions" among state leaders about public education needs or "just rhetoric." "Those (walkout) actions do not start with Larry Carter," he said. "They start from teachers in the classroom." The state has 48,749 teachers, and the LFT has 20,000 members, including teachers and other school personnel. Average teacher pay in Louisiana is $49,745. The regional average, as defined by the Southern Regional Education Board, is $50,955. Carter said the state needs a 2-3 year plan on how to get teacher pay to the regional average and beyond. Edwards said on Sept. 8 that he will recommend that the Legislature approve teacher pay raises of at least $1,000. Pay boost for teachers to be pitched by Louisiana Gov. Edwards -- but others seeking more Amid teacher unrest and a widening pay gap with other states, Gov. John Bel Edwards plans to recommend an election-year salary increase of at Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The governor wants to boost salaries for cafeteria workers, school bus drivers and others by $500 annually. The pricetag would be $114 million per year. Carter said support workers last got a pay boost of $1,000 in 2008. "It is shameful that people we trust with the safety and welfare of our children often earn less than $20,000 per year for a full-time job," he said. The 2019 regular legislative sessions begins April 8 and ends June 6. Most districts finish their school year in late May, well before any resolution of teacher pay raises and other budget issues. Next year is also a gubernatorial election year, and the LFT has long backed Edwards. A teacher walkout led by one of his key allies would be awkward for the governor, which would appear to reduce chances for any such action. Carter said his group has had far greater access to Edwards than it did for former Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican who served two terms. But he said that, if LFT members see the need for a walkout next year, "I will walk out with them." The state's other teachers' union, the Louisiana Association of Educators, has called for teacher pay increases of at least $1,200 per year. Carter said next session will be different because state finances have been stabilized, possibly until 2025. He said both public schools and colleges and universities have suffered during repeated budget cuts since 2008. "Our economy is starting to roll again and we cannot continue to make the mistakes of the past," Carter said. Saying grace was the only difference from other family gatherings when a couple of dozen members of the Collins-Greenup clan gathered near Clinton on Tuesday to watch election returns. We added, Thank you Lord for whats about to happen,' Rickie Collins recalled as the family prayed over chicken and dirty rice. By the end of the evening, Gwen Collins-Greenup would surprise Louisianas political establishment to win a spot in the Dec. 8 runoff for the states third highest position. She bested seven of nine largely unknown and poorly funded candidates seeking to fill out the remaining year of Tom Schedlers term as secretary of state. Spending roughly a half-cent for each vote received, the Democrat got 289,097 votes to interim Secretary of State Kyle Ardoins 298,657 votes. He spent about 83 cents per vote received. +2 Interim Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin and Gwen Collins-Greenup headed to a run off The runoff to decide the next secretary of state will be between a Republican who spent about a quarter of a million dollars and a Democrat wh Four months ago, Collins-Greenup was the confidential assistant to Carlos Sam, superintendent of the East Feliciana Parish School Board. She surprised Sam by resigning to run for secretary of state. Sam said he was somewhat sanguine thinking his reserved but detail-oriented aide was embarking on a Quixotic quest. Come Tuesday night, that thought hadnt changed. I was in my bed looking at the results, and I was just flabbergasted, Sam said. Im still trying to figure things out. I mean, she didnt have any name recognition, even in this parish. At the Collins-Greenup home, the candidate was walking around the house when she heard cheers from the living room. A local news anchor had asked anyone who knew her to ask her to call the television station because they didnt have her number and Collins-Greenup was in the runoff, Rickie Collins recalled. She surprised a lot of people, but it didnt surprise me. I expected it, because, just the way she is, said Collins, an uncle. His brothers daughter, a reader who always had a book in her hand, is determined and has always studied what needs to be done, then methodically goes about accomplishing the task at hand. But it can be fairly said that Collins was one of the few thinking she would do so well. Her only previous political experience was 2015 when she lost large in a race for East Feliciana Parish clerk of court. She had appeared at only a few forums for secretary of state candidates. She wasnt invited to most because she had so little money about $2,100, including $900 fee to get her name on the ballot. The state Democratic Party had endorsed her Democratic rival, Baton Rouges Renee Fontenot Free, as had the unions and most local party organizations. Most of the attention was put on the six Republican candidates. Collins-Greenup said she traveled the state and spent time talking to voters one on one. If I was just jogging or something, Id stopped to talk with them, Collins-Greenup said. Her message was the same. We currently have nearly 3 million registered voters, but less than 15 percent of those voters are participating. That means about 450,000 people are making decisions for 4.6 million, Collins-Greenup said. We need a leader who will go to the schools, to the community, to talk about the importance of voting. Collins-Greenup holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in accounting from Liberty University, which was founded in Lynchburg, Virginia, by evangelist Jerry Falwell. She also has a Master of Divinity degree in professional ministries from Liberty University Baptist Theological Seminary. She graduated from the Southern University Law Center in May and will take the bar exam in February. In the meantime, she is a candidate for a master of tax law at Villanova University School of Law. The wife of Tarries Greenup and mother of two sons, both in college, Collins-Greenup has a long career as a notary public, title insurance producer and land abstractor. She has worked in the traffic section of the Baton Rouge City Court and was a deputy for the East Feliciana Parish Clerk of Court's Office. Vincent Williams went to Collins-Greenup when he was trying to set up the Community Feliciana Track and Field Association last yeat. He needed help putting together the paperwork to ensure a nonprofit status for the community group that gave students something to do over the summer. The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Gwen is the type if you give her task to do, shes going to do the research. She's going to find out exactly what needs to be done. And shes going to do it by the book, Williams said. If she told me to sign here and sign there, I did. Thats how much confidence I had in her. Shes very humble whenever she speaks. She talks about what she knows, not playful, but truthful, said Michael Bradford, a cousin. She understands how churches operate. Her biggest asset was her connection in the African-American church community. She is the daughter of the well-known pastor at Riverside Baptist Church, Terry Collins. She taught Bible School at a couple of churches, worked in youth ministries at others while remaining active in fathers church near Norwood. While the mainstream candidates focused on forums and events organized by Republicans, the dominant party in Louisiana, political observers overlooked the importance churches play in the lives of many African-Americans, said Albert Samuels, a political scientist at Southern University. The churches have always been a good organizing base, Samuels said. In addition to services, the churches hold many dinners and events that bring together people active in the community. Its an introduction from the pulpit or over a meal, where a candidate can stand out, particularly when other unknowns share the ballot, he said. How 'perfect storm' lead to Louisiana's unusual secretary of state runoff Jazz musicians often use recognizable melodies as their base from which they improvise their way to new interpretations. She barnstormed the state, speaking at events in small churches. For instance, one night in October she was at the pulpit with a few of her opponents in the sanctuary of Greenwell Springs Baptist Church in East Baton Rouge Parish. The next day, she drove 240 miles to appear as the only candidate at Homers Refreshing Springs Church of God in Christ at an event set up by the local branch of the NAACP. Collins-Greenup won both East Baton Rouge and Claiborne Parishes. Coming from a religiously observant family children were scolded for not tucking in their shirttails Collins-Greenup and her Republican rivals agreed on most social issues. They were of the same mind when it came to requiring voters to present a picture ID before casting ballots and opposing voters registering on Election Day. Both issues were politically divisive in secretary of state races in other states on Nov. 6. But where the Republican candidates in Louisiana warned of hordes of immigrants flooding the polls, a GOP talking point, Democrat Collins-Greenup was dismissive. Having handled elections as deputy clerk of court in East Feliciana Parish, Collins-Greenup said she couldnt fathom how those in the country illegally could get the identification necessary to allow them to vote. She and Ardoin also differ on purges of the voter registration rolls. An ideologically split 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld Ohio's controversial "use-it-or-lose-it" law that allows the state to strike voters from the registration rolls if they fail to return a mailed address confirmation form and don't vote for another four years, or two federal election cycles. Louisiana purges voter rolls, too, but Ardoin said this state's procedures differ from Ohios. We dont remove voters for inactivity, Ardoin said. If you get removed, its because your address cant be confirmed, so we simply put you on the inactive list and ask you to confirm it, which you can do so at the polling locations. We dont need to look at the problem but to look at the diagnosis for the problem, Collins-Greenup countered. When people move or are evicted, theyre not focusing on changing their addresses with the registrar of voters, she said. Outreach and education are necessary to remind voters to move updating their address higher on their to do lists, she said. Theres a disconnect in communication with the community, Collins-Greenup said. We need to see what we can do to fix that process to get them more engaged and to see what we need to get them to do to stay on the rolls. New Orleans has a wealth of bars of all types, offering everything from craft cocktails and piano music to shots and beer with burlesque shows A high-profile community champion is needed to unlock the apathy of most Brisbane residents towards their rivers, as mud from upstream areas continues to pose a major problem to the $7.56 billion tourism and business asset, Moreton Bay. On Monday, Griffith University professor Rod Connolly said strong leadership was needed to prevent sediment flowing downstream to Moreton Bay. Griffith University ecologist Professor Rod Connolly and Health Land and Water chief executive Julie McLellan. Credit:Tony Moore "When it enters Moreton Bay it smothers the corals, it smothers the seagrass, it harms the very habitats that provide the wonderful animals - the fish, the dugongs the turtles - that people like to see and people like to harvest," he said. "It is the generator for the whole tourism industry." The chilling moment a Victorian security guard was stabbed in the neck in Friday's fatal Bourke Street terror attack has been captured on CCTV. The harrowing CCTV footage shows the 24-year-old SecureCorp guard speaking into a two-way radio seconds before he walks out of the City Duty Free store and is confronted by a knife-wielding Hassan Khalif Shire Ali. Hassan Khalif Shire Ali lunges ath the security guard as he attempts to step out the duty-free store. Credit:Nine News The attack is believed to have happened moments after Somali-born Shire Ali, 30, set fire to a ute laden with gas cylinders in the centre of Melbourne and fatally stabbed Sisto Malaspina, the co-owner of beloved Melbourne restaurant Pellegrini's Espresso Bar. Australia has always been a trailblazer on workers rights and last week another significant leap forward was achieved. Food delivery platform Foodora admitted through its administrators that its delivery riders are employees not contractors and accepted the claims against it, amounting to more than $8 million in unpaid wages, superannuation and taxes. Never before has a major company in the gig economy acknowledged its workers are employees or that it owes them minimum pay or retirement contributions. Foodora has acknowledged its riders were employees. Credit:Jason South The admission of culpability by Foodora is an important step forward and it shows that companies are beginning to realise that they bear a responsibility for the people who work for them. But while this win is significant and will give succour to workers around the world, its long-term effects may be stymied. Winston Chen, holding the flag on right, is a member of Boy Scout Troop 81 in Naperville who earned the rank of Eagle Scout after completing a project to bring water to the village of Babakan Jati in Java, Indonesia. (Boy Scout Troop 81) The final word on footpath politesse (C8) goes to Geoff Booth of Coffs Harbour, who recalls that "the pedestrians keep left rule was supported in peak periods by a few nervous policewomen (a novelty at the time), who were ordered to look stern. The lucky ones also spent their shift sitting in cubicles watching for purse-snatchers, who would reach over the half-door to lift purses from the hook. I almost met my first wife there, but thats another story. Can't help thinking you were let off the hook, Geoff. The very thrifty Don Bain of Port Macquarie writes: "Our Woolies bakery is offering a Celebration chocolate cake at the 'Introductory Price' of $40, following which the 'Standard Shelf Price' will be ... $40. Ever the savvy shopper, I snapped up one at the 'Introductory Price.'" Seems a little half-baked. Max McKinnon of Forresters Beach thinks that one of the images in the Herald on November 9, depicting celebrations in Sydney at the end of World War I (pages 8 and 9), shows at the middle left, "almost certainly, the grinning face of a then 51-year-old Henry Lawson. Weve had a look and think its certainly possible. Of course, by 1918 he was doing it rather tough, with one timeline stating around this time he was often seen with his hat out at Circular Quay but it does place him in Sydney. Still on November 11, John Williamson of Tewantin (Qld) notes: "The Queensland RSL applied to have two-up approved for Remembrance Day. Making the application was chief executive Penny Wilson! Approval was granted." We thought it was a toss-up. Dave Davies of Drummoyne writes: "To escape those infernal reversing beepers (C8), Paul Gurr might like to move to South Korea where the majority of reversing beepers play Greensleeves (fair dinkum) rather than the mindless robotic beep we have here. The only downside to this is that this tune raises expectations of ice-cream." A woman who stole $49,500 from an asbestos charity by putting her own details on a cheque claimed the theft was a "matter of life and death" when police caught up with her. Catherine Koster, 53, worked for the Asbestos Diseases Foundation of Australia as an office manager from April 2017 to February 2018. Her duties included managing paperwork and paying bills for the organisation. Catherine Koster (left) has pleaded guilty to stealing $49,500 from her former employer, the Asbestos Diseases Foundation of Australia. In November 2017, Koster was given an invoice and told to pay for the charity's annual fundraising race day at Rosehill, which raises money for medical research and to support those living with asbestos-related diseases. She prepared a cheque, but instead of paying $49,500 to the Australian Turf Club for venue hire, she filled it out with her own details and deposited it at the ANZ bank at Westfield Parramatta. It was likely caused by exposure to asbestos at age 17, when he worked one summer in a brick kiln in his native Canada. Mrs Edwards said her husband, an environmentalist, firmly believed people should have the right to manage their own death. His research on the topic consumed his last months. Jessica and Jan Edwards voiced their frustration at Mr Edwards' death at a forum on end-of-life choices. Credit:Dean Sewell In his final weeks, he couldn't leave his bed and felt "overloaded" by his pain medication, which he felt worsened his physical and mental incapacity. It sent him into a downward spiral. "I remember the night we all went into a spiral. He couldn't shower himself, his sons had to give him a shower." Mrs Edwards said the pair's relationship had grown "stronger and deeper and softer" after her husband's diagnosis. His final three weeks "almost undid that". Loading "There was just so much anger and fear and pain and negativity. I know how soul-destroying it was for him to have to go through that for no good reason. "It just made it a really bad end." Mr Edwards had predicted his own struggle. In a video, filmed for the forum less than a month before he died, he said he'd been told his condition would "get worse and worse and worse". "I will slowly turn into a frail, pain-ridden person who has to be manhandled to the wash room and all of the things you have to do for someone who is totally incapable. "Surely I have the right to make my end as good as it can be." He died 26 days later, on February 16. He was 67. Euthanasia advocate Dr Rodney Symes joined health professionals and assisted dying advocates to address more than 400 people at the weekend forum, run by Dying with Dignity NSW and the Voluntary Euthanasia Party NSW. "Doctors, by and large, can recognise and understand physical suffering but I think they're very poor at recognising psychological and existential suffering," he said. NSW Nurses and Midwives Association president Coral Levett said it was "worth fighting for" provision of better end-of-life choices, including the option of voluntary assisted dying. "We need to ensure the right balance is achieved and all sides of the debate are well considered." Jessica and Jan Edwards were on the discussion panel with euthanasia advocate Dr Rodney Symes and other health professionals. It was moderated by assisted dying advocate Andrew Denton. Credit:Dean Sewell State MPs in NSW voted down a controversial bill to introduce voluntary assisted dying laws last November, while legislation that passed in Victoria will make it a reality in that state by mid-2019. Palliative Care Australia board chair Jane Fischer said it was important that communities talked about how to live well with a life-limiting illness, and how to approach death and dying in Australia. The Beaudesert-Boonah Road at Coulson in Queensland's Scenic Rim is closed as emergency services respond to a serious single-vehicle crash. Queensland Ambulance Service attended the crash just before 5am on Tuesday and assessed one patient but did not transport them to hospital. The crash occurred sometime on Tuesday morning. Credit:Police media. Police were called to the incident near the intersection of Ipswich-Boonah Road early on Tuesday morning to reports a vehicle had crashed into a tree. A Queensland Police spokesman said the exact time of the crash had not yet been determined and a member of the public had reported the crash just before 5am. The former head of safety at Dreamworld parent company Ardent Leisure says the safety database at the adventure park was difficult to use and not popular with staff. Angus Hutchings is the first Dreamworld official giving evidence at the resumption of the inquest into the deaths of four tourists on a ride at Australia's biggest theme park. Police and emergency crews outside Dreamworld after the accident on the Thunder River Rapids ride. Credit:Fairfax Media On Monday, Mr Hutchings told the inquest there was a safety database that recorded the park's safety risks, and actions that could be taken to reduce them but staff neglected to input information into it because the system was "archaic". Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, her brother Luke Dorsett and his partner Roozi Araghi died when two rafts on the Thunder River Rapids ride flipped and crashed into each other in October 2016. A mother of three murdered in her home by her partner told relatives in the days before her death that he was "uptight and agitated" and on the verge of a breakdown, court documents reveal. Daniel Eckersley stabbed Amanda Harris multiple times during an argument in their Cranbourne North home on July 7, and then lit a fire in the house and put their three children and the family's pet dog in his car and sped away. Amanda Harris' body was pulled from her burning Cranbourne North home. The documents show that Eckersley's hostile behaviour had caused a rift between Ms Harris and her family. An off-duty firefighter dragged the 36-year-old child care worker's body from the house but he and colleagues who arrived soon after pronounced her dead. Rodney and Maree Patterson at The Alfred Hospital on Saturday. A man who was stabbed in the head during the Bourke Street terror attack on Friday has given an emotional interview from his hospital bed, choking up as he revealed the ''long way to go'' towards recovery. Innocent bystander Rodney Patterson was exploring Melbourne on a trip from Launceston with his wife, Maree, on Friday when Hussein Khalif Shire Ali attacked. The 58-year-old received a knife wound to his head when he went to assist bystanders. Shire Ali was shot by police and later died in hospital. In an emotional interview with Launceston radio station LAFM on Friday morning, Mr Patterson said he had "a long way to go, both physically and mentally" in his recovery. It is highly misleading and counter-productive to frame Melbournes problems with crime as a problem with African-Australian communities, Australias new Race Discrimination Commissioner says. African leaders in Melbourne have said the community feels under siege amid politicians warning of Sudanese gangs and ongoing media coverage of crime committed by people of African appearance since the Moomba riot in 2016. In a copy of a speech, seen by The Age, Race Discrimination Commissioner Chin Tan said African-Australian communities continued to face racism in ways other communities might not. It is not in dispute that some young African-Australians are involved in crime, he said in the speech, which was to be delivered to the African Think Tank dinner on Monday night. Sarah* felt she couldn't get away from the man who raped her until she got away from Melbourne. She was attacked by Glenn Hartland, a man she met on Tinder, who had continued to pester her with text messages and phone calls after raping her. Tinder rapist Glenn Anthony Hartland. Credit:Adam Cooper Her move interstate felt like a new start but she found herself shaking and crying when she learnt that although Hartland had pleaded guilty in court to sexually attacking her and three other women, he got bail. Sarah now finds herself continually looking over her shoulder in fear, even interstate. A national strategy is needed to address food security, says Foodbank chief executive Brianna Casey, describing the government's current level of investment as "laughable" after it slashed funding for one of the charity's programs. The charity's Key Staples program, which makes sure essential supplies such as rice, bread and vegetables get to hungry people, has had its annual funding reduced from $750,000 to $427,000 with news of the cut coming just weeks before Christmas. Social Services Minister Paul Fletcher is considering transitional funding and has asked his department for "urgent advice" on its capacity to provide the funds, after Labor seized on the cuts as evidence the government was "mean and foolish". Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, with Foodbank chief executive Brianna Casey, has promised to restore the charity's funding. Credit:Stefan Postles "We have got a massive problem in this country, we are not doing enough," Ms Casey told reporters at the charity's warehouse in Melbourne on Monday. Certainly, we can at least take a little time to celebrate the proof that the system works; that we took the first step in righting our world; that we can undo some of the harm that would have befallen our children and grandchildren, resulting, for example, from Trump's denial of climate change and his withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. The economic viability of a multibillion-dollar infrastructure project supporting the Snowy 2.0 expansion should not be publicly tested because the project is nationally significant and the analysis might cause delays, Snowy Hydro says. Energy market experts have criticised the proposal, saying it would prevent vital scrutiny of the project and risks repeating the over-investment in "poles and wires" infrastructure that led to spiralling electricity prices. The Snowy Hydro expansion was a signature project of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, pictured here touring the facility. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The massive expansion of the iconic Snowy Hydro scheme was announced in April last year by then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who made it his signature project. It promises to make east coast energy supplies more reliable and affordable. Snowy 2.0 would pump water uphill into dams and release it at times of high electricity demand, acting as a giant battery and backing up intermittent energy produced by wind and solar. The country's biggest universities say they are "under assault" and have launched an extraordinary attack on the Morrison government over a fresh round of cuts to academic research. Vice-chancellors are furious about a $134 million raid on research funding to pay for student places at regional universities - as well as other Coalition measures in the works including a free speech blitz, a "national interest test" for research grants and a new tax on enrolments. "We are under assault on a number of different fronts on teaching and learning, on research and on funding," the head of the Group of Eight major universities, Vicki Thomson, told Fairfax Media. "You add all of those things together I think universities are in a very precarious position - more precarious than we have ever been." On Monday it emerged that $134 million being injected into regional universities would be raided from the Research Support Program, which funds researchers' salaries, laboratories and libraries. Victoria's biggest power providers have warned against a Coalition promise to underwrite a large new power station, arguing government intervention in the energy market could stifle private investment, with long-term consequences for customers. On Monday, the Coalition promised to build a new power station for the state using gas or coal to meet the electricity needs of government services, including hospitals and public transport while also shaving about $350 off the average annual household bill. Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has promised to release a tender for a 500-megawatt power station that could be built as early as 2021. Opposition Leader Matthew Guy. Credit:AAP Brendan McCarthy But the owners of the state's existing coal-fired power plants cautioned against the proposed government intervention, arguing it could lead them to invest less in their existing plants, which still provide the bulk of Victoria's power. Wayne LaPierre, chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association (NRA), speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Credit:Bloomberg "Being silenced is not acceptable," Sakran said in an interview, describing how he still keeps the bullet fragment that nearly killed him on his dresser. The NRA did not respond to a request for comment. Kathleen Bell, a physiatrist at the University of Texas who specialises in patient rehabilitation, said she was working on patient charts in her office overlooking the trauma center's heliport when she learned about the NRA tweet. She posted on behalf of patients who, she explained, face ongoing indignities and pain long after any public outrage has passed. "Let me mention lifetimes in wheelchairs with SCI [spinal cord injury]," Bell wrote, "useless arms from brachial plexus destruction, colostomies from belly destruction and years of dependence with TBI [traumatic brain injury]." Loading The NRA tweet was spurred by a position paper from the American College of Physicians posted on October 30 by the Annals of Internal Medicine and titled Reducing Firearm Injuries and Deaths in the United States. The ACP recommended "a public health approach to firearms-related violence and the prevention of firearm injuries and deaths," saying the medical profession has a "special responsibility" to speak out on the prevention of firearms-related injuries," and supporting "appropriate regulation of the purchase of legal firearms," among other measures. "The College acknowledges that any such regulations must be consistent with the Supreme Court ruling establishing that individual ownership of firearms is a constitutional right under the Second Amendment of the Bill of Right," the paper said. The NRA lashed out, first with a November 2 editorial, saying the ACP paper "reflects every anti-gunner's public policy wish list, save for the outsized role given to doctors" and accusing the group of being "only interested in pseudoscience 'evidence' that supports their preferred anti-gun policies." Then on November 7, just hours before 28-year-old former Marine Ian David Long launched his attack at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, the NRA put out its provocative tweet. "Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves." Not only did individual doctors respond in gruesome fury, but the Annals told the NRA to stay "out of the exam room" and invited doctors to sign onto a commitment to speak to patients about firearm ownership and safety whenever they see risk factors. "Evidence shows that your counsel could save a life," the publication tweeted. The Centres for Disease Control also published new data revealing that the death toll from gun violence has begun increasing in recent years after a brief lull. Mourners embrace during a vigil to remember victims of the Thousand Oaks shooting. Credit:AP Still, many doctors are keen to point out that they are not anti-gun. Or even anti-NRA. "Doctors are not at war with the NRA," said Heather Sher, a radiologist who has worked in Level 1 trauma centres for almost 17 years, and cared for patients with gunshot wounds from two separate mass shootings. Sher gained prominence after the Parkland shootings when she published an article in the Atlantic about the damage caused by high-velocity bullets from a semiautomatic rifle, which was unlike any handgun injury she had seen. "It is not an 'us versus them,' issue," Sher wrote in an email. "What we are truly asking for is a coming together of both sides to find a solution to this national health problem." Still, some doctors who were familiar with the world of guns, couldn't quell their upset. Westley Ohman, a vascular surgeon in St Louis, reset his password on Twitter after a nine-year hiatus. Loading "I fix blood vessels for a living," he tweeted. "When you work at a major trauma centre, that means fixing blood vessels shredded by bullets. My lane is paved by the broken bodies left behind by your products." But Ohman, who grew up among guns in Texas, said the response surprised him. It covered "the whole spectrum," he said and was "not nearly as black and white as I would have expected." Responsible gun owners, he said, are tired of the carnage, too. Richard Sidwell, a trauma surgeon in Des Moines and gun owner, joined the Twitter debate, arguing that his roles as NRA member and trauma surgeon "are NOT mutually exclusive." Some disagreed vehemently. In an interview, Sidwell said the divisiveness made it hard to find the common ground necessary for improving gun safety. "I am not anti-gun, I own firearms," Sidwell said. "I am anti-bullet hole." Sher, who initially tweeted her sorrow about the message the NRA had published, got together with a core group of colleagues later in the week and drafted a letter urging further research and inviting the NRA to join forces. In two days, she said, more than 23,000 doctors and other medical professionals have signed on. "It is in the NRA's best interest to help us be part of the solution," Sher said. 2016 Honda HR-V Receives Leasing Guide Pre-Owned Value Award - Includes Specs, Reviews, Comparisons, Prices Nov 12, 2018 - TORRANCE, Calif. The 2016 Honda HR-V has received a Pre-Owned Value Award (POVA) from ALG, which projects HR-V to have the lowest depreciation from two to five years of age in the mainstream subcompact utility vehicle category. Updated for the 2019 model year, all HR-V trims come with updated styling inside and out, and with new youthful Sport and sophisticated Touring trims added to the lineup. HR-V is now available with the Honda Sensing suite of advanced safety and driver-assitive technology, in addition to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The 2019 HR-V continues to feature Honda's exclusive 2nd-row Magic Seat, which allows for unparalleled flexibility for owners to maximize the 100.1 cubic feet of interior volume between passengers and cargo. To determine the POVA winner, ALG examined 28 mainstream and premium vehicle categories from the 2016 model year to project which vehicles will have the lowest depreciation during the period from 2018 to 2021. Eligibility for an overall brand award in either the Mainstream or Premium category requires a company to have vehicles in at least four unique segments. More Information For more in-depth information, plus video and high-resolution images, please visit Honda Buyers Guide . About Honda Honda offers a full line of reliable, fuel-efficient and fun-to-drive vehicles with advanced safety technologies sold through over 1,000 independent U.S. Honda dealers. The Honda lineup includes the Fit, Civic, Insight, Accord and Clarity series passenger cars, along with the HR-V, CR-V and Pilot sport utility vehicles, the Ridgeline pickup and the Odyssey minivan. Honda has been producing automobiles in America for more than 36 years and currently operates 19 major manufacturing facilities in North America. In 2017, more than 90 percent of all Honda brand vehicles sold in the U.S. were made in North America, using domestic and globally sourced parts. More Unbiased "Tell not Sell" Independent Honda Vehicle Research Information Than Anywhere! California wildfire. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Since last Thursday morning, a number of wildfires have ignited across California, scorching hundreds of thousands of acres and disrupting the lives of even more. Together, the fires are the most destructive and deadly in California history. In just the past few days, more than 65 people have died in the fires, and thousands of homes, belonging to working-class families in suburbs and major celebrities alike, have burned down. Below, heres everything to know about who the fire has impacted, how politicians are responding, and how you can help those affected by the fire. How many fires are there? There are three major fires ripping across the state: Woolsey, Hill, and Camp Fires. Scientists believe that as the temperatures increase every year as a result of climate change, dry areas become drier, and snow melts earlier in the spring. As a consequence, wildfire season gets longer and longer. In Southern California, the Woolsey Fire has spread to more than 98,000 acres across Los Angeles and Ventura since it was sparked south of Simi Valley on Thursday afternoon. The fire has forced more than 200,000 people to evacuate, the Los Angeles Times reports, and has scorched nearly 435 structures. As of Thursday morning, the fire is only 52 percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Also in Ventura county is the Hill Fire, which has spanned over 4,500 acres. As of Tuesday morning, the Hill fire was 90 percent contained. Up north, near the cities of Chico and Paradise, is the Camp Fire, which is the most destructive and deadly in California history. Since it stared early last Thursday morning, more than 50,000 people have evacuated their home. Per the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the fire has burned 141,000 acres and destroyed more than 10,300 homes, NBC reports. As of Thursday evening, the fire was 40 percent contained. On Monday morning, the Los Angeles Times reports that two more small fires broke out in Ventura County. How many people have been affected? In total, more than 300,000 people have evacuated their homes, and at least 66 people have died in the fires (63 in the Camp fire and three in the Woolsey fire). There are also more than 600 people unaccounted for in the region scorched by the Camp Fire. What celebrities have lost homes? Gerard Butler, Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, and Neil Young are among those whose houses were destroyed by the fires; many took to social media to support firefighters and encourage others to do so as well. There are also a number of celebrities, including Kim Kardashian West and Lady Gaga, who have had to evacuate their homes. Completely devestated by the fires affecting my community. I am one of the lucky ones. My animals and LOVE OF MY LIFE made it out safely & thats all that matters right now. My house no longer stands but the memories shared with family & friends stand strong. I am grateful for Miley Ray Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) November 12, 2018 Returned to my house in Malibu after evacuating. Heartbreaking time across California. Inspired as ever by the courage, spirit and sacrifice of firefighters. Thank you @LAFD. If you can, support these brave men and women at https://t.co/ei7c7F7cZx. pic.twitter.com/AcBcLtKmDU Gerard Butler (@GerardButler) November 11, 2018 What has the official response been like? California governor Jerry Brown emphasized the role of climate change in wildfires, which climate scientists say now lack seasonality. (With an increase in average temperature, fire season is getting increasingly long.) This is not the new normal, this is the new abnormal, Brown said. The chickens are coming home to roost, this is real here. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby echoed Browns message, saying, As evident by the Camp Fire in Northern California, which is larger than this, more structures have been lost than this, more lives have been lost, its evident from that situation statewide that were in climate change and its going to be here for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, President Trump condemned Californias forest management instead of offering his condolences to residents of the state, and even went so far as to threaten to withhold federal payments. There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly fires in California except that forest management is so poor, he tweeted on Saturday. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments! There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018 This claim is entirely unfounded, as many California politicians and firefighters reminded Trump. Dear @realDonaldTrump: What is wrong with you? Representative Ted Lieu tweeted. Disaster victims deserve help & sympathy. Oh, and guess who owns much of the forest land in CA? Your federal agencies. CA only owns 2%. Guess who cut funding to forest management in the budget? YOU DID. Dear @realDonaldTrump: What is wrong with you? Disaster victims deserve help & sympathy. Oh, and guess who owns much of the forest land in CA? Your federal agencies. CA only owns 2%. Guess who cut funding to forest management in the budget? YOU DID.#SaturdayMorning Thoughts https://t.co/Es9oAOhQQc Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 10, 2018 The Pasadena Firefighters Association also disputed Trumps claim, tweeting, The fires in So. Cal are urban interface fires and have NOTHING to do with forest management. Mr. President, with all due respect, you are wrong. The fires in So. Cal are urban interface fires and have NOTHING to do with forest management. Come to SoCal and learn the facts & help the victims. Scott Austin, Pres IAFF 809. @IAFFNewsDesk https://t.co/d3jY0SeosF Pasadena Fire Assn. (@PFA809) November 10, 2018 How can you help? There area number of organizations you can donate to: the California Community Foundations Wildfire Relief Fund, which rebuilds homes and provides financial and mental-health help to those affected by wildfires; the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, which is raising money for low-income residents affected by the fires in Southern California; and Enloe Medical Center, a hospital in Chico, a site affected by the Camp Fire, which is accepting donations to help displaced families. Or, if youre in the Los Angeles area, the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control is asking people to visit an animal care center to adopt a displaced pet. (The Agoura Animal Care Center was evacuated but other centers remain open.) The energy in this place is quite amazing, said Michael Maguire, Union Ridge School District 86 superintendent. Todays ceremony is but a small token of our gratitude, appreciation and admiration. Our students are afforded the opportunity to be in the presence of true American heroes. 2001 Cold Case Killing of Florida Student Cracked Due to DNA, Database: Police A man was arrested in the 2001 killing of a 25-year-old University of Central Florida student after police said he was identified through a genealogy database. Authorities arrested Benjamin Holmes in the killing of Christine Franke, who was killed in her Orlando apartment in October 2001, said Orlando police last week, ABC News reported. I honestly never thought they would find him, her mother, Tina Franke, said on Nov. 9. This is such a happy day for us, Franke said and added she was overwhelmingly grateful for the police investigators who never gave up on my daughters case. Holmes was identified after the Orlando Police Department sent DNA samples to Parabon Nanolabs to create a composite of what Frankes murderer may look like. We knew everything about his genetic make-up, but we did not know his name, Detective Michael Fields said at a press conference, Fox News reported. Police sent the DNA to Gedmatch, a public genealogy database, and they got a match. Three of Holmes family members had submitted their DNA to the database. We went out, we interviewed family members. We received DNA samples to compare against the killers DNA through kinship testing, Fields told Fox. Through this testing we were able to shop the kinship relationship between the killer and other family members. We eliminated most of the family using DNA genealogy and narrowed down to Holmes and his brother. Officials then followed Holmes and watched him discard a beer can and cigar. DNA samples found on those items were an exact match to the DNA found in Frankes apartment 17 years ago. Holmes had prior arrests on other charges. Holmes denied killing Franke, and hes being held without bond at the Orange County Jail, according to reports. Pieces of mulched corn stalks fly through the air as a crop cutter mows down the remnants of a drought-ravaged crop to sell as livestock feed on Aug. 22, 2012 in Wiley, Colo. (John Moore/Getty Images) Agribusiness Giant ADM Made Buyout Approach to Argentinas Molinos Sources LONDON/BUENOS AIRES, ArgentinaTop U.S. grain merchant Archer Daniels Midland Co. has approached Argentine soy crusher Molinos Agro about buying the companys livestock feed and soyoil manufacturing plant, and talks may continue, three sources said. Molinos and other Argentine soy crushers have been pummeled by fallout from the U.S.-China trade policy war which has given U.S. crushers a competitive advantage. The discussions began last year and then stalled over the price that ADM would pay for Molinos, a Buenos Aires-based industry source with knowledge of the situation told Reuters. ADM declined to comment. A spokesman for the Perez Companc business group, which controls Molinos Agro, said the company had been approached several times by potential buyers. Without mentioning ADM in particular, the spokesman said: the offers were rejected. It was unclear how much Molinos, controlled by the Perez Companc business group, was valued at during the negotiations. ADM backed off because of the asking price, the Buenos Aires-based industry source said. There were differences in the valuation of the company. But it is logical that ADM could be back knocking on the door of Molinos. The Argentine company reported 665.9 million pesos ($18.5 million) in net earnings for the April through September period. Company results could be pressured by tensions over global trade policy in the months ahead, the source said. Next year will be a great year for buying soy crushing companies in Argentina, and a bad year for selling them, the source added. Argentine crushers are working at about half capacity while U.S. crushers are reaping the benefits of low soy prices after China slapped a 25-percent import tariff on U.S. beans. The Perez Companc group has taken a conservative stance toward ADMs overtures and has shown no eagerness to sell, the source said. Two separate international industry sources with knowledge of the situation said exploratory talks between ADM and Molinos had taken place this year. Argentina is a key focus for ADM and they need assets there, one said. ADM will seek to take advantage of its strong position by taking over a major Argentine crushing operation that is being squeezed by the trade war, another added. An ADM-Molinos combination would be in line with recent consolidation of the sector which has wrestled with a global oversupply of grains and oilseeds. The escalating trade war between the U.S. and China has reordered trade flows across the global grains sector, affecting companies like ADM, Bunge, Cargill Inc. and Louis Dreyfus Co., which together are known as the ABCDs and dominate the industry. The trade policy dispute between the worlds two largest economies has driven down U.S. soybean prices, which in turn has helped fuel profits for U.S. soybean processors. ADM reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit last week, cashing in on strong oilseed crushing margins. Crushing Capacity ADM is the only one of the ABCDs that has no crushing capacity in Argentina. The companys chief financial offer Ray Young said last week the group may look at mergers and acquisitions in general if a deal made sense. ADM earlier this year made a takeover approach for Bunge. Crushing plants that dot the banks of the Parana River, Argentinas main grains thoroughfare, are seeking to revive their business with a deal that would permit them for the first time to export soymeal livestock feed to China. China generally imports beans to be crushed on the mainland, but with trade tension rising with Washington, Beijing may want to lock in alternative supplies. The U.S.-China conflict, which has shifted global commodity trade routes and distorted prices, is not the only factor ailing Argentine crushers. Earlier this year the sector was hit by a drought on the Pampas farm belt that shriveled soybean supplies. But over the long-term, with demand growing for soymeal feed needed for Chinas massive pork sector, soy crushing along the Parana may thrive again. Argentina is the worlds top exporter of soymeal and soyoil, used for cooking and making biodiesel. The nations massive soy crushers and grains elevators are sandwiched between the Pampas and the deeply dredged Parana. The set-up offers logistical advantages over main competitors Brazil and the United States, where moving grains involves more costly ground transportation and loading products on and off barges. Molinos was formed in 1902 as a unit of Bunge. It was sold to the Perez Companc group in 1999. The companys main crushing facility is in San Lorenzo, on the Parana. It has a nominal crushing capacity of 20,000 tonnes of soy per day. By Hugh Bronstein & Jonathan Saul Alleged Child Abuser Killed in Texas Prison: Reports Watch: Traffic stop suspect shoots at officers in Colorado A Texas man who was in jail for allegedly abusing a dozen children was killed by another inmate, according to reports. Don Simpson, 76, was beaten to death in the Tarrant County Jail, allegedly by David Faustino Flores, 42, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Simpson owned a childrens train and track station called Mr. Dons Whistle Stop that he operated in his backyard, the paper reported. After several decades of operating the childrens train station, he was accused of molesting a dozen children in 2007. His trial, however, was delayed for years after a judge sent him for a psychiatric evaluation. He was then confined in a Texas mental hospital and was deemed incompetent to stand trial. We now know the name of the Tarrant County Jail inmate accused of killing alleged child molester Don Simpson. Officials say David Faustino Flores, 42, was arraigned Wed. on a murder charge. https://t.co/CVsWFIE3cu Deanna Boyd (@deannaboyd) November 8, 2018 WFAA reported that police said Simpson had admitted to abusing young children on multiple occasions. Simpson was deemed competent in November 2018 for trial and was transferred from a mental hospital to the Tarrant County facility. He was recently found competent and returned, Sam Jordan, a spokeswoman for the Tarrant County district attorneys office, told the Star-Telegram. Texas Rangers officials said Simpson was attacked in the jail at 2:20 a.m. and was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later. The paper said he died of blunt-force trauma. Before he allegedly beat Simpson to death in jail, Flores was booked into the Tarrant County Jail on Oct. 8, charged with injuring the elderly. He was accused of striking an elderly man on Oct. 7. An Assessment of Chinas Experimental Aircraft and UAVs at the 12th Zhuhai Airshow Airshow Chinathe biannual exhibition held in Zhuhai city where China displays its latest tactical weaponswas held this year from Nov. 6 to 11. While Chinese reports said the show faced some financial constraints, it offered a host of new aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems, which are the focus of this first article in a new four-part series. Since 1996, China has hosted the show, also called the Zhuhai Airshow at the Zhuhai Jinwan Airport in the southern province of Guangdong. In 2014, the air and space technology show expanded to include a large display dedicated to ground force systems. While the 12th Zhuhai Airshow features weapons similar to what is used by Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), most systems on display are unused. This stems from reforms to PLA logistics implemented in 1998 that subsidized competing companies instead of forcing mergers, resulting in great redundancy in Chinas weapon development sector. It is often difficult to get useful data from company representatives beyond the wall displays and brochures, despite the many systems on display. There are also full-scale models, but they may not represent all weapon system features. Chinese Aeroengine Progress One of the PLAs perennial Achilles heels has been its inability to develop and produce powerful and reliable indigenous large turbofan engines for military and civil aircraft. But one of the highlights of the 12th Zhuhai show was the first appearance of a Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) J-10B fighter modified with a Chinese-designed, 13-ton thrust Shenyang-Liming WS-10BC turbofan, with an indigenous thrust vector control (TVC) system. There is a good chance China employed Russian consultants, as the first indications of this TVC system that emerged in early 2014 showed the influence of recent Russian TVC designs employing TVC petals with a pivot system. Demonstrated in limited use on U.S. and Russian fighters since the mid-1990s, TVC enables gravity-defying post-stall maneuvers. But it remains to be seen whether this engine will come to equip the PLA Air Forces (PLAAF) newly produced J-10, or Shenyang Aircraft Corp.s J-16 fourth-plus generation fighter. Although such supermaneuverability is useful for close combat, it is expensive and can be negated by current, more maneuverable, all-aspect fifth-generation, imaging-infrared (IIR) guided air-to-air missiles (AAMs). Nevertheless, the modified J-10Bs appearance signifies growing Chinese confidence in their turbofan technology. Chengdu J-20 Fifth Generation Fighter Shows Its Teeth CACs J-20 fifth-generation fighter made its second appearance at Zhuhai, but for the first time exposed its internal weapons bays to show it can carry up to four 200-kilometer range PL-15 AAMs and two 20-plus kilometer range IIR guided PL-10 AAMs. The PL-15 very likely outranges the Raytheon AIM-120C, the most numerous medium-range AAM in U.S. service. A no-show was the J-20s intended main engine, the WS-15, a reported 15-to-18-ton thrust turbofan, which the South China Morning Post reported was due to its many development problems. Previous informal Chinese reports have noted the PLA would first acquire about 100 J-20s with a better version of the less powerful WS-10A, and then about 300 more WS-15 powered versions. At the Zhuhai show, former J-20 chief designer Yang Wei hinted strongly that the WS-15 on the J-20 will have a TVC system. With an estimated 1,000-kilometer (approx. 621 miles) combat radius, the J-20 can attack U.S. and Japanese fighters beyond the Ryukyu Island Chain. The U.S. Air Force now has less than 180 of its fifth-generation Lockheed-Martin F-22A fighters. China Hints at Sixth Generation Fighter Like the United States, United Kingdom, and Russia, China is developing a next-generation, or sixth-generation, combat aircraft. During a mid-2017 conference appearance, Yang Wei, likely the sixth-generation fighters lead designer for the Aviation Industries Corporation of China (AVIC), stated that China was developing its next-generation fighter and that it would feature a science fiction like design, have advanced data links to enable cooperation with other platforms, and make use of new artificial intelligence (AI) technology. At Zhuhai, an AVIC video showed the J-20 and a concept sixth-generation fighter cooperating with a swarm of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) launched from a Xian Aircraft Corporation Y-20 heavy transport. The United States and UKs sixth-generation fighters are expected to have the same capability. The AVIC video showed that Chinas sixth-generation design will not use vertical stabilizers and will be highly stealthy, as are U.S. and British concepts. The U.S. and Chinese sixth-generation fighters may emerge close to the same time, in the early-to-mid-2030s. New Flying Wing UCAVs China now has perhaps the worlds largest and most innovative unmanned aircraft development sector. A significant revelation for the Zhuhai show was the emergence of multiple flying wing UCAVs, with an AVIC video hinting at the development of a large flying wing UCAV for future PLA Navy aircraft carriers. Though expected to fly for the first time in 2019, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) displayed a model of its Rainbow-7 (CH-7) cranked delta flying wing UCAV. With a two-ton weapons payload, the CH-7 is expected to have an endurance of 12 hours and to be highly stealthy. The competing China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) displayed a model of its Skyhawk flying wing UCAV, with a more blended fuselage area and wing, but did not release any performance data. On the flight line was a model of another cranked delta flying wing UCAV from AVIC. It is possible this design, which is closer to that of the Northrop-Grumman X47B carrier UCAV test aircraft, may come from the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation. At Zhuhai, an AVIC video showed a much larger and twin-engine UCAV closer in configuration to this model operating from a Chinese aircraft carrier. In addition, a division of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) revealed its HK-5000G, a smaller straight-wing, turbofan-powered UCAV designed specifically for aircraft carrier operations. New Cargo UAVs New private company entrants into Chinas UAV sector teamed up with innovative Chinese cargo airlines hold the potential of giving the PLA the worlds first auxiliary force of large, unmanned, logistic support aircraft. New Chinese cargo airline S7 is an investor in the Tengoen Corp.s plans to build a large 20-ton payload capable UAV. At Zhuhai, Tengoenfor the first timedisplayed a model of its TC twin-engine, twin-boom UAV configured to carry a large cargo pod or other pods containing weapons, electronic warfare, or communication payloads, or a large airborne warning and control system (AWACS) radar. Tengoen has the ambition to build its larger TD UAV, powered by four or eight turbofan engines, carrying a 20-ton payload pod. A new company, ZT Guide Control, introduced its FL-2 UAV capable of carrying up to six tons a range of 7,000 kilometers (approx. 4,349 miles). As all Chinese airlines are integrated into militia support units for the PLA Air Force, it follows that future UAV cargo airlines would also support PLA domestic and international military operations. Final Comments Financial glitches notwithstanding, the 12th Zhuhai Airshow was full of indications that Chinas aircraft sector is rapidly developing modern combat aircraft and new unmanned aircraft. The quick appearance of the J-10 modified with thrust vector control (TVC) shows Chinese confidence in their WS-10 Taihang turbofan. While the more powerful WS-15 did not appear, it is under development and eventually will power a version of the J-20 fifth-generation fighter. The decision to reveal the J-20s weapons capabilities is a reminder that China intends to contest control of the air very far from its shores, a real threat to Taiwan which lacks a fifth-generation fighter. Chinas rapid development of new UCAVs will place even greater pressure on the defenses of its democratic neighbors such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines. China also has a clear ambition to place large UCAVs aboard aircraft carriers as part of a diverse air wing. But it should not be discounted that China may also develop aircraft carriers with only unmanned aircraft. Rick Fisher is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center and author of Chinas Military Modernization: Building for Regional and Global Reach. Authorities Search for Missing in Wind-Whipped California Wildfires MALIBU, Calif.Authorities searched on Nov. 12 for more than 200 people unaccounted for in one of the wildfires rampaging through parts of California, voicing concern about a possible rising death toll, as gusty, dry winds spurred the spreading flames. The raging blaze in northern California known as the Camp Fire, the states most destructive on record, had left at least 228 people missing as of early Nov. 12, according to Kory Honea, sheriff of Butte County, site of the fire. That fire and one in southern California called the Woolsey Fire have killed at least 31 people. The blazes left behind scenes of utter ruin, with homes and businesses reduced to charred wreckage and the winds also spreading large amounts of ash. Both fires have been whipped up by hot dry winds. Winds of up to 40 miles per hour were expected to continue in southern California through Nov. 13, heightening the risk of fresh blazes ignited by scattered embers, while the winds were forecast to begin diminishing later on Nov. 11 at the site of the Camp Fire. The wildfires flared in two new locations on the morning of Nov. 11 in southern California, officials said. The fires have displaced more than 224,000 people. About 8,000 firefighters using fire fighting equipment including helicopters and air tankers were battling the flames, with assistance coming from out of state. Paradise Lost The Camp Fire, 40 miles north of Sacramento, burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in the town of Paradise, more structures than any other wildfire recorded in California. The fire had scorched more than 113,000 acres and was 25 percent contained, officials said on Nov. 11. Its death toll of 29 equals that of the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, the deadliest wildfire on record in California. The blaze has probably caused between $2 billion and $4 billion in insured property damage, insurance company Morgan Stanley estimated in a report Nov. 12. Speaking on CNN, Honea said while he holds out hope that many people listed as missing will turn up safe, given what weve dealt with so far with casualties as a result of this fire, I have concerns that it (the death toll) will rise. In southern California, the Woolsey Fire had burned more than 91,000 acres and was 20 percent contained, with 370 structures destroyed, officials said. The fire had forced authorities to issue evacuation orders for a quarter million people in Ventura and Los Angeles counties and beachside communities including the Malibu beach colony, home to many celebrities. At least two people have died in the Woolsey Fire, which is 20 miles long and 14 miles wide, threatening 57,000 structures, officials said. These are extreme conditions. If theres a fire in your neighborhood, dont wait for an evacuation order, leave, Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Daryl Osby told a news conference. Malibu resident Tony Haynes described how strong winds brought the fire through his neighborhood during the weekend, with the sky growing dark, saying there was so much smoke he put on his scuba-diving tank to breathe. Haynes said his home survived. It all came down to luck and a whole lot of buckets of water, he told KTLA 5. Local residents were despondent over the fire damage. Its not the house, because you can rebuild. But its what is inside the house. Its all gone, Malibu resident Marcella Shirk, 82, told KABC-TV. And thats what hurts, those kinds of things hurt, because you cant replace that. California utility stocks plummeted for a second trading day on Nov. 12. Shares of PG&E Corp, which operates in northern California, dropped as much as 16 percent, bringing its decline over two sessions to 29 percent, equivalent to $8 billion. Edison International, owner of Southern California Edison Company, slumped 11 percent, leaving its stock market value $5 billion lower since Nov. 8, when the fires broke out. President Donald Trump sent a message of support everyone battling the fire. The California Fire Fighters, FEMA and First Responders are amazing and very brave, Trump wrote on Twitter. Thank you and God Bless you all! By Eric Thayer. Epoch Times staff writer Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report. Broward Election Chief Brenda Snipes Likely to Be Ousted: Report Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes is likely to be ousted by either Florida Gov. Rick Scott or his likely successor, Ron DeSantis, amid statewide recounts for the Senate, governor, and agriculture commission races for last weeks midterm elections. Snipes, a controversial figure in Florida, is losing support from fellow Democrats and faces the increasing likelihood of an embarrassing suspension from Scott or DeSantis, Politico reported, citing unnamed sources. The report didnt say when it may happen. This is not just the most troubled elections office in the state, its the most troubled elections office in the nation, said Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican, according to the website. He said she should be removed from office immediately after the recounts are finished. She has shown shes incapable of conducting a large and important election in a way that inspires public confidence and trust, Rubio told Politico. Shes been found to have destroyed ballots, in violation of the law. Opened absentee ballots early, in violation of the law. Misprinted ballots that have gone out. Snipes attorney, Burnadette Norris-Weeks, told the website that the attacks are politically motivated. Political gamesmanship at its best, Norris-Weeks said. The Broward County and Palm Beach County Supervisors of Elections (and the canvassing boards for both counties) have done nothing more than count all votes as required by law. Ridiculous! However, shes been the subject in previous elections. In 2018, a judge ruled that Snipes destroyed ballots from a 2016 Congressional race too quickly. She has had a horrible history and all of a sudden theyre finding votes out of nowhere, President Donald Trump said of Snipes on Nov. 9, Newsmax reported. The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night, Trump also tweeted Nov. 12 The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018 Scott also has accused Snipes of being unwilling to disclose records revealing how many electors voted, how many ballots have been canvassed and how many ballots remain to be canvassed. He said that the uncertainty raises substantial concerns about the validity of the election process. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush also called for Snipes resignation. There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians confidence in our electoral process. Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts, Bush wrote. Trucks move shipping containers in the container pool of a seaport in Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong Province on July 1, 2015. (Chinatopix via AP) Chinese City Reliant on US Trade Fires Senior Official for Faking Export Data BEIJINGA senior official at the local commerce department of one of Chinas most U.S.-trade dependent cities was fired for inflating export figures, as part of a wider government crackdown on falsification of economic data that began last year. Liu Yuhong abused his power by falsifying export data when he was the vice director of Zhongshans commerce department, according to a statement on the website of the citys anti-graft watchdog. The statement didnt specify the time period in which the data was falsified. Liu, who served as vice head of the department between August 2014 and December 2017, was moved to another role within the department in December last year, according to the Nov. 9 statement. Exports from Zhongshan, one of the most trade-reliant cities in Chinas export powerhouse Guangdong Province, plunged almost 20 percent for the first three quarters this year. That compared with a 0.4 percent gain for the whole of Guangdong. The United States has levied additional duties of 10 percent to 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese goods this year as punishment for what it calls the countrys unfair trade practices; the 10 percent tariffs are set to rise to 25 percent in January. More than 70 percent of the exports from Zhongshan are machinery thats on the U.S. tariff list. On the national level, exports have been particularly robust as firms keep rushing out shipments to beat the U.S. tariffs that are due to kick in at the start of the new year. But analysts warn shipments could fall sharply early next year if the U.S. follows through on higher duties. Factory surveys have shown foreign orders for Chinese goods have been shrinking for several months in a row. The value of export orders to the United States signed at Chinas largest trade fair that ended last week dropped 30.3 percent on the year. By Stella Qiu & Ryan Woo A Smokey Bear sign is seen along PCH as smoke from the Woosley Fire is seen as it approaches Malibu, California, U.S. November 9, 2018. (Gene Blevins/Reuters) Death Toll Rises to 23 in California Wildfire After 14 Bodies Found PARADISE, Calif.The charred remains of 14 more people have been found in and around a Northern California town overrun by flames from a massive wildfire, officials said Nov. 10, raising the death toll to at least 23. The bodies were recovered in and around Paradise, a mountain community some 90 miles north of Sacramento that has been left devastated by the Camp Fire, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Scott Maclean said. Maclean said no details were immediately available about the circumstances of the deaths and that the victims badly burned condition would make identification difficult. The Camp Fire burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in Paradise, more structures than any other California wildfire on record, and the death toll, which could still rise, also makes it one of the deadliest. Only the Griffith Park Fire in 1933 and Tunnel Fire in 1991 have claimed more lives. Several of the bodies discovered earlier this week were found in or near burned out cars, police have said. The flames descended on Paradise so fast that many people were forced to abandon their vehicles and run for their lives down the sole road through the mountain town. An additional 35 people have been reported missing and three firefighters have been injured. It was not immediately clear if any of the missing were among those found dead. As of the afternoon on Nov. 10, the Camp Fire had blackened more than 100,000 acres at the edge of the Plumas National Forest. Crews had cut containment lines around about 20 percent of the blaze. About 500 miles to the south, the Woolsey Fire burning in the foothills above Malibu doubled in size over the night on Nov. 9 into Nov. 10, threatening thousands of homes after triggering mandatory evacuation orders for a quarter million people in the upscale beach city as well as other communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The fire has destroyed at least 177 homes and other structures with a full count still under way, and has now charred more than 83,000 acres as of late Nov. 10, officials said in a release. Our firefighters have been facing some extreme, tough fire conditions that they said that theyve never seen in their lives, said Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby. Two Bodies Found in Malibu He said crews hoped to take advantage of a lull in the fierce Santa Ana winds driving the flames on Nov. 10. All 13,000 residents of Malibu, which is 30 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, were told to get out on Nov. 9. Two bodies were discovered in the community on Nov. 10 but it was too early to determine if they died from the Woolsey fire or another cause, Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department officials said. The Woolsey Fire broke out on Nov. 8 in Ventura County near Los Angeles and quickly jumped the 101 Freeway, a major north-south artery, in several places. On Friday, it crossed the Santa Monica Mountains toward Malibu, where flames driven by wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour raced down hillsides and through canyons toward multimillion dollar homes. Early on Nov. 10, flames approached Malibus Pepperdine University, a private residential college with 7,700 students, where many remained sheltered on the main campus. School officials told the students that they have been assured by fire officials that the universitys buildings were built to withstand fire. Among those forced to flee the Malibu area were celebrities including Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian, who said on Twitter that flames had damaged the home she shares in nearby Calabasas with Kanye West. In Ventura County, most of the town of Thousand Oaks was ordered to evacuate, adding to the anguish days after a gunman killed 12 people in a shooting rampage at a bar. President Donald Trump, weighing in on the emergency during a trip to France, sent blessing to the firefighters, the families of the victims, and everyone affected. The president also advised Californians to abide by evacuation orders. Our hearts are with those fighting the fires, the 52,000 who have evacuated, and the families of the 11 who have died. The destruction is catastrophic. God Bless them all, Trump wrote on Twitter. Trump blamed the intensity of the fires on gross mismanagement of the forests. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has previously echoed Trumps concern. Zinke specifically blamed litigation by environmentalist groups for preventing authorities from actively managing forests and clearing the dead timber and brush that serve as fuel for wildfires. There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor, Trump wrote on Twitter. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments! By Stephen Lam in Paradise. Epoch Times staff writer Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report. A poster from the movie '2001: A Space Odyssey' at an exhibition of items from the movies of director Stanley Kubrick in Ghent, Belgium on Oct. 14, 2006. (Mark Renders/Getty Images) Douglas Rain, Voice of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dies Aged 90 Douglas Rain, who voiced the computer HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubricks sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, died at the age of 90. His death was confirmed on Sunday, Nov. 11 by the Stratford Festival, a Canadian theater company Rain founded in 1953. Today we lost Douglas Rain, a member of our founding company and a hugely esteemed presence on our stages for 32 seasons, the company tweeted. He will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. He died at St. Marys Hospital near Stratford, Ontario. The cause of death was not announced. Rains dispassionate voice was used in the landmark 1968 movie, which was co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark, to portray the HAL 9000 computer. HALs voice and glowing red eye have since taken on iconic status, and Rains voice is, ironically, one of the most human aspects of the film. The computer comes to regard the astronauts on board the Discovery One spaceship, which is sent to investigate the possibility of extra-terrestrial life around Jupiter, as obstacles to its mission. This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it, HAL tells Dave Bowman. Chillingly, the computer murders all the astronauts before it is slowly but deliberately decommissioned by Bowman, singing Daisy Bell as it is switched off. Bland Mid-Atlantic Accent Rain was born in 1928 in Winnipeg, Canada, and received his acting training in the UK in 1950. In 1953, he became a member of the first repertory cast at the Stratford Festival and performed for 32 seasons with the company. Kubrick became aware of him after he narrated the 1960 documentary Universe, which the director had reportedly seen over 100 times and took inspiration for 2001 from. Originally HAL was to be a female called Athena, but it was ultimately decided it should be a man. We had some difficulty deciding exactly what HAL should sound like, Kubrick said in an interview for the 1970 book The Film Director as Superstar. Rain had the kind of bland mid-Atlantic accent we felt was right for the part, he said. HAL was voiced in about a day-and-a-half in New York City in late 1967 after Kubrick initially told him he had made HAL too emotional and too human. Canadian theater has lost one of its greatest talents and a guiding light in its development, Stratford festival artistic director Antoni Cimolino said on Nov. 11, according to Variety. Douglas Rain was that rare artistan actor deeply admired by other actors. The voice of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglas shared many of the same qualities as Kubricks iconic creation precision, strength of steel, enigma and infinite intelligence, as well as a wicked sense of humor. But those of us lucky enough to have worked with Douglas soon solved his riddle and discovered that at the center of his mystery lay warmth and humanity, evidenced in his care for the young members of our profession. Douglas dedicated his talent to the stages of his native land, and we are proud in return to dedicate the coming seasons production of Othello to his memory. We owe him so much. Rain is survived by his sons David and Adam and granddaughter Salima. Georgia Mans Body Found at Neighbors Home After Blood Leads Cops to Remains: Police Suspect moved to U.S. three months ago from Mexico. It's unclear if he was in the country legally A missing Georgia man was found Nov. 8, after police followed blood at a neighbors house, leading them to his body in the backyard. Robert Page, 70, was found dead at his neighbors home in Morrow at 11 p.m., said Clayton County police, according to Fox5 in Atlanta. His wife reported him missing just hours before the discovery was made. Christian Ponce-Martinez, 25, was identified by police as the suspect. Ponce-Martinez moved from Mexico to the United States just three months ago. Its not clear if he was in the United States legally. Police say a neighbor who moved into a Clayton neighborhood 3 months ago, killed 70 y/o Robert Paige & dismembered his body. We asked police about a motive. I have a live report coming up in 15min on Ch2. Turn your tv on now please pic.twitter.com/ls9JYxEwfP Tyisha Fernandes (@TyishaWSB) November 9, 2018 Officers went to the back of the residence, and located the offender, hiding under a couch, acting very nervous and suspicious, Maj. Craig Hammer said, Fox News reported. Officers then noticed a trail of blood, in the backyard. They followed the trail, which led them to the victim, Mr. Pages dismembered remains. Ponce-Martinez was charged with malice murder, and he was also charged with obstruction after he became uncooperative and combative with police, WSB-TV reported. Page and Ponce-Martinez didnt know one another before the slaying. The motive is not clear. Georgia mans dismembered body found at neighbors home after trail of blood leads cops to remains: police https://t.co/KjL2ZxqfRX #News pic.twitter.com/6ecZfFpFEC Woody (@Harley_Woody) November 11, 2018 Even if you werent related to him, if he saw that you were a younger nice person, he would say, Youre my grandson or granddaughter or Youre my son or daughter, something like that. He was a very (embracing) person and to go in such a tragic way, it just hit us all really hard at the moment, grandson Bobby Austin said. Page had been married to his wife, Lula, for 50 years. She reported him missing to the police. Hes irreplaceable. The personality he had was priceless. Nobody will ever be able to top him, Austin added. Neighbors were in shock. He was a great guy. He helped me build my driveway and all. We talked every day and he helped me build my fence and my gate and all, and we were just friends, one neighbor told WSB. I dont have any words for it. It was just crazy to know something that outrageous could happen right next door. Even if you werent related to him, if he saw that you were a younger nice person, he would say, Youre my grandson or granddaughter or, Youre my son or daughter, something like that. He was a very [embracing] personand to go in such a tragic way, it just hit us all really hard at the moment, Nancy Jones, a friend, told WSB-TV. Morrow, in Clayton County, is located about 15 miles away from Atlanta. Gerard Butlers House Half-Gone, Others Await Fires Toll LOS ANGELESCelebrities whose coastal homes have been damaged or destroyed in a Southern California wildfire or were forced to flee from the flames expressed sympathy and solidarity with less-famous people hurt worse by the states deadly blazes, and gave their gratitude to firefighters who kept them safe. Returned to my house in Malibu after evacuating, Gerard Butler wrote in an Instagram post next to a photo that showed a burned-out structure and a badly scorched vehicle. Heartbreaking time across California. Inspired as ever by the courage, spirit and sacrifice of firefighters. Half-gone the 300 actor grumbled in his Scottish accent in a video that shows embers, ashes and whats left of his home. Camille Grammer Meyer of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills lost her Malibu home entirely on the night of Nov. 10, her publicist, Howard Bragman, said in an email to The Associated Press. Sadly my house couldnt be saved, Meyer, the ex-wife of actor Kelsey Grammer, wrote in an Instagram post that showed a huge house engulfed in flames. The courageous firefighters were able to save my cars and personal items recovered from my home. Many others including Orlando Bloom, Alyssa Milano, Lady Gaga, Rainn Wilson and fashion designer Donna Karan were among evacuees. Some knew their homes were safe (for now) and waited for a chance to return. Others were in the dark, posting pictures of plumes of smoke and saying their houses were somewhere in there. Stay safe, California and keep those prayers coming America, Wilson said on his Twitter account, where over the weekend he was sharing photos of some of the more than 100 people missing in the huge wildfire in Northern California that has killed at least 23. Milano said her house is still in jeopardy as strong winds kicked up again Nov. 11. Southern Californias wildfire has killed two and destroyed at least 177 homes. The blaze started the night of Nov. 8 and pushed toward Malibu and the Pacific Ocean, prompting evacuations in Malibu, Calabasas, Agoura Hills and other nearby areas. Paramount Ranchs Western Town, a landmark film location dating back to 1927 that included a jail, hotel and saloon, burned to the ground . The TV series Westworld is among the many productions that have filmed at the ranch in the mountains west of Los Angeles. LA is a pretty great place but if fires are all we have to deal with, you know, were lucky, Rules of Engagement actor Oliver Hudson told the AP at a charity event in Culver City. Theres a lot of people in the world who are dealing with a lot more. Actress Julie Bowen of Modern Family said everyone affected by the flames is deserving of sympathy. I think there are lots and lots of people who think of Malibu as just being a celebrity second-home culture, Bowen said at the Culver City event, but there are people who is this is their first, last and only homes are there and going all up and down those canyons and theyre not necessarily, who cares theyre rich and glamorous they can afford to lose a home. This is life and death and its really tragic. Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott is filing three more lawsuits against county election officials as the recounting of votes in Florida gets underway for three contests from the midterm elections, a statement on Nov. 11, 2018 said. (rickscottforflorida.com) Republican Candidate Scott Files Three More Election Lawsuits in Florida Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott is filing three more lawsuits against county election officials as the recounting of votes in Florida gets underway for three midterm election contests. Scott is running for the U.S. Senate seat against incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. When a recount of the Senate votes was ordered on Nov. 10, Scott held a slim lead over Nelson at 12,500 votes, or 0.15 percent. His narrow lead of less than 0.5 percent triggered a recount as per Florida law. Scott filed another lawsuit late on Nov. 10 against Broward County officials, alleging that Brenda Snipes, the supervisor of elections for Broward County, had continued counting some ballots after the deadline at noon on Nov. 10. Scott requested that any ballots counted after the deadline be disregarded, saying that to include them would break state law. More than an hour past the noon deadline, the Broward County Canvassing Board continued to count ballots, violating state law. Senator Nelson has no objection to this illegal activity. This shows Nelsons true colors. No law is above him when his job is at stake. pic.twitter.com/FfiewGV5Dy Rick Scott (@ScottforFlorida) November 10, 2018 The other two lawsuits were filed Nov. 11, one against Snipes and another against Susan Bucher, the supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County. In the motion, Scott requested that police seize all voting machines, tallying equipment, and ballots when they arent in use, until the recount is finalized. The lawsuits also requested that both Snipes and Bucher preserve all ballots and records linked to the 2018 midterm elections. The Broward and Palm Beach County Supervisors of Elections have already demonstrated a blatant disregard for Floridas elections laws, making it more important than ever that we continue to do everything possible to prevent fraud and ensure this recount is operated responsibly, Chris Hartline, a spokesman for Scotts campaign, said in a statement. Heres what you need to know about the recount process in Florida. pic.twitter.com/FBPEFvye2t Florida GOP (@FloridaGOP) November 10, 2018 Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner has ordered the tallying of more than 8.2 million votes to be finished within five days. If any race ends up with a margin of less than 0.25 percent, a manual recount will follow. Earlier Lawsuits From Scott, Nelson Both Democrats and Republicans in Florida filed lawsuits after the close of voting on Nov. 6, questioning the integrity of the election. Earlier on Nov. 9, Nelson had filed a lawsuit against Detzner alleging suppression of votes. Under Florida law, absentee and provisional ballots need to be signed by voters and the signatures need to match those authorities have on record. The suit demanded, however, that ballots with signatures not matching those on record be counted as valid. Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias, who is a partner at Perkins Coie, argued that the process of matching signatures was inconsistent across counties, and that discarding votes with mismatched signatures would result in suppressing the voices of minority and young voters who are disproportionately represented in mismatched ballots. Scotts campaign manager Jackie Schutz Zeckman said Nelsons lawsuit is asking the federal courts to allow voter fraud. Bill Nelson believes fraudulent ballots should be counted in this election. Thats what career politicians are willing to do to protect their own job. Its wrong. We will not let him disrespect the will of the voters. pic.twitter.com/AtBBBNLoID Rick Scott (@ScottforFlorida) November 11, 2018 Scott had also earlier filed two separate lawsuits against Snipes and Bucher on Nov. 8, and won both suits by Nov. 9. On Nov. 8 and 9, President Donald Trump alleged on Twitter that the Democrats were trying to steal the Florida election. As soon as Democrats sent their best Election stealing lawyer, Marc Elias, to Broward County they miraculously started finding Democrat votes. Dont worry, Florida I am sending much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018 Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018 Despite the allegations, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) has yet to open a probe on its own as it has received no referral of criminal activity from the Florida Department of State, which oversees the elections. FDLE had at least two election officials posted in Broward County for the vote counting process. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a letter to FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen on Nov. 11, strongly urged the agency to investigate the conduct of election officials in Broward and Palm Beach counties and take the necessary steps to promote public safety and to assure that our state will guarantee integrity in our election process. The FDLE is an independent law enforcement agency, so it isnt required to follow any directives from Bondi or her office, according to the Miami Herald. High School Students Photographed Doing Alleged Nazi Salute, District Weighing Legal Action Video shows California teacher punching student over alleged racial slur A school district in Wisconsin is investigating and considering legal action against several students after they were photographed allegedly giving the Nazi salute. An image of the students went viral this week, although it was shot in the spring, said the Baraboo School District said. It was posted on Twitter on Nov. 12. The photo of students posted to #BarabooProud is not reflective of the educational values and beliefs of the School District of Baraboo, Baraboo administrator Lori Mueller wrote on Twitter. The District will pursue any and all available and appropriate actions, including legal, to address. The Baraboo Police Department stated that its aware of a controversial photo of a group of high school students that has been posted to social media. Moment Wisconsin high school class gives a Nazi salute and white power hand signal in their junior prom photo https://t.co/xtbWmxduJC Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) November 12, 2018 Officers are assisting the Baraboo School District with their investigation into this matter, the department wrote on Twitter. Baraboo High School was placed under a soft hold on Nov. 12, over the photo, Administrative Assistant Angie Cowling told the Baraboo News Republic. She said it means students cant leave school premises unless they have permission from a parent and approval through the schools office. School officials, meanwhile, said the image wasnt captured on school property or at a school-backed event, Fox reported. Democratic Governor-elect Tony Evers also weighed in on the matter, saying the salute has no place in Wisconsin. As elected officials, we have a responsibility to lead by example for a generation growing up in a climate where they see this behavior condoned, Evers said. I will be in contact with Barbaoo officials, but we must all be clear: intolerance and bigotry must never be tolerated, in our schools or anywhere else. Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp attends the Election Night event at the Classic Center in Athens, Georgia, on Nov. 6, 2018. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) Kemp Calls on Abrams to Concede in Georgia; Arizona Race Still Too Close to Call Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp called on his Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, to concede as ballot counts moved closer to a point that would rule out even an automatic recount or a runoff, much less an outright victory by Abrams. Meanwhile, the race between Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate was still too close to call on Nov. 11. In a statement issued on Nov. 10, Kemp cited the latest ballot count figures to show that even if every uncounted vote was cast for Abrams, he would still win by a margin higher than what is required for an automatic recount or a runoff election. Abrams has refused to concede until every vote is counted. Stacey Abramss antics are a disgrace to democracy and completely ignore the will of the people, Ryan Mahoney, the spokesman for Kemps campaign, said. This is not how America works. Brian Kemp earned a clear victory on Tuesday night and holds a sizable lead as remaining provisional and military ballots are counted. President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter on Nov. 9 that Kemp had won, and that it is time to move on! Based on publicly available ballot counts on Nov. 10, Kemp led Abrams by 62,779 votes or 1.6 percent of the vote. At that point, there were an estimated 17,495 ballots left to be tallied, according to Kemps campaign. If every remaining uncounted ballot was cast for Abrams, Kemp would still have 50.1 percent of the vote, which would clear the threshold to avoid a recount or a runoff. Kemps margin narrowed to 58,875 votes by the afternoon of Nov. 11. Based on the estimates from Kemps office, his lead would shrink to 45,284 if every remaining vote was cast for Abrams. At the center of the dispute is the number of provisional ballots. Kemps office is citing official state figures reported by individual counties. Abramss office conducted its own survey, which found a larger cache of votes still unreported, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Tight Race in Arizona A key midterm contest in Arizona between McSally and Sinema could also take days to decide. The votes were still being tallied on Nov. 11 with Sinema ahead of McSally by more than 30,000 votes. Sinema and McSally are vying to succeed Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, who didnt seek re-election. The delayed result is a familiar feature of the politics in Arizona, where candidates can wait for days or weeks to learn the final results. That is because of a state law that gives voters the choice of mailing in early ballots or dropping them off at polling places as late as Election Day, requiring time to be hand-processed. I can relate. When I ran in 2016, I had to wait 10 days for my final results, said Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, who, in his elected position, is responsible for overseeing the count of the nearly 500,000 ballots yet to be processed in Arizonas largest county. Hundreds of poll workers will hand-process the ballots in a county warehouse, which could take eight or nine days, Fontes said in a telephone interview. The Secretary of States office will certify the results Dec. 3, though the winner may become clear before then as the vote count gets gradually updated. McSally has been through the wait before. She won her House of Representatives race in 2014 by a razor-thin margin more than a month after the election. That race also involved litigation, and a Superior Court judge declared her the winner by 167 votes over incumbent Democrat Ron Barber, following a state-mandated recount. Reuters contributed to this report. Stacey Abrams speaks onstage during the 2018 Essence Festival presented by Coca-Cola at Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 7, 2018. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Essence) Kemp Says Updated Vote Totals Affirm His Victory as Abrams Files Lawsuit Georgia gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp said Nov. 12 that updated vote totals affirmed his victory as his opponent, Stacey Abrams, filed a lawsuit to stop counties from throwing out some rejected provisional and absentee ballots. As of Nov. 12, the reported vote totals showed Kemp ahead by nearly 58,875 votes, with 50.2 percent of the vote, compared with Abramss 48.7 percent. While Abrams has contended that the final vote count could see Kemp fall under 50 percent, which would trigger a runoff, Kemp said that wont happen. According to a statement from Kemps campaign, no more than 13,360 ballots remain based on official figures. The campaign note that even if every vote went to Abrams, Kemp would still have 50.1 percent, avoiding the threshold needed for a recount or a runoff election. Stacey Abrams lost and her concession is long overdue, Ryan Mahoney, communications director for Kemps campaign, said in a statement. Its incredibly shameful that liberal lawyers are doubling down on lawsuits, desperately trying to create more votes for Stacey Abrams. They dont want to win this election. They are trying to steal it. Abramss campaign is contacting every voter in Georgia asking if they experienced issues casting a vote. The campaign is also soliciting donations and asking for free help from lawyers, according to Abramss Twitter account. Lawsuit Abrams campaign filed a federal lawsuit (pdf) with the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on Nov. 11. Lawyers for Abramss campaign and the Democratic Party of Georgia asked the court to order that provisional ballots that were rejected due to missing or incorrect information be restored. The lawsuit also demands that counties which have already certified vote returns to correct their totals and re-certify the results. The lawyers also asked the court to order that the deadline for verifying provisional ballots be extended to 5 p.m. on Nov. 14 statewide. The complaint specifically demands to restore the votes of 1,095 Gwinnett County voters whose absentee ballots were rejected. Georgia state law requires that provisional ballots be verified only up until three days after Election Day, or through Nov. 9. The lawsuit argues that the state law is wholly inadequate due to the high number of provisional ballots cast. In addition, the suit alleges, the three-day window allotted for verifying the ballots interferes with voters constitutional right to have their ballots counted. Under Georgia law, it appears that any voters whose provisional ballots have not been resolved by November 9, 2018, will be disenfranchised, simply because the counties in which they respectively reside could not address their ballots in time, the lawyers for the Abrams campaign say in the complaint. There is no reason it needs to be this way. Counties are not required by statute to certify election results until November 13, 2018. Later on Nov. 11, the State Election Board approved a move to issue guidance to local election officials about how to process mailed-in ballots. The board asked Secretary of State Robyn Crittenden to send a letter outlining the process, although the details of the letter werent disclosed publicly. Middle Georgia State University assistant professor John Hall told local news channel WMGT the certification is set for Nov. 13 and that thousands of provisional ballots likely wont be counted. Some states have a higher or lower provisional ballot rejection rate. Georgia, in the presidential election in 2016, rejected over 55 percent of provisional ballots. The national average is about 25 percent, Hall explained. He said that its possible a runoff will happen, but deemed it unlikely. There are a number of reasons why ballots are rejected, including voters filling out certain areas incorrectly or not clearly marking who they want to vote for. Urged to Concede Abrams has been urged to concede by a number of people, including President Donald Trump. Brian Kemp ran a great race in Georgiahe won. It is time to move on! Trump said via Twitter. In another post, he said: You mean they are just now finding votes in Florida and Georgiabut the Election was on Tuesday? Lets blame the Russians and demand an immediate apology from President Putin! You mean they are just now finding votes in Florida and Georgia but the Election was on Tuesday? Lets blame the Russians and demand an immediate apology from President Putin! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018 Kemp, who resigned as secretary of state to transition to governor, has also urged Abrams to concede, saying: President [Trump] is right. The race is over and its time to transition. Enough with the political games. Lets put hardworking Georgians first! Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at the informal EU summit, a gathering of leaders of Libyas quarrelling factions and of countries keen on stabilizing the North African nation opens in Salzburg, Austria, on Nov. 12, 2018. (Kerstin Joensson/AP) Leaders Meet in Italy to Find Settlement in Libya PALERMO, SicilyRepresentatives of Libyas quarrelling factions and of countries keen on stabilizing the North African nation were attending a conference in Sicily on Nov. 12, aimed at finding a political settlement to bolster the fight against Islamic militants and stop illegal migrants from crossing the Mediterranean to Europes southern shores. The driving force behind the conference is Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte, but hours before it was due to start, the hopes for success seemed limited. The participation is in doubt of a key Libyan player, Gen. Khalifa Hifter, commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army with a power base in eastern Libya. Hifters aides said Monday the general, if he shows up, will only discuss combating terrorism and will not attend plenary sessions on Tuesday focused on finding a formula for a political deal to end often deadly fighting among Libyas many militias and other factions. Italy wants to prod all stakeholdersincluding two rival administrations and unruly militias with considerable firepowerto agree on a road map that would reunite Libya after seven years of chaos and bloodshed. Libya plunged into chaos after the 2011 uprising that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and it is now governed by rival administrations in the east and west with both relying on the support of militias. It has also become a haven for Islamic militants and armed groups, including several from neighboring countries, which survive on looting and human trafficking, particularly in the south of the country. Libyas neighbor to the east, Egypt, backs Hifter. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, was planning to attend. He recently reiterated Cairos call for lifting the international arms embargo against Libya. Its fundamental to seize this opportunity to back the cease-fire, to facilitate discussions for the realizations of new security assets in Tripoli and to show the international communitys determination to sustain the creation and deployment of regular armed forces and security forces, Conte was quoted as telling La Stampa daily in an interview published Monday. For rights advocates, the conference posed another kind of opportunity: To draw attention to the plight of migrants trapped in Libya, now that the nearly nightly launching of human traffickers boats from Libyas coasts has sharply dropped off as Italy and Malta have closed their ports to private rescue groups vessels. Amnesty International is calling on all those taking part in the conference to ensure that human rights of all people in the country, including refugees and migrants, are placed at the center of their negotiations, the rights group said in a statement. It decried that Libya has repeatedly delayed the opening of a long-promised processing center for the U.N. refugees organization, to relocate refugees from abusive detention centers that U.N. officials have repeatedly denounced. With Libyas rich oil and gas resources, energy-rivals Italy and France have been jockeying to ensure influence in Libyas shifting political scene. Hifter maintains close ties with France and Frances foreign minister was among those expected to participate. France hosted a meeting on Libya in May, when rival Libyan leaders tentatively agreed on a roadmap for parliamentary and presidential elections but declined to sign a declaration outlining their commitments. Italy has for years nervously eyed a lawless Libya across the Mediterranean. Contes six-month-old populist governmentand especially anti-migrant Interior Minister Matteo Salvinisees a more stable and secure Libya as the best outcome for Italians, and for the right-wing voter base in particular. The Italian government offers itself as a mediator. It doesnt demand anything, doesnt set election dates, doesnt want to impose its businesses on Libya, Salvini said on the eve of the conference. Hifter has been instrumental in the fight against militants, going after them in their eastern hideouts and occasionally foraying into the vast and largely lawless south. However, a deadly overnight attack last month by militants from the extremist Islamic State group showed the limitations of his army. A lawmaker from the rival parliament based in Tobruk, eastern Libya, was skeptical about Italys motives for putting on the Palermo talks. This is Italys way of competing for a prime role in Libyas affairs, especially against France and other Western powers, Essam al-Jehani said last week. This will lead to further meddling in our affairs, and we expect nothing positive from this meeting. Ghassan Salame, the U.N. special envoy to Libya, offered a bleak assessment in remarks last week to the U.N. Security Council. Libya is caught in a futile and destructive cycle, fueled by personal ambitions and the nations stolen wealth, said the veteran Lebanese politician. By Paolo Santalucia More Than 200 Still Missing in Californias Deadliest Wildfire on Record More than 200 people were missing early on Nov. 12, in Californias deadliest and most destructive blaze on record, one of two fires raging in the state which have killed at least 31 people and forced more than a quarter of a million evacuations. The so-called Camp Fire 40 miles northwest of Sacramento burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in the town of Paradise, more structures than any other wildfire recorded in California. The fire had burned more than 111,000 acres and was 25 percent contained by late Sunday, officials said. Its death toll of 29 now equals that of the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, the deadliest wildfire on record in California. At least 228 people were still missing, according to Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. In southern California, the Woolsey Fire has scorched at least 85,500 acres and destroyed 177 structures. The blaze was only 15 percent contained. At least two people have died in that fire, according to officials from the statewide agency Cal Fire. The blaze has forced the authorities to issue evacuation orders for a quarter million people in Ventura and Los Angeles counties and beachside communities including the Malibu beach colony. Celebrities at the Peoples Choice Awards Sunday night in Santa Monica, Ca., asked for prayers and donations for residents and first responders. Reality television star Kim Kardashian said, Its been a really rough week in our home in Calabasas, Hidden Hills and our neighbors in Thousand Oaks and Malibu. Actor Melissa McCarthy said, Please keep the victims, volunteers and firefighters in your thoughts. She also asked people to donate to the Los Angeles fire Department Foundation. Hot, dry winds were expected to whip up the fires burning in both tinder-dry southern and northern California until Tuesday, officials said. Officials urged residents to heed evacuation orders. Winds are already blowing, Chief Daryl Osby of the Los Angeles County Fire Department said Sunday. They are going to blow for the next three days. Your house can be rebuilt but you cant bring your life back. Governor Jerry Brown asked President Donald Trump to declare a major disaster to bolster the emergency response and help residents recover. Trump Tweeted last weekend, blaming poor forest management for the infernos. With proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2018 by Rich McKay Navy F/A-18 Hornet Crashes Into Sea, Pilots Ejected Video shows new F-35 plane getting a try out at sea A Navy F/A-18 Hornet crashed into the Philippine Sea on Nov. 12, said the military in a statement. Both of its pilots ejected, were rescued, and are in good condition, the U.S. Navys 7th Fleet wrote in the statement. The plane crashed due to an unspecified mechanical issue while conducting routine operations in the Philippine Sea, the statement read. The crew was immediately and safely recovered by USS Ronald Reagan search and rescue aircraft and brought back to the ship for evaluation by medical personnel. Both aviators are in good condition, the Navy wrote. Officials said the USS Ronald Reagan has resumed normal operations. The crash is currently under investigation. The F/A-18 is embarked onboard Ronald Reagan and is currently underway in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, the Navy said. Its the second crash involving an aircraft belonging to the USS Ronald Reagan in less than one month, The Associated Press reported. In October, an MH-60 Seahawk crashed after taking off, causing injuries to about a dozen Navy sailors. The crash occurred in the Pacific Ocean near Guam during a joint exercise known as Keen Sword along with Japan and Canada. As a fighter and attack aircraft, the F/A-18 Hornet can carry a wide array of bombs and missiles, including air-to-air and air-to-ground. It also has a 20-mm M61 Vulcan cannon. The Hornet saw combat action in the 1986 bombing mission in Libya and later saw extensive action in the 1991 Persian Gulf War as well as the 2003 war in Iraq. Oak Park police are searching for a gunman who robbed a woman on Friday afternoon. According to a police summary, the woman, a Chicago resident, was sitting in her car in the 400 block of Wisconsin Avenue when the gunman approached at about 2:45 p.m. New Yorkers Offer Their Thoughts About Midterm Elections There has been heated debate about the midterm elections this year, with the Republicans keeping the Senate and the Democrats regaining a majority in the House of Representatives. In the wake of these results, The Epoch Times interviewed people in New York about their view of the elections. David Hatter, 65, sales representative The Epoch Times: What are your thoughts on the midterm results? Mr. Hatter: As Ive gotten older, Ive gotten more conservative, So Im glad to see that the Republicans held the Senate, and it should be interesting to see what the Democrats do with the House, and if they could work together possibly. Im always optimistic. The Epoch Times: What do you think that means to people? Mr. Hatter: There are so many divergent ideas. Everybody seems so critical of each other, not compromising. Hopefully, therell be a time when we can work together for a common good. Tom Kusnirik, 41, director of software development The Epoch Times: What are your thoughts on the midterm results? Mr. Kusnirik: I thought it showed a lot of division in the way that America is looking at politics right now. Things seem to be split right down the middle, and that showed with them splitting the House and the Senate. The Epoch Times: What do you think that means to people? Mr. Kusnirik: Its a good representation of the checks and balances. Having them split, it will allow for both parties to keep each other in check, so its a good thing. The Epoch Times: Which party do you support? Mr. Kusnirik: Im right in the middle, which is right where things are. Stuart Liess/The Epoch Times Lindsey McFadden, 40, product manager The Epoch Times: What are your thoughts on the midterm results? Ms. McFadden: Not very pleased with it. Im from New Jersey. I was happy how New Jersey turned out, but overall, I wanted to see more Democrats win. I was somewhat pleased. The Epoch Times: What do you think that means to people? Ms. McFadden: A lot of people complain, and youd think the tides were turning. But when you actually have an election, it doesnt seem to show what people are saying. I think a lot of people arent voting. I think thats part of the problem, that people that are out there complaining and being vocal arent necessarily taking the time to vote. Two of my three kids are old enough to vote, and they didnt go and vote, even though I tried to get them to. They arent happy with the state of things but they didnt take the time to go and vote. Tom Jenkin, 76, retired engineer The Epoch Times: What are your thoughts on the midterm results? Mr. Jenkin: It came out sort of as I expected. Maybe we were looking for a little better result in the Senate but anyway, on the Democratic side. The Epoch Times: Which party do you support? Mr. Jenkin: Im fiscally conservative but socially liberal. The Epoch Times: What do you think that means to people? Mr. Jenkin: Its good that we have a split government now, therell be some checks. Im probably in favor of the single-payer health care system. Itll put the brakes on some things, but well see what happens in a few years. Jason Caridy, 29, freelance videographer The Epoch Times: What are your thoughts on the midterm results? Mr. Caridy: I dont know yet. I voted Democrat. I dont want to say anything before anything actually happens. So Im mostly indifferent at this point, until things start to transpire. The Epoch Times: What do you think that means to people? Mr. Caridy: Were able to see hard proof that voting actually does something, because this is the first time that people actually really went out to vote for the midterms. People were mostly indifferent in the past, and I think well start to see a new wave of people on both sides. Daniel Stevens, 36, designer The Epoch Times: What are your thoughts on the midterm results? Mr. Stevens: Im somewhat satisfied with the results. Im happy that a lot more women were voted in. Thats really good, we need a lot more different views and different viewpoints for things to change for us to get a little better. Epoch Times: Which party do you support? Mr. Stevens: Democrat. I think our politics right now are very nasty, and very negative, and we have to get it to a point where its more progressive, because not anything positive is getting done. The Epoch Times: What do you think that means to people? Mr. Stevens: Im not huge into politics because I think on both sides, there is a lot of cat-fighting. Theres a lot of infighting and, for the most part, a lot of things dont get done. There are two people that just dont see, like Democrats and Republicans, they dont see eye-to-eye. Interviews have been edited for clarity and brevity. Pompeo Warns Saudi Prince US Will Hold All Accountable for Khashoggi Murder Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Saudi Arabias Prince Mohammed bin Salman Nov. 11 that the United States would hold accountable anyone they found responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and urged Saudi Arabia to do the same. Saudi Arabia is a U.S. ally that has worked with the United States on situations like the civil war in Yemen and the Iranian regimes support for terrorism in the Middle East. The Saudi government has acknowledged that Khashoggis Oct. 2 death inside a Saudi consulate in Turkey was premeditated, and has named several people it says are responsible. The question now is how far up the chain of command responsibility for the killing went. When asked Nov. 4 if the United States would hold bin Salman responsible if he were found to have a hand in Khashoggis murder, Pompeo gave a similar line. Were going to chase the facts wherever they go, he told CBS. And were going to hold accountable each of those who we find responsible. He said they were still investigating, but that the United States had already started sanctioning people they believed had a hand in it. Speaking on Fox News, he said the visas of 16 people connected to the crime had been revoked. We will continue to work to maintain that important strategic relationship while holding accountable those responsible for this atrocious death, he said. The day before Pompeos call with bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Erdogan told reporters that Turkey had given a recording taken during the journalists death to the United States, Germany, France, the UK, and Saudi Arabia. While Canada was not on that list, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Nov. 12 that Turkey had shared the recording with Canadian intelligence officials, the first Western nation to admit receiving the recording. The State Department referred all questions about the recording to the White House, which did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders did tell the Dailymail.com that Trump and Erdogan discussed the journalists murder as they attended the 100-year anniversary of WWI in France over the weekend. I can confirm they sat next to one another and they discussed the ongoing tragic situation with Khashoggi, Sanders told DailyMail.com President Erdogan met with President Trump of the U.S. during a dinner hosted by President Macron of France in honor of heads of states, governments and international organizations as well as their spouses. pic.twitter.com/BkJa8tGYmV Turkish Presidency (@trpresidency) November 11, 2018 Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and columnist for the Washington Post, went missing after entering the Saudi consulate on Oct. 2 to obtain documents for his upcoming wedding. The Saudi Foreign Ministry admitted on Oct. 19 that Khashoggi had been killed during his visit to the consulate and said that it had arrested 18 Saudi citizens and fired five top officials. Speaking to reporters Nov. 7, Trump said they were still seeking facts on the case, but that he was working closely with Congress, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Sam Brownback speaks at the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the International Religious Freedom Act hosted by the Religious Freedom Institute in Washington on Nov. 9, 2018. (Margaret Wroblewski/RFI) Religion Under Attack More Than Ever as International Religious Freedom Act Turns 20 WASHINGTONTwenty years after the International Religious Freedom Act was passed, religious freedom is under fire more than ever. Six countries were added in 2017 to the State Departments list of nations of particular concern for violating religious freedoms; the 2016 report had 10 listed. In 2000, when the first report was published after the International Religious Freedom Act was passed in 1998, there were just three countries cited. Its an interesting confluence where we are right now, where we had a burst of religious freedom after the fall of the [Berlin] Wall, after the fall of communism. It was like freedom was really on the move, said Sam Brownback, U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom. And then, kind of as a backlash to that, a number of countries decided, Weve got a little too much freedom here. But I think were getting enough governments to experience the bad aspects of religious persecution of mob violence, that Im hearing from a number of governments that they dont like that. Tell that to Bob Fu, the head of the nonprofit China Aid, which exposes the persecution of Chinese Christians and human-rights lawyers in China. He would tell you that things have only gotten worse in his home country. The persecution against religious minorities in China has reached the worst level since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he said. Hundreds of thousands of churches [are] being shut down. Not only the house churches, the independent house churches, but government-sanctioned house churches. Sam Naeem, a Rohingya Muslim advocate from Myanmar, also known as Burma, said he would like to see the United States do more about the Muslim Rohingya who are facing persecution in Burma, which has forced almost 1 million to flee to Bangladesh. The exodus has more than doubled the number of Rohingya in the country since August 2017. The United States is the only country that the Burmese government will really listen [to] or care about, he said. If the United States government has the will or determination to solve this problem, they will find ways. The International Religious Freedom Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, put religious freedom into U.S. foreign policy. It created the post of ambassador at large for international religious freedom in the State Department and a special adviser on international religious freedom within the National Security Council, as well as authorized the United States to act in response to violations of religious freedom in foreign countries. While it may be tempting to conclude that the measure has largely failed in its mandate to advance liberties it sought to protect, its successes must be looked at in a wider context, said John Hanford, one of the writers of the act. He pointed to Vietnam, where the government had been rounding up people of faith and forcing them to renounce their beliefs until about 2005, due in part to the United States designating it as a country of particular concern. They did a U-turn, he said. They banned forced renunciations, they released all the religious prisoners this was the greatest turnaround in the modern history of the country. William Inboden, the director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas, said its not about how little the act has done in 20 years, but how much worse things would be if it hadnt been enacted. I think things would have been even worse [than they are now], he said. What worries Inboden more is the eroding support for religious freedom at home. The IRFA act and the ambassador position are only going to be as effective as the American peoples support for them is. Anna Su, the author of Exporting Freedom, agrees. She said that religious freedom will only flourish when it is supported by people of faith and not of faith alike. What is encouraging to her is that once the United States passed the act, other countries, such as her home country Canada, started to pass similar legislation. Hanford said its too early to say how the Trump administration is doing on religious freedom, but hes hopeful that it will carry the torch for religious freedom far and wide, starting with a religious ministerial the State Department held this summer. I think President Trump cares about this. He certainly has a lot of people around him who makes sure he cares about it, he said, naming Brownback and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Ive got great hopes that the momentum, if anything, will increase. Separatist Areas of Ukraine Elect Leaders as Kiev, Moscow Trade Barbs DONETSK, UkraineTwo separatist-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine announced the winners of leadership elections on Nov. 12 that were dismissed by Kiev and its international allies as a sham exercise engineered by Russia to install puppet regimes. The polls took place on Nov. 11 in the shadow of a conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed rebels that has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014 and poisoned relations between the two neighbors. The Donetsk regions acting head, Denis Pushilin, whose predecessor was killed in an explosion in August, was confirmed as leader with 61 percent of the vote, while the acting chief of Luhansk region, Leonid Pasechnik, won with 68 percent support. Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov congratulated the winners, according to the separatist press service DAN, although a Kremlin spokesman later said he wasnt aware any congratulations had been extended. The United States, European Union member states, and Canada condemned the vote as illegal and in violation of a ceasefire agreed in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in 2015. This reaction clearly states that, on the one hand, these elections will not be recognized by anyone. This is a brutal violation of the Minsk agreements, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said. On the other hand, there is a call for the responsibility of the Russian Federation as the organizer of these elections. Poroshenko called the elections illegal, and represent yet another example of Russian subversive activity. Under Conditions of Occupation These particular elections are a mockery, really, of the idea of genuine elections that need to be held, Kurt Volker, Washingtons envoy to the Ukraine conflict, told reporters on a Nov. 8 conference call. They are under conditions of occupation, where there is no freedom of expression, no freedom of movement, no freedom of campaigning, and generally, therefore, no freedom of choice for the people in electing candidates for legitimate local leadership positions, he said. Russia disputed that the elections violated the Minsk accord and instead blamed authorities in Kiev for failing to honor its commitments in the peace process. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he wasnt aware of any congratulations to the vote-winners, but added that it was understandable the separatists wanted to hold elections. We are talking about two regions that are completely rejected by the rest of the country and are under an absolute embargo. The Minsk accords are not being implemented by Kiev, Peskov told reporters on a conference call in Moscow. Pushilin said it was a turning point in the regions history. We have proved to the whole world that we can not only fight, not only win on the battlefield, but also build a state based on real democratic principles, he said Nov. 11. Pushilin is a soap bubble, there are completely different people behind him, this is Moscow, a former separatist leader, Alexei Alexandrov, told Reuters. Ukraine-based analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said Russia was using the elections to give legitimacy to the regions leaders and may try to turn the fighting into a frozen conflict, with the two breakaway regions as protectorates. Peskov acknowledged Russia had influence on the regions leaders, but said, it is not unlimited. Moscow-backed rebels seized territory in eastern Ukraine after street protests toppled pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014 and Russia annexed Crimea a month later. Ukraine and the West say Russia de facto controls the eastern Donbass region by propping up puppet leaders with troops and heavy weaponry, which Moscow denies. Several former separatist leaders have fled the Donbass area, saying they feared for their lives after their comrades turned on them. Other leading separatist commanders have been killed in unexplained circumstances. Smoke From California Wildfires Reaches the Atlantic Ocean Video shows cars passing near Camp Fire inferno Smoke from the California wildfires has reached all the way to the East Coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As of Nov. 12, the smoke had reached the northern Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine, according to the NOAAs maps. Two wildfires are currently burning in Southern California and another is raging in Northern California as of Monday, said officials At least 31 people have died, including 29 in Northern California and two in Southern California, and at least 228 people missing, The Associated Press reported. An image from Nasas Terra satellite on Nov. 9 shows the wildfires raging on both sides of the state. At least 8,000 firefighters are working to contain the blazes as about 150,000 were ordered to evacuate. The Camp Fire in Northern California has been the most devastating, burning 113,000 acres and totally ravaged the city of Paradise, Cal Fire said. Its only at around 25 percent containment. The New York Times noted the Camp Fire already matched the deadliest fire in California state history In Paradise, more than 6,400 homes were destroyed. Paradise is an old, wooded town with narrow surface streetsand its a retirement community, said Scott McLean, the deputy chief of Cal Fire, told the paper. He added: The winds were phenomenal, pushing everything down across the roadways. Roads were simply blocked. People ran out of gas. It was an accumulation of everything all at once. And forecasters say the weather is likely only to get worse. Harsh, dry winds are expected to fan the flames of the Camp Fire, said officials, Reuters reported. Winds are also expected in Southern California and could help fuel the Woolsey Fire. Winds are already blowing, Chief Daryl Osby of the Los Angeles County Fire Department told the news agency. They are going to blow for the next three days. Your house can be rebuilt, but you cant bring your life back. The Woolsey Fire has burned at least 91,572 acres and destroyed 370 buildings so far, and its only 20 percent contained, Reuters reported. Favorable overnight weather conditions contributed to minimal fire growth, which allowed crews to reinforce containment lines, Cal Fire said on Nov. 12. The Southern California Edison Company, meanwhile, stated it had experienced an outage at a substation in the San Fernando Valley just minutes before the Woolsey Fire started. Street dogs are rescued from a mine in Mineral del Monte, Mexico, in a file photo from 2014. (Courtesy Lorena Rivera Garnica) Stray Dogs in Mexicos Magical Towns Activists say the towns are poisoning street dogs to clean up image; towns deny the accusations MEXICO CITYThree so-called magical towns in Mexico have been accused of poisoning street dogs in order to clean up their image for tourists, a claim thats rejected by administrators of the towns. Mineral del Monte and Mineral del Chico in the state of Hidalgo, and Tlalpujahua in Michoacan, all have the prized Pueblo Magico designation. Inaugurated in 2001, the program aims to promote some of Mexicos most beautiful towns as alternative tourist destinations to beach resorts. But in the name of promoting an idealized image to visitors, some towns have allegedly been poisoning dogsand not just strays but some with owners. The municipal authorities in Mineral del Chico and Tlalpujahua denied involvement in the poisoning of dogs when they were asked by The Epoch Times about accusations made by animal-welfare groups; the town council of Mineral del Monte has declined to respond. Hidalgo state tourism board secretary Eduardo Banos told The Epoch Times there have been instances of canine poisoning in different municipalities in the state, while stopping short of blaming municipal authorities. To begin with, it should be pointed out that rather than a policy, a series of unfortunate contingencies have arisen in different municipalities in the state. We have said on different occasions that these are reprehensible acts which conflict with the image we want to project, he said. We reiterate that the state government doesnt approve of this type of action and we believe there is a responsibility to face these kinds of problems [with street dog populations], with appropriate education to ensure these living beings are respected and protected. Mineral del Monte Lorena Rivera Garnica is one of the founders of Cuatro Patitas Un Corazon, meaning four legs one heart, in Mineral del Monte and was born and grew up in the town. She and a compatriot run the group, which has a small shelter capable of holding up to 11 dogs, while both work full-time jobs. Twenty poisoning cases were reported on the Cuatro Patitas Un Corazon Facebook page prior to the Semana Santa festival in March, according to Garnica. She says there were a further eight cases before the Festival de la Plata (Silver Festival) in June. Many of the dogs that have been poisoned turned out to have owners. They were caught because they were allowed to walk the streets, Garnica said. The Epoch Times attempted to contact the mayor of Mineral del Monte, Jamie Soto Jarillo, without receiving a response. Mineral del Chico Mineral del Chico is another picturesque former mining town in Hidalgo alleged to have adopted a policy of poisoning unwanted dogs. An article on the website of the Mexican daily newspaper Milenio reported 23 canines were poisoned on Sept. 14. One resident is quoted as saying her dog had been poisoned, while the article also alleged some animals belonging to visiting tourists fell victim to a bright blue toxin that had been left on the ground. In an emailed response to questions put by The Epoch Times, Mineral del Chico Mayor Fernando Baltazar said: The municipality wasnt involved in this action against dogs. Only three cases [of poisoning] were reported to us. He added: We do not know if the dogs had owners and up until now, we havent received a single claim on the part of any resident of the municipality or tourist. But a representative of animal welfare charity Red Pro Animal claims both Mineral del Chico and Mineral del Monte have resorted to poisoning street dogs, having failed to invest in sterilization programs. Its a question of aesthetics [for the authorities] but the problem will not be resolved in this way. On the contrary, poisoning street dogs creates environmental problems that they dont realize, said Melisa Aguero, based in the Hidalgo state capital of Pachuca. Aguero said besides the fact that the dogs suffer, their carcass would create unsanitary conditions for the public. All of these things affect the environment and also public health. Tlalapujahua A third magical town, Tlalapujahua in Michoacan, has also been accused of poisoning dogs. A Facebook post by animal welfare group Patitas Vagabundas claimed some canines fell victim to the policy in September, as has been done in previous years. But a spokesman for the town denied this was the case, telling The Epoch Times: This town hall hasnt resorted to such an atrocity. Magical Towns There are now 121 magical towns in Mexico, after 10 more were added in October. The designation is sought after, in large part, because it comes with 5.2 million pesos ($260,000) in annual funding from the federal government. But critics say the process for becoming a magical town has become politicized and devalued by the sheer number of towns having been awarded the status. During the final year of former President Felipe Calderons six-year administration in 2012, a record 34 new magical towns were named, even as some didnt meet basic requirements such as having a municipal tourism department and a tourism development plan. At least in Hidalgo, there is hope the killing of dogs in the name of tourism can be stopped. Mayor Baltazar says his municipality is ready to carry out a recently agreed-upon program of sterilization for street dogs. With this project, citizens will have better control over the reproduction of their dogs, he said. And Garnica says her group and others have been working with the state of Hidalgos tourism board on rolling out a possible program of street dog sterilization in Mineral del Monte by the end of the year. Its a total health protocol, not just sterilization. For example, it will promote adoption through the use of social media, she said. We hope to make Mineral del Monte a pleasant town for animals and a place for a better kind of tourism. Director of the Office of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi (C) reads from a script in answer to a question at the U.S.-China Diplomatic Security Dialogue in Washington on Nov. 9, 2018. (Jennifer Zeng/The Epoch Times) Treating the Press as Props for Puppet Show About USChina Relations Commentary WASHINGTONHundreds of journalists pressed forward to get into the Department of State to cover the U.S.China Diplomatic and Security Dialogue. After some hustle, we were squeezed into a big hall. The four main characters of the conferenceSecretary of State Michael Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Gen. Jim Mattis, Director of the Office of Foreign Affairs of the Central Commission of the Communist Party of China Yang Jiechi, and State Councilor and Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fengheeach gave remarks. Altogether, they talked for about 20 minutes. Very few new points were made, and each person seemed to be repeating himself. However, on major issues such as the South China Sea, Taiwan, and human rights, there still existed fundamental differences between the two sides. Yang talked the longest, delivering a speech that lasted for 10 minutes and 32 seconds (as a TV reporter for many years, I am used to counting time by the second). It was very empty and, therefore, very boring. Questions and Answers Then, it was finally Q&A time. With the fresh memory of the long, intense press conference President Donald Trump had given two days ago, I thought this part could be very interesting. But there was to be no free give and take with the press. A staff member announced that they would only answer questions from four reporters. Then, he immediately asked the reporter from Voice of America to ask a question. After that, a Chinese-speaking host (I assume he was from the Chinese delegation) asked a reporter from the state-run Xinhua news agency to ask her question. Her question was directed to Gen. Wei, and went like this, Please brief us on Chinas defense policy and the military-to-military relationship between China and the U.S. I couldnt help thinking to myself, Can this be called a question? And then, to my great surprise, Wei actually read his reply from a pre-written script when he answered this question, just as he had done when he gave his speech! I remember seeing a young Chinese man in uniform putting some papers onto Weis podium before the conference. So his reply must have been already on the paper. Weis reply lasted for three minutes and 49 seconds. Apart from old communist cliches that have been repeated a thousand times, there was nothing there. The third chosen reporter was someone from the Wall Street Journal. She used 33 seconds to phrase her question about the planned U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and got a four-second answer from Pompeo: We did not spend time talking in detail about that issue today. Then, it was again the turn for a Chinese reporter to ask a question. This time, the state-run China Central TV was picked. The question was, Director Yang, can you elaborate on Chinas efforts for world peace and development, and in your view, how should the current China-U.S. economic and trade issues be addressed? And can you comment on the prospect of China-U.S. relations? With such a good opportunity and likely a huge audience (nobody knows how many were watching the live stream of the conference), Director Yang spared no efforts to elaborate on Chinas efforts for world peace and development while reading from a prepared script. His reply lasted for five minutes and two seconds. And with that, the 39-minute press conference was over. The U.S. side took 8 minutes and 45 seconds to speak and answer questions, while the Chinese officials used 25 minutes and 53 seconds, almost three times more than the U. S. side. Reciprocity Pompeo said at the beginning of his speech, As President Trump has made clear, the United States seeks a constructive, results-oriented relationship with China grounded in fairness, reciprocity, and respect. As far as this press conference was concerned, fairness, reciprocity, and respect were far from achieved. Why did the Chinese side talk so much longer than the U.S. side? If the questions and answers were pre-planned and pre-written, why didnt they just release a recorded video? If they didnt plan to give the reporters, especially U.S. journalists, the chance to ask questions, why did they call a press conference, and waste the valuable time of so many reporters? This was disrespectful, and an insult to the Fourth Estate. Journalists are supposed to ask questions on behalf of the public, not waste time listening to communists preach. Why would the State Department agree to such an arrangement? The Script An experience I had as a reporter in Sydney for NTD may shed some light on the goings on at Foggy Bottom. One day, I was going to cover a street fair with a newly recruited cameraman who had just come from China and once worked for a provincial TV station. Before we went out, he asked, Where is the script? I didnt understand his question and asked, What script? He was, in turn, surprised at my surprise. It took me quite some time to find out what he meant by the script. In China, each time before he went out to shoot an event, he was given a complete, pre-written news script, including all the voice-over parts and who was going to say what. So when someone on his script started reading off his or her speech, he needed only to record the few sentences that were on the script. I also found that although this cameraman was very good at shooting so-called B roll, with the camera very steadily placed on his shoulder, he didnt know how to set up the camera on a tripod or connect the audio wire for interviews. Then I realized that he would have had no experience doing these things. In China, ordinary citizens usually arent interviewed. Party leaders all read from their scripts. So there was no need for him to set up his camera for just a randomly caught interviewee, as that had never happened in his entire career. There are other differences between reporting in the West and in China. It is relatively much easier to grab a Westerner on the street for an interview. Most of them are ready to talk, very composed in front of the camera, and can express themselves quite well. However, it is very, very difficult to get Chinese people, especially people from mainland China, to talk in front of a camera, even about issues they care about very much, such as a subway fare hike, immigration, or education issues. Sometimes even if they do agree to speak, they cant express themselves clearly or speak right to the point. And I understand why. In China, ordinary people, as well as Communist Party members, arent allowed to speak publicly about their thoughts. They are fearful; they arent used to talk in front of a camera. It is too dangerous. So even after they migrate to Western countries, they still prefer not to talk publicly. In other words, everything in China is pre-arranged. All the news events and news reports should actually be called pre-arranged puppet shows. The party is the scriptwriter and director for everything. Everyone has to play strictly according to the script. No surprises are allowed. Watching the two Chinese officials standing and speaking together with their U. S. counterparts at the State Department, I felt that Yang and Wei looked like two puppets being controlled by a long, invisible thread from Beijing. They didnt look like living individuals with their own thoughts and free will. Just puppets. This made me again think about President Trumps press conference. No matter how intense or fierce it was, at least nobody was reading from a script; and we could see so many things being revealed truthfully. But if U.S. reporters were allowed to give such a hard time to our own president, why werent they allowed to give a little bit of a hard time to the Chinese officials who chose to hold a press conference in the United States? While their long, long preaching could almost bore the on-site U.S. reporters to death, they would be surely used as very good propaganda material for people in China, to show them how well those two officials were doing in Washington, how tough their stance was, how their dear party still is great, and how the U. S. officials and reporters had no choice but to listen. Thats also why they had to speak for so long. They were speaking to their audience in China. Its sad that when the U. S. does things with China, it is business as usual. Instead of having them learn from us, we always give in to their ways of doing things, even in the State Department, where a joint press conference turned into a puppet show. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Trump Calls on Florida Elections to Be Called for Republicans, Alleges Fraud President Donald Trump urged Florida to declare Republicans Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis as the victors in elections for the Senate and governorship respectively. The president also suggested that the election was tainted by fraud which will taint the results of the ongoing recounts in both races. The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged, Trump wrote on Twitter on the morning of Nov. 12. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night! The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018 Florida conducted a machine recount of more than 8 million votes on Nov. 12, which was triggered over the weekend after the margins for victory for both Scott and DeSantis were lower than 0.5 percent. If the machine recounts result in a margin of less than 0.25 percent in either race, a manual recount will follow. Scott, the governor of Florida, is running against incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. De Santis, a congressman, is up against Democrat Andrew Gillum in the race for Scotts gubernatorial seat. The presidents allegations regarding missing or forged ballots likely stem from violations by two heavily Democratic counties, Broward and Palm Beach, which failed to submit counts for early voting and mail-in ballots by the mandated deadline. Scott filed a lawsuit against Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes demanding that she provide the numbers for the ballots cast, counted, and remaining. A circuit court judge found Snipes in violation of state public records law on Nov. 9. The judge ordered Snipes to provide the ballot counts on the same day. Snipes has not yet complied. Scott said hell call on the judge to find Snipes in contempt of court. For Republicans, the Senate race represents an opportunity to expand their majority in the Senate. Democrats are eager to keep the Senate margin slim and secure another governorship. There have been 1,177 proven instances of voter fraud in the United States which resulted in 1,019 criminal convictions, according to a database maintained by The Heritage Foundation. While none of the cases demonstrate widespread voter fraud, a massive scale is not necessary to impact an election. The presidential election in 2000 was decided by a 537 vote margin in Florida. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which has said it will review allegations of criminal fraud, stated that it had no active investigations as of late Friday. Some Florida officials have said it may not be possible to recount all ballots by the 3 p.m. deadline on Nov. 15. Thousands of ballots mailed by overseas military service members and civilians may still be in transit but must arrive by Nov. 16 to count. Scott has said he won the Senate race even as the ballots were tallied again, telling Fox News in an interview on Nov. 12, I want to make sure theres a free and fair election. But theres laws. Comply with the laws. Its frustrating, but we won. Were going to win the recount because its never been overturned before, Scott said. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference a day after Americans voted in the midterm elections, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Nov. 7, 2018. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Trump Condemns California Bar Shooter as Community Grieves THOUSAND OAKS, Calif.U.S. President Donald Trump said on Nov. 11 the gunman who killed 12 people in a crowded South California bar this week was a very, very sick guy, as investigators tried to determine what could have motivated the 28-year-old Marine combat veteran. Even as Thousand Oaks, a suburb 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, mourned the dead, the city faced a fresh threat on Nov. 11 as wildfires raged in the area, forcing thousands of people from their homes. Victims of the Nov. 7 rampage in the city of Thousand Oaks included an 18-year-old freshman student at Pepperdine University, a security guard at the bar, a graduate of California Lutheran University and a Marine Corps veteran. Ian David Long, who served with the Marines in Afghanistan, walked into the Borderline Bar and Grill, which was packed with dancing college students, and opened fire, fatally shooting 12 people before apparently killing himself, law enforcement officials said. CNN reported that Long had written on Facebook around the time of the massacre: I hope people call me insane wouldnt that just be a big ball of irony? He added, Yeah.. Im insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is hopes and prayers.. and wonder why these keep happening. Longs Facebook page appears to have since been deleted. He is a very sick puppy, Trump said of the gunman, speaking at the White House before leaving on a trip to Paris. The FBI was seeking a motive for the countrys latest mass shooting. Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean told reporters on Nov. 8 that Long may have suffered from PTSD. He was a Marine, he was in the war, he served time, he saw some pretty bad things, Trump said. And a lot of people say he had PTSD and its a tough deal. Richard Berge, who lived near Long and looked after his mothers dogs, told Reuters she had told him earlier this year she worried her son might take his own life but did not fear he would hurt her. The Thousand Oaks massacre took place less than two weeks after a man shot dead 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, fueling the debate over gun ownership in America. One of the dead, Telemachus Orfanos, had survived the mass shooting at a country music concert in October 2017 in Las Vegas that killed 58 people, the worst such incident in modern U.S. history, ABC News said, citing a friend. It was time for politicians to act, Orfanos mother, Susan Schmidt-Orfanos, told ABC News. I dont want prayers. I dont want thoughts, she said. I want gun control and I hope to God nobody else sends me any more prayers. The shooting came a day after the election of a Democratic governor who has pushed for tighter gun control in a state that already has some of the strictest firearms laws in the country. Still Reeling The wildfire that started on Nov. 8 has destroyed some homes on the outskirts of Thousand Oaks and forced the mandatory evacuations of 75,000 people, as well as closing some highways. A large plume of smoke grew on the horizon to the northeast of the city on Nov. 9. Andrea Campbell Conant, a public relations executive who grew up in Thousand Oaks, said even as she drove to one of the vigils for the 12 people killed on Nov. 7 roads had begun to close. Its almost like we havent had enough time to process how we feel, she said in a telephone interview as she described a head-spinning shift from a tear-filled vigil to her and her friends getting calls from relatives who needed help after getting evacuation orders. Although mass shootings have become commonplace in modern American life, the Nov. 7 carnage still came as a shock to the 127,000 residents of Thousand Oaks, which was named the third safest city in the United States for 2018 by the Niche research company. Heather Wynalda, 47, in Conejo Valley, a few miles west of Thousand Oaks, said her brothers home had burned but he and his family were safe. Its just devastating, she said via Facebook messenger. This community pulled together so beautifully in the midst of yesterdays shooting and today, it is being frantically scattered in an effort to escape the fires. Evacuation centers have been set up in Thousand Oaks, including a teen center where frantic parents awaited news of their children after the Nov. 7 shooting. Pepperdine University, which held a prayer service in Malibu following the shooting, said Nov. 9 it was closing its Malibu and Calabasas campuses due to the wildfires. By Eric Thayer high school students going through exam papers, ahead of the annual "Gaokao" or college entrance examinations in China, in Handan in China's northern Hebei province. - China's Gaokao will take place on June 7 and June 8 this year. (Photo by - / AFP) / China OUT (Photo credit should read -/AFP/Getty Images) Uproar Erupts Over Chinese Education Systems Use of Cultural Revolution Era Concept Political evaluations used to target persecuted groups Around late October to early November is usually the time in China when high school seniors sign up for the gaokao, the nationwide college entrance exam that determines which university they will be placed in. But in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, education authorities caused an uproar when it evoked a Cultural Revolution-era concept in its announcement for gaokao registration. Furthermore, the concept has been widely used by the Chinese regime in recent years to persecute members of a religious minority. On Nov. 6, local media ran an announcement from the citys test academy reminding students that they must pass a zhengshen, which translates literally to political investigation in order to be eligible to take the gaokao. The term was used during the Cultural Revolution to refer to an investigation to suss out whether an individual, as well as his family and relatives, was aligned with the Chinese Communist Partys ideology. Scores of youth were denied the opportunity to attend university because they or their families did not have proper political backgrounds. The Cultural Revolution campaign is estimated to have caused the deaths of millions of Chinese. This announcement sparked an outcry among netizens, who called out the Chongqing education authorities for recalling a brutal history of persecution. If you dont love the Party, then you are stripped of the right to education. Do we even have any rights? one netizen wrote. A few days later, on Nov. 9, the test academy in Fujian Province made a similar announcement, telling students that they will be subject to a ideology, politics, and moral character evaluation. Those who exhibit thoughts and actions that are against the Chinese constitutions basic principles, have participated in heretical religious activities, or have other such serious circumstances would not be allowed to take the gaokao, according to the notice. The Chongqing test academy finally responded on Nov. 8 to the debacle with a statement, saying it chose the wrong word and meant to refer to a routine assessment of students ideological background. Meanwhile, in an interview with a Chinese news magazine, the test academy denied culpability and said that it was the local journalists who made the mistake of using that term in the media reports. Soon thereafter, some netizens posted photos allegedly of the registration forms students are required to fill out, labeled clearly as zhengshen form. Dark History Many Chinese intellectuals today recall that zhengshen were still commonplace as recently as the 1980s. In the 1990s, the Chinese regime relaxed the zhengshen a bit, but it was not completely abolished. After the Chinese regime started persecuting [spiritual group] Falun Gong, zhengshen for many gaokao students were revived and strengthened, said current affairs commentator Heng He. The Epoch Times reviewed the Ministry of Educations announcements for gaokao students in the past two decades and found that since 2000, the ministry has explicitly called for ideology, politics, and moral character evaluations. Such terminology was not prevalent prior to 2000. After then-Communist Party Jiang Zemin launched a nationwide persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, the gaokao registration commonly included a stipulation that students cannot be involved in heretical religious organizations. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a meditation practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The popularity of the practiceofficial estimates in the late 1990s place the number of adherents around 70 million to 100 millionand its failure to conform to communist orthodoxy led Jiang to the decision to ban and persecute the practice. The Partys propaganda apparatus was directed to vilify Falun Gong and any who practiced it. One of the Partys primary means of doing so was by labeling Falun Gong a heretical religious organization, which was often rendered as cult in English. In a 2008 recruitment notice by military academies for prospective middle and high school students, the zhengshen requirements explicitly spell out those who are not qualified: [those who have] next of kin or close relatives who are currently being investigated as suspects under the legal system, or are main members of Falun Gong and other illegal organizations. Young Falun Gong practitioners, or children of Falun Gong practitioners who do not practice the faith themselves, have routinely been denied their rights to a fair education as a result of such persecution. According to Minghui.org, a U.S.-based website that tracks the persecution of Falun Gong in China, Liu Zonggang is a Falun Gong adherent residing in a village within Shougang City, Shandong Province. Although his sons gaokao marks were outstanding, his son was not accepted to any university because Liu and his wife practiced Falun Gong. From Laiwu City, also in Shandong, Falun Gong adherent Wang Zis daughter was kicked out of school, denied her high school graduation certificate, and denied her right to take the gaokao, under pressure from local police. Zhang Haiyan, who now resides in the United States, recalled to the Chinese-language Epoch Times in a July 2017 interview that in high school, he traveled to Beijing with his family, all Falun Gong practitioners, to speak out against the Chinese regimes persecution. He and his family were taken away by police and detained for several days. Though he scored well on the gaokao, he was not accepted at the schools he placed on his list of desired placement. He was only allowed to enroll in a school the education authorities assigned him to. Later, when he tried to apply for a graduate school program at Xiamen University, a school representative told Zhang that he was not accepted because all students must fill out a zhengshen form where it asks whether the student or the students family have practiced Falun Gong or are currently practicing the faith. The representative told him, We know its hard for you to answer. Zhang did not get accepted and decided to join the workforce after graduation. The annual Veterans Day observance featured prayer, a performance of taps and the presentation of a memorial wreath in front of the Mel Tierney American Legion Post 247 monument at Hodges Park. The monument includes the names of Park Ridge men who died serving the country in wars dating back to World War I. US Condemns Illegal Elections in Russia-Controlled Eastern Ukraine The United States issued a scathing condemnation of the elections held on Nov. 11 in the eastern region of Ukraine occupied by Russia, calling it an attempt by Moscow to legitimize its proxies. If Russia calculated the November 11 illegal elections would lead to international respect for its proxies, the international reaction proves it was mistaken, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement. The member states of the European Union and Canada also condemned the elections as illegal and in violation of a ceasefire agreed to in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in 2015. This reaction clearly states that, on the one hand, these elections will not be recognized by anyone. This is a brutal violation of the Minsk agreements, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said. On the other hand, there is a call for the responsibility of the Russian Federation as the organizer of these elections. The Russia-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk regions announced the winners of leadership elections on Nov. 12. The Donetsk regions acting head, Denis Pushilin, whose predecessor was killed in an explosion in August, was confirmed as the leader with 61 percent of the vote, while the acting chief of Luhansk region, Leonid Pasechnik, won with 68 percent. Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov congratulated the winners, according to the separatist press service DAN, though a Kremlin spokesman later said he wasnt aware that any congratulations had been extended. Russia disputed that the elections violated the Minsk accord and instead blamed the Kiev authorities for failing to honor its commitments in the peace process. The conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed rebels has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014, and poisoned relations between the two neighbors. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was not aware any congratulations had been sent to the rebels, but added that it was understandable they wanted to hold elections. We are talking about two regions that are completely rejected by the rest of the country and are under an absolute embargo. The Minsk accords are not being implemented by Kiev, Peskov told reporters on a conference call in Moscow. Pushilin said it was a turning point in the regions history. We have proved to the whole world that we can not only fight, not only win on the battlefield, but also build a state based on real democratic principles, he said Nov. 11. Moscow-backed rebels seized territory in eastern Ukraine after street protests toppled pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 and Russia annexed Crimea a month later. Ukraine and the West say Russia de facto controls the eastern Donbass region by propping up puppet leaders with troops and heavy weaponry, which Moscow denies. Reuters contributed to this report. US Marks 100th Anniversary of End to WWI With Wreaths and Bells of Peace The United States marked the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War One on Nov. 11, with celebrations ranging from high-tech light shows to somber gatherings in honor of the countrys military veterans. More than 100,000 Americans died in World War I. The United States joined the global conflict after declaring war on Germany on April 6, 1917. The conflict erupted in 1914 after a teenage Bosnian Serb assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife in Sarajevo. That lit the fuse for a war that would rewrite the world order, spell an end to empires, and claim the lives of more than 9 million soldiers. Lessons learned from World War I are more relevant than ever today, said Dr. Matthew Naylor, President and CEO of the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. World War I, also known as the Great War, ended when world leaders at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month signed an armistice ending four years of bloody battles. Americans honor their war heroes, both living and dead, each year on Nov. 11 with ceremonies to mark Veterans Day, a national holiday. The 100th anniversary of the peace agreement lends an extraordinary look to this years commemorative ceremonies around the United States, where wreaths are placed on memorials and bells toll to ring in harmony. In Washington, the National Cathedral was due to hold an interfaith worship service to remember the 4.7 million Americans who served in World War I and honor the U.S. militarys work preserving peace and liberty since then. During the 11 a.m. service, the Cathedral led a national tolling of bells called the Bells of Peace, in what organizers called the spirit of tradition, honor, and remembrance. One of the most striking events is at the museum in Kansas City where a massive light installation appears to cover a memorial in 5,000 poppies. The flowers signify remembrance after Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae saw them growing in a battle-scorched field in Waregem, Belgium, and was inspired to write the poem In Flanders Fields. The illumination covering the memorial in poppies ran for nine consecutive evenings through Veterans Day to recognize the nine million soldiers worldwide who died during World War One. By Barbara Goldberg In this photo taken on October 22, 2011 a worker operates machines for making yarn at a textile factory in Huaibei, east China's Anhui province. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) US Starts Investigations on Polyester Textured Yarn Imported from China and India Two major American synthetic yarn producers filed petitions that targeted the dumping of polyester textured yarn and unfair government subsidies from China and India. The petitions alleged harm to the U.S. domestic industry. The petitions were filed by Unifi Manufacturing, Inc. and Nan Ya Plastics Corp. America on Oct. 18 with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and the U.S. Department of Commerce. The two federal bodies announced the initiation of antidumping duty and countervailing duty investigations on Nov. 8. Antidumping duties are imposed on products sold at less than fair price or dumped in the United States. Countervailing duties are to compensate for unfair subsidies that are provided by foreign governments for particular products. The plaintiffs allege that polyester textured yarn imports from China and India have been increasing aggressively in volume over the last five years, growing from approximately 38.4 million lbs in 2013 to 68.9 million lbs in 2017, an increase of approximately 79 percent. Imports of polyester textured yarn in the U.S. market from 2015 through the first half of 2018 increased rapidly, from 61.7 million lbs in 2015 to 68.9 million lbs in 2017, growing approximately 11.5 percent over the three years ending in 2017. It expanded aggressively from 34.8 million pounds in the first half of 2017 to 41.7 million pounds in the first half of 2018, a year-on-year increase of 20.1 percent. According to the petitions, importers in China and India are dumping polyester textured yarn in the U.S. market at large margins. The alleged dumping margins range from 74.98 to 77.15 percent for China and 35.14 to 202.93 percent for India. The Department of Commerce is responsible for calculating dumping margins and collecting duties from importers. The investigation that began Nov. 8 aim to facilitate fair competition in the U.S. market by imposing antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of polyester textured yarn. In the China countervailing duty investigation, Chinese polyester textured yarn manufacturers are alleged to benefit from 20 subsidy programs from the Chinese government, including low-priced inputs, preferential loans, grants, and income tax incentives. Indian polyester textured yarn producers are supported by 43 Indian government subsidy programs. If the investigation by the Department of Commerce confirms the existence of dumping and unfair subsidies, and the ITC confirms that the imports have caused injury to the domestic polyester textured yarn industry, the Commerce Department will impose import duties. The substantial increase in unfairly-traded polyester textured yarn from China and India has harmed U.S. manufacturers and their workers, said Paul Rosenthal of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, counsel for the petitioning companies. Trade relief is essential to ensuring that the domestic polyester textured yarn industry can recover from its injured and vulnerable state, thrive, and fairly compete, he said. Polyester textured yarn is a synthetic multifilament yarn manufactured from polyester by a texturing process that adds special properties to the yarn filaments. Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro speaks at the Center for the Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington on Nov. 9, 2018. (Courtesy of CSIS) White House Adviser Navarro Urges Wall Street to Back Off on China Talks WASHINGTONWhite House trade adviser Peter Navarro lashed out at Wall Street executives and globalists, calling them unregistered foreign agents who are pressuring President Donald Trump into ending the trade dispute with China. The president of the United States does not need shuttle diplomacy, Navarro said on Nov. 9 in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. When these unpaid foreign agents engage in this kind of diplomacy, so-called diplomacy, all they do is weaken this president and his negotiating position. Navarro called a group of U.S. bankers and hedge-fund managers foreign agents who serve a Chinese government-influenced operation. He accused them of putting a full-court press on the White House ahead of the Group of 20 (G20) summit. Trump is planning to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the G-20 in Buenos Aires later this month. Both sides are considering a formal, bilateral sit-down meeting. The mission of the Wall Street players is to pressure the president into some kind of deal, Navarro said. If there is a dealif and when there is a dealit will be on President Donald J. Trumps terms not Wall Streets terms, he said, urging them to get out of the negotiations. Navarro mentioned Goldman Sachs in his speech several times. In September, the Chinese Communist Party officials invited some of Wall Streets top executives to Beijing to seek advice on how to ease trade tensions with Washington. The Financial Times reported that the invited executives included John Waldron, president and CEO of Goldman Sachs, along with the heads of Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Blackstone Group, and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Navarro called on Wall Street to spend their billions in Dayton, Ohio in the factory towns of America, instead of engaging in a shuttle diplomacy. If Wall Street is involved and continues to insinuate itself into these negotiations, there will be a stench around any deal thats consummated because it will have the imprimatur of Goldman Sachs and Wall Street. Economic Security Is National Security Trump introduced the maxim that economic security is national security, said Navarro, who added that this maxim has been the guiding principle for many of the presidents policies, including tax reform, deregulation, and unleashing the energy sector. Using a Section 301 investigation to tackle Chinas unfair trade practices is also part of Trumps broader strategy to improve both economic and national security. Navarro praised U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and his role in recommending using Section 301, a power that was laying dormant for four decades. We have, in my judgment, the finest United States Trade Representative weve had in our history, he said. We are able to now protect our technologies and intellectual property from Chinese predation, and its been tremendously successful. Based on the investigation findings, USTR developed recommendations to confront China over its state-led, market-distorting policies and practices, forced technology transfers, intellectual property theft, and cyber theft. As part of the measures to improve U.S. economic and national security, Trump also ordered an assessment of Americas manufacturing and military industrial base. After a yearlong effort, the Department of Defense released a report last month, finding roughly 300 gaps and vulnerabilities across the defense supply chain. The weak spots include reliance on a single source of critical equipment or material, dependence on foreign manufacturers, and looming labor shortages. According to Navarro, the most important information uncovered in the report was the high degree of foreign source dependency, which is a product of the globalization of the defense industry supply chain. These vulnerabilities are not random, Navarro said. In some cases, they are the direct effect of strategic rivals, principally China, targeting somewhere in our supply chain or some sector and basically making that vulnerability either existing or worse. Cuts to the defense budget, the decline of the manufacturing base due to the forces of globalization, and unfair trade practices by economic competitors have enabled these vulnerabilities to grow. According to the report, China represents a significant and growing risk to the supply of materials deemed strategic and critical to U.S. national security, including a growing number of both widely used and specialized metals, alloys and other materials, including rare earths and permanent magnets. The report also talks about Chinas strategies of economic aggression, such as protecting its own market from competition, dominating traditional manufacturing industries, and acquiring technology and intellectual property from the rest of the world. According to Navarro, the Chinese regime uses 50 tools to pursue these strategies of aggression, including high tariffs, high non-tariff barriers, imposing indigenous standards for products, currency manipulation, cyber theft, espionage, forced technology transfer, and massive subsidies. [If] you understand what China is doing to us in the world, you will also understand why its so difficult to undo what they are doing to us, Navarro said. The Trump administration presented Chinese officials with a long list of trade demands during the talks this year. The White House, however, doubts the ability of Beijing to meet these demands. How do you have a deal with somebody if they dont even acknowledge your concern? Its Alice in Wonderland, Navarro said. Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump arrive at a state dinner in Beijing on Nov. 9, 2017. (Thomas Peter - Pool/Getty Images) White House Opens New Front in China Trade War WASHINGTONThe Trump administration is ramping up the pressure in its ongoing trade war with Beijing by adopting new strategies to curb Chinas intellectual property (IP) theft. A recent report by The Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, claims that Washington is gearing up to move beyond tariffs and use export controls, indictments, and other tools to take on China. The U.S. government has recently taken unprecedented actions to defend the largest American memory-chip maker, Micron Technology. The Commerce and Justice departments cracked down on a Chinese state-owned company for stealing Microns trade secrets. On Nov. 1, the Justice Department issued indictments against Chinas Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit, its business partner Taiwans United Microelectronics Corp., and employees, including Jinhuas president, for conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, economic espionage, and related crimes. The companies were accused of stealing Microns trade secrets related to the production of advanced dynamic random-access memory chips (DRAM). Micron is the only U.S.-based company that manufactures DRAM, a technology not possessed by China until very recently. The Chinese regime has publicly identified the development of DRAM and other microelectronics technologies as a national economic priority. The Justice Department also filed a civil lawsuit to prevent Jinhua and its partner from exporting to the United States any products made by using the trade secrets at issue. Idaho-based Micron welcomed the Justice Departments decision. Micron has invested billions of dollars over decades to develop its intellectual property, said the company, in a press release. The actions announced today reinforce that criminal misappropriation will be appropriately addressed. The move came after the Commerce Department announced in October that it had restricted exports to Jinhua by adding the company to its entity list, as it posed a national security threat to the United States. The Commerce Department stated that the company threatened the long-term economic viability of U.S. suppliers of these essential components of U.S. military systems. According to experts, this move by the Trump administration is an unprecedented effort to use a legal tool widely known for penalizing foreign entities that support terrorism, send goods to sanctioned countries, or violate export-control rules. U.S. officials are now searching for additional cases where they could protect American firms against Chinese IP theft, the sources told the Journal, hoping that business leaders would cooperate with the U.S. government. Costs of IP Theft The annual cost of IP theft to the U.S. economy could be as high as $600 billion, according to the IP Commission 2017 report by the National Bureau of Asian Research. And China is the top IP infringer in the world. IP theft by thousands of Chinese actors continues to be rampant, and the United States constantly buys its own and other states inventions from Chinese infringers, the report stated. Beijing is deeply committed to economic policies that include aggressively acquiring foreign technology and information, policies that have contributed to greater IP theft. In the last decade, through these aggressive and trade-distorting practices, China has managed to create its own national champions in key industries, helping them expand their market share and overtake foreign rivals. Beijings tactics have weakened the competitiveness of American companies like Micron. To end Chinas economic aggression, the Trump administration has levied duties on roughly $250 billion worth of Chinese goods and imposed restrictions on Chinese investments. Beijing has retaliated with tariffs of its own against U.S. products. The Trump administrations unprecedented actions to defend Micron have opened a new front in the U.S.China trade war. The move came weeks before President Donald Trumps planned meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires. Both sides are considering a formal, bilateral meeting at the summit that may include discussions on trade as well. During the bilateral trade talks this year, the Trump administration presented Chinese officials with a long list of trade demands including ending IP theft. Chinese officials, however, have given no indication that theyre ready to meet Washingtons demands. The last round of talks ended in August with no concrete steps toward a deal. The list is very important to the administration, said Larry Kudlow, the White Houses top economic adviser, at a Washington Post event on Nov. 1. If they dont make a satisfactory offer, then the president will continue to aggressively pursue his agenda. And I think hes right to do so, he said. Frankly, the principal culprit is China, he added. I think only they can break the logjam. Woman Charged in Death of Ruthie Ann Miles Toddler Died in Suicide: Police A woman who was charged in the death of Broadway star Ruthie Ann Miless daughter and another child was found dead. The New York City Police Department told People magazine that Dorothy Bruns, 44, was found unconscious and unresponsive in a bedroom. She was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency responders. An NYPD spokesperson told the publication Bruns died of a suicide at her Staten Island home. Another police official told People that she died of an overdose. A note was also found expressing [her] desire to no longer live, an official said. It said in part: Im sorry, I cant do this anymore, police told The New York Post, and it added: Do not resuscitate. The note also gave a friend of Bruns power of attorney. Burns, in March 2018, allegedly hit and killed two pedestrians in Brooklyn, which included Miless 4-year-old Abigail Blumenstein. Miles, who was pregnant, was injured in the incident. Lauren Lew, a friend of Miles, was injured and her 1-year-old, Joshua Lew, died. A Brooklyn grand jury indicted Bruns on charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, assault, reports said. The Post reported that Bruns had multiple sclerosis and was prone to seizures. But before the crash in March, she was told not to drive. In the case, Bruns faced 15 years in prison. The NYPD Chief of Detectives told the Post last week: There was a suicide note recovered at the scene as well as evidence of prescription pills, and beyond that Ill defer to the [Medical Examiner] to conclude the investigation. Thats the reality across the board. This is just an extremely painful case from moment one and I wish that none of this had come to pass, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. But whats abundantly clear at the same time is that we have to change our laws so that we dont have any more tragedies like the one she was originally involved in with those who lost their lives. In March, a source told People: Abigail was excited to be a big sister. She was the brightest little spirit. Every time you were around her, your heart couldnt help but shine. She had the sweetest laugh and the loveliest personality. She was very much like her mother. Ruthie was a wonderful mother. She always put Abigail first and was really dedicated to spending time together, the source added. The two had a very tight bond. They were inseparable. After the unexpected death in October of the owner of an Oxford manufacturer that makes locomotive turntables and people movers, the state of Connecticut plans to extend the company a loan of up to $1 million to keep it operational in the near term. Macton owner Peter G. McGonagle died Oct. 23 at age 55, a dozen years after the Fairfield resident led a buyout of Macton Corp. after an earlier career with predecessor companies of Affinion Group in Stamford, and before that as a corporate lawyer with expertise on mergers. Macton makes big turntables used to rotate locomotives onto new tracks at rail hubs, as well as for other applications ranging from revolving exhibits at trade shows to security barriers that can be rotated into position to prevent vehicles from entering a roadway. The company also produces jacks and lifts for locomotives, railcars and other vehicles, with Macton systems having been installed at a rail yard in New Haven that services Metro-North. Macton was founded in 1947 and moved to Oxford in 1999. In 2006, it was sold by a private equity investment firm to McGonagle, who was previously an executive with Trilegiant and Cendant. The manufacturer has its headquarters plant a few miles south of Interstate 84 in an Oxford industrial park that is home also to RBC Bearings, a publicly traded company that makes ball bearings and other components for the aerospace industry and other uses. Macton moved there in 1999, having previously been located in a singular, circular building at Danbury Municipal Airport that has been on the market for several years, priced currently at $2.1 million. Macton would use the funds for restarting manufacturing operations in Oxford, according to Connecticut Innovations, with the state Department of Economic and Community Development stating it could invest as much as $300,000 in the deal. A Connecticut Innovations committee votes on the newest loan on Thursday, with a history of approving deal terms that proceed to a vote. In 2014, Macton borrowed $650,000 from the state to purchase new equipment, and landed a $100,000 state grant the following year. In 2016, Macton obtained a $4.4 million in credit from Rockland Trust of Rockland, Mass. Includes prior reporting by Luther Turmelle and Dirk Perrefort. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman Veterans come in all shapes and sizes. Rich and poor, and everything in between, said Powers. Today, we salute the service of all veterans and keep in our prayers the fallen and the missing and all who are in harms way. NORWALK Natalia Clarke barely spoke English when she came to Norwalk from Colombia in 2013. Clarke, then 29, got help from Greater Norwalk Literacy Volunteers, a Norwalk Public Library program that teaches adults to read, write, speak and understand English so that they can reach their personal, educational, employment and civic goals, according to Library Assistant Director Sherelle Harris, who runs the Literacy Volunteers Department at the library. After four months with GNLV her tutor, Lynn Jeffries, Natalias English vastly improved, Harris said. She gained the confidence to look for work, and eventually found a job with a company in Port Chester, N.Y. She was comfortable enough with her new language skills to take the train to get there and, later, to get a drivers license and an apartment. Mayor Harry W. Rilling has chosen Literacy Volunteers and the Norwalk Domestic Violence Crisis Center as recipients of proceeds from the 2019 Mayors Ball, which will be held at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25, at Serafina at the Italian Center in Stamford. The ball, started under Mayor Frank J. Esposito and now a nonprofit charitable institution, is held each January to benefit local charities. Making a difference Literacy Volunteers, a member of ProLiteracy America, serves approximately 400 students from more than 30 countries each month. Volunteer tutors and students work together in small groups at least two hours a week. The roughly 60 tutors teach classes in English as a Foreign Language, Basic Literacy and Citizenship Training, free or charge and regardless of a students immigration status. You really feel youre making a difference in peoples lives, said Norwalk Public Library Director Chris Bradley. Its a regular part of the library and part of the budget, but this way you can give an extra boost to the program. Bradley said the mayors ball proceeds could go to purchase workbooks or create additional study rooms for the Literacy Volunteers program. Harris said the money could be used for professional development for the volunteers - some of them are teachers, others are not - or for equipment. Some of the classes could really use a television screen or whiteboards or things like that, Harris said. The more they (tutors) become technologically savvy, the better they can reach and teach their students. Rebuilding self-esteem The Domestic Violence Crisis Center, a nonprofit organization with offices and separate safe houses in Stamford and Norwalk, provides crisis intervention, safety planning, and counseling in both English and Spanish to persons experiencing domestic abuse. The center helps all people with the goal of rebuilding self-esteem and moving them toward a more independent existence. The Norwalk office, located on River Street, offers counseling, legal services, English as a Second Language classes, and even toys for children. Sometimes they have the ESL class here, said Lourdine Pierre, safe house advocate for the crisis center. When the kids do come, we have items for them here to keep them occupied. The crisis center helps people in Norwalk, Stamford, New Canaan, Darien, Westport, Weston and Wilton. In 2017, the center saw more than 3,700 victims of domestic violence in those seven towns, said center Development Director Boardie Kurz. Domestic violence is the number one call to law enforcement in most of those town towns, so it is what we call the silent epidemic, Kurz said. Domestic violence can present itself in various ways. Its not only physical. It can be financial and emotional. Its really about control. Kurz said the crisis center is thrilled to have been chosen as a mayors ball beneficiary we feel very honored that Norwalk values the work that we do and will put the money toward its preventable education program, which teaches students in local schools about healthy relationships and conflict resolution. In a perfect world, such services wont be needed. Our goal is to put ourselves out of business, so we dont have over 3,700 victims of domestic violence, Kurz said. Reserve early for Mayors Ball Reservations with payment for the 2019 Mayors Ball will be accepted until Jan. 18, 2019, or until the venue sells out. Tickets are $150 per person. Tables of 10 can also be reserved. Checks should be made payable to the Norwalk Community Benefit Fund. To reserve a seat, call Maritza Alvarado at 203-854-7950. To donate a silent auction item, call Sally Johnson, executive assistant to the mayor, at 203-854-7707. The major portion of ball proceeds come from silent auction donations. Tax-deductible contributions to the ball can be made at any time. NORWALK Kendall Elementary School students cheered in the schools gymnasium Monday morning as a group of veterans stood before them and introduced themselves. The school hosted 10 veterans from different branches of the armed forces at a breakfast assembly. School leaders said the event was organized to give students an understanding of Veterans Day and why the U.S. honors those who served. The gym was full of fourth- and fifth-graders, who eagerly awaited their turns to ask questions. Jane Wall, a fifth-grade teacher, said the event focused on the positive. She and other teachers pre-wrote questions with students to maintain as peaceful an atmosphere as possible, she said. What did you miss? asked some students. How did it affect your life today? asked others. Groups were split into about 15 students per veteran. Each veteran shared vignettes about their experience and allowed students to ask pre-written questions. It was the first assembly of its kind, Wall said. There are a lot of local vets and our mission is college and career readiness, she said. The assembly also brought in veterans who were relatives to students. Steven Kernstock said that serving in the Air Force often meant waking up between 3 and 4 a.m. His day would start with running, pushups and situps, followed by breakfast. When he wasnt eating or exercising, hed maintain a C130 plane. He told students when he was deployed to Qatar, hed use German shepherds to help maintain safety at the base. He also told students he ate Camel. The kids get to learn first-hand from the people who have actually done it themselves what this country means to us and all of our civilians in it, Kernstock said. A lot of the guys here today, without them, who knows where we would be, he said, referencing the other veterans in the gym. Charles Kennerly, who served as operations specialist in the navy from 1982 to 1988, said it was important for him to show students that working in the military isnt just about war. He held up photographs of him and other sailors smiling on the USS La Moure County, a tank landing ship commissioned in 1971. Kennerly used a radar system to track other ships and would guide the boat to different destinations. He traveled to many countries while serving, from Europe to Africa. He said one thing always remains the same people have similar values and want whats best for their families. No matter the country, people are more alike than not, he said. Michael Yakubec never showed at Stroger Hospital, the affidavit states. He initially tried to tell investigators that he had gone there, but then said he could not find (Stroger Hospital) using the directions he was provided by staff at St. Mary Medical Center, according to the affidavit. Instead, he was driving around Chicago looking for Stroger Hospital and sleeping in his car, court records state. We signed a contract that would give up to and including our lives to in order defend people that we dont know, essentially, in order to defend our friends and our families, Riordan said during the ceremony. Weve always given a part of ourselves. I know that Ive given a part of my youth. EAST ALTON Several hundred people gathered on Main Street in East Alton on Sunday to officially dedicate the citys new Veterans Memorial. Elgin Sonny Hinson of East Alton, a U.S. Army veteran from the 1980s, was one of them, and has a brick on the walk leading to the memorial. This city, for a small community, has grown big when it comes to our military service people, Hinson said. This is a great honor. Its a matter of pride for us military guys to be so honored, and we appreciate it. The American Legion Veterans Memorial Park was dedicated one year ago, and the black granite memorial that is its centerpiece was dedicated on Sunday, the official observance of Veterans Day. Veterans Day is a celebration of those who give, and a lot of them sacrifice their lives, for our safety here in this country, Hinson said. Veterans Day is one of my favorite holidays. East Alton resident Sara Sladek was on hand for the dedication ceremony and to honor her mother, Esther Rapp, a World War II veteran who has a brick on the memorial walk. My mother loved East Alton, she was born and raised here, and lived here her whole life, Sladek said. She was very proud of her World War II service. I think its always important to leave a footprint behind for those yet to come, to realize the many people in our community that did sacrifice, and many laid their lives down, Sladek said. Any type of sacrifice by serving is a good thing. It shows a lot of fortitude and I hope we never lose that spirit. The personalized bricks have been selling at $100 apiece to help finish the monument that joins the eagle sculpture, benches and sign at the memorial site at Main and Shamrock directly across from East Alton Village Hall. The area also features flags representing the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard. The East Alton American Legion Veterans Memorial Park Committee has raised $22,000 so far to pay for the memorial and park, according to committee chair Sue Greene, and they still need between $8,000 and $10,000 to complete the brick work, additional lighting and other features. Im very proud of the community and our donors, they were very generous, Greene said. I thank my committee because without them this wouldnt be happening. People are going to be very proud of this monument and the names that are on there. The upright dark granite monument is inscribed with the names of every East Alton resident killed in action during each of the nations wars. Those inscribed names include: World War I: Sam Mullins, Lee Arnold Berkhiser and Grant James Larrance World War II: Randal J. Clark Jr., Edwin C. Crawford, Walter R. Crawford, John L. Demmer, William L. Feuquay, Clinton Fowler, William F. Hazelrigg, James H. Hurley, Lewis Albert Johnson, Earl Kelley, Elmer Kelley, William Ben Leathers, Jerome Morris, Eugene M. Owens, Harold W. Pollard, Louis E. Pyle, Robert Reddish, Charles J. Stephens and Lawrence E. Staten Korean War: Gerald R. Hendrick, Ross Johnson and Tony Neely Vietnam War: Talmadge Wayne Carnell, Terry A. Dallape, William C. Langham, James Daniel Olsen, George William Stinson Jr., John Braxton Woodall, James Robert Willeford and James B. Woodall Afghanistan: Matthew Duane Bush Omer Williams of Bethalto found the name of a friend and fellow Vietnam veteran, George Stinson, on the memorial. When we came home from Vietnam we were nobody. Now they are showing a little appreciation for us, for the veterans, said Williams as he fought back tears. This is a long time coming. East Alton Mayor Joe Silkwood is proud of the effort led by the East Alton American Legion to make the veterans memorial a reality. This has been a fantastic two-year project, Silkwood said. This whole community feels so much gratitude toward the veterans who have served and preserved our way of life. Were a small town and we appreciate those who served. The volunteer committee thats been working for well over two years to get this put together, I cant thank them enough for their hard work, Silkwood said. It literally was a two and a half year project that took a lot of time and effort and without their commitment to our community this wouldnt have happened. State Sen. William Haine, a Vietnam veteran, summed up the feelings of the dozens of fellow veterans who attended Sundays East Alton ceremony on Veterans Day by quoting from William Shakespeares play Henry V: From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother. EDWARDSVILLE Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a familiar name in classical music, but what of his sisters name Maria Anna (Nannerl) Mozart who performed throughout Europe with her brother? The true, yet forgotten, story of Maria Anna (Nannerl) Mozart will be told at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28, in the Dunham Hall Theater, on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, when SIUE Arts & Issues presents The Other Mozart. Created, written and originally performed by Sylvia Milo, this monodrama tells the story of Mozarts sister, whose work and story faded away and seems to be lost in history. The award-winning plays unusual setting includes a stunning 18-foot period gown, as the main character tells the tale of Maria Anna Mozart through facts, stories and lines in the play that have been pulled directly from the Mozart familys humorous and heartbreaking letters. The play features music composed by Nannerls famous brother and Marianna Martines (a female composer who inspired Nannerl), and original music written for the play for the instruments Nannerl knew intimately, such as clavichords, music boxes and bells, as well as teacups, fans and other ordinary objects that might have captured her imagination. Period style movement is directed by Janice Orlandi, creating a world of opulence and elegance through articulate delicacy of expressive balletic gestures, reverent court bows and fan language. The performance creates a multi-sensual experience and transports the audience into a world of outsized beauty and delight. Directed by Isaac Byrne, with music composed by Nathan Davis and Phyllis Chen, The Other Mozart had an Off-Broadway run in New York City; London; Munich, the capital of Bavaria, in Germany; Salzburg, the birthplace of Amadeus Mozart, in Austria; and, Vienna, the capital of Austria. The Other Mozart continues to be presented internationally in four languages. The New York Times described The Other Mozart as strikingly beautiful, while The Stage in London noted it is, A gem of a show. More Information If you go: What: "The Other Mozart," presented by SIUE Arts & Issues When: 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 28 Where: Dunham Hall Theater, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, Illinois Info: The SIUE Friends of Music will be hosting a pre-show dinner buffet the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 28. Tickets for the dinner cost $25 and can be purchased through artsandissues.com. A reception with a cash bar begins at 5:30 p.m. followed by dinner at 6 p.m. See More Collapse The Other Mozart, which is sponsored by TheBank of Edwardsville, has some adult language and is appropriate for age 13 and older. The SIUE Friends of Music will be hosting a pre-show dinner buffet the evening of Nov. 28. Tickets for the dinner cost $25 and can be purchased through artsandissues.com. A reception with a cash bar begins at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner at 6 p.m. Preferred seating is available for those who attend the pre-show dinner buffet. Tickets for the dinner and the show must be purchased separately by calling 618-650-5194. Tickets for The Other Mozart range in price from $15 to $20 and can be purchased at artsandissues.com, by telephone at 866-698-4253 or at the SIUE Morris University Center (MUC) Welcome Desk. For those attending the pre-show dinner, Arts & Issues will donate the plays ticket price to the Friends of Music scholarship fund, which helps SIUE students pay for their music education. This year the Friends of Music awarded 12 scholarships to SIUE students. While he was found not guilty of bribery, a jury found Kelerchian guilty in October 2015 of one count each of conspiracy to make false statements to a federal firearms licensee, conspiracy to defraud the Food and Drug Administration of its regulatory function regarding restricted laser sights, conspiracy to make false statements in demonstration letters, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Two enrollment events will take place on Ivy Tech Community College campuses in Northwest Indiana. College 101 will be held from 6-8 p.m. Thursday at the Valparaiso campus, 3100 Ivy Tech Drive; Michigan City campus, 3714 Franklin Drive; and two of the three Lake County campus locations: the Arts and Sciences Building, 3491 Broadway, Gary, and 410 E. Columbus Drive, East Chicago. Prospective students can meet faculty and staff, learn about financial aid and campus programs and enroll for classes. More information and registration is at ivytech.edu/college101. Express Enrollment Day will be from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nov. 29. This event offers all enrollment services in one place. Those attending are asked to bring scores from the SAT, PSAT and/or ACT; high school and any college transcripts; most recent tax return (if applying for financial aid) and a state-issued photo ID. Veterans should bring a DD214. More information is available at ivytech.edu/enrollmentday. To reach local campuses by phone, call 219-981-1111 for Lake County; 219-464-8514 for Valparaiso; and 219-879-9137 for Michigan City. Fine said her immediate focus is the current legislatures veto session, which was set to start Tuesday. Once January rolls around, she wants to continue focusing in the Senate on the health care and environmental issues that she championed while in the House, she said. We always figure that if our men and women could fight and serve in the cold and the heat, we could deal with the cold to honor them, said Mary Memeghello, past president of the Huerter-Wilmette American Legion Post 46, which organized the ceremony. It was so nice to see the church so full, and then everyone followed Alexa in the procession, Fink said. Because it was dark at that point, everyone got their cellphones out to light the way. The annual "Lord Mayor's Show" was held Saturday in the City of London, this time discussing "Shaping Tomorrow's City Today." Chinese performers once again attracted visitors from home and abroad. As one of the largest and most colorful events in London that dates back to the 16th century, it began at 11 a.m. with over 7,000 people, 200 horses and 140 motor and steam-driven vehicles gathering. With military bands, university teams and social organizations included, the parade traveled 4 km from Mansion House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London, and through some other landmarks, displaying the city's ancient and modern looks in parallel with demonstrating its enthusiasm and culture. Peter Estlin, 691st Lord Mayor of the City of London, traveled in a golden carriage and waved to crowds. Chinese enterprises and organizations were also in the procession. Representatives from Zhejiang UK Association (ZJUKA) and China Construction Bank, for example, took part in Chinese traditional performances like Ansai waist drum dance and dragon dance, which received high praise from audience. It was the second time for the ZJUKA to participate in a Lord Mayor's Show, Huang Ping, the association's president, told Xinhua, adding that the design of their float is inspired by Hangzhou's Yuhuang Shannan Fund Town, and, in this finance center, showcases the style of China's modern fund town. Amid the parade, the "One Belt, One Road" float was particularly eye-catching. It was decorated with a map of China, pandas and Chinese dragon decorations, showing hospitality toward British people. A pair of clasped hands hinted the friendly and cooperative relations between China and Britain. The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London brought a high-tech robotic float with traditional dragon dance, a miniature of a modernistic Asian cosmopolitan city with traditional culture preserved. Meanwhile, a team from China's Taiwan showed local features like Electric-Techno Neon Gods, a dance that combines traditional Taiwan folk dances with modern pop music. Blood is thicker than water: Rookie investigator arrests the man who murdered his father BANGKOK: The year 1998 was annus horribilis for a family in Chumphon province. On the night of Dec 5, Prasit Sae-ue, the sole breadwinner of the family was killed while his wife was pregnant with their son. murdercrimepolice By Bangkok Post Monday 12 November 2018, 10:13AM New Police Lance Corporal Atsadawut Makpradit successfully searched for the suspect who killed his father 20 years ago. Photo: Courtesy of the Royal Thai Police Life goes on. The son, who never saw his fathers face, grew up to become a police investigator who caught the man who killed his father. L/Cpl Atsadawuts reputation as a famous rookie at the Royal Thai Police is reflected by the amount of praise and media reports he received for his role in solving a murder case in a small village in Chumphons Tha Sae district. It was not a high-profile case and rarely drew the attention of other officers. In fact, the police left the case cold, and its 20-year-statute of limitations was due to expire next month on Dec 2. Nonetheless, the case became famous because one of two victims in the murder case is the father of a police investigator. The young police investigator, now attached with the Provincial Police Region 8, told the Bangkok Post he was glad to be a part of the team that arrested the killer, but denied he did it for revenge. I just want to apply what Ive learned to a case thats quite close to me, L/Cpl Atsadawut said. He admitted he did not know much about his father, as his mother has been avoiding the topic of the gruesome murder. I kept asking my mother over and over again where is my father? he said. His mother later told him about the murder, and her late husbands dream of seeing his son becoming a policeman. On Dec 5, almost two decades ago, Prasit and another victim named Chani Tongyit were killed when they were driving a truck to carry rubber wood in Surat Thanis Phunphin District. Their 10-wheeler was robbed by three thieves, who forced them into a pickup truck. The victims heads were covered with plastic bags before they were slain. The corpses were then dumped near a pond at Ban Tha Taphao in Chumphons Tha Sae District. Police managed to arrest two out of three suspects, but the other suspect, identified as Bunyarit Khrutlaong, remained at large for 20 years until he was arrested on Nov 5 this year. The 54-year-old was nabbed by a team led by Pol Col Phumin Phumphanmuang of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD). Col Phumin, a superintendent of the CSDs Subdivision 5 that oversees the southern provinces, and L/Cpl Atsadawut planned the arrest together. But it was L/Cpl Atsadawut who had given the investigators a new clue about the suspect. I started by asking older police officers and relatives about the case, L/Cpl Atsadawut said. He admitted the manhunt for Mr Bunyarit was not easy because this was not a high-profile criminal case. The rookie remained persistent, following breadcrumbs despite being warned that the suspect was a close aide of a local influential figure. He continued to gather more information on the location of the suspect's hideout and eventually found the man had fled to Malaysia and planned to return to Thailand when the cases statute of limitations expired on Dec 2. To ensure the arrest of Mr Bunyarit by Dec 2, the young lance corporal went to the CSD for help. That led him to meet veteran police investigator Col Phumin, who is known for his skill in tracking down fugitives. The team eventually learned that Mr Bunyarit was living in a village in Chumphons Tambon Song Phi Nong, where he was arrested. During interrogation, Mr Bunyarit acknowledged there was an arrest warrant for him issued by the Surat Thani Provincial Court, but denied any involvement in the murders and said he would only testify in court. Investigators say that Mr Bunyarit decided to keep a low profile and never renewed his identity card. While the arrest was made possible by the work of CSD investigators, L/Cpl Atsadawut admitted that luck also played a role. We were lucky because the suspect had just returned to the province, he said Col Phumin praised the rookies skills, especially his diligent checks on cold cases. However, it was not strange to see an investigation into a wrongdoing that occurred to a family of an investigator, said Col Phumin. He once worked on a case in which a suspect killed a brother of a colleague. The victim was also my uncle, Col Phumin said. Read original story here. British Embassy and Ministry of Social Development & Human Security collaborate to improve handling of child protection and abduction BANGKOK: The Child Safeguarding in Thailand conference launched at the Sivatel Bangkok Hotel today (Nov 12). The conference will be held over two days with the aims of enhancing the understanding of how UK and Thai officials can support each other to safeguard British children in Thailand. By The Phuket News Monday 12 November 2018, 03:23PM The conference will be held over two days with the aims of enhancing the understanding of how UK and Thai officials can support each other to safeguard British children in Thailand. Photo: British Embassy Bangkok The training will develop the skills of social workers, with two UK-qualified and registered social workers travelling to Bangkok to facilitate the training who will focus on sharing best practice; legislative frameworks and operational protocols. Other key participants at the conference include: Thai Social Services, End Child Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT), International Social Services (ISS), Childline Thailand and university professors responsible for training undergraduate social workers. Of note, ECPAT is a childrens rights organisation that works with other childrens rights organisation, anti-trafficking NGOs, child protection agencies, communities and governments to protect children from trafficking and transnational exploitation. The organisation supports children everywhere to uphold their rights and to live a life free from abuse and exploitation, and also lobbies governments to improve legislation, policy and practice to protect children; prevent child trafficking; and implement tougher action against those who abuse children. Meanwhile, the renowned Childline organisation provides services for any child under the age of 18. The foundation works with various governments and NGOs to safeguard the rights of every child as outlined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child. Childline operates its own helplines for children in need who need direct assistance in comfort, help and emotional support immediately. In the long-term, the anticipated result of the conference is for training to be expanded across regional offices in Thailand to enhance safeguarding operations. At the British Embassy, our responsibility is to ensure the safety of all British and dual national children. Every year the Consular team in Bangkok deal with nearly 50 child safeguarding cases and respond to over 1500 consular case per year, many of these include child safeguarding elements to them, said British Embassy Bangkok Deputy Head of Mission Margaret Tongue. The Child Safeguarding in Thailand Conference seeks to build on collaboration with Thai Social Services. We hope to enhance understanding of how UK and Thai officials can work together to safeguard children in Thailand. Director of the Social Assistance Centre, Darunee Manussavanish, noted, The professional collaboration between the British Embassy Bangkok and Social Assistance Centre is a successful partnership put into practice for our child safeguarding operation. The Embassy and Social Assistance Centre have organised monthly multidisciplinary case conferences to achieve the Best Interest of the Child principle. As the Director of Social Assistance Centre, I insist that we apply the Thai Child Protection Act 2003 as well as The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in all cases, together with the child-centre principle. Over one million British nationals travel to Thailand each year, with over 60,000 living as expatriates on a long-term basis, noted an embassy release announcing the conference today. According to an independent report commissioned by the UK government, Thailand is ranked in the top 10 for child safeguarding cases. The UK government defines child safeguarding as protecting British children from harm, mitigating risks, supporting psychosocial development and ensuring that the child grows up with dignity. Since 2016, there have been 132 child-related cases at the Consular department of the British Embassy Bangkok: 30 cases were of a complex nature requiring long-term assistance. Of these cases, 85 cases related to child abuse and 24 cases related to international parental child abduction, the release added. The Child Safeguarding in Thailand conference is just one extension of a wider collaborative project seeking to build upon ongoing work between the British Embassys Consular team and Thai Social Services. Over the last two years, the Consular team has been working with the Director of the Social Assistance Centre to improve access to services and reduce incidents related to children. In child safeguarding cases, the British Embassy Bangkok is able to liaise with relevant NGOs, as well as police, local authorities and wider family and friends who can assist in caring for a child. Thai Social Services and Thai social workers have collaborated with the British Embassy in Bangkok for three years, the release noted. Healthy eating ,exercise offer benefits even if pounds don't come off TORONTO European sports chain Decathlon is replacing Saks Off Fifth in a spot over two floors at the Montreal Eaton Centre. Hudsons Bay Company says it and mall developer Ivanhoe Cambridge have mutually agreed to no longer open a Saks Off Fifth location. The Toronto-based department store chain owner tells The Canadian Press that plans for the location have been abandoned due to a number of factors, but refused to reveal what those factors are. A spokesman for the Montreal Eaton Centre owner confirmed that the store would not be opening, but also did not provide a reason why. France-based sporting goods store Decathlon will open in the Saks space next fall, the first for a downtown location in Canada. This location in the downtown core, which is a relatively new approach for us, will enable us to deliver even more effectively on our brand promise, which is to make sport accessible to as many people as we can, Tristan Vende of Decathlon Canada said in news release. Ivanhoe Cambridge leasing vice-president Jean Landry said the opening of Decathlon is one of the highlights of its $200-million revitalization project for a property that once housed the Eatons department store and adjacent mall. Decathlon operates more than 1,400 stores in 42 countries and generates almost $13 billion in annual sales. In addition, European-based Time Out Market will open in Canada for the first time in the mall. It will offer 16 food options, two bars, a demo kitchen, cooking academy and retail shop. HBC announced in late 2015 that the purveyor of discount designer clothing and other goods would open at the centre in 2018, as part of the brands Canadian expansion. The company said that the store would take over about 4,165 square meters (44,850 square feet) in the Montreal Eaton Centre and Complexe Les Ailes spaces that merged in 2016. HBC says it operates 18 Saks Off Fifth locations in Canada in cities including Ottawa, Winnipeg and Niagara-on-the-lake, Vaughan and Pickering, Ont. Read more about: Chinese central government-run State-owned enterprises have undertaken 3,116 projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, which range from infrastructure construction to international cooperation on production capacity, People's Daily reported on Monday. The newspaper cited data from State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council showing that central State-owned enterprises took up 50 percent of the infrastructure projects either already underway or in the pipeline, with contract value of more than 70 percent. According to the figures, central government-controlled SOEs had 10,791 overseas units in 185 countries and regions at the end of last year, and its foreign assets totaled more than 7 trillion yuan ($1 trillion) in the same period, with annual operating revenue and profit reaching 4.7 trillion yuan and 106.4 billion yuan, respectively. Meanwhile, the SOEs are also trying to localize their operation overseas, along with protecting environment, improving local people's lives and promoting cultural exchanges. The newspaper said that 85 percent employees working at these SOE units outside China are local citizens, with the figure increasing to over 90 percent at some enterprises. A senior Canadian delegation discussed trade of agriculture products, energy resources and financial services with Chinese counterparts a sector-by-sector approach that doesnt rule out some day reaching a free-trade pact, Justin Trudeaus trade chief says. Canadian Trade Minister Jim Carr and Finance Minister Bill Morneau spoke to reporters Monday from Beijing, where theyre leading a trade delegation. Their trip comes after a push to launch comprehensive trade talks flopped one year ago, with China balking at Canadian demands for progressive clauses. Carr said the countries will still pursue sectoral deals but that doesnt rule out one day launching talks for a full Free Trade Agreement. Its not one or the other. These are trade conversations over a period of time. Trade is not an event and were having a continuous dialogue with our Chinese counterparts about a whole variety of products, Carr said on a conference call. We dont think that any of this is mutually exclusive. Carr said Canada and China also discussed a recent meeting on World Trade Organization reform, hosted in Ottawa without either the U.S. or China. China understands the need to hold an initial meeting without them, Carr said. The Chinese are absolutely committed to a world system thats rules-based, and I thought thats also very positive. Canadian companies signed $1.5 billion in deals in fields such as agriculture and aerospace at the China International Import Expo, Canadian Ambassador to China John McCallum to the country wrote on Twitter. Read more about: Securities industry experts are applauding a Supreme Court of Canada ruling clearing the path for a national securities regulator. But they say theres still a long way to go before it actually happens and Quebec is already promising to go it alone. In a unanimous ruling released Friday, the Supreme Court said the federal government and the provinces have the power to set up a national regulator, overturning a Quebec court ruling. The court also said draft federal legislation for a new regulator is constitutional. However, the court also said it is up to the provinces and territories whether being a part of a national regulatory system is in their best interests. Canadian businesses have been pushing for a national regulator for decades, saying it would make financial markets more efficient, and lower the cost of doing business in this country. But while the legal path might be cleared, the political one is much bumpier, warned Stephen Foerster, professor of finance at the Ivey School of Business at Western University. This has really always been about politics, said Foerster, noting that governments of varying political stripes have been pushing the issue for decades, often half-heartedly. Even if they might agree with a national regulator in theory, cold, hard political calculations might dictate other actions, Foerster said, Do they want to be seen as picking a fight with other provinces and their finance ministers? Foerster asked. Its also not an issue that resounds particularly easily with the ordinary person in the street, even though peoples investments including their RRSPs and Canada Pension Plan are at stake. It might not be a headline grabber, but its still important, said Foerster, a view echoed by Anita Anand, the J.R. Kimber Chair in Investor Protection and Corporate Governance at the U of T faculty of law. This is not just something for the world of finance. This is something that matters to every single Canadian who has any kind of investment, said Anand. Even though she supports Fridays ruling as a step toward a national regulator, Anand says shed prefer to see the draft federal legislation include an investor advisory panel, as currently exists in Ontario. An investor advisory panel is a very important part of investor protection, Anand said. In provinces and territories that choose to take part in a national regulatory system, companies wouldnt have to comply with multiple sets of often-similar regulatory paperwork and legal requirements. This will create greater market efficiency, said Anand. It can be cumbersome to have different sets of regulations, said Foerster, pointing out that Canada is the only G20 country without a national securities regulator. Having to deal with duplicate regulations is expensive, meaning companies should eventually see a reduction in the cost of doing business. Still, that might not be the case for Quebec-based companies, given provincial finance minister Eric Girards vehement opposition to the idea of a national regulator. We understand the decision rendered by the Supreme Court of Canada, but we intend to keep our autonomy and our expertise in Quebec. The financial sector is highly strategic, and we will keep all of our autonomy, said Girard in a written statement. That kind of tough talk might play well at home, but it could hurt Quebecs economy in the long run, warned Foerster. It might not hurt existing companies too much, but would make the province a less appealing place to do business. It wouldnt affect existing companies in Quebec as much as it would affect new companies looking at whether to set up there, Foerster said. MERRITT, B.C.Arnold Meyer spent 40 years working at the Tolko Industries Ltd. mill in Merritt, B.C., but then he faced the reality of being laid off. The 62-year-old was one of about 200 employees who lost their jobs in 2016, crippling the economy of the small town in British Columbias southern Interior and prompting politicians to promise to restore the ailing forestry sector. Two years later, the provinces lumber industry is still facing challenges, but a new sector is revving up. A cannabis company hopes to build a grow facility in Merritt, replacing jobs, including Meyers that were lost in the mill closure. It sounds good to me. They said they want me to be one of the first hires for when the plant opens up, said Meyer, who held various positions at Tolko, where he mostly drove machinery. Emerald Plants Health Source Inc., or EPHS, purchased a massive chunk of land in the city and plans to build an initial 3,700-square-metre facility before building up to potentially more than 100,000 square metres. The facility would eventually employ more than 200 people in a range of jobs, from low-skill trimmer roles to higher-paid management jobs. Read more: Aurora Cannabis reports first-quarter profit and sales up from year ago Canadas message to teenagers: marijuana is legal now, but please dont smoke it Members of the company first learned about Meyer in a Canadian Press story on whether marijuana had the potential to revitalize small towns hit hard by resource job losses. In the 2017 article, Meyer said he hoped a cannabis company would create jobs in the community. It just resonated with us as a group as we read that article, that this could really change peoples lives in Merritt, said Jeff Hancock, executive vice-president of Emerald. I think thats really what Arnold Meyer symbolizes to us as a company. Emerald also hopes to contact others formerly employed by Tolko. There are many transferable skills from mill work to cannabis and other skills can be learned, Hancock said, adding the company had good conversations with city staff and plans to put in its formal application soon. It aims to break ground in the second quarter of 2019 and plans to start production in the second or third quarter of the following year, he said. Newly elected Merritt Mayor Linda Brown said some younger Tolko employees left town to work at other mills run by the company or seek other employment, while some older employees found themselves retiring earlier than planned. Brown said she still has questions for Emerald, including whether the jobs will pay well, but she expects to support an application when its put forward. We need industry. We need developments in there. Thats what I got elected on, was that kind of a platform, developing the city, she said. The mill closure devastated the community and any company that wants to bring in jobs is welcome, said former mayor Neil Menard. Its a whole different industry for us. I dont know much about it. I hope it would pay good wages and good benefits, he said. It cant be anything but good. Tolko did not return a request for comment but said in 2016 a lack of timber supply forced it to close the mill. The union that represented the employees declined to comment. Emerald is a Health Canada-licensed producer that already has a facility in Montreal. Hancock and others with the company have energy industry backgrounds and have developed ways to reduce the energy costs associated with cannabis, he said. Merritt also provided the company with the unicorn land it had been seeking, in terms of zoning, size and energy assets, Hancock added. Meyer was skeptical when Emerald first contacted him but now hes looking forward to meeting company representatives in Merritt soon, he said. Asked how it felt to be part of their inspiration for the project, Meyer laughed. My chest got big and my head started to swell and I got a bunch more feathers in my hat, he joked. Read more about: Stocks dropped Monday, giving back a slice of their recent gains as investors dumped shares in some of the large technology companies that hold outsize sway over major market indexes. The Nasdaq composite was one of the hardest-hit among the major bench marks. The technology-heavy index was down 2.8 per cent. The S&P 500 fell 2 per cent, and the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 2.3 per cent. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 118.04 points to 15,156.40 after hitting a high of 15,263.74. Apples shares declined 5 per cent after one of its suppliers, Lumentum, slashed its fiscal outlook for the current quarter and said it had received a request from one of its largest customers to reduce shipments. The company, whose shares plummeted over 30 per cent, did not identify Apple in its warning but Apple is Lumentums largest customer, generating roughly one-third of the companys revenue, according to a regulatory filing. Apples stumble seemed to weigh on other previously high-flying technology companies. Amazon shares dropped 4.4 per cent, and Facebook fell 2.4 per cent. The social network was briefly offline for many users Monday afternoon, giving visitors an error message saying sorry, something went wrong. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, declined 2.6 per cent, and Netflix stock fell more than 3 per cent. The slump in technology shares Monday was a reminder of the ugly drop stocks suffered in October. Worried about rising interest rates, trade tensions and a potential peak in corporate profits, investors briefly pushed the broader market down nearly 10 per cent below its late-September peak and into negative territory for the year. More recently, stocks had regained much of that ground. Wall Street jumped after last Tuesdays contentious midterm elections were resolved, with the S&P 500 finishing the next day up more than 3.5 per cent. Mondays pain was not exclusively due to tech stocks. Shares of Goldman Sachs tumbled 7.5 per cent as questions mounted over what role the investment bank may have played in the looting of a multibillion-dollar Malaysian government investment fund. General Electrics stock fell 6.9 per cent in its fourth straight decline after comments by its new chief executive failed to calm investors worries. But Apple remains a key concern. The company has a market value above $900 billion, so moves in the share price have an outsize effect on stock indexes like the S&P 500 that are weighted by market size. That dynamic mostly has been a boon for the stock market in recent years. Apple shares rose more than 45 per cent last year. And large tech companies have been crucial to the markets performance this year. From the start of the year through the markets Sept. 20 peak, roughly half the gain of the S&P 500 was attributable to five huge tech companies: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Googles parent company, Alphabet. Through much of last months slump, these companies held up reasonably well. But Apples recent stumble suggests that some investors are questioning the ability of major tech companies to continue to carry the broader markets. Apples tumble Monday followed another slide after its Nov. 1 earnings report, when the company said it would no longer report the number of iPhones it sells each quarter. So far this month, its stock price is down more than 10 per cent. With files from The Canadian Press Read more about: PARISJustin Trudeau says Canadian intelligence officials have listened to a recording of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The prime minister said he has not personally heard the recordings Turkey provided to Saudi Arabia along with allies such as the U.S. and Britain in recent days, though he said he has been fully briefed on its contents. Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share, said Trudeau during a press conference at the Canadian embassy in Paris. He said he brought up the subject during a recent phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and briefly again when the two met this weekend in Paris. Read more: Jamal Khashoggi spent the last year of his life looking over his shoulder Order to kill Khashoggi came from the Saudis highest levels, says Turkeys Erdogan Saudi investigators worked to remove evidence of Khashoggi killing, claims latest report Trudeau said he thanked him for his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation. Khashoggi was a vocal critic of Saudi Arabia and was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, where hed gone to get papers to marry his fiancee. His killing has received widespread condemnation, including from Trudeau himself, but Trudeau didnt say how the recordings have affected his thoughts on repercussions for the Saudis. We continue to be engaged with our allies on the investigation into accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and we are in discussion with our like-minded allies as to next steps towards Saudi Arabia, he said. Read more about: A woman who shared a video of two Eritrean children reacting gleefully to their first Canadian snowfall says the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the clip is reaffirming her faith in the country as a welcoming place for newcomers. Rebecca Davies shot the video on Saturday, 48 hours after the children shown in it arrived in Canada with their mother and two siblings as privately sponsored refugees. In the video, the seven-year-old girl and five-year-old boy twirl, dance and revel in the snow shower in the backyard of Davies Toronto-area home. The clip has since garnered nearly 2 million views and been shared thousands of times on Twitter, often with accompanying hashtags and messages welcoming refugees in general and the children in particular. Davies, who helped sponsor the Eritrean family through the private Ripple Refugee Project, says the videos reception gives her hope. She says she encounters racism and anti-immigrant sentiment in her work on behalf of refugees, but says the positive responses to the clip have left her feeling more confident about the society the family is eager to join. When a universal, lovely little vignette of kids playing in snow gets this kind of response, it gives me some hope for humanity, she said in a telephone interview. Davies said the Eritrean family landed in Toronto on Thursday, bringing an end to a lengthy saga. She said the single mother fled the war-torn east-African country in 2013 and spent the next five years in a refugee camp in Sudan. Two of the four children who accompanied her to Canada were born in that camp, Davies said, adding all the kids are under the age of eight. The familys first full day in Canada was marred by steady rain, limiting opportunities to explore Toronto, which they plan to call home. Conditions didnt seem too promising on Saturday either, with high winds sending daytime temperatures plunging to near the freezing mark for the first time this season. Davies said her family had tried to explain the concept of snow to the Eritrean newcomers. So when flakes began unexpectedly descending from the sky, she lost no time in pointing them out to the family. The two youngest boys stared out the window in fascination, but the eldest boy and his sister appeared to run away after the first look outside. I was thinking, where are the big guys? I would have thought this would have been magic, Davies said. But then you hear them screaming up the stairs. They found the bag of various winter coats and boots that many people had donated to us, threw on anything, ran past us, opened the ... patio door and just started twirling. The video shows the beaming children exclaiming in delight and jumping around the small yard as the snow falls. The girl is seen spinning around with her face raised up to the sky as her brother jigs up and down. At one point, both put their hands out and watch the flakes land on their upturned palms. Davies said the flurry didnt last very long, but allowed enough time for her six-year-old daughter to teach her Eritrean playmates how to eat snow and gave all three a chance to have a mini snowball fight. The video struck a chord on social media, where thousands of users liked, shared and exclaimed over the childrens obvious excitement. Underpinning many of the messages were comments encouraging the family as they begin a new chapter on Canadian soil. This is what life is all about. Children, new to Canada that have never seen snow, and embracing it in that magical way that children do, wrote one Twitter user. Welcome to Canada sweethearts! Your lives will hopefully be a beautiful journey. Davies said the children havent just confined their excitement to Canadian weather theyre currently eager to enrol in a neighbourhood school and start going to class. Read more about: THORNBURY, ONTARIOParents and grandparents jammed the small hall of Thornbury, a sleepy ski town north of Toronto, to glean tips on how to talk to their teenagers about the potential harms of marijuana. Held less than a week before Canada was set to legalize cannabis, the public health session had a message for parents: Marijuana would be legal for adults, but it was not safe for young people. And parents needed to instill in their children the idea that pot could be dangerous. Its been proven the brain doesnt stop growing until you are 25, and yet were legally selling it to people at 19, Jenny Hanley, an addictions counsellor, said as she left the meeting, 2 1/2 hours north of Toronto. What the hell is our government thinking? Canada last month became the second country to make it legal for adults to buy, grow and consume small amounts of marijuana. But it also made it a crime to give it to anyone younger than 19 or 18, depending on the province, and set a penalty of up to 14 years in prison for doing so. At the same time, the government began an $83 million public education campaign, much of it targeting Canadian youths, that warns of pots dangers. But persuading teenagers not to see legalization as a green light to use marijuana will be difficult, experts say, not to mention that past anti-drug efforts have offered little evidence of success. Read more: How Canadas new pot laws will impact youth remains ambiguous How to talk to your kids about cannabis Students suspension for smelling of pot provides whiff of whats ahead for schools after legalization And when it comes to marijuana and the teenage brain, the science is far from clear. Officials had argued that regulating the cannabis market, and cracking down on illegal sellers, would reduce its soaring use among Canadian teenagers, who, according to a 2013 UNICEF report, already use it more than young people anywhere else in the world. The most disingenuous element of legalization is that it will keep it out of the hands of children, said Dr. Benedikt Fischer, a senior scientist at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. It is a big experiment, in many ways. Still, officials are optimistic. A lot of young people have the notion this is a very benign substance of no risk its organic, its natural and its medicine, said Bill Blair, the countrys minister in charge of marijuana legalization, and formerly the Toronto police chief. When you start giving people the facts to replace the mythology and misinformation, people make smarter and better decisions, he added. But, as parents are discovering, sifting through the science and guiding their teenagers is tricky. Lounging on a bench at the back of the Thornbury session was Jared Kaye. He smoked marijuana for the first time at age 9 while also bingeing on alcohol, and then added harder drugs. He started rehab at 15 and became homeless. He and another teenage addict were taken in by Hanley to live in her home near Flesherton, Ontario. I hurt my family a lot, said Kaye, now 19. I did nothing but hurt myself. Paul Thompson, a businessman from Stratford who attended the session while in town on vacation, sees marijuana as less dangerous. When his 21-year-old son was arrested a couple of years ago on marijuana charges, Thompson decided to provide him with marijuana himself, to ensure it was not laced with other drugs. I think alcohol causes far greater harms, said Thompson, a divorced father of three. I dont believe cannabis is addictive. People who are addicted have deeper problems. The confounding thing is that both men were correct. Studies have shown that marijuana use in adolescents can impair brain function for some time after the cannabis has left their bodies, and a concern raised by some experts is that many adolescents use cannabis to self-medicate for anxiety or depression. Most scientists agree the risk to young brains is greatest for those who start smoking at age 12 or younger, smoke regularly and choose high-potency marijuana. Smoking is also dangerous for young people with family histories of serious mental illness, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. But for young people who start lightly experimenting with the drug at a later age, the risks of long-term damage to their growing brains are reduced. Its a reasonable statement to say it could have impact on the developing brain, said Matthew Hill, a neuroscientist with the University of Calgary who has studied cannabinoids for 18 years. Thats not the same thing as saying it definitively will. The evidence is not as consistent and compelling as some people like to spin it, he added. While some studies found that regular cannabis use by adolescents changed brain structure and long-term cognitive functioning, followup studies disputed those findings and concluded that alcohol use, cigarette smoking and family background were the main drivers in IQ reduction. A recent analysis of 69 studies on young, frequent cannabis users, published in JAMA Psychiatry, found that the negative effects on cognitive functioning dissipated after 72 drug-free hours. Cannabis is correlated with lots of things, said James MacKillop, the co-director of McMaster Universitys medicinal cannabis research centre in Hamilton. Teasing out whether its causally related is a much more complicated thing. If you are using cannabis when you are 12 or 13, then there are probably lots of other things going on, he continued. There might be poor parental oversight, more early life stress or family disorganization. To make matters more confusing, there are no certain strategies to stop young people from trying cannabis. Some public health units have adopted a harm-reduction strategy, urging teenagers to take more cannabis-free days and not drive stoned. Others are preaching abstinence. Because its legal, its not safe, said Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, the medical officer of health for Eastern Ontario. Thats our real message. Drug prevention researchers say they know what does not work. For example, the popular DARE program, which sent police officers into school to teach children how to just say no to drugs, had no effect or worse, studies in the United States found. In some cases, it increased their use of alcohol, cigarettes and other drugs. Rebecca Haines-Saah, an associate professor of public health at the University of Calgary, who studies teenage cannabis use and harm prevention, urges parents to talk to their children early and regularly about the consequences of all substances, including caffeine. If we arent honest with kids, they will find the information elsewhere, she said. With all the discussion about cannabis in Canada as legalization day approached, many parents were alarmed to discover how acceptable it had become among the countrys youths. According to a recent census bureau report, 32.7 per cent of teenagers had smoked marijuana in the previous three months, for example. It also seems Canadian teenagers have developed myths to counter claims about cannabis as a gateway drug, said Fischer of the Toronto addiction centre. According to a 2017 national cannabis survey, 19 per cent of consumers did not think it affected their driving skills. Among young people, theres a myth that it even improves them, public health officers say. Fischer and other experts consider it unlikely that the law will reduce use among young people. In Colorado and Washington state, where recreational cannabis was legalized for adults in 2014, usage rates among youths remained relatively unchanged, according to state reports. At the Thornbury meeting, Kaye said he thought parents should take an individual approach. His parents, he said, were strict, which stoked his rebellious nature. For me, I need love, Kaye said. I need to feel cared for. His advice seemed more like a guide to parenting, than a drug-prevention plan: Be open with your kids, he said. Try to have a close relationship so they are comfortable telling you what they tried and what their friends are doing. The Canadian actor who was the voice behind the supercomputer HAL 9000, in Stanley Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey has died. Douglas Rain, who was also a pioneer of the Stratford Festival, died of natural causes on Sunday morning at St. Marys Memorial Hospital, the festival announced in a press release. He was 90 years old. In addition to voicing the sly sentient computer, Rain was also a member of the Stratford Festivals founding company, and spent 32 seasons on its stages. Canadian theatre has lost one of its greatest talents and a guiding light in its development, said Stratford Festival artistic director Antoni Cimolino in the release. Douglas Rain was that rare artist: an actor deeply admired by other actors. Read more: 2001: A Space Odyssey stars talk aliens, Christopher Nolan and bad, bad food 2001: A Space Odyssey gets a special salute at Cannes He was born in Winnipeg in 1928 and was a child actor on CBC radio, before attending the University of Manitoba and studying at Londons Old Vic theatre school. During the festivals first season in 1953 Rain played Marquis of Dorset and Tyrrell in Richard III, and went on to play parts such as Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII (1961) and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night (1966). He even played a human Hal, prince Hal that is, in Henry IV, Part 1 in 1958. Although it was voicing the computer in 1968s sci-fi 2001: A Space Odyssey that made the biggest impression on audiences. The fictional precursor to real-life AI assistants Alexa and Siri, HAL 9000s, calm, detached presence unsettled generations of moviegoers. The New York Times reported in March 2018 that Kubrick had heard Rain in a 1960 documentary called Universe and thought he was perfect for the part. The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic or actorish. Despite this, it is interesting, the paper reported Kubrick wrote in a letter now in his archives. The director had already tried out an actor from the Bronx but found he sounded a little bit too colloquially American, according to the Times. The Hal 9000 computer refuses to obey an order from Bowman (Keir Dullea) by simply responding in monotone, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." Rain, with his Canadian accent that Kubrick thought sounded bland mid-Atlantic, was just right. HAL made his stamp on popular culture, versions of him have appeared on everything from the Simpsons to South Park. But Rain had a deep respect for director Stanley Kubrick and actively protected the computer characters legacy from exploitation, turning down many commercial requests to do the voice, according to his colleagues at the Stratford Festival. Douglas shared many of the same qualities as Kubricks iconic creation: precision, strength of steel, enigma and infinite intelligence, as well as a wicked sense of humour, said Cimolino in the release. But those of us lucky enough to have worked with Douglas soon solved his riddle and discovered that at the centre of his mystery lay warmth and humanity, evidenced in his care for the young members of our profession. Rain performed on Stratford stages until 1998, cast in roles including Macbeth (1978) with Maggie Smith as Lady Macbeth, and Humpty Dumpty in Alice Through the Looking Glass (1994), with Sarah Polley. He also had more than a hundred film and TV credits to his name, and was nominated for a Tony Award for his role as William Cecil in Vivat! Vivat! Regina! in 1972, the release said. The actor is survived by his two sons, David and Adam (with first wife Lois Shaw), his daughter Emma (with second wife Martha Henry), granddaughter, Salima, and daughter-in-law, Asira, according to the release. The festival will dedicate the coming seasons production of Othello to his memory. A Bowmanville woman has been thrust into the role of gay rights advocate after she came out to her Oshawa church and was kicked out of the membership. Its clear that something needs to change, said Kimberley Mills. I feel that God designed me the way I am and Hes going to love me the way I am. Mills had been a member of the Calvary Baptist Church for almost four years before the church earlier this month sent a letter telling her she would be removed from membership because she was living in disobedience to the Scriptures. She says the response shes received since she went public on Facebook about her experience and the hurt she feels has been overwhelming. People who are also believers, who dont feel this is Gods love, Mills said. Pastors are reaching out to me. People are saying God loves you just the way you are. Mills, who was raised in Durham, first attended a service at Calvary Baptist Church after moving back to the area. She became a member and got actively involved as a youth leader. I just loved the people, and going there. Its such a big church. Theres lots of opportunities to meet new people. I loved the kids, not just as a youth leader, said Mills. Mills said she started to be concerned about coming out at the church when a sermon took a strong stand against homosexuality. She felt like she wasnt able to be true to herself while at church. In her Bible study group, Mills told a few women who were close to her age that she had been together with her partner, Meghan Fowler, for four years now. Coming out was kind of a process It was not accepted, said Mills. It never felt right being judged for being gay. It didnt feel right. After disclosing her relationship, Mills said she had several conversations with church leaders and members. They wanted her to repent her sexual orientation, to be restored to the Bibles teaching. And they told you, you needed to change, said Fowler. I started questioning, how she could spend so much time devoted to a place that cant accept all of her? Then, in early November, she received a registered letter telling her she was being removed from the membership of the Cavalry Baptist Church because of her relationship. It is a very serious matter to remove a member for discipline as you will note in the 1 Corinthians 5:5 text, and our hearts are broken over it, said the letter signed by Dr. Tim Wagner, deacon chair. Representatives from the church released a followup statement to say that everyone is welcome to attend Sunday services, regardless of whether they are members. However, the church does have the option to remove someone from membership a voluntary association of like-minded individuals. We love and care for everyone since we are all made in the Image of God, said the Calvary Baptist Church statement. Those who choose to become members of Calvary Baptist Church share our theological and doctrinal beliefs and agree to live in accordance with those beliefs. When an individual ceases to hold those beliefs or live in accordance with them, as has recently happened, that individual may be removed from membership but always remains welcome to attend our services and other programs. Mills said she if she did return to the Calvary Baptist Church after coming out, she would be treated differently and couldnt be involved in the church community the way she was before. She doesnt intend to return to the church, but she plans to continue speaking about her experience. She wants to use her story to support other gay people who are scared of being excluded from their faith groups. The voice right now is for other people, really at the end of the day its all about love, said Mills. I was afraid and (Fowler) was afraid to come to the church. With some of the sermons I would share, she would feel we couldnt be there as a couple. Oshawa community advocate Mac Moreau has launched a letter-writing campaign asking the Canada Revenue Agency to review the charitable status of Calvary Baptist Church. As a registered charity, churches receive significant tax breaks from the provincial and federal government with the requirement that churches devote all of their resources to charity. The church has allowed its resources to be used for activities that promote hate and intolerance, said Moreau. If you are going to promote hate and intolerance, you shouldnt receive benefits from the Canadian government that all Canadians contribute to. Moreau said the letter and potentially ensuing CRA assessment isnt meant to close the Calvary Baptist Church. The aim is to support other gay parishioners who are feeling pushed out of their churches, and to hopefully serve as a warning to all churches that preach intolerance. This isnt meant to destroy a church family, said Moreau, who attended the Calvary Baptist Church as a child and said he later left over concerns about the messages of obedience and intolerance. This is simply to say in this day-and-age, when youre receiving benefits from the public purse, this is not acceptable. Jennifer OMeara is a reporter for Metroland Media Groups Durham Region Division. She can be reached at jomeara@durhamregion.com Read more about: Toronto police have launched a robbery and hate crime investigation after a group of 17-year-old Jewish boys wearing religious garments were attacked in north Toronto Sunday evening. Police say the four boys were walking in the area of Fairholme Ave. and Bathurst St., one block south of Lawrence Ave. W., when they were passed by another group of nine teenagers. The second group made derogatory comments about the Jewish boys religion and their clothing then assaulted two of the 17-year-old boys, punching and kicking them, police said. A pair of sunglasses was then stolen from one of the victims. The 17-year-old boys did not know the other group, police said. After the alleged attack took place, the suspects split up and fled the area, police said. Police responded to the scene at approximately 8 p.m. and arrested one suspect, a 17-year-old boy, at the scene. He cannot be identified under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. No description has been made about the other suspects other than they are in their early teens. Noah Shack, Greater Toronto Area vice president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said they were deeply disturbed to learn of the incident. Jewish Canadians should never fear wearing their Kippah in public, Shack said in a statement. We are grateful to the Toronto Police Service for its rapid and professional response. Toronto police spokesperson Katrina Arrogante said police could not say whether the assault had an anti-Semitic motivation, or if the derogatory comments were a case of kids being kids. The victims of the assault were treated at the scene for minor injuries. China International Import Expo (CIIE) saw the U.K. delegation, led by Dr Liam Fox, secure more than 2 billion of commercial deals across a range of sectors including creative industries, healthcare, education, energy, mining and aviation. The deals include a 30 million partnership between Clipper Media Capital and Arca Pictures on film co-production, a deal between TPP and Shanghai Kunfu Bio Technology to roll-out an AI-led health management app in Shanghai, and a deal signed by Rolls Royce worth more than 850 million. In addition to the commercial deals that will have immediate benefits for the U.K. economy, CIIE saw China take some significant steps towards the further opening of its economy. International Trade Secretary Dr. Liam Fox MP said: The Shanghai Expo was a major success for U.K. firms with more than 2 billion of deals signed by businesses of all sizes from SMEs in the creative industries to global powerhouses like Rolls Royce. China demonstrated a real desire for British goods and collaboration with British firms and the U.K. delegation took full advantage. Baroness Fairhead, minister for trade and export promotion, said: There is real and significant demand in China for British products and services. Indeed, recent research from Barclays shows that Chinese consumers are willing to pay more for goods made in the U.K. because of their trusted quality. Trade between the U.K. and China was worth nearly 70 billion last year, up 15 percent on the year before. NEW YORK Amnesty International has withdrawn its highest honour from Burmas leader Aung San Suu Kyi in light of what it said was the Nobel Peace Prize laureates shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for. The human rights organization announced Monday that its secretary general, Kumi Naidoo, informed Suu Kyi that it was revoking her 2009 Ambassador of Conscience Award. Amnesty has criticized the failure of Suu Kyi and her government to speak out about military atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim population. Naidoo said Amnesty expected Suu Kyi to use her moral authority to speak out against injustice wherever she saw it, especially in Burma. Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defence of human rights, Naidoo told her. Suu Kyi, who leads a civilian government that shares power with Burmas army, has tarnished her image as a global democracy icon by defending the militarys attacks against the Rohingya, which have sent 700,000 people fleeing into neighboring Bangladesh over the past 15 months. United Nations investigators have described the military campaign as ethnic cleansing, and human rights groups have documented widespread atrocities including executions of children, mass rapes, arson and looting. PARADISE, CALIF.The dead were found in burned-out cars, in the smouldering ruins of their homes, or next to their vehicles, apparently overcome by smoke and flames before they could jump in behind the wheel and escape. In some cases, there were only charred fragments of bone, so small that coroners investigators used a wire basket to sift and sort them. At least 42 people were confirmed dead in the wildfire that turned the Northern California town of Paradise and outlying areas into hell on earth, making it the deadliest blaze in state history. The search for bodies continued Monday. Hundreds of people were unaccounted for by the sheriffs reckoning, four days after the fire swept over the town of 27,000 and practically wiped it off the map with flames so fierce that authorities brought in a mobile DNA lab and forensic anthropologists to help identify the dead. Meanwhile, a landowner near where the blaze began, Betsy Ann Cowley, said she got an email from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. the day before the fire last week telling her that crews needed to come onto her property because the utilitys power lines were causing sparks. PG&E had no comment on the email, and state officials said the cause of the inferno was under investigation. As the search for victims dragged on, friends and relatives of the missing called hospitals, police, shelters and the coroners office in hopes of learning what became of their loved ones. Paradise was a popular retirement community, and about a quarter of the population was over 65. Tad Teays awaited word on his 90-year-old dementia-stricken mother. Darlina Duarte was desperate for information about her half-brother, a diabetic who was largely housebound because he had lost his legs. And Barbara Hall tried in vain to find out whether her aunt and the womans husband, who are in their 80s and 90s, made it out alive from their retirement community. Did they make it in their car? Did they get away? Did their car go over the edge of a mountain somewhere? I just dont know, said Hall, adding that the couple had only a landline and calls were not going through to it. Megan James, of Newfoundland, searched via Twitter from the other side of the continent for information about her aunt and uncle, whose house in Paradise burned down and whose vehicles were still there. On Monday, she asked on Twitter for someone to take over the posts, saying she is so emotionally and mentally exhausted. I need to sleep and cry, James added. Just PRAY. Please. The blaze was part of an outbreak of wildfires on both ends of the state. Together, they were blamed for 44 deaths, including two in celebrity-studded Malibu in Southern California , where firefighters appeared to be gaining ground against a roughly 370-square-kilometre fire that destroyed at least 370 structures, with hundreds more feared lost. Some of the thousands of people forced from their homes by the blaze were allowed to return, and authorities reopened U.S. 101, a major freeway through the fire zone in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Malibu celebrities and mobile-home dwellers in nearby mountains were slowly learning whether their homes had been spared or reduced to ash. All told, more 8,000 firefighters statewide were battling wildfires that destroyed more than 7,000 structures and scorched more than 840 square kilometres, the flames feeding on dry brush and driven by blowtorch winds. In Northern California, fire crews still fighting the blaze that obliterated Paradise contended with wind gusts up to 64 kilometres per hour overnight, the flames jumping more than 90 metres across Lake Oroville. The fire had grown to 303 square kilometres and was 25 per cent contained, authorities said. Winds were expected to weaken on Monday night. Greg Woodcox, who led a caravan of vehicles that was overcome by flames, said he heard screams and watched a friend die as the heat blew out the vehicles windows. Four other people also died. The 58-year-old told the San Francisco Chronicle he was in a Jeep ahead of the other vehicles and ran when the flames overtook them. He followed a fox down a steep embankment and survived by submerging himself in a stream for nearly an hour. But there were tiny signs of some sense of order returning to Paradise and also anonymous gestures meant to rally the spirits of firefighters who have worked in a burned-over wasteland for days. Large American flags stuck into the ground lined both sides of the road at the town limits, and temporary stop signs appeared overnight at major intersections. Downed power lines that had blocked roads were cut away, and crews took down burned trees with chain saws. The 29 dead in Northern California matched the deadliest single fire on record, a 1933 fire in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. A series of wildfires in Northern Californias wine country last fall killed 44 people and destroyed more than 5,000 homes. AUGUSTA, GA.A Georgia man is accused of breaking into an Augusta home, rummaging around and then jumping naked into bed with two residents. News outlets report 29-year-old Christopher Lindner has been arrested on charges including criminal trespassing. A Columbia County Sheriffs Offices report says he broke in last week and jumped into bed with the couple, who was watching television. It says they fled the home with Lindner in pursuit. It says responding deputies found Lindner lying in a roadway and he fled. Authorities approached again, and an aggressive Lindner was pepper-sprayed to no effect. Lindner then tried to enter a law enforcement vehicle, was hit was a metal baton and arrested. The report says Lindner admitted to being on methamphetamines. Its unclear if he has a lawyer. Read more: Georgia man mistakenly shoots self while robbing McDonalds Man with no pants falls through Alabama Waffle House ceiling A century and some change after bugle calls for ceasefire drifted over European trench lines, the French launched a salvo. There is rain, but it does not matter, the French army said Monday on Twitter, alongside a photo of a rain-soaked recruit crawling through an obstacle. We remain motivated. The French were almost certainly trolling U.S. President Donald Trump two days after he cancelled a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, ostensibly because of inclement weather. The verdant hillside shrine of arcing headstones marks the final resting place of 2,289 U.S. troops, many of whom were killed in the Battle of Belleau Wood. The names of 1,060 more who were never found are inscribed on a wall there. Read more: Trudeau warns of dangers of nationalist leaders at historic armistice gathering Macron has shed any illusion about Trump as the two leaders meet in Paris amid strains Trudeau visits Vimy ahead of world leaders gathering to mark historic armistice The White House cancelled the visit, which Trump would have made aboard the presidential helicopter Marine One, after it was determined that the conditions offered near-zero visibility, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, amid criticism and speculation that Trump was not motivated to join other world leaders there by car instead. President Trump did not want to cause that kind of unexpected disruption to the city and its people, Sanders said. The cemetery is 50 miles northeast of Paris, and it was not clear why alternative routes commonly planned for high-profile events were not used in this case. The weather did not prevent Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron from visiting other sites around Paris. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly visited the cemetery on Saturday a day and a place layered with deep significance to U.S. military history. Saturday was the Marine Corps 243rd birthday, and the men both Marines walked the cemetery on the edge of Belleau Wood, which quickly became central to Marine lore after the 1918 battle. A brigade of Marines joined two Army divisions in the closing months of the war and fought brutal hand-to-hand combat in the wood, occasionally contending with swirling poison gas. The Germans sent numerous waves in a failed attempt to dislodge the Marines during the battle, which lasted nearly a month. Four days after the German withdrawal, the French 6th Army issued an order renaming Belleau Wood Bois de la Brigade de Marine. And in April, Macron gave the White House an oak sapling from Belleau Wood, where, he said, the blood [of Americans] was spilled to defend France. German troops nicknamed Marines Teufel hunden devil dogs. The name stuck. Bulldogs have become the mascot of the Corps. Now Marines who visit the cemetery and battlefield are drawn to the village of Belleau right outside, where a moss-flecked bulldog fountain spurts water from its mouth. It is customary for Marines to drink from it, in homage to the Americans who never left the wood. Michael Ruane, David Nakamura, Seung Min Kim and James McAuley contributed to this report. Read more about: MCALLEN, TEXASThe Border Patrol agent, she remembers, was calm when he tied her to the tree and put silver duct tape over her mouth. He said very little. She was a 14-year-old immigrant who had just crossed the Rio Grande illegally, travelling with a teenage friend and the friends mother from Honduras. They had hoped to surrender to the Border Patrol and stay in the United States. But instead of taking them in for processing, the agent, Esteban Manzanares, had driven them to an isolated, wooded area 16 miles (25 kilometres) outside the border city of McAllen, Texas. There he sexually assaulted the friend and viciously attacked her and her mother, twisting their necks, slashing their wrists and leaving them, finally, to bleed in the brush. Then he led the 14-year-old girl to the tree. I only asked him why he was doing this, she recalled. Why me? He would only say that he had been thinking about it for days. He had been thinking about this for days. The Border Patrols parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, is the largest law enforcement agency in the country, with nearly twice the personnel of the FBI. Through the years, a small number of officers have succumbed to temptation and reached for a share of the millions of dollars generated in the smuggling of drugs, weapons and people across the southwest border. But a civil suit stemming from the March 2014 attack near McAllen, now making its way through the courts, is shedding light on a more sinister kind of corruption. During the past four years, at least 10 people in South Texas have been victims of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping or rape all, according to prosecutors and officials, at the hands of Border Patrol agents who suddenly and violently snapped. In April, Ronald Anthony Burgos Aviles, 29, an agent in the sprawling 116-county Laredo sector, was charged with stabbing and killing his girlfriend and their 1-year-old son. In September, another Laredo sector agent, Juan David Ortiz, 35, admitted to investigators that he had gone on a 12-day killing rampage, fatally shooting four people working as prostitutes and trying to abduct a fifth. As a result of a civil suit filed by the three women attacked by Manzanares, the Border Patrol has been forced to answer questions about its hiring practices, its ability to weed out disturbed agents and whether there is adequate supervision of officers. Sworn testimony and other documents filed in that case, as well as lengthy interviews the three women gave to The New York Times, provide an unusual window into a case that otherwise might have had little scrutiny. Manzanares never went to trial, because he fatally shot himself as soon as federal investigators discovered his crimes and closed in to stop him. Critics say the very nature of Border Patrol agents work dealing with vulnerable, powerless people, often alone on the nations little-travelled frontiers makes it easy for troubled agents to go unnoticed. In September, Judge Randy Crane of U.S. District Court in McAllen dismissed claims of negligent hiring and supervision of Manzanares filed by two of the women. The judge concluded that supervisors had not been alerted to any problem in the agents background and had no reason to know that anything was amiss. But he allowed claims filed by the 14-year-old girl, now 18, whose ordeal went on well into the night and might have been prevented if Manzanares actions had been detected earlier to proceed. The case will drag out for months, however. Crane suggested recently that he was prepared to allow appeals of some of his previous rulings to proceed before the case goes to trial. Lawyers for the three women presented evidence that Manzanares supervisors had failed to notice or intervene when the agent ignored his duties for hours and had failed to thoroughly inspect his truck when he returned at the end of his shift. If they had, the evidence showed, they would have found used duct tape, blood and discarded restraints. Manzanares, a father of two, had no major disciplinary infractions during his six years with the agency, which he joined in 2008 after serving with the U.S. army in Afghanistan and working as a jailer for the Hidalgo County Sheriffs Department. But according to court documents, he appeared to have become a pedophile, and one of the issues in the lawsuit has been whether the Border Patrol should have conducted the kind of employee reviews that would have brought that to light. In late 2013 and early 2014, he was in the midst of a divorce, living in an apartment in the border city of Mission with his two dogs. Neighbours said he largely kept to himself. His rampage that day might never have been discovered had the older woman he left for dead not encountered another Customs and Border Protection officer as she emerged from the brush, bleeding and terrified. The man who did this to her and her daughter, she told the officer, was dressed just like you. I Tried to Be Strong The woman, M.G., still has trouble sleeping. (All three women, interviewed in January, asked to be identified only by their initials.) When she dreams, the border agent returns to her in her nightmares. When she wakes, she stares and rubs at the scars on both of her wrists, not so much neat slices as pale, jagged, random dashes. Last night, I dreamed all of it, from the moment that we crossed the river, she said. Every time I dream it, I live through it again. Sometimes Id like to block my mind and think this didnt happen, but this did happen. The three women, all from the same small town in northern Honduras, had crossed the Rio Grande together early that morning on a smugglers raft. They had been on a dirt road for only a matter of minutes when Manzanares pulled up in his Border Patrol vehicle. When I saw him, I said, Thank God, M.G. said. But as they sat on metal benches in the back of the truck, M.G. thought there was something strange about the way the man was breathing. At first, she tried not to show her fear. I pretended, she said. I tried to be strong. When her husband entered the United States, he got lost in the desert for three days. He told me that the only thing that he did was to pray Psalm 91 many times, and he told me thats how God had saved him and protected him, she said. So the three women prayed Psalm 91 as Manzanares drove. We prayed it many times, many times, many times, M.G. said. Manzanares made a series of stops. J.E., the girl who was tied to the tree, recalled that he told them to get on their knees so he could put plastic restraints on their wrists. On one of the last stops, M.G.s daughter, N.C., watched Manzanares force her mother out of the back of the truck and lead her into the woods. I was crying, telling him to leave my mom alone, said N.C., who is now 18. M.G., now 40, recalled hearing her daughters screams. I was begging him to kill me but not kill my daughter, and my daughter was screaming there where she was: Come kill me, dont harm my mother. He threw M.G. down, twisted her neck and cut her wrists. I felt I was losing consciousness, but every time my daughter screamed, I didnt want to go, she said. He returned to the truck for N.C., took her out into the woods, twisted her neck, molested her, took pictures of her, cut her wrist and then covered her with dirt and brush, as she pretended to be dead. He went back to the vehicle again and drove J.E. to a stand of trees at the edge of a field. She said she steeled herself, in part, by keeping her mind blank, as if nothing were happening. It is unclear how many hours she was handcuffed to the tree. According to interviews with the victims and court documents, Manzanares left his Border Patrol station at the end of his shift, just before 6 p.m. He changed out of his uniform and went back to get her in his own pickup. He took J.E. from the tree and drove her to his apartment. J.E. recalled that she still had duct tape over her mouth when he carried her over his shoulder from the truck to his apartment, and that she made eye contact with a woman standing in the complex. She didnt do anything, J.E. said. Why didnt she do anything? Inside, Manzanares used shoelaces to tie her hands and feet to the bed. Then he took pictures of her, naked, with his phone. He behaved like he had done it before, she said. He began talking about things that did not make sense, telling her a drug cartel was coming to kill her. She did not believe him, but in that moment, it felt like my life was over. She asked him one thing: If he had any daughters, would he like it if someone did the same thing that he was doing to me, to them. He sexually assaulted her three times that night, while she remained tied to a bunk bed in a bedroom. FBI agents and Mission police officers, meanwhile, had identified the agent based in part on M.G.s report and were closing in. Shortly before 1 a.m., J.E. heard loud knocking on the apartment door, and then a single gunshot. Officers eventually forced open the door, untied her and kept her wrapped in a blanket as they put her in an ambulance. Manzanares had shot and killed himself with a .40-calibre pistol while seated at his dining room table. On the table, officers found a two-page suicide note. I am sorry for what I have done, he wrote, explaining that he had been troubled since coming back from Afghanistan. I am a monster. No Questions Asked The three women now live far from the South Texas border, in southwestern Virginia. All three were granted what are called U visas, issued to victims of sexual assault and other violent crimes. Officials with Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that they could not comment on the lawsuit but that they take allegations of misconduct seriously. CBP has a workforce of dedicated men and women who are among the finest civil servants in the world, who carry out their duties with the utmost professionalism, efficiency, honour and distinction, the statement read. CBP acts decisively and appropriately to address any misconduct. But agency officials revealed in their response to the womens lawsuit that they had no procedure for supervising agents in the field and no policy requiring supervisors to make contact with agents during a shift. Manzanares even briefly drove his victims into and out of his Border Patrol station in McAllen that day, but no one questioned his actions. And none of his superiors tried to find out why he had failed to respond to most of the alerts of suspicious activity in his zone that day. Government officials defended the criminal background checks performed on Manzanares. In court documents, they said two background investigations of Manzanares one in 2007 before he started working as an agent and another in 2013 had turned up nothing. He was hired before a requirement that all applicants undergo polygraph tests took effect; one official testified that a polygraph test probably would have revealed that Manzanares appeared to be a pedophile. Now the agency is likely to face similar questions about Ortiz in Laredo. Authorities are continuing to examine whether any government equipment and weapons were used in the assaults he is accused of and whether his supervisors were aware of any unusual behaviour. These individuals who are supposed to be protectors were predators, both of them, Christine Poarch, a lawyer who represents Manzanares three victims, said of the Ortiz and Manzanares cases. They preyed on vulnerable populations. GAZA, PALESTINIAN TERRITORYPalestinian militants bombarded Israel with dozens of rockets and mortar shells Monday, while Israeli warplanes struck targets throughout the Gaza Strip in what appeared to be the most intense exchange of fire since a 2014 war. Palestinian officials said at least three people, including two militants, were killed by Israeli fire and nine were wounded, and an Israeli airstrike destroyed the ruling Hamas groups TV station. In Israel, the national rescue service said at least 20 people were wounded, including a 19-year-old soldier and a 60-year-old woman who were in critical condition. The fighting cast doubt over recent understandings brokered by Egypt and UN officials to reduce tensions. Just a day earlier, Israels prime minister defended those understandings, saying he was doing everything possible to avoid another war. The United Nations said it was working with Egypt to broker a halt in the violence. Rockets must STOP, restraint must be shown by all! the UN Mideast envoys office tweeted. The rocket fire was triggered by a botched Israeli military raid in Gaza on Sunday. Undercover troops, apparently on a reconnaissance mission, were discovered inside Gaza on Sunday, setting off a battle that left seven militants, including a Hamas commander, and an Israeli military officer dead. Around sundown on Monday, militants launched some 100 rockets in less than an hour, the most intense barrage since the 50-day war four years ago. The outgoing rockets, which continued into the evening, lit up the skies of Gaza and set off air raid sirens throughout southern Israel. Read more: Israeli fire kills 6 Palestinians at Gaza protest The military said warplanes, helicopters and tanks had struck over 70 militant targets, including military compounds, observation posts and weapons facilities. It also said it targeted a squad that was launching rockets. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesperson, said the army had sent additional infantry troops, rocket defence systems and intelligence units to the Gaza frontier. We continue to strike and retaliate against the military targets belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, and as for our intentions we will enhance these efforts as needed, he told reporters. Late Monday, an airstrike destroyed the Gaza City headquarters of Hamas Al Aqsa TV station. Israel had fired warning shots ahead of the airstrike, prompting the station to halt programming and replace it with a logo. Minutes later, the airstrike flattened the three-story building and the station went black. Workers had evacuated the building after the warning shots, and there were no immediate reports of casualties. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum condemned the bombing as a barbaric, brazen aggression. Ten minutes later, the station resumed broadcasts, airing pre-recorded national songs. Israel said the station broadcasts violent propaganda and provides operational messaging to militants. A five-story office building that housed Hamas media offices and another building used by Hamas internal security service were also destroyed. No casualties were reported. Hamas and the smaller militant group Islamic Jihad said the rocket fire was revenge for Sunday nights Israeli incursion. Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shehab said the groups wanted the occupation and its supporters know that the lives of our sons come with a price. In all, well over 300 rockets were fired into Israel by midnight, the army said. The Israeli military said it intercepted 70 rockets, and most of the others fell in open spaces. But rockets landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, setting off a large fire near a shopping centre. Several homes were hit in southern towns, including one that was destroyed in Ashkelon. Around midnight, a rocket struck another building in Ashkelon, wounding at least 10 people, including one woman in critical condition, according to police and rescue workers. Earlier, a bus was struck by an anti-tank missile, critically wounding a 19-year-old soldier. The strike set the bus on fire, sending a large plume of black smoke over the area. Gaza militants released a video of what they said was the attack, showing a bus pulling up to an open area before going up in flames. The video, with ominous music playing, showed Israeli soldiers milling about the area. Michael Oren, an Israeli Cabinet minister, said Israel will do whatever it takes to defend itself. We expect the world to stand with us, he said. The EUs ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, called for a halt in indiscriminate rocket fire toward civilians. Everyone must step back from the brink, he said. Earlier Monday, thousands of Palestinian mourners buried the seven militants killed in Sundays incursion. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh led a funeral as masked gunmen in uniforms carried coffins and mourners chanted revenge. Hamas set up checkpoints across Gaza in a show of force. It also restricted movement through crossings with Israel, preventing foreign journalists, local businessmen and some aid workers from leaving the territory. Hamas also cancelled a weekly beach protest in northwestern Gaza along the border with Israel. The organizers cited the ongoing security situation. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. In the most recent war, over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them civilians, and tens of thousands were left homeless. Seventy-three people were killed on the Israeli side. Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas takeover. The blockade has devastated Gazas economy. For over seven months, Hamas has been leading protests along the Israeli border aimed in large part at breaking the blockade. More than 170 Palestinians, most unarmed, have been killed by Israeli fire during the protests. Israel says it is defending its border against militant infiltration attempts. In recent weeks, Egyptian and UN mediators had appeared to make progress in brokering informal understandings aimed at quieting the situation. Last week, Israel allowed Qatar to deliver $15 million (U.S.) to Gaza to allow cash-strapped Hamas to pay the salaries of thousands of government workers. At the same time, Hamas has lowered the intensity of the border protests in recent weeks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a visit to Paris because of the flare-up and returned to Israel on Monday for consultations with top security officials. The Hamas military wing said that in Sundays incursion, Israeli undercover forces drove about 2 miles into southeastern Gaza and shot and killed a mid-level commander in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Hamas militants discovered the car and chased it, prompting Israeli airstrikes that killed several people, the group said. The military provided few details about Sundays raid. The Israeli military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, said a special force carried out a very meaningful operation to Israels security, without elaborating. In a tweet after his arrival back home, Netanyahu praised the slain officer, whose identity was kept confidential for security reasons, and said our forces acted courageously. The officers funeral was held Monday. On Sunday, Netanyahu defended his decision to allow through the Qatari cash to Gaza as a way to avert an unnecessary war, maintain quiet for residents of southern Israel and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the impoverished Gaza Strip. Read more about: U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly plans to stop financial aid to millions of Americans in Puerto Rico still dealing with the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria. The president believes, without evidence, that the Puerto Rican government is using the disaster relief funds to pay off debt rather than help its citizens rebuild, according to Axios. The island nation is still rebuilding after Marias destruction more than a year ago; most of the country waited almost 11 months for power to be restored and thousands of people are still displaced after their homes were destroyed. Trump was initially reluctant to send money to Puerto Rico and has continually complained about having to do so since. The people of Puerto Rico are wonderful but the inept politicians are trying to use the massive and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations, he tweeted in late October. The U.S. will NOT bail out long outstanding & unpaid obligations with hurricane relief money! Hes also gone after San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz specifically, questioning her leadership. Trump has routinely refused to believe the official death toll, which the Puerto Rican government place at 2,975 people. The president claims that Democrats are trying to make me look as bad as possible. His recent outburst stems from an October article in The Wall Street Journal, according to Axios, that Trump mistakenly assumed said that the Puerto Rican government was misusing the relief funds. Instead, the newspaper reported that the federal oversight board simply raised the possibility of hedge funds restructuring the countrys debt and help it out of bankruptcy court. Read more: Hes a racist president: Mainland Puerto Ricans are furious over Donald Trumps debt talk amid hurricane crisis Florida officials respond to Trumps claim, without evidence, that Puerto Rico deaths are made up Analysis | In bizarre visit, Donald Trump compares Puerto Rico to a real catastrophe like Katrina and congratulates himself Read more about: FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.After Republicans, including President Donald Trump, made unsubstantiated accusations of illegal activity, a judge on Monday urged the warring sides in the Florida recount to ramp down the rhetoric, saying it erodes public confidence in the election for Senate and governor. The states law enforcement arm and elections monitors have found no evidence of wrongdoing, but lawyers for the Republican party and the GOP candidates joined with Trump in alleging that irregularities, unethical behaviour and fraud have taken place since the polls closed last week. An honest vote count is no longer possible in Florida, Trump declared Monday, without elaborating. He demanded that the election night results which showed the Republicans leading based upon incomplete ballot counts be used to determine the winner. Trump went on to allege that new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged, and that ballots are massively infected. It was unclear what he was referring to. The recount that is underway is mandated by state law. Read more: Scott intensifies attacks against Nelson in Floridas Senate race as recount begins Arizonas Flake dismisses fraud claim in race to succeed him Kemp-Abrams feud highlights new landscape in divided Georgia Much of the Republicans ire was centred on Democrat-leaning Broward County and its Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, a Democrat who was appointed in 2003 by then-Republican governor Jeb Bush. She has been re-elected four times. Critics have suggested the slow pace of ballot-counting in Broward is suspicious. Broward elections officials have said this years count was encumbered by the unexpectedly high turnout for a midterm election and the unusual length of this years ballots, which contained 12 state constitutional amendment proposals, partly as a result of a constitutional revision commission that meets once every 20 years. Bush said Monday on Twitter that Snipes should be removed from office, saying there was no question that she failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians confidence in our electoral process. Snipes acknowledged Monday that there have been issues that havent gone the way we wanted. She said you can call it a mistake or you can call it whatever you want to call it. She declined to comment on Trumps remarks, except to say that were in an era where people oftentimes speak without having vetted the information, so Im not sure where the president gets his information from. She said she had not spoken with Trump. The presidents allegations came just hours before Broward Chief Circuit Judge Jack Tuter held an emergency hearing on a request by lawyers for Republican Gov. Rick Scott, whose lead in the Senate race over incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson has narrowed with the counting of provisional and other ballots. They asked for additional sheriffs deputies to be sent to Snipes office to monitor ballots and voting machines. The lawyers requested that the deputies be present when the ballots and voting machines are not being used and until the recount is over. State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. In the Senate race, Scotts lead over Nelson was 0.14 percentage points. In the governors contest, unofficial results showed Republican former Rep. Ron DeSantis ahead of Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points. Once the recount is complete, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or less, a hand recount will be ordered. All 67 counties face a state-ordered deadline of Thursday to finish their recounts. Meanwhile, the elections supervisor in heavily Republican Bay County said he allowed about 150 people to cast ballots by email, the Miami Herald reported. The county was devastated by a Category 4 hurricane in October, and Scott ordered some special provisions for early voting there. A statement that accompanied the order noted that returning ballots by email was not allowed under state law. In their Broward request, Scotts lawyers alleged that Snipes was engaging in suspect and unlawful vote counting practices that violate state law and that she might destroy evidence of any errors, accidents or unlawful conduct. The motion was supported by lawyers representing the state Republican Party and opposed by Snipes office, Nelsons campaign and the state Democratic Party. I am urging because of the highly public nature of this case to ramp down the rhetoric, Tuter said. If someone in this lawsuit or someone in this county has evidence of voter fraud or irregularities at the supervisors office, they should report it to their local law enforcement officer, Tuter said. If the lawyers are aware of it, they should swear out an affidavit, but everything the lawyers are saying out there in front of the elections office is being beamed all over the country. We need to be careful of what we say. Words mean things these days. After Tuter told all sides to meet to discuss a compromise, they agreed to add three deputies to the elections office in Broward. During the hearing, Scott lawyer Jason Zimmerman argued that Snipes has a long history of election errors and irregularities. He said the only goal of the request was to protect the integrity of the vote. Snipes lawyer, Eugene Pettis, said Snipes office already has deputies, security guards and cameras guarding the ballots, and the recount process is conducted in view of four representatives each from the Republicans and Democrats. Also on Monday, two voter-rights groups filed suit in federal court in Tallahassee. Common Cause and the League of Women Voters sought to remove Gov. Rick Scott from any role in the recount. Bipartisan experts agree that voter fraud is a rare phenomenon across the nation. That didnt stop protests outside Snipes office, where a mostly Republican crowd gathered, holding signs, listening to country music and occasionally chanting lock her up, referring to Snipes. A massive Trump 2020 flag flew over the parking lot. Other states are also waiting on key races to be decided. In the Georgia governors race, Republican Brian Kemp holds a narrow lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams. In the Arizona Senate race, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is ahead of Republican Martha McSally by more than 30,000 votes. Maxime Bernier came to Calgary last week and it was clear he has lots of fans here. Lots of fans. About 400 people 90 per cent male, and 99 per cent white jammed into a hotel conference room on Friday night and enthusiastically applauded almost everything Bernier said. They praised him effusively during the question period and mobbed him when he finished speaking. The same kind of thing happened in Vancouver the night before. The renegade Conservative MP officially launched his own party The Peoples Party of Canada just over a month ago but it is already up and running in eight out of 10 Calgary federal ridings. Its not entirely surprising to see so much support for Bernier in Alberta. During the Conservative leadership race, which he narrowly lost, Alberta delegates gave him almost as much support as delegates from his home province of Quebec. Many Alberta conservatives like Berniers libertarian approach: his emphasis on freedom from big government. He wants less tax credits for special groups and tax cuts for everyone. He wants less immigration and big cuts in foreign aid. He wants a less restrictive firearms policies. He would privatize Canada Post and turn CBC into a subscription service. He said he would allow for a debate on abortion if one of his MPs wanted to table a bill on the matter. And when he said no more political correctness the crowd roared in approval. Theres nothing Trump-like about Bernier. Hes dapper, funny, well-spoken, bilingual, and knows the issues inside out. But there sure were a lot of echoes of Trump from the audience. A climate change denier got up and insisted that Canada pull out of the Paris agreement on climate change. Several said Canada should pull out of the United Nations altogether. The male tilt of the audience was overwhelming. At most, only 10 per cent were women. The rest were mostly men over 50, although there were plenty of young and middle-aged men. All the questions came from men and even when a woman in the back yelled out question from a lady she was ignored. When I asked men in the audience why they liked Bernier, three said separately: Because hes not a globalist, hes a nationalist. One said something else straight out of Trumps repertoire: We need to put Canada first. Given that Canada is not a mighty economic and military power like the United States but depends on multilateralism this seem at odds with reality, to say the least. One young man said he had three reasons for supporting Bernier: Less immigration, less foreign aid, and less restrictive firearms regulations. Another said Canada needs to follow in the footsteps of European countries, like Poland, Hungary and Italy, which now have populist governments. He didnt mention the authoritarian tendencies of those governments. Its too early to tell if Berniers support here will translate into significant vote splitting in Albertas Conservative stronghold and other provinces during next years federal election. Even if it does, Bernier and his supporters dont seem to care that they may be helping the Trudeau Liberals to another victory. When an audience member asked Bernier if he and PPC MPs would cross the floor to support Scheers Conservatives in the event of a Liberal minority government, people yelled out no, no. I would die before I would do that, Bernier replied and the room erupted in applause. Bernier likes being called Mad Max and is obviously enjoying his new career as a right-wing provocateur. He was slated to be a featured speaker at a conference on Saturday in Calgary organized by The Rebel, Canadas far-right online news and views disseminator that is so extremist even Conservative politicians shun it. On Wednesday Bernier will hold a rally in Etobicoke. The PPC leader has obviously found a niche in Canadian politics that he needs as much as it needs him. The Trumpian tilt of that niche may be its undoing. But if Berniers party continues to grow, other conservative politicians, such as Doug Ford and Jason Kenney, may be emboldened to become more Trumpian too. Given the chaos in the U.S, not exactly something to look forward to. Read more about: China's first self-designed deep-sea exploration vessel returned to port on Sunday after completing a deep-sea geological examination in the Pacific. The Ocean No. 6 returned to port in south China's Guangdong Province after spending 138 days conducting deep-sea surveys over about 30,000 km, according to Yang Shengxiong, chief engineer with Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey. The surveys were conducted in areas with cobalt-bearing crusts in West Pacific. It found out about the conditions of the crusts in more than 30 areas, Yang said. "Samples of the crusts more than 30-cm thick were fetched for the first time," Yang said. The vessel also realized scale collection of cobalt-bearing crusts, while obtaining samples of microplastics along the sea routes in West Pacific. It also analyzed the amount, types and composition of microplastics in the sea, which laid a foundation for the international treatment of plastic waste in the sea. It is the eighth deep-sea expedition of the vessel, which has conducted multiple tasks in the South China Sea, the Pacific and the waters around the Antarctic since 2009. The year is not quite over, but 2018 may well come to be known as the year of buyers remorse when it comes to politicians and social media. Justin Trudeau came to power three years ago as arguably the most digitally savvy prime minister Canada has ever seen. But in Paris on Monday, it was impossible to ignore a big disconnect in Trudeaus remarks about politics and the media full-throated praise for the role of traditional journalism and conspicuously faint praise for how politics is unravelling in the social-media domain. One of the institutions that is most under stress right now is a free, independent, free-thinking independent rigorous, robust, respected media, Trudeau said at the Paris Peace Forum. If a democracy is to function, you need to have an educated populace and you need to have an informed populace ready to make judicious decisions about who to grant power to, and when to take it away. Read more: Trump insults reporters, claims Acosta video wasnt altered Editorial | Donald Trumps attacks on the news media are all about power Freeland, Trudeau defend media as Trump tweets about U.S. mail bombs When the prime minister talked about social media, however, he spoke about how easy it was to use the platforms to make you angry or make you divided or make you hate your neighbour. The prime minister did allow that social media was handy for governments to send out quick bulletins of condolence and such, but he also said that political conversations on social media can quickly become a race to the bottom. If it ends up in a screaming match between one side versus the other side, whoever is better at nasty is going to win, he said. That observation is, unfortunately, all too correct. In fact, when you think about it, 2018 has been a particularly destructive year all around for politics and social media. Theres the ongoing spectacle of Donald Trumps Twitter rants Trudeau didnt mention the president by name during his Paris remarks but the indirect reference to Trumps social-media habits seemed to be a clear subtext. Meanwhile, back here in Canada, the Tony Clement saga last week hasnt done anything to inspire confidence in politics and Instagram, though we should probably assume that most politicians are not using the platform as the former Conservative cabinet minister admitted to using it as a medium to pursue women whose photos caught his notice. This in turn led to Clement, a member of Parliaments national-security committee, becoming a target of an extortion attempt by what he assumed to be a foreign actor. Clement was long known as one of the early adopters of social media in the Canadian political world. Now hes known as one of the more creepy digital denizens. That could be the story of 2018 overall for social media and politics once fun and edgy and cool, now, as often as not, a little bit disturbing, and maybe even dangerous. And its not just the ongoing concern over potential Russian hacking worldwide, but also some home-grown, self-inflicted digital damage too. Lets not forget that 2018 is the year that brought us the explosive story of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, and the revelations from a Canadian, no less about how raw data from millions of social-media users ended up in the hands of political operatives working for the Trump campaign. The Cambridge Analytica controversy triggered a wave of agitation about political parties and their use of data on social media but not enough, it should be noted, for Canadian political parties to include any data-privacy provisions in the latest election-reform legislation currently before the Senate. The only conclusion there is that Canadian political parties are still in the fun/cool/edgy phase of digital-media adoption and arent yet ready to embrace the idea which seems to be everywhere these days that politics and social media can be also creepy, even potentially destructive to the greater good. Trudeau is not a particularly nostalgic politician, but a glance at his remarks from Paris on Monday would seem to indicate that hes learning an appreciation of traditional media the longer hes in power, especially the more he sees of whats happening on social media. What the prime minister intends to do with that observation how he intends to turn verbal support for traditional journalism into any kind of action is another story for another day. But Trudeau does seem to be noticing, as many of us are, that 2018 hasnt really inspired any confidence in how politics mixes with social media. Susan Delacourt is the Stars Ottawa bureau chief and a columnist covering national politics. Reach her via email: sdelacourt@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @susandelacourt Read more about: EDWARDSVILLE The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Nursing (SON) has been awarded a four-year grant worth $2.6 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in support of its WE CARE Clinic. The WE CARE Clinic provides primary patient care on the East St. Louis Higher Education Campus. The grant will support the training of undergraduate baccalaureate nursing students and registered nurses in the local community in caring for clients in the community-based primary care, nurse-managed clinic. Through the grant, SIUE students will focus on primary chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, asthma, tobacco use, mental health and substance abuse. The SIUE School of Nursing is thrilled to have received this funding from HRSA, as it will further enhance the WE CARE Clinics ability to offer citizens in the East St. Louis and surrounding communities, much needed patient-centered healthcare services focused on helping clients achieve improved self-management and follow-up care, said SON Dean Laura Bernaix, PhD, RN. Advanced practice nurses, a collaborating physician, a licensed clinical social worker, and a doctorally-prepared pharmacist provide full services to the WE CARE Clinics diverse clients. Along with students, the healthcare team works to promote chronic disease self-management by providing follow-up services, additional resources, client education and home management strategies to clients within the community. Each member of the WE CARE Clinic team believes that all patients deserve holistic, culturally competent care, said SON Associate Dean Roberta Harrison, PhD. One of the goals of this grant is to help nursing students and RNs in the community recognize the value in choosing a community-based practice in place of the traditional option in acute care facilities. A complete list of services available at the WE CARE Clinic can be found at siue.edu/nursing/we-care-clinic. These include new and unique offerings, such as: The Asthma Trigger Assessment Program offers home trigger assessments and sponsors local events such as asthma care camps for children and their families Chronic diabetes management classes are available to the community through the support of a 2017 SIUE Meridian Society grant Counseling services and anger management classes are offered by a licensed clinical social worker The WE CARE Clinic is located at 601 James R. Thompson Blvd., Building D, Suite 2015 in East St. Louis. It is open from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. Appointments are available by calling 618-482-6959. Walk-ins are welcome. HRSA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary Federal agency for improving access to healthcare by strengthening the healthcare workforce, building healthy communities and achieving health equity. HRSA awards grants to organizations to improve and expand healthcare services for underserved people. China has mastered a field of cutting-edge aviation technology that is currently dominated by the United States and Russia, which is expected to give the nation's fighter jets better combat capability. The technology, known as thrust vector control, involves a movable thrust nozzle that enables a fixed-wing plane to change the direction of its engine exhaust. This allows the pilot to raise the aircraft's nose cone vertically while maintaining forward momentum so the plane effectively "sits" on its own tail in an aerodynamic stall caused by low speed and a high angle of attack. The use of such technology extensively boosts the maneuverability of a fighter jet, providing advantages in aerial combat, especially during close-range dogfights. The idea of thrust vectoring is not new to the global aviation industry, as it has been used for nearly 100 years; first as a control mechanism for airships, and later applied to the design of fixed-wing combat planes on a small, experimental scale in 1960s. The British Hawker Siddeley Harrier attack aircraft, which had vertical/short takeoff and landing capability, was the first modern military aircraft to adopt thrust vectoring through its Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine. However, the technology was not well-developed in the '60s, and was merely tasked with achieving vertical takeoff and landing. Starting in the 1990s, major strides were made in research into thrust-vectoring engines. Consequently, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor of the US, the world's first stealth fighter jet, uses a thrust-vectoring turbofan engine that provides supreme maneuverability. In addition to the F-22, the F-35B of the US, and Russia's Sukhoi Su-30, Su-35 and the latest model, the Su-57, all have thrust-vectoring capability. China is reported to have been researching and developing thrust-vectoring aircraft engines for nearly two decades. Pictures circulating on the internet indicate that Chinese engineers built at least one prototype engine at least 15 years ago, but there was no information about any other developments until late December, when details about the maiden flight of a thrust-vectoring-engined J-10B fighter jet were leaked by Chinese aviation enthusiasts. However, there was no official confirmation. Declassification The official declassification finally came last week at the 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, commonly known as the Zhuhai Airshow, in the coastal city of Zhuhai, Guangdong province. The State-owned defense giant Aviation Industry Corporation of China sent a J-10B equipped with a thrust vector control nozzle to perform a series of gravity-defying aerobatic stunts at the air show's opening ceremony. The J-10B performed "Pugachev's Cobra", a highly challenging maneuver that resembles the initial attack movement of a cobra. During the maneuver, a plane raises its nose to vertical level, or even slightly beyond, before dropping back down to horizontal flight. The maneuver allows a plane to evade chasing aircraft or missiles directly behind it, and then fly behind the pursuer to engage in a counterattack. This and other extreme-agility maneuvers in the skies over Zhuhai were accompanied by applause and cheers from thousands of spectators, and were widely considered the most impressive moments at the six-day show, which concluded on Sunday. Yang Wei, deputy general manager of Aviation Industry Corporation of China and chief designer of the J-10B, said the stunt display signaled that China has joined a handful of aviation powers that have the all-important thrust vector control technology. He added that the success should be attributed to joint efforts by his company, Aero Engine Corporation of China, along with a test flight team from the People's Liberation Army Air Force. He said that to achieve supermaneuverability, a fighter jet not only needs a thrust-vectoring-capable engine, but also a good aerodynamic design, outstanding compatibility between the engine and the inlet, and unique flight-control equipment. Wang Haifeng, chief engineer of the J-10B thrust-vectoring technological demonstration program, said designers overcame many technical difficulties and took several innovative approaches to build the J-10B test bed. Responding to a reporter's question about whether the J-20 stealth fighter jet, the Chinese military's top combat plane, will be equipped with thrust-vectoring-capable engines in the future, Yang did not give a direct answer, but hinted that some J-20s have already been fitted with such engines. Greater agility Wang Ya'nan, editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, said thrust-vectoring capability allows aviators to guide their planes to perform exceptionally agile maneuvers that conventional jets cannot perform, providing more opportunities to overcome opponents and survive. Gao Zhuo, a military observer in Shanghai who has followed China's aviation industry for many years, said the development of the thrust-vectoring J-10B was intended to explore the adoption of thrust-vectoring capability by the J-20. The test bed's appearance indicates that not only has China's thrust vector control technology become mature and reliable, but also that the nation's aviation industry has developed state-of-the-art flight-control systems, which are essential for sophisticated maneuvers. He noted that the country's developments in this sphere came much faster than observers anticipated. According to Gao, the thrust vector control nozzle on the J-10B is the most complicated and advanced of its kind in the world. However, he said engineers will need to conduct numerous tests and make many modifications before the technology is fully ready for the J-20. China has designed and constructed two fifth-generation stealth combat aircraft-the J-20 and the FC-31. The J-20, designated as a future pillar of the PLA Air Force, made its maiden flight in January 2011, and was declassified in November 2016. It was commissioned to the Air Force last year, becoming the world's third stealth fighter to enter service, after the F-22 and the F-35. The FC-31, which appears to have been developed for export, was first flown in October 2012 and has taken part in several Zhuhai Airshows as well as arms shows overseas. It is believed to be undergoing test flights. It is not known if the FC-31 will use a thrust-vectoring engine. Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan is about to see two things hes never seen before. And given hes been in the Statehouse since 1971, thats saying something. The first is the strength of his majority. Democrats have never held more than 72 seats in the 118-member Illinois House, with the high water mark coming in 1991. The magic number required to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot and override the governors veto is 71 votes. As of Nov. 8, House Democrats are in line for 73 House seats in 2019, possibly 74 a new record. It will be Madigans largest majority ever. The second is the type of person who will occupy the governors office. Madigan has worked with two governors of his own party since he was first elected House speaker in 1983: Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn. These two men were not shrewd power brokers, to say the least. Madigan could pinion both at will. Enter billionaire Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker, who just spent more than $170 million to unseat Gov. Bruce Rauner. That money is a total game-changer for Madigans Democratic Party, which has traditionally relied on government worker unions, trial lawyers and business interests who need special favors in order to fill its coffers. So far, Madigan has brought Pritzker entirely into the fold. He knew Pritzkers money would be a major boost for his House candidates across the state. But what happens when Pritzker goes from candidate mode to manager mode? He will inherit a massive bill backlog, a state thats one notch above a junk credit rating and a budget thats already out of balance by $2 billion. He will not be able to raise enough revenue to cover already-bloated spending and new promises in the short term. Somethings got to give. Government unions, for example, might not get everything they want at every turn. These fractures will be where Pritzkers money becomes a double-edged sword for Madigan. Those deep pockets could provide the speaker covering fire to go against his traditional power base. But Pritzkers money could also offer Madigans House members the same cover should they dare to go against the speaker. For the first time ever in Madigans speakership, Democratic lawmakers could have a real choice to seek shelter elsewhere when a tough vote comes around. One key factor in all this is what Madigan wants beyond power: legacy. Its clearly on his mind. The day after polls closed, Madigan released an odd personal statement under the Democratic Party of Illinois letterhead. In it, he claims Republicans lost because they tried to make the election a referendum on Madigan, but that strategy backfired because the speaker is actually a champion of smart economic and social policies and has provided real, tangible economic benefits to the people and families of this state. Its completely out of touch with reality. And Democrats know that. Recall that in 2012, a political action committee closely linked to Madigan paid for mailers attacking Madigan. The mailers were sent in support of a Democratic challenger running against incumbent Republican state Rep. Skip Saviano. A vote for Skip Saviano is a vote for Mike Madigan! said one. Democrat Speaker Mike Madigan calls the shots for Skip Saviano, said another. If voters actually love the speaker, Senate Democrats must not have received the memo. Three Democratic Senate challengers ran a weeks worth of TV ads in September calling for term limits on Madigan, before the Chicago Federation of Labor demanded they be taken down. Of those three challengers, one picked up a Republican seat and another is down just 12 votes with mail-in ballots left to be counted. In Madigans own chamber, Democrat Anne Stava-Murray pulled off a shocking upset in Chicagos western suburbs against incumbent Republican state Rep. David Olsen. Stava-Murray vowed to vote against Madigan for House speaker. Madigan remains a black eye for the Democratic Party brand in Illinois. His House members are well aware of that. But for now, they still need his protection. Come inauguration in January, that could change. Austin Berg is a writer for the Illinois Policy Institute. He wrote this column for the Illinois News Network. Austin can be reached at aberg@illinoispolicy.org. The Supply Chain Officer, EDP Manager reportsto the Head of Logistics Operations UGCO or the designate and is under thefunctional supervision of the Head of Supply Chain Unit, UGCO. LogisticsOfficer shall oversee inland, primary and secondary transport operations,management of the commodities at the EDP sites, liaise and coordinate with Area/FieldOffices dispatch and food distribution schedules, oversee compliance.Logistics Officer is expected to guidepersonnel on the best practices of logistics operations with solid backgroundin commodity management with full proficiency in LESS. The adage that failures can teach many lessons seems quite... Union Minister H.N. Ananth Kumar (59), who died early on Monday in Bengaluru, had a storied political career that began with the Emergency when he was just a teenager and saw him rise to be a passionate lobbyist for Karnataka at the Centre. Kumar, who had been battling lung cancer, died at a private hospital in Bengaluru. According to sources, Kumar was taken to the US for treatment of lung cancer. But he returned to India on October 20 as treatment was not very effective. Kumar was admitted to the Sankara Hospital in Bengaluru, where he breathed his last. Kumar, who was also the Parliamentary Affairs Minister in the Narendra Modi government, had represented the Bangalore South constituency in the Lok Sabha since 1996. Born to H.N. Narayan Shastry and Girija Shastry on July 22, 1959, in Bengaluru, Kumar graduated in law from Karnatak University. As a PU student, Ananth Kumar joined the Jayaprakash Narayan Movement and spent 40 days in jail during the Emergency. According to sources, Kumar was so greatly inspired by JP that he visited the latter's home town every year on his birth anniversary. A master political strategist Kumar was hand-picked by the BJP to contest from Bangalore South constituency for the first time, after then sitting MP Venkatagiri Gowda was suspended for speaking critically about Atal Behari Vajpayee. BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa, a leader perceived to be a perennial rival of Ananth Kumar, became emotional on Monday as he stated that their bond was special and largely misunderstood by people. "We have worked together and built the BJP in the state. He was a leader who responded to everyone. It is a great loss to the party, state and country. You cannot imagine our bond. He was the one who guided me, even advising me, on taking the finance portfolio when I became the deputy chief minister. BJP leaders recalled Ananth Kumar's progressive initiatives like introducing subsidised stents, neem-coated urea and "Jan Aushadi Kendra". As the civil aviation minister in the Vajpayee government, he brought the national civil aviation policy. Kumar's profile as a persistent lobbyist for Karnataka was helped by his fluency in Hindi. While Ananth Kumar will be remembered as the man who lobbied for Karnataka in the Cauvery and Krishna water rows, he was also instrumental in bringing the international airport and Metro projects to Bengaluru. According to his close friends, at the time of the Cauvery riots during S.M. Krishna's tenure as the chief minister, the Centre stood by Karnataka owing to intense lobbying by Ananth Kumar. More recently, when the Supreme Court ordered the formation of the Cauvery Management Board, it was Kumar who convinced the Modi government to argue before the apex court, stating such a decision was the prerogative of the Parliament. Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy also expressed his condolences over the demise of Ananth Kumar. "Our families had a friendship beyond politics. He always valued and had given priority to friendship. I have lost a great friend in his death, Kumaraswamy acknowledged. Kumaraswamy described Kumar as a value-based politician, who made a significant contribution to the country as an MP and Union minister. His pro-people attitude and activities had made him the apple of the eyes of Bengalureans," Kumaraswamy said. President Ram Nath Kovind tweeted, "Sad to hear of the passing of Union minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H.N. Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates." Modi, too, took to Twitter to condole the death of his colleague. "Extremely saddened by the passing away of my valued colleague and friend, Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. He was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work, noted Modi. Modi recalled Kumar as an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. "He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents. I spoke to his wife, Dr. Tejaswini Ji and expressed condolences on the passing away of Shri Ananth Kumar Ji. My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti," tweeted Modi. Ananth Kumar is survived by his wife, Dr. Tejaswini and his two daughters, Aishwarya and Vijeta. Funeral tomorrow The public can pay their respects to Ananth Kumar at his residence on Monday. On Tuesday, the body of Ananth Kumar will be kept at the BJP office in Bengaluru from 8am to 9am for viewing and from 9am to 12pm at the National College. His funeral is expected to be conducted shortly after 12pm at the Chamrajpet Crematorium. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has sought permission from West Bengal government about the grand chariot procession it has planned to take out across the state during the first and second week of December. Three chariot processionsone from north Bengal, one from the western part and the last one from down southwill merge to Kolkata where party President Amit Shah would make an address on December 11. The state government is yet to respond to the application filed with the West Bengal police and Kolkata police respectively. The copies of prayer have been sent to the home secretary and chief secretary as well. Bengal government sources said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has refused to give permission for the grand rally of the BJP in December. But BJP's state president Dilip Ghosh threatened to bring out rallies even without permission. Trinamool Congress leaders have forgotten that in their childhood they also used to visit the Rath Yatra, said Ghosh. Bengali literature talks about Rath Yatra. But Trinamool Congress government is out to crush the same Rath Yatra being taken out by us. He further said, If they give permission, everything is well. Otherwise, we know how to bring out the rally. Ghosh hinted that the BJP would move the Calcutta High Court in case permission is not given. In the past, too, it took out huge rallies in the state by getting the nod from the court. BJP has also demanded renaming 25 places in Bengal that has colonial names. Those names are to be changed immediately. State government should take the initiative, he said. A senior BJP leader said such a demand would be part of the campaign of the party in the coming days in Bengal. We would like those places to be named after famous sons and daughters of Bengal, said a senior BJP leader. BJP sources have also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after the assembly elections in five states, would sit with leaders from Bengal in Delhi to chalk out strategy for the state. It is also believed that Modi would hold a meeting with eminent citizens from different walks of lives in Bengal. He is also scheduled to meet some of the newspapers and media owners in the state in Delhi. Asked whether it means that the prime minister would try to sit with intellectuals in Bengal, a senior leader said, We don't to give bad names to them by calling them intellectuals. All eminent persons are intellectuals. We will try to talk to people who are impartial in their attitude. Bengal's political atmosphere is, thus, bound to be hot in the coming months. Supported by 3D printing technology, the replica of a cave in the Yungang Grottoes, a 1,500-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site, has been successfully made in Beijing. The replica, based on the original cave No 18, of which the main Buddha statue is 15.5 meters in height, is 17 meters in height and 22 meters in width, according to Yungang Grottoes Research Institute in northern China's Shanxi province. The project was launched by the institute and Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. After more than six months of data collection and processing, 800 modules of the replica were printed by over 20 3D printers within a year. It took another three months to assemble each part and color them with pigments on site, said Ning Bo, head of the institute's digitalization department. "The well-improved resin material, featuring moisture resistance, flame retardancy, anti-corrosion and waterproofing, was adopted in printing the cave. By using this kind of material, the replica is able to be disassembled for easy transportation," Ning said. The replica was built to scale with a focus on precision, Ning said, adding that it is expected to be showcased in Beijing in the future, exerting great significance for the promotion of Yungang Grottoes culture. Zhang Zhuo, head of the institute, said that long-term research and exploration have been carried out among a number of universities and research institutes in recent years for the creation of digital archives for the grottoes. Earlier, replicas of grottos No 3 and No 12 were made. Zhang said that with digital archives, people will have information on the current situation of the grottos and promptly grasp the morphological changes of the cultural relics in years to come. Once the grottos are damaged due to natural disasters or human factors, it will be possible to carry out repair, Zhang said. The Yungang Grottoes, located in the South of Wuzhou Mountain, is about 16 kilometers west of Datong City, northern China's Shanxi province. More than 59,000 statues were carved in 45 caves in the Yungang Grottoes, which was listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 2001. A former woman colleague of ex-Union minister M.J. Akbar, who had filed a criminal defamation case against journalist Priya Ramani, told a Delhi court on Monday that his reputation has been "destroyed" and "damaged irreparably" due to allegations of sexual misconduct. Joyeeta Basu, the editor of Sunday Guardian, who appeared as a witness to support Akbar's case, told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal that Ramani posted all her tweets "intentionally with a purpose to harm" Akbar's "reputation and goodwill". Akbar had founded the Sunday Guardian in 2010. "I have seen tweets by Priya Ramani dated October 10, 2018 and October 13, 2018. I was overcome by doubts, but I know from the number of questions raised by people, I know personally that his reputation has been destroyed and damaged irreparably," Basu told the court. "After reading these tweets by Ramani, I believe that this vilification was conducted and the tweets were published intentionally by Ramani with a purpose to harm Akbar's good reputation and goodwill in the eyes of society," Basu said. The journalist said that she has worked with Akbar for 20 years and had not heard anything "untoward" from the staff of the organisation where they worked together. He was a public figure who was held in high esteem. "I have always held Akbar in high regard. He has been perfectly professional in his dealings with me. He has always been a tough taskmaster, a thorough professional and a brilliant teacher," Basu said. She said she considered Akbar to be "a brilliant journalist, a scholarly writer and a thorough gentleman with an impeccable reputation". Basu said that she was "shocked, disappointed, embarrassed" to see Ramani's tweets against Akbar and "in spite of my experience with him, his image, his reputation took a beating in my eyes on reading these tweets/articles. "It was aggravated during my interaction with friends and colleagues who had read and heard about the widely publicised tweets and articles and asked me whether he was really like that? They questioned his character and said that his image has taken a severe beating and had been lowered in their eyes. They said that his reputation had been permanently damaged as far as they were concerned," she said. The court has now posted the matter for the next hearing on December 7. Ramani accused Akbar of sexual misconduct around 20 years ago. Akbar, who had resigned from the Union Council of Ministers on October 17, had earlier told the court that an "immediate damage" has been caused to him due to the "scurrilous", concocted and false allegations of sexual misconduct levelled against him. Akbar's name cropped up on social media when he was in Nigeria, as the #MeToo campaign raged on in India. Multiple women have come out with accounts of alleged sexual harassment by him when he was a journalist. Earlier this month, a former Asian Age journalist had accused Akbar of raping her more than 20 years ago when she was working under him. He had termed the allegations "false, fabricated and deeply distressing" and said he was taking appropriate legal action against them. Expressing her readiness to fight the defamation allegations, Ramani had said, "Rather than engage with the serious allegations that many women have made against him, he seeks to silence them through intimidation and harassment." The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea filed by some Manipur Police personnel seeking recusal of judges of the bench deciding fake encounter cases in the state about which a CBI special investigation team (SIT) is carrying out a probe. A bench comprising Justices Madan B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit said that there was no reason for these Manipur policemen to doubt the CBI SIT and the probe conducted by it in these cases. The Supreme Court bench said the institutional integrity of the judiciary and the CBI must be maintained. The Supreme Court order came on a plea filed by some Manipur Police personnel, who had sought recusal of judges of the bench, claiming that it had earlier termed as murderers some accused, who were charge-sheeted by the SIT in the encounter cases. The Centre had on September 28 supported the plea by the Manipur policemen and questioned the Supreme Court for its reported remark, saying it had "completely shaken" the morale of the armed forces and security personnel operating in insurgency-hit areas. The Supreme Court, which is hearing a PIL seeking a probe into as many as 1,528 cases of alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur, had on July 14 last year constituted the SIT and ordered lodging of FIRs and a probe into them. The Supreme Court bench had said that the oral remarks by the bench during the hearing on July 30 was not "designed or directed" against any individual as it had happened during the discussion in the court with the CBI director. Justice Lalit had said that on July 30, they were asking the CBI director, who was then present in the court, about the status of the Manipur fake encounters case. The Supreme Court was informed that till then, 14 persons were charge-sheeted for the alleged offences of murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence by the SIT. Senior lawyer Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for petitioners, had told the Supreme Court that persons who were charge-sheeted had a "genuine apprehension" that they would not get a fair trial and impartial justice due to remarks by the bench. While making it clear that nobody was saying that the Supreme Court was "biased", Rohatgi had said that these persons, having been charge-sheeted for the offence of murder, were facing the charge of life or death. Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, who was representing petitioners in the main case related to alleged fake encounters in Manipur by the Army, Assam Rifles and state police, had said the Supreme Court bench should not recuse from hearing the matter as it had not said that these accused were "murderers". The bench after hearing the submissions had reserved its order on the application seeking its recusal from hearing the matter. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday inaugurated a slew of major infrastructure projects in his Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi. Ring Road, Babatpur Airport road Modi inaugurated two important roads, having a total length of 34 kilometres and built at a cost of Rs 1,571.95 crore, in Varanasi. The 16.55-km-long Varanasi Ring Road Phase-I has been built at a cost of Rs 759.36 crore, while the work of four-laning and construction of 17.25 km Babatput-Varanasi road on NH-56 cost Rs 812.59 crore, an official release said. The Babatpur Airport highway will connect the city with the airport and go on to link Jaunpur, Sultanpur and Lucknow. With a flyover at Harhua and a rail overbridge at Tarna, it will reduce the travel time from Varanasi to the airport, providing a big relief to the people of the holy city and tourists. The Ring Road, with two rail overbridges and a flyover, will allow traffic on NH 56 (Lucknow-Varanasi), NH 233 (Azamgarh-Varanasi), NH 29 (Gorakhpur-Varanasi) and Ayodhya-Varanasi highways to bypass Varanasi, thereby reducing traffic congestion in the city. This will reduce travel time, fuel usage and pollution in the area. The Ring Road will provide easier and more convenient access to Sarnath, an important site for Buddhist pilgrimage. These projects will also provide increased employment opportunities, development of small and medium industries and give a boost to economic development in the area. Currently, national highway projects of total length 2833 km, costing Rs 63,885 crore are underway to link Varanasi with other places in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Of these, 15 road projects of 1143 kilometre length are under various stages of construction. These include Varanasi-Jaunpur, Varanasi-Sultanpur, Sultanpur-Lucknow, Varanasi Ghaghra Bridge, Varanasi-Azamgarh among others. Besides, there are seven targeted projects of 235 km costing Rs 8,265 crore. Also, 20 projects for 1455 km roads are in detailed project report stage. First multi-modal terminal on inland waterways Modi inaugurated India's first multi-modal terminal on the Ganga river in Varanasi and received the country's first container cargo transported on inland waterways from Kolkata. The first consignment containing food and beverage had set sail from Kolkata in the last week of October. This is the first of the four multi-modal terminals being constructed on the National Waterway-1 (river Ganga) as part of the World Bank-aided Jal Marg Vikas project of the Inland Waterways Authority of India. The total estimated cost of the project is Rs 5,369.18 crore, which will be equally shared between the Government of India and the World Bank. According to an official statement, the Centre's Jal Marg Vikas Project aims at developing the stretch of the river between Varanasi and Haldia for navigation of large vessels weighing up to 1,500 tonnes to 2,000 tonnes. Its objective is to promote inland waterways as a cheap and environment-friendly means of transportation, especially for cargo movement. The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) is the project implementing agency. The project entails construction of three multi-modal terminals (Varanasi, Sahibganj and Haldia), two inter-modal terminals, five roll-on-roll-off (Ro-Ro) terminal pairs, new navigation lock at Farakka in West Bengal, assured depth dredging, integrated vessel repair and maintenance facility, differential global positioning system (DGPS), river information system (RIS), river training. Sewage infrastructure projects Modi inaugurated two sewage infrastructure projects worth Rs 425.41 crore in Varanasi and laid the foundation stone for another project worth Rs 72.91 crore for Ramnagar. Among the projects inaugurated, the first is a 140 million litres per day (MLD) sewage treatment plant (STP) at Dinapur built at a cost of Rs 235.53 crore. The project includes 10 years of operation and maintenance agreement. The second project includes three sewage pumping stations at Chaukaghat (140 MLD), Phulwaria (7.6 MLD) and Saraiya (3.7 MLD). The total cost for these three pumping stations is Rs 34.01 crore. Another project is the construction of a 28-km-long relieving trunk sewer, rising mains and interceptor sewers along Varuna and Assi at a cost of Rs 155.87 crore. The prime minister also laid the foundation stone for sewerage management scheme for Ramnagar which is expected to cost Rs 72.91 crore. This will include a 10 MLD STP and intercepting and diverting four drains. These project along with two other ongoing projects of 120 MLD at Goitha and 50 MLD STP at Ramana will take the sewage treatment capacity in the city to 412 MLD, which will be adequate for the sewage treatment requirements till year 2035. This will prevent pollution of river Ganga from drains in Ramnagar, an official release said. There is no sewage treatment facility in the Ramnagar town. A soldier was killed and another critically injured in a possible sniper attack by Pakistan Army at Krishna Ghati Sector, Mendhar in Poonch near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday evening. Defense spokesman in Jammu in a statement said Pakistan Army resorted to an unprovoked ceasefire violation in Krishna Ghati Sector (Mendhar) at the LoC resulting in one soldier getting martyred and another critically injured. The slain soldier was identified as Lance Naik Antony Sebastian K.M. And the critically injured soldier as Havildar Mari Muthu D. "The Indian Army has retaliated strongly and effectively on Pakistan Army posts. The martyrdom of the Indian Army soldier will not go in vain," the statement said. It said immediate resuscitation and medical aid was provided to the injured soldier and that he was evacuated to a military hospital in Poonch. Sebastian, 34, hails from Manakunnam in Ernakulam district of Kerala and is survived by his wife Anna Dayana Joseph. Sebastian's killing has come in the wake of reports about the possibility of increased sniper attacks by Pakistan in the region. In the last few days, sniper attacks from Pakistan side have killed four Indian soldiers in the border areas in Jammu. Two BSF soldiers were injured. The number of dead in a wildfire raging in California rose to 29 on Sunday, matching the deadliest in the state's history as recovery teams found six more bodies in the grim search through the wreckage. The "Camp Fire"in the northern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountainsis the largest and most destructive of several infernos that have sent 250,000 people fleeing their homes across the tinder-dry state, razing 6,400 homes in the town of Paradise and effectively wiping it off the map. "Today, an additional six human remains were recovered, which brings our current total to 29," Sheriff Kory Honea told a news conference at the end of the fourth day in the struggle to contain the blaze, adding that all were found in Paradise. In fire zones in north and south Californiawhere a total of at least 31 people have diedacrid smoke blanketed the sky for miles, the sun barely visible. On the ground, cars caught in the flames were reduced to mangled metal carcasses, while power lines were gnawed by the flames. The Camp Fire has the grisly distinction of matching the 1933 Griffith Park disaster in Los Angeles until now the single deadliest wildfire on record, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). At the southern end of the state, where the "Woolsey Fire" is threatening mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity redoubt of Malibu, the death toll has been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway. Los Angeles County Fire chief Daryl Osby told reporters of his gratitude to firefighters "who've done all they could do save tens of thousands of people's lives and thousands of people's homes." Rescuers also spent hours on Saturday collecting bodies around Paradise and placing them in a black hearse. Body parts were transported by bucket, while intact remains were carried in body bags. At the Holly Hills Mobile Estate the mobile homes had been reduced to smoldering piles of debris. Yellow police tape delineated spots that were tagged "Doe C" and "Doe D," a grim marker of the bodies that had recently been removed. Locals fled the danger, but police told AFP some farmers returned to check on their cattle. Fanned by strong winds, the "Camp Fire" has scorched 111,000 acres (45,000 hectares) and is 25 per cent contained, Cal Fire said. So far, three of the more than 4,000 firefighters deployed have been injured. They estimate they will need three weeks to fully contain the blaze. Evacuation orders have been issued to more than a quarter of a million people across California, with authorities urging residents not to ignore warnings to flee. "This is not the new normal, this is the new abnormal. And this new abnormal will continue, certainly in the next 10 to 15 to 20 years," California Governor Jerry Brown told a news conference on Sunday. "Unfortunately, the best science is telling us that the dryness, warmth, drought, all those things, they're going to intensify," he said. Almost 6,000 miles away, President Donald Trump, in France for World War I commemorations, drew fierce criticism for an unsympathetic reaction to the devastation. "There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor," Trump tweeted, threatening to withdraw federal support. Brian Rice, the head of the California Professional Firefighters, slammed the tweet as "ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines." He said the president's claim that forest policies were mismanaged "is dangerously wrong." In southern California, the "Woolsey Fire" engulfed parts of Thousand Oaks, where the community is still shell-shocked after a Marine Corps veteran shot dead 12 people in a country music bar on Wednesday. It has consumed around 83,000 acres, destroyed at least 177 buildings and was 10 per cent contained, Cal Fire said Sunday. Beijing resident Yan Minwen, 76, spends more than 12 hours each weekend traveling to and from a village in neighboring Hebei province to give private lessons to children left in their grandparents' care. Yan began visiting Xiguanzhuang village, about 100 kilometers southwest of the capital, in March and hasn't skipped a week apart from the summer school holiday. "I want to do something useful during retirement, and tutoring children in rural areas who lack home instruction is a good option," Yan said. Xiguanzhuang, in Baoding's Laishui county, was the home of Yan's grandparents, and their residential land was passed on to her when they died. On occasional visits to the village she learned that most of its young parents had gone to big cities as migrant workers to make a living, leaving their children under the care of grandparents. "The children need instruction at home but most of their grandparents are illiterate and don't know how to help in children's education," Yan said. Yan studied at university and tutored her own daughter, and wanted to use that experience to do something to help. She borrowed a room in her uncle's home in Xiguanzhuang and put some secondhand desks in it. The first students began using them on March 23. Yan leaves her home in Beijing's Wangjing area at 9 am every Friday and arrives at the village around 3:30 pm after more than six hours on four different buses. "The first two buses in Beijing are free for elderly people like me and the other two cost me a total of 11 yuan ($1.60)," Yan said. On Friday night and Saturday, about 25 pupils gather in the room to study and do homework under Yan's guidance. "I don't give specific lessons but instead create a good atmosphere for pupils to study and help them solve problems in homework," she said. The children are from different grades, ranging from primary to middle school. "I can help deal with most of their questions in English and mathematics, but I have forgotten the knowledge of other subjects like chemistry and physics," she said. "But I still have the ability to learn." Yan also gives psychological guidance to the children. Tang Jia, a third-grade middle school student, felt under pressure before the high school entrance examination. Her mother quit her job and returned to the village to support Tang, but without much education she didn't know how to help. She learned about Yan's study group and took her daughter along to ask for help at the end of March. "Based on the experiences of my daughter and I in exams, I told her how to prepare for them under a good psychological state and that she should give more attention to subjects she was not good at," Yan said. Two hours of guidance from Yan made Tang more confident and helped her achieve a good result in the exam two months later. Yan was an automation major at the University of Science and Technology Beijing from 1960 to 1965. After graduation, she became an equipment operator at a company making aluminum products. "Now my time is divided between tutoring private pupils in the village and teaching automation in vocational colleges in Beijing, which includes online classes and face-to-face classes," Yan said. She began teaching part-time at vocational colleges after retiring in 1997. Yan said some of her elderly friends had told her that her retirement seemed tiring. "It's sometimes physically tiring, but I feel it is more fulfilling," Yan said. "If I didn't do these things, I would feel the loneliness and pain all the time after losing my husband." Yan's husband died of pneumonia in August last year. "It was the two of us who wanted to instruct village pupils when we saw a similar case on TV in 2015," she said. After her husband died, her daughter encouraged her to travel as a way to ease the pain. But Yan said the only thing she wanted to do was to go back to her ancestral home to fulfill the dream she shared with her husband. When the study group started in March, there were only 10 pupils in the room which measures less than 10 square meters. But the number of pupils can now reach close to 30, making the room crowded. "With the number of pupils increasing, I plan to build a house on my grandparents' residential land that can hold at least 40 pupils," Yan said. She has already drawn a sketch of the house and plans to spend about 100,000 yuan from her savings and pension to build it. "Other old people may find traveling a good choice after retirement," Yan said. "Well, I have found my own way toward happiness in later life." On Sunday, Myanmar officials announced that they were ready to receive more than 2,000 Rohingya Muslims who had fled to Bangladesh in fear of violence. The country will receive the first batch of Rohingya Muslims this week and around 2,000 Rohingyas will be moved back in the first batch under a deal between the neighbours struck last month. Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Win Myat Aye announced at a news conference that Bangladesh had informed Myanmar authorities that repatriation, agreed upon in principle months ago, would begin on Thursday. Noting that the actual date depended upon Bangladesh taking action, Win Myat Aye said, "Whether it will happen on the day or not, we have to be ready on our side and we try our best to do that." Noting that the actual date depended upon Bangladesh taking action, Win Myat Aye said, "Whether it will happen on the day or not, we have to be ready on our side and we try our best to do that." But, there is still uncertainity regarding the safety of the Rohingyas in Myanmar as Buddhists have been protesting against the repatriation. Fearing more violence, around 20 individuals who are on the first list have said they are not willing to move. The United Nations also says conditions are not yet safe for their return. The UN's refugee agency said late on Sunday that Rohingya refugees should be allowed to go and see the conditions in Myanmar before they decide to go back. The Rohingya exodus began after Myanmar security forces launched a brutal crackdown following coordinated insurgent attacks in August 2017. The scale, organisation and ferocity of the operation led to accusations from the international community, including the United Nations, of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Myanmar's government has denied this. According to Sunday's Myanmar government statement, the returning Rohingya would stay at repatriation camps for two days and receive food and clothing before moving on to transit camps. It said China, India and Japan were "providing necessary assistance" for the repatriation process, but did not give details. It isn't clear how long the returnees would have to stay in the transit camps or where they would go afterward, as many Rohingya villages have been erased by bulldozers, with the land given to local Rakhine Buddhists. Officials said Sunday that returnees can get an ID document called a National Verification Card that will allow them to travel anywhere in the Maungdaw area of Rakhine State. They can then begin to apply for citizenship. But there is widespread skepticism that any returning refugees will ever be granted citizenship. Seeking a voluntary, safe and dignified return of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar, the US asserted that Dhaka must ensure that the returnees have the freedom of movement and "not be confined to camps". "We have engaged both governments at the highest levels to express our serious concerns about premature returns, and to emphasize that, consistent with international practice, returns be informed, voluntary, safe, and dignified. Further, returnees to Burma must have freedom of movement and not be confined to camps, the US State Department said in a statement on Sunday. New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Twitter was Monday pulled up by the government for being "slow" in removing objectionable or unlawful content which has allegedly aided the spread of hate messages and rumours inciting violence and crime against women and was warned of strict legal action if it failed to comply with the directives of law enforcement agencies, officials said. Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba also directed Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's legal, policy and trust and safety lead, and Mahima Kaul, Head Public Policy, Twitter India, to ensure a round-the-clock mechanism for prompt disposal of requisitions of law enforcement agencies. At a meeting, which was held here "for effective action" against objectionable contents, the officials from the microblogging site were told that in some cases Twitter has been "slow" in removing or blocking objectionable or unlawful content, a home ministry official said. The compliance for removal of unlawful content has only been about 60 per cent even where orders have been issued by the competent authority after following due process of law. The home secretary asked Gadde and Kaul to ensure a 24x7 mechanism for prompt disposal of requisitions of law enforcement agencies for deletion or removal of unlawful or objectionable content from their platform. The Twitter representatives were also advised to appoint India-based contact persons who would be available round-the-clock and to put in place an escalation mechanism to deal with requisitions of law enforcement agencies and general public for prompt removal of unlawful or objectionable content, the official said. In the recent past, some objectionable content which could potentially disrupt public peace or law and order and incite criminal offences, including communal violence, has been posted on Twitter. Some of these cases were brought to the notice of the home ministry. Action was taken for removal of such content after the intervention of the home ministry and the Delhi Police. During the meeting, it was impressed upon Twitter representatives that they should improve their system of response to investigation-related legal requests of law enforcement agencies under the provisions of the Criminal Penal Code and other laws. They were told that law provides for strict legal provisions in case of non compliance which would need to be invoked, the official said. During the meeting, specific instances of legal requisitions were shown where the Delhi Police had sought removal of content openly inciting violence but Twitter's response had been neither "full nor timely". Specific legal notices issued by the Delhi Police seeking investigation-related information were also shared with them. Asked for its comment, Twitter said in a statement that as a global company, it exercises due diligence to respect local laws in jurisdictions around the world and duly reviews all legal process. "Twitter has dedicated contact channels for law enforcement and we respond to legal process issued in compliance with applicable law... Twitter is committed to working with governments around the world, including in India, to encourage healthy behaviour on the platform," it said. A series of meetings have been held with all social media platforms including Facebook, You Tube, WhatsApp and Twitter to sensitise them about preventive and other actions to remove unlawful content immediately, another official said. Gauba had held meetings with social media platforms in June and October, 2018. A series of meetings have been conducted by senior officers of the home ministry, Delhi Police and police officers of other states to sensitise the country representatives of social medial platforms about gravity of unlawful or objectionable content posted on their platforms, and their possible consequences. A number of cases have come to the fore in the recent past where social media platforms were used to spread hate messages and rumours inciting violence, including against women, but internet giants -- most of them headquartered outside India -- have been allegedly resisting sharing of customer details and message trails citing privacy issues. However, some social media firms have said they are taking necessary steps to stop misuse of their platforms for spread of fake news, and rumours and hate messages. PTI ACB SR GVS Islamabad, Nov 12 (PTI) Pakistan's Supreme Court Monday admitted the country's anti-graft watchdog's appeal for hearing over the suspension of the prison sentences of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law in the Avenfield corruption case. On July 6, Sharif was awarded 10 years imprisonment while his daughter Maryam, and son-in-law Capt (retd) Safdar were given seven and one year jail terms respectively in the Avenfield apartments corruption case. However, on September 19, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) suspended their sentences on the petitions filed by the Sharifs. A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, was conducting preliminary hearing of the case. The bench ordered that the defendants' bail in the case would be maintained while the National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) plea against the suspension of the sentences would be heard separately, Geo News reported. The apex court said it would see if there was any need to change the bench or constitute a larger bench to hear the appeal over the suspension of the sentences. The next hearing of NAB's appeal against the IHC's suspension of the sentences will take place on December 12. Sharif, Maryam and Safdar were also disqualified from contesting elections or holding public office for a period of 10 years after their release in the Avenfield case, a ruling that ruined their political career. The Avenfield case was among the three corruption cases filed against the three-time former premier and his children by the NAB on the Supreme Court's orders in the Panama Papers case which disqualified Sharif. Sharif has denied any wrongdoing and says the charges are politically motivated. PTI MRJ AKJ MRJ Mumbai, Nov 12 (PTI) It was an iconic off-screen crossover of two of Netflix's most popular series when "Narcos: Mexico" stars Michael Pena and Diego Luna met the cast and crew of "Sacred Games". Pena and Luna, along with showrunner Eric Newman, landed in Mumbai on Saturday night to promote the fourth season of the drug drama. Team "Narcos: Mexico" met "Sacred Games" stars Saif Ali Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, showrunner Vikramaditya Motwane, directors Anurag Kashyap and Neeraj Ghaywan and writer Varun Grover for an intimate Sunday evening. The event was attended by several Indian filmmakers including Zoya Akhtar, Abhay Deol, Vishal Bhardwaj, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Abhishek Chaubey, Anvita Dutt, Raja Menon, Anand Tiwari, Leena Yadav and Reema Kagti. Pena and Luna, who are in India to promote the upcoming fourth season of the Netflix Original series, are spending time exploring the food specialties around the city. On Sunday, they visited the Taj Mahal Palace to marvel at the Gateway of India and even sipped city's famous cutting chai. Luna said he is yet to watch "Sacred Games" but it was great fun to hang out with the cast and sample local culture and food. "I met the guys and enjoyed their conversation. I was thrilled to find out there is so much going on in India that is not Bollywood that I have seen before.. I wanted to dig in to what happening here," Luna told PTI in an interview. Newman, who has been to India before to promote Will Smith-starrer "Bright", said he is a huge fan of "Sacred Games" and loves how authentically it has been shot, something that he has also tried to stay true to with "Narcos". "When I was here for 'Bright', I thought 'God, it would be great to come back. Maybe I will some day and here I am. I am incredibly proud of the show and the fact that it has been embraced in India. I admire the cinema of the country very much. It means a lot to know that Indian audiences have embraced our show. "I found it very flattering to read that it is called India's 'Narcos'. Maybe, we are the Mexican 'Sacred Games'. I greatly admire the team and the show," The 'Narcos: Mexico" team was recently in Singapore for Netflix's 'See What's Next Asia' event. The first three seasons of "Narcos" were set in Colombia and focused on the rise of Pablo Escobar and after his downfall, the Cali Cartel. The rebooted fourth season has moved the story to Mexico and will chart the rise of the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s as Felix Gallardo (Luna) takes the helm. Meanwhile, DEA agent Kiki Camarena (Pena) moves his wife and young son from California to Guadalajara to take on a new post. "Narcos: Mexico" starts streaming from November 16, whereas a second season of "Sacred Games" is already in the works. PTI BK RDS SHD SHD Paradise, Nov 12 (AP) As wildfires continued to rage on both ends of California, officials released another grim statistic: six more dead in a swath of Northern California wiped out by fire, raising the death toll there to 29. It matched California's record for deaths in a single fire. Another 228 remain unaccounted for as crews stepped up the search for bodies and missing people. Two people were killed in a wildfire in Southern California. Ten search teams were working in Paradise a town of 27,000 that was largely incinerated last week and in surrounding communities in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Authorities called in a DNA lab and teams of anthropologists to help identify victims. Statewide, 150,000 remained displaced as more than 8,000 fire crews battled wildfires that have scorched 400 square miles (1,040 square kilometers), with out-of-state crews continuing to arrive. Whipping winds and tinder-dry conditions threaten more areas through the rest of the week, fire officials warned. "This is truly a tragedy that all Californians can understand and respond to," Gov. Jerry Brown said at a press briefing. "It's a time to pull together and work through these tragedies." Brown, who has declared a state emergency, said California is requesting aid from the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has blamed "poor" forest management for the fires. Brown said federal and state governments must do more forest management but that climate change is the greater source of the problem. "And those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies that we're now witnessing, and will continue to witness in the coming years," he said. Drought and warmer weather attributed to climate change, and the building of homes deeper into forests have led to longer and more destructive wildfire seasons in California. While California officially emerged from a five-year drought last year, much of the northern two-thirds of the state is abnormally dry. Firefighters battling fire with shovels and bulldozers, flame retardant and hoses expected wind gusts up to 40 mph (64 kph) overnight Sunday. In Southern California , firefighters beat back a new round of winds Sunday and the fire's growth and destruction are believed to have been largely stopped. Malibu celebrities and mobile-home dwellers in nearby mountains were slowly learning whether their homes had been spared or reduced to ash. Two people were killed and the fire had destroyed nearly 180 structures. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby stressed there were numerous hotspots and plenty of fuel that had not yet burned, but at sunset he said there had been huge successes despite "a very challenging day." Celebrities whose coastal homes were damaged or destroyed in a Southern California wildfire or were forced to flee from the flames expressed sympathy and solidarity with less-famous people hurt worse by the state's deadly blazes, and gave their gratitude to firefighters who kept them safe. Actor Gerard Butler said on Instagram that his Malibu home was "half-gone," adding he was "inspired as ever by the courage, spirit and sacrifice of firefighters." Flames also besieged Thousand Oaks, the Southern California city in mourning over the massacre of 12 people in a shooting rampage at a country music bar Wednesday night. In Northern California, where more than 6,700 buildings have been destroyed, the scope of the devastation was beginning to set in even as the blaze raged on. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the county consulted teams of anthropologists because, in some cases, investigators have been able to recover only bones and bone fragments. In some neighborhoods "it's very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there," Honea said. Public safety officials toured the Paradise area to begin discussing the recovery process. Much of what makes the city function is gone. "Paradise was literally wiped off the map," said Tim Aboudara, a representative for International Association of Fire Fighters. He said at least 36 firefighters lost their own homes, most in the Paradise area. (AP) AMS AMS Kabul, Nov 12 (AFP) Casualties are feared after a huge explosion rocked Kabul on Monday close to where scores of Afghans had been protesting against Taliban attacks on the minority Hazara ethnic group. The blast struck in front of a high school in the downtown area of the Afghan capital, the interior ministry said. A photo shared on the popular WhatsApp messaging app showed several bodies laying on the ground. "It was a huge blast near Istiqlal high school, very close to where the demonstrators were gathering," witness Qais Nawabi told AFP. A police officer at the scene said he could see 10 to 15 casualties on the ground, as well as body parts. "It is hard to see whether it was a suicide attack or a bomb (that had been planted)," he told AFP on the condition of anonymity. Hundreds of protesters, including university students, had taken to the streets of Kabul to demand the deployment of reinforcements to Hazara-dominated districts in Ghazni province which have been attacked by the Taliban. (AFP) MRJ MRJ Colombo, Nov 12 (PTI) Sri Lanka's ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced Monday to forge a new political alliance to fight the January 5 general elections even as he dismissed President Maithripala Sirisena's justification for dissolving Parliament, saying no one had feared any bloodshed. Sirisena dissolved Parliament on November 9 and announced snap polls to be held on January 5 next year after it became evident that he did not have enough support in the House to prove the premiership of 72-year-old Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he appointed prime minister after abruptly sacking Wickremesinghe on October 26. The President said the decision to dissolve Parliament was taken to prevent clashes among rival lawmakers and blamed Speaker Karu Jayasuriya for not accepting his presidential powers. Wickremesinghe, the leader of the United National Party (UNP), said his party will form a new alliance with the other parties with a new face to pull the nation out of the present crisis, Daily Mirror reported. He also responded to Sirisena's address in which he blamed Speaker Jayasuriya for creating a situation to force snap polls, saying no one had feared any bloodshed in Parliament or murder inside the chamber. "If the President had any information, he should have informed the Speaker then it would be the Speaker's duty to take necessary steps," Wickremesinghe said. On Sirisena's charge that parliamentarians were being traded for large sums of money to extend support, Wickremesinghe said: "it was the President who took some of our people to his side and gave them ministerial posts, so he should know about members of Parliament being traded for money". Recalling his uneasy three-year alliance with Sirisena, the ousted premier said: "I faced various challenges, slander and heartburn. I tolerated them with patience because I wanted to uphold the mandate we received in 2015". "It is not possible to build up a nation through undemocratic and destructive means. We will not allow anyone to destroy this nation which we have managed to safeguard at the risk of our lives. "I promise to pull this nation through the present curse by associating myself in a new and a broad alliance. Therefore I invite everyone to join this new political force," Wickremesinghe was quoted as saying by the daily. Rajapaksa, who ruled Lanka for a nearly decade from 2005, was unexpectedly defeated by his deputy Sirisena in the presidential election held in January 2015 with the support from Wickremesinghe's UNP. However, the power-sharing arrangement between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe became increasingly tenuous on several policy matters, especially on issues like the economy and security. And subsequently, Sirisena abruptly ousted Wickremesinghe and replaced him with Rajapaksa. The island nation plunged into a constitutional crisis following the move. Sirisena suspended parliamentary proceedings until November 16. Later, owing to domestic and global pressure, he issued a notice to reconvene Parliament on November 14. last week, he dissolved Parliament and announced snap polls in January, 2019. PTI CORR CPS AKJ CPS Washington, Nov 12 (AFP) North Korea is operating at least 13 undeclared bases to hide mobile, nuclear-capable missiles, a new study released Monday has found, raising fresh doubts over US President Donald Trump's signature foreign policy initiative. Trump has hailed his July summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as having opened the way to denuclearization of the divided peninsula, defusing tensions that less than a year ago brought the two countries to the brink of conflict. Since the summit in Singapore, North Korea has halted nuclear and missile tests, dismantled a missile test site and promised to also break up the country's main nuclear complex. But researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said they have located 13 missile operating bases that have not been declared by the government, and that there may be as many as 20. "It's not like these bases have been frozen," Victor Cha, who leads CSIS's North Korea program, told The New York Times, which first reported on the study. "Work is continuing. What everybody is worried about is that Trump is going to accept a bad deal -- they give us a single test site and dismantle a few other things, and in return they get a peace agreement." Cha had been in line for appointment as US ambassador, but was dropped because of disagreement with the Trump administration's approach. While US sanctions on North Korea remain in place, enforcement by traditional trading partners China and Russia has relaxed since the summit, US officials have acknowledged. The bases, which are scattered across the country, are located in underground facilities tunneled in narrow mountain valleys, according to the researchers. They are designed so that mobile missile launchers can quickly exit the underground facilities and move to previously prepared launch sites. The bases are arranged in three belts across North Korea, according to the report, with those for strategic missiles deep inside the country. Medium-range missiles capable of striking Japan and all of South Korea reportedly are deployed in an operational belt 55 to 100 miles (90 to 150 kilometers) north of the demilitarized zone. Shorter range missiles fit into a tactical belt 30 to 55 miles from the DMZ. The report included a detailed profile of one such tactical missile operating base, illustrated with commercial satellite imagery, that is just 84 miles northwest of Seoul. Led by Joseph Bermudez, an authority of North Korea, the researchers' findings were based on satellite imagery, defector interviews and interviews with intelligence and government officials. NSA NSA The declining market of coffee beans in the past three years has driven many farmers out of town in search of odd jobs in cities, Zhang Zixian, head of Lujiang town, Baoshan city, Yunnan province, revealed recently. "Given our geographical location, we can grow coffee beans that rival the quality of the beans used by Blue Mountain coffee," said Zhang. "However, with the lack of human care and attention, the quality of our coffee beans are lower and can't be sold at a good price." Coffee trees used to grow in abundance in Conggang and Nankang villages where 12.9 percent of families are registered as poverty-stricken households. The plan to cultivate and harvest coffee beans was implemented in the hope that this could significantly improve the lives of local villagers. In the first few years, things were booming and agriculturists visited the town to train local famers in the techniques of coffee cultivation. But since the market went bust in recent years, training classes have ceased as farmers have moved to the city to look for other jobs. However, according to Wang Wandong, an agriculturist working for Starbucks, who headed from Pu'er to Baoshan to train local coffee farmers, checks for pests and assessments of fertilizers and soils are essential to maintaining the growth of coffee trees. He said that the deteriorating quality of local coffee beans is likely the result of overgrowth of the trees without being trimmed appropriately. Chen Yuanjiao (pseudonym), a six-year-old student at Conggang Primary School, a local boarding school, usually spends three to four hours crossing a mountain to commute between home and school. She can still remember when she was much younger, her parents stayed at home to grow coffee trees, but in recent years when coffee beans were no longer lucrative, they moved to the city to make a living. She told the reporter from Workers' Daily that her only wish now is to be reunited with her parents. "There are more than 100 pupils in our school who receive no preschool education, they lack fundamental knowledge and know nearly nothing about the outside world. Their families are simply struggling to make ends meet, let alone giving them access to computers," said Zhang Lizhong, headmaster of the primary school. Shi Yunfu, a local farmer and school teacher, said that coffee trees with a growth cycle of four to five years demand care and good techniques to ensure the sustainability of the entire plantation. However, when the price of local coffee beans dropped from 10 yuan (US$1.44) to 4 yuan per kilogram, many farmers cut down the trees and set out to the cities, leaving the elderly and children behind. "I worked as a laborer at the construction site when I was young, but later found that if I didn't learn any new skills from hard labor, it would be better to grow coffee trees at home, because good coffee beans can always be sold at good prices no matter how sluggish the market is," Shi said. London, Nov 12 (AFP) Amnesty International on Monday stripped Aung San Suu Kyi of its highest honour over the de facto Myanmar leader's "indifference" to the atrocities committed by the country's military against Rohingya Muslims. The London-based global human rights organisation said it was revoking the Ambassador of Conscience Award it gave Suu Kyi in 2009 while she was still under house arrest. "Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defence of human rights," Amnesty International chief Kumi Naidoo said in a letter to Suu Kyi released by the group. "Amnesty International cannot justify your continued status as a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience award and so with great sadness we are hereby withdrawing it from you." The group said it informed Suu Kyi of the decision on Sunday. She has so far issued no public response. Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party swept to power in 2015 in a landslide victory ending decades of military rule in the southeast Asian country of around 50 million. But her tenure has been marred by a failure to speak up for Rohingya Muslims who were driven out of the country by the army in what the United Nations has called an ethnic cleansing campaign. The 73-year-old was stripped of her honourary Canadian citizenship over her failure to speak up for the Rohingyas last month. She has also lost numerous smaller awards from individual universities and local and regional governments. More than 720,000 Rohingya Muslims fled the Buddhist majority's western Rakhine state in a military crackdown from August last year. Many are believed to have been either murdered or tortured and raped. Suu Kyi was globally hailed as a freedom fighter who stood up to her country's feared military dictatorship while spending 15 years under house arrest. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. AFP NSA NSA NSA Mumbai, Nov 12 (PTI) Amid outrage among wildlife lovers over killing of tigress Avni, a senior forest department official has said that violations of guidelines are "evident" in the postmortem report which also found that the feline was shot while it was "facing away" from the shooter. The postmortem report issued recently stated that the bullet which killed the tigress entered from the rear part of its left fore limb. "The animal was facing away from the shooter at that time," it said. The report also raised doubts over the tranquiliser dart, which was seen on the big cat's carcass, suggesting that it was not even released from the tranquilising rifle. "No haemorrhage was observed in the tigress' muscles at the darting spot. A dart fired from a syringe projector (tranquilising rifle) always leaves a significant and obvious haematoma, which was not observed in this case," it said. The senior forest department official said the revelations are "serious" and could cost some people "dearly". "Violation of guidelines to capture or kill a protected species like tiger is evident," he said, on condition of anonymity. Asked about the shooter's claims that the tigress was killed in self-defence, the official said, "If it is true then how come the bullet entered from rear. And the tranquiliser dart is another evidence suggesting that it was not even used as a first option to bring the tigress under control." The tigress, who had allegedly killed 13 people in Yavatmal district's Pandharkawda area in the last two years, was shot dead by a marksman hired by the state government in a forest there on November 2. The BJP-led government in the state has come under fire over the killing of the tigress who left behind two 10-month-old cubs. The killing led to an outrage among animal lovers and wildlife organisations which accused the state government of violating norms. The state government had last Friday constituted a four-member committee, comprising wildlife experts and officials, for an "in-depth" probe into the killing of the tigress. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had last week dubbed the panel as "farce", following which Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said the state government is willing to form another panel under Thackeray's leadership, if he so desires. Union minister Maneka Gandhi had earlier termed it as a "ghastly murder" and sought removal of Mungantiwar. PTI ND GK DV DV New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) What happens when air pollution levels in the national capital are 'severe' but members of environment watchdog CPCB and others, tasked with monitoring the situation, are not in the city to attend a meeting in which crucial decisions need to be taken immediately? The meeting takes place on WhatsApp, the chat sharing social media platform that doubles up as a conference room for urgent, can't wait decisions. That's what happened on Monday when the 10-member Central Pollution Control Board-led task force took the decision to lift the ban on the entry of heavy vehicles, officials said. The 'WhatsApp meeting' on Monday also recommended a shift in the time slot for the entry of heavy vehicles into the national capital -- heavy vehicles will now be able to ply between 6 am to 6 pm. WhatsApp is where the task force met on November 9 too, when the ban on construction activities and the entry of truck traffic into Delhi was extended, among other important interventions. "Thirty fourth meeting of task force on Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), was convened on November 09, 2018, on WhatsApp group in response to the current high episodic PM2.5 levels... "As such the 'Severe+' situation has continued for 37 hrs. Therefore, the Task Force recommends that following measures, which are in force, should continue till November 12, 2018 - Ban on industries using coal and biomass (except power plants and waste to energy plants), ban on entry of truck traffic to Delhi (expect essential commodity) and ban on construction activities," the minutes of the meeting uploaded on the website said. According to a senior CPCB official, the meeting was urgent and officials from distant places would not have been able to make it on time. Another reason for using WhatsApp is that every decision is in writing and it is more definitive, he said. "When something is agreed on and the other agency give their consent to it, there is something in writing. This can't be done on the phone," he said. Due to the deteriorating air quality of the national capital, a ban was imposed till Monday on the entry of heavy vehicles, construction activities and industries using biomass and coal. Delhi's air quality has been deteriorating rapidly and has gone off the charts after Diwali. The CPCB-led task force has been conducting inspections across the city to check for violations and has also been advising authorities on the necessary actions that should be taken. PTI UZM TDS TDS MIN MIN New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Jammu and Kashmir is unlikely to have a popular government anytime soon as the central government may recommend a spell of President's rule at the expiry of Governor's rule on December 19, official sources said. Under the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, there is no provision for extension of Governor's rule. The state is under central rule since June 19 after the BJP withdrew support from the then Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government. The six-month term of Governor's rule comes to an end on December 19. Therefore, for the extension of the central rule in Jammu and Kashmir, a spell of President's rule would be necessary as there may not be an elected government, a source privy to the development said. A popular government is unlikely to be formed in Jammu and Kashmir anytime soon under the current assembly, the source said. Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik had told PTI last month that he was in favour of holding early elections in the state as he did not think a popular government can be formed out of the present House. No party enjoys a majority in the 87-member Assembly, in which the PDP has 28 MLAs, the BJP 25 and the National Conference 15. President's rule can be imposed after the Union Cabinet, headed by the prime minister, makes a recommendation to the President to this effect following a report of the governor. If President's rule is imposed, it will be effectively a "fresh spell" of central rule even though it would be like an extension of the current spell of Governor's rule, the source said. Under such circumstances, there is no need for the central government to get parliamentary nod for extension of central rule beyond December 19. Governor's rule in Jammu and Kashmir is imposed under Section 92 of the state's Constitution, President's rule is imposed under 356 of the Constitution. Therefore, practically, the central government would not be required to get the approval from both Houses of Parliament for extension of central rule in Jammu and Kashmir if its rule is extended beyond December 19, another source said. PTI ACB GVS Renowned computer scientist John Hopcroft is helping improve the quality of undergraduate education in China. The 79-year-old US citizen earned a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1964 and went on to win the Turing Award, the highest distinction in computer science, in 1986 with Robert Tarjan, another US computer scientist, "for fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures". Hopcroft has now shifted his focus to education, and is endeavoring to advance reform of China's education system to better develop computer science talent, with an emphasis on undergraduate education. "When I was young, I earned my professional reputation," he said. "But when I got older, I wanted to do something that can make the world better." Hopcroft has spent three months teaching computer science to undergraduates at Shanghai Jiao Tong University every year since 2011, and has celebrated six Christmases with his Chinese students. He has given the university course materials based on his research for free on the condition that any publications using them should be sold for less than 30 yuan ($4) so that students from impoverished backgrounds can afford to use them. Last year he also began teaching Turing Class, an elite undergraduate program at Peking University aiming to cultivate computer science talent, as director of its Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies. "I started working in China about eight years ago," he said. "Gradually, I've learned what needs to be done. It could be something relatively easy but it has a significant impact. "China's population is about 1 billion and there are 20 million students in universities. But opportunity is not equal for everybody. One university is not going to fix the problem, it's going to be the system." He said he faced hurdles when he first proposed reform of China's education system. "We recommended evaluating the teaching quality at universities and producing a ranking of universities based on the quality of undergraduate programs," he said. "I understand there will be a nervousness about creating a ranking of universities (for the government) so we have the backup plan of rewarding teachers to help improve their teaching quality." In July last year, Hopcroft, with support from the Ministry of Education and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, initiated the "J.H. teacher award plan". Each year, 54 selected teachers in undergraduate computer science programs from top Chinese universitiesthe so-called C9will receive 70,000 yuan in bonuses financed by companies such as Baidu and Microsoft Research. The C9 are Peking University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanjing University, the University of Science and Technology of China, Harbin Institute of Technology and Xi'an Jiaotong University. "The plan starts from computer science courses in the C9 this fall, and will be expanded to five important areas in 42 universities nationwide civil engineering maybenext year," Hopcroft said. "It (teaching quality) is a commitment by faculty members to educating the next generation, and those who stand for it say the most important thing is that the faculty member cares about the success of the student. "But now, faculty members are just trying to survive. At many universities, a teacher is rated by how much research money he can bring in or how many papers he has published. However, these two bench marks have little to do with the vision of a university that focuses on producing the next generation (of talent). "I've noticed recently that a few faculty members have started to be really engaged in quality teaching, so it looks like it's starting to change, but it is still hampered (by the system)." Hopcroft said he has been impressed with the progress China has made in education in recent decades and, despite the challenges, remains convinced education in the country has a bright future. Hopcroft received the Friendship Award, the nation's highest honor for foreign residents, in 2016 and was made a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences last year. New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and several political leaders Monday condoled the demise of Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar. Kumar, 59, died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. Expressing his condolences, Kovind said the death of Kumar was a tragic loss to public life in the country. "Sad to hear of the passing of Union minister and veteran parliamentarian Shri H.N. Ananth Kumar. This is a tragic loss to public life in our country and particularly for the people of Karnataka. My condolences to his family, colleagues and countless associates," he tweeted. The Prime Minister said he was extremely saddened by the passing away of "my valued colleague and friend" and described him as a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work, Modi said in a tweet. "Ananth Kumar Ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the Party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents," he said in another tweet. Modi said he spoke to Kumar's wife Dr Tejaswini and expressed condolences. "My thoughts are with his entire family, friends and supporters in this hour of grief and sadness. Om Shanti," he said. Gandhi also offered condolences to Kumar's family and prayed for peace to the departed soul. "I'm sorry to hear about the passing of Union Minister, Shri Ananth Kumar ji, in Bengaluru, earlier this morning. My condolences to his family & friends. May his soul rest in peace. Om Shanti," he tweeted. BJP president Amit Shah said Kumar served the party and the nation with unparalleled zeal and dedication. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also expressed deep sorrow over Kumar's death. "Deep sense of grief on hearing that Shri @AnanthKumar_BJP is no more with us. Served @BJP4India @BJP4Karnataka all along. Bengaluru was in his head and heart, always. May God give his family the strength to bear with this loss," she tweeted. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said he was shocked to learn about the demise of his "senior colleague and friend". "Absolutely shocked and pained by the demise of very senior colleague and a friend Shri Anant Kumar ji. He was a seasoned parliamentarian who served the nation in several capacities. His passion and devotion for the welfare of people was commendable. My condolences to his family," he tweeted. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said passing away of Kumar was an irreparable loss for the country. "It is unbelievable that he is no more. His sudden death has taken away from us a true soldier of the country. My tributes to the departed soul," he tweeted. Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy also expressed grief over the death of Kumar, and described him as a "value based" politician, who made significant contribution to the country as an MP and Union minister. "Kumar's pro people attitude and activities made him apple of the eye of Bengalurians," Kumaraswamy said in a condolence message. PTI AQS AQS AQS \R Pathankot (Punjab), Nov 12 (PTI) Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said Monday there was no threat of the revival of militancy in Punjab, but said there was a need to stay alert. "There is not much threat (of revival of militancy) in Punjab, but we need to be alert about it. It is better to be alert than to allow things (to go out of hand)," Rawat told reporters here. The Army chief responding to a question about the threat of revival of militancy in Punjab after recoveries and arrests of some people in various places of the state and the 'Referendum 2020' campaign started by separatist and pro-Khalistan elements from other countries. "The governments were fully aware of this and were taking appropriate action. (The) Union government is taking full action on this. We are fully aware of what is happening. "Punjab Chief Minister (Amarinder Singh) is concerned about this. He is taking action to ensure that this kind of violence does not spread in the state of Punjab," Rawat said. The Army chief said the people of Punjab, who had gone through this, would not allow the insurgency to grow. "While outsiders will attempt to revive militancy, the people, are very strong, will not allow it." Asked about the threats issued to him by the separatist group, Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), Rawat said he was not bothered by them. PTI AB HMB New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Home Minister Rajnath Singh are expected to attend the cremation of Union minister Ananth Kumar in Bengaluru Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with the family of the senior BJP leader in Bengaluru and paid his last respects to his cabinet colleague on Monday evening. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister and senior BJP leader Ananth Kumar died at a private hospital here in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. The 59-year-old Bangalore South MP breathed his last around 2 am at the Sri Shankara Cancer Hospital and Research Centre where he was under care after returning home in October following treatment in the US and Britain. Naidu in his condolence message said he was "shocked" and "deeply saddened" to learn about the untimely demise of Kumar. "He has been a valued colleague of mine for years, right from the times of the students' movement to the Parliament. He was a committed nationalist a celebrated and loved leader and a good administrator. "A reputed parliamentarian and a captivating speaker, his personality was multifaceted. His illustrious career and the long list of his accomplishments in public life bear testimony to the selfless service he offered to out country," he said. The vice president said Kumar's demise is a "big loss" to Indian democracy and polity. Rajya Sabha deputy speaker Harivansh said the death of Ananth Kumar is a huge loss for Indian politics. "His sudden and untimely death is a matter of shock for me," he said. Harivansh said Kumar was known for his mild manners and cordiality among the people across all the political parties and he had all the qualities of head and heart which had endeared him to everyone. Describing him as a distinguished leader of his age, the RS deputy chairman said Kumar was so popular that he acted as a bridge between south and north in Indian politics. PTI SKC KJ New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Tributes poured in for Union Minister Ananth Kumar, who died of cancer Monday, from his BJP colleagues with Prime Minister Narendra Modi describing him as an able administrator and a great asset to the party. Kumar, 59, died at a private hospital in Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday after battling lung cancer for several months, hospital authorities said. BJP president Amit Shah said Kumar served the party and the nation with unparalleled zeal and dedication, while Home Minister Rajnath Singh said his passion and devotion for the welfare of people was commendable. "Ananth Kumar ji was an able administrator, who handled many ministerial portfolios and was a great asset to the BJP organisation. He worked hard to strengthen the party in Karnataka, particularly in Bengaluru and surrounding areas. He was always accessible to his constituents," Modi said in his tribute. Expressing his sadness at Kumar's death, Modi said he was a remarkable leader, who entered public life at a young age and went on to serve society with utmost diligence and compassion. He will always be remembered for his good work, he added. Shah said he was grief stricken to learn about Kumar's untimely demise. "He served the nation and organisation with unparalleled zeal and dedication. Ananth ji worked tirelessly to strengthen the BJP in the state of Karnataka. He was a remarkable administrator who served various ministerial portfolios. His passing away has left a void in the BJP and Indian polity that can not be filled soon," he tweeted. In his tweet, Singh said Kumar was a seasoned parliamentarian who served the nation in several capacities and whose passion and devotion for the welfare of people was commendable. Kumar breathed his last around 2 am with his wife Tejaswini and two daughters by his bedside, Sankara Hospital Director Nagaraj told PTI. He had come back to Bengaluru only recently after undergoing treatment in the US and Britain. He was later under treatment at the Sankara Hospital here. Representing Bengaluru South in the Lok Sabha for a sixth straight term, Kumar had been a key leader in the BJP for over two decades, serving as a minister in its first government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and in the current Modi dispensation as well, besides being a member of the party's parliamentary board. PTI KR AQS AQS Kota (Rajasthan), Nov 12 ( PTI) The police Monday rescued 38 calves from a cargo container truck abandoned near Bundi tunnel on Jaipur-Kota highway, an official said. Acting on a tip-off by the 'Gau Raksha Dal' volunteers, a police team reached the 1,080-meter tunnel on National Highway-54 between Jaipur and Kota and found the truck parked there, said Sub Inspector Ram Prasad Meghwal of the Bundi city police station. The container truck was found stuffed with 40 young calves, two of which had died of suffocation, he said, adding that all the calves were immediately taken out and were shifted to a nearby cow shelter. The driver and the helper of the truck had fled after parking the vehicle on Jaipur-end of the tunnel after it was given a chase by some Gau Raksha Dal volunteers, suspecting that the calves were being smuggled. The volunteers from Tonk district had informed police early Monday that the calves were being smuggled in a long container truck, following which the volunteers from Bundi intercepted the truck and began chasing it from Hindoli area and informed the Bundi police, said Bundi Gau Raksha Dal chief Nitesh Gandhi. The police seized the truck and sent the rescued calves to a cow shed at Thikerda village near Bundi city, the sub-inspector said. The police subsequently lodged a case against the truck driver under various sections of the Cow Protection Act, SI Meghwal said, adding the seized truck bore a Jaipur registration number. The carcass of two calves were sent for postmortem, said the sub-inspector, adding further probe is on into the case. PTI CORR MAZ RAX RAX Chandigarh, Nov 12 (PTI) INLD Secretary General Ajay Singh Chautala invited former MPs, MLAs and other office bearers Monday for a meeting in Jind on November 17. Chautala sent a letter, which does not mention any agenda of the meeting and states that "an invitation is hereby given for the Haryana State Body meeting of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD)". "All the state body office bearers/members, special invitees, executive members, sitting and former MPs and MLAs, presidents of the district units, state presidents and district conveners of all the Cells of the party and its bodies may kindly make it convenient to attend the State Body general meeting," wrote Chautala, who is also a former MP. The letter, inviting various party functionaries for the Jind meet, comes in the midst of a widening rift in the Chautala family. When asked if any important decision was likely to be taken by him in the meeting on November 17, Chautala told reporters in Delhi on Monday that "all colleagues will sit and decide". In an apparent bid to arrest the widening rift, Ajay Singh Chautala and his younger brother Abhay Singh Chautala, who is Leader of Opposition in the Haryana Assembly, had a meeting in Delhi on Sunday. To a question, Ajay Singh Chautala did not rule out more meetings with his younger brother in the coming days in a bid to put an end to the widening rift, saying, "he is dear to me, we will meet everyday". He indicated that he was likely to meet former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal in Chandigarh this week. While Ajay Singh Chautala's son Digvijay Chautala had Sunday ruled out the possibility of any mediation by the Akali Dal patriarch to arrest the feud within the INLD and Chautala family. Badals and Chautalas have shared close family ties over several decades. On Saturday, Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala had refused to accept his expulsion and that of his brother Digvijay Chautala from the INLD, claiming that the party's national executive had not met and no sack order was issued by president Om Prakash Chautala. On November 2, an INLD press release quoting their grandfather Om Prakash Chautala had announced the expulsion of the two brothers following an inquiry which found them guilty of indiscipline . The two leaders were suspended after their supporters allegedly shouted slogans at an INLD rally in Gohana, appearing to target Abhay Chautala. A day after Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala and his brother brother Digvijay Chautala refused to accept their expulsions from the INLD amid a family feud, their mother and Dabwali MLA Naina Chautala had Sunday attacked their detractors, saying late Devi Lal nurtured the party but some "15-odd people are eating it like termites". PTI SUN VSD KJ Lucknow Nov 12 (PTI) Congress workers Monday staged a demonstration before the RBI office here against the "failure" of demonetisation, terming it as a 'maha ghotala' (grand scam). Raising slogans against Narendra Modi, the Congressmen demanded a reply from the prime minister over his promise-- back in November 2016-- to weed out ill-gotten wealth from the country within 50 days. Over 150 died while standing in queues to change their old currency notes after demonetisation and over 20 lakh lost their jobs following the draconian order issued on November 8, 2016, Congress spokesman Anshu Awasthi said. Neither corruption was curbed nor the Naxal and terror attacks have stopped, Awasthi said, adding that claims of black money returning to the country after note ban turned out to be hollow. All the promises made by the prime minister on this count have failed, Awasthi said. Similar protests were staged before the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) building in Kanpur as well as other parts of the state on the call of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Raj Babbar, Awasthi added. PTI SAB RHL New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday took a dig at his Haryana counterpart, Manohar Lal Khattar, for not accepting his offer for mutual inspections of government dispensaries, saying the people would vote for schools and hospitals and not religion during the next elections. In his letter to Khattar, the Delhi chief minister had, on November 2, offered him a visit to the Mohalla Clinics of the Aam Aadmi Party government. Kejriwal had also wished to inspect state-run dispensaries in Haryana on Monday. Kejriwal, who did not receive any reply from Khattar, shot another letter to the Haryana chief minister. "I wrote a letter to you on November 2. It was not replied. Felt a little hurt. Whatever our political differences, dignity calls for a reply by a Chief Minister to the letter by another Chief Minister. "You did not reply. Should not I consider that you accept that hospitals and schools have improved very much in Delhi and those in Haryana are not in a good condition?" Kejriwal asked. He warned Khattar that the people would not vote this time on the basis of religion. "The next government in Haryana will be formed by those who do their work and construct schools and hospitals." PTI VIT HMB New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Delhi Environment minister Imran Hussain has urged for a "strong need" to control local air polluting factors such as dust and garbage burning. He directed municipal corporations to intensify mechanical sweeping of roads, including PWD roads, for preventing suspension and re-suspension of dust due to plying of vehicles. Dust being one of the major contributors to air pollution, Hussain directed the Municipal Corporations to increase enforcement of compliance of directions regarding prohibition of permitting uncovered building material on their respective roads and spaces, according to a statement. "The increased incidence of paddy stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana and other neighbouring states coupled with meteorological condition and low wind speed is a cause of concern," he said. Hussain has urged "strong need" to control local air polluting factors such as burning of garbage and dust. He also stressed that no construction material should be kept open and regular sprinkling of water at all construction sites must be done. "All high-rise building should have the arrangement of water sprinkling for dust suppression. Strict action against violators of norms should immediately be initiated by the respective authority," he said. Hussain directed that joint teams of officials from the Revenue Department, concerned Municipal Corporations and Civil Defence Volunteers deputed in each of the districts for monitoring construction activity and taking preventing and punitive action against the violators of the Dust Control Norms may be continued for the time being. The minister observed that ready mixed concrete plants need to be inspected regularly for checking air pollution. He directed all three MCDs to ensure control of instances of burning in open and compliance of dust control measures, failing which senior officers should be held accountable. Hussain directed commissioners of MCDs/PWD and the Delhi Fire Services for undertaking water sprinkling from high-rise buildings especially for settling the suspended dust particles. He also urged the citizens of Delhi to minimise use of private vehicles and use public transport during this period. In a meeting attended by Delhi chief secretary, MCD, NDMC, Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Revenue Department, Environment Department, Transport Department, Power Department, Industries Department, Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) among others. PTI UZM KJ Noida (UP), Nov 12 (PTI) Solar energy would add power to all stations of Noida-Greater Noida Metro Rail corridor's Aqua Line that would be operational soon, the Noida Metro Rail Corporation (NMRC) said on Monday. The NMRC entered into an agreement with a private firm on Monday for the solar energy project of the Aqua Line which would run between Sector 71 station in Noida and the Depot Station in Greater Noida, covering 29.7 km through 21 stations, it said. "Solar panels will be installed on the roofs of all the 21 stations of the Noida-Greater Noida Metro rail corridor. These panels will also be installed in the parking areas and boundary walls of the metro stations," the NMRC said in a statement. A total 10 MW power would be generated by the solar panels which would be use at the metro stations, the depot and in the parking areas, it said. The NMRC would be charged at Rs 3.25 per unit for the power, which, it claimed, is the "lowest tariff" for any metro rail service using solar power. The private partner, Sukhbir Agro Energy Limited, was selected after a tender was floated for the purpose by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, which is assisting the NMRC on the Aqua Line. "A power purchase agreement was signed between the NMRC and Messrs Sukhbir Agro Energy Limited. Manoj Vajpayee, the general manager (technical), signed the agreement for NMRC while Sumit Sood signed the contract for the Delhi-based firm," according to the statement. NMRC Executive Chairman P D Upadhyay said the agreement has been signed for 10 years. During this period the company would install the infrastructure and provide power to all NMRC-operated metro stations, he said. "The work has started and is likely to get completed within the next six months," Upadhyay told PTI. The infrastructure work on the Aqua Line, whose construction started in May, 2015, has been completed and is currently under inspection by the commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS). PTI KIS NSD NSD An overflowing barrier lake in Southwest China's Sichuan province began discharging water at 10:50 am on Monday through a man-made floodway, with the flow expected to peak in about 20 hours, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management. The lake has held about 524 million cubic meters of water since it was formed on Oct 11, when a landslide blocked a part of the Jinsha River. Water entered the 220-meter-long floodway at 4 am and began discharging into the river's lower reaches almost seven hours later. The upper and lower reaches of the Jinsha River had not seen a dramatic increase in water level as of 11 am, but experts predict a deluge after about 20 hours, the ministry said. China's flood control authority declared an emergency response at 4 am to alert areas along Jinsha River of the potential risks and asked local authorities to take measures to ensure public safety, as well as reduce damage caused by the flood. Some 34,200 people were evacuated along the river in Sichuan and the Tibet autonomous region as the lake's water level continued to rise, the Emergency Management Ministry said Sunday. The barrier lake had inundated a farmhouse and a suspension bridge in Sichuan's Jinsha township, Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday. Fifty-two barns, as well as farms and roads, were damaged, while 25 family homes, the township government building, a school and a clinic are under threat of flooding, the report said. New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) India and Morocco Monday signed an agreement to help each other in criminal matters and provide legal assistance wherever required, the Home Ministry said. The agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters was signed by Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on behalf of India and Mohamed Aujjar, the minister of justice on behalf of Kingdom of Morocco, here. The pact will strengthen bilateral cooperation with Morocco and enhance effectiveness and provide a broad legal framework for prevention, investigation and prosecution of crimes, as well as in tracing, restraint and confiscation of funds meant to finance terrorist acts, a home ministry statement said. Both the ministers reiterated their resolve to jointly counter the threats posed by organised crime and terrorism, it said. PTI ACB AAR (Eds: Updating to say first-phase polling concluded with about 70% voting) Raipur, Nov 12 (PTI) A plough-carrying farmer needs an ox, not an 'elephant', Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh said on Monday, taking a jibe at the newly-formed opposition alliance between Ajit Jogi and Mayawati, evoking guffaw from his supporters greeting him with monikers like 'Doctor Saheb', 'Mobile Wale Baba' and the most-famous one, 'Chaur Wale Baba'. As voting got underway across 18 constituencies in the state where he has already ruled for a record 15 years and is making a strong pitch for another five-year term, Singh embarked on yet another busy day of election campaign with public meetings across several constituencies, while taking feedback and holding review meetings whenever time permitted. While his own constituency Rajnandgaon voted in the first phase on Monday, the voting will take place in the remaining 72 assembly seats on December 20 in the second phase. The counting of votes will take place on December 11, along with that for assembly elections in four other states -- neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram. Led by Raman Singh, the BJP has ruled Chhattisgarh for three consecutive assembly terms ever since a resounding victory by his party ousted the then Congress leader Ajit Jogi's three-year-old government in 2003. Jogi has now floated his own party (whose poll symbol is a plough-carrying farmer) and has aligned with Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (poll symbol elephant) for the assembly elections. The opposition parties claim there is a strong anti-incumbency wave against Singh and they have alleged his government of having failed in handling the naxal menace. In the outgoing assembly, the BJP has 49 MLAs and the Congress has 39. The BSP has one MLA and one seat was won by an independent candidate. While the campaign ended on Saturday for the first phase of elections in 18 seats of Chhattisgarh, the poll fever is still running high with voting more than a week away in a much larger number of seats and the same was visible on a campaign trail of the chief minister on Monday. Dressed in traditional kurta-pyjama and a saffron coloured 'Modi jacket' the BJP's party symbol, the Lotus, Singh looked relaxed as he kept looking at his mobile to keep track of voting trends in his home turf and in other naxal-affected areas. At least 12 out of the 18 seats where voting took place today are considered to be affected by Maoist violence and tight security arrangements have been put in place in view of the recent spurt in naxal attacks in the state. Singh began his day taking feedback from his aides on polling and preparations for the day-long campaign tour in three constituencies including Bemetra and Gariaband. Popularly know as 'Doctor Saheb' being an Ayurvedic medicine practitioner, Singh, surrounded by NSG commandos, drove to the police ground along with his entourage of black Safaris to board a waiting helicopter for Kusumi in Bemetra assembly constituency to address a poll meeting. Talking to PTI inside his chopper, the chief minister sounded confident about the elections, saying polling was going on peacefully with long queues of people standing outside poll booths. "Initial response is very good and encouraging," Singh said early in morning. "Polling in naxal-affected Bijapur, Dantewada and other places is going on and the way people are taking part in it shows that they are not deterred by naxal-violence," Singh said. People are coming out courageously to vote and initial trends are encouraging and we will win more seats than the 2013 assembly polls in these naxal-affected areas, he said. The Election Commission later announced in the evening that the first-phase of polling recorded voter turnout of over 70 per cent. As the chopper was to reach its destination, Singh looked down to see the waiting crowd and cited "a strong foundation of basic infrastructure created by his government in the last 15 years that was now ready to take a long leap of development". Out of his helicopter, the chief minister was greeted by a large enthusiastic crowd, including women, raising slogans like 'Mobile wale Baba ki Jai' -- referring to a scheme under which as his government is said to have distributed free smart phones to 30 lakh people in the state. At other places, Singh was greeted as 'Chaur wale Baba' for distributing rice at Re 1 per kg, a scheme aimed at gaining a strong foothold among the people in his 2008-2013 stint which proved a game changer in the Chhattisgarh politics. The state is known as 'Rice Bowl of Central India'. Addressing a public meeting, Singh did not miss the opportunity to take a jibe at the recent alliance between the BSP and Ajit Jogi's party, the Chhattisgarh Janata Congress. "For the first time I have seen the alliance between Hathi (elephant) and a farmer carrying a plough," he said. "Normally plough is associated with a pair of ox, but here in Chhattisgarh it is joined with an elephant," Singh said as people laughed at his jibe. After the public meeting, Singh held met local leaders and also enquired about attendance in rallies of top central leaders of the party. After being told by his aides that the chopper was still being refuelled, Singh said he should have been told earlier about it so that he could have further addressed the gathering. As he waited for the chopper to get ready, the BJP workers took selfies with the chief minister. Back on his chopper soon after, Singh waved at the crowd and proceeded for his next poll meeting. PTI MAS BJ BJ New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) The National Green Tribunal Monday said there was a need to find out a long-lasting solution to the problems of stubble burning and directed the chief secretaries of four states to appear before it to explain ways to prevent it. A bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, directed the Union Agriculture Secretary and chief secretaries of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi to remain present on November 15 after applying due diligence and strategic planning for action to prevent crop burning. The green panel said it is open to the central government also to organise a meeting on the subject on the same day or any other convenient day. The tribunal said the government came out with a scheme called the "National Policy for Management of Crop Residue - 2014" which provided assistance to farmers by way of machinery and equipments to avoid stubble burning. However, despite the steps taken, the problem still subsists. "We make it clear that we do not intend to criticise the working of any of the states or the central government. We have perused the affidavits and reports from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, NCT of Delhi and also reports of the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. "The fact remains that the problem has not been fully tackled and the adverse impacts on the air quality and consequent impacts on the citizens' health and lives are undisputed. The problem is required to be resolved by taking all such measures as are possible in the interest of public health and environment protection," the bench said. It said that it was not considering the issue of adverse coercive measures like prosecution etc. for offences under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 or other applicable laws but it does not see any difficulty why such economic incentives should not be duly planned or executed. "We make it clear that the existing Minimum Support Price (MSP) Scheme must be so interpreted so as to enable the concerned states to wholly or partly deny the benefit of MSP to those who continue to burn the crop residue. "If any such disbursements have already been made with respect to this year's paddy crop, the same can be adjusted in the future. Such a scheme may be worked out and notified forthwith preferably by November 14 this year "The short time is being given on account of urgency of situation with regard to deteriorating air quality prevailing in NCT of Delhi and adjoining areas," the bench said. The green panel was hearing the matter after taking note of a news report published in an English daily titled, "All fiddle as crop stubble burns, farmers say solutions out of reach." The report had claimed that crop burning shoots up the carbon dioxide levels in the air by 70 per cent. It had said that every year in October, the air quality in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana plummets as farmers set the leftover stubble and loose straw on fire after paddy is harvested using combines. It had also claimed that over the last two years, the central and state governments have devised a number of measures to prevent crop burning from slapping fines on farmers to subsidising equipment that allow seeds of the next wheat crop to be planted with the stubble still on the fields. The tribunal had earlier directed the Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture to submit a status report within six weeks on providing infrastructural assistance to farmers to stop them from burning crop residue to prevent air pollution. It had asked the official to take feedback from the authorities concerned on steps taken to enforce the directions of the tribunal, including providing machinery to poor and marginal farmers. The Punjab government had earlier faced the wrath of the tribunal for not taking effective steps to provide financial assistance and infrastructure facility to farmers to encourage them not to burn agricultural residue in their fields. The green panel had said that three years had elapsed since its verdict in the Vikrant Tongad case, in which it had passed a slew of directions to stop crop burning, but the state government had shown a lethargic approach. It had said the Punjab government had also failed to tie up with any company, private or public, which could utilise the crop residue. The tribunal had directed Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh governments to convene a meeting to work out a clear mechanism on transportation and use of stubble as fuel in power plants. PTI PKS SJK KJ Chennai, Nov 12 (PTI) The Madras High Court Monday hoped that the Tamil Nadu government would bestow its full attention to introduce spoken English course to students studying in Tamil medium in government schools. Passing interim orders on a public interest litigation, the division bench, comprising Justices M Sathyanarayanan and P Rajamanickam impleaded the Directorate of State Council for Education Research and Training, Chennai as respondent to the PIL filed by former DMK MLA M Appavu. "This court, taking note of the fact that English is a link language for communication outside of the state, as well as outside of the country, hopes and trusts the government will bestow their full attention for introduction of spoken English course to the students studying in Tamil medium in the government schools," the bench said. It directed the authorities concerned to file a counter affidavit by December 6 and also impleaded the director of the State Council for Education, Research and Training, Chennai, as a respondent. The petitioner submitted that there were about 37,211 government schools, 8,403 government aided schools and 12,419 private self-financing schools such as matriculation and CBSE schools in the state, imparting education to about 1.25 crore students. About 40 lakh students were studying in private schools, he said. The government spends Rs 27,000 crore annually for education, he said. Submitting that though English was taught as a second language in accordance with the educational policy of the state from class 2 to 12 in Tamil medium, government, aided and un-aided schools, the petitioner said that a student, even after successfully completing plus-two, was unable to speak, write or understand English. This causes problems when the student pursues professional and other degree courses in various institutions where English is the medium of instruction, he said. On the other hand, students who pursue school education in English medium in CBSE schools find it easy to understand and communicate in that language and mingle with others, including the faculty, who were fluent in English. This inability continues even in work places, he said, adding that a need has arisen to emphasise on spoken English in all the Tamil medium government, aided and un-aided schools from primary to higher secondary-level. PTI COR NVG APR KJ New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Doctors of a private city hospital alleged that they were abused and manhandled by the relatives of a patient over medicines, which they claimed, had gone missing. An FIR was registered against four unknown people, including a woman, Friday, police said. According to the complaint, three people came to the casualty department of Jaipur Golden Hospital Friday and started arguing with the doctor on duty. "They said they had left medicines at a particular place three days ago when they had come to admit their patient but now the medicines were missing. We tried to explain that as the duty staff has changed, it could not be traced immediately and that it will looked into and they will be informed," a doctor claimed. The people then started started abusing the doctor and thrashed him. Another doctor came to his defence and they beat him up too, the doctor claimed. "Our security staff on duty tried to control the situation but they were manhandled as well. Later, a fourth person joined them in beating up the doctors," the security officer of the hospital said in the police complaint. PTI PLB AMP AAR Sangrur (Pb), Nov 12 (PTI) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Monday inaugurated a 100-bed, ultra-modern cancer hospital here. The Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital in Sangrur has been set up with aid from the state government. Plans are afoot for a state-of-the-art oncology training centre at the newly inaugurated hospital, the CM said. Health Minister Brahm Mohindra and PWD Minister Vijay Inder Singla accompanied the CM at the inauguration function. The CM launched a cancer prevention programme for Sangrur district, under which intensive health education on the risk factors and preventive measures for cervix, oral and breast cancer and easy access to diagnosis and treatment would be provided. The chief minister, who later reviewed works for the 300-bed Tata Cancer Hospital at Mullanpur near Chandigarh, said the facility must be made functional by next Diwali. He directed the concerned officials to expedite the construction of the hospital. Amarinder said a tertiary cancer care centre at Fazilka was being constructed at a cost of Rs 29 crore, which would be operational by September 2019. Further, a Rs 114-crore state cancer institute would be set up at Amritsar. The chief minister announced Rs 7 crore for Sangrur Civil Hospital. Mohindra said the Punjab government had taken concerted steps to strengthen the health care facilities and infrastructure in government hospitals. He said 588 doctors would shortly be joining the health department, and they would be posted near their residences. The minister also said all tests of tuberculosis and hepatitis-C, besides dialysis facility, would be provided free of cost in all 22 government hospitals. He said the government was working on a Clinical Establishment Act to regulate the services of private hospitals. Singla recalled his maiden meeting with Director of Tata Memorial Hospital Padma R A Badwe on the directions of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for establishing a cancer hospital in Sangrur. He said the hospital would provide 66 per cent subsidy on medicines, tests and free treatment after detection of disease. Reviewing the progress of the Mullanpur Hospital in Chandigarh, the chief minister assured the director of Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai of all support and assistance to ensure timely completion of the Rs 664-crore project. Expressing concern over high incidence of cancer in the state, especially in south Punjab, the chief minister asked Badhwe to further intensify efforts to prepare database of cancer patients suffering from various types of cancer, with early screening to ensure timely detection and treatment. PTI CHS IND IND Muzaffarnagar, Nov 12 (PTI) District authorities booked four men accused of cow slaughter under the gangster act, officials said. Yasin, Wasim, Hasin and Shakil were booked under the gangster act in Khatoli town here Sunday, Circle Officer Rajive Kumar Singh said. Singh said they were allegedly involved in a case of cow slaughter and had got bail some months ago. PTI CORR AAR Noida (UP), Nov 12 (PTI) Four members of a notorious criminal gang were arrested following an encounter with police here, officials said Monday. The accused, members of the 'Thak Thak', were arrested late Sunday night following a gun battle in Sector 15, under Sector 20 police station limits, they said. One of the accused and two policemen were injured in the shootout and were taken to hospital following their face-off, police said. The gang's kingpin has over a dozen cases of loot registered against him at various police stations in Delhi, police said. "Those arrested are notorious for auto lifting in the city. They would target vehicles parked in isolated areas and break their windows to enter the vehicles and then get into it," a senior police official said. "At times, when there would be a driver in the car they would lure him by showing a bundle of cash with only two real notes of Rs 100 -- one on the front and one at the back -- in it. "Rest would be plain papers. They would knock on the window and tell the driver that their cash bundle has fallen. Once the driver would open the door to pick it, the gang members would overpower him," the officer said. Those arrested have been identified as Sagar, Deepak and Manoj, all from Delhi, and Vikki, from Ghaziabad, police said. Four pistols, bullets, two catapults with pellets along with some robbed cash and a laptop were seized from them. Police said they have also impounded a hatchback the gang was travelling in Sunday night. A case has been registered against the accused at Sector 20 police station under the Indian Penal Code Sections 379 (theft), 307 (attempt to murder), 504 (intentional insult to provoke breach of trust), 420 (cheating), among others. The accused have also been booked under the Arms Act, police said, adding that they have been remanded in judicial custody. PTI KIS KJ KJ You might think that after the bloody events in Turkey which saw journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered, leaders in Saudi Arabia would be bending over backwards to keep friends in the West sweet. But instead of keeping the oil flowing, following the US's re-imposition of sanctions on Iraq, Saudi Arabia has responded to a 17 per cent drop in the Brent crude oil price since October by declaring it is ready to support the price by cutting production. That may be brilliant for Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in support of his 'reformist' economic agenda but it will not be welcomed by oil importing economies. Taxing: Saudi Arabia has declared it is ready to support the oil price by cutting production Higher oil prices are in effect a tax on Western economies, raising the cost of fuel for motorists and putting up the cost of energy supplies for business. Indeed, there is a circularity about all of this. Saudi Arabia's oil minister Khalid al Falih warns that the Kingdom will need to cut supplies by around 1m barrels per day from October levels because of weakening demand. But one of the factors which has caused a supply surplus is the deleterious impact of higher oil prices on energy-importing nations. No sooner than the Saudis said they would cut production than the oil market changed direction with the price of both Brent crude and US crude futures surging in latest trading. Essentially the kingdom is withdrawing the benefit of an extra 1.05m barrels a day as a result of extra production from their own wells, Russia and the US. There is a strong risk that Saudi Arabia could be shooting itself in the foot. Among the responses to higher market prices for oil earlier this year was for American producers, many of them independent fracking operations, to up their game. US crude production has climbed to a record 11.6m barrels a day, almost one third of global output, and is expected to reach 12m barrels a day next year. BP is among those joining the new oil rush buying BHP's US shale assets for 8.1 billion. Over the longer-haul the increasing ability of the US to supply its own energy needs and export (it is already shipping natural gas to British Gas owner Centrica) will mean that the Gulf countries will be less able to hold the rest of the world to ransom. In the interim it is the motorist who will suffer with higher prices and squeezed incomes. An imperfect market will mean Britain's oil majors BP and Shell can look forward to several more quarters of gushing earnings. Down the hatch If there were any doubt where Diageo aims to position itself in its main markets, it is underlined by a decision to sell-off several no-frills brands in the US. Superfluous brands include such evocative names as Piehole Whisky, Goldschlager Schnapps, Romana Sambuca and Popov Vodka. Britain's global booze champion will pick up a modest net gain of 340m for this case of curio spirits, which includes bootlegger's favourite Seagram's Five Star. The more upmarket Seagram's Crown American stays with Britain's 67 billion drinks star. The US is Diageo's biggest overseas market accounting for some 25 per cent of its sales and nearly half of its profits. The secret ingredient in the US has been heavy promotion of premium offerings, with Johnnie Walker the leader along with newer premium brands including Grey Goose Vodka and the fancy tequila Casamigos created by George Clooney and mates. Rather than pocketing the money received from American buyer Sazerac, Diageo is to give it back to investors as part of a 2 billion share buyback. Perennial speculation is that next on the sale list could be Guinness, but that is not thought to be on the agenda of chief executive Ivan Menezes. Diageo has invested heavily in its expanded Dublin brewery on the Liffey and its premium beers have become a favourite in Africa. Menezes is tidying up, not breaking up. T-ceremony Vodafone chief executive Nick Read faces trial by fire when he presents half-year results today after a calamitous fall in the shares. The mobile pioneer's problems are a sharp contrast to Softbank's stewardship of Voda's former Japanese offshoot T-Mobile, which is now expected to be valued at as much as 54 billion when it floats in Tokyo. The goal is to attract the 'Mrs Watanabes', Japan's version of the 'tell Sids'. Bit of a change from the old widows and orphans favourite of Japanese government bonds. Two male pandas received a warm public welcome upon their arrival at Haikou Meilan International Airport, Haikou City, capital of Hainan province, on Nov. 10. Born of the same father at the Giant Panda Protection Center in Sichuan province, Gong Gong and Shun Shun will start a new life at the Tropical Wildlife Animals and Plants Park in the capital. Xu Lin, who raised the two five-year-old pandas in Sichuan, also made the trip to Haikou, where he'll stay with them for three months to ensure a smooth transition and adaptation to their new home. Engineering group Babcock has hit back at accusations by a secretive research firm, saying it continued to be in good financial health and in good relations with the UK Government, its largest customer. The FTSE 250 firm, which works on UK military aeroplanes and naval bases, said that a recent report by 'untraceable' Boatman Capital Research was 'false and malicious'. The report, issued in mid-October, alleged that Babcock had 'systematically misled investors by burying bad news about its performance' and also that the firm's relations with the Ministry of Defence were 'terrible'. Accusations: Babcock repairs the Royal Navy's submarines and warships But today, nearly a month after the report was issued, Babcock said it 'strongly refutes' the claims, adding it 'continues to enjoy a healthy financial position'. It also obtained a quote from the Government which says it remains committed to working with strategic suppliers, which includes Babcock. A UK Government spokesperson said: 'We monitor the health of all of our strategic suppliers, including Babcock, and remain committed to working with them on a wide range of programmes. 'Babcock plays a key part in equipping our world leading armed forces and the MOD spent more than 1.7 billion with the company last year, supporting thousands of jobs across the nation.' Babcock shares were trading 3.7 per cent higher at 622p this morning. But they have lost about 10 per cent of their value since the report came out last month. Boatman Capital Research is a Panama-registered company whose directors are unknown. Last month it called on Babcock's senior leadership team, 'specifically the chairman and chief executive', to step down, claiming they were 'not up to the job'. Boatman alleged that Babcock's relations with the Ministry of Defence are 'terrible', despite the government department being its largest customer and accounting for 38 per cent of revenue last year. It comes as Babcock announced last month it would shut its Appledore shipyard in north Devon, risking up to 200 jobs. Babcock, which repairs the Royal Navy's submarines and warships, has suffered amid a decline in defence spending. The Boatman research report had cited threats to the future of Appledore. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said that while today's comments address some of the criticism from Boatman, it still has taken Babcock nearly a month to go public on responding to the 'bear raid'. 'Babcock may have pacified its shareholders temporarily with today's update, yet it has merely given itself a couple of weeks' breathing space before the big showdown on 21 November when half-year results are reported. 'Bear raids are tricky things to navigate. On one hand, you tend to have a third party which is making allegations in order to profit from a reduction in a company's share price. On the other hand, they can sometimes serve to highlight negative issues which may have otherwise been hidden from the public eye. 'The major point to consider is whether the accusations against a company are true or false. Bear raids imply a company is guilty until proven innocent and Babcock now finds itself in that situation.' The former chief executive of Stobart Group yesterday denied claims he conspired against the company as the most explosive boardroom bust-up of the year went to trial at the High Court. The infrastructure company is suing Andrew Tinkler, claiming he launched an unlawful conspiracy in a 'significant campaign' to overthrow the chairman Iain Ferguson at the AGM this summer. It claims he breached his duties as a director. Tinkler backed Edinburgh Woollen Mill boss Philip Day for the role, but investors narrowly voted to keep Ferguson at the helm. Allegations: The infrastructure company is suing former chief executive Andrew Tinkler At the same AGM shareholders also voted to keep Tinkler on the company's board but executives later dismissed him. 'The company would say this is a man who truly has his own interests at heart,' the firm's legal team told the judge yesterday. Some of the biggest names in the City including fund manager Neil Woodford and Day will give evidence in the two-week trial. The court will hear how the relationship between Tinkler and other members of the board broke down after he stepped back from the chief executive role which he held between 2007 and 2017. Ferguson told the High Court how he was on the receiving end of a 'tirade of abuse' from Tinkler during a meeting earlier this year. The board also alleges he took 5m of 'excessive and unnecessary' expenses in breach of company policy. He denies all the allegations. Tinkler's team have argued the allegations over expenses should never have been brought and suggested they had been made to provide an excuse to fuel lurid headlines in the media. Tinkler's side will also argue that the vote was clinched after chief executive Warwick Brady and Ferguson agreed to transfer shares from the Stobart Group treasury from the Employee Benefit Trust. Shares from the trust were later used to vote for Ferguson. Babcock has hit back at 'false and malicious' claims made against it by a shadowy research firm. The FTSE 250 defence contractor, which works on UK military aeroplanes and naval bases, yesterday reassured investors about its finances and even quoted a Government spokesman to back it up. The unusual move followed a series of highly critical research notes published last month by a firm called Boatman Capital, which has accused Babcock of 'burying bad news' and overpaying in a takeover deal. Claims: Defence contractor Babcock works on UK military aeroplanes and naval bases Boatman is reportedly based in Panama but its directors are not listed. The company did not respond to a request for comment yesterday. However, Babcock said it strongly rejected the claims and was trying to find out who ran Boatman. It described the mysterious research firm as 'anonymous and so far untraceable'. 'This report included many false and malicious statements,' Babcock's statement said. 'We can confirm Babcock continues to enjoy a healthy financial position with cash generation in line with expectations.' A Government spokesman said: 'We monitor the health of all of our strategic suppliers, including Babcock, and remain committed to working with them on a wide range of programmes.' However, last night Babcock was facing fresh questions about its relationship with the Ministry of Defence. The firm has been placed on watch over its handling of a submarine maintenance contract, according to the Financial Times. One official reportedly said: 'They need to pull their finger out.' Boatman Capital's report alleged that Babcock had a 'terrible' relationship with the Ministry of Defence, while claiming Babcock had misled investors over its performance. It also attacked chairman and defence industry veteran Mike Turner and chief executive Archie Bethel, claiming the pair were 'not up to the job'. A top boss from the UK's financial watchdog has repeated calls to be given more powers to help mortgage prisoners - six months after it originally said it would ask the Government for help. Tens of thousands of mortgage holders in the UK are dubbed mortgage prisoners, so-called because they are unable to switch to cheaper deals - despite being up-to-date with monthly payments - as a result of stricter lending rules brought in after the financial crisis. Speaking at an industry event last week, the Financial Conduct Authority's Christopher Woolard said it may seek more powers from Government to help those affected - a promise the watchdog already made in an interim report in May. Tens of thousands cannot switch to a cheaper rate despite being up to date with payments The problem has emerged because some mortgage prisoners are with lenders that no longer do business and others are borrowers who fall outside of the FCA's control. Before the financial crisis , it was much easier to get a mortgage and many people took one out that they would not manage to be approved for today. This is because in 2014 stricter lending rules were introduced, so that homeowners didn't risk overstretching themselves. But the tougher criteria meant that some existing homeowners would no longer pass the eligibility tests of their existing lenders. Despite lenders being instructed to help them, those in the position often find that when their deals came to an end they remortgage to another and are simply rolled over on to a standard variable rate, which tends to be much more expensive. Around 20,000 of these are stuck with lenders that are no longer active - with a further 120,000 stuck with firms that aren't regulated by the FCA. This means there are around 140,000 mortgage holders in the UK who can't switch to a cheaper rate despite keeping up with monthly payments, and there is no regulatory body in the country with the powers to help them. Financial Conduct Authority's Chris Woolard 'It simply isn't an acceptable argument to hide behind the intricacies of our regulatory perimeter when real families are involved,' Woolard said. But this isn't the first time the regulator has said it will ask government for more powers to help mortgage prisoners. In May, in its interim report for its Mortgages Market Study, the FCA said: 'Where firms sit outside the FCA's regulatory remit and offer no new products to new or existing customers the solution is more challenging. 'The FCA's regulatory remit is a matter for Parliament. 'We will begin discussions on possible solutions for inactive lenders with relevant firms, consumer groups and Government.' When approached by This is Money, Woolard would not comment on how far these discussions have progressed since May, but said an update would come in the new year. Mortgage providers have agreed to help the 10,000 mortgage prisoners with active lenders 'We want to find a way to help customers who are simply unable to switch their mortgage, even though they would benefit from doing so,' he said. 'This is a complex issue and requires a creative solution. 'That is why, since May, we've been working with an industry group to assess what the fundamental issues are and what barriers remain. 'These discussions are vital in informing our view on what changes may need to be made, either by us or others, and we expect to provide an update in spring.' Citizens Advice: It's not just mortgage prisoners needing help Citizens Advice chief executive Gillian Guy Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: 'Mortgage prisoners need to be released from their shackles so it's good to see action on this from the FCA. 'But beyond this, there's a much larger group paying a loyalty penalty for staying with their existing mortgage provider and they need protection too. 'The FCA needs to work with mortgage providers and come up with concrete measures to stop customers from being ripped off.' What have lenders done to help mortgage prisoners? Back in August, trade body UK Finance confirmed that 59 lenders representing 93 per cent of the UK's residential mortgage market had agreed a list of common standards to help the estimated 10,000 borrowers who are with still-active lenders. The number of lenders has since risen, with banks Aldermore and TSB both signing up to the scheme following its launch. To qualify, customers need to be existing borrowers of an active lender, be up to date with payments, have a minimum remaining term of two years, and have a minimum outstanding loan amount of 10,000. At the watchdog's request, lenders will write to any qualifying borrowers by the end of the year to inform them of their options. Customers do not need to take any action and are not obliged to switch if they don't want to. Meet the mortgage prisoners - the human cost behind the FCA's numbers As Woolard pointed out, thousand of real families are still being impacted by the hangover from the financial crash. Earlier this year we revealed how new parents Anne and Carl Winter were unable to move home, despite it lowering mortgage payments. Their new home would be cheaper than their existing one, meaning they could cut down on their monthly outgoings by around 550. By reducing their mortgage to 145,000 from 165,000, the Winters would save around 200 a month. In addition, their current home had increased in value from the 169,000 they paid in 2014 to around 195,000. Moving would free up equity to pay off their credit card debts, saving them another 350 a month. Initially, a Santander adviser said they could move their mortgage. They were told there would be a small early repayment charge to break their five-year fixed term early - 5 per cent of the 9,000 difference between their old and new loans. But a few weeks later Santander rejected their application. The bank said the couple had failed affordability checks introduced in 2014 by the City watchdog. The Winters would have to pay a 7,700 penalty to repay their five-year fixed rate mortgage early if they moved and found another lender. Anne and Carl Winter were told they couldn't afford to switch even though it would be cheaper The young parents were stuck in the situation of being told they could not afford to switch deals, even though they would end up paying less each month than they already were. The only alternative staying put meant struggling along with higher repayments. At the time, a Santander spokesman said the Winters' finances have changed 'significantly' since they took out the mortgage. He added: 'We will always look to ensure that our lending will not lead to problems with debt. We believe the new property is outside the Winters' future affordability. 'We would be happy to review this case again to try to support them in finding an affordable solution. 'In this particular circumstance we would be happy to look at waiving the early redemption penalty if the customer decided to move to another provider.' Since August mortgage prisoners with active lenders, like the Winters, are being offered the opportunity to switch to a cheaper rate. For the 140,000 still on inactive or unauthorised lenders however, they will have to wait until Spring for any announcements on whether the Government will grant the FCA the powers to help them. The following companies are subsidiares of TE Connectivity: 999 Arques Corp., ABB ENTRELEC terminal block business, ACC Telecommunications, ADC Chile Limitada, ADC Communications (SEA) Pte. Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Holding Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Ltd., ADC Communications Hong Kong Limited, ADC Telecommunications Equipment (Shanghai) Co., AMP Amermex, AMP Products Pacific Limited, AMP Taiwan B.V., AMP Trading B.V., AMP de Venezuela, Acalon Holdings Limited, Advanced Fiber Products LLC, Advanced Fiber Products Limited, Advanced Tube Technologies, AdvancedCath, AdvancedCath Technologies, Alpha Technics, American Sensor Technologies, Betatherm (R&D) Limited, Brantner Holding Company, Brantner and Associates, Butterfly Management SAS, C.S. Tyco Decisive Inc., C.S. Tyco Dependable Inc., C.S. Tyco Durable Inc., C.S. Tyco Reliance Inc., C.S. Tyco Resolute Inc., C.S. Tyco Responder Inc., CII Guardian International Limited, Cablotec GmbH, Carrier Kheops Bac SAS, Catheter and Disposable Technology, Celis Eletrocomponentes Ltda., Cima de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Clarebury Pty. Ltd., Codenoll Technology Corporation, Communication Expert International Investments Limited, Compagnie Deutsch Distribution SAS, Compagnie Deutsch SAS, Comtec Systeme GmbH, Connecteurs Electriques Deutsch SAS, Corcom, Corcom West Indies Limited, Cotsworks LLC, Creganna, Creganna Captial Holding Ireland Unlimited Company, Creganna Finance (US) LLC, Creganna Finance Ireland Limited, Creganna Luxembourg SARL, Creganna Medical Devices, Creganna Medical Pte. Limited, Creganna Medical Technology Unlimited, Creganna Medical s.r.l., Creganna Regulatory, Creganna Solutions Limited, Creganna Solutions Unlimited Company, Creganna Tactx Singapore Limited, Creganna Unlimited Company, Cregstar Bidco Limited, Critchley Group Limited, Crompton Instruments (South-East Asia) Pte. Ltd., Deutsch, Deutsch Connectors Hong Kong Limited, Deutsch Connectors Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Connectors Trading (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Finance SAS, Deutsch GB Limited, Deutsch Group SAS, Deutsch India Power Connectors (Pvt) Ltd, Deutsch Israel Ltd., Deutsch SAS, Deutsch Servicios S. de R.L. De C.V., Deutsch Subco Limited, Deutsch UK, F.A.I. Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, First Sensor, Grangehurst Enterprises Pty. Ltd., Hirschmann Car Communication, Hong Kong Sensors Technologies Limited, Howard A. Schaevitz Technologies, Intercontec Connector System (Shanghai) Co., Intercontec Produkt GmbH, Intercontect Pfeiffer Industrie-Steckverbindungen GmbH, Jaquet North America, Jaquet Technology Group AG, Kemex Holding Company, Kenabell Holding Limited, LADD Distribution LLC, LADD Distribution Limited, LSA, MEAS Asia Limited, MEAS Europe SAS, MEAS France SAS, MEAS Ireland (Betatherm) Limited, MEAS Norway AS, MEAS Shenzhen Limited, MEAS Switzerland S.a r.l., MEAS US Holding, MP&E, Measurement Specialties, Measurement Specialties (Chengdu) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd. Production Branch, Measurement Specialties Foreign Holdings LLC, Measurement Technology (Chengdu) Ltd., Medical Engineering & Design, MicroGroup, Morlynn Ceramics Pty. Ltd., Nikkiso-Therm Co., PT KRONE Indonesia, PT. Tyco Electronics Indonesia, Pfeiffer GmbH & Co KG, Pfeiffer Verwaltungs GmbH, Polamco, Polamco Limited, Potter & Brumfield de Mexico, Precision Interconnect LLC, Precision Subsea AS, Precision Wire Components, Precision Wire Holding Company, Produxx, RAYCHEM-RPG Private Limited, Raychem (HK) Limited, Raychem (Shanghai) Trading Ltd, Raychem China Limited, Raychem Dominicana S.A., Raychem Industries BVBA, Raychem International LLC, Raychem International Manufacturing LLC, Raychem Juarez, Raychem Limited, Raychem Ltd., Raychem Pacific Corporation, Raychem Saudi Arabia Limited, Raychem Shanghai Cable Accessories Ltd, Raychem Technologies Limited, Rochester Wire and Cable LLC, SEACON Advanced Products LLC, Seacon (Europe) Limited, Seacon Global Production, Seacon Produtos e Servicos Opticos e Eletricos Ltda., Sensitive Object, Servo Interconnect Limited, Shanghai CII Electronics Co., Shenzhen Century Man Communication Equipment Co., Sibas Electronics (Xiamen) Co., TCN Holding (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., TE Connectivity (Barbados) SRL, TE Connectivity (Denmark) ApS, TE Connectivity (HKZ) Holding Limited, TE Connectivity (Kunshan) Company Limited, TE Connectivity (Netherlands) Holding S.a r.l. - Irish Branch, TE Connectivity (Schweiz) Management AG, TE Connectivity (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Argentina S.R.L., TE Connectivity Australia Pty Ltd, TE Connectivity Colombia S.A.S., TE Connectivity Connectors (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Distribution (Thailand) Limited, TE Connectivity EMEA Holding GmbH, TE Connectivity Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity HK Limited, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen E-Finance branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. (Ireland Branch), TE Connectivity Holding International S.A., TE Connectivity Inc., TE Connectivity India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A., TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Ireland Limited, TE Connectivity LATAM Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM I S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Limited, TE Connectivity MOG Europe S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Inc., TE Connectivity MOG Sales GmbH, TE Connectivity Manufacturing (Thailand) Company Limited, TE Connectivity Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., TE Connectivity Morocco SARL, TE Connectivity Nederland B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Poland II) Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Turkey) B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Phoenix Optix Inc., TE Connectivity Seacon Phoenix Inc., TE Connectivity Sensors Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity Services India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Solutions GmbH, TE Connectivity South Africa Proprietary Limited, TE Connectivity Spain, TE Connectivity SubCom S.L.U., TE Connectivity SubCom Spain Holding S.L.U., TE Connectivity Technology Solutions Limited, TE Connectivity Tunisia Sarl, TE Connectivity ULC, TE Connectivity US Group Holding Inc., TE Connectivity Vietnam Holding Company Limited, TYCO Electronics Polska Sp.z.o.o., TYCO SUBMARINE SYSTEMS INC., TacPro, Tactx Medical, Taicang Speed & Spin Sensors Co., Taliq Taiwan Limited, Tappat Engineering Pty Ltd, TechDevice Costa Rica Limitada, TechDevice Holdings, TechDevice LLC, The Whitaker LLC, Transoceanic Cable Ship Company LLC, TyCom Holdings II SA, TyCom Networks (Peru) S.A., Tyco Electronics (AMP Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Dongguan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Holding Limited, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics (Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Kunshan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Tyco Electronics (Qingdao) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Schweiz) Holding II GmbH, Tyco Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Tyco Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Suzhou) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Zhuhai) Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Guangdong Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Italia Products S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Italia S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Korea Co., Tyco Electronics AMP Manufacturing (S) Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Qingdao Ltd., Tyco Electronics AMP Shanghai Ltd., Tyco Electronics Austria GmbH, Tyco Electronics Belgium EC BVBA, Tyco Electronics Brasil Ltda., Tyco Electronics Canada ULC, Tyco Electronics China (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Componentes Electromecanicos Lda., Tyco Electronics Corby Limited, Tyco Electronics Corporation, Tyco Electronics Czech s.r.o., Tyco Electronics Del Peru S.A.C., Tyco Electronics EC Trutnov s.r.o., Tyco Electronics EC Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Tyco Electronics Eta Limited, Tyco Electronics Finance Alpha GmbH, Tyco Electronics Finance S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Finland Oy, Tyco Electronics France SAS, Tyco Electronics Germany Holdings GmbH, Tyco Electronics Group S.A., Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (French Branch), Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (Ireland Branch), Tyco Electronics H.K. Limited, Tyco Electronics Hellas MEPE, Tyco Electronics Holding Corp., Tyco Electronics Holding France, Tyco Electronics Holding S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited, Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited Taiwan Branch, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 1 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 2 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 3 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hungary Termelo Kft, Tyco Electronics Idento, Tyco Electronics India (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Industrial Y Comercial Chile Limitada, Tyco Electronics Integrated Cable Systems LLC, Tyco Electronics Ireland Limited, Tyco Electronics Israel Ltd., Tyco Electronics Italia Holding S.r.l., Tyco Electronics Japan G.K., Tyco Electronics Lambda, Tyco Electronics Latin America Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics Manufacturing Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Mexico, Tyco Electronics Middle East FZE, Tyco Electronics Motors Ltd, Tyco Electronics NZ Limited, Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Germany Holding) S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar China) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands Holding B.V., Tyco Electronics Norge AS, Tyco Electronics Philippines, Tyco Electronics Precision Engineering Ltd., Tyco Electronics Printed Circuit Group LP, Tyco Electronics RIMC Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics RUS OOO, Tyco Electronics Raychem GmbH, Tyco Electronics Raychem Korea Limited, Tyco Electronics SIMEL SAS, Tyco Electronics Saudi Arabia Limited, Tyco Electronics Services GmbH, Tyco Electronics Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications LLC, Tyco Electronics Svenska AB, Tyco Electronics Svenska Holdings AB, Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Co., Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Ltd., Tyco Electronics Tecnologias S. de R.L. de C.V., Tyco Electronics UK Holdings Ltd, Tyco Electronics UK Ltd., Tyco Electronics UK Ltd. (Kenya Branch), Tyco Electronics Ukraine Limited, Tyco Electronics Uruguay S.A., Tyco Electronics Verwaltungs GmbH, Tyco Electronics Wireless Systems B.V., Tyco Electronics de Venezuela, Tyco Elektronik AMP Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Tyco Global Networks Ltd., Tyco Iberia, Tyco International Services GmbH, Tyco Networks (Argentina) S.R.L., Tyco Networks (Italy) Srl, Tyco Networks (Netherlands) B.V., Tyco Networks Iberica, Tyco Submarine Systems, Tyco Submarine Systems C.A., Tyco Submarine Systems de Argentina S.A., Tyco Telecommunications Ltd., Wema Americas LLC, Wema Automotive System Private Limited, Wema Environmental Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies (Shenzhen) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies Ltd., Wema System AG, Wema System AS, Wema System Hong Kong Limited, Wema System Production and Distribution HK Limited, Xiamen Delixing Electric Equipment Businesss, and motec Montage GmbH. NCI Building Systems, Inc. designs, engineers, manufactures, and markets metal products for the nonresidential construction industry in North America. It operates in four segments: Engineered Building Systems, Metal Components, Insulated Metal Panels, and Metal Coil Coating. The Engineered Building Systems segment offers engineered structural members and panels; and self-storage building systems under the Metallic, Mid-West Steel, A & S, All American, Mesco, Star, Ceco, Robertson, Garco, Heritage, and SteelBuilding.com brands to builders, general contractors, developers, and end users directly, as well as through private label companies. The Metal Components segment provides metal roof and wall systems, metal partitions, metal trims, doors, and other related accessories for use in new construction, and repair and retrofit applications; roll-up doors; and interior and exterior walk doors under the MBCI, American Building Components, Eco-ficient, Metal Depots, and Doors and Buildings Components brands to manufacturers, contractors, subcontractors, distributors, lumberyards, cooperative buying groups, and other customers. The Insulated Metal Panels segment offers insulated metal panels for architectural, commercial, industrial, and cold storage end-market applications under the Metl-Span and CENTRIA brands. The Metal Coil Coating segment engages in cleaning, treating, and painting flat-rolled metals in coil form, as well as in slitting and/or embossing the metal, before the metal is fabricated for use by industrial users. It also cleans, treats, and coats heavy and light gauge metal coils for use in construction products, heating and air conditioning systems, water heaters, lighting fixtures, ceiling grids, office furniture, appliances, and other products; and provides toll coating and painted metal package services under the Metal Coaters and Metal Prep brands. NCI Building Systems, Inc. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Read More SociAtA GAnArale SociAtA anonyme provides financial services in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Oceania, Africa, and France. The company offers retail banking services, including deposits and loans, vehicles and asset management, corporate finance, insurance, payments, investment, and online brokerage and financial information services; Internet, mobile, telephone, and service platforms; and online banking to individual and professional customers, businesses, non-profit associations and local authorities under the Societe Generale, CrAdit du Nord, and Boursorama Banque brands. It also provides international retail banking and financial services, comprising of deposit and loan products; consumer finance and car finance; mortgage facilities; corporate and investment banking; infrastructure, renewable energies, and agribusiness financing; life, retirement savings, and personal protection insurance products; vehicle leasing and fleet management services; and vendor and equipment finance services to corporate and individual customers. In addition, the company offers capital market services, such as fixed income and currencies, equities, and securities services; mergers and acquisitions, advisory and other corporate finance advisory services, and corporate banking and investment banking, as well as capital raising solutions for debt or equity, financial engineering, and hedging for issuers; transaction and payment services, comprising of cash management, trade finance, cash clearing and correspondent banking, supply chain finance, and foreign exchange services; and export finance, aircraft finance, shipping finance, real estate finance, and structured solutions and leasing. Further, it provides financial engineering and wealth management solutions; structured products, hedge funds, mutual funds, private equity funds and real estate investment solutions; and asset management solutions. SociAtA GAnArale SociAtA anonyme was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Paris, France. Read More Airbus SE designs, manufactures, and distributes aerospace products and solutions in the Netherlands and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Airbus, Airbus Helicopters, and Airbus Defence and Space. The company's Airbus segment develops, manufactures, markets, and sells commercial jet aircraft of approximately 100 seats; and regional turboprop aircraft and aircraft components, as well as provides aircraft conversion and related services. Its Airbus Helicopters segment develops, manufactures, markets, and sells civil and military helicopters; and provides helicopter related services. The company's Airbus Defence and Space segment designs, develops, delivers, and supports military aircraft, such as combat, mission, transport, and tanker aircraft; and provides unmanned aerial systems and their associated services. It also offers civil and defense space systems for telecommunications, earth observations, navigation, science, and orbital systems; missile systems; and missile and space launcher systems, as well as services around data processing from platforms, secure communication, and cyber security. The company was formerly known as Airbus Group SE and changed its name to Airbus SE in April 2017. Airbus SE was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Leiden, the Netherlands. Read More J Sainsbury plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the food, general merchandise and clothing retailing, and financial services activities in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It operates through three segments: Retail A- Food, Retail A- General Merchandise and Clothing, and Financial Services. The company operates various store formats, including convenience stores and supermarkets. It is also involved in online grocery and general merchandise operations. As of March 6, 2021, the company operated 598 supermarkets, 813 convenience stores, 737 Argos stores, and 306 collection points, as well as 3 Habitat stores. In addition, the company offers financial services, such as credit cards, and travel money and personal loans, as well as home, car, pet, travel, and life insurance products. J Sainsbury plc was founded in 1869 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More Vanguard Information Technology ETF's stock was trading at $219.43 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, VGT stock has increased by 108.5% and is now trading at $457.47. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Why are the new sanctions being imposed on Iran and how effective will they be? With new sanctions being imposed on Iran this week by the United States, these are the questions that are being discussed. President Trump ran on a campaign to reimpose all sanctions, labeling the multilateral deal a sham. The deal, according to him, enriched Iranian adventurism, and flooded the country with extra cash, which was then used to promote Iranian influence in the region. The new measures are supposed to stop any company based in the U.S. from trading with Iran or doing business. Companies are also liable for punishment if they conduct any business with any company in Iran. There will also be sanctions on the banking sector. However, the new sanctions are dead before they even start. The latest developments suggest that the U.S. stands alone in sanctioning Iran, as other major powers have decided that business with Iran is going to continue. For example, the European Union has decided that it doesn't find Iran violating any clauses regarding the enriching of Uranium, the main concern of the multilateral deal, which was ostensibly to stop Iran developing a nuclear arsenal. To stop companies from suffering steep U.S. sanctions, the EU plans to develop a new payment system called a special purpose vehicle, or SPV, to adjust accordingly and avoid the banking and financial institutions regulated by the United States. This is arguably the start of European financial autonomy from American regulations. The three major powers of Britain, France and Germany denounced the sanctions and declared that they don't find Iran to be in violation of any agreement. Russia, the other major partner in the deal also vowed to continue doing business as usual with Iran. In a statement from its foreign ministry, which rejected any unilateral sanction bypassing the United Nations, Russia said that it would do everything in its power to continue to expand trade with Iran, and enhance business and financial ties, despite any threat of sanctions to Russian companies. The U.S. has also had to climb down from its earlier demand of stopping the trade of oil with Iran. Understanding that there's no way to stop the resource hungry countries from doing business with Iran and buying Iranian crude, Washington DC was compelled to waiver Iran nuclear sanctions to eight countries including India, South Korea, Italy, Japan and other allies. The most significant two factors to the ineffectiveness of this new round of sanctions, are Indian and Chinese resistance. India previously faced enormous pressure from the United States, a strategic ally, to ease off buying Iranian crude and play by the Western rules. Indian policy makers are also under pressure not to antagonize the United States. In a sign of early capitulation, for example, India wanted a waiver from the U.S., so that it can continue shipments. The U.S. has been forced to reconsider imposing sanctions in November on Iranian energy, as China and India, the largest importers of Iranian crude, expressed s disinclination to accept the sanctions. The chief worry for India is that the huge domestic need for Iranian crude cannot be offset by Gulf guarantees, but on the other hand, Indian payments are tied to the American financial system. Overall, this round of sanctions is completely meaningless and is tied to American appeasement of Saudi Arabia and Israel against Iran. It won't serve any purpose either, as the sanctions are almost certain to be bypassed. In fact, the only observable phenomenon from this would be to see if Europe manages to show that European interests with regards to Iran diverge from America's. We can also see if Iran, as an act of retaliation, tries to harm American or Saudi interests in the region, or attempts to continue to look past the Trump administration and continue business as usual with the rest of the world. Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. It wasnt a blue trickle, but nor was it a tsunami. Rather, the midterm elections brought a gentle, purplish wave of mostly center-leaning Democrats whose profiles suggest a welcome infusion of professionalism and balance to a disorderly House. Unlike the tea party revolution of 2010, when Republicans gave Democrats a shellacking, as then-President Obama put it, this years victors seem more inclined to govern than to disrupt. Perhaps this is because so many of them are women, who tend to work well together even when particular issues may place them on opposite political sides. Sidebar: The worst thing to happen to women and, therefore, to the nation is the encroaching trend of unisex restrooms. Dont you people know that half the worlds problems are solved when two or more women go to the Ladies Room together? Maybe when were in charge Indeed, in this election many of the tea party and Freedom Caucus Republicans notably outgoing Rep. David Brat, R-Va., who came to office by defeating then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will be holding the door for up to 40 new Democratic members, depending upon final tallies in some races. This is a blessing in so many ways. First, the Democrats takeover of the House brings much-needed balance to the Congress. Its rarely, if ever, good for the country when one party controls all branches of government, even if it means the occasional gridlock. Sometimes doing less is more. Second, a Democratic majority in the House may well mean a greater likelihood of compromise on big issues such as infrastructure, health care and immigration. It isnt just pretty to think so; its apparently what President Trump is thinking as well, counterintuitive though it seems. Plainly, the surge in women candidates on the Democratic side was partly in response to antipathy toward Trump for all the familiar reasons. Yet, as Trump said Wednesday during a contentious news conference, he and Republicans now have no choice but to work with Democrats if they want to get anything done. Trump said he thought this more likely now that the numbers will force both parties to the table. Come January, this town is about to get lots more interesting and animated and just possibly much better. Since no one asked, I thought Id offer some advice. First, to Republicans: Change the soundtrack on immigration and make your voices louder than the presidents. Without a doubt, immigration is tough, but it neednt be apocalyptic. As of now, the GOP is increasingly viewed as racist not without reason. It is possible to enforce borders and create rational solutions to handle people entering the country illegally without appearing to be anti-immigrant. I know, its specious to conclude that tough policies are anti-immigrant, but you neednt respond so convincingly. Separating children from parents and watching mutely as armed troops are sent to the border to combat, literally, a caravan of migrants, including some children should be an outrage. To the presidents credit, minors will no longer be separated from their parents, but more than 200 children have yet to be reunited. Make this a conservative, family-values mission and demand an immediate resolution. Also, make conservatism cool again. Speak intelligently to young Americans about things like freedom as a counterpoint to the socialist vision increasingly in vogue on the left. More government always means less freedom, but maybe no one has explained this. Paging William F. Buckley, RIP. To Democrats: Resist the temptation to be worse than Republicans. If we keep this up, with each side bringing ever-more extreme views to the table, we wont have a country. Well have two countries. Dont waste time on impeachment either the presidents or Justice Brett Kavanaughs, as some are urging. Ultimately, this would rupture the country beyond repair. Not that politicians care about polls, but exit surveys showed that only 39 percent thought Democrats should seek to impeach. Finally, Mr. President, with all due respect: Youre the commander in chief of the free world. This means that people will listen to you no matter what. Maybe no one has ever told you this before, but you absolutely have the option of being gracious, humble, generous, self-effacing and kind while also being tough. Bury your TV personality and try to charm America, starting with the media. Its so easy to make them eat out of your hand. Smile. It so becomes you. Especially smile at your enemies, perceived or real. It infuriates them and youll still get the last laugh. By no means least, leave Robert Mueller alone. After all, youve nothing to fear. Right? Kathleen Parkers email address is kathleenparker@washpost.com. (c) 2018, Washington Post Writers Group ALBANY - A Common Council member has filed a notice of claim against the city, alleging Albany is violating zoning ordinances by allowing what she and her neighbors view as a tattoo parlor in a residential zone on New Scotland Avenue. Businessowners Kathleen Cronin, a registered nurse, and Nora Quinn, a licensed esthetician, are eyeing 372 New Scotland Ave. for the site of Colour Cosmetic Studio, where the duo will provide what is called paramedical micropigmentation services for those who have scars or hair loss from surgery, injury, or medical conditions like alopecia. But Councilwoman Judy Doesschate says the citys rezone doesnt allow for the studio which she says is akin to a tattoo or beauty parlor, not a doctors office to operate in a residential district. Doesschate filed the notice of claim against the city Wednesday. I dont know anybody who is happy with this decision, Doesschate told the Times Union. We had a half dozen or so homes on New Scotland Avenue that have been used for office use, and there is a concern that more of them could be turned into purely commercial uses like this. Colour Cosmetic Studio, which works with breast cancer patients to restore the look of an areola and nipple after a mastectomy, emphasizes the process is not the same as traditional tattoos on its website, a type of business considered to be "restorative cosmetics." Calls to the business werent returned late last week. Doesschate wants the Board of Zoning Appeals to reverse Commissioner Chris Spencers determination that the business is most comparable to a doctors office, and said in the notice of claim that her and her neighbors rights have been violated by the citys actions. According to the claim, those actions resulted in exposure to health and safety risksdamages to ones quiet enjoyment of ones properties and emotional harm, reductions in property values, adverse impact to ones neighborhood and denied of equal protections under the law. The cosmetic studio currently operates out of a suite on Western Avenue and hasnt opened on New Scotland yet. In August, the businessowners sought a zoning compliance certificate to determine whether their planned use of 372 New Scotland would comply with zoning, Spencer said. The area currently is zoned two-family residential, but it was previously used as a chiropractors office until the owner, Seth Kohl, was arrested in June 2017 and later pleaded guilty to sexually abusing several of his female patients. He was sentenced to probation in January 2018. According to the citys zoning, non-conforming uses cant be reestablished at a location if its been discontinued for a year or more. Doesschate also argues that since Kohl was arrested over a year ago and hasnt operated a business from 372 New Scotland since then, it should revert to two-family residential. But Kohls license to practice wasnt surrendered until February this year, according to the summaries of Regents Actions on Professional Misconduct and Discipline through the state Education Departments Office of the Professions. They had not lost their license, they had not ceased operation, Spencer said. We looked at when the license was no longer valid. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. There was no question of the non-conforming use of the property continuing, he said, so Spencers focus was on determining whether Colour Cosmetic Studio would operate like an office. Because the exact service provided by the studio isnt listed in the citys zoning, the planning commissioner is responsible for determining whether the use is so consistent with the size, scale, operating characteristics, and external impacts of a listed use that it should be treated as the same. Doesschate argues that the studio is required to be licensed as a tattoo studio and beauty salon, making it a personal and business service, not an office. It is a complete stretch to try and fit this in to an office definition and sets an awful precedent, she said. It clearly changes the complete character of the neighborhood. The buildings surrounding 372 New Scotland are mostly two-family homes, sandwiched in a three-block stretch by a school and church on one side and restaurants and a bank on the other. As Albany sees continued development across the city, expanding commercial territory has been a concern for many who want to keep their communities residential with low-density housing. Doesschate said allowing the cosmetic studio in the two-family residential zoning could lead to similar decisions in the future. People like the charm of our residential neighborhood that has walkability to services in appropriately zoned areas, she said. When you zone something residential, its supposed to be residential. Flash Russia is reacting calmly to the recent large-scale military drills conducted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and wishes to continue dialogue on this matter, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday. "To be fair, we are trying not to conduct any large-scale exercises close to the borders of NATO member states...But in general, we are reacting to this calmly," Putin said in an interview with Russia Today TV channel, according to a Kremlin transcript. The NATO held the "Trident Juncture 2018" drills in Norway and its surrounding seas from Oct. 25 to Nov. 7, the largest since the end of the Cold War. The drills involved around 50,000 troops from the 29 NATO members and its partners Sweden and Finland, as well as about 250 aircraft, 65 vessels and up to 10,000 vehicles. "I hope that dialogue, which is always in demand, will also have a positive impact on this situation," Putin said. The president also said he supports the idea of establishing an all-European military force alternative to the North Atlantic Alliance. "It is rather natural for Europe to want to be independent, self-sufficient, sovereign in terms of its defense and security. I think that this process is, in general, positive, from the standpoint of strengthening the multipolarity of the world," he said. Putin is currently paying a visit to France and attending commemorative events marking the centenary of Armistice Day, during which he will possibly have an unofficial meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. The ascension of two Albany County judges to state Supreme Court will leave two vacancies at the county level and a third vacancy at the region's Appellate Division to replace the departing longtime judge they defeated. Elections are set for November 2019 to fill the seats to be vacated by Albany County Family Court Judge Margaret Walsh and Albany County Judge Peter Lynch, Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the state court system, told Law Beat. Two names to watch as possible successors to Lynch include Jasper Mills, the chief counsel to Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, and Albany City Court Judge Holly Trexler, according to people familiar with the situation. Both are Democrats and former prosecutors in Albany County. "I'm absolutely running for county court," Mills told Law Beat on Friday. "I feel like I'm ready." Mills, 38, of Albany, a married father of two children, explained he grew up in a low-income area of New Haven, Ct. He graduated from Albany Law School in 2006, worked in private practice and then spent nine years at District Attorney David Soares' office. "I struggled for a good period of my life," he said. "I know the difference between someone who deserves a second shot and somebody who is a threat to society." Mills was just named "Arson Prosecutor of the Year" by the New York State Fire Investigators Chapter 23 of the International Association of Arson Investigators. Mills was the special prosecutor who secured the murder and arson conviction of Richard J. Wright, who was found guilty at a non-jury retrial of the Sept. 1, 1986, Lansingburgh fire that killed Tara Gilbert, 14, and Meredith Pipino, 13. Trexler, 46, of Albany, a 1997 Albany Law School graduate, worked as a prosecutor for eight years, initially in Connecticut and then in Rensselaer and Albany counties. Trexler went into private practice in 2005, where she remained until her appointment and subsequent election to City Court. In a three-candidate race Tuesday, Walsh and Lynch, both Democrats, defeated state Supreme Court Justice William McCarthy, a Republican incumbent, for seats in the seven-county 3rd Judicial District (part of the larger Third Department). Walsh, 53, of Slingerlands, who also ran on the Independence and Working Families party lines, received 189,501 votes (29.7 percent); Lynch, 64, of Loudonville, who also ran on the Working Families line, took in 166,500 votes (26.1 percent); while McCarthy, 54, of Selkirk, who also ran on the Conservative and Independence party lines, received 142,401 votes (22.3). The district includes seven counties (Albany, Rensselaer, Ulster, Greene, Columbia, Schoharie and Sullivan), but the results of Tuesday will create particular turnover in Albany County. Lynch, who was elected in 2012, had four more years in his term. Walsh, elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2014, had six more years remaining. Lynch could theoretically remain in county court presiding over criminal matters; state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Breslin has continued to do so after being elected to Supreme Court. Chalfen, the court system spokesman, said Walsh would be unable to remain in Family Court per the state's constitution. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. "We will be making plans for additional coverage for the Albany Family Court," Chalfen said. Albany County Democratic Party chairman Jack Flynn said Albany County Family Court Judge Gerard Maney, the supervisory judge of family courts in the 3rd Judicial District, will reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 next year, which opens up yet another slot. McCarthy also is the most senior member of the Albany-based Third Department of the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, which includes 28 counties. It is the final deciding body for virtually all criminal, civil and state-related appeals in the Capital Region. Chalfen, the court system spokesman, said Gov. Andrew Cuomo will appoint someone to fill the Appellate Division spot now held by McCarthy. "He will be quite missed on this court," said Third Department Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry. "He was collegial. He rolled his sleeves up and got right down to the work and was a tremendous contributor to our court for his tenure here. He was a great judge." The court, which at full capacity has 12 justices, will drop to nine justices in January. "I remain somewhat optimistic there will be appointments to fill four current vacancies," Garry said. "I'm hopeful for that." The departure of McCarthy marks the fourth time in the last 10 years a Republican judge on the region's appellate court has lost to a Democrat on a ballot in a presidential or mid-term year. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the 3rd Judicial District by 76,321 voters. ALBANY Rev. Dr. Miriam Lawrence Leupold has protested outside U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Enforcement's office in Albany and preached from the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church on State Street to welcome immigrants. She believes being a Christian means loving God and loving your neighbor. "One of the things God called us to do is care for the widow, orphan and alien in our midst any refugee, any immigrant, any person needing help," Leupold, co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church for 12 years, told the Times Union. Her family immigrated generations ago from the United Kingdom, and she now ministers to first-generation immigrants from Cameroon and Pakistan. Leupold's latest cause is advocating for the rights of thousands of Central American migrants traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border to apply for asylum. She and at least half a dozen other Capital Region clergy joined 570 faith leaders and 145 faith-based organizations nationwide to sign a letter to Congress on Nov. 5 condemning the decision by President Donald J. Trump to restrict laws that allow anyone to seek asylum at the border. Local signatories include clergy from churches in Albany, East Greenbush, Schenectady and Colonie as well as Interfaith Impact of New York State, a nonprofit dedicated to progressive religious advocacy. The letter states that opposing asylum "violates our moral and legal obligations to those fleeing violence and persecution." It calls on Congress to "reverse course and see that the U.S. complies with its own laws and international obligations to welcome those seeking protection." The caravan, estimated as 5,000 migrants, includes people who have said they're fleeing poverty and violence in Central American nations, primarily Honduras. Republicans, notably the president, made the caravan a political talking point in the weeks preceding the midterm elections. The faith leaders sent the letter a day before last week's vote. Trump last week signed a proclamation temporarily restricting asylum claims by refusing to hear cases unless the applicant entered the country legally through an authorized port of entry. The American Civil Liberties Union, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Center for Constitutional Rights, sued the administration the same day on behalf of several refugee and immigrant advocacy groups. The lawsuit argues that Trump's executive action is unlawful because existing policy under United Nations and U.S. law prohibits the government from sending people fleeing persecution back to danger in their home country due to humanitarian obligation. "I'm just appalled that the United States would try to go back on a policy that's been made," Leupold said. "Anybody who seeks asylum is allowed to enter no if, ands or buts." A Public Religion Research Institute poll published in October reported that 71 percent of white evangelicals still support Trump. That support has deepened the schism between conservative and liberal American Christians. Leupold says that her congregants are socially progressive and want to see faith and politics interwoven. "I think that it's important that our elected officials know how we feel about actions that are being taken, especially by Trump," Leupold said. "Especially as a person of faith, I want to make sure that the faith community is well-represented." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. The Capital Region is a magnet for resettled refugees and individuals who have sought asylum, including undocumented children. About 95 percent of the 5,000 refugees settled in New York live upstate, with 10 percent in Albany. Numbers have plummeted in recent years, though, as the Trump administration cut the country's refugee cap. In Barack Obama's last year in office, his administration set the 2017 cap at 110,000. Trump set the 2018 limit at 45,000; it will drop to 30,000 in 2019. The number settled in New York dropped from 5,000 in 2016 to 1,280 in 2018. Less than 100 refugees were settled in Albany in 2018, compared to more than 400 in 2016. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the U.S. will focus on processing 280,000 more asylum seekers at the borders and strengthening security vetting. On Friday, the migrant caravan heading for asylum in the U.S. resumed its journey northward from Mexico City, still more than 1,000 miles from the southern U.S. border. They may not know what awaits them when they reach there, but Leupold and hundreds of other clergy are ready to greet them. "God calls us to be welcoming, to be loving," she said. "We're working on bringing about the Kingdom of God, and that kingdom is a kingdom of love and not of discrimination or refusing people." Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin took to Twitter late last week to lambaste fellow Republican and North Greenbush Town Supervisor Louis Desso after Desso used a town board meeting to announce his own re-election. McLaughlin disputed the perception that he is "at odds" with Desso because Desso last year supported McLaughlin's primary rival, former deputy county executive Christopher Meyer. The county executive said in a tweet Friday night that "we are at odds because (Desso) is a hypocrite, a con man, and a liar who spent 6 months doing nothing but smoking cigarettes all day & threatening county employees while trying to destroy my life." In other tweets, McLaughlin addressed the numerous ethical questions that are currently surrounding the supervisor, which has included Rensselaer County's contention that the town has not reported sewer hook-ups for billing in a timely fashion including a hook-up to Desso's own home and the property next door that was transferred to Desso's son, who is spokesman for now outgoing District Attorney Joel Abelove. "#LetsMakeADealDesso is delusional in blaming the county for failing to report sever (sic) hookups AS REQUIRED," a tweet from McLaughlin said Saturday. "You're in a hole De$$o. You should stop digging." McLaughlin's spokesman, Richard Crist, would not provide specifics about how Desso was allegedly "threatening" to county employees, or how Desso supposedly sought to "destroy" McLaughlin's life. "Steve stands by what he wrote in the tweet. He would be willing to discuss it more in-depth at a later time," Crist said Monday. But he added, "I think everybody who works in the county government is well aware of the truthfulness of what was said by Steve." The tension between the two Rensselaer County politicians became apparent last year when Desso lost his county job as deputy commissioner of mental health a month after McLaughlin, a former state Assemblyman, won the general election. Desso was appointed to the county job in 2013 during the administration of then-county executive Kathy Jimino. The educational requirements for the job were changed to accommodate Desso, then both a North Greenbush town board member and county legislator who had previously worked in addiction recovery services. Desso, who is not on Twitter, said the town's comptroller printed out McLaughlin's tweets for him to read Monday but he said he didn't look at them. "What Steve McLaughlin says about me personally really doesn't matter to me," Desso said Monday. "To have a county executive tweeting their anger at other elected officials is immature and a waste of time." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Desso said any suggestion he threatened fellow county employees during the heated run off between Meyer and McLaughlin is not true. McLaughlin's tweets followed a North Greenbush meeting Thursday night in which Desso announced before a meeting covering the 2019 budget that he would be running for re-election next year. He asked supporters by email to come to the meeting and speak. "I didn't tell them what to say or anything, that's not what I do," Desso said. "I think people are tired of the beating I'm taking." Desso said he doesn't know if the county GOP will run someone against him in a primary next year. But he decided to run for his third-term to counteract what he says are continued political attacks against him by town Democrats. Sources have said State Police took statements in August from Desso's two most outspoken critics, Democrats Charles Smith and Ron Sinico, in the wake of a Times Union story in July that laid out numerous questions about Desso's actions since he became supervisor in 2016. Among the concerns include free fill Desso's received at his house that was arranged by a prominent Route 4 developer, and a March 2017 town fee for his sewer line extension that he didn't pay for until this past August. Desso said Monday that State Police have not reached to him, and he is not aware that anyone else in Town Hall has been contacted by investigators. "I believe the people of North Greenbush will be with me," Desso said, noting that he has put in town budgets that have reduced property taxes the last two years. "I am going to run on my record." Community organizations have a chance to get money from the state to help immigrants become citizens. Non-profits can apply to get up to $80,000 from New York state as part of a $2 million push to expand a network of neighborhood-based centers. There are already 27 centers. The centers, housed under the state's Office of New Americans, provide citizenship classes, community workshops and free legal consultations to help immigrants get through the naturalization application process. Centers are supported by a team of pro-bono immigration attorneys and multi-lingual hotline. Paris World leaders with the power to make war but a duty to preserve peace marked the end of World War I's slaughter 100 years ago at commemorations on Sunday that drove home the message "never again" but also exposed the globe's new political fault lines. As Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and dozens of other heads of state and government listened in silence, French President Emmanuel Macron used the occasion, as its host, to sound a powerful and sobering warning about the fragility of peace and the dangers of nationalism and of nations that put themselves first, above the collective good. "The old demons are rising again, ready to complete their task of chaos and of death," Macron said. "Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism," he said. "In saying 'Our interests first, whatever happens to the others,' you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: its moral values." Trump, ostensibly the main target of Macron's message, sat stony-faced. The American president has proudly declared himself a nationalist. But if Trump felt singled out by Macron's remarks, he didn't show it. He later described the commemoration as "very beautiful." As well as spelling out the horrific costs of conflict, the ceremony also served up a joyful reminder of the intense sweetness of peace, when high school students read from letters that soldiers and civilians wrote 100 years ago when guns finally fell silent on the Western Front. Brought alive again by people too young to have known global war themselves, the ghostly voices seemed collectively to say: Please, do not make our mistakes. "I only hope the soldiers who died for this cause are looking down upon the world today," American soldier Capt. Charles S. Normington wrote on Nov. 11, 1918, in one of the letters. "The whole world owes this moment of real joy to the heroes who are not here to help enjoy it." The commemorations started late, overshooting the centenary of the exact moment when, 100 years earlier at 11 a.m., an eerie silence replaced the thunder of war on the front lines. Macron recalled that 1 billion shells fell on France alone from 1914-1918. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was positioned in pride of place between Trump and Macron, an eloquent symbol of victors and vanquished now standing shoulder to shoulder. The gulf between Trump's "America First" credo and European leaders was starkly underscored again later Sunday, when Trump went his own way. He visited an American cemetery outside Paris at precisely the moment that Macron, Merkel and other dignitaries were opening a peace forum where the French leader again sounded the alarm about crumbling international harmony as he ruminated about the legacy of the morning's observances. "Will it be the shining symbol of durable peace between nations or will it be a picture of a last moment of unity before the world goes down in new disorder?" Macron asked. "It depends only on us." Oskar Rabin, a painter who was at the center of a group of dissident artists who defied Soviet authorities in the 1960s and '70s, died Wednesday in Florence, Italy. He was 90. Alexander Smoljanski, a filmmaker who with Evgeny Tsymbal has just completed a documentary about Rabin, announced the death on Facebook. Rabin had been in Florence for an exhibition of his work at the Florentine branch of the I. Repin St. Petersburg Art Academy. It opened the day after his death. The Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said the cause was a heart attack. Smoljanski's Facebook post said Rabin had been under treatment at a Florentine clinic for a hip injury. Rabin painted still lifes and landscapes, often imbuing them with wry critiques of Soviet life, but his fame rested as much on his defiance as on his artistic ability. In 1974 he was among the organizers of an outdoor exhibition in Moscow by nonconforming artists those who were denied exhibitions in recognized galleries and museums because they refused to limit themselves to the officially sanctioned style of the day, Socialist realism, which emphasized heroic scenes and sculptures and left no room for impressionism or abstraction or unpleasant subjects. "When they gathered in an open lot on September 15," Hedrick Smith, who was then a reporter in Moscow for The New York Times, wrote in his 1976 book "The Russians," "they were brutally dispersed by plainclothes police dressed as workers and operating bulldozers and dump trucks." By some accounts, police had to pluck Rabin from the upper reaches of a bulldozer he had clung to as it advanced on him. The aborted art show has ever since been known as the Bulldozer Exhibition. The international reaction was so strong that a few months later the Soviets allowed another show by the nonconforming artists, but the tensions remained. In 1978 officials encouraged him to make a trip to Paris; while he was there they stripped him of his citizenship. He lived in Paris the rest of his life, even though he became celebrated in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. "The Russia-themed pictures that I sometimes paint even now are not nostalgic," he wrote in "Three Lives," a 1986 memoir. "These are pictures-cum-recollections just a memory about the past. For no matter what sort of past it was, you cannot erase it from your heart." Oskar Yakovlevich Rabin was born on Jan. 2, 1928, in Moscow. His parents were both doctors, and both died of illnesses when he was a boy; an orphan, he spent the years of World War II living in children's dorms. In 1944 he was sent to live with an aunt in Riga, Latvia. He trained at an art academy there, then studied at, but was expelled from, the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow. It was in the mid-1950s that he fell in with a group of artists and intellectuals who were creating artworks and writings that were outside the sanctioned parameters. By 1958 he and his wife, Valentina Kropivnitskaya, also an artist, were living in a camp barracks near Moscow, their home a frequent gathering spot for the renegades, who became known as the Lianozovo Group. "Its participants were united not by some common artistic ideology," art collector Alexander Glezer wrote in 1995, "but rather by their uncompromising stand in the fight for freedom of expression and the right to display their works to their compatriots." Rabin's paintings tended toward the expressionistic and were decidedly unheroic, putting him at odds with the official definition of art. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. "Rabin depicted dreary everyday reality," Natalia Kolodzei, executive director of the Kolodzei Art Foundation and an expert in the art of Russia and the former Soviet Union, said by email. "Dilapidated hovels, suburban slums, neglected cemeteries, religious symbols, street signs, and newspapers full of personal and narrative significance." "Middle-aged and essentially hairless, Rabin developed the incongruous status of a bald rock star," John McPhee wrote in his book "The Ransom of Russian Art" (1994). In 1990, President Mikhail Gorbachev restored Rabin's citizenship. His works have since been exhibited many times in Russia, as well as in the West. His work is in numerous museums and has been sold at leading auction houses. Rabin's wife died in 2008. A son, Alexandre, died in 1994. Kolodzei said that though Rabin's paintings could be grim, many had a subtle ray of hope. "Light, which plays an important spiritual role in much of Rabin's work, can be seen as symbolizing the warmth of the cultural gatherings in the Rabins' home," she said. The light ultimately prevailed. Smoljanski, who worked on his documentary for eight years, said Rabin led by example. "He showed us all without any pathos or heroics how to stay free in a country not designed for freedom," he said on Facebook. "He never compromised with his persecutors. Never betrayed his ideals." Paradise, Calif. As relatives desperately searched shelters for missing loved ones, crews stepped up the search for bodies in the smoking ruins of Paradise on Sunday, loading the remains of at least one victim into a hearse. Wildfires continued to rage on both ends of the state. The statewide death toll stood at 31 and appeared certain to rise. More than 100 people were reported missing after the so-called Camp Fire ravaged a swath of Northern California. At least five search teams were working in Paradise a town of 27,000 that was largely incinerated on Thursday and in surrounding communities. Authorities called in a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify victims of the most destructive wildfire in California history. By early afternoon, one of the two black hearses stationed in Paradise had picked up another set of remains. People looking for friends or relatives called evacuation centers, hospitals, police and the coroner's office. Sol Bechtold drove from shelter to shelter looking for his mother, Joanne Caddy, a 75-year-old widow whose house burned down along with the rest of her neighborhood in Magalia, just north of Paradise. She lived alone and did not drive. Bechtold posted a flier on social media, pinned it to bulletin boards at shelters and showed her picture around to evacuees, asking if anyone recognized her. He ran across a few of Caddy's neighbors, but they hadn't seen her. As he drove through the smoke and haze to yet another shelter, he said, "I'm also under a dark emotional cloud. Your mother's somewhere and you don't know where she's at. You don't know if she's safe." He added: "I've got to stay positive. She's a strong, smart woman." Officials and relatives held out hope that many of those unaccounted for were safe and simply had no cellphones or other ways to contact loved ones. The sheriff's office in the stricken northern county set up a missing-persons call center to help connect people. Gov. Jerry Brown said California is requesting aid from the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has blamed "poor" forest management for the fires. Brown told a news briefing that federal and state governments must do more forest management but that it isn't the source of the problem. "Managing all the forests in everywhere we can does not stop climate change," Brown said. "And those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies that we're now witnessing, and will continue to witness in the coming years." More than 8,000 firefighters in all battled three large wildfires burning across nearly 400 square miles in Northern and Southern California, with out-of-state crews continuing to arrive and gusty blowtorch winds starting up again. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. The worst of the blazes was in Northern California, where the number of people killed in that fire alone was at least 29, matching the deadliest wildfire in state history. Two people were also found dead in a wildfire in Southern California, where flames tore through Malibu mansions and working-class Los Angeles suburbs alike. The two severely burned bodies were discovered in a driveway in celebrity-studded Malibu, where residents forced from their homes included Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian West and Martin Sheen. Actor Gerard Butler said on Instagram that his Malibu home was "half-gone," and a publicist for Camille Grammer Meyer said the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star lost her home in the seaside enclave. Flames also besieged Thousand Oaks, the Southern California city in mourning over the massacre of 12 people in a shooting rampage at a country music bar on Wednesday night. In Northern California, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the county consulted anthropologists from California State University at Chico because, in some cases, investigators have been able to recover only bones and bone fragments. The devastation was so complete in some neighborhoods that "it's very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there," Honea said. The blaze destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, nearly all of them homes. Firefighters gained modest ground overnight against the blaze, which grew slightly to 170 square miles from the day before but was 25 percent contained, up from 20 percent, according to the state fire agency, Cal Fire. About 300,000 people statewide were under evacuation orders, most of them in Southern California. Flash With world leaders gathered, church bells rang and Bach's Sarabande played, French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday held a solemn ceremony to mark the centenary of the Armistice of the First World War. Around 11 a.m. local time (1000 GMT), Macron and delegates from around 70 countries walked side by side towards the Arc de Triomphe to pay tribute to around 10 million soldiers killed during the 1914-1918 war. In a wintry and rainy day, 40-year-old Macron inspected troops. In his following speech, the president reminded the gathering that "during these four years, Europe had come close to committing suicide. 10 million dead, 6 million injured," ringing an alarm bell for the rising nationalism, which, according to him, would put on edge fragile world peace. 100 years on, the French president warned "the old demons are rising again. New ideologies manipulate religions, history threatens to resume its tragic course. "Let us build our hopes rather than playing our fears against each other," he said. "The lesson we draw of the great war cannot be rancor and resentment against other nations. And it cannot be allowing the past to be forgotten. The great war is a foundation that obliges us to think forward to the future and think of our essential values," he noted. At Sunday's commemoration, young students, born decades after the World Word II, read out in English, Chinese and French etc. testimonies written by French, German, British and American soldiers when the guns fell silent on Nov. 11, 1918. Culminating a week of World War I memorials, Macron also lighted a flame and laid a wreath to honor an unknown soldier who was killed in the war and whose remains are buried with others under the arch. After the ceremony, Macron hosted a lunch for the heads of state and government joining the ceremony. They then headed to the first Paris Peace Forum, without such leaders as U.S. President Donald Trump who attended the American commemoration ceremony at Suresnes Cemetery. In his opening remarks, Macron said whether the image of the commemoration is a symbol of durable peace between nations, or a picture of a last moment of unity before the world goes down in new disorder, "it depends only on us." He said that world's stability is threatened by nationalism, racism, antisemitism and extremism. It's also challenged by economic, environmental and migrant-related factors, he said. Following Macron's speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made references to serious conflicts worldwide, saying if "we believe that we have to draw conclusions from and learn from history, that makes us speechless." "We must not accept armed conflicts, wherever they are in the world, no matter how far away, no population, no nation, not a single person must be written off by us, " she said. Meanwhile, Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, told the forum that many elements today appear to resemble the beginning of the 20th century and the 1930s, warning against "a polarization of political life and of society itself." Guterres championed the cause of United Nations in his speech, saying today it is home to the center that harmonizes efforts towards peace and sustainable development. The forum is organized around five themes: peace and security, environment, development, inclusive economy and new technologies and will last three days. Starting from July 28, 1914, and ended on Nov. 11, 1918, the First World War is one of the bloodiest wars in history. Involving five European empires and dozens of world powers, it ended up with a Europe left in ruins and almost a generation of youth depleted. [November 12, 2018] 48,390 Homes at High or Extreme Risk from Destructive California Wildfires, CoreLogic Finds CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today released data analysis showing 48,390 homes with a total reconstruction cost value (RCV) of approximately $18 billion are at high or extreme risk of wildfire damage from the Camp and Woolsey fires in Northern and Southern California. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005758/en/ CoreLogic: California Wildfire Risk and Reconstruction Values, November 2018 The tables above break down the risk for each fire and the corresponding ZIP codes affected as well as the RCVs for properties in each area. RCVs represent the cost to completely rebuild a property in the worst-case scenario of total destruction of the structure, including labor and materials by geographic location. While other hazards may cause partial destruction but rarely eliminate an entire property, wildfire events are more likely to cause total loss to structures affected. Understanding the data: Due to the unpredictable nature of wildfires and the presently evolving disaster in California, not all homes in the ZIP codes provided are currently within the burn perimeter of these fires. It is also important to note that not all structures within a fire perimeter will suffer damage or be destroyed by the fire. To get a sense of scale of how much of each ZIP is currently affected by the fires at this point in time, contact a CoreLogic media representative at [email protected]. CoreLogic will run a post-fire analysis to provide an accurate assessment of losses and destruction. Following he containment of the wildfires, CoreLogic will assess the damage and provide a post-catastrophe loss estimate for these areas. For more information visit the CoreLogic natural hazard risk information center, Hazard HQ, at www.hazardhq.com to get access to the most up-to-date wildfire data and see reports from previous catastrophes. Methodology The CoreLogic Wildfire Risk Score is a deterministic wildfire model which is as comprehensive as it is granular. It covers 15 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. It evaluates the risk of a property to wildfire by returning an easy-to-understand, normalized 5 to 100 score, giving insight into the potential risk of a wildfire. It considers slope, aspect, vegetation/fuel, and surface composition as well as proximity to higher risk areas that could affect the property via windblown embers. These factors are all weighted differently and combine to form the score. Source (News - Alert): CoreLogic The data provided are for use only by the primary recipient or the primary recipient's publication or broadcast. This data may not be resold, republished or licensed to any other source, including publications and sources owned by the primary recipient's parent company without prior written permission from CoreLogic. Any CoreLogic data used for publication or broadcast, in whole or in part, must be sourced as coming from CoreLogic, a data and analytics company. For use with broadcast or web content, the citation must directly accompany first reference of the data. If the data is illustrated with maps, charts, graphs or other visual elements, the CoreLogic logo must be included on screen or website. For questions, analysis or interpretation of the data, contact Alyson Austin at [email protected] or Caitlin New at [email protected]. Data provided may not be modified without the prior written permission of CoreLogic. Do not use the data in any unlawful manner. This data is compiled from public records, contributory databases and proprietary analytics, and its accuracy is dependent upon these sources. About CoreLogic CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX) is a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider. The company's combined data from public, contributory and proprietary sources includes over 4.5 billion records spanning more than 50 years, providing detailed coverage of property, mortgages and other encumbrances, consumer credit, tenancy, location, hazard risk and related performance information. The markets CoreLogic serves include real estate and mortgage finance, insurance, capital markets, and the public sector. CoreLogic delivers value to clients through unique data, analytics, workflow technology, advisory and managed services. Clients rely on CoreLogic to help identify and manage growth opportunities, improve performance and mitigate risk. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., CoreLogic operates in North America, Western Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.corelogic.com. CORELOGIC, the CoreLogic logo and Hazard HQ are trademarks of CoreLogic, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005758/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Canada Promotes Indigenous Participation in Quebec's Forest Sector WASWANIPI, QC, Nov. 12, 2018 /CNW/ - Canada's forest sector continues to be an important generator of good jobs in communities across the country, including rural, remote and Indigenous communities. The Government of Canada is working with Indigenous peoples to ensure that they participate in and benefit from natural resource projects. Paul Lefebvre, Parliamentary Secretary to the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, today announced a $330,000 investment for two forestry projects in Waswanipi, Quebec, that will create jobs and boost the local economy. The first investment of $300,000 is for the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi to support business planning and equipment reconditioning for the Nabakatuk Forest Products facility. This funding will enable the reopening of the facility so that it can provide mill-finished lumber for retail markets. Support for this community-industry partnership is a promising model, which will foster stronger relationships with Indigenous peoples and competitiveness in Canada's forest economy. The second investment of $30,000 supports the acquisition and launch of Ungava Gourmande, an Indigenous-ld business focused on non-timber forest products, such as wild food jellies derived from fruits and plants. The investment will support Ungava with its business planning, provide training to workers and lay the foundation for future economic development. Both opportunities are funded by Natural Resources Canada's Indigenous Forestry Initiative (IFI), which offers opportunities to Indigenous communities that rely on forests and Canada's emerging forest bioeconomy. Quotes "This project will directly benefit the community through the creation of good jobs and is a great example of how we are working with Indigenous partners to create forest-based economic development opportunities. Our government is proud to support these business efforts, and I congratulate both partners for leading the way in forest sustainability and providing eco-friendly development solutions." Paul Lefebvre Parliamentary Secretary "Nabakatuk Forest Products is entering a new venture to finally produce a finished lumber product and become a new competitor in the regional lumber industry. The Nabakatuk facility will play a vital role in the creation of meaningful employment for the community members of the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi. This project is made possible with the contribution of the Canadian government through the department of Natural Resources, and we are truly grateful for such support." Derrick Neeposh Director General, Nabakatuk Forest Products "Ungava Gourmande values the financial contribution from Natural Resources Canada. From this contribution, Ungava Gourmande is able to produce niche food products from non-timber natural resources, providing the community an economic development opportunity that can easily coincide with the Cree cultural way of life." Irene Neeposh Owner, Ungava Gourmande Associated Links: Indigenous Forestry Initiative Simply Science Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan) SOURCE Natural Resources Canada [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Flash German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Sunday before his China tour that it is of strategic significance to maintaining strong and resilient dialogues with China. Leading a business delegation, Maas left Berlin for Beijing on his first official visit to China from Monday to Tuesday after he assumed office as foreign minister this March. The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced last Thursday that Maas' visit came after the invitation of Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The two foreign ministers will hold the fourth round of China-Germany Strategic Dialogue on Diplomatic and Security Affairs. "China is more than just our most important trading partner in Asia," said Maas, according to a statement of the German Foreign Ministry. "One thing is clear: there is no way to solve many global problems without China. Therefore, it is of strategic importance for us to have strong and resilient channels of dialogue with Beijing," Maas added. The German top diplomat noted that this is especially true with regard to the issues including Germany's role as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2019-2020, the strengthening of humanitarian aid, as well as the problems of climate change. "It is therefore good that we can continue the strategic dialogue between China and Germany in the two coming days," added Maas, who noted that the two sides will also exchange views on issues with different views. "But a strong, historically grown relationship -- such as that between Germany and China -- can endure this," said Maas. [November 12, 2018] LINE FRIENDS Unveils Collaboration with ROY WANG with the Release of 'ROY6' at its New York Times Square Store Chinese millennial idol ROY WANG makes his presence with its unique characters in the US LINE FRIENDS launches character merchandise for 'ROY6' newly created in collaboration with Chinese millennial's idol star, Roy Wang in the U.S. starting from November 17 ROY6 demonstrated the phenomenal popularity by drawing almost a thousand visitors in LINE FRIENDS store in Chongqing in China even before the store opening and T-mall where the ROY6 character merchandise premiered LINE FRIENDS will donate a portion of ROY6 sales to the 'Yuan Foundation' founded by Roy Wang and strengthen ROY6 IP business henceforward NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- LINE FRIENDS, one of the world's fastest growing global character brands, announced that it will launch the 'ROY6' products at its New York Times Square store in the U.S. starting from November 17. Prior to the official launch of the merchandise, LINE FRIENDS also unveiled a prologue clip of 'ROY6' characters through the large-scale digital signage on the store's exterior on November 10 that won the hearts of locals and tourists in Times Square. ROY6 is the second outcome of FRIENDS CREATORS project at LINE FRIENDS and a new character IP, created in collaboration with Chinese idol star, Roy Wang following 'BT21' that was created with global boyband BTS, which has drawn enthusiastic support from around the world. Roy Wang is the next-generation idol star who is adored by the millennials with the largest fan base in China of over 70 million. He was also named one of the "30 Most Influential Teens of 2017" by Time magazine for his appointment as UNICEF's Special Advocate for Education. Prior to the U.S. launch, LINE FRIENDS successfully premiered the 'ROY6' merchandises at its store in Chongqing in China and T-mall, one of the biggest online shopping malls in China on November 11. The newly launched ROY6 merchandise drew a great deal of attention among fans in China as almost a thousand visitors waited in a long line a few hours before the store opened, demonstrating phenomenal success of ROY6. Roy Wangis also the first Chinese artist to take part in FRIENDS CREATORS, which is LINE FRIENDS's long-term unique and creative strategy to create a new kind of character IP with the company's capabilities and assets in the character business, based on creativity of global artists from different fields. Throughout the creative process, Roy Wang had been actively involved throughout the entire process starting from initial sketches, storytelling, ideation for characters' personalities to naming which was incorporated with LINE FRIENDS's design acumen and expertise in merchandising and distribution. As a result, six warm-hearted and hope-filled 'ROY6' characters named 'ROYAN', 'EDDY', 'LOUDY', 'LONGLONG', 'T-2000' and 'BAOBAO TREE' were born. On July 31, LINE FRIENDS unveiled the first ROY6 teaser images and video via Weibo, gaining massive responses by recording over 66,000 likes within a day. Not only that, the official hashtag of ROY6 at Weibo reached over 400 million reach. On October 30, Roy Wang also released the ROY6 campaign song placed at No.1 for three consecutive days on the new releases chart of QQ music, China's largest music streaming platform, once again demonstrating level of affection towards Roy Wang and ROY6. "We're thrilled to showcase the new ROY6 products at the New York Times Square store to the fans and consumers all around the world. Roy Wang and LINE FRIENDS share a commonality that we aim to deliver comfort and joy to the millennials worldwide. Through ROY6 characters who convey hope, courage and fortune in daily lives with their special powers, we hope to send across the message of positive energy to the world with Roy Wang," said LINE FRIENDS. LINE FRIENDS will officially begin ROY6 business with the merchandise launch and will expand the merchandise offerings and IP business as well as extending reach through stores in the rest of China. The company also announced that it will donate a portion of ROY6 sales to the 'Yuan Foundation' founded by Roy Wang, joining his will for continuous charity activities. About LINE FRIENDS LINE FRIENDS is a global character brand featuring 11 characters which were originally created for use as stickers for leading mobile messenger application LINE and its 200 million active worldwide users. The company has emerged as a global creator by introducing new Intellectual Property (IP) like BT21, characters created together with global boy band BTS, in addition to Animation Running Man and Usamaru. LINE FRIENDS also has collaborated with a number of renowned brands including LAMY, Beats by Dr.Dre and Brompton, all aligned with the company's philosophy and values to showcase premium character products. More recently, LINE FRIENDS has operated 117 stores globally in a total of 11 markets worldwide, in trend-leading cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, New York, and Shanghai, and became an independent company in January 2015. For more information please visit www.LINEFRIENDS.com. About ROY6 ROY6 is a character brand created by Chinese Millennial's idol Roy Wang, in collaboration with global character brand, LINE FRIENDS. China's first FRIENDS CREATORS project, Roy Wang participated in every step, starting from initial sketches and storytelling to product planning. For more information, please visit www.linefriends.com/roy6?lang=en. ROY6 Characters ROYAN Distinguished courage ROYAN, a lion-looking sun descended upon earth from the sky, gives splendid sunlight to people with his unmistakable mane. #SUN #SHYNYMANE #COURAGE EDDY Warm encouragement EDDY simply loves to be next to those who need solace and gives them a surprise hug. #SAMOYED #HUG #CHEERUP LONGLONG Unpredictable Luck A young and small dragon with an iridescent fin, LONG LONG brings luck to people and summons meteor showers with his magic wand. #LITTLEDRAGON #LUCK #METEORSHOWER LOUDY Better be Together LOUDY, a chatty cloud, admires the earth more than the sky. #CLOUD #REPLICATION #FRIENDSHIP T-2000 Hope-filled future A clumsy but adorable robot, T2000 shows people want to see on the screen. #ROBOT #TV #FUTURE BAOBAO TREE Peaceful rest A mysterious wish-bearing tree, provides a comfortable place to rest for everyone. #MYSTERIOUSTREE #REST #FRUITS View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/line-friends-unveils-collaboration-with-roy-wang-with-the-release-of-roy6-at-its-new-york-times-square-store-300748138.html SOURCE LINE FRIENDS [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 11, 2018] Wells Fargo Donates $250,000 to Support Communities Impacted by California Wildfires Wells Fargo (News - Alert) & Company (NYSE: WFC) announced today that it is donating $250,000 to fund wildfire relief efforts in California. The funds will help support disaster relief operations for people impacted by the Camp Fire in Northern California, and the Woolsey and Hill Fires in Southern California. The American Red Cross will receive $125,000 to support those across the state that have been affected by wildfires. Additionally, $50,000 is allocated to the United Way of Northern California, $50,000 is being granted to the Ventura County Community Foundation and $25,000 is being donated to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation. Wells Fargo encourages customers experiencing hardship due to the wildfires to contact Wells Fargo Customer Support at the number on their credit card, debit card or statement to discuss their options. Affected customers can also contact their banker by visiting their nearest Wells Fargo branch. California Wells Fargo customers who wish to support American Red Cross wildfire relief efforts may also donate through Wells Fargo ATMs from today through Nov. 26 or by redeeming any amount of available Go Far Rewards for donation from Nov. 14 through Nov. 28. Customers can go to any Wells Fargo ATM in California and select the option to donate. There is no fee and 100 percent of contributions will be sent to the American Red Cross. Go Far Rewards customers can access heir rewards account at GoFarRewards.wf.com or by calling the service center at 877-517-1358. "These devastating fires are impacting our customers, neighbors and our own team members," said Central Coast Region Bank President Ernie Pineda. "Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected, and we want to do our part to support the organizations who are helping victims of these fires. With the fires still burning and potentially more devastation, we will continue to work with nonprofits and those focused on recovery efforts, as we determine any additional assistance and support Wells Fargo may be able to provide in the coming weeks." About Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo's vision is to satisfy our customers' financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 7,950 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 37 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 262,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 26 on Fortune's 2018 rankings of America's largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181111005055/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 11, 2018] Jollychic Announces the Launch of 2018 "Black Friday" with Global Suppliers DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Jollychic, the top-ranked mobile E-commerce platform in the Middle East, is gearing up its biggest ever "Black Friday" shopping season with its global suppliers. In its 2018 Black Friday Supplier Collaboration Conference which was held recently, more than 600 suppliers from East Asian countries participated to get detailed information and offer better support. "Black Friday is the largest shopping season every year. We usually start preparations two to three months in advance to ensure the fulfillment of customer orders even at the busiest time," said Hakam Baker, Logistic Business Development Manager of Jollychic. As a multi-category online shopping destination, Jollychic works to be the client's first choice for a convenient one-stop shopping solution. In the past five years, the sales volume has maintained an annual growth rate of over 300%. According to a report by BMI Rsearch, The Middle East e-commerce market will grow by 16.4% over the next three and a half years, with a projected value of $48.6 billion in 2022. The Middle East has become the fastest growing area in global e-commerce business based on the high penetration rate of internet and smartphones. This momentum encourages business to invest more, said Hakam. Jollychic is cooperating with hundreds of global suppliers including famous brands, such as Apple, Huawei, Adidas, Pampers, Coty Group, etc., to bring a first-class shopping festival. Additionally, Jollychic launched a series of solutions for user experience. A new intelligent warehouse was built especially for Black Friday, working together with other five warehouses worldwide. "We have cooperated with several airlines and distribution centers and increased manpower in logistic and call centers to guarantee commodity transportation," said Hakam. Benefiting from technical advantages, Jollychic also works to stock appropriately to ensure that customers get their orders quickly. Aaron Li, Jollychic founder, said, "Jollychic is not just selling goods, but bringing quality products and service to customers. Black Friday is not just a promotion day, but also a big shopping holiday for everyone. You can enjoy as you wish and if there is any dissatisfaction, you can return to us with our favorable policy. This is a commitment of Jollychic and all suppliers." About Jollychic Jollychic is an online shopping platform in Middle East providing multi-category products. Click www.jollychic.com or download "Jollychic" in App store to enjoy more deals! SOURCE Jollychic [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] UOB and Grab announce strategic regional alliance to accelerate the use of digital services among ASEAN's consumers Alliance will fuel Grab's ambition to build ASEAN's first everyday "super app" and complement UOB's efforts to scale up its regional customer franchise SINGAPORE, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB) and Grab today announced they have entered into a strategic alliance to accelerate the use of digital services among ASEAN's growing base of digital consumers. The alliance will enable UOB to deliver financial services to Grab's ASEAN-wide user base and to accelerate the Bank's efforts to meet the needs of the region's fast-growing 'mobile-first' and 'mobile-only' consumers. It will also pave the way for Grab to offer directly from its app a number of payment solutions from the Bank's holistic suite. Under the alliance, UOB will become Grab's preferred banking partner in Singapore. UOB will also be a strategic credit card partner for Grab in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Consumers will enjoy special privileges when paying for Grab services with their UOB cards[1] . Both companies will also explore launching co-branded credit cards in ASEAN. Grab will also tap the Bank's cash management services to provide consumers the convenience of topping up their GrabPay wallet directly from their bank account. The new top-up method will increase the number of ways that consumers can add money to their GrabPay wallet, which include topping up through credit and debit card or Grab's network of drivers, agents and merchants. The Bank is also working with Grab to embed features of its upcoming Digital Bank within Grab's mobile app, enabling users to access banking services quickly and conveniently. Through these initiatives, consumers will be able to enjoy a fully digital and seamless banking and payments experience, from the moment they apply to open an account through to managing their everyday lifestyle needs when using the app. Mr Wee Ee Cheong, Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, UOB, said, "Innovation created by enterprising minds has helped transform the lives of consumers, opened up opportunities for sustainable business and connected communities in ways not seen before. Our alliance with Grab represents two like-minded companies harnessing our respective strengths to create value for consumers and to drive greater access to financial services in the region. The alliance will also complement our efforts to scale up our customer franchise across ASEAN." Mr Anthony Tan, Co-founder and CEO, Grab, said, "We are thrilled to welcome UOB as our strategic partner in Singapore and across the region. To have one of the largest banking groups in Southeast Asia join hands with us underlines the potential of Grab's user base and platform to drive business success for our partners. By combining our strengths, we will offer consumers more convenient payments services regionally and help more people move from cash to cashless." As part of the alliance, UOB will also explore support for Grab in a number of other areas, from fleet financing, regional and centralised treasury management solutions, to workplace banking services. About United Overseas Bank United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB) is a leading bank in Asia with a global network of more than 500 offices in 19 countries and territories in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. Since its incorporation in 1935, UOB has grown organically and through a series of strategic acquisitions. UOB is rated among the world's top banks: Aa1 by Moody's and AA- by Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings respectively. In Asia, UOB operates through its head office in Singapore and banking subsidiaries in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as branches and representative offices across the region. Over more than eight decades, generations of UOB employees have carried through the entrepreneurial spirit, the focus on long-term value creation and an unwavering commitment to do what is right for our customers and our colleagues. We believe in being a responsible financial services provider and we are committed to making a difference in the lives of our stakeholders and in the communities in which we operate. Just as we are dedicated to helping our customers manage their finances wisely and to grow their businesses, UOB is steadfast in our support of social development, particularly in the areas of art, children and education. About Grab Grab is one of the most frequently used O2O mobile platforms in Southeast Asia, providing the everyday services that matter most to consumers. Commute, eat, deliver shopping -- and pay with one e-wallet. Grab believes that every Southeast Asian should benefit from the digital economy, and the company provides access to safe and affordable transport, food and package delivery, mobile payments and financial services. Grab currently offers services in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia. For more information, please visit www.grab.com. [1] Customers of the UOB ONE Credit card and the UOB Visa Direct Debit card will be the first to benefit from the strategic alliance. Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20181018/2271919-1LOGO Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20181112/2296590-1LOGO SOURCE United Overseas Bank [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Takeda Announces Publication of Circular and Notice of Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders in Relation to the Proposed Acquisition of Shire Further to the announcement on May 8, 2018, by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited ("Takeda" or the "Company") regarding the proposed acquisition (the "Acquisition") of Shire plc ("Shire"), Takeda announces the publication of a circular (the "Circular") containing a notice of its decision to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders (the "EGM") to vote on the necessary matters relating to the Acquisition. The EGM is to be convened at 10:00 a.m. on December 5, 2018 at INTEX Osaka, Hall 6B Zone. The procedures and timings for shareholders to vote on the resolutions are set out in the notice of the EGM in the Circular. The Circular will shortly be available to view on the Company's website at www.takeda.com/investors/offer-for-shire. "The acquisition of Shire will accelerate our strategic transformation to create a stronger, more global and more competitive company with the financial strength to continue investing in delivering highly innovative medicines and transformative care to patients around the world," said Christophe Weber, President and Chief Executive Officer of Takeda. "With the date of our Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders now set, we are looking forward to continuing our dialogue with shareholders regarding the compelling strategic and financial benefits of this transaction." Further to the announcement on October 26, 2018, Takeda and Shire have held discussions with the European Commission ("EC") in relation to the future potential overlap in the area of inflammatory bowel disease between Takeda's marketed product Entyvio (vedolizumab) and Shire's pipeline compound SHP647, which is currently in Phase III clinical trials. As a result of those discussions, Takeda has offered commitments to divest SHP647 and certain associated rights, with a view to the EC granting a Phase I conditional clearance for the Acquisition and not initiating proceedings under Article 6(1)(c) of Council Regulation (EC) 139/2004. The EC will issue its decision in relation to the Acquisition on or before November 20, 2018 and an announcement containing the substance of that decision will be made in due course. Subject to receiving the necessary regulatory and shareholder approvals, Takeda intends that completion of the Acquisition will take place on January 8, 2019 or as soon as practicable thereafter following approval from the EC to proceed to completion. Further announcements will be made as appropriate. Compelling Strategic and Financial Rationale for the Acquisition Takeda also reaffirms the compelling strategic and financial rationale for the Acquisition: The Acquisition will create a global, values-based, R&D-driven biopharmaceutical company incorporated and headquartered in Japan, with an attractive geographic footprint and leading positions in Japan and the United States, respectively the third and first largest pharmaceutical markets globally. The Acquisition will strengthen Takeda's presence across two of its three core therapeutic areas - gastroenterology (GI) and neuroscience - and provide leading positions in rare diseases and plasma-derived therapies. Following completion of the Acquisition, Takeda will continue to focus on the acceleration of its oncology business, following its recent acquisition of ARIAD Pharmaceuticals. In addition, Takeda's vaccine business will continue to address the world's most pressing public health needs. The Acquisition will also create a highly complementary, modality-diverse pipeline and a strengthened R&D engine focused on breakthrough innovation. As a result of greater scale and efficiencies in commercial activities, the Acquisition will enable the combined group to further fuel its R&D investment, better positioning Takeda to deliver highly-innovative medicines and transformative care to patients around the world. In addition to the significant strategic benefits of the transaction, the Acquisition will also deliver compelling financial benefits for the combined group. The Acquisition is expected to deliver substantial pre-tax cost synergies of at least $1.4 billion each year by the end of the third fiscal year following completion 1 , with the potential for additional revenue synergies from the complementary geographic and therapeutic focus. , with the potential for additional revenue synergies from the complementary geographic and therapeutic focus. The Acquisition is expected to be significantly accretive to underlying earnings per Takeda share from the first full fiscal year following completion and to produce strong combined cashflows. The Acquisition is also expected to be earnings accretive per Takeda share on a reported basis within three years post completion. The Acquisition is expected to result in attractive returns for Takeda shareholders, with the return on invested capital (ROIC) expected to exceed Takeda's cost of capital within the first full fiscal year following completion. 1 This statement includes a quantified financial benefits statement which has been reported on under Rule 28.1 of the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers in the UK. Related reports can be found in the Rule 2.7 Announcement made by Takeda on May 8, 2018, as well as information regarding the method of calculation of the synergies and the costs to achieve such synergies. The substantial cash flow generation expected to result from the Acquisition will enable the combined group to de-lever quickly following completion. Takeda intends to maintain its investment grade credit rating with a target net debt to Adjusted EBITDA ratio of 2.0x or less within three to five years following completion of the Acquisition, without the need to issue new shares. To help accelerate the de-leveraging process and ensure an optimal business mix, Takeda will consider selected disposals of non-core assets. An enlarged and well-positioned combined portfolio will strengthen the combined group's ability to invest in the business and deliver returns to Takeda shareholders. Takeda's dividend policy has remained consistent over the past 9 years, with an annual dividend of JPY 180 per share having been paid to Takeda shareholders. Takeda has remained disciplined with respect to the terms of the Acquisiton and intends to maintain its well-established dividend policy of JPY 180 per share. The Acquisition is expected to result in Takeda being the only pharmaceutical company listed on both the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan, where it will continue to have its primary listing, and the New York Stock Exchange in the U.S., enabling it to access two of the world's largest capital markets. Shire Scheme Document and Shareholder Meetings Takeda also notes that Shire has today published its scheme document (the "Scheme Document") in relation to the Acquisition and plans to hold its shareholder meetings in connection with the Acquisition on December 5, 2018, following Takeda's EGM. The Scheme Document and certain other documents relating to the Acquisition will shortly be available to view on the Company's website at www.takeda.com/investors/offer-for-shire. ### About Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (TSE: 4502) is a global, research and development-driven pharmaceutical company committed to bringing better health and a brighter future to patients by translating science into life-changing medicines. Takeda focuses its R&D efforts on oncology, gastroenterology and neuroscience therapeutic areas plus vaccines. Takeda conducts R&D both internally and with partners to stay at the leading edge of innovation. Innovative products, especially in oncology and gastroenterology, as well as Takeda's presence in emerging markets, are currently fueling the growth of Takeda. Approximately 30,000 Takeda employees are committed to improving quality of life for patients, working with Takeda's partners in health care in more than 70 countries. For more information, visit https://www.takeda.com/newsroom/. Additional Information This Announcement is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to and does not constitute, or form part of, an offer, invitation or the solicitation of an offer to purchase, otherwise acquire, subscribe for, exchange, sell or otherwise dispose of any securities, or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction, pursuant to the Acquisition or otherwise nor will there be any sale, issuance, exchange or transfer of securities of Shire or Takeda pursuant to the Acquisition or otherwise in any jurisdiction in contravention of applicable law. Forward Looking Statements This Announcement contains certain statements about Takeda and Shire that are or may be forward looking statements, including with respect to a possible combination involving Takeda and Shire. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this Announcement may be forward looking statements. Without limitation, forward looking statements often include words such as "targets", "plans", "believes", "hopes", "continues", "expects", "aims", "intends", "will", "may", "should", "would", "could", "anticipates", "estimates", "projects" or words or terms of similar substance or the negative thereof. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty, because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future and the factors described in the context of such forward-looking statements in this Announcement could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the possibility that a possible combination will not be pursued or consummated, failure to obtain necessary regulatory approvals or to satisfy any of the other conditions to the possible combination if it is pursued, adverse effects on the market price of Takeda's ordinary shares and on Takeda's or Shire's operating results because of a failure to complete the possible combination, failure to realise the expected benefits of the possible combination, negative effects relating to the announcement of the possible combination or any further announcements relating to the possible combination or the consummation of the possible combination on the market price of Takeda's or Shire's ordinary shares, significant transaction costs and/or unknown liabilities, general economic and business conditions that affect the combined companies following the consummation of the possible combination, changes in global, political, economic, business, competitive, market and regulatory forces, future exchange and interest rates, changes in tax laws, regulations, rates and policies, future business combinations or disposals and competitive developments. Although it is believed that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, no assurance can be given that such expectations will prove to have been correct and you are therefore cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which speak only as at the date of this Announcement. Additional risk factors that may affect future results are contained in Shire's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and in Shire's subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, in each case including those risks outlined in 'ITEM1A: Risk Factors', and in Shire's subsequent reports on Form 8-K and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings (available at www.Shire.com and www.sec.gov), the contents of which are not incorporated by reference into, nor do they form part of, this Announcement. These risk factors expressly qualify all forward-looking statements contained in this Announcement and should also be considered by the reader. All forward-looking statements attributable to Takeda or Shire or any person acting on either company's behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements that speak only as of the date hereof. Except to the extent otherwise required by applicable law, neither Takeda nor Shire undertake any obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. No profit forecasts or estimates Unless expressly stated otherwise, nothing in this Announcement (including any statement of estimated synergies) is intended as a profit forecast or estimate for any period and no statement in this Announcement should be interpreted to mean that earnings or earnings per share or dividend per share for Takeda or Shire, as appropriate, for the current or future financial years would necessarily match or exceed the historical published earnings or earnings per share or dividend per share for Takeda or Shire, as appropriate. Medical information This Announcement contains information about products that may not be available and in all countries, or may be available under different trademarks, for different indications, in different dosages, or in different strengths. Nothing contained herein should be considered a solicitation, promotion or advertisement for any prescription drugs, including the ones under development. Publication on Website In accordance with Rule 26.1 of the Code, a copy of this Announcement will be made available (subject to certain restrictions relating to persons resident in restricted jurisdictions) on Takeda's website at www.takeda.com/investors/offer-for-shire by no later than 12 noon (London time) on November 13, 2018. The content of the website referred to in this Announcement is not incorporated into and does not form part of this Announcement. Disclosure requirements of the Code Under Rule 8.3(a) of the Code, any person who is interested in 1% or more of any class of relevant securities of an offeree company or of any securities exchange offeror (being any offeror other than an offeror in respect of which it has been announced that its offer is, or is likely to be, solely in cash) must make an Opening Position Disclosure following the commencement of the offer period and, if later, following the announcement in which any securities exchange offeror is first identified. An Opening Position Disclosure must contain details of the person's interests and short positions in, and rights to subscribe for, any relevant securities of each of (i) the offeree company and (ii) any securities exchange offeror(s). An Opening Position Disclosure by a person to whom Rule 8.3(a) applies must be made by no later than 3.30 pm (London time) on the 10th business day following the commencement of the offer period and, if appropriate, by no later than 3.30 pm (London time) on the 10th business day following the announcement in which any securities exchange offeror is first identified. Relevant persons who deal in the relevant securities of the offeree company or of a securities exchange offeror prior to the deadline for making an Opening Position Disclosure must instead make a Dealing Disclosure. Under Rule 8.3(b) of the Code, any person who is, or becomes, interested in 1% or more of any class of relevant securities of the offeree company or of any securities exchange offeror must make a Dealing Disclosure if the person deals in any relevant securities of the offeree company or of any securities exchange offeror. A Dealing Disclosure must contain details of the dealing concerned and of the person's interests and short positions in, and rights to subscribe for, any relevant securities of each of (i) the offeree company and (ii) any securities exchange offeror(s), save to the extent that these details have previously been disclosed under Rule 8. A Dealing Disclosure by a person to whom Rule 8.3(b) applies must be made by no later than 3.30 pm (London time) on the business day following the date of the relevant dealing. If two or more persons act together pursuant to an agreement or understanding, whether formal or informal, to acquire or control an interest in relevant securities of an offeree company or a securities exchange offeror, they will be deemed to be a single person for the purpose of Rule 8.3. Opening Position Disclosures must also be made by the offeree company and by any offeror and Dealing Disclosures must also be made by the offeree company, by any offeror and by any persons acting in concert with any of them (see Rules 8.1, 8.2 and 8.4). Details of the offeree and offeror companies in respect of whose relevant securities Opening Position Disclosures and Dealing Disclosures must be made can be found in the Disclosure Table on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk, including details of the number of relevant securities in issue, when the offer period commenced and when any offeror was first identified. You should contact the Panel's Market Surveillance Unit on +44 (0)20 7638 0129 if you are in any doubt as to whether you are required to make an Opening Position Disclosure or a Dealing Disclosure. # # # View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181111005092/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] OpenGate Capital Completes Acquisition of AICO S.p.A. OpenGate Capital, a global private equity firm, announced today that it has completed the acquisition of AICO S.p.A. ("AICO"), an Italian manufacturer of residential stoves, fireplaces, boilers and cookers from Ambienta SGR, a European private equity group. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. OpenGate Capital Founder and CEO, Andrew Nikou stated, "An integral part of our full potential operational strategy is to drive value into the businesses we acquire through add-on acquisitions that have the potential of offering new products or can provide access to new markets. AICO represents these elements and we are excited with the opportunity to expand on Jtul's rising growth with this add-on." AICO offers a wide range of premium home heating products that are energy efficient and utilize pellets, a renewable energy source. The business features two well-established brands, Ravelli and Elledi, and they are exported to more tan 40 countries. Headquartered in Palazzolo sull'Oglio, Italy, AICO's 150 employees oversee the design, manufacturing and in-house testing to ensure all products comply with European quality, safety, and environmental compliance standards. About OpenGate Capital OpenGate Capital is a global private equity firm specializing in the acquisition and operation of businesses to create new value through operational improvements, innovation and growth. Established in 2005, OpenGate Capital is headquartered in Los Angeles, California with a European office in Paris, France. OpenGate's professionals possess the critical skills needed to acquire, transition, operate, build and scale successful businesses. To date, OpenGate Capital, through its legacy and fund investments, has executed more than 30 acquisitions including corporate carve-outs, management buy-outs, special situations and transactions with private sellers across North America and Europe. To learn more about OpenGate, please visit www.opengatecapital.com. About Jtul Jtul is one of the world's oldest producers of stoves, inserts and fireplaces. Building on a proud Norwegian heritage, Jtul combines fine craftsmanship with the art of coping with the cold for 160 years. Jtul is headquartered in Fredrikstad, Norway and features four prominent brands Jtul, Scan, Ild and Atra and proudly sells to 45 countries around the world. To learn more about Jtul, please visit: www.jotul.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005226/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] GSMA Elects New Board Members and Announces Orange Chairman and CEO Stephane Richard as Chair The GSMA today announced that it has elected new members of the GSMA Board for the two-year period from January 2019 through December 2020. The GSMA Board has also elected Stephane Richard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Orange Group as Chair, and Chua Sock Koong, Group Chief Executive Officer of Singtel Group as Deputy Chair. As GSMA Chair, Richard will oversee the strategic direction of the organisation, which represents more than 750 of the world's mobile operators, as well as over 350 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem. "I am honoured to be elected to serve as Chair of the GSMA and look forward to working closely with the rest of the Board, the GSMA leadership team and our entire membership to address the critical issues facing our industry and our customers," said Stephane Richard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Orange. "Mobile operators and our wider industry have a key role to play in promoting a safer and more inclusive digital world, while building the infrastructure and services that will carry us forward as we enter this new era of intelligent connectivity." GSMA Board Members for the 2019-2020 Term The GSMA Board has 26 members, including 25 operator representatives from the world's largest operator groups as well as smaller, independent operators with global representation. The GSMA's Director General Mats Granryd also serves on the GSMA Board. The GSMA Board for the 2019-2020 term comprises: Juan Carlos Archila, Executive Vice President of International Relationships, America Movil Susan Johnson, Executive Vice President, Global Connections and Supply Chain, AT&T Jamaludin bin Ibrahim, Managing Director/President and Group Chief Executive Officer, Axiata Group Berhad Gopal Vittal, Chief Executive Officer, Bharti Airtel Dr. Li Zhengmao, Executive Vice Presiden, China Mobile Liu Guiqing, Executive Vice President, China Telecom Dr. Shao Guanglu, Executive Vice President, China Unicom Srini Gopalan, Member of the Board of Management, Deutsche Telekom (News - Alert) Hatem Dowidar, Chief Executive Officer, International, Etisalat Group Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA Christian Salbaing, Deputy Chairman, Europe, Hutchison Rob Shuter, Group President and Chief Executive Officer, MTN Group Alexey Kornya, President and Chief Executive Officer, MTS (News - Alert) Kazuhiro Yoshizawa, President and Chief Executive Officer, NTT DOCOMO Stephane Richard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Orange Group Mathew Oommen, President and Member of the Board of Directors, Reliance Jio Chua Sock Koong, Group Chief Executive Officer, Singtel Group Jung Ho Park, President and Chief Executive Officer, SK Telecom (News - Alert) Marcelo Claure, Chief Operating Officer, SoftBank Group Eng. Nasser S Al Nasser, Chief Executive Officer, STC Group Julio Linares Lopez, Member of the Board of Telefonica Companies, Telefonica Sigve Brekke, President and Chief Executive Officer, Telenor (News - Alert) Group Andrew Penn, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra Kaan Terzioglu, Chief Executive Officer, Turkcell Rima Qureshi, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Verizon (News - Alert) Vivek Badrinath, Chief Executive for the Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific Region, Vodafone Group "The mobile world has changed tremendously since I first served on the GSMA Board, but the industry remains as dynamic and exciting as ever," commented Mittal. "While our industry continues to achieve new milestones, there is still much to be done to connect the unconnected and foster the digital economy. Under Stephane's leadership, I am confident that the GSMA will continue to strongly advocate for its members, drive the adoption of new technologies and deliver initiatives to protect our planet and its citizens." -ENDS- About the GSMA The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting more than 750 operators with over 350 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and device makers, software companies, equipment providers and internet companies, as well as organisations in adjacent industry sectors. The GSMA also produces the industry-leading MWC events held annually in Barcelona, Los Angeles and Shanghai, as well as the Mobile 360 Series of regional conferences. For more information, please visit the GSMA corporate website at www.gsma.com. Follow the GSMA on Twitter: @GSMA. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005239/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] VIB Accelerates Therapeutic Biologics Discovery with Geneious Biologics Geneious Biologics, an enterprise software solution for companies engaged in screening of antibodies and antibody-like molecules, has been chosen by the VIB (a Life Sciences Research Institute in Belgium) to support therapeutic biologics discovery at its Discovery Sciences group. Bruno Dombrecht, Expert Scientist at VIB Discovery Sciences: "Geneious Biologics will help us scale-up our screening efforts. We are incorporating more high-throughput sequencing into our core business, and are screening increasingly large quantities of unique and complex VHH-based multi-specific biologics. We sought a bioinformatics platform that provides powerful, fast and deep sequence analysis and, importantly, allows us to consolidate and manage our sequence data in a secure environment that can be shared with our partners." VHHs are an extremely versatile class of molecules for research, diagnostics and therapeutics in human and animal health. This powerful technology was discovered at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and continues to be the subject of intensive research at VIB and at VIB Discovery Sciences, also available to academic and commercial partners through VIB's Core Facilities. Geneious Biologics, is Biomatters' cloud-based enterprise software solution for analysis of antibodies and related constructs using DNA sequence data. The software applies intuitive visualization tools and advanced analytics to help specialist biologic drug development companies accelerate dentification of therapeutic candidates. "We are proud to be working with VIB Discovery Sciences to support their mission critical workflows around therapeutic biologics screening, analysis and discovery. This is an exciting therapeutic area with much potential to solve unmet medical needs," said Jannick Bendtsen, Vice President of Technology Services, Geneious Biologics. "It is exciting to partner with institutes like VIB to help drive their biologic research and development goals. In leveraging the full power of the Geneious Biologics platform customers will make better, data driven discoveries, and bring successful biologics to market faster." About Biomatters Biomatters empowers its customers with software that transforms biological data into knowledge and actionable insights. The company's Geneious software suite is used by over 3,000 companies, universities, and institutes in more than 100 countries. Geneious Biologics integrates with Biomatters' existing Geneious DNA analysis tools and leverages the company's deep expertise in delivering solutions that meet customers' real-life needs. www.biomatters.com About VIB VIB is a strategic research center in life sciences and biotech. The results of VIB's top research are actively translated into added value for society. VIB unites the expertise of 75 research groups thematically organized into 8 research centers. VIB's technology transfer team proactively translates new biological findings into new economic activities, such as starting up new companies and partnerships with the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. Since its foundation in 1996, VIB has created 20 start-up companies. VIB also engages actively in the public debate on biotechnology by developing and disseminating a wide range of science-based information about all aspects of biotechnology. VIB has a close partnership with five Flemish universities - Ghent University, KU Leuven, University of Antwerp, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Hasselt University. More information: www.vib.be. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005007/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Motive Partners Announces Acquisition of LPA NEW YORK, LONDON and FRANKFURT, Germany, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Lucht Probst Associates GmbH ("LPA") is a leading provider of innovative software and advisory services focused on financial services distribution and regulatory compliance solutions Motive Partners, a global private equity firm focused on growth investing, today announced that it has acquired a controlling interest in LPA. Motive Partners will support LPA and its founders in accelerating the company's growth, including product development, international expansion and strategic hiring. Headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and founded in 1999, LPA is a financial technology solutions provider with a focus on capital markets and wealth management participants. LPA offers a broad suite of software to optimize processes and enable regulatory compliance, as well as providing strategic advice and implementation services. The announced transaction follows strong financial results at LPA, with the company having experienced significant revenue and profitability growth in recent years. LPA's core products are a suite of technology solutions enabling automated advice (LPA Digital Client Interaction), distribution (LPA Captano) and documentation (LPA Doc) for financial instruments, particularly structured products and OTC derivatives. LPA offers a market leading solution that allows banks to efficiently comply with regulation under MiFID II, PRIIPs and FIDLEG requirements relating to the Key Investor Information Document (KIID) which is a document that contains the essential information relating to a financial product, including financial terms, risks and past performance data for retail investors. LPA has grown in recent years to nearly 200 specialists in 4 cities, with significant further talent expansion planned as LPA and Motive Partners capitalize on the international opportunity. Initial geographies targeted for expansion include Asia-PacificUnited Kingdom and the United States, where Motive Partners' deep network and experience can catalyze growth. Other significant opportunities for value creation include product and service expansion into adjacent sub-sectors of the financial services industry. Motive Labs, the operational and technology value creation team of Motive Partners, will work in conjunction with LPA and its executives to help strengthen its operations, to implement and to execute its value creation plan. Rob Heyvaert, Managing Partner of Motive Partners, commented: Our team at Motive Partners has deep expertise in regulatory technology. Given our thesis on the regulatory technology space, we have spent significant time searching for an investment opportunity that combines talent and technology capability with significant growth prospects. LPA squarely matches our objectives and we look forward to leveraging our capabilities to continue growing the firm with Stefan, Roland and the senior management team. LPA's founders, Stefan Lucht and Roland Probst, and the management team will continue with the company to achieve its shared goals and to ensure high service quality to all existing clients. The founders will remain shareholders and Managing Directors of LPA. Peter Schurau, an Industry Partner at Motive Partners, will join LPA's management team to assist with the growth initiatives. Peter Schurau, former Chief Executive Officer of Capco Europe and current Industry Partner at Motive Partners and former Chief Executive Officer of Capco Europe, commented: "The Motive team and I are very enthusiastic about the unique potential this partnership representsit is not every day that you find such a well-matched culture and complimentary capabilities between an existing and highly talented management team and the investment firm. The opportunity to develop and deepen the software-focused value proposition for existing clients and to extend our reach into adjacent sectors is extremely exciting. It is our collective objective to build and evolve LPA in to a company of global scale that is recognized as a leading RegTech brand. I look forward to working very closely with Roland and Stefan to make it a reality." Ernst & Young LLP, Proskauer Rose LLP and Skye Partners served as Motive Partners' advisors in connection with the transaction. Ludwig & Co and Watson Farley & Williams served as LPA's legal advisor in connection with the transaction. About Lucht Probst Associates Lucht Probst Associates (LPA) is a financial services provider with a focus on capital market activities, offering strategic advice, management and implementation services as well as a broad suite of software to optimize processes and regulatory compliance. Since 1999 LPA have focused on the global financial services industry and the firm's 180 employees combine high value consulting, professional services, produce and implement bespoke and standard software applications. With office locations in Frankfurt, Leipzig, Madrid, Barcelona and Singapore LPA are capable to meet clients' requirements internationally. About Motive Partners Motive Partners is a sector specialist investment firm that is focused on technology enabled companies that power the financial services industry. Based in New York and London and comprised of investors, operators and innovators, Motive Partners brings differentiated expertise, connectivity and capabilities to create long-term value in financial technology companies. More information on Motive Partners can be found at http://www.motivepartners.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Himalaya Unveils its First-ever Brand Campaign - 'Khush Raho, Khushaal Raho' BANGALORE, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Watch the equity film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Kj13FDptI The Himalaya Drug Company, India's leading Wellness company, today launched its first Brand campaign, - 'Khush Raho, Khushaal Raho' bringing to life its vision of 'Wellness in Every Home, Happiness in Every Heart'. Having earned the equity and trust of millions of consumers for the last eight decades, Himalaya remains committed to solving consumer problems through its herbal products backed by science and research. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/782936/Himalaya_Brand_Campaign.jpg ) Mr. Philipe Haydon, CEO, The Himalaya Drug Company, said, "Herbal brands today are gaining preference, and consumers are increasingly considering herbal solutions as their first choice. With our range of over 500 herbal products, Himalaya continues to win hearts and offer well-being to consumers across all walks of life. We're extremely proud to unveil te first-ever brand film bringing to life the Vision of Brand Himalaya." Speaking about the campaign, Mr. Rajesh Krishnamurthy, Business Director - Consumer Products Division, The Himalaya Drug Company, said, "The genesis of the brand film is based on the key consumer insight that small problems seem big when we don't know how to solve them. The philosophy of our brand is to solve consumer problems through our wide range of herbal products and the campaign beautifully captures this. It's a moment of great pride for all of us as we seek to be an integral part of consumers' journey of Wellness and Happiness." The campaign has been conceptualized and executed by ad agency - Chapter Five. Mr. Prateek Srivastava, Founder, Chapter Five, said, "As a team, we are extremely excited about this campaign that essentially establishes the problem-solution equity of Himalaya. The different incidences captured in the brand film communicate the message of happiness and showcase how different products bring joy to people's lives and hearts. The film celebrates happiness through a happy song, happy situations, happy people, and a happy message." Campaign details: Title: Khush Raho , Khushaal Raho , Khushaal Raho Creative Agency: Chapter Five, Bangalore Production: Apostrophe Films Music Director: Gulraj Singh Director: Koushik Sarkar About The Himalaya Drug Company: In 1930, a young visionary by the name of Mr. M. Manal foresaw the benefits of herbal remedies while riding through the forests of Burma. After diligently researching the science of the traditional field of Ayurveda, he decided to dedicate his life creating products that would improve millions of lives across the world. Today, with a history spanning more than eight decades in herbal research, Himalaya has positioned itself as a brand that cares about not only enriching people's lives but also the environment. With their 'head-to-heel' range of products, Himalaya aims to provide a holistic solution to everyday ailments that affect our bodies. Seeped in a legacy of researching nature, Himalaya has successfully been able to harness the science of Ayurveda through cutting-edge research to become a brand that is safe, gentle and trustworthy. Visit: www.himalayawellness.com Media Contact: Rukhsana Hussain [email protected] +91-78996-04505 Senior Associate Genesis Burson-Marsteller [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Flash Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Monday urged members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to "work resolutely" toward the goal of economic integration in a world "where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures." The prime minister made the call in his speech at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit, held in the country during the 33rd ASEAN summit and related meetings. "ASEAN has great potential, but fully realising it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures," Lee said. ASEAN member states have grown and prospered because their governments have pursued economic cooperation, he said, adding the ASEAN Economic Community has become the sixth largest economy in the world, and is projected to become the fourth largest by 2030. Last year, ASEAN attracted almost 140 billion U.S. dollars of foreign direct investments, he said. Technological change is also creating new business opportunities, and the ASEAN digital economy is projected to grow to 200 billion U.S. dollars by 2025, the prime minister noted. "We took progressive steps towards deeper economic integration and openness, believing this was the best way forward. The results are visible today, and yet there is so much more that ASEAN can do," he said. The prime minister meanwhile urged businesses to also do their part. "Our companies hope to invest more in each other's countries, and do business across all ASEAN markets. The more integrated and open our markets are, the more conducive our rules and business environments to foreign investment, the larger the pie will grow, and the more we will all benefit," he said. Lee noted that the ASEAN Economic Community 2025 Blueprint will help guide ASEAN to deepen economic integration, open up new growth frontiers and create fresh business opportunities, calling on respective ASEAN member governments and business leaders to pursue this vision to ensure that ASEAN continues to be a dynamic region of growth. Heads of state and government of ASEAN member states and dialogue partners are gathering here on Nov. 11-15 for the 33rd ASEAN summit and related meetings to discuss security, cooperation and regional integration. On Monday afternoon, ASEAN trade ministers signed an agreement on e-commerce, encouraging paperless trading between businesses and governments of the bloc to generate rapid and efficient transactions. ASEAN was established in August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The group later expanded to include Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. [November 12, 2018] Alliance Memory to Showcase Latest PSRAMs, Mobile Low-Power SDRAMs, and Must-Have SRAMs at electronica 2018 SAN CARLOS, Calif., Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alliance Memory today announced its technology lineup for electronica 2018, taking place Nov. 13-16 at the Munich Trade Fair Centre in Munich, Germany. In Booth B5.526, the company will be highlighting its new family of high-speed CMOS pseudo SRAMs (PSRAMs) and the latest additions to its portfolio of mobile low-power SDRAMs, including SDR (LPSDR), double data rate (LPDDR), and DDR2 (LPDDR2) devices. The company will also showcase its offering of discontinued Cypress Semiconductor Corporation CY62256 low-power SRAMs. At electronica 2018, Alliance Memory will highlight PSRAMs with densities from 8Mb to 128Mb in 6.0 mm x 7.0 mm x 1.0 mm 48-ball FPBGA and 4.0 mm by 4.0 mm by 1.0 mm 49-ball FPBGA packages. Combining the most desirable features of SRAMs and DRAMs to provide designers with easy-to-use, low-power, and cost-effective memory solutions, the devices offer industrial temperature ranges and fast access speeds of 70s, and operate from a single power supply of 1.7V to 1.95V or 2.6V to 3.3V. Power-saving features include auto temperature-compensated self-refresh (ATCSR), partial array self-refresh (PASR), and a deep power down (DPD) mode. Alliance Memory will showcase LPSDR SDRAMs, which extend battery life in mobile devices by offering power consumption of 1.8 V and densities of 128Mb, 256Mb, and 512Mb in 54-ball and 90-ball FBGA packages. Highlighted LPDDR devices will feature power consumption from 1.7V to 1.95V and densities of 256Mb, 512Mb 1Gb, and 2Gb in the 60-ball and 90-ball FBGA packages. Enabling ultra-slim designs, LPDDR2 SDRAMs on display will offer power consumption of 1.2V/1.8V and densities of 1Gb, 2Gb, and 4Gb in the 134-ball FBGA package. Alliance Memory is collaborating with Cypress Semiconductor Corporation to help ensure ongoing availability of some of the CY62256 series 32k x 8 SRAMs, offering them with their original part numbers into 2019. The company will showcase its offering at electronica 2018 in addition to its own direct replacement for the device: the AS6C62256 family. Alliance Memorys ICs provide reliable drop-in, pin-for-pin-compatible replacements for a number of similar solutions in industrial, automotive, medical, communications, telecom, and consumer electronics products requiring high memory bandwidth, and they are particularly well-suited to high performance in PC applications. The devices eliminate costly redesigns by providing long-term support for end-of-life (EOL) components. In addition, the company performs minimal or no die shrinks, which frees up engineering resources. electronica is the worlds leading trade fair for components, systems, and applications. More information on the event is available at http://www.electronica.de/ . About Alliance Memory Inc. Alliance Memory is a worldwide provider of critical and hard-to-find DRAM and SRAM memory ICs for the communications, computing, consumer electronics, medical, automotive, and industrial markets. The companys product range includes DRAMs and SRAMs with commercial, industrial, and automotive operating temperature ranges and densities from 64Kb to 8Gb. Privately held, Alliance Memory maintains headquarters in San Carlos, California, and regional offices in Canada, Europe, Asia, and South America. More information about Alliance Memory is available online at www.alliancememory.com . Editor resources: More information: https://www.alliancememory.com/visit-alliance-memory-at-electronica-2018/ Agency Contact: Bob Decker Redpines +1 415 409 0233 [email protected] Alliance Memory Contact: Kim Bagby CFO +1 650 610 6800 [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Global Payments to Participate in the Citi's 2018 Financial Technology Conference Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN), a leading worldwide provider of payment technology and software solutions, announced today that Cameron Bready, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer will present at Citi's 2018 Financial Technology Conference in New York at 9:45 a.m. ET on Tuesday, November 13, 2018. Interested parties can listen to a live webcast of the fireside chat from the investor relations section of the company's website at www.globalpaymentsinc.com. A replay of the webcast will be avaiable after the event. About Global Payments Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN) is a leading worldwide provider of payment technology and software solutions delivering innovative services to our customers globally. Our technologies, services and employee expertise enable us to provide a broad range of solutions that allow our customers to accept all payment types and operate their businesses more efficiently across a variety of distribution channels in many markets around the world. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with approximately 11,000 employees worldwide, Global Payments is a member of the S&P 500 with customers and partners in 31 countries throughout North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and Brazil. For more information about Global Payments, our Service. Driven. Commerce brand and our technologies, please visit www.globalpaymentsinc.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005184/en/ [November 12, 2018] Nashville Business Journal Recognizes Churchill Mortgage Founder and President Mike Hardwick as "Most Admired CEO" Churchill Mortgage announced that founder and President Mike Hardwick has been named one of Nashville Business Journal's Most Admired CEOs of the year. Churchill is a leader in the mortgage industry providing conventional, FHA, VA and USDA residential mortgages across 46 states. For the seventh consecutive year, the Nashville Business Journal has recognized Middle Tennessee executives for their leadership skills, business acumen and community impact. This year's award recipients were curated through closed voting by award nominees themselves to carefully identify which business leaders are most admired by their peers. "To be recognized by my fellow business leaders in Nashville, who all lead with integrity and care deeply for our community, is not only an honor for myself, but for the entire Churchill team," said Hardwick. "I have had the pleasure of leading Churchill these past 26 years, but it is only through the support and commitment of each and every employee that we have achieved such great success." A Nashville native, Hardwick founded Churchill Mortgage over 26 years ago and has used his expertise in banking, financing and real estate to grow Churchill into a demonstrated leader in the mortgage industry. Through his leadershp, Churchill's team of more than 350 employees has helped more than 100,000 families through the mortgage process, all while building long-lasting relationships founded in Churchill's core mottos of putting people over profits and guiding borrowers with the heart of a teacher. Hardwick is also actively involved in the Nashville community and serves on numerous boards and committees, including the Churchill Foundation and as founder and board director of Studio Bank. Hardwick also previously served on the Friends of the Arts Board at Belmont University, on the board of Christ Church Nashville, as chairman of the Finance and Endowment Committees of Christ Church, as founder and board director of Franklin National Bank, founder and CEO of SEC (News - Alert) Realty Corporation, founder and owner of Escrow Services of Tennessee and founder and owner of Churchill Insurance. About Churchill Mortgage Founded in 1992, Churchill Mortgage is a privately-owned company by its more than 350 employees. A full-service and financially sound leader in the mortgage industry, the company provides conventional, FHA, VA and USDA residential mortgages across 46 states. As heard on personal finance expert and author Dave Ramsey's nationally syndicated radio show, the lender's mission is to help borrowers achieve debt-free homeownership and build wealth through a smarter mortgage plan, regardless of their starting point. Churchill Mortgage is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Churchill Holdings, Inc. Churchill Mortgage's notable achievements include recognitions as a "Top Lender" by Scotsman Guide: Residential, a six-time "Top Workplace" by The Tennessean and a "Top 100 Private Company" and "Best in Business" by the Nashville Business Journal. For more information about Churchill Mortgage, visit www.churchillmortgage.com or follow the company on LinkedIn, Twitter (News - Alert) @ChurchillMtg, Instagram and Facebook (News - Alert) at www.facebook.com/churchillmortgage. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005023/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Violin Systems Closes X-IO Storage Acquisition Violin Systems LLC: WHO: Violin Systems LLC WHAT: Completes acquisition of X-IO Storage, developer of the popular Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) flash and hybrid storage array product lines. Violin Systems acquires X-IO's products and engineering team, as well as retains X-IO's world-class service process and organization to manage the existing customer installed base of more than 8,000 X-IO arrays. WHEN: Effective immediately, November 8, 2018 WHY: Violin Systems will add X-IO ISE arrays to its flash storage product lineup, meeting the needs of a greater variety of customers and providing the industry with a wide range of solutions spanning from terabytes to multiple petabytes with enterprise-class performance, features, and reliability. Ultimately Violin Systems intends to integrate its own extreme performance technology with X-IO price-performance value to deliver transformational economics for organizations of any size. Violin's extreme performance platform enables a dramatic infrastructure cost savings and cost avoidance of 40 percent or more by reducing the number of servers and cores needed. Consolidated hardware in the data center means less power and cooling requirements, less management and a reduced need for the number of software and application licenses. With dramatic improvement in application performance, there is an equally dramatic improvement in the experience of the applications' end users, resulting in improved customer satisfaction. Combined with Violin's performance advantages, customers are able to realize dramatic competitive advantages while simultaneously saving money. About Violin Systems Violin, the disruptive innovator in Extreme Performance Storage, is revolutionizing how businesses operate by enabling storage technology to be Instrumental to their company by changing the SLAs and capabilities of information and application storage infrastructure. Violin extreme storage platforms, powered by Concerto OS, a fully integrated storage operating system, is the industry leader in the combination of every significant category measured in all-flash arrays: low latency, reliability, affordability, density, scalability and of course extreme performance. With tightly integrated data services, Violin storage platforms provide a unique and leading combination of data protection, business continuity, and data reduction services in a flexible, delivering significant CAPEX and OPEX (News - Alert) savings. Founded in 2005, Violin is headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information visit violinsystems.com and Violin Insight blog Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005086/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Vantagepoint ai Partnered with Nonprofit Organization Support The Troops to Raise Money for Veterans Day Family owned artificial intelligence trading software company partnered with local nonprofit organization to raise money for the troops for Veterans Day WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla., Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vantagepoint ai, the software company that developed the first artificial intelligence (AI) trading software in the world available to retail investors and traders, partnered with local nonprofit organization Support The Troops to raise money for Veterans Day. Support The Troops is a nonprofit organization in Wesley Chapel FL that ships care packages to the forward operating bases in Afghanistan as well as additional packages sent to 24 bases in the United States for troops returning from Afghanistan. Vantagepoint, who has made several financial donations to Support The Troops over the past 10 years, teamed up again this year and donated a portion of all sales throughout the week leading up to Veterans Day, to benefit the cause. In addition, Vantagepoint President, Lane Mendelsohn, issued Support The Troops with a giant ceck representing a lump sum of $1,000. Giving back is the cornerstone of our company. To honor all those who serve, Vantagepoint partnered with Support the Troops for Veterans Day to help those in need. We had an overwhelming response to the partnership. And as a result, we donated $1,000 to the organization that helps our troops overseas. Our mission is to empower traders daily and because of our success, it allows us to empower others in the community, in this case, empower our active military who serve our country, said President of Vantagepoint, Lane Mendelsohn. The Vantagepoint team has contributed both time and money to several different local communities. As of 2017, the organization has been donating a percentage of all software sales to benefit Shriners Hospitals for Children. Vantagepoint has invested $641,521 back into the community since 2007. Learn more and get a free demo of the software at https://www.vantagepointsoftware.com or by calling 800-732-5407. About Vantagepoint ai, LLC Headquartered in Wesley Chapel, Fla., Vantagepoint ai, LLC, creators of Vantagepoint software, is a leader in trading software research and software development. VantagePoint forecasts Stocks, Futures, Forex, and ETFs with proven accuracy of up to 86%. Using artificial intelligence, VantagePoints patented Neural Network processes predicts changes in market trend direction up to three days in advance, enabling traders to get in and out of trades at optimal times with confidence. MEDIA CONTACT Jen Aquilino Communications Specialist 8139730496 [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Pax8 Honored with 2018 CRN Tech Innovator Award Cloud Leader Takes Top Spot in the MSP Technology Category DENVER, Nov. 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pax8 , the leader in cloud distribution, today announced that CRN , a brand of The Channel Company , has recognized the company with a 2018 CRN Tech Innovator Award. These annual awards honor standout hardware, software, and services that are moving the IT industry forward. In compiling the 2018 Tech Innovator Award list, CRN editors evaluated 300 products across 34 technology categories using several criteria, including technological advancements, uniqueness of features, and potential to help solution providers solve end users IT challenges. Pax8 Stax , the companys Business Intelligence (BI) tool that enables up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, took top honors in the MSP Technology category. At Pax8, we create technology to drive new revenue opportunities for MSPs in a strategic way, said Ryan Walsh, chief channel officer at Pax8. Pax8 Stax delivers the intelligence MSPs need to build complete, automated technology stacks for their clients. As our MSPs wingman, Pax8 simplifies the cloud buying experience with Pax8 Stax. Thanks to CRN for recognizing Pax8 Stax as an innovative, standout technology that helps move MSPs businesses forward. Pax8 Stax makes it easy to build a comprehensive technology stack for MSPs and their clients. By giving MSPs a view into their existing gaps within their clients environment, this BI tool simplifies up-selling and cross-selling. Learn more about Pax8 Stax . Each year, the CRN Tech Innovator Awards recognize technology vendor offerings that are reshaping the IT channel landscape by increasing worker productivity, reducing cost, and minimizing complexity for solution providers, IT departments, and end users, said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company. The winners in this years awards bring breakthrough ideas to the table for solution providers and their customers, in areas ranging from cloud to security to business intelligence to IoT. We congratulate all the winners and look forward to their future endeavors. The Tech Innovator Awards will be featured in the December issue of CRN and can be viewed online at crn.com/techinnovators . To learn more about Pax8, please contact the cloud solutions advisors at (855) 884-PAX8, email [email protected] , or visit www.pax8.com . About Pax8 Pax8 is the leader in cloud distribution. As a born in the cloud company, Pax8 empowers managed service providers (MSPs) to capitalize on the $1 trillion cloud opportunity. Through billing, provisioning, automation, industry-leading PSA integrations, and pre-and-post sales support, Pax8 simplifies cloud buying, improves operational efficiency, and lowers customer acquisition cost. Pax8 is a proven, award-winning disruptor in the market, earning accolades like NexGens Best in Show, Biggest Buzz at IT Nation, CRNs Coolest Cloud Vendor, Best in Show at XChange conferences, ComputerWorlds Best Places to Work in IT, HTGs Rookie of the Year, and more. If you want to be successful with cloud, you want to work with Pax8. Get started today at www.pax8.com . Follow Pax8 on Facebook , LinkedIn , and Twitter . About The Channel Company The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. Learn more at www.thechannelco.com . Media Contact Amanda Lee ARL Strategic Communications for Pax8 (727) 272-0781 [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] EMPLOYERS Names Lori Brown, as Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel EMPLOYERS (NYSE:EIG), America's small business insurance specialist, has named Lori A. Brown as executive vice president, chief legal officer and general counsel for EMPLOYERS effective January 1, 2019. Ms. Brown joined EMPLOYERS in January 2006 and served as Vice President, Deputy General Counsel until March 2015 when she was promoted to Senior Vice President. As part of her responsibilities, Ms. Brown currently serves as a director of Employers Group Inc., is the assistant corporate secretary to Employers Holdings, Inc. and is the corporate secretary to all of the Company's subsidiary companies. Ms. Brown will be replacing Lenard Ormsby in the position upon his retirement. Prior to joining EMPLOYERS, Ms. Brown was Senior Legal Counsel of DHL Worldwide from May 1996 to April 2005. She olds a Bachelor's degree from UC Riverside and a J.D. degree from the University of San Francisco. Brown brings over 25 years of experience as an attorney primarily in the areas of labor and employment, corporate governance and SEC (News - Alert) compliance. Ms. Brown will be based in Reno, NV. About Employers Holdings, Inc. Employers Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EIG) is a holding company with subsidiaries that are specialty providers of workers' compensation insurance and services focused on select small businesses engaged in low-to-medium hazard industries. The company, through its subsidiaries, operates in 43 states and the District of Columbia. Insurance is offered by Employers Insurance Company of Nevada, Employers Compensation Insurance Company, Employers Preferred Insurance Company, and Employers Assurance Company, all rated A- (Excellent) by A.M. Best Company. Additional information can be found at: www.employers.com. Copyright 2018 EMPLOYERS. All rights reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005224/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Streamline your PDF Workflow with Industry-Leading Document Manangement Tools Now Available for Online Purchase Datalogics, the preferred provider of industry-leading PDF technologies, is now offering subscription-based, scriptable server tools for immediate download on their website. Online purchasing from Datalogics allows customers easy access to PDF tools that help with document management, including file optimization, print process automation, converting PDFs to images, and detecting errors within PDF documents. Built on trusted Adobe (News - Alert) technology, these powerful tools are designed to make PDF processes more efficient, reliable, and easy to implement - saving users time, effort, and money. PDF OPTIMIZER simplifies PDF file size reduction, allowing for more efficient file sharing, PDF archiving, and faster downloads - all while preserving document integrity. PDF CHECKR enables users to detect problems with PDFs that may impact the ability of other software to properly view or process PDF files. For automating print processes, PDF2PRINT provides full control over the printing process to help facilitate customized print jobs quickly and easily. PDF2IMG allows for easy conversion of PDF files to a variety of image formats including PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP and more, with unrivaled color management and accuracy. "Being able to offer PDF tools for immediate online purchase will give our customers the opportunity to work with our products faster. Whether they are looking to automate a specific workflow, or incorporate our product into their own software, we have a variety of options to fit their needs," says Kevin McNeill, Datalogics CEO. All PDF tools available for direct purchase on the Datalogics website offer annual subscription licensing and include free evaluations. For more information, or to start using these tools today, visit https://store.datalogics.com/. About Datalogics Datalogics, Inc. is a leading software company specializing in both enterprise PDF and digital publishing technologies. Based in Chicago, IL, we support hundreds of customers worldwide who are using our technology in diverse applications. With over 50 years of industry experience, we provide unmatched support, enabling customers to bring their products to market faster. Datalogics is on the PDF Association board, and a member of the Readium Foundation,. For more information, visit www.datalogics.com 2018 Datalogics, Incorporated Datalogics is a registered trademark of Datalogics Incorporated. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005056/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] RENAC and IFC Partner to Green the Banking Sector in Latin America and the Caribbean The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group and the Renewables Academy AG (RENAC), an international training provider for green energy technologies, today signed a cooperation agreement to support green banking in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) at the Federation of Latin American Banks' (FELABAN) Annual Assembly in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. The main objective of the cooperation is to support the green transformation of banking in LAC towards a greener business model that mitigates challenges from climate change and that fosters green business opportunities. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005617/en/ Berthold Breid, CEO of the Renewables Academy (Photo: Renewables Academy) Insufficient knowledge about climate-related challenges and opportunities is the main barrier to developing greener banks as concluded by the 2017 "IFC-Green Finance Latin American Survey", replied by 25% of all LAC commercial banks. The IFC-RENAC alliance focuses on providing educational programs to train bankers in the economic and financial aspects of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. RENAC, a leading international provider of training and capacity building in renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE), will integrate its "Green Banking - Capacity Building for Green Energy and Climate Finance Program" into the knowledge offering of the newly established IFC-GBAC (Green Banking Academy). "We are proud to be part of this initiative," says Berthold Breid, CEO of the Renewables Academy. "The partnership supports our mission to promote new business opportunities in growing green markets." IFC-GBAC (Green Banking Academy) is a knowledge initiative to accelerate the green transformation of banking, strengthen its business and contribute to a more sustainable world. The IFC-GBAC academic platform will offer knowledge, sensitization and capacity building programs customized to bank staf's different profiles and roles. IFC officially launched its IFC-GBAC at today's FELABAN's 52nd Annual Assembly. RENAC's Green Banking Program, a scholarship program funded by the German International Climate Initiative (IKI) with support from the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), has been successfully implemented in South-East Asia since 2015. Its various training formats include online trainings and delegation tours as well as the face-to-face trainings "Applying Green Energy Finance", "Green Energy Finance Specialist" and train-the-trainer seminars. "RENAC, with proven results in its Green Energy and Climate Finance training program, fits very well into the value proposition of our newly created IFC-GBAC (Green Banking Academy)," says Peer Stein, Global Head of Climate Finance at IFC Financial Institutions Group. The cooperation with IFC-GBAC and its partners, including FELABAN, now fosters the implementation of RENAC's Green Banking Program in Latin America. With this cooperation agreement, RENAC and IFC are taking further steps towards their goal of increasing the availability and use of financing instruments for renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE) projects by increasing the willingness of financial institutions to participate in RE and EE financing, and ultimately, of contributing to climate change mitigation. The eligible countries under RENAC's scholarship Green Banking Program are: Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Financial industry professionals wishing to learn more about IFC-GBAC (Green Banking Academy) should write in to [email protected]. For further information on RENAC's Green Banking Program, please visit RENAC's website. For further information on other IFC projects in the region, please visit IFC's website. About IFC IFC-a sister organization of the World Bank and member of the World Bank Group-is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. IFC works with more than 2,000 businesses worldwide, using IFC's capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities in the toughest areas of the world. In fiscal year 2018, IFC delivered more than $23 billion in long-term financing for developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. For more information, visit www.ifc.org About RENAC The Renewables Academy AG (RENAC) based in Berlin, Germany, is one of the leading international providers for training and capacity building in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Since 2008, more than 10,000 participants from over 140 countries have joined RENAC's training programs. For more information, visit www.renac.de View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005617/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Autodesk University 2018 Showcases the Future of Making LAS VEGAS, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Autodesk University Beginning today, 10,000 architects, designers, engineers and digital artists will gather in Las Vegas for Autodesk University (AU), the annual Autodesk, Inc. (NADSAQ:ADSK) conference for those who design and make the world around us. Over four days of learning, networking and knowledge sharing, attendees will look to advance industry practice. In the AU General Session, Autodesk President and CEO Andrew Anagnost will share his perspective on how automation, the convergence of design and make technologies, and the changing nature of work can unlock opportunities to do more, better, with less negative impact on the world. He will be joined by several guests, including Autodesk CTO Scott Bourdin, Autodesk Director of Robotics Erin Bradner, and author of "Imagine It Forward" and former GE Vice Chair, Beth Comstock. "With increasing population and urbanization and the continued rise of the global middle class, the demand for more is inevitable. To meet the rising demand with the world's finite resources, we must combine automation and human imagination to design and make in new ways," said Anagnost. Two additional industry keynotes for the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) and manufacturing industries, along with TED-style sessions in the AU Theater, will bring together Autodesk and industry experts to take a deeper look at how the convergence of design and make, the blurring of industries, and new automation technologies are creating new opportunities. Real-world examples of customers who have already taken advantage of these opportunities will be found in the AU Expo. Examples include a robot-equipped shipping container that can be brought on-site to additively manufacture custom construction components on-demand; a materially efficient flooring system that makes construction with concrete more sustainable; and a Formula One car reimagined with generative design and visualized in virtual reality. Over the course of the event, Autodesk will also share new product advances, partnerships and initiatives that will help its customers prepare for the future of making. Posts to Autodesk's company blog, ADSK News, will reveal more information as news is announced. For the fourth consecutive year, AU Las Vegas will be carbon neutral. This year it is being achieved through a collaboration with ClimateCare and Burn Cookstoves, maker of the fuel-efficient Jikokoa cookstove. To date, Autodesk has supported Burn Cookstoves to avoid 40,000 metric tons of CO2. Burn Cookstoves is part of the Acumen Fund, an Autodesk Foundation customer that supports sustainability solutions to address global poverty. UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, has been selected as the recipient of the 2018 AU Las Vegas Donation Drive. UNHCR is a global organization dedicated to saving lives and building a better future for the 35 million refugees around the world fleeing conflict, persecution, and natural disasters. Autodesk software is helping UNHCR's refugee settlement site planners shelter migrants in more efficient and effective ways. This year's flagship Autodesk University event in Las Vegas is supported by diamond sponsor HP. Autodesk University Reaches Customers Worldwide Autodesk University (AU) is a series of conferences and an online learning destination focused on inspiring, challenging and energizing Autodesk software users, partners, and industry leaders about the future of design and engineering. The AU conferences bring together more than 22,000 participants at live events in 10 countries through classes, forums and keynotes with industry experts and thought leaders. More than 2.5 million more engage through AU Online, which offers free year-round access to learning content, professional development, and inspirational industry talks from the AU conference events. More information is available at the?Autodesk University?website, or by following?@AutodeskU,?#AU2018. About Autodesk Autodesk makes software for people who make things. If you've ever driven a high-performance car, admired a towering skyscraper, used a smartphone, or watched a great film, chances are you've experienced what millions of Autodesk customers are doing with our software. Autodesk gives you the power to make anything. For more information visit?autodesk.com?or follow @autodesk. Autodesk is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and service offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. 2018 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/autodesk-university-2018-showcases-the-future-of-making-300748385.html SOURCE Autodesk, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] LGC Capital to Acquire 47% of EasyJoint, Italy's Largest Vertically-integrated Legal Cannabis Producer, Distributor, and Retailer MONTREAL, November 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- /NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES/ LGC Capital to acquire 47% of Italian Cannabis Light Company, EasyJoint Project SRL EasyJoint has an estimated 85% market share of Italy's Cannabis Light market EasyJoint currently sells through over 450 retail outlets in Italy and 11 branded stores EasyJoint had over C$6 million in sales in the 10-months to October 31, 2018 EasyJoint's products consist of over 150 branded items ranging from dry cannabis flowers to CBD oils and edibles LGC anticipates applying for listing on the U.S. OTCQB in the near future LGC Capital Ltd. (TSXV: LG) and (OTC-PINK: LGGCF) ("LGC") is pleased to announce that is has entered into a formal definitive agreement to acquire 47% of EasyJoint Project SRL ("EasyJoint"), an Italian company, for a total cash and share consideration of 4.788 million (C$7.153 million at today's exchange rate of 1 EUR = 1.494 CAD). Definitive documentation will now be submitted to the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") and closing of this transaction is subject only to TSXV review and approval. EasyJoint's Market Presence in Italy EasyJoint (https://www.easyjoint.it/) is widely recognized as the market leader in Italy, having been extensively written up in the media, including this New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/world/europe/italy-cannabis-flowers.html EasyJoint's Store in Milan, Italy EasyJoint currently controls approximately 85% of the distribution of legal "cannabis light" retail products in Italy and has established itself as the leading brand in Italy. EasyJoint products are distributed in over 450 retail points of sale in Italy and rapidly expanding beyond current specialty stores to EasyJoint branded franchise stores. Eleven EasyJoint franchise stores have already opened in Rome, Milan, Piacenza, Rovato (BS), Viadana, Bassano del Grappa, Crotone, Pantelleria, and Parma with an additional two stores under discussion. EasyJoint's distribution in Italy is extensive. EasyJoint has also been successful at penetrating the very large licensed tobacco network in Italy. EasyJoint products consist of over 150 branded items ranging from high-CBD dry cannabis flowers to CBD oils and edibles. Through LGC's network of strategic investments, EasyJoint will expand its brand presence into new global markets, including legal cannabis markets across Europe, North America, and the Caribbean. For the 10 months prior to October 31, 2018, unaudited revenues have grown to over 4 million (C$6 million) with margins of 19.7%, which will increase as EasyJoint achieves economies of scale through expansion. EasyJoint's revenue channels split approximately 75% through retail with the remaining 25% of revenues through e-commerce. Mr. Luca Marola, Co-founder and CEO of EasyJoint EasyJoint is led by its Co-founder and CEO, Mr. Luca Marola, who has been an early advocate of the Italian anti-prohibitionist movement in favor of the legalization and normalization of the use of cannabis in Italy. Mr. Marola has actively participated in cannabis related discussions in the Italian and European Parliaments and has made multiple interventions at the Italian Parliaent, which have impacted the laws that passed in recent years. Mr. Marola is the founder of one of the oldest Italian grow shops, "Canapaio Ducale", founded in Parma in 2002, he is the host of the only Italian radio show focused on cannabis and has published 4 books on cannabis and its legalization. Legal Status of Cannabis in Italy In January 2017, the Italian government passed a law (242/2016) which regulates the cultivation, transformation and sale of Cannabis and Cannabis derived products. Under this new legal framework, it is legal to produce and market Cannabis and related products, which contains a percentage of THC less than 0.2%. EasyJoint is fully vertically integrated from seed to consumers in Italy. EasyJoint buys its cannabis input product from a large exclusive contracted independent farmer's network across Italy, to whom EasyJoint sells female seedlings that meet their strict premium specifications, thus eliminating the risk of growing male plants. In addition, EasyJoint has established the first Italian hemp pasta for the consumer market under the brand EasyJoint. It will be officially launch in Montreal before the end of 2018. John McMullen, Chief Executive Officer of LGC Capital, stated: "With approximately 85% of the cannabis light distribution in Italy and healthy revenue generation, EasyJoint is a significant investment opportunity for LGC. We see Italy, with a population of 60 million, as one of the key European market for cannabis growth and a springboard into other parts of the EU over time. This deal represents LGC's third investment in Europe in 2018 and allows us to work closely with other LGC investee companies to grow and sell legal cannabis products to EasyJoint for their distribution." Luca Marola, founder of EasyJoint stated: "Over the past 18 months, EasyJoint has pioneered the cannabis light market in Italy and by driving public opinion has created a new approach to cannabis. Today, we are proud to announce LGC Capital's investment into our company. Thanks to LGC's expertise and resources in successfully addressing the global market, EasyJoint is ready to further strengthen our leadership position and develop our growth in new markets." Transaction details Payment for the 47% equity in Easy Joint SRL will be effected by way of i) a cash payment in the amount of 2,565,000 (C$3,832,110) and ii) a payment in common shares for a value of 2,223,000 (C$3,321,162) in the share capital of LGC (the "Payment Shares") at a price per share set at 85% of the five (5) day volume weighted average price of LGC shares immediately prior to the closing of the transaction (26,152,941 shares at current prices). In accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements, the Payment Shares will be subject to a four (4) month hold period calculated as of the Closing Date. For this transaction, a finder's fee of 2.5% cash and 2.5% in shares will be paid to an arm's length party. This transaction is subject to normal closing conditions and review and approval by TSXV. Information Relating to EasyJoint Project SRL All information contained in this press release relating to EasyJoint Project SRL has been provided to LGC by EasyJoint Project SRL. LGC has relied upon this information without having made independent inquiries as to its accuracy or completeness and assumes no responsibility for any inaccuracy or incompleteness of such information. About LGC Capital Ltd (www.lgc-capital.com) LGC Capital is a leading cannabis investment firm with a focus on the Legal Global Cannabis market. Through its growing portfolio investment companies, LGC is building a world-leading, vertically integrated system of interconnected legal cannabis companies with cultivation, processing and distribution in Australia, Jamaica, Switzerland, Italy, and Canada serving domestic and export markets. LGC Capital Ltd. is a Canadian incorporated public company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV: LG). Through its partners and assuming pending transactions under review by the TSXV are approved, LGC currently will have over 450,000 square feet of planted cannabis in Jamaica, Switzerland, Italy, and Australia, with that number expected to increase to over 2,100,000 square feet by 2021, as its portfolio companies execute their expansion plans, in addition to the anticipated licensing of Tricho-Med's operations in Quebec, Canada. LGC partners currently sell cannabis products in over 1,000 points of sale across Switzerland and Italy under the ONE Premium Cannabis and EasyJoint brands as well as medical cannabis oils in Australia under the Little Green Pharma brand. LGC's partner's branded products are available in a variety of product formats including dry cannabis flower, tinctures, oils, seeds, and beverages. Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements with respect to LGC Capital Ltd. ("LGC") and their respective operations, strategy, investments, financial performance and condition. These statements can generally be identified by use of forward- looking words such as "may", "will", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "intends", "believe" or "continue" or the negative thereof or similar variations. The actual results and performance of LGC and Easy Joint Project SRL ("EasyJoint") could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. Some important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include, among other things, general economic and market factors, competition, government regulation and the factors described under "Risk Factors and Risk Management" in LGC's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the three and nine months ended June 30, 2018, as filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com). The cautionary statements qualify all forward-looking statements attributable to LGC and persons acting on its behalf. Unless otherwise stated, all forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and neither LGC nor EasyJoint has any obligation to update such statements, except to the extent required by applicable securities laws. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Caution Regarding Press Releases Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Chief Executive Officer, John McMullen, +1-416-803-0698, [email protected]; Chief Financial Officer, Anthony Samaha, +44-20-7440 0640, [email protected]; Investor Relations, Dave Burwell, +1-403-221-0915, [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] SAP SE to present at the dbVIC - Deutsche Bank ADR Virtual Investor Conference on November 15th, 2018 Company invites individual and institutional investors, as well as advisors, to attend interactive, real-time virtual event NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2018 /CNW/ -- SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that John Duncan, Investor Relations will present at the dbVIC - Deutsche Bank American Depositary Receipt (ADR) Virtual Investor Conference on November 15th, 2018. This virtual investor conference is aimed exclusively at introducing global companies with ADR programs to investors. DATE: November 15th, 2018 TIME: 12.00 noon ET LINK: https://tinyurl.com/111415dbVICprepr This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask international companies their questions in real-time and to download a company's information in their "virtual trade booth" in the Exhibits section. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an on-demand archive will be available for 90 days. Participation is free of charge. It is recommended that investors pre-register to save time and receive event updates. About SAP As the cloud company powered by SAP HANA, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of te world's transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers' businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 413,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people's lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com. Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. 2018 SAP SE. All rights reserved. SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sap-se-to-present-at-the-dbvic---deutsche-bank-adr-virtual-investor-conference-on-november-15th-2018-300748518.html SOURCE SAP SE [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Toggle(SM) Launch Marks Arrival of a Reimagined Insurance Brand Built for Digitally-Powered Consumers WOODLAND HILLS, Calif., Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A new millennial-centric brand has launched to revolutionize the insurance industry with customizable coverages and unique offerings that go beyond the scope of traditional insurance. ToggleSM, backed by Farmers Insurance, is reimagining insurance by giving consumers a simple, affordable and customizable product, with coverages built to address the needs of today's consumers. More than just delivering a slick new user interface, the insurance ninjas at Toggle have built a new platform, from the ground up, designed to deliver a one-of-a-kind insurance experience. From using gamification to allow consumers to adjust their coverage options, to tossing out the industry standard renters insurance policy and crafting a completely new one from scratch (which, incidentally, is one-third the length, much easier to understand and still includes coverage like flood and earthquake typically excluded in other renters policies), Toggle is intent on changing the way insurance is offered and delivered. "We recognize today's consumers want more from their insurance beyond just coverage they want options that empower their unique lifestyles," said Stephanie Lloyd, head of ToggleSM. "Rather than build a 'one-size-fits-all' solution, we are looking to fundamentally change the insurance ecosystem with Toggle, as we focus on flexibility and customization, without sacrificing the simplicity and ease-of-use consumers demand today." Digitally-active consumers present new expectations for the insurance industry, providing insurers the opportunity to serve up specific solutions for the unique needs of today's consumers. Toggle discovered that almost 60 percent of renters do not have renters insurance. Acknowledging existing gaps and anticipating future needs, the insurance prodigies at Toggle created agile solutions for today's renters, while re-imagining the insurance space. With Toggle, renters can choose an insurance subscription that is right for them by toggling different elements of coverage up, down, on or off , with optional add-on features designed to simplify and help them solve for their needs. These add-ons include a compelling tech package with broader coverage than some brand specific standalone warranties, starting at just $9 a month; a feature called Credit LiftSM, which will help members who make on-time rent payments boost their credit score; and Side HustleSM, which is designed to provide coverage for customers who supplement their primary income with a side business. With many other exclusive features, the variety and flexibility of the packages provide renters more options to adjust their coverage as their lives change. The foundation of the service is three subscription levels basic, standard and premium starting as low as $5 per month. While the policy is based on an annual coverage period, members have the opportunity to make changes or cancel at any time. All subscriptions carry a minimum of $100,000 in liability coverage, at least $1,000 in blanket contents coverage, and offer the ability to increase coverage as needed to cover additional belongings. In addition to choosing the subscription that is the best fit for one's life, Toggle offers a diverse range of available coverages and features designed to accompany members through their life's journey, including: Credit Lift SM , powered by RentTrack , which reports members' rent payments to all three major credit card bureaus and can help build their credit score. On average, users see their credit scores increase by 29 points after 2 months. which reports members' rent payments to all three major credit card bureaus and can help build their credit score. On average, users see their credit scores increase by 29 points after 2 months. Always On Portability means members' belongings are covered at home, while they're traveling or moving and anywhere in between. means members' belongings are covered at home, while they're traveling or moving and anywhere in between. Pet Parent SM offers members protection for injuries caused by their pet to another person, covers boarding costs if a covered loss or damage makes their residence unfit to live in, and covers damage to their residence caused by their pet. offers members protection for injuries caused by their pet to another person, covers boarding costs if a covered loss or damage makes their residence unfit to live in, and covers damage to their residence caused by their pet. Side Hustle SM covers the things members use to make extra money on the side, like the camera for a food blogger, or the laptop and sound equipment for a DJ. It even covers personal injury for online social influencers and lost wages. covers the things members use to make extra money on the side, like the camera for a food blogger, or the laptop and sound equipment for a DJ. It even covers personal injury for online social influencers and lost wages. Identity Protector covers subscribers with instant identity alerts, allowing the customer to log in and see changes, as well as keep track of alerts in order to take action in real time, if needed. While Toggle is a new brand, it is backed by the financial strength, insights and experience of Farmers Insurance, giving it a foundation of 90 years of industry-leading product development and first-rate customer service. Toggle initially launched on October 1st and is available in Illinois and Wisconsin. "The insurance marketplace is changing and our team of inspired disruptors our Toggle brainiacs also happen to be experienced insurance professionals, so when we are developing new products and services, we're able to start much higher on the development curve," said Lloyd. "We're excited about the future and we're excited about our role in bringing inspired and innovative leadership to our industry." For more information, or to subscribe to ToggleSM visit https://www.gettoggle.com. About ToggleSM Toggle is a millennially focused brand, providing digital renters insurance designed to fit the needs of this growing segment in the renters insurance marketplace. By offering a fully digital insurance subscription service, Toggle re-imagines the insurance buying journey to provide members with simple, affordable and highly customizable solutions to fit their lifestyles. Toggle is backed by the 90-year-old insurer Farmers Insurance. For more information visit https://www.gettoggle.com. Toggle is a brand name of Farmers. Insurance is underwritten by 21st Century Assurance Company, a member of the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies. Coverage is currently only available in Illinois and Wisconsin. Policy issuance is subject to underwriting review and approval. Whether a specific loss is covered depends on the coverage purchased and the specific facts, policy exclusions and conditions, and the limits of insurance purchased. Contacts: Toggle Media Relations 818-965-0007 [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/togglesm-launch-marks-arrival-of-a-reimagined-insurance-brand-built-for-digitally-powered-consumers-300748526.html SOURCE Toggle [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2018] Treatment.com sending MERLIN to medical school MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Treatment.com Incorporated is pleased to announce the completion of MERLIN, the artificial intelligence (AI) engine that will change how the world receives health care. We are now planning on sending MERLIN to a major academic medical center for primary care training. High quality health care in the US and across the globe is costly and limited. Around the world, one in three people have no regular connection with a medical provider. Questionable recommendations and unreliable information have overwhelmed the Internet, making it difficult for non-experts to find reasonable solutions to even common problems. MERLIN is an advanced mathematic and probabilistic engine designed to provide high quality medical information, so individuals can make better decisions about their health care. Much more than a 'symptom checker', MERLIN is designed to consider important personal health information, current medications, and allergies, help individuals consider new concerns, suggest tests, and provide personally tailored information about the likelihood of specific diseases and possible treatments. Like having a medical expert in your pocket, MERLIN helps individuals get rapid access to reliable medical information relevant to themselves. Providing individually tailored health tips and lifestyleadvice, MERLIN simplifies access to prescription and nonprescription medicines, leverages the efficiencies of online medical providers, supports complementary and alternative treatments, and even provides access to traditional Chinese medicines. By providing easy access to high quality medical information, MERLIN can enhance the effectiveness of existing health care systems, and help individuals become more informed and more proactive when they become a patient. CEO John Fraser said, "I am honored to work side-by-side with our fantastic, global team to assemble the smartest, most advanced medical software ever made. Our team has done an amazing job in building a smart, scalable solution, with the capability of running in the private and secure Google Cloud or behind the existing firewalls of large health care systems. By combining physicians, math and statistic experts, and an outstanding global team of AI experts, we have been able to bring together the best and brightest to address an important need at scale. We have finished building MERLIN. Once MERLIN has completed his medical training, we will be launching a beta service in Minneapolis and Vancouver to validate the service before launching first in North America, then globally. I want to thank everyone involved for their dedication, hard work and commitment to this important new service." About Treatment.com Inc Treatment.com Inc is a Minneapolis/Saint Paul based company with a global team of experts from around the world. Our goal is to change the way health care is delivered, moving it from bricks and mortar to on-line, from medical text books to artificial intelligence. If you have further questions about Treatment.com, please see www.treatment.com for further information. Dr. Paul A. Markham, 414-687-0272, [email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/treatmentcom-sending-merlin-to-medical-school-300748325.html SOURCE Treatment.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] David Wang, Senior Vice President of Engineering at AMD's Radeon Technologies Group (RTG), recently expressed in an interview with Japanese media 4Gamer that AMD has its own solution to Microsoft's DirectX Raytracing (DXR). Contrary to popular misconception, ray tracing is far from being a novelty. The rendering technique has existed for several decades, with industries like film, animation, architecture, and engineering all exploiting it for some time now. However, one of ray tracing's greatest obstacles is the steep computational firepower required to pull it off. With its new Turing architecture, Nvidia brought real-time ray tracing to consumer GeForce graphics cards for the first time. AMD's David Wang said that, in his personal opinion, AMD definitely has a response for DirectX Raytracing (DXR). But the meantime, AMD is focusing on improving and promoting offline CG production environments centered around the graphics card maker's Radeon ProRender rendering engine. From a personal perspective, Wang believes that ray tracing won't become a mainstream feature unless the technology is supported from the lowest tier to the highest tier of graphics cards. It's unknown how and when AMD plans to implement hardware-based real-time ray tracing support into its Radeon gaming graphics cards. David Wang didn't delve into the specifics. The bigger question for AMD aficionados is whether the company's next-generation Navi graphics cards will come with ray tracing features. Unfortunately, there is no answer for that either. Although some (including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang) consider real-time ray tracing the "holy grail" of rendering techniques, the feature will probably take years to become common, just like any other breakthrough technology. Therefore, it's understandable why AMD isn't in a hurry to push ray tracing to consumer cards just yet. It wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that the chip maker is concentrating its time and resources on tuning Navi's traditional gaming performance for now, and perhaps leaving ray tracing for its next round of graphics cards. But of course, only time will tell. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have identified three practical side-channel attacks that work on Nvidia GPUs. These attacks can be used to compromise someone's passwords, snoop on their online activities, and use machine learning to discover a secret neural network's structure. The paper focused on Nvidia graphics cards, but the researchers also informed AMD and Intel of the vulnerabilities and will continue to investigate them. Most people don't think of their graphics cards as high-value targets. What could attackers want to do with the chip that squeezes as many frames as possible out of a game, movie, or other form of media? But tech companies have become increasingly reliant on GPUs to ease computational workloads, as well as rendering graphics. This expansion of responsibilities and the GPU's ascension to nigh-ubiquity make Nvidia's products appealing targets. The UC Riverside authors explained the vulnerabilities further in their announcement of the side-channel attacks: "Web browsers use GPUs to render graphics on desktops, laptops, and smart phones. GPUs are also used to accelerate applications on the cloud and data centers. Web graphics can expose user information and activity. Computational workloads enhanced by the GPU include applications with sensitive data or algorithms that might be exposed by the new attacks. [...] GPUs are usually programmed using application programming interfaces, or APIs, such as OpenGL. OpenGL is accessible by any application on a desktop with user-level privileges, making all attacks practical on a desktop. Since desktop or laptop machines by default come with the graphics libraries and drivers installed, the attack can be implemented easily using graphics APIs." All three attacks require the installation of a malicious program on a target system. None directly expose private information. The researchers had to get creative when it came to compromising information via Nvidia's GPUs. They managed it by monitoring GPU memory allocations or performance counters and using machine learning to suss out the results. That way they could monitor web activity or learn someone's passwords. The third attack was used against cloud applications. UC Riverside explained: "The attacker launches a malicious computational workload on the GPU which operates alongside the victims application. Depending on neural network parameters, the intensity and pattern of contention on the cache, memory and functional units differ over time, creating measurable leakage. The attacker uses machine learning-based classification on performance counter traces to extract the victims secret neural network structure, such as number of neurons in a specific layer of a deep neural network." You can read the full paper detailing these attacks via UC Riverside's website. The school said it contacted Nvidia about the attacks and was told the company planned to "publish a patch that offers system administrators the option to disable access to performance counters from user-level processes." After informing AMD and Intel about the attacks, the researchers moved to investigate the possibility of these attacks working on Android smartphones. Thank you for joining us for an emotional morning to commemorate the fallen and celebrate the peace 100 years after the guns fell silent on the Western Front. It was a day particularly marked by the beautiful details and remarkable acts of camaraderie that brought over 1,000 together to our Memorial Courtyard on an early Sunday morning. 3 Top Marijuana Stocks to Watch in November -- The Motley Fool This has been a game-changing year for the marijuana industry. Last month, Canada became the first industrialized country to legalize recreational weed in the world, and just this past week two more states -- Utah and Missouri -- legalized cannabis in some capacity. Reality: American Weed laws are a hot mess and sooner or later the Feds are going to be forced to give up the fight . . . With a quick reference to local chaos, here's a look at companies already hoping to cash in . . . As much fun as it is to see all the new bikes that are already slated for production and release, its the [concept bikes-